Seasonable Refreshment.
Seasonable Refreshment.
Capital oysters, I declare!
Excellent spruce, and ginger beer!
Don’t you take vinegar? there’s the bread—
We’ll just have a pipe—and then to bed.
*
Why should not [this] be deemed a real scene, and as respectable as that just described. It is quite as lively and as intellectual. The monkey eats, and according to many accounts can catch fish as well as man. It is told of this animal, that from love of the crab and experience of his claws, he gently shakes his tail before the hole of the crab, who, as soon as he begins to “pull him by his long tail,” is drawn out by that dependancy and falls a prey to his decoyer. It is related that a party of officers belonging to the 25th regiment of infantry, on service at Gibraltar, amused themselves with whiting fishing at the back of the rock till they were obliged to shift their ground from being pelted from above, they did not know by whom. At their new station they caught plenty of fish, but the drum having unexpectedly beat to arms, they rowed hastily ashore, and drew their boat high and dry upon the beach. On their return they were greatly surprised to find it in a different position ashore, and some hooks baited which they had left bare. In the end it was ascertained that their pelters while they were fishing were a party of young monkeys. They were driven off by two or three old ones who remained secretly observing the whiting fishing of the officers till they had retired. The old monkeys then launched the boat, put to sea, baited their hooks, and proceeded to work. The few fish they caught, they hauled up with infinite gratification, and when tired they landed, placed the boat as nearly as they could in its old position, and went up the rock with their prey. General Elliot, while commander at Gibraltar, never suffered the monkeys with which the rock abounds to be molested or taken.
The faculty of imitation in monkeys is limited, but not so in man; a remarkable instance of this is lately adduced in a pleasant little story of perhaps the greatest performer on our stage.
Garrick.
At a splendid dinner-party at lord ——’s they suddenly missed Garrick, and could not imagine what was become of him, till they were drawn to the window by the convulsive screams and peals of laughter of a young negro boy, who was rolling on the ground in an ecstasy of delight to see Garrick mimicking a turkey-cock in the court yard, with his coat-tail stuck out behind, and in a seeming flutter of feathered rage and pride. Of our party only two persons present had seen the British Roscius; and they seemed as willing as the rest to renew their acquaintance with their old favourite. This anecdote is new: it is related by the able writer of a paper concerning “Persons one would wish to have seen,”[27] as an instance of Garrick’s singleness of purpose when he was fully possessed by an idea.