Page:A short history of social life in England.djvu/354

334 representing "His Satanic Majesty" with tail, horns and hoofs complete. Exaggerated stories were told in the clubs, and repeated in the drawing-rooms, of his adventures, his regal display, his hatred of England, and his schemes for attacking her. His name was used as a bogey to frighten children. In 1807, preparations had been made along the Norfolk coast for an expected invasion, and the five-year-old Harriet Martineau was twitching her pinafore in terror at the thought of the monster's arrival.

"Papa, what will you do if Boney comes?" she asked, trembling.

"What will I do?" he answered cheerfully, "Why, I will ask him to take a glass of port with me."

The idea that the dreaded "Boney" was human enough to be entertained with port comforted the nervous child not a little.

Men and women wept over the death of Nelson in 1805, and were equally ready to toast the hero of Waterloo, when their old foe was no longer a terror in the land.

Notwithstanding their foreign interests, our great-grandfathers still found time to oppose the introduction of gas, the new method of lighting