The Marquis of Anglesey’s Leg
Among the curiosities of Waterloo are the grave of the late Marquis of Anglesey’s leg, and the house in which it was cut off, and where the boot belonging to it is preserved! The owner of the house to whose share this relic has fallen finds it a most lucrative source of revenue, and will, in spite of the absurdity of the thing, probably bequeath it to his children as a valuable property. He has interred the leg most decorously in the garden of the inn, within a coffin, under a weeping willow, and has honoured it with a monument and the following epitaph:—
Ci est enterrée la Jambe
de l’illustre et vaillant Comte d’Uxbridge,
Lieutenant-Général de S. M. Britannique,
Commandant en chef la cavalrie Anglaise, Belge, et Hollandaise,
blessé le 18 Juin, 1815,
à la mémorable bataille de Waterloo;
qui par son héroisme a concouru au triomphe de la cause
du genre humain;
Glorieusement décidée par l’éclatante victoire du dit jour.
Some wag scribbled this infamous couplet beneath the inscription:—
Here lies the Marquis of Anglesey’s limb,
The devil will have the rest of him.
More apposite is the following epitaph, attributed to Mr. Canning, on reading the description of the tomb erected to the memory of the Marquis of Anglesey’s leg:—
Here rests,—and let no saucy knave
Presume to sneer or laugh,
To learn that mould’ring in this grave
There lies—a British calf.
For he who writes these lines is sure
That those who read the whole,
Will find that laugh was premature,
For here, too, lies a soul.
And here five little ones repose,
Twin born with other five,
Unheeded by their brother toes,
Who all are now alive.
A leg and foot, to speak more plain,
Lie here of one commanding;
Who, though he might his wits retain,
Lost half his understanding.
And when the guns, with thunder bright,
Poured bullets thick as hail,
Could only in this way be taught
To give the foe leg bail.
And now in England just as gay
As in the battle brave,
Goes to the rout, the ball, the play,
With one leg in the grave.
Fortune in vain has showed her spite,
For he will soon be found,
Should England’s sons engage in fight,
Resolved to stand his ground.
But Fortune’s pardon I must beg;
She meant not to disarm:
And when she lopped the hero’s leg,
She did not seek his h-arm.
And but indulged a harmless whim,
Since he could walk with one:
She saw two legs were lost on him,
Who never meant to run.
When the Marquis of Anglesey was, for the second time, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, he became very unpopular through an unguarded speech; and Mr. O’Connell, in one of his flowery addresses, quoted the lines:—
God takes the good, too good on earth to stay;
And leaves the bad, too bad to take away.
The great orator continued:—
This couplet’s truth in Paget’s case we find;
God took his leg, and left himself behind.
Of a ballad sung in the streets of Dublin, the chorus ran as follows:—
He has one leg in Dublin, the other in Cork,
And you know very well what I mean, O!
It was stated that he had an artificial leg in Cork.