biographer, relates a story which he says Lord Orrery had told him,
that he had been told by Cromwell and Ireton of their intercepting a
letter from Charles I. to his wife, which was sewn up in the skirt
of a saddle. The story may or may not be true; this authority for it
is not first-rate. The Quarterly reviewer, in transcribing from Mr.
Cunningham's book the passage in Morrice's _Life of Lord Orrery_,
introduces it by saying,--"Cromwell, in a letter to Lord Broghill,
narrates circumstantially how he and Ireton intercept, &c." This is
a mistake; there is no letter from Cromwell to Lord Broghill on the
subject. (Lord Broghill was Earl of Orrery after the Restoration.)
Such a letter would be excellent authority for the story. The mistake,
which is the Quarterly reviewer's, and not Mr. Cunningham's, is of
some importance.

C.H.


_Lady Morgan and Curry_.--An anecdote in the last number of the
_Quarterly Review_, p. 477., "this is the first set down you have
given me to-day," reminds me of an incident in Dublin society
some quarter of a century ago or more. The good-humoured and
accomplished--Curry (shame to me to have forgotten his christened name
for the moment!) had been engaged in a contest of wit with Lady Morgan
and another female _célébrité_, in which Curry had rather the worst
of it. It was the fashion then for ladies to wear very short sleeves;
and Lady Morgan, albeit not a young woman, with true provincial
exaggeration, wore none, a mere strap over her shoulders. Curry was
walking away from her little coterie, when she called out, "Ah! come
back Mr. Curry, and acknowledge that you are fairly beaten." "At any
rate," said he, turning round, "I have this consolation, you can't