Anecdote of the late Judge Butler.
While in Washington in February, 1857, we were told an amusing anecdote of the late Judge Butler, and at one time we were actually preparing it for the press, when his melancholy death caused us to forego our intention. We revive it now, in pleased recollections of his infinite humor, and facetiousness, while entertaining an equally lively remembrance of his long-continued, bold, eloquent and efficient representation of the Palmetto State, and championship of the South, in the Senate of the once great and glorious, but now dismembered and humiliated, United States. The amusing occurrence was in this wise Judge Butler was dining at the White House, with a large party of ladies and gentlemen. While taking a hasty plate of soup, and at the same time commenting on Daniel Webster's peculiarity or habit of simultaneously carrying several handkerchiefs in his pockets, it became necessary or expedient for the Judge to wipe his month. Accordingly, plunging his right hand in his left coat pocket, a la Webster, (suiting the action to the word,) for his handkerchief, he pulled out a long linsey-woolsey blue stockings, with which, unconscious of the strange substitution, he incontinently commenced the wiping process, the foot of the article hanging down on the left side of his face. A general machinations or rather explosion of laughter, was the natural result, and the lady sitting on the Judge's left, who had caught the merry infection, said almost inarticulately,--‘"Why, Judge, what, in the name of wonder, are you wiping your face with?"’ This called the Judge's attention to the very odd wipe he was busily plying about his month and face, and thereupon, lifting it up and taking sight at it, with his cross eyes, in his own peculiar way, and realizing the ludicrous fact, he exclaimed, after a hem or two, with his usual hesitancy of utterance: ‘"Ah ! eh ! why 'tis Hunter's blue stocking !"’ (meaning Senator Hunter, of Virginia, the Judge's room-mate in Washington.) This unexpected explanation of the funny incident only the more set ‘"laughter shaking both his sides,"’ and swelled the uproar, until the very roof rang with the merry peal. After order and silence had been restored, the Judge humorously confessed the awkwardness of his predicament, and explained that, in a fit of absence, after performing his toilet, he had unconsciously, along with his handkerchief, thrust one of Mr. Hunter's stockings into his pocket; and added, ‘"for Heaven's sake, don't tell that woman, Mrs. C**y, of it."’ The prohibition was, of course, disregarded, and Mrs. C**y was soon put in possession of the story. Thereupon, with that kindly humor and ready wit which, with her many virtues, graces and accomplishments, made her a social queen in Washington, she penned the Judge a billet, enclosed in a rose-colored envelope, which ran somewhat in this strain: E****'s January --, 1857.
My Dear Judge:
I learn that you are in great alarm, lest I should come to the knowledge of your Blue Stocking adventure.
Give yourself not the least uneasiness on the subject, as I understand and properly appreciate the enigma.
This is doubtless its solution — you are about, I suppose, to prove your devotion, at once, to the sex and to literature, by instituting, under your auspices, as tutelary guardian, ‘"The Blue Stocking Society."’ For so commendable a project, you deserve and will receive the approving smile and the lasting gratitude of the fair, generally, and of My Dear Judge:
Yours, especially,
V**** A. C. C**y.
V**** A. C. C**y.
We add the finale of the amusing affair.--The lamented Brooks jocularly addressed an anonymous note to the Judge, written in a beautiful and delicate female hand, which read thus: ‘ My Dear Judge: After the mortifying and malapropos exposure you have made of my blue stocking, I beg you will return it to me, without delay. Yours, Fannis. ’
