"I have been told of oneWho, being asked for bread,In its steadReturn'd a stone."But here we manage better.The stone we askTo do its task,And it returns in every letter."
"I have been told of oneWho, being asked for bread,In its steadReturn'd a stone.
"But here we manage better.The stone we askTo do its task,And it returns in every letter."
"William Combe,Jan. 23, 1817."
Combe was often a guest at Ackermann's table; he proved a friend to him during his last illness, and contributed to the expenses of his funeral, tomb, &c. Subsequent to his death, in 1823, a small volume was published, entitledLetters to Marianne, said to have been written by him after the age of seventy, to a young girl. We remember to have visited him in the Rules, near New Bethlem Hospital, when we learnt that he had written a memoir of his chequered life. Campbell, in hisLife of Mrs. Siddons, states that Combe lived nearly twenty years in the King's Bench, and never quitted that prison; which is not correct. Combe had nearly been Mrs. Siddons's reading preceptor.
Rowlandson, who designed the Syntax illustrations, was as improvident as Combe: he had a legacy of 7,000l., and other property, bequeathed to him by an aunt: this he dissipated in the gaming-houses of Paris and London, where he alternately won and lost without emotion several thousand pounds. When penniless, he would return to his professional duties, sit down coolly to make a series of new designs, and exclaim stoically, "I've played the fool, but (holding up his pencils) here is my resource." To Rowlandson, as well as Combe, Ackermann proved a warm and generous patron and employer.
Dr. Doran, in his piquant Notes to theLast Journals of Horace Walpole, tells us that "Combe burst on the world as a wonderfully well-dressedbeau, and was received withéclatfor the sake of his wealth, talents, grace, and personal beauty. He was popularly called 'Count Combe,' till his extravagance had dissipated a noble fortune; and then, addressing himself to literature, the Count was forgotten in the Author. In theGentleman's Magazinefor May, 1862, there is a list of his works, originally furnished by his own hand. Not one was published with his name, and they amount in number to sixty-eight. Combe was a teetotaller in the days when drunkenness was in fashion, and was remarkable for disinterestedness and industry. He was thefriend of Hannah More, whom he loved to make weep by improvised romances, in which he could 'pile up the agony' with wonderful effect. Religious faith and hope enabled William Combe to triumph over the sufferings of his latter years. His second wife, the sister of the gentle and gifted Mrs. Cosway, survived him."
Horace Walpole, 1779, speaking of the poem,The World as it Goes, describes it as "by that infamous Combe, the author of theDiabolical. It has many easy poetic lines, imitates Churchill, and is fully as incoherent and absurd in its plan as the worst of the latter's."
Again, in 1778, Walpole describes "Combe" as "a most infamous rascal, who had married a cast mistress of Lord Beauchamp, and wrote many satiric poems not quite despicable for the poetry, but brutally virulent against that Lord, and others, particularly Lord Irnham." But, as Dr. Doran aptly observes, "Walpole however fond of satire, hated satirists, particularly when they were fearless and outspoken, like Combe."
It is singular that although Mrs. Radcliffe's beautiful descriptions of foreign scenery, composed solely from the materials afforded by travellers, collected and embodied by her own genius, were marked in a particular degree with the characteristics of fancy portraits, yet many of her contemporaries conceived them to be exact descriptions of scenes which she had visited in person. One report transmitted to the public by theEdinburgh Review, stated that Mr. and Mrs. Radcliffe had visited Italy; that Mr. Radcliffe had been attached to one of the British embassies in that country; and that it was here his gifted consort imbibed the taste for picturesque scenery, and for mouldering ruins, and for the obscure and gloomy anecdotes which tradition relates of their former inhabitants. This is so far a mistake, as Mrs.Radcliffe never was in Italy; but it has been mentioned, in explanation, that she probably availed herself of the acquaintance she formed in 1793 with the magnificent scenery on the banks of the Rhine, and the frowning remains of feudal castles with which it abounds. The inaccuracy of the reviewer is of no great consequence; but a more absurd report found its way into print, namely, that Mrs. Radcliffe, having visited the fine old Gothic mansion of Haddon House, had insisted upon remaining a night there, in the course of which she had been inspired with all that enthusiasm for Gothic residences, hidden passages, and mouldering walls, which marks her writings. Mrs. Radcliffe, we are assured, never saw Haddon House; and although it was a place excellently worth her attention, and could hardly have been seen by her without suggesting some of those ideas in which her imagination naturally revelled, yet we should suppose the mechanical aid to invention—the recipe for fine writing—the sleeping in a dismantled and unfurnished old house, was likely to be rewarded with nothing but a cold, and was an affectation of enthusiasm to which Mrs. Radcliffe would have disdained to have recourse.
These are the opinions of Sir Walter Scott; appended to them are these somewhat depreciatory remarks made by Dunlop, in hisHistory of Fiction:—
"In the writings of Mrs. Radcliffe there is a considerable degree of uniformity and mannerism, which is perhaps the case with all the productions of a strong and original genius. Her heroines too nearly resemble each other, or rather they possess hardly any shade of difference. They have all blue eyes and auburn hair—the form of each of them has 'the airy lightness of a nymph'—they are all fond of watching the setting sun, and catching the purple tints of evening, and the vivid glow or fading splendour of the western horizon. Unfortunately they are all likewise early risers. I say unfortunately, for in every exigency Mrs. Radcliffe's heroines are provided with a pencil and paper, and the sunis never allowed to rise nor set in peace. Like Tilburina in the play, they are 'inconsolable to the minuet in Ariadne,' and in the most distressing circumstances find time to compose sonnets to sunrise, the bat, a sea-nymph, a lily, or a butterfly."
The tenor of Mrs. Radcliffe's private life seems to have been peculiarly calm and sequestered. She probably declined the sort of personal notoriety which, in London society, usually attaches to persons of literary merit; and, perhaps, no author whose works were so universally read and admired was so little personally known even to the most active of that class of people of distinction, who rest their peculiar pretensions to fashion upon the selection of literary society. Her estate was certainly not the less gracious; and it did not disturb Mrs. Radcliffe's domestic comforts, although many of her admirers believed, and some are not yet undeceived, that, in consequence of brooding over the terrors which she depicted, her reason had at length been overturned, and that the author ofThe Mysteries of Udolphoonly existed as the melancholy inmate of a private madhouse. This report was so generally spread, and so confidently repeated in print, as well as in conversation, that the writer believed it for several years, until, greatly to his satisfaction, he learned, from good authority, that there neither was, nor ever had been, the most distant foundation for this unpleasing rumour.
A false report of another kind gave Mrs. Radcliffe much concern. In Miss Seward'sCorrespondence, among the literary gossip of the day, it is roundly stated that thePlays upon the Passionswere Mrs. Radcliffe's, and that she owned them. Mrs. Radcliffe was much hurt at being reported capable of borrowing from the fame of a gifted sister; and Miss Seward would, no doubt, have suffered equally, had she been aware of the pain she inflicted by giving currency to a rumour so totally unfounded. The truth is, that residing at a distance from the metropolis, and living uponliterary intelligence as her daily food, Miss Seward was sometimes imposed upon by those friendly caterers, who were more anxious to supply her with the newest intelligence, than solicitous about its accuracy.
Mrs. Radcliffe died at her residence in Stafford Row, Pimlico, on the 7th of February, 1823; and her remains rest in the vault of the Chapel-of-ease to St. George's parish, in the Bayswater Road, facing Hyde Park.
Mackintosh, a name dear to letters and philosophy, was no lawyer in the narrow-minded sense of the word, and when appointed judge at Bombay, was lamentably thrown away upon such society as he met there. Accustomed to lead in the conversations of the conversation-men of the metropolis—such as Sharp, Rogers, Dumont—he found himself transplanted among those who afforded a sad and bitter contrast. It was like Goëthe's oak-plant, with its giant fibres, compressed within the dimensions of a flower-pot. On the third day after his arrival, most forcibly was he reminded of the contrast, when one of the members of the Council, the conversation turning upon quadrupeds, turned to him and inquired what was a quadruped. It was the same sagacious Solomon who asked him for the loan of some book, in which he could find a good account of Julius Cæsar. Mackintosh jocosely took down a volume of Lord Clarendon'sHistory of the Rebellion, in which mention is made of a Sir Julius Cæsar, Master of the Rolls in the time of Charles the First. The wiseacre actually took the book home with him, and after some days brought it back to Sir James, remarking that he was disappointed on finding that the book referred to Julius Cæsar only as a lawyer, without the slightest mention of his military exploits.
Sir James was subject to certain Parson Adams-like habits of forgetfulness of common things and lesser proprieties; and this brought down upon him no slight shareof taunt and ridicule. It happened, on his arrival at Bombay, that there was no house ready for his reception, and it would be a fortnight before a residence in the fort could be prepared for him. Mr. Jonathan Duncan, the Governor of the Presidency, therefore, with great kindness, offered him his garden-house, calledSans Pareil, for the temporary accommodation of Sir James and his family. But months and months elapsed, till a twelvemonth had actually revolved; Mackintosh and his wife, during all this time, found themselves so comfortable in their quarters, that they forgot completely the limited tenure on which they held them, appearing by a singular illusion, not to have the slightest suspicion of Mr. Duncan's proprietorship, notwithstanding some pretty intelligible hints on the subject from that gentleman, but communicated with his usual delicacy and politeness. At last, politeness and delicacy were out of the question, and the poor Governor was driven to the necessity of taking forcible possession of his own property. This was partly indolence, partly absence of mind in Sir James. He was constitutionally averse to every sort of exertion, and especially that of quitting any place where he found himself comfortable.
Before he went out to India, he made a trip into Scotland with his lady; and having taken up his abode for the night at an inn in Perthshire, not far from the beautiful park of Lord Melville (then Mr. Dundas) sent a request to Lady Jane Dundas (Mr. Dundas being absent) for permission to see the house and grounds, which was most civilly granted. Mr. Dundas being expected in the evening, her ladyship politely pressed them to stay for dinner, and to pass the night, their accommodation at the inn, not being of the best description. Mr. Dundas returned the same day, and though their politics were as adverse as possible, was so charmed with the variety of Mackintosh's conversation, that he requested his guests to prolong their visit for two or three days. So liberal, however, was the interpretation they put upon the invitation, that the two or three days were protractedinto as many months, during which, every species of hint was most ineffectually given, till their hosts told them, with many polite apologies, that they expected visitors and a numerous retinue, and could no longer accommodate Mr. and Mrs. Mackintosh.
During Sir James Mackintosh's Recordership of Bombay, a singular incident occurred. Two Dutchmen having sued for debt two English officers, Lieutenants Macguire and Cauty, these officers resolved to waylay and assault them. This was rather a resolve made in a drunken excitement than a deliberate purpose. Fortunately, the Dutchmen pursued a different route from that which they had intended, and they prosecuted the two officers for the offence of lying-in-wait with intent to murder. They were found guilty, and brought up for judgment. Previous to his pronouncing judgment, however, Sir James received an intimation that the prisoners had conceived the project of shooting him as he sat on the bench, and that one of them had for that purpose a loaded pistol in his writing-desk. It is remarkable that the intimation did not induce him to take some precautions to prevent its execution—at any rate, not to expose himself needlessly to assassination. On the contrary, the circumstances only suggested the following remarks:—"I have been credibly informed that you entertained the desperate project of destroying your own lives at that bar, after having previously destroyed the judge who now addresses you. If that murderous project had been executed, I should have been the first British judge who ever stained with his blood the seat of justice. But I can never die better than in the discharge of my duty." All this eloquence might have been spared. Macguire submitted to the judge's inspection of his writing-desk, and showed him that, though it contained two pistols, neither of them was charged. It is supposed to have been a hoax—a highly mischievous one, indeed—but the statement wasprimâ facieso improbable, that it was absurd to give it the slightest credit.
"Peter Porcupine." W. Cobbett.
"Peter Porcupine." W. Cobbett.
Cobbett began his career a political writer of ultra-Conservative stamp. He first became known to the public as "Peter Porcupine," under which name he fiercely attacked the democratic writers and speakers of France and America. He was then resident in America, and encountered one or two trials at law for alleged libels, in his defence of monarchical and aristocratic institutions. ThePorcupinePapersattracted much notice in England, were quoted and lauded by the government organs—quoted in both Houses of Parliament, and eulogized in the pulpit. The writer was considered one of the most powerful supports of the principles of the British constitution. This series of papers was republished in England, in twelve volumes octavo, under the patronage of the Prince Regent, to whom, it is believed, the work was dedicated.
On his return from America, Cobbett began a daily paper called thePorcupine. This was soon discontinued, and he began theRegister. Both these papers were strongly in favour of the government; and theRegisterran through several volumes before a change took place in the political opinions of the editor—a change hastened, if not caused, by an affront offered him by William Pitt. Windham was a great admirer of Cobbett, and after reading one of his Porcupine papers, declared that the author was "worthy of a statue in gold." Pitt had refused to meet the author of theRegisterat Windham's table; and this Cobbett resented, and never forgave. Very soon after this, a marked change took place in his politics; henceforth he was more consistent, and the lastRegisterwhich came from his pen, very shortly before his death, breathed the same spirit which he had shown years before as one of the leaders of the democratic party.
One of Cobbett's oddities was the wood-cut of a gridiron which for many years headed thePolitical Register, as an emblem of the martyrdom which he avowed he was prepared to undergo, upon certain conditions. The gridiron will be recollected as one of the emblems of St. Lawrence, and we see it as the large gilt vane of one of the City churches dedicated to the saint.
As he was broiled on a gridiron for refusing to give up the treasures of the church committed to his care, so Cobbett vowed that he would consent to be broiled upon certain terms, in hisRegister, dated Long Island, on the24th of September, 1819, wherein he wrote the well-known prophecy on Peel's Cash Payments Bill of that year as follows:—"I, William Cobbett, assert that to carry their bill into effect is impossible; and I say that if this bill be carried into full effect, I will give Castlereagh leave to lay me on a gridiron, and broil me alive, while Sidmouth may stir the coals, and Canning stand by and laugh at my groans."
On the hoisting of the gridironon the Register, he wrote and published the fulfilment of his prophecy in the following statement:—"Peel's bill, together with the laws about small notes, which last were in force when Peel's bill was passed; these laws all taken together, if they had gone into effect, would have put an end to all small notes on the first day of May, 1823; but to precede this blowing-up of the whole of the funding system, an act was passed, in the month of July, 1822, to prevent these laws, and especially that part of Peel's bill which put an end to small Bank of England notes, from going into full effect; thus the system received a respite; but thus did the parliament fulfil the above prophecy of September, 1819."
A large sign-gridiron was actually made for Mr. Cobbett. It was of dimensions sufficient for him to have lain thereon (he was six feet high); the implement was gilt, and we remember to have seen it in his office-window, in Fleet Street; but it was never hoisted outside the office. It was long to be seen on the gable-end of a building next Mr. Cobbett's house at Kensington.
Cobbett possessed extraordinary native vigour of mind; but every portion of his history is marked by strange blunders. Shakspeare, the British Museum, antiquities, posterity, America, France, Germany, are, one and all, either wholly indifferent to him, or objects of his bitter contempt. He absurdly condemned the British Museum as "a bundle of dead insects;" abused drinking "the immortal memory" as a contradiction of terms; and stigmatized "consuming themidnight oil" as cant and humbug. His political nicknames were very ludicrous: as big O for O'Connell; Prosperity Robinson for a flaming Chancellor of the Exchequer; and shoy-hoy for all degrees of quacks and pretenders. Still, his own gridiron was a monstrous piece of quackery, as audacious as any charlatan ever set up.
When he had a subject that suited him, he is said to have handled it not as an accomplished writer, but "with the perfect and inimitable art with which a dog picks a bone." Still, his own work would not bear this sort of handling—witness the biting critique upon his English grammar, which provoked the remark that he would undertake to write a Chinese grammar.
In country or in town, at Barn Elms, in Bolt Court or at Kensington, Cobbett wrote hisRegistersearly in the morning: these, it must be admitted, had force enough; for he said truly, "Though I never attempt to put forth that sort of stuff which the intense people on the other side of the Channel calleloquence, I bring out strings of very interesting facts; I use pretty powerful arguments; and I hammer them down so closely upon the mind, that they seldom fail to produce a lasting impression." This he owed, doubtless, to his industry, early rising, and methodical habits.
Cobbett affected to despise all acquirements which he had not. In hisEnglish Grammarhe selects examples of bad English from the writings of Dr. Johnson and Dr. Watts, and is very contemptuous on "what are called the learned languages;" but he would not have entered upon Latin or Greek.
It seemed to be Cobbett's aim to keep himself fresh in the public eye by some means of advertisement or other; a few were very reprehensible, but none more than his disinterring the bones of Thomas Paine, buried in a field on his own estate near New Rochelle, and bringing these bones to England, where, Cobbett calculated, pieces of them wouldbe worn as memorials of the gross scoffer. Cobbett, however, never more widely mistook English feeling: instead of arousing, as he expected, the enthusiasm of the republican party in this country, he only drew upon himself universal contempt.
There have been many instances of the indulgence of book collecting to the extent which is termed book-madness; but none more remarkable than that of Mr. Richard Heber, half-brother to the celebrated Bishop of Calcutta of the same name. Mr. Heber inherited property which permitted him to spend immense sums in the purchase of books; and he received an education which enabled him to appreciate the books when purchased. He was not therefore, strictly speaking, abibliomaniac, and nothing more, though his exertions incollectingamounted to eccentricities. He would make excursions from the family seats in Yorkshire and Shropshire to London, to attend book sales; and when the termination of the war in 1815 opened the Continent to English travellers, Heber visited France, Belgium and the Netherlands, and made large purchases of books in each country. He cared for nothing but books. He kept up a correspondence with all the great dealers in old books throughout the kingdom. On hearing of a curious book, he was known to have put himself into a mail-coach, and travelled three or four hundred miles to obtain it, fearful to entrust his commission to any agent. He was known to say seriously to his friends, on their remarking on his many duplicates, "Why, you see, sir, no man can do comfortably withoutthreecopies of a work. One he must have for ashowcopy, and he will, probably, keep it at his country-house. Another he will require for his use and reference; and, unless he is inclined to part with this, which is very inconvenient, or risk the injury of his best copy, he must needs have a third at the service of his friends."
Mr. Hill Burton, in hisBook-hunter, relates the following incident of Heber's experience in the rarity-market. A celebrated dealer in old books was passing a chandler's shop, where he was stopped by a few filthy old volumes in the window. One of them he found to be a volume of old English poetry, which he—a practised hand in that line—saw was utterly unknown as existing, though not unrecorded. Three and sixpence was asked; he stood out for a half-a-crown, on first principles, but, not succeeding, he paid the larger sum, and walked away, book in pocket, to a sale, where the first person he saw was Heber. Him the triumphant bookseller drew into a corner, with "Why do you come to auctions to look for scarce books, when you can pick up such things as this in a chandler's shop for three and sixpence?" "Bless me, ——, where did you get this?" "That's tellings! I may get more there." "——, I must have this." "Not a penny under thirty guineas!" A cheque was drawn, and a profit of 17,900 per cent. cleared by the man who had his eyes about him, in whose estimation such a sum was paltry compared with the triumph over Heber.
Mr. Heber's taste strengthened as he grew older. Not only was his collection of old English literature unprecedented, but he brought together a larger number of fine copies of Latin, Greek, French, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese books than had ever been possessed by a private individual. His house at Hodnet, in Shropshire, was nearly all library. His house in Pimlico (where he died in 1833) was filled with books from top to bottom: every chair, table, and passage containing "piles of erudition." A house in York Street, Westminster, was similarly filled. He had immense collections of books in houses rented merely to contain them, at Oxford, Paris, Antwerp, Brussels, and Ghent. When he died, curiosity was naturally excited to know what provision he had made in reference to his immense store of books; but when his will was discovered,after a long and almost hopeless search among bills, notes, memoranda, and letters, it was found, to the astonishment of every one on reading it, that the librarywas not even mentioned! It seemed as if Heber cared nothing what should become of the books, or who should possess them, after his decease; and as he was never married, or influenced greatly by domestic ties, his library was considered by the executors of his will as merely so much "property," to be converted into cash by the aid of the auctioneer. What was the number of books possessed by him or the amount of money paid for them, appears to have been left in much doubt. Some estimated the library at 150,000 volumes, formed at a cost of 100,000l.; others reckoned it at 500,000 volumes, at an aggregate value of 250,000l.The truth was, his executors did not know in how many foreign towns his collections of books were placed. Thus it could not accurately be ascertained what portion of the whole was sold by auction in London in 1834-6; but the mere catalogue of that portion fills considerably more than two thousand printed octavo pages. The sales were conducted by Mr. Evans, Messrs. Sotheby, and other book-auctioneers, and occupied two hundred and two days, extending through a period of upwards of two years from April 10, 1834, to July 9, 1836. One copy of the catalogue has been preserved, with marginal manuscript notes, relating to almost every lot; and from this a summary of very curious information is deducible. It appears that, whatever may have been the number of volumes sold by auction, or otherwise got rid of abroad, those sold at this series of auctions in London were 117,613 in number, grouped into 52,672 lots. As regards the ratio borne by the prices obtained, to those which Mr. Heber had paid for the books in question, the account as rendered showed that the auctioneer's hammer brought 56,775l.for that which had cost 77,150l.It would appear, therefore, that the losses accruing to Mr. Heber's estate through his passion for book-collecting, amounted to upwardsof 20,000l., and this irrespective of the fate of the continental libraries.
Sir John Soane, who bequeathed to the country his Museum in Lincoln's Inn Fields, which cost him upwards of 50,000l., was the son of a bricklayer, and was born at Reading in 1753; he was errand-boy to Dance, the architect, and subsequently his pupil. He rose to great eminence, grew rich and liberal; he gave for Belzoni's elaborate sarcophagus in the Soane Museum, 2,000 guineas; paid large sums for art rarities; subscribed 1,000l.for the Duke of York's monument, was contended with his knighthood, and declined to receive a baronetcy. Yet he was a man of overweening vanity, and was much courted by legacy-hunters; whilst his alienation from his son assisted in raising up many enemies, in addition to those which Soane's remarkable success brought against him. From the latter section may have proceeded the following curious and popular squib of the day, said to have been found under the plates at one of the artistic or academic dinners. It is headed:—
"The Modern Goth.
"Glory to thee, great Artist! soul of taste!For mending pigsties where a plank's misplaced:Whose towering genius plans from deep researchHouses and temples fit for Master BirchTo grace his shop on that important day,When huge twelfth-cakes are raised in bright array.Each pastry pillar shows thy vast design—Hail! then, to thee, and all great works of thine.Come, let me place thee, in the foremost rank,With him whose dullness discomposed the bank;[A line illegible.]Thy style shall finish what his style begun.Thrice happy Wren! he did not live to seeThe dome that's built and beautified by thee.Oh! had he lived to see thy blessed work,To see plaster scored like loins of pork;To see the orders in confusion move:Scrolls fixed below, and pedestals above:To see defiance hurled at Rome and Greece,Old Wren had never left the world in peace.Look where I will, above, below, is shownA pure disordered order of thine own;Where lines and circles curiously unite,A base, confounded, compound Composite:A thing from which, in truth it may be said,Each lab'ring mason turns abash'd his head;Which Holland reprobates, and Dance derides,Whilst tasteful Wyatt holds his aching sides.Here crawl, ye spiders! here, exempt from cares,Spin your fine webs above the bulls and bears!Secure from harm enjoy the charnell'd niche:No maids molest you, for no brooms can reach;In silence build from models of your own,But never imitate the works of Soane!"
"Glory to thee, great Artist! soul of taste!For mending pigsties where a plank's misplaced:Whose towering genius plans from deep researchHouses and temples fit for Master BirchTo grace his shop on that important day,When huge twelfth-cakes are raised in bright array.Each pastry pillar shows thy vast design—Hail! then, to thee, and all great works of thine.Come, let me place thee, in the foremost rank,With him whose dullness discomposed the bank;[A line illegible.]Thy style shall finish what his style begun.Thrice happy Wren! he did not live to seeThe dome that's built and beautified by thee.Oh! had he lived to see thy blessed work,To see plaster scored like loins of pork;To see the orders in confusion move:Scrolls fixed below, and pedestals above:To see defiance hurled at Rome and Greece,Old Wren had never left the world in peace.Look where I will, above, below, is shownA pure disordered order of thine own;Where lines and circles curiously unite,A base, confounded, compound Composite:A thing from which, in truth it may be said,Each lab'ring mason turns abash'd his head;Which Holland reprobates, and Dance derides,Whilst tasteful Wyatt holds his aching sides.Here crawl, ye spiders! here, exempt from cares,Spin your fine webs above the bulls and bears!Secure from harm enjoy the charnell'd niche:No maids molest you, for no brooms can reach;In silence build from models of your own,But never imitate the works of Soane!"
Soane is described by his biographer as "one of the vainest and most self-sufficient of men, who courted praise and adulation from every person and source, but dreaded, and was even maddened by, anything like impartial and discriminating criticism." But he grew so disgusted with his flatterers, that a short time before his death he shut himself up in a house at Richmond, to get out of the way of their attentions.
Jedediah Buxton. Ætat. 49.
Jedediah Buxton. Ætat. 49.
Numeros memini.Virgil.
On the 3rd of July, 1839, some of the eminent members of the Academy of Sciences at Paris, including MM. Arago, Lacroix, Libri, and Sturm, met to examine a remarkable boy whose powers of mental calculation were deemed quite inexplicable. This boy, named Vito Mangiamele, a Sicilian, was the son of a shepherd, and was about eleven years old. The examiners asked him several questions which they knew, under ordinary circumstances, to be tedious of solution—such as, the cube root of 3,796,416, and the 10th root of 282,475,249; the first of these he answered in half-a-minute,the second in three minutes. One question was of the following complicated character—"What number has the following proportions, that if its cube is added to 5 times its square, and then 42 times the number, and the number 42 be subtracted from the result, the remainder is equal to 0 or zero." M. Arago repeated this question a second time, but while he was finishing the last word, the boy replied—"The number is 5!"
In the same year, Master Bassle, who was only thirteen years of age, went through an extraordinary mnemonic performance at Willis's Rooms, London. Five large sheets of paper, closely printed with tables of dates, specific gravities, velocities, planetary distances, &c., were distributed among the visitors, and every one was allowed to ask Master Bassle a question relating to these tables, to which was received a correct answer. He would also name the day of the week on which any day of the month had fallen in any particular year. He could repeat long series of numbers backwards and forwards, and point out the place of any number in the series; and to prove that his powers were not merely confined to the rows of numbers in the printed tables, he allowed the whole company to form a long series, by contributing each two or three digits in the order in which they sat; and then, after studying this series for a few minutes, he committed it to memory, and repeated it entire, both backwards and forwards, from the beginning to the end. These performances are believed to have been not the result of any natural mnemonic power, but of a method to be acquired by any person in the course of twelve lessons.
Zerah Colburn, who excited much interest in London in 1812, was a native of Vermont, in the United States. At six years old, he suddenly showed extraordinary powers of mental calculation. By processes which seemed to be almost unconscious to himself, and were wholly so to others, he answered arithmetical questions of considerable difficulty. When eight years old, he was brought toLondon, where he astonished many learned auditors and spectators by giving correct solutions to such problems as the following: raise 8 up to the 16th power; give the square root of 106,929; give the cube root of 268,336,125; how many seconds are there in 48 years? The answers were always given in very few minutes—sometimes in a few seconds. He was ignorant of the ordinary rules of arithmetic, and did not know how or why particular modes of process came into his mind. On one occasion, the Duke of Gloucester asked him to multiply 21,734 by 543. Something in the boy's manner induced the Duke to ask how he did it, from which it appeared that the boy arrived at the result by multiplying 65,202 by 181, an equivalent process; but why he made this change in the factors, neither he nor any one else could tell. Zerah Colburn was unlike other boys also in this, that he had more than the usual number of toes and fingers; a peculiarity observable also in his father and in some of his brothers.
An exceptional instance is presented in the case of Mr. Bidder, of this faculty being cultivated to a highly useful purpose. George Parker Bidder, when six years old, used to amuse himself by counting up to 100, then to 1,000, then to 1,000,000: by degrees he accustomed himself to contemplate the relations of high numbers, and used to build up peas, marbles, and shot, into squares, cubes, and other regular figures. He invented processes of his own, distinct from those given in books on arithmetic, and could solve all the usual questions mentally more rapidly than other boys with the aid of pen and paper. When he became eminent as a civil engineer, he was wont to embarrass and baffle the parliamentary counsel on contested railway bills, by confuting their statements of figures almost before the words were out of their mouths. In 1856, he gave to the Institution of Civil Engineers an interesting account of this singular arithmetical faculty—so far, at least, as to show thatmemoryhas less to do with it than is generally supposed; theprocesses are actually worked outseriatim, but with a rapidity almost inconceivable.
The most famous calculator in the last century was Jedediah Buxton, who, in 1754, resided for several weeks at St. John's Gate, Smithfield. This man, though he was the son of a schoolmaster, and the grandson of the vicar of his native parish, Elmeton, in Derbyshire, had never learned to write, but he could conduct the most intricate calculations by his memory alone; and such was his power of abstraction that no noise could disturb him. One who had heard of his astonishing ability as a calculator, proposed to him for solution the following question:—In a body whose three sides measure 23,145,789 yards, 5,642,732 yards, and 54,965 yards, how many cubical eighths-of-an-inch are there? This obtuse reckoning he made in a comparatively short time, although pursuing the while, with many others, his labours in the fields. He could walk over a plot of land and estimate its contents with as much accuracy as if it had been measured by the chain. His knowledge was, however, limited to figures. In 1754, Buxton walked to London, with the express intention of obtaining a sight of the King and Queen, for beyond figures, royalty formed the only subject of his curiosity. In this intention he was disappointed: he was, however, introduced to the Royal Society, whom he called the "volk of the Siety Court." They tested his powers, and dismissed him with a handsome gratuity.
He was next taken by his hospitable entertainer at St. John's Gate, to see Garrick in the character of Richard III. at Drury Lane Theatre, when undazzled by the splendour of the stage appointments, and unmoved by the eloquent passion of the actor, the simple rustic employed himself in reckoning the number of words he heard, and the sum total of the steps made by the dancers; and after the performance of a fine piece of music, he declared that the innumerable sounds had perplexed him.
To these feats may be added the following:—Buxtonmultiplied a sum of thirty-nine places of figures into itself and even conversed whilst performing it. His memory was so great, that he could leave off and resume the operation at the distant period of a week, or even several months. He said that he wasdrunkonce with reckoning by memory from May 17 until June 16, and then recovered after sleeping soundly for seven hours. The question which occupied him so intensely was the reduction of a cube of upwards of 200,000,000 of miles into barleycorns, and then into hairs'-breaths of an inch in length. He kept an account of all the beer which he had drunk for forty years, which was equal to five thousand one hundred and sixteen pints: of these two thousand one hundred and thirty-two were drunk at the Duke of Kingston's and only ten at his own house.
There was a portrait of Buxton at Rufford Abbey, Nottinghamshire. A print of him was engraved in theGentleman's Magazine, June, 1754, with this subscription: "Jedediah Buxton. Ætat. 49.—Numeros memini.Virgil." He was married and had several children, and died at the age of 70, in the year 1777.
In a very pleasant paper on "Ideal Houses," in No. 4 of theCornhill Magazine, we find this clever sketch of a few of the amiable eccentricities of our famous Essayist, Charles Lamb:—
"I believe," says the contributor, "more in the influence of dwellings upon human character than in the influence of authority on matters of opinion. The man may seek the house, or the house may form the man; but in either case the result is the same. A few yards of earth, even on this side of the grave, will make all the difference between life and death. If our dear old friend, Charles Lamb, was now alive (and we must all wish he was, if only that he might seehow every day is bringing him nearer the crown that belongs only to the Prince of British Essayists), there would be something singularly jarring to the human nerves in finding him at Dalston, but not so jarring in finding him a little farther off at Hackney. He would still have drawn nourishment in the Temple and in Covent Garden; but he must surely have perished if transplanted to New Tyburnia. I cannot imagine him living at Pentonville (I cannot, in my uninquiring ignorance, imagine who Penton was, that he should name aville?), but I can see a certain appropriate oddity in his cottage at Colebrook Row, Islington.
Colebrook Cottage.
Colebrook Cottage.
"In the first place, we may agree that this London suburb is very odd, without going into the vexed question of whether it was very 'merry.' In the second place, thissame Colebrook Row was built a few years before our dear old friend was born—I believe, in 1770. In the third place, it was called a 'Row,' though 'Lane' or 'Walk' would have been as old and as good; but 'Terrace' or 'Crescent' would have rendered it unbearable. The New River flowed calmly past the cottage walls—as poor George Dyer found to his cost—bringing with it fair memories of Isaak Walton and the last two centuries. The house itself had also certain peculiarities to recommend it. The door was so constructed that it opened into the chief sitting-room; and this, though promising much annoyance, was really a source of fun and enjoyment to our dear old friend. He was never so delighted as when he stood on the hearth-rug receiving many congenial visitors as they came to him on the muddiest-boot and the wettest-of-umbrella days. His immediate neighbourhood was also peculiar.
"It was there that weary wanderers came to seek the waters of oblivion. Suicide could pitch upon no spot so favourable for its sacrifice as the gateway leading into the river inclosure before Charles Lamb's cottage. Waterloo Bridge had not long been built, and was not then a fashionable theatre for self-destruction. The drags were always kept ready in Colebrook Row, at a small tavern a few doors from the cottage. The landlord's ear, according to his own account, had become so sensitive by repeated practice, that when aroused at night by a heavy splash in the water, he could tell by the sound whether it was an accident or a wilful plunge. He never believed that poor George Dyer tumbled in from carelessness, though it was no business of his to express an opinion on the matter. After the eighth suicide within a short period, Charles Lamb began to grow restless.
"'Mary,' he said to his sister, 'I think it's high time we left this place;' and so they went to Edmonton."
This remarkable man of genius whose wit and humour entitle him to high rank in English literature, was born in 1798, in the Poultry, London, where his father was, for many years, acting partner in the firm of Vernor, Hood, and Sharpe, extensive booksellers and publishers. "There was a dash of ink in my blood," he writes: "my father wrote two novels, and my brother was decidedly of a literary turn, to the great disquietude, for a time, of an anxious parent." Thomas Hood was sent to a school in Tokenhouse Yard, in the City, as a day-boarder. The two maiden sisters, who kept the school, and with whom Hood took his dinner, had the odd name of Hogsflesh, and they had a sensitive brother, who was always addressed as "Mr. H.," and who subsequently became the prototype of Charles Lamb's unsuccessful farce, called "Mr. H."
In 1812, Hood was sent to a day-school, his account of which is as follows:—"In a house formerly a suburban seat of the unfortunate Earl of Essex, over a grocer's shop, up two pair of stairs, there was a very select day-school, kept by a decayed Dominie, as he would have been called in his native land. In his better days, when my brother was his pupil, he had been master of one of those wholesale concerns in which so many ignorant men have made fortunes, by favour of high terms, low ushers, gullible parents, and victimized little boys. Small as was our college, its principal maintained his state, and walked gowned and covered. His cap was of faded velvet, of black, or blue, or purple, or sad-green, or, as it seemed, of altogether, with a sadnuanceof brown; his robe of crimson damask lined with the national tartan. A quaint, carved, high-backed elbowed article, looking like anémigréfrom a set that had been at home in an aristocratical drawing-room under theancien régime, was his professional chair, which, with his desk, was appropriately elevated on a dais some inches above the common floor.From this moral and material eminence he cast a vigilant yet kindly eye over some dozen of youngsters: for adversity, sharpened by habits of authority, had not soured him, or mingled a single tinge of bile with the peculiar red-streak complexion so common to the wealthier natives of the north...." "In a few months, my education progressed infinitely farther than it had done in as many years under the listless superintendence of B.A. and LL.D. and assistants. I picked upsomeLatin, was a tolerable grammarian, and so good a French scholar, that I earned a few guineas—my first literary fee—by revising a new edition ofPaul et Virginiefor the press. Moreover, as an accountant, I could work asummum bonum, that is, a good sum."
Young Hood finished his education at Wanostrocht's Academy at Camberwell; and removed thence to a merchant's counting-house in the City, where he realized his own inimitable sketch of the boy "Just set up in Business:"—