genuine wit.

"He laughed heartily," says Mr. Gleig, "could trifle with the gayest, and thought it not beneath him to relish a pun; but the most remote approach to ribaldry offended his taste, and never failed of receiving from him an immediate check."

His own diet was very simple, and his great temperance in eating and drinking may have added some years to his long life. His favourite drink was water, and so nice was he about the quality of it, that, while staying in London, he would get his water from a distant spring that rose near Knightsbridge barracks. His old taste for swimming he indulged whenever he could. He was past eighty years old before he gave up his habit of daily riding. Much as he enjoyed his trips to London, and his visits to friends in the country, he was never happier than at home. In the words of one who knew him intimately during his latter years, "it was among his own guests, at his own table, in his own study, and in the bosom of his own family, that he appeared ever most like himself, and therefore to the greatest advantage."

Of his literary tastes we get an inkling in the

* Gleig's "Warren Hastings," Vol. 3, Chap. xiii.

fact of his fondness for Lucan, from whom, like Pitt, he often quoted; and of the pleasure he took in reading Young's "Night Thoughts" again and again. The one author may have reflected his political, the other his moral and religious sentiments. Among the poets of his own day, he seems to have given the highest place to Scott, whose war-songs fired his patriotism in 1803, and whose "Marmion" filled him with just delight. "If "If you can borrow it," he writes to Thompson in 1808, "read above all things Walter Scott's new poem of Marmion, not for its political worth." Of Malthus, whose doctrines were just then beginning to please or shock his countrymen, Hastings at once formed a high opinion. His pamphlet on population he viewed as "one of the most enlightened publications of this and the last age."* In 1815 he read Scott's new poem, "The Lord of the Isles," through twice, "once with Mrs Hastings, who is disposed to read him once more."

Much of his daily exercise was taken on horseback. He prided himself on his good horsemanship, and delighted in taming the most refractory brutes. Mr. Gleig tells a pleasant story of his success in managing a donkey which had dis

* Gleig's "Warren Hastings," Vol. 3, Chap. xiii.

HIS KINDNESS TO YOUNG FRIENDS. 327

mounted young Impey, and several other of his guests. Without saddle or bridle, the old gentleman mounted the unruly beast, and defying all his efforts to unseat his new rider, forced him at last to move on. If the boys had any turn for classic parallels, they must have regarded Hastings as a modern Chiron or another Diomed.

Among other visitors at Daylesford was his old friend Sir John D'Oyley, whose son Charles had lately gone out to India as a writer. With young people Hastings was always a favourite, for his gentle manners and the fatherly interest he took in their wellbeing. Few things pleased him more than the receipt of his first letter from the young civil servant, whom he hastened to thank for this proof of kindly remembrance. Nor could any advice have been sounder or more delicately conveyed, than the few words in which Hastings congratulated his young friend on his early escape from the perils of Calcutta society.

66

Against these," he writes, "your good sense would have been an insecure guard, and the goodness of your heart would but have more exposed you to them." Young D'Oyley had found a home with his father's friend, Mr. Brooke; and

this protection Hastings bade him cherish while he had it. "When you lose it, as you must in the course of a few years, resolve to be in every sense your own master, nor suffer any influence but the rectitude of your own understanding to prescribe your conduct in the pursuit either of pleasure, interest or reputation."*

* Gleig's "Warren Hastings," Vol. 3, Chap. xii.

NOTE.-The following story, which perhaps refers to this part of Hastings' life, was told by Mr. Alfred Gatty of Ecclesfield in No. 80 of "Notes and Queries," for May 10, 1851.

During the latter years of his life Warren Hastings was in the habit of visiting General D'Oyley in the New Forest, and thus he became acquainted with the Rev. W. Gilpin, Vicar of Boldre and author of "Forest Scenery," &c. Mr. Gilpin's custom was to receive morning visitors who sat and enjoyed his agreeable conversation; and Warren Hastings when staying in the neighbourhood often resorted to the Boldre parsonage. It happened one Sunday that Mr. Gilpin preached a sermon on the character of Felix, which commences in words like these:

:

"Felix was a bad man, and a bad Governor. He took away another man's wife and lived with her; and he behaved with extortion and cruelty in the province over which he ruled."

Other particulars followed equally in accordance with the popular charges against the late Governor-General of India, who, to the preacher's dismay, was unexpectedly discovered sitting in the D'Oyley pew. Mr. Gilpin concluded that he then saw the last of his great" friend. But not so: on the following morning Warren Hastings came, with his usual pleasant manner, for a chat with the Vicar, and of course made no allusion to the sermon.

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This was told me by a late valued friend who was a nephew and curate of Mr. Gilpin, and I am not aware that the anecdote has been put on record.

CHAPTER III.

1803-1810.

In granting Hastings a loan of £50,000 without interest for eighteen years, the Court of Directors took care to guaad themselves from ultimate loss by stopping half his yearly pension, and taking Daylesford as security for the balance of their loan. Hastings thus found himself charged with a virtual interest of four per cent., while the sum total of his debts remained nearly as large as ever, and his chances of getting clear grew daily less with the growing burdens laid on him by the war. His appeal to the India House in 1799, against what seemed to him "a direct contradiction to the declared terms of the loan,' issued in a new and fairer arrangement, under which the interest on the half-yearly payments was allowed to accumulate for the borrower's benefit alone.

It was not long, however, before Hastings had