Page:Table-Talk, vol. 2 (1822).djvu/81

 he wondered what three amusing characters he had been in company with the evening before. Oh! it was a rich treat to see him describe Mdfrd, him of the Courier, the Contemplative Man, who wrote an answer to Cœlebs, coming into a room, folding up his greatcoat, taking out a little pocket volume, laying it down to think, rubbing the calf of his leg with grave self-complacency, and starting out of his reverie when spoken to with an inimitable vapid exclamation of “Eh!” Mdfrd is like a man made of fleecy hosiery: R was lank and lean “as is the ribbed sea-sand.” Yet he seemed the very man he represented, as fat, pert, and dull as it was possible to be. I have not seen him of late:—

But I thought of him the other day, when the news of the death of Buonaparte came, whom we both loved for precisely contrary reasons, he for putting down the rabble of the people, and I because he had put down the rabble of kings. Perhaps this event may rouse him from his lurking-place, where he lies like Reynard, “with head declined, in feigned slumbers !”—