Carlisle, who simpers with becoming complacency at the agreeable manner in which the evening has gone off. Why the Society has two secretaries, is a question that has been asked in these reforming times. The necessity is obvious—because one can't read, and the other can't write.
"In the elderly young gentleman seated at the coffee end of the table we acknowledge the Deputy Keeper of His Majesty's State Papers, Mr. Lemon to wit, full of wonder and delight at everything. Beyond him is the Byronic Mr. William Henry Rosser, who has the courage to display his pomum Adami to the keenness of the east wind and the unerring pencil of our Croquis. Of whom the group may be composed which has assembled beneath the vacated chair of the president, we pause not to inquire; but, shaping our course from thence down the table, we behold the ghost-like resemblance of the ex-Medico-Botanico Star-bearer of the ex-Emperor Don Pedro—the illustrious Johnny Frost! Mr. Kempe, we think we may conclude from the action of his hand, is turning a deaf ear to ex-Director Frost, and giving all his attention to the remarks of Mr. Rosser. Beneath the classic Kempe we behold the wood-cutter Brooke, poring over some old print or other—one of antiquated costume, perhaps, of which, in a week or two hence, we shall see a translation by him, with all the embellishments of a rich and poetic fancy, yet strictly preserving its antiquarian character.
"A full-length of old Caley is before us—there is no mistaking him; the build of his head, and his hands in the true antiquarian attitude, behind his back, leave no doubt upon the subject; and he is talking to our friend D'Israeli, of whom having spoken in our last number, we need say nothing more here than to correct an error of the press by which this curiosity of literature was called Israel instead of Isaac. The bald, square-faced, round-headed gentleman, whom Mr. Martin is so actively engaged in assisting to coffee, it strikes us, must be intended for the late President of the Royal Society, Mr. Davies Gilbert. If our conjecture be correct, we think our friend Croquis has not been so happy in the portrait as usual. But who can question the group exhibiting the President, supported by his Vices, right and left. Whig and Tory—the historian of the Middle Ages, the 'learned Hallam, much renowned for Greek'—and the shrewd-looking Hamilton?"
An antiquary, says "Hudibras" Butler,[1] is "an old frippery philosopher, that has so strange a natural affection to worm-eaten speculations, that it is apparent he has a worm in his skull, and says that, with Scaliger, he would sell the empire of Germany for an old song." In similar vein of satire, another quaint old writer of "characters" describes such a person as "a man strangely thrifty of times past, and an enemy indeed to his maw, whence he fetches out many things when they are now all rotten and stinking.... He never looks at himself till he is grey-haired, and then he is pleased with his own antiquity. His grave does not fright him, for he has been used to sepulchres, and he likes death the better because it gathers him to his fathers."[2] Puckle admits an Antiquary into his "Club," and depicts him as "an idolater of ages past, and who seems to esteem everything, as Dutchmen do cheese, the better for being mouldy." Poor "Shakespeare" Ireland, who, when a lad in his teens, had so finely bamboozled the black-letter buzzards and coney-catching com-
