Litchfield enquirer., 1872-12-19


 lng-room, @ loftily courteous. if he talk ed now as Ae used among men in his youth, would swear 10 as 60 make your hair stand onsend. met lately very old German gentleman, who lad served in our army at the beginning of the ceu- tsaxy. Since then he has lived on l,ia sswu estate, but rarely meeting with an Eng- lishman, whose language-the language of fifty years ago that is-he possesses perfectly. When this highly bred old man began to speak English to me, al- most every other word he uttered was an oath; as they used it (they swore dread fully in Flanders) with the Duke of York before Valenciennes, or at Carlton House over the supper and cards. Read Byron's letters. So accustomed is the young man to oaths that he employs them even in writing to his friends, add swears by the post. Read his account of the doings of young men at Cambridge; of the ribald professors, one of whom s'could pour out Greek like drunken Helot," and whose excesses surpassed even those of the young men. Read Matthews description of the boyish lordhng's housekeeping at New stead; the skull-cap passed round. the monks dresses from the masquerade warehouse, in which the young scape- graces used to sit until daylight, chanting appropriate songs round their wine. ssWe come to breakfast at two or three o'clock, g Matthews says ''There are gloves and foils for those who like to amuse them selves, or we fire pistols st mark in the hal, or we worry the wolf" A jolly life truly The noble young owner of the mansion writes about such affairs himself in letters to his friend MT. John Jackson, p1gilist, in London.
 All the prince's time tells a similar strange story of manners and pleasure. In Wraxan we find the prime minister himself, the redoubted William Pitt, en- gagged ill high jinks with personages of no less importance than Lord Thurlow, the lord chancellor, ana MT. Dundas, the treasurer of the navy. Wraxan relates how these three statesmen, returning aft CT dinner from Addiscombe, found aturn- pike open, and galloped through it with out paying the toll. The turnpike man, fancying they were highwaymen, fired a blnnderbuss after them, but missed them; and the poet sang
 "H0w as Pitt wandered darklng OCT the plain,
 His reason drown'd in Jenkinson's Champagne,
 A rustics hand, but righteous fate withstood,
 Had shed premier's for ar arobber's blood" Here we have the treasurer of the navy. the lord high chancellor, and the prime minister, all engaged in most undoubted lark. In Eldon's Memoirs, about the very same time, read that the bar loved wine, as we'll as the woolsack. Not John Scott himself; he was a good boy always; and though he loved port-wine, loved his bus mess and his duty and his fees a great deal better,
 He has Northern Circuit story of those days, about party at the house of cer- tain Lawyer Fawcett, who gave a dinner every year to the counsel
 ''On one occasion, related Lord Eldon, ''I heard Lee say, T can not leave Faw- cett's wine. Mind, Davenport, you will go home immediately afte dinner, to read the brief in that cause that we have to conduct tomorrow
 "'Not l. said Davenport. Leave my dinner and my wine to read brief! No, no, Lee; that won't do.'
 ''Then, said Lee, what is to be done? who else is employed?
 "DAvENPoRT. Oh! young Scott
 'LEE. Oh he must go. MT. Scott, you must go home immediately, and make yourself acquainted with that cause, be- fore our consultation this evening" ''This was very hard upon me; but I did go, and there was an attorney from Cum berland, and one from Northumberland, and I do not know how many other per sons. Pretty late, in came Jack Lee, as drunk as he could be.
 "I can not consult tonight; must go to bed, he exclaimed, and away he went. The came Sir Thomas Davenport.
 "'We can not have 8 consultation to- night, Mir. Wordsworth Wordsworth, I think, was the name; it was a Cumber- land name), shouted Davenport. Don't you see how drunk MT. Scott is {? it is im- possible to consult. Poor me who had scarce had any dinner. and lost all my wine-I was so drunk that could not consult Well, verdict was given against us, and 1t was all owing to Lawyer Faw- cett's dinner. We moved for a new trial; and I must say, for the honor of the bar, that those two gentlemen, Jack Lee and Sir Thomas Davenport, paid all the ex- penses between them of the first trial It is the only instance ever knew, but they did. We moved for new trial (on the ground, I suppose, of the counsel not be- ing in their senses), and it was granted. When it came on, the following year, the judge rose and said:
 "sGentlemen, did any of you dine with Lawyer Fawcett yesterday? for, if you did, I will not hear this cause till next year.
 'There was great laughter. We gained the cause that time"
 On another occasion, at Lancaster, where poor Bozzy must needs be going the Northern Circuit, ''we found him, :" says Mir. Scott, Flying upon the pavement inebriated. We subscribed guinea at supper for him, and halt crown for his clerkr-(no doubt the.e was 8 large bar, and that Scott's joke did not cost him much), "and sent him, when he walked next morning, brief, with instructions to move for what we denominated the writ of qu0re Gdhossat pGvinsentos with ob- servations duly calculated to induce him to think that 1t required great learning to explain the necessity of granting it, to the judge before whom he was to move" Boswell sent all round the town to attor- neys for books, that might enable him to distinguish himself-but in vain. He moved, however; for the writ, making the best use he could of the observations in the brief. The judge was perfectly aston ished, and the audience amazed. The judge said, '.I never heard of such writ what can it be that adheres Davimentos Are any of you gentlemen at the bar able to explain this ?''
 The bar laughed. At last one of them said:
 "My lord, MT. Boswell last night ad- hgsit pGvinnento. There was no moving him for some time At last he was car ried to bed, and he has been dreaming about himself and the pavement"
 The canny old Cantleman re1ishes thesa jokes. When the Bishop of Lincoln was moving from the deanery of St. Paul's, he says he asked learned friend of his, by name Will Hay, how he should move some especial fine claret, about which he was anxious.
 'tPray, my lord bishop" says Hay, ''how much of the wine have you p
 The bishop said six dozen.
 If that is all," Hay answered, '.you have but to ask me six times to dinner, and I will carry it all away myself
 There were giants in those days; but this joke about wine is not SO fearfuI as