P. in forgotten days, and Windham, a man too like Burke in elasticity of
mind ever to be spoken of in connection with forgotten things. Which of
them was to blame, I know not. But Mr. R. Sharpe, M. P., twenty-five years
ago, well known as _River_ Sharpe, from the [Greek: _aperantologia_] of
his conversation, used to say, that one or both of the executors had
offered _him_ (the river) a huge travelling trunk, perhaps an Imperial or
a Salisbury boot (equal to the wardrobe of a family), filled with Burke's
MSS., on the simple condition of editing them with proper annotations. An
Oxford man, and also the celebrated Mr. Christian Curwen, then member for
Cumberland, made, in my hearing, the same report. The Oxford man, in
particular, being questioned as to the probable amount of MS., deposed,
that he could not speak upon oath to the cubical contents; but this he
could say, that, having stripped up his coat sleeve, he had endeavored, by
such poor machinery as nature had allowed him, to take the soundings of
the trunk, but apparently there were none; with his middle finger he could
find no bottom; for it was stopped by a dense stratum of MS.; below which,
you know, other strata might lie _ad infinitum_. For anything proved to
the contrary, the trunk might be bottomless.

[10] A man in Fox's situation is sure, whilst living, to draw after him
trains of sycophants; and it is the evil necessity of newspapers the most
independent, that they _must_ swell the mob of sycophants. The public
compels them to exaggerate the true proportions of such people as we see
every hour in our own day. Those who, for the moment, modify, or
_may_ modify the national condition, become preposterous idols in the
eyes of the gaping public; but with the sad necessity of being too utterly
trodden under foot after they are shelved, unless they live in men's
memory by something better than speeches in Parliament. Having the usual
fate, Fox was complimented, _whilst living_, on his knowledge of
Homeric Greek, which was a jest: he knew neither more nor less of Homer,