Page:Journal of the Conversations of Lord Byron (1824).djvu/224

 instance, that on an M. P. who had reviewed his book, and said he wrote very well for a banker:—



“I have been told,” said he one Sunday evening during our ride, “that you have got a parson here of the name of N*tt.—N*tt? I think I should know that name: was he not one of the tutors of a late Princess? If I am not mistaken, ‘thereby hangs a tale,’ that perhaps would have been forgotten, but for his over-officious zeal,—or a worse motive. The would-be Bishop having himself cracked windows, should not throw stones. I respect the pulpit as much as any man, but would not have it made a forum for politics or personality. The Puritans gave us quite enough of them.—But to come to the point. A person who was at his house to-day, where he has a chapel, tells me that this dignitary of the Church has in a very undignified way been preaching against my ‘Cain.’ He contends, it seems, that the snake which tempted Eve was not a snake, but the Devil in disguise; and that Bishop Warburton’s ‘Legation of Moses’ is no authority.