"The Life of John Buncle," in Gossip in a Library, Heinemann, 1891, pp. 215-226.

In the following essay, Gosse acknowledges the odd nature of The Life of John Buncle, Esq., but commends its picturesqueness, the wide range of learning Amory displays, the tenderness of its romantic passages, and the author's delight in the beauty and variety of the natural world.

In the year 1756, there resided in the Barbican, where the great John Milton had lived before him, a funny elderly personage called Mr. Thomas Amory, of whom not nearly so much is recorded as the lovers of literary anecdote would like to possess. He was sixty-five years of age; he was an Irish gentleman of means, and he was an ardent Unitarian. Some unkind people have suggested that he was out of his mind, and he had, it is certain, many peculiarities. One was, that he never left his...