On one or two of these evenings, his favourite actor, Mr. Kean, was of the party; and on another occasion, we had at dinner his early instructor in pugilism, Mr. Jackson, in conversing with whom, all his boyish tastes seemed to revive;--and it was not a little amusing to observe how perfectly familiar with the annals of "The Ring[60]," and with all the most recondite phraseology of "the Fancy," was the sublime poet of Childe Harold. The following note is the only one, of those I received from him at this time, worth transcribing:-- "December 14. 1814. "My dearest Tom, "I will send the pattern to-morrow, and since you don't go to our friend ('of the _keeping_ part of the town') this evening, I shall e'en sulk at home over a solitary potation. My self-opinion rises much by your eulogy of my social qualities. As my friend Scrope is pleased to say, I believe I am very well for a 'holiday drinker.' Where the devil are you? With Woolridge[61], I conjecture--for which you deserve another abscess. Hoping that the American war will last for many years, and that all the prizes may be registered at Bermoothes, believe me, &c. "P.S. I have just been composing an epistle to the Archbishop for an especial licence. Oons! it looks serious. Murray is impatient to see you, and would call, if you will give him audience. Your new coat!--I wonder you like the colour, and don't go about, like Dives, in purple." [Footnote 51: I had frequently, both in earnest and in jest, expressed these hopes to him; and, in one of my letters, after touching upon some matters relative to my own little domestic circle, I added, "This will all be unintelligible to you; though I sometimes cannot help thinking it within the range of possibility, that even _you_, volcano as you are, may, one day, cool down into something of the same _habitable_ state. Indeed, when one thinks of lava having been converted into buttons for Isaac Hawkins Browne, there is no saying what such fiery things may be brought to at last."] [Footnote 52: Of the lamentable contrast between sentiments and conduct, which this transfer of the seat of sensibility from the heart to the fancy produces, the annals of literary men afford unluckily too many examples. Alfieri, though he could write a sonnet full of tenderness to his mother, never saw her (says Mr. W. Rose) but once after their early separation, though he frequently passed within a few miles of her residence. The poet Young, with all his parade of domestic sorrows, was, it appears, a neglectful husband and harsh father; and Sterne (to use the words employed by Lord Byron) preferred "whining over a dead ass to relieving a living mother."]