His conversation was peculiarly eloquent and impressive, such as to
render it evident that he had not been over-rated as an orator, when in
the days of his glory, he was the admiration of his country. I remember
his once discoursing to me of language, and saying, "in every language,
there are three things to be noticed,--verbs, substantives, and the
particles; the verbs," holding out his hand, "are as the bones of these
fingers; the substantives, the flesh and blood; but the particles are
the sinews, without which the fingers could not move."

"There are," said he to me, once, "three kinds of writing--_diplomatic_,
in which you do not come to a point, but write artfully, and not to show
what you mean; _attorney_, in which you are brief; and _enlarged_,
in which you spread and stretch your thoughts."

I have said that his cottage, (built by himself,) near the Regent's
Park, was very beautiful. I remember his showing me a letter to a
friend, in which were the following passages:--After alluding to some
pecuniary difficulties, he says, "I can easily undergo all privations,
but my dwelling is always my workshop, and often my prison, and ought
not to distress me with the appearance of misery, and I confess, in this
respect, I cannot be acquitted of extravagance."

Speaking afterwards of the costliness of his furniture, he observes,
"they encompass me with an air of respectability, and they give me the
illusion of not having fallen into the lowest circumstances. I must also
declare that I will die like a gentleman, on a clean bed, surrounded by
the Venus's, Apollo's, and the Graces, and the busts of great men; nay,
even among flowers, and, if possible, while music is breathing around
me. Far from courting the sympathy of posterity, I will never give
mankind the gratification of ejaculating preposterous sighs, because I