of the
soil. But ungracious Nature kept fast hold of the mind of Dennis!

His personal manners were characterised by their abrupt violence. Once
dining with Lord Halifax he became so impatient of contradiction, that
he rushed out of the room, overthrowing the sideboard. Inquiring on
the next day how he had behaved, Moyle observed, "You went away like
the devil, taking one corner of the house with you." The wits,
perhaps, then began to suspect their young Zoilus's dogmatism.

The actors refused to perform one of his tragedies to empty houses,
but they retained some excellent thunder which Dennis had invented;
it rolled one night when Dennis was in the pit, and it was applauded!
Suddenly starting up, he cried to the audience, "By G--, they wont act
my tragedy, but they steal my thunder!" Thus, when reading Pope's
"Essay on Criticism," he came to the character of Appius, he suddenly
flung down the new poem, exclaiming, "By G--, he means me!" He is
painted to the life.

_Lo!_ _Appius reddens_ at each word you speak,
And stares tremendous with a threatening eye,
Like some fierce tyrant in old tapestry.

I complete this picture of Dennis with a very extraordinary
caricature, which Steele, in one of his papers of "The Theatre," has
given of Dennis. I shall, however, disentangle the threads, and pick
out what I consider not to be caricature, but resemblance.

"His motion is quick and sudden, turning on all sides, with a
suspicion of every object, as if he had done or feared some
extraordinary mischief. You see wickedness in his meaning, but folly
of countenance, that betrays him to be unfit for the execution of it.
He starts, stares, and looks round him. This constant shuffle of haste
without speed, makes the man thought a little touched; but the vacant
look of his two eyes gives you to understand that he could never run
out of his wits, which seemed not so much to be lost, as to want
employment; they are not so much astray, as they are a wool-gathering.
He has the face and surliness of a mastiff, which has often saved him
from being treated like a cur, till some more sagacious than ordinary
found his nature, and used him accordingly. Unhappy being! terrible
without, fearful within! Not a wolf in sheep's clothing, but a sheep
in a wolf's."[39]

However anger may have a little coloured this portrait, its truth may
be confirmed from a variety of sources. If Sallust, with his
accustomed penetration in characterising