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XIV.
MRS. RAMSBOTTOM ON THE CANNING ADMINISTRATION.
ОглавлениеTo John Bull.
Montague Place, Bedford Square,
May 18, 1827.
Dear B.,—I am quite in a consternation—you are no longer a supporter of Government, and I am—indeed several ladies of my standing down in these parts have determined to stick to the Canine Administration, which you oppose. Mr. Fulmer takes in the Currier, and the Currier supports them—besides, he knows the Duke of Deafonshire, and so we cannot help being on their side.
You did not, perhaps, expect so soon to see Lord Doodley in place, nor fancy Mr. Turney would be Master of the Mint, or else you would not have been again Mr. Canine—for I know you like Lord Doodley, and you always praise Mr. Turney.
Between you and me, I do not quite understand why they should have so much Mint in the Cabinet as to want a man to look after it, when they have no Sage there, nor do I see how our Statesmen can get into a Cabinet to sit—to be sure, the French Minister sits in a bureau, and one is quite as easy to get into as the other. I see by Mr. Canine's speeches, that the King (God bless him!) sits in a closet, which is much more comfortable, I think.
Fulmer tells me that Mr. Broom's brother is the Devil, and gets six or seven hundred a year by it—I always understood he was related to the family, but never knew how, till Mr. Canine's people got him a place at Court, which I think very wrong, only I must not say so.
I was very near in a scrape on Monday. I went down to Common Garden to buy some buckets for my Popery jars, out of which I empty the Popery in summer, and put in fresh nosegays, being a great votery of Floorar—when who should be there but Mr. Hunt, and Mr. Cobbett, and Mr. Pitt, the last of which gentlemen I thought had been dead many years; indeed I should not have believed it was him, still alive, only I heard Mr. Hunt call for his Old Van, which I knew meant the President of our Anti-Comfortable Society in Tattenham-court-road, who is a Lord now, and was a friend of Mr. Pitt's before he retired from public life into the Haddlefy.
Mr. Hunt told us a thing which I never knew before, which is, that the pavement of Common-garden is made of blood and prespiration, which is so curious that my two little girls and I are going down Toosday to look at it—after hearing him say that, I got away, but had my pocket picked of some nice young inions, which I had just before bought.
Mr. Fulmer does not know I am riting to you, but I do rite because I think it rite to do so, to warn you not to say that Mr. Canine has gone away from what he was formerly—for I know as a fact that it was he which christened his present friends "all the talons," and rote a pome in praise of them, which he would not have done had he not thought eyely of them.
It is not true that he is going to make any new Pears, although his anymes says so. Mr. Russell, of Branspan, I have known all my life—he smokes more than his coles, and don't want to be a Lord at all; and as for Mr. Bearing, he is a transit land take man, and cannot be a Lord here—at least so F. tells me. However, I think Sir George Warrener will be a Barren something, let what will happen elsewhere. I see, however, Mr. Canine has made both Plunkett and Carlile Lords, and given all the woods and forests to the latter.
You see I begin to pick up the noose—awnter noo, as the French say, have you seen our village clock in St. Giles's—it is lited up by itself every heavening, at hate o'clock; and on account of its bright colour, may be red at any hour of the nite: it is, indeed, a striking object; if you should be able to get out of town, do drive down this way and look at it.
Only think of these Mr. Wakefields being put into gaol for three years for marrying a young woman—I suppose there is no chance of her being confined in consequence of her going with them. Have you heard Madame Toeso? is she any relation to Miss Foote? My papa is full, and so'il hold no more, so adeu.
Yours truly,
Dorothea L. Ramsbottom.
P.S.—Have you read Sir Ruffian Donkey's Pumpflet about Lord Somersetshire?