are gloves and
foils for those who like to amuse themselves, or we fire pistols at a mark
in the hall, 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, Mr. John Jackson, pugilist, in London.

All the prince's time tells a similar strange story of manners and
pleasure. In _Wraxall_ we find the prime minister himself, the redoubted
William Pitt, engaged in high jinks with personages of no less importance
than Lord Thurlow the lord chancellor, and Mr. Dundas the treasurer of the
navy. _Wraxall_ relates how these three statesmen, returning after dinner
from Addiscombe, found a turnpike open and galloped through it without
paying the toll. The turnpike man, fancying they were highwaymen, fired a
blunderbuss after them, but missed them; and the poet sang,--

How as Pitt wandered darkling o'er the plain,
His reason drown'd in Jenkinson's champagne,
A rustic's hand, but righteous fate withstood,
Had shed a premier's for a robber's blood.

Here we have the treasurer of the navy, the lord high chancellor, and the
prime minister, all engaged in a most undoubted lark. In Eldon's
_Memoirs_, about the very same time, I read that the Bar loved wine, as
well as the woolsack. Not John Scott himself; he was a good boy always;
and though he loved port wine, loved his business and his duty and his
fees a great deal better.

He has a Northern Circuit story of those days, about a party at the house
of a certain Lawyer Fawcett, who gave a dinner every year to the counsel.

"On one occasion," related Lord Eldon, "I heard Lee say, 'I cannot leave
Fawcett's wine. Mind, Davenport, you will go home immediately after
dinner, to read the brief in that cause that we have to conduct
to-morrow.'

" 'Not I,' said Davenport. 'Leave my dinner and my wine to read a 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. Mr. Scott, you must go home immediately, and make
yourself acquainted with that cause, before our consultation this
evening.' "

"This was very hard upon me; but I did go, and there was an attorney from
Cumberland, and one from Northumberland, and I do not know how many other
persons. Pretty late, in came Jack Lee, as drunk as he could be.

" 'I cannot consult to-night; I must go to bed,' he exclaimed, and away he