A GLIMPSE OF PITT AND FOX.--Some years later, I saw Mr. Pitt in a
blue coat, buckskin breeches and boots, and a round hat, with powder
and pigtail. He was thin and gaunt, with his hat off his forehead,
and his nose in the air. Much about the same time I saw his friend,
the first Lord Liverpool, a respectable looking old gentleman, in a
brown wig. Later still, I saw Mr. Fox, fat and jovial, though he was
then declining. He, who had been a "bean" in his youth, then looked
something quaker-like as to dress, with plain colored clothes, a
broad round hat, white waistcoat, and, if I am not mistaken, white
stockings. He was standing in Parliament street, just where the street
commences as you leave Whitehall; and was making two young gentlemen
laugh heartily at something which he seemed to be relating.

* * * * *

COOKE'S EDITION OF THE BRITISH POETS.--In those times, Cooke's edition
of the British Poets came up. I had got an odd volume of Spenser; and
I fell passionately in love with Collins and Gray. How I loved those
little sixpenny numbers, containing whole poets! I doated on their
size; I doated on their type, on their ornaments, on their wrappers
containing lists of other poets, and on the engraving from Kirk. I
bought them over and over again, and used to get up select sets, which
disappeared like buttered crumpets; for I could resist neither giving
them away nor possessing them. When the master tormented me, when
I used to hate and loathe the sight of Homer, and Demosthenes, and
Cicero, I would comfort myself with thinking of the sixpence in my
pocket, with which I should go out to Paternoster Row, when school
was over, and buy another number of an English poet.