(pointing to him) to come into his church again, for he was sure he was not a gentleman.
About the year 1735, when Dr. Taylor was in Dublin, the people used to run after Swift’s coach to get a sight of him, as they did in London after Lady Coventry when she appeared in public.
I asked him whether he (Taylor) could amuse himself by reading? No, he said, he could read nothing but the newspaper. ‘‘What, at his time of life, should he read for?”
I have in general observed that very few old people can bear to read—a very melancholy circumstance! for what a relief would this be to pass away tedious hours! Dr. Taylor several years ago lost his only child, and ten years since his wife. Almost every friend of his youth is now dead; but luckily for himself he has by no means a feeling mind. If a man has a turn for literary pursuits, and possesses a benevolent heart, he may in some measure defy old age. The mines of science are inexhaustible; and objects for the exercise of beneficence may for ever be found.
Those who have not been early tinctured with letters, and have been much immersed in politicks or other business, cannot, any more than the aged, derive much pleasure from books.
Sir Robert Walpole, after he ceased to be minister, endeavoured to amuse his mind with reading at Houghton. But one day when the present Mr. Welbore Ellis was in his library, he heard him say with tears in his eyes, after having taken up several
