The pleasant'st angling is to see the fish Cut with her golden oars the silver stream, And greedily devour the treacherous bait.--_Shakespeare._] [Footnote 82: When Lamb was once asked by a friend why he did not leave off smoking, he humorously replied that he could find no equivalent _vice_.] [Footnote 83: A patient who had been an inveterate smoker of tobacco for years, on entering the hospital was placed in a hot water bath, and here he remained for half an hour. A frog and other aqueous animals placed in the same water after it had become cool, died instantly; showing that the patient had exuded by the pores of the skin sufficient nicotine to impregnate the water.] [Footnote 84: At another time, having been greatly annoyed by the persistent crying and screaming of some infant children, Lamb tried to bear it patiently; but finally he quietly ejaculated, "B-b-blessed b-be the m-memory of g-good King Herod!"] [Footnote 85: Hayden, the painter, says of Keats, that at dinner he would swallow some grains of red pepper in order that he might enjoy the more the "delicious coolness of claret."] [Footnote 86: It was at Holland House, of which he became possessed by marriage, that Addison "Taught us how to live; and (oh! too high A price for knowledge) taught us how to die."] [Footnote 87: Those were days when people drank freely. "How I should like," said Grattan one day to Rogers, "to spend my whole life in a small neat cottage! I could be content with very little; I should need only cold meat, and bread, and beer, and _plenty of claret_."] [Footnote 88: The blemishes of great men are not the less blemishes; but they are, unfortunately, the easiest part for imitation.--_Disraeli._] [Footnote 89: Occupied, the last time the author visited Milan, as barracks for a cavalry regiment. Time and exposure are fast obliterating the original work of Da Vinci. In 1520 Leonardo da Vinci visited France at the urgent solicitation of Francis I. His health was feeble, and the king often came to Fontainebleau to see him. One day when the king entered, Leonardo rose up in bed to receive him, but in the effort fainted. Francis hastened to support him; but the eyes of the artist closed forever, and he lay encircled in the arms of the monarch.] [Footnote 90: The original copy of this work is still preserved, dated 1671, though it was not published until 1690,--an evidence of the author's great caution in offering his views to the public. Three of his works were not published until after his death.] [Footnote 91: Rogers says that Gibbon took very little exercise. He had been staying some time with Lord Sheffield in the country; and when he was about to go away, the servants could not find his hat. "Bless me," said Gibbon, "I certainly left it in the hall on my arrival here." He had not stirred out of the house during the whole of the visit.]