"THERE IS NO MISTAKE."
(Vol. iv., p. 471.)
It may, perhaps, have puzzled others of your readers, as for some time it did myself, to account for your correspondent F. W. J. having undertaken to prove that the Duke of Wellington did not first use "those celebrated words" there is no mistake, in his "reply to Mr. Huskisson." F. W. J. shows that the Duke wrote "the sentence now so well known" is 1812. No doubt he did: and it may not unreasonably be assumed that he had used it many hundred times before under similar circumstances. F. W. J. evidently confounds those words used by the Duke in their natural sense with the slang phrase which has been current for some years, and owes its origin, I believe, to a character in a farce, "and no mistake." The slang phrase is used by way of binding or confirming; as, for instance, "I will be there at two o'clock, and no mistake,"—the latter words being equivalent to "You may depend on it:" if, indeed, it be possible to fix a precise meaning to words so improperly applied. It is hardly necessary to say, that in both the instances referred to by your correspondent, the Duke used the words in their natural and proper sense. F. W. J. is wrong in supposing that the Duke used the phrase in his "reply to Mrs. Huskisson;" it was to Lord Dudley his Grace addressed the words. Mr. Huskisson having voted against his colleagues on the question of transferring the franchise from East Retford to Birmingham, went straight from the House of Commons to his office in Downing Street, and wrote a letter to the Duke, then Prime Minister, announcing that he lost no time in affording his Grace an opportunity of placing his (Mr. Huskisson's) office in other hands, as the only means in his power of preventing the injury to the King's service which might ensue from the appearance of disunion in His Majesty's councils, &c. On receipt of Mr. Huskisson's note, the Duke wrote to that gentleman stating that he had deemed it his duty to lay his note before the King. It happened that the Duke's note reached Mr. Huskisson whilst he was engaged in conversation with Lord Dudley, to whom he had been describing his own note to the Duke, and speaking of it (strange enough) as if it had not been a tender of resignation. When Mr. Huskisson showed Lord Dudley the Duke's letter, which showed that his Grace took a different view of the matter, his Lordship, knowing what Mr. Huskisson had been telling him, naturally enough said that the Duke must be labouring under a mistake. But this incident was narrated with so much naïveté by Mr. Huskisson himself, that I am tempted to quote his words (spoken in the House of Commons) as they were reported in the Times, June 3, 1828:—
"Upon showing this (the Duke's) letter to Lord Dudley, so struck was he with the the different import which the Duke of Wellington attached to the matter from that which was impressed on himself by the previous conversation, that he remarked, 'Oh, I see the Duke has entirely mistaken your meaning: I will go and see him, and set the matter right.' (A laugh.) Lord Dudley returned shortly after seeing the Duke, and said, 'I am sorry to say I have not been successful. He (the Duke) says it is no mistake; it can be no mistake; and (if Mr. Huskisson's relation of the words were not imperfectly heard, for he let his voice drop repeatedly) it shall be no mistake." (Loud laughter.)
C. ROSS.
THE REV. MR. GAY.
(Vol. iv., p. 388.)
I am greatly obliged by the communication of your correspondent relative to the Gays connected with Sidney College. It was as from that quarter I expected light. The passage in Paley's Life of Law, which is to me of considerable interest, long ago attracted my attention, although it escaped notice at the moment when I ventured to send my first inquiry. It runs as follows:
"Our Bishop always spoke of this gentleman in terms of the greatest respect. In the Bible, and in the writings of Mr. Locke, no man, he used to say, was so well versed."
Thus I find the passage quoted from Paley in Nichols' Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century, vol. ii. p. 66. Bishop Law also mentions him in a letter to Dr. Zach. Grey, editor of Hudibras: "Respects to honest Mr. Gay, and all friends in St. John's." The letter was written from Graystock, May 31, 1743. The full address of Dr. Grey unfortunately is not given where I find the letter, in the same vol. of Nichols, p. 535. But we may safely gather from it, that at that time "honest Mr. Gay" was at Cambridge, and in esteem; whether a resident, as should seem most likely from the manner of the notice, or a casual visitor, does not certainly appear. If a resident, this is not consistent with the idea of your correspondent, that he became vicar of Wilshamstead, Bedfordshire, and vacated his fellowship before 1732. I wish that the identity of the author of the Dissertation with the John Gay—first in the list of your correspondent—an identity to which my mind also inclines, could be more clearly made out. He was born, and partly educated, in Devonshire.
A private correspondent has very kindly furnished me with a few particulars relative to Nicholas Gay, the second mentioned in your correspondent's list, and father of the fourth, which Nicholas was vicar of Newton St. Cyres, near Exeter, and died, æt. seventy-five, in 1775; and to another, Richard Gay, rector of St. Leonard, near Exeter, who died in 1755. Of this Richard Gay, on a stone in the church of Frithelstock, near Torrington, it is said that—
"To great learning, he added a most exemplary life in constant faithful endeavours to support religion, to glorify God, and to do good to man. He was equalled by few, surpassed by none of the age he lived in."