Bene navis agitatur—pulcre hæc confertur ratis
Sed conticiscam: nam audio operiri fores.
CHAPTER XVIII.
We are again carried back to a remoter period; but these inequalities, with respect to chronology, merely serve to confirm the opinion long since given, that had life been spared, and opportunity allowed, the Sexagenarian meditated a compact and regular whole.
In the part of the manuscript at which we are now arrived, are many observations and anecdotes of an eccentric, but well-known character, of considerable reputation for science in his day, an excellent antiquary, a polite scholar, and accomplished gentleman.
Such was E. K⸺, of M⸺ S⸺. His taste was acute, refined, and multifarious, his knowledge great and extensive, and on certain subjects profound. He possessed some of the finest bronzes in the world, a few exceedingly valuable pictures, beautiful specimens of Oriental curiosities, and more particularly of rare and old china, and above all, a most numerous, well-chosen, and costly library. He was bred to the profession of the law, but becoming, by the death of a relation, possessed of such property as made the continuance of his professional labours unnecessary, he retired from it, and afterwards pursued a life of literary ease and leisure.
He kept a hospitable table, to which he frequently invited the more distinguished literary characters of the country. To these he always shewed kindness and to some whose more necessitous circumstances required it, he communicated more substantial assistance. In the margin opposite to the place where the above sentence appears, the Sexagenarian had written with a note of admiration thus—“We are a needy crew!”
One in particular, a foreigner, who was a Fellow of the Royal Society, and had contributed very largely to the Philosophical Transactions, and was also the author of many curious and profound works on philosophy and chemistry, had perpetual welcome at his table, and received various proofs of more solid regard.
His liberality also in accommodating those who were not fortunate enough to possess literary stores, equal to his own, with the loan of his treasures, and his readiness of communicating what he knew to those who required it, were equally prompt, kind, and conspicuous.
He had, during that season of the year when the provinces pour their more opulent, refined and enlightened inhabitants into the bosom of the metropolis, weekly meetings of learned and eminent men, among whom were always to be found some of the most distinguished characters of the country.