He was easily disconcerted by
retort, and often discomfited in argument. To the end of his days he
never lost his native brogue; and (as he himself tells us) he had that
most fatal of defects to a narrator, a slow and hesitating manner. The
perspicuity which makes the charm of his writings deserted him in
conversation; and his best things were momentary flashes. But some of
these were undoubtedly very happy. His telling Johnson that he would
make the little fishes talk like whales; his affirmation of Burke that
he wound into a subject like a serpent; and half-a-dozen other
well-remembered examples--afford ample proof of this. Something of the
uneasy jealousy he is said to have exhibited with regard to certain of
his contemporaries may also be connected with the long probation of
obscurity during which he had been a spectator of the good fortune of
others, to whom he must have known himself superior. His improvidence
seems to have been congenital, since it is to be traced 'even from his
boyish days.
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