Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 1.djvu/416

 looked at him with great attention, and turning to Sheridan with much perturbation of countenance, cried out, why doctor, that is Jodrel. Peace, fool, said the doctor, I was very near losing the dean's acquaintance, by happening to say that Jodrel had some resemblance to him. When the dean entered the chamber where they were, Gibbons changed colour, and in great confusion said to Sheridan, by my soul it is Jodrel — What shall I do? Sheridan then smiled; so did the dean, and opened the matter to Gibbons in such a way as to set him at ease, and make him pass the remainder of the day very pleasantly. But Swift had not yet done with him. He had perceived that though Gibbons had no pretensions to scholarship, he had a good deal of vanity on that score, and was resolved to mortify him. He had beforehand prepared Mrs. Johnson in a passage of Lucretius, wherein are these lines:

Medioque in fonte leporum, Surgit amari aliquid.

Among their evening amusements, Mrs. Johnson called for Lucretius, as an author she was well acquainted with, and requested of Gibbons to explain that passage to her. Why, says he, there can be nothing more easy, and began immediately to construe it in the schoolboys fashion, "Que and medio in fonte, in the middle of a fountain, leporum, of hares. — No, Mr. Gibbons, interrupted Mrs. Johnson, if that word signified hares, it would be a false quantity in the verse, the o being necessarily long in the last foot of the line, whereas the o in leporum, when it signifies hares, is short. Poor Gibbons was quite confounded, acknowledged his errour, and did not