"We mean," cried Robert, "to pay the compliment due to your talents."

"Ay," cried Jack, "particularly to your talent of making yourself disagreeable."

'Then we all ran into the house, and peeping through a window, saw him returning; when suddenly altering his mind, he put spurs to his horse, and galloped away.

The next time we met in the Adelphi, Erskine shook us by the hand, laughed heartily at the circumstance, and said, " as he did not forget he was a great barrister, we were quite right in remembering we were the sons of a great attorney;" a character certainly not exactly to be trifled with, by either old or young big wigs.'-Vol. i. pp. 117–119.

That unaccountable convulsion which produced the riots of 1780, is touched on. Its origin, progress, and triumph, are among the most extraordinary instances on record of national madness on the one hand, and ministerial perplexity on the other. All seem to have lost their senses. Lord George Gordon physically mad, the mob morally mad, and the administration out of their reason with alarm and indecision. The king behaved manfully, and was the only one who did so. The magistrates shrank, the privy council would vote neither the one way nor the other. Lord Mansfield could not be prevailed on to say whether he had an opinion or not, on a question the very plainest that could be offered to men in their senses, "whether the outrages of the mob could be lawfully repelled by force;" the whole wisdom of the wise was paralysed, until the king put the point directly to Wedderburne, the attorney general, and extorted a direct answer from the lawyer. The troops were then ordered out, and after a few trifling conflicts, the mob, who in a day or two more would probably have laid the greater part of London in ashes, were completely repelled, and the whole tumult was put down.

Among those who were particularly perplexed on this occasion, was Reynolds's father, the solicitor and politician.

'My father (whose ideas of liberty consisted in thinking he should have the power of checking those in power, rather than that those beneath him should think of checking him) began to be puzzled as to his opinion of the riots. At first, he praised the magistracy for not interfering; but, the havoc spreading far and wide, and not exactly understanding mob tyranny, on Wednesday, June the 7th, he put one hundred and fifty guineas into his pocket, and took us all with him to Southbarrow; where, after dinner, he said, if the rabble continued to rule, he would, in a day or two, depart for France,-" A wise country," he added, "where the government was not in the people!"

'Jack agreed with him, and both he and my father continued vehemently to inveigh against a democracy, until the former unluckily hinted, that he thought the cause of the riots had commenced with the cry of "Wilkes and Liberty!" My father felt the rebuke, and rising abruptly from his chair, cried angrily to Jack," Either you or I leave this room."

"I know my duty, sir," replied my eccentric brother, and walked out, humming "God save the King."

'However, at midnight, when we walked on the lawn, and looking towards London, saw by the red appearance of the sky that probably half the metropolis was in flames (and recollecting also that, before our departure, all the prisoners had escaped from Newgate, Clerkenwell, and the New Prison to add to the universal horror and confusion) we approached my father, and instead of bantering him on his political tergiversation, unanimously thanked him for his kindness and foresight.'Vol. i. pp. 131-133.

In 1782 young Reynolds was turned into a solicitor, and became at the same period a verse-maker, and, as for the purposes of poetry a Laura is essential, he fell in love with a girl, judiciously selected, one whose name was convenient for rhyme. But evil days were now coming upon his dynasty. The head of the house, always careless, good humoured, and idle, had made one of those starts for sudden fortune which has thrown so many bold men into bankruptcy. He purchased a West Indian estate. This was a terrible speculation; but this did not come alone, a political banker failed, and dispersed to the winds a large share of the property of his public-minded friend. Still there was a remnant; but for that too there was a ruin, and it was to be found in the indolence and gentlemanlike absurdity of the parent solicitor. His desk was neglected for his villa; he took to farming, and promised himself, as many a thriving citizen, born to be undone, has promised before him, that what he lost in the town, he would gain in the country; though, as the biographer says, 'we all knew that he never reared a turnip which did not cost him as much as a pine apple; nor dressed a leg of mutton which did not prove to him far dearer than venison.'

We have now nearly done with the solicitor; but we cannot resist the following touching picture of the embarras in which a politician may sometimes find himself in this land of party.

In the latter end of March, Lord North and his colleagues in office resigned, and on the 30th of the same month the Rockingham administration came into power. Lord Effingham being appointed Treasurer of the Household, my father, for the second time in his life, became a government man; but Lord Rockingham dying on July the 1st, and the Shelburne administration, with William Pitt as Chancellor of the Exchequer, immediately commencing, Lord Effingham resigned, and my father suddenly found himself again in opposition.

The Shelburne party being removed during the following April, by the coalition of Lord North and Fox, the latter came into power. My father, like many other politicians, then completely posed, used to shake his head, smile, and say, "I don't know which side to take now."

'In December of the same year North and Fox losing their places, owing to the India Bill, Pitt then returned into office, not only as Chancellor of the Exchequer, but also as First Lord of the Treasury Vol. i. p. 152.

Which the author slyly winds up with 'So much for politics, now for quackery on a smaller scale.' The solicitor was ruined in the

usual way; idleness, good cheer, and accommodation bills, put an end to this flourishing and causidical politician. His son Frederick, who seems to have been the only one of his eccentric family of whom he could make any use, was sent to Spa to dun Lord Grandison, an Irish peer to whom Reynolds was agent. There he heard the following incident from Count Zenobio, who very probably has some others of the same calibre in his possession.

A short thin man, whom nobody knew but by sight, suddenly became a constant attendant at the gaming tables. This man, during a whole fortnight, continued night after night, in the most extraordinary manner, to win enormous sums of the faro bankers, as well as the surrounding betters.

'He wore spectacles, and appeared so short-sighted, that he was always obliged to touch the connters with his nose, before he could distinguish the card. Such was his luck, that whatever card he backed was sure to win.

'On the last night of his appearance at Spa, one of the gamesters, a young half intoxicated Irishman, had lost an unusually heavy sum. His temper was quite gone, and he vituperated his lucky opponent in a style that might have edified the most abusive fishwoman in Billingsgate. "Dyou, you old dog," he cried, " and most particularly d― your spectacles! By the powers, see, if I won't try my luck myself in your cursed spectacles!" and snatching them from him, he put them on his own face. At first, he could distinguish nothing, but on approaching the cards within three inches of his nose, he discovered that the spectacles were strong magnifiers. His suspicion and curiosity were immediately excited, and he turned to demand an explanation of the wearer; but he was gone. An examination then commenced, and the cause of this wonderful continuity of luck was speedily discovered.

The cards in Spa are not bought of shopkeepers, as in England, but every autumn, the proprietors of the gaming tables repair to the grand fair at Leipzig, and there purchase their stock for the year. Thither the spectacle gentleman had also hied, not as a buyer, but as a seller of cards, and at such reduced rate, and of such excellent quality, that all the purchasers resorted to him; and Spa, and several other towns, were literally stocked solely with his cards. At the back of each of these, concealed amongst the ornaments, and so small as to be imperceptible to the unassisted eye, was its number, with a particular variation to denote the suit. Then the rogue came to Spa disguised, with blackened hair, and spectacles; and there, as a gentleman gambler, would have broken all the banks in Spa, but for the fury of the enraged Irishman. As it was, he decamped with several thousand pounds.-Vol. i. pp. 209-211.

Here, by his adroitness, the young envoy actually extracted a draft for five hundred pounds from the noble lord, and on his return to Brussels he was struck with the whim of seeing France, for which, as the Americans had just seduced the unfortunate Louis the Sixteenth into war, all passports for the English were refused. For this absurdity he might have suffered dearly, and was on the point of being thrown into prison on his reaching Paris.

He, however, with difficulty obtained the intervention of Franklin's secretary for a day's respite, and finally made his escape, after suffering sufficient expense, insults, and terror, in the disguise of a footman. The French revolution was already preparing, and the caricature which he describes is as expressive as could have been wished by a moralist.

'As we returned we went into a caricature shop. Here I was particularly struck by the evident discontent of the people; who, as if unable to give it a sufficient vent, by whispering and printing, painted and engraved it. In one of these caricatures, fishes were seen flying in the air, while birds were drowning in the sea; a court of justice was inverted; the king, in his robes, stood attempting to water some drooping plants, but the water flew upwards. By his side, on its hinder legs, stood a large female wolf, to whom an immense pocket was attached, into which several courtiers of the Austrian faction were seen rapidly pouring gold; while in the wolf's paw was a large flambeau, whose long flame descending perpendicularly, fired their wigs.

'On the wolf's head, which bore a most ridiculous resemblance to the Queen, were immense plumes of feathers; alluding to the feather mania, with which Marie Antoinette had infected the court, at a period when they were only worn on the heads of horses. Never had fashion a greater rage; every week an additional, a handsomer, or a larger feather was attached; until at length the queen, her suite, and her horses, at a short distance from the beholder, were lost in one waving, undulating forest of feathers.' -Vol. i. p. 229.

The feather mania was infinitely odious to the hair-dressers, and all the tribes living upon the coiffeur art only. Its speedy abandonment appears to have saved the throne from a premature overthrow. On this fashion Sir Charles Bunbury wrote the following epigram, to which we give a place, as unequivocally the worst that it is possible to conceive:

"Since to ape horses sinks womankind,

Heaven forefend they lovers should find;
For he that courts and wins such fools

Must raise a race of horrid mules!"-Vol. i. p. 230.

We have quackery enough in our day; but the period just preceding that time till the revolution, which put an end to all lighter frauds, was singularly full of national fooleries,-Dr. Graham's celestial bed, animal magnetism, ballooning, lotteries, and a crowd of minor arts of extracting the popular money. The "perfectibility system," and the "rights of woman," were to be the rage of a more accomplished period.

We at length come to the proper business for which Frederick Reynolds was sent into being. 'On the 30th of September, 1793,' says he, I was present when Mr. Kemble made his first appearance on a London stage, in the character of Hamlet!" There is not much in this statement; but the manner is every thing. This brief, unadorned, oracular sentence, evidently stands

as the motto for the temple of the dramatist's fame; the starting post from which he was to urge his poetic wheels for forty years; the spell by which his glory and his guineas were to be ruled, till "first and second music" had no sound in his ears; till box-books and orders were to him but as common foolscap; and till third, sixth, and ninth nights were confounded to him with the more vulgar products of the calendar. He gives an astonishing anecdote of the ingratitude of the play-going creation.

During the run of my really popular, half popular, really damned, and half damned pieces, I should imagine that I have, on an average, written or procured one hundred and fifty double orders to each; consequently, calculating from the commencement of my dramatic carcer down to the present period, on the aggregate, above fifteen thousand people have, through my privilege alone, entered the theatre gratis.

But to conclude this, in every respect unprofitable subject, I will merely add, that the only token of gratitude I ever remember to have received from the aforesaid fifteen thousand freemen, was a short civil note from a pastry-cook's boy in Dean-street, thanking me for his four admissions to the gallery, and requesting my acceptance of a raspberry puff, and a little pigeon pie!'—Vol. i. p. 269, 270.

He now fancied that he had fallen in love, and to acquire fame and fortune at once he wrote " Werter, a tragedy." His play was refused by all the London theatres; but it was brought out successfully at Bath, in 1785, the house being crowded, the front of the boxes all covered with pocket-handkerchiefs ready for action, a display which regularly took place during the Siddons' mania,' and every thing giving evidence that several of the handsomest and most conspicuous of the belles intended to be seized with hysterics on the earliest opportunity. In the garden scene, where Albert and Charlotte mutually endeavoured to compose Werter, we were delighted by the sound of the first fit, and by the scent of its usual concomitant, hartshorn.' Shortly another fainted. In the scene of the readings from Ossian three more fainted, and so precisely at the same moment, that, being a complete neck and neck business, the best judges could not decide which of them had won the race.Vol. i. p. 307.

Werter was hissed a good deal, but the mysteries carried the day, and the young author was raised into sudden renown. He was next day taken by Ring, the master of the ceremonies, to the pump-room, where he was warmly congratulated by the late Archbishop of Armagh, Lady Abingdon, Miss Sophia Lee and her sister, Pratt (the author of Sympathy), Sir Thomas Lawrence, and by the "old queen of Bath," Mrs. Macartney, who condescendingly told him that she would see his play, and if she approved of it' would actually give him a card for her ball and supper a few evenings after. The tragedy was performed at Bristol, where Reynolds went to inhale new triumph, and had the happiness of sitting by a stranger, who, before the end of the second act, tap