Chapter XX: Part 20

Lady Blessington used to describe Lord Abercorn's conduct at the Priory at Stanmore as very strange. She said it was the most singular place on earth. The moment any persons became celebrated they were invited. He had a great delight in seeing handsome women. Everybody handsome he made Lady Abercorn invite; and all the guests shot, hunted, rode, or did what they liked, provided they never spoke to Lord Abercorn except at table. If they met him they were to take no notice. At this time, _Thaddeus of Warsaw_ was making a noise. "Gad!" said Lord Abercorn, "we must have these Porters. Write, my dear Lady Abercorn." She wrote. An answer came from Jane Porter, that they could not afford the expense of travelling. A cheque was sent. They arrived. Lord Abercorn peeped at them as they came through the hall, and running by the private staircase to Lady Abercorn, exclaimed, "Witches! my lady. I must be off," and immediately started post, and remained away till they were gone.

Quackery Successful.

Sir Edward Halse, who was physician to King George III., driving one day through the Strand, was stopped by the mob listening to the oratory of Dr. Rock, the famous quack, who, observing Sir Edward look out at the chariot-window, instantly took a number of boxes and phials, gave them to the physician's footman, saying, "Give my compliments to Sir Edward--tell him these are all I have with me, but I will send him ten dozen more to-morrow." Sir Edward, astonished at the message and effrontery of the man, actually took the boxes and phials into the carriage; on which the mob, with one consent, cried out, "See, see, all the doctors, even the King's, buy their medicines of him!" In their young days, these gentlemen had been fellow-students; but Rock, not succeeding in regular practice, had metamorphosed himself into a quack. In the afternoon, he waited on Sir Edward, to beg his pardon for having played him such a trick; to which Sir Edward replied, "My old friend, how can a man of your understanding condescend to harangue the populace with such nonsense as you talked to day? Why, none but fools listen to you."--"Ah! my good friend, that is the very thing. Do you give me the _fools_ for my patients, and you shall have my free leave to keep the people of sense for your own." Sir Edward Halse used to divert his friends with this story, adding, "I never felt so like a fool in my life as when I received the bottles and boxes from Rock."

The Grateful Footpad.

It is related of Jerry Abershawe, the notorious footpad, that on a dark and stormy night in November, after having stopped every passenger on the Wandsworth road, being suddenly taken ill, he stopped at his old haunt, the Bald-faced Stag public-house, when his comrades sent to Kingston for medical assistance, and Dr. William Roots, then a very young man, attended. Having bled him, and given the necessary advice, the doctor was about to return home, when his patient, with much earnestness, said, "You had better, sir, have some one to go back with you, as it is a very dark and lonesome journey." This, however, the doctor declined, observing that he had "not the least fear, even should he meet with Abershawe himself," little thinking to whom he was making this reply. It is said that the footpad frequently alluded to this scene, with much comic humour. His real name was Louis Jeremiah Avershawe. He was tried at Croydon for the murder of David Price, a Union Hall officer, whom he had killed with a pistol-shot, and at the same time wounded a second officer with another pistol. In this case the indictment was invalidated by some flaw; but having been tried and convicted, for feloniously shooting at one Barnaby Turner, he was hung in chains, on Wimbledon Common, in August, 1795.

A Notoriety of the Temple.

Through reverses at law, how many persons has melancholy marked for her own. Miss Flight, the little lady who was always hovering about the courts, and behaving eccentrically, was one of this class, known to Dickens's readers. Doubtless, she was considered a mere pen-and-ink sketch from fancy, but she was a fact, every inch of her. She would, we know, stop the most learned judges that sit on the bench when in full swing of their awful judgment. She would rise and shake her lean weird fist at the embodiment of wisdom in horse-hair, and exclaim, "Oh, you vile man! oh, you wicked man! Give me my property! I will issue a _mandamus_, and have your _habeas corpus_!" And having continued in a like fashion for a minute or two, she would bind up her papers in "red tape"--at least, tape that had once been red, and had followed her dirty fortunes for years--and either subside into the seat granted her beside the barristers or depart triumphant from court. No usher had dared exclaim "Silence!" or send forth the hush of the cackling animal peculiar to that official. No barrister had nudged her under the fourth rib, as he might have done another, and would have done had she been fairer. And the learned Judge, sitting patiently till the end, with a mild perspiration only rising on the tip of the nose to show that he was in any way put out, would then, as if nothing had occurred, resume the thread of his learned judgment, to be appealed against, perhaps, soon after. What the mystery is between Miss Flight and the Bar no one can tell. She may have been the embodiment of a peculiar wrong, and have appeared in the eyes of the bewigged as a sort of ghost threatening the evil doers with the shades. Perhaps she was pensioned merely out of some stray idea of benevolence. We scarcely thought of that in connection with the object of our comment, and yet to a certain extent it may be true, as she received from the right learned Middle Temple a sum of shillings per week, which she added to a sum of shillings received from the right learned Inner Temple, and so she supported life. But why the learned of the law gave something for nothing, and were afraid of and respectful to the little woman, let no man enquire. The little woman's soul has, however, flitted, and we can say that, after all, the few young lawyers who know nought of her history will send after her whither she has gone a word of regret.--_Court Journal._

A Ride in a Sedan.

From a house in Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, the beautiful Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, and the other fair and high-born women who canvassed for Charles James Fox, used to watch the humours of the Westminster election. Pitt writes to Wilberforce on the 8th of April, 1784, "Westminster goes on well, in spite of the Duchess of Devonshire, and the other women of the people; but when the poll will close is uncertain." Hannah More, as appears from the date of her letters, resided at one period in Henrietta Street, and in one of them we find an amusing account of an adventure which she met with during the Westminster election. To one of her sisters she writes:--"I had like to have got into a fine scrape the other night. I was going to pass the other evening at Mrs. Coles's, in Lincoln's Inn Fields. I went in a chair. They carried me through Covent Garden. A number of people, as I went along, desired the man not to go through the garden, as there were an hundred armed men, who suspected every chairman belonged to Brookes's, and would fall upon us. In spite of my entreaties the men would have persisted, but a stranger, out of humanity, made them set me down, and the shrieks of the wounded, for there was a terrible battle, intimidated the chairmen, who were at last prevailed upon to carry me another way. A vast number of people followed me, crying out, 'It is Mrs. Fox: none but Mr. Fox's wife would dare to come into Covent Garden in a chair; she is going to canvass in the dark!' Though not a little frightened, I laughed heartily at this, but shall stir out no more in a chair for some time."

Mr. John Scott (Lord Eldon) in Parliament.

Mr. Scott broke ground in Parliament in opposition to the famous East India Bill, and began with his favourite topic, the honesty of his own intentions, and the purity of his own conscience. He spoke in respectful terms of Lord North, and more highly still of Mr. Fox; but even to Mr. Fox it was not fitting that so vast an influence should be entrusted. As Brutus said of Cæsar--

"---- he would be crown'd!
How that might change his nature,--there's the question."

It was an aggravation of the affliction he felt, that the cause of it should originate with one to whom the nation had so long looked up; a wound from him was doubly painful. Like Joab, he gave the shake of friendship, but the other hand held a dagger, with which he despatched the constitution. Here Mr. Scott, after an apology for alluding to sacred writ, read from the book of Revelation some verses which he regarded as typical of the intended innovations in the affairs of the English East India Company:--"'And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns. And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast; and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him? And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.' Here," says Mr. Scott, "I believe there is a mistake of six months--the proposed duration of the bill being four years, or forty-eight months. 'And he caused all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads.'--Here places, pensions, and peerages are clearly marked out.--'And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the Great'--plainly the East India Company--'is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and the cage of every unclean and hateful bird.'"

He read a passage from Thucydides to prove that men are more irritated by injustice than by violence, and described the country crying out for a respite, like Desdemona--

"Kill me to-morrow--let me live to-night--
But half-an-hour!"

This strange jumble was well quizzed by Sheridan, and Mr. Scott appears to have found out that rhetorical embellishment was not his line; for his subsequent speeches are less ornate.

In the squibs of the period, their obscurity forms the point of the jokes levelled at him. Thus, among the pretended translations of Lord Belgrave's famous Greek quotation, the following couplet was attributed to him:--

"With metaphysic art his speech he plann'd,
And said--what nobody could understand."

A Chancery Jeu-d'Esprit.

Sir John Leach was a famous leader in Chancery in his day; afterwards Vice-Chancellor, and finally Master of the Rolls.

"Nor did he change, but kept in lofty place"

the character assigned to him by Sir George Rose in a _jeu-d'esprit_, the point of which has suffered a little in the hands of Lord Eldon's biographers, Mr. Twiss and Lord Campbell. The true text, we know from the highest authority, ran thus:--

"Mr. Leech
Made a speech,
Angry, neat, and wrong;
Mr. Hart,
On the other part,
Was right, and dull, and long.
Mr. Parker
Made the case darker,
Which was dark enough without;
Mr. Cooke
Cited a book,
And the Chancellor said, 'I doubt.'"

Mr. Twiss good-naturedly suggests that "Parker" was taken merely for the rhyme; but we are assured that this was not so, and that the verses represent the actual order and _identities_ of the argument. By the favour of the accomplished author we are enabled to lay before our readers his own history of this production. "In my earliest years at the Bar, sitting idle and listless rather than listening, on the back benches of the court, Vesey, junior, the reporter, put his notebook into my hand, saying, 'Rose, I am obliged to go away. If anything occurs, take a note for me.' When he returned, I gave him back his notebook, and in it the fair report, in effect, of what had taken place in his absence; and of course thought no more about it. My short report was so far _en règle_, that it came out in _numbers_, though certainly _lege solutis_. It was about four or five years afterwards--when I was beginning to get into business--that I had a motion to make before the Chancellor. Taking up the paper (the _Morning Chronicle_), at breakfast, I there, to my surprise and alarm, saw my unfortunate report. 'Here's a pretty business!' said I; 'pretty chance have I, having thus made myself known to the Court as satirizing both Bench and Bar.' Well, as Twiss truly narrates, I made my motion. The Chancellor told me to 'take nothing' by it, and added, 'and, Mr. Rose, in this case, the Chancellor does not doubt.' But Twiss has not told the whole story. The anecdote, as he left it, conveys the notion of a taunting displeased retaliation, and reminds one of the Scotch judge, who, after pronouncing sentence of death upon a former companion whom he had found it difficult to beat at chess, is alleged to have added, 'And now, Donald, my man, I've checkmated you for ance!'

"If Twiss had applied to me (I wish he had, for Lord Eldon's sake), I might have told him what Lord Eldon, in his usual consideration for young beginners, further did. Thinking that I might be (as I in truth was) rather disconcerted at so unexpected a contretemps, he sent me down a note to the effect that, so far from being offended, he had been much pleased with a playfulness attributed to me, and hoped, now that business was approaching me, I should still find leisure for some relaxation; and he was afterwards invariably courteous and kind; nay, not only promised me a silk gown, but actually--_credite Posteri_--invited me to dinner. I have never known how that scrap (which, like a Chancery suite which it reports, promises to be _sine-final_) found its way into print."--_Note, in the Quarterly Review._

Hanging by Compact.

In 1827, there was recorded in the _London Magazine_ the following strange instance of

"The wearied and most loathed worldly life."

Some few years ago, two fellows were observed by a patrol sitting by a lamp-post in the New Road; and on closely watching them, he discovered that one was _tying up_ the other (who offered no resistance) by the neck. The patrol interfered, to prevent such a strange kind of murder, when he was assailed by both, and pretty considerably beaten for his good offices. The watchmen, however, poured in, and the parties were secured. On examination next morning, it appeared that the men had been gambling; that one had lost all his money to the other, and had at last proposed to stake his clothes. The winner demurred: observing, that he could not strip his adversary naked, in the event of his losing. "Oh," replied the other, "do not give yourself any uneasiness about that. If I lose, I shall be unable to live, and you shall hang me, and take my clothes after I am dead; as I shall then, you know, have no occasion for them." The proposed arrangement was assented to; and the fellow having lost, was quietly submitting to the terms of the treaty, when he was intercepted by the patrol, whose impertinent interference he so angrily resented.

The Ambassador Floored.

Coleridge, in his _Table Talk_, truly says, "What dull coxcombs your diplomatists at home generally are. I remember dining at Mr. Frere's once in company with Canning, and a few other interesting men. Just before dinner, Lord ---- called on Frere, and asked him to dinner. From the moment of his entry, he began to talk to the whole party, and in French, all of us being genuine English; and I was told his French was execrable. He had followed the Russian army into France and had seen a good deal of the great men concerned in the war. Of none of those things did he say a word; but went on, sometimes in English, and sometimes in French, gabbling about cookery, dress, and the like. At last he paused for a little, and I said a few words, remarking how a great image may be reduced to the ridiculous and contemptible by bringing the constituent parts into prominent detail, and mentioned the grandeur of the Deluge, and the preservation of life in Genesis and the _Paradise Lost_, and the ludicrous effect produced by Drayton's description in his _Noah's Flood_:--

"'And now the beasts are walking from the wood,
As well of ravine as that chew the cud,
The king of beasts his fury doth suppress,
And to the Ark leads down the lioness;
The bull for his beloved mate doth low,
And to the Ark brings on the fair-eyed cow.'

"Hereupon, Lord ---- resumed, and spoke in raptures of a picture which he had lately seen of Noah's Ark, and said the animals were all marching two and two, the little ones first, and that the elephants came last in great majesty, and filled up the foreground. 'Ah! no doubt, my Lord,' said Canning; 'your elephants, wise fellows! stayed behind to pack up their trunks!' This floored the ambassador for half-an-hour."

"The Dutch Mail."

When, in 1827, Sir Richard Phillips published his _Personal Tour through the Midland Counties_, he related the following amusing incident:--

"When I was in Nottingham, I fell in with a plain elderly man, an ancient reader of the _Leicester Herald_, a paper which I published for some years in the halcyon days of my youth. Its reputation secured to me many a hearty shake by the hand, accompanied by the watery eye of warm feeling as I passed through the Midland counties. I abandoned it in 1795, for the _Monthly Magazine_ and exchanged Leicester for London. This ancient reader, hearing I was in Nottingham, came to me with a certain paper in his hand, to call me to account for the wearisome hours which an article in it had cost him and his friends. I looked at it and saw it headed 'Dutch Mail,' and it professed to be a column of _original Dutch_, which this honest man had been labouring to translate, for he said he had not met with any other specimen of Dutch. The sight of it brought the following circumstance to my recollection:--

"On the evening before one of our publications, my men and a boy were frolicking in the printing-office, and they overturned two or three columns of the paper _in type_. The chief point was to get ready in some way for the Nottingham and Derby coaches, which at four in the morning required 400 or 500 papers. After every exertion we were short nearly a column, but there stood in the galleys a tempting column of _pie_. Now, unlettered readers, mark--_pie_ is a jumble of odd letters, gathered from the floor, &c., of a printing-office, and set on end, in any manner, to be distributed at leisure in their proper places. Some letters are topsy-turvy, often ten or twelve consonants come together, and then as many vowels, with as whimsical a juxtaposition of stops. It suddenly bethought me that this might be thought 'Dutch,' and, after writing as a head, 'Dutch Mail,' I subjoined a statement that, 'just as our paper was going to press, the Dutch Mail had arrived, but as we had not time to make a translation, we had inserted its intelligence in the original.' I then overcame the scruples of my overseer, and the _pie_ was made up to the extent wanted, and off it went as _original Dutch_, into Derbyshire and _Nottinghamshire_! In a few hours other matter, in plain English, supplied its place for our local publication. Of course all the linguists, schoolmasters, high-bred village politicians, and correspondents of the _Ladies' Diary_, set their wits to work to translate my Dutch, and I once had a collection of letters containing speculations on the subject, or demanding a literal translation of that which appeared to be so intricate. How the Dutch could read it was incomprehensible! My Nottingham _quidnunc_ at times had, for above four-and-thirty years, bestowed on it his anxious attention. I told him the story, and he left me, vowing, that as I had deceived him, he would never believe any newspaper again."

Bad Spelling.[46]

There is a story of a man who borrowed a volume of _Chaucer_ from Charles Lamb, and scandalized the gentle Elia in returning it by the confidential remark, "I say, Charley, these old fellows spelt very badly." We do not know what this precision would have said of the lords and ladies of Morayshire 150 years ago, for, with few exceptions, they spelt abominably. Even Henrietta, Duchess of Gordon, daughter of the celebrated Earl of Peterborough, who writes most sensibly and affectionately to her "deare freind, Mistress Elizabeth Dunbar," is not immaculate in this respect. She talks of a "gownd," is "asured there will be an opportunity," and speaks of "sum wise and nesessary end." But it is a shame of us even to appear to disparage this excellent lady for what was then such a usual infirmity. Her letters are, perhaps, the most worth reading of any in Captain Dunbar's collection, and her literary criticisms on the books she wishes her "deare freind" to read are especially interesting. The gentlemen were, perhaps, still more careless than the ladies in their spelling. Here are a couple of notes, the latter of which is enough to make a modern salmon-fisher's mouth water:--

"Cloavs, Jnr 29, 1703.

"Affectionat Brother,--Cloavs and I shall met you the morou in the Spinle moore, betwixt 8 and nine in the morning, where ye canot miss good sporte twixt that and the sea. ffaile not to bring ane bottle of brandie along, ffor I asheure you ye will lose the wadger. In the mean time, we drink your health, and am your affectionat brother,"

"R. DUNBAR."

"To the Laird off Thunderton--Heast, heast."

"Innes, June 25, 5 at night.

"Sir,--You will not (I hope) be displeased when I tell you that Wat. Stronoch, this forenoon, killed _eighteen hundred Salmon and Grilses_. But it is my misfortune that the boat is not returned yet from Inverness, and I want salt. Therefore by all the tyes of friendship send me on your own horses eight barrels of salt or more. When my boat returns, none, particularly Coxton, shall want what I have. This in great heast from, dear Archie, yours,"

"HARRIE INNES."

"I know not but they may kill as many before 2 in the morning, for till then I have the Raick, and to-morrow the Pott. These twenty years past such a run was not as has been these two past days in so short a time, therefore heast, heast; spare not horse hyre. I would have sent my own horses, but they are all in the hill for peatts. Adieu, dear Archie."

[46] From the _Times'_ review of Captain Dunbar's _Letters_, 1865.

Our ancestors seem to have regarded spelling much as we regard the knowledge of French. It was disgraceful not to have a smattering of it, but exceptional to have mastered it thoroughly. When we compare the above notes, which would not confer much credit on a modern national schoolboy, with a letter written by Duncan Forbes in 1745, we find ourselves in quite a different atmosphere. The Lord President is terribly angry with the Elgin justices for winking at smugglers; but he writes like a scholar and a man of business. While on the subject of spelling, we must select from Captain Dunbar's collection two choice specimens of cacography, a "chereot," and "jelorfis." The reader will probably guess that the former stands for chariot, as cheroots were then unknown, but we defy him to unravel the latter without the context. "Jelorfis" is the phonetic utterance of an unlucky wight who had got into prison for giving a chop to another man's nose, and stands in his vocabulary for "jailer's fees." There are several characteristic letters from the celebrated Lord Lovat, in which his Scottish pawkiness and French courtliness, no unusual mixture early in the eighteenth century, are clearly displayed. This singular personage, who may be described as Nature's outline sketch of a character which she afterwards elaborated in the Bishop of Autun, but who, unlike Talleyrand, had the misfortune to die in his stocking-feet, wrote his letters on gilt-edged paper, enclosed in envelopes, and in these honied words addresses the Dunbar of that day:--

"I am exceeding glad to know that you and your lady are well, and having inquired at the bearer if you had children, he tells me that you have a son, which gives me great pleasure, and I wish you and your lady much joy of him, and that you may have many more, for they will be the nearest relatives I have of any Dunbars in the world, except your father's children; and my relation to you is not at a distance, as you are pleased to call it, it is very near, and I have not such a near relation betwixt Spey and Ness; and you may assure yourself that I will always behave to you and yours as a relation ought to do; and I beg leave to assure you and your lady of my most affectionate regards, and my Lady Lovat's, and my young ones, your little cousins."

Lord Lovat wrote this letter when he was past seventy. Four years later, Dr. Carlyle, of Inveresk, then a mere youth, met him at Luckie Vint's tavern. He describes him as a tall, stately man, with a very flat nose, who, after imbibing a goodly quantity of claret, stood up to dance with Miss Kate Vint, the landlady's niece. Five years later still, his head fell on the scaffold at Tower Hill.[47] Here we may pause to observe a curious instance of traditionary linkage. Dr. Carlyle died within the first decade of this century, so that many persons still living may have conversed with one who had been in company with a man born early in the reign of Charles II. Lovat was not only fond of flattering other people, but liked to be flattered himself also. This he accomplished by the simple expedient of sending self-laudatory puffs to the _Edinburgh Courant_ and _Mercury_, for the insertion of which paragraphs he paid from half-a-crown to four shillings each.

[47] For an account of Lord Lovat's execution, see _Century of Anecdote_, vol. i., p. 124.

A "Single" Conspirator.

About thirty years ago, when those atrocious crimes were committed which made the name of Burke a generic title for certain murders, an old woman entered the shop of a surgeon-apothecary in an Irish county-town and offered to sell him a "subject." He was quite ready to complete the contract, but he desired to learn some details for his guidance as to the value of the object in question, and put to her for this purpose certain queries. Imagine his horror to discover that "the subject" was at that very moment alive, being a boy of nine or ten years of age, but of whom, the bargain being made, the old woman was perfectly prepared to "dispose," she being so far provident as not to bring a perishable commodity to market till she had secured a purchaser. Determined that such atrocity should not go unpunished, he made an appointment with her for another day, on which she should return and more explicitly acquaint him with all she intended to do, and the means by which she meant to secure secrecy. At this meeting--that his testimony should be corroborated--he managed that a policeman should be present, and, concealed beneath the counter, listen to all that went forward. The interview, accordingly, took place; the old woman was true to her appointment, and most circumstantially entered into the details of the intended assassination, which she described as the easiest thing in life--a pitch-plaster over the mouth and a tub of water being the inexpensive requisites of the case. When her narrative, to which she imparted a terrible gusto, was finished, the policeman came forth from his lair and arrested her. She was thrown at once into prison, and sent for trial at the next assizes. Now, however, came the difficulty. For what should she be arraigned? It was not murder--it was still incomplete. It was, therefore, conspiracy to kill; but a single individual cannot "conspire;" and so, to fix her with the crime, it would be necessary to include the surgeon in the indictment. If they wanted to try the old woman, the doctor must share the dock. Now, all the ardour for justice could scarcely be supposed to carry a man so far; the doctor "demurred" to the arrangement, and the old hag was set at liberty.--_Blackwood's Magazine._

A Miscalculation.

We have in England an old story of a luckless wight, who, having calculated he should live a certain number of years, parcelled out his income accordingly; but finding he lived to become penniless, he took to begging, and affixed on his breast a small box to receive contributions, with this brief but significant prayer: "Pray remember a poor man who has lived longer than he thought he should."

In 1843, the counterpart of this strange story really happened in Paris to a man named Jules André Gueret. When twenty-five years of age, he possessed a considerable fortune, and resolved never to marry. He converted his entire estate into hard cash, and, in order not to suffer any losses from failures, depreciation of property, &c., he kept his money in his own possession. He had made the following calculation:--"The life of a sober man extends over a period of seventy years; that of a man who denies himself no kind of amusement may attain fifty-five or sixty; thus the whole of my hopes cannot go beyond that period; at any rate, as a last resort, suicide is at my command." He divided his money into equal portions for each year's expenditure. This division was so nicely arranged, that, at the expiration of the sixtieth year, Gueret would have nothing left, and each year he scrupulously spent the sum set apart. But, alas! he had not reflected on the clinging attachment of man to life, for in 1843, having exceeded the prescribed period, he patiently submitted to his misfortune, and, being then old and infirm, he took his stand on the Quai des Célestins with a small box and a few lucifer-matches, living on the charity of the passers-by. He wore suspended round his neck a piece of pasteboard, on which were written the following lines of his own composing:--

"Ayez pitié, passants, du pauvre André Gueret,
Dont la vie est plus longue, hélas! qu'il ne croyait."

The cholera carried him off at last, to the great regret of the _artistes_ of the Ile St. Louis, whose leisure hours he whiled away by the relation of his youthful recollections. He died in one of the hospitals of Paris.

An Indiscriminate Collector.

In the _Scotsman_, May, 1866, we find the following curious case of eccentricity related as having occurred in the city of Edinburgh: it is strongly tinged with oddity, and would be fairly laughed at did it not present a lamentable instance of waste of means. The details are as follows:--A good many years ago, a gentleman who filled a prominent situation in one of the Edinburgh banks, at a good old age, married his servant. The pair lived happily together for several years, when the gentleman died, leaving by his will 1,000_l._ to his widow, in addition to an annuity of 300_l._ and a mansion, which he had built and elegantly furnished; it is situated in the midst of a garden, surrounded by a high stone wall. Shortly after her husband's death, the widow became notorious for two peculiarities: first, the rigid exclusion of all visitors from her house, the invariable answer to all entreaties to see her being that she was not at home, or could not be seen; the second was her constant attendance at book and most other sales which took place in Edinburgh, where during the season she might daily be seen carrying a large blue bag, in which she deposited and carried home her purchases, which were of the most miscellaneous description. Matters went on thus for some twenty years. On Sunday, May 6, 1866, the old lady, in her usual health, went into her garden to take the air, and, as she did not return so speedily as was her wont, her servant looked out at the main door, when she found her mistress sitting on the stone steps dead. This unexpected event speedily cleared up the mystery which enveloped her domestic relations.

On the house being entered by warrant from the sheriff, it was found converted into a vast magazine for the conservation of the purchases of the last twenty years. The lobby had been decorated with statuary figures, standing, with the pedestals, some eight feet high; but these were totally hidden by piles of books, intermixed with rubbish of every description, heaped up on every side--a narrow passage being left in the centre. Every room in the house was filled with piles of books, rotten mattresses, stuffed dogs, female dresses, made and unmade, cheap jewelry, old bonnets, pictures, and prints, with a great variety of other articles, intermixed with straw, hair, shavings, &c., which covered all the floors to the depth of several feet; and similar piles filled the beds, and lay heaped on every article of furniture in the house. The smell from the mass of festering rubbish was intolerable. Upwards of five tons weight of books had to be removed before the rooms could be inspected. Most of the smaller articles were found tied up in bags or parcels, in the state in which they had been brought home. The deceased, it seems, cleared a hole which she had scooped out amid a vast quantity of rubbish in one of the rooms, and there, on the floor, with only a hair mattress beneath her, the tick of which had rotted away on one side, she took her rest in the dress she daily wore, without blankets or covering of any kind.

The deceased, though a purchaser of books to so large an extent, never read any, nor knew anything of their value; and when asked what were their uses, her answer was that she brought them to present to ministers or the children of her friends. The tenacity with which she preserved the secrets of her prison-house may also be judged of by the fact that her servant, a young Highland girl, had never, though she had been six months in her service, been beyond the walls of the garden. The girl was carefully locked up every time the deceased left the house until her return, and she never was allowed to go out of her mistress' sight.

The Bishops' Saturday Night.

The Reverend Sydney Smith, on the bare suggestion that Lord John Russell's Church Commission should collect the Church revenues, and pay the hierarchy out of them, imagined and described the scene of payment in the following irresistible words:--"I should like to see this subject in the hands of H. B. I would entitle the print,--

"The Bishops' Saturday Night; or,
Lord John Russell at the
Pay-Table."

"The Bishops should be standing before the pay-table, and receiving their weekly allowance; Lord John and Spring Rice counting, ringing, and biting the sovereigns, and the Bishop of Exeter insisting that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has given him one which was not weight. Viscount Melbourne, in high chuckle, should be standing with his hat on, and his back to the fire, delighted with the contest; and the Deans and Canons should be in the background waiting till their turn came, and the Bishops were paid; and among them a Canon of large composition, urging them not to give way too much to the Bench. Perhaps I should add the President of the Board of Trade, recommending the truck principle to the Bishops, and offering to pay them in hassocks, cassocks, aprons, shovel-hats, sermon-cases, and such like ecclesiastical gear."

"Rather Than Otherwise."

Theodore Hook gives somewhere a finished trait of one of those characters who are so dreadfully tenacious of truth, that they will not risk losing their hold of it by a direct answer to the simplest question. A gentleman who was very much in debt had a servant with this sort of scrupulous conscientiousness. He was horribly dunned and in such daily danger of arrest, that the sight of a red waistcoat (which the myrmidons of the sheriff wore in the last century) threw him into a sort of scarlet fever. One day he had reason to believe that during his absence an unpleasant visitor of that description had called, and on returning, he was very particular in his inquiries respecting the persons who had been at the house. His cautious servant partly described one calling who excited his alarm. "What kind of man was he?" The girl could not say. "Had he any papers in his hand?" She did not observe. "Did he wear top-boots?" The cautious housemaid could not charge her memory. At last, as a final effort to satisfy his curiosity, the tantalized debtor gasped out a final question, "Had he," he asked almost dreading the answer, "a red waistcoat?" The girl stood for a moment in an attitude of profound cogitation, and after she had worked up her master to the highest pitch of impatience by delay, drawled out, "Well, sir, I think he had--_rather than otherwise_."

Classic Soup Distribution.

While the Relief Act was in operation in Ireland, in time of famine, one of the committees received the following answer to an advertisement for the post of clerk:--

"Qui Bavium non odit, amet tua carmina, Mævi."

VIRG. _Ecl._ iii., 90.

"Ego sum--I am
Parvus homo--A little man,
Aptus vivere--Fit to live
In quod dabis--On what you'll give;
Per totam diem--And, the whole day,
Familiariter--'In the family way.'
Distribuere--Out to deal
Farinam Indicam--Indian meal,
Aut jus Soyerum--Or Soyer's soup,
Multo agmini--To many a troup,
Mulierum et hominum--Of woman and man
Stanneo vase--With a tin can.
Hoc tibi mitto--I send this in,
(Ne peccatum--No Murtherin' sin,)
Nam locum quæro--For a place I seek,
Ut quaque hebdomada--That every week
Fruar et potiar--We may '_hob and nob_'
Quindecem 'Robertullis'--On Fifteen 'Bob.'"

CAIUS JULIUS BATTUS, Philomath.

"_Ballinahown, v. Prid._ 1 d. Maii, MDCCCLVII."

The Irish paper from which this is taken adds, that the classic candidate was rejected.

Alphabet Single Rhymed.

An eccentric Correspondent of _Notes and Queries_, who signs "Eighty-one," has sent to that journal the following amusing trifle--an Alphabet constructed on a single rhyme:--

"A was an Army, to settle disputes;
B was a Bull, not the mildest of brutes;
C was a Cheque, duly drawn upon Coutts;
D was King David, with harps and with lutes;
E was an Emperor, hailed with salutes;
F was a Funeral, followed by mutes;
G was a Gallant, in Wellington boots;
H was a Hermit, and lived upon roots;
J was Justinian, his Institutes;
K was a Keeper, who commonly shoots;
L was a Lemon, the sourest of fruits;
M was a Ministry--say Lord Bute's;
N was Nicholson, famous on flutes;
O was an Owl, that hisses and hoots;
P was a Pond, full of leeches and newts;
Q was a Quaker, in whitey-brown suits;
R was a Reason, which Paley refutes;
S was a Serjeant, with twenty recruits;
T was Ten Tories, of doubtful reputes;
U was uncommonly bad cheroots;
V vicious motives, which malice imputes;
X an Ex-King, driven out by émeutes;
Y is a Yawn; then the last rhyme that suits,
Z is the Zuyder Zee, dwelt in by coots."

Non Sequitur and Therefore.

Lord Avonmore was subject to perpetual fits of absence of mind, and was frequently insensible to the conversation that was going on. He was wrapped in one of his wonted reveries, and not hearing one syllable of what was passing (it was at a large professional dinner given by Mr. Burke), Curran, who was sitting next to his Lordship, having been called on for a toast, gave, "All our absent friends," patting at the same time Lord Avonmore on the shoulder and telling him he had just drunk his health. Taking the intimation as a serious one, Avonmore rose, and apologizing for his inattention, returned thanks to the company for the honour they had done him by drinking his health.

There was a curious character, Serjeant Kelly, at the Irish bar. He was, in his day, a man of celebrity. Curran used to give some odd sketches of him. His most whimsical peculiarity was his inveterate habit of drawing conclusions directly at variance with his premises. He had acquired the name of _Serjeant Therefore_. Curran said that he was a perfect human personification of a _non sequitur_. For instance, meeting Curran one Sunday, near St. Patrick's, he said to him, "The Archbishop gave us an excellent discourse this morning. It was well written and well delivered: therefore I shall make a point of being at the Four Courts to-morrow at ten." At another time, observing to a person whom he met in the street, "What a delightful morning this is for walking!" he finished his remark on the weather by saying, "therefore, I will go home as soon as I can, and stir out no more the whole day."

His speeches in Court were interminable, and his _therefore_ kept him going on, though every one thought that he had done. The whole Court was in a titter when the Serjeant came out with them, whilst he himself was quite unconscious of the cause of it.

"This is so clear a point, gentlemen," he would tell the jury, "that I am convinced you felt it to be so the very moment I stated it. I should pay your understanding but a poor compliment to dwell on it for a minute; _therefore_, I shall now proceed to explain it to you as minutely as possible." Into such absurdities did the Serjeant's favourite "therefore" betray him.

INDEX.

Abbey, Fonthill, building of, 6

Abershawe, Jerry, gratitude of, 546

Ackermann, the publisher, and William Combe, 474

Adams, Jack, the astrologer of Clerkenwell Green, 130

Advertising for a wife, 95

Agapemone, the, or abode of love, 68

Albemarle, the eccentric Duchess of, 519

Alchemists, modern, 124-29

Alchemy, predictions of, 129

-- revival of, 125, 129

Alcibiades' dog and Henry Constantine Jennings, 107

Alcobaça and Batalha monasteries, 5

Alphabet single rhymed, 565

Ambassador floored, 553

Amen--Peter Isnell, 231

Angelo and Peter Pindar, 471

Anglesey, Marquis of, his leg at Waterloo, 169

Apocalypse, interpretation of, 510

Archbishop, a witty one, 504

Archer, Lady, Account of, 122

Artists, eccentric, 330

Astrology, modern, 136-139

Avonmore, Lord, his absence-of-mind, 566

Bank of Faith, Huntington's, 220

Banks, the eccentric Miss, 80

Banting's cure for corpulence, 256

Barnard's Inn, and Woulfe the alchemist, 126

Baron Ward's remarkable career, 109-112

Bassle, Martin, the calculator, 491

Beckfords, the, and Fonthill, 1-19

Beckford, Alderman, 1

-- -- his Monument speech, 19

-- William, at Bath, 16-18

-- Mozart, and Voltaire, 3

Bees, Wildman's docile, 276

Bentham, Jeremy, bequest of his remains, 166

Bentinck, Lord George, at Doncaster, 299

Berkeley, the Hon. Grantley, his youthful days, 304

Betty, W. H. W., "Young Roscius," 364

Bidder, George, the calculator, 492

Birth, extraordinary, 271

Bishops' Saturday night, 563

Blake, William, painter and poet, 339

-- -- death of, 349

-- -- by Dr. de Boismont, 345

-- -- in Fountain Court, 348

-- -- married, 342

"Blue Key," the, 533

Boaden, Mr., his account of "Young Roscius," 366

"Bolton Trotters," origin of, 319

Bonaparte caricatured by Gilray, 336

"Bonassus," the, and Lord Stowell, 278

Bond, Mrs., of Cambridge Heath, Hackney, 72

Bone and Shell Exhibition, 317

Books, Mr. Heber's collections, 487

Book-collector, Heber, the, 485

Border marriages, 65

Boruwlaski, Count, the Polish dwarf, 258

-- and Bébé, dwarfs, 260

-- buried at Durham, 267

-- and the Empress Maria Theresa, 260

-- introduced to George IV. by Charles Mathews, 264

-- and the Irish giant, 263

-- letter of, 266

-- married, 263

Boyhood of Edmund Kean, 398

Bradshaw, Mr., M.P., and Maria Tree, courtship of, 413

Brandy in tea, 534

Bridgwater, the eccentric Earl of, 103

Bright, the fat miller of Malden, 253

Brighton races thirty years ago, 292

Brothers, the "Prophet," 194

Brougham, Lord, and Father Mathew, 183

Brummel and Aunt Brawn, 34

-- Beau, origin of, 22

-- at Calais and Caen, 31

-- dress of, 24

-- fall of, 30

-- and Madame de Staël, 26

-- mental decay of, 31

-- upon neckcloths, 24

-- portrait of, 22

-- and the Prince of Wales, 22, 26

-- and the snuff-box, 28

Brummel's practical jokes, 25

-- sayings, 32

Bryan, the Marylebone fanatic, 189

Building Fonthill Abbey, 6

Bunn, A., and his mysterious parcel, 400

Burial bequests, 159

Burials on Box Hill and Leith Hill, 163

Burke and Pitt caricatured by Gilray, 334

Busby's Folly and Bull Feather Hall, 525

Buxton, Jedediah, account of, 493

Byron, Lord, and Monk Lewis, 420

Byron's description of Cintra, 4

"Cabbage Cooke," of Pentonville, 86

Calculators, extraordinary, 490

Cambridge Heath, Mrs. Bond's Hut at, 72

Canning, Mr., and the King and Queen of the Sandwich Islands, 57

-- on Grattan's eloquence, 460

-- his humour, 451

-- by Lord Byron, 460

-- and Lord Eldon, 459

-- in office, 456

-- and the present of fustian, 451

-- and Prince Metternich, 454

-- and the "Queen of Spades," 452

-- and his college servant, 457

-- and Sydney Smith, 459

Canning's epitaph on the Marquis of Anglesey's leg, 169

-- _Friend of Humanity_, and _Knife-grinder_, 454

Capon, the scene-painter, 322

"Caraboo, the Princess," 246

-- "Princess," and Napoleon Bonaparte, 248

Caricatures by Gilray, 334

Carlton House Fête and Romeo Coates, 43

Carter Foote, of Tavistock, 114

_Castle Spectre_, Mrs. Powell's mistake, 423

Catching a cayman, 325

Cavendish, Hon. H., his wealth, 135

-- the woman-hating, 134

Chancery _jeu-d'esprit_, 551

Charade by Dr. Whately, 508

Charke, Charlotte, Colley Cibber's daughter, 410

Charnwood Forest, Liston in, 392

Chatham, Lord, and the Beckfords, 2

Chesterfield, Lord, estimate of, 78

-- -- his will, 542

Cibber, Colley, his daughter, 410

Cintra, Beckford's estate at, 4

Clerkenwell, "Lady Lewson," of, 89

"Clown" tavern, the, Sadler's Wells, 527

Club, the Mulberries, Shakspearian, 408

"Coal-heaver," Huntington, 219

Coates, his "Lothario," 42

-- Romeo and Diamond, 41

-- his cockleshell curricle, 42, 43

Cobbett, eccentricities of, 481

-- and Tom Paine's bones, 484

Cobbett's gridiron sign, 482

-- nicknames, 484

-- _Political Register_, 482

-- _Porcupine Papers_, 481

Colburn, Zerah, the calculator, 491

Coleraine, eccentric Lord, 321

Collector, an indiscriminate, 305

Combe, William, author of _Dr. Syntax_, 472

-- -- in the King's Bench Prison, 473

-- -- on lithography, 473

Conspirator, single, 561

Convivial eccentricities, 525

Conyngham family, rise of the, 105

Cooke, Thomas, the Pentonville miser, 82

-- -- the Turkey merchant, 87

Cooke, T. P., in melodrama and pantomime, 404

"Corner Memory Thompson," 238

Corpulence, oddities of, 256

Costume of "Lady Lewson," 90

Cottle Church, account of the, 171

Courtship, luckless, of Sir E. Dering, 59

Crab, Roger, the hermit of Bethnal Green, 153

Cranford Bridge Inn, 307

-- sporting life at, 304

_Crazy Jane_, by Monk Lewis, 423

Cripplegate Vault story, 160

Criticism, rare, 370

"Cunning Mary, of Clerkenwell," 179

Curtis, the Old Bailey eccentric, 312

"Cutting" quarrel of the Prince of Wales and Brummel, 26

Dantlow, the Russian dwarf, 268

Dawson, Daniel, at Doncaster, 296

Day, John, and Fairlop Fair, 280

Dee, Dr., his black stone, 175

Denisons, the, and the Conyngham family, 105

Dering, Sir Edward, his luckless courtship, 59

Devil's Walk, origin of the, 196

Devonshire, Duchess of, and Brummel, 32

-- eccentrics, 113

Dick England the gambler, 290

Dinely, Sir John, advertising for a wife, 95

"Dog Jennings," 107

Doncaster eccentrics, 296

Doran, Dr., his account of William Combe, 474

Dowton in tragedy, 390

-- oddities of, 389

_Dr. Syntax_, the author of, 472

Dress, Brummel's, 24, 30

Duality of the mind, by Dr. Wigan, 232

Dunbar, Captain, his letters, 556

Dunlop's remarks on Mrs. Radcliffe's writings, 476

Dust-sifting and dust-heaps, profits of, 92

"Dutch Mail," the, 554

Dwarfs, organisation of, 268

Eccentrics delight in extremes, 94

Elegy on a geologist, 328

Elliot, the Gretna priest, 66

Elliston at Richmond, 415

England, Dick, the gambler, 290

Epicure, what he eats in his lifetime, 536

Epitaphs, odd, 538

Etching, Gilray's rapid, 338

Executions, taste for witnessing, 314

Fairlop Fair and John Day, 280

Fall of Fonthill Tower, 11

Family, an odd one, 543

Fanatics, a trio of, 189

Farquhar, Mr., and Fonthill, 11

-- -- sketch of, 13

Fat folks, epitaphs on, 257

-- -- Lambert and Bright, 249

Fidge, Dr., his strange death, 161

Finch, Crow, and Raven, and Sir E. Dering, 60

-- Margaret, Queen of the Gipsies, 178

Fire of London cinder heap, 94

Flaxman, letters to, from Blake, 344

Fleet marriage of Miss Pelham and a highwayman, 64

Flight, Miss, of the Temple, 547

Fonthill and the Beckfords, 1

-- cost of, 13

-- destroyed by fire, 2

-- sales at, 10

Fonthill, three houses, 6

-- village, 9

Footpad, the grateful, 546

Fordyce, Dr., the gourmand, 288

-- -- and his patient, 289

Fuller, honest Jack, 165

Funeral of Cooke, the Turkey merchant, 88

-- of Jemmy Hirst, 298

Fuseli and Blake, 349

Gardner, the worm doctor, 161

Garrick, and Dance's portrait of him, 375

-- and Hardham of Fleet Street, 368

-- Mrs., death of, 374

-- -- her funeral, 376

-- -- and Horace Walpole, 377

Garrick's acting described by Munden, 388

Geologist, elegy on a, 328

George III. and Lord Mayor Beckford, 2, 20

George IV. and Mrs. Bond's wealth, 72

German for astronomy, 538

Giant, the Irish, 270

Gilchrist's _Life of Blake_, 339

Gilray and his caricatures, 330

-- caricatures George III., 330

-- in St. James's Street, 332

Gin, on, 536

Golden Ball Tavern, Sadler's Wells, 527

"Goose" Tavern, Islington, 527

Gourmand physician, 288

Green, Hannah, or the "Ling Bob Witch," 139

Greenwich dinner, 539

Gretna Green marriages, history of, 63

-- "Blacksmith" Paisley, 67

-- marriages abolished, 68

-- and its priests, 66

Grimaldi, the clown, account of, 382

Grimaldi finds money, 384

-- old, and "No Popery," 383

Grimaldi's first appearance, 383

-- farewell, 385

Guildhall, the Beckford Monument in, 19

Guy's eccentric inscription and epitaph, 160

Hallucination, strange, 236

Hallucinations, What are they? 232, 233

Hanging by compact, 553

Hardham family, anecdote of, 159

Hardham's "No. 37," 368

Hayley and Blake, 344

Heber the book-collector, 485

Hermit advertised for, 151

-- the Dorset, 150

-- of Hawkstone, 151

-- Leicestershire, 147

-- of Moor Park, 151

-- Pain's Hill, 146

-- near Preston, 146

-- of Selbourne, 150

-- near Stevenage, 152

-- vegetarian, 154

Hermits and eremitical life, 145

-- ornamental, 150

Hill, Rowland, his preaching, 185

_Hindoo Bride_, Monk Lewis's, 418

Hoax, princely, at Brighton, 283

Hood, Thomas, account of, 497

-- -- at school, 497

-- set up in business, 498

-- and Sir Robert Peel, 501

-- death and burial of, 503

Hood's _Epping Hunt_, 499

-- first work, 499

-- ode to Grimaldi, 386

-- _Up the Rhine_, 500

-- various works, 499

Hook, Theodore, hoaxes Romeo Coates, 44

Hopkins, the dwarf, 268

Host, eccentric, 544

House-warming, a costly one, 112

Hull, Richard, buried on Leith Hill, 165

Hunting experiences at Cranford, 308

Huntington buried at Lewes, 228

-- the preacher, sketch of, 219

-- at Hermes Hill, 229

-- marries Lady Sanderson, 226

Huntington's preaching and portrait, 230, 231

-- Bank of Faith, 220

-- effects, sale of, 229

-- leather breeches, 222

-- Providence Chapel, 225

-- spiritual advice, 227

Hutton, William, and "Strong Woman," 274

Hypochondriasis, cure for, 241

-- remarkable, 240

Irving, the Scottish minister, 184

-- a millenarian, 187

Islington, Charles Lamb's cottage at, 494

-- old taverns, 526

Jemmy Hirst at Doncaster, 296

Jerrold, Douglas, at the Mulberries Club, 409

Jerusalem Whalley, account of, 191

Jesse, Captain, his account of Brummel, 24

Kean, Edmund, his boyhood, 398

-- -- undervalued by Dowton, 390

Kellerman, the alchemist, in Beds, 127

Kelly, Serjeant Otherwise, 567

Kemble, Fanny, in the United States, 407

Kemble, John, and the O. P. Riot, 371

Kenyon, Lord, his parsimony, 77

Labelliere, Major, buried on Box Hill, 165

"Lady Lewson," of Clerkenwell, 89

Lamb, Charles, at Munden's last performance, 387

-- -- his cottage at Islington, 494

Lambert, Daniel, and Boruwlaski, the Dwarf, 251

-- -- account of, 249

-- -- his funeral, 253

Lansdown, Bath, Beckford's tomb at, 19

-- Tower, Bath, 13

Laughter, sources of, 520

Legacy to Queen Victoria, 99

Lewis, Monk, account of, 417

-- -- in the West Indies, 421

Liston in a counting-house, 394

-- and Stephen Kemble, 396

-- and Tate Wilkinson, 397

-- in tragedy, 391

Liston's first appearance, 396

Literary madmen, 508