omfort, and competence;
but it was impossible for one so restless to bear the wholesome and
necessary restraint of that institution. He came to me one day, boiling
over with indignation, having resolved to quit its quiet cloisters, his
principal ground for complaint being that he must dine at two o'clock
and be within walls by ten. He resigned the appointment, but
subsequently obtained one of the Crown pensions, took up his final abode
in Paris, where, during the last ten years of his life, he lived, if
that can be called "life" which consisted of one scarcely ever
interrupted course of self-sacrifice to _eau-de-vie_. His mind was of
late entirely gone. I met him in 1861, in the Rue St. Honore, and he did
not recognize me, a circumstance I could scarcely regret.

I am not aware of any details concerning his death. When I last inquired
concerning him, all I could learn was that he had gone to live at
Boulogne,--that two quarters had passed without any application from him
for his pension,--and that therefore, of course, he was dead. His death,
however, was a loss to none, and I believe not a grief to any.

He was a tall, handsome man, by no means "jolly," like some of his
contemporary wits,--rather, I should say, inclined to be taciturn; and I
do not think his habits of drinking were excited by the stimulants of
society.[G] Little, I believe, is known of his life, even to the actors
and playwrights, with whom he chiefly associated, from the time when his
burlesque of "Hamlet Travestie" (printed in 1810) commenced his career
of celebrity, if not of fame, to his death, (in the year 1862, I
believe,) being then probably about seventy years old.

I knew Dr. Maginn when he was a schoolmaster in Cork. He had even then
established a high reputation for scholastic knowledge, and attained
some eminence as a wit; and about the year 1820 astounded "the beautiful
city" by poetical contributions to "Blackwood's Magazine," in which
certain of its literary citizens were somewhat scurrilously assailed. I
was one of them. There were two parties, who had each their "society."
Maginn and a surgeon named Gosnell were the leaders of one: they were,
for the most part, wild and reckless men of talent. The other society
was conducted by the more sedate and studious. Gosnell wrote the _ottava
rima_ entitled "Daniel O'Rourke," which passed through three or four
numbers of "Blackwood": he died not long afterwards in London, one of
the many unhap