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Mrs. Selwyn, bedchamber-woman in waiting, was one day ordered to bid the chaplain, Dr. Madox, afterwards Bishop of Worcester, begin the service. He said archly: "And a very proper altar-piece is here, madam!" Queen Anne had the same custom; and once, ordering the door to be shut while she shifted, the chaplain stopped. The Queen sent to ask why he did not proceed. He replied, "He would not whistle the Word of God through the keyhole."

A FRACAS AT COURT.

Walpole humorously describes the following romping scene: "There has been a great fracas at Kensington: one of the Mesdames [George II.'s daughters] pulled the chair from under Countess Delorane at cards, who, being provoked that her monarch was diverted with her disgrace, with the malice of a hobby-horse, gave him just such another fall. But alas! the monarch, like Louis XIV., is mortal in the part that touched the ground, and was so hurt and so angry, that the Countess is disgraced, and her German rival [Lady Yarmouth] remains in the sole and quiet possession of her royal master's favour."—Letter to Sir Horace Mann, 1742.

DUBLIN SOCIETY.

Malone relates that Lord Chesterfield, when Lord-Lieutenant in Ireland, being asked one day whom he thought the greatest man of the time, said—"The last man who arrived from England, be he who he might." There is some truth in this. Dublin depends a great deal on London for topics of conversation, as every secondary metropolis must; and the last man who arrives from the great scene of action (if of any degree of consequence) is courted as being supposed to know many little particulars not communicated by letters or the public prints. Every person in a distant country-town in England experiences something of this on the arrival of a friend from the metropolis.

LORD CHESTERFIELD'S MISTAKE.

Lord Chesterfield, on being made Secretary of State to George the Second, found a fair young lad in the antechamber at St. James's, who, seeming much at home, the Earl, concluding it was one of the sons of Lady Yarmouth,

the King's mistress, was profuse of attentions to the boy, and more prodigal still of his prodigious regard for his mamma. The shrewd lad received all his Lordship's vows with indulgence, and without betraying himself; at last, he said, "I suppose your Lordship takes me for Master Louis; but Í am only Sir William Russel, one of the pages."

"THOSE GODDESSES, THE GUNNINGS."

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Maria and Elizabeth Gunning, who appeared at the Court of George II-one at the age of eighteen and the other nineteen-were two portionless girls, of surpassing loveliness. "They are declared," writes Walpole, "to be the handsomest women alive they can't walk in the park, or go to Vauxhall, but such crowds follow them, that they are generally driven away." They made more noise than any of their beautiful predecessors since the days of Helen. One day, they went to see Hampton Court: as they were going into the Beauty Room, another company arrived; the housekeeper said, "This way, ladies; here are the beauties." The Gunnings flew into a passion, and asked her what she meant; they went to see the palace, not to be shown as a sight themselves.

The youngest of these fair sisters became the wife of James, Duke of Hamilton: he fell in love with her at a masquerade, and in a fortnight, met her at an assembly made to show Lord Chesterfield's new house. in May Fair. Duke Hamilton made violent love to her at one end of the room, while he was playing faro at the other end: that is, he saw neither the bank nor his own cards, which were of three hundred pounds each; he soon lost a thousand. Two nights after, being left alone with her, while her mother and sister were at Bedford House, the Duke grew so impatient that he sent for a parson. Doctor Keith refused to perform the ceremony without licence or ring; the Duke swore he would send for the Archbishop; at last they were married with a ring of a bed-curtain, at half-an-hour after twelve at night, at May Fair Chapel. In less than three weeks, Maria Gunning followed her sister to the altar, her choice falling on Lord Coventry.

Nothing could exceed the curiosity excited by the beauty of the sisters, which interest was considerably increased by their splendid alliances. When the Duchess of Hamilton

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was presented, the crowd at the drawing-room was so great that even noble persons clambered upon chairs and tables to look at her. There were mobs at their doors to see them get into their chairs; and such crowds flocked to see the Duchess, when she went to her castle, that 700 persons sat up all night in and about an inn in Yorkshire, to see her get into her post-chaise next morning. Lady Coventry was equally run after at Worcester, a shoemaker got two guineas and a half by showing at a penny a head a shoe that he was making for the Countess! She went to Paris, but her Lord, who was grave and ill-bred, would not allow her to wear either red or powder. The Duke of Luxemburg told him he had called up my Lady Coventry's coach; my lord replied, Vous avez fort bien fait. He was jealous, prudish, and scrupulous: once, at a large dinner-party, he coursed his wife round the table, and, suspecting she had stolen on a little red, seized her, and scrubbed her with a napkin. She was weak-minded, and had little or no tact; for her Ladyship it was who told George II. the only sight she was eager to see was a coronation. But the King was only diverted with the awkward blunder.

Lady Coventry died at twenty-seven: the quantity of paint she had laid on her face is said, by checking the perspiration, to have been the immediate cause of the disorder which occasioned her death. Her sister, the Duchess of Hamilton, survived her thirty years.

ROBBERY PANIC

In 1750, when robberies were so frequent in London, that people were almost afraid of stirring out after dark, Miss Pelham left a pair of diamond earrings, which she had borrowed, in a hackney-chair; she had put them under the seat for fear of being attacked, and forgot them. The chairmen sunk them. The next morning, when they were missed, the damsel began to cry; her mother grew frightened, lest her infanta should vex herself sick, and summoned a jury of matrons to consult whether she should give her hartshorn or lavender drops. Mrs. Selwyn, who was on the panel, grew very peevish, and said, "Pho! give her brilliant drops !"

At the same period a lady at a card-party caused great consternation by calling out, at the top of her voice, " Un voleur! un voleur !"-meaning a thief in the candle!

REASONABLE EVASION.

One day it was proposed that the Duchess of Douglas should go to Court, and take advantage of the privilege of the tabouret, or right of sitting on a low stool in the Queen's private chamber, which it was alleged she possessed by virtue of her late husband's ancestors having enjoyed a French dukedom (Touraine), in the fifteenth century. The old lady made all sorts of excuses in her homely way; but when the Laird of Boysack started the theory, that the real objection lay in her Grace's fears as to the disproportioned size of the tabouret for the co-relative part of her figure, he was declared, amidst shouts of laughter, to have divined the true difficulty-her Grace enjoying the joke fully as much as any of them.

JESUIT FLOGGING.

Molinari, a Jesuit of the school at Kensington, had, for corrective purposes, a whip made of strong cord, with knots at regular intervals, with which he used to lash the hands of the scholars in such a way as to make the blood leap from them. It seemed to give him great pain to inflict this chastisement, but he felt the necessity of being severe. He had a very extraordinary method of reconciling the devouter student to this torture. He sentenced him first to nine lashes, and then ordered him to hold out his hand; "Offer it up to God and His saints," he would say, as a sacrifice." He would then select nine saints. The first blow was to be suffered in honour of St. Ignatius,-" Allons, mon enfant, au nom du plus grand de tous les Saints-St. Ignace!" and down went the whip from a vigorous and muscular arm. "Oh! mon

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Dieu!" cried the little martyr, withdrawing his hand after the first operation. "Allons! mon enfant, au nom de St. François Xavier!" and he then inflicted a second laceration upon the culprit. "Mais, mon Père, ayez pitié-jamais, jamais, je ne ferai des solécismes-oh, mon Père, jamais.” The Jesuit was inexorable. “Allons, mon enfant, au nom de St. Louis de Gonzague;" and thus he proceeded till he had gone through his calendar of infliction.

ODD BELIEF.

The only thing talked of (writes Walpole in 1751) is a man who draws teeth with a sixpence, and puts them in again for

a shilling. I believe it; not that it seems probable, but because I have long been persuaded that the most incredible discoveries will be made, and that, about the time, or a little after, I die, the secret will be found out how to live for ever, -and that secret, I believe, will not be discovered by a physician.

GEOGRAPHICAL LAPSUS.

Walpole mentions that when the fanciful Whiston predicted that the world would be burnt in three years, the Duchess of Bolton packed up all her effects, and declared she was off to China, to get out of danger.

DEATH OF FREDERICK, PRINCE OF WALES.

Two men were heard lamenting the Prince's death in Leicester Fields: one said, "He has left a great many small children!"" Ay," replied the other; "but what is worse, they belong to our parish!" But the most extraordinary reflections on his death were set forth in May Fair Chapel: "He had no great parts, but he had great virtues; indeed, they degenerated into vices: he was very generous, but I hear his generosity has ruined a great many people; and then, his condescension was such, that he kept very bad company.",

ROYAL CRITICISM.

Walpole, writing in 1751, says: A certain King (George II.) was last week at the play. The intriguing chambermaid in the farce says to the old gentleman: "You are villainously old; you are sixty-six; you can't have the impudence to think of living above two years." The old gentleman in the stage-box turned about in a passion, and said, "This is d--d stuff."

A MATCH FOR A QUEEN.

After Sir Paul Methuen had quitted Court, Queen Caroline, who thought she had the foolish talent of playing off people, frequently saw him when she dined abroad, during the King's absence at Hanover. Once that she dined with Lady Walpole at Chelsea, Sir Paul was there, as usual. People that

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