“The force of humour can no further go.” Like Pitt’s description of what a battle should be, “it is sharp, short, and decisive.” It is brilliant, pointed, telling. There is a joke of almost a similar kind in Boswell’s _Life of Johnson_. “I told him” (writes the former) “of one of Mr. Burke’s playful sallies upon Dean Marley: ‘I don’t like the Deanery of Ferns, it sounds so like a _barren_ title.’ ‘Dr. _Heath_ should have it,’ said I. Johnson laughed, and, condescending to trifle in the same mode of conceit, suggested Dr. _Moss_.” But the wit here is overdone and wire-drawn, until it becomes forced, heavy, and exhausted. Crowther’s _extempore_ retort beats the laboured efforts of Burke, Boswell, and Johnson, all put together, as it bursts forth, sparkling, glittering, dazzling, on the spur of the moment. “Depend upon it, your _chat_, _Moss_, will not stop it.” We treasure a good thing when we hear it, and love to embalm it. Mr. Crowther, the author of this unrivalled witticism, had a twinkle about the eye which seemed to say for him, that he had many “a shot in the locker,” of equal calibre and ready for action. We did not know much of him ourselves, but have always been told that his stores of humour and wit were as rich as they were inexhaustible. The specimen, or, as men say in Liverpool, the sample, which we have given amply justifies such an opinion. We must not forget to mention, in connection with the Rev. G. H. Piercy, that of the sons of Liverpool worthies under his care in 1804, and who thumbed their lexicons with redoubled zeal when promised a holiday to witness the marching and counter-marching of the “brave army” before his Royal Highness Prince William of Gloucester, in Mosslake fields or Bankhall Sands, (where are these now?) the following, although in the “sere and yellow leaf,” are still fit for active service:—W. C. Ritson, E. Molyneux, Thomas Brandreth, F. Haywood, R. W. Preston, and James Boardman. The Rev. James Aspinall, rector of Althorpe, Lincolnshire, was also long a favourite pupil of the reverend patriarch. CHAPTER XX.