"One evening, after dining together, as we were going to the Opera, I happened to have a spare Opera ticket (as subscriber to a box), and presented it to Matthews. 'Now, sir,' said he to Hobhouse afterwards, 'this I call _courteous_ in the Abbot--another man would never have thought that I might do better with half a guinea than throw it to a door-keeper;--but here is a man not only asks me to dinner, but gives me a ticket for the theatre.' These were only his oddities, for no man was more liberal, or more honourable in all his doings and dealings, than Matthews. He gave Hobhouse and me, before we set out for Constantinople, a most splendid entertainment, to which we did ample justice. One of his fancies was dining at all sorts of out-of-the-way places. Somebody popped upon him in I know not what coffee-house in the Strand--and what do you think was the attraction? Why, that he paid a shilling (I think) to _dine with his hat on_. This he called his '_hat_ house,' and used to boast of the comfort of being covered at meal-times. "When Sir Henry Smith was expelled from Cambridge for a row with a tradesman named 'Hiron,' Matthews solaced himself with shouting under Hiron's windows every evening, "'Ah me! what perils do environ The man who meddles with _hot Hiron_.' "He was also of that band of profane scoffers who, under the auspices of ----, used to rouse Lort Mansel (late Bishop of Bristol) from his slumbers in the lodge of Trinity; and when he appeared at the window foaming with wrath, and crying out, 'I know you, gentlemen, I know you!' were wont to reply, 'We beseech thee to hear us, good _Lort_'--'Good _Lort_ deliver us!' (Lort was his Christian name.) As he was very free in his speculations upon all kinds of subjects, although by no means either dissolute or intemperate in his conduct, and as I was no less independent, our conversation and correspondence used to alarm our friend Hobhouse to a considerable degree. "You must be almost tired of my packets, which will have cost a mint of postage. "Salute Gifford and all my friends. "Yours, &c."