[45] A popular eighteenth-century beverage, composed of wine, orange,
and sugar.
[46] Although Langton is recorded on his college books as having given
the usual £10 for plate, and also as having paid his caution money
in 1757, his name is not down upon the matriculation lists, possibly
because he failed to appear at the moment the entries were being made.
In what must have been his destined space upon one of the pages, Dr.
Ingram made this note: “Q. Num Bennet Langton hic inserendus?”
[47] A boyish fashion of self-entertainment afterwards in great favor
with Shelley.
[48] It is a pleasant thing to remember that it was Langton, always an
appreciator of Goldsmith’s lovable genius, who suggested “Auburn” as
the name for his _Deserted Village_. There is a hamlet called Auborne
in Lincolnshire.
[49] Langton’s sisters are generally spoken of as three in number. But
Burke’s _History of the Landed Gentry_ mentions but two, Diana and
Juliet. There was a younger brother, Ferne, who died in boyhood, and
the floral name, not unlike a girl’s, may have been responsible for the
confusion.
[50] The fruiterer.
[51] The bookseller’s.
[52] Rochester, in his immortal epigram, had said the same of King
Charles II.
[53] This neat descriptive stroke has been attributed also to Richard
Paget.
[54] The register of St. George’s betrays a little eager blunder of
Lady Di’s which is amusing. When the officiating curate asked her to
sign, she wrote “Diana Beauclerk,” and was obliged to cross out the
signature—one knows with what a smile and a flush!—and substitute the
“Diana Spencer” which stands beside it.
[55] Miss Hawkins says “ten,” and may have had the extra adopted child
in mind.
[56] It is a pity he did not live to read the jolly _American Ballad
of Bon Gaultier_, which seems to have a sort of muddled clairvoyant
knowledge of this transaction:
“Every day the huge Cawana Lifted up its monstrous jaws; And it
swallowed Langton Bennet,(!) And digested Rufus Dawes.
“Riled, I ween, was Philip Slingsby Their untimely deaths to hear; For
one author owed him money,(!) And the other loved him dear.”
[57] The church has since been “restored,” and the fine epitaph is now
(1890) “skyed” on the south wall of the nave.
V