"USED TO IT."

In 1782, when we lost Minorca, Walpole said, "It made no more impression than if the King had lost his pockethandkerchief. We are like the fish-woman, who, being reproached with the cruelty of skinning eels alive, replied, 'Ah, poor things, they be used to it!" She mistook her own habitude for theirs. We are at once so dissipated and so accustomed to misfortunes, that, though flayed to the bone, we forget the amputation of a finger in a moment."

MINISTERIAL METAMORPHOSIS.

Upon the change of Ministry in 1782, great was the change in the aspect of the House of Commons. The Treasury Bench and places behind it were now occupied by the new Ministry, emerged from their obscure lodgings, or from Brookes's, having thrown off their blue and buff uniforms, and being now in court-dresses, decorated with swords, lace, and hairpowder. Some degree of ridicule attached to this extraordinary metamorphosis. It happened that just then Lord Nugent's house in Great George-street had been broken open, and robbed of a variety of articles; among others, of a number of pairs of laced ruffles. He caused the particulars of the stolen articles to be advertised in the newspapers, where they were minutely specified. Coming down to the House of Commons, a gentleman, who accidentally sat next to him, asked his Lordship if he had yet discovered any of the articles recently lost. "I can't say that I have," answered he, "but I shrewdly suspect that I have seen some of my lace ruffles on the hands of the gentlemen who now occupy the Treasury Bench." This reply, the effect of which was infinitely increased by the presence of Fox and Burke, occasioned much laughter.

"THE DINNER BELL."

There sat in the Parliament of 1783, David Hartley, member for Hull, the intolerable length and dulness of whose speeches rendered him a nuisance even to his own friends. His rising operated like a dinner bell. One day, when he had thus wearied out the patience of his audience, having reduced the House from 300 to about 80 persons, half asleep,

just at a time when he was expected to close, he unexpectedly moved that the Riot Act should be read, as a document, to prove some assertion he had made. Burke, who sat close by him, and who had been for more than an hour and a half bursting with impatience to speak upon the question, finding himself so cruelly disappointed, bounced up, exclaiming, "The Riot Act, my dear friend, the Riot Act! to what purpose? don't you see that the mob is already quietly dispersed?" This sarcastic wit, increased in effect by the despairing tone of Burke, convulsed every person present except Hartley, who never changed countenance, and insisted on the Riot Act being read by one of the clerks.

Mr. Jenkinson, afterwards Earl of Liverpool, used to relate that Hartley, having risen to speak, at about five o'clock, in the Session of 1779, and it being summer, and generally understood that he would continue a long time on his legs, Mr. Jenkinson profited by the occasion to breathe some country air. He walked, therefore, from the House to his residence in Parliament-street; from whence, mounting his horse, he rode to a place that he rented some miles out of town. There he dined, strolled about, and returned to London. As it was then near nine, he sent his servant to the House, to inquire who had spoken in the course of the debate, and when a division might be expected. The footman brought back for answer, that Mr. Hartley continued still speaking, but was expected to close soon, and that no other person had yet risen. In fact, when Mr. Jenkinson entered the House, Hartley remained exactly in the same place and attitude as he was near five hours before, regardless of the general impatience, or of the profound repose into which the majority of his hearers were sunk. However incredible this story appears, Wraxall declares that he has related it without exaggeration.

TREASURY DEPREDATIONS.

When, in 1783, Mr. Pitt introduced his bill to regulate fees in public offices, he exposed some strange malversations. One of the charges specified a sum of 340l. paid to the Secretary of the Treasury for the article of whipcord. The annual expenditure of the First Minister for his individual stationery did not fall short of 1,300%. Lord North, when called on, made nevertheless not only a plausible, but a very satisfactory

defence to most of the alleged items.

Robinson undertook

to give some sort of explanation of whipcord, which Lord North could not master; but it diverted more than satisfied its hearers. [Has it not something to do with the Treasury whipper-in ?]

Wraxall tells us that he knew a lord of trade who had a borough, and a very large fortune, and was in Parliament; on his being sworn in at the Board of Trade, he issued an order to provide a great number of pewter inkstands for his own use, which he after transmuted into one composed of silver. He might be seen at the levée, dressed in a suit of green velvet, made out of the materials ordered in his public. character for the ostensible purpose of making bags to contain office-papers. His friends and correspondents could recognise the stationery, of which he had made an ample provision, more than ten years after the Board of Trade itself, abolished by Burke's bill, had ceased to have any existence.

Few places of considerable emolument, in any department, were given wholly unfettered to the nominal occupant. Under Lord Rockingham's first administration, in 1765, we find Wilkes quartered on the whole of the Treasury and Admiralty Boards, to the annual amount of 1,040.; the marquis paying him 5007., the inferior lords of the Treasury 607. each, and the members of the Board of Trade, each 40%. This curious fact is stated in Horne's letter to Junius, 31st July, 1771, and was not denied. Wraxall knew a lady of quality, who, being the daughter of a person high in office, was commonly said to have "rode" sixteen persons at one time, to whom her father had given places, under that express condition or reservation; she is said to have outlived them all. Governments, military appointments, offices in the Excise and Customs; in a word, places of every description, at home and abroad, were frequently loaded with riders.

A WESTMINSTER ELECTION IN 1784.

Walpole, in a letter to Sir Horace Mann, April 11, 1784, writes: :- "Mr. Fox is still struggling to be chosen for Westminster, and maintains so sturdy a fight, that Sir Cecil Wray, his antagonist, is not yet three hundred ahead of him, though the Court exerts itself against him in the most violent manner, by mandates, arts, &c.-nay, sent a body of two hundred and

eighty of the Guards to give their votes as householders, which is legal, but which my father in the most quiet seasons would not have dared to do. At first the contest threatened to be bloody Lord Hood (the Admiral) being the third candidate, and on the side of the Court, a mob of three hundred sailors undertook to drive away the opponents; but the Irish chairmen, being retained by Mr. Fox's party, drove them back to their element, and cured the tars of their ambition of a naval victory, In truth, Mr. Fox has all the popularity in Westminster; and, indeed, is so amiable and winning, that, could he have stood in person all over England, I question whether he could not have carried the Parliament. The beldames hate him; but most of the pretty women in London are indefatigable in making interest for him, the Duchess of Devonshire in particular. I am ashamed to say how coarsely she has been received by some worse than tars! But nothing has shocked me so much as what I heard this morning: at Dover they roasted a poor fox alive by the most diabolic allegory! a savage meanness that an Iroquois would not have committed. Base, cowardly wretches! how much nobler to have hurried to London, and torn Mr. Fox himself piecemeal! I detest a country inhabited by such stupid barbarians. I will write no more to-night; I am in a passion!"

LORD SANDWICH IN OFFICE, AND IN LOVE.

Lord Sandwich, when First Lord of the Admiralty, used to give notice to the numerous candidates for professional advancement, that he paid no attention to any memorial that extended beyond a single page. "If any man," he said, "will draw up his case, and will put his name to the bottom of the first page, I will give him an immediate reply: where he compels me to turn over the page, he must await my leisure."

When Mr. Eden, afterwards Lord Auckland, deserted Fox for Pitt, he sent, in justification of his apostasy, a circular letter to his former political colleague. The reply of Lord Sandwich was :-"Your letter is before me, and will presently be behind. I remain, Sir, your most humble Servant." Charles Butler has left this characteristic sketch of the Minister: Lord Sandwich might serve as a model for a man of business. He rose early, and, till a late dinner, dedicated his

whole time to business: he was very methodical; slow, but not wearisome; cautious, not suspicious; rather a man of sense than a man of talent; he had much real good nature; his promises might be relied on. His manners partook of the old Court; and he possessed, in a singular degree, the art of attaching persons of every rank to him. Few homes were more pleasant or instructive than his Lordship's: it was filled with rank, beauty, and talent, and every one was at ease. He professed to be fond of music, and musicians flocked to him: he was the soul of the Catch Club, and one of the Directors of the concerts of Ancient Music; but he had not the least ear for music, and was equally insensible of harmony and melody."

This, however, it must be admitted, is but the bright side of the character of Lord Sandwich: he led a gay life, and lived in open concubinage, notwithstanding his high official position; and his male associates were some of the most unblushing profligates of the lax London society of the last century. He was by no means a handsome man; when seen in the street, he had an awkward, careless gait. Two gentlemen observing him, one remarked, "I think it is Lord Sandwich coming;" which the other thought to be a mistake. "Nay," said the first gentleman, "I am sure it is Lord Sandwich, for, if you observe, he is walking down both sides of the street at once.' But Lord Sandwich used to tell a better story of himself: "When I was at Paris," he said, “I had a dancing-master; the man was very civil, and on my taking leave of him, I offered my service in London. 'Then,' said the man, bowing, 'I would take it as a particular favour, if your lordship would never tell any one of whom you learned to dance.' There is a line in the Heroic Epistle :—

"See Jemmy Twitcher shambles. Stop, stop thief—”

alluding to his Lordship's shambling gait. Jemmy Twitcher was the name given to him by the satirists of the period; and a very scarce volume contains his "life, adventures, and amours, exhibiting many striking proofs to what baseness the human heart is capable of descending."

In the days of his hot youth, Sandwich had for his companions Sir Francis Dashwood, afterwards Lord Despenser; Thomas Potter, M.P., son of the Archbishop; and John Wilkes, with other men of fashion and loose morals.

This