Page:Angelo's Pic Nic.djvu/98

SIR VICARY GIBBS our musical host, I sang "Meg of Wapping," and occasionally was favoured with his smiles; however my endeavours might have failed, n'importe, it was his composition. My friend Bannister, who was in high spirits, and who had kept us the whole evening amused with his drollery and imitations, sang the "Rushlight," then the favourite comic song of the day, written by Colman. However diverting were Dibdin's ballads, for eccentric humour they were not to b ridiculous idea of putting out a candle, by which Bannister had so often created such roars of laughter, in the different attempts, holding it in his hands to no purpose. All our laughing did not alter a muscle of Dibdin's countenance, when, out of patience, stopping him in the middle of his song, he found fault with the words, "rushlight and crushlight. Ha! ha! what nonsense; too bad! too bad, Jack." L'amour e compared to the opre. SiR VICARY GIBBS. M°Howarth, who was an amateur of the Highland Broad- sword exercise, having wrote an excellent treatise on that science, which was so much admired, being pirated by a book- seller, near St. Paul's, was sold in numbers, at a very inferior price, and caused a very considerable loss to him. When an action was brought at the Guildhall, in the city, against the invader of his rights, I was subpoenaed as a witness, being a professional man of that science. Counseller Garrow, who pleaded for the defendant, and cross-examined me, was en- deavouring to puzzle me with questions about my profession (his son could have done it better, who was once one of my scholars), which it appeared to me he was little acquainted