The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-11-25
LITERARY ANECDOTES.
Extracts From Robert Chambers Con-
 mOnplace Book

AIleT several years SeCluSlOn at ot. Andrews, during which period the ''Vestiges of Creation was written and
 published, Dr. Chambers seems to have
 made frequent visits to London, and,
 as shown by correspondence still pre- | served, had many opportunities of l meeting the literary celebrities of the day. Under date July 20, 1S44, he says: MT. Rogers, with whom I breakfasted this day, said that George ". was only a gentleman for the first five minutes. The essentially vulgar nature of the man then shone out in ribald discourse
 such as would have disgraced coal heaver. Rogers heard him in the com
 pany of eight persons tell something
 which Lord Thurlow had said to him,
 of an extremely gross nature, but which
 he only thought good joke. .. :.
 Among other things which enabled
 George ". to make a good impression
 at first were a couple of Latin quota
 tions which he was sure to bring for
 ward, one from Horace and the other
 from Virgil. In reality he had no more,
 and when this was found out the credit
 he obtained from them was gone.
 Byron had practical beneyolence to
 a remarkable degree. MT. Rogers, call
 ing upon him in his bachelor days, was
 answered at the door by wretched
 looking old woman, of extreme ugliness,
 which struck him so much that
 he asked Byron why he kept such a
 dreadful hag about him. Byron an-
 swered that the old woman, who was
 an inferior servant in his lodgings, had
 been kind to him in an illness he had,
 and he therefore had Kindness for her. Afterward, when Byron was mar
 ried and living in fine style, Rogers found the same old woman opening the
 door of his really handsome mansion,
 but in better dress; and he ascer-
 tained that ultimately he pensioned her. He was one who exaggerated small kindnesses shown to himself"
 Lady Ann Barnard told Miss Porter that she had written 'Auld Robin Gray in order to raise little money for the succor of an old nurse having no other means. She had heard from her mu- sic master that so much as five pounds was sometimes got for a successful song, and she thought she would try. It was successful in the object. Lady Anne wrote much poetry besides, which is preserved by one of her relations.
 About 1850, in reference to some of the early contributors to "Punch,' Dr. Chambers remarks that Douglas Jer- rold is now the prince of wits in Eng land. No man says such brilliant things"
 Ut was intimated that Puseyits eli i,,H on Mr. Thackeray that some feared she might Romanize him. I would recom- mend her to begin with his nose, said Jerrold, this feature being rather trop peu prononce in the novelist.
 "Jerrold, sitting with George Henry Lewes and Heraud-the latter poet a good deal laughed at, and something of a bore-was asked by Lewes, Have you ever seen Heraud's Descent Into Hell?' No, but I should like to- said Jerrold.
 Peter Cunningham was telling one evening where he had been dining and what he got. We had thing I never saw before-a soup made of calves tails Extremes meet was Jerrolds He had a theory that women ielliitI iIhC tO ilcft tlitll liuEbfilb1 stay out late occasionally It gives them a wrong"
 Dr. Chambers informs us that at this time QS50) Dickens was making three and four thousand year. was living at the rate of fourteen hundred pounds per annum. and Mark Lemon proposed taking a house at one hundred and fifteen pounds year. The Punch" men about this time gave dinner to their publisher, MT. Evans, of Bradbury & Evans. at Richmond, where the price per head for the dinner was two pounds eleven shillings We also learn that at their ordinary dinners the port bottle. No doubt that mysterious body, the present Punch" staff, is equally hospitable to it's publishers of fifty | years ago.
 February 2S, 1S52.-Mr Kingston | was in early life the intimate friend of | Southey and Coleridge at Bristol. They were then extremely poor and very revolutionary. Throug of diff 'erent political complexion himself, he in public estimation by the ac- luaintance. He ceased to be the friend of Southey at the time of his turning 1is coat; but he retains the highest opinion of the personal goodness of the Laureate-a man of the purest life, of he most extraordinary kindness to- ward his suffering relations, of eingu- ar industry; in short, no personal vir- ue wanting. MT. Kingston describes as first appearing before him II guise much like that of a common ,agrant or crossing sweeper, having ust arrived from a pedestrian excur- ion in Wales. He has a strong iln- oression of the poetical nature of Cole idge and of the glowing riches of his tion, Wordsworth, whom he lid not know personally he regards as mechanically poet in comparison with he natural aff1atus divinior of Cole idge. Byron a blackguard
 Sir Adam Ferguson describes a shooting ramble he had one day on the ligh grounds near Galashiels with Sir Walter Scott. It was an exceedingly windy day, and Scott had like to be blown from his pony. Coming to a Onely farmhouse in very exposed sit lation, they went up to it, but could ret no admission. At length a female 'oice was heard within, and Ferguson alled out, Whats come of the men?' Oh, they're ava OCT to Windydoors' a real place so named). I think they night have been content wi their ain