Gibbons--the "Nurse Gibbons" of our old friend Radcliffe--was a deep drinker, disgusting, by the grossness of his debaucheries, the polite and epicurean Garth. But Gibbons did something for English dinner-tables worth remembering. He brought into domestic use the mahogany with which we have so many pleasant associations. His brother, a West Indian Captain, brought over some of the wood as ballast, thinking it might possibly turn to use. At first the carpenters, in a truly conservative spirit, refused to have anything to do with the "new wood," saying it was too hard for their tools. Dr. Gibbons, however, had first a candle-box and then a bureau made for Mrs. Gibbons out of the condemned material. The bureau so pleased his friends, amongst whom was the Duchess of Buckingham, that her Grace ordered a similar piece of furniture, and introduced the wood into high life, where it quickly became the fashion. Of Radcliffe's drunkenness mention is made elsewhere. As an eater, he was a _gourmand_, not a _gourmet_. When Prince Eugene of Savoy came over to England on a diplomatic mission, his nephew, the Chevalier de Soissons, fell into the fashion of the town, roaming it at night in search of frays--a roaring, swaggering mohock. The sprightly Chevalier took it into his head that it would be a pleasant thing to thrash a watchman; so he squared up to one, and threatened to kill him. Instead of succumbing, the watchman returned his assailant's blows, and gave him an awful thrashing. The next day, what with the mauling he had undergone, and what with _delirium tremens_, the merry roisterer was declared by his physician, Sieur Swartenburgh, to be in a dying state. Radcliffe was called in, and acting on his almost invariable rule, told Prince Eugene that the young man must die, _because_ Swartenburgh had maltreated him. The prophecy was true, if the criticism was not. The Chevalier died, and was buried amongst the Ormond family in Westminster Abbey--it being given out to the public that he had died of small-pox. Prince Eugene conceived a strong liking for Radcliffe, and dined with him at the Doctor's residence. The dinner Radcliffe put before his guest is expressive of the coarseness both of the times and the man. On the table the only viands were barons of beef, jiggets of mutton, legs of pork, and such other ponderous masses of butcher's stuff, which no one can look at without discomfort, when the first edge has been taken off the appetite. Prince Eugene expressed himself delighted with "the food and liquors!"