A learned Cantab, who was so _deaf_ as to be obliged to use an _ear
trumpet,_ having taken his departure from Trinity College, of which he
was lately a fellow, mounted on his well-fed Rosinante for the purpose
of visiting a friend, fell in with an acquaintance by the way side,
with whom he was induced to dine, and evening was setting in ere he
pushed forward for his original destination. Warm with T. B., he had
not gone far ere he let fall the reins on the neck of his pegasus,
which took its own course till he was suddenly roused by its coming to
a stand-still where four cross roads met, in a part of the country to
which he was an utter stranger. What added to the dilemma, the
_direction-post_ had been demolished. He luckily espied an old farmer
jogging homeward from market. "Hallo! my man, can you tell me the way
to ----?" "Yes, to be sure I can. You must go down _hin-hinder_ lane,
and cross _yin-yinder_ common on the left, then you'll see a _hol_ and
a _pightal_ and the old mills, and ----" "Stop, stop, my good friend!"
exclaimed our Cantab; "you don't know I'm _deaf_," pulling his
_ear-trumpet_ out of his pocket as he spoke: this the farmer no sooner
got a glimpse of, than, taking it for a pistol or blunderbuss, and its
owner for a highwayman, he clapped spurs to his horse, and galloped
off at full speed, roaring out for mercy as our Cantab bawled for him
to stop, the _muzzle_ of his horse nosing the tail of the farmer's,
till they came to an opening in a wood by the road side, through which
the latter vanished, leaving the Cantab _solus_, after a chase of some
miles,--and upon inquiry at a cottage, he learnt he was still ten or
twelve from the place of his destination, little short of the original
distance he had to ride when he first started from Cambridge in the
morning. This anecdote reminds me of two Oxonians of considerable
celebrity, learning, and singular manners. One was the late amiable
organist of Dulwich College the Rev. Onias Linley, son of Mr. Linley,
of Drury-lane and musical celebrity: he was consequently brother of
Mrs. R. B. Sheridan. He was bred at Winchester and New College, and
was remarkable, when a minor canon at Norwich, in Norfolk, for