Then, as to his relaxations-- "You will perhaps be at a loss to guess what kind of amusement I allow myself: why, I'll tell you. I spend a couple of hours every night at a coffee-house, where I am not a little entertained with a group of old politicians, who meet in order to debate on the reports of the day, or to invent some for the next, _with the other business_ of the nation! Though I don't know that society is the characteristic of this people, yet politics are a certain introduction to the closest intimacy of coffee-house acquaintance. I also visit a variety of ordinaries and eating houses, and they are equally fertile in game for a character-hunter. I think I have found out the cellar where Roderick Random ate shin of beef for threepence, and have actually drunk out of the identical quart which the drummer squeezed together when poor Strap spilt the broth on his legs." He visited Hampton Court, and though he seems to have passed through its solemn halls and stately galleries without peculiar remark, he seized on his _game_ of living character. "The servant who showed us the splendid apartments seemed to be a good deal pleased with his manner of explaining a suite of tapestry representing the Persian war of Alexander. Though a simple fellow, he had his lesson well by rote, and ran over the battles of Issus, Arbela, &c., with surprising fluency. 'But, where is Alexander?' cries Apjohn, (a young fellow-student, who had accompanied him.) 'There, sir, at the door of Darius's tent, with the ladies at his feet.' 'Surely,' said I, '_that_ must be Hephæstion, for he was mistaken by the Queen for Alexander.' 'Pardon me, sir, _I hope I know Alexander better than that_.' 'But, which of the two do you think the greater man?' 'Greater!--bless your soul, sir, they are both dead these _hundred years_.'" Curran's observation on this official, or, as he would probably have called it, _ministerial_ blunder, exhibits, even in these early days of his mind, something of the reflective spirit which afterwards gave such an interest to his eloquence. "Oh, what a comment on human vanity! There was the marrow of a thousand folios in the answer. I could not help thinking at the instant, what a puzzle that mighty man would be in, should he appear before a committee from the Temple of Fame, to claim those laurels which he thought so much of, and to be opposed in his demands, though his competitor were Thersites, or the fellow who rubbed Bucephalus's heels!"