n mechanics,
foreshadowing his future expertness. It came into use the same night: he
pulled the string without rising from bed, then struck a light, while
the rats flew off to the holes to find them blocked, and he shot them at
leisure. Two or three such massacres cleared off the intruders, and left
him undisturbed in his quarters."[163]

HANOVER RATS.

How amusingly does Mr Waterton show his attachment to the extinct
Stuarts in his essays. Go where he may, "a Hanover rat" pops up before
him. In his charming autobiography appended to the three series of his
graphic essays, whether he be in Rome or Cologne, in York or London, at
a farm-house, or on board a steamer on the Rhine, "a Hanover rat" is
sure to be encountered. We could cite many amusing illustrations.

Earl Stanhope[164] speaks of the Jacobites after the death of Anne
reviling all adherents of the court as "a parcel of Roundheads and
Hanover rats." This is the phrase used by Squire Western in Fielding's
novel of "Tom Jones." He tells us that the former of these titles was
the by-word first applied to the Calvinistic preachers in the civil
wars, from the close cropped hair which they affected as distinguished
from the flowing curls of the cavaliers. The second phrase was of far
more recent origin. It so chanced that not long after the accession of
the House of Hanover, some of the brown, that is, the German or Norway
rats, were first brought over to this country in some timber, as is
said; and being much stronger than the black, or till then, the common
rats, they in many places quite extirpated the latter. The word, both
the noun and the verb "to rat," was first levelled at the converts to
the government of George the First, but has by degrees obtained a wider
meaning, and come to be applied to any sudden and mercenary change in
politics. The ravages of rats might form the subject of a curious
volume. They are not at all literary in their tastes, though they are
known to eat through bales of books, should they be placed in the way of
their runs. The booksellers in the Row always leave room between the
wall and the books in their cellars, to allow room for this predacious
vermin.

Mr Cole, when examined before the Committee of the House on the
condition of the depositories of the Records some time ago, stated that
"six or seven perfect skeletons of rats were found imbedded (in the
Rolls); bones of these vermin were generally distributed throughout the
ma