[16] These cross-readings obtained such celebrity that the inventor was tempted to distribute amongst his friends specimens, which 'he had been at the expense of printing upon small single sheets.' We quote a couple of examples from a slip, which was in the possession of J. T. (Antiquity) Smith's family, and, being considered something of a curiosity, is given in the pages of Nollekens and his Times.
Sunday night many noble families were alarmed— By the constable of the watch, who apprehended them at cards.
Wanted, to take care of an elderly gentlewoman— An active young man, just come from the country.
[17] Caleb Whiteford was Vice-President of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce.
[18] Somerset House Gazette and Literary Museum, No. 26. By Ephraim Hardcastle (W. H. Pyne). 1824.
[19] The reader may observe a similar chariot in the Museum at South Kensington; it might readily be mistaken for the one referred to above, and is of the most elaborate character. It is described as 'built for the Lord Chancellor of Ireland (1780), the panels painted by W. Hamilton, R.A.'
[20] According to Mr. Jerdan, the first missive printed on stone (drawings having been printed by this process some while before), was an invitation to one of Ackermann's conversaziones: 'Mr. Ackermann has the honour to inclose a card of invitation to a Literary Meeting at his Library, on Tuesday, the 20th February, at seven o'clock in the evening; and on the same evening in each week, until the 10th day of April inclusive.
[21] Notes and Queries, August 1869. See article signed W. P.
[22] From Malcolm's Manners and Customs of London during the Eighteenth Century (1810). 'Mr. Carlton, Deputy Clerk of the Peace, and Clerk to the Justices of Westminster, stated to a Committee of the House of Commons, in 1782, that E O Tables were very numerous; that one house in the parish of St. Anne, Soho, contained five, and that there were more than three hundred in the above parish of St. James's: those were used every day of the week, and servants enticed to them by cards of direction thrown down the areas.'
[23] Lord North's Administration, which had the onus of conducting the American War, was daily growing weaker and losing popularity; it resigned in March of the year following, and the Rockingham Ministry came into office. The first condition of this more liberal Administration had obtained, through the negotiations of Lord Shelburne, the consent of the King to 'peace with the Americans, and the acknowledgment of their independence.' In a later caricature by Gillray, which appeared on the resignation of Lord North—Banco to the Knave, April 12, 1782—the figure of Sir Grey Cooper, one of the Treasury Secretaries, is introduced, exclaiming, 'I want a new master.' On this gentleman's chair is the name 'Sir Grey Parole,' because, it is understood, he usually sat on the left of Lord North on the Treasury Bench; and when that statesman, who trusted to his memory for the principal points elicited in the debates, had been overcome by the constitutional somnolency which was a favourite subject of ridicule with the satirists, the Secretary aroused his chief, and supplied the deficiency of notes by suggesting the thread of argument, or parole, as required.