the laws of their country; indeed, leading for a week as
much of a vagabond life as if I were an Arab or a Mameluke,--I came
soon to have some of the gay recklessness that marked the character of
my companions." This certainly would be a curious episode in the
life of any law-abiding citizen, and in Mr. Ticknor's case it was
peculiarly astonishing, for his life, this week excepted, could
certainly never be called, with any show of justice, "vagabond."

Before returning to America he revisited London and Paris, in this
last-named city seeing Talleyrand, of whom an interesting anecdote is
recorded. In London he met Sydney Smith, Brougham, Frere; in Scotland,
where he made a short tour, he visited Sir Walter Scott at Abbotsford;
on his way back to London he visited Southey and Wordsworth; and
once again in that city he saw Hazlitt, living in Milton's house, and
Godwin, who, he said, "is as far removed from everything feverish
and exciting as if his head had never been filled with anything but
geometry,... When I looked at [him], and saw with what cool obstinacy
he adhered to everything he had once assumed, and what a cold
selfishness lay at the bottom of his character, I felt a satisfaction
in the thought that he had a wife who must sometimes give a start to
his blood and a stir to his nervous system." The feeling which betrays
itself in this passage makes a still bolder and more amusing exhibit
in one that follows: "The true way to see these people was to meet
them all together, as I did once at dinner at Godwin's, and once at
a convocation or 'Saturday Night Club' at Hunt's, when they felt
themselves bound to show off and produce an effect; for there Lamb's
gentle humor, Hunt's passion and Curran's volubility, Hazlitt's
sharpness and point and Godwin's great head full of cold brains, all
coming into contact and agreeing in nothing but their common hatred
of everything that has been more successful than their own works, made
one of the most curious and amusing _olla podridas_ I ever met. The
contrast between these persons ... and the class I was at the same
time in the habit of meeting at Sir Joseph Banks's on Sunday evening,
at Gifford's, at Murray's Literary Exchange, and especially at Lord
Holland's, was striking enough." In regard to the last statement we
can feel no doubt, nor is it surprising that Mr. Ticknor found
the society of Gifford and his friends more congenial than that of
"persons" like Lamb and Hunt.

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