Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846Various
History
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
Christie, the auctioneer, the other day, gave a happy specimen of the
eloquence of the hammer. He is at the head of his trade, and sells all
the remarkable things. On this occasion the Pigot diamond had come into
his hands. It is a very fine brilliant, but objected to by the
connoisseurs as not having sufficient depth. It was valued at L40,000.
But at this sale the auctioneer could not raise its price above L9500,
or guineas. He then appealed to his audience, a crowd of the fair and
fashionable,--
"How unfortunate," said he, "is it, for the owners of this incomparable
production, that they should have brought it into the market in a
country so famed for female beauty as England! Here the charms of the
sex require no such additions; here the eyes of the ladies sparkle with
brilliancy which outvies all the gems of the East. In other countries
this incomparable stone would be sought as a necessary aid; here it can
be valued only as a splendid superfluity." The room rang with applause.
One of the heroes of Junius has just died; the veteran Wellbore Ellis,
Lord Mendip. This man's whole life was spent in public employments. He
was the son of an Irish bishop, whose brother--such were the curious
qualities of the time--took orders in the Popish Church, followed the
Pretender, and died a Popish bishop. Young Ellis, after an education at
Westminster and Oxford, was brought into parliament under the Pelhams,
who made him a lord of the Admiralty. Under the Newcastle administration
which followed, he was appointed to the lucrative post of Irish
vice-treasurer, which he held undisturbed through all the struggles of
the Cabinet till the Grenville administration, when he was raised still
higher, and became Secretary at War.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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