34.

"THE

HERE happened within my memory," Hatsell says, "and since I have been in the service of the House of Commons, a very extraordinary case, which was in the first year of his Majesty King George III. (on the 20th of January 1761), where the King was actually on the throne, and the Black Rod was coming with the message for the House of Commons to attend his Majesty ; but there not being forty members present, Mr Onslow, then Speaker, declined taking the chair, and the King was kept waiting a considerable time. The reason of this was that it was generally known that the only purpose for which the King came at that time was to give the royal assent to a money bill. This bill had passed the House of Lords, but the House of Commons had received no message from the Lords to inform them that the Lords had agreed to it, and therefore till this message was received the Speaker could not take notice of their agreement, or receive or take up the bill for the royal assent. And though the Lords' messengers were at the door, the Speaker could not, agreeable to the ancient rule and unbroken practice of the House, take the chair, for the purpose of admitting the messengers, till there were forty members present. If the Black Rod, instead of loitering, as he did, in the passage between the Houses, had come forward and knocked at the door, the Speaker, though forty members were not present, must have

immediately taken the chair and gone up to the

King."

35.

BODONI, the celebrated printer of Parma, told

Bodoni put a "Horace”

M. de Creuzé, that one day a captain in the Austrian service came into his shop, and asked to see one of his best books. into his hands, which the to examine very attentively, leaf after leaf, from beginning to end, and then asked, "Who is Horace?"

M.

36.

officer had the patience

DAILLÉE said to a friend one day, "Mon

sieur Chevreau, my talent of eloquence, which Balzac has so much commended, begins to grow mouldy, and I am certain that works which are written in an advanced age can be of no use but to the grocers, &c. Corneille told me one day that his talent for poetry was gone. He quitted the theatre six years before his death. 'Sir,' says he, 'my poetry went away with my teeth.'

ON

37.

N one of Sir Joshua Reynolds' friends observing to Johnson that it was extraordinary the King should have taken so little notice of him, having on all occasions employed Ramsay, West, &c., in preference, he said he thought it a matter of little consequence. His Majesty's neglect could never do him any prejudice; but it would reflect eternal disgrace on the King not to have employed Sir Joshua Reynolds.

38.

THE late Sir Charles Young used to relate an

anecdote of the late Sir Thomas Philipps, of Middlehill, who is known to have left his residence and park there to fall into utter neglect. Young was travelling down in the same coach as the other, who had entered into conversation with a stranger, and was making himself agreeable enough. When they came in sight of Middlehill, the stranger asked Philipps what that dilapidated place was. Philipps made no answer. Presently the coach stopped "Hallo!" cries the stranger,

opposite the gates.

"why do we stop here ?" eyeing the broken, shabby avenue leading to the house. "Oh!" said Philipps, "this is the approach to my house." "The reproach to it, don't you mean ?" returned the other, quietly.

39.

WHEN the Libel Act was under discussion in

the House of Lords in 1792, the Chancellor (Thurlow), as the last effort to retain the law in judicial hands, asked if Lord Camden would object to a clause being inserted granting a new trial, in case the court were dissatisfied with a verdict for the defendant. "What!" exclaimed the veteran friend of freedom, "after a verdict of acquittal?" "Yes," said Lord Thurlow. "No, I thank you," was the memorable reply, and the last words spoken in public by this great man. The bill immediately was passed.

40.

"I

REMEMBER" (says Dr King), speaking of the system of fees to servants, so common in his day, "a Lord Poor [De la Poer], a Roman Catholic peer of Ireland, who lived upon a small pension which Queen Anne had granted him. He was a man of honour, and well esteemed, and had formerly been an officer of some distinction in the service of France. The Duke of Ormonde had often invited him to dinner, and he as often excused himself. At last, the Duke kindly expostulated with him, and would know the reason why he so constantly refused to be one of his guests. My Lord Poer then honestly confessed that he could not afford it; 'but,' says he, 'if your Grace will put a guinea into my hands as often as you are pleased to invite me to dine, I will not decline the honour of waiting on you.' This was done; and my Lord was afterwards a frequent guest in St James's Square.

"I am here put in mind (he adds) of something similar which happened in Sir Robert Walpole's administration. He wanted to carry a question in the House of Commons, to which he knew there would be great opposition, and which was disliked by some of his own dependants. As he was passing through the Court of Requests, he met a member of the contrary party, whose avarice, he imagined, would not reject a large bribe. He took him aside, and said, 'Such a question comes on

this day; give me your vote, and here is a bank bill for £2000,' which he put into his hands. The member made him this answer: Sir Robert, you have lately served some of my particular friends, and when my wife was last at court, the King was very gracious to her, which must have happened at your instance; I should, therefore, think myself very ungrateful (putting the bank bill into his pocket) if I were to refuse the favour you are now pleased to ask me.""

4I.

OON after Chesterfield was made a member of

SOON

His

the Cabinet, a place of great trust became vacant, to which the Earl and the Duke of Dorset recommended two very different persons. Majesty contended for his own recommendation with much warmth; and, finding he was not likely to succeed, he left the council chamber in great anger, protesting that he would be obeyed. The King being retired, a violent contest ensued; but at length it was carried against him, lest he should expect the same implicit obedience on other occasions, when it might rise into a dangerous precedent. The difficulty now was, who should wait on the King, in his present humour, with the grant of the office for his signature; a task which fell to the lot of Lord Chesterfield. As his Lordship expected to find the King very little disposed to execute the business, he prudently took care not to incense him by abruptly making the request; but asked, in