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Royal Tunbridge Wells
the Duke of Leeds, Lord Rosslyn, Archbishop Moore, and Dr. Moss, Bishop of Bath and Wells. In connection with the last-mentioned Cumberland has told a good story. The Bishop, who, with the dramatist, was dining with Lord Mansfield, mentioned that he was repairing an alms-house at Wells for the reception of five-and-twenty women, the widows of clergymen, and he asked Cumberland to suggest an inscription. " Why do you apply to Cumberland ? " asked the Lord Chief Justice. " I'll furnish you with what you want: ' Here are five-and-twenty women, all kept by the Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells.' That's plain English. Cumberland would have puzzled the cause and his brains into the bargain." At this time Lord Mansfield was an old man, and H. Hobart writing to the Duke of Rutland in the autumn of 1786, after saying he had met his Lordship at " The Wells," continued : "His eye is particularly lively; but I am told he is very infirm, and not likely to live long." He survived, however, for another seven years. Lord North it was who had disallowed Cumberland's claims for the expenses of the Spanish mission, but when the veterans met at the spa they buried the hatchet. 122 |
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