[1] Mr. JENKINSON exhibited a laudable example of political œconomy, by shutting up several of his windows at his seat near Croydon, on the passing of the Commutation Act. His Majesty’s bon mot on this occasion should not be forgot. “What! what! (said the Royal Jester) do my subjects complain of?—JENKY tells me he does not pay as much to the Window Tax as he did before. Why then don’t my people do like JENKY?”
[2] A beautiful oriental allusion, borrowed from Mr. HASTINGS’s Ode,
“And care, like smoke, in turbid wreathes,
Round the gay ceiling flies.”
[3] FINCHFIELD.—Co. ESSEX.——JOHN CAMPES held this manor of King EDWARD III. by the service of turning the spit at his coronation. Camden’s Britannia—article Essex.
[4] The King magnanimously refused to create either Sir RICHARD HILL, or Mr. BANKS, Peers, that the singular honour bestowed solely by his Majesty might be more conspicuous, and that Mr. PITT’s humiliation might no longer be problematic. Sir RICHARD had composed a beautiful sacred cantata on the occasion, dedicated to his brother, the Rev. ROWLAND HILL. The first stanza alludes, by an apt quotation from the 68th Psalm, to the elevation and dignities of the family: “Why hop so high, ye little H_I_LLS?” With joy, the Lord’s anointed f_i_lls; Let’s pray with one accord! In sleepless visions of the night, NORTH’s cheek I smote with all my might, For which I’m made a Lord, &c. &c.
[5] The King of PRUSSIA replenished his exhausted treasury in the war of 1756, by a coinage of pewter ducats.
[6] “Besides the twenty-four officer above described, there were eleven others of considerable value in the courts of the ancient Princes, the most remarkable of which was, that of the King’s feet-bearer; this was a young gentleman, whose duty it was to sit on the floor, with his back towards the fire, and hold the King’s feet in his bosom all the time he sat at table, to keep them warm and comfortable.” Leges Wallicæ, p.58.—Henry’s History of Great Britain, v.2,p.275
ODE to SIR ELIJAH IMPEY.
Æli, vetusto nobilis a Lamo,
Quando et priores hinc Lamia ferunt
Denominatos, &c.
ELI-JAH noblest of the race
Of [1]IMPS, from whom the IMPEYS trace,
If common fame says true,
Their origin; and that they found
Their claim on just and solid ground,
Refer for proof to you—
You, who could post nine hundred miles,
To fathom an old woman’s wiles,
Possess’d of dangerous treasure;
Could hurry with a pedlar’s pack
Of affidavits at your back,
In quest of health and pleasure.