Page:The lives of celebrated travellers (Volume 2).djvu/322

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Timothy," says he, "had dined with the duke (of Newcastle), and, on his leaving the house, was contributing to the support and insolence of a train of servants who lined the hall, and at last put a crown into the hands of the cook, who returned it, saying, 'Sir, I do not take silver.'—'Don't you, indeed?' said the worthy knight, putting it in his pocket, 'then I do not give gold.'" Among the ludicrous circumstances mentioned in Mr. Hanway's letter is one which happened to himself. He was paying the servants of a respectable friend for a dinner which their master had invited him to, one by one, as they appeared. "Sir, your great-coat;" a shilling; "Your hat;" a shilling; "Stick;" a shilling; "Umbrella;" a shilling; "Sir, your gloves."—"Why, friend, you may keep the gloves: they are not worth a shilling."

In 1762 he was appointed one of the commissioners for victualling the navy; upon which, finding that an increase of expenditure was authorized by the augmentation of his income, he took a house in Red Lion Square, the principal rooms of which, says his biographer, he furnished and decorated with paintings and emblematical devices in a style peculiar to himself. "I found," said he, "that my countrymen and women were not au fait in the art of conversation; I have therefore presented them with objects the most attractive that I could imagine, and such as cannot easily be imagined without exciting amusing and instructive discourse; and when that fails there are the cards." Prince Eugene, who, I suppose, found his companions in much the same predicament, was used to have music during dinner, and, upon being questioned respecting his reasons, replied, "It saves you the trouble of talking."

Among numerous other benevolent schemes of our worthy traveller was one which had for its object the bettering the condition of young chimney-sweepers, who, besides the distresses which are open to general observation, such as the contortion of their limbs