" This
eccentric flight made everybody very merry, and amidst a most amusing
mixture of wit and humour, sense and nonsense, we feasted merrily,
amidst jocose health-drinking, sentiments, speeches, and songs.
Mr. Hood, with inexpressible gravity in the upper part of his face and
his mouth twitching with smiles, sang his own comic song, "If you go to
France, be sure you learn the lingo," his pensive manner and feeble
voice making it doubly ludicrous. Mr. Lamb, on being pressed to sing,
excused himself in his own peculiar manner, but offered to pronounce a
Latin eulogium instead. This was accepted, and he accordingly stammered
forth a string of Latin words; among which, as the name of Mrs. Hood
frequently occurred, we ladies thought it was in praise of her. The
delivery of his speech occupied about five minutes. On inquiring of a
gentleman who sat next to me whether Mr. Lamb was praising Mrs. Hood, he
informed me that it was by no means the case, the eulogium being on the
lobster-salad!
IN A COACH
[Sidenote: _Charles Lamb_]
The incidents of our journey were trifling, but you bade me tell them.
We had, then, in the coach a rather talkative gentleman, but very civil,
all the way, and took up a servant-maid at Stamford, going to a sick
mistress.... The _former_ engaged me in a discourse for full twenty
miles on the probable advantages of Steam Carriages, which, being merely
problematical, I bore my part in with some credit, in spite of my
totally un-engineer-like faculties.
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