The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1878-09-03 00:00:00

TETE BARONESS BIIRDETT-COITrTS.
(Proms the Wortel.)

After an interval of several years the Baroness
Buniett-Coutts has returned to the historic dwelling
in which she war born. The great house at the corner
of Stratton-street is now in the hands of the architects
and renovatne, and the benevolent daughter of Sir
Francis Bur lett receives her guests in the drawing.
room whence her father was taken to the Tower. On
this pleasant summer afternoon we can roily believe
that, on the rue clear days which visit London, the
Barmy Mlle are visible from the window by which the
sergeant-at-arms and his subordinates mitered the
house to arrest Sir Francis, and found hint in
the midst of his family listening to his son reading
Magna Charta. The guests assembled around La iy
Bardett-Coutts, and her Irreparable and most witty
and sparkling of friends, Mrs. Brown, are engaged in
discussing the lukswarmness of present political feel-
ing and the calmly judical tone from which It required
all the exciting agencies of the Eastern Question to
rouse us. It was far otherwise when Barlett and
Main...wising fought the long dael of the Middlesex
election, and it is bard to realise the KOOS of chairing
Lb. member for Westminster. Just previous to his
dark= for that f mous bormgh, Sir Francis had deemed
necemary. more in deference to the prelatic)** of the
time than t , please himesil. to fight • duel with Mr.
Paull, in whom be had a former friend for foe. Mr.
Paull was • veteran duellist, but at the first fire rude
no more impression than his younger antagonist. The
second shot, however, was attended, as Sir Jonah
Barrington would say, " with happier results." Both
fired low. Mr. Pauli receive l • bullet in his lag, and
Sir Francis re in his thigh.
It was while ha was lying at No. 80, Piccadilly,
under the oars of the celebrated Cline, that his friends
pat him up for Westminster, with the result which is
• matter of history. No ceremony could have been
more unlike the chairing of the members as depicted
by Hogarth than the tritunphal procession organised
for Sir Francis Burdett. A car was &rimed in the
clerical style which may be studied in the %ens
china of the period. It wee elegantly listed, and
ornamented with wreaths of oak and laurel, and its
irides were covered with crimson velvet. The four
wheels were suoerbly gilt and ontemeated. On the
more advanced part was the figure of Britanaia with
I a spear. crowned with the cap of Liberty. In the
, centre was a fassot, firmly bound, the emblem of
union ; and on the hinder part of the platform vu the
fiord velvet pedestal, on which was pi oad a "Gothic
choir" for the hero of the day. In this beset, attired,
a. a dandy of the period, in " blue coat, white waist-
coat, nankeen breeches, whits stocking', and a white
beaver hat in his hand," to acknowledge withal the
cheers and salutations which greeted him as he peered.
The wounded limb rested on • purple cushion, while
the other was sustained on • sort of ' imperial foot-
stool," under which the monster Corruption was seen
In an agonising sttiLude. Banners and drepries gave
splendour to the car, which was drawn by four white
horses, harnessed in point, and 1414 This car, with an
Immense procession of flags and blue banners, arrived
t No. SO, Piccadilly, at three o'clock in the afternomi.
•1-Pe baronet was marked cut of his house, placed upon
the car, and conducted to the Crown and Anchor
amidst • political demonstration molt as this poen-
don of Loodorn has never seen.
Judelni from Ms picture and from tradition, Sir
Fr must have appeared the very rovers*
of demagogue. Tall, handsome, and well.bWt, he
looks in his hnes-buttons and top-boots the very ideal
of • fine old linglielsgentleman--• back,' bloods ores-
roulos dandy of the tint water without the slighted
tinge of Jacobite truculence. Nevertheless hie metre'
twitted him with hie friendship for Colonel Deward,
and before be had keg sat in the Hour obtained his
committal to the Tower for an sesumed breech of the
privilege of Parliament in the subdence of • letter
written by him to Coblatt's Ittoiskr. He had
previously given great offence by at ,ting that with
regard to the secrecy of the debate on the Scheldt
affair " the Howe Wel not a leg to stud upon." For
comment' on this secret, &hat* in the House at the
so-called British Forum, Mr. John Gale Jones came
under the bus of the Howse, shed was in his defense
that Sir P,sa4 4si3 5a04 the break of
CUMHe not
"tided and llef leritectisal
toeseenlaeltimen be pion. Weinman ea iii,e -
a