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Anecdotes and Reminisences

into splendid exile: this lady attributing to Sir Benjamin Bloomfield her being compelled to send back some jewels which had been presented to her by the Prince Regent, but which, it was discovered, belonged to the Crown, and could not be alienated. Sir Benjamin was created a Peer, and sent to Stockholm as ambassador, where his affable manners and his unostentatious hospitality rendered him exceedingly popular; and he became as great a favourite with Bernadotte as he had been with the Prince Regent. The name of Bloomfield is at this day respected in Sweden.


The Right Hon. George Canning.—When Mr. Canning retired from Portugal, he was received at Paris with a distinction and a deference perhaps never before bestowed on a foreign diplomatist; he dined with Charles X. almost tête-à-tête, and was scrambled for by the leading aristocracy of France. It happened that he also dined, on one occasion, with the Bailli de Ferrete, who was the oldest foreign ambassador in Paris; and it was generally understood that Canning, who had the reputation of being a gourmand, and was not in robust health at the time, never thoroughly recovered from these Parisian hospi-