Chapter 19

date and place

Dear Mr. Chancellor,

I am honoured with yours just now received, and though weary with a journey being come home to night after 3 days absence, and lying out of my Bed which I have not done since Sir Thomas Lee’s Election in January, yet I cannot omitt paying my duty to you and thanking you for the favour and satisfaction yours gave mee—I have printed above 20 Prebendal Stalls of Lincoln but it does not goe on so fast as I would have it, else I should soon come to Ely, but I doubt I shall stay a long time for the draughts, wherefore I pray when you write to Dr. Knight press his getting them done out of hand—I have here one of Christ-church which I write upon that you may give your opinion—I shall be very glad you approve it, wee cannot well put in more references. As to the Prebendarys of Lincoln, since I have wrote 5 or 6 letters to the Bishop without an answer, I am obliged to be contented. I should be glad of Thomas Davies’s Epitaph from Bexwell. He was vicar of Siston co: Leicester and A.M. as my Account says. I have only 4 or 5 to enquire after that I shall be so eager to find, viz. Joshua Clark (Prebendary) of Cester, who died 1712. I have wrote to his 2 successors and cannot hear one word: The others I want are John Davenport, Mr. Davies’s predecessor in Sutton Prebend, and Henry Morland or Merland who died about 1704; but I would more particularly enquire after Thomas Stanhope, who, about 1668, was installed into the Prebend of Sutton cum Buckingham—I shall be thankfull for any Information of him, as I am of all opportunitys of hearing from you, and design to lay by your papers of Ely to send you again: but I am teized sadly about Bishop Lloyd of Norwich’s great Seal, and the circumscription round it, and have had 2 letters this week on that account: what my importunate correspondent wants is, the circle of writing round the Episcopal Seal in which he wrote his name Gulielimus: I am ashamed to repeat this Impertinence to which I pray a quick answer, especialy as to another subject of the greatest consequence of all, which is about placing my Eldest Son at Christ-church, where I design to make him a commoner, for he must study hard—I am to consult about a Tutor, and would gladly have one you have a confidence in; there are recommended Mr. Allen, Mr. Bateman, and Mr. Ward; now if you can answer for ever an one of these, and that he will, on your friendshipp or the Dean’s, have a more particular eye to Tom, whom I dont design to continue above 2 or 3 years at most, I shall be very thankfull for your recommendation. And so pray dear Mr. Chancellor write soon and advise mee, but I hope your affairs will call you to Oxford, and that you will take mee in your way and see Stratford chapell, which is very near, and your ever obliged and devoted Servant in all things,

Browne Willis’s letter is franked by Dr. Richard Willis, bishop of Winchester, who was translated to that see from the bishopric of Salisbury, in 1723. Afac-simileof his autograph, on this occasion, is annexed.

The character of Dr. Willis, by Dr. Ducarel, records his “pilgrimages” to “every cathedral in England and Wales, except Carlisle.” The antiquity, and the purposes of religious buildings, were objects of his utmost veneration; and he had the remarkable propensity of visiting churches on the festival-day of the saint to whom they were dedicated. In Fenny Stratford chapel he placed the following lines, “to the memory of Thomas Willis,M.D.,” his grandfather, through whom he derived his patrimonialestates:—

In honour to thy mem’ry, blessed Shade!Was the foundation of this chapel laid.Purchas’d by thee, thy son, and present heir,Owes these three manors to thy sacred care.For this, may all thy race thanks ever pay,Andyearly celebrate St. Martin’s day!B. W.

B. W.

A letter he wrote within three months before his death particularizes his regard of festival-days.

Mr. Nichols transcribes a letter which he wrote very late in life, dated Nov. 13, 1759: “Good Mr. Owen, This comes to thank you for your favour at Oxford at St. Frideswide’s festival; and as your Bodleian visitation is over, I hope you are a little at liberty to come and see your friends; and as you was pleased to mention you would once more make me happy with your good company, I wish it might be next week, at our St. Martin’s anniversary at Fenny Stratford, which is Thursday se’nnight, the 22d instant, when a sermon will be preached by the minister of Buckingham: the last I am ever like to attend, so very infirm as I am now got; so that I stir very little out of the house, and it will therefore be charity to have friends come and visit me.”

Mr. Gough’s manuscripts relate of Dr. Willis, that “he told Mr. S. Bush he was going to Bristol onSt. Austin’s-dayto see the cathedral, itbeing the dedication day.” It is added, that “he would lodge in no house at Bath but the Abbey-house: he said, when he was told that Wells cathedral was 800 years old, there was not a stone of it left 500 years ago.”

Miss Talbot, “in an unprinted letter to a lady of first-rate quality,” dated from the rectory house of St. James’s parish, (Westminster,) January 2, 1739, humorously describes him and says, “As by his little knowledge of the world, he has ruined a fine estate, that was, when he first had it, worth 2000l.per annum, his present circumstances oblige him to an odd-headed kind of frugality, that shows itself in the slovenliness of his dress, and makes him think London much too extravagant an abode for his daughters; at the same time that his zeal for antiquities makes him think an old copper farthing very cheaply bought for a guinea, and any journey properly undertaken that will bring him to some old cathedralon the saint’s dayto which it was dedicated.” Further on, Miss Talbot adds, relative to Dr. Willis on St. George’s day, “To honour last Sundayas it deserved, after having run about all the morning toall the St. George’s churches, whose difference of hours permitted him, he came to dine with us in a tie-wig, that exceeds indeed all description. ’Tis a tie-wig (the very colour of it is inexpressible) that he has had, he says, these nine years; and of late it has lain by at his barber’s, never to be put on but once a year, in honour of the Bishop of Gloucester’s (Benson) birth-day.”

These peculiarities of Dr. Willis are in Mr. Nichols’s “Literary Anecdotes,” from which abundant depository of facts, the particulars hereafter related are likewise extracted, with a view to the information of general readers. On the same ground, that gentleman’s collection is mentioned; for—it is not to be presumed that any real inquirer into the “Literary History” of the last or the preceding century can be ignorant, that Mr. Nichols’s invaluable work is an indispensable assistant to every diligent investigator. It is certainly the fullest, and is probably the most accurate, source that can be consulted for biographical facts during that period, and is therefore quoted by name, as all authors ought to be by every writer or editor who is influenced by grateful feelings towards his authorities, and honest motives towards the public.

Dr. Willis was whimsically satirized in the following verses by Dr. Darrell of Lillington Darrell.

AN EXCELLENT BALLAD.To the Tune ofChevy-Chace.Whilome there dwelt near Buckingham,That famous county town,At a known place, hight Whaddon Chace,A ’squire of odd renown.—A Druid’s sacred form he bore,His robes a girdle bound:Deep vers’d he was in ancient lore,In customs old, profound.A stick torn from that hallow’d treeWhere Chaucer us’d to sit,And tell his tales with leering glee,Supports his tott’ring feet.High on a hill his mansion stoodBut gloomy dark within;Here mangled books, as bones and bloodLie in a giant’s den.Crude, undigested, half-devour’d,On groaning shelves they’re thrown;Such manuscripts no eye could read,Nor hand write—but his own.No prophet he, like Sydrophel,Could future times explore;But what had happen’d, he could tell,Five hundred years and more.A walking Alm’nack he appears,Stept from some mouldy wall,Worn out of use thro’ dust and years,Like scutcheons in his hall.His boots were made of that cow’s hide,By Guy of Warwick slain;Time’s choicest gifts, aye to abideAmong the chosen train.Who first receiv’d the precious boon,We’re at a loss to learn,By Spelman, Camden, Dugdale, worn,And then they came to Hearne.Hearne strutted in them for a while;And then, as lawful heir,Browne claim’d and seiz’d the precious spoil,The spoil of many a year.His car himself he did provide,To stand in double stead;That it should carry him alive,And bury him when dead.By rusty coins old kings he’d trace,And know their air and mien:King Alfred he knew well by face,Tho’ George he ne’er had seen.This wight th’ outside of churches lov’d,Almost unto a sin;Spires Gothic of more use he prov’dThan pulpits are within.Of use, no doubt, when high in air,A wand’ring bird they’ll rest,Or with a Bramin’s holy care,Make lodgments for its nest.Ye Jackdaws, that are us’d to talk,Like us of human race,When nigh you see Browne Willis walkLoud chatter forth his praise.Whene’er the fatal day shall come,For come, alas! it must,When this good ’squire must stay at home,And turn to antique dust;The solemn dirge, ye Owls, prepare,Ye Bats, more hoarsly screek;Croak, all ye Ravens, round the bier,And all ye Church-mice squeak.

AN EXCELLENT BALLAD.

To the Tune ofChevy-Chace.

Whilome there dwelt near Buckingham,That famous county town,At a known place, hight Whaddon Chace,A ’squire of odd renown.—A Druid’s sacred form he bore,His robes a girdle bound:Deep vers’d he was in ancient lore,In customs old, profound.A stick torn from that hallow’d treeWhere Chaucer us’d to sit,And tell his tales with leering glee,Supports his tott’ring feet.High on a hill his mansion stoodBut gloomy dark within;Here mangled books, as bones and bloodLie in a giant’s den.Crude, undigested, half-devour’d,On groaning shelves they’re thrown;Such manuscripts no eye could read,Nor hand write—but his own.No prophet he, like Sydrophel,Could future times explore;But what had happen’d, he could tell,Five hundred years and more.A walking Alm’nack he appears,Stept from some mouldy wall,Worn out of use thro’ dust and years,Like scutcheons in his hall.His boots were made of that cow’s hide,By Guy of Warwick slain;Time’s choicest gifts, aye to abideAmong the chosen train.Who first receiv’d the precious boon,We’re at a loss to learn,By Spelman, Camden, Dugdale, worn,And then they came to Hearne.Hearne strutted in them for a while;And then, as lawful heir,Browne claim’d and seiz’d the precious spoil,The spoil of many a year.His car himself he did provide,To stand in double stead;That it should carry him alive,And bury him when dead.By rusty coins old kings he’d trace,And know their air and mien:King Alfred he knew well by face,Tho’ George he ne’er had seen.This wight th’ outside of churches lov’d,Almost unto a sin;Spires Gothic of more use he prov’dThan pulpits are within.Of use, no doubt, when high in air,A wand’ring bird they’ll rest,Or with a Bramin’s holy care,Make lodgments for its nest.Ye Jackdaws, that are us’d to talk,Like us of human race,When nigh you see Browne Willis walkLoud chatter forth his praise.Whene’er the fatal day shall come,For come, alas! it must,When this good ’squire must stay at home,And turn to antique dust;The solemn dirge, ye Owls, prepare,Ye Bats, more hoarsly screek;Croak, all ye Ravens, round the bier,And all ye Church-mice squeak.

Whilome there dwelt near Buckingham,That famous county town,At a known place, hight Whaddon Chace,A ’squire of odd renown.—

A Druid’s sacred form he bore,His robes a girdle bound:Deep vers’d he was in ancient lore,In customs old, profound.

A stick torn from that hallow’d treeWhere Chaucer us’d to sit,And tell his tales with leering glee,Supports his tott’ring feet.

High on a hill his mansion stoodBut gloomy dark within;Here mangled books, as bones and bloodLie in a giant’s den.

Crude, undigested, half-devour’d,On groaning shelves they’re thrown;Such manuscripts no eye could read,Nor hand write—but his own.

No prophet he, like Sydrophel,Could future times explore;But what had happen’d, he could tell,Five hundred years and more.

A walking Alm’nack he appears,Stept from some mouldy wall,Worn out of use thro’ dust and years,Like scutcheons in his hall.

His boots were made of that cow’s hide,By Guy of Warwick slain;Time’s choicest gifts, aye to abideAmong the chosen train.

Who first receiv’d the precious boon,We’re at a loss to learn,By Spelman, Camden, Dugdale, worn,And then they came to Hearne.

Hearne strutted in them for a while;And then, as lawful heir,Browne claim’d and seiz’d the precious spoil,The spoil of many a year.

His car himself he did provide,To stand in double stead;That it should carry him alive,And bury him when dead.

By rusty coins old kings he’d trace,And know their air and mien:King Alfred he knew well by face,Tho’ George he ne’er had seen.

This wight th’ outside of churches lov’d,Almost unto a sin;Spires Gothic of more use he prov’dThan pulpits are within.

Of use, no doubt, when high in air,A wand’ring bird they’ll rest,Or with a Bramin’s holy care,Make lodgments for its nest.

Ye Jackdaws, that are us’d to talk,Like us of human race,When nigh you see Browne Willis walkLoud chatter forth his praise.

Whene’er the fatal day shall come,For come, alas! it must,When this good ’squire must stay at home,And turn to antique dust;

The solemn dirge, ye Owls, prepare,Ye Bats, more hoarsly screek;Croak, all ye Ravens, round the bier,And all ye Church-mice squeak.

The Rev. W. Cole says, “Browne Willis had a most passionate regard for the town of Buckingham, which he represented in Parliament one session, or part of a session. This he showed on every occasion, and particularly in endeavouring to get a new charter for them, and to get the bailiff changed into a mayor; by unwearied application in getting the assizes held once a year there, and procuring the archdeacon to hold his visitations, and also the bishop there, as often as possible; by promoting the building of a jail in the town; and, above all, by procuring subscriptions, and himself liberally contributing, to the raising the tower of the church 24 feet higher. As he cultivated an interest opposite to the Temple family, they were never upon good terms; and made verses upon each other on their several foibles.”

The same Mr. Cole, by way of notes on the preceding poem, relates the following anecdotes of Dr. Willis, which are subjoined to it by Mr. Nichols. “Mr. Willis never mentioned the adored town of Buckingham without the addition ofcounty-town. His person and dress were so singular, that, though a gentleman of 1000l.per annum, he has often been taken for a beggar. An old leathern girdle or belt, always surrounded the two or three coats he wore, and over them an old blue cloak. He wrote the worst hand of any man in England,—such as he could with difficulty read himself, and what no one, except his old correspondents, could decipher. His boots, which he almost always appeared in, were not the least singular part of his dress. I suppose it will not be a falsity to say they were forty years old, patched and vamped up at various times. They are all in wrinkles, and don’t come up above half way of his legs. He was often called in the neighbourhood,Old Wrinkle Boots. They are humorously historized in the above poem. The chariot of Mr. Williswas so singular, that from it he was called himself,The old Chariot. It was his wedding chariot, and had his arms on brass plates about it, not unlike a coffin, and painted black. He was as remarkable probably for his love to the walls and structures of churches, as for his variance with the clergy in his neighbourhood. He built, by subscription, the chapel at Fenny Stratford; repaired Bletchley church very elegantly, at a great expense; repaired Bow-Brickill church, desecrated and not used for a century, and added greatly to the height of Buckingham church tower. He was not well pleased with any one, who in talking of, or with him, did not call himSquire. I wrote these notes when I was out of humour with him for some of his tricks. God rest his soul, and forgive us all. Amen!” Cole and Willis were friends. Our antiquary presented a living to Mr. Cole, who appears to have been very useful to him as a transcriber, seeker after dates, and collector of odds and ends. In erudition, discrimination, arrangement, and literary powers, Cole was at an immense distance from him. Dr. Willis’s writing he calls “the worst hand of any man in England.” This was not the fact. Cole’s “hand” was formal, and as plain as print; it was the only qualification he possessed over Dr. Willis, whose writing is certainly peculiar, and yet, where it seems difficult, is readily decipherable by persons accustomed to varieties of method, and is to be read with ease by any one at all acquainted with its uniform character.

On Dr. Willis’s personal appearance, Mr. Cole says, in a letter to Mr. Steevens, “When I knew him first, about 35 years ago, he had more the appearance of a mumping beggar than of a gentleman; and the most like resemblance of his figure that I can recollect among old prints, is that of Old Hobson the Cambridge carrier. He then, as always, was dressed in an old slouched hat, more brown than black, a weather-beaten large wig, three or four old-fashioned coats, all tied round by a leathern belt, and over all an old blue cloak, lined with black fustian, which he told me he had new made when he was elected member for the town of Buckingham about 1707.” Cole retained affection for his memory: he adds “I have still by me as relics, this cloak and belt, which I purchased of his servant.” Cole’s letter with this account he consented that Mr. Steevens should allow Mr. Nichols to use, adding that he gave the permission “on a presumption, that there was nothing disrespectful to the memory of Mr. Willis, for what I said I don’t recollect.” On this, Mr. Nichols remarks, “Thedisrespectwas certainly levelled at the mere external foibles of the respectable antiquary, whose goodness of heart, and general spirit of philanthropy were amply sufficient to bear him out in those whimsical peculiarities of dress, which were irresistible sources of ridicule.”

Cole, however, may be suspected to have somewhat exaggerated, when he so generalized his description of Dr. Willis, as to affirm that “he had more the appearance of a mumping beggar than of a gentleman.” Miss Talbot, of whom it was said by the duchess of Somerset to lady Luxborough, “she censures nobody, she despises nobody, and whilst her own life is a pattern of goodness, she does not exclaim with bitterness against vice,” seems, in her letter to the lady of qualitybeforecited, to have painted Dr. Willis to the life. She says, “With one of the honestest hearts in the world, he has one of the oddest heads that ever dropped out of the moon. Extremely well versed in coins, he knows hardly any thing of mankind, and you may judge what kind of education such an one is likely to give to four girls, who have had no female directress to polish their behaviour, or any other habitation than a great rambling mansion-house in a country village.”

It must be allowed, notwithstanding, to the credit of Mr. Cole, that she adds, “He is the dirtiest creature in the world;” but then, with such a character from the mouth of a fine lady, the sex and breeding of the affirmant must be taken into the account, especially as she assigns her reasons. “It is quite disagreeable,” she says, “to sit by him at table: yet he makes one suit of clothes serve him at least two years, and then his great coat has been transmitted down, I believe, from generation to generation, ever since Noah.” Thus there may be something on the score of want of fashion in her estimate.

Miss Talbot’s account of Dr. Willis’s daughters is admirable. “Browne distinguishes his four daughters into thelionsand thelambs. Thelambsare very good and very insipid; they were in town about ten days, that ended the beginning of last week; and now thelionshave succeeded them, who have a little spirit of rebellion, that makes them infinitely more agreeable than their sober sisters. Thelambswent to every church Browne pleased every day; thelionscame to St.James’schurch on St.George’sday, (which to Browne was downright heresy, for reasons just related.) Thelambsthought of no higher entertainment than going to see some collections of shells; thelionswould see every thing, and go every where. Thelambsdined here one day, were thought good awkward girls, and then were laid out of our thoughts for ever. Thelionsdined with us on Sunday, and were so extremely diverting, that we spent all yesterday morning, and are engaged to spend all this, in entertaining them, and going to a comedy, that, I think, has no ill-nature in it; for the simplicity of these girls has nothing blameable in it, and the contemplation of such unassisted nature is infinitely amusing. They follow Miss Jenny’s rule, of never being strange in a strange place; yet in them this is not boldness.” Miss Talbot says, she could give “a thousand traits of thelions,” but she merely adds, “I wondered to have heard no remarks on the prince and princess; their remarks on every thing else are admirable. As they sat in the drawing-room before dinner, one of them called to Mr. Secker, ‘I wish you would give me a glass of sack!’ The bishop of Oxford (Secker) came in, and one of them broke out very abruptly, ‘But we heard every word of the sermon where we sat; and a very good sermon it was,’ added she, with a decisive nod. The bishop of Gloucester gave them tickets to go to a play; and one of them took great pains to repeat to him, till he heard it, ‘I would not rob you, but I know you are very rich, and can afford it; for I ben’t covetous, indeed I an’t covetous.’ Poor girls! their father will make them go out of town to-morrow, and they begged very hard that we would all join in entreating him to let them stay a fortnight, as their younger sisters have done; but all our entreaties were in vain, and to-morrow the poorlionsreturn to their den in the stage-coach. Indeed, in his birth-day tie-wig he looked so like ‘the father’ in the farce Mrs. Secker was so diverted with, that I wished a thousand times for the invention of Scapin and I would have made no scruple of assuming the character, and inspiring my friends with the laudable spirit of rebellion. I have picked out some of the dullest of their traits to tell you. They pressed us extremely to come and breakfast with them at their lodgings, four inches square, in Chapel-street, at eight o’clock in the morning, and bring a stay-maker and the bishop of Gloucester with us. We put off the engagement till eleven, sent the stay-maker to measure them at nine, and Mrs. Secker and I went and found the ladies quite undressed; so that, instead of taking them to Kensington Gardens, as we promised, we were forced, for want of time, to content ourselves with carrying them round Grosvenor-square into the Ring, where, for want of better amusement, they were fain to fall upon the basket of dirty sweetmeats and cakes that an old woman is always teizing you with there, which they had nearly despatched in a couple of rounds. It were endless to tell you all that has inexpressibly diverted me in their behaviour and conversation.”

Mr. Nichols contents himself with calling Miss Talbot’s letter “a very pleasant one”—it is delightfully pleasant: that its description may not be received in an ill sense, he carefully remarks, that “it would be thought highly satirical in any body else,” but he roguishly affirms that “Dr. Taylor could tell a thousand such stories of Browne Willis and his family;” and then he selects another. “In the summer of 1740, after Mr. Baker’s death, his executor came to take possession of the effects, and lived for some time in his chambers at college. Here Browne Willis waited upon him to see some of the MSS. or books; and after a long visit, to find and examine what he wanted, the old bed-maker of the rooms came in; when the gentleman said, ‘What noise was that I heard just as you opened the door?’ (he had heard therustling of silk)—‘Oh!’ says Browne Willis, ‘it is only one of my daughters that I left on the staircase. This, we may suppose, was alamb, by her patient waiting; else alionwould have been better able to resist any petty rudenesses.’” Afterwards we have another “trait” of the same kind: “Once after long teasing, the young ladies prevailed on him to give them a Londonjaunt; unluckily the lodgings were (unknown to them) at an undertaker’s, the irregular and late hours of whose business was not very agreeable to the young ladies: but they comforted themselves with the thoughts of the pleasure they should have during their stay in town; when to their great surprise and grief, as soon as they had got their breakfast, the old family coach rumbled to the door, and the father bid them get in, as he had done the business about which he came to town.” Poor girls!

The late Rev. John Kynaston, M.A., fellow of Brazen-nose college, who had seen the preceding paragraphs, writes to Mr. Nichols, “Your anecdotes of thelionsand thelambshave entertained me prodigiously, as I well knew the grizzly sire of both. Browne Willis was indeed an original. I met with him at Mr. Cartwright’s, at Aynhoe, in Northamptonshire, in 1753, where I was at that time chaplain to the family, and curate of the parish. Browne came here on a visit of a week that summer. He looked for all the world like an old portrait of the era of queen Elizabeth, that had walked down out of its frame. He was, too truly, the very dirty figure Miss Talbot describes him to be; which, with the antiquity of his dress, rendered him infinitely formidable to all the children in the parish. He often called upon me at the parsonage house, when I happened not to dine in the family; having a great, and as it seemed, a very favourite point to carry, which was no less than to persuade me to follow his example, and to turn all my thoughts and studies tovenerable antiquity;he deemedthatthesummum bonum, the height of all human felicity. I used to entertain Mr. and Mrs. Cartwright highly, by detailing to them Browne’s arguments to debauch me from the pursuit of polite literature, and such studies as were most agreeable to my turn and taste; and by parcelling out every morning after prayers (we had daily prayers at eleven in the church) the progress Browne had made the day before in the arts of seduction. I amused him with such answers as I thought best suited to his hobby-horse, till I found he was going to leave us; and then, by a stroke or two of spirited raillery, lost his warm heart and his advice for ever. My egging him on served us, however, for a week’s excellent entertainment, amid the dulness and sameness of a country situation. He represented me at parting, to Mr. Cartwright, as one incorrigible, and lost beyond all hopes of recovery to every thing truly valuable in learning, by having unfortunately let slip that I preferred, and feared I ever should prefer, one page of Livy or Tacitus, Sallust or Cæsar, to all the monkish writers, with Bede at the head of them.

———“quot sunt quotve fueruntAut quotquot aliis erunt in annis.Sic explicit Historiola deBrownio Willisio!”

An Itinerary of Browne Willis “in search of theantique,” must have been excessively amusing. “Among the innumerable stories that are told of him, and the difficulties and rebuffs he met with in his favourite pursuits, the following may suffice as a specimen:—One day he desired his neighbour, Mr. Lowndes, to go with him to one of his tenants, whose old habitation he wanted to view. A coach driving into the farm-yard sufficiently alarmed the family, who betook themselves to close quarters; when Browne Willis, spying a woman at a window, thrust his head out of the coach, and cried out, ‘Woman, I ask if you have got noarmsin your house.’ As the transaction happened to be in the rebellion of 1745, when searches for arms were talked of, the woman was still less pleased with her visitor, and began to talk accordingly. When Mr. Lowndes had enjoyed enough of this absurdity, he said, ‘Neighbour, it is rather cold sitting here; if you will let me put my head out, I dare say we shall do our business much better.’ So the late Dr. Newcome, going in his coach through one of the villages near Cambridge, and seeing an old mansion, called out to an old woman, ‘Woman, is this areligious house?’ ‘I don’t know what you mean by a religious house,’ retorted the woman; ‘but I believe the house is as honest an house as any of yours at Cambridge.’”

On another occasion, “Riding over Mendip or Chedder, he came to a church under the hill, the steeple just rising above them, and near twenty acres of water belonging to Mr. Cox. He asked a countryman the church’s name—‘Emburrough.’ ‘When was it dedicated?’ ‘Talk English, or don’t talk at all.’ ‘When is the revel or wake?’ The fellow thought, as there was a match at quarter-staff for ahat in the neighbourhood, he intended to make one; and, struck with his mean appearance besides, challenged him in a rude way, and so they parted. This anomalous proposition must have been as embarrassing as the situation presumed in the play, ‘Dr. Pangloss in a tandem, with a terrier between his legs!’”

There is a very characteristic anecdote of Browne Willis, and Humfrey Wanley, a man of singular celebrity, and library keeper to the literary earl of Oxford: it is of Wanley’s own relation in his Diary. “Feb. 9, 1725-6. Mr. Browne Willis came, wanting to peruse one of Holmes’s MSS. marked L, and did so; and also L 2, L 3, and L 4, without finding what he expected. He would have explained to me his design in his intended book about our cathedrals; but I said I was about my lord’s necessary business, and had not leisure to spend upon any matter foreign to that. He wanted the liberty to look over Holmes’s MSS. and indeed over all this library, that he might collect materials for amending his former books, and putting forth new ones. I signified to him that it would be too great a work; and that I, having business appointed me by my lord, which required much despatch, could not in such a case attend upon him. He would have teazed me here this whole afternoon, but I would not suffer him. At length he departed in great anger, and I hope to be rid of him.” It is reported of the lion, that he is scared by the braying of the least noble of the beasts.

The Rev. Mr. Gibberd performed the “last offices” at the funeral of his friend Dr. Willis, who parted from life “without the usual agonies of death.” This gentleman says, “He breathed almost his last with the most earnest and ardent wishes for my prosperity: ‘Ah! Mr. Gibberd, God bless you for ever, Mr. Gibberd!’ were almost the last words of my dying friend.” Mr. Gibberd’s character of him may close these notices. “He was strictly religious, without any mixture of superstition or enthusiasm. The honour of God was his prime view in almost every action of his life. He was a constant frequenter of the church, and never absented himself from the holy communion; and as to the reverence he had for places more immediately set apart for religious duties, it is needless to mention what his many public works, in building, repairing, and beautifying churches, are standing evidences of. In the time of health he called his family together every evening, and, besides his private devotions in the morning, he always retired into his closet in the afternoon at about four or five o’clock. In his intercourse with men, he was in every respect, as far as I could judge, very upright. He was a good landlord, and scarce ever raised his rents; and that his servants, likewise, have no reason to complain of their master, is evident from the long time they generally lived with him. He had many valuable and good friends, whose kindness he always acknowledged. And though, perhaps, he might have some dispute, with a few people, the reason of which it would be disagreeable to enter into, yet it is with great satisfaction that I can affirm that he was perfectly reconciled with every one. He was, with regard to himself, peculiarly sober and temperate; and he has often told me, that he denied himself many things, that he might bestow them better. Indeed, he appeared to me to have no greater regard to money than as it furnished him with an opportunity of doing good. He supplied yearly three charity schools at Whaddon, Bletchley, and Fenny-Stratford: and besides what he constantly gave at Christmas, he was never backward in relieving his poor neighbours with both wine and money when they were sick, or in any kind of distress.” Thus, then, may end the few memorials that have been thrown together regarding an estimable though eccentric gentleman “of the old school.” If he did not adorn society by his “manners,” he enriched our stores of knowledge, and posterity have justly conferred on his memory a reputation for antiquarian attainments which few can hope to acquire, because few have the industry to cultivate so thorough an intimacy with the venerable objects of their acquaintance.

An “antiquary” is usually alarming. Those who are not acquainted with him personally, imagine that he is necessarily dull, tasteless, and passionless. Yet this conception might be dissipated by reference to the memoirs of the eminent departed, or by courting the society of thedistinguished living. A citation in the notice ofGrose[77]tells us that

“society droops for the loss of his jest:”

that antiquary’s facetiousness enlivened the dullest company, and with the convivial he was the most jovial. Pennant’s numerous works bear internal evidence of his pleasant mindedness. Jacob Bryant, “famous for his extensive learning, erudition,” and profound investigations concerning “Heathen Mythology,” and the situation and siege of “Troy,” was one of the mildest and most amiable beings: his society was coveted by youth and age, until the termination of his life, in his eighty-ninth year. Among the illustrious lovers of classic or black letter lore, were the witty and humorous George Steevens, the editor of Shakspeare; Dr. Richard Farmer, the learned author of the masterly “Essay on the Genius and Learning of Shakspeare,” is renowned by the few who remember him for the ease and variety of his conversation; Samuel Paterson, the celebrated bibliopolist, was full of anecdote and drollery; and the placid and intelligent Isaac Reed, the discriminating editor of “the immortal bard of Avon,” graced every circle wherein he moved. It might seem to assume an intimacy which the editor of this work does not pretend to, were he to mention instances of social excellence among the prying investigators of antiquity yet alive: one, however, he cannot forbear to name—the venerable octogenarian John Nichols, esq. F.S.A. of whom he only knows, in common with all who have read or heard of him, as an example of cheerfulness and amenity during a life of unwearied perseverance in antiquarian researches, and the formation of multiform collections, which have added more to general information, and created a greater number of inquirers on such subjects, than the united labours of his early contemporaries.

Still it is not to be denied, that seclusion, wholly employed on the foundations of the dead, and the manners of other times, has a tendency to unfitsuchdevotees for easy converse, when they seek to recreate by adventuring into the world. Early-acquired and long-continued severity of study, whether of the learned languages, or antiquities, or science, or nature, if it exclude other intimacies, is unfavourable to personal appearance and estimation. Themerescholar, themeremathematician, and themereantiquary, easily obtain reputations for eccentricity; but there are numerous individuals of profound abstraction, and erudite inquiry, who cultivate the understanding, or the imagination, or the heart, who are, in manner, so little different from others, that they are scarcely suspected by the unknown and the self-sufficient of being better or wiser than themselves. Hence, “in company,” the individual whom all the world agrees to look on as “The Great Unknown,” may be scarcely thought of, as “The Antiquary”—the “President of the Royal Society” pass for “quite a lady’s man”—andEliabe only regarded as “a gentleman that loves a joke!”

“Art improves nature,” is an old proverb which our forefathers adopted without reflection, and obstinately adhered to as lovers of consistency. The capacity and meshes of their brain were too small to hold many great truths, but they caught a great number of little errors, and this was one. They bequeathed it to “their children and their children’s children,” who inherited it till they threw away the wisdom of their ancestors with their wigs; left off hair powder; and are now leaving off the sitting in hot club rooms, for the sake of sleep, and exercise in the fresh air. There seems to be a general insurrection against the unnatural improvement of nature. We let ourselves and our trees grow out of artificial forms, and no longer sit in artificial arbours, with entrances like that of the cavern at Blackheath hill, or, as we may even still see them, if we pay a last visit to the dying beds of a few old tea-gardens. We know more than those who lived before us, and if we are not happier, we are on the way to be so. Wisdom is happiness: but “he that increaseth knowledge, increaseth sorrow.” Knowledge is not wisdom; it is only the rough material of wisdom. It must be shaped by reflection and judgment, before it can be constructed into an edifice fitting for the mind to dwell in, and take up its rest. This, as our old discoursers used to say, “brings us to our subject.”

“Buy my images!” or, “Pye m’imaitches,” was, and is, a “London cry,” by Italian lads carrying boards on their heads,with plaster figures for sale. “Inmytime,” one of these “images” (it usually occupied a corner of the board) was a“Polly”—

A Parrot.

This representative of the most “popular” of “all the winged inhabitants of air,” might have been taken for the likeness of some species between an owl and the booby-bird; but then the wings and back were coloured with a lively green, and the under part had yellow streaks, and the beak was of a red colour, and any colour did for the eyes, if they were larger than they ought to have been. “Inmytime” too, there was an “image” of a “fine bow pot,” consisting of half a dozen green shapes like halbert tops for “make believe” leaves, spreading like a half opened fan, from a knot “that was not,” inasmuch as it was delicately concealed by a tawny coloured ball called an orange, which pretended to rest on a clumsy clump of yellowed plaster as on the mouth of a jar—the whole looking as unlike a nosegay in water as possible. Then, too, there was a sort of obelisk with irregular projections and curves; the top, being smaller than the bottom, was marked out with paint into a sort of face, and, by the device of divers colours, it was bonnetted, armed, waisted, and petticoated—this was called a “fine lady.” A lengthened mass became by colourable show, “a dog”—like ingenuity might have tortured it into a devil. The feline race were of two shapes and in three sizes; the middle one—like physic in a bottle, “when taken, to be well shaken,” moved its chalk head, to the wonder and delight of all urchins, until they informed themselves of its “springs of action,” at the price of “only a penny,” and, by breaking it, discovered that the nodding knob achieved its un-cat-like motion, by being hung with a piece of wire to the interior of its hollow body. The lesser cat was not soverysmall, considering its price—“a farthing:”—I speak of when battered button tops represented that plentiful “coin of the realm.” Then there was the largest

Cat.

The presentrepresentationfavours the image too much. Neither this engraving, nor that of the “parrot,” is sufficiently like—the artist says he “could not draw it bad enough:” what an abominable deficiency is the want of “an eye”—heigho! Then there were so many things, that were not likenesses of any thing of which they were “images,” and so many years and cares have rolled over my head and heart, that I have not recollection or time enough for their description. They are all gone, or going—“going out” or “gone out” for ever! Personal remembrance is thefrail and only memorial of the existence of some of these “ornaments” of the humble abodes of former times.

The masterpieces on the board of the “image-man,” were “a pair,”—at that time “matchless.” They linger yet, at the extreme corners of a few mantle-pieces, with probably a “sampler” between, and, over that, a couple of feathers from Juno’s bird, gracefully adjusted into a St. Andrew’s cross—their two gorgeous eyes giving out “beautiful colours,” to the beautiful eyes of innocent children. The “images,” spoken of as still in being, are of the colossal height of eighteen inches, more or less: they personate the “human form divine,” and were designed, perhaps, by Hayman, but their moulds are so worn that the casts are unfeatured, and they barely retain their bodily semblance. They are always painted black, save that a scroll on each, which depends from a kind of altar, is left white. One of the inscriptions says,

“Into the heaven of heavens I have presumed, &c.”

and all, except the owners, admire the presumption. The “effigy” looks as if the man had been up the chimney, and, instead of having “drawn empyrean air,” had taken a glass too much of Hodges’s “Imperial,” and wrapped himself in the soot-bag to conceal his indulgence and his person—this is “Milton.” The other, in like sables, points to his inscription, beginning,

“The cloud-capt towers, the gorgeous palaces, &c.”

is an “insubstantial pageant” of “the immortal Shakspeare,”

“cheated of feature by dissembling nature,”

through the operation of time.

“Such were the forms that o’er th’incrusted soulsOf our forefathers scatter’dfond delight.”

Price, and Alison, and Knight, have generalized “taste” for high-life; while those of the larger circle have acquired “taste” from manifold representations and vehicles of instruction, and comprehend the outlines, if they do not take in the details of natural objects. This is manifested by the almost universal disuse of the “images” described. With the inhabitants of every district in the metropolis, agreeable forms are now absolute requisites, and the demand has induced their supply. There are, perhaps, as many casts from the Medicean Venus, Apollo Belvidere, Antinous, the Gladiator, and other beauties of ancient sculpture, within the parish of St. George, in the East, as in the parish of St. George, Hanover-square. They are reposited over the fire-places, or on the tables, of neighbourhoods, wherein the uncouth cat, and the barbarous parrot were, even “inmytime,” desirable “images.” The moulds of the greater number of these deformities, are probably destroyed. It was with difficulty that the “cat” could be obtained for the preceding column, and an “image” of the “parrot” was not procurable from an “image-man.” Invention has been resorted to for the gratification of popular desire: two plaster casts of children, published in the autumn of 1825, have met with unparalleled sale. To record the period of their origin they are represented in the annexedengraving, and, perhaps, they may be so perpetuated when the casts themselves shall have disappeared, in favour of others more elegant.

The “common people” have become uncommon;A few remain, just here and there, the restAre polish’d and refined: child, man, and woman,All, imitate the manners of the best;Picking up, sometimes, good things from their betters,As they have done from them. Then they have books;As ’twas design’d they should, when taught their letters;And nature’s self befriends their very looks:And all this must, and all this ought to be—The only use of eyes, I know of, is—tosee.*

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