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Page 5
The day arrived, and etiquette demanded that the proper officer should
examine and report upon the nature of the expected entertainment, a duty
that had been deferred until a late hour of the day. Well was it that
the confiding prince had not wholly dispensed with that form; for verily
the said officer found the colonel, with a dirty scullion for his aide
du camp, in active and zealous preparation for his royal visiter; his
shirt sleeves tucked up, while he ardently basted the identical and
solitary "leg of mutton" as it revolved upon the spit: potatoes were to
be seen delicately insinuated into the pan beneath to catch the rich
exudation of the joint; while several tankards of foaming ale, and what
the French term "bread � discretion," announced that, in quantity, if
not in quality, he had not been careless in providing for the
entertainment of his illustrious guest. Although the colonel's culinary
skill leaves no doubt that the leg of mutton would have sustained
(according to Mr. Hunt's elegant phraseology) critical discussion on its
intrinsic merits, or on its concoction; and although the dinner might
have been endured by royalty (of whose homely appetite the ample
gridiron at Alderman Combe's brewery then gave ample proof), yet his
royal highness's poodles would assuredly have perspired through every
pore at the very mention of what a certain nobleman used to term a
"jig-hot;" so the feast was dispensed with, and due acknowledgment made
for the evident proofs of hospitality which had been displayed.
After various vicissitudes of life and fortune, in Hanger's advanced
age, a coronet became his, and it came opportunely; for he had at length
learned experience, and knowing the value of the competence he had
obtained, he resolved to enjoy it. He had had enough of fashion; and had
proved all its allurements. So he took a small house in a part of
earth's remoter regions, no great way from Somers' Town, near which
stood a public-house he was fond of visiting, and there, as the price of
his sanction, and in acknowledgment of his rank, a large chair by the
fire-side was exclusively appropriated to the peer.--_New Monthly
Magazine._
* * * * *
ANECDOTES OF UGO FOSCOLO, THE ITALIAN POET.
Foscolo was in person about the middle height, and somewhat thin,
remarkably clean and neat in his dress,--although on ordinary occasions,
he wore a short jacket, trousers of coarse cloth, a straw hat, and thick
heavy shoes; the least speck of dirt on his own person, or on that of
any of his attendants, seemed to give him real agony. His countenance
was of a very expressive character, his eyes very penetrating, although
they occasionally betrayed a restlessness and suspicion, which his words
denied; his mouth was large and ugly, his nose drooping, in the way that
physiognomists dislike, but his forehead was splendid in the extreme;
large, smooth, and exemplifying all the power of thought and reasoning,
for which his mind was so remarkable. It was, indeed, precisely the same
as that we see given in the prints of Michael Angelo; he has often heard
the comparison made, and by a nod assented to it. In his living, Foscolo
was remarkably abstemious. He seldom drank more than two glasses of
wine, but he was fond of having all he eat and drank of the very best
kind, and laid out with great attention to order. He always took coffee
immediately after dinner. His house,--I speak of the one he built for
himself, near the Regent's Park,--was adorned with furniture of the most
costly description; at one time he had five magnificent carpets, one
under another, on his drawing-room, and no two chairs in his house
were alike. His tables were all of rare and curious woods. Some of
the best busts and statues (in plaster) were scattered through every
apartment,--and on those he doated with a fervour scarcely short of
adoration. I remember his once sending for me in great haste, and when
I entered his library, I found him kneeling, and exclaiming, "beautiful,
beautiful." He was gazing on the Venus de Medici, which he had
discovered looked most enchanting, when the light of his lamp was made
to shine upon it from a particular direction. On this occasion, he had
summoned his whole household into his library, to witness the discovery
which gave him so much rapture. In this state, continually exclaiming,
"beautiful, beautiful," and gazing on the figure, he remained for nearly
two hours.
He had the greatest dislike to be asked a question, which he did not
consider important, and used to say, "I have three miseries--smoke,
flies, and to be asked a foolish question."
His memory was one of the most remarkable. He has often requested me to
copy for him (from some library) a passage, which I should find in such
a page of such a book; and appeared as if he never forgot any thing with
which he was once acquainted.
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