him say that all men had their prices; and I believe no such expression ever came from his mouth."

Lord Brougham, also, doubts whether the above words were ever used by Walpole; or, if used, whether they are properly interpreted. "His famous saying that 'all men have their price," said Lord Brougham, "can prove nothing unless 'price' be defined; and if a large and liberal sense is given to the word, the proposition more resembles a truism than a sneer, or an ebullition of official philanthropy. But it has been positively affirmed that the remark was never made; for it is said that an important word is omitted, which wholly changes the sense; and that Walpole only said, in reference to certain actions or profligate adversaries, and their adherents resembling themselves, "all these men have their price." (Coxe's Life of Walpole, vol. i. p. 757.) His general tone of sarcasm, when speaking of patriotism and political gratitude, and others of the more fleeting virtues, is well-known. "Patriots," he said, “are easily raised; I have myself made many a one. 'Tis but to refuse an unreasonable demand, and up springs a patriot!" So the gratitude of political men he defined to be a lively sense of favours to come."

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"DOWNRIGHT SHIPPEN."

Some notion of the free use made in Shippen's days of the current coin as a political agent, may be gathered from the fact which Shippen himself related to the celebrated Dr. Middleton. The Prince of Wales, to justify his satisfaction with a speech which the sturdy old Jacobite had made, sent him 1,000l. by General Churchill, Groom of his Bedchamber. Shippen refused it. That Sir Robert Walpole himself had known of similar attempts made on Shippen's virtue by the Hanoverian party, is pretty evident from his well-known saying respecting that honest man, quoted in the preceding page.

A VISIT FROM THE PRETENDER.

Dr. King, in his volume of Political and Literary Anecdotes of his own Times, relates some interesting particulars of the short visit of the Pretender to England, in 1750, when he only stayed in London five days. Dr. King had some long conversations with him here, and for some years after held a constant correspondence with him, not, indeed, by letters, but

by messengers, not couriers, but "gentlemen of fortune, honour, and veracity." The Doctor describes the Pretender as tall and well-made, but stooping a little. "He has an handsome face and good eyes; I think his busts, which about this time were commonly sold in London, are more like him than any of his pictures which I have yet seen." Dr. King then relates, in a note, the following corroboration of the striking resemblance of the bust. "He (the Pretender) came one evening to my lodgings and drank tea with me: my servant, after he was gone, said to me, that he thought my new visitor very like Prince Charles. Why,' said I, 'have you ever seen Prince Charles?' 'No, sir,' replied the fellow, but this gentleman, whoever he may be, exactly resembles the busts which are sold in Red Lion-street, and are said to be the busts of Prince Charles.' The truth is, these busts were taken in plaster of Paris from his face."

Dr. King relates that as to Prince Charles's religion, “He is certainly free from all bigotry and superstition, and he would readily conform to the religion of the country. With the Catholics he is a Catholic; with the Protestants he is a Protestant; and to convince the latter of his sincerity he often carried an English Common Prayer-book in his pocket." He also once selected a nonjuring minister to christen one of his illegitimate children. The Prince was very avaricious: Dr. King knew him, with 2,000 louis d'ors in his strong box, pretend he was in great distress, and borrow money from a lady in Paris, who was not in affluent circumstances.

THE PRETENDER'S HEALTH.

When Lord Mansfield (then Mr. Murray) was examined before the Privy Council, about the year 1747, for drinking the Pretender's health on his knees (which he certainly did), it was urged against him, among other things, to show how strong a well-wisher he was to the cause of the exiled family, that, when he was employed as Solicitor-General against the rebels who were tried in 1746, he had never used that term, but always called them unfortunate gentlemen. When he came to his defence he said the fact was true; and he should only say that "he pitied that man's loyalty who thought that epithets could add to the guilt of treason!"- -an admirable instance of a dexterous and subtle evasion.

CONFERRING THE GARTER.

Two of our sovereigns appear to have shown ill manners and temper in conferring the insignia and decorations of this noble order. George the Second, who strongly disliked Lord Temple, "Squire Gawkey," as he was nicknamed, was compelled by political arrangements, very repugnant to his feelings, to invest that nobleman with the Order of the Garter; when the king took so little pains to conceal his aversion both to the individual and to the act, that, instead of placing the riband decorously over the shoulder of the new knight, his Majesty, averting his head, and muttering indistinctly some expressions of dissatisfaction, threw the riband across him, and turned his back at the same instant in the rudest manner. George the Third exerted more restraint over his passions than did his grandfather, yet even he could be illtempered. When he invested the Marquis Camden with the Garter, he showed much ill-humour in his countenance and manner. However, as he knew the ceremony must be performed, Mr. Pitt having pertinaciously insisted upon it, the king took the riband in his hand, and turning to the Duke of Dorset, the assistant knight-companion, before the new knight approached, asked him if he knew Lord Camden's Christian name. The duke, after inquiring, informed him that it was John Jeffreys. What, what!" said the king, "John Jeffreys! the first Knight of the Garter, I believe, that was ever called John Jeffreys;" the king not considering his descent sufficiently illustrious.

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In 1782, at the time of Lord North's resignation, there were on the king's table four Garters unappropriated, which the new ministers naturally considered as lawful plunder. One only of the number fell to the share of the sovereign, which he was allowed, though not without some difficulty, to confer on his third son, Prince William Henry, afterwards King William IV. The Duke of Devonshire, as head of the Whig party, was invested with one blue riband, and the Duke of Richmond with another. Lord Shelburne took for himself, as was to be expected, the fourth Garter. At the investment never did three men receive the Order in so dissimilar and characteristic a manner. The Duke of Devonshire advanced up to the sovereign, with his phlegmatic, cold, and awkward air, like a clown. Lord Shelburne came forward, bowing on

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every side, smiling and fawning like a courtier. The Duke of Richmond presented himself, easy, uneinbarrassed, and with dignity, like a gentleman.

POLITICAL INFAMY.

There are several degrees of infamy, but none beyond that of one Digges, a political hack, who was so infamous a fellow, that Dr. Franklin said of him, "If Digges was not damned, the devil would be useless."

A TRIFLING MISTAKE.

In the House of Peers, during the examination of the magistrates of Edinburgh, touching the particulars of the Porteous Mob, in 1736, the Duke of Newcastle having asked the Provost with what kind of shot the town-guard, commanded by Porteous, had loaded their muskets, received the unexpected reply, "Ou, just sic as ane shoots dukes and fools wi'!" The answer was considered as a contempt of the House of Lords, and the poor Provost would have suffered from misconception of his patois, had not the Duke of Argyle (who must have been exceedingly amused) explained that the worthy chief magistrate's expression, when rendered into English, meant to describe the shot used for ducks and waterfowl.

SCOTTISH CONCEIT.

In the time of the Rebellion of 1745, Duke Hamilton was extolling Scotland to William the Third, to such a length, that the King could no longer bear it. "My Lord," said his Majesty, "I only wish it was a hundred thousand miles off, and that you was king of it.”

TIT FOR TAT.

At the stormy Westminster election, in 1750, a chairmaker, having voted for Lord Trentham, the Prince of Wales sent one of his servants to the man to say that the Prince would employ him no more. "I am going to bid another person make his Royal Highness a chair." "With all my heart," said the chairmaker; "I don't care what they make him, so they don't make him a throne."

STICKING TOGETHER.

How genially the Scotch stick together in spite of their religious differences in the last century is illustrated in the following incident: Stirling, of Keir, and some other gentlemen, were tried for high treason in Edinburgh in 1708. They were charged with drinking the health of the Pretender, plotting a French invasion, and encouraging insurrection. They escaped through the hard swearing of the witnesses brought against them, one of these being Stirling's own servant, who without any direction from his master had managed to swear very neatly in his favour. Riding home from the trial, Stirling turned about in mere curiosity, and asked the servant whether he had really forgotten certain occurrences. "I ken very weel what you mean, laird," was the man's reply, "but my mind was clear to trust my saul to the mercy o' Heaven rather than your honour's body to the mercy o' the Whigs."

FRENCH AND ENGLISH.

Dean Ramsay relates that during the long French war, two old ladies in Stranraer were going to the kirk, when one said to the other, "Was it no' a wonderful thing that the Breetish were aye victorious over the French in battle?" Not a bit," said the other old lady, "dinna ye ken the Breetish aye say their prayers before gaen into battle?" The other replied, "But canna the French say their prayers as weel?" The reply was most characteristic, "Hoot! jabbering bodies, who could understan' them?"

SCOTTISH INDEPENDENCE.

The Earl of Buchan (David Stuart Erskine), who died in his eighty-eighth year, in 1829, was, in his early years, taken by the hand by Mr. Pitt-but upon a subsequent occasion, when an election of Scotch Peers took place, his lordship having, like the other Peers, received a government circular letter, naming the individuals to be elected, he retired from public life, considering this letter an insult to the peerage of Scotland, and upon that occasion wrote a letter to the minister, in which is this remarkable sentence: "If the