r shocked her children with a grosser exhibition
than this man's intoxication."

The library of the institution appears, however, to have derived little
advantage from Porson's supervision of it, beyond the few criticisms
which were found in his handwriting in some of the volumes. Owing to his
very irregular habits, the great scholar proved but an inefficient
librarian; he was irregular in attendance, and was frequently brought
home at midnight drunk. The directors had determined to dismiss him, and
said they only knew him as their librarian from seeing his name attached
to receipts of salary. Indeed, he was already breaking up, and his
stupendous memory had begun to fail. On the 19th of September, 1806, he
left the Old Jewry to call on his brother-in-law, Perry, in the Strand,
and at the corner of Northumberland Street was struck down by a fit of
apoplexy. He was carried over to the St. Martin's Lane workhouse, and
there slowly recovered consciousness. Mr. Savage, the under-librarian,
seeing an advertisement in the _British Press_, describing a person
picked up, having Greek memoranda in his pocket, went to the workhouse
and brought Porson home in a hackney coach; he talked about the fire
which the night before had destroyed Covent Garden Theatre, and as they
rounded St. Paul's, remarked upon the ill treatment Wren had received.
On reaching the Old Jewry, and after he had breakfasted, Dr. Adam Clarke
called and had a conversation with Porson about a stone with a Greek
inscription, brought from Ephesus; he also discussed a Mosaic pavement
recently found in Palestrini, and quoted two lines from the Greek
Anthologia. Dr. Adam Clarke particularly noticed that he gave the Greek
rapidly, but the English with painful slowness, as if the Greek came
more naturally. Then, apparently fancying himself under restraint, he
walked out, and went into the African or Cole's coffee-house in St.
Michael's Alley, Cornhill; there he would have fallen had he not caught
hold of one of the brass rods of the boxes. Some wine and some jelly
dissolved in brandy and water considerably roused him, but he could
hardly speak, and the waiter took him back to the Institution in a
coach. He expired exactly as the clock struck twelve, on the night of
Sunday, September 25, 1808. He was buried in the Chapel of Trinity
College, Cambridge, and eulogies of his talent, written in Greek and
Latin verse, were affixed to his pall--an old custom not discontinued
t