hastily crossed Cockspur-street; flung herself into the first hackneycoach she could find, and drove to her mother's house in Connaughtplace. The Princess of Wales having gone to pass the day at her Blackheath villa, a messenger was despatched for her, another for her law adviser, Mr. Brougham, and a third for Miss Mercer Elphinstone, the young Princess's bosom friend. Brougham arrived before. the Princess of Wales had returned; and Miss Elphinstone had only obeyed the summons. Soon after the Royal mother came, accom panied by Lady Charlotte Lindsay, her lady in waiting. It was found that the Princess Charlotte's fixed resolution was to leave her father's house, and that which he had appointed for her residence, and to live thenceforth with her mother. But Mr. Brougham is understood to have felt himself under the painful necessity of explaining to her that, by the law, as all the twelve Judges but one had laid it down in George I.'s reign, and as it was now admitted to be settled, the King or the Regent had the absolute power to dispose of the persons of all the Royal Family while under age. The Duke of Sussex, who had always taken her part, was sent for, and attended the invitation to join in these consultations. It was an untoward incident in this remarkable affair, that he had never seen the Princess of Wales since the investigation of 1806, which had begun upon a false charge brought by the wife of one of his equerries, and that he had, without any kind of warrant from the fact, been supposed by the Princess to have set on, or at least supported the accuser. He, however, warmly joined in the whole of the delibera-" tions of that singular night.

As soon as the flight of the young lady was ascertained, and the place of her retreat discovered, the Regent's officers of state and other functionaries were despatched after her. The Lord Chancellor Eldon first arrived, but not in any particular imposing state, "regard being had" to his eminent station; for, indeed, he came in a hackney-coach. Whether it was that the example of the Princess Charlotte herself had for the day brought this simple and economical mode of conveyance into fashion, or that concealment was much studied, or that despatch was deemed more essential than ceremony and pomp— certain it is, that all who came, including the Duke of York, arrived in similar vehicles, and that some remained inclosed in them, without entering the Royal mansion. At length, after much pains and many entreaties, used by the Duke of Sussex and the Princess of Wales herself, as well as Miss Elphinstone and Lady C. Lindsay (whom she always honoured with a just regard), to enforce the advice given by Mr. Brougham, that she should return without delay to her own residence, and submit to the Regent, the young Princess, accom

panied by the Duke of York and her governess, who had now been sent for and arrived in a Royal carriage, returned to Warwick House, between four and five o'clock in the morning. There was then a Westminster election in progress, in consequence of Lord Cochrane's expulsion; and it is said that on her complaining to Mr. Brougham that he, too, was deserting her, and leaving her in her father's power, when the people would have stood by her he took her to the window, when the morning had just dawned, and, pointing to the Park, and the spacious streets which lay before her, said that he had only to show her a few hours later on the spot where she now stood, and all the people of this vast metropolis would be gathered together on that plain, with one common feeling in her behalf-but that the triumph of one hour would be dearly purchased by the consequences which must assuredly follow in the next, when the troops poured in, and quelled all resistance to the clear and undoubted law of the land, with the certain effusion of blood; nay, that through the rest of her life she never would escape the odium which, in this country, always attends those who, by breaking the law, occasion such calamities. This consideration, much more than any quailing of her dauntless spirit, or faltering of her filial affection, is believed to have weighed upon her mind, and induced her to return home.

This admirably written narrative of a very remarkable incident is attributed to Lord Brougham. The late Sir Frankland Lewis was accustomed to say that it was somewhat highly coloured throughout : it first appeared in the Edinburgh Review.

INCURABLE GAMESTERS.

The Salon des Etrangers in Paris was, after the Restoration, a rendezvous for confirmed gamblers. It was conducted by the Marquis de Livry; he presented an extraordinary likeness to the Prince Regent of England, "who," says Captain Gronow, "actually sent Lord Fife over to Paris to ascertain this momentous fact." The play in these saloons was frequently of the most reckless character. The Captain tells us that "The Hon. George T- who used to arrive from London with a very considerable letter of credit expressly to try his luck at the Salon des Etrangers, at length contrived to lose his last shilling at rouge et noir. When he had lost everything he possessed in the world, he got up and exclaimed, in an excited manner, "If I had Canova's Venus and Adonis from Alton Towers, my uncle's country-seat, it should be placed on the rouge, for black has won fourteen times running."

But, perhaps, the most incurable gamester amongst the English was Lord Thanet, whose income was not less than 50,000l. a year,

every farthing of which he lost at play. When the gambling-tables were closed, he invited those who remained to play at chicken-hazard and écarté; the consequence was that, one night, he left off a loser of 120,0007. When told of his folly and the probability of his having been cheated, he exclaimed, “Then I consider myself lucky in not having lost twice that sum.'

Fox, the secretary of the Embassy, came nightly to the Salon; and if he possessed a Napoleon, it was sure to be thrown away at hazard, or rouge et noir. The late Henry Baring, however, one night recommended him to take to the dice-box. Fox replied, "I will do so for the last time, for all my money is thrown away upon this infernal table." Fox staked all he had in his pockets; he threw in eleven times, breaking the bank, and taking home for his share 60,000 francs.

Marshal Blucher was another daily visitor, and played the highest stakes at rouge et noir; it is said that the Bank of France was called upon to furnish him with several thousand pounds, to reimburse him for the money lost at play.

THE ABSENT HUSBAND RETURNED.

London is the only place in all Europe where a man can find a secure retreat, or remain, if he pleases, many years unknown. If he pays constantly for his lodging, for his provisions, and for whatsoever else he wants, nobody will ask a question concerning him, or inquire whence he comes, whither he goes, &c. Dr. King relates the following evidence of this fact, in his pleasant volume of Anecdotes of his Own Time, published in 1819:

"About the year 1706 (says the Doctor), I knew one Mr. Howe, a sensible, well-natured man, possessed of an estate of 7007. or 8001. per annum: he married a young lady of good family in the west of England, her maiden name was Mallet; she was agreeable in her person and manners, and proved a very good wife. Seven or eight years after they had been married, he rose one morning early, and told his wife he was obliged to go to the Tower to transact some particular business: the same day, at noon, his wife received a note from him, in which he informed her that he was under a necessity of going to Holland, and should probably be about three weeks or a month. He was absent from her seventeen years, during which time she neither heard from him, nor of him. The evening before he returned, whilst she was at supper, and with some of her friends and relations, particularly one Dr. Rose, a physician, who had married her sister, a billet, without any name subscribed, was delivered to her, in which the writer requested the favour of her to

F

give him a meeting the next evening, in the Birdcage-walk, in St. James's-park. When she had read her billet, she tossed it to Dr. Rose, and laughing, 'You see, brother,' said she, 'old as I am, I have got a gallant.' Rose, who perused the note with more attention, declared it to be Mr. Howe's handwriting; this surprised all the company, and so much affected Mrs. Howe, that she fainted away; however, she soon recovered, when it was agreed that Dr. Rose and his wife, with the other gentlemen and ladies who were then at supper, should attend Mrs. Howe the next evening to the Birdcage-walk. They had not been there more than five or six minutes, when Mr. Howe came to them, and after saluting his friends, and embracing his wife, walked home with her, and they lived together in great harmony from that time to the day of his

death.

"But the most curious part of my tale remains to be related. When Howe left his wife, they lived in a house in Jermyn-street, near St. James's Church; he went no further than to a little street in Westminster, where he took a room, for which he paid five or six shillings a week, and changing his name, and disguising himself by wearing a black wig (for he was a fair man), he remained in this habitation during the whole time of his absence. He had had two children by his wife when he departed from her; but they both died young in a few years after. However, during their lives, the second or third year after their father disappeared, Mrs. Howe was obliged to apply for an Act of Parliament to procure a proper settlement of her husband's estate, and a provision for herself out of it during his absence, as it was uncertain whether he was alive or dead this Act he suffered to be solicited and passed, and enjoyed the pleasure of reading the progress of it in the votes, in a little coffee-house near his lodging, which he frequented. Upon his quitting his house and family in the manner I have mentioned, Mrs. Howe at first imagined, as she could not conceive any other cause for such an abrupt elopement, that he had contracted a large debt unknown to her, and by that means involved himself in difficulties, which he could not easily surmount; and for some days she lived in continual apprehensions of demands from creditors, of seizures, executions, &c. But nothing of this kind happened.

:

"Mrs. Howe, after the death of her children, thought proper to lessen her family of servants, and the expenses of her housekeeping; and, therefore, removed from her house in Jermyn-street to a little house in Brewer-street, near Golden-square. Just over against her lived one Salt, a corn-chandler. About ten years after Howe's abdication, he contrived to make an acquaintance with Salt, and was at

length in such a degree of intimacy with him, that he usually dined with Salt once or twice a week. From the room in which they ate, it was not difficult to look into Mrs. Howe's dining-room, where she generally sat and received company; and Salt, who believed Howe to be a bachelor, frequently recommended his own wife to him as a suitable match. During the last seven years of this gentleman's absence, he went every Sunday to St. James's Church, and used to sit in Mr. Salt's seat, where he had a view of his wife, but could not easily be seen by her. After he returned home, he never would confess, even to his most intimate friends, what was the real cause of such singular conduct; apparently there was none: but whatever it was, he was certainly ashamed to own it. Dr. Rose has often said to me that he believed his brother Howe would never have returned to his wife if the money which he took with him, which was supposed to have been 1000l. or 20007., had not been all spent ; and he must have been a good economist, and frugal in his manner of living, otherwise his money would scarce have held out; for I imagine he had his whole fortune by him, I mean what he carried away with him in money or bank-bills, and daily took out of his bag, like the Spaniard in 'Gil Blas,' what was sufficient for his expenses.

Dr. King received this remarkable story from Dr. Rose and Mr. Salt, whom he often met at King's coffee-house, near Goldensquare.

SCOTTISH HUMOUR.

He

Sydney Smith very unfairly said it required a surgical operation to get a joke into a Scotch understanding. "The only idea of wit," he said, "which prevails occasionally in the North, and which, under the name ofwut,' is so infinitely distressing to people of good taste, is laughing immoderately at stated intervals." might have drawn a distinction between English wit and Scotch humour in no way discreditable to the latter. Charles Lamb is a second witness in the same cause to prove an alibi as regards wit proper. Dean Ramsay, however, controverts this with some show of success, though most of the peculiar zest which he ascribes to Scottish humour resolves itself into "the vehicle in which the humour is conveyed."

There is something distinctive in the following, but it is neither wit nor humour, but a shower of Scotch vocables. When an Aberdonian went up to visit his son, then the manager of the Operahouse, his answer on his return as to the nature of his son's business was this: "He just keeps a curn of wirricows and weanies, and gars