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:--