“The chestnuts with their milky cones,”
“The chestnuts with their milky cones,”
“The chestnuts with their milky cones,”
will probably never have heard of this
“Village Hampden, that with dauntless breastThe little tyrant of his fields withstood.”
“Village Hampden, that with dauntless breastThe little tyrant of his fields withstood.”
“Village Hampden, that with dauntless breast
The little tyrant of his fields withstood.”
Bennett died an old man in 1756, having had his wish, at least, to leave the world no worse than he found it. Assuredly many who have more fame have done less to merit it.
The old Border song, sung at public dinners “when Selkirk folks began to be merry”—
“Up wi’ the souters of Selkirk,And down wi’ the Earl of Home;And up wi’ a’ the braw ladsThat sew the single shoon.“Fye upon yellow and yellow,And fye upon yellow and green,And up wi’ the true blue and scarlet,And up wi’ the single-soled sheen.“Up wi’ the souters o’ Selkirk,For they are baith trusty and leal;And up wi’ the men o’ the Forest,[100]And down wi’ the Merse[101]to the deil,”
“Up wi’ the souters of Selkirk,And down wi’ the Earl of Home;And up wi’ a’ the braw ladsThat sew the single shoon.
“Up wi’ the souters of Selkirk,
And down wi’ the Earl of Home;
And up wi’ a’ the braw lads
That sew the single shoon.
“Fye upon yellow and yellow,And fye upon yellow and green,And up wi’ the true blue and scarlet,And up wi’ the single-soled sheen.
“Fye upon yellow and yellow,
And fye upon yellow and green,
And up wi’ the true blue and scarlet,
And up wi’ the single-soled sheen.
“Up wi’ the souters o’ Selkirk,For they are baith trusty and leal;And up wi’ the men o’ the Forest,[100]And down wi’ the Merse[101]to the deil,”
“Up wi’ the souters o’ Selkirk,
For they are baith trusty and leal;
And up wi’ the men o’ the Forest,[100]
And down wi’ the Merse[101]to the deil,”
has made the “Souters of Selkirk” famous throughout Scotland. The origin of the song seems to be lost. Whether it has reference, as the common tradition in Selkirk goes, to the part which a gallant band of Selkirk men played at the battle of Flodden Field, 1513, “when the flower of the Scottish nobility fell around their sovereign, James IV.,” which Sir Walter Scott and Mr. Plummer assert,[102]or to “a bet between the Philiphaugh and Home families“ on a match of football ”between the souters (or shoemakers) of Selkirk against the men of Home,” as Mr. Robertson in his “Essay on Scottish Song” declares, it is not easy to determine. At any rate, whether the song points to the historical event or not, the event itself is beyond dispute. Selkirk did “certainly send a brave band of eighty or a hundred men to Flodden Field to support the cause of James. No doubt a large proportion of these men were veritablesouters, for the chief trade of the town in the sixteenth century was the making of “a sort of brogues with a single thin sole.” This local manufacture seems to have given a name to the inhabitants of the burgh, who were calledsouters, pretty much as natives of Sheffield might be calledblades, or Birmingham folkbuttons. The people of Selkirk are not ashamed of the designation, but rather glory in perpetuating the name and the tradition on which it rests. “A singular custom,” we are told, is observed at conferring the freedom of the burgh. Four or five bristles, such as are used by shoemakers, are attached to the seal of the burgess ticket. These the new-made burgess must dip in his wine and pass through his mouth, in token of respect for the Souters of Selkirk. This ceremony is on no account dispensed with.[103]
That the souters of that time knew how to fight and win renown by their valor and skill may be gathered from the story which the author of “The Lay of the Last Minstrel” tells us anent the reference to Watt of Liddelside in the fourth canto of the “Lay”:
“Now loud the heedful gateward cried,‘Prepare ye all for blows and blood!Watt Tinlinn from the LiddelsideComes wading through the flood.Full oft the Tynedale snatchers knockAt his lone gate and prove the lock;It was but last St. BarnabrightThey sieged him a whole summer night,But fled at morning; well they knewIn vain he never twanged the yew.’”
“Now loud the heedful gateward cried,‘Prepare ye all for blows and blood!Watt Tinlinn from the LiddelsideComes wading through the flood.Full oft the Tynedale snatchers knockAt his lone gate and prove the lock;It was but last St. BarnabrightThey sieged him a whole summer night,But fled at morning; well they knewIn vain he never twanged the yew.’”
“Now loud the heedful gateward cried,
‘Prepare ye all for blows and blood!
Watt Tinlinn from the Liddelside
Comes wading through the flood.
Full oft the Tynedale snatchers knock
At his lone gate and prove the lock;
It was but last St. Barnabright
They sieged him a whole summer night,
But fled at morning; well they knew
In vain he never twanged the yew.’”
This Watt was a shoemaker and a soldier, and if he had no large field for the display of his skill and valor in the Border skirmishes of his time, he nevertheless deserves a place among his more illustrious brethren of the craft, if only for the sake of the following note respecting him. “This person was in my younger days,” says Sir Walter Scott,[104]“the theme of many a fireside tale. He was a retainer of the Buccleuch family, and held for his Border service a small tower on the frontiers of Liddesdale. Watt was by profession a sutor, but by inclination and practice an archer and warrior. Upon one occasion, the captain of Bewcastle, military governor of that wild district of Cumberland, is said to have made an incursion into Scotland, in which he was defeated and forced to fly. Watt Tinlinn pursued him closely through a dangerous morass; the captain, however, gained the firm ground, and seeing Tinlinn dismounted and floundering in the bog, used these words of insult, “Sutor Watt, ye cannot sew your boots; the heels risp and the seams rive.“[105]”If I cannot sew,” retorted Tinlinn, discharging a shaft which nailed the captain’s thigh to his saddle—“if I cannot sew I can yerk.”[106]
In the turbulent days of the Stuarts and the Commonwealth, when the lofty were laid low and the lowly were set in high places, it can hardly be matter of surprise that the shoemaker should have had his share of the favors of fortune. The circumstances of the time had led to the adoption of the rational rule of granting promotion by merit. In an army commanded by Cromwell it is not likely that any other rule would be adopted. His two chief requirements were military capacity and moral character. With men of this class he made up his invincibleIronsides. One of his colonels was John Hewson. “This man,” Grainger says,[107]“once wore a leather apron,and from a mender of old shoes became a reformer of government and religion. He was, allowing for his education, a very extraordinary person. His behavior in the army soon raised him to the rank of a colonel; and Cromwell had so great an opinion of him as to intrust him with the government of the city of Dublin, whence he was called to be a member of Barebones’[108]parliament. He was a frequent speaker in that and the other parliament of which he was a member, and was at length thought a fit person to be a lord of the upper house. He was one of the committee of safety, and was, with several of his brethren, very intent upon a new model of the republic at the eve of the Restoration.“ Rugge, in his ”Diurnal,” 5th December, 1659, says that Hewson “was a very stout man, and a very good commander;” and adds, “But in regard of his former employment, they (the city apprentices) threw at him old shoes and slippers, and turnip-tops and brickbats, stones and tiles.” He was the object of no end of lampooning on the part of the Royalists. Pepys, in his “Diary,” 25th January, 1659-60, has an interesting memorandum in regard to the notoriety of the cobbler-colonel: “Coming home, heard that in Cheapside there had been but a little before a gibbet set up, and a picture of Huson (Hewson) hung upon it, in the middle of the street.”[109]One of these squibs bore the title, “Colonel Hewson’s Confession; or, a Parley with Pluto,” and referred to his removal of the gates of Temple Bar. Lord Braybrooke informs us that Hewson “had but one eye, which did not escape the notice of his enemies.” Nor did the burly cobbler-colonel escape the notice of Dr. Butler, who makes him a conspicuous figure in the first part of “Hudibras”[110]under the nickname ofCerdon:
“The upright Cerdon next advanc’d,Of all his race the valiant’st:Cerdon the Great, renowned in song,Like Herc’les, for repair of wrong.He rais’d the low, and fortify’dThe weak against the strongest side:Ill has he read that never hitOn him in Muses deathless writ.He had a weapon keen and fierce,That through a bull-hide shield would pierce,And out it in a thousand pieces,Though tougher than the Knight of Greece his,With whom his black-thumb’d ancestorWas comrade in the ten years’ war.* * * * * *Fast friend he was to reformation,Until ’twas worn quite out of fashion;Next rectifier of every law,And would make three to cure one flaw.Learned he was, and could take note,Transcribe, collect, translate, and quote.”[111]
“The upright Cerdon next advanc’d,Of all his race the valiant’st:Cerdon the Great, renowned in song,Like Herc’les, for repair of wrong.He rais’d the low, and fortify’dThe weak against the strongest side:Ill has he read that never hitOn him in Muses deathless writ.He had a weapon keen and fierce,That through a bull-hide shield would pierce,And out it in a thousand pieces,Though tougher than the Knight of Greece his,With whom his black-thumb’d ancestorWas comrade in the ten years’ war.* * * * * *Fast friend he was to reformation,Until ’twas worn quite out of fashion;Next rectifier of every law,And would make three to cure one flaw.Learned he was, and could take note,Transcribe, collect, translate, and quote.”[111]
“The upright Cerdon next advanc’d,
Of all his race the valiant’st:
Cerdon the Great, renowned in song,
Like Herc’les, for repair of wrong.
He rais’d the low, and fortify’d
The weak against the strongest side:
Ill has he read that never hit
On him in Muses deathless writ.
He had a weapon keen and fierce,
That through a bull-hide shield would pierce,
And out it in a thousand pieces,
Though tougher than the Knight of Greece his,
With whom his black-thumb’d ancestor
Was comrade in the ten years’ war.
* * * * * *
Fast friend he was to reformation,
Until ’twas worn quite out of fashion;
Next rectifier of every law,
And would make three to cure one flaw.
Learned he was, and could take note,
Transcribe, collect, translate, and quote.”[111]
Later on,[112]Hudibras describes the scene at the bear-gardens when Hewson and the Puritan party endeavor to put a stop to the savage sport of bear-baiting. The mob turn on the Puritans, but as for the fat colonel—
“Quarter he scorns, he is so stout,And therefore cannot long hold out.”
“Quarter he scorns, he is so stout,And therefore cannot long hold out.”
“Quarter he scorns, he is so stout,
And therefore cannot long hold out.”
One of the squibs alluded to above was entitled “A Hymn to the Gentle Craft; or, Hewson’s Lamentation.”[113]The reader will observe that Hewson’sone eye“does not escape the notice of his enemies.” This piece was sung as a ballad in the streets:
“Listen awhile to what I shall say,Of a blind cobbler that’s gone astrayOut of the Parliament’s highway.Good people, pity the blind!“His name you wot well is Sir John Howson,Whom I intend to set my muse on,As great a warrior as Sir Miles Lewson.Good people, pity the blind!“He’d now give all the shoes in his shopThe Parliament’s fury for to stop,Whip cobbler like any town-top.Good people, pity the blind!“Oliver made him a famous Lord,That he forgot his cutting-board,But now his thread’s twisted to a cord.Good people, pity the blind!“Sing hi, ho, Hewson!—the state ne’er went upright,Since cobblers could pray, preach, govern, and fight;We shall see what they’ll do now you’re out of sight.Good people, pity the blind!”
“Listen awhile to what I shall say,Of a blind cobbler that’s gone astrayOut of the Parliament’s highway.Good people, pity the blind!
“Listen awhile to what I shall say,
Of a blind cobbler that’s gone astray
Out of the Parliament’s highway.
Good people, pity the blind!
“His name you wot well is Sir John Howson,Whom I intend to set my muse on,As great a warrior as Sir Miles Lewson.Good people, pity the blind!
“His name you wot well is Sir John Howson,
Whom I intend to set my muse on,
As great a warrior as Sir Miles Lewson.
Good people, pity the blind!
“He’d now give all the shoes in his shopThe Parliament’s fury for to stop,Whip cobbler like any town-top.Good people, pity the blind!
“He’d now give all the shoes in his shop
The Parliament’s fury for to stop,
Whip cobbler like any town-top.
Good people, pity the blind!
“Oliver made him a famous Lord,That he forgot his cutting-board,But now his thread’s twisted to a cord.Good people, pity the blind!
“Oliver made him a famous Lord,
That he forgot his cutting-board,
But now his thread’s twisted to a cord.
Good people, pity the blind!
“Sing hi, ho, Hewson!—the state ne’er went upright,Since cobblers could pray, preach, govern, and fight;We shall see what they’ll do now you’re out of sight.Good people, pity the blind!”
“Sing hi, ho, Hewson!—the state ne’er went upright,
Since cobblers could pray, preach, govern, and fight;
We shall see what they’ll do now you’re out of sight.
Good people, pity the blind!”
Having been one of the men who sat in judgment on King Charles I., the Colonel was with other regicides condemned to be hung October 14th, 1660;[114]but he is said to have escaped hanging by flight, and to have died at Amsterdam “in his original obscurity,” 1662.[115]
Christopher Myngs (or Minns), “the son of an honest shoemaker in London, from whom he inherited nothing but a good constitution,”[116]is said to have worn the leathern apron for a short time before he went to sea. Speaking of the men of humble origin who, toward the end of the seventeenth century, made their way to high office by their skill and bravery, Lord Macaulay says: “One of the most eminent of these officers was Sir Christopher Mings, who entered the service as a cabin-boy, who fell fighting bravely against the Dutch, and whom his crew, weeping and vowing vengeance, carried to the grave. From him sprang, by a singular kind of descent, a line of valiant and expert sailors. His cabin-boy was Sir John Narborough, and the cabin-boy of Sir John Narborough was Sir Cloudesley Shovel. To the strong natural sense and dauntless courage of this class of men England owes a debt never to be forgotten.”[117]Myngs knew how to be familiar and friendly with his men, and yet to keep his position and authority. Seamen learn to love bravery, and of this they saw enough in their gallant Admiral. They had additional reason for their devotion in the care he always took to see them well paid and fed, and the justice he did them in the distribution of prizes. It was in the great fourdays’ fight off the English coast, June 1st-4th, 1666, between the English and Dutch fleets, that this brave man met with his death. The English fleet was commanded by the Duke of Albemarle and Prince Rupert, and the Dutch by De Ruyter and Van Tromp the younger. The battle was one of the most memorable on record, both for its length and the valor displayed on both sides. “On the fourth day of the famous battle that began on the 1st of June, he received a shot in the neck; after which, though he was in exquisite pain, he continued in his command, holding his wound with both his hands for above an hour. At length another shot pierced his throat and laid him forever at rest.”[118]
The portrait of Sir Christopher Myngs is now in the Painted Hall of Greenwich Hospital. It is a half-length by Sir Peter Lely, and came from Windsor Castle, having been presented by George IV. in 1824.[119]
In the same age lived another noteworthy man, whose connection with the gentle craft was much more intimate, and, indeed, of almost life-long duration. This man was an astrologer, and blended with his study of the subtle influences of the stars over human affairs the study of medicine. What relation there is between these two things it were hard to tell; but certain it is, that for many years men who were not otherwise fools and knaves believed in this relation; and, combining the two “professions,” found very often that success in the one gave them a certain prestige in the other. A lucky hit in “casting the nativity” of a notable person, brought the “astrologer and physician” endless patients and no small fortune. Probably an appointment as physician to the king was due to no better cause; and, with such an appointment, of course the practitioner’s position was secure for life. This seems to have been pretty much the case withJohn Partridge, who is spoken of as a shoemaker in Covent Garden in 1680, and in 1682 is styledphysician to His Majesty Charles II.Here is a case, then, of a cobbler who venturedultra crepidamto some purpose, and who might very well have taken James Lackington’s motto for his own.[120]Partridge, it must be allowed, was a scholar of no mean attainments, whatever he may have been as a physician, and his scholarship was self-acquired. During his apprenticeship to a shoemaker he began the study of Latin with a copy of Lilye’s Grammar, Gouldman’s Dictionary, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and a Latin Bible. Having got a sufficient knowledge of Latin to read astrological works, he betook himself to the study of Greek and Hebrew. Then camephysic, with the grand result of royal patronage. Partridge was a considerable author or editor, and the list of his works shows the strong bent of his mind toward the occult science. He published a “Hebrew Calendar” for 1678; “Vade Mecum,” 1679; “Ecclesilegia, an Almanac,” 1679; the same for 1680; “The King of France’s Nativity;“ ”A Discourse of Two Moons;“ ”Mercurius Cœlestis,” being analmanac for 1681; “Prodomus, a Discourse on the Conjunction of Saturn and Mars;“ ”The Black Life of John Gadbury,” in which a brother astrologer is roundly abused; and shown to be, as a matter of course, a rogue and impostor; and a “Translation of Hadrianus a Mynsicht’s Treasury of Physic,” 1682.
The inscription over Partridge’s tomb is in Latin, as becomes the memorial of so learned a man and so eminent a physician! The visitor to the churchyard of Mortlake in Surrey may still learn—if the great destroyer has dealt gently with the record—how
Johannes Partridge, Astrologuset Medicinæ Doctor,
Johannes Partridge, Astrologuset Medicinæ Doctor,
Johannes Partridge, Astrologus
et Medicinæ Doctor,
was born at East Sheen, in Surrey, on the 18th January, 1644, and died in London, 24th June, 1715; how he made medicine for two kings and one queen,Carolo scilicet Secundo, Willielmo Tertio, Reginæque Mariæ; and how the Dutch University of Leyden conferred on him the diplomaMedicinæ Doctor.
Partridge seems to have given hisms.of the “Conjunction of Saturn and Mars” to Elias Ashmole, who presented it in 1682, with other curiosities, to the University of Oxford, where it may still be seen in the Ashmolean Museum.[121]
Partridge is alluded to in Pope’s “Rape of the Lock,” where the poet speaks of Belinda’s “wavy curl,” which has been stolen and placed among the stars—
“This Partridge soon shall view in cloudless skies,When next he looks through Galileo’s eyes;And hence the egregious wizard shall foredoomThe fate of Louis and the fall of Rome.”
“This Partridge soon shall view in cloudless skies,When next he looks through Galileo’s eyes;And hence the egregious wizard shall foredoomThe fate of Louis and the fall of Rome.”
“This Partridge soon shall view in cloudless skies,
When next he looks through Galileo’s eyes;
And hence the egregious wizard shall foredoom
The fate of Louis and the fall of Rome.”
“What sacrifices,” says the author of “The Book of Days,” “would many a sage or poet have made to be connected through all time with Pope and the charming Belinda! Yet here, in this case, we find the almanac-making shoemaker enjoying a companionship and a celebrity for qualities which, morally, have no virtue or endurance in them, but quite the reverse.” Swift, whose satire stung many an abuse to death, made endless fun of Partridge and his absurd prophecies based on astrology. In 1708 Swift published a burlesque almanaccontaining “predictions for the year,” etc., etc., the first of which was about Partridge himself. Fancy the astrologer’s feelings when he read the following awful announcement:—“I have consulted the star of his nativity by my own rules, and find he will infallibly die on the 29th of March next of a raging fever; therefore I advise him to consider it and settle his affairs in time!”
After the 29th of March was past, Partridge positively took the trouble to inform the public that he wasnotdead! This he did in his almanac for 1709. Whereupon the cruel Dean took the matter up again and tried to show Partridge his error. He was dead, argues Swift, if he did but know it; but then there is no accounting for some men’s ignorance! He says, “I have in another place and in a paper by itself sufficiently convinced this man that he is dead; and if he has any shame, I don’t doubt but that by this time he owns it to all his acquaintance.”[122]Not content with this, Swift wrote an “Elegy on the supposed Death of Partridge, the Almanac-maker,” and wound up thepainfulbusiness by writing his epitaph too.
THE EPITAPH.“Here, five foot deep, lies, on his back,A cobbler, starmonger, and quack,Who to the stars, in pure good-will,Does to his best look upward still.Weep, all ye customers, that useHis pills, or almanacs, or shoes;And you that did your fortunes seek,Step to his grave but once a week.This earth, which bears his body’s print,You’ll find has so much virtue in’t,That I durst pawn my ear ’twill tellWhate’er concerns you full as well,In physic, stolen goods, or love,As he himself could when above.”
THE EPITAPH.“Here, five foot deep, lies, on his back,A cobbler, starmonger, and quack,Who to the stars, in pure good-will,Does to his best look upward still.Weep, all ye customers, that useHis pills, or almanacs, or shoes;And you that did your fortunes seek,Step to his grave but once a week.This earth, which bears his body’s print,You’ll find has so much virtue in’t,That I durst pawn my ear ’twill tellWhate’er concerns you full as well,In physic, stolen goods, or love,As he himself could when above.”
THE EPITAPH.
“Here, five foot deep, lies, on his back,
A cobbler, starmonger, and quack,
Who to the stars, in pure good-will,
Does to his best look upward still.
Weep, all ye customers, that use
His pills, or almanacs, or shoes;
And you that did your fortunes seek,
Step to his grave but once a week.
This earth, which bears his body’s print,
You’ll find has so much virtue in’t,
That I durst pawn my ear ’twill tell
Whate’er concerns you full as well,
In physic, stolen goods, or love,
As he himself could when above.”
Here also may be mentioned the once famousDr. Ebenezer Sibly, the physician and astrologer, and his brother Manoah,who by turns was shoemaker, shorthand reporter, and preacher of the “heavenly doctrines” of the New Jerusalem Church. However great a figure these men may have made in their day, they have managed to drop so completely out of notice that no encyclopædia, biographical dictionary, or magazine[123]the writer has met with contains any account of them. They are said to have been born in Bristol, and to have been brought up to the gentle craft.[124]The first edition of Ebenezer Sibly’s “Astrological Astronomy” was published in 1789, in three vols. 8vo, and was entitled “Astronomy and Elementary Philosophy,” being a translation of Placidus de Titus. The various editions of this work contain a collection of remarkable nativities, and among them Sibly includes that of Thomas Chatterton, “the marvellous boy” of Bristol.[125]Of course the astrologer sees in the horoscope of Chatterton sure signs of remarkable genius. Sibly was frequently consulted both for astrological and medical purposes, the two professions, astrology and medicine, being regarded as having a certain necessary relation. At all events, it answered the purposes of men like Sibly and Partridge to associate them in their practice. Human credulity dies hard, the race of fools seems to be endowed with wondrous vitality; even as late as 1826 Sibly’s “Celestial Science of Astrology,” in two bulky 4to vols., was published in a twelfth edition, and at that time there must have been many readers of his costly works[126]on the “Occult Sciences, comprehending the Art of Foretelling Future Events and Contingencies by the Aspect and Influences of the Heavenly Bodies.” This work was accompanied by a key to physic and the occult sciences. “Many of my readers,” says the author of “Crispin Anecdotes,” “otherwise indebted to Dr. Sibly, may remember his solar and lunar tinctures, and may probably have experienced their efficacy in transmuting gold coin intoaurum potabile!” In his astrological works and his edition of “Culpepper’s Herbal,” Sibly signs himself “M.D.,” “Fellow of the Royal Harmonic Philosophical Society at Paris,“ ”Member of the Royal College of Physicians in Aberdeen,” etc., etc. The “Herbal” is dated in the year of Masonry 5798, and is written from No.1 Upper Tichfield Street, Cavendish Square, London. We have no record of the death of this illustrious son of Crispin, who, perhaps, had better have stuck to his last. He is called “the lateE. Sibly, M.D.,“ in the 1817 edition of his ”Celestial Science.”
Manoah Sibly appears to have been a man of more varied and certainly of much more useful gifts than his brother “the doctor;” but it may well be doubted if he made as much capital out of them. He was born August 20th, 1757.[127]If the writer above quoted be correct in saying that Manoah was a shoemaker, he must have made good use of his spare time, and even of his working hours, for at the age of nineteen he is said to have been teaching Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and Syriac. During the greater part of his life he was a prominent preacher in connection with the New Jerusalem or Swedenborgian community. For fifty-three years, from the time of his ordination in 1790, he held the pastorate of the congregation for which the Friars Street Chapel, London, was built in 1803. This congregation is now represented by the well-known Argyle Square Church, King’s Cross, where a tablet to his memory has been erected. Manoah Sibly does not seem at any time to have been wholly occupied with the work of preaching, although he delivered two sermons a week for forty-three years, and one a week for the remaining ten of his ministry. “Whether he dabbled in the muddy waters of astrology or no, it is rather hard to tell; probably he left the task of reading the stars, for the most part, to his more astute brother, Ebenezer. At any rate, a translation of Placidus de Titus is set down in certain lists as having been published in his name in 1789;[128]and when he opened a shop as a bookseller, he dealt chiefly in works on occult philosophy. In 1795 he is styled shorthand writer to the City of London on the title-page of thepublished reports from his own notes of the trial of Gillman and of Thomas Hardy, the political shoemaker, whose trial and acquittal created so great an excitement throughout the country. Two years after this he obtained a situation in the Bank of England, which he held for no less than forty-three years. In addition to all this multifarious work, he found time for writing and slight editorial duties. In 1796 a volume of sermons preached in the New Jerusalem Temple appeared in his name, and in 1802 he edited a liturgy for his own church, and wrote a hymn-book. If in no other way, his memory will be perpetuated among his coreligionists by the hymns that bear his name. His first published work was a critical essay on Jeremiah 38:16, issued in 1777; and his last, a discourse on “Jesus Christ, the only Divine object of Praise,” delivered on the forty-fifth anniversary of the promulgation of the “heavenly doctrines,” appeared fifty-six years after, viz., in 1833. Manoah Sibly’s long life of fourscore and three years came to an end December 16th, 1840.
In this connection we may mention a curious instance of learning in lowly life, mentioned in one of a series of interesting articles in theLeisure Hour, already alluded to. The writer says: “In that most entertaining miscellanyNotes and Queries(No. 215) we find an interesting account of a very poor Norwich shoemaker namedMackey, whose mind appears to have been a marvellous receptacle of varied learning. He died in Doughty’s Hospital, in Norwich, an asylum for aged persons there. The writer of the paper found him surrounded by the tools of his former trade and a variety of astronomical instruments and apparatus, and he instantly was ready for conversation upon the mysteries of astronomical and mythological lore, the “Asiatic Researches of Captain Wilford,” and the mythological speculations of Jacob Bryant and Maurice, quoting Latin and Greek to his auditor. He was called “the learned shoemaker.” His learning was probably greatly undigested and ungeneralized, but it was none the less another singular instance of the pursuit of knowledge under difficulties, as is shown by his published works on mythological astronomy and on “The Age of Mental Emancipation.” To this notice of Mackey the writer in theLeisure Houradds an amusingstory, which is too good to be omitted, of a brother of the gentle craft (a cobbler) who, in order to eclipse a rival who lived opposite to him, put over his door on his stall the well-known motto, “Mens conscia recti” (a mind conscious of rectitude). But his adversary, determined not to be outdone, showed himself also a cobbler in classics as well as in shoes, by placing over his door the astonishingly comprehensive defiance, “Men’s and Women’sconscia recti.”
Another curious instance of extensive reading and remarkable linguistic talent, somewhat similar to that of Dr. Partridge and the learned shoemaker of Norwich, is that ofAnthony Purver. He was born at Up Hurstbourne in Hampshire in 1702. His parents were poor, and put their boy apprentice to the art and mystery of making and mending boots and shoes. When his “time was out,” he betook himself to the leisurely and healthy employment of keeping sheep, and began to study. His special line in after-life was decided by his meeting with a tract which pointed out some errors of translation in the authorized version of the Bible. This led him to resolve that he would read the Scriptures in the original Hebrew and Greek. Taking lessons from a Jew, Purver soon learned to read Hebrew. After this he took up Greek and Latin, until he could read with ease in either language. “On settling as a schoolmaster at Andover,“ we are told,[129]”he undertook the extraordinary labor of translating the Bible into English, which work he actually accomplished, and it was printed at the expense of Dr. Fothergill in two vols. folio. This learned shoemaker, shepherd, and schoolmaster deeply felt the need of the great work which has been accomplished in our own day by the united scholarship of England and America. In his own way he completed the Herculean task single-handed; and if his translation was not of any general and practical utility, it none the less deserves mention as a monument of self-acquired learning and honorable industry. Purver died in 1777, at the age of seventy-five.
In coming to speak of thepoetsof the cobbler’s stall, the task of selection is found to be by no means an easy one. It is hard enough to tell where to begin; it is harder still to know where to leave off. “This brooding fraternity” of shoemakers, it is said, “has produced more rhymers than any other of the handicrafts.”[130]
“Crispin’s sonsHave from uncounted time with ale and bunsCherish’d the gift of song, which sorrow quells;And working single in their low-built cells,Oft cheat the tedium of a winter’s nightWith anthems.”[131]
“Crispin’s sonsHave from uncounted time with ale and bunsCherish’d the gift of song, which sorrow quells;And working single in their low-built cells,Oft cheat the tedium of a winter’s nightWith anthems.”[131]
“Crispin’s sons
Have from uncounted time with ale and buns
Cherish’d the gift of song, which sorrow quells;
And working single in their low-built cells,
Oft cheat the tedium of a winter’s night
With anthems.”[131]
In the days of the revival of learning and the reformation of religion in England, shoemakers had their share in the mental and moral awakening. Many of them turned poets, and essayed to write ballads and songs, of which we have a sample in Deloney’s “Delightful, Princely, and Entertaining History of the Gentle Craft.”[132]Such a spirited songster as Richard Rigby, “a brother of the craft,” who undertook to show in his “Song of Praise to the Gentle Craft” how “royal princes, sons of kings, lords, and great commanders have been shoemakers of old, to the honor of the ancient trade,” also deserves to be mentioned. This song, beginning
“I sing in praise of shoemakers,Whose honor no person can stain,”[133]
“I sing in praise of shoemakers,Whose honor no person can stain,”[133]
“I sing in praise of shoemakers,
Whose honor no person can stain,”[133]
is no mean performance; its historic allusions may not be unimpeachable, but its poetic ring is genuine. Scores of pieces of a similar character have issued from the cobbler’s room, and either perished, like many another ballad and song of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, or found their way into odd corners of our literature, where they are buried almost beyond hope of resurrection.
Speaking of men who have aspired to be poets and have published their productions, one is fain to begin with a name which, if it could be proved to belong to the gentle craft, would certainly have to stand at the head of the long list ofpoetical shoemakers—the Elizabethan dramatistThomas Dekker, who wrote “one of the most light-hearted of merry comedies,”The Shoomaker’s Holyday. One of the most prominent characters in the play is Sir Simon Eyre, the reputed builder of Leadenhall Market, London, and Lord Mayor of the city.[134]Of this worthy, who lived in the time of Henry VI., Rigby, in his “Song in Praise of the Gentle Craft,” says—
“Sir Simon, Lord Mayor of fair London,He was a shoemaker by trade.”
“Sir Simon, Lord Mayor of fair London,He was a shoemaker by trade.”
“Sir Simon, Lord Mayor of fair London,
He was a shoemaker by trade.”
It is hard to think that the writer ofThe Shoomaker’s Holyday, in which the ways of shoemakers and the details of the craft are described with all the ease and exactitude of familiarity, was not a brother of the craft.[135]When the famous quarrel arose between the quondam friends and coworkers, Ben Jonson and Dekker, Jonson in hisPoetastersatirized the author ofThe Shoomaker’s Holydayunder the name ofCrispinus. This epithet may be simply an allusion to the subject of Dekker’s well-known comedy; but may it not also be regarded as a veritable “cut at a cobbler?”
James Woodhouse stands first on our list in point of time, but not in regard to ability. He evidently owed his little brief popularity to the friendship of William Shenstone, author of “The Schoolmistress.” Shenstone lived at Leasowes, seven miles from Birmingham, in a charming country-house surrounded by gardens, artistically laid out and cultivated with the utmost care by the eccentric, fantastic poet. Woodhouse, who was born about 1733, was a village shoemaker and eke a schoolmaster at Rowley, two miles off. Shenstone had been obliged to exclude the public from his gardens and grounds at Leasowes on account of the wanton damage done to flowers and shrubs. Whereupon the village shoemaker addressed the poet in poetical terms asking to be “excluded from the prohibition.” In reply Shenstone admitted him not only to wander through his grounds, but to make a free use of his library. “Shenstone found,” says Southey, “that the poor applicant used to work with a pen and ink at his side while the last was in his lap—the head at one employ, the hands at another; and when he had composed a couplet or a stanza, he wrote it on his knee.” Woodhouse was then about twenty-six years of age. His lot must have been rather hard at that time, for, speaking of his wife’s work and his own, he says in one of his poems—
“Nor mourn I much my task austere,Which endless wants impose;But oh! it wounds my soul to hearMy Daphne’s melting woes!“For oft she sighs and oft she weepsAnd hangs her pensive head,While blood her farrowed finger steepsAnd stains the passing thread.“When orient hills the sun behold,Our labors are begun;And when he streaks the west with gold,The task is still undone.”
“Nor mourn I much my task austere,Which endless wants impose;But oh! it wounds my soul to hearMy Daphne’s melting woes!
“Nor mourn I much my task austere,
Which endless wants impose;
But oh! it wounds my soul to hear
My Daphne’s melting woes!
“For oft she sighs and oft she weepsAnd hangs her pensive head,While blood her farrowed finger steepsAnd stains the passing thread.
“For oft she sighs and oft she weeps
And hangs her pensive head,
While blood her farrowed finger steeps
And stains the passing thread.
“When orient hills the sun behold,Our labors are begun;And when he streaks the west with gold,The task is still undone.”
“When orient hills the sun behold,
Our labors are begun;
And when he streaks the west with gold,
The task is still undone.”
Five years after his introduction to Shenstone, a collection of his poems was published, entitled “Poems on Several Occasions.” About forty years afterward he issued another edition with additional pieces, such as “Woodstock, an Elegy,” “St. Crispin,” etc. In the later years of his life he was living near Norbury Park, and had found a generous patron in Mr. Lock, who superintended the publication of his poetry, and in Lord Lyttleton of Hagley.
The name of Bennet occurs once more in our list, and in this instance, if classed at all, it should be classed with the poets, although it must be confessed that the claim of John Bennet tothat honorable title would hardly be allowed in some quarters. This little local celebrity inherited the office of parish clerk from his father, and with it some degree of musical taste, for his father’s psalm-singing is said to have charmed the ear of Thomas Warton, Professor of Poetry at Oxford, and sometime curate of Woodstock. John Bennet, junior, succeeded to the clerkship in Warton’s time, and thus came under the notice of the kindly clergyman, who was a generous patron of men of this class. When Bennet took to writing poetry and thought of publishing, Warton gave him every assistance in his power. A poor uneducated poet could scarcely have fallen into better hands, for the young curate was geniality itself, if we may judge from the estimate of him formed by Southey, who speaks of his “thorough good nature and the boyish hilarity which he retained through life,“ and furthermore adds, ”The Woodstock shoemaker was chiefly indebted for the patronage which he received to Thomas Warton’s good-nature, for my predecessor was the best-natured man that ever wore a great wig.“[136]The shoemaker’s poetry was ”published by subscription” in 1774, and the long list of notable names speaks well for the industry and influence of the patron to whose efforts the splendid array of subscribers must be attributed. Bennet’s poetry, which was not of a very high order of merit, consisted chiefly of simple rhymes on rustic themes, in which he does not forget to sing the praises of thegentleman-like craftto which he belongs; nor does he hesitate frankly to declare that his reason for publishing his rhymes is “to enable the author to rear an infant offspring, and to drive away all anxious solicitude from the breast of a most amiable wife.” Later in life he published another volume, having for its chief piece a poem entitled “Redemption;” and, as a set-off, a kindly preface by Dr. Mavor, Rector of Woodstock. This honest parish clerk of poetical fame died and was buried at Woodstock on the 8th of August, 1803.
A far better poet but a far less worthy man than Bennet of Woodstock or Woodhouse of Rowley wasRichard Savage, the friend of Pope. From beginning to end the story of his life,as told by Dr. Johnson in his “Lives of the Poets,” is one of the most romantic and melancholy biographies in existence. It only concerns us here to say that Richard Savage, the reputed[137]son of Earl Rivers and the Countess of Macclesfield, was, on leaving school, apprenticed to a shoemaker, and remained in this humble position “longer than he was willing to confess; nor was it, perhaps, any great advantage to him that an unexpected discovery determined him to quit his occupation.” Dr. Johnson thus speaks of this discovery and its immediate results: “About this time his nurse, who had always treated him as her own son, died; and it was natural for him to take care of those effects which, by her death, were, as he imagined, become his own. He therefore went to her house, opened her boxes, and examined her papers, among which he found some letters written to her by the Lady Mason, which informed him of his birth and the reason for which it was concealed. Dissatisfied with his employment, but unable to obtain either pity or help from his mother, to whom he made many tender appeals, he resolved to devote himself to literature. His first attempt in this line was a short poem called ‘The Battle of the Pamphlets,’ written anent the Bangorian Controversy; and his second a comedy under the title ‘Woman’s Riddle.’ Two years after appeared another comedy, ‘Love in a Veil.’ In 1723 he wrote a drama, having for its subject certain events in the life of Sir Thomas Overbury. Previous to the publication of a small volume entitled ‘A Miscellany of Poems,’ Savage wrote the story of his life in a political paper calledThe Plain Dealer. His best poem, ‘The Wanderer,’ in which are some pathetic passages referring to himself, was published in 1729.” For the story of the life of this unhappy man the reader must be referred to Johnson’s “Lives.” Savage died in the debtors’ prison, Bristol, August 1st, 1743.
It is a relief to turn from the thought of Savage toThomas Olivers, one of John Wesley’s most intimate friends and zealous coworkers. We have seen already how prominent a partanother shoemaker played in the Methodist revival;[138]but Olivers is perhaps better known to the general public than Samuel Bradburn, for the latter has left no mark on our literature, while the former has made a name among hymn-writers as the author of several excellent hymns, and of one, in particular, which holds a place of first rank in Christian hymnology. Olivers’ fame outside Methodism rests chiefly on the fine hymn beginning—