hinges of cord, and minus a coffin-plate, for which the initials E. N. cut upon the wood were substituted. His shroud was made of a pound of wool. The coffin was covered with a sheet in place of a pall, and was carried by six men, to each of whom he directed a gratuity of half-a-crown. At his particular desire, too, not one who followed him to the grave was in mourning; but, on the contrary, each of the mourners appeared to try whose dress should be the most striking. Even the undertaker was dressed in a blue coat and scarlet waistcoat.

Another deplorable case might be cited, that of Thomas Pitt, of Warwickshire. It is reported that some weeks prior to the sickness which terminated his despicable career, he went to several undertakers in quest of a cheap coffin. He left behind him 3,4757. in the public funds.

Daniel Dancer's miserly propensities were indulged in to such a degree, that on one occasion, when, at the urgent solicitation of a friend, he ventured to give a shilling to a Jew for an old hat, to the astonishment of his friend, the next day he actually retailed it for eighteenpence. He performed his ablutions at a neighbouring pool, drying himself in the sun, to save the extravagant indulgence of a towel; yet he had property to the extent of upwards of 4,000l. per annum. He had a man-servant, at 1s. 6d. per week wages, to help his master in picking up bones. He lived in great penury: during his last illness, Lady Tempest found him lying in an old sack, which came up to his neck; and thus, with a truss of hay for his pillow, he died in 1794, in his seventy-eighth year. Then was found concealed in a dung-heap nearly 2,500l.; in a jacket, nailed to a manger, 5007. in gold and bank-notes; in the chimney, 2007.; and in an old teapot, 6007. in banknotes-his entire property being left to Lady Tempest and her brother.

Thomas Cooke, of Pentonville, who died in 1811, leaving great wealth, was known to put on ragged clothes, and apply as a pauper, at gentlemen's houses, for a dispensary letter, for the cure of his eyes. In his latter days, when wearing a wellpowdered wig, and long ruffles, he would pretend to fall in a fit at a door, and if assistance was offered, would ask for water; and if pressed to take wine, would appear reluctantly to consent, and then drink two glasses. Meanwhile he was discovered to be the rich Mr. Cooke, the sugar-baker, worth a hundred thousand pounds. In a few days he paid a second

visit about dinner-time, under the pretence of thanking the gentleman for saving his life the other day; he stayed to dinner, caressed all the children, and took their names in writing, and the parents thus believed he would leave them legacies. Then poured in upon Cooke presents of provisions, most of which he sold; he drank water; his " gormandizing, gluttonous maids," table-beer. Cooke had, by the above manœuvre, caught a paper-maker, named King, who did him many kindnesses; but, upon King falling into difficulties, and applying to Cooke for help, could only get from him advice never to drink another pint of beer, there being "plenty of pumps." And, among other meanness, the miser, who was ceremoniously religious, used to take the sacrament at home; "it saves my pocket," said he; "at church I must put a shilling into the plate." At length death came for the miser; he sent for medical men-some would not attend; but a surgeon who came, was turned out of the house for cheating Cooke by sending medicine, when the medical man told him he could only live six days. Cooke's executors gave him a what he would have called an extravagant funeral; but the mob pelted with cabbage-stalks the procession from the miser's house at Pentonville to his grave. However, he in some measure atoned for his avarice, by bequeathing about 10,000l. among four charitable institutions.

In the year 1863, there passed out of the world a strange Scotchman, named Andrew Hutton, called in the western district of Fife "the African chief," but he seems to have been chiefly known by his miserly mode of living. He not only stinted himself of food, but what he did eat was of the coarsest description: he had a sort of Nebuchadnezzar-like appetite for vegetation. The immediate cause of Hutton's death was eating the leaves of the ash: he had been walking through a field bordered with ash-trees, on the falling leaves of which some cows were feeding greedily. They were fat, in good condition, and Hutton thought what is good for the cow is good for the man; so he collected a quantity of the ash-leaves, took them home, boiled them, and fed on them for several days. He was taken ill, and removed to the Fever Hospital, Dunfermline, where he died, after some days of great suffering. He had reached his fifty-fifth year. On searching his house his relatives found, in an old tea-kettle, a cheque for 70%., the interest on which had been accumulating

for seventeen years and a deposit-book showed a balance of 617. to his credit in the National Security Savings Bank. Loose money was also found concealed in the house; and the miserable man possessed considerable property in Dunfermline.

Many a Londoner past middle age may recollect Thomas Clark, "the King of Exeter 'Change," who was long one of the most singular characters in the metropolis. He took a stall in the 'Change in 1765, with 1007. lent him by a stranger. By parsimony and perseverance he so extended his business as to occupy nearly one half of the entire building with the sale of cutlery, turnery, &c. He grew rich, and once returned his income at 6,000l. a year. He was penu

rious in his habits: he dined with his plate on the bare board, and his meal, with a pint of porter, never cost him a shilling. He resided in Belgrave-place, Pimlico; and morning and evening saw him on his old horse, riding into town and home again-and thus he figured in the print-shops. He died in 1817, in his eightieth year, and left nearly half a million of money.

Early in 1864, one William Cox, a notorious miser, was found dead in his room in the Model Lodging-house, Columbia Square. He lay on the floor-his head in the grate; on the table was some money, which he had evidently been counting. His clothes were not worth a shilling, and the stockings were sewn on his feet. He was in a dreadful state of emaciation. Upon searching the rooms, deeds, leases, policies of insurance, money, watches, and other property to the value of between 6,000l. and 7,000l. were found lying about and concealed. Among other articles seventeen coats, the same number of waistcoats, and seventeen pairs of boots, all nearly new, were found in the place. Two hundredweight of coals, which it is ascertained were purchased by him six months before-doubtless, because they were then cheap-were found nearly untouched. It was his habit during the severe weather to sit shivering in his room, and no one could induce him to allow a fire to be made.

VAGARIES OF SIR JOHN HILL.

Sir John Hill, born about 1716, began life as apprentice to an apothecary, in London, by which means he obtained some knowledge of botany; and being possessed of lively parts, industry, and impudence, he managed to get on in the world.

He pushed his way into fashionable life; published a sancdalous newspaper called the Inspector; made, puffed, and sold quack medicines; and yet found time to compose voluminous works.

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Sir John Hill,1 having been rejected because of his waspish temper by the learned societies in succession, ridiculed them all with equal asperity. The Antiquaries were "medalscrapers" and "antediluvian knife-grinders;" the Conchologists were "cockle-shell merchants;" the Naturalists were pedlers of pricklebacks and cockchafers." Hill was a man of great and varied talents—there is no denying it—and of miraculous industry. His "Vegetable System" extending to twenty-six folios, and containing 16,000 plates, representing 26,400 different figures from nature, is in itself a pyramid of his industry, yet it does not comprise one-twentieth part of his labours. He wrote travels and histories, romances, sermons, pamphlets, plays, and poems-in fact, he put his pen to every kind of writing, though it is not quite so certain that he beautified all he touched. His temper was intolerable; his vanity egregious; and in every fellow-creature he seems to have found an enemy. "Friendship passed him like a ship at sea. ." He flung his glove in the teeth of the world, and the world, as is its custom, walked upon him. Posterity has done justice to his great attainments, but how was he treated by his contemporaries! Fielding, punning on his name, called him " a paltry dunghill;" and Smart, whom he had called an ass," devoted a long poem to him-the "Hilliad "—in which he denounced him as

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"A wretch devoid of use, of sense, and grace,

The insolvent tenant of encumbered space!" Garrick's happy lines on his double faculty of physician and playwright are well known:

"For physic and farces, his equal there scarce is—
His farce is a physic, his physic a farce is!"

Some other wit, whom he had stigmatised as
headed booby," assailed him in a similar manner :

66 a wooden

"The worse that we wish thee for all thy vile crimes,

Is to take thine own physic, and read thine own rhymes." Nor did it end here. Malice, like echo, caught up the perishing strain, and the last epigram was the best of the three:

1 From a clever paper, by Charles Dunphy, A. B.

"No! let the order be reversed,
Or else unlashed his crimes;
For if he takes his physic first,

He'll never read his rhymes."

When the tar-water mania was at its height, in the year 1777, and that compound was received as the universal remedy for all diseases, Sir John Hill, to revenge himself on the Royal Society, because they rejected him as a Fellow, contrived the following ingenious hoax. It is thus told by Horace Walpole, in one of his letters to Sir Horace Mann; but Walpole omits to state that Sir John Hill wrote all the letters, and not the sailor himself. A sailor, who had broken his leg, was advised to communicate his case to the Royal Society. The account he gave was, that, having fallen from the top of the mast and fractured his leg, he had dressed it with nothing but tar and oakum, and yet in three days was able to walk as well as before the accident. The story at first appeared quite incredible, as no such efficacious qualities were known in tar, and still less in oakum; nor was a poor sailor to be credited on his own bare assertion of so wonderful a cure. The Society very reasonably demanded a fuller relation, and the corroboration of evidence. Many doubted whether the leg had been really broken. That part of the story had been amply verified. Still, it was difficult to believe that the man had made use of no other applications than tar and oakum; and how they could cure a broken leg in three days, even if they could cure it at all, was a matter of the utmost wonder. Several letters passed between the Society and the patient, who persevered in the most solemn asseverations of having used no other remedies, and it appeared beyond a doubt that the man spoke the truth. But, charming was the plain, honest simplicity of the sailor: in a postscript to his last letter he added these words: "I forgot to tell your honours that the leg was a wooden one." "Was there ever," says Walpole, "more humour? What would one have given to have been present, and seen the foolish faces of the wise assembly!"

THE STORY OF CHEVALIER D'EON.

There is no longer any mystery connected with the history of D'Eon. He was of a good French family, and born in 1728. He was an excellent scholar, soldier, and political