against him, he would assuredly not have found his. I believe he would
have had the world remain precisely as it was, provided it innovated no
further; but this spirit in him was anything but a worldly one, or for his
own interest. He hardly contemplated with patience the new buildings in
the Regent's Park; and, privately speaking, he had a grudge against
_official_ heaven-expounders, or clergymen. He would rather, however, have
been with a crowd that he disliked, than felt himself alone. He said to me
one day, with a face of great solemnity, "What must have been that man's
feelings, who thought himself _the first deist?_" ... He knew how many
false conclusions and pretensions are made by men who profess to be guided
by facts only, as if facts could not be misconceived, or figments taken
for them; and therefore, one day, when somebody was speaking of a person
who valued himself on being a matter-of-fact man, "Now," said he, "I value
myself on being a matter-of-lie man." This did not hinder his being a man
of the greatest veracity, in the ordinary sense of the word; but "truth,"
he said, "was precious, and not to be wasted on everybody." Those who wish
to have a genuine taste of him, and an insight into his modes of life,
should read his essays on _Hogarth_ and _King Lear_, his _Letters_, his
article on the _London Streets_, on _Whist-Playing_, which he loves, and
on _Saying Grace before Meat_, which he thinks a strange moment to select
for being grateful. He said once to a brother whist-player, whose hand was
more clever than clean, and who had enough in him to afford the joke, "M.,
if dirt were trumps, what hands you would hold!"

* * * * *

FORSTER.


[_From Mr. John Forsters Contribution to the New Monthly Magazine,_ 1835.