shew herself, she was instantly dismissed. He was compelled to employ a housekeeper, but all their communications were carried on by correspondence. His ideas of dining were restricted to legs of mutton only. On one occasion when his housekeeper suggested that one leg of mutton would not be sufficient for a party invited, he met the difficulty by ordering two!

A number of eccentricities are displayed by people in their burial bequests. A certain Dr Fidge, a physician of the old school, converted a favourite boat into a coffin, which he kept under his bed for many years in readiness. When death drew near, he begged his nurse to pull his legs straight and place him as a dead man, as it would save her trouble afterwards, saying which he comfortably departed. Job Orton, a publican of the Bell Inn, Kidderminster, had his tombstone with epitaph erected in the parish church. His coffin was also built and ready for him; but until he was ready for it he used it as a wine-bin. Major Peter Laballiere of Box Hill, Dorking, selected a spot for his burial, which he directed should be without church rites, and head downwards; in order that, 'as the world was in his opinion topsy-turvy, he might come right end up at last!' But a certain Jack Fuller caps even the major, for he left directions that he was to be buried in a pyramidal mausoleum in Brightling churchyard, Sussex; giving as his reason for selecting to be embalmed in stone above ground, his unwillingness to be eaten by his relatives—a process he considered inevitable if buried in the ordinary manner, for 'The worms,' he declares, 'would eat me; the ducks would eat the worms; and my relations would eat the ducks.'

Of all eccentricities, those displayed by misers are the most notable and repulsive. To dwell upon them at any length is neither pleasant nor interesting; it is only where parsimony and genius are allied that one pauses to examine the specimen. Let us now take a brief survey of Nollekens the sculptor, in whom these opposites were met. Descended from a miserly stock, he did not fall short of his ancestry in his love of money, and it first became apparent in a filthy mode of living while a student at Rome. He married a woman even more parsimonious than himself, and their housekeeping was pitiful. Hatred of light is an observable trait with most misers; and over their coals and candles the Nollekens were scrupulously economical; the former, Nollekens counted with his own hands. The candles were never lighted at the commencement of the evening; and if a knock were heard at the door, it was not answered until repeated, in case the first should prove a runaway, and the candle be wasted! A flat candlestick served them for ordinary purposes, and by carefully extinguishing them when company went, they made a pair of moulds last a whole year!

Before his marriage, Nollekens had an unfortunate little servant called Bronze, whose appetite he so feared that he placed her on board-wages, and gave her only just enough money to furnish him with food each day, which he took care to consume. Bronze with rare patience, for which we cannot account, continued to serve after her master was married, and declared that never had she seen a jack-towel in their house and never had she washed with soap! Mrs Nollekens never went to any but a second-hand shop for their wearing apparel and shoes, and their charity was of the same second-hand nature, as when Mrs Nollekens directed the maid to give the 'bone with little or no meat on it' to two starving men who applied for relief. If a present of a leveret was sent them, they made it serve two dinners for four people. The sculptor grew more generous before death, his parsimonious partner having gone first, as though he strove by sundry spasmodic gifts to atone for the avarice of a life. If these details are as unsavoury to some as to ourselves, we only justify their narration on the ground stated, that the qualities they set forth were found existing in a genius.

Did time permit we should like to linger over those notable eccentrics, Porson, Horne Tooke, Peter Pindar (Dr Wolcot), and others; but we can only give a characteristic anecdote or two. Porson, the cleverest and most erratic of creatures, was the victim of abstraction to an extent that rendered him forgetful at times to eat. 'Will you not stay and dine,' asked Rogers the poet. 'Thank you; no; I dined yesterday!' he replied. Dr Parr asked him before a large assembly what he thought about the introduction of moral and physical evil into the world. 'Why, doctor,' said Porson, 'I think we should have done very well without them.' And it makes us laugh to hear an ignorant person, who was anxious to get into conversation with him, ask, if Captain Cook was killed in his first voyage. 'I believe he was,' answers Porson; 'though he did not mind it much, but immediately entered on a second!'

Tooke began life with a joke, telling every one that he was the son of a Turkey merchant; by which name he defined his father's trade of poulterer. His ready wit was never at a loss; and it is to him we are indebted for the following well-known joke. 'Now, young man,' said an uncle to him one day, giving him good advice, 'as you are settled in town I would advise you to take a wife.' 'With all my heart, sir,' replied Tooke; 'whose wife shall I take?'

Peter Pindar boasted that he was the only man that ever outwitted a publisher. Being a popular writer, his works brought him a good income. His publisher wishing to purchase the copyright and print a collected edition, made him an offer in cash. In order, however, to drive a good bargain, Pindar feigned to be in very bad health, declaring he could not live long; and every time the publisher came to see him he acted the invalid to such perfection that he got a handsome annuity, which, to the disgust of the publisher, he lived to enjoy until the unconscionable age of eighty-one.

We leave a number of our eccentric friends with regret. There was Curtis, whom we do not care to accompany in his search after the horrible and his passion for convicts and executions. There was Dr Fordyce, whose eccentricity in the matter of food is a study; he lived for years on one meal a day only, but a meal so enormous that we wonder, as we read the quantities, how he ever lived to repeat it daily for twenty years. We can only now recommend those who have been interested so far, to supply our deficiencies by going to the source from whence we have gathered the matter for this brief notice.