methods. "He hardly drank tea without a stratagem." If at the
house of friends he wanted any accommodation, he was not willing to
ask for it in plain terms, but would mention it remotely as
something convenient; though when it was procured, he soon made it
appear for whose sake it had been recommended. Thus he teased Lord
Orrery till he obtained a screen. He practised his arts on such
small occasions, that Lady Bolingbroke used to say, in a French
phrase, that "he played the politician about cabbages and turnips."
His unjustifiable impression of the "Patriot King," as it can be
attributed to no particular motive, must have proceeded from his
general habit of secrecy and cunning; he caught an opportunity of a
sly trick, and pleased himself with the thought of outwitting
Bolingbroke. In familiar or convivial conversation, it does not
appear that he excelled. He may be said to have resembled Dryden,
as being not one that was distinguished by vivacity in company. It
is remarkable that, so near his time, so much should be known of
what he has written, and so little of what he has said: traditional
memory retains no sallies of raillery, nor sentences of observation:
nothing either pointed or solid, either wise or merry. One
apophthegm only stands upon record. When an objection, raised
against his inscription for Shakespeare, was defended by the
authority of Patrick, he replied, horresco referens, that he "would
allow the publisher of a dictionary to know the meaning of a single
word, but not of two words put together."

He was fretful and easily displeased, and allowed himself to be
capriciously resentful. He would sometimes leave Lord Oxford
silently, no one could tell why, and was to be courted back by more
letters and messages than the footmen were willing to carry. The
table was indeed infested by Lady Mary Wortley, who was the friend