what strange pranks were played by the bigamous Miss Chudleigh; what jokes--now, alas! very faded and dreary--were made by George Selwyn, and how that amiable favourite of society went to Paris in order to see the cruel tortures inflicted upon Damiens, and was introduced to the chief performer on the scaffold as a distinguished amateur in executions. One of the best of all these vignettes portrays the funeral of George II., and is a worthy pendant to Lord Hervey's classic account of the Queen's death. It opens with the solemn procession to the torch-lighted Abbey, whose 'long-drawn aisles and fretted vault' excite the imagination of the author of the 'Castle of Otranto.' Then the comic element begins to intrude; the procession jostles and falls into disorder at the entrance of Henry the Seventh's Chapel; the bearers stagger under the heavy coffin and cry for help; the bishop blunders in the prayers, and the anthem, as fit, says Walpole, for a wedding as a funeral, becomes immeasurably tedious. Against this tragi-comic background are relieved two characteristic figures. The 'butcher' Duke of Cumberland, the hero of Culloden, stands with the obstinate courage of his race gazing into the vault where his father is being buried, and into which he is soon to descend. His face is distorted by a recent stroke of paralysis, and he is forced to stand for two hours on a bad leg. To him enters the burlesque Duke of Newcastle, who begins by bursting into tears and throwing himself back in a stall whilst the Archbishop 'hovers over him with a smelling-bottle.' Then curiosity overcomes him, and he runs about the chapel with a spyglass in one hand to peer into the faces of the company, and mopping his eyes with the other. 'Then returned the fear of catching cold; and the Duke of Cumberland, who was sinking with heat, felt himself weighed down, and turning round found it was the Duke of Newcastle standing upon his train to avoid the chill of the marble.' What a perch to select! Imagine the contrast of the two men, and remember that the Duke of Newcastle was for an unprecedented time the great dispenser of patronage, and so far the most important personage in the government. Walpole had reason for some of his sneers.