pity for every one else who lived in rooms without patent chairs and
little coffee-tables, whose windows did not look on the Park, with sofas
niched into their recesses. As Henry IV. wished every man to have his
pot au feu, so Sir Sedley Beaudesert, if he could have had his way,
would have every man served with an early cucumber for his fish, and a
caraffe of iced water by the side of his bread and cheese. He thus
evinced on politics a naive simplicity which delightfully contrasted his
acuteness on matters of taste. I remember his saying, in a discussion
on the Beer Bill, "The poor ought not to be allowed to drink beer, it is
so particularly rheumatic! The best drink in hard work is dry
champagne,--not vtousseux; I found that out when I used to shoot on the
moors."

Indolent as Sir Sedley was, he had contrived to open an extraordinary
number of drains on his wealth.

First, as a landed proprietor there was no end to applications from
distressed farmers, aged poor, benefit societies, and poachers he had
thrown out of employment by giving up his preserves to please his
tenants.

Next, as a man of pleasure the whole race of womankind had legitimate
demands on him. From a distressed duchess whose picture lay perdu under
a secret spring of his snuff-box, to a decayed laundress to whom he
might have paid a compliment on the perfect involutions of a frill, it
was quite sufficient to be a daughter of Eve to establish a just claim
on Sir Sedley's inheritance from Adam.

Again, as an amateur of art and a respectful servant of every muse, all
whom the public had failed to patronize,--painter, actor, poet,