During dinner time he kept the table in a roar of laughter, by declaring it was his opinion there was a kind of puppyism in pigs that they should wear tails--calling a great coat, a spencer folio edition with tail-pieces--Hercules, a man-midwife in a small way of business, because he had but twelve labours--assured them he had seen a woman that morning who had swallowed an almanac, which he explained by adding, that her features were so carbuncled, that the red lettered days were visible on her face--that Horace ran away from the battle of Philippi, merely to prove that he was no lame poet--he described Critics as the door-porters to the Temple of Fame, whose business was to see that no persons slipped in with holes in their stockings, or paste buckles for diamond ones, but was much in doubt whether they always performed their duty honestly--he called the Sun the _Yellow-hair'd Laddie_ ~260~~ --and the Prince of Darkness, the _Black Prince_--ask'd what was the difference between a sigh-heaver and a coal-heaver; but obtaining no answer, I will tell you, said he--The coal-heaver has a load at his back, which he can carry--but a sigh-heaver has one at his heart, which he can not carry. He had a whimsical knack of quoting old proverbs, and instead of saying, the Cobbler should stick to his last, he conceived it ought to be, the Cobbler should stick to his wax, because he thought that the more practicable--What is bred in the bone, said he, will not come out with the skewer; and justified his alteration by asserting it must be plain enough to the fat-headed comprehensions of those epicurean persons who have the magpie-propensity of prying into marrow-bones. Dashall having remarked, in the course of conversation, that _necessity has no law_. He declared he was sorry for it--it was surely a pity, considering the number of learned Clerks she might give employ to if she had--her Chancellor (continued he) would have no sinecure of it, I judge: hearing the petitions of her poor, broken-fortuned and bankrupt, subjects would take up all his terms, though every term were a year, and every year a term. Thus he united humour with seriousness, and seriousness with humour, to the infinite amusement of those around him.