WHAT WAS LORD JOHN READING ?
One of our correspondents is very anxious to know " what was Lord John reading when the Queen's messenger arrived?" This, no doubt, has become a great question of the day. The first thought is that it must have been something deeply interesting, since the Royal messenger found the Whig leader so difficult to get at. But, after having been pestered with calls, timely and untimely, of many idle admirers in Edinburgh, anything might be made an excuse to decline a visit from some Edinburgh "Un- known." Besides, a tete-a-tete with a fair lady must always tell for so much, even though that lady be one's own wife.
All these doubts, however, only serve to make the question more piquant —to stimulate curiosity, and keep conjecture at work. What could he be reading? An exemplary committee-man—a politician so devoted to the things of his trade as to be generally totus in it/is—writes to us that it gives him no rest night or day, and that unless the problem be solved he will be quite unfit for business next session.
What could Lord John be reading? Reading aloud—verses should be read aloud—perhaps it was his own Don Carlos ? perhaps Scott's descrip- tion of his " own romantic town "? Perhaps, like Mr. Macaulay, he was rehearsing one of his own speeches—the speech to be delivered at Glasgow on the following Friday—the luckless speech which was to be strangled before it was born, and all for nothing? Perhaps he was reading Hamlet,! " The time Is out ofjoint ; oh, cursed spite,
That ever I was born to set it right."
Perhaps he was reading, in an early copy of Carlyle's Cromwell, a diatribe against " shams "? Perhaps he was only reading the Court Guide? Per- haps it was some of Punch's compliments to himself? Perhaps he was reading Lord Campbell's Lives of the Chancellors; and found them so lively that he was planning a communication with Stratheden House?
But a "Presence," as Dickens hath it, puts an end to wearying and un- profitable conjecture, by revealing the actual fact. Lord John was reading The Cricket on the Hearth; and had just got to where the kettle begins to boil, when his chirp was interrupted, and himself plunged into hot water.
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