I had always
lived a good deal, and got drunk occasionally, in their company--but
now we became really friends in a morning. Matthews, however, was not
at this period resident in College. I met _him_ chiefly in
London, and at uncertain periods at Cambridge. H----, in the mean
time, did great things: he founded the Cambridge 'Whig Club' (which he
seems to have forgotten), and the 'Amicable Society,' which was
dissolved in consequence of the members constantly quarrelling, and
made himself very popular with 'us youth,' and no less formidable to
all tutors, professors, and beads of Colleges. William B---- was gone;
while he stayed, he ruled the roast--or rather the _roasting_--and was
father of all mischiefs.
"Matthews and I, meeting in London, and elsewhere, became great
cronies. He was not good tempered--nor am I--but with a little tact
his temper was manageable, and I thought him so superior a man, that I
was willing to sacrifice something to his humours, which were often,
at the same time, amusing and provoking. What became of his _papers_
(and he certainly had many), at the time of his death, was never
known. I mention this by the way, fearing to skip it over, and _as_ he
_wrote_ remarkably well, both in Latin and English. We went down to
Newstead together, where I had got a famous cellar, and _Monks'_
dresses from a masquerade warehouse. We were a company of some seven
or eight, with an occasional neighbour or so for visiters, and used to
sit up late in our friars' dresses, drinking burgundy, claret,
champagne, and what not, out of the _skull-cup_, and all sorts of
glasses, and buffooning all round the house, in our conventual
garments.
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