prose upon the origin of evil; yet he was a very indifferent metaphysician, and a worse dancer*. Ill-nature and personality, with the single exception of his lines upon Johnson, I never heard fall from his lips; those lines I have forgotten, though I believe I was the first person to whom he recited them: they were very bad, but he had been told that Johnson ridiculed his metaphysics, and some of us had just then been making extempore epitaphs upon each other. Though his wit was harmless, the general cast of it was ironical; there was a terseness in his repartees that had a play of words as well as of thought; as when speaking of the difference between laying out money upon land or purchasing into the funds, he said, ' One was principal without interest, and the other interest without principal. Certain it is, he had a brevity of expression that never hung upon the ear, and you felt the point in the very moment that he made the push. It was rather to be lamented that his lady, Mrs. Jenyns, had so great a respect for his good sayings, and so imperfect a recollection of them, for though she always prefaced her recitals of them with As Mr. Jenyns says,' it was not always what Mr. Jenyns said, and never, I am apt to think, as Mr. Jenyns said; but she was an excellent old lady, and twirled her fan with as much mechanical address as her ingenious husband twirled his snuff-box." This old lady was the second wife of Mr. Jenyns. His first died July 30, 1753, and in the month of February following he married Elizabeth, the daughter of Henry Grey, esq. of Hackney, Middlesex. She must at this time have been advanced in life, as she died at the age of ninety-four, July 25, 1796. Mr. Jenyns's poems were added to the second and third editions of Dr. Johnson's Collection. As a prose writer, we have few that can be compared to him for elegance and purity.. As a poet he has many equals and many superiors, Yet his poems are sprightly and pleasing; and if we do not find much of that creative fancy which marks the true genius of poetry, there is the spirit, sense, and wit, which have rendered so many modern versifiers popular.' It has been said he was in his young days a good dancer, and very fond of the amusement. This is not accurate. He well knew how Johnson had ridiculed his metaphysics many years before this period. Life prefixed to his Works by Charles Nalson Cole, esq.-Johnson and Chalmers's English Poets, 21 vols. 8vo, 1810. |