will have been to him a subject, first of discreet inquiry, and later of pious reprobation. He preferred, we may be sure, as became a sober Scotch body, the joys of his home in Hastings Street to the masquerades at Mr. Creighton's Harmonic House. In the South Park Street Cemetery, under hideous pyramids and beneath the debris of fast crumbling tombs, is gathered in its last reunion much of the vexed society which surrounded him. There is Hyde, Sir Elijah Impey's colleague; 'an honest man,' Sir Elijah thinks, 'but a great coxcomb.' There is choleric Clavering, Member of Council and Commander-in-Chief, but not the less prepared to call out his colleague, 'Curricle' Barwell, who later begged the honour of his daughter's hand[1]. There is his fellow Councillor, Colonel Monson; whose wife, Lady Anne Monson, 'a very superior whist-player,' rests with him.
Clavering and Monson had been sent with Francis from England to form Hastings' Council. No sooner had they landed on Indian soil than all three fell into a fashioned frenzy at what they termed the indignity of their reception. Soon, for two of them, a few feet of that earth would suffice. Now, not even a beggarly Hic jacet indicates their resting-places
- ↑ 'A man has followed Miss Clavering on foot from the East Indies; is quite mad; and scenes are daily expected, even in the drawing room,' wrote the Countess of Upper Ossory to George Selwyn in 1779. Mr. Councillor Barwell presently married Miss Sanderson, who lies also in the South Park Street Cemetery. Miss Clavering married Lord Napier of Merchistoun.
