94.

ELIZABETH.-ELWES.

had furnished him with the accommodations of life, and would not as we say, be put off with a song. His ballads, sonnets, &c. were printed in 6 vols. 12mo. under the title of " Pills to purge Melancholy." On a stone table at the west end of St. James's church, Westminster, is inscribed the following memorial: "Tom D'urfey, died Feb. the 26th, 1723.

ELIZABETH, (PETROVNA) daughter of Peter the Great, emperor of Russia, was born in 1709. Many princes solicited her hand in vain. In 1741, she ascended the Imperial throne, and united in herself the opposite extremes of a voluptuary and a devotee. Without disguising or restraining her amorous propensities, she was yet very devout and rigid in her religious observances. She has been much commended for her humanity, because she suffered no capital punishment in her reign; but what opinion can the world entertain of her tenderness and mercy, when the horrid cruelty inflicted on two ladies of her court is considered. The countesses Bestuchet and Lapookin were sentenced to receive each 50 strokes of the knoot in the public square of Petersburgh, and their tongues to be cut out; after which they were to be banished to Siberia. The sentence was accordingly exe cuted. The crime alledged against them was that of having remarked too freely on the amours of the empress. Elizabeth died in 1761. ELWES, (JOHN) Esq. This gentleman, whose original name was Meggot, was the nephew of Sir Harvy Elwes, whose possessions at the time of his death was supposed to be at least two hundred and fifty thousand pounds. At the decease

of the uncle, this large sum of money became the property of the nephew, who by will was required to assume the name and arms of Elwes. When he succeeded to his uncle's fortune, he had advanced beyond his fortieth year, and for fifteen years previous to that period he was known in the more fashionable circles of the metropolis. He had always a propensity for play, and it was late in life that he grew disgusted at the practice. This arose from his paying always, and not being always paid. At an early period he was sent to Westminster-school, where he remained ten or twelve years, and was allowed to be a good classical scholar, though it is confidently said that he never read afterwards. From Westminster-school, Mr. Elwes removed to Geneva, where he soon entered into pursuits more agreeable to him than study, The riding master of the academy there, had then to boast, perhaps, three of the best riders in Europe. Mr. Worsley, Mr. Elwes, and Sir Sydney Meadows. The connections which he formed at Westminster-school and at Geneva, together with his own large fortune, all conspired to introduce Mr. Elwes (then Mr. Meggot) into whatever society he chose. He was admitted a member of the club at Arthur's, and many other fashionable haunts of the day. Few men, even from his own acknowledgment, played deeper than himself, and with such various success: he once continued to play two days and a night, without intermission; and the room being a small one, the party were nearly up to their knees in cards. The late duke of Northumberland, who was no starter upon these occasions,

occasions, was of the party. Had Mr. Elwes received all he won, he would have been much richer; but the sums which were owing to him, even by very noble names, were not liquidated. On this account he was a very great loser by play; the theory which he professed, "that it was impossible to ask a gentleman for money," he perfectly performed by the practice, and he never violated this feeling to the latest hour of his life. It is curious to remark that, even at this period of Mr. Elwes's life, how he contrived to mingle small attempts at saving, with objects of the most unbounded dissipation. After sitting up a whole night at play for thousands, with the most fashionable and profligate men of the age, he would quit the splendid scene, and walk out about four in the morning to Smithfield, to meet his own cattle which were coming to market from Haydon Hall, a farm of his in Essex. There would this same man throw aside his habits of dissipation, and, standing in the cold or rain, haggle with a carcass butcher for a shilling. When his cattle did not arrive at the expected hour, he would walk on in the mire to meet them; and more than once he has travelled on foot the whole way to his farm, without stopping, which was seventeen miles from London, after sitting up the whole of the night. Mr. Elwes generally travelled on horseback, having first taken care to put two or three eggs, boiled hard, into his great-coat pocket, or any scraps of bread he could find; then, mounting one of his hunters, he made the best of his way out of London, into that road where turn