HASTINGS OF WOODLANDS.
[To THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—Shaftesbury does not say that Hastings was a book- lover and the whole tenor of the account is against the idea.
That bard riding, loose-living old squire had, however, one peculiarity that may interest your readers, the more so as the notice of it probably suggested to Sir Walter (who was naturally well read in the literature of Dryden's time) the little white stick with which Cedric kept his dogs in order.
" Seldom but two of the great chairs had litters of young cats in them, which were not to be disturbed, he having always three or four attending him at dinner, and a little round white stick of fourteen inches long lying by his trencher, that he might defend such meat as he had no mind to part with to them."
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