Volga, the Don, the Dnieper were there, or their representative river gods, and Father Thames clubbed urns with the Vistula. Glory with her dazzling eagle was not absent, nor Fame nor Victory. The shade of Rubens might have evoked the mighty allegories. But what was the goose? He was evidently sitting for a something. D. at last informed me that he could not introduce the Royal Thames without his swans. That he had inquired the price of a live swan, and it being more than he was prepared to give for it, he had bargained with the poulterer for the next thing to it, adding significantly that it would do to roast after it had served its turn to paint swans by." (Lamb's Recollections of a Royal Academician.)
The following year the visit to Winterslow was repeated, but not with the same happy results. In a letter written during his stay to Mr. Basil Montague Charles says: "My head has received such a shock by an all-night journey on the top of the coach that I shall have enough to do to nurse it into its natural pace before I go home. I must devote myself to imbecility; I must be gloriously useless while I stay here. The city of Salisbury is full of weeping and wailing. The bank has stopped payment, and everybody in the town kept money at it or has got some of its notes. Some have lost all they had in the world. It is the next thing to seeing a city with the plague within its walls; and I do suppose it to be the unhappiest county in England this, where I am making holiday. We purpose setting out for Oxford Tuesday fortnight, and coming thereby home. But no more night-travelling; my head is sore (understand it of the inside) with that deduction from my natural rest which I suffered coming down. Neither Mary nor
