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EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY 
 STUDIES. 
 
 ESS A VS. 
 
 BY 
 
 FRANCIS HITCHMAN, • 
 
 « \ 
 
 AUTHOR- OF "THE PUBLIC LIFE OF THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD," ETC., ETC. 
 
 Hontfon : 
 SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEA11LE, & EIVINGTON, 
 CROWN BUILDINGS, 188, FLEET STREET. 
 
 1881. 
 [All rights reserved.'] 
 
£ NGL LIB. FD. 
 
 LON DON : 
 
 gilbert and rivington, printers, 
 st. John's squaue. 
 
Ml' 
 
 gffritaiiott. 
 
 TO HER TO WHOSE UNFLAGGING DEVOTION I OWE MY LIFE, AND ALL THAT 
 SWEETENS IT, 
 
 TO MY WIFE, 
 
 I DEDICATE THIS LITTLE BOOK, IN ESPECIAL MEMORY OF 1871. 
 
 F. H. 
 
 London, January, 1881. 
 
 126575 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Some half-dozen of the chapters which make up this 
 volume have already appeared in various magazines, 
 and I have to offer my thanks to Messrs. Smith, Elder, 
 and Co. ; Messrs. Richard Bentley and Sons ; and Mr. 
 John Maxwell, for their readily accorded permission to 
 reprint them. 
 
 The remaining Essays see the light for the first 
 time, and I venture to hope that they will be found 
 not less worthy of attention than those which have 
 already been printed, and concerning which my editors 
 have been pleased to speak very kindly. 
 
 It will probably be observed that one or two of the 
 
 Essays deal with times which are not strictly those of 
 
 the Eighteenth Century. Macaulay somewhere makes 
 
 the remark that the Nineteenth Century did not begin 
 
 until 1830, and I must ask the reader to remember 
 
 that fact in dealing with this volume of " Eighteenth 
 
 Century Studies." 
 
 F. H. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 John Wilkes 
 
 The Founder of Methodism 
 
 Charles Churchill — Parson and Poet 
 
 David Garrick 
 
 Eichard Cumberland .... 
 " The Cook's Oracle "... 
 Isaac Disraeli and Bolton Corney . 
 Dr. Dibdin and the Roxburghe Club 
 Joseph Priestley .... 
 The Author op " Sandford and Merton " 
 Erasmus Darwin .... 
 
 PAGE 
 
 1 
 
 52 
 101 
 136 
 192 
 233 
 254 
 272 
 304 
 334 
 360 
 
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY STUDIES. 
 
 JOHN WILKES. 
 
 There is a certain engraving by Hogarth which repre- 
 sents with cruel fidelity the ugly face of John Wilkes. 
 The artist did not spare his subject in the execution of 
 this work. As Mr. Thackeray has said, u There is 
 very little mistake about Hogarth's satire ; if he has 
 to paint a man with his throat cut, he draws him with 
 his head almost off, and he tried to do the same for his 
 enemies," of whom Wilkes was one. In this matter, 
 as in so many other matters pictorial, genius has 
 triumphed over qualities of another species, so that 
 the man who stood up gallantly for the liberties of his 
 country against an almost overwhelming majority, is 
 known to posterity rather by the satire of his carica- 
 turist than by the record of his love for liberty or the 
 tradition of his fight against faction. His ill-favoured 
 countenance has been handed down to us of the nine- 
 teenth century, together with a strenuous belief in his 
 personal immorality ; but the good which he wrought 
 in his life has been written in the sand and effaced by 
 the devouring floods of time. At the best this is 
 ungrateful. We enjoy the fruit of his labours, and 
 vituperate the man who planted the tree. But for 
 him we might still have been under the tyranny of 
 
 IS 
 
2 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 an oligarchical faction, yet the only memory of him 
 that we preserve is that of his vices. It is but fair to 
 admit, however, that those vices were conspicuous, and 
 that, with the purer manners of our own day, it is not 
 altogether surprising that they should attract attention 
 first. Yet those very vices have been exaggerated. 
 The failings of Wilkes were not peculiar to himself. 
 He has been accused of being unchaste, a drunkard, and 
 a hunter after popularity. The former offences were 
 certainly not uncommon in the eighteenth century. 
 It was a stock subject of ridicule with the enemies 
 of Pitt that no sin of the first class could be laid to 
 his charge, from which it is evident that no par- 
 ticular shame was attached to such offences against 
 good morals a century ago. The second charge he 
 has himself explicitly denied. "I never was a 
 drunkard," he says in one of his letters, and even the 
 severest of his contemporaries are compelled to own 
 -hat, whatever may have been the faults of his youth, 
 his latter life was " sober, reasonable, and temperate." 
 The charge of popularity-hunting may safely be left to 
 take care of itself. An age which, like our own, not 
 only tolerates but applauds more than one violent 
 and unscrupulous demagogue, may well be charitable 
 towards one whose theories were in no case revolu- 
 tionary, and who never, even when protesting most 
 vehemently against the tyranny of faction, desired in 
 any way to change the laws of his country, or 
 demanded more than the fulfilment of the letter of 
 the law and the guarantees of the Constitution. 
 
 It is not, however, either by apologies or by excuses 
 that the memory of Wilkes may best be defended. 
 His conspicuous and positive merits, his courage, 
 cheerfulness, and good-humour, have never been fairly 
 
John Wilkes. 3 
 
 appreciated. His failures have- been told often enough, 
 especially by those who obtain their knowledge at- 
 second-hand. Of his triumphs nothing has been said, 
 chiefly because those who have written about him have 
 regarded him from a standpoint of antagonism. For 
 testimony as to his admirable social qualities, it is only 
 necessary to appeal to his contemporaries. Even 
 Johnson's " surly virtue " gave way before his tact and 
 courtesy. " His name," said that great moralist, " has 
 been sounded from pole to pole as the phoenix of con- 
 vivial felicity." Lord Mansfield, who had little reason 
 to love him, declared that "Mr. Wilkes was the plea- 
 santest companion, the politest gentleman, and the best 
 scholar he ever knew." Gibbon, while objecting to 
 his vice and indecency, declared that he had " scarcely 
 ever met with a better companion.' ' Women of all 
 ranks — seldom the worst judges, by the way — adored 
 him. He could with truth declare that, in spite of his 
 repulsive features, he would with a short grace make 
 more way with a woman than the handsomest fellow 
 in the room. Of his real tenderness of heart number- 
 less incidents are related. Charles Lamb used to quote 
 with great approbation a saying of Wilkes's concern- 
 ing certain blackbirds which ate his cherries and 
 which his gardener wanted to shoot, " Poor birds ! they 
 are welcome." Nor is other confirmation wanting. 
 His letters to his daughter, uninteresting as they are 
 in themselves, have a special interest in this respect as 
 proving his devoted and self-sacrificing affection, even 
 under circumstances which might have made many 
 another man harsh and cold. But he was more than 
 a mere jovial companion, a gallant courtier, or even a 
 tender father. He was a scholar, and the chosen com- 
 panion of men of letters. To this fact Lord Mansfield 
 
 b 2 
 
4 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 is not the only witness. A certain Dr. Brewster, who 
 translated Persius, dedicated his work to him solely 
 ont of admiration for his literary attainments. 
 Another writer of similar character and qualifications, 
 Andrew Baxter, the once well-known author of " An 
 Inquiry into the Nature of the Human Soul," paid a 
 similar compliment to him ; and, in the dedicatory 
 letter prefixed to the former work, refers to his 
 " agreeable conversations in the Capuchins' garden at 
 Spa." Nor does the testimony come entirely from 
 without. He published an edition of Catullus which, 
 had he been a clergyman, would have led to his eleva- 
 tion to the Bench, and he made also considerable pro- 
 gress in a translation of Anacreon, which Warton 
 strenuously urged him to give to the world. Further- 
 more, he edited the " Characters " of Theophrastus, 
 and published the works of several mediaeval writers — 
 Busbequius and others. With modern languages his 
 acquaintance was minute and extensive. French, 
 chiefly no doubt through his long residence on the 
 Continent, was as familiar with him as English. 
 Italian he read and wrote with fluency and correctness, 
 while with Spanish he had more than a merely distant 
 acquaintance. His English style, bating a few 
 Gallicisms, was terse, spirited, and idiomatic; while 
 his " lapidarian " inscriptions have been cited as models 
 in that species of composition. With the fine arts he 
 was reasonably familiar. He had few paintings, it is 
 true, but his collection of engravings was large, 
 valuable, and admirably selected. Beynolds spoke 
 always in high terms of his taste and judgment, and 
 more than once referred with great admiration to his 
 collection. His wit was, however, his most delightful 
 quality. Some of his jests have passed into the 
 
John Wilkes. 5 
 
 collections of " ana," and more into that " foundling 
 hospital for wit," Joe Miller. Yet it was best revealed, 
 not in isolated epigrams, or carefully elaborated bons- 
 mots, but in an easy lambency which lights up all that 
 he has written, and plays around all the records of his 
 conversation. But for it his letters would be dull, so 
 commonplace are the incidents to which they relate. 
 As it is, they are by no means the least agreeable of 
 their day, while those works on which he bestowed 
 greater labour contain abundant evidence not merely 
 of his command of language and grasp of his subject, 
 but of the playful humour and scathing sarcasm which 
 were alike characteristic of the man. 
 
 With such qualities as these, it is evidently not to 
 his personal character that we must look for an 
 explanation of the forgetfulness and evil repute into 
 which he has fallen. The real reason is two-fold. 
 First, he is, unfortunately with too good reason, sus- 
 pected of occasional insincerity; and, secondly, the 
 enthusiastic admiration with which he was once 
 regarded has naturally brought about a corresponding 
 reaction. As to the first point, it is impossible to 
 examine his political career without seeing that, had 
 he succeeded in obtaining a place of some sort early 
 in life, the question as to the validity of general 
 warrants would never have been raised, and his opposi- 
 tion to the tyranny of a parliamentary majority would 
 scarcely have made itself heard. Could he have 
 obtained wealth, luxury, and power, without the 
 championship of a principle, his ends would un- 
 doubtedly have been secured. Circumstances, how- 
 ever, ruled otherwise. He became associated with 
 the chiefs of the Opposition, and found himself thereby 
 compelled not merely to support their policy, but to 
 
6 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 give a practical turn to the political theories which 
 they put forth. He would, perhaps, have been glad 
 to avoid the necessity ; but, like the soldier who goes 
 into fight somewhat against his will, he did his work 
 heroically when his blood was once fairly warmed. 
 The result was that he, being in opposition, won to 
 himself the whole of that personal popularity which 
 the Ministry lacked, and the want of which made the 
 Government for so many years the representation of 
 anything but the feeling of the nation. Bute's ad- 
 ministration was hated by the people, inasmuch as it 
 represented the anti-English policy (using the phrase in 
 its strictest sense) of a foreign sovereign. Wilkes, on 
 the other hand, representing the purely English side of 
 the quarrel, was adored by that class to whom the 
 typical " John Bull " is the embodiment of all the car- 
 dinal virtues. 
 
 " The whirligig of time " has " brought about its 
 revenges." Wilkes's extraordinary popularity has 
 been succeeded by as unreasonable a contempt. 
 Nor can we be altogether surprised at the fact. 
 Public feeling and public thought ebb and flow 
 always in great waves. Low Church gives place to 
 High, and High to Broad. In the State, Whig follows 
 Conservative, and Radical Whig with similar regu- 
 larity. In literature the warm romanticism of Scott 
 is followed by the cold microscopism of a later day ; 
 while in art the dash of the " Blanket School " is suc- 
 ceeded by the minuteness of pra3-Eaphaelitism. Thus 
 also has it been with Wilkes. His popularity has van- 
 ished with the generation from which it sprang ; and, 
 looking back, we are apt to wonder that our fathers 
 could see anything estimable in his character, or 
 admirable in the work which he performed. Whether 
 
John Wilkes. 7 
 
 this is fair either to him or to them, the following 
 
 pages are an attempt to examine. _ 
 
 As became an apostle of liberalism, John Wilkes was 
 an off-shoot of a good middle-class stock. During the 
 reigns of Charles I. and James I., Edward Wilkes, the 
 founder of the family, settled at Layton Beaudesert 
 (now written Leighton Buzzard), 1 married, and brought 
 up his family. Three sons were born to him, whom 
 he named respectively Matthew, Mark, and Luke. 
 His fourth child was a daughter, but to continue his 
 evangelistic nomenclature, he called her Joan. On the 
 authority of the Heralds the family is described as 
 consisting of " persons of reputation and respect." 
 With Matthew and Mark we have nothing to do. 
 Luke, however, attained to a certain amount of con- 
 sideration in the world. In 1670 he was made chief 
 yeoman of the king's wardrobe; and, for the sake of 
 being near his duties, settled in London, where he 
 married and begat a son, whom he named, in com- 
 pliance with the scriptural instincts of his family, 
 Israel. To this son the courtly office did not descend. 
 He engaged in trade, establishing himself for life in 
 St. John's Square, Clerkenwell, near to that old gate of 
 St, John which was afterwards to become so famous as 
 the abiding-place of " Sylvanus Urban, gent." Here, 
 like a prudent citizen, Israel Wilkes married, choosing 
 with admirable discretion a certain Sarah Heaton, 
 Avhose father, John Heaton, " Esquire," was a man of 
 considerable wealth. Through her he became pro- 
 prietor of a goodly estate, of which tradition records 
 that Hoxton Square formed a part. Unlike her hus- 
 
 1 The almshouses in Leighton Buzzard were built and partially 
 endowed by Edward Wilkes, and the endowment was added to by his 
 son Matthew. 
 
8 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 band, Mrs. Wilkes was a strict dissenter, but being a 
 woman of sound practical sense besides, she soon ac- 
 quired a strong influence over him, though she never 
 succeeded in weaning him from the faith of his fore- 
 fathers. As became a " liberal," Israel sometimes 
 went to " meeting," though at no time of his life did 
 he declare himself a dissenter. He lived and died a 
 good " Church and King " man. He was, moreover, 
 no ascetic. His table was liberal, and his friends were 
 numerous and intelligent. He kept a coach and six 
 for his wife, who could thus hold her own amongst the 
 " city madams," notwithstanding her unfashionable 
 nonconformity. To this worthy pair five children were 
 born. The eldest, named after his father, was never a 
 successful man. Beginning life in the City of London, 
 he speedily reduced his circumstances to so low a 
 point, that he was compelled to emigrate to America, 
 where he settled down and faded from public view. 
 The third son, Heaton, like his elder brother, was un- 
 fortunate in business, but, unlike him, did not quit 
 the country. He lingered on until 1803, when he died 
 in Vere Street, Piccadilly, in very poor circumstances. 
 In the same year the younger daughter of the family 
 died, having chiefly distinguished herself by marrying 
 and burying three husbands. The elder daughter 
 had died six and thirty years before. She never mar- 
 ried, having been disappointed in some early love 
 aifair which turned her brain. During the last few years 
 of her life she never quitted her room in Hart Street, 
 Bloomsbury, from which every ray of daylight was 
 rigidly excluded, and in which all that was done was 
 done by candlelight. 
 
 The second son of this rather melancholy family, 
 was John Wilkes, in whose person appear to have 
 
John Wilkes. g 
 
 been centred all its fame, wit, and genius. He was 
 born on the 17th October, 1727, and though nothing— 
 could ever be said in praise of his personal beauty, his 
 brilliant parts were early the subject of remark, espe- 
 cially among those who were anxious to stand well 
 with his mother. As he was the ugliest of her brood, 
 she naturally idolized him, the primary consequence of 
 which fact was that she insisted on his being educated 
 in a more liberal fashion than was thought good 
 enough for his brothers. Accordingly he was sent to 
 school, first at Hertford, where he acquired little ex- 
 cept good health and a knowledge of cricket ; and then 
 to Aylesbury, where a dissenting minister, named 
 Leeson, kept a school in the vicarage-house. After a 
 residence of some years with this pedagogue, he was 
 removed altogether from school, and sent with a 
 " bear-leader " to Leyden — then a more generally 
 famous university than now. He remained here for 
 the usual time, making fair progress, and displaying 
 a great taste for classical studies. His Greek was 
 neglected ; but with Latin he had a more than 
 respectable acquaintance. He took no degree, but 
 quitting Leyden made, as became a young fellow 
 of means, as extended a tour as the condition of 
 Europe would permit. France, being then in what 
 seemed its normal condition of war, was of course 
 closed against him ; but he was able to go through 
 the Dutch provinces, and to see the Austrian Nether- 
 lands, and part of Germany, whence he returned to 
 England, some time about the close of 1748. Be- 
 yond the pleasure of this journey, it seems to have 
 produced little benefit. The chief point in connexion 
 with it, which is of course duly recorded for the 
 benefit of posterity, is that he made acquaintance 
 
io Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 with that Baxter to whom reference has already been 
 made. 
 
 While he was thus engaged, however, in disporting 
 himself on the Continent, a plot was preparing against 
 his happiness at home. Near to Layton Beaudesert 
 is a little village called Bragenham, wherein a family 
 not altogether unknown to fame had been settled 
 since 1523. This was the family of the Meads, of 
 which that Dr. Mead was a member, of whom Johnson 
 observed that he " lived more in the broad sunshine 
 of life than almost any man." At the time of 
 Wilkes's birth, his mother and Mrs. Mead were on 
 very affectionate terms. Both were dissenters, and 
 both " sat under" the same preacher. Mrs. Mead 
 "had one fair daughter and no more;" and, seeing 
 that Mrs. Wilkes had sons, she not unnaturally became 
 anxious for a closer connexion between the two fami- 
 lies than one of mere friendship. In this desire Mrs. 
 Wilkes fully shared, and the result was that the two 
 mothers arranged a match between their children. 
 Wisely enough for the success of their scheme, they 
 kept their plans a profound secret ; so that when John 
 Wilkes went to Leyden, he and his destined bride 
 were equally ignorant of the fate in store for them. 
 He returned heart-whole to England, and was, by his 
 mother's management, thrown constantly in the way of 
 Miss Mead. She on her part, notwithstanding that she 
 had had numerous suitors for her hand, had been kept 
 free from all entanglements in expectation of this event. 
 Matters having been thus skilfully prepared, the young 
 people fell easily into the trap laid for them by their 
 elders, and were married in October, 1749, when 
 Wilkes was in his twenty-second, and his wife in 
 her thirty-second year. As Wilkes's domestic life had 
 
John Wilkes. 1 1 
 
 little or nothing to do with his political adventures, it 
 may be convenient to sketch in this place the result 
 of the judicious arrangement of these managing 
 mothers. 
 
 The young couple remained quietly at Aylesbury 
 until the winter set in, when they migrated to London, 
 and by another blunder established themselves in the 
 house of Mrs. Mead, a dreary dwelling in a court at 
 the back of St. Sepulchre's Church. Here they stayed 
 until August, when a daughter was born to them ; but 
 by this time the young husband had grown weary of 
 the round of petty formalities and minute observances 
 by which his life was hedged in. He sought, there- 
 fore, for a house in which he might establish himself, 
 and shortly afterwards removed to Great George Street, 
 Westminster, where he remained, with occasional ab- 
 sences, until within a few years of his death. Accus- 
 tomed as he had been to the extreme of conven- 
 tional respectability and dulness, it is no matter for 
 surprise that he should have rushed into the opposite 
 extreme as soon as he was free. The house to which 
 he removed was a very costly one, situated in the 
 most fashionable quarter of the town, and necessitated 
 a rather extensive establishment. Into it he soon 
 brought a host of friends, " keeping," according to a 
 contemporary account, " a great deal of company, and 
 giving frequent dinners and other entertainments.' ' 
 The " company" at these gatherings was more numerous 
 than select, and the dissipated tribe whom he intro- 
 duced to his wife did not help to heal the breach 
 which his occasional infidelities had opened. What 
 the class was to which his guests belonged may be 
 guessed from the fact that the chief amongst them 
 Avas Potter, the infamous son of the Archbishop of 
 
12 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 Canterbury — a man so notorious for blasphemy that 
 Churchill selected him as a model of wickedness second 
 only to Warburton who 
 
 " With such an emphasis and grace 
 Blasphemed e'en Potter kept our pace." 
 
 Worthy companions for this man were found in 
 Lord Sandwich, popularly known as " Jemmy 
 Twitcher," and Sir Francis Dashwood, whom his con- 
 temporaries uniformly represent as a model of cynical 
 depravity. The talk of these and of some others of 
 Wilkes's friends was not unnaturally extremely distaste- 
 ful to Mrs. Wilkes, with whose education particular 
 pains had been taken, and whose character was fully 
 formed before her marriage. Her remonstrances were, 
 however, treated with contempt, the more so as they 
 appear to have been marked by the superiority which 
 her greater age seemed to authorize. At last further 
 endurance became impossible ; a separation was 
 agreed upon, and a deed was prepared by which 
 Wilkes secured to his wife an income of 200/. a year, 
 and retained the charge of his daughter, to whom he 
 was passionately attached. Mrs. Wilkes retired to her 
 mother's house in Red Lion Court, where she remained 
 until her death in that placid retirement which best 
 suited her tastes. Once only after this did she hold any 
 communication with her husband. This was when, in 
 the midst of his pecuniary embarrassments, he made 
 an effort to obtain possession of the small remnant of 
 her property which he had left to her. He sent con- 
 fidential friends to beg her to resign her annuity. To 
 these she turned a deaf ear. He wrote letter after 
 letter asking for a personal interview. To these also 
 she returned no answer. In desperation he appealed 
 
John Wilkes. 13 
 
 at last to the law, and sued out a writ of habeas 
 corpus against Mrs. Mead, whom he charged with de — 
 taining her daughter against her will. Mrs. Wilkes 
 filed an affidavit in reply, supported by documentary 
 evidence, which so satisfied the court, that protection 
 was accorded to her under a heavy penalty against her 
 husband. Henceforward all communication between 
 them ceased. Mrs. Wilkes received her annuity regu- 
 larly, but saw her husband no more. A curio as rumour 
 was afloat at the time of the separation, to the effect 
 that it was caused ^by religious differences. It is 
 characteristic of Wilkes that he should have thought 
 it necessary to issue a grave contradiction, and that 
 he should have published, years afterwards, a sort of 
 feeble justification of the course he had pursued. His 
 excuses, however, scarcely set the matter in a proper 
 light. He owns that he married for money ; or, in his 
 own words, his marriage was " a sacrifice to Plutus 
 rather than to Venus.' ' All that he can say in defence 
 of his marital conduct is that he was " an extremely 
 civil and complaisant husband, rather cold, but ex- 
 tremely well-bred," as if " good breeding," whatever 
 interpretation be put upon the phrase, could in any 
 way atone to a wife for want of affection, accompanied 
 by exposure to the grossest insult. 
 
 Whatever pleasures Wilkes may have found in 
 domestic life, he now abandoned them for the broader 
 field of politics. The times needed a reformer sorely. 
 Corruption was rife in Church and State alike. The 
 race of giants had, indeed, died out, and in its stead a 
 brood of pigmies had come in ; wherefore, instead of 
 a reformer, the age produced only a demagogue ; — in- 
 stead of a Cromwell, a Wilkes, and instead of a Dry den 
 a Churchill. The House of Commons was a notorious 
 
14 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 haunt of corruption. Boroughs were openly bought 
 and sold — some even advertised themselves for sale — 
 and it was generally understood that the chief end of 
 a seat in Parliament was a place. Into this corrupt 
 world "Wilkes now sought to enter, and at the general 
 election of 1754 he presented himself to the electors of 
 Berwick, by the advice of his disinterested friend, 
 Potter. His address, though bearing signs of youth, 
 is remarkable for the introduction of those clap- 
 trap phrases of which he afterwards made so persever- 
 ing a use. There was, of course, a great deal about 
 " the sacred cause of liberty," about his " attachment 
 to the constitution," and about his own incorruptibility 
 and resolution to treat the electors as though they 
 were as incorruptible as himself . His sole ambition — 
 on paper — was the service of his country ; his strongest 
 determination not to bribe. Nevertheless, when the 
 poll closed, he found himself in a minority ; and, on 
 making up his accounts, with his pocket lighter by 
 some three or four thousand pounds. 
 
 Returned to London, the first thing by which he 
 was encountered was the anger of his wife, from whom 
 he was not yet separated. To escape it he plunged 
 fiercely into dissipation, gambled at the Dilettanti, 
 dined with the players at the Beefsteak Club, and 
 rushed vehemently into the wildest orgies of Medmen- 
 ham Abbey, — the motto of which last institution — 
 fay ce que voudras — he carried out to its full extent. 
 This kind of life endured for three years, when another 
 opportunity for entering public life presented itself. 
 Potter, who then sat for Aylesbury, was appointed one 
 of the Vice-Treasurers of Ireland, and was compelled 
 in consequence to resign his seat in Parliament. To 
 this seat, for family reasons, Wilkes aspired, and he 
 
John Wilkes, 15 
 
 found his associate not unwilling to cede it to him, 
 provided only that he could procure another for him- 
 self. By great good fortune, just at this moment, Sir 
 Kobert Henley, afterwards Lord Northington, who was 
 then M.P. for Bath, was made Lord Keeper in the 
 room of Lord Hardwick. Mr. Pitt at the same time 
 wishing for a larger constituency than that of Oak- 
 hampton, which he then represented, retired from that 
 borough, and presented himself at Bath. The new 
 writ for Oakhampton was issued on the same day with 
 that for Aylesbury ; and Potter, on presenting himself 
 at the former place, was returned without opposition, 
 while Wilkes met with the same happy fate at the 
 latter. The patriot had, however, scarcely intended to 
 pay so high a price for the honour, which is said to 
 have cost him not less than 7000/. His friends blamed 
 his extravagance bitterly, and it reads rather oddly 
 now to find them lamenting it chiefly on the ground 
 that he could have bought a borough altogether for a 
 smaller sum. 
 
 The price Wilkes paid for his seat, coupled with his 
 luxurious way of living, produced the results which 
 might have been expected. He got into debt, and 
 applied first to his friend Potter for assistance. The 
 faithful Potter introduced him to the Jews, and the 
 Jews in turn made him acquainted with the mysteries 
 of mortgages, bonds, and annuities. To meet the ex- 
 penses thus entailed upon him, a further source of 
 income became necessary. Accordingly, at the begin- 
 ning of the political campaign, he attached himself 
 assiduously to the leaders of the Liberal party, none of 
 whom received greater attention from him than Lord 
 Temple. His lordship rewarded those attentions, 
 however, after a very disappointing fashion. He had 
 
1 6 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 just been made Lord- Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire, 
 and as Dashwood was compelled to retire from the 
 colonelcy of the militia, he appointed "Wilkes to the 
 vacant post instead of a lucrative office. 
 
 The death of George II. in October, 1760, made 
 little difference to the proceedings of our patriot. Con- 
 sistently with the usual custom on the demise of the 
 Crown, Parliament ought to have been at once dis- 
 solved, but the Ministry not having made the necessary 
 " arrangements," through the suddenness of the king's 
 death, it was resolved to permit its continued existence 
 until brought to a close by the operation of the Sep- 
 tennial Act. In the short breathing space thus per- 
 mitted, Wilkes prepared himself for re-election by all 
 the means at his command. He gave dinners to his 
 constituents every fortnight, and paid unremitting 
 attention to all the inhabitants of the borough, not 
 forgetting their wives and children. Besides the good- 
 will of the electors he relied, however, upon a more 
 potent influence. One of his colleagues, Mr. Welbore 
 Ellis, was a member of the Ministry, so that the 
 government influence was upon his side. The families 
 of Stanhope and Grenville entered into a friendly 
 arrangement by which it was agreed that if the latter 
 would not disturb the county, the former would not 
 attempt to interfere with the borough, with the result 
 that while Sir William Stanhope and Mr. Lowndes were 
 returned for the county without opposition, Mr. Ellis 
 (afterwards Lord Mendip) and Wilkes sat for Ayles- 
 bury under similar conditions. Wilkes had scarcely 
 taken his seat before he recommenced his search after 
 place, a course to which he was undoubtedly urged in 
 a great measure by pecuniary necessity. The embassy 
 to Constantinople first fell vacant by the resignation 
 
John Wilkes. 1 7 
 
 of Sir James Porter. For this he applied, but a more 
 powerful candidate arose in the person of the Hon. 
 Henry Grenville, who had been governor of Barbadoes 
 since 1747, and who was supported by Mr. Pitt and 
 Lord Temple. Disappointed in this, he turned his eyes 
 in another direction, and sought for the Governorship of 
 Canada, which was then vacant. A like fate befell 
 him in this attempt, as also in another which he made 
 on the Turkish embassy four years later. This mission 
 to Constantinople w^as the post on which he set his 
 hopes for many years. Over and over again in his 
 letters, he expresses his earnest desire that the Ministry 
 would make use of him in this capacity, in which he 
 believed that he could not merely have provided well 
 for himself, but could have done good service to his 
 country. Mr. Forster, in his life of Churchill, has 
 chosen to say some very harsh things of Wilkes, and 
 on no occasion has he expended more bitterness than 
 in dealing with this hunt after promotion. The 
 " liquorish ardour " with which patriot Wilkes " hunted 
 after ambassadorships and chamberlainships " is the 
 theme of a good deal more declamation than is at 
 first intelligible. It can, indeed, only be explained by 
 the eloquent writer's desire to exalt the poet at the 
 expense of his allies, but it is questionable whether the 
 much-abused patriot deserves all the harsh things 
 which have been said of him. In our own day it is 
 not thought an unpardonable sin for a partisan to 
 accept office, or even for a ministry to cling to place 
 with prehensile tenacity in the face of a hostile 
 majority. Why, then, it may be asked, should Wilkes 
 be so bitterly blamed for a similar course ? It may be 
 taken for granted that he wished to serve his country, 
 and that he believed himself able to do so as w^ell as, 
 
 
 
1 8 Eighteenth Century St tidies. 
 
 if not better than, most of those by whom he was 
 surrounded. The men who enjoyed the good things 
 which the state provided were certainly superior 
 neither in ability nor in morality to the patriot, and it 
 is hard to say why so much fault should be found with 
 a man who desired to replace them, and to offer his 
 undeniable talents to the service of his country. Had 
 fault been found with the manner in which these offers 
 were pressed, it would be easy to understand the indig- 
 nation which they excited. As, however, that indigna- 
 tion is confined to the offers of service themselves, it 
 is impossible not to feel that it is wholly misplaced, 
 and that it is extremely unlikely to produce any 
 other effect than that of creating a strong suspicion as 
 to the goodness of the cause which needs such argu- 
 ments to support it. 
 
 This question may, however, be put wholly on one 
 side, seeing that Wilkes' most strenuous efforts resulted 
 only in disappointment. Wearied at last with long- 
 deferred hope, he turned in another direction, and 
 sought amidst the politics of his own country for those 
 opportunities of distinction which fortune did not per- 
 mit him to obtain elsewhere. The declaration of war 
 against Spain in 1762 afforded him an opportunity of 
 entering the lists in opposition to the ministry. Imme- 
 diately after the rupture became publicly known, he 
 published a pamphlet of " observations " on the ques- 
 tion. Either from his inexperience in literary work, 
 or from his want of knowledge of political matters, the 
 pamphlet fell still-born from the press, producing no 
 effect upon his circumstances at the time or his pro- 
 spects in the future. Once having taken the pen, how- 
 ever, he found it hard to lay it down, and therefore 
 adventured himself again in the field of politico-literary 
 
John Wilkes. 19 
 
 warfare by the publication of an ironical dedication to 
 Lord Bute of Ben Jonson's drama, " The Fall of Mor- 
 timer." This, though but the second in point of time, 
 was by far the best in point of merit of all Wilkes* 
 political writings. The English hated the Scotch 
 minister most fervently ; the subject no less than the 
 object of this dedication afforded a splendid opportunity 
 for bitter and sparkling attack. This Wilkes did not 
 fail to utilize. Bute's character is dexterously turned 
 inside out, and the seamy side pitilessly exposed to the 
 public gaze. Of course the parvenu Premier felt the 
 satire — that he could not help — but he gave no sign of 
 his anger. Nothing, indeed, came of it for some time, 
 but Bute's was not a nature to forgive an enemy, 
 and he treasured up his wrath until the moment for 
 vengeance arrived. This was not far distant, and a 
 few weeks brought retribution to the luckless author 
 of " The Fall of Mortimer," a retribution the severity 
 of which was felt none the less for the opportunity 
 which it afforded the subject of dealing fresh blows at 
 his opponent. 
 
 The first act of Bute, on obtaining power, had been 
 to assemble around him a staff of "ready writers," 
 whose pens might be always at his service. At the head 
 of these were Smollett and another Scotchman named 
 Malloch, better known by the name of Mallet, which 
 he assumed on going to London. Both belonged to 
 the tribe of literary hacks; but Smollett's astonishing 
 powers of humour, combined with his habitual industry 
 and great general abilities, have won for him a place 
 amongst the classic authors of this country. Mallet 
 was a man of infinitely less power and greater idle- 
 ness. The one incident by which he is chiefly remem- 
 bered is his connexion with the publication of Boling- 
 
 c 2 
 
20 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 broke's collected writings, concerning which Johnson 
 made the well-known speech to the effect that the peer 
 " had loaded a blunderbuss against Christianity, and 
 had left half-a-crown to a beggarly Scotchman to pull 
 the trigger." The speech was unjust enough perhaps, 
 but it has sufficed to preserve the memory of Mallet 
 better than any of his voluminous writings. True 
 to the traditions of the Bohemian of literature, the 
 first care of these worthies, on securing their capi- 
 talist, was to get him to establish a paper. This he 
 agreed to do, and the result was the Briton. Its title 
 was suggested by some words in the opening speech 
 of George III. to his first Parliament. " Born and 
 educated in this country," the king had said, " I glory 
 in the name of Briton." His Majesty had written, in 
 his own rough draft of the speech, that he gloried in 
 the name of " Englishman." Bute's Scottish pride 
 could not bear this, and he scratched through the 
 obnoxious word to substitute " Britain," an ortho- 
 graphy which his toadies servilely followed in the 
 earlier numbers of the journal started to support his 
 administration. The Briton had not appeared more 
 than once or twice before its real character became 
 manifest. One paper was not enough, however, for 
 the ambition of Bute. A second was, therefore, 
 started under the editorial care of Arthur Murphy, 
 with the title of the Auditor. Like its compeer, it 
 was slanderous without being brilliant, and tedious 
 without being instructive. The consequence was 
 precisely what might have been expected. Bute's 
 cause was anything but popular in London, and the 
 public obstinately refused to buy or to read journals 
 devoted to his support, which had not even the merit 
 of being either well-written or entertaining. Both 
 
John Wilkes. 21 
 
 consequently ceased to exist after a few months — died, 
 in a word, from inanition. 
 
 They did not, however, expire without raising up 
 an enemy more powerful with the public than they 
 themselves had been. In direct opposition to the 
 Briton, Wilkes and the " satirical parson," Churchill, 
 started the North Briton, with but little help from the 
 world outside. This journal instantly jumped into 
 public favour. Its wit and power made it even more 
 popular than did its attacks upon a minister whom 
 the public had agreed in hating. The twelfth num- 
 ber had scarcely been reached before Wilkes was in- 
 volved in a serious quarrel. That number contained 
 an attack on certain pensions which the Government 
 had recently granted, and amongst those objected 
 to were the benefits bestowed upon Dr. Johnson and 
 upon Home, the author of " Douglas." There were, 
 moreover, attacks upon Lord Talbot and Lord Lich- 
 field, that upon the first of these noblemen being an 
 elaborate sneer at his horsemanship, as displayed at 
 the coronation. The matter was indeed sufficiently 
 laughable and sufficiently irritating. Lord Talbot had, 
 as Lord Steward, to ride into Westminster Hall in the 
 presence of the king. His horse had been so carefully 
 trained to back out of the royal presence, that when 
 the moment for his entrance came it was found impos- 
 sible to induce him to approach the sovereign otherwise 
 than tail foremost. Such an accident naturally afforded 
 a peg for satire, of which Wilkes availed himself to the 
 fullest extent. Incensed at this freedom, which he chose 
 to consider an outrage, Lord Talbot demanded, first by 
 a note, and then by a message, that Wilkes should dis- 
 avow all participation in the composition of the number. 
 Wilkes, who was by no means indisposed for an 
 
22 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 " affair" with a person in the position of Lord Talbot, 
 replied with a simple refusal to acknowledge his lord- 
 ship^ right to interrogate him upon the subject. The 
 result was what Wilkes had anticipated — a challenge. 
 The combatants met at Bagshot, and exchanged shots 
 without injury to either party. When this solemn 
 farce was over, Wilkes walked up to his opponent, and 
 avowed himself the author of the obnoxious paper. 
 Why he should not have done this in the first instance 
 is not very intelligible, but his reticence appears to 
 have been perfectly en regie, according to the laws of 
 the duel as understood a century ago. Thus, at least, 
 his antagonist appeared to think, for he is reported to 
 have exclaimed, on receiving this confession, that 
 "Mr. Wilkes was the noblest fellow God ever made," 
 a declaration which, of course, sets all doubt upon the 
 matter at rest. 
 
 The career of the North Briton was not destined to 
 be a long one. Its 44th number was published on the 
 2nd April, 1763, and the resignation of Lord Bute 
 followed within a week. As it was designed only to 
 procure the expulsion of this nobleman from office, it 
 might naturally have been thought that his resignation 
 would have been followed by the cessation of the 
 paper. Wilkes himself appeared to regard this as 
 a natural consequence, for immediately on the occur- 
 rence of this event, he started for Paris, whither he 
 took his daughter for the purpose of completing her 
 education. He returned, however, almost immediately, 
 and one of his first acts on arriving in London was to 
 call upon Lord Temple. He found his patron closeted 
 with Pitt, considering an application from his brother, 
 Mr. Grenville, for " permission to be elected for the 
 town of Buckingham." In the letter which conveyed 
 
John Wilkes. 23 
 
 this request was enclosed a copy of the speech which 
 the king was to deliver from the throne at the proro- 
 gation on the following day. Both the leaders of the 
 Whig party were indignant at the tone of this speech, 
 and one passage, which related to the King of Prussia, 
 was found especially obnoxious. Wilkes's sentiments 
 coincided with those of the chiefs under whom he 
 fought, and an eager conversation followed. At its 
 close Wilkes returned home, and from his recollection 
 of it wrote an article which, with some few additions and 
 improvements, formed the 45th number of the North 
 Briton, which was published on the 23rd of April. 
 
 Number 45 of the North Briton was a fine specimen 
 of the " smashing leader.' ' The strength of its expres- 
 sions and the vivacity of its denunciations would have 
 suited Captain Shandon himself. The king's speech 
 is pronounced " the most abandoned instance of 
 ministerial effrontery ever attempted to be imposed 
 on mankind. I am in doubt," the writer went on, 
 " whether the imposition is greater on the sovereign 
 or on the nation. Every friend of his country must 
 lament that a prince of so many great and amiable 
 qualities can be brought to give the sanction of his 
 sacred name to the most odious meanness, and the 
 most unjustifiable public declarations." The king 
 had been made to say with respect to the King of 
 Prussia that " the powers at war with his good brother 
 had been induced to agree to such terms of accommo- 
 dation as that great prince had approved." To this 
 the North Briton makes the emphatic reply that " the 
 infamous fallacy of the whole sentence is apparent to 
 all mankind ; for it is known that the King of Russia 
 does not barely approve, but absolutely dictated as 
 conqueror every article of the terms of peace." The 
 
24 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 royal speech concluded in the following terms : " I 
 depend npon your constant care to promote in your 
 several counties that spirit of concord and that obedi- 
 ence to law which is essential to good order and to the 
 happiness of my faithful subjects. It is your part to 
 discourage every attempt of a contrary tendency ; it 
 shall be mine firmly to maintain the honour of my 
 crown, and to protect the rights of my people. " The 
 comment of the North Briton was to the effect that the 
 tax upon cider, which had been recently imposed, and 
 which rendered private houses liable to search, was 
 certain to excite a spirit not of concord but of discord, 
 and a " spirit of liberty," to resist oppression " war- 
 ranted by the spirit of the English Constitution." 
 Finally Lord Bute's administration was described as 
 " a weak, disjointed, incapable set. I will call them," 
 adds the writer, " anything but ministers, by whom 
 the favourite still meditates to rule this kingdom with 
 a rod of iron." 
 
 The king's speech and the North Briton were con- 
 sidered together in the House. Lord North, then a 
 Junior Lord of the Treasury, took the prosecution 
 upon himself, and moved to vote the latter a scandalous 
 and seditious libel " tending to foment treasonable 
 insurrections." The debate continued until nearly 
 two in the morning. " Mr. Pitt," says Horace Walpole 
 in his letter to the Marquis of Hertford, " gave up the 
 paper, but fought against the last words of the cen- 
 sure. I say Mr. Pitt, for indeed, like Almanzor, he 
 fought almost singly, and spoke forty times ; the first 
 time in the day with much wit, afterwards with little 
 energy." Martin, the member for Camelford, and 
 Secretary of the Treasury under Lord Bute, said, in 
 the course of the debate, looking at Wilkes, " whoever 
 
John Wilkes. 25 
 
 stabs a reputation in the dark without setting his name 
 is a cowardly, malignant, and slanderous scoundrel." 
 These words he repeated, and though Wilkes bore the 
 insult very quietly in the House, it ended as usual in 
 a duel, in which Wilkes received a wound in the side. 
 While this affair of honour was in hand, ministers 
 consulted with the Attorney- General (Charles Yorke) 
 and Sir Fletcher Norton, the Solicitor-General, who 
 from the legal point of view confirmed the vote of the 
 House of Commons, which declared the paper to be " an 
 infamous and seditious libel, tending to inflame the 
 minds and alienate the affection of the people from his 
 Majesty, and incite them to traitorous insurrections 
 against his Government." The answer was expected, 
 and was instantly followed up by the issue of a general 
 warrant directed against the " authors, printers, and 
 publishers " of the paper. Under it, the printer, 
 Leach, was seized by the messengers in the middle of 
 the night. The sole evidence upon which this arrest 
 was made, was that " somebody had told Carrington, 
 the messenger, that Mr. Wilkes had been seen going 
 into Leach's house." In spite of the inconclusive 
 nature of this testimony, the poor printer was, with 
 his workmen, apprentices, and servants, kept in custody 
 for several days, and at last discharged, without 
 examination or apology. On the same evening that 
 Leach was dragged from his bed, the real printer of 
 the paper, Kearsley, who was the only person specified 
 by name in the warrant, was also arrested, with his 
 servants. A third time the warrant was sent out, and 
 a Mr. Balfe, with his workmen, was arrested. Their 
 number brought up the total of persons apprehended 
 on this single warrant to no fewer than forty-eight. 
 The printers were privately examined before Lord 
 
26 Eighteenth Century Sttidies. 
 
 Halifax and Lord Egremont, and although all the 
 evidence produced as to Wilkes's complicity in the 
 affair was that he had been in the habit of giving 
 orders for the printing, the warrant was issued a fourth 
 time. The animus of the ministry is clear from the 
 fact that Lord Egremont gave the messengers verbal 
 orders to enter Wilkes's house even at midnight, and 
 to arrest him and seize his papers. Happily, for their 
 own credit, and for the comfort of the object of this 
 persecution, they were more temperate than their 
 masters, and waited until the morning. Then, how- 
 ever, they seized him at his own door, as he was about 
 to enter the house. He demanded to see the warrant, 
 and on finding that his name was not mentioned, 
 refused to yield obedience to so informal a document: 
 The door was opened, and they followed him into the 
 house. Just at this moment a Mr. Alman, who after- 
 wards edited Wilkes's letters and papers, came in, and 
 the latter taking him aside, whispered the circum- 
 stances of his arrest, and begged him to go with all 
 speed to Lord Temple, and explain the affair to him. 
 Alman departed at once upon his errand, and Wilkes 
 was carried off in charge of the messengers to the 
 office of the Secretary of State. Lord Temple, imme- 
 diately on hearing the fate of his protege, despatched 
 Alman to his attorney with a letter containing instruc- 
 tions to sue out a writ of habeas corpus to bring 
 Wilkes before the Court of Common Pleas. 
 
 The proverbial delays of the law did not in this in- 
 stance interfere with the execution of justice. The 
 attorney went at once to the court, applied for, and 
 obtained the writ. Two friends of Wilkes, Walsh, 
 then M.P. for Worcester, and Hopkins, afterwards 
 M.P. for Dartmouth, heard the application, and im- 
 
John Wilkes. 27 
 
 mediately went to Lord Halifax, of whom they asked 
 leave to see the prisoner. After some little demur 
 this was permitted, but Webb, the Solicitor to the 
 Treasury, remained in the room during the interview. 
 In his hearing Wilkes was informed of the applica- 
 tion for the writ, and the intelligence was immedi- 
 ately conveyed to the Secretaries of State. They 
 were at first indisposed to believe that such a course 
 had been adopted, but becoming convinced after a 
 time, they transferred Wilkes from the custody of the 
 messengers who had arrested him, to that of two others 
 to whom they entrusted a warrant for his imprison- 
 ment in the Tower. Thither he was at once taken, 
 so that the messengers who had effected the first 
 arrest, when called upon to answer the writ of habeas, 
 replied that " they had him not in their custody.' ' 
 Another writ was accordingly issued, addressed " to 
 the Constable, and so forth, of the Tower of London," 
 which had the desired effect. Wilkes had hitherto 
 been kept a close prisoner, denied to his friends, and 
 treated with the utmost severity. His papers had 
 been seized and his house half stripped in the search 
 for them, under the authority of the Solicitor of the 
 Treasury and the Under Secretary of State. He was 
 now (Tuesday, 2nd May, 1763), brought to the bar of 
 the Court of Common Pleas, before which he pleaded 
 his cause in person with great ability. He protested 
 his love and veneration for the king, and he declared 
 that the writer of " No. 45," had in no way attacked 
 the Sovereign, but only his Ministers ; but as he was 
 not on his trial for the publication of the paper, he 
 very wisely said nothing as to whether he was or 
 was not the writer. His counsel, Serjeant Glynne, 2 
 2 An ancestor of Mrs. W. E. Gladstone. 
 
28 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 also spoke with great eloquence against the validity of 
 the conviction. The court, after hearing the argu- 
 ments, took time to consider its judgment, and re- 
 manded Wilkes to the Tower. Orders were, how- 
 ever, given that he should no longer be treated as a 
 close prisoner, which relieved him from the constant 
 and oppressive presence of the warders, from the ab- 
 sence of his friends, and from the enforced abstinence 
 from pen and ink. 
 
 The court had adjourned until Friday. In the mean- 
 while, at the solicitation of Lord Egremont, the king 
 commanded that he should be deprived of his colonelcy 
 in the Bucks Militia. Lord Temple, who conveyed 
 this insulting order to Wilkes, could not refrain from 
 " expressing the concern he felt in the loss of an officer, 
 by his deportment in command, endeared to the whole 
 corps." On the appointed day Wilkes came up for 
 judgment, and the Lord Chief Justice (Pratt), delivered 
 the decision of the Court in an elaborate address. In 
 the course of it he pointed out that the warrant of a 
 Secretary of State was no more than the warrant of 
 a justice of the peace ; and that, since no magistrate 
 had a right to issue a warrant without stating the 
 crime of which the person against whom it was 
 directed, was accused, the warrant in question would 
 have been illegal but for the existence of a few pre- 
 cedents. So also it was unnecessary to specify in the 
 warrant the particular passages of the North Briton, 
 to which objection was taken, since it by no means 
 came under the cognizance of the magistrate, but was 
 referable to a jury alone. On the question of privi- 
 lege, however, his decision was different. The only 
 grounds on which a Member of Parliament could be ar- 
 rested were treason, felony, and a breach of the peace. 
 
John Wilkes. 29 
 
 Wilkes was not charged with any one of these offences, 
 but simply with libel. That, in the sight of the law, 
 was merely a misdemeanour, and consequently did not 
 come under any of those definitions. Its tendency at 
 most was to disturb the peace, and therefore it could 
 not be sufficient to abrogate the privilege of Parlia- 
 ment. The Court unanimously concurring in this 
 decision, the discharge of Wilkes was ordered. He 
 made a short and manly speech of thanks to the Court, 
 which moved the admiration even of those who were 
 most opposed to him. Amongst those in the Court 
 who were not his enemies, and who formed the 
 greater part of the audience, the effect was very dif- 
 ferent. From them a shout of applause went up, 
 Avhich not all the efforts of the ushers availed to stay. 
 His journey home to Great George Street was a trium- 
 phal progress, and the people wound up the day with 
 illuminations, bonfires, and other rejoicings," which 
 latter phrase may perhaps be interpretated to mean, 
 rather more drink than usual. 
 
 No sooner had Wilkes returned to Great George 
 Street, than he wrote a letter to Lords Egremont and 
 Halifax, in which he stated that during his imprison- 
 ment in the Tower his " house had been robbed," and 
 that he was " informed that the stolen goods were in 
 possession of one or both of their lordships. I there- 
 fore insist," Wilkes went on, " that you do forthwith 
 return them." This letter, which the Rev. John 
 Selby Watson, now of Broadmoor, describes as " impu- 
 dent," was seen and approved by Serjeant Glynne 
 and Lord Temple, and at their suggestion was 
 printed and distributed by thousands. Two or three 
 days afterwards the two peers answered the assault of 
 Wilkes, in a precisely similar way — by a letter, that is 
 
30 Eighteenth Century St tidies. 
 
 to say — in which they accused him of being the author 
 of " an infamous and seditious libel, tending to inflame 
 the minds and alienate the affections of the people from 
 his Majesty.'' Wilkes's bluntness in speaking of the 
 process by which he had lost his papers as robbery, 
 and his description of those papers as " stolen goods," 
 the lords described as " indecent and scurrilous," and 
 he was told in conclusion, that those papers which 
 were not necessary to his conviction would be restored 
 to him. Wilkes had his adversaries on the hip, as 
 he was perfectly well aware, and his answer was at 
 once courageous and patriotic. He protested against 
 the " Billingsgate " of the ministers, and wound up a 
 spirited letter by saying that he, " feared neither their 
 prosecution nor their persecution, and that he would 
 assert the security of his own house, the liberty of 
 his person, and every right of the people, not so 
 much for his own sake as for the sake of every one 
 of his English fellow- subjects." 
 
 Whilst the Government was preparing for the pro- 
 secution of Wilkes in the Commons, another scheme 
 against his peace had been hatched in the Lords. 
 Some time before Wilkes had been admitted to the 
 select society which turned the lovely Abbey of Med- 
 menham into a temple of Yenus Pan demos. Some 
 details of the blasphemous and filthy orgies of these 
 so-called " Franciscans " — a name which they assumed 
 in honour of their founder, Sir Francis Dashwood — will 
 be found in the third and fourth volumes of a curious 
 and rather scarce work called, " Chrysal, or the Ad- 
 ventures of a Guinea." Here it must suffice to say that 
 the blasphemies and obscenities of these burlesques of 
 Christianity, were simply indescribable. For the 
 gratification of this agreeable society, Wilkes wrote an 
 
John Wilkes. 3 i 
 
 elaborate parody of Pope's " Essay on Man," to which 
 he gave the title of "An Essay on Woman," adding 
 notes of a peculiarly filthy kind, to which he appended 
 the name of Warburton, in ridicule, of course, of the 
 notes added by that prelate to his edition of Pope. 
 Great precautions were taken that no other copies than 
 the twelve destined for the " Monks of Medmenham " 
 should be struck off ; but, as might have been antici- 
 pated, it was found impossible to prevent a proof from 
 getting into circulation. The enemies of Wilkes got 
 scent of the matter. One Kidgell, who is called by 
 Walpole, " a dirty dog of a parson," who was known 
 as an embezzler of trust-monies, and whose character 
 may be guessed by the fact that he was chaplain to 
 that Earl of March afterwards notorious as the 
 " wicked Duke of Queensberry," suborned one of 
 the printers to procure for him a copy of this precious 
 work. This he handed over to Lord Sandwich, who 
 only a short time before, had been expelled from the 
 Beefsteak Club — not the most straight-laced of asso- 
 ciations — for blasphemy. As soon as Sandwich had 
 obtained possession of this document, he hastened with 
 it to Warburton, whose consent to take part in the 
 prosecution was readily obtained ; though he is said 
 to have expressed his disinclination to appear in the 
 matter, " unless the king desired it as for his service." 
 The scene which followed was an edifying one. " It 
 is a great mercy," wrote Lord Chesterfield, a few days 
 afterwards, " that Mr. Wilkes, the intrepid defender of 
 our rights and liberties, is out of danger ; and it is no 
 less a mercy that God hath raised up the Earl of Sand- 
 wich to vindicate true religion and morality." In this 
 character Lord Sandwich read the greater part of the 
 poem, though it is impossible to avoid the suspicion 
 
32 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 that he enjoyed, quite as much as any one, both it and 
 the extravagantly libellous notes inscribed with the 
 name of "Warburton. 3 " I never before heard the devil 
 preach against sin," said Lord Le Despenser (late Sir 
 Francis Dashwood), to a neighbour. In spite of the 
 incongruity, Sandwich persisted in his reading until 
 
 3 What Lord Sandwich was has been told by Churchill in a 
 " character " which, save for the meanness of its subject, might well 
 compare with some of the best of Dryden's : — 
 
 From his. youth upwards to the present day 
 When vices more than years have marked him grey ; 
 When riotous excess with wasteful hand 
 Shakes life's frail* glass, and hastes each ebbing sand, 
 Unmindful from what stock he drew his birth, 
 Untainted with one deed of real worth, 
 Lothario holding honour at no price, 
 Folly to-folly added, vice to vice, 
 Wrought sin with greediness and sought for shame 
 With greater zeal than good men seek for fame. 
 Where (reason left without the least defence) 
 Laughter was mirth, obscenity was sense, 
 Where impudence made decency submit, 
 Where noise was humour, and where whim was wit, 
 Where rude untemper'd licence had the merit 
 Of liberty, and lunacy was spirit, 
 Where the best things were ever held the worst, 
 Lothario was with justice always first. 
 
 To whip a top, to knuckle down at taw, 
 To swing upon a gate, to ride a straw, 
 To play at push-pin with dull brother peers, 
 To belch out catches in a porter's ears, 
 To reign the monarch of a midnight cell, 
 To be the gaping chairman's oracle, 
 Whilst in most blessed union rogue and whore, 
 Clap hands, huzza and hiccup out, encore, 
 * ' # * # # 
 
 To coin newfangled wagers and to lay 'em, 
 Laying to lose and losing not to pay 'em ; 
 Lothario on that stock which Nature gives 
 Without a rival stands though March yet lives.''' 
 
John Wilkes. 3 3 
 
 Lord Lyttelton begged that it might be stopped. 
 " The House," says Walpole, "was amazed; nobody 
 ventured even to ask a question ; so it was easily voted 
 everything you please, and a breach of privilege into 
 the bargain." Lord Temple then objected to the man- 
 ner of obtaining the paper, and Bishop Warburton, as 
 much shocked at infidelity as Lord Sandwich had been 
 at obscenity, said " the blackest fiends in hell would 
 not keep company with Wilkes, if he should arrive 
 there." On the day following (Friday, 18th November), 
 Walpole writes again, " Wilkes is thought in great 
 danger (from the wound received in his duel with 
 Martin) ; instead of keeping him quiet, his friends 
 have shown their zeal in visiting him, and himself has 
 been all spirits and riot, and sat up in his bed the next 
 morning to correct the press for to-morrow's North 
 Briton. His bons-mots are all over the town, but too 
 gross, I think, to repeat. Notwithstanding Lord 
 Sandwich's masked battery, the tide runs violently for 
 Wilkes, and I do not find people in general so inclined 
 to excuse his lordship as I was. One hears nothing 
 but stories of the latter' s impiety and the concert he 
 was in with Wilkes on the subject. Should either 
 hero die, the Bishop may doom him whither he 
 pleases, but Wilkes will pass for a saint and 
 martyr." Public feeling was obviously on the 
 side of Wilkes, and even those whose official position 
 required them to observe a certain restraint in their 
 utterances, felt deeply the incongruity of placing the 
 defence of the virtue and morality of England in such 
 hands as those of Lord Sandwich and his colleagues. 
 In spite, therefore, of popular feeling, the prosecution 
 was ordered. The North Briton was burned by the 
 hangman in Cheapside, on Saturday, the 4th December, 
 
 n 
 
34 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 Pitt having given np Wilkes as " the blasphemer of his 
 God, and the libeller of his king." The mob of the 
 city were enraged on the occasion, and though they 
 did not actually make a riot, showed their temper very 
 plainly. " They were armed," says Walpole, " with 
 that most bloody instrument, the mud out of the gut- 
 ter ; they hissed in the most murderous manner ; broke 
 Mr. Sheriff Harley's coach glass in the most frangent 
 manner ; scratched his forehead so that he is forced to 
 wear a little patch in the most becoming manner ; and 
 obliged the hangman to burn the paper with a link, 
 though fagots were prepared to execute it in a more 
 solemn manner. Numbers of gentlemen from windows 
 and balconies encouraged the mob, who in about an 
 hour and' a half were so un dutiful to the ministry as 
 to retire without doing any mischief." On the 
 Monday following, another proof of Wilkes's popularity 
 was afforded. He had brought an action against Mr. 
 Wood, the Under Secretary of State, for seizing his 
 papers under the general warrant. It was tried before 
 Chief Justice Pratt, and the jury having by his 
 direction given a verdict for the plaintiff, assessed the 
 damages at 1000Z. On the day following, the printers 
 recovered in a similar action no less than 400/. ; 
 tolerably clear evidence, it may be thought, of the 
 state of public feeling. 
 
 During this time Wilkes was still suffering from his 
 wound. He had been summoned to attend in his place 
 in the House, and sent in certificates of illness signed 
 by Brocklesby — the friend of Johnson and of most 
 men of eminence of that day. The ministry professed 
 to be dissatisfied with his report, and commissioned 
 Heberden and Hawkins to visit him and report on his 
 case. Wilkes refused to see them, but sent for two 
 
John Wilkes. 35 
 
 Scotchmen, Duncan and Middleton, after which, know- 
 ing the power of the speaker, he quietly made his 
 escape to France. In his absence he was convicted in 
 the Court of King's Bench of being the author of 
 the " Essay on Woman," and on the following day the 
 House of Lords, on the motion of Lord Sandwich, 
 agreed to a vote that " it appearing " that Wilkes was 
 the author, he should be attached by the usher. Shortly 
 afterwards the question of the general warrant and of 
 privilege were brought before the House of Commons, 
 and the ministry contrived to score a victory — the 
 motion for the formal expulsion of Wilkes, being, how- 
 ever, carried by so small a majority, and with so much 
 difficulty, that it was almost worse than a defeat. He 
 had, a short time before, been called upon to receive 
 the judgment of the court, and failing to appear was 
 outlawed. Under such circumstances his connexion 
 with English politics seemed to be finally severed. 
 
 The pause was, however, only temporary. He made 
 an attempt to induce his colleague on the North Briton 
 — Churchill — to join him m Paris, and from that secure 
 retreat to attack the English Government. The plan, 
 however, fell through, and Wilkes devoted himself with 
 his customary energy to the pursuit of pleasure. He 
 travelled through the south of France, and afterwards 
 in Italy for two years ; but when, towards the end of 
 1766, the Duke of Grafton became minister, he turned 
 his thoughts once more towards that country which, 
 whatever his faults may have been, he devotedly loved, 
 and, through that minister, solicited the clemency of 
 the king. His appeal was unnoticed, whereupon he 
 published a second, which met with a similar reception. 
 Another plan, it was evident, must be adopted. 
 Accordingly he returned to England, and offered him- 
 
 d 2 
 
36 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 self as a candidate for the City of London at the 
 approaching election. This was carrying the war into 
 the enemy's camp, in truth. Broken in fortune, an 
 outlaw, and with two convictions recorded against him, 
 should his outlawry be reversed, — opposed on one side 
 by the crown and the ministry, and supported only by 
 the favour of the people, — there is a dash of heroism 
 in his position at this moment which it is impossible not 
 to admire. His letter of submission to the king had 
 been written on the 4th of March, 1768, and his appeal 
 to the citizens was dated the 10th of the same month. 
 "With regard to the former, he was guilty of a serious 
 error of judgment. He caused it to be presented, not 
 by a member of the court, but by a footman, who left 
 it at the palace gate. It was, of course, received when 
 tendered after that fashion rather as a defiance than as 
 a submission, and the ill-feeling with which he was 
 regarded was consequently greatly increased. Had 
 peace been made with him now, an important victory 
 might have been gained, and the ministry might have 
 been saved much of the odium which attached to their 
 subsequent proceedings. No futher advances were, 
 however, made on either side, and the struggle went 
 on. Wilkes knew that his outlawry was no bar to his 
 sitting in Parliament, and he trusted in the people for 
 his triumph. He was doomed to fail in his first 
 attempt. The election for the city took place on the 
 16th and when the poll closed, his name was lowest on 
 the list of candidates. Baffled, but not dispirited, he 
 tried the county of Middlesex, where he was successful 
 by a large majority against two gentlemen of property 
 and hereditary interest. 
 
 The triumph was not unmixed with annoyance. A 
 week before the day of the second election, Wilkes 
 
John Wilkes. 37 
 
 wrote to the solicitor to the Treasury, announcing his 
 intention of appearing during the next term in the 
 Court of King's Bench. He had no sooner surrendered 
 than the Attorney-General (Thurlow) moved for his 
 instant committal on his outlawry. Sergeant Glynne, 
 who always acted as Wilkes' counsel, moved in reply 
 for a writ of error ; and Lord Mansfield, with the con- 
 currence of the rest of the judges, decided that they 
 could not commit upon a voluntary surrender. Both 
 parties were dismissed, but Wilkes was arrested on the 
 day preceding the election, on a writ of capias utlaga- 
 tum, and lodged in the King's Bench Prison. From 
 this place he dated his letter of thanks to the electors 
 of Middlesex on the 5th of May. The argument in the 
 matter of his outlawry was heard upon the 7th, and 
 two days afterwards it was finally reversed, The 
 judgment of Lord Mansfield on that occasion is con- 
 fessedly one of the finest addresses which even he ever 
 delivered, and breathes throughout a spirit of sterling 
 integrity, and of manly determination to do his duty as 
 a judge " without fear, favour, or affection." The 
 other judges followed, but their rougher and more 
 barren periods failed to produce the effect upon the 
 listeners which was wrought by the graceful and 
 polished style of Mansfield. Such, indeed, was the 
 contrast, that Wilkes, turning to a friend, likened the 
 delivery of one of them to "a draught of hog-wash 
 after a bottle of champagne." These proceedings were 
 followed by attempts to overthrow the verdicts in the 
 cases of libel. As they turned chiefly if not solely 
 upon matters of form, such as the substitution of the 
 word tenor lor purport in the information, the objec- 
 tions were overruled, and the court proceeded to sen- 
 tence. Wilkes had already been in prison for two 
 
38 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 months. The sentence, therefore, for reprinting anil 
 republishing " No. 45 " was ten months' imprison- 
 ment and a fine of 500/., while for the " Essay on 
 Woman " the same fine was inflicted, together with 
 an imprisonment for twelve months. He was also 
 required to find sureties for his good behaviour during 
 the next seven years. 
 
 Wilkes might now, indeed, had he so chosen, have 
 made his peace with the government. Negotiations on 
 the subject were opened with him with the knowledge 
 and consent of the Duke of Grafton, but he rejected the 
 one condition upon which terms were offered. He 
 had threatened to petition the House of Commons with 
 reference to his case, and this the government foresaw 
 would necessarily involve a discussion of all the trans- 
 actions of the late Parliament. The ambassador of 
 the government proposed, therefore, that he should 
 withdraw this petition, promising that upon his so 
 doing he should be allowed to take his seat unmolested. 
 Wilkes, however, magnified his threat into a national 
 pledge, and refused compliance. The petition was 
 consequently presented by Sir John Mawbey, and was 
 received as a fresh declaration of war. 
 
 In the meanwhile the people were not idle. On the 
 18th of May they assembled in great numbers round 
 the King's Bench Prison, where their idol was confined, 
 and made a violent disturbance. The magistrates of 
 the county read the Riot Act, but as the people did 
 not disperse, they sent for troops. A detachment 
 came down, but still the mob remained, whereupon the 
 soldiers fired upon the people, of whom one was killed, 
 and a great number were wounded. A letter from 
 Lord Weymouth, the Secretary of State, was known 
 to be in existence, exhorting the magistrates to firm- 
 
John Wilkes. 39 
 
 ness in the discharge of their duty should any difficulty 
 arise on account of the popular regard for Wilkes ; and 
 nfter the 10th of May the Secretary at War, Lord 
 Barrington, wrote a letter of thanks, in the name of 
 the king, to the officers and soldiers who had been en- 
 gaged in quelling the riot. By some means Wilkes 
 obtained possession of these letters, and immediately 
 sent copies to the newspapers, with some prefatory 
 remarks in which he termed the unhappy affair a 
 " massacre." If his persistent opposition to the 
 administration had not made him hated before, this 
 attack would have sufficed to do so. A signal punish- 
 ment was speedily resolved upon, and as speedily it 
 was put into operation. He was summoned to the 
 bar of the House, and called upon to answer for these 
 remarks. They were voted libellous, and their author 
 was expelled from Parliament. His popularity, how- 
 ever, only increased. Fine, imprisonment, expulsion 
 — all seemed in the eye of the mob the signs of a 
 genuine martyrdom for liberty. The cry of " Wilkes 
 and liberty," words which had become almost synony- 
 mous — was everywhere heard. To this popular enthu- 
 siasm must be ascribed the triumph which now awaited 
 the demagogue. A new election for Middlesex was 
 ordered, and Wilkes was returned without opposition. 
 On the following day the House declared him incapable 
 of sitting in that Parliament. A third election was 
 ordered, and again Wilkes triumphed. His only 
 opponent was a Mr. Dingley, who failed to find even a 
 single freeholder to nominate him. That election was 
 likewise declared void, but the freeholders of Middle- 
 sex, having once entered into a struggle with the Par- 
 liament, repeated their choice a fourth time. A can- 
 didate was put forward on the side of the government 
 
4-0 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 — a Mr. Luttrell,but lie obtained 296 votes only against 
 1143 given to Wilkes. The Honse declared Mr. 
 Lnttrell duly elected, in spite of petition and precedent. 
 Against this decision the people protested vehemently, 
 nor was the opposition in both Houses less vigorous. 
 Lord Chatham, who never loved the man though he 
 had availed himself of his services, supported the prin- 
 ciple for which he contended with all the eloquence at 
 his command, declared that he represented the best 
 parts of the English constitution, and while paying 
 due deference to the ability of the majority, declared 
 his earnest conviction that "the House of Lords was 
 privileged to interfere in the case of an invasion of the 
 people's liberties, and that the case of the electors of 
 Middlesex was such an invasion." Petition and re- 
 monstrance were alike unavailing. A search for pre- 
 cedents was instituted, but one only was found which 
 in any way applied to the case. That was the notorious 
 case of Walpole, who, having been expelled the 
 House in 1711, for breach of trust and notorious cor- 
 ruption in his office of Secretary at War, was voted to 
 be incapable of election to the Parliament then sitting. 
 In his case, however, a precedent was established which 
 was not followed in that of Wilkes. Walpole was re- 
 elected, but was judged incapable of sitting. His 
 opponent was not, however, seated, the election being 
 simply declared void. Luttrell in the latter case took 
 his seat in spite of all opposition, and the ministry con- 
 tented itself with standing on the defensive, paying no 
 heed to the remonstrances which were addressed to 
 them, and trusting to time to destroy the unpopularity 
 of which they were only too conscious. 4 
 
 4 It is not very gratifying to those who have been in the habit of 
 reverencing Johnson's "sturdy independence" to know that he de- 
 
John Wilkes. 41 
 
 Wilkes's imprisonment was not, meanwhile, an al- 
 together painful or inglorious captivity. He was in 
 gaol, it is true, but the place of his confinement was 
 a debtor's and not a criminal prison. His friends 
 could see him whenever they pleased, and except that 
 he was prevented from going outside the walls, there 
 was little restraint upon his movements. The people 
 made him their idol, and for the whole term of his 
 incarceration, vied with each other in demonstrations 
 of admiration and respect. He was known to be in 
 debt — a subscription was opened to discharge his 
 liabilities, and in a few weeks 20,000/. were raised to 
 pay them and the heavy fines which had been imposed. 
 The Society for the support of the Bill of Eights — a 
 Society improvised on the spur of the moment — pre- 
 sented him with 300Z., and other considerable sums of 
 money, while gifts of plate and household goods were 
 daily conveyed to him. Outside the prison walls, men 
 of all parties and of all ranks contended for the privi- 
 lege of serving him, and for the pleasure of celebrating 
 his praise. His name was everywhere heard coupled 
 with the word so often upon his tongue, " Liberty," 
 or with the number of that famous North Briton, 
 which had first drawn upon him the anger of the 
 ministry. In every shop his portrait or his bust was 
 to be seen, while half the innkeepers in the kingdom 
 pulled down the effigies of the Marquis of Granby or 
 the Red Lion, to substitute for them the well-known 
 features of the " squinting demagogue." These were, 
 however, merely private honours. Public rewards 
 were not far off. In 1769, he was elected by a trium- 
 
 fended the government on this question in a pamphlet called " The 
 False Alarm." He may possibly have had a grudge against Wilkes, 
 however, since he had attacked his pension in the North Briton. 
 
42 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 pliant majority, alderman of the ward of Farringdon 
 Without, and thus commenced his connexion with the 
 municipal government of the City of London — a con- 
 nexion severed only by death. 
 
 From this time forward the career of Wilkes be- 
 comes one of uninterrupted good fortune, and of nearly 
 proportionate dulness. He became Sheriff in 1771, 
 Lord Mayor in 1774, and was elected again for 
 Middlesex in the same year. It was whilst holding 
 the former office that Wilkes lent his support to one 
 of the greatest reforms with which any public man 
 has been associated. Previous to the year 1771, the 
 proceedings of Parliament were conducted with a 
 pretence of the most rigid secrecy. To publish the 
 debates was penal — the House resenting all attempts 
 to make the world familiar with its discussions as a 
 breach of privilege. The Gentleman' s Magazine pub- 
 lished a sort of monthly resume of the most important, 
 as the debates of the " Senate of Great Lilliput. It 
 was for the purpose of reporting for this series that 
 Johnson sat for so many nights in the Strangers' 
 Gallery of the House. Boswell says that " his [John- 
 son's] composition of them began November 19th, 
 1740, and ended February 23rd, 1742-43." On which 
 statement of Boswell' s, Mr. Croker observes that 
 " Boswell must mean the sole and exclusive composi- 
 tion by Johnson began at this date ; because, as we 
 have seen, he began to be employed on these debates 
 in 1738. I, however, see abundant reason to believe 
 that he wrote them from the time they assumed the 
 Lilliputian title, and even the introduction to this new 
 form is evidently his ; and when Mr. Boswell limits 
 Johnson's share to the 23rd February, 1743, he refers 
 to the date of the debate itself, and not to that of the 
 
John Wilkes. 43 
 
 report, for the debates of the Gin Act (certainly re- 
 ported by Johnson), which took place in 1743, were 
 not concluded in the magazine till February, 1744. 
 So that, instead of two years and nine months, accord- 
 ing to Mr. Boswell's reckoning, we have, I think, 
 Johnson's own evidence that he was employed in this 
 way for near six years." These said reports were 
 not, however, very trustworthy. Johnson never pre- 
 tended that they were absolutely verbatim reports, and 
 as soon as he discovered that they were believed to 
 be such, he wrote no more, " for he would not be 
 accessory to the propagation of falsehood. " Murphy 
 says, however, that in reply to the remark that he had 
 dealt out reason and eloquence with an equal hand to 
 both parties, Johnson replied, " That is not quite 
 true, I saved appearances tolerably well, but I took 
 care that the whig dogs should not have the best of 
 it." His work was sometimes too good for the per- 
 sons to whom it was ascribed, though perhaps their 
 friends did not think so. At all events Dr. Maty, in 
 his edition of the life and works of Lord Chesterfield, 
 published three of Johnson's speeches as those of the 
 great Stanhope. In the London Magazine, the debates 
 appeared as the proceedings of the " Political Club," 
 but they were not more authentic than those in the 
 Gentleman's Magazine. In the year 1771, however, 
 notes of the speeches, with the names of the speakers, 
 were, at Wilkes's instigation, published in several of 
 the journals. This breach of ancient order instan- 
 taneously excited the wrath of the House, and on the 
 motion of Colonel Onslow, two printers were ordered 
 to attend at the bar. They did not appear, and a 
 motion having been carried to take them into custody, 
 the attempt to execute it was resisted. Meanwhile 
 
44 Eighteenth Century Studies, 
 
 the offence of which they had been guilty, was repeated 
 by several other printers, against each of whom Colonel 
 Onslow made a similar complaint. A minority of the 
 members saw that the public demanded reports, and 
 that it was better that they should be supplied than 
 that Parliament itself should become unpopular. They, 
 therefore, put into execution all the forms of delay 
 with which parliamentary practice had made them 
 familiar. The whole arsenal of adjournments, amend- 
 ments, and similar excuses for shelving the obnoxious 
 question was brought to bear. No fewer than twenty- 
 three divisions took place, and the discussion lasted 
 on one occasion until after four in the morning. 
 Nevertheless the majority triumphed, and the printers 
 against whom complaint was made were ordered to 
 attend. Two of them were reprimanded on the ap- 
 pointed day ; one, having made submission, was dis- 
 charged. A fourth attended, but was called away, 
 and afterwards wrote to the Speaker, questioning the 
 authority of the House and refusing obedience to its 
 order. A few days afterwards, Wheble, the printer, 
 for whose apprehension a reward had been offered, 
 wrote to the Speaker. In his letter he inclosed a 
 legal opinion on his case, and announced his determina- 
 tion to yield no obedience but to the laws of the land. 
 On the following day he was arrested by a brother 
 printer, in virtue of the proclamation, and taken before 
 Mr. Alderman Wilkes. True to his reading of the 
 law, Wilkes immediately discharged the prisoner, and 
 bound him over to prosecute the printer who had 
 arrested him for assault and false imprisonment. Not 
 content with this, the alderman wrote to Lord Halifax 
 as Secretary of State, informing him that Wheble 
 had been arrested within his jurisdiction, by a person 
 
John Wilkes. 45 
 
 who was neither constable nor peace officer of the 
 city, and for no legal offence, "in direct violation 
 of the rights of an Englishman and of the chartered 
 privilege of a citizen of this metropolis," and closing 
 with an intimation that he had at once discharged 
 him. 
 
 The matter speedily assumed a graver aspect. 
 Another printer, one Miller, having been ordered 
 into custody by the House, a messenger, armed with 
 the Speaker's warrant, arrested him in his own 
 shop. Instead of submitting, Miller sent for a con- 
 stable, and gave the messenger into his custody on a 
 charge of assault. The matter was carried before 
 the magistrates then sitting at the Mansion House — - 
 the Lord Mayor, Mr. Alderman Oliver, and Mr. 
 Alderman Wilkes. Miller made his charge, the mes- 
 senger produced the Speaker's warrant, and the 
 Deputy Serjeant-at-Arms claimed both the messenger 
 and his prisoner. The Lord Mayor at once discharged 
 the printer on the ground that the messenger was 
 neither constable nor peace officer, and that the 
 warrant had not been backed by a magistrate of the 
 city. Miller's charge was then investigated, and the 
 messenger, having refused to give bail, was committed 
 under the joint warrant of the three magistrates. The 
 controversy thus became an open warfare between the 
 City of London and the House of Commons, or rather 
 between the civil rights of the printers, and the privi- 
 leges of Parliament. The contumacious magistrates 
 were ordered to attend the House, the Lord Mayor 
 and Mr. Oliver, both being members in their places, 
 and Wilkes at the bar. The latter, instead of ap- 
 pearing, wrote to the Speaker claiming to attend in 
 his place as Member for Middlesex. At the first ap- 
 
46 Eighteenth Ce?iHtry Studies. 
 
 pearance of the former, the Lord Mayor defended him- 
 self by the rights and privileges of the city, and 
 claimed to be heard by counsel as to the jurisdiction 
 of the metropolis. This boon, after much debate, was 
 conceded to him and to Mr. Alderman Oliver. As 
 to Wilkes the proceedings were abandoned. His 
 popularity was so great that the administration feared 
 to attack him. He was ordered to attend at the bar 
 on the 8th April, but the ministry moved the adjourn- 
 ment of the House for the Easter Recess until the 
 9th, a subterfuge by which the prime mover of these 
 troubles escaped all further molestation. With the 
 other culprits the case was different. The Lord Mayor 
 refused on the adjourned debate to be heard by 
 counsel, but having read the charters of the city and 
 the oaths of offices, appealed to the sense of the House 
 to know if he could have acted differently. Mr. Oliver 
 told the ministry that he gloried in what he had done, 
 that he cared nothing for the punishment which he 
 knew awaited him, that he " expected little from their 
 justice," and that he " defied their power." A long 
 debate followed, and at half-past three in the morn- 
 ing a warrant was made out for his commitment to 
 the Tower, on the ground of a breach of privilege. A 
 similar course was adopted with the Lord Mayor. He 
 was, indeed, offered the privilege of remaining in the 
 custody of the Sergeant-at-Arms, but he declined the 
 exemption, and was carried off to bear his friend Oliver 
 company. All these proceedings had not taken place 
 without much popular excitement The civic magi- 
 strates were attended to the House by immense mobs, 
 and on the last occasion the crowd proceeded to acts 
 of violence against the ministerial members. Several 
 were pelted with mud and stones ; Charles Fox and his 
 
John Wilkes. 47 
 
 brother Stephen had their carriages injured ; and the 
 coach in which Lord North came down to the House 
 was broken to pieces, he himself escaping only with 
 his life. On leaving the House, the Lord Mayor found 
 a singularly different reception awaiting him. The 
 horses were taken from his carriage by the crowd, who 
 dragged him to the Mansion House, and would have 
 rescued him from custody, but from his own adroitness 
 in assuring them that he was simply going home. His 
 imprisonment did not last long. Six weeks after, 
 Parliament was prorogued, and the city magistrates 
 were set free, to be escorted to the Mansion House 
 with demonstrations of popular enthusiasm, similar to 
 those which had greeted them on their last public ap- 
 pearance. Their triumph was complete. From that 
 time to the present the reporting of Parliamentary 
 debates has become a recognized part of the business 
 of the country, and has been, on the whole, one of the 
 most beneficent reforms of the last century. 
 
 On two other occasions Wilkes took a prominent 
 part in politics. At the general election in 1774, when 
 in company with his ancient defender, Serjeant Glynne, 
 he came forward for Middlesex, he distinguished himself 
 by his advocacy of the plan of requiring pledges from 
 candidates. This election, according to Sir Erskine 
 May, 5 was the first in which this custom prevailed. It 
 may, in part, have arisen from the publicity which was 
 then beginning to be given to the debates in Parlia- 
 ment and in part because it exalted the people as 
 distinguished from their representatives. Whatever 
 the reason, Wilkes became an ardent supporter of the 
 plan and volunteered for himself and for his fellow- 
 
 5 " Constitutional History of England," vol. i. p. 444. 
 
48 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 candidate, one of the most stringent tests ever 
 applied to a would-be M.P. This is scarcely the 
 place to discuss the question whether these pledges 
 are or are not desirable. Seeing, however, that so 
 many of the ablest men in and out of Parliament, 
 have condemned the principle, that Burke posi- 
 tively refused to submit to it ; and that its practical 
 tendency is to remove the function of the Legislature 
 from .representatives to their constituents, it is impos- 
 sible to credit Wilkes with the display of any great 
 judgment on this point, whatever opinion may be 
 formed of his honesty, or of the zeal for liberty which 
 he showed in his contest with the ministry. After this 
 election the part which he took in politics was com- 
 paratively unimportant. He distinguished himself, 
 however, by one feat in 1782. The ministry who had 
 conducted the American war had long been in- 
 creasing in unpopularity, and were compelled at last 
 to resign. Thereupon Wilkes introduced a motion to 
 expunge from the records of the House the obnoxious 
 resolution of 1769. With little difficulty this motion 
 was carried, and thus the top stone was put to the 
 edifice of his political life. Henceforward he con- 
 sidered himself " a fire burnt out," and he finally 
 retired from Parliament at the dissolution of 1790. 
 Eleven years before he had obtained the lucrative 
 office of Chamberlain to the City, and to the duties 
 of this post he confined his attention during the few 
 remaining years . of his life. He died at the age of 
 70, in 1797. 
 
 During the latter years of his life Wilkes was com- 
 paratively free from the pecuniary embarrassments 
 which had embittered his earlier days. He lived, how- 
 ever, up to the extreme limit of his income, and kept 
 
John Wilkes. 49 
 
 three establishments out of the profits of his place in 
 the corporation. In 1790 he gave up his house in 
 Great George Street, and removed to Grosvenor 
 Square, where he died. His country house was at 
 Sandown, in the Isle of Wight, and there he spent a 
 good deal of his time. Besides these he had a house 
 at Kensington Gore, which he maintained for a less 
 reputable purpose. The consequence of this extrava- 
 gance was precisely what might have been expected. 
 In his will he disposed of his houses and furniture and 
 bequeathed legacies amounting to something under 
 3500/., but when his executors had paid his debts, they 
 found that the total amount of his property was not 
 more than a fifth of that sum. His only legitimate 
 daughter found means to maintain the establishment 
 in Grosvenor Square for five years after the death of 
 her father, but suddenly died there in 1802. She is 
 described as having been a woman of remarkable 
 abilities and of the highest attainments. The esteem 
 in which she was held by her father, her own letters 
 and the universal testimony of her friends bear out 
 this character to the fullest extent. His illegitimate 
 daughter, Harriet, who bore his name, is said to have 
 been of a similarly amiable character, and of equal 
 attainments. 
 
 Besides his translations from the classics and his 
 political pamphlets, he has left no literary memorial 
 of his fame. He began a History of England, and 
 received a fair number of subscriptions to the work. 
 It never, however, went farther than the introduction, 
 which is not of a character to incline the reader to 
 regret its discontinuance. Churchill constituted him 
 by his will his literary executor, and for several years 
 his letters contain allusions to the projected edition of 
 
50 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 the works of that poet. He contrived, however, to 
 write no more than a few miserable notes, which do 
 as little credit to the poet as to his commentator. By- 
 way, perhaps, of atoning for this neglect, he set np 
 a votive urn to the memory of his friend in the garden 
 of his house at Sandown, on the pedestal of which was 
 inscribed " Carolo Churchill, amico jucundo, poetse acri, 
 civi optime, de patria merito, p. Johannes "Wilkes, 
 1765." Unfortunately the column was as perishable 
 as the friendship it was erected to commemorate, and 
 it has passed into the limbo of worthless things. It 
 was, however, on his speeches that "Wilkes was inclined 
 to rest his fame. These were carefully prepared com- 
 positions, and were delivered with considerable power. 
 Nevertheless, neither they nor his letters have pre- 
 served his name to this generation. He is remembered 
 chiefly, if not altogether, by his political career, and 
 by the energetic manner in which he defended the 
 cause of political liberty against the incursions of a 
 narrow and tyrannical oligarchy. To estimate him 
 rightly he must be judged by his own standard, and 
 by the habits and feelings of his age. An estimate 
 thus founded will probably be more liberal and kindly 
 than that which it is, in the present day, the fashion 
 to form. Beginning his political career with apparently 
 selfish' objects alone, he ended it with honour and self- 
 abnegation. Aiming at first only at popularity and 
 the consequent exaltation of himself and his family, he 
 achieved, as it were, in spite of himself, a triumph of 
 the noblest kind, and demonstrated the fact that in 
 this England of ours, notwithstanding all her faults, it 
 is only necessary that a politician should be honest, 
 and should devote himself without reserve to the good 
 of his country, to win a high place in popular affection. 
 
John Wilkes. 51 
 
 For Wilkes's vices, there can, of course, be no excuse ; 
 the offender must throw himself on the mercy of the 
 court. It may, however, be pleaded in extenuation 
 that "Wilkes lived in an age of extreme corruption in 
 both Church and State ; that he was no worse than 
 his accusers, and that sensuality and vice as great as 
 his, have been fully condoned in the case of many men 
 who had far less excuse in their surroundings than he 
 was fairly entitled to plead. 
 
 E V 
 
THE FOUNDER OF METHODISM. 
 
 John Wesley, the Ignatius Loyola of the English 
 Church, came of a distinctly ecclesiastical stock, and 
 of an ancestry marked by all those qualities of ardent 
 devotion and asceticism, with a trace of superstition, 
 and a great deal of obstinacy, by which the founder of 
 Methodism was more especially distinguished. His 
 great-grandfather and his grandfather were both 
 among the ejected of 1662. His father having been 
 trained at the Grammar School at Dorchester, was 
 taken up by some of the dissenters and sent to London 
 to be educated at one of their academies. He did not 
 stay long. Dissent in those days was still in its 
 ferocious stage, and the brutalities of the Calf's Head 
 Club were not to the taste of Samuel Wesley. He 
 severed his connexion with nonconformity, trudged on 
 foot to Oxford, entered himself as a " poor scholar " at 
 Exeter College, maintained himself by writing exer- 
 cises and impositions for undergraduates better sup- 
 plied with this world's goods than himself, and by 
 doing a little " coaching," took orders, and having 
 attained the dignity of a London curacy, married. 
 His wife was Susannah Annesley, daughter of another 
 ejected minister, who had reasoned herself out of Cal- 
 vinism into Socinianism only to be converted to 
 Arminianism by her husband. Samuel Wesley was a 
 sound church and king man, but when James II. 
 entered upon his policy of conciliating the Roman 
 
The Founder of Methodism. 53 
 
 Catholics, lie energetically refused to " worship the 
 golden image." A few months later came the Revolu- 
 tion of 1688, in the defence of which Samuel Wesley 
 was one of the first to write. He dedicated his book 
 to Queen Mary, and was rewarded with the living of 
 Epworth, in Lincolnshire. The ardour of his affec- 
 tion for the reigning family led to a very unseemly 
 quarrel with his wife. Susannah could not turn Whig 
 quite so easily as her husband, and refused to say 
 " Amen " to the prayers for King William, whereupon 
 Wesley questioned her, and having discovered her 
 sentiments, refused cohabitation for the space of more 
 than a year. The death of King William removed the 
 original cause of dispute, and husband and wife having 
 come together again, a son was born to them on the 
 17th June, 1703, whom they called by the names of 
 John Benjamin. The latter was immediately dis- 
 carded, and during the whole of his life he was known 
 simply as John Wesley. 
 
 He was brought up at his mother's knee in the 
 devout practice of a very ascetic form of religion. 
 One evening a week was devoted to conversation upon 
 matters of faith and practice, while the devotions of 
 every day were regular and prolonged. When quite an 
 infant, the rectory of Epworth was burnt down, and 
 he had a very narrow escape from death. The fact 
 was earnestly impressed upon his mind that he was " a 
 brand plucked from the burning," and was used to 
 point the moral of the religious teachings of his 
 parents. At the proper age he went to the Charter- 
 house — that nursery of so many illustrious English- 
 men — and it was whilst he was there that the rectory 
 of Epworth was disturbed by those noises which 
 afterwards became so celebrated. The ghost story has 
 
54 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 never been explained, for the simple reason that it was 
 never properly investigated. Every one about the 
 house seems to have taken it for granted that the 
 knockings and groanings were of necessity supernatural 
 in their origin. The only sceptic in the family was 
 Samuel Wesley, John's elder brother, who wrote from 
 Westminster to suggest a watch being kept on the 
 new man and maid servants, but whose advice does 
 not seem to have been taken. John Wesley seems to 
 have swallowed the whole story, for he gravely pub- 
 lished it in the Arminian Magazine many years after- 
 wards, and hints that the disturbance was a manifesta- 
 tion of the Divine wrath against his father for break- 
 ing his vow, never to cohabit with his wife until she 
 acknowledged the Prince of Orange as king. 1 Super- 
 stition is, however, one of the few weak points in 
 Wesley's character. Thus, for example, he was greatly 
 addicted to the practice of sortilege when in a difficulty 
 or in doubt. The act is always garnished with devout 
 prayers and appeals for the Divine guidance and 
 inspiration, but in practice it is exactly the same as 
 the vulgar gambling tricks of " tossing up " or " draw- 
 ing cuts." The error lies in looking for direct Divine 
 interposition in ordinary matters. How the habit grew 
 upon him, and the evil which it wrought, may be seen 
 recorded in a score of places in his various biographies. 
 Perhaps the most striking illustration is that related 
 by Southey, with reference to Whitefield. Wesley 
 
 1 Johnson's remark on a similar occasion is worthy of remembrance. 
 Asked by Boswell what Wesley had made of his story of a ghost at 
 Newcastle, Johnson answered, " Why, sir, he believes it, but not on 
 sufficient authority. He did not take time enough to examine the 
 girl. Charles Wesley, who is a more stationary man, does not believe 
 the story. I am sorry that John did not take more pains to inquire 
 into the evidence." 
 
The Founder of Methodism. 55 
 
 returned to England from Georgia as Whitefield was 
 going thither. The ships passed within sight of each 
 other, and when Wesley landed he found that he could 
 still communicate with his friend, to whom he accord- 
 ingly wrote. " When T saw God by the wind which 
 was carrying you out brought me in, I asked counsel 
 of God. His answer you have enclosed." The 
 inclosure was a slip of paper, on which was written, 
 ' Let him return to London.' " Whitefield very wisely 
 used his own judgment. The story of the prophet in 
 the Book of Kings recurred to him; how he had turned 
 back from his appointed course because another pro- 
 phet had told him that it was the Lord's will that he 
 should do so, for believing whom a lion met him in the 
 way. Whitefield therefore continued his voyage. To 
 one who is not a Wesleyan there seems to be something 
 strangely irreverent in the acts of these eminently 
 holy men. Placed as they were with certain very 
 definite duties before them, one would naturally think 
 that their only course was to do that which lay nearest 
 to them, leaving the results to Him who had appointed 
 them to the work. Instead of doing so they hesitate, 
 procrastinate, and seek for more definite guidance than 
 has been vouchsafed to them, and finally proceed to 
 dictate to their Maker by what means He shall answer 
 them. Stripped of its pious phraseology, it must be 
 owned that the act is neither more nor less than a 
 piece of profane superstition. It followed, however, 
 very naturally upon the notion which possesses 
 Puritans of all types — Arminians and Calvinists alike 
 — that God is perpetually interfering in the minutest 
 details of the government of the world. The notion of 
 a divine order and of a reign of law unbroken and 
 unvarying, appears to be too sublime for enthusiasts 
 
56 Eighteenth Cenhiry St tidies. 
 
 of this type to apprehend. With them the Divine 
 Being is petty, petnlant, and tyrannical, mnch given 
 to meddlesome interference, and only to be propitiated 
 by a system of self-sacrifice and austerity no whit 
 better than the practices of the heathen. 
 
 It is somewhat singular that of all men Wesley 
 should have fallen into this superstition. Ignorant 
 and unintelligent men, whose religious instructors are 
 no wiser than themselves, may easily pick up erroneous 
 notions and views of the divine government of the 
 world, which will not bear the test of reason, but from 
 Wesley, who was a man of education, in the highest 
 sense of the word, better things might be expected. 
 He was, as has been mentioned, at the Charterhouse 
 until he was seventeen years of age. Thence he went 
 to Christ Church, Oxford, where he became a diligent 
 student, especially of logic. Under the influence of 
 his father, he devoted himself to theology, his favourite 
 reading being the ascetic treatise de Imitatione, and 
 Jeremy Taylor's " Holy Living and Dying." In 
 religious matters he was unusually strict, and as a 
 matter of course he had no difficulty when he went up 
 for ordination. Six months after his ordination he 
 became Fellow of Lincoln, then as now one of the best 
 of the colleges of Oxford, and after a farther period of 
 eight months he was appointed lecturer in Greek, and 
 moderator of the classes. In those days disputations 
 were held on every weekday, and whether the students 
 profited by them or not, it is certain that they were 
 eminently useful to the moderator who presided 
 over them. The time not occupied in these public 
 duties was given by Wesley to private study. This 
 was mapped out in the most careful and methodical 
 fashion conceivable. On Monday and Tuesday he 
 
The Founder of Methodism. 57 
 
 read the classics ; Wednesdays were devoted to logic 
 and ethical philosophy; Thursdays to Hebrew and 
 Arabic, in both of which he was no mean proficient ; 
 Fridays to mathematics and natural philosophy; 
 Saturdays to oratory, poetry, and literary composi- 
 tion, and on Sundays, as became the day, he studied 
 divinity. 
 
 Wesley was thus no uneducated enthusiast, no in- 
 spired cobbler rich in spiritual phraseology, and desti- 
 tute of aspirates, but a scholar and a student practised in 
 all the arts of culture and refinement, a fact which makes 
 his enthusiasm the more remarkable. This religious 
 enthusiasm grew upon hin\ slowly but very steadily, 
 and it was fostered by a period of seclusion in the 
 remote Lincolnshire village of Wroote, near Epworth, 
 of which his father was rector, and in which he acted 
 as curate. After two years spent here he returned to 
 the Lincoln, to find his younger brother Charles, one of 
 a society of young men who had associated them- 
 selves for religious purposes, who lived by rule, who 
 took the sacrament weekly, and who were called in 
 derision the "Holy Club. ,, A fellow of Merton 
 remembering a religious party of the days of the 
 Commonwealth who were called "Methodists," applied 
 the name to the new sect, and as sometimes happens 
 with nicknames, it stuck. JSFo sooner had Wesley 
 returned than he was called to the presidency of the 
 society, and at once adopted, not merely the habit of 
 living by rule, but also the austerities which distin- 
 guished its members. In the onset the " Holy Club " 
 was like a good many other collegiate societies, a mere 
 association of young men desirous of reading together, 
 but with the addition of a somewhat strong religious 
 element which induced them to meet on Sundays for 
 
58 Eighteenth Century Studies, 
 
 the study of divinity. Gradually, however, religion 
 became the only business of their meetings. They 
 visited prisoners and the sick ; they fasted rigorously 
 every Wednesday and Friday ; they took the sacrament 
 on every Sunday, and they were diligent in self- 
 examination and in private prayer. This self-examina- 
 tion appears to have been carried to a remarkable 
 excess. In the appendix to the life of "Wesley, Southey 
 gives a " scheme of self-examination " which occupies 
 a couple of closely printed pages, and which shows 
 that the members of the Holy Club, in theory at all 
 events, gave every moment of their time to the affairs 
 of their souls. This perpetual " contemplation of one's 
 own navel" as Carlyle calls it, cannot have been 
 healthy, either from a moral or from an intellectual 
 point of view, and so probably Wesley and his friends 
 would have been told had they consulted the bishop, 
 to whom in theory they owed an unbounded deference. 
 As it happened, however, the only subject on which 
 they conferred with him was the visitation of the 
 prisoners, which he willingly authorized. For the rest 
 they took counsel of no man, save only that Wesley 
 wrote to his father in terms which led to an expression 
 of gratitude from the old man that " Grod had given 
 him two sons together at Oxford, to whom he had 
 given grace and courage to turn the war against the 
 world and the devil." 
 
 Just as Wesley was developing into enthusiasm and 
 extravagance, he fell in with William Law — the once 
 well-known author of the " Serious Call to the Uncon- 
 verted." Law was of all men the most dangerous to 
 a man of Wesley's temper. He was essentially a 
 mystic, and he accepted without questioning all the 
 absurd and whimsical reveries of Jacob Behmen — 
 
The Founder of Methodism. 59 
 
 dreams whose fantastical folly the unsparing spirit of 
 modern criticism has effectually dissipated. Law, 
 however, acquired an immense influence over the 
 young Fellow of Lincoln, and so far unsettled his 
 mind, that he began to doubt not merely the useful- 
 ness, but the lawfulness of ordinary study. Under 
 his teaching also the Holy Club became a hot-bed of 
 fanaticism, so that the Heads of Houses felt compelled 
 to hold a meeting formally to consider what was to be 
 done with reference to it. A report got about in 
 Oxford that " the Dean and Censors were going to 
 blow up the Holy Club." Wesley denounced the 
 action of the Dons with characteristic fervour, and in 
 reply to his elder brother, Samuel, who admonished 
 him by letter, he expressed his determination to per- 
 severe in a course which had been denounced as 
 " whimsical." Samuel Wesley, dissatisfied with his 
 brother's explanation and defence, went to Oxford and 
 certainly found enough to cause uneasiness. Not only 
 was Wesley distinguished by affectation of manner, 
 and by singularity of costume, but he was living with 
 such austerity and so utter a disregard of the laws of 
 health, that it appeared as though he was eager for 
 death. One of his intimate friends, and a conspicuous 
 member of the " Holy Club," Morgan, was on his 
 death-bed, exhausted by excessive fasting and religious 
 austerities, and with a mind so wretchedly enfeebled, 
 that his religion had become a torture and a poison. 
 Wesley was rapidly approaching the same state. 
 After constantly spitting blood for some time, he was 
 awakened one night by the bursting of a blood-vessel. 
 Happily the imminence of his danger rendered it neces- 
 sary to call in a physician, who appears to have suc- 
 ceeded in convincing him that suicide even by fasting 
 
6o Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 and austerity was not the surest way into the Kingdom 
 of Heaven. 
 
 Even this sharp lesson was insufficient to convince 
 Wesley of the error of his monastic predilections. 
 Had he been a Roman Catholic, he would at this time 
 have entered one or other of the severest orders of that 
 Church, but being as he was a minister of the English 
 Church he found in Oxford such a substitute for a 
 monastery as Protestantism could afford. His father 
 and his elder brother were anxious that he should 
 secure the next presentation to the living of Ep worth, 
 partly in order that the comfort of his mother and 
 sisters might be assured, and partly because they were 
 undoubtedly convinced that even from Wesley's own 
 point of view he might serve God as a parish priest as 
 well as in the position of fellow of a college and head 
 of a small society. Wesley was, however, unconvinced, 
 and adhered steadfastly to his determination to refuse 
 this living. The motives for the decision may have 
 been all that was admirable; its consequences were 
 painful in the extreme. The father died a few months 
 after, leaving little or no provision for his wife and 
 daughters, so that on the very day of his funeral the 
 live-stock on his small farm were seized by an inexora- 
 ble creditor for a debt of a few pounds. The ship- 
 wreck of the family was complete. The mother and 
 sisters were dependent on the eldest son, Samuel, who 
 accepted the trust manfully, and took them to live at 
 Tiverton, where he was now headmaster of the grammar 
 school. The fine character of Samuel Wesley had 
 been overshadowed by the greater celebrity of his 
 illustrious brother, but no one can read his letters 
 without seeing that in his own way he was every whit 
 as estimable a man. 
 
The Founder of Methodism. 61 
 
 Following almost immediately upon his father's death 
 came "Wesley's expedition to Georgia. The business 
 appears to have been undertaken with very mixed 
 motives, though Wesley strongly protested that the end 
 of those who went on this expedition "was not to 
 avoid want nor to gain the dung and dross of riches 
 and honour, but singly this, to save our souls ; to live 
 wholly to the glory of God." With these ends in view 
 their life was one of bitter and sustained asceticism. 
 On board the ship which conveyed John Wesley and 
 his brother Charles to Georgia was a party of Mora- 
 vians full of zeal and energy, and full also of that weird 
 mysticism of which Law and Behmen were the typical 
 exponents. With these amiable enthusiasts Wesley 
 allied himself very closely, the result being that during 
 the whole voyage, which lasted from the 14th of 
 October, 1735 to the 5th of February, 1736, they lived 
 with the severity of a set of Carthusian monks. They 
 rose at four in the morning, and from that hour until 
 they retired to rest, between nine and ten, their time 
 was wholly spent in preaching, praying, singing hymns, 
 and exhorting each other. When he had fairly landed 
 in Savannah he began to work in the same ascetic 
 spirit, and to act as though he believed that people 
 living in the world could ever be induced to live as 
 though their salvation were the only concern of life. 
 He had had a bitter experience in England when dur- 
 ing a very short absence from Oxford the Holy Club 
 had gone to pieces, but the lesson thus taught to him 
 was apparently thrown away, and he dealt with his 
 Georgian colonists much in the spirit of a monastic 
 superior managing a body of " religious." What fol- 
 lowed might have been anticipated by any one with a 
 moderate knowledge of human nature. Both the 
 
62 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 brothers quarrelled with Oglethorpe, who really seems 
 to have behaved with great patience, generosity, and 
 forbearance. They were reconciled and Charles re- 
 moved to a distance. Wesley then stirred up strife 
 and disorder in the colony by excessive niceness on 
 points of ritual, and by innovations to which the un- 
 happy colonists were by no means favourable. He 
 revived the obsolete rubrics of the Church and gave 
 great offence by refusing to baptize infants except by 
 immersion. Then came an eminently discreditable 
 entanglement with a young woman, from which Wesley 
 ran away when the matter had passed into the hands 
 of the ministers of the law. It is true that he calls 
 his course of action " shaking off the dust of his feet" 
 against his persecutors, but worldly-minded people 
 will be apt to speak of it in a less nattering way. 
 
 The quarrel was not a pleasant business. Oglethorpe, 
 who was a shrewd and kind-hearted man of the world, 
 thought — very likely with perfect accuracy — that if 
 Wesley were married his excessive and inconvenient 
 zeal would be tempered. Accordingly he threw him 
 as much as he could into association with two young 
 women, one of whom Wesley unquestionably wished to 
 marry. She, however, rejected him and married 
 instead a Mr. Williamson, shortly after which Wesley 
 saw fit to repel her when she presented herself at the 
 Communion. The ground assigned was that she had 
 done some wrong to her neighbour, which, however, 
 Wesley afterwards altered by affirming that the real 
 reason was her having failed to comply with the Rubric, 
 which directs that " so many as intend to be partakers 
 of the Holy Communion shall signify their names to 
 the curate at least some time the day before." Mr. 
 Williamson's uncle, a Mr. Causton, on her behalf 
 
The Founder of Methodism. 63 
 
 demanded that as Wesley had put a public affront upon 
 his niece he should at least publicly state his reasons. 
 Wesley refused to do so, alleging that if he did " many 
 ill-consequences " would be produced. " What you 
 will not do, then," said the uncle, " I will do myself. 
 The wrong is that she has rejected your proposals of 
 marriage, and has married Mr. Williamson." Mr. 
 Williamson thereupon prosecuted Wesley for defama- 
 tion of his wife's character, and she in her turn made 
 affidavit that Wesley had many times proposed mar- 
 riage to her and had been as frequently rejected. The 
 grand jury, which was composed of almost the whole 
 adult male population of the colony, found a true bill- 
 on an indictment of ten counts, but the case was 
 not brought to trial for some little time. As a matter 
 of fact Oglethorpe was by no means anxious that the 
 business should go any farther, and if Wesley had 
 stayed on in the colony he would probably have 
 heard no more of it. As soon as the grand jury had 
 given in their verdict, however, he made up his mind 
 to run away. He posted a paper in the public square 
 announcing his intention, and was warned that he must 
 find bail for his appearance, but no steps were taken 
 to enforce the demand, and in the night " the tide 
 then serving, he shook off the dust of his feet, and 
 left Georgia." Years afterwards in his controversy 
 with Warburton the latter contemptuously quoted 
 these words, " ' He shook off the dust of his feet ! ' 
 much easier done than shaking off the infamy." The 
 words are strong but few will be disposed to think 
 them too strong, especially in view of an abominable 
 charge made by Wesley's biographers, Dr. Coke and 
 Mr. Moore, many years afterwards, when, as they tell 
 their readers, the last of the actors in this wretched 
 
64 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 business had been dead for some time. According to 
 these gentlemen a young lady who had married after 
 her arrival in Georgia, was troubled in conscience, 
 and told Wesley under a promise of secrecy — which he 
 must have violated if the story is to have any authority 
 whatever, — the plot which General Oglethorpe had laid 
 to cure him of his enthusiasm, adding these words: — 
 " Sir, I had no rest till I resolved to tell you the whole 
 affair. I have myself been urged to that behaviour 
 towards you, which I am now ashamed to mention. 
 Both Miss Sophia (Causton, afterwards Mrs. William- 
 son) and myself were ordered, if we could but succeed, 
 even to deny yon nothing ." These biographers say 
 further, "When General Oglethorpe perceived by 
 Wesley's altered manner and some incautious expres- 
 sions that his scheme had been discovered, he gave him 
 a hint that there were Indians who would shoot any 
 man in the colony for a bottle of rum, and actually 
 sent an Indian to intimidate if not to murder him. ,, 
 It is difficult to say how tales of this kind ought to be 
 characterized. That they are true at all events in the 
 form in which they reach this generation — probably, 
 few readers will be anxious to contend. Such as they 
 are, however, they illustrate very strikingly the un- 
 amiable side of Wesley's character which induces him 
 invariably to believe and to represent those who differ 
 from him in any particular as children of the devil and 
 the special objects of Divine wrath. 
 
 Whatever mistakes of conduct Wesley may have 
 been guilty of in Georgia, they were not such as to 
 interfere with his ecclesiastical character, and he had 
 no sooner returned to London than he again began to 
 preach. There is something not altogether pleasant 
 in his account of his state of mind at this time. He 
 
(• 
 
 
 / 
 
 The Founder of Methodism. 65 
 
 considers himself to have wanted that saying faith which 
 his Moravian friends taught him to consider essential, 
 yet he preached that faith in such a manner as insured his 
 exclusion from more than one London pulpit. Coleridge 
 has an acute remark upon this circumstance. Four days 
 after his arrival in London, Wesley was introduced to 
 Peter Boehler, one of the Moravians who were then going 
 out to join their co-religionists in Georgia. With him he 
 paid a visit to Oxford, and by him, says Wesley, " in the 
 hands of the great God I was clearly convinced of un- 
 belief — of the want of that faith whereby alone we are 
 to be saved." His natural scruple as to the propriety 
 of preaching the necessity of faith without possessing 
 it himself were combated by Boehler, who advised him 
 by no means to leave off preaching. " But what shall 
 I preach?" said Wesley. The Moravian replied, 
 " Preach faith until you have it, and then because you 
 have it you will preach faith. " In his note on this 
 point Coleridge remarks, " Is not this too like ' tell 
 a lie long enough and often enough, and you will be 
 sure to end in believing it.' " The faith came to 
 Wesley after a time, but he did not obtain it until after 
 his brother Charles, who had accepted the new doc- 
 trine at the same time, had been as he describes it 
 " converted." In the meanwhile the Methodist society 
 in London was organized, rules were laid down for its 
 guidance " in obedience to the command of God by 
 St. James, and by the advice of Peter Boehler." 
 
 This development of Wesley's views was not attained 
 without a certain amount of scandal. A few days 
 after his conversion he announced to his astonished 
 host and his family that he " had never been a Chris- 
 tian until within the last five days." Hutton not un- 
 naturally warned him from the Anglican churchman's 
 
 F 
 
66 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 point of view, against despising the benefits of the two 
 sacraments. Mrs. Hutton, with feminine intuition and 
 true womanly frankness, said, " If you were not a 
 Christian ever since I knew you, you were a great 
 hypocrite, for you made us all believe you were one." 
 Wesley replied, " That when we had renounced every- 
 thing but faith and then got into Christ, then, and not 
 till then had we any reason to believe we were Chris- 
 tians," following up this new dogma with the extra- 
 ordinary remark that the Sermon on the Mount " was 
 the letter that killeth," which, when reported to his 
 admirable elder brother Samuel, was declared by him 
 to be " no less than blasphemy against the Son of 
 Man. It is mere Quakerism," he added, " making the 
 outward Christ an enemy to the Christ within." This 
 was not all. Charles Wesley was, at this time, living 
 with an illiterate and fanatical brazier in Little Britain, 
 whom he had taken as his soul's physician, and he and 
 John alike preached in such a way as to lead those 
 about them, who were by no means irreligious people, 
 to doubt their sanity. Nor can any wonder be felt at 
 such a circumstance. A preacher who exhorts his 
 hearers to disregard all teaching but such as comes in 
 dreams to some and in visions to others, and who 
 guides his own conduct by that species of holy for- 
 tune-telling known as the sortes Biblicce, has no right 
 to complain if his friends consider him something of a 
 lunatic. Nor does anything in Wesley's conduct, 
 immediately after these events, point to any other con- 
 clusion. His mind seems to have become thoroughly 
 unhinged, and by way of remedy he applied himself to 
 those to whom he was indebted for his disease, and 
 made a pilgrimage to Herrnhutt. Here he stayed for 
 a fortnight, obtaining a confirmation of the theories he 
 
1 lie Founder of Methodism . 6 7 
 
 liad embraced, and observing with admiration that 
 remarkable commnnity which, when all is done, cannot 
 be held to rank much higher than the more harmless of 
 those fantastic communities described by Mr. Hepworth 
 Dixon in " New America." One good result arose 
 from this visit. Much as Wesley saw to admire in the 
 Moravians, his eyes were gradually opened to the weak 
 points of their system, though the weakest of all — 
 Zinzendorf 's wild heresies and the ghastly obscenities of 
 their metaphorical talk — were as yet unknown to him. 
 He wrote a letter of remonstrance to Zinzendorf, and 
 seems for the time to have contemplated withdrawing 
 from all communication with the community. Rebuked 
 by his friend Delamotte and strengthened by the result 
 of an application to his favourite oracle, he remained 
 in communion with the Moravians for some time longer. 
 The fundamental differences were, however, too great 
 for the artificial union to last for ever. Other influ- 
 ences than merely spiritual ones interfered. Zinzen- 
 dorf fancied the community which Wesley had formed 
 at the meeting-house in Fetter Lane was a branch of 
 his Herrnhutt establishment, and was disposed to treat 
 it as such. Wesley, on the other hand, was one of 
 those who will brook no superior, as he had plainly 
 shown in an interview with the admirable Bishop 
 Gibson, who sought to curb some of his extravagances. 
 Between two such men differences would certainly 
 arise, and the occasion was not long delayed. One 
 Molther was on his way to Pennsylvania, but was de- 
 tained by sundry accidents in London. Wesley being 
 absent he took charge of the Fetter Lane congregation, 
 and began by rebuking those ravings and contortions, 
 those ejaculations and paroxysms to which Wesley had 
 been accustomed to point as evident proofs of grace. 
 
 p 2 
 
68 Eighteenth Cejitury Studies. 
 
 These Molther explained to be mere delusions, and the 
 effects of animal spirits and a vivid imagination. Such 
 a contradiction of his favourite theories was bad enough 
 in "Wesley's eyes, but the German missionary went far- 
 ther, and preached solifidianism in its most exaggerated 
 form. He maintained that there are no degrees of 
 faith ; that no man has any faith whatever before he 
 has the full assurance ; that the way to attain such 
 assurance was to wait for Christ and be still, and that 
 the use of what are commonly called the " means of 
 grace"— frequenting church, communicating, fasting, 
 private prayer, and the reading of the Scriptures, are 
 injurious rather than beneficial. News of this extra- 
 ordinary teaching was sent to Wesley, who hurried 
 back to London to find his congregation rent in sunder, 
 and the good which he had been labouring to effect 
 wholly undone. A truce was patched up between the 
 two sections of the society, but it was obvious that a 
 separation must come before long. Wesley had gone 
 away again but was hastily summoned back to heal the 
 disorder, found Molther ill on his arrival, and had 
 the hardihood to affirm that his sickness was a judg- 
 ment of God for venturing to oppose him. Again, he 
 resorted to his pious conjuring, and opening his Bible 
 at random his eye fell upon the words, "What is that 
 to thee ? Follow thou me!" which he took as an indi- 
 cation that it was the Divine will that he should 
 break with the Moravians. Arrived in London, there- 
 fore, he went to the meeting in Fetter Lane armed 
 with a favourite spiritual weapon of the German 
 sectaries, one of the spurious treatises ascribed to 
 Dionysius the Areopagite. From this he read a pas- 
 sage embodying the favourite doctrine that for any one 
 riot " born of God" to pray, communicate or read the 
 
The Founder of Methodism. 69 
 
 Scriptures was a mortal sin, and then asked his audience 
 whether this was right or wrong. This answer was 
 that it was right. He asked if he might again preach 
 in Fetter Lane : the reply was, " No, this place is 
 taken for the Germans." On the following Sunday 
 night he appeared at the Love Feast, and having read 
 a long and solemn protest, he withdrew himself, taking 
 a small body of his hearers with him. More would 
 have followed, but some Moravian, who guessed what 
 had been intended, hid Wesley's hat, and while he was 
 looking for it arrested many who might have been 
 carried away in his wake. The breach speedily 
 widened. One of the Germans wrote to Wesley in^ 
 forming him that St. Paul justly described him as 
 having " eyes full of adultery and cannot cease from 
 sin," and taking upon him " to guide unstable souls, 
 and lead them in the way of damnation." He replied in 
 a letter from " John Wesley, a presbyter of the Church 
 of God in England to the Church of God at Herrn- 
 hutt in Upper Lusatia," in which he encountered this 
 piece of vulgar fanaticism with courteous argument. 
 Unfortunately his arguments were not of a kind to 
 commend themselves to reasonable men. The people 
 of Herrnhutt had expressed an opinion that they 
 " might conform to the world so far as to talk on 
 trifling subjects, and to join in worldly diversions in 
 order to do good." Wesley objected to such con- 
 formity. In their reply they said, " we believe it much 
 better to discourse out of the newspapers than to 
 chatter about holy things to no purpose." Wesley 
 answered, " Perhaps so, but what is this to the point ? 
 I believe both one and the other, to be useless, and 
 therefore an abomination to the Lord." And if War- 
 burton is to be believed, " he pushed the matter so far 
 
yo Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 as to come to a solemn resolution never to laugh, and 
 to guard against the approaches of this paltry infirmit y, 
 never to speak even a little of worldly things." A man 
 who pushed his enthusiasm to such a point of trappistine 
 severity as this could not long associate on terms of 
 equality with rival teachers, nor did Wesley. Attempts 
 at mediation having failed, Zinzendorf himself came 
 over from Herrnhutt and had a long conversation with 
 Wesley in Gray's Inn Gardens. All was, however, 
 without effect. Wesley promised to consider what 
 Zinzendorf had advanced, but reconciliation was ob- 
 viously impossible. Even had the religious questions 
 been capable of adjustment their personal differences 
 were wholly incompatible. What Coleridge describes 
 as " Wesley's insulated and monocratic spirit " — in less 
 flattering phrase his domineering temper — was the im- 
 mediate cause of the breach, but the reason undoubtedly 
 lies in the deeper difference of national idiosyncrasy. 
 
 Apart from this occasion for separating himself 
 from the Moravians, another may be found in the 
 unwillingness of Wesley to submit himself to any 
 guidance or authority whatever. The Ritualists of 
 the present day are very anxious to claim Wesley as 
 one of themselves — one writer has, indeed, published 
 an elaborate work with the object of showing that 
 John Wesley was neither more nor less than a modern 
 High Churchman — and certainly so far as disregard 
 of the injunctions of ecclesiastical superiors is con- 
 cerned the claim may safely be allowed. Even this 
 rebelliousness of temper, however, can hardly be held 
 to extenuate the manner in which Wesley attacked 
 the Moravians after having broken off his direct re- 
 lations with them. In all his life there is nothing 
 more really painful than his violent assaults upon 
 
 
The Founder of Methodism. ji 
 
 these generally estimable men. He had lived amongst 
 them and had been in constant association with them, 
 both at Herrnhntt and in London, but he found no 
 fault with them. Other people were scandalized by 
 their wild, erotic and indecent talk : Wesley never 
 blamed it. It may be that his knowledge of German 
 was too imperfect to enable him to comprehend the 
 unutterable loathsomeness of some of their reveries, 
 but that he was wholly ignorant of their habitual 
 manner of dilating on certain subjects it is impossible 
 to believe. So soon, however, as he broke with them 
 he found them all that was objectionable. " The 
 Church of God at Herrnhutt in Upper Lusatia," was 
 no longer a church but a " palpable cheat." Of 
 Zinzendorf he could say, " Was there ever such a 
 Proteus under the sun as this Lord Fraydeck, Domine 
 de Thurstaine, &c, &c, for he has almost as many 
 names as he has shapes or faces ? " The Moravians 
 themselves he accused of cunning, of evasion, and of 
 disguise, and their tenets of setting fathers against 
 their children and children against their parents. 
 
 Viler charges soon followed. Persons who had for- 
 saken their society made foul and filthy accusations 
 against them, and those Wesley adopted and published 
 to the world with the sanction of his name. One 
 Rimius accused them of something equivalent to 
 polyandry. Wesley writes in his journal, " Mr. Rimius 
 has said nothing to what might have been said con- 
 cerning their marriage economy. I know a hundred 
 times more than he has written, but the particulars are 
 too shocking to relate. I believe no such things were 
 ever practised before ; no not among the most bar- 
 barous heathens." Wesley is thus condemned out of 
 his own mouth. If he knew of these abominations at 
 
72 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 all lie must have known of them at the very time 
 when he was engaged in writing his unctuous letters 
 to the " Church of God at Herrnhutt," and was be- 
 lieved by Zinzendorf to be the English head of a branch 
 of his own society. 2 
 
 It was, however, obviously necessary that the 
 English Methodists should separate from their German 
 co-religionists. The society had grown enormously, 
 and its ramifications were extending throughout the 
 entire kingdom. Working in the main side by side 
 with Wesley, Whitefield had brought the powers of 
 his wonderful natural eloquence to bear upon the 
 masses of the people, and on all sides the effect of a 
 great religious movement was making itself felt. The 
 movement was not, indeed, without its objectionable 
 side. Sober-minded people complained that religion 
 was too often divorced from morality, and that the 
 doctrines which the Wesleys taught tended towards 
 Antinomianism in its very worst form. The doctrines 
 of the " new birth " of " effectual calling,'' and of 
 11 final perseverance/ ' may indeed be true enough, or 
 rather may have their truthful side, but they are most 
 
 a "The first distinction of wisdom from above is purity, that is, 
 that it is free from carnal and spiritual pollution. But Methodism, 
 whatever be said of its paternity, which appears to have been from 
 Law's ' Christian Perfection ' and ' Serious Call/ books which mightily 
 impressed the soul of Mr. Wesley, cannot boast a very pure education, 
 for its cradle was rocked by Count Zinzendorf, the founder of the 
 Moravians, who, to say nothing of their hymn book, a mass of absurd 
 and filthy nonsense, adopted such profane and impure practices in the 
 consummation of marriage (or, as their ritual calls it, ' The Marriage 
 Economy ') as entitle them to be ranked not in the number of Christian 
 sects, but with the Turlupins of the thirteenth century, the ' Brothers 
 and Sisters of the Free Spirit,' whose creed was Pantheism, and whose 
 practice was exempt from all restraints of morality and religion." 
 Warburton, p. 526. 
 
The Founder of Methodism. 73 
 
 certainly capable of an utterly false and most dangerous 
 interpretation which, unquestionably, they not un- 
 frequently received. The preachers too were accused, 
 not always it is to be feared without reason, of exciting 
 the hysterical passions of their female hearers for evil 
 purposes. Against Wesley himself no breath of scandal 
 was ever uttered, yet he sanctioned and even encouraged 
 religious rhapsodies, which read like the ravings of 
 St. Teresa. More than this, Wesley stimulated the 
 insanities of his more excitable hearers to a very 
 dangerous extent. Constantly as we turn over his 
 journal, we come upon tales of persons falling into fits, 
 raving, shrieking, trembling, groaning, and suddenly 
 being " raised up full of peace and joy in the Holy 
 G-host. ,, Wesley seems to have accepted these displays 
 as miraculous testimonies to the truth of his mission. 
 Thus it is related at a comparatively early period of 
 his career that being at Bristol after Whitefield had 
 prepared the way for him by means of his marvellous 
 eloquence, he one day expounded the fourth chapter 
 of the Acts of the Apostles. The persons present 
 " called upon God to confirm his word. Immediately," 
 adds Wesley, " one that stood by to our no small sur- 
 prise, cried out aloud, with the utmost vehemence, 
 even as in the agonies of death, but we continued in 
 prayer till a new song was put into her mouth, even a 
 thanksgiving unto our God. Soon after two other 
 persons (well-known in this place as labouring to live 
 in all good conscience towards all men), were seized 
 with strong pain and constrained to roar for the dis- 
 quietness of their heart. But it was not long before 
 they likewise burst forth into praise to God their 
 Saviour." This occurs not once or twice but on al- 
 most every occasion of Wesley's preaching, and before 
 
74 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 long these ravings became a perfect disease. Hysterical 
 emotion was declared to be the distinct work of God, 
 and Wesley, instead of advising his hearers to privacy 
 and self-restraint, encouraged all these exhibitions to 
 the utmost of his power. His preachings rapidly be- 
 came a scandal. Scarcely had he begun to speak on 
 some occasions when the manifestations began; groan- 
 ing, weeping, loud outcries, and hysterical sobbings, 
 often drowned his voice, and many of the patients 
 exhibited all the symptoms of demoniacal possession, 
 which Wesley afterwards referred to as miraculous 
 evidences of the truth of his mission when controversy 
 on the subject was forced upon him. When Warburton 
 assailed him he appealed to his miracles : "I have seen 
 with my eyes," said he, " and heard with my ears 
 several things which to the best of my judgment can- 
 not be accounted for by the ordinary course of natural 
 causes, and which I therefore believe ought to be 
 ascribed to the extraordinary interposition of God. 
 If any man choose to call these miracles, I reclaim 
 not." And he instanced the case of one John Hay don 
 and the manner in which he by an effort of faith threw 
 off a violent fever which oppressed him. More offensive 
 in their way are, however, the repeated insinuations 
 that all who opposed Wesley's preachings, were the 
 special objects of Divine wrath, and consequently 
 punished with " grievous sickness and divers kinds of 
 plagues." Hints of this kind are found scattered 
 profusely through his journals, but the manifestations 
 to which reference is principally made, were those 
 which took place at the times of Wesley's preaching. 
 
 The scenes on some of these occasions appear to 
 have been equally shocking and scandalous, and they 
 naturally gave abundant ground for attack by Wesley's 
 
 
The Founder of Methodism . 7 5 
 
 opponents. Warburton in his examination of Wesley's 
 "Doctrine of Grace," makes a very powerful onslaught - 
 on these exhibitions. After denouncing with consider- 
 able energy the merciless character of Methodism as 
 evidenced by the complacency with which Wesley re- 
 cords every misfortune of his opponents as a Divine 
 judgment — an error into which Wesley constantly fell 
 — he pauses for a moment to inquire what were the 
 fruits of Wesley's proceedings. He quotes the famous 
 saying of St. James : — " Pure religion and undefiled 
 before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless 
 and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself un- 
 spotted from the world." These words Warburton 
 contrasts with the saying of Wesley : — " True religion 
 does not consist in any or all of these three things, the 
 living harmless, using the means of grace, and doing 
 much good." What Wesley meant by true religion 
 was " God's dwelling and reigning in the soul," and 
 in order to obtain the assurance of this indwelling, the 
 patient has to pass through a course of severe mental 
 torture. " As these, his spiritual cures (which he re- 
 ports with the exactness of a Hippocrates or a 
 Sydenham), are all the good fruits he pretends to, he 
 will not be displeased to have a few of the choicest of 
 them set in a fair light." What follows will not bear 
 condensation. " The condition of his audience on his 
 first operation upon them, is thus graphically described : 
 ' I preached in an open place two or three miles from 
 Newcastle ; the wind was high and extremely sharp ; 
 but I saw none go away until I went. Yet I observed 
 none seemed to be much convinced ; only stunned as 
 if cut in the head.' This was in order. They were 
 first to be stunned ; the watchman reason was to be 
 laid asleep before he could set fire to their imaginations. 
 
y6 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 But he brings them to their senses with a vengeance : 
 the vengeance of the devil. ' I felt the fire of hell 
 already kindled in my breast/ says one, ' and all my 
 body was in as much pain as if I had been in a burn- 
 ing fiery furnace.' ' I was interrupted,' says Mr. 
 Wesley, ' by the cries of one who was pricked at the 
 heart,' one of those, I suppose, who had before been 
 ■ cut in the head,' and having now got possession both 
 of the head and the heart, the game begins : ' Another 
 person dropped down. A little boy near him was 
 seized in the same manner. A young man who stood 
 behind fixed his eyes on him and sank down himself 
 as one dead, but soon began to roar out and beat him- 
 self on the ground, so that six men could scarcely hold 
 him. Meanwhile many others began to cry out to 
 the Saviour of all that he would come and help them, 
 insomuch that all the house and, indeed, all the street 
 for some space was in an uproar. . . Forty or fifty of 
 those who were seeking salvation, desired leave to 
 spend the night together in the society room. Before 
 ten I left them and laid down.' For our engineer had 
 so amply provided them with combustibles and so fitly 
 laid his train, that he knew they would take fire from 
 their own collisions. He was not disappointed. Be- 
 tween two and three in the morning he was awaked 
 and desired to come down stairs. ' I immediately,' says 
 he, 6 heard such a confused noise as if a number of 
 men were all putting to the sword. It increased when 
 I came into the room and began to pray,' &c. Others 
 went distracted and were tied down, raving on their 
 beds. And with this spiritual madness, he is so 
 enamoured that he calls it when at its height, ' a 
 glorious time.' " 
 
 This phase of enthusiasm lasted for no inconsiderable 
 
The Founder of Methodism. 77 
 
 time, and brought Wesley into communication with 
 certain Huguenot refugees — " French prophets," as— 
 they were popularly called — who had reduced bodily 
 contortion in the name of religion to a lucrative 
 profession. Wesley had at first been doubtful about 
 them and expressed an opinion that their emotion might 
 be " hysterical or artificial." They succeeded, however, 
 in making many converts amongst the Methodists at 
 Bristol, and when Wesley returned after a short 
 absence he found that other people were producing the 
 same miracles with himself. He preached from the 
 words "Woe unto the prophets, saith the Lord, who 
 prophesy in my name, and I have not sent them," and 
 whilst he was speaking eight of his hearers dropped 
 down convulsed — " the pains of hell came about them." 
 It is edifying to note that neither Wesley nor his 
 hearers questioned the Divine character of these exhibi- 
 tions for a moment. When the " French prophets " 
 went into seeming trances and produced convulsions 
 in their hearers, their work was an imposture or the 
 effect of natural causes ; but when Wesley's congrega- 
 tion raved and shrieked and groaned, it was because 
 they "terribly felt the wrath of God abiding upon 
 them," so that they were " constrained to roar aloud 
 while the sword of the Spirit was dividing asunder 
 their souls and spirits, and joints and marrow." 
 
 One person indeed, protested against these extrava- 
 gances — Wesley's elder brother Samuel — in an ad- 
 mirable and affectionate letter of remonstrance. These 
 remonstrances were repeated with some energy when 
 their mother, then an aged woman, approved the 
 whole of John Wesley's proceedings, and expressed 
 herself convinced of the truth of the dangerous 
 doctrine of " assurance." It is perhaps hardly necessary 
 
78 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 to say that the expostulation was unheeded. Samuel 
 Wesley died three weeks later, after an illness of three 
 hours, in " the sure and certain hope of a sincere and 
 humble Christian who trusted in the merits of his 
 Saviour and the mercy of his God," and he has since 
 had the honour of being abused by the fanatical part 
 of his brother's followers as " a worldly priest who 
 hated all pretence to more religion than our neighbours, 
 as an infallible mark of a dissenter." 
 
 This last letter is worthy of attention as illustrating 
 the schismatical form which the Methodist societies 
 were assuming. u They design separation," said 
 Samuel Wesley, and he went on to show how with the 
 best intentions they were cleaving the Church of 
 England in sunder. They were forbidden every purpit 
 in the diocese of London, and forbidden, it must be 
 added, entirely through their own extravagances. 
 Bishop Gibson, whom it is the unworthy fashion of the 
 present day to assail as a worldly-minded and cold- 
 hearted prelate, filled with all the pride of office and 
 revelling in luxury, was, much against his will, taunted 
 into inhibiting them ; so that to preach in his diocese 
 was, as Samuel Wesley put the matter, " actual 
 schism." In like manner the Bishop of Gloucester 
 (Warburton), had inhibited Whitefield, and it seemed 
 probable that before long every bishop in England 
 would follow the example. Yet Whitefield and the 
 Wesleys continued to preach in their meeting-rooms 
 and in the fields, using no portions of the liturgy, but 
 extemporizing their prayers as well as their sermons. 
 Wesley boasted that he differed in no point from the 
 Church of England, while on several points he pro- 
 claimed his utter dissent from the doctrines of the 
 professed dissenters. Yet it must have been as obvious 
 
The Founder of Methodism. 79 
 
 to observers of the eighteenth century, as it is to those 
 of the nineteenth, that the society which bears his name 
 could not long remain within the pale of the Church. 
 
 The various steps of the process seem natural enough. 
 The Wesleys began by preaching an enthusiastic and 
 dangerous doctrine for which it is difficult to find a 
 warrant in Scripture, and impossible to discover one in 
 the formularies of the Church of England. Before 
 long the ardent preaching of this doctrine threw the 
 hearers into convulsions and produced deplorable 
 scenes. The clergy not unnaturally refused the use 
 of their pulpits under such circumstances, and the 
 bishops seconding the obvious desire of their clergy 
 inhibited them. They were thus driven into the fields, 
 and as field-preaching is not always possible in the 
 English climate, they took to preaching in the meet- 
 ing-houses, which had served for their prayer-meetings 
 and love-feasts. Then lay-preachers were found to be 
 necessary, from the unwillingness of the clergy to 
 co-operate with them, and from the ardent zeal of 
 several members of the societies. And thus the organi- 
 zation grew up, always in subordination to John 
 Wesley as the head. The most important factor in 
 it was, however, the " class," which arose out of the 
 necessity for raising funds to relieve Wesley from the 
 burden of debt which he had assumed on account 
 of the meeting-house at Bristol. One of the body 
 proposed that each of the more wealthy and influential 
 members of the society should take charge of eleven 
 of the poorer, call upon them weekly and obtain a 
 contribution of a penny from such as could pay it, and 
 make up what was wanting. Wesley adopted the 
 suggestion readily, and it was soon found that the 
 " class " afforded an organization for a perfect 
 
80 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 system of inspection. The class-leader saw every 
 person under his care once a week, and offered him 
 advice, reproof, consolation, encouragement or exhor- 
 tation as his spiritual necessities appeared to demand. 
 Once a week also they met the minister and stewards 
 of the society to whom they delivered the contribu- 
 tions which they had collected, and to whom they 
 made their reports of the religious and bodily condi- 
 tion of the persons under their care. At first the 
 visits were made from house to house, but it was 
 found that so much time was consumed in that way 
 that weekly meetings were held. At these meetings 
 something of the nature of confession was practised, 
 and as Samuel Wesley very reasonably pointed out 
 in the letter to his mother to which reference has 
 been made, no little opposition was excited by the 
 knowledge that according to the rules of the society 
 every member of a class was engaged to relate every- 
 thing without reserve that concerned his or her con- 
 science, totally irrespective of the effect which might 
 be produced on other people. Parents and employers 
 naturally objected to a system which practically made 
 their private affairs the property, if not of the world 
 at large, at least of so much of it as was implied in a 
 class of a dozen persons with their relations and friends, 
 and it is to this circumstance in all probability that 
 the early Wesleyans were indebted for much of the 
 hostility of which they complain. 3 Such a society is 
 obviously alien to the spirit of the Church of England. 
 Guilds and benevolent associations have indeed been 
 formed at various times by her members, but they 
 
 3 It is worthy of remark that Charles Wesley at first admired the 
 class system, but before his death was wont to say that he " abomi- 
 nated " the band meetings. 
 
The Founder of Methodism. 81 
 
 have almost invariably been under the direction of the 
 parochial clergy, if they were to be worked with any 
 success. Wesley's system ignored the clergy altogether 
 and made him sole and responsible head of the society. 
 The very meeting-houses were his property — in trust, 
 it is true, and for the best of ends — but his to all in- 
 tents and purposes ; while from the first he constituted 
 himself sole arbiter in matters of faith and morals. 
 Over all these scattered congregations he exercised a 
 continuous oversight, travelling constantly from place 
 to place, and preaching continuously. The clergy 
 naturally refused their assistance. They objected 
 strongly to his theology, and still more to the physical 
 manifestations by which its preaching was accompanied, 
 while they looked with a not unreasonable jealousy upon 
 the growth of societies which, though they professed to 
 be within the Church, were obviously schismatical. The 
 institution of lay-preachers authorized and licensed 
 by Wesley alone, was a still greater stride in the direc- 
 tion of separation. Wesley indeed protested his at- 
 tachment to the doctrines and discipline of the Church 
 to the last, but his followers are not to be blamed if 
 they took the final step which severed them completely 
 from her. 
 
 It is customary to dwell with much energy upon the 
 iniquitous character of the opposition which Wesley 
 encountered at the hands of the bishops and clergy, 
 as well as of the civil authorities ; and recent writers, 
 not themselves remarkable for wisdom, discretion and 
 tolerance, have condemned with infinite vigour the 
 short-sightedness of the English hierarchy, in not 
 availing itself of Wesley's unrivalled eloquence to 
 strengthen their hold upon the nation. In the Roman 
 Church, we are told, such a man would have been en- 
 
 G 
 
82 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 couraged in every possible way, and would have become 
 a new St. Dominic, St. Francis or St. Ignatius. It is, 
 perhaps, permissible to doubt the accuracy of this 
 view, though it is supported with all the weight of that 
 eminent ecclesiastical authority the Daily Telegraph. 
 In the first place, had Wesley been a priest of the 
 Roman Church, his training would have been very 
 different, and he would have found himself compelled 
 to obey before he commanded ; while in the second, the 
 new doctrines which he taught would have been very 
 promptly suppressed, and he would have found him- 
 self more effectually muzzled than was ever actually 
 the case. As things were, he was allowed immense 
 latitude, and he repaid it by tolerably rancorous abuse 
 of all who differed from him, and by creating the one 
 great schism which has torn the Church of his baptism 
 in twain, since the Reformation. It will probably be 
 said that he was himself abused and so much may un- 
 questionably be granted. At the same time it must 
 be admitted that he tried the faith of his followers 
 somewhat severely and not unfrequently gave occasion 
 to the enemy to blaspheme. He appears to have be- 
 lieved himself possessed of absolutely miraculous 
 powers. " By thinking strongly on a text of Scripture 
 which promised that these signs should follow those 
 that believe," says Southey, " and by calling on Christ 
 to increase his faith and confirm the word of his grace, 
 he shook off instantaneously, he says, a fever which 
 had hung upon him for some days, and was in a 
 moment freed from all pain, and restored to his former 
 strength." Again : — He visited one of his flock at 
 night. The man was senseless, speechless, and pulse- 
 less, but Wesley and a few of his followers " joined in 
 prayer" over him, and before they had finished the 
 
The Founder of Methodism. 83 
 
 senses and the speech of the man returned. Other 
 signs and wonders followed, and Wesley's disordered 
 judgment accepted them as proofs of special Divine 
 favour. So much weight does he seem to have at- 
 tached to this matter that he seems to have believed 
 himself authorized to act as though above all law. 
 Mistaken though his judgment may have been, it is 
 difficult to imagine any extenuation for the violence 
 with which he was sometimes treated. The only ex- 
 cuse which can be offered for the conduct of the mob 
 and of its aiders and abettors is, that the times were 
 rough and violent, and that it is by no means easy to keep 
 a crowd within bounds when it is excited by religious 
 extravagances. Those whose memories carry them 
 back to the disturbances at St. George' s-in-the-East 
 a quarter of a century ago, will hardly be surprised 
 that a mob a hundred years earlier should have pelted 
 preachers whose ministrations very generally had the 
 effect of sending women into fits. 
 
 There is something more to be said. The Church 
 of England was unable to avail herself of his unques- 
 tionable powers, because in many respects his doctrine 
 was wholly opposed to her formularies and articles. 
 On these points he allowed no difference of opinion. 
 His preachers must teach the doctrines of " effectual 
 calling," an instantaneous deliverance from sin, " as- 
 surance " and " Christian perfection," or they were 
 no followers of his, and to these doctrines, which in 
 unlearned hands — such as those of the great majority 
 of the lay-preachers — have a strong tendency to An- 
 tinomianism with all its dangerous and immoral con- 
 sequences, the clergy entertained a strong objection. 
 It is very easy to blame them for refusing the use of 
 their pulpits to Wesley, but under the circumstances 
 
 g 2 
 
84 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 they were more than justified, and the attacks upon 
 them — which generally assume the form of accusations 
 of drunkenness and immorality — are wholly out of 
 place. It would be just as reasonable to complain 
 that the Bishop of Liverpool has not yet invited 
 Father Ignatius to commence a " mission " in his 
 cathedral — supposing him to possess one. 
 
 In the meantime, whilst Wesley was still professing 
 himself a presbyter of the Church of England, and 
 was engaged in conflict with her Bishops and Clergy, 
 the Methodist body grew up under his care to an impor- 
 tance second only to that of the Church itself. His own 
 account of the matter bears witness to his consummate 
 practical wisdom, and also it must be admitted to his 
 love of absolute power. The explanation was given 
 at one of his conferences, in reply to a question which 
 had probably been prearranged. He began by ex- 
 plaining that whereas Zinzendorf in his dealings with 
 the Moravians was always somewhat secretive, he 
 loved to do things openly, and would therefore tell 
 them all he knew of the matter. A few persons, 
 he explained, had come to him for spiritual counsel 
 and advice in London. Others had done the same 
 thing all over the country. His own desire had been 
 to live in retirement, but he felt when called upon that 
 he could not refuse his help. ''Here commenced my 
 power," he went on, " namely a power to appoint 
 when, where, and how they should meet ; and to re- 
 move those whose life showed that they had no desire 
 to flee from the wrath to come. And this power re- 
 mained the same whether the people meeting together 
 were twelve, twelve hundred, or twelve thousand." 
 These people then offered to subscribe money quarterly. 
 He replied that he would have nothing, because he 
 
The Founder of Methodism. 85 
 
 wanted nothing which his fellowship would not supply. 
 It was then represented that money was required to 
 pay for the lease of the foundry (in Moorfields, where 
 the meetings of the Methodists were held after their 
 separation from the Moravians), and for putting it in 
 repair. On that ground he allowed the subscription 
 and appointed stewards to receive and expend these 
 moneys. " Let it be remarked," said he, " it was I 
 myself, not the people, who chose the stewards, and 
 appointed each the distinct work wherein he was to 
 help me as long as I chose.' ' The lay-preachers were 
 appointed in the same way. They first offered to serve 
 him as sons, and on those terms he accepted them. His 
 power over the Conference rested upon the same plea 
 of prescription. He had invited the clergy who acted 
 with him, and all the lay-preachers to meet and advise 
 with him. " They did not," said he, " desire the 
 meeting, but I did ;" and he goes on to explain that 
 their functions were purely consultative, " I sent for 
 them to advise, not govern me." Nor did he divest 
 himself of any part of his power of admitting or ex- 
 cluding members, stewards, and helpers, or of direct- 
 ing any or all of them in what way they were to work 
 or where they were to execute their functions. 
 
 If Louis XI Y. could say with truth L'fitat c'est moi, 
 with even greater accuracy could Wesley claim the 
 Methodist body as his own. That body became in 
 this way one of the most singular hierarchies ever 
 created. At the apex was Wesley, and beneath him 
 in regular gradations came the stewards, the " helpers " 
 — now called by a more dignified name — and the as- 
 sistants who are now described as superintendents. 
 Beneath them in due order came the lay people, divided 
 into bands or classes of twelve, each with its appointed 
 
86 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 class-leader, and all owning distinct and unhesitating 
 obedience to Wesley. This was exacted most rigorously. 
 The preachers, for example, were very badly paid, and 
 some of them strove to augment their scanty incomes 
 by printing their sermons and hawking them about 
 when travelling. This Wesley forbade. He was him- 
 self a most voluminous writer and compiler, and the 
 preachers were consequently invited to sell his pro- 
 ductions as much as possible. More than this, he 
 made a rule that no preacher should print anything 
 whatever, so long as he remained in the Connexion, 
 without its being corrected by Wesley himself ; a rule 
 which was probably very necessary, as was also another 
 prohibiting the preachers occupying themselves with 
 the sale of " pills, balsams, drops or medicines of any 
 kind." 4 Obedience of the same unquestioning charac- 
 
 4 Not content with supplying medicine for the soul, however, Wesley 
 at one time ventured upon the publication of a hook of medicine for 
 the body. " Primitive Physick," as he called this farrago of absurdities, 
 went through thirty editions before 1824; but it is now, one is glad 
 to believe, out of print. Some idea of the extraordinary nature of the 
 practice may be gathered from a few of the prescriptions, taken at 
 random. For one disease, the patient is directed to take an ounce of 
 (t live mercury " every morning and a pint of " aqua sulphurata " 
 (diluted sulphuric acid) every afternoon. For intus-susception a 
 pound of mercury is to be swallowed. For an ague, pounded and salted 
 wall-flowers are to be applied to the head. In an apoplexy, a pint of 
 salt and water must be got into the stomach of the patient, and it 
 will certainly bring him round. In the case of a violent bleeding at 
 the nose a piece of white paper must be put under the tongue. For a 
 cancer in the breast the patient is to drink an infusion of the warts 
 from a horse's leg in a pint of warm ale, and to apply goose-dung 
 externally. For a cold in the head the rind of an orange is to be 
 turned inside out and thrust up the nostrils. For a consumption, the 
 patient is to cut a hole in fresh turf and breathe into it for a quarter 
 of an hour every morning. For a fresh cut we are to apply a poultice 
 of toasted cheese ; and for a speck in the eye, to blow into it the dried 
 
The Founder of Methodism . 8 7 
 
 ter was exacted from every member of the society, 
 even down to the duty of public confession in the class, 
 until every individual fell into his exact place in the 
 hierarchical order. • 
 
 There were, however, many points in Wesley's 
 system which are open to grave objection. Finding 
 that some converted colliers at Kingswood had replaced 
 their habit of sitting at the ale-house the greater part 
 of the night by praying and singing hymns in the 
 schoolroom until far into the small hours, he sanctioned 
 the " watch-night " as a regular institution, allowing 
 his followers to meet " once a month, near the time 
 of the full moon " — an arrangement which has had the 
 natural effect of producing a plentiful crop of scandals. 
 "Love-feasts " — an imitation of the ancient 'AyaTrrj — 
 were also instituted, with, it is said in too many cases, 
 a similar result. " Bands," — associations, that is to 
 say, of members of the society who had attained to 
 " Christian perfection " — were also formed. Wesley 
 says of them that his " design was not only to direct 
 them to press after perfection, to exercise their every 
 grace, and improve every talent they had received 
 and to incite them to love one another more, and to 
 watch more carefully over each other ; but also to 
 have a select company to whom I might unbosom my- 
 self on all occasions without reserve, and whom I could 
 propose to all their brethren as patterns of love, of 
 holiness, and of all good works." The idea of these 
 " bands " with their members boasting a sinless per- 
 fection was due to the Moravians, but Wesley 
 maintained them long after his separation from that 
 
 and fine powder of the zibethum occidentale — a cleanly and delicate 
 preparation, for the meaning of which the reader may be referred to the 
 manuals of physic in vogue in the middle ages. 
 
SS Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 body. In the end, however, they were fonnd to 
 foster spiritual pride to so obnoxious a degree that 
 they had to be given up. It was not so with the 
 " class " upon which indeed the whole system of 
 Methodism rests, and which appears to embody every 
 one of the worst evils of the Roman confessional 
 without one of its counterbalancing advantages. In 
 theory there is much to be said in defence of the 
 practice of confession to a priest. Granting that he 
 is the appointed representative of God and that he 
 has the power of declaring the remission of sins, there 
 is nothing more natural than for the " sin- sick soul " 
 to seek counsel of such a spiritual physician and 
 obtain his medicaments. The implicit secrecy of the 
 confessional takes away moreover many of the ob- 
 jections which otherwise suggest themselves to the 
 system. But the same arguments do not apply to 
 the class-meeting, where there is no spiritual physician 
 of greater weight than the class-leader, and where 
 every member of the class is expected to answer 
 publicly the following questions :--" What known sin 
 have you committed since our last meeting ? What 
 temptations have you met with ? How were you de- 
 livered? What have you thought, said, or done, 
 of which you have any doubt whether it is a sin or 
 not ? " Such questions are, of course, never an- 
 swered fully, but enough may be said to do an im- 
 mense amount of mischief, and a secret told to a 
 dozen people is no secret at all. What is perhaps 
 worse is the amount of spiritual pride which such a 
 system infallibly fosters. Wesley himself appears to 
 have recognized none of these evils, though his 
 brothers with more acuteness, discerned them at once. 
 It is not a little surprising that the laity did not rise in 
 
The Founder of Methodism. 89 
 
 protest against this monstrous system, at all events to 
 the point of preventing their wives and daughters 
 from taking part in it. 
 
 Having thus established the Methodist body in 
 England, it is not surprising that Wesley should have 
 watched its growth in other countries with eager in- 
 terest. It cannot be said, however, that the course 
 which he saw fit to adopt with reference to the 
 Methodist society in America, was remarkable for its 
 wisdom or for its consistency with his often repeated 
 protests of loyalty to the Church of his baptism. 
 The story as told by his biographers is a long one, 
 but its main facts lie in a very small compass. Metho- 
 dism, it would seem, was first planted in America in 
 1768, and grew with so much rapidity that by 1773 its 
 adherents numbered about a thousand. When the dis- 
 putes between England and her colonies broke out, 
 Wesley wrote and published, " A Calm Address to 
 the Americans," in which he examined the question 
 whether the English Parliament had power to tax the 
 colonies, deciding in favour of the pretension both on 
 legal and on moral grounds, while he argued strongly 
 against the support which the American cause received 
 in this country as being offered by persons whose 
 sole object was the overthrow of the Government. 
 This address 5 excited great indignation in this country 
 amongst those who were not Methodists, and espe- 
 
 5 In itself it was little more than a popular exposition of the 
 theories enunciated by Johnson in his well-known pamphlet " Taxation 
 no Tyranny ;" and as such it was accepted by Johnson himself. "I 
 have thanks likewise to return you," says Johnson in a letter to Wesley 
 preserved amongst the Harwood MSS., " for the addition of your 
 important suffrage to my argument on the American question. To 
 have gained such a mind as yours may justly confirm me in my own 
 opinion." 
 
90 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 cially among the political dissenters, one of whom — 
 a Baptist preacher named Caleb Evans, of Bristol — 
 wrote a pamphlet in reply, which brought the saintly 
 Fletcher of Madeley to the defence of his leader. The 
 pamphlet itself did not reach the Americans, a friend 
 to the Methodists having obtained possession of all 
 the copies which were sent to New York, and care- 
 fully suppressed them out of fear of the consequences 
 to their luckless readers in the then condition of the 
 American temper. It was, however, impossible al- 
 together to conceal the real character of Wesley's 
 views, and although he urged upon his preachers in 
 America the duty of abstaining from political strife, 
 and of acting as peacemakers on all occasions, the 
 Methodists became objects of suspicion during the 
 war, and their preachers were not unfrequently sub- 
 jected to the ignominy of " tarring and feathering," or 
 " riding on a rail." Still, however, the body increased 
 until in J 777 the Methodists numbered 7000, ministered 
 to by forty teachers. When the war was over, religious 
 matters were found to be in a bad way. Throughout 
 the Southern States the prevailing form of faith had 
 been that of the Church of England, but the clergy 
 being of course loyalists, had been driven away during 
 the war. The rebels furthermore confiscated the 
 church-property, and when peace was made resolutely 
 refused to restore it, or to make any attempt what- 
 ever to provide for the maintenance of religion. 
 Members of the Episcopal Church — which Methodists 
 then were — thus found themselves in an evil case. 
 They had none to baptize their children, to marry them, 
 to administer the sacraments to the living, or to bury 
 the dead. Sundry efforts were made to remedy this 
 state of things. Two young Americans came over in 
 
The Founder of Methodism. 91 
 
 hope of getting episcopal ordination, but the then 
 Archbishop of Canterbury refused them on the ground 
 of their inability to take the oath of allegiance. In the 
 emergency they applied to Franklin, then American 
 Minister in Paris, and from him they received the 
 characteristic advice to turn Presbyterians, or else to 
 elect a bishop of their own. Something of the kind had, 
 indeed, already been done. Amongst the missionaries 
 sent out by Wesley, had been one Asbury — a man of 
 saintly character, and in many ways the counterpart of 
 Wesley himself. In the progress of the war he had 
 become the head of the Methodist body, and to him 
 they naturally applied themselves. He counselled 
 patience, but they were naturally unwilling to wait, 
 and breaking off their connexion with him and conse- 
 quently with Wesley, they elected three of the oldest 
 amongst them to ordain others by the imposition of 
 hands. Asbury' s influence was sufficiently potent to 
 heal this schism, and by the time the war had ended 
 they were ready for whatever remedy Wesley could 
 suggest. 
 
 The remedy came in due time, and it certainly was 
 a bold one, being, as it was, nothing less than a 
 complete schism from the Church of England, and 
 the creation of a new Episcopate deriving its orders 
 from the consecrating hands of Wesley himself. He 
 had, it appears, read Lord King's " Account of the 
 Primitive Church," which had convinced him, as ap- 
 parently he desired to be convinced, that bishops and 
 presbyters were identical — a fact which has more than 
 once given rise to the remark that we are easily per- 
 suaded when convenience or inclination are involved. 
 Wesley had, however, a certain amount of justification 
 for the course which he took. The result of the war 
 
92 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 had been, as lie pointed out, to totally separate the 
 American colonies from the mother country. The 
 new constitution provided for the Civil Government 
 of the State, but left ecclesiastical matters untouched. 
 At home he had refused to ordain his travelling 
 preachers, but in America the case was different. 
 Here there were bishops : there, there were none. To 
 supply the void, therefore, Wesley called Dr. Coke 
 to his assistance, and having convinced him by the 
 help of Lord King's book, that a priest and a bishop 
 were the same thing, consecrated him Bishop out of 
 hand. A Mr. Creighton, also a clergyman who had 
 become a member of the Methodist Connexion was 
 associated with them, and together they ordained 
 two of the lay-preachers as presbyters, for America, 
 Dr. Coke being afterwards ordained "superintendent." 
 Superintendent and bishop being the same thing, it is 
 not quite easy to guess why Wesley should have 
 deemed this second ordination necessary, but Wesley 
 was not in a mood to make nice distinctions. It is, 
 however, remarkable that in the letters of ordination 
 with which he furnished Dr. Coke, the word " Bishop " 
 does not occur. The expression is, " I have this day 
 set apart as a superintendent by the imposition of my 
 hands and prayer (being assisted by other ordained 
 minister s)." 
 
 That Wesley was perfectly at ease in his own mind 
 as to the part which he acted on this occasion, is by 
 no means certain. There is a story, indeed, of his 
 having applied to a Greek bishop for episcopal conse- 
 cration, which his followers deny, but which there is 
 no apparent reason for disbelieving. Be this as it 
 may, the assumption of episcopal authority was uni- 
 versally regarded as a sign of his determination to 
 
The Founder of Methodism. 93 
 
 separate himself and his followers from communion 
 with the Church of England ; and the principal person 
 who so treated it was no other than his brother 
 Charles, whose connexion with Methodism ceased 
 from this time forward. He died a few years later, 
 and was buried in the churchyard of Marylebone, his 
 pall being supported by eight clergymen of the English 
 Church, his attachment to which had, he protested to 
 the last, never wavered. 
 
 The end came to John Wesley ere many years were 
 over, but his wonderful constitution kept him an ac- 
 tive man until the last. Even in his eighty-sixth year he 
 continued to preach twice daily, rising at four o'clock 
 every morning, and preaching his first sermon at five. 
 On the 1st of February, 1791, he wrote his last letter 
 to America, calling upon his followers there on no 
 account to separate themselves from their brethren on 
 this side of the Atlantic. His conviction of the im- 
 minence of his death is expressed in a very remarkable 
 sentence, " time has shaken me by the hand, and death 
 is not far behind." On the 17th of the same month he 
 preached at Lambeth and caught cold after the ser- 
 vice was over. His indomitable spirit refused, how- 
 ever, to succumb ; and he continued to preach until 
 the following Wednesday (the 23rd), when he delivered 
 his last sermon. From that time he sank gradually 
 into weakness and lethargy, until on the 2nd of March 
 his soul passed painlessly away. He was in the eighty- 
 eighth year of his age; and for sixty-five years he 
 had, without interruption, exercised the functions of 
 his ministry. His complete separation from the Church 
 of England was emphasized by the circumstances of 
 his funeral, which took place in the chapel in the City 
 Road, and at which, though the service used was that 
 
94 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 of the Prayer Book, the officiant was his attached col- 
 league and associate Mr. Richardson. His funeral 
 was plain and unostentatious, in accordance with his 
 particular desire, which was, " that there may be no 
 hearse, no coach, no escutcheon, no pomp except the 
 tears of them that loved me, and are following me to 
 Abraham's bosom. " Seven-and-thirty years before, 
 in anticipation of death from what he believed to be 
 consumption, he had composed his own epitaph, 
 in which he declared that he died " not leaving, after 
 his debts were paid, ten pounds behind him." When 
 death really came at the last, the proposed epitaph 
 was as true as it had been. Whatever else he 
 may have gained, Wesley certainly profited but little 
 in a worldly point of view by his labours. His life 
 had been one of unremitting toil : he lived always on 
 the plainest possible food, and at his death he left 
 behind him absolutely nothing but the copyrights and 
 current editions of his various works, which were 
 heavily burdened with a debt to the family of his 
 brother Charles. 
 
 In estimating the character of Wesley it is difficult 
 in the extreme to be impartial. To his followers it 
 presents itself as wholly perfect and flawless, whilst on 
 the other hand thousands of thoroughly religious 
 people can see in him only a wild and mistaken 
 enthusiast. As usual the truth will probably be 
 found to lie between the two extremes. The notion 
 which at one time prevailed that he was a hypo- 
 crite or an impostor, may be at once dismissed. 
 He was neither the one nor the other, but a man of 
 perfect purity of intention, animated from his earliest 
 days to the hour of his death, by the sincerest desire 
 to promote the glory of God, and to rescue sinners 
 
The Founder of Methodism. 95 
 
 from the destruction which in his belief awaited them. 
 " Wesley," said Dr. Johnson on one occasion, " thought 
 of religion only." But that his judgment and discretion 
 were always equal in excellence to his intentions, can 
 hardly be pretended even by those who most reverence 
 the saintliness of his character. When he began to 
 work the Church of England had sunk into a torpor 
 from which it was necessary that she should be roused. 
 Such a lethargy was, however, not surprising. For 
 two centuries England had been afflicted with the 
 odium theologicum. Her Church had been reformed 
 by Henry VIII. ; re-reformed by Mary ; re-constituted 
 on a new basis under Elizabeth ; practically abolished 
 by the Commonwealth, and restored by an indignant 
 nation under Charles II. After such a series of con- 
 vulsions, nothing was more natural than the desire for 
 peace which animated the mass of the people who, 
 whatever may have been their speculative opinions, 
 clung as a body with singular tenacity to the Church 
 during the whole period from the Restoration until 
 1830. Natural though it was, however, the lethargy, 
 which had crept over the spiritual life of England, 
 under the rule of William III., and which continued 
 under Anne and the Georges, was hardly healthy, and 
 in the eyes of a man of Wesley's character must have 
 been shocking in the extreme. And with him to dis- 
 cern an evil or a wrong, meant taking instant steps 
 to remedy it. The point open to criticism is, of course, 
 the nature of the steps so taken, and here it is that 
 Wesley appears to have been at fault. With the best 
 intentions in the world he fell into the error of sup- 
 posing that the world was to be reformed by a realiza- 
 tion of the mystical reveries of the German dreamers, 
 and he involved himself still farther by adopting a 
 
96 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 system of theology which placed belief in the position 
 which the Sermon on the Mount, and the Epistle of 
 St. James, assign to action. He complicated matters 
 still further by the encouragement which his system 
 afforded to enthusiasm and extravagance of every 
 kind. He had to deal with ignorant people — indeed 
 Methodism has at no time made way with the highly 
 educated and intellectual class — and he appears to 
 have ignored the patent fact that amongst the igno- 
 rant, faith speedily degenerates into superstition, 
 while the appetite for signs and wonders is insatiable. 
 Signs and wonders being demanded, they were of 
 course produced in abundance, and Wesley, not merely 
 listened to the crazy tales which were told to him, but 
 implicitly accepted them as signs of the Divine charac- 
 ter of his mission. More than this, he imagined that 
 he too possessed the power of working miracles, and 
 his diary contains not a few stories which, for the sake 
 of his own character, he would have shown greater 
 wisdom in suppressing. But wisdom was not pre- 
 eminently characteristic of John Wesley. With all 
 his virtues, and they were supreme, he was lacking 
 in that discretion which a more worldly-minded per- 
 son would have possessed. The statesman who com- 
 plained that " had not a single redeeming vice about 
 
 him," had more reason on his side, than most people 
 imagine. The one failing of Wesley was, that he was 
 in many ways too good, and was wholly above the 
 vice of scepticism. Yet a little wholesome scepticism 
 would have kept him from swallowing all the absurdi- 
 ties of the Moravians and the still greater follies of 
 his own followers. He would have seen that the cases 
 which he explained on the hypothesis of diabolical 
 possession were really cases of hysteria, and that con- 
 
TJie Founder of Methodism. 97 
 
 scious or unconscious imposture had not a little to do 
 with those shocking exhibitions of emotion to which he 
 confidently appealed as proofs of his authority. And 
 furthermore being one of the most devoted men 
 that ever breathed, he fancied an equal measure of 
 devotion possible in those with whom he dealt. Hence 
 the disastrous failure of the Kingswood School. It 
 was started with excellent intentions, but a more 
 absurd institution never sprang from a pedant's brain. 
 The children were to rise at four in summer and winter 
 alike ; they were to spend an hour in private in read- 
 ing, singing, prayer, and self-examination. From five 
 to seven they breakfasted and worked, always under 
 the eye of a master. They were to be altogether pre- 
 vented from playing, and they were to work in school 
 from seven to eleven, and from one to five. Their food 
 was to be the simplest possible, and on Wednesdays 
 and Fridays no meat was allowed. The school was, in 
 a sense, typical of its founder. All the institutions for 
 which he is responsible, make as little allowance for 
 the weaknesses of human nature, and as a consequence 
 in aiming at an ideal perfection have an unfortunate 
 tendency to make men hypocrites. 
 
 For the rest it cannot be doubted that the powerful 
 principle of religion which Wesley and his followers 
 diffused, has in the main produced good effects. 
 Many men and many women have been reclaimed from 
 evil courses and sinful lives, and many have been sus- 
 tained in a very remarkable way under poverty and 
 afflictions which might have daunted the strongest 
 spirits. In death too, the soothing and healing power 
 of religion has seldom been more strikingly exemplified 
 than amongst the Wesleyan Methodists. That their 
 theology is defective, and that it tends sometimes 
 
 h 
 
98 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 almost in the direction of immorality may be admitted, 
 but at the same time it is impossible to deny that some 
 of its worst features were the direct result of Wesley's 
 earnest repudiation of the doctrines associated with the 
 name of Calvin, which for more than a century had 
 cast a black shadow over the religious life of England. 
 Of the schism in the Church of England which Wesley 
 created it is less easy to speak with indulgence, but it 
 requires no especial perspicacity to discover that if he 
 could have foreseen the lengths to which his followers 
 would go, he would have carefully guarded against the 
 division which lie fancied had become inevitable. The 
 last thing which the author of the " Calm Address to 
 the Americans/' and the steady opponent of Dr. Price 
 the Unitarian, would have desired, was assuredly the 
 creation of the huge dissenting organization, the mem- 
 bers of which appear to be in too many instances 
 animated rather by a hatred of the Church of England 
 than by a love for that spiritual religion of which John 
 Wesley was the ardent and faithful exponent. Yet 
 that the Methodist Society must inevitably assume 
 that character was from the first evident to not a few 
 of Wesley's best friends, and it is not a little singular 
 that he — in other respects one of the shrewdest of men 
 — should have failed to appreciate the truth. That he 
 did not is quite certain, at all events, until very shortly 
 before the close of his life. After his consecration of 
 Dr. Coke, however, it is absurd to talk of Wesley as 
 some of his later admirers have thought fit to do, as 
 having always been a true son of the Church of England. 
 One point yet remains to be noticed — the fact that 
 Wesley addressed himself almost exclusively to the 
 lower classes. Whitefield had the Countess of Hun- 
 tingdon to support him, and in his congregations 
 
 
The Founder of Methodism. 99 
 
 maids of honour and lords of the bedchamber jostled 
 the vilest and the most depraved of both sexes. But 
 with Wesley matters were very different. He found 
 his audience less amongst the openly vicious and 
 criminal, than amongst the more seriously disposed of 
 the poorer classes, and his congregations were seldom 
 swelled by the great and powerful. The explanation is 
 probably to be found in the fact that Wesley preached 
 a systematic religion which permeated every action of: 
 life, and which was maintained by an organization at 
 the root of which lies the class with its weekly meetings 
 and its penny a week contributions from all the faith- 
 ful. Whitefield, on the other hand, preached a strongly 
 emotional religion which readily adapted itself to any 
 system, and the tenets of which might be held equally 
 by members of the Church of England and by the most 
 dissident of dissenters. The consequences are what 
 we see. Whitefieldism is practically extinct. There 
 are, it is true, a few chapels which still bear the name 
 of the Countess of Huntingdon, but their number 
 dwindles year by year, and the followers of that par- 
 ticular cult show signs of absorption at no remote 
 period in the great body of Congregationalist or Inde- 
 pendent dissenters, from whom indeed, as far as reli- 
 gious belief is concerned, they differ little if at all. 
 Wesley anism on the contrary, is more vigorous than 
 ever, thanks mainly to Wesley's genius for organization. 
 On all sides the chapels of the sects are multiplied, and 
 with the increasing wealth of the age they have grown 
 in splendour and commodiousness. Still, however, is 
 it true that " not many wise men after the flesh, 
 not many mighty, not many noble " are to be found 
 amongst the members of the society. Now exactly as 
 in Wesley's time, the system attracts almost exclusively 
 
 11 2 
 
ioo Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 the members of the lower section of the middle and the 
 upper rank of the working classes, and it is Wesley's 
 greatest glory that his life was devoted to the creation 
 and elaboration of a system which made religion vital 
 amongst a number of persons who are usually found to 
 be most utterly impervious to its influences. 
 
TOT 
 
 CHARLES CHURCHILL— PARSON AND POET. 
 
 The student of literature, in examining the armory of 
 the satirists, cannot fail to be struck by the variety of 
 weapons which he finds in that vast storehouse. The 
 terrible battle-axe of Juvenal, the keen and delicate 
 dagger of Horace, the trenchant blade of Dryden, the 
 small sword of Boileau, the venomed rapier of Pope, the 
 scourge of small cords of Moore, the big blunderbuss 
 of Theodore Hook, and the jewelled lancet of Jerrold, 
 by turns attract his attention. The man whose name 
 stands at the head of this page, though one of the 
 company of satirists, used, however, none of these 
 weapons. It is true that he wielded sometimes an arm 
 scarcely inferior in power and keenness to the weapon 
 of Dryden, and that, in isolated passages, he is some- 
 times not inferior in delicacy and precision to Pope ; 
 but neither of these was, properly speaking, his model. 
 He was a writer of intense and original genius, and 
 preferred indubitably to do his fighting with weapons 
 of his own choosing. The favourite was one like that 
 of Giant Despair — " a grievous crab-tree cudgel," — not 
 in itself a bad weapon, nor by any means unfit for the 
 foes with whom he had to cope, yet one from which 
 small glory was to be gained, if indeed its use have not 
 had a prejudicial effect upon his reputation. That 
 reputation has, in truth, sunk very low in these latter 
 days, so that it is now considered a mark of pedantry 
 to quote him, and of want of taste to admire him. 
 
102 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 Various causes may be assigned for this declensiou in 
 popular esteem, over and above the occasional rough- 
 nesses of his style ; — first and chiefly, the inferiority of 
 his subjects. Pope himself — despite his magnificent 
 genius for versification — could scarcely have made 
 much of Sandwich, Dashwood, and Bubb Dodington ; 
 while his literary quarrels were with a crew of hireling 
 malignants, upon whom " satire and sense " were alike 
 wasted. Again, it must be remembered that Churchill 
 was prodigal of fame. One of the most careless of 
 writers, he revised little and pruned less. Correction 
 lie detested, calling it " cutting away his own flesh," 
 while his need of money constantly forced him to publish 
 solely for the sake of pecuniary gain. Consequently, 
 as the elder Disraeli observes, justly enough in the 
 main, "he enjoyed all his revenues while he lived; 
 posterity owes him little, and pays him nothing." 
 Yet, in spite of all his faults, of all his carelessness, 
 recklessness, and extravagance, there is something 
 wonderfully attractive in the physiognomy of the 
 " fighting parson," as his rough, pugnacious, yet 
 kindly face gleams upon us through the dim perspec- 
 tive of history. His life, too, was passed in the midst 
 of great and stirring excitements, social and political ; 
 and this alone is sufficient reason for his astonishing 
 popularity during life, and the decline in his reputation 
 after his death. 
 
 The school of artificial poets, which commenced 
 with the immediate predecessors of Dryden, had found 
 its most glorious follower in Pope, who was at the 
 zenith of his fame in the year of Churchill's birth — 17ol. 
 The impression he produced upon English literature 
 was one not altogether good ; but the school of servile 
 imitators which he founded can scarcely have dreamed 
 
Charles Churchill — Parson and Poet. 103 
 
 at this time of the revulsion in public taste towards a 
 more masculine model, which was to be brought about 
 by the child that was born in this year. The time for 
 his work soon came, however. He was hardly thirty 
 when his first work appeared. In the mean time he 
 had gone through that jeunesse orageuse which seems 
 the inevitable preparation with so many poets and men 
 of genius for noble work. Let us glance for a moment 
 over the events of those thirty years. His father, 
 curate of St. John the Evangelist, Westminster, held 
 also the living of Rainham, in Essex. Pluralist though 
 he was, he was miserably poor; but he managed to 
 educate his sons respectably. Charles was the eldest, 
 and was sent to Westminster at eight years of age. 
 The school was in high reputation in those days : 
 Nichols was head master; Johnson, afterwards a bishop, 
 second. Dr. Pierson Lloyd, who afterwards became 
 head master, was usher at the fourth form, and Vincent 
 Bourne, dear to the lovers of elegant Latinity, at the 
 fifth. Churchill was a sturdy, idle, yet clever boy, 
 apparently always in scrapes, yet contriving to extri- 
 cate himself without much difficulty, and to win the 
 love of his masters, one of whom, Lloyd, was to the 
 day of his death his kindest friend. His schoolfellows 
 became noticeable men, — Warren Hastings, Richard 
 Cumberland, Robert Lloyd, Greorge Colman, and last, 
 but not least, William Cowper, were amongst them. 
 The friendship he formed with the third and last of 
 these endured through life ; Lloyd, indeed, died of 
 grief on hearing of his death, and Cowper has celebrated 
 the " great Churchill " in verse and prose. Young 
 though they were, these boys appear to have had a 
 love for letters, and Churchill would seem to have 
 been in no way behindhand amongst the " little poets 
 
104 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 of Westminster " of whom Cowper speaks, who 
 " would strive to set a distich upon six and five." 
 Had he been then encouraged he would probably have 
 devoted himself to literature, but unhappily his father 
 had other views for him. As he says in the " Author," 
 published in 1763, he was — 
 
 Born to the Church, and for the gown decreed, 
 Ere it was known that he should learn to read, — 
 
 a most unwise decision, as matters turned out, since 
 to it may be traced most of the errors and follies which 
 disgraced his life. He stood for the Westminster 
 scholarship, but failed to obtain it ; presented him- 
 self at Oxford for matriculation, but either laughed 
 at the examiners or refused to answer their simple 
 questions, as below his dignity. Then he tried Cam- 
 bridge, and was entered of Trinity College. Mathe- 
 matics were probably not his forte ; but whatever 
 may have been the reason, his stay in Cambridge 
 was of the briefest, — one term at the most was its 
 limit. Returned to London, and established in his 
 father's house at Westminster, he was next guilty of 
 the greatest folly of his life — that which, combined 
 with his future assumption of the sacred office, perverted 
 his aims and infused bitterness into the sweetest cup 
 which popular applause could offer. He was, in short, 
 married within the rules of the Fleet, to a vulgar and 
 commonplace Westminster girl named Scot. The mar- 
 riage was ill-assorted, and came to its natural end in a 
 very few years — when, by mutual consent, the husband 
 and wife separated for ever. 
 
 On the discovery of his marriage his father received 
 him into his house, and he set quietly to work to 
 qualify for orders, which in those days, as in these, 
 
Charles Churchill — Parson and Poet. 105 
 
 he could do without a degree. Having reached the 
 canonical age, he was ordained deacon by Dr. Willis, the~ 
 then Bishop of Bath and "Wells, and after acting for 
 some little time as. curate in the village of South 
 Cadbury, on the borders of Wiltshire, he was ordained 
 priest by Sherlock, then Bishop of London, on the 
 curacy of his father's charge at Eainham. He fairly 
 hated his profession, was a dull preacher, and a worse 
 parish priest. He says himself, indeed, that " sleep, 
 at his bidding, crept from pew to pew ; " whilst the 
 volume of sermons published after his death proves 
 painfully how little his heart was in his work. His 
 father gave him the curacy of Eainham ; but the 
 stipend was too small for him to live, and he was com- 
 pelled to open a school — last refuge of a poverty- 
 stricken scholar. Even that miserable expedient was 
 failing when his father died, and the parishioners of 
 St. John, with whom the choice lay, elected the son to 
 succeed him. Back to Westminster he came accord- 
 ingly; but the change was little to his advantage. 
 " The emoluments of his situation," says Dr. Kippis, 
 " not amounting to a full hundred pounds a year, in 
 order to improve his finances, he undertook to teach 
 young ladies to read and write English with propriety 
 and correctness, and was engaged for this purpose in 
 the boarding-school of Mrs. Dennis. Mr. Churchill 
 conducted himself in his new employment with all the 
 decorum becoming his clerical profession." Probably 
 he did ; but it is easy to fancy how his eager heart 
 was beating itself out against the prison-bars of his 
 outward circumstances, daily yearning more impatiently 
 for the period of his emancipation from a service which 
 he regarded as but a grinding slavery. 
 
 Thus returned to his old situation and associates, 
 
106 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 the old temptations resumed their place with tenfold 
 power. He rushed into a whirlpool of dissipation; 
 very wrong, certainly, but, let us hope, not inexcusa- 
 bly so. He was poor, in debt, unhappy in his marriage 
 relations ; he had executions constantly in his house, 
 and was ever in fear of arrest : can it be a matter for 
 surprise, then, that he chose to flee from himself and 
 to drown the memory of his cares in dissipation and 
 uproarious company ? One good Samaritan came 
 to his help. His former tutor, Dr. Lloyd, inter- 
 fered, met his creditors with an offer of composition, 
 and lent the sum necessary for its completion. It 
 is worthy of mention, that when the frowns of for- 
 tune were turned to smiles, Churchill honourably 
 repaid his creditors every shilling he owed them, with 
 interest, and was not forgetful of the good friend who 
 had helped him out of this slough of debt. If Dr. 
 Lloyd had desired, however, to win back his quondam 
 pupil to the service of the Church to which he belonged, 
 he was already too late. She had ceased to have any 
 hold over him, and the period of professional author- 
 ship was about to commence. 
 
 A very few months had passed since Robert Lloyd, 
 weary of gerund-grinding in Westminster School, 
 deserted his ushership to make his appearance before 
 the world as author of " The Actor," a poetical epistle 
 addressed to his and Churchill's friend, Bonnel Thorn- 
 ton. The poem chanced to be successful (though it 
 has now been long forgotten), and its author was 
 declared by the critics to be a true poet, and entitled 
 to a high place in literature. Encouraged by his 
 friend's good fortune, and feeling the " divine afflatus " 
 stirring within him, Churchill determined on imitating 
 him, and soon offered his first work to the booksellers. 
 
Charles Churchill — Parson and Poet. 107 
 
 This was a poem in Hudibrastic verse, entitled " The 
 Bard :" but it was probably very weak, since the book- 
 sellers one and all rejected it, and the author never 
 allowed it to see the light, even when his fame would 
 have sold anything. Losing no time in vain complaints 
 over the insensibility of publishers to works of genius, 
 he tried his hand again, directing his satire this time 
 against the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, against 
 whom he had a particular grudge. This would doubt- 
 less have been published, since neither Dr. Pearce nor 
 his colleagues were by any means popular; but the 
 cautious bookseller obtained a legal opinion, which was 
 so decided as to the libellous character of the work, 
 that it was necessarily withheld. A second failure 
 such as this would have daunted some men — not so 
 with Churchill. He made a third effort, profiting by 
 past experience, and choosing a wider subject. During 
 two months he attended the theatres diligently, and. at 
 the end of that time produced the " Rosciad." The 
 poem went the round of the publishers, but no one 
 could be found to offer more than bl. for it. Churchill 
 had fixed his price at 201. ; and in this posture of 
 affairs, dangerous though the experiment undoubtedly 
 was, he determined on publishing at his own risk. 
 His means were, however, insufficient to advertise his 
 work extensively, and accordingly, after two obscure 
 announcements, the " Rosciad " was published anony- 
 mously, at the price of a shilling, in March 1761. 
 
 The corner was turned at last — the long, dreary 
 period of expectancy was at last over. Like many 
 another poet, Churchill woke up to find himself 
 famous. To use a modern phrase, the "Rosciad" 
 was a " great success." Severe in satire, pungent in 
 expression, appealing to the most prominent taste of 
 
108 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 the town, — everything combined to draw upon the work 
 the admiration it deserved. Churchill maintained a 
 strict incognito, which, however, only increased the 
 anxiety of the public to discover the author. Save 
 only the actors who winced under the scourge, every 
 one was delighted with the poem, and a ferocious 
 notice in the Critical Review, then under, the editor- 
 ship of Smollett, served but to increase its popularity. 
 In this article Smollett undertook to solve the riddle 
 which every one was asking. " We are ready," he 
 said, " to make the conclusion in the author's own 
 words — ' Who is it ? Lloyd ! ' We will not pretend, 
 however, absolutely to assert that Mr. Lloyd wrote 
 this poem, but we may venture to affirm that.it is the 
 production jointly or severally of the new triumvirate 
 of wits [Colman, Lloyd, and Thornton], who never let 
 an opportunity slip of singing their own praises. 
 s Caw me, caw thee,' as Sawney says. And so it is ; 
 they go and scratch one another like Scotch pedlars." 
 These flowers of rhetoric, worthy of the delicate and 
 graceful author of" Peregrine Pickle," soon evoked an 
 answer. The St. James's Chronicle of the following 
 Saturday contained two advertisements, from George 
 Colman and Robert Lloyd respectively, denying, in 
 the most distinct and emphatic manner, that either 
 was concerned in the writing or publication of the 
 " Rosciad." The inquiry after the author still con- 
 tinued; but after a few days a third advertisement 
 appeared, stating that Charles Churchill was the sole 
 author, and that his " Apology, addressed to the 
 Critical Reviewers," was in preparation, and would 
 appear shortly. 
 
 In the " Rosciad," all alike, strong and weak, poor 
 and rich, writhed under the stinging lash of the satirisl 
 
Charles Churchill — Parson and Poet. 109 
 
 Garrick indeed escaped, the poet choosing to pour upon 
 him as was but just all the praise which he withheld 
 from inferior artists. At the same time the criticism 
 is discriminating. The " Snarling critics, ignorant as 
 vain" have found fault with Garrick' s figure, and com- 
 plain of his " traps for applause." Churchill's reply 
 is — 
 
 For me by Nature form'd to judge with phlegm, 
 I can't acquit by wholesale nor condemn. 
 The best things carried to excess are wrong : 
 The start may be too frequent, pause too long ; 
 But, only used in proper time and place, 
 Severest judgment must allow their grace. 
 
 If bunglers form'd on Imitation's plan, 
 Just in the way that monkeys mimic man, 
 Their copied scene with mangled arts disgrace, 
 And pause and start with the same vacant face ; 
 We join the critic laugh, these tricks we scorn, 
 Which spoil the scenes they mean them to adorn. 
 But when from Nature's pure and genuine source, 
 These strokes of acting flow with generous force, 
 When in the features all the soul's portray'd, 
 And passions such as Garrick's are display 'd, 
 To me they seem from quickest feelings caught — 
 Each start is Nature, and each pause is Thought. 
 
 gp ^p gp yfe yfc gp 
 
 The Judges, as the several parties came, 
 With Temper heard, with Judgment weigh'd each claim, 
 And in their sentence happily agreed, 
 In name of both, Great Shakspere thus decreed : 
 
 If manly sense, if nature link'd with art ; 
 If thorough knowledge of the human heart ; 
 If powers of acting, vast and unconfined ; 
 If fewest faults with greatest beauties join'd ; 
 If strong expression and strange powers which lie 
 Within the magic circle of the eye ; 
 If feelings which few hearts like his can know, 
 And which no face so well as his can show, 
 Deserve the preference ; — Garrick take the chair, 
 Nor quit it till thou place an equal there. 
 
lio Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 Garrick was sufficiently ill-advised to treat this noble 
 panegyric lightly, and to hint to some of those about 
 him that he " supposed the fellow had done it with a 
 view to the freedom of the playhouse " — a sneer of 
 which actors, not perhaps without sufficient excuse, 
 are singularly fond. Other actors were handled with 
 great though discriminating severity, their characteris- 
 tics being hit off in a line, a phrase, or an epithet with 
 peculiar happiness. 
 
 Foote was terribly enraged, and to relieve his feelings 
 wrote a dialogue bitterly lampooning Lloyd and 
 Churchill, the latter of whom he dubbed, with his 
 usual love of alliteration and carelessness of accuracy, 
 the " Clumsy Curate of Claphani." A. wholesome 
 dread of further punishment induced him, however, to 
 suppress this work. The wrath of the rest of the 
 actors manifested itself in a somewhat different way ; 
 they were chiefly anxious for personal battle with their 
 reviler. The appearance of the brawny figure of the 
 t{ satirical parson " was, however, the general signal 
 for the dispersion of these noisy braggarts. On one 
 occasion Yates, whom he had handled more harshly 
 than most of the other actors, being at the " Rose 
 Tavern " at the same time with Churchill, fell into 
 quarrel with him, and proposed to settle it "in the 
 Dutch manner," — that is, with knives. Churchill 
 quietly assented, but Yates, who was not prepared for 
 this ready acquiescence, and who had hoped to get a 
 reputation for courage without the trouble of a contest, 
 hastily dropped his weapon and sneaked from the 
 room amidst roars of laughter, telling his opponent 
 that " he should hear from him." It is hardly neces- 
 sary to add that the poet never did. It must be owned 
 however, that Yates had abundant reason for feeling 
 
Charles Churchill — Parson and Poet. i r i 
 
 aggrieved. Chur chill's attack upon him is one of the 
 bitterest things in the Rosciad, — 
 
 In characters of low and vulgar mould, 
 Where Nature's coarsest features we behold, 
 Where destitute of every decent grace, 
 Unmanner'd jests are blurted in your face, 
 There Yates with justice strict attention draws, 
 Acts truly from himself and gains applause. 
 But when, to please himself or charm his wife, 
 He aims at something in politer life, 
 When blindly thwarting Nature's stubborn plan, 
 He treads the stage by way of gentleman, 
 The clown, who no one touch of breeding knows, 
 Looks like Tom Errand dress'd in Clincher's clothes. 
 Fond of his dress, fond of his person grown, 
 Laugh 'd at by all, and to himself unknown, 
 From side to side he struts, he smiles, he prates, 
 And seems to wonder what's become of Yates. 
 
 Davies was less fortunate still, — 
 
 On my life ! 
 That Davies hath a very pretty wife ! 
 Statesman all over ! in plots famous grown ! 
 He mouths a sentence as curs mouth a bone ! 
 
 The satire drove him from the stage, and he became 
 a bookseller. It was in his shop that Johnson after- 
 wards beat Miller, the publisher of his dictionary. 
 
 These and similar testimonies to the success of the 
 "Rosciad" fade, however, into nothing before the 
 enormous multitude of pamphlets in prose and verse, 
 which poured from the press in reply or criticism. 
 81 Answers/' " Churchilliads, ,, " Anti-Rosciads," " Tri- 
 umvirates," " Examiners," " Farthing Candles," and 
 their like, did all that could be done by dulness and 
 malignity against the most telling satire of the day. 
 Their only effect was to increase the popularity of the 
 poem against which they were directed, since, in pur- 
 
1 1 2 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 suance of a singular law of compensation, it generally 
 happens that undeserved abuse is by no means a bad 
 stepping-stone to success. Murphy, less cautious 
 than Foote, published his answer, in the preface to 
 which he announced his intention of combining the ex- 
 cellences of Pope and Dryden. He succeeded, however, 
 in proving himself equally scurrilous and filthy. 
 
 Scarcely a month had elapsed when the public were 
 again called around " the prize-ring of literature," as 
 the domain of satire has been not inaptly called, to 
 witness the second appearance of the "noted bruiser." 
 The promised " Apology " appeared, and was met 
 with as great applause as had greeted the " Rosciad." 
 The blows were as severe and as well applied, and the 
 public were by no means ill-pleased to see the merciless 
 judgments of the Critical Review repaid with more than 
 equal severity. The first half of the poem was taken 
 up with a protest against the groundless jealousies and 
 mean antipathies which were then, as now, the lot of 
 almost every claimant for the honours of literature ; 
 while the latter was occupied by a bitter depreciation 
 of the theatre, and a vindication of the author's right 
 to choose it as a subject for satire. Those whom the 
 " Rosciad " had spared, the " Apology " fiercely 
 attacked, and a new set of victims was selected for the 
 satirical thong. Smollett received a more severe casti- 
 gation than even he was in the habit of bestowing. 
 His novels and history disposed of, the tragedy of 
 " The Regicide," on which he had fondly hoped to 
 build his fame, came in for a share of the satirist's 
 tender mercies : — 
 
 Who ever read the " Eegicide " but swore 
 The author wrote as man ne'er wrote before 1 
 
Charles Churchill — Parson and Poet. 113 
 
 After Smollett, Garrick, whom the " Eosciad " had 
 
 spared, and who had affected to treat his escape lightly, 
 
 received his award. The author describes how fortune 
 
 " can take a hero from a puppet-show," and then goes 
 
 on to tell how, — 
 
 Forgetful of himself, he rears the head, 
 And scorns the dunghill where he first was bred ; 
 Conversing now with well-dress'd kings and queens, 
 With gods and goddesses behind the scenes, 
 He sweats beneath the terror-nodding plume, 
 Taught by mock honours real pride to assume. 
 On this great stage, the world, no monarch e'er 
 Was half so haughty as a monarch player. 
 
 Garrick felt the attack bitterly, and though he managed 
 to reconcile himself to his satirist, it long rankled in 
 his mind, until he at last relieved himself in some suffi- 
 ciently bad verses in the " Fribbleriad." 
 
 The strength which distinguished the "Rosciad" 
 was equally conspicuous in the " Apology," and re- 
 deemed the thousand faults with which it might have 
 been charged. There were, too, occasional flashes of 
 genuine poetic fire, which relieved the coarse and 
 abrupt tone by which it was generally characterized. 
 Over and above these things, there was a determined 
 war made upon hypocrisy and a freedom from every 
 species of cant, which were pleasant novelties in litera- 
 ture. All these promised most healthily for Churchill's 
 influence upon his age ; — it is sad to record how soon 
 these hopes were crushed, how early this promise was 
 blighted. 
 
 From this time forward the manner of Churchill's 
 life was changed. He threw off the sober garb of his 
 clerical profession, and appeared about town, "dressed," 
 says a contemporary writer, " in a blue coat with gold 
 buttons, lace and ruffles." Pearce, Dean of West- 
 
 1 
 
1 1 4 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 minster, the " dull dean," of a later satire, offered a 
 remonstrance on one or two occasions, but was met 
 with indifference and even contempt. The parishioners 
 of St. John's expostulated with more effect, and the 
 poet resigned his cure in that parish. Quarrels and 
 extravagances, equal on both sides, had long before 
 separated him from his wife ; but he now put an end 
 to her complaints by settling a liberal allowance upon 
 her. With the layman's dress he put on the most un- 
 clerical of characters, and became one of the great army 
 of literature. Dissipation, luxury, and idleness were 
 the qualities for which he was most distinguished ; he 
 posed, in a word, as a "town-rake," as Lord Mahon 
 forcibly and not altogether unjustly styles him. " The 
 stings and arrows of an avenging conscience " could 
 not, however, be altogether turned aside. The autumn 
 of the year whose spring had witnessed the publication 
 of the " Rosciad," saw the author's third work, 
 " Night." Here with a kind of railing sadness he dis- 
 claims any intention of braving the opinion of the 
 world, but intimates his earnest desire of escaping from 
 it. It is easy indeed to see how his soul, worn by 
 conscience, loved any sorrow rather than its own, and 
 sought relief in the consolations of friendship beneath 
 the veil of that night which " heals or hides our care." 
 The poem affords a key to the secret griefs of 
 Churchill's mournful and broken life. In other places 
 we get glimpses of him as he stumbles and totters 
 through that " succession of escapes from falling," 
 which Carlyle has defined our life to be. Now, how- 
 ever, we see him grovelling in the dust, yielding to 
 each and all of the manifold temptations arising out of 
 his peculiar and ardent temperament, his companions, 
 position, and antecedents. Yet it is hard to be severe 
 
Charles Churchill — Parson and Poet. 1 1 5 
 
 upon him, since the same qualities which led him into 
 wrong, when otherwise directed, were the not unfre- 
 quent sources of his best and noblest actions. Let it 
 be remembered, too, that he did not write his own 
 life, — that was left for his enemies to do, and how they 
 did it, it is not very difficult to guess„. As it is we have 
 ample information as to how often he fell ; the record- 
 ing angel only has the account of how often he van- 
 quished the tempter. 
 
 " Night " was in the form of an epistle to Robert 
 Lloyd, and was probably suggested to Churchill by a 
 poem of similar form addressed by Wilkes to his friend 
 Armstrong under the title of " Day." The Critical 
 Review exercised its murderous wit as usual upon it. 
 " This ' Night,' " they sententiously observe, " like 
 many others at this time of year, is very cold, long, 
 dark, and dirty, which will not induce many to walk 
 out in it." Looked at in the light of the present day, 
 it will be found to contain, amongst much that is good, 
 a large quantity of doubtful morality, and much that is 
 indefensible both in versification and tendency. The 
 world and its opinions are met with hearty scorn, petty 
 conventionalities are honestly and boldly faced ; but it 
 not unfrequently happens that in defying the externals 
 of morality the heart of it is attacked, and in exhibit- 
 ing his contempt for the prettinesses of poetry, the 
 writer errs by disregarding some of its cardinal laws. 
 Dubious sentiments and prosaic lines occasionally in- 
 trude, betraying the haste of the writer and marring 
 the effect of his work. Its interest does not depend, 
 however, upon either its diction or its sentiments ; the 
 one circumstance which renders it remarkable is the 
 inclination which it discovers on the part of the author 
 to enter the field of political warfare. It was, indeed, 
 
 1 2 
 
1 1 6 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 difficult in those times for an honest and really earnest 
 man to hold his peace. Vice and corruption sat in 
 high places, and the friends of liberty groaned under 
 the cruellest oppressions. One of the first acts of the 
 King (George III.), on his accession to the throne in 
 
 1760, had been to elevate his ex-tutor, Lord Bute, to 
 the rank of Privy Councillor, and from that station he 
 rose in the following year to that of Secretary of State. 
 The new administration adopted measures to remove 
 every man of real political power from office, and to 
 replace him by a conveniently subservient creature. 
 Pitt, "the darling of the people," had resigned; — 
 
 What honest man but would with joy submit 
 To bleed with Cato and retire with Pitt ? 
 
 A general election took place in March and April, 
 
 1761, when, according to Lord Mahon, corruption 
 was more notoriously rife than at any period in the 
 history of England during the last hundred years. It 
 went so far, indeed, that bribery threw off the thin 
 disguises which it usually wore, and exhibited itself 
 with unblushing effrontery in public. An expectant 
 member of Parliament needed no astute electioneering 
 agent, since boroughs openly advertised themselves for 
 
 Such a time was ripe for a demagogue, and Wilkes 
 was not slow to seize the opportunity thus offered. 
 Learned, witty, courageous, and untroubled with 
 scruples, it would have been difficult to find any one 
 better fitted for the part he had to play. He con- 
 quered even the staid and prejudiced Johnson. " His 
 name," says the latter, " has been sounded from pole 
 to pole as the phoenix of convivial felicity ;" adding, in 
 less stilted but more happy phrase, " Jack has great 
 
Charles Churchill — Parson and Poet. 1 1 7 
 
 variety of talk; Jack is a scholar, and Jack has the man- 
 ners of a gentleman. " His manner was, indeed, so fas- 
 cinating, that he was accustomed to boast that, with half 
 an hour's start, he would, in spite of his ugliness, make 
 more way with the handsomest woman in the room 
 than the most admired of his friends. Thus qualified, 
 and having constantly upon his lips the loudest pro- 
 fessions of love for truth, right, and justice, it can be 
 no matter for surprise that he should have fascinated 
 Churchill. But beyond his personal qualifications, the 
 sympathies of the poet were naturally dignified and 
 honourable; he believed that the struggle in which 
 Wilkes was engaged was one of right against might, of 
 freedom against oppression, of the rights and liberties 
 of Englishmen against Scottish and German tyrants. 
 To the representative of such ideas the impulsive and 
 generous temperament of Churchill was irresistibly 
 attracted. The fascination of manner completed the 
 work which political inclination had begun. Once 
 together, they assimilated like two globules of quick- 
 silver. Their alliance was, at all events on Churchill's 
 side, sincere and disinterested ; while, as far as Wilkes 
 was concerned, it was as hearty as the shallow and 
 selfish nature of the demagogue would permit it to be. 
 Churchill's enthusiasm for his friend never seems to 
 have wavered. He regarded him as the embodiment 
 of a great and lofty principle, persecution made him 
 only more admirable, opposition served only to bring 
 out the poet's loyalty. However mistaken Churchill 
 may have been in selecting Wilkes as the god of his 
 idolatry, the fact of his devotion is one great redeeming 
 feature in his character. It was dictated by pure and 
 honest motives, and is entitled to the more honour 
 since it must have been entirely disinterested. To 
 
1 1 8 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 Wilkes Churchill therefore dedicated his powers hence- 
 forward ; his loves and hatreds, hopes and fears, am- 
 bitions and despair, were ever afterwards those of his 
 friend, and the alliance had a remarkable effect upon 
 both history and literature. 
 
 The first-fruit of this friendship was the production 
 of a journal with the title of the North Briton, in op- 
 position to a paper which Bute and his adherents had 
 started, called the Briton. While this was in prepara- 
 tion, however, Churchill produced the first book of the 
 " Ghost," based on the Cock Lane Ghost, which then 
 startled the town. The poem is not one of the author's 
 best works, but it appears to have served much the 
 same purpose that Byron gained by "Don Juan;" — 
 it was a kind of poetical scrap-book, not very carefully 
 written, in which the author set down from time to 
 time such things as struck his fancy or served his pur- 
 pose. It is chiefly memorable for an attack on John- 
 son under the name of Pomposo, in which he spoke 
 with great and not undeserved severity of the remiss- 
 ness of the "Great Lexicographer" in the matter of 
 the subscriptions to his edition of Shakspeare. He 
 had promised his subscribers that it should be ready 
 before Christmas, 1757. " Yet," says Boswell, "nine 
 years elapsed before it saw the light. His throes in 
 bringing it forth had been severe and remittent ; and 
 at last we may almost conclude that the Caesarian 
 operation was performed by the knife of Churchill, 
 whose upbraiding satire I daresay made Johnson's 
 friends urge him to despatch. 
 
 He for subscribers baits his hook, 
 
 And takes your cash— but where's the book? 
 
 No matter where ; wise fear, you know, 
 
 Forbids the robbing of a foe ; 
 
 But what, to serve our private ends, 
 
 Forbids the cheating of our friends ? 
 
Charles Churchill — Parson and Poet. 119 
 
 Churchill was less just in representing Johnson as a 
 believer in the clumsy imposture of the Cock Lane 
 Ghost, since it was mainly through him that it was dis- 
 covered. Johu son's credulity in even listening to so 
 transparently foolish a story deserved, however, some 
 part of the severity under which he smarted. And 
 that Johnson did so smart is unquestionable. He 
 could never in after-life be induced to admit that 
 Churchill was anything but a " dull fellow " — which 
 with all his faults he certainly was not — and in spite 
 of all his sympathy with Churchill's dislike of the 
 Scotch, he could never be induced to admit any merit, 
 literary or social, in him. 
 
 The earlier part of the " Ghost " contains some 
 graceful satirical writing in which the experience of a 
 fortune-teller of the gullibility of mankind is described. 
 As a whole, however, the poem is hardly likely to be 
 remembered, nor did its author anticipate for it a 
 better fate. It was, to quote his own words, — 
 
 A mere amusement at the most ; 
 
 A trifle fit to wear away 
 
 The horrors of a rainy day ; 
 
 A slight shot-silk for summer wear, 
 
 Just as our modern statesmen are. 
 
 From this period dates Churchill's connexion with 
 the North Briton. To it he contributed regularly from 
 the very first ; but there are now no means of judging 
 which were his papers, and which those of Wilkes. 
 In none, however, is the power exhibited equal to that 
 displayed in his verse, — a fact of which he was doubt- 
 less equally conscious with the rest of the world. 
 Verse, indeed, seems to have been the most natural 
 form in which his thoughts found expression. As he 
 
120 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 himself says, in some of the last and most earnest 
 lines he ever wrote, — 
 
 Whether I will or no, 
 Such as they are, my thoughts in measure flow ; 
 Convinced, determined, I in prose begin, 
 But ere I write one sentence verse creeps in, 
 And taints me through and through j by this good light 
 In verse I talk by day, I dream by night ! 
 If now and then I curse, my curses chime, 
 Nor can I pray unless I pray in rhyme. 
 
 On one occasion he sent an article to press, but at 
 the last moment withdrew it to remodel it in rhyme. 
 While his work was in progress he submitted it to 
 Wilkes, who was delighted with it, and expressed his 
 satisfaction in no measured terms. " It is personal," said 
 he, " it is poetical, it is political — it must succeed ! " and 
 he was right. " The Prophecy of Famine : a Scottish Pas- 
 toral," appeared in January, 1763, and was rapturously 
 received by the public. In it, indeed, Churchill attains 
 to the greatest height he ever reached in political 
 satire. Bitter though it is against their country, even 
 Scotchmen are forced to admit its excellence. " It 
 must sheathe its sting in its laughable extravagance," 
 says Campbell, in his Specimens of the British poets. 
 Lord Mahon, whose political views are of course strongly 
 opposed to those of the North Briton, says that " it 
 may be read with all the admiration which the most 
 vigorous powers of verse, with the most lively touches 
 of wit, can earn in the cause of slander and falsehood." 
 To those who regard it without political prejudice it 
 seems, however, perfectly admirable. It is wonder- 
 fully terse and incisive in expression, and the verse 
 has a roll and sonority which inevitably remind the 
 reader of Churchill's great exemplar — Dry den. It is 
 comparatively free, too, from the strangely prosaic 
 
Charles Churchill — Parson and Poet. 1 2 1 
 
 lines which so often disfigure Churchill's verse ; and the 
 language is, as a rule, undefiled by the Latinisms 
 which mar the writings of his contemporaries. Some 
 of his admirers protested that " Mr. Pope was quite 
 outdone,' ' — a remark which is, however, unquestion- 
 ably absurd, since, in his particular walk of art, Pope is 
 still unequalled. It may be safely affirmed, neverthe- 
 less, that there are very few things in Dryden superior, 
 while in a certain heavy, dashing, cut-and-thrust manner 
 it is without its equal in the English language. 
 
 The poem itself was an attack on Scotland which 
 derived its strength as it found its occasion in the 
 popular dislike of Lord Bute, and in the dread which 
 the English people as a nation felt of a renewal of 
 the Jacobite insurrection. How strong and how 
 widely diffused this sentiment was readers of Bos well 
 hardly need to be told. Never, however, did it find 
 more pungent expression than in Churchill's vigorous 
 verse, — 
 
 Two boys, whose birth beyond all question springs 
 From great and glorious, though forgotten kings, 
 Shepherds of Scottish lineage, born and bred 
 On the same bleak and barren mountain's head, 
 By niggard Nature doonrd on the same rocks 
 To spin out life and starve themselves and flocks. 
 Fresh as the morning which enrobed in mist, 
 The mountain's top with usual dulness kist ; 
 Jockey and Sawney to their labours rose : 
 Soon clad, I ween, where Nature needs no clothe3, 
 Where from their youth inured to winter skies, 
 Dress and her vain refinements they despise. 
 
 Jockey, whose manly high-boned cheeks to crown, 
 With freckles spotted flamed the golden down, 
 With meikle art could on the bagpipes play, 
 E'en from the rising to the setting day ; 
 Sawney as long without remorse could bawl 
 Home's madrigals and ditties from Fingal. 
 
1 2 2 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 Oft at his strains all natural though rude, 
 
 The Highland lass forgot her want of food, 
 
 And, while she scratch'd her lover into rest, 
 
 Sank pleased though hungry on her Sawney's breast. 
 
 Far as the eye could reach no tree was seen, 
 Earth clad in russet scorn'd the lively green. 
 The plague of locusts they secure defy, 
 For in three hours a grasshopper must die. 
 No living thing, whate'er its food, feasts there, 
 But the chameleon who can feast on air. 
 No birds, except as birds of passage, flew ; 
 No bee was known to hum, no dove to coo. 
 No streams as amber smooth, as amber clear, 
 Were seen to glide, or heard to warble here. 
 Kebellious spring which through the country ran, 
 Furnish'd with bitter draughts the steady clan, 
 No flowers embalm'd the air but one white rose, 
 Which on the tenth of June by instinct blows. 1 
 By instinct blows at morn, and when the shades 
 Of drizzly eve prevail by instinct fades. 
 
 One, and but one poor solitary cave, 
 Too sparing of her favours Nature gave ; 
 That one alone (hard tax on Scottish pride !) 
 Shelter at once for man and beast supplied. 
 There snares without entangling briers spread, 
 And thistles, arm'd against th' invader's head, 
 Stood in close ranks all entrance to oppose, 
 Thistles now held more precious than the rose. 
 All creatures which on Nature's earliest plan, 
 Were form'd to loathe and to be loathed by man, 
 Which owed their birth to nastiness and spite, 
 Deadly to touch and hateful to the sight, 
 Creatures which, when admitted to the ark, 
 Their Saviour shunn'd and rankled in the dark, 
 Found place within : marking her noisome road 
 With poison's trail here crawl'd the bloated toad ; 
 There webs were spread of more than common size, 
 And half-starved spiders preyed on half- starved flies ; 
 
 1 The white rose was the Jacobite emblem, *the 10th of June the 
 birthday of Charles Edward. 
 
Charles Churchill — Parson and Poet. 1 2 3 
 
 In quest of food efts strove in vain to crawl ; 
 Slugs pinch'd with hunger srnear'd the slimy wall ; 
 The cave around with hissing serpents rung j 
 On the damp roof unhealthy vapour hung ; 
 And famine by her children always known, 
 As proud as poor, here fix'd her native throne. 
 
 In all the range of English satirical poetry, it may be 
 doubted if there is anything finer than these lines. 
 Their consummate ease, their wit, their admirable 
 rhetorical flow, and their exquisite amplification of 
 detail, combine to give them a character which many 
 poets of greater rank might envy. It is no matter 
 for surprise that such a work should have caughfc the 
 taste of the town at once, and should have brought in 
 a rich harvest to the author. A curious anecdote of 
 this period is told by Dr. Kippis, of Churchill having 
 in the exuberance of delight at his success, dressed his 
 younger son in a Scotch plaid like a Highlander, and 
 carried him everywhere in that garb. " The boy," 
 says Kippis, " being asked by a gentleman, with whom 
 I was in company, why he was clothed in such a 
 manner, answered, with great vivacity, ' Sir, my father 
 hates the Scotch, and does it to plague them.' " 
 
 The other side had a champion as powerful as 
 Churchill, but in a different line. The language of 
 art is learned, however, as readily as that of litera- 
 ture, especially that of satirical art. Hogarth had 
 not been idle in the cause of his party. In the preced- 
 ing September he had published his first print of 
 " The Times," — a rather scurrilous caricature aimed 
 at Lord Temple, Pitt, and the other chiefs of the 
 Whig party. The North Briton retaliated in its seven- 
 teenth number — probably by the hand of Churchill. 
 Hogarth treasured his resentment for a while, but at 
 
124 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 last found means to vent it. The famous number 
 forty-five of the North Briton contained a violent 
 attack on the ministry of April, 1763, which, to say 
 the truth, was composed of men personally and politi- 
 cally infamous. For the publication of this libel 
 Wilkes was brought to trial, and, while pleading his 
 cause, Hogarth made the sketch for that famous cari- 
 cature of the "squinting demagogue" which we all 
 know so well. This attack on the person of his friend 
 exasperated Churchill beyond all bounds, and he 
 accordingly devoted himself to the production of a reply 
 to the painter in his manner. Yery soon after the publi- 
 cation of the print he brought out an " Epistle to William 
 Hogarth," with the motto ie Tit picturajpoesis, — a motto 
 which the work fully carried out. It is deservedly placed 
 by all the readers of Churchill next to the " Prophecy 
 of Famine " in order of merit. Not merely satirical, it 
 is distinguished also by some of the highest qualities 
 of poetry. The author pays a noble and touch- 
 ing tribute to the merits and genius of Hogarth 
 though he is bitter and sarcastic enough on his poli- 
 tical opinions and social faults. All the painter's 
 little vanities, his belief in his power of painting his- 
 torical pictures, his picture of Sigismunda, and his own 
 opinion of the merits of that famous work, are touched 
 upon sharply enough ; but the poet fully concedes the 
 claims of Hogarth's genius, even whilst denying his 
 personal right to consideration on account of his " envy, 
 pride, and spleen :" — 
 
 Truly let him wear 
 The wreath which Genius wove and planted there ; 
 Foe as I am, should Envy hear it down, 
 Myself would lahour to replace the crown. 
 
 In walks of humour in that cast of style, 
 Which probing to the quick yet makes us smile ; 
 
Charles Churchill — Parson and Poet. 125 
 
 In Comedy, his natural road to Fame, 
 Nor let me call it by a meaner name, 
 Where a beginning, middle, and an end, 
 Are aptly join'd, and parts on parts depend, 
 Each made for each, as bodies for their soul, 
 So as to form one true and perfect whole ; 
 Where a plain story to the eye is told, 
 Which we conceive the moment we behold : 
 Hogarth unrivall'd stands and shall engage 
 Unrivall'd praise to the most distant age. 
 
 Hogarth was bitterly sensible to the satire, but 
 indifferent to the praise with which it was softened. 
 He did not, however, trust himself to make any other 
 reply than by issuing a print of a bear holding a pot 
 of beer in one paw, and hugging a cudgel with the 
 other, and bearing the title, "The Bruiser, 0. Churchill 
 {once the Reverend), in the character of a Eussian 
 Bear regaling himself after having slain the monster 
 Caracatura that so sorely galled his Virtuous Friend, the 
 heaven-born Wilkes." Churchill was enraged enough 
 at this, and meditated retaliation by the publication of 
 an elegy on Hogarth, treating the painter as if he 
 were already dead. He wisely refrained, however, 
 and gave as a reason that he was dissuaded by the 
 " woman whom he loved." 
 
 His connexion with this woman is one of the 
 darkest blots on his by no means stainless character. 
 Southey, in his life of Cowper, has told the melancholy 
 story how Churchill seduced this girl, who was the 
 daughter of a respectable sculptor of Westminster. 
 She left her home, but conscience permitted her no 
 rest, and she returned to it in a fortnight. Here she 
 would have remained, but the austere virtue of her 
 sister interfered with the kind intentions of her father. 
 By constant taunts and reproaches she made the 
 
126 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 house utterly unbearable to the poor girl, who, driven 
 
 out and without a refuge, fled again to Churchill. He 
 
 took her in and cherished her — she never left him until 
 
 they were separated by death. His conscience did not, 
 
 however, slumber. In the poem of the " Conference," 
 
 which was designed as a vindication of himself against 
 
 the virulent criticism with which he was constantly 
 
 assailed by the hirelings of Bute, he professes that, 
 
 though he is unaffected by the babbling of a busy 
 
 world, he is " moved by the tale which angry conscience 
 
 tells." The whole passage is sufficiently characteristic 
 
 of Churchill as a poet and as a moralist, to deserve 
 
 quotation : — 
 
 Ah ! what, my Lord, hath private life to do 
 
 With things of public nature 1 why to view 
 
 Would you thus cruelly those scenes unfold 
 
 Which, without pain and horror to behold, 
 
 Must speak me something more or less than man, 
 
 Which friends may pardon, but I never can ! 
 
 Look back ! a thought which borders on despair, 
 
 Which human nature must, but cannot, bear. 
 
 'Tis not the babbling of a busy world, 
 
 Where praise and censure are at random hurl'd, 
 
 Which can the meanest of my thoughts control, 
 
 Or shake one settled purpose of my soul. 
 
 Free and at large might their wild courses roam 
 
 If all, if all, alas ! were well at home. 
 
 No, 'tis the tale which angry Conscience tells 
 
 When she with more than tragic horror swells 
 
 Each circumstance of guilt ; when stern, but true, 
 
 She brings bad actions forth into review ; 
 
 And, like the dread handwriting on the wall, 
 
 Bids late remorse awake at reason's call, 
 
 Arm'd at all points bids scorpion vengeance pass, 
 
 And to the mind holds up reflection's glass, 
 
 The mind which starting heaves the heartfelt groan, 
 
 And hates that form she knows to be her own. 
 
 Enough of this. Let private sorrows rest ; 
 As to the public I dare stand the test : 
 
Charles Churchill — Parson and Poet. 1 2 7 
 
 Dare proudly boast, I feel no wish above 
 The good of England and my country's love. 
 
 The patriotism of the last lines is perhaps a little out 
 of fashion, but the power of the whole passage is in- 
 disputable, while the courageous confession of error 
 and sin takes from vice more than half its evil. 
 In this respect the poem is especially characteristic. 
 Whatever Churchill's faults and failings may have 
 been — and unfortunately, in a singularly profligate 
 and depraved age he had but too fair a share of both 
 — he was always manly and always genuinely English. 
 He sinned and sinned grossly from excess of that con- 
 scious power which breathes in every line of his 
 writings, but he never glossed over his offences, never 
 called evil good and good evil, never pretended that 
 what would be vice in other men was mere frailty in 
 him. He has paid the penalty of his candour. During 
 his life his notorious breach of conjugal duty was a 
 constant topic of reproach amongst the moral and 
 political purists whom he attacked, and the shadow of 
 that reproach has since darkened his poetical fame. 
 Yet against condemnation of this kind he left on record 
 a most earnest protest. In the " Farewell " — one of 
 the last of his poems — he begs that his life may not 
 be written either by his friends or by his foes, either 
 by little men or great, — 
 
 Let no false, sneaking Peer 
 (Some such there are), to win the public ear, 
 Hand me to shame with some vile anecdote, 
 Nor soul-gall'd Bishop damn me with a note. 2 
 Let one poor sprig of bay around my head 
 Bloom whilst I live, and point me out when dead. 
 
 2 The allusion is of course to Warburton and his edition of Pope. 
 
T28 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 Let it (may Heaven indulgent grant that prayer) 
 Be planted on my grave, nor wither there ; 
 And when on travel bound, some rhyming guest 
 Eoams through the churchyard whilst his dinner's drest, 
 Let it hold up this comment to his eyes, 
 "Life to the last enjoyed — here Churchill lies ;" 
 Whilst, oh what joy that pleasing flattery gives, 
 Reading my works he cries, " Here Churchill lives." 
 
 It was unfortunate for Churchill's fame that his aspira- 
 tions in this matter were left unregarded. He was hardly 
 cold in his grave when a catch-penny biography was 
 published, concerning which Cowper wrote, " The pitiful 
 scribbler of his life seems to have undertaken that task 
 for which he was entirely unqualified, merely because 
 it afforded an opportunity to traduce him." 
 
 Almost immediately after the publication of the 
 " Candidate/' the prosecution against Wilkes for the 
 publication of his " Essay on Woman " was commenced, 
 and a warrant was issued for his arrest. To escape it 
 he fled to France, whence he wrote urging Churchill to 
 join him, in order that they might from that safe 
 asylum continue their common attack upon the domi- 
 nant party in England. The scheme dropped into 
 abeyance for various reasons, and the poet remained 
 at home superintending the publication of that poem 
 of " The Duellist," which Walpole considered the 
 finest and most severe of his works. Though it is 
 undoubtedly a noble monument to the fame of the 
 writer, readers of the nineteenth century will scarcely 
 agree with the critic of Strawberry Hill. To them its 
 fame is eclipsed by Churchill's next production, " The 
 Author," which appeared towards the close of the year. 
 This was more personal in its tone than any other of 
 Churchill's works, except the "Farewell," the last he 
 ever wrote. It was, too, rather less exuberant in style 
 
Charles Churchill — Parson and Poet. 129 
 
 than was usual with the writer, and not only won a 
 warm reception from the public, but even gained a 
 recognition of its merits from the critics, who were 
 never very easy to be pleased with anything by 
 Churchill. It was followed by " Gotham," which is 
 less satirical and far more poetical than any other of 
 his writings. It presents the lofty ideal which he had 
 formed of a patriot-king. With all its carelessness — 
 and it has many faults arising therefrom — it is a noble 
 work, and well deserves the high praise which Cowper 
 has bestowed upon it. " ' Gotham,' unless I am a greater 
 blockhead than he," (Churchill's biographer, who had 
 stigmatized it as a " catch-penny"), "which I am far 
 from believing, is a noble and beautiful poem, and a poem 
 with which, I make no doubt, the author took as much 
 pains as with any he ever wrote. Making allowance, 
 (and Dryden, in his ' Absalom and Achitophel,' stands 
 in need of the same indulgence) for an unwarrantable 
 use of Scripture, it appears to me to be a masterly 
 performance. . . He is, indeed, a careless writer for 
 the most part, but where shall we find in any of those 
 authors who finish their works with the exactness of a 
 Flemish pencil, those bold and daring strokes of fancy, 
 those numbers so hazardously ventured upon and so 
 happily finished, the matter so compressed and yet so 
 clear, and the colouring so sparingly laid on, and yet 
 with such a beautiful effect ? In short, it is not his 
 least praise that he is never guilty of those faults as a 
 writer which he lays to the charge of others — a proof 
 that he did not judge by a borrowed standard or from 
 rules laid down by critics, but that he was qualified to 
 do it by his own native powers, and his great superiority 
 of genius." Unfortunately, " Gotham " was not so 
 successful with the public as the more personal works, 
 
 K 
 
130 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 and added little but reputation to its author at the 
 time of its publication. 
 
 Shortly before the appearance of these two poems 
 Churchill removed from Richmond to a house on Acton 
 Common. The scribblers who filled the magazines 
 after his death with apocryphal stories of his weak- 
 nesses and crimes, have told marvellous tales of the 
 luxury and splendour of his household, of his " post- 
 chaise, saddle-horses, and pointers," of his passing his 
 time in " fishing, hunting, and coursing," — stories 
 which some of his later critics have diligently repeated, 
 but to which there does not appear the smallest ground 
 for attaching credence. It is quite true that he was 
 greedy of gain, and that he bartered too readily future 
 fame for present cash. He had, however, a family de- 
 pendent upon him, and it is easy to understand his 
 anxiety to make a fitting provision for them. To that 
 anxiety is probably due his reckless habit of putting 
 forth a hasty and careless work immediately after a 
 successful one, rather than to any wanton extrava- 
 gance in his personal habits. 
 
 "The Candidate," already alluded to, was his 
 last opportunity for personal satire. Three other 
 poems followed— " The Farewell," " The Times," and 
 " Independence," — each worthy of attention in its 
 way ; but the second, from the ghastly nature of its 
 subject, is hardly fit for " family reading." " Inde- 
 pendence " — the last of his poems published in his life- 
 time — is remarkable as containing a portrait of himself, 
 which is to the full as satirical as anything which 
 Churchill wrote of another. No one but a good- 
 natured man, and one full of humour, could have 
 written of himself in terms like these, — 
 
Charles Churchill — Parson and Poet. r 3 [ 
 
 Broad were his shoulders, and from, blade to blade, 
 
 A H might at full length have laid ; 
 
 Vast were his bones, his muscles twisted strong, 
 His face was short, but broader than 'twas long, 
 His features, though by nature they were large, 
 Contentment had contrived to overcharge, 
 And bury meaning, save that we might spy 
 Sense hovering on the penthouse of his eye ; 
 His arms were two twin oaks ; his legs so stout, 
 That they might bear a mansion-house about ; 
 Nor were they, look but at his body there, 
 Design'd by Fate a much less weight to bear. 
 
 O'er a brown cassock, which had once been black, 
 And hung in tatters on his brawny back, 
 A sight most strange and awkward to behold, 
 He threw a covering of blue and gold. 
 Just at that time of life when man, by rule, 
 The fop lays down, takes up the graver fool, 
 He started up a fop, and, fond of show, 
 Look'd like another Hercules turn'd beau. 
 A subject met with only now and then, 
 Much fitter for the pencil than the pen ; 
 Hogarth would draw him (Envy must allow) 
 E'en to the life, were Hogarth living now. 
 
 It is, it may be remarked in passing, curious to note 
 that in one of the many forgotten satires which the 
 success of the " Rosciad," provoked, he is described 
 as, — 
 
 " In blue and gold now strutting like a peer." 
 
 Amongst his papers after his death was found a 
 touching fragment, headed " The Journey." In writ- 
 ing this he appears to have had a prescience of his 
 approaching end. He begs his friends to — 
 
 Read some three hundred lines, no easy task, 
 But probably the last that I shall ask ;" 
 
 exhorts the Muses to feed their appetite for laughter 
 
 K 2 
 
132 Eighteenth Cenhiry Studies. 
 
 with the smaller wits and verse-taggers of the day ; and 
 concludes with the prophetic line, — 
 
 I on my journey all alone proceed. 
 
 The journey he was about to take was to visit Wilkes 
 in Paris ; but his design was rudely broken by the 
 hand of death. He left London in company with 
 Humphrey Cotes and a person named Goy on the 22nd 
 of October, 1764. Travelling leisurely, he did not 
 reach Boulogne until a week after, and there he was 
 seized with a miliary fever. Medical aid was at once 
 called in, but before it reached him he was already 
 beyond its power. In the awful presence of death he 
 remained calm, and sitting up in his bed, he dictated a 
 just and equitable will. To his wife he left a reason- 
 able provision from the profits of his life of labour, 
 and to the girl who owed her ruin to him he bequeathed 
 an annuity. His friends had mourning rings left to 
 them, and Wilkes was requested to collect and publish 
 his works. He was urgent in his desire to be carried 
 to England, that he might die in the land he loved so 
 well, and to which he had given his best labour. Pre- 
 parations were accordingly made for his removal, but 
 before it could be effected he breathed his last. He 
 died on the 4th of November, and his body was carried 
 to England for interment. Four short years of toil, 
 excitement, and dissipation had sufficed to " fret his 
 body to decay." 
 
 The hirelings of the ministry exulted meanly over 
 his death, and vied with each other in the falsehoods 
 they heaped over his grave. Others strove to make 
 capital out of even his death-bed. According to some 
 he died raving about political matters, and exclaiming 
 with his last breath, " Oh, my unhappy country 
 
 , 
 
Charles Churchill — Parson and Poet, 133 
 
 Others have given his last words as, " What a fool I 
 have been ! " The two stories are about equally im- 
 probable : with his self-contained and reticent nature 
 he was hardly likely to have broken out into unavailing 
 lamentations even in his last hours ; while the whole 
 tenor of his writings inclines one to believe that the 
 seeds of good were never so far eradicated from his 
 nature as to allow of his turning his thoughts at that 
 solemn moment from the awful journey he was about 
 to enter upon. We may, indeed, in spite of Mr. 
 Gilfillan, who accepts, on the doubtful authority of 
 Davies the actor, the "What a fool I have been!" 
 safely dismiss these idle tales to the limbo to which the 
 rest of those that disfigure his memory have been 
 consigned. 
 
 His tomb in the churchyard of St. Martin, at Dover, 
 bears a modest epitaph, taken from the passage of " The 
 Candidate," already quoted, expressing a hope that the 
 reader of his works will say that in them he still lives # 
 If he does, it is not through the care of his friend 
 Wilkes, who did no more towards carrying out the 
 dying bequest of the poet than burning his scrap-book 
 and pestering his friends for his letters. He set up a 
 Doric urn, it is true, in the garden of his villa in the 
 Isle of Wight, with a flaming Latin inscription to the 
 memory of Churchill. The " storied urn " has, how- 
 ever, been outlived by some fine lines in " Table Talk," 
 where Cowper has nobly repaid the debt of his school- 
 boy days, and has vindicated the fame of the " last of 
 the satirists." The poet, by the way, in a letter 
 written to Mr. Unwin in 1786, in which he warmly 
 praises the dead satirist, makes a suggestion which 
 might have been worthy of attention. " It is," lie 
 says, " an affair of very little consequence perhaps to 
 
134 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 the well-being of mankind, bnt I cannot help regret- 
 ting that he died so soon. The words of Virgil upon 
 the immature death of Marcellus might serve for his 
 epitaph, — 
 
 1 Ostendent terris hunc tantum fata, neque ultra 
 Esse sinent.' " 
 
 Of the moral failings of Churchill we have scarcely 
 a right to speak. Even supposing, however, that we 
 had such a right, so much dirt has been already flung 
 that few will care to soil their hands with more, while 
 the enthusiastic affection with which he was regarded 
 by his sister and his friend Lloyd, both of whom died 
 of grief on hearing of his death, proves that he must 
 have possessed some very admirable qualities. Con- 
 cerning his influence on literature there need be no 
 such reticence. If he himself were not perfect, he 
 always respected the chastity of his Muse. No scurri- 
 lous or licentious lampoons proceeded from his pen. 
 He never lost his independence, never flattered mean- 
 ness because it was in power, never abused the weak 
 because they were such. He was implacable against 
 wickedness and baseness, whether the person in whom 
 he found those qualities were high or low, rich or poor. 
 But though no respecter of persons, he always pre- 
 ferred to fly at the highest game. Had he to choose 
 between a lord and a lackey, the former would cer- 
 tainly become the mark for satire. In a word, he was 
 thoroughly independent — the embodiment of the ideal 
 John Bull — in his courage and contempt for outward 
 distinctions, as well as in the bluffness and weight of 
 his attacks. It is true that he dealt too much in 
 invective, and was not sufficiently particular in the 
 choice of his weapon so long as he knocked down his 
 
 
Charles Churchill— Parson and Poet. 135 
 
 adversary, acting apparently on the theory that " any 
 stick is good enough to beat a dog." If it be con- 
 sidered, however, who and what those adversaries 
 were, Churchill can hardly be blamed for dipping his 
 pen in gall. He could extend no mercy to a Sandwich, 
 who, having been one of the monks of Medmenham, 
 and a partaker with Wilkes in the vilest orgies of that 
 place, and having been expelled the Beefsteak Club for 
 blasphemy, chose to set himself up as a censor of the 
 morals of his political adversaries — or to a Warburton, 
 who, professing to be a Christian bishop, was in prac- 
 tice a Deist at the best — or to a Ligonier, to whose 
 nameless crimes even Churchill could only allude in the 
 most distant manner. Against such men as these he 
 felt that a light weapon was useless — the heaviest 
 broadsword in his armoury was not too terrible a 
 weapon. For the vigorous and masculine diction in 
 which he clothed his thoughts it is impossible to be too 
 grateful. He, more than any other writer, restored 
 the English school of poetry from the low estate into 
 which it was falling, through a too ready and universal 
 acceptance of the manner of Pope. He worked upon 
 the broad lines which Dry den had laid down, and to 
 him, in conjunction with Cowper, we owe without 
 doubt the restoration of that natural school of poetry 
 which is at the present day the glory of England. 
 
136 
 
 DAVID GARRICK. 
 
 There are few professions of which the glory is more 
 evanescent than that of the actor. So much indeed 
 of the actor's success depends upon details and circum- 
 stances that perish in the using, that unless he is 
 distinguished in some other way than by his public 
 appearances, he becomes very speedily the mere shadow 
 of a name. The indescribable and unteachable charms 
 of look, voice, and manner, that hold his audience 
 enthralled, die with his final exit, or at best live in the 
 memories of a few devout and enthusiastic playgoers. 
 As they in turn die off and the actor passes out of 
 living memory we have only some vague tradition to 
 fall back upon, and the tradition of how one man spoke 
 the words of another, or of the action by which he 
 illustrated them, is hardly likely to be very distinct or 
 very accurate. But when, as is sometimes the case, 
 the actor adds to his professional celebrity such repu- 
 tation as is to be gained from an acquaintance with 
 the men of genius and of intellectual rank in his days, 
 when he is himself a man of education and of no mean 
 literary attainments, when by his efforts the character 
 and condition of the stage are materially elevated, 
 when he is distinguished not less by his success in his 
 profession than by his general conduct and sense, he 
 becomes a worthy object of interest and consideration. 
 Such an actor was David Garrick. The intimate friend 
 and companion of Johnson, Burke, Reynolds, and 
 
David Garrick. 137 
 
 Goldsmith ; the author or adapter of more than forty 
 dramatic pieces, besides odes, prologues, and occasional 
 verses innumerable; the manager under whose judicious 
 direction the stage was purged from many of its most 
 crying abuses, and by whose liberality and discrimina- 
 tion many rising men of ability were discovered and 
 rewarded ; the actor whose intellectual power and capa- 
 city abolished the traditional mannerisms of the stage 
 and substituted for a drawling and sing-song recitation 
 an elocution of surprising naturalness and truth ; the 
 restorer of Shakespeare in his integrity to those boards 
 from which he had long been virtually banished — a 
 man distinguished alike in his private and in his public 
 capacities — irreproachable in his domestic relations, 
 and dying with scarcely an enemy in the world, Garrick 
 forms one of the most conspicuous figures of the last 
 century, and certainly no improper or uninteresting 
 subject of study in the present. 
 
 The revocation of the Edict of Nantes brought to this 
 country somewhere about half- a- million of worthy per- 
 sonages, refugees from the intolerance of Madame de 
 Maintenon and the Grand Monarque, over whom she 
 ruled. Among the rest came one De la Garrique, whose 
 flight was shared by his wife and infant son. In course 
 of time the little fellow grew to manhood and became an 
 officer in the English army, in what capacity no one 
 seems to know. Murphy, indeed, states that he received 
 a captain's commission ; but Murphy is so notoriously 
 inaccurate that it may probably be taken for granted 
 that he obtained no more than a " pair of colours," 
 and was not attached to any regiment. As usual, 
 however, the ensign was dubbed " Captain " by his 
 friends, and a Captain Peter Garrick remained to the 
 end of the chapter. A recruiting lieutenant — which 
 
138 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 seems to have been the worthy man's real rank — was 
 nothing very exalted. Such as it was, however, the 
 red coat and the warm heart beneath it fascinated 
 one Arabella Clough, the pretty daughter of one of 
 the Vicars Choral of Lichfield, where Peter Garrick 
 was quartered at the beginning of the century. 
 
 The fair Arabella quitted her father's roof in 1707 
 to follow her husband's fortunes. These were natu- 
 rally unsettled enough. Duty constantly took the 
 captain from one place to another, the result being 
 that the family were at Hereford when the second son 
 and third child, David, came into the world on the 
 19th of February, 17 1 G. Captain Garrick, who appears 
 to have been a remarkably simple-minded and kind- 
 hearted man, retired from the army soon after this 
 interesting event, and settled in Lichfield, where his 
 sprightly boy speedily became a favourite with all 
 classes. The registrar of the cathedral, Johnson's 
 friend and patron, Gilbert Walmesley, took notice of 
 him, and the clergy appear to have been attracted by 
 his lively manners and sweet temper. In process of 
 time he was sent to the Free Grammar School of 
 Lichfield, then under the charge of a Mr. Hunter, 
 where he received the greater part of his education. 
 A good deal of nonsense has been written concerning 
 his carelessness and inattention to the studies of the 
 school; but the tales of Davies and Murphy must be 
 accepted with caution. In this matter they are self- 
 condemned for two reasons. In the first place, David 
 Garrick possessed, by Johnson's testimony, a more than 
 average amount of classical knowledge, and in the 
 second, Hunter was one of the race of flogging school- 
 masters, who were unquestionably brutes, but who 
 contrived to turn out some very respectable scholars. 
 
David Garrick. 139 
 
 Little Davy's weakness was not, in fact, idleness, but 
 a too great vivacity, whicli displayed itself in a curious 
 aptitude for caricaturing the oddities and eccentricities 
 of the Lichfield people, which, as Lichfield was the 
 most provincial of English country towns, were nume- 
 rous enough. Strangely enough, this habit of his made 
 him more friends than enemies, and even served upon 
 occasion to propitiate the ferocious Hunter. 
 
 The players did not visit Lichfield very frequently 
 in the days of Garrick' s boyhood, and when they did 
 their performances were not of miraculous excellence. 
 Hogarth's picture of " strollers in a barn " seems to 
 have been fairly representative of the companies who 
 wandered over England in the early years of the last 
 century. Such as they were, however, their visit some- 
 where about the year 1727 seems to have been the 
 turning-point in Garrick's life. The boy bloomed out 
 into actor and manager, raising a theatrical company 
 amongst his schoolfellows in imitation of the strollers, 
 drilling them indefatigably, and working himself to 
 the best of his ability. When all things else were 
 ready, Garrick applied to one Mr. Samuel Johnson, 
 the son of a bookseller in the town, who had already 
 acquired a certain amount of reputation for the dex- 
 terity with which he handled his pen, to provide the 
 company with a prologue. Mr. Johnson declined to 
 furnish the necessary verses — why we are not told — 
 and the play was presented in its unadorned simplicity. 
 It was Farquhar's " Recruiting Officer," and with an 
 odd perversity Garrick assumed the part of Serjeant 
 Kite. 
 
 Garrick had scarcely entered upon his teens, when 
 an uncle, who was a wealthy and prosperous wine 
 merchant in Lisbon, proposed to his father to take 
 
140 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 him into his house and " make a man of him." The 
 boy was accordingly despatched, and found his uncle 
 all that he had been led to expect. But he did not 
 stay long at Lisbon. He was not made for a man of 
 business, and the monotony of the counting-house 
 depressed him. It is true, indeed, that he found other 
 occupations, and that some of the younger members 
 of the Portuguese aristocracy treated him with great 
 kindness and friendship ; but it is not surprising to 
 find that before a year was over he became home-sick, 
 and returned to Lichfield, where his father very 
 wisely placed him once more under the care of Mr. 
 Hunter. Before long the affairs of the family began 
 to wear a very gloomy aspect. The captain's half-pay 
 was insufficient to support his large family, and debts 
 were accumulating on every hand. Under this pres- 
 sure he gladly took service again, and leaving .his 
 family in Lichfield, made his way to Gibraltar, where 
 he served for some years, little David being, during 
 this period, the mainstay of the family at home. 
 
 At this time Johnson was fighting the battle of life 
 against penury and misfortune with but indifferent 
 success. The bookseller's son had tried various ways 
 of getting a living, but he had not been particularly 
 fortunate in any of them. He had been an usher ii 
 several schools, where he lived a life of such drudgery 
 and physical misery that in after-days he could nol 
 refer to this period without the strongest and deepesl 
 emotion. Now still possessed with the idea of main- 
 taining himself by teaching, and inspired by the counsels 
 of his excellent friend, Gilbert Walmesley, he opened 
 a school at Edial. An advertisement in the " Gentle- 
 man's Magazine " set forth that " At Edial, neai 
 Lichfield, young gentlemen are boarded and taught 
 
David Garrick. 141 
 
 the Latin and Greek languages, by Samuel Johnson." 
 David Garrick was taken from the grammar school 
 and placed under Johnson's care, and he and his 
 brother George, with four or five boys from the neigh- 
 bourhood, amongst whom was Hawkesworth, after- 
 wards the compiler of travels, were all the pupils 
 Johnson ever had. The relations between the two 
 men were somewhat curious. Johnson was Garrick' s 
 senior by only a very few years, and the lively lad not 
 unnaturally turned his tutor's peculiarities into ridicule 
 even whilst estimating his innumerable good qualities 
 at their due value. Johnson, on his side, appears to 
 have treated Garrick with a sternness and severity 
 which had their due effect on the intercourse of after- 
 life. Not content with the dull routine of scholastic 
 life, Johnson was at this time engaged upon his tragedy 
 of " Irene " — that pompous, stilted, unpoetical, un- 
 dramatic, and unreadable piece, which in after-years 
 Garrick, apparently out of pure gratitude and affection 
 for its author, produced at Drury Lane. 
 
 The Edial school had lasted for a year, when Jolmson, 
 stimulated by the applause of Gilbert Walmesley, set 
 out for London, with the three acts of his tragedy in his 
 pocket, and having Garrick for his companion. There 
 had been some consultation as to ways and means, as 
 was not unnecessary, seeing that Johnson in after-life 
 was wont to speak of the time when he entered London 
 " with twopence halfpenny in his pocket," Garrick 
 having but three halfpence in his. On the whole, 
 however, one is tempted to believe that this story was 
 one of those pardonable exaggerations in which men 
 who have risen to a position of comfort from com- 
 parative poverty are very apt to indulge. Garrick 
 certainly could not have been so destitute as he is 
 
142 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 represented, seeing that within a week of his arrival 
 in London — on the 9th of March, 1737 — he was entered 
 of Lincoln's Inn. Walmesley had recommended him 
 strongly to a friend at Rochester — a worthy clergyman 
 named Colson — under whom he might study philosophy 
 and mathematics, " while," said Walmesley, " in the 
 intervals of study he will be an agreeable companion." 
 Desirable on every account though the plan was, the 
 narrow finances of the ex-captain were insufficient to 
 supply the funds for carrying it into effect. At this 
 moment with dramatic appropriateness the wealthy 
 uncle from Lisbon made his appearance. Garrick, of 
 course, explained matters, and succeeded in so con- 
 firming the favourable impression he had produced 
 when on his visit to Lisbon, that not merely did his 
 uncle minister to his immediate necessities, but put 
 his name down in his will for a larger legacy than he 
 had bequeathed to any of his nephews and nieces. 
 The old man had intended to settle in England, but 
 death was beforehand with him, and in a few weeks 
 Garrick had lost his uncle and become the possessor 
 of no less a sum than a thousand pounds. Very 
 wisely he at once placed himself under Cols on' s care, 
 with whom he stayed for some months. 
 
 While David was thus occupying himself with his 
 education, Captain Garrick, who had exchanged with 
 an officer on full pay at Gibraltar, returned to England 
 with, it is said, the brevet rank of major. He found 
 his health completely shattered with advancing years 
 and foreign service, and sent in his papers in order 
 that he might sell his commission. The author of the 
 memoir prefixed to his correspondence asserts that 
 permission to carry out this arrangement was refused 
 by the authorities ; but so far from that being the case 
 
David Garrick. 143 
 
 negotiations had been entered into, and the sale would 
 have been effected for a sum of 1100Z., had not death 
 carried him off. His will contains the remarkable 
 bequest of " one shilling" only to his son David — a 
 fact which would be inexplicable, considering the warm 
 affection which always subsisted between them, were 
 it not for the ample provision which the uncle had 
 made. Before twelve months were over the tender 
 mother and faithful wife followed Captain G-arrick to 
 the grave ; and David, who now saw that his chances 
 of succeeding at the bar were of the slenderest de- 
 scription, returned to London and established himself 
 in business with his brother Peter. Foote, between 
 whom and Garrick there was a warm though not un- 
 friendly rivalry, never forgot this episode in his friend's 
 career. In after- days he would say to his friends that 
 he " remembered Garrick living in Durham Yard with 
 three quarts of vinegar in his cellar, and calling himself 
 a wine merchant." Trade, however, whether under 
 the guidance of his uncle at Lisbon, or of a brother 
 six years his senior in London, was not to David's 
 taste. His was a nature which, in spite of consider- 
 able prudence and sagacity in its own way, was too 
 lively and volatile to endure confinement to the desk's 
 dull wood, while his brother was a rather slow, formal 
 and dull man of business. The result of such a con- 
 nexion may readily be guessed. The business of the 
 firm lay chiefly amongst coffee-houses and taverns 
 frequented by persons connected with the theatres, 
 and amongst them David was often to be found — 
 too often, indeed, for the satisfaction of his plodding 
 brother. Endless bickerings arose between them in 
 consequence. The business ceased to be profitable; 
 friends interfered, and the partnership was dissolved. 
 
144 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 Thus freed from the trammels of commerce, Garrick 
 turned to his natural element — the stage. He had 
 made friends with many actors, and had established a 
 connexion with Drury Lane, where Fleetwood, the 
 manager, produced his first dramatic work — a curious 
 and original poetical sketch — called " Lethe," the 
 point of which lay in the meeting of various characters 
 on the other side of the Styx. It was as an actor, 
 however, rather than as a dramatic author, that Garrick 
 felt he would shine, and he consulted accordingly with 
 his friends as to the best means of gratifying his 
 ambition. Giifard, the manager of the theatre in 
 Goodman's Fields, gave him most sensible advice. He 
 recommended him to begin in the provinces, and to 
 learn the technical part of his profession before 
 asking for the verdict of a critical London audience. 
 Garrick was wise enough to appreciate the wisdom of 
 the recommendation, and set out for Ipswich armed 
 with a letter of introduction to the manager of the 
 theatre there, who was a relation of Giffard, and who 
 bore the same name. His terms were accepted, and 
 under the name of Lyddal, Garrick made "his first ap- 
 pearance on any stage," in the character of Aboan, in 
 Dryden's long-forgotten tragedy of " Oroonoko." 
 
 There was, it is possible, some meaning in the choice 
 of this part — diffident of his power, the young actor 
 was, without doubt, anxious to provide against the 
 chance of recognition by his friends, and so chose a 
 character wherein his disguise was most perfect. 
 There was, however, no need for disguise. The 
 Ipswich people received him with rapturous applause, 
 and flocked in crowds to see him, both in Aboan and 
 in the new part of Chamont in " The Orphan," which 
 he undertook a few days later. Encouraged by his 
 
David Garrick. 1 4 5 
 
 manifest success in tragedy, he speedily essayed the 
 versatility of his powers, and appeared in the course 
 of a few weeks as Captain Brazen in Farquhar's gay 
 comedy of the " Recruiting Officer," and as Sir Harry 
 Wildair in the comedy of the same name — the latter 
 being the part which is generally associated with the 
 name of the lovely Mrs. Woffington. He won as much 
 applause in comedy as in tragedy; and then, as though 
 he wished to prove that nothing is too low for genius to 
 stoop to, he condescended to play even harlequin. 
 
 Success had attended him in whatever he attempted. 
 But Garrick cared little for petty triumphs, and, with 
 the winter season, returned to London. The managers 
 of the patent theatres would, however, have nothing to 
 do with him as yet, and finding them obdurate, he 
 turned once more to his friend Giffard, the manager of 
 what was then called " the little theatre " in Goodman's 
 Fields. Here the law restricting the number of 
 theatres was evaded by the device of presenting a 
 " concert of music," between the parts of which a play 
 and a farce were performed by some persons " for 
 their own diversion." Giffard closed with Garrick's 
 offer at once, and entered upon an agreement by which 
 he engaged him at a salary of five pounds a week. 
 The sum sounds small enough in these days, but it 
 was large for the early part of the eighteenth century 
 and proves, with tolerable clearness, the high estima- 
 tion in which the services of the young actor were 
 held. He chose the part of Richard the Third for 
 his first appearance on the London stage, and in the 
 play-bill of the Goodman's Fields Theatre for the 19th 
 of October, 1741, a copy of which is still in existence, 
 we find announced, " The part of King Richard, by 
 A Gentleman (who never appeared on any stage);" 
 
146 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 thus suppressing alike his real name and his debut at 
 Ipswich. He needed, however, neither concealments 
 nor disguises. His first appearance was a triumphant 
 success. The truth, simplicity and naturalness of the 
 new actor as distinguished from the cold and stilted 
 rant which passed current in those days for tragedy, 
 completely took the town by storm. His fame spread 
 rapidly westward, and the fashionable world was 
 speedily drawn from its favourite haunts to the little 
 East End Theatre. " The road from Westminster to 
 Whitechapel," says a contemporary, " was covered 
 with carriages in a constant stream ; and Goodman's 
 Fields was full of the splendour of St. James's and 
 Grosvenor Square." " Did I tell you," says Gray in 
 one of his letters, " about Mr. Garrick, that the town 
 are horn-mad after ? There are a dozen dukes of a 
 night at Goodman's Fields sometimes ;" and Horace 
 Walpole, though he does not fall in with the general 
 opinion, cannot resist the fact of Garrick's popularity. 
 In a letter to Sir Horace Mann he says, " All the run 
 is now after Garrick, a wine merchant who is turned 
 player at Goodman's Fields. He plays all parts, and 
 is a very good mimic. His acting I have seen, and 
 may say to you, who will not tell it again here, I see 
 nothing wonderful in it : but it is heresy to say so : 
 the Duke of Argyll says he is superior to Betterton." 
 Pope, too, then very near his end, broke through his 
 rule of abstaining from visits to the theatre, and came 
 to see the young actor in those days. He is said to 
 have told Lord Orrery, when he had been induced to 
 emerge from his retirement, that " he was afraid the 
 young man would be spoiled, for he would have no 
 competitor." Giffard could not fail to see the value of 
 his friend, and that the sum which he paid him was 
 
David Gar rick. 147 
 
 altogether inadequate. He yielded, therefore to the 
 representations of certain good-natured intercessors, 
 and entered into a new arrangement by which Garrick 
 was to receive half the net profits of the theatre. 
 The terms sound very liberal, but the profit to the 
 actor does not appear to have been overwhelming. 
 Davies, indeed, mentions that the gross receipts of the 
 Goodman's Fields house for seven nights were but 
 216/. 7s. ; and when salaries, rent and expenses were 
 deducted from that sum, the share of the partners 
 would not be extravagant. 
 
 Other characters were speedily added to that of 
 Richard — characters varying from the most exalted 
 tragedy down to farce and the lowest of low comedy. 
 He appeared again as Chamant in the " Orphan;" in 
 his own farce of the " Lying Valet " — a piece which 
 retained its popularity for half a century — as the Ghost 
 in " Hamlet;" as Fondlewife in the " Old Bachelor," 
 and as Master Johnny in Colley Cibber's farce of the 
 " Schoolboy," on which last occasion the unvenerable 
 veteran, who was then in his eighty-fourth year, gra- 
 ciously remarked to Mrs. Bracegirdle, " Why, faith, 
 Bracey, the young fellow is clever." His greatest achieve- 
 ment was, however, his interpretation of Lear. Murphy 
 tells a tale of his having studied the manifestations of 
 insanity in an unfortunate gentleman of his acquaint- 
 ance, who accidentally dropped his grandchild whilst 
 playing with it at a window, into the flagged area 
 below. The fall instantly killed the child, and the un- 
 fortunate grandfather suffered ever afterwards from 
 acute mania. Whether the story be true or not — and 
 Murphy is, to say the least, a most untrustworthy 
 authority — the fact remains that Lear was, from the 
 first, one of the finest of Garrick' s parts. Several 
 
 l 2 
 
148 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 years afterwards, when lie was in Paris, he represented 
 the whole scene before Clairon with extraordinary suc- 
 cess. Melted to tears, the great French actress threw 
 herself into his arms, and embraced him with rapture. 
 The season at Goodman's Fields had begun on the 
 19th of October, 1741, and lasted until the 23rd of 
 May, 1742, between which dates Garrick acted on one 
 hundred and fifty -nine nights in eighteen charac- 
 ters. On three nights after the latter date, he played 
 at Drury Lane, as Bayes in the " Rehearsal,' ' Lear, and 
 Richard. He divided the profits with Fleetwood the 
 manager, and immediately afterwards set off for 
 Dublin, in company with Woffington, his relations 
 with whom were of the friendliest kind — if indeed 
 they did not deserve a warmer title. It is, perhaps, 
 hardly necessary to say that Garrick's popularity fol- 
 lowed him to the Irish capital. His admirers were wont 
 to relate that he was the occasion of an epidemic there, 
 so that the phrase " Garrick fever " was no mere 
 metaphor. The fact was that the summer was ex- 
 tremely hot and Dublin has always been one of the 
 dirtiest of cities, to which combined circumstances may 
 be traced the appearance of a low type of fever which 
 appears to have attacked many of the frequenters of 
 the theatre. Here Garrick introduced Hamlet with 
 general applause. The Irish appear, however, from 
 some letters in the " Correspondence," to have taken 
 some objection to the actor's pronunciation of English. 
 Like the rest of his contemporaries, he in plain words 
 minced the king's English in a fashion which would 
 now be thought infamously affected. Thus for ex- 
 ample he talked of wrnd, obleege, Horetio, metron 
 Iserel, villin, appal (for appeal), and so forth. But 
 
David Gar rick. \ 49 
 
 for his general capacity there was nothing save the 
 warmest applause. 
 
 On his return from Dublin, Garrick found the way 
 clear before] him for an engagement at Drury Lane. 
 The managers of the patent theatres had succeeded in 
 inducing Sir John Barnard, one of the magistrates for 
 the city, to put such pressure on GifFard that he 
 closed the theatre in Goodman's Fields, and made 
 overtures to Fleetwood, who then held the patent for 
 Drury Lane. Garrick was invited by the same 
 manager, and joined his company at a salary of 500L 
 a year, which, however, was paid with undeviating 
 irregularity. Fleetwood had been a man of large 
 fortune and of corresponding fashion, and in his 
 lower estate as manager he preserved all his extrava- 
 gant tastes, especially that for high play and general 
 extravagance, the result being that he was constantly 
 in difficulties, and was accustomed to relieve his 
 necessities at the expense of his company. Garrick' s 
 means were, happily, sufficient to enable him to live 
 comfortably in spite of his temporary embarrassments, 
 and accordingly we find him at this time joining com- 
 pany in a house in Russell Street, Covent Garden, 
 with Mrs. Woffington and Macklin. The arrangement 
 was that " each should keep house for a month turn 
 and turn about," and it is not surprising that under such 
 circumstances quarrels should have broken out. Mrs. 
 Woffington was by nature profuse ; Garrick on the 
 other hand was careful and prudent; and Macklin, 
 while neither one nor the other, was of a malignant 
 temper. When after a quarrel about theatrical matters 
 he was anxious to depreciate his former friend, he 
 propagated a number of idle tales of this period in the 
 
1 50 Eighteenth Century Sttidies. 
 
 great actor's life, to which may be traced the generally 
 existing impression of his excessive penuriousness. 
 
 At Drury Lane Garrick repeated his performance of 
 Bayes in the farce of the " Behearsal." This part, 
 from which Sheridan obtained the idea of Sir Fretful 
 Plagiary in the immortal " Critic," had always been a 
 favourite with those actors who combine a talent for 
 mimicry with a natural humour of their own. The 
 wit of the original play lies chiefly in its ridicule of 
 the extravagances of the heroic school of rhymed 
 tragedy, of which Dry den is the acknowledged head. 
 Later versions — for it was always treated as a peg on 
 which to hang any satire suited to the passing mo- 
 ment — superadded a theatrical element to the literary 
 and the burlesque, confined no longer to the language 
 of the stage, by degrees extended itself to the 
 manners of the actors. It is obvious that this was 
 treading upon rather dangerous ground. Actors are 
 not the most pachydermatous of their race, and hence 
 quarrels were pretty frequent. Garrick did not, how- 
 ever, deviate from his usual practice through fear of 
 the consequences, and whilst rehearsing took the 
 usual licence with several of his contemporaries. 
 Some good-natured friend informed Quin that he had 
 been chosen as one of the principal victims, to which 
 information he replied with a defiant allusion to a 
 thick stick. Others were less tender of their reputa- 
 tions, and the rehearsals continued. One unfortunate 
 accident, however, delayed the reproduction of the 
 piece for a fortnight. Garrick mentioned to his 
 friend Giffard that as he meant to caricature the 
 other actors in the theatre, he must not expect to be 
 spared. No objection was offered at the outset, but 
 in his very first scene Garrick made his mimicry so 
 
David Garrick. 1 5 1 
 
 utterly ridiculous, that the ex-manager flew into a 
 violent rage, and sent his tormentor a challenge, which 
 Garrick, nothing loth, accepted. In the duel which 
 followed, Giffard was wounded in the shoulder — not 
 seriously, but sufficiently so to lay him up for a couple 
 of weeks, and to delay the production of the play. 
 When at last it made its appearance, the imitation of 
 Giffard was, of course, suppressed. With the public 
 it was remarkably successful, they regarding the 
 play as a masterpiece of humour, and Garrick as the 
 best enactor of the part. Some of the actors not 
 altogether unnaturally did not share in this view, and 
 Colley Cibber, who was always jealous of Garrick, 
 used to say that he was no better in the part than his 
 son Theophilus — that " The' Cibber," whom every- 
 body declared born to be hanged, and who certainly 
 deserved the fate half-a-dozen times over, but was 
 drowned after all. Cibber's jealousy, indeed, con- 
 tinually broke out. " When are we to have another 
 comedy from you, Mr. Cibber ? " asked some admirer 
 one day. " From me ? who the deuce is there to act 
 in it?" "Why, sir, there's Garrick, Macklin, Prit- 
 chard, Clive. ,, " Oh, yes, I know your dramatis personce 
 well enough, but where the devil are your actors ? " 
 In spite of all this jealousy, Garrick' s reading of the 
 part was accepted by a greater actor than Cibber. 
 Foote adopted it almost in its entirety, but what 
 Garrick had confined to the stage and its literature, he 
 applied with infinite wit to the greater theatre of 
 politics. 
 
 Fortune was not to be tempted by Garrick in comic 
 parts alone. Having played with triumphant success 
 in Lear and in Hamlet, he next essayed Macbeth. 
 In the. announcements of the performance, the public 
 
152 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 were informed that it would be performed " as written 
 by Shakespeare." It is a remarkable testimony to 
 the state of the stage in the middle of the eighteenth 
 century that this announcement should have excited 
 so much comment. Neither the public nor the actors 
 appear to have known that the corrupt version by 
 Davenant, which they were accustomed to see, was 
 not " Macbeth as written by Shakespeare." To them 
 the debasement of the witch scene into one of low 
 comedy and buffoonery and the interpolation of a 
 number of speeches taken from other plays for the 
 purpose of affording the actor an opportunity of 
 making " points " was perfectly natural. Shakespeare 
 had written it so — if not, so much the worse for 
 Shakespeare. " What ! " said Quin, " do not I play 
 Shakespeare ? pooh ! pooh ! " Considerable opposition 
 was anticipated ; a polite audience accustomed to the 
 regular tragedy of the unities and of the rules, edu- 
 cated in the school of Mr. Addison's " Cato," and be- 
 lieving Mr. Nicholas Rowe to be one of the greatest 
 of dramatic poets was hardly likely to appreciate the 
 simplicity and naturalness of the great dramatist. 
 The groundlings of the pit, too, who had associated 
 some scenes of the play with the coarsest buffoonery 
 of which a coarse age was capable, could not be ex- 
 pected to comprehend the weird poetry with which 
 Shakespeare had invested the dying superstitions of 
 his day. To avert the unfavourable verdict which he 
 dreaded from both quarters as well as the personal 
 ridicule which he feared might attach to the assump- 
 tion of an heroic part by an actor of his confessedly 
 diminutive figure, Garrick prepared an ironical 
 pamphlet, on the title-page of which he put the motto, 
 " Macbeth has murdered G k." It was a burlesque 
 

 David Garrick. 153 
 
 of the usual style of dramatic criticism and was 
 written with considerable humour, the object being, 
 of course, to have the laugh on his side from the first. 
 Whether its publication was very wise or whether the 
 pamphlet exercised the smallest influence on the public 
 may be open to question. His success was open to 
 none. Yet he appeared in this part under extraordi- 
 nary difficulties. Finding it impossible to get his 
 salary from Fleetwood, Garrick had seceded from 
 Drury Lane, taking with him Macklin, Havard, Barry, 
 Blakes, Mrs. Pritchard and Mrs. Olive, all of whom 
 had grievances of their own against the manager. 
 They had hoped to get the then Lord Chamberlain, 
 the Duke of Grafton, to grant them a patent for 
 the Opera House. The Duke contented himself 
 with asking their salaries, and finding that a player 
 received twice as much as a captain in the army, 
 he refused to do anything to serve them. They were 
 thus reduced to make terms with Fleetwood, and as 
 Garrick was unquestionably the most important of the 
 seceders, terms were first offered to him, which were 
 sufficiently liberal to induce him to return to the 
 stage of Drury Lane. His associates considered that 
 he had betrayed them, and when the curtain drew up 
 for Macbeth, a band of ruffians from Hockley-in-the- 
 Hole and similar savoury districts made an immense 
 disturbance. The theatre at once became the scene 
 of a pitched battle between the champions of the 
 actors and the bruisers whom Fleetwood, foreseeing a 
 disturbance, had hired. In the eud the latter pre- 
 vailed. Garrick was allowed to perform, and as Mrs. 
 Pritchard lived to support him, Macbeth became one 
 of his finest parts. 
 
 Reference has been made to Garrick's diminutive 
 
154 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 figure, which was indeed a source of constant annoy- 
 ance and mortification to him. In parts like that in 
 Abel Drugger in Ben Jonson's " Alchymist," it was 
 indeed an advantage, but it required all his genius to 
 overcome its deteriorating effect in heroic characters, 
 such as those of Hamlet and Macbeth. To mend 
 matters as far as possible, he was accustomed con- 
 stantly to appear on the stage in shoes with cork soles 
 an inch or more in thickness, but his efforts in this 
 direction were not crowned with much success. The 
 small fry of witlings found an inexhaustible spring of 
 humour in the great actor's smallness of stature. 
 Entering the stage with his face duly blackened for 
 Othello, a wag in the pit called out, " Here is Pompey, 
 but where is the tea-tray ? " rather a long speech by 
 the way for a pittite. Foote also had his bitter jest 
 as usual, when he brought out the Puppet Show. 
 " Are your puppets to be the size of life, Mr. Foote ? " 
 asked a lady. " No, madam," was the reply, " only 
 a little larger than Garrick." Churchill rebuked the 
 malevolent criticism when he put into the " Rosciad " 
 in the mouth of " a snarling critic insolent as vain," 
 the words, — 
 
 * He's of stature somewhat low — 
 
 Your hero should be always tall you know. 
 
 True natural greatness all consists in height.' 
 
 1 Produce your voucher, critic' ' Serjeant Kite.' 
 
 Great revolutions were in progress in matters the; 
 trical in London during this engagement of Garrick. 
 Fleetwood, oppressed with debt, had sold the remaindei 
 of the term for which his patent held good, to two 
 bankers named Green and Amber, under whom first 
 Lacy and then Rich, son to that Christopher Rich 
 
David Garrick. 1 5 5 
 
 who had been made " gay " by the " Beggar's Opera," 
 acted as managers. John Rich's principal qualifica- 
 tion for the post would seem to have been that he 
 hated English actors and the English drama pretty 
 cordially. He had himself tempted fortune with very 
 moderate success in some small part in the " Earl of 
 Essex," and, disgusted with his failure, had turned 
 his back upon the regular drama. In its stead he 
 introduced a new species of entertainment, somewhat 
 after the French manner. This entertainment, which 
 was the immediate parent of the modern pantomime, 
 consisted of a story, usually taken from the Metamor- 
 phoses of Ovid or some similar source, interspersed 
 with scenes in which were portrayed the loves of 
 harlequin and columbine, enlivened with those magical 
 touches of the bat of the former with which the 
 modern stage is tolerably familiar. In these harle- 
 quinades, Rich was unrivalled, as, indeed, he deserved 
 to be, sparing as he did no expense in their production, 
 and having at his command the largest and best- 
 fitted stage in England. The public on their part 
 fully appreciated his efforts for their amusement, 
 and showed by liberal support that he had caught 
 their taste. The patent of the other house had in 
 the meantime passed into the hands of Lacy, who 
 had acquired the greater part of his experience by 
 the management of Ranelagh, which had so pros- 
 pered in his hands as to leave him with a comfortable 
 surplus of some 4000/. Coming thus to Covent 
 Garden with a competent knowledge of theatrical 
 matters, he saw the necessity for vigorous effort to 
 withstand the popularity of the harlequinades of 
 Drury Lane. He, therefore, brought over from Ire- 
 land the most popular of the Dublin actors, Spranger 
 
1 56 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 Barry, whose success in lovers' parts had made for 
 him a wonderful reputation. With Barry he engaged 
 also Macklin, Yates, Beard, Giffard and his wife, Mrs. 
 Clive, and Mrs. Woffington, the last of whom had, in 
 spite of Garrick' s genuine fondness and indulgence, 
 finally deserted him. Rich, in his turn, seeing how 
 formidable such an opposition might become, secured, 
 in addition to what was already a very decent company, 
 the services of Garrick, Quin, and Mrs. Cibber. To 
 Garrick, who had added both to his popularity and 
 to his experience by another visit to Dublin, he en- 
 trusted the management of the more serious business 
 of the stage, retaining in his own hands the direction 
 of his beloved ballets and pantomimes, to which 
 he regarded tragedy and comedy alike as mere suc- 
 cedanea. With Quin Garrick divided the greater 
 parts, playing them on alternate nights with him. 
 He was, however, so popular that the veteran fre- 
 quently had the mortification of finding himself play- 
 ing to a half-empty house in the very part in which 
 his rival had the night before been greeted by a 
 crowded audience. He may possibly have found 
 some consolation in the applause he received when 
 playing in the same piece with Garrick, but he does 
 not appear to have done so, and half the theatrical 
 memoirs of this date are filled with stories of his 
 jealousy and spite. He was, as actors went, no bad 
 one for the period in which he flourished. Churchill 
 in the " Rosciad," says of him, — 
 
 His words bore sterling weight ; nervous and strong, 
 
 In manly tides of sense they roll'd along. 
 
 Happy in art he chiefly had pretence 
 
 To keep up numbers yet not forfeit sense. 
 
 No actor ever greater heights could reach, 
 
 In all the laboured artifice of speech. 
 
David Garrick. 1 5 7 
 
 The poet goes on, however, to argue that speech and 
 its artifices do not constitute acting, and he points 
 out that if an actor wishes to makes his audience 
 feel he must feel himself. That Quin failed to do. 
 
 His eyes in gloomy socket taught to roll, 
 Proclaim'd the sullen habit of his soul. 
 Heavy and phlegmatic he trod the stage, 
 Too proud for tenderness, too dull for rage. 
 # # # . * # 
 
 In whate'er cast his character was laid, 
 Self still, like oil, upon the surface play'd. 
 Nature, in spite of all his skill, crept in — 
 Horatio, Dorax, Falstaff — still 'twas Quin. 
 
 Than such a man probably no more perfect foil to 
 Garrick could have been obtained. It is related of 
 him that once playing Horatio to Garrick' s Lothario 
 in " The Fair Penitent," in the scene where the latter 
 challenges the former, he so drawled out his answer, 
 " I'll meet thee there," that somebody called out from 
 the gallery, " Why don't you tell the gentleman 
 whether you'll meet him or not ? " In spite of his 
 faults, however, he had always been a decent and a 
 useful actor, and before the advent of Garrick he had 
 been a very popular one, so that his reduction to a 
 secondary position must have been a source of deep 
 mortification to him. Another circumstance was now 
 added to complete his humiliation. Garrick had 
 written a gay little farce in which he himself played, 
 and which had for title " Miss in her Teens." Night 
 after night the town crowded to laugh with and 
 applaud the author- actor. Quin was called upon to 
 play some of his graver parts before the farce, but 
 finding that the public came to laugh at "Miss in 
 her Teens," and not to be terrified by his tragedy, he 
 repented his complaisance, and swore lustily that he 
 
158 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 would not degrade himself " by holding up the tail of 
 any farce." A good-natured friend carried the story 
 to Garrick, who was naturally very indignant. His 
 revenge was, however, characteristic. Quin drew his 
 salary as usual, but his name did not appear in the 
 bills so long as the run of the farce continued. 
 
 From a virtual managership, Garrick was now to 
 assume a real one. Finding that the public crowded 
 to Co vent Garden, Lacy very wisely offered to Garrick 
 a moiety of his patent for the moderate sum of 8000Z. 
 The actor at once saw the immense advantage which 
 he might derive from such a property, and after very 
 little hesitation concluded the treaty in April, 1747. 
 Profitable though Rich had found his engagement of 
 Garrick, (and Davies says that he made no less than 
 8500Z. between September, 1746, and May, 1747,) he 
 was always ungrateful enough to regard the great 
 actor as a hindrance rather than as a help, and was by 
 no means sorry to be rid of him, and free to produce 
 his beloved pantomimes and menagerie shows without 
 let or hindrance. Such of the players, however, as 
 possessed higher views of their art than Rich, and a 
 clearer perception of the value of Garrick to the 
 stage were not long in leaving the unappreciative 
 manager, and enlisting under the banner of the rival 
 house, which opened in September with a prologue 
 written by Johnson — not the worst of his efforts in 
 that walk of literature. Some lines of it may even 
 now be found amongst the list of stock quotations. 
 Thus most readers will remember — 
 
 From bard to bard the frigid caution crept, 
 Till declamation roar'd while passion slept ; 
 and — 
 
 The drama's laws, the drama's patrons give, 
 For we that live to please, must please to live. 
 
David Gar rick. 159 
 
 In the course of the season Garrick revived Ben 
 Jonson's " Every Man in his Humour," "Romeo and 
 Juliet," and " Macbeth." It is greatly to Garrick' s 
 honour that he was- the first manager of his time to 
 appreciate the transcend ant genius of our national 
 poet. Of the thirty-five known plays of Shakespeare, 
 he regularly gave seventeen or eighteen in every 
 season, and he played them more nearly as they had 
 been left by their author, than had been done for very 
 many years. It is true that he made some additions 
 and some excisions, but they were always excusable 
 on the ground of the necessity for having a good 
 " acting version." Such as it was, moreover, the 
 play as Garrick gave it was always the genuine work 
 of Shakespeare, and was, in consequence, almost as 
 fresh as a new play to his audience. The garbled 
 and corrupt versions of Davenant and Cibber had re- 
 placed the genuine work of the poet, which, in fact, 
 had. been treated as a sort of quarry from which every 
 one took what best suited his purpose, and used with- 
 out much reference or care for its intrinsic fitness. 
 In this way Otway stole the plot and characters of 
 " Romeo and Juliet," to transfer them to a dull, 
 pompous, and formal tragedy of his own to which he 
 gave the name of " Caius Marius." Others followed 
 his example, and it was thus, and thus only, that 
 Englishmen up to the middle of the last century knew 
 the works of their greatest dramatist. 
 
 One of Garrick' s first acts in his new position of 
 manager was a kindness to his old friend and tutor 
 Johnson. Twenty years before, they had left Lichfield 
 together, Johnson to try his fortune with a tragedy, 
 Garrick to make experiments in another line of life. 
 The tragedy was unfinished ; but within a few months 
 
160 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 Johnson got it into a presentable condition and offered it 
 to Fleetwood, who read but declined to produce it. E very- 
 other manager to whom it was offered — and it appears 
 to have gone the usual round — endorsed Fleetwood's 
 verdict. There were obvious reasons for this failure. 
 Any one who will take the trouble to read the play will 
 see that it is about as ill-suited for the stage as any 
 work expressly designed for it could be. It is heavy 
 and formal to an extraordinary degree. The very faults 
 which Johnson saw in " Cato," and pointed out in the 
 couplet from his prologue which has just been quoted, 
 were precisely those which most distinguished " Irene." 
 Johnson himself, in his preface to Shakespeare, says 
 of the former work, " We find in ' Cato ' innumerable 
 beauties which enamour us of its author, but we see 
 nothing that acquaints us with human sentiments or 
 human actions ; we place it with the fairest and the 
 noblest progeny which judgment propagates by con- 
 junction with learning ; but ' Othello ' is the vigorous 
 and vivacious offspring of observation impregnated by 
 genius. ' Cato' affords a splendid exhibition of artificial 
 and fictitious manners, and delivers just and noble 
 sentiments in diction easy, elevated, and harmonious ; 
 but its hopes and fears communicate no vibration to 
 the heart ; the composition refers us only to the 
 writer ; we pronounce the name of ' Cato ' but we 
 think on Addison." Again, in his life of Addison, 
 Johnson says, " ' Cato ' is rather a poem in dialogue, 
 than a drama ; rather a succession of just sentiments 
 in elegant language, than a representation of natural 
 affections, or of any state probable or possible in 
 human life. Nothing here excites or assuages emo- 
 tion ; here is no magical power of raising fantastic 
 terror or wild anxiety. The events are expected with- 
 
David Garrick. 1 6 1 
 
 out solicitude, and are remembered without joy or 
 sorrow. Of the agents we have no care ; we consider 
 not what they are doing or what they are suffering ; 
 we wish only to know what they have to say/' ~No 
 one will deny that this is very just and excellent criti- 
 cism of " Cato," no one will pretend that it is not 
 even more just and more excellent with regard to 
 " Irene." That drama contains abundant philosophy ; 
 much virtue and more declamation — the last of the 
 most turgid kind, but in the important particulars of 
 nature and passion it is wofully deficient. Witness 
 the last speech of the heroine, when her husband has 
 condemned her to death and the mutes are about to 
 force her off, — 
 
 Unutterable anguish ! 
 Guilt and despair, pale spectres ! grin around me, 
 And stun me with the yellings of damnation ! 
 Oh ! hear my pray'rs ! accept, all pitying heav'n, 
 These tears, these pangs, these last remains of life ; 
 Nor let the crimes of this detested day 
 Be charged upon my soul. Oh ! mercy ! mercy ! 
 
 In spite of its many and obvious faults, however, 
 11 Irene " was nearly — if not quite as good as any of 
 the works fondly called tragedies which still held pos- 
 session of the English stage. Such as it was, new 
 chances seemed to present themselves in its favour. 
 Garrick, the head of his profession, and manager of 
 one of the principal theatres in London, had taken the 
 play in hand, and had promised to produce it. When 
 he came to read the manuscript, however, he found 
 the play, as might have been anticipated, by no means 
 fit for representation. Johnson had had absolutely no 
 stage experience, and very naturally fell into mistakes, 
 which Garrick wished to correct. " Johnson's temper 
 
 M 
 
1 62 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 could not brook," says Boswell, " that a drama which 
 he had formed with so much study, and had been 
 obliged to keep more than the nine years of Horace, 
 should be revised and altered at the pleasure of an 
 actor." After some time his repugnance was over- 
 come, and the play was produced with the alterations 
 suggested. It was received with considerable cool- 
 ness by the audience, and at one time was in imminent 
 peril of being damned. Throughout the first four 
 acts the audience were utterly apathetic. Boswell says 
 they were "awed," but when in the last the heroine, 
 played by Mrs. Pritchard, in compliance with a sug- 
 gestion of Grarrick's, spoke a couplet with the bow- 
 string round her neck, they grew indignant and cried 
 out " Murder ! murder ! " Poor Mrs. Pritchard vainly 
 attempted to make herself heard, but in the end was 
 compelled to leave the stage alive. The audience prob- 
 ably remembered the advice of Horace, but in view of 
 the immense number of murders and violent deaths of 
 which the stage has been the scene it is not very easy to 
 understand the objection to this particular one. After 
 the first night the objectionable passage was modified, 
 and the play continued to run at least nine nights. 
 The author's profit was considerable. Robert Dodsley 
 gave him 100Z. for the copyright, and the result of the 
 three nights — the third, sixth and ninth, appropriated 
 by long usage to the author — was a net sum of 195Z. 17s. 
 " Irene " was, however, at no time reproduced — which 
 may be taken as affording abundant evidence that not- 
 withstanding the care with which it had been got up, 
 it was not, in Grarrick's eyes, a successful play. 
 
 The indifferent success of the tragedy led to 
 no breach in the friendly relations subsisting be- 
 tween Johnson and Garrick. The oddly assorted 
 
David Ga rrick . 163 
 
 pair continued, indeed, on the most affectionate 
 terms during the whole of their joint lives. John- 
 son's love for David Gar rick was, however, mani- 
 fested in a way no less curious than characteristic. 
 He appeared to consider his quondam pupil as a sort 
 of chattel of his own, to be praised or contemned 
 exactly as the humour of the moment inclined him. 
 Students of Boswell will remember that he scarcely 
 allowed any one to speak of him, whether by way of 
 praise or of blame, without an immediate and flat con- 
 tradiction. Sir Joshua Reynolds, alive to this weak- 
 ness of his friend, wrote a lively little dialogue, 
 printed for private circulation only, in which he ridi- 
 culed this peculiarity. The dialogue is in two parts. 
 In the former, Sir Joshua, by high encomiums upon 
 Garrick, is represented as drawing down upon him 
 Johnson's censure ; in the second, Mr. Gibbon, by 
 taking the opposite side, calls forth his praise. It 
 is impossible, it may be remarked in passing, to read 
 this admirable jeu d' esprit without feeling that Rey- 
 nolds meant something more than merely to satirize 
 Johnson's way of talking about Garrick, and really 
 intended also to enter a strenuous protest against the 
 outrageous bearishness of Johnson's manner. The 
 President of the Royal Academy was the most courteous 
 of men, and it must have been distasteful in the ex- 
 treme to him to find a friend for whom he entertained 
 so deep a regard as he had for Johnson, continually 
 outraging all the proprieties by a wanton coarseness 
 and brutality in conversation, which would have been 
 tolerated in no other man. By way of rebuke he 
 either parodied or set down from recollection (Croker, 
 on the authority of Sir George Beaumont, takes the 
 latter view) a number of Johnson's most truculent 
 
 m 2 
 
164 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 and unmannerly utterances, and though these dialogues 
 curiously illustrate Johnson's treatment of Garrick, 
 they were obviously designed with the secondary in- 
 tention indicated above. In spite of this habit of 
 Johnson's, however, there was a strong foundation of 
 affectionate regard on both sides. Mr. Percy Fitz- 
 gerald, indeed, speaks of " a grudge born of ill- 
 success " existing between the two men, but of this 
 Boswell certainly affords no evidence. Garrick always 
 spoke of his old friend and tutor in the kindest terms, 
 and to the last made him an honoured guest in 
 Southampton Street and at Hampton. 
 
 As a manager, it was not to be expected that Gar- 
 rick's career, like those of all who attempt to govern 
 a theatre, should be exempted from quarrelling and 
 jealousies. Barry, whom he had brought over from 
 Ireland, became envious of his greater success, and 
 complained that he was called upon to act upon un- 
 lucky days and at improper seasons, as, for instance, if 
 some great lady gave a rout or a concert. To such 
 cases he attributed the thin houses which his per- 
 formances drew, and he complained accordingly. 
 Churchill told him a very different tale in the "Ros- 
 ciad," where the poet explains that the actor fails 
 because he is not natural. 
 
 What man like Barry with such pains can err 
 In elocution, action, character 1 
 
 # # # # * 
 
 Who else can speak so very, very fine, 
 That sense may kindly end with every line 1 
 
 * # # * # 
 
 When he appears most perfect still we find 
 Something which jars upon and hurts the mind. 
 Whatever lights upon a part are thrown, 
 We see too plainly they are not his own. 
 
David Garrick. 165 
 
 No flame from Nature ever yet he caught ; 
 Nor knew a feeling which he was not taught ; 
 He raised his trophies on the base of art, 
 And conn'd his passions as he conn'd his part. 
 
 Barry's remonstrances and complaints were inces- 
 sant, but Garrick met them with great generosity and 
 friendliness, even to the extent of allowing him to 
 choose the nights for his appearances. His ill-success 
 still attended him, and Garrick' s indulgence served 
 only to emphasize the fact that Barry pleased the 
 play-going public less than the manager. The house 
 was crowded whenever Garrick played, and half-empty 
 when Barry took the leading parts. Mrs. Cibber, how- 
 ever, backed Barry's complaints, and the matter was 
 finally adjusted by the migration of the discontented 
 pair to Covent Garden, whither Mrs. Woffington and 
 Quin speedily followed them. Barry's secession pro- 
 bably caused but small dissatisfaction to Garrick, but 
 the loss of Mrs. Cibber was serious. She was un- 
 questionably a great actress — though of an expiring 
 school — and a singularly beautiful woman. 
 
 Form'd for the tragic scene, to grace the stage, 
 With rival excellence of love and rage, 
 Mistress of each soft art, with matchless skill 
 To turn and wind the passions as she will, 
 To melt the heart with sympathetic woe, 
 Awake the sigh, or teach the tear to flow. 
 
 Mrs. Cibber was, at a time when tragedy was a staple 
 dish at the national theatres, an invaluable colleague 
 to the greatest male tragedian of the century. Rich 
 knew her value, and treated her companion Barry 
 with all possible consideration. They were allowed 
 to do exactly as they pleased ; to act on such nights 
 as they chose, and to choose their own parts. 
 
1 66 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 Manager Rich in the meantime troubled himself very 
 little about them. His pantomimes and bnrlettas 
 occupied far more of his attention than the serious 
 dramas in which they appeared. Safe in his neglect, 
 the new recruits at Covent Garden coolly entered upon 
 a great scheme of rivalry to the " other house." 
 Both theatres opened in October, 1749, with " Romeo 
 and Juliet ;" Garrick playing at Drury Lane with 
 Miss Bellamy, a young actress of much merit 
 and more promise, as Juliet ; while at Covent 
 Garden Barry and Mrs. Cibber shared the labours 
 of the night. Public opinion was, of course, divided 
 as to the merits of the respective performances, but 
 it came at last to be agreed that the best Romeo 
 was at Drury Lane, and the best Juliet at Covent 
 Garden. " At Covent Garden/' says a contemporary, 
 " I saw ' Juliet and Romeo ;' at Drury Lane, ' Romeo 
 and Juliet.' " There was a certain amount of public 
 interest for a few days, and the usual crop of epi- 
 grams may be found in the magazines. The best 
 was perhaps the well-known one by Hewitt, the friend 
 of Sterne — the one quatrain which has preserved 
 Mr. Hewitt's name from oblivion, — 
 
 " Well, what's to-night 1 M said angry Ned, 
 As up from bed he rouses ; 
 
 " ' Romeo ' again ! " and shakes his head, 
 " A plague on both your houses/' 
 The opposition continued for some little time with- 
 out much profit to either party. On the twelfth 
 night the bill was changed at Covent Garden, and 
 the thirteenth was the last at the Lane, Garrick con- 
 cluding the contest with a vivacious and not ungene- 
 rous epilogue, spoken by Mrs. Clive, which ended, — 
 
 I now proclaim a peace, 
 And hope henceforth hostilities will cease. 
 

 David Garrick. 167 
 
 No more shall either rack his brains to tease ye, 
 But let the contest be, who most shall please ye. 
 
 Withdrawing "Romeo and Juliet," Garrick now 
 produced a pantomime, in rivalry to Rich, whom he 
 had just before met and vanquished on his own ground 
 in a splendid funeral procession introduced into the 
 last act of " Romeo and Juliet. " This interpolation, 
 by the way, was not the only one of which Garrick 
 was guilty in this connexion. He had, as has been 
 seen, distinguished himself by getting rid of the rub- 
 bish which Cibber and Davenant had heaped upon 
 Macbeth, but when " Romeo " was produced he found 
 the ending tame. Shakespeare kills Romeo after his 
 combat with the Count of Paris. Garrick patched on 
 the whole of that long and touching scene in the tomb 
 of the Capulets. That it is unquestionably clever, and 
 that it adds greatly to the success of " Romeo and 
 Juliet," as an acting play, no one will deny, but it is 
 really nothing more than a hash up of the original 
 story as told by Bandello, and retold by Otway, with 
 a few lines from modern plays. It is a somewhat re- 
 markable testimony to the ability with which Garrick 
 did his work, that even to the present day " Romeo 
 and Juliet " is never presented without this fine and 
 dramatic finale. 
 
 It is, however, time to return to Garrick' s private 
 life, which in this busy year of 1749 had passed through 
 one of its most important changes. He was, in short, 
 married on the 22nd of June to a certain Mademoi- 
 selle Eva Maria Yioletta, a young danseuse of extra- 
 ordinary beauty and accomplishments, of a stain- 
 less reputation, and much patronized by the noble 
 family of Burlington. The whole story of Mademoi- 
 selle Violetta and her marriage is a romance. Ac- 
 
1 68 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 cording to one account she was the daughter of an 
 Italian woman of remarkable beauty, with whom Lord 
 Burlington had formed a connexion at Venice several 
 years before. The mother had disappeared, and Lord 
 Burlington had never succeeded in discovering the 
 whereabouts either of her or of her child, until by 
 mere accident he happened to see Mademoiselle Vio- 
 letta on the stage. Recognizing her by her extra- 
 ordinary likeness to his lost mistress he invited her 
 to his house, and inquiry into her connexions showed 
 that his surmise had been correct, and that he had 
 found his long-lost daughter. To atone as far as 
 possible for his long though unintentional neglect, he 
 retained her in his family as a companion to Lady 
 Burlington, to whom he confided the story of her 
 parentage, and by whom she was treated with the 
 greatest kindness and affection. She did not appear 
 again on the stage, but during the two or three years 
 she remained in the household she devoted herself to 
 the acquirement of the accomplishments necessary for 
 her future condition, which Lady Burlington had 
 determined should be very splendid. 
 
 Another story — presumably the true one — is almost 
 as remarkable. According to it, Mademoiselle Yioletta 
 was born in Berlin, where she had been brought up 
 under the care of Hilferding, the maitre de ballet in 
 the Imperial Opera House. With some other young 
 ladies she was educated to make the ballet her pro- 
 fession, but never appeared on any stage. Her native 
 grace and beauty, however, caused her to be selected 
 as partner to dance with the children of the Empress 
 Maria Theresa > by whose command she assumed the 
 name of Yioletta in lieu of her family name of Yeigel 
 — a Viennese patois word of identical meaning. Whilst 
 
David Garrick. 1 69 
 
 thus occupied, the Emperor Frederick I. deigned to re- 
 gard Mademoiselle Yioletta with such marked attention 
 that the Empress thought it desirable to get rid of the 
 too charming young lady. A family named Rossiter, 
 long settled in Vienna, were about to visit England to 
 look after some property, and by the express desire 
 of the Empress they took charge of Mademoiselle 
 Yioletta, who carried with her recommendations of the 
 most exalted kind. When she arrived in England has 
 not been settled, but she appears to have almost im- 
 mediately taken up her abode in Burlington House. 
 Walpole talks of her in a letter of the 5th of June, 
 1746, where he says, " The fame of the Yiolette in- 
 creases daily. The sister Countesses of Burlington 
 and Talbot exert all their stores of sullen partiality 
 and competition for her. The former visits her and 
 is having her picture, and carries her to Chiswick; 
 and she sups at Lady Carlisle's." In spite of being 
 thus competed for by countesses, she continued her 
 studies for the stage, and was introduced by some of 
 the Burlington family to Garrick. Her first appear- 
 ance at Drury Lane was made on the 3rd of December, 
 in this year, but her relations with Lady Burlington 
 still continued. She lived in Burlington House, and 
 the countess not merely carried her to the theatre in 
 her coach, but waited for her at the wings with a 
 cloak ready to throw over her when she came off 
 the stage. The editor of the Grarrick Correspondence 
 mentions that she remembered being taken by the 
 countess to the trial of poor mad old Lord Lovat in 
 1747. 
 
 Lady Burlington treated her in fact completely as 
 her own daughter, and looked out for a husband suit- 
 able in rank to such a personage. Lord Coventry 
 
170 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 was for a long time the favoured lover, so far as the 
 family were concerned, but Mademoiselle Yioletta had 
 made her own choice. She saw Garrick, it is said, in 
 Aaron Hill's solemnly dull tragedy of " Merope," and 
 he won her heart. There is as usual a melodramatic 
 story which has been very variously related, and which 
 forms the basis of that German play which, Anglicised 
 into " David Gar rick 5 ' has afforded Mr. Sot hern an 
 opportunity for showing that he is capable of greater 
 things than Lord Dundreary, brilliant though that 
 impersonation unquestionably is. That story has been 
 told so often and in so many ways that it is impossible 
 now to say what is exactly the true version. It is, 
 however, certain that Garrick, who was most passion- 
 ately in love, behaved in so thoroughly honourable a 
 way as not merely to conquer all opposition on the 
 part of the Burlington family, but to induce them to 
 give their free consent to the marriage. The sum of 
 10,000?. was settled upon her, of which they gave 6000?. 
 and Garrick found the remainder ; Lady Burlington 
 being one of the trustees. As a further token of re- 
 gard, her ladyship presented the bridegroom with a 
 prayer book, in which, with his usual happy knack of 
 turning a phrase, he wrote,— 
 
 This sacred book has Dorothea given 
 To show a straying sheep the way to heaven j 
 With forms of righteousness she well may part, 
 Who bears the spirit in her upright heart. 
 
 The marriage turned out an eminently happy one, 
 although it was one unblessed with offspring. There 
 was a difference of religious belief, Mrs. Garrick being 
 a Catholic, though not of a very rigid kind ; and Garrick 
 a Huguenot who had conformed to the Church of Eng- 
 
David Garrick. 1 7 1 
 
 land, but the difference was never so marked as to 
 create the smallest disturbance of their affectionate 
 relations. It was a matter of remark that during the 
 whole of Garrick' s life after his marriage, he was never 
 separated from his wife for twenty-four hours at a time. 
 The wedding was followed by a summer holiday. 
 Garrick and his bride moved about from place to place, 
 staying now at Chiswick and now at Burlington 
 House, but the continued exigence of Lady Burlington 
 speedily became unendurable. At first the bride and 
 bridegroom managed to tolerate a kindness which 
 interfered with every arrangement they might make, 
 and which produced a quarrel whenever the smallest 
 change of plan was suggested ; but before long the 
 thraldom became intolerable, and though Garrick still 
 retained the friendship of Lord Burlington, the name 
 of Lady Burlington fades out of the correspondence. 
 The honeymoon had been intended to include a visit 
 to the family of the bridegroom at Lichfield. That 
 Lady Burlington's exigent affection rendered im- 
 possible, and it was not until the summer of 1751 that 
 the pair were able to make the tour they had long 
 planned. Instead of going to Lichfield, however, they 
 went to Paris, where Garrick was received with 
 singular honour. His French blood made him perfectly 
 at home ; his wife's grace and beauty won universal 
 homage, and he went with the strongest recommenda- 
 tions from his English patrons. The king, Louis XV., 
 desired that Garrick should be presented to him ; he 
 was received in good society as a consequence of his 
 introduction to royalty ; the actors welcomed him and 
 treated him as one of themselves ; while the men of 
 letters, who were sowing the seeds of the Revolution, 
 gave a most cordial reception to one whom they regarded 
 
172 . Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 as a typical representative of English liberty. The 
 most striking point about his visit was, however, the 
 acquaintance with the celebrated Clairon which it 
 brought about. Gar rick's opinion of her was sin- 
 gularly high, and it is worthy of remark that the point 
 which struck him most was the perfection and finish 
 of her art. 
 
 In the theatre, meanwhile, matters had gone on after 
 the usual fashion. Garrick had reappeared after his 
 marriage in the part of Benedick, wherein the allusions 
 to his changed estate were received by a friendly 
 audience with kindly laughter and abundant applause. 
 As time went on he added many fine plays to his 
 repertoire, notably " The Gamester,'' by Edward Moore, 
 and Mr. Crisp's "Virginia," in both of which the actor 
 achieved a most striking success by discarding tradition 
 and playing with startling and almost painful truth to 
 nature. There is one scene in the latter tragedy of 
 surprising force. Appius being seated on his tribunal, 
 Claudius, the tool of the Decemvir, claims Virginia as 
 a slave born in his house. During the declaration 
 Garrick (Virginius), standing on the opposite side of the 
 stage, remained motionless with his arms folded, and 
 his eyes fixed on the ground. "By slow degrees he 
 raised his head ; after a slight pause, during which the 
 spectators could read the struggle within him in a face 
 which kept no secrets, he turned round slowly till his 
 eyes rested on Claudius ; then in the low, smothered 
 voice of anguish, tears gushing as he spoke the words, 
 his broken heart sobbed out, ' Thou traitor.' " It 
 is easy to understand how an audience accustomed to 
 the rant and thunder of the school of Quin and Mossop 
 would at first hardly know how to receive a piece of 
 romantic acting like this, and how when once they 
 
David Garrick. i J2> 
 
 understood it they should have broken out, as the 
 writer who relates the story tells us they did, after a 
 pause into a general shout of applause. 
 
 These were not the only new dramatists whom 
 Garrick introduced to the public. He was, in fact, 
 never unwilling to assist young authors, and he in- 
 variably behaved to them with a courtesy which offered 
 an agreeable contrast to the conduct of Oolley Cibber, 
 whose notorious brutality is illustrated by a hundred 
 anecdotes in the theatrical memoirs of the earliest 
 years of the last century. Thus when Fenton (that 
 Fenton who had assisted Pope in his translation of 
 Homer) offered his tragedy of "Mariamne" to Cibber, he 
 is said to have returned it to the author with the pithy 
 advice that he should " apply himself to some useful 
 trade, for it was certain that he and the muses would 
 never agree." Whenever too he had to send back a 
 first attempt he seems to have taken a malicious 
 pleasure in the ungracious task, speaking of it with 
 grim facetiousness as " the choking of young singing- 
 birds." Of conduct such as this Garrick was never 
 guilty. An author was always sure of a courteous 
 reception and his work was so carefully considered 
 that if it were returned he might be quite sure that it 
 was because it was utterly unsuited to stage purposes. 
 As a result of this generous mode of treatment Garrick 
 produced an immense number of plays, which have now, 
 from the change of public taste and the adoption of a 
 better model, passed into utter oblivion. Who in these 
 days knows more than the names — if indeed the very 
 names themselves are not forgotten — of Oleone, the 
 Orphan of China, the Earl of Essex, Orestes, Elvira, and 
 Mustapha ? They have gone to their own place, and 
 in spite of the Queen Anne revival the taste of to-day 
 
1 74 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 is not likely to endure a resuscitation of these stilted 
 and artificial works. Public taste was indeed at a low 
 ebb in those days. The Revolution of 1648 had swept 
 away English art ; the restoration had brought back a 
 purely French taste which in turu had been over- 
 whelmed by the Dutch fashions introduced in 1688, 
 and whatever of artistic feeling survived was crushed 
 by the irruption of the half-civilized German brood 
 who came in with the House of Hanover. Readers of 
 the Four Georges scarcely need to be reminded that 
 George II. " hated boetry and bainters," or that the 
 fashionable world followed their sovereign's lead. That 
 amiable monarch went to sleep over the finest poetry 
 in the language, and thought the prince of painters of 
 his day amply rewarded with a guinea given with the 
 same grace that he would have exhibited in bestowing 
 a bone upon a hungry and impatient dog. Of a like 
 quality was his taste in theatrical matters. Murphy 
 mentions that he insisted upon the revival of certain 
 scenes in Otway's " Venice Preserved," which had for 
 many years been omitted because of their gross 
 indecency. He was induced on one occasion, however, 
 to command a performance of Richard III., though it 
 was impossible for those about him to convince him 
 that the actor of that part could be an honest man. 
 The actors on this occasion were terrified to observe 
 that all their efforts failed to produce the slightest 
 appearance of interest in the unintelligent face of their 
 sovereign, who indeed seemed to be in a doze during 
 the greater part of their performance. At the conclu- 
 sion of the play Mr. Fitzherbert, who had been in 
 attendance, went into the green-room, where he was 
 immediately seized upon by Garrick with eager 
 questioning as to what the king thought of Richard. 
 
David Garrick. 1 75 
 
 " I can say nothing on that head," replied Fitzherbert ; 
 " but when an actor told Richard, ' The Mayor of 
 London comes to greet you,' the king roused himself; 
 and when Taswell entered, buffooning his part as usual, 
 the king exclaimed, ' Duke of Grafton, I like dat Lord 
 Mayor,' and when the scene was over the king said, 
 < Duke of Grafton, that is good Lord Mayor.' " " Well," 
 said Garrick, " but the warlike bustle, the drums and 
 trumpets, and the shouts of the soldiers must have 
 aroused a great military genius ! " "I know nothing 
 about that," replied Fitzherbert ; " but when Eichard 
 was in Bosworth Field, calling for the horse, his Majesty 
 said, ' Duke of Grafton, will that Lord Mayor not come 
 again ? 
 
 Any attempt to follow out in detail the course of 
 Garrick' s management of DruryLane would be tedious 
 and uninteresting in the extreme. The reader of to-day 
 probably cares as much for the story of his entanglement 
 with Noverre, the dancer, and of his attempt to rival 
 Eich in pantomime, as he does for the last failure of a 
 lessee of our " national theatre," or for the success of 
 a speculative manager who brings over an actress who 
 has won laurels in Vienna or St. Petersburg. It is 
 necessary therefore to make a leap over some seven or 
 eight years, during which Garrick managed Drury Lane 
 with singular success, and to allow a more important 
 personage to make his appearance, Charles Churchill 
 — a clergyman who had vainly struggled against an 
 adverse fortune until his thirtieth year, and then had 
 suddenly leaped into fame by the production of his 
 " Eosciad " in 1761. This poem, which appeared after 
 only two obscure advertisements, was in the hands of 
 every one in the course of a week, and became the chief, 
 if not the only, topic of conversation in the clubs and 
 
176 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 coffee-houses. The work is too well known for 
 elaborate criticism — it is only necessary to mention 
 that the poet, after passing in review all the actors and 
 actresses of the day, concluded by awarding the palm 
 
 to Garrick: — 
 
 Garrick, take the chair ; 
 Nor quit it 'till thou place an equal there. 
 
 The noble and stirring lines in which Churchill an- 
 nounced his judgment — an eulogy such as few artists 
 before or since have merited, while certainly none have 
 received the like — attracted little attention from 
 Garrick. There is something to be said for the actor. 
 He was a busy man and a brilliant one ; his time was 
 constantly occupied, and as is usually the case with a 
 successful man, he was besieged from dawn to sunset 
 with a host of adulatory poets, epigrammatists, and 
 would-be dramatists, who sought to catch him by their 
 paltry flatteries. He seems to have classed Churchill 
 amongst the hangers-on of a man in his position, and to 
 have treated his compliments as interested. He had even 
 what a recent writer has called the " fribbling folly " to 
 hint to one of those toadies who hang about every theatre 
 that he " supposed the fellow had treated him civilly 
 with a view to the freedom of the house." The worst 
 that can be said for such a speech as this is that it was 
 a mistake, but it was a very excusable mistake after 
 all. Poor Garrick in life and in death was the victim ' 
 of the poetasters of his age. When after his death the 
 booksellers printed " The Life and Death of David 
 Garrick, Esq.," they gave as the opening item of their 
 pamphlet first " Churchill's beautiful character of Mr. 
 Garrick," and following it, " Lines from Sheridan's 
 monody on the death of Mr. Garrick, spoken by Mrs. 
 Yates at Drury Lane Theatre;" a " Prize Monody on 
 
David Gar rick. 177 
 
 the death of Mr. Grarrick for the vase at Bath Easton, 
 by Miss Seward," and an " Extract from Thespis, or a 
 critical examination into the merits of the performers 
 at Drury Lane." Churchill had said, — 
 
 If manly sense, if Nature link'd with art ; 
 
 If thorough knowledge of the human heart ; 
 
 If power of acting vast and unconfined ; 
 
 If fewest faults with greatest beauties join'd 
 
 If strong expression and strange power which lie 
 
 Within the magic circuit of the eye ; 
 
 If feeling which no face like his can know, 
 
 And which no other face so well as his can show, 
 
 Deserve the preference k.t.A.. 
 
 This sort of thing was echoed by scores of poets who 
 were ambitious of the " freedom of the Theatre," and 
 when after his death we find even Sheridan and Miss 
 Seward writing twaddle in his praise, it is easy to 
 understand the temper in which he looked at all these 
 versified tributes. Sheridan and Miss Seward were 
 about equally bad. The former enjoins the " Sweet 
 Muse " to — 
 
 Hang o'er his sculptured bier 
 With patient woe that loves the lingering tear ; 
 With thoughts that mourn, nor yet desire relief, 
 With much regret and fond enduring grief ; 
 With looks that speak he never shall return ! 
 Chilling thy tender bosom, clasp his urn ; 
 And with soft sighs disperse th' irreverend dust 
 Which time may strew upon his Sacred Bust. 
 
 Miss Seward was, if possible, worse : — 
 
 Breathe, Genius, still the tributary sigh ! 
 Still gush, ye liquid pearls, from Beauty's eye ! 
 With slacken'd strings suspend your harps, ye Iftne, 
 While round his urn yon cypress wreath ye twine ! 
 Then give his merits to your loudest fame, 
 And write in sunbright lustre Garrick's name ! 
 
 N 
 
1 78 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 Surely the unfortunate manager who received adula- 
 tory odes of this quality by the dozen week after week 
 may be forgiven if he looks at them all somewhat 
 slightingly, and sometimes fails to distinguish the true 
 from the false. Churchill could not forgive, however, 
 and in a few weeks he launched at Garrick a warning 
 as sharp and as bitter as his praise had been generous. 
 The reviewers had been hard upon the " Rosciad," and 
 before the town had had time to recover from the 
 sensation caused by the appearance of that poem the 
 author's answer to them came out. Half of the 
 "Apology" consisted of a bitter and scornful attack 
 upon the theatre, and here G-arrick did not escape. 
 " Let the vain tyrant," wrote Churchill, — ' 
 
 Let the vain tyrant sit amidst his guards, 
 His puny green-room wits and venal bards, 
 Who meanly tremble at a puppet's frown, 
 And for a playhouse freedom lose their own. 
 • 
 The savage and contemptuous warning had its effect. 
 
 Garrick wrote at once to Robert Lloyd, who was a 
 
 friend of both actor and satirist, in terms which were 
 
 really almost too humble and deprecatory. Before 
 
 this he had, however, written to Churchill in a manner 
 
 which was even more painfully abject. This letter 
 
 he happily showed to a friend, who dissuaded him from 
 
 sending it by a representation that Churchill had 
 
 attacked him without any real provocation, and that it 
 
 was too great a condescension on his part to write so 
 
 elaborate a vindication of his own conduct to any one, 
 
 poet and satirist though he might be, and finally that 
 
 expressions so humiliating as those of which he had 
 
 made use could do him no good with any one, least of 
 
 all with Churchill. Still Lloyd's interference was 
 
 successful, and a reconciliation was effected without 
 
David Grarrick. 1 79 
 
 much difficulty. The poet boasted that he never 
 accepted a "playhouse freedom " from any manager, 
 but he was a constant visitor at Drury Lane, and he 
 was not above — when " half-drunk, half-mad, and 
 quite stripped of all his money " — sending on occasion 
 to borrow "five pieces " from the prosperous manager. 
 The friendship between the two men was a curious one, 
 but it lasted during the whole of the unfortunate poet's 
 four years of town life. Garrick, however, could not 
 forget the indignity with which he had been treated, 
 and in a poem which he published some little time 
 after, and which bears the title of the " Fribbleriad," he 
 rehearses the bad names which had been at various 
 times applied to him with something of the same 
 rueful precision as that with which Pope catalogues at 
 the end of the " Dunciad " the nicknames which the 
 dolts of his time applied to him. The thing — which was 
 aimed at one Fitzpatrick — the object of most terrible 
 denunciation in the "Rosciad" — was soon forgotten, but 
 it deserves a word of mention, inasmuch as it contains 
 a pleasant portrait of Churchill. After a scathing 
 attack on Fitzgerald, the meaning of which does not 
 lie on the surface, Grarrick says, — 
 
 With colours flying, beat of drum — 
 Unlike to this, see Churchill come. 
 And now like Hercules he stands, 
 Unmask'd his face, but arm'd his hands, 
 Alike prepared to write or drub— 
 This holds a pen, and that a club. 
 " Mine is the Eosciad — mine ! " he cries, 
 " Who says 'tis not, I say, he lies ! " 
 
 On the whole, however, Garrick' s conduct in this busi- 
 ness does not appear to have been very dignified. His 
 faults were probably due to the constant irritable 
 
 a 2 
 
180 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 nervousness as to his popularity by which he was 
 beset. It has been seen how, when announced for 
 Macbeth, he was betrayed into the publication of a 
 pamphlet which, witty though it undoubtedly was, had 
 been much better left unprinted. His marriage had 
 led him to publish and to get his friends to gather a 
 quantity of verse designed to anticipate potential 
 ridicule, and the same temper led him to anticipate any 
 possible laughter which might be raised against him 
 on his return from his second journey to Paris some 
 years later by the publication of a piece of not very 
 brilliant verse, to which he gave the title of " The Sick 
 Monkey." 
 
 But if Garrick were irritable when his reputation 
 was concerned, he conld be liberal and generous enough 
 upon occasion. Innumerable stories are told of his 
 parsimony, not a few of which redound more to the 
 discredit of the inventors than to his own. Fielding, 
 for example, once gave his servant a penny wrapped in 
 a piece of paper, and when remonstrated with for 
 playing a practical joke on a servant, replied with a 
 rather brutal insolence that he had given that sum 
 because if he had offered more Garrick would himself 
 have confiscated the money. If Fielding had given 
 the crown piece to the man privately the story would 
 have lost nothing of its point, but of anything of that 
 kind history is silent. The other stories of his 
 meanness may be traced to Macklin or to Foote, both 
 of whom were under deep obligations to Garrick — and 
 all the world knows that there is nothing so difficult to 
 pardon as an obligation. For the rest Garrick was 
 certainly prudent in money-matters, and economized in 
 small things ; but he could be liberal and even splendid 
 when liberality was necessary. Solicited once by a 
 
David Garrick. 1 8 1 
 
 friend on behalf of a poor woman, he asked what he was 
 expected to give : being told three or four guineas, he 
 made the practical answer of handing over a bill for 30/. 
 Another woman, who had no claim on him whatever 
 beyond such as arose from her having known him as a 
 child in Lichfield, on applying to him for help, received a 
 hundred guineas. A friend, who owed him 500/., fell 
 into difficulties, upon hearing of which Garrick without 
 any solicitation enclosed the bill in a letter, desiring 
 his friend to put both into the fire. Besides being 
 generous in pecuniary matters such as these, Garrick 
 was eminently kind and liberal to the members of his 
 own profession. Column's connexion with him began 
 with a quarrel. The author abused the actor as a 
 " grimace-maker," a " haberdasher of wry faces," 
 " a hypocrite who laughed and cried for hire," and so 
 forth. Garrick' s reply shows genuine magnanimity. 
 He took no notice of the harsh epithets, but wrote 
 verses in praise of Colman's translation of " Terence," 
 and converted, his libeller into a friend. When Tate 
 Wilkinson wished to appear in tragedy, Garrick, without 
 a thought of rivalry, rendered the kindest and most 
 generous assistance, even to the point of presiding over 
 the " making up " of his face, to which he put the 
 finishing touches with his own hands. Hiffernan, an 
 Irish adventurer, whom Garrick had generously helped, 
 repaid his kindness with a most scurrilous libel, the 
 only object of which was to obtain a few guineas for 
 its suppression. Base as this conduct was he never 
 spoke harshly of his assailant, but treated him rather 
 as an object of compassion. Dr. John Hill, who on 
 the strength of a knighthood which he pretended to 
 have received from the king of Sweden, called himself 
 Sir John, and who forced himself into notoriety by his 
 
1 82 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 attacks upon the Royal Society, induced Garrick to 
 play a farce of his called " The Rout." It was so 
 hopelessly bad that it was hissed off the stage on the 
 first night. The luckless author chose to consider 
 that the fault lay not in the badness of the farce but in 
 the incompetence of the actor, and filled the papers with 
 abusive libels upon him. To all of them he might have 
 made a crushing reply, but instead of doing so, or of 
 taking legal action, he contented himself with the well- 
 known epigram, — 
 
 For physic and farces, his equal there scarce is, 
 His farces are physic, his physic a farce is. 
 
 Smollett, a writer of a different calibre from either of 
 these, succeeded in inducing Garrick to play his tragedy 
 of the "Regicide" against his own better judgment, 
 and also against the earnest advice of Quin, whom he 
 consulted on the subject. When the play was pro- 
 duced it failed dismally, and the public endorsed the 
 verdict of the playgoers when it was printed. Smollett 
 still chose to consider that the blame lay with Garrick, 
 and libelled him grossly in " Roderick Random," re- 
 peating the offence in his second novel, " Peregrine 
 Pickle," which he produced some three years later. 
 He had, nevertheless, the courage to offer a two-act 
 comedy, " The Tars of Old England," to Garrick some 
 time afterwards ; and he, generously forgetful of past 
 injuries and insults, produced the piece with as much 
 care as if Smollett had been one of those " venal 
 bards " with whom Garrick was accused of surround- 
 ing himself. The play was moderately successful, and 
 produced the author a good third night, on which 
 occasion Garrick generously charged him twenty 
 guineas less for the use of the theatre than he was by 
 custom entitled to. 
 
David Garrick. 183 
 
 His conduct with reference to Goldsmith has been 
 made the subject of frequent complaint by the ad- 
 mirers of that unfortunate genius. The saying about 
 there being two sides to every story is, however, 
 eminently applicable to that of the relations of these 
 two men. The case lies in a very small compass. 
 Hugh Kelly, the founder of the sentimental school of 
 English comedy, who had begun life as a stay-maker 
 in Dublin, was one of the most successful playwrights 
 of his time. To readers of the present day, however, 
 his comedies have very much of the flavour of the 
 religious tracts of the last century. His dialogue is, 
 indeed, fairly natural, and he shows some signs of both 
 pathos and humour ; but his extraordinary notion of 
 treating the stage not as a place for the exhibition of 
 human passion, but as a school of morality and religion, 
 prevented his making the most of such dramatic quali- 
 ties as he possessed. The sentimental comedy which 
 he introduced became, however, the rage for a consider- 
 able time. His first play, " False Delicacy," was pro- 
 duced by Garrick, and was an enormous success. For 
 years it drew crowded audiences whenever it was 
 revived, until Foote destroyed it in a piece of exquisite 
 satire — " Piety in Pattens, or the Handsome House- 
 maid," one of the pieces produced in his " Puppet 
 Show " in the Hay market. Whilst Kelly's play was 
 in rehearsal, Garrick had the " Good-Natured Man " 
 under consideration, and it is not surprising that when 
 " False Delicacy " was so remarkably successful he 
 should have been doubtful as to the chances of success 
 for a piece so utterly and strikingly different in character. 
 Davies gives a very fair and impartial account of 
 the manner in which the negotiation was conducted, 
 from which it would appear that although Garrick 
 
1S4 Eighteenth Century Stud 
 
 certainly assumed a rather irritating air of patron 
 in the matter, Goldsmith was by no me.ans free from 
 blame, and certainly took a rather pettish and irritable 
 tone, which Garrick very naturally resented. Garrick 
 suggested some alterations, and on the strength of 
 them advanced a considerable sum of money to Gold- 
 smith. He can, therefore, hardly be blamed if lie felt 
 and expressed some little natural indignation when lie 
 not merely found his suggestions disregarded, but the 
 piece actually taken over to the rival house. The 
 change was the more mortifying from the fact that the 
 animosity between the managers on both sides was 
 deeper and more bitter than ever. Goldsmith's ill- 
 treatment, however, failed to alienate Garrick alto- 
 gether. When some time afterwards the inimitable 
 " She Stoops to Conquer " was produced, Garrick 
 wrote a gay and sparkling prologue, which, admirably 
 spoken by Woodward, exercised a material influence 
 on the success of the piece. 
 
 By the beginning of the year 1763 Garrick was rich 
 as well as famous, and was thus in a position to indulge 
 in the luxury of foreign travel. At the end of the B 
 son he therefore set off in company with Mrs. Garrick, 
 leaving Colman to look after his interests at Drury 
 Lane. His route was the old and well-trodden one 
 through St. Omer and Arras, and so to Paris, which 
 he reached on the 19th of September, having been four 
 days on the way. He found the city but little changed, 
 but since his last visit the French had been seized with 
 an Anglomania, bred of the philosophy which had over- 
 ran French thought. The school of French thinkers, 
 of the eighteenth century had risen out of the ruins of 
 English metaphysics of the seventeenth, and it is not 
 surprising to find that amongst such a people a great 
 Englishman should have been most cordially welcomed. 
 
David Gar rick. 185 
 
 The members of his own profession nocked to pay him 
 homage ; every salon was opened to him, and the 
 Baron d'Holbach made him free of his great dinners. 
 Three weeks were pleasantly spent in this way, and 
 then Garrick started on his journey southwards. Vol- 
 taire sent him a message, inviting him to Ferney ; but 
 though the invitation was accepted, the visit was des- 
 tined never to take place. Through Turin, Milan, 
 and Genoa, the travellers made their way to Rome, and 
 thence to Naples where they spent Christmas. At 
 Naples Garrick was treated with the greatest kindness 
 by the distinguished English families who were in resi- 
 dence there. Lord and Lady Spencer took him to 
 Herculaneum, and Lady Oxford presented him to the 
 king. He stayed here for three months, living in a 
 whirl of gaiety, yet surrounded by a famine which was 
 literally decimating the poor of the city, and which he 
 remembered afterwards "with horror. 5 ' Then byway 
 of Rome and Parma, he got to Venice in the suite of 
 the Duke of York. There he stayed, studying scenery, 
 costumes, and effects, looking out for dancers, and 
 sending home models of Italian scenery for the painters 
 at Drury Lane, until the middle of June, 1764. He 
 would then have returned home, but Mrs. Garrick, 
 who had been ill with a " humatiz, ,, was still suffering, 
 and could be moved only with the greatest difficulty. 
 Finally she tried the mud-baths of Albano, near Parma, 
 which Baretti had promised would restore her, and 
 which certainly produced an excellent effect. Leaving 
 her crutches behind her, they started for England, and 
 reached Munich in August, where Garrick was taken ill 
 with a bilious fever. Happily an English doctor was 
 at hand, and under his care the disease was stayed, 
 though not until poor Garrick was reduced to the con- 
 dition of a living skeleton. " T have lost," he wrote, 
 
1 86 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 " legs, arms, belly, cheeks, &c, I have scarce anything 
 left but bones, and a pair of dark lack-lustre eyes that 
 are retired an inch or two more into their sockets, and 
 wonderfully set off the parchment that covers the cheek- 
 bones." It was not until October that he again reached 
 Paris. There good air, horse exercise, and lively society, 
 soon re-established his health. It is no small testi- 
 mony to the amiable qualities of the man, and to his 
 wonderful talent for society, that when twelve years 
 later Gibbon visited in the circles which he had fre- 
 quented, the habitues were loud in their regrets that 
 he was no longer amongst them. 
 
 Garrick returned to London at the close of April, 
 1765, and one of his first acts was a piece of mag- 
 nificence which alone ought to have silenced at once 
 and for ever the cruel sneers at his meanness and par- 
 simony. During his absence the Drury Lane Theatrical 
 Fund had been established. Garrick at once took it 
 under his protection, paid the cost of an Act of Parlia- 
 ment for its incorporation, and presented it with a 
 house in Drury Lane as the place of meeting. It may 
 be convenient in this place to record the fact that some 
 time afterwards, finding that money would be more 
 valuable to the fund than the house, he bought it back 
 at a good price, and once more bequeathed the pro- 
 perty to the trustees by his will : that the whole profits 
 of his last appearance on the stage were given to the 
 fund, and that in one way and another his benefactions 
 amounted to nearly or quite 5000Z. 
 
 Passing over the theatrical history of the next four 
 years, in which, indeed, there is little of any special 
 interest, we come to 1769, the year of the Shakespeare 
 Jubilee at Stratford-on-Avon. The whole of this 
 business appears to have arisen out of a little bit of 
 
David Gar rick. 1 8 7 
 
 provincial scheming. Not long before the Rev. Mr. 
 Gastrell, out of pure wantonness as it would seem, 
 had cut down the venerable mulberry-tree which tradi- 
 tion asserted had been planted by the hands of Shake- 
 speare himself. A gentleman of the town was deputed 
 to present a snuff-box made of the wood of the tree to 
 Garrick, with the freedom of the corporation and a 
 modest request that he would present to their new 
 Town Hall a bust or portrait of Shakespeare and a 
 portrait of himself. Out of this sprang the celebration 
 of the 6th of September. It was a dismal failure. The 
 good folks of Stratford-on-Avon saw in it only an oppor- 
 tunity for fleecing the player-folk and the gentry who 
 had come down to prove their taste or to do honour to 
 Garrick, and they certainly made the most of it. As for 
 the Jubilee proceedings the very stars in their courses 
 fought against them. The oratorio of " Judith " in the 
 church was a failure ; the procession of actors, actresses, 
 and supers in Drury Lane finery was a failure of an 
 even worse kind, and the performance of Whitehead's 
 ode in honour less of Shakespeare than of Garrick in 
 the " elegant " Rotunda was the most lamentable fiasco 
 of all. The whole affair — stewards, wands, mulberry 
 medallions, white-topped gloves, fireworks that would 
 not go off, rain and mud-bedraggled masquerading, 
 Whitehead's ode above all — was supremely ridiculous. 
 Even the absurdity of Boswell, who paraded the streets 
 in a Corsican dress, and with a hat bearing the inscrip- 
 tion " Corsica Boswell," was exceeded by the deplor- 
 able exhibition which Garrick made of himself. Foote 
 was, of course, present, and though he was under great 
 personal obligations to Garrick, he could not refrain 
 from giving the rein to his satirical temper. Garrick 
 was at first seriously offended by his intention of 
 
1 88 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 burlesquing the business, but the Marquis of Stafford 
 good-naturedly interfered, and the rival managers 
 met on his doorstep at dinner-time. " What is it to 
 be, war or peace ? " asked Garrick. " Oh, peace by 
 all means ! " replied Foote. They shook hands, and 
 at no future time was there any coolness between the 
 two managers, rivals though they were. 
 
 The end was not far distant. When Garrick re- 
 turned from the continent his closest friends had gone 
 over to the majority; and when, in March, 1776, 
 Hoadly, one of his most intimate associates, died of 
 gout at Winchester, he confessed himself " tired of 
 the cap and bells." The long illness which had assailed 
 him on his foreign tour had weakened him somewhat 
 seriously, and the toils and anxieties of his laborious 
 profession also told upon him. He was under no 
 necessity to continue to labour, possessing as he did 
 a handsome fortune, besides a share in the patent of 
 the theatre, which after his retirement sold for no less 
 a sum than 35,000/. In June, 1776, therefore, whilst his 
 intellectual powers were still unimpaired, and whilst 
 he still retained the physical capacity for enjoyment, 
 he retired from the stage. His last appearance was 
 in the character of Felix, in " The Wonder,' ' before 
 which he spoke a prologue, mentioning the fact that 
 the performance that evening was for the benefit of 
 the Actors' Fund. Some of the lines have the old gay 
 ring about them. 
 
 Shan't I, who oft have drench'd my hands in gore, 
 Stabb'd many, poison'd some, beheaded more, 
 Who numbers slew in battle on this plain, 
 Shan't I, the slayer, try to feed the slain 1 
 Brother to all, with equal love I view 
 The men who slew me, and the men I slew. 
 
David Garrick. 189 
 
 But the jesting was over when the moment for fare- 
 well came, and his parting address — a dozen lines of 
 simple thanks — was interrupted by a flood of tears. 
 
 Garrick's retirement was singularly happy. The 
 most distinguished persons in England vied with each 
 other for the privilege of entertaining him. Lady 
 Georgina Spencer, Lord Rigby, and Lord Camden 
 hailed with great gratification the time when their 
 brilliant friend could visit them without interfering 
 with his professional occupations. He in turn re- 
 ceived his friends in his rural retreat at Hampton in 
 the summer, and at his house in the Adelphi in the 
 winter. Occasionally he visited the House of Commons, 
 and there one night, when the order to clear the gallery 
 was enforced, during a stormy debate, he was allowed 
 by acclamation to keep his seat, Burke paying a 
 generous tribute to the "great master of elocution, 
 by whose lessons they had all profited." One by one 
 his friends died off, and his own turn was not long in 
 coming. Weston, Shuter, Spranger, Barry, Wood- 
 ward, and Foote were all gone, and disease was making 
 rapid inroads on his once fine constitution. Two 
 drops of gall were mingled in the dregs of his cup of 
 life. The company of Drury Lane quarrelled over the 
 fund to which he had contributed so generously, and 
 no small part of their ill-feeling was vented upon him. 
 Worse was to come. At a moment when his illness 
 was really most serious, one of those scoundrels who 
 eke out a base existence by levying black mail for the 
 suppression of libels, brought an infamous charge 
 against him. Not one of his friends believed it, but 
 it was made sufficiently public to cause him infinite 
 suffering. 
 
 Garrick spent Christmas, 1778, with his friend, Lord 
 
190 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 Spencer, at Althorp ; and in the midst of the festivities 
 of the season he was seized with a severe attack of his 
 old enemy, the stone. He recovered sufficiently to be 
 removed to London, and on the 15th of January, 1779, 
 he reached his house in the Adelphi. His friends of 
 the medical profession rallied round him — Heberden, 
 Warren, and Schomberg — but their skill was unavailing. 
 Garrick passed quietly away at eight in the morning 
 of the 20th, followed two days afterwards by his 
 alter ego, his brother George. On the 1st of February 
 he was laid in Poet's Corner, in Westminster Abbey, 
 amidst a regret more universal than perhaps ever fol- 
 lowed an actor to the grave. "The death of Garrick," 
 said Dr. Johnson, " has eclipsed the gaiety of na- 
 tions," and the phrase was truer than such epigram- 
 matic sayings usually are. Johnson and Burke broke 
 into open tears when they heard of it, and his nume- 
 rous friends in France shared their grief. 
 
 In estimating the character and worth of Garrick 
 there are considerable difficulties, but that he was 
 fairly entitled to the epithets both of great and good, 
 may fairly be conceded. During his life he moved 
 constantly in the society of persons of intellectual and 
 social rank, and he won the esteem and regard of all. 
 Two charges only have been brought against him, and 
 of those Goldsmith has certainly made the most in 
 " Retaliation." One is, that he was greedy of money ; 
 the other, that he was a glutton of praise. As regards 
 the latter accusation, we know on very good authority 
 that "praise is the breath of an actor's nostrils," but 
 if by the charge it is intended to insinuate that he was 
 unworthily anxious for popularity, as Goldsmith ac- 
 cuses him of having been, it can only be said that 
 there is something not altogether unamiable in the 
 
David Garrick. 1 9 1 
 
 desire to be generally loved, which is evident in every 
 page of his voluminous correspondence. The charge 
 of avarice may be at once dismissed. No man has 
 laid himself less open to it, and even Johnson — who 
 repeated it most frequently — was compelled to admit, 
 according to Davies, " that he believed David Garrick 
 gave away more money than any man in London." 
 Professionally, he was without a rival in his own time, 
 and for versatility he has never since been equalled. 
 Fielding paid him a fine compliment when he made 
 Partridge in describing " Hamlet " say that " Garrick 
 was no actor : when he saw the ghost he trembled, 
 turned pale, and started just as 1 should have done 
 had I seen a real one." And this gives us a clue to the 
 real greatness of his acting. He was perfectly natural. 
 Under him the stage was emancipated from those 
 traditions which prescribed that verse should always 
 be delivered in a kind of recitative ; that the actor 
 should never sit down, and so forth. Whatever he 
 acted he was for the time being, whether Hamlet 
 or Abel Drugger, Othello or Dr. Caius. To him 
 we owe it further that Shakespeare was restored, 
 after a long banishment, to the English stage in an 
 unmutilated condition, and it was under his guidance 
 and direction that the ranting and stilted tragedy of 
 Dryden and his followers gradually made way for 
 something better and more natural. His theatre was 
 perhaps not perfect, but it was infinitely purer when 
 he left the stage than at the opening of his career. 
 Vice was not encouraged ; vicious plays were sternly 
 discountenanced; and it became, during his reign, 
 possible for a lady to visit the theatre without a mask 
 to conceal her blushes. 
 
192 
 
 RICHARD CUMBERLAND. 
 
 Amongst the ghosts of the men of past times evoked 
 by the genius of the author of the " Roundabout 
 Papers," it is rather a remarkable fact that the once 
 famous author of the "West Indian" and a host of 
 other plays, all more or less successful in their time, 
 should never once make his appearance. Yet Richard 
 Cumberland was conspicuous enough in his own day. 
 A learned and successful author ; a playwright whose 
 works, though they do not now keep the stage, were 
 nevertheless important in their time; the friend of 
 Johnson, Reynolds, Goldsmith, and Garrick; a poet, 
 politician, essayist and critic of no mean attainments, 
 — he was in every sense a man of mark in his own 
 day; so much so, indeed, as to make it somewhat extra- 
 ordinary that he should be so entirely forgotten in 
 ours. One reason possibly may be found in the jealousy 
 with which the world is apt to regard a man of too 
 varied accomplishments. He " who in the course of 
 one revolving moon" essays the various parts of " poet, 
 statesman, fiddler, and buffoon," stands a great chance 
 of being remembered by posterity as neither one nor 
 the other, unless he be possessed of consummate genius. 
 A Michael Angelo may devote himself with impunity- 
 nay, even with success — to half-a-dozen different arts 
 and sciences ; but it is not given to every man " to 
 wear the armour of Achilles." The versatility of a 
 man of great genius will prove the source of ruin and 
 
Richard Cumberland. 193 
 
 destruction to men of more moderate abilities who may 
 be unwise enough to struggle after it. Thus it not un- 
 frequentfy happens that he who, by devoting his entire 
 attention to one single object, might have attained, if 
 not fame, at least a fair and enduring reputation, may, 
 by frittering away his talents on half-a-dozen diffe- 
 rent objects, wholly lose the applause that might have 
 attached to him through steadfast devotion to one, and 
 may become, as has been the case with Cumberland, 
 the mere shadow of a name. 
 
 To nine readers out of every ten of the present day 
 it is probable that the name which stands at the head 
 of this chapter is almost wholly unknown, while in 
 the minds of at least half the remainder it will simply 
 arouse vague and cloudy visions of a figure in a bag 
 wig and sword, mixed up in some half -intelligible way 
 with Johnson and the men of his era. Yet it is hardly 
 fifty years ago since the announcement of his name 
 threw James Smith ("Mr. Smith the poet") into a 
 flutter of delight only equalled by that with which the 
 young Victor Hugo received the visit of the veteran 
 poet of his youth, Chateaubriand. Eichard Cumber- 
 land forms, indeed, one of the great connecting links 
 between the last and the present centuries ; and those 
 who know him, though only at second-hand, can (like 
 Mr. Thackeray with the old friend whom he mentions at 
 the beginning of his lecture on the reign of George I.) 
 " travel back for seven score years of time ; have 
 glimpses of Brummell, Selwyn, Chesterfield, and the 
 men of pleasure ; of Walpole and Conway ; of John- 
 son, Reynolds, Goldsmith ; of North, Chatham, New- 
 castle ; of the fair maids of honour of George II.'s 
 court ; and of the German retainers of George I." — 
 nay, they may even go back farther still, and, by 
 
 
 
[94 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 dwelling on the founder of the family, obtain glimpses 
 of the latter half of the seventeenth century, in the 
 person of that Dr. Cumberland who was made Bishop 
 of Peterborough in 1691 ; or be admitted to the lite- 
 rary quarrels of Pope, Swift, and their clique, in the 
 person of that maternal grandfather of our playwright, 
 who was that Dr. Bentley whom Swift hitched into 
 the " Battle of the Books, " and whom Pope impaled for 
 all posterity as "slashing Bentley" side by side with 
 the less known, though equally ill-used, commentator, 
 " piddling Tibbald." 
 
 "We have but little concern in this place with Cum- 
 berland's ancestors. His connexion with Bentley is, 
 however, worthy of note, as well on account of the 
 doctor's personal distinction as on that of his assump- 
 tion of the charge of his grandson's education. Cum- 
 berland had, indeed, a certain claim upon Bentley, 
 seeing that he was born in his house — the master's 
 lodge of Trinity College, Cambridge — inter silvas Aca- 
 demic as he says in his characteristically pedantic way. 
 For the first six years of his life, his family spent their 
 time pretty equally divided between Cambridge and 
 his father's living of Stan wick. In his poem of " Retro- 
 spection," published many years afterwards, he gives 
 a very touching picture of the venerable scholar — 
 
 At his desk, 
 Beside his garden window, deep in thought, 
 With books enihay'd ; 
 
 and tells his readers how he ran to him " unaided," 
 and how the old man, closing 
 
 44 The page of ancient lore, that offer'd no amusement to his sight," 
 sought among his shelves for books of prints, " to gratify an idle 
 boy." 
 
Richard Cumberland. 195 
 
 The idleness was not, however, to last very long. 
 At the end of the six years Cumberland was sent to the 
 grammar-school of Bury St. Edmund's, where he ac- 
 quired the groundwork of his education, and varied a 
 little work with a great deal of idleness. The under- 
 master at Bury was a good, easy kind of man, who 
 allowed his pupils to work or play, as best suited their 
 inclinations, he meanwhile sitting by in " a plaid dress- 
 ing-gown and night-cap." After a while Kinsman, 
 the head-master, awoke to the responsibility he was 
 neglecting, and sent for Cumberland into the upper 
 school, when he addressed him in feeling terms on his 
 idleness. Stung by the reproof, and by the fact that 
 he was really the lowest, though not the youngest, boy 
 in the school, he began to work to recover his lost 
 ground ; but just at this time he was seized with a 
 severe illness. The tender nursing of his mother 
 brought him round after a time, and he was on his 
 recovery moved into Kinsman's house, where sur- 
 rounded by a better class of boys, and stimulated to 
 exertion by all reasonable inducements, he worked 
 well, and speedily assumed a high place in the school, 
 which he never afterwards lost. With his usual 
 tediousness and prolixity, he has related the whole 
 matter in his autobiography ; and he adds the impor- 
 tant information that about this time he made his first 
 attempt at English verse. He has preserved some 
 fragments of this very juvenile performance ; but it 
 would be difficult to discover in them a trace of 
 genius, except, indeed, in one place, where the exi- 
 gencies of rhyme have forced him into offering a 
 beautiful specimen of that art of sinking which Pope 
 satirized so pleasantly. He tells his readers that his 
 mother was in the habit of quoting it as a specimen of 
 
 2 
 
196 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 the style lie ought most to avoid; a similar reason 
 may be given for its insertion here : — 
 
 Here they weave cables, there they mainmasts form ; 
 Here they forge anchors, useful in a storm. 
 
 These juvenile efforts were not destined to be sub- 
 mitted to the criticism of " slashing Bentley." The 
 Master of Trinity had been taken to his rest at last — 
 controversies were over for him — criticism and scholar- 
 ship were no longer matters of moment; while for 
 Cumberland's family there were henceforward no more 
 pleasant visits to Cambridge, or friendly encounters 
 with that learned and brilliant circle of which Bentley 
 had so long been the acknowledged centre. Their 
 home for a long time to come was the paternal living 
 of Stanwick, in Northamptonshire ; a quiet and rather 
 dull parsonage-house near to the church, which, says 
 Cumberland, " is esteemed one of the most beautiful 
 models in that style of architecture in the kingdom." 
 The description is true as far as it goes, but it falls 
 far short of the reality. Stanwick possesses a church 
 of singular beauty and picturesqueness, very ancient 
 in date, and having one of the finest octagonal spires 
 of late Decorated work in England. The reverend 
 head of the family would not leave well alone, however ; 
 for he added " a very handsome clock, and ornamented 
 the chancel with a railing, screen, and entablature 
 upon three-quarter columns, with a singing-gallery at 
 the west end ; a set of alterations which were in exis- 
 tence until very recently — if they are not extant even 
 now — as witnesses of the taste and wisdom of our 
 ancestors in matters of ecclesiastical architecture. 
 But though his notions of medievalism may not hav( 
 been very orthodox, his character was blameless an< 
 
Richard Cumberland. 197 
 
 his usefulness unquestionable. He was in the com- 
 mission of the peace; but, like a good many other 
 rural justices, he knew no law. He did not, however, 
 hide his ignorance under an affectation of severity, but 
 more frequently occupied himself in reconciling litigious 
 disputants by means of his kitchen and cellar than by 
 references to "Blackstone" or "Coke upon Littleton." 
 He was no ascetic in his views of clerical duty, though 
 he fulfilled them as well as most clergymen of his time. 
 In his youth he had kept horses and ridden matches 
 at Newmarket. In his later days he abandoned this, 
 as inconsistent with his clerical position, but he still 
 rode well to hounds, and shared a pack of harriers 
 with some gentlemen in the neighbourhood. In this 
 sport Eichard took his part in his holidays, and became, 
 according to his own account, a bold and skilful rider 
 at a very early age. 
 
 All his time was not, however, taken up with pleasure 
 of this kind, even during his holidays. His mother 
 about this period began to form his taste in poetry, 
 and certainly chose for this purpose the wisest plan 
 that could be invented. Night after night he read 
 aloud the best scenes of Shakespeare, whose works she 
 understood and admired. She inherited her father's 
 talent for annotation, and by it she aided her son in 
 his appreciation of the national poet. The father 
 shared in the enjoyments of these evenings; and 
 Eichard has left a very pleasant picture of the happy 
 family group — the mother learned, wise, and amiable, 
 occupied in the instruction of her eager and affectionate 
 pupil, while the father sits by, placid and approving, 
 " his countenance never marked but with the traces 
 of his indelible and hereditary benevolence." The 
 effect of these evenings on the mind of the lad was 
 
igS Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 precisely what might have been expected. He could 
 at no time have been. fairly called a brilliant genius, 
 but he had what often serves very effectually in the 
 stead of genius — a thorough appreciation of genius in 
 others. 
 
 From Bury, Cumberland was, shortly after Bentley's 
 death, removed to Westminster, then under Dr. 
 Mchols. The lad went through the usual series of 
 schoolboy scrapes, which are recorded in his auto- 
 biography at length, for the information of the curious 
 in such matters ; but, at this distance of time, there 
 is nothing in them of sufficient importance to detain us, 
 but one sentence of his autobiography — perhaps one 
 of the most long-winded books in English literature — 
 may serve to show what manner of boy Eichard Cum- 
 berland was. " I sate down, however," he says, " with 
 ardour to my school-business, and also to my private 
 studies, and I soon perceived that I had now no 
 discouragements to contend with in my attempts at 
 composition, for the very first exercise in Latin verse 
 which I gave in gained the candid approbation of the 
 master, and from that moment I acquired a degree of 
 confidence in myself that gave vigour to my exertions : 
 and though I bear all possible respect and gratitude 
 to the memory of that kind friend of my youth, whose 
 rigour was only the effect of anxiety for my well 
 doing, yet I cannot look back to this period of my 
 education without acknowledging the advantages I 
 experienced in being thus transplanted to Westminster, 
 where to attempt was to succeed, and placed under a 
 master, whose principle it evidently was to cherish 
 every spark of genius which he could discover in his 
 scholars, and who seemed determined so to exercise 
 his authority that our best motives for obeying him 
 
Richard Cumber 'land. 199 
 
 should spring from the affection that we entertained 
 for him." Kinsman, he adds, knew how to make his 
 boys scholars, but Dr. Mchols had the art of making 
 his scholars gentlemen. The rebellion of 1745 in- 
 terrupted the tranquillity of school-life ; and, on his 
 return from school for his holidays, young Cumberland 
 found an addition to the inhabitants of the quiet 
 parsonage of Stan wick in the person of " the Hon, 
 Mrs. Wentworth, grandmother of the Marquis of 
 Kockingham," who, fearing lest the loyalty of her 
 house to the reigning sovereign might expose her to 
 pillage, had fled from Harrowden to take refuge with 
 the parson of Stanwick. He was not to be readily 
 frightened from his principles, and exerted himself 
 valiantly in the Hanoverian cause. He raised in his 
 parish two companies for the regiment then enrolling 
 under the Earl of Halifax, and marched them to 
 Nottingham in person. After a time the young captain 
 went back to school — not with the most agreeable 
 environments. He boarded in the house of an uncle 
 in Peter Street, Westminster, where, though he was 
 not unkindly treated, he became a prey to ennui, from 
 the dulness and poverty of the domestic arrangements. 
 One consolation, however, he found in being allowed 
 occasionally to visit the theatre. The stage was just 
 beginning to revive from its lethargy ; Garrick and his 
 company — including Quin, Mrs. Cibber, and Mrs. 
 Pritchard — being the great attractions. Thanks to 
 Leigh Hunt, who has quoted Cumberland's description 
 of the impression produced upon him by the great 
 actor at length, nearly all who care for such things 
 know the state of mind produced by this first ex- 
 perience of the real dramatic art — how, "when little 
 Garrick, young and light, and alive in every muscle 
 
200 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 and in every feature, came bounding on the stage, 
 and pointing at the wittol Altamont (Ryan) and heavy- 
 paced Horatio (Quin) — heavens what a transition ! — 
 it seemed as if a whole century had been swept over 
 in the course of a single scene." The spectator, who 
 had been listening to the " dignified elocution " of 
 Quin, saw in a moment the traditions of a century 
 swept away, and a new order of things, bright, lumi- 
 nous, and natural, introduced. This visit was doubt- 
 less not without its influence in directing the nascent 
 powers of Cumberland towards that stage on which 
 he was destined to reap his greatest successes. Not 
 yet, however, was he to begin his theatrical labours. 
 
 The cacoethes scribendi was beginning to break out, 
 and the lad began to cheer his solitude with literature, 
 but with no view to the stage. He has preserved a 
 sample of these juvenilia — a translation in blank verse 
 of Virgil's description of the plague amongst the 
 cattle, from the Georgics — rather tame in itself, but 
 still interesting as pointing to the future direction of 
 his life. 
 
 The death of a favourite sister brought about a 
 change in the family arrangements, the immediate 
 consequence of which was the removal of Cumberland 
 from Westminster, and his entrance at Cambridge. 
 He was very young — only in his fourteenth year 
 indeed — and would undoubtedly have been improved 
 by another year or two of school, but his father's 
 determination was taken, and to Trinity he went. He 
 worked hard at Cambridge, lived sparingly, and wound 
 up his undergraduate ship by taking honours at an 
 unusually early age. His success on this occasion 
 was followed by an attack of rheumatic fever which 
 made a prisoner of him for six months, and which, as 
 
Richard Cumberland. 201 
 
 is not unusual in the case of that disease, left its mark 
 upon him during the whole of his after-life. 
 
 About this time Mason (then Mr. Mason of Pem- 
 broke, better known afterwards by his friendship with 
 Walpole) published his " Elfrida," " a tragedy after the 
 manner of the Greeks," and completely converted 
 Cumberland to his theories of poetry. Of course an 
 ardent admirer soon developes into an imitator, and 
 the boyish wrangler testified his admiration by writing 
 an entire drama, of which " Oaractacus " was the 
 hero, and bards and Druids were the chorus, for whom 
 the author says that he wrote " Odes in the manner 
 of Elfrida " — a performance of which it is gratifying 
 to find no trace now left. 
 
 An event which changed the whole course of Cum- 
 berland's life for many years to come happened about 
 this time. A general election drew on, and the county 
 of Northampton was hotly contested by the great 
 rival parties in the state. The parson of Stanwick 
 gave his support to the Whigs, and worked vigorously 
 though unsuccessfully in their favour. Lord Halifax, 
 then Lord Lieutenant of the county, noted this exhi- 
 bition of zeal, and pressed his services. Personal 
 favours were rigidly declined, but offers of kindness 
 having the son of the house for their object were 
 more willingly received. The result of the negotia- 
 tions was the offer of a private secretaryship for the 
 lad, which in spite of his secluded habits and love of 
 study he accepted. Cumberland affects in his later 
 life to repent this change in his prospects ; but it 
 appears exceedingly doubtful if anything better could 
 readily have been found, or anything offering upon 
 such easy terms that prospect of a career which all 
 men desire, but so few obtain. 
 
202 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 After a short stay with some relatives at York, 
 Cumberland returned to Cambridge, to try his chance 
 for a fellowship of his college. The usual rule was 
 that those distinctions could only be conferred on 
 a B. A. of at least three years' standing ; but in his 
 case the law was set aside, and he, though only in his 
 second year, was allowed to compete. With his 
 accustomed air of self-satisfaction, he affects to believe 
 that the reason for this piece of favouritism is to be 
 found in his superior scholarship ; but it is far more 
 probable that his relationship to Bentley was the 
 principal cause. He began, however, to read for his 
 examination in earnest, when a summons came from 
 Lord Halifax to go immediately to London and com- 
 mence his duties. He went accordingly ; and having 
 waited on his patron, established himself in a lodging 
 in Downing Street which had been taken for him. 
 There was nothing very interesting or instructive in 
 his work, and it is not to be wondered at that before 
 long he began to wish himself back again in his quiet 
 rooms at Cambridge. Halifax was kind enough to 
 him, but it is not dim cult to see that the lad found his 
 protector rather different in manner from the friend 
 he had known him in the country. At last the recess 
 came. Lord Halifax went down into Northampton, 
 and Cumberland to Cambridge, where he went through 
 the usual processes, and was elected fellow of his 
 college in due course. A certain Dr. Mason — a worthy 
 man, but eccentric and dirty to an unusual degree — 
 opposed the innovation violently, and did all he could 
 to hinder his promotion. When he had succeeded, 
 however, he waited on the electing seniors in the usual 
 course to return thanks ; but upon presenting himself 
 to Mason, he told him plainly " that he owed him no 
 
Richard Cumberland. 203 
 
 thanks, for lie had opposed his election as much as he 
 was able," because he disliked innovation, and thought 
 the change unfair to the other candidates. Of the 
 examination for this fellowship, Cumberland gives a 
 very curious account. He had to call upon all the 
 fellows of the college in turn — last of all upon the 
 Master, whom he found, not in his library, but in a 
 chamber upstairs, " encompassed with large folding 
 screens and over a great fire, though the weather was 
 then uncommonly warm." The Master — Smith — exa- 
 mined him very strictly on matters of ancient history, 
 and then gave him " a sheet of paper written through 
 in Greek with his own hand," which he ordered him 
 to turn either into Latin or into English. For the 
 performance of this task he was shown into a room 
 furnished with a table, a single chair and the materials 
 for writing. Other exercises were given to him, all of 
 which he performed in this room, which strangely 
 enough was the room in which he was born. The 
 ideas to which this fact gave rise he embodied in his 
 Latin verses, and he allows his readers to understand 
 that it was mainly to this fact that he was indebted 
 for his success. 
 
 Concerning his life with Lord Halifax he has but 
 little to say. It must have been dreary and common- 
 place enough, since so trivial an incident as his finding 
 a quotation for Lord Halifax is made a peg on which 
 to hang a page of Latin quotation, and two of a 
 watery rhyming translation. His acquaintances, 
 chiefly men whose reputations have died with them- 
 selves, also form subjects for a great deal of gossip ; 
 and at another time he tells his family how, in that 
 " busy idleness " in which he was so proficient, he 
 employed himself in collecting materials out of the 
 
204 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 "History of India" for the epic on which he designed 
 his fame to rest. Happily, he abandoned the notion 
 before going very far with it ; nevertheless, some half- 
 dozen pages of fragments remain to prove that their 
 author was not designed by nature for an epic poet. 
 
 A gentleman who could imagine that he was likely 
 to " climb the steep where fame's proud temple shines 
 afar " by such lines as the following must have been 
 very far gone : — 
 
 Gama the first on bold discovery bent, 
 With, prow still pointing to the further pole, 
 Skirted Caffraria, till the welcome Cape, 
 Thence call'd of Hope, but not to Asia's sons — 
 Spoke the long coast exhausted ; still 'twas Hope 
 Not victory ; Nature in one effort foil'd, 
 Still kept the contest doubtful and enraged 
 Eoused all the elements to war. 
 
 In the course of time Lady Halifax died, and the 
 duiness of Cumberland's position was considerably 
 increased in consequence. At last, when it had grown 
 almost insupportable, his father managed to effect an 
 exchange with the vicar of Fulham, to which place he 
 removed from Stanwick. The Bishop of London, 
 Sherlock, who was then in almost the last stage of 
 decrepitude, treated the new-comer with great kind- 
 ness, and before his death gave him a small prebend 
 in St. Paul's. 
 
 His family being thus brought within reach, Cum- 
 berland was frequently at Fulham, and by this means 
 was introduced to the notorious Bubb Dodington, 
 afterwards Lord Melcombe, who had a villa in the 
 adjoining parish of Hammersmith. It is not very 
 easy to understand how a man who, like Cumberland, 
 boasted in after-life of his piety and spotless morals, 
 
Richard Cumberland. 205 
 
 should pride himself on his friendship with a sensual 
 reprobate like Dodington; but — whether from sincere 
 though mistaken admiration, or from a snobbish 
 worship of wealth, is not very clear — he does so pride 
 himself, and devotes many pages of good type to cele- 
 brating his intimacy. Halifax encouraged it by all 
 means in his power, since he was intriguing for pro- 
 motion. At last came a breach. Halifax quarrelled 
 with the Duke of Newcastle, threw up his place, and 
 detached himself from the administration. Dodington 
 went to his country seat, and Cumberland, the ex- 
 secretary of an ex-statesman, followed him. A gay 
 party filled the halls of Eastbury all the summer, and 
 Dodington showed himself off to admiration. He may 
 be judged pretty fairly from his habits ; and, indeed, 
 it is not unamusing to read of his gorgeous tastes in 
 matters of upholstery and decoration, and of the 
 meanness which, nevertheless, characterized some of 
 his splendours. While he himself was never to be 
 approached save through a suite of rooms " adorned 
 with sculptures," while he never rode save in a coach 
 gilded and carved like that of the Lord Mayor, and 
 drawn by six unwieldy Flanders mares ; his state bed- 
 room was carpeted with gold and silver embroidery, 
 which, on examination, proved to be made of old coats, 
 waistcoats, and breeches ; and his walls, instead of 
 pictures, were decorated with immense patches of gilt 
 leather shaped into bugle-horns and mounted upon 
 hangings of crimson velvet. To atone for the in- 
 congruous arrangements of his house, he never allowed 
 himself to be seen except in dresses of the most costly 
 and glaring description, laced and ruffled to a won- 
 derful extent. 
 
 Dodington is acknowledged to have been of humble 
 
206 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 birth, but lie was by no means insensible to the charms 
 of rank and fortune. Walpole was a favourite subject 
 for his panegyric; so also were Chesterfield, Win- 
 nington, Pultney, and Fox, who accepted his admira- 
 tion with considerable tolerance. Lord Bute was, 
 however, his idol. To him Dodington paid perpetual 
 court, for which he was at last rewarded with a 
 coronet. Of his literary tastes Cumberland is loud in 
 praise. His knowledge of Tacitus was minute and 
 correct ; while his wit, though often coarse, was 
 always ready. His admirer admits, however, that he 
 was accustomed to book his good things, and to 
 prepare himself for his encounter with his friends by 
 a course of his private jest-book. If his wit were 
 ready and brilliant, his taste was coarse and even 
 brutal. He would entertain his lady visitors by reading 
 aloud, and for this purpose his favourite works were 
 " Jonathan Wild " and the coarser scenes from Shake- 
 speare, all of which he delivered with infinite gusto. 
 Glover, the author of "Leonidas" and "Medea," was,, 
 however, a great friend ; and he would sometimes vary 
 his readings by extracts from the works of that writer, 
 whom he professed greatly to admire. One evening 
 Cumberland relates that he devoted himself to reading 
 a poem of some four hundred lines which our fellow 
 of Trinity had composed, partly in honour of his host, 
 and partly to offer consolation to Lord Halifax on his 
 retirement from office. The author was too modest to 
 hear his own work read aloud, or rather to be seen so 
 occupied, and therefore concealed himself in the next 
 room, where he could hear without being seen, and be 
 gratified with Dodington' s compliments without being 
 under the necessity of deprecating them. 
 
 His interests at Cambridge did not suffer all this 
 

 Richard Cumberland. 207 
 
 time. His friends did not forget him, nor did the 
 authorities lose sight of his merits. A lay-fellowship 
 became vacant, whereupon he was put in competition 
 for it, and, by " the unabated kindness of the masters 
 and seniors," he was " honoured with that last and 
 most distinguished mark of their favour and protec- 
 tion." He did not continue long to enjoy the dignity 
 and emoluments of this position, but ceased at an 
 early period to court academical honours, in favour of 
 a matrimonial speculation. About this time he married 
 the daughter of a Mr. Ridge — a Northamptonshire 
 neighbour — having previously secured, through the 
 patronage of Lord Halifax, a public office as Crown 
 Agent for the Province of Nova Scotia. Henceforward, 
 therefore, his life is divorced from the university, and 
 he begins his career as a dramatist. 
 
 The first attempt of Cumberland in the dramatic 
 art was the production of a tragedy on a subject taken 
 from Middleton's "Life of Cicero," then just published. 
 " The Banishment of Cicero," in fiye acts, was presented 
 by Lord Halifax to Garrick; but the little manager 
 was too wise to risk his reputation by the production 
 of a tragedy such as this. He was certainly under 
 considerable obligations to Halifax, and would without 
 doubt have been glad to oblige so powerful a noble- 
 man, had it been possible ; but it is evident, in spite 
 of Cumberland's attempts to disguise the fact, that 
 the play was really too bad for representation. In 
 the first place, the subject was most unhappy. Cicero 
 is not a character for whom the play-going public are 
 at any time likely to care, and his banishment is an 
 exceedingly trivial matter to form the catastrophe of 
 a long five-act tragedy. However, the author was 
 proud of his bantling, and liked not the idea of the 
 
208 Eighteenth Ce?ittiry Studies. 
 
 world losing so much instruction and amusement as 
 he thought his tragedy likely to offer. It was pub- 
 lished, therefore, but, greatly to his credit, with no 
 preface in explanation of the circumstances under 
 which Garrick had refused it. Copies were sent to 
 the Primate and to Warburton, the latter of whom 
 returned a courteous note of thanks, in which he 
 assures Cumberland that his " very fine dramatic poem 
 is (like Mr. Mason's) much too good for a prostitute 
 stage." What Warburton meant by his phrases of 
 flattery probably he himself best knew, but there is 
 an odd " sour-grapes " flavour about his consolation, 
 which could not have been very pleasant to Cumber- 
 land, in spite of the pride with which he publishes the 
 letter. The play is not very easy to get at, but those 
 who do attempt to read it are more likely to " sleep 
 o'er Cato's drowsy theme" than to agree with the 
 author in his opinion that though " inaccuracies may 
 be discovered here and there as a dramatic poem, for 
 the closet it will bear examination." His fault, indeed, 
 is never a want of appreciation of his own merits. 
 Whatever blame may attach to him on other grounds, 
 none can on this ; and in order to prove his case he 
 does not hesitate to assume the most difficult position 
 that can be devised — that of censor and critic of his 
 own works. He has executed his task with as much 
 impartiality as could be expected, with the usual, and 
 indeed necessary result, that of disgusting his readers 
 with his vanity and of irritating them by his incom- 
 petency. 
 
 Political changes interfered very speedily with Cum- 
 berland's dramatic career. The king, George II., 
 died in 1760, and, of course, a new order in poli- 
 tical affairs was inaugurated. Lord Bute, into whose 
 
Richard Cumberland. 209 
 
 hands the entire care and responsibilities of the 
 State had now fallen, was -chief dispenser of favour 
 and promotion. Halifax speedily found, with Dod- 
 ington, the good effects of the court they had paid to 
 that nobleman for the last few years. Dodington 
 became Lord Melcombe — a barren honour, however, 
 which died with him ; and Halifax was rewarded for 
 his fidelity by promotion from his office of First Lord 
 of Trade and Plantations, which he had reassumed 
 some time before, to that of Lord- Lieutenant of Ire- 
 land. Cumberland, who retained still his office of 
 secretary, succeeded in obtaining a chaplaincy for his 
 father, and went out with Halifax, entrusted with the 
 management of all his most private affairs. Over him, 
 as chief secretary, was Gerard Hamilton, who had but 
 little of the Lord-Lieutenant's favour. He was an 
 able man of business, though of small parliamentary 
 reputation (he was better known by the nickname of 
 Single- Speech Hamilton than by his own) but he 
 never succeeded in gaining the confidence of Halifax. 
 The consequence was, that Cumberland, though hold- 
 ing only the minor post of Ulster secretary, was in 
 fact rendered responsible for nearly or quite every- 
 thing that was done in the secretary's department. 
 The cares of the author intruded themselves, however, 
 from time to time upon the duties of the politician, 
 and thus it came to pass that he discovered soon-after 
 his arrival in Dublin that his " Banishment of Cicero," 
 which had been published in quarto, "in a handsome 
 type," by "Mr. J. Walter, of Charing Cross," had 
 been pirated by the notorious George Faulkner of 
 Dublin. This was that Faulkner whom Foote after- 
 wards caricatured to his face, and who, after 
 laughing at the burlesque, brought his satirist into 
 
2 1 o Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 a court of law and made him pay roundly for his 
 freedom. 
 
 Halifax did not long administer the affairs of Ire- 
 land, but in the time that he was thus occupied he 
 contrived to endear himself to the people in many 
 ways. The speech which he delivered at the opening 
 of the session was infinitely applauded, though, by the 
 way, Cumberland contrives to insinuate that it owed 
 much of its success to the pen of Hamilton, who was 
 called in to revise it before it was spoken. Early in 
 his administration a project for increasing the revenues 
 of the Lord-Lieutenant passed the Irish Parliament. 
 Halifax gave his assent to the measure, so far as his 
 successors were concerned, but he positively refused 
 to receive any benefit from it for himself. Such un- 
 usually disinterested conduct in an English Lord- 
 Lieutenant of Ireland had its reward in the love and 
 applause of the people, which showed itself to a rather 
 embarrassing extent at his departure. On that day 
 the shore was thronged by thousands of people, and 
 the bay covered with boats, all containing crowds 
 assembled to pay him the last honours in their power. 
 Before he left he contrived to reward one faithful 
 adherent. His chaplain, Cumberland's father, obtained 
 from his influence the Irish bishopric of Clonfert. The 
 position, though elevated, was not of extraordinary 
 dignity or emolument, but the ex-rector of Stanwick 
 did more honour to his office than the office did to 
 him. He modelled his life upon the highest type of 
 Christian charity and virtue, devoted himself utterly 
 and entirely to the duties of his office, and gained the 
 love of all classes in his diocese, whether Protestant 
 or Roman Catholic. The poor almost worshipped him, 
 and his son records with justifiable pride how, on one 
 
 
Richard Cumberland. 2 1 1 
 
 occasion, a wild Irish lad walked from Clonfert to 
 Dublin solely to obtain his blessing. Another story, 
 which is eqnally to his honour, is also told by his son. 
 Meeting the Catholic priest of the parish one day, the 
 good bishop remarked npon the sorry condition of 
 his horse. " Truly, my good lord," replied the priest, 
 " the beast himself is but an ugly garron, and whereby 
 I have no provender to spare him, mightily out of 
 heart, as I may truly say; but your lordship must 
 think a poor priest like me has a mighty deal of work 
 and very little pay." " Why, then, brother," said the 
 bishop, " 'tis fit that I, who have the advantage of 
 you in both respects, should mount you on a better 
 horse, and furnish you with provision to maintain 
 him." This parley with the priest, his son goes on to 
 say passed in the very hay-field where the bishop's 
 people were at work. Orders were instantly given for 
 a stack of hay to be made at the priest's cabin, and in 
 a few days after a steady horse w/js purchased and 
 presented to him." His virtues and talents gained 
 still further appreciation; in the course of a short 
 time he was promoted from Clonfert to Kilmore, and 
 there settling down, he scarcely quitted his diocese for 
 the rest of his life. 
 
 Cumberland's own rewards were not great. He 
 received, as became an honourable man, no presents 
 whatever ; and except from the fees upon wool- licences 
 which were attached to his office, and were worth 
 about 300L a year, he scarcely cleared his extra- 
 ordinary expenses. Towards the close of the session 
 Halifax expressed his wish to mark his appreciation of 
 his services, and by way of doing so offered to obtain 
 for him the title of baronet— an honour which Cum- 
 berland, with remarkable good sense, instantly declined. 
 
 p 2 
 
212 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 The Lord-Lieutenant was not particularly gratified 
 by this refusal, but he did not withdraw his coun- 
 tenance from him altogether, though he speedily made 
 him feel the weight of his displeasure. An opportunity 
 for promotion was not long in offering itself, by the 
 vacating of the office of Under-Secretary of State. 
 For this he applied, but he was curtly refused, with 
 the information "that he was not fit for every situa- 
 tion." The deficiency alleged was that he could not 
 speak French, but this was merely an excuse. He 
 knew quite enough of the language for the duties of 
 the office; but in truth he was out of favour, and 
 therefore, in his own words, " had he possessed the 
 eloquence and perfection of Voltaire himself in that 
 language, he would not have been a step nearer to the 
 office in question." Thus repulsed in favour of an 
 unknown man — a Mr. Sedgewicke — Cumberland with- 
 drew from his patron, and applied for the office which 
 his rival had just vacated. The salary was but two 
 hundred a year, and Halifax remonstrated with him 
 with some severity; but he adhered to his purpose, 
 and obtained the paltry place at the price of Lord 
 Halifax's perpetual displeasure. 
 
 Thus returned to England, and established after 
 eleven years with a petty place under government, 
 Cumberland found time for other studies and other 
 labours than those which had previously occupied him. 
 Comic opera was the order of the day on the stage, 
 and Bickerstaff was at the head of this school of com- 
 position. His two works, " Love in a Village " and 
 rt The Maid of the Mill," having been very successful, 
 Cumberland was stimulated to attempt something of 
 the same kind, and produced accordingly what he very 
 appropriately styles " a thing in three acts," which 
 
Richard Cumberland. 2 1 3 
 
 he named " The Summer's Tale." It was miserably dull 
 and tedious ; but being merely the vehicle for music, 
 and not greatly regarded, it was moderately successful. 
 Abel supplied the overture ; Bach, Dr. Arne, and Dr. 
 Arnold the music to the songs; and Beard, Shuter, 
 and Miss Brent — all then in high favour — filled the 
 principal characters. 
 
 His friends were not particularly struck by this, his 
 first success. On leaving the theatre one day he met 
 an old acquaintance, with whom he entered into con- 
 versation, and who told him frankly that he could 
 never achieve a reputation by compiling the nonsense 
 which usually goes to the formation of an opera. He 
 wound up his arguments by suggesting that he should 
 devote himself to writing comedies, by which both 
 fame and money might be gained; and on this hint 
 Cumberland had the good sense to act. In the 
 following summer, as soon as he was released from 
 his duties at the Board of Trade, he set out on a visit 
 to his father, whom he found comfortably settled at 
 Clonfert, and with whom he stayed for some little 
 time, returning to England in the autumn. His time 
 had not been wasted in this long recess ; for in the 
 course of the winter he produced his first comedy, 
 " The Brothers," at Oovent Garden. It was very fairly 
 received, and appears to have fixed the destiny of its 
 author, inasmuch as from this time we have more of 
 the gestation and production of new comedies than of 
 anything else. This play of Cumberland's can hardly 
 be called his first, seeing he had already produced a 
 tragedy for the benefit of the trunk-makers, and an 
 opera which had lived nine nights ; but it was assuredly 
 his first attempt in the style in which he was to gain 
 his greatest successes, and in which he was to reign 
 
214 Eighteenth Century Studies, 
 
 unquestioned with supremacy for many years to come. 
 Those who have the courage to disinter it from the 
 thousand-and-one works of the same class — successful 
 and unsuccessful — which supplied the stage a century 
 ago, will find little to praise in it more than is to be 
 found in hundreds of other comedies which have long 
 been forgotten. The characters are all old and conven- 
 tional, the humour is of the stage, stagey, and the 
 dialogue inexpressibly tedious. Mrs. Inchbald, it is 
 but fair to say, however, is not of this opinion, though 
 she carefully enshrines her opinions in the decisions of 
 other people. "'The Brothers,'" she says, "is acknow- 
 ledged by all critics to be a very good play." 
 
 If this play did nothing else, it had one very good 
 effect — it produced a reconciliation between Cumber- 
 land and Garrick, who had not been upon the best of 
 terms since the rejection of the "Banishment of Cicero." 
 This was brought about by means of a simple and 
 graceful allusion in the epilogue. The play over, 
 Mr. Yates stepped forward to deliver it, in accordance 
 with the kindly but disused practice of the time, and 
 began, — 
 
 Who but hath seen the celebrated strife, 
 Where Eeynolds calls the canvas into life ; 
 And 'twixt the Tragic and the Comic Muse, 
 Courted of both, and dubious where to choose, 
 Th' immortal actor stands — 
 
 " The immortal actor " was taken somewhat by sur- 
 prise ; but Garrick, with all his good qualities — and they 
 were not few — was of all men the most open to flattery. 
 In this instance it was so delicately applied, and so pal- 
 pably sincere — for Cumberland could not know, though 
 he might guess, that he would be present — that it could 
 not fail of its desired effect. Mr. Fitzherbert, whose 
 
Richard Cttmberland. 2 1 5 
 
 intimacy with Garrick has preserved his name, was 
 with him in the box, and came round straightway " to 
 assure Mr. Cumberland of the gratification he had 
 afforded to Mr. Garrick." An intimacy, broken only 
 by death, thus commenced. The actor visited the 
 dramatist in Queen Anne Street, and the latter re- 
 turned his attentions both at his house at Hampton, in 
 Southampton Street, and later in the house on the 
 Adelphi Terrace where Garrick spent the closing years 
 of his life. 
 
 Somewhere about this time he came into collision 
 with Sheridan. With an inexplicable want of taste, he 
 could never be brought to see, or at all events to 
 acknowledge, the genius of his immortal rival, Sheridan. 
 He is said even to have sat through a representation 
 of the " School for Scandal" without a smile, and to 
 have inquired what his friends could see to laugh at in it. 
 He had not long before produced a tragedy, the " Battle 
 of Hastings," which has long been consigned to the 
 limbo of forgotten works, and Sheridan did not forget 
 this tragedy when Cumberland's behaviour at his 
 comedy was reported to him. " Not laugh at my 
 comedy ! '' said he; " somewhat ungracious, to say the 
 least, for I laughed at his tragedy the other night from 
 beginning to end." The retort was severe, but a more 
 terrible revenge was in store. The immortal " Critic " 
 came out in 1779, and the world there saw Cumberland 
 at full length in the character of Sir Fretful Plagiary. 
 The resemblance was perfect ; one of his sons was the 
 first to recognize it, and it soon became the talk of the 
 town. It is only fair to add, however, that there is 
 another account which states that the provocation was 
 not a personal, but a political one, and this, for Sheri- 
 dan's sake, one would rather accept. In a farce by 
 
2i6 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 Cumberland called, the " Note of Hand, or a Trip to 
 Newmarket," there is a certain amount of satire levelled 
 at the Duke of Devonshire, Charles Fox, and other 
 heads of that political party to which Sheridan was 
 attached, and tradition says that Sir Fretful was 
 designed as a retaliation. Whichever be the true ver- 
 sion of the story, it is certain that the satire was 
 aimed at Cumberland, and equally certain that it was 
 most bitterly felt. The injury rankled in his mind, and 
 in spite of the attempts to disguise it, it was a sore 
 point even a quarter of a century after. What made 
 it worse was probably the dreadful truth of the name 
 given by Sheridan to his victim. Cumberland was as 
 a matter of fact a plagiarist of the first water, and 
 Mudford in his " Critical Examination of the works 
 of Richard Cumberland," devotes several pages to 
 an exposure of the gross plagiarisms with which the 
 " Battle of Hastings " abounds. An opera — "Calypso" 
 — which he produced shortly afterwards was also 
 described as " a thing of shreds and patches stolen 
 from all sources." 
 
 The work by which Cumberland is best known was 
 next set upon the stocks. The usual annual visit to 
 his father at Clonfert was occupied by the composition 
 of the u West Indian," which, with a minuteness that 
 would be amusing were it not tedious, he has told the, 
 •world, was planned and written in a little closet at the 
 back of the palace, which had no other prospect than 
 that of a turf stack with which it was almost in contact. 
 On his return to England, he submitted the manuscript 
 of the " West Indian " to the friendly criticism of Gar- 
 rick, who gave him a number of exceedingly valuable 
 hints as to the conduct of his plot, the arrangement of his 
 scenes, and the like, and who bestowed a great deal of 
 
Richard Cumberland. 2 i 7 
 
 attention on the arrangements for the rehearsal and 
 cast of the play. The author's expectations were not 
 high — indeed, he says that he offered to resign the 
 profits of his work to Garrick, if he would give him a 
 certain picture which hung over his chimney-piece in 
 Southampton Street — a copy of a Holy Family by 
 Andrea del Sarto — and the bargain would have been 
 completed had not the picture been a gift from Lord 
 Baltimore to the manager. Public curiosity had been 
 aroused, and a good deal of hostility excited by the 
 title of the new piece. The West Indians of London 
 came down to the theatre on the first night in great 
 force, disposed to resent any attack of the author on 
 their class in an exceedingly summary manner. Their 
 temper manifested itself the moment the prologue 
 commenced, and the first four lines were spoken in the 
 midst of such a tremendous uproar that not a word 
 could be heard. Garrick grew painfully agitated ; but 
 the cry came for the speaker to recommence. He did 
 so amidst a sulky kind of attention, and the audience, 
 calmed a little by the promise that the hero should dis- 
 cover " some emanations of a noble mind," waited for 
 the evolution of the plot and the development of the 
 character with more patience than had at first been 
 anticipated. The galleryful of Irish servants was con- 
 ciliated by the promise of an Irishman in the piece who 
 should differ in some respects from the conventional 
 stage Irishman, who had hitherto " been treated," to 
 use Cumberland's words, only " with kicks and cuffs," 
 and prepared itself for lusty applause. The play 
 opened amidst mingled silence of one party and cheer- 
 ing of another; but when the curtain dropped, the 
 enthusiasm was unanimous, and the success of the 
 piece was determined. To the reader of the present 
 
2 1 8 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 day it seems tame enough. Its great fault is its pro- 
 lixity. The speeches are very long and in several cases 
 they hinder rather than help on the action. Thus, for 
 example, in the first act the audience are kept for some 
 little time whilst two of the characters exchange ideas 
 as to the literary merits of Sterne — an interesting sub- 
 ject, and one on which Cumberland's ideas at a proper 
 time would doubtless be valuable, but certainly not one 
 for the sake of which it is worth while to arrest the 
 course of a five-act comedy. As a matter of course 
 the play abounds in bad grammar, one instance of 
 which may suffice in this place — the word " were" in 
 conversation is invariably replaced by " was ;" thus, 
 " Was I only a visitor ? " " Was I to choose a pupil ? " 
 " You was brought up," " You was about to join your 
 regiment," &c, &c. In spite of its faults, however, the 
 play ran for eight-and-twenty nights without the help 
 of an afterpiece ; the author's night produced a great 
 sum, and he sold the copyright besides for 150Z. The 
 bookseller who bought it made no bad bargain. He 
 was accustomed to boast in later days that he had sold 
 no less than 12,000 copies — a number which would 
 leave him a tolerable margin of profit. 
 
 The critics abused the piece in but few instances. 
 Chiefly through Garrick's influence, they were very 
 merciful as a rule ; but the little manager's sense of 
 humour prepared a wholesome antidote to the author's 
 vanity. Calling upon him one morning, he found 
 Garrick busy reading the St. James's evening paper. 
 " Here, here," he cried, immediately on seeing Cumber- 
 land, " if your skin is less thick than a rhinoceros's hide, 
 egad, here is that will cut you to the bone. This is a 
 terrible fellow ; I wonder who it can be ! " He began 
 apparently reading from the paper a violent attack 
 
Richard Cumberland. 2 1 9 
 
 upon the play, no one feature of which was spared, 
 character, diction, and plot being alike assailed. The 
 miserable author wriggled in his chair under the tor- 
 ment, which was not lessened when Garrick laid down 
 the paper and condoled for a while with him on the 
 cruelty of the journalists. When he had sufficiently 
 enjoyed his joke, he resumed his reading, cheering up 
 the distressed dramatist as the criticism began to 
 soften, until he closed his amusement with a really 
 genuine panegyric, of which he was himself the writer, 
 and which was contained in the paper from which he 
 had apparently been reading. One hardly knows 
 which to admire most — the wit of Garrick or the 
 delicacy of his flattery and of his warnings. It was 
 one of those things that only he could have done, 
 and is one of the pleasantest proofs of the genuine 
 amiability of his character. 
 
 New occupations now engrossed Cumberland for 
 some little time. Bishop Lowth, in a pamphlet pro- 
 fessedly against Warburton, had gone out of his way 
 to attack Bentley, as a mere verbal critic, lamentably 
 deficient in taste and in matters of elegant literature. 
 Whatever opinion nineteenth- century readers may 
 have of the critic who presumed to mutilate " Paradise 
 Lost " under pretence of improving it, there can be no 
 misapprehension of the feeling which led Cumberland 
 to take up the cudgels in defence of his grandfather. 
 He did not seek the task, but fulfilled what he deemed 
 a sacred duty. Lowth had called Bentley — going back 
 to Catullus for an appropriate epithet — aut capri- 
 mulgus aut fossor; and though it is not very easy to 
 see their exact appropriateness to a dead opponent in a 
 literary controversy, they appear to have struck home, 
 and to have stung Cumberland into the fiercest wrath. 
 
220 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 The temper in which he entered npon the attack may 
 be guessed from the fact that years after, when he 
 described the whole affair, he used exceedingly strong 
 language, accusing Lowth of " downright black- 
 guardism," and of indulging in acrimonious censure, 
 " until his lawn sleeves were bloody." His pamphlet 
 had not the effect of procuring a recantation or an 
 apology from Lowth ; but he considers that he gained 
 the victory in the matter, since the bishop made no 
 attempt at defence, and even refused an offer to assist 
 him made by a clergyman in his diocese. The rela- 
 tions who stood nearer to Bentley than Cumberland 
 had declined the task of defending the illustrious 
 Master of Trinity ; but his own son was not above the 
 meanness of accepting the reward. A certain Mr. 
 Greaves — long a friend of Bentley — read the pamphlet, 
 was infinitely delighted with it, and imagining that the 
 author could be no other than the son of his old friend, 
 sent him a letter of compliments, accompanied by a 
 valuable present, both of which Mr. Bentley accepted. 
 
 Long after the matter had passed over, Cumberland 
 wrote a very manly and sensible letter to his would-be 
 benefactor, explaining the error, and reminding him of 
 a somewhat similar interference with his good inten- 
 tions years before, when the object of them was an 
 undergraduate of Trinity. When Cumberland's vanity 
 was not concerned, his conduct was, indeed, strictly 
 that of a man of honour ; and this incident of his life 
 was destined to lead to another, which tested his prin- 
 ciples even more severely, and which affords one of the 
 most singular instances of the mutability of fortune 
 that can well be imagined. While at breakfast one 
 morning he was surprised by a visit from his cousin, 
 the Eeverend Decimus Reynolds (son of Bishop Rey- 
 
Richard Cumberland. 2 2 r 
 
 nolds), whom he had never seen in his life before. The 
 old gentleman, who in habit and address was con- 
 spicuously eccentric, gave no salutation ; but dived 
 into his pocket, and producing a large roll of papers 
 tied with whip- cord, begged Cumberland to read them. 
 He, being just on the point of starting for Whitehall, 
 asked what they were, and having been told that they 
 contained his visitor's will, naturally required further 
 explanations, whereupon Reynolds explained, in a dis- 
 jointed sort of sentence, that he had made Cumberland, 
 his heir twenty years before, and that he had now 
 come to London expressly to put the title-deeds of his 
 property in his hands, and to assign everything to 
 him by a deed of gift. The surprise of Cumberland 
 and his wife may easily be imagined, as well as the 
 doubt that seized them of the sanity of their visitor. 
 However, after a while he composed himself, and set 
 to work to explain matters. The end of the negotia- 
 tion was the drawing up of a deed of gift, containing 
 a clause enabling the donor to resume possession at 
 any time should he desire it, — though, by the way, this 
 clause was inserted against his will. Mr. Reynolds 
 signed the deed and departed to his home. Ten years 
 of uninterrupted cordiality and friendship passed over, 
 when one morning Cumberland received a visit from a 
 nephew of Mr. Reynolds, demanding back the whole 
 of the title-deeds. He received them precisely in the 
 state in which they had been given to Cumberland, 
 and the latter wrote to his would-be benefactor ex- 
 plaining what he had done, and delicately hinting that 
 after ten years of cordial friendship he had not ex- 
 pected to be thus deprived of everything, but dwelling 
 also on the fact that the insertion of the clause em- 
 powering the revocation was his own act. On the 
 
222 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 whole, Cumberland appears to have acted in this 
 matter with the greatest possible delicacy and good 
 feeling, and to have proved that he, in his own words, 
 " merited more kindness than he received." As for 
 the conduct of Reynolds, it appears inexplicably foolish 
 and childlike from first to last. 
 
 The author of the u West Indian " had now become a 
 somewhat distinguished member of London society, 
 and was accustomed to entertain a large and brilliant 
 circle of friends at his house in Queen Anne Street ; 
 Johnson, Burke, Reynolds, Garrick, Soame Jenyns, and 
 a host of others, were constant visitors, and all appear 
 to have entertained a very high respect for their host. 
 Johnson was particularly attached to " Cumbey," and 
 his friendship was not diminished by the very high 
 estimation in which he held his friend's wife, whose 
 readiness to supply the doctor with unlimited cups of 
 tea is commemorated in a well-known anecdote. 1 In 
 a note of Boswell's he quotes from Johnson's letters 
 to Mrs. Thrale the opinion expressed by " the great 
 lexicographer" of "that learned, ingenious, and accom- 
 plished gentleman : " " the want of company," says 
 Johnson, " is an inconvenience ; but Mr. Cumberland 
 is a million." Besides Johnson, Cumberland also made 
 acquaintance about this time with Foote, through 
 Garrick's introduction ; and also came to know Gold- 
 smith, of whom he has related a number of anecdotes 
 of no great importance. Those that really deserve 
 attention have been incorporated by Mr. Forster in his 
 charming life of Goldsmith ; and as that book is pro- 
 
 1 His friendship was not enough, however, to induce him to contra- 
 dict Tom Davies's amusing criticism of Cumberland, that " he lived 
 upon potted stories, and that he made his way as Hannibal did, by 
 vinegar; having begun by attacking people, particularly players." 
 
Richard Cumberland. 223 
 
 bably in every reader's hand, it is unnecessary to repeat 
 them here. His opinion of Goldsmith is, perhaps, of 
 less importance than even his stories about him. The 
 simple exterior and general quietude of the little poet 
 led him to think less of his powers than they deserved ; 
 but as he looks from the heights of an imaginary supe- 
 riority upon the less conspicuous though more enduring 
 genius of his friend, his criticisms become sometimes 
 rather amusing. 
 
 The comparative failure of the next two or three of 
 his works threw Cumberland's mind back upon the 
 duties of his office ; and he took to those duties the 
 more readily since the death of his former patron, 
 Halifax, had opened the door to some promotion. 
 Lord George Germain took his place in the Colonial 
 Office, and for some time Cumberland, who knew 
 nothing of his new chief, appeared to reconcile himself 
 to a continuance in his subordinate office. Lord 
 George commenced his official career by the assump- 
 tion of a very frigid demeanour, but after a short time 
 broke down the barriers he had raised, and invited 
 Cumberland to visit him at his country house. He 
 was afterwards provided, through the kind offices of 
 the same nobleman, with a comfortable position in the 
 post of Secretary to the Board of Trade — an office 
 which he continued to hold until the dissolution of 
 Lord North's administration, when the Board of Trade 
 was abolished, much to the annoyance of Cumberland 
 and of Gibbon, who was one of the commissioners. 
 Both the historian and the dramatist had the same 
 resource to fall back upon— their pens, which they, 
 however, used with very different degrees of success. 
 
 Literary plans were, however, to be brought for a 
 while to an abrupt termination. In the year 1780 he 
 
224 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 gained through a secret channel, the nature of which 
 there is now no means of discovering, intelligence of 
 many things passing between the confidential agents of 
 France and Spain in this country. Of the knowledge 
 thus acquired he made a due and fitting use for the ser- 
 vice of his own country, and a prospect appearing to 
 open of a secret negotiation with the Minister Florida 
 Blanca, the conduct of this affair was entrusted by 
 the English government to Cumberland. He was 
 directed to proceed to Lisbon, where he awaited with 
 his wife and family the advices of the Abbe Hussey, 
 chaplain to the King of Spain, who proceeded to 
 Aranjuez, and communicated upon the state of affairs 
 from that place. He was conveyed to Lisbon in a 
 king's ship, and thence travelled through to Madrid. 
 The detail of what he did and what he left undone is 
 peculiarly uninteresting ; he has told it, nevertheless, 
 at enormous length. The negotiation, after about a 
 year spent in waiting the pleasure of the Spanish 
 court, fell through, and Cumberland received a very 
 peremptory letter from Lord Hillsborough, ordering 
 his return. He prepared for departure accordingly, 
 and just before leaving Madrid received from the 
 Spanish government a very kindly recognition of the 
 value of his services, and an offer of compensation for 
 his trouble. Unfortunately, he did not avail himself 
 of this liberality, and, as a result, found that the 
 English government declined to honour his drafts, in 
 spite of a promise from the Secretary of the Treasury. 
 He was left, indeed, so completely destitute of funds, 
 that on his arrival at Bayonne, on his way home, he 
 would have been forced into a debtor's prison had he 
 not fortunately been able to borrow a sum of 500/. 
 from a fellow-traveller. It speaks very ill for the 
 

 Richard Cumberland, 225 
 
 English executive that on his return he was actually- 
 refused all compensation for his extraordinary ex- 
 penses, and for the loss of a large amount of valuable 
 time. The result to him was certainly most disastrous 
 — entailing nearly total ruin, and depriving his family 
 of their property, while forcing him to labour for his 
 bread even more than heretofore. Of this disgraceful 
 affair he speaks far more moderately than could be 
 expected from so ill-used a man. He certainly laments 
 the loss which he sustained, and the privations which 
 that loss would entail, but he vents no reproaches and 
 utters no insults against the authors of his misfor- 
 tune, even though, as he says in one place, he was 
 driven from Lord North's door by the servants. Cum- 
 berland received a small compensation for the loss of 
 his office of Secretary to the Board of Trade, but his 
 patrimony was so seriously diminished that he was 
 compelled to retire to Tunbridge Wells, where he 
 established himself modestly with his family. 2 
 
 Shortly after his return from Spain he commenced 
 that course of literary labour which was to fill the 
 remainder of his life, by the publication of two small 
 octavo volumes of anecdotes of eminent painters in 
 Spain. This was succeeded by those essays under the 
 
 2 There is some unexplained mystery about this matter. In his 
 Memoirs and in his Will, as given by Mudford, Cumberland constantly 
 speaks of himself as being the creditor of the English Government to 
 a large extent, on account of this Spanish business ; but letters are in 
 existence which appear to prove that he received from the Crown a 
 patent appointing him to the offices of Provost Marshal, Clerk of the 
 Peace, and Clerk of the Crown to the Colony of South Carolina. 
 These sinecure posts yielded him a large income for many years, and 
 were at last sold by him for a considerable sum — apparently about 
 5000/. Be this as it may, however, Cumberland died a very poor 
 man. His will was proved under 450Z. 
 
 Q 
 
226 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 title of the " Observer," on which chiefly rest his claims 
 to a reputation for scholarship. Though they are now 
 nearly forgotten, they had considerable reputation 
 in their day, and Cumberland himself thought very 
 highly of them. In one place, indeed, he congratu- 
 lates himself that they had been incorporated in a 
 collection of the British Essayists, and " may therefore 
 be regarded as fairly enrolled among the standard 
 classics of our native language." They did not appear 
 singly, as was the case with those of the founders of 
 the art of English essay- writing, but when sufficient 
 were accumulated to form a volume it was brought 
 out. The quantity of space covered by these 152 
 essays is rather greater than that occupied by the 
 " Rambler," which consists of 208 ; but while Johnson 
 received help from friends but rarely (only six pages 
 of the whole being by other hands), and from books not 
 at all, more than a third of the " Observer " is compiled 
 or translated from the works of other writers. It is 
 hardly fair, however, to institute comparisons between 
 these two writers; while Cumberland was simply a 
 man of ordinary capacity and considerable power of ap- 
 plication, Johnson was a man of really unusual genius, 
 and possessed of a wonderful power of execution. 
 
 Some of the "Observers" will, notwithstanding the 
 general air of heaviness which pervades them, always 
 be valuable to the scholar and the critic. His inquiries 
 into the history of the Greek writers, especially into 
 that of the comic poets, are perhaps his happiest 
 efforts, and his translations from Aristophanes are not 
 destitute of value. He was probably greatly indebted, 
 though he has not acknowledged the fact, to the anno- 
 tated copies of the authors whom he criticized, which 
 had formerly been the property of his grandfather, Dr. 
 
Richard Cumberland. 227 
 
 Bentley, and had come into the possession of Cumber- 
 land through his uncle. The " Observers " are always 
 likely to be commended rather than read ; neither style 
 nor subject is sufficiently attractive for this bustling 
 nineteenth century. He has been rather scurvily 
 treated of late years, his works being used as a quarry 
 from which some " popular " authors have dug a great 
 deal of good material without the smallest acknow- 
 ledgment. An amusing instance of this " convey- 
 ance " occurred a few years ago. In one of the num- 
 bers of Household Words, shortly before that paper 
 changed its name, appeared an article which has since 
 been republished, in which the writer occupies himself 
 by imagining the sort of treatment which would be 
 dealt out to Shakespeare did his works appear now for 
 the first time. The topic is treated pleasantly enough, 
 but one of the numbers of the " Observer " contains the 
 development of the same idea, not less skilfully worked 
 out. The great defect of these papers is their execra- 
 ble style. Cumberland had not the faintest notion of 
 what constitutes good English. His sentences have 
 no proper beginning, middle, or end. They are divided 
 in a singularly arbitrary fashion into clauses, and 
 there is frequently no apparent reason why one period 
 should come to an end. If to this defect be added 
 Cumberland's frequent misuse of well-known words, 
 and introduction of new ones, it will be easy to under- 
 stand why his prose writings should have passed into 
 oblivion. The remarkable feature of the matter is 
 that Cumberland laboured all his life under the delu- 
 sion that he wrote in a " simple, clear, harmonious 
 style." 
 
 From his retirement at Tunbridge Wells, Cumber- 
 land sent forth his tragedy of the " Carmelite," which 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 being a little less dull than the " Battle of Hastings," 
 and having the inestimable advantage of the support of 
 Kemble and Mrs. Siddons, was performed with mode- 
 rate success. Controversy, too, presented her attrac- 
 tions, and these our author could never resist. The 
 Bishop of Llandaff, " one of the ablest scholars and 
 finest writers in the kingdom," by Cumberland's own 
 account, published a proposal for equalizing the reve- 
 nues of the Church. Cumberland opposed the propo- 
 sition in a pamphlet, to which the bishop deigned no 
 reply. His opponent thereupon assumed that he " had 
 the best of the argument," though possibly others 
 may take a rather different view of the transaction. 
 In the same way he addressed a pamphlet to Dr. Parr, 
 with the somewhat boastful title of " Curtius rescued 
 from the Gulf." To this also he obtained no reply, and 
 probably had the same idea of the wisdom of the 
 learned doctor as he had of that of the Bishop of 
 Llandaff, who, he considers, " did a wiser thing in 
 declining the controversy than in throwing out the 
 occasion." 
 
 Cumberland produced one more comedy," The Im- 
 postors," with indifferent success; and then, finding 
 that the stage would none of him, he thought that he 
 might find greater acceptance amongst the publishers. 
 In the course of two or three years he produced a series 
 of novels — "Arundel," "Henry," and "John de Lancas- 
 ter." The first is a story in the Richardsonian manner, 
 told in a series of letters ; the second is modelled upon 
 Fielding, from whom he borrowed his plan and the 
 externals of his work ; and the last, which appeared in 
 1809, was in the manner of the new school of romantic 
 fiction. The three novels are all equally dull and un- 
 real ; their tediousness can only be imagined by those 
 
Richard Cumberland. 229 
 
 who have attempted to read them. They give, indeed, 
 painful evidence of failing powers, and of the numbing 
 influence of advancing age. The strangest feature of 
 them is their licentiousness. Cumberland was an 
 eminently moral and religious personage. His friends 
 record with admiration how he almost succeeded in 
 converting the sceptical Samuel Foote on his death 
 bed, and how, if he had but had a few weeks more in 
 which to continue his pious exhortations, he would 
 have turned that eighteenth- century Aristophanes into 
 a " sad good Christian." Yet his novels are little more 
 than imitations of Fielding and Smollett, and imita- 
 tions too from which none of the grossness is expunged. 
 " Henry " is particularly offensive in this way. There 
 are half-a-dozen scenes almost, if not quite, as bad as 
 anything in Mrs. Aphra Behn, and the objectionable 
 stories are not made better by the rather ostentatious 
 parade of virtue and morality in which they are 
 enshrined. 
 
 The review of Cumberland's declining years is no 
 pleasant task. He had set out with high hopes and 
 noble ambitions ; he sank ere his death into a drivelling 
 egotist. By-and-by he began to fancy himself an epic 
 poet, and produced a new version of the great tragedy 
 of the Christian faith — a poem with the title of " Cal- 
 vary," which a critic of the day generously placed on a 
 level with "Paradise Lost." Afterwards, in conjunction 
 with his friend Sir James Bland Burges, he brought 
 forth another epic, the subject taken from the Old 
 Testament, and the title " The Exodiad." It is very 
 smooth, very fluent, and excessively tedious. From 
 beginning to end there seems no trace of the genuine 
 poetic fire ; an observation which will apply with 
 equal force to the earlier poem, " Calvary." They are 
 
230 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 both exemplifications of the most monotonous common- 
 place, and prove, were any proof needed, the truth of 
 the saying, 
 
 Mediocribus esse poetis 
 N011 dii, non homines, non concessere columnae. 
 
 Not much more time was, however, left to the veteran 
 dramatist for labour of any sort. Driven by stern 
 necessity, he published his autobiography, by which, 
 in spite of its faults, he will best be remembered ; and 
 a few days before his death issued his poem of " Retro- 
 spection," the only one of his works which appears, to 
 those who have no interest in him beyond a literary 
 one, worthy in any degree of his fame. It begins 
 with a solemn pathos, the effect of which is infinitely 
 increased by the circumstances attending the publica- 
 tion : — 
 
 World, I have known thee long, and now the hour 
 When I must part from thee is near at hand : 
 
 The end was, perhaps, nearer than he had thought. 
 He was in London on business, and was staying in 
 the house of a friend, when his mortal disease attacked 
 him. A few days of suffering, and he had done with 
 the world and its struggles, its joys and its griefs. 
 He died peacefully and calmly on the 7th of May, 
 1811, and was buried on the 14th in Westminster 
 Abbey, close to the spot where rests the body of his 
 old and generous friend Garrick. The funeral-service 
 was read over him by the Dean of Westminster, Dr. 
 Vincent, with whom he had been a schoolfellow, and 
 who had not forgotten their ancient friendship. The 
 Dean delivered a panegyrical oration at the conclusion 
 of the service, in which the poet received an ample 
 measure of praise for his conduct in both public and 
 
 
Richard Cumberland. 231 
 
 private capacities. Unhappily, however, the speaker 
 selected for his eulogiurn those very points in Cumber- 
 land's character to which exception may most readily 
 be taken ; such, for instance, as the freedom of his 
 plays from profane oaths, and the purity of his novels 
 both in moral and incidents. The only excuse which 
 can be offered for this reckless misrepresentation is, 
 that in all probability the venerable Dean had no per- 
 sonal acquaintance with the works of his friend, and 
 that he had therefore been compelled to rely upon some 
 not over-scrupulous intermediary, who had described 
 the dead man not as he was, but as he desired to be 
 thought. 
 
 It has been necessary in the preceding pages to rely 
 to a considerable extent upon the autobiography which 
 Cumberland himself drew up. In that work his merits 
 and defects are alike conspicuous. There is a great 
 air of frankness and sincerity about his tone ; but it is 
 impossible to avoid an occasional suspicion that the 
 writer has been tempted to gloss over and over-colour 
 some events and some actions which, seen in the full 
 light of truth, might have a rather different effect. 
 With La Fontaine we may say, — 
 
 Je soupconne fort une histoire 
 
 Quand l'heros en est l'auteur j 
 
 L'amour propre et la vaine gloire 
 
 Rendent souvent rhomme vanteur : 
 
 On fait toujours si bien son compte 
 
 Qu'on tire de l'honneur de tout ce qu'on raconte. 
 
 That his name will be remembered for any other 
 reason than on account of his connexion with greater 
 men, it would be folly to assert; yet, on the other 
 hand, it cannot be denied that as a servant of the 
 State he was eminently faithful, and exceedingly ill- 
 
232 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 rewarded ; while his services to literature, though uot, 
 perhaps, enduring, were good and valuable in their 
 time, and contained but little that even their author 
 would wish to see destroyed. After all is done Gold- 
 smith's charming portrait of him in " Retaliation " 
 remains his best monument. 
 
 Here Cumberland lies, having acted his parts, 
 The Terence of England, the mender of hearts ; 
 A flattering painter who made it his care 
 To draw men as they ought to be, not as they are ; 
 His gallants are all faultless, his women divine, 
 And comedy wonders at being so fine : 
 Like a tragedy queen he has dizen'd her out, 
 Or rather like tragedy giving a rout ; 
 His fools have their follies so lost in a crowd 
 Of virtues and feelings, that Folly grows proud, 
 And coxcombs alike in their failings alone 
 Adopting his portraits are pleased with their own ; 
 Say where has our poet this malady caught 1 
 Or wherefore his characters thus without fault ! 
 Say was it that vainly directing his view 
 •To find out men's virtues and finding them few, 
 Quite sick of pursuing each troublesome elf, 
 He grew lazy at last and drew from himself 
 
 
*33 
 
 "THE COOK'S ORACLE." 
 
 Sixty years ago the Edinburgh Review contained an 
 article on Cookery, in which will be found a curious 
 note concerning the author of the book whose title 
 stands at the head of this page. " The singular 
 coincidence of name and subject," says the reviewer, 
 " led us at first to suppose that a culpable modesty 
 had induced the author to assume the pseudonym of 
 ' Kitchener ;' but in this we were mistaken : we find 
 that there is a real Dr. Kitchiner, and that he is 
 devoted to the culinary art with a zeal almost un- 
 equalled. If report be true, the Doctor spends some 
 hours each day in his laboratory, and has more than 
 once worked his whole book through, in a course 
 of experimental cookery." Thirty years later the 
 Quarterly, in an article on Spectacles — a subject upon 
 which the author of the " Cook's Oracle " had also 
 written — says of Dr. Kitchiner that " the whole of his 
 writings, medical, musical, optical, and culinary, show 
 that he possessed the disposition of an elderly female 
 — conspicuous among her sex for weak nerves, fidgety 
 habits, and prim comforts. . . . Many who heard of 
 him, through his best and really excellent treatise, 
 1 The Cook's Oracle,' always imagined that some care- 
 ful housekeeper had assumed a name in accordance 
 with her functions and in defiance of her sex, and 
 chose to call herself Dr. Kitchiner, since Sterne had 
 appropriated the more suitable title of Dr. Slop." 
 
234 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 The ignorance which is apparent in these extracts — 
 the former of which, it will be noticed, was written in 
 the lifetime of its subject — still appears to exist ; and 
 there are probably many persons now living who 
 believe that the greatest of English dietetic reformers 
 is known to the world by an assumed name. Dr. 
 Kitchiner was, however, a very real personage in his 
 time — a gourmand, a wit, a musician, and a man of 
 science — and although the biographical dictionaries 
 usually ignore him altogether, or at best sum up the 
 facts relating to his life in half a dozen lines, he was 
 really one of those men of strongly marked indivi- 
 duality of character whom the world ought not 
 willingly to forget. 
 
 William Kitchiner was educated at Eton ; but the 
 author of " Lives of Celebrated Etonians " makes no 
 mention of him, probably thinking that the " Cook's 
 Oracle " had no claim to a place beside the authors of 
 the " Scribleriad " and the " New Bath Guide." His 
 father is described by the Gentleman *s Magazine as an 
 " eminent " coal merchant, in Beaufort Buildings, 
 Strand, who, by the diligent exercise of his trade, 
 contrived to amass a considerable fortune. This 
 being invested with care and prudence, rendered the 
 son independent of his profession, which was perhaps 
 as well, seeing that his degree in medicine was merely 
 from Glasgow, and did not permit of his practising in 
 London. Accordingly he never attempted anything 
 of the kind, but, taking a house in Warren Street, 
 Fitzroy Square — then a neighbourhood of a much 
 more respectable character than now — he settled 
 down to the pursuits which his tastes inclined him to 
 follow. His circumstances were somewhat peculiar; 
 his character eccentric in no common degree; but 
 
" The Cook's Oracled 235 
 
 underneath the extremest of his oddities there was a 
 basis of good-sense and kindness which won for him 
 the regard of a host of friends. His wife, it is true, 
 quarrelled with him at an early period of their married 
 life, and the result was that he remained a " married 
 bachelor" for about twenty years. Left alone, he 
 devoted himself to domestic economy and music ; and 
 being always something of a bon vivant, he assumed 
 the personal direction of his kitchen. As a general 
 rule, he is said to have been moderate, and even ab- 
 stemious, in his personal habits ; bat he was careful 
 always to provide an excellent table, and to superin- 
 tend the preparation of his food in person. There 
 may have been a reason for this in the fact that, for 
 some unknown reason, he had an immoderate appetite. 
 In one or other of his voluminous writings he con- 
 fesses to an altogether extraordinary love of animal 
 food, or rather to a craving which could not be 
 repressed, and which was not easily gratified. This, 
 in the words of an admirer, " had nothing to do with 
 the love of eating, but was the result of some organic 
 and incurable disease." At all events, we hear no 
 such stories as those which are told of Dr. Johnson's 
 appetite, and of that veal pie well stuffed with plums 
 which, according to Lord Macaulay, was wont to 
 produce such spasms of gluttony in the " great lexi- 
 cographer." Dr. Kitchiner lived by system; he rose 
 at a stated hour : spent a pre-arranged time over his 
 toilette; descended to his breakfast-room punctually 
 at half -past eight ; took luncheon at midday ; dined at 
 five ; supped at half -past nine ; and retired to rest at 
 eleven. Breakfast was a solitary meal — light, but 
 nourishing. Luncheon was a much more serious 
 matter. A friend or two occasionally found ad- 
 
236 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 mittance, and was treated with a repast which in the 
 earlier days of this century he could hardly have found 
 elsewhere. Savoury pates; potted meats of various 
 kinds ; fried and broiled fish ; grills ; cutlets and 
 entrees of the most appetizing description, together 
 with sound wine and excellent coffee and liqueurs, 
 made up the substantial midday repast. At five- 
 o'clock dinner, arranged according to the peptic pre- 
 cepts of the "Cook's Oracle," followed, leading up to the 
 comfortable and cosy supper at half -past nine, which 
 brought the gourmand's well-spent day to a close. 
 
 It must not be supposed that so much eating and 
 drinking were exclusively selfish. The good Doctor 
 delighted in hospitality, though he had some curious 
 ways of displaying it. Thus, for example, when he 
 gave a dinner-party the guests were invited for five 
 o'clock, and at five minutes after that hour the street- 
 door was locked, and the key, by his orders, laid upon 
 the dinner-table. For several years a conversazione 
 was held every Tuesday evening at his house, and, ac- 
 cording to tradition, on these occasions a placard was 
 suspended over the chimney-piece, with the inscription, 
 " Come at seven ; go at eleven." It happened on one 
 occasion that George Colman the younger was amongst 
 the guests, and he, observing the placard, inserted the 
 word " it " after " go," making the admonition read, 
 " Come at seven ; go it at eleven." Severer counsels 
 generally prevailed, though it might have been sup- 
 posed that the friendly supper at half -past nine would 
 lead to occasional infractions of the rule of the house. 
 It does not, however, appear that the Doctor allowed 
 his habits to be disturbed by any of his friends, face- 
 tious or other. Music and conversation filled up the 
 evening until the appointed time, and then some con- 
 
u The Cook's Oracle!' 237 
 
 siderate guest was always found to say, with properly 
 affected surprise, " 'Tis on the strike of eleven ! " 
 " Hats, coats, cloaks, and umbrellas were then brought 
 in ; the Doctor attended his friends to the street door, 
 looked up at the stars — if there were any visible — 
 gave each of his friends a cordial shake of the hand, 
 wished him a hearty good-night, and so the evening 
 closed." That his friends were many need hardly be 
 said. A man so hospitable could hardly fail to gather 
 around him a goodly host of associates ; and when to 
 his hospitality was added his well-known love for art, 
 literature, and music, it may be readily understood 
 that the society in which he habitually lived was of the 
 best. His personal qualities, apart from his pardon- 
 able eccentricities, were of the highest order. He was 
 amiable in no common degree. One of his friends 
 said, after his death, that he had never heard him say 
 an ill-natured word of any one. He was much in 
 request for the settlement of disputes, and to those 
 who needed advice and assistance he was faithful and 
 staunch. His eccentricities seem to have been, after 
 all, eccentricities of manner only, though his will is 
 said to have been exceedingly curious, and very disap- 
 pointing to a large number of persons who had ex- 
 pected to profit by it. For the rest it is hardly for a 
 generation, whose affectations and sham sestheticisms 
 have not been corrected even by such satirists as the 
 authors of " The Monks of Thelema," and Mr. George 
 Du Maurier, to be very severe on a gentleman 
 whose principal offences seem to been a liking for 
 substantial good living and a habit of making 
 indifferent jokes about his dinner. There is surely 
 nothing very reprehensible in such an invitation as 
 the following, which was handed about in the 
 
238 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 author's lifetime, and published after his death as a 
 proof of his oddity : — 
 
 " Dear Sir, — The honour of your company is requested to dine 
 with the Committee of Taste on Wednesday next, the 10th inst. 
 
 " The specimens will be placed upon the table at five o'clock pre- 
 cisely, when the business of the day will immediately commence. 
 " I have the honour to be your most obedient Savant, 
 
 "W. Kitchiner, Secretary." 
 
 "August, 1825 : 43, Warren Street, Fitzroy Square. 
 
 " At the last general meeting it was unanimously resolved that : — 
 
 " 1st. An invitation to the Eta Beta Pi must be answered in writing 
 as soon as possible after it is received, within twenty-four hours at 
 latest reckoning from that on which it is dated, otherwise the Secretary 
 will have the profound regret to feel that the invitation has been 
 definitely declined. 
 
 "2nd. The Secretary having represented that the perfection of 
 several of the preparations is so exquisitely evanescent that the delay 
 of one minute after their arrival at the meridian of concoction will 
 render them no longer worthy of the attention of men of taste : 
 
 " Therefore, to insure the punctual attendance of those illustrious 
 gastrophilists who on grand occasions are invited to join this high 
 tribunal of taste for their own pleasure and the benefit of their country, 
 it is irrevocably resolved, That the janitor be ordered not to admit 
 any visitor, of whatever eminence of appetite, after the hour at 
 which the Secretary shall have announced that the specimens are 
 ready. 
 
 ." By order of the Committee, 
 
 " William Kitchiner, Secretary." 
 
 The memorialist from whom this letter is quoted goes 
 on to say in effect that the guest who received such an 
 invitation would naturally find himself at the house of 
 Dr. Kitchiner — host, cook, secretary to the Committee 
 of Taste, and chief musician in ordinary — at a few 
 minutes before five in the afternoon, where he would 
 be received with musical honours. His host would 
 probably be found seated at the grand piano in pumps 
 and silk stockings, thundering away at " See the con- 
 quering hero comes,' ' with a due accompaniment of 
 
" The Cooks Oracled 239 
 
 drums and triangles worked by the feet. Punctuality 
 was strictly insisted upon — how strictly may be best 
 known from the pages of the "Cook's Oracle," which, 
 it may be remarked by the way, is not a mere cookery- 
 book, but a work which contains a vast quantity of 
 shrewd and humorous observation, wit, and sound 
 common- sense. The supercilious critics of the quar- 
 terly reviews might sneer as they pleased ; the excellent 
 Dr. Kitchiner, with all his weaknesses, will probably 
 be remembered by a wider public than one composed 
 of the readers of the somewhat mechanical essays in 
 which he was satirized. Turning now to the " Oracle," 
 we find a long chapter devoted to the momentous 
 subject of invitations to dinner. More than two closely 
 printed octavo pages of this chapter are occupied with 
 a dissertation, illustrated by examples from ancient and 
 modern literature, of the important fact that u Dinner 
 is the only act of the day which cannot be put off with 
 Impunity for even Five Minutes" (the peculiarities of 
 typography are Dr. Kitchiner's). Then follow a host 
 of instructions, including a recipe for " dinner-pills," 
 or, as the Doctor prefers to call them, " Peristaltic 
 Persuaders," and a number of instructions to butler, 
 host, and cook. The first is told that he must be sure 
 that "the Cloth be laid in the Parlour and all the 
 paraphernalia of the dinner-table arranged at least 
 half an hour before dinner-time." The host in turn is 
 to introduce his guests to each other in the interval 
 before dinner, " naming them individually in an audible 
 voice, and adroitly laying hold of those ties of acquain- 
 tanceship or profession which may exist between 
 them." The guests are admonished if they have any 
 respect for their host, or prefer a well-dressed dinner 
 to one that is spoiled, " instead of coming half an hour 
 
240 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 after, to take care to make their appearance a quarter 
 of an hour before the time appointed." A couple of 
 pages more on the benefits of punctuality follow, and 
 then the good Doctor descants upon the custom of 
 grace — not, it may be observed, for the first or only 
 time in the course of his voluminous oracles. 
 
 On this subject the " Gentle Elia " has also dis- 
 coursed in one of the subtlest and most playful of his 
 essays, the point of which, delicately touched and 
 played with, seems to be that grace before meat is a 
 species of impertinence. Dr. Kitchiner seems to be 
 pretty much of Charles Lamb's opinion. When the 
 appointed hour strikes, he urges his gastrophilic readers 
 to " say grace and begin the business of the day." 
 Nor does he desire to listen to long and elaborate 
 musical performances. " That the intricate Old Canon 
 of Non nobis should still continue to exclude all other 
 Graces has excited my astonishment," says he, " ever 
 since I first heard it some Thirty years ago, when, 
 thought I, can anything be more barbarous than to 
 sing in a Foreign Tongue, of which not one in Ten of 
 those who sing and not One in a Hundred of those who 
 hear, understand One Word in Ten of? Moreover, to 
 complete this extreme Absurdity, the composer has 
 contributed his utmost to involve these Latin words 
 in the most elaborate obscurity, by setting them in the 
 form of a fugue, which (however pretty it may seem 
 to the eye and ear of a subtle contrapuntist), as each 
 singer pronounces a different word, the Sense is thereby as 
 confused as Sounds are in a Dutch Concert, where each 
 man Sings a different Song ! However, this composition 
 is considered such an indispensable part of the cere- 
 monial of Public Dinners that it has been calculated that 
 the good people of Great Britain do not pay less 
 
 
" The Cook's Oracle" 241 
 
 than Ten Thousand Pounds a Year for the performance 
 of it ! " 
 
 This dreadful state of things not merely arouses the 
 wrath of the " Cook's Oracle," but induces him to 
 present a musical grace of his own, which may cer- 
 tainly boast the merit of brevity, even though it be not 
 quite so short as the famous "grace after meat" of 
 the collier, which, as will probably be remembered, 
 consisted in wiping the mouth upon the wrist, and the 
 ejaculation of the word " Theer." Between this per- 
 functory phrase and the too elaborate Non nobis, Dr. 
 Kitchiner's grace holds a happy medium, consisting, 
 as it does, of the simple words " Praise God, from 
 whom all blessings flow," set to music. As about 
 fifteen seconds only need be consumed in this devout 
 expression, it is possible that some guests at public 
 banquets may even now wish to see Dr. Kitchiner's 
 modest grace brought into more general use. To the 
 hungry diner-out it is no small trial of patience to be 
 kept whilst a reverend gentleman in full canonicals 
 intones a grace modelled on the Bidding Prayer before 
 a University Sermon. Supplementing these remarks 
 of the venerable Doctor come some hints to carvers, 
 interesting chiefly as pointing, in the first place, to the 
 ungainly custom of our ancestors of introducing soup 
 and fish as one course, with entrees, roast, and game 
 as a remove, and in the second as proving that the 
 " Cook's Oracle " was in advance of his time, and was 
 prepared to see the entire abolition of the tiresome 
 custom of carving at table. A prevision of the sweet 
 simplicity of the diner a la Busse could hardly be 
 expected in 1816, but something of the sort was 
 evidently present to the mind of our Oracle when he 
 wrote : "It would save a great deal of time, &c, if 
 
 B 
 
242 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 poultry, especially large turkeys and geese, were sent 
 to table ready cut up; fish that is fried should be 
 previously divided into such portions as are fit to help 
 at table." 
 
 Before proceeding to thedinner, however, Dr. Kitchiner 
 gives his readers, both cooks and their masters, a little 
 good advice. Masters, for example, he recommends to 
 treat their servants with consideration, and he enters 
 into an elaborate calculation to show that the abso- 
 lutely necessary expenditure of a maid-servant (in 
 which the Oracle includes tea and sugar) is at the 
 least 91. 8s. per annum ; and that, in consequence, it 
 is the duty of employers to pay higher wages and to 
 treat their servants with greater generosity generally 
 than they were wont to do some sixty years ago. For 
 their part servants are treated with much good advice, 
 some of which reads rather curiously, though most of 
 it is marked by the soundest common-sense. Thus, 
 for example, after somewhat elaborately describing the 
 physiological phenomena of taste, the "Cook's Oracle" 
 cautions his disciples against wearing out the palate 
 by over-much tasting. " A sagacious Cook, instead of 
 idly and wantonly wasting the excitability of her 
 palate, on the sensibility of which her reputation and 
 fortune depend, when she has ascertained the relative 
 strength of the flavour of the various ingredients she 
 employs, will call in the Balance and the Measure to 
 do the ordinary business, and endeavour to preserve 
 her Organ of Taste with the utmost care, that it may 
 be a faithful oracle to refer to on grand occasions and 
 new compositions." The notion of defining quantities 
 in cookery by weight and measure, instead of going 
 upon the old " rule of thumb — a pinch of this, a 
 handful of that, a spoonful of t'other," Dr. Kitchiner 
 
" The Cook's Oracle y 243 
 
 claims as his exclusive property, and in one place he 
 is judiciously severe upon an ignorant pretender who 
 appropriated the idea, and published a cookery-book 
 based upon it ten years after the appearance of the 
 first edition of the "Cook's Oracle. " It is not a little 
 amusing in this connexion to reflect that Gouffe, whose 
 magnificent book upon cookery appeared in 1865, puts 
 forward precisely the same pretension. Dr. Kitchiner 
 has, however, on most occasions what the Scotch 
 preacher called " a gude conceit o' hisser," and not 
 unfrequently a very odd way of expressing it. Thus 
 at the beginning of his Introduction he says of his 
 book that it is " not a mere marrowless collection of 
 shreds and patches and cuttings and pastings, but a 
 bond fide register of Practical Facts, accumulated by a 
 perseverance not to be subdued or evaporated by the 
 igniferous terrors of a Roasting Fire in the Dog Days 
 - — in defiance of the Odoriferous and Calefacient repel- 
 lents of Roasting, Boiling, Frying, and Broiling ; — 
 moreover the Author has submitted to a labour no 
 preceding Cookery-Book maker, perhaps, ever at- 
 tempted to encounter, having eaten each receipt before 
 he set it down in his book." The grammar of this 
 wonderful sentence may perhaps be open to correction, 
 but the " Odoriferous and Calefacient repellents S5 of 
 cookery and the " igniferous terrors of a Roasting 
 Fire in the Dog Days " are worthy of the inventor of 
 the " Frappant and Tintinnabulant appendages " fco 
 Drury Lane stage-door in the " Rejected Addresses." 
 His boast of having " eaten his receipts " may perhaps 
 be left to take care of itself. 
 
 It may be worth while to consult the " Oracle " and 
 to note what the hierophant has to say concerning a 
 few of what he calls the " concomitants " of an English 
 
 e 2 
 
244 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 dinner. Oysters, of course, begin the meal. " Delicate 
 little creatures ! " ejaculates Dr. Kitchiner, " they are 
 as exquisite in their own taste as in that of others. " 
 His observations on the eating of oysters are eminently 
 characteristic. " Common people," he tells us, "are 
 indifferent about the manner of opening Oysters, and 
 the time of eating them after they are opened. Nothing, 
 however, is more important in the enlightened eyes of 
 the experienced Oyster-eater. Those who wish to 
 enjoy this delicious restorative in its utmost perfection 
 must eat it the moment it is opened, with its own 
 Gravy in the under-shell ; if not Eaten ivhile Abso- 
 lutely Alive its flavour and spirit are lost. The true 
 lover of an Oyster will have some regard for the 
 feelings of his little favourite, and will never abandon 
 it to the mercy of a bungling operator, but will open 
 it himself, and contrive to detach the fish from the 
 shell so dexterously that the Oyster is hardly conscious 
 he has been ejected from his Lodging till he feels the 
 teeth of the piscivorous Gourmand tickling him to 
 death." This is almost as attractive a picture as that of 
 Piscatorin the " Complete Angler " impaling the worm 
 upon the hook " as if he loved him." The chapters on 
 soup afford one or two curious notes. Amongst the 
 recipes, for example, is one for " Mock Mock Turtle," 
 which appears to be the invention of " Elizabeth 
 Lister (late Cook to Dr. Kitchiner), Bread and Biscuit 
 Baker, No. 6, Salcombe Place, York Terrace, Regent's 
 Park — Goes out to dress dinners on reasonable terms." 
 Concerning mock turtle we are informed that it "is 
 the Bonne Bouche which the ' officers of the Mouth' of 
 Old England prepare when they choose to rival ' les 
 Grands Ouisiniers de (sic) France ' in a Ragout sans 
 Pareil. 9 ' The directions for making this soup fill 
 
The Cook's Oracle." 
 
 245 
 
 altogether about four pages, and embedded amongst 
 them comes the following outburst in praise of the 
 dish (the italics and the capitals are the Doctor's) : 
 "Without its paraphernalia of subtle double Relishes 
 a STARVED TURTLE has not more intrinsic sapidity 
 than a FATTED CALF. Friendly Reader, it is really 
 neither half- so wholesome nor half so toothsome." 
 Later on he says : " This is a delicious Soup within 
 the range of those 'who eat to live;' but if it had 
 been composed expressly for those who only ' live to 
 eat,' I do not know how it could have been made more 
 agreeable : as it is, the lover of good eating e will 
 wish his throat a mile long, and every inch of it 
 palate.' " 
 
 Concerning fish, the only really noticeable direction 
 is a piece of advice to the cook not to allow turbot and 
 some other fish to be sent to the table too fresh. It 
 is not until we get amongst the entrees — or, as Dr. 
 Kitchiner prefers to call them, the " Made Dishes" — 
 that anything really characteristic is found. The first 
 noticeable point is that the majority of these " Made 
 Dishes " are hashes. The exception is a recipe for 
 cooking " Shin of Beef," for which dish the Oracle 
 claims the attention of the " Rational Epicure," on the 
 ground of its being " one of those in which ' Fru- 
 gality,' * Nourishment,' and ' Palateableness ' are most 
 happily combined — and you get half a Gallon of ex- 
 cellent Broth into the Bargain." As a pendant to 
 this whimsical recipe we have one for " Bubble and 
 Squeak" or Fried Beef or Mutton and Cabbage 
 (No. 505) :— 
 
 " Where, 'midst the Frying-Pan in accents Savage, 
 The Beef, so surly, quarrels with the Cabbage." 
 
246 • 
 
 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 Db Minor 
 
 iiiil 
 
 *— *— fti 
 
 1 r 
 
 :*— "~ + —*l 
 
 BEE 
 
 C A B B A G E 
 
 if* 
 
 U=^=* 
 
 C A B B A G E 
 
 $g=& 'J' * ~, ~^- :=ji> 
 
 CABBAGE 
 
 ^ 
 
 ±=-Jr 
 
 F=3 
 
 Dr. Kitchiner is perhaps the £rst " Cook's Oracle " 
 who has set his instructions to music, and considering 
 the eccentricities of his musical grammar, it may be 
 hoped that he will be the last. It is, of course, im- 
 possible now to say whether the author of " Pendennis" 
 had Dr. Kitchiner in his mind when he hit upon the 
 exquisitely ludicrous • character of Mirobolant — that 
 wonderful French cook in Sir Francis Clavering's 
 household, who was wont to seek for inspiration when 
 composing his menus in the performance of solemn 
 music on the piano — but the coincidence is certainly 
 amusing. In connexion with this combination of 
 music and cookery, Dr. Kitchiner tells a curious anec- 
 dote in — of all places in the world — the queer rambling 
 treatise in two volumes which he called the " Economy 
 of the Eyes." Mr. Cooke, of Drury Lane Theatre, a 
 singer and composer whom Dr. Kitchiner styles " the 
 most extraordinary musician of the present age," 
 possessed the faculty of naming every semitone, with- 
 
 
u The Cook's Oracle" ,247 
 
 out a mistake, if a handful of the keys of a harpsichord 
 were put down " so as to produce the most irrelative 
 combinations. " On one occasion the Doctor played 
 the above remarkable composition over to him, where- 
 upon he " told me at once — - c I think, sir, that you 
 have beef in one hand and cabbage in the other.' " 
 
 It should, however, be noted that music is one of 
 the subjects upon which the " Cook's Oracle " is most 
 diffuse, and on which he unquestionably spent a good 
 deal of time and labour. Amongst his many publica- 
 tions is a tiny duodecimo, published in 1821, and not 
 apparently reprinted, which has for title " Observa- 
 tions on Vocal Music." The principal object of this 
 little essay is the enforcement of an idea, the germ of 
 which is to be found in the eighteenth Spectator. 
 Addison, whom no one would accuse of being a musi- 
 cian, there expatiates on the desirability of wedding 
 the music to the words with greater propriety than 
 was then usual. " I remember," he says, " an Italian 
 verse that ran thus, word for word : ' And turned my 
 rage into pity,' which the English for rhyme sake 
 translated ' And into pity turned my rage,' By this 
 means the soft notes that were adapted to pity in the 
 Italian fell upon the word rage in the English ; and 
 the angry sounds that were turned to rage in the 
 original were made to express pity in the translation. 
 It oftentimes happened, likewise, that the finest notes 
 in the air fell upon the most insignificant words in the 
 sentence. I have known the word ' and ' pursued 
 through a whole gamut ; have been entertained with 
 many a melodious ' the,' and have heard the most 
 beautiful graces, quavers, and divisions bestowed upon 
 1 then,' ' for,' and ' from,' to the eternal honour of our 
 English particles." Dr. Kitchiner does not refer to 
 
248 
 
 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 the earlier writer, but the principle of his little book 
 is certainly to be. found in these words. Music is in 
 his eyes a vehicle for the conveyance of ideas, and the 
 eighty-one pages of this book are given to expounding, 
 in a variety of ways, and with abundant illustrations, 
 the theory that " the Art of Singing effectively is to 
 Sing every word with the same Accent and Emphasis 
 as you would Speak it," a theory which he contends 
 has been unduly neglected by some of the greatest 
 musicians, who have failed to make the musical accent 
 correspond with the spoken. " ' He shall feed his flock ' 
 and 8 He was despised ' are examples of equally false 
 emphasis. ' Fairest Isle ' is one of Purcell's extra- 
 ordinary mistakes." 
 
 This affection for music displays itself in the most 
 unexpected places. Amongst the works of Dr. 
 Kitchiner is a " Traveller's Oracle," in two parts. The 
 first contains estimates of the expenses of travelling 
 on foot, on horseback, in stages, in post-chaises, and 
 in private carriages, together with " precepts for pro- 
 moting the pleasures,* and hints for preserving the 
 health of travellers." The second part comprises 
 " The Horse and Carriage-keeper's Oracle," rules for 
 purchasing, keeping, and jobbing horses and carriages, 
 estimates of expenses occasioned thereby, and an easy 
 plan for ascertaining every hackney coach fare. The 
 book itself is not especially remarkable for anything 
 except for having furnished the celebrated sporting 
 writer " Nimrod " with a text for his well-known 
 article on " The Eoad " in the Quarterly of 1832. It 
 may be noted, by the way, that the only allusion to the 
 text in this article is a slight sneer at "the late happily- 
 named Dr. Kitchener " (sic), whom " Nimrod " de- 
 scribes as Epicuri de grege jporcus. It might be thought 
 
M The Cooks Oracle y 249 
 
 that music was about the last thing to look for in such 
 a book as this, but Dr. Kitchiner is not to be pre- 
 vented from bringing in his favourite topic by any 
 fantastic notions of congruity. He introduces no 
 fewer than eight musical compositions into the book ; 
 the title of which, by the way, affords but the faintest 
 idea of its heterogeneous contents. The first comes 
 after a dissertation on the Christian duty of observing 
 the Sabbath, and is called " A Father's Advice to his 
 Son." The " Cook's Oracle " is responsible for both 
 words and music in this as in most of the pieces con- 
 tained in this book. The hymn runs, — 
 
 Be humble, patient, trust in God, 
 
 Believe what is, is best ; 
 Walk in the path your Saviour trod, 
 
 Your days will then be blest. 
 
 It is only fair to say that the music is considerably 
 better than the words. In another place, a propos to 
 a piece of advice to his readers concerning abstinence 
 from religious discussions with # strangers, he presents 
 them with " An Universal Prayer," to which the same 
 remark will apply. By way of a change from the 
 severity of these devout exercises, we are treated, in 
 the course of a particularly stupid story, to settings 
 of " Fill the Goblet again," and of Herrick's " Gather 
 your rosebuds while you may," while the return of the 
 traveller to his native country is celebrated in a 
 patriotic song, " All hail, Britannia ! Queen of Isles !" 
 Next to religion, on which the " Cook's Oracle " 
 appears to have felt very strongly, though it appears to 
 have exercised little influence on his domestic relations, 
 patriotism is, indeed, one of the principal features in his 
 character. Thus the song just mentioned is ushered in 
 with the following portentous sentence : " When he (the 
 
250 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 Traveller) considers the arbitrary and tyrannic govern- 
 ments, the slavery and poverty of the lower class of 
 people, the pride and ignorance of the opulent, and 
 the superstition and bigotry of both, and compares 
 them with the advantages which so eminently distin- 
 guish his own country, where the climate is temperate, 
 the earth fruitful, the government mild, the inhabitants 
 of both sexes intelligent, and the women remarkably 
 beautiful, he will then rest contented with the happi- 
 ness he enjoys by having it in his power to spend the 
 remainder of his days in Happy England, and sing 
 with heart and voice ' All hail,' &c." Another illus- 
 tration of this patriotic temper will be found embedded 
 in a collection of amatory and anacreontic songs 
 which Kitchiner published about the commencement 
 of the present century. The sixth number is a 
 " Grand March composed for and dedicated to the 
 Volunteers of St. Clement Danes," bearing date 1803, 
 the year of the breaking out of the Trench war. This 
 is followed by two " British War-songs " similarly 
 dedicated. There is a fine Philistine contempt for 
 foreigners about Dr. Kitchiner's words at which it is 
 difficult not to smile, in spite of the indubitable 
 patriotism and spirit of the lines. 
 
 Britain's great and warlike host 
 
 Scorn the puny threats of slaves ; 
 Ere the cowards reach your coast 
 
 They shall find their wat'ry graves. 
 Atheist Gallia bends her knee 
 
 At a base usurper's nod : 
 Britons, ever bold and free, 
 
 Love their king — adore their God. 
 
 Gallia's gaunt and rabble rout, 
 
 Famine leads to lawless spoil : 
 Britons' courage, ever stout, 
 
 Centers in their native soil. 
 
" The Cook's Oracle " 2 si 
 
 Gallia skulks within her ports — 
 
 Gallia great in threats alone : 
 Britain every danger courts, 
 
 Bravely rallies round the throne. 
 
 Amongst the miscellaneous works of Dr. Kitchiner 
 was a " Housekeeper's Oracle" — a companion to the 
 " Cook's Oracle " — which is not unamusing reading, in- 
 asmuch as it is full of quaint common-sense, and affords, 
 besides, an interesting picture of social life in the 
 middle-class at the close of the last century. Amongst 
 the maxims which the Oracle impresses on the young 
 housekeeper is one enforcing the prudence of " dealing 
 with tradesmen of fair character and established 
 circumstances. " Another concerns the wisdom of 
 " submitting cheerfully to be imposed on in due pro- 
 portion to your circumstances. He who will not be 
 cheated a little" adds the Doctor, " must be content 
 to be abused a great deal, to be at constant variance 
 with his servants, tradesmen, and with every one 
 dependent on him " — maxims which will hardly be 
 acceptable to the customers of Co-operative Stores. 
 On dinners and dinner-giving Dr. Kitchiner has a 
 chapter or two full of that sound practical wisdom 
 which distinguishes the essays of the late Mr. 
 Thackeray on the same subjects, the keynote being — 
 " However plain your dinner, if it is prime, plentiful, 
 and properly dressed, it will be as acceptable to friends 
 to whom you are acceptable as a profusion of all the 
 expensive Rarities which Extravagance could have 
 assembled." It is, however, as a picture of manners 
 that the " Housekeeper's Oracle " is most interesting. 
 Thus, for example, the author dilates at length on the 
 utter folly of those "children of a larger growth" 
 who give dinners at seven or eight o'clock — a subject 
 
2^2 
 
 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 which excites him to almost as great wrath as " your 
 silly, infecting farrago of Made Dishes and prepara- 
 tions, which are provided to pamper satiated Appetite 
 and to feed the eyes of superannuated Epicures, that 
 overcome the Stomach and paralyze the Digestion of 
 those who eat them, and empty the Pockets of those 
 who provide them." 
 
 Another of these works has a title-page of prodigious 
 length, and is devoted to " The Art of Invigorating 
 and Prolonging Life." It is dedicated to the nervous 
 and bilious, and contains essays on Training, Reducing 
 Corpulence, on Sleep, Siesta, Clothes, Fire, Air, Exer- 
 cise, and Wine. A little pamphlet is also appended, 
 called "Peptic Precepts," and the whole concludes 
 with an " Essay on the Pleasure of Making a Will." 
 The leading idea of the book — which is addressed, not 
 to the medical profession, but to hypochondriacs and 
 invalids — is common-sense. Thus, when the Doctor is 
 discoursing of sleep, he does not advise his readers to 
 make themselves miserable by getting up at unearthly 
 hours, or to attempt to do without a sufficient amount 
 of natural rest. As for wine, the patient is recom- 
 mended to drink it if he likes, but to refrain from 
 taking bad or common wine, and from spoiling what 
 he drinks by icing it ; but, adds the Doctor, " our 
 Yinum Britanntcum — good home-brewed Beer — which 
 has been very deservedly called Liquid Bread, is 
 preferable to any other beverage during dinner or 
 supper." In the matter of medicine, Dr. Kitchiner 
 was decidedly in advance of his age. His prescrip- 
 tions — and this little volume contains a good many of 
 them — are the mildest and gentlest that can be 
 imagined, and the advice of the author is to take as 
 little of them as possible. Curiously enough, however, 
 
The Cook's Cracky 
 
 253 
 
 although the " Cook's Oracle " lived by rule, he 
 appears never to have been a thoroughly healthy man ; 
 and, although he laid down excellent principles for 
 invigorating and prolonging life, he died in his fiftieth 
 year. He devoted twenty pages of this book to " The 
 Pleasure of Making a Will," which act be described as 
 the art of dying honourably. All that he says is 
 excellent sense; but his precepts and his practice 
 appear to have been strangely at variance. According 
 to a writer in the Gentleman's Magazine " the 
 Doctor's Will, made about sixteen years since, is as 
 remarkable for its eccentricity as any of the produc- 
 tions of the testator, and it is said that another, making 
 some serious alterations in the disposal of his property, 
 was intended for signature on the Wednesday following 
 the night on which he died." One of his own precepts, 
 however, his will fully carried out. He is particularly 
 careful to impress upon his readers the duty of 
 remembering "the claims of him who, as the law 
 expresses it, has no kindred — who is nullius filius — 
 who has no protector but his reputed parent." Dr. 
 Kitchiner had such a son, whom he educated at 
 Cambridge, and to whom he bequeathed the bulk of 
 his property. 
 
254 
 
 ISAAC DISRAELI AND BOLTON CORNEY. 
 
 There has, perhaps, never been an English writer who 
 attained an astonishing literary reputation with such 
 consummate ease as Isaac Disraeli. To read the 
 encomiums of his illustrious son contained in the 
 preface to his collected works, and even the compli- 
 ments paid to him by a host of contemporaries, it 
 might be imagined that, instead of being a mere book- 
 maker of altogether second-rate abilities, he was the 
 first Englishman who had brought genius to bear upon 
 subjects of literature. The fact really is, that literary 
 criticism and literary research were somewhat out 
 of fashion in this country when Isaac Disraeli 
 began to publish, and that thus his small achieve- 
 ments gained an altogether disproportionate amount 
 of praise. At the present day, the little articles 
 which make up the volumes known as the " Curio- 
 sities of Literature," " Amenities of Literature," and 
 so forth, would hardly find acceptance in a third-rate 
 magazine ; yet, when they first appeared, something 
 more than half a century ago, they were accounted 
 marvels of erudition. Byron, Scott, Moore, Southey, 
 and Bulwer were proud to applaud them ; while even 
 bibliographers and critics like Dr. Dibdin, Mr. John 
 Wilson Croker, and Mr. S. "W. Singer raised their 
 tuneful notes in praise of Isaac Disraeli. Lord 
 Lytton (the elder) in his salad days was not ashamed 
 to speak of him as the " Horace Walpole of Literature." 
 
Isaac Disraeli and Bolton Corney. 255 
 
 It is probable that Mr. Bulwer — as he was when he 
 wrote this phrase — intended his words for a compli- 
 ment , bnt it may be open to question whether Isaac 
 Disraeli regarded them in that light. His own opinion 
 of Walpole was of the lowest. He describes him as 
 " one of the Pucks of Literature," and with a fine 
 irony praises his " new views and. bold deductions," 
 his " deep and tender sentiment " — perhaps the most 
 utterly absurd subjects for applause which he could 
 have selected ; and his " charming lucubrations " — 
 which is probably the oddest description of the arid 
 and commonplace " Anecdotes of Painting " that the 
 most perverse ingenuity could have devised. Probably 
 before the close of his life Lord Lytton, whose mind 
 was always growing, saw reason to modify his opinions 
 and to accredit Isaac Disraeli with fewer and less exalted 
 qualities. 
 
 The veteran man of letters was not, however, 
 allowed to enjoy his honours wholly without the intru- 
 sion of the critics. More than once it was hinted that 
 his vaunted discoveries were no discoveries at all ; that 
 the substance of some of his most effective and most 
 popular works might be found in books within the 
 reach of every student ; and that, when wholly original, 
 he was not unfrequently curiously incorrect. As a rule, 
 however, the attacks were made in such a fashion as 
 to render the task of answering them either easy in the 
 extreme or altogether unnecessary. Mr. Bolton Corney 
 was an exception to the rule. He was a scholar and a 
 gentleman, a man of wit and a man of the world, and 
 he had the advantage of knowing thoroughly some 
 subjects of which Isaac Disraeli possessed only a feeble 
 smattering. Thus, for example, the latter was once 
 sufficiently ill-advised to write on the Bayeux Tapestry. 
 
2VO 
 
 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 His article betrayed its writer — it was flimsy, weak, 
 and superficial in the extreme. Those who read it, 
 and who knew anything about the subject, could hardly 
 believe that the author had even seen the tapestry he 
 professed to describe, and, as a matter of fact, it is 
 believed that he never did. Nevertheless, he talks in 
 a marvellously confident way about that remarkable 
 piece of work, sneers elaborately at its rude drawing 
 and absurd colouring, and makes some curiously rash 
 statements on questions of fact and matters of detail. 
 
 Mr. Bolton Corney, on the other hand, had made the 
 Bayeux Tapestry a subject of careful and elaborate 
 study for many years. His work upon it is even now 
 a standard authority ; and he was thus able, to use the 
 phrase of a contemporary critic, to " turn Mr. 
 Disraeli inside out " when he had to deal with this 
 subject. So with other matters. The whole contro- 
 versy is contained in a series of pamphlets long out of 
 print, but preserved in the British Museum, and 
 affording some of the most amusing reading upon 
 which any man of literary tastes is likely to alight. 
 Even the title-pages are comic ; and when one turns 
 the page and comes upon the pamphlets themselves, 
 their typographical eccentricities are a source of 
 perennial delight. Mr. Bolton Corney must have 
 taxed the resources of his printing-office in no ordinary 
 fashion. He fairly revels in the variety of his typo- 
 graphy. Black letter and italic ; small capitals and 
 large ; upper case and lower case ; notes of admiration 
 and inverted commas in profusion diversify every 
 page, and impart a pleasing variety to its effect upon 
 the eye. It is, indeed, surprising how keen a sarcasm 
 becomes when it is printed in small capitals ; how 
 biting a satire may be made when it is repeated for 
 
Isaac Disraeli and Bolton Corney. 257 
 
 the thirtieth time ; how brilliant a jest when all the 
 varieties of type are nsed in a single sentence to enforce 
 it ; and how infinitely the force of a stroke of wit is 
 increased when it is followed by three notes of excla- 
 mation in a parenthesis. Mr. Bolton Corney, it may 
 be admitted, lays himself open to a certain amount of 
 animadversion in this respect ; but Mr. Disraeli, though 
 he indulges somewhat less in typographical eccentri- 
 cities, outdoes him in personal abuse. His pamphlets, 
 indeed, possess no inconsiderable interest from a literary 
 point of view, but they are also noteworthy as specimens 
 of a happily extinct species of literary controversy. The 
 flowers of eloquence with which his pages are adorned 
 form a florilegium of no ordinary beauty. He has, for 
 example, no hesitation whatever in talking about " the 
 malice of his critic/' and " the baseness of his 
 vulgarity." He tells his reader that " it is a long 
 time since he declined to hold a branglement (sic) with 
 a blockhead." On the next page he declares that Mr. 
 Bolton Corney is " a most unknightly chevalier, 
 stuffed out by some contrivance for the nonce, so that 
 the fellow appears larger than nature made him. You 
 see," he goes on, " by the carle's coarse-grained hands 
 what work he has been used to ; the ribald might be 
 formidable in a leather jerkin handling a pike-staff, 
 but he is somewhat grotesque in the tilt." Elsewhere 
 we hear of Mr. Bolton Corney's " impudence and dis- 
 ingenuousness;" we find him spoken of as a " pig in 
 a drawing-room," and described as a "literary yahoo." 
 These are, it is to be presumed, some of those amenities 
 of literature of which Mr. Disraeli speaks in another 
 place ; but, on the other hand, it must be confessed 
 that Mr. Bolton Corney contrives to give his adversary 
 many a shrewd nip. His first pamphlet has for title, 
 
 s 
 
258 Eighteenth Centttry Studies. 
 
 " ' Curiosities of Literature,' by I. Disraeli, Esq., Doctor 
 of Civil Law of the University of Oxford ; a Fellow of 
 the Society of Antiquaries of London. Illustrated by 
 Bolton Corney, Esq., Honorary Professor of Criticism 
 in the Republique des Lettres, and Member of the 
 Society of English Bibliophiles." The second edition 
 bears on the title-page the announcement that the 
 work has been " revised and acuminated," the acumi- 
 nation consisting mainly in a more frequent and more 
 sarcastic repetition of the unfortunate Mr. Disraeli's 
 titles and distinctions. Appended to the second 
 edition is a reprint of the third pamphlet of the 
 series, entitled " Ideas on Controversy deduced from 
 the practice of a veteran, and adapted to the meanest 
 capacity." This last is a retort upon Mr. Disraeli's 
 reply to Mr. Bolton Corney' s first pamphlet, a little 
 work on large paper, entitled the " Illustrator Illus- 
 trated," and it is by no means the least amusing oi 
 the series. 
 
 Mr. Bolton Corney' s charges against Mr. Disrael 
 are thirty in number ; some grave, some commonplace ; 
 one or two hypercritical, and as many thoroughly 
 trivial. The gist of the accusation is, as a rule, first, 
 that the author of the " Curiosities of Literature" is not 
 original ; secondly, that he is superficial and incorrect ; 
 and, thirdly, that he appropriates the work of his pre- 
 decessors even whilst reviling them, and gives, as the 
 results of his unaided researches, matter which other 
 writers had already published. The first count of this 
 portentous indictment is headed as follows (the italics 
 are Mr. Bolton Corney's) : — " The Original MS. of the 
 Justinian discovered by I. Disraeli, Esq., D.C.L., and 
 F S.A.," and the charge is based upon the following 
 paragraph from the first edition of the " Curiosities :" — 
 
Isaac Disraeli and Bolton Corney. 259 
 
 The original manuscript of Justinian's Code was discovered by the 
 Pisans accidentally when they took a city in Calabria ; that vast code 
 of laws had been in a manner unknown from the time of that Emperor, 
 This curious book was brought to Pisa, and, when Pisa was taken 
 by the Florentines, was transferred to Florence, where it is still 
 preserved. 1 
 
 In later editions of the " Curiosities " this most 
 astounding statement is modified. That of 1858, for 
 example, mentions (vol. i. pp. 20 — 21) the manuscript 
 as that of Justinian's Pandects, but the word "original" 
 is still retained. Mr. Bolton Corney' s comments fill 
 four octavo pages. Their substance is that the MS. 
 referred to was not of the Code as stated by Mr. 
 Disraeli, but of the Pandects ; that, though undoubtedly 
 the MS. was of great antiquity, it was by no means 
 the " original;" and that, so far from the Code having 
 been " unknown " in any manner, " the Roman law 
 had, according to Sir James Mackintosh, never lost its 
 authority in the countries which formed the Western 
 Empire " — all which the reader will probably consider 
 to be a sufficiently grave number of charges to bring 
 against a single paragraph of six lines. Mr. Disraeli's 
 answer is somewhat more than sufficiently vague. 
 Having no case, he devotes his energies to personal 
 
 1 It is not a little singular that Alexandre Dumas in his pseudo- 
 history, Gaule et France, has fallen into precisely the same blunder 
 with Isaac Disraeli. At page 340 he enumerates, amongst the benefits 
 conferred upon France in the reign of Louis VII., the discovery of the 
 Code of Justinian and its establishment in France as the written law. 
 "Here," says M. Querard (Supercheries Litteraires, torn. i. col. 1136), 
 "are two errors : the first relating to the discovery of the Code of 
 Justinian, the second relative to its establishment in France." The Code 
 of Justinian has never been lost. M. Dumas confounded the Code of 
 Justinian with the Florentine Pandects, the manuscript of which was 
 really recovered at the capture of Amain by the Pisans, in 1130, 
 during the quarrels of Pope Innocent II. and the Antipope Anaclet II. 
 
 s 2 
 
260 
 
 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 abuse of his accuser. He lays " profound ignorance " 
 to the charge of Mr. Bolton Corney at the outset, and 
 he accuses him of pretending to a wide and accurate 
 acquaintance with the civil law. Both charges, it 
 needs hardly to be said, are wholly beside the mark, 
 and, even if true, would prove nothing more than that 
 Mr. Disraeli failed to appreciate the real drift of the 
 charge he had to answer. Mr. Bolton Corney accuses 
 him of writing <c clotted nonsense " upon a subject of 
 which he is profoundly ignorant. It is obviously no 
 answer to such a charge to say that Mr. Bolton Corney 
 pretends to a knowledge which he does not possess. 
 Nor is Mr. Disraeli more happy when he comes to the 
 charge itself. He is forced to admit that he did not 
 know what were the contents of the manuscript he 
 professed to describe ; and, as he leaves the quotation 
 from Sir James Mackintosh unanswered, it may be 
 taken for granted that he felt the impossibility of 
 defending his wild assertions about the Roman law. 
 By way, however, of a little revenge he coolly insinuates 
 that his critic is ignorant of the difference between the 
 Justinian and the Gregorian Codes — by which he does 
 not materially improve his own position — and he winds 
 up his defence by a pitiful complaint that Mr. Bolton 
 Corney had " expressed his comments in a tone and 
 spirit which could not be endured in gentlemanlike 
 society." In view of the phrases which Mr. Disraeli 
 permits himself to use with respect to his opponent, 
 this pathetic complaint of want of taste has, to say 
 the least, a rather amusing effect. According to Mr. 
 Disraeli it is permissible in " gentlemanlike society " 
 to call your opponent a " pig," a " carle," or a 
 "yahoo;" but it is wholly against the laws of the 
 same society to hint that a D.C.L. of the University of 
 
Isaac Disraeli and Bo It 071 Conwy. 261 
 
 Oxford — honorary or otherwise — ought to know at 
 least so much about Roman law as twenty minutes with 
 an encyclopaedia would teach him. 
 
 The next charge against the author of the " Curiosi- 
 ties " is not very important, but it is interesting as being 
 characteristic alike of the culprit and of his accuser. 
 Isaac Disraeli, as his greater son has told us, came 
 home from the Continent saturated with the theories of 
 Voltaire and Rousseau, and naturally lost no oppor- 
 tunity of sneering at the Church, the clergy, and even 
 the Christian religion. When, therefore, he has to 
 describe the Bayeux tapestry he speaks of Odon, 
 Bishop of Bayeux, as bearing a " mace " at the battle 
 of Hastings " for the purpose that when he despatched 
 his antagonist he might not spill blood, but only break 
 his bones." On this statement he adds the profound 
 and valuable reflection that " religion has its quibbles as 
 well as law." The whole matter is so trite and so silly 
 that one can hardly imagine any human being finding 
 it a matter of interest, still less, any two people quar- 
 relling over it. Mr. Bolton Corney had, however, as 
 has already been mentioned, made the Bayeux tapestry 
 a matter of especial study, and was, of course, keenly 
 alive to any blunders which his opponents might 
 make with regard to it. When, therefore, he finds 
 Mr. Disraeli not merely making a mistake as to facts, 
 but tagging to his blunder a reflection worthy of a 
 schoolboy's theme, he attacks his adversary without 
 mercy. No time is wasted in preliminaries. He 
 charges Mr. Disraeli with ignorance ; expresses strong 
 doubts as to whether he has seen the tapestry at all ; 
 and points out that the bishop wears no armour, but 
 simply carries a staff — not a mace — as a symbol of 
 authority ; from which he draws the conclusion that 
 
262 
 
 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 the bishop took no active part in the "battle, but simply 
 confined himself to encouraging the soldiers. Seeing 
 that more than one mediaeval bishop fought vigorously, 
 there is perhaps nothing very extraordinary in Mr. 
 Disraeli's error, though for the sake of his own reputa- 
 tion it would have been better had he refrained from 
 emphasizing it by a trite and trumpery sneer at religion. 
 In reply, Mr. Disraeli, finding it impossible to deny 
 that he has blundered, sneers, by way of revenge, 
 at " the rude and coarse materials " of the Bayeux 
 tapestry, and with delightful self-complacency declares 
 that his childish remark is " an idea pregnant with a 
 whole volume : it is seed which will not germinate in 
 the stubble of his (Mr. Corney 's) mind." 
 
 Passing over one or two somewhat trivial accusa- 
 tions against Mr. Disraeli — if, indeed, any can be con- 
 sidered trivial which impugn the trustworthiness of a 
 public instructor — we come upon a graver charge. It 
 is stated in the " Curiosities'' that " Cervantes composed 
 the most agreeable book in the Spanish language during 
 his captivity in Barbary " — a plain and direct state- 
 ment which Mr. Bolton Corney proceeds to traverse 
 by showing, upon irrefragable evidence, that between 
 the release of Cervantes from his captivity amongst the 
 Moors and the publication of " Don Quixote " a period 
 of no less than five-and -twenty years elapsed. It is 
 sufficiently obvious that the story is a pure invention ; 
 but Mr. Bolton Corney goes further than merely 
 proving its character. He traces it to its source, which 
 is nothing more recondite than that repertory of anec- 
 dotes, good, bad, and indifferent, known as the " Mena- 
 giana." In that book, upon which the author of the 
 " Curiosities " drew with remarkable liberality, happy 
 in the confidence that the great mass of his readers 
 
Isaac Disi:aeli and Bolto?i Corney. 263 
 
 were likely never to have heard of it, the following 
 sentence may be found : — " J'ay ou'i dire que Michel 
 de Cervantes, auteur de ce roman de Dom Quixote, 
 etait manchot et qu'il auoit compose ce livre etant 
 captif en Barbaric" Mr. Bolton Corney' s comment is 
 amusing: — " In 1791 appeared anonymously a volume 
 entitled ' Curiosities of Literature ;' it was chiefly com- 
 piled from the French ' ana,' and contained the fiction on 
 Cervantes." Mr. Disraeli's reply is not less amusing or 
 less characteristic. He has literally not one word to 
 say in his own defence ; he cannot deny that he got 
 the story from the " Menagiana," or that he printed it 
 without taking the smallest pains to investigate its 
 truth. Having no case, as usual, he contents himself 
 with abusing his critic. The reader is treated with a 
 long diatribe against Mr. Bolton Corney, seasoned 
 with, gros sel. There is plenty about " petty tricks " 
 and " artful suppressions " — phrases which most 
 readers will think more applicable to the plagiarist 
 than to the critic who detects him ; but of the charge 
 itself, all that Mr. Disraeli can find to say is, that 
 " Cervantes gave freedom to his genius during his 
 captivity ;" which is, perhaps, the lamest defence of a 
 palpably stupid story ever invented. It is, perhaps, 
 the best proof of the justice of Mr. Bolton Corney's 
 criticism to find that in the later editions of the 
 11 Curiosities" this fable is expunged. 
 
 Unfortunately, as much cannot be said for the next 
 charge. In the first volume of the edition of the 
 " Curiosities " published in 1858, " with a Memoir and 
 Notes by the Right Hon. Benjamin Disraeli " (the 
 present Earl of Beaconsfield), pp. 194-5, will be found 
 the following paragraph : — 
 
 Philip TIT. was gravely seated "by the fireside : the fire-maker of the 
 
264 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 1 
 
 Court had kindled so great a quantity of wood that the monarch was 
 nearly suffocated with heat, and his grandeur would not suffer him to 
 rise from the chair ; the domestics could not presume to enter the 
 apartment, because it {% what) was against the etiquette. At length 
 the Marquis de Potat appeared, and the King ordered him to damp 
 the fire ; but he excused himself, alleging that he was forbidden by the 
 etiquette to perform such a function, for which the Duke d'Ussada 
 (sic) ought to be called upon, as it was his business. The Duke was 
 gone out ; the fire burnt fiercer, and the King endured it rather than 
 derogate from his dignity. But his blood was heated to such a degree 
 that an erysipelas of the head appeared the next day, which, succeeded 
 by a violent fever, carried him off in 1621, in the twenty-fourth year 
 of his reign. 
 
 Except for the last word, which, in the early editions 
 of the "Curiosities" is given as " age," this paragraph — 
 slipshod style, grammatical and other blunders, italics 
 and all — is identical with that of the first edition of 
 this well-known book. The result is that this ineffably 
 stupid story has become one of the stock illustrations 
 of English authorcraft, used about as often as Lord 
 Macaulay's wearisome "New Zealander" and "every 
 schoolboy." Yet it is not for want of correction that 
 the tale has retained its present shape. Mr. Bolton 
 Corney points out that when Philip III. of Spain died 
 he was in his forty-third year, and not, as Mr. Disraeli 
 had said, in his twenty-fourth ; that though it is well 
 established that he died from erysipelas, there is not a 
 shadow of foundation for the story which Mr. Disraeli 
 tells ; and that, as a matter of fact, the story itself is 
 due, not to Spanish history, but to the liveliness of 
 certain French memoir writers. Mr. Disraeli's reply 
 is of a piece with the rest of his pamphlet. He cannot 
 deny that he has blundered in the matter of the king's 
 age ; but he refers to that not very recondite source, 
 " L'Art de Verifier les Dates," as his authority for the 
 story. It is given in that book, by the way, in a very 
 
Isaac Disraeli and Bolton Corney. 265 
 
 different form from that of Mr. Disraeli, and if he had 
 really gone to it for information he could not possibly 
 have fallen into error about the king's age. The evi- 
 dence clearly seems to prove that the story came from 
 a French source, and that the reference to " L'Art de 
 Verifier les Dates " was an afterthought. The conclu- 
 sion of his reply on this point is certainly sufficiently 
 amusing, when we bear in mind those amenities of his 
 preface to which reference has already been made. 
 
 I am at a loss to comprehend (he says) how this mole, who is very 
 capable to grub, thus hardily ventured to a positive denial of this 
 anecdote of Spanish etiquette. His criticism is nonsense ; and, 
 unhappily for him, the style in which it is expressed is even more 
 remarkable than usual for its vulgar arrogance and thoroughly ungentle- 
 manlike style. 
 
 The eighteenth count of this lengthy indictment is a 
 very telling one. Mr. Disraeli, professing to quote 
 from a manuscript in the Ashmolean Museum, gives a 
 copy of a summons to Stowe to attend a meeting of 
 the Antiquarian Society. This document he promises 
 to " preserve with all its verbal gerugo." As originally 
 given by Mr. Disraeli the summons runs thus : — 
 
 Society of Antiquaries. 
 
 To Mr. Stowe — 
 
 The place appointed for a Conference upon the question fol- 
 lowinge ys at Mr. Garter's House, on Frydaye the 11th of this Novem- 
 ber, 1598, being Al Sowle's day, at 11 of the clocke in the afternoon, 
 where your oppinioun in wry tinge or otherwise is expected. The 
 question is : " Of the Antiquitie, Etimologie, and Priviledges, of 
 Parishes in Englande." 
 
 It is, perhaps, hardly necessary to point out that 
 there is something very much out of joint in this 
 summons. " Al Sowle's day" is the 2nd and not. the 
 11th of November; and by " 11 of the clocke in the 
 
66 
 
 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 afternoon" Mr. Garter King-at-Arms, and all good 
 antiquarians of 1598, would naturally be in their beds. 
 The solution of the mystery is, however, not very 
 remote ; and Mr. Bolton Corney not unnaturally 
 triumphs over his antagonist in pointing out that Mr. 
 Disraeli never saw the original summons to Stowe at 
 all, and that his talk about the " verbal aerugo " is a 
 mere flourish. What he really did was to copy from 
 another antiquary, and to do so without intelligence. 
 Thomas Hearne had published this identical letter in 
 1 720, and, unfortunately for Mr. Isaac Disraeli, had 
 printed it in black-letter — that common trap for the 
 unwary. The result is that the date and hour of the 
 meeting are printed by Hearne thus — U ; and Mr. 
 Disraeli innocently copied what he found, and blundered 
 in the copying. To make matters worse, Hearne does 
 not give the year at all ; and this Mr. Disraeli supplies by 
 guess, giving, as a matter of course, the wrong year. 
 Had he referred to his favourite " Art de Verifier les 
 Dates " he could scarcely have made the mistake. It is 
 hardly necessary to say that Mr. Disraeli was compelled 
 to admit that he had made a mistake " in transcribing 
 from the black-letter,' ' thus admitting the gravest part 
 of the charge against him ; nor is it necessary to add 
 that he makes bitter complaint of Mr. Bolton Corney's 
 " silly facetiousness and vulgar insolence." In the 
 later editions of the " Curiosities," however, the mistakes 
 are corrected, though Mr. Disraeli never had the 
 candour to withdraw the statement of his having 
 consulted the Ashmolean manuscript. 
 
 A minute analysis of the remaining counts of Mr. 
 Bolton Corney' s indictment of Mr. Isaac Disraeli would, 
 perhaps, be somewhat tedious ; but a few points may 
 be thought worthy of attention. .We have seen how 
 
Isaac Disraeli and Bolton Corney. 267 
 
 the author of the " Curiosities " comments upon his op- 
 ponent's " silly facetiousness." Mr. Bolton Corney, 
 by anticipation, dwells upon the senile humour of Mr. 
 Disraeli, who, in relating the discovery of the law of 
 gravitation, mentions that it was due to the fall of an 
 apple, which " struck him (Newton) a smart blow on 
 the head," and surprised him u by the force of its 
 stroke." How any such childish anecdote can be 
 called a " curiosity of literature " — unless, indeed, its 
 appearance in a book of criticism can be so considered — 
 has never yet been explained. Mr. Disraeli himself 
 appears to have shared the opinion of his critics ; for 
 the story has long disappeared from the " Curiosities," 
 though not until it had done yeoman's service in 
 manuals of popular science and similar works. For 
 the story itself, Mr. Bolton Corney has done quite 
 enough, when he shows, by a host of authorities, that 
 in its main incident it is at least doubtful, and that the 
 circumstances with which Mr. Disraeli has embellished 
 it were wholly fictitious. To such a charge it is no 
 answer — as Mr. Disraeli seems to have supposed — to 
 say that the story is "a family tradition," or that 
 " some inverted commas have dropped in the later 
 editions of the " Curiosities of Literature," whilst the 
 coarse personal abuse of Mr. Bolton Corney hardly 
 benefits its author. 
 
 Again : Mr. Disraeli asserts that " Collins burnt his 
 Odes at the door of his publisher." On this point 
 Mr. Bolton Corney shows that, although it is quite 
 true that a portion of the impression of Collins's Odes 
 was burned by the indignant author, the event happened 
 not through the poet's " misery," but because of his 
 anger at the popular neglect, and some considerable 
 time after his accession to fortune. The " door of the 
 
268 
 
 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 publisher " is a pure invention of Mr. Disraeli, and 
 is worthy of no attention whatever. Finally, in more 
 than one place Mr. Disraeli puts himself forward as in 
 some sense the " discoverer " of Oldys, the antiquarian, 
 and constantly refers to his manuscripts. Mr. Bolton 
 Corney is, however, able to show that, in truth, Mr. 
 Disraeli knew little, if anything, of Oldys at first hand, 
 but was really indebted for what knowledge he pos- 
 sessed to Grose's confessedly imperfect and valueless 
 book. Mr. Disraeli's only answer to this charge is a 
 little raillery of the heaviest type. 
 
 The sting of Mr. Bolton Corney's pamphlet lies in 
 its tail. The penultimate chapter, which is written 
 in a strain of acute and even brilliant sarcasm, is 
 entitled " Masterly Imitators," and gives a tolerably 
 clear idea of the way in which the greater part of the 
 "Curiosities" was composed. Mr. Bolton Corney assorts 
 the Disraelitic method under three heads — " Transcrip- 
 tion, Translation, and Conversion." Under the first 
 he gives a passage from Gilpin, side by side with a 
 passage from the " Curiosities," from which we are to 
 suppose that the "inverted commas have dropped out." 
 The two passages are all but identical, the only differ- 
 ence being such a change of one or two words as 
 might readily happen in copying. A second specimen 
 of the same kind is even more audaciously impudent. 
 In the " Journal " of Sir Simonds d'Ewes, which was 
 published by Nichols the antiquary in 1793, appears a 
 short passage relating to the Duke of Buckingham. 
 This passage Mr. Disraeli coolly appropriates, 
 modernizing the spelling, and announcing that he had 
 "discovered " it in the "unpublished" (sic) life of Sir 
 Symonds d'Ewes (sic). Of Mr. Disraeli's knack of 
 translating, Mr. Bolton Corney gives two specimens, 
 
Isaac Disraeli and Bolton Corney. 269 
 
 which plainly prove not merely that the illustrious 
 litterateur was not above stealing wherever il trouvait 
 son bon, but that he was also not above following the 
 gipsy precedent, and disfiguring the child he stole. 
 The specimen of " conversion " which follows is of the 
 same character, and shows Mr. Disraeli, in a curiously 
 unenviable light, as a plagiarist of the first water. 
 
 The last chapter is an attack upon literary cama- 
 raderie — a kind of thing which is unfortunately not 
 yet wholly extinct. The form which it took in Mr. 
 Disraeli's case consisted mainly in a number of highly 
 laudatory paragraphs addressed to him by certain 
 more or less well-known men of letters of the day, and 
 repaid by him in kind. Mr. Disraeli's reply to this 
 attack is amusingly characteristic. He makes no 
 attempt to answer the really grave charges brought 
 against him, but, as usual, he befogs the whole matter 
 with a cloud of abuse. The chapters, he says, " consist 
 merely of impertinence addressed not only to myself, 
 but to many distinguished literary characters, couched 
 in language characteristic of a petty and envious mind." 
 What this has to do with the accusation that Mr. 
 Disraeli had " borrowed " by wholesale from the 
 French collectors of " ana " and writers of memoirs is 
 not easy to see, but the reply seems to have satisfied 
 its author. He then goes on to taunt Mr. Bolton 
 Corney with certain literary work, which he assumes to 
 have been a failure, and he concludes by saying : " We 
 know how Ritson would have treated Corney ; borrow- 
 ing the thunder of Milton, as he once did, he would 
 have told him that he did 
 
 'abominate the censure op rascals.'" 
 
 With this vigorous denunciation, in all its emphasis 
 
2 jo Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 of type, Mr. Disraeli quits the field of controversy, 
 boasting that he has not left his critic " a leg to stand 
 on." Strangely enough, Mr. Bolton Corney refused 
 to admit himself defeated, and altogether declined to 
 regard Mr. Disraeli's answer as final. He therefore 
 published the pamphlet " Ideas on Criticism," to which 
 reference has already been made. In it he sarcastically 
 enumerates the various principles by which Mr. Disraeli 
 may be assumed to have been governed in the contro- 
 versy. The performance is remarkably clever and 
 really excellent reading. Its style may best be guessed 
 from one characteristic extract : — 
 
 Idea xxv. It is consolatory to believe that " every work must be 
 judged by its design." And now, Mr. Disraeli, I shall epitomise the 
 rules of controversy, as deduced from your latest work — the " Illustrator 
 Illustrated." You may ascribe the meanest motive to your opponent, 
 without the shadow of authority ; you may misstate facts with reckless 
 effrontery ; you may introduce falsified and fictitious quotations ; 
 you may have recourse to the most contemptible evasion ; you may 
 abuse with all the virulence of a charlatan who has been unexpectedly 
 deprived of his mask — if the design of your work is " to assert the 
 dignity of your station." 
 
 These last words are a quotation from Mr. Disraeli, 
 and they may almost be held to justify the savage 
 quotation from Porson, with which this pamphlet and 
 the controversy are alike brought to an end. "It is 
 not," said the great Grecian, and after him Mr. Bolton 
 Corney — " it is not in the power of thought to con- 
 ceive, or words to express, the contempt I have for 
 you, Mr. Isaac Disraeli." 
 
 Note. — It may be as well to add the reason for the animosity 
 between Porson and Isaac Disraeli. They were on one occasion 
 dining at the house of a common friend. Porson, in accordance with 
 his almost invariable custom, got excessively drunk, and, when lying 
 
 
Isaac Disraeli and Bolton Coi'ney. 271 
 
 prostrate on the floor, Disraeli delivered a burlesque oration over him, 
 holding him up to ridicule and contempt. When Porson was sobered, 
 some good-natured friend told him of what had happened, whereupon 
 he made use of the expression quoted above, which in due course was 
 conveyed to Disraeli. Disraeli shortly afterwards published his very 
 disagreeable novel, " Flim Mams," in the course of which a great deal 
 of sarcasm and abuse are levelled at Porson, whose only answer was 
 the repetition of his contempt for his asssilant. 
 
272 
 
 DR. DIBDIN AND THE ROXBURGHE CLUB. 
 
 Bibliomania, or as the accomplished historian of 
 the reign of Queen Anne prefers to call it, " Book 
 Hunting, ,, is one of those forms of amiable lunacy 
 which those who are afflicted by it are accustomed to 
 exalt into a virtue, and about which they talk as though 
 it embodied the sum of all human happiness and human 
 endeavour. Other forms of delusion have a certain 
 amount of intelligibility in them, but for bibliomania 
 it is impossible to find a feasible explanation. The 
 genuine bibliomaniac cares nothing for the contents of 
 the books which he buys and hoards. 1 His greatest 
 pride is, indeed, in an uncut copy ; while, if only a book 
 be unique, he is in no wise troubled by its imbecility or 
 coarseness. The student looks upon books as engines 
 of thought and culture ; the bibliomaniac is occupied 
 with the width of the margin, or the important question 
 whether the title-page is printed in black ink, or 
 whether the name of the author is inserted in red. If 
 he is curious in editions, it is not because successive 
 issues of a popular book display the growth of the 
 author's mind, or because the later state his case with 
 greater precision and effect, but because, perhaps, ten 
 copies of the first were printed upon large paper, or 
 because the second contains a trivial misprint. 
 
 1 Mr. Canning used to tell a story of Mr. Dent — a bibliomaniac of 
 the true Dibdin type — whom he once caught with a book before him 
 "upside down." 
 

 Dr. Dibdin and the Roxburghe Club. 273 
 
 Of book-hunters of this type, Dr. Thomas Frognall 
 Dibdin was one of the most pronounced, and he 
 added to his character as a bibliomauiac that of 
 author. Unlike the race of authors in general, how- 
 ever, he took all possible pains to make his books 
 scarce. They were almost without exception published 
 at high prices, and in the most sumptuous form ; the 
 numbers were strictly limited, and the author records 
 with pride the fact that before they had long been 
 published they brought more in the open market than 
 he had received from the subscribers. Those who have 
 had the courage to wade through these vast folios will 
 perhaps be apt to wonder how it has happened that 
 Dr. Dibdin should have made so great a reputation, 
 and that his books should be sought after as they are. 
 It is true that he is learned in title-pages, and in all 
 the mysteries of typography ; but if his books had been 
 published in the ordinary way, it is doubtful whether 
 they would have sold at all; for, to say the truth, 
 Dibdin is one of the worst of writers. He cannot even 
 spell correctly — unless, indeed, his printers were more 
 stupid than printers generally are — and his style is 
 painfully pompous, stilted, and lumbering. His jokes 
 are incessant, and remind the reader of nothing so 
 much as of the gambols of an infantile elephant. His 
 egotism is insufferable, whilst the perpetual introduction 
 of his friends and patrons, sometimes under their own 
 names, and sometimes under affected pseudonyms 
 drawn from the classics, reveals a very curious state 
 of mind alike in himself and in those who were the 
 objects of his fulsome flattery. Relating in one book 
 the genesis of a not particularly interesting passage 
 of another, he tells how he read to one of his patrons 
 the character which he had given of him under an 
 
 T 
 
274 Eighteenth Century Studies, 
 
 assumed name. The picture which is thus presented 
 is not altogether an agreeable one, though a cynic 
 might find a malicious pleasure in the spectacle of an 
 elderly gentleman purring with self-satisfaction, whilst 
 the " illustrious bibliographer " read to him four pages 
 of egregious flattery. 
 
 It is in this scene, however, that the clue to Dr. Dib- 
 din' s popularity and reputation may be found. He was 
 the head and chief of a great mutual admiration society. 
 He flattered a number of influential and titled person- 
 ages in the fashion which they found most agreeable, 
 and they repaid his adulation by subscribing largely 
 for the volumes in which it was enshrined, and by even 
 more solid proofs of their gratification. Lord Spencer, 
 for example, presented him to the living of Exning, 
 near Newmarket, very early in his ecclesiastical career. 
 For his own reasons, Dibdin habitually spoke of 
 Exning as a " small " affair, but it was of the value of 
 over 400Z. a year, with a house, and as the population 
 was small, Dibdin chose to be non-resident. His 
 country living was thus a very comfortable addition to 
 his income, and it afforded him besides an agreeable 
 rural retreat for the summer and autumn. In addition 
 to Exning, Dibdin had the good fortune to obtain, 
 through the influence of the same noble patron, the 
 living of St. Mary's, Bryanston Square — one of the 
 four district parishes into which the ancient rectory of 
 St. Marylebone was divided — while, as salaried libra- 
 rian at Althorp, he was long employed upon the pro- 
 duction of a magnificent catalogue of the books under 
 his charge. It was, however, in connexion with the 
 Eoxburghe Club that Dibdin's reputation was chiefly 
 won, and as that club, with almost every one of its 
 members, has passed away, it may be as well to spend 
 
Dr. Dibdin and the Roxburghe Club. 275 
 
 a few pages upon the question of how far its existence 
 was of benefit to literature. 
 
 Dibdin's life began amidst strange vicissitudes. His 
 father, who entered the navy when very young, was 
 the original " Tom Bowling " of his brother Charles 
 Dibdin's famous song. Barker, the friend of Porson, 
 who records this circumstance, mentions also, what is 
 not generally known, and is certainly very unusual, 
 that Charles Dibdin was twenty-nine years younger 
 than his less famous brother, and that his mother, 
 whose eighteenth child he was, was fifty years of age 
 at the time of his birth. Thomas Dibdin entered 
 the navy when almost a child, and saw a good 
 deal of active service ; but when the long peace which 
 preluded the European convulsion of 17S9 sent him 
 into compulsory retirement, he placed himself at the 
 disposal of the East India Company, by whom he was 
 employed in various negotiations with the native 
 princes. Being a somewhat simple-minded person — -a 
 sailor rather than a diplomatist — it is not surprising 
 that his business relations with the astute agents of 
 the Company, and the still more astute native princes, 
 produced him little profit, and that after a prolonged 
 service he was still a poor man. On his way home he 
 was seized with illness, which terminated fatally on his 
 reaching the Cape. His widow stayed just long enough 
 to see him buried, and then, taking passage in a Dutch 
 East Indiaman, sailed with her infant son to Europe. 
 She arrived at Middelburg, in the island of Zeeland, 
 early in 1780, and her child, then about three years 
 old, was brought to England by a certain Captain 
 Smith, of whom Dibdin was in after-life wont to com- 
 plain that he had charged too much for his services, 
 and that he had ruined his health by making him drink 
 
 t 2 
 
276 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 undiluted Schiedam. Arrived in England, the child 
 was placed under the care of a younger brother of his 
 mother, a Mr. William Compton, who, in some in- 
 distinct way, claimed alliance with the illustrious family 
 of Northampton. Mr. Compton transferred him to the 
 care of an elderly great aunt, who lived at Reading, a 
 town which Dibdin, oddly enough, calls " the capital 
 of Berkshire." This aunt was indebted to the estate 
 of the late Thomas Dibdin, and in liquidation of her 
 debt, undertook to bring up the child in the cheapest 
 possible manner. She sent him to a trumpery boarding 
 school in Reading, and vindicated her economical 
 character by supplying him with a single suit of 
 clothes per annum. 
 
 In the curious, and not very pleasant, volume of 
 " Reminiscences," which Dibdin put forth in 1836, he 
 expends a considerable amount of space on his school 
 days ; but he has really little more to say about them 
 than that he was so sickly a child as to cause his 
 master's wife to doubt " whether he would live to see 
 the morning's light," and that he was fond of books 
 from his earliest days. His master — Mr. John Man, 
 whose son figures so frequently in Lamb's life and 
 letters — was wont to buy old books in great quantity, 
 and young Dibdin was allowed to amuse himself with 
 them. In process of time he was removed to another 
 school — this time at Stockwell — and here he " fell more 
 and more into bookish ways." It is hardly necessary 
 to say that, like most clever lads, he imagined himself 
 a poet. What is really remarkable is that, at sixty 
 years of age, he should have fancied his boyish imita- 
 tions of Granger and Denham worth reproducing in 
 all the glory of an edition de luxe. Had he been blessed 
 with a sense of humour, he would hardly have inflicted 
 

 Dr. Dibdin and the Roxburghe Club. 277 
 
 on readers of mature age some hundred or so of lines 
 like the following : — 
 
 Lead me, my Muse, to Kichmond's tow'ring hill, 
 
 Where endless plains the mind with transport fill. 
 
 " Heavens, what a goodly prospect spreads around ! 
 
 With trees, and lawns, and bow'rs, and winding riv'lets crown'd." 
 
 Yon distant hills aspiring to the skies — 
 
 And the whole view in glowing grandeur lies. 
 
 K. T. X. 
 
 From Stock well, Dibdin went to Oxford, where he 
 was entered of St. John's. The choice was a some- 
 what singular one, since then, as now, the honours of 
 the college were practically monopolized by men from 
 Merchant Taylor's school. Under such circumstances, 
 Dibdin found Oxford what probably few men have 
 found it since — an exceedingly dull place. Chapel and 
 lecture were the only claims upon his attention, and 
 provided he made a perfunctory use of the opportuni- 
 ties which they afforded to him, he was left to his own 
 devices. Happily, his inclinations were innocent 
 enough, lying, as they did, chiefly in the direction of 
 desultory reading and the making of indifferent verses. 
 Some of his friends and associates had the same tastes, 
 and they met from time to time to read papers and 
 make speeches. The authorities refused them per- 
 mission to meet outside the college walls, out of a 
 dread lest the proposed " Society for Literary and 
 Scientific Discussion " should become a propaganda of 
 " Jacobinical principles," but they did not interfere 
 with meetings within the college. The society of 
 M Academics " flourished accordingly, and many men 
 who afterwards attained eminence joined it. The 
 faster set nicknamed them " Lunatics," and, on the 
 whole, they did not object to the title. " Mad, indeed, 
 
278 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 we were," said Dibdin forty years later, " and desired 
 to be so called, if an occasional deviation from dull and 
 hard-drinking, frivolous gossip, and Boeotian uproar 
 could justify that appellation." 
 
 In spite of his love of literature, Dibdin left Oxford 
 without taking a degree. For a time he found occupa- 
 tion in attending the sittings of the Court of King's 
 Bench at the Guildhall, attracted thither by the forensic 
 eloquence of Erskine, Mingay, Law (afterwards Lord 
 Ellenborough), Dallas, and Garrow, all of whom were 
 at the height of their fame at the time. A chance 
 word from Erskine determined Dibdin to embrace the 
 legal profession, and in due course he was entered of 
 Lincoln's Inn, and placed in the chambers of the 
 celebrated Basil Montagu. For some time he wrestled 
 with the intricacies of legal procedure — much more 
 trying eighty years ago than in these simpler days — 
 and at the expiration of his term of pupilage he 
 established himself at Worcester as a provincial 
 counsel, though he had not been called to the bar. 
 His business appears to have consisted in "settling" 
 deeds and marriage-settlements for local attorneys ; 
 but he does not seem to have had very much to do, 
 and a chance meeting with an old schoolfellow, who 
 had taken orders, gave a new bias to his inclinations. 
 " Henceforward," he says, " he could think of nothing 
 but literature and the Church." He plunged into his 
 new pursuit with characteristic ardour. His law books 
 were sold, and the shelves were re-filled with volumes 
 of controversial and dogmatic theology, which, by his 
 own account, he studied day and night. 
 
 One difficulty stood in the way of his obtaining 
 ordination — his want of a degree. At first he hoped 
 to dispense with it, but Bishop Hurd was obdurate; 
 
Dr. Dibdin and the Roxburghe Club. 2 79 
 
 and accordingly lie went into residence for a term at 
 Oxford, took his degree, and was ordained deacon by 
 the Bishop of Winchester in 1804. Three months 
 later — on the 10th of March, 1805 — he received priest's 
 orders, the curtailment of the nsual period of proba- 
 tion being due to his literary reputation. Some time 
 before he had published an "Introduction to the 
 Classics," which dealt with certain questions of edi- 
 tions and MSS., and as this work had already reached a 
 second edition, the bishop's examining chaplain thought 
 it unnecessary to trouble him with more than formal 
 questions. The only one he asked was as to whether 
 Dibdin " felt satisfied that the ' Codex Yaticanus ' was 
 of the fifth century." " I replied," says Dibdin, 
 " that my opinion necessarily rested upon those of the 
 authorities whom I had quoted. He said he was quite 
 satisfied." The story suggests the apocryphal one of 
 the student who passed in divinity at Oxford, on giving 
 the meaning of the word Golgotha ; but it must be 
 admitted that it is more honourable both to examiner 
 and candidate. 
 
 At this point, Dibdin fairly embarked on his career 
 as author. Though he was never absolutely a careless 
 clergyman, it is not unfair to say that his clerical 
 character sat very lightly upon him. He was a popular 
 preacher, and a bookworm of the highest order; but 
 the restless activity of the modern parish priest, with 
 his perpetual round of services, schools, clothing clubs, 
 charitable societies, mothers' meetings, and the rest of 
 the paraphernalia of a " well-worked " parish were 
 wholly out of his habit of life. If, however, he did not 
 labour too hard in his vocation, the Church did not on 
 her part overpay him. M For nineteen years," he tells 
 us, " I continued my career as alternate morning 
 
280 Eighteenth Century Studies, 
 
 preacher, with an evening lectureship, to which the 
 salary of only 30Z. was attached." The congregation 
 of the Brompton Church made up for him an annual 
 purse of about the same sum ; but the stipend was, as 
 he complains, miserable at the best, though " quite in 
 accordance," as he is careful to add, " with the usual 
 stipends of the day." Under the circumstances, litera- 
 ture was a very natural resource; and Dibdin certainly 
 made some, though, at this time, not very large addition 
 to his income from it. For example, he received 30L 
 from a bookseller for a guide-book to Cheltenham, and 
 other small sums for little works of the same kind. 
 Then we hear of him as editor, in conjunction with Sir 
 Robert Ker Porter, the painter of the extraordinary 
 picture of the battle of Agincourt, lately exhibited 
 in the Guildhall, of a magazine with the unhappy title of 
 The Quiz. What it was like, nobody seems to know; 
 but a correspondent of " Notes and Queries " throws 
 some doubt on both the date and Dibdin' s editorship. 
 The matter is not of much consequence, seeing that 
 the paper lived for but one year, and that none of 
 its contents have at any time been reprinted. 
 
 Dibdin's poems were published at this date, much, 
 without doubt, to the advantage of the printer ; and 
 some other attempts at authorcraft followed — "Analises 
 {sic) of Blackstone," and the like. He speaks also of 
 a poem on Vaccination, written under the inspiration 
 of a friendship for Jenner, the loss of which he laments 
 much more pathetically than his readers are likely to 
 do. His " Introduction to the Classics" — or rather 
 the second edition of that work — was his principal 
 occupation. At first little more than a bookseller's 
 catalogue, and based upon an earlier and forgotten work 
 by Harwood, it grew under his hands from a little 
 
Dr. Did din and the Roxburghe Club. 281 
 
 manual of some seventy-five pages to a goodly octavo of 
 600, with four illustrations. There is something naive, 
 and characteristic in his satisfaction with the work. 
 " I cannot now," he says, " remember what were my 
 gains, but I can remember that when the first copy of 
 it (bound by Herring, in morocco, with gilt leaves) was 
 brought to me, I thought all my toil abundantly re- 
 munerated by the very appearance of the volume. No 
 parent on the birth of his offspring could have felt a 
 more heart-swelling delight; or, rather, not even 
 Cardinal Ximenes himself, when he received the first 
 perfect copy of his Polyglot Bible at the hands of the 
 younger Brocario, could have experienced more grati- 
 fying sensations than I did at the moment in question." 
 It is rather melancholy to think how very many times 
 Cardinal Ximenes and his Polyglot Bible have figured 
 in the tales of an author's raptures over his first 
 printed work. 
 
 In its way this book was very successful. Tbe first 
 edition was exhausted in a short time ; and a second, 
 third, and fourth followed in the course of a few years. 
 The best thing that it did for the author was, however, 
 to procure him an engagement to deliver three courses 
 of lectures on the "Rise and Progress of English 
 Literature " — twenty- eight in all — at the Royal Insti- 
 tution, in Albemarle Street. Whilst these lectures 
 were in progress, Dibdin became editor of a little 
 magazine called the Director, which lived from 
 January to July, 1807. Amongst the principal con- 
 tributors were Sir Thomas Bernard, Sir George 
 Beaumont, Prince Hoare, and a couple of clergymen, 
 named Crowe and Collin son respectively. The Direc- 
 tor was, to say the truth, a dull little print ; and the 
 four articles which Dibdin especially prides himself 
 
282 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 upon are neither more nor less than indifferent imi- 
 tations of the Spectator. There was, however, a series 
 of notes and memoranda on subjects connected with 
 books, to which Dibdin gave the title of " Biblio- 
 graphiana," and which possess a certain special inte- 
 rest as forming the germ of a work which he after- 
 wards published under the title of " Bibliomania." 
 
 The circumstances connected with the publication 
 of this book are not altogether without interest. It 
 would seem that in 1809, a Dr. Ferriar published under 
 this title a rhyming epistle in heroic couplets, which 
 Dibdin describes as"a smart and clever performance, 
 but rather to be considered as a sort of dessert after 
 dinner." Accordingly, he proposed to treat the subject 
 in a graver and " more substantial " manner, and 
 wrote a book, as he says, calamo currentissimo. It was 
 the work of a month, and it produced for the author as 
 much as defrayed his housekeeping bills for a week. 
 " The publishers," he says, " were Messrs. Longman 
 and Co. The book was sold for 3s. 6d., the author and 
 publishers dividing the profits. The advertisements 
 amounted to the astounding sum of 35Z. ! ! The spolia 
 opima were somewhat under 8/.! of which I necessarily 
 took possession of half. Here was Authorship!" 
 Two years later the subject revived. Dibdin had lost 
 his younger son under very painful circumstances, and 
 he turned to this work for consolation. The former 
 edition was thrown to the winds ; and, under the old 
 title, a perfectly novel work was projected. It became 
 what its author is pleased to style a Bibliographical 
 Romance — a series of desultory lectures, that is to say, 
 interspersed with dialogues by living personages, thinly 
 disguised under such names as Lysander, Philemon, 
 Lisardo, Belinda, and Almanza. Amongst the persons 
 
Dr. Dibdin and the Roxburghe Club. 283 
 
 thus introduced were George Chalmers, Sir M. M. 
 Sykes, Richard Heber, Tom Warton, Joseph Hasle- 
 wood, Edward Malone, Francis Douce, Sir Walter 
 Scott, Joseph Ritson, the antiquary, and Dibdin 
 himself, who figures under two or three disguises. 
 The Romance is divided iuto six parts: — 1. The 
 Evening Walk, during which the right uses of Litera- 
 ture are discussed; 2. The Cabinet, containing an out- 
 line of Foreign and Domestic Bibliography ; 3. The 
 Auction-Room, with a Dissertation on the character of 
 Orlando (i. e., Richard Heber), and an essay on the 
 ancient prices of Books and Bookbinding; 4, The 
 Library, with an account of a dinner at Lorenzo's, and 
 some particulars relating to book collectors in England; 
 5. The Drawing-Room, in which the History of Biblio- 
 mania is resumed and concluded ; and 6. The Alcove, in 
 which the symptoms of the disease are discussed, and 
 probable means of cure suggested. A Supplement and 
 three Indexes were added, and the whole was published 
 on small paper at 27 s. Eighteen copies were printed 
 on large paper, each of which found a purchaser at 
 ten guineas. These last have since fetched much 
 higher prices on account of their scarcity and of their 
 beauty as specimens of typography and engraving. 
 Thirty years after their first publication they brought 
 as much as thirty guineas apiece, while within the last 
 few years a copy in fine condition sold for fifty. The 
 small-paper copies also command a great price. Some 
 few dozen have the word " Bibliomania " on the title- 
 page in red ink, and, according to Lowndes, they fetch 
 at sales as much as 8/. 8s. More recently the book 
 has been reprinted, and the price of these last has, in 
 consequence, fallen off. 
 
 From the first the book was successful. It contains 
 
284 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 a great amount of information, and also — as an out- 
 spoken critic remarks — a " vast deal of nonsense ;" 
 but it is marred by many grievous defects of style and 
 taste, by the author's persistent egotism, and by an 
 abominable habit, in which Dibdin is fond of indulging, 
 of putting at least one-half of his book into the notes. 
 To these defects, however, the bibliographical students 
 of the day paid no attention. They hurried instead to 
 overwhelm the author with compliments. Mr. Isaac 
 Disraeli, from his retreat in the " King's Road, Bedford 
 Row," sent a letter of profuse thanks for " one of the 
 most extraordinary gratifications he had enjoyed for 
 many years," and declared that the book " had made 
 him return with ardour to a favourite bibliographical 
 scheme at which he had long been labouring." Mr. 
 Douce, ever the most amiable and courteous of anti- 
 quarians, declared that Dibdin had " put an additional 
 ten per cent, on his gratitude for his friendship and 
 kindness in all respects." Sir Egerton Brydges swelled 
 the chorus with a letter written in that curiously 
 affected English which antiquarians of Dibdin's class 
 appear to think the height of humour. Even the re- 
 viewers, for whom, as a body, Dibdin entertained a very 
 author-like detestation, were more than kind in their 
 notices of the book. The most remarkable testimony to 
 its success is, however, to be found in the sudden impulse 
 which it gave to the pursuit of bibliography. Dibdin's 
 enthusiasm set the fashion, and though none of his 
 contemporaries had, like him, the purses of wealthy 
 amateurs upon which to draw, they bought eagerly at 
 the sales which from time to time took place, so that 
 the possessors of really fine and rare books found the 
 value of their property multiplied manyfold. It was 
 not long before the great library of the Duke of Rox- 
 

 Dr. Dibdin and the Roxburgh* Club. 285 
 
 burghe was brought to the hammer, and Dibdin 
 declares his belief that he is uttering only the " sober 
 truth " when he states that the sale benefited to the 
 extent of 5000Z. by the opportune publication of his 
 book. 
 
 The story of this sale is told by Dibdin in the work 
 by which he is best known — the " Bibliographical 
 Decameron.' ' As usual, however, the learned Doctor 
 cannot tell a plain tale in a plain way, so overloads 
 his pages with the raptures ol an enthusiasm which it 
 is hard to believe altogether unaffected, and so piles 
 notes and comments upon his text, that the reader 
 who goes for actual information to this book finds 
 considerable difficulty in understanding what took 
 place. Reduced to its elements, the matter is simple 
 enough. The Duke of Roxburghe inherited a fine 
 library, a strong taste for bibliography, and a fortune 
 which enabled him to indulge his predilections without 
 stint. He was an omnivorous collector, and his agents 
 had orders to buy up for him all that was best and 
 rarest in the book-market. He was. almost regardless 
 of cost, and when he made his appearance in the 
 auction-room, his enthusiasm often led him to pay 
 outrageous prices for books of very small intrinsic 
 value. Dibdin in several places tells a story of his 
 being at an auction at which the price of a coveted 
 book had mounted up to a point far beyond its real 
 value. The Duke's agent asked for further instruc- 
 tions, and was answered in the words of Macbeth, 
 " Lay on, Macduff, and damned be he that first cries 
 ' hold, enough ! ' " When the library came to be sold, 
 the bibliomaniacal enthusiasm was at its height, and 
 the prices realized would have reconciled its late owner 
 to the dispersion of his collection. Thus, a copy of 
 
286 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 the first edition of Shakespeare, for which the Duke 
 had given 35/., sold for 100/., and the collection of 
 curious old ballads, in three large folio volumes, which 
 is now in the British Museum, brought 477/. 15s. The 
 great feature of the sale was of course the well-known 
 contest for the " Valdarfar Boccaccio." Dibdin's pomp- 
 ous and foolish account of this contest has been so fre- 
 quently quoted that it is unnecessary to repeat it here. 
 All that need be said is that the copy of the work was 
 bought by Lord Spencer for no less a sum than 2260/. 
 How utterly this fantastic price was a matter of 
 fashion may be estimated from the fact that when, a 
 few years later, the book was sold again, it brought no 
 more than 785/. 
 
 Interesting in itself, the sale becomes doubly in- 
 teresting from the fact that it was the moving cause 
 of the foundation of the Roxburghe Club. The first 
 glimpse of this much-talked-of institution is afforded 
 in a passage of the third volume of the "Bibliographical 
 Decameron," in which Dibdin describes, in his usual 
 florid style, a dinner-party at the house of "Hortensius" 
 — Mr., afterwards Baron, Bolland — on the night of 
 the 4th of June, 1813. It is worthy of note that in 
 his " Reminiscences," Dibdin, who is always repeating 
 his own stories, puts the date of this banquet as the 
 16th of June. The description of this dinner occupies 
 some forty pages of not the easiest reading in the 
 world, as will be seen by the following sentence. 
 After describing the Library of Hortensius, Dibdin 
 goes on : " Nor is the hospitality of the owner 
 of these treasures of a less quality and calibre than 
 his taste ; for Hortensius regaleth liberally — and as 
 the ' night and day champagnes ' (so he is pleased 
 humorously to call them) sparkle upon his Gottingen 
 
Dr. Dibdin and the Roxburghe Chtb. 287 
 
 manufactured table cloth, c the master of the revels,' 
 or (to borrow the phraseology of Pynson) of the ' f este 
 royalle' discourseth lustily and loudly upon the 
 charms — not of a full-curled, or full-bottomed ' King's 
 Bench' periwig — but of a full-margined Bartholomaeus, 
 or Barclay like his own." It must be owned that 
 forty folio pages of this sort of elaborate trifling 
 become rather tedious. At last, however, we see 
 land in a sentence which, for Dibdin, is tolerably lucid, 
 and which describes his proposal " that we should not 
 only be all present if possible, on the day of the sale 
 of the ' Boccaccio,' but that we should meet at some 
 ' faire taverne ' to commemorate the sale thereof." 
 The place selected was the " St. Alban's Tavern, in 
 St. Alban's Street, now Waterloo Place," — a well- 
 known house of entertainment upon the site of which 
 the old Athenaeum Club was afterwards built. The 
 dinner took place in due course, Dibdin being the 
 guiding spirit of the affair, and occupying the vice- 
 chair, whilst Lord Spencer presided. 
 
 Out of this dinner sprang the Roxburghe Club, 
 which for many years met to dine on the 17th of June, 
 in commemoration of the sale of the "Valdarfar 
 Boccaccio." On the first occasion eighteen dined ; on 
 the second and third anniversaries the number was 
 increased to thirty-one, which was fixed as the maxi- 
 mum. It was one of the most exclusive bodies in 
 existence. One black ball excluded a candidate, and 
 the number being so very limited, vacancies were of 
 very infrequent occurrence. There is, however, reason 
 for something more than doubt as to the desirability 
 of belonging to it. Had Dibdin alone chronicled its 
 doings, the world might have remained under the im- 
 pression that it was a grave and decorous assemblage 
 
288 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 of gentlemen and scholars, bent solely npon promoting 
 the interests of letters. Unfortunately for its reputa- 
 tion the Club numbered amongst its members a certain 
 Joseph Haslewood, who wrote, for his own diversion, a 
 chronicle of its proceedings. This Haslewood was a 
 person of extremely humble origin — according to 
 Dibdin, he was born in the lying-in-hospital in 
 Brownlow Street — and his education corresponded with 
 his birth. By a series of accidents, he was brought 
 into the clique which afterwards formed the Rox- 
 burghe Club, and when it was founded he was admitted 
 to it, and entrusted with the editorship of some of its 
 publications, though he was one of the most ignorant 
 men in existence. At Haslewood' s death his books 
 were sold, and amongst them was a manuscript 
 volume to which he had given the following title : — 
 " Roxburghe Revels; or, an Account of Annual Display 
 Culinary and Festivious, interspersed incidentally with 
 Matters of Moment or Merriment, Also brief notices 
 of the Press Proceedings by a few Lions of Literature, 
 combined as the Roxburghe Club, founded 17th June, 
 1812." The title-page gives a fair idea of the book 
 itself. Dibdin, indeed, talks of it as " the concoction 
 of one in his gayer and unsuspecting moments — the 
 repository of private confidential communications — a 
 mere memorandum of what had passed at convivial 
 meetings, and in which ' winged words ' and flying 
 notes of merry gentlemen and friends were obviously 
 incorporated. " Even Dibdin, though he thinks " his 
 friend's style delectably original," finds himself com- 
 pelled to reprehend the more preposterous of Hasle- 
 wood's blunders. " He (Haslewood) was," he says, 
 " amazingly fond of fine words in his written compo- 
 sitions, and misapplied them in a manner never exceeded 
 
Dr. Dibdin and the Roxburghe Club. 289 
 
 by the antiquated Mrs. Slipslop, or her modern 
 imitator Mrs. Malaprop : — an important work was 
 always ■ consequential ' and an unimportant one 
 6 inconsequential ; ' a reference was generally c allu- 
 sional ' and sometimes ' allusive ; ' a book seldom met 
 with w^as ' infrequential,' and tracts corresponding 
 in subject were ' anomalous.' " Yet this exceptionally 
 stupid man became the real historian of the Roxburghe 
 Club, and it is from his pages that we obtain the 
 clearest idea of what was really done by a literary 
 society of the highest pretensions and most exclusive 
 character. 
 
 For many years the proceedings of these u Lions of 
 Literature " were confined to the annual dinner, the 
 invitation to which was, according to Dibdin, sent out 
 by the landlord of the tavern at which it was held. 
 It must, however, have taken a Haslewood to invent 
 such a sentence as " The honour of your company is 
 requested to dine with the Roxburghe dinner on 
 Wednesday, the 17th inst.," which was the common 
 form of the club. The dinners themselves were 
 somewhat astonishing. The men of the last genera- 
 tion must, indeed, have possessed heads of abnormal 
 hardness, and digestions of extraordinary strength, if 
 they could endure many such "feeds" as are recorded 
 in these pages. To the more fastidious taste of to- 
 day the dinners seem to have been rather unpleasant 
 orgies, with a good deal more drunkenness than would 
 be tolerated in modern society. Thus one of the 
 events which Haslewood deems worthy of record is 
 his having been compelled to " leave the room very 
 early from a severe attack of sickness, which appeared 
 to originate in some vile compound partook (sic) of at 
 dinner." On another occasion the Rev. Mr. Dodd (son 
 
 u 
 
290 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 of Dodd the actor) was " very volatile and somewhat 
 singular, at the same time quite novel, in amusing the 
 company with Robin Hood ballads and similar pro- 
 ductions." Dibdin, by the way, mentions the same 
 event with the additional fact that it occurred " when 
 the wine had done either its best or its worst." This 
 state of things may be accounted for by the quantity 
 of food and drink consumed on these occasions. The 
 dinner was always a good one. " Consider," says 
 Haslewood, in that offensive style of his which makes 
 the " Roxburgh Revels " such tiresome reading, — 
 " Consider, in the bird's-eye view of the banquet, the 
 trencher cuts, foh ! nankeen displays : as inters ticed 
 with many a brilliant drop to friendly beck and 
 clubbish hail, to moisten the viands or cool the in- 
 cipient cayenne. No unfamished livery-man would 
 desire better dishes, or high-tasted courtier better 
 wines. With men that meet to commune, that can 
 converse, and each willing to give and receive infor- 
 mation, more could not be wanting to promote well- 
 tempered conviviality — a social compound of mirth, 
 wit, and wisdom; combining all that Anacreon was 
 famed for, tempered with the reason of Demosthenes, 
 and intersected with the archness of Scaliger." After 
 the dinner, thus pleasantly interrupted with continual 
 challenges to " take wine " after the manner of half a 
 century ago, came the toasts, of which Haslewood 
 gives the following list. 
 
 Cije ©rtrer of f)e Coster 
 
 Cfje Immortal HfUmon; of 
 gotjn, Bufee of Itotfmtoje. 
 Cijristopfjer *fcJaltjarfer, Printer of tje SJecameron of 
 1471. 
 
Dr. Dibdin and the Roxburghe Club. 291 
 
 <£utembutg, dFust antr Scfioefffjet, tfte Inbentots of 
 
 tfie &rt of Ictntmg. 
 
 Sffiatlliam OTaiton, tfte dFatfjec of tf)e Ettttsf) Iress. 
 
 23ame fjuliana Werners antJ tf)e Sbt &iban's ^ress, 
 
 SHgnfegn tie WlotU an* ifttcfjarb $gnson, tlje Ellus- 
 
 trious successors of SSatlliam (Kaxton. 
 
 €{)e aWne df amtlg at Venice. 
 
 Cfje <&tunta dFamtlg at ^Florence. 
 
 Cfje Socictg of iStbltopttles at ^atts. 
 
 &fje ^rosperitg of tfje iftoxfiutofie <Elui>. 
 
 Cfje cause of H3ttltomanta all obet tje S2Eorltj. a 
 
 These eleven toasts disposed of — with it is to be 
 presumed the addition of those loyal expressions 
 without which no Englishman would consider a public 
 dinner complete — the serious drinking of the evening 
 would set in. Haslewood more than hints at the 
 results. " It is true we had not any long oration 
 denouncing the absentees, the cabinet council, or any 
 other set of men ; but there was not a man present 
 that at one hour and seventeen minutes after the cloth 
 was removed, but could have made a Demosthenic 
 speech far superior to any record of antiquity. .. . . 
 Ancients believe it ! we were not dead drunk." 
 
 This exuberant conviviality grew, instead of dimin- 
 ishing, as time went on. The club began in a fairly 
 modest way with a dinner, costing, with wine, about 
 " 21. 5s. per man." On the next occasion, when twenty 
 members sat down, the bill was 57Z., or " 21. 17s. 
 per man." On this occasion forty-five bottles of wine 
 were consumed, besides "beer and ale," to the value 
 
 2 It is hardly necessary at this time to point out the ridiculous con- 
 fusion which Haslewood makes between the English " y " arid the 
 early English " thorn " — a confusion which has done more to deface 
 eighteenth century tombstones than anything' else. 
 
 u 2 
 
292 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 of six shillings. The crowning feast was held in 1818, 
 when fifteen of the " Lions of Literature " made their 
 way eastward as far as the Albion, in Aldersgate Street, 
 and spent 85Z. 9s. 6d. on their meal — hi. 14s. — per 
 "beast," as the Athenceum put it. The bill, as 
 given by Haslewood, is perhaps the most remarkable 
 combination of literature and gluttony in existence. 
 The " dinners " are charged 91. 9s. — but in addition 
 are to be found such items as " 501b. Turtle, 121. 10s. ; " 
 " Dressing ditto, 21. 2s. ;" " Two haunches of Venison, 
 101. 10s. ; " " Sweet Sauce and Dressing, 1/. 4s. ; " 
 " Bread and Beer, 9s. ; " " Cheas and Butter, 9s. ; " 
 "Desert, 61, 6s." and "Pine Ice Creams, 11. 16s." 
 The drink included Strong Beer, Maderia, Champagne, 
 Saturn e, Old Hoc, Burgundy, Hermitage, Silery, 
 Sherry, St. Percy, Old Port, Turtle Punch, and Claret 
 — the charge for the last item alone being 111. 4s. 3 
 
 The fame of these festive gatherings spread far and 
 wide. Indeed, it was not until Haslewood's indiscre- 
 tions were given to the world that the true character 
 of the club was more than surmised, though in the 
 periodical literature of the period between 1815 and 
 1837, when Dibdin's apology was given to the world, 
 there are not unfrequently " flouts and gibes and 
 jeers " at the expense of the confraternity. Much of 
 the fame which it has since enjoyed has been due to the 
 association of Sir Walter Scott with it — slight though 
 that association really was. The facts of the matter 
 are simple enough. After about 1820 the anonymity 
 of " the author of ' Waverley ' " sat very loosely upon 
 him, and when in 1823 " Peveril of the Peak" was 
 given to the world everybody who was interested in the 
 
 3 The orthography is Haslewood's. 
 
Dr. Dibdin and the Roxburghe Chib. 293 
 
 matter had penetrated Scott's disguise. In the 
 epistle introductory to that volume, Clutterbuck 
 amuses Dryasdust with an account of a visit from " the 
 author of ' Waverley,' " who apologized for the excellence 
 of his appetite by alleging that he was in training for 
 the anniversary of the Roxburghe Club. " He was 
 preparing himself to hob-nob with the lords of the 
 literary treasures of Althorpe and Hodnet in Madeira 
 negus, brewed by the classical Dibdin." Lockhart is 
 careful to mention that this pleasantry had reference 
 not to the Roxburghe Club, but to Scott's favourite 
 Bannatyne Club, of which he was founder and first 
 president. Be this as it may, Dibdin, as Secretary 
 of the club, wrote to Scott in these terms : — " The 
 death of Sir M. Sykes having occasioned a vacancy in 
 our club, I am desired to request that you will have 
 the goodness to make that fact known to the Author of 
 'Waverley,' who, from the ' Proheme' to ' Peveril of the 
 Peak,' seems disposed to become one of the members 
 thereof : and I am further desired to express the 
 wishes of the said club that the said Author may 
 succeed to the said Baronet." Sir Walter's answer 
 was to the effect that he would find means to convey 
 the message to the " author of ' Waverley,' " and he 
 added, as it was of course intended he should do, "as his 
 personal appearance in the fraternity is not likely to be 
 a speedy event the table of the Roxburghe, like that 
 of King Arthur, will have a vacant chair. But if this 
 author, who hath fern seed and walketh invisible, should 
 not appear to claim it before I come to London, with 
 the permission of the club, I, who have something of 
 adventure in me, although a knight like Sir Andrew 
 Aguecheek ' dubbed with unhacked rapier and on carpet 
 consideration,' would, rather than lose the chance of a 
 
294 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 dinner with the Eoxburghe Club, take upon me the 
 adventure of the Siege Perilous, and reap some amends 
 for the perils and scandals into which the invisible 
 champion has drawn me by being his locum tenens on 
 so distinguished an occasion," Dibdin, on behalf of 
 the club, eagerly accepted the offer ; and Scott, in his 
 reply, protested that he considered his election as a 
 member as "an honour which he valued more than 
 that which had been bestowed upon him by the credit 
 of having written any of the novels. " He appears, 
 however, to have dined with the club once only, on 
 which occasion the genial Haslewood reports that " the 
 Giant of the North had his power of amusement 
 damped by the incertitude of the event of the dangerous 
 illness of his grandson." The sitting after dinner 
 lasted for but three hours, when " the Bill was called, 
 and Exit." With that dinner, Sir Walter's association 
 with the Eoxburghe Club began and ended. 
 
 It is not quite easy to see why Scott should have 
 valued admission to this fraternity so highly, unless, 
 indeed, he were influenced by the reputation for exclu- 
 siveness which the Eoxburghites so zealously main- 
 tained. What the club did besides eating and 
 drinking, extravagantly, at all events, during the first 
 fifteen years of its existence, it would be difficult to 
 say. A tablet to the memory of Caxton was, it is 
 true, ordered with the intention of having it erected in 
 Westminster Abbey, at the cost of the club, but when 
 the site was selected the Eoxburghers refused to pay 
 the fees, and the tablet was accordingly relegated to a 
 position over the vestry door of St. Margaret's Church 
 hard by, but the inscription is quite as much to the glory 
 of the club as of the first printer, and its cost was con- 
 siderably less than that of a single dinner. The services 
 
Dr. Dibdin and the Roxburghe Club. 295 
 
 of the club to literature were insignificant. According 
 to Haslewood, at the second meeting, u it was proposed 
 and concluded for each member of the club to reprint 
 a scarce piece of ancient lore to be given to the mem- 
 bers, one copy to be on vellum for the chairman, and 
 only as many copies as members." It unfortunately 
 happened that the publications of the club were of the 
 most ridiculously trivial kind. The first was a 
 "merry-conceited jest " on the part of one of the mem- 
 bers, who reprinted a little French tract called " La 
 Contenance de la Table," and disposed it amongst the 
 napkins at the dinner, so that each guest found it in 
 the place of the usual dinner-roll. 
 
 It is no matter for wonder that the authorities of 
 literature scoffed at the pretensions of the club. A 
 writer in the Quarterly Revieiv, in 1825, is justly 
 severe on the paltriness of the Roxburghe Reprints. 
 " Out of six reprints," he says, " four are as follows : — 
 1 Dolarny's Primrose,' ' News from Scotland, declaring 
 the damnable life of Dr. Fian, a notable Sorcerer;' 
 1 The three first Books of Ovid de Tristibus,' translated 
 into English metre by Thomas Churchyarde ; ' Caltha 
 Poetarum, or the Bumble Bee,' composed by Thomas 
 Cutwode, Esq. And," adds the reviewer, "among the 
 treasures with which the club are promised to be 
 gratified are some scarcely less valuable productions, 
 such as ' Cocke Lorell's Bote,' ' The Glutton's 
 Feaver,' and * Mery Gestes of the Wydow Edith.' " 
 Haslewood' s " indiscretions," as Dibdin calls the 
 1 Roxburghe Revels,' show that the habit of reprinting 
 trash clung to the club so long as Dibdin remained 
 its guiding spirit. " The Complaynte of a Lover's 
 Life," " Controversy between a Lover and a Jay," 
 "The Chorle and the Bird," "Diaphantus, or the 
 
296 Eighteenth Centwy Studies. 
 
 Passions of Love," and "The Solemnities and Triumphs 
 done and made at the Spousells and Marriage of the 
 King's Dorter," sufficiently mark the character of the 
 club. It was not until Dibdin ceased to be its principal 
 member, and Haslewood its editor, that a better state of 
 things came about. Kemonstrance, mockery, and 
 severe criticism, however, at last did their work, and, 
 in 1827, the Roxburghe Club, much to their credit, 
 emancipated themselves from the absurd tyranny under 
 which they had until that time existed. To Hasle- 
 wood' s immense disgust he was deposed from the post 
 of editor, for which he had not one solitary qualifica- 
 tion ; and Sir Frederick Madden having been taken 
 into council, the metrical romance of " Havelok the 
 Dane " was published under his care. Eighty copies 
 instead of thirty-one were issued, and the club began 
 from this time to take a more worthy place in the 
 republic of letters. It is amusing to note Haslewood's 
 wrath over the change and his complaint that " a MS. 
 not discovered by a member of the club was selected, 
 and an extract obtained, not furnished by the industry 
 or under the inspection of any one member, nor edited 
 by a member ; but in fact after much pro and con, it 
 was made a complete hireling concern, truly at the ex- 
 pense of the club from the copying to the publishing." 
 With the later history of the Roxburghe Club 
 Dibdin had little to do. Bibliomania, as he understood 
 it, was, in fact, going out of fashion, and men of 
 letters reasserted their supremacy. As has already 
 been observed, Dibdin was a mere antiquarian. For 
 the contents of the books under his consideration he 
 cared nothing. He is great in title-pages and in bind- 
 ings ; he knows all the mysterious details concerning 
 "Tall copies " and editions printed on vellum, but it 
 
Dr. Dibdin and the Roxburghe Club. 297 
 
 is difficult to conceive of him as smitten by a lofty 
 thought, or interested by a happy phrase. The erudite 
 Brunet, with whom he has been sometimes compared, 
 has a finely ironical remark in one of his notes which, 
 taken literally, is curiously applicable to Dibdin. In 
 speaking of the Elzevir Cgesar, in the Bibliotheque 
 Imperiale, at Paris, Brunet mentions that it is the 
 tallest copy in existence, being four inches and ten- 
 twelfths in height, whilst other copies do not exceed 
 four inches and eight, or at most nine-twelfths. He 
 adds, " Ces details paraitront sans doute puerils a bien 
 des gens : mais puisque c'est la grandeur des marges 
 de ces sortes de livres qu'en determine la valeur, il faut 
 bien fixer le maximum de cette grandeur, afin que les 
 amateurs puissent apprecier les exemplaires qui appro- 
 chent plus ou moins de la mesure donnee." Dibdin' s 
 books are full of these details puerils, and of little else, 
 and this it is which makes them such heavy reading. 
 Two books yet remain to prove the truth of this verdict. 
 One is a translation of Sir Thomas More's " Utopia," 
 which was published under his editorial care in 1809. 
 The translation selected was the all but unknown one 
 of " Ralph Robinson," of which the Edinburgh Review 
 declared that it was " republished, not because it was 
 the best, but because it was the oldest and scarcest, 
 Mr. Dibdin having adopted for his motto, in common 
 with most other collectors, the converse of the familiar 
 apophthegm, ■ omnia prseclara esse rara.' It is full of 
 obsolete words, uncouth phrases, and bad grammar." 
 The other evidence is afforded by the large and costly 
 volume which Dibdin published under the queer title 
 of " The Library Companion, or the Young Man's 
 Guide and the Old Man's Comfort in the Choice of a 
 Library." This is not professedly designed as a manual 
 
298 Eighteenth Cenhiry Studies. 
 
 of rare and curious books, but as a handbook for 
 those who wish to form a library of general literature. 
 Yet if the reader turns to the index in search of the 
 giants of literature, he finds them conspicuously 
 absent, while their places are supplied by the pigmies. 
 An idea of the whole book may be formed from 
 the fact that one of the most prominent positions in 
 it is assigned to the valuable editorial labours of Mr. 
 Joseph Haslewood. 
 
 In 1821, Dibdin published in two immense volumes 
 a " Bibliographical Tour in France and Germany," 
 chiefly remarkable for the extraordinarily sumptuous 
 fashion in which it was got up. The letterpress is 
 dull where it is not flippant, and the events recorded 
 are often apocryphal. One circumstance, and one 
 only, of interest attaches to the volumes. They 
 were dedicated to the noblemen and gentlemen of the 
 Roxburghe Club, but the high price apparently de- 
 terred many of them from subscribing, and accordingly, 
 Dibdin's " Letters and Reminiscences " contain an im- 
 mense amount of grumbling over their shabbiness. 
 Seventeen years later he produced a " Tour in the 
 Northern Counties of England and in Scotland," 
 similarly got up, and almost as dull. Instead, how- 
 ever, of attempting a critical notice of it, I may quote 
 in this place from Lord Cockburn's amusing journal. 
 " Dr. Dibdin, the bibliomaniac," he says, " was here 
 for a few days last year, and saw very little, on the 
 strength of which little he has published a ' Northern 
 Tour,' a mass of nonsense, for which, however, he has 
 had the sense to make his foolish subscribers pay several 
 guineas each. 3 He did not see, or try to see, the 
 
 8 The price was 81. 18s. 6d. for large paper, and 41. lis. 6d. for small 
 paper copies. 
 
Dr. Dibdin and the Roxburghe Chcb. 299 
 
 libraries at New Hailes, or Barskimming, or Aberdeen, 
 or Arniston, or Minto, or at many other places, where 
 they are far better than many Scotch ones he praises. 
 His time was wasted in courting and receiving low 
 flattery. His account of the Edinburgh bookworms 
 is ludicrous, and affords a fair test of his other expen- 
 sive and splendid tours. He says that Macvey Napier's 
 tablecloth was so beautiful that it might justly be the 
 boast of the ' British Linen Company ! ' My name 
 stands 6 high in the annals of humanity ' for my gene- 
 rosity to the family of Burns ! — to no part of which 
 family had I ever an opportunity of doing any, even 
 the very slightest, good ; not even by a kind word. 
 And my brother-in-law, Thomas Maitland, is the 
 author, it seems, of a work upon Pawnbroking ! But 
 every paragraph is equally asinine. He says that it is 
 difficult to find any horse in Edinburgh except a grey 
 one." Unlike its predecessor, this tour was not 
 dedicated to the Eoxburghe Club, but to Miss Currer, 
 of Eshton Hall, in Yorkshire — the lady from whom 
 Charlotte Bronte borrowed one-half of her pseudonym. 
 There was a good reason for the change. The Eox- 
 burghe Club was dead when it was published — dead, 
 one is forced to believe, from heavy dinners, Mr. 
 Haslewood's editing, and Dr. Dibdin's demands on the 
 purses of the members. The last meeting was held 
 in 1833, the club having achieved during its much- 
 belauded existence the honour of issuing two creditable 
 publications — Havelok the Dane, and William and the 
 Wehr-wolf — which, however, owe their value to the 
 editorial care of Sir Frederick Madden, who himself 
 was never a member. 
 
 The latter part of Dibdin's life was melancholy in 
 the extreme. His means were considerably hampered 
 
300 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 in consequence of an unfortunate quarrel with a Mr. 
 Sleigh, who, in the course of the year 1828, started a 
 private hospital in his Marylebone parish. This Mr. 
 Sleigh had been introduced to Dibdin by Sir Charles 
 Scudamore, but circumstances which speedily came to 
 light induced Sir Charles to withdraw his recommenda- 
 tion. The hospital was discontinued, and the clergy 
 of Marylebone, with Dr. Dibdin at their head, published 
 a repudiation of all connexion with it. An action for 
 libel was thereupon brought by Mr. Sleigh, and, though 
 it failed, Dibdin was saddled with the costs, amounting 
 to some 1200/. From that time his life is one long 
 record of more or less dignified efforts to maintain his 
 position, and had it not been for the constant aid and 
 comfort of his faithful friend, Dr. Bliss — the Public 
 Registrar of Oxford — 'he would unquestionably have 
 come to even worse grief than befell him. At one time 
 we find him proposing to give six lectures on the 
 Reformation at Oxford. The letter placed in the 
 volume of " Tracts, &c.,by Dr. Dibdin," in the British 
 Museum, begins, " My dear Bliss, think twice before 
 you reply ; " and has a note in Dr. Bliss's handwriting — 
 m Wrote by return to advise that the scheme should be 
 abandoned, but he came, printed circulars and failed." 
 Then comes a proposal for a journey to Italy, to be 
 undertaken at the expense of twelve patrons, who were 
 to subscribe fifty pounds each, receiving in return one- 
 half the sum advanced and a large paper copy of the 
 book which Dibdin proposed to write. Four patrons 
 only were secured — the Duke of Sutherland, the Earl 
 of Powis, Mr. Hudson Gurney, and Dr. Routh, the 
 venerable President of Magdalen. The last was always 
 one of the kindest and warmest of Dibdin' s patrons ; 
 and several of his letters, breathing nothing but 
 
Dr. Dibdin and the Roxburghe Club. 301 
 
 generosity and goodwill, are to be found in the volume 
 to which reference has already been made. 
 
 Other schemes were tried, but all seem to have failed. 
 There is a proposed handbook to Berkshire, which 
 seems to have got as far as the first sheet ; then a 
 scheme for a Dover guide-book, on the old grand scale, 
 but all to no purpose. At last Dibdin's debts brought 
 about his arrest, and he was compelled to plead his 
 privilege as one of her Majesty's chaplains. After 
 this the correspondence becomes increasingly painful. 
 The burden is always the same — ill-health and the 
 want of money. At one time — about the period of the 
 Hampden eontroversy — " poverty alone keeps him 
 from Oxford.' ' At another, a malicious servant puts 
 arsenic into his soup, and all but kills him. Four 
 months later he begs Dr. Bliss to accept his "heartiest 
 demonstrations of regard and thankfulness for his late 
 bountiful attention" (adonation of 101.). "It was," adds 
 Dibdin, " too acceptable." Even Dr. Bliss tires after 
 a while of these constant appeals for help, and a letter 
 dated at the end of 1 845 refers to an intimation from 
 him that Dibdin " only knew how to spend and get rid 
 of money." All through 1846 and 1847 the burden is 
 the same. Dibdin is gradually sinking into the grave 
 from disease of the brain, and his family have no other 
 resource than the contributions of his friends. On the 
 31st of December, 1845, he writes an all but illegible 
 scrawl to " my dear Bliss," thanking him " with all 
 his soul " for another 101. note ; and in March he 
 writes his last letter to acknowledge " with thankful- 
 ness and gratefulness of heart" a similar donation. 
 On the 18th of November he died, leaving his family 
 in cruel distress. Lord John Russell positively refused 
 to place his daughter's name on the Pension List, and 
 
302 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 the Spencer family declined to use their influence. As 
 to the Roxburghe Club, " it is evident," writes his 
 daughter in 1848, " that they will do nothing." " Had 
 it not been," adds Miss Dibdin, " for one friend, I 
 should positively have been without a shilling." 
 
 It is not quite easy to understand why this deplor- 
 able poverty should have clouded Dibdin's latter days. 
 For several years he enjoyed an exceptionally good 
 income. His living of Exning, in Suffolk, was of the 
 gross value of 450Z. a year, with a house. He, how- 
 ever, was non-resident, so that probably a hundred a 
 year less than that sum would represent its value to 
 him. St. Mary's, Bryanston Square, is of variable 
 value, but averages from 700Z. to 1000L a year, accord- 
 ing to Crockford. Both these livings were held by 
 Dibdin for many years, and he was, besides, for a con- 
 siderable time, librarian to Earl Spencer, from whom 
 he undoubtedly received an ample salary. His books 
 were not intrinsically of any great value from the 
 reader's point of view, but they sold well — chiefly by 
 subscription ; and as their price was exceedingly high, 
 they must have formed no unimportant source of 
 revenue. Nor was his own expenditure upon rare and 
 choice books by any means extravagant. He bought 
 at great prices for the gratification of his noble patrons, 
 but his own acquisitions were of the most trumpery 
 kind. If he bought, it was to sell again ; and the 
 " lytell boke," as he affectedly calls the catalogue of 
 his library, contains nothing which implies the expen- 
 diture of any great amount of money. What explana- 
 tion can be given of the poverty of his later days it is 
 impossible to say. The fact of its existence is, how- 
 ever, too certain ; and it is to be feared that posterity 
 will hardly take sufficient interest in Dibdin to trouble 
 
Dr. Dibdin and the Roxburghe Club, 303 
 
 itself much to find excuses for it. It is a mere matter 
 of fact that his reputation is dead, and that in spite of 
 the place which some of his books occupy in public 
 libraries, and in spite furthermore of the occasional 
 references made to them by writers interested in ques- 
 tions of bibliography, it is not likely to be revived. 
 Divested of their gorgeous exterior, his writings are 
 of the most insignificant value; and in these days, 
 if an author wishes to hand down an honoured name 
 to posterity, he must be content to do so in another 
 way than by making his books typographical marvels 
 or adorning them with extravagantly costly engravings. 
 
 
3°4 
 
 JOSEPH PRIESTLEY. 
 
 Amongst the men of the eighteenth century who took 
 part in the great political struggle which arose in this 
 country contemporaneously with, and partly as a con- 
 sequence of, the French Revolution, there is none about 
 whom more contradictory opinions have been formed 
 than the Unitarian preacher whose name heads this 
 page. On the one hand he is exalted as something 
 almost more than human ; on the other he is placed on 
 a level with the most infamous of those who were re- 
 sponsible for the Reign of Terror. The admirers of 
 the Lichfield clique, and Dissenters of every type have 
 for at least two generations exhausted themselves in 
 admiration of the mild genius and saintly character of 
 the philosophical recluse of Birmingham, whose library, 
 manuscripts, and philosophical instruments were so 
 wickedly burned by the Tory mob. According to these 
 ardent souls, Joseph Priestley was the meekest of men, 
 a very saint of God, of astonishing scientific attain- 
 ments, and of a character so ethereally pure that he 
 might have stood as the model for Rufus Lyon/ in the 
 immortal story of Felix Holt. His political opinions 
 were, in their eyes, merely speculative; and to have 
 opposed him in any way is merely a proof of the in- 
 tolerance and innate cruelty of the Tory mind. His 
 assailants were the poets of the " An ti- Jacobin," and 
 it is worthy of note that the accomplished editor of the 
 last edition of the poetry of that journal is so impressed 
 
Joseph Priestley. 305 
 
 by the persistency with which the exalted view of 
 Priestley's character is put forward, that he speaks 
 somewhat apologetically of the lively satire with which 
 he is there visited. On the principle of a man being 
 known by the company he keeps, it is, however, easy 
 to understand why Priestley should have been very 
 vigorously attacked. The associate of Thelwall, Home 
 Tooke, Gilbert Wakefield, and the rest of that clique 
 of admirers of the French Revolution and its principles, 
 was likely to meet with somewhat strenuous opposition 
 in the stormy quarter of a century which ended with 
 1815. Something more may be added. That Priestley 
 was himself a man of peace is probable enough. His 
 theories were, however, anything but peaceful, and he 
 seems to have been always ready to applaud the most 
 violent and outrageous acts of the revolutionary party 
 on condition only that they were perpetrated in the 
 name of liberty. 
 
 It appears to be thought by his admirers that any 
 little errors into which he may have fallen in matters 
 of politics ought to be considered as atoned for by his 
 great and valuable scientific discoveries, or by his 
 laborious theological speculations ; and it may be 
 worth while briefly to investigate these claims. At the 
 outset, it may be admitted that Priestley was a most 
 voluminous author. " Dr. Priestley," says the Edin- 
 burgh Revieiv, u has written more and on a greater 
 variety of subjects than any other English author." 
 Mr. James Martineau, who, as a Unitarian, naturally 
 entertains a great reverence for so distinguished a 
 member of the sect which he adorns, is greatly im- 
 pressed with Priestley's versatility of mind. " To 
 refer to a catalogue of Dr. Priestley's works is," he 
 says, "like consulting the prospectus of an encyclo' 
 
 x 
 
306 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 psedia ; and it is impossible to remember that they are 
 all the productions of one individual, without the im- 
 pression that his mind was more adventurous than 
 profound, and his vision more telescopic than micro- 
 scopic." Brougham is less complimentary, and does 
 not trouble himself to veil his adverse opinion in any 
 such flattering phrase. " He is one of the most vo- 
 luminous writers of any age or country, and probably 
 he is, of all voluminous writers, the one who has the 
 fewest readers." It would have been strange, indeed, 
 had the case been otherwise. Priestley's separate publi- 
 cations number altogether one hundred and forty-one, 
 occupying many pages of the catalogue of the British 
 Museum Library, ranging from slender pamphlets to 
 solid quartos, and filling in the collected edition no fewer 
 than forty-five large and closely-printed volumes. Five 
 or six of these are occupied by scientific dissertations, 
 the remainder being devoted to discussions of all con- 
 ceivable topics. Thus we find him writing on the Theory 
 of Language; on Oratory and Criticism ; on the History, 
 General Policy, Laws, and Constitution of England, 
 and on Education. Presently he publishes a Chart of 
 History; then a Chart of Biography. His scientific 
 labours are diversified with theological controversies, 
 and with the tracts and pamphlets which accompanied 
 those controversies as a matter of course. One day 
 he answers the philosophical scepticism of Gibbon. 
 Then in rapid succession fall from the press Disquisi- 
 tions on Matter and Spirit ; two Histories of the Chris- 
 tian Church ; a Comparison of Heathen and Christian 
 Philosophy ; and an Essay on the Doctrine of Ne- 
 cessity, to which he became a convert at a very early 
 age. Politics come in for a large share of his attention, 
 and he writes voluminously in support of the Catholic 
 
Joseph Priestley. 307 
 
 Claims and in defence of the French Revolution and of 
 the revolted colonists of North America. His contro- 
 versial works are the most considerable of his writings 
 in point of bulk, filling, as they do, no fewer than 
 twenty thick volumes. It is hardly necessary to say 
 that all this controversy is as dead as its author ; but 
 it is curious to turn over some of these volumes and to 
 note the leading characteristics of Priestley's manner. 
 Conscious, apparently, of his individual weakness, he 
 contrived, as a rule, to shelter himself behind the 
 name of a great opponent. Amongst those whom he 
 thus entangled were personages no less important than 
 Bishop Horsley, Hume, and Gibbon. The result of 
 these astute tactics was that a great number of people, 
 who would have been unlikely in the extreme to trouble 
 themselves with the independent writings of an obscure 
 Unitarian preacher in a provincial town, were inte- 
 rested in a controversy, one of the parties to which was 
 a man of European reputation. 
 
 As a controversialist, Priestley was not distinguished. 
 Speaking of his studies in natural philosophy, Brougham 
 remarks that he was an admirable observer in matters 
 of experiment, but a superficial and inaccurate reasoner; 
 and very much the same opinion may be formed of his 
 controversial quality in matters of theology. He makes 
 his point in a definite and positive fashion, but his 
 argument has always the appearance of an afterthought 
 — or, as it would, perhaps, be more just to put the 
 matter, he arrives at his conclusion first, and then 
 taxes his ingenuity to find reasons to support it. 
 Whether those reasons were bad or good, they were 
 uniformly put forward in an essentially provincial 
 fashion. It was the misfortune of Priestley, as it was 
 of Darwin, that he was the idol of a small country 
 
 x 2 
 
308 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 town, and the oracle of a coterie of conspicuously in- 
 ferior men and women, in whose eyes his very weak- 
 nesses were virtues, and follies signs of strength. The 
 constant contact with men of wider culture and greater 
 influence, which residence in the capital implies, would 
 have been of infinite benefit to both ; and in Priestley's 
 case it might possibly have moderated, if it failed alto- 
 gether to extinguish, the egregious vanity which mars 
 every page of his controversial writing. He is nothing 
 if not sceptical ; yet, at the same time, he is dogmatic 
 to excess ; and, as Mr. Martineau aptly remarks, 
 "most dogmatic when most in doubt." His whole 
 system of theology is a system of paradoxes. He 
 utterly denies and ridicules the doctrine of the Trinity; 
 yet he calls himself a Christian. He decides dogmati- 
 cally that the founder of Christianity was no more than 
 a man, and that there is no such thing as inspiration 
 in the ordinarily accepted sense of the term. He 
 doubts whether man has a soul ; and he is a necessi- 
 tarian to the point of disbelieving altogether in human 
 responsibility. And yet, with all these beliefs and no 
 beliefs, he is from the beginning of his career to its 
 end the most parsonic of Dissenting preachers, and is 
 never so happy as when preaching his dogmatic scep- 
 ticism, praying to the God in whom he but half 
 believes, and catechizing the young upon indeterminate 
 questions and concerning dogmas in which his convic- 
 tions are but half formed. A modest man so placed 
 would, one would think, have avoided controversy, or, 
 if he conceived it his duty to enter upon it, would 
 have done so with diffidence and the most scrupulous 
 courtesy towards his opponents. Not so was it with 
 Priestley. His tone is invariably arrogant and offen- 
 sive — rather that of an angry schoolmaster addressing 
 
Joseph Priestley. 309 
 
 an obstinate pupil, than of one philosopher contro- 
 verting the carefully formed and courteously expressed 
 opinions of another. None of his opponents can, in 
 his opinion, produce anything worth the trouble of 
 replying to; and when it is remembered who those 
 opponents were, there is something exquisitely ludi- 
 crous in the notion of Priestley's airs of superiority to 
 them.- His pretensions were, however, admitted for 
 the time, the excellent Bishop Horsley setting an 
 admirable example of Christian courtesy and generosity. 
 Unfortunately, the example was not followed, though 
 no great surprise need be felt on that account. A man 
 who was vain enough to believe that he could, in 
 addition to a host of other occupations, translate afresh 
 the whole of the Hebrew Scriptures in three or four 
 years, was hardly likely to accept a tacit rebuke with 
 modesty or to profit by an example of charity and 
 courtesy. 
 
 This last idea which Priestley entertained, and was 
 for a time anxious to put into practice, affords a some- 
 what striking illustration of the general superficiality 
 of his character and an explanation of the small value 
 of most of his work. It is perfectly true that he 
 stumbled upon some important discoveries ; but his 
 accounts of the experiments by which he arrived at 
 them sufficiently prove that they were made upon an 
 empirical and not upon a scientific method. Black, 
 who was a really scientific chemist and investigator, 
 had laid the foundation of pneumatic chemistry long 
 before ; and Cavendish, working upon the foundation 
 laid down by Black, had sketched the outlines of the 
 superstructure by his publication in 1766. Ten years 
 later, Priestley began a series of desultory experiments 
 in a brewhouse at Leeds for the production of Pyr- 
 
310 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 mont water, the account of winch, as given by himself 
 in the " Philosophical Transactions," is curiously un- 
 scientific. Incidentally, no doubt, those experiments 
 produced important consequences — the manufacture of 
 aerated water, for example, was one result of them — 
 but the germ of everything that Priestley discovered 
 by their means may be found in the writings of Black 
 and Cavendish, and had he followed their method he 
 might have made infinitely greater and more rapid 
 progress. Unfortunately, he seems to have preferred 
 to work in the dark. " When I began my experi- 
 ments," he says, " I knew very little of chemistry, and 
 had, in a manner, no idea of the subject before I at- 
 tended a course of lectures at an academy where I 
 taught." Again : one of his earlier publications is a 
 " History of Electricity," and, concerning it, he con- 
 fesses in his autobiography that when he began to 
 write he was " but imperfectly acquainted with the 
 subject." In other words, he began to teach before 
 he had learned, like the private tutor in the story who 
 began to learn German a week before his pupil, and so 
 contrived to keep himself always a couple or three 
 lessons ahead. The story does not say that the tutor 
 was very successful after a course of such teaching ; 
 nor, according to Brougham, was Priestley. Speaking 
 of the book in question, " it is," he says, " a careless 
 and superficial work, hastily written, as is his ' History 
 of Vision,' and the original experiments afford no new 
 information of any value." Chemistry, electricity, and 
 optics not being sufficient to occupy all the time of this 
 indefatigable teacher, he ventured, when a tutor in the 
 much-talked-of " Dissenting Academy " at Warring- 
 ton, to give a course of lectures on Anatomy, without, 
 as it would appear, so much as having performed or 
 
Joseph Priestley. 3 1 1 
 
 even seen a single demonstration. From all these 
 labours he sought relaxation in music, and diverted 
 his leisure by playing the flute. It is curiously cha- 
 racteristic of the man that he recommends students 
 to follow his example in this particular — especially 
 those who have no fine ear, on the ground that they 
 will not be annoyed by their own bad music. 
 
 It is only fair to add that Priestley's erratic and 
 unscientific experiments led to greater results than 
 might have been expected. There can be little doubt, 
 for example, that he was the real discoverer of oxygen. 
 Lavoisier claims the credit of the discovery, and Scheele 
 disputes it with him ; but a comparison of dates proves 
 that Priestley communicated his achievement to the 
 great French chemist at least twelve months before the 
 latter gave it to the world. It is quite true that the 
 theory which led to his discovery was utterly erroneous, 
 but the fact of the discovery itself remains unaltered. 
 He found that minium, or red lead, when exposed to 
 the sun's rays, concentrated by a burning-glass, gave 
 off a pure aeriform body, which had the power of 
 strongly increasing the intensity of flame. This gas 
 he called " dephlogisticated air," upon the principle, 
 says Brougham, " that the matter of heat and light, 
 the phlogiston of Stahl, being abstracted from it by the 
 return of the calx to its metallic state, which phlogis- 
 ton was supposed by that theory to effect, the air had 
 great avidity for phlogiston, and seized it from the in- 
 flammable bodies it came in contact with." Reasoning 
 of this kind irresistibly reminds one of the ancient 
 axiom about the abhorrence of nature for a vacuum; 
 but, as with Torricelli, so with Priestley — the erroneous 
 theory led to an important practical discovery. Nor 
 did the discovery stop at this point. It is to Priestly 
 
312 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 that modern science is indebted for the discovery that 
 the absorption of oxygen by the lungs in the process 
 of respiration gives the red colour to arterial blood. 
 Here again, however, we have one of the blunders of 
 early chemistry. The gas was called " oxygen " by 
 Priestley, from the belief that it embodied the acidify- 
 ing (or oxydisiug) principle of the atmosphere ; and 
 the name is retained — presumably for the sake of con- 
 venience — though the theory which it embodied was 
 proved erroneous long ago. Nor was the discovery of 
 oxygen the sole result of Priestley's experiments. To 
 quote once more from Brougham : " He discovered 
 the gases of muriatic, of sulphuric, and of fluoric acids, 
 ammoniacal gas, and nitrous oxide gas. He also dis- 
 covered the combination which nitrous oxide gas forms 
 suddenly with oxygen, diminishing the volume of both 
 in proportion to that combination ; and he thus in- 
 vented the method of endiometry, or the ascertainment 
 of the relative purity of different kinds of atmospheric 
 air." But whilst all these discoveries are unquestion- 
 ably his, the fact remains that they were rather the 
 results of accident than the scientific deductions from 
 ascertained facts. The only theory which he ever 
 attempted to elucidate by his experiments was the 
 phlogistic theory — long exploded, and yet held to by 
 him with singular pertinacity to the last day of his 
 life. After all, however, we must admit that humanity 
 has gained more from what James Watt was wont to 
 call Priestley's "random bap-hazarding " than from 
 the more distinctly scientific labours of some of his 
 predecessors, and of those who came after him. 
 
 The defects of Priestley's scientific character, and 
 possibly also of his controversial methods, may fairly 
 be traced to the extremely desultory nature of his 
 
Joseph Priestley. 3 1 3 
 
 education, and to his association with a body of people 
 who, however morally estimable they may have been, 
 were at no time distinguished for their culture or their 
 erudition. He was the son of a cloth-dresser, and 
 grandson of one Joseph Priestley, of Birstal Fieldhead, 
 near Leeds, who is described as " a man as much famed 
 for his heavenly conduct, as his grandson has since 
 been for his natural abilities/' He was born in 1733, 
 and as his mother died in 1739, he knew but little of 
 her, save that she was diligent in teaching him the 
 Assembly's Catechism. Of his father he seems to have 
 known no more, his grandfather, and afterwards an 
 aunt, having taken charge of him from his infancy. 
 His education was desultory, but he early acquired a 
 certain knowledge of the classics and a little Hebrew 
 from a Dissenting minister of Heckmondwike, and 
 from a very early age he became involved in religious 
 controversy. In his curious autobiography, he says of 
 the aunt to whom he owed his education, that " being 
 left in good circumstances, her home was the resort of 
 all the Dissenting ministers of the neighbourhood, 
 without distinction ; and those who were the most 
 obnoxious on account of their heresy were almost as 
 welcome to her, if she thought them honest and good 
 men (which she was not unwilling to do) as any others." 
 Brought up amidst such influences as these, it is hardly 
 surprising to find that Priestley's theological opinions 
 before he went to the Daventry " Academy " were 
 somewhat mixed, or that in no long period he had 
 absorbed nearly, if not quite all the heresies of the 
 day, or that he should admit that " upon studying 
 the subject regularly in the course of his academical 
 education " he should have become " a confirmed 
 Necessarian." 
 
3 i 4 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 His account of his relations with this Academy at 
 Daventry is not without interest, as affording an 
 evidence of the real amount of liberty enjoyed by 
 those who clamour most loudly for freedom in religious 
 matters. It was proposed by his aunt and his relatives 
 generally, all of whom were strict Calvinists, to send 
 him to the Academy at Mile End, then under the 
 charge of Dr. Conder. As, however, he was an 
 Arminian, he resolutely opposed this determination, 
 " especially upon finding that if he went thither, 
 besides giving an ; Experience,' — in other words making 
 a general confession for the edification not of one 
 priest, but of many presbyters, — he must subscribe his 
 assent to ten printed articles of the strictest Calvinistic 
 faith, and repeat the subscription every six months." 
 A declaration of assent to the Thirty-nine Articles, 
 which it has pleased a certain party to represent as an 
 intolerable burden, has at no time been required more 
 than twice in a man's academic career, though it was 
 understood that in order to enjoy the endowments of 
 the Church of England, the student ought to be one 
 of her members ; but the notion of requiring a fresh 
 subscription every six months is worthy only of the 
 narrow sect with which it originated. When, more- 
 over, the real character of these Calvinistic articles is 
 considered, Priestley's objection to signing them is 
 easily intelligible. One of them — given in a note by 
 the laborious Mr. Hutt, who published Priestley's 
 works after his death — relates to the resurrection of 
 the body, which it describes as " a reparation of the 
 same numerical body by a reunion of all its scattered 
 parts . . . that Divine Justice may prey upon the 
 sinner for ever, satisfying itself by a perpetual miracle, 
 rendering the creature immortal in the midst of the 
 
Joseph Priestley. 3 1 5 
 
 flames, always consuming but never consumed." How 
 any human being could bring himself to believe iri^ 
 such atrocious and abominable blasphemies against 
 his Maker it is difficult to imagine, and whether as a 
 matter of fact any one ever did accept them in their 
 literal and absolute meaning may very reasonably be 
 questioned. Certain it is that Priestley refused his 
 assent, and the end of the matter so far as he was 
 concerned was that the scheme for sending him to 
 Mile End was given np, and that he was sent instead 
 to the Dissenting Academy at Daventry, of which the 
 excellent Dr. Doddridge had formerly been principal. 
 
 Even here, however, the time of the students seems 
 to have been mainly spent in idle controversy. 
 Priestley tells us that the tutor and the sub -tutor — Dr. 
 Ashwood and the Rev. Samuel Clark — were opposed in 
 theological views, the former being strictly othodox, 
 and the latter " taking the side of heresy, though 
 always with the greatest modesty." Much time was 
 consequently spent in the discussion of such questions 
 as liberty and necessity, the sleep of the soul, and 
 matters of orthodoxy and heresy, the end of all which 
 was that at the mature age of twenty-two, Priestley 
 became imbued with the notions of Collins and Hartley. 
 Discussions of this kind may possibly be both useful 
 and valuable. There is a certain grandeur in the idea 
 of a man of great genius sitting down to debate with 
 a friend of equal power on " fate, free-will, fore- 
 knowledge absolute," but the effect of such debates 
 on youug and half- educated men cannot but be objec- 
 tionable. Priestley himself admits as much. " I saw 
 reason," he says, "to embrace what is generally called 
 the heterodox side of almost every question," the 
 result being that when he left the " Academy " he was 
 
3*6 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 an Arian, a Necessarian and perhaps something more. 
 Better mental discipline might have produced better 
 effect, but the course of study at Daventry seems to 
 have been singularly imperfect. The object with 
 which the Academy had been founded was the training 
 of Dissenting preachers, but " there was then," 
 Priestley tells us, " no provision made for teaching the 
 learned languages. We had even no compositions or 
 orations in Latin. Our course of lectures was also 
 defective in containing no lectures on the Scriptures 
 or on Ecclesiastical History, and by the students in 
 general . . commentators in general and ecclesiastical 
 history also were held in contempt." That Priestley 
 should have picked up a respectable amount of scholar- 
 ship in so uncongenial an atmosphere, says more for 
 his abilities than for the wisdom of his teachers, and 
 their system. 
 
 On leaving Daventry, he became what is called in 
 dissenting societies " co-pastor " to a certain Mr. 
 Meadows, of Needham Market, who was superannuated. 
 There he was engaged at the magnificent stipend of 
 30Z. per annum, but as it was soon discovered that he 
 was an Arian, his salary was seldom paid, and had it 
 not been for charity he could not have lived. He 
 made various efforts to escape, and at last was invited 
 to preach at Sheffield, where, however, he was not 
 approved, less perhaps because — as he wishes it to be 
 understood — of his Arian opinions than of an un- 
 pleasant impediment to his speech, which appears to 
 have clung to him throughout the greater part of his 
 life. A congregation at Nantwich was less particular, 
 and thither he removed in 1758, after a stay at Need- 
 ham of about three years. At Nantwich he had a 
 school of about thirty boys, with a separate room for 
 
Joseph Priestley, 3 1 7 
 
 half a dozen young ladies, in which he taught daily 
 from seven in the morning until four in the afternoon, 
 with an interval of only one hour. After this he went 
 daily to the house of a Mr. Tomlinson, an " eminent 
 attorney " of Nantwich, in whose family he taught 
 for three hours more. When the short-lived dissenting 
 academy of Warrington — famous afterwards from the 
 connexion of Dr. Aikin, and his daughter, Mrs. Bar- 
 bauld, with it — was first projected, Priestley was 
 proposed as " tutor in the languages." Aikin was 
 preferred to him, but when the latter was advanced to 
 be tutor in divinity, the post was offered to Priestley, 
 who at once gave up his Nantwich school and 
 removed to Warrington, where he stayed for six 
 years. 
 
 His occupations here gave him sufficient leisure for 
 pursuing his scientific studies and observations, and 
 as he was always able to spend a month of every year 
 in London, he made many friends in the scientific 
 world — Franklin, Dr. Price, Dr. Watson the physician, 
 and Mr. Canton among the rest. From Warrington, 
 he went to Leeds, where also he stayed for six years, 
 ministering to " a very friendly, liberal and harmo- 
 nious congregation," and prosecuting those scientific 
 studies for which he had so great an inclination. At 
 the end of this time he was, he explains, tempted to 
 leave Leeds, " to go into the family of the Earl of 
 Shelburne, now the Marquis of Lansdowne, he stipu- 
 lating to give me two hundred and fifty pounds per 
 annum, a house to live in, and a certainty for life, or in 
 case of his death, or of my separation from him." 
 The arrangement was a most generous one, honourable 
 to both parties, and it lasted for seven years, during 
 which time Priestley was treated more as a friend than 
 
3 1 8 Eighteenth Centttry Studies. 
 
 as a servant. His office was nominally that of librarian, 
 but lie had little employment as such beyond arranging 
 Lord Shelburne's books and indexing his private 
 papers. His summers were spent with his family at 
 Calne, near to which place Bowood is situated, and his 
 winters principally at his lordship's house in London. 
 In 1 774, his patron took him on what he is pleased to 
 describe as " a little excursion " through Flanders, 
 Holland, and Germany, as far as Strasburg, and thence 
 to Paris, where he spent a month in scientific society. 
 During this period his theological opinions underwent 
 considerable modification — not altogether it would 
 seem fco Lord Shelburne's satisfaction. It is impossible 
 to be altogether surprised at this fact. Priestley had 
 left Leeds an Arian ; he had professed in Paris to be a 
 firm believer in the doctrines of Christianity, and then 
 returning to England, he plunged at once into theolo- 
 gical controversy coming out a Materialist, a Neces- 
 sitarian, and a disbeliever in the doctrine of the im- 
 mortality of the soul. Gradually an estrangement 
 grew up between Lord Shelburne and bis scientific 
 companion. About two years before the separation, 
 Priestley asked if his patron had any fault to find with 
 his conduct. He replied that he had not, but some 
 time afterwards he intimated to Dr. Price his desire to 
 give to Priestley an establishment in Ireland. Priestley 
 took the hint and retired on a pension of 150/. a year; 
 50Z. more than he had received as minister of the 
 Unitarian congregation in Leeds. The separation was 
 a final one. Lord Shelburne expressed a wish that it 
 should be amicable, and so it was ; but when Priestley 
 visited London, in hope of being received on his former 
 friendly footing, his visits were declined. 
 
 Dr. Priestley's relations with Lord Shelburne illus- 
 
Joseph Priestley. 3 1 9 
 
 trate one side of his character which his admirers care- 
 fully ignore — his singular readiness, that is to say, to 
 accept benefits for which he could make no adequate 
 return. His services to Lord Shelburne himself 
 would, by his own account, have been amply repaid by 
 the gratuitous maintenance which was always at his 
 disposal ; his scientific discoveries were facilitated in 
 no ordinary way by the generosity of the makers of 
 philosophical instruments, and his personal expenses 
 were largely met by the friendly contributions of his 
 admirers. Thus, when he left Lord Shelburne's ser- 
 vice, he found himself in some difficulties in conse- 
 quence of the expense of his removal. Under such 
 circumstances, he had no scruple in accepting from 
 a Mrs. Rayner, a member of Mr. Lindsey's congrega- 
 tion, a hundred guineas, " besides smaller sums with 
 which she occasionally assisted him." Soon after- 
 wards she gave up to him " four hundred guineas, and 
 to this day," he adds, writing fifteen years afterwards, 
 " she has never failed giving me every year marks of 
 her friendship." After Mrs. Rayner's generous gift, 
 it appears that Dr. Fothergill proposed " an enlarge- 
 gement of his allowance for making experiments, and 
 considering," adds Priestley, " the generosity with 
 which this voluntary offer was made by persons who 
 could well afford it, and who thought me qualified to 
 serve the interests of science, I thought it right to 
 accept of it, and I preferred it to any pension from the 
 Court, offers of which were more than once made by 
 persons who thought they could have procured it for 
 me." This modest patriot, who proudly disdained a 
 pension from the State, was thus willing to accept an 
 annual gratification from his friends. In his Auto- 
 biography he gives a list of thirteen eminent persons, 
 
320 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 amongst whom were Mr. Wedgewood, Mr. Strutt (of 
 Derby), and Mr. Radcliffe, wlio subscribed towards his 
 maintenance ; and lie adds to these names those of Dr. 
 Heberden, and Mr. Tayleur (of Shrewsbury), " who at 
 different times remitted him considerable sums." Mr. 
 Parker, of Fleet Street, generously supplied him with 
 every instrument he wanted in glass. Wedgewood 
 provided all the retorts, tubes, &c, in pottery; and 
 Mr. William Russell, of Birmingham, not merely pre- 
 sented him with large sums of money, but incited his 
 congregation to raise a subscription of 200Z. towards 
 the expense of publishing his theological works. 
 
 On leaving Came, Priestley settled in Birmingham, 
 where he speedily was invited to take charge of a 
 Dissenting congregation, and where for seven years he 
 lived the usual life of a Dissenting minister, preaching 
 on Sundays, and devoting himself to his favourite 
 pursuits throughout the week. Gradually he became 
 attracted more and more into the field of politics, the 
 question of the repeal of the Corporation and Test 
 Acts in 1789 naturally exciting considerable interest, 
 and giving him an opportunity of preaching political 
 sermons, of which he availed himself somewhat exten- 
 sively. When the first murmurings of the French 
 Revolution began to make themselves heard, he threw 
 himself warmly into the struggle on behalf of the in- 
 surrectionary party. His opinions of this period may 
 be studied by those who care to undertake the labour 
 in the voluminous collection of his letters, published 
 after his death by his admirer Mr. John Towill Rutt. 
 A line or two, quoted almost at random, will, however, 
 sufficiently serve to indicate the temper and spirit in 
 which Priestley regarded the state of affairs at this 
 time. Thus, when the Whigs met in July, 1790, at 
 
Joseph Priestley. 3 2 r 
 
 the " Crown and Anchor," to rejoice over the French 
 Revolution, Priestley writes to Price that the dinner 
 " was most happily conceived, and the success of it gives 
 me the greatest pleasure." He adds, " I do not wonder 
 at the hatred and dread of this spirit of revolution in 
 kings and courtiers. Their power is generally usurpa- 
 tion, and I hope the time is approaching when an end 
 will be put to all usurpation in things civil or religious, 
 first in Europe, and then in other countries." It can 
 only be said that if he made frequent use of expres- 
 sions of this kind in public, he had no right to complain 
 of accusations of disloyalty. Again, of Burke's "Vin- 
 dication," he says that "for sophistry and impudence 
 he never saw anything equal to it." Tom Paine's 
 w Eights of Man" is in danger, and Priestley inquires 
 of Mr. Lindsey with great solicitude what is being done 
 about it. " Is the edition cancelled, or will it be sold 
 in France and America, and a new one printed for 
 England?" Three days later he writes again, to say 
 that he is " glad Mr. Paine' s book is to be published 
 as it was printed. . . It will be read the more on 
 account of the stoppage." And, lastly, the atrocities 
 perpetrated on the person of Louis XVIII. call from 
 Priestley only the remark, "Our anxiety during the 
 King of France's escape and joy on his capture cannot 
 be described," whilst the murders of that unfortunate 
 sovereign and his consort afford him the liveliest satis- 
 faction. 
 
 Priestley, to do him justice, at no time disguised his 
 opinions, and the result might have been foreseen 
 without much difficulty. He had been engaged for 
 years in a paper war with the clergy of Birmingham, 
 and party feeling had risen to a very high point, not 
 merely on political but on social and local questions. 
 
322 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 Whilst things were in this condition, an announcement 
 was made of a dinner in an hotel at Birmingham to 
 " commemorate the French Revolution." On the 
 second appearance of the advertisement another an- 
 nouncement was put forth, promising an authentic 
 list of all those who should dine at the hotel, and this 
 was followed by a most inflammatory handbill. The 
 admirers of Priestley uniformly declare that this hand- 
 bill was the work of a cunning Tory. Mr. J. A. 
 Langford, in his excellent " Century of Birmingham 
 Life," very reasonably points out, however, that "it is 
 quite as probable that it was the work of a foolish and 
 over-zealous Liberal." In this handbill, after an 
 enthusiastic reference to the glories of the French 
 struggle for liberty, the following sentences occur : — 
 "But is it possible to forget that our own Parliament 
 is venal ? your Minister hypocritical ? your clergy legal 
 oppressors ? the Reigning Family extravagant ? the 
 crown of a certain great personage becoming every 
 day too weighty for the head that wears it ? too 
 weighty for the people who gave it? your taxes partial 
 and excessive ? your representation a cruel insult upon 
 the sacred rights of property, religion, and freedom?" 
 This precious manifesto wound up with an ominous 
 exhortation to the populace to prove that " The Peace 
 of Slavery is worse than the War of Freedom," and 
 with a warning, " Of that moment let Tyrants beware." 
 Naturally enough, this incendiary placard created 
 no inconsiderable sensation. The magistrates offered 
 a reward of a hundred guineas to be paid on the con- 
 viction of the writer, printer, or distributor of it ; and 
 a rejoinder was issued in the afternoon of the day on 
 which it appeared, calling upon the townsfolk of Bir- 
 mingham to resist its attempt to excite tumult and 
 
Joseph Priestley. 323 
 
 disorder. " Whatever the modern republicans may 
 imagine, or the regicidal propounders of the rights of 
 man design, let us convince them that there is enough 
 of loyalty in the majority of the inhabitants of this 
 country to support and defend their king, and that we 
 are not so destitute of common sense as not to prefer 
 the order, liberty, happiness, and wealth which is 
 diffused through every portion of the British empire, 
 to the anarchy, the licentiousness, the poverty, and the 
 misery which now overwhelm the degraded kingdom 
 of France." This was followed by a handbill from the 
 promoters of the dinner, disavowing in the strongest 
 possible terms the first of these placards, and pro- 
 testing their " firm attachment to the constitution of 
 their country as vested in the three estates of King, 
 Lords, and Commons." 
 
 The dinner was held in due course, the toasts were 
 proposed, and the company separated. Throughout 
 the afternoon, and during the time of the dinner, a 
 considerable crowd gathered around the hotel, hissing 
 and hustling the guests as they assembled, and groan- 
 ing whilst the dinner was going on. After the company 
 had separated, the mob grew more violent, and de- 
 molished every window of the hotel with stones. The 
 magistrates attempted to interfere, but they were 
 powerless ; and the mob, having worked their will upon 
 the building, divided into two parties, one of which 
 made its way to the New Meeting House (Priestley's), 
 whilst the other betook itself to the Old Meeting 
 House, both of which buildings were wrecked and set 
 on fire. As soon as this part of the work was accom- 
 plished, the crowd hurried towards Priestley's home 
 at Fair Hill, a mile and a half distant. Here they 
 renewed their patriotic efforts to convince the learned 
 
 y 2 
 
324 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 Doctor not merely of the error of his ways, but of the 
 extreme unpalatableness of his opinions, with the effect 
 of destroying the whole contents of his house and 
 laboratory. Fortunately for himself, Priestley and his 
 family were able to make good their escape, but his 
 unpopularity with the Birmingham people was such 
 that he was unable to return to them. 
 
 Mr. Langford, to whose " Century of Birmingham 
 Life " reference has already been made, thinks it beyond 
 question that there was much truth in Priestley's asser- 
 tion that the riots were caused by the High Church 
 party. This, however, I venture to doubt, for the 
 simple reason that on reading the pamphlets and 
 papers relating to these unhappy riots dispassionately 
 through, it is evident that the balance of angry temper 
 is on the side of Dr. Priestley. His tone towards the 
 clergy of the town is uniformly rancorous in the 
 extreme, and if they were occasionally guilty of a 
 somewhat sharp retort, they said nothing worse than 
 he had said on a score of occasions. To suppose that 
 the clergy were guilty of actually instigating the riot 
 is, moreover, perfectly unnecessary. The popular 
 mind was in a most irritable and excited condition, and 
 had been so for a long time past. Only eleven years 
 before a popular uprising had put all London into the 
 power of the mob for six days, on the flimsy pretext 
 of " No Popery." Now with almost every day came 
 news of the outrages which were being perpetrated in 
 France in the name of liberty — stories of executions 
 a la lanterne, of aristocrats' heads hacked off by the 
 mob and carried on pikes through the streets, of the 
 captivity of the Royal family, and of the general 
 misery and distress which had followed in the train of 
 the revolution ; and it can hardly be wondered at if 
 
Joseph Priestley. 325 
 
 the English people were nervously anxious to avoid 
 the repetition of similar horrors in this country. The 
 train, to use Priestley's own metaphor, was already 
 laid; the spark was readily found in the incendiary 
 placard already quoted. Dr. Priestley had posed as 
 the foremost opponent of the clergy and of the existing 
 order of things ; he had hardly the right to complain 
 if an exasperated mob made of him their first victim. 
 At all events, it is not quite fair to accuse the clergy, 
 whom he had persistently reviled for eight years, of 
 instigating the attack upon him, without much more 
 evidence than can now be commanded. There is, more- 
 over, another matter to be taken into consideration. 
 Priestley had allowed himself to be made a citizen of 
 the French Republic, and the fact was doubtless well 
 known in Birmingham. In the then existing state of 
 popular feeling that fact was alone sufficient to account 
 for the wrath of the mob. 
 
 Priestley's removal to London was by no means a 
 misfortune to him. He protests, indeed, that the 
 compensation which he received from the Hundred 
 was less by 2000/. than his actual loss, and he laments 
 with much pathos the destruction of his invaluable 
 manuscripts and apparatus. It may be true that the 
 sum awarded by the jury as compensation for this 
 scandalous riot was too small ; it was not thought so 
 by other people. But granting that it was less than 
 the actual value of the goods destroyed, the difference 
 was more than made up by the generosity of his 
 brother-in-law, who gave him first 500/., and then 
 10,000/., and settled upon him an annuity of 200/. a 
 year for life. The loss of his papers has excited 
 immense commiseration, but it may be doubted whether 
 humanity is much the worse for their destruction. The 
 
326 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 only papers to which his memoirs make any reference 
 as missing are his diaries, and their place is fully sup- 
 plied by his lengthy autobiography, and by the volu- 
 minous collection of his letters, published by the pious 
 care of Mr. Putt. His other works appear to have 
 been sent to the press as fast as they were written. 
 
 On leaving Birmingham, Priestley succeeded his 
 friend Dr. Price as Principal of the Hackney (Dissent- 
 ing) Academy, and plunged once more into theological 
 controversy. His scientific acquaintances appear, how- 
 ever, to have deserted him to some extent, even the 
 Royal Society turning a cold shoulder towards him. 
 His correspondence with the revolutionary party in 
 France had possibly something to do with his unpopu- 
 larity, and though he declined the singular honour of a 
 seat in the National Convention, offered by the Depart- 
 ment of the Orne, in September, 1792, he found himself 
 very generally looked upon as more interested in the 
 prosperity of France than of his own country, and 
 consequently treated with suspicion and coldness. He 
 accordingly retired to America in 1794, where he 
 settled down, after receiving a series of congratulatory 
 addresses in New York and Philadelphia. He does not 
 seem to have made any great impression on the Ameri- 
 can people, before whom he appears to have endeavoured 
 to assume somewhat the character of a martyr. In 
 England, he was indeed treated as entitled to that 
 name by his fellow republicans. Coleridge, for instance, 
 begins a sonnet with — 
 
 Though roused by that dark Vizier riot rude 
 Have driven our Priestley o'er the ocean swell ; 
 Though superstition and her wolfish brood 
 Bay his mild radiance. 
 
 But even in England this way of speaking of him 
 
Joseph Priestley. 327 
 
 went out of fashion before long, while in America it 
 never seems to have been common. As Brougham 
 puts the matter, " His religion was too much for those 
 who had ceased to care for sacred things, and far 
 too scanty for those who still were Christians, while 
 his republican opinions were exceedingly distasteful, 
 because they were tinged with a decided admiration of 
 France.' ' He stayed on upon his new property, how- 
 ever, doing a little in the way of clearing it, and 
 keeping up a voluminous correspondence with some of 
 his old friends in England, and with some of those 
 new ones — including President Jefferson — whose ac- 
 quaintance he had made in the States. 
 
 Towards the end of 1795 his son Henry died, and 
 within less than a year his wife followed the favourite 
 son. There is something very pathetic in the dulled 
 sensibilities of the old controversialist on these occa- 
 sions. Writing to his friend Mr. Eussell, he says, " I 
 do not at all think of him (Henry) as to this world, 
 or as any particular loss to myself, but only as to 
 another, where I have no doubt I shall meet him again ; 
 and as I believe he had a good mind and no vices, I 
 hope to meet him in favourable circumstances." On 
 the death of his wife he writes to his constant friend 
 the Rev. Theophilus Lindsey, paying a warm tribute 
 to her good qualities, and adding, " We have lived 
 together more than thirty-four years. She, as well as 
 myself, was much affected with the death of Harry. 
 Though it is now near nine months since he died, he 
 has never been long out of my thoughts, but this will 
 affect me much more ; though I have abundant sources 
 of consolation, for which I am truly thankful." The 
 "abundant sources of consolation" were, as might be 
 expected, more polemical controversies, and a projected 
 
328 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 journey through the United States for the purpose of 
 founding lay Unitarian societies. The controversy 
 was not neglected, but the tour was not undertaken, 
 though in 1797 he made a journey to Philadelphia to 
 help in the establishment of one of the societies in 
 question. A journey to Paris for the purpose of 
 looking after his property in the French Funds was 
 debated with his friends for twelve months, but 
 eventually abandoned, Priestley's energies finding 
 vent in political and religious controversy, not always 
 of the most courteous kind. During this period the 
 " benevolences " of his friends in England continued, 
 and were acknowledged by him in terms which do not 
 always impress the reader with a high opinion of the 
 man who could thus accept immense obligations from 
 comparative strangers. 
 
 The end was not very distant. Throughout the 
 letters of this period there are frequent allusions to 
 ill-health, and in one of them, addressed to Mrs. 
 Lindsey on the death of her husband (dated May 8, 
 1802), Priestley says, "If you saw me now you would 
 not flatter me with the prospect of long surviving my 
 excellent friend." A month later he speaks of "the 
 great change to which we are making near approaches," 
 and which he regarded " with more curiosity than 
 anxiety." After this nearly every letter contains 
 allusions to failing health, and to the impossibility of 
 his enjoying a prolonged life; but he dragged on a 
 painful existence for two more years, suffering from 
 fits of ague, impaired digestion and deafness. To the 
 last his mind was active, and besides maintaining a 
 voluminous correspondence, he retained his fondness 
 for political and religious pamphleteering. In January, 
 ] 804, his weakness and general illness increased, and 
 
Joseph Priestley. 329 
 
 on the last day of the month paralysis seized upon 
 him. Six days later he died easily, painlessly, and 
 without theatrical display. 
 
 He was buried as he had desired to be, by the side 
 of his wife and son, but his monument is at Bir- 
 mingham. It is characteristic that the rather fulsome 
 inscription should have been written by no less a 
 personage than Dr. Parr, who, though a priest of the 
 Church of England, takes occasion to extol Priestley's 
 " sincerity as an expounder of the Scriptures," and 
 his " example as a Christian," which will, the lapi- 
 darian informs us, " be instructive to the Wise and 
 interesting to the Good in every Age." After all, 
 however, Priestley's character is not one which can be 
 wrapped up in a couple of sentences. That he was a 
 perfectly conscientious man no one need doubt. That 
 he attained to a certain eminence as a man of science, 
 and that he did good service to the world by his 
 discoveries is equally incontestible. But that he was 
 the " Patriot, Saint, and Sage," Coleridge imagined 
 him to be maybe emphatically denied. His patriotism 
 was of that peculiar kind which calls itself cosmo- 
 politan. His own country was not first in his estima- 
 tion, and where her interests clashed with what he 
 philosophically considered his " principles " he was 
 fully prepared to see those interests sacrificed. Like 
 many members of the Opposition at the close of the 
 eighteenth century, he had a warm sympathy with the 
 French Revolution, which even the atrocities of the 
 reign of terror failed to quench When the National 
 Convention offered him a seat, Europe had just been 
 shocked with the September massacres. Yet Priestley 
 in refusing the proferred honour has no word of 
 reprobation for these atrocities. He can only " pray 
 
330 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 that the Supreme Being, the Father and Friend of 
 mankind . . may destroy the machinations of your 
 enemies, and put an end to the troubles with which 
 you are now agitated, and may He give you a speedy 
 and happy establishment to your affairs." In another 
 letter of the same date to Roland, " he exhorted him 
 to continue his exertions against the internal enemies 
 of the State" (Rutt. II. 191). When he reaches 
 America the same temper is visible. He is all enthu- 
 siasm for the young Republic, and he has only the 
 bitterest words of condemnation and of hatred for the 
 country he has left. The fact that he was at Bir- 
 mingham the victim of a popular tumult, and that the 
 cause of his retirement from England was the un- 
 popularity of himself and of his principles with the great 
 mass of Englishmen never appears to strike him. All 
 that he can see is that he has been ill-used on account 
 of his opinions, and that ill-usage he chooses to 
 impute to the machinations of the " kings and priests" 
 of that country against which he has shaken off the 
 dust of his feet. In America itself he speedily lost 
 the popularity which awaited him on his arrival by 
 reason of his desire to see the Union dependent upon 
 France rather than strong and independent. He 
 could not, in fact, be patriotic even to the country of 
 his adoption. 
 
 Of his saintliness more may be said. He was un- 
 questionably a firm believer in the primary truths of 
 religion, though he interpreted them in a perverse 
 fashion of his own, and seems to have changed his 
 opinions with considerable frequency. Under such 
 circumstances it might have been thought that he 
 would avoid controversy. He chose, however, to rush 
 into it on all occasions, and failing the offer of oppor- 
 
Joseph Priestley. 331 
 
 tunities lie would make them. His conduct in these 
 controversies affords a sufficient test of his right to 
 the character of " sage." He was not compelled to 
 engage with Gibbon, but he did so, and finding the 
 arguments of his great opponent too much for him, 
 he lost his temper, called his adversary by evil names, 
 and imputed the worst motives to him. Priestley's 
 intolerance in this dispute was the less pardonable, 
 since he himself was, as Gibbon remarked, heterodox 
 enough to " condemn by circumscribing the inspiration 
 of the Evangelists, and to condemn the religion of 
 every Christian nation as a fable less innocent and not 
 less absurd than Mahomet's journey to the third 
 heaven." With Bishop Horsley, his controversy was 
 equally bitter, the bitterness being as before wholly on 
 Priestley's side. That venerable prelate had the 
 manifest advantage both in learning and in argument, 
 and if he used strong though admittedly dignified 
 language, it must be granted that the occasion was no 
 ordinary one. Priestley was clamouring for the over- 
 throw of the Church of England ; he had charged his 
 opponent with " misrepresentation, defamation, and 
 calumny;" he had (says Horsley) " insulted him in his 
 character as a scholar and a man ; " he had even 
 threatened in the event of the success of the Socinian 
 party that the fate of the beneficed clergy would be 
 " a prison with a good conscience, or their present 
 emoluments without one," and the only reply which 
 Horsley condescended to make was to impress upon 
 his adversary the fact that before the consummation 
 arrived for which Priestley looked, both would in all 
 human probability " be gone to those unseen abodes, 
 where the din of controversy and the din of war are 
 equally unheard. There we shall rest together till the 
 
332 Eighteenth Centuiy Studies. 
 
 last trumpet summons us to stand before our God and 
 King. That whatever of intemperate wrath and 
 carnal anger," adds Horsley, " hath mixed itself on 
 either side, with the zeal with which we have pursued 
 our fierce contention, may be forgiven to us both is a 
 prayer which I breathe from the bottom of my soul, 
 and to which my antagonist, if he have any part of the 
 spirit of a Christian, upon his bended knees will say, 
 'Amen.'" 
 
 Putting controversy on one side, however, Priestley's 
 character seems to have been amiable enough. He 
 was greatly liked in the society in which he moved as 
 well in England as in the United States, and there 
 must have been something uncommon in the man who 
 could find as many as fifteen personal friends to testify 
 to their regard for him by subscribing regularly to his 
 maintenance for many years. His failing seems to 
 have been that he did not know how to hold his hand 
 when the pen was in it. In social life he was courtesy 
 and kindness embodied. An American admirer, who 
 printed a small collection of " Recollections and 
 Anecdotes " after his death, says, " Dr. Priestley was 
 remarkably frank and easy of access, and in company 
 perfectly unassuming, never attempting to take the lead 
 in conversation, but always ready to accommodate 
 himself to the tastes and wishes of others. He was 
 neither taciturn nor talkative, and it may be truly said 
 that whatever prejudices had been previously enter- 
 tained against him on account of his theological 
 opinions by those who knew him only as a polemical 
 writer were removed on a personal acquaintance." 
 Had he displayed the same qualities in his theological 
 and political disputes, or more wisely still, had he 
 altogether abstained from controversy of both kinds, 
 
Joseph Priestley. ^^^ 
 
 his reputation would have been higher than it is, and 
 he would be remembered as a successful worker in the 
 field of science, rather than, as is now the case, as the 
 victim of a wretched riot which his own folly had been 
 mainly instrumental in provoking. 
 
i34 
 
 THE AUTHOR OF « SANDFORD AND MERTON." 
 
 In the biographical preface to his republication of 
 Brooke's " Fool of Quality " — a book which in character 
 bears a great resemblance to " Sandford and Merton" — 
 the late Charles Kingsley says : " One would be glad 
 (if physiognomy be, as some hold, a key to character) 
 of some trustworthy description or portrait of his out- 
 ward man ; to have known even the colour of his eyes 
 and hair ; but this is not to be had. Some Irish friend 
 describes him in terms general enough, as when young, 
 'fresh-looking, slenderly formed, and exceedingly grace- 
 ful. He had an oval face, ruddy complexion, and large 
 soft eyes full of fire.' " Then, after mentioning the 
 various more or less authentic portraits of Brooke 
 which are extant, Kingsley goes on to say, " the face 
 must have been one of a very delicate and regular 
 beauty. The large soft eye, the globular under eyelid, 
 the finely-arched eyebrow (all notes of a sweet and rich 
 yet over-sensitive nature), are very remarkable." Had 
 Kingsley been writing of the portrait of Thomas Hay, 
 by Wright of Derby, he could hardly have described 
 the man more accurately. This picture shows a head 
 of singular beauty and sweetness of melancholy expres- 
 sion, shaded with long black wavy hair, untainted and 
 undisfigured by pomatum or powder, large dark eyes, 
 arched brows, a well-cut nose, and finely-formed 
 mouth — just such a head, in short, as we should not 
 expect to see. For, after all is said, Day's leading 
 
The A utJwr of 1 1 Sandford and Merlon. " 335 
 
 characteristic is his intense practicality, and the head 
 might be that of a Shelley or a Keats. He was of the 
 middle class; his virtues and his very weaknesses were 
 theirs, and his aspirations were theirs also. 
 
 His father was a man of some property, who held 
 the lucrative post of collector in the Custom House. 
 His mother was the daughter of a city merchant named 
 Bonham. Thomas Day was born on the 22nd June, 
 1748, in Wellclose Square, where in July of the follow- 
 ing year his father died suddenly, leaving to his son an 
 estate at Bear Hill, near Wargrave, which produced 
 somewhere about 1200/. a year. The widow did not 
 retire to this place, however, but settled at Stoke 
 Newington, then, according to a contemporary account, 
 " a pleasant village near Islington, where a great 
 number of the citizens of London have built houses 
 and rendered it extremely populous, more like a large 
 flourishing town than a village." As was natural 
 enough, the young widow sought consolation for her 
 affliction in society, and before many years were over 
 she married again. Her second husband — Phillips — 
 was, like the first, an officer of the Custom House ; 
 but, unlike him, was a vain, suspicious, and tyrannical 
 personage. He had no property, and married the 
 widow Day simply with the intention of living upon her 
 means — an intention which he completely fulfilled. He 
 appears to have entertained a great dislike for his step- 
 son, and to have treated him with much harshness. 
 The mother was, however, infatuated with her new 
 spouse, and worried her boy in after-years to make a 
 provision for Phillips. It says much for his generosity 
 that lie complied with her wish, and on coming of age 
 settled an allowance of 400/. a year upon the fortune- 
 hunter who had made his childhood miserable, and 
 
33& Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 who drove liim from his home by his violence and 
 cruelty. The income from his property was, however, 
 amply sufficient to allow Day to be thoroughly well 
 taught. His earlier years were passed at a boarding 
 school in Stoke Newington, from which he was re- 
 moved to the Charterhouse, then under the master- 
 ship of the once famous Dr. Crassus. It is noted, as 
 eminently characteristic of the place and of the boy, 
 that he was chiefly distinguished amongst his fellows 
 by his skill in boxing and by his extreme simplicity 
 and truthfulness of character. He seems, in fact, to 
 have been almost too good for a schoolboy — too pru- 
 dent, safe, and benevolent — but his after-life proves 
 that there was no affectation in the lad who refused to 
 waste his pocket-money in toys and tuck, but saved 
 it in order to give to the poor. From the Charter- 
 house he was transferred, at the age of sixteen, to 
 Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he stayed for 
 three years, leaving, however, without taking his 
 degree. Three years more were given to the study of 
 the law ; but he soon wearied of its technicalities, and, 
 although he was called to the bar, never practised. 
 
 Sundry anecdotes of this period have been preserved, 
 which are too characteristic to be omitted. According 
 to his friend, " the ingenious Mr. Kerr," of Lichfield, 
 he was wont to display a certain " Quixotism of 
 virtue," which irritated some of his friends. On one 
 occasion, hearing of a noble lord who made a trade of 
 seduction, and who had allowed one of his victims to 
 fall so low as to go upon the streets, Day sent a chal- 
 lenge to him, with the alternative of his making proper 
 provision for the unfortunate girl. It is satisfactory 
 to add that the duel was not fought. On another 
 occasion, when io chambers with Jones (afterwards 
 
The Author of " Sandford and Morton!' $2)7 
 
 Sir William Jones, the well-known Orientalist), a 
 spider fell from some books which the latter was 
 moving. Jones cried out to Day to "kill the spider." 
 Day refused, saying, t( I do not know that I have a 
 right to kill it. Suppose when you are going in your 
 coach to Westminster Hall, a superior being who may, 
 perhaps, have as much power over you as you have 
 over that spider, should say to his companion, 6 Kill 
 that lawyer ! kill that lawyer ! ' how should you like 
 that, Jones ? And I am sure that to most people a 
 lawyer is a more noxious animal than a spider." In 
 the mouth of any one else this speech would probably 
 have been a mere excuse for the introduction of the 
 gibe at the legal profession. Day was, however, a 
 man of such transparent simplicity of soul that one 
 can believe it to have been perfectly natural and 
 spontaneous. 
 
 He came of age in 1769, and was thus released from 
 the worrying and restless tyranny of his step-father. 
 During his minority he had been exceedingly anxious 
 to travel on the Continent ; but to this his mother, 
 acting doubtless under the advice of her husband, 
 refused to consent. In place of continental travel, 
 therefore, he occupied his vacations with journeys 
 over various parts of England and Wales, which he 
 performed chiefly on foot, and generally alone. His 
 friend Keir says that he was accustomed to mix with 
 people of all ranks and of all descriptions, sometimes 
 going into the parlour of the inn, and sometimes into 
 the kitchen, in search of amusement, and for the sake 
 of studying character. Mr. Keir adds : — " Possessed 
 of much strength and activity of body, a flow of animal 
 spirits, a relish for youthful frolic, and a vein of 
 humour and pleasantry, he greatly enjoyed these ex- 
 
 z 
 
338 Eighteenth Century Studies* 
 
 cursions, while at the same time he acquired an exact 
 knowledge of the modes of thinking and expression, 
 habits and manners of the farmers and other more 
 uncultivated classes of men, to whom he could in his 
 future life easily adapt himself, and whom he ever 
 treated with kindness and condescension, rather as 
 less fortunate brothers of the same family than as 
 beings of a different and inferior order." In the course 
 of these wanderings he visited Lichfield, where he was 
 introduced to the coterie which gyrated around Anna 
 Seward and Erasmus Darwin. Here he fixed his head- 
 quarters for a time, becoming very intimate with 
 Richard Lovell Edgeworth. Such an association was 
 natural enough. Both were devotees of the philosophy 
 of Rousseau. Both fancied that Society was a tyrant 
 to be shunned; both believed that the theories of 
 " Emile " embodied the only sound principles of educa- 
 tion, and both fancied that the natural man — the noble 
 savage — must be of necessity wiser, better, and more 
 virtuous than the man who was educated and brought 
 up amidst the vices and the prejudices of society. A 
 strong friendship accordingly sprang up between the 
 two men, all the stronger, apparently, for the profound 
 differences between them. What those differences 
 were it is somewhat amusing to recall. Edgeworth 
 was, with all his follies and eccentricities, a polished 
 and cultivated man of the world ; scrupulously neat in 
 his dress and person, and eminently fond of society, 
 and especially of the society of women. Day was 
 notoriously anything but polished. His affectations — 
 if, indeed, it is fair to give them that name — were all 
 in the direction of roughness and rudeness. He was 
 indeed scrupulously cleanly in person, but he preferred 
 washing his abundant hair in the running stream to 
 
 
The A uthor of l ' Sandford and Merton . ' ' 339 
 
 submitting it to the discipline of the comb and brush. 
 And this is a type of everything else. Day was grave, 
 and constitutionally melancholy ; Edge worth a light- 
 hearted, jovial Irishman, with a happy temper, and a 
 power of laughing at bad jokes which we of these 
 degenerate days may well envy. Day was suspicious 
 of women, and dreaded their blandishments; Edge- 
 worth, to a contrary extreme, fond of all the happiness 
 which they can bestow. Day wrote verses to imaginary 
 goddesses ; Edge worth made very practical love to 
 every woman with whom he came in contact. 
 
 After the first meeting of this oddly-assorted pair 
 hardly a day passed witho ut one paying a visit to the 
 other. They talked, by Edgeworth's account, of every- 
 thing — metaphysics principally; literature, "Shake- 
 speare, taste, and the musical glasses." As time went 
 by, Day began to show that he was not altogether in- 
 sensible to the society of women, but he entertained 
 some rather curious notions of the relations which 
 ought to subsist between husband and wife. Some 
 little time before he had been attracted by an anony- 
 mous lady at Shrewsbury to whom he addressed some 
 not very brilliant verses in which he invited her to 
 share his lot : — 
 
 Sequester'd in some secret glade, 
 
 With thee unnoticed I would live : 
 And if content adorn the shade, 
 
 What more can heaven or nature give 1 
 
 The lady did not enjoy the prospect of absolute 
 seclusion from the world and abject submission to her 
 husband's whims, and she accordingly dismissed poor 
 Day to find some more suitable mate. In the spring 
 of 1768 Eclgeworth made a journey to Ireland, on 
 which Day accompanied him. They travelled in their 
 
 z 2 
 
34-0 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 own phaeton and with their own horses, and they were 
 further favoured with the company of Edgeworth's 
 son — a young gentleman who had been brought np on 
 the principles of " Emile," and who by his father's 
 confession must have been a particularly disagreeable 
 companion. On their way they had a curious buffoon- 
 ing adventure, in which Edgeworth assumed the part 
 of Day's servant, while Day pretended to be the father 
 of Edgeworth's son. The matter ended in the appear- 
 ance of Dr. Darwin on the scene, when the two 
 philosophers fell at once to the discussion of mechanics, 
 for which Day had no taste. Some topic arose before 
 they parted, however, and upon it, says Edgeworth, 
 " Mr. Day displayed so much knowledge, feeling and 
 eloquence as to captivate the Doctor entirely." After 
 this conversation they pursued their journey to Ireland, 
 which Day saw with " surprise and regret." His 
 philosophy had taught him to believe in the beauty of 
 savage life : here he was in the midst of it, and strange 
 to say, he does not seem to have liked it. " The 
 hovels in which the poor were lodged . . the black 
 tracts of bog and the unusual smell of the turf fuel 
 were to him never-ceasing topics of reproach and 
 lamentation." At Edgeworthstown Day's uncouth- 
 ness and want of manners made a very disagreeable 
 impression on Edgeworth's father and sister, who 
 were unreasonable enough to expect that when a 
 gentleman sat down to table he was bound to conform 
 to certain conventional rules. Day, we are told, 
 " smiled with philosophic indifference at these preju- 
 dices in favour of politeness, and seemed to undervalue 
 the understanding of those who set such a high im- 
 portance upon external appearance." Day's genuine 
 goodness of heart, however, broke down the obstacles 
 
The Author of a Sandford and Merton" 341 
 
 between them, while Miss Edgeworth' s easy manners 
 and agreeable conversation impressed him in spite of 
 his stoicism. There was naturally a difficulty arising 
 from her determination to retain her habits of order 
 and good breeding, but before three months were at 
 an end it was overcome. Edgeworth spoke to his 
 father, who offered no objection to Day's morals or 
 fortune, and the engagement was ratified. When the 
 autumn came the friends quitted Ireland, leaving Miss 
 Edgeworth to study metaphysics, while Day went to 
 London to acquire something of the air of a gentleman. 
 Before the winter was over the crisis came, and Day 
 received his dismissal — a humiliation which he ba>re 
 with considerable equanimity. 
 
 Thus disappointed a second time in his endeavour to 
 establish himself, Day prepared to put in execution a 
 scheme for providing himself with a wife who should 
 answer in every way to his philosophic ideal. With 
 the help of his friend Bicknell he selected from a 
 number of orphans in the Foundling Hospital at 
 Shrewsbury a girl. whom he called Sabrina Sidney — 
 Sabrina from the Eiver Severn; Sidney after his 
 favourite hero Algernon Sidney. In order to give her 
 a companion he then went to the Foundling Hospital 
 in London and adopted a girl from those he found 
 there. Her he called Lucretia. With these children, 
 one eleven and the other twelve years of age, he took 
 lodgings in Chancery Lane, proposing to undertake 
 their education there. That plan not succeeding, he 
 removed with them to Avignon, " where," says Edge- 
 worth with considerable naivete, " he excited much 
 surprise by his mode of life and by his opinions." 
 There was certainly room for surprise in the establish- 
 ment which Day set up. Here was a man still 
 
342 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 young, with a couple of growing girls, towards whom he 
 stood in a semi-paternal relation. They had no com- 
 panions whatever, save only himself. They knew no 
 French, nor were they taught any, and the lessons 
 which they learned appear to have been in reading, 
 writing, and high moral philosophy only. Naturally 
 enough they were a source of endless trouble and 
 difficulty. The children quarrelled constantly, as might 
 be expected when they were thrown so continually 
 together, and at last they fell ill of the small-pox. 
 Day had now to turn nurse. They would not allow 
 him to leave their bedside, and he had perforce to do 
 everything for them. The French maid whom he 
 hired in despair could of course speak no English ; 
 they could speak no French, and they positively refused 
 to be left alone with her. They were at last restored 
 to health and to a part at least of their former beauty. 
 Day recommenced their education, but it did not make 
 very satisfactory progress. They objected to being 
 shot at with pistols, which Day often did to test their 
 courage; they did not like their endurance to be 
 tested by having melted sealing-wax dropped on their 
 arms, and they hankered after finer dresses, or at least 
 after clothes which should not make them objects of 
 ridicule whenever they walked out. The experiment 
 soon came to an end. After eight months of incessant 
 worry and anxiety, Day returned to England, and got 
 rid of Lucretia by apprenticing her to a milliner. 
 Sabrina he kept for a time, hoping to succeed better in 
 her case. As his step-father was still alive he could 
 not take up his abode at Barehill, and therefore settled 
 at Lichfield, where he found a society very much to his 
 taste. His fancy for educating Sabrina was respected, 
 and his wealth, his unbounded charity to the poor, 
 
The Author of u Sandford and Merlon" 343 
 
 and his tolerant habit of life won for him general 
 regard. Anna Seward patronized Sabrina, and for a 
 time she was, in a small way, the fashion amongst the 
 society of the Cathedral Close. Day was, however, 
 rapidly becoming disenchanted with his fancy. He 
 had hoped to educate a woman to a point of perfection 
 which none can attain. She was to have " a taste for 
 literature and science, for moral and patristic philo- 
 sophy;" she was to spend her time in "feeding the 
 hungry, clothing the naked, and in alleviating the 
 distresses of the most wretched and miserable amongst 
 mankind ; " in * her dress and diet she was to be 
 " simple as a mountain girl, fearless and intrepid as 
 the Spartan wives and Roman heroines." And instead 
 of this, poor Sabrina was a very woman after all 
 his labours. If he fired pistols at her, she screamed ; 
 if he tried whether she could endure actual pain, she 
 winced; if he expected her to eat dry bread and to 
 drink water while other girls enjoyed wine and cakes, 
 she pouted; and worst of all, if he told her a secret, she 
 was sure to tell it to her maids. On the whole he 
 began to think that the new theories of education 
 hardly bore the test of practice, and in the end Sabrina 
 went to a boarding school and degenerated into a very 
 commonplace young lady. Three years at school were 
 followed by a brief interval, during which Day allowed 
 her 50L a year; she then, somewhat to his dis- 
 gust, married his friend Bicknell, who had gone to 
 the bar and was doing well in his profession, Day 
 giving her a portion of 500/., in accordance with his 
 promise. A few years afterwards she was left a 
 widow with two boys and a very small provision 
 for them, and Day settled upon her a pension of 30Z. 
 a year. 
 
344 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 There was another reason for Day's readiness to 
 abandon his educational experiment. In the house of 
 the Sewards — the palace of the non-resident Bishop 
 of Lichfield — was a certain Honora Sneyd. She was 
 the motherless daughter of a Staffordshire gentleman, 
 and a girl of great beauty, wit, and discretion. 
 Edge worth, who was on a visit to Day, fell in love 
 with her, though he was at that time a married man. 
 He excuses himself by complaints of his wife's peevish- 
 ness and coldness ; but it is certain that he committed 
 himself quite sufficiently to warrant Day's stringent 
 remonstrance with him against " a love that could not 
 be indulged compatibly with peace or honour or virtue," 
 The pungency of the rebuke is hardly diminished by the 
 well ascertained fact that Day was himself in love with 
 the fair Honora, who in her turn was most assuredly 
 not enamoured of him. The pair of lovers waited 
 from time to time on the object of their admiration, 
 sometimes alone, sometimes in company, until at last 
 Day put into the hands of his friend a formal proposal 
 which he begged him to convey to her. The text of 
 this document has not been preserved, but it must 
 have been somewhat remarkable, inasmuch as it con- 
 tained "the sum of many conversations that had 
 passed between them." As usual, the plan of life which 
 Day proposed was one hardly likely to be accepted by 
 a gay, handsome and high-spirited girl, embracing as it 
 did " a calm and secluded life, and total and absolute 
 submission to her husband's will." The answer was 
 what might have been expected, a flat refusal. Poor 
 Day fell into a violent fever of mortification, and 
 Darwin, in accordance with his usual practice, bled him. 
 Happily a mental remedy for the mental disease pre- 
 sented itself in the course of a few days. Mr. Sneyd, 
 
The Author of " Sandford and Merton" 345 
 
 who had hitherto lived in London, suddenly presented 
 himself in Lichfield, and brought with him all his 
 daughters, -five in number. The youngest, Elizabeth, 
 who had been brought up by a niece of her father's at 
 Shrewsbury, at once attracted Day's attention. She 
 was handsomer than Honora, well educated, sprightly 
 and agreeable. Above all, though she could talk well 
 enough upon occasion, she was not disputatious, and a 
 good listener. Day was naturally delighted with a 
 handsome woman who would allow him to philosophize 
 to his heart's content, and she on her part was fasci- 
 nated with the romance of Day's character. His 
 boundless generosity, his fancy for educating a wife, 
 his scorn of wealth and of titles, his romantic ideas of 
 love, and his notion of isolating himself from the world, 
 all combined to fascinate the young lady. After a 
 courtship of about three weeks, she completely took 
 the place of her sister in Day's affections, and an en- 
 gagement was entered into between them. All the 
 affection in which she held her lover, however, was 
 insufficient to cover his roughness of manner, and the 
 question of marriage was consequently postponed until 
 he should have acquired something of the air of a man 
 of the world. 
 
 The friends went together to Lyons. Edgeworth 
 to escape from the fascinations of the fair Honora, 
 which were growing too great for his peace of mind, 
 and Day to acquire the accomplishments demanded by 
 the beautiful Elizabeth. At Lyons poor Day tortured 
 himself in his endeavours to achieve the impossible — 
 to turn the rough and rude cynic into the polished, fine 
 gentleman. Seven or eight hours of every day were 
 given up to dancing, fencing, and learning to manage 
 the "great horse." In spite of his great physical 
 
346 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 strength, he was knock-kneed, and his dancing-master 
 kept him with his feet in the stocks for hours together 
 in hope of curing this defect. All was in vain, how- 
 ever, the fair Elizabeth found Thomas Day the fine 
 gentleman considerably less agreeable than Thomas 
 Day "blackguard" — as at one time of his life he de- 
 lighted to write himself — and with very little ceremony 
 broke off the engagement. In his despair he turned 
 again to Sabrina, and for a little while it was thought 
 probable that he would put the top stone to the 
 romance of his life by marrying her. It was not so to 
 be. For some reason now unknown, but presumably 
 one connected with matters of dress, he broke off his 
 relations with her, never again to resume them. At 
 this juncture his friend Dr. Small of Birmingham 
 interposed with a suggestion that he should marry a 
 certain Miss Milner, who partly from her gravity and 
 discretion, and partly in order to distinguish her from 
 a namesake, whose beauty had gained for her the nick- 
 name of " Venus," was called in Lichfield circles 
 " Minerva." Day's answer to the proposal was an 
 inquiry whether she had white and large arms. 
 That being answered in the affirmative, he asked if she 
 wore long petticoats, a question which received a 
 similar reply ; but upon asking further if she were tall, 
 strong, and robust, Dr. Small gave him some sensible 
 advice as to the absurdity of expecting an ideal perfec- 
 tion in any woman. " If you are not satisfied," he 
 added, " determine at once never to marry." "My 
 dear doctor," replied Day, " the only serious objection 
 I have to Miss Milner is her large fortune. It was 
 always my wish to give to any woman whom I married 
 the most unequivocal proof of my attachment to her- 
 self by despising her fortune." " Well, my friend,' 1 
 
The Author of " Sandford and Mei'ton" 347 
 
 said the doctor, " what prevents you from despising 
 the fortune, and taking the lady ? " 
 
 Common sense prevailed. Day went into Yorkshire, 
 and began one of the oddest courtships on record. 
 Miss Milner was a woman of considerable ability, with 
 a great flow of language, and conversant with English 
 literature, especially with poetry. She wrote well and 
 spoke well, in a somewhat formal fashion, and Day 
 was eminent amongst his friends as a declaimer on 
 behalf of certain philosophical principles. The result 
 was, that when together they had no want of conver- 
 sation, and when apart their pens were seldom idle. 
 Before many months were over they were married, and 
 for a while they lived at Hampstead, where Mrs. Day, 
 by accepting her husband's hygienic practice, soon lost 
 the delicacy which had formerly characterized her. 
 Edgeworth paints a curious picture of their matrimo- 
 nial happiness. " I never saw any woman," he says, 
 " so entirely intent upon accommodating herself to the 
 sentiments and wishes and will of a husband. Not- 
 withstanding this disposition, there still was a never- 
 failing flow of discussion between them. From the 
 deepest political investigation to the most frivolous 
 circumstance of daily life, Mr. Day found something 
 to descant upon; and Mrs. Day was nothing loth 
 to support on every subject an opinion of her own ; 
 thus combining in an unusual manner independence 
 of sentiment and the most complete matrimonial 
 obedience." 
 
 Soon after his marriage Day bought a house and a 
 small estate near Abridge in Essex. The house was 
 small and inconvenient, and he proposed therefore 
 to add to it. He was his own architect on the strength 
 of a copy of " Ware's Architecture," which he had picked 
 
348 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 up at a bookstall. How far he was qualified, for the 
 task he undertook may be guessed by the fact that 
 he seems to have drawn no plans, and to have depended 
 wholly upon the bricklayer, to whom his directions 
 appear to have been of the most elementary kind ; the 
 result being that in one case a room of some impor- 
 tance was actually built without a window, Day not 
 caring to settle where it should be beforehand. Tiring 
 of the dulness of Abridge, he sold the estate at a con- 
 siderable loss, and bought another at Anningsley, near 
 Chertsey. It was a large tract of barren heath ; but 
 Day was well satisfied with his bargain, and sat down to 
 improve it. It is hardly necessary to add that amateur 
 high, farming proved about as unprofitable in his case 
 as in that of most of those who have tried it since. 
 Happily for himself he had no children to reproach 
 him with the blunders which so seriously impaired his 
 fortune. It appears from one of his letters to Edge- 
 worth, that the estate regularly cost him more than 
 300/. a year, leaving the interest of the purchase- 
 money altogether out of account, so that if he had 
 been forced to sell, he calculated that he would not 
 obtain more than one or at most two per cent, for his 
 original investment. 
 
 His end was more than sufficiently tragical. Con- 
 vinced that the common method of breaking-in horses 
 by severity was wholly erroneous, he undertook to 
 break one in on a plan of his own. It partly succeeded, 
 but the animal was not well broken, and in the autumn 
 of 1789, when Day was riding him, it took fright at a 
 man who was winnowing corn by the road-side. The 
 horse plunged and swerved. Day was thrown to the 
 ground, sustained a concussion of the brain, and died 
 a quarter of an hour afterwards in a cottage to which 
 
The Author of u Sandford and Merton!' 349 
 
 he had been removed. His wife followed him to the 
 grave within a couple of years, dying, it was commonly 
 believed, of a broken heart. The tragedy of his deatTT 
 afc so early an age — he was but forty-one — must have 
 been not a little increased by the discovery that the 
 greater part of his fortune had disappeared. ~No less 
 a sum than 20,000Z. was missing, and as Day was 
 accustomed to declare that he always lived within his 
 income, it was not very easy to understand how so 
 great a defalcation could have come about. One 
 remarkably foolish circumstance is, however, mentioned 
 by Miss Edgeworth in the continuation of her father's 
 autobiography, which may partly explain the mystery. 
 Day was from the first one of the warmest opponents 
 of the American War, which he constantly affirmed 
 must of necessity reduce the nation to bankruptcy. 
 Under this impression he had sold out of the funds 
 the whole of the property there invested, and as he 
 did so when those securities were almost at their 
 lowest point, he must have sustained a very heavy 
 loss. The gold which he thus obtained he took to 
 Barehill, where he deposited it under the floor of the 
 study until the conclusion of the peace, when he again 
 invested it in the same securities as before, but of 
 course buying them in at a much higher price. Even 
 so great a blunder as this, coupled with all his 
 benevolences and with the costly improvements of his 
 Anningsley estate, will hardly account for the waste 
 of a third of his fortune in twenty years, during which 
 he had been guilty of no special extravagance. 
 
 Although Day will be chiefly remembered as the 
 author of the immortal " Sandford and Merton," he has 
 other claims to a place among the men of letters of 
 the eighteenth century. His first work of any con- 
 
350 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 sequence was a poem which he wrote in conjunction 
 with his friend Bicknell, who married afterwards his 
 protegee Sabrina. It was called " The Dying Negro," 
 and was occasioned by a circumstance which occurred 
 shortly before its first publication in 1773. A negro 
 belonging to the captain of a West Indiaman, haying 
 agreed to marry a white woman, landed and got a 
 clergyman to baptize him. He was detected and 
 taken on board his master's ship, then lying in the 
 Thames, when, finding no chance of escaping, he 
 stabbed himself rather than make another voyage to 
 America. Day, who hated cruelty with a righteous 
 hatred, and whose head was full of the new philosophy 
 of the " Eights of Man," and of similar matters, 
 poured out his indignation against slavery and the 
 slave-trade in sonorous lines, excellent in their way, 
 but necessarily somewhat artificial, inasmuch as they 
 attribute to the African savage the finer emotions 
 which we are accustomed to regard as peculiar to the 
 civilized races. This was, however, the fashion of the 
 time, and Day was but one of many who fell in with 
 it. Later on there is good reason for believing that 
 he abandoned the notion which underlies much 
 eighteenth-century philosophy that man is better, 
 purer and stronger in a state of nature than when 
 corrupted by the enervating influences of civilization. 
 When he wrote " The Dying Negro " he was still under 
 its influence. The third edition of this poem was dedi- 
 cated to Rousseau in a fervid letter, which, however, 
 abundantly proves that with Day philosophy did not 
 altogether destroy common sense. 
 
 After a prelude in the classical taste of the eigh- 
 teenth century, he goes on, and the passage is the more 
 remarkable since Day was one of those who most 
 
The Author of " Sandford and Merlon" 351 
 
 eagerly and most strenuously denounced the American 
 War : — " It was some excuse for the disciples of 
 Lycurgus, that if one man had been created by Heaven 
 to obey another, the citizens he had formed best 
 deserved the empire of the world. But what has 
 America to boast ? What are the graces and virtues 
 which distinguish its inhabitants ? What are their 
 triumphs in war or their inventions in peace ? 
 Inglorious soldiers, yet seditious citizens ; sordid 
 merchants and indolent usurpers. Behold the men 
 whose avarice has been more fatal to the interests of 
 humanity and has more desolated the world than the 
 ambition of its ancient conquerors ! For them the 
 Negro is dragged from his cottage and his plantain 
 shade ; by them the fury of African tyrants is stimu- 
 lated by pernicious gold; the rights of Nature are 
 invaded, and European faith becomes infamous 
 throughout the globe. Yet such is the inconsistency 
 of mankind : these are the men whose clamours for 
 liberty and independence are heard across the Atlantic 
 Ocean. Murmurings and rebellions are the first fruits 
 of their gratitude, and thus America recompenses 
 
 Europe for the protection she has bestowed 
 
 Let the wild inconsistent claims of America prevail 
 when they shall be unmixed with the clank of chains 
 and the groans of anguish. Let her aim a dagger at 
 the breast of her milder parent, if she can advance a 
 step without trampling on the dead and dying carcases 
 of her slaves ; but let her remember that it is in 
 Britain alone that laws are equally favourable to 
 liberty and humanity : that in Britain the sacred rights 
 of nature have received their most awful ratification.' ' 
 In the same spirit of hostility to slavery Day wrote 
 in 1776, and published some years afterwards a 
 
35 2 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 "Fragment of an Original Letter on the Slavery of 
 the Negroes." The letter is a manly and outspoken 
 protest against the crime of slavery, and contrasts the 
 cry of the revolted American colonists for liberty 
 from the yoke of allegiance to Great Britain, with 
 their treatment of the unhappy Africans. The whole 
 pamphlet is written with great vigour, and its moral 
 may be summed up in the following sentence which 
 occurs in page 33 : — " If there be an object truly 
 ridiculous in nature, it is an American patriot, signing 
 resolutions of independency with the one hand and 
 with the other brandishing a whip over his affrighted 
 slaves." 
 
 Whilst telling the truth to the people of the United 
 States, Day was not unmindful of the opportunities of 
 attacking the government of the day which the 
 American war afforded. To this fact was due his next 
 poem, " The Devoted Legions," which he addressed 
 to Lord George Germaine, and the Commanders of 
 the forces against America. The subject is an incident 
 in the history of Rome. War having been declared 
 against the Parthians during the first triumvirate, 
 Atteius, a Roman tribune, posted himself at the gates 
 of the city, and while Crassus, at whose instigation the 
 war had commenced, was passing him, made the altars 
 blaze with incense and solemnly devoted the general 
 and his legions to destruction. The allusion was of 
 course to the calamities which might follow an unjust 
 civil war — a character which Day unflinchingly gave to 
 the struggle between England and her revolted colonies. 
 In the same spirit he wrote another copy of verses — for 
 the work is hardly entitled to the name of poem — which 
 he called the " Desolation of America," and designed 
 to expose the cruelties and severities of the English 
 
The Author of u Sand ford and Merton" 353 
 
 commanders in ravaging the colonies for the purpose 
 of bringing them into submission. With these verses 
 Day's contributions to English poetry may fairly be 
 said to conclude. In Whittingham's collection they 
 fill four-and-twenty duodecimo pages, and although 
 there are some of the heroes of Johnson's " Lives " 
 who have not covered more ground, it will probably 
 be not unfair to class him with those dii minor es 9 and 
 to assign him a place with Pomfret, Granger, and 
 Yalden. 
 
 Day's political opinions were, it will be admitted, 
 eminently honest, but their wisdom may be reasonably 
 questioned. He was, as has been seen, so ready to 
 despair of the Republic, that at the outbreak of the 
 American war, he persuaded himself that it could end 
 in nothing short of national bankruptcy, and when 
 the assailants of the government seized upon that 
 unhappy business to promote their own plans for 
 bringing about a revolution, he joined with them in 
 their attacks. In their interest he put forth two or 
 three pamphlets which are now forgotten, and which 
 are certainly not worth resuscitating, and when the 
 Corresponding Societies were formed he joined them 
 in hope of bringing about a large measure of Parlia- 
 mentary Reform. When, however, Mr. Pitt found 
 himself compelled by the threatening condition of 
 European politics to postpone his intention of carrying 
 an effective reform, Day expressed his patriotic satis- 
 faction with the policy of the Minister. " To expect," 
 said he in a published letter to a friend, " that the 
 Minister of a great and above all a corrupted State 
 like this should calmly and deliberately demolish the 
 whole frame of government for the sake of making an 
 experiment, is betraying a lamentable ignorance of 
 
 a a 
 
354 Eighteenth Century Studi 
 
 es. 
 
 human nature. I am not myself," lie added, " such 
 a child as either to expect or to wish that all govern- 
 ment should stand still in such a wonderfully compli- 
 cated system of society as our own in order that two 
 or three great reformers may try their skill at greasiug 
 the wheels." It will not be denied that there was 
 sound sense as well as good feeling in this declaration 
 of opinion, and it is probable that not a few readers 
 will be disposed to wish that the reformers of a later 
 date had been less solicitous to display their skill in 
 " greasing the wheels " at the expense of a suspension 
 of law and order. When, too, Day expresses himself on 
 the question of what the country may fairly ask of its 
 Ministers, he speaks in terms which must command 
 universal assent. " What I think may fairly be re- 
 quired of the present Ministry is," he says, " that they 
 should pursue rational objects by fair and honourable 
 means ; that if they are not devoid either of interest or 
 ambition, these passions should be worked up with 
 public good, and not predominate in the piece ; and 
 that they should never be so entirely engrossed with 
 the dirty ideas of preserving their places as to sacrifice 
 truth, consistency and public interest, and private 
 integrity." 
 
 These same sentiments animated all Day's public 
 conduct. He very early gave up his enthusiastic 
 plans for regenerating the condition of the country 
 by modifying the machinery of the state. When he 
 was very young, he was smitten by the common 
 disease of young men — that of imagining that every evil 
 in the state was to be cured by some modification of 
 the legislative system, but as he grew older his 
 illusions faded. To quote the "ingenious Mr. Keir" 
 — " when he had an opportunity of seeing how few 
 
The A nthor of ' ' Sandford and Merlon . ' ' 355 
 
 were animated with a sincere love of their country; 
 how deficient in zeal and activity this principle was 
 among most of those wbo professed it; how of ten in 
 parties the public cause was but a mark for some 
 scheme of private ambition; how prevalent was the 
 corruption of manners, the most dangerous foe to 
 liberty ; he was sensible what a feeble stand the de- 
 fenders of public right could make against invaders 
 actuated by ambition, avarice and other powerful 
 selfish passions. His maturer reflection also sug- 
 gested to him that good and evil were so blended in 
 human affairs, that one arose often unexpectedly from 
 the latter; that governments were sometimes obliged 
 by the prejudices of the people or the interests of 
 individuals to withhold part of the good which they 
 wished to accomplish, and to permit evils the correction 
 of which would be followed by some still greater evil ; 
 and he accordingly became more indulgent towards men 
 in power for the little good which they generally 
 effected." These words must by no means be taken to 
 imply that Day had abandoned his interest in political 
 matters. So far from allowing himself to fall into a 
 state of indifference, he took the greatest interest in 
 public matters, only to the astonishment and dis- 
 content of some of the more ardent spirits of the 
 liberal party of that day he was by no means prepared 
 to advocate measures which must have had the effect 
 of subverting the constitution. His leisure was given 
 to the composition of certain political tracts the 
 interest of which arrives from their advocacy of 
 principles which have long been adopted as standards 
 by political economists of every school. The last 
 of these productions was in the form of a letter 
 to the celebrated Arthur Young, and was designed 
 
 a a 2 
 
356 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 to support the opposition of that eminent authority 
 to the bill for preventing the exportation of wool 
 to France — a measure which had been devised in 
 the interest of the woollen manufacturers, and 
 which when carried in the teeth of the agricultural 
 interest proved a fruitful source of difficulty and 
 dispute. The measure was in truth sufficiently 
 selfish and absurd, and one which it is difficult 
 to imagine the House of Commons willing even 
 to consider. On the plea that out of the six 
 hundred thousand fleeces annually shorn in England 
 some ten thousand were believed to be smuggled into 
 France, the presence of the exciseman was rendered 
 necessary on every farm in England, and his certificate 
 was required at every stage of the transfer of the wool 
 from the back of the sheep to the loom of the manu- 
 facturer. Against a measure of this kind, dictated as 
 it was by the merest selfishness on the part of the 
 manufacturers, and acting as it was certain to do to 
 the enormous detriment of the agricultural classes, 
 Day protested with all the energy in his power, but it 
 is worthy of remark that his protests are always free 
 from that habit of attributing base motives to his 
 opponents which disfigures so much of the political 
 controversy of the last century. 
 
 After all, however, Day will be remembered not as 
 a politician or as a philosopher so much as the author 
 of " Sandford and Merton" and the historian of "Little 
 Jack." These two stories have enjoyed a popularity as 
 astonishing as it long continued. Even now the sale 
 for both books continues, and translations of them 
 have been made into nearly every European language. 
 They passed long ago out of the stage in which 
 editions are counted. Sundry publishers have stereo- 
 
The A uthor of * ( Sandford and Merton . " 357 
 
 typed them, and year by year they publish reprints 
 and re-issues, illustrated by more or less well-known 
 artists. No book of the eighteenth century, in fact, 
 is so widely read as "Sandford and Merton." " Little 
 Jack" has its admirers, especially on the continent, where 
 its Defoe-like pictures of social life in the lower ranks of 
 society are very warmly appreciated. " Sandford and 
 Merton" is even more universally popular, and upon the 
 whole with excellent reason. The influence of Rous- 
 seau and his educational theories may be traced in every 
 page, but it is a Christianized Rousseau whom Day 
 presents to his readers. In itself the book is a protest 
 against the habits of luxury and effeminacy which 
 were creeping in upon English society at the close of 
 the last century, and which in the opinion of the 
 philosophical school were undermining the robust and 
 masculine character of the nation. With the object 
 of correcting these failings, Day tells a story, the hero 
 of which is a young peasant, the son of a yeoman, 
 whose body is accustomed to labour and whose mind 
 is educated by a sensible and rational priest in habits 
 of temperance and sobriety. Harry Sandford may be 
 a wholly ideal personage, but the ideal is not a bad 
 one to set before a lad. In these days of luxury, when 
 some of our public schools appear to be seminaries of 
 extravagance and high living rather than of plain 
 living and high thinking, it is pleasant to turn back 
 to a book where the hero is distinguished, not by his 
 prowess in the cricket-field and by his appetite at the 
 supper which follows the match, but by his preference 
 for simple food and his refusal to indulge in luxuries 
 of which he stands in no need. When Day wrote the 
 book he had got beyond the theories of Jean Jacques, 
 but whilst rejecting the notion that the savage life 
 
35 8 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 must always be higher than the life of civilized and 
 educated men, he clung to the belief that simplicity, 
 candour and honesty were even more desirable than 
 the virtues of an artificial state of existence, however 
 excellent in themselves those virtues may be. For the 
 rest " Sandford and Merton " is an eminently healthy 
 book. With all its morality — and it must be admitted 
 that the disquisitions of the excellent Mr. Barlow are 
 sometimes rather tedious — there is nothing strained 
 or namby-pamby about it. Harry Sandford is a very 
 boyish boy after all, and his gaucheries are sometimes 
 amusing enough. But apart from his boyishness he 
 is exceedingly courageous, and he knows how to use 
 his fists. The battle with the bully Master Mash at 
 the end of the second volume is as spirited as the fight 
 in Tom Brown — it would be difficult to give it higher 
 praise — but Day never allows his reader to imagine 
 that there was any particular good to be gained by the 
 fight in itself. It was only as a means to an end that 
 Harry fought, and the end is never put out of sight. 
 Modern books for boys too often fail because their 
 writers talk of boyish pleasures and amusements as 
 though they were the only things in the world worth 
 living for. Even the ever- delightful " Tom Brown's 
 School Days " is not quite free from blame in this di- 
 rection. As a well-known writer has remarked, a boy 
 might be forgiven if he inferred from it that the hero of 
 that story was sent to school only to learn to play at 
 football, and that lessons were really secondary matters. 
 No one would ever fall into such a mistake from 
 reading " Sandford and Merton," though there may be 
 reason for fear lest a boy brought up on the book 
 without limitations and corrections might turn out 
 priggish and conceited. Day himself, however, never 
 
The A uthor of ' ( Sandford and Merton " 359 
 
 deserved that character. He was always straight- 
 forward and candid — sometimes even dangerously so 
 — but he was uniformly simple and masculine, even in" 
 what we are sometimes apt to consider his follies and 
 excesses, and it is impossible to regard his influence 
 on the literature of his time otherwise than as healthy 
 and wholesome. Unhappily he died at too early an 
 age for posterity to appreciate him at his due value, 
 and his retired life left him without that attrition by 
 contact with his fellow-men which might have per- 
 fected a character which in its elements was singularly 
 attractive and even loveable. Had his life been 
 spared for another ten years, and had those years 
 been spent in the full current of life, Thomas Day 
 might have gone down to posterity as one of the 
 finest characters of the Eighteenth Century, instead 
 of being merely remembered as the writer of the best 
 book for boys which that century produced. 
 
3 6o 
 
 ERASMUS DARWIN. 
 
 Towards the close of the last century Lichfield became 
 the headquarters of one of those mutual admiration 
 societies which from time to time exercise an important 
 influence upon the fashion of literature. The leader 
 of the coterie was the Reverend William Seward, a 
 canon-residentiary of Lichfield, who by a somewhat 
 curious arrangement occupied the palace of the non- 
 resident bishop. Bos well talks of him as " a genteel, 
 well-bred, dignified clergyman," and as he held several 
 considerable pieces of preferment and left a handsome 
 fortune behind him, the description is probably 
 accurate enough. Johnson's opinion of Seward was 
 less flattering. " Sir," said he to Boswell on their 
 way from Lichfield to London in 1776, "his ambition 
 is to be a fine talker, so he goes to Buxton and such 
 places, where he may find companies to listen to him, 
 and, sir, he is a valetudinarian, one of those who are 
 always mending themselves." The Doctor added 
 some remarks about a " hog in a stye," which it is 
 hardly necessary to repeat. Seward had some preten- 
 sions to literature. He had edited, in conjunction 
 with one Simpson, an edition of Beaumont and Fletcher, 
 and he published some verses in Dodsley's collection 
 which were greatly admired — by his family. The rest 
 of the coterie were literary after the same fashion. 
 Amongst those who composed it were " the ingenious 
 Mr. Keir of West Bromwich, and the accomplished 
 
Erasmus Darwin, 361 
 
 Dr. Small of Birmingham ; " Sir Brooke Boothby, 
 who "so ably refuted " Mr. Burke on the French 
 Revolution; Mr. Munday of Marketon, "whose 
 6 Needwood Forest ' is one of the most beautiful local 
 poems that has been written;" the Rev. Archdeacon 
 Vyse, " not only a man of learning but of Prioric 
 talents in the metrical impromptu;" Mr. Robinson, 
 "a choice spirit of Lichfield;" Day, the philosophical 
 author of " Sandford and Merton ; " Richard Lovell 
 Edge worth, then lately married to his first wife ; and 
 if last, not least, Anna Seward, to whose " lettered 
 taste " the phrases quoted above are due. Amongst 
 those who occasionally occupied places in Anna's 
 drawing-room were Watt the engineer and his partner 
 Boulton from Birmingham, Dr. Priestley, the eccentric 
 Lord Monboddo, Sir Joseph Banks, and Dr. Parr — all, 
 it will be remarked, good Whigs, and all men with 
 some claim to the title of philosophers. 
 
 Of this society Erasmus Darwin was the object of 
 reverential admiration, and his voluminous works in 
 prose and verse the theme of their eternal applause. 
 From the candid admissions of his friends and as- 
 sociates, it may be gathered, however, that it was the 
 philosopher more than the man who was admired. To 
 put the matter plainly, he was an ugly fellow, and his 
 manners were clownish in the extreme. Anna Seward 
 describes him as of " large and athletic frame," but 
 Edgeworth is more candid. Darwin struck him as 
 being " a large man, fat and rather clumsy." He was 
 much pitted with the small-pox, and in conversation 
 " stammered exceedingly." The portraits of him 
 which are extant fully bear out this description, show- 
 ing him to have possessed a coarse and heavy face 
 with remarkably clumsy features, a nose of the thick 
 
362 Eighteenth Century Studies, 
 
 Hebrew type, and a mouth of peculiarly bitter and 
 sarcastic expression. Wedgwood's well-known cameo, 
 reproduced in Miss Meteyard's ' Life ' of the illus- 
 trious potter, is obviously idealized beyond the point of 
 recognition. Mrs. Schimmel-Penninck's less flattering 
 description corresponds far more accurately with 
 Rawlinson's uncompromising portrait. The mouth 
 was indeed the index to Darwin's character. He was 
 sneering, sarcastic and sceptical in no common degree. 
 Anna Seward especially remarks, in that inverted style 
 of which she was so fond, " extreme was his scepticism 
 to human truth." She is also somewhat enthusiastic 
 concerning his sarcastic wit, but it cannot be said that 
 the specimens of his conversational powers which his 
 admirers have preserved are likely to impress the 
 modern reader very favourably. Thus, for example, 
 his friend Mr. Robinson, the " choice spirit of Lich- 
 field " before mentioned, had in conversation with him 
 " thrown the bridle upon the neck of his fancy, and it 
 was scampering over the churchyard and into the 
 chancel " (by which we are to understand that he was 
 talking blasphemy), upon which Darwin exclaimed, 
 " Excellent ! Mr. Robinson is not only a clever fellow, 
 
 but a d d clever fellow." On another occasion 
 
 this same " choice spirit " delivered a mock eulogium 
 upon swearing, ironically dilating on its power to 
 animate dulness and to season wit. Darwin's remark, 
 which appears to have excited great admiration amongst 
 his friends, was : — " Christ says swear not at all ; St. 
 Paul tells us we may swear occasionally ; Mr. Robinson 
 advises us to swear incessantly. Let us compromise 
 between these counsellors and swear by Non-en-ti-ties. 
 I v .x swear by my Im-pu-dence and Mr. Robinson by 
 h'i Mo-dest-y." If these were the " terrific sarcasms " 
 
Erasmus Darwin. 363 
 
 at which the literati of Lichfield trembled, one is 
 inclined to think that, like the conies, they mnst have 
 been " a feeble folk." Sometimes Darwin appears to 
 have mistaken rudeness for wit, and to have laboured 
 under the not uncommon delusion that when you have 
 called a man a fool you have annihilated him with an 
 epigram. Thus on one occasion a lady who was visiting 
 Lichfield waited upon him with a letter of introduction. 
 Adapting her conversation to her company, as she 
 imagined, she addressed him in the affected manner in 
 favour with the Delia Cruscan school. Divested of its 
 absurdity of form, however, her question was simple 
 enough. She wished to know what there was of 
 interest in art, literature, or science in Lichfield. 
 Darwin replied in not less stilted phrase with a recom- 
 mendation to her to go to the bull-running at Tutbury. 
 The lady was naturally somewhat disconcerted, but 
 after a moment's pause she said : " I was recommended 
 to a man of genius, and I find him insolent and ill- 
 bred," with which she retired from Darwin's presence. 
 Miss Seward is loud in her applause of the doctor's 
 prompt and ready wit on this occasion ; but it will 
 probably be held that the lady had the best of the 
 passage of arms. 
 
 Besides being a wit, Darwin was a teetotaller, or 
 almost one, and, as is not unfrequently the case with 
 those who abstain from wine, he was utterly intolerant 
 of its use by other people. On the other hand he was 
 a great eater, especially of animal food, and of fruit 
 both raw and cooked. If he drank wine at all, which 
 he did but rarely, he confined himself to those nleasing 
 compounds known as "made" wines — cowslip wine, 
 currant wine, and what Mrs. Hoggarty of C.^tle 
 Hoggarty was accustomed to call " Eosolio " — win ih 
 
364 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 he diluted with water. It was perhaps as well that 
 the ingenious doctor should refrain from more intoxi- 
 cating beverages, for he does not seem to have been 
 gifted with what is commonly described as a strong- 
 head. A story is told of an adventure of his which is 
 hardly likely to impress the present generation as 
 deeply as it impressed his own, with reverence for his 
 habitual wisdom and temperance. It would seem that 
 on a certain day in summer, whilst Darwin was living 
 at Lichfield, a party was made up by some friends to 
 sail down the Trent from Burton to Nottingham, and 
 thence to Newark. A good luncheon was put on 
 board, together with an abundant supply of wine, 
 and Darwin took his fair share of both. Just before 
 the boat reached Nottingham, he quietly dropped from 
 it and swam to the shore. His friends hurried on to 
 the town, where they found him in the market-place, 
 making a speech to the crowd on the importance of 
 ventilation. The local apothecary urged him to go to 
 his house and provide himself with dry clothes ; but 
 to this invitation he turned a deaf ear, assigning for 
 his eccentricities the highly philosophical reason that 
 the internal heat caused by the wine he had taken, 
 would amply suffice to counteract the cold caused by 
 the external application of water. It is only fair to 
 add, however, that this story rests mainly upon the 
 statement of Miss Seward, whose veracity is anything 
 but unimpeachable. Mr. Charles Darwin says, on the 
 authority of one of his step-sons, that this half-tipsy 
 freak was the result of a trick played upon him by 
 some gentleman of the party. 
 
 In his family relations Darwin appears to have been 
 not wholly unamiable, though it was perhaps hardly to 
 be expected that so eminently philosophical a personage 
 
Erasmus Darwin. 365 
 
 should find much room for commonplace affections in 
 that portion of his anatomy which he was pleased to 
 call his heart. His first wife, whom he married when 
 he was twenty-six, was a Miss Howard of the Cathedral 
 Close of Lichfield, the local influence of whose family 
 was of unquestionable value from the professional 
 point of view. She was little more than a child at the 
 time of her marriage, and speedily fell into ill-health. 
 After thirteen years of suffering she died, expressing 
 rapturous adoration of her husband with her last 
 breath. He remained a widower for some years, but 
 about 1777, a certain Mrs. Pole, wife of Colonel Pole, 
 came from Derby to Lichfield to consult him about the 
 health of her children. A tender friendship sprang 
 up between them, and when Mrs. Pole returned to her 
 home, a complimentary correspondence began, which 
 was continued for a considerable time. On Colonel 
 Pole's death, his widow visited Lichfield, and as she 
 was still young, wealthy, and agreeable, she soon had 
 a crowd of suitors at her feet. Somewhat to the 
 surprise of her friends, she rejected them all in favour 
 of Darwin, whose greatest flatterers hardly venture to 
 describe him otherwise than as a somewhat morose and 
 certainly rather ill-favoured man of fifty. Despite 
 remonstrance they were married, the bride making 
 only one condition — that their future home should be 
 at Derby instead of Lichfield. Thither they accordingly 
 removed in 1781, and there a new family grew up 
 around the philosophical doctor. His children by his 
 first wife had been educated and launched upon the 
 world, the high reputation which he enjoyed serving as 
 an excellent introduction to their professional career. 
 Their father's affection for them seems to have been, 
 however, somewhat feeble, though not quite so wholly 
 
366 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 extinct as Miss Seward tried to make out. On the 
 strength of a hearsay report she ventured on a most 
 cruel charge of selfishness and heartlessness on the 
 occasion of his eldest son's death, which she was 
 afterwards compelled to retract unreservedly. Accord- 
 ing to her story, the suicide of his unfortunate son 
 produced no other remark from Darwin than the 
 exclamation, " Poor insane coward ! " after which he 
 never mentioned his name, and devoted himself to the 
 task of realizing his property. But though this tale is 
 utterly unfounded, Mr. Charles Darwin is forced in his 
 somewhat laudatory sketch of his grandfather's life, to 
 admit that his own father, Dr. Robert Darwin, had 
 been treated by him " somewhat harshly and im- 
 periously, and not always justly." Mr. Darwin adds, 
 " Though in after-years he felt the greatest interest in 
 his son's success, and frequently wrote to him with 
 affection, in my opinion the early impression on my 
 father's mind was never quite obliterated." 
 
 With such a man, and such a society as that by 
 which he was surrounded, Johnson could have but 
 little sympathy. His leading characteristic, next to 
 his genuine and unaffected warm-heartedness, was, as 
 Mr. Carlyle has pointed out, a sincere and manly 
 simplicity, which naturally rebelled against the man- 
 nerisms and affectations of Darwin's provincial coterie 
 of admirers, and he must have felt besides an internal 
 consciousness of genius, which would effectually re- 
 move him from association with " the ingenious Mr. 
 Keir " and the philosophical Mr. Day. Politics and 
 religion both interfered, moreover, to keep him out 
 of the Darwinian clique. His own creed was simple 
 enough, and might be summed up in the five words, 
 " Fear God : honour the King." Theirs was much 
 
Erasmus Darwin. 367 
 
 more philosophical. Whether there was a God at all, 
 was a matter about which they were by no means 
 certain. On the whole they thought that it was per-~ 
 haps as well to admit the existence of a" Great First 
 Cause," but they knew very little about Him, and they 
 troubled themselves still less. Instead of a religion, 
 they had a neat philosophical system which explained 
 everything and accounted for everything. Natural 
 science was as yet in its infancy, but the philosophers 
 of the eighteenth century imagined that they had 
 explored all the secrets of nature when — to use the 
 simile of Newton — they had but picked up a few shells 
 on the seashore of Eternity. It is amusing, and at 
 the same time humiliating, to read the dissertations 
 of the early chemists, with their infantile babble about 
 " fixed air," " phlogistic and anti-phlogistic sub- 
 stances," and the like, and then to turn from them 
 to the self-satisfied speculations of the Darwinian 
 school, who seem to have imagined that they had 
 arrived at the end of all knowledge, when in truth 
 they were only on its threshold. Johnson unquestion- 
 ably realized the limitations of human attainment, 
 and shrank from identifying himself with an imperfect 
 science, which began by doubting all that he believed 
 most firmly, and which, whilst denying the existence 
 of a living and personal God, offered a handful of 
 chemical products as a substitute for Him. Nor was 
 his political faith less offended by the speculations of 
 the philosophers whose cosmopolitanism was already 
 leading them to sympathize with the enemies of their 
 country, and who a few years later allied themselves 
 with the forces which convulsed Europe. Whenever, 
 therefore, he visited Lichfield, he avoided as much as 
 possible the literary clique of which Darwin was the 
 
368 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 centre. For Darwin himself, whom he met only once 
 or twice, he entertained, according to Duppa — who in 
 this matter repeats Anna Seward — a strong dislike, 
 which on his part Darwin cordially returned. Nor 
 did the dilettante science and philosophical liberalism 
 of Miss Seward's tea-table possess any greater attrac- 
 tions for him. He went there now and again, but 
 his strong sincerity and robust convictions affrighted 
 the timid, trembling scepticism of the excessively 
 refined lady who presided over it. Finding himself 
 without a welcome, he remained amongst the friends 
 of his youth, and we can perhaps hardly wonder at 
 his choice. Miss Lucy Porter, his much-loved step- 
 daughter, who was not ashamed to help her friend 
 by serving behind the counter of her little shop on 
 market-days, is, on the whole, a more agreeable figure 
 than Miss Anna Seward, engrossed in the composition 
 of elaborate impromptus, to be let off for the edifica- 
 tion of her clique at the first favourable opportunity. 
 On her side Anna Seward fully returned Johnson's 
 dislike, and almost contempt, and lost no opportunity 
 of manifesting her hostility to him both before and 
 after his death. Thus she repeatedly speaks of him 
 by Churchill's nickname of " Pomposo ;" she calls 
 him "the arrogant Johnson;" asserts that he "liked 
 only worshippers;" and after his death started a 
 ridiculous and cruel story of an uncle who, she was 
 wont to declare, had been hanged. His greatest 
 offence in her eyes, next to his obstinate toryism, was 
 that he did not share her reverence for Darwin. " It 
 is curious," she remarks in one place, " that in Dr. 
 Johnson's various letters to Mrs. Thrale, now Mrs. 
 Piozzi, published by that lady after his death, many 
 of them at different periods dated Lichfield, the name 
 
Erasmus Darwin. 369 
 
 of Darwin cannot be found, nor indeed that of any 
 of the ingenious and lettered people who live there,_ 
 whilst of its mere common-life characters there is 
 frequent mention." l 
 
 If, however, Johnson neglected and despised Dar- 
 win, Miss Seward fully made up for his want of 
 appreciation. Speaking of his " Botanic Garden," 
 which was first published in 1781,. she says: "We 
 are presented with a highly imaginative and splendidly 
 descriptive poem, whose successive pictures alternately 
 possess the sublimity of Michael Angelo, the correct- 
 ness and elegance of Raphael, with the glow of Titian ; 
 whose landscapes have at times the strength of Sal- 
 vator, and at others the softness of Claude ; whose 
 numbers are of stately grace and artful harmony ; 
 while its allusions to ancient and modern history and 
 fable, and its interspersion of recent and extraordinary 
 anecdotes " (amongst which, by the way, is the fable 
 of the Upas tree), " render it extremely entertaining." 
 
 Anna's enthusiasm was shared by others. Prefixed 
 to the poem, after the fashion of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury, are a number of commendatory verses by different 
 writers. Unfortunately, three of the five authors — 
 the Rev. W. B. Stephens, Mr. R. Polwhele, and Mr. 
 
 1 Yet Johnson had a very high opinion of Lichfield people. Under 
 date 1776, Boswell writes : "He expatiated in praise of Lichfield and 
 its inhabitants, who he said were ' the most sober, decent people in 
 England, the genteelest in proportion to their wealth, and spoke the 
 purest English.' I doubted as to the last article of this eulogy," adds 
 Boswell, '• for they had several provincial sounds, as there pronounced 
 like fear instead of fair ; once pronounced woonse instead of tvunse or 
 wonse. Johnson himself never got entirely free of these provincial 
 accents. Garrick sometimes used to take him off, squeezing a lemon 
 into a punch-bowl with uncouth gesticulations, looking round the 
 company and calling out, ' Who's for poonsh ? ' " 
 
 B b 
 
370 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 F. N. C. Mundy — are totally forgotten. Cowper and 
 Hayley joined in laudation of the " sweet harmonist 
 of Flora's Court," and assured him of his right 
 to a high place amongst the poets. " We," says 
 Cowper, — 
 
 We deem the bard whoe'er he be, 
 
 And howsoever known, 
 Who would not twine a wreath for thee, 
 
 Unworthy of his own. 
 
 Hayley, in a fanciful copy of verses, describes 
 Nature as presenting Science with Darwin's poem, 
 in which both see themselves reflected, upon which 
 the Goddess exclaims, — 
 
 Yes, in this mirrour of the bard, 
 
 We both embellish'd shine, 
 And grateful will unite to guard, 
 
 An artist so divine ! 
 
 • # # ■# # 
 
 This with delight two poets heard, 
 
 Time ratines it daily, 
 Trust it, dear Darwin, on the word 
 
 Of Cowper and of Hayley. 
 
 The " Botanic Garden," concerning which these 
 pretty things were said, is dead now beyond all hope 
 of resurrection, and it would be utterly forgotten 
 were it not for the immortal parody of its second 
 part — the " Loves of the Plants " — which Canning, 
 Gifford, and Frere contributed to the Anti- Jacobin 
 under the title of the " Loves of the Triangles." As 
 Mr. Hannay, a fine critic whose genius was wasted 
 in journalism, has remarked, " Other poems live in 
 spite of ridicule ; Darwin's ' Loves of the Plants ' 
 in consequence of it. The Attic salt of his enemies 
 has preserved his reputation." Turning back to it, 
 
Erasmus Darwin. 371 
 
 one wonders how such frigid, tawdry, turgid stuff 
 could ever have found readers and admirers. Yet 
 it was singularly successful in its day. The book- 
 sellers paid the author a great price for it — Mrs. 
 Schimmel-Penninck says, for the copyright or for the 
 edition, she is not sure which, ten shillings a line 2 — 
 and brought it out in a sumptuous fashion, with costly 
 botanical plates and illustrations after Fuseli. Cowper 
 honoured it with a criticism in the Analytical Review, 
 which mainly serves to prove that a great poet may 
 be but a second-rate critic — especially when he praises 
 a brother poet for excellences to which he himself 
 makes no pretension. The distinctive merits of 
 Cowper' s poetry are its directness, simplicity, and 
 naturalness. Darwin's poetry is the very reverse of 
 all this, and accordingly we find Cowper praising the 
 " fine writing of the ' Botanic Garden.' " " The 
 descriptions are," he says, " luminous as language 
 selected with the finest taste can make them, meeting 
 the eye with a boldness of projection unattainable by 
 any hand but that of a master." Cowper's accustomed 
 fine sense of propriety seems, indeed, to have wholly 
 deserted him in writing this review. He selects, for 
 example, as a matter for special commendation, 
 Darwin's expression " eyetipt horns " as applied to 
 the snail, and declares that an ordinary writer would 
 not have said so much in half a dozen laboured 
 couplets — which may be true, but which, considering 
 
 2 The " Botanic Garden n contains 4334 lines, which at this rate 
 would make the copy money 2167/. Mr. Charles Darwin says that 
 lie has heard his father say that a thousand guineas were paid 
 before publication for the part which was published last, i. e. for the 
 " Economy of Vegetation," which contains rather more than one-half 
 of the poem. 
 
 b b 2 
 
372 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 that the impression which it is designed to convey 
 is utterly inaccurate, is wholly beside the question. 
 
 Mathias, " the nameless bard " of the Anti- Jacobin, 
 and author of the " Pursuits of Literature," criticizes 
 the " Botanic Garden " with much more justice. In the 
 course of one of his voluminous notes he says : — " I 
 wish men would peruse the treatise ' De Causis Corrup- 
 tions Eloquentise ' before they attempt by prettiness, 
 glittering words, points, conceits, and forced thoughts, 
 to sacrifice propriety and just imagery to the rage of 
 mere novelty. This will always be the case when 
 writers in prose or verse (if I may be allowed to use 
 Sancho's phrase a little metaphorically) * want better 
 bread than is made of wheat.' Modern ears are 
 absolutely debauched by such poetry as Dr. Darwin's, 
 which marks the decline of simplicity and true taste 
 in this country. It is to England what Seneca's 
 prose was to Rome. ' Abundant dulcibus vitiis.' 
 Dryden and Pope are the standards of excellence in 
 this species of writing in our language, and when young 
 minds are rightly instituted in their works, they 
 may without much danger read such glittering verses 
 as Dr. Darwin's. They will then perceive the distor- 
 tion of the sentiment and the harlotry of the orna- 
 ments. It would also be a happy thing for all 
 naturalists, whether poets or writers in prose, if they 
 would, in the words of a true poet, \ Look through 
 Nature up to Nature's God.' Dr. Darwin is certainly a 
 man of great fancy, but I will not cease to repeat that 
 good writing and good poetry require something more." 
 
 The origin of the " Botanic Garden " was some- 
 what curious. Towards the close of the eighteenth 
 century the Linnsean system of botany began to make 
 its way amongst scientific men, and Darwin was one 
 
Erasmus Darwin. 2>7?> 
 
 of the first to take it up. His zeal in the matter 
 was, however, less contagious than might have been 
 expected, and of all the coterie of Lichfield he suc- 
 ceeded in enlisting only two recruits for his botanical 
 society. These were Sir Brooke Boothby, and a 
 proctor of the Cathedral Close — one Jackson, whom 
 Anna Seward calls a " turgid and solemn coxcomb," 
 but of whom we know nothing more. The three 
 formed the Botanic Society of Lichfield, and regularly 
 published " Transactions " after a fashion which 
 created an impression in other quarters that that 
 sleepy little city was really a headquarters of scientific 
 research. In process of time Darwin thought it 
 desirable to establish a garden for experimental and 
 scientific purposes, and for this he had a model ready 
 to his hand. Mr Sneyd, of Belmont, father to two 
 of Richard Lovell Edgeworth's wives, possessed a 
 remarkably picturesque garden on his moorland pro- 
 perty. It consisted of a deep glen amidst the rocks, 
 through which a mountain stream made its way. 
 This glen he caused to be cleared out and planted, 
 while at the bottom he excavated a chain of small 
 lakes communicating with each other and fed by the 
 stream. These lakes covered an area of about five 
 acres, though they were nowhere more than seventy 
 feet wide, and at the end of the glen the water fell 
 over a rocky cascade of some forty feet in height. 
 On the model of this garden Darwin laid out " a little 
 wild umbrageous valley," in the immediate neighbour- 
 hood of Lichfield. "It was," says Miss Seward, 
 " irriguous from various springs, and swampy from 
 their plenitude. A mossy fountain, of the purest 
 and coldest water imaginable, had near a century 
 back induced the inhabitants of Lichfield to build a 
 
374 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 cold bath in the bosom of the vale. That, till the 
 doctor took it into his possession, was the only mark 
 of human industry which could be found in the 
 tangled and sequestered scene. One of its native 
 features had long excited the attention of the curious : 
 a rock which in the central depth of the glen drops 
 perpetually about three times in a minute. Aquatic 
 plants border its top and branch from its fissures. 
 No length of summer drought abates, no rains in- 
 crease its humidity, no frost congeals its droppings," 
 &c. To this paradise Miss Seward was accustomed 
 to resort, and by her own account on her first visit 
 she wrote an invocation beginning — 
 
 Oh come not here ye proud, whose breasts infold 
 Th' insatiate wish of glory or of gold, 
 
 and extending over twenty-three couplets. The verses 
 were presented to Darwin by the author, and elicited 
 from him the declaration that they ought to form the 
 exordium of a great work. " The Linnsean system," 
 said he, " is unexplored poetic ground, and an happy 
 subject for the muse. It affords fine scope for poetic 
 landscape ; it suggests metamorphoses of the Ovidian 
 kind, though reversed. Ovid made men and women 
 into flowers, plants, and trees. You should make 
 flowers,, plants, and trees into men and women. I 
 will write the notes, which must be scientific, and 
 you shall write the verse." 
 
 Miss Seward replied with engaging modesty that 
 the subject was not a proper one for a "female pen," 
 and begged him to undertake the work, which, after 
 a due amount of pressing, he at length consented to 
 do. The forty-six lines composed by Miss Seward, 
 were, with some alterations, incorporated in the 
 
Erasmus Darwin. 375 
 
 exordium of the first part of the " Botanic Garden/ ' 
 and published in the Gentleman's Magazine, and after- 
 wards in the " Annual Register " with Darwin's" 
 name. As it was not until after his death that Miss 
 Seward laid claim to these verses, and as the details 
 she gives on other points are curiously inaccurate, 
 it is possible that there may have been some mistake 
 in the matter, and that these verses, as well as the 
 remainder of the poem, may be Darwin's own pro- 
 perty. The whole matter is, however, confused and 
 inexplicable, and may probably be set down as one 
 of Miss Seward's romances. 
 
 As a poem the " Botanic Garden " has been praised 
 too highly, and laughed at with too little mercy. Its 
 form lent itself readily to satire, and the genius of 
 Canning and his colleagues of the Anti-Jacobin 
 has made the " Loves of the Triangles " immortal. 
 It may, however, be doubted whether they would 
 have troubled themselves with the absurdities of the 
 " Loves of the Plants," had not the author belonged 
 to that school of English politicians who sympathized 
 with the French Revolution, who clamoured for par- 
 liamentary reform, who applauded the secession of 
 the American colonists, and whose zeal for liberty 
 was so great as not unfrequently to degenerate into 
 licentiousness. If Darwin had refrained from eulo- 
 gizing Franklin, sneering at kings and praising the 
 " new morality," he might, with impunity, have 
 carried on his eternal personifications, and have pub- 
 lished the eccentric notes by which he explains them. 
 In that case, however, the poem would have passed 
 into oblivion even sooner than it did. At its best it 
 is about on a level with a fairly good Newdigate prize 
 poem; at its worst it is dreary bathos. It is easy 
 
376 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 to understand the indignation with which Gilford or 
 Canning would receive a passage like the following 
 from the second canto of the " Economy of Vegeta- 
 tion "), which may serve to illustrate the politics of 
 the author : — 
 
 So, borne on sounding pinions to the West, 
 
 When tyrant Power had built his eagle-nest ; 
 
 While from the eyry shriek'd the famish'd brood, 
 
 Clench'd their sharp claws and ehamp'd their beaks for blood, 
 
 Immortal Franklin watch'd the callow crew. 
 
 And stabb'd the struggling vampires ere they flew. 
 
 The patriot flame with quick contagion ran, 
 Hill lighted hill and man electrised man ; 
 Her heroes slain, awhile Columbia mourn'd, 
 And crown'd with laurels, Liberty return'd. 
 The warrior, Liberty, with bending sails, 
 Helm'd his bold course to fair Hibernia's vales ; 
 Firm as he steps along the shouting lands, 
 Lo ! Truth and Virtue range their radiant bands ; 
 Sad Superstition wails her empire torn, 
 Art plies his oar and Commerce pours her horn. 
 
 Long had the giant form on Gallia's plains 
 Inglorious slept, unconscious of his chains ; 
 Round his large limbs were wound a thousand strings 
 By the weak hands of Confessors and Kings ! 
 O'er his closed eyes a triple veil was bound, 
 And steely rivets lock'd him in the ground ; 
 While stern Bastille with iron cage enthralls 
 His folded limbs and hems in marble walls. 
 — Touch'd by the patriot flame, he rent, amazed, 
 The flimsy bonds, and round and round him gazed ; 
 Starts up from earth above the admiring throng, 
 Lifts his colossal form and towers along ; 
 High o'er his foes his hundred arms he rears, 
 Plowshares his swords and pruning hooks his spears ; 
 Calls to the good and brave with voice that rolls 
 Like Heaven's own thunder round the echoing poles ; 
 Gives to the winds his banner broad unfurl'd, 
 And gathers in its shade the living world ! 
 
 A passage such as this, published while all Europe 
 
Erasmus Darwin. 377 
 
 was trembling beneath the shock of the French Revo- 
 lution, naturally aroused the wrath of English consti- 
 tutionalists, and when they found, two or three pages 
 back, such lines as the following, a burlesque suggested 
 itself as a matter of course : — 
 
 Gnomes ! as you now dissect with hammers fine 
 The granite rock, the nodiiled flint calcine ; 
 Grind with strong arm the circling chertz betwixt 
 Your pure Kaolins and Petuntzes mixt j 
 O'er each red saggar's burning cave preside, 
 The keen-eyed fire nymphs blazing by your side. 
 
 The poetic taste of the time was in truth at a miserably 
 low ebb, and those who professed to be its arbiters seem 
 to have been at least as ignorant as their pupils. Wit- 
 ness the criticism of Horace Walpole : " The ' Triumph 
 of Flora, 5 beginning at the fifty-ninth line, is most 
 beautifully and enchantingly imagined ; and the twelve 
 verses that by miracle describe and comprehend the 
 creation of the universe out of chaos, are in my opinion 
 the most sublime passages in any author or in any 
 of the few languages with which I am acquainted. " 
 These are certainly big words, and when we remember 
 what English literature can boast in the matter of sub- 
 limity, we look with some curiosity to discover what it 
 is which so enraptured the critic of Strawberry Hill. 
 It will perhaps excite some amusement in the reader's 
 mind to discover that the sublimest passage in literature 
 in his opinion was the following : — 
 
 " Let there be light ! " proclaim'd the Almighty Lord. 
 Astonish'd Chaos heard the potent word j 
 Through all his realms the kindling ether runs, 
 And the mass starts into a million suns ; 
 Earths round each sun with quick explosions burst, 
 And second planets issue from the first : 
 
3y& Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 Bend as they journey with projectile force, 
 In bright ellipses their reluctant course ; 
 Orbs wheel in orbs, round centres centres roll, 
 And form self-balanced one revolving whole. 
 Onward they move amid their bright abode, 
 Space without bound, the Bosom of their God ! 
 
 Iii its way this passage may be admitted to be not 
 without force, but it is the force of rhetoric rather than 
 of poetry, and, curiously enough, it may be paralleled 
 in half a dozen places in the volume. And as the really 
 striking passages are few and far between, whilst page 
 after page is filled with technicalities and personifica- 
 tions, it is easy to understand why the great popularity 
 of the poem rapidly passed away. Darwin failed as a 
 poet, not from any deficiency of learning, or through 
 any want of power to master the technical mysteries 
 of the poetic art, but because he started on a false 
 theory. Maria Edgeworth says that he had an idea 
 that poetry consists in " painting to the ear," by which 
 not very lucid phrase she apparently intended to say 
 that the poet's task is to do by words what the painter 
 does with his colours and canvas. If Darwin ever 
 expressed himself to this effect it needs no elaborate 
 argument to prove that he knew but half the domain 
 of the poet, and that of that loftier part of his mission 
 which deals with human passion and human affection 
 he had no idea whatever. Now, as a very acute critic 
 has remarked of another didactic poet, " no poetry can 
 maintain its ground unless it deal with either the heart 
 or the intellect," and it cannot be said that the ' Botanic 
 Garden,' laborious and learned though it be, touches 
 either the one or the other. Science and fiction are 
 jumbled together, but the admixture is, to use a Dar- 
 winian metaphor, mechanical and not chemical. The 
 poetical machinery is at best a clumsy and laborious 
 
Erasmus Darwin. 379 
 
 allegory, so enigmatical in character as to render neces- 
 sary a constant reference to the notes ; absurd in itself, 
 and beyond conception wearisome through its repe- 
 titions. As another writer has observed : * Darwin 
 had the eye and the ear of a poet, and the creative 
 mind ; but his writings have served to show that these 
 are of little avail without the heart, and the heart was 
 wanting in him." 
 
 One other point appears to call for remark. Darwin's 
 theories of versification were very singular. Miss 
 Seward mentions that he " ever maintained a preference 
 of Akenside's blank verse to Milton's ;" he had also 
 a contempt for sonnets, especially for those of Milton, 
 though it might have been thought that those on " The 
 Late Massacre in Piedmont," " On his Blindness," and 
 "On his Deceased Wife," were majestic enough in 
 rhythm and cadence, even for a poet who placed those 
 qualities in the first place ; and finally, he fancied he 
 could improve upon the versification of Pope by exceed- 
 ing him in polish and by making every line as sonorous 
 as possible — a process which, when applied to mean and 
 commonplace matters, has a curiously ludicrous effect. 
 No better illustration of his failure in this respect could 
 be afforded than the passage descriptive of Brindley's 
 labours in connexion with internal navigation, a pas- 
 sage which, we may remark by the way, Miss Seward 
 describes as " supremely happy :" — 
 
 So with strong arm, immortal Brindley leads 
 His long canals and parts the velvet meads ; 
 Winding in lucid lines the watery mass 
 Mines the firm rock or loads the deep morass ; 
 With rising locks a thousand hills alarms ; 
 Flings o'er a thousand streams its silver arms ; 
 Feeds the long vale, the nodding woodland laves, 
 And Plenty, Arts and Commerce freight the waves. 
 
380 Eighteenth Century Shtdies. 
 
 Following these prosaic verses comes a long prose 
 description of a monument which Darwin suggested 
 as an appropriate adornment to the Cathedral of Lich- 
 field, while at the foot of the page is a note dilating 
 upon the scandal of leaving so great a man unhonoured. 
 The incongruity of all this with the purpose of poetry 
 hardly requires to be pointed out, but the explanation 
 of its appearance is simple enough. Darwin was an 
 enthusiastic admirer of Brindley and his engineering 
 schemes, and took a very practical interest in their 
 execution. At one time he even went so far as to 
 contemplate the construction at his own cost of a small 
 canal to connect Lichfield with the Grand Trunk Canal 
 at Fradley Heath, which, according to his grandson, 
 was to have been only a foot deep and to have borne 
 only boats of four or five tons burden, which could be 
 dragged by a man. That scheme was abandoned, but 
 the existing canal was in a great measure due to his 
 initiative. 
 
 Thirteen years after the publication of the " Botanic 
 Garden," Darwin produced his "Zoonomia; or, the 
 Laws of Organic Life," a work in which speculation 
 and empiricism are curiously mingled. He seems to 
 have been perpetually engaged in contemplation of the 
 mysteries of generation and reproduction, but it cannot 
 be said that his guesses are invariably happy. Thus, 
 in one place he maintains that man was originally an 
 oyster, sprung into being by chance, and that by time 
 alone he became first an amphibious and then a terres- 
 trial animal. In the " Zoonomia," he threw over all 
 speculations of this kind. The design of his book 
 was to reform the system of medicine, by putting forth 
 a new science of life. Henceforward, the origin of 
 humanity was to be traced to " filaments." He does 
 
Eras7HMS Da rwin . 381 
 
 recognize a God, though in his posthumous poem, ' The 
 Temple of Nature,' he makes patronizing reference to 
 the Great First Cause ; and his creed at the " Botanic 
 Garden " and " Zoonomia " period may best be judged 
 by what we learn from his contemporaries. Mrs. 
 Schimmel-Penninck, in the interesting fragment of 
 autobiography which was published by her family a few 
 years ago, allows us to see with tolerable clearness what 
 his views really were. It is hardly necessary to say 
 that he laughed at the idea of Christianity. On one 
 occasion some person expressed a hope that he would 
 one day accept it, and in reply he said : " Before I do, 
 you Christians must be all agreed. This morning I 
 received two parcels, one containing a work of Dr. 
 Priestley's, proving that there is no spirit, the other a 
 work by Berkeley, proving that there is no matter. 
 What am I to believe among you all ? " From such a 
 man it is obvious that the religious sense was in some 
 way absent, and he certainly lost no opportunity of 
 proving that it was. Consulted on one occasion by the 
 friends of a devout young lady in very delicate health, 
 he recommended them to " toss her religious books 
 into the fire, except Quarles's * Emblems,' which may 
 make her laugh." He further lost no opportunity of 
 declaring himself a materialist in the grosser sense of 
 the term. He often used to say, we learn from Mrs. 
 Schimmel-Penninck, that " man is an eating animal, a 
 drinking animal, and a sleeping animal, and one placed 
 in a material world, which alone furnishes all that the 
 human animal can desire. He is gifted, besides, with 
 knowing faculties, practically to explore and apply 
 the resources of the world to his use. These are 
 realities. All else is nothing. Conscience and senti- 
 ment are but mere figments of the imagination. Man 
 
382 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 has but five gates of knowledge, the five senses. He 
 can know nothing but through them ; all else is a vain 
 fancy ; and as for the being of a God, the existence of 
 a soul, or a world to come, who can know anything 
 about them ? Depend upon it, my dear madam, these 
 are only the bugbears by which men of sense govern 
 fools ; nothing is real that is not an object of sense." 3 
 It is hardly necessary in this place to vindicate the 
 spiritual nature of man. A doctrine so universally 
 implanted in the human mind is not likely to be de- 
 stroyed because a handful of " philosophers," whose 
 vanity is at least equal to their attainments, choose to 
 invent a new God for themselves. Nor can it be said 
 that Dr. Darwin's new theories were much to be pre- 
 ferred to the old. His notion, as developed in the 
 " Zoonomia," is that all life originates in sensitive 
 filaments. " Give me," he says, " a fibre susceptible 
 of irritation, and I will make a tree, a dog, a horse, a 
 man." Elsewhere he says ("Zoonomia," vol. i. 493) : 
 " I conceive the primordium or rudiment of the em- 
 bryon, as secreted from the blood of the parent, to 
 consist in a single living filament as a muscular fibre 
 which I suppose to be the extremity of a nerve of loco- 
 motion, as a fibre of the retina is the extremity of a 
 nerve of sensation ; as for instance one of the fibrils 
 which compose the mouth of an absorbent vessel. I 
 suppose this living filament of whatever form it may 
 be, whether sphere, cube, or cylinder, to be endued 
 with the capacity of being excited into action by certain 
 kinds of stimulus. By the stimulus of the surrounding 
 
 3 Mr. Darwin disputes Mrs. Schimmel-Penninck's accuracy in this 
 as in other matters. It may be that, writing as she did after the 
 lapse of many years, she may have fallen into some errors of detail, 
 but of her general truthfulness it is impossible to entertain a doubt. 
 
Erasmus Darwin. 383 
 
 fluid in which it is received from the male, it may bend 
 into a ring and thus form the beginning of a tube. 
 This living ring may now embrace or absorb a nutritive 
 particle of the fluid in which it swims, and by drawing 
 it into its pores, or joining it by compression to its 
 extremities, may increase its own length or crassitude, 
 and by degrees the living ring may become a living 
 tube. With this new organization or accretion of parts, 
 new kinds of irritability may commence." And so on. 
 Enough has probably been quoted, however, to show 
 the nature of the philosophy which this materialistic 
 leader professed. We need not attempt a discussion 
 of its value. Voltaire, in a famous passage of not very 
 decent sarcasm, has said all that is necessary on this 
 subject. Nor need we trouble ourselves very much 
 about some other speculations of the same kind in 
 which Darwin indulged. He may be found, for example, 
 speaking with approbation of a philosopher — unnamed, 
 but presumably himself — who thought it not impos- 
 sible that the first insects were the anthers or stigmas 
 of flowers, which had by some means loosed themselves 
 from the parent plant. From these he imagines that 
 other insects may have been formed in the course of a 
 long period of time, some acquiring wings, others fins, 
 and others claws from their ceaseless efforts to procure 
 food or to protect themselves from injury. " JNTone of 
 these changes," he adds, " are more incomprehensible 
 than the transformation of tadpoles into frogs, or cater- 
 pillars into butterflies." 
 
 In spite of all the apparent philosophy of these 
 speculations it may be doubted whether Darwin pos- 
 sessed a really scientific mind. The ideas upon which 
 his " Botanic Garden " is based were derived entirely 
 from a study of the Linnsean system, and — not to speak 
 
384 Eighteenth CeJitury Studies. 
 
 profanely — that immortal work itself is apt to remind 
 the reader of those histories of England in rhyme 
 which enterprising schoolmistresses indite with the 
 object of assisting the feeble memories of their pupils. 
 The religious and moral reflections of these latter 
 specimens of u goody " literature have their counter- 
 part in the outbursts of rather dreary scepticism — 
 religious and political — in which the " Botanic Garden" 
 abounds. Nor is much more to be said for the ima- 
 gined identity of animal and vegetable life, which 
 Darwin appears to conceive to have been completely 
 made out. That Nature is a great and harmonious 
 whole was known long before the philosophers of the 
 eighteenth century began to speculate concerning her 
 operations. A hundred and fifty years before, one 
 Francis Bacon, enlarging upon an idea which was 
 familiar enough to the students of the Platonic philo- 
 sophy, had worked upon these lines, and it is impos- 
 sible to think the theories of development and evolution, 
 as propounded in the passages quoted above, either a 
 legitimate deduction from or a worthy completion of 
 the Baconian idea. In these speculative matters, as 
 in the practical work of his profession, it is to be 
 feared that Erasmus Darwin must be pronounced an 
 empiric after all. The present generation can only 
 judge him by his books, and it must be admitted that 
 they do not afford the reader a very high idea of his 
 genius as a physician. He is, it is true, accredited 
 with many wonderful cures. He jumped into cele- 
 brity, for example, at Lichfield, by the treatment of 
 one Mr. Ings, who had been given over as dying by 
 the local practitioner. Darwin reversed the treatment, 
 and saved the patient. Another case was that of a 
 lady who was suffering from internal haemorrhage. It 
 
Erasmus Darwin. 385 
 
 is related by Miss Seward, with a very circumstantial 
 account of her own offer to allow the doctor to take__ 
 from her sufficient blood for the operation of trans- 
 fusion. Darwin found that the London physicians 
 had been treating her with stimulants — wine, brandy, 
 and so forth — and keeping her upon the strongest 
 food, in its most concentrated form, with the natural 
 result of increasing the haemorrhage. He adopted a 
 milk diet, with abstinence from wine and everything 
 that was likely to set up inflammatory action, and he 
 succeeded in effecting a cure. The ulceration, from 
 which the bleeding had arisen, had time to heal, and 
 nature to reassert itself. For the rest his practice would 
 seem to have been pretty much that of his contem- 
 poraries, though he was certainly in advance of the 
 majority of them on questions of sanitary science, such 
 as ventilation, drainage, and pure water. He appears 
 to have even anticipated the modern practice with 
 regard to the administration of stimulants in cases of 
 fever, but his remedies seem to the non-professional 
 reader of " Zoonomia " somewhat startling in their 
 severity. He was a great believer in the value of 
 bleeding, and his lancet was constantly in requisition. 
 Even in his own case he used it repeatedly for the 
 relief of angina pectoris — a disease which would be 
 treated by modern physicians with the strongest 
 stimulants. Miss Seward gives a long and circum- 
 stantial account of the manner of his death, and of his 
 personal appearance during the latter part of his life. 
 Some of the details have been repudiated by his 
 family, but sufficient is left unchallenged to prove that 
 the frequent bleedings to which he had subjected him- 
 self had seriously injured his constitution. According 
 to her story he was actually entreating his wife and 
 
 c 
 

 
 86 Eighteenth Century Studies. 
 
 daughter to bleed him at the very moment of his 
 death. That part of the tale may fairly be dismissed 
 as another example of Miss Seward's too fertile ima- 
 gination. All that is necessary to record in this place 
 is that he died somewhat suddenly on the 18th of April, 
 1802, in his seventy-first year, at Breadsall Priory, 
 near Derby, where he had been living during the last 
 two years of his life. 
 
 His wife placed over his tomb, in Breadsall Church, 
 a tablet recording " the rare union of talents, which 
 so eminently distinguished him as a Physician, a Poet, 
 and a Philosopher," of which she believed that his 
 writings would remain " a public and unfading testi- 
 mony." The latest of his admirers, Herr Krause, 
 offers an interesting comment on this anticipation in 
 the excellent monograph on Darwin's scientific writ- 
 ings, which has recently been introduced to English 
 readers by Mr. W. S. Dallas. " Erasmus Darwin's 
 system," he says, " was in itself a most significant 
 first step in the path of knowledge, which his grand- 
 son has opened up for us, but to wish to revive it at 
 the present day, as has actually been seriously at- 
 tempted, shows a weakness of thought and a mental 
 anachronism which no one can envy." 
 
 THE END. 
 
 GILBERT AND RIVINGTON, PRINTERS, ST. JOHN 8 SQUARE, LONDON. 
 
By the same Author. 
 
 THE PUBLIC LIFE OF THE EARL OF BEAGONSFIELD. 
 
 2 vols., demy 8vo. Chapman & Hall. Price 32s. 
 
 Opinions of the Press. 
 
 From the Saturday Review. 
 Mr. Hi tollman is perhaps too indiscriminate an admirer of his hero, 
 but his devotion has induced him to collect the materials of his 
 narrative with indefatigable industry, and his reports and extracts 
 furnish the reader with the means of correcting the constant bias 
 of an advocate who scarcely pretends to be a judge. ... A full 
 and not uninteresting history of a remarkable life. . . . With all 
 drawbacks unqualified sympathy is a better guide to the compre- 
 hension of a character than a combination of envy, hatred, and malice. 
 ... A thoroughly faithful record. 
 
 World. 
 None of the objections which have been recently urged against the 
 writing of biographies during the lifetime of their subjects apply to 
 Mr. Prancis Hitchman's " Public Life of the Earl of Beaconsfield.' 
 These two very handsome and beautifully printed volumes are, as they 
 profess to be, devoted exclusively to the public life of the Prime 
 Minister, and based upon materials accessible to all who have the 
 indefatigable industry and patience which characterize Mr. Hitchman's 
 work throughout. He has shown much skill in his selection from 
 the voluminous records that his research has exhumed, and a con- 
 siderable amount of literary judgment and sense of political apprecia- 
 tion in the relative quantity of space allotted by him to the different 
 episodes of Lord Beaconsfield's career. The special value of the work 
 lies in the second volume, which gives what has long been wanted, 
 but never before attempted — a succinct narrative of Lord Beacons- 
 field's progress during the last twenty-five years. . . . Panegyric 
 though it is, he never mixes up historical fact and sentimental eulogy, 
 
( K) 
 
 and the result is, that as a political historian he is, we believe, 
 uniformly trustworthy and accurate. 
 
 Whitehall Review. 
 Mr. Hitchman must be congratulated upon the ability with which 
 he has treated a subject of no common interest. 
 
 Monetary Gazette. 
 We hail with, delight a work which was much wanted by those who 
 have wearied of the fulsome falsehoods which have too long obscured 
 the career of the illustrious leader of the Tory party. 
 
 Morning Post. 
 Mr. Hitchman's valuable volumes contain so many curious and in- 
 teresting facts concerning the political life of Lord Beaconsfield, so well 
 arranged, and so admirably described in such clear and pleasant 
 language, that all who take an interest in politics ought to read them. 
 Throughout the author has shown rare judgment, and although an 
 enthusiastic admirer of the great man whose biography he has selected 
 for his theme, he nevertheless writes impartially, and with perfect 
 justice and good taste of his adversaries. 
 
 Home Neios. 
 The work deserves a permanent place in every political library* It 
 is a full and convenient repertory of facts of the utmost historical 
 interest and value. 
 
 Morning Advertiser. 
 A most valuable and important compilation. 
 
 * 
 
U.C.BERKELEY LIBRARIES 
 
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