Heads and tales

by Unknown

The Duke of Wellington and the Musk-rat.

Mr Taylor, in his notes to the artist Haydon's Autobiography, tells us that a favourite expression of the Duke of Wellington, when people tried to coax him to do what he had resolved not to do, was, "The rat has got into the bottle." This not very intelligible expression may refer to an anecdote I have heard of the Duke's once telling, in his later days, how the musk-rats in India got into bottles, which ever after retained the odour of musk. "Either the rats must be very small," said a lady who heard him, "or the bottles very large." "On the contrary, madam," was the Duke's reply, "very small bottles and very large rats." "That is the style of logic we have to deal with at the Horse Guards," whispered Lord ——.

Lady Eglintoun and the Rats.

Mr Robert Chambers, in his "Traditions of Edinburgh" (p. 191), gives an interesting account of the elegant Susanna, Countess of Eglintoun, who was in her eighty-fifth year when Johnson and Boswell visited her. She died in 1780, at the age of ninety-one, having preserved to the last her stately mien and fine complexion. She is said to have washed her face periodically with sow's milk.

"This venerable woman amused herself latterly in taming and patronising rats. She kept a vast number of these animals in her pay at Auchans, and they succeeded in her affections the poets and artists she had loved in early life. It does not reflect much credit upon the latter, that her ladyship used to complain of never having met with true gratitude except from four-footed animals. She had a panel in the oak wainscot of her dining-room, which she tapped upon and opened at meal times, when ten or twelve jolly rats came tripping forth, and joined her at table. At the word of command or a signal from her ladyship, they retired again to their native obscurity—a trait of good sense in the character and habits of the animals which, it is hardly necessary to remark, patrons do not always find in two-legged protégés."

General Douglas and the Rats.

The biographer of this highly-distinguished military engineer-officer relates an anecdote of him when a lieutenant at Tynemouth. The future author of well-known works on Gunnery and Military Bridges, early began to show ability in mechanics. "Lieutenant Douglas occupied a room barely habitable, and had to contest the tenancy with rats, which asserted their claim with such tenacity, that he went to sleep at the risk of being devoured. Their incursions compelled him to furnish himself with loaded pistols and a tinder-box, and he kept watch one night, remaining quiet till there was an irruption, when he started up and struck a light. But his vigilance proved of no avail, for the clink of the flint and steel caused a stampede, and not a rat remained by the time he had kindled the tinder. Their flight suggested to him another device. He looked out all the holes, and covered them with slides, connected with each other by wires, and these he fastened to a string, which enabled him to draw them all with one pull, and thus close the outlets. The contrivance claims to be mentioned as his first success in mechanics, foreshadowing his future expertness. It came into use the same night: he pulled the string without rising from bed, then struck a light, while the rats flew off to the holes to find them blocked, and he shot them at leisure. Two or three such massacres cleared off the intruders, and left him undisturbed in his quarters."[163]

Hanover Rats.

How amusingly does Mr Waterton show his attachment to the extinct Stuarts in his essays. Go where he may, "a Hanover rat" pops up before him. In his charming autobiography appended to the three series of his graphic essays, whether he be in Rome or Cologne, in York or London, at a farm-house, or on board a steamer on the Rhine, "a Hanover rat" is sure to be encountered. We could cite many amusing illustrations.

Earl Stanhope[164] speaks of the Jacobites after the death of Anne reviling all adherents of the court as "a parcel of Roundheads and Hanover rats." This is the phrase used by Squire Western in Fielding's novel of "Tom Jones." He tells us that the former of these titles was the by-word first applied to the Calvinistic preachers in the civil wars, from the close cropped hair which they affected as distinguished from the flowing curls of the cavaliers. The second phrase was of far more recent origin. It so chanced that not long after the accession of the House of Hanover, some of the brown, that is, the German or Norway rats, were first brought over to this country in some timber, as is said; and being much stronger than the black, or till then, the common rats, they in many places quite extirpated the latter. The word, both the noun and the verb "to rat," was first levelled at the converts to the government of George the First, but has by degrees obtained a wider meaning, and come to be applied to any sudden and mercenary change in politics. The ravages of rats might form the subject of a curious volume. They are not at all literary in their tastes, though they are known to eat through bales of books, should they be placed in the way of their runs. The booksellers in the Row always leave room between the wall and the books in their cellars, to allow room for this predacious vermin.