In Mount Pleasant lived, in those good old times, Sir George Dunbar, the representative of an ancient race in Scotland, and a model gentleman, both in appearance and manners. He was originally in business in Liverpool; but when the family title descended to him, the pride of ancestry was stronger than the pride of “the merchant prince” within him, and he retired from vulgar trade, cut sugar hogsheads and rum puncheons, and was no more seen on the “Rialto,” discussing markets and inquiring the price of barilla and pearl ashes. It was a false move on the part of the worthy baronet. No rank would have been sullied by remaining in the firm of which he was the head. His junior partners, Ewart and Rutson, became not only eminent, but pre-eminent, amongst our giants of that day, and achieved a name and reputation known to the ends of the earth, and are still well represented amongst us. The son of the latter is a large landowner in Yorkshire, universally respected; while, of the family of the former, one son, William, has long been in parliament, and another, Joseph Christopher, was a candidate for Liverpool at a recent general election. But the Dunbars have altogether vanished from the scene. The best of them that we knew, poor Tom Dunbar, was one of the handsomest and cleverest, and certainly the most brilliant and the wittiest, of mankind. He had abilities for anything, for everything, but he never cultivated them; at all events, he never used them. He wanted either application or resolution. It might be the pride of his father in another shape. He was a lounger where he might have been a leader. He was satisfied to flash and dazzle as a meteor in society, while men much less intellectually endowed, but of a more persevering and plodding spirit, passed over him, and became persons of mark, position, and distinction. It was mortifying to his friends to see him ever with the game in his hands, yet always throwing up the cards. His active life amounted to just _nil_; but his sayings, his polished witticisms, his delightful retorts, his splendid and pungent repartees, in English, Greek, and Latin, would fill volumes. They are still treasured by the survivors of the circle of which he was the life and joy and pride, and brought out every now and then, with a sadly smiling countenance, as one of Dunbar’s gems: just as on high and grand days we go to the oldest bin for a bottle of the best vintage. And everything was original with him. He never borrowed nor repeated. It was fresh and fresh with him, as often as you met him.