“December 24th, 1812.“Sir,“I am far from displeased with the proof you have given me of your confidence, and which displays great zeal, power of memory, and attention. I am obliged to go out of town, and shall not be settled in town till the end of January. I will then see you at any time you wish. It would gratify me to be of any service to you. I wish it may be in my power.“I am, sir,“Your obedient, humble servant,“H. Davy.”
“December 24th, 1812.
“Sir,
“I am far from displeased with the proof you have given me of your confidence, and which displays great zeal, power of memory, and attention. I am obliged to go out of town, and shall not be settled in town till the end of January. I will then see you at any time you wish. It would gratify me to be of any service to you. I wish it may be in my power.
“I am, sir,“Your obedient, humble servant,“H. Davy.”
Through Sir Humphry’s interest, Faraday obtained the post of assistant in the laboratory of the Royal Institution, where he remained ever afterwards, eventually becoming its first professor. Tyndall says of Faraday, “His work excites admiration, but contact with him warms and elevates the heart. Here, surely, is a strong man. I love strength, but let me not forget its union with modesty,tenderness, and sweetness in the character of Faraday.... Taking the duration of his life into account, this son of a blacksmith and apprentice to a bookbinder had to decide between a fortune of £150,000 on the one side, and his unendowed science on the other. He chose the latter, and died a poor man. But his was the glory of holding aloft among the nations the scientific name of England for a period of forty years.” In 1835, when Sir Robert Peel retired from office, he recommended Faraday to William IV. for a pension of £300. The minute was placed in the hands of Lord Melbourne, Peel’s successor, who saw Faraday, and involved him in religious and political discussion, wanting to entrap the philosopher into a promise to support the Government. Failing in this, Lord Melbourne said, “I look upon the whole system of giving pensions to literary and scientific people as a piece of gross humbug.” To which Faraday replied, “After this, my lord, I see that my business with you is ended. I wish you good morning.” The next day Lord Melbourne received the following letter:
“My Lord,“After the pithy manner in which your Lordship was pleased to express your sentiments on the subject of pensions that have been granted to literary and scientific persons, it only remains for me to relieve you, as far as I am concerned, from all further uneasiness. I will not accept any favour at your hands nor at the hands of any Cabinet of which you are a member.“M. Faraday.”
“My Lord,
“After the pithy manner in which your Lordship was pleased to express your sentiments on the subject of pensions that have been granted to literary and scientific persons, it only remains for me to relieve you, as far as I am concerned, from all further uneasiness. I will not accept any favour at your hands nor at the hands of any Cabinet of which you are a member.
“M. Faraday.”
It is said that for some years Faraday’s income never exceeded £22 a year, and it is a fact that when a youth he was much exercised about the purchase of an electrical machine which he had seen in an optician’s window, price 4s.6d.He had no money, but out of his dinner allowance he saved the requisite sum, and this machine was the one he used in all those early experiments which led to some of his great discoveries.
THE SHIFTS OF IMPECUNIOSITY.
In 1748 there resided in the wilds of Connaught a lady named Gunning, of whom little is known but that before her marriage she was the Hon. Bridget Bourke, and that after it she became the mother of two exquisitely beautiful daughters, destined to make such a stir in Society, as was unknown before, and has been unequalled since. Before they left Dublin they were invited to some brilliant festivities at the Castle, which were on a scale of magnificence unequalled, it is said, in the memory of the oldest courtier. To such an entertainment Mrs. Gunning was anxious to introduce her daughters, for their faces were literally their fortunes; but the overwhelming difficulty of dress presented itself. They had nothing that by any amount of manipulation could be transformed into Court costumes, so in her difficulty Mrs. Gunning obtained an introduction to Tom Sheridan, who was then managing the Dublin Theatre. He was struck by the beauty and grace of the girls, placed the wardrobe of the theatre at their disposal; and by lending them the dresses of Lady Macbeth and Juliet, in which they appeared most lovely, enabled them to obtain theentréeto that aristocratic circle in which they afterwards shone so brilliantly. In addition to providing the necessary garments for the great event Tom Sheridan is credited with superintending the finishing touches of their toilets, for which it is said he claimed a kiss from each as his reward. These beautiful creatures were at one time in even greater straits for funds.
Miss Bellamy, the actress, asserts that she once found Mrs. Gunning and her children in the greatest distress, with bailiffs in the house and the family threatened with immediate eviction. With the assistance of her man-servant, who stood under the windows of the house at night, after the bailiffs were admitted,everything that could be carried away, was removed. But for this and other help the Gunnings were not grateful. Indeed, in the case of the Countess of Coventry who had borrowed money from Miss Bellamy, presumably for her weddingtrousseau, the monetary obligation was repaid by unpardonable insult. One night when this actress was playing Juliet, and had just arrived at the most impressive part of the tragedy, the countess, who occupied the stage-box, uttered a loud laugh. Miss Bellamy was so overcome by the interruption that she was obliged to leave the stage, and when Lady Coventry was remonstrated with, she replied that “since she had seen Mrs. Cibber act Juliet she could notendureMiss Bellamy.” When they came to London in the autumn of 1751 the fashionable world went mad after “the beautiful Miss Gunnings,” who were positively mobbed in the Park and elsewhere, and were compelled on one occasion to obtain the protection of a file of the Guards. When they travelled in the country the roads were lined with people anxious to catch a glimpse of their lovely faces; and hundreds of people were known to remain all night outside an inn at which they were staying, in order to behold them in the morning.
Not many months after theirdébutin London, the Duke of Hamilton, owner of three dukedoms in Scotland, England, and France, and regarded as the haughtiest man in the kingdom, became deeply enamoured of the younger sister, and was married to her at Mayfair Chapel one night at half-past twelve o’clock, the suddenness of the ceremony compelling the divine who performed the service to make use of a ring from a bed-curtain.
The elder sister, became Countess of Coventry in the following March, and was then acknowledged as leader of fashion in the metropolis, although from the seclusion in which the early part of her life had been spent in Ireland, she was little fitted, so far as accomplishments were concerned, to hold that post. Her reign was brief as it was brilliant. In 1759 her health completely broke down, and she died in October 1760, of consumption, the result of artificial aids to beauty, which in her case were utterly unnecessary.
Curran, the advocate and wit, experienced vicissitudes almost as startling. He was born at Newmarket, County Cork, in 1750, and describes himself as “a little ragged apprentice to every kind of idleness and mischief, all day studying whatever was eccentricin those older, and half the night practising it for the amusement of those who were younger than myself. One morning I was playing at marbles in the village ball alley, with a light heart and a lighter pocket. The gibe, and the jest, and the plunder, went gaily round. Those who won laughed, and those who lost cheated, when suddenly there appeared amongst us a stranger of a very venerable and cheerful aspect. His intrusion was not the least restraint upon our merry little assemblage; he was a benevolent creature, and the days of infancy (after all, the happiest we shall ever see) perhaps rose upon his memory. God bless him! I see his fine form, at the distance of half a century, just as he stood before me in the little ball alley in the days of my childhood. His name was Boyse; he was the rector of Newmarket. To me he took a particular fancy.... Some sweetmeats easily bribed me home with him. I learned from poor Boyse my alphabet, and my grammar, and the rudiments of the classics: he taught me all he could, and then he sent me to the school at Middleton—in short,he made a man of me. I recollect it was about five-and-thirty years afterwards when I had risen to some eminence at the bar, and when I had a seat in Parliament, and a good house in Ely Place, on my return one day from Court, I found an old gentleman seated alone in the drawing-room, his feet familiarly placed on each side of the Italian marble chimney-piece, and his whole air bespeaking the consciousness of one quite at home. He turned round—it wasmy friend of the ball alley. I rushed instinctively into his arms. I could not help bursting into tears. Words cannot describe the scene that followed. ‘You are right, sir—you are right; the chimney-piece is yours, the pictures are yours, the house is yours; you gave me all I have—my friend—my father!’”[2]
After leaving school at Middleton, Curran passed to Trinity College, Dublin, which he entered as a sizar when nineteen years of age. He does not appear to have distinguished himself at the University, from whence he proceeded to London, and contrived,quodcunque modo, to enter his name on the books of the Middle Temple. At that time, he says, he read “ten hours every day; seven at law, and three at history and the general principles of politics, and that I may have time enough”—it is believed he wrotefor the magazines, etc., as a means of support—“I rise at half-past four. I have contrived a machine after the manner of an hour-glass, which wakens me regularly at that hour. Exactly over my head I have suspended two vessels of tin, one above the other. When I go to bed, which is always at ten, I pour a bottle of water into the upper vessel, in the bottom of which is a hole of such a size as to let the water pass through so as to make the inferior reservoir overflow in six hours and a half;” so that if he wished to remain in bed after daylight, he could only do so by consenting to a cold shower-bath.
He was called to the bar in 1775, and for some time had a tremendously uphill fight, wearing, according to his own account, his teeth to the stumps at the Cork Sessions without any adequate recompense. He then removed to Dublin, and for a time fared no better. “I then lived” said he, “upon Hog Hill: my wife and children were the chief furniture of my apartments, and as to my rent it stood pretty much the same chance of liquidation with the National Debt. Mrs. Curran, however, was a barrister’s lady, and what she wanted in wealth she was determined should be supplied by dignity. The landlady, on the other hand, had no idea of any gradation except that of pounds, shillings, and pence. I walked out one morning to avoid the perpetual altercations on the subject, in no very enviable mood. I fell into the gloom, to which from my infancy I had been occasionally subject. I had a family for whom I had no dinner, and a landlady for whom I had no rent. I had gone abroad in despondence, I returned home almost in desperation. When I opened the door of my study, whereLavateralone could have found a library, the first object which presented itself was an immense folio of a brief, twenty gold guineas wrapped up beside it, and the name ofOld Bob Lyonsmarked upon the back of it. I paid my landlady, bought a good dinner, gave Bob Lyons a share of it, and that dinner was the date of my prosperity.” From this time he rapidly rose to the top of his profession, and his services were eagerly sought for. Wonderfully eloquent, with a highly imaginative and powerfully poetic mind, his sway was something marvellous, for, added to these gifts, his wit and power of mimicry were unapproachable.
In the case of Valentine Jamerai Duval, who ultimately became Professor of Antiquities and Ancient and Modern Geography in the Academy of Luneville, youthful hardships occasionedextraordinary expedients. The son of labouring people, at the age of fourteen he was ignorant of the alphabet. His occupation was that of turkey-keeper, but after an attack of small-pox, which nearly killed him, he wandered through certain parts of Champagne, then in a condition of famine, in search of employment. When he reached the Duchy of Lorraine, he obtained a situation as shepherd, and became acquainted with the hermit, Brother Palimon, whom he helped in his rural labours. In return for these services the hermit gave him instruction, and subsequently he lived as a labourer with the four hermits of St. Anne, studying arithmetic and geography in his leisure moments. His one object then was to obtain books, impossible without money, which, situated as he was, seemed equally unattainable. Finding out, however, that a furrier at Luneville purchased skins, he set snares for wild animals, and by this means realised enough money to procure the books he coveted.
But beyond the self-denial of Curran with his primitive invention for early rising, and the contrivance of Duval for obtaining the needful, is the interesting career of Bernard Palissy, the Potter, who, in addition to his fame as an artist in pottery, was celebrated as a glass painter, naturalist, philosopher, and for his devotion to the Protestant cause in the sixteenth century. Born in 1510, at Chapelle Biron, a poor hamlet near the small town of Perigord, he was brought up as a worker in painted glass, in pursuit of which occupation he travelled considerably, devoting all the spare time of his wanderings to the study of natural history, in which he delighted. Though an ardent student of nature, he yet found opportunity to make himself acquainted with the teaching of Paracelsus, of the alchemists and of the reformers of the Church. He did not settle down till nearly thirty years of age, when he established himself at Saintes as a painter on glass, and surveyor, and then turned his attention to the making of pottery and the production of white enamel, which latter was useless excepting as a covering for ornamental pottery, and at this time Palissy was not sufficiently skilled to make a rough pipkin. Under these circumstances it is not surprising that his wife took exception to the money expended in the purchase of drugs, the buying of pots, and the building of a furnace, as the loss of time told heavily on his limited resources; and it would be perfectly truthful to say that the first things Bernard Palissy producedin the way of pottery were family jars. Mrs. Palissy was undoubtedly very wroth at his going on in this way, more especially because, as is so frequently the case, his family increased as his income decreased, and she succeeded at last in stopping his experiments for a time. He then obtained an appointment as Surveyor to the Government, in which profession he was remarkably proficient, but before very long the old craving for experimenting returned with redoubled vigour, and he again set to work in search of white enamel. The expense incurred was so great that his wife and children became ragged and hungry: nothing daunted, he broke up twelve new earthen pots, hired a glass furnace, and for months continued watching, burning, and baking. At last his eager eyes were gladdened by the sight of a piece of white enamel amidst the bakings. Urged on by this, he felt he must have another furnace; he succeeded in obtaining the bricks on credit, became his own bricklayer’s boy and mason, and built the structure himself. On one occasion he spent six days and nights watching his baking clay, sleeping only a few minutes at a time near his fire, but disappointment was all the result. The vessels were spoilt. In desperation he borrowed more money for his experiments, which was consumed in like manner, until at last he was without fuel for the furnace. Insensible to everything but the project on which he was bent, he tore up the palings from the garden, and when these were exhausted he broke up the chairs and tables. His wife and children rushed about frantic, thinking that he had lost his senses, and well they might when they saw the demolition of the furniture followed by the tearing up of the floor. Success ultimately crowned his praiseworthy perseverance, but not until he had devoted sixteen years of unremunerated labour, enduring unexampled fatigue and discouragements. When at length he succeeded in obtaining a pure white enamel he was enabled to produce works in which natural objects were represented with remarkable skill, his fame spread rapidly, his sculptures in clay and his enamelled pottery being at once accepted as works of art of the highest order. His career, however, was destined to be remarkable at every stage, for no sooner had he acquired renown and riches than he was subjected to religious persecution, which would have ended in death had it not been for the Duke de Montmorency, one of his patrons, who succeeded in rescuing him from prison.When established in Paris, assisted by his sons, he continued to produce most remarkable specimens of ornamental pottery, and in addition to his artistic labours instituted a series of conferences which were attended by the most distinguished doctors and scientificsavants, where he set forth his views on fountains, stones, metals, etc., desirous of knowing whether the great philosophers of antiquity interpreted nature as he did. Although in the ordinary sense an unlettered man, his theories were never once controverted, and for ten years his lectures were delivered before the most enlightened of that age, but his teaching once more arousing the animosity of his religious opponents, he was thrown into the Bastille, where he died after being incarcerated for two years.
After such a “shift” as having to tear up the floor of a dwelling, most other instances might be expected to appear more or less tame; but the experiences of William Thom, the Inverary poet, are scarcely inferior in intensity. This untutored, but extremely sweet songster, whose first poem, ‘Blind Boys’ Pranks,’ appeared in theEdinburgh Herald, was a hand-loom weaver, who was deprived of his occupation by the failure of certain American firms, and compelled to tramp the country as a pedlar. Before resorting to that line of life, and when in the receipt of the sum of five shillings weekly, he relates how on a memorable spring morning, he anxiously awaited the arrival of this small amount: and though the clock had struck eleven, the windows of the room were still curtained, in order that the four sleeping children, who were bound to be hungry when awake, might be deluded into believing that it was still night, for the only food in their parents’ possession was one handful of meal saved from the previous day. The mother with the tenderest anxiety sat by the babes’ bedside lulling them off to sleep as soon as they exhibited the least sign of wakefulness, and speaking to her husband in whispers as to the cooking of the little meal remaining, for the youngest child could no longer be kept asleep, and by its whimpering woke the others. Face after face sprang up, each little one exclaiming, “Oh, mither, mither, give me a piece;” and says the poor fellow, “The word sorrow was too weak to apply to the feelings of myself and wife during the remainder of that long and dreary forenoon.” When compelled to leave the humble dwelling which, poverty-stricken though it was, had all the endearing influences of home,he made up a pack consisting of second-hand books and some trifling articles of merchandise, and sadly started with wife and bairns through mountain paths and rugged roads, often sleeping at night in barns and outhouses. The precarious nature of a pedlar’s life must have been terribly trying to one so sensitive, especially when, as in his case, it ended in his having to have recourse to the profession of musical beggar. Before entering Methven he sold a book to a stone-breaker on the road, the proceeds of which (fivepence halfpenny) was all the money he possessed. The purchaser when making the bargain had noticed Thom’s flute which he carried with him, and had offered such a good price for the instrument that the poet had been much tempted to part with it, though it had been his solace and companion on many and many an occasion. Thinking that possibly it might be the means of his earning a few pence, he resisted the temptation to part with it, and soon after took up his post outside a genteel-looking house, and played ‘The Flowers of the Forest’ with such exquisite expression that window after window was raised, and in ten minutes after he found himself possessed of three and ninepence, which sum was increased to five shillings before he reached his lodging.
It would hardly be possible to conceive anything more truly touching than the shift of William Thom, when he practised the pardonable deception upon his hungry children of turning day into night, though for downright deprivation the experience of John Ledyard, the traveller, may be said to excel it. This celebrated discoverer, who came into Europe from the United States in 1776, when making a tour of the world with Captain Cook, as corporal of a troop of Marines, arrived in England in 1780. He then formed the design of penetrating from the North West to the East Coast of America, for which purpose Sir Joseph Banks furnished him with some money. He bought sea stores with the intention of sailing to Nootka Sound, but altered his mind, and determined to travel overland to Kamschkatka, from whence the passage is short to the opposite shore of the American continent. Towards the close of the year 1786, he started with ten guineas in his pocket, went to and from Stockholm, because the Gulf of Bothnia was frozen; proceeding north he walked to the Arctic Circle, passed round the head of the Gulf of Bothnia, and descended on its east side to St. Petersburg, where hearrived in March 1787, without shoes or stockings. He proceeded to the house of the Portuguese Ambassador, who gave him a good dinner, and obtained for him twenty guineas on a bill drawn in the name of Sir Joseph Banks, with which sum he proceeded to Yakutz, accompanying a convoy of provisions, and there met Captain Cook. He says in his Journal, “I have known both hunger and nakedness to the utmost extremity of human endurance. I have known what it is to have food given me as charity to a madman, and I have at times been obliged to shelter myself under the miseries of that character to avoid a heavier calamity. My distresses have been greater than I have ever owned, or will own to any man. Such evils are terrible to bear, but they never yet had power to turn me from my purpose.”
To have to submit to be thought a lunatic to escape starvation must certainly have been rather trying, though from the fact of part of the journey being performed without shoes or stockings it would certainly look as if John Ledyard were anything but particular; and it is well for us that he and other glorious pioneers were not, otherwise we should not be living in such an age of marvellous enlightenment as is our present privilege. Round the world in eighty days, facilitated by Cook’s tourist coupons would hardly have been practicable, had not men like Ledyard been martyrs in the cause of exploration.
Aproposof travelling in days gone by, an incident in the life of the Rev. Henry Tevuge presents a somewhat strange shift; at any rate, strange for a clergyman. This eccentric clerical was Rector of Alcester in 1670, and afterwards Incumbent of Spernall, which he appears to have left in 1675, for on May 20th in that year he writes, “This day I began my voyage from my house at Spernall, in the county of Warwick, with small accoutrements, saving what I carried under me in an old sack. My steed like that of Hudibras, for mettle, courage, and colour (though not of the same bigness), and for flesh, one of Pharaoh’s lean mares ready to seize (for hunger) on those that went before her, had she not been short-winged, or rather leaden-heeled. My stock of moneys was also proportionable to the rest; being little more than what brought me to London in an old coat and breeches of the same, an old pair of hose, and shoes, and a leathern doublet of nine years old and upwards. Indeed, by reason of the suddennessof my journey, I had nothing but what I was ashamed of, save only
“An old fox broad sword, and a good black gown,And thus old Henry came to London Town.”
At that time chaplains were not provided with bed or bedding, and the divine, having no money, and wishing to redeem a cloak which had been long in pawn for 10s., he sold his lean mare, saddle and bridle for 26s., released the cloak, but only to re-pledge it for £2. A writer, alluding to that period, says “it must have been a rare time for cavaliers, clerical and secular, when the cloak that had been pawned for 10s.acquired a fourfold value when offered as a new pledge.” It must have been a rare time for clergymen of the Church of England when a navy chaplain is found on such intimate terms with “No. 1 round the corner,” but that circumstance is accounted for by the fact that the Rev. Mr. Tevuge is spoken of as having “contracted convivial and expensive habits.”
The literary, musical, and dramatic professions are the most prolific in furnishing curious cases of impecuniosity; and separate chapters will be devoted to those three branches of art, but there are a few instances more directly of the nature of “shifts” which I have included in the present portion of the subject; amongst others being the incident of Dr. Johnson dining with his publisher, and being so shabby that, as there was a third person present, he hid behind a screen. This happened soon after the publication of the lexicographer’s ‘Life of Savage,’ which was written anonymously, and though the circumstance of the hiding must have been rather humiliating to the mighty Samuel, yet the attendant consequences were pleasant. The visitor who was dining with Harte, the publisher, was Cave, who, in course of conversation, referred to ‘Savage’s Life,’ and spoke of the work in the most flattering terms. The next day, when they met again, Harte said, “You made a man very happy yesterday by your encomiums on a certain book.” “I did?” replied Cave. “Why, how could that be; there was no one present but you and I?” “You might have observed,” explained Harte, “that I sent a plate of meat behind a screen. There skulked the biographer, one Johnson, whose dress was so shabby that he durst not make his appearance. He overheard our conversation, and your applauseof his performance delighted him exceedingly.” It is also recorded that so indigent was the doctor on another occasion that he had not money sufficient for a bed, and had to make shift by walking round and round St. James’ Square with Savage; when, according to Boswell, they were not at all depressed by their situation, but in high spirits, and brimful of patriotism; inveighing against the ministry, and resolving that they wouldstandby their country.
Being thus intimately associated, it is only natural that the doctor in his ‘Life of Savage’ should thoroughly believe that individual’s version of his own birth and parentage, which was that he was the illegitimate son of the Countess of Macclesfield, and that his father was Lord Rivers; the birth of Richard Savage giving his mother an excuse for obtaining a divorce from her husband, whom she hated. It is stated that “he was born in 1696, in Fox Court, a low alley leading out of Holborn, whither his mother had repaired under the name of Mrs. Smith—her features concealed in a mask, which she wore throughout her confinement. Discovery was embarrassed by a complication of witnesses; the child was handed from one woman to another until, like a story bandied from mouth to mouth, it seemed to lose its paternity.” Lord Rivers, it is alleged, looked on the boy as his own, but his mother seems always to have disliked him; and the fact that Lady Mason, the mother of the countess, looked after the child’s education, and had him put to a Grammar School at St. Albans, certainly favours the view of his aristocratic parentage. He was subsequently apprenticed to a shoemaker, but discovering the secret, or the supposed secret, of his birth, for not a few discredit his story, he cut leather for literature, and appealed to his mother for assistance. His habit was to walk of an evening before her door in the hope of seeing her, and making an appeal; but his efforts were in vain, he could neither open her heart nor her purse. He was befriended by many, notably by Steele, Wilks the actor, and Mrs. Oldfield, a “beautiful” actress, who allowed him an annuity of £50 during her life; but in spite of all the assistance he received, his state was one of chronic impecuniosity. No sooner was he helped out of one difficulty than he managed to get into another, and though he is described by some biographers as a literary genius, his genius seemed principally a knack of getting into debt. Rambling about like a vagabond, with scarcely a shirt to his back, he was in such a plight when hecomposed his tragedy (without a lodging, and often, without a dinner) that he used to write it on scraps of paper picked up by accident, or begged in the shops which he occasionally stepped into, as thoughts occurred to him, craving the favour of pen and ink as if it were just to make a memorandum.
The able author of ‘The Road to Ruin’ was likewise one who had travelled some distance on that thorny path, for at one time he found himself in the streets of London without money, without a home, or a friend to whom his shame or pride would permit his making known his necessity. Wandering along he knew not whither, plunged in the deepest despondency, his eye caught sight of a printed placard, “To Young Men,” inviting all spirited young fellows to make their fortunes as common soldiers in the East India Company’s Service. After reading it over a second time he determined without hesitation to hasten off and enroll himself in that honourable corps, when he met with a person he had known at a sporting club he had been in the habit of frequenting. His companion seeing his bundle and rueful face, asked him where he was going, to which Holcroft replied that had he enquired five minutes before he could not have told him, but that now he was “for the wars.” At this his friend appeared greatly surprised, and told him he thought he could put him up to something better than that. Macklin, the famous London actor, was going over to play in Dublin, and had asked him if he happened to be acquainted with a young fellow who had a turn for the stage, and, said his friend, “I should be happy to introduce you.” The offer was gladly accepted, and when the introduction had been managed Holcroft was asked by Macklin “what had put it into his head to turn actor?” to which he replied, “He had taken it into his head to suppose it was genius, but that it was very possible he might be mistaken.”
Holcroft was engaged for the tour, became an actor, and though he does not appear to have shone particularly strong on the stage, acquired considerable celebrity as a dramatic author, his play before mentioned being one of the few works of the old dramatists that has not become out of date with the playgoing public.
More than one literary man of note, has been compelled by poverty to accept the Queen’s shilling. Coleridge, according to one of his biographers, left Cambridge partly through the loss of his friend Middleton, and partly on account of college debts.Vexed and fretted by the latter, he was overtaken by that inward grief which in after life he described in his ‘Ode to Dejection.’
“A grief without a pang, void, dark, and drear,A stifled, drowsy, unimpassioned grief,Which finds no natural outlet, no relief,In word, or sigh, or tear.”
In this state of mind he came to London, strolled about the streets till night, and then rested on the steps of a house in Chancery Lane. Beggars importuned him for alms and to them he gave the little money he had left. Next morning he noticed a bill to the effect that a few smart lads were wanted for the 15th Elliot’s Light Dragoons. Thinking to himself “I have all my life had a violent antipathy to soldiers and horses, and the sooner I can cure myself of such absurd prejudices the better,” he went to the enlisting-station, where the sergeant finding that Coleridge had not been in bed all night, made him have some breakfast and rest himself. Afterwards, he told him to cheer up, to well consider the step he was about to take, and suggested that he had better have half-a-guinea, go to the play, shake off his melancholy and not return. Coleridge went to the theatre, but afterwards resought the sergeant, who was extremely sorry to see him, and saying with evident emotion, “Then it must be so,” enrolled him. In the morning he was marched to Reading with his new comrades, and there inspected by the general of the district. Looking at Coleridge, that officer said,—
“What’s your name?”
“Comberback!”
“What do you come here for, sir?”
“For what most other persons come, to be made a soldier!”
“Do you think you can run a Frenchman through the body, sir?”
“I do not know,” said Coleridge, “as I never tried, but I’ll let a Frenchman run me through the body, before I’ll run away.”
“That will do,” said the general; and Coleridge was turned into the ranks.
Alexander Somerville, author of ‘Cobdenic Policy,’ ‘Conservative Science of Nations,’ &c., &c., was also driven to the extremity of enlisting under circumstances more or less humorous. Unlike Coleridge, Alexander Somerville was not of gentle birth, being, as he styles himself in ‘The Autobiography of a Working Man,’“One who has whistled at the plough.” He received as a boy but scant education, being sent to a common day school where cruel discipline and unnecessary severity preponderated over learning. Though put to farm-work, where he was by turns carter, mower, stable-boy, thresher, wood-sawyer and excavator, his natural intelligence and love of books made him anxious to turn his face from the parish of Oldhamstocks, where he was brought up, in a westerly direction towards Edinburgh. When about eighteen years of age he was much interested in the Reform Bill of 1830, and gave evidence then of his enthusiasm for politics, became canvasser for a weekly newspaper, but does not appear to have succeeded in this vocation, for his circumstances were such that he wandered about moneyless; and meeting with an old chum they agreed to go and have a chat at any rate with the recruiting corporal of the dragoon regiment popularly known as the Scots Greys.
“My companion,” he says, “had seen the Greys in Dublin, and having a natural disposition to be charmed with the picturesque, was charmed with them. He knew where to enquire for the corporal, and having enquired, we found him in his lodging up a great many pairs of stairs, I do not know how many, stretched in his military cloak, on his bed. He said he was glad to see anybody upstairs in his little place, now that the regimental order had come out against moustachios; for since he had been ordered to shave his off, his wife had sat moping at the fireside, refusing all consolation to herself and all peace to him. ‘I ha’e had a weary life o’t,’ he said plaintively ‘since the order came out to shave the upper lip. She grat there. I’m sure she grat as if her heart would ha’e broken when she saw me the first day without the moustachios.’ Having listened to this and heard a confirmation of it from the lady herself, as also a hint that the corporal had been lying in bed half the day, when he should have been out looking for recruits, for each of whom he had a payment of ten shillings, we told him that we had come looking for him to offer ourselves as recruits. He looked at us for a few moments, and said if we ‘meant’ it he saw nothing about us to object to; and as neither seemed to have any beard from which moustachios could grow, he could only congratulate us on the order that had come out against them as we should not have to be at the expense of getting burnt corks to blacken our upper lips, to make us lookuniform with those who wore hair. We assured the corporal that we were in earnest, and that we did mean to enlist, whereupon he began by putting the formal question, ‘Are you free, able and willing to serve his Majesty King William the Fourth?’
“But there was a hitch, two shillings were requisite to enlist two recruits, and there was only one shilling. We proposed that he should enlist one of us with it, and that this one should then lend it to him to enlist the other. But his wife would not have the enlistment done in that way. She said ‘That would not belaw: and a bonny thing it would be to do it without it being law. Na na,’ she continued, ‘it maun be done as the law directs.’ The corporal made a movement as if he would take us out with him to some place where he could get another shilling but she thought it possible that another of the recruiting party might share the prize with him—take one of us or both: so she detained him, shut the door on us, locked it, took the key with her and went in search of the King’s requisite coin. Meanwhile as my friend was impatient I allowed him to take precedence of me, and have the ceremony performed with the shilling then present. On the return of the corporal’s wife, who though younger than he in years seemed to be an ‘older soldier,’ I also became the King’s man.”
In connection with music the name of Loder, the clever composer (author of the ‘Night Dancers’ and other charming musical compositions), recalls an interesting episode in his life revealing a remarkable shift to which he was put. One evening when leaving his lodgings with a friend named Jay for the purpose of enjoying a quiet little dinner at Simpson’s, he received an ominous tap on the shoulder from one of those individuals whose attentions are not appetising, since without you can settle the little amount, they require your immediate company. Loder was by no means able to satisfy the law’s demands, and the sheriff’s officer refused to lose sight of his man, even though “he had a most particular appointment;” so the only thing to be done was to invite the bailiff to join them at dinner. After the repast was concluded the party repaired to Sloman’s, a notorious spunging-house in Cursitor Street, Chancery Lane, when just as Jay was taking leave of Loder the latter remembered having something in his pocket which might be turned to account. It was a song by Samuel Lover. “Goodbye, old fellow,” said Loder. “Come to-morrow morning, and see what I shall have ready.” As soon ashis friend had gone he set to work and set Lover’s words of ‘The Three Stages of Love’ to music, which was a most successful and satisfactory way of composing himself to sleep, for when Jay called in the morning he received a manuscript which, when taken to Chappell’s, realised £30. The proceeds enabled Loder to pay the debt, and dine with his friend at Simpson’s in the afternoon, without the unwelcome guest of the preceding day.
John Palmer, the original Joseph Surface, in which character he was considered unapproachable, was a man evidently of the greatest plausibility. When complimented by a friend upon the ease of his address, he said, “No, I really don’t give myself the credit of being so irresistible as you have fancied me. There is one thing, though, which I think Iamable to do. Whenever I am arrested I can always persuade the sheriff’s officer to bail me.”
Contemporary with John Palmer was another celebrated comedian, also addicted to more extravagant tastes than his income warranted—Charles Bannister, who made his first appearance in London with Palmer in a piece called the “Orators” in May 1762. In this he gave musical imitations, but the performances taking place in the mornings, his convivial habits over night precluded him from shining as he might have done; a fact which was noticed by Foote, the manager. To this Bannister replied, “I knew it would be so; I am all right at night, but neither I, nor my voice, canget upin the morning.” He was invariably in difficulties: on the death of Sir Theodosius Boughton, the topic of the hour in 1781, as he was said to have been poisoned by laurel water, Bannister, said “Pooh! Don’t tell me of your laurel leaves; I fear none but a bay-leaf” (bailiff). Once when returning from Epsom to town in a gig, accompanied by a friend, they were unable to pay the toll at Kennington Gate, and the man would not let them pass. Bannister immediately offered to sing a song, and struck up ‘The Tempest of War.’ His voice was heard afar, the gate being soon thronged by voters returning from Brentford, who encored his effort, and the turnpike-man, calling him a noble fellow, expressed his willingness to pay “fifty tolls for him at any gate.”
John Joseph Winckelmann, who became one of the most famous of German writers on classical antiquities, was the son of a poor cobbler, who not only had to struggle with poverty, but with disease which, while his boy was yet young, compelled himto avail himself of the hospital. When placed at the burgh seminary there, the rector was struck with young Winckelmann’s dawning genius, and by accepting less than the usual fee, and getting him placed in the choir, contrived that the boy should receive all the advantages the school afforded. The rector continued to take the greatest interest in his apt pupil, made him usher, and when seventeen years of age, sent him to Berlin with a letter of introduction to the rector of a gymnasium, with whom he remained twelve months. While there Winckelmann heard that the library of the celebrated Fabricius was about to be sold at Hamburgh, and he determined to proceed there on foot and be present at the sale. He set out accordingly, asking charity (a practice not considered derogatory to struggling students in Germany) of the clergymen whose houses he passed; and, having collected in this way sufficient to purchase some of his darling poets at the sale, returned to Berlin in great glee. After studying at Halle and elsewhere for six years, his early passion for wandering revived, and fascinated with a fresh perusal of Cæsar’s ‘Commentaries,’ he began in the summer of 1740 a pedestrian journey to France, to visit the scene of the great Roman’s military exploits. His funds, however, soon became exhausted, and when close to Frankfort-on-the-Maine, he was obliged to return.
When he arrived at the bridge of Fulda, he remarked his own dishevelled, travel-stained appearance, and believing himself alone, began to effect an alteration. He had pulled out a razor, and was about to operate on his chin, when he was disturbed by shrieks from a party of ladies, who, imagining that he was about to make away with himself, cried loudly for help. The facts were soon explained, and the fair ones insisted on his accepting a monetary gift that enabled him to return without inconvenience.
It was not until the year 1755, when Winckelmann was thirty-eight years of age, and had published his first book, the ‘Reflections on Imitation of the Greeks in Painting and Statuary,’ that he freed himself from penury.
Flaxman, who throughout his honourable life seems to have entertained a most modest view of his own talents, married before he had acquired distinction, though regarded as a skilful and exceedingly promising pupil; and when Sir Joshua Reynolds heard of the indiscretion of which he had been guilty, heexclaimed, “Flaxman is ruined for an artist!” But his mistake was soon made manifest. When Mrs. Flaxman heard of the remark, she said, “Let us work and economize. It shall never be said that Ann Denham ruined John Flaxman as an artist;” and they economised accordingly, her husband undertaking amongst other things to collect the local rates in Soho.
It is to a “shift” of this nature that we are to a certain extent indebted for the writings of Bishop Jeremy Taylor. After the death of Charles I., Dr. Taylor’s living of Uppingham, in Rutlandshire, was sequestered, and the gifted ecclesiastic repaired to Golden Grove, Carmarthenshire, and taught a school for the subsistence of his children and himself. While thus employed, he produced some of those copious and fervent discourses, whose fertility of composition, eloquence of expression and comprehensiveness of thought, have enabled him to rank as one of the first writers in the English language.
Beau Brummell, the autocrat of fashion when in his zenith, was in the days of his decline particularly shifty. After George IV. had cut him, and when he was about to depart for France to undertake the consulate of Caen, he made a desperate effort to raise money, and, amongst other people, he wrote to Scrope Davies for a couple of hundred pounds, which he promised to repay on the following morning, giving as a reason for his request, that the banks were shut for the day, and all his money was in the Three per Cents. To this Davies, who happened to know how hard up Brummell was, sent the following laconic reply:—
“My dear George,“’Tis very unfortunate, but allmymoney is in the Three per Cents.“Yours,“S. Davies.”
“My dear George,
“’Tis very unfortunate, but allmymoney is in the Three per Cents.
“Yours,“S. Davies.”
Brummell’s appointment at Caen, owing to the representations of Madame la Marquise de Seran, and others who had known him in London, was known in that place some time before he arrived, which had the effect of making all the young Frenchmen of the Carlist party anxious to become acquainted with him. Soon after he was settled down, three of them paid him a morning visit, and, though late in the day, found him deep in the mysteries of his toilet. They naturally wished to retire, but Brummell insisted on their remaining. “Pray stay,” said he, as he laid down thesilver tweezers with which he had just removed a straggling hair, “pray remain; I have not yet breakfasted—no excuses. There is apâté de foie gras, a game pie,” and many other dainties that he enumerated with becoming gastronomic fervour, but which failed to overcome the scruples of the young men, who went away enchanted with Brummell’s politeness and hospitality, one of the trio afterwards remarking that “he must live very well.”
There is not the slightest doubt that the beau was pretty sure his visitors had breakfasted, and it was only the extreme improbability of their accepting his invitation that made him give it. Had they taken him at his word, instead of the magnificent repast which he offered them, his guests would have sat down to an uncommonly plain breakfast, for the polite and hospitable host had nothing but a penny roll and the coffee simmering by his bedroom fire. On another occasion a visitor called on him, and in course of conversation said he was going to dine with a certain Mr. Jones, a retired soap-boiler, who had radically opposed the appointment of a man like Brummell to superintend the British interests at Caen.
“Well I think I shall dine there too,” said Brummell.
“But you haven’t an invitation, have you?”
“No,” was the reply; “but I think I shall dine there all the same.”
As soon as the caller left, Brummell sent apâté de foie gras, which he had received from Paris, with a grand message to Jones. The courtesy seemed so disinterested, that the Radical sent a pressing invitation by return; and when Brummell’s visitor of the morning joined the party, he saw the beau installed in the seat of honour at the hostess’s right. Brummell told his friend next day how he had managed. The gentleman said, “But I did not see the pie on the table.”
“True,” explained Brummell; “I know it never made its appearance. It was a splendid pie—achef-d’œuvre, and I felt deeply interested in its fate. When going away I inquired what had been done with the pie. The cook said, ‘Master had kept it for Master Harry’s birthday.’ To be the ‘cut and come again’ of a nursery dinner. To be the prey of the little Joneses and their nurses was atrocious. It was an insult to me and my pie! ‘Go,’ I said, ‘to your kitchen; I particularly want to see thepâté de foie gras.’ Feeling that it would have been a sin to leave it withsuch people, I took it away. It was not honest, but as I cut into it this morning I almost felt justified, for I never inserted a knife into such another.”
It certainly was anything but honest, and it would have been well had Brummell remembered the childish saying about “give a thing and take a thing,” but where a person’samour-propreis touched on such an important matter as a game pie it would not be right of course to judge the action by the ordinary standard. The idea of taking the pie back for the reasons alleged was really funny, though the fact of the beau being extremely “hard up” very possibly had a good deal to do with his conduct.Aproposof this condition it may be news to some to know that there once existed an institution called the “Hard Up Club” the formation of which is alluded to by “Baron” Nicholson in his autobiography. He says “just before I left the Queen’s Bench I had a visit from Pellatt (a well-known man about town in that day, who had formerly been clerk and solicitor to the Ironmongers’ Company), with the news that he and another jolly old friend of mine had made a discovery of a place of rest suitable to our condition in life, which I must say was seedy in every respect. Pellatt had been in the habit of coming over to the Bench almost daily to dine with me and others, who were delighted with his amusing qualities. He gave excellent imitations of the past and present London actors, and his genius for entertaining was brought into active operation in our prison circle. The history of the discovery of ‘The Nest,’ or tranquil house of entertainment, was this: Pellatt and a friend of his, ‘Old Beans’ (whose right name was Bennett, yclept ‘Old Beans’ for shortness), were strolling about the Strand one foggy November night, their habiliments were uncomfortably ventilated, their crab-shells of the order hydraulic; snow was on the ground, and their castors ‘shocking bad hats.’ Not liking to enter any very public places they strayed round the back streets on the river side of the Strand, and turning from Norfolk Street into Howard Street,vis-à-visthey perceived a tavern, a dull, unlighted (save by a dim lamp), small, old-fashioned public-house in Arundel Street, with the sign of ‘The Swan.’ ‘“The Swan,”’ said Pellatt, as he read the sign, ‘will never sink! Beans, old fellow, we’ll go into the ‘Never Sink!’
“The house was better known for years afterwards by this name than by its real sign. The two wayfarers entered. Old CharlesMathews in his ‘At Home’ used to tell a story of pulling up at a road-side inn, and interrogating the waiter as to what he could have for dinner.
“‘Any hot joint?’ said the traveller.
“‘No, sir; no hot joint, sir.’
“‘Any cold one?’
“‘Cold one, sir? No, sir; no cold one, sir.’
“‘Can you broil me a fowl?’
“‘Fowl, sir? No, sir; no fowl, sir.’
“‘No fowl, and in a country inn!’ exclaimed Mathews. ‘Let me have some eggs and bacon then.’
“‘Eggs and bacon, sir?’ said the waiter. ‘No eggs and bacon, sir.’
“‘Confound it,’ at length said the traveller. ‘What have you got in the house?’
“‘An execution, sir,’ was the prompt response of the doleful waiter.
“And so it was at ‘The Swan.’ When Pellatt and his friend entered the parlour there was but a glimmer of light, and no fire. A most civil man, whose name turned out to be Mathews, informed his guests that he would instantly light a fire and make them comfortable.
“‘Not worth while,’ said Pellatt, ‘We only want a glass of gin and water, and a pipe.’
“The host would not be denied. In a few minutes there was a blazing fire, the hot grog was upon the table, and Pellatt and Old Beans were smoking away like steam. The supposed landlord was invited to take a seat with them, and during the conversation informed them that he was the man in possession, and that he was allowed to provide a little spirits, and a cask of beer, and reap the profits himself just to keep the house open until a purchaser could be found for it, and he further stated how glad he should be if the gentlemen would come again. Being told by Pellatt all about the ‘Never Sink,’ when I again left the Queen’s Bench Prison, and visited the outer world, I aided them in establishing what we dignified by the title of ‘The Hard Up Club.’ Its institution commenced by Old Beans being appointed steward, and in that capacity began his campaign by buying a pound of cold boiled beef at Cautis’s, Temple Bar, and four pennyworth of hot roasted potatoes from the man who stood with the baked ‘tatur’ can infront of Clement’s Inn. As the club increased in number so did our commissariat in supplies and importance, and the office of ‘Old Beans’ became no sinecure. His duty, and it was performedcon amore, was to be in attendance early in the day at the club to provide the dinner. The money to pay for this was invariably collected over night; and I have known the funds to be so short that ‘Old Beans’s’ ingenuity has been frequently and greatly taxed to meet the necessary requirements and expenditure. A shoulder of mutton was a familiar dish, Beans preparing heaps of potatoes, and with a skilful culinary nicety, for which he was eminent, making the onion sauce himself. A bullock’s heart was also a favourite with us, provided always that Old Beans made the gravy and stuffing. I said to our gracious and economical steward the first day we had the ox heart, ‘Beany, you’ll want some gravy beef.’
“‘The deaf ears’ (the hard, gristly substance attached to the top of a bullock’s heart), said he, ‘will make excellent gravy. The ‘Hard Ups’ can’t afford beef. No, no, we’ll make the deaf ears do.’ It may be imagined that Old Beans’s place was a difficult one. One Kay, a large, seedy lawyer, who wore shabby black and white stockings, and shoes, was always behindhand with his share of cash. If a shilling were required, Kay would pay into the hands of the steward about nine pence halfpenny, vowing that he had no more, and Beans always declared himself out of pocket by Kay. We had, however, a visitor who added lustre to our association, but he was not a dining member—he could not be—his means were too limited even for our humble carousings. This member was a very old man, Colonel Curry, formerly a member of the Irish Parliament. He lodged in one room in Arundel Street, therefore the ‘Never Sink’ was to him a convenient hostelry, and he could do as he liked. He did so. On a small shelf over the parlour-door the colonel kept his own table-napkin, mustard, pepper, and salt. He also had a small gravy-tight tin case, and in that he brought with him every day four pennyworth of hot meat, generally bought at the corner of Angel Inn Yard, Clement’s Inn. All he spent at the ‘Never Sink’ was three halfpence for a glass of rum, which he diluted from six o’clock in the evening till eleven o’clock at night: in the last mixing the rum was unrecognisable, the water colourless. Curry was a proud Irishman, never accepting the oft-profferedhospitality of others. His conversation was delightful, amusing, instructive. He never complained, and we were left to doubt whether his economy proceeded from parsimony or poverty; but from his highly honourable sentiments I should conclude the latter. It was a rule with the club that all the good sort of fellows with whom the members might be acquainted should be pressed into the general service of the club: thus any member who in better days had been a good customer to a thriving publican (and there was scarcely one exception in the whole society) should use his best endeavour to introduce that publican to the ‘Never Sink,’ and get him to stand treat. The number of dinners and liquors obtained by such endeavours were prodigious. The club included several members of the republic of letters, who, to quote Tom Hood, had not a sovereign amongst them. Indeed, they had but one passable crown. One hat served nine; their shirts were latent; their dinners intermittent, and their grog often eleemosynary. Nothing sparkled about them but their wit, which was as keen as their appetites. The man of genius crouches in social poverty in a commonwealth of mutual privation.
“‘There wit, subdued by poverty’s sharp thorn,Was joined by wisdom equally forlorn;And stinted genius took a draught of maltOn baked potatoes mixed with attic salt.’”
THE LUCK AND ILL LUCK OF IMPECUNIOSITY.
Shakespeare, though he says “There’s a divinity doth shape our ends, rough-hew them how we will,” admits that “There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune,” which certainly looks as if we had something to do with the matter. “Man,” it has been said, “is the architect of his own fortune,” but it is equally a fact that some individuals have many more chances than others of making that fortune, especially those who are apparently undeserving. In the same way, impecuniosity has with some been the very means of introducing them to the road to success, while it has only plunged others in suffering.
Amongst the former may be ranked Benjamin Charles Incledon, who flourished in the latter part of the eighteenth century, and in the beginning of the nineteenth. He was born at Callington, in Cornwall, and at a very early age was a choir-boy in Exeter Cathedral, in which city he received his musical education from Jackson, the composer. At sixteen he entered the navy, and in the course of the two years that he remained in the service was in several engagements. When theFormidablewas paid off at Chatham, in 1784, the young sailor turned his steps towards Cornwall, but when he reached Hitchen Ferry, near Southampton, he had got rid of whatever money he started with, and had to ask assistance of a recruiting sergeant, who not only gave him the means to get ferried over, but invited him to a public-house in the town, where they made merry over bread and cheese, and ale. The company became convivial, and Incledon, in his turn, sang a ballad which delighted everybody, but especially the prompter of the Southampton Theatre, who happened to be sitting in the bar-parlour smoking his pipe, and who rushed out to his manager before thesong was finished to tell him of therara avishe had found. Collins, the manager, returned forthwith, and was so delighted with the sailor’s vocal abilities that he offered him an engagement athalf-a-guinea a week, there and then, which offer was accepted, Incledon making his first appearance as Alphonso in ‘The Castle of Andalusia.’ His career was most successful, and he is spoken of by more than one authority as the first English singer on the stage of his day.
Under the circumstances it must surely be conceded, that the impecuniosity which caused him to sing that song at that particular time, was particularly lucky, and Incledon is not the only individual who has been blessed with good fortune through the same means. In ‘The Life of a Showman,’ by D. G. Miller, that gentleman relates that one winter’s afternoon he arrived with his family at a Cumberland village in a most pitiable plight, for though he had several “children he had but one sixpence.” The journey, effected with a horse and cart, had been extremely trying, because across the road they had travelled ran a small rivulet, which was frozen, and a passage through which had to be made for the horse, the driver standing upon the shafts across the back of the horse, while the showman waded through the water nearly up to his waist, a state of discomfort enhanced by the plunging of the horse and the shrieks of the children. When the party arrived at the public-house (where there was a large room which was occasionally let for entertainments, &c.), they were nearly frozen, and proceeded to warm themselves by the kitchen fire. After calling for a quart of ale, and paying for it with the solitary sixpence in his possession, the showman proceeded to look after his properties, and found that the man with the cart, being anxious to get back, had unloaded the luggage at the door. Enquiring of the landlady if he could engage the large room for a few nights for a very superior exhibition, the itinerant performer was informed by her, “I can’t tell, but I think not. The last people who were here didn’t pay the rent. However, the landlord is not at home, and I can say nothing about it.”
After this he asked if they could be supplied with some tea, and on being replied to in the affirmative, says, “The expression on my wife’s face seemed to say, ‘Are you mad—where will you get the money to pay for it?’ I paid no attention, however, to her look: the tea was got ready, and we sat down and made a heartymeal—at least, the children and I did. As to my wife, she was alarmed at my conduct, and was too frightened to eat, although she had tasted nothing since breakfast.”
After tea he asked if they could be accommodated with beds, but was refused by the landlord, who showed his suspicions. The showman pointed to the snow, which was falling heavily, and asked permission for his wife and children to remain by the fire all night, professing to be able to pay, and at last the landlord sulkily agreed to let them have beds. After the wife and children retired, a good number of customers came in, and a raffle was started for a watch, thirty members at a shilling. While this was being arranged the visitors joked and sang, and presently the showman was asked if he would oblige with a song; he readily complied, and was voted a jolly good fellow by all present, including the landlord, who apologised then for having demurred about the accommodation. When the raffle began, it was found there was one more subscriber wanted, and the showman was asked to join, which he said he would gladly do, but his wife kept the purse and she had gone to bed, and being very tired he did not like to disturb her. The landlord at once said, “Certainly not, here’s a shilling; pay me in the morning.” He accepted the proffered coin, threw the dice, and won the watch, which he sold for a sovereign. He then gave an exhibition of his skill with sleight of hand tricks, to the great delight of the customers, and was informed by the landlord before he went to bed that he could have the big room for a night or two. To this he replied, “I will think it over,” and joined his wife, whom he found in a state of the greatest trepidation at the thought of their not having the money to pay for their board and lodging. He set her fears literally at rest, by showing her the proceeds of the watch he had sold. The next and two following evenings he gave three most successful performances in the big room, and finally left the village with flying colours,en routefor Carlisle. His good fortune, as in the case of Incledon, being fairly attributable to the singing of a song; which savours strongly to my mind of what is generally understood by the term “lucky.”
Though somewhat different in detail, the impecuniosity of the late distinguished journalist, G. A. Sala, when a young man, was equally felicitous. Born in 1827 of not over-wealthy parents (Mrs. Sala was an operatic singer and teacher of music), he froman early age suffered with bad eyes, which prevented him learning to read until he was nine years old. When fourteen he began to earn his own living, and from that time till he was four-and-twenty, his mode of existence seems to have been more or less precarious. At one time engaged in copying plans of projected railways, then acting as assistant scene-painter at fifteen shillings a week, afterwards designing the cheapest and least elegant description of valentines, and subsequently drawing woodcuts for those inferior periodicals pretty generally known as “penny dreadfuls.” In the year 1851 his health gave way while he was pursuing the avocation of an engraver. The acids used in engraving so affecting his eyes that for a time he was quite blind, and loss of eyesight meant loss of work, and loss of work involved loss of income. The poverty he suffered at this time must have been of the direst; but though he had lost almost everything else, he never apparently quite lost heart, and when his sight improved he dashed off an article called “The Key of the Street,” descriptive of a night spent by a poor wanderer in London, which he sent in to Dickens, who had not long startedHousehold Words. The feelings of the homeless man were described in a manner that shows the writerfelthis subject, although it is hinted that the experiences related may have been the result of caprice.
He says, “I have no bed to-night. Why, it matters not. Perhaps I have lost my latch-key—perhaps I never had one; yet am fearful of knocking up my landlady after midnight. Perhaps I have a caprice—a fancy—for stopping up all night. At all events, I have no bed; and, saving ninepence (sixpence in silver, and threepence in coppers), no money. I must walk the streets all night; for I cannot, look you, get anything in the shape of a bed for less than a shilling. Coffee-houses, into which—seduced by their cheap appearance—I have entered, and where I have humbly sought a lodging, laugh my ninepence to scorn. They demand impossible eighteenpences—unattainable shillings. There is clearly no bed for me.
“It is midnight—so the clanging tongue of St. Dunstan’s tells me—as I stand thus bedless at Temple Bar. I have walked a good deal during the day, and have an uncomfortable sensation in my feet, suggesting the idea that the soles of my boots are made of roasted brickbats. I am thirsty too (it is July and sultry), and just as the last chime of St. Dunstan’s is heard, I have half-a-pintof porter, and a ninth part of my ninepence is gone from me for ever. The public-house where I have it (or rather the beer-shop, for it is an establishment of ‘the glass of ale and sandwich’ description) is an early closing one, and the proprietor, as he serves me, yawningly orders the potboy to put the shutters up, for he is ‘off to bed.’ Happy proprietor! There is a bristly-bearded tailor too, very beery, having his last pint, who utters a similar somniferous intention. He calls it ‘Bedfordshire.’ Thrice happy tailor!
“I envy him fiercely, as he goes out, though, God wot, his bedchamber may be but a squalid attic, and his bed a tattered hop-sack, with a slop great-coat from the emporium of Messrs. Melchisedek & Son, and which he had been working at all day, for a coverlid. I envy his children (I am sure he has a frouzy, ragged brood of them)for they have at least somewhere to sleep. I haven’t.”
Then follows a most graphic account of the persons encountered during the eight hours’ enforced prowl (including a flying visit to a fourpenny lodging-house, which was not a “model” of cleanliness), all the personages met with, and the occurrences witnessed being described with a freshness and fidelity that stamped the author as a descriptive writer of uncommon power. Charles Dickens at once forwarded a cheque for the contribution named, and, in the words of Oliver Twist, “asked for more;” and the late George Augustus Sala has for years been regarded as the journalistpar excellenceof the day.
In like manner the needy circumstances of Charlotte Cushman had much to do with her obtaining an engagement at the Princess’s Theatre, and making the great reputation she achieved in England. When first introduced to Mr. Maddox, the then lessee and manager of the house in Oxford Street, she did not impress him favourably. She had no pretensions to beauty, and Mr. Maddox considered she had not the qualities essential to a stage heroine. From London she went to Paris, in the hope of getting engaged by an English company performing there, but failing, and having obtained a letter of introduction from some one supposed to have great influence with the lessee, she again sought Mr. Maddox, with no better result. Stung to the quick by this second repulse, and made desperate by her critical situation, she turned when she had almost reached the door, exclaiming,“I know I have enemies in this country, but” (here she cast herself on her knees, raising her clenched hand aloft), “so help me Heaven, I’ll defeat them!” Mr. Maddox was at once satisfied with the tragic power of his visitor, and offered her an engagement forthwith.
If there is any doubt as to Charlotte Cushman’s success being attributable to impecuniosity the case of O’Brien, the celebrated Irish giant, is most clear.
This lengthy individual, whose height was 8ft. 7in., was born at Kinsale, where, with his father, he laboured as a bricklayer. His extraordinary size soon attracted the attention of a travelling showman, who, on payment of £50 per annum, acquired the right of exhibiting him for three years in England.
Not satisfied with this extremely good bargain, his master tried to sublet him to another person in the show business, a proceeding which Cotter (the giant’s real name) objected to, and for which objection he was saddled with a fictitious debt, and thrown into Bristol Jail. This apparent misfortune was, in the end, one of the luckiest things that could have happened to him. While in prison he was visited by a gentleman who took compassion on his distress, and believing him to be unjustly detained, very generously became his bail, ultimately investigating the affair so successfully as to obtain for him not only his liberty but his freedom to discontinue serving his taskmaster any longer. It happened to be September when he was liberated, and by the further assistance of his benefactor he was enabled to set up for himself in the fair then held in St. James’s, and such an attraction did he prove that in three days he realised the considerable sum of £30. From that time he continued to exhibit himself for twenty-six years, when, having realised a fortune sufficient to enable him to keep a carriage and live in luxury, he retired into private life.
A practical joke led to the ultimate success of Edward Knight, a popular comedian of last century. While with Mr. Nunns, manager of the Stafford company, he received a message from a stranger desiring his presence at a certain inn. On repairing thither he was courteously received by a gentleman who desired to show his gratification at Knight’s performance by giving him permission to use his name (Phillips) to Mr. Tate Wilkinson, the manager of the York Theatre, who, the stranger felt sure, onaccount of his intimacy with him would be sure to give Knight a good engagement. Next morning a letter was sent by the elated actor, who in due course received the following reply: