This fashion had just come in; and the uninitiated wondered much that so great a number of jolly gentlemen should have suddenly become lame.

But, those who were in the secret knew that the word Limp was a consecrated word, that every one of the four letters which composed it was the initial of an august name, and that the loyal subject who limped while he drank was taking off his bumper to Lewis, James, Mary, and the Prince.

[464] It was not only in the capital that the Jacobites, at this time, made a great display of their wit.

They mustered strong at Bath, where the Lord President Caermarthen was trying to recruit his feeble health.

Every evening they met, as they phrased it, to serenade the Marquess.