The canny old gentleman relishes these jokes. When the Bishop of Lincoln was moving from the deanery of St. Paul's, he says he asked a learned friend of his, by name Will Hay, how he should move some especially fine claret, about which he was anxious.
“Pray, my lord bishop,” says Hay, “how much of the wine have you?”
The bishop said six dozen.
“If that is all,” Hay answered, “you have but to ask me six times to dinner, and I will carry it all away myself.”
There were giants in those days; but this joke about wine is not so fearful as one perpetrated by Orator Thelwall, in the heat of the French Revolution, ten years later, over a frothing pot of porter. He blew the head off, and said, “This is the way I would serve all kings.”
Now we come to yet higher personages, and find their doings recorded in the blushing pages of timid little Miss Burney's Memoirs. She represents a prince of the blood in quite a royal condition. The loudness, the bigness, boisterousness, creaking boots and rattling oaths, of the young princes, appeared to have frightened the prim household of Windsor, and set all the tea-cups twittering on the tray. On the night of a ball and birthday, when one of the pretty, kind princesses was to come out, it was agreed [pg 796] that her brother, Prince William Henry, should dance the opening minuet with her, and he came to visit the household at their dinner.
“At dinner, Mrs. Schwellenberg presided, attired magnificently; Miss Goldsworthy, Mrs. Stanforth, Messrs. Du Luc and Stanhope, dined with us; and while we were still eating fruit, the Duke of Clarence entered.
“He was just risen from the king's table, and waiting for his equipage to go home and prepare for the ball. To give you an idea of the energy of his royal highness's language, I ought to set apart an objection to writing, or rather intimating, certain forcible words, and beg leave to show you in genuine colours a royal sailor.
“We all rose, of course, upon his entrance, and the two gentlemen placed themselves behind their chairs, while the footmen left the room. But he ordered us all to sit down, and called the men back to hand about some wine. He was in exceeding high spirits, and in the utmost good humour. He placed himself at the head of the table, next Mrs. Schwellenberg, and looked remarkably well, gay, and full of sport and mischief; yet clever withal, as well as comical.
“ ‘Well, this is the first day I have ever dined with the king at St. James's on his birthday. Pray, have you all drunk his majesty's health?’