SHEDDING HIS BLOOD FOR HIS COUNTRY.
Lord Radnor, who lived in the middle of last century, had a singular liking for the amateur employment of the lancet on the veins of his friends, or of persons whom he induced by gifts of money to allow him to display his skill upon them. It is told of Lord Chesterfield, that, desiring the vote of Lord Radnor in some division impending in the House of Lords, he went to him, and by and by, in the course of indifferent conversation, complained that he was suffering from a bad headache. Lord Radnor leaped at the opportunity of indulging his predilection for phlebotomy on such a corpus nobile; he told Lord Chesterfield that he ought to lose blood at once. "Do you indeed think so, my dear Lord? Then do me the favour to add to the service of your advice that of your skill. I know that you are a clever surgeon." In a moment Lord Radnor had pulled out his lancet case, and opened a vein in his visitor's arm; who subsequently, when the bandage was being put on, as if casually, asked the operator, "By the by, does your Lordship go down to the House to-day?" Lord Radnor answered that he had not intended going, not having information enough as to the question that was to be debated; "But on what side will you, that have considered the matter, vote?" Lord Chesterfield stated his views to his amateur surgeon, whose vanity he had so cleverly flattered; and left the house with the promise of Lord Radnor's vote—having literally, as he told an intensely amused party of his friends the same evening, "shed his blood for the good of his country."