The Lord Mayor is not very apt in choosing his
compliments. At a dinner which he gave to the Bishops of the Established Church and the religious ministers of other denominations on Wednesday, he applied to Archbishop Tait the couplet, (was it on Gay or Goldsmith, or on neither 2)— “In manners gentle and affections mild, In wit a man, simplicity a child."
Dr. Tait is as plain and unaffected in his manners as it is possible to be, but gentleness is hardly more their special characteristic than is wit that of his intellect, or childlike simplicity the distinguishing
trait of his whole character. The Lord Mayor must have stumbled on his couplet by accident, and used it at random. But such couplets used at random are like ready-made clothes,—they make the person to whom they are- applied look forlorn, suggesting that he was 'bound to'be taller in 'one place, shorter in another, stouter here, and thinner- there, t and generally 'what he is not, rather than what he is. Also they have a still more marked effect in making the man who is so reckless as to use them blunderingly look clumsy and shiftless.- When epigrams don't fit; they kick,' like an over-loaded gun.
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