officer threatening to arrest the dying man in his bed: "he would have carried him (Sheridan) off in his blankets, had not Dr. Bain assured him it was too probable his prisoner would expire on his way to the lock-up house."

At Holland House, where Sheridan often was, in his latter days, Lady Holland told Moore he used to take a bottle of wine and a book up to bed with him always; the former alone intended for use. In the morning he breakfasted in bed, and had a little rum or brandy in his tea or coffee; made his appearance between one and two, and, pretending important business, used to set out for town, but regularly stopped at the Adam and Eve public-house, in he Kensington-road, for a dram, where he ran up a long score, which Lord Holland had to pay. This was the old roadside inn, nearly opposite the wall of the park: it has long since been taken

down.

Sheridan one day said to Lord Holland: "They talk of avarice, lust, ambition, as great passions. Vanity is the great commanding passion of all. It is this that produces the most grand and heroic deeds, or impels to the most dreadful crimes. Save me from this passion, and I can defy the others. They are mere urchins, but this is a giant." Sheridan's strong wish to make his power felt in politics grew still stronger in his latter days from vanity and disappointment.

Francis Horner says, in a letter to Jeffrey, that Fox was ready to consent to Sheridan being a cabinet minister in 1806, but that the Duke of Bedford opposed him; and it is in the same place affirmed that Sheridan's blabbing" propensities disqualified him. We have had some "blabbing" cabinet ministers since Sheridan's time.*

66

HYDER ALLY'S PHYSIOGNOMY.

Governor Du Pré, in one of his interviews with Hyder Ally, was astonished to see that Hyder had no eyebrows; nor, indeed, a single hair left on any part of his face. A man constantly attended him, purposely to pull out, with a pair of nippers, any hair that made its appearance on the Sultan's face. Hyder, perceiving that Du Pré was surprised at this fact, said to him, "I observe that you wonder at my having no eyebrows, as well as my attention to cause every hair that appears on my face to be immediately eradicated. The reason I will explain to you. I am the Nabob of Mysore, and it is an object of policy with me that my subjects shall see no face

* See "Lives of Wits and Humourists," vol. ii., for several Anecdotes of Sheridan, hitherto unpublished.

in my dominions resembling the countenance of their sovereign." Du Pré, in relating this, added: "The impression which the Nabob's physiognomy made upon myself was not a little increased by this singularity." Hyder was generally of pleasing manners; but in his anger he was terrible, and often ferocious.

APOTHEOSIS OF WARREN HASTINGS.

At the time of the trial of Warren Hastings, it was said that at Benares, the very place in which the acts set forth in the first article of impeachment had been committed, the natives had erected a temple to Hastings; and this story excited a strong sensation in England. Burke's observations on the apotheosis were admirable. He saw no reason for astonishment, he said, in the incident which had been represented as so striking. He knew something of the mythology of the Brahmins. He knew that as they worshipped some gods from love, so they worshipped others from fear. He knew that they erected shrines, not only to the benignant deities of light and plenty, but also to the fiends who preside over small-pox and murder; nor did he at all dispute the claim of Mr. Hastings to be admitted into such a pantheon. "This reply," says Lord Macaulay, “has always struck us as one of the finest that ever was made in Parliament. It is a grave and forcible argument, decorated by the most brilliant wit and fancy."

In the course of this protracted trial, Sheridan took occasion to refer to the "luminous page of Gibbon." Upon leaving Westminster Hall, at the close of the day's proceedings, the orator was joined by a friend, who asked him how he could pay such a compliment to a Tory, and infidel? "My dear fellow," replied Sheridan, "I said voluminous."

GROSVENOR-PLACE.

One of the pleasantest rows of houses in the metropolis is Grosvenor-place, Hyde Park Corner. It looks over the gardens of Buckingham Palace, which, if not the elysium intended by George IV., is a delightful specimen of landscape gardening. The tenants of Grosvenor-place owe this rus in urbe prospect to a strongwilled minister overruling his sovereign. When George III. took up his residence at Buckingham House, and was adding a part of the Green Park to the new garden, the fields on the opposite side of the road were to be sold, and the King wished to purchase them, in order to prevent buildings being erected so as to look over his garden. The Lock Hospital then stood here alone; but it was apparent that the ground would soon be occupied, the King having

fixed his abode so near. He, therefore, entered into a negotiation for its purchase: the price was 20,000. This sum George Grenville, then minister, refused to issue from the Treasury: the ground was, consequently, sold to builders, and Grosvenor-place was commenced building in 1767-the new row of houses looking over the King in his private walks, to his great annoyance.

A SMUGGLING AMBASSADRESS.

Not very many years since a package, directed to a French ambassadress in this country, was accidentally opened at the Customhouse, and found to contain French gloves, at that time liable to an exceedingly heavy duty. The authorities did not proceed against the ambassadress for smuggling, but sent the package through the Post-office. It was charged by weight, as a letter, and the postage, amounting to a formidable sum, was paid without observation.

Lady Holderness, in Mr. Grenville's administration, occasioned the putting of the laws against contraband goods into rigorous execution, having, at one journey from Paris, imported one hundred and fourteen gowns, which were seized. Her lord becoming afterwards Governor of the Cinque Ports, she carried on a smuggling intercourse at Walmer Castle, on the coast of Kent, for importing French clothes and furniture for herself.-Dr. Doran's Notes to the Last Journals of Horace Walpole, vol. i.

THE DUKE OF YORK AND MRS. CLARKE.

The story of Mary Ann Clarke, whose detection in trafficking with the Duke of York led to great improvement in our army administration, is a very extraordinary one, though told in various ways. Captain Gronow, in his Reminiscences, describes her first introduction to the Duke of York to have taken place when she was a sweet, pretty, lively girl of sixteen, residing at Blackheath; that she was first noticed by a cavalier as she was walking across the heath, that she returned his salute, and was by him introduced to a friend, and the acquaintance ripened into an amour. Captain Gronow tells us that not the slightest idea had the young lady of the position in society of her lover, until she accompanied him, on his invitation to the theatre, where she occupied a private box, and attracted much notice, which she accepted as a tribute to her beauty; on a second visit, she was addressed as Her Royal Highness; when she discovered that her lover was the son of the King, the Duke of York, who had not long before united himself to a lady, for whom she had been mistaken.

Another version of Mrs. Clarke's antecedents is, that she was the

daughter of a journeyman printer, named Farquhar, living in a court leading from Fetter-lane to Cursitor-street, where she was born about 1777. Ere she was thirteen, she engaged the love of James Day, a young compositor, one of the earliest literary acquaintances of Mr. John Britton, who relates this story. Day addressed sonnets to the charmer; but she soon eloped with Joseph Clarke, the son of a builder, on Snow-hill, and after living with him three years, they were married, and had children. Mr. Britton does not state how she became introduced to the Duke of York, but that the cohabitation began in 1802, and lasted for several years; while Captain Gronow dates its commencement shortly after the Duke's marriage-in 1791. Mr. Britton describes her as living openly with the Duke of York, at No. 31, Tavistock-place; thence she removed to Gloucester-place, Portman-square, where her establishment consisted of two carriages, eight horses, nine men-servants, &c., to support which the Duke allowed her 2,000l. a-year, which she considered barely sufficient to pay her servants' wages, and for their liveries. She soon found herself courted by persons of rank, and more especially by military men. The Duke was pleased with these attentions, and indulged her extravagance; she became embarrassed, and to raise money, persuaded the Duke to give her commissions in the army, which she could easily dispose of at a good price; and the traffic was extended from the army to the Church.

Among Mrs. Clarke's visitors was Colonel Wardle, the Radical M.P., who got intimately acquainted with her, and obtained from her the names of some of the parties who had purchased commissions of her. He was paying a clandestine visit to Mrs. Clarke, when a carriage with the royal livery drove up to the door, and the Colonel was compelled to take refuge under the sofa; but, instead of the royal Duke, the caller was one of his aides-de-camp, who talked mysteriously to Mrs. Clarke, but led Wardle to believe that the sale of a commission was authorized by the Duke, though it afterwards appeared it was a private arrangement. At the Horse Guards, says Captain Gronow, there was an unfathomable mystery connected with commissions, the list of promotions agreed on having new names added to it by Mrs. Clarke, whom the Duke had em. ployed as his amanuensis; and he signed her autograph lists without examination. These scandalous transactions were inquired into in Parliament, in 1809, at the instigation of Colonel Wardle. Mrs. Clarke, whom the Duke had then abandoned, was called as a witness; and "the examination of this woman, and her various profligate intimates," occupied nearly three months, and that with a intenseness of anxiety seldom equalled. The Duke of York v

acquitted from the motion made against him by a majority of 80; but so strong was the outcry against him out of doors, and so much was the nation convinced that all Mrs. Clarke said was true, and so little could they be brought to doubt that the Duke of York was a conscious and participant actor in all that person's schemes, that His Royal Highness resigned his office of Commander-in-Chief.

It appears that Mrs. Clarke had strong inducements to furnish the information, Colonel Wardle having, in 1808, undertaken to furnish for her a house in Westbourne-place, Sloane-square, in part payment for her services in prosecution of the Duke of York at the bar of the House of Commons. This personal promise led to an action against Wardle for the recovery of 19147., the amount of the upholsterer's bill for articles of furniture supplied.

It is said that the whole exposure originated in the resentment of one M'Cullum against Picton (afterwards Sir Thomas Picton) for his oppressive conduct as Governor of Trinidad. M'Cullum, on reaching England, sought justice, but was baffled, as he suspected, by royal influence. He then exposed Picton in his "Travels in Trinidad," and next ferreted out charges against the War Office, and through Colonel Wardle, exposed a suspicious contract for greatcoats. This being negatived, M'Cullum then traced Mrs. Clarke, and arranged the whole of that exposure for Wardle and others. M'Cullum worked night and day, for months, in getting up this case he lodged in a garret in Hungerford Market, and often did not taste food for twenty-four hours. He lived to see the Duke dismissed from office, and to publish a Narrative of his exertions; and then died of exhaustion and want.

To return to Mrs. Clarke. In 1814, she was sentenced to nine months' imprisonment, for a libel on the Irish Chancellor of the Exchequer. She concocted a Memoir of her own Life and Adventures, upon the publication of which she consulted Mr. Galt. "I told her, he says, "point-blank, she was in want of money, and that this was an expedient to raise the wind. She confessed the truth, and also that her debts had been paid to the amount of 70007., and an annuity of 4007. granted to her on condition that she should not molest the Duke of York." The papers were unfit for publication, and by Mr. Galt's advice she suppressed the book.

The announcement of the Memoir had excited such expectation that the printer had worked off 10,000 copies, two volumes each, requiring 640 reams of paper, at 35s. per ream. The above settlement was made upon the condition that the whole should be burnt, and the manuscript delivered up to an agent under seven seals, being the number of the parties concerned. The work was accordingly