Swift's verses on his own death have an exquisite

facility but we are not to suppose that he wrote

:

them off-hand; their ease is the result of very careful composition.

Helen Maria Williams was a very fascinating person; but not handsome. I knew her intimately in her youth, when she resided in London with her mother and sisters. They used to give very agreeable evening-parties, at which I have met many of the Scotch literati, Lord Monboddo, &c.

Late in life, Helen translated into English, and very beautiful English too, Humboldt's long work, Personal Narrative of Travels, &c.; and, I believe, nearly the whole impression still lies in Longman's warehouse.

When she was in Paris, during the Revolution, she has seen men and women, who were waiting for admission at the door of the theatre, suddenly leave their station on the passing of a set of wretches going to be guillotined, and then, after having ascertained that none of their relations or friends were among them, very unconcernedly return to the door of the theatre. I have frequently dined with her at

Paris, when Kosciusko and other celebrated persons were of the party.

When Lord Erskine heard that somebody had died worth two hundred thousand pounds, he observed, "Well, that's a very pretty sum to begin the next world with."

"A friend of mine," said Erskine, "was suffering from a continual wakefulness; and various methods were tried to send him to sleep, but in vain. At last his physicians resorted to an experiment which succeeded perfectly: they dressed him in a watchman's coat, put a lantern into his hand, placed him in a sentry-box, and he was asleep in ten minutes."

To all letters soliciting his "subscription" to any thing, Erskine had a regular form of reply, viz.

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Sir, I feel much honoured by your application to me, and I beg to subscribe"-here the reader had to turn over the leaf-" myself your very obt servant," &c.

I wish I could recollect all the anecdotes of his early life which Erskine used to relate with such spirit and dramatic effect. He had been in the navy;

and he said that he once managed to run a vessel between two rocks, where it seemed almost impossible that she could have been driven. He had also been in the army; and on one occasion saved the life of a soldier who was condemned to death, by making an earnest appeal in his behalf to the general in command and his wife: Erskine having got the pardon, rode off with it at full speed to the place of execution, where he arrived just as the soldier was kneeling, and the muskets were levelled for the fatal shot.

Erskine used to say that when the hour came that all secrets should be revealed, we should know the reason why-shoes are always made too tight.

When he had a house at Hampstead, he entertained the very best company. I have dined there with the Prince of Wales,-the only time I ever had any conversation with his royal highness. On that occasion the Prince was very agreeable and familiar. Among other anecdotes which he told us of Lord Thurlow, I remember these two. The first was: Thurlow once said to the Prince, "Sir, your father will continue to be a popular king as long as he continues to go to church every Sunday, and to be

faithful to that ugly woman, your mother; but you, sir, will never be popular." The other was this: While his servants were carrying Thurlow up stairs to his bed-room, just before his death, they happened to let his legs strike against the banisters, upon which he uttered the last words he ever spoke,—a frightful imprecation on "all their souls."

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Erskine said that the Prince of Wales was quite

a cosmogony man" (alluding to The Vicar of Wakefield), for he had only two classical quotations,—one from Homer and one from Virgil,—which he never failed to sport when there was any opportunity of introducing them.*

Latterly Erskine was very poor; and no wonder, for he always contrived to sell out of the funds when they were very low, and to buy in when they were very high. "By heaven," he would say, "I am

a perfect kite, all paper; the boys might fly me." Yet, poor as he was, he still kept the best society: I have met him at the Duke of York's, &c. &c.

* Mr. Luttrell, who was present when Mr. Rogers told this anecdote, added, "Yes, and the quotation from Virgil was always given with a ridiculous error, 'Non illi imperium pelago, sævumque tridentem,'" &c. En. i. 138.-ED.

I asked Erskine if he really was the author of two little poems attributed to him,-The Geranium and The Birth of the Rose. He replied that The Geranium was written by him; that the other was not his.

Here's an epigram by Erskine which is far from bad (I know not if it has ever been printed);

"The French have taste in all they do,

Which we are quite without;

For Nature, that to them gave goût,

To us gave only gout."

Thomas Grenville* told me this curious fact. When he was a young man, he one day dined with Lord Spencer at Wimbledon. Among the company was George Pitt (afterwards Lord Rivers), who declared that he could tame the most furious animal by looking at it steadily. Lord Spencer said, "Well, there is a mastiff in the court-yard here, which is

*The Right Hon. T. G.-Sometimes, towards the close of his life, from lapse of memory, Mr. Rogers, in relating this anecdote, would state that he himself had been of the party at Lord Spencer's.-ED.