------, who seemed a shrewd, sensible man,
with a certain slight acerbity of thought. Mr. Herbert Ingram, recently
elected member of Parliament, was likewise present, and sat on Bennoch's
left.
It was a very good dinner, with an abundance of wine, which Bennoch sent
round faster than was for the next day's comfort of his guests. It is
singular that I should thus far have quite forgotten W------ H--------,
whose books I know better than those of any other person there. He is a
white-headed, stout, firm-looking, and rather wrinkled-faced old
gentleman, whose temper, I should imagine, was not the very sweetest in
the world. There is all abruptness, a kind of sub-acidity, if not
bitterness, in his address; he seemed not to be, in short, so genial as I
should have anticipated from his books.
As soon as the cloth was removed, Bennoch, without rising from his chair,
made a speech in honor of his eminent and distinguished guest, which
illustrious person happened to be sitting in the selfsame chair that I
myself occupied. I have no recollection of what he said, nor of what I
said in reply, but I remember that both of us were cheered and applauded
much more than the occasion deserved. Then followed about fifty other
speeches; for every single individual at table was called up (as Tupper
said, "toasted and roasted"), and, for my part, I was done entirely brown
(to continue T-----'s figure). Everybody said something kind, not a word
or idea of which can I find in my memory.
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