excellent. The Prince was delighted, told some of his best stories, quoted Shakspeare, and felicitously declared the bouquet of the wine as suited "to the holy Palmer's kiss." Lord Yarmouth alone sat in moody silence; on being asked the cause, he said that he had drunk a claret which he much preferred at His Royal Highness' table. The Prince ordered a bottle of this wine to be served with anchovy sandwiches ; and His Royal Highness declared his own wine superior to Palmer's, adding that he should try to obtain a better wine from his estate. Palmer came from Carlton House much mortified; on Sir Thomas Tyrrwhitt attempting to console him, saying that it was the anchovies that had spoiled the taste of the connoisseurs, the General said, loudly enough to be heard by Lord Yarmouth, "No; it was the confounded red-herrings." Palmer took the advice of the Prince, rooted out his old vineș, and planted new ones, at an immense cost, but with little or no result. He and his agent got into difficulties, mortgaged the property, and were eventually ruined; the General sold his commission, passed through the Insolvent Court, and was at last seen begging in the streets of London, so strongly had the tide of misfortune set in against him.

"TIPPING THE COLD SHOULDER."

Mr. Lockhart, in his admirable Life of his father-in-law, relates that many years ago, when the wealthy Mrs. Coutts visited Sir Walter Scott at Abbotsford, it so happened that there were already in the house several ladies, Scotch and English, of high birth and rank, who felt by no means disposed to assist their host and hostess in making Mrs. Coutts's visit agreeable to her. On the first day of her stay, Sir Walter Scott, during dinner, did everything in his power to counteract this influence of the evil eye, and something to overawe it; but the spirit of mischief had been fairly stirred, and it was easy to see that Mrs. Coutts followed these noble dames to the drawing-room in by no means that complacent mood which was customarily sustained, doubtless, by every blandishment of obsequious flattery in this mistress of millions. He cut the gentlemen's sederunt short, and soon after joining the ladies, managed to withdraw the youngest, and gayest, and cleverest, who was also the highest in rank (a lovely Marchioness), into his armorial-hall adjoining. He

said to her, "I want to speak a word with you about Mrs. Coutts. We have known each other a good while, and I know you won't take anything I can say in ill part. It is, I hear, not uncommon among the fine ladies in London to be very well pleased to accept invitations, and even sometimes to hunt after them, to Mrs. Coutts's grand balls and fêtes, and then, if they meet her in any private circle, to practise on her the delicate manœuvre called tipping the cold shoulder. This you agree with me is shabby; but it is nothing new either to you or to me, that fine people will do shabbinesses for which beggars might blush, if they once stoop so low as to poke for tickets. I am sure you would not for the world do such a thing; but you must permit me to take the great liberty of saying, that I think the style you have all received my guest, Mrs. Coutts, in, this evening, is, to a certain extent, a sin of the same order. You were all told, a couple of days ago, that I had accepted her visit, and that she would arrive to-day to stay three nights. Now, if any of you had not been disposed to be of my party at the same time with her, there was plenty of time for you to have gone away before she came; and as none of you moved, and it was impossible to fancy that any of you would remain out of mere curiosity, I thought I had a perfect right to calculate on your having made up your minds to help me out with her." The beautiful Peeress answered, "I thank you, Sir Walter; you have done me the great honour to speak as if I had been your daughter, and depend upon it you shall be obeyed with heart and good-will." One by one, the other exclusives were seen engaged in a little tête-à-tête with her Ladyship. Sir Walter was soon satisfied that things had been put into a right train; the Marchioness was requested to sing a particular song, because he thought it would please Mrs. Coutts. "Nothing could gratify her more than to please Mrs. Coutts." Mrs. Coutts's brow smoothed, and in the course of half an hour she was as happy and easy as ever she was in her life, rattling away at comic anecdotes of her early theatrical years, and joining in the chorus of Sir Adam's "Laird of Cockpen." She stayed out her three days-saw, accompanied by all the circle, Melrose, Dryburgh, and Yarrow-and left Abbotsford delighted with her host, and, to all appearance, with his other guests.

LORD PETERSHAM.

This eccentric nobleman, who was the eldest son of Charles, third Earl of Harrington, was a leader of fashion some thirty years since he was tall and handsome: according to Captain Gronow, Lord Petersham very much resembled the pictures of Henry IV. of France, and frequently wore a dress not unlike that of the celebrated monarch. He was a great patron of tailors, and a particular kind of great-coat was called after him a "Petersham." When young, he used to cut out his own clothes; he made his own blacking, which, he said, would eventually supersede every other. He was also a connoisseur in snuff, and one of his rooms was fitted up with shelves and beautiful jars for various kinds of snuff, with the names in gold. Here were also implements for moistening and mixing snuffs, and "Lord Petersham's mixture" is to this day a popular snuff. He possessed a fine collection of snuff-boxes, and it was said, a box for every day in the year. Captain Gronow saw him using a beautiful Sevrès box, which, on being admired, he said, was "a nice summer box, but would not do for winter wear." He was equally choice of his teas, and in the same room with the snuffs, upon shelves, were placed tea-canisters, containing Congou, Pekoe, Souchong, Gunpowder, Russian, and other fine kinds. Indeed, his father's mansion, Harrington House, was long famous for its tea-drinking: and the Earl and Countess, and family, received their visitors upon these occasions in the long gallery, and here the family of George the Third enjoyed many a cup of tea. It is told that when General Lincoln Stanhope returned from India after several years' absence, his father welcomed him with "Hallo, Linky, my dear boy! delighted to see you. Have a cup of tea !"

His

Lord Petersham's equipages were unique: the carriages and horses were brown; the harness had furniture of antique design; and the servants wore long brown coats, reaching to their heels, and glazed hats with large cockades. Lordship was a liberal patron of the opera and the theatres; and two years after he had succeeded his father in the earldom (of Harrington), he married the beautiful Maria Foote, of Covent-garden Theatre.

SALLY LUNN CAKES.

Captain Gronow, in the second series of his piquant Reminiscences, tells us that Lady Harrington related to him a curious anecdote of these tea-cakes. She said, her friend Madame de Narbonne, during the emigration, determined not to live upon the bounty of foreigners, found means to amass money enough to open a shop at Chelsea, not far from the then fashionable Ranelagh. It had been the custom in France, before the Revolution, for young ladies in some noble families to learn the art of making preserves and pastry; accordingly, Madame de Narbonne commenced her operations under the auspices of some of her acquaintances; and those who went to Ranelagh made a point of stopping and buying some of her cakes. Her fame spread throughout the Westend of the town, and orders were given to have them sent for breakfast and tea in many large houses in St. James's. Madame de Narbonne employed a Scotch maid-servant to execute her orders; the name of this woman was Sally Lunn; and ever since a particular kind of tea-cake has gone by the name of Sally Lunn.

Hone, however, states Sally Lunn to have lived at Bath at the close of the last century; and that a baker and musician, of Bath, noticed her, bought her business, and set to music a song in praise of Sally Lunn and her fashionable cakes.

A BACCHANALIAN DUELLIST.

"A good old Irish gentleman," in the times of conviviality and duelling, was Mr. Bagenal, of Dunleckny, in the county Carlow-King Bagenal, as he was called through his extensive territories; and within their bounds no monarch was more absolute. Of high Norman lineage, polished manners, princely income, and boundless hospitality, Mr. Bagenal was popular with every class. A terrestrial paradise was Dunleckny for all lovers of good wine, good horses, good dogs, and good society. His stud was magnificent, and he had a large number of capital hunters for his visitors. He derived great delight from encouraging the young men who frequented his house to hunt and drink, and solve points of honour at twelve paces.

His politics were popular: he was the mover of the grant of 50,000l. to Grattan in 1782; he was at that time member for the county of Carlow.

:

Enthroned at Dunleckny, he gathered around him a host of congenial spirits. He had a tender affection for pistols a brace of "saw-handles," loaded, was often laid before him on the dinner-table. After dinner, the claret was produced in an unbroached cask. Bagenal's practice was to tap the cask with a bullet from one of his pistols, whilst he kept the other, in terrorem, for any of the guests who should fail in doing simple justice to the wine. He gave his junior guests the results of his own experience, for the regulation of their conduct. "I am not a quarrelsome person," he would say ; “I never was--I hate your mere duellist—but experience of the world tells me that there are knotty points in life in which the only solution is the saw-handle. Occasions will arise in which the use of them is absolutely indispensable to character. A man must show his proofs-in this world courage will never be taken upon trust."

His practice accorded with his precepts. Some pigs, the property of a gentleman who had recently settled near Dunleckny, strayed into an inclosure of King Bagenal's, and rooted up a flower-knot. The incensed monarch ordered that the porcine trespassers should be shorn of their ears and tails ; and he transmitted the severed appendages to the owner of the swine, with an intimation, that he, too, deserved to have his ears docked; and that only he had not got a tail, or he (King Bagenal) would sever the caudal member from his dorsal extremity. "Now," quoth Bagenal, " if he's a gentleman, he must burn powder after such a message as that." Nor was he disappointed. A challenge was given by the owner of the pigs; Bagenal accepted it with alacrity; only stipulating that, as he was old and feeble, being then in his 79th year, he should fight sitting in his arm-chair; and that as his infirmities prevented early rising, the meeting should take place in the afternoon. "Time was," said the old man, with a sigh, "that I would have risen before daybreak to fight at sunrise-but we can't do these things at seventy-eight. Well, Heaven's will be done! !"

Bagenal wounded his antachair in which he sat was

They fought at twelve paces. gonist severely; the arm of the shattered, but he escaped unhurt; and he ended the day with