“Would you give a short quarter of an hour to explain to me the financial system of your country?
“Always yours,
“Talleyrand.”
PORSON.
A favorite diversion of Porson, when among a party of literary men, was to quote a few lines of poetry, and ask if any of the company could tell where they came from. He frequently quoted the following lines without finding any one able to name the author:—
For laws that are inanimate,
And feel no sense of love or hate,
That have no passion of their own,
Or pity to be wrought upon,
Are only proper to inflict