MEMOIR OF THOMAS BEWICK. 187 



I sometimes dropped in upon other parties of 

 friends of various political opinions and attain- 

 ments at Mrs. Jane Elliot's* at the sign of the 

 Unicorn. These were mostly tradesmen of the 

 genteel sort, and besides them, this house had been 

 a kind of rendezvous or house of resort to the 

 comedians of our Theatre during the season for 

 many years back, from the time of Heaton and 

 Austin's Company, down to those conducted by 

 Charles Whitlock, Jos. Munden, Stephen Kemble, 

 &c., and still later, comprising a period of the 

 times of Massey and Jeffries, Plat, Emery, Cook, 

 Liston, and many others, who made a figure in 

 their day. With Jos. Munden I often associated, 

 and still oftener and to a later period with my 

 friend Stephen Kemblef and his friends. In Mrs. 

 Elliot's house, and indeed in every house, politics 

 formed the topic of conversation, and, less or more, 

 for years back, seemed the order of the day. 



In partaking in these debatings, I now find I 

 spent rather too much time. I fear it was useless; 

 for it requires little discernment to see that, 

 where a man's interest is at stake, he is very 

 unwilling to hear any argument that militates 

 against it; and people who were well paid were 

 always very loyal. To argue on any subject, 

 unless a principle, or what mathematicians would 

 call a datum, is first laid down to go upon, is only 



* Jane Elliot, as a landlady, conducted herself with great pro- 

 priety. She was sensible, spirited, clever and obliging, and from 

 these qualifications, and from her handsome and majestic appear- 

 ance, was called the Queen of Landladies. She died 12 Octr. 1822, 

 aged 74, and was buried at St. John's, and on the same day with her 

 friend Mrs. Sarah Hodgson, the widow of Solomon Hodgson. 



t Stephen Kemble died 5 June 1822, aged 65, and was buried in 

 Durham Cathedral. 



