I picked up many an anecdote from him, and many curious bits of learning.
"He tells a good story, illustrative of his enthusiasm when looking at a crater in the moon.

He says the night was remarkably fine, and he applied higher and higher powers to his glass until he seemed to look down into the abyss, and imagining himself standing on its verge he felt himself falling in, and drew back with a shudder which lasted even after the illusion was over.
"In speaking of Stratford-upon-Avon, the admiral told me that the Lucy family, one of whose ancestors drove Shakspere from his grounds, and who is caricatured in Justice Shallow, still resides on the same spot as in Shakspere's time.

He says no family ever retained their characteristics more decidedly.
"Some years ago one of this family was invited to a Shakspere dinner.

He resented the well-meant invitation, saying they must surely have forgotten how that _person_ treated his ancestor! "The amateur astronomers of England are numerous, but they are not like those of America.
"In America a poor schoolmaster, who has some bright boys who ask questions, buys a glass and becomes a star-gazer, without time and almost without instruments; or a watchmaker must know the time, and therefore watches the stars as time-keepers.

In almost all cases they are hard-working men.
"In England it is quite otherwise.