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ness, could not help bowing. This, of course, was taken as sufficient assurance by his majesty, who could not doubt the attestation of so attached and so whiggish a nobleman. Fergusson had just as great expectations of becoming the Lama of Thibet as of being made a senator of the College of Justice. Lord Pitfour always wore his hat on the bench on account of his sore eyes.

Lord Monboddo (James Burnet, Esq.), appointed a lord of session 1767, died in 1799. He once embroiled himself in a law-plea respecting a horse which belonged to himself. His lordship had committed the anima, when sick, to the charge of a farrier, with directions for the administration of a certain medicine. The farrier gave the medicine, but went beyond his commission, in so far as he mixed it in a liberal menstruum of treacle, in order to make it palatable. The horse dying next morning, Lord Monboddo raised a prosecution for its value, and actually pleaded his own cause at the bar. He lost it, however, and is said to have been so enraged in consequence at his brother judges, that he never afterwards sat with them upon the bench, but underneath, amongst the clerks. The report of this case is exceedingly amusing, on account of the great quantity of Roman law quoted by the judges, and the strange circumstances under which the case appeared before them. With all his oddities, and though generally hated or despised by his brethren, Monboddo was by far the most learned, and not the least upright judge of his time. His attainments in classical learning, and in the study of ancient philosophy, were singular in his time in Scotland. He was the earliest patron of the venerable professor John Hunter of St. Andrew's, who was for many years his secretary, and who chiefly wrote the first and best volume of his Lordship's Treatise on the Origin of Languages. When Lord Monboddo travelled to London, he always went on horseback. It is said that the late king, George III., on understanding this, and being told that two dragoon officers had just come up from Scotland in a post-chaise, remarked it was strange that one of his law-judges should visit him on horseback, while his dragoons adopted the more civilian-like mode of conveyance. On lord Mon

boddo's last journey he only got the length of Dunbar, and then returned. His nephew enquiring the occasion of this—“Oh George,” said his lordship, "I find I am eighty-four."-So convinced was Lord Monboddo of the truth of his fantastic theory of human tails, that, whenever a child happened to be born in his house, he watched at the chamber-door, in order to see it in its first state-having a notion that the attendants pinched off the infant-tails. There is a tradition, that Lord Monboddo witnessed the death of Captain Porteus by the mob in 1735. He had that day returned from completing his law-education at Leyden, and taken lodgings near the foot of the West Bow, where many of the greatest lawyers then resided. When the rioters came down the Bow with their victim, Mr. Burnet was roused from bed by the noise, came down in his night-gown, with a candle in his hand, and stood in a sort of stupor, looking on and still holding the lighted candle, till the tragedy was concluded. It is further added, that he was apprehended and examined next day by the magistrates. Lord Monboddo, while a judge, had a good house in St. John's Street, where Burns often attended the parties given by his lordship's beautiful daughter.

Another Lord of Session (Henry Home Esq.) Lord Kames, appointed in 1752, died in 1783. He was distinguished for his metaphysical subtilty and literary abilities, and admired for extraordinary powers of conversation; yet he was strangely accustomed to apply towards his intimate friends the term which designates a she-dog. It is well taken off in Sir Walter Scott's "Red Gauntlet." When Lord Kames retired from the Bench, he took a public farewell of his brethren. After ad dressing them in a solemn speech, and shaking their hands all round, in going out at the door of the Court-Room, he turned about, and, casting them a last look, cried, in his usual familiar tone,

"Fare ye a' weel, ye bitches!" This might be called the ruling passion strong in death, for Lord Kames died a very short while thereafter. A man called Sinkum the Cadie, who had a short and a long leg, and was excessively addicted to swearing, used to lie in wait for this distinguished Judge, almost every morning, and walk alongside of his Lordship up

street to the Parliament-House. The /stery of Sterne's little flattering Frenchnan, who begged so successfully from the ladies, was scarcely more wonderful than this intimacy, which arose entirely from Lord Kames love of the gossip which Sinkum made it his business to cater for him.

Lord Hailes (Sir David Dalrymple) another Lord of Session, appointed in 1766, died in 1792 apparently without a will. Great search was made, no testamentary paper could be discovered, the heir-at-law was about to take possession of his estates, to the exclusion of his daughter and only child, and Miss Dalrymple prepared to retire from New Hailes, and from the mansion-house in New Street. Some of her domestics, however, were sent to lock up the house in New Street, and, in closing the window-shutters, there dropped out upon the floor, from behind a panel, Lord Hailes's will, which was found to secure her in the possession of his estates. -A story is told of Lord Hailes once making a serious objection to a law-paper, and, in consequence, to the whole suit to which it belonged, on account of the word justice being spelt in the usual manner, and as here printed: his lordship contended that it should have another e at the end-justicee. Perhaps no author ever affected so much critical accuracy, and yet there never was a book published with so large an array of" Corrigenda et addenda," as the first edition of Lord Hailes's "An

nals of Scotland."

Lord Gardenstone (Francis Gardner Esq.), who died in 1793, also a lord of session and author of several literary works, had strange eccentric fancies, in his mode of living he seemed to indulge these chiefly with a view to his health, which was always that of a valetudinarian. He had a predilection for pigs. A young one took a particular fancy for his Lordship, and followed him wherever he went like a dog, reposing in the same bed. When it attained the years and size of swinehood, this was inconvenient. However, his Lordship, unwilling to part with his friend, continued to let it sleep in his bed room, and, when he undressed, laid his clothes upon the floor, as a bed to it. He said that he liked the pig. for it kept his clothes warm till the morning.

The Lord President Dundas (Robert Dundas, Esq., of Arniston) who died in 1787, was in his latter years extremely subject to gout, and accustomed to fall backwards and forwards in his chair. He used to characterise his six clerks thus: "Two of them cannot read; two of them cannot write; and the other two can neither read nor write!" The eccentric Sir James Colquhoun was one of the two who could not read.-In former times, it was the practice of the Lord President to have a sand-glass before him on the bench, which measured out the utmost time that could be allowed to a Judge for the delivery of his opinion. Lord President Dundas would never allow a single moment after the expiry of the sand, and often shook his old-fashioned chronometer ominously in the faces of his Brethren, when their" ideas upon the subject" began to get vague and windy.

Hour Glasses in Coffins.

A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine, 1746, says, "in June, 1718, as I was walking into the fields, I stopt in Clerkenwell church-yard to see a grave-digger at work. He had dug pretty deep, and was come to a coffin, which had lain so long that it was quite rotten, and the plate eaten so with rust, that he could not read any thing of the inscription. In clearing digger found an hour-glass close to the away the rotten pieces of wood, the graveleft side of the skull, with sand in it, the wood of which was so rotten that it broke where he took hold of it. Being a lover of antiquity, I bought it of him, and took a draught of it as it then appeared: some time after, mentioning this affair in company of some antiquarians, they told me that is was an ancient custom to put an hour-glass into the coffin, as an emblem of the sand of life being run out; others conjectured that little hour-glasses were anciently given at funerals, like rosemary, and by the friends of the dead put in the coffin, or thrown into the grave."

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VICARAGE HOUSE, THAME, OXFORDSHIRE.

It will appear from the annexed communication, which was accompanied by an original drawing for the present engraving, that there are interesting anecdotes connected with this spot.

[For the Year Book.]

During the civil wars of the seventeenth century, Thame was surrounded by garrisons of the contending parties, and, consequently, partook of the miseries of the period.

Anthony a' Wood, the Oxford antiquary, was then a student in the town, and he has minutely recorded several of the skirmishes he witnessed. A part of his narrative vividly portrays the confusion. He says, "on the 27th of January, 1644, Colonel Thomas Blagge, governor of Wallingford Castle, roving about the country very early, with a troop of stout horsemen, consisting of seventy or eighty at most, met with a party of parliamenteers, or rebels, of at least 200, at long Crendon, about a mile northward from Thame; which 200 belonged to the garrison of Aylesbury, and, being headed by a Scot called Colonel Crafford, who, as I think, was governor of the garrison there, they pretended that they were looking out quarters for them. Colonel Blagge fought with, and made them run, till his men, following them too eagerly, were overpowered by multitudes that VOL. I-23.

afterwards came in to their assistance; at which time he himself, with his stout captain Walter (they two only), fought against a great many of the rebels for a long time together, in which encounter the brave colonel behaved himself as manfully with his sword as ever man did, slashing and beating so many fresh rebels with such courage and dexterity, that he would not stir till he had brought off his own men, whereof the rebels killed but two (not a man more), though they took sixteen, who staid too long behind. Captain Walter had six rebels upon him, and, according to his custom, fought it out so gallantly that he brought himself off with his colonel, and got home safe to Wallingford, with all their men except eighteen. Colonel Blagge was cut over the face, and had some other hurts, but not dangerous. After the action was concluded at Crendon, and Blagge and his men forced to fly homewards, they took part of Thame in their way, and A. Wood and his fellow sojourners being then at dinner in the parlour with some strangers, they were all alarmed with their approach; and, by that time [that] they could run out of the house to look over the pale that parts it from the common road, they saw a great number of horsemen posting towards Thame over Crendon bridge, about a stone's cast from their house (being the only house on that road

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before you come into Thame), and, at the head of them, was Blagge, with a bloody face, and his party, with Captain Walter following him. The number, as was then guessed by A. Wood, and others of the family, was fifty, or more, and they all rode under the said pale, and close by the house. They did not ride in order, but each made shift to be foremost; and, one of them riding upon a shelving ground opposite to the door, his horse slipped, fell upon one side, and threw the rider (a lusty man), in A. Wood's sight. Colonel Crafford, who was well horsed, at a pretty distance before his man in pursuit, held a pistol to him, but, the trooper crying out 'quarter,' the rebels came up, rifled him, and took him and his horse away with them. Craf ford rode on without touching him, and ever and anon he would be discharging his pistol at some of the fagg end of Blagge's horse, who rode through the west end of Thame, called Priest-end, leading towards Rycote."

After relating the particulars of another skirmish, A. Wood says, "This alarm and onset were made by the cavaliers from Oxon, about break of day on Sunday, September 7, before any of the rebels were stirring: but, by the alarm taken from the sentinel that stood at the end of the town, leading to Oxon, many of them came out of their beds into the marketplace, without their doublets, whereof adjutant-general Pride was one, who fought in his shirt. Some that were quartered near the church (as, in the vicar's house, where A. Wood then sojourned, and others) fled into the church (some with their horses also), and, going to the top of the tower, would be peeping thence to see the cavaliers run into the houses where they quartered, to fetch away their goods."

Often in my walks past the vicarage, and my visits to it, I think on the above passage in Anthony a' Wood, and picture to myself the young antiquarian disturbed from his dinner in the parlour, and leaning with his "fellow-sojourners" over the pales (on the right of the house), beholding "the brave colonel Blagge with a bloody face," and his "fifty or more stout horsemen" coming in full speed across the railed bridge, pursued by Crafford "and the rebels ;" and I am greatly as sisted in these my reveries, by the circumstance of the bridge, the house, the road, the shelving bank, and, indeed, all the

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10th of June, 1735, Thomas Hearne, the antiquary, died at Edmund Hall, Oxon, at the age of 57. He was born at Littlefield Green, in the parish of White Waltham, Berks. His father, George Hearne, was parish-clerk, and resided in the vicarage-house, for which he paid no rent in consequence of his instructing eight boys in reading, writing, and arithmetic, and the Latin grammar. Thomas was sent as an assistant in the kitchen of the learned and pious Francis Cherry, Esq. but being uncouth in his person, clownish in his manners, and having his "nose always in a book," he became the ridicule of his party-colored brethren.Complaints were frequently made that Hearne would not even clean the knives, and Mr. Cherry, whose kindness would not suffer him to dismiss any servant without examining into the whole of his conduct, found that this scrub in his kitchen possessed a mind far above his station, upon which he boarded him at his father's, and paid for his education at Bray, three long miles from Waltham. Hearne's improvement was rapid; and, on the recommendation of the learned Mr. Dodwell, Mr. Cherry received the youth again to his own house, not as a servant, but as one whom he patronized. This worthy gentleman entered him, when seventeen years of age, at Edmund Hall, Oxford, where he was even then able to collate Greek MSS. Vulgar and unsocial, and vehement in tory principles, he abhorred all who supported the line of Brunswick. He held an office in the Bodleian library, which he lost on account of his religious

and political virulence. The scholar, the historian, and the antiquary are eminently indebted to Hearne's researches. It may be said of him that he had no relations but manuscripts; no acquaintance but with books; no progeny but edited fragments of antiquity. After a life of labor, care, and perplexity, from intense application and illiberal manners, he was attended on his death-bed by a Roman Catholic priest, who gained admission to him, after he had refused to see a nonjuring clergyman. He left behind him a considerable sum of money, with a great quantity of valuable MSS., which he bequeathed to Dr. William Bedford, who sold them to Dr. Rawlinson. They afterwards fell into the hands of Moore Chester Hall, Esq., of Wickford, Essex, and at his death were the property of his widow from that period no traces of them could be discovered. It is believed that Hearne never had the curiosity to visit London. His person was well described by Mr. Cherry's daughter, the late Mrs. Berkley, who was as great a curiosity as even Hearne himself. She says, "Of all the lumber-headed, stupid-looking beings, he had the most stupid appearance, not only in his countenance (generally the index of the mind) but in his every limb. No neck, his head looking as if he was peeping out of a sack of corn; his arms short and clumsy, remarkably ill placed on his body; his legs ditto, as, I think, is evidently seen in a print which my mother had of him. In short, I have wondered that such a looking being should have been admitted (as a servant) into a genteel family."

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To the particulars under this day in the Every-Day Book, may be added, on the authority of Mr. Brand, who was minister of the parish of St. Mary at Hill, London, the following charges in the churchwarden's accounts of that parish, 17 and 19 Edward IV.

"Item, for two doss' di Bosce-garlands for prestes and clerks on Saynt Barnabe daye, js. xd.”

In explanation of "Woodrove" garlands Mr. Brand cites, from Gerard's Herbal, "Woodroffe, Asperula hath

many square stalkes, full of joynts, and at every knot or joynt seven or eight long narrow leaves, set round about like a star, or the rowell of a spurre. The flowres grow at the top of the stems, of a white colour and of a very sweet smell, as is the rest of the herbe, which being made up into garlands or bundles, and hanging up in houses in the heat of summer, doth very well attemper the aire, coole and make fresh the place, to the delight and comfort of such as are therein.-Woodroofe is named of divers in Latine Asperula odorata, and of most men Aspergula odorata: of others Cordialis, and Stellaria: in English, Woodrooffe, Woodrowe, and Woodrowell. It is reported to be put into wine, to make a man merry, and to be good for the heart and liver."

On the 11th of June, 1727, king George I. died at Osnaburgh, of a fit of apoplexy, which he was attacked with in his carriage, on his way to that city.

ARGYLE SQUARE, EDINBURGH. A tailor in London, named Campbell, having secured the good graces of his chief, the duke of Argyle, was promised

the first favor which that nobleman could throw in his way. Upon the death of George I., which took place abroad, the duke receiving very early intelligence, concealed it from the whole court for a few hours, and only divulged the important news to his friend, the tailor, who, ere his less favored brethren in trade were aware, went and bought up all the black cloth in town, and forthwith drove such a trade, in supplying people with mourning at his own prices, that he shortly realised a little fortune, and laid the foundation of a greater. This he afterwards employed in building a few of the houses in Argyle-square, and conferred that name on them in honor of his patron.*

DRESS, TEMP. GEORGE I.

There was not much variation in dress

"For Rost-garlondis and Woodrove during this reign. The king was advanced

garlondis, on St. Barnebes' Daye, xjd.” And, under the year 1486;

Chambers's Traditions of Edinburgh, i. 44.

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