"When first I attempted your pity to move," &c.
is from a comedy in three acts called the Panel, altered from Bickerstaff's comedy 'Tis well it's no worse.
M. W. B.
Burges, Sept. 26. 1851.
Anecdote of Curran (Vol. iv., p. 173.).
—This anecdote, I beg to observe, is incorrectly represented; and surely presents to the reader no adequate provocation for the sharp retort on him attributed to the hostess, on his offering her a glass of wine. But the fact is, that the circumstance occurred, not at a small country inn, but in the city of Galway; nor solely in company with a brother advocate, as stated by M.W.B., but at the general bar-mess. The Connaught circuit was not Curran's, who had been called there specially, and who, having heard of the barmaid's ready wit, was determined to test it. Her name, I well recollect, was Honor Slaven; and her quick repartee to the not very delicate jokes constantly practised on her by the gentlemen (?) of the bar, had spread her fame beyond the province. Curran, however, was far superior to those whom she had foiled in these too often unseemly combats, and was expected to prove that superiority in this contest. Among the customary toasts of that time was a succession of three alliterative ones, of which the last was of flagrant indecency; and this Curran resolved should fall to Honor's turn to give in due rotation. Making her take a seat, with one interposed between them, he began with the first:—"Honor (directing himself to her) and Honesty," followed by "Love and Loyalty" from his next neighbour; when, ordering a bumper, he said, "Come Honor, you know the next toast; be not squeamish, and let us have it." "No, Sir," replied she, with an arch smile, "but I will pledge you in your own toast—'Honor and Honesty, or, your absent friends.'" These last words were uttered with special emphasis, and, in their provoked application, well sustained the barmaid's reported character; as, indeed, promptly acknowledged by Curran himself. I have more than once heard similar retorts from her when thus assailed.
J. R.
Cork.
Sibi (Vol. iv., p. 327.).
—The erroneous use of the reflective pronoun, of which MR. FORBES gives an example in a quotation from the Legenda Aurea, is common in monkish writings. I have an instance before me, in a charter of Cnut (Kemble's Codex Dipl. Anglo-Sax., vol. iv. p. 28.):