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PISTRUCCI.

This gifted improvisatore (who is poet to the King’s Theatre,) sometimes astonishes his acquaintance—­especially if a new one—­by holding his hand close over the flame of a candle, or an argand lamp, for several minutes together.  It is a singular fact that several of the male branches of this family—­of whom the unrivalled artist who cut the die of the sovereign, with the St. George upon it, is one—­have one of their hands covered with a thick coat of horn-like matter, as hard as tortoiseshell, and perfectly insensible.—­Ibid.

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WRITTEN EXTEMPORE IN A COPY OF COKE UPON LITTLETON, 1721.

  O thou who labours’t in this rugged mine,
  Mays’t thou to gold th’ unpolish’d ore refine;
  May each dark page unfold its haggard brow,
  Fear not to reap, if thou canst dare to plough;
  To tempt thy care may each revolving night,
  Purses and maces glide before thy sight;
  So when in times to come, advent’rous deed,
  Thou shalt essay to speak, to look like Mead,
  When ev’n the bay and rose shall cease to shade
  With martial air the honours of thy head,
  When the full wig thy visage shall enclose,
  And only give to view thy learned nose,
  Safely thou may’st defy beaux, wits, and scoffers,
  And tenant in fee simple stuff thy coffers.

T.H.