council d'Artois, opened him a gangway to
come at the prelate; they behold a priest enter, whom, by his bashful
and modest looks, they take for some country curate, and, by a
simultaneous motion, they close up the passage which they had made. The
bishop, who had already descried his dear president of the English
college, perceived also the motion and resolved to put the authors of it
to the blush. He observed in one corner of the room a group of military
men; he goes up to them, and, finding they were conversing upon the
question keenly debated at that time, whether in battle the _thin
order_, observed in our days, be preferable to the _deep_ order of the
ancients; he called to Mr. Butler, and asked him what he thought of it.
I then heard that amazing man talk on the art of war with the modest
tone of a school-boy, and the depth of the most consummate military man.
I observed admiration in the countenance of all those officers; and saw
several of them, who, being too far off, stood up upon chairs to hear
and see him. They altogether put to him questions upon questions, and
each of his answers caused fresh applause.

"His lordship left us to go and join another group, consisting of
magistrates, who were discussing a point of common law; and, in like
manner, called upon his oracle, who, by the sagacity of his reflections,
bore away all suffrages, and united their several opinions.

"The prelate, next, taking him by the hand, presented him to the ladies,
seated round the fireplace, and asked him, whether the women in ancient
times wore their head-dresses as high as ours then did. _Fashions_,
answered he, _like the spokes of a wheel turning on its axis, are always
replaced by those very ones which they have set aside_. He then
described to us the dresses, both of the men and women, in the various
ages of our monarchy: _and, to go still further back_, added he, _the
{038} statue of a female Druid has been found, whose head-dress measured
half a yard to height; I have been myself to see it, and have measured
it._

"What astonished me most was, that studies so foreign to the
supernatural objects of piety, shed over his soul neither aridity nor
lukewarmness. He referred all things to God, and his discourse always
concluded by some Christian reflections, which he skilfully drew from
the topic of the conversation. His virtue was neither minute nor
pusillanimous: religion had, in his discourse as well as in his conduct,
that so