When we got to
Loughborough, I know not what chasm had made us diverge for a moment to
some other subject, at which he was indignant. 'Come,' said he, 'don't let
us break through; let us go on as we began, to our journey's end;' and so
he continued, and was as entertaining as ever to the very end. He had
previously occupied, during my year's absence from Cambridge, my rooms in
Trinity, with the furniture; and Jones (his tutor), in his odd way had
said, in putting him in, 'Mr. Matthews, I recommend to your attention not
to damage any of the movables, for Lord Byron, sir, is a young man of
_tumultuous passions_.' Matthews was delighted with this, and whenever
anybody came, to visit him, begged them to handle the very door with
caution, and used to repeat Jones's admonition in his tone and manner....
He had the same droll sardonic way about everything. A wild Irishman,
named F., one evening beginning to say something at a large supper,
Matthews roared 'Silence!' and then pointing to F., cried out, in the
words of the oracle, 'Orson is endowed with reason.' When Sir Henry Smith
was expelled from Cambridge for a row with a tradesman named 'Hiron,'
Matthews solaced himself with shouting under Hiron's windows every
evening--
Ah me! what perils do environ
The man who meddles with hot Hiron!
He was also of that band of scoffers who used to rouse Lort Mansel from
his slumbers in the lodge of Trinity; and when he appeared at the window,
foaming with wrath, and crying out, "I know you, gentlemen; I know you!"
were wont to reply, "We beseech thee to hear us, good Lort.
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