Sometimes he gave us poetical readings from Shakespeare or Milton; and sometimes Parliamentary speeches by Burke or Sheridan.

Read what he might, he made such a noise and such a fuss over it; he put his own individuality so prominently in the foremost place, and he kept the poets or the orators whom he was supposed to be interpreting so far in the back ground, that they lost every trace of character of their own, and became one and all perfectly intolerable reflections of Mr.Finch.I date my first unhappy doubts of the supreme excellence of Shakespeare's poetry from the rector's readings; and I attribute to the same exasperating cause my implacable hostility (on every question of the time) to the policy of Mr.Burke.

On the evening when Nugent Dubourg was expected at Browndown--and when we particularly wanted to be left alone to dress ourselves, and to gossip by anticipation about the expected visitor--Mr.Finch was seized with one of his periodical rages for firing off words at his family, after tea.

He selected _Hamlet_ as the medium for exhibiting his voice, on this occasion; and he declared, as the principal motive for taking his elocutionary exercise, that the object he especially had in view was the benefit of poor Me! "My good creature, I accidentally heard you reading to Lucilla, the other day.

It was very nice, as far as it went--very nice indeed.