In these sentiments my friend Waddington agreed with me, and he readily joined in a determination never to suffer any thing of the sort to take place at our table again while we remained together. This resolution we managed to keep, though we had a difficult task to perform when Mr. Clifford and the Rev. Dr. Gabriel dined with us, which was regularly twice a week. The reverend doctor, in particular, we found it incumbent upon us to keep within strict bounds; for, when he had got a little too much wine, though he was an old man, and a dignitary of the church, it was with great difficulty we could restrain him from indulging in obscene conversation, with which my friend and myself were equally disgusted. The doctor was a wit and a scholar, but, as Mrs. Waddington and her family, as well as other amiable females both of her and my friends, frequently visited us, his language was not to be tolerated, and, consequently, I undertook one morning to remonstrate with the doctor upon the subject. He freely acknowledged his error, but attributed it to a foolish habit that he had acquired at college, of which he could never afterwards wholly break himself. At the same time, he pleaded that he never forgot himself so far as to disgrace his profession, unless he had taken too much wine--which, by the bye, was every day when he could get it. I made known to the doctor our resolution to limit him to a bottle, and that his visits were to be continued upon that understanding. To this he readily assented, and thenceforth we found him to be a well-informed and entertaining companion, on the two days in the week that he was invited to dine with us. The doctor was reduced in circumstances, and was living within the rules. It was he who built the octagon chapel at Bath, of which he was the proprietor, and where he preached for many years. He was a man of letters, and, when sober, a perfect gentleman; but, when ever so little elevated, he betrayed, even to us comparative strangers, that he was a complete free thinker. Many of my readers will recollect the literary controversy which took place between him and, I believe, Doctor Gardiner, of Bath. I forget what were his politics, but I believe he was a Whig. One thing I perfectly recollect, which was, that when he was going to relate an obscene story or anecdote, he always gave us a preliminary intimation of it by _sneezing_. He was, on the whole, one of the most extraordinary of the numerous extraordinary characters that I became acquainted with while I remained at the King's Bench, during my first visit there of six weeks, in the years 1800 and 1801.