Part 49

The deceased, though a purchaser of books to so large an extent, never read any, nor knew anything of their value; and when asked what were their uses, her answer was that she brought them to present to ministers or the children of her friends. The tenacity with which she preserved the secrets of her prison-house may also be judged of by the fact that her servant, a young Highland girl, had never, though she had been six months in her service, been beyond the walls of the garden. The girl was carefully locked up every time the deceased left the house until her return, and she never was allowed to go out of her mistress' sight.

The Bishops' Saturday Night.

The Reverend Sydney Smith, on the bare suggestion that Lord John Russell's Church Commission should collect the Church revenues, and pay the hierarchy out of them, imagined and described the scene of payment in the following irresistible words:—"I should like to see this subject in the hands of H. B. I would entitle the print,—

"The Bishops' Saturday Night; or, Lord John Russell at the Pay-Table."

"The Bishops should be standing before the pay-table, and receiving their weekly allowance; Lord John and Spring Rice counting, ringing, and biting the sovereigns, and the Bishop of Exeter insisting that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has given him one which was not weight. Viscount Melbourne, in high chuckle, should be standing with his hat on, and his back to the fire, delighted with the contest; and the Deans and Canons should be in the background waiting till their turn came, and the Bishops were paid; and among them a Canon of large composition, urging them not to give way too much to the Bench. Perhaps I should add the President of the Board of Trade, recommending the truck principle to the Bishops, and offering to pay them in hassocks, cassocks, aprons, shovel-hats, sermon-cases, and such like ecclesiastical gear."

"Rather Than Otherwise."

Theodore Hook gives somewhere a finished trait of one of those characters who are so dreadfully tenacious of truth, that they will not risk losing their hold of it by a direct answer to the simplest question. A gentleman who was very much in debt had a servant with this sort of scrupulous conscientiousness. He was horribly dunned and in such daily danger of arrest, that the sight of a red waistcoat (which the myrmidons of the sheriff wore in the last century) threw him into a sort of scarlet fever. One day he had reason to believe that during his absence an unpleasant visitor of that description had called, and on returning, he was very particular in his inquiries respecting the persons who had been at the house. His cautious servant partly described one calling who excited his alarm. "What kind of man was he?" The girl could not say. "Had he any papers in his hand?" She did not observe. "Did he wear top-boots?" The cautious housemaid could not charge her memory. At last, as a final effort to satisfy his curiosity, the tantalized debtor gasped out a final question, "Had he," he asked almost dreading the answer, "a red waistcoat?" The girl stood for a moment in an attitude of profound cogitation, and after she had worked up her master to the highest pitch of impatience by delay, drawled out, "Well, sir, I think he had—rather than otherwise."

Classic Soup Distribution.

While the Relief Act was in operation in Ireland, in time of famine, one of the committees received the following answer to an advertisement for the post of clerk:—

"Qui Bavium non odit, amet tua carmina, Mævi."

VIRG. Ecl. iii., 90.

"Ego sum—I am Parvus homo—A little man, Aptus vivere—Fit to live In quod dabis—On what you'll give; Per totam diem—And, the whole day, Familiariter—'In the family way.' Distribuere—Out to deal Farinam Indicam—Indian meal, Aut jus Soyerum—Or Soyer's soup, Multo agmini—To many a troup, Mulierum et hominum—Of woman and man Stanneo vase—With a tin can. Hoc tibi mitto—I send this in, (Ne peccatum—No Murtherin' sin,) Nam locum quæro—For a place I seek, Ut quaque hebdomada—That every week Fruar et potiar—We may 'hob and nob' Quindecem 'Robertullis'—On Fifteen 'Bob.'"

CAIUS JULIUS BATTUS, Philomath.

"Ballinahown, v. Prid. 1 d. Maii, MDCCCLVII."

The Irish paper from which this is taken adds, that the classic candidate was rejected.

Alphabet Single Rhymed.

An eccentric Correspondent of Notes and Queries, who signs "Eighty-one," has sent to that journal the following amusing trifle—an Alphabet constructed on a single rhyme:—

"A was an Army, to settle disputes; B was a Bull, not the mildest of brutes; C was a Cheque, duly drawn upon Coutts; D was King David, with harps and with lutes; E was an Emperor, hailed with salutes; F was a Funeral, followed by mutes; G was a Gallant, in Wellington boots; H was a Hermit, and lived upon roots; J was Justinian, his Institutes; K was a Keeper, who commonly shoots; L was a Lemon, the sourest of fruits; M was a Ministry—say Lord Bute's; N was Nicholson, famous on flutes; O was an Owl, that hisses and hoots; P was a Pond, full of leeches and newts; Q was a Quaker, in whitey-brown suits; R was a Reason, which Paley refutes; S was a Serjeant, with twenty recruits; T was Ten Tories, of doubtful reputes; U was uncommonly bad cheroots; V vicious motives, which malice imputes; X an Ex-King, driven out by émeutes; Y is a Yawn; then the last rhyme that suits, Z is the Zuyder Zee, dwelt in by coots."

Non Sequitur and Therefore.

Lord Avonmore was subject to perpetual fits of absence of mind, and was frequently insensible to the conversation that was going on. He was wrapped in one of his wonted reveries, and not hearing one syllable of what was passing (it was at a large professional dinner given by Mr. Burke), Curran, who was sitting next to his Lordship, having been called on for a toast, gave, "All our absent friends," patting at the same time Lord Avonmore on the shoulder and telling him he had just drunk his health. Taking the intimation as a serious one, Avonmore rose, and apologizing for his inattention, returned thanks to the company for the honour they had done him by drinking his health.

There was a curious character, Serjeant Kelly, at the Irish bar. He was, in his day, a man of celebrity. Curran used to give some odd sketches of him. His most whimsical peculiarity was his inveterate habit of drawing conclusions directly at variance with his premises. He had acquired the name of Serjeant Therefore. Curran said that he was a perfect human personification of a non sequitur. For instance, meeting Curran one Sunday, near St. Patrick's, he said to him, "The Archbishop gave us an excellent discourse this morning. It was well written and well delivered: therefore I shall make a point of being at the Four Courts to-morrow at ten." At another time, observing to a person whom he met in the street, "What a delightful morning this is for walking!" he finished his remark on the weather by saying, "therefore, I will go home as soon as I can, and stir out no more the whole day."

His speeches in Court were interminable, and his therefore kept him going on, though every one thought that he had done. The whole Court was in a titter when the Serjeant came out with them, whilst he himself was quite unconscious of the cause of it.

"This is so clear a point, gentlemen," he would tell the jury, "that I am convinced you felt it to be so the very moment I stated it. I should pay your understanding but a poor compliment to dwell on it for a minute; therefore, I shall now proceed to explain it to you as minutely as possible." Into such absurdities did the Serjeant's favourite "therefore" betray him.

INDEX.

Abbey, Fonthill, building of, 6

Abershawe, Jerry, gratitude of, 546

Ackermann, the publisher, and William Combe, 474

Adams, Jack, the astrologer of Clerkenwell Green, 130

Advertising for a wife, 95

Agapemone, the, or abode of love, 68

Albemarle, the eccentric Duchess of, 519

Alchemists, modern, 124-29

Alchemy, predictions of, 129

— revival of, 125, 129

Alcibiades' dog and Henry Constantine Jennings, 107

Alcobaça and Batalha monasteries, 5

Alphabet single rhymed, 565

Ambassador floored, 553

Amen—Peter Isnell, 231

Angelo and Peter Pindar, 471

Anglesey, Marquis of, his leg at Waterloo, 169

Apocalypse, interpretation of, 510

Archbishop, a witty one, 504

Archer, Lady, Account of, 122

Artists, eccentric, 330

Astrology, modern, 136-139

Avonmore, Lord, his absence-of-mind, 566

Bank of Faith, Huntington's, 220

Banks, the eccentric Miss, 80

Banting's cure for corpulence, 256

Barnard's Inn, and Woulfe the alchemist, 126

Baron Ward's remarkable career, 109-112

Bassle, Martin, the calculator, 491

Beckfords, the, and Fonthill, 1-19

Beckford, Alderman, 1

— — his Monument speech, 19

— William, at Bath, 16-18

— Mozart, and Voltaire, 3

Bees, Wildman's docile, 276

Bentham, Jeremy, bequest of his remains, 166

Bentinck, Lord George, at Doncaster, 299

Berkeley, the Hon. Grantley, his youthful days, 304

Betty, W. H. W., "Young Roscius," 364

Bidder, George, the calculator, 492

Birth, extraordinary, 271

Bishops' Saturday night, 563

Blake, William, painter and poet, 339

— — death of, 349

— — by Dr. de Boismont, 345

— — in Fountain Court, 348

— — married, 342

"Blue Key," the, 533

Boaden, Mr., his account of "Young Roscius," 366

"Bolton Trotters," origin of, 319

Bonaparte caricatured by Gilray, 336

"Bonassus," the, and Lord Stowell, 278

Bond, Mrs., of Cambridge Heath, Hackney, 72

Bone and Shell Exhibition, 317

Books, Mr. Heber's collections, 487

Book-collector, Heber, the, 485

Border marriages, 65

Boruwlaski, Count, the Polish dwarf, 258

— and Bébé, dwarfs, 260

— buried at Durham, 267

— and the Empress Maria Theresa, 260

— introduced to George IV. by Charles Mathews, 264

— and the Irish giant, 263

— letter of, 266

— married, 263

Boyhood of Edmund Kean, 398

Bradshaw, Mr., M.P., and Maria Tree, courtship of, 413

Brandy in tea, 534

Bridgwater, the eccentric Earl of, 103

Bright, the fat miller of Malden, 253

Brighton races thirty years ago, 292

Brothers, the "Prophet," 194

Brougham, Lord, and Father Mathew, 183

Brummel and Aunt Brawn, 34

— Beau, origin of, 22

— at Calais and Caen, 31

— dress of, 24

— fall of, 30

— and Madame de Staël, 26

— mental decay of, 31

— upon neckcloths, 24

— portrait of, 22

— and the Prince of Wales, 22, 26

— and the snuff-box, 28

Brummel's practical jokes, 25

— sayings, 32

Bryan, the Marylebone fanatic, 189

Building Fonthill Abbey, 6

Bunn, A., and his mysterious parcel, 400

Burial bequests, 159

Burials on Box Hill and Leith Hill, 163

Burke and Pitt caricatured by Gilray, 334

Busby's Folly and Bull Feather Hall, 525

Buxton, Jedediah, account of, 493

Byron, Lord, and Monk Lewis, 420

Byron's description of Cintra, 4

"Cabbage Cooke," of Pentonville, 86

Calculators, extraordinary, 490

Cambridge Heath, Mrs. Bond's Hut at, 72

Canning, Mr., and the King and Queen of the Sandwich Islands, 57

— on Grattan's eloquence, 460

— his humour, 451

— by Lord Byron, 460

— and Lord Eldon, 459

— in office, 456

— and the present of fustian, 451

— and Prince Metternich, 454

— and the "Queen of Spades," 452

— and his college servant, 457

— and Sydney Smith, 459

Canning's epitaph on the Marquis of Anglesey's leg, 169

— Friend of Humanity, and Knife-grinder, 454

Capon, the scene-painter, 322

"Caraboo, the Princess," 246

— "Princess," and Napoleon Bonaparte, 248

Caricatures by Gilray, 334

Carlton House Fête and Romeo Coates, 43

Carter Foote, of Tavistock, 114

Castle Spectre, Mrs. Powell's mistake, 423

Catching a cayman, 325

Cavendish, Hon. H., his wealth, 135

— the woman-hating, 134

Chancery jeu-d'esprit, 551

Charade by Dr. Whately, 508

Charke, Charlotte, Colley Cibber's daughter, 410

Charnwood Forest, Liston in, 392

Chatham, Lord, and the Beckfords, 2

Chesterfield, Lord, estimate of, 78

— — his will, 542

Cibber, Colley, his daughter, 410

Cintra, Beckford's estate at, 4

Clerkenwell, "Lady Lewson," of, 89

"Clown" tavern, the, Sadler's Wells, 527

Club, the Mulberries, Shakspearian, 408

"Coal-heaver," Huntington, 219

Coates, his "Lothario," 42

— Romeo and Diamond, 41

— his cockleshell curricle, 42, 43

Cobbett, eccentricities of, 481

— and Tom Paine's bones, 484

Cobbett's gridiron sign, 482

— nicknames, 484

— Political Register, 482

— Porcupine Papers, 481

Colburn, Zerah, the calculator, 491

Coleraine, eccentric Lord, 321

Collector, an indiscriminate, 305

Combe, William, author of Dr. Syntax, 472

— — in the King's Bench Prison, 473

— — on lithography, 473

Conspirator, single, 561

Convivial eccentricities, 525

Conyngham family, rise of the, 105

Cooke, Thomas, the Pentonville miser, 82

— — the Turkey merchant, 87

Cooke, T. P., in melodrama and pantomime, 404

"Corner Memory Thompson," 238

Corpulence, oddities of, 256

Costume of "Lady Lewson," 90

Cottle Church, account of the, 171

Courtship, luckless, of Sir E. Dering, 59

Crab, Roger, the hermit of Bethnal Green, 153

Cranford Bridge Inn, 307

— sporting life at, 304

Crazy Jane, by Monk Lewis, 423

Cripplegate Vault story, 160

Criticism, rare, 370

"Cunning Mary, of Clerkenwell," 179

Curtis, the Old Bailey eccentric, 312

"Cutting" quarrel of the Prince of Wales and Brummel, 26

Dantlow, the Russian dwarf, 268

Dawson, Daniel, at Doncaster, 296

Day, John, and Fairlop Fair, 280

Dee, Dr., his black stone, 175

Denisons, the, and the Conyngham family, 105

Dering, Sir Edward, his luckless courtship, 59

Devil's Walk, origin of the, 196

Devonshire, Duchess of, and Brummel, 32

— eccentrics, 113

Dick England the gambler, 290

Dinely, Sir John, advertising for a wife, 95

"Dog Jennings," 107

Doncaster eccentrics, 296

Doran, Dr., his account of William Combe, 474

Dowton in tragedy, 390

— oddities of, 389

Dr. Syntax, the author of, 472

Dress, Brummel's, 24, 30

Duality of the mind, by Dr. Wigan, 232

Dunbar, Captain, his letters, 556

Dunlop's remarks on Mrs. Radcliffe's writings, 476

Dust-sifting and dust-heaps, profits of, 92

"Dutch Mail," the, 554

Dwarfs, organisation of, 268

Eccentrics delight in extremes, 94

Elegy on a geologist, 328

Elliot, the Gretna priest, 66

Elliston at Richmond, 415

England, Dick, the gambler, 290

Epicure, what he eats in his lifetime, 536

Epitaphs, odd, 538

Etching, Gilray's rapid, 338

Executions, taste for witnessing, 314

Fairlop Fair and John Day, 280

Fall of Fonthill Tower, 11

Family, an odd one, 543

Fanatics, a trio of, 189

Farquhar, Mr., and Fonthill, 11

— — sketch of, 13

Fat folks, epitaphs on, 257

— — Lambert and Bright, 249

Fidge, Dr., his strange death, 161

Finch, Crow, and Raven, and Sir E. Dering, 60

— Margaret, Queen of the Gipsies, 178

Fire of London cinder heap, 94

Flaxman, letters to, from Blake, 344

Fleet marriage of Miss Pelham and a highwayman, 64

Flight, Miss, of the Temple, 547

Fonthill and the Beckfords, 1

— cost of, 13

— destroyed by fire, 2

— sales at, 10

Fonthill, three houses, 6

— village, 9

Footpad, the grateful, 546

Fordyce, Dr., the gourmand, 288

— — and his patient, 289

Fuller, honest Jack, 165

Funeral of Cooke, the Turkey merchant, 88

— of Jemmy Hirst, 298

Fuseli and Blake, 349

Gardner, the worm doctor, 161

Garrick, and Dance's portrait of him, 375

— and Hardham of Fleet Street, 368

— Mrs., death of, 374

— — her funeral, 376

— — and Horace Walpole, 377

Garrick's acting described by Munden, 388

Geologist, elegy on a, 328

George III. and Lord Mayor Beckford, 2, 20

George IV. and Mrs. Bond's wealth, 72

German for astronomy, 538

Giant, the Irish, 270

Gilchrist's Life of Blake, 339

Gilray and his caricatures, 330

— caricatures George III., 330

— in St. James's Street, 332

Gin, on, 536

Golden Ball Tavern, Sadler's Wells, 527

"Goose" Tavern, Islington, 527

Gourmand physician, 288

Green, Hannah, or the "Ling Bob Witch," 139

Greenwich dinner, 539

Gretna Green marriages, history of, 63

— "Blacksmith" Paisley, 67

— marriages abolished, 68

— and its priests, 66

Grimaldi, the clown, account of, 382

Grimaldi finds money, 384

— old, and "No Popery," 383

Grimaldi's first appearance, 383

— farewell, 385

Guildhall, the Beckford Monument in, 19

Guy's eccentric inscription and epitaph, 160

Hallucination, strange, 236

Hallucinations, What are they? 232, 233

Hanging by compact, 553

Hardham family, anecdote of, 159

Hardham's "No. 37," 368

Hayley and Blake, 344

Heber the book-collector, 485

Hermit advertised for, 151

— the Dorset, 150

— of Hawkstone, 151

— Leicestershire, 147

— of Moor Park, 151

— Pain's Hill, 146

— near Preston, 146

— of Selbourne, 150

— near Stevenage, 152

— vegetarian, 154

Hermits and eremitical life, 145

— ornamental, 150

Hill, Rowland, his preaching, 185

Hindoo Bride, Monk Lewis's, 418

Hoax, princely, at Brighton, 283

Hood, Thomas, account of, 497

— — at school, 497

— set up in business, 498

— and Sir Robert Peel, 501

— death and burial of, 503

Hood's Epping Hunt, 499

— first work, 499

— ode to Grimaldi, 386

— Up the Rhine, 500

— various works, 499

Hook, Theodore, hoaxes Romeo Coates, 44

Hopkins, the dwarf, 268

Host, eccentric, 544

House-warming, a costly one, 112

Hull, Richard, buried on Leith Hill, 165

Hunting experiences at Cranford, 308

Huntington buried at Lewes, 228

— the preacher, sketch of, 219

— at Hermes Hill, 229

— marries Lady Sanderson, 226

Huntington's preaching and portrait, 230, 231

— Bank of Faith, 220

— effects, sale of, 229

— leather breeches, 222

— Providence Chapel, 225

— spiritual advice, 227

Hutton, William, and "Strong Woman," 274

Hypochondriasis, cure for, 241

— remarkable, 240

Irving, the Scottish minister, 184

— a millenarian, 187

Islington, Charles Lamb's cottage at, 494

— old taverns, 526

Jemmy Hirst at Doncaster, 296

Jerrold, Douglas, at the Mulberries Club, 409

Jerusalem Whalley, account of, 191

Jesse, Captain, his account of Brummel, 24

Kean, Edmund, his boyhood, 398

— — undervalued by Dowton, 390

Kellerman, the alchemist, in Beds, 127

Kelly, Serjeant Otherwise, 567

Kemble, Fanny, in the United States, 407

Kemble, John, and the O. P. Riot, 371

Kenyon, Lord, his parsimony, 77

Labelliere, Major, buried on Box Hill, 165

"Lady Lewson," of Clerkenwell, 89

Lamb, Charles, at Munden's last performance, 387

— — his cottage at Islington, 494

Lambert, Daniel, and Boruwlaski, the Dwarf, 251

— — account of, 249

— — his funeral, 253

Lansdown, Bath, Beckford's tomb at, 19

— Tower, Bath, 13

Laughter, sources of, 520

Legacy to Queen Victoria, 99

Lewis, Monk, account of, 417

— — in the West Indies, 421

Liston in a counting-house, 394

— and Stephen Kemble, 396

— and Tate Wilkinson, 397

— in tragedy, 391

Liston's first appearance, 396

Literary madmen, 508

Llangollen, the Recluses of, 155

London eccentric, the, 322

Lothario Coates, at the Haymarket Theatre, 42

Lovat, Lord, and Miss Kate Vint, 559

Love-passage, an eccentric one, 413

Mackinnon, Colonel, his practical joking, 287

Mackintosh, Cool Sir James, 478

— Sir James, his Recordership of Bombay, 480

Madmen, literary, 508

Maginn, Dr., epitaph on, 538

Manchester punch house, 530

Mansfield, the Essex butcher, 254

Masquerade incident, 402

Mathews, C., Spanish ambassador hoax, 378

Mathew, Father, and the Temperance movement, 182

Mellish, Colonel, sketch of, 294

Miscalculation, an odd one, 560

Monk Lewis, account of, 417

Mormon, the book of, 210

— Church in Ontario, 214

— city of Nauvoo, on the Mississippi, 216

— Zion in Utah, 218

Mormonism, the founder of, 210

Moser, Mary, the flower-painter, 78

Mulberries, the Shakespearian Club, 408

Mummy of a Manchester lady, 239

Munden's last performance, 387

Mytton, John, in adversity at Calais, 52

— family of, 48, 49

— his extravagances, 50

Mytton's death and funeral, 53

Neeld, Joseph, and Philip Rundell, 102

Neild, J. C., his legacy to Queen Victoria, 99

Nelson, Lord, at Fonthill, 8

Newcastle, the romantic Duchess of, 516

Newland, Abraham, chief cashier of the Bank of England, 44

— — his epitaph, 46

— — song, 45

— — his wealth, 47

Nimrod's life of John Mytton, 51

— sketch of Colonel Mellish, 294

Nokes, of Hornchurch, his eccentric funeral, 162

Nollekens, the sculptor, eccentricities of, 350

Nollekens, his avarice, 350

— and the barber, 356

— and Lord Coleraine, 322

— and the Hawkinses, 354

— and the legacy-hunters, 360

— married, 352

— and Northcote, 357

— at Rome, 351

— at the Royal Academy Club, 355

— and his sitters, 352, 358

— Mrs., her wardrobe, 355

Nollekens' bust of Dr. Johnson, 352

— bell-tolling, 351

— gaieties, 357

— generosity, 362

— parsimony, 353

— spelling, 357

— wardrobe, 361

— will, 362

Non Sequiter and therefore, 566

Norwood Gipsies, 177

Oddities of Dowton, 389

Old Bailey Character, 312

"Old Rag," the Earl of B., 76

Old Red Lion Tavern, St. John Street Road, 526

O. P. Riot, the, History of, 96