of music, became a wine-merchant.
"You will," said the _ready_ wit, "import your music and compose your
wine." Nor was this service exacted from the old idea thought sufficient;
so, in the House of Commons, an easy and, apparently, off-hand parenthesis
was thus filled with it, at Mr. Dundas's cost and charge, "who generally
resorts to his memory for his jokes, and to his imagination for his
facts."

* * * * *

SMOLLETT'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

This man of genius among trading authors, before he began his History
of England, wrote to the Earl of Shelburne, then in the Whig
Administration, offering, if the Earl would procure for his work the
patronage of the Government, he would accommodate his politics to the
Ministry; but if not, that he had high promises of support from the
other party. Lord Shelburne, of course, treated the proffered support of
a writer of such accommodating principles with contempt; and the work of
Smollett, accordingly, became distinguished for its high Toryism. The
history was published in sixpenny weekly numbers, of which 20,000 copies
were sold immediately. This extraordinary popularity was created by the
artifice of the publisher. He is stated to have addressed a packet of
the specimens of the publication to every parish-clerk in England,
carriage-free, with half-a-crown enclosed as a compliment, to have them
distributed through the pews of the church: this being generally done,
many people read the specimens instead of listening to the sermon, and
the result was an universal demand for the work.

* * * * *

MAGNA CHARTA RECOVERED.

The transcript of Magna Charta, now in the British Museum, was discovered
by Sir Robert Cotton in the possession of his tailor, who was just about
to cut the precious document out into "measures" for his customers. Sir
Robert redeemed the valuable curiosity at the price of old parchment,
and thus recovered what had long been supposed to be irretrievably lost.

* * * * *

FOX AND GIBBON.

When Mr. Fox's furniture was sold by auction, after his decease in 1806,
amongst his books there was the first volume of his friend Gibbon's
_Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_: by the title-page, it appeared
to have been presented by the author to Fox, who, on the blank leaf, had
written this anecdote of the historian:--"The author, at Brookes's, said
there was no salvation