salt. The old servant, Thomas, was appealed to; he took no notice, and was appealed to more peremptorily, "Thomas, Mrs. Murray has not a salt-spoon," to which he replied most emphatically, "Last time Mrs. Murray dined here we lost a salt-spoon.'

An old servant who took a similar charge of everything that went on in the family, having observed that his master thought he had drank wine with every lady at the table, but had overlooked one, jogged his memory with the question, "What ails ye at her wi' the green gown ?"

An old servant was standing at a sideboard and attending to the wants of a pretty large dinner-party; when the calls grew so numerous and frequent, that the attendant got bewildered, lost his temper, and at length, he gave vent to his indignation in this remonstrance, addressed to the whole company, "Cry a' thegither, that's the way to be served."

An aged Forfarshire lady, knowing the habits of her old and spoilt servant, when she wished a note to be taken without loss of time, held it open, and read it over to him, saying, "There, noo, Andrew, ye ken a' that's in't; noo dinna stop to open it, but jast send it aff."

A nursery-maid was leading a little child up and down a garden. "Is't a laddie or a lassie ?" asked the gardener. "A laddie," said the maid. "Weel," said he, "I'm glad o' that, for there's ower mony women in the world." 'Heck, man," said Jess, "did ye no ken there's aye maist sown o' the best crap ?"

POWER OF THE EYE.

When Thomas Grenville was a young man he one day dined with Lord Spencer at Wimbledon. Among the company was George Pitt (afterwards Lord Rivers), who declared that he could tame the most furious animal by looking at it steadily. Lord Spencer said, "Well, there is a mastiff in the courtyard here which is the terror of the neighbourhood, will you try your powers on him?" Pitt agreed to do so; and the company descended into the courtyard. A servant held the mastiff by a chain. Pitt knelt down at a short distance from the animal, and stared him sternly in the face. They all shuddered. At a signal given, the mastiff was let loose, and rushed furiously towards Pitt-then suddenly checked his pace, seemed confounded, and, leaping over Pitt's head, ran away, and was not seen for many hours afterwards.

Mr. Rogers, who relates this story, tells us also how he profited by Pitt's experience, as follows:-"During one of my visits to Italy, while I was walking a little before my carriage, on the road,

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ANECDOTES OF COURT AND FASHIONABLE LIFE.

not far from Vicenza, I perceived two huge dogs nearly as tall as myself, bounding towards me from out a gateway, though there was no house in sight. I recollected what Pitt had done; and, trembling from head to foot, I yet had resolution enough to stand quite still, and eye them with a fixed look. They gradually relaxed their speed from a gallop to a trot, came up to me, stopped for a moment, and then went back again.'

RUINOUS EPICURISM.

A gentleman of Gloucestershire had one son, whom he sent abroad, to make the grand tour of the Continent, where he paid more attention to the cookery of nations and luxurious living, than anything else. Before his return, his father died, and left him a large fortune. He now looked over his note-book to discover where the most exquisite dishes were to be had, and the best cooks obtained. Every servant in his house was a cook; his butler, footman, housekeeper, coachman, and grooms-all were cooks. He had also three Italian cooks-one from Florence, another from Sienna, and a third from Viterbo-for dressing one Florentine dish! He had a messenger constantly on the road between Brittany and London, to bring the eggs of a certain sort of plover found in the former country. He was known to eat a single dinner at the expense 501., though there were but two dishes. In nine years he found himself getting poor, and this made him melancholy. When totally ruined, having spent 150,000l., a friend one day gave him a guinea to keep him from starving; and he was found in a garret next day broiling an ortolan, for which he had paid a portion of the guinea!

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POLITICAL LIFE.

INTEGRITY OF EARL STANHOPE,

THIS eminent soldier, who carried arms under King William III. in Flanders, and under the Duke of Schomberg and Earl of Peterborough, at the close of his military career, became an active Whig leader in Parliament, took office under Sunderland, and was soon after raised to the peerage. His death was very sudden. He was of a constitutionally warm and sensitive temper. In the course of the discussion of the South Sea Company's affairs, which so unhappily involved some of the leading members of the Government, the Duke of Wharton (Feb. 4, 1721) made some severe remarks in the House of Lords, comparing the conduct of ministers to that of Sejanus, who had made the reign of Tiberius hateful to the old Romans. Stanhope, in rising to reply, spoke with such vehemence in vindication of himself and his colleagues, that he burst a bloodvessel, and died the next day. "May it be eternally remembered," says the British Merchant, "to the honour of Earl Stanhope, that he died poorer in the King's service than when he came into it. Walsingham, the great Walsingham, died poor; but the great Stanhope lived in the time of the South Sea temptations!"

PHILIP EARL OF CHESTERFIELD.

When the independent Philip, 2d Earl of Chesterfield, made one of his occasional visits to the House of Lords (from Geneva), a new doorkeeper, seeing him about to press into the House in a dress of extreme simplicity, impeded his entrance with this remark, "Now, then, honest man, go back! you can have no business in such a place as this, honest man!"

EXECUTION OF LORDS KILMARNOCK AND BALMERINO.

Walpole relates many eccentric traits of these Rebel Lords, on their trial and execution. When they were to be brought from the Tower in separate coaches, there was some dispute in which the axe must go-old Balmerino cried, "Come, come, put it with me."

the bar he played with his fingers upon the axe while he talked to the gentleman-gaoler; and one day, somebody coming up to listen, he took the blade, and held it like a fan between their faces. During the trial, a little boy was near him, but not tall enough to see; he made room for the child, and placed him near himself. He said that one of his reasons for pleading not guilty was, that so many might not be disappointed of their show.

ladies

At the trial Lord Leicester went up to the Duke of Newcastle, and said, "Never heard so great an orator as Lord Kilmarnock! if I was your Grace, I would pardon him, and make him paymaster;" alluding to Mr. Pitt, who had lately been preferred to that post, from the fear the ministry had of his abusive eloquence.

George Selwyn begged Sir William Saunderson to get him the High Steward's wand, after it was broke, as a curiosity; but that he behaved so like an attorney the first day, and so like a pettifogger the second, that he would not take it to light his fire with.

The

Lady Cromartie, who is said to have drawn her husband into the Rebellion, went to Leicester House, with four of her children, to bespeak the interest of the Princess of Wales for her lord. Princess saw her, and made no other answer than by bringing in her own children, and placing them by her; "which," says Gray, "if true, is one of the prettiest things I ever heard." Lord Cromartie was reprieved.

Balmerino kept up his spirits to the same pitch of gaiety. In the cell at Westminster he showed Lord Kilmarnock how he must lay his head; bid him not wince, lest the stroke should cut his skull or his shoulders, and advised him to bite his lips. As they were to return, he begged they might have another bottle together, as they should never meet any more till, then pointed to his neck. At getting into the coach, he said to the gaoler, "Take care, or you'll break my shins with this damned axe.'

He was

Lord Kilmarnock was extremely poor; he had been known to dine with a man who sold pamphlets at Storey's-gate, St. James'spark; and the man at the tennis-court said, "he would often have been glad if I would have taken him home to dinner.” certainly so poor, that in one of his wife's intercepted letters she tells him she has plagued her steward for a fortnight for money, and can get but three shillings. The Duke of Argyle telling him how sorry he was to see him engaged in such a cause, " My Lord," says he, "for the two kings and their rights I cared not a farthing which prevailed; but I was starving, and, by God, if Mahomet had set up his standard in the Highlands, I had been a good Mussulman for bread, and stuck close to the party, for I must eat.'

At the Tower they stopped up Balmerino's windows because he talked to the populace; then he had only one, which looked directly upon all the scaffolding. They brought in the death-warrant at his dinner. His wife fainted. He said, "Lieutenant, with your damned warrant you have spoilt my lady's stomach."

Walpole was not at the execution of the Rebel Lords, but had two persons come to him directly, who were at the next house to the scaffold; and he saw another person who was on it. Just before they came out of the Tower, Balmerino drank a bumper to King James's health. As the clock struck ten they came forth on foot, Lord Kilmarnock all in black, his hair unpowdered in a bag, supported by Forster, the great Presbyterian, and by Mr. Home, a young clergyman; his friend, Lord Balmerino, followed alone, in a blue coat, turned up with red (his rebellious regimentals), a flannel waistcoat, and his shroud beneath; their hearses following. They were conducted to a house near the scaffold. Here they parted. Balmerino embraced the other, and said, "My Lord, I wish I could

suffer for both!"

Kilmarnock remained an hour and a half in the house. At last he came to the scaffold, certainly much terrified, but with a resolution that prevented his behaving in the least meanly or unlike a gentleman. "When he beheld the fatal scaffold covered with black cloth, the executioner with his axe and his assistants, the sawdust, which was soon to be drenched with his blood, the coffin prepared to receive the limbs which were yet warm with life-above all, the immense display of human countenances which surrounded the scaffold like a sea, all eyes bent on the sad object of the preparationhis natural feelings broke forth in a whisper to the friend on whose arm he leaned, Home, this is terrible!' No sign of indecent timidity, however, affected his behaviour." (Sir Walter Scott.) He took no notice of the crowd, only to desire that the baize might be lifted up from the rails that the mob might see the spectacle. He stood and prayed some time with Forster, who wept over him, exhorted and encouraged him. He delivered a long speech to the sheriff, and, with a noble manliness, stuck to the recantation he had made at his trial; declaring he wished that all who embarked in the same cause might meet the same fate. He then took off his bag, coat, and waistcoat, with great composure, and, after some trouble, put on a napkin-cap, and then several times tried the block; the executioner, who was in white, with a white apron, out of tenderness concealing the axe behind himself. At last the earl knelt down, with a visible unwillingness to depart, and, after five minutes, dropped his handkerchief, the signal, and his head was cut off at