[1833.]
[The greater part of the year 1833 was passed by Miss Knight in London, but the only entry in her Diary worthy of notice is the following one:]
June 14th.—Dined at Lady Charleville’s, to meet Lady Charlotte Bury, Miss Porter, Mr. Disraeli, Lord Oxmantown, Mr. Campbell, and others. In the evening more company came. The manners of Miss Porter appeared to me as pleasing and unassuming as her novels are natural and entertaining, no less than well principled. Mr. Campbell, author of “The Pleasures of Hope,” &c., is grown very large, and appears to be in ill-health. Mr. Disraeli is an author, and the son of an author. He talked much of the government of Syria, Egypt, &c. Among those who came in the evening was Lady Morgan, but I had no opportunity of hearing her converse, as I came away early.
[A few anecdotes are inserted at the close of the year, from which the following are selected. The “local habitation,” assigned to the oft-quoted grace on rabbits, is on the authority of the Princess Augusta.]
The Duke of Richmond, great-uncle of the present one (recently deceased), was very fond of hares and rabbits, especially the latter, and used to have them constantly served at table, dressed in various ways. His chaplain in ordinary, who used to sit near the lower end, was not a little tired of them, more especially as by the time they came to him they were often quite cold. So, being asked to say grace, he recited:
“Rabbits young, and rabbits old,
Rabbits hot, and rabbits cold,
Rabbits tender, rabbits tough,
Thanks to Heav’n, we’ve had rabbits enough.”
Sir Herbert Taylor says that “The English are never so happy as when they are discontented; the Irish never in such good humour as when they are breaking heads; and the Scotch never so much at home as when they are living upon others.”
Count de M., when Minister at Stockholm, was staying at the house of the Count d’Uglas, after the Countess and his young daughter, who was in a bad state of health, had left him on their way to Paris. One morning he told the Count and Countess d’Uglas that he had passed a very uncomfortable night, for that he had continually seen a kneeling figure, sometimes on one, sometimes on the other side of his bed, and that, though the back was turned to him, it perfectly resembled his daughter. The impression was so strong upon his mind that he sketched the figure, which, in fact, did resemble hers. On comparing dates, it afterwards appeared that his daughter had died at that very time.[[112]]
An old woman, who died a few years ago in Ireland, had a nephew, a lawyer, to whom she left by will all she possessed. She happened to have a favourite cat, who never left her, and even remained by the corpse after her death. After the will was read in the adjoining room, on opening the door the cat sprang at the lawyer, seized him by the throat, and was with difficulty prevented from strangling him. This man died about eighteen months after this scene, and on his death-bed confessed that he had murdered his aunt to get possession of her money.
Lord Nelson, writing to the Admiralty for supplies at a time when his squadron stood in great need of them (in the year 1799, I think), said: “We must have them from home, for Spain would not, Naples and Sicily could not, and Sardinia ought not, to supply them.”