lord of Newstead and half Sherwood Forest,
and master of the king's staghounds.

By-and-by, the guests came in from St.
James's-street, and the Ring in Hyde Park,
from the Mall, the Strand, and Spring-gardens—
some hearty country gentlemen on horseback;
others, cold and pinched from the cumbrous
hackney-coaches of those days; two or three in
elaborate dress in sedan-chairs, the lids of which
were carefully lifted up by the Irish chairmen,
to let out the powdered toupées and the gold-
laced cocked-hats.

The later pictures of Hogarth (that great
painter died in 1762) will tell us how these
gentlemen from the banks of the Trent, the Soar,
and the Idle, these lords of the light grasslands
and rich loamy furrows round Nottingham,
Newark, Retford, and Mansfield, were apparelled.
Let us observe their collarless deep-cuffed coats,
spotted with gold strawberries, and embroidered
down the seams and outside pockets, or of light
and gay colours, as pink and cinnamon, their
deep-flapped tamboured and laced waistcoats,
their frilled shirts and fine ruffles, their knee-
breeches, their gold and diamond buckles.
Remark their powdered wigs, their laced hats, and,
above all, their swords—those dangerous
arbitrators in after-dinner differences, when the
claret goes down faster and faster.

The guests, laughing and chatting, are bowed
in, and bowed up-stairs, and bowed into their
club-room. Lord Byron, a passionate and rather
vindictive man, is conspicuous among them in
pleasant conversation with his neighbour and
kinsman, Mr. William Chaworth, of Annesley
Hall. The landlord announces dinner, and a
long train of drawers appear with the dishes.
At that pleasant signal the gentlemen hang up
their cocked-hats on the wainscot pegs, while
some unbuckle their swords and hang them up
also. Mr. John Hewett, the chairman and toast-
master of the evening, takes, of course, the head
of the table, and presides at the chief joint.
Near him, on the right hand, is Sir Thomas
Willoughby, and, in the order we give them,
Mr. Frederick Montague, Mr. John Sherwin,
Mr. Francis Molyneux, and last, on that side of
the table. Lord Byron. On the other side,
Mr. William Chaworth, Mr. George Douston,
Mr. Charles Mellish (junior), and Sir Robert
Burdett: in all, including the chairman, ten
guests.

The talk at dinner is country gentlemen's
talk—the last assizes and the absurd behaviour
of the foreman of the grand jury; the tremendous
break away with the fox-hounds from
the Pilgrim Oak at the gate of Newstead,
all through Sherwood wastes, past Robin
Hood's Stable, through the dells of the Lock,
round to Kirkby Crags, by Robin Hood's Chair,
far across the Nottinghamshire heaths, and
woods, and valleys, till all but Byron, and
Chaworth, and a few more had been tailed off.
Then the conversation veers to politics, and the
danger or otherwise of the new Stamp Act for
the American colonies; the possibility of the
Marquis of Rockingham ousting the Right
Honourable George Grenville, and the probable
conduct of Mr. Pitt and Colonel Barry in such
an emergency.

The fish chases out the soup, the meat the
soup, the game the meat, and the cheese the
game. The conversation becomes universal,
the young drawers on the stairs hear with
awe the din and cheerful jangle of the voices,
catching, as the door opens, scraps of sporting
talk, praises of Garrick, counter-praises of
Barry, eulogies of Miss Bellamy, and counter-
eulogies of charming Miss Pope. The grave
and bland landlord, who, with the white damask
napkin over his left wrist, has from the
sideboard hitherto directed the drawers, now the
cloth is drawn, loops the bell-rope to the toast-
master's chair, bows, adjusts the great japanned
screen, backs himself out, and closes the
door behind him. The Nottinghamshire gentlemen
gather round their claret; one fat bon-
vivant takes off his wig for greater comfort,
hangs it on a hat-peg beside the swords, and now
sits, with his glossy bald head, which, in the
light of the great red logs that glow in the
generous fireplace, glows like an enormous
orange.

All is good-humoured gaiety and conviviality,
a good humour not likely to be interrupted, for
it is the rule of the club to break up at seven,
when the reckoning and a final bottle are
brought in; probably to give Lord Byron
time to get down to the House of Lords,
and other members time to join in the
debate in the Commons, to go and see Garrick,
or to visit Ranelagh. Very soon after seven the
gentlemen will push back their chairs, put on
their three-cornered hats and scarlet
roquelaures, buckle on their swords, and wish each
other good night. The squires tell their old
sporting stories with great enjoyment—how they
breasted a park paling, how they were nearly
drowned fording the Trent after a thaw; how
they tired three horses the day the hunt swept
on into Yorkshire, and only Lord Byron, Mr.
Chaworth, and themselves were at the finish.

About the time the drawer brings in the
reckoning and the final bottle, Mr. Hewett, the
chairman, starts a certain hobby of his, about the
best means of preserving game in the present
state of the game laws; which, as he afterwards
naïvely said, "had very often produced agreeable
conversation." The talk round the table,
particularly at the Lord Byron and Chaworth end,
has latterly been a little hot and wrangling,
and Mr. Hewett prudently tries to change the
subject.

This is an age, remember, in which, gentlemen
are apt to have differences. That dangerous
and detestable habit of wearing swords in
daily life leads too often to sudden and deadly
arbitrations without waiting for jury or judge.
Those swords, hanging in their gilt and silver
sheaths from, the wainscot pegs behind the
chairs, are only too prompt servants in
after-dinner disputes at taverns. There is a
danger about this which is piquant to high-
spirited men. Courage and cowardice are