" As soon as the essay was finished, he would
throw it on the table, saying to his wife, "There, Kate, just look it
over--dot the _i_'s and cross the _t_'s;" and went out for his walk. It
should be added that his writing was singularly difficult to read, that he
was very infirm about spelling proper names, and that he was exceptionally
careless in correcting his proofs.
Of those essays which he subsequently reprinted, as judging them most
worthy of preservation, I see that by 1821 he had written fifty. Among
these were such masterpieces of humour and argument as "Edgeworth on
Bulls," "Methodism," "Indian Missions," "Hannah More," "Public Schools,"
"America," "Game-Laws" and "Botany Bay." On the 19th of May 1820, he wrote,
"I found in London both my articles very popular--upon the Poor-Laws and
America. The passage on Taxation had great success."[76] Some of these
papers will be considered separately, when we come to discuss his style and
his opinions; but space must here be found for an unrivalled specimen of
his controversial method, which belongs to the year 1822. It is called
"Persecuting Bishops." "Is _Bishops_ in that title a nominative or an
accusative?" grimly inquired a living prelate, when the present writer was
extolling the essay so named. It is a nominative; and perhaps the exacter
title would have been "A Persecuting Bishop."
Herbert Marsh[77] was Second Wrangler in 1779, Fellow of St.
Pages:
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121