Part 66

The writer also remembers a dinner at the Ship, where there were a good many ladies, and when D'Orsay was of the party, during which his attention was directed to a centre pane of glass in the bay window over the Thames, where some one had written in large letters with a diamond, D'Orsay's name in improper conjunction with a celebrated German danseuse then fulfilling an engagement at the Opera. With characteristic readiness and sang-froid, he took an orange from a dish near him, and making some trifling remark on the excellence of the fruit, tossed it up once or twice, catching it in his hand again. Presently, as if by accident, he gave it a wider cant, and sent it through the window, knocking the offensive words out of sight into the Thames.

Lord Pembroke's Port Wine.

Lord Palmerston (who, when in office, was accustomed to employ his pleasantries as paratonnerres for troublesome visitors), one day related the following anecdote to a deputation of gentlemen who waited upon him to urge the reduction of the Wine-duties. Referring to the question of adulterations, "I remember," said his lordship, "my grandfather, Lord Pembroke, when he placed wine before his guests, said--'There, gentlemen, is my champagne, my claret, &c. I am no great judge, and I give you this on the authority of my wine-merchant; but I can answer for my port, for I made it myself.' I still have his receipt, which I look on as a curiosity; but I confess I have never ventured to try it."

The following is Lord Pembroke's veritable receipt:--Eight gallons of genuine port wine, forty gallons of cider, brandy to fill the hogsheads. Elder-tops will give it the roughness, and cochineal whatever strength of colouring you please. The quantity made should not be less than a hogshead: it should be kept fully two years in wood, and as long in bottle before it is used.

A tremendous Bowl of Punch.

We find the following recorded upon the sober authority of the veteran Gentleman's Magazine:--

On the 25th of October, 1694, a bowl of punch was made at the Right Hon. Edward Russell's house, when he was Captain-General Commander-in-Chief of his Majesty's forces in the Mediterranean Sea. It was made in a fountain in a garden in the middle of four walks, all covered overhead with orange and lemon-trees; and in every walk was a table, the whole length of it covered with cold collations, &c. In the said fountain were the following ingredients, namely:--

4 hogsheads brandy. 25,000 lemons. 20 gallons lime-juice. 1,300 weight of fine white Lisbon sugar. 5lbs. grated nutmegs. 300 toasted biscuits. One pipe of dry mountain Malaga.

Over the fountain was a large canopy to keep off the rain, and there was built on purpose a little boat, wherein was a boy belonging to the fleet, who rowed round the fountain and filled the cups for the company; and, in all probability, more than 6,000 men drank thereof.

MISCELLANEA.

Long Sir Thomas Robinson.

There were two Sir Thomas Robinsons alive at the same time. The one above mentioned was called Long as a distinguishing characteristic. Some one told Lord Chesterfield that Long Sir Thomas Robinson was very ill. "I am sorry to hear it."--"He is dying by inches."--"Then it will be some time before he dies," was the answer.

One of Sir Thomas Robinson's freaks was to go to Paris in his hunting suit, wearing a postilion's cap, a tight green jacket, and buckskin breeches. In this strange dress he joined a large company at dinner; when a French abbé, unable to restrain his curiosity, burst out with, "Excuse me, sir, are you the famous Robinson Crusoe so remarkable in history?"

Lord Chesterfield's Will.

The will of the celebrated Lord Chesterfield contains this prelude:--"Satiated with the pompous follies of this life, of which I have had an uncommon share, I would have no posthumous ones displayed at my funeral, and therefore desire to be buried in the next burying-place to the place where I shall die, and limit the whole expense of my funeral to 100l." Shortly after comes the following clause:--"The several devises and bequests hereinbefore and hereinafter given by me to and in favour of my said godson, Philip Stanhope, shall be subject to the condition and restriction hereinafter mentioned--that is to say, that in case my said godson, Philip Stanhope, shall at any time hereafter keep or be concerned in the keeping of any race-horse or race-horses, or pack or packs of hounds, or reside one night at Newmarket, that infamous seminary of iniquity and ill-manners, during the course of the races there, or shall resort to the said races, or shall lose in any one day at any game or bet whatsoever the sum of 500l., then, and in any of the cases aforesaid, it is my express will that he, my said godson, shall forfeit and pay out of my estate the sum of 5,000l. to and for the use of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, for every such offence or misdemeanour as is above specified, to be recovered by action for debt in any of his Majesty's courts of record at Westminster." The will entails a similar penalty on the letting of Chesterfield House. The late Lord Chesterfield, who was son of the man on whom these liabilities were imposed, certainly let Chesterfield House; and had, we will venture to say, passed some nights at the "infamous seminary of iniquity and ill-manners." His ancestor vested the infliction of the penalty in the reverend hands of the Dean and Chapter, to mark, by a sort of Parthian dart, his sense of the grasping spirit he considered they had evinced in their dealings with him respecting the land on which his house was built, and to show what a rigid enaction of the penalty imposed he anticipated from such sharp practitioners.

An Odd Family.

In the reign of William III., there resided at Ipswich a family which, from the number of peculiarities belonging to it, was distinguished by the name of the "Odd Family." Every event remarkably good or bad happened to this family on an odd day of the month, and every member had something odd in his or her person, manner, or behaviour. The very letters in their Christian names always happened to be an odd number: the husband's name was Peter, and the wife's name Raboh: they had seven children, all boys, viz. Solomon, Roger, James, Matthew, Jonas, David, and Ezekiel: the husband had but one leg, his wife but one arm: Solomon was born blind of one eye, and Roger lost his sight by accident; James had his left ear bit off by a boy in a quarrel, and Matthew was born with only three fingers on his right hand; Jonas had a stump foot, and David was hump-backed. All these, except the latter, were remarkably short, while Ezekiel was six feet one inch high at the age of nineteen; the stump-footed Jonas and the hump-backed David got wives of fortune, but no girls in the borough would listen to the addresses of their brothers. The husband's hair was as black as jet, and the wife's remarkably white; yet every one of the children's hair was red. The husband was killed by accidently falling into a deep pit in the year 1701; and his wife refusing all kinds of sustenance, died five days after him, and they were buried in one grave. In the year 1703, Ezekiel enlisted as a grenadier; and although he was afterwards wounded in twenty-three places, he recovered. Roger, James, Matthew, Jonas, and David, it appears by the church registers, died in different places, and were buried on the same day, in the year 1713; and Solomon and Ezekiel were drowned together in crossing the Thames in the year 1723. Such a collection of odd circumstances never occurred before in one family.--Clarke's Account of Ipswich.

An Eccentric Host.

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.