by one of the dramatic squad, who had frequently performed in the town, but had never been successful on his benefit night. He watched in the church-porch until the Rector had nearly ceased to badger Satan for that day. He then began to cover the tomb-stones in the cemetery with his bills. Excited by the oddity of the measure many made inquiries into the cause. "I cannot get the living to come to my benefit," replied the discomfited actor, so I am trying what influence I have with the dead." "Are my steaks ready, fellow," bawled a buckeen at an eating-house. "No," replied the waiter, "but I perceive your chops are."

66

"You murder time," said Mr. Shaw, the leader of the band at Drury Lane Theatre, to Mr. Kemble, who was rehearsing a song in Richard Cœur de Lion." Well, if I do," said the tragedian, “I am more merciful than you, who are continually beating him.”

Dignum and Moses Kean, the Mimic, were both tailors and intimate friends. Bannister met them under the piazza in Covent Garden, arm in arm. "I never see those men together," said Charles, "but they put me in mind of one of Shakespeare's comedies." "But which of them, BanWhy Measure for Measure."

nister?" 66

"You

A singular circumstance took place at Tralee, an excise town in Ireland. The Judge was passing sentence in the usual form, on one Macarthy, a noted sheep-stealer. are to be hanged by the neck until you are dead, and the Lord have mercy on your soul." The culprit immediately rejoined, "Oh, my Lord, you may save yourself any further trouble, for by I never knew any one to thrive after your prayers."

Rich, who never remembered any performer's name, but would always say Mr.-, being in company with Foote, and making use of the same appellation, "Sir," said Foote, "it is very odd you can't remember my name?" "Why Mr.," rejoined Rich, "it is my way; I sometimes can't remember my own name." "I have heard," replied Foote," that you could not write your name, but I never knew you had forgot it."

A Nonconformist parson preaching on the Fire of London, said, "The calamity could not be occasioned by the sin of blasphemy, for in that case it would have begun at Billingsgate; nor lewdness, for then Drury Lane would have been first on fire; nor lying, for then the flames had reached from Westminster Hall: no, my beloved, it was occasioned by the sin of gluttony, for it began at Pudding Lane and ended at Pye Corner."

The late Duke of Norfolk was much addicted to the bottle. On a masquerade night he asked Foote, who was his intimate, what new character he should go in? "Go

sober," said Foote!

Mrs. Webb, of Covent Garden Theatre, was rehearsing the part of Lady Anne, in Richard the Third, at Lynn, in Norfolk, in much distress, about the year 1778. When she came to that passage where the disconsolate fair utters, "Shall I never have rest again," her irascible landlady, who had been listening, suddenly popped her head into the room, and with her arms a kimbo bellowed-" No, thou waggabone, that thou shan't, till you have paid me for your board and lodging."

The late Tom Weston, being in a strolling company, in

Sussex, when the success was even less than moderate, ran up a bill of three shillings with his landlord, who sold

rusty bacon; as things looked suspiciously, the hog-vendor waited upon the comedian and insisted upon having his money immediately. "Make yourself easy, my honest fellow," said Weston, "for by the gods I will pay you this night in some shape or another." "See you do, Master Weston," retorted the landlord surlily," and, d'ye hear, let it be as much in the shape of three shillings as possible."

It has been confidently affirmed, as marvellous proofs of the efficacy of avarice, that Foote unnecessarily endured an amputation to procure a patent from the late Duke of York, and that an Irish sailor who wanted some money to go to Dublin, actually received thirty pounds at Portsmouth to be shot the next day in the place of Admiral Byng.

Many sprigs of humanity, bipedal parrots, Petits Maitres, or pretty fellows, interlard their conversation with a continual repetition of the words, "d'ye see." One of these animals giving a description of a rencontre in Long Acre between two barrow-women, said," D'ye see now as how that the two women had been fighting and abusing one another a long time, d'ye see; at last the least of the two, d'ye see, threw something in the other's eyes, d'ye see, and so she couldnt see, d'ye see." "Yes," continued a pedantic gentleman by way of illustration, who always spoke as if on stilts, forked animal who had the worst of the battle was knocked and had been a dictionary worm from his cradle, "The down, and no one choosing to interfere, she was left exposed to the circumambient air, which, pressing on the cadavorosity." perspiratory ducts coagulated the juices and occasioned a

Counsellor Harwood was questioned by the Lord Chansellor Bowes, in the Court of King's Bench, in Dublin, to know for whom he was concerned. The answer ran thus: "I am consarned for the plaintiff, my Lord, but I'm employed by the defindint."

Holland was the son of a baker at Chiswick, and before he died requested Mr. Garrick, that he might be buried in Chiswick church-yard, and that he would have a family vault erected. On the demise of the tragedian his wishes were fulfilled, and Garrick took Foote in his carriage to show him the mausoleum, which was built on a very small scale. When Foote first surveyed the sepulchre he burst into a loud fit of laughter, and exclaimed," By Davy, if you had not told me it was the family vault I should certainly have taken it for the family oven."

WILKES AND THE NORTH BRITON.-I send you a literary curiosity-Wilkes' own version of his connection with the North Briton. It is in his own handwriting, and I believe unpublished.

"Perhaps no periodical publication has ever given more ground for public or private altercation than this paper, or been the cause of more singular adventures. Enough has been said and printed relative to No. 45. I shall mention a few interesting particulars prior to that publication. No. 12 gave occasion to the duel between Lord Talbot and Mr. Wilkes. The letters between them are in the hands of the public. They met at Bagshot. All the circumstances of that affair are told at length in a letter from Mr. Wilkes to Earl Temple, wrote the same night. That letter was after Mr. Churchill's death returned to Mr. Wilkes that it might be printed as an illustration of those lines in the first book of the Ghost.

The hero, who for brawn and face

May claim right honourable place. "In the same number of the North Briton was an attack on Lord Litchfield, more severe, more pointed than that on Lord Talbot. The world, as we always call the country and sphere in which we move, had long expected some public notice would be taken of so home an attack, but the tameness and forbearance of Lord Litchfield were admirable; some even thought that a Christian forgiveness was in his heart, but they were mistaken. It had transpired to the public that Mr. Wilkes had avowed to Lord Talbot that he was the author of No. 12 of the North Briton. Lord Litchfield gave orders to a solicitor to prosecute Mr. Wilkes in the court of King's Bench the beginning of the following term, as well as Mr. Kearsley the publisher. Mr. Wilkes sent his compliments to Lord Litchfield, and that though he had avowed No. 12 of the North

Briton, it was never in his idea to suffer such a trifle to be made the serious subject of a wrangling litigation of attornies, and that the morning after his Lordship commenced any kind of proceeding in Westminster Hall, Mr. Wilkes would oblige him to decide the affair by the laws of honour, or to drop it. In this manner ended the dispute

with Lord Litchfield.

"No. 17 gave rise to the altercation with Mr. Hogarth. When he published the caricature of Mr. Wilkes he placed on the table in the print a pen, standish, &c., with the North Briton, No. 17 and No. 45. It would have been more judicious to have omitted No. 17, and then the painter might have appeared to espouse a public cause, not to revenge a personal quarrel. The other particulars respecting Mr. Hogarth find their place in the Notes to Mr. Churchill's Epistle to William Hogarth.

"No. 42 was likewise the subject of legal altercation. There are merchants at London who have the idea of carrying on the commerce of the world, and while they are adding to the national wealth, at the same time are forming for the public the invincible bulwark of a superior navy. Among these was not Peregrine Cust, brother to the Speaker. He was more properly a stockjobber than a merchant. He had great concerns in the stocks, in all loans, subscriptions, and ministerial jobs. His favourite business was carried on in Exchange Alley, and he chiefly traded among the Hebrew Jews of Jonathans. He was in Parliament, and when he was not doing his own business among the City brokers, he was employing his time very usefully for the Minister in the House of Commons. Such steady

merit did not go unrewarded, and all the votes he gave in Parliament were remembered and nobly paid for in the great day of retribution, the new loan of £3,500,000 for the year 1763. He had £200,000 of this new loan given him, on which there was in a very few days a rise of above eleven per cent. The North Briton stated his gain only at the round sum of £20,000. The fact was not controverted, yet Mr. Cust employed the Attorney-General to move the Court of King's Bench against the printer, Mr. Kearsley, and Sir Fletcher Norton undertook it very cheerfully, but the ridicule attending it soon stopped all the proceeding. Mr. Wilkes, however, was at the expense of feeing Counsel to defend the printer. Mr. Cust's affidavit is still on record. In that he says, "that he doth apprehend and think himself prejudiced and injured in his character and credit in his business as a merchant of the City of London." What! by the gain of £20,000? And in the conclusion he ventures to swear, "that it was in this deponent's opinion and judgment uncertain at the time of this deponent's delivering in his said list as aforesaid, whether the agreement for the public loan would or would not be attended with benefit to the subscribers, and there was not in this deponent's judgment any probability that the subscribers to the same would derive any large, considerable, or unreasonable benefit from it, nor was the agreement itself in this deponent's opinion unfair, or inequitable, or inadequate to the risk run." very first hour a rise of above seven per cent on the new loan. I question if another subscriber could be found who would have made the above affidavit.

There was the

which was occasioned by the North Briton, and the share "There was likewise a dispute about a son of Lord Bute, Mr. W. was supposed to have in that paper. No. 21 gives

the circumstances of that affair.

proved that Mr. W. wrote No. 12, the paper respecting "After such a deluge of political writing, it only remains Lord Talbot, and the passages in No. 37 and No. 40, which allude to Mr. Martin. The proof of this was the avowal made to the parties themselves. Mr. W., however, bore the sins of the party, and was ready on every occasion to serve the cause with his person, his pen, and his purse."

Speaking of Lord Temple's advising the discontinuance of the North Briton, Mr. Wilkes continues.

"It is very true that Lord Temple did not advise the continuance of the North Briton, in a conversation Mr. Wilkes had with his Lordship, after the publication of the three or four first numbers. When the North Briton first appeared, Lord Temple was at Stowe, and entirely unacquainted with the plan of a political paper in answer to the Briton. Mr. Pitt paid a visit at Stowe before Mr. Wilkes saw Lord Temple, and expressed himself very warmly against all kinds of political writing as productive of great mischief. Mr. Wilkes observed to Lord Temple that such a declaration was in character from Mr. Pitt, who ought to fear the shadow of a pen, that he was undoubtedly the best speaker and the worst writer of his age, that he would do well to harangue the 500 deputies of the people in the cause of liberty, and the North Briton would endeavour to animate the nation at large. Lord Temple feared the losing a trifling handful of the Scots who pretended to have listed under the banners of Mr. Pitt, but the English nation approved the attack made on the minister, from his having adopted the narrow maxims of his country, and sacrificed a great people to his little prejudices. Lord Temple, the

In reply to a passage in the History of the Minority' that Lord Temple did not approve of carrying on that paper with so much acrimony, nor of those national reflections with which it was replete, Wilkes states, "This assertion is not true. His Lordship had so much good sense and knowledge of the world, that he must be persuaded no political paper, though writ in the most masterly manner, would be relished by the public, unless well seasoned with personal satire. The popular merit of the North Briton was that he attacked a minister very odious, and quod sale multo urbem defricuit. As to the national reflections, it must be considered that the people were really grown outrageous from the spirit of clannishness which they saw was gone forth. Numberless innocent families had suffered as victims for the cause of liberty, and had made way for the relations, dependents, or countrymen of the new minister. So general a revolution in the inferior departments had never taken place. The poverty and pride of the Scots had passed into a proverb among the French as well as English. Their attachment to each other, their zeal for the interests of a countryman, and their coldness to all the rest of the human species, had been often remarked in the capital. A vacancy did not offer of the place of physician or surgeon to any hospital, but if a candidate appeared from the North, every one of his countrymen was immediately on wing through London to serve him. This was remarked sometimes twice or thrice in a year, but only of the Scots. No such observation had been made of the Irish or English. They served each other and the Scots with frankness and warmth, but no Scot ever exerted himself but for a Scot. This was an odious and a national character. It has been said that it is unfair to

make national reflections. I cannot imagine upon what account. They are remarks upon what has been generally seen by strangers of the body of a people, and not of two or three individuals. Is not the national character of levity among the French just, of artifice among the Italians? Nations very often change their character, but that is not the question; there is always some characteristic which distinguishes every people on the face of the earth. The old Romans were remarkable for the love of liberty and their country. The modern Romans are distinguished for luxury, effeminacy, and superstition. The Genoese are the same as in the time of Virgil and Ansonius.

"Haud Ligarum cxtremus dum fallere fata sinebant.

And

"Note. They invited Xerxes into Greece, and were not ashamed to join Mardonius after the battle of Salamis, and to serve him as guides in his invasion of Attica. (Leland's Demosthenes, I. 3.)

"The ancients had no scruple of employing national reflections and Punica fides was as often in the writings of the Romans as French faith in those of the English. "Mr. Hume, in his history, never omits any opportunity of a national reflection.

"Pope Leo, whose fault was too great finesse and artifice, a fault, which both as a priest and an Italian, it was difficult for him to avoid, hath hitherto temporised between the parties.-VI. 11.

"There is no proof that Lord Temple condemned national reflections. He was most displeased not at the acrimony of the North Briton against particulars, but at the compliments paid to some persons who were not his friends, Mr. Legge among others. There had been a long friendship between Mr. Legge and Mr. Wilkes, and their political sentiments had always agreed. Lord Temple and Mr. Pitt were never in direct open variance with Mr. Legge, but a coldness had Mr. Wilkes was very happy long subsisted between them. to have a public opportunity of doing justice to the integrity and abilities of his friend Mr. Legge, and the North Briton drew his character in the most advantageous manner, and set it in the fairest and fullest light. I believe this was the part of that paper which was the most disagreeable both to Lord Temple and Mr. Pitt. The common cause of the opposition made Mr. Wilkes's conduct political, but private friendship dictated the measure. It is perhaps singular, with respect to this particular periodical paper, that it was conducted upon principles different from any other. No private tie had been broken, no connection dissolved, nor any attack Sir Francis begun where there was a friendly intercourse. Dashwood will be on record a remarkable proof of this observation. He was certainly, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, the best mark an opposition could wish. His capacity did not extend to the settling a tavern bill, yet the department of finance was entrusted to him. He was spared by the North Briton, and it was believed he owed that indemnity to private connections with Mr. W. which arose from their being of the same county and serving from the beginning in the same militia. He was one of the monks of Medmenham Abbey, and used to attend the chapters very regularly. He afterwards neglected those meetings, and gave as the reason that he did not choose to meet Mr. W. who was an

enemy of Lord Bute. Mr. W. desired their common friends at the Abbey to represent to Sir Francis the nature of such an institution, in which party had not the least concern, that the brotherhood there were used to sacrifice to mirth, to friendship, and to love, never to fortune nor ambition."

When No. 45 of the North Briton appeared, the printer and publisher were apprehended by a general warrant. Of this proceeding Mr. Wilkes gives the following account.

"Mr. Wilkes went to see Mr. Kearsley the very morning that he was apprehended. The messenger in whose custody Kearsley was, said that the orders were not to admit any one; however, he would oblige Mr. W. on the condition that nothing was spoke to the prisoner but in the hearing of himself. Mr. Kearsley then exposed the cause of his detention to be the publication of the North Briton, No. 45, upon which Mr. Wilkes only remarked that he thought it an innocent paper, that he would strenuously protect and