The Cottle Church.

Here lies the Marquis of Anglesey's limb,The devil will have the rest of him.

More apposite is the following epitaph, attributed to Mr. Canning, on reading the description of the tomb erected to the memory of the Marquis of Anglesey's leg:—

Here rests,—and let no saucy knavePresume to sneer or laugh,To learn that mould'ring in this graveThere lies—a Britishcalf.For he who writes these lines is sureThat those who read the whole,Will find that laugh was premature,For here, too, lies asoul.And here five little ones repose,Twin born with other five,Unheeded by their brother toes,Who all are now alive.A leg and foot, to speak more plain,Lie here of one commanding;Who, though he might his wits retain,Lost half his understanding.And when the guns, with thunder bright,Poured bullets thick as hail,Could only in this way be taughtTo give the foeleg bail.And now in England just as gayAs in the battle brave,Goes to the rout, the ball, the play,With one leg in the grave.Fortune in vain has showed her spite,For he will soon be found,Should England's sons engage in fight,Resolved to stand his ground.But Fortune's pardon I must beg;She meant not to disarm:And when she lopped the hero's leg,She did not seek his h-arm.And but indulged a harmless whim,Since he couldwalkwith one:She saw two legs were lost on him,Who never meant to run.

And here five little ones repose,Twin born with other five,Unheeded by their brother toes,Who all are now alive.

A leg and foot, to speak more plain,Lie here of one commanding;Who, though he might his wits retain,Lost half his understanding.

And when the guns, with thunder bright,Poured bullets thick as hail,Could only in this way be taughtTo give the foeleg bail.

And now in England just as gayAs in the battle brave,Goes to the rout, the ball, the play,With one leg in the grave.

Fortune in vain has showed her spite,For he will soon be found,Should England's sons engage in fight,Resolved to stand his ground.

But Fortune's pardon I must beg;She meant not to disarm:And when she lopped the hero's leg,She did not seek his h-arm.

And but indulged a harmless whim,Since he couldwalkwith one:She saw two legs were lost on him,Who never meant to run.

When the Marquis of Anglesey was, for the second time, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, he became very unpopular through an unguarded speech; and Mr. O'Connell, in one of his flowery addresses, quoted the lines:—

God takes the good, too good on earth to stay;And leaves the bad, too bad to take away.

The great orator continued:—

This couplet's truth in Paget's case we find;God took his leg, and left himself behind.

Of a ballad sung in the streets of Dublin, the chorus ran as follows:—

He has one leg in Dublin, the other in Cork,And you know very well what I mean, O!

It was stated that he had an artificial leg in Cork.

"For more than twenty years," says Mr. De Morgan in his "Budget of Paradoxes"[20]in theAthenæum, 1865, "printed papers have been sent about in the name of Elizabeth Cottle. It is not so remarkable that such papers should be concocted, as that they should circulate for such a length of time without attracting public attention. Eighty years ago, Mrs. Cottle might have rivalled Lieutenant Brothers or Joanna Southcote. Long hence, when the now current volumes of our journals are well ransacked works of reference, those who look into them will be glad to see this feature of our time: I therefore make a few extracts, faithfully copied as to type. The Italic is from the new Testament; the Roman is the requisite interpretation:—

"Robert Cottle 'was numbered(5196)with the transgressors' at the back of the Church in Norwood Cemetery, May 12, 1858—Isa. liii. 12. The Rev. J. G. Collinson, Minister of St. James's Church, Clapham, the then district church, before All Saints was built, read the funeral serviceover the Sepulchre wherein never before man was laid."Hewn on the stone, 'at the mouth of the sepulchre,' is his name—Robert Cottle, born at Bristol, June 2, 1774; died at Kirkstall Lodge, Clapham Park, May 6, 1858.And that day(May 12, 1858)was the preparation(day and year for 'thePREPAREDplace for you'—Cottleites—by the widowed mother of the Father's house, at Kirkstall Lodge—John xiv. 2, 3).And the Sabbath(Christmas Day, December 25, 1859)drew on(for the resurrection of the Christian body on 'the third [Protestant Sun]-day'—1 Cor. xv. 35).Why seek ye the living(God of the New Jerusalem—Heb. xii. 22; Rev. iii. 12)among the dead(men):he(the God of Jesus)is not here(in the grave),but is risen(in the person of the Holy Ghost, from the supper, of 'the dead in the second death' of Paganism).Remember how he spake unto you(in the Church of the Rev. George Clayton, April 14, 1839).I will not drink henceforth(at this last Cottle supper)of the fruit of this(Trinity)vine, until that day(Christmas Day, 1859),when I(Elizabeth Cottle)drank it new with you(Cottleites)in my Father's kingdom—John xv.If this(Trinitarian)cup may not pass away from me(Elizabeth Cottle, April 14, 1839),except I drink it('new with you Cottleites, in my Father's kingdom'),thy will be done—Matt. xxvi. 29, 42, 64. 'Our Father which art (God) in heaven,hallowed be thy name, thy(Cottle)kingdom come, thy will be done in earth, as it is(done)in(the new)Heaven(and new earth of the new name of Cottle—Rev. xxi. 1; iii. 12)."... (Queen Elizabeth, fromA. D.1558 to 1566).And thisWORDyet once more(by a second Elizabeth)—theWORDof his oath,signifieth(at John Scott's baptism of the Holy Ghost)the removing of those things(those Gods and those doctrines)that are made(according the Creeds and Commandments of men)that those things(in the moral law of God)which cannot be shaken(as a rule of faith and practice)may remain; wherefore we receiving(from Elizabeth)a kingdom(of God)which cannot be moved(by Satan)let us have grace(in his grace of Canterbury)whereby we may serve God acceptably(with the acceptable sacrifice of Elizabeth's body and blood of the communion of the Holy Ghost)with reverence(for truth)and godly fear(of the unpardonable sin of blasphemy against the Holy Ghost),for our God(the Holy Ghost)is a consuming fire(to the nation that will not serve him in the Cottle Church). We cannot defend ourselves against the Almighty, and if He is our defence, no nation can invade us."In verse 4 the Church of St. Peter isin prison between four quaternions of Soldiers—the Holy Alliance of 1815. Rev. vii. 1. Elizabeth,the Angel of the LordJesusappearsto the Jewish and Christian body withthe visionof prophecy to the Rev. Geo. Clayton and his clerical brethren, April 8th, 1839.Rhodawas the name of her maidat Putney Terrace who usedto open the door to her Peter, the Rev. Robert Ashton, the Pastor of 'the little flock' 'of 120 names together, assembled in an upper (school) room' at Putney Chapel, to which little flock she gave the revelation (Acts i. 13, 15)of Jesus the sameKing of the Jewsyesterdayat the prayer meeting, December 31, 1841,and to-day, January 1, 1842,and for ever. See book of Life, page 24. Matt. xviii. 19; xxi. 13-16. In verse 6 the Italian body of St. Peteris sleeping'in the second death'between the twoImperialsoldiersof France and Austria. The Emperor of France from January 1 to July 11, 1859, causes the Italianchains of St. Peter to fall off from hisImperialhands."I say unto thee, Robert Ashton,thou art Peter, a stone,and upon this rock, of truth,will IElizabeth, the Angel of Jesus,build myCottleChurch, and the gates of hell, the doors of St. Peter at Rome, shall not prevail against it—Matt. xvi. 18; Rev. iii. 7-12."

"Hewn on the stone, 'at the mouth of the sepulchre,' is his name—Robert Cottle, born at Bristol, June 2, 1774; died at Kirkstall Lodge, Clapham Park, May 6, 1858.And that day(May 12, 1858)was the preparation(day and year for 'thePREPAREDplace for you'—Cottleites—by the widowed mother of the Father's house, at Kirkstall Lodge—John xiv. 2, 3).And the Sabbath(Christmas Day, December 25, 1859)drew on(for the resurrection of the Christian body on 'the third [Protestant Sun]-day'—1 Cor. xv. 35).Why seek ye the living(God of the New Jerusalem—Heb. xii. 22; Rev. iii. 12)among the dead(men):he(the God of Jesus)is not here(in the grave),but is risen(in the person of the Holy Ghost, from the supper, of 'the dead in the second death' of Paganism).Remember how he spake unto you(in the Church of the Rev. George Clayton, April 14, 1839).I will not drink henceforth(at this last Cottle supper)of the fruit of this(Trinity)vine, until that day(Christmas Day, 1859),when I(Elizabeth Cottle)drank it new with you(Cottleites)in my Father's kingdom—John xv.If this(Trinitarian)cup may not pass away from me(Elizabeth Cottle, April 14, 1839),except I drink it('new with you Cottleites, in my Father's kingdom'),thy will be done—Matt. xxvi. 29, 42, 64. 'Our Father which art (God) in heaven,hallowed be thy name, thy(Cottle)kingdom come, thy will be done in earth, as it is(done)in(the new)Heaven(and new earth of the new name of Cottle—Rev. xxi. 1; iii. 12).

"... (Queen Elizabeth, fromA. D.1558 to 1566).And thisWORDyet once more(by a second Elizabeth)—theWORDof his oath,signifieth(at John Scott's baptism of the Holy Ghost)the removing of those things(those Gods and those doctrines)that are made(according the Creeds and Commandments of men)that those things(in the moral law of God)which cannot be shaken(as a rule of faith and practice)may remain; wherefore we receiving(from Elizabeth)a kingdom(of God)which cannot be moved(by Satan)let us have grace(in his grace of Canterbury)whereby we may serve God acceptably(with the acceptable sacrifice of Elizabeth's body and blood of the communion of the Holy Ghost)with reverence(for truth)and godly fear(of the unpardonable sin of blasphemy against the Holy Ghost),for our God(the Holy Ghost)is a consuming fire(to the nation that will not serve him in the Cottle Church). We cannot defend ourselves against the Almighty, and if He is our defence, no nation can invade us.

"In verse 4 the Church of St. Peter isin prison between four quaternions of Soldiers—the Holy Alliance of 1815. Rev. vii. 1. Elizabeth,the Angel of the LordJesusappearsto the Jewish and Christian body withthe visionof prophecy to the Rev. Geo. Clayton and his clerical brethren, April 8th, 1839.Rhodawas the name of her maidat Putney Terrace who usedto open the door to her Peter, the Rev. Robert Ashton, the Pastor of 'the little flock' 'of 120 names together, assembled in an upper (school) room' at Putney Chapel, to which little flock she gave the revelation (Acts i. 13, 15)of Jesus the sameKing of the Jewsyesterdayat the prayer meeting, December 31, 1841,and to-day, January 1, 1842,and for ever. See book of Life, page 24. Matt. xviii. 19; xxi. 13-16. In verse 6 the Italian body of St. Peteris sleeping'in the second death'between the twoImperialsoldiersof France and Austria. The Emperor of France from January 1 to July 11, 1859, causes the Italianchains of St. Peter to fall off from hisImperialhands.

"I say unto thee, Robert Ashton,thou art Peter, a stone,and upon this rock, of truth,will IElizabeth, the Angel of Jesus,build myCottleChurch, and the gates of hell, the doors of St. Peter at Rome, shall not prevail against it—Matt. xvi. 18; Rev. iii. 7-12."

"This will be enough for the purpose. When anyone who pleases can circulate new revelations of this kind, uninterrupted and unattended to, new revelations will cease to be a good investment of eccentricity. I take it for granted that the gentlemen whose names are mentioned have nothing to do with the circulars or their doctrines. Any lady who may happen to be entrusted with a revelation may nominate her own pastor, or any other clergyman, one of her apostles; and it is difficult to say to what court the nominees can appeal to get the commission abrogated.

"March 16, 1865. During the last two years the circulars have continued. It is hinted that funds are low; and two gentlemen, who are represented as gone 'to Bethelem asylum in despair,' say that Mrs. Cottle will 'spend all that she hath, while Her Majesty's ministers are flourishing on the wages of sin.' The following is perhaps one of the most remarkable passages in the whole:—

"Extol and magnify Him(Jehovah, the everlasting God, see the Magnificat and Luke i. 45, 46-68-73-79),that rideth(by rail and steam over land and sea, from his holy habitation at Kirkstall Lodge, Psa. lxxvii. 19, 20),upon the(Cottle)heavens as it were(September 9, 1864, see pages 21, 170),upon an(exercising, Psa. cxxxi. 1),horse-(chair, bought of Mr. John Ward, Leicester Square)."

In the spring of 1771, Walpole's house in Arlington Street was broken open in the night, and his cabinets and trunks forced and plundered. The Lord of Strawberry was at his villa when he received by a courier the intelligence of the burglary. In an admirable letter to Sir Horace Mann he thus narrates the sequel:—"I was a good quarter of an hour before I recollected that it was very becoming to have philosophy enough not to care about what one does care for; if you don't care there's no philosophy in bearing it. I despatched my upper servant, breakfasted, fed the bantams as usual, and made no more hurry to town than Cincinnatus would if he had lost a basket of turnips. I left in my drawers 270l.of bank-bills and three hundred guineas, not to mention all my gold and silver coins, some inestimable miniatures, a little plate, and a good deal of furniture, under no guard but that of two maidens.... When I arrived, my surprise was by no means diminished. I found in three different chambers three cabinets, a large chest, and a glass case of china wide open, the locks not picked, but forced, and the doors of them broken to pieces. You will wonder that this should surprise me when I had been prepared for it. Oh! the miracle was that I did not find, nor to this hour have found, the least thing missing. In the cabinet of modern medals, there were, and so there are still, a series of English coins, with downright John Trot guineas, half-guineas, shillings, sixpences, and every kind of current money. Not a single piece was removed. Just so in the Roman and Greek cabinet; though in the latter were some drawers of papers, which they had tumbled and scattered about the floor. A great exchequer chest, that belonged to my father, was in the same room. Not being able to force the lock, the philosophers (for thieves that steal nothing deserve the title much more than Cincinnatus, or I) hadwrenched a great flapper of brass with such violence as to break it into seven pieces. The trunk contained a new set of chairs of French tapestry, two screens, rolls of prints, and a suit of silver stuff that I had made for the king's wedding. All was turned topsy-turvy, and nothing stolen. The glass case and cabinet of shells had been handled as roughly by these impotent gallants. Another little table with drawers, in which, by the way, the key was left, had been opened too, and a metal standish that they ought to have taken for silver, and a silver hand-candlestick that stood upon it, were untouched. Some plate in the pantry, and all my linen just come from the wash had no more charms for them than gold or silver. In short I could not help laughing, especially as the only two movables neglected were another little table with drawers and the money, and a writing box with the bank-notes, both in the same chamber where they made the first havoc. In short, they had broken out a panel in the door of the area, and unbarred and unbolted it, and gone out at the street-door, which they left wide open at five o'clock in the morning. A passenger had found it so, and alarmed the maids, one of whom ran naked into the street, and by her cries waked my Lord Rommey, who lives opposite. The poor creature was in fits for two days, but at first, finding my coachmaker's apprentice in the street, had sent him to Mr. Conway, who immediately despatched him to me before he knew how little damage I had received, the whole of which consists in repairing the doors and locks of my cabinets and coffers.

"All London is reasoning on this marvellous adventure, and not an argument presents itself that some other does not contradict. I insist that I have a talisman. You must know that last winter, being asked by Lord Vere to assist in settling Lady Betty Germaine's auction I found in an old catalogue of her collection this article, 'The Black Stone into which Dr. Dee used to call his spirits.' Dr. Dee, you mustknow, was a great conjuror in the days of Queen Elizabeth and has written a folio of the dialogues he held with his imps. I asked eagerly for this stone; Lord Vere said he knew of no such thing, but if found, it should certainly be at my service. Alas, the stone was gone! This winter I was again employed by Lord Frederic Campbell, for I am an absolute auctioneer, to do him the same service about his father's (the Duke of Argyle's) collection. Among other odd things he produced a round piece of shining black marble in a leathern case, as big as the crown of a hat, and asked me what that possibly could be? I screamed out, 'Oh Lord, I am the only man in England that can tell you! It is Dr. Dee's Black Stone!' It certainly is; Lady Betty had formerly given away or sold, time out of mind, for she was a thousand years old, that part of the Peterborough collection which contained natural philosophy. So, or since, the Black Stone had wandered into an auction, for the lotted paper is still on it. The Duke of Argyle, who bought everything, bought it. Lord Frederic gave it to me; and if it was not this magical stone, which is only of high-polished coal, that preserved my chattels, in truth I cannot guess what did."

At the Strawberry Hill sale, in 1842, this precious relic was sold for 12l.12s., and is now in the British Museum. It was described in the catalogue as "a singularly interesting and curious relic of the superstition of our ancestors—the celebratedSpeculum of Kennel Coal, highly polished, in a leathern case. It is remarkable for having been used to deceive the mob, by the celebrated Dr. Dee, the conjuror, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth," &c. When Dee fell into disrepute, and his chemical apparatus and papers and other stock-in-trade were destroyed by the mob, who made an attack upon his house, this Black Stone was saved. It appears to be nothing more than a polished piece of cannel coal; but this is what Butler means when he says:—

Kelly did all his feats uponThe devil's looking glass—a stone.

Margaret Finch, the Norwood Gipsy.

Two centures ago, Norwood, in Surrey, was celebrated as the haunt of many of the gipsy-tribe, who in the summertime pitched their blanket-tents beneath its shady trees. Thus we find Pepys recording a visit to the place, under the date of August 11th, 1688:—"This afternoon my wife, and Mercer, and Deb. went with Pelling to the gipsies atLambeth, and had their fortunes told; but what they did I did not inquire." [Norwood is in the southern part of Lambeth parish.]

From their reputed knowledge of futurity, the Norwood gipsies were often consulted by the young and credulous. This was particularly the case some sixty or seventy years ago, when it was customary among the working class and servants of London to walk to Norwood on the Sunday afternoon to have their fortunes told, and also to take refreshment at the Gipsy House, said to have been first licensed in the reign of James the First. The house long bore on its sign-post a painting of the deformed figure of Margaret Finch, the Queen of the gipsies.

The register of Beckenham, under the date of October 24th, 1740, records the burial of Margaret Finch, who lived to the age of 109 years. After travelling over various parts of the kingdom (during the greater part of a century), she settled at Norwood, whither her great age and the fame of her fortune-telling attracted numerous visitors. From a habit of sitting on the ground, with her chin resting on her knees, the sinews became so contracted that she could not rise from that posture. After her death they were obliged to enclose her body in a deep square box. Her funeral was attended by two mourning-coaches, a sermon was preached on the occasion, and a great concourse of people attended the ceremony. There is an engraved portrait of this gipsy queen, from a drawing made in 1739.

In the summer of 1815, the gipsies of Norwood were "apprehended as vagrants, and sent in three coaches to prison," and this magisterial interference, and the increase of houses and population, have long since driven the gipsies from their haunts; but the association is preserved in the Gipsy Hill station of the Crystal Palace Railway.

Early in the seventeenth century, one Mary Woods, of Norwich, a person who professed skill in palmistry, came to London in the way of her vocation, and lodged at the house of one Crispe, a barber, in Clerkenwell. Having received such a valuable inmate, the barber soon afterwards removed "Cunning Mary" and her husband to the more fashionable neighbourhood of the Strand, and there the barber became a willing agent in procuring subjects or patients for his female lodger. One branch of her business consisted in furnishing ladies who desired to become mothers with charms and medicines which would assist them in attaining their end. In the next house to Somerset Place dwelt a Mrs. Isabel Peel, wife of a tradesman, who to her great grief was childless. The barber, at his lodger's suggestion, whispered in her ear, that the very skilful person who was an inmate of his house could provide her with means to help forward her desires. An interview was arranged, and by "fair speech and cozening skill" Mary Woods persuaded Mrs. Peel of her power, but demanded no less a sum than twenty pounds for its exercise. In cash, the amount was beyond the patient's means, but she delivered to her adviser "two lawn and other wrotte (wrought) wares," and received in return a small portion of an infallible powder, which the cunning woman sewed in a little piece of taffeta, and bade the aspirant after maternity wear it round her neck.

The news that a woman of such marvellous skill had come to lodge in Westminster soon spread. Anxious ladies in many of the neighbouring mansions sent for her, and she specially got a footing in Salisbury House. Mrs. Jane Sacheverell, who attended on Lady Cranborne, was one of her victims. The Countess of Essex had several interviews with her in the same friendly mansion, and gave her a diamond ring worth fifty or sixty pounds, sent by her husband the Earl, out of France, with directions to pawn it, in orderto procure a portion of the infallible powder, "which was very costly." The Countess also bestowed upon Mrs. Woods "certain pieces of gold worth between thirty and forty pounds." When the affair was called in question, Mrs. Woods asserted that the Countess gave her these things to procure "a kind of poison that would be in a man's body three or four days without swelling," and that this poison was to be given to the Earl of Essex. But Mrs. Woods was an infamous person, whose uncorroborated assertion was worth nothing, and she had previously mentioned to Mrs. Peel that her employment by the Countess had relation merely to the child-giving powder.

Mrs. Woods possessed other faculties besides those with reference to which she was consulted by Mrs. Peel and Mrs. Sacheverell. She could "help" ladies to husbands, and "cause and procure whom they desired to have, to love them." On this branch of her business she was consulted by Mrs. Cooke, Lady Walden's gentlewoman, who gave her twenty pounds and more, in twenty-shilling pieces of gold; and, finally, also, by Mrs. Clare, who is described as lying in the Court at Whitehall, and as being a waiting gentlewoman in attendance upon the young Lady Windsor. Mrs. Clare, like several other of the ladies named, had no ready money, but the fees paid by her were very handsome. They comprised a standing cup and cover of silver gilt, worth fourteen pounds; a petticoat of velvet, layed with three silver laces, that cost forty pounds; and two diamond rings, the one worth twenty pounds, and the other five pounds.

After the bubble had burst, and Cunning Mary absconded with her plunder, Mrs. Peel says that she "ripped the taffeta to see what powder it was, and found it but a little dust swept out of the flower (floor?)."[21]

Mr. Whalley was elected for Newcastle, 1785, before he was of age, which was not unusual in Ireland, and sat for it to 1790, and for Enniscorthy from 1797 to June, 1800. He acquired the sobriquet ofJerusalem Whalleyin consequence of a bet, said to have been 20,000l., that he would walk (except where a sea-passage was unavoidable) to Jerusalem and back within twelve months. He started September 22, 1788, and returned June 1, 1789.

Lord Cloncurry describes Whalley as a perfect specimen of the Irish gentleman of the olden time. Gallant, reckless, and profuse, he made no account of money, limb, or life, when a feat was to be won, or a daring deed to be attempted. He spent a fine fortune in pursuits not more profitable than his expedition to play ball at Jerusalem; and rendered himself a cripple for life by jumping from the drawing-room window of Daly's club-house, in College Green, Dublin, on to the roof of a hackney-coach which was passing.

The lawless behaviour of the yeomanry corps which he commanded obtained for him another and less agreeable appellation, "Bever-chapel Whalley." His residence in Stephen's Green was, in 1855, converted into a nunnery. Sir Jonah Barrington states that 4,000l.was paid to Mr. Whalley by Mr. Gould, M.P. for Kilbeggan.

Whalley, "Buck Whalley" as he was sometimes called, is stated to have been the founder of the Hell-fire Club. Having a taste for the fine arts, and means to gratify it, he accumulated a large number of valuable paintings in his mansion at Stephen's Green, Dublin, of which the following account has appeared in theDublin University Magazine:—"In the centre of the south side of St. Stephen's Green stands a noble building, with a large stone lion reposing over the entrance, and finding his legs and tail encroached on by grass and weeds. This mansion belonged to the great Buck Whalley, and witnessed many a noble feast andmad carouse during the viceroyalty of the Duke of Buckingham. At last, when all the pleasures that could be procured on Irish land were tried, and found to result in satiety and disgust, and his tailor and wine-merchant began to disturb him, he sought new excitement in his wager that he would have a game of ball against the walls of Jerusalem; and he succeeded, as already stated. A bard, who contributed to a collection of political squibs, entitled,Both Sides of the Gutter, sang the going forth of the expedition: it is entitled,Whalley's Embarkation, to the tune of 'Rutland Gigg.'"

No great cause was ever inaugurated with more eccentric or more genuine fervour than the advocacy of the Temperance principles by Father Mathew, the Capuchin Friar. "Here goes in the name of God!" said the Father, on the 10th of April, 1838, when he pledged his name in the cause of Temperance, and, together with the Protestant priest, Charles Duncombe, the Unitarian philanthropist, Richard Dowden, and the stout Quaker, William Martin, publicly inaugurated a movement at Cork, destined in a few years to count its converts by millions, and to spread its influence as far as the English language was spoken. In this good work, the habitually impulsive temperament of the Irish was acted upon for the purest and most beneficial of purposes; and one element of its success lay in the unselfishness of the Father, who was himself a serious sufferer by the results of his philanthropic exertions. A distillery in the south of Ireland, belonging to his family, and from which he himself derived a large income, was shut up in consequence of the disuse of whisky among the lower orders, occasioned by his preaching. But his "Riverance" was most unscrupulously tyrannized over by his servant John, a wizened old bachelor, with a red nose, privately nourishedby Bacchus; and he was only checked in his evil doings when the Father, more exasperated than usual, exclaimed, "John, if you go on in this way, I must certainly leave this house." On one occasion, there was a frightful smack of whisky pervading the pure element which graced the board, which he accounted for by saying he had placed the forbidden liquid, with which he "cleaned his tins," in the jug by mistake.

The Temperance cause prospered, but Father Mathew, through his eccentric love of giving, found it impossible to keep out of debt, which ever kept him in thraldom. The hour of his deepest bitterness was when, while publicly administering the pledge in Dublin, he was arrested for the balance of an account due to a medal manufacturer; the bailiff to whom the duty was entrusted kneeling down among the crowd, asking his blessing, and then quietly showing him the writ.

This is one of the many anecdotes told by Mr. Maguire, in his admirable Life of Father Mathew, who, we learn from the same authority, at a large party attempted to make a convert of Lord Brougham, who resisted, good-humouredly but resolutely, the efforts of his dangerous neighbour. "I drink very little wine," said Lord Brougham; "only half-a-glass at luncheon, and two half glasses at dinner; and though my medical adviser told me I should increase the quantity, I refused to do so." "They are wrong, my lord, for advising you to increase the quantity, and you are wrong in taking the small quantity you do; but I have my hopes of you." And so, after a pleasant resistance on the part of the learned lord, Father Mathew invested his lordship with the silver medal and ribbon, the insignia and collar of the Order of the Bath. "Then I will keep it," said Lord Brougham, "and take it to the House, where I shall be sure to meet the old Lord —— the worse of liquor, and I will put it on him." Lord Brougham was as good as his word; for, on meeting the veteran peer, he said: "Lord ——, Ihave a present from Father Mathew for you," and passed the ribbon quietly over his neck. "Then I'll tell you what it is, Brougham, by —— I will keep sober for this day," said his lordship, who kept his word, to the great amusement of his friends.

Edward Irving.

Scores, nay, hundreds of volumes have been gathered upon the oddities of character which mankind, in all ages,have presented to the observant writer who loves to "shoot folly as it flies." Voltaire has said, "Every country has its foolish notions.... Let us not laugh at any people;" and it would be difficult to find any age which has not its curiosities of character, to be laughed at and turned to still better account; for, of whatever period we write, something may be done in the way of ridicule towards turning the popular opinion. Diogenes owes much of his celebrity to his contempt of comfort, by living in a tub, and his oddity of manner. Orator Henley preached from his "gilt tub" in Clare Market, and thus earned commemoration in theDunciad:—

Still break the benches, Henley, with thy strain,While Sherlock, Hare and Gibson preach in vain;O, worthy thou of Egypt's wise abodes,A decent priest, where monkeys were the gods!But Fate with butchers placed thy priestly stall,Meek modern faith to murder, hack, and haul.

Eccentricity has its badge and characteristics by which it gains distinction and notoriety, and which in some cases serve as a lure to real excellence. The preaching of Rowland Hill is allowed to have been excellent; but his great popularity was won by his eccentric manner, and the many piquant anecdotes and witticisms, and sallies of humour unorthodox, with which, during his long ministry, he interlarded his sermons. However, he thought the end justified the means; and certain it is that it drew very large congregations. The personal allusions to his wife, which Rowland Hill is related to have used in the pulpit, were, however, fictitious, and at which Hill expressed great indignation. "It is an abominable untruth," he would exclaim; "derogatory to my character as a Christian and a gentleman. They would make me out a bear."

The success of Edward Irving, the popular minister of the National Scotch Church in London, was of a more mixed character. It is stated, upon good authority, that hefirst chose the stage as a profession, and acted in Ryder's company, in Kirkaldy, a few miles from Edinburgh, about fifty-five years since. The obliquity of his vision, his dialect, and peculiarly awkward gait and manner, created so much derision, that he left the stage for the pulpit, after about three months' probation.

Irving's sermons were not liked at first; and it was not until he was recognised by Dr. Chalmers that Irving became popular. But he was turned out of his church, and treated as a madman, and he died an outcast heretic. "There was no harm in the man," says a contemporary, "and what errors he entertained, or extravagancies he allowed in connection with supposed miraculous gifts, were certain in due time to burn themselves out." It was not so much the error of his doctrine as the peculiarity of his manner, the torrent of his eloquence, his superlative want of tact, that provoked his enemies, and frightened his friends. The strength of his faith was wonderful. Once, when he was called to the bedside of a dying man late at night he went immediately. Presently he returned, and beckoned one of his friends to accompany him. The reason was, that he really believed in the efficacy of prayer, and held to the promise—"Iftwoof you shall agree on earth as touching anything that ye shall ask, it shall be done." It was necessary, therefore, that two should go to the sick man. So, also, he had a child that died in infancy, to whom he was in the habit of addressing "words of godliness, to nourish the faith that was in him." And Irving adds that the patient heed of the child was wonderful. He really believed that the infant, by some incomprehensible process, could guess what he was saying, and profit by it. His love for children was very great; and he, a very popular man in London, might be seen, day by day, marching along the streets of Pentonville of an afternoon, his wife by his side, and his baby in his arms.

His sermons had a large sale, going through manyeditions. But Irving complains that, in spite of these large sales, he could never get the religious publishers to whom he had entrusted his book to give him anything but a pitiful return. It is amusing to find him in one letter complaining that there is neither grace nor honour in the religious booksellers, and requesting his wife in negotiating the sale of his next venture to "try Blackwood, or some of these worldlings," in the evident expectation that "these worldlings" were a good deal more liberal in their dealings, not to say honest, than those whom he regarded as his peculiar friends.

The Millenarians proudly claim the late Edward Irving as having been one of the most earnest believers in the personal reign of Christ. In his latter days he was a Millenarian in the strictest sense of the word. From the year 1827 to 1830, the Millenarianism question was brought under the notice of thousands of Christians, who, though remarkable for their knowledge of Scripture on other points, had never bestowed a single thought on the question of Christ's personal reign on earth. The cause of this was the prominence given to it by the Rev. E. Irving, then at the summit of his popularity. Solely with the generous view of assisting a Spanish friend, he had, in the previous year, studied the Spanish language, and had made such progress as to be able to translate it into English. Just at this time appeared in Spanish,The Coming of the Messiah in Glory and Majesty, with which Irving was much struck, as powerfully expressing his own views on the Millenarian question, that he at once set to work, and translated it into English. Its author professed to have been a Jewish convert to Christianity, and gave the name of Juan Josaphat Ben-Ezra on the title-page. He was, however, a Spanish priest and a Jesuit. It is not known whether Mr. Irving was aware of the fraud which had been thus practised upon the readersof the book; he described it as "the chief work of a master's hand," and "a masterpiece of reasoning," and "a gift which he had revolved well how he might turn to profit."

Irving likewise establishedThe Morning Watchfor the sole purpose of advocating Millenarian views; but the extravagance of some of the collateral notions which the preacher intermingled with simple Millenarianism rather impeded than promoted the object in view. The doctrine, too, of speaking with tongues, the assertion of the peccability of Christ's humanity, the zealous advocacy of the opinion that the power of working miracles was still vested in the Church, and not the expectation only, but from time to time, the repeated assertion, most emphatically, thatChrist would come immediately to reign personally on the earth—all these, and other sentiments no less confidently advanced, and earnestly inculcated both from Irving's pulpit and through the press, injured rather than benefited the cause of Millenarianism among the more sober-minded men in the religious world.

Moreover, he retained these momentous errors till his dying hour, and added one more to them. When his physicians and friends, seeing him in the last stage of consumption, prepared him in the spirit of affectionate faithfulness for the solemn event which was at hand, he would not believe that he was dying, or ever would die, but that he would be changed in the twinkling of an eye, and in a transformed body, made unspeakably glorious, be caught up to heaven. The Millenarians therefore do not strengthen their cause by quoting the name of Edward Irving as an authority in favour of their views.

The intense enthusiasm with which Irving entered into the notion of a personal reign of Christ on earth is well described in his Life by Mrs. Oliphant. "The conception," she says, "of a second advent nearly approaching was like the beginning of a new life. The thought of seeing his Lord in the flesh, cast a certain ecstasy on the mind ofIrving. It quickened tenfold his already vivid apprehension of spiritual things. The burden of his prophetic mystery, so often darkly pondered, so often interpreted in a mistaken sense, seemed to him, in the light of that expectation, to swell into divine choruses of preparation for the splendid event which, with his bodily eyes, undimmed by death, he hoped to behold." It is generally thought that the extravagancies which, towards the close of his career, proceeded both from his lips and his pen, were to be traced to a mind which, through its prophetic studies, hadlost its balance. Yet, to the last, he made many proselytes to his Millenarian notions.

Irving originated the idea of Christ, with his saints, remaining and reigning in the air after he has caught up his people to meet him there, instead of reigning literally on the earth. Irving also originated the doctrine ofsecret rapture, or the assumption that Christ will come and take up his people who are alive with him into the air when he raises the saints who are in their graves, and summons them to meet him in aerial regions. So deeply did this notion take possession of many of those who adopted Mr. Irving's Millenarian views, in conjunction with this other idea—thatChrist's second coming might belooked for at any hour—that they were as firmly persuaded they would not see death, as they were of any truth in the Word of God.[22]

The names of Sharp, Bryan, and Brothers will not soon be forgotten among the so-called prophets of the present century. The first of this inspired trio was William Sharp, one of the greatest masters in the English school of engraving; Bryan was what is termed an irregular Quaker, who had engrafted sectarian doctrines on an original stock of fervidreligious feeling; and Richard Brothers, who styled himself the "Nephew of God," predicted the destruction of all sovereigns, &c.

Sharp was, at one time, so infected with wild notions of political liberty, and so free in his talk, that he was placed under arrest by the Government and several times examined before the Privy Council, for the purpose of ascertaining whether or not, in his speeches or writings, he had committed himself far enough to be tried with Horne Tooke for high treason; but Sharp, being a handsome-looking, jocular man, and too cheerful for a conspirator, the Privy Council came to a conclusion that the altar and the throne had not much to fear from him. At one of the examinations, when Mr. Pitt and Mr. Dundas were present, after he had been worried with questions, which, Sharp said, had little or nothing to do with the business, he deliberately took out of his pocket a prospectus for subscribing to his portrait of General Kociusko, after West, which he was then engraving; and handing the paper first to Pitt and Dundas, he requested them to put their names down as subscribers, and then to give his prospectus to the other members of the Council for their names. The singularity of the proposal set them laughing, and he was soon afterwards liberated.

Sharp possessed a fraternal regard for Bryan, had him instructed in copper-plate printing, supplied him with paper, &c., and enabled him to commence business; but they soon quarrelled. A strong tide of animal spirits, not unaccompanied by some intellectual pretensions and shrewdness of insight, characterized the mind of Jacob Bryan; which, when religion was launched on it, swelled to enthusiasm, tossed reason to the skies, or whirled her in mystic eddies. Sharp found him one morning groaning on the floor, between his two printing-presses, at his office in Marylebone Street, complaining how much he was oppressed, by bearing, after the pattern of the Saviour, part of the sins of the people; and he soon after had a vision, commanding him to proceedto Avignon on a Divine Mission. He accordingly set out immediately, in full reliance on Divine Providence, leaving his wife to negotiate the sale of his printing business: thus Sharp lost his printer, but Bryan kept his faith. The issue of this mission was so ambiguous, that it might be combined into an accomplishment of its supposed object, according as an ardent or a cool imagination was employed on the subject; but the missionary (Bryan) returned to England, and then became a dyer, and so much altered, that a few years after he could even pun upon the suffering and confession which St. Paul has expressed in his text—"I die daily."

The Animal Magnetism of Mesmer and the mysteries of Emanuel Swedenborg had, by some means or other, in Sharp's time, become mingled in the imaginations of their respective or their mutual followers; and Bryan and several others were supposed to be endowed, though not in the same degree, with a sort of half-physical and half-miraculous power of curing diseases, and imparting the thoughts or sympathies of distant friends. De Loutherbourg, the painter (one of the disciples), was believed by the sect to be a very Esculapius in this divine art; but Bryan was held to be far less powerful, and was so by his own confession. Sharp had also some inferior pretensions of the same kind, which gradually died away.

But, behold! Richard Brothers arose! The Millennium was at hand! The Jews were to be gathered together, and were to re-occupy Jerusalem; and Sharp and Brothers were to march thither with their squadrons! Due preparations were accordingly made, and boundless expectations were raised by the distinguished artist. Upon a friend remonstrating that none of their preparations appeared to be of a marine nature, and inquiring how the chosen colony were to cross the seas, Sharp answered, "Oh, you'll see; there'll be an earthquake, and a miraculous transportation will take place." Nor can Sharp's faith or sincerity on this point be in theleast distrusted; for he actually engraved two plates of the prophet Brothers, having calculated that one would not print the great number of impressions that would be wanted when the important event should arrive; and he added to each the following inscription: "Fully believing this to be the man appointed by God, I engrave his likeness: W. Sharp." The writing engraver, Smith, put the comma after the word "appointed," and omitted it in the subsequent part of the sentence. The mistake was not discovered until several were worked off; the unrectified impressions are in great request. Whether this be true, or only a hoax by Smith to put collectors on a false scent, has not been ascertained; there is no such impression in the British Museum. If the reader paused in the place where Sharp intended, the sentence expressed, "Fully believing this to be the man appointed by God,"—to do what? to head the Jews in their predestined march to recover Jerusalem? or to die in a madhouse? one being expressed as much as the other.

Brothers, however, in his prophecy, had mentioneddates, which were stubborn things. Yet the failure of the accomplishment of this prophecy may have helped to recommend "the Woman clothed with the Sun!" who now arose, as might be thought somewhatmal à propos, in the West. Such was Joanna Southcote. The Scriptures had said: "The sceptre shall not depart from Israel, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and to himshall the gathering of my people be." When Brothers was incarcerated in a madhouse in Clerkenwell, Johanna, then living in service at Exeter, persuaded herself that she held converse with the devil, and communion with the Holy Ghost, by whom she pretended to be inspired. When the day of dread that was to leave London in ruins, while it ushered forth Brothers and Sharp on their holy errand, passed calmly over, the seers of coming events began to look out for new ground, and to prevaricate most unblushingly.Thedaysof prophecy, said Sharp, were sometimes weeks or months; nay, according to one text, a thousand years were but as a single day, and one day was but as a thousand years. But he finally clung to the deathbed prediction of Jacob, supported as it was by the ocular demonstration of the coming Shiloh. In vain Sir William Drummond explained that Shiloh was in reality the ancient Asiatic name of a star in Scorpio; or that Joanna herself sold for a trifle, or gave away in her loving kindness, the impression of a trumpery seal, which at the Great Day was to constitute the discriminating mark between the righteous and the ungodly. We shall hear more of Sharp in association with Joanna Southcote, presently.

Sharp died poor; he earned much money, but his egregious credulity accounts for its dispersion. He was an epicure in his living, he grew corpulent, and had gout; he died of dropsy, at Chiswick, July 25th, 1824, and was interred in the churchyard of that hamlet, near De Loutherbourg, for whom, at one period, he entertained much mystic reverence.

This great engraver, this William Sharp, was an enthusiast for human freedom. He engraved, from a liking for the man, Northcote's portrait of Sir Francis Burdett; and bestowed unusual care on an engraving after Stothard's beautiful bistre-drawing of "Boadicea animating the Britons." For many years preceding his death he was a wholesale believer in Joanna Southcote; as we have already seen—and he had implicit faith in mystical doctrines; of his portrait of Brothers, Horne Tooke well observed, that, coupled with its extraordinary inscription, it "exhibited one of the most eminent proofs of human genius and human weakness ever contained on the same piece of paper."

Burnet, the engraver, used to relate that Sharp had an ingenious way of carrying a proof print to a purchaser, in an umbrella contrived to serve two additional duties—a print-case, and a walking-stick.

When John Martin exhibited his picture of Belshazzar's Feast, Sharp called upon him at his house, introduced himself, praised his picture, and asked permission to engrave it. "That I was flattered by a request of the kind from so great an artist," says Martin, "you will readily imagine; and I so expressed myself." Sharp felt pleased. "My belief," said Sharp, "is, that yours is a divine work—an emanation immediately from the Almighty; and my belief further is, that while I am engaged on so divine a work, I shall never die." When Martin told this story, he added, with a smile, his eyes twinkling with mischief, "Poor Sharp! a wild enthusiast, but—a masterly engraver."[23]

Richard Brothers was born at Placentia, in Newfoundland, and had served in the navy, but resigned his commission, because, to use his own words, he "conceived the military life to be totally repugnant to the duties of Christianity, and he could not conscientiously receive the wages of plunder, bloodshed, and murder." This step reduced him to great poverty, and he appears to have suffered much in consequence. His mind was already shaken, and his privations and solitary reflections seem at length to have entirely overthrown it. The first instance of his madness appears to have been his belief that he could restore sight to the blind. He next began to see visions and to prophesy, and soon became persuaded that he was commissioned by Heaven to lead back the Jews to Palestine. It was in the latter part of 1794 that he announced, through the medium of the press, his high destiny. His rhapsody bore the title of "A revealed Knowledge of the Prophecies and Times, Book the First. Wrote under the direction of the Lord God, and published by his sacred command; it being the first sign of warning for the benefit of all nations. Containing, with other great and remarkable things, not revealed to anyother person on earth, the restoration of the Hebrews to Jerusalem, by the year 1798: under their revealed prince and prophet." A second part speedily followed, which purported to relate "particularly to the present time, the present war, and the prophecy now fulfilling: containing, with other great and remarkable things, not revealed to any other person on earth, the sudden and perpetual fall of the Turkish, German, and Russian Empires." Among many similar flights in this second part, was one which described visions revealing to him the intended destruction of London, and claimed for the prophet the merit of having saved the city by his intercession with the Deity.[24]

Brothers gained a great number of partisans, not only among uneducated persons, but among men of talent. We have seen Sharp, the engraver, as his devoted disciple. Among these followers was Mr. Halhed, who had been a schoolfellow of Sheridan at Harrow; they also had a sort of literary partnership, and they fell passionately in love with the same woman, Miss Linley. Halhed was a profound scholar, a man of wit, and a member of the House of Commons; he published pamphlets in advocacy of the prophetic mission of Brothers, and even made a motion in the House in favour of the prince of the Jews, as Brothers delegated himself.

Brothers took more of a political turn than his companions. He had been a lieutenant in the navy, and during the years 1792-3-4, greatly disturbed the minds of the credulous with hisprophecies. We have said that he styled himself the "Nephew of God," and predicted the destruction of all sovereigns; he also foretold the downfall of the naval power of Great Britain.

His writings, founded on erroneous explanations of the Scriptures, at length made so much noise, that Governmentfound it expedient to interfere, and on the 14th of March, 1795, he was apprehended at his lodgings, No. 58, in Paddington Street, under a warrant from the Secretary of State. After a long examination before the Privy Council, in which Brothers persisted in the divinity of his legation, he was committed to the custody of a State messenger. On the 27th he was declared a lunatic, by a jury appointed under a commission of lunacy, assembled at the King's Arms, in Palace Yard, and was subsequently removed to a private madhouse at Islington. While here, he continued to see visions and to pour forth his rhapsodies in print. One of these productions was a letter of two hundred pages, to "Miss Cott, the recorded daughter of King David, and future Queen of the Hebrews, with an Address to the Members of His Britannic Majesty's Council." The lady to whom this letter was addressed had become an inmate of the same asylum with Brothers, and he became so enamoured of her, that he discovered her to be "the recorded daughter of both David and Solomon," and his spouse "by divine ordinance." Brothers was subsequently removed to Bedlam; but in the year 1806 was discharged by the authority of Lord Chancellor Erskine. He died in Upper Baker Street, on the 25th of January, 1824. He was seen in the street a few days before his death, walking with great difficulty, and apparently in the last stage of consumption. It is recorded that the minister who attended Brothers in his last moments died of a broken heart; and the medical man under whose care he had been confined, committed suicide.

Brothers appears to have unwittingly suggested to Coleridge and Southey the clever poem of theDevil's Walk, by the mad prophet asserting that he had seen the devil walk leisurely into London one day!

Early in the present century there arose in the metropolis a religio-political sect, which took its name from an itinerant bookseller, named T. Spence, who formed a sort of Constitution on the principle that "all human beings are equal by nature and before the law, and have a continual andinalienable propertyin the earth and in its natural productions;" and consequently that "every man, woman, and child, whether born in wedlock or not (for Nature and Justice know nothing of illegitimacy), is entitled quarterly to an equal share of the rents of the parish where they have settled." This he called "the Constitution ofSpensonia;" and the Abstract from which we have quoted he called "A Receipt to make aMillennium, or Happy World." By this reference and by some allusions to the Jewish economy, he also gave his system a slight connection with religion—but it was very slight; for he neither regarded the precepts of the moral law, nor the doctrines of the Gospel. He admitted, however, of a Sabbath every fifth day; but only as a day of rest and amusement—not for any purposes of devotion. A scheme somewhat similar to the above was formed in the time of the English Commonwealth, and it is probable Spence may have borrowed his system partly from that source.

Spence was punished for his vagaries; for, in 1801, he was sentenced to pay a fine of 50l.and to suffer twelve months' imprisonment for publishingSpence's Restorer of Society, which was deemed a seditious libel. Spence died in October, 1814.

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