" "Ah!
Mr. President, I may well say I could have better spared a better man."
"Meaning _me_, I suppose?" said Horne, with an air that, by its
pleasantry, put to flight the other's grief. I was talking with Henry
James Pye, late poet-laureate, when he happened to mention the name of
Mr. P., a gentleman of Berkshire, and M.P. I think, for Reading; "That
is the man," said I, "who damned the king's wig in the very presence of
his majesty; with great credit, however, to his own loyalty, and very
much to the amusement of the king." "I do not well see how that could
be." "You shall hear a story which our president (Pye had been a
gentleman commoner of Magdalen College) told at his own table. The king
was out a hunting; P---- was _in_, and _of_, the field; the king's horse
fell; the king was thrown from the saddle, and his hat and wig were
thrown to a little distance from him: he got on his feet again
immediately, and began to look about for the hat and wig, which he did
not readily see, being, as we all know, short-sighted. P----, very much
alarmed by the accident, rides up in great haste and arrives at the
moment when the king is peering about and saying to the attendants,
'Where's my wig? where's my wig?' P---- cries out, 'D--n your wig! is
_your majesty safe_?'"
* * * * *
CURIOUS CONCEITS.
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