extraordinary scene for the choice of such a purist;) but Hannah was not at that time quite so sublime as she became afterwards. Hannah describes Dunning's manner as "insufferably bad, coughing and spitting at every word; but his sense and expression pointed to the last degree." But the character which the annotator gives as a model of panegyric, pleases us least of all. It is by Sir William Jones, and consists of one long antithesis. It is a studied toil of language, expressing ideas, a commonplace succession, substituting words for thoughts, and at once leaving the ear palled, and the understanding dissatisfied. What, for instance, could be made of such a passage as this? Sir William is speaking of Dunning's wit. "This," says he, "relieved the weary, calmed the resentful, and animated the drowsy. This drew smiles even from such as were _the object of it, and scattered flowers over a desert_, and, like _sunbeams sparkling on a lake_, gave spirit and vivacity to the dullest and least interesting cause." And this mangling of metaphor is to teach us the qualities of a profound and practical mind. What follows, is the perfection of see-saw. "He was endued with an intellect sedate yet penetrating, clear yet profound, subtle yet strong. His knowledge, too, was equal to his imagination, and his memory to his knowledge." He might have equally added, that the capacity of his boots was equal to the size of his legs, and the length of his purse to the extent of his generosity. This reminds us of one of Sydney Smith's burlesques on the balancing of epithets by that most pedantic of pedants, the late Dr Parr--"profundity without obscurity, perspicuity without prolixity, ornament without glare, terseness without barrenness, penetration without subtlety, comprehensiveness without digression, and a great number of other things without a great number of other things."