[49] Langton’s sisters are generally spoken of as three in number. But Burke’s _History of the Landed Gentry_ mentions but two, Diana and Juliet. There was a younger brother, Ferne, who died in boyhood, and the floral name, not unlike a girl’s, may have been responsible for the confusion. [50] The fruiterer. [51] The bookseller’s. [52] Rochester, in his immortal epigram, had said the same of King Charles II. [53] This neat descriptive stroke has been attributed also to Richard Paget. [54] The register of St. George’s betrays a little eager blunder of Lady Di’s which is amusing. When the officiating curate asked her to sign, she wrote “Diana Beauclerk,” and was obliged to cross out the signature—one knows with what a smile and a flush!—and substitute the “Diana Spencer” which stands beside it. [55] Miss Hawkins says “ten,” and may have had the extra adopted child in mind. [56] It is a pity he did not live to read the jolly _American Ballad of Bon Gaultier_, which seems to have a sort of muddled clairvoyant knowledge of this transaction: “Every day the huge Cawana Lifted up its monstrous jaws; And it swallowed Langton Bennet,(!) And digested Rufus Dawes. “Riled, I ween, was Philip Slingsby Their untimely deaths to hear; For one author owed him money,(!) And the other loved him dear.” [57] The church has since been “restored,” and the fine epitaph is now (1890) “skyed” on the south wall of the nave. V WILLIAM HAZLITT 1778-1830 THE titles of William Hazlitt’s first books bear witness to the ethic spirit in which he began life. From his beloved father, an Irish dissenting minister, he inherited his unworldliness, his obstinacy, his love of inexpedient truth, and his interest in the emancipation and well-being of his fellow-creatures. Bred in an air of seriousness and integrity, the child of twelve announced by post that he had spent “a very agreeable day” reading one hundred and sixty pages of Priestley, and hearing two good sermons. A year later he appeared, under a Greek signature, in _The Shrewsbury Chronicle_, protesting against sectarian injustice; an infant herald in the great modern movement towards fair play. The roll of the portentous periods must have made his father weep for pride and diversion. William’s young head was full of moral philosophy and jurisprudence, and he had what is the top of luxury for one of his temperament: perfect license of mental growth. Alone with his parents (one of whom was always a student and a recluse), and for the most part without the school-fellows who are likely to adjust the perilous effects of books, he became choked with theories, and thought more of the needful repeal of the Test Act than of his breakfast. He found his way at fourteen into the Unitarian College at Hackney, but eventually broke from his traces, saving his fatherland from the spectacle of a unique theologian. During the year 1795 he saw the pictures at Burleigh House, and began to live. Desultory but