when a gentleman in the deepest mourning called, it is said, at the
house, and introducing himself as an old and much-attached friend of the
deceased, begged to be allowed to look upon his face. The tears which
rose in his eyes, the tremulousness of his quiet voice, the pallor of
his mournful face, deceived the unsuspecting servant, who accompanied
him to the chamber of death, removed the lid of the coffin, turned down
the shrowd, and revealed features which had once been handsome, but long
since rendered almost hideous by drinking. The stranger gazed with
profound emotion, while he quietly drew from his pocket a bailiff's
wand, and touching the corpse's face with it, suddenly altered his
manner to one of considerable glee, and informed the servant that he had
arrested the corpse in the king's name for a debt of £500. It was the
morning of the funeral, which was to be attended by half the grandees of
England, and in a few minutes the mourners began to arrive. But the
corpse was the bailiff's property, till his claim was paid, and nought
but the money would soften the iron capturer. Canning and Lord Sidmouth
agreed to settle the matter, and over the coffin the debt was paid.

Poor corpse! was it worth £500--diseased, rotting as it was, and about
to be given for nothing to mother earth? Was it worth the pomp of the
splendid funeral and the grand hypocrisy of grief with which it was
borne to Westminster Abbey? Was not rather the wretched old man, while
he yet struggled on in life, worth this outlay, worth this show of
sympathy? Folly; not folly only--but a lie! What recked the dead of the
four noble pall-bearers--the Duke of Bedford, the Earl of Lauderdale,
Earl Mulgrave, and the Bishop of London? What good was it to him to be
followed by two royal highnesses--the Dukes of York and Sussex--by two
marquises, seven earls, three viscounts, five lords, a Canning, a lord
mayor, and a whole regiment of honourables and right honourables, who
now wore the livery of grief, when they had let him die in debt, in