There has been a droll cause in Westminster Hall:  a man laid another a wager that he produced a person who should weigh as much again as the Duke.  When they had betted, they recollected not knowing how to desire the Duke to step into a scale.  They agreed to establish his weight at twenty stone, which, however, is supposed to be two more than he weighs.  One Bright was then produced, who is since dead, and who actually weighed forty-two stone and a half.)203) As soon as he was dead, the person who had lost objected that he had been weighed in his clothes, and thought it was impossible to suppose that his clothes could weigh above two stone, they went to law.  There were the Duke’s twenty stone bawled over a thousand times,-but the righteous law decided against the man who had won!

Poor Lord Lempster(204) is more Cerberus(205) than ever; (you remember his bon-mot that proved such a blunder;) he has lost twelve thousand pounds at hazard to an ensign of the Guards-but what will you think of the folly of a young Sir Ralph Gore,(206) who took it into his head that he would not be waited on by drawers in brown frocks and blue aprons, and has literally given all the waiters at the King’s Arms rich embroideries and laced clothes!  The town is still empty:  the parties for the two playhouses are the only parties that retain any spirit.  I will tell you one or two bon-mots of Quin the actor.  Barry would have had him play the ghost in Hamlet, a part much beneath the dignity of Quin, who would give no other answer but, “I won’t catch cold behind.”  I don’t know whether you remember that the ghost is always ridiculously dressed, with a morsel of armour before, and only a black waistcoat and breech behind.  The other is an old one, but admirable.  When Lord Tweedale was nominal secretary of State for Scotland, Mitchell,(207) his secretary, was supping With Quin, who wanted him to stay another bottle; but he pleaded my lord’s business.  “Then,” said Quin, “only stay till I have told you a story.  A vessel was becalmed:  the master called to one of the cabin-boys at the top of the mast, ‘Jack, what are you doing?’ ‘Nothing, Sir.’  He called to another boy, a little below the first, ’Will, what are you doing?’ ‘Helping Jack, sir.’” Adieu!

(199) In the year 1746.

)200) Stephen Poyntz, formerly British minister in Sweden, after being tutor to Lord Townshend’s sons.

(201) Anna maria Mordaunt, maid of honour to Queen Caroline.  A young gentleman at Oxford wrote the “Fair Circassian” on her, and died for love of her. [The “Fair Circassian,” a dramatic performance which appeared in 1720, Has been generally attributed to the Rev. Dr. Samuel Croxall, author of “Fables of Esop and others, translated into English, with instructive applications,” who died in 1752, at an advanced age.]

(202) William, first Earl of Dartmouth, secretary of state to Queen Anne.  He died on the 15th of December, in his seventy-ninth year.-E.