His appearance, dress, manner, and conversation, were very eccentric, and those of his wife, who generally accompanied him on his visits, were no less so. The lady here alluded to was his second wife, who entertained so exalted an idea of her husband’s accuracy and propriety of conversation, that she acquired the habit of always repeating the last sentence of any thing he said. Thus when the gentleman observed, we had a disagreeable journey to town, the roads were bad, we were sadly jolted, the lady would immediately repeat the observation, “Yes, as Mr. Jenyns says, we were sadly jolted.” But we have nothing to do here but with his merits as a poet, and his claims to permanent reputation in that character. His poems were published collectively in the volumes of Dodsley, and whoever pleases, may judge of their value. But they excited no great interest when originally written; they excite less at the present period, and will probably glide down the stream of time, till, with the mob of gentlemen who write with ease, they sink into the waters of oblivion. Much of the same class and pretensions as to poetical merit, though in other respects with less various, and much more limited intellectual powers, was Jerningham. With this gentleman there was a personal acquaintance of many years continuance, and it was impossible not to be pleased with his amiable and elegant manners. Whilst he lived he was highly respected for his very cultivated mind, and for a long series of years he was ranked in the first class of his contemporary poets. Unluckily for the fabric of his poetical fame, two ill-betiding lines from a wicked satirist overset it almost in a moment. Nobody was presumptuous enough to praise the versification of this unfortunate bard, after reading in the Baviad, “See snivelling Jerningham at fifty weep O’er love-lorn oxen and deserted sheep.” Yet perhaps this was somewhat too harsh. Jerningham did write some things which were marked with good sense, good feeling, and polished versification. Unhappily he was considered as forming one of the fraternity, whose labours in this way tended to the corruption of the public taste, and the scythe of the all-potent satirical mower, cut him down with the rest, never to rise again. Nevertheless, in opposition to the censures, which it cannot be denied, were injurious to his reputation, the poet had to produce the strong and powerful commendation of Burke; no mean testimony surely. Neither can it be supposed that living familiarly as he did, and continued to do till the end of his life, in familiar intimacy with the noble and the great, his tranquillity was materially discomposed by an assault, to which every literary adventurer is alike exposed. Οινος τοι χαριεντι μεγας πελει ιππος αοιδῳ Υδωρ δε πινων χρηστον αν ουδε τεκης. CHAPTER XXXVI.