1827.] Letter on Affairs in general. 77 



Generals like Murat furious at losing them ! Hearing the news not 

 of fresh kings dethroned, and waiting humbly on his order; but of kings 

 in arms again roused to revenge, and thundering at the gates of Paris ! 

 I will take him, in the midst of snow and ashes, bivouaced amid the 

 wreck of his " Old Guard," on the field of Borodino (I forget whether 

 he re-crossed it) at midnight. I will take him in flight ruined 

 ashamed disgraced leaving his friends to their fall his soldiers to 

 destruction ! This will look like TRAGEDY ! Then I will take him, 

 once more meeting his ministers in the cabinet at Paris ; once again 

 Abdicating ; once more at Waterloo ; and, after Waterloo, he ceases 

 to be Tragic, for all the higher purposes of the theatre, again. It is but the 

 difference of a day, or an hour. I only take my choice of the situation : 

 the character is the same. 



How TO GET INFORMATION. An odd accident occurred in the Court of 

 Exchequer the other day, when Baron Garrow (I believe it was Sir W. 

 Garrow) was sitting at Nisi Prius. A strange, huge, half-farmer, half- 

 horse-jockey-looking man, dressed in double great-coat, dark topped boots, 

 and breeches hanging very loose about his lower person (with his hands, 

 crammed to the very bottom of the pockets of them), was called to 

 prove; some fact in a cause ; and it was not discovered, when he was first 

 put into the witness box, that he was considerably more drunk than a 

 person under such circumstances might be desired to be. The counsel for 

 the plaintiff, however, began to examine him. " Your name is John 

 Hawkins ?" The witness made a face, as if, like the Ghost in Hamlet, 

 " addressing himself to speak ;" but answered, eventually, only with a 

 nod. "Do you know the defendant, Thomas Wilson ?" The witness 

 nodded again. " And the plaintiff, William Waters ?" A third nod. 

 " Well, now then, did you see them both at Kingston fair, on the 15th 

 of November?" "My Lord, and Gentlemen of the Jury," said the 

 gentleman in the top-boots, " if you'll give me leave I'll tell you all 

 about it !" This offer " dissolved," as Mrs. Malaprop says, the pro- 

 poser's " mystery." And, aftei% the usual expression of merriment as a 

 little joke makes a great laugh always in a grave assembly the learned 

 Judge very good-humouredly took up the parole. "Witness ! witness! 

 attend to me, what have you drank this morning d'ye hear?" "I 

 haven't had a drop within my lips since I came into Court." "Aye but, 

 what did you drink at the public-house, before you came into Court?" 

 " At the public house, before I came into Court?" " Yes at the last 

 public house?" "Humph! Why, what I drank there was one pint of 

 mulled porter that's just what I called for." "Well a pint of porter; 

 but that was not all ? Come, it was a cold morning, you know what did 

 you put into your porter ? Did not you put a glass of brandy or was it 

 a couple of glasses of gin ?" The witness paused for a minute, and 

 looked at the speaker, as though he did not very distinctly see him ; 

 then buttoned the front of his coat, and turned the quid in his mouth 

 with his tongue ; and answered not at all insolently but like a man 

 that felt the joke was being carried rather too far: " Why, then, 

 since you're so partic'lar to know all about it you'd better send to the 

 public-house, and ask." 



Consistency. While all the world excepting the mere agricultural 

 people are making an outcry about the " Corn Laws," it is curious to 

 observe what a vast number of those persons who cry out for cheap 

 food," will do nothing but cry out for it. They make a great fuss, that 



