The King and Queen and their suite were wantonly charged with gluttony and drunkenness by persons who ought to have known better. "It is true," observes Lord Byron, in his _Voyage to the Sandwich Islands_, "that, unaccustomed to our habits, they little regarded regular hours for meals, and that they liked to eat frequently, though not to excess. Their greatest luxury was oysters, of which they were particularly fond; and one day, some of the chiefs having been out to walk, and seeing a grey mullet, instantly seized it and carried it home, to the great delight of the whole party; who, on recognizing the native fish of their own seas, could scarcely believe that it had not swum hither on purpose for them, or been persuaded to wait till it was cooked before they ate it." The best proof of their moderation is, however, that the charge at Osborne's Hotel, in the Adelphi, during their residence there, amounted to no greater an average than seventeen shillings a head per day for their table: as they ate little or no butcher's meat, but lived chiefly on fish, poultry, and fruit, by no means the cheapest articles in London, their gluttony could not have been great. So far from their always preferring the strongest liquors, their favourite beverage was some cider, with which they had been presented by Mr. Canning. The popular comic song of _The King of the Cannibal Islands_ was written _à propos_ to the above royal visit. Sir Edward Dering's Luckless Courtship. Sir Edward Dering, the founder of the Surrenden library, and a distinguished member of Parliament in the troublous times of Charles I., was born in the Tower of London in 1598, his father having been deputy-lieutenant of that fortress. He studied at Magdalen College, Cambridge, and was knighted by James I. in 1618. Sir Edward was thrice married. The story of an unsuccessful courtship, after his second widowhood, is as good as a play, and indeed more amusing than many dramas of the period based upon a similar subject. The object of this enterprise was a city dame, the widow of a well-connected mercer, Richard Bennett by name. The widow Bennett, by the custom of London and the will of her husband, was possessed of two-thirds of the deceased's property, besides all her jewels and chains of pearl and gold, her diamond and other rings, her husband's coach and the four grey coach-mares and geldings, with all things thereunto belonging. In addition to these substantial recommendations, she seems to have had some personal charms of her own, and no other encumbrance than one little boy. In those days it was not necessary to advertise for a husband, and Mistress Bennett could not lack suitors. Three of the most conspicuous were named Finch, Crow, and Raven, much to the amusement of London society in those days. The first was Sir Heneage Finch, Recorder of London, who had been Speaker of the House of Commons in 1626, and owned a handsome house at Kensington, since converted into a Royal Palace.