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'Don't you think, says Mounsey, 'that Mr. is a very sensible, well-informed man? 'Why, no, I say, 'he seems to me to have no ideas of his own, and only to wait to see what others will say in order to set himself against it. I should not think that is the way to get at the truth. Why should he beat about the bush as he does?
Mounsey sat with his hat on and with a hectic flush in his face while any hope remained, but as soon as we rose to go, he darted out of the room as quick as lightning, determined not to be the last that went. I said some time after to the waiter, that 'Mr. Mounsey was no flincher. 'Oh! sir, says he, 'you should have known him formerly, when Mr. Hume and Mr. Ayrton used to be here.
He bestows no small quantity of his tediousness upon Mounsey, on whose mind all these formulas and diagrams fall like seed on stony ground: 'while the manna is descending, he shakes his ears, and, in the intervals of the debate, insinuates an objection, and calls for another half-pint. He is certainly the flower of the flock.
Percy, having after this had some conversation with him, made a discovery which in his zeal to pay court to Dr. Johnson, he eagerly proclaimed aloud from the foot of the table: 'Oh, sir, I have found out a very good reason why Dr. Percy never heard Mounsey swear or talk bawdy, for he tells me he never saw him but at the Duke of Northumberland's table. 'And so, sir, said Dr. Johnson loudly to Dr.
On my saying that I had never seen the Greek Professor but once, at the Library of the London Institution, when he was dressed in an old rusty black coat with cobwebs hanging to the skirts of it, and with a large patch of coarse brown paper covering the whole length of his nose, looking for all the world like a drunken carpenter, and talking to one of the proprietors with an air of suavity, approaching to condescension, Mounsey could not help expressing some little uneasiness for the credit of classical literature.
Henson, with business-like anxiety, at once came forward, explaining all the circumstances of the case, not forgetting to praise the verses and the writer to the skies. The gentleman, evidently touched by the recital, at once told Mr. Henson to put his name down as a subscriber, giving his address as the Rev. Mr. Mounsey, Master of the Stamford Grammar-school.
It was like looking into a camera obscura you saw faces shining and speaking the smoke curled, the lights dazzled, the oak wainscotting took a higher polish there was old Sarratt, tall and gaunt, with his couplet from Pope and case at Nisi Prius, Mounsey eyeing the ventilator and lying perdu for a moral, and Hume and Ayrton taking another friendly finishing glass!
Now he is quite another man: he seldom stays later than one or two. 'Why, did they keep it up much then? 'Oh! yes; and used to sing catches and all sorts. 'What, did Mr. Mounsey sing catches? 'He joined chorus, sir, and was as merry as the best of them. He was always a pleasant gentleman! This Hume and Ayrton succumbed in the fight.
On appealing to Mounsey for his opinion on this matter, he observed pithily, 'I don't like so much law: the gentlemen here seem fond of law, but I have law enough at chambers. One sees a great deal of the humours and tempers of men in a place of this sort, and may almost gather their opinions from their characters.
Boswell describes him as being in "remarkable vigour of mind, and eager to exert himself in conversation" on that occasion, and then transcribes the following proof. "He was vehement against old Dr. Mounsey, of Chelsea College, as 'a fellow who swore and talked bawdy. 'I have been often in his company, said Dr. Percy, 'and never heard him swear or talk bawdy. Mr. Davies, who sat next to Dr.
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