was thrown from the saddle, and his hat and wig were
thrown to a little distance from him: he got on his feet again
immediately, and began to look about for the hat and wig, which he did
not readily see, being, as we all know, short-sighted. P----, very much
alarmed by the accident, rides up in great haste and arrives at the
moment when the king is peering about and saying to the attendants,
'Where's my wig? where's my wig?' P---- cries out, 'D--n your wig! is
_your majesty safe_?'"

* * * * *

CURIOUS CONCEITS.

While the late Edmund Burke was making preparation for the indictment
before the House of Lords, of Warren Hastings, Governor-general of
India, he was told that a person who had long resided in the East
Indies, but who was then an inmate of Bedlam, could supply him with much
useful information. Burke went accordingly to Bedlam, was taken to the
cell of the maniac, and received from him, in a long, rational, and
well-conducted conversation, the results of much and various knowledge
and experience in Indian affairs, and much instruction for the process
then intended. On leaving the cell, Burke told the keeper who attended
him, that the poor man whom he had just visited, was most iniquitously
practised upon; for that he was as much in his senses as man could be.
The keeper assured him that there was sufficient warranty and very good
cause for his confinement. Burke, with what a man in office once called
"Irish impetuosity," known to be one of Burke's characteristics,
insisted that it was an infamous affair, threatened to make the matter
public, or even bring it before parliament. The keeper then said, "Sir,
I should be sorry for you to leave this house under a false impression:
before you do so, be pleased to step back to the poor gentleman's cell,
and ask him what he had for breakfast." Burke could not refuse
compliance with a request so reasonable and easily performed. "Pray,
Sir," says he to his Indian counsellor, "be so obliging as to tell me
what you had for breakfast." The other, immediately putting on the wild
stare of the maniac, cried out, "Hobnails, Sir! It is shameful to think
how they treat us! They give us nothing but hobnails!" and went on with
a "descant wild" on the horrors of the cookery of Bethlehem Hospital.
Burke staid no longer than that his departure might not seem abrupt;
and, on the advantage of the first pause in the talk, was glad to make
his escape.