His
defective sight, indeed, prevented him from enjoying the common sports;
and he once pleasantly remarked to me, 'how wonderfully well he had
contrived to be idle without them.' Mr. Hector relates, that 'he could
not oblige him more than by sauntering away the hours of vacation in the
fields, during which he was more engaged in talking to himself than to
his companion.'
Dr. Percy, the Bishop of Dromore, who was long intimately acquainted
with him, and has preserved a few anecdotes concerning him, regretting
that he was not a more diligent collector, informs me, that 'when a
boy he was immoderately fond of reading romances of chivalry, and he
retained his fondness for them through life; so that (adds his Lordship)
spending part of a summer at my parsonage house in the country, he
chose for his regular reading the old Spanish romance of Felixmarte of
Hircania, in folio, which he read quite through. Yet I have heard him
attribute to these extravagant fictions that unsettled turn of mind
which prevented his ever fixing in any profession.
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