DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.70266#0437
LIFE OF THE REV. DR. GOSSET.
387
and if lie had no room for them to erect a shelf on the stair-
case. The Doctor was likewise ready to assist every young
man when first entering trade, by his salutary warning to
prevent him from being taken in.
The eccentricities of Dr. Gosset were truly harmless :
when unemployed, he used to set one leg over another,
(for no man had a more delicately shaped leg), and pick
out every little particle that made his stocking uneven, tak-
ing the utmost pains to remove any flue or dust. So ex-
ceedingly attached was he to his library, that when it was
to be moved, he worked and fretted himself almost to death;
and when carried away, he actually sat on the steps, and
cried like a child, for fear any of his best editions might be
damaged.
Though he purchased no plays, as already hinted, he was
not averse to the play-house. He went to see the corpu-
lent Stephen Kemble perform Falstaff, at the new theatre-
royal, Drury-lane ; but having left the boxes, “ he had lost
himself,” as he expressed it, “ having gone into a pri-
vate room, among several ladies; and had he not been
fortunately conveyed out of the strange room by a friend,
he could not have guessed the consequences that might have
ensued.” It may indeed be said, that the managers of the
London winter theatres, have, in erecting them, studied
private, as well as public amusement.
To theological learning, the Doctor’s attention during his
latter years, had been principally directed, and in the de-
partment of Biblical criticism, his erudition was accurate
and profound. Preferment he never courted, and never
acquired. It was well observed of Dr. Gosset, by the learned
translator of Epictetus, that in his happier hours of social
intercourse, the disadvantages of his person were forgotten
in the graces of his conversation.
Dr. Gosset contributed his assistance to Bowyer’s “ Cri-
tical Conjectures on the New Testament;” but this is the
3d2
387
and if lie had no room for them to erect a shelf on the stair-
case. The Doctor was likewise ready to assist every young
man when first entering trade, by his salutary warning to
prevent him from being taken in.
The eccentricities of Dr. Gosset were truly harmless :
when unemployed, he used to set one leg over another,
(for no man had a more delicately shaped leg), and pick
out every little particle that made his stocking uneven, tak-
ing the utmost pains to remove any flue or dust. So ex-
ceedingly attached was he to his library, that when it was
to be moved, he worked and fretted himself almost to death;
and when carried away, he actually sat on the steps, and
cried like a child, for fear any of his best editions might be
damaged.
Though he purchased no plays, as already hinted, he was
not averse to the play-house. He went to see the corpu-
lent Stephen Kemble perform Falstaff, at the new theatre-
royal, Drury-lane ; but having left the boxes, “ he had lost
himself,” as he expressed it, “ having gone into a pri-
vate room, among several ladies; and had he not been
fortunately conveyed out of the strange room by a friend,
he could not have guessed the consequences that might have
ensued.” It may indeed be said, that the managers of the
London winter theatres, have, in erecting them, studied
private, as well as public amusement.
To theological learning, the Doctor’s attention during his
latter years, had been principally directed, and in the de-
partment of Biblical criticism, his erudition was accurate
and profound. Preferment he never courted, and never
acquired. It was well observed of Dr. Gosset, by the learned
translator of Epictetus, that in his happier hours of social
intercourse, the disadvantages of his person were forgotten
in the graces of his conversation.
Dr. Gosset contributed his assistance to Bowyer’s “ Cri-
tical Conjectures on the New Testament;” but this is the
3d2