Dr. George Horne was a man of unaffected piety, cheerful temper, great
learning, and, notwithstanding his propensity to jesting, dignified
manners. He was much beloved in Magdalen College, of which he was
president; the chief complaint against him being, that he did not reside
the whole of the time in every year that the statutes required. He
resigned his headship on being promoted from the Deanery of Canterbury
to the See of Norwich; the alleged reason was, the incompatibility of
the duties; though other heads of houses, when made bishops, have
retained their academical situations. He never manifested the least
ill-humour himself, and repressed it, but with gentleness, in others.
Having engaged in a party at whist, merely because he was wanted to make
up the number, and playing indifferently ill, as he forewarned his
partner would be the case, he replied to the angry question, "What
reason could you possibly have, Mr. President, for playing that card?"
"None upon earth, I assure you." On the morning when news was received
in college of the death of one of the fellows, a good companion, a _bon
vivant_, Horne met with another fellow, an especial friend of the
defunct, and began to condole with him: "We have lost poor L----." "Ah!
Mr. President, I may well say I could have better spared a better man."
"Meaning _me_, I suppose?" said Horne, with an air that, by its
pleasantry, put to flight the other's grief. I was talking with Henry
James Pye, late poet-laureate, when he happened to mention the name of
Mr. P., a gentleman of Berkshire, and M.P. I think, for Reading; "That
is the man," said I, "who damned the king's wig in the very presence of
his majesty; with great credit, however, to his own loyalty, and very
much to the amusement of the king." "I do not well see how that could
be." "You shall hear a story which our president (Pye had been a
gentleman commoner of Magdalen College) told at his own table. The king
was out a hunting; P---- was _in_, and _of_, the field; the king's horse
fell; the king was thrown from the saddle, and his hat and wig were
thrown to a little distance from him: he got on his feet again
immediately, and began to look about for the hat and wig, which he did
not readily see, being, as we all know, short-sighted. P----, very much
alarmed by the accident, rides up in great haste and arrives at the
moment when the king is peering about and saying to the attendants,
'Where's my wig? where's my wig?' P---- cries out, 'D--n your wig! is
_your majesty safe_?'"
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