rooks Xtf Two Books of Parodies by the present editor of Punch OWEN SEAMAN Borrowed Plumes UiA Printing. i6nio, $1.25. Twenty-two parodies of contemporary authors. They cover the Elizabeths of the German Garden and of the Visits, " John Oliver Hobbes," Caine, Corelli, Harland, Hewlett, Meredith, Lubbock, Mrs. Ward, Henry James, Maeterlinck, Shaw, Stephen Phillips, and others. N. Y. Tribune:— '■'■ He delights us without recalling any master of the art (parody) whatever. If we think of Thackeray or Bret Harte in perusing this little volume, it is only to reflect that they would, in all probability, have gladly taken him into their company. . . . Why he could not have written all of the works of the authors he parodies it is difficult to see, for he seems invariably to get inside of them, to write as though with their hands and from their brains." A Harvest of Chaff $1.25 net. (By mail, $1. 35.) Parodies, by " the Baron de Bookworms " of Punchy in the main, of Victorian poets. Kipling, Austin, Wordsworth, Browning, Byron, and Morris are among his victims, while Wagner's alliterative verse in the " Ring " is also delightfully burlesqued in a dialogue between two fashionable Londoners of to-day. To these are appended some effective serious poems — "Lines In Memoriam " to Queen Victoria, John Ruskin, Sir Arthur Sullivan, Cecil Rhodes, and Pope Leo XIII. N. Y. Tribune:—^'' Seaman has carried on in verse the tradition of Calverley and Stephen, enriching it with qualities of his own." St, James's Gaz^/^* (London):— " In his most unguarded moments you never catch Mr. Seaman without the apt verse, the whimsical turn of thought ... he stands so far at the head of living parodists." N. Y. Evening- Sun ;— *' It has a lot of good things in it." Henry Holt and Company 29 W. 23d St. New York > . ' i J, • •• -•- r By kind permission of " The Illustrated London News SHIRLEY BROOKS Shirley Brooks of Punch HIS LIFE, LETTERS, AND DIARIES GEORGE SOMES LAYARD Author of •' Charles Keetu of <■ Punch; " etc. WITH DECORATIVE INITIALS AND BIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 1907 I Dedicate this Book TO MY Friend Marion H. Spielmann 255118 -^ Preface UTY and pleasure demand a word of thanks to those who have lent their co-operation in the production of this book. First and foremost must be mentioned Mr. Henry Silver, an early friend and colleague of the sub- ject of this Biography, lacking whose generous contributions this volume would be shorn of a great part of the value which I hope it may possess. Next must be mentioned my friend, Mr. M. H. Spielmann, without whose '' History of Punch ** the biographer of a Punch man would be like a sailor in an oarless boat on an uncharted sea. Others whom I cannot sufficiently thank are Mr. H. C. Venning, Lieut. -Colonel Gaskell, Mrs. Jopling Rowe, Mr. Frith, R.A., Sir Francis Burnand, Miss Fergusson, Mr. Herbert Jones of Oswestry, the Messrs. Roche, the well-known London booksellers, Messrs. Macmillan & Co., Miss Matthews, PREFACE Lady Romer, Mr. J. Parry Jones, Mrs. Panton, Miss Nathalie Brooks, Mr. Charles W. Brooks, Mr. H. W. Sabine, Mr. G. Goodman, Miss Ellen Terry, Mr. Sidney Jennings, Mr. W. L. Fleming, Mr. Donald Masson, Lady Hardman, Miss Ella Hepworth Dixon, Mr. James Murren, Mr. William Downing, Mr. W. H. Doeg, Mr. Florian Williams, Mr. C. L. Graves, Mr. George Dunlop, Mr. A. Abrahams, Mr. du Maurier, Miss Oakley, Dr. E. S. Tait, my friend, Mr. Walter Frith, who has most kindly looked through my proofs, and, last but not least, the Proprietors of Punch, who, besides putting letters at my disposal, have generously given me permission to make use of the delightful initial letters which adorn these pages. In conclusion, I should be wanting in common gratitude were I not to put on record the invaluable secretarial help I have received from Miss Marion Christ opherson. G. S. Layard. BulVs Cliff, Felixstowe, 1907. VI Contents CHAPTER I PAGE 1815-1835— Birth— Scheme of Book— Early Influences— Oswestry — Law Studies . . . . . . . . 1 CHAPTER H 1835-1850 — The Beginning of his Literary Life — The Argus, AinswortWs Magazine, and the Illustrated London News — A Freemason — Cruikshank's Table Book — Friendship with Sala — ^The Era, the Man in the Moon — Shirley as " Poet " 26 CHAPTER HI Morning Chronicle — " Russians of the South " — As Theatrical Critic — " A Story with a Vengeance " — Angus Reach . . 56 CHAPTER IV Appearance — As Conversationalist . . . . . . 68 CHAPTER V Characteristics (continued) — Love for Children — Sympathy — Birthdays — Generosity — Modesty — Industry — Writing to the Papers — Dreams — As Letter- writer — ** Alton Locke " 85 CHAPTER VI Punch and the Punch Table . . . . . . . . 100 CHAPTER VII The Punch Table (continued)— The ** Essence of Parliament " 113 vii CONTENTS CHAPTER VIII PAGE 1852-1854 — " A Story with a Vengeance " — " Aspen Court " — Bentley's Miscellany — Marriage with Miss Emily Walkinshaw — Clubs — Birth of his Sons and their Fate . . 124 CHAPTER IX 1853-1856— The Crimea—" Dagon "— Percival Leigh- Horace Mayhew — " The Gordian Knot " — Generous Help from Messrs. Bradbury & Evans — Story of Spurgeon — " Poem by a Perfectly Furious Academician " — ^The Deceased Wife's Sister — An Armed Passage with Richard Bentley— Mr. W. P. Frith—" Cottle " . . . . . . 135 CHAPTER X 1857-1860 — Tennyson's Bust and Trinity College, Cambridge — " The British Lion's Vengeance on the Bengal Tiger " — " Amusing Poetry " — Death of Douglas Jerrold — John Cordy Jeaffreson — Birth of Cecil Brooks — Autograph Hunters — Shirley's Bust in the Academy — Once a Week — Napoleon III as the " French Porcupine " — Death of Macaulay — Percival Leigh — Spiritualism — Shirley as Lecturer — The Volunteer Association — " The Silver Cord " — His Shortcomings as Novelist — ^Thackeray — Miss Annie Thackeray (Mrs. Ritchie) . . . . . . . . 154 CHAPTER XI 1861-1863—6 Kent Terrace— Harriet Martineau— Literary Pensions — " Poet " Close — Holywell Street — ^The Prince Consort—" Timour the Tartar "— " The Card Basket "— Letters — " Sooner or Later " — ^Why Shirley Failed as Novehst — Nursery Rhymes — The Musical World — Death of Thackeray— Bust in Westminster Abbey . . . . 180 CHAPTER XII 1864 — ^The Shakespeare Tercentenary — A Royal Recluse — " Judy Parties "—Letters— The Autograph Fiend— The viii CONTENTS PAGE Anglo-Danish Question — Gout — Hymn to St. Trophimus — " Sooner or Later " — A " Breeze " with Messrs. Bradbury & Evans — Illness and Death of Leech — Advent of du Maiurier to the Table 208 CHAPTER Xni 1865 — The Diaries — ^The Christening of the Two Boys — Death of Abraham Lincoln — Punch's Great Recantation and the Question of its Authorship . . . . . . . . 227 CHAPTER XIV 1865 (continued) and 1866— Health— Earnings— Work— The Leigh Murray Benefit — At Scarborough with the Friths — Punch's " Table Talk " — Death of Lord Palmerston — The Agnews — Lectures at Oswestry — The Year's Earnings — Letters to Mr. and Mrs. Frith — The Censorship of Plays — Artemus Ward — Letters to Percival Leigh — Punch's Golden Wedding — Governor Eyre — Boulogne — Dieppe — C. H. Bennett— Parting Kick to 1866. . . . . . 249 CHAPTER XV 1867-1868— The Tomahawk— T>Q2^.\i of Charles Bennett- Summer Holidays — Letters to Bradbury — Letters to Mr. Frith — Ramsgate — Home News — Letters to P. Leigh and Mrs. George — " Ponny " Mayhew's Dinner — Mrs. Frank Romer (Mrs. Jopling Rowe) — Letters to P. Leigh . . 296 CHAPTER XVI 1869 — Diary, et passim — Financial Position — Letters — Mr. Levy's Party — Linley Sambourne — Harriet Martineau's " Biographical Sketches " — J. R. Robinson — Ernest Jones, Chartist — Death of Keeley — Cartoons — Gout — Mrs. Frank Romer — Royal Academy Dinner — Hieroglyphic Letter from du Maurier — Percival Leigh — Lord Derby — Alex. Munro — Lord Lytton — Grisi — ^A Sharp Warning — lUness 322 CONTENTS CHAPTER XVII PAGE 1870 — Last Days of Mark Lemon — His Death — Editorship of Punch Offered to S. B. and Accepted — Death of Charles Dickens — S. B.'s Inauguration — " Gone ad majores,'' 1870 387 CHAPTER XVIII 1871 — Mrs. Lynn Linton's Contribution to Punch — Letters to Miss Matthews and W. Hepworth Dixon — ^The Germans Enter Paris — Mrs. Lemon's Pension — The Census — Private View of the Royal Academy — Letters to Percival Leigh — The Tichborne Case — A Large Evening Party at 6 Kent Terrace — George Biddell Airy — A Punch Dinner at 10 Bouverie Street — Walter Scott Centenary — Harrogate — Letters to Percival Leigh, W. H. Bradbury, du Maurier, Mrs. F. Romer, and Mrs. Hardman — ^Serious lUness of the Prince of Wales — " Bomhastes Furioso " . . . . 434 CHAPTER XIX 1872 and 1873— A Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries- Letters to Miss Matthews and G. du Maurier — Harrogate and the Rev. John Oakley — Serious Illness of Reginald — Letters to the Rev. John Oakley, Mrs. Hardman, Miss Kate Fergusson and Percival Leigh — Visit to Gadshill — Copyright Reform — Prize-giving at the International College — Folkestone and Brighton Visits — Death of Landseer — " A Birthday Acrostic " to Miss Kate Fergusson — " A Breeze " with the Management of the Illustrated London News — The Last New Year's Eve Festivities . . 506 CHAPTER XX 1874— Last Days— Death .. .. .. ..578 Illustrations SHIRLEY BROOKS ..... Frofitispiecc THE BRITISH LION 'S VENGEANCE ON THE BENGAL TIGER Facing page 156 BRITANNIA SYMPATHIZES WITH COLUMBIA . „ 242 GROUP OF THE PERFORMERS IN THE CHARLES BENNETT " BENEFIT " . . . . Facing page 298 REBUS LETTER FROM DU MAURIER TO SHIRLEY BROOKS IN THE POSSESSION OF THE BIOGRAPHER . Facing page 351 MARK LEMON AND SHIRLEY BROOKS. . . „ 377 SHIRLEY BROOKS .... „ 459 INITIAL LETTER, CUT FROM THE PAGES OF ** PUNCH," FOUND PASTED IN SHIRLEY'S DIARY FOR 1873, WITH THE IDENTIFICATIONS OF THE PORTRAITS ADDED IN HIS HANDWRITING .... Facing page 560 XI GREAT "PUNCH" EDITOR 7(7 CHAPTER I 1815-1835 — ^Birth — Scheme of Book — ^Early Influences — Oswestry — ^Law Studies. HARLES WILLIAM, better known as Shirley, Brooks, was bom on April 29th, 1815, at 52 Doughty Street, London, — a street, by the way, of some literary interest, for here Sydney Smith had lived, here at No. 48 Dickens wrote part of '' The Pickwick Papers,'* here at No. 43 Edmund Yates lived, and Tegg,the publisher, opposite. He was the eldest of the three sons of William Brooks, and Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Wilham Sabine, of Islington. William Brooks was an architect of some note in his day, amongst his more important buildings * The initial letters in this volume are reproduced from Punch by the generous kindness of the proprietors, Messrs. Bradbury and Agnew. In nearly every case they originally decorated " Punch's Essence of Parliament," with which Shirley Brooks's name wiU be always identified. 1 2— (2297) SHIRLEY BROOKS being the London Institute and ''Dr. Fletcher *s Chapel '' in Finsbury Circus, Dudley Church, and the Church Missionary College. He is said to have belonged to a good old Nottinghamshire family whose pedigree could be traced back to Richard III, and included that Laurence Shirley, Earl of Ferrers, who, convicted of killing his steward, gaily drove to his place of execution behind six cream-coloured ponies. That Shirley Brooks put faith in this tradition seems likely from his adoption in later years of the *' front,'' for it cannot be called the Christian, name by which he will always be known. There may, too, have been a further reason, but of that more will be said later. William Brooks, Shirley's father (born Sept. 9th, 1786) was a member of the Goldsmiths' Company. The date of his marriage, which took place at St. Mary's, Islington, was October 16th, 1811, and Charles William (Shirley) was there baptized on June 14th, 1815. As to the day of the month of Shirley's birth a few words must be added. At least one of his dearest friends drinks to his memory on St. George's Day, April 23rd, but in his diary for 1869 I find April 29th underlined in red ink and marked *' Birthday," and by that I take my stand, particularly as birthdays were, as we shall see, matters in which to the end of his life he took the keenest interest. No doubt the confu- sion as to the day arose from his habit of alluding to " Shakespeare's and my birthday," which was one of his characteristic little jokes, and April 22nd or 23rd is that generally adopted as the birthday of the great 2 BIRTH dramatist. Curiously enough, by happy chance, I find him traversing the accuracy of this date in '' Punch's Essence of Parhament " for April 30th, 1864, in the following words : — ''Saturday. Mr. Punch published his Tercentenary number in honour of Shakespeare, whose birthday this either was or was not, most hkely the latter, firstly, because babies are not usually christened on the third day ; secondly, because New-Style brings the alleged birthday to the 3rd of May, and, thirdly, because there was east wind in spite of the heat, and Mr. Punch had no mind to march in procession, or do anything except contemplate with ecstasy his own magnificent picture of his own Shakespearian procession." From which it is easy to see that Shirley could make the date of Shakespeare's birthday coincide with his own without doing any very serious violence to historical accuracy. Of Shirley Brooks's childhood and early youth there is httle to record. The reasons for this it will be well to state at once, and they are rather tragical, seeing that he himself had taken particular pains from a very early date in his career to store up material for writing | an autobiography which, judging from what has survived the general wreck, would, had his life been spared, have proved of outstanding interest. By a strange and painful fate his immediate branch of the family has, in the thirty years since his death, been wiped off the face of the earth, and letters, diaries, and other treasured documents have been destroyed or scattered to the four winds. It is true that some have come to hand, and those by good fortune 3 SHIRLEY BROOKS of exceptional interest, but they are but the disjecta membra of what should have proved a complete body of very real importance and literary value. Owing to circumstances upon which it is unnecessary to dwell, but which reflect no discredit either on the subject of this biography or on his surviving relatives, those of the family who are now living had no personal intercourse with the Shirley Brookses. Thus it comes about that there was no one to become the natural depositary of Shirley's literary remains, no one whose pious duty it was to preserve the memorials of his life and work. This is matter for regret and that is all that need be said. Of Shirley's own intention to write his autobiography there can be no doubt. He had kept elaborate diaries for at least twenty-five years and had even gone so far as to make notes and excerpts from them in a separate volume expressly to that end. Here, too, he had identified much of his unsigned work, which cannot now be earmarked. Not that on this score we have much reason to complain, for it is rather with the man than with his literary work that we are concerned. Our chief regret at the loss of this epitome lies in the fact that, lacking it, we are faced with periods in his life concerning which little information is obtainable, and again other periods in which facts, sensations and experiences crowd upon us almost to bewilderment. Fortunately for us, the years imme- diately preceding his short editorship of Punchy and those crowning four years during which he controlled its destinies, are fully represented from his point of 4 HIS REMAINS view, and therein must lie the chief social and literary interest of this volume. Some years after Shirley's death all his papers were deposited for safe custody with a well-known Oxford Street bookseller. Then, shortly before the last sur- viving member of the family disappeared into the wilds of Austraha, they were with a few exceptions demanded back, and nothing more is known of them, except that certain of the diaries survived and, by devious routes, have come into my hands. That more may be in existence and may come to light now that interest in the man is stimulated is of course possible, but a very widely diffused request for material leads me to suppose that much cannot have escaped me. One other source of indirect information has also been dried up. Amongst his most intimate and valued friends Shirley Brooks numbered the family of Mr. Wmiam Powell Frith, R.A. To the '' Sissy '' Frith of those days, now the well-known authoress Mrs. Panton, he was in the habit of sending for her amuse- ment what he called the '* waste-paper basket of Punch.'' This collection of letters and rejected manu- scripts which would doubtless have thrown many a sidelight on this story, was preserved until after his death. Then the doubt arose whether much mischief might not result should they fall into the hands of anyone inclined to make unscrupulous use of them. Discretion, and a wise discretion as it eventually proved, determined on their destruction. And so another mine in which the biographer might have worked was closed down for ever. 5 SHIRLEY BROOKS So much for what might have been. Now, one word as to the scope and aim of this biography. Every one who knows anything about painting knows that oil pictures were in early days painted in black-and-white and then glazed, i.e., overlaid with transparent colours, the result being what is technically called chiaroscuro. The moderns have changed all this and paint with solid colours, searching above all things for light. Something of the same obtains in biography. We are no longer satisfied with the bold outHnes, the large aspects of a man's life. We want detail, we want to have the little lights and shadows playing about a man's character, not those great masses of Hght and shade, that make him appear an impossible paladin. I shall therefore make no apology for presenting Shirley Brooks in minute detail where I can, by means of his letters and diaries. For I am convinced that by thus putting on the real, solid colours I shall give a truer picture of the man than by ever so cleverly symbolising his not altogether heroic figure — no more heroic, I mean, than most other creatures of flesh and blood — by writing of him in the grand and impersonal manner of a Plutarch or the '' Dictionary of National Biography.'' What he did I shall, of course, not ignore, but what he was it shall be my particular aim to depict. I do not want to hide Shirley Brooks behind his works. It would be better indeed than this to ignore his works altogether. The painter of Nature does not want so much to show Nature doing something, as Nature being something. And I would show my man as he was, not merely as 6 EARLY INFLUENCES he appeared to the world, doing his literary athletics in the Man in the Moon, Punch, the Illustrated London News, and his novels. Of incident during Shirley's earliest years there is practically nothing that can be recovered. Of the influences by which the boy was surrounded we gather something. His father was a man of strong religious and anti-Romish convictions. These were insisted upon in the text which he caused to be placed over a door of the chapel designed by him in Finsbury Circus. *' There is but one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus/' cut in stone, was a direct and uncompromising challenge to the hagiolatry of an adjoining Roman Catholic place of worship. That indicates the spirit of his father, and together with the fact that his mother was one of the Sabines, an old Nonconformist family, suggests the sort of moral atmosphere in which his early years were passed. Of his appearance and character as a child we find Madame Dorini (Niemann) saying in later days that he was the most beautiful boy she ever saw — the kind of thing that people do say when a man has assumed a prominent position in the world. He himself wrote that he *' was rather what a mother calls a * pretty boy ' and horribly intelHgent. So people petted me and took me out to sights much sooner than was good for me. And I rapidly became a hlase httle beast and found no fun in anything." And in one of his diaries he speaks of himself as having been '' a scape-gracious sort of lad." An entry in his diary for 1871 indicates further 7 SHIRLEY BROOKS religious influences. He has turned up a letter from '' my dear old grandmother Sabine, dated Hastings, where she was with my father and aunts, Sept. 17th, 1827 ... a most kind and piously written letter, 2J close sides of letter paper ending with a hope that I feel ' grateful that means are afforded you whereby you may become a useful member of society. That the Lord may bless you in whatever situation you may in future be placed is the sincere and earnest prayer of your affectionate grandmother, Elizabeth Sabine.' '* Of his education we have the rather indefinite information that he was educated at '' a pubhc school in the City," and more definitely that, probably before this, he passed through the hands of the Rev. T. J. Bennett, afterwards Sub-Dean of St. Paul's, ** whose house was opposite to Charles Lamb's cottage on the banks of the New River." From the meagreness of which details it is suffi- ciently obvious that, though we may discover what sort of man the boy grew into, we have not much to go upon as to the formative influences which conduced to his earher development. There is indeed nothing more to be said of him until the time arrived for choosing a profession. On April 24th, 1832, when he was now in his seven- teenth year, we find him serving his articles to his uncle, Charles Sabine, solicitor, of Oswestry, nominally for the term of five years.* This is the first important landmark in Shirley's life. * Apparently he went to Oswestry in 1830 and left in 1833. 8 OSWESTRY And fortunately for us, we have set down in black and white by his own hand something that will help us to a proper understanding of this great step, which was to land him '* out of the nursery into the limitless world." A quarter-of-a-century later he took Oswestry as the background of his novel, *' The Gordian Knot/' writing of it under the transparent pseudonym of " St. Oscars." Of his first visit he wrote : — " In the time when I first knew it we went thither by his Majesty's Mail — ^red coach — red guard — red driver — four spanking horses, which during the night were changed, as it seemed to the aroused sleeper, every five minutes — snorting horn at the turnpikes in the towns — horribly cold feet in the morning — very high fares — extortionate fees — good refreshment on the road — and everybody heartily glad when the business was over." Plainly a method of travelling that had its drawbacks compared with the best corner in a first-class railway carriage, but it had its compensations. You saw England, you gained some idea of the face of the motherland. *' And the few minutes of stoppage in the towns were, to anyone who knew how to use them, invaluable opportunities for fixing the towns in memory for the rest of one's life." And Shirley was just the one, with his extraordinary memory for details, to make the most of such oppor- tunities. He was already stowing away in his capa- cious brain material for future use in his destined 9 SHIRLEY BROOKS occupation. But at present Law was his objective, Journalism his unsuspected goal. In those days Oswestry was something different from what it is now. At that time, a London news- paper was a luxury subscribed for by a group of neigh- bours, and then only arriving in the middle of the day following its publication. Now it boasts a newspaper of its own, and you can I ave the Times or Daily Mail on the morning of issue. Then it was a little self- contained world. Now it is, with the rest of England, just a suburb of London. Charles Sabine, his uncle, was one of the most prominent members of the little community. Originally called to the Bar, he had abandoned the senior branch of the profession, and, becoming a partner in his grandfather's business in 1819, had ever since practised as a solicitor. A man of real culture, refined tastes and no mean literary ability, his influence upon the youth who was now to be so closely associated with him cannot be over-estimated. Many are the stories still current of his eccentricities, his enthusiasms, his courage, his strong religious convictions. He held peculiar views as to the second coming of Christ. A spare cover was laid at every meal. Food and drink were left on the table every night, for Christ might revisit the world in the flesh at any moment ! He was small of stature and had his house fitted with low doorways to suit his height, which doorways, by the way, do not suit the height of its present occupant. Both he and his father were collectors of old oak 10 CHARLES SABINE when few others took interest in such things. He was a Greek scholar, who never allowed his scholarship to rust for lack of use. Here is Shirley's description of him under the transparent guise of *' Henry Cheriton '' in '' The Gordian Knot " : '' For the oppressed he always stood forward as champion ; but, a gentleman by birth and bearing, his advocacy never took an offensive attitude, and he never triumphed in its success. It was less an interference between patron and dependent, landlord and tenant, master and servant, than the removal of a misunderstanding, and an endeavour to convince each that the other had unrecognised pjod qualities." Many indeed complained that Mr. Sabine went out of his way to do work which was not germane to his business, '^ but such complaints passed him as the idle wind." He once remarked when told of such animadversions : — *' My profession is a larger one than some people seem to understand. It includes a general practice, for which I have a licence given from Jerusalem. I am sorry folks cannot read it but I can and I know my tether." Highly strung by nature, he could yet nerve himself to conspicuous courage. Of slight strength and build, he seemed fearless in the presence of physical danger. Substituting Oswestry for *' St. Oscars " and Charles Sabine for *' Henry Cheriton," here is a story of him which the neighbourhood will never forget : " There was a time when disturbances broke out in the mining districts of more than one county adjoining that in 11 SHIRLEY BROOKS which Oswestry stands, and rough and grim men collected by the thousand at the sound of horns, heard raving sermons by torchlight, and then marched into the towns and flooded them with violence and tumult. Rumours came that such a visit was to be paid to Oswestry, and the magistracy, collecting what force they could of yeomanry and constables, went out to meet the rioters. With the authorities rode Mr. Sabine, and they took possession of a bridge upon the road along which the enemy was to come. They came in great force, armed with clubs and missiles, and upon perceiving the small array of their opponents uttered a yell of derision, and opened a galling shower of stones. The Riot Act was read in dumb show, and the lawful men were thrown into confusion by the lawless ones, and would have speedily fled, when Mr. Sabine spurred forward on a white horse, well known at many a home where its master had halted to do good, and, riding into the ranks of the assailants, seized the leader. On the high ridge of the bridge the whole crowd could see the sKght figure of the lawyer, who held his man in a determined grip. Many of them knew him. Others were daunted by the daring of the act, and there was no more stoning. He then addressed them, and in a short, energetic speech pointed out the folly and wickedness of their acts, and warned them that, while the gentlemen of the district were earnest in their desire to assist the working men through their griev- ances, no intimidation would be borne with. There was something of Sabine's wonted kindliness in the address, and before it was well ended the man he had 12 CHARLES SABINE captured asked leave to speak, and mounting the parapet motioned to the mob to retreat. They obeyed/'* There we have a picture of Charles Sabine as a man of action, but to leave him there would be to leave him in profile. For above all things he was a man of strong religious, though tolerant, conviction, one who loved the contemplative, whilst bowdng to the necessity of an active life. By temperament an idealist, he braced himself to face reahties. By temperament and practice a poet and to the last a trenchant pamphleteer, he gave the best of his strength to furthering the every-day interests of his clients. With eyes lifted to the stars, he had his feet set firmly on the earth. Compact of imagination, he excelled in soundness of judgment. Capable of fierce indignation, he could be playful, tender as a woman, full of humour. An example may be given of the last. Shortly before his death he found a friend dihgently counting his money. Affecting to retreat, he said with a twinkle in his eye, *' Oh, I beg your pardon. I see I am disturbing your devotions ! ! '' That was characteristic of the man, to gild a home-truth with a coating of laughter. As the writer of his obituary notice in the Oswestry Advertiser well put it : " Spiritual religion was the great reality of his life. It crowned all his excellences and gave a happy flavour to his natural geniality. It combated all that was weak and faulty in him." * Vide " The Gordian Knot." 13 SHIRLEY BROOKS Born of Nonconformist parents and throughout his Ufe in formal fellowship with Dissent, he neverthe- less approved of the Episcopacy and was a frequent worshipper and communicant in the Established Church. In this he was not singular amongst Non- conformists, not a few of whom approve of Church teaching but cannot away with Establishment. His sympathies were catholic, his most earnest wish the unity of the Church. He deprecated above all things the walls of partition in the fold of Christ. He looked for the good in things, not the evil. He held fast to what he believed to be the ultimate truth that '' the whole church in heaven and earth are one.'* It was the mainspring of all he did and felt. I have been the more particular to give a somewhat full account of Charles Sabine, seeing that, amongst Shirley Brooks's early influences, this remarkable man held jEoremost place. At the impressionable age of seventeen to be admitted to the intimacy of a man with such high ideals, such strong individuahty and such marked literary taste, was no small piece of fortune for one who was soon to find himself adrift on the sea of life with good and evil on the right and on the left ready for him to choose from according to bias or inclination. Of his home influence we can but con- jecture something. Of the influences brought to bear whilst under his uncle's roof we are able to gather not a Httle. And there is ample evidence to show that this influence was not without its effect on his character. Strenuously and actively engaged, as he was destined to be, in pursuits and under conditions very different 14 RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES from those which obtained at Oswestry, there is evidence in plenty to show that beneath the motley of the professional Jester, hidden from all but his more intimate friends, he ever wore that which reminded him that he was mortal. Living his Hfe to the utmost, he yet was not slow to remember that death was round the corner. Which, after all, is only to say that the King of Jesters is very like other men, playing his part before the world, but torn with doubts in secret ; fighting to solve the great enigma ; as painfully and seriously engaged in the Battle of Life as the most serious and conscientious of those who think him but a merry-andrew. I do not wish to labour this, but we should read Shirley Brooks's Hfe wrong were we not to bear in mind that there was through everything, in spite of much that was frivolous and trivial, this unsuspected undercurrent of Puritanism, perhaps I should rather say a sort of shame-faced piety, which touched bottom on a strong belief in the benevolence and love of the Creator. A sentence from one of his later diaries will show what I mean, though many others might be cited. It is preceded by the usual laconic ** wrote for Punch '' by which his life was at that time punctuated. ** Had the pain in my side to-day but ' D.E.A.' (vide illumination in my bedroom).*' The pain warned him that he was mortal, but there was at any rate something to fall back upon — just the shortest confession of faith, illuminated for him by a little friend, framed and hung by his bed. Just ** God is Love," Latinized in his diary, perhaps with a 15 SHIRLEY BROOKS sort of boyish reserve, into " D.E.A/' (Deus est Amor), but showing, I think, the simple faith of the man who outwardly appeared just a thoughtless, worldly, laughter-loving wearer of the cap and bells. Throughout his life Shirley looked back on his time at Oswestry with deep affection, and Oswestry reci- procated the sentiment, justifiably claiming him as one of its most distinguished sons, if only by adoption. Though one of the busiest of men, he never failed to communicate to his friends there anything in the papers or elsewhere bearing upon the history of a community which has always been remarkable for its pride and interest in local traditions and associations. '* As a boy,'* wrote Mr. Askew Roberts, the editor of By-goneSy the Notes and Queries of the Cambrian Border, '' I remember the keen delight we always felt when Mr. Brooks came amongst us and took interest in our sports. We all loved him, and I have felt it indeed an honour for so many years to be favoured with communications from him. Although we Oswes- trians have only had hasty glimpses of Mr. Brooks of late years *' {i.e., the sixties and seventies), " his death, to all who remember his residence here, has been Hke that of a friend.'* That was just it. As Jerrold said, '* He had the faculty of holding people close to him. He had a princely memory. He never forgot a face he had seen nor the circumstances under which he had seen it. . . . This faculty of retention, applied industriously to literary pursuits by a man of fastidious taste, produced the thorough man of letters.' ' And Oswestry was in his mind as he lay on his 16 SHROPSHIRE death-bed. He had bestirred himself to do something for Punchy and with his dying hand penned a set of *' Election Epigrams/' One of these ran : — " The pen that now congratulates thee, Cotes, Helped to secure thy sire North Shropshire votes," recalling the fact that the Mr. Cotes just elected in 1874 for Shrewsbury was the son of the Mr. Cotes elected more than forty years before for North Shrop- shire. The powerful brain was fighting against the decay of the nearly worn-out body. It recalled how he had, as a boy, repeated the phrase " Lord CUve's Twelve Apostles '' appHed to the then twelve members of Parliament for the county, and how he had been remonstrated with for his profanity. It recalled how he had ridden out to canvass Lord Godolphin's tenants only to find that Lord CHve had ordered them to vote for Sir R. Hill and Major Gore, a command which they were firmly resolved to obey. And it recalled little more before it fell into its last, deep sleep. When, in 1859, Charles Sabine died, Shirley showed his high appreciation of his friend and uncle, and that dehcate sympathy which was one of his notable characteristics, by the following letter written to his cousin. Miss Margaret Sabine. After the usual condolences he proceeds : — ■■ " June 28th, 1859. "Mr. Minshall, it seems, wrote the notice in the Oswestry Advertiser. Some day (if the thought has not already occurred to you) I would suggest that you might find happiness in preparing some little separate memorial of our lost one. No one would (or could) do it so well. And if the idea pleases you, and 17 3—