manner. When our King had not dropped the folly of calling himself also King "of France," and it was customary at the coronation of an English sovereign to have fictitious Dukes of Aquitaine and Normandy to represent the vassalage of France, Sir Thomas was selected to fill the second mock dignity at the coronation of George III., the last occasion on which the foolish phantoms appeared. Churchill alludes to the circumstance in his "Ghost;" but he assigns a wrong dukedom to Sir Thomas :

"Could Satire not (though doubtful since
Whether the plumber is or prince)
Tell of a simple knight's advance,
To be a doughty peer of France?
Tell how he did a dukedom gain,
And Robinson was Aquitain.'

66

We have said there were two Sir Thomas Robinsons-of whom one was tall and thin, the other short and fat: I can't imagine," said Lady Townshend, "why the one should be preferred to the other; I see but little difference between them; the one is as broad as the other is long."

GROWING TOWARDS OLD.

Walpole, writing in 1767, says: "I have seen and remember so much that my life already appears very long; nay, the first part of it seems to have been a former life, so entirely are the persons worn out who were on the stage when I came into the world. You must consider, as my father was Minister then, that I almost came into the world at three years old. I was ten when I was presented to George the First, two nights before he left England for the last time. This makes me appear very old to myself, and Methuselah to young persons, if I happen to mention it before them. If I see another reign, which is but too probable, what shall I see then? I will tell you an odd circumstance. Nearly ten years ago, I had already seen six generations in one family, that of Waldegrave. I have often seen, and once been in a room with, Mrs. Godfrey, mistress of James II. It is true she doted; then came her daughter the old Lady Waldegrave; her son the ambassador; his daughter, Lady Harriet, her daughter, the present Lady Powis; and she has children who may be married in five or

six years; and yet I shall not be very old if I see two generations more! but if I do I shall be superannuated, for I think I talk already like an old nurse."

[Mr. P. Cunningham, upon this notes: "He (Walpole) had seen the Duchess of Tyrconnell, (Frances Jennings, of De Grammont,) in his father's house at Chelsea, as I gather from the MS. note in his own edition and copy of De Grammont, once in my possession.]

EXTRAVAGANCES OF FASHION.

What an amusing picture of the follies of the early years of the reign of George III. does the following anecdotic gossip by Walpole, writing from Strawberry Hill, May 6, 1770, afford: "What think you of a winter Ranelagh [the Pantheon] erecting in Oxford road, at the expense of 60,000l.? the new bank, including the value of the ground, and of the houses demolished to make room for it, will cost 300,0007.; and erected, as my Lady Townley says, by sober citizens too! I have touched before to you on the incredible profusion of our young men of fashion. I know a younger brother who literally gives a flower-woman half-a-guinea every morning for a bunch of roses for the nosegay in his button-hole. There has lately been an auction of stuffed birds; and as natural history is in fashion, there are physicians and others who paid forty and fifty guineas for a single Chinese pheasant; you may buy a live one for five. After this, it is not extraordinary that pictures should be dear. We have at present three exhibitions. One West, who paints history in the taste of Poussin, gets 3007. for a piece not too large to hang over a chimney. Another rage is for prints of English portraits; I have been collecting them above thirty years, and, originally, never gave for a mezzotinto above one or two shillings, the lowest are now a crown; most from half-aguinea to a guinea. Lately, I assisted a clergyman [Granger] in compiling a catalogue of them; since the publication, scarce heads in books not worth threepence, will sell for five guineas. Then we have Etruscan vases, made of earthenware, in Staffordshire, [by Wedgwood] from two to five guineas; and ormoulu, never made here before, which succeeds so well, that a teakettle, which the inventor offered for one hundred guineas, sold by auction for one hundred and thirty.

In short, we are at the height of extravagance and improvements, for we do improve rapidly in taste as well as in the former. I cannot say so much for our genius. Poetry is gone to bed, or into our prose; we are like the Romans in that too. If we have the arts of the Antonines,—we have the fustian also."

WAITING TO BE HANGED.

A Laird in the north of Scotland, who died some thirty or forty years ago, had as great a penchant for attending executions as the witty George Selwyn, and his local standing would appear to have made his presence at such exhibitions a sine quâ non. On one occasion an unfortunate wretch was about to be "turned off;" the rope was adjusted, and everything was ready. The hangman, however, stood waiting with apparent anxiety, evidently for an addition to the spectators. Being asked why he did not proceed with the business, he replied with a look of surprise at his questioner, "M- (naming the laird) is nae come yet." The hangman's paramount desire to please the local dignitary (who we may suppose he looked upon in the light of a patron) under such circumstances, is fine.-Notes and Queries, No. 106, Third Series.

A DIFFICULTY SOLVED.

Mrs. Rudd, who was tried at the Old Bailey in 1775, for felony, preparatory to her trial sent for some brocaded silks to a mercer; she pitched on a rich one, and ordered him to cut off the proper quantity; but the mercer reflecting that if she were hanged, as was probable, he should never be paid, pretended he had no scissars, but would carry home the piece, cut off what she wanted, and send it to Newgate. She saw his apprehension; pulled out her pocket-book; and, giving him a bank-note of twenty pounds, said, “There is a pair of scissars.”

WHAT HORACE WALPOLE SAW.

When Walpole was near his sixtieth year, he wrote: "As I was an infant when my father became Minister, I came into the world at five years old; knew half the remaining Courts of King William and Queen Anne, or heard them

D

talked of as fresh; being the youngest and favourite child, was carried to almost the first operas, kissed the hand of George the First, and am now hearing the frolics of his great-great-grandson ;-no, all this cannot have happened in one life! I have seen a mistress of James the Second, the Duke of Marlborough's burial, three or four wars; the whole career, victories, and death of Lord Chatham; the loss of America; the second conflagration of London by Lord George Gordon-and yet I am not so old as Methusalem by four or five centuries."

THE TWO PRINCES OF ANAMABOE.

In the London season of 1749, two black princes of Anamaboe were in fashion at all the assemblies. Their story is very much like that of Oroonoko, and is briefly this: A Moorish king, who had entertained, with great hospitality, a British captain trafficking on the coast of Africa, reposed such confidence in him as to intrust him with his son, about eighteen years of age, and another sprightly youth, to be brought to England and educated in the European manners. The captain received them, and basely sold them for slaves. He shortly after died; the ship coming to England, the officers related the whole affair; upon which the Government sent to pay their ransom, and they were brought to England, and put under the care of the Earl of Halifax, then at the head of the Board of Trade, who had them clothed and educated. They were afterwards received in the higher circles, and introduced to the King (George II.) on the 1st of February. In this year they appeared at Covent Garden Theatre, to see the tragedy of Oroonoko, where they were received with a loud clap of applause, which they returned with "a genteel bow." The tender interview between Imoinda and Oroonoko so affected the Prince, that he was obliged to retire at the end of the fourth act. His companion remained, but wept all the time so bitterly, that it affected the audience more than the play.

NOT INFECTIOUS.

Old Lady Rosslyn was at home. Mrs.

·was announced.

When the women were bundling off, "Sit still, sit still," said

old Lady R., "it is na' catching."

DOMESTIC TROUBLE.

There is an odd mixture of complaint and remedy in the following passage from a letter of Walpole to the Countess of Ossory, written from Strawberry Hill: "I am in great distress, with a near relation dying in my house. You have heard me mention Mrs. Daye; they have let her come here from Chichester in the last stage of an asthma and dropsy. I can neither leave her here with only servants, nor know how to convey her back; but I will not disturb your happiness with melancholy stories, Madam. For political mishaps, they are very durable. One loves one's country, but then one takes no more part than comes to the share of an individual; besides, where one has lived a good while, events strike one the less. I have seen my country's barometer up at Minden, and down at Derby. I have worn laurels and crackers, and sackcloth and ashes. At last I am grown like sauntering Jack, and bear revolutions with much philosophy : My billet at the fire is found, Whoever is depos'd or crown'd;

but I go no further; one has grief enough of one's own, without fretting because cousin America has eloped with a Presbyterian parson."

CHALK STONES AND GOUT.

Walpole was a martyr to gout, with deposits of chalk in his fingers; yet, says Hannah More, "neither years nor sufferings can abate the entertaining powers of the pleasant Horace, which rather improve than decay; though he himself says, he is only fit to be a milkwoman, as the chalk-stones on his fingers'-ends quality him for nothing but scoring; but he declares he will not be a Bristol milkwoman"-the Anne Yearsley, who so grossly imposed upon the good Hannah. What exquisite humour is there in his description of his sufferings: "A finger of each hand has been pouring out a hail of chalk-stones and liquid chalk; and the first finger, which I hoped exhausted, last week opened again, and threw out a cascade of the latter, exactly with the effort of a pipe that bursts in the streets; the gout fallowed, and has swelled both hand and arm; and this codicil will cost me at least