and, on reaching the field in which they were to be held, I looked around for the rector, and at last discovered him almost at the top of a gigantic elm, which he had climbed for the purpose of fixing a rope to an upper branch. I could not help saying, when he descended, that, though I knew him to be a good Churchman, I had now evidence of his being a high Churchman.

HIS EXCELLENCY M. VAN DE WEYER AND HIS COOK.

In the advertisement sheet of the Times of the 10th November, 1871, there appeared a very long letter in French, signed Eugène Derome, the chef of his Excellency, setting forth that he was travelling from France in the preceding September with three articles of baggage, and, on arriving at Newhaven, and applying for the said articles, "ticket in one hand and hat in the other "-tenant d'une main mon bulletin, et de l'autre mon chapeau-he was informed that one package had been detained at Dieppe, and would be sent on the next day. This packet contained some rare conserves de Paris for his Excellency's table.

Four days afterwards he received a letter stating that his parcel was detained at Dieppe because it contained clocks, and requiring proofs of their being his property, adding, "This is owing to the late pillage of M. Thiers's house and the public buildings in Paris." M. Derome indignantly denied the imputation; and, as the parcel did not come forward, M. Van de Weyer's solicitor was set to work, and to his first application the reply was that the matter was receiving attention." On further legal pressure, and after a delay of six weeks, the package arrived, marked, in large letters, "Unclaimed Property Office."

This letter, which a contemporary journal-the Echo of the 10th November, 1871-describes as one "which for piquancy and wit might well have occupied a better position" than the supplement of the Times, was of course not written by M. Derome. Indeed, it is no secret, I believe, that it was from the pen of his accomplished master. There is one passage in it which I cannot but quote:

"Je soutiens que l'on me doit une amende honorable, une reparation des dommagés intérets; car, blessé dans mon honneur, lésé dans ma profession, vexé par d'inexplicables délais, je n'ai, depuis un mois, mangé morceau qui m'ait profité; mes jours ont été sans repos, mes nuits sans sommeil, et la table de mon maitre sans conserves de France."

This is a climax which, as I remarked to M. Van de Weyer, to whom I am indebted for a reprint of the letter, touches the sublime. I asked his Excellency what M. Derome said about the letter. "Oh," he replied, "he told me that he had received innumerable letters complimenting him on the cleverness of his communication to the Times, and added that he felt himself very much like the donkey which carried the relics, to which everybody who passed bowed down."

This also is too good to be passed

by:

"C'est assez vous dire que je n'ai jamais eu rien de commun avec la Commune, et que, plein d'admiration et de respect pour M. Thiers, j'aime beaucoup mieux voir mon pays gouverné par lui, que le tiers et le quart."

SILENT EVIDENCE.

A friend of mine, a minister abroad, had a secretary, an Englishman, well educated, and especially a good classic, who

married an English girl, remarkably pretty, but many years his junior. He had some independent means, and they lived together very comfortably for some years, and apparently in great harmony. Suddenly, however, she left his house, and went back to her mother, who, I fancy, was not very well off. Not long afterwards the husband received a long bill from a linendraper, for goods supplied to his wife since her desertion, and which, it turned out, were chiefly for her mother and her family. The bill was accompanied by a peremptory demand for payment, which, being refused, an action in the County Court was commenced against the husband. Now the law is, that when a wife leaves her husband without sufficient cause, he is not liable for any debts she may contract thereafter; and the question on which the action hinged was, if the treatment of the husband was such as to justify her leaving him. The only allegation brought by the wife was that he had a female relative in the house, to whom he paid improper attentions, and this lady was a witness in the cause. After the evidence for the plaintiff was concluded, the judge or the defendant's counsel called the relative into the box, in which there accordingly appeared a lady about sixty, a singularly gaunt, scraggy, and ugly spinster. Before a question could be put to her the judge said blandly, "Thank you, madam; we will not trouble you further," and immediately pronounced for the defendant. The counsel for the defendant was my particular friend, and told me the story.

STRAYS.

I am indebted to a member of the Corps Diplomatique for several anecdotes of ministers at court. I recall the following:

the

When the Neapolitan dynasty was foundering Mr. B representative of a foreign court, had for some time made friendly suggestions to Bomba on the probable result of his policy, and on one occasion presented himself as usual at the Palace to ask an audience. The officer, whose duty it was to announce him, returned, after considerable delay, with the answer that the Sovereign was not in his cabinet. This was enough to convince the diplomatist that his counsels were no longer palatable. Mr. B turning round to those assembled in the ante-room, made his bow, merely saying, " Messieurs, le Roi est perdu.'

Mr. X, who was at Warsaw as foreign agent when each of the European Powers was striving for ascendancy there, on one occasion met with some obstruction to his progress when going in his carriage to a public ceremony. He remon strated, but merely received an expression of regret; but, accounting for the occurrence by the fact that the municipal police had seen nothing to indicate that the carriage was that of a foreign representative, Mr.

made no further remark;

but on the following day and thereafter, as long as he remained at his post, had two footmen behind his carriage, each bearing the flag of his nation.

During the reign of Louis Philippe, many of the old Legitimists kept aloof from his court, but did not object to receive letters of introduction to his representatives in foreign countries. On one occasion Vicomte Acame thus recommended to London, and his ambassador procured him the entrée to the first circles, and also to the Palace. Uniform was obligatory on all presentations to the Sovereign; and it happened that on his first appearance before royalty the Vicomte was without

the national cockade-a fact to which the ambassador called his attention, and was told in explanation that his countryman had not been able to procure one in London. Whereupon his Excellency, who knew this to be a mere subterfuge, immediately tore the cockade from his own hat and presented it to his countryman, observing that that he could dispense with it, as he was well known, and he feared that without such distinction his friend might be overlooked, and not receive the attentions due to a French nobleman.

At a Lord Mayor's dinner the Lord Chancellor of the day was conducting the Mayoress to the dinner room, when Comte Athe French ambassador, claimed the right of precedence, saying, "Milord, vous m'avez enlevé ma belle." The Chancellor, who had probably desired to push his privilege beyond its limits, yielded with a good grace, alleging his ignorance of court etiquette being observed in the City of London.

At a court gathering at Windsor during the Ascot week an ambassador was in the same carriage with a half-brother of the Queen, who had taken the seat of honour, to the disparagement of the ambassadorial dignity. To regain his position his Excellency was careful to leave the course before the race concluded, and to take his proper seat in the carriage, merely saying, when the Prince came up, "I hope, Monseigneur, it does not inconvenience you to ride with your back to the horses."

An American minister, having been called upon to return thanks for some toast complimentary to his nation, became so excited towards the close of it that the Earl of A- remarked to me that he was afraid he would wind up with the war whoop.

NOTHING LIKE LEATHER. During a very heavy storm, which had almost cleared the streets, I picked up from the pavement a purse containing sixteen shillings and a baker's bill; and it was by means of the latter that I was enabled to find out the owner, who proved to be the wife of a leather-seller. I called on him at his shop, and handed him the purse, from which, with an apostrophe to the carelessness of his wife, he took four shillings and held them out to me, saying they were for a bottle of wine. I thanked him cordially for his munificent intentions, but told him I was amply rewarded by the pleasure of restoring his property, and bade him good morning. I could not help contrasting this proffered salvage of twenty-five per cent. with the niggardliness with which persons in a much higher station have acknowledged a like service, and of which I remember a notable instance, where a guinea was given to the finder of some hundreds in bank notes.

ROYALTY'S OMELETTE.

A gentleman, for many years the representative of a foreign power at this court, told me that he was once travelling with the King of Portugal under what circumstances he did not state; but it seemed that they had lost their way in a wild part of the country. At last they descried a cottage, at which they asked for shelter, which was readily granted by the woman who admitted them, but who, in answer to their request for food, said she had nothing in the house but eggs, of which she offered to make them an omelette. Pending its preparation, the king and my friend, the narrator, wrapped themselves in their cloaks and lay down on the floor, through a square hole in which the latter caught a sight

of their hostess preparing their meal, which she did by breaking the eggs into her leathern apron, and thence pouring their contents into the pan. He called the King's attention to the fact; but they were both too hungry to be nice, and devoured the omelette without scruple.

An officer who was present when my friend told the story said that during the civil war in Spain he was with Don Carlos, the grandfather of the insurrectionary chief, when he was in full retreat, and on one occasion could get nothing to eat but bread and onions, which Don Carlos-to such strait was he reduced devoured with great avidity.

"In other words," remarked my friend of the omelette banquet, "he ate his leek."

PICTURES.

I once met, at the table of a great art critic, a celebrated picture dealer, to whom I have before alluded as repudiating the final vowel in the word picture. He told us that Sir Robert Peel once asked the price of a picture in the dealer's gallery, and, on its being named to him, he observed that it was too high, adding that the other should consider that twenty shillings went as far as five-andtwenty some time before. "Sir Robert," was the ready reply, "if you will persuade my creditors to recognise that principle, you shall have the pictur at your own price."

A Rembrandt of great rarity had just been unpacked in the dealer's gallery, when the then President of the Royal Academy called, and, after remarking on the high price, left without buying it; but, returning in half an hour, purchased it for five hundred guineas, the price fixed. About a week afterwards he called again, and said, "Mr. W, I was not justified in my

circumstances

in giving five hundred guineas for that picture, beautiful as it is, and worth the money. Will you do me the favour to take it back ?" and at the same time he presented to the dealer a cheque for £100. "Sir T said the little man, “I will take it back most readily, but certainly I will not take the cheque. Send me the picture, but allow me to state-and I do so out of respect to yourself-that immediately that it passes your threshold the price is one thousand guineas." "Mr. W," was the reply, "I understand you, and thank you."

A newly-appointed sheriff of Lancashire once called on Wand, giving him the dimensions of a gallery he had built, asked him how much it would cost to fill it. W- who travelled with Sir David Wilkie to the East, and was with him when he died on board ship as he was returning to England, was with him at Constantinople when he painted the portrait of the Sultan, who, while the artist was at work on it, asked for a brush charged with the colour of the background, and, approaching the picture, cut off by a stroke of the brush a quarter of an inch of the tassel to the fez cap in which he was painted, alleging that it was too long. When the Sultan had paid for the picture, he compli mented Sir David on his success, and, calling for a tray of diamond snuff boxes, selected one, and presented it to the painter.

A CHARACTER.

One of the most original thinkers I ever met with was an Oxford man, a very fine scholar, and profoundly versed in classic antiquities, in which he has made some very valuable discoveries. Alluding to the German writers, he once said their long sentences afforded an example of suspended animation

carried through a couple of pages, the spirit of the sentence being discoverable only at the end. "It was not fair," he said, "in any nation to write such long-winded sentences, which were all very well in the days of the patriarchs, when men lived to some hundreds of years, and had plenty of time on their hands to read them; but the present span of human life was too short for them." He admitted, however, that they were most industrious and useful. "They are making," he added, a catalogue raisonné of the universe of mind and matter, and will soon have an index to everything."

Of opera dancers, he once remarked that they were attitudinarians and latitudinarians, and that the step was a short one from the graceful to the disgraceful. I may add that at that period there were examples on the opera stage which justified his remark.

"My parents," said he one day, "treated me as gipsies do their donkeys; they did not shut me up, but they turned me common with my legs tied, and expected me to call that liberty."

out on a

I heard him once muttering to himself, "It is surprising what an amount of business does itself if you only let it alone."

66

His gratitude for a good story was almost affecting. "Thank you, thank you," he would say, so much obliged; I won't hack it." And whenever he told you a good story, it was always with the addition of "Don't hack it."

DISARMING A CRITIC. A very distinguished military officer of the East India Company, at the early part of his career, published a series of letters strongly animadverting on the "powers that were," and the Indian Government were very anxious to discover the writer. At last they succeeded

in bringing the deed home to him; and the Governor-General consulted one of the counsel as to his punishment. "Utilise him," was the reply; "he is a very clever fellow." Accordingly he was nominated to an important command in the Punjaub, and the obnoxious letters were discontinued from that hour.

A TRANSPARENT JOKE. A young friend of mine had an appointment with Christal the artist. His father, however, wanted him to accompany him elsewhere. "But," remonstrated the son, "it is a sort of duty to Christal to go to him." "Nonsense," rejoined the elder, "there is no duty in the case; it was taken off glass by the late Act."

PUFFING.

When I was a schoolboy I copied, much oftener than I liked, a maxim, in copper-plate, "Selfpraise is no recommendation ;" and I believed devoutly in its truth. But I have lived to doubt it, owing my conversion to the advertisements in the daily journals, and to the success which they have, in many notable instances, achieved. With regard to those in the London papers, one would think that the "force of humbug could no farther go;" but the provincial press beats the metropolitan hollow. Taking up a provincial newspaper-the Sussex Gazette, of June 27, 1872— I find an advertisement headed, "Old Eyes made New." Among the testimonials to the marvellous

efficacy of "Ball's new patent Ivory and Lignum Vita Eye Cups," a certain individual is represented as certifying that he has "been blind of one eye for sixteen years, with cataracts, the eye being much enlarged, and a cataract has formed in the other. I have been compelled to wear glasses to see to go about." But, he adds, that since