Laudator Temporis Acti

No Votary Staunch as Thou reminded Eric Thomson of a contest between Horne Tooke and Richard Porson, recorded in Alexander Stephens, Memoirs of John Horne Tooke, Interspersed with Original Documents, Vol. II (London: J. Johnson and Co., 1813), pp. 315-316:

Mr. Porson is well known as professor of Greek at the university of Cambridge, and editor of several learned works, to which he added many elaborate notes and emendations. I have witnessed both the acumen of this gentleman's remarks, and the wonderful felicity of his memory, with astonishment. On observing to him, one evening, after he began to open upon us, that he had been wonderfully shy before and during dinner, he archly replied, "that Addison had never been himself, until after the second bottle."

I was told by Mr. Tooke, that he one day called on him at Wimbledon, and was detained to dinner. Some expressions of a disagreeable nature are said to have occurred at table, and the professor, at last, actually threatened both to kick and to cuff his host. On this the philologist, after exhibiting his own brawny chest, sinewy arms, and muscular legs, to the best possible advantage, endeavoured to evince the prudence of deciding the question as to strength, by recurring to a different species of combat. Accordingly, setting aside the port and sherry, then before them, he ordered a couple of quarts of brandy; and, by the time the second bottle was half emptied, the Greek fell vanquished under the table. On this, the victor, at this new species of Olympic game, taking hold of his antagonist's limbs in succession, exclaimed: " This is the foot that was to have kicked, and the hand that was to have cuffed me!" and then drinking one glass more, to the speedy recovery of his prostrate adversary, ordered, "that great care should be taken of Mr. professor Porson" after which he withdrew to the adjacent apartment, in which tea and coffee had been prepared, with the same seeming calmness as if nothing had occurred.

I should not have mentioned this scene, but that it is well known to all Mr. Tooke's friends, and almost to every one, who ever visited at Wimbledon. I have forborne to enumerate the particulars, as narrated to me by two gentlemen, who happened to be present, for I consider the whole scene as indecorous, and unworthy of two of the most accomplished scholars of this or any other age.