e are two griffins in my
family that have been missing these three centuries, and by G-, I'll
have iliem back again!"-This passion was afterwards improved into so
perfect a knowledge, that in the creation of peers he was applied to,
that every due ceremonial might be observed; and he never failed in his
recollection on these antiquated subjects.

Tom Plummer gave then a specimen of that quickness and vivacity of parts
for which he was afterwards famed. But not as a scholar, not as a poet,
was he quick alone; he was quick too in the wrong ends of things, as
well as the right, with a plausible account to follow it.

In fact, he was born for the law; clear, discriminating, judicious,
alive, and with a noble impartiality to all sides of questions, and
which none could defend better. This goes, however, only to the powers
of his head; in those of the heart no one, and in the best ~85~~ and
tenderest qualities of it, ever stood better. He was liked universally,
and should be so; for no man was ever more meritorious for being good,
as he who had all the abilities which sometimes make a man otherwise.

In the progress of life mind changes often, and body almost always. Both
these rules, however, he lived to contradict; for his talents and his
qualities retained their virtue; and when a boy he was as tall as when a
man, and apparently the same.

Capel Loft. In the language of Eton the word gig comprehended all that
was ridiculous, all that was to be laughed at, and plagued to death; and
of all gigs that was, or ever will be, this gentleman, while a boy, was
the greatest.

He was like nothing, "in the heavens above, or the waters under the
earth;" and therefore he was surrounded by a mob of boys whenever he
appeared. These days of popularity were not pleasant. Luckily, however,
for himself, he found some refuge from persecution in his scholarship.
This scholarship was much above the rate, and out of the manner of
common boys.

As a poet, he possessed fluency and facility, but not the strongest
imagination. As a classic, he was admirable; and his prose themes upon
different subjects displayed an acquaintance with the Latin idiom and
phraseology seldom acquired even by scholastic life, and the practice of
later years. Beyond this, he read much of everything that appeared, knew
every thing, and was acquainted with every better publication of the
times.

Even then he studied law, politics, divinity; and could have written
we