* * * * * BISHOPS BLOMFIELD AND MONK, Who had the honour to edit his _Adversaria_, can both, it is said, bear witness to the fact, that Porson was unlike many pedants who make a display of their brilliant parts to surprise rather than enlighten; he was liberal in the extreme, and truly amiable in communicating his knowledge to young men of talent and industry, and would tell them all they wanted to know in a plain and direct manner, without any attempt to display his superiority. All, however, agree that the time for profiting by Porson's learning was _inter bibendum_, for then, as Chaucer says of the Sompnour-- "When he well dronkin had with wine, Then would he speak ne word but Latine." More than one distinguished judge of his merits PRONOUNCED HIM THE GREATEST SCHOLAR IN EUROPE, And he never appeared so sore, says one who knew him well, as when a _Wakefield_ or a _Hermann_ offered to set him right, or hold their tapers to light him on his way. Their doing so gave him occasion to compare them to _four-footed animals, guided only by instinct_; and in future, he said, he "would take care they should not reach what he wrote with their paws, though they stood on their hind legs." I may here very appropriately repeat the fact, that PORSON WAS A GREAT MASTER OF IAMBIC MEASURE, As he has shown in his preface to the second edition of his Hecuba. The German critic, Hermann, however, whom he makes to say, in his notes on the Medea, "We Germans understand quantity better than the English," accuses him of being more dictatorial than explanatory in his metrical decisions. Upon this the professor fired the following epigram at the German:-- [Greek: Nêi des esnte metrôn ô Teutones, ouch ho men, hos d' ou, Pantes plên 'Ermannos, ho d' 'Ermannos sphodra Teutôn.] The Germans in Greek, Are sadly to seek; Not five in five score, But ninety-five more; All, save only Hermann, And Hermann's a German. PORSON AND WAKEFIELD Had but little regard for each other, and when the latter published his _Hecuba_, Porson said-- "What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, That he should publish her?" At another time, being teased for his opinion of a modern Latin poem, his reply was,--"There is a great deal in it from _Horace_, and a great deal from _Virgil_: but nothing _Horatian_ and nothing _Virgilian_." Dr. Parr once asked the professor, "what he thought of the origin of evil?" "_I see no good in it_," was his answer. The same pugnacious divine told him one day, that "with all his learning, he did not think him well versed in metaphysics." "Sir," said Porson, "I suppose you mean _your_ metaphysics." It is not generally known that during the time he was employed in deciphering the famed Rosetta stone, in the collection of the British Museum, which is _black_, HE OBTAINED THE SOUBRIQUET OF JUDGE BLACKSTONE.