There was a roast joint and one bottle of port to each mess of four barristers: one would think a supply more than ample: however, some thirsty souls wanted more wine for the great occasion, and the complaint found utterance ludicrously thus.

When the National Anthem was sung, some young lawyer who gave the solos, with a good tenor voice and no end of dry humour, raised a gale of laughter and applause by singing very devoutly-- "Long to reign over us _Happy and glorious,_ _Three half-pints 'mong four of us,_ God save the Queen!" Of course, plenty more bottles were the result,--and the genial Prince Albert laughed as heartily as the rest of us.
8.

Yet another anecdote, in these days of professional mendicancy not uninstructive.

One day when calling on the Rev.Robert Anderson, at Brighton, a begging visitor came in, calling himself a Polish refugee, and speaking broken English: Mr.Anderson in his kindness was just about to open his purse, when I said to both of them, "I happen to know a little Polish, and wish to ask a few questions:" accordingly, I rapped out at intervals, with an interrogating air, the opening lines of the Antigone of Sophocles! on which that "banished lord," stammering out that he had been out of Poland so many years that he had forgotten the language, bowed himself from the room as a--discovered, impostor.
9.

The recent lamentable fire at Kegan Paul's, wherein so much authorial wealth was cremated,--and especially no fewer than six of the works of that clever authoress, Emily Pfeiffer,--reminds me of an irrevocable loss sustained by "Proverbial Philosophy" owing to Oudinot's capture of Rome in 1849: for it so happened that the Cardinal Archbishop of Bologna had, as instructress to his nieces, a lady who afterwards became Mrs.
Robinson of South Kensington Museum: she, a great admirer of the work, translated my book for them into Italian, and had it printed at Rome, where unluckily both the whole MS.