who, in private life, and in matters which concern
themselves, take their own course, and suit their own notions, no matter
what other people may think of them. These men will put things to uses they
were never intended for, to the great distress and disgust of their
gregarious friends. I am one of the class, and I could write a little book
of cases in which I have incurred absolute reproach for not "doing as other
people do." I will name two of my atrocities: I took one of those
butter-dishes which have for a top a dome with holes in it, which is turned
inward, out of reach of accident, when not in use. Turning the dome
inwards, I filled the dish with water, and put a sponge in the dome: the
holes let it fill with water, and I had a penwiper, always moist, and worth
its price five times over. "Why! what do you mean? It was made to hold
butter. You are always at some queer thing or other!" I bought a leaden
comb, intended to dye the hair, it being supposed that the application of
lead will have this effect. I did not try: but I divided the comb into two,
separated the part of closed prongs from the other; and thus I had two
ruling machines. The lead marks paper, and by drawing the end of one of the
machines along a ruler, I could rule twenty lines at a time, quite fit to
write on. I thought I should have killed a friend to whom I explained it:
he could not for the life of him understand how leaden _lines_ on paper
would dye the hair.

But Dr. Milner went beyond me. He wanted a seat suited to his shape, and he
defied opinion to a fearful point. {252} He spread a thick block of putty
over a wooden chair and sat in it until it had taken a ceroplast copy of
the proper seat. This he gave to a carpenter to be imitated in wood. One of
the few now living who knew him--my friend, General Perronet
Thompson[576]--answers for the wood, which was shown him by Milner himself;
but he does not vouch for the material being putty, which was in the story
told me at Cambridge; William Frend[577] also remembered it. Perhaps the
Doctor took off his great seal in green wax, like the Crown; but some soft
material he certainly adopted; and very comfortable he found the wooden
copy.

[Illustration]

The same gentleman vouches for Milner's lamp: but this had visible
_science_ in it; the vulgar see no science in the construction of the
chair. A hollow semi-cylinder, but not with a circular curve, revolved on
pivots. The curve was calculated on t