the new glee of _Non est inventus_; but, as this would have interfered with
the requisite gravity of the company during the earlier toasts, I overruled
the call. After the national toasts had been given, the first official
toast of the day was, _The Old Man of the Mountains_--drunk in solemn
silence.

Toad-in-the-hole returned thanks in a neat speech. He likened himself to
the Old Man of the Mountains, in a few brief allusions, that made the
company absolutely yell with laughter; and he concluded with giving the
health of

_Mr. Von Hammer_, with many thanks to him for his learned History of the
Old Man and his subjects the assassins.

Upon this I rose and said, that doubtless most of the company were aware
of the distinguished place assigned by orientalists to the very learned
Turkish scholar Von Hammer the Austrian; that he had made the profoundest
researches into our art as connected with those early and eminent artists
the Syrian assassins in the period of the Crusaders; that his work had been
for several years deposited, as a rare treasure of art, in the library
of the club. Even the author's name, gentlemen, pointed him out as the
historian of our art--Von Hammer--

"Yes, yes," interrupted Toad-in-the-hole, who never can sit still--"Yes,
yes, Von Hammer--he's the man for a _malleus hæreticorum_: think rightly
of our art, or he's the man to tickle your catastrophes. You all know what
consideration Williams bestowed on the hammer, or the ship carpenter's
mallet, which is the same thing. Gentlemen, I give you another great
hammer--Charles the Hammer, the Marteau, or, in old French, the Martel--he
hammered the Saracens till they were all as dead as door-nails--he did,