Page:Tixall Poetry.djvu/390

 the rest, the Song of Solomon. I have in my possession a manuscript copy of this poetical version, transcribed in the year 1638, which I have great reason to believe has never been faithfully printed.

I have been told, that the famous Lord Chesterfield had a relation, a Mr Stanhope, who was exceedingly proud of his pedigree, which he pretended to trace to a ridiculous antiquity. Lord Chesterfield was one day walking through an obscure street in London, where he saw a miserable dawb of Adam and Eve in Paradise. He purchased this painting, and, having written on the top of it, "Adam de Stanhope of Eden, and Eve his wife," he sent it to his relation as a valuable old family picture.

Some years before the French revolution, one of the Fermiers Generaux, who had raised himself from a low condition to great opulence, being asked by a supercilious nobleman, "If his family was very ancient?" he replied, "My Lord, there were three sons of Noah who came with him out of the ark; I am descended from one of them, but have not been able exactly to ascertain which."

P. 19. "Bands and Cuffes," I fancy, are synonimous to neckcloths and ruffles.

So Gray in "The Bard:"

Among the "Songes and Sonettes" of Sir Thomas Wyat, is one "Of his Love that pricked her Finger with a Needle."