7. Yet a seventh whimsical anecdote rises to the surface. When Prince Albert was made a fellow of Lincoln's Inn, and dined in the New Hall, I was present at the banquet. There was a roast joint and one bottle of port to each mess of four barristers: one would think a supply more than ample: however, some thirsty souls wanted more wine for the great occasion, and the complaint found utterance ludicrously thus. When the National Anthem was sung, some young lawyer who gave the solos, with a good tenor voice and no end of dry humour, raised a gale of laughter and applause by singing very devoutly—

"Long to reign over us
Happy and glorious,
Three half-pints 'mong four of us,
God save the Queen!"

Of course, plenty more bottles were the result,—and the genial Prince Albert laughed as heartily as the rest of us.

8. Yet another anecdote, in these days of professional mendicancy not uninstructive. One day when calling on the Rev. Robert Anderson, at Brighton, a begging visitor came in, calling himself a Polish refugee, and speaking broken English: Mr. Anderson in his kindness was just about to open his purse, when I said to both of them, "I happen to know a little Polish, and wish to ask a few questions:" accordingly, I rapped out at intervals, with an interrogating air, the opening lines of the Antigone of Sophocles! on which that "banished lord," stammering out that he had been out of Poland so many years that he had forgotten the language, bowed himself from the room as a—discovered, impostor.

9. The recent lamentable fire at Kegan Paul's, wherein so much authorial wealth was cremated,—and especially no fewer than six of the works of that clever authoress, Emily Pfeiffer,—reminds me of an irrevocable loss sustained by "Proverbial Philosophy" owing to Oudinot's capture of Rome in 1849: for it so happened that the Cardinal Archbishop of Bologna had, as instructress to his nieces, a lady who afterwards became Mrs. Robinson of South Kensington Museum: she, a great admirer of the work, translated my book for them into Italian, and had it printed at Rome, where unluckily both the whole MS. and the finished sheets were all burnt in the city's bombardment. I have since asked Mrs. Robinson if she could possibly reproduce it: but—the occasion passed, there is now neither time nor need for it, and so my Italian version has no existence, except possibly as photographed on the "blue ether" whither Professor Tyndall hopes to go. A similar fatality, we may remember, affected Sir Isaac Newton through his little dog Diamond: and my friend in old days, Gilbert Burnett, the botanist, had to rewrite his index, a heartrending labour, because a careless housemaid lit a fire with it.

10. And this further reminds me of the perils to which an author's MSS. are perpetually exposed; e.g., before I put a spring lock on my study at Albury (where, by the way, I wrote several of my early Proverbial chapters with a child on my knee) I used to find my papers regularly put out of order by the maid arranging the room; and upon my cautioning her not to destroy anything, I was horrified by the unconscious Audrey's instant reply, "O sir! I never burns no papers but what is spoilt by being written on." Again, I remember to have cautioned my Suffolk friend, Mrs. Crabtree, who had a fine library, not to keep her servants short of firepaper, as they might possibly help themselves out of bound books; whereat she was indignant, as if I was traducing a favourite menial: however, I went round with her, unfortunately proving the delinquency by exhibiting several handsome volumes with middle leaves torn out!—Once more, in the prehistoric days when we sported with loose powder and shot and paper wadding, I was a guest for some days in September with James Maclaren at Ticehurst, and recollect his horror at finding that the luncheon sandwiches were wrapped in some of his most precious MSS.—for he was writing a treatise on finance, and these leaves were covered with calculations—and that his shooting-party were ramming down their charges with the recorded labour of his brains! It was at Maclaren's that I once tasted squirrel; his woods were infested with the pretty creatures, which the keeper shot, and after keeping the skin gave the carcase to the cook: it tasted like very nutty rabbit: but I protested it was a greater outrage than lark-pudding, which I had recently seen at the Judges' Sentence dinner at Newgate, and said it was a shame to eat the sweet songsters. At Maclaren's I learnt the origin of "high" as applied to eatables. His game-larder was a tower of many bars, the lowest containing a to-day's shooting, the next yesterday's, and so forth, always moving up; hence the stalest were at the top, and so most serviceable as least fresh. Trench on words would approve this reason for "high" game.

11. Providence.

I.

"Lo! we are led; we are guided and guarded
Carefully, kindly, by night and by day;
Punish'd belike, or haply rewarded,
As we go wrong or go right on the way;
Wisdom and Mercy, twin angels of kindness,
Take by both hands the child lost in the night,
Leading him safely, in spite of his blindness,
Guiding him well through the dark to the light.

II.