Moore, without displaying the astonishing knowledge of Mackintosh, was very full of information, gaiety, and humour. Two more delightful days I never passed. I could not help reflecting what an extraordinary thing success is in this world, when a man so gifted as Mackintosh has failed completely in public life, never having attained honours, reputation, or wealth, while so many ordinary men have reaped an abundant harvest of all. What a consolation this affords to mediocrity! None can approach Mackintosh without admiring his extraordinary powers, and at the same time wondering why they have not produced greater effects in the world either of literature or politics. His virtues are obstacles to his success; he has not the art of pushing or of making himself feared; he is too _doucereux_ and complimentary, and from some accident or defect in the composition of his character, and in the course of events which have influenced his circumstances, he has always been civilly neglected. Both Mackintosh and Moore told a great many anecdotes, but one morning at breakfast the latter related a story which struck us all. Mackintosh said it was enough to furnish materials for a novel, but that the simple narrative was so striking it ought to be written down without exaggeration or addition. I afterwards wrote it down as nearly as I could recollect it. It was Crampton, the Surgeon-General, who told it to Moore, and Crampton _loquitur_. [Page Head: SIR PHILIP CRAMPTON'S STORY] 'Some years ago I was present at a duel that was fought between a young man of the name of MacLoughlin and another Irishman. MacL. was desperately wounded; his second ran up to him, and thought to console him with the intelligence that his antagonist had also fallen. He only replied, "I am sorry for it if he is suffering as much as I do now." I was struck by the good feeling evinced in this reply, and took an interest in the fate of the young man. He recovered, and a few years after my interest was again powerfully excited by hearing that he had been arrested on suspicion of having murdered his father-in-law, his mother's second husband. He was tried and found guilty on the evidence of a soldier who happened to be passing in the middle of the night near the house in which the murder was committed. Attracted by a light which gleamed through the lower part of the window, he approached it, and through an opening between the shutter and the frame was able to look into the room. There he saw a man in the act of lifting a dead body from the floor, while his hands and clothes were stained all over with blood. He hastened to give information of what he had seen; MacLoughlin and his mother were apprehended, and the former, having been identified by the soldier, was found guilty. There was no evidence against the woman, and she was consequently acquitted. MacLoughlin conducted himself throughout the trial with determined calmness, and never could be induced to acknowledge his guilt.