It is supposed to have been a hoax-a highly mischievous one, indeed-but the statement was prima facie so improbable, that it was absurd to give it the slightest credit.

Sir James Mackintosh had a very Parson-Adams-like forgetfulness of common things and lesser proprieties, which was very amusing. On his arrival at Bombay, there being no house ready for his reception, the Governor offered his gardenhouse for the temporary accommodation of Sir James and his family, who were so comfortable in their quarters, that they forgot to quit, month after month, till a year had elapsed, when the Governor took forcible possession of his own property. Again, Sir James and his lady, on requesting to inspect the seat of Lord Melville, in Perthshire, were invited to stay two or three days, which were protracted to as many months, till every species of hint was thrown away upon them.

Mackintosh, at his first arrival in London, in the year 1783, lodged with Fraser, a wine-merchant, in Clipstonestreet, Fitzroy-square. Sir James died in No. 15, Langhamplace, Regent-street, May 30, 1832, through a small portion of the breast-bone of a chicken lodging in his throat-his health having been long debilitated from the effects of his residence in India. His learning was abundant; but he wanted method and elegance, which led an ill-natured political opponent to liken him to "a half-polished Scotch pebble."

THE SIDMOUTH PEERAGE.

The foundation of the Sidmouth Peerage is traceable to one of those fortunate turns which have much to do with worldly success. It is related that while Lord Chatham was residing at Hayes, in Kent, his first coachman being taken ill, the postillion was sent for the family doctor; but not finding him, the messenger returned, bringing with him Mr. Addington, then a practitioner in the place, who, by permission of Lord Chatham, saw the coachman, and reported his ailment. His lordship was so pleased with Mr. Addington, that he employed him as apothecary for the servants, and then for himself; and, Lady Hester Stanhope tells us, "finding he spoke good sense on medicine, and then on politics, he at last made him his physician." Dr. Addington subsequently practised in the metropolis, then retired to Reading,

and there married; and in 1757 was born his eldest son, Henry Addington, who was educated at Winchester and Oxford, and called to the bar in 1784. Through his father's connexion with the family of Lord Chatham, an intimacy had grown up between young Addington and William Pitt when they were boys. Pitt was now First Minister of the Crown, and through his influence Addington entered upon his long political career, and became in very few years Prime Minister of England: his administration was brief; but he was raised to the peerage in 1805, and held various offices until 1824, when he retired. Lord Sidmouth was an unpopular minister, and not a man of striking talent; but his aptitude for official business was great. He came in for much of the satire of the day upon the Tory Administration, to which, in evil days, he was attached. He was familiarly called "the Doctor, partly from his father's profession, and partly from his having himself prescribed for George III., in his illness of 1801, a pillow of hops as a soporific. This gave Canning the opportunity of calling him the Doctor, and George Cruikshank, pari passu, the caricaturing of him in the prints of Hone's clever political squibs, with a clyster-pipe hanging out of his pocket.

Family reputation generally proves an insecure stock to begin the world with: the Chatham and Sidmouth families exemplify the reverse of this observation. Nevertheless, there is much truth in the experience of Lord Mahon (now Earl Stanhope), who says: "In public life I have seen full as many men promoted for their father's talents as for their

When Lord Erskine heard that somebody had died worth 200,000., he observed, "Well, that's a very pretty sum to begin the next world with."

"A friend of mine," said Erskine, "was suffering from a continual wakefulness, and various methods were tried to send him to sleep, but in vain. At last his physicians resorted to an experiment which succeeded perfectly: they dressed him in a watchman's coat, put a lantern into his hand, placed him in a sentry-box, and he was asleep in ten minutes."

To all letters soliciting his "subscription" to anything, Erskine had a regular form of reply; viz.: "Sir, I feel much honoured by your application to me, and I beg to subscribe" -here the reader had to turn over the leaf-" myself your very obt. servant," &c.

Erskine used to relate to Mr. Rogers many anecdotes of his early life with much spirit and dramatic effect. He had been in the navy, and he said that he once managed to run a vessel between two rocks, where it seemed almost impossible that she could have been driven. He had also been in the army; and on one occasion saved the life of a soldier who was condemned to death, by making an earnest appeal in his behalf to the general in command and his wife. Erskine, having got the pardon, rode off with it at full speed to the place of execution, where he arrived just as the soldier was kneeling, and the muskets were levelled for the fatal shot.

When he had a house at Hampstead he entertained the best company. Mr. Rogers says: "I have dined there with the Prince of Wales-the only time I ever had any conversation with his Royal Highness. On that occasion the Prince was very agreeable and familiar. Among other anecdotes which he told us of Lord Thurlow, I remember these two: -The first was, Thurlow once said to the Prince, “Sir, your father will continue to be a popular King as long as he continues to go to church every Sunday, and to be faithful to that ugly woman your mother; but you, Sir, will never be popular.' The other was this:-While his servants were carrying Thurlow up-stairs to his bedroom, just before his death, they happened to let his legs strike against the banisters, upon which he uttered—the last words he ever spoke -a frightful imprecation on "all their souls."

CHANCELLOR'S CHURCH PATRONAGE.

When Erskine was made Lord Chancellor, Lady Holland never rested till she prevailed on him to give Sydney Smith, her father, a living (Foston-le-Clay, in Yorkshire). Smith went to thank him for the appointment. "Oh !" said Erskine, "don't thank me, Mr. Smith. I gave you the living because Lady Holland insisted on my doing so; and

if she had desired me to give it to the devil, he must have had it."

Lord Chancellor Thurlow, on reading Horsley's Letters to Dr. Priestley, at once obtained for the author a Stall at Gloucester, saying that "those who supported the Church should be supported by it."

OPPOSITION TO GAS LIGHTING.

Miss Martineau in her History of England during the Thirty Years' Peace, thus vividly paints the difficulties which beset the introduction of this great social invention.

"The brilliantly-lighted, carefully-watched, safe, orderly, and tranquil London of the present day, presents as great a contrast to the London of 1816, as that again, contrasted with the London of 1762-the year in which the Westminster Paving and Lighting Act was passed. Street-robberies, before that period, were the ordinary events of the night. For half a century after this the metropolis had its comparative safety of feeble oil-lamps and decrepid watchmen. The streets were filled with tumultuous vagabonds; and the drowsy guardians of the night suffered every abomination to go on in lawless vigour, happy if their sleep were undisturbed by the midnight row of the drunken rake. In 1807 Pall-Mall was lighted by gas. The persevering German (Winsor,) who spent his own money and that of the subscribers to his scheme, had no reward. The original gas company, whose example was to be followed not only by all England, but the whole civilized world, were first derided, and then treated in Parliament as rapacious monopolists. We turn to the Debates, and we see how they were encouraged in 1816-nine years after it had been found that the invention was of unappreciable public benefit: 'The company,' said the Earl of Lauderdale, 'aimed at a monopoly, which would ultimately prove injurious to the public, and ruin that most important branch of trade, our whale fisheries.' Alderman Atkins, 'contended that the measure was calculated to ruin that hardy race of men, the persons employed in the Southern and Greenland whale-fisheries, in each of which a million of money and above a hundred ships were engaged. If the Bill were to pass, it would throw out of employ ten thousand seamen, and above ten thousand ropemakers, sailmakers, mastmakers,

&c., connected with that trade.' At every step of scientific discovery which promises to impart new benefits to mankind, however certain and unquestionable be the benefit, we are called upon to maintain the ancient state of things, amidst the terrible denunciations of ruin to some great interest or other. There never was a nation doomed to such perils by the restless character of its people. They will not let well enough alone, as the only wise men say. In 1816 they risked the existence of the British navy, which depended upon the whale-fisheries, for the trifling advantage of making London as light by night as by day, and bestowing safety and peacefulness upon its million of inhabitants. And yet, at the very moment that this ruin was predicted to oil, it was admitted that we could not obtain a sufficiency of oil."

To these facts may be added another anecdotic testimony. When Winsor first applied to Parliament to charter a company, to light the streets, the testimony of Accum, the chemist, in favour of the practicability of gas-lighting was bitterly ridiculed by Mr. William Brougham; and Sir Humphry Davy, then President of the Royal Society, asked the inventors, "if it were intended to take the dome of St. Paul's for a gasometer."

Soon after the establishment of the first gas-works at Westminster, 1810-12, an extensive explosion took place on the premises, when a Committee of the Royal Society, was, by request of the Government, appointed to investigate the cause of the catastrophe. They met several times at the gas-works to examine the apparatus, and made a very elaborate Report, in which they stated as their opinion, that if gas-lighting was to become prevalent, the gas-works ought to be at a considerable distance from all buildings; and that the reservoirs should be small and numerous, and always separated from each other by mounds of earth, or strong party-walls!

THE BOMBARDMENT OF ALGIERS.

There is, perhaps, nothing in the history of warfare more terrific in its consequences than the first broadside that the British fired at Algiers, in 1816. On the morning of August 27, as Lord Exmouth, with the British fleet, was nearing Algiers, his Lordship despatched his interpreter, Mr. Salamé, with two letters, one for the Dey, the other for the British