THE HEALTH OF EUROPE.

Madame de Sevigné had a German friend, the Princess of Tarente, who was always in mourning for some sovereign prince or princess. One day, Madame de Sevigné happening to meet her in colours, mede a low curtsey, and said, "Madame, je me réjouis de la santé de l'Europe."

A FEU-DE-JOIE.

During foggy weather, with a gleam of sunshine, on the cannon firing for George III. going to the House, somebody asked what it was for? Madame de Choiseul replied, "Apparement, c'est qu'on voit le soleil."

KINGLY RETORT.

The Duc. de Lauragais was a very singular and eccentric person. He was a great Anglomane, and was the first introducer into France of horse-races à la Anglaise; it was to him that Louis XV.-not pleased at his insolent Anglomanie-made so excellent a retort. The King had asked him, after one of his journeys, what he had learned in England? Lauragais answered, with a kind of republican dignity, "A panser" (penser)-"Les chevaux ?" inquired the King.

STORY OF A PARROT AND MONKEY.

A young Madame de Choiseul longed for a parrot, that should be a miracle of eloquence; and, as every shop in Paris then sold macaws, parrots, cockatoos, &c., a parrot was soon found for the nymph; but she had another passion, and was enamoured of General Jackoo, a celebrated monkey, at Astley's: ingots of gold were offered for this monkey, but Astley demanded a terre for life; but fortunately, another miracle of a monkey was heard of, who was not in so exalted a sphere of life, being only in a kitchen, where he had learned to pluck fowls with inimitable dexterity. This dear animal was not invaluable, was bought, and presented to Madame de Choiseul, who immediately made him the secretaire de ses commandemens. The first time she went out, the two animals were locked up in her bedchamber. When the lady returned, Jackoo the second received her with all the empressement possible-but where was Poll? -found at last under the bed, shivering and cowering and without a feather, as stark as any Christian. Now, the two animals had been presented by two rival lovers of Madame; and Walpole humorously tells us 66 Poll's presenter concluded that his rival had given the monkey with that very view, challenged him, they fought, and both were wounded; and an heroic adventure it was!""

BRED IN THE BONE.

A well-known Jack Bragg, who had contrived to secure a limited reception in society, being one day in a party, where those present were speculating on what they would do in given contingencies, committed himself by exclaiming, "Now, if I was a gentleman," which, naturally enough, led ill-natured people to suppose that there had been a time when he was not. Still, everybody was at fault as to his original vocation, until, in an unlucky hour, he accompanied some of his new associates to a billiard-table. Immediately on entering the room, he took up a cue, and placed himself before the marking-board so naturally that every doubt was dissipated, and the marker stood confessed.

It has been told of Mr. Arthur Moore, and was naturally true of Secretary Craggs, who began life as a footman, that, in the days of his opulence, he once handed some ladies into a carriage, and then, from the mere force of habit, got up behind it himself.

A VEAL DINNER.

At the table of Lord Polkemmet, when the covers were removed, the dinner was seen to consist of veal broth, a roast fillet of veal, veal cutlets, a florentine (an excellent Scotch dish, composed of veal), a calf's head, calf's-foot jelly. The worthy judge observing an expression of surprise among his guests, broke out in explanation: Ou, ay, it's a cauf; when we kill a beast we just eat up one side, and down the tither."

The expressions he used to describe his own judicial preparations for the bench were very characteristic: "Ye see I first read a' the pleadings, and then, after letting them wamble in my wame wi' the toddy twa or three days, I gie my ain interlocutor."

THE BEAUTIFUL DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE.

The personal exertions made by the Duchess of Devonshire in favour of Charles Fox, during the contested election for Westminster, in 1784, are well known. Accompanied by her sister, Lady Duncannon, she visited the abodes of the humblest amongst the electors; she dazzled and enslaved them by the fascination of her manners, the power of her beauty, and the influence of her high rank; and is known, on more than one occasion, to have carried with her the meanest one drunk to the hustings in her carriage. The fact of her having purchased the vote of a stubborn butcher by a kiss, is, we believe, undoubted. It was during these scenes that the Irish mechanic paid Her Grace the well-known compliment:

gazing with admiration at her beautiful countenance, he said, "I could light my pipe at her eyes."

This beautiful woman died in 1786, at the age of forty-nine. Sir N. Wraxall relates: "During the month of July, 1811, I visited the vault in the principal church of Derby, where repose the remains of the Cavendish family. As I stood contemplating the coffin which contained the ashes of that admired female [the beautiful Duchess of Devonshire] the woman who accompanied me pointed out the relics of a bouquet, which lay upon the lid, nearly collapsed into dust. That nosegay,' said she, was brought here by the Countess of Bessborough, who had designed to place it with her own hands on her sister's coffin; but, overcome by her emotions on approaching the spot, she found herself unable to descend the steps conducting to the vault. In an agony of grief she knelt down on the stones, as nearly over the place occupied by the corpse as I could direct, and there deposited the flowers, enjoining me the performance of an office to which she was unequal. I fulfilled her wishes.””

PROFITABLE SUPERSTITIONS.

Hannah More writes thus of her own time: "In vain do we boast of the eighteenth century, and conceitedly talk as if human reason had not a manacle left about her, but that philosophy had broken down all the strongholds of prejudice, ignorance, and superstition; and yet at this very time Mesmer has got a hundred thousand pounds by animal magnetism in Paris, and Mainanduc is getting as much in London. There is a fortune-teller in Westminster who is making little less. Lavater's physiognomy books sell at fifteen guineas a set. The divining-rod is still considered oracular in many places. Devils are cast out by seven ministers; and to complete the disgraceful catalogue, slavery is vindicated in print, and defended in the House of Peers.'

66 POOR AS JOB."

Lady Margaret Compton said she was as poor as Job. "I wonder," said Lady Barrymore, "why people say as poor as Job, and never as rich, for in one part of his life he had great_riches." "Yes," said Walpole, "Madam, but then they pronounce his name differently, and call him Jobb."

A LONG DINNER.

Of Mr. Hay, afterwards Lord Newton, one of the judges of the Court of Session, equally remarkable as a gourmand and a lawyer, it is told that a client calling on him one day at four o'clock, and

being surprised to find him at dinner, and saying to the servant that he understood five to be Mr. Hay's dinner hour. "Oh, but sir," said the man, "it is his yesterday's dinner."

A TIRESOME CRITIC.

Walpole one day met Mr. Villiers, at Lord Granville's, where, on the subject of Thomson's new play, he began to give the earl an account of Coriolanus, with reflections on his history. Lord Granville at last grew impatient, and said, "Well! well! it is an old story; it may not be true," and so got rid of the bore.

WILBERFORCE'S EARLY Life.

"When I left the University," writes Mr. Wilberforce, "so little did I know of general society, that I came up to London stored with arguments to prove the authenticity of Rowley's Poems; and now I was at once immersed in politics and fashion. The very first time I went to Boodle's, I won twenty-five guineas of the Duke of Norfolk. I belonged at this time to five clubs-Miles and Evans's, Brookes's, Boodle's, White's, Goostree's. The first time I was at Brookes's, scarcely knowing any one, I joined, in mere shyness, in play at the faro-table, where George Selwyn kept bank. Å friend, who knew my inexperience, and regarded me as a victim decked out for sacrifice, called to me, 'What, Wilberforce, is that you?' Selwyn quite resented the interference; and, turning to him, said, in his most expressive tone, 'O, sir, don't interrupt Mr. Wilberforce; he could not be better employed! Nothing could be more luxurious than the style of these clubs. Fox, Sheridan, Fitzpatrick, and all your leading men frequented them, and associated upon the easiest terms; you chatted, played at cards, or gambled, as you pleased. I was one of those who met to spend an evening in memory of Shakspeare, at the Boar's Head, Eastcheap. Many professed wits were present, but Pitt was the most amusing of the party. We played a good deal at Goostree's; and I well remember the intense earnestness which he displayed when joining in those games of chance. He perceived their increasing fascination, and soon after suddenly abandoned them for ever."

INTRODUCTION OF TOOTHPICKS.

Lord Clermont, at a dinner-party, told the company that in the course of his reading he had found that Scipio first introduced the use of toothpicks from Spain. "I did not know so much," said Walpole, in a letter next day; "nor that his lordship ever did read, or knew that Scipio was anybody but a racehorse. His classic author, probably, is 'Marsh upon the Gums.""

A VAIN OLD COUNTESS.

When the Countess of Pomfret gave her lord's collection of statues to the University of Oxford, she went there at the public cost, to receive adoration. "A box," says Walpole, "was built for her near the Vice Chancellor, where she sat three days together for four hours at a time, to hear verses and speeches, to hear herself called Minerva; nay, the public orator had prepared an encomium on her beauty, but being struck with her appearance, had enough presence of mind to whisk his compliments to the beauties of her mind. It is amazing that she did not mash a few words of Latin, as she used to fricassee French and Italian! or that she did not torture some learned simile, like her comparing the tour of Sicily, the surrounding the triangle, to squaring the circle; or as when she said it was as difficult to get into an Italian coach, as for Cæsar to take Attica, which she meant for Utica."

A REPRIEVE.

A gen

After the execution of eighteen malefactors, in 1787, a woman was hawking an account of them, but called them nineteen. tleman said to her, "Why do you say nineteen? there were but eighteen hanged." She replied, "Sir, I did not know you had been reprieved."

CHAIRMAN'S IMPUDENCE.

Mrs. Herbert, the bedchamber-woman in the household of Queen Charlotte, going in a hackney-chair, the chairmen were excessively drunk, and after tossing her and jolting her about for some minutes, set the chair down; and the foreman, lifting up the top, said, "Madam, you are so drunk, that if you do not sit still, it will be impossible to carry you."

KINGS AND PRINCES.

The following dialogue is related of Mr. Pope Wales" Mr. Pope, you don't love princes.' pardon." "Well, you don't love kings, then!" love the lion best before his claws are grown." make a better answer to such simple questions?

A DRAM-DRINKER'S MOTTO.

and the Prince of "Sir, I beg your "Sir, I own I Was it possible to

Mr. Chute, a friend of Walpole's, passing by the door of Mrs. Edwards, who died of drams, he saw the motto which the undertakers had placed to her escutcheon, Mors janua vitæ: he said it ought to have been Mors aqua vitæ.