Passion Week in the Parlor."
Another caustic quidnunc remarked, "In his lordship's kitchen the fire
is dull, but the spits are always bright;" whereupon Jekyll interposed
with an assumption of testiness, "Spits! in the name of common sense I
order you not to talk about _his_ spits, for nothing turns upon them."

Very different was the temper of Erskine, who spent money faster than
Kenyon saved it, and who died in indigence after holding the Great Seal
of England, and making for many years a finer income at the bar than any
of his contemporaries not enjoying crown patronage. Many are the bright
pictures preserved to us of his hospitality to politicians and lawyers,
wits, and people of fashion; but none of the scenes is more
characteristic than the dinner described by Sir Samuel Romilly, when
that good man met at Erskine's Hampstead villa the chiefs of the
opposition and Mr. Pinkney, the American Minister. "Among the light,
trifling topics of conversation after dinner," says Sir Samuel Romilly,
"it may be worth while to mention one, as it strongly characterizes Lord
Erskine. He has always expressed and felt a strong sympathy with
animals. He has talked for years of a bill he was to bring into
parliament to prevent cruelty towards them. He has always had some
favorite animals to whom he has been much attached, and of whom all his
acquaintance have a number of anecdotes to relate; a favorite dog which
he used to bring, when he was at the bar, to all his consultations;
another favorite dog, which, at the time when he was Lord Chancellor, he
himself rescued in the street from some boys who were about to kill it
under the pretence of its being mad; a favorite goose, which followed
him wherever he walked about his grounds; a favorite macaw, and other
dumb favorites without number. He told us now that he had got two
favorite leeches. He had been blooded by them last autumn when he had
been taken dangerously ill at Portsmouth; they had saved his life, and
he had brought them with him to town, had ever since kept them in a
glass, had himself every day given them fresh water, and had formed a
friendship for them. He said he was sure they both knew him and were
grateful to him. He had given them different names, 'Home' and 'Cline'
(the names of two celebrated surgeons), their dispositions being quite
different. After a good deal of conversation about them, he went
himself, brought them out of his library, and placed them in their gl