1,828.] 



Domestic and Fvreign. 



419 



his father's reminiscences, he has introduced ' 

 a number of odd fellows, of whom his pre- 

 decessors, in his line, could know nothing. 

 The jokes and the stories, the reader will 

 anticipate, are of the coarser cast ; and, 

 unluckily, things which once set the table 

 in a roar and a party at a table are easily 

 set a roaring will seldom bear repeating 

 in print like certain French wines, which 

 will not bear exporting too light and frail 

 to stand the shaking of the passage. Take 

 a story. One Signer Dominecetti, a quack 

 doctor, of great celebrity in his day, was 

 once at Eton, magnificently dressed, with a 

 flogged coat, embroidered waistcoat, a finely 

 frosted wig, and a bag unusually low, and 

 Very highly scented. Foote was of the 

 party ; and his nose was exceedingly of- 

 fended at the doctor's scents. After dinner 

 little Angelo was one of them a fishing 

 party was proposed 



A punt, with chairs and tackle, was provided at 

 Piper's, by the bridge ; and as we stood at the 

 door of the old boatman, and talking of the learn- 

 ing of the college, and asking how I got on in 

 Latin, Foote, working his nostrils, moved back, 

 saying, "Pshaw! confound your scents! I hate 

 all scents!" " Vat is it for, mine Gote, you hate 

 sente, Mistare Footes ? You who are the greatest 

 of wits!" "No, no," exclaimed the player, "I 

 hate fops and fools." " Ah, dat is good," replied 

 the doctor. " ha, ha, ha." We were on the water 

 until after dusk, and caught no fish. "Varee 

 strange!" cried the doctor." Strange!" echoed 

 Foote, "damme, doctor, they smelt you, and 

 would not bite." 



Now this excited, no doubt, shouts of 

 laughter but where is the wit or the hu- 

 mour ? there is nothing but the ventings 

 of vexation and contempt. A man must be 

 ready primed for fun to explode thus at a 



Theodore Hooke, in his last Sayings and 

 Doings, speaks of dining in company with 

 Colman at a party, where he was a stranger, 

 but where the expectation was highly ex- 

 cited, as if Colman 



" could never ope 



His mouth but out there flew a trope." 



Till dinner, and for some time at dinner, 

 Colman said nothing, but being helped to 

 some venison, he was asked whether he 

 would take some sweet sauce. " No," says 

 he, " I never take sweet sauce" which was 

 received with a general shout, though one 

 lady of the company confessed to her neigh- 

 bour she could not see the point of it. 

 Happy would Angelo be, if his readers 

 came to his book as ready to be delighted 

 as Colman's admirers. 



We can only notice an odd thing or two 

 as we go along. When at Paris, Angelo 

 bparded with one M. Liyier, who had been 

 x>ne of the first dancers at the Italian Opera 

 House, and maitre de ballet at one of the 

 London theatres- 

 He was addicted to self indulgence, loved his 

 ragout and fricandeau, made too Dee with the 



Burgundy and Champaign**, and keeping late 

 hours a 1'An^laise, smoked hia pipe, and drank 

 oceans of punch. These excesses, operating upon 

 a crazy constitution, and a sensitive mind, engen- 

 dered periods of hypochondria. During these- 

 paroxysms, he exhibited a number of comical 

 pranks, fancied himself Apollo, and taking hU, 

 fiddle, would make a circle of chairs, and play to 

 them, as the nine muses, with the most extrava- 

 gant grimaces. Sometimes, during these aberra- 

 tions, he was possessed with a calculating freak ; 

 and among other numerical exercises, would 

 reckon on his fingers how many dinners he had 

 swallowed within a given time, and how many 

 more the belly gods would grant him on this side 

 the Styx. "Helas, helas, encore un autre diner 

 est passe," he would exclaim on finishing hia 

 meal, &c. Foote said of him, " Livier is the true 

 compound of French and English the fellow is 

 always merry or sad." 



Tate Wilkinson and Ned Shuter were 

 both of them frequenters of Whitfield's 

 Tabernacle, the first, perhaps, merely for' 

 purposes of humour ; but the other, though 

 a man of the most dissolute habits, was, ac- 

 cording to Angelo, a "fanatical conven- 

 ticlist." Wilkinson was in the habit of 

 taking off Whitfield, if that can be called 

 " taking off," which was the very life ini 

 this way. Supposing the text to be, " May 

 we all work the harder" thus illustrated . 



There was a poor woman, and she was a long 

 while before she was converted ; she was three- 

 score years and ten. Yes, she was; she was 

 threescore years and ten. " Sir (says she to the 

 good man that converted her) Sir (says she) I 

 am threescore years and ten. I have been a 

 long time about it; but, Sir (says she) I will 

 work the harder; yes, Sir (says she) I will work 

 the harder!" And, O! may you all all all- 

 like that dear good woman all work the harder. 

 What (looking down from his desk in a sudden 

 rhapsody) what you young ones! You are some 

 of you twelve, some fourteen years of age, yet 

 you don't think of going to hell. What, twelve 

 And fourteen years of age, and not think of going 

 to hell ! O ye little brats, you !" And then he 

 shook his white wig, and growled exactly like 

 my performance (says Wilkinson) of Squintum, 

 &c. 



Whitfield's chapel in Tottenham Court Road 

 was supported by the voluntary contributions of 

 the followers of the preacher ; and Shuter being 

 a liberal contributor toils funds, Whitfield, very 

 strangely, as his congregation thought, not only 

 permitted, but actually recommended, in his pul- 

 .pit discourse, that they should attend Shuter's 

 benefit ; but for that night only. No doubt, with 

 such a license, Ned played to a crowded house. 



Can this be credible ? If it be not the 

 fact, the fabrication is a joke far too poor to 

 be grinned at. ^ 



. -Dr. Bossy was the last mountebank doc- 

 tor who exhibited in London, about forty 

 years ago. 



Every Thursday, his stage was erected oppo- 

 'site the north- west colonnade, Covent Garden. 

 The platform was about six feet from the grounf, 

 was covered^ open in front, and was ascended by 



3 H2 



