Duke said, 'At all events they failed in putting it to the test. The road to Brussels was practicable every yard for such a purpose. I knew every foot of the ground beyond the forest and through it. The forest on each side of the chausée was open enough for infantry, cavalry, and even for artillery, and very defensible. Had I retreated through it, could they have followed me? The Prussians were on their flank, and would have been on their rear. The co-operation of the Prussians in the operations I undertook was part of my plan, and I was not deceived. But I never contemplated a retreat on Brussels. Had I been forced from my position, I should have retreated to my right towards the coast, the shipping, and my resources. I had placed Hill where he could have lent me important assistance in many contingencies, and that might have been one. And, again, I ask, if I had retreated on my right, would Napoleon have ventured to have followed me? The Prussians, already on his flank, would have been on his rear. But my plan was to keep my ground till the Prussians appeared, and then to attack the French position, and I executed my plan.''

It matters little whether it be a pleasing tradition or an historical fact, but it was commonly said that after the Peace, which crowned the immortal services of the Duke of Wellington, that great general, on seeing the playing-fields at Eton, said, there had been won the crowning victory of Waterloo.

THE SPA-FIELDS RIOTS.

When, in 1816, a monster meeting was held in Spa-fields, to petition the Prince Regent on the Corn Laws, Captain Gronow was sent, with a company of Guards, to occupy the adjoining prison. The leaders of the mob, including Major Cartwright, Henry Hunt, and Gale Jones, got information that the soldiers had orders, above all, to pick off the ringleaders, when the leaders left, and the meeting soon dispersed. Several years after this, at the time of the Reform Bill, Hunt was elected member of Parliament for Preston, and Captain Gronow was elected for Stafford. One evening, in the smoking-room of the House of Commons, the Captain told Hunt that if any attack had been made upon the prison at Spa-fields, he (Gronow), had given his men orders to pick off Major Cartwright, himself (Hunt), and one or two more. Hunt was perfectly astonished; he became very red, and his eyes seemed to flash fire. What, sir! do you mean to say that you would have been capable of such an act of barbarity?" "Yes, sir," said Captain Gronow, "and I almost regret you did not give us the opportunity, for your aim that day was to create a revolution, and you would have richly

deserved the fate which you so marvellously escaped by the cowardice or lukewarmness of your followers."

In the riot which followed the Spa-fields Meeting, one Cashman, a sailor, who had joined the mob in plundering the shop of Beckwith, the gunsmith, in Skinner-street, was taken with a gun in his hand he was tried, found guilty, and hung before Beckwith's shopdoor, being the last instance of executiug the criminal on the site of his guilt.

POLITICAL PREDICTIONS.

Twenty weeks before the Chinese were compelled to take our opium, Mr. Weekes, of Tichborne-street, indulged in a curious prediction to Mr. Rush, the American resident in this country. "One of these days," said Weekes, "England will oblige China to receive her wares by the strong arm of power." So it came to pass. "But," says Mr. Wade, "may not the hopes of the prophet have been father to his prediction, Mr. Weekes having accumulated an immense collection of ingenious mechanism, for which he only expected a remunerative opening in the Chinese market?"

When, in 1807, Haydon dined with Sir George and Lady Beaumont, he met there Humphrey Davy, who was very entertaining, and made a remark which turned out a singularly successful prophecy; he said, "Napoleon will certainly come in contact with Russia, by pressing forward in Poland, and there, probably, will begin his destruction." This was said five years before it happened.

Lord Mulgrave, afterwards Marquis of Normanby, first raised Haydon's enthusiasm for the Duke of Wellington by saying, one day, at table, "If you live to see it, he will be a second Marlborough."

MRS. PARTINGTON AND HER MOP.

This "labour in vain" will be found in the Rev. Sydney Smith's speech at Taunton on the Lords' rejection of the Reform Bill, October, 1831, in the following passage:

"The attempt of the Lords to stop the progress of reform reminds me very forcibly of the great storm off Sidmouth, and of the conduct of the excellent Mrs. Partington on that occasion. In the winter of 1824, there set in a great flood upon that town; the tide rose to an incredible height, the waves rushed in upon the houses, and everything was threatened with destruction. In the midst of this sublime and terrible storm, Dame Partington, who lived upon the beach, was seen at the door of her house, with mop and pattens, trundling her mop, squeezing out the sea-water, and vigorously pushing away the Atlantic Ocean. The Atlantic was roused; Mrs. Partington's spirit

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was up; but I need not tell you that the contest was unequal. The Atlantic beat Mrs. Partington. She was excellent at a slop or a puddle, but she should not have meddled with a tempest."

THE LAW'S DELAY.

When the first cargo of Ice was imported into this country from Norway, there not being such an article in the Custom House schedules, application was made to the Treasury and to the Board of Trade after some delay, it was decided that the ice should be entered as 66 dry goods;" but the whole cargo had melted before the cargo was cleared up!

COOL SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH.

During Sir James Mackintosh's Recordership of Bombay, a singular incident occurred. Two Dutchmen having sued for debt two English officers, Lieutenants Macguire and Cauty, these officers resolved to waylay and assault them. This was rather a resolve made in a drunken excitement than a deliberate purpose. Fortunately, the Dutchmen pursued a different route from that which they had intended, and they prosecuted the two officers for the offence of lying in wait with intent to murder. They were found guilty, and brought up for judgment. Previous to his pronouncing judgment, however, Sir James received an intimation that the prisoners had conceived the project of shooting him as he sat on the bench, and that one of them had for that purpose a loaded pistol in his writingdesk. It is remarkable that the intimation did not induce him to take some precautions to prevent its execution-at any rate, not to expose hinf needlessly to assassination. On the contrary, the circumstances only suggested the following remarks: "I have been credibly informed that you entertained the desperate project of destroying your own lives at that bar, after having previously destroyed the judge who now addresses you. If that murderous project had been executed, I should have been the first British judge who ever stained with his blood the seat of justice. But I can never die better than in the discharge of my duty." All this eloquence might have been spared. Macguire submitted to the judge's inspection of his writing-desk, and showed him that, though it contained two pistols, neither of them was charged. It is supposed to have been a hoax -a highly mischievous one, indeed-but the statement was primâ facie so improbable, that it was absurd to give it the slightest credit.

Sir James Mackintosh had a very Parson-Adams-like forgetfulness of common things and lesser proprieties, which was very amusing.

On his arrival at Bombay, there being no house ready for his reception, the Governor offered his garden-house for the temporary accommodation of Sir James and his family, who were so comfortable in their quarters, that they forgot to quit, month after month, till a year had elapsed, when the Governor took forcible possession of his own property. Again, Sir James and his lady, on requesting to inspect the seat of Lord Melville, in Perthshire, were invited to stay two or three days, which were protracted to as many months, till every species of hint was thrown away upon them.

Mackintosh, at his first arrival in London, in the year 1783, lodged with Fraser, a wine-merchant, in Clipstone-street, Fitzroysquare. Sir James died in No. 15, Langham-place, Regent-street, May 30, 1832, through a small portion of the breast-bone of a chicken lodging in his throat-his health having been long debilitated from the effects of his residence in India. His learning was abundant; but he wanted method and elegance, which led an illnatured political opponent to liken him to "a half-polished Scotch pebble."

THE SIDMOUTH PEERAGE.

The foundation of the Sidmouth Peerage is traceable to one of those fortunate turns which have much to do with worldly success, It is related that while Lord Chatham was residing at Hayes, in Kent, his first coachman being taken ill, the postilion was sent for the family doctor; but not finding him, the messenger returned, bringing with him Mr. Addington, then a practitioner in the place, who, by permission of Lord Chatham, saw the coachman, and reported his ailment. His lordship was so pleased with Mr. Addington, that he employed him as apothecary for the servants, and then for himself; and, Lady Hester Stanhope tells us, " finding he spoke good sense on medicine, and then on politics, he at last made him his physician." Dr. Addington subsequently practised in the metropolis, then retired to Reading, and there married; and in 1757 was born his eldest son, Henry Addington, who was educated at Winchester and Oxford, and called to the bar in 1784. Through his father's connexion with the family of Lord Chatham, an intimacy had grown up between young Addington and William Pitt when they were boys. Pitt was now First Minister of the Crown, and through his influence Addington entered upon his long political career, and became in very few years Prime Minister of England: his administration was brief; but he was raised to the peerage in 1805, and held various offices until 1824, when he retired. Lord Sidmouth was an unpopular minister, aud not a man of striking

talent; but his aptitude for official business was great. He came in for much of the satire of the day upon the Tory Administration, to which, in evil days, he was attached. He was familiarly called "the Doctor," partly from his father's profession, and partly from his having himself prescribed for George III., in his illness of 1801, a pillow of hopes as a soporific. This gave Canning the opportunity of calling him the Doctor, and George Cruikshank, pari passu, the caricaturing of him in the prints of Hone's clever political squibs, with a clyster-pipe hanging out of his pocket.

Family reputation generally proves an insecure stock to begin the world with: the Chatham and Sidmouth families exemplify the reverse of this observation. Nevertheless, there is much truth in the experience of Lord Mahon (now Earl Stanhope), who says: "In public life I have seen full as many men promoted for their father's talents as for their own."

MR. ROGERS'S REMINISCENCES OF LORD ERSKINE. When Lord Erskine heard that somebody had died worth 200,000l., he observed, "Well, that's a very pretty sum to begin the next world with."

“A friend of mine," said Erskine, was suffering from a continual wakefulness, and various methods were tried to send him to sleep, but in vain. At last his physicians resorted to an experiment which succeeded perfectly: they dressed him in a watchman's coat, put a lantern into his hand, placed him in a sentry-box, and—he was asleep in ten minutes."

To all letters soliciting his "subscription" to anything, Erskine had a regular form of reply; viz.: "Sir, I feel much honoured by your application to me, and I beg to subscribe"-here the reader had to turn over the leaf-" myself your very obt. servant," &c.

Erskine used to relate to Mr. Rogers many anecdotes of his early life with much spirit and dramatic effect. He had been in the navy, and he said that he once managed to run a vessel between two rocks, where it seemed almost impossible that she could have been driven. He had also been in the army; and on one occasion saved the life of a soldier who was condemned to death, by making an earnest appeal in his behalf to the general in command and his wife. Erskine, having got the pardon, rode off with it at full speed to the place of execution, where he arrived just as the soldier was kneeling, and the muskets were levelled for the fatal shot

When he had a house at Hampstead he entertained the best company. Mr. Rogers says: "I have dined there with the Prince of Wales-the only time I ever had any conversation with his Royal