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+Project Gutenberg's Curiosities of Impecuniosity, by H. G. Somerville
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Curiosities of Impecuniosity
+
+Author: H. G. Somerville
+
+Release Date: December 30, 2011 [EBook #38439]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CURIOSITIES OF IMPECUNIOSITY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
+generously made available by The Internet Archive.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  CURIOSITIES OF IMPECUNIOSITY.
+
+
+  BY H. G. SOMERVILLE,
+
+  AUTHOR OF
+  "NOT YET," "SELF AND SELF-SACRIFICE," ETC.
+
+
+  LONDON:
+  RICHARD BENTLEY & SON, NEW BURLINGTON STREET, W.
+  Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen.
+  1896.
+
+
+
+
+  LONDON:
+  PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
+  STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+It is customary for the proprietor when starting a newspaper or periodical
+to issue a notice to the public explaining--or purporting to explain--the
+_raison d'être_ of the new venture, which notices, with very trifling
+exceptions, are to the effect that the projected journal "will supply a
+want long felt."
+
+I might, in sending forth the following pages, state something similar
+with perfect truth, since if the little work be as successful as (I say it
+with all modesty) it ought to be, it will unquestionably _supply_ a want
+long felt--by the author.
+
+It is frequently averred nowadays that much that is written bears evidence
+of being of a non-practical character, and under these circumstances, I
+felt I should take a pardonable pride in being able to point to one volume
+in the English language to which this stigma could not be applied; for I
+flatter myself the subject of Impecuniosity is one with which I have
+long--too long--been practically familiar.
+
+H. G. SOMERVILLE.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+  CHAP.                                                  PAGE
+
+     I. THE MORAL AND IMMORAL EFFECTS OF IMPECUNIOSITY      1
+
+    II. IMPECUNIOSITY OF THE GREAT                         13
+
+   III. THE SHIFTS OF IMPECUNIOSITY                        25
+
+    IV. THE LUCK AND ILL LUCK OF IMPECUNIOSITY             48
+
+     V. THE INGENUITY OF IMPECUNIOSITY                     73
+
+    VI. THE IMPECUNIOSITY OF ACTORS                        87
+
+   VII. IMPECUNIOSITY OF ARTISTS                          132
+
+  VIII. IMPECUNIOSITY OF AUTHORS                          158
+
+    IX. THE ROMANCE OF IMPECUNIOSITY                      196
+
+
+
+
+CURIOSITIES OF IMPECUNIOSITY.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE MORAL AND IMMORAL EFFECTS OF IMPECUNIOSITY.
+
+
+"I wish the good old times would come again, when we were not quite so
+rich," says Bridget Elia. "I am sure we were a great deal happier. A
+purchase is but a purchase now that you have money enough. Formerly it
+used to be a triumph. When we coveted a cheap luxury, we were used to have
+a debate two or three days before, and to weigh the for and against, and
+think what we might spare it out of, and what savings we could hit upon
+that would be an equivalent. A thing was worth buying then, when we felt
+the money we paid for it. Do you remember the brown suit which you made to
+hang upon you, it grew so threadbare, and all because of that folio
+Beaumont and Fletcher which you dragged home late at night from Barker's
+in Covent Garden? Do you remember how we eyed it for weeks before we could
+make up our minds to the purchase, and had not come to a determination
+till it was near ten o'clock on the Saturday night, when you set off from
+Islington, fearing you should be too late; and when the old bookseller
+with some grumbling opened his shop, and by the twinkling taper lighted
+out the relic from his dusty treasure-house, and when you lugged it home
+wishing it were twice as cumbersome, and when you presented it to me, and
+when we were exploring the perfection of it, and while I was repairing
+some of the loose leaves with paste, which your impatience would not
+suffer to be left till daybreak, was there no pleasure in being a poor
+man? Do you remember our pleasant walks to Enfield, and Potter's Bar, and
+Waltham, when we had a holiday? Holidays and all other fun are gone now we
+are rich,--and the little hand-basket in which I used to deposit our day's
+fare of savoury cold lamb, and how you would pry about at noontide for
+some decent house where we might go in and produce our store, only paying
+for the ale that you must call for, and speculate upon the looks of the
+landlady. We had cheerful looks for one another, and would eat our plain
+food savourily. You are too proud to see a play anywhere now but in the
+pit. Do you remember where it was we sat when we saw the 'Battle of
+Hexham,' and 'The Surrender of Calais,' and Bannister and Mrs. Bland in
+'The Children of the Wood,' when we squeezed out our shillings apiece to
+sit three or four times in a season in the one shilling gallery? You used
+to say that the gallery was the best place for seeing, and was the best
+place of all for enjoying a play socially, that the company we met there,
+not being in general readers of plays, were obliged to attend the more. I
+appeal to you whether, as a woman, I met generally with less attention and
+accommodation than I have since in more expensive situations in the house.
+You cannot see, you say, in the gallery now. I am sure we saw--and heard
+too--well enough then; but sight and all, I think, is gone with our
+poverty."
+
+But this is not the experience of every one. "Moralists," Sydney Smith
+remarks, "tell you of the evils of wealth and station, and the happiness
+of poverty. I have been very poor the greater part of my life and have
+borne it, I believe, as well as most people; but I can safely say I have
+been happier for every guinea I have earned."
+
+Doctor Johnson, in addition to alleging that "Poverty is a great enemy to
+human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues
+impracticable and others extremely difficult," maintains that "poverty
+takes away so many means of doing good, and produces so much inability to
+resist evil, both natural and moral, that it is by all virtuous means to
+be avoided." Burns is stronger still in his denunciation, exclaiming,
+"Poverty, thou half-sister of death, thou cousin-german of hell, where
+shall I find force of execration equal to the amplitude of thy demerits?"
+But in striking contrast to these, is that remarkable passage in George
+Sand's 'Consuelo,' in which every known blessing and virtue is attributed
+to "the goddess--the good goddess--of poverty."
+
+Samuel Smiles is of opinion that "nothing sharpens a man's wits like
+poverty. Hence many of the greatest men have originally been poor men.
+Poverty often purifies and braces a man's morals. To spirited people
+difficult tasks are usually the most delightful ones. If we may rely upon
+the testimony of history, men are brave, truthful, and magnanimous, not
+in proportion to their wealth, but in proportion to the smallness of their
+means."
+
+With this I agree to a certain extent; but I claim for impecuniosity
+certain charms and characteristics not associated with poverty. To me the
+former conveys the idea of a temporary shortness of funds; the latter of a
+chronic state of want.
+
+I should also have preferred to say, "Nothing sharpens a man's wits like
+impecuniosity," for to many minds poverty, _pur et simple_, has been
+simply crushing.
+
+A volume might be filled with the different opinions that have been
+expressed on this subject, and as there is abundant proof that many who
+have become great in science, literature, and art, have found insufficient
+means a stimulus to exertion, it must be conceded that poverty is a
+splendid thing for those who are equal to fighting against it.
+
+Although impecuniosity has been most extensively experienced by actors,
+authors, and artists, many of the mighty in law, medicine, and the army
+and navy, have furnished instances of its universality, but comparatively
+few cases are to be found connected with commerce. Of course it may be
+urged that the struggles of business men are, with few exceptions,
+unrecorded; but still I think their experience on this subject is rather
+of "the trials of poverty."
+
+The history of George Moore furnishes an interesting instance of the early
+struggles of a literally "commercial" man. When he came to London in 1825,
+he was possessed of a most modest amount of money; and on the day
+following his arrival in London he made application after application for
+employment without success, being sometimes received with laughter on
+account of his country-cut clothes and Cumberland dialect. At the
+establishment of Messrs. Meeking in Holborn, he was asked if he wanted a
+porter's situation. So broken-hearted was he at his many rebuffs, that he
+could not send a letter home, it was so blotted with tears.
+
+At last he was engaged by Mr. Ray, of Soho Square, at a salary of £30 a
+year, and bargained with a man driving a pony-cart to convey the box
+containing all his personal effects. They had not proceeded far when Moore
+missed the man: pony, cart, and trunk had vanished.
+
+The poor fellow sat down on a doorstep almost broken-hearted at his
+misfortune.
+
+After waiting for two hours, not knowing what to do for the best, he
+beheld a pony-cart approaching, and his joy may be imagined when he
+recognised the identical man with his identical trunk.
+
+The carrier, who had called somewhere in a bye-street and so missed Moore,
+did not scruple to laugh at him for his "greenness" in trusting a
+stranger. In gratitude, young Moore proffered the man his whole capital,
+consisting of nine shillings, which the driver declined, saying "he had
+agreed for five, and five was all he wanted," an instance of honesty which
+Mr. Moore, the merchant, never forgot.
+
+Want of money does not always demoralise. Andrew Marvell, the son of a
+Yorkshire minister and schoolmaster, entered Trinity College, Cambridge,
+at the early age of thirteen. Decoyed from home by the Jesuits, he was
+discovered by his father in a bookseller's in London, and induced to
+return to college, where he took his B.A. degree in 1628. He then appears
+to have travelled considerably in France and Italy, while from 1663 to
+1665 he was secretary to the Embassy to Muscovy, Sweden, and Denmark. In
+1660 he was chosen to represent his native town, Kingston-on-Hull, in
+Parliament. Here he made himself so obnoxious to the governing party, that
+his life was threatened, and he was forced to go into hiding. His
+conspicuous ability and marvellous wit were acknowledged by all, and
+appreciated by Charles II., who took pleasure in his company, and on one
+occasion instructed his Lord Treasurer to ferret him out, and ascertain in
+what way he could help him. At this time Marvell was living in a court off
+the Strand, up two pair of stairs, and there Lord Danby, abruptly opening
+the door, discovered him writing. He suggested that the Treasurer had
+mistaken his way; but his lordship replied, "Not now I have found Mr.
+Marvell;" adding that "His Majesty wished to know what he could do to
+serve him." Marvell replied that "it was not in His Majesty's power to
+serve him;" adding that "he knew full well the nature of Courts, having
+been in many; and that whosoever is distinguished by the favour of the
+prince, is expected to vote in his interest." Lord Danby told him that
+"His Majesty, from the just sense he had of his merit alone, desired to
+know whether there was any place at Court he could be pleased with." The
+answer to this was that "he could not with honour accept the offer, since
+if he did he must either be ungrateful to the king in voting against him,
+or false to his country in giving in to the measures of the Court. The
+only favour therefore which he begged of His Majesty was, that he would
+esteem him as faithful a subject as any he had, and more truly in his
+interest by refusing his offers, than he could have been by embracing
+them." After this Lord Danby said that "the king had ordered Mr. Marvell
+£1000, which he hoped he would receive till he could think of something
+farther to ask His Majesty;" whereupon Marvell called to his
+serving-boy,--
+
+"Jack, what had I for dinner yesterday?"
+
+"The little shoulder of mutton."
+
+"Right! What shall I have to-day?"
+
+"The blade bone boiled."
+
+"Right! You see, my lord, my dinner is provided, and I do not want the
+piece of paper."
+
+The Lord Treasurer departed, finding his mission vain; and, shortly
+afterwards, Marvell sent his boy out to borrow a guinea from a friend. The
+incorruptible integrity he had displayed was by no means due to affluence.
+
+Another historical case where poverty and patriotism have been blended is
+that of Admiral Rodney. At the general election in 1768 he was returned
+for Northampton, after a violent contest, the expense of which, combined
+with a fatal passion for gaming, compelled him to fly from the
+importunities of his creditors.
+
+While residing in Paris he is said to have been occasionally in want of
+the veriest trifle for necessaries, which fact becoming known, the French
+Government, through the Duc de Biron, offered him high rank in their navy.
+His reply was worthy of a sailor and a gentleman. "Monsieur le Duc," said
+he, "my distresses have driven me from my country, but no temptation can
+estrange me from her service; had this offer been voluntary on your part,
+I should have considered it an insult; but it proceeds from a source that
+can do no wrong."
+
+The foregoing illustrations of the inability of impecuniosity to drag
+certain characters from off their high pedestal of honour, are
+unfortunately counterbalanced by the considerably too numerous instances
+of those who have not been proof against its degrading effects. The
+characteristics of such as have succumbed are naturally the antitheses of
+those just referred to; instead of strong, healthy, moral minds, their
+natures are found to be more or less weak, selfish, and in every case
+wanting, to some extent, in self-respect. The last-named attribute
+undoubtedly supplying the chief cause of defection.
+
+In this category may be placed Desiderius Erasmus, one of the most
+remarkable scholars of the 15th and 16th centuries, if not, as is
+considered by some, one of the most illustrious men that ever lived. The
+benefits that he conferred on the world at large by his profound and
+extensive erudition are so priceless that it seems a shame to pillory one
+so revered; but "necessity has no law," and as he was chronically
+necessitous his weakness on one occasion must be laid bare.
+
+Independently of his failing to rise superior to the want of money, which
+will be referred to directly, it will be seen that his character lacked
+nobility, by his own confession. He was at the time of Luther pre-eminent
+in the world of letters, his fame as a student of the deepest research was
+world-wide, acknowledged not only by the sovereigns and popes of Europe,
+but by our own monarch, Henry VIII., and by all the men of learning of
+that age. Thus his power and influence were immense, and it is deeply to
+be regretted that his cowardice should have prevented him from espousing
+the doctrines of Luther, since there is no doubt he believed in them.
+
+  "Many loved truth and lavished life's best oil
+  Amid the dust of books to find her,
+  Content at last for guerdon of their toil
+  With the cast mantle she had left behind her.
+  Many in sad faith sought for her,
+  Many with crossed hands sighed for her,
+  But these our brothers fought for her,
+  At life's dear peril wrought for her,
+  So loved her that they died for her."
+
+Erasmus was not one of those who died for the love of truth, but rather
+one who "with crossed hands, sighed for her," since in one of his letters
+he says,--
+
+"Wherein could I have assisted Luther if I had declared myself for him,
+and shared the danger along with him? Only thus far, that, instead of one
+man, two would have perished. I cannot conceive what he means by writing
+with such a spirit (so fearlessly); one thing I know too well, that he
+hath brought a great odium upon the lovers of literature. It is true that
+he hath given us many wholesome doctrines and many good counsels, and I
+wish he had not defeated the effect of them by his intolerable faults. But
+if he had written everything in the most unexceptionable manner I had no
+inclination to die for the sake of truth. Every man has not the courage
+requisite to make a martyr; and I am afraid, that if I were put to the
+trial, I should imitate St. Peter."
+
+Deliciously truthful this, is it not? The practical way in which he
+reveals his creed, "self-preservation is the first law of nature," is
+particularly interesting, more especially as it is so thoroughly in
+keeping with the sentiments displayed on the occasion when from want of
+money he penned the following letter to his friend James Battus,
+beseeching him to dun the Marchioness of Vere, in the following terms:
+
+"You must go to her and excuse my shyness on the ground that I cannot
+tolerate explaining my difficulties in person. Tell her the need I am in.
+That Italy is the place to get a degree; explain to her how much more
+honour I am likely to do her than those theologians she keeps about her.
+They give forth mere commonplaces. I write what will last for ever. Tell
+her that fellows like them are to be met with everywhere--the like of me
+only appears in the course of many ages--_i.e._ if you don't mind drawing
+the long-bow in the cause of friendship. What a discredit it would be to
+her should St. Jerome"--whose works he was preparing--"appear with
+discredit for the want of a few gold pieces."
+
+That the opinions expressed were perfectly truthful there is no
+gainsaying; but the taste, or rather, want of it, that dictated such an
+epistle is pitiable, and materially mars the character of one who as far
+as learning is concerned was indisputably great.
+
+If culture could avail against the deteriorating effects of impecuniosity
+the career of Orator Henley would have been a different one. The son of a
+Leicestershire vicar, and educated at St. John's, Cambridge, he attained
+considerable eminence as a linguist, and while keeping a school in his
+native place compiled his 'Universal Grammar,' which was written in ten
+languages. He afterwards came to be regarded as a sort of ecclesiastical
+outlaw, having a room in Newport Market, Leicester Square, where he
+started as a quack divine and public lecturer, Sundays being devoted to
+divinity, Wednesdays and Thursdays to secular orations, the charge for
+admission one shilling. He afterwards migrated to Clare Market, and became
+a favourite among the butchers; but though gifted with much oratorical
+power, he obtained but a precarious subsistence. When at his pecuniary
+worst he seems to have been at his inventive best, and in proportion to
+the lowness of his funds his audacity rose. On one occasion when
+particularly pressed he advertised a meeting for shoemakers to witness a
+new invention for making shoes, undertaking to make a pair in presence of
+the audience in an incredibly short space. When the evening arrived, and
+the room was filled with the followers of Crispin, Mr. Henley simply cut
+the tops off a pair of old boots, and thereby illustrating the motto to
+his advertisement, "Omne majus continent in se minus" ("The greater
+includes the less").[1]
+
+    [1] The elder D'Israeli in summing up the character of this
+    extraordinary man, who left behind him more than 6000 MSS., says, "A
+    scholar of great acquirements and of no mean genius; hardy and
+    inventive, eloquent and witty; he might have been an ornament to
+    literature, which he made ridiculous; and the pride of the pulpit
+    which he so egregiously disgraced; but having blunted and worn out
+    that interior feeling which is the instinct of the good man, and the
+    wisdom of the wise, there was no balance in his passions, and the
+    decorum of life was sacrificed to its selfishness. He condescended to
+    live on the follies of the people, and his sordid nature had changed
+    him till he crept, 'licking the dust with the serpent.'"
+
+Dr. Howard, the Rector of St. George's, Southwark, and Chaplain to the
+Dowager Princess of Wales, towards the close of the last century, was
+invariably short of money, a fact pretty well known to his tradesmen. On
+one occasion he ordered a canonical wig from a peruke-maker's in Leicester
+Fields, and the porter had instructions not to leave it till the bill was
+paid.
+
+Arrived at the rectory, the man asked for the doctor.
+
+"I've brought your wig home, sir."
+
+"Oh, ah," replied the doctor; "quite right--you can leave it. Just put it
+down there."
+
+"No, I can't leave it, sir--that is, without the money."
+
+"Oh, very well, then. I'll try it on."
+
+The man handed him the wig, and as soon as the doctor put it on, he said
+to the messenger,--
+
+"This article has been bought and delivered; if you dare to touch it, I
+will prosecute you for robbery."
+
+Dr. Howard once preached from the text, "Have patience with me, and I will
+pay thee all"--a passage gratifying to the feelings of an audience
+including many of his creditors. He dwelt at considerable length on the
+blessings and duty of patience, till it was time to close, and then said,
+"Now, brethren, I am come to the second part of my discourse, which is,
+'And I will pay ye all,' _but that I shall defer to a future
+opportunity_."
+
+Colton, the author of 'Lacon,' who became vicar of the poor living of Kew
+and Petersham, must likewise be included in the list of those who have
+succumbed to circumstances. Finding himself unable to pay the price of
+apartments in the neighbourhood of his living, he transported his gun,
+fishing-rod, and few books (one of which was De Foe's 'History of the
+Devil') to Soho, where he rented a couple of rooms in a small house
+overlooking St. Anne's burial-ground. There he wrote his book of
+'Aphorisms,' a broken phial placed in a saucer serving him as an inkstand.
+His copy was written on scraps of paper and blank sides of letters, and he
+dined at an eating-house, or cooked a chop for himself. At one time he
+opened a wine-cellar in another person's name under a Methodist chapel in
+Dean Street, Soho, a position for a spiritual adviser which would scarcely
+be tolerated even in these days of considerable religious liberty.
+
+Many amusing stories are told of Joe Haines, a comedian of the time of
+Charles II., sometimes called "Count" Haines. It is said that he was
+arrested one morning by two bailiffs for a debt of £20, when he saw a
+bishop, to whom he was related, passing along in his coach. With ready
+resource he immediately saw a loophole for escape, and, turning to the men
+he said, "Let me speak to his lordship, to whom I am well known, and he
+will pay the debt and your charges into the bargain."
+
+The bailiffs thought they might venture this, as they were within two or
+three yards of the coach, and acceded to his request. Joe boldly advanced
+and took his hat off to the bishop. His lordship ordered the coach to
+stop, when Joe whispered to the divine that the two men were suffering
+from such scruples of conscience that he feared they would hang
+themselves, suggesting that his lordship should invite them to his house,
+and promise to satisfy them. The bishop agreed, and calling to the
+bailiffs, he said, "You two men come to me to-morrow morning, and I will
+satisfy you."
+
+The men bowed and went away pleased, and early the next day waited on his
+lordship, who, when they were ushered in, said, "Well, my men, what are
+these scruples of conscience?"
+
+"Scruples?" replied one of them, "we have no scruples! We are bailiffs, my
+lord, who yesterday arrested your cousin, Joe Haines, for a debt of £20,
+and your lordship kindly promised to satisfy us."
+
+The trick was strange, but the result was stranger, for his lordship,
+either appreciating its cleverness, or considering himself bound by the
+promise he had unintentionally given, there and then settled with the men
+in full.
+
+John Rich, manager of the Lincoln's Inn Fields and Covent Garden Theatres,
+1681-1761, was another dramatic delinquent. It was owing to his marvellous
+ability as harlequin that pantomime achieved its popularity. His
+gesticulation is said to have been so perfectly expressive of his meaning
+that every motion of his hand or head was a kind of dumb eloquence,
+readily understood by the audience. One evening, when returning from the
+theatre in a cab, having ordered the coachman to drive to the "Sun," a
+tavern in Clare Market, he threw himself out of the coach window and
+through the open window of the tavern parlour, just as the driver was
+about to draw up. The man then descended from the box, touched his hat,
+and stood waiting for his passenger to alight. Finding at length there was
+no one visible he besought a few blessings on the scoundrel who had
+imposed upon him, remounted his box, and was about to drive off, when
+Rich, who had been watching, vaulted back into the vehicle, and, putting
+his head out, asked, "where the devil he was driving to?" Almost paralyzed
+with fear the driver got down again, but could not be persuaded to take
+his fare, though he was offered a shilling for himself, exclaiming, "No
+no, that won't do. I know you too well for all your shoes; and so Mr.
+Devil, for once you're outwitted." In addition to his successful
+pantomimes, his production of the 'Beggar's Opera' was a wonderful hit;
+but he seems never to have been well off, and was at one time in such
+difficulties that he hit upon the clever expedient of taking a house
+situated in three different counties in order to free himself from the
+attentions of sheriffs' officers.
+
+One name must not be omitted from this section of the subject, that of
+Richard Brinsley Sheridan. His adroitness in profiting by his very
+practical jokes commenced soon after his leaving Harrow, when spending a
+few days at Bristol. He wanted a new pair of boots, but, not having money
+to pay for them, ordered a pair from two bootmakers, to be sent home on
+the morning of his departure, payment being promised on delivery. When the
+first tradesman arrived he complained of the fit of one boot, and when the
+second came he objected to his make of the boot for the other foot. Each
+bootmaker took a boot back to be stretched. When the dupes called next
+day, each displaying a boot, they found that Sheridan had departed in the
+fellow pieces of their property.
+
+Later in life his difficulties became chronic, but his ingenuity was
+generally equal to them. Having arranged to give a banquet to the
+leaders of the Opposition, he found himself on the morning of the event
+without port or sherry, his wine-merchant having positively refused to
+supply any more without payment. In this dilemma he sent for Chalier, and
+told him he wished to settle his account. The wine-merchant, much
+delighted, proposed running home for it, when Sheridan stopped him with
+"What do you say to dining with me to-day? Lord This, and Sir So-and-so
+That" (mentioning several celebrities), "will be here." The offer was
+accepted with enthusiasm, the merchant leaving his office early in order
+to dress for the occasion. As soon as he made his appearance Sheridan
+despatched a messenger to the clerk at the office, to the effect that Mr.
+Chalier desired so many dozen of different kinds of wine sent at once,
+which instructions were promptly executed, the Burgundy, hock, &c., &c.
+arriving just in time for the dinner.
+
+One Friday evening at Drury Lane, just after the half-price money had been
+taken, Sheridan was informed by his treasurer that unless a certain amount
+could be raised there was not sufficient to pay the salaries of even the
+subordinates, and the house would have to close the following Monday.
+After making certain suggestions which were voted useless by his
+business-man, Sherry took a look at the meagrely-filled house, and calling
+a servant, said to him, "You see that stout, goodtempered-looking man in
+such and such a box?" "Yes, sir." "Immediately the act-drop is down go to
+him; have a boy who can bow gracefully precede you with a pair of wax
+candles. Open the box-door, and in a voice loud enough to be heard by
+everyone, say, 'Mr. Sheridan requests the pleasure of a private interview
+with you, sir.' Treat him with the greatest attention, and see that a
+bottle of the best port and a couple of wine-glasses are placed in my
+study." These directions were all carried out, and when the manager was
+alone with his visitor, after expressing the great pleasure he always
+experienced in seeing any one from Staffordshire, he said, "I think you
+told me you came to London twice a year." "Yes," was the reply, "January
+and June, to receive my dividends. I have been to the bank to-day and got
+my £600." "Ah you are in Consols, whilst I, alas, am Reduced and can get
+nothing till April, when you know the interest is paid, and till then I
+shall be in great distress." "Oh," said his constituent, "let not that
+make you uneasy; if you give me the power of attorney to receive the money
+for you, I can let you have £300, which I shall not want till then." "Only
+a real friend," said Sheridan, "could have made such a proposition." The
+£300 duly changed hands, and when April came the power of attorney was
+handed to Sheridan to sign, "I never spoke of Consols in Reduced," said
+he, "I only spoke of my Consols being reduced. Unhappy is the man who
+cannot understand the weight of prepositions." The Stafford man went to
+Sheridan in a fearful rage, but the latter was as cool as a cucumber. He
+made a clean breast of it, and told all. "But," he said, "my dear sir, I
+am now commanded to go to the Prince Regent, to whom I shall narrate your
+noble conduct. My carriage is waiting, and I can take you to Carlton
+House." The creditor was delighted. He shook Sherry by the hand,
+exclaiming, "I forgive you, never mention the debt again," to which
+Sheridan readily assented, and we may be sure kept his word for once. The
+carriage came, into which both entered, but when it arrived at Carlton
+House Sheridan alighted, closed the door, and told the coachman to drive
+the gentleman to his hotel. The Stafford man expostulated that he
+understood he was going into Carlton House, when Sheridan calmly told him,
+"That's another mistake of yours," and of course, though his statement
+inferred as much, he only said he would take his constituent _to_ Carlton
+House. It goes without saying that at the next election the Staffordshire
+elector voted on the other side.
+
+There is no doubt that at last Sheridan was so desperately involved that
+his life became, "not to put too fine a point on it," that of a schemer.
+He lived in an atmosphere of duns, but such a thorough master was he of
+the subject that it was the tradesmen who eventually were "done" by him.
+It was customary for them to assemble early in the morning to catch him
+before he went out, and when informed "Mr. Sheridan is not down yet, sir,"
+they were shown into the rooms on each side of the entrance-hall. When he
+had finished his breakfast he would say, "Are those doors all shut, John?"
+and on being informed that they were, would deliberately walk out as
+pleased as though he had obtained a great moral victory.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+IMPECUNIOSITY OF THE GREAT.
+
+
+It must be admitted that impecuniosity is impartial, the peer and the
+peasant being equally open to its visits, and the Sovereign, under certain
+conditions, as liable to its influence as the subject. Edward the Third
+was compelled to pawn his jewels, and his imperial crown three times, once
+abroad, and twice to Sir John Wosenham, his banker, in whose custody the
+crown remained eight years. Henry the Fifth was also under the necessity
+of pawning his crown and the silver table and stools which he had from
+Spain. The Black Prince made the same use of his plate, and Queen
+Elizabeth was obliged to part with some of her jewels.
+
+More than two centuries ago when Clerkenwell was a sort of Court quarter
+of London, and could boast amongst other distinguished residents the Duke
+and Duchess of Newcastle, this couple, both of whom are remembered by
+their literary eccentricities, had more than once to patronise the
+pawnbroker. The duke, who was a devoted Royalist, after his defeat at
+Marston Moor, retired with his wife to the Continent, and with many
+privations owing to pecuniary embarrassments suffered an exile of eighteen
+years, chiefly in Antwerp, in a house which belonged to the widow of
+Rubens.
+
+Many of our most illustrious families have been indebted to the exertions
+or the genius of some humble ancestor. The case of Charles Abbot,
+afterwards Lord Tenterden, is a typical one. He was the son of a
+Canterbury barber, and at the age of seven was admitted on the foundation
+of the King's School in that town, where he soon attracted attention by
+his industry and intelligence. At an early age he much wished to become a
+chorister, and was so disappointed when he failed that in after years,
+when visiting the Cathedral with Mr. Justice Richards, who commended the
+voice of a singer in the choir, his lordship exclaimed, "Ah, that is the
+only man I ever envied. When at school in this town, we were candidates
+for a chorister's place and he obtained it." When seventeen, there was no
+prospect for the clever youth but the drudgery of trade, and on this
+becoming known in the school there was a general wish expressed that his
+perseverance and ability should be rewarded. To private generosity he was
+indebted for his outfit, the trustees conferring a small exhibition upon
+him, and adding a pittance which enabled him to live, with rigid economy,
+until he took his B.A. degree. When asked by Mr. Lamont, the father of the
+lady to whom he was engaged, what means he had to maintain a wife, he
+replied, "The books in this room and two pupils in the next."
+
+Sir Peter Laurie, when Lord Mayor of London, said at a dinner given to the
+judges: "What a country is this we live in! In other parts of the world
+there is no chance except for men of high birth and aristocratic
+connections, but here genius and industry are sure to be rewarded. You see
+before you the example of myself, the chief magistrate of the metropolis
+of this great empire, with the Chief Justice of England sitting at my
+right hand, both now in the highest offices of the State, and both sprung
+from the very dregs of the people." There are many men who would have been
+anything but pleased at this reference to their humble extraction; but it
+was not distasteful to his lordship.
+
+Macready, in recounting a visit to Canterbury Cathedral, says he was shown
+by the verger the spot where a little shop once stood, and was informed
+that when Lord Tenterden last visited the Cathedral, he said to his son,
+"Charles, you see this little shop. I have brought you here on purpose to
+show it you. In that shop your grandfather used to shave for a penny. That
+is the proudest reflection of my life. While you live never forget that,
+my dear Charles," an injunction which, coming from a Chief Justice of
+England who died worth £120,000, ought to have a salutary effect on
+upstarts.
+
+The equally famous Lord Erskine, though a man of gentle birth, was
+nevertheless indebted, to a certain extent, to impecuniosity for the
+greatness he achieved, since that impelled him to the spirited defence of
+Captain Baillie, which attracted the attention of all England. Called to
+the bar on the 3rd July, 1778, Erskine made his first appearance in public
+on the 24th November. Previous to this time he had been unknown. His first
+brief fell to his lot in this way: A certain Captain Baillie, who, for
+gallant services, had been appointed to a post in Greenwich Hospital,
+discovered the gravest abuses there, and brought the state of things to
+the notice of those in power, but being unable to get them remedied,
+determined to publish the facts of the case. His statement implicated Lord
+Sandwich, the First Lord of the Admiralty, who, to serve his political
+purposes, had filled the vacant posts at the Hospital with certain
+landsmen. The Board of Admiralty immediately suspended the captain, and a
+criminal information for libel was lodged against him, the case exciting
+the greatest public interest. During the vacation Erskine had met Captain
+Baillie at the house of a mutual friend, and, utterly unconscious of his
+presence, had, after dinner, so strongly censured the shameful practices
+ascribed to Lord Sandwich that the captain immediately inquired who the
+young fellow was, and on being told that Erskine had formerly been in the
+navy, but had recently been called to the bar, he exclaimed with warmth,
+"Then that's the man I'll have for my counsel!"
+
+In due course this now historic trial came on, when the young barrister's
+marvellous speech created an impression called by Lord Campbell, "the most
+wonderful forensic effort of which we have any account in our annals. It
+was the _début_ of a barrister just called, and wholly unpractised in
+public speaking, before a court crowded with men of the greatest
+distinction, belonging to all parties of the State. He came after four
+eminent counsel, who might have been supposed to have exhausted the
+subject. He was called to order by a venerable judge, whose word had been
+law in that hall above a quarter of a century. His exclamation, 'I will
+_bring_ him' (Lord Sandwich) 'before the Court!' and the crushing
+denunciation of Lord Sandwich, in which he was enabled to persevere, from
+the sympathy of the bystanders, and even of the judges, who, in
+strictness, ought to have checked his irregularity, are as soul-stirring
+as anything in this species of eloquence presented to us by ancient or
+modern times." As Erskine walked along the hall after the rising of the
+judges, attorneys flocked around him with their briefs. When asked how he
+had the courage to stand up so boldly against Lord Mansfield, he replied
+that he fancied he could feel his little children plucking at his robe,
+and that he heard them saying, "_Now, father, is the time to get us
+bread!_"
+
+Lord Eldon's life furnishes abundant proof that he was perfectly familiar
+with adversity. The son of a "fitter" employed in conveying coals in
+barges from the pits to the different ports on the Tyne, John Scott was
+born at Newcastle on the 4th June, 1751, and after being educated at the
+Grammar School in the town would have been apprenticed to his father's
+business but for the remonstrances of his brother William (afterwards Lord
+Stowell), who had obtained an Oxford scholarship, and subsequently a
+fellowship at the University. The success of the one son induced the
+father to send John also to college, where he at first studied for the
+church. While at Oxford he made a runaway match with Miss Bessy Surtees,
+the daughter of a Newcastle banker. The young couple went to the Queen's
+Head, at Morpeth, but on the third morning of their married life their
+funds were exhausted, and they had no home to go to. Mrs. Scott was
+naturally very much upset at the predicament in which they were placed,
+but while lamenting it she suddenly caught sight of a fine wolf-dog
+belonging to the family, called Loup, whose presence at Morpeth was to her
+the joyous sign that help was at hand. In a few moments Mr. Henry Scott,
+her husband's brother, entered the room. John Scott had written a
+repentant letter from Morpeth to his father, which had the desired effect,
+and the younger brother had been sent to announce pardon to the offending
+couple, and to invite them to take up their abode under the parental roof.
+The year of grace allowed for retaining a fellowship after marriage having
+elapsed, Mr. Scott abandoned the thought of taking holy orders and studied
+law. He was called to the bar in 1776, when he says, "Bessy and I thought
+all our troubles were over, and we were to be rich almost immediately."
+This golden dream was however speedily dissipated, for during the first
+year the total amount of his professional income was ten shillings and
+sixpence. But when Lord Chancellor, and living in a magnificent mansion in
+the vicinity of Hyde Park, he often referred to this period of poverty as
+the happiest time of his life, for then, he maintained, his wife, to whom
+he was always passionately attached, was able to show him attentions never
+so freely bestowed when Society asserted its claims on them. Like Lord
+Tenterden he gloried in the obstacles he had overcome, and used to point
+to a small house in Cursitor Street, saying "There was my first perch;
+many a time have I run down to Fleet Market to buy sixpennyworth of sprats
+for supper."
+
+Edward Lord Thurlow, who rose to the woolsack in 1778, was not always
+affluent. After being called to the bar in 1758 he seldom had the means of
+going on circuit, and it is asserted that on one occasion he reached the
+assizes on a horse that _he had taken out on trial from London_. Lord
+Chief Justice Kenyon is found guilty of having been poor on the evidence
+of Horne Tooke, his constant companion when they were students, who, with
+a friend named Dunning, used to dine with him in vacation-time at a small
+eating-house in Chancery Lane, for 7-1/2_d._ a head. Says Tooke, "Dunning
+and myself were generous for we gave the girl who waited on us a penny a
+piece, but Kenyon rewarded her with a halfpenny, and sometimes with only a
+promise."
+
+Sir Samuel Romilly also says, "At a later period of my life--after a
+success at the bar which my wildest and most sanguine dreams had never
+painted to me--when I was gaining an income of £8000 or £9000 a year--I
+have often reflected how all that prosperity had arisen out of the
+pecuniary difficulties and confined circumstances of my father."
+
+Lord Campbell, before he was Lord Chief Justice and Lord Chancellor of
+England, often knew the inconvenience of want of money. The son of the
+Rev. Dr. Geo. Campbell, second minister of Cupar, Fifeshire, he was
+educated at the local Grammar School and the University of St. Andrew's,
+and though intended originally for the ministry, after spending some years
+at college gave up the idea of the church, and went up to London to try
+some more congenial occupation. His first appointment was as tutor to a
+Mr. Webster, and while engaged in that capacity he penned the following
+letter:
+
+"My dear brother,--I live very economically; I dine at home for a
+shilling, go to the coffee-house once a day, 4_d._, to the theatre once a
+week, 3_s._ 6_d._ My pen will keep me in pocket-money. I this day begin a
+job which I must finish in a fortnight, and for which I am promised two
+guineas, but alas! Willy Thompson paymaster. He owes me divers yellow-boys
+already. I go no farther than write the history of the last war in India
+for him till he pays me all."
+
+After this he obtained the post of reporter and dramatic critic to the
+_Morning Chronicle_, but in 1800 he determined to try the law, and entered
+himself a student of Lincoln's Inn. At this time, however, there was a
+strong feeling against one of their set having anything to do with
+journalism, so that his position was uncomfortable and mortifying, and his
+reporting prevented him from forming any acquaintance with his
+fellow-students. He entered a special pleader's office in 1804, and in
+June 1805, was able exultingly to announce that "he was no longer a
+newspaper man." Called to the bar in 1806, he became a bencher in 1827;
+member of Parliament for Stafford in 1830; Solicitor-General in 1832;
+Attorney-General in 1834; Lord Chancellor of Ireland in 1841; Chancellor
+of the Duchy of Lancaster in 1846 (in which year he produced his
+celebrated work 'The Lives of the Chancellors'); Lord Chief Justice in
+1850, and Lord Chancellor in 1859.
+
+Sir Rowland Hill, to whom we are indebted for the penny postage system,
+was the son of a Birmingham schoolmaster, a man of simple, but high
+character. An outbuilding attached to their house contained benches,
+blacksmith's forge, and a vice. Here Rowland and his brother spent much
+spare time and cash, which latter he remarks was very scanty. "Ever since
+I can remember," he writes, "I have had a taste for mechanics, but the
+best mechanician wants materials and materials cost money," and this want
+caused his brother and himself on Good Friday morning to turn tradesmen.
+They had been sent with a basket to buy a quantity of hot cross buns for
+the family and as they went along were much amused by the itinerant
+vendors, who were calling out, as was the custom in Birmingham then,
+
+  "Hot cross buns! Hot cross buns! One a penny, two a penny, hot cross
+      buns,
+  Sugar 'em, and butter 'em, and clap 'em in your muns, one a penny,
+      two a penny, hot cross buns."
+
+On their way home the boys in the pure spirit of fun began to repeat the
+cry, Matthew, the elder, being a capable mimic; and to their surprise they
+found the public respond to their offers, the result being that the
+youngsters soon "sold out," and had to return for more to the wholesale
+establishment, the difference in this case between buying and selling
+being, as is usual, very well worth the trouble. When the family lived at
+Hill Top, his mother presented Rowland with a portion of the garden for
+his own use, covered with horehound, which he was about to root out to
+make way for his flowers, when he was given to understand that the
+horehound possessed a monetary value. Immediately on discovering this, he
+cut it up carefully, tied it in bundles, and borrowing a basket from his
+mother started off to the market-place, where he took up his position with
+all the air of a regular trader, but was saved the bother of retail
+dealing by disposing of his entire stock for eightpence to a woman
+standing near, who he presumed made a hundred per cent. by the
+transaction, though with true business tact she complained of her
+purchase, and told him to tell his mother, "she must tie up bigger bunches
+next time." The proceeds of the sale went to purchase some tools and
+materials for the mechanical contrivances spoken of.
+
+The early years of Benjamin Franklin (one of a family of seventeen) were
+uncongenially spent with his father, a soap-boiler and tallow-chandler,
+and his brother, a printer. When seventeen years old he sold his books and
+took a passage from Boston to New York, whence he was advised to proceed
+to Philadelphia in search of work. On arriving there he tells us that he
+was "fatigued with walking, rowing, and the want of sleep, and very
+hungry: my whole stock of cash consisted in a single dollar, and about a
+shilling in copper coin, which I gave to the boatmen for my passage. At
+first they refused it, on account of my having rowed: but I insisted on
+their taking it. Man is sometimes more generous when he has little money
+than when he has plenty, perhaps to prevent his being thought to have but
+little. I walked towards the top of the street, gazing about till near
+Market Street, where I met a boy with bread. I had often made a meal of
+dry bread, and inquiring where he had bought it, I went immediately to the
+baker's he directed me to. I asked for biscuits, meaning such as we had in
+Boston. That sort it seems was not made in Philadelphia. I then asked for
+a threepenny loaf, and was told they had none. Not knowing the different
+prices, nor the names of the different sorts of bread, I told him to give
+me three pennyworth of any sort. He gave me accordingly, three great puffy
+rolls. I was surprised at the quantity, but took it; and having no room in
+my pockets, walked off with a roll under each arm, and eating the other.
+Thus I went up Market Street, as far as Fourth Street, passing by the door
+of Mr. Read, my future wife's father, when she, standing at the door, saw
+me, and thought I made, as I certainly did, a most awkward, ridiculous
+appearance. Then I turned and went down Chestnut Street, and part of
+Walnut Street, eating my roll all the way, and coming round, found myself
+again at Market Street Wharf, near the boat I came in, to which I went for
+a draught of the river water; gave my other rolls to a woman and her child
+that came down the river in the boat with us, and were waiting to go
+farther. Thus refreshed, I walked again up the street, which by this time
+had many clean-dressed people in it, who were all walking the same way. I
+joined them, and thereby was led into the great Meeting House of the
+Quakers, near the market. I sat down among them, and after looking round
+awhile and hearing nothing said, being very drowsy through labour and want
+of rest the preceding night, I fell fast asleep, and continued so till the
+meeting broke up, when some one was kind enough to rouse me. This,
+therefore, was the first house I was in, or slept in, in Philadelphia."
+
+A strange beginning to the career of one who, in addition to his valuable
+discoveries in electricity, lived to attain the highest honours his
+country could bestow, and to be the ambassador to foreign countries; whose
+marvellous intelligence carried out diplomatic undertakings which
+undoubtedly affected the destinies of nations. It is interesting to note,
+now that electricity plays such a leading part in the inventions of the
+day, that when Franklin made his discovery of the identity of lightning
+and electricity, it was sneered at, and people asked, "Of what use is it?"
+To which he replied, "What is the use of a child? It may become a man."
+
+William Cobbett is another example of the wonderful results to be attained
+by temperance, frugality, and unflagging industry, who, originally an
+uninteresting yokel, rose to be a power in the land, to edit political
+papers, to write political pamphlets (one of which had a circulation of
+100,000), and to pen, amongst other most important matter, a volume of
+'Advice to Young Men,' which, if followed by the rising generation, could
+not fail to make them more worthy the name of Englishmen. At the time
+referred to, when he was eleven years old, he was employed in the Bishop
+of Winchester's garden at Farnham Castle, and happening to hear of the
+royal gardens at Kew, he thought that he should like to be employed there,
+started off next morning with only the clothes he was wearing, and
+sixpence halfpenny in his pocket, he arrived at Richmond towards evening,
+having expended threepence halfpenny on bread and cheese and small beer
+and as he jogged along tired and weary with his walk of thirty miles he
+was attracted to a bookseller's window, in which was displayed a
+second-hand copy of Swift's 'Tale of a Tub,' price 3_d._ He expended his
+remaining coppers on its purchase, sat down in an adjoining field, read
+till he could see no longer, then putting the book into his pocket he
+dropped off to sleep by the side of a haystack. In the morning, roused by
+the birds, he continued his journey to Kew Gardens, where he succeeded in
+getting engaged by an old Scotch gardener. A year, or two after this, when
+he was working again in his native town of Farnham, the old idea of
+getting into a larger field of action came back to him, and while waiting
+one day for some young women whom he had arranged to escort to Guildford
+fair, he was tempted by the sight of the London coach, secured the one
+vacant place, and before he had time to realise the importance of the
+step, was being whirled away in the direction of the metropolis. When he
+arrived the next morning at the Saracen's Head on Ludgate Hill, his
+possessions amounted to two shillings and sixpence, but fortunately he had
+managed to interest a hop merchant, one of his fellow-passengers, who took
+him home, and in the course of a day or two managed to obtain a situation
+for him in a lawyer's office. Here he soon discovered that he had made a
+"miserable exchange," for his want of skill as a penman made his duties
+exceptionally irksome, and his close, confined lodging was very wretched
+to one coming fresh from fields musical with the sweet songsters of the
+spring.
+
+Eight months later, he enlisted in the 54th regiment of foot, and was
+ordered to Nova Scotia in twelve months. Here in five years, by temperance
+and industry, he managed (doing clerical work for the quarter-master and
+pay-sergeant) to save £150, and it was while serving with this regiment
+that he acquired a knowledge of Lindley Murray. "I learned grammar," he
+says, "when I was a private soldier on the pay of sixpence a day. The edge
+of my berth was my seat to study in; my knapsack was my book-case; a bit
+of board lying on my lap was my writing-table, and the task did not demand
+anything like a year of my life. I had no money to purchase candle or oil;
+in winter time I could rarely get any evening light but that of the fire,
+and only my turn even of that. And if I, under such circumstances, and
+without parent or friend to advise or encourage me, accomplished this
+undertaking, what excuse can there be for any youth, however poor, however
+pressed with business, or however circumstanced as to room or other
+conveniences? To buy a pen or a sheet of paper, I was compelled to forego
+some portion of food, though in a state of half-starvation; I had no
+moment of time that I could call my own, and I had to read and to write
+amidst the talking, laughing, singing, whistling, and brawling of at least
+half a score of the most thoughtless of men, and that, too, in the hours
+of their freedom from all control. Think not lightly of the farthing that
+I had to give now and then, for pen, ink, or paper! That farthing was,
+alas! a great sum to me! I was tall as I am now; I had great health and
+great exercise. The whole of the money not expended for us at market was
+twopence a week for each man. I remember, and well I may, that on one
+occasion, I, after all necessary expenses, had on a Friday made shifts to
+have a halfpenny in reserve, which I had destined for the purchase of a
+red herring in the morning; but when I pulled off my clothes at night, so
+hungry then as to be hardly able to endure life, I found that I had lost
+my halfpenny! I buried my head under the miserable sheet and rug, and
+cried like a child!"
+
+Wonderful, however, as were the achievements of Franklin and Cobbett in
+self-education, they were both eclipsed by Elihu Burritt. The son of a
+shoemaker, he was at the age of sixteen apprenticed to the "village
+blacksmith," and from that time applied himself to the study of languages
+with such success, that he mastered French, German, Italian, Latin, Greek,
+Hebrew, Spanish, Bohemian, Polish, Danish, Syriac, Samaritan, Turkish,
+Ethiopic and Persian. To understand how he accomplished this, we take a
+glance at his diary.
+
+"_Monday, June 18_: Headache; forty pages Cuvier's 'Theory of the Earth,'
+sixty-four pages French, eleven hours' forging. _Tuesday_: sixty-five
+lines of Hebrew, thirty pages of French, ten pages Cuvier's 'Theory,'
+eight lines Syriac, ten ditto Danish, ten ditto Bohemian, nine ditto
+Polish, fifteen names of stars, ten hours' forging. _Wednesday_:
+twenty-five lines Hebrew, fifty pages of astronomy, seven hours' forging.
+_Thursday_: fifty-five lines Hebrew, eight ditto Syriac, eleven hours'
+forging. _Friday_: unwell; twelve hours' forging. _Saturday_: unwell;
+fifty pages of Natural History, ten hours' forging. _Sunday_: lessons for
+Bible class."
+
+There were times when, for a short season, he abandoned the anvil, and
+devoted his whole time to study; but after a few months' absence from the
+forge he would return to earn money for his support, and for the purchase
+of books. Hearing one day of an Antiquarian Library at Worcester, U.S., he
+determined to go there to work as a journeyman, for the sake of obtaining
+access to such rare books, and started off to walk. It was a long journey,
+and when he reached Boston Bridge, footsore and weary, he encountered a
+waggon being driven by a boy, who was going to Worcester, forty miles
+distant. All his valuables consisted of a dollar and an old silver watch.
+He availed himself of the chance of a lift, but felt reluctant to part
+with his single dollar, and suggested that the waggoner should take his
+watch, which, if properly repaired, would be worth a great deal more than
+his indebtedness, also suggesting that, in the event of the boy having the
+watch mended, he should give Burritt the difference in money if they met
+again in Worcester.
+
+The young blacksmith obtained work on his arrival, and some short time
+after received a visit from the waggon lad, who honourably brought him a
+few dollars, the estimated difference. Some years afterwards Burritt
+happened to be travelling from Worcester to New Britain by railway, when
+he was accosted by a handsome, well-dressed fellow-traveller.
+
+"You have forgotten me, Mr. Burritt?"
+
+Burritt was obliged to confess that he had.
+
+"Oh," said he, "I'm the boy to whom you gave the watch. I'm now a student
+of Harvard College."
+
+After chatting for a bit, Burritt said,--
+
+"I should like to have that watch back again."
+
+"You shall," said the student. "I sold it, but I know where it is."
+
+In a few days he received the watch, which hung for many years in his
+printing-office as a memento of early vicissitudes.
+
+Michael Faraday, unquestionably one of the greatest English chemists and
+natural philosophers, had few educational advantages before he was
+apprenticed to a bookbinder in Blandford Street, Manchester Square, and
+while working at his trade he constructed an electrical machine and other
+scientific apparatus. These having been seen by his master, Mr. Riebau, he
+called the attention of Mr. Dance to them, and he took the boy with him to
+hear the last four lectures delivered by Sir Humphry Davy at the Royal
+Institution. Faraday took copious notes of the lectures, and afterwards
+wrote them out fairly in a quarto volume, and sent it to Sir Humphry,
+begging him for employment, that he might quit the trade he hated, and
+follow science, which he loved. The answer is a model of kindness and
+courtesy:
+
+    "_December 24th, 1812._
+
+    "SIR,
+
+    "I am far from displeased with the proof you have given me of your
+    confidence, and which displays great zeal, power of memory, and
+    attention. I am obliged to go out of town, and shall not be settled in
+    town till the end of January. I will then see you at any time you
+    wish. It would gratify me to be of any service to you. I wish it may
+    be in my power.
+
+        "I am, sir,
+          "Your obedient, humble servant,
+            "H. DAVY."
+
+Through Sir Humphry's interest, Faraday obtained the post of assistant in
+the laboratory of the Royal Institution, where he remained ever
+afterwards, eventually becoming its first professor. Tyndall says of
+Faraday, "His work excites admiration, but contact with him warms and
+elevates the heart. Here, surely, is a strong man. I love strength, but
+let me not forget its union with modesty, tenderness, and sweetness in
+the character of Faraday.... Taking the duration of his life into account,
+this son of a blacksmith and apprentice to a bookbinder had to decide
+between a fortune of £150,000 on the one side, and his unendowed science
+on the other. He chose the latter, and died a poor man. But his was the
+glory of holding aloft among the nations the scientific name of England
+for a period of forty years." In 1835, when Sir Robert Peel retired from
+office, he recommended Faraday to William IV. for a pension of £300. The
+minute was placed in the hands of Lord Melbourne, Peel's successor, who
+saw Faraday, and involved him in religious and political discussion,
+wanting to entrap the philosopher into a promise to support the
+Government. Failing in this, Lord Melbourne said, "I look upon the whole
+system of giving pensions to literary and scientific people as a piece of
+gross humbug." To which Faraday replied, "After this, my lord, I see that
+my business with you is ended. I wish you good morning." The next day Lord
+Melbourne received the following letter:
+
+    "MY LORD,
+
+    "After the pithy manner in which your Lordship was pleased to express
+    your sentiments on the subject of pensions that have been granted to
+    literary and scientific persons, it only remains for me to relieve
+    you, as far as I am concerned, from all further uneasiness. I will not
+    accept any favour at your hands nor at the hands of any Cabinet of
+    which you are a member.
+
+        "M. FARADAY."
+
+It is said that for some years Faraday's income never exceeded £22 a year,
+and it is a fact that when a youth he was much exercised about the
+purchase of an electrical machine which he had seen in an optician's
+window, price 4_s._ 6_d._ He had no money, but out of his dinner allowance
+he saved the requisite sum, and this machine was the one he used in all
+those early experiments which led to some of his great discoveries.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE SHIFTS OF IMPECUNIOSITY.
+
+
+In 1748 there resided in the wilds of Connaught a lady named Gunning, of
+whom little is known but that before her marriage she was the Hon. Bridget
+Bourke, and that after it she became the mother of two exquisitely
+beautiful daughters, destined to make such a stir in Society, as was
+unknown before, and has been unequalled since. Before they left Dublin
+they were invited to some brilliant festivities at the Castle, which were
+on a scale of magnificence unequalled, it is said, in the memory of the
+oldest courtier. To such an entertainment Mrs. Gunning was anxious to
+introduce her daughters, for their faces were literally their fortunes;
+but the overwhelming difficulty of dress presented itself. They had
+nothing that by any amount of manipulation could be transformed into Court
+costumes, so in her difficulty Mrs. Gunning obtained an introduction to
+Tom Sheridan, who was then managing the Dublin Theatre. He was struck by
+the beauty and grace of the girls, placed the wardrobe of the theatre at
+their disposal; and by lending them the dresses of Lady Macbeth and
+Juliet, in which they appeared most lovely, enabled them to obtain the
+_entrée_ to that aristocratic circle in which they afterwards shone so
+brilliantly. In addition to providing the necessary garments for the great
+event Tom Sheridan is credited with superintending the finishing touches
+of their toilets, for which it is said he claimed a kiss from each as his
+reward. These beautiful creatures were at one time in even greater straits
+for funds.
+
+Miss Bellamy, the actress, asserts that she once found Mrs. Gunning and
+her children in the greatest distress, with bailiffs in the house and the
+family threatened with immediate eviction. With the assistance of her
+man-servant, who stood under the windows of the house at night, after the
+bailiffs were admitted, everything that could be carried away, was
+removed. But for this and other help the Gunnings were not grateful.
+Indeed, in the case of the Countess of Coventry who had borrowed money
+from Miss Bellamy, presumably for her wedding _trousseau_, the monetary
+obligation was repaid by unpardonable insult. One night when this actress
+was playing Juliet, and had just arrived at the most impressive part of
+the tragedy, the countess, who occupied the stage-box, uttered a loud
+laugh. Miss Bellamy was so overcome by the interruption that she was
+obliged to leave the stage, and when Lady Coventry was remonstrated with,
+she replied that "since she had seen Mrs. Cibber act Juliet she could not
+_endure_ Miss Bellamy." When they came to London in the autumn of 1751 the
+fashionable world went mad after "the beautiful Miss Gunnings," who were
+positively mobbed in the Park and elsewhere, and were compelled on one
+occasion to obtain the protection of a file of the Guards. When they
+travelled in the country the roads were lined with people anxious to catch
+a glimpse of their lovely faces; and hundreds of people were known to
+remain all night outside an inn at which they were staying, in order to
+behold them in the morning.
+
+Not many months after their _début_ in London, the Duke of Hamilton, owner
+of three dukedoms in Scotland, England, and France, and regarded as the
+haughtiest man in the kingdom, became deeply enamoured of the younger
+sister, and was married to her at Mayfair Chapel one night at half-past
+twelve o'clock, the suddenness of the ceremony compelling the divine who
+performed the service to make use of a ring from a bed-curtain.
+
+The elder sister, became Countess of Coventry in the following March, and
+was then acknowledged as leader of fashion in the metropolis, although
+from the seclusion in which the early part of her life had been spent in
+Ireland, she was little fitted, so far as accomplishments were concerned,
+to hold that post. Her reign was brief as it was brilliant. In 1759 her
+health completely broke down, and she died in October 1760, of
+consumption, the result of artificial aids to beauty, which in her case
+were utterly unnecessary.
+
+Curran, the advocate and wit, experienced vicissitudes almost as
+startling. He was born at Newmarket, County Cork, in 1750, and describes
+himself as "a little ragged apprentice to every kind of idleness and
+mischief, all day studying whatever was eccentric in those older, and
+half the night practising it for the amusement of those who were younger
+than myself. One morning I was playing at marbles in the village ball
+alley, with a light heart and a lighter pocket. The gibe, and the jest,
+and the plunder, went gaily round. Those who won laughed, and those who
+lost cheated, when suddenly there appeared amongst us a stranger of a very
+venerable and cheerful aspect. His intrusion was not the least restraint
+upon our merry little assemblage; he was a benevolent creature, and the
+days of infancy (after all, the happiest we shall ever see) perhaps rose
+upon his memory. God bless him! I see his fine form, at the distance of
+half a century, just as he stood before me in the little ball alley in the
+days of my childhood. His name was Boyse; he was the rector of Newmarket.
+To me he took a particular fancy.... Some sweetmeats easily bribed me home
+with him. I learned from poor Boyse my alphabet, and my grammar, and the
+rudiments of the classics: he taught me all he could, and then he sent me
+to the school at Middleton--in short, _he made a man of me_. I recollect
+it was about five-and-thirty years afterwards when I had risen to some
+eminence at the bar, and when I had a seat in Parliament, and a good house
+in Ely Place, on my return one day from Court, I found an old gentleman
+seated alone in the drawing-room, his feet familiarly placed on each side
+of the Italian marble chimney-piece, and his whole air bespeaking the
+consciousness of one quite at home. He turned round--it was _my friend of
+the ball alley_. I rushed instinctively into his arms. I could not help
+bursting into tears. Words cannot describe the scene that followed. 'You
+are right, sir--you are right; the chimney-piece is yours, the pictures
+are yours, the house is yours; you gave me all I have--my friend--my
+father!'"[2]
+
+    [2] Many struggles had to be endured, however, before this pinnacle of
+    prosperity was attained.
+
+After leaving school at Middleton, Curran passed to Trinity College,
+Dublin, which he entered as a sizar when nineteen years of age. He does
+not appear to have distinguished himself at the University, from whence he
+proceeded to London, and contrived, _quodcunque modo_, to enter his name
+on the books of the Middle Temple. At that time, he says, he read "ten
+hours every day; seven at law, and three at history and the general
+principles of politics, and that I may have time enough"--it is believed
+he wrote for the magazines, etc., as a means of support--"I rise at
+half-past four. I have contrived a machine after the manner of an
+hour-glass, which wakens me regularly at that hour. Exactly over my head I
+have suspended two vessels of tin, one above the other. When I go to bed,
+which is always at ten, I pour a bottle of water into the upper vessel, in
+the bottom of which is a hole of such a size as to let the water pass
+through so as to make the inferior reservoir overflow in six hours and a
+half;" so that if he wished to remain in bed after daylight, he could only
+do so by consenting to a cold shower-bath.
+
+He was called to the bar in 1775, and for some time had a tremendously
+uphill fight, wearing, according to his own account, his teeth to the
+stumps at the Cork Sessions without any adequate recompense. He then
+removed to Dublin, and for a time fared no better. "I then lived" said he,
+"upon Hog Hill: my wife and children were the chief furniture of my
+apartments, and as to my rent it stood pretty much the same chance of
+liquidation with the National Debt. Mrs. Curran, however, was a
+barrister's lady, and what she wanted in wealth she was determined should
+be supplied by dignity. The landlady, on the other hand, had no idea of
+any gradation except that of pounds, shillings, and pence. I walked out
+one morning to avoid the perpetual altercations on the subject, in no very
+enviable mood. I fell into the gloom, to which from my infancy I had been
+occasionally subject. I had a family for whom I had no dinner, and a
+landlady for whom I had no rent. I had gone abroad in despondence, I
+returned home almost in desperation. When I opened the door of my study,
+where _Lavater_ alone could have found a library, the first object which
+presented itself was an immense folio of a brief, twenty gold guineas
+wrapped up beside it, and the name of _Old Bob Lyons_ marked upon the back
+of it. I paid my landlady, bought a good dinner, gave Bob Lyons a share of
+it, and that dinner was the date of my prosperity." From this time he
+rapidly rose to the top of his profession, and his services were eagerly
+sought for. Wonderfully eloquent, with a highly imaginative and powerfully
+poetic mind, his sway was something marvellous, for, added to these gifts,
+his wit and power of mimicry were unapproachable.
+
+In the case of Valentine Jamerai Duval, who ultimately became Professor of
+Antiquities and Ancient and Modern Geography in the Academy of Luneville,
+youthful hardships occasioned extraordinary expedients. The son of
+labouring people, at the age of fourteen he was ignorant of the alphabet.
+His occupation was that of turkey-keeper, but after an attack of
+small-pox, which nearly killed him, he wandered through certain parts of
+Champagne, then in a condition of famine, in search of employment. When he
+reached the Duchy of Lorraine, he obtained a situation as shepherd, and
+became acquainted with the hermit, Brother Palimon, whom he helped in his
+rural labours. In return for these services the hermit gave him
+instruction, and subsequently he lived as a labourer with the four hermits
+of St. Anne, studying arithmetic and geography in his leisure moments. His
+one object then was to obtain books, impossible without money, which,
+situated as he was, seemed equally unattainable. Finding out, however,
+that a furrier at Luneville purchased skins, he set snares for wild
+animals, and by this means realised enough money to procure the books he
+coveted.
+
+But beyond the self-denial of Curran with his primitive invention for
+early rising, and the contrivance of Duval for obtaining the needful, is
+the interesting career of Bernard Palissy, the Potter, who, in addition to
+his fame as an artist in pottery, was celebrated as a glass painter,
+naturalist, philosopher, and for his devotion to the Protestant cause in
+the sixteenth century. Born in 1510, at Chapelle Biron, a poor hamlet near
+the small town of Perigord, he was brought up as a worker in painted
+glass, in pursuit of which occupation he travelled considerably, devoting
+all the spare time of his wanderings to the study of natural history, in
+which he delighted. Though an ardent student of nature, he yet found
+opportunity to make himself acquainted with the teaching of Paracelsus, of
+the alchemists and of the reformers of the Church. He did not settle down
+till nearly thirty years of age, when he established himself at Saintes as
+a painter on glass, and surveyor, and then turned his attention to the
+making of pottery and the production of white enamel, which latter was
+useless excepting as a covering for ornamental pottery, and at this time
+Palissy was not sufficiently skilled to make a rough pipkin. Under these
+circumstances it is not surprising that his wife took exception to the
+money expended in the purchase of drugs, the buying of pots, and the
+building of a furnace, as the loss of time told heavily on his limited
+resources; and it would be perfectly truthful to say that the first things
+Bernard Palissy produced in the way of pottery were family jars. Mrs.
+Palissy was undoubtedly very wroth at his going on in this way, more
+especially because, as is so frequently the case, his family increased as
+his income decreased, and she succeeded at last in stopping his
+experiments for a time. He then obtained an appointment as Surveyor to the
+Government, in which profession he was remarkably proficient, but before
+very long the old craving for experimenting returned with redoubled
+vigour, and he again set to work in search of white enamel. The expense
+incurred was so great that his wife and children became ragged and hungry:
+nothing daunted, he broke up twelve new earthen pots, hired a glass
+furnace, and for months continued watching, burning, and baking. At last
+his eager eyes were gladdened by the sight of a piece of white enamel
+amidst the bakings. Urged on by this, he felt he must have another
+furnace; he succeeded in obtaining the bricks on credit, became his own
+bricklayer's boy and mason, and built the structure himself. On one
+occasion he spent six days and nights watching his baking clay, sleeping
+only a few minutes at a time near his fire, but disappointment was all the
+result. The vessels were spoilt. In desperation he borrowed more money for
+his experiments, which was consumed in like manner, until at last he was
+without fuel for the furnace. Insensible to everything but the project on
+which he was bent, he tore up the palings from the garden, and when these
+were exhausted he broke up the chairs and tables. His wife and children
+rushed about frantic, thinking that he had lost his senses, and well they
+might when they saw the demolition of the furniture followed by the
+tearing up of the floor. Success ultimately crowned his praiseworthy
+perseverance, but not until he had devoted sixteen years of unremunerated
+labour, enduring unexampled fatigue and discouragements. When at length he
+succeeded in obtaining a pure white enamel he was enabled to produce works
+in which natural objects were represented with remarkable skill, his fame
+spread rapidly, his sculptures in clay and his enamelled pottery being at
+once accepted as works of art of the highest order. His career, however,
+was destined to be remarkable at every stage, for no sooner had he
+acquired renown and riches than he was subjected to religious persecution,
+which would have ended in death had it not been for the Duke de
+Montmorency, one of his patrons, who succeeded in rescuing him from
+prison. When established in Paris, assisted by his sons, he continued to
+produce most remarkable specimens of ornamental pottery, and in addition
+to his artistic labours instituted a series of conferences which were
+attended by the most distinguished doctors and scientific _savants_, where
+he set forth his views on fountains, stones, metals, etc., desirous of
+knowing whether the great philosophers of antiquity interpreted nature as
+he did. Although in the ordinary sense an unlettered man, his theories
+were never once controverted, and for ten years his lectures were
+delivered before the most enlightened of that age, but his teaching once
+more arousing the animosity of his religious opponents, he was thrown into
+the Bastille, where he died after being incarcerated for two years.
+
+After such a "shift" as having to tear up the floor of a dwelling, most
+other instances might be expected to appear more or less tame; but the
+experiences of William Thom, the Inverary poet, are scarcely inferior in
+intensity. This untutored, but extremely sweet songster, whose first poem,
+'Blind Boys' Pranks,' appeared in the _Edinburgh Herald_, was a hand-loom
+weaver, who was deprived of his occupation by the failure of certain
+American firms, and compelled to tramp the country as a pedlar. Before
+resorting to that line of life, and when in the receipt of the sum of five
+shillings weekly, he relates how on a memorable spring morning, he
+anxiously awaited the arrival of this small amount: and though the clock
+had struck eleven, the windows of the room were still curtained, in order
+that the four sleeping children, who were bound to be hungry when awake,
+might be deluded into believing that it was still night, for the only food
+in their parents' possession was one handful of meal saved from the
+previous day. The mother with the tenderest anxiety sat by the babes'
+bedside lulling them off to sleep as soon as they exhibited the least sign
+of wakefulness, and speaking to her husband in whispers as to the cooking
+of the little meal remaining, for the youngest child could no longer be
+kept asleep, and by its whimpering woke the others. Face after face sprang
+up, each little one exclaiming, "Oh, mither, mither, give me a piece;" and
+says the poor fellow, "The word sorrow was too weak to apply to the
+feelings of myself and wife during the remainder of that long and dreary
+forenoon." When compelled to leave the humble dwelling which,
+poverty-stricken though it was, had all the endearing influences of home,
+he made up a pack consisting of second-hand books and some trifling
+articles of merchandise, and sadly started with wife and bairns through
+mountain paths and rugged roads, often sleeping at night in barns and
+outhouses. The precarious nature of a pedlar's life must have been
+terribly trying to one so sensitive, especially when, as in his case, it
+ended in his having to have recourse to the profession of musical beggar.
+Before entering Methven he sold a book to a stone-breaker on the road, the
+proceeds of which (fivepence halfpenny) was all the money he possessed.
+The purchaser when making the bargain had noticed Thom's flute which he
+carried with him, and had offered such a good price for the instrument
+that the poet had been much tempted to part with it, though it had been
+his solace and companion on many and many an occasion. Thinking that
+possibly it might be the means of his earning a few pence, he resisted the
+temptation to part with it, and soon after took up his post outside a
+genteel-looking house, and played 'The Flowers of the Forest' with such
+exquisite expression that window after window was raised, and in ten
+minutes after he found himself possessed of three and ninepence, which sum
+was increased to five shillings before he reached his lodging.
+
+It would hardly be possible to conceive anything more truly touching than
+the shift of William Thom, when he practised the pardonable deception upon
+his hungry children of turning day into night, though for downright
+deprivation the experience of John Ledyard, the traveller, may be said to
+excel it. This celebrated discoverer, who came into Europe from the United
+States in 1776, when making a tour of the world with Captain Cook, as
+corporal of a troop of Marines, arrived in England in 1780. He then formed
+the design of penetrating from the North West to the East Coast of
+America, for which purpose Sir Joseph Banks furnished him with some money.
+He bought sea stores with the intention of sailing to Nootka Sound, but
+altered his mind, and determined to travel overland to Kamschkatka, from
+whence the passage is short to the opposite shore of the American
+continent. Towards the close of the year 1786, he started with ten guineas
+in his pocket, went to and from Stockholm, because the Gulf of Bothnia was
+frozen; proceeding north he walked to the Arctic Circle, passed round the
+head of the Gulf of Bothnia, and descended on its east side to St.
+Petersburg, where he arrived in March 1787, without shoes or stockings.
+He proceeded to the house of the Portuguese Ambassador, who gave him a
+good dinner, and obtained for him twenty guineas on a bill drawn in the
+name of Sir Joseph Banks, with which sum he proceeded to Yakutz,
+accompanying a convoy of provisions, and there met Captain Cook. He says
+in his Journal, "I have known both hunger and nakedness to the utmost
+extremity of human endurance. I have known what it is to have food given
+me as charity to a madman, and I have at times been obliged to shelter
+myself under the miseries of that character to avoid a heavier calamity.
+My distresses have been greater than I have ever owned, or will own to any
+man. Such evils are terrible to bear, but they never yet had power to turn
+me from my purpose."
+
+To have to submit to be thought a lunatic to escape starvation must
+certainly have been rather trying, though from the fact of part of the
+journey being performed without shoes or stockings it would certainly look
+as if John Ledyard were anything but particular; and it is well for us
+that he and other glorious pioneers were not, otherwise we should not be
+living in such an age of marvellous enlightenment as is our present
+privilege. Round the world in eighty days, facilitated by Cook's tourist
+coupons would hardly have been practicable, had not men like Ledyard been
+martyrs in the cause of exploration.
+
+_Apropos_ of travelling in days gone by, an incident in the life of the
+Rev. Henry Tevuge presents a somewhat strange shift; at any rate, strange
+for a clergyman. This eccentric clerical was Rector of Alcester in 1670,
+and afterwards Incumbent of Spernall, which he appears to have left in
+1675, for on May 20th in that year he writes, "This day I began my voyage
+from my house at Spernall, in the county of Warwick, with small
+accoutrements, saving what I carried under me in an old sack. My steed
+like that of Hudibras, for mettle, courage, and colour (though not of the
+same bigness), and for flesh, one of Pharaoh's lean mares ready to seize
+(for hunger) on those that went before her, had she not been short-winged,
+or rather leaden-heeled. My stock of moneys was also proportionable to the
+rest; being little more than what brought me to London in an old coat and
+breeches of the same, an old pair of hose, and shoes, and a leathern
+doublet of nine years old and upwards. Indeed, by reason of the
+suddenness of my journey, I had nothing but what I was ashamed of, save
+only
+
+  "An old fox broad sword, and a good black gown,
+  And thus old Henry came to London Town."
+
+At that time chaplains were not provided with bed or bedding, and the
+divine, having no money, and wishing to redeem a cloak which had been long
+in pawn for 10_s._, he sold his lean mare, saddle and bridle for 26_s._,
+released the cloak, but only to re-pledge it for £2. A writer, alluding to
+that period, says "it must have been a rare time for cavaliers, clerical
+and secular, when the cloak that had been pawned for 10_s._ acquired a
+fourfold value when offered as a new pledge." It must have been a rare
+time for clergymen of the Church of England when a navy chaplain is found
+on such intimate terms with "No. 1 round the corner," but that
+circumstance is accounted for by the fact that the Rev. Mr. Tevuge is
+spoken of as having "contracted convivial and expensive habits."
+
+The literary, musical, and dramatic professions are the most prolific in
+furnishing curious cases of impecuniosity; and separate chapters will be
+devoted to those three branches of art, but there are a few instances more
+directly of the nature of "shifts" which I have included in the present
+portion of the subject; amongst others being the incident of Dr. Johnson
+dining with his publisher, and being so shabby that, as there was a third
+person present, he hid behind a screen. This happened soon after the
+publication of the lexicographer's 'Life of Savage,' which was written
+anonymously, and though the circumstance of the hiding must have been
+rather humiliating to the mighty Samuel, yet the attendant consequences
+were pleasant. The visitor who was dining with Harte, the publisher, was
+Cave, who, in course of conversation, referred to 'Savage's Life,' and
+spoke of the work in the most flattering terms. The next day, when they
+met again, Harte said, "You made a man very happy yesterday by your
+encomiums on a certain book." "I did?" replied Cave. "Why, how could that
+be; there was no one present but you and I?" "You might have observed,"
+explained Harte, "that I sent a plate of meat behind a screen. There
+skulked the biographer, one Johnson, whose dress was so shabby that he
+durst not make his appearance. He overheard our conversation, and your
+applause of his performance delighted him exceedingly." It is also
+recorded that so indigent was the doctor on another occasion that he had
+not money sufficient for a bed, and had to make shift by walking round and
+round St. James' Square with Savage; when, according to Boswell, they were
+not at all depressed by their situation, but in high spirits, and brimful
+of patriotism; inveighing against the ministry, and resolving that they
+would _stand_ by their country.
+
+Being thus intimately associated, it is only natural that the doctor in
+his 'Life of Savage' should thoroughly believe that individual's version
+of his own birth and parentage, which was that he was the illegitimate son
+of the Countess of Macclesfield, and that his father was Lord Rivers; the
+birth of Richard Savage giving his mother an excuse for obtaining a
+divorce from her husband, whom she hated. It is stated that "he was born
+in 1696, in Fox Court, a low alley leading out of Holborn, whither his
+mother had repaired under the name of Mrs. Smith--her features concealed
+in a mask, which she wore throughout her confinement. Discovery was
+embarrassed by a complication of witnesses; the child was handed from one
+woman to another until, like a story bandied from mouth to mouth, it
+seemed to lose its paternity." Lord Rivers, it is alleged, looked on the
+boy as his own, but his mother seems always to have disliked him; and the
+fact that Lady Mason, the mother of the countess, looked after the child's
+education, and had him put to a Grammar School at St. Albans, certainly
+favours the view of his aristocratic parentage. He was subsequently
+apprenticed to a shoemaker, but discovering the secret, or the supposed
+secret, of his birth, for not a few discredit his story, he cut leather
+for literature, and appealed to his mother for assistance. His habit was
+to walk of an evening before her door in the hope of seeing her, and
+making an appeal; but his efforts were in vain, he could neither open her
+heart nor her purse. He was befriended by many, notably by Steele, Wilks
+the actor, and Mrs. Oldfield, a "beautiful" actress, who allowed him an
+annuity of £50 during her life; but in spite of all the assistance he
+received, his state was one of chronic impecuniosity. No sooner was he
+helped out of one difficulty than he managed to get into another, and
+though he is described by some biographers as a literary genius, his
+genius seemed principally a knack of getting into debt. Rambling about
+like a vagabond, with scarcely a shirt to his back, he was in such a
+plight when he composed his tragedy (without a lodging, and often,
+without a dinner) that he used to write it on scraps of paper picked up by
+accident, or begged in the shops which he occasionally stepped into, as
+thoughts occurred to him, craving the favour of pen and ink as if it were
+just to make a memorandum.
+
+The able author of 'The Road to Ruin' was likewise one who had travelled
+some distance on that thorny path, for at one time he found himself in the
+streets of London without money, without a home, or a friend to whom his
+shame or pride would permit his making known his necessity. Wandering
+along he knew not whither, plunged in the deepest despondency, his eye
+caught sight of a printed placard, "To Young Men," inviting all spirited
+young fellows to make their fortunes as common soldiers in the East India
+Company's Service. After reading it over a second time he determined
+without hesitation to hasten off and enroll himself in that honourable
+corps, when he met with a person he had known at a sporting club he had
+been in the habit of frequenting. His companion seeing his bundle and
+rueful face, asked him where he was going, to which Holcroft replied that
+had he enquired five minutes before he could not have told him, but that
+now he was "for the wars." At this his friend appeared greatly surprised,
+and told him he thought he could put him up to something better than that.
+Macklin, the famous London actor, was going over to play in Dublin, and
+had asked him if he happened to be acquainted with a young fellow who had
+a turn for the stage, and, said his friend, "I should be happy to
+introduce you." The offer was gladly accepted, and when the introduction
+had been managed Holcroft was asked by Macklin "what had put it into his
+head to turn actor?" to which he replied, "He had taken it into his head
+to suppose it was genius, but that it was very possible he might be
+mistaken."
+
+Holcroft was engaged for the tour, became an actor, and though he does not
+appear to have shone particularly strong on the stage, acquired
+considerable celebrity as a dramatic author, his play before mentioned
+being one of the few works of the old dramatists that has not become out
+of date with the playgoing public.
+
+More than one literary man of note, has been compelled by poverty to
+accept the Queen's shilling. Coleridge, according to one of his
+biographers, left Cambridge partly through the loss of his friend
+Middleton, and partly on account of college debts. Vexed and fretted by
+the latter, he was overtaken by that inward grief which in after life he
+described in his 'Ode to Dejection.'
+
+  "A grief without a pang, void, dark, and drear,
+  A stifled, drowsy, unimpassioned grief,
+  Which finds no natural outlet, no relief,
+  In word, or sigh, or tear."
+
+In this state of mind he came to London, strolled about the streets till
+night, and then rested on the steps of a house in Chancery Lane. Beggars
+importuned him for alms and to them he gave the little money he had left.
+Next morning he noticed a bill to the effect that a few smart lads were
+wanted for the 15th Elliot's Light Dragoons. Thinking to himself "I have
+all my life had a violent antipathy to soldiers and horses, and the sooner
+I can cure myself of such absurd prejudices the better," he went to the
+enlisting-station, where the sergeant finding that Coleridge had not been
+in bed all night, made him have some breakfast and rest himself.
+Afterwards, he told him to cheer up, to well consider the step he was
+about to take, and suggested that he had better have half-a-guinea, go to
+the play, shake off his melancholy and not return. Coleridge went to the
+theatre, but afterwards resought the sergeant, who was extremely sorry to
+see him, and saying with evident emotion, "Then it must be so," enrolled
+him. In the morning he was marched to Reading with his new comrades, and
+there inspected by the general of the district. Looking at Coleridge, that
+officer said,--
+
+"What's your name?"
+
+"Comberback!"
+
+"What do you come here for, sir?"
+
+"For what most other persons come, to be made a soldier!"
+
+"Do you think you can run a Frenchman through the body, sir?"
+
+"I do not know," said Coleridge, "as I never tried, but I'll let a
+Frenchman run me through the body, before I'll run away."
+
+"That will do," said the general; and Coleridge was turned into the ranks.
+
+Alexander Somerville, author of 'Cobdenic Policy,' 'Conservative Science
+of Nations,' &c., &c., was also driven to the extremity of enlisting under
+circumstances more or less humorous. Unlike Coleridge, Alexander
+Somerville was not of gentle birth, being, as he styles himself in 'The
+Autobiography of a Working Man,' "One who has whistled at the plough." He
+received as a boy but scant education, being sent to a common day school
+where cruel discipline and unnecessary severity preponderated over
+learning. Though put to farm-work, where he was by turns carter, mower,
+stable-boy, thresher, wood-sawyer and excavator, his natural intelligence
+and love of books made him anxious to turn his face from the parish of
+Oldhamstocks, where he was brought up, in a westerly direction towards
+Edinburgh. When about eighteen years of age he was much interested in the
+Reform Bill of 1830, and gave evidence then of his enthusiasm for
+politics, became canvasser for a weekly newspaper, but does not appear to
+have succeeded in this vocation, for his circumstances were such that he
+wandered about moneyless; and meeting with an old chum they agreed to go
+and have a chat at any rate with the recruiting corporal of the dragoon
+regiment popularly known as the Scots Greys.
+
+"My companion," he says, "had seen the Greys in Dublin, and having a
+natural disposition to be charmed with the picturesque, was charmed with
+them. He knew where to enquire for the corporal, and having enquired, we
+found him in his lodging up a great many pairs of stairs, I do not know
+how many, stretched in his military cloak, on his bed. He said he was glad
+to see anybody upstairs in his little place, now that the regimental order
+had come out against moustachios; for since he had been ordered to shave
+his off, his wife had sat moping at the fireside, refusing all consolation
+to herself and all peace to him. 'I ha'e had a weary life o't,' he said
+plaintively 'since the order came out to shave the upper lip. She grat
+there. I'm sure she grat as if her heart would ha'e broken when she saw me
+the first day without the moustachios.' Having listened to this and heard
+a confirmation of it from the lady herself, as also a hint that the
+corporal had been lying in bed half the day, when he should have been out
+looking for recruits, for each of whom he had a payment of ten shillings,
+we told him that we had come looking for him to offer ourselves as
+recruits. He looked at us for a few moments, and said if we 'meant' it he
+saw nothing about us to object to; and as neither seemed to have any beard
+from which moustachios could grow, he could only congratulate us on the
+order that had come out against them as we should not have to be at the
+expense of getting burnt corks to blacken our upper lips, to make us look
+uniform with those who wore hair. We assured the corporal that we were in
+earnest, and that we did mean to enlist, whereupon he began by putting the
+formal question, 'Are you free, able and willing to serve his Majesty King
+William the Fourth?'
+
+"But there was a hitch, two shillings were requisite to enlist two
+recruits, and there was only one shilling. We proposed that he should
+enlist one of us with it, and that this one should then lend it to him to
+enlist the other. But his wife would not have the enlistment done in that
+way. She said 'That would not be _law_: and a bonny thing it would be to
+do it without it being law. Na na,' she continued, 'it maun be done as the
+law directs.' The corporal made a movement as if he would take us out with
+him to some place where he could get another shilling but she thought it
+possible that another of the recruiting party might share the prize with
+him--take one of us or both: so she detained him, shut the door on us,
+locked it, took the key with her and went in search of the King's
+requisite coin. Meanwhile as my friend was impatient I allowed him to take
+precedence of me, and have the ceremony performed with the shilling then
+present. On the return of the corporal's wife, who though younger than he
+in years seemed to be an 'older soldier,' I also became the King's man."
+
+In connection with music the name of Loder, the clever composer (author of
+the 'Night Dancers' and other charming musical compositions), recalls an
+interesting episode in his life revealing a remarkable shift to which he
+was put. One evening when leaving his lodgings with a friend named Jay for
+the purpose of enjoying a quiet little dinner at Simpson's, he received an
+ominous tap on the shoulder from one of those individuals whose attentions
+are not appetising, since without you can settle the little amount, they
+require your immediate company. Loder was by no means able to satisfy the
+law's demands, and the sheriff's officer refused to lose sight of his man,
+even though "he had a most particular appointment;" so the only thing to
+be done was to invite the bailiff to join them at dinner. After the repast
+was concluded the party repaired to Sloman's, a notorious spunging-house
+in Cursitor Street, Chancery Lane, when just as Jay was taking leave of
+Loder the latter remembered having something in his pocket which might be
+turned to account. It was a song by Samuel Lover. "Goodbye, old fellow,"
+said Loder. "Come to-morrow morning, and see what I shall have ready." As
+soon as his friend had gone he set to work and set Lover's words of 'The
+Three Stages of Love' to music, which was a most successful and
+satisfactory way of composing himself to sleep, for when Jay called in the
+morning he received a manuscript which, when taken to Chappell's, realised
+£30. The proceeds enabled Loder to pay the debt, and dine with his friend
+at Simpson's in the afternoon, without the unwelcome guest of the
+preceding day.
+
+John Palmer, the original Joseph Surface, in which character he was
+considered unapproachable, was a man evidently of the greatest
+plausibility. When complimented by a friend upon the ease of his address,
+he said, "No, I really don't give myself the credit of being so
+irresistible as you have fancied me. There is one thing, though, which I
+think I _am_ able to do. Whenever I am arrested I can always persuade the
+sheriff's officer to bail me."
+
+Contemporary with John Palmer was another celebrated comedian, also
+addicted to more extravagant tastes than his income warranted--Charles
+Bannister, who made his first appearance in London with Palmer in a piece
+called the "Orators" in May 1762. In this he gave musical imitations, but
+the performances taking place in the mornings, his convivial habits over
+night precluded him from shining as he might have done; a fact which was
+noticed by Foote, the manager. To this Bannister replied, "I knew it would
+be so; I am all right at night, but neither I, nor my voice, can _get up_
+in the morning." He was invariably in difficulties: on the death of Sir
+Theodosius Boughton, the topic of the hour in 1781, as he was said to have
+been poisoned by laurel water, Bannister, said "Pooh! Don't tell me of
+your laurel leaves; I fear none but a bay-leaf" (bailiff). Once when
+returning from Epsom to town in a gig, accompanied by a friend, they were
+unable to pay the toll at Kennington Gate, and the man would not let them
+pass. Bannister immediately offered to sing a song, and struck up 'The
+Tempest of War.' His voice was heard afar, the gate being soon thronged by
+voters returning from Brentford, who encored his effort, and the
+turnpike-man, calling him a noble fellow, expressed his willingness to pay
+"fifty tolls for him at any gate."
+
+John Joseph Winckelmann, who became one of the most famous of German
+writers on classical antiquities, was the son of a poor cobbler, who not
+only had to struggle with poverty, but with disease which, while his boy
+was yet young, compelled him to avail himself of the hospital. When
+placed at the burgh seminary there, the rector was struck with young
+Winckelmann's dawning genius, and by accepting less than the usual fee,
+and getting him placed in the choir, contrived that the boy should receive
+all the advantages the school afforded. The rector continued to take the
+greatest interest in his apt pupil, made him usher, and when seventeen
+years of age, sent him to Berlin with a letter of introduction to the
+rector of a gymnasium, with whom he remained twelve months. While there
+Winckelmann heard that the library of the celebrated Fabricius was about
+to be sold at Hamburgh, and he determined to proceed there on foot and be
+present at the sale. He set out accordingly, asking charity (a practice
+not considered derogatory to struggling students in Germany) of the
+clergymen whose houses he passed; and, having collected in this way
+sufficient to purchase some of his darling poets at the sale, returned to
+Berlin in great glee. After studying at Halle and elsewhere for six years,
+his early passion for wandering revived, and fascinated with a fresh
+perusal of Cæsar's 'Commentaries,' he began in the summer of 1740 a
+pedestrian journey to France, to visit the scene of the great Roman's
+military exploits. His funds, however, soon became exhausted, and when
+close to Frankfort-on-the-Maine, he was obliged to return.
+
+When he arrived at the bridge of Fulda, he remarked his own dishevelled,
+travel-stained appearance, and believing himself alone, began to effect an
+alteration. He had pulled out a razor, and was about to operate on his
+chin, when he was disturbed by shrieks from a party of ladies, who,
+imagining that he was about to make away with himself, cried loudly for
+help. The facts were soon explained, and the fair ones insisted on his
+accepting a monetary gift that enabled him to return without
+inconvenience.
+
+It was not until the year 1755, when Winckelmann was thirty-eight years of
+age, and had published his first book, the 'Reflections on Imitation of
+the Greeks in Painting and Statuary,' that he freed himself from penury.
+
+Flaxman, who throughout his honourable life seems to have entertained a
+most modest view of his own talents, married before he had acquired
+distinction, though regarded as a skilful and exceedingly promising pupil;
+and when Sir Joshua Reynolds heard of the indiscretion of which he had
+been guilty, he exclaimed, "Flaxman is ruined for an artist!" But his
+mistake was soon made manifest. When Mrs. Flaxman heard of the remark, she
+said, "Let us work and economize. It shall never be said that Ann Denham
+ruined John Flaxman as an artist;" and they economised accordingly, her
+husband undertaking amongst other things to collect the local rates in
+Soho.
+
+It is to a "shift" of this nature that we are to a certain extent indebted
+for the writings of Bishop Jeremy Taylor. After the death of Charles I.,
+Dr. Taylor's living of Uppingham, in Rutlandshire, was sequestered, and
+the gifted ecclesiastic repaired to Golden Grove, Carmarthenshire, and
+taught a school for the subsistence of his children and himself. While
+thus employed, he produced some of those copious and fervent discourses,
+whose fertility of composition, eloquence of expression and
+comprehensiveness of thought, have enabled him to rank as one of the first
+writers in the English language.
+
+Beau Brummell, the autocrat of fashion when in his zenith, was in the days
+of his decline particularly shifty. After George IV. had cut him, and when
+he was about to depart for France to undertake the consulate of Caen, he
+made a desperate effort to raise money, and, amongst other people, he
+wrote to Scrope Davies for a couple of hundred pounds, which he promised
+to repay on the following morning, giving as a reason for his request,
+that the banks were shut for the day, and all his money was in the Three
+per Cents. To this Davies, who happened to know how hard up Brummell was,
+sent the following laconic reply:--
+
+    "MY DEAR GEORGE,
+
+    "'Tis very unfortunate, but all _my_ money is in the Three per Cents.
+
+        "Yours,
+          "S. DAVIES."
+
+Brummell's appointment at Caen, owing to the representations of Madame la
+Marquise de Seran, and others who had known him in London, was known in
+that place some time before he arrived, which had the effect of making all
+the young Frenchmen of the Carlist party anxious to become acquainted with
+him. Soon after he was settled down, three of them paid him a morning
+visit, and, though late in the day, found him deep in the mysteries of his
+toilet. They naturally wished to retire, but Brummell insisted on their
+remaining. "Pray stay," said he, as he laid down the silver tweezers with
+which he had just removed a straggling hair, "pray remain; I have not yet
+breakfasted--no excuses. There is a _pâté de foie gras_, a game pie," and
+many other dainties that he enumerated with becoming gastronomic fervour,
+but which failed to overcome the scruples of the young men, who went away
+enchanted with Brummell's politeness and hospitality, one of the trio
+afterwards remarking that "he must live very well."
+
+There is not the slightest doubt that the beau was pretty sure his
+visitors had breakfasted, and it was only the extreme improbability of
+their accepting his invitation that made him give it. Had they taken him
+at his word, instead of the magnificent repast which he offered them, his
+guests would have sat down to an uncommonly plain breakfast, for the
+polite and hospitable host had nothing but a penny roll and the coffee
+simmering by his bedroom fire. On another occasion a visitor called on
+him, and in course of conversation said he was going to dine with a
+certain Mr. Jones, a retired soap-boiler, who had radically opposed the
+appointment of a man like Brummell to superintend the British interests at
+Caen.
+
+"Well I think I shall dine there too," said Brummell.
+
+"But you haven't an invitation, have you?"
+
+"No," was the reply; "but I think I shall dine there all the same."
+
+As soon as the caller left, Brummell sent a _pâté de foie gras_, which he
+had received from Paris, with a grand message to Jones. The courtesy
+seemed so disinterested, that the Radical sent a pressing invitation by
+return; and when Brummell's visitor of the morning joined the party, he
+saw the beau installed in the seat of honour at the hostess's right.
+Brummell told his friend next day how he had managed. The gentleman said,
+"But I did not see the pie on the table."
+
+"True," explained Brummell; "I know it never made its appearance. It was a
+splendid pie--a _chef-d'oeuvre_, and I felt deeply interested in its fate.
+When going away I inquired what had been done with the pie. The cook said,
+'Master had kept it for Master Harry's birthday.' To be the 'cut and come
+again' of a nursery dinner. To be the prey of the little Joneses and their
+nurses was atrocious. It was an insult to me and my pie! 'Go,' I said, 'to
+your kitchen; I particularly want to see the _pâté de foie gras_.' Feeling
+that it would have been a sin to leave it with such people, I took it
+away. It was not honest, but as I cut into it this morning I almost felt
+justified, for I never inserted a knife into such another."
+
+It certainly was anything but honest, and it would have been well had
+Brummell remembered the childish saying about "give a thing and take a
+thing," but where a person's _amour-propre_ is touched on such an
+important matter as a game pie it would not be right of course to judge
+the action by the ordinary standard. The idea of taking the pie back for
+the reasons alleged was really funny, though the fact of the beau being
+extremely "hard up" very possibly had a good deal to do with his conduct.
+_Apropos_ of this condition it may be news to some to know that there once
+existed an institution called the "Hard Up Club" the formation of which is
+alluded to by "Baron" Nicholson in his autobiography. He says "just before
+I left the Queen's Bench I had a visit from Pellatt (a well-known man
+about town in that day, who had formerly been clerk and solicitor to the
+Ironmongers' Company), with the news that he and another jolly old friend
+of mine had made a discovery of a place of rest suitable to our condition
+in life, which I must say was seedy in every respect. Pellatt had been in
+the habit of coming over to the Bench almost daily to dine with me and
+others, who were delighted with his amusing qualities. He gave excellent
+imitations of the past and present London actors, and his genius for
+entertaining was brought into active operation in our prison circle. The
+history of the discovery of 'The Nest,' or tranquil house of
+entertainment, was this: Pellatt and a friend of his, 'Old Beans' (whose
+right name was Bennett, yclept 'Old Beans' for shortness), were strolling
+about the Strand one foggy November night, their habiliments were
+uncomfortably ventilated, their crab-shells of the order hydraulic; snow
+was on the ground, and their castors 'shocking bad hats.' Not liking to
+enter any very public places they strayed round the back streets on the
+river side of the Strand, and turning from Norfolk Street into Howard
+Street, _vis-à-vis_ they perceived a tavern, a dull, unlighted (save by a
+dim lamp), small, old-fashioned public-house in Arundel Street, with the
+sign of 'The Swan.' '"The Swan,"' said Pellatt, as he read the sign, 'will
+never sink! Beans, old fellow, we'll go into the 'Never Sink!'
+
+"The house was better known for years afterwards by this name than by its
+real sign. The two wayfarers entered. Old Charles Mathews in his 'At
+Home' used to tell a story of pulling up at a road-side inn, and
+interrogating the waiter as to what he could have for dinner.
+
+"'Any hot joint?' said the traveller.
+
+"'No, sir; no hot joint, sir.'
+
+"'Any cold one?'
+
+"'Cold one, sir? No, sir; no cold one, sir.'
+
+"'Can you broil me a fowl?'
+
+"'Fowl, sir? No, sir; no fowl, sir.'
+
+"'No fowl, and in a country inn!' exclaimed Mathews. 'Let me have some
+eggs and bacon then.'
+
+"'Eggs and bacon, sir?' said the waiter. 'No eggs and bacon, sir.'
+
+"'Confound it,' at length said the traveller. 'What have you got in the
+house?'
+
+"'An execution, sir,' was the prompt response of the doleful waiter.
+
+"And so it was at 'The Swan.' When Pellatt and his friend entered the
+parlour there was but a glimmer of light, and no fire. A most civil man,
+whose name turned out to be Mathews, informed his guests that he would
+instantly light a fire and make them comfortable.
+
+"'Not worth while,' said Pellatt, 'We only want a glass of gin and water,
+and a pipe.'
+
+"The host would not be denied. In a few minutes there was a blazing fire,
+the hot grog was upon the table, and Pellatt and Old Beans were smoking
+away like steam. The supposed landlord was invited to take a seat with
+them, and during the conversation informed them that he was the man in
+possession, and that he was allowed to provide a little spirits, and a
+cask of beer, and reap the profits himself just to keep the house open
+until a purchaser could be found for it, and he further stated how glad he
+should be if the gentlemen would come again. Being told by Pellatt all
+about the 'Never Sink,' when I again left the Queen's Bench Prison, and
+visited the outer world, I aided them in establishing what we dignified by
+the title of 'The Hard Up Club.' Its institution commenced by Old Beans
+being appointed steward, and in that capacity began his campaign by buying
+a pound of cold boiled beef at Cautis's, Temple Bar, and four pennyworth
+of hot roasted potatoes from the man who stood with the baked 'tatur' can
+in front of Clement's Inn. As the club increased in number so did our
+commissariat in supplies and importance, and the office of 'Old Beans'
+became no sinecure. His duty, and it was performed _con amore_, was to be
+in attendance early in the day at the club to provide the dinner. The
+money to pay for this was invariably collected over night; and I have
+known the funds to be so short that 'Old Beans's' ingenuity has been
+frequently and greatly taxed to meet the necessary requirements and
+expenditure. A shoulder of mutton was a familiar dish, Beans preparing
+heaps of potatoes, and with a skilful culinary nicety, for which he was
+eminent, making the onion sauce himself. A bullock's heart was also a
+favourite with us, provided always that Old Beans made the gravy and
+stuffing. I said to our gracious and economical steward the first day we
+had the ox heart, 'Beany, you'll want some gravy beef.'
+
+"'The deaf ears' (the hard, gristly substance attached to the top of a
+bullock's heart), said he, 'will make excellent gravy. The 'Hard Ups'
+can't afford beef. No, no, we'll make the deaf ears do.' It may be
+imagined that Old Beans's place was a difficult one. One Kay, a large,
+seedy lawyer, who wore shabby black and white stockings, and shoes, was
+always behindhand with his share of cash. If a shilling were required, Kay
+would pay into the hands of the steward about nine pence halfpenny, vowing
+that he had no more, and Beans always declared himself out of pocket by
+Kay. We had, however, a visitor who added lustre to our association, but
+he was not a dining member--he could not be--his means were too limited
+even for our humble carousings. This member was a very old man, Colonel
+Curry, formerly a member of the Irish Parliament. He lodged in one room in
+Arundel Street, therefore the 'Never Sink' was to him a convenient
+hostelry, and he could do as he liked. He did so. On a small shelf over
+the parlour-door the colonel kept his own table-napkin, mustard, pepper,
+and salt. He also had a small gravy-tight tin case, and in that he brought
+with him every day four pennyworth of hot meat, generally bought at the
+corner of Angel Inn Yard, Clement's Inn. All he spent at the 'Never Sink'
+was three halfpence for a glass of rum, which he diluted from six o'clock
+in the evening till eleven o'clock at night: in the last mixing the rum
+was unrecognisable, the water colourless. Curry was a proud Irishman,
+never accepting the oft-proffered hospitality of others. His conversation
+was delightful, amusing, instructive. He never complained, and we were
+left to doubt whether his economy proceeded from parsimony or poverty; but
+from his highly honourable sentiments I should conclude the latter. It was
+a rule with the club that all the good sort of fellows with whom the
+members might be acquainted should be pressed into the general service of
+the club: thus any member who in better days had been a good customer to a
+thriving publican (and there was scarcely one exception in the whole
+society) should use his best endeavour to introduce that publican to the
+'Never Sink,' and get him to stand treat. The number of dinners and
+liquors obtained by such endeavours were prodigious. The club included
+several members of the republic of letters, who, to quote Tom Hood, had
+not a sovereign amongst them. Indeed, they had but one passable crown. One
+hat served nine; their shirts were latent; their dinners intermittent, and
+their grog often eleemosynary. Nothing sparkled about them but their wit,
+which was as keen as their appetites. The man of genius crouches in social
+poverty in a commonwealth of mutual privation.
+
+  "'There wit, subdued by poverty's sharp thorn,
+  Was joined by wisdom equally forlorn;
+  And stinted genius took a draught of malt
+  On baked potatoes mixed with attic salt.'"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE LUCK AND ILL LUCK OF IMPECUNIOSITY.
+
+
+Shakespeare, though he says "There's a divinity doth shape our ends,
+rough-hew them how we will," admits that "There is a tide in the affairs
+of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune," which certainly
+looks as if we had something to do with the matter. "Man," it has been
+said, "is the architect of his own fortune," but it is equally a fact that
+some individuals have many more chances than others of making that
+fortune, especially those who are apparently undeserving. In the same way,
+impecuniosity has with some been the very means of introducing them to the
+road to success, while it has only plunged others in suffering.
+
+Amongst the former may be ranked Benjamin Charles Incledon, who flourished
+in the latter part of the eighteenth century, and in the beginning of the
+nineteenth. He was born at Callington, in Cornwall, and at a very early
+age was a choir-boy in Exeter Cathedral, in which city he received his
+musical education from Jackson, the composer. At sixteen he entered the
+navy, and in the course of the two years that he remained in the service
+was in several engagements. When the _Formidable_ was paid off at Chatham,
+in 1784, the young sailor turned his steps towards Cornwall, but when he
+reached Hitchen Ferry, near Southampton, he had got rid of whatever money
+he started with, and had to ask assistance of a recruiting sergeant, who
+not only gave him the means to get ferried over, but invited him to a
+public-house in the town, where they made merry over bread and cheese, and
+ale. The company became convivial, and Incledon, in his turn, sang a
+ballad which delighted everybody, but especially the prompter of the
+Southampton Theatre, who happened to be sitting in the bar-parlour smoking
+his pipe, and who rushed out to his manager before the song was finished
+to tell him of the _rara avis_ he had found. Collins, the manager,
+returned forthwith, and was so delighted with the sailor's vocal abilities
+that he offered him an engagement at _half-a-guinea a week_, there and
+then, which offer was accepted, Incledon making his first appearance as
+Alphonso in 'The Castle of Andalusia.' His career was most successful, and
+he is spoken of by more than one authority as the first English singer on
+the stage of his day.
+
+Under the circumstances it must surely be conceded, that the impecuniosity
+which caused him to sing that song at that particular time, was
+particularly lucky, and Incledon is not the only individual who has been
+blessed with good fortune through the same means. In 'The Life of a
+Showman,' by D. G. Miller, that gentleman relates that one winter's
+afternoon he arrived with his family at a Cumberland village in a most
+pitiable plight, for though he had several "children he had but one
+sixpence." The journey, effected with a horse and cart, had been extremely
+trying, because across the road they had travelled ran a small rivulet,
+which was frozen, and a passage through which had to be made for the
+horse, the driver standing upon the shafts across the back of the horse,
+while the showman waded through the water nearly up to his waist, a state
+of discomfort enhanced by the plunging of the horse and the shrieks of the
+children. When the party arrived at the public-house (where there was a
+large room which was occasionally let for entertainments, &c.), they were
+nearly frozen, and proceeded to warm themselves by the kitchen fire. After
+calling for a quart of ale, and paying for it with the solitary sixpence
+in his possession, the showman proceeded to look after his properties, and
+found that the man with the cart, being anxious to get back, had unloaded
+the luggage at the door. Enquiring of the landlady if he could engage the
+large room for a few nights for a very superior exhibition, the itinerant
+performer was informed by her, "I can't tell, but I think not. The last
+people who were here didn't pay the rent. However, the landlord is not at
+home, and I can say nothing about it."
+
+After this he asked if they could be supplied with some tea, and on being
+replied to in the affirmative, says, "The expression on my wife's face
+seemed to say, 'Are you mad--where will you get the money to pay for it?'
+I paid no attention, however, to her look: the tea was got ready, and we
+sat down and made a hearty meal--at least, the children and I did. As to
+my wife, she was alarmed at my conduct, and was too frightened to eat,
+although she had tasted nothing since breakfast."
+
+After tea he asked if they could be accommodated with beds, but was
+refused by the landlord, who showed his suspicions. The showman pointed to
+the snow, which was falling heavily, and asked permission for his wife and
+children to remain by the fire all night, professing to be able to pay,
+and at last the landlord sulkily agreed to let them have beds. After the
+wife and children retired, a good number of customers came in, and a
+raffle was started for a watch, thirty members at a shilling. While this
+was being arranged the visitors joked and sang, and presently the showman
+was asked if he would oblige with a song; he readily complied, and was
+voted a jolly good fellow by all present, including the landlord, who
+apologised then for having demurred about the accommodation. When the
+raffle began, it was found there was one more subscriber wanted, and the
+showman was asked to join, which he said he would gladly do, but his wife
+kept the purse and she had gone to bed, and being very tired he did not
+like to disturb her. The landlord at once said, "Certainly not, here's a
+shilling; pay me in the morning." He accepted the proffered coin, threw
+the dice, and won the watch, which he sold for a sovereign. He then gave
+an exhibition of his skill with sleight of hand tricks, to the great
+delight of the customers, and was informed by the landlord before he went
+to bed that he could have the big room for a night or two. To this he
+replied, "I will think it over," and joined his wife, whom he found in a
+state of the greatest trepidation at the thought of their not having the
+money to pay for their board and lodging. He set her fears literally at
+rest, by showing her the proceeds of the watch he had sold. The next and
+two following evenings he gave three most successful performances in the
+big room, and finally left the village with flying colours, _en route_ for
+Carlisle. His good fortune, as in the case of Incledon, being fairly
+attributable to the singing of a song; which savours strongly to my mind
+of what is generally understood by the term "lucky."
+
+Though somewhat different in detail, the impecuniosity of the late
+distinguished journalist, G. A. Sala, when a young man, was equally
+felicitous. Born in 1827 of not over-wealthy parents (Mrs. Sala was an
+operatic singer and teacher of music), he from an early age suffered with
+bad eyes, which prevented him learning to read until he was nine years
+old. When fourteen he began to earn his own living, and from that time
+till he was four-and-twenty, his mode of existence seems to have been more
+or less precarious. At one time engaged in copying plans of projected
+railways, then acting as assistant scene-painter at fifteen shillings a
+week, afterwards designing the cheapest and least elegant description of
+valentines, and subsequently drawing woodcuts for those inferior
+periodicals pretty generally known as "penny dreadfuls." In the year 1851
+his health gave way while he was pursuing the avocation of an engraver.
+The acids used in engraving so affecting his eyes that for a time he was
+quite blind, and loss of eyesight meant loss of work, and loss of work
+involved loss of income. The poverty he suffered at this time must have
+been of the direst; but though he had lost almost everything else, he
+never apparently quite lost heart, and when his sight improved he dashed
+off an article called "The Key of the Street," descriptive of a night
+spent by a poor wanderer in London, which he sent in to Dickens, who had
+not long started _Household Words_. The feelings of the homeless man were
+described in a manner that shows the writer _felt_ his subject, although
+it is hinted that the experiences related may have been the result of
+caprice.
+
+He says, "I have no bed to-night. Why, it matters not. Perhaps I have lost
+my latch-key--perhaps I never had one; yet am fearful of knocking up my
+landlady after midnight. Perhaps I have a caprice--a fancy--for stopping
+up all night. At all events, I have no bed; and, saving ninepence
+(sixpence in silver, and threepence in coppers), no money. I must walk the
+streets all night; for I cannot, look you, get anything in the shape of a
+bed for less than a shilling. Coffee-houses, into which--seduced by their
+cheap appearance--I have entered, and where I have humbly sought a
+lodging, laugh my ninepence to scorn. They demand impossible
+eighteenpences--unattainable shillings. There is clearly no bed for me.
+
+"It is midnight--so the clanging tongue of St. Dunstan's tells me--as I
+stand thus bedless at Temple Bar. I have walked a good deal during the
+day, and have an uncomfortable sensation in my feet, suggesting the idea
+that the soles of my boots are made of roasted brickbats. I am thirsty too
+(it is July and sultry), and just as the last chime of St. Dunstan's is
+heard, I have half-a-pint of porter, and a ninth part of my ninepence is
+gone from me for ever. The public-house where I have it (or rather the
+beer-shop, for it is an establishment of 'the glass of ale and sandwich'
+description) is an early closing one, and the proprietor, as he serves me,
+yawningly orders the potboy to put the shutters up, for he is 'off to
+bed.' Happy proprietor! There is a bristly-bearded tailor too, very beery,
+having his last pint, who utters a similar somniferous intention. He calls
+it 'Bedfordshire.' Thrice happy tailor!
+
+"I envy him fiercely, as he goes out, though, God wot, his bedchamber may
+be but a squalid attic, and his bed a tattered hop-sack, with a slop
+great-coat from the emporium of Messrs. Melchisedek & Son, and which he
+had been working at all day, for a coverlid. I envy his children (I am
+sure he has a frouzy, ragged brood of them) _for they have at least
+somewhere to sleep. I haven't_."
+
+Then follows a most graphic account of the persons encountered during the
+eight hours' enforced prowl (including a flying visit to a fourpenny
+lodging-house, which was not a "model" of cleanliness), all the personages
+met with, and the occurrences witnessed being described with a freshness
+and fidelity that stamped the author as a descriptive writer of uncommon
+power. Charles Dickens at once forwarded a cheque for the contribution
+named, and, in the words of Oliver Twist, "asked for more;" and the late
+George Augustus Sala has for years been regarded as the journalist _par
+excellence_ of the day.
+
+In like manner the needy circumstances of Charlotte Cushman had much to do
+with her obtaining an engagement at the Princess's Theatre, and making the
+great reputation she achieved in England. When first introduced to Mr.
+Maddox, the then lessee and manager of the house in Oxford Street, she did
+not impress him favourably. She had no pretensions to beauty, and Mr.
+Maddox considered she had not the qualities essential to a stage heroine.
+From London she went to Paris, in the hope of getting engaged by an
+English company performing there, but failing, and having obtained a
+letter of introduction from some one supposed to have great influence with
+the lessee, she again sought Mr. Maddox, with no better result. Stung to
+the quick by this second repulse, and made desperate by her critical
+situation, she turned when she had almost reached the door, exclaiming,
+"I know I have enemies in this country, but" (here she cast herself on her
+knees, raising her clenched hand aloft), "so help me Heaven, I'll defeat
+them!" Mr. Maddox was at once satisfied with the tragic power of his
+visitor, and offered her an engagement forthwith.
+
+If there is any doubt as to Charlotte Cushman's success being attributable
+to impecuniosity the case of O'Brien, the celebrated Irish giant, is most
+clear.
+
+This lengthy individual, whose height was 8ft. 7in., was born at Kinsale,
+where, with his father, he laboured as a bricklayer. His extraordinary
+size soon attracted the attention of a travelling showman, who, on payment
+of £50 per annum, acquired the right of exhibiting him for three years in
+England.
+
+Not satisfied with this extremely good bargain, his master tried to sublet
+him to another person in the show business, a proceeding which Cotter (the
+giant's real name) objected to, and for which objection he was saddled
+with a fictitious debt, and thrown into Bristol Jail. This apparent
+misfortune was, in the end, one of the luckiest things that could have
+happened to him. While in prison he was visited by a gentleman who took
+compassion on his distress, and believing him to be unjustly detained,
+very generously became his bail, ultimately investigating the affair so
+successfully as to obtain for him not only his liberty but his freedom to
+discontinue serving his taskmaster any longer. It happened to be September
+when he was liberated, and by the further assistance of his benefactor he
+was enabled to set up for himself in the fair then held in St. James's,
+and such an attraction did he prove that in three days he realised the
+considerable sum of £30. From that time he continued to exhibit himself
+for twenty-six years, when, having realised a fortune sufficient to enable
+him to keep a carriage and live in luxury, he retired into private life.
+
+A practical joke led to the ultimate success of Edward Knight, a popular
+comedian of last century. While with Mr. Nunns, manager of the Stafford
+company, he received a message from a stranger desiring his presence at a
+certain inn. On repairing thither he was courteously received by a
+gentleman who desired to show his gratification at Knight's performance by
+giving him permission to use his name (Phillips) to Mr. Tate Wilkinson,
+the manager of the York Theatre, who, the stranger felt sure, on account
+of his intimacy with him would be sure to give Knight a good engagement.
+Next morning a letter was sent by the elated actor, who in due course
+received the following reply:
+
+    "Sir,--I am not acquainted with any Mr. Phillips, except a rigid
+    Quaker, and he is the last man in the world to recommend an actor to
+    my theatre. I don't want you.
+
+      "TATE WILKINSON."
+
+This rebuff was so unexpected, and so mortifying, that the recipient sent
+a short and sharp answer:
+
+    "Sir,--I should as soon think of applying to a Methodist parson to
+    preach for my benefit as to a Quaker to recommend me to Mr. Wilkinson.
+    I don't want to come.
+
+      "E. KNIGHT."
+
+After an interval of twelve months, when the elder Mathews seceded from
+his company, he wrote to Knight as follows:
+
+    "Mr. Methodist Parson,--I have a living that produces twenty-five
+    shillings per week. Will you hold forth?
+
+        "TATE WILKINSON."
+
+The invitation was gladly accepted, and for seven years he continued at
+York with unvarying success; at the end of which time he obtained an
+engagement at Drury Lane, and became a metropolitan favourite.
+
+Though perhaps not so striking an example as any of the foregoing, an
+episode in the life of William Dobson (called by Charles the First "the
+English Tintoret") is more or less of the same fortunate nature. Dobson,
+who always betrayed in his best efforts the want of proper training, was,
+as a boy, apprenticed to a Mr. Peake, who was more of a dealer in, than a
+painter of, pictures, and who consequently was anything but a competent
+teacher. Nevertheless, his collection of paintings, which included some by
+Titian and Van Dyck, was most valuable to the youngster, who copied both
+those masters with such wonderful correctness that none but an _expert_
+could detect the difference. When very young, and very poor, he managed to
+get one of his copies of a Van Dyck exhibited in a shop window on Snow
+Hill, which, strangely enough, was seen by no less a person than the
+author of the original, who immediately sought out the individual who had
+reproduced his work with such fidelity, and finding him toiling away in a
+miserable garret, took him by the hand, and brought him to the notice of
+King Charles.
+
+Another instance of luck not dissociated with impecuniosity is found in
+the case of Perry, of _The Morning Chronicle_. Educated at Marischal
+College, Aberdeen, which he entered in 1771, he was first employed in that
+town as a lawyer's clerk; but full of literary ambition, and possessed of
+much literary culture, he made his way to Edinburgh, where he almost
+starved, not being able to find employment of any kind. From Edinburgh he
+went to Manchester, where he just managed to eke out an existence; but
+believing London was the El Dorado for men of letters, he was not content
+till he had started for the great city. Amongst others who had promised
+him work was Urquart, the bookseller, to whom he wrote without success.
+One morning he called upon that gentleman, and was leaving the shop after
+a fruitless interview, when the bookseller said he had just experienced
+great pleasure in reading an article in _The General Advertiser_, and,
+said he, "If you could write like that, I could soon find you an
+engagement." It so happened that Perry had sent in an article to that
+paper, and his joy may be imagined when he was able to claim the lauded
+production as his own; bringing out of his pocket another of the same
+sort, which he was about to drop into the editor's box as before. He was
+immediately engaged as a paid contributor to _The General Advertiser_ and
+_Evening Post_, and ultimately became editor and proprietor of _The
+Morning Chronicle_.
+
+One of the most remarkable of the lucky illustrations, however, is that of
+Hogarth, when he was a struggling artist. At the time referred to, when
+studying at St. Martin's Lane Academy, he was oftentimes reduced to the
+lowest possible water-mark; and while laying the foundation of his future
+celebrity, he was exposed to all the humiliating inconveniences too
+frequently associated with penury, not the least of such annoyances being
+the contemptuous insolence of an ignorant letter of lodgings. The story
+goes that on one of these occasions when he was unmercifully dunned by his
+landlady for the small sum of a sovereign, he was so exasperated that,
+with a view to being revenged upon her, he made a sketch of her face so
+excruciatingly ugly, that it revealed at once his marvellous power as a
+caricaturist.
+
+Turning to the opposite side of the subject--the unlucky, there is, it
+must be admitted, a dearth of similarly appropriate examples. It is not
+that there is any scarcity of cases of great misfortune in connection with
+impecuniosity, but the circumstances connected with such cases are not so
+apparently the result of accident. In the lucky instances enumerated the
+chance element was conspicuous, but the same cannot be said of the adverse
+anecdotes; for they, or rather those that have come under my notice, are
+unfortunate cases rather than unlucky. For instance, the impecuniosity
+that introduced the Irish giant to some one he would not otherwise have
+met, who put him in the way of realising a competency, was manifestly
+lucky; but the impecuniosity that attended Stow, the antiquary, in his
+latest years, could not in the same sense be called _un_lucky, inasmuch as
+it was owing to no particular act or chance circumstance that he continued
+poor. The kind of cases that I consider would more properly illustrate
+this phase of the subject would be those of persons who, from, say,
+missing an appointment with some patron of eminence owing to being hard
+up, lost an opportunity of advancement, which never occurred again; or by
+not having some small amount of ready money were unable to avail
+themselves of an advantageous offer, which would have resulted in a
+fortune. That such mishaps have occurred in the long list of unrecorded
+lives there is little doubt; but I cannot call any to remembrance at the
+present time. The only instances I have met with in my research being
+those of unfortunate persons, whose histories of hardship would be more
+fittingly recounted as the sad side of impecuniosity.
+
+The individual just referred to, John Stow, the antiquary, is a most
+melancholy case in point. A profound scholar in every sense, he devoted
+his life and substance to the study of English antiquities; oftentimes
+travelling tremendous distances on foot to save monuments, and rescue rare
+works from the dispersed libraries of monasteries. His enthusiasm for
+study was unbounded, and at his death he left stupendous excerpts in his
+own handwriting. At an advanced age, when worn out by study and travel,
+and the cares and anxieties of poverty--for he was utterly neglected by
+the pretended patrons of learning--his other troubles were increased by
+most acute pains in the feet, which he good-humouredly referred to by
+saying "his affliction lay in that part which formerly he had made so much
+use of." At last he became so necessitous that he petitioned James the
+First for a licence to collect alms for himself, "as a recompense for his
+labour and travel of forty-five years, in setting forth the Chronicles of
+England, and eight years taken up in the Survey of the Cities of London
+and Westminster, towards his relief now in his old age: having left his
+former means of living, and only employing himself for the service and
+good of his country"--which petition was granted by letters patent under
+the Great Seal, permitting him to seek assistance from all well-disposed
+people within this realm of England. The terms in which this permit was
+set forth ("to ask, gather, and take the alms of all our loving subjects")
+were scarcely correct; that is to say, "to ask, gather, and take the alms
+of all our loving subjects--who will give" would have been more complete;
+for though the letters patent were published by the clergy from their
+pulpits, the result was so trifling that they had to be renewed for
+another twelvemonth; one entire parish in the city subscribing but seven
+and sixpence to the poor scholar's appeal.
+
+Learning in Stow's time, and for a long time after, was evidently but
+poorly patronised, for his is by no means an isolated experience. Myles
+Davies, author of 'Athenæ Britannicæ,' &c., published in 1716, suffered
+similar neglect; his mind, it is alleged, becoming quite confused amidst
+the loud cries of penury and despair.
+
+Alluding to those who were supposed to support such as himself, he
+scathingly says, "Some parsons would halloo enough to raise the whole
+house and home of the domestics to raise a poor crown; at last all that
+flutter ends in sending Jack or Tom out to change a guinea, and then 'tis
+reckoned over half-a-dozen times before the fatal crown can be picked out,
+which must be taken as it is given, with all the parade of almsgiving
+[Davies, be it remembered, was a Welsh divine], and so to be received with
+all the active and passive ceremonial of mendication and alms-receiving,
+as if the books, printing, and paper were worth nothing at all, and as if
+it were the greatest charity for them to touch them, or let them be in the
+house. 'For I shall never read them,' says one of the five-shilling chaps.
+'I have no time to look into them,' says a third. ''Tis so much money
+lost,' says a grave dean. 'My eyes being so bad,' said a bishop, 'that I
+can scarce read at all.' 'What do you want with me?' said another. 'Sir, I
+presented you the other day with my 'Athenæ Britannicæ,' being the last
+part published.' 'I don't want books, take them again; I don't understand
+what they mean.' 'The title is very plain,' said I, 'and they are writ
+mostly in English.' 'I'll give you a crown for both the volumes.' 'They
+stand me, sir, in more than that, and 'tis for a bare subsistence I
+present or sell them; how shall I live?' 'I care not a farthing for
+that--live or die, 'tis all one to me.' 'Damn my master,' said Jack,
+''twas but last night he was commending your books and your learning to
+the skies, and now he would not care if you were starving before his eyes;
+nay, he often makes game at your clothes, though he thinks you the
+greatest scholar in England.'"
+
+So much for the way literature was encouraged in the sixteenth and
+seventeenth centuries, and that it was little better in the eighteenth
+century is only too well-known a fact; for "in those days, a large
+proportion of working literary men were little better than
+outcasts;--persons exiled from decent society, partly by their own vices,
+partly by the fact of their following a profession which had hardly
+acquired a recognised standing in the world, or found for itself a
+definite and indisputable sphere of usefulness. The reading public was not
+sufficient to maintain an extensive fraternity of writers, and the writers
+consequently often starved, and broke their hearts in wretched garrets, or
+earned a despicable living by flattering the great."
+
+These animadversions are especially meant to apply to that class of
+_littérateurs_ known as "Grub Street pamphleteers," but not a few notable
+names in the world of letters can be found to verify the gloomy picture.
+Nathaniel, or "Nat" Lee, as he is more often called, was one of those who
+failed to find fortune, but it must be admitted his "own vices" are
+answerable for his indigence. The son of a clergyman, he was educated at
+Westminster School, and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took his
+B.A.; and, at a very early age, manifested conspicuous ability for
+dramatic writing; his first effort, 'Nero, Emperor of Rome,' produced in
+1675, being received with marked success. From that time until his death,
+which occurred fifteen years later, he brought out eleven plays, not one
+of which was a failure, but he was so rakishly extravagant as to be
+frequently plunged into the lowest depths of misery. In November 1684, his
+excesses, coupled with a naturally excitable temperament, succeeded in
+fitting him to be an inmate of Bedlam, where he was confined for four
+years. On his release in April 1688, he resumed his occupation of
+dramatist, producing 'The Princess of Cleve' in 1689, and 'The Massacre
+of Paris' the following year. Notwithstanding the considerable profits
+arising from these performances he was reduced to so low an ebb, that a
+weekly stipend of 10_s._ from the Theatre Royal was his chief dependence.
+He died the same year, 1690, the result of a drunken frolic in the street;
+and although the author of eleven plays, all acted with applause, and
+dedicated, when printed, to the Earls of Dorset, Mulgrave, and Pembroke,
+and the Duchesses of Portsmouth and Richmond, who were numbered among his
+patrons, _he was buried by the Parish_ of St. Clement Danes, Strand.
+
+The vicissitudes of Spenser, in contrast to those of the author just
+referred to, were undoubtedly due to a want of appreciation on the part of
+those in power; for none of his biographers even hint at want of rectitude
+in his past life. Created Poet Laureate by Queen Elizabeth, he, for some
+time, only wore the barren laurel, and possessed the place without the
+pension; for Lord Treasurer Burleigh, for some motive or other,
+intercepted the Queen's intended bounty to him. It is said that Her
+Majesty, upon Spenser presenting some poems to her, ordered him £100, but
+that her Lord Treasurer, objecting to it, said with considerable scorn,
+"What! all this for a song?" Whereupon the Queen replied, "Then give him
+what is reason." Some time after, the poet, not having received the
+promised gift, penned the following poetic petition--
+
+  "I was promised on a time,
+  To have reason for my rime; (_sic_)
+  From that time unto this season
+  I received nor rime nor reason"--
+
+which, when sent to his sovereign, had the desired effect of producing the
+monetary reward, and also obtained for Lord Burleigh the reprimand he so
+well deserved. That Spenser felt keenly the neglect to which he was
+subsequently subjected is pretty clearly shown in the following lines--
+
+  "Full little knowest thou, that hast not try'd
+  What hell it is in suing long to bide:
+  To lose good days that might be better spent,
+  To wast long nights in pensive discontent:
+  To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow,
+  To feed on hope, to pine with fear and sorrow:
+  To have thy Prince's grace, yet want her peers,
+  To have thy asking, yet wait many years:
+  To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares,
+  To eat thy heart with comfortless despairs:
+  To fawn, to crouch, to wait, to ride, to run,
+  To spend, to give, to want, to be undone"--
+
+which is but one of many bemoanings of hard and undeserved treatment; and
+though there be some who have accused him of lacking philosophy in thus
+making known his poverty, I should think it very much too literally _poor_
+philosophy that would suffer in silence when it comes to a matter of bread
+and cheese. There were times, of course, in Spenser's history, when his
+genius was fully acknowledged, both before and after the neglect recorded,
+when, for instance, he made the acquaintance of that chivalrous poet
+soldier, Sir Philip Sidney--the historically self-denying Sir Philip, who
+when mortally wounded at the battle of Zutphen, and about to revel in a
+draught of water that he had called for, denied himself the coveted drink,
+and gave it away to a poor comrade. He it was who was the first to
+recognise Spenser's great claim as a poet. It is stated that when a
+perfect stranger to Sir Philip, Spenser went to Leicester House, and
+introduced himself by sending in the ninth canto of 'The Fairy Queen,'
+which he had just completed.
+
+The young nobleman was much surprised with the description of "Despair" in
+that canto, and betrayed an unusual kind of transport on the discovery of
+so new and uncommon a genius. After he had read some verses he called his
+steward, and bade him give the person who brought those verses £50; but
+upon reading the next stanza, he ordered the sum to be doubled. The
+steward was as much surprised as his master, and thought it his duty to
+make some delay in executing so sudden and lavish a bounty; but upon
+reading one stanza more, Sir Philip raised his gratuity to £200, and
+commanded the steward to give it immediately, lest, as he read farther, he
+might be tempted to give away his whole estate. Unfortunately this
+generous patron was killed at the early age of thirty-two, and it was
+after his decease that Spenser for a time was under a cloud. Subsequently
+he was befriended by the Earl of Leicester, and upon the appointment of
+Lord Grey of Wilton to be Lord Deputy of Ireland, the poet became his
+secretary, and was rewarded by a grant from the Queen of three thousand
+acres. This he was not destined to enjoy very long, for in the rebellion
+of Tyrone he was plundered, and deprived of his estate, and when he
+arrived in England he was heart-broken by his misfortunes. He died in the
+greatest distress on the 16th January, 1599, and though interred in
+Westminster Abbey at the expense of the Earl of Essex, his death according
+to Ben Jonson was actually occasioned by "lack of bread."
+
+It is difficult to determine which is the more pitiable, the want and
+misery produced by the neglect of others, or the destitution resulting
+from evil courses; both demand our commiseration, though some of the stern
+moralists affect to have "no pity" for those whose troubles are the
+outcome of self-indulgence and dissipation. "A fellow-feeling makes us
+wondrous kind," and only those who have been the victims of that enslaving
+mania for drink, which has blasted so many bright lives will have
+compassion for such a man as Samuel Boyce. This misguided mortal, the son
+of a dissenting minister, was born at Dublin in the year 1708, and when
+eighteen was sent to the Glasgow University, his father having designed
+him for the ministry. He married when he had been at college little more
+than a year, and soon developed habits of indulgence and extravagance,
+which effectually ruined him, in spite of much assistance received from
+the nobility and others. In the year 1731 he published a volume of poems,
+to which is subjoined the "Tablature of Cebes," and a letter upon liberty,
+which appeared originally in the _Dublin Journal_ five years previously.
+These productions gained him considerable reputation and substantial
+patronage from the Countess of Eglinton, to whom they were dedicated.
+
+His next successful effort was an elegy upon the death of the Viscountess
+Stormont (a woman of the most refined taste, well versed in science, and a
+great admirer of poetry), entitled, 'The Tears of the Muses,' which so
+pleased Lord Stormont, the deceased lady's husband, that he advertised for
+the author in one of the weekly papers, and caused his attorney to make
+him a very handsome present. In addition to the favour of Lady Eglinton
+and Lord Stormont, he was also befriended by the Duchess of Gordon, who
+gave him most material assistance while he continued in Scotland; and when
+he went to London, gave him a letter of introduction to Pope, and obtained
+another for him to Sir Peter King, Lord Chancellor of England. He had many
+other most valuable recommendations when he arrived in the metropolis,
+and possessing as he did ability of no common order, his opportunities
+were exceptionally fine; but nothing can withstand the devastating
+influences of the demon of drink; and at the age of thirty-two he is
+described as reduced to such an extremity of human wretchedness that he
+had not a shirt, a coat, or any kind of apparel to put on. The sheets in
+which he lay were carried to the pawnbroker's, and he was obliged to be
+confined to his bed with no other covering than a blanket, and in this
+condition, thrusting his arm through a hole, he scribbled a quantity of
+verse for the _Gentleman's Magazine_.
+
+His genius was not confined to poetry, for he was skilled in painting,
+music, and heraldry; but by his pen alone, had he chosen to live decently,
+he could have commanded a very good living. His translations from the
+French were admittedly excellent; but the drawback to employing him at
+this work was that when he had copied a page or two he would pawn the
+original and re-pawn it as often he could induce his acquaintances to "get
+it out" for him. On one occasion Dr. Johnson managed to get up a sixpenny
+subscription for him in order to redeem his clothes, but the effort to
+help him was useless, for within two days he pawned them again, and the
+last state was at any rate no better than the first. He seems to have been
+so demoralised by drink that he was dead to every sense of honour and
+humanity; for, whenever he obtained half-a-guinea, whether by writing
+poetry or a begging letter, he would sit squandering it in a tavern while
+his wife and child starved at home. He got from bad to worse, and in 1742,
+when locked up in a spunging-house, sent the following appeal to Cave:
+
+"I am every moment threatened to be turned out here, because I have not
+money to pay for my bed two nights past, which is usually paid beforehand;
+and I am loth to go into the Compter, till I can see if my affairs can
+possibly be made up. I hope, therefore, you will have the humanity to send
+me half-a-guinea for support till I finish your papers in my hands. I
+humbly entreat your answer, not having tasted anything since Tuesday
+evening I came here; and my coat will be taken off my back for the charge
+of the bed, so that I must go into prison naked, which is too shocking for
+me to think of."
+
+There are several accounts given of his death, which occurred when he was
+but forty-one years of age; and, though they vary as to the precise nature
+of his end, there is no doubt that it was accelerated by the habit he
+indulged in--of drinking hot beer to excess, which at last obscured and
+confused his intellectual faculties.
+
+The sad side of impecuniosity is, unfortunately, so vast a subject that it
+would require an entire volume, instead of part of a chapter, to properly
+record the miseries of mind and body endured by those in past ages, who,
+not unknown to fame, have been permitted to pine and die in despair. The
+poets alone, so prolific are they in this respect, would furnish material
+sufficient; but the neglect of genius is anything but an uncommon thing,
+and therefore commonplace sufferings might not be regarded as
+"_Curiosities_ of impecuniosity," though in one sense it certainly is
+curious that their wants should not have been recognised. Men like Henry
+Carey or Cary, the author of 'Sally in our Alley,' and said by some to be
+the composer of the National Anthem, who was considered by all authorities
+to be a true son of the Muses, have been driven to desperation through
+want. It is said, "At the time that this poet could neither walk the
+streets nor be seated at the convivial board without listening to his own
+songs and his own music--for in truth the whole nation was echoing his
+verse, and crowded theatres were applauding his wit and humour; while this
+very man himself, urged by his strong humanity, founded a 'Fund for
+Decayed Musicians'--he was so broken-hearted, and his own common comforts
+so utterly neglected, that in despair, not waiting for nature to relieve
+him from the burden of existence, he laid violent hands on himself; and
+when found dead _had only a halfpenny in his pocket_."
+
+The following lines written some time before his melancholy end show that
+he was no stranger to the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," and
+that his self-destruction was not the result of momentary madness, but
+rather induced by the humiliating torture of ills long borne.
+
+  "Far, far away then chase the harlot Muse,
+  Nor let her thus thy noon of life abuse;
+  Mix with the common crowd, unheard, unseen,
+  And if again thou tempt'st the vulgar praise,
+  May'st thou be crown'd with birch instead of bays!"
+
+The untimely end of Chatterton is a companion picture to that of Cary,
+but the circumstances of his early death, his being without food for two
+days, and his poisoning himself with arsenic and water, when lodging at
+Mrs. Angel's, a sack-maker in Brook Street, Holborn, are so well known
+that it is only necessary to mention his melancholy fate, which if it
+stood alone in the history of literature would be sufficient to show there
+is a very pathetic side to impecuniosity. Although this rash act is
+attributed to the state of starvation to which the poet was reduced, there
+is little doubt that Horace Walpole by his unsympathising, though strictly
+correct, reproof had much to do with the disordered condition of the poor
+fellow's mind. When living at Bristol, Chatterton became possessed of some
+parchments which had been extracted from the coffin of a Mr. Canynge, and
+upon these he produced some poetry, which he described as a production of
+Thomas Canynge, and of his friend, one Thomas Rowley, a priest; sent them
+to Walpole and asked for assistance to enable him to quit his uncongenial
+occupation, and pursue one more poetic. The poems were submitted to
+competent antiquaries, and pronounced forgeries, whereupon Horace Walpole
+refused the boy's application for help, at the same time reproving the
+attempted fraud in the most cold and cutting terms. For this treatment the
+great wit and prince of letter-writers has been severely censured; one
+writer remarking, "Just or unjust, the world has never forgiven Horace
+Walpole for Chatterton's misery. His indifference has been contrasted with
+the generosity of Edmund Burke to Crabbe, a generosity to which we owe
+'The Village,' 'The Borough,' and to which Crabbe owed his peaceful old
+age, and almost his existance. The cases were different, but Crabbe had
+his faults, and Chatterton was worth saving. It is well for genius that
+there are souls in the world more sympathising, less worldly, and more
+indulgent, than those of such men as Horace Walpole."
+
+Another most melancholy, and equally tragical record connected with
+impecuniosity is furnished in the life of Dr. Dodd, a literary divine, and
+one of the most popular preachers of the last century; though _his_
+troubles were not the outcome of actual want, but rather the result of
+want of self-control and principle. He commenced as a writer for the
+press, published 'The Beauties of Shakespeare,' obtained several
+lectureships, which he held with great success, and subsequently became
+Chaplain to the King. The list of his different appointments is most
+numerous, and most of them not only important, but highly remunerative,
+but his extravagance was such that no income would have been sufficient to
+keep him out of debt. Owing to his excesses he lost the royal favour, and
+though he was in the receipt of a large income from his preaching, it was
+not enough to satisfy his expensive habits, and he foolishly sent an
+anonymous letter to Lady Apsley offering her £3000 if she would prevail on
+her husband, the Lord Chancellor, to appoint him to the rectory of St.
+George's, Hanover Square. The letter was traced to the doctor, and in
+consequence his name was struck off the list of royal chaplains. After a
+sojourn abroad he returned to this country, obtained from Lord
+Chesterfield a living in Buckinghamshire, but could not forsake his old
+habits; he still plunged into debt, and _from being pressed for money_
+forged the name of his patron to a bill for £4200, was tried, found
+guilty, and executed at the Old Bailey, in 1777.
+
+The career of Thomas Otway, the dramatist, though short, for he was but
+thirty-four years of age when he died, was one continued course of
+monetary difficulty, the result of irregular living. The son of a Sussex
+rector and educated at Winchester and Christ Church, Oxford, he betrayed
+no anxiety to follow his father's footsteps, but at the age of
+twenty-three manifested a most practical preference for Thespis rather
+than theology, though he does not seem to have possessed any great genius
+for acting. He subsequently became a cornet in a regiment, which was sent
+to Flanders, but distinguished himself most as a dramatic writer, for
+which profession he was eminently suited, many of his plays meeting with
+exceptional success, particularly 'Venice Preserved,' which has held
+possession of the stage for about two hundred years. His circumstances,
+never good, gradually went from bad to worse, owing to his dissolute
+proclivities, and he died at last on the 14th April, 1685, in a wretched
+state of penury, at a public-house called 'The Bull,' on Tower Hill,
+whither he had gone to avoid the too pressing attention of his creditors.
+It is generally believed that the actual cause of his death was choking,
+which occurred through his having been without food for some time, and
+then too eagerly devouring a piece of bread which, through the generosity
+of a friend, he had been able to purchase. That Otway should have excelled
+in tragedy is not surprising, the power that he displayed in depicting
+domestic suffering being easily accounted for by the fact that he must
+have been constantly experiencing distress in private life, for when his
+tragic end was brought about he was hiding from sheriff's officers, his
+misery terminating only with death.
+
+It is terribly sad to see such men as these, blessed with natural gifts
+far beyond the common, yet in spite of these endowments sinking to a lower
+level than their inferiors in intellect; and unfortunately the literary
+list of these erring ones is a long one, for since the days of Robert
+Greene, said to be the first Englishman who wrote for a living, and who
+died in the house of a poor shoemaker, who took pity upon him when he was
+destitute, there have always been men unable to withstand the seductions
+of vicious courses, and who have consequently paid the penalty of
+intemperance, and immorality, by death-beds of misery, and remorse, to say
+nothing of the life-long inconveniences of impecuniosity. Lamentable as is
+the contemplation of these lost lives, there is yet a sadder picture
+still, for pitiable as it is to think of men, indifferent alike to their
+well-being in this world and in that which is to come, the sadness is
+intensified when the object of pity is a woman, one who has been referred
+to as "a sort of female Otway, without his genius."
+
+The individual in question was Colley Cibber's younger daughter,
+Charlotte, whose education from her earliest years was eminently
+masculine, which resulted in the girl becoming proficient in manly sports
+and pastimes, such as shooting, hunting, riding, &c. When very young she
+married Mr. Richard Clarke, a celebrated violinist, with whom she soon
+disagreed, and from whom she speedily separated, and she then devoted
+herself to the stage, and commenced a career, which for strange and
+harrowing vicissitudes is unequalled in the annals of British
+biography--one day courted, admired and affluent; the next an outcast,
+uncared for, and despised. Singularly enough, the first character she
+assumed on the stage after the quarrel with her husband was Mademoiselle
+in 'The Provoked Wife,' in which character, and several subsequent
+assumptions at the Haymarket Theatre, she was highly successful, and
+obtained an uncommonly good salary. Her temper however, like herself, was
+eccentric, and it was not long before she quarrelled with Fleetwood, the
+manager, and left the theatre at a moment's notice. From being a regular
+performer, she then took to travelling about the country with strollers,
+and shared with them the starvation fate that is so often associated with
+their nomadic existence. Tiring of this, she set up as a grocer, in Long
+Acre, but failed in that business, as well as at puppet-show keeping, at
+which she tried her hand in a street near the Haymarket. On the death of
+her husband, she was thrown into prison for debt, but released by the
+subscriptions of ladies of questionable repute, whose charity is
+proverbially more conspicuous than their virtue. After remarrying, and
+again becoming a widow, Charlotte Clarke (for by that name she has always
+been known) assumed male attire, and obtained occasional engagements at
+the theatres, and, though she suffered most distressing deprivations was
+able to present so good an appearance, that an heiress became madly
+attached to her, and was inconsolable when the wretched woman revealed her
+sex. The next adventure she claims to have participated in is her becoming
+valet to an Irish nobleman, which situation she did not retain for any
+length of time; and then she attempted to earn her living as a
+sausage-maker, but was unsuccessful. Twice she became a tavern proprietor,
+and for a time was in the most flourishing circumstances, but her
+prosperity was excessively ephemeral, and amongst the other occupations
+that she is credited with having undertaken are those of waiter at the
+King's Head, Marylebone; worker of a set of puppets, and authoress of her
+extraordinary biography, which she published in 1755. It was with the
+proceeds of this book that she was enabled to open one of the
+public-houses mentioned; but the amount realised by its sale was not of
+much benefit to the poor misguided creature, for within five years (she
+died in 1760), she was discovered in a more wretched, forlorn condition
+than ever, according to the account of two gentlemen who visited her. The
+widow, who, petted and pampered by her parents, had, as a child been
+brought up in luxury, was then domiciled in a wretched, thatched hovel in
+the purlieus of Clerkenwell Bridewell, at that time a wild suburb, where
+the scavengers used to throw the cleansings of the streets. The house and
+its scanty furniture sufficiently indicated the extreme poverty of the
+inmates.
+
+"Mrs. Clarke sat on a broken chair by a little scrap of fire, and the
+visitors were accommodated with a rickety deal board. A half-starved dog
+lay at the authoress's feet; a cat sat on one hob, and a monkey on the
+other; while a magpie perched on the back of its mistress's chair. A
+worn-out pair of bellows served for a writing-desk, and a broken cup for
+an inkstand; these were matched by the pen, which was worn down to the
+stump, and was the only one on the premises. The lady asked thirty
+guineas for the copyright. The bookseller offered five, but was at length
+induced by his friend to give ten, on condition that Mr. Whyte (the
+friend) would pay a moiety and take half the risk of the novel."
+
+In the year 1759 she played Marplot, in 'The Busybody,' for her own
+benefit at the Haymarket, when the following advertisement appeared.
+
+"As I am entirely dependent on chance for a subsistence, and am desirous
+of getting into business, I hope the town will favour me on the occasion,
+which, added to the rest of their indulgence, will ever be gratefully
+acknowledged by their truly obliged, and obedient servant, CHARLOTTE
+CLARKE."
+
+This was shortly before her death, which took place on the 6th April,
+1760.
+
+It would be extremely difficult to find a more sorrowful story in
+connection with impecuniosity than that of Colley Cibber's daughter; and
+though the degraded character of the greater part of her life has robbed
+her misfortunes of much of the sympathy that would otherwise have been
+freely accorded, it would have been well if some who have animadverted so
+severely upon her shortcomings had remembered that much in her life that
+was so unwomanly was undoubtedly due to her masculine and defective
+training.
+
+The celebrated actress Mrs. Jordan--whose acting, according to
+Hazlitt--"gave more pleasure than that of any other actress, because she
+had the greatest spirit of enjoyment in herself"--was so unfortunate in
+her last days, that she is fully entitled to a place with those whose
+monetary embarrassments have been particularly sad. For years she had
+lived in uninterrupted domestic harmony with the Duke of Clarence,
+afterwards William the Fourth; but when the connection was suddenly
+severed in 1811, a yearly allowance of £4400, was settled upon her for the
+maintenance of herself and daughters; with a provision that, if Mrs.
+Jordan should resume her profession, the care of the duke's daughters,
+together with £1500 per annum allowed for them, should revert to his Royal
+Highness. Within a few months of this arrangement she did return to the
+stage, but through having incautiously given blank notes of hand to a
+friend in difficulties on the understanding that the amounts to be filled
+in were but small, she awoke one morning to find herself called upon to
+pay amounts utterly beyond her power. In her terror and dismay she fled
+to France, but her peace of mind was gone. Separated from her children,
+and racked by the torturing thought of the liability she was unable to
+discharge, she gradually pined away, and died in terrible distress of mind
+at St. Cloud in June 1816.
+
+Contrasted with its brilliant beginning the close of Mrs. Jordan's life is
+painfully sad, and it might be urged that the sorrowful end was but an
+instance of retributive justice on account of the fair and frail one's
+social sin. Experience, however, proves that the breaking of the moral law
+does not always involve punishment in this life, and even if this were not
+so, many instances could be cited of misfortunes as heavy, and far
+heavier, falling to the lot of those who to all intents and purposes have
+led blameless lives.
+
+Foremost among such cases would be the crushing blow that befell the noble
+and greatly gifted novelist and poet, Sir Walter Scott, at the age of
+fifty-five years, when, having given to the world the greater part of
+those glorious works that have placed his name pre-eminent in the world of
+literature, and being, as was supposed, the happy enjoyer of a handsome
+fortune and splendid estate, it transpired that he was a ruined man. So
+successful had been his literary labours for thirty years that it was
+generally and naturally supposed that the enormous sums spent on
+Abbotsford were the proceeds of his novels and poems, but it seems he had
+for a long time been a partner in the printing firm of Ballantyne & Co.,
+who were closely connected with Messrs. Constable, the publishers. These
+firms had engaged in transactions of a speculative character, and in the
+commercial crisis of 1825 both failed, Sir Walter's immense private
+fortune being swallowed up in the crash, while as a partner in the house
+of Ballantyne he was responsible for the enormous amount of £147,000. At
+the time of this calamity his health had already been considerably
+shattered, the slightly grey hair had in the year 1819 been turned to
+snowy white by an attack of jaundice, and his frame further enfeebled four
+years later by an attack of apoplexy, so that it would not have been
+surprising if this frightful crash had proved his death-blow. Far from it;
+with a heroism unparalleled, and a high sense of honour, that adds more
+lustre to his name than the most brilliant effusion of his pen, he
+determined manfully to face this overwhelming catastrophe, refusing all
+proffered aid, and merely asking for time. "Gentlemen," said he to the
+creditors, "time and I against any two. Let me take this good ally into
+my company, and I believe I shall be able to pay you every farthing. It is
+very hard thus to lose all the labours of a lifetime and to be made a poor
+man at last when I ought to have been otherwise, but, if God grant me life
+and strength for a few years longer, I have no doubt I shall redeem it
+all." The redemption referred to his property, all of which he gave up,
+retiring into modest lodgings, where he zealously set to work to
+accomplish the Herculean task of writing off the gigantic sum named.
+'Woodstock,' which realised £8228, was the first novel after his
+misfortune, and that occupied him only three months; but it was as, he
+said, "very hard" at his time of life to every day perform the allotted
+task of producing thirty pages of printed matter, for the work on which he
+was then occupied was not that fiction which he wrote with such facility,
+but a voluminous 'Life of Napoleon Buonaparte,' necessitating reference to
+no end of books and papers; and day after day for many a month might he
+have been seen, slowly and sorrowfully, wading through work after work in
+order to verify each date and fact. The nine volumes were finished in
+1827, and these were followed by 'The Chronicles of the Canongate,' 'Tales
+of a Grandfather,' 'The Fair Maid of Perth,' 'Count Robert,' and 'Castle
+Dangerous'--the last named published in 1831--a year before his death,
+which may be fairly attributed to the undue strain of mind and body; the
+_raison-d'être_ of this overtaxing of his strength being simply and solely
+impecuniosity.
+
+The picture of this truly great man being obliged to wear out the last
+years of his life by unceasing labour when he should have been enjoying a
+well-earned rest, is excessively sad and touching--but the sadness is to
+some extent relieved by the heroic nature of the act. The melancholy end
+of the man is swallowed up in the imperishable name he has left behind,
+which name, for generations to come, will serve as the synonym of honour.
+Sad, far more sad, were the closing days of Sheridan, whose last moments
+were also darkened by impecuniosity, but utterly unrelieved by any acts of
+self-sacrifice; and made far more melancholy by the fact that the monetary
+misery was caused by unnecessary extravagance.
+
+Alas, poor Sheridan! If ever man in his declining days had good reason to
+say with the preacher, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity," thou hadst!
+for thou wert bitterly punished at the last, by the desertion and neglect
+of those who should have succoured and solaced thee. True thy
+shortcomings were many, but only one blessed with such brilliant gifts
+could possibly realise thy temptation; and the sorrow thou didst endure
+must silence detraction. Says one of his biographers, "For six years after
+the burning of the old theatre, he continued to go down and down. Disease
+now attacked him fiercely. In the spring of 1816 he was fast waning
+towards extinction. His day was past, he had outlived his fame as a wit
+and social light; he was forgotten by many, if not by most, of his old
+associates. He wrote to Rogers, 'I am absolutely undone and
+broken-hearted.' Poor Sheridan! in spite of all thy faults, who is he
+whose morality is so stern that he cannot shed one tear over thy latter
+days! God forgive us, we are all sinners; and if we weep not for this
+man's deficiency, how shall we ask tears when our day comes? Even as I
+write, I feel my hand tremble and my eyes moisten over the sad end of one
+whom I love, though he died before I was born. 'They are going to put the
+carpets out of window,' he wrote to Rogers, 'and break into Mrs. S.'s room
+and _take me_. For God's sake let me see you!' See him! see one friend who
+could and would help him in his misery! Oh, happy man may that man count
+himself who has never wanted that one friend, and felt the utter
+helplessness of that want. Poor Sheridan! had he ever asked, or hoped, or
+looked for that Friend out of _this_ world it had been better; for 'the
+Lord thy God is a jealous God,' and we go on seeking human friendship and
+neglecting the divine till it is too late. He found one hearty friend in
+his physician, Dr. Bain, when all others had forsaken him. The spirit of
+White's and Brookes', the companion of a prince and a score of noblemen,
+the enlivener of every fashionable table, was forgotten by all but this
+one doctor. Let us read Moore's description. 'A sheriff's officer at
+length arrested the dying man _in his bed_, and was about to carry him off
+in his blankets to a spunging-house, when Dr. Bain interfered?' Who would
+live the life of revelry that Sheridan lived to have such an end? A few
+days after, on the 7th July, 1816, in his sixty-fifth year, he died. Of
+his last hours the late Professor Smythe wrote an admirable and most
+touching account, a copy of which was circulated in manuscript. The
+professor, hearing of Sheridan's condition asked to see him, with a view
+not only of alleviating present distress, but of calling the dying man to
+repentance. From his hands the unhappy Sheridan received the Holy
+Communion; his face during that solemn rite--doubly solemn when it is
+performed in the chamber of death--'expressed,' Smythe relates, '_the
+deepest awe_.' That phrase conveys to the mind impressions not easy to be
+defined, not easy to be forgotten.
+
+"Peace! There was not peace even in death, and the creditor pursued him
+even into the 'waste wide,' even to the coffin. He was lying in state,
+when a gentleman in the deepest mourning called, it is said, at the house,
+and introducing himself as an old and much-attached friend of the
+deceased, begged to be allowed to look upon his face. The tears which rose
+in his eyes, the tremulousness of his quiet voice, the pallor of his
+mournful face, deceived the unsuspecting servant, who accompanied him to
+the chamber of death, removed the lid of the coffin, turned down the
+shroud, and revealed features which had once been handsome, but long since
+rendered almost hideous by drinking. The stranger gazed with profound
+emotion, while he quietly drew from his pocket a bailiff's wand, and
+touching the corpse's face with it, suddenly altered his manner to one of
+considerable glee, and informed the servant that he had arrested the
+corpse in the King's name for a debt of £500. It was the morning of the
+funeral, which was to be attended by half the grandees of England, and in
+a few minutes the mourners began to arrive. But the corpse was the
+bailiff's property till his claim was paid, and nought but the money would
+soften the iron capturer. Canning and Lord Sidmouth agreed to settle the
+matter, and over the coffin the debt was paid."
+
+The pall-bearers were the Duke of Bedford, the Earl of Lauderdale, Earl
+Mulgrave, Lord Holland, Lord Spencer, and the Bishop of London, and the
+body was followed by two Royal Highnesses--the Dukes of York and
+Sussex--by two Marquises, seven Earls, three Viscounts, five Lords, and a
+perfect army of honourables and right honourables. This _show_ of respect
+and homage after death, when nothing had been done to assuage his last
+sufferings in life, was regarded by those who loved him as a bitter
+mockery, and Moore's lines justly denounced it.
+
+  "Oh, it sickens the heart to see bosoms so hollow,
+    And friendship so false in the great and high-born,
+  To think what a long line of titles may follow,
+    The relics of him who died friendless and lorn!
+  How proud they can press to the funeral array
+    Of him whom they shunned in his sickness and sorrow,
+  How bailiffs may seize his last blanket to-day,
+    Whose pall shall be held up by nobles to-morrow!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE INGENUITY OF IMPECUNIOSITY.
+
+
+In the opening chapter, several instances of considerable ingenuity were
+referred to; but as the conduct of the individuals in question was not
+_sans peur et sans reproche_, the cases came under the head of the immoral
+effects of the want of money, and were necessarily not illustrations of
+ingenuity proper, but ingenuity slightly improper.
+
+In the present chapter, the majority of the reminiscences related are
+innocent of the unscrupulous characteristics, and are intended to be
+examples of the theory that "nothing sharpens a man's wits like poverty,"
+which assertion can be supported by the accepted axiom "necessity is the
+mother of invention;" for it stands to reason that people are more or less
+stimulated to exercise their faculties of contrivance in proportion to
+their need. Hence it is that the very needy become exceptionally sharp in
+more senses than one.
+
+The men who have made their mark in any department of knowledge, or have
+achieved positions of eminence, are for the most part, those who have
+wanted to be clever, or those who have wanted to attain certain celebrity.
+It is the _want_ of the thing that has enabled them to devote their whole
+lives to study, or given them the power to persevere; and so it is with
+regard to impecuniosity. The want of money--that is an anxious desire for
+it on account of its being needed--has caused men to cudgel their brains
+to extricate themselves from their difficulties, has made them plot and
+plan, scheme and contrive, or, in other words, has greatly developed the
+gift of ingenuity.
+
+Charles Phillips, the barrister, who, when first he practised at the Old
+Bailey bar, was remarkably hard up, was wont to relate, with great glee,
+how he succeeded with one of his early briefs, which he had from an
+Israelite attorney, in what might be termed "Jewing" the Jew. The case
+involved an indictment brought by one omnibus company against another
+for "nursing" (that is, too closely following one another for the purpose
+of driving the rival off the road), and the trial lasted over three days.
+For this brief, which was an important one, he had received a
+disgracefully small fee, which he could not decline on account of his
+necessitous condition; but he determined, if he could get a chance, to be
+equal with his parsimonious employer, and on the last day of the trial the
+opportunity came. The attorney was most anxious that Phillips himself
+should examine a noted Paddington driver, who was a most important
+witness, and early on the morning he accosted the barrister, saying: "What
+an interesting day this will be in Court. You have to examine the
+Paddington coachman. The Court is crowded with conductors and drivers from
+all parts."
+
+"Indeed," said Phillips, "I feel no interest in it. The trial has lasted
+three days, and look at my miserable fee. Now you _must_ give me ten
+guineas, or I won't examine him."
+
+The Jew was thunderstruck, and white with fear for the issue of his cause,
+declared he had not such a sum with him, but said he would leave the
+amount at Phillips' chambers after the trial. The counsel knowing his man,
+and what his promise was worth, declined the proposition, whereupon the
+other produced his cheque-book, and forthwith wrote out a cheque for the
+sum demanded. As soon as the barrister received it, he asked to be excused
+for a few moments, on the plea that he would have to hand over another
+brief which he had to a brother counsel. He then privately gave the cheque
+to one of the attendants, telling him to run as hard as he could, or take
+a cab, and get the cheque cashed as quickly as possible. On his return, he
+managed to keep his victim engaged in conversation till he thought the
+messenger had obtained a sufficient start, feeling sure that the Jew,
+although so much interested in the trial, would rush off to the bank and
+stop payment. It was as Phillips anticipated; but the attorney was not
+quite quick enough, for, as he rushed into the bank, the man with the
+money came out, and the state of perspiration and cursing in which the
+baffled Israelite regained the Old Bailey can be understood without
+detailing.
+
+There is no doubt in Phillips' case that impecuniosity sharpened his wits;
+for the transaction was nothing more nor less than a piece of _sharp
+practice_, indefensible on strictly moral grounds, but hardly blameable
+when the character and conduct of the grinding attorney are remembered.
+
+The name of Phillips is associated with another record of ingenuity; but
+in the second instance it was Harlequin Phillips--no relation whatever of
+the legal luminary, though from his aptitude in taking advantage of an
+adversary he was worthy to be related, or at any rate his anecdote is.
+
+This celebrated pantomimist, who was contemporaneous with Garrick, and was
+regarded as one of the cleverest men in his profession at that time, was
+not clever enough to keep himself out of debt and the spunging-house,
+though he proved himself equal to making his escape from custody by an
+admirably-conceived plan. After treating the bailiff very freely, he
+pretended that he had a dozen of particularly choice wine at home, already
+packed, which he begged permission to send for, to drink while he was
+detained, offering to pay sixpence a bottle for the privilege.
+
+His custodian acceded to the request, and Phillips wrote a letter giving
+particulars of what he wanted, which letter was duly despatched to his
+residence. Some time after, a sturdy porter presented himself with the
+load, and the turnkey called to his master that a porter with a hamper for
+Mr. Phillips had come. "All right," replied the bailiff; "then let nothing
+but the porter and hamper out." The messenger, who was an actor thoroughly
+accustomed to "heavy business," came in, apparently loaded with a weighty
+hamper, and went out as lightly as if he were carrying an empty package,
+though in reality it contained Mr. Phillips inside.
+
+This was indeed _carrying out the character of harlequin_ (who is always
+supposed to be invisible) "to the letter;" and shows that the pantomimist
+of the past was an inventive genius, in addition to being an agile
+acrobat, and more or less up to tricks. _A propos_ of tricks, the life of
+Philippe, the conjuror, introduces a legitimate illustration of a man poor
+in pocket, but rich in resource. Though he appeared at the St. James' and
+Strand Theatres in 1845, under the name of Philippe, his real cognomen was
+Talon-Philippe Talon.
+
+Born at Alais, near Nismes, where he carried on the trade of confectioner,
+he came to London, and subsequently went to Aberdeen, in the hope of
+succeeding as a manufacturer of Scotch sweets; but found himself unable to
+compete with the native makers, and in possession at last of nothing but a
+quantity of unsaleable confectionery. In utter despair of being ever able
+to get rid of his stock, he bethought him of turning conjuror, having
+always had a great _penchant_ for sleight-of-hand performances, and being,
+he believed, equal to giving an exhibition in public. Certain apparatus,
+was, however, necessary, which, of course, in his insolvent condition, he
+was unable to purchase. He made a visit to the theatre, and found
+that--fortunately for him--the entertainment being given was anything but
+successful; the bill, theatrically speaking, was "a frost," and the
+manager consequently open to discuss any scheme for pulling up the
+business. In a moment Philippe saw his opportunity, and suggested that two
+or three special performances should be given, at which every person
+paying for admission should have with his check a packet of confectionery
+given to him, and a ticket entitling the holder to a chance in a prize of
+the value of £15. The suggestion was acted upon, the bait took, and the
+result was a succession of crowded houses, whereby Talon cleared off all
+his stock of sweets, netting a sufficient sum to enable him to purchase
+conjuring apparatus, which enabled him to give a series of entertainments
+with great success; the same that were subsequently represented with such
+profit in England, France, Austria, and elsewhere. Talon, or Philippe, as
+he was known to the entertaining public, was the first to perform with
+bare arms, and was one of the first to introduce the "globes of fish"
+trick in this country.
+
+Another of the "legitimate" description of examples is found connected
+with the theatrical experience of Mr. C. W. Montague, who for years was a
+very well-known circus-manager, having been connected at one time or
+another with the equestrian establishments of Messrs. Sanger, Bell, F.
+Ginnetts, Myers, Newsome, and George Ginnett. Some years ago, when he
+joined the circus owned by the last-named at Greenwich, he found that
+business was in a most melancholy condition; the show, although a very
+good one, failed to fetch the people in, and the receipts, not sufficient
+to pay expenses, were getting worse and worse. This dismal state of things
+was most disheartening to Montague, who was at his wits' end to know what
+to do, when one day, while he was being shaved, the barber noticing some
+one who had just passed the shop, said: "There goes poor Townsend." "And
+who might he be?" asked the manager; being told in reply that the
+gentleman referred to had originally represented Greenwich in Parliament,
+but owing to great pecuniary difficulties had been obliged to resign. It
+also transpired that the late M.P. was a most excellent actor, the barber
+having seen him enact Richard III. "quite as good as any right down
+reg'ler perfeshional." In addition, Mr. Townsend had been deservedly
+popular in the district, and especially in Deptford; for he had been the
+means, when in the House of Commons, of getting dockyard labourers' wages
+considerably advanced. These two facts, combined with the broken-down
+appearance of the gentleman spoken of, immediately presented themselves to
+Mr. Montague in a business light. What a capital idea it would be if he
+could manage to get the ex-M.P. to appear in the circus! So popular a man
+would be a tremendous draw! With this object in view, he waited upon Mr.
+Townsend the next morning, and put the proposition to him, but without
+success. The unfortunate gentleman admitted that his circumstances were
+such that the prospect of making money by the venture was most tempting;
+but his pride would not admit of his accepting the offer. The idea of
+appearing as a paid performer in a circus in the very place where he had
+been regarded with such respect was repugnant to his feelings, and he felt
+that he could not consent to the sacrifice of dignity. Away from Greenwich
+he would not have minded; but this arrangement of course would have been
+no good to Mr. Montague. Nothing daunted by the refusal, the theatrical
+man of business determined not to give up the idea, but on several
+subsequent occasions pressed him hard, using such powerful arguments in
+favour of the scheme that at last Mr. Townsend consented to appear as
+Richard "for twelve nights only," on sharing terms. As soon as this was
+arranged, another and by no means unimportant difficulty presented itself.
+With the exception of Mr. Ginnett and his manager, there was no one in the
+company capable of supporting the tragedian; but stimulated by the
+seriousness of the situation, Mr. Montague set to work, cut down the
+tragedy with unsparing energy, and so arranged a version that enabled Mr.
+Ginnett and himself to double the parts of Richmond, Catesby, Norfolk,
+Ratcliffe, Stanley, and the ghosts. Notwithstanding these drawbacks, the
+production (which would never have been thought of or undertaken but for
+the impecunious state of affairs) proved a palpable hit, Townsend's share
+being so considerable that he insisted on treating the company to a
+supper, shortly after which he went to America.
+
+The mention of America, and connected with circus managing, naturally
+suggests to the mind the name of that arch-humbug, but most successful
+showman, P. T. Barnum, who was not always the wealthy caterer he now is.
+On the contrary, his early life was associated with such poverty-stricken
+surroundings, that the want of money had undoubtedly much to do with that
+smartness for which his name has become famous. His father died leaving
+the family very badly off, the mother being put to all sorts of straits to
+keep the home together; and when Barnum--who was first of all a farmer's
+boy--commenced his career, he, according to his own account, "began the
+world with nothing, and was barefooted at that." His first berth of any
+consequence was a clerkship in a general store, at which time he was
+"dreadfully poor;" but, says he, "I determined to have some money."
+Consequently, impelled by impecuniosity, he speedily became ingenious. One
+day, when left in charge of the business, a pedlar called with a waggon
+full of common green glass bottles, varying in size from half a pint to
+half a gallon. The store was what was called a barter store. A number of
+hat manufacturers traded there, paying in hats, and giving store orders to
+many of their _employés_, and other firms did likewise, so that the
+business boasted an immense number of small customers. The pedlar was
+anxious to do business, and Barnum knew that his employers had a quantity
+of goods that were regarded as unsaleable stock. Upon these he put
+inordinately high prices, and then expressed his willingness to barter
+some goods for the whole lot of bottles. The pedlar was only too glad,
+never dreaming of disposing of all his load, and the exchange was
+effected. Shortly after, Mr. Keeler, one of the firm, returned, and, on
+beholding the place crowded with the bottles, asked in amazement, "What
+_have_ you been doing?" "Trading goods for bottles," replied Barnum; to
+which his employer made the unpalatable rejoinder, "You are a fool;"
+adding, "You have bottles enough for twenty years."
+
+Barnum took the reproof very meekly, only saying that he hoped to get rid
+of them in less than three months, and then explained what goods he had
+given in exchange. The master was very pleased when he found that his
+assistant had got rid of what was regarded as little better than lumber,
+but still was dubious as to how on earth he would be able to find
+customers for the glass, more especially as there was a quantity of old
+tinware, dirty and flyblown, about which Barnum was equally sanguine. In a
+few days the secret was out. His _modus operandi_ was this: a gigantic
+lottery--1000 tickets at 50 cents each. The highest prize 25 dollars,
+payable in goods; any that the customers desired to that amount. Fifty
+prizes of five dollars each, the goods to that amount being mentioned, and
+consisting as a rule of one pair cotton hose, one cotton handkerchief,
+two tin cups, four pint glass bottles, three tin skimmers, one quart glass
+bottle, six nutmeg graters, and eleven half-pint glass bottles. There were
+100 prizes of one dollar each, and 100 prizes of fifty cents each, and 300
+prizes of twenty-five cents each, glass and tinware forming the greater
+part of each prize. Headed in glaring capitals "Twenty-five dollars for
+fifty cents; over 500 prizes." The thousand tickets sold like wild-fire,
+the customers never stopping to consider the nature of the prizes.
+Journeyman hatters, boss hatters, apprentice boys, hat-trimmers, people of
+every class and kind bought chances in the lottery, and in less than ten
+days all the tickets were sold.
+
+This was Barnum's first stroke of business, the success of it no doubt
+having much to do with his subsequent enterprises; and as, according to
+his own showing, the scheme was the result of needy circumstances, and a
+determination to have money, it is impossible to say how much his present
+prosperity is due to that early expedient.
+
+To give a less modern instance of the power of impecuniosity to render
+people ingenious, there is an anecdote of this nature recorded of Captain
+William Winde, a celebrated architect, the dates of some of whose designs
+are 1663-1665. Amongst many other of his achievements is included
+Buckingham House, in St. James's Park, which he designed for the Duke of
+Buckingham, but the money for which he could not obtain. The edifice was
+nearly finished when the arrears of payment were so considerable that the
+architect felt he could not continue unless he obtained a settlement; but
+how to do it? That was the thing. Asking was perfectly useless, and
+writing to his grace was equally ineffectual. At last a brilliant idea
+occurred to him. He requested the duke to mount the leads, to behold the
+wonderful view that could be obtained therefrom, and when the noble owner
+complied, he locked the trap-door, and threw the key away.
+
+"Now," said Winde, "I am a ruined man, and unless I have your word of
+honour that the debts shall be paid, I will instantly throw myself over."
+
+"What is to become of me?" asked the duke.
+
+"_You shall come along with me!_" replied Winde; whereat his grace
+immediately promised to pay, and the trap was opened at a given signal by
+a workman who was in the plot.
+
+There is a similar kind of story told of Sir Richard Steele and a
+carpenter who had built a theatre for him, but who was unable to get his
+money. Finding all ordinary means of no avail, the carpenter took the
+opportunity when Sir Richard had some friends present, who had assembled
+for the purpose of testing the capabilities of the building, of going to
+the other end of the theatre; and when told to speak out something pretty
+loudly, to test the acoustic properties, roared as loud as ever he could
+that he wished to goodness Sir Richard Steele would settle his account.
+This is the same individual who gave a splendid entertainment to all the
+leading people of the time, and had them waited upon by a number of
+liveried servants. After dinner Steele was asked how such an expensive
+retinue could be kept upon his fortune, when he replied he should be only
+too glad to dispense with his servants' services, but he found it
+impossible to get rid of them.
+
+"Impossible to get rid of them?" asked his friends. "What do you mean?"
+
+"Why, simply that these lordly retainers are bailiffs with an execution,"
+replied Steele, adding that "he thought it but right that while they
+remained they should do him credit."
+
+It is said that his friends were so amused by the humorous ingenuity
+displayed, that they paid the debt, which is not unlikely, considering how
+popular he was. As a literary man, Steele was always regarded with the
+highest esteem, and his personal merits were equally recognised, since his
+want of economy was considered his only sin, it having been said of him
+that "he was the most innocent rake that ever entered the rounds of
+dissipation."
+
+The same could not be said of Sheridan unfortunately, whose ingenuity
+under monetary pressure (and when wasn't he pressed for money?) was
+remarkable. One of the least harmless of the many incidents recorded of
+this character is the circumstance of his obtaining a handsome watch from
+Harris the proprietor of Covent Garden Theatre. He had made innumerable
+appointments with Harris, none of which had ever been kept, and at last
+the manager sent word through a friend that if Sherry failed to be with
+him at one o'clock as arranged, he would positively have nothing more to
+do with him. Notwithstanding the importance of the interview, at three
+o'clock Sheridan was at Tregent's, a famous watchmaker's, and in course of
+conversation he told Tregent that he was on his way to see Harris.
+
+"Ah!" said the watchmaker, "I was at the theatre a little while ago, and
+he was in a terrible rage with you--said he had been waiting for you since
+one."
+
+"Indeed," said Sheridan; "and what took you to Covent Garden?"
+
+"Harris is going to present Bate Dudley with a gold watch," was the reply;
+"and I took him a dozen to choose from."
+
+Sheridan left on hearing this, and went straight to the theatre, where he
+found Harris exceedingly wroth at having, as he said "had to wait over two
+hours."
+
+"My dear Harris," began the incorrigible one, "these things occur more
+from my misfortune than my faults, I assure you. I thought it was but one
+o'clock. It happens I have no watch, and am too poor to buy one. When I
+have one, I shall be as punctual as any one else."
+
+"Well," replied the manager, "you shall not want one long. Here are
+half-a-dozen of Tregent's best--choose whichever you like."
+
+Sheridan did not hesitate to avail himself of the offer; nor did he, as it
+will be understood, select the least expensive one of the number.
+
+_A propos_ of watchmakers, there is the story of Theodore Hook dining with
+one with whom he was utterly unacquainted save by name, which ingenious
+plan was evolved through lack of funds. Driving out one afternoon with a
+friend in the neighbourhood of Uxbridge, Hook remembered that he had not
+the means wherewith to procure dinner, and turning to his companion said,
+"By the way, I suppose you have some money with you?" But he had reckoned
+without his host. "Not a sixpence--not a sou," was the reply, the last
+turnpike having taken his friend's last coin. Both were considerably
+crestfallen, for it was getting late, and the drive had made them
+remarkably hungry. What was to be done? Presently they passed an
+exceedingly pretty residence. "Stay," said Hook, "do you see that
+house--pretty villa, isn't it? Cool and comfortable--lawn like a
+billiard-table. Suppose we dine there?" "Do you know the owner?" asked the
+friend. "Not the least in the world," laughed Hook. "I know his name. He
+is the celebrated chronometer-maker. The man who got £10,000 premium from
+Government, and then wound up his affairs and his watches." Without
+another word they drove up to the door, asked for the proprietor, and were
+ushered into the worthy tradesman's presence. "Oh, sir," said Hook,
+"happening to pass through your neighbourhood, I could not deny myself the
+pleasure and honour of paying my respects to you. I am conscious it may
+seem impertinent, but your celebrity overcame my regard for the common
+forms of society, and I, and my friend here, were resolved, come what
+might, to have it in our power to say that we had seen you, and enjoyed
+for a few minutes, the company of an individual famous throughout the
+civilised world." The old man blushed, shook hands, and after conversing
+for a few minutes, asked them if they would remain to dinner, and partake
+of his hospitality? Hook gravely consulted with his friend, and then
+replied that he feared it would be impossible for them to remain. This
+only increased the watchmaker's desire for their society, and made him
+invite them more pressingly, till, at length the pretended scruples were
+overcome, the pair sitting down to a most excellent repast, to which they
+both did more than justice.
+
+On another occasion, when Hook was very much worried for money, he went as
+a _dernier ressort_ to a publisher who knew him, in the hope that he would
+help him; but unfortunately the man knew him "too well," and refused,
+unless he had something to show that he would get his money's worth, or at
+any rate a portion of it. Thereupon Hook went home, sat up all night,
+wrote an introduction to a novel "on a new plan," appended a hurried
+chapter, which he took the next day to the publisher, asserting that he
+had had a most liberal offer for it elsewhere, and so persuaded the man to
+advance the required sum.
+
+Amusing as are many of the anecdotes quoted, there is one which may be
+called "divinely" funny, being connected with a once well-known
+theologian--Dr. John Brown of Haddington. This famous Biblical
+commentator, who flourished from 1784 to 1858, was anything but rich in
+this world's goods; and so poor when staying at Dunse, that he went into a
+shop and asked to be accommodated with a halfpennyworth of cheese. The
+shopman, awfully disgusted with the meanness of the order, remarked
+haughtily, that "they did not make" such small quantities; upon which the
+doctor asked, "Then what's the least you can sell?" "A penn'orth," was the
+reply. On the divine saying "Very well," the man proceeded to weigh that
+quantity, and then placed it on the counter, anticipating to be paid for
+it. "Now," said Dr. Brown, "I will show you how to sell a halfpennyworth
+of cheese;" upon which, in the coolest manner conceivable, he cut the
+modicum into two pieces, and appropriating one half, put down his coin and
+departed.
+
+Impecuniosity in addition to sharpening men's wits, by which expression
+is understood the sharpening of the inventive faculties, has also the
+power of making sharp man's wit, as instanced in the case of the beggar
+who accosted Marivaux, the well-known French writer of romance. This
+mendicant, who appears to have been what we were wont to call a "sturdy
+rogue," looked so unlike what one soliciting alms should, that the man of
+letters said to him, "My good friend, strong and stout as you are, it is a
+great shame that you do not go to work;" when he was met with the reply,
+"Ah, master, if you did but know how lazy I am!" for which amazing
+audacity, he was rewarded by Marivaux, who said, "Well, I see thou are an
+honest fellow. Here's a piece of money for you."
+
+Though, perhaps not strictly witty, the man's remark was excessively
+comic, and for aught I know, it may have been his conduct that gave rise
+to the now well-known expression--"funny beggar."
+
+For impromptu wit connected with impecuniosity, there is the case of Ben
+Jonson, who was invited to dinner at the Falcon Tavern, by a vintner, to
+whom he was much in debt, and then told that if he could give an immediate
+answer to four questions, his debt should be forgiven him. The
+interrogatories put to him by the vintner were these, "What is God best
+pleased with? What is the Devil best pleased with? What is the World best
+pleased with? and what am I best pleased with?" To which Ben replied:
+
+  "God is best pleased when men forsake their sin.
+  The devil is best pleased when they persist therein.
+  The world's best pleased when thou dost sell good wine,
+  And thou'rt best pleased when I do pay for mine."
+
+To return to the instances of ingenuity, the late Charles Mathews must be
+remembered; for he claims the credit of having been successful in
+extracting money from Jew bailiffs, which, incredible as it may seem at
+first, would really appear to have been the case. He says, "I might relate
+a thousand stories of my hair-breadth 'scapes and adventures, with a class
+of persons wholly unknown, happily, to a large portion of the population,
+and whose names inspire terror to those who do not know them;--officers of
+the Jewish persuasion, who are supposed to represent the majesty of the
+law in its most forbidding aspect, but to whom I have been indebted for so
+many acts of kindness, that I have frequently blessed my stars that they
+were interposed between me and the tomahawking Christians by whom they
+were employed, and from whom no mercy could have been extracted. I have
+had two of those functionaries in adjacent rooms, and _have borrowed the
+money from one to pay out the other_, with many such like incidents."
+
+There is no doubt that on the subject of bailiffs this most popular light
+comedian was an authority; for his experience of them was considerable,
+and it is therefore gratifying to find him bearing testimony to the good
+qualities of the much-maligned individual, who, as "the man in
+possession," is so often provocative of anger, malice, and all
+uncharitableness in the breasts of those who have to entertain him. It
+would be unwise, however, for any one to be so led away by the eulogistic
+remarks of Charles Mathews as to expect to be able to go and do likewise,
+in the matter of borrowing money from them; for it must be remembered,
+that without exception he was the most entertaining man in existence, and
+blest with persuasive powers unparalleled. At the same time, it is
+perfectly true that they are nothing like as formidable as they are
+supposed to be (this is reliable--for a distant relation of mine once knew
+a person, who had a friend that was sold up--Ahem!), and if it were not
+for their partiality for wearing an extra number of coats and waistcoats,
+and invariably carrying a stout stick, which characteristics render them
+unmistakable to the practised eye, they would not be so objectionable, as
+they are by no means devoid of sympathy, and are always open to reason in
+the shape of gin and water.
+
+Though not of so pronounced a type as some that have been quoted, there is
+an anecdote illustrative of ingenuity, recorded of Samuel Foote, who, in
+the days of his youth, and hard-upishness, wrote 'The Genuine Memoirs of
+the Life of Sir John Dinely Goodere, Bart., who was murdered by the
+contrivance of his own brother.' The author was nephew to the murdered
+man, and the assassin; but so poor was he, that on the day he took his MS.
+to the publishers he was actually without stockings. On receiving his pay
+for the book (£10), he stopped at a hosier's in Fleet Street, to replenish
+his wardrobe, but just as he issued from the shop, he met two old Oxford
+associates, lately arrived in London for a frolic, and they bore him off
+to a dinner at the "Bedford:" where, as the wine began to take effect, his
+unclad condition began to be perceivable, and he was questioned as to
+"what the deuce had become of his stockings?" "Why," said Foote--the
+stockingless Foote--"I never wear any at this time of the year, till I am
+going to dress for the evening, and you see"--pulling his purchase out of
+his pocket, and silencing the laugh and suspicion of his friends--"I am
+always provided with a pair for the occasion."
+
+Equally humorous is the story told of the Honourable George Talbot, the
+brother of the Earl of Shrewsbury, a man well known about town during the
+time of the Peninsular War. He was a reckless spendthrift, and in Paris,
+where he had spent thousands, he was reduced to absolute want. Though a
+man of decidedly bad principles, he was what is termed a good Roman
+Catholic; that is to say, a regular attendant at Mass, and when he found
+it impossible to raise money anywhere else he bethought him of the clergy,
+and repaired to confession. He revealed everything to the priest, at least
+with regard to his penniless condition, and after much interrogation, and
+deliberation, was told to "trust in Providence." Seemingly much struck by
+the advice, he said he would come again, and on his second visit, retold
+his story, with the addition that nothing at the time of the interview had
+turned up; when he was met with the same counsel as before, and enjoined
+to "trust in Providence." Somewhat chapfallen at the failure of his visit,
+he went away, but after a few days again presented himself to the abbé,
+whom he thanked effusively for his good advice on the two previous
+occasions, and then begged the pleasure of his company to dinner at a
+well-known fashionable restaurant. The invitation was accepted, and the
+two sat down to a most sumptuous repast, the delicacy of the viands being
+only surpassed by the choiceness of the wine. When the meal was concluded
+the bill was handed to Talbot, who said that his purse was quite empty,
+and had been so for a long time, but that he thought he could not do
+better than follow his confessor's advice and "trust in Providence." The
+Abbé Pecheron (the confessor) saw the joke, paid for the dinner, and so
+interested himself in Talbot's case, that he obtained from the
+spendthrift's friends in England sufficient to enable him to return to
+this country.
+
+Not the least ingenious of the many instances to be met with, however, is
+one attributed to a widow, who, in the days of Whitecross Street and the
+Bench, was arrested for debt. This lady, who is described as of fair and
+dashing appearance, with great powers of fascination, soon began to pine
+for her liberty, and petitioned for leave "to live within the rules,"
+which request was granted. She then took a house in Nelson Square, and
+became a reigning queen of pleasure, her Thursday evening _réunions_ being
+deemed so delightful, that invitations for them were most eagerly sought
+for. Her admirers were legion (that is of the male sex), one at last
+being successful in obtaining her coveted hand, and the marriage took
+place in due course. When the happy pair returned to Nelson Square after
+the ceremony, the tipstaves, who had become acquainted with the affair,
+put in an appearance as the newly married couple were about to start on
+their honeymoon, informing the lady that they would arrest her, and take
+her to the Bench, if she attempted to leave "the rules." Nothing
+disconcerted by this apparent stopper to her happiness, she calmly, but
+majestically exclaimed, "Indeed! You forget there is no such person as the
+lady named in your warrant. I am no longer Mrs. A., but Mrs. B. There is
+my husband, and he is responsible for my debts."
+
+"Then, sir," said the tipstaff, "I must arrest you."
+
+The lady smiled sarcastically, saying, "I think it will be time enough to
+arrest my husband when you have served him with a writ. If you have one,
+produce it; if not, kindly stand aside, and allow us to enter the coach."
+The officers could but comply, for they saw they had been outwitted, and
+were compelled to stand meekly by, while the clever widow, observing "Now,
+my love, let us be off," jumped into the carriage, and drove away with her
+husband.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE IMPECUNIOSITY OF ACTORS.
+
+
+There is a letter extant, written to Sir Francis Walsingham in 1586, in
+which the writer speaks "with pious indignation of overcrowded playhouses
+and deserted churches;" and says "it was a wofull sight to see two hundred
+proude players jett in their silks where fyve hundred pore people sterve
+in the streetes." From this and many similar allusions we glean that
+actors were not in the infancy of our English dramatic art the shabby
+impecunious class they afterwards became. They were on the whole well to
+do, and highly respectable men of college education, who were in most
+cases poets as well as players, patronised and encouraged by all classes,
+except those who were so bitterly jealous of their extraordinary
+influence--the clergy. A special Act of Parliament was passed in the reign
+of Queen Elizabeth for their encouragement and protection, and they had
+that which many of the well-born and wealthy envied them--the right of
+wearing the badges of royal and noble families, ensuring them respect,
+hospitality, and protection, wherever they went. The profession of the
+player was not then open to all comers, and those who dared to adopt it
+without licence from "any baron, or person of high rank, or two justices
+of the peace," were "deemed and treated as rogues and vagabonds;" prison
+and the whipping-post, or cart-tail, stocks, and the pillory, being but
+the milder forms of that treatment promised them in the often quoted,
+commonly misrepresented, Act of "good Queen Bess."
+
+Some of the dramatic poets and players, plunging headlong into dissipation
+and debauchery, were at length abandoned by their fellows, and sank into
+the depths of misery and extreme poverty; but the majority prospered, and
+went about in their silks and velvets, with roses in their shoes, and
+swords by their sides, no longer the poor scholars they had been in their
+college days--the licensed beggars, who, when they came into a town, set
+all the dogs barking--but prosperous gentlemen of fair repute, such as
+were Shakespeare, and Edward Alleyn, the founder of the Hospital and
+College at Dulwich.
+
+But a great change was at hand when the rebellion broke out, and civil war
+gave the Puritans dominant power. Their stage-plays and interludes were
+abolished, and the players' occupation was gone. Worse still, the very Act
+of Parliament which had been created for their protection was turned
+against them, and they were classed with the rogues and vagabonds against
+whom it had formerly protected them. Then the whipping and imprisonment,
+and even selling into slavery, became the poor players' miserable
+ill-fortune, and the reign of impecuniosity began in all its rigorous
+severity and terror. The London playhouses, which, between the years 1570
+and 1629, had grown from one (the Theatre in Shoreditch) to seventeen,
+were shut up, and had all their stages, chambers (boxes, we call them),
+and galleries pulled down. Small wonder was it, therefore, that the
+players, almost to a man, drew their swords for the King, and fought
+stoutly under the royal banner. In the 'Historia Histrionica,' printed in
+1699, we read the following dialogue:
+
+"Lovewit. 'Prythee, Trueman, what became of these players when the stage
+was put down, and the rebellion raised?'
+
+"Trueman. 'Most of 'em, except Lown, Taylor, and Pollard, who were
+superannuated, went into the King's army, and, like good men and true,
+served their old master, though in a different, yet more honourable,
+capacity. Robinson was killed at the taking of a place (I think Basing
+House) by Harrison (he that was after hanged at Charing Cross), who
+refused him quarter, and shot him in the head after he had laid down his
+arms, abusing Scripture at the same time in saying, "Cursed is he that
+doeth the work of the Lord negligently." Mohun was a captain (and after
+the wars were ended here served in Flanders, where he received pay as a
+major); Hart was a lieutenant of horse under Sir Thomas Dathson, in Prince
+Rupert's regiment; Burt was cornet in the same troop, and Shatterd,
+quarter-master. Allen, of the Cockpit, was a major, and
+quarter-master-general at Oxford. I have not heard of one of these players
+of note who sided with the other party, but only Swanston, and he
+professed himself a Presbyterian, took up the trade of a jeweller, and
+lived in Aldermanbury, within the territory of Father Calamy: the rest
+either lost, or exposed, their lives for their King. When the wars were
+over, and the Royalists wholly subdued, most of 'em who were left alive
+gathered to London, and for a subsistence endeavoured to revive their old
+trade privately. They made up one company out of all the scattered members
+of several; and in the winter before the King's murder, 1648, they
+ventured to act some plays, with as much caution and privity as could be,
+at the Cockpit (now Drury Lane Theatre). They continued undisturbed for
+three or four days; but at last, as they were representing the tragedy of
+'The Bloody Brother' (in which Lowin acted Aubrey; Taylor, Rolla; Pollard,
+the cook; Burt, Latorch; and, I think, Hart, Otto), a party of
+foot-soldiers beset the house, surprised 'em about the middle of the play,
+and carried them away in their habits, not permitting them to shift, to
+Hatton House, then a prison, where, having detained them some time, they
+plundered them of their clothes and let 'em loose again. Afterwards, in
+Oliver's time, they used to act privately, three or four miles, or more,
+out of town, now here, now there, sometimes in noblemen's houses, in
+particular Holland House, at Kensington, where the nobility and gentry who
+met--but in no great numbers--used to make up a sum for them--each giving
+a broad piece, or the like--and Alexander Goffe (the woman-actor at
+Blackfriars) used to be jackall, and give notice of the time and place. At
+Christmas and Bartholomew Fair they used to bribe the officer who
+commanded at Whitehall, and were thereupon connived at, to act, for a few
+days, at the "Red Bull," but were sometimes, notwithstanding, disturbed by
+soldiers. Some picked up a little money by publishing the copies of plays
+never before printed, but kept up in MS.; for instance, in the year 1652,
+Beaumont and Fletcher's 'Wild Goose Chase' was printed in folio, for the
+public use of all the ingenious, as the title-page says, and the private
+benefit of Jown Lowin and Joseph Taylor, servants to his late Majesty; and
+by them dedicated to the honoured few lovers of dramatic poetry: wherein
+they modestly intimate their wants, and with sufficient cause; whatever
+they were before the wars, they were afterwards reduced to a necessitous
+condition.'"
+
+Hard times these for the poor wandering players.
+
+It is curious to note that a reputed natural son of Oliver Cromwell
+became an actor. This was Joe Trefusis, nicknamed "Honest Joe," described
+as a person of "infinite humour and shrewd conceits." On one occasion,
+driven, we presume, by impecuniosity, Joe volunteered as a seaman, and
+served under the Duke of York. This was just before the memorable
+sea-fight between the duke and the Dutch admiral, Van Tromp, in which Joe
+took part, as he confessed, with great fear, which was not, you may be
+sure, decreased when one of the sailors, grimly preparing for the strife,
+said to him "Now, master play-actor, you're a-going to take part in one of
+the deepest and bloodiest tragedies you ever heard of."
+
+Another player of Puritan descent was the famous American actress,
+Charlotte Cushman, the name of her ancestor, Robert Cushman, being one
+that figures honourably and prominently as a leader amongst the Pilgrim
+Fathers. She tells us many anecdotes of the impecuniosity which afflicted
+her in the early days of her career. It was decided that she should
+abandon singing, and commence acting, and her first essay was to be in--of
+all parts--"Lady Macbeth"! She was then a tall, thin, fair-skinned,
+country girl, and being unable to procure a suitable costume, Madame
+Closel, a short, fat, dark-complexioned French woman, was applied to, and
+laughed heartily at the ludicrous idea of her clothes being worn by Miss
+Cushman, who says,--
+
+"By dint of piecing out the skirt of one dress it was made to answer for
+an under-skirt, and then another dress was taken in in every direction to
+do duty as an over-dress, and so make up the costume. And thus I essayed
+for the first time the part of Lady Macbeth."
+
+At that time her only place for study was an empty garret in the house in
+which she lodged, and her practice was to shut herself up in it alone, and
+sitting on the floor commit her "lines" to memory.
+
+Miss Cushman was not the only actress whom impecuniosity and consequent
+vocal efforts led to the stage. The famous Kitty Clive, whose maiden name
+was Rafter, was originally maid-of-all-work to Miss Knowles, who lodged at
+Mrs. Snells, a well-known fan-painter, in Church Row, Hounsditch. The Bell
+Tavern immediately opposite this house, was kept by a Drury Lane
+box-keeper, named Watson, at which house an actor's beef-steak club was
+held. One morning, when Harry Woodward, Dunstall, and other well-known
+London actors were in their club-room, they heard a girl singing very
+sweetly and prettily in the street outside, and going to the window found
+that the cheerful notes emanated from the throat of a charming little
+maid-servant, who was scrubbing the street-door step at Mrs. Snell's
+house. The actors looked at each other and smiled, as they crowded the
+open window to listen, and the final result was, in 1728, the introduction
+of the poor singer to the stage. She afterwards married Counsellor Clive,
+and being not a little of the shrew, it is said, quarrelled with him so
+seriously, that before the honeymoon was fairly out, the "happy pair"
+agreed to separate. It must not, however, be supposed that Kitty Clive was
+born to a menial position: she was the daughter of an Irish gentleman,
+ruined, as so many Irish gentlemen were, by their adherence to the cause
+of James II.
+
+Amongst those so ruined was the father of the illustrious actor and
+dramatic author, Charles Macklin, who on one occasion, when about to
+insure some property, was asked, "How the clerk should designate him?"
+
+"Call me," replied the actor, "Charles Macklin, a vagabond by Act of
+Parliament"--the old law of Queen Elizabeth, which the Puritans had
+extended to all players, being then unrepealed.
+
+There was doubtless a tinge of bitterness in the joke; for Macklin's early
+experience had been a severe and trying one, in the gaunt school of
+poverty and hardship.
+
+When in his twenty-sixth year, being ashamed of depending upon his poor
+old mother for his living, he left home, and travelling as a steerage
+passenger from Dublin to Bristol, arrived in that opulent city when a
+third-class company of players were performing there. He took lodgings
+over a mean little snuff and tobacco shop, next door but one to the
+theatre, and there became acquainted with a couple of the players, a man
+and a woman, who introduced him behind the scenes. To this he owed his
+introduction to the stage; for the manager detecting signs of histrionic
+taste and ambition in the young Irishman, engaged him, despite his
+strongly pronounced brogue, to play Richmond in Shakespeare's 'Richard
+III.'
+
+James Kirkman, said to have been a natural son of Macklin's, writing of
+his _début_, said, "Considering the strong vernacular accent with which
+Mr. Macklin (then MacLaughlin) spoke, the reader would be at a loss to
+account for the applause which he met with on his first appearance, if he
+was not told that Bristol has always been so much inhabited by the Irish
+that their tones in speaking have become familiar there."
+
+The young Irish enthusiast afterwards travelled with this little company,
+making himself generally useful, by writing the playbills and distributing
+them--printing was too costly for poor strollers in those days--by
+carpentery when the stage had to be set up in some barn or inn-yard, by
+writing on occasions prologue or epilogue, without which no play was then
+considered complete, by composing and singing topical songs,
+"complimentary and adulatory to the village in which they happen to play,"
+to use his fist, which he did with great skill and strength, when the
+vulgar rustic audiences were disturbed by the quarrelsome, or were rude
+and coarsely offensive to his professional sisters and brethren. Kirkman
+says, "His circle of acting was more enlarged than Garrick's; for in one
+night he played Antonia, and Belvidera in 'Venice Preserved,' harlequin in
+the interlude, or entertainment, sang three comic songs between the acts,
+and between the play and the entertainment indulged the audience with an
+Irish jig"; often doing this when his share of the profits (for the
+original sharing system of Shakespeare's day then prevailed among
+strollers) was not more than four or five pence per night, to which was
+usually added a share of the candle-ends, candles being in use for
+lighting the stage, affixed round hoops to form chandeliers for the
+auditorium, in the making of which Macklin displayed peculiar skill.
+
+There is a good story told by Kirkman of a time when Macklin was with a
+company of strollers in Wales. One night they had the misfortune to arrive
+in Llangadoc, a little place in Carmarthenshire, so late that neither
+shelter, beds, nor food enough for all could be obtained, and Macklin,
+who, "from the high rank he held in the company was entitled to the first
+choice," resigned his claim in favour of a member of the corps who was too
+sick and weak to pass the night in the open air.
+
+Kirkman, telling the story, says: "After supping with 'Lady Hawley,'
+Macklin made his bow and retired to the room where the luggage was stored.
+Here he undressed himself and adopted the following humorous expedient: He
+instantly arrayed himself in the dress of Emilia in the 'Moor of Venice'
+(a part he occasionally played), tied up a small bundle in a handkerchief
+and slipped out of the house unperceived. In about a quarter of an hour he
+returned, apparently much fatigued, and addressing the landlady in the
+most piteous terms, recounted a variety of misfortunes that had befallen
+'her,' and concluded the speech with a heart-moving request that 'she'
+might have shelter for the night, as 'she' was a total stranger in that
+part of the country. The supposed young woman was informed by the
+unsuspecting landlady that all her beds were full, but that in pity for
+her distressed condition some contrivance would be made to let her have
+part of a bed. Charles now hugged himself at the success of his scheme,
+and, after he had partaken of some refreshment, was, to his great
+astonishment, conducted by the servant to the bedroom of the landlady
+herself, where he was left alone to undress. In this dilemma he scarcely
+knew how to act. To retreat he knew not how without risking discovery.
+However, into bed he went, convulsed with silent laughter. He had not been
+in bed many minutes before Mrs. 'Boniface,' who was upwards of sixty
+years, but completely the character in size and shape, made her
+appearance. Charles struggled hard with himself for some moments, but the
+comic scene had such an effect on him at last that he could contain
+himself no longer, and at the instant the old lady got into bed burst into
+a fit of laughter."
+
+Mrs. Boniface, believing "the poor young girl was in a fit," got up as
+fast as she could, and roared out so loudly and effectually for help that
+everybody in the house was alarmed, and the itinerant actresses coming
+into the chamber discovered, to their intense astonishment, who it was
+that the landlady had given half of her bed to. The laughter spread, was
+taken up on the stairs, and echoed from room to room, until the whole
+house rang with it. The anger of the landlady was appeased. This occurred
+in 1730 or 1731.
+
+An old friend of mine, who in his time has been actor, artist, journalist,
+dramatist, and novelist, and is now a well-known London editor, once told
+me the following story of his first connection with the stage.
+
+He was a feeble, consumptive lad of sixteen, when the drunkenness and
+cruelty of a worthless step-father drove him penniless from home. All
+through one long, wretched, and utterly hopeless day he had been wandering
+through the streets of London seeking employment. Naturally shy,
+reserved, and timid, his awkward mode of addressing a stranger while
+perplexed what account to give of himself, together with the hesitation,
+stammering, and blushing which accompanied it, had brought upon him
+nothing but scornful treatment, insulting suspicions, and failure after
+failure. He found himself at the close of a long, hot day, with burning
+feet and aching limbs, hungry, faint, and plunged into the very lowest
+depths of despair, on the banks of the New River, where he had often been
+before to fish. His desire was to escape observation, and he dragged
+himself along, passed fishermen and boys, until, finding their line
+stretched out from one to another still far ahead, he sat down in the long
+grass completely exhausted, and turning on his face, wept silently.
+
+Now it so happened that a tall, lank, sallow-faced young fisherman, with a
+beard of a fortnight's growth, and clothes of a once fashionable cut, but
+then threadbare, discoloured, ill-fitting, and very greasy at the cuffs
+and collar, particularly noted the tall, thin boy, and presently strolled
+up to, and sat down beside him.
+
+"Hallo, guv'nor," said he; "what's up?"
+
+The poor boy had no voice and no heart to reply, so he pretended to be
+asleep.
+
+"Wat's yer been a doin' on? Run away from home?"
+
+After a pause, and without moving, the poor lad said,--
+
+"I've got no home now."
+
+"Where do you come from?"
+
+"Not very far."
+
+"Where are you going to?"
+
+"Don't know."
+
+"Have you got any money?"
+
+"None."
+
+"Where's your father and mother?"
+
+"Father's dead."
+
+"And yer mother? Can't she keep yer? Ain't she got no home neither?"
+
+The boy felt that any attempt to reply would betray his violent emotion.
+He got up silently and walked away.
+
+The stranger followed, overtook him, and walked beside him.
+
+"You've come from a long way off, young un--ain't yer?"
+
+The runaway nodded, although he was really within about a mile and a half
+of his starting-point.
+
+"Yer seems awfully tired. Why I do b'lieve as yer a crying. Wot's the
+matter?"
+
+There was an expression of sincere sympathy in the man's face, and my
+young friend answered in a low faint voice, broken with sobs,--
+
+"I've no home, and no relatives or friends to go to; and I don't know what
+to do."
+
+The man eyed him very curiously before he replied,--
+
+"My lodgin's in Clerkenwell, not so very far from here; the bed 'ull 'old
+two. Come home and sleep with me; and we'll take in a couple of black
+puddin's, or a faggot, or something nice an' 'ot for supper. Come along."
+
+The stranger was a poor mender of shoes, who lived in a squalid garret, at
+the top of an old house, overcrowded with lodgers; a foolish lazy fellow
+enough, without a principle of honesty, or a care for respectability or
+cleanliness in his entire composition, but withal a kindly one. Necessity
+drives sternly. The boy looked at his companion's dirty linen and unwashed
+face and neck, and with a glance at the river, a longing, despairing look,
+which did not escape the stranger's quick observation, turned and
+reluctantly went with him.
+
+When they were in bed he began to tell his mournful story, and fell asleep
+at the beginning of it. In the morning the dirty son of St. Crispin
+explained that he was a supernumerary at the theatres, as well as a snob,
+and that he was engaged for the Princess's Theatre, where Macready was
+then playing.
+
+"If you like," said he, "I'll take you to the super-master; he lives close
+by in Hatton Garden, all amongst the Italians on the Hill."
+
+He did so, and an engagement followed. This piece of luck filled the
+unfortunate lad's heart with delight. The pay was only a shilling a night,
+but he could live on it; and it was the first step in a profession of
+which he had dreamed as the summit of human ambition and felicity ever
+since he first saw a play performed "with real water" on the boards of old
+Sadler's Wells. With what tremulous eagerness and delight he went to
+rehearsal with his dirty friend and benefactor! With what wonder and
+curiosity he inspected the stage-door, the wings and the dressing-room
+under the stage, and with what awe he eyed the mighty magician who lorded
+it above his fellows with such undemonstratively quiet and yet most
+impressive dignity!
+
+The play was Shakespeare's 'King Lear,' and in the combat scene the lists
+were formed on the stage by short battle-axes and long spears, the former
+being stuck upright in holes arranged for their reception, two of the
+latter placed crossways, and one on the top of them horizontally between
+each axe. Macready was particularly anxious that this should be done
+rapidly, and without hesitation; and the efforts of the supers to carry
+out his instructions were simply ludicrous. The men with the battle-axes
+couldn't hit upon the holes, and some absolutely went down upon their
+knees to feel for them, while the spearmen either were awfully slow and
+nervously careful, or they missed the supports and created a clatter and
+confusion, which appeared to plunge Macready into a furious state of anger
+and disgust. The new super, all eyes and ears, shared the great
+tragedian's feelings; he saw at once that the entire effect depended upon
+the dash and spirit of the soldier's action in eagerly and readily
+extemporising these warlike barriers; and he devised a plan by which his
+axe was thrust as it were at once into the earth, with scarcely a downward
+glance. He was pointing out how readily this was done, to his neighbours
+on either side, and telling them to pass the hint along, when he was
+startled by the deep strong voice of the tragedian, who had come up to
+him, and said abruptly, "What's your name, my man?"
+
+"My friend did, what I am not going to do (not having his permission), he
+told Macready his name, and he, after a grunt, and a quick, keen glance
+from under his knitted brows, repeated it aloud, saying,--
+
+"I shall not forget it. It's the name of the first super I ever saw with
+brains."
+
+On the night of the first performance some few days after, my friend was
+taken out of his ordinary soldier costume, and arrayed more carefully and
+picturesquely in a more costly fashion to play the part of a knight in
+special attendance upon the king, from whom he had the honour of receiving
+a message. Alas! that honour cost him a friend--the jealousy of the
+shoemaker broke out in spite and bitterness which accumulated and
+intensified to such an extent that at the end of the week he was caught in
+the act of hiding in the dark behind one of the beams of wood supporting
+the stage, for the purpose of throwing a big stone at the poor fellow with
+whom, under the influence of pity, he had shared his food and lodging. It
+was impossible to conceive a more cowardly or malignant rascal than this
+fellow had become under the influence of envy and jealousy.
+
+The class of theatrical people employed as supernumeraries (commonly
+called "supers") form the background figures of stage pictures, soldiers,
+sailors, peasants, citizens, mobs, &c., playing the dumb accessory parts;
+and they are as a rule neither too respectable nor too intelligent. To
+train and teach them is a task which sorely tries the patience of the
+super-master, and their lazy, poverty-stricken, and generally not too
+cleanly aspect is provocative of contempt and dislike amongst the actors.
+Their pay is not extravagant, being usually a shilling a night, but their
+histrionic pride is great, and their reverence for the actors profound,
+while for one to stand a little closer to the footlights than his fellows
+do, and consequently nearer the audience, or to be selected to go on alone
+to deliver a letter or receive a message, is the very summit of his
+ambition; a dangerous elevation, too, for from the time that he is so
+gloriously distinguished he is regarded with envy, spite, and malice, by
+his fellows, who try their best to oust him and take his place. This, my
+friend, above mentioned, soon experienced, for his life became a
+succession of bitter annoyances and coarse insults, varied when necessity
+compelled with an occasional fight, in which, despite his feeble health he
+generally contrived to give a fair account of his adversary, inheriting
+some of his father's skill as a boxer, and having been a constant student
+of that art when at school. At the termination of the Macready
+performances he was engaged at one of the old tavern theatres of those
+days, now known as the Britannia Theatre, then as the Britannia Saloon,
+where the stage-manager, a gentle and kindly old man (Mr. Wilton) was
+particularly good to him, and at last, after hearing him read a
+Shakespearian speech, entrusted him with small parts, contrary to the
+conviction of Mrs. Lane, the clever wife of the then proprietor, in whose
+place she now reigns. She, finding that the boy blushed and stammered when
+she spoke to him, pronounced him unfit for the experiment.
+
+"He has an impediment in his speech," said she.
+
+Some years after, my friend having in the meantime abandoned the stage for
+art (of which he was for years an ardent, indefatigable student), under
+the pressure of severe impecuniosity, became a country scene-painter and
+afterwards an actor, playing in the course of his theatrical career a wide
+range of second and third-rate parts, sometimes doubling as many as three
+or four in a single piece, and often both playing and painting scenery.
+Once, while Miss Mary Glover was manageress of the Cheltenham and Bath
+theatres, in consequence of the non-arrival of about half the expected
+company, he doubled tremendously, playing four characters in the burlesque
+and two in the farce, with the most rapid changes of "make up" and
+costume, one being a comic nigger with songs. Miss Glover had taken the
+theatre under the pressure of impecuniosity, trusting to the chance of
+success for the payment of her company. At the end of the first week she
+paid half salaries, at the end of the second and third weeks no salaries,
+or, in the parlance of the initiated, "the ghost did not walk," and great
+doubtless was the trouble and suffering consequently endured. My friend
+was reduced to bread and butter for meals, and found even those materials
+none too plentiful, when one evening he was summoned into the
+dressing-room of Miss Glover. The lady was in tears, but they were tears
+of indignant rage.
+
+"Sir!" said she, "I was never so insulted in all my life!"
+
+"What's wrong, madam? Who has insulted you?"
+
+"Who has insulted me, sir! Why you have!" cried she, with a look of
+astonishment.
+
+"I, madam! How?" he exclaimed with a similar expression.
+
+"Look at your gloves, sir!"
+
+"Well, madam, they are clean, I washed them myself."
+
+"But, sir! Berlin gloves! It's monstrous! I was never so treated before in
+all my life! Paltry cotton. You ought to be ashamed of yourself--a leading
+character too. I never played with a gentleman before in your part who did
+not wear new white kids!"
+
+"I laughed," said my friend. "It was rude, I know, but for the life of me
+I couldn't help it. Here was my employer living in comparative luxury at
+first-class lodgings in a fashionable town, abusing a poor devil whom she
+had cheated and half-starved, because, in a back-street garret with
+scarcely a penny in his pocket, he did not wear nightly, as he otherwise
+would have done, a new pair of white kid gloves!"
+
+The late Miss Oliver, who stood by at the time, called the fellow who
+dared to laugh at a manageress in such dire distress, "a brute."
+
+On another occasion Mr. Huntley May Macarthy, a once well-known and very
+eccentric provincial manager, abruptly closed the theatre at Bury St.
+Edmunds, after keeping it open a week or ten days, leaving the unfortunate
+company to escape from the dilemma of debt and difficulty into which so
+many of them were deeply plunged. Some had drawn a fortnight's salary in
+advance, to pay their travelling expenses to Bury St. Edmunds, and they
+had all been gathered from far and near by the London agent. In that case
+my friend the editor found his ark of safety in falling back upon his old
+profession. He painted the portrait of a local celebrity, which, being
+exhibited in the town, soon brought him sitters enough to enable him to
+help himself and spare something for one or two of his less happily
+situated brothers and sisters in misfortune. I remember my friend remarked
+as curious on each of these occasions the quietude with which the
+histrionics submitted to be so unfairly treated. Neither in the case of
+Miss Glover nor that of Mr. Macarthy were there any attacks made upon them
+to the face, heartily as they were cursed and abused behind their backs.
+
+In explanation of this I may recall what Mrs. Mathews said of her husband,
+the elder Mathews, when he suffered under the same infliction, which in
+the old days of "circuits" and "strolling companies" was a very common one
+and is still by no means unknown. She said,--
+
+"I have heard Mr. Mathews say that he has gone to the theatre at night
+without having tasted anything since a meagre breakfast, determined to
+refuse to go on the stage unless some portion of his arrears was first
+paid. When, however, he entered the green-room his spirits were so cheered
+by the attention of his brethren, and the _éclat_ of his reception that
+his fainting resolution was restored, all his discontent utterly banished
+for the time, and he was again reconciled to starvation: nay, he even felt
+afraid of offending the unfeeling manager, and returned home silent upon
+the subject of his claims."
+
+No actor was ever better acquainted with poverty than that extraordinary
+man Edmund Kean. Endowed with rare genius, and a potency of will, that
+impelled him to surmount any obstacle lying in the pathway leading towards
+fame, this player's fate was yet infelicitous. Maternal solicitude, moral
+training, and those circumstantial influences which induce regular habits,
+were alike denied him. All the regularities, vicissitudes, vexations,
+disappointments, sorrows, trials and romance common to the lives of
+strolling players, characterized the early career of Edmund Kean. Through
+his mother he was related to George Saville, Marquis of Halifax. That
+mother was Ann Carey, grand-daughter of Henry Carey, the reputed author of
+our National Anthem. The father of Edmund Kean was Aaron Kean, generally
+described as an architect, but described by some as a stage carpenter, and
+by others as a tailor. In a melancholy and miserable chamber of a house,
+situated at no great distance from Holborn, Edmund Kean first saw the
+light, on November 4th, 1787. It is stated by Miss Tidswell, the actress,
+that "about half-past three in the morning Aaron Kean, the father, came to
+me, and said, 'Nance Carey is with child, and begs you to go to her at her
+lodgings in Chancery Lane.' Accordingly my aunt and I went with him and
+found Nance Carey near her time. We asked her if she had proper
+necessaries, and she replied, 'No--nothing'; whereupon Mrs. Byrne begged
+the loan of some baby-clothes, and Nance Carey was removed to the chambers
+in Gray's Inn, which her father then occupied, and it was there that the
+future tragedian was born." Ann Carey had been under the protection of
+Aaron Kean, and he afterwards abandoned her. She came of an unfortunate
+stock, for Henry Carey, as I have stated, notwithstanding his talents was
+always in difficulties, which only forsook him when he committed
+self-destruction; and his son, George Saville Carey--printer, mimic,
+scientific lecturer, and occasional poetaster and dramatist--would have
+been without a decent burial, but for the charity of a few friends. His
+daughter when only fifteen years old, quitted her home and became a
+strolling actress; but when out of an engagement she would return to
+London, and pick up a scanty home in its streets as a hawker. It was in
+such occupation that Aaron Kean first saw the woman.
+
+In addition to her irregular habits, Edmund Kean's mother was selfish,
+calculating, and cruel. It was not long after his birth that the child,
+with his strangely beautiful dark eyes and winning ways, was actually
+abandoned by his unnatural parent. Ann Carey quitted the metropolis to
+join a wandering troupe of Thespians, and when she next saw her child, he
+was three years old, and living under the protection of a poor man and
+his wife, in Soho. It is said that these worthy people had found little
+Edmund hungry and forlorn, and left in a doorway, one winter's night.
+
+Of the boy's history, after the mother had abandoned him to the period
+when he found succour from the kind couple in Soho, nothing is known. Ann
+Carey demanded her child, and quickly turned her offspring to profit;
+getting him engaged to appear as a reposing Cupid in one of the Opera
+House ballets, and subsequently to appear in a Drury Lane pantomime--the
+boy was little more than three years old. When in 1794 at Drury Lane, John
+Kemble produced 'Macbeth' with exceedingly novel stage business, Edmund
+Kean was one of the goblin troupe, introduced for the purpose of giving
+additional impressiveness to the incantation scene. It was not long
+afterwards that he played the part of a page in the 'Merry Wives of
+Windsor.' His education was of the slightest, and intermittent; he was a
+pupil at a small school in Orange Court, Leicester Square, and at another
+place of instruction in Chapel Street, Soho; and the expenses for such
+education were defrayed by a few generously disposed people, who were
+impressed by the boy's beauty and intelligence. Ann Carey, almost
+destitute, went away from Castle Street, Leicester Fields, and, with her
+boy found a lodging in Ewer Street, Southwark. Young Edmund, restive and
+adventurous, determined to run away from home, and with a few necessaries
+tied up in a bundle slung on a stick, made his way to Portsmouth, and
+engaged himself in the capacity of cabin boy for a ship bound to Madeira.
+Not sufficiently robust to do some of the work incidental to his duties,
+he resolved to be again free; which he accomplished by feigning deafness.
+Discharged at the end of the return voyage, he walked from Portsmouth to
+London, and hungry, footsore and heart-weary, made his way to the old
+lodging in Southwark. He found that his mother had left her shabby
+tenement for a place in Richardson's show troupe, then perambulating the
+country.
+
+He bethought him that he might find a shelter under the roof of his uncle,
+Moses Kean, who lived in Lisle Street, Leicester Square. This uncle, who
+was a mimic, ventriloquist, and general entertainer, received young Edmund
+Kean kindly, gave him a home, and became his preceptor in many of the
+mysteries belonging to the histrionic art. Miss Tidswell, the
+acquaintance of his mother, and an actress of respectable position at
+Drury Lane, also showed great interest in the welfare of the boy. He made
+progress in the arts of dancing, singing, declamation, and fencing, and
+even in those days he became familiar with the creations of Shakespeare.
+Through the influence of Miss Tidswell, he obtained an engagement for some
+parts at Drury Lane, Prince Arthur in 'King John' being one. The boy
+excited notice, as the following anecdote related by Mrs. Charles Kemble
+shows.
+
+"One morning before the rehearsal commenced, I was crossing the stage,
+when my attention was attracted by the sounds of loud applause issuing
+from the direction of the green-room. I enquired the cause, and was told
+that it was only little Kean reciting 'Richard III.' My informant said
+that he was very clever. I went into the green-room and saw the little
+fellow facing an admiring group, and reciting lustily."
+
+On the death of Moses Kean, his nephew's only real friend was Miss
+Tidswell. Under her he studied Shakespearian characters, and while
+residing with her joined the company of Saunders, Bartholomew Fair. There
+he gave imitations of the nightingale and monkey, of the form and movement
+of the snake; and at Bartholomew Fair he acted the part of Tom Thumb. Soon
+afterwards, hearing that his mother was acting at Portsmouth, he set out
+from London for the seaport named; but on reaching it discovered that the
+information given him concerning Anna Carey was incorrect. His situation
+was trying, for he was destitute and friendless. Young Kean, however, had
+a bold heart, and a brain full of resources. He hired, on credit, a room
+in one of the Portsmouth taverns, and announced an entertainment
+consisting of "Selections from 'Hamlet,' 'Richard III.,' and 'Jane Shore,'
+with a series of acrobatic performances, and some exquisite singing, and
+all by Master Carey, of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane." The entertainment
+was sufficiently successful for it to be repeated, and having paid all
+expenses, the entertainer found himself three pounds in pocket. Edmund
+Kean at this time was fourteen years old.
+
+Reciting Rolla's "address to the Peruvians" one evening before an audience
+at Sadler's Wells, a country manager, then present, was so much impressed
+by the declamation of the lad, that young Kean received an offer to play
+leading characters for twenty nights at the York Theatre. The offer was
+accepted, he was highly successful, and for many years from the time of
+that York engagement, the future tragedian of Drury Lane underwent the
+vicissitudes peculiar to the life of the old-fashioned stroller. It was
+not long ere he encountered the famous showman, Richardson, who speedily
+made terms with the precocious and versatile youth. It turned out that
+Anne Carey was in the company. She proposed that her son should join with
+her in her labours, and that she should receive his earnings. But they did
+not long labour together, and parted, not to meet again till Kean made his
+great success in 1814 at Drury Lane. While with a manager named Butler, at
+Northampton, Kean played walking gentlemen, Harlequin, and sang comic
+songs for a salary of fifteen shillings a week. While attached to Butler's
+company, he enacted the character of Octavian, in the 'Mountaineers' with
+such ability, that a gentleman connected with the Haymarket, who saw the
+performance, undertook to procure the young tragedian an engagement,
+provided that he could reach London to appear at a specified time. Kean,
+being without money, could only have travelled on foot, and the journey to
+London by such means would have taken up so much time, that he
+despairingly saw that the engagement must remain unfulfilled. Butler, with
+the greatest good nature, said "that he would defray the expenses of a
+stage-coach journey." Kean, overcome with emotion, exclaimed, "If ever
+fortune smiles upon my efforts, I will not forget you."
+
+The Haymarket engagement proved humiliating, the young actor being cast
+for very insignificant parts. However, in one character, Ganem, in the
+'Mountaineers,' by the admirable manner in which he spoke certain words,
+he drew forth such unmistakable applause, that he availed himself of a
+recommendation addressed to John Kemble. In an interview with that
+celebrity, Kean found the eminent tragedian so chilling and unsympathetic
+in manner, that the poor fellow hurried from the theatre stung to the
+quick by his inauspicious reception. He again visited the provinces, and
+again experienced many privations, disappointments, humiliations, and
+rebuffs. Fate appeared to frown upon him; but it must be remembered that
+Kean was young, exceedingly small of stature, unconventional in his style
+of acting, and thoroughly original in every assumption that he undertook.
+Moreover, his temper was violent, haughty, and sensitive.
+
+It was during those days, when Edmund Kean, as a strolling player, was
+learning his art, and was making acquaintance with poverty in its most
+bitter forms, that he acquired those habits of intemperance which
+afterwards effected his ruin. After the engagement at the Haymarket, he
+acted at Tunbridge Wells, Portsmouth, Haddesden, Birmingham, and
+Edinburgh. More than once in these journeyings he exhibited at fairs and
+public houses; and for a short time he earned a scanty income in the
+capacity of usher at a school in Hertfordshire. In 1807 at Belfast, he
+played with Mrs. Siddons; and as Jaffier in 'Venice Preserved' made a
+strong impression. But the tragedienne's opinion of him was not
+flattering; for on first seeing him, she remarked, "he was a horrid little
+man," and criticising his enaction in Otway's pathetic drama said, "He
+plays the part very, very well, but there is too little of him wherewith
+to make a great actor." Notwithstanding taunts, impecuniosity,
+heart-burnings, and neglect, the young aspirant studied laboriously, and
+allowed no opportunity to slip by which he might gain increased knowledge
+of stage art, and of human nature; but during his hard apprenticeship, he
+was forced to have recourse to many shifts, and to endure much suffering.
+After playing an engagement in Kent, he accepted another for a single
+night at Braintree, in Essex.
+
+On the day that the performance was to take place at Braintree, the actor
+stood, without a farthing in his pocket, on the Kent bank of the Thames.
+Bound to fulfil his engagement, it was necessary for him to cross the
+river; and his impecunious condition precluded all possibility of hiring a
+boat. The strong-willed stroller was not to be daunted. He threw off his
+clothes, tied them into a bundle, which he held in his teeth, plunged into
+the river, and speedily reached the shore. With his clothes saturated with
+water, half-famished, and tired in every limb, he yet went on for "Rolla,"
+before the Braintree audience. While performing he fainted, and an illness
+of fever and ague was the consequence of his swimming expedition. On
+recovering he tramped all the way to Swansea, and played in that town. He
+was then in his twentieth year. Proceeding to Gloucester, he became a
+member of Beverley's company, and was advertised to play Young Rapid. The
+usual means had been taken to attract an audience, but at the time for
+the rising of the curtain there were only two persons in the auditorium;
+so the eighteenpence taken at the doors were returned to the couple of
+playgoers, and the theatre lights extinguished. A few nights Kean
+performed with a lady who had left the scholastic profession for that of
+the stage, and this lady, Miss Chambers, afterwards became Mrs. Kean. When
+at Stroud, Master Betty was announced to perform Hamlet and Norval; Kean
+found himself cast for Laertes and Glenalvon. The actor could not brook
+what he deemed an indignity,--that of playing secondary characters to a
+mere boy; and for three days and three nights, he was away from the
+theatre, every individual connected with it being ignorant of his
+whereabouts. On reappearing he said, "I have been in the fields, in the
+woods, I am starved; I have eaten nothing but turnips and cabbages since
+I've been out; but I'll go again, and as often as I see myself put in such
+characters. I won't play second to any man living, except to John Kemble."
+In the summer of 1808, Kean married Mary Chambers, the wife being nine
+years older than the husband. Soon after the marriage, Beverley told them
+that he intended dispensing with their services, and they soon had to
+drain the cup of poverty to its dregs. To the honour of the woman he had
+taken to his heart, she cheered and soothed him in his tremendous
+struggle. He suffered not only the pangs of poverty, but too often the
+stings of hostile criticisms from provincial scribes, utterly unable to
+appreciate his passionate and original renderings of dramatic
+characterization. At Birmingham he thought himself and his wife well paid,
+when during an engagement they each received a pound for their weekly
+services. So ably did he act that Stephen Kemble made proposals to
+negotiate a London engagement; but Kean deemed that further experience was
+necessary before he should attempt a metropolitan appearance in leading
+characters. Terrible toil and terrible suffering had to be undergone ere
+he was to reach the pinnacle of success.
+
+Closing his performances at Birmingham, he made terms with Andrew Cherry
+to appear at Swansea. So indigent was the actor, that he was necessitated
+to undertake the journey on foot, a journey of 200 miles; and his wife,
+who accompanied him, was likely soon to become a mother. Mr. and Mrs. Kean
+owed money in Birmingham, or possibly the wife might have remained in the
+town; and from it--early one summer morning--they departed on their long
+and wearisome way, adding to their miserable store of money some additions
+as they proceeded, by giving recitations at the residences of the gentry.
+In a fortnight they reached Bristol, were ferried over to Newport, and at
+last reached Swansea, where they obtained lodgings. Kean's acting was not
+warmly received; and referring to one of his impersonations in the town,
+he remarked, "I played the part finely, and yet they would not applaud
+me!" The actor grew moody, splenetic, and gave way to insobriety. A son
+born to him at this period he named Howard; and it was soon after the
+birth of the child that the Keans left Swansea, with Cherry, for other
+towns in the principality, and subsequently they crossed over to Ireland.
+At Waterford, Kean played tragedy, and in addition for his benefit, gave
+an exhibition of pugilism, tight-rope dancing, singing, and wound up by
+playing the Chimpanzee in the piece called 'La Perouse.' It was at
+Waterford that Edmund Kean's second son, Charles, was born. Beaching
+Scotland, so exhausted were the funds of the actor, that at Dumfries he
+got up an entertainment at a tavern, and the only patron was a shoe-maker,
+who paid sixpence for admission. At Carlisle Kean appealed to the
+barristers on Assize, asking for their presence, when he would deliver a
+series of recitations, his reward to be at their discretion; but the
+appeal was made in vain. In the autumn of 1811, the family in the most
+miserable condition arrived in York, and from the ball-room, Minster Yard,
+Kean issued a circular announcing, "for one night only," an entertainment
+comprising recitals, dramatic selections, imitations of actors, and
+singing by himself, assisted by his wife; but the scheme ended with
+anything but a prosperous result. Under their struggles, husband and wife
+broke into a wail of grief, as they contemplated their innocent and
+unfortunate babes. The mother on her knees, supplicated for spiritual
+influence to annihilate their sufferings by death, but the fiery-willed
+player still kept courage, "I will go on, I will hope against hope!!" They
+got to London, where, at Sadler's Wells, Kean had a short engagement at
+two pounds a week, and then he had engagements at Weymouth and Exeter; in
+which latter place he played for a salary of one pound a week. Through the
+influence of an old friend, Dr. Drury, Kean at length obtained an
+engagement at Drury Lane. But ere his triumph on the London boards was
+effected, the child, Howard, died, an event to which the actor never
+alluded without feelings of grief. While Kean was concluding his Exeter
+performances, his wife and child were desolate in the garret of a house in
+Cecil Street, Strand; and they would have starved, but that the liberality
+of Dr. Drury succoured them. Even on the eve of his Drury Lane success,
+Kean underwent many trials and sufferings. Save Dr. Drury he was without a
+friend. On his _début_, that memorable evening at Drury Lane, 26th
+January, 1814, the directors of the establishment denied him everything
+calculated to awaken hope and courage. Kean went to the dressing-room, and
+from the dressing-room to the stage, conscious that he had been treated
+with superciliousness, apathy, and injustice. Under such treatment, and
+with all his previous trials, it was only a perfect knowledge of his own
+transcendent powers, that carried him through the ordeal. The effect of
+his triumph in Shylock, may best be described in the words of his late
+biographer. "In an almost phrenzied ecstasy he rushed through the wet to
+his humble lodging, sprang up the stairs, and threw open the door. His
+wife ran to meet him; no words were required, his radiant countenance told
+all--and they mingled together the first tears of true happiness they had
+as yet experienced. He told her of his proud achievement, and in a burst
+of exultation exclaimed, 'Mary, you shall ride in your carriage, and,
+Charley my boy,' taking the child from the cradle and kissing him, 'you
+shall go to Eton, and'--a sad reminiscence crossed his mind, his joy was
+overshadowed, and he murmured in broken accents, 'Oh that Howard had lived
+to see it! But he is better where he is.'" Pity that so fine a nature as
+Edmund Kean's, with his genius, and generous sympathies, should have
+struck on the rock of self-indulgence. But in any estimate of his moral
+shortcomings, the evil influence around his early life, and the effect of
+his early privation, should be steadfastly, and charitably, borne in mind.
+When we remember the conditions under which the actor pursues his calling,
+it is scarcely surprising that the term "poor players," should have become
+proverbial. The victims of a social ban, originating in the bigotry of
+church and conventicle; following a profession, perhaps of all professions
+the most scouted by smooth, smug respectability, and certainly of all
+professions the most liable to fluctuations of success from the caprices,
+whims and "breeches-pocket" condition of its patrons; it seems but
+natural that the history of the stage should yield numerous illustrations
+of man impecunious.
+
+Then, too, it must be borne in mind, that the greater number of men and
+women who have recruited the ranks of the histrionics have been people of
+romantic and "happy-go-lucky" temperament; light-hearted, generous to a
+fault, unworldly in the money-making sense, and frequently of the most
+irregular and unbusiness-like habits. Such characteristics had Theophilus
+Cibber, Shuter, George Frederick Cooke, Edmund Kean, Ward, and John Reeve;
+and though the precarious nature of the profession, the necessarily
+unsettled habits of its followers, and the unreality of the life, may be
+conducive in a degree to impecuniosity, it seems to me--and I have
+strutted several fretful hours--the only real cause of players being
+poorer than other people is due to extravagance and irregularity. Frugal,
+steady, trustworthy habits invariably increase a man's well-being, in any
+calling; and the theatrical profession is no exception to the rule.
+
+Richardson, the showman, was born in a workhouse, and was in his early
+years a mere little social arab, cast upon the world without friends or
+education; and he began his social career by exhibiting a little child
+with spotted skin, calling him the "spotted boy." The first venture was
+profitable, and the showman went on making money, and saved it. He then
+set up a show theatre, succeeded so well that year after year he had to
+enlarge it, and at last it became the largest in the kingdom. Richardson
+likewise established a character for honesty, and all that is summed up in
+the words "manly conduct."
+
+John Quick--George the Third's favourite comedian--had, too, in his time
+been poor enough. He was the son of a Whitechapel brewer, and when only
+fourteen years old ran away from home, with the idea of taking to the
+stage for a profession. Without any money in his pocket he started on his
+romantic journey, and managed to find a booth company at Fulham, where he
+was allowed to enact Altamont in the 'Fair Penitent.'
+
+Having played to the satisfaction of the manager, that worthy commanded
+his wife to set the _débutant_ down for a whole share of the night's
+receipts, which at the close of the last piece amounted to three
+shillings. Quick rose in his profession, and by forethought and prudence
+amassed a fortune of £10,000.
+
+Braham's boyhood was surrounded with hardships and privations. Early left
+an orphan, he was obliged to walk the streets of London as a vendor of
+pencils. In that situation he was befriended by Leoni, a vocalist at the
+synagogue in Duke's Place, Covent Garden, who trained the lad's voice, so
+remarkable for its peculiar sweetness of tone and expression. For Leoni's
+benefit, in 1787, at the Royalty Theatre, Wellclose Square, young Braham
+made his _début_. His genius, of its kind, was unsurpassable; but it was
+the prudence added to it which laid the foundation of his fortune, which
+would have remained in the possessor's hands but that the vocalist entered
+unwittingly on theatrical management.
+
+Even in the more humble departments of theatrical life may be found
+thrifty examples of people, who, versed in the somewhat difficult part of
+making both ends meet, at length found themselves in a reputable and
+flourishing position. Such an instance is that of Bennett, a theatrical
+manager once well known in the Midlands. Bennett possessed a gift for
+doing things himself--his only assistant being an old lady, one Mrs.
+Gamage. He began his career with a puppet-show, was thrifty on its poor
+proceeds, and eventually became proprietor of a theatre. Bennett was
+successful as an actor at Worcester, Coventry, Shrewsbury, and towns
+adjacent. His travelling-cases, boxes, and chests, had their surfaces
+touched up by the scenic artist, and in the theatre did duty for castle
+walls, palace terraces, and palatial furniture; his helmets, and other
+stage properties, were of canvas, easy to fold up for packing, and many of
+his properties combined several utilities. He would arrange with his
+friends to take money at the doors, and Mrs. Gamage combined the offices
+of candle-snuffer and constable, and during the day she cooked and cleaned
+up at home. Bennett has been known to seek out musical young men in a
+town, and allow them the privilege of singing on his stage; or, if they
+were at all proficient on an instrument, allow them to play in his
+orchestra. He dressed as a fine gentleman by day, and like a mechanic in
+the evening. He died prosperous, and, above all, a churchwarden.
+
+Old Philip Astley, Davidge, John Douglas, and Samuel Phelps, all poor men
+at the outset of life, entered on theatrical management, carried it on
+with care, tact and probity, and all of them died reputable, and in
+comfort. Garrick, the Kembles, Charles Mayne Young, Munden, Richard
+Jones, William Farren, Liston, Macready, and a host of other gifted
+actors, died rich, having lived amidst the respect of the highest social
+circles; but it will be found in each particular case, that they were men
+of high character, and prudent habits.
+
+In some other instances the impecuniosity of actors has resulted from
+short-sightedness to their own interests, imprudence, and utter
+incompetence in business matters, but unfortunately extravagance, and
+other irregular habits of life, have been the frequent cause of poverty.
+
+Nicholson, once lessee of the Newcastle Theatre, by want of business
+habits gradually became a poor man, so poor that he became money-taker at
+Drury Lane, and subsequently died in the workhouse of the town where he
+had been theatrical manager; and Faucit-Saville, formerly lessee and
+manager at Gravesend, Margate, Deal and other theatres, died while engaged
+as money-taker at the City of London Theatre.
+
+Some who saw 'Manfred,' when revived at Drury Lane by Mr. Chatterton, with
+Phelps as the hero of Byron's sombre, but impressive, dramatic poem, may
+possibly, when leaving the house between the acts, have noticed one of the
+checktakers, an old gentleman of stagy deportment, enveloped in an old,
+faded cloak. That individual was no other than the once famous tragedian,
+Mr. Denvil, who was the original Manfred when Bunn produced the tragedy at
+Covent Garden, long ere Mr. Phelps made his _début_ at the Haymarket. In
+the character of Manfred, Denvil made an intense and abiding impression,
+became lessee of theatres in town and country, but from want of _nous_,
+and from want of prudence, dwindled in the social scale, and sank to the
+menial capacity in which he was to be seen at Drury Lane.
+
+Another specimen of an unsuccessful manager was Huntley May, who had been
+lessee of nearly all the small provincial theatres in the kingdom. This
+man had but a very imperfect sense of honour, part of his business being
+to issue as large bills as he could possibly get printed, announcing the
+most splendid dramatic productions, which, when the evening arrived, were
+never presented. Often his audience grew riotous and pugnacious. One
+night, an assemblage threatened to pull up his benches; but Mr. May, not
+unaccustomed to such scenes, appeared before the footlights and
+exclaimed,--
+
+"What's up now, boys?"
+
+"Money, money. It's a swindle!"
+
+"Hark at 'em now. Murder and Moses! there's broths of boys for yer.
+Money's just what I want myself. Think of your Cathedral ground; who lies
+in it? My sainted wife, Norah; poor soul! she loved Exeter so that she
+would come here to be buried among ye. We all love ye! myself and little
+Pat. Aisy now, I'll give you a thrate. To-morrow night's my benefit, make
+me a thumping house; Norah won't forget you in heaven. Behave like
+gentlemen, come early to-morrow night. Good luck to ye!" which audacious
+address seems by all accounts to have satisfied his easily satisfied
+audience.
+
+But even when the old country managers, and there were many, got their
+living honestly, and by fair means, the profession frequently had the
+hardest of lots. The strolling players were a merry-headed and easily
+contented race; but it would be difficult to name any class of people that
+have known greater oppression. Regarded by a large section of English
+people as rogues and vagabonds, they were often at the mercy of common
+informers and petty-minded magistrates.
+
+A circumstance in the career of Moss, a clever actor, and respectable
+manager, well illustrates such petty persecution. He opened the Whitehaven
+Theatre for a night or two with some success, but in less than a week the
+manager and his troupe were put in "durance vile." Arrested on a Saturday
+night, they had to remain in the "lock-up" throughout Sunday. On Monday
+morning they were taken up before the magistrates, and arraigned upon a
+somewhat extraordinary charge. An inhabitant of Whitehaven, a person to
+whom credit was given by his acquaintances for sanity and truthfulness,
+appeared in open court to denounce the strollers, not only as a curse to
+society generally, but to his town in particular. It was declared by this
+individual that "before the theatre opened there was an immense haul of
+herrings; but since the players had entered the place, the fish had all
+fled, and that in consequence the fishermen were suffering. Misfortune
+always followed the wake of actors; wherever they appeared, they carried a
+curse." In spite of reference to sundry tomes of jurisprudence, and
+notwithstanding consultation with the town-clerk, the magistrates could
+not pronounce a verdict. However they prohibited the reopening of the
+theatre, and the sons of the "wicked one" had to pack about their
+business in the best way they could.
+
+Edward Stirling applying to a local magistrate at Romford in Essex, for
+permission to perform for a few nights in the Town Hall, received but
+sorry treatment from the bigoted official.
+
+"What, sir! Bring your beggarly actors into this town to demoralize the
+people? No, sir. I'll have no such profligacy in Romford; poor people
+shall not be wheedled out of their money by your tomfooleries. The first
+player that comes here I'll clap in the stocks as a rogue and a vagabond.
+Good morning, sir."
+
+Even in fair seasons the pay of the strollers was wretched in the extreme.
+In 1826, Mrs. John Noel, desirous of getting her two daughters into
+practical training for the stage, applied to a wandering manager--Black
+Beverley--as to whether he could find room for the young ladies in his
+company. Mrs. Noel was informed that his troupe was about visiting
+Highgate, and that her daughters could join, on condition that they would
+put up with the sharing system, and find their own costumes. The
+engagement was accepted, the elder of the two girls (afterwards Mrs.
+George Hodson) being cast for Juliana, and the younger (afterwards Mrs.
+Henry Marston) for Volante in Tobin's comedy of 'The Honeymoon.' Black
+Beverley was to be the Duke Aranza, and the performance was to take place
+at the White Lion Tavern. The young ladies _débuted_, and their
+remuneration was one shilling and sixpence each. The men and women were
+homely, respectable people, and the leading actors eagerly accepted Mrs.
+John Noel's invitation to a substantial supper she had packed in a hamper,
+and of which the poor players gratefully partook, eating as if they had
+been without food for days.
+
+A well-known actor remembers playing the Stranger, Philip, in 'Luke the
+Labourer,' and a farce character at a small theatre in Chelsea, and
+receiving twopence for his services, and then having to walk to the Mile
+End Road!
+
+Phelps, when attached to Huggins' company, has tramped with his bag on his
+shoulders, more than once a distance of five-and-twenty miles, being
+without coach-money; and his wife and child at Preston had, in the early
+time of Phelps' career, for nearly a week to subsist on a rather small
+meat-pie. It was a terrible thing some fifty years ago, for some
+stage-stricken swain, or maiden, to depart hundreds of miles, perchance so
+far as Scotland, and find themselves in some poorly-paid company. Twenty
+shillings a week would be considered a fair salary. There would be scores
+of miles to travel, certain dresses to find, and upon the residue of the
+scant income the player had to live. When things failed it was sometimes
+literally tragic; for the tyros had little chance of escape, railways and
+cheap steamers being unknown.
+
+What a _bizarre_ picture is that drawn by Edmund Stirling of Ben
+Smithson's Agency for Actors, at the "White Hart" in Drury Lane!
+
+"Kind-hearted considerate Ben," writes his remembrancer, "a real
+Samaritan, ever ready with food and kindly words to cheer and encourage
+the poor stroller. Ben, strongly impregnated with the 'Mysteries of
+Udolpho' school, was wont to use grandiloquent words for every day
+purposes. His hostel became a 'castle'; back parlours, smelling strongly
+of 'baccy,' tapestry chambers; dilapidated staircases, lumber closets, and
+dark landings, 'galleries, crow's-nests, and eagle towers;' his
+beer-cellars were known as 'dungeon keeps;' 'Barclay's entire' at
+fourpence per pot became 'nectar,' like Mr. Dick Swiveller's 'rosy wine;'
+and his two serving-men, plain Bob and Dick, were transformed into
+'Robarto' and 'Ricardo.' Every poor player that arrived, footsore and
+hungered, was styled according to his robe, Kemble, Kean, Munden, or
+Siddons; Smithson knowing full well how pleasantly a little flattery would
+tickle the palate. There was always a bed, supper, and breakfast, money or
+not, in that Mecca for wanderers. Such liberality brought failure in its
+train, and the 'White Hart's' doors speedily closed on Ben and his 'good
+intentions.'"
+
+Not less amusing, too, is Mr. Stirling's description of the Brothers
+Strickland and their lesseeship of the Oddfellows' lodge-room, at the
+Chiswick "Red Cow," where they announced "A London company for two nights,
+with 'Pizarro,' as played at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane; elaborate
+scenery and heart-rending effects. Pit, one shilling; boxes, two; and
+standing room, sixpence. Seats booked at the 'Red Cow' daily from 10 till
+4. Schools and children half-price."
+
+Stirling tried to get employment under the Stricklands, and having wended
+his way to the tavern, was shown into the kitchen, and there found the
+company dressed for the evening's performance of 'Pizarro.' At a table,
+superintending the tea, Elvira sat in faded black robes, wielding a
+tea-pot, and ever and anon scowling at her base destroyer, Pizarro. He sat
+aloof, encased in rusty tin armour, a ferocious wig and locks to match, in
+his hand a long pipe, and by his side an empty glass. Cora, the lovely
+Peruvian maid, employed her soft hands in toasting muffins, assisted by
+her husband, the Spanish Alonzo. Such was the heat of the climate,
+combined with the effects of something short, that Peruvians and Spaniards
+sat socially together, doing their pipes and beer. Strickland engaged
+Stirling to play Richmond on the following Monday, but he wasn't to have
+anything for it.
+
+Perhaps there is no more pertinent illustration of a chequered career--a
+career with indigence at one end and splendid wealth at the other--than
+that furnished by the life of Harriet Mellon, afterwards Mrs. Coutts, and
+subsequently Duchess of St. Alban's. She was not the only actress who made
+a fortunate marriage. Anastasia Robinson married the Earl of Peterborough;
+Lavinia Fenton, the original Polly Peachem, in the 'Beggar's Opera,' gave
+her hand to the Duke of Bolton; Louisa Brunton became Countess of Craven,
+and Elizabeth Farren exchanged her name for that of Countess of Derby. But
+not one of those enumerated had known the privations and hardships
+suffered by Harriet Mellon. When raised to affluence as Mrs. Coutts, and
+when coroneted as a duchess, she sometimes with mirth and sometimes with
+pathos referred to those old days of her life, when she was downcast by
+harsh treatment and impecuniosity, and was never ashamed of the time when
+she was nothing more than a poor strolling actress.
+
+In 1789 Harriet Mellon, with her mother and Entwisle, her step-father,
+joined the theatrical company of Stanton. In the city of Lichfield the
+tenement is still pointed out where the Entwisles lodged in a couple of
+rooms, each ten feet by four and three-quarters across, with windows two
+feet square; the rent for the lodgings being two shillings a week. Stanton
+on one occasion obtained a bespeak from a squire, who requested a
+performance of the 'Country Girl.' The manager was only too glad to play
+anything, so low had been the ebb of his fortunes. No copy of the comedy
+being in the manager's possession, an actor was despatched to a town not
+many miles distant for the necessary volume. Extra delay took place, the
+needy _commissionnaire_ having gone on foot, putting the coach-money in
+his pocket. When he returned the play-book was cut up leaf by leaf and
+distributed to the company to transcribe; at least to those acquainted
+with the art of penmanship. It is stated that the copyists were few.
+Harriet Mellon, though of junior rank in the company, was cast for Peggy.
+She had the part given her in virtue of her ready and trustworthy memory.
+The girl's heart filled with enthusiasm when she learned that she was to
+perform the title _rôle_. But her heart filled with sorrow an hour or two
+afterwards when she inspected the square-cut and dingy, snuff-coloured
+coat, held aloft by the manager, as the garment in which Peggy should
+appear as the boy, the character assumed in the park scene by the country
+girl. Being made acquainted with Harriet's disgust at the costume
+furnished by the manager, Mrs. Entwisle bethought her of acquaintances who
+might help her daughter out of the trouble. A lady housekeeper to whom the
+mother applied, suggested the loan of a fashionable suit from one of her
+young masters. The proposition was declined. The housekeeper then stated
+that an idea crossed her: she might be enabled to procure a small and
+well-cut suit of clothes elsewhere.
+
+Mother and daughter spent an anxious afternoon, and about four o'clock, at
+their lodgings, a lad made his appearance with a parcel, and not long
+afterwards the friendly housekeeper appeared too. The old lady said she
+had called on another old lady in a similar capacity to herself, and by
+her kind offices had procured not the clothes of any young gentleman, but
+the wedding-dress of her old master, and as he was only a "dwarfy" when
+young, probably the clothes would fit Harriet. A pang smote the breast of
+Miss Mellon as she thought the garments must be at least thirty years old;
+but the parcel was unfastened, and it was found to contain a light
+amber-coloured silk coat, silver trimmed white satin waistcoat and smalls;
+pale blue silk stockings, shoes laced, stock buckles, and ruffles.
+
+Harriet Mellon was in raptures. Half-past six o'clock came, the barn was
+crowded, and the one musician, Entwisle, led off with 'Rule Britannia,'
+'Britons, strike Home,' and 'The Bonny Pitman.' Up went the curtain, and
+the comedy began. The family whose bespeak proved so attractive were
+delighted with the performance, and especially with the acting of Miss
+Harriet. In the park scene the baronet and lady grew particularly grave of
+countenance as they surveyed Peggy in the boy's clothes, which gravity
+continued during the remaining part of the entertainment.
+
+Next morning as Harriet was at breakfast, a groom rode up to the door of
+the house where she lodged, and a letter was left for Miss Mellon, which
+proved a formal and frigid communication, requesting information
+respecting the means by which she had acquired the male attire worn by her
+on the previous evening.
+
+The truth soon afterwards came out. The housekeeper to whom Mrs. Entwisle
+applied, not knowing when or for what the dress was wanted, went to the
+housekeeper of the very gentleman who bespoke the play; and his servant
+lent his wedding-dress that had been stowed away since the occasion of his
+nuptials. The young actress was cleared of all imputation, and on leaving
+the neighbourhood received from the baronet's lady a present in the shape
+of a handsome frock. Before that time, Harriet's mother would not allow,
+on account of shabby attire, the girl's attendance at Stafford church, but
+used to send her to Ingestre for Sunday morning worship, because at that
+place she was unknown.
+
+Harriet's salary for some years was only fifteen shillings a week.
+Sheridan and the Hon. Mr. Monckton were appointed stewards of the Stafford
+races in 1794, and at the theatre in the town those gentlemen witnessed
+the acting of Miss Mellon as Letitia Hardy and Priscilla Tomboy. On
+Sheridan, the arbiter of London theatricals, affording hope to her that
+she might obtain an engagement at Drury Lane, the Entwisles with their
+daughter left for the metropolis. At a humble lodging in Walworth the
+family subsisted by means of a small sum of money, the proceeds from
+Harriet's farewell benefit in the country. Sheridan, a careless and
+procrastinating man, kept Mrs. Entwisle in cruel suspense concerning her
+daughter's _début_ at Drury Lane, mother and daughter being continually
+put off by the manager with excuses; but at last the opportunity came.
+
+Drury Lane opened for the season 1795-1796 on the evening of September
+16th, and on that occasion Miss Mellon went on as one of the vocalists, to
+join in the National Anthem. On September 17th the bill of the night
+announced a performance of 'The Rivals,' "Lydia Languish by a young lady,
+her first appearance." The young lady was the daughter of Mrs. Entwisle.
+She was very nervous at her _début_, and Sheridan thought it desirable
+that some time should elapse for her to become acquainted with the size
+and extent of the house, by joining in choruses before she again tried a
+prominent character. She remained in the background till October. The
+Michaelmas day before the family were exceedingly depressed, the girl's
+prospects being uncertain, and her salary only thirty shillings a week.
+Old-fashioned people, and exceedingly superstitious, the Entwisles and
+Harriet bewailed the absence of the luck-bringing goose on the 29th
+September. Through a gift, or by pinching, when strollers, they had
+usually managed to get Christmas mince pies, Shrove Tuesday pancakes,
+Easter tansy pudding, and the Michaelmas goose. It was a matter of sorrow
+to poor Harriet, that her finances would not allow her to purchase a
+goose, for the sake of tasting a bit for good-luck. When informed that she
+could at a Drury Lane cook-shop buy a quarter of the much-honoured bird
+the girl's delight knew no bounds. The purchase was made, and she was
+happy.
+
+It came to pass that her fortunes brightened at Drury Lane, where she
+remained twenty years. When Tobin's comedy of 'The Honeymoon' was
+produced, Harriet Mellon made a great hit in the character of Volante.
+Through drawing a prize in the Lottery she was enabled to purchase Holly
+Lodge, Highgate. The _Times_ of March the 2nd announced the marriage of
+"Thomas Coutts, Esq., to Miss Harriet Mellon, of Holly Lodge, Highgate."
+Her husband was a man of enormous wealth. Mrs. Coutts subsequently married
+the Duke of St. Albans, and at her death, in addition to other magnificent
+bequests, left to the lady now known as the Baroness Burdett Coutts, a
+fortune of £1,800,000.
+
+One of the most gifted men that ever trod the stage was George Frederick
+Cooke. Indeed the splendour of his genius is said to have been almost as
+exceptional as the fierceness of his passions, and the recklessness of his
+habits. Drink, gambling, licentiousness, and prodigality, ruined his
+fortunes, and cut short his life. It may be urged in mitigation of his
+excesses, that like Kean he had indifferent home training, and that at a
+very early age he was left to the exercise of his own wilful and sensual
+nature. His father had been a soldier who left his widow in unprosperous
+circumstances. She quitted London, and settled at Berwick-upon-Tweed,
+where her son received an indifferent education, and where on several
+occasions he saw part of the Edinburgh Company perform. Cooke states,
+"that from that time plays and playing were never absent from his
+thoughts, that he pinched his belly to procure play-books, and actually
+studied one particular character,--Horatio, in the 'Fair Penitent.'" His
+mania to get into the play-house has amusing proof in a story, which, in
+after years, Cooke used to relate with gusto, and comicality. He much
+wished to see 'Douglas,' as did some companions, but all of them were
+without a farthing. They contrived to get into the theatre by a private
+entrance, and secreted themselves under the stage. Hope told them the
+flattering tale that they might steal out during the performance, and join
+the audience, by means of an aperture they had discovered in a passage
+leading to the pit. In carrying out the enterprise they were discovered by
+one of the company, and after a trying interrogatory shamefully turned out
+at the stage-door. Young Cooke, reckless, and persistent, urged his
+companions to go in and conquer notwithstanding an ignominious defeat; so
+they were constantly on the alert, and found by observation that a back
+door was left unguarded, which one evening they entered unperceived.
+Fairly in, the next consideration was, how they could conceal themselves
+until the rising of the curtain; their hope being that amidst the
+confusion and preparation behind the scenes, they might escape notice, and
+enjoy the magic show. Cooke saw a barrel, took advantage of the safe and
+snug retreat, creeping in like the hero of the famous melodrama
+'Tekeli,'--in those days the admiration of the polished playgoing populace
+of the British metropolis. Unfortunately however there was danger in the
+lurking place; he had for companions two large cannon-balls, but the youth
+not being initiated into the mysteries of the scene, did not suspect that
+cannon-balls helped to make thunder in a barrel as well as in a
+twenty-four pounder, and little did poor George Frederick imagine where he
+was. The play was 'Macbeth,' and in the first scene the thunder was
+required to give due effect to the situation of the crouching witches, as
+the ascending baize revealed those beldames about to depart on their
+mission to meet Macbeth.
+
+It was not long ere the Jupiter Tonans of the theatre, _alias_ the
+property-man, approached and seized the barrel, and the horror of the
+concealed boy may be imagined as the man proceeded to cover the open end
+with a piece of old carpet, and tie it carefully, to prevent the thunder
+from being spilt. Cooke was profoundly and heroically silent. The machine
+was lifted by the brawny stage servitor and carried carefully to the
+side-scene, lest in rolling, the thunder should rumble before its cue. All
+was made ready, the witches took their places amidst flames of resin, the
+thunder-bell rang, the barrel received its impetus with young Cooke and
+the cannon-balls,--the stage-stricken lad roaring lustily to the amazement
+of the thunderer, who neglected to stop the rolling machine, which entered
+on the stage, and Cooke, bursting off the carpet head of the barrel,
+appeared before the audience to the horror of the weird sisters, and to
+the hilarity of the spectators.
+
+In Stukely, Sir Pertinax, Kitely, Iago, and Richard III., George Frederick
+Cooke was allowed to be unrivalled. But his social position was lowered
+and his fine talents deteriorated by intemperance and debauchery. He was
+in constant debt and difficulties, in spite of excellent emoluments. After
+much trouble, he on one occasion obtained a suit of clothes from a tailor
+indisposed to give credit. Cooke explained to him that there would be no
+doubt about the price being ready on his benefit, which was at hand. The
+tailor, a stage-struck swain, said that if he were allowed to appear on
+the benefit night, in addition to stage tuition from Cooke, the garments
+should be forthcoming. The tragedian agreed to give the instruction, and
+cast him for the post of Catesby, Cooke of course playing Richard. The
+night came, and the "snip" ranted and strutted, and in the tent scene,
+after, "Richard's himself again," on the entrance of Catesby, the tailor
+in answer to Richard's "Who's there?" halted, and stuttered "'Tis I, my
+lord, the early village cock." The audience roared; but after silence
+came, the tailor merely repeated the words just as before; upon which
+Cooke unable to keep his gravity or restrain his temper, roared out, "Then
+why the devil don't you crow?"
+
+Another good story in connection with impecuniosity and a stage
+performance, is that told of Mossop, who, when at the Smock Alley Theatre,
+Dublin, found himself in a peculiar predicament (the result of irregular
+payments) one night when he was playing Lear. His Kent was a creditor,
+who, as he personated the faithful nobleman supporting his aged master,
+whispered, "If you don't give me your honour, sir, that you'll pay me the
+arrears this night before I go home, I'll let you drop about the boards."
+Mossop alarmed said, "Don't talk to me now." "I will," said Kent, "I
+will;" adding, "Down you go." The manager was obliged to give the
+promise, and the actor before leaving the theatre received his wages.
+
+John O'Keefe the author of 'Wild Oats,' relates a similar curious, and
+humorous anecdote concerning the "silver tongued" Spranger Barry. "The
+first character I saw Barry in was Jaffier, Mossop Pierre, and Mrs. Dancer
+the Belvidera. According to the usual compliment of assisting a dead
+tragic hero to get upon his legs, after the dropping of the curtain, two
+very curt persons walked on the stage to where Barry (the Jaffier) lay
+dead, and, stooping over him with great politeness and attention, helped
+him to rise. All three thus standing one of them said: 'I have an action,
+sir, against you,' and touched him on the shoulder. 'Indeed' replied
+Barry. 'This is rather a piece of treachery; at whose suit?' The plaintiff
+was named and Barry had no alternative but to walk off the stage, and was
+going out of the theatre in their custody. At that moment some
+scene-shifters and carpenters who had been observing the proceedings, and
+knew the situation of Barry, went off and returned almost immediately,
+dragging with them a huge piece of wood, in the rear of which was a bold
+and ferocious looking property-man who grasped a hatchet. Barry said,
+'What are you about?' 'Sir,' said one, 'we are only preparing the altar of
+Merope, for we are going to make a sacrifice.' The speaker having
+concluded, grasped his hatchet and sternly eyed the bailiffs. 'Be quiet,
+you foolish fellows,' remonstrated the tragedian, who began to think the
+business serious. The minions of the law also grew apprehensive as the
+sacrificators looked on with fixed and stony eyes. Barry noticing the
+bailiffs beckon, went to them, and drawing him aside they said they would
+quit him if he would give his word of honour that the debt should be
+settled next day." The actor was gratefully complimentary to his
+supporters, not forgetting the altar of Merope. The circumstance occurred
+at the Dublin Theatre in 1778.
+
+The narrator of this story has one equally amusing of Mahon and Macklin.
+"Bob," on one occasion said Macklin, "I intend to have you arrested for
+the debt you owe me, but I am considering whether I shall arrest you
+before or after your benefit." "Oh," said Mahon, "don't arrest me at all."
+"Yes, yes, Bob, you know I must; to prison you will have to go." "There's
+no occasion." "Oh yes, there is." "Well then, sir, if you must, wait till
+my benefit is over." "No! Bob, then you take the money and knock it about
+no one knows how nor where, and I shall never get a shilling of it; but if
+I arrest you before your benefit, some of those lords that you sing for in
+clubs and taverns and jovial bouts may come forward and pay this money for
+you. No, no, I'll have you touched on the shoulder before your benefit."
+
+King, one of the finest comedians of the eighteenth century, and the
+original Sir Peter Teazle, made a large fortune; but lost it at the
+gambling-table. On one occasion he borrowed five guineas for a last stake,
+and he then won two hundred pounds. Escaping from the chamber, he fell on
+his knees, and in answer to a request from a companion, made oath on a
+Bible that he would relinquish his gamester's mania. But he became a
+member of the Miles Club, in St. James', and at the tables soon lost
+everything, and died in extreme poverty.
+
+Bayle Bernard's father--John Bernard, a clever comedian, and, in his after
+years, a well-known manager of American theatres, went through many
+adventures during the period of his novitiate. After playing at Poole in
+Dorsetshire, and having spent the money he had earned, he thought he
+should return home, according to a promise made to his mother; but his
+success at Poole in playing the character of Major Oakley in the comedy of
+'The Jealous Wife,' suppressed the dramatic tyro's notion about duty. A
+mania for the stage again seized him, and hearing that his old manager,
+Taylor, was playing at Shaftesbury, Bernard actually determined to join
+him in defiance of any privations that might arise from his being without
+a shilling in his pocket. Having given his mother assurance that he would
+not act again upon closing his engagement at Poole, writing home for
+supplies was out of the question; and though on paying his bill at an inn,
+he discovered that all his coppers at command did not amount to six,
+Bernard persisted in going on to Shaftesbury, a distance of thirty-six
+miles. Entrusting his trunk to a waggoner, he ate his breakfast, scribbled
+a note to his mother, making apology for his delay; tied up his linen in a
+bundle, and took a path across the fields to the high road, in order to
+escape notice from acquaintances who had known him in seemingly dashing
+circumstances. After having proceeded a few miles, he heard the horn of
+the guard from the stage-coach, and fearing it might contain some of his
+old companions, he jumped over a hedge for concealment, and in so doing
+alighted in a ditch, and sank up to his knees. On extricating his legs, a
+shoe was left behind, and its loser was compelled to take off his coat,
+roll up his shirt sleeves, and thrust his arm down the deep aperture, to
+recover what had been lost. But it was necessary to support himself by
+planting one foot against the hedge, and by grasping the roots of a holly
+bush, and while so doing his hold gave way at the most critical moment,
+and he was precipitated headlong into the mire. In consequence of the
+disaster he had to delay his journey two hours on the sunny side of a
+hayrick, for the purpose of putting his apparel in something like decent
+order. Arriving at Blandford, fear, fatigue, and vexation, continued to
+exhaust him, and he considered in what way he could most effectually lay
+out the threepence in his pocket. He determined on a glass of brandy, and
+going into an inn, called for the first that he had ever tasted. About to
+depart, having thrown down his coppers, the landlady informed him that two
+of them were bad. Bernard states that a feather might have felled him to
+the ground, and that he seemed to be without sense or motion, while the
+brandy seemed to congeal within him. The landlady looked in his face, and
+noticing his agitation, surmised doubtless the cause; for she
+good-naturedly told him not to mind it, but that should he ever again get
+within easy distance of the place not to forget her. Nearly twenty years
+afterwards, Bernard in company with Incledon, the vocalist, put up at the
+identical place, and related the adventure. Incledon thought on hearing
+the story, that it was Bernard's duty to give the house a good turn, and
+so he very generously assisted Bernard to run up a bill in five days to
+twenty pounds.
+
+Ben Webster possessed a budget of amusing stories, involving ludicrous and
+startling incidents, connected with his ups and downs as a poor player. He
+began his professional career as a teacher of music and dancing, and
+having a passion for the stage, was undaunted in his fight with fortune,
+notwithstanding defeats and even humiliation. Hearing that Beverley, of
+the old Tottenham Street theatre, was about opening the Croydon theatre
+for a short season, Webster applied to that manager for the situation of
+walking gentleman.
+
+"Full," said Beverley.
+
+"Can I get in for 'little business,' and utility?" pleaded Webster.
+
+"Full."
+
+"Is there any chance for harlequin, and dancing?"
+
+"I don't do pantomime or ballets; besides, I don't like male dancers;
+their legs are no draw."
+
+"Could you give me a berth in the orchestra?"
+
+"Well," said Beverley, in his peculiar manner, and with a strong word,
+which need not be repeated, "Why, just now you were a walking gentleman!"
+
+"So I am, sir; but I have had a musical education, and necessity sometimes
+compels me to turn it to account."
+
+"Well! what's your instrument?"
+
+"Violin, tenor, violoncello, double bass, and double drum."
+
+"Well! by Nero! (he played the fiddle you know) here, Harry (calling his
+son), bring the double--no, I mean a violin out of the orchestra."
+
+Harry Beverley appeared with the instrument, and Webster was requested to
+give a taste of his quality. He began Tartini's 'Devil's Solo,' and had
+not gone far when the manager said that the specimen was sufficient,
+offering the soloist an engagement for the orchestral leadership at a
+guinea a week. Webster affirms, "That had a storm of gold fallen on him it
+could not have delighted Semele more than it did himself. He felt himself
+plucked out of the slough of despond." Webster had others to support, had
+to board himself, and in addition he resolved to get out of debt. To
+successfully carry out such arrangements the young professional had to
+practise considerable self-denial, walking to Croydon, ten miles every
+day, for rehearsal, and back to Shoreditch, on twopence--one penny for
+oatmeal, and the other for milk; and he did it for six weeks, Sundays
+excepted, when he luxuriated on shin of beef and cheek. While Webster was
+at Croydon, the gallery used to pelt the gentlemen of the orchestra with
+mutton pies. Indignation at first was uppermost, but on reflection, the
+assailed musicians made a virtue of necessity, collecting the fragments of
+not over-light pastry, ate them under the stage, and whatever might have
+been their composition, considered them as "ambrosia."
+
+To be glad to eat the mutton pies with which the gods pelted the orchestra
+is undoubtedly a realisation of "out of evil cometh good," and is a
+curiosity of impecuniosity; but of all the curious curiosities commend me
+to an arithmetical calculation made by a modern actor, who entered on a
+five nights' engagement at Swansea, at the termination of which he had
+from the treasurer the sum of twenty-five shillings. Mr. Edward Atkins,
+who had to find his own wardrobe, upon entering into an arithmetical
+calculation, discovered that after deducting six shillings for coach
+fares, and five shillings for lodgings, there remained fourteen for
+professional work, being within a fraction of two shillings and ninepence
+halfpenny per evening's labour. The following is the list of parts played
+by the comedian, and the amount received for each:--
+
+"Monday: 'Widow of Palermo'--Jeremy (with a handful of snuff and a glass
+of water thrown in his face), 10-1/2_d._; 'Is he Jealous?'--Belmour,
+9-1/2_d._; 'Young Widow'--Splash, 1_s._ 1-1/2_d._ Tuesday: 'Englishman in
+France; or, Why Didn't I Kill Myself Yesterday?'--James, 9-1/2_d._; 'Mrs.
+White'--Peter White (with a medley duet, and mock gavotte, that caused a
+stiffness in the joints for three days), 1_s._ 1-1/2_d._; 'Secret'
+(without a panel in the scene)--Thomas, 10-1/2_d._ Wednesday: 'Carlitz and
+Christine'--Carlitz, very cheap, 7-1/2_d._; 'Two Gregories'--Gregory,
+without goose or ship, 10_d._; song, 'What's a Woman like?' 1-3/4_d._;
+'Fortune's Frolic'--Robin, the talk of the town, 1_s._ 2-1/4_d._ Thursday:
+fully prepared with tools and syllables for three pieces, but the theatre
+was closed, 2_s._ 9-1/2_d._ Friday: 'Review'--Caleb Quotem, with two
+songs, 10-3/4_d._; 'Our Mary Ann'--Jonathan Junks, 9-1/2_d._; 'Loan Me a
+Crown'--Lightfoot, fifteen lengths, 7-1/4_d._; 'Captain's not Amiss'--John
+Stock, with clean shirt, the part requiring the actor to take off coat and
+waistcoat, 6_d._; walking over to next town on managerial business,
+1/2_d._ Total, 14_s._"
+
+For years the name of Charles Mathews was continually bandied about in
+connection with the subject of impecuniosity. Yet the harassing and
+unpleasant circumstances in which the comedian too often found himself
+through want of money were not produced by causes which in many instances
+have brought players into straits, insolvency, and sometimes even
+destitution. The parentage of Mathews was most reputable, his moral and
+intellectual training was all that could be desired, while his business
+habits must have been respectable, holding as he did for some time, with
+credit and capability, an appointment as a district surveyor. His social
+position too was excellent. But he married a very extravagant lady, and in
+conjunction with her entered on theatrical speculations, which his tastes
+and nature ill-fitted him to successfully promote; and not possessing
+adequate capital to legitimately advance his various theatrical schemes,
+he became the prey of money-lenders, and bill-discounters. Charles Mathews
+married Madame Vestris on July 18th, 1838, the lady being at that period
+the lessee of the Olympic Theatre, where her management had been
+characterised by exceptional taste and enterprise. But her expenditure,
+whether in relation to her theatre, or private life, had been lavish even
+to recklessness. After playing the seasons in the metropolis and making a
+provincial tour, Mr. and Mrs. Mathews accepted an offer from Stephen
+Price, manager of the Park Theatre, New York, to perform upon secured
+engagements of £20,000, with power at option to prolong their stay.
+However, Price's speculation proved a failure, Mathews' scheme of making a
+speedy fortune "melted into thin air," and then, affirms the disappointed
+comedian, "began the series of troubles which were destined to clog a
+great portion of my life." During the absence of Mr. and Mrs. Mathews for
+their American engagement the Olympic was kept open under the direction of
+a manager appointed by them, and on their return they found the finances
+in a very crippled state; a large amount of debt having been incurred,
+despite the large sums of money Mathews had transmitted across the
+Atlantic. In the hope of extricating himself from his great liabilities he
+took Covent Garden, never calculating the dangers of the perilous and
+uncertain sea on which he was about floating the bark of his fortunes.
+"Money," he says, "had to be procured at all hazards, and by every means,
+to prop up the concern till this new mine could be worked; and I was
+initiated for the first time in my life into all the mysteries of the
+money-lending art, and the concoction of those fatal instruments of
+destruction called Bills of Exchange.... Brokers and sheriff's officers
+soon entered on the scene, and I, who had never known what pecuniary
+difficulty meant, and had never had a debt in my life before, was
+gradually drawn into the inextricable vortex of involvement, a web which
+once thrown over a man can seldom be thrown off again. The consequence was
+not conceived at the time. It was a great speculation, and great
+difficulties appeared the legitimate consequences. Every Saturday was
+looked forward to with terror, for on every Saturday I had to pay,
+including the company, authors, band, carpenters, and workmen, employed
+before and behind the curtain, six hundred and eighty-four souls, with
+their wives and families all dependent upon my exertions." His liabilities
+were so numerous and heavy, that Mathews conceived that the best plan for
+him to pursue was without delay to wind up the speculation. Pity for him
+that he did not carry out the resolution. But the great success attending
+revivals of the 'Beggar's Opera,' the 'Merry Wives of Windsor,' and other
+pieces, added to the subsequent still greater success of Boucicault's
+'London Assurance,' induced the lessee to continue the management.
+
+Everything looked brilliant and prosperous, but he found his position more
+intolerable as the sun of prosperity rose higher over his theatre. He
+states that when he paid no one, no one seemed to care, but the moment
+Jenkins got his money Jones became rampant.
+
+"Why pay Jenkins? Why not pay me? You've used me shamefully, and you must
+take the consequences."
+
+Writs and executions poured in, and in every direction Mathews beheld the
+harpies of the law waiting to spring upon him, and the thousands he paid
+were partially swallowed up in legal expenses and interest. The
+hydra-headed monster, sixty per cent. was always about his legs. His
+shifts and escapades during this period read like passages from one of
+those comedies to which he used to impart such amusement by his animal
+spirits and humours. Some of the stories told by Mathews of his
+impecunious day, smack of a grim humour. Borrowing money at sixty per
+cent., he informs us, is not the facile operation some imagine, and, he
+adds, is attended by risk and worry even worse than the fearful
+percentage. He well remembered, after a fortnight of very hot weather and
+thinly attended seats at his theatre, having occasion to borrow two
+hundred pounds to patch up the Saturday's treasury, and making application
+to a bill-discounter three days before wanting the money.
+
+"Ah, Mr. Mathews! how d'ye do? Glad to see you. Have a glass of sherry."
+
+"No, thank you. I want a couple of hundred pounds to-morrow."
+
+"Certainly, with pleasure. How long do you want it for? Have a glass of
+sherry?"
+
+"Say three months."
+
+"What security?"
+
+"None."
+
+"Very good--I must have a warrant of attorney."
+
+"Of course."
+
+"All right, Mr. Mathews; look in at twelve o'clock to-morrow, and I'll
+have it ready. Do have a glass of sherry!"
+
+Mathews had no belief that the money would be ready at the time named,
+though the impecunious actor kept the appointment. He knew that the
+money-lender was gratified by the frequent appearance of a brougham at the
+door.
+
+"Well, Mr. Mathews, I find I can't manage the £200. I can only let you
+have £150. I had no idea I was so short at my bankers. Amount actually
+overdrawn. But I've got a friend to do it for you; it's all the same.
+He'll be here directly. Bless me, how long he is. Have a glass of sherry?
+Are you going back to the theatre? I'll bring him with me in
+half-an-hour."
+
+Neither money-lender nor his friend appeared at the theatre. On Friday
+Mathews again made application for the money.
+
+"Didn't come till too late; but all right--you don't want it till
+to-morrow, you know. What's your treasury hour?"
+
+"Two."
+
+"Be here at twelve and it shall be ready."
+
+The actor was there, punctual to the moment.
+
+"All right. Have a glass of sherry? My nephew Dick has gone to the city
+for the cheque."
+
+"But the time is getting on."
+
+"Never mind. I'll be with you as the clock strikes two."
+
+Four o'clock arrived, and neither usurer nor money was forthcoming, the
+salaries of the company of course remaining unpaid. A note forwarded
+announced that the money-lender would be with Mathews at six to the
+moment. At seven the long-expected gentleman rushed in breathless.
+
+"Such a job Dick's had for you, Mr. Matthews! But here I am with the
+money. My friend disappointed me, but I managed without him. My nephew
+will read over the warrant of attorney."
+
+"But I'm just going on the stage; there's no time now."
+
+"Won't take five minutes. Dick, read the warrant. Now, here is the money.
+Let's see, £15 left off the old account."
+
+"Oh, pray don't deduct that now."
+
+"Better, Mr. Mathews, keeps all square. That's £15, then the interest
+three months, £17 10_s._, and £15, £32 10_s._ Warrant of Attorney £7
+10_s._, that's £40. Then my nephew's fee, £1 1_s._, and my trouble, say
+£1, £42 10_s._ Here's 15_s._, that's £42 16_s._ Dick, have you got 4_s._?"
+
+"I've got 3_s._ 6_d._"
+
+"That will do; I've got 6_d._, that's £43; and £7 cash makes the £50."
+
+"Yes; but I only get £7 odd."
+
+"Never mind, keeps all square. Now the £100. Here is a cheque of Gribble
+and Co. on Lloyd's for £25 10_s._"
+
+"What's the use of a cheque at this time of night?"
+
+"Good as the bank, good as the money; you can pay it as money. Fifty
+sovereigns makes £75 10_s._, and a ten-pound note makes £85 10_s._--stay,
+it ought to be £95 10_s._ Here's another ten pound note. I forgot--there
+you are, £95 10_s._--only wants £4 10_s._ to make up the £100. You haven't
+got £4 10_s._ about you, have you Mr. Mathews, you could lend me till the
+morning, just to get it straight, you know."
+
+"I believe I have; there are four sovereigns and ten shillings in silver."
+
+"That's all right; £4 makes £99 10_s._ and 10_s._--stop, let's count
+them--count after your own father, as the saying is--four and five's nine,
+and three fourpenny pieces; all right. Stop--one's a threepenny. Got a
+penny, or a post-office stamp? Never mind, I won't be hard upon you for
+the penny. There you are, all comfortable. Good evening."
+
+Mathews paid away the cheque "as money." Two days afterwards he got an
+indignant note, stating that the cheque was dishonoured. Out of temper,
+Mathews sent for the discounter, and he appeared with alacrity.
+
+"Not paid! Gribble's cheque not paid--some mistake--it's as good as the
+Bank. Here, give it to me, I'll get it for you in five minutes. How long
+shall you be here?"
+
+"An hour."
+
+"I'll be back in twenty minutes."
+
+Mathews saw no more of the discounter or the cheque, the scoundrel
+entirely disappearing with the only proof in his pocket. But sometimes
+biters were bit, for an entry in one of the actor's diaries, dated
+January 1843, states, "called on Lawrence Levy to pay him £30, but
+borrowed £20 of him instead."
+
+On one occasion a very gentlemanly man waited on Mathews.
+
+"I'm sorry to trouble you," he quietly said, "but I've a duty to perform,
+and I am sure you are too much a man of the world to quarrel with me. I
+have a writ against you for a hundred pounds, and must request immediate
+payment, or the pleasure of your company elsewhere."
+
+"Quite impossible," said Mathews, "at this moment to meet it; but I will
+consult with my treasurer, and see what can be done."
+
+"Excuse me," said the sheriff's officer, "but I cannot lose sight of you;
+and whatever is to be done, must be done here. Come, pay the money, and
+there's an end."
+
+"It can't be done," said Mathews.
+
+"Why didn't you get him to renew the bill?" replied the other.
+
+"He wouldn't renew it; nothing would induce him."
+
+"Nonsense," said he, "accept this bill for the same amount, and put your
+own time for payment, and I undertake to get you his receipt."
+
+"Agreed," answered the actor, accepting the bill, which, without another
+word the sheriff's officer took up, threw down the receipt, and walked
+towards the door.
+
+"Stop," said Mathews, "you said you couldn't leave me without the money.
+What does all this mean?"
+
+"It means that I paid your debt as I knew you couldn't, and now you owe it
+me instead. Be punctual, and I'll do as much again."
+
+The sheriff's officer just described was not the only one who befriended
+the luckless manager. A kindred functionary of the law, having been struck
+by the cruel conduct of a vindictive tradesman, actually paying the bill
+himself, and receiving the money back from Mathews in instalments of ten
+pounds.
+
+Instances grave and gay might be multiplied of the actor's unfortunate
+position and the financial entanglements that, like heavy fetters,
+constrained him at every step. He said that the results of the Covent
+Garden speculation were for the first season _sowing_, for the second
+_hoeing_, and for the third _owing_. On his debts being called in, to his
+dismay he found that including rent the responsibilities amounted to the
+sum of £30,000. Mathews when he learned the fact was aghast, and his only
+remedy was the Insolvent Debtors' Court. Things were made easy for him,
+and he passed a week in an elegantly fitted chamber above the Porters'
+Lodge of the Queen's Bench Prison. He was not unacquainted with that
+prison, having had residence there soon after his first notorious American
+trip, and during that imprisonment he took advantage of the old rules
+pertaining to the liberties of the Bench, and played an engagement at the
+Surrey Theatre. The theatre being a few yards beyond the boundaries of the
+Queen's Bench liberties, Davidge, the Surrey lessee, and Cross, lessee of
+the Surrey Zoological Gardens, gave extra bail to enable Charles Mathews
+to have the day rule extended through the evening. A tipstaff was
+stationed at his dressing-room door and at each wing of the stage, to
+watch the actor, who, though out of the Bench, was in custody. When
+absolutely free from his Covent Garden liabilities he with a sense of
+honour that did him credit gave securities for what he considered purely
+personal debts, making himself still liable to the amount of about £4000,
+anticipating that the creditors would treat him with consideration and
+thoughtfulness. He was mistaken, and for years he still had the millstone
+round his neck. During his lesseeship of the Lyceum he was in the same
+straits as he was in the Old Covent Garden days. Accumulated interest, law
+expenses for raising money, grew year after year and Mathews was still in
+his miserable plight of impecuniosity. At length in July 1856, while about
+to play at the Preston Theatre, he was arrested and imprisoned in
+Lancaster Gaol. He chafed under the incarceration, and he has left a
+touching account of the misery he felt on being separated from his wife,
+and of the melancholy influences of his prison-house. His imprisonment
+created much gossip, and ere he left "durance vile" a somewhat singular
+recognition of his circumstances took place. His fellow-prisoners in
+Lancaster Gaol communicated with him as follows:
+
+Letter addressed to Charles J. Mathews, in Lancaster Castle, July 1856:--
+
+    "ILLUSTRIOUS SIR,
+
+    "Permit us to address you as a brother-debtor surrounded by oppressive
+    circumstances akin to our own, which are rendered the more striking to
+    one who like yourself has acquired a world-wide reputation as an
+    artist and elocutionist; and whose uniform kindness and manly conduct
+    has excited the admiration of those who now respectfully, through this
+    medium, tender you what they consider to be a just meed of
+    approbation.
+
+    "With the newspaper gossip relative to your alleged state of affairs,
+    which has been extensively circulated we have nothing to do and we
+    know not whether you are fiercely opposed or otherwise; we seek not to
+    elicit any facts connected with your position, but we beg most
+    earnestly and respectfully to compassionate you as one of the most
+    ingenious amongst our common manhood; and having for the most part
+    felt the pangs attendant upon the day and hour of tribulation, allow
+    us to express the strength of our sympathetic feeling by stating that
+    we heartily wish you a signal, complete, and honourable release from
+    that load of embarrassment which so unhappily depresses us all, but
+    which, by reason of your refined sensibility must necessarily press
+    with great force upon your mental organization; and this feeling
+    compels us to say, 'Go on and conquer.'
+
+    "Signed on behalf of the members of the Long Room,
+
+        "JOHN HARRIDGE,
+          "_Chairman_."
+
+Mathews thought that there was an odd flavour of Mr. Micawber about the
+foregoing epistle. Subsequently he did what he should have done years
+before, sought freedom from his liabilities under legal protection. Many
+droll scenes took place when the comedian was under Bankruptcy
+examination. On one occasion Mr. Commissioner Law asked him why he had
+kept a brougham, instead of taking a cab to and fro between his residence
+and the theatre; and the lawyer was told thereupon by the debtor, that the
+brougham was hired from the purest motives of economy.
+
+"In a word," said Mathews, "I really could not afford the price of cabs."
+
+"I should have thought that cabs were more economical than a private
+carriage," replied Law.
+
+"Not at all," said Mathews. "Cabs take ready money, a precious article, to
+be carefully treasured and only parted with under absolute necessity, but
+a brougham can always be hired on credit."
+
+Mathews, free of his liabilities, became prosperous, and his latter days
+were marked by success and happiness.
+
+Of his attractiveness on the stage it is almost superfluous to speak; it
+may be said with truth, "We shall not look upon his like again;" for
+though not a great actor, he was unapproachable in those light comedy
+parts that require dash and go. I remember seeing him play Dazzle in
+'London Assurance,' at Melbourne, exactly thirty years, to the very day,
+from the date of its first performance; and though he was the oldest
+member of the company on the stage that night, he was in manner and
+appearance by far the youngest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+IMPECUNIOSITY OF ARTISTS.
+
+
+If there be two things on earth that may be said to have a more direct
+affinity for each other than aught else, those two things are Painting and
+Poverty. The artistic records of the past literally teem with sorrowful
+instances of their close relationship; and unfortunately the alliterative
+connection is by no means unknown in the present day.
+
+Ruskin, who upholds contempt for poverty as a characteristic of our age
+which is both "just and wholesome," complains that we starve our great men
+for the first half of their lives by way of revenge, because they quarrel
+with us, and adds,--
+
+    "Precisely in the degree in which any painter possesses original
+    genius, is at present the increase of moral certainty that during his
+    early years he will have a hard battle to fight: and that just at the
+    time when his conceptions ought to be full and happy, his temper
+    gentle, and his hopes enthusiastic--just at that most critical period,
+    his heart is full of anxieties and household cares: he is chilled by
+    disappointments, and vexed by injustice, he becomes obstinate in his
+    errors, no less than in his virtues, and the arrows of his aim are
+    blunted, as the reeds of his trust are broken.... You may be fed with
+    the fruit and fulness of his old age, but you were as the nipping
+    blight in his blossoming, and your praise is only as the warm winds of
+    autumn to the dying branches.... You feed him in his tender youth with
+    ashes and dishonour: and then you come to him, obsequious but too
+    late, with your sharp laurel crown, the dew all dried from off its
+    leaves: and you thrust it into his languid hand, and he looks at you
+    wistfully. What shall he do with it? What can he do, but go and lay it
+    on his mother's grave."
+
+In another part of the same work from which I have quoted, he says, with
+exquisite pathos,--
+
+    "You cannot consider, for you cannot conceive, the sickness of heart
+    with which a young painter of deep feeling toils through his first
+    obscurity--his sense of the strong voice within him which you will
+    not hear, his vain, fond, wondering witness to the things you will not
+    see--his far-away perception of things that he could accomplish if he
+    had but peace and time, all unapproachable and vanishing from him,
+    because no one will leave him peace or grant him time: all his friends
+    falling back from him: those whom he would most reverently obey
+    rebuking and paralyzing him: and last and worst of all, those who
+    believe in him most faithfully, suffering by him the most bitterly.
+    The wife's eyes, in their sweet ambition, shining brighter as the
+    cheek wastes away: and the little lips at his side parched and pale,
+    which one day, he knows, although he may never see it, will quiver so
+    proudly when they name his name, calling him 'Our father.'"
+
+But if these pictures are now drawn from artist life, what must that life
+have been fifty or a hundred years ago? Art was always a plant of slow
+growth in England, and the great masters who were cherished in the Old
+World trade guilds, and flourished so grandly in Italy, Flanders, and
+Holland, had not a single native representative in this country. And when
+at last the land that had so long since produced a Shakespeare, could
+boast its Hogarth, native artists were still few and far between, and
+their chief means of living was found in painting signs. Neglected and
+scornfully humiliated by all classes, isolated from refined society--such
+as it was--they suffered the extremes of poverty, with cheerful bravery,
+endured with a light heart, paid back scorn with scorn, and were linked
+together by sympathy and pity in such a bond of brotherly fellowship as is
+now utterly unknown. The taverns were their clubs, bread and cheese their
+fare: and if the rent of their garret homes were not forthcoming, they
+slept in the streets, and, careless Bohemians that they were, laughed
+together over the strangeness, or the dangers, of their nocturnal
+exposures. That their lives often found tragic endings may readily be
+known. Many a terrible story is extant of their heart-sickness and
+despair, of last awful struggles silently, heroically continued against
+overwhelming odds, and of lingering sufferings endured with martyr-like
+patience.
+
+The earliest exhibitions of pictures--they were mainly street signs and
+portraits--were organized by the artists themselves for charitable
+purposes, as may be seen by the catalogue of one opened in Spring Gardens,
+in 1761; which contained a design by Samuel Wale, one of the founders of
+the Royal Academy, engraved by Charles Grignion, representing "The genius
+of painting, sculpture, and architecture relieving the distressed;" and
+these exhibitions were first established in the reign of George II.
+
+The Samuel Wale here mentioned, afterwards R.A., was himself a
+sign-painter; and for many years a whole-length figure of Shakespeare,
+painted by him in the zenith of his powers, figured as the sign of a
+public-house at the north-west corner of Little Russell Street, in Drury
+Lane: while Charles Grignion, when an old man, suffered the then usual
+fate of artists old and young; and an appeal made for him by his brethren
+in 1808, now before me, speaks of him in his ninetieth year in the deepest
+distress, unable to work, with a wife entirely, and a nearly blind
+daughter partially, dependent upon him for support, saying, "Behold,
+reader, the united claims of virtue, old age, and professional merit, and
+filial and parental suffering." It also expressed a not unreasonable hope
+that "the claims of, a man who had done so much, and done so well, would
+be speedily attended to." Grignion died four years afterwards, his latest
+days made smooth by the personal contributions of a few artists and some
+of their patrons, so that the general appeal quoted from above seems to
+have fallen flatly; as well it might when the public regarded English
+artists with contempt, and their brethren were so meanly, miserably poor.
+
+The first native artist whose fame extended beyond his birthplace was
+William Hogarth; but poverty, the bitter badge of all his tribe, he too
+wore. His father, a north-country schoolmaster, settled in London as an
+author and press-reader in the Old Bailey, where on the 10th November,
+1697, the great painter to be was born. Everybody knows how the child's
+taste for art found its earliest expression in the eagerness with which he
+watched some poor artist at his work, and not less well known is the fact
+that he was the apprentice of a "silver plate engraver," and afterwards
+devoted himself to engraving on copper coats of arms and ornamental
+headings for shop bills, creeping upwards from such "small beginnings" to
+more ambitious efforts, until at last he made a hit by illustrating
+'Hudibras,' the commission for which, it is said, he owed to that
+successful caricature of his landlady to which I have previously referred.
+There were then in all London but two print-shops, and they dealt
+principally in foreign productions; so that it can be easily understood
+how, to eke out the shortcomings of his graver, Hogarth taught himself
+painting. Speaking long afterwards of this portion of his career, he said,
+"I could do little more than maintain myself till I was near thirty;" and
+added, "I remember the time when I have gone moping into the city with
+scarce a shilling, but as soon as I had obtained ten guineas there for a
+plate, I have returned home, put on my sword, and sallied forth again,
+with all the confidence of a man who had thousands in his pocket."
+
+At another time he sold to the print-seller, W. Bowles, some plates he had
+just finished, by weight at half-a-crown a pound avoirdupois; but even
+when Hogarth was a famous man, and, compared with his former state, a
+prosperous one, we find such pictures as "The Harlot's Progress" and "The
+Rake's Progress" selling at from fourteen to twenty-two guineas each
+picture, and "The Strolling Players" bought by Francis Beckford, Esq., for
+£27 6_s._: but as he afterwards complained of that price as much too high,
+Hogarth took it back, and resold it for the same amount. "Marriage à la
+Mode," after the artist had published engravings from the set of six
+paintings so called, realised £19 6_s._ In 1797 they were sold for £1381,
+and now form part of our national collection through the bequest of Mr.
+Angerstein. Another of his famous works, "March of the Guards to
+Finchley," was more satisfactorily disposed of by lottery, and it was this
+fact that Hogarth referred to when he said, "A lottery is the only chance
+a living painter has of being paid for his time." From that lottery sprang
+our modern art unions. It was of this picture, in a spirit of bitterness
+provoked by the poverty of his dear friend, its painter, that David
+Garrick wrote in a letter to Henry Fielding:--
+
+    "Its first and great fault is its being too new, and having too great
+    a resemblance to the objects it represents; if this appears a paradox,
+    you ought to take particular care in confessing it. This picture has
+    too much of the lustre, of that despicable freshness which we discover
+    in nature, and which is never seen in the cabinets of the curious.
+    Time has not obscured it with that venerable smoke, that sacred cloud
+    which will one day conceal it from the profane eye of the vulgar, so
+    that its beauties may only be seen by those who are initiated into the
+    mysteries of art: these are almost its only faults."
+
+To the last Hogarth seems to have been a needy, struggling man. That
+unfrocked clergyman and satirical poet, Churchill, after quarrelling with
+the painter "over a rubber of shilling whist," at the Bedford Arms, near
+Covent Garden, attacked him with the bitterest scorn and hatred. Hogarth
+was then growing old and feeble, his health was bad, and he was
+melancholy and depressed by the fact that Sir Robert Grosvenor, having
+commissioned him to paint a picture ("Sigismunda"), had refused to pay for
+it when finished. At this juncture the mistress of Churchill told the poet
+that he had given Hogarth his death-blow; whereupon he unfeelingly
+remarked, "How sweet is flattery from the woman we love," adding, "He has
+broken into the pale of my private life, and has set the example of
+illiberality, _which I wanted_, and as he is dying from the effects of my
+former chastisement I will hasten his death by writing his elegy." The
+painter's death followed soon after, and all he had to leave his wife were
+his unsold plates, the copyrights of which were secured to her for twenty
+years by an Act of Parliament.
+
+Amongst Hogarth's foreign predecessors John Mabuse, or Mabegius, an
+historical and portrait painter, born in 1499, may be mentioned, for the
+sake of telling a story about an ingenious way in which he contrived to
+avoid what might have been the very serious consequences of his
+impecuniosity. While he was in the service of the Emperor Charles V. (many
+of his finest works were painted in this country, he was employed by Henry
+VIII. to paint some of the royal children, and he had among his admirers
+no less a judge of art than Albert Durer), a lord of the court making
+special preparations to receive the Emperor, commanded the whole of the
+royal household to be dressed in rich damask brocade. When the painter was
+measured for his suit he persuaded the tailor to let him have the
+material, and wanting money for a drinking-bout sold it to a
+tavern-keeper, having first made a suit of white paper, which he painted
+in imitation of the damask, and appeared in it before the Emperor, who
+afterwards said the painter's costume was of all he saw the handsomest and
+richest. The trick was discovered, but as the Emperor enjoyed the joke and
+laughed heartily, no ill came of it. Some similar freak, however, soon
+after threw him into prison, where he continued to paint.
+
+The mention of art work done in a prison recalls the name of William
+Ryland, an English artist, who was born in London in 1732, studied under
+Francis Boucher in Paris, and soon after his return was appointed engraver
+to the King. He was the first who engraved in the dotted style, and his
+works won him more fame than money. Angelo, the fencing-master, who knew
+Ryland from his boyhood, says he lived in a house in which John Gwynn,
+the painter, whose 'Essay on Design,' published in 1749, is still known
+amongst students, also occupied apartments. Ryland had a wife and children
+to support, and in the year 1783, to relieve the pressure of his creditors
+(he was then in receipt of a small pension from the King), he forged a
+bond for three thousand pounds, to escape probably by its aid from his
+pecuniary difficulties and his country. The document forged was a most
+extraordinary specimen of imitative art, having thirty or more distinctive
+signatures in every variety of handwriting; some bold and large, some
+cramped, some small, written in various kinds of inks. When it was
+presented for payment at the India House, the cashier after carefully
+examining it and referring to the ledger said, "Here is a mistake, sir;
+the bond as entered does not become due until to-morrow." Ryland begged
+permission to look at the book, and after leisurely and coolly inspecting
+it, said, "There must be an error in your entry of one day," and quietly
+offered to leave the bond. The cashier, however, believing the entry to be
+an erroneous one, paid the money, with which Ryland departed. On the
+following day the true bond was presented, and the crime detected; large
+placards were soon posted all over London, offering a reward of £500 for
+his apprehension.
+
+Ryland's first hiding-place was in the Minories, where he remained
+concealed for some days. One evening after dusk he stole out for a walk,
+disguised in a seaman's dreadnaught. On Little Tower Hill, one of the
+officers in search of him eyed him very earnestly, passed, repassed him,
+and then advancing said abruptly and confidentially, "So you are the very
+man I am seeking." The artist said so calmly, "I think you are mistaken, I
+don't remember you," that the "runner" apologised and wished him "good
+night."
+
+He was taken, however, tried and condemned to death, amidst universal
+expressions of sorrow and regret. Interest was made to obtain mercy on the
+ground of his previous excellent character, and his extraordinary talent
+as an artist and engraver. The King's reply was: "No! a man with such
+talent could not have been unable to provide amply for all his wants."
+Angelo said, "Had a Shakespeare or a Milton committed a similar act of
+fraud in those iron days of jurisprudence, their fate had doubtless been
+the same." Ryland petitioned for a respite, on the ground that he was
+then engraving the last of a series of plates from the paintings of
+Signora Angelica Kauffman, and was anxious to complete it to enable his
+wife after his execution to support herself and his children. His request
+was granted, and it is stated, "he laboured incessantly at this his last
+work, and when he received from his printer, Haddril, who was the first in
+his line, the finished proof impression, he calmly said, 'Mr. Haddril, I
+thank you; my task is now accomplished.'"
+
+Having just mentioned Angelica Kauffman, I may pause to note that the
+greatest misfortune of her life has been traced to the poverty of her
+father, Johann Kauffman, for though the story, which is as follows, is
+discredited by some, it has many believers. She was travelling with him in
+her early girlhood through Switzerland, and being very poor they went on
+foot, sleeping at night after each long day's journey in some humble
+wayside tavern. On one occasion they were refused admission on the ground
+that two grand English seigneurs had bespoken all the accommodation. The
+poor artist, anxious not to overtax his young daughter's failing strength,
+pleaded and protested in vain; and the dispute between him and the
+landlord waxing loud and warm, the attention of one of the Englishmen was
+attracted, and coming forward he politely invited them to become the
+guests of himself and friend. Not quite concealed by the polished courtesy
+of his manner lurked that which secretly alarmed and offended the
+pale-faced, weary girl, and while her unsuspecting father was full of
+grateful thanks, and glad to avail himself of the stranger's apparent
+kindness, she whisperingly entreated him to come away. Too anxious on her
+account to risk the chance of a night in the open air, her father accepted
+the invitation, and at table the nobleman, forgetting the respect due to
+her innocence and youth, attempted some liberty, which being repeated,
+caused her to rise suddenly and leave the room. Her father followed, and
+was induced to go with her out of the house. Some years after, when
+Angelica Kauffman had become famous, and was living in England, welcomed
+with pride and enthusiasm in the highest society, and sought after by the
+noblest and most gifted, she met this peer in one of the most brilliant
+circles of the fashionable world, who with great amazement recognised in
+the elegant woman and famous artist the humble pedestrian of the Swiss
+mountains. Seeking an opportunity he passionately entreated her to
+forgive him, pleaded that he had never forgotten her, and never could, and
+begged that she would at least accept his most respectful friendship. She
+believed him, trusted him, was again insulted, and refused thenceforth to
+admit him to her society. To induce her to restore him to her favour, he
+offered her marriage, and was calmly and resolutely refused; and on his
+rejection forced himself into her presence, and strove even to win by
+violence that which no other means could give him, but was again baffled.
+To humble and disgrace her he devised a plan, which most probably
+suggested to Lord Lytton the story of his play, _The Lady of Lyons_. He
+secured the aid of a low-born adventurer, who assumed the name of Count
+Frederic de Horn, introduced him in some way to fashionable society,
+where, approaching Angelica Kauffman, then twenty-six, and in the full
+bloom of womanhood, he rendered the most flattering homage to her genius,
+with an air of the most profound respect and admiration, and gradually
+became familiar and dear to her; and at last told some strange romantic
+story of a terrible misfortune from which she could save him by at once,
+and secretly, becoming his wife. The snare caught her; the marriage was
+performed by a Catholic priest without writings or witnesses. One day
+while painting a portrait of the Queen at Buckingham Palace, in the course
+of conversation the young artist confided to her royal friend the secret
+of her recent mysterious wedding, which resulted in the Count de Horn
+being invited to court. This invitation was, however, not accepted, the
+impostor fearing detection. Her father's suspicions being aroused, and the
+facts of the marriage explained to him, he made inquiries and induced
+others to pursue them, which ended in the appearance of the real Count de
+Horn, and the unmasking of the impostor, who only laughed at his dupe, and
+commanded her to follow him, claiming that entire control over her person
+and property to which the poor woman believed he was entitled, until
+further inquiries brought to light the fact that the man had been
+previously married, when the false marriage was formally declared null and
+void.
+
+For my next anecdote I turn to Elizabeth le Brun, the favourite court
+painter of the unfortunate Marie Antoinette, who, when her husband's
+reckless and heartless extravagance had reduced her to comparative
+poverty, found herself unable to terminate the once grand receptions at
+which she had received the _crème de la crème_ of her contemporaries.
+They crowded her smaller house as they had crowded her larger one, and for
+lack of chairs seated themselves upon the floor, and she herself tells the
+embarrassment of the Duc de Noailles, who was so old and so excessively
+fat, that as he could neither get down so low, nor rise without
+assistance, was therefore obliged to endure the terrible fatigue of
+standing.
+
+The early years of a more modern, but equally famous, lady-artist, Rosa
+Bonheur, were embittered by her father's want of money. As a school-girl
+she felt severely the contrast between the silk dresses, silver mugs,
+spoons, and forks, with a plentiful supply of pocket-money, which her
+companions possessed, and her calico frocks, iron spoon, tin mug, coarse
+shoes, and empty pockets; and her earliest ideas of art, as a means of
+escaping such humiliating conditions, were thereby developed,
+strengthened, and intensified into a restless craving and feverish
+anxiety. Hence she soon began to draw and model in imitation of her
+father, with a passionate eagerness that kept her constantly at work from
+early morning until late at night, and at last startling her father (who
+had long and despairingly considered her too indolent, self-willed, and
+stupid, ever to be in any way useful) by the progress she made, he took
+her through a serious course of preparatory study, and so made her an
+artist. The director of the Louvre, M. Jousselin, declared that while she
+was there forming her judgment, and training eye and hand, he had never
+before witnessed such untiring eagerness and ardour. In her case, the
+impecuniosity which Ruskin regards as so often fatal to the aspirations of
+young and ambitious artists, appears to have been the strongest incentive.
+Surrounded and stimulated by the glorious creations of great artists, the
+first to enter the gallery, and the last to leave it, her strongest desire
+was to aid her artist father in his weary struggle for the support of his
+family; to which she soon began to contribute by the sale of her copies,
+making up for the extreme smallness of the sums they commanded by the
+rapidity with which she produced them. In her seventeenth year she
+achieved such success in making a study from a goat, that she determined
+to turn her attention to the painting of animals from life. Too poor to
+pay for models, she went out daily into the country to study them in the
+fields and lanes. Laden with clay, or canvas, brushes, and colours, she
+would set out in the grey dawn, with nothing but a piece of bread in her
+pocket for the day's food, and finding a subject, work on it until the
+light had faded, and then, soaked by rain, or struggling in the rude wind,
+she would make her way, sometimes ten or a dozen miles, through the
+darkness, a sun-browned, hardy, peasant-looking girl, to reach home
+cheerful, and contented with the day's work, although hungry and exhausted
+by fatigue. Another way in which she contrived to get models cheaply was
+by passing days amongst the lowing and bleating victims of one of the
+great Parisian slaughter-houses, the _Abattoir du Roule_, where, seated on
+a bundle of hay, with her colour-box beside her, she painted on from
+morning until dusk, frequently so absorbed that she forgot to eat the
+piece of bread in her pocket. She also studied from the animals when they
+were under the influence of terror and agony, just before they received
+the death-stroke; forcing herself to endure a woman's natural repugnance
+to such scenes of blood and torture, rendered doubly painful to her by the
+loving sympathy with which she regarded all the brute creation. In the
+evening she would return home from such studies with her face and clothes
+thickly marked by the flies which in such places congregate so thickly.
+With equal perseverance she also studied in the stables of the Veterinary
+School of Alfort, in the _Jardin des Plantes_, and in all the horse and
+cattle fairs held in the neighbourhood of Paris; always in the latter case
+wearing male attire, to avoid certain dangers and annoyances to which a
+woman would be subjected if dressed in the clothing of her sex. She was
+regarded as a good-natured, merry boy, and a clever little fellow, by the
+rough characters who visited the fairs, and sympathising with her apparent
+poverty, the graziers and horse-dealers whose animals she drew constantly
+insisted upon standing treat. Occasionally, too, a village dairy-maid
+would make amorous overtures to the handsome "lad." So she gallantly
+wrought, and fought, and paved her upward way to fame and prosperity, her
+father and nature her only teachers, the former's impecuniosity her
+constant incentive.
+
+I am reminded here of Sir Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A., for whom also the first
+stimulants to activity in the pursuit of art were the poverty and
+necessities of his father, an exciseman, actor, and innkeeper, who had
+achieved no lasting success in either calling. At one time despairing of
+pecuniary success in the profession he began to excel in when but five
+years old, he resolved to take to the stage, despite the anxious
+opposition of his father, who was then looking forward to his son's
+artistic efforts for support, having failed as an actor, failed in
+business at Devizes, where he kept "The Black Bear," and having previously
+failed as landlord of "The White Lion," at Bath. Bernard in his
+'Retrospections,' speaks of "Young Lawrence the painter," then about
+seventeen, as "receiving professional instructions from Mr. Hoare of
+Bath," and some little time after, with a view to his adopting the stage
+as a profession, Tom Lawrence recited before Bernard and John Palmer the
+actor, when the latter strove to enforce his father's opinion, and
+convince him that his prospects as a painter were superior to those he
+would have as an actor. It was some time before he could realize this, and
+when he did he said with a sigh, "If I could go upon the stage, I thought
+I might be able to help my family much sooner than I can in my present
+employment." The earnestness and the regret he expressed in the tone of
+these words deeply affected all who were present. It was many years before
+Thomas Lawrence escaped from the fangs of impecuniosity, so absorbing were
+the drafts made upon his purse by the wants of his parents. His father
+used to hawk his son's crayon drawings about London at half a guinea each.
+One of his contemporary biographers, says, "Sir Thomas, though he
+sometimes confidentially accounted for his straitened circumstances
+through life by referring to his early burdens, never regretted them, nor
+murmured at their reminiscence."
+
+But the early practice of a painter is seldom profitable, and Nicholas
+Poussin asserts that at the commencement of _his_ career his landscapes
+sold for less than the cost of canvas, oil, and pigments.
+
+Still more remarkable as an instance of artistic success snatched from the
+depths of impecuniosity, is that furnished by the early history of Isaac
+Ware, the famous architect. One day while sitting to Roubillac for his
+bust, he told him the story of himself as a thin, sickly child, who had
+been apprenticed to a chimney-sweep, enduring a life of pain and hardship
+at an age when happier children were in the nursery, and winter or summer,
+in storm or darkness, out in the streets, wailing forth his pitiful
+"s-w-eee-p," before the day broke; chalking on the walls wherever he went
+drawings of the buildings he met with in his travels through the streets.
+One day a gentleman passing Whitehall on horseback saw the feeble-looking,
+sooty child tip-toeing to draw the outlines of the street front of that
+building upon its own basement wall; now running into the middle of the
+street to look up at the building, now back to continue his drawing. After
+watching him some little time the gentleman rode up and called to him,
+when the startled boy dropped his chalk in terror, and came forward with
+downcast eyes full of fear. To restore confidence the equestrian threw him
+a shilling, and after inquiring his name, and that of his master, &c., he
+went instantly to the latter, who said the little fellow was of very
+little use to him, being so weak, and, complaining of his chalking
+propensity, showed his visitor what a state his walls were in through the
+young sweep's having drawn upon them various views of St. Martin's Church.
+The gentleman concluded his visit by purchasing the remainder of the boy's
+time, and taking him away. It was to this noble benefactor that Ware owed
+not only his education, which was an excellent one, but the means which
+enabled him afterwards to pursue his art studies in Italy, and upon his
+return his introduction to commissions as an architect. It is said that
+Ware retained the stain of soot in his skin to the day of his death.
+
+This story of Ware's boyhood we owe to Nathaniel Smith, the engraver, who
+heard the architect tell it; and speaking of Smith reminds me of a story
+told by his son, who was called in his time "Rainy-day Smith." It is a
+tale of Alderman Boydell, who at twenty-one years of age walked to London,
+because he had no money to come by the waggon, and apprenticed himself to
+Mr. Thorns, an engraver and artist, attending whenever possible, an
+academy opened in St. Martin's Lane for poor art students by a group of
+well-known artists, whose subscriptions paid for its support, and to which
+Hogarth contributed his father-in-law's casts and models, learning
+perspective at the same time in his own humble lodging after his return at
+night. Boydell being out of his time, and unable to obtain regular
+employment, used to engrave small plates--views of London and
+landscapes--print them himself, make them up into little books, and sell
+them to keepers of toyshops to re-sell at sixpence a set of six, or a
+penny each. These shops he visited regularly every Saturday to see if any
+had been sold, and leave others to replace those that had happily been
+disposed of. His best customer was found at the sign of "The Cricket Bat"
+(all shops then had signs) in Duke's Court, St. Martin's Lane. On one
+occasion his delight was so excessive on finding so many had been sold
+there as realized five-and-sixpence, that in an outburst of gratitude to
+the shopkeeper he laid out the entire amount with him in the purchase of a
+silver pencil case, which he preserved as a memento of the great event all
+through the rest of his life.
+
+Of a kindred nature to Boydell's vicissitudes were the earliest
+experiences of John Opie. As a lad in Cornwall he was so wretchedly poor
+that Dr. Walcot, then practising as a physician at Foy, out of compassion
+employed him to clean knives and forks, and to save him from the ill-usage
+of his father took him into his own house. John going to the
+slaughter-house for paunches to feed the doctor's dog with, made a
+portrait of the butcher, which so delighted his employer that he also sat
+for a portrait to the errand boy, which production was equally
+astonishing. The portraits being shown amongst the doctor's friends and
+neighbours, one named Phillips sent to London for a complete set of
+artist's materials, which he presented to Opie, who painted with them the
+portrait of a parrot so naturally that it spread his fame far and near,
+and started him fairly in art as a portrait painter, his fee for a
+likeness being seven-and-sixpence. The doctor once asked the lad how he
+liked painting, to which question Opie replied enthusiastically, "Better
+than my bread and meat." He was soon afterwards in London, where Sir
+Joshua Reynolds befriended him, and he became known and popular as "the
+wonderful Cornish genius."
+
+George Morland must have found impecuniosity a sharp spur, when his
+father, hopelessly weary of his indolence and bad conduct, turned him from
+home, saying, "I am determined to no longer encourage your idleness; there
+is a guinea, take it and go about your business." George succeeded in
+supporting himself, and lived a life of the most degrading dissipation,
+his favourite companions being jockeys, ostlers, carters, money-lenders,
+gipsies, and women of abandoned character. He so cruelly ill-used his
+wife--a sister of James Ward, R.A.--that although strongly attached to
+him, she dared not live with him. "He died," as Smith says, "drunk, in a
+sponging-house in Eyre Street Hill, near Hatton Garden." Such a career
+could not but be fruitful of the troubles, cares, dangers, and
+difficulties arising from impecuniosity. At one time, when on an
+excursion to the coast of Kent with one of his favourite companions, a
+brother artist, probably to escape duns, they spent their money so freely
+on the road, that long before they reached their destination they were
+penniless and hungry. When nearing Canterbury they espied a homely
+roadside alehouse called "The Black Bull," and hailing it with delight
+they entered, and soon made alarming havoc amongst the lowly edibles and
+potables set before them; smuggled full-proof spirits being ordered and
+disposed of in the most astonishing manner. When the bill was produced
+Morland frankly confessed they were a couple of poor itinerant artists in
+search of employment, and without a penny in the world. "But," said he,
+"your sign is in a most shameful condition for so respectable a house; let
+me repaint it in settlement of the bill"--which amounted to twelve
+shillings and sixpence. The landlord had long wanted a new sign; he agreed
+to the proposition. Morland began the work, and as it could not be
+finished on that day, the host supplied him and his friend with lodging
+for the night. On the following day the new sign was so much to the
+satisfaction of the innkeeper that he furnished the friends with gin to
+the amount of two guineas, together with some food, and when it was
+finished added a few shillings to help them on their way. Many similar
+stories are extant of this celebrated painter. "The Goat and Boots" in the
+Fulham Road received a new sign from him in the same way; and to pay
+another tavern score he did a like service for "The Cricketers" near
+Chelsea.
+
+Mr. E. V. Rippingale, the painter, used to tell with what despondency,
+when he was a tall, thin, pale, self-taught youth eagerly studying art, he
+was taken one bright morning to see Sir David Wilkie, then residing in
+Kensington. He had just previously been introduced to a Scotch landscape
+painter of some eminence, who, when he asked him what materials were used
+in landscape painting, had eyed him with grim suspicion, and grunted--
+
+"Sur, there are sacreets in the art, whuch whun a mon hae foound oot, he
+mun keep to himsel."
+
+Consequently Sir David's kindly reception made a deep impression upon him.
+After inquiring what subject the youth was painting, and what branch of
+art his inclinations led him to adopt? if he had studied from the antique
+and from life? whether he was instructed or self-taught? &c., the
+talented Scotchman, then a tall, bony young man, with reddish hair, grey
+eyes, high cheek bones, and a broad Scotch accent, said,--
+
+"I shall be very happy to tell you anything I know. You need not fear to
+ask me; the art of a painter is unlike that of a juggler, it does not
+depend upon a trick. In art we have no secrets, and all painters are
+always glad to tell what they know to young fellow-students."
+
+The rest of the interview was devoted to the giving of sound practical
+advice, the inspection of Wilkie's paintings and studies, and in the end
+the lanky lad from the country was pressed to come again and bring his
+drawings with him.
+
+Rippingale's first visit to Wilkie was paid in 1815, and Haydon has told
+how, after the closing of the Royal Academy Exhibition in 1805, he went to
+breakfast with Wilkie, and reaching his apartment--he then had but one--a
+little before the appointed time, found him stark naked on that chilly
+autumnal morning, making a study from himself by the aid of a
+looking-glass. On another occasion the enthusiastic young Scotchman was
+found in a fireless room, shivering with cold, drawing from his own naked
+leg. Wilkie's employment was of a very humble and precarious kind at that
+time, and he was then copying the pictures of Barry, in the great room of
+the Society of Arts, for an engraver.
+
+When the painter of those world-famous productions was no more, and his
+body lay in state in the very room which contained them, Wilkie was
+anxious to be present at the funeral, but alas! he had not a black coat,
+and could not afford to buy one. However Haydon had two, and was quite
+willing to lend one, and did so; but unfortunately he was short and
+slight, and Wilkie was tall and big-boned. The effect of the former's coat
+upon the latter's figure was consequently intensely ludicrous; the sleeves
+terminated far above his wrists, his broad shoulders stretched the seams
+to the very verge of cracking, and the waist buttons had "gone aloft"
+half-way up his back. When Haydon met him thus oddly attired, not even the
+solemnity of the occasion could quite suppress his merriment, and the
+piteous entreaty of the young Scotchman's looks, and significantly upheld
+finger, increased rather than decreased the tendency, so that the English
+painter afterwards said he once thought the desperate effort he made to
+suppress his laughter would have killed him.
+
+When Wilkie was hawking his pictures from one shop to another, and
+returning home heart-sick, weary, and hungry, evening after evening, he
+received in nearly every case but one reply, "We don't purchase modern
+pictures." Happily this is altered now to some extent, though the
+reception awarded a novice in the present day is not very encouraging if
+all aspirants are treated in a like manner to an extremely clever young
+friend of mine, who, I doubt not, will be heard of some day. When he
+presented his canvas, or sketch, he was told, "We don't buy the paintings
+of unknown men." One of Wilkie's pictures thus rejected was a little one
+of a subject afterwards re-painted on a larger scale, "The Blind Fiddler."
+
+Haydon tells how he first saw a notice of Wilkie in a newspaper, and
+hurried to him with huge delight. "Wilkie," he says, "was breakfasting.
+'Wilkie,' said I, 'here's your name in the paper.' 'Where, where?' said
+Wilkie, ceasing to drink his tea. I then read it aloud to him. Wilkie
+stood up and huzzaed, in which we joined. We then took hands, and danced
+round the table, and sallying forth, spent the day in wandering about in a
+sort of ecstasy in the fields. We supped with Wilkie on red herrings, and
+he took down his little kit, and played us Scotch airs till the dreary
+hour of separation--these were delightful feelings! The novelty of a thing
+first felt, the freshness of youth, all contributed to render them intense
+and exciting."
+
+It was said by some one that Wilkie never painted better than when he used
+to take his penny roll and moisten it at the pump. But this statement was
+indignantly contradicted by his friend Haydon in his lectures, and he
+certainly was an authority on the difficulty of painting under
+difficulties.
+
+Another illustration of success preceded by disappointment is to be found
+in the case of Sontagg, who, according to Mr. Robert Kemp, before he found
+his true vocation in landscape painting, aspired to the glory of
+historical and high art. Environed by the bitter poverty of an art
+student, he painted his ideal. It was a Madonna, and as he afterwards
+said, "one of the worst ever painted." When it was finished, he pawned his
+only decent coat to raise $7.50 for a frame in which it was sent to an art
+mart. "Then he spent the day walking around, and calculating what he would
+do with the thousand the great work would bring him in. Then he called at
+the auction room to collect. 'Had the picture been sold?' 'It had,' said
+the clerk. 'How much?' 'Five dollars and a half.'" Sontagg dined on a
+"free lunch," and went to bed in the dark. I may remark for the benefit of
+those uninitiated in Colonial and American drinking customs, the "free
+lunch" here spoken of means a meal which is provided gratis by many
+tavern-keepers in America, Australia, and elsewhere. It consists of bread
+and meat, or bread and cheese, placed on the counter, and to which all
+patronising the establishment are welcome. It is said that years after
+this occurrence, when Sontagg became famous, he found this painting over
+the chimney-piece of a little wayside inn in the Wabash County where it
+was a standing jest, and valued as a source of the laughter which kept a
+quarrelsome man and wife from desperate extremes. When their violence was
+at its worst a glance at Sontagg's Madonna was sure to provoke such
+merriment that after it they invariably became friendly.
+
+The early life of John Philip, whose glorious pictures of Spanish life won
+him such wide-spread fame, presents an instance of greatness won despite
+extreme poverty, with its attendant drawbacks, and the friendlessness of
+utter obscurity. He began his career as a painter when a mere boy; though
+not upon canvas, millboard nor panel, but upon watering-cans. When
+seventeen years of age he worked his passage from Scotland to London on
+board a coasting-vessel, for the purpose of seeing the exhibition of the
+Royal Academy, and on his return, with a mind richly stored by close
+investigation of the pictures he saw there and in the National
+Galleries--of which those by Wilkie were the most fascinating and
+instructive--he painted a picture which attracted the attention of Lord
+Panmure, who generously sent him to study in London, and supplied him with
+the means of support while so engaged. Philip died, as so many sadly
+remember, on Feb. 27th, 1867. One of his earliest attempts was long
+visible outside an old tavern, in the village of Dyce, near his native
+town Aberdeen, where he was born in 1817. At Dyce he was employed as
+herd-boy, and a story is told of his having at that time but two shirts,
+and when one of these was stolen, Johnny said cheerfully to his relative,
+Mrs. Allardyce, "Never min, ye can mak a shift, wash the ane I hae on, and
+I'll gang to my bed till it's dry. My puir mither hae often to do that."
+Inconvenient as such circumstances must have been, John Philip in the days
+of his prosperity often spoke of the happy days he knew when he was a
+poor little herd-laddie in the pretty little village of Dyce.
+
+Somewhat similar in its start was the life of Henry Dawson, who died in
+1878. Born at Hull in 1811, he commenced the world as a factory-lad at
+Nottingham, in which position he began to paint pictures, which he sold at
+prices ranging from two to twenty shillings; but it was long before he
+achieved the grand success the latter price implied, not indeed before
+1835, and the munificent patron to whose liberality he owed the advance
+was a hairdresser, who for many years remained his best customer. So
+slowly came the fame and prosperity he sought so laboriously and
+patiently, and at last so honourably won, that when he was in his fortieth
+year he actually contemplated opening a small-ware shop to aid him in
+bringing up and educating his family. Indeed had it not been for John
+Ruskin, to whom he applied for advice as to whether he should reluctantly
+abandon his beloved art or persevere in its practice, the profession would
+have lost one of the most powerful of our modern masters in landscape.
+
+He was for many years known only to dealers, who made a glorious harvest
+by reaping where he sowed amidst the cares, anxieties, and inconveniences
+of impecuniosity.
+
+A further proof of what genius and industry can accomplish, be the
+difficulties never so great, is shown by the ultimate success of G. M.
+Kemp, the architect who designed the Scott monument at Edinburgh. He was
+originally a journeyman millwright, and while working at his trade
+contrived, not only to teach himself to draw, but to visit and make
+studies from all the principal ecclesiastical edifices in Scotland, and
+afterwards in England. His plan was to find work in the different places
+he desired to visit; and by this means he acquired such a knowledge of
+architecture that when a prize was offered in open competition for the
+Scott monument, his design was the one unanimously selected,
+notwithstanding the fact that amongst his rivals were many of the leading
+professional architects.
+
+Success unfortunately does not always attend those who work hard and
+deserve substantial recognition; for when some one congratulated William
+Behnes, the sculptor, on his triumphs, and the prosperity that was
+presumed to have followed in their wake, he replied, "When I die, be that
+event when it may, there will not be two penny pieces left to close my
+eyes." He died in the Middlesex Hospital, in January, 1864, realising his
+prediction to the very letter, so few were his sitters, so small the sums
+they paid.
+
+While Behnes began life as a pianoforte-maker, the great sculptor Chantrey
+commenced his career as a journeyman carpenter, in connection with which
+fact there is an odd story told. One day while inspecting a costly vase in
+the house of the wealthy poet Rogers, he asked with a smile who made the
+table on which the curio stood. "Curiously enough," said Rogers, "it was
+not made by a cabinet-maker, but by a common carpenter." Chantrey asked,
+"Did you see it made?" and Rogers, supposing the query to be one of
+incredulity, replied positively, "Certainly! I was in the room while the
+man finished it with the chisel, and I gave him instructions in placing
+it." Chantrey laughed, and said, "You did. I remember that, and all the
+circumstances perfectly well." "You!" exclaimed the poet. "Yes," said
+Chantrey quietly. "I was the carpenter."
+
+When speaking of signs I omitted to mention George Henry Harlow, an artist
+of considerable eminence, who, like Morland and others, was glad on
+occasions to paint signs to liquidate liquor scores. Harlow, who was born
+in 1787, and died in 1819, quarrelled in the plenitude of his conceit with
+his master, Sir Thomas Lawrence, left his house, and went to live at "The
+Queen's Head," in Epsom, where, living extravagantly, his expenses outran
+his means, and he was glad to escape the penalty of his folly by
+repainting the landlord's sign. In doing so, with a view to the annoyance
+of Sir Thomas, who had found in Queen Caroline a kind friend and patron,
+he very cleverly caricatured at once Her Majesty, and his late master's
+style of portraiture, even putting underneath it his initials and
+address--T. L., Greek St., Soho. One of the funny ideas of this sign was
+that of painting on one side the face of the Queen, and on the other Her
+Majesty's royal back.
+
+There was a sign long displayed at Mole, in North Wales, which was painted
+in the same way by Richard Wilson, "The English Claude." It belonged to a
+tavern called "The Three Loggerheads;" only two appeared on the sign, the
+third was to be he who read the sign, as many did, aloud.
+
+This same Richard Wilson, R.A., was a Welshman, the son of the Rector of
+Pineges, where he was born in 1714; and after unsuccessfully working for a
+long time as a painter of portraits, landscapes, and historical subjects,
+he at last achieved eminence, and forthwith enjoyed, with so many of his
+talented _confrères_, glory and--poverty. The incident of his first
+commission from the King will illustrate the kind of remuneration even
+royalty gave for the works of men who had attained the highest rank in
+their arduous profession.
+
+Dalton, the artist, having been appointed keeper of the King's pictures,
+suggested that a landscape by Richard Wilson should be included in His
+Majesty's collection; and the monarch reposing great faith in his
+judgment, sent poor Dick a commission for a landscape of a given size to
+fit a vacant space in the gallery. In due time the work was finished and
+placed before the King, who exclaimed indignantly,--
+
+"Hey! what! Do _you_ call this painting, Dalton? Take it away! I call it
+daubing, hey! What! It's a mere daub."
+
+Poor Dalton, who was one of Wilson's friends and admirers, bowed, looked
+sheepish, and was silent.
+
+Presently his, on this occasion, not over gracious Majesty peevishly
+inquired, "What does he ask for this daub?" And when Dalton replied "One
+hundred guineas," the King's astonishment was immense.
+
+"One hundred guineas! Hey! What, Dalton! Then you may tell Mr. Wilson it's
+the dearest picture I ever saw. Too much--too much--tell him I say so."
+
+A few days after, the artist, being as usual in need of cash, called upon
+Dalton, and in his bluff manner said,--
+
+"Well, Dicky Dalton, what says his Majesty?"
+
+Dalton replied hesitatingly, and with confusion, "Why--a--with--a--regard
+to the picture--a--As for my--a--own opinion--why--a--you know, Mr.
+Wilson, that--a--indeed----"
+
+Wilson interrupted him with an oath. He saw his friend's perplexity, and
+said at once, "His Majesty don't approve--but I know your friendly
+zeal--go on."
+
+"Why in truth, my dear friend, I venture to think the a--the finishing
+is--not altogether answerable to His Majesty's anticipations."
+
+"Humph! Not every leaf made out, hey?--not every blade of grass? What
+else? Out with it, man."
+
+"Why then--a--His--His Majesty thinks--a--that the price is--is--is a
+great deal of money."
+
+Wilson took him by the button-hole, looked cautiously round, and in a
+comical whisper said,--
+
+"Tell His Majesty I do not wish to distress him, I will take it by
+instalments--say a guinea a week."
+
+Neglect and disappointment soured Wilson's temper, and made him a very
+surly, irritable man, sometimes quite misanthropical; as well they might,
+considering his great talents and his extreme poverty. It is said that one
+of his most famous historical paintings, on which he had expended many
+months of thought and labour, was sold under the influence of absolute
+necessity for a pot of beer, and the remains of a Stilton cheese!
+
+Mortimer, an artist who used to sometimes occupy an armchair by Wilson's
+fireside, and there hear him in splenetic humour moralise like another
+melancholy Jaques, making cynical strictures upon that scoundrel man,
+would say, "Come, come, my old Trojan--come, old boy--I wish I could set
+you purring like old puss there."
+
+Angelo tells how a friend of Dr. Johnson's, hearing of Wilson's distress,
+said to Mr. Taylor, the artist, "I wish I knew how to send him ten pounds
+in some delicate way which could not give him offence. Do you think he has
+some very trifling sketch I could buy for that sum? I have no taste for
+pictures, but I would give him a commission if my income were not too
+slender. I am so distressed that so great a genius should be entirely
+without means." Taylor told this story delicately to Wilson, who was much
+touched by it, and said, "I have no scrap such as your friend desires to
+have, but if the thing were not bruited about I would be happy to send him
+one of my easel pictures, which you know I never sell for less than
+sixteen guineas." The result was that Wilson received the ten pounds, Dr.
+Johnson's friend the sixteen-guinea picture, which it is said he gave away
+the same evening to one of the waiters at Vauxhall.
+
+At the close of his life, when worn out by indifference and neglect, he
+was reduced to solicit the office of librarian to the Royal Academy, of
+which he was acknowledged to be one of the brightest ornaments. He died in
+May 1782, his death accelerated, if not produced, by want; and, sad to
+state, just previous to his decease, help came to him, when it was, alas,
+too late!
+
+As is well known, William Hazlitt, the critic, began life as an artist,
+and was indeed an artist in taste, judgment, and knowledge, all his life.
+He speaks of his painter's experience with enthusiasm in one of his
+papers, saying, "One of the most delightful parts of my life was one fine
+summer, when I used to walk out of an evening to catch the last light of
+the sun, gemming the green slopes of the russet lawns, and gilding tower
+or tree, while the blue sky, gradually turning to purple and gold, or
+skirted with dusky grey, flung its broad mantle over all, as we see it in
+the great master of Italian landscape." Hazlitt abandoned the brush for
+the pen when he found that he could not realize his own conceptions, nor
+satisfy his own critical judgment; but it is evident from the following
+extract that his early art-life was not free from the imputation of being
+impecunious. He says, after receiving the money for a portrait he had
+finished in great haste for the sake of getting the cash, "I went to
+market myself and dined on sausages and mashed potatoes; and, while they
+were getting ready, and I could hear them frying in the pan, read a volume
+of 'Gil Blas' containing the account of the fair Aurora. This was in the
+days of my youth. Do not smile, gentle reader. Neither M. de Verry nor
+Louis XVIII. over an oyster _pâte_, nor Apicius himself, ever understood
+the meaning of the word luxury better than I did at that moment."
+
+Daniel Maclise--the son of a Scotch cobbler, who had been a soldier and
+had settled in Ireland--was sent adrift in the world at a very early age,
+and became a bank clerk. In 1828 he came to London, where he succeeded in
+getting a studentship in the Royal Academy. The money which enabled him to
+do this was earned by a portrait-sketch he made stealthily from Sir Walter
+Scott, while the great Wizard of the North was in the shop of a
+bookseller, named Bolster. Bolster afterwards saw the sketch, and showed
+it to Sir Walter, who, pleased with the lad's talent, attached his
+autograph to it. The drawing was lithographed, sold in Bolster's shop, and
+with his share of the profit Maclise started himself in his art career.
+
+Poor Benjamin Haydon--odd compound of greatness and littleness, bravery
+and cowardice, genius and folly, now patient, now despairing, now bitterly
+envious and jealous, and anon sympathetically gleeful over a brother's
+triumph--sipped many a cup of bitterness through his constant state of
+impecuniosity; which chronic condition, he sorrowfully admits in his
+diary, was the result of borrowing, as shown by this extract. "Here began
+debt and obligation, out of which I have never been, and never shall be,
+extricated as long as I live." Haydon, as I said, was a strange mixture,
+and though possessed of a nature truly poetical, he was in some things
+wondrously practical; for the bailiffs put into his house he utilized as
+models. One sat, he tells us in his diary, "for Cassandra's head, and put
+on a Persian bracelet. When the broker came for his money, he burst out
+laughing. There was the fellow, an old soldier, pointing in the attitude
+of Cassandra, upright, and steady as if on guard. Lazarus's head was
+painted just after an arrest: Eucles finished from a man in possession:
+the beautiful face in Xenophon in the afternoon after a morning spent in
+begging mercy of lawyers: and Cassandra's head was finished in agony not
+to be described, and her hand completed from a broker's man."
+
+Sculptors, like artists, have frequently found art a very hard school; and
+amongst others of whom this is true may be mentioned Peter Scheemakers,
+the master Nollekens studied under. When a youth, so fervent was his
+desire to study in Rome, that he actually endured the fatigue of
+travelling from Antwerp into Italy on foot. Unfortunately in Denmark he
+fell sick, and when again fit for the road, he was compelled to sell his
+shirts from his knapsack to procure food; but he was none the less joyous
+when, footsore, haggard, and hungry, he at last entered the Eternal City.
+This was in 1700. The fine figure of King Edward VI., which used to stand
+in the courtyard of St. Thomas's Hospital, was the production of
+Scheemakers.
+
+Another sculptor whose history furnishes something curious in connection
+with impecuniosity is John Bacon, who, born in 1740, commenced life as an
+ordinary workman in a Lambeth pottery, where he taught himself to paint on
+china. Afterwards he went as modeller to Mrs. Coade's artificial stone
+manufactory, and when he began to display remarkable talent as a sculptor,
+Johnson, who built Berners Street, was very kind to him. He took premises
+for him in Newman Street, and told him to start at once in business for
+himself. Young Bacon was astonished, and frightened. "How could you do
+so?" he exclaimed. "I am not fit for anything of the kind. How can I ever
+hope to pay you the money back?" Johnson, however, insisted upon the trial
+being made, and said he was quite willing to lose the money if Bacon were
+never able to repay him. The result was that Bacon flourished so well
+that when his first great benefactor had become a banker in Bond Street,
+and feared a serious run upon his house, the sculptor came forward eagerly
+to his aid with a loan of forty thousand pounds!
+
+This was truly a freak of fortune, and as a companion picture may be
+mentioned a freak of misfortune, which is attributed to Capitsoldi, a
+talented sculptor, who came from Italy to this country in the last
+century. It is asserted that when he was living in a garret in Warwick
+Street, Golden Square, he had no furniture beyond a table and two chairs;
+but he painted on the walls a suite of furniture with window curtains,
+pictures, and statuary in such excellent perspective, and with such an
+aspect of relief and solidity, that the mean apartment actually appeared
+to be most handsomely and completely furnished.
+
+To return to our subject--the impecuniosity of artists. The experience of
+John Zoffany, R.A., may be cited. He came to England from Frankfort in
+1735, and about that time there was a celebrated maker of musical clocks,
+named Rimbault, living in Great St. Andrew's Street, who was asked one day
+by some one he employed if he could find work for a poor starving artist
+who occupied a garret in the same house. Rimbault desired the man to send
+him, and Zoffany was ultimately engaged to paint clock faces. A portrait
+he painted of Rimbault won him a better engagement of £40 a year as
+assistant to a portrait painter named Benjamin Wilson, who was employed by
+Garrick, the actor. Garrick, being struck by the sudden and remarkable
+improvement which immediately ensued, suspected the truth, and, causing
+enquiries to be made, discovered Zoffany, employed him direct, introduced
+him to his wealthy friends, and gave him that new start in life which
+brought him fame and honour, and made Sir Joshua Reynolds his friend.
+Zoffany is now chiefly known in connection with his excellent
+character-portraits of famous old actors and actresses.
+
+The last, but by no means the least celebrated of the artists I shall
+mention, whose fortunes, or the reverse, have been curiously associated
+with lack of means, is James Barry--at whose state funeral in St. Paul's
+Churchyard poor Wilkie cut such a queer figure in Haydon's coat. Barry was
+as eccentric as he was poor. Unlike Richard Wilson, to display his poverty
+was a matter of pride rather than pain; open reproach to those who
+neglected his talent, and embittered his life, rather than shame to him.
+His house at 36, Castle Street, Oxford Market, was a standing disgrace to
+the thoroughfare, every window in it was either cracked or broken, and
+part of the roof had fallen in. The iron railing before it was rusty for
+want of paint, broken, and sloping partly inward and partly outward; the
+doorsteps were cracked and broken, the door thickly coated with mud and
+dirt. The room in which he painted had been a carpenter's shop, and the
+dust-covered shavings were still in it, while cobwebs hung like thick
+dust-coloured drapery from beams and rafter, and were suspended in
+festoons from every corner, while here and there the daylight shot long
+rays into its dingy, dust-laden atmosphere, through holes where the tiles
+had been broken, or had slipped aside. It had a small fireplace just large
+enough for the glue-pot it was constructed for, and boasted one
+three-legged old deal table, hardly large enough to eat a meal from. Here
+he painted, and etched, and printed his own proofs from a little old
+printing press; and here he received the Right Honourable Edmund Burke on
+that memorable occasion when he was, at his own particular request,
+invited to dine with the painter, and take "pot luck."
+
+Barry owed much to the generosity of Burke, who had been one of his
+earliest friends and patrons. It is said that he once quarrelled with the
+great statesman for attacking the then anonymous work 'An Essay on the
+Sublime and Beautiful,' every line of which the young Irish painter, being
+unable to buy the book, had copied, and he would entirely have lost
+control of his temper if Burke had not with a laugh transformed his rage
+into a whirlwind of delight and passionate admiration, by confessing
+himself its author.
+
+When Burke arrived, on the evening appointed, at the ruinous, dirty,
+shabby house in Castle Street, Barry had altogether forgotten the
+appointment. However he ushered him into his studio-wilderness of dust and
+cobwebs, gave him a seat, made up the fire, which was smoking, and while
+it burnt up, went out to purchase some steak, and brought it in wrapped in
+a cabbage leaf. Placing the meat on a gridiron, he spread a towel over the
+little round table, and on it placed a couple of plates, a salt-cellar, a
+little roll of bread, and a dish, which nearly filled it; then, putting
+the tongs into his visitor's hands, bade him turn the steak while he went
+out to fetch the beer. He came back quickly, swearing and grumbling at
+the wind because it had blown off the frothy head of the stout as he was
+crossing Titchfield Street, and produced from his pocket a couple of
+bottles of port. The meal was enjoyed, the evening passed merrily; and
+Burke afterwards confessed that he had never enjoyed himself more, nor
+eaten more heartily, even at the most sumptuous feast.
+
+Owing to his impecunious circumstances, Barry had been accustomed to take
+his meals in cookshops and coffee-houses of the cheaper kind; and Angelo
+notes as one of his eccentricities his always insisting upon paying for
+his meal at coffee or cookshop rate wherever he might chance to feed. On
+one occasion he was invited to dine with Sir William Beechy and some noble
+guests, and rose at nine o'clock to depart, having as usual placed two
+shillings upon the table where he had been sitting. The lively knight, who
+knew "his customer," followed him from the dining-room into the hall,
+leaving the door of the former open that his friends might hear.
+
+"What are these for?" asked Sir William, presenting the coins.
+
+"How can you put so preposterous a question? For my dinner to be sure,
+man."
+
+"But two shillings is not fair compensation, Barry. Surely it was worth a
+crown."
+
+"Baw-baw, man! You know I never pay more."
+
+"But you have not paid for your wine."
+
+"Shu-shu! If you can't afford it, why do you give it? Painters have no
+business with wine."
+
+"Barry," says Angelo, "who boasted of making his dinner on a biscuit and
+an apple, had no mercy for those who lessened their means by
+self-indulgence. He was once highly indignant with a lord, who when dining
+at 'Old Slaughter's' in St. Martin's Lane--a famous resort of artists and
+their patrons--had straw laid down before the house to deaden the noise of
+passing vehicles."
+
+He used to say, as he may have said on the memorable evening with Burke,
+"Half the common dishes would supersede turtle and venison, if your old,
+pampered peers and mighty patricians were to peep and peer into their own
+cook's pot."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+IMPECUNIOSITY OF AUTHORS.
+
+
+That memory of William Makepeace Thackeray upon which I care least to
+dwell is the low estimate he had of men of genius in his own profession.
+It may be that this was with him, as it was with Doctor Johnson, a species
+of mock modesty; but it is none the less unpleasant for one to remember
+who so enthusiastically admires his great works. Men of letters have never
+lacked more than enough to slander them and magnify their peccadilloes, to
+sneer at their pride, and lower their social status, without finding such
+enemies in their own camp. You may remember how, in his lectures on the
+English humourists of the last century, Thackeray denied that there was
+any lack of goodwill and kindness towards men of genius in this country,
+or that they often failed to meet with generous and helping hands in the
+time of their necessity. Ignoring all but men of one class (whose follies
+and vices were after all those of their age), and painting these in his
+darkest colours and most repulsive forms, he asked,--
+
+    "What claim had one of these of whom I have been speaking but genius?
+    What return of gratitude, fame, affection, did it not bring to all?
+    What punishment befell those who were unfortunate among them but that
+    which follows reckless habits and careless lives? For these faults a
+    wit must suffer like the dullest prodigal that ever ran in debt. He
+    must pay the tailor if he wears the coat; his children must go in rags
+    if he spends his money at the tavern; he can't come to London and be
+    made Lord Chancellor if he stops on the road and gambles away his last
+    shilling at Dublin, and he must pay the social penalty of these
+    follies, too, and expect that the world will shun the man of bad
+    habits; that women will avoid the man of loose life; that prudent
+    folks will close their doors as a precaution, and before a demand
+    should be made on their pockets by the needy prodigal."
+
+There is no gainsaying all this, it is so highly respectable, and I would
+endorse its application as heartily as those did who once so loudly
+applauded it, if (and there is, you know, _much_ virtue in an "if") the
+discouragement spoken of had really been awarded to the vices and follies
+and not to the genius; whereas it must be patent to all who have studied
+the social life of the last century, as Thackeray did, that the direct
+reverse of this was the case--that such bad habits and such loose lives
+were absolutely the chief conditions upon which the wits of society were
+patronised and encouraged. Therefore a degree of hardness and cruelty in
+the rigid and virtuous superiority of this great writer, who, happily,
+born in a more refined and purer time, so magnifies the vices of the
+unfortunate dead, in order to lessen the pity and respect which their
+greatness won for them. It is this which I do not like to associate with
+the memory of our great novelist.
+
+Poor, half-starved Robert Burns, chained to the oar of impecuniosity,
+toiling like a galley-slave, as he said, for the means of supporting his
+parents and seizing every spare moment for such intellectual improvement
+as was within his reach, had written most of his finest works before the
+patronage of the great introduced him to their bacchanalian revels, and
+carried him as a wonder, and an extraordinary novelty (a peasant poet),
+into the very best Edinburgh society for a season; during which, by dining
+out with the noble and great, he ran a serious risk of dying at home
+through starvation.
+
+It can hardly be said that eighteenth-century patronage and appreciation
+did much for him, or for us. It won him perhaps the dangerous and trying
+occupation of exciseman, at a salary of £70 a year: it matured, if it did
+not absolutely create, the bad habits which plunged him into pecuniary
+cares and difficulties, weakened his intellectual stamina, and destroyed
+his self-respect. He was witty, eloquent, amusing, a genius, and a wonder;
+but when he ceased to be a novelty, the idol of society was ruthlessly
+cast aside, to live or die, any how he could, and we find him copying
+music to procure food for himself and those dear to him. Dissipation and
+trouble carried him off in the prime of his manhood, and the full maturity
+of his genius, when without such patronage as Thackeray believed in,
+seemingly, he might have achieved triumphs loftier than those in the full
+pride of which every patriot has a share.
+
+An extract from a letter written by Burns to Thomson on the 19th of July,
+1796, says:
+
+    "After all my boasted independence, cursed necessity compels me to
+    implore you for five pounds. A cruel scoundrel of a haberdasher, to
+    whom I owe an account, taking it into his head that I am dying, has
+    commenced a process and will infallibly put me in jail. Do for God's
+    sake send me that sum, and by return of post. Forgive me this
+    earnestness; but the horrors of a jail have made me half disheartened;
+    I do not ask all this gratuitously; for upon returning health I
+    promise, and engage to furnish you with five pounds' worth of the
+    neatest song-genius you have seen."
+
+Robert Bloomfield did not find those generous and helpful friends of
+genius whom the imagination of Thackeray created to people the eighteenth
+century. He, like Burns, was a farmer's boy, who afterward became a
+shoemaker's errand-boy, living in a garret at 7, Fisher's Court, Coleman
+Street, in which he and four others, one being his brother, worked, and
+slept on "turn-up" beds. There he fetched the dinners from the cookshop,
+did the inferior part of the work, and ran errands; taught himself to read
+by the aid of borrowed newspapers and a little dictionary, bought for him
+at a second-hand stall, for fourpence, by one of his fellow-workers, and
+by listening to an eloquent dissenting minister named Fawcett, acquired
+the proper pronunciation of words. He began verse-writing at sixteen, and
+at that age also began to instruct his brother and his partners in the
+Fisher's Court garret (for which they paid five shillings a week), and in
+another "parlour next the sky" in Blue Hart Court, Bell Alley, where a
+fellow-lodger made him inexpressibly happy by the loan of Milton's
+'Paradise Lost' and Thomson's 'Seasons.' When he fell in love with a young
+woman named Church, daughter of a boat-builder in the Government Yard at
+Woolwich, he sold his most precious possession (to purchase which he had
+practised much self-denial), his fiddle, on which he had taught himself to
+play. Writing to his brother, he said, "I have sold my fiddle and got a
+wife."
+
+His brother says, "Like most poor men, he got a wife first, and had to get
+household stuff afterwards." It took him some years to get out of ready
+furnished lodgings. At length, by hard working, etc., he acquired a bed of
+his own, and hired the room up one pair of stairs at 14, Bell Alley,
+Coleman Street; and there, as he worked unaided by costly writing
+materials, amongst the noise and bustle of seven other workmen who,
+conjointly with himself, had hired a garret in the same house as their
+work-room, he composed his famous poem 'The Farmer's Boy,' the latter
+portion of his 'Autumn,' and the whole of his 'Winter.' Not a line of
+either was committed to paper before each was corrected, altered,
+improved, and finally completed.
+
+The poet Crabbe was another eighteenth-century genius who failed to find
+the generous, ever-ready patronage and friendship, whereof Thackeray said,
+"It would hardly be grateful to alter my old opinion that we (men of
+letters) do meet with good will and kindness, with generous and helping
+hands, in the time of our necessity; with cordial and friendly
+recognition." Having failed in his medical practice at Aldborough, in
+Suffolk, where, in 1789 he was born, Crabbe borrowed five pounds, and with
+that sum came to London. Taking lodgings near the Exchange, he began his
+literary career full of hope and vigour. But the booksellers, Dodsley and
+Becket, civilly declined his productions; and when he published some poems
+cheaply at his own expense his publisher failed; and the poor poet's
+little, carefully husbanded money being exhausted, he applied to Lord
+North for assistance,--in vain. Then he addressed verses to Lord
+Chancellor Thurlow, who said in reply, "his avocations did not leave him
+leisure to read verse." For a time he lived by selling his clothes, and
+pawning his watch and surgical instruments; then his books were
+reluctantly sold, and then debt came, and he was threatened with
+imprisonment. In the midst of these anxious cares, fears, and sufferings,
+with starvation staring him in the face, he bade the muse a sorrowful
+adieu, and sought work as a druggist's assistant. He had but eightpence in
+the world when he wrote to Edmund Burke, and himself left the letter at
+that eminent statesman's house in Charles Street. Begging letters from
+starving poets and literary men were familiar enough in those days, and
+Burke received more than his fair share of them. Crabbe has himself told
+us how, weary, penniless, and hungry, being afraid to go back to his
+lodging, he traversed Westminster Bridge all throughout the night
+following the delivery of that letter until daybreak. The letter itself, a
+memorable curiosity of impecuniosity, I here append:
+
+    "_To Edmund Burke, Esq._
+
+    "SIR,--I am sensible that I need even your talents to apologize for
+    the freedom I now take, but I have a plea which, however simply urged,
+    will with a mind like yours, sir, procure me pardon. I am one of those
+    outcasts on the world who are without a friend, without employment,
+    without bread.
+
+    "Pardon me a short preface. I had a partial father who gave me a
+    better education than his broken fortune would have allowed, and a
+    better than was necessary, as he could give me that only. I was
+    designed for the profession of Physic; but not having the wherewithal
+    to complete the necessary studies, the design but served to convince
+    me of a parent's affection and the error it had occasioned. In April
+    last I came to London with three pounds, and flattered myself this
+    would be sufficient to supply me with the common necessaries of life
+    till my abilities should procure me more; of these I had the highest
+    opinion, and a poetical vanity contributed to my delusion. I knew
+    little of the world and had read books only. I wrote, and fancied
+    perfection in my compositions; when I wanted bread they promised me
+    affluence and soothed me with dreams of reputation, whilst my
+    appearance subjected me to contempt. In time reflection and want have
+    shown me my mistake. I see my trifles in that which I think the true
+    light, and whilst I deem them such have yet the opinion that holds
+    them superior to the common run of poetical publications.
+
+    "I had some knowledge of the late Mr. Nassau, the brother of Lord
+    Rochford; in consequence of which I asked his lordship's permission to
+    inscribe my little work to him, knowing it to be free from all
+    political allusions and personal abuse. It was no material point to me
+    to whom it was dedicated, his lordship thought it none to him, and
+    obligingly consented to my request.
+
+    "I was told a subscription would be the more profitable method for me,
+    and therefore endeavoured to circulate copies of the enclosed
+    proposals.
+
+    "I am afraid, sir, I disgust you with this very drill narration, but
+    believe me punished in the misery that occasions it. You will conclude
+    that during this time I must have been at more expense than I could
+    afford--indeed, the most parsimonious could not have avoided it. The
+    printer deceived me, and my little business has had every delay. The
+    people with whom I live perceive my situation and find me to be
+    indigent and without friends. About ten days since I was compelled to
+    give a note for seven pounds to avoid an arrest for about double that
+    sum which I owe. I wrote to every friend I had, but my friends are
+    poor likewise; the time of payment approached, and I ventured to
+    represent my case to Lord Rochford. I begged to be credited for this
+    sum till I received it of my subscribers, which I believe will be
+    within one month: but to this letter I had no reply, and I have
+    probably offended by my importunity. Having used every honest means in
+    vain, I yesterday confessed my inability, and obtained with much
+    entreaty and as the greatest favour a week's forbearance, when I am
+    positively told that I must pay the money or prepare for a prison.
+
+    "You will guess the purpose of so long an introduction. I appeal to
+    you, sir, as a good, and let me add, a great man. I have no other
+    pretensions to your favour than that I am an unhappy one. It is not
+    easy to support the thought of confinement, and I am coward enough to
+    dread such an end to my suspense.
+
+    "Can you, sir, in any degree aid me with propriety?
+
+    "Will you ask any demonstration of my veracity?
+
+    "I have imposed upon myself, but I have been guilty of no other
+    imposition. Let me, if possible, interest your compassion. I know
+    those of rank and fashion are teased with frequent petitions, and are
+    compelled to refuse the requests even of those whom they know to be in
+    distress; it is therefore with a distant hope I ventured to solicit
+    such favour, but you will forgive me, sir, if you do not think proper
+    to relieve. It is impossible that sentiments like yours can proceed
+    from any but a humane and generous heart.
+
+    "I will call upon you, sir, to-morrow, and if I have not the happiness
+    to obtain credit with you I must submit to my fate. My existence is a
+    pain to myself, and every one near and dear to me are distressed in my
+    distress. My connections, once the source of happiness, embitter the
+    reverse of my fortune, and I have only to hope a speedy end to a life
+    so unpromisingly begun, in which (though it ought not to be boasted
+    of) I can reap some consolation from looking to the end of it.
+
+        "I am, sir, with the greatest respect,
+          "Your obedient and most humble servant,
+            "GEORGE CRABBE."
+
+Burke replied immediately, appointing an interview, from which dated the
+change in Crabbe's fortune. Money was given to him, apartments provided
+for him at Beaconsfield, where he was treated as if he belonged to the
+generous statesman's own family,--the very publisher who had refused his
+poems was ready enough to publish them when Edmund Burke suggested his
+doing so, and even Lord Thurlow gave him a hundred-pound note. Through his
+patron's influence the surgeon afterwards became a clergyman and chaplain
+to the Duke of Rutland. In 1807 the copyright of Crabbe's poems was sold
+for three thousand pounds.
+
+Another article in Thackeray's belief was, that "without necessity," as he
+said in _Fraser's Magazine_ (1846), "men of genius would not work at all,
+or very little. It does not follow," said he, "that a man would produce a
+great work even if he had leisure. Squire Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon
+with his land, and his rents, and his arms over the porch, was not the
+working Shakespeare; and indolence, or contemplation if you like, is no
+unusual quality in literary men."
+
+The reader will find, in my chapter on the "Impecuniosity of Artists," a
+curious contrast to this opinion in that expressed by Ruskin, in his
+'Political Economy of Art.' Our great art critic draws a touching picture
+of the man of genius, toiling painfully through his early years of
+obscurity and neglect, yearning vainly for the peace and time requisite
+for producing great works. And Sir Bulwer Lytton, writing pathetically of
+poor Leman Blanchard, whom Thackeray knew personally, said,--
+
+    "Few men had experienced more to sour them, or had gone through the
+    author's hardening ordeal of narrow circumstances, of daily labour,
+    and of that disappointment in the higher aims of ambition, which must
+    almost inevitably befall those who retain ideal standards of
+    excellence _to be reached but by time and leisure_, and who are yet
+    compelled to draw hourly upon immatured resources for the practical
+    wants of life."
+
+Blanchard's father was a painter and glazier in Southwark, who doubtless
+practised no little self-denial to give his son a good education, which
+could not but, as Sir Bulwer Lytton said, with a faint tinge of an
+old-world prejudice in his words, "unfit young Leman for the calling of
+his father;" "for it developed the abilities and bestowed the learning
+which may be said to lift a youth morally out of trade, and to refine him
+at once into a gentleman." He began life at the desk as a clerk in the
+office of Mr. Charles Pearson, a proctor in Doctors' Commons, and soon
+began to contribute some promising characteristic sketches to a
+publication called _The Drama_. As a clerk, he was not satisfactory nor
+satisfied; and his father was about to take him from it, and teach him his
+own trade, to avoid which Blanchard tried through the influence of the
+actor, Mr. Henry Johnston, to find an opening on the stage. The histrionic
+friend, however, painted the miseries and uncertainties of his profession
+in such gloomy and terrible colours, that the poor boy's heart sank within
+him, and he had turned with despair to obscurity and trade when the
+manager of the Margate Theatre offered him an engagement, which he
+accepted. "A week," says Mr. Buckstone, who was then on intimate terms
+with him, "was sufficient to disgust him with the beggary and drudgery of
+the country player's life, and as there was no 'Harlequin' steaming it
+from Margate to London Bridge at that day, he performed his journey back
+on foot, having on reaching Rochester but his last shilling--the poet's
+veritable last shilling--in his pocket."
+
+Buckstone also wrote:
+
+    "At that time a circumstance occurred which my poor friend's fate has
+    naturally brought to my recollection. He came to me late one evening
+    in a state of great excitement, informed me that his father had turned
+    him out of doors, that he was utterly hopeless and wretched, and was
+    resolved to destroy himself. I used my best endeavours to console him,
+    to lead his thoughts to the future, and hope in what chance and
+    perseverance might effect for him. Our discourse took a livelier turn,
+    and after making up a bed on a sofa in my own room I retired to rest.
+    I soon slept soundly, but was awakened by hearing a footstep
+    descending the stairs. I looked towards the sofa and discovered he had
+    left it. I heard the street-door close. I instantly hurried on my
+    clothes and followed him. I called to him, but received no answer. I
+    ran till I saw him in the distance, also running. I again called his
+    name, I implored him to stop, but he would not answer me. Still
+    continuing his pace, I became alarmed, and doubled my speed. I came up
+    to him near Westminster Bridge; he was hurrying to the steps leading
+    to the river. I seized him, he threatened to strike me if I did not
+    release him. I called for the watch, I entreated him to return; he
+    became more pacified, but still seemed anxious to escape from me. By
+    entreaties, by every means of persuasion I could think of, by threats
+    to call for help, I succeeded in taking him back."
+
+After that desperate attempt, Blanchard obtained work as a printer's
+reader with Messrs. Bayliss, of Fleet Street.
+
+Thackeray summed up his poor friend's condition at this time thus briefly:
+
+    "The young fellow, forced to the proctor's desk, quite angry with the
+    drudgery, theatre-stricken, poetry-stricken, writing dramatic sketches
+    in Barry Cornwall's manner, spouting 'Leonidas' before a manager,
+    driven away starving from home, penniless and full of romance,
+    courting his beautiful young wife.... Then there comes that pathetic
+    little outbreak of despair, when the poor young fellow is nearly
+    giving up, his father banishes him, no one will buy his poetry, he has
+    no chance on his darling theatre, no chance of the wife that he is
+    longing for. Why not finish life at once? He has read 'Werter,' and
+    can understand suicide. 'None,' he says in a sonnet,
+
+        'None, not the hoariest sage, may tell of all
+        The strong heart struggles, wills, before it fall.'
+
+    If respectability wanted to point a moral, isn't there one here?
+    Eschew poetry--avoid the theatre--stick to your business--do not read
+    German novels--do not marry at twenty: and yet the young poet marries
+    at twenty in the teeth of poverty and experience, labours away not
+    unsuccessfully, puts Pegasus into harness, rises in social rank and
+    public estimation, brings up happily an affectionate family, gets for
+    himself a circle of the warmest friends, and thus carries on for
+    twenty years, when a providential calamity visits him and the poor
+    wife almost together, and removes them both."
+
+The "providential calamity" came in the beginning of 1844, when Mrs.
+Blanchard, the most tenderly-loving of wives, and a devoted mother, was
+attacked by paralysis, which affected the brain, and terminated in
+madness, speedily followed by death. Partial paralysis seized her husband,
+and in a burst of delirium, "having his little boy in bed by his side, and
+having said the Lord's prayer but a short time before, he sprang out of
+bed in the absence of his nurse (whom he had besought not to leave him),
+and made away with himself with a razor.... At the very moment of his
+death his friends were making the kindest and most generous exertions on
+his behalf." Thackeray, whom I have quoted, adds: "Such a noble, loving,
+and generous creature is never without such. The world, it is pleasant to
+think, is always a good and gentle world to the gentle and good, and
+reflects the benevolence with which they regard it." This is comfortable
+doctrine, and I would I were sure of its truthfulness. I wonder what poor
+Gerald Griffin would have said of it in the year 1825, when he was
+residing at 15, Paddington Street, Regent's Park, London, and, writing to
+his mother in Ireland, said:
+
+    "Until within a short time back I have not had, since I left Ireland,
+    a single moment's peace of mind; constantly running backwards and
+    forwards, and trying a thousand expedients, only to meet
+    disappointments everywhere I turned.... I never will think or talk
+    upon the subject again. It was such a year that I did not think it
+    possible I could have outlived, and the very recollection of it puts
+    me into the horrors.... When I first came to London my own
+    self-conceit, backed by the opinion of one of the most original
+    geniuses of the age, induced me to set about revolutionising the
+    dramatic taste of the time by writing for the stage. Indeed, the
+    design was formed and the first step taken (a couple of pieces
+    written) in Ireland. I cannot with my present experience conceive
+    anything more comical than my own views and measures at that time. A
+    young gentleman totally unknown even to a single family in London
+    coming into town with a few pounds in one pocket, and a brace of
+    tragedies in the other, supposing that the one will set him up before
+    the others are exhausted, is not a very novel, but a very laughable
+    delusion. I would weary you, or I would carry you through a number of
+    curious scenes into which it led me. Only imagine the model young
+    Munsterman spouting his tragedy to a roomful of literary ladies and
+    gentlemen; some of high consideration. The applause, however, of that
+    circle on that night was sweeter, far sweeter, to me then than would
+    be the bravos of a whole theatre at present, being united at the time
+    to the confident anticipation of it."
+
+The result was his introduction to a manager--all the actors were eager to
+introduce him to their managers, and to one he went.
+
+    "He," continues poor Griffin, "let down the pegs that made my
+    music.... He was very polite, talked, and chatted about himself, and
+    Shiel, and my excellent friend Banim. He kept my play four months,
+    wrote me some nonsensical apologies about keeping it so long, and cut
+    off to Ireland, leaving orders to have it sent to my lodgings without
+    any opinion. I was quite surprised at this, and the more so that
+    Banim, who is one of the most successful dramatic writers, at the same
+    time saying, what indeed I found every person who had the least
+    theatric knowledge join in, that I acted most unwisely in putting a
+    play into an actor's hands. It was then that I set about writing for
+    those weekly publications, all of which, except the _Literary
+    Gazette_, cheated me most abominably. Then finding this to be the
+    case, I wrote for the great magazines. My articles were generally
+    inserted, but on calling for payment, seeing that I was but a poor
+    inexperienced devil, there was so much shuffling and shabby work, that
+    it disgusted me, and I gave up the idea of making money that way. I
+    now lost heart for everything, got into the cheapest lodging I could
+    make out, and there worked on, rather to divert my mind from the
+    horrible gloom that I felt growing on me, in spite of myself, than
+    with any hope of being remunerated. This, and the recollection of the
+    expense I had put William to, and the fears that every moment became
+    conviction that I should never be able to fulfil his hopes, or my own
+    expectations, all came pressing together upon my mind and made me
+    miserable. A thousand and a thousand times I wished that I could lie
+    down quietly and die at once, and be forgotten for ever. I can
+    describe to you my state of mind at this time. It was not an indolent
+    despondency, for I was working hard as I am now, and it is only
+    receiving money for the labour of those dreadful hours. I used not to
+    see a face that I knew, and after sitting writing all day, when I
+    walked in the streets in the evening, it actually seemed to me as if I
+    was a different species altogether from the people about me. The fact
+    was, from pure anxiety alone, I was more than half dead, and would
+    most certainly have given up the ghost, I believe, were it not that by
+    the merest accident on earth the library friend (Mr. Forster), who had
+    procured me the unfortunate introduction a year before, dropped in one
+    evening to have a talk with me. I had not seen him, nor anybody else
+    that I knew, for some months, and he frightened me by saying I looked
+    like a ghost. In a few days, however, a publisher of his acquaintance
+    had got me some things to do, works to arrange, regulate, and revise,
+    so he asked me if I would devote a few hours in the middle of every
+    day to the purpose for £50 a year. I did so, and among other things
+    which I got to revise was a weekly fashionable journal."
+
+In this letter to his mother he said nothing of being without the
+commonest necessaries of life, of being ashamed to go out by daylight
+because his clothes were so shabby, of passing entire days without
+food--on one occasion no less than three.
+
+There was in poor old Gerald Griffin no signs of that "indolence, or
+contemplation if you like," which Thackeray considered "no unusual quality
+in the literary man." With despair in his heart he still wrote on, simply
+because the labour in which he had delight physicked the pains of
+impecuniosity. But it was not under such conditions that even Griffin did
+his best work.
+
+Mr. R. P. Gillies, in his 'Memoirs of a Literary Veteran,' tells how, when
+he was contemplating work of a higher and more ambitious character than he
+had then attempted, "in consequence of domestic anxieties little or
+nothing was accomplished." He merely built some grand literary castles in
+the air (for which he was ridiculed in the 'Noctes Ambrosianæ,' under the
+name of "Kempferhausen"); but he says: "There were some awkward conditions
+attached to the basis of my aerial structures; for example, I must have
+unbroken tranquillity like that of an anchoret. There must be no shadow on
+the mind of worldly cares and perturbation, otherwise the spells would be
+broken." Bread was his incentive to work, but it was the hack work of
+which Scott so bitterly complained, not the great work he yearned to
+accomplish, and could not for want of "peace and time."
+
+The above allusion is to Sir Walter in the zenith of his fame when,
+through "long-winded" publishers' money being in immediate demand, he
+contemplated abandoning original fiction for the more rapid work of
+compilation. He wanted that to secure not only bread, but the peace and
+time which in common with Ruskin he thought essential to the production of
+great work; and he wrote in his diary, under the date December 18th, 1825:
+"The general knowledge that an author must write for bread, at least for
+improving his pittance, degrades him and his productions in the public
+eye. He falls into the second rank of estimation,
+
+  "'When the harness sore galls, and the spurs his sides goad,
+  And the high-mettled racer's a hack on the road.'
+
+It is a bitter thought, but, if tears start, let them flow."
+
+Thackeray, despite his self-satisfying opinion about the world's being
+always "so good and gentle" to the "gentle and good," here held Sir
+Walter's opinion, for under the signature of Michael Angelo Titmarsh,
+Esq., he wrote:
+
+    "Our calling is only sneered at because it is not well paid. The world
+    has no other criterion for respectability. In Heaven's name, what made
+    the people talk of setting up a statue to Sir William Follet? What had
+    he done? He had made thirty thousand pounds!... Directly the men of
+    letters get rich they will come in for their share of honour too; and
+    a future writer in this miscellany (Fraser's) may be getting his
+    guineas where we get one, and dining at Buckingham Palace while you
+    and your humble servant, dear Padre Francisco, are glad to smoke our
+    pipes over the sanded floor of the little D----."
+
+Sir Walter Scott's opinion of writing under peaceful and under troublous
+circumstances was also shown in the following entry, under the same date
+as the above. It runs as follows:
+
+    "Poor T. S. called again yesterday. Through his incoherent miserable
+    tale I could see that he had exhausted each access to credit, and yet
+    fondly imagines that, bereft of all his accustomed indulgences, he can
+    work with a literary zeal unknown to his happier days. I hope he may
+    labour enough to gain the mere support of his family."
+
+Poverty is not, however, always fatal to the highest efforts of genius,
+even if it be not essential as an incentive to work; and there is often
+found in "the labour we delight in" that which "physics pain" (as
+Shakespeare said), even the pains of impecuniosity. Goldoni, speaking of
+his dramatic writings and consequent poverty, says, "Though in any other
+situation I might have been in easier circumstances, I should never have
+been so happy;" and who can doubt the happiness of the illustrious Linnæus
+when he was wandering a-foot with his stylus, magnifying-glass and baskets
+of plants, sharing the peasants' rustic meals and homely shelter, when he
+gave his own name to the little Lapland flower now called the Linnæus
+Borealis, because it reminded him of his own position, being "a little
+northern plant, flowering early, depressed, abject, and long overlooked"?
+
+Rousseau, writing of his works and life, says:
+
+    "It was in a small garret in the new street of St. Etienne du Mont,
+    where I resided four years in the midst of physical suffering and
+    domestic trouble, that I enjoyed the most exquisite pleasure of my
+    life, that of writing and publishing my 'Studies of Nature.'"
+
+The _Quarterly Review_ (vol. viii.), comparing the writer who goes to his
+work in a spirit of love for it, and pride in it, with him who labours at
+it merely for the money it produces, says: "The one is like a thirsty hart
+that comes joyously to refresh itself at the water-brooks, and the other
+to the same beast panting and jaded with the dogs of hunger and necessity
+behind."
+
+When Olivet presented his elaborate edition of Cicero to the public, he
+said the glory and pleasure he had received in producing it were all he
+required by way of remuneration; money he refused. Pieresc, one of the
+most liberal and generous of men, although his fortune was a small one,
+loved learning only for its own sweet sake, and was never so happy as he
+was when shut up in his study amongst his books and MSS. "A literary man's
+true wealth," said he, "consists in works of art, the treasures of a
+library, and the affections of his fellow-students." Lord Wodehouse, when
+re-writing his 'Lectures on History,' said: "The task rewarded him with
+that peculiar delight which has often been observed in the latter years of
+literary men, the delight of returning again to the studies of their youth
+and of feeling under the snows of age the cheerful memories of their
+spring." Petrarch, writing of himself to a friend, said, "I read, I write,
+I think; such is my life and my pleasures as they were in my youth."
+
+Beranger, when he was living on the fifth story in the Boulevard St.
+Martin, "without money and with no certain prospect for the future," as he
+himself said, had installed himself in his garret "with inexpressible
+satisfaction" because, as he wrote, "To live alone and to compose verses
+at my leisure appeared to me the very summit of felicity." Speaking in the
+spirit of his "sky parlour," he said: "What a beautiful prospect I enjoyed
+from its window! What delight I had to sit there in the evening hovering
+as it were over the immense city, from which a loud, hoarse murmur
+incessantly ascended, especially when there blended with it the noise and
+tumult of some great storm." But there were two sides to this life, and
+time revealed both. With peace and time, bread and cheese and dreams of
+glory, the poet was content and happy, even when thin and pale; he grew
+every day so weak that his father used to say frequently, "I shall soon
+bury you." But he was not dismayed, but starved and wrote on placidly
+enough until the fear of the conscription fell upon him. But even then, as
+he tells us, Providence befriended him and out of evil brought good. He
+says: "I was bald at twenty-three in consequence, as I suppose, of
+continuous headaches. When the gendarmes came in search for conscripts I
+removed my hat. They looked at my bald head and were satisfied. They went
+away without me."
+
+Again he writes in his fragmentary autobiography:
+
+    "Fortune at last suffered herself to be touched by my sorrows. Three
+    years had I been vainly seeking some humble form of employment, when,
+    urged by a terrible necessity in the beginning of 1804, I sent a
+    letter and verses to M. Lucien Bonaparte. My gold watch had been long
+    where I left it pledged at the Mont de Piété. My wardrobe had dwindled
+    to three old patched and often mended shirts, a threadbare overcoat
+    also carefully adorned with patches, with one pair of trousers with a
+    newly discovered hole in the knee, and a pair of boots which filled me
+    with despair whenever I cleaned them, they grew so rapidly worse. I
+    had posted to M. Bonaparte four or five hundred verses, and had told
+    no one that I had done so, so many applications had been fruitless."
+
+One day, while sitting in his garret, needle in hand, eyeing lugubriously
+the rent in his trousers, and thinking over some bitter misanthropical
+verses which he was then writing, a letter was brought to him. It seemed a
+letter of consequence--the handwriting was strange. Trembling with
+excitement, he broke the seal. Joy! joy! joy! The Senator Bonaparte
+desired to see him!
+
+"It was not," he wrote, "my fortune that I first thought of, but Glory! My
+eyes were full of tears, and I thanked God, whom in my moments of
+prosperity I never forgot."
+
+And yet of such men as these Thackeray wrote: "Bread is the main
+incentive. Do not let us try to blink this fact or imagine that the men of
+the press are working for their honour and glory or go onward impelled by
+the inevitable afflatus of genius."
+
+The elder Disraeli, who said, "Great authors sustain their own genius by a
+sense of their own glory," when Dr. Johnson expressed views on this
+subject according to some extent with Thackeray's, called them
+"commercial, agricultural, and manufacturing views of human nature," and
+complained that they lowered genius to the level of a machine, only to be
+set in action by a force exterior to itself.
+
+But doctors disagree, and opinions on every subject always differ. As
+mentioned by me elsewhere, one of the first poets who tried to live by his
+pen was Robert Greene, whose melancholy story is one of the most degrading
+and painful passages in literary biography. He lived in the days of good
+Queen Bess, and has left his own records of forlorn and miserable
+experience. Isaac Disraeli calls him "the great patriarch and primeval
+dealer in English literature, the most facetious, profligate, and
+indefatigable of the Scribleri family." Quaint Anthony Wood, sneering at
+him and his entire fraternity, as he often did, said, "He wrote to
+maintain his wife and that high, loose course of living which poets
+generally follow;" one accusation being about as true as the other, for so
+far from maintaining his wife, he shamefully deserted both her and her
+child, leaving her foodless; and the Elizabethan poets are said on the
+whole to have been thrifty, god-fearing men, leading sober and steady
+lives. Charles Knight wrote of him as one who was made desperate and
+reckless by wrongs and neglect, but the pamphlet he wrote called 'The
+Repentance of Robert Greene, Master of Arts,' taken with his other
+confession, shows him to have been, as Mr. A. H. Wall said (in his 'Poets
+and Players of Shakespeare's Time'), "an entirely bad and worthless
+fellow, who disgusted his fellow-poets of the Bankside, and plunged into
+such disgraceful excesses that he became shunned and contemned by them,
+finding a welcome nowhere but in the lowest haunts of vice and
+profligacy." This was the man who fell foul of his fellow-players and the
+player-poets, calling them "apes," "rude grooms," "buckram gentlemen," and
+"painted monsters," who attacked young Shakespeare when he was dressing
+up, improving, and re-writing old plays, "as an upstart crow, beautified
+with our feathers," and aroused our great bard's many friends to anger and
+indignation by saying he had "a tiger's heart wrapped in a player's hide,
+and was a bad actor, conceited enough to suppose himself as well able to
+bombast out a blank verse as the best, one who was vain enough to imagine
+himself an absolute Johannes Factotum, the only Shakespeare in the
+country:" accusations which even Henry Cheetle, who was concerned in their
+publication, afterwards denounced as slanderous and spiteful, saying, "I
+am as sorry as if the original fault had been my fault, because myself
+hath seen his (Shakespeare's) demeanour no less civil than he is excellent
+in the quality he professes, besides divers of worship have reported his
+uprightness of dealing, which argues his honesty, and his facetious grace
+in writing that approves his art."
+
+Greene spent his time now in debauchery and drunkenness, now homeless,
+penniless, and starving, one extreme following the other with fearful
+frequency and rapidity. A contemporary poet, Gabriel Harvey, wrote of him
+as follows:
+
+    "Who in London hath not heard of his (Greene's) dissolute and
+    licentious living, his fond disguisinge of a Master of Arts with
+    ruffianly hair, unseemly apparel, and more unseemly company, of his
+    vaine glorious and Thrasonicall brassinge; his piperly extemporising
+    and Tarletonizing; his apeish counterfeiting of every ridiculous and
+    absurd toy ... hys villainous cogging and foisting, his monstrous
+    swearinge and horrible forswearing, his impious profaning of sacred
+    textes; his other scandalous and blasphemous ravinge: his riotous and
+    outrageous surfeitinge: his continual shifting of lodgings; his
+    plausable musteringe and banquettynge of roysterly acquaintance at his
+    first comminge; his beggarly departing in every hostesses debt; his
+    infamous resorting to the Banckside, Shoreditch, Southwarke, and other
+    filthy haunts; his obscure lurkinge in basest corners; his pawning of
+    his sword, cloake, and what not, when money came short?" etc.
+
+a catalogue of monstrous crimes, vices, and follies (which fills page
+after page) fully borne out by Greene's own confessions.
+
+He wrote of himself,
+
+  "In prime of youth a rose, in age a weed,
+  That for a minute's joy payes endless meed."
+
+His last letter to the poor Lincolnshire lady whom he married, ill-used,
+and cruelly abandoned, was dated from a squalid lodging in Dowgate, where
+he died of want and disease. It ran as follows:
+
+    "Doll, I charge thee by the love of our youth and by my soules rest
+    that thou wilt see this man (the shoemaker) paide; for if hee and his
+    wife had not succoured me I had died in the streetes.
+
+        "ROBERT GREENE."
+
+Doll was the amiable and worthy woman to whom he had previously written:
+
+    "The remembrance of many wrongs offered thee and thy unreproved
+    virtues add greater sorrow to my miserable state than I can utter or
+    thou conceive, neither is it lessened by consideration of thy absence
+    (though shame would hardly let me behold thy face) but exceedingly
+    aggravated."
+
+Akin in character to Greene was John Skelton, a popular poet in the reign
+of the seventh Henry, and King Henry the Eighth's poet laureate, who wrote
+of himself:
+
+  "A King to me mine habit gave
+  At Oxford the University,
+  Advanced I was to that degree:
+  By whole consent of their Senate,
+  I was made Poet Laureate."
+
+The title being then a university degree, and the habit a robe of white
+and green, embroidered in silk and gold. He took holy orders in 1498, and,
+as old Anthony Wood said, "having been guilty of many crimes, as most
+poets are," Bishop Wykke suspended him from his benefice. In 1501 he was
+in prison for marrying and keeping a mistress, "a crime amongst the clergy
+of the Romish persuasion both in those days and these," says Cibber, "more
+subjected to punishment than adultery." He was a fierce and bitter
+assailant of the clergy, the Dominicans, and Cardinal Wolsey. Many of his
+productions were never printed, but were chanted at markets and fairs, in
+village ale-houses, and in the streets by itinerant ballad-singers, who
+learned them by heart and sent them abroad like floating seeds borne
+hither and thither by the vagrant winds. The author of the 'Lives of the
+Laureates' said of this poet: "The brief glance we have of him, the
+scholar and the buffoon, a priest with his married concubine and
+bastardized children, mocking, half in anger half in jest, or it might be
+in the wantonness of sorrow, at the falsehoods by which he was surrounded,
+may justly awaken our sympathy nor fail to suggest a moral."
+
+The misfortunes of poor Spenser I have referred to in dealing with the sad
+side of the subject, but another of the laureates who tasted the full
+bitterness of poverty was Ben Jonson, who began life as a bricklayer,
+became a soldier, and a brave one too, abandoned arms to tread the stage,
+and strolled about the country, trudging beside the waggon containing the
+players' scenes, and "properties," many a weary mile. From acting plays he
+took to writing plays, the two arts being then more intimately and nobly
+associated than they ever have been since, for the stage has fallen out of
+the hands of poets and players into those of showmen and buffoons. He was
+married and had a son, to whom some of the players stood sponsors.
+Shakespeare, it is traditionally said, was one of them, and what his
+necessities were may be readily guessed from the entry in Henslowe's diary
+preserved at Dulwich College, in which small sums are entered as advanced
+to Ben Jonson for work he was then doing. A story is related of how he
+came, after many other vain efforts, to the Globe Theatre on the Bankside
+with his play of _Every Man in His Humour_, which after the manager had
+superficially glanced at he coldly returned as unsuitable. Shakespeare, it
+is said, stood by, and noting, we presume, the melancholy and despairing
+way in which his future dear friend and rival turned to leave the theatre,
+spoke to him, begging leave to read his play, with which he was so well
+pleased that he brought about its acceptance. Poverty haunted Ben with
+more or less closeness all through his career (often it must be confessed
+through the extravagance of his hospitality to brother poets) and was, it
+is said, sadly too intimate with him when he died. When sick in 1629,
+Charles I., who had been generous to him, being supplicated in his favour,
+sent him ten guineas, of which mean gift Smollett says, Jonson spoke as
+follows to the messenger of whom he received it:
+
+"His Majesty has sent me ten guineas because I am poor and live in an
+alley. Go and tell him his soul lives in an alley."
+
+Jonson died on the 6th August, 1637, having long outlived his wife and all
+his children.
+
+It is curious still to note how many of our literary lions began to make
+their way in the world, as Jonson did, on the stage. It was so with
+William Leman Rede, who, starting as an actor at Margate (the Margate
+boards formed indeed the porch through which a very large number of
+histrionic aspirants entered the theatrical profession), became an
+itinerant actor, at one time playing Hamlet in a barn and at another Rover
+on a billiard-table; sometimes foodless and hungry, travelling on foot and
+sometimes luxuriating in a waggon, but always light-hearted and gay. Once
+when he was laughing merrily at the plight he was in on a "treasury day,"
+when, in the phraseology of the profession, "the ghost didn't walk," that
+is to say when there was no money in hand to pay the actors' salaries,
+some one asked how he continued to be jolly under such miserably
+depressing circumstances. He replied, "I drink spring water and dance."
+Rede was always a sober, abstemious man. Coming to London in 1825, he
+published his first novel, 'The Wedded Wanderer,' which was followed by a
+second, 'The White Tower,' each in three volumes. This was followed by
+his 'Crimes and Criminals in Yorkshire,' and his connection with a weekly
+publication belonging to his brother Thomas, called _Oxberry's Dramatic
+Biography_--Thomas having married the widow of Oxberry the comedian, by
+whom the serial had been started.
+
+As actor, magazine writer, dramatist, journalist and novelist Rede
+acquired fame but not wealth. One evening he was arrested for debt while
+acting on the stage, by a sheriff's officer, who sprang from the pit over
+the orchestra and footlights to secure his prisoner. Rede originated the
+Dramatic Authors' Society.
+
+Sheridan, to whom I have previously alluded, was another famous literary
+man familiar with the boards and--need I say?--with impecuniosity. He was,
+according to Haydon, "in debt all round to milkman, grocer, baker, and
+butcher. Sometimes his wife would be kept waiting for an hour or more
+while the servants were beating up the neighbourhood for coffee, butter,
+eggs and rolls. While Sheridan was Paymaster of the Navy, a butcher one
+day brought a leg of mutton; the cook took it and clapped it in the pot to
+boil and went upstairs for the money, but the cook not returning, the
+butcher removed the pot-lid, took out the mutton, and walked away with
+it." On another occasion Michael Kelly, the musical celebrity, was
+complaining to him of a wine merchant at Hochheim who instead of six dozen
+of wine had sent him sixteen. Sheridan said he would take some off his
+hands if he were not quite able to pay for it, but, said he, "you can get
+rid of it easily, put up a sign over your door and write on it, 'Michael
+Kelly, Composer of Wines and Importer of Music;'" a sly rub which the
+composer received with a laugh, wittily retorting that there was one wine
+so poisonous and intoxicating that he would neither compose nor import,
+and that was "Old Sherry" (Sheridan's nickname).
+
+One night when Sheridan was at home in a cottage he had about a mile from
+Hounslow Heath, his son Tom asked him for some cash. "Money, I have none,"
+was the reply.
+
+"But let the consequences be what they may, money I must have," said Tom
+fiercely.
+
+"In that case, my dear Tom," said the father, "you will find a case of
+loaded pistols upstairs and a horse ready saddled in the stable, the night
+is dark and you are within half a mile of Hounslow Heath"--a place of
+terrible repute for highway robbers.
+
+"I understand," said Tom, "but I tried that before I came to you.
+Unluckily the man I stopped was Peake, your treasurer, and he told me that
+you had been beforehand with him and robbed him of every sixpence he had
+in the world."
+
+Kelly saw many instances of Sheridan raising money, but one instance in
+particular astonished him. Sheridan was £3000 in arrear with the Italian
+Opera performance; there were continual postponements, and at last the
+singers resolved to strike. Kelly, as manager, received a note that on the
+evening of a certain day they would not sing unless paid, and hurried off
+to Morlands, the bankers in Pall Mall, for advances. The bankers were
+inexorable; like the singers, they were worn out. The manager then flew
+off to Sheridan at his residence in Hertford Street, Mayfair, where he was
+kept waiting two hours. Sheridan was told that if he could not raise £3000
+the theatre must be closed. "£3000, Kelly," he said; "there is no such sum
+in nature. Are you an admirer of Shakespeare?"
+
+"To be sure I am," said Kelly, "but what has Shakespeare to do with £3000
+or the Italian singers?"
+
+"There is one passage in Shakespeare," said Sherry, "which I have always
+admired particularly, and it is where Falstaff says, 'Master Robert
+Shallow, I owe you £1000.' 'Yes, Sir John,' says Shallow, 'which I beg you
+will let me take home with me.' 'That may not so easily be, Master Robert
+Shallow,' replies Falstaff. And so say I unto thee, Master Michael Kelly,
+to get £3000 may not so easy be."
+
+Kelly answered that there was no alternative then but to close the
+theatre. Sheridan made Kelly ring the bell and have a Hackney coach
+called, then sat down quite at his ease and read the newspaper. Kelly was
+in an agony. The coach arrived, Sheridan requested Kelly to get into it,
+and went with him. The coach was driven to Morlands' banking-house--Kelly
+remained in the coach bewildered. In a quarter of an hour Sherry came out
+of the bank with the required sum in bank notes. Kelly never knew how it
+was obtained. Sherry told Kelly to take the money to the theatre, but to
+save enough out of it for a barrel of oysters, which he, Sheridan, would
+partake of that night at Kelly's lodgings in Suffolk Street.
+
+On another occasion Kelly and Sheridan were one day in conversation close
+to the gate of the path which was then open to the public, leading across
+the churchyard of St. Paul's, Covent Garden, from King Street to Henrietta
+Street. Holloway, a creditor of Sherry's, went by on horseback. He spoke
+to Sherry in loud and angry tones, complaining that he could never get
+admittance at Sheridan's house, and vowed vengeance on François, Sherry's
+valet, if he did not let him in next time he called in Hertford Street.
+Holloway was in a passion; Sherry, who knew he was vain of his judgment of
+horseflesh, took no notice of the angry boast of Holloway, and burst into
+exclamations of rapture on Holloway's steed. Holloway was softened, and
+said his horse was one of the prettiest of creatures. Would not Mrs.
+Sheridan like to have one like it?
+
+"She would if he could canter well," said Sheridan.
+
+"Beautifully," said Holloway.
+
+"Perhaps I should not mind stretching a point for such a one. Will you
+have the kindness to let me see his paces?"
+
+"To be sure," said the lawyer.
+
+The action was suited to the word, and Sherry cut off through the
+churchyard, where no horse could follow. In spite of his many faults, his
+utter unscrupulousness in money-matters being not the least, it is
+particularly pleasant to refer to one of the incidents at the close of his
+career which reveals a delightful little bit of sentiment and good
+feeling, of which many of his detractors would have us think he was
+incapable. When his goods were taken in execution in Hertford Street,
+Mayfair, Paston, the sheriff's officer, said that if there was any
+particular article upon which he set affectionate value, he might secrete
+or carry it off from the premises.
+
+"Thank you, my generous fellow," said Sheridan. "No, let all go--affection
+and sentiment in my situation are quite out of the question. But," said
+he, recollecting himself, "there is one thing which I wish to have."
+
+"What is it?" said Paston, expecting him to name some cabinet or piece of
+plate.
+
+"Don't be alarmed," said Sheridan, "it is only this old book, worth all
+others in the world, and to me of special value, because it belonged to my
+father, and was the favourite of my first wife."
+
+Paston looked into it, and it was a dogs'-eared edition of Shakespeare.
+
+Another great man in the literary and histrionic professions, the
+novelist, Fielding, although of an aristocratic stock, and liberally
+educated, began life almost without pecuniary resources. He came before
+the public first in 1725, and in succession was a showman at Bartholomew
+and other fairs, the owner of a booth for theatrical performances, at one
+time set up in George Yard, from which he found his way to the regular
+boards. In spite of being the son of a general, and the great grandson of
+an earl, his impecuniosity was often great, although he met his
+difficulties with the light-hearted gaiety of a Sheridan, and the careless
+imprudence of a Goldsmith.
+
+Once, when in Ireland, he got into disgrace through giving a dancing-party
+at his rooms; sold his books the next day, ran away from college, loafed
+about Dublin till only a shilling was left, and then went to Cork. There
+he lived three days on the shilling, and said afterwards the most
+delicious meal he ever tasted was a handful of grey peas, given him by a
+girl at a wake, after twenty-four hours' fasting.
+
+Poor Oliver Goldsmith must, of course, have his place in this chapter, for
+from the time when he wrote street ballads to save himself from starving,
+and was delighted to hear them sung, to when he started on "the grand
+tour," alone and friendless, with one spare shirt, a flute, and a guinea
+in his pocket, to the last scene of hopeless insolvency in which he died,
+his life was one long, hard struggle against pecuniary difficulties. When
+his relatives raised £50 to send him to London to study, he spent and
+gambled all away, and got no farther than Dublin. The result of his wildly
+rash act of going abroad so ill provided he has himself described. In a
+foreign land, when without money, he turned to his flute as a last
+resource, and whenever he approached a peasant's cottage towards
+nightfall, he played one of his merriest tunes, and so generally contrived
+to win a shelter for the night, and some food for his next day's journey.
+In this way he passed through Flanders, parts of France, Germany and
+Switzerland, reaching Padua at last; remaining there six months to secure
+his medical degree. Returning in 1756, and failing to find employment, he
+was at last taken in by a chemist by way of charity, and to preserve him
+from starvation. His friend, Dr. Sleigh, next befriended him, and then he
+became usher to Dr. Milner's school in Peckham. Soon after he found
+literary employment, and took a lodging at No. 12, Green Arbour Court, in
+the Old Bailey--a miserable, dirty room, with but one chair. He did not
+emerge from this squalid, dismal abode until 1760, when improved
+circumstances enabled him to lodge in Wine Office Court, Fleet Street,
+where he received his friends with a freedom and hospitality which soon
+reduced his means to the level of impecuniosity. Here he first met Dr.
+Johnson, who became his dearest friend and best adviser.
+
+Johnson has described how he received one morning a message from poor
+Goldsmith, to the effect that he was in great distress, and as it was not
+in his power to go to the Doctor, begging that the Doctor would come to
+him as soon as possible.
+
+    "I sent him a guinea," says Johnson, "and promised to come to him
+    directly. I accordingly went as soon as I was dressed, and found that
+    his landlady had arrested him for rent, at which he was in a violent
+    passion. I perceived that he had already changed my guinea, and had
+    got a bottle of Madeira and a glass before him. I put the cork into
+    the bottle, desired he would be calm, and began to talk to him of the
+    means by which he might be extricated. He then told me that he had a
+    novel ready for the press, which he produced to me. I looked into it
+    and saw its merits, and told the landlady I should soon return, and,
+    having gone to a bookseller, sold it for £60. I brought Goldsmith the
+    money, and he discharged his rent, not without rating his landlady for
+    having used him so ill."
+
+The novel thus sold was the 'Vicar of Wakefield,' and its purchaser,
+Francis Newberry, the bookseller, who kept it unprinted for two years,
+when its author's 'Traveller,' having appeared and proved successful, the
+novel was published (in March 1766) and in a month reached a second
+edition.
+
+In Forster's 'Life of Goldsmith,' the following account of his earliest
+state of penury has no little romantic interest:--
+
+    "It was," says the author of that famous work, "a year and a half
+    after he had entered college, at the commencement of 1747, his father
+    suddenly died. The scanty sums required for his support had often been
+    intercepted; but this stopped them altogether. It may have been the
+    least and most trifling loss connected with that sorrow; but 'squalid
+    poverty,' relieved by occasional gifts, according to his small means,
+    from Uncle Contarine, by petty loans from Bryanton or Beatty, or by
+    desperate pawning of his books of study, was Goldsmith's lot
+    henceforward. Yet even in the depths of that despair arose the
+    consciousness of faculties reserved for better fortune than continual
+    contempt and failure. He would write street ballads to save himself
+    from actual starving; sell them at the Reindeer repository in
+    Mountrath Court for five shillings apiece, and steal out of the
+    college at night to hear them sung.
+
+    "Happy night, to him worth all the dreary days! Hidden by some dusky
+    wall, or creeping within darkling shadows of the ill-lighted streets,
+    this poor neglected sizar watched, waited, lingered, listened there,
+    for the only effort of his life which had not wholly failed. Few and
+    dull perhaps the beggar's audience at first, but more thronging,
+    eager, and delighted as he shouted forth his newly-gotten ware;
+    cracked enough, I doubt not, were those ballad singing tunes; nay,
+    harsh, extremely discordant, and passing from loud to low without
+    meaning or melody; but not the less did the sweetest music which this
+    earth affords fall with them on the ear of Goldsmith. Gentle faces,
+    pleased old men, stopping by the way; young lads, venturing a purchase
+    with their last remaining farthing; why here was a world in little
+    with its fame at the sizar's feet! 'The greater world will be
+    listening one day,' perhaps he muttered as he turned with a lighter
+    heart to his dull home."
+
+Johnson's sympathy with Goldsmith was, no doubt, warmed and quickened by
+the remembrance of his own early struggles with the foul fiend
+impecuniosity. He remembered well enough his first London lodging in
+Exeter Street, Strand, when, as he said, "I dined very well for
+eightpence, with very good company, at the Pine Apple in New Street fast
+by. Several of them had travelled, they expected to meet every day; but
+they did not know one another's names. It used to cost the rest a
+shilling, for they drank wine; but I had a cut of meat for sixpence, and
+bread for a penny, so that I was quite well served, nay, better than the
+rest, for they gave the waiter nothing."
+
+Johnson used to relate of an Irish painter, that he, the painter,
+practically realised a theory that £30 a year was enough to enable a man
+to live there without being contemptible. He allowed £10 for clothes and
+linen. He said, "A man might live in a garret at eighteen pence a week.
+Few people would inquire where he lodged; and if they did it was easy to
+say, 'Sir, I am to be found at such a place.' By spending threepence in a
+coffee-house, he might be for some hours in very good company; he might
+dine for sixpence, breakfast on bread and milk for a penny, and do without
+supper. On clean shirt day he could go abroad and pay visits."
+
+I have already quoted the Doctor's views on the subject of impecuniosity,
+and this reminds me of a very suggestive incident of his life, which
+perhaps will prove better than anything else the non-desirability of want
+of means. It is unquestionable that in his marvellous dictionary, there
+are parts that are much superior to others, which has been accounted for
+by the fact that he was paid for the work as it progressed--the publisher
+paying him as his "copy" was delivered. Consequently, when his purse was
+full, he worked away _con amore_, and produced the best result; but on the
+purse growing empty, as those mercenary creditors will do, the Doctor
+worked hurriedly, aiming at making as much "copy" as possible, so as to
+replenish his failing treasury.
+
+Thomas Cooper, author of the 'Purgatory of Suicides,' who also found out
+by severe experience the cheapest way of living in London, tells in his
+autobiography how, after having been at Lincoln as reporter, journalist,
+and miscellaneous literary man, he with his wife left that city for
+London. He says:
+
+    "On the 1st of June, 1839, we got on the stage-coach with our boxes of
+    books at Stamford, and away I went to make my first venture in London.
+    We lodged in Elliott's Row, Southwark; I earned five pounds by
+    contributing reviews and prose sketches to some papers having but an
+    ephemeral existence. I had other ventures and adventures in a small
+    way; but it would weary any mortal man to recite; and the recital
+    would only be one which has been often told already, by poor literary
+    adventurers. The very little I could bring to London was soon gone,
+    and then I had to sell my books. I happily turned into Chancery Lane
+    and asked Mr. Lumley to buy my beautifully-bound 'Tasso' and 'Don
+    Belleanis of Greece,' a small quarto black-letter romance, which I had
+    bought of an auctioneer in Gainsboro', who knew nothing of its value.
+    Mr. Lumley gave me liberal prices, wished I could bring him more such
+    books, and conversed with me very kindly. We were often at 'low-water
+    mark' now in our fortunes; but my dear wife and I never suffered
+    ourselves to sink into low spirits. Our experience, we cheerily said,
+    was a part of London adventure, and who did not know that adventurers
+    in London often underwent great trials before success was reached? We
+    strolled out together in the evenings all over London, making
+    ourselves acquainted with its highways and byways, and always finding
+    something to interest us in its streets and shop-windows. Every book I
+    brought from Lincolnshire, and I had had about 500 volumes great and
+    small, had been sold by degrees, and at last I was obliged to enter a
+    pawnshop. Spare articles of clothing, and my father's old silver
+    watch, 'went up the spout,' as the experience goes of those who most
+    sorrowfully know what it means. Travelling-cloak, large box, hat-box,
+    and every box or movable that could be spared in any possible way, had
+    'gone to our uncle's,' and we saw ourselves on the very verge of
+    being reduced to threadbare suits when deliverance came. I had been in
+    London from the evening of 11th June, 1839, until near the end of
+    March, 1840, when I answered an advertisement respecting the
+    editorship of a country paper printed in London. I went to the
+    printing office in Great Windmill Street, Haymarket, and was engaged
+    at a salary of £3 per week; the paper was the _Kentish Mercury_."
+
+Very similar was the experience of Robert Southey, who, disowned by
+friends, and without money, came to London seeking literary employment, in
+which alone he found content and happiness.
+
+    "For it," say his biographers, Messrs. Austin and Ralph, "he
+    sacrificed proffered rank and power; and joyfully devoted to its
+    service a toiling life of unexampled industry. Yet this man so wedded
+    to his absorbing vocation, in the social capacity of husband, father,
+    relative, and friend, stands above reproach.
+
+    "His life is one emphatic denial of the daring falsehood, that genius
+    and virtue are incompatible.
+
+    "England knew not a happier circle than that which for years assembled
+    by the humble hearthstone at Greta Hall. It is refreshing to turn
+    aside from the world and contemplate that peaceful home, nestling amid
+    the Cumberland Mountains."
+
+Such an opinion again hardly fits in with that of Thackeray already
+quoted.
+
+    "On Friday, October 18th, 1794, his aunt, Miss Tyler, turned him out
+    of doors on a stormy night, and without a penny in his pocket. He made
+    his way on foot, through wind and driving rain, along the dark country
+    roads to Bath. Without any visible resource he was thrown upon the
+    world, and as he paced the streets, weary, footsore, and sick at
+    heart, he dreamed of the lofty things in literature he would strive to
+    accomplish, now that he was his own master, with a will unfettered by
+    a care for wishes other than his own, and of the pride that would glow
+    within the swelling bosom of the fair Edith of his love, for whose
+    dear sake he had submitted to be thus cast adrift. An uncle from
+    Portugal wished to take him back with him to that country. 'My Edith
+    persuades me to go,' said he, 'and yet weeps at my going.' And we are
+    told how sadly after their secret marriage in Redcliffe Church, his
+    maiden wife watched his departure with the wedding-ring she was afraid
+    to wear suspended round her neck."
+
+In Southey's life by his son, we read that he had recourse under the
+pressure of impecuniosity to delivering lectures at Bristol, and the
+following prospectus is quoted:--
+
+
+    "Robert Southey, of Balliol College, Oxford, proposes to read a course
+    of Historical Lectures in the following order:--1st. Introductory on
+    the Origin and Progress of Society; 2nd. Legislation of Solon and
+    Lycurgus; 3rd. State of Greece from the Persian War to the Dissolution
+    of the Achaian League; 4th. Rise, Progress, and Decay of the Roman
+    Empire; 5th. Progress of Christianity; 6th. Manners and Irruptions of
+    the Northern Nations; Growth of the European States; Feudal System,
+    and other equally abstruse subjects."
+
+The lectures were given in 1795, tickets for the course, 10_s._ 6_d._,
+sold at Cottle's, bookseller, High Street.
+
+Southey stated about this time that if he and Coleridge could get £150 a
+year between them, they would marry and retire into the country.
+
+Another of these friendless dreamers who came to London, seeking literary
+employment and reputation, was George Borrow, the famous author of 'Romany
+Rye,' 'The Bible in Spain,' 'Wild Wales,' etc., the son of a military
+officer. He was born in Norfolk, early in the present century, and began
+life at the desk of a solicitor at Norwich. Becoming disgusted with that
+life, he started off with his stick and bundle to walk to London, where
+with his knowledge of languages he hoped to have no difficulty in earning
+a living. Reaching the great metropolis, he found out Sir Richard
+Phillips, editor and proprietor of the _Monthly Magazine_, who suggested
+that the young literary adventurer should devote himself to the writing of
+Newgate lives and trials. Having spent his loose cash in buying books on
+the subject, he went carefully to work. Sir Richard Phillips wanted less
+care and more expedition.
+
+Borrow sent in his copy too slowly to please his exacting and overbearing
+employer, whose parsimony was only equalled by his greediness. He was paid
+in bills subject to discount, and led altogether a very wretched life. One
+morning he awoke with the disagreeable conviction that his plight had
+grown desperate, only half-a-crown remaining in his purse. Wandering out
+disconsolately, he saw a bill in the shop window of a bookseller, giving
+notice that a "novel or tale was much wanted," went to his garret, and
+after a meal of bread and water, began to write a fictitious biography of
+'Joseph Tell.' At this he continued to work unceasingly, day after day,
+eating nothing but bread, drinking only water, until on the fifth day the
+story was finished. And none too soon, for after he had laid aside the
+pen, want of rest and nourishment had so exhausted him that he swooned
+away. He had threepence left, and to reinvigorate him after he had left
+his MS., he spent the whole of that sum at one fell swoop on bread and
+milk, and went to bed penniless. When he called, the bookseller was
+willing to buy the novel, and after some haggling over the price, gave him
+twenty pounds for it, a sum which was as veritable a godsend to him as the
+price of the 'Vicar of Wakefield' was to Oliver Goldsmith.
+
+Borrow's incessant writing reminds me of the incessant reading of the
+poet, Gerald Massey, who was born in 1828, near Tring, in Herts, in a
+little stone hovel, the rent of which was one shilling per week. His
+father was a poor canal boatman, who supported himself and family on ten
+shillings per week, and could not of course afford to give Gerald any
+opportunities of educating himself. As soon as he had attained his eighth
+year, he was set to work at a silk-mill, beginning work at five in the
+morning, and quitting it at half-past six in the evening, for a weekly
+wage of 1_s._ 9_d._ He was fifteen years of age when he came to London and
+obtained employment as an errand-boy, and having taught himself to read,
+eagerly devoured every book, paper, and magazine that was within his
+reach.
+
+Says Massey himself:
+
+    "Now I began to think that the course of all desire and the sum of all
+    existence was to read and get knowledge. Read, read, read. I used to
+    read at all possible times and all possible places; up in bed till two
+    or three in the morning, nothing daunted by once setting the bed on
+    fire. Greatly indebted was I to the bookstalls, where I have read a
+    great deal, often folding a leaf in a book, and returning the next day
+    to continue the subject; but sometimes the book was gone, and then
+    great was my grief. When out of a situation I have often gone without
+    a meal to purchase a book."
+
+Another English poet who sprang from as low an origin, and who as a boy
+was as uneducated as Massey, was John Clare, known as the Northamptonshire
+poet. He was born at Helpston, a village near Peterboro', in 1793. His
+father was a poverty-stricken farm labourer, a cripple, unable to exist
+without occasional help from the parish, and whose struggle to keep the
+most wretched of homes, and supply potatoes and water gruel for food, was
+a ceaseless and desperate one. For all that, when the sickly little fellow
+Jack was old enough for school, the few pence requisite for sending him
+there were squeezed out of the poor father's weekly pittance, and when the
+boy's own paltry earnings in the fields began to come in, merely a few
+pence a week, he was sent to an evening school, the master of which
+allowed him the run of his little library, a privilege of which John
+enthusiastically and gratefully availed himself.
+
+Often his parents returning from work found the boy, after being at school
+till late, crouching down by the fire, and tracing in the faint glimmer of
+a burning log, incomprehensible signs upon bits of paper and even wood,
+too poor to buy paper of the coarsest kind. John was in the habit of
+picking up shreds of the same material, such as used by grocers and other
+tradesmen, and of scratching thereon signs and figures, sometimes with
+pencil, oftener with charcoal. Never were there more ungracious and
+unfavourable conditions for the study of arithmetic and algebra.
+
+A maternal uncle, footman to a lawyer at Wisbech, called one day at
+Helpston, and told the family there was a vacancy for a clerk in his
+master's office. John was to apply. The mother ransacked her scanty
+wardrobe, to try and give her son a decent appearance, made him a pair of
+breeches out of an old dress, and a waistcoat out of a shawl, and begged
+from village crones an old white necktie and a pair of old black woollen
+gloves. What he wore was very large and also ancient. His costume excited
+amazement as he went his way. He reached Wisbech by canal boat, saw his
+uncle, was taken to Mr. Councillor Bellamy, who, after inspecting the
+nephew, said, "Well, I may see him again." John, after staying a day or
+two with his uncle, then went back home and became serving lad at the Blue
+Bell, where he was treated well, and was able to pursue his beloved
+studies. There, too, he fell in love with Mary Joyce, daughter of a
+farmer, who forbade his daughter to have anything to do with the beggar
+boy, so he carved her name on every tree.
+
+At this time occurred a great event in the poet's life, one ever to be
+remembered with a quickening pulse and a sense of mighty triumph. He had
+read Thomson's 'Seasons,' which had been described to him as only a
+trumpery book which could be bought for 1_s._ 6_d._ at Stamford. John had
+only sixpence, and his wages were not due. He went to his father for a
+shilling. Hopeless chance! His mother was also tried for that amount, and
+by superhuman exertion she raised sevenpence; the fraction remaining and
+required was raised at the Blue Bell. The day of the purchase came. Unable
+to sleep through excitement, he was up before daybreak, and started off
+for Stamford in hot haste. A six or seven mile walk was as nothing to the
+ardent lad, and he arrived before the bookseller's shop he was seeking had
+its shutters down. He waited and waited, and you can imagine his dismay
+when at last he found that the shop never opened at all that day. So he
+went back to Helpston. By the way a bright thought occurred. By making a
+tremendous effort he obtained twopence more--proposed to a cowherd boy
+that for one penny he should look after the cattle, and for another penny
+keep the secret that he was going away for a few hours. Monday morning
+arrived, and his confederate. John soon walked the eight miles to
+Stamford. Bookseller's shop closed. John sat on the doorstep and waited.
+Directly the door opened, the poor, thin, haggard country boy, with wild
+gleaming eyes, rushed to him for a copy of the 'Seasons.' The tradesman
+asked questions. John told his story in hurried words, and the bookseller
+said that he would let him have a copy for a shilling. "Keep the sixpence,
+my boy," said the man, and away went John. In Barnack Park, amidst some
+thick shrubs, John Clare read the book. He did not know how to give vent
+to his happiness, but he had a pencil and a piece of coarse crumpled paper
+in his pocket, and on that he wrote his poem the 'Morning Walk.'
+
+The remainder of Clare's life presents nothing specially remarkable beyond
+the fact that he was throughout it curiously unlucky; and though from time
+to time he met with good friends, misfortune had marked him for her own,
+and eventually, through brooding over some unsuccessful commercial
+enterprises, his mind gave way.
+
+From John Clare to George Gordon Noel, Lord Byron, is a far cry; the
+former being purely a small pastoral poet, the latter impurely a great
+genius. _A propos_ of being involved and being indebted to the children of
+Israel for supplies, his lordship wrote:
+
+  "In my young days they lent me cash that way,
+  Which I found very troublesome to pay."
+
+Tom Moore says that Byron's marriage with the daughter of Sir Ralph
+Milbank was contracted in the hope that her dowry would extricate him from
+his monetary difficulties, but it apparently only increased his misery,
+and, notwithstanding the serious reason for their separation, as given by
+Mrs. Beecher Stowe, there is no doubt debt had a considerable share in
+bringing it about, for "during the first year of his marriage his house
+was nine times in the possession of bailiffs, his door almost daily beset
+by duns, and he was only saved from gaol by the privileges of his rank."
+
+Coming down to the more modern school of writers, it is especially
+noticeable that the circumstances connected with their impecuniosity are
+much less sombre in character than those of the like previous age. Douglas
+Jerrold, the novelist, dramatist and essayist, contributes an amusing
+reminiscence in connection with the first money he earned, a story which
+he himself was wont to relate with great delight in after years. At the
+time of the incident the young fellow's home was far from cheerful; his
+mother and sister were away (in all probability acting in the provinces),
+and he and his father were the sole occupants of the lodgings. Old Mr.
+Jerrold was weak and ailing, and anything but good company for the
+high-spirited, happy-natured boy, who eventually developed into one of the
+most witty and satirical authors of his time. The picture of the poor old
+gentleman sitting helplessly in the corner, when the wants of the family
+so needed a strong arm to work for them, was undoubtedly depressing; but
+the dreary monotony was broken on the day when Douglas Jerrold returned
+home excitedly jubilant with his first earnings as an apprentice. A
+thorough Englishman, he naturally thought the occasion must be celebrated
+by a dinner and at once proceeded to purchase the ingredients of a
+beef-steak pie. When he returned, amply repaid for the money he had
+expended by the proud satisfaction visible on his father's face, he was
+met by rather a serious difficulty. It was true the materials for the dish
+were all there, but who was to make the delicacy? Mr. Jerrold, senior, was
+incapable, and there was, therefore, nothing for it but for the boy to
+turn to and try his hand at a crust. He did so, and amidst much merriment
+the pie was made, taken to the baker's, and eaten by the happy pair (at
+any rate, happy on that occasion), with a relish and pleasure no doubt far
+in excess of that experienced at many of those grander banquets which he
+afterwards graced by his presence. It is said by his son that "the memory
+of this day always remained vivid to him. There was an odd kind of humour
+about it that tickled him. It so thoroughly illustrated his notions on
+independence that he could not forbear from dwelling again and again on
+it among his friends."
+
+There is no doubt that Douglas Jerrold cherished the memory of this
+honourable impecuniosity as he did everything else that was noble and
+pure, for in his slashing satire levelled against those meaningless
+decorations or orders of the wealthy he clearly shows his lasting sympathy
+for poverty with honour. He says: "The Order of Poverty--how many
+sub-orders might it embrace! As the spirit of Gothic chivalry has its
+fraternities, so might the Order of Poverty have its distinct devices." He
+then goes on to enumerate the nobility and dignity of labour exemplified
+in the cases of the peasant, the shepherd, the weaver, the potter, and
+other callings, not neglecting even the pauper, of whom he writes:--
+
+    "And here is a pauper, missioned from the workhouse to break stones at
+    the roadside. How he strikes and strikes at that unyielding bit of
+    flint! Is it not the stony heart of the world's injustice knocked at
+    by poverty? What haggardness is in his face! What a blight hangs about
+    him! There are more years in his looks than in his bones. Time has
+    marked him with an iron pen. He wailed as a babe for bread his father
+    was not allowed to earn. He can recollect every dinner--they were so
+    few--of his childhood. He grew up, and want was with him, even as his
+    shadow. He has shivered with cold, fainted with hunger. His every-day
+    life has been set about by goading wretchedness.
+
+    "Around him, too, were the stores of plenty. Food, raiment, and money
+    mocked the man half-mad--mad with destitution. Yet, with a valorous
+    heart, a proud conquest of the shuddering spirit, he walked with
+    honesty and starved. His long journey of life has been through stormy
+    places, and now he sits upon a pile of stones on the wayside, breaking
+    them for workhouse bread. Could loftiest chivalry show greater
+    heroism, nobler self-control, than this old man--this weary breaker of
+    flints? Shall he not be of the Order of Poverty? Is not penury to him
+    even as a robe of honour? His grey workhouse coat braver than purple
+    and miniver? He shall be Knight of the Granite if you will. A
+    workhouse gem, indeed--a wretched highway jewel--yet, to the eye of
+    truth, finer than many a ducal diamond.... And so, indeed, in the mind
+    of wisdom, is poverty ennobled. And for the Knights of the Golden
+    Calf, how are they outnumbered! Let us then revive the Order of
+    Poverty. Ponder, reader, on its antiquity! For was not Christ Himself
+    Chancellor of the Order, and the Apostles Knight Companions?"
+
+Although Douglas Jerrold may be best remembered by the many for his
+felicitous epigrams and wondrous wit, it should be borne in mind that he
+contributed materially to the high tone that now prevails in our
+literature. The fine spirit was touched to fine issues, and the influences
+which he aided by his life will be his enduring bequest to the future. He
+was, like Dickens, constantly at war with abuses, ever writing with a
+purpose, and always aiming to crush tyranny, injustice, or some kindred
+social monster. Like Dickens, he delighted in assisting the cause of the
+poor and weak, which characteristic, so conspicuous in both, may be
+accounted for by the impecunious surroundings in which they were both
+reared.
+
+With regard to Charles Dickens, undeniably the most popular novelist of
+this century, and generally considered to be one of the greatest
+humourists we have ever had, it would seem as if we had to thank
+impecuniosity for much of his marvellous characterisation; and though he
+bitterly deplored the want of early education and proper home-training, it
+is possible that but for the hardness of his youthful lot he might never
+have developed the faculty of observation to the extent he did. From the
+needy circumstances of his parents he was compelled from very early years
+to think for himself; and this is, according to John Forster, what he
+thought of his father:--
+
+    "He was proud of me in his way, and had a great admiration of the
+    comic singing. But in the ease of his temper and the straitness of his
+    means he appeared to have utterly lost at this time the idea of
+    educating me at all, and to have put from him the notion that I had
+    any claim upon him in that regard whatever. So I degenerated into
+    cleaning his boots of a morning and my own, and making myself useful
+    in the work of the little house, and looking after my younger brothers
+    and sisters (we were now six in all), and going on such poor errands
+    as arose out of our poor way of living."
+
+After his father's arrest for debt and his incarceration in the Marshalsea
+(particulars of which are so graphically described in 'David
+Copperfield'), Charles Dickens, when little more than ten years of age,
+was placed at a blacking manufactory, where he earned the sum of six
+shillings per week, and which is thus described by him:--
+
+    "The blacking warehouse was the last house on the left hand side of
+    the way, at old Hungerford Stairs. It was a crazy tumble-down old
+    house abutting, of course, on the river, and literally overrun with
+    rats. The wainscotted rooms and its rotten floors and staircase and
+    the old grey rats swarming down in the cellars, and the sound of their
+    squeaking and scuffling coming up the stairs at all times, and the
+    dirt and decay of the place, rise up visibly before me as if I were
+    there again. My work was to cover the pots of paste blacking first
+    with a piece of oil paper and then with a piece of blue paper, to tie
+    them round with a string, and then to clip the paper close and neat
+    all round, until it looked as smart as a pot of ointment from an
+    apothecary's shop. When a certain number of grosses of pots had
+    attained this pitch of perfection, I was to paste on each a printed
+    label, and then go on again with more pots."
+
+With regard to the way he lived at this time, he says:
+
+    "Usually I either carried my dinner with me or went and bought it at
+    some neighbouring shop. In the latter case it was commonly a saveloy
+    and a penny loaf, and sometimes a fourpenny plate of beef from a
+    cookshop, sometimes a plate of bread and cheese and a glass of beer
+    from a miserable old public-house over the way--the 'Swan,' if I
+    remember right, or the Swan and something else that I have forgotten.
+    Once I remember tucking my own bread (which I had brought from home in
+    the morning) under my arm, wrapped up in a piece of paper like a book,
+    and going into the best dining-room in Johnson's Alamode Beef House in
+    Charles' Court, Drury Lane, and magnificently ordering a small plate
+    of Alamode beef to eat with it. What the waiter thought of such a
+    strange little apparition coming in all alone, I don't know, but I can
+    see him now staring at me as I ate my dinner, and bringing up the
+    other waiter to look. I gave him a halfpenny, and I wish now that he
+    had not taken it."
+
+Soon after Dickens entered upon his engagement at the uncongenial blacking
+establishment, his mother's home was broken up and she joined his father
+in the debtors' prison, and Master Charles was then placed with a Mrs.
+Roylance at Camden Town, with whom he lodged for some time, boarding
+himself on his six shillings a week, which he apparently found by no means
+an easy job, as his appetite seems to have troubled him considerably by
+this.
+
+    "I was so young and childish and so little qualified--how could I be
+    otherwise?--to undertake the whole charge of my own existence, that in
+    going to Hungerford Stairs of a morning I could not resist the stale
+    pastry put out at half price on trays at the confectioner's doors in
+    Tottenham Court Road. I often spent in that the money I should have
+    kept for my dinner. Then I went without my dinner, or bought a roll or
+    a slice of pudding. There were two pudding shops between which I was
+    divided according to my finances. One was in a court close to St.
+    Martin's Church (at the back of the church), which is now removed
+    altogether. The pudding at that shop was made with currants, and was
+    rather a special pudding, but was dear: two penn'orth not being larger
+    than a penn'orth of more ordinary pudding. A good shop for the latter
+    was in the Strand, somewhere near where the Lowther Arcade is now. It
+    was a stout, hale pudding, heavy and flabby, with great raisins in it
+    stuck in whole, at great distances apart. It came up hot, at about
+    noon every day, and many and many a day did I dine off it. I know I do
+    not exaggerate, unconsciously and unintentionally, the scantiness of
+    my resources and the difficulties of my life. I know that if a
+    shilling or so were given me by any one I spent it in a dinner or a
+    tea. I know that I worked from morning to night with common men and
+    boys, a shabby child. I know that I tried, but ineffectually, not to
+    anticipate my money, and to make it last the week through, by putting
+    it away in a drawer I had in the counting-house, wrapped into six
+    little parcels, each parcel containing the same amount, and labelled
+    with a different day. I know that I have lounged about the streets
+    insufficiently and unsatisfactorily fed. I know that, but for the
+    mercy of God, I might easily have been, for any care that was taken of
+    me, a little robber or a little vagabond."
+
+Contemporary with Dickens figured another popular writer of light fiction,
+who, though perhaps a trifle jollier and more genial in his fun, cannot
+claim to be placed in the same category with the immortal author of
+'Nicholas Nickleby,' 'A Tale of Two Cities,' etc. etc. I allude to Albert
+Smith, who whether detailing on paper "The Adventures of Mr. Ledbury" or
+recounting to an audience at the Egyptian Hall his "Ascent of Mont Blanc,"
+was always extremely amusing.
+
+Owing to a slight similarity in the style of their writing it sometimes
+happened that unfortunate comparisons were made between the two men, when
+naturally poor Albert Smith suffered. For instance, when a friend speaking
+of the two authors to Douglas Jerrold said, that as humourists Charles
+Dickens and Albert Smith "rowed in the same boat," Jerrold replied with
+more or less warmth, "True, they do row in the same boat, but with very
+different skulls." Unlike Dickens, Albert Smith was not practically
+acquainted with absolute poverty, though at times as a student there is no
+doubt he was familiar with that condition known as "rather short of
+funds," and his account of an Alpine journey made on the most economical
+principles may be cited as curious and not unconnected with impecuniosity.
+
+In September 1838 he started from Paris for Chamounix with another equally
+humbly appointed traveller, who like himself intended to do the grand
+Alpine tour with £12, which was to pay for travelling expenses and board
+and lodging for five weeks. They carried their money in five-franc pieces,
+stuffed in leathern belts round their waists, bought two old military
+knapsacks at three francs each, and two pairs of hobnailed shoes at five
+and a half francs each. Before starting they made a good breakfast at a
+_café_ and obtained from the cook a dozen hard-boiled eggs for the
+journey, supplying themselves also with a _litre_ of _vin ordinaire_, a
+flat bottle of brandy, and a leathern cup that folded up. Opposition
+_diligences_ were running on the road from Paris to Geneva, and for two
+pounds they secured seats on one which took seventy-eight successive
+hours--_i.e._, from 8 o'clock on Friday morning till 2 P.M. on the
+following Monday. On arriving at the place where the other passengers
+lunched at a cost of three francs, Smith and his friend regaled themselves
+on their eggs, with the addition of some bread and pears bought in the
+town, which place they inspected while their fellow-travellers were
+luxuriating over their _déjeûner_. When dinner-time came, instead of
+patronising the hotel, they repaired to a more humble restaurant, and for
+24 sous each obtained all that they required. At night they crept under
+the tarpaulin roof of the _diligence_, stacked all the luggage on each
+side, and collecting some straw, on which they reclined, slept tolerably
+well. In the morning they walked on before the conveyance started, bathed
+in the river, and after breakfast (managed in the same inexpensive way),
+were picked up by the diligence. In this manner they travelled for the
+three days, observing pretty much the same routine (except on the Sunday,
+when they washed at the fountain in the market-place at Dole, to the great
+delight and amusement of a party of girls, who lent them towels and a huge
+piece of soap), their expenses for the journey to Geneva being £2 12_s._
+6_d._ each. As a specimen of how they managed to do and see so much on so
+very little: at Arpenay, where a cannon is fired to produce a certain
+marvellous echo, they simply waited until a party more capable of paying
+for such a luxury arrived, and then availed themselves of the opportunity.
+
+On the same principle, when starting for the Mer de Glace they followed a
+party at some little distance, and by this means dispensed with the
+services of a guide. They bathed on the top of the Foxlay, and there in
+the springs, washed their linen, spreading their things on the stones
+afterwards to dry; and in such way the Alpine tour was made by the two
+friends completely, safely, and without exceeding the amount of funds they
+possessed.
+
+Scarcely so honourable, though a trifle more exciting, is a reminiscence
+related of the late Robert Brough, more generally known to those who were
+acquainted with him and loved him dearly as Bob Brough. Unfortunately he
+was a man who was unable to make his income and expenditure balance:
+whether it was that the former was too small, or the latter too large, it
+matters not; but as a natural consequence, debt and difficulty were his
+constant companions. At one time when things had been going very badly
+(that is, in all probability to mine uncle's) he found it necessary to
+seek a more congenial clime. England was found to be unpleasantly hot,
+owing to the warm attention of a money-lending creditor, and foreign
+travel was known to be absolutely imperative. The proprietor of the
+_Sunday Times_ being made acquainted with the circumstances commissioned
+him to write a series of articles, to be entitled "Brussels Sprouts."
+Desirous of executing the commission, and longing for a dip in the sea, he
+started off to Ostend, and on arriving there, was not long in going
+through the preliminaries of taking "a header." He took it, but to his
+horror on coming to the surface he met with what is slangily termed a
+"facer," for he found himself face to face with the identical creditor
+from whom he was fleeing. "Oh, this is the way my money goes, is it! I'll
+lock you up, you----" began the money-lender, but before the sentence was
+finished Brough dived again, swam to shore, secured his luggage, started
+for Paris, and left the "Brussels Sprouts" to take care of themselves.
+
+As I commenced this chapter by quoting the somewhat ungenerous strictures
+of Thackeray on his unhappy brethren, it will be a fitting termination to
+close with an incident of impecuniosity connected with his life, which
+circumstance, by the way, was caused by no fault of his. How could it have
+been? He was so terribly correct and proper! However, when sojourning on
+one occasion in France, he had the misfortune to be robbed of his purse,
+and immediately wrote off to a relative for fresh supplies. In the
+meantime he borrowed a ten-pound note, which he spent in little more than
+a week, thinking he should by that time be in possession of a remittance
+from his aunt. But no remittance came. He then humorously describes the
+horrors that arose in his mind as day after day passed on and there was no
+response from England. His intense desire for a frothy pot of beer,
+ungratified of course from his impecunious state, his alarm lest the
+landlord should present his bill, and his forebodings when passing a
+prison-house, with his elation of spirits when the long-delayed cheque at
+length arrived, are presented with all the charm of comedy and the
+interest of romance, and playfully alluded to in these four lines:--
+
+  "My heart is weary, my peace is gone,
+    How shall I e'er my woes reveal?
+  I have no money, I lie in pawn,
+    A stranger in the town of Lille."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE ROMANCE OF IMPECUNIOSITY.
+
+
+Although at first sight the condition of impecuniosity seems more
+calculated to produce practicality, and render persons matter-of-fact, in
+the foregoing chapters there have not been wanting illustrations to prove
+that impecuniosity has been responsible for some romance. The case of
+Angelica Kauffman may be taken as an example. Owing to the poverty of her
+father she was compelled to accept the hospitality of an English peer in
+Switzerland, who insulted her, and afterwards, when unable to obtain a
+favourable reception of his suit, in revenge induced a married adventurer
+to make love to and marry her. This was romantic, without question, and
+undoubtedly attributable to want of money, as but for that she would never
+have been brought in contact with the disgraceful nobleman in question.
+
+When we remember, however, how impecuniosity has been produced, how that
+it has been brought about by misfortune, extravagance, heroism, want of
+principle, want of foresight, inadequacies of justice, eccentricity of
+character, extreme benevolence of disposition, and by other equally varied
+causes, it is not surprising that there should be found considerable
+connection between it and romance, more especially as the consequences of
+the condition have been crime of every description, from comparatively
+venial offences against society to the universally reprobated sins of
+forgery and murder. Again, the strange and unexpected means by which
+people have been delivered from their impecuniosity savours strongly of
+the unreal, of the world of fiction rather than of the world of fact. But
+that real life is prolific of romance has long been acknowledged by all
+but those whose knowledge of human life is small, and whose ignorance of
+history is entire. As the poet pithily puts it--
+
+        "Truth is always strange,
+  Stranger than fiction: if it could be told,
+  How much would novels gain by the exchange."
+
+Admitting this, and judging from the facts that we are possessed of, what
+marvellously romantic deeds must impecuniosity have been connected with
+that will never be recorded!--devoted deeds of self-sacrifice that will
+never be known to any save the sufferers! Not long since I read in a
+popular periodical of something suggestively similar. A girl on the way to
+join her husband, to whom she has been only married by the Scotch law,
+learns by accident that her marriage alone stands between her husband and
+a fortune. Circumstances so happening that she can make it appear credible
+that she was on board a vessel that was lost, she does so, believing that
+by her renunciation she is giving up "all for him." "Truth is stranger
+than fiction," and it follows, therefore, that such instances of
+self-abnegation induced by impecuniosity have been and will be found. But
+to facts.
+
+I have included in the list of the causes of impecuniosity the want of
+foresight, and this is painfully instanced by the story of a poor old
+woman at Plymouth, who did not like the formality, or could not afford the
+expense, of having a will prepared. Being exceedingly ill, she thought she
+would like to leave her little property--furniture, a small amount of
+money, and household movables--to her neighbours and acquaintances. This
+wish _vivâ voce_ she practically carried out. Of her own proper authority
+she gave and willed away chairs and tables to one, her bed to this friend,
+her cloak to that, money, utensils, nicknacks, to others. Crones,
+housewives, and young women gathered sympathetically around her, and soon
+carried away the various things bequeathed to them. It was not long after
+they had departed that she unexpectedly recovered from her illness, and
+sent to have her things back again, but not one of them could she get, and
+she was left without a rag to cover her or a friend to give her a kind
+word.
+
+Strange as was this circumstance, here is something surpassing strange,
+being the romantic record of one who was literally "a funny beggar."
+
+Less than half a century since there used to be seen on the Quai des
+Celestines in Paris a mendicant holding in one hand some lucifer-matches.
+Wan, self-possessed, scantily but neatly attired, there were in the
+beggar's visage traces of refinement and good breeding. Round his neck was
+a loop of black silk ribbon, to which was suspended a piece of pasteboard
+having an inscription to the effect that the wearer was a poor man, and
+craved relief on the plea that "_he had lived longer than he should_."
+
+The petitioner's history was a singular one. Jules André Gueret, when
+twenty-five years old, became the possessor of a large fortune. He
+remained a bachelor, and turned his estate into hard cash. An epicurean, a
+man of some taste, and a bit of a philosopher, he began a calculation to
+ascertain how he could best enjoy himself. Making no investments, he kept
+his cash at home. Gueret came to the conclusion that a sober man's life
+averaged seventy years, but that a pleasure-seeking, gay man's life might
+only last fifty-five or sixty years. He then divided his finances into so
+many equal portions. Each portion was to be an annual allowance, the
+pleasure-seeker arranging that the money should last five-and-thirty
+years. Gueret, in conclusion, made a compact with himself that if he lived
+beyond sixty years of age, suicide would prevent his suffering ills at the
+hands of poverty. But when turned sixty years of age, and when his money
+was exhausted, either love of life or fear of death prevented the once gay
+and opulent Gueret from committing self-destruction. It will be seen that
+it was a terribly true inscription on the bit of pasteboard hanging from
+the neck of the beggar haunting the Quai des Celestines.
+
+The vicissitudes of Gueret were obviously self-created, and _à propos_ of
+a man's idiosyncrasy impelling him on to impecuniosity, there is hardly a
+more curious illustration to be found than that contained in the biography
+of Combe, the author of the 'Adventures of Dr. Syntax.' This man was a
+born eccentric, perverse, whimsical, and humorous. Possessing natural
+gifts, and the heir to a large fortune, he frittered away his mental
+resources, wasted his patrimony, and often committed acts worthy of the
+simpleton or lunatic. He went through the curriculum of Eton and Oxford,
+and by the refinements of his taste and the elegance of his manners won
+the title of "Duke Combe." In a comparatively short period, by his
+prodigality and reckless expenditure he was reduced to penury, and finding
+no means of subsistence, enlisted as a private in the army. While in the
+ranks he was reading one day, when an officer passing him managed to see
+the book, which was a copy of Horace. "My friend," said the officer, "is
+it possible that you can read Horace in the original?" "If I cannot," said
+Combe, "a great deal of money has been thrown away on my education."
+
+Escaping from the English army, he joined the French service, and again
+fleeing, he entered a French monastery, remaining there until he had
+passed his noviciate. He subsequently left the Continent and became a
+waiter in South Wales. On several occasions, while in that capacity, he
+met with acquaintances whom he had known in college days, but he was never
+embarrassed even when seen tripping along with a napkin under his arm.
+
+Combe afterwards married an amiable and devoted woman, and settled down
+for a time as an author. Some of his writings contained questionable
+morality, and others were of scurrilous and venal character. 'Letters from
+a Nobleman to his Son,' said to be by Lord Lyttelton, and 'Letters from an
+Italian Nun to an English Nobleman,' said to be by Rousseau, were both
+from the pen of "Duke Combe." At last he became an inmate of the King's
+Bench Prison, and he remained there several years. When a friend offered
+to make an arrangement with his creditors, he replied: "If I compounded
+with those to whom I owe money I should be obliged to give up the little I
+possess, and on which I can manage to live in prison. These rooms in the
+Bench are mine at a very few shillings a week in right of my seniority as
+a prisoner. My habits have become so sedentary, that if I lived in the
+airiest square of West-End London, I should not walk round it once a
+month. I am quite content with my cheap quarters."
+
+It was in the King's Bench Prison that Combe wrote for the publisher
+Ackerman, 'The Adventures of Dr. Syntax in Search of the Picturesque,'
+'The Dance of Life,' and 'The Dance of Death.'
+
+At one period of Combe's career Roger Kemble gave him a theatrical
+benefit, and Combe promised to speak an address on the occasion. There had
+been much gossip and many conjectures concerning his real name, history,
+and condition. To such gossip and conjectures he referred when he stood
+before the curtain, and in the presence of a crowded auditory. Then he
+added, "But now, ladies and gentlemen, I shall tell you who and what I
+am." There was an eager and expectant expression on the countenances
+before him. Combe paused--all present leaning forward to hear
+him--gathered himself up, as if for a great effort, and then said, "I am,
+ladies and gentlemen--your most obedient, humble servant."
+
+It is evident Combe's peculiar disposition was the cause of his peculiar
+circumstances. He was a perverse, whimsical man, rather than an
+unfortunate one, and it was much the same with the son of Lady Mary
+Wortley Montague, the Hon. Mr. Wortley Montague, notorious for his roving
+and adventurous disposition. When a boy he ran away from home, and became
+a chimney sweep. It is true that young Montague's father was cold in his
+manners and severe in his discipline to the lad, who in addition chafed
+under the somewhat stringent arrangements of the Westminster masters, for
+enforcing law and order amongst their pupils. At Westminster School,
+however, where the lad was placed in 1729, he at once showed himself
+brilliant and precocious, but vain, impatient of control, and of truant
+disposition. Reckless and petulant, he resolved to see the world, and
+without a single confidant, one day quitted the seminary, roamed the
+streets, and at night made his way into the fields about Chelsea, and
+there slept till morning. After a few days his stock of money became low,
+and while reading the newspapers over his tavern breakfast, he noticed in
+an advertisement an accurate description of his face, figure, and costume,
+with the notification that a handsome reward would be paid by his parents
+to recover their lost child. Hastily paying his bill, he made his way from
+the tavern, perambulated the streets, utterly at a loss how to act in
+order to shun the humiliation of meeting his father and mother, and of
+again having to undergo the restrictions of domestic and scholastic
+routine. Meeting a chimney-sweeper's apprentice, Montague entered into
+conversation with him and agreed to exchange clothes, which transformation
+was accomplished in an empty house. The truant was not satisfied yet, and
+actually accompanied the apprentice to his master's house for the purpose
+of trying to become a chimney-sweep himself. From motives of benevolence
+or cupidity the master sweep agreed to induct young Montague into the
+mysteries of cleansing flues, and the lad remained in his employment for
+some months.
+
+During the period of his connection with the "sooty trade" the
+aristocratic young truant went through many adventures and played many
+pranks. His roaming disposition, however, caused him to run away from his
+master, which he did without warning, and he soon found himself again
+walking about the streets of the metropolis, his money exhausted. He had
+but one thing left, a carefully-preserved watch, by which he could obtain
+the necessaries of life; driven to desperation, he walked into a
+jeweller's shop and offered the watch for sale. The proprietor was
+courteous but wary, and being suspicious that the lad had become possessed
+of the valuable article in a dishonest manner, took the opportunity of
+sending for a constable. Montague was arrested and conveyed to Bow Street,
+where the magistrate closely questioned the culprit. Young Montague, with
+the utmost frankness, gave an account of his strange and romantic
+adventures from the moment when he had quitted Westminster School. It was
+not long ere his parents were made acquainted with the particulars of
+their son's flight and safety, and the foolish wanderer was speedily taken
+back with caresses and delight. All was forgotten and forgiven, and in a
+few weeks Montague was reinstated in his old place at Westminster.
+
+It is said that what is bred in the bone comes out in the flesh, and it
+was not long before the crack-brained scholar again became unsettled.
+Through an older companion, young Montague sought the good offices of a
+knavish money-lender, who, making himself acquainted with the lad's
+position and prospects, advanced him a sum of money. With the loan he felt
+free to make another flight, and away he went to Newmarket. He was amused
+and delighted with the spectacle of horses, jockeys, and bruisers.
+Enjoying himself at an inn, he fell into the company of card-sharpers, who
+soon eased him of the guineas he had brought down from London. His
+position was unfortunate and perilous, but wandering out through the town,
+he encountered a friend of the family, who resolutely conveyed him back to
+his parents, who, as before, after due admonition, forgave him. The debt
+to the money-lender was paid, and the youngster again found himself
+surrounded by all the luxuries of an aristocratic home. But his restless
+spirit could not endure the harness of conventional life.
+
+Once more he sought the office of the usurer, who made the required
+advances, and he then made up his mind to taste the joys of sea voyages
+and the novelties of foreign travel. Making his way to Wapping, he struck
+up a friendship with the captain of a trading-vessel bound for Cadiz.
+Montague agreed to visit Cadiz with him, making the commander acquainted
+with the particulars of his history. The youth prepared for the journey,
+and thought that his last night in England should be a convivial one, and
+consequently ordered at one of the Wapping taverns a sumptuous supper. The
+landlord during the evening introduced some card-sharping rogues who
+proposed play, and in the course of an hour or two the son of Lady Mary
+had lost heavily. He was made drunk and taken away senseless to bed.
+
+When he came to himself in the morning he found that he had been robbed of
+everything, including his watch, and that he was utterly impotent to pay
+the heavy bill for the previous night's banquet. The landlord affected
+much indignation, and went out of the house under the pretence of
+procuring a constable. Young Montague was at his wit's end, when the
+hostess advised him to quit the tavern. Taking the hint, he hurried to the
+captain and told his story, and the captain intimated that he would seek
+the landlord. Captain James being a rogue, came to an understanding with
+the Wapping host, who agreed to hand over part of the spoil. James
+returned to the young dupe, and informed him that no redress could be
+afforded, but that if he liked he might work his way out to Cadiz. So
+Montague was the victim of both landlord and captain. During the voyage to
+Cadiz the youth underwent numerous trials and hardships. On landing at
+Cadiz he at once left Captain James and found himself in a foreign town
+without money and without friends. However, he found the Wapping
+card-sharpers had left him a pair of Mocoa sleeve-buttons set in gold, and
+having sold them he lived on the money for a few weeks. When that money
+was exhausted he happened to make the acquaintance of a muleteer, who,
+wanting a helper, found a ready and active one in the adventurous youth.
+All his subsequent adventures were of like irrational character, and he
+died of a fever contracted during foreign travel when a comparatively
+young man.
+
+I now turn to a pathetic story of poverty, in which the victim, but for
+the cruel deeds of a crafty and malignant woman, might have been
+surrounded by the auxiliaries of wealth and feudal splendour. Fortune
+occasionally plays strange pranks, and in the instance I am about to quote
+it will be seen that her caprices sometimes fall on unoffending and worthy
+men with pitiless and tremendous severity. More than two hundred and
+fifty years since a miserable bowed man might have been seen working about
+the fields and roads outside Leicester, doing that slavish and drudging
+work which falls to the lot of the English peasant. But for an unhappy
+episode connected with his ancestors he might have been summoned to dinner
+by sound of horn and taken his food from burnished silver. He was the heir
+of the famous Sir Robert Scott of Thirlestane, a cadet of the House of
+Buccleuch. Sir Robert Scott lived in the time of the sixth James of
+Scotland, and was a man of noble character, though of iron will and fiery
+blood, and little knew the awful cloud that gathered over his house when
+he married his second wife. Scott of Thirlestane had a son by his first
+marriage, and the heir was loved by the father with all the intensity and
+tenderness of a strong man's nature.
+
+From the time the second wife bore children to Sir Robert, she hated the
+stepson with unceasing and sleepless malignity. She saw that as long as he
+lived the future possessions of her own children would be but little. She
+was cruel, crafty, and unscrupulous: and her worst feelings were excited
+when she learned that Sir Robert proposed building a tower at Gamescleugh
+in honour of the young laird's majority. The father had also arranged a
+marriage for his son. The stepmother then entered upon plans to murder him
+on the occasion of the opening of the new castle, when a great festival
+was to take place. Her agent in the crime was John Lally, the family
+piper, who obtained three adders, from which he abstracted poison, and
+conveyed it to Lady Thirlestane, who mixed it with a bottle of wine. On
+the day of festivity the young laird inspected the tower and received from
+Lally's hand the poisoned wine in a silver flagon, and drank a hearty
+draught. In an hour the heir of the house of Thirlestane was dead, and
+Lally had fled no one knew whither. News of the heir's death soon reached
+the ears of the father, who had the alarm bugle sounded to call together
+his retainers. On the earl calling out to his assemblage, "Are we all
+here?" a voice answered, "Yes, all but John Lally, the piper." It was
+ominous, for the husband knew the confidence his wife placed in that
+retainer, and Sir Robert swooned. Strange was it that Sir Robert could not
+be induced to make a public example of his wife; but he announced to his
+friends that the estate belonged to his murdered son, who, if he could not
+enjoy it living, should enjoy it dead. The body of the heir was embalmed
+with drugs and spices, and laid out in state for a year and a day. For
+twelve months the unhappy father kept up one continuous round of costly
+and magnificent revels. Wine flowed like a river, and the scenes of
+carousal were of unprecedented extravagance. Soon after the funeral Sir
+Robert was borne to the grave and the family reduced to utter beggary. The
+stepmother wandered about an outcast and pauper, and in after years the
+heir of the Thirlestane family worked as a common ditcher, as I have
+described.
+
+A similar strange and pathetic story, in which it is shown that the
+innocent suffered for the guilty, is that of Sir John Dinely, who, at the
+beginning of the century, was one of the Poor Knights of Windsor. Dinely
+was a singularly eccentric and unfortunate man. He was often to be seen
+mysteriously creeping by the first light of a winter's morning through the
+great gate of the lower ward of Windsor Castle into the narrow back
+streets of the town. He used to wear a roquelaure, beneath which appeared
+a pair of thin legs encased in dirty silk stockings. In wet weather he
+carried a large umbrella and walked on pattens. He lived in one of the
+houses of the military knights, then called Poor Knights, to which body he
+belonged. Except the eccentric possessor, no human being entered his
+abode, and he dispensed with all domestic service. Dinely in the morning
+went forth to make his frugal purchases for the day--a faggot, a candle, a
+small loaf, and perhaps a herring. The Poor Knight of Windsor might have
+fared better, but every penny except those laid out for absolute
+necessaries of life was capitalised in the promotion of an absorbing and
+quixotic scheme. Regular attendance at St. George's Chapel was Dinely's
+duty; and the long blue mantle which the Poor Knights wore covered his
+shabby habiliments, as the dingy morning cloak hid red herrings and
+farthing candles.
+
+Such were some of the phases--sombre, squalid phases--of Sir John's
+existence. But there were periods when the Poor Knight assumed the
+externals of aristocratic opulence. The poor hunchback lover in the
+introduction to the pantomime, who, by the enchanter's wand in the
+transformation-scene, becomes the gay and spangled harlequin, typifies
+Dinely dressed for his marketing, and Dinely dressed for the promenade.
+Any circumstances drawing together a crowd at Windsor, whether the
+presence of royalty, the attractions of the military parade, or of the
+promenade, did not fail to draw forth Dinely from his poverty-stricken
+home. When he appeared on festive occasions, his cloak was cast aside, and
+he might have sat to any painter desiring to reproduce on canvas a
+gentleman of the time of George II. An embroidered coat, silk flowered
+waistcoat, nether garments of velvet, carefully meeting silk stockings,
+which surmounted shoes and silver buckles, in addition to a lace-edged
+cocked hat, and powdered wig, set off the attenuated figure of the Poor
+Knight of Windsor. His object in so presenting himself was to attract the
+notice of some rich lady for matrimonial ends, matrimony being the medium
+through which he imagined he could transform his splendid dreams into no
+less splendid realities--the reason for his eccentric economy being
+explained by his history.
+
+In January, 1741, there were two brothers living at Bristol who had become
+enemies on account of an entail of property. The elder of these brothers
+was Sir John Dinely Goodyere, Baronet, the other Samuel Dinely Goodyere, a
+captain in the navy. Estrangement had taken place, but a common friend, at
+Samuel's request, brought them together. They dined, had pleasant hours,
+and fraternal words were exchanged. On parting Sir John went his way
+across College Green, and while there was met by his brother and six other
+sailors. Sir John was brutally treated, carried away to a ship, and on it
+he was strangled. Retribution followed swiftly, and in two months Samuel
+Dinely Goodyere had expiated his crime on the gallows.
+
+The Poor Knight of Windsor was the son of the murderer, and it is
+generally believed that the family estates which might have come to
+Captain Goodyere were forfeited to the Crown. To recover the family
+estates was the day dream of Sir John. Not having sufficient money to
+obtain the requisite legal help to regain the lost inheritance, the poor
+old man resorted to the matrimonial scheme. His proceedings were perfectly
+serious, dignified, and earnest. Frequently has he been seen on the
+terrace at Windsor presenting to some county widow or elegantly attired
+gentlewoman a printed paper which with the utmost gravity he would take
+from his pocket. Should the lady accept the paper, Sir John Dinely would
+make her the most profound of bows, and then withdraw.
+
+The following is an extract from one of the documents:--
+
+    "_For a Wife._"
+
+    "As the prospect of my marriage has much increased lately, I am
+    determined to take the best means to discover the lady most liberal in
+    her esteem by giving her fourteen days more to make her quickest steps
+    towards matrimony: from the date of this paper until eleven o'clock
+    the next morning: and as the contest evidently will be superb,
+    honourable, sacred, and lawfully affectionate, pray do not let false
+    delicacy interrupt you. An eminent attorney here is lately returned
+    from a view of my superb gates, built in the form of the Queen's
+    house. I have ordered him, as the next attorney here, who can satisfy
+    you of my possession in my estate, and every desirable particular
+    concerning it, to make you the most liberal settlement you can desire,
+    to the vast extent of three thousand pounds."
+
+Some verses conclude, the words being--
+
+  "A beautiful page shall hold,
+  Your ladyship's train surrounded with gold."
+
+The advertiser alludes to the forfeiture of the estates in another paper:
+"Pray, my young charmers, give me a fair hearing; do not let your
+avaricious guardians unjustly fright you into a false account of a
+forfeiture." Sir John did not scatter his papers broadcast. It was only to
+those whom he deemed suitable ladies that he distributed his precious and
+grandiloquent invitations. Notwithstanding the seeming allurements of his
+circulars, Sir John Dinely found no nibblers for his bait. One morning the
+accustomed seat in St. George's Chapel knew him no more. He was missing.
+The door of his lodging was forced, and in his room he was found ill and
+helpless. Everything about him was of the poorest and most squalid
+character. There was little furniture--a table and a chair or two. The
+room was strewed with printing type, for he printed his own bills; and in
+a few days Sir John Dinely was borne to the grave.
+
+"Wise judges are we of each other," said Claude Melnotte contemptuously to
+Colonel Damar when that officer remarked that he "envied" the pretended
+Prince of Como, and it would be well for many of us were we to remember
+the rebuke in forming our judgment of our fellows in connection with their
+pecuniary position. A very pitiful story illustrating the argument is
+narrated by Charles Lamb in his essay, "Christ's Hospital Five and Thirty
+Years Ago." Referring to some cartoons connected with his old school, the
+author writes:--
+
+    "L---- has recorded his repugnance of the school to 'gags,' or the fat
+    of fresh boiled beef, and sets it down to some superstition; but these
+    unctuous morsels are never grateful to young palates (children are
+    universal fat-haters), and in strong, coarse, boiled meats, unsalted,
+    are detestable. A gag-eater in our time was equivalent to a ghoul, and
+    held in equal detestation. There was a lad who suffered under this
+    imputation.
+
+      'It was said
+      He ate strange flesh.'
+
+    "He was observed, after dinner, carefully to gather up the remnants
+    left at the table (not many nor very choice fragments, you may credit
+    me), and in an especial manner these disreputable morsels he would
+    convey, and secretly stow, in the settle that stood at his bedside.
+    None saw when he ate them. It was rumoured that he privately devoured
+    them in the night. He was watched, but no traces of them, of such
+    midnight practices were discoverable. Some reported that on leave-days
+    he had been seen to carry out of the bounds a large blue check
+    handkerchief, full of something. This, then, must be the accursed
+    thing. Conjecture next was at work to imagine how he could dispose of
+    it. Some said he sold it to the beggars. This belief generally
+    prevailed. He went about moping--none spake to him. No one would play
+    with him. He was excommunicated--put out of the pale of the school. He
+    was too powerful a boy to be beaten, but he underwent every mode of
+    that negative punishment which is more grievous than many stripes.
+    Still he persevered. At length he was observed by two of his
+    schoolfellows, who were determined to get at the secret, and had
+    traced him one leave day for the purpose, to enter a large worn-out
+    building, such as there exists specimens of in Chancery Lane, which
+    are let out to various scales of pauperism, with open door and a
+    common staircase. After him they silently slunk in, and followed by
+    stealth up four flights of stairs, and saw him tap at a poor wicket,
+    which was opened by a poor woman meanly clad. Suspicion was now
+    ripened into certainty. The informers had secured their victim.
+    Accusation was formally preferred, and retribution most signal was
+    looked for. Mr. Hatherway investigated the matter. The supposed
+    mendicants, the receivers of the mysterious scraps, turned out to be
+    the parents of the boy. This young stork, at the expense of his own
+    good name, had all this while been feeding the old birds."
+
+A striking story of the unknown resources and trials of the
+poverty-stricken is the following, a favourite one with that capital
+_raconteur_, the late Julian Young.
+
+A certain diplomatist was many years ago despatched by the English
+Government on an embassy extraordinary to one of the continental courts,
+where his handsome person and the urbanity of his manners made him a
+general favourite. On his departure the sovereign to whom he was
+accredited presented him with a small box of unusual value as a mark of
+his esteem. It had on its lid a miniature of the king set in brilliants of
+great beauty. When he had retired from public life and happened to give a
+dinner to any of his friends, he was fond of producing it at the dessert,
+as it afforded him an opportunity of descanting on the king's appreciation
+of his services. On one of these occasions the box was brought forth,
+handed by the butler to the master, and passed round. The last person into
+whose hands it went was an old general, who, from some failure in
+investments, was known to be in embarrassed circumstances.
+
+In due course all rose to join the ladies, and in so doing the owner of
+the snuff-box looked round for it in order that it might be replaced in
+the cabinet. Not seeing the box, the owner immediately made inquiries
+concerning it, and asked the gentlemen to make search for it, suggesting
+that it was possible that some one in a fit of absence might have placed
+it in his pocket. Everybody denied having any knowledge of it, though one
+or two present declared that the old general was the last person in whose
+hands they remembered to have seen it. "Having seen it before," the old
+general said, "he had but bestowed a cursory glance upon it and then
+placed it in the centre." The strictest search about the room was then
+made, but only with fruitless results. The owner of the box assumed much
+gravity of manner, and having referred to the seriousness of the loss,
+said, "I suspect no one, and that I may have no cause to do so, I must ask
+you to let me search you all without distinction." Two or three rose to
+depart, but they were anticipated by their entertainer, who put his back
+against the door and refused egress to any one. The old general stepped
+forward and said, "Sir, do you mean to insult us because we have drunk
+your wine? If any one dares to oppose my exit from this room, I shall call
+him to account." The old grizzled warrior strode out with a firm and
+defiant air. Known to be poor, and from his determined departure on the
+occasion of the proposed search, the general was coldly and shyly regarded
+by those who knew the circumstances, and by those who afterwards heard of
+them.
+
+Some time later, at the same host's table, the butler, hearing the story
+of the lost snuff-box, informed his master that on the occasion alluded to
+be had taken it up and deposited it in a little drawer at the end of a
+sideboard, where it had been occasionally kept, and the butler went to the
+drawer and found the lost treasure.
+
+As quickly as possible the next morning the owner of the snuff-box sought
+the old general, told him everything, and made him an ample apology. They
+were at once friendly as of old. After some conversation, the owner of the
+snuff-box said, "But may I ask you why you so resolutely refused to be
+searched?" "Alas!" said the soldier, "I refused to be searched because,
+though I had not stolen your snuff-box, I had stolen your food. I blush to
+own, sir, that the greater part of every morsel put upon my plate was
+transferred to a pocket-handkerchief (spread upon my knee beneath the
+table), and taken home to a starving wife and family."
+
+Equally, if not more romantic is another military story, also related by
+Julian Young, which, were it not for the unquestionable _bona fides_ of
+that gentleman, might well be questioned, so suggestive is it of a page
+from a novel.
+
+An aristocratic lady residing on the family estate in Ireland advertised
+for a governess for her daughters. The successful candidate was a young
+French lady of talent and fascinating manners. She had not long taken up
+her residence with the lady and her daughters when she inspired the nephew
+of her mistress with a tender passion. A gentleman of principle, and only
+possessing slender means, he resolved to control his sentiment and in no
+way reveal it.
+
+Some months elapsed, and one morning while the family were at breakfast,
+they were surprised by the entrance of a servant, who inquired of the lady
+of the house if she could see visitors. Asking who they were, she was
+informed that the party consisted of two gentlemen, who had travelled
+there in a coach-and-four, attended by a livery servant, evidently a
+foreigner. Thinking that visitors at such an early hour must have
+important business, the servant was told by his mistress that she would at
+once see them. She remained with the visitors some little time, and then
+returned, informing the governess that her presence was immediately
+required by the two gentlemen, who had come on important business.
+
+The governess was absent more than half an hour, and on her return to the
+breakfast-room appeared to be labouring under strong excitement. She then
+begged Lady E---- to be kind enough to step into the library to speak to
+two friends of hers, who had something of great importance to communicate.
+The mistress of the establishment complied, and the governess, left with
+her pupils, was interrogated with much amusing curiosity by them on the
+strange visit of two gentlemen at such an early hour in the day. The
+governess, in a tremor of nervousness, answered nothing, left her pupils,
+and going to her own apartment, locked herself in.
+
+The interview between Lady E---- and the strangers was exceedingly
+interesting. One of the visitors spoke to her in French, and at great
+length. Having prefaced what he had to say by apologising for the seeming
+intrusion, Lady E---- was informed that he was delegated by the governess
+to perform a duty which rightly devolved upon herself, but which she had
+not the moral courage to discharge. It was also stated by the speaker that
+Mademoiselle H---- acknowledged gratefully the extraordinary kindness with
+which she had been treated. Lady E---- was then told that in pretending to
+be dependent on her own exertions for bread, the governess had imposed on
+her mistress. She was, it was said, as well born as Lady E----, and almost
+as opulent. It was at the request of the visitors that Mademoiselle
+H---- had answered the advertisement, for the reason that perhaps under
+such a roof as Lady E----'s the young lady would be spared the persecution
+of an unscrupulous kinsman, who conceived that his cousin was endeavouring
+to supplant him in the good graces of a relative whose favours he had
+forfeited solely by misconduct. The older kinsman alluded to had just
+died, and had bequeathed his sole possessions to the governess. She was
+mistress of a château in Southern France, in addition to an unencumbered
+rent-roll of £7000 a year. In conclusion, the gentleman in his own name
+and that of his fellow trustee begged to state that in a month's time the
+presence of Mademoiselle H---- would be imperative, for the purpose of
+hearing the will read, and to meet the avocat, the executors, and certain
+other persons interested. Complimenting the mistress of the Irish mansion
+upon her urbanity, the visitors withdrew, jumped into their carriage, and
+were driven away as rapidly as they came.
+
+The daughters of Lady E---- and her nephew were made acquainted with the
+good fortune of the French governess. She had won the affections of her
+pupils, and they regretted parting with her. However, they rejoiced at her
+prosperity. The nephew's heart glowed with hope and affection. Had he been
+richer he would before have declared his passion. On hearing his aunt's
+recital of the governess's actual position he at once resolved to press
+his suit. When Mademoiselle H---- had listened to his declaration of love,
+she met it with haughty demeanour and frigid words, stating that she
+suspected her money had more attraction for him than her person, assigning
+as her reason for such impression that he had shunned her while he thought
+her poor, but had sought her as soon as he had found her to be rich. He
+assured her that he had loved her at first sight, but had been deterred by
+honourable motives and the smallness of his fortune from thinking of
+matrimony; that he had purposely kept out of danger's way, but that as to
+wishing to marry her for the sake of her money, it was a cruel imputation,
+and stung him to the quick. He then quitted her soon afterwards, mounted a
+horse, rode away and found a notary public. When he again saw Mademoiselle
+H---- he put into her hands a document by which he conveyed to her
+unconditionally and absolutely every farthing he had in the world. In
+return for it he asked for the lady's hand and heart. He added that if he
+proved unworthy of her, her money would be in her own power, and that if
+he lived to deserve her love, he was sure she would never let him want.
+She yielded to his solicitations, and they eloped.
+
+Scarcely had the honeymoon run its course when the husband discovered that
+he was united to a penniless woman. In spite of his reserve the governess
+had detected his passion, and by the aid of confederates and her own
+adroitness had made herself possessor of his patrimony. The victim sought
+to repair his fortune at the sword's point in the Crimean war, where he
+obtained considerable distinction.
+
+Incredible as this narrative may seem, there is a yet more marvellous one
+which must be true, since "it was in the papers."
+
+In the autumn of 1827 two men were examined at the Marylebone police-court
+under circumstances of a peculiar and suspicious nature. The night
+previously a patrol in the New Road watched the men, and subsequently saw
+them deep in conversation by a lamp-post, and soon afterwards one man
+deliberately began to tie his companion up to the lamp-post, the suspended
+man offering no resistance to the labours of the improvised Jack Ketch.
+The patrol interfered, and both men proceeded to beat him with great
+violence. Some watchmen of the district hearing the cries of the assailed
+constable hastened to the spot, and the constable's assailants were
+secured. While being examined before the magistrate, the men stated that
+they had been gambling by the light from the lamp, and that one of them
+had lost all his money to the other, and had then staked his clothes. The
+winner demurred to continue playing for the reason that if he again won he
+should not care to strip the loser of his habiliments. His enthusiastic
+companion rejoined that should he again lose, life would be worthless to
+him. A bargain was made to again play, it being understood that the
+unsuccessful gambler if again unlucky should be hung by his companion, who
+should strip him when dead. The fellow lost, and informed the magistrate
+that he was only submitting to the terms of the treaty when the patrol
+came up and interfered with himself and his companion. The magistrate
+concluding they had been intoxicated, discharged them with a caution.
+
+A remarkably grim passage this in a gambler's life, and unfortunately most
+of the selections in this section of the subject are more or less sombre,
+for romance is naturally more associated with tragedy than comedy.
+"Pitiful, wondrous pitiful," is my next illustration, which is related by
+Sir Walter Scott, who when attending Dugald Stewart's lectures on Moral
+Philosophy used to sit by the side of an amiable youth, in whose society
+he afterwards took great interest. They became companions, and frequently
+used to stroll out beyond the city, enjoying the charms of road and
+stream. One day during the perambulation they met a singularly venerable
+"Blue Gown," a beggar of the Edie Ochiltree stamp, clean and ruddy. The
+beggar had three or four times previously encountered Scott, who with his
+usual good-heartedness had relieved him in answer to solicitation. When
+Mr. Scott and his fellow-student passed the old man, the companion of
+Scott exhibited peculiar restlessness and confusion. The beggar again had
+something dropped into his hand by Scott, who said soon afterwards to his
+companion, "Do you know anything to the dishonour of the old beggar?"
+"God forbid!" said the youth, and bursting into tears added, "I am ashamed
+to speak to him; he is my father! He has laid by for himself, but he
+stands bleaching his head in the wind, that he may get means to pay for my
+education." Scott spoke words of tenderness and sympathy to the
+mendicant's son, and kept his secret.
+
+Some time afterwards he again met the hale "Blue Gown." "God bless you!"
+said the old man; "you have been kind to Willie. He has often spoken of
+it. Come to our roof, for my boy has been ill. It will strengthen him, if
+you will go and see him." At 2 o'clock on the following Saturday, Willie's
+old fellow-student found the old man and his son waiting to receive him at
+their little cottage outside the city. It was a modest little tenement,
+and Willie sat on a bench before the door to enjoy the sunshine. The son
+of the voluntary mendicant looked wan and emaciated. He had been very ill.
+There was a dinner of mutton, potatoes and whisky. They all enjoyed
+themselves, and during their conversation the old man said, "Please God I
+may live to see my bairn wag his head in a pulpit yet." Scott left them
+with tokens of good will and friendship. He communicated the story to his
+mother, who informed her husband, and it was at no distant time that Dr.
+Erskine's influence (through the good offices of Mr. and Mrs. Scott)
+obtained the old man's son a tutorship in the north of Scotland.
+
+To quit the pathetic for a moment, it would scarcely be thought likely
+that that necessary but extremely practical article--blacking--has ever
+been associated with romance; but Mr. Smiles tells the story of a poor
+soldier having one day called at the shop of a hairdresser who was busy
+with his customers and asked relief, stating that he had stayed beyond his
+leave of absence, and unless he could get a lift on the coach, fatigue and
+severe punishment awaited him. The hairdresser listened to his story
+respectfully, and gave him a guinea. "God bless you, sir!" exclaimed the
+soldier, astonished at the amount. "How can I repay you? I have nothing in
+the world but this," pulling out a dirty piece of paper from his pocket;
+"it is a receipt for making blacking--it is the best that was ever seen;
+many a half-guinea I have had for it from the officers, and many bottles I
+have sold. May you be able to get something for it to repay you for your
+kindness to the poor soldier!" Oddly enough that dirty piece of paper
+proved worth half a million of money to the hairdresser. It was no less
+than a receipt for the famous Day and Martin's blacking, the hairdresser
+being the late Mr. Day.
+
+The picture of little ones asking for bread and the parents finding none
+in the cupboard is a very old story. Domestic affection, struggling amidst
+difficulties and distress, has produced heroes and martyrs innumerable,
+but few more interesting than Peter Stokes, famous in years gone by as the
+"Flying Pieman." Every day at the beginning of the present century
+(excepting when it rained) the familiar figure of that now historic
+personage might have been seen in the steep thoroughfare between Staple's
+Inn and Field Lane. Peter obtained the _sobriquet_ of "Flying Pieman" from
+the celerity of his movements. There was some slight mistake concerning
+his nickname, for Peter Stokes sold baked plum pudding, not pies. Stokes
+was one of the celebrated old-fashioned London characters, as well known
+to cockneys of that period as Billy Waters or the negro crossing-sweeper
+at the foot of Ludgate Hill.
+
+Soon after the clock of St. Andrew's Church struck twelve, Stokes used to
+turn out of Fetter Lane with a tray of smoking hot plum pudding, the
+pudding cut into twelve slices, the price of each being a penny. Peter
+carried his tray in one hand and a bright silver scapula in the other. The
+customer received his slice of pudding from the scapula after a penny had
+been deposited upon the tray (Peter never gave change), the "Flying
+Pieman," as he perambulated or as he stopped, never being known to utter
+any other word than "Buy, buy, buy." He always wore a black vest,
+swallow-tailed coat, stout silk stockings, and shoes with bright silver
+buckles, while a snowy white apron and faultlessly frilled shirt completed
+a modish and impressive costume. No hat or cap adorned his head, the hair
+of which was close cropped and powdered.
+
+Peter Stokes was sometimes known to have disposed of fifty rounds of
+pudding _per diem_. His customers have often included aldermen, ladies of
+quality, and blue blood bucks, but they received no more attention than
+did rougher and humbler patrons. The "Flying Pieman" was attentive to
+everybody, but he never turned back for anybody. Making his way deftly
+through crowds of pedestrians, hackney coaches or waggons, the "Flying
+Pieman" went straight on, calling out "Buy," and only stopped for the
+proffered penny; but his real history was indeed a curious one.
+Contemporary with him was a portrait painter in Rathbone Place. The artist
+painted with great assiduity in the morning, and his evening parties
+though homely, were pleasant and refined. A devoted wife and affectionate
+children cheered the life of the amiable and industrious artist. He was a
+genial-faced man, with dark brown hair. This artist and Peter Stokes were
+identical. When young, Stokes made a love-match, married upon next to
+nothing, and in a few years found himself the father of several children.
+A modest, industrious, painstaking artist, he found but few to sit to him
+for a portrait. Things grew exceedingly bad with him.
+
+One day he heard one of his boys crying for something to eat, and the
+artist found that his wife had no bread to give the hungry child. Peter
+Stokes hurried from his home with an almost wet picture, which he
+deposited at a neighbouring pawnbroker's. Returning, the needy artist saw
+at a street-corner a boy selling baked potatoes, and moreover the artist
+observed that the boy was doing a busy trade. Crushing pride, and taking
+his faithful and devoted wife into close confidence, Peter unfolded a plan
+by which he too might sell something profitable in the street. Mrs. Stokes
+seconded the suggestion, and Peter soon commenced his career as a vendor
+of baked plum pudding. He threw a desperate card, but it turned up trumps.
+Stokes's portraits have gone to the limbo of oblivion, but the peculiar
+method by which he impressed the crowd with his tray of baked plum pudding
+shows at any rate that its vendor had a good eye for artistic effect.
+
+If it were, as some will doubtless say, "a sin and shame" that an artist
+of Peter Stokes's ability should have to turn itinerant vendor of
+pennyworths of pudding, the old adage "Be sure your sin will find you out"
+was at fault for once; but to make up for the omission in his case, how
+wonderfully true was the proverb in the romantic history of Lord Chief
+Justice Holt, whose impecuniosity caused him to commit an act that
+resulted in a truly tragic _finale_.
+
+Sir John Holt, famous for his integrity, firmness, and great legal
+knowledge, who filled the office of Recorder of London for a year and a
+half, losing it in consequence of his uncompromising opposition to the
+abolition of the "Test" Act, and whose upright discharge of the important
+duties of Lord Chief Justice gained him the highest honour and esteem,
+was as a youth wilful and dissipated. In some respects his deeds at that
+period bore likeness to those of the madcap Prince Hal, when that
+personage was the associate of Falstaff. He was a roysterer, gambler and,
+according to some, highwayman. To use Lord Campbell's words, "They even
+relate, many years after that, when he was going the circuit as Chief
+Justice, he recognised a man convicted capitally before him as one of his
+own accomplices in a robbery, and that having visited him in gaol, and
+inquired after the rest of the gang, he received this answer: 'Ah! my
+lord, they are all hanged but myself and your lordship.'"
+
+On one occasion, Holt, with a band of dissolute and reckless companions,
+found himself participator in the perplexing results of a common
+bankruptcy. They were without the prospect of obtaining a supper. It was
+then agreed that they should make their way singly, each individual to do
+the best he could for himself. The band of roysterers separated, Holt
+finding himself on a lonely and cheerless road. He was intrepid, nimble
+witted, and full of self-possession. Spurring his horse, he set off at a
+gallop. Arriving in front of a little hostelry, he alighted from his
+steed, handed it over to the care of an ostler, and without more ado went
+into the house and ordered the best entertainment that it could afford.
+
+Whatever hardships he had undergone, Holt had now the pleasing expectation
+of a savoury supper and comfortable lodgment. Waiting for a smoking dish,
+the odour from which pleasantly saluted his nostrils, he carelessly
+strolled from the chamber where he had been sitting into the kitchen.
+There the hostess was busy in her culinary labours, while near the blazing
+fire sat a girl about thirteen years old, pale, haggard, and shivering in
+an ague fit. John Holt, though a "ne'er do weel," and a wild impetuous
+fellow was not without the instinct of a compassionate heart. He asked
+many questions concerning the malady of the young girl as she moaned and
+rocked herself in the warmth of the ruddy embers. The mother replied that
+for a year her daughter had been stricken by the ague, that the labour of
+the doctors trying to cure her had been in vain, and that their charges
+had nearly brought the fortunes of the house to ruin.
+
+The young student having listened to the story of the mother's misfortune,
+then spoke in contemptuous terms of doctors all round, bade her take
+courage and be of good cheer, for he was acquainted with a specific that
+would speedily take away her daughter's ague. "Indeed," said Holt, "you
+need be under no further concern, for you may assure yourself the girl
+shall never have another fit." Taking a piece of parchment from his breast
+pocket, he with much gravity and deliberation proceeded to inscribe some
+Greek characters on the scrap, and having concluded his work, charged the
+mother to bind the parchment upon her daughter's wrist, allowing it to
+remain there until the ague departed. By some strange coincidence, or by
+the effects wrought upon the sympathies of the girl at the appearance and
+touch of the supposed charm, her ague did depart, and returned no more, at
+least not during the week John Holt remained the guest of mine hostess.
+
+When he deemed it prudent or convenient to depart, he asked for his bill
+with that confidence so often masking the demeanour of the bold adventurer
+reduced to impecuniosity. But the hostess, smiling and embarrassed, said
+she could make no demand for payment, and further added that she rather
+felt in the position of one owing something, than as one having something
+to receive. Indeed, she expressed sorrowfully that she could in no way
+compensate her guest for the miraculous cure which he had wrought, and
+that had she but known him sooner the expense of forty pounds would not
+have been swallowed up by the _posse_ of useless doctors. Overcome by the
+profuse thanks and grateful acknowledgments of his hostess John Holt
+condescended to waive paying his week's bill, and departed with much
+hilarity on his journey.
+
+As months and years rolled away, the incidents of a busy life and the
+assiduous practice of his profession crowded out of John Holt's memory the
+recollection of his strange and facetious adventure at the hostelry on the
+Oxford road. Holt's habits changed. He became the wise and impartial
+judge, so admirable and so competent, that even his stern Tory father
+(spite of the son's Liberal politics) grew proud of the man who in his
+youthful career at Oxford had been the wildest of the wild, and the most
+erring of the erring. The years have gone on, and when we turn again to
+John Holt, he is approaching his sixtieth year. The scene is still in the
+county of Oxford, but this time in one of the principal towns. The Summer
+Assizes are being held, and the judges are sitting in all wonted
+solemnity and state. In the Criminal Court a cause of unusual interest is
+being heard.
+
+At the bar there stands a poor, miserable and decrepit old woman. As she
+looks at the grave and dignified judge she shakes with terror. The causes
+of her fear are solemn and significant, for she is about to be tried for
+her life, on the charge of being a witch. In those days of which I am
+writing, there existed a terrible superstition in the popular mind
+concerning witchcraft, believed as it was to be the crime of all others
+the most destructive to man and the most impious in the sight of God. The
+comely, dignified and shrewd-eyed judge excites the keenest interest in
+the crowded court, for he is one of the "men of mark" of his age, the
+profound lawyer, the incorruptible dispenser of justice, and the champion
+of truth and freedom.
+
+Witnesses are called. They give their evidence in a plain unpretentious
+manner, and it is certain that they possess a firm faith in what they
+allege against the miserable prisoner. The principal accusation against
+her is that she holds in her possession a potent and mysterious charm. It
+enables her to spread disease, or to cure it, and it is further stated
+that she has lately been detected using it. "Has anybody seen it?"
+inquires the judge. "Yes, please you, my lord, and it is now here ready to
+be produced." His lordship directs that it shall be handed to him, and his
+order is obeyed. Behold! nothing but a dirty ball wrapped round with rag
+and pack-thread. Removing these, he discovers a scrap of stained and
+time-worn parchment inscribed with characters in his own handwriting.
+Chief Justice Holt, after the lapse of forty years, recognises the Greek
+letters which he had scrawled in the inn kitchen situate on the Oxford
+road.
+
+Deep silence reigns in the crowded court-house, and every eye is turned on
+the judge. Lifting his head from his hands, in which it had been buried
+for a few moments, he says to the jury,--
+
+"Gentlemen, I must now relate an incident of my life which ill-suits my
+position. To conceal that incident would be to increase the awful folly
+which I must atone. Did I conceal that folly of which I was guilty, I
+should endanger innocence and countenance superstition. This so-called
+charm which these poor ignorant people suppose to have the power of life
+and death is a senseless piece of parchment, on which with my own hand I
+wrote and gave the poor woman. This poor woman for no other reason stands
+before me accused of witchcraft." Chief Justice Holt then narrated the
+whole story of his adventure in his early years at the woman's hostelry on
+the Oxford road, and the recital produced such an effect upon the minds of
+the jury that his old hostess was not only acquitted, but was one of the
+last persons tried for the crime of witchcraft in this country.
+
+I turn to another country and to incidents enveloped in a brighter and
+pleasanter atmosphere. Readers of the older French literature are familiar
+with the notes, verses, and dramas of Alexis Piron. The Burgundian
+_bon-vivant_ knew many adventures and much impecuniosity; but
+notwithstanding Fortune's buffets he retained "a revenue of good spirits,"
+and when turned fifty years of age he participated in a bit of romance.
+
+One evening after supper he went to the shop of a grocer, Gallet, a
+song-writer and boon companion. A female entered the shop and asked for
+some coffee and matches. Gallet was away, so the poet undertook to serve
+the lady, saying to her, "Is that all you want?" The grocer entering
+added, "Mademoiselle ought to have a husband in the bargain." "Excellent,"
+said Piron, "if the damsel will take up with any kind of wood for her
+arrow." A blush suffused the lady's cheeks, and she departed without
+making rejoinder.
+
+Next morning she visited the poet. "Monsieur," said she with trepidation,
+"we are two children of Burgundy. I have long wanted to see a man of so
+much wit, and having learned yesterday that it was you with whom I had to
+do in M. Gallet's shop, I have come to-day without ceremony to pay you a
+visit. How weary you must grow here! I was very much afraid of finding
+some handsome lady from the theatre, but, heaven be praised!"--with a
+glance at the extreme poverty of his surroundings--"you live like a
+Trappist. Have you never thought of making an end of this?" Said Piron: "I
+leave the care of that to la Camarde; but if you please, what do you
+mean?" "I wish to say, have you ever thought of marriage?" "Not much.
+Mademoiselle, pray sit down while I light the fire." "You don't know,
+Monsieur Piron! it will make you laugh." "So much the worse." "I shall
+speak plainly. If your heart, has the same sentiment as mine"--the poet
+was wonder-stricken, and looked at the lady in silence--"in a word,
+Monsieur Piron, I come to offer you my hand and heart, not forgetting my
+life-annuity of two thousand livres."
+
+The poet controlled his merry temper, and was touched when he thought what
+a compassionate friend had been vouchsafed to him. He saw the woman's eyes
+moist with tears, and he embraced her. "I leave to you," said he, "all the
+preparations for the wedding. Gallet will write the epithalamium." "You
+will make me, Monsieur Piron, the happiest person in the world I did not
+hope for so happy a conclusion, for--I do not wish to conceal anything
+from you--I am _fifty-five_!" "Well," said Piron, with a slight shrug, "we
+have over a hundred years between us. We would have done well to have met
+sooner."
+
+This marriage took place amid festivity. The old maid had a good heart and
+an amiable temper. She proved a faithful sister, friend, and servant to
+Piron. He had aromatic coffee in the morning, the beverage being all the
+more palatable, as it was accompanied by the maker's cheerful gossip in
+the chimney-corner. Madame Piron expressed herself enthusiastically about
+her husband's writings, and Piron felt no longer alone, was able to refuse
+going out to dinner in bad weather, and had a crown in his pocket when he
+sauntered in the sunshine. He was well off enough to occasionally give
+alms, and at last he could receive friends at his hearth. This episode in
+the life of Piron is one of the brightest romances of impecuniosity.
+
+Scarcely less happy is an anecdote of Quin the actor, who, if he said many
+spiteful things, was not incapable of a generous action. James Thomson,
+another of the brotherhood of genius, found himself immured in a
+sponging-house. In his dolorous and solitary condition he was one evening
+surprised by a visit from Quin. They cracked a bottle, and as the night
+wore away a choice supper was served by one of the attendants of the
+prison. Thomson, a sensitive nervous man, partook of the dishes with
+indifferent appetite, for his thoughts wandered to the payment of the
+bill. Another bottle of claret was drunk, and the visitor rose to depart.
+"Mr. Thomson," said Quin, "before I go, let me say that there is an
+account between us." Thomson was alarmed, and stammered out that he was
+unaware of any obligations. "They are mine," replied Quin. "I have
+received so much delight from the writings of James Thomson, that I
+consider myself his debtor at least for a hundred pounds." Saying this,
+he placed a note for that amount on the table, shook the astonished poet
+by the hand, and bowed himself out.
+
+I will conclude the selections of romantic impecuniosity with the case of
+Thomas De Quincey, who, according to some authorities, being afraid of an
+oral examination at Oxford College, left the university by stealth and
+wandered away, his stock of money being scant and his whereabouts quite
+unknown to his friends. He wandered about Denbighshire, Merionethshire,
+and Carnarvonshire. Lodging at some place, De Quincey took affront at
+something said by a landlady, and abruptly left his quarters. In his
+"Confessions of an Opium Eater" he says,--
+
+    "This leaving the lodgings turned out a very unfortunate occurrence
+    for me, because living henceforward at inns, I was drained of my money
+    very rapidly. In a fortnight I was reduced to short allowance, that is
+    I could allow myself only one meal a day. From the keen appetite
+    produced by constant exercise and mountain air acting on a youthful
+    stomach I soon began to suffer greatly on this slender regimen, for
+    the single meal which I could venture to order was coffee or tea.
+    This, however, was at length withdrawn, and afterwards so long as I
+    remained in Wales I subsisted either on blackberries, hips, haws,
+    etc., or on the usual hospitalities which I now and then received for
+    such little services as I had an opportunity of rendering. Sometimes I
+    wrote letters of business for cottagers who happened to have relations
+    in Liverpool or London. More often I wrote love-letters to their
+    sweethearts for young women who had lived as servants in Shrewsbury or
+    any other towns on the English border. On all such occasions I gave
+    great satisfaction to my humble friends, and was generally treated
+    with hospitality; and once in particular near the village of
+    Llan-y-styndw (or some such name), in a sequestered part of
+    Merionethshire, I was entertained for upwards of three days by a
+    family of young people with an affectionate and fraternal kindness
+    that left an impression upon my heart not yet impaired. The family
+    consisted at that time of four sisters and three brothers, all grown
+    up, and all remarkable for elegance and delicacy of manners. So much
+    beauty and so much native good breeding and refinement I do not
+    remember to have seen before or since, in any cottage, except once or
+    twice in Westmoreland and Devonshire. They spoke English, an
+    accomplishment not often met with in so many members of one family,
+    especially in villages remote from the high road. There I wrote, in my
+    first introduction, a letter about prize-money for one of the
+    brothers, who had served on board an English man-of-war, and more
+    privately, two love-letters for two of the sisters. They were both
+    interesting-looking girls, and one of uncommon loveliness. In the
+    midst of their confusion and blushes whilst dictating, or rather
+    giving me general instructions, it did not require any great
+    penetration to discover that what they wished was "that their letters
+    should be as kind as was consistent with proper maidenly pride." I
+    continued so to temper my expressions as to reconcile the
+    gratification of both feelings, and they were as much pleased with the
+    way in which I expressed their thoughts as, in their simplicity, they
+    were astonished at my having so readily discovered them. The reception
+    one meets with from the women of a family generally determines the
+    tenor of one's whole entertainment. In this case I had discharged my
+    confidential duties as secretary so much to the general satisfaction,
+    perhaps also amusing them with my conversation, that I was pressed to
+    stay with a cordiality which I had little inclination to resist. I
+    slept with the brothers, the only unoccupied bed standing in the
+    apartment of the young women; but in all other points they treated me
+    with a respect not usually paid to purses as light as mine, as if my
+    scholarship were sufficient evidence that I was of gentle blood."
+
+Farther on he says,--
+
+    "The only friend I had in this strange poverty of mine on first coming
+    to London was a young woman. She was one of that unhappy class who
+    belong to the outcasts and pariahs of our female population. For many
+    weeks I had walked at night with this poor friendless girl up and down
+    Oxford Street, or had rested with her on steps, or under the shelter
+    of porticoes. One night when we were pacing slowly along Oxford
+    Street, and after a day when I had felt unusually ill and faint, I
+    requested her to turn off with me into Soho Square. Thither we went,
+    and we sat down on the steps of a house which to this hour I never
+    pass without a pang of grief and an inner act of homage to the spirit
+    of the unhappy girl in memory of the noble act she performed. Suddenly
+    as we sat I grew much worse: I had been leaning my head against her
+    bosom. I sank from her arms and fell backwards on the steps. Uttering
+    a cry of terror, but without a moment's delay, she ran off into Oxford
+    Street, and in less time than could be imagined returned to me with a
+    glass of port wine and spices that acted upon my empty stomach, which
+    at that time would have rejected all solid food, with an instantaneous
+    power of restoration, and for this glass the generous girl without a
+    murmur paid out of her own humble purse, at a time, be it remembered,
+    when she had scarcely wherewithal to purchase the bare necessaries of
+    life, and when she could have no reason to expect that I should ever
+    be able to reimburse her."
+
+I will conclude this chapter with two most truly remarkable stories. The
+first is one which Sir Walter Scott used to relate with his own inimitable
+powers of story-telling, and which, as the victim was his own cousin, the
+narrative on the lips of the novelist ever excited profound interest in
+the minds of listeners. It would seem that as a midshipman his cousin
+Watty was extremely popular on ship-board and on shore. He was a bit of a
+rip, but generous to a fault, handsome, merry and reckless. After one
+memorable long voyage he put in with others at Portsmouth, and enjoyed
+those roysterings, love passages, tavern pleasures, and adventures so
+dear to the heart of "Jack ashore." With a couple of companions Watty
+Scott was in the unenviable position of being left high and dry on the
+strand of impecuniosity. Moreover the three jolly sailors had run up an
+immense bill at a tavern on the Point, the settlement of which haunted
+them by day and by night. In their recklessness, almost amounting to
+despair, they still went on living high, and steeping recollection of
+their liabilities in the fumes of baccy and the odours of the flowing
+bowl.
+
+At last came the fatal and imperative orders from official quarters that
+they must "ship off." Summoning up their best graces and most insinuating
+powers of expression in the way of eloquence, they sought an interview
+with their hostess, and acquainted her with their foolish but unfortunate
+position; to which account she listened with attention and deep interest.
+She was informed not only of their perfect inability to meet the bill, but
+that in a short period they were bound to be on board ship. Their caterer
+turned a deaf ear to the revelation of their poverty, and in the most
+virago-like manner fiercely informed them "that they could not budge an
+inch." The sailors pleaded in earnest tones for her mercy, but in the
+course of an hour they found themselves guarded by bailiffs, and in one of
+the parlours of the hostelry the three youths, for they were nothing more,
+sat in moody contemplation of their impending disgrace.
+
+Towards evening their creditor sought them with a less fierce aspect and
+uttered words less bitter and explosive than those of which she had
+delivered herself in the morning. She told her debtors she would give them
+a chance, and proposed a plan by which her claim could be cancelled. The
+sailors were told by her that she was a lone woman and had long wanted a
+marriage certificate "to give her a respectable position in her calling,"
+that one of them must marry her--which one she didn't care a curse--but by
+all that was holy if she didn't marry one of them, all three should be
+packed off to gaol, and the ship must go without them. Remonstrance,
+promises to pay in a few months, the unreasonableness of the request, in
+fact everything said by the discomfited sailors was in vain. It was
+impossible to pacify her, and the victims of impecuniosity saw that the
+woman's proposal was the only means of escaping from disgrace and
+humiliation. After taking counsel among themselves, the three sailors drew
+lots for the hymeneal martyrdom, and the ill-luck fell on Watty Scott.
+Next morning the midshipman and the landlady were spliced, and returned to
+the tavern, where a rich and liberal dinner awaited the newly married
+couple and the two fortunate companions of the bridegroom; and in the
+afternoon the three sailors were tumbled into a wherry, and were soon
+aboard ship. The marriage was kept a secret, and the first to reveal it
+was Watty Scott, who one day at a town in Jamaica, reading a newspaper,
+saw an account of a trial for murder and robbery in connection with a
+Portsmouth tavern, and having read all particulars, exclaimed, "Thank God,
+my wife's hanged!"
+
+The other anecdote is more appalling in detail than anything I can
+remember, and is recorded of a German nobleman who was a contemporary of
+the first Napoleon.
+
+The story opens in the solitary chamber of a dilapidated château situated
+on the skirts of the Black Forest in Germany. In a corner of the chamber
+sits a young man of aristocratic mien and military garb, his face buried
+in his hands, and his whole demeanour indicating the most intense
+hopelessness and sorrow. The courtyard and gardens of the château, as they
+may be seen from the windows of the room in which the young man has sunk
+upon a seat, are everywhere pervaded by an air of desolation. Tokens of
+past opulence and taste may be observed in dismantled and untended
+flower-beds, fallen vases and statues, and in the unhinged and rusting
+iron gates. Forlorn as is the appearance of the interior and exterior of
+the once beautiful château, it is not more forlorn and desolate than the
+heart of the young soldier, sole tenant of the silent and deserted
+chamber. The young man's history had been most melancholy. His mother,
+harshly used by the man who at the altar had sworn to love and cherish
+her, had died when he was only nineteen years of age. Her death was caused
+by a broken heart, and the son, finding that he held no place in the
+esteem or affections of the surviving parent, gladly accepted the offer of
+a commission in an Austrian company of hussars.
+
+After five years of hard and active service, respite and tranquil leisure
+fell to the lot of the young soldier, and with the instincts of a loyal
+and affectionate heart, he set out in the direction of his father's
+residence on horseback, attended by his ordinary military servant.
+
+On the second day's journey while going in the direction of the parental
+home he found himself benighted in the midst of the Black Forest. It was a
+perilous and wearisome journey, which, however, found relief by the
+appearance of lights in what seemed to be some kind of human habitation.
+
+It proved to be a rough and isolated inn, where the officer and his
+orderly were soon housed, after accommodation had been found for their
+horses. Everything about the cabaret was rough, uncomfortable, and
+unprepossessing. The only man in attendance was of ruffianly and sinister
+aspect. The orderly after supper was requested by his master to sleep
+(ready for call) near the horses under the manger in the stable, and
+afterwards the officer (carefully concealing a pair of pistols under his
+cloak) requested to be shown to his sleeping apartment, which proved to be
+little better than a loft. He placed the oil lamp on a chair, laid his
+sword by it, and threw himself down on the rude pallet-bed without taking
+off his clothes. Not feeling sleepy he turned his pillow, and found that
+it was stained with blood recently shed, and which strengthening the
+apprehensions formed on his entrance into the house, at once impelled him
+to cock his pistols and draw his sword.
+
+For an hour or two the house seemed to be wrapped in profound silence, and
+just as the wearied guest found that drowsiness was stealing over him he
+cast his eyes across the room and noticed that a portion of the flooring
+heaved and rose. The officer crept from the bed and stood sword in hand
+watching a trap-door which had been quietly raised by a hand. With all the
+strength he could command and with all the quickness he could exercise he
+smote the hand, when the trap closed, and beneath it he heard a smothered
+cry. Hurrying down stairs, he reached the front door, unbarred it, made
+his way to the stable, and roused the servant. In a short time master and
+man were galloping away on the road, and the rest of their journey was
+secure and without adventure. On the third day he reached the château of
+his father. It was the soldier's birthplace, and his heart filled with
+grief when he saw that his once-loved home was deserted and seemingly
+tenantless. Decay seemed to have invaded everything. No summons awaited
+their thundering knocks at the hall-door, but at one of the windows could
+be seen the pallid, ghastly visage of a man watching. Master and man made
+a forcible entry into the house, and sought the room at the window of
+which had peered the strange and repulsive face. On entering the room the
+young soldier recognised his father, haggard and scowling, who when he saw
+his son's extended hand held up a mutilated stump and said, "That's your
+answer." The father, ruined by reckless living, had, owing to his
+impecuniosity, joined a lawless gang frequenting the cabaret, and had
+sought to rob and murder his own son.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+  LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
+  STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Curiosities of Impecuniosity, by H. G. Somerville
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+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
+    <title>
+      Curiosities of Impecuniosity, by H. G. Somerville&mdash;A Project Gutenberg eBook
+    </title>
+
+    <style type="text/css">
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+    body {margin-left: 12%; margin-right: 12%;}
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+    .pagenum {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: smaller; text-align: right; font-style: normal;}
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+<pre>
+
+Project Gutenberg's Curiosities of Impecuniosity, by H. G. Somerville
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Curiosities of Impecuniosity
+
+Author: H. G. Somerville
+
+Release Date: December 30, 2011 [EBook #38439]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CURIOSITIES OF IMPECUNIOSITY ***
+
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+Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
+generously made available by The Internet Archive.)
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+</pre>
+
+
+
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/cover.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="giant">CURIOSITIES</span><br />
+<small>OF</small><br />
+<span class="giant">IMPECUNIOSITY.</span></p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center"><small>BY</small><br />
+H. G. SOMERVILLE,<br />
+<small>AUTHOR OF<br />
+&#8220;NOT YET,&#8221; &#8220;SELF AND SELF-SACRIFICE,&#8221; ETC.</small></p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/printer.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center">LONDON:<br />
+RICHARD BENTLEY &amp; SON, NEW BURLINGTON STREET, W.<br />
+Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen.<br />
+1896.</p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center">LONDON:<br />
+PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,<br />
+STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.</p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<h2>PREFACE.</h2>
+
+<div class="note">
+<p>It is customary for the proprietor when starting a newspaper or periodical
+to issue a notice to the public explaining&mdash;or purporting to explain&mdash;the
+<i>raison d&#8217;&ecirc;tre</i> of the new venture, which notices, with very trifling
+exceptions, are to the effect that the projected journal &#8220;will supply a
+want long felt.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I might, in sending forth the following pages, state something similar
+with perfect truth, since if the little work be as successful as (I say it
+with all modesty) it ought to be, it will unquestionably <i>supply</i> a want
+long felt&mdash;by the author.</p>
+
+<p>It is frequently averred nowadays that much that is written bears evidence
+of being of a non-practical character, and under these circumstances, I
+felt I should take a pardonable pride in being able to point to one volume
+in the English language to which this stigma could not be applied; for I
+flatter myself the subject of Impecuniosity is one with which I have
+long&mdash;too long&mdash;been practically familiar.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">H. G. Somerville.</span></p></div>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<h2>CONTENTS.</h2>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="table">
+<tr><td><small>CHAP.</small></td><td>&nbsp;</td><td align="right"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">I.</a></td>
+    <td><span class="smcap">The Moral and Immoral Effects of Impecuniosity</span></td>
+    <td align="right"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">II.</a></td>
+    <td><span class="smcap">Impecuniosity of the Great</span></td>
+    <td align="right"><a href="#Page_13">13</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">III.</a></td>
+    <td><span class="smcap">The Shifts of Impecuniosity</span></td>
+    <td align="right"><a href="#Page_25">25</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">IV.</a></td>
+    <td><span class="smcap">The Luck and Ill Luck of Impecuniosity</span></td>
+    <td align="right"><a href="#Page_48">48</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">V.</a></td>
+    <td><span class="smcap">The Ingenuity of Impecuniosity</span></td>
+    <td align="right"><a href="#Page_73">73</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">VI.</a></td>
+    <td><span class="smcap">The Impecuniosity of Actors</span></td>
+    <td align="right"><a href="#Page_87">87</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">VII.</a></td>
+    <td><span class="smcap">Impecuniosity of Artists</span></td>
+    <td align="right"><a href="#Page_132">132</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">VIII.</a></td>
+    <td><span class="smcap">Impecuniosity of Authors</span></td>
+    <td align="right"><a href="#Page_158">158</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">IX.</a></td>
+    <td><span class="smcap">The Romance of Impecuniosity</span></td>
+    <td align="right"><a href="#Page_196">196</a></td></tr></table>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+<p class="title">CURIOSITIES OF IMPECUNIOSITY.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2>
+<p class="title">THE MORAL AND IMMORAL EFFECTS OF IMPECUNIOSITY.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I wish the good old times would come again, when we were not quite so
+rich,&#8221; says Bridget Elia. &#8220;I am sure we were a great deal happier. A
+purchase is but a purchase now that you have money enough. Formerly it
+used to be a triumph. When we coveted a cheap luxury, we were used to have
+a debate two or three days before, and to weigh the for and against, and
+think what we might spare it out of, and what savings we could hit upon
+that would be an equivalent. A thing was worth buying then, when we felt
+the money we paid for it. Do you remember the brown suit which you made to
+hang upon you, it grew so threadbare, and all because of that folio
+Beaumont and Fletcher which you dragged home late at night from Barker&#8217;s
+in Covent Garden? Do you remember how we eyed it for weeks before we could
+make up our minds to the purchase, and had not come to a determination
+till it was near ten o&#8217;clock on the Saturday night, when you set off from
+Islington, fearing you should be too late; and when the old bookseller
+with some grumbling opened his shop, and by the twinkling taper lighted
+out the relic from his dusty treasure-house, and when you lugged it home
+wishing it were twice as cumbersome, and when you presented it to me, and
+when we were exploring the perfection of it, and while I was repairing
+some of the loose leaves with paste, which your impatience would not
+suffer to be left till daybreak, was there no pleasure in being a poor
+man? Do you remember our pleasant walks to Enfield, and Potter&#8217;s Bar, and
+Waltham, when we had a holiday? Holidays and all other fun are gone now we
+are rich,&mdash;and the little hand-basket in which I used to deposit our day&#8217;s
+fare of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> savoury cold lamb, and how you would pry about at noontide for
+some decent house where we might go in and produce our store, only paying
+for the ale that you must call for, and speculate upon the looks of the
+landlady. We had cheerful looks for one another, and would eat our plain
+food savourily. You are too proud to see a play anywhere now but in the
+pit. Do you remember where it was we sat when we saw the &#8216;Battle of
+Hexham,&#8217; and &#8216;The Surrender of Calais,&#8217; and Bannister and Mrs. Bland in
+&#8216;The Children of the Wood,&#8217; when we squeezed out our shillings apiece to
+sit three or four times in a season in the one shilling gallery? You used
+to say that the gallery was the best place for seeing, and was the best
+place of all for enjoying a play socially, that the company we met there,
+not being in general readers of plays, were obliged to attend the more. I
+appeal to you whether, as a woman, I met generally with less attention and
+accommodation than I have since in more expensive situations in the house.
+You cannot see, you say, in the gallery now. I am sure we saw&mdash;and heard
+too&mdash;well enough then; but sight and all, I think, is gone with our
+poverty.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>But this is not the experience of every one. &#8220;Moralists,&#8221; Sydney Smith
+remarks, &#8220;tell you of the evils of wealth and station, and the happiness
+of poverty. I have been very poor the greater part of my life and have
+borne it, I believe, as well as most people; but I can safely say I have
+been happier for every guinea I have earned.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Doctor Johnson, in addition to alleging that &#8220;Poverty is a great enemy to
+human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues
+impracticable and others extremely difficult,&#8221; maintains that &#8220;poverty
+takes away so many means of doing good, and produces so much inability to
+resist evil, both natural and moral, that it is by all virtuous means to
+be avoided.&#8221; Burns is stronger still in his denunciation, exclaiming,
+&#8220;Poverty, thou half-sister of death, thou cousin-german of hell, where
+shall I find force of execration equal to the amplitude of thy demerits?&#8221;
+But in striking contrast to these, is that remarkable passage in George
+Sand&#8217;s &#8216;Consuelo,&#8217; in which every known blessing and virtue is attributed
+to &#8220;the goddess&mdash;the good goddess&mdash;of poverty.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Samuel Smiles is of opinion that &#8220;nothing sharpens a man&#8217;s wits like
+poverty. Hence many of the greatest men have originally been poor men.
+Poverty often purifies and braces a man&#8217;s morals. To spirited people
+difficult tasks are usually the most delightful ones. If we may rely upon
+the testimony of history, men are brave,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> truthful, and magnanimous, not
+in proportion to their wealth, but in proportion to the smallness of their
+means.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>With this I agree to a certain extent; but I claim for impecuniosity
+certain charms and characteristics not associated with poverty. To me the
+former conveys the idea of a temporary shortness of funds; the latter of a
+chronic state of want.</p>
+
+<p>I should also have preferred to say, &#8220;Nothing sharpens a man&#8217;s wits like
+impecuniosity,&#8221; for to many minds poverty, <i>pur et simple</i>, has been
+simply crushing.</p>
+
+<p>A volume might be filled with the different opinions that have been
+expressed on this subject, and as there is abundant proof that many who
+have become great in science, literature, and art, have found insufficient
+means a stimulus to exertion, it must be conceded that poverty is a
+splendid thing for those who are equal to fighting against it.</p>
+
+<p>Although impecuniosity has been most extensively experienced by actors,
+authors, and artists, many of the mighty in law, medicine, and the army
+and navy, have furnished instances of its universality, but comparatively
+few cases are to be found connected with commerce. Of course it may be
+urged that the struggles of business men are, with few exceptions,
+unrecorded; but still I think their experience on this subject is rather
+of &#8220;the trials of poverty.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The history of George Moore furnishes an interesting instance of the early
+struggles of a literally &#8220;commercial&#8221; man. When he came to London in 1825,
+he was possessed of a most modest amount of money; and on the day
+following his arrival in London he made application after application for
+employment without success, being sometimes received with laughter on
+account of his country-cut clothes and Cumberland dialect. At the
+establishment of Messrs. Meeking in Holborn, he was asked if he wanted a
+porter&#8217;s situation. So broken-hearted was he at his many rebuffs, that he
+could not send a letter home, it was so blotted with tears.</p>
+
+<p>At last he was engaged by Mr. Ray, of Soho Square, at a salary of &pound;30 a
+year, and bargained with a man driving a pony-cart to convey the box
+containing all his personal effects. They had not proceeded far when Moore
+missed the man: pony, cart, and trunk had vanished.</p>
+
+<p>The poor fellow sat down on a doorstep almost broken-hearted at his
+misfortune.</p>
+
+<p>After waiting for two hours, not knowing what to do for the best,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> he
+beheld a pony-cart approaching, and his joy may be imagined when he
+recognised the identical man with his identical trunk.</p>
+
+<p>The carrier, who had called somewhere in a bye-street and so missed Moore,
+did not scruple to laugh at him for his &#8220;greenness&#8221; in trusting a
+stranger. In gratitude, young Moore proffered the man his whole capital,
+consisting of nine shillings, which the driver declined, saying &#8220;he had
+agreed for five, and five was all he wanted,&#8221; an instance of honesty which
+Mr. Moore, the merchant, never forgot.</p>
+
+<p>Want of money does not always demoralise. Andrew Marvell, the son of a
+Yorkshire minister and schoolmaster, entered Trinity College, Cambridge,
+at the early age of thirteen. Decoyed from home by the Jesuits, he was
+discovered by his father in a bookseller&#8217;s in London, and induced to
+return to college, where he took his B.A. degree in 1628. He then appears
+to have travelled considerably in France and Italy, while from 1663 to
+1665 he was secretary to the Embassy to Muscovy, Sweden, and Denmark. In
+1660 he was chosen to represent his native town, Kingston-on-Hull, in
+Parliament. Here he made himself so obnoxious to the governing party, that
+his life was threatened, and he was forced to go into hiding. His
+conspicuous ability and marvellous wit were acknowledged by all, and
+appreciated by Charles II., who took pleasure in his company, and on one
+occasion instructed his Lord Treasurer to ferret him out, and ascertain in
+what way he could help him. At this time Marvell was living in a court off
+the Strand, up two pair of stairs, and there Lord Danby, abruptly opening
+the door, discovered him writing. He suggested that the Treasurer had
+mistaken his way; but his lordship replied, &#8220;Not now I have found Mr.
+Marvell;&#8221; adding that &#8220;His Majesty wished to know what he could do to
+serve him.&#8221; Marvell replied that &#8220;it was not in His Majesty&#8217;s power to
+serve him;&#8221; adding that &#8220;he knew full well the nature of Courts, having
+been in many; and that whosoever is distinguished by the favour of the
+prince, is expected to vote in his interest.&#8221; Lord Danby told him that
+&#8220;His Majesty, from the just sense he had of his merit alone, desired to
+know whether there was any place at Court he could be pleased with.&#8221; The
+answer to this was that &#8220;he could not with honour accept the offer, since
+if he did he must either be ungrateful to the king in voting against him,
+or false to his country in giving in to the measures of the Court. The
+only favour therefore which he begged of His Majesty was, that he would
+esteem him as faithful a subject as any he had, and more truly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> in his
+interest by refusing his offers, than he could have been by embracing
+them.&#8221; After this Lord Danby said that &#8220;the king had ordered Mr. Marvell
+&pound;1000, which he hoped he would receive till he could think of something
+farther to ask His Majesty;&#8221; whereupon Marvell called to his
+serving-boy,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Jack, what had I for dinner yesterday?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The little shoulder of mutton.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Right! What shall I have to-day?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The blade bone boiled.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Right! You see, my lord, my dinner is provided, and I do not want the
+piece of paper.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The Lord Treasurer departed, finding his mission vain; and, shortly
+afterwards, Marvell sent his boy out to borrow a guinea from a friend. The
+incorruptible integrity he had displayed was by no means due to affluence.</p>
+
+<p>Another historical case where poverty and patriotism have been blended is
+that of Admiral Rodney. At the general election in 1768 he was returned
+for Northampton, after a violent contest, the expense of which, combined
+with a fatal passion for gaming, compelled him to fly from the
+importunities of his creditors.</p>
+
+<p>While residing in Paris he is said to have been occasionally in want of
+the veriest trifle for necessaries, which fact becoming known, the French
+Government, through the Duc de Biron, offered him high rank in their navy.
+His reply was worthy of a sailor and a gentleman. &#8220;Monsieur le Duc,&#8221; said
+he, &#8220;my distresses have driven me from my country, but no temptation can
+estrange me from her service; had this offer been voluntary on your part,
+I should have considered it an insult; but it proceeds from a source that
+can do no wrong.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The foregoing illustrations of the inability of impecuniosity to drag
+certain characters from off their high pedestal of honour, are
+unfortunately counterbalanced by the considerably too numerous instances
+of those who have not been proof against its degrading effects. The
+characteristics of such as have succumbed are naturally the antitheses of
+those just referred to; instead of strong, healthy, moral minds, their
+natures are found to be more or less weak, selfish, and in every case
+wanting, to some extent, in self-respect. The last-named attribute
+undoubtedly supplying the chief cause of defection.</p>
+
+<p>In this category may be placed Desiderius Erasmus, one of the most
+remarkable scholars of the 15th and 16th centuries, if not, as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> is
+considered by some, one of the most illustrious men that ever lived. The
+benefits that he conferred on the world at large by his profound and
+extensive erudition are so priceless that it seems a shame to pillory one
+so revered; but &#8220;necessity has no law,&#8221; and as he was chronically
+necessitous his weakness on one occasion must be laid bare.</p>
+
+<p>Independently of his failing to rise superior to the want of money, which
+will be referred to directly, it will be seen that his character lacked
+nobility, by his own confession. He was at the time of Luther pre-eminent
+in the world of letters, his fame as a student of the deepest research was
+world-wide, acknowledged not only by the sovereigns and popes of Europe,
+but by our own monarch, Henry VIII., and by all the men of learning of
+that age. Thus his power and influence were immense, and it is deeply to
+be regretted that his cowardice should have prevented him from espousing
+the doctrines of Luther, since there is no doubt he believed in them.</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8220;Many loved truth and lavished life&#8217;s best oil<br />
+Amid the dust of books to find her,<br />
+Content at last for guerdon of their toil<br />
+With the cast mantle she had left behind her.<br />
+Many in sad faith sought for her,<br />
+Many with crossed hands sighed for her,<br />
+But these our brothers fought for her,<br />
+At life&#8217;s dear peril wrought for her,<br />
+So loved her that they died for her.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Erasmus was not one of those who died for the love of truth, but rather
+one who &#8220;with crossed hands, sighed for her,&#8221; since in one of his letters
+he says,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Wherein could I have assisted Luther if I had declared myself for him,
+and shared the danger along with him? Only thus far, that, instead of one
+man, two would have perished. I cannot conceive what he means by writing
+with such a spirit (so fearlessly); one thing I know too well, that he
+hath brought a great odium upon the lovers of literature. It is true that
+he hath given us many wholesome doctrines and many good counsels, and I
+wish he had not defeated the effect of them by his intolerable faults. But
+if he had written everything in the most unexceptionable manner I had no
+inclination to die for the sake of truth. Every man has not the courage
+requisite to make a martyr; and I am afraid, that if I were put to the
+trial, I should imitate St. Peter.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span>Deliciously truthful this, is it not? The practical way in which he
+reveals his creed, &#8220;self-preservation is the first law of nature,&#8221; is
+particularly interesting, more especially as it is so thoroughly in
+keeping with the sentiments displayed on the occasion when from want of
+money he penned the following letter to his friend James Battus,
+beseeching him to dun the Marchioness of Vere, in the following terms:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You must go to her and excuse my shyness on the ground that I cannot
+tolerate explaining my difficulties in person. Tell her the need I am in.
+That Italy is the place to get a degree; explain to her how much more
+honour I am likely to do her than those theologians she keeps about her.
+They give forth mere commonplaces. I write what will last for ever. Tell
+her that fellows like them are to be met with everywhere&mdash;the like of me
+only appears in the course of many ages&mdash;<i>i.e.</i> if you don&#8217;t mind drawing
+the long-bow in the cause of friendship. What a discredit it would be to
+her should St. Jerome&#8221;&mdash;whose works he was preparing&mdash;&#8220;appear with
+discredit for the want of a few gold pieces.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>That the opinions expressed were perfectly truthful there is no
+gainsaying; but the taste, or rather, want of it, that dictated such an
+epistle is pitiable, and materially mars the character of one who as far
+as learning is concerned was indisputably great.</p>
+
+<p>If culture could avail against the deteriorating effects of impecuniosity
+the career of Orator Henley would have been a different one. The son of a
+Leicestershire vicar, and educated at St. John&#8217;s, Cambridge, he attained
+considerable eminence as a linguist, and while keeping a school in his
+native place compiled his &#8216;Universal Grammar,&#8217; which was written in ten
+languages. He afterwards came to be regarded as a sort of ecclesiastical
+outlaw, having a room in Newport Market, Leicester Square, where he
+started as a quack divine and public lecturer, Sundays being devoted to
+divinity, Wednesdays and Thursdays to secular orations, the charge for
+admission one shilling. He afterwards migrated to Clare Market, and became
+a favourite among the butchers; but though gifted with much oratorical
+power, he obtained but a precarious subsistence. When at his pecuniary
+worst he seems to have been at his inventive best, and in proportion to
+the lowness of his funds his audacity rose. On one occasion when
+particularly pressed he advertised a meeting for shoemakers to witness a
+new invention for making shoes, undertaking to make a pair in presence of
+the audience in an incredibly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> short space. When the evening arrived, and
+the room was filled with the followers of Crispin, Mr. Henley simply cut
+the tops off a pair of old boots, and thereby illustrating the motto to
+his advertisement, &#8220;Omne majus continent in se minus&#8221; (&#8220;The greater
+includes the less&#8221;).<small><a name="f1.1" id="f1.1" href="#f1">[1]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>Dr. Howard, the Rector of St. George&#8217;s, Southwark, and Chaplain to the
+Dowager Princess of Wales, towards the close of the last century, was
+invariably short of money, a fact pretty well known to his tradesmen. On
+one occasion he ordered a canonical wig from a peruke-maker&#8217;s in Leicester
+Fields, and the porter had instructions not to leave it till the bill was
+paid.</p>
+
+<p>Arrived at the rectory, the man asked for the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve brought your wig home, sir.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, ah,&#8221; replied the doctor; &#8220;quite right&mdash;you can leave it. Just put it
+down there.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No, I can&#8217;t leave it, sir&mdash;that is, without the money.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, very well, then. I&#8217;ll try it on.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The man handed him the wig, and as soon as the doctor put it on, he said
+to the messenger,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;This article has been bought and delivered; if you dare to touch it, I
+will prosecute you for robbery.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Howard once preached from the text, &#8220;Have patience with me, and I will
+pay thee all&#8221;&mdash;a passage gratifying to the feelings of an audience
+including many of his creditors. He dwelt at considerable length on the
+blessings and duty of patience, till it was time to close, and then said,
+&#8220;Now, brethren, I am come to the second part of my discourse, which is,
+&#8216;And I will pay ye all,&#8217; <i>but that I shall defer to a future
+opportunity</i>.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Colton, the author of &#8216;Lacon,&#8217; who became vicar of the poor living of Kew
+and Petersham, must likewise be included in the list<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> of those who have
+succumbed to circumstances. Finding himself unable to pay the price of
+apartments in the neighbourhood of his living, he transported his gun,
+fishing-rod, and few books (one of which was De Foe&#8217;s &#8216;History of the
+Devil&#8217;) to Soho, where he rented a couple of rooms in a small house
+overlooking St. Anne&#8217;s burial-ground. There he wrote his book of
+&#8216;Aphorisms,&#8217; a broken phial placed in a saucer serving him as an inkstand.
+His copy was written on scraps of paper and blank sides of letters, and he
+dined at an eating-house, or cooked a chop for himself. At one time he
+opened a wine-cellar in another person&#8217;s name under a Methodist chapel in
+Dean Street, Soho, a position for a spiritual adviser which would scarcely
+be tolerated even in these days of considerable religious liberty.</p>
+
+<p>Many amusing stories are told of Joe Haines, a comedian of the time of
+Charles II., sometimes called &#8220;Count&#8221; Haines. It is said that he was
+arrested one morning by two bailiffs for a debt of &pound;20, when he saw a
+bishop, to whom he was related, passing along in his coach. With ready
+resource he immediately saw a loophole for escape, and, turning to the men
+he said, &#8220;Let me speak to his lordship, to whom I am well known, and he
+will pay the debt and your charges into the bargain.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The bailiffs thought they might venture this, as they were within two or
+three yards of the coach, and acceded to his request. Joe boldly advanced
+and took his hat off to the bishop. His lordship ordered the coach to
+stop, when Joe whispered to the divine that the two men were suffering
+from such scruples of conscience that he feared they would hang
+themselves, suggesting that his lordship should invite them to his house,
+and promise to satisfy them. The bishop agreed, and calling to the
+bailiffs, he said, &#8220;You two men come to me to-morrow morning, and I will
+satisfy you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The men bowed and went away pleased, and early the next day waited on his
+lordship, who, when they were ushered in, said, &#8220;Well, my men, what are
+these scruples of conscience?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Scruples?&#8221; replied one of them, &#8220;we have no scruples! We are bailiffs, my
+lord, who yesterday arrested your cousin, Joe Haines, for a debt of &pound;20,
+and your lordship kindly promised to satisfy us.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The trick was strange, but the result was stranger, for his lordship,
+either appreciating its cleverness, or considering himself bound by the
+promise he had unintentionally given, there and then settled with the men
+in full.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>John Rich, manager of the Lincoln&#8217;s Inn Fields and Covent Garden Theatres,
+1681-1761, was another dramatic delinquent. It was owing to his marvellous
+ability as harlequin that pantomime achieved its popularity. His
+gesticulation is said to have been so perfectly expressive of his meaning
+that every motion of his hand or head was a kind of dumb eloquence,
+readily understood by the audience. One evening, when returning from the
+theatre in a cab, having ordered the coachman to drive to the &#8220;Sun,&#8221; a
+tavern in Clare Market, he threw himself out of the coach window and
+through the open window of the tavern parlour, just as the driver was
+about to draw up. The man then descended from the box, touched his hat,
+and stood waiting for his passenger to alight. Finding at length there was
+no one visible he besought a few blessings on the scoundrel who had
+imposed upon him, remounted his box, and was about to drive off, when
+Rich, who had been watching, vaulted back into the vehicle, and, putting
+his head out, asked, &#8220;where the devil he was driving to?&#8221; Almost paralyzed
+with fear the driver got down again, but could not be persuaded to take
+his fare, though he was offered a shilling for himself, exclaiming, &#8220;No
+no, that won&#8217;t do. I know you too well for all your shoes; and so Mr.
+Devil, for once you&#8217;re outwitted.&#8221; In addition to his successful
+pantomimes, his production of the &#8216;Beggar&#8217;s Opera&#8217; was a wonderful hit;
+but he seems never to have been well off, and was at one time in such
+difficulties that he hit upon the clever expedient of taking a house
+situated in three different counties in order to free himself from the
+attentions of sheriffs&#8217; officers.</p>
+
+<p>One name must not be omitted from this section of the subject, that of
+Richard Brinsley Sheridan. His adroitness in profiting by his very
+practical jokes commenced soon after his leaving Harrow, when spending a
+few days at Bristol. He wanted a new pair of boots, but, not having money
+to pay for them, ordered a pair from two bootmakers, to be sent home on
+the morning of his departure, payment being promised on delivery. When the
+first tradesman arrived he complained of the fit of one boot, and when the
+second came he objected to his make of the boot for the other foot. Each
+bootmaker took a boot back to be stretched. When the dupes called next
+day, each displaying a boot, they found that Sheridan had departed in the
+fellow pieces of their property.</p>
+
+<p>Later in life his difficulties became chronic, but his ingenuity was
+generally equal to them. Having arranged to give a banquet to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>
+leaders of the Opposition, he found himself on the morning of the event
+without port or sherry, his wine-merchant having positively refused to
+supply any more without payment. In this dilemma he sent for Chalier, and
+told him he wished to settle his account. The wine-merchant, much
+delighted, proposed running home for it, when Sheridan stopped him with
+&#8220;What do you say to dining with me to-day? Lord This, and Sir So-and-so
+That&#8221; (mentioning several celebrities), &#8220;will be here.&#8221; The offer was
+accepted with enthusiasm, the merchant leaving his office early in order
+to dress for the occasion. As soon as he made his appearance Sheridan
+despatched a messenger to the clerk at the office, to the effect that Mr.
+Chalier desired so many dozen of different kinds of wine sent at once,
+which instructions were promptly executed, the Burgundy, hock, &amp;c., &amp;c.
+arriving just in time for the dinner.</p>
+
+<p>One Friday evening at Drury Lane, just after the half-price money had been
+taken, Sheridan was informed by his treasurer that unless a certain amount
+could be raised there was not sufficient to pay the salaries of even the
+subordinates, and the house would have to close the following Monday.
+After making certain suggestions which were voted useless by his
+business-man, Sherry took a look at the meagrely-filled house, and calling
+a servant, said to him, &#8220;You see that stout, goodtempered-looking man in
+such and such a box?&#8221; &#8220;Yes, sir.&#8221; &#8220;Immediately the act-drop is down go to
+him; have a boy who can bow gracefully precede you with a pair of wax
+candles. Open the box-door, and in a voice loud enough to be heard by
+everyone, say, &#8216;Mr. Sheridan requests the pleasure of a private interview
+with you, sir.&#8217; Treat him with the greatest attention, and see that a
+bottle of the best port and a couple of wine-glasses are placed in my
+study.&#8221; These directions were all carried out, and when the manager was
+alone with his visitor, after expressing the great pleasure he always
+experienced in seeing any one from Staffordshire, he said, &#8220;I think you
+told me you came to London twice a year.&#8221; &#8220;Yes,&#8221; was the reply, &#8220;January
+and June, to receive my dividends. I have been to the bank to-day and got
+my &pound;600.&#8221; &#8220;Ah you are in Consols, whilst I, alas, am Reduced and can get
+nothing till April, when you know the interest is paid, and till then I
+shall be in great distress.&#8221; &#8220;Oh,&#8221; said his constituent, &#8220;let not that
+make you uneasy; if you give me the power of attorney to receive the money
+for you, I can let you have &pound;300, which I shall not want till then.&#8221; &#8220;Only
+a real<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> friend,&#8221; said Sheridan, &#8220;could have made such a proposition.&#8221; The
+&pound;300 duly changed hands, and when April came the power of attorney was
+handed to Sheridan to sign, &#8220;I never spoke of Consols in Reduced,&#8221; said
+he, &#8220;I only spoke of my Consols being reduced. Unhappy is the man who
+cannot understand the weight of prepositions.&#8221; The Stafford man went to
+Sheridan in a fearful rage, but the latter was as cool as a cucumber. He
+made a clean breast of it, and told all. &#8220;But,&#8221; he said, &#8220;my dear sir, I
+am now commanded to go to the Prince Regent, to whom I shall narrate your
+noble conduct. My carriage is waiting, and I can take you to Carlton
+House.&#8221; The creditor was delighted. He shook Sherry by the hand,
+exclaiming, &#8220;I forgive you, never mention the debt again,&#8221; to which
+Sheridan readily assented, and we may be sure kept his word for once. The
+carriage came, into which both entered, but when it arrived at Carlton
+House Sheridan alighted, closed the door, and told the coachman to drive
+the gentleman to his hotel. The Stafford man expostulated that he
+understood he was going into Carlton House, when Sheridan calmly told him,
+&#8220;That&#8217;s another mistake of yours,&#8221; and of course, though his statement
+inferred as much, he only said he would take his constituent <i>to</i> Carlton
+House. It goes without saying that at the next election the Staffordshire
+elector voted on the other side.</p>
+
+<p>There is no doubt that at last Sheridan was so desperately involved that
+his life became, &#8220;not to put too fine a point on it,&#8221; that of a schemer.
+He lived in an atmosphere of duns, but such a thorough master was he of
+the subject that it was the tradesmen who eventually were &#8220;done&#8221; by him.
+It was customary for them to assemble early in the morning to catch him
+before he went out, and when informed &#8220;Mr. Sheridan is not down yet, sir,&#8221;
+they were shown into the rooms on each side of the entrance-hall. When he
+had finished his breakfast he would say, &#8220;Are those doors all shut, John?&#8221;
+and on being informed that they were, would deliberately walk out as
+pleased as though he had obtained a great moral victory.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2>
+<p class="title">IMPECUNIOSITY OF THE GREAT.</p>
+
+<p>It must be admitted that impecuniosity is impartial, the peer and the
+peasant being equally open to its visits, and the Sovereign, under certain
+conditions, as liable to its influence as the subject. Edward the Third
+was compelled to pawn his jewels, and his imperial crown three times, once
+abroad, and twice to Sir John Wosenham, his banker, in whose custody the
+crown remained eight years. Henry the Fifth was also under the necessity
+of pawning his crown and the silver table and stools which he had from
+Spain. The Black Prince made the same use of his plate, and Queen
+Elizabeth was obliged to part with some of her jewels.</p>
+
+<p>More than two centuries ago when Clerkenwell was a sort of Court quarter
+of London, and could boast amongst other distinguished residents the Duke
+and Duchess of Newcastle, this couple, both of whom are remembered by
+their literary eccentricities, had more than once to patronise the
+pawnbroker. The duke, who was a devoted Royalist, after his defeat at
+Marston Moor, retired with his wife to the Continent, and with many
+privations owing to pecuniary embarrassments suffered an exile of eighteen
+years, chiefly in Antwerp, in a house which belonged to the widow of
+Rubens.</p>
+
+<p>Many of our most illustrious families have been indebted to the exertions
+or the genius of some humble ancestor. The case of Charles Abbot,
+afterwards Lord Tenterden, is a typical one. He was the son of a
+Canterbury barber, and at the age of seven was admitted on the foundation
+of the King&#8217;s School in that town, where he soon attracted attention by
+his industry and intelligence. At an early age he much wished to become a
+chorister, and was so disappointed when he failed that in after years,
+when visiting the Cathedral with Mr. Justice Richards, who commended the
+voice of a singer in the choir, his lordship exclaimed, &#8220;Ah, that is the
+only man I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> ever envied. When at school in this town, we were candidates
+for a chorister&#8217;s place and he obtained it.&#8221; When seventeen, there was no
+prospect for the clever youth but the drudgery of trade, and on this
+becoming known in the school there was a general wish expressed that his
+perseverance and ability should be rewarded. To private generosity he was
+indebted for his outfit, the trustees conferring a small exhibition upon
+him, and adding a pittance which enabled him to live, with rigid economy,
+until he took his B.A. degree. When asked by Mr. Lamont, the father of the
+lady to whom he was engaged, what means he had to maintain a wife, he
+replied, &#8220;The books in this room and two pupils in the next.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Sir Peter Laurie, when Lord Mayor of London, said at a dinner given to the
+judges: &#8220;What a country is this we live in! In other parts of the world
+there is no chance except for men of high birth and aristocratic
+connections, but here genius and industry are sure to be rewarded. You see
+before you the example of myself, the chief magistrate of the metropolis
+of this great empire, with the Chief Justice of England sitting at my
+right hand, both now in the highest offices of the State, and both sprung
+from the very dregs of the people.&#8221; There are many men who would have been
+anything but pleased at this reference to their humble extraction; but it
+was not distasteful to his lordship.</p>
+
+<p>Macready, in recounting a visit to Canterbury Cathedral, says he was shown
+by the verger the spot where a little shop once stood, and was informed
+that when Lord Tenterden last visited the Cathedral, he said to his son,
+&#8220;Charles, you see this little shop. I have brought you here on purpose to
+show it you. In that shop your grandfather used to shave for a penny. That
+is the proudest reflection of my life. While you live never forget that,
+my dear Charles,&#8221; an injunction which, coming from a Chief Justice of
+England who died worth &pound;120,000, ought to have a salutary effect on
+upstarts.</p>
+
+<p>The equally famous Lord Erskine, though a man of gentle birth, was
+nevertheless indebted, to a certain extent, to impecuniosity for the
+greatness he achieved, since that impelled him to the spirited defence of
+Captain Baillie, which attracted the attention of all England. Called to
+the bar on the 3rd July, 1778, Erskine made his first appearance in public
+on the 24th November. Previous to this time he had been unknown. His first
+brief fell to his lot in this way: A certain Captain Baillie, who, for
+gallant services, had been appointed to a post in Greenwich Hospital,
+discovered the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> gravest abuses there, and brought the state of things to
+the notice of those in power, but being unable to get them remedied,
+determined to publish the facts of the case. His statement implicated Lord
+Sandwich, the First Lord of the Admiralty, who, to serve his political
+purposes, had filled the vacant posts at the Hospital with certain
+landsmen. The Board of Admiralty immediately suspended the captain, and a
+criminal information for libel was lodged against him, the case exciting
+the greatest public interest. During the vacation Erskine had met Captain
+Baillie at the house of a mutual friend, and, utterly unconscious of his
+presence, had, after dinner, so strongly censured the shameful practices
+ascribed to Lord Sandwich that the captain immediately inquired who the
+young fellow was, and on being told that Erskine had formerly been in the
+navy, but had recently been called to the bar, he exclaimed with warmth,
+&#8220;Then that&#8217;s the man I&#8217;ll have for my counsel!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>In due course this now historic trial came on, when the young barrister&#8217;s
+marvellous speech created an impression called by Lord Campbell, &#8220;the most
+wonderful forensic effort of which we have any account in our annals. It
+was the <i>d&eacute;but</i> of a barrister just called, and wholly unpractised in
+public speaking, before a court crowded with men of the greatest
+distinction, belonging to all parties of the State. He came after four
+eminent counsel, who might have been supposed to have exhausted the
+subject. He was called to order by a venerable judge, whose word had been
+law in that hall above a quarter of a century. His exclamation, &#8216;I will
+<i>bring</i> him&#8217; (Lord Sandwich) &#8216;before the Court!&#8217; and the crushing
+denunciation of Lord Sandwich, in which he was enabled to persevere, from
+the sympathy of the bystanders, and even of the judges, who, in
+strictness, ought to have checked his irregularity, are as soul-stirring
+as anything in this species of eloquence presented to us by ancient or
+modern times.&#8221; As Erskine walked along the hall after the rising of the
+judges, attorneys flocked around him with their briefs. When asked how he
+had the courage to stand up so boldly against Lord Mansfield, he replied
+that he fancied he could feel his little children plucking at his robe,
+and that he heard them saying, &#8220;<i>Now, father, is the time to get us
+bread!</i>&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Lord Eldon&#8217;s life furnishes abundant proof that he was perfectly familiar
+with adversity. The son of a &#8220;fitter&#8221; employed in conveying coals in
+barges from the pits to the different ports on the Tyne, John Scott was
+born at Newcastle on the 4th June, 1751, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> after being educated at the
+Grammar School in the town would have been apprenticed to his father&#8217;s
+business but for the remonstrances of his brother William (afterwards Lord
+Stowell), who had obtained an Oxford scholarship, and subsequently a
+fellowship at the University. The success of the one son induced the
+father to send John also to college, where he at first studied for the
+church. While at Oxford he made a runaway match with Miss Bessy Surtees,
+the daughter of a Newcastle banker. The young couple went to the Queen&#8217;s
+Head, at Morpeth, but on the third morning of their married life their
+funds were exhausted, and they had no home to go to. Mrs. Scott was
+naturally very much upset at the predicament in which they were placed,
+but while lamenting it she suddenly caught sight of a fine wolf-dog
+belonging to the family, called Loup, whose presence at Morpeth was to her
+the joyous sign that help was at hand. In a few moments Mr. Henry Scott,
+her husband&#8217;s brother, entered the room. John Scott had written a
+repentant letter from Morpeth to his father, which had the desired effect,
+and the younger brother had been sent to announce pardon to the offending
+couple, and to invite them to take up their abode under the parental roof.
+The year of grace allowed for retaining a fellowship after marriage having
+elapsed, Mr. Scott abandoned the thought of taking holy orders and studied
+law. He was called to the bar in 1776, when he says, &#8220;Bessy and I thought
+all our troubles were over, and we were to be rich almost immediately.&#8221;
+This golden dream was however speedily dissipated, for during the first
+year the total amount of his professional income was ten shillings and
+sixpence. But when Lord Chancellor, and living in a magnificent mansion in
+the vicinity of Hyde Park, he often referred to this period of poverty as
+the happiest time of his life, for then, he maintained, his wife, to whom
+he was always passionately attached, was able to show him attentions never
+so freely bestowed when Society asserted its claims on them. Like Lord
+Tenterden he gloried in the obstacles he had overcome, and used to point
+to a small house in Cursitor Street, saying &#8220;There was my first perch;
+many a time have I run down to Fleet Market to buy sixpennyworth of sprats
+for supper.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Edward Lord Thurlow, who rose to the woolsack in 1778, was not always
+affluent. After being called to the bar in 1758 he seldom had the means of
+going on circuit, and it is asserted that on one occasion he reached the
+assizes on a horse that <i>he had taken out on trial from London</i>. Lord
+Chief Justice Kenyon is found guilty of having been poor on the evidence
+of Horne Tooke, his constant companion when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> they were students, who, with
+a friend named Dunning, used to dine with him in vacation-time at a small
+eating-house in Chancery Lane, for 7&#189;<i>d.</i> a head. Says Tooke, &#8220;Dunning
+and myself were generous for we gave the girl who waited on us a penny a
+piece, but Kenyon rewarded her with a halfpenny, and sometimes with only a
+promise.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Sir Samuel Romilly also says, &#8220;At a later period of my life&mdash;after a
+success at the bar which my wildest and most sanguine dreams had never
+painted to me&mdash;when I was gaining an income of &pound;8000 or &pound;9000 a year&mdash;I
+have often reflected how all that prosperity had arisen out of the
+pecuniary difficulties and confined circumstances of my father.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Lord Campbell, before he was Lord Chief Justice and Lord Chancellor of
+England, often knew the inconvenience of want of money. The son of the
+Rev. Dr. Geo. Campbell, second minister of Cupar, Fifeshire, he was
+educated at the local Grammar School and the University of St. Andrew&#8217;s,
+and though intended originally for the ministry, after spending some years
+at college gave up the idea of the church, and went up to London to try
+some more congenial occupation. His first appointment was as tutor to a
+Mr. Webster, and while engaged in that capacity he penned the following
+letter:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My dear brother,&mdash;I live very economically; I dine at home for a
+shilling, go to the coffee-house once a day, 4<i>d.</i>, to the theatre once a
+week, 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> My pen will keep me in pocket-money. I this day begin a
+job which I must finish in a fortnight, and for which I am promised two
+guineas, but alas! Willy Thompson paymaster. He owes me divers yellow-boys
+already. I go no farther than write the history of the last war in India
+for him till he pays me all.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>After this he obtained the post of reporter and dramatic critic to the
+<i>Morning Chronicle</i>, but in 1800 he determined to try the law, and entered
+himself a student of Lincoln&#8217;s Inn. At this time, however, there was a
+strong feeling against one of their set having anything to do with
+journalism, so that his position was uncomfortable and mortifying, and his
+reporting prevented him from forming any acquaintance with his
+fellow-students. He entered a special pleader&#8217;s office in 1804, and in
+June 1805, was able exultingly to announce that &#8220;he was no longer a
+newspaper man.&#8221; Called to the bar in 1806, he became a bencher in 1827;
+member of Parliament for Stafford in 1830; Solicitor-General in 1832;
+Attorney-General in 1834; Lord Chancellor of Ireland in 1841; Chancellor
+of the Duchy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> of Lancaster in 1846 (in which year he produced his
+celebrated work &#8216;The Lives of the Chancellors&#8217;); Lord Chief Justice in
+1850, and Lord Chancellor in 1859.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Rowland Hill, to whom we are indebted for the penny postage system,
+was the son of a Birmingham schoolmaster, a man of simple, but high
+character. An outbuilding attached to their house contained benches,
+blacksmith&#8217;s forge, and a vice. Here Rowland and his brother spent much
+spare time and cash, which latter he remarks was very scanty. &#8220;Ever since
+I can remember,&#8221; he writes, &#8220;I have had a taste for mechanics, but the
+best mechanician wants materials and materials cost money,&#8221; and this want
+caused his brother and himself on Good Friday morning to turn tradesmen.
+They had been sent with a basket to buy a quantity of hot cross buns for
+the family and as they went along were much amused by the itinerant
+vendors, who were calling out, as was the custom in Birmingham then,</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8220;Hot cross buns! Hot cross buns! One a penny, two a penny, hot cross buns,<br />
+Sugar &#8217;em, and butter &#8217;em, and clap &#8217;em in your muns, one a penny, two a penny, hot cross buns.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>On their way home the boys in the pure spirit of fun began to repeat the
+cry, Matthew, the elder, being a capable mimic; and to their surprise they
+found the public respond to their offers, the result being that the
+youngsters soon &#8220;sold out,&#8221; and had to return for more to the wholesale
+establishment, the difference in this case between buying and selling
+being, as is usual, very well worth the trouble. When the family lived at
+Hill Top, his mother presented Rowland with a portion of the garden for
+his own use, covered with horehound, which he was about to root out to
+make way for his flowers, when he was given to understand that the
+horehound possessed a monetary value. Immediately on discovering this, he
+cut it up carefully, tied it in bundles, and borrowing a basket from his
+mother started off to the market-place, where he took up his position with
+all the air of a regular trader, but was saved the bother of retail
+dealing by disposing of his entire stock for eightpence to a woman
+standing near, who he presumed made a hundred per cent. by the
+transaction, though with true business tact she complained of her
+purchase, and told him to tell his mother, &#8220;she must tie up bigger bunches
+next time.&#8221; The proceeds of the sale went to purchase some tools and
+materials for the mechanical contrivances spoken of.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>The early years of Benjamin Franklin (one of a family of seventeen) were
+uncongenially spent with his father, a soap-boiler and tallow-chandler,
+and his brother, a printer. When seventeen years old he sold his books and
+took a passage from Boston to New York, whence he was advised to proceed
+to Philadelphia in search of work. On arriving there he tells us that he
+was &#8220;fatigued with walking, rowing, and the want of sleep, and very
+hungry: my whole stock of cash consisted in a single dollar, and about a
+shilling in copper coin, which I gave to the boatmen for my passage. At
+first they refused it, on account of my having rowed: but I insisted on
+their taking it. Man is sometimes more generous when he has little money
+than when he has plenty, perhaps to prevent his being thought to have but
+little. I walked towards the top of the street, gazing about till near
+Market Street, where I met a boy with bread. I had often made a meal of
+dry bread, and inquiring where he had bought it, I went immediately to the
+baker&#8217;s he directed me to. I asked for biscuits, meaning such as we had in
+Boston. That sort it seems was not made in Philadelphia. I then asked for
+a threepenny loaf, and was told they had none. Not knowing the different
+prices, nor the names of the different sorts of bread, I told him to give
+me three pennyworth of any sort. He gave me accordingly, three great puffy
+rolls. I was surprised at the quantity, but took it; and having no room in
+my pockets, walked off with a roll under each arm, and eating the other.
+Thus I went up Market Street, as far as Fourth Street, passing by the door
+of Mr. Read, my future wife&#8217;s father, when she, standing at the door, saw
+me, and thought I made, as I certainly did, a most awkward, ridiculous
+appearance. Then I turned and went down Chestnut Street, and part of
+Walnut Street, eating my roll all the way, and coming round, found myself
+again at Market Street Wharf, near the boat I came in, to which I went for
+a draught of the river water; gave my other rolls to a woman and her child
+that came down the river in the boat with us, and were waiting to go
+farther. Thus refreshed, I walked again up the street, which by this time
+had many clean-dressed people in it, who were all walking the same way. I
+joined them, and thereby was led into the great Meeting House of the
+Quakers, near the market. I sat down among them, and after looking round
+awhile and hearing nothing said, being very drowsy through labour and want
+of rest the preceding night, I fell fast asleep, and continued so till the
+meeting broke up, when some one was kind enough to rouse me.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> This,
+therefore, was the first house I was in, or slept in, in Philadelphia.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>A strange beginning to the career of one who, in addition to his valuable
+discoveries in electricity, lived to attain the highest honours his
+country could bestow, and to be the ambassador to foreign countries; whose
+marvellous intelligence carried out diplomatic undertakings which
+undoubtedly affected the destinies of nations. It is interesting to note,
+now that electricity plays such a leading part in the inventions of the
+day, that when Franklin made his discovery of the identity of lightning
+and electricity, it was sneered at, and people asked, &#8220;Of what use is it?&#8221;
+To which he replied, &#8220;What is the use of a child? It may become a man.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>William Cobbett is another example of the wonderful results to be attained
+by temperance, frugality, and unflagging industry, who, originally an
+uninteresting yokel, rose to be a power in the land, to edit political
+papers, to write political pamphlets (one of which had a circulation of
+100,000), and to pen, amongst other most important matter, a volume of
+&#8216;Advice to Young Men,&#8217; which, if followed by the rising generation, could
+not fail to make them more worthy the name of Englishmen. At the time
+referred to, when he was eleven years old, he was employed in the Bishop
+of Winchester&#8217;s garden at Farnham Castle, and happening to hear of the
+royal gardens at Kew, he thought that he should like to be employed there,
+started off next morning with only the clothes he was wearing, and
+sixpence halfpenny in his pocket, he arrived at Richmond towards evening,
+having expended threepence halfpenny on bread and cheese and small beer
+and as he jogged along tired and weary with his walk of thirty miles he
+was attracted to a bookseller&#8217;s window, in which was displayed a
+second-hand copy of Swift&#8217;s &#8216;Tale of a Tub,&#8217; price 3<i>d.</i> He expended his
+remaining coppers on its purchase, sat down in an adjoining field, read
+till he could see no longer, then putting the book into his pocket he
+dropped off to sleep by the side of a haystack. In the morning, roused by
+the birds, he continued his journey to Kew Gardens, where he succeeded in
+getting engaged by an old Scotch gardener. A year, or two after this, when
+he was working again in his native town of Farnham, the old idea of
+getting into a larger field of action came back to him, and while waiting
+one day for some young women whom he had arranged to escort to Guildford
+fair, he was tempted by the sight of the London coach, secured the one
+vacant place, and before he had time to realise the importance of the
+step, was being whirled<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> away in the direction of the metropolis. When he
+arrived the next morning at the Saracen&#8217;s Head on Ludgate Hill, his
+possessions amounted to two shillings and sixpence, but fortunately he had
+managed to interest a hop merchant, one of his fellow-passengers, who took
+him home, and in the course of a day or two managed to obtain a situation
+for him in a lawyer&#8217;s office. Here he soon discovered that he had made a
+&#8220;miserable exchange,&#8221; for his want of skill as a penman made his duties
+exceptionally irksome, and his close, confined lodging was very wretched
+to one coming fresh from fields musical with the sweet songsters of the
+spring.</p>
+
+<p>Eight months later, he enlisted in the 54th regiment of foot, and was
+ordered to Nova Scotia in twelve months. Here in five years, by temperance
+and industry, he managed (doing clerical work for the quarter-master and
+pay-sergeant) to save &pound;150, and it was while serving with this regiment
+that he acquired a knowledge of Lindley Murray. &#8220;I learned grammar,&#8221; he
+says, &#8220;when I was a private soldier on the pay of sixpence a day. The edge
+of my berth was my seat to study in; my knapsack was my book-case; a bit
+of board lying on my lap was my writing-table, and the task did not demand
+anything like a year of my life. I had no money to purchase candle or oil;
+in winter time I could rarely get any evening light but that of the fire,
+and only my turn even of that. And if I, under such circumstances, and
+without parent or friend to advise or encourage me, accomplished this
+undertaking, what excuse can there be for any youth, however poor, however
+pressed with business, or however circumstanced as to room or other
+conveniences? To buy a pen or a sheet of paper, I was compelled to forego
+some portion of food, though in a state of half-starvation; I had no
+moment of time that I could call my own, and I had to read and to write
+amidst the talking, laughing, singing, whistling, and brawling of at least
+half a score of the most thoughtless of men, and that, too, in the hours
+of their freedom from all control. Think not lightly of the farthing that
+I had to give now and then, for pen, ink, or paper! That farthing was,
+alas! a great sum to me! I was tall as I am now; I had great health and
+great exercise. The whole of the money not expended for us at market was
+twopence a week for each man. I remember, and well I may, that on one
+occasion, I, after all necessary expenses, had on a Friday made shifts to
+have a halfpenny in reserve, which I had destined for the purchase of a
+red herring in the morning; but when I pulled off my clothes at night, so
+hungry then as to be hardly able to endure life, I found that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> I had lost
+my halfpenny! I buried my head under the miserable sheet and rug, and
+cried like a child!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Wonderful, however, as were the achievements of Franklin and Cobbett in
+self-education, they were both eclipsed by Elihu Burritt. The son of a
+shoemaker, he was at the age of sixteen apprenticed to the &#8220;village
+blacksmith,&#8221; and from that time applied himself to the study of languages
+with such success, that he mastered French, German, Italian, Latin, Greek,
+Hebrew, Spanish, Bohemian, Polish, Danish, Syriac, Samaritan, Turkish,
+Ethiopic and Persian. To understand how he accomplished this, we take a
+glance at his diary.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;<i>Monday, June 18</i>: Headache; forty pages Cuvier&#8217;s &#8216;Theory of the Earth,&#8217;
+sixty-four pages French, eleven hours&#8217; forging. <i>Tuesday</i>: sixty-five
+lines of Hebrew, thirty pages of French, ten pages Cuvier&#8217;s &#8216;Theory,&#8217;
+eight lines Syriac, ten ditto Danish, ten ditto Bohemian, nine ditto
+Polish, fifteen names of stars, ten hours&#8217; forging. <i>Wednesday</i>:
+twenty-five lines Hebrew, fifty pages of astronomy, seven hours&#8217; forging.
+<i>Thursday</i>: fifty-five lines Hebrew, eight ditto Syriac, eleven hours&#8217;
+forging. <i>Friday</i>: unwell; twelve hours&#8217; forging. <i>Saturday</i>: unwell;
+fifty pages of Natural History, ten hours&#8217; forging. <i>Sunday</i>: lessons for
+Bible class.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>There were times when, for a short season, he abandoned the anvil, and
+devoted his whole time to study; but after a few months&#8217; absence from the
+forge he would return to earn money for his support, and for the purchase
+of books. Hearing one day of an Antiquarian Library at Worcester, U.S., he
+determined to go there to work as a journeyman, for the sake of obtaining
+access to such rare books, and started off to walk. It was a long journey,
+and when he reached Boston Bridge, footsore and weary, he encountered a
+waggon being driven by a boy, who was going to Worcester, forty miles
+distant. All his valuables consisted of a dollar and an old silver watch.
+He availed himself of the chance of a lift, but felt reluctant to part
+with his single dollar, and suggested that the waggoner should take his
+watch, which, if properly repaired, would be worth a great deal more than
+his indebtedness, also suggesting that, in the event of the boy having the
+watch mended, he should give Burritt the difference in money if they met
+again in Worcester.</p>
+
+<p>The young blacksmith obtained work on his arrival, and some short time
+after received a visit from the waggon lad, who honourably brought him a
+few dollars, the estimated difference. Some years afterwards Burritt
+happened to be travelling from Worcester to New<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> Britain by railway, when
+he was accosted by a handsome, well-dressed fellow-traveller.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You have forgotten me, Mr. Burritt?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Burritt was obliged to confess that he had.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh,&#8221; said he, &#8220;I&#8217;m the boy to whom you gave the watch. I&#8217;m now a student
+of Harvard College.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>After chatting for a bit, Burritt said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I should like to have that watch back again.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You shall,&#8221; said the student. &#8220;I sold it, but I know where it is.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>In a few days he received the watch, which hung for many years in his
+printing-office as a memento of early vicissitudes.</p>
+
+<p>Michael Faraday, unquestionably one of the greatest English chemists and
+natural philosophers, had few educational advantages before he was
+apprenticed to a bookbinder in Blandford Street, Manchester Square, and
+while working at his trade he constructed an electrical machine and other
+scientific apparatus. These having been seen by his master, Mr. Riebau, he
+called the attention of Mr. Dance to them, and he took the boy with him to
+hear the last four lectures delivered by Sir Humphry Davy at the Royal
+Institution. Faraday took copious notes of the lectures, and afterwards
+wrote them out fairly in a quarto volume, and sent it to Sir Humphry,
+begging him for employment, that he might quit the trade he hated, and
+follow science, which he loved. The answer is a model of kindness and
+courtesy:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="right">&#8220;<i>December 24th, 1812.</i></p>
+
+<p>&#8220;<span class="smcap">Sir</span>,</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I am far from displeased with the proof you have given me of your
+confidence, and which displays great zeal, power of memory, and
+attention. I am obliged to go out of town, and shall not be settled in
+town till the end of January. I will then see you at any time you
+wish. It would gratify me to be of any service to you. I wish it may
+be in my power.</p>
+
+<p><span style="margin-left: 2em;">&#8220;I am, sir,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">&#8220;Your obedient, humble servant,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 6em;">&#8220;<span class="smcap">H. Davy.</span>&#8221;</span></p></div>
+
+<p>Through Sir Humphry&#8217;s interest, Faraday obtained the post of assistant in
+the laboratory of the Royal Institution, where he remained ever
+afterwards, eventually becoming its first professor. Tyndall says of
+Faraday, &#8220;His work excites admiration, but contact with him warms and
+elevates the heart. Here, surely, is a strong man. I love strength, but
+let me not forget its union with modesty,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> tenderness, and sweetness in
+the character of Faraday.... Taking the duration of his life into account,
+this son of a blacksmith and apprentice to a bookbinder had to decide
+between a fortune of &pound;150,000 on the one side, and his unendowed science
+on the other. He chose the latter, and died a poor man. But his was the
+glory of holding aloft among the nations the scientific name of England
+for a period of forty years.&#8221; In 1835, when Sir Robert Peel retired from
+office, he recommended Faraday to William IV. for a pension of &pound;300. The
+minute was placed in the hands of Lord Melbourne, Peel&#8217;s successor, who
+saw Faraday, and involved him in religious and political discussion,
+wanting to entrap the philosopher into a promise to support the
+Government. Failing in this, Lord Melbourne said, &#8220;I look upon the whole
+system of giving pensions to literary and scientific people as a piece of
+gross humbug.&#8221; To which Faraday replied, &#8220;After this, my lord, I see that
+my business with you is ended. I wish you good morning.&#8221; The next day Lord
+Melbourne received the following letter:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;<span class="smcap">My Lord</span>,</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;After the pithy manner in which your Lordship was pleased to express
+your sentiments on the subject of pensions that have been granted to
+literary and scientific persons, it only remains for me to relieve
+you, as far as I am concerned, from all further uneasiness. I will not
+accept any favour at your hands nor at the hands of any Cabinet of
+which you are a member.</p>
+
+<p><span style="margin-left: 2em;">&#8220;<span class="smcap">M. Faraday.</span>&#8221;</span></p></div>
+
+<p>It is said that for some years Faraday&#8217;s income never exceeded &pound;22 a year,
+and it is a fact that when a youth he was much exercised about the
+purchase of an electrical machine which he had seen in an optician&#8217;s
+window, price 4<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> He had no money, but out of his dinner allowance
+he saved the requisite sum, and this machine was the one he used in all
+those early experiments which led to some of his great discoveries.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2>
+<p class="title">THE SHIFTS OF IMPECUNIOSITY.</p>
+
+<p>In 1748 there resided in the wilds of Connaught a lady named Gunning, of
+whom little is known but that before her marriage she was the Hon. Bridget
+Bourke, and that after it she became the mother of two exquisitely
+beautiful daughters, destined to make such a stir in Society, as was
+unknown before, and has been unequalled since. Before they left Dublin
+they were invited to some brilliant festivities at the Castle, which were
+on a scale of magnificence unequalled, it is said, in the memory of the
+oldest courtier. To such an entertainment Mrs. Gunning was anxious to
+introduce her daughters, for their faces were literally their fortunes;
+but the overwhelming difficulty of dress presented itself. They had
+nothing that by any amount of manipulation could be transformed into Court
+costumes, so in her difficulty Mrs. Gunning obtained an introduction to
+Tom Sheridan, who was then managing the Dublin Theatre. He was struck by
+the beauty and grace of the girls, placed the wardrobe of the theatre at
+their disposal; and by lending them the dresses of Lady Macbeth and
+Juliet, in which they appeared most lovely, enabled them to obtain the
+<i>entr&eacute;e</i> to that aristocratic circle in which they afterwards shone so
+brilliantly. In addition to providing the necessary garments for the great
+event Tom Sheridan is credited with superintending the finishing touches
+of their toilets, for which it is said he claimed a kiss from each as his
+reward. These beautiful creatures were at one time in even greater straits
+for funds.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Bellamy, the actress, asserts that she once found Mrs. Gunning and
+her children in the greatest distress, with bailiffs in the house and the
+family threatened with immediate eviction. With the assistance of her
+man-servant, who stood under the windows of the house at night, after the
+bailiffs were admitted,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> everything that could be carried away, was
+removed. But for this and other help the Gunnings were not grateful.
+Indeed, in the case of the Countess of Coventry who had borrowed money
+from Miss Bellamy, presumably for her wedding <i>trousseau</i>, the monetary
+obligation was repaid by unpardonable insult. One night when this actress
+was playing Juliet, and had just arrived at the most impressive part of
+the tragedy, the countess, who occupied the stage-box, uttered a loud
+laugh. Miss Bellamy was so overcome by the interruption that she was
+obliged to leave the stage, and when Lady Coventry was remonstrated with,
+she replied that &#8220;since she had seen Mrs. Cibber act Juliet she could not
+<i>endure</i> Miss Bellamy.&#8221; When they came to London in the autumn of 1751 the
+fashionable world went mad after &#8220;the beautiful Miss Gunnings,&#8221; who were
+positively mobbed in the Park and elsewhere, and were compelled on one
+occasion to obtain the protection of a file of the Guards. When they
+travelled in the country the roads were lined with people anxious to catch
+a glimpse of their lovely faces; and hundreds of people were known to
+remain all night outside an inn at which they were staying, in order to
+behold them in the morning.</p>
+
+<p>Not many months after their <i>d&eacute;but</i> in London, the Duke of Hamilton, owner
+of three dukedoms in Scotland, England, and France, and regarded as the
+haughtiest man in the kingdom, became deeply enamoured of the younger
+sister, and was married to her at Mayfair Chapel one night at half-past
+twelve o&#8217;clock, the suddenness of the ceremony compelling the divine who
+performed the service to make use of a ring from a bed-curtain.</p>
+
+<p>The elder sister, became Countess of Coventry in the following March, and
+was then acknowledged as leader of fashion in the metropolis, although
+from the seclusion in which the early part of her life had been spent in
+Ireland, she was little fitted, so far as accomplishments were concerned,
+to hold that post. Her reign was brief as it was brilliant. In 1759 her
+health completely broke down, and she died in October 1760, of
+consumption, the result of artificial aids to beauty, which in her case
+were utterly unnecessary.</p>
+
+<p>Curran, the advocate and wit, experienced vicissitudes almost as
+startling. He was born at Newmarket, County Cork, in 1750, and describes
+himself as &#8220;a little ragged apprentice to every kind of idleness and
+mischief, all day studying whatever was eccentric<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> in those older, and
+half the night practising it for the amusement of those who were younger
+than myself. One morning I was playing at marbles in the village ball
+alley, with a light heart and a lighter pocket. The gibe, and the jest,
+and the plunder, went gaily round. Those who won laughed, and those who
+lost cheated, when suddenly there appeared amongst us a stranger of a very
+venerable and cheerful aspect. His intrusion was not the least restraint
+upon our merry little assemblage; he was a benevolent creature, and the
+days of infancy (after all, the happiest we shall ever see) perhaps rose
+upon his memory. God bless him! I see his fine form, at the distance of
+half a century, just as he stood before me in the little ball alley in the
+days of my childhood. His name was Boyse; he was the rector of Newmarket.
+To me he took a particular fancy.... Some sweetmeats easily bribed me home
+with him. I learned from poor Boyse my alphabet, and my grammar, and the
+rudiments of the classics: he taught me all he could, and then he sent me
+to the school at Middleton&mdash;in short, <i>he made a man of me</i>. I recollect
+it was about five-and-thirty years afterwards when I had risen to some
+eminence at the bar, and when I had a seat in Parliament, and a good house
+in Ely Place, on my return one day from Court, I found an old gentleman
+seated alone in the drawing-room, his feet familiarly placed on each side
+of the Italian marble chimney-piece, and his whole air bespeaking the
+consciousness of one quite at home. He turned round&mdash;it was <i>my friend of
+the ball alley</i>. I rushed instinctively into his arms. I could not help
+bursting into tears. Words cannot describe the scene that followed. &#8216;You
+are right, sir&mdash;you are right; the chimney-piece is yours, the pictures
+are yours, the house is yours; you gave me all I have&mdash;my friend&mdash;my
+father!&#8217;&#8221;<small><a name="f2.1" id="f2.1" href="#f2">[2]</a></small></p>
+
+<p>After leaving school at Middleton, Curran passed to Trinity College,
+Dublin, which he entered as a sizar when nineteen years of age. He does
+not appear to have distinguished himself at the University, from whence he
+proceeded to London, and contrived, <i>quodcunque modo</i>, to enter his name
+on the books of the Middle Temple. At that time, he says, he read &#8220;ten
+hours every day; seven at law, and three at history and the general
+principles of politics, and that I may have time enough&#8221;&mdash;it is believed
+he wrote<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> for the magazines, etc., as a means of support&mdash;&#8220;I rise at
+half-past four. I have contrived a machine after the manner of an
+hour-glass, which wakens me regularly at that hour. Exactly over my head I
+have suspended two vessels of tin, one above the other. When I go to bed,
+which is always at ten, I pour a bottle of water into the upper vessel, in
+the bottom of which is a hole of such a size as to let the water pass
+through so as to make the inferior reservoir overflow in six hours and a
+half;&#8221; so that if he wished to remain in bed after daylight, he could only
+do so by consenting to a cold shower-bath.</p>
+
+<p>He was called to the bar in 1775, and for some time had a tremendously
+uphill fight, wearing, according to his own account, his teeth to the
+stumps at the Cork Sessions without any adequate recompense. He then
+removed to Dublin, and for a time fared no better. &#8220;I then lived&#8221; said
+he, &#8220;upon Hog Hill: my wife and children were the chief furniture of my
+apartments, and as to my rent it stood pretty much the same chance of
+liquidation with the National Debt. Mrs. Curran, however, was a
+barrister&#8217;s lady, and what she wanted in wealth she was determined should
+be supplied by dignity. The landlady, on the other hand, had no idea of
+any gradation except that of pounds, shillings, and pence. I walked out
+one morning to avoid the perpetual altercations on the subject, in no very
+enviable mood. I fell into the gloom, to which from my infancy I had been
+occasionally subject. I had a family for whom I had no dinner, and a
+landlady for whom I had no rent. I had gone abroad in despondence, I
+returned home almost in desperation. When I opened the door of my study,
+where <i>Lavater</i> alone could have found a library, the first object which
+presented itself was an immense folio of a brief, twenty gold guineas
+wrapped up beside it, and the name of <i>Old Bob Lyons</i> marked upon the back
+of it. I paid my landlady, bought a good dinner, gave Bob Lyons a share of
+it, and that dinner was the date of my prosperity.&#8221; From this time he
+rapidly rose to the top of his profession, and his services were eagerly
+sought for. Wonderfully eloquent, with a highly imaginative and powerfully
+poetic mind, his sway was something marvellous, for, added to these gifts,
+his wit and power of mimicry were unapproachable.</p>
+
+<p>In the case of Valentine Jamerai Duval, who ultimately became Professor of
+Antiquities and Ancient and Modern Geography in the Academy of Luneville,
+youthful hardships occasioned <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span>extraordinary expedients. The son of
+labouring people, at the age of fourteen he was ignorant of the alphabet.
+His occupation was that of turkey-keeper, but after an attack of
+small-pox, which nearly killed him, he wandered through certain parts of
+Champagne, then in a condition of famine, in search of employment. When he
+reached the Duchy of Lorraine, he obtained a situation as shepherd, and
+became acquainted with the hermit, Brother Palimon, whom he helped in his
+rural labours. In return for these services the hermit gave him
+instruction, and subsequently he lived as a labourer with the four hermits
+of St. Anne, studying arithmetic and geography in his leisure moments. His
+one object then was to obtain books, impossible without money, which,
+situated as he was, seemed equally unattainable. Finding out, however,
+that a furrier at Luneville purchased skins, he set snares for wild
+animals, and by this means realised enough money to procure the books he
+coveted.</p>
+
+<p>But beyond the self-denial of Curran with his primitive invention for
+early rising, and the contrivance of Duval for obtaining the needful, is
+the interesting career of Bernard Palissy, the Potter, who, in addition to
+his fame as an artist in pottery, was celebrated as a glass painter,
+naturalist, philosopher, and for his devotion to the Protestant cause in
+the sixteenth century. Born in 1510, at Chapelle Biron, a poor hamlet near
+the small town of Perigord, he was brought up as a worker in painted
+glass, in pursuit of which occupation he travelled considerably, devoting
+all the spare time of his wanderings to the study of natural history, in
+which he delighted. Though an ardent student of nature, he yet found
+opportunity to make himself acquainted with the teaching of Paracelsus, of
+the alchemists and of the reformers of the Church. He did not settle down
+till nearly thirty years of age, when he established himself at Saintes as
+a painter on glass, and surveyor, and then turned his attention to the
+making of pottery and the production of white enamel, which latter was
+useless excepting as a covering for ornamental pottery, and at this time
+Palissy was not sufficiently skilled to make a rough pipkin. Under these
+circumstances it is not surprising that his wife took exception to the
+money expended in the purchase of drugs, the buying of pots, and the
+building of a furnace, as the loss of time told heavily on his limited
+resources; and it would be perfectly truthful to say that the first things
+Bernard Palissy produced<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> in the way of pottery were family jars. Mrs.
+Palissy was undoubtedly very wroth at his going on in this way, more
+especially because, as is so frequently the case, his family increased as
+his income decreased, and she succeeded at last in stopping his
+experiments for a time. He then obtained an appointment as Surveyor to the
+Government, in which profession he was remarkably proficient, but before
+very long the old craving for experimenting returned with redoubled
+vigour, and he again set to work in search of white enamel. The expense
+incurred was so great that his wife and children became ragged and hungry:
+nothing daunted, he broke up twelve new earthen pots, hired a glass
+furnace, and for months continued watching, burning, and baking. At last
+his eager eyes were gladdened by the sight of a piece of white enamel
+amidst the bakings. Urged on by this, he felt he must have another
+furnace; he succeeded in obtaining the bricks on credit, became his own
+bricklayer&#8217;s boy and mason, and built the structure himself. On one
+occasion he spent six days and nights watching his baking clay, sleeping
+only a few minutes at a time near his fire, but disappointment was all the
+result. The vessels were spoilt. In desperation he borrowed more money for
+his experiments, which was consumed in like manner, until at last he was
+without fuel for the furnace. Insensible to everything but the project on
+which he was bent, he tore up the palings from the garden, and when these
+were exhausted he broke up the chairs and tables. His wife and children
+rushed about frantic, thinking that he had lost his senses, and well they
+might when they saw the demolition of the furniture followed by the
+tearing up of the floor. Success ultimately crowned his praiseworthy
+perseverance, but not until he had devoted sixteen years of unremunerated
+labour, enduring unexampled fatigue and discouragements. When at length he
+succeeded in obtaining a pure white enamel he was enabled to produce works
+in which natural objects were represented with remarkable skill, his fame
+spread rapidly, his sculptures in clay and his enamelled pottery being at
+once accepted as works of art of the highest order. His career, however,
+was destined to be remarkable at every stage, for no sooner had he
+acquired renown and riches than he was subjected to religious persecution,
+which would have ended in death had it not been for the Duke de
+Montmorency, one of his patrons, who succeeded in rescuing him from
+prison.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> When established in Paris, assisted by his sons, he continued to
+produce most remarkable specimens of ornamental pottery, and in addition
+to his artistic labours instituted a series of conferences which were
+attended by the most distinguished doctors and scientific <i>savants</i>, where
+he set forth his views on fountains, stones, metals, etc., desirous of
+knowing whether the great philosophers of antiquity interpreted nature as
+he did. Although in the ordinary sense an unlettered man, his theories
+were never once controverted, and for ten years his lectures were
+delivered before the most enlightened of that age, but his teaching once
+more arousing the animosity of his religious opponents, he was thrown into
+the Bastille, where he died after being incarcerated for two years.</p>
+
+<p>After such a &#8220;shift&#8221; as having to tear up the floor of a dwelling, most
+other instances might be expected to appear more or less tame; but the
+experiences of William Thom, the Inverary poet, are scarcely inferior in
+intensity. This untutored, but extremely sweet songster, whose first poem,
+&#8216;Blind Boys&#8217; Pranks,&#8217; appeared in the <i>Edinburgh Herald</i>, was a hand-loom
+weaver, who was deprived of his occupation by the failure of certain
+American firms, and compelled to tramp the country as a pedlar. Before
+resorting to that line of life, and when in the receipt of the sum of five
+shillings weekly, he relates how on a memorable spring morning, he
+anxiously awaited the arrival of this small amount: and though the clock
+had struck eleven, the windows of the room were still curtained, in order
+that the four sleeping children, who were bound to be hungry when awake,
+might be deluded into believing that it was still night, for the only food
+in their parents&#8217; possession was one handful of meal saved from the
+previous day. The mother with the tenderest anxiety sat by the babes&#8217;
+bedside lulling them off to sleep as soon as they exhibited the least sign
+of wakefulness, and speaking to her husband in whispers as to the cooking
+of the little meal remaining, for the youngest child could no longer be
+kept asleep, and by its whimpering woke the others. Face after face sprang
+up, each little one exclaiming, &#8220;Oh, mither, mither, give me a piece;&#8221; and
+says the poor fellow, &#8220;The word sorrow was too weak to apply to the
+feelings of myself and wife during the remainder of that long and dreary
+forenoon.&#8221; When compelled to leave the humble dwelling which,
+poverty-stricken though it was, had all the endearing influences of home,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>
+he made up a pack consisting of second-hand books and some trifling
+articles of merchandise, and sadly started with wife and bairns through
+mountain paths and rugged roads, often sleeping at night in barns and
+outhouses. The precarious nature of a pedlar&#8217;s life must have been
+terribly trying to one so sensitive, especially when, as in his case, it
+ended in his having to have recourse to the profession of musical beggar.
+Before entering Methven he sold a book to a stone-breaker on the road, the
+proceeds of which (fivepence halfpenny) was all the money he possessed.
+The purchaser when making the bargain had noticed Thom&#8217;s flute which he
+carried with him, and had offered such a good price for the instrument
+that the poet had been much tempted to part with it, though it had been
+his solace and companion on many and many an occasion. Thinking that
+possibly it might be the means of his earning a few pence, he resisted the
+temptation to part with it, and soon after took up his post outside a
+genteel-looking house, and played &#8216;The Flowers of the Forest&#8217; with such
+exquisite expression that window after window was raised, and in ten
+minutes after he found himself possessed of three and ninepence, which sum
+was increased to five shillings before he reached his lodging.</p>
+
+<p>It would hardly be possible to conceive anything more truly touching than
+the shift of William Thom, when he practised the pardonable deception upon
+his hungry children of turning day into night, though for downright
+deprivation the experience of John Ledyard, the traveller, may be said to
+excel it. This celebrated discoverer, who came into Europe from the United
+States in 1776, when making a tour of the world with Captain Cook, as
+corporal of a troop of Marines, arrived in England in 1780. He then formed
+the design of penetrating from the North West to the East Coast of
+America, for which purpose Sir Joseph Banks furnished him with some money.
+He bought sea stores with the intention of sailing to Nootka Sound, but
+altered his mind, and determined to travel overland to Kamschkatka, from
+whence the passage is short to the opposite shore of the American
+continent. Towards the close of the year 1786, he started with ten guineas
+in his pocket, went to and from Stockholm, because the Gulf of Bothnia was
+frozen; proceeding north he walked to the Arctic Circle, passed round the
+head of the Gulf of Bothnia, and descended on its east side to St.
+Petersburg, where he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> arrived in March 1787, without shoes or stockings.
+He proceeded to the house of the Portuguese Ambassador, who gave him a
+good dinner, and obtained for him twenty guineas on a bill drawn in the
+name of Sir Joseph Banks, with which sum he proceeded to Yakutz,
+accompanying a convoy of provisions, and there met Captain Cook. He says
+in his Journal, &#8220;I have known both hunger and nakedness to the utmost
+extremity of human endurance. I have known what it is to have food given
+me as charity to a madman, and I have at times been obliged to shelter
+myself under the miseries of that character to avoid a heavier calamity.
+My distresses have been greater than I have ever owned, or will own to any
+man. Such evils are terrible to bear, but they never yet had power to turn
+me from my purpose.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>To have to submit to be thought a lunatic to escape starvation must
+certainly have been rather trying, though from the fact of part of the
+journey being performed without shoes or stockings it would certainly look
+as if John Ledyard were anything but particular; and it is well for us
+that he and other glorious pioneers were not, otherwise we should not be
+living in such an age of marvellous enlightenment as is our present
+privilege. Round the world in eighty days, facilitated by Cook&#8217;s tourist
+coupons would hardly have been practicable, had not men like Ledyard been
+martyrs in the cause of exploration.</p>
+
+<p><i>Apropos</i> of travelling in days gone by, an incident in the life of the
+Rev. Henry Tevuge presents a somewhat strange shift; at any rate, strange
+for a clergyman. This eccentric clerical was Rector of Alcester in 1670,
+and afterwards Incumbent of Spernall, which he appears to have left in
+1675, for on May 20th in that year he writes, &#8220;This day I began my voyage
+from my house at Spernall, in the county of Warwick, with small
+accoutrements, saving what I carried under me in an old sack. My steed
+like that of Hudibras, for mettle, courage, and colour (though not of the
+same bigness), and for flesh, one of Pharaoh&#8217;s lean mares ready to seize
+(for hunger) on those that went before her, had she not been short-winged,
+or rather leaden-heeled. My stock of moneys was also proportionable to the
+rest; being little more than what brought me to London in an old coat and
+breeches of the same, an old pair of hose, and shoes, and a leathern
+doublet of nine years old and upwards. Indeed, by reason of the
+suddenness<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> of my journey, I had nothing but what I was ashamed of, save
+only</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8220;An old fox broad sword, and a good black gown,<br />
+And thus old Henry came to London Town.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>At that time chaplains were not provided with bed or bedding, and the
+divine, having no money, and wishing to redeem a cloak which had been long
+in pawn for 10<i>s.</i>, he sold his lean mare, saddle and bridle for 26<i>s.</i>,
+released the cloak, but only to re-pledge it for &pound;2. A writer, alluding to
+that period, says &#8220;it must have been a rare time for cavaliers, clerical
+and secular, when the cloak that had been pawned for 10<i>s.</i> acquired a
+fourfold value when offered as a new pledge.&#8221; It must have been a rare
+time for clergymen of the Church of England when a navy chaplain is found
+on such intimate terms with &#8220;No. 1 round the corner,&#8221; but that
+circumstance is accounted for by the fact that the Rev. Mr. Tevuge is
+spoken of as having &#8220;contracted convivial and expensive habits.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The literary, musical, and dramatic professions are the most prolific in
+furnishing curious cases of impecuniosity; and separate chapters will be
+devoted to those three branches of art, but there are a few instances more
+directly of the nature of &#8220;shifts&#8221; which I have included in the present
+portion of the subject; amongst others being the incident of Dr. Johnson
+dining with his publisher, and being so shabby that, as there was a third
+person present, he hid behind a screen. This happened soon after the
+publication of the lexicographer&#8217;s &#8216;Life of Savage,&#8217; which was written
+anonymously, and though the circumstance of the hiding must have been
+rather humiliating to the mighty Samuel, yet the attendant consequences
+were pleasant. The visitor who was dining with Harte, the publisher, was
+Cave, who, in course of conversation, referred to &#8216;Savage&#8217;s Life,&#8217; and
+spoke of the work in the most flattering terms. The next day, when they
+met again, Harte said, &#8220;You made a man very happy yesterday by your
+encomiums on a certain book.&#8221; &#8220;I did?&#8221; replied Cave. &#8220;Why, how could that
+be; there was no one present but you and I?&#8221; &#8220;You might have observed,&#8221;
+explained Harte, &#8220;that I sent a plate of meat behind a screen. There
+skulked the biographer, one Johnson, whose dress was so shabby that he
+durst not make his appearance. He overheard our conversation, and your
+applause<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> of his performance delighted him exceedingly.&#8221; It is also
+recorded that so indigent was the doctor on another occasion that he had
+not money sufficient for a bed, and had to make shift by walking round and
+round St. James&#8217; Square with Savage; when, according to Boswell, they were
+not at all depressed by their situation, but in high spirits, and brimful
+of patriotism; inveighing against the ministry, and resolving that they
+would <i>stand</i> by their country.</p>
+
+<p>Being thus intimately associated, it is only natural that the doctor in
+his &#8216;Life of Savage&#8217; should thoroughly believe that individual&#8217;s version
+of his own birth and parentage, which was that he was the illegitimate son
+of the Countess of Macclesfield, and that his father was Lord Rivers; the
+birth of Richard Savage giving his mother an excuse for obtaining a
+divorce from her husband, whom she hated. It is stated that &#8220;he was born
+in 1696, in Fox Court, a low alley leading out of Holborn, whither his
+mother had repaired under the name of Mrs. Smith&mdash;her features concealed
+in a mask, which she wore throughout her confinement. Discovery was
+embarrassed by a complication of witnesses; the child was handed from one
+woman to another until, like a story bandied from mouth to mouth, it
+seemed to lose its paternity.&#8221; Lord Rivers, it is alleged, looked on the
+boy as his own, but his mother seems always to have disliked him; and the
+fact that Lady Mason, the mother of the countess, looked after the child&#8217;s
+education, and had him put to a Grammar School at St. Albans, certainly
+favours the view of his aristocratic parentage. He was subsequently
+apprenticed to a shoemaker, but discovering the secret, or the supposed
+secret, of his birth, for not a few discredit his story, he cut leather
+for literature, and appealed to his mother for assistance. His habit was
+to walk of an evening before her door in the hope of seeing her, and
+making an appeal; but his efforts were in vain, he could neither open her
+heart nor her purse. He was befriended by many, notably by Steele, Wilks
+the actor, and Mrs. Oldfield, a &#8220;beautiful&#8221; actress, who allowed him an
+annuity of &pound;50 during her life; but in spite of all the assistance he
+received, his state was one of chronic impecuniosity. No sooner was he
+helped out of one difficulty than he managed to get into another, and
+though he is described by some biographers as a literary genius, his
+genius seemed principally a knack of getting into debt. Rambling about
+like a vagabond, with scarcely a shirt to his back, he was in such a
+plight when he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> composed his tragedy (without a lodging, and often,
+without a dinner) that he used to write it on scraps of paper picked up by
+accident, or begged in the shops which he occasionally stepped into, as
+thoughts occurred to him, craving the favour of pen and ink as if it were
+just to make a memorandum.</p>
+
+<p>The able author of &#8216;The Road to Ruin&#8217; was likewise one who had travelled
+some distance on that thorny path, for at one time he found himself in the
+streets of London without money, without a home, or a friend to whom his
+shame or pride would permit his making known his necessity. Wandering
+along he knew not whither, plunged in the deepest despondency, his eye
+caught sight of a printed placard, &#8220;To Young Men,&#8221; inviting all spirited
+young fellows to make their fortunes as common soldiers in the East India
+Company&#8217;s Service. After reading it over a second time he determined
+without hesitation to hasten off and enroll himself in that honourable
+corps, when he met with a person he had known at a sporting club he had
+been in the habit of frequenting. His companion seeing his bundle and
+rueful face, asked him where he was going, to which Holcroft replied that
+had he enquired five minutes before he could not have told him, but that
+now he was &#8220;for the wars.&#8221; At this his friend appeared greatly surprised,
+and told him he thought he could put him up to something better than that.
+Macklin, the famous London actor, was going over to play in Dublin, and
+had asked him if he happened to be acquainted with a young fellow who had
+a turn for the stage, and, said his friend, &#8220;I should be happy to
+introduce you.&#8221; The offer was gladly accepted, and when the introduction
+had been managed Holcroft was asked by Macklin &#8220;what had put it into his
+head to turn actor?&#8221; to which he replied, &#8220;He had taken it into his head
+to suppose it was genius, but that it was very possible he might be
+mistaken.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Holcroft was engaged for the tour, became an actor, and though he does not
+appear to have shone particularly strong on the stage, acquired
+considerable celebrity as a dramatic author, his play before mentioned
+being one of the few works of the old dramatists that has not become out
+of date with the playgoing public.</p>
+
+<p>More than one literary man of note, has been compelled by poverty to
+accept the Queen&#8217;s shilling. Coleridge, according to one of his
+biographers, left Cambridge partly through the loss of his friend
+Middleton, and partly on account of college debts.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> Vexed and fretted by
+the latter, he was overtaken by that inward grief which in after life he
+described in his &#8216;Ode to Dejection.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8220;A grief without a pang, void, dark, and drear,<br />
+A stifled, drowsy, unimpassioned grief,<br />
+Which finds no natural outlet, no relief,<br />
+In word, or sigh, or tear.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>In this state of mind he came to London, strolled about the streets till
+night, and then rested on the steps of a house in Chancery Lane. Beggars
+importuned him for alms and to them he gave the little money he had left.
+Next morning he noticed a bill to the effect that a few smart lads were
+wanted for the 15th Elliot&#8217;s Light Dragoons. Thinking to himself &#8220;I have
+all my life had a violent antipathy to soldiers and horses, and the sooner
+I can cure myself of such absurd prejudices the better,&#8221; he went to the
+enlisting-station, where the sergeant finding that Coleridge had not been
+in bed all night, made him have some breakfast and rest himself.
+Afterwards, he told him to cheer up, to well consider the step he was
+about to take, and suggested that he had better have half-a-guinea, go to
+the play, shake off his melancholy and not return. Coleridge went to the
+theatre, but afterwards resought the sergeant, who was extremely sorry to
+see him, and saying with evident emotion, &#8220;Then it must be so,&#8221; enrolled
+him. In the morning he was marched to Reading with his new comrades, and
+there inspected by the general of the district. Looking at Coleridge, that
+officer said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What&#8217;s your name?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Comberback!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What do you come here for, sir?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;For what most other persons come, to be made a soldier!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you think you can run a Frenchman through the body, sir?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I do not know,&#8221; said Coleridge, &#8220;as I never tried, but I&#8217;ll let a
+Frenchman run me through the body, before I&#8217;ll run away.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That will do,&#8221; said the general; and Coleridge was turned into the ranks.</p>
+
+<p>Alexander Somerville, author of &#8216;Cobdenic Policy,&#8217; &#8216;Conservative Science
+of Nations,&#8217; &amp;c., &amp;c., was also driven to the extremity of enlisting under
+circumstances more or less humorous. Unlike Coleridge, Alexander
+Somerville was not of gentle birth, being, as he styles himself in &#8216;The
+Autobiography of a Working Man,&#8217;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> &#8220;One who has whistled at the plough.&#8221; He
+received as a boy but scant education, being sent to a common day school
+where cruel discipline and unnecessary severity preponderated over
+learning. Though put to farm-work, where he was by turns carter, mower,
+stable-boy, thresher, wood-sawyer and excavator, his natural intelligence
+and love of books made him anxious to turn his face from the parish of
+Oldhamstocks, where he was brought up, in a westerly direction towards
+Edinburgh. When about eighteen years of age he was much interested in the
+Reform Bill of 1830, and gave evidence then of his enthusiasm for
+politics, became canvasser for a weekly newspaper, but does not appear to
+have succeeded in this vocation, for his circumstances were such that he
+wandered about moneyless; and meeting with an old chum they agreed to go
+and have a chat at any rate with the recruiting corporal of the dragoon
+regiment popularly known as the Scots Greys.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My companion,&#8221; he says, &#8220;had seen the Greys in Dublin, and having a
+natural disposition to be charmed with the picturesque, was charmed with
+them. He knew where to enquire for the corporal, and having enquired, we
+found him in his lodging up a great many pairs of stairs, I do not know
+how many, stretched in his military cloak, on his bed. He said he was glad
+to see anybody upstairs in his little place, now that the regimental order
+had come out against moustachios; for since he had been ordered to shave
+his off, his wife had sat moping at the fireside, refusing all consolation
+to herself and all peace to him. &#8216;I ha&#8217;e had a weary life o&#8217;t,&#8217; he said
+plaintively &#8216;since the order came out to shave the upper lip. She grat
+there. I&#8217;m sure she grat as if her heart would ha&#8217;e broken when she saw me
+the first day without the moustachios.&#8217; Having listened to this and heard
+a confirmation of it from the lady herself, as also a hint that the
+corporal had been lying in bed half the day, when he should have been out
+looking for recruits, for each of whom he had a payment of ten shillings,
+we told him that we had come looking for him to offer ourselves as
+recruits. He looked at us for a few moments, and said if we &#8216;meant&#8217; it he
+saw nothing about us to object to; and as neither seemed to have any beard
+from which moustachios could grow, he could only congratulate us on the
+order that had come out against them as we should not have to be at the
+expense of getting burnt corks to blacken our upper lips, to make us look<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>
+uniform with those who wore hair. We assured the corporal that we were in
+earnest, and that we did mean to enlist, whereupon he began by putting the
+formal question, &#8216;Are you free, able and willing to serve his Majesty King
+William the Fourth?&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But there was a hitch, two shillings were requisite to enlist two
+recruits, and there was only one shilling. We proposed that he should
+enlist one of us with it, and that this one should then lend it to him to
+enlist the other. But his wife would not have the enlistment done in that
+way. She said &#8216;That would not be <i>law</i>: and a bonny thing it would be to
+do it without it being law. Na na,&#8217; she continued, &#8216;it maun be done as the
+law directs.&#8217; The corporal made a movement as if he would take us out with
+him to some place where he could get another shilling but she thought it
+possible that another of the recruiting party might share the prize with
+him&mdash;take one of us or both: so she detained him, shut the door on us,
+locked it, took the key with her and went in search of the King&#8217;s
+requisite coin. Meanwhile as my friend was impatient I allowed him to take
+precedence of me, and have the ceremony performed with the shilling then
+present. On the return of the corporal&#8217;s wife, who though younger than he
+in years seemed to be an &#8216;older soldier,&#8217; I also became the King&#8217;s man.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>In connection with music the name of Loder, the clever composer (author of
+the &#8216;Night Dancers&#8217; and other charming musical compositions), recalls an
+interesting episode in his life revealing a remarkable shift to which he
+was put. One evening when leaving his lodgings with a friend named Jay for
+the purpose of enjoying a quiet little dinner at Simpson&#8217;s, he received an
+ominous tap on the shoulder from one of those individuals whose attentions
+are not appetising, since without you can settle the little amount, they
+require your immediate company. Loder was by no means able to satisfy the
+law&#8217;s demands, and the sheriff&#8217;s officer refused to lose sight of his man,
+even though &#8220;he had a most particular appointment;&#8221; so the only thing to
+be done was to invite the bailiff to join them at dinner. After the repast
+was concluded the party repaired to Sloman&#8217;s, a notorious spunging-house
+in Cursitor Street, Chancery Lane, when just as Jay was taking leave of
+Loder the latter remembered having something in his pocket which might be
+turned to account. It was a song by Samuel Lover. &#8220;Goodbye, old fellow,&#8221;
+said Loder. &#8220;Come to-morrow morning, and see what I shall have ready.&#8221; As
+soon as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> his friend had gone he set to work and set Lover&#8217;s words of &#8216;The
+Three Stages of Love&#8217; to music, which was a most successful and
+satisfactory way of composing himself to sleep, for when Jay called in the
+morning he received a manuscript which, when taken to Chappell&#8217;s, realised
+&pound;30. The proceeds enabled Loder to pay the debt, and dine with his friend
+at Simpson&#8217;s in the afternoon, without the unwelcome guest of the
+preceding day.</p>
+
+<p>John Palmer, the original Joseph Surface, in which character he was
+considered unapproachable, was a man evidently of the greatest
+plausibility. When complimented by a friend upon the ease of his address,
+he said, &#8220;No, I really don&#8217;t give myself the credit of being so
+irresistible as you have fancied me. There is one thing, though, which I
+think I <i>am</i> able to do. Whenever I am arrested I can always persuade the
+sheriff&#8217;s officer to bail me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Contemporary with John Palmer was another celebrated comedian, also
+addicted to more extravagant tastes than his income warranted&mdash;Charles
+Bannister, who made his first appearance in London with Palmer in a piece
+called the &#8220;Orators&#8221; in May 1762. In this he gave musical imitations, but
+the performances taking place in the mornings, his convivial habits over
+night precluded him from shining as he might have done; a fact which was
+noticed by Foote, the manager. To this Bannister replied, &#8220;I knew it would
+be so; I am all right at night, but neither I, nor my voice, can <i>get up</i>
+in the morning.&#8221; He was invariably in difficulties: on the death of Sir
+Theodosius Boughton, the topic of the hour in 1781, as he was said to have
+been poisoned by laurel water, Bannister, said &#8220;Pooh! Don&#8217;t tell me of
+your laurel leaves; I fear none but a bay-leaf&#8221; (bailiff). Once when
+returning from Epsom to town in a gig, accompanied by a friend, they were
+unable to pay the toll at Kennington Gate, and the man would not let them
+pass. Bannister immediately offered to sing a song, and struck up &#8216;The
+Tempest of War.&#8217; His voice was heard afar, the gate being soon thronged by
+voters returning from Brentford, who encored his effort, and the
+turnpike-man, calling him a noble fellow, expressed his willingness to pay
+&#8220;fifty tolls for him at any gate.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>John Joseph Winckelmann, who became one of the most famous of German
+writers on classical antiquities, was the son of a poor cobbler, who not
+only had to struggle with poverty, but with disease which, while his boy
+was yet young, compelled him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> to avail himself of the hospital. When
+placed at the burgh seminary there, the rector was struck with young
+Winckelmann&#8217;s dawning genius, and by accepting less than the usual fee,
+and getting him placed in the choir, contrived that the boy should receive
+all the advantages the school afforded. The rector continued to take the
+greatest interest in his apt pupil, made him usher, and when seventeen
+years of age, sent him to Berlin with a letter of introduction to the
+rector of a gymnasium, with whom he remained twelve months. While there
+Winckelmann heard that the library of the celebrated Fabricius was about
+to be sold at Hamburgh, and he determined to proceed there on foot and be
+present at the sale. He set out accordingly, asking charity (a practice
+not considered derogatory to struggling students in Germany) of the
+clergymen whose houses he passed; and, having collected in this way
+sufficient to purchase some of his darling poets at the sale, returned to
+Berlin in great glee. After studying at Halle and elsewhere for six years,
+his early passion for wandering revived, and fascinated with a fresh
+perusal of C&aelig;sar&#8217;s &#8216;Commentaries,&#8217; he began in the summer of 1740 a
+pedestrian journey to France, to visit the scene of the great Roman&#8217;s
+military exploits. His funds, however, soon became exhausted, and when
+close to Frankfort-on-the-Maine, he was obliged to return.</p>
+
+<p>When he arrived at the bridge of Fulda, he remarked his own dishevelled,
+travel-stained appearance, and believing himself alone, began to effect an
+alteration. He had pulled out a razor, and was about to operate on his
+chin, when he was disturbed by shrieks from a party of ladies, who,
+imagining that he was about to make away with himself, cried loudly for
+help. The facts were soon explained, and the fair ones insisted on his
+accepting a monetary gift that enabled him to return without
+inconvenience.</p>
+
+<p>It was not until the year 1755, when Winckelmann was thirty-eight years of
+age, and had published his first book, the &#8216;Reflections on Imitation of
+the Greeks in Painting and Statuary,&#8217; that he freed himself from penury.</p>
+
+<p>Flaxman, who throughout his honourable life seems to have entertained a
+most modest view of his own talents, married before he had acquired
+distinction, though regarded as a skilful and exceedingly promising pupil;
+and when Sir Joshua Reynolds heard of the indiscretion of which he had
+been guilty, he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> exclaimed, &#8220;Flaxman is ruined for an artist!&#8221; But his
+mistake was soon made manifest. When Mrs. Flaxman heard of the remark, she
+said, &#8220;Let us work and economize. It shall never be said that Ann Denham
+ruined John Flaxman as an artist;&#8221; and they economised accordingly, her
+husband undertaking amongst other things to collect the local rates in
+Soho.</p>
+
+<p>It is to a &#8220;shift&#8221; of this nature that we are to a certain extent indebted
+for the writings of Bishop Jeremy Taylor. After the death of Charles I.,
+Dr. Taylor&#8217;s living of Uppingham, in Rutlandshire, was sequestered, and
+the gifted ecclesiastic repaired to Golden Grove, Carmarthenshire, and
+taught a school for the subsistence of his children and himself. While
+thus employed, he produced some of those copious and fervent discourses,
+whose fertility of composition, eloquence of expression and
+comprehensiveness of thought, have enabled him to rank as one of the first
+writers in the English language.</p>
+
+<p>Beau Brummell, the autocrat of fashion when in his zenith, was in the days
+of his decline particularly shifty. After George IV. had cut him, and when
+he was about to depart for France to undertake the consulate of Caen, he
+made a desperate effort to raise money, and, amongst other people, he
+wrote to Scrope Davies for a couple of hundred pounds, which he promised
+to repay on the following morning, giving as a reason for his request,
+that the banks were shut for the day, and all his money was in the Three
+per Cents. To this Davies, who happened to know how hard up Brummell was,
+sent the following laconic reply:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>&#8220;<span class="smcap">My dear George</span>,</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;&#8217;Tis very unfortunate, but all <i>my</i> money is in the Three per Cents.</p>
+
+<p><span style="margin-left: 2em;">&#8220;Yours,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">&#8220;<span class="smcap">S. Davies.</span>&#8221;</span></p></div>
+
+<p>Brummell&#8217;s appointment at Caen, owing to the representations of Madame la
+Marquise de Seran, and others who had known him in London, was known in
+that place some time before he arrived, which had the effect of making all
+the young Frenchmen of the Carlist party anxious to become acquainted with
+him. Soon after he was settled down, three of them paid him a morning
+visit, and, though late in the day, found him deep in the mysteries of his
+toilet. They naturally wished to retire, but Brummell insisted on their
+remaining. &#8220;Pray stay,&#8221; said he, as he laid down the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> silver tweezers with
+which he had just removed a straggling hair, &#8220;pray remain; I have not yet
+breakfasted&mdash;no excuses. There is a <i>p&acirc;t&eacute; de foie gras</i>, a game pie,&#8221; and
+many other dainties that he enumerated with becoming gastronomic fervour,
+but which failed to overcome the scruples of the young men, who went away
+enchanted with Brummell&#8217;s politeness and hospitality, one of the trio
+afterwards remarking that &#8220;he must live very well.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>There is not the slightest doubt that the beau was pretty sure his
+visitors had breakfasted, and it was only the extreme improbability of
+their accepting his invitation that made him give it. Had they taken him
+at his word, instead of the magnificent repast which he offered them, his
+guests would have sat down to an uncommonly plain breakfast, for the
+polite and hospitable host had nothing but a penny roll and the coffee
+simmering by his bedroom fire. On another occasion a visitor called on
+him, and in course of conversation said he was going to dine with a
+certain Mr. Jones, a retired soap-boiler, who had radically opposed the
+appointment of a man like Brummell to superintend the British interests at
+Caen.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well I think I shall dine there too,&#8221; said Brummell.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But you haven&#8217;t an invitation, have you?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; was the reply; &#8220;but I think I shall dine there all the same.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>As soon as the caller left, Brummell sent a <i>p&acirc;t&eacute; de foie gras</i>, which he
+had received from Paris, with a grand message to Jones. The courtesy
+seemed so disinterested, that the Radical sent a pressing invitation by
+return; and when Brummell&#8217;s visitor of the morning joined the party, he
+saw the beau installed in the seat of honour at the hostess&#8217;s right.
+Brummell told his friend next day how he had managed. The gentleman said,
+&#8220;But I did not see the pie on the table.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;True,&#8221; explained Brummell; &#8220;I know it never made its appearance. It was a
+splendid pie&mdash;a <i>chef-d&#8217;&oelig;uvre</i>, and I felt deeply interested in its
+fate. When going away I inquired what had been done with the pie. The cook
+said, &#8216;Master had kept it for Master Harry&#8217;s birthday.&#8217; To be the &#8216;cut and
+come again&#8217; of a nursery dinner. To be the prey of the little Joneses and
+their nurses was atrocious. It was an insult to me and my pie! &#8216;Go,&#8217; I
+said, &#8216;to your kitchen; I particularly want to see the <i>p&acirc;t&eacute; de foie
+gras</i>.&#8217; Feeling that it would have been a sin to leave it with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> such
+people, I took it away. It was not honest, but as I cut into it this
+morning I almost felt justified, for I never inserted a knife into such
+another.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>It certainly was anything but honest, and it would have been well had
+Brummell remembered the childish saying about &#8220;give a thing and take a
+thing,&#8221; but where a person&#8217;s <i>amour-propre</i> is touched on such an
+important matter as a game pie it would not be right of course to judge
+the action by the ordinary standard. The idea of taking the pie back for
+the reasons alleged was really funny, though the fact of the beau being
+extremely &#8220;hard up&#8221; very possibly had a good deal to do with his conduct.
+<i>Apropos</i> of this condition it may be news to some to know that there once
+existed an institution called the &#8220;Hard Up Club&#8221; the formation of which is
+alluded to by &#8220;Baron&#8221; Nicholson in his autobiography. He says &#8220;just before
+I left the Queen&#8217;s Bench I had a visit from Pellatt (a well-known man
+about town in that day, who had formerly been clerk and solicitor to the
+Ironmongers&#8217; Company), with the news that he and another jolly old friend
+of mine had made a discovery of a place of rest suitable to our condition
+in life, which I must say was seedy in every respect. Pellatt had been in
+the habit of coming over to the Bench almost daily to dine with me and
+others, who were delighted with his amusing qualities. He gave excellent
+imitations of the past and present London actors, and his genius for
+entertaining was brought into active operation in our prison circle. The
+history of the discovery of &#8216;The Nest,&#8217; or tranquil house of
+entertainment, was this: Pellatt and a friend of his, &#8216;Old Beans&#8217; (whose
+right name was Bennett, yclept &#8216;Old Beans&#8217; for shortness), were strolling
+about the Strand one foggy November night, their habiliments were
+uncomfortably ventilated, their crab-shells of the order hydraulic; snow
+was on the ground, and their castors &#8216;shocking bad hats.&#8217; Not liking to
+enter any very public places they strayed round the back streets on the
+river side of the Strand, and turning from Norfolk Street into Howard
+Street, <i>vis-&agrave;-vis</i> they perceived a tavern, a dull, unlighted (save by a
+dim lamp), small, old-fashioned public-house in Arundel Street, with the
+sign of &#8216;The Swan.&#8217; &#8216;&#8220;The Swan,&#8221;&#8217; said Pellatt, as he read the sign, &#8216;will
+never sink! Beans, old fellow, we&#8217;ll go into the &#8216;Never Sink!&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The house was better known for years afterwards by this name than by its
+real sign. The two wayfarers entered. Old Charles<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> Mathews in his &#8216;At
+Home&#8217; used to tell a story of pulling up at a road-side inn, and
+interrogating the waiter as to what he could have for dinner.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;&#8216;Any hot joint?&#8217; said the traveller.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;&#8216;No, sir; no hot joint, sir.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;&#8216;Any cold one?&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;&#8216;Cold one, sir? No, sir; no cold one, sir.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;&#8216;Can you broil me a fowl?&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;&#8216;Fowl, sir? No, sir; no fowl, sir.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;&#8216;No fowl, and in a country inn!&#8217; exclaimed Mathews. &#8216;Let me have some
+eggs and bacon then.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;&#8216;Eggs and bacon, sir?&#8217; said the waiter. &#8216;No eggs and bacon, sir.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;&#8216;Confound it,&#8217; at length said the traveller. &#8216;What have you got in the
+house?&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;&#8216;An execution, sir,&#8217; was the prompt response of the doleful waiter.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And so it was at &#8216;The Swan.&#8217; When Pellatt and his friend entered the
+parlour there was but a glimmer of light, and no fire. A most civil man,
+whose name turned out to be Mathews, informed his guests that he would
+instantly light a fire and make them comfortable.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;&#8216;Not worth while,&#8217; said Pellatt, &#8216;We only want a glass of gin and water,
+and a pipe.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The host would not be denied. In a few minutes there was a blazing fire,
+the hot grog was upon the table, and Pellatt and Old Beans were smoking
+away like steam. The supposed landlord was invited to take a seat with
+them, and during the conversation informed them that he was the man in
+possession, and that he was allowed to provide a little spirits, and a
+cask of beer, and reap the profits himself just to keep the house open
+until a purchaser could be found for it, and he further stated how glad he
+should be if the gentlemen would come again. Being told by Pellatt all
+about the &#8216;Never Sink,&#8217; when I again left the Queen&#8217;s Bench Prison, and
+visited the outer world, I aided them in establishing what we dignified by
+the title of &#8216;The Hard Up Club.&#8217; Its institution commenced by Old Beans
+being appointed steward, and in that capacity began his campaign by buying
+a pound of cold boiled beef at Cautis&#8217;s, Temple Bar, and four pennyworth
+of hot roasted potatoes from the man who stood with the baked &#8216;tatur&#8217; can
+in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> front of Clement&#8217;s Inn. As the club increased in number so did our
+commissariat in supplies and importance, and the office of &#8216;Old Beans&#8217;
+became no sinecure. His duty, and it was performed <i>con amore</i>, was to be
+in attendance early in the day at the club to provide the dinner. The
+money to pay for this was invariably collected over night; and I have
+known the funds to be so short that &#8216;Old Beans&#8217;s&#8217; ingenuity has been
+frequently and greatly taxed to meet the necessary requirements and
+expenditure. A shoulder of mutton was a familiar dish, Beans preparing
+heaps of potatoes, and with a skilful culinary nicety, for which he was
+eminent, making the onion sauce himself. A bullock&#8217;s heart was also a
+favourite with us, provided always that Old Beans made the gravy and
+stuffing. I said to our gracious and economical steward the first day we
+had the ox heart, &#8216;Beany, you&#8217;ll want some gravy beef.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;&#8216;The deaf ears&#8217; (the hard, gristly substance attached to the top of a
+bullock&#8217;s heart), said he, &#8216;will make excellent gravy. The &#8216;Hard Ups&#8217;
+can&#8217;t afford beef. No, no, we&#8217;ll make the deaf ears do.&#8217; It may be
+imagined that Old Beans&#8217;s place was a difficult one. One Kay, a large,
+seedy lawyer, who wore shabby black and white stockings, and shoes, was
+always behindhand with his share of cash. If a shilling were required, Kay
+would pay into the hands of the steward about nine pence halfpenny, vowing
+that he had no more, and Beans always declared himself out of pocket by
+Kay. We had, however, a visitor who added lustre to our association, but
+he was not a dining member&mdash;he could not be&mdash;his means were too limited
+even for our humble carousings. This member was a very old man, Colonel
+Curry, formerly a member of the Irish Parliament. He lodged in one room in
+Arundel Street, therefore the &#8216;Never Sink&#8217; was to him a convenient
+hostelry, and he could do as he liked. He did so. On a small shelf over
+the parlour-door the colonel kept his own table-napkin, mustard, pepper,
+and salt. He also had a small gravy-tight tin case, and in that he brought
+with him every day four pennyworth of hot meat, generally bought at the
+corner of Angel Inn Yard, Clement&#8217;s Inn. All he spent at the &#8216;Never Sink&#8217;
+was three halfpence for a glass of rum, which he diluted from six o&#8217;clock
+in the evening till eleven o&#8217;clock at night: in the last mixing the rum
+was unrecognisable, the water colourless. Curry was a proud Irishman,
+never accepting the oft-proffered <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>hospitality of others. His conversation
+was delightful, amusing, instructive. He never complained, and we were
+left to doubt whether his economy proceeded from parsimony or poverty; but
+from his highly honourable sentiments I should conclude the latter. It was
+a rule with the club that all the good sort of fellows with whom the
+members might be acquainted should be pressed into the general service of
+the club: thus any member who in better days had been a good customer to a
+thriving publican (and there was scarcely one exception in the whole
+society) should use his best endeavour to introduce that publican to the
+&#8216;Never Sink,&#8217; and get him to stand treat. The number of dinners and
+liquors obtained by such endeavours were prodigious. The club included
+several members of the republic of letters, who, to quote Tom Hood, had
+not a sovereign amongst them. Indeed, they had but one passable crown. One
+hat served nine; their shirts were latent; their dinners intermittent, and
+their grog often eleemosynary. Nothing sparkled about them but their wit,
+which was as keen as their appetites. The man of genius crouches in social
+poverty in a commonwealth of mutual privation.</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8220;&#8216;There wit, subdued by poverty&#8217;s sharp thorn,<br />
+Was joined by wisdom equally forlorn;<br />
+And stinted genius took a draught of malt<br />
+On baked potatoes mixed with attic salt.&#8217;&#8221;</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+<p class="title">THE LUCK AND ILL LUCK OF IMPECUNIOSITY.</p>
+
+<p>Shakespeare, though he says &#8220;There&#8217;s a divinity doth shape our ends,
+rough-hew them how we will,&#8221; admits that &#8220;There is a tide in the affairs
+of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune,&#8221; which certainly
+looks as if we had something to do with the matter. &#8220;Man,&#8221; it has been
+said, &#8220;is the architect of his own fortune,&#8221; but it is equally a fact that
+some individuals have many more chances than others of making that
+fortune, especially those who are apparently undeserving. In the same way,
+impecuniosity has with some been the very means of introducing them to the
+road to success, while it has only plunged others in suffering.</p>
+
+<p>Amongst the former may be ranked Benjamin Charles Incledon, who flourished
+in the latter part of the eighteenth century, and in the beginning of the
+nineteenth. He was born at Callington, in Cornwall, and at a very early
+age was a choir-boy in Exeter Cathedral, in which city he received his
+musical education from Jackson, the composer. At sixteen he entered the
+navy, and in the course of the two years that he remained in the service
+was in several engagements. When the <i>Formidable</i> was paid off at Chatham,
+in 1784, the young sailor turned his steps towards Cornwall, but when he
+reached Hitchen Ferry, near Southampton, he had got rid of whatever money
+he started with, and had to ask assistance of a recruiting sergeant, who
+not only gave him the means to get ferried over, but invited him to a
+public-house in the town, where they made merry over bread and cheese, and
+ale. The company became convivial, and Incledon, in his turn, sang a
+ballad which delighted everybody, but especially the prompter of the
+Southampton Theatre, who happened to be sitting in the bar-parlour smoking
+his pipe, and who rushed out to his manager before the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> song was finished
+to tell him of the <i>rara avis</i> he had found. Collins, the manager,
+returned forthwith, and was so delighted with the sailor&#8217;s vocal abilities
+that he offered him an engagement at <i>half-a-guinea a week</i>, there and
+then, which offer was accepted, Incledon making his first appearance as
+Alphonso in &#8216;The Castle of Andalusia.&#8217; His career was most successful, and
+he is spoken of by more than one authority as the first English singer on
+the stage of his day.</p>
+
+<p>Under the circumstances it must surely be conceded, that the impecuniosity
+which caused him to sing that song at that particular time, was
+particularly lucky, and Incledon is not the only individual who has been
+blessed with good fortune through the same means. In &#8216;The Life of a
+Showman,&#8217; by D. G. Miller, that gentleman relates that one winter&#8217;s
+afternoon he arrived with his family at a Cumberland village in a most
+pitiable plight, for though he had several &#8220;children he had but one
+sixpence.&#8221; The journey, effected with a horse and cart, had been extremely
+trying, because across the road they had travelled ran a small rivulet,
+which was frozen, and a passage through which had to be made for the
+horse, the driver standing upon the shafts across the back of the horse,
+while the showman waded through the water nearly up to his waist, a state
+of discomfort enhanced by the plunging of the horse and the shrieks of the
+children. When the party arrived at the public-house (where there was a
+large room which was occasionally let for entertainments, &amp;c.), they were
+nearly frozen, and proceeded to warm themselves by the kitchen fire. After
+calling for a quart of ale, and paying for it with the solitary sixpence
+in his possession, the showman proceeded to look after his properties, and
+found that the man with the cart, being anxious to get back, had unloaded
+the luggage at the door. Enquiring of the landlady if he could engage the
+large room for a few nights for a very superior exhibition, the itinerant
+performer was informed by her, &#8220;I can&#8217;t tell, but I think not. The last
+people who were here didn&#8217;t pay the rent. However, the landlord is not at
+home, and I can say nothing about it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>After this he asked if they could be supplied with some tea, and on being
+replied to in the affirmative, says, &#8220;The expression on my wife&#8217;s face
+seemed to say, &#8216;Are you mad&mdash;where will you get the money to pay for it?&#8217;
+I paid no attention, however, to her look: the tea was got ready, and we
+sat down and made a hearty<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> meal&mdash;at least, the children and I did. As to
+my wife, she was alarmed at my conduct, and was too frightened to eat,
+although she had tasted nothing since breakfast.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>After tea he asked if they could be accommodated with beds, but was
+refused by the landlord, who showed his suspicions. The showman pointed to
+the snow, which was falling heavily, and asked permission for his wife and
+children to remain by the fire all night, professing to be able to pay,
+and at last the landlord sulkily agreed to let them have beds. After the
+wife and children retired, a good number of customers came in, and a
+raffle was started for a watch, thirty members at a shilling. While this
+was being arranged the visitors joked and sang, and presently the showman
+was asked if he would oblige with a song; he readily complied, and was
+voted a jolly good fellow by all present, including the landlord, who
+apologised then for having demurred about the accommodation. When the
+raffle began, it was found there was one more subscriber wanted, and the
+showman was asked to join, which he said he would gladly do, but his wife
+kept the purse and she had gone to bed, and being very tired he did not
+like to disturb her. The landlord at once said, &#8220;Certainly not, here&#8217;s a
+shilling; pay me in the morning.&#8221; He accepted the proffered coin, threw
+the dice, and won the watch, which he sold for a sovereign. He then gave
+an exhibition of his skill with sleight of hand tricks, to the great
+delight of the customers, and was informed by the landlord before he went
+to bed that he could have the big room for a night or two. To this he
+replied, &#8220;I will think it over,&#8221; and joined his wife, whom he found in a
+state of the greatest trepidation at the thought of their not having the
+money to pay for their board and lodging. He set her fears literally at
+rest, by showing her the proceeds of the watch he had sold. The next and
+two following evenings he gave three most successful performances in the
+big room, and finally left the village with flying colours, <i>en route</i> for
+Carlisle. His good fortune, as in the case of Incledon, being fairly
+attributable to the singing of a song; which savours strongly to my mind
+of what is generally understood by the term &#8220;lucky.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Though somewhat different in detail, the impecuniosity of the late
+distinguished journalist, G. A. Sala, when a young man, was equally
+felicitous. Born in 1827 of not over-wealthy parents (Mrs. Sala was an
+operatic singer and teacher of music), he from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> an early age suffered with
+bad eyes, which prevented him learning to read until he was nine years
+old. When fourteen he began to earn his own living, and from that time
+till he was four-and-twenty, his mode of existence seems to have been more
+or less precarious. At one time engaged in copying plans of projected
+railways, then acting as assistant scene-painter at fifteen shillings a
+week, afterwards designing the cheapest and least elegant description of
+valentines, and subsequently drawing woodcuts for those inferior
+periodicals pretty generally known as &#8220;penny dreadfuls.&#8221; In the year 1851
+his health gave way while he was pursuing the avocation of an engraver.
+The acids used in engraving so affecting his eyes that for a time he was
+quite blind, and loss of eyesight meant loss of work, and loss of work
+involved loss of income. The poverty he suffered at this time must have
+been of the direst; but though he had lost almost everything else, he
+never apparently quite lost heart, and when his sight improved he dashed
+off an article called &#8220;The Key of the Street,&#8221; descriptive of a night
+spent by a poor wanderer in London, which he sent in to Dickens, who had
+not long started <i>Household Words</i>. The feelings of the homeless man were
+described in a manner that shows the writer <i>felt</i> his subject, although
+it is hinted that the experiences related may have been the result of
+caprice.</p>
+
+<p>He says, &#8220;I have no bed to-night. Why, it matters not. Perhaps I have lost
+my latch-key&mdash;perhaps I never had one; yet am fearful of knocking up my
+landlady after midnight. Perhaps I have a caprice&mdash;a fancy&mdash;for stopping
+up all night. At all events, I have no bed; and, saving ninepence
+(sixpence in silver, and threepence in coppers), no money. I must walk the
+streets all night; for I cannot, look you, get anything in the shape of a
+bed for less than a shilling. Coffee-houses, into which&mdash;seduced by their
+cheap appearance&mdash;I have entered, and where I have humbly sought a
+lodging, laugh my ninepence to scorn. They demand impossible
+eighteenpences&mdash;unattainable shillings. There is clearly no bed for me.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is midnight&mdash;so the clanging tongue of St. Dunstan&#8217;s tells me&mdash;as I
+stand thus bedless at Temple Bar. I have walked a good deal during the
+day, and have an uncomfortable sensation in my feet, suggesting the idea
+that the soles of my boots are made of roasted brickbats. I am thirsty too
+(it is July and sultry), and just as the last chime of St. Dunstan&#8217;s is
+heard, I have half-a-pint<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> of porter, and a ninth part of my ninepence is
+gone from me for ever. The public-house where I have it (or rather the
+beer-shop, for it is an establishment of &#8216;the glass of ale and sandwich&#8217;
+description) is an early closing one, and the proprietor, as he serves me,
+yawningly orders the potboy to put the shutters up, for he is &#8216;off to
+bed.&#8217; Happy proprietor! There is a bristly-bearded tailor too, very beery,
+having his last pint, who utters a similar somniferous intention. He calls
+it &#8216;Bedfordshire.&#8217; Thrice happy tailor!</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I envy him fiercely, as he goes out, though, God wot, his bedchamber may
+be but a squalid attic, and his bed a tattered hop-sack, with a slop
+great-coat from the emporium of Messrs. Melchisedek &amp; Son, and which he
+had been working at all day, for a coverlid. I envy his children (I am
+sure he has a frouzy, ragged brood of them) <i>for they have at least
+somewhere to sleep. I haven&#8217;t</i>.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Then follows a most graphic account of the persons encountered during the
+eight hours&#8217; enforced prowl (including a flying visit to a fourpenny
+lodging-house, which was not a &#8220;model&#8221; of cleanliness), all the personages
+met with, and the occurrences witnessed being described with a freshness
+and fidelity that stamped the author as a descriptive writer of uncommon
+power. Charles Dickens at once forwarded a cheque for the contribution
+named, and, in the words of Oliver Twist, &#8220;asked for more;&#8221; and the late
+George Augustus Sala has for years been regarded as the journalist <i>par
+excellence</i> of the day.</p>
+
+<p>In like manner the needy circumstances of Charlotte Cushman had much to do
+with her obtaining an engagement at the Princess&#8217;s Theatre, and making the
+great reputation she achieved in England. When first introduced to Mr.
+Maddox, the then lessee and manager of the house in Oxford Street, she did
+not impress him favourably. She had no pretensions to beauty, and Mr.
+Maddox considered she had not the qualities essential to a stage heroine.
+From London she went to Paris, in the hope of getting engaged by an
+English company performing there, but failing, and having obtained a
+letter of introduction from some one supposed to have great influence with
+the lessee, she again sought Mr. Maddox, with no better result. Stung to
+the quick by this second repulse, and made desperate by her critical
+situation, she turned when she had almost reached the door, exclaiming,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>
+&#8220;I know I have enemies in this country, but&#8221; (here she cast herself on her
+knees, raising her clenched hand aloft), &#8220;so help me Heaven, I&#8217;ll defeat
+them!&#8221; Mr. Maddox was at once satisfied with the tragic power of his
+visitor, and offered her an engagement forthwith.</p>
+
+<p>If there is any doubt as to Charlotte Cushman&#8217;s success being attributable
+to impecuniosity the case of O&#8217;Brien, the celebrated Irish giant, is most
+clear.</p>
+
+<p>This lengthy individual, whose height was 8ft. 7in., was born at Kinsale,
+where, with his father, he laboured as a bricklayer. His extraordinary
+size soon attracted the attention of a travelling showman, who, on payment
+of &pound;50 per annum, acquired the right of exhibiting him for three years in
+England.</p>
+
+<p>Not satisfied with this extremely good bargain, his master tried to sublet
+him to another person in the show business, a proceeding which Cotter (the
+giant&#8217;s real name) objected to, and for which objection he was saddled
+with a fictitious debt, and thrown into Bristol Jail. This apparent
+misfortune was, in the end, one of the luckiest things that could have
+happened to him. While in prison he was visited by a gentleman who took
+compassion on his distress, and believing him to be unjustly detained,
+very generously became his bail, ultimately investigating the affair so
+successfully as to obtain for him not only his liberty but his freedom to
+discontinue serving his taskmaster any longer. It happened to be September
+when he was liberated, and by the further assistance of his benefactor he
+was enabled to set up for himself in the fair then held in St. James&#8217;s,
+and such an attraction did he prove that in three days he realised the
+considerable sum of &pound;30. From that time he continued to exhibit himself
+for twenty-six years, when, having realised a fortune sufficient to enable
+him to keep a carriage and live in luxury, he retired into private life.</p>
+
+<p>A practical joke led to the ultimate success of Edward Knight, a popular
+comedian of last century. While with Mr. Nunns, manager of the Stafford
+company, he received a message from a stranger desiring his presence at a
+certain inn. On repairing thither he was courteously received by a
+gentleman who desired to show his gratification at Knight&#8217;s performance by
+giving him permission to use his name (Phillips) to Mr. Tate Wilkinson,
+the manager of the York Theatre, who, the stranger felt sure, on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> account
+of his intimacy with him would be sure to give Knight a good engagement.
+Next morning a letter was sent by the elated actor, who in due course
+received the following reply:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;Sir,&mdash;I am not acquainted with any Mr. Phillips, except a rigid
+Quaker, and he is the last man in the world to recommend an actor to
+my theatre. I don&#8217;t want you.</p>
+
+<p><span style="margin-left: 2em;">&#8220;<span class="smcap">Tate Wilkinson.</span>&#8221;</span></p></div>
+
+<p>This rebuff was so unexpected, and so mortifying, that the recipient sent
+a short and sharp answer:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;Sir,&mdash;I should as soon think of applying to a Methodist parson to
+preach for my benefit as to a Quaker to recommend me to Mr. Wilkinson.
+I don&#8217;t want to come.</p>
+
+<p><span style="margin-left: 2em;">&#8220;<span class="smcap">E. Knight.</span>&#8221;</span></p></div>
+
+<p>After an interval of twelve months, when the elder Mathews seceded from
+his company, he wrote to Knight as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;Mr. Methodist Parson,&mdash;I have a living that produces twenty-five
+shillings per week. Will you hold forth?</p>
+
+<p><span style="margin-left: 2em;">&#8220;<span class="smcap">Tate Wilkinson.</span>&#8221;</span></p></div>
+
+<p>The invitation was gladly accepted, and for seven years he continued at
+York with unvarying success; at the end of which time he obtained an
+engagement at Drury Lane, and became a metropolitan favourite.</p>
+
+<p>Though perhaps not so striking an example as any of the foregoing, an
+episode in the life of William Dobson (called by Charles the First &#8220;the
+English Tintoret&#8221;) is more or less of the same fortunate nature. Dobson,
+who always betrayed in his best efforts the want of proper training, was,
+as a boy, apprenticed to a Mr. Peake, who was more of a dealer in, than a
+painter of, pictures, and who consequently was anything but a competent
+teacher. Nevertheless, his collection of paintings, which included some by
+Titian and Van Dyck, was most valuable to the youngster, who copied both
+those masters with such wonderful correctness that none but an <i>expert</i>
+could detect the difference. When very young, and very poor, he managed to
+get one of his copies of a Van Dyck exhibited in a shop window on Snow
+Hill, which, strangely enough, was seen by no less a person than the
+author of the original, who immediately sought out the individual who had
+reproduced his work with such fidelity, and finding him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> toiling away in a
+miserable garret, took him by the hand, and brought him to the notice of
+King Charles.</p>
+
+<p>Another instance of luck not dissociated with impecuniosity is found in
+the case of Perry, of <i>The Morning Chronicle</i>. Educated at Marischal
+College, Aberdeen, which he entered in 1771, he was first employed in that
+town as a lawyer&#8217;s clerk; but full of literary ambition, and possessed of
+much literary culture, he made his way to Edinburgh, where he almost
+starved, not being able to find employment of any kind. From Edinburgh he
+went to Manchester, where he just managed to eke out an existence; but
+believing London was the El Dorado for men of letters, he was not content
+till he had started for the great city. Amongst others who had promised
+him work was Urquart, the bookseller, to whom he wrote without success.
+One morning he called upon that gentleman, and was leaving the shop after
+a fruitless interview, when the bookseller said he had just experienced
+great pleasure in reading an article in <i>The General Advertiser</i>, and,
+said he, &#8220;If you could write like that, I could soon find you an
+engagement.&#8221; It so happened that Perry had sent in an article to that
+paper, and his joy may be imagined when he was able to claim the lauded
+production as his own; bringing out of his pocket another of the same
+sort, which he was about to drop into the editor&#8217;s box as before. He was
+immediately engaged as a paid contributor to <i>The General Advertiser</i> and
+<i>Evening Post</i>, and ultimately became editor and proprietor of <i>The
+Morning Chronicle</i>.</p>
+
+<p>One of the most remarkable of the lucky illustrations, however, is that of
+Hogarth, when he was a struggling artist. At the time referred to, when
+studying at St. Martin&#8217;s Lane Academy, he was oftentimes reduced to the
+lowest possible water-mark; and while laying the foundation of his future
+celebrity, he was exposed to all the humiliating inconveniences too
+frequently associated with penury, not the least of such annoyances being
+the contemptuous insolence of an ignorant letter of lodgings. The story
+goes that on one of these occasions when he was unmercifully dunned by his
+landlady for the small sum of a sovereign, he was so exasperated that,
+with a view to being revenged upon her, he made a sketch of her face so
+excruciatingly ugly, that it revealed at once his marvellous power as a
+caricaturist.</p>
+
+<p>Turning to the opposite side of the subject&mdash;the unlucky, there is, it
+must be admitted, a dearth of similarly appropriate<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> examples. It is not
+that there is any scarcity of cases of great misfortune in connection with
+impecuniosity, but the circumstances connected with such cases are not so
+apparently the result of accident. In the lucky instances enumerated the
+chance element was conspicuous, but the same cannot be said of the adverse
+anecdotes; for they, or rather those that have come under my notice, are
+unfortunate cases rather than unlucky. For instance, the impecuniosity
+that introduced the Irish giant to some one he would not otherwise have
+met, who put him in the way of realising a competency, was manifestly
+lucky; but the impecuniosity that attended Stow, the antiquary, in his
+latest years, could not in the same sense be called <i>un</i>lucky, inasmuch as
+it was owing to no particular act or chance circumstance that he continued
+poor. The kind of cases that I consider would more properly illustrate
+this phase of the subject would be those of persons who, from, say,
+missing an appointment with some patron of eminence owing to being hard
+up, lost an opportunity of advancement, which never occurred again; or by
+not having some small amount of ready money were unable to avail
+themselves of an advantageous offer, which would have resulted in a
+fortune. That such mishaps have occurred in the long list of unrecorded
+lives there is little doubt; but I cannot call any to remembrance at the
+present time. The only instances I have met with in my research being
+those of unfortunate persons, whose histories of hardship would be more
+fittingly recounted as the sad side of impecuniosity.</p>
+
+<p>The individual just referred to, John Stow, the antiquary, is a most
+melancholy case in point. A profound scholar in every sense, he devoted
+his life and substance to the study of English antiquities; oftentimes
+travelling tremendous distances on foot to save monuments, and rescue rare
+works from the dispersed libraries of monasteries. His enthusiasm for
+study was unbounded, and at his death he left stupendous excerpts in his
+own handwriting. At an advanced age, when worn out by study and travel,
+and the cares and anxieties of poverty&mdash;for he was utterly neglected by
+the pretended patrons of learning&mdash;his other troubles were increased by
+most acute pains in the feet, which he good-humouredly referred to by
+saying &#8220;his affliction lay in that part which formerly he had made so much
+use of.&#8221; At last he became so necessitous that he petitioned James the
+First for a licence to collect alms for himself, &#8220;as a recompense for his
+labour and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> travel of forty-five years, in setting forth the Chronicles of
+England, and eight years taken up in the Survey of the Cities of London
+and Westminster, towards his relief now in his old age: having left his
+former means of living, and only employing himself for the service and
+good of his country&#8221;&mdash;which petition was granted by letters patent under
+the Great Seal, permitting him to seek assistance from all well-disposed
+people within this realm of England. The terms in which this permit was
+set forth (&#8220;to ask, gather, and take the alms of all our loving subjects&#8221;)
+were scarcely correct; that is to say, &#8220;to ask, gather, and take the alms
+of all our loving subjects&mdash;who will give&#8221; would have been more complete;
+for though the letters patent were published by the clergy from their
+pulpits, the result was so trifling that they had to be renewed for
+another twelvemonth; one entire parish in the city subscribing but seven
+and sixpence to the poor scholar&#8217;s appeal.</p>
+
+<p>Learning in Stow&#8217;s time, and for a long time after, was evidently but
+poorly patronised, for his is by no means an isolated experience. Myles
+Davies, author of &#8216;Athen&aelig; Britannic&aelig;,&#8217; &amp;c., published in 1716, suffered
+similar neglect; his mind, it is alleged, becoming quite confused amidst
+the loud cries of penury and despair.</p>
+
+<p>Alluding to those who were supposed to support such as himself, he
+scathingly says, &#8220;Some parsons would halloo enough to raise the whole
+house and home of the domestics to raise a poor crown; at last all that
+flutter ends in sending Jack or Tom out to change a guinea, and then &#8217;tis
+reckoned over half-a-dozen times before the fatal crown can be picked out,
+which must be taken as it is given, with all the parade of almsgiving
+[Davies, be it remembered, was a Welsh divine], and so to be received with
+all the active and passive ceremonial of mendication and alms-receiving,
+as if the books, printing, and paper were worth nothing at all, and as if
+it were the greatest charity for them to touch them, or let them be in the
+house. &#8216;For I shall never read them,&#8217; says one of the five-shilling chaps.
+&#8216;I have no time to look into them,&#8217; says a third. &#8216;&#8217;Tis so much money
+lost,&#8217; says a grave dean. &#8216;My eyes being so bad,&#8217; said a bishop, &#8216;that I
+can scarce read at all.&#8217; &#8216;What do you want with me?&#8217; said another. &#8216;Sir, I
+presented you the other day with my &#8216;Athen&aelig; Britannic&aelig;,&#8217; being the last
+part published.&#8217; &#8216;I don&#8217;t want books, take them again; I don&#8217;t<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> understand
+what they mean.&#8217; &#8216;The title is very plain,&#8217; said I, &#8216;and they are writ
+mostly in English.&#8217; &#8216;I&#8217;ll give you a crown for both the volumes.&#8217; &#8216;They
+stand me, sir, in more than that, and &#8217;tis for a bare subsistence I
+present or sell them; how shall I live?&#8217; &#8216;I care not a farthing for
+that&mdash;live or die, &#8217;tis all one to me.&#8217; &#8216;Damn my master,&#8217; said Jack,
+&#8216;&#8217;twas but last night he was commending your books and your learning to
+the skies, and now he would not care if you were starving before his eyes;
+nay, he often makes game at your clothes, though he thinks you the
+greatest scholar in England.&#8217;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>So much for the way literature was encouraged in the sixteenth and
+seventeenth centuries, and that it was little better in the eighteenth
+century is only too well-known a fact; for &#8220;in those days, a large
+proportion of working literary men were little better than
+outcasts;&mdash;persons exiled from decent society, partly by their own vices,
+partly by the fact of their following a profession which had hardly
+acquired a recognised standing in the world, or found for itself a
+definite and indisputable sphere of usefulness. The reading public was not
+sufficient to maintain an extensive fraternity of writers, and the writers
+consequently often starved, and broke their hearts in wretched garrets, or
+earned a despicable living by flattering the great.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>These animadversions are especially meant to apply to that class of
+<i>litt&eacute;rateurs</i> known as &#8220;Grub Street pamphleteers,&#8221; but not a few notable
+names in the world of letters can be found to verify the gloomy picture.
+Nathaniel, or &#8220;Nat&#8221; Lee, as he is more often called, was one of those who
+failed to find fortune, but it must be admitted his &#8220;own vices&#8221; are
+answerable for his indigence. The son of a clergyman, he was educated at
+Westminster School, and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took his
+B.A.; and, at a very early age, manifested conspicuous ability for
+
+dramatic writing; his first effort, &#8216;Nero, Emperor of Rome,&#8217; produced in
+1675, being received with marked success. From that time until his death,
+which occurred fifteen years later, he brought out eleven plays, not one
+of which was a failure, but he was so rakishly extravagant as to be
+frequently plunged into the lowest depths of misery. In November 1684, his
+excesses, coupled with a naturally excitable temperament, succeeded in
+fitting him to be an inmate of Bedlam, where he was confined for four
+years. On his release in April 1688, he resumed his occupation of
+dramatist, producing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> &#8216;The Princess of Cleve&#8217; in 1689, and &#8216;The Massacre
+of Paris&#8217; the following year. Notwithstanding the considerable profits
+arising from these performances he was reduced to so low an ebb, that a
+weekly stipend of 10<i>s.</i> from the Theatre Royal was his chief dependence.
+He died the same year, 1690, the result of a drunken frolic in the street;
+and although the author of eleven plays, all acted with applause, and
+dedicated, when printed, to the Earls of Dorset, Mulgrave, and Pembroke,
+and the Duchesses of Portsmouth and Richmond, who were numbered among his
+patrons, <i>he was buried by the Parish</i> of St. Clement Danes, Strand.</p>
+
+<p>The vicissitudes of Spenser, in contrast to those of the author just
+referred to, were undoubtedly due to a want of appreciation on the part of
+those in power; for none of his biographers even hint at want of rectitude
+in his past life. Created Poet Laureate by Queen Elizabeth, he, for some
+time, only wore the barren laurel, and possessed the place without the
+pension; for Lord Treasurer Burleigh, for some motive or other,
+intercepted the Queen&#8217;s intended bounty to him. It is said that Her
+Majesty, upon Spenser presenting some poems to her, ordered him &pound;100, but
+that her Lord Treasurer, objecting to it, said with considerable scorn,
+&#8220;What! all this for a song?&#8221; Whereupon the Queen replied, &#8220;Then give him
+what is reason.&#8221; Some time after, the poet, not having received the
+promised gift, penned the following poetic petition&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8220;I was promised on a time,<br />
+To have reason for my rime; (<i>sic</i>)<br />
+From that time unto this season<br />
+I received nor rime nor reason&#8221;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>which, when sent to his sovereign, had the desired effect of producing the
+monetary reward, and also obtained for Lord Burleigh the reprimand he so
+well deserved. That Spenser felt keenly the neglect to which he was
+subsequently subjected is pretty clearly shown in the following lines&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8220;Full little knowest thou, that hast not try&#8217;d<br />
+What hell it is in suing long to bide:<br />
+To lose good days that might be better spent,<br />
+To wast long nights in pensive discontent:<br />
+To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow,<br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>To feed on hope, to pine with fear and sorrow:<br />
+To have thy Prince&#8217;s grace, yet want her peers,<br />
+To have thy asking, yet wait many years:<br />
+To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares,<br />
+To eat thy heart with comfortless despairs:<br />
+To fawn, to crouch, to wait, to ride, to run,<br />
+To spend, to give, to want, to be undone&#8221;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>which is but one of many bemoanings of hard and undeserved treatment; and
+though there be some who have accused him of lacking philosophy in thus
+making known his poverty, I should think it very much too literally <i>poor</i>
+philosophy that would suffer in silence when it comes to a matter of bread
+and cheese. There were times, of course, in Spenser&#8217;s history, when his
+genius was fully acknowledged, both before and after the neglect recorded,
+when, for instance, he made the acquaintance of that chivalrous poet
+soldier, Sir Philip Sidney&mdash;the historically self-denying Sir Philip, who
+when mortally wounded at the battle of Zutphen, and about to revel in a
+draught of water that he had called for, denied himself the coveted drink,
+and gave it away to a poor comrade. He it was who was the first to
+recognise Spenser&#8217;s great claim as a poet. It is stated that when a
+perfect stranger to Sir Philip, Spenser went to Leicester House, and
+introduced himself by sending in the ninth canto of &#8216;The Fairy Queen,&#8217;
+which he had just completed.</p>
+
+<p>The young nobleman was much surprised with the description of &#8220;Despair&#8221; in
+that canto, and betrayed an unusual kind of transport on the discovery of
+so new and uncommon a genius. After he had read some verses he called his
+steward, and bade him give the person who brought those verses &pound;50; but
+upon reading the next stanza, he ordered the sum to be doubled. The
+steward was as much surprised as his master, and thought it his duty to
+make some delay in executing so sudden and lavish a bounty; but upon
+reading one stanza more, Sir Philip raised his gratuity to &pound;200, and
+commanded the steward to give it immediately, lest, as he read farther, he
+might be tempted to give away his whole estate. Unfortunately this
+generous patron was killed at the early age of thirty-two, and it was
+after his decease that Spenser for a time was under a cloud. Subsequently
+he was befriended by the Earl of Leicester, and upon the appointment of
+Lord Grey of Wilton to be Lord Deputy of Ireland, the poet became his
+secretary, and was rewarded by a grant from the Queen of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> three thousand
+acres. This he was not destined to enjoy very long, for in the rebellion
+of Tyrone he was plundered, and deprived of his estate, and when he
+arrived in England he was heart-broken by his misfortunes. He died in the
+greatest distress on the 16th January, 1599, and though interred in
+Westminster Abbey at the expense of the Earl of Essex, his death according
+to Ben Jonson was actually occasioned by &#8220;lack of bread.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>It is difficult to determine which is the more pitiable, the want and
+misery produced by the neglect of others, or the destitution resulting
+from evil courses; both demand our commiseration, though some of the stern
+moralists affect to have &#8220;no pity&#8221; for those whose troubles are the
+outcome of self-indulgence and dissipation. &#8220;A fellow-feeling makes us
+wondrous kind,&#8221; and only those who have been the victims of that enslaving
+mania for drink, which has blasted so many bright lives will have
+compassion for such a man as Samuel Boyce. This misguided mortal, the son
+of a dissenting minister, was born at Dublin in the year 1708, and when
+eighteen was sent to the Glasgow University, his father having designed
+him for the ministry. He married when he had been at college little more
+than a year, and soon developed habits of indulgence and extravagance,
+which effectually ruined him, in spite of much assistance received from
+the nobility and others. In the year 1731 he published a volume of poems,
+to which is subjoined the &#8220;Tablature of Cebes,&#8221; and a letter upon liberty,
+which appeared originally in the <i>Dublin Journal</i> five years previously.
+These productions gained him considerable reputation and substantial
+patronage from the Countess of Eglinton, to whom they were dedicated.</p>
+
+<p>His next successful effort was an elegy upon the death of the Viscountess
+Stormont (a woman of the most refined taste, well versed in science, and a
+great admirer of poetry), entitled, &#8216;The Tears of the Muses,&#8217; which so
+pleased Lord Stormont, the deceased lady&#8217;s husband, that he advertised for
+the author in one of the weekly papers, and caused his attorney to make
+him a very handsome present. In addition to the favour of Lady Eglinton
+and Lord Stormont, he was also befriended by the Duchess of Gordon, who
+gave him most material assistance while he continued in Scotland; and when
+he went to London, gave him a letter of introduction to Pope, and obtained
+another for him to Sir Peter King, Lord Chancellor of England. He had many
+other most<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> valuable recommendations when he arrived in the metropolis,
+and possessing as he did ability of no common order, his opportunities
+were exceptionally fine; but nothing can withstand the devastating
+influences of the demon of drink; and at the age of thirty-two he is
+described as reduced to such an extremity of human wretchedness that he
+had not a shirt, a coat, or any kind of apparel to put on. The sheets in
+which he lay were carried to the pawnbroker&#8217;s, and he was obliged to be
+confined to his bed with no other covering than a blanket, and in this
+condition, thrusting his arm through a hole, he scribbled a quantity of
+verse for the <i>Gentleman&#8217;s Magazine</i>.</p>
+
+<p>His genius was not confined to poetry, for he was skilled in painting,
+music, and heraldry; but by his pen alone, had he chosen to live decently,
+he could have commanded a very good living. His translations from the
+French were admittedly excellent; but the drawback to employing him at
+this work was that when he had copied a page or two he would pawn the
+original and re-pawn it as often he could induce his acquaintances to &#8220;get
+it out&#8221; for him. On one occasion Dr. Johnson managed to get up a sixpenny
+subscription for him in order to redeem his clothes, but the effort to
+help him was useless, for within two days he pawned them again, and the
+last state was at any rate no better than the first. He seems to have been
+so demoralised by drink that he was dead to every sense of honour and
+humanity; for, whenever he obtained half-a-guinea, whether by writing
+poetry or a begging letter, he would sit squandering it in a tavern while
+his wife and child starved at home. He got from bad to worse, and in 1742,
+when locked up in a spunging-house, sent the following appeal to Cave:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I am every moment threatened to be turned out here, because I have not
+money to pay for my bed two nights past, which is usually paid beforehand;
+and I am loth to go into the Compter, till I can see if my affairs can
+possibly be made up. I hope, therefore, you will have the humanity to send
+me half-a-guinea for support till I finish your papers in my hands. I
+humbly entreat your answer, not having tasted anything since Tuesday
+evening I came here; and my coat will be taken off my back for the charge
+of the bed, so that I must go into prison naked, which is too shocking for
+me to think of.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>There are several accounts given of his death, which occurred<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> when he was
+but forty-one years of age; and, though they vary as to the precise nature
+of his end, there is no doubt that it was accelerated by the habit he
+indulged in&mdash;of drinking hot beer to excess, which at last obscured and
+confused his intellectual faculties.</p>
+
+<p>The sad side of impecuniosity is, unfortunately, so vast a subject that it
+would require an entire volume, instead of part of a chapter, to properly
+record the miseries of mind and body endured by those in past ages, who,
+not unknown to fame, have been permitted to pine and die in despair. The
+poets alone, so prolific are they in this respect, would furnish material
+sufficient; but the neglect of genius is anything but an uncommon thing,
+and therefore commonplace sufferings might not be regarded as
+&#8220;<i>Curiosities</i> of impecuniosity,&#8221; though in one sense it certainly is
+curious that their wants should not have been recognised. Men like Henry
+Carey or Cary, the author of &#8216;Sally in our Alley,&#8217; and said by some to be
+the composer of the National Anthem, who was considered by all authorities
+to be a true son of the Muses, have been driven to desperation through
+want. It is said, &#8220;At the time that this poet could neither walk the
+streets nor be seated at the convivial board without listening to his own
+songs and his own music&mdash;for in truth the whole nation was echoing his
+verse, and crowded theatres were applauding his wit and humour; while this
+very man himself, urged by his strong humanity, founded a &#8216;Fund for
+Decayed Musicians&#8217;&mdash;he was so broken-hearted, and his own common comforts
+so utterly neglected, that in despair, not waiting for nature to relieve
+him from the burden of existence, he laid violent hands on himself; and
+when found dead <i>had only a halfpenny in his pocket</i>.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The following lines written some time before his melancholy end show that
+he was no stranger to the &#8220;slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,&#8221; and
+that his self-destruction was not the result of momentary madness, but
+rather induced by the humiliating torture of ills long borne.</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8220;Far, far away then chase the harlot Muse,<br />
+Nor let her thus thy noon of life abuse;<br />
+Mix with the common crowd, unheard, unseen,<br />
+And if again thou tempt&#8217;st the vulgar praise,<br />
+May&#8217;st thou be crown&#8217;d with birch instead of bays!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The untimely end of Chatterton is a companion picture to that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> of Cary,
+but the circumstances of his early death, his being without food for two
+days, and his poisoning himself with arsenic and water, when lodging at
+Mrs. Angel&#8217;s, a sack-maker in Brook Street, Holborn, are so well known
+that it is only necessary to mention his melancholy fate, which if it
+stood alone in the history of literature would be sufficient to show there
+is a very pathetic side to impecuniosity. Although this rash act is
+attributed to the state of starvation to which the poet was reduced, there
+is little doubt that Horace Walpole by his unsympathising, though strictly
+correct, reproof had much to do with the disordered condition of the poor
+fellow&#8217;s mind. When living at Bristol, Chatterton became possessed of some
+parchments which had been extracted from the coffin of a Mr. Canynge, and
+upon these he produced some poetry, which he described as a production of
+Thomas Canynge, and of his friend, one Thomas Rowley, a priest; sent them
+to Walpole and asked for assistance to enable him to quit his uncongenial
+occupation, and pursue one more poetic. The poems were submitted to
+competent antiquaries, and pronounced forgeries, whereupon Horace Walpole
+refused the boy&#8217;s application for help, at the same time reproving the
+attempted fraud in the most cold and cutting terms. For this treatment the
+great wit and prince of letter-writers has been severely censured; one
+writer remarking, &#8220;Just or unjust, the world has never forgiven Horace
+Walpole for Chatterton&#8217;s misery. His indifference has been contrasted with
+the generosity of Edmund Burke to Crabbe, a generosity to which we owe
+&#8216;The Village,&#8217; &#8216;The Borough,&#8217; and to which Crabbe owed his peaceful old
+age, and almost his existance. The cases were different, but Crabbe had
+his faults, and Chatterton was worth saving. It is well for genius that
+there are souls in the world more sympathising, less worldly, and more
+indulgent, than those of such men as Horace Walpole.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Another most melancholy, and equally tragical record connected with
+impecuniosity is furnished in the life of Dr. Dodd, a literary divine, and
+one of the most popular preachers of the last century; though <i>his</i>
+troubles were not the outcome of actual want, but rather the result of
+want of self-control and principle. He commenced as a writer for the
+press, published &#8216;The Beauties of Shakespeare,&#8217; obtained several
+lectureships, which he held with great success, and subsequently became
+Chaplain to the King. The list of his different appointments is most
+numerous, and most<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> of them not only important, but highly remunerative,
+but his extravagance was such that no income would have been sufficient to
+keep him out of debt. Owing to his excesses he lost the royal favour, and
+though he was in the receipt of a large income from his preaching, it was
+not enough to satisfy his expensive habits, and he foolishly sent an
+anonymous letter to Lady Apsley offering her &pound;3000 if she would prevail on
+her husband, the Lord Chancellor, to appoint him to the rectory of St.
+George&#8217;s, Hanover Square. The letter was traced to the doctor, and in
+consequence his name was struck off the list of royal chaplains. After a
+sojourn abroad he returned to this country, obtained from Lord
+Chesterfield a living in Buckinghamshire, but could not forsake his old
+habits; he still plunged into debt, and <i>from being pressed for money</i>
+forged the name of his patron to a bill for &pound;4200, was tried, found
+guilty, and executed at the Old Bailey, in 1777.</p>
+
+<p>The career of Thomas Otway, the dramatist, though short, for he was but
+thirty-four years of age when he died, was one continued course of
+monetary difficulty, the result of irregular living. The son of a Sussex
+rector and educated at Winchester and Christ Church, Oxford, he betrayed
+no anxiety to follow his father&#8217;s footsteps, but at the age of
+twenty-three manifested a most practical preference for Thespis rather
+than theology, though he does not seem to have possessed any great genius
+for acting. He subsequently became a cornet in a regiment, which was sent
+to Flanders, but distinguished himself most as a dramatic writer, for
+which profession he was eminently suited, many of his plays meeting with
+exceptional success, particularly &#8216;Venice Preserved,&#8217; which has held
+possession of the stage for about two hundred years. His circumstances,
+never good, gradually went from bad to worse, owing to his dissolute
+proclivities, and he died at last on the 14th April, 1685, in a wretched
+state of penury, at a public-house called &#8216;The Bull,&#8217; on Tower Hill,
+whither he had gone to avoid the too pressing attention of his creditors.
+It is generally believed that the actual cause of his death was choking,
+which occurred through his having been without food for some time, and
+then too eagerly devouring a piece of bread which, through the generosity
+of a friend, he had been able to purchase. That Otway should have excelled
+in tragedy is not surprising, the power that he displayed in depicting
+domestic suffering being easily accounted for by the fact that he must
+have been constantly experiencing distress in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> private life, for when his
+tragic end was brought about he was hiding from sheriff&#8217;s officers, his
+misery terminating only with death.</p>
+
+<p>It is terribly sad to see such men as these, blessed with natural gifts
+far beyond the common, yet in spite of these endowments sinking to a lower
+level than their inferiors in intellect; and unfortunately the literary
+list of these erring ones is a long one, for since the days of Robert
+Greene, said to be the first Englishman who wrote for a living, and who
+died in the house of a poor shoemaker, who took pity upon him when he was
+destitute, there have always been men unable to withstand the seductions
+of vicious courses, and who have consequently paid the penalty of
+intemperance, and immorality, by death-beds of misery, and remorse, to say
+nothing of the life-long inconveniences of impecuniosity. Lamentable as is
+the contemplation of these lost lives, there is yet a sadder picture
+still, for pitiable as it is to think of men, indifferent alike to their
+well-being in this world and in that which is to come, the sadness is
+intensified when the object of pity is a woman, one who has been referred
+to as &#8220;a sort of female Otway, without his genius.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The individual in question was Colley Cibber&#8217;s younger daughter,
+Charlotte, whose education from her earliest years was eminently
+masculine, which resulted in the girl becoming proficient in manly sports
+and pastimes, such as shooting, hunting, riding, &amp;c. When very young she
+married Mr. Richard Clarke, a celebrated violinist, with whom she soon
+disagreed, and from whom she speedily separated, and she then devoted
+herself to the stage, and commenced a career, which for strange and
+harrowing vicissitudes is unequalled in the annals of British
+biography&mdash;one day courted, admired and affluent; the next an outcast,
+uncared for, and despised. Singularly enough, the first character she
+assumed on the stage after the quarrel with her husband was Mademoiselle
+in &#8216;The Provoked Wife,&#8217; in which character, and several subsequent
+assumptions at the Haymarket Theatre, she was highly successful, and
+obtained an uncommonly good salary. Her temper however, like herself, was
+eccentric, and it was not long before she quarrelled with Fleetwood, the
+manager, and left the theatre at a moment&#8217;s notice. From being a regular
+performer, she then took to travelling about the country with strollers,
+and shared with them the starvation fate that is so often associated with
+their nomadic existence. Tiring of this, she set up as a grocer, in Long<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>
+Acre, but failed in that business, as well as at puppet-show keeping, at
+which she tried her hand in a street near the Haymarket. On the death of
+her husband, she was thrown into prison for debt, but released by the
+subscriptions of ladies of questionable repute, whose charity is
+proverbially more conspicuous than their virtue. After remarrying, and
+again becoming a widow, Charlotte Clarke (for by that name she has always
+been known) assumed male attire, and obtained occasional engagements at
+the theatres, and, though she suffered most distressing deprivations was
+able to present so good an appearance, that an heiress became madly
+attached to her, and was inconsolable when the wretched woman revealed her
+sex. The next adventure she claims to have participated in is her becoming
+valet to an Irish nobleman, which situation she did not retain for any
+length of time; and then she attempted to earn her living as a
+sausage-maker, but was unsuccessful. Twice she became a tavern proprietor,
+and for a time was in the most flourishing circumstances, but her
+prosperity was excessively ephemeral, and amongst the other occupations
+that she is credited with having undertaken are those of waiter at the
+King&#8217;s Head, Marylebone; worker of a set of puppets, and authoress of her
+extraordinary biography, which she published in 1755. It was with the
+proceeds of this book that she was enabled to open one of the
+public-houses mentioned; but the amount realised by its sale was not of
+much benefit to the poor misguided creature, for within five years (she
+died in 1760), she was discovered in a more wretched, forlorn condition
+than ever, according to the account of two gentlemen who visited her. The
+widow, who, petted and pampered by her parents, had, as a child been
+brought up in luxury, was then domiciled in a wretched, thatched hovel in
+the purlieus of Clerkenwell Bridewell, at that time a wild suburb, where
+the scavengers used to throw the cleansings of the streets. The house and
+its scanty furniture sufficiently indicated the extreme poverty of the
+inmates.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mrs. Clarke sat on a broken chair by a little scrap of fire, and the
+visitors were accommodated with a rickety deal board. A half-starved dog
+lay at the authoress&#8217;s feet; a cat sat on one hob, and a monkey on the
+other; while a magpie perched on the back of its mistress&#8217;s chair. A
+worn-out pair of bellows served for a writing-desk, and a broken cup for
+an inkstand; these were matched by the pen, which was worn down to the
+stump, and was the only one on the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> premises. The lady asked thirty
+guineas for the copyright. The bookseller offered five, but was at length
+induced by his friend to give ten, on condition that Mr. Whyte (the
+friend) would pay a moiety and take half the risk of the novel.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>In the year 1759 she played Marplot, in &#8216;The Busybody,&#8217; for her own
+benefit at the Haymarket, when the following advertisement appeared.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;As I am entirely dependent on chance for a subsistence, and am desirous
+of getting into business, I hope the town will favour me on the occasion,
+which, added to the rest of their indulgence, will ever be gratefully
+acknowledged by their truly obliged, and obedient servant, <span class="smcap">Charlotte
+Clarke</span>.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>This was shortly before her death, which took place on the 6th April,
+1760.</p>
+
+<p>It would be extremely difficult to find a more sorrowful story in
+connection with impecuniosity than that of Colley Cibber&#8217;s daughter; and
+though the degraded character of the greater part of her life has robbed
+her misfortunes of much of the sympathy that would otherwise have been
+freely accorded, it would have been well if some who have animadverted so
+severely upon her shortcomings had remembered that much in her life that
+was so unwomanly was undoubtedly due to her masculine and defective
+training.</p>
+
+<p>The celebrated actress Mrs. Jordan&mdash;whose acting, according to
+Hazlitt&mdash;&#8220;gave more pleasure than that of any other actress, because she
+had the greatest spirit of enjoyment in herself&#8221;&mdash;was so unfortunate in
+her last days, that she is fully entitled to a place with those whose
+monetary embarrassments have been particularly sad. For years she had
+lived in uninterrupted domestic harmony with the Duke of Clarence,
+afterwards William the Fourth; but when the connection was suddenly
+severed in 1811, a yearly allowance of &pound;4400, was settled upon her for the
+maintenance of herself and daughters; with a provision that, if Mrs.
+Jordan should resume her profession, the care of the duke&#8217;s daughters,
+together with &pound;1500 per annum allowed for them, should revert to his Royal
+Highness. Within a few months of this arrangement she did return to the
+stage, but through having incautiously given blank notes of hand to a
+friend in difficulties on the understanding that the amounts to be filled
+in were but small, she awoke one morning to find herself called upon to
+pay amounts utterly beyond her power. In her terror and dismay she fled
+to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> France, but her peace of mind was gone. Separated from her children,
+and racked by the torturing thought of the liability she was unable to
+discharge, she gradually pined away, and died in terrible distress of mind
+at St. Cloud in June 1816.</p>
+
+<p>Contrasted with its brilliant beginning the close of Mrs. Jordan&#8217;s life is
+painfully sad, and it might be urged that the sorrowful end was but an
+instance of retributive justice on account of the fair and frail one&#8217;s
+social sin. Experience, however, proves that the breaking of the moral law
+does not always involve punishment in this life, and even if this were not
+so, many instances could be cited of misfortunes as heavy, and far
+heavier, falling to the lot of those who to all intents and purposes have
+led blameless lives.</p>
+
+<p>Foremost among such cases would be the crushing blow that befell the noble
+and greatly gifted novelist and poet, Sir Walter Scott, at the age of
+fifty-five years, when, having given to the world the greater part of
+those glorious works that have placed his name pre-eminent in the world of
+literature, and being, as was supposed, the happy enjoyer of a handsome
+fortune and splendid estate, it transpired that he was a ruined man. So
+successful had been his literary labours for thirty years that it was
+generally and naturally supposed that the enormous sums spent on
+Abbotsford were the proceeds of his novels and poems, but it seems he had
+for a long time been a partner in the printing firm of Ballantyne &amp; Co.,
+who were closely connected with Messrs. Constable, the publishers. These
+firms had engaged in transactions of a speculative character, and in the
+commercial crisis of 1825 both failed, Sir Walter&#8217;s immense private
+fortune being swallowed up in the crash, while as a partner in the house
+of Ballantyne he was responsible for the enormous amount of &pound;147,000. At
+the time of this calamity his health had already been considerably
+shattered, the slightly grey hair had in the year 1819 been turned to
+snowy white by an attack of jaundice, and his frame further enfeebled four
+years later by an attack of apoplexy, so that it would not have been
+surprising if this frightful crash had proved his death-blow. Far from it;
+with a heroism unparalleled, and a high sense of honour, that adds more
+lustre to his name than the most brilliant effusion of his pen, he
+determined manfully to face this overwhelming catastrophe, refusing all
+proffered aid, and merely asking for time. &#8220;Gentlemen,&#8221; said he to the
+creditors, &#8220;time and I against any two. Let me take this good ally into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>
+my company, and I believe I shall be able to pay you every farthing. It is
+very hard thus to lose all the labours of a lifetime and to be made a poor
+man at last when I ought to have been otherwise, but, if God grant me life
+and strength for a few years longer, I have no doubt I shall redeem it
+all.&#8221; The redemption referred to his property, all of which he gave up,
+retiring into modest lodgings, where he zealously set to work to
+accomplish the Herculean task of writing off the gigantic sum named.
+&#8216;Woodstock,&#8217; which realised &pound;8228, was the first novel after his
+misfortune, and that occupied him only three months; but it was as, he
+said, &#8220;very hard&#8221; at his time of life to every day perform the allotted
+task of producing thirty pages of printed matter, for the work on which he
+was then occupied was not that fiction which he wrote with such facility,
+but a voluminous &#8216;Life of Napoleon Buonaparte,&#8217; necessitating reference to
+no end of books and papers; and day after day for many a month might he
+have been seen, slowly and sorrowfully, wading through work after work in
+order to verify each date and fact. The nine volumes were finished in
+1827, and these were followed by &#8216;The Chronicles of the Canongate,&#8217; &#8216;Tales
+of a Grandfather,&#8217; &#8216;The Fair Maid of Perth,&#8217; &#8216;Count Robert,&#8217; and &#8216;Castle
+Dangerous&#8217;&mdash;the last named published in 1831&mdash;a year before his death,
+which may be fairly attributed to the undue strain of mind and body; the
+<i>raison-d&#8217;&ecirc;tre</i> of this overtaxing of his strength being simply and solely
+impecuniosity.</p>
+
+<p>The picture of this truly great man being obliged to wear out the last
+years of his life by unceasing labour when he should have been enjoying a
+well-earned rest, is excessively sad and touching&mdash;but the sadness is to
+some extent relieved by the heroic nature of the act. The melancholy end
+of the man is swallowed up in the imperishable name he has left behind,
+which name, for generations to come, will serve as the synonym of honour.
+Sad, far more sad, were the closing days of Sheridan, whose last moments
+were also darkened by impecuniosity, but utterly unrelieved by any acts of
+self-sacrifice; and made far more melancholy by the fact that the monetary
+misery was caused by unnecessary extravagance.</p>
+
+<p>Alas, poor Sheridan! If ever man in his declining days had good reason to
+say with the preacher, &#8220;Vanity of vanities, all is vanity,&#8221; thou hadst!
+for thou wert bitterly punished at the last, by the desertion and neglect
+of those who should have succoured and solaced<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> thee. True thy
+shortcomings were many, but only one blessed with such brilliant gifts
+could possibly realise thy temptation; and the sorrow thou didst endure
+must silence detraction. Says one of his biographers, &#8220;For six years after
+the burning of the old theatre, he continued to go down and down. Disease
+now attacked him fiercely. In the spring of 1816 he was fast waning
+towards extinction. His day was past, he had outlived his fame as a wit
+and social light; he was forgotten by many, if not by most, of his old
+associates. He wrote to Rogers, &#8216;I am absolutely undone and
+broken-hearted.&#8217; Poor Sheridan! in spite of all thy faults, who is he
+whose morality is so stern that he cannot shed one tear over thy latter
+days! God forgive us, we are all sinners; and if we weep not for this
+man&#8217;s deficiency, how shall we ask tears when our day comes? Even as I
+write, I feel my hand tremble and my eyes moisten over the sad end of one
+whom I love, though he died before I was born. &#8216;They are going to put the
+carpets out of window,&#8217; he wrote to Rogers, &#8216;and break into Mrs. S.&#8217;s room
+and <i>take me</i>. For God&#8217;s sake let me see you!&#8217; See him! see one friend who
+could and would help him in his misery! Oh, happy man may that man count
+himself who has never wanted that one friend, and felt the utter
+helplessness of that want. Poor Sheridan! had he ever asked, or hoped, or
+looked for that Friend out of <i>this</i> world it had been better; for &#8216;the
+Lord thy God is a jealous God,&#8217; and we go on seeking human friendship and
+neglecting the divine till it is too late. He found one hearty friend in
+his physician, Dr. Bain, when all others had forsaken him. The spirit of
+White&#8217;s and Brookes&#8217;, the companion of a prince and a score of noblemen,
+the enlivener of every fashionable table, was forgotten by all but this
+one doctor. Let us read Moore&#8217;s description. &#8216;A sheriff&#8217;s officer at
+length arrested the dying man <i>in his bed</i>, and was about to carry him off
+in his blankets to a spunging-house, when Dr. Bain interfered?&#8217; Who would
+live the life of revelry that Sheridan lived to have such an end? A few
+days after, on the 7th July, 1816, in his sixty-fifth year, he died. Of
+his last hours the late Professor Smythe wrote an admirable and most
+touching account, a copy of which was circulated in manuscript. The
+professor, hearing of Sheridan&#8217;s condition asked to see him, with a view
+not only of alleviating present distress, but of calling the dying man to
+repentance. From his hands the unhappy Sheridan received the Holy
+Communion; his face during that solemn rite&mdash;doubly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> solemn when it is
+performed in the chamber of death&mdash;&#8216;expressed,&#8217; Smythe relates, &#8216;<i>the
+deepest awe</i>.&#8217; That phrase conveys to the mind impressions not easy to be
+defined, not easy to be forgotten.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Peace! There was not peace even in death, and the creditor pursued him
+even into the &#8216;waste wide,&#8217; even to the coffin. He was lying in state,
+when a gentleman in the deepest mourning called, it is said, at the house,
+and introducing himself as an old and much-attached friend of the
+deceased, begged to be allowed to look upon his face. The tears which rose
+in his eyes, the tremulousness of his quiet voice, the pallor of his
+mournful face, deceived the unsuspecting servant, who accompanied him to
+the chamber of death, removed the lid of the coffin, turned down the
+shroud, and revealed features which had once been handsome, but long since
+rendered almost hideous by drinking. The stranger gazed with profound
+emotion, while he quietly drew from his pocket a bailiff&#8217;s wand, and
+touching the corpse&#8217;s face with it, suddenly altered his manner to one of
+considerable glee, and informed the servant that he had arrested the
+corpse in the King&#8217;s name for a debt of &pound;500. It was the morning of the
+funeral, which was to be attended by half the grandees of England, and in
+a few minutes the mourners began to arrive. But the corpse was the
+bailiff&#8217;s property till his claim was paid, and nought but the money would
+soften the iron capturer. Canning and Lord Sidmouth agreed to settle the
+matter, and over the coffin the debt was paid.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The pall-bearers were the Duke of Bedford, the Earl of Lauderdale, Earl
+Mulgrave, Lord Holland, Lord Spencer, and the Bishop of London, and the
+body was followed by two Royal Highnesses&mdash;the Dukes of York and
+Sussex&mdash;by two Marquises, seven Earls, three Viscounts, five Lords, and a
+perfect army of honourables and right honourables. This <i>show</i> of respect
+and homage after death, when nothing had been done to assuage his last
+sufferings in life, was regarded by those who loved him as a bitter
+mockery, and Moore&#8217;s lines justly denounced it.</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8220;Oh, it sickens the heart to see bosoms so hollow,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And friendship so false in the great and high-born,</span><br />
+To think what a long line of titles may follow,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The relics of him who died friendless and lorn!</span><br />
+How proud they can press to the funeral array<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of him whom they shunned in his sickness and sorrow,</span><br />
+How bailiffs may seize his last blanket to-day,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Whose pall shall be held up by nobles to-morrow!&#8221;</span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2>
+<p class="title">THE INGENUITY OF IMPECUNIOSITY.</p>
+
+<p>In the opening chapter, several instances of considerable ingenuity were
+referred to; but as the conduct of the individuals in question was not
+<i>sans peur et sans reproche</i>, the cases came under the head of the immoral
+effects of the want of money, and were necessarily not illustrations of
+ingenuity proper, but ingenuity slightly improper.</p>
+
+<p>In the present chapter, the majority of the reminiscences related are
+innocent of the unscrupulous characteristics, and are intended to be
+examples of the theory that &#8220;nothing sharpens a man&#8217;s wits like poverty,&#8221;
+which assertion can be supported by the accepted axiom &#8220;necessity is the
+mother of invention;&#8221; for it stands to reason that people are more or less
+stimulated to exercise their faculties of contrivance in proportion to
+their need. Hence it is that the very needy become exceptionally sharp in
+more senses than one.</p>
+
+<p>The men who have made their mark in any department of knowledge, or have
+achieved positions of eminence, are for the most part, those who have
+wanted to be clever, or those who have wanted to attain certain celebrity.
+It is the <i>want</i> of the thing that has enabled them to devote their whole
+lives to study, or given them the power to persevere; and so it is with
+regard to impecuniosity. The want of money&mdash;that is an anxious desire for
+it on account of its being needed&mdash;has caused men to cudgel their brains
+to extricate themselves from their difficulties, has made them plot and
+plan, scheme and contrive, or, in other words, has greatly developed the
+gift of ingenuity.</p>
+
+<p>Charles Phillips, the barrister, who, when first he practised at the Old
+Bailey bar, was remarkably hard up, was wont to relate, with great glee,
+how he succeeded with one of his early briefs, which he had from an
+Israelite attorney, in what might be termed &#8220;Jewing&#8221; the Jew. The case
+involved an indictment brought by one omnibus<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> company against another
+for &#8220;nursing&#8221; (that is, too closely following one another for the purpose
+of driving the rival off the road), and the trial lasted over three days.
+For this brief, which was an important one, he had received a
+disgracefully small fee, which he could not decline on account of his
+necessitous condition; but he determined, if he could get a chance, to be
+equal with his parsimonious employer, and on the last day of the trial the
+opportunity came. The attorney was most anxious that Phillips himself
+should examine a noted Paddington driver, who was a most important
+witness, and early on the morning he accosted the barrister, saying: &#8220;What
+an interesting day this will be in Court. You have to examine the
+Paddington coachman. The Court is crowded with conductors and drivers from
+all parts.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Indeed,&#8221; said Phillips, &#8220;I feel no interest in it. The trial has lasted
+three days, and look at my miserable fee. Now you <i>must</i> give me ten
+guineas, or I won&#8217;t examine him.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The Jew was thunderstruck, and white with fear for the issue of his cause,
+declared he had not such a sum with him, but said he would leave the
+amount at Phillips&#8217; chambers after the trial. The counsel knowing his man,
+and what his promise was worth, declined the proposition, whereupon the
+other produced his cheque-book, and forthwith wrote out a cheque for the
+sum demanded. As soon as the barrister received it, he asked to be excused
+for a few moments, on the plea that he would have to hand over another
+brief which he had to a brother counsel. He then privately gave the cheque
+to one of the attendants, telling him to run as hard as he could, or take
+a cab, and get the cheque cashed as quickly as possible. On his return, he
+managed to keep his victim engaged in conversation till he thought the
+messenger had obtained a sufficient start, feeling sure that the Jew,
+although so much interested in the trial, would rush off to the bank and
+stop payment. It was as Phillips anticipated; but the attorney was not
+quite quick enough, for, as he rushed into the bank, the man with the
+money came out, and the state of perspiration and cursing in which the
+baffled Israelite regained the Old Bailey can be understood without
+detailing.</p>
+
+<p>There is no doubt in Phillips&#8217; case that impecuniosity sharpened his wits;
+for the transaction was nothing more nor less than a piece of <i>sharp
+practice</i>, indefensible on strictly moral grounds, but hardly blameable
+when the character and conduct of the grinding attorney are remembered.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>The name of Phillips is associated with another record of ingenuity; but
+in the second instance it was Harlequin Phillips&mdash;no relation whatever of
+the legal luminary, though from his aptitude in taking advantage of an
+adversary he was worthy to be related, or at any rate his anecdote is.</p>
+
+<p>This celebrated pantomimist, who was contemporaneous with Garrick, and was
+regarded as one of the cleverest men in his profession at that time, was
+not clever enough to keep himself out of debt and the spunging-house,
+though he proved himself equal to making his escape from custody by an
+admirably-conceived plan. After treating the bailiff very freely, he
+pretended that he had a dozen of particularly choice wine at home, already
+packed, which he begged permission to send for, to drink while he was
+detained, offering to pay sixpence a bottle for the privilege.</p>
+
+<p>His custodian acceded to the request, and Phillips wrote a letter giving
+particulars of what he wanted, which letter was duly despatched to his
+residence. Some time after, a sturdy porter presented himself with the
+load, and the turnkey called to his master that a porter with a hamper for
+Mr. Phillips had come. &#8220;All right,&#8221; replied the bailiff; &#8220;then let nothing
+but the porter and hamper out.&#8221; The messenger, who was an actor thoroughly
+accustomed to &#8220;heavy business,&#8221; came in, apparently loaded with a weighty
+hamper, and went out as lightly as if he were carrying an empty package,
+though in reality it contained Mr. Phillips inside.</p>
+
+<p>This was indeed <i>carrying out the character of harlequin</i> (who is always
+supposed to be invisible) &#8220;to the letter;&#8221; and shows that the pantomimist
+of the past was an inventive genius, in addition to being an agile
+acrobat, and more or less up to tricks. <i>A propos</i> of tricks, the life of
+Philippe, the conjuror, introduces a legitimate illustration of a man poor
+in pocket, but rich in resource. Though he appeared at the St. James&#8217; and
+Strand Theatres in 1845, under the name of Philippe, his real cognomen was
+Talon-Philippe Talon.</p>
+
+<p>Born at Alais, near Nismes, where he carried on the trade of confectioner,
+he came to London, and subsequently went to Aberdeen, in the hope of
+succeeding as a manufacturer of Scotch sweets; but found himself unable to
+compete with the native makers, and in possession at last of nothing but a
+quantity of unsaleable confectionery. In utter despair of being ever able
+to get rid of his stock, he bethought him of turning conjuror, having
+always had a great <i>penchant</i> for sleight-of-hand performances, and being,
+he believed, equal to giving an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> exhibition in public. Certain apparatus,
+was, however, necessary, which, of course, in his insolvent condition, he
+was unable to purchase. He made a visit to the theatre, and found
+that&mdash;fortunately for him&mdash;the entertainment being given was anything but
+successful; the bill, theatrically speaking, was &#8220;a frost,&#8221; and the
+manager consequently open to discuss any scheme for pulling up the
+business. In a moment Philippe saw his opportunity, and suggested that two
+or three special performances should be given, at which every person
+paying for admission should have with his check a packet of confectionery
+given to him, and a ticket entitling the holder to a chance in a prize of
+the value of &pound;15. The suggestion was acted upon, the bait took, and the
+result was a succession of crowded houses, whereby Talon cleared off all
+his stock of sweets, netting a sufficient sum to enable him to purchase
+conjuring apparatus, which enabled him to give a series of entertainments
+with great success; the same that were subsequently represented with such
+profit in England, France, Austria, and elsewhere. Talon, or Philippe, as
+he was known to the entertaining public, was the first to perform with
+bare arms, and was one of the first to introduce the &#8220;globes of fish&#8221;
+trick in this country.</p>
+
+<p>Another of the &#8220;legitimate&#8221; description of examples is found connected
+with the theatrical experience of Mr. C. W. Montague, who for years was a
+very well-known circus-manager, having been connected at one time or
+another with the equestrian establishments of Messrs. Sanger, Bell, F.
+Ginnetts, Myers, Newsome, and George Ginnett. Some years ago, when he
+joined the circus owned by the last-named at Greenwich, he found that
+business was in a most melancholy condition; the show, although a very
+good one, failed to fetch the people in, and the receipts, not sufficient
+to pay expenses, were getting worse and worse. This dismal state of things
+was most disheartening to Montague, who was at his wits&#8217; end to know what
+to do, when one day, while he was being shaved, the barber noticing some
+one who had just passed the shop, said: &#8220;There goes poor Townsend.&#8221; &#8220;And
+who might he be?&#8221; asked the manager; being told in reply that the
+gentleman referred to had originally represented Greenwich in Parliament,
+but owing to great pecuniary difficulties had been obliged to resign. It
+also transpired that the late M.P. was a most excellent actor, the barber
+having seen him enact Richard III. &#8220;quite as good as any right down
+reg&#8217;ler perfeshional.&#8221; In addition, Mr. Townsend had been deservedly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>
+popular in the district, and especially in Deptford; for he had been the
+means, when in the House of Commons, of getting dockyard labourers&#8217; wages
+considerably advanced. These two facts, combined with the broken-down
+appearance of the gentleman spoken of, immediately presented themselves to
+Mr. Montague in a business light. What a capital idea it would be if he
+could manage to get the ex-M.P. to appear in the circus! So popular a man
+would be a tremendous draw! With this object in view, he waited upon Mr.
+Townsend the next morning, and put the proposition to him, but without
+success. The unfortunate gentleman admitted that his circumstances were
+such that the prospect of making money by the venture was most tempting;
+but his pride would not admit of his accepting the offer. The idea of
+appearing as a paid performer in a circus in the very place where he had
+been regarded with such respect was repugnant to his feelings, and he felt
+that he could not consent to the sacrifice of dignity. Away from Greenwich
+he would not have minded; but this arrangement of course would have been
+no good to Mr. Montague. Nothing daunted by the refusal, the theatrical
+man of business determined not to give up the idea, but on several
+subsequent occasions pressed him hard, using such powerful arguments in
+favour of the scheme that at last Mr. Townsend consented to appear as
+Richard &#8220;for twelve nights only,&#8221; on sharing terms. As soon as this was
+arranged, another and by no means unimportant difficulty presented itself.
+With the exception of Mr. Ginnett and his manager, there was no one in the
+company capable of supporting the tragedian; but stimulated by the
+seriousness of the situation, Mr. Montague set to work, cut down the
+tragedy with unsparing energy, and so arranged a version that enabled Mr.
+Ginnett and himself to double the parts of Richmond, Catesby, Norfolk,
+Ratcliffe, Stanley, and the ghosts. Notwithstanding these drawbacks, the
+production (which would never have been thought of or undertaken but for
+the impecunious state of affairs) proved a palpable hit, Townsend&#8217;s share
+being so considerable that he insisted on treating the company to a
+supper, shortly after which he went to America.</p>
+
+<p>The mention of America, and connected with circus managing, naturally
+suggests to the mind the name of that arch-humbug, but most successful
+showman, P. T. Barnum, who was not always the wealthy caterer he now is.
+On the contrary, his early life was associated with such poverty-stricken
+surroundings, that the want of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> money had undoubtedly much to do with that
+smartness for which his name has become famous. His father died leaving
+the family very badly off, the mother being put to all sorts of straits to
+keep the home together; and when Barnum&mdash;who was first of all a farmer&#8217;s
+boy&mdash;commenced his career, he, according to his own account, &#8220;began the
+world with nothing, and was barefooted at that.&#8221; His first berth of any
+consequence was a clerkship in a general store, at which time he was
+&#8220;dreadfully poor;&#8221; but, says he, &#8220;I determined to have some money.&#8221;
+Consequently, impelled by impecuniosity, he speedily became ingenious. One
+day, when left in charge of the business, a pedlar called with a waggon
+full of common green glass bottles, varying in size from half a pint to
+half a gallon. The store was what was called a barter store. A number of
+hat manufacturers traded there, paying in hats, and giving store orders to
+many of their <i>employ&eacute;s</i>, and other firms did likewise, so that the
+business boasted an immense number of small customers. The pedlar was
+anxious to do business, and Barnum knew that his employers had a quantity
+of goods that were regarded as unsaleable stock. Upon these he put
+inordinately high prices, and then expressed his willingness to barter
+some goods for the whole lot of bottles. The pedlar was only too glad,
+never dreaming of disposing of all his load, and the exchange was
+effected. Shortly after, Mr. Keeler, one of the firm, returned, and, on
+beholding the place crowded with the bottles, asked in amazement, &#8220;What
+<i>have</i> you been doing?&#8221; &#8220;Trading goods for bottles,&#8221; replied Barnum; to
+which his employer made the unpalatable rejoinder, &#8220;You are a fool;&#8221;
+adding, &#8220;You have bottles enough for twenty years.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Barnum took the reproof very meekly, only saying that he hoped to get rid
+of them in less than three months, and then explained what goods he had
+given in exchange. The master was very pleased when he found that his
+assistant had got rid of what was regarded as little better than lumber,
+but still was dubious as to how on earth he would be able to find
+customers for the glass, more especially as there was a quantity of old
+tinware, dirty and flyblown, about which Barnum was equally sanguine. In a
+few days the secret was out. His <i>modus operandi</i> was this: a gigantic
+lottery&mdash;1000 tickets at 50 cents each. The highest prize 25 dollars,
+payable in goods; any that the customers desired to that amount. Fifty
+prizes of five dollars each, the goods to that amount being mentioned, and
+consisting as a rule of one pair cotton hose, one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> cotton handkerchief,
+two tin cups, four pint glass bottles, three tin skimmers, one quart glass
+bottle, six nutmeg graters, and eleven half-pint glass bottles. There were
+100 prizes of one dollar each, and 100 prizes of fifty cents each, and 300
+prizes of twenty-five cents each, glass and tinware forming the greater
+part of each prize. Headed in glaring capitals &#8220;Twenty-five dollars for
+fifty cents; over 500 prizes.&#8221; The thousand tickets sold like wild-fire,
+the customers never stopping to consider the nature of the prizes.
+Journeyman hatters, boss hatters, apprentice boys, hat-trimmers, people of
+every class and kind bought chances in the lottery, and in less than ten
+days all the tickets were sold.</p>
+
+<p>This was Barnum&#8217;s first stroke of business, the success of it no doubt
+having much to do with his subsequent enterprises; and as, according to
+his own showing, the scheme was the result of needy circumstances, and a
+determination to have money, it is impossible to say how much his present
+prosperity is due to that early expedient.</p>
+
+<p>To give a less modern instance of the power of impecuniosity to render
+people ingenious, there is an anecdote of this nature recorded of Captain
+William Winde, a celebrated architect, the dates of some of whose designs
+are 1663-1665. Amongst many other of his achievements is included
+Buckingham House, in St. James&#8217;s Park, which he designed for the Duke of
+Buckingham, but the money for which he could not obtain. The edifice was
+nearly finished when the arrears of payment were so considerable that the
+architect felt he could not continue unless he obtained a settlement; but
+how to do it? That was the thing. Asking was perfectly useless, and
+writing to his grace was equally ineffectual. At last a brilliant idea
+occurred to him. He requested the duke to mount the leads, to behold the
+wonderful view that could be obtained therefrom, and when the noble owner
+complied, he locked the trap-door, and threw the key away.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Now,&#8221; said Winde, &#8220;I am a ruined man, and unless I have your word of
+honour that the debts shall be paid, I will instantly throw myself over.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What is to become of me?&#8221; asked the duke.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;<i>You shall come along with me!</i>&#8221; replied Winde; whereat his grace
+immediately promised to pay, and the trap was opened at a given signal by
+a workman who was in the plot.</p>
+
+<p>There is a similar kind of story told of Sir Richard Steele and a
+carpenter who had built a theatre for him, but who was unable to get<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> his
+money. Finding all ordinary means of no avail, the carpenter took the
+opportunity when Sir Richard had some friends present, who had assembled
+for the purpose of testing the capabilities of the building, of going to
+the other end of the theatre; and when told to speak out something pretty
+loudly, to test the acoustic properties, roared as loud as ever he could
+that he wished to goodness Sir Richard Steele would settle his account.
+This is the same individual who gave a splendid entertainment to all the
+leading people of the time, and had them waited upon by a number of
+liveried servants. After dinner Steele was asked how such an expensive
+retinue could be kept upon his fortune, when he replied he should be only
+too glad to dispense with his servants&#8217; services, but he found it
+impossible to get rid of them.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Impossible to get rid of them?&#8221; asked his friends. &#8220;What do you mean?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why, simply that these lordly retainers are bailiffs with an execution,&#8221;
+replied Steele, adding that &#8220;he thought it but right that while they
+remained they should do him credit.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>It is said that his friends were so amused by the humorous ingenuity
+displayed, that they paid the debt, which is not unlikely, considering how
+popular he was. As a literary man, Steele was always regarded with the
+highest esteem, and his personal merits were equally recognised, since his
+want of economy was considered his only sin, it having been said of him
+that &#8220;he was the most innocent rake that ever entered the rounds of
+dissipation.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The same could not be said of Sheridan unfortunately, whose ingenuity
+under monetary pressure (and when wasn&#8217;t he pressed for money?) was
+remarkable. One of the least harmless of the many incidents recorded of
+this character is the circumstance of his obtaining a handsome watch from
+Harris the proprietor of Covent Garden Theatre. He had made innumerable
+appointments with Harris, none of which had ever been kept, and at last
+the manager sent word through a friend that if Sherry failed to be with
+him at one o&#8217;clock as arranged, he would positively have nothing more to
+do with him. Notwithstanding the importance of the interview, at three
+o&#8217;clock Sheridan was at Tregent&#8217;s, a famous watchmaker&#8217;s, and in course of
+conversation he told Tregent that he was on his way to see Harris.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ah!&#8221; said the watchmaker, &#8220;I was at the theatre a little while ago, and
+he was in a terrible rage with you&mdash;said he had been waiting for you since
+one.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>&#8220;Indeed,&#8221; said Sheridan; &#8220;and what took you to Covent Garden?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Harris is going to present Bate Dudley with a gold watch,&#8221; was the reply;
+&#8220;and I took him a dozen to choose from.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Sheridan left on hearing this, and went straight to the theatre, where he
+found Harris exceedingly wroth at having, as he said &#8220;had to wait over two
+hours.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My dear Harris,&#8221; began the incorrigible one, &#8220;these things occur more
+from my misfortune than my faults, I assure you. I thought it was but one
+o&#8217;clock. It happens I have no watch, and am too poor to buy one. When I
+have one, I shall be as punctual as any one else.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; replied the manager, &#8220;you shall not want one long. Here are
+half-a-dozen of Tregent&#8217;s best&mdash;choose whichever you like.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Sheridan did not hesitate to avail himself of the offer; nor did he, as it
+will be understood, select the least expensive one of the number.</p>
+
+<p><i>A propos</i> of watchmakers, there is the story of Theodore Hook dining with
+one with whom he was utterly unacquainted save by name, which ingenious
+plan was evolved through lack of funds. Driving out one afternoon with a
+friend in the neighbourhood of Uxbridge, Hook remembered that he had not
+the means wherewith to procure dinner, and turning to his companion said,
+&#8220;By the way, I suppose you have some money with you?&#8221; But he had reckoned
+without his host. &#8220;Not a sixpence&mdash;not a sou,&#8221; was the reply, the last
+turnpike having taken his friend&#8217;s last coin. Both were considerably
+crestfallen, for it was getting late, and the drive had made them
+remarkably hungry. What was to be done? Presently they passed an
+exceedingly pretty residence. &#8220;Stay,&#8221; said Hook, &#8220;do you see that
+house&mdash;pretty villa, isn&#8217;t it? Cool and comfortable&mdash;lawn like a
+billiard-table. Suppose we dine there?&#8221; &#8220;Do you know the owner?&#8221; asked the
+friend. &#8220;Not the least in the world,&#8221; laughed Hook. &#8220;I know his name. He
+is the celebrated chronometer-maker. The man who got &pound;10,000 premium from
+Government, and then wound up his affairs and his watches.&#8221; Without
+another word they drove up to the door, asked for the proprietor, and were
+ushered into the worthy tradesman&#8217;s presence. &#8220;Oh, sir,&#8221; said Hook,
+&#8220;happening to pass through your neighbourhood, I could not deny myself the
+pleasure and honour of paying my respects to you. I am conscious it may
+seem<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> impertinent, but your celebrity overcame my regard for the common
+forms of society, and I, and my friend here, were resolved, come what
+might, to have it in our power to say that we had seen you, and enjoyed
+for a few minutes, the company of an individual famous throughout the
+civilised world.&#8221; The old man blushed, shook hands, and after conversing
+for a few minutes, asked them if they would remain to dinner, and partake
+of his hospitality? Hook gravely consulted with his friend, and then
+replied that he feared it would be impossible for them to remain. This
+only increased the watchmaker&#8217;s desire for their society, and made him
+invite them more pressingly, till, at length the pretended scruples were
+overcome, the pair sitting down to a most excellent repast, to which they
+both did more than justice.</p>
+
+<p>On another occasion, when Hook was very much worried for money, he went as
+a <i>dernier ressort</i> to a publisher who knew him, in the hope that he would
+help him; but unfortunately the man knew him &#8220;too well,&#8221; and refused,
+unless he had something to show that he would get his money&#8217;s worth, or at
+any rate a portion of it. Thereupon Hook went home, sat up all night,
+wrote an introduction to a novel &#8220;on a new plan,&#8221; appended a hurried
+chapter, which he took the next day to the publisher, asserting that he
+had had a most liberal offer for it elsewhere, and so persuaded the man to
+advance the required sum.</p>
+
+<p>Amusing as are many of the anecdotes quoted, there is one which may be
+called &#8220;divinely&#8221; funny, being connected with a once well-known
+theologian&mdash;Dr. John Brown of Haddington. This famous Biblical
+commentator, who flourished from 1784 to 1858, was anything but rich in
+this world&#8217;s goods; and so poor when staying at Dunse, that he went into a
+shop and asked to be accommodated with a halfpennyworth of cheese. The
+shopman, awfully disgusted with the meanness of the order, remarked
+haughtily, that &#8220;they did not make&#8221; such small quantities; upon which the
+doctor asked, &#8220;Then what&#8217;s the least you can sell?&#8221; &#8220;A penn&#8217;orth,&#8221; was the
+reply. On the divine saying &#8220;Very well,&#8221; the man proceeded to weigh that
+quantity, and then placed it on the counter, anticipating to be paid for
+it. &#8220;Now,&#8221; said Dr. Brown, &#8220;I will show you how to sell a halfpennyworth
+of cheese;&#8221; upon which, in the coolest manner conceivable, he cut the
+modicum into two pieces, and appropriating one half, put down his coin and
+departed.</p>
+
+<p>Impecuniosity in addition to sharpening men&#8217;s wits, by which expression<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>
+is understood the sharpening of the inventive faculties, has also the
+power of making sharp man&#8217;s wit, as instanced in the case of the beggar
+who accosted Marivaux, the well-known French writer of romance. This
+mendicant, who appears to have been what we were wont to call a &#8220;sturdy
+rogue,&#8221; looked so unlike what one soliciting alms should, that the man of
+letters said to him, &#8220;My good friend, strong and stout as you are, it is a
+great shame that you do not go to work;&#8221; when he was met with the reply,
+&#8220;Ah, master, if you did but know how lazy I am!&#8221; for which amazing
+audacity, he was rewarded by Marivaux, who said, &#8220;Well, I see thou are an
+honest fellow. Here&#8217;s a piece of money for you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Though, perhaps not strictly witty, the man&#8217;s remark was excessively
+comic, and for aught I know, it may have been his conduct that gave rise
+to the now well-known expression&mdash;&#8220;funny beggar.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>For impromptu wit connected with impecuniosity, there is the case of Ben
+Jonson, who was invited to dinner at the Falcon Tavern, by a vintner, to
+whom he was much in debt, and then told that if he could give an immediate
+answer to four questions, his debt should be forgiven him. The
+interrogatories put to him by the vintner were these, &#8220;What is God best
+pleased with? What is the Devil best pleased with? What is the World best
+pleased with? and what am I best pleased with?&#8221; To which Ben replied:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8220;God is best pleased when men forsake their sin.<br />
+The devil is best pleased when they persist therein.<br />
+The world&#8217;s best pleased when thou dost sell good wine,<br />
+And thou&#8217;rt best pleased when I do pay for mine.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>To return to the instances of ingenuity, the late Charles Mathews must be
+remembered; for he claims the credit of having been successful in
+extracting money from Jew bailiffs, which, incredible as it may seem at
+first, would really appear to have been the case. He says, &#8220;I might relate
+a thousand stories of my hair-breadth &#8217;scapes and adventures, with a class
+of persons wholly unknown, happily, to a large portion of the population,
+and whose names inspire terror to those who do not know them;&mdash;officers of
+the Jewish persuasion, who are supposed to represent the majesty of the
+law in its most forbidding aspect, but to whom I have been indebted for so
+many acts of kindness, that I have frequently blessed my stars that they
+were interposed between me and the tomahawking Christians by whom they
+were employed, and from whom no mercy could have been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> extracted. I have
+had two of those functionaries in adjacent rooms, and <i>have borrowed the
+money from one to pay out the other</i>, with many such like incidents.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>There is no doubt that on the subject of bailiffs this most popular light
+comedian was an authority; for his experience of them was considerable,
+and it is therefore gratifying to find him bearing testimony to the good
+qualities of the much-maligned individual, who, as &#8220;the man in
+possession,&#8221; is so often provocative of anger, malice, and all
+uncharitableness in the breasts of those who have to entertain him. It
+would be unwise, however, for any one to be so led away by the eulogistic
+remarks of Charles Mathews as to expect to be able to go and do likewise,
+in the matter of borrowing money from them; for it must be remembered,
+that without exception he was the most entertaining man in existence, and
+blest with persuasive powers unparalleled. At the same time, it is
+perfectly true that they are nothing like as formidable as they are
+supposed to be (this is reliable&mdash;for a distant relation of mine once knew
+a person, who had a friend that was sold up&mdash;Ahem!), and if it were not
+for their partiality for wearing an extra number of coats and waistcoats,
+and invariably carrying a stout stick, which characteristics render them
+unmistakable to the practised eye, they would not be so objectionable, as
+they are by no means devoid of sympathy, and are always open to reason in
+the shape of gin and water.</p>
+
+<p>Though not of so pronounced a type as some that have been quoted, there is
+an anecdote illustrative of ingenuity, recorded of Samuel Foote, who, in
+the days of his youth, and hard-upishness, wrote &#8216;The Genuine Memoirs of
+the Life of Sir John Dinely Goodere, Bart., who was murdered by the
+contrivance of his own brother.&#8217; The author was nephew to the murdered
+man, and the assassin; but so poor was he, that on the day he took his MS.
+to the publishers he was actually without stockings. On receiving his pay
+for the book (&pound;10), he stopped at a hosier&#8217;s in Fleet Street, to replenish
+his wardrobe, but just as he issued from the shop, he met two old Oxford
+associates, lately arrived in London for a frolic, and they bore him off
+to a dinner at the &#8220;Bedford:&#8221; where, as the wine began to take effect, his
+unclad condition began to be perceivable, and he was questioned as to
+&#8220;what the deuce had become of his stockings?&#8221; &#8220;Why,&#8221; said Foote&mdash;the
+stockingless Foote&mdash;&#8220;I never wear any at this time of the year, till I am
+going to dress for the evening, and you see&#8221;&mdash;pulling his purchase out of
+his pocket, and silencing the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> laugh and suspicion of his friends&mdash;&#8220;I am
+always provided with a pair for the occasion.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Equally humorous is the story told of the Honourable George Talbot, the
+brother of the Earl of Shrewsbury, a man well known about town during the
+time of the Peninsular War. He was a reckless spendthrift, and in Paris,
+where he had spent thousands, he was reduced to absolute want. Though a
+man of decidedly bad principles, he was what is termed a good Roman
+Catholic; that is to say, a regular attendant at Mass, and when he found
+it impossible to raise money anywhere else he bethought him of the clergy,
+and repaired to confession. He revealed everything to the priest, at least
+with regard to his penniless condition, and after much interrogation, and
+deliberation, was told to &#8220;trust in Providence.&#8221; Seemingly much struck by
+the advice, he said he would come again, and on his second visit, retold
+his story, with the addition that nothing at the time of the interview had
+turned up; when he was met with the same counsel as before, and enjoined
+to &#8220;trust in Providence.&#8221; Somewhat chapfallen at the failure of his visit,
+he went away, but after a few days again presented himself to the abb&eacute;,
+whom he thanked effusively for his good advice on the two previous
+occasions, and then begged the pleasure of his company to dinner at a
+well-known fashionable restaurant. The invitation was accepted, and the
+two sat down to a most sumptuous repast, the delicacy of the viands being
+only surpassed by the choiceness of the wine. When the meal was concluded
+the bill was handed to Talbot, who said that his purse was quite empty,
+and had been so for a long time, but that he thought he could not do
+better than follow his confessor&#8217;s advice and &#8220;trust in Providence.&#8221; The
+Abb&eacute; Pecheron (the confessor) saw the joke, paid for the dinner, and so
+interested himself in Talbot&#8217;s case, that he obtained from the
+spendthrift&#8217;s friends in England sufficient to enable him to return to
+this country.</p>
+
+<p>Not the least ingenious of the many instances to be met with, however, is
+one attributed to a widow, who, in the days of Whitecross Street and the
+Bench, was arrested for debt. This lady, who is described as of fair and
+dashing appearance, with great powers of fascination, soon began to pine
+for her liberty, and petitioned for leave &#8220;to live within the rules,&#8221;
+which request was granted. She then took a house in Nelson Square, and
+became a reigning queen of pleasure, her Thursday evening <i>r&eacute;unions</i> being
+deemed so delightful, that invitations for them were most eagerly sought
+for. Her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> admirers were legion (that is of the male sex), one at last
+being successful in obtaining her coveted hand, and the marriage took
+place in due course. When the happy pair returned to Nelson Square after
+the ceremony, the tipstaves, who had become acquainted with the affair,
+put in an appearance as the newly married couple were about to start on
+their honeymoon, informing the lady that they would arrest her, and take
+her to the Bench, if she attempted to leave &#8220;the rules.&#8221; Nothing
+disconcerted by this apparent stopper to her happiness, she calmly, but
+majestically exclaimed, &#8220;Indeed! You forget there is no such person as the
+lady named in your warrant. I am no longer Mrs. A., but Mrs. B. There is
+my husband, and he is responsible for my debts.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Then, sir,&#8221; said the tipstaff, &#8220;I must arrest you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The lady smiled sarcastically, saying, &#8220;I think it will be time enough to
+arrest my husband when you have served him with a writ. If you have one,
+produce it; if not, kindly stand aside, and allow us to enter the coach.&#8221;
+The officers could but comply, for they saw they had been outwitted, and
+were compelled to stand meekly by, while the clever widow, observing &#8220;Now,
+my love, let us be off,&#8221; jumped into the carriage, and drove away with her
+husband.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2>
+<p class="title">THE IMPECUNIOSITY OF ACTORS.</p>
+
+<p>There is a letter extant, written to Sir Francis Walsingham in 1586, in
+which the writer speaks &#8220;with pious indignation of overcrowded playhouses
+and deserted churches;&#8221; and says &#8220;it was a wofull sight to see two hundred
+proude players jett in their silks where fyve hundred pore people sterve
+in the streetes.&#8221; From this and many similar allusions we glean that
+actors were not in the infancy of our English dramatic art the shabby
+impecunious class they afterwards became. They were on the whole well to
+do, and highly respectable men of college education, who were in most
+
+cases poets as well as players, patronised and encouraged by all classes,
+except those who were so bitterly jealous of their extraordinary
+influence&mdash;the clergy. A special Act of Parliament was passed in the reign
+of Queen Elizabeth for their encouragement and protection, and they had
+that which many of the well-born and wealthy envied them&mdash;the right of
+wearing the badges of royal and noble families, ensuring them respect,
+hospitality, and protection, wherever they went. The profession of the
+player was not then open to all comers, and those who dared to adopt it
+without licence from &#8220;any baron, or person of high rank, or two justices
+of the peace,&#8221; were &#8220;deemed and treated as rogues and vagabonds;&#8221; prison
+and the whipping-post, or cart-tail, stocks, and the pillory, being but
+the milder forms of that treatment promised them in the often quoted,
+commonly misrepresented, Act of &#8220;good Queen Bess.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Some of the dramatic poets and players, plunging headlong into dissipation
+and debauchery, were at length abandoned by their fellows, and sank into
+the depths of misery and extreme poverty; but the majority prospered, and
+went about in their silks and velvets, with roses in their shoes, and
+swords by their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> sides, no longer the poor scholars they had been in their
+college days&mdash;the licensed beggars, who, when they came into a town, set
+all the dogs barking&mdash;but prosperous gentlemen of fair repute, such as
+were Shakespeare, and Edward Alleyn, the founder of the Hospital and
+College at Dulwich.</p>
+
+<p>But a great change was at hand when the rebellion broke out, and civil war
+gave the Puritans dominant power. Their stage-plays and interludes were
+abolished, and the players&#8217; occupation was gone. Worse still, the very Act
+of Parliament which had been created for their protection was turned
+against them, and they were classed with the rogues and vagabonds against
+whom it had formerly protected them. Then the whipping and imprisonment,
+and even selling into slavery, became the poor players&#8217; miserable
+ill-fortune, and the reign of impecuniosity began in all its rigorous
+severity and terror. The London playhouses, which, between the years 1570
+and 1629, had grown from one (the Theatre in Shoreditch) to seventeen,
+were shut up, and had all their stages, chambers (boxes, we call them),
+and galleries pulled down. Small wonder was it, therefore, that the
+players, almost to a man, drew their swords for the King, and fought
+stoutly under the royal banner. In the &#8216;Historia Histrionica,&#8217; printed in
+1699, we read the following dialogue:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Lovewit. &#8216;Prythee, Trueman, what became of these players when the stage
+was put down, and the rebellion raised?&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Trueman. &#8216;Most of &#8217;em, except Lown, Taylor, and Pollard, who were
+superannuated, went into the King&#8217;s army, and, like good men and true,
+served their old master, though in a different, yet more honourable,
+capacity. Robinson was killed at the taking of a place (I think Basing
+House) by Harrison (he that was after hanged at Charing Cross), who
+refused him quarter, and shot him in the head after he had laid down his
+arms, abusing Scripture at the same time in saying, &#8220;Cursed is he that
+doeth the work of the Lord negligently.&#8221; Mohun was a captain (and after
+the wars were ended here served in Flanders, where he received pay as a
+major); Hart was a lieutenant of horse under Sir Thomas Dathson, in Prince
+Rupert&#8217;s regiment; Burt was cornet in the same troop, and Shatterd,
+quarter-master. Allen, of the Cockpit, was a major, and
+quarter-master-general at Oxford. I have not heard of one of these players
+of note who sided with the other party, but only Swanston, and he
+professed himself a Presbyterian,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> took up the trade of a jeweller, and
+lived in Aldermanbury, within the territory of Father Calamy: the rest
+either lost, or exposed, their lives for their King. When the wars were
+over, and the Royalists wholly subdued, most of &#8217;em who were left alive
+gathered to London, and for a subsistence endeavoured to revive their old
+trade privately. They made up one company out of all the scattered members
+of several; and in the winter before the King&#8217;s murder, 1648, they
+ventured to act some plays, with as much caution and privity as could be,
+at the Cockpit (now Drury Lane Theatre). They continued undisturbed for
+three or four days; but at last, as they were representing the tragedy of
+&#8216;The Bloody Brother&#8217; (in which Lowin acted Aubrey; Taylor, Rolla; Pollard,
+the cook; Burt, Latorch; and, I think, Hart, Otto), a party of
+foot-soldiers beset the house, surprised &#8217;em about the middle of the play,
+and carried them away in their habits, not permitting them to shift, to
+Hatton House, then a prison, where, having detained them some time, they
+plundered them of their clothes and let &#8217;em loose again. Afterwards, in
+Oliver&#8217;s time, they used to act privately, three or four miles, or more,
+out of town, now here, now there, sometimes in noblemen&#8217;s houses, in
+particular Holland House, at Kensington, where the nobility and gentry who
+met&mdash;but in no great numbers&mdash;used to make up a sum for them&mdash;each giving
+a broad piece, or the like&mdash;and Alexander Goffe (the woman-actor at
+Blackfriars) used to be jackall, and give notice of the time and place. At
+Christmas and Bartholomew Fair they used to bribe the officer who
+commanded at Whitehall, and were thereupon connived at, to act, for a few
+days, at the &#8220;Red Bull,&#8221; but were sometimes, notwithstanding, disturbed by
+soldiers. Some picked up a little money by publishing the copies of plays
+never before printed, but kept up in MS.; for instance, in the year 1652,
+Beaumont and Fletcher&#8217;s &#8216;Wild Goose Chase&#8217; was printed in folio, for the
+public use of all the ingenious, as the title-page says, and the private
+benefit of Jown Lowin and Joseph Taylor, servants to his late Majesty; and
+by them dedicated to the honoured few lovers of dramatic poetry: wherein
+they modestly intimate their wants, and with sufficient cause; whatever
+they were before the wars, they were afterwards reduced to a necessitous
+condition.&#8217;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Hard times these for the poor wandering players.</p>
+
+<p>It is curious to note that a reputed natural son of Oliver<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> Cromwell
+became an actor. This was Joe Trefusis, nicknamed &#8220;Honest Joe,&#8221; described
+as a person of &#8220;infinite humour and shrewd conceits.&#8221; On one occasion,
+driven, we presume, by impecuniosity, Joe volunteered as a seaman, and
+served under the Duke of York. This was just before the memorable
+sea-fight between the duke and the Dutch admiral, Van Tromp, in which Joe
+took part, as he confessed, with great fear, which was not, you may be
+sure, decreased when one of the sailors, grimly preparing for the strife,
+said to him &#8220;Now, master play-actor, you&#8217;re a-going to take part in one of
+the deepest and bloodiest tragedies you ever heard of.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Another player of Puritan descent was the famous American actress,
+Charlotte Cushman, the name of her ancestor, Robert Cushman, being one
+that figures honourably and prominently as a leader amongst the Pilgrim
+Fathers. She tells us many anecdotes of the impecuniosity which afflicted
+her in the early days of her career. It was decided that she should
+abandon singing, and commence acting, and her first essay was to be in&mdash;of
+all parts&mdash;&#8220;Lady Macbeth&#8221;! She was then a tall, thin, fair-skinned,
+country girl, and being unable to procure a suitable costume, Madame
+Closel, a short, fat, dark-complexioned French woman, was applied to, and
+laughed heartily at the ludicrous idea of her clothes being worn by Miss
+Cushman, who says,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;By dint of piecing out the skirt of one dress it was made to answer for
+an under-skirt, and then another dress was taken in in every direction to
+do duty as an over-dress, and so make up the costume. And thus I essayed
+for the first time the part of Lady Macbeth.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>At that time her only place for study was an empty garret in the house in
+which she lodged, and her practice was to shut herself up in it alone, and
+sitting on the floor commit her &#8220;lines&#8221; to memory.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Cushman was not the only actress whom impecuniosity and consequent
+vocal efforts led to the stage. The famous Kitty Clive, whose maiden name
+was Rafter, was originally maid-of-all-work to Miss Knowles, who lodged at
+Mrs. Snells, a well-known fan-painter, in Church Row, Hounsditch. The
+Bell Tavern immediately opposite this house, was kept by a Drury Lane
+box-keeper, named Watson, at which house an actor&#8217;s beef-steak club was
+held. One morning, when Harry Woodward, Dunstall, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> other well-known
+London actors were in their club-room, they heard a girl singing very
+sweetly and prettily in the street outside, and going to the window found
+that the cheerful notes emanated from the throat of a charming little
+maid-servant, who was scrubbing the street-door step at Mrs. Snell&#8217;s
+house. The actors looked at each other and smiled, as they crowded the
+open window to listen, and the final result was, in 1728, the introduction
+of the poor singer to the stage. She afterwards married Counsellor Clive,
+and being not a little of the shrew, it is said, quarrelled with him so
+seriously, that before the honeymoon was fairly out, the &#8220;happy pair&#8221;
+agreed to separate. It must not, however, be supposed that Kitty Clive was
+born to a menial position: she was the daughter of an Irish gentleman,
+ruined, as so many Irish gentlemen were, by their adherence to the cause
+of James II.</p>
+
+<p>Amongst those so ruined was the father of the illustrious actor and
+dramatic author, Charles Macklin, who on one occasion, when about to
+insure some property, was asked, &#8220;How the clerk should designate him?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Call me,&#8221; replied the actor, &#8220;Charles Macklin, a vagabond by Act of
+Parliament&#8221;&mdash;the old law of Queen Elizabeth, which the Puritans had
+extended to all players, being then unrepealed.</p>
+
+<p>There was doubtless a tinge of bitterness in the joke; for Macklin&#8217;s early
+experience had been a severe and trying one, in the gaunt school of
+poverty and hardship.</p>
+
+<p>When in his twenty-sixth year, being ashamed of depending upon his poor
+old mother for his living, he left home, and travelling as a steerage
+passenger from Dublin to Bristol, arrived in that opulent city when a
+third-class company of players were performing there. He took lodgings
+over a mean little snuff and tobacco shop, next door but one to the
+theatre, and there became acquainted with a couple of the players, a man
+and a woman, who introduced him behind the scenes. To this he owed his
+introduction to the stage; for the manager detecting signs of histrionic
+taste and ambition in the young Irishman, engaged him, despite his
+strongly pronounced brogue, to play Richmond in Shakespeare&#8217;s &#8216;Richard
+III.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>James Kirkman, said to have been a natural son of Macklin&#8217;s, writing of
+his <i>d&eacute;but</i>, said, &#8220;Considering the strong vernacular accent with which
+Mr. Macklin (then MacLaughlin) spoke, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> reader would be at a loss to
+account for the applause which he met with on his first appearance, if he
+was not told that Bristol has always been so much inhabited by the Irish
+that their tones in speaking have become familiar there.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The young Irish enthusiast afterwards travelled with this little company,
+making himself generally useful, by writing the playbills and distributing
+them&mdash;printing was too costly for poor strollers in those days&mdash;by
+carpentery when the stage had to be set up in some barn or inn-yard, by
+writing on occasions prologue or epilogue, without which no play was then
+considered complete, by composing and singing topical songs,
+&#8220;complimentary and adulatory to the village in which they happen to play,&#8221;
+to use his fist, which he did with great skill and strength, when the
+vulgar rustic audiences were disturbed by the quarrelsome, or were rude
+and coarsely offensive to his professional sisters and brethren. Kirkman
+says, &#8220;His circle of acting was more enlarged than Garrick&#8217;s; for in one
+night he played Antonia, and Belvidera in &#8216;Venice Preserved,&#8217; harlequin in
+the interlude, or entertainment, sang three comic songs between the acts,
+and between the play and the entertainment indulged the audience with an
+Irish jig&#8221;; often doing this when his share of the profits (for the
+original sharing system of Shakespeare&#8217;s day then prevailed among
+strollers) was not more than four or five pence per night, to which was
+usually added a share of the candle-ends, candles being in use for
+lighting the stage, affixed round hoops to form chandeliers for the
+auditorium, in the making of which Macklin displayed peculiar skill.</p>
+
+<p>There is a good story told by Kirkman of a time when Macklin was with a
+company of strollers in Wales. One night they had the misfortune to arrive
+in Llangadoc, a little place in Carmarthenshire, so late that neither
+shelter, beds, nor food enough for all could be obtained, and Macklin,
+who, &#8220;from the high rank he held in the company was entitled to the first
+choice,&#8221; resigned his claim in favour of a member of the corps who was too
+sick and weak to pass the night in the open air.</p>
+
+<p>Kirkman, telling the story, says: &#8220;After supping with &#8216;Lady Hawley,&#8217;
+Macklin made his bow and retired to the room where the luggage was stored.
+Here he undressed himself and adopted the following humorous expedient: He
+instantly arrayed himself in the dress of Emilia in the &#8216;Moor of Venice&#8217;
+(a part he <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>occasionally played), tied up a small bundle in a handkerchief
+and slipped out of the house unperceived. In about a quarter of an hour he
+returned, apparently much fatigued, and addressing the landlady in the
+most piteous terms, recounted a variety of misfortunes that had befallen
+&#8216;her,&#8217; and concluded the speech with a heart-moving request that &#8216;she&#8217;
+might have shelter for the night, as &#8216;she&#8217; was a total stranger in that
+part of the country. The supposed young woman was informed by the
+unsuspecting landlady that all her beds were full, but that in pity for
+her distressed condition some contrivance would be made to let her have
+part of a bed. Charles now hugged himself at the success of his scheme,
+and, after he had partaken of some refreshment, was, to his great
+astonishment, conducted by the servant to the bedroom of the landlady
+herself, where he was left alone to undress. In this dilemma he scarcely
+knew how to act. To retreat he knew not how without risking discovery.
+However, into bed he went, convulsed with silent laughter. He had not been
+in bed many minutes before Mrs. &#8216;Boniface,&#8217; who was upwards of sixty
+years, but completely the character in size and shape, made her
+appearance. Charles struggled hard with himself for some moments, but the
+comic scene had such an effect on him at last that he could contain
+himself no longer, and at the instant the old lady got into bed burst into
+a fit of laughter.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Boniface, believing &#8220;the poor young girl was in a fit,&#8221; got up as
+fast as she could, and roared out so loudly and effectually for help that
+everybody in the house was alarmed, and the itinerant actresses coming
+into the chamber discovered, to their intense astonishment, who it was
+that the landlady had given half of her bed to. The laughter spread, was
+taken up on the stairs, and echoed from room to room, until the whole
+house rang with it. The anger of the landlady was appeased. This occurred
+in 1730 or 1731.</p>
+
+<p>An old friend of mine, who in his time has been actor, artist, journalist,
+dramatist, and novelist, and is now a well-known London editor, once told
+me the following story of his first connection with the stage.</p>
+
+<p>He was a feeble, consumptive lad of sixteen, when the drunkenness and
+cruelty of a worthless step-father drove him penniless from home. All
+through one long, wretched, and utterly hopeless day he had been wandering
+through the streets of London seeking<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> employment. Naturally shy,
+reserved, and timid, his awkward mode of addressing a stranger while
+perplexed what account to give of himself, together with the hesitation,
+stammering, and blushing which accompanied it, had brought upon him
+nothing but scornful treatment, insulting suspicions, and failure after
+failure. He found himself at the close of a long, hot day, with burning
+feet and aching limbs, hungry, faint, and plunged into the very lowest
+depths of despair, on the banks of the New River, where he had often been
+before to fish. His desire was to escape observation, and he dragged
+himself along, passed fishermen and boys, until, finding their line
+stretched out from one to another still far ahead, he sat down in the long
+grass completely exhausted, and turning on his face, wept silently.</p>
+
+<p>Now it so happened that a tall, lank, sallow-faced young fisherman, with a
+beard of a fortnight&#8217;s growth, and clothes of a once fashionable cut, but
+then threadbare, discoloured, ill-fitting, and very greasy at the cuffs
+and collar, particularly noted the tall, thin boy, and presently strolled
+up to, and sat down beside him.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Hallo, guv&#8217;nor,&#8221; said he; &#8220;what&#8217;s up?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The poor boy had no voice and no heart to reply, so he pretended to be
+asleep.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Wat&#8217;s yer been a doin&#8217; on? Run away from home?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>After a pause, and without moving, the poor lad said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve got no home now.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Where do you come from?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Not very far.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Where are you going to?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t know.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Have you got any money?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;None.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Where&#8217;s your father and mother?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Father&#8217;s dead.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And yer mother? Can&#8217;t she keep yer? Ain&#8217;t she got no home neither?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The boy felt that any attempt to reply would betray his violent emotion.
+He got up silently and walked away.</p>
+
+<p>The stranger followed, overtook him, and walked beside him.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;ve come from a long way off, young un&mdash;ain&#8217;t yer?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The runaway nodded, although he was really within about a mile and a half
+of his starting-point.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>&#8220;Yer seems awfully tired. Why I do b&#8217;lieve as yer a crying. Wot&#8217;s the
+matter?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>There was an expression of sincere sympathy in the man&#8217;s face, and my
+young friend answered in a low faint voice, broken with sobs,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve no home, and no relatives or friends to go to; and I don&#8217;t know what
+to do.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The man eyed him very curiously before he replied,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My lodgin&#8217;s in Clerkenwell, not so very far from here; the bed &#8217;ull &#8217;old
+two. Come home and sleep with me; and we&#8217;ll take in a couple of black
+puddin&#8217;s, or a faggot, or something nice an&#8217; &#8217;ot for supper. Come along.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The stranger was a poor mender of shoes, who lived in a squalid garret, at
+the top of an old house, overcrowded with lodgers; a foolish lazy fellow
+enough, without a principle of honesty, or a care for respectability or
+cleanliness in his entire composition, but withal a kindly one. Necessity
+drives sternly. The boy looked at his companion&#8217;s dirty linen and unwashed
+face and neck, and with a glance at the river, a longing, despairing look,
+which did not escape the stranger&#8217;s quick observation, turned and
+reluctantly went with him.</p>
+
+<p>When they were in bed he began to tell his mournful story, and fell asleep
+at the beginning of it. In the morning the dirty son of St. Crispin
+explained that he was a supernumerary at the theatres, as well as a snob,
+and that he was engaged for the Princess&#8217;s Theatre, where Macready was
+then playing.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If you like,&#8221; said he, &#8220;I&#8217;ll take you to the super-master; he lives close
+by in Hatton Garden, all amongst the Italians on the Hill.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He did so, and an engagement followed. This piece of luck filled the
+unfortunate lad&#8217;s heart with delight. The pay was only a shilling a night,
+but he could live on it; and it was the first step in a profession of
+which he had dreamed as the summit of human ambition and felicity ever
+since he first saw a play performed &#8220;with real water&#8221; on the boards of old
+Sadler&#8217;s Wells. With what tremulous eagerness and delight he went to
+rehearsal with his dirty friend and benefactor! With what wonder and
+curiosity he inspected the stage-door, the wings and the dressing-room
+under the stage, and with what awe he eyed the mighty magician who lorded
+it above his fellows with such undemonstratively quiet and yet most
+impressive dignity!</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>The play was Shakespeare&#8217;s &#8216;King Lear,&#8217; and in the combat scene the lists
+were formed on the stage by short battle-axes and long spears, the former
+being stuck upright in holes arranged for their reception, two of the
+latter placed crossways, and one on the top of them horizontally between
+each axe. Macready was particularly anxious that this should be done
+rapidly, and without hesitation; and the efforts of the supers to carry
+out his instructions were simply ludicrous. The men with the battle-axes
+couldn&#8217;t hit upon the holes, and some absolutely went down upon their
+knees to feel for them, while the spearmen either were awfully slow and
+nervously careful, or they missed the supports and created a clatter and
+confusion, which appeared to plunge Macready into a furious state of anger
+and disgust. The new super, all eyes and ears, shared the great
+tragedian&#8217;s feelings; he saw at once that the entire effect depended upon
+the dash and spirit of the soldier&#8217;s action in eagerly and readily
+extemporising these warlike barriers; and he devised a plan by which his
+axe was thrust as it were at once into the earth, with scarcely a downward
+glance. He was pointing out how readily this was done, to his neighbours
+on either side, and telling them to pass the hint along, when he was
+startled by the deep strong voice of the tragedian, who had come up to
+him, and said abruptly, &#8220;What&#8217;s your name, my man?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My friend did, what I am not going to do (not having his permission), he
+told Macready his name, and he, after a grunt, and a quick, keen glance
+from under his knitted brows, repeated it aloud, saying,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I shall not forget it. It&#8217;s the name of the first super I ever saw with
+brains.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>On the night of the first performance some few days after, my friend was
+taken out of his ordinary soldier costume, and arrayed more carefully and
+picturesquely in a more costly fashion to play the part of a knight in
+special attendance upon the king, from whom he had the honour of receiving
+a message. Alas! that honour cost him a friend&mdash;the jealousy of the
+shoemaker broke out in spite and bitterness which accumulated and
+intensified to such an extent that at the end of the week he was caught in
+the act of hiding in the dark behind one of the beams of wood supporting
+the stage, for the purpose of throwing a big stone at the poor fellow with
+whom, under the influence of pity, he had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> shared his food and lodging. It
+was impossible to conceive a more cowardly or malignant rascal than this
+fellow had become under the influence of envy and jealousy.</p>
+
+<p>The class of theatrical people employed as supernumeraries (commonly
+called &#8220;supers&#8221;) form the background figures of stage pictures, soldiers,
+sailors, peasants, citizens, mobs, &amp;c., playing the dumb accessory parts;
+and they are as a rule neither too respectable nor too intelligent. To
+train and teach them is a task which sorely tries the patience of the
+super-master, and their lazy, poverty-stricken, and generally not too
+cleanly aspect is provocative of contempt and dislike amongst the actors.
+Their pay is not extravagant, being usually a shilling a night, but their
+histrionic pride is great, and their reverence for the actors profound,
+while for one to stand a little closer to the footlights than his fellows
+do, and consequently nearer the audience, or to be selected to go on alone
+to deliver a letter or receive a message, is the very summit of his
+ambition; a dangerous elevation, too, for from the time that he is so
+gloriously distinguished he is regarded with envy, spite, and malice, by
+his fellows, who try their best to oust him and take his place. This, my
+friend, above mentioned, soon experienced, for his life became a
+succession of bitter annoyances and coarse insults, varied when necessity
+compelled with an occasional fight, in which, despite his feeble health he
+generally contrived to give a fair account of his adversary, inheriting
+some of his father&#8217;s skill as a boxer, and having been a constant student
+of that art when at school. At the termination of the Macready
+performances he was engaged at one of the old tavern theatres of those
+days, now known as the Britannia Theatre, then as the Britannia Saloon,
+where the stage-manager, a gentle and kindly old man (Mr. Wilton) was
+particularly good to him, and at last, after hearing him read a
+Shakespearian speech, entrusted him with small parts, contrary to the
+conviction of Mrs. Lane, the clever wife of the then proprietor, in whose
+place she now reigns. She, finding that the boy blushed and stammered when
+she spoke to him, pronounced him unfit for the experiment.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He has an impediment in his speech,&#8221; said she.</p>
+
+<p>Some years after, my friend having in the meantime abandoned the stage for
+art (of which he was for years an ardent, indefatigable student), under
+the pressure of severe impecuniosity,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> became a country scene-painter and
+afterwards an actor, playing in the course of his theatrical career a wide
+range of second and third-rate parts, sometimes doubling as many as three
+or four in a single piece, and often both playing and painting scenery.
+Once, while Miss Mary Glover was manageress of the Cheltenham and Bath
+theatres, in consequence of the non-arrival of about half the expected
+company, he doubled tremendously, playing four characters in the burlesque
+and two in the farce, with the most rapid changes of &#8220;make up&#8221; and
+costume, one being a comic nigger with songs. Miss Glover had taken the
+theatre under the pressure of impecuniosity, trusting to the chance of
+success for the payment of her company. At the end of the first week she
+paid half salaries, at the end of the second and third weeks no salaries,
+or, in the parlance of the initiated, &#8220;the ghost did not walk,&#8221; and great
+doubtless was the trouble and suffering consequently endured. My friend
+was reduced to bread and butter for meals, and found even those materials
+none too plentiful, when one evening he was summoned into the
+dressing-room of Miss Glover. The lady was in tears, but they were tears
+of indignant rage.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Sir!&#8221; said she, &#8220;I was never so insulted in all my life!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What&#8217;s wrong, madam? Who has insulted you?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Who has insulted me, sir! Why you have!&#8221; cried she, with a look of
+astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I, madam! How?&#8221; he exclaimed with a similar expression.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Look at your gloves, sir!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, madam, they are clean, I washed them myself.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But, sir! Berlin gloves! It&#8217;s monstrous! I was never so treated before in
+all my life! Paltry cotton. You ought to be ashamed of yourself&mdash;a leading
+character too. I never played with a gentleman before in your part who did
+not wear new white kids!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I laughed,&#8221; said my friend. &#8220;It was rude, I know, but for the life of me
+I couldn&#8217;t help it. Here was my employer living in comparative luxury at
+first-class lodgings in a fashionable town, abusing a poor devil whom she
+had cheated and half-starved, because, in a back-street garret with
+scarcely a penny in his pocket, he did not wear nightly, as he otherwise
+would have done, a new pair of white kid gloves!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The late Miss Oliver, who stood by at the time, called the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> fellow who
+dared to laugh at a manageress in such dire distress, &#8220;a brute.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>On another occasion Mr. Huntley May Macarthy, a once well-known and very
+eccentric provincial manager, abruptly closed the theatre at Bury St.
+Edmunds, after keeping it open a week or ten days, leaving the unfortunate
+company to escape from the dilemma of debt and difficulty into which so
+many of them were deeply plunged. Some had drawn a fortnight&#8217;s salary in
+advance, to pay their travelling expenses to Bury St. Edmunds, and they
+had all been gathered from far and near by the London agent. In that case
+my friend the editor found his ark of safety in falling back upon his old
+profession. He painted the portrait of a local celebrity, which, being
+exhibited in the town, soon brought him sitters enough to enable him to
+help himself and spare something for one or two of his less happily
+situated brothers and sisters in misfortune. I remember my friend remarked
+as curious on each of these occasions the quietude with which the
+histrionics submitted to be so unfairly treated. Neither in the case of
+Miss Glover nor that of Mr. Macarthy were there any attacks made upon them
+to the face, heartily as they were cursed and abused behind their backs.</p>
+
+<p>In explanation of this I may recall what Mrs. Mathews said of her husband,
+the elder Mathews, when he suffered under the same infliction, which in
+the old days of &#8220;circuits&#8221; and &#8220;strolling companies&#8221; was a very common one
+and is still by no means unknown. She said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I have heard Mr. Mathews say that he has gone to the theatre at night
+without having tasted anything since a meagre breakfast, determined to
+refuse to go on the stage unless some portion of his arrears was first
+paid. When, however, he entered the green-room his spirits were so cheered
+by the attention of his brethren, and the <i>&eacute;clat</i> of his reception that
+his fainting resolution was restored, all his discontent utterly banished
+for the time, and he was again reconciled to starvation: nay, he even felt
+afraid of offending the unfeeling manager, and returned home silent upon
+the subject of his claims.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>No actor was ever better acquainted with poverty than that extraordinary
+man Edmund Kean. Endowed with rare genius, and a potency of will, that
+impelled him to surmount any obstacle lying in the pathway leading towards
+fame, this player&#8217;s fate<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> was yet infelicitous. Maternal solicitude, moral
+training, and those circumstantial influences which induce regular habits,
+were alike denied him. All the regularities, vicissitudes, vexations,
+disappointments, sorrows, trials and romance common to the lives of
+strolling players, characterized the early career of Edmund Kean. Through
+his mother he was related to George Saville, Marquis of Halifax. That
+mother was Ann Carey, grand-daughter of Henry Carey, the reputed author of
+our National Anthem. The father of Edmund Kean was Aaron Kean, generally
+described as an architect, but described by some as a stage carpenter, and
+by others as a tailor. In a melancholy and miserable chamber of a house,
+situated at no great distance from Holborn, Edmund Kean first saw the
+light, on November 4th, 1787. It is stated by Miss Tidswell, the actress,
+that &#8220;about half-past three in the morning Aaron Kean, the father, came to
+me, and said, &#8216;Nance Carey is with child, and begs you to go to her at her
+lodgings in Chancery Lane.&#8217; Accordingly my aunt and I went with him and
+found Nance Carey near her time. We asked her if she had proper
+necessaries, and she replied, &#8216;No&mdash;nothing&#8217;; whereupon Mrs. Byrne begged
+the loan of some baby-clothes, and Nance Carey was removed to the chambers
+in Gray&#8217;s Inn, which her father then occupied, and it was there that the
+future tragedian was born.&#8221; Ann Carey had been under the protection of
+Aaron Kean, and he afterwards abandoned her. She came of an unfortunate
+stock, for Henry Carey, as I have stated, notwithstanding his talents was
+always in difficulties, which only forsook him when he committed
+self-destruction; and his son, George Saville Carey&mdash;printer, mimic,
+scientific lecturer, and occasional poetaster and dramatist&mdash;would have
+been without a decent burial, but for the charity of a few friends. His
+daughter when only fifteen years old, quitted her home and became a
+strolling actress; but when out of an engagement she would return to
+London, and pick up a scanty home in its streets as a hawker. It was in
+such occupation that Aaron Kean first saw the woman.</p>
+
+<p>In addition to her irregular habits, Edmund Kean&#8217;s mother was selfish,
+calculating, and cruel. It was not long after his birth that the child,
+with his strangely beautiful dark eyes and winning ways, was actually
+abandoned by his unnatural parent. Ann Carey quitted the metropolis to
+join a wandering troupe of Thespians, and when she next saw her child, he
+was three years<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> old, and living under the protection of a poor man and
+his wife, in Soho. It is said that these worthy people had found little
+Edmund hungry and forlorn, and left in a doorway, one winter&#8217;s night.</p>
+
+<p>Of the boy&#8217;s history, after the mother had abandoned him to the period
+when he found succour from the kind couple in Soho, nothing is known. Ann
+Carey demanded her child, and quickly turned her offspring to profit;
+getting him engaged to appear as a reposing Cupid in one of the Opera
+House ballets, and subsequently to appear in a Drury Lane pantomime&mdash;the
+boy was little more than three years old. When in 1794 at Drury Lane, John
+Kemble produced &#8216;Macbeth&#8217; with exceedingly novel stage business, Edmund
+Kean was one of the goblin troupe, introduced for the purpose of giving
+additional impressiveness to the incantation scene. It was not long
+afterwards that he played the part of a page in the &#8216;Merry Wives of
+Windsor.&#8217; His education was of the slightest, and intermittent; he was a
+pupil at a small school in Orange Court, Leicester Square, and at another
+place of instruction in Chapel Street, Soho; and the expenses for such
+education were defrayed by a few generously disposed people, who were
+impressed by the boy&#8217;s beauty and intelligence. Ann Carey, almost
+destitute, went away from Castle Street, Leicester Fields, and, with her
+boy found a lodging in Ewer Street, Southwark. Young Edmund, restive and
+adventurous, determined to run away from home, and with a few necessaries
+tied up in a bundle slung on a stick, made his way to Portsmouth, and
+engaged himself in the capacity of cabin boy for a ship bound to Madeira.
+Not sufficiently robust to do some of the work incidental to his duties,
+he resolved to be again free; which he accomplished by feigning deafness.
+Discharged at the end of the return voyage, he walked from Portsmouth to
+London, and hungry, footsore and heart-weary, made his way to the old
+lodging in Southwark. He found that his mother had left her shabby
+tenement for a place in Richardson&#8217;s show troupe, then perambulating the
+country.</p>
+
+<p>He bethought him that he might find a shelter under the roof of his uncle,
+Moses Kean, who lived in Lisle Street, Leicester Square. This uncle, who
+was a mimic, ventriloquist, and general entertainer, received young Edmund
+Kean kindly, gave him a home, and became his preceptor in many of the
+mysteries<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> belonging to the histrionic art. Miss Tidswell, the
+acquaintance of his mother, and an actress of respectable position at
+Drury Lane, also showed great interest in the welfare of the boy. He made
+progress in the arts of dancing, singing, declamation, and fencing, and
+even in those days he became familiar with the creations of Shakespeare.
+Through the influence of Miss Tidswell, he obtained an engagement for some
+parts at Drury Lane, Prince Arthur in &#8216;King John&#8217; being one. The boy
+excited notice, as the following anecdote related by Mrs. Charles Kemble
+shows.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;One morning before the rehearsal commenced, I was crossing the stage,
+when my attention was attracted by the sounds of loud applause issuing
+from the direction of the green-room. I enquired the cause, and was told
+that it was only little Kean reciting &#8216;Richard III.&#8217; My informant said
+that he was very clever. I went into the green-room and saw the little
+fellow facing an admiring group, and reciting lustily.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>On the death of Moses Kean, his nephew&#8217;s only real friend was Miss
+Tidswell. Under her he studied Shakespearian characters, and while
+residing with her joined the company of Saunders, Bartholomew Fair. There
+he gave imitations of the nightingale and monkey, of the form and movement
+of the snake; and at Bartholomew Fair he acted the part of Tom Thumb. Soon
+afterwards, hearing that his mother was acting at Portsmouth, he set out
+from London for the seaport named; but on reaching it discovered that the
+information given him concerning Anna Carey was incorrect. His situation
+was trying, for he was destitute and friendless. Young Kean, however, had
+a bold heart, and a brain full of resources. He hired, on credit, a room
+in one of the Portsmouth taverns, and announced an entertainment
+consisting of &#8220;Selections from &#8216;Hamlet,&#8217; &#8216;Richard III.,&#8217; and &#8216;Jane Shore,&#8217;
+with a series of acrobatic performances, and some exquisite singing, and
+all by Master Carey, of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.&#8221; The entertainment
+was sufficiently successful for it to be repeated, and having paid all
+expenses, the entertainer found himself three pounds in pocket. Edmund
+Kean at this time was fourteen years old.</p>
+
+<p>Reciting Rolla&#8217;s &#8220;address to the Peruvians&#8221; one evening before an audience
+at Sadler&#8217;s Wells, a country manager, then present, was so much impressed
+by the declamation of the lad, that young<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> Kean received an offer to play
+leading characters for twenty nights at the York Theatre. The offer was
+accepted, he was highly successful, and for many years from the time of
+that York engagement, the future tragedian of Drury Lane underwent the
+vicissitudes peculiar to the life of the old-fashioned stroller. It was
+not long ere he encountered the famous showman, Richardson, who speedily
+made terms with the precocious and versatile youth. It turned out that
+Anne Carey was in the company. She proposed that her son should join with
+her in her labours, and that she should receive his earnings. But they did
+not long labour together, and parted, not to meet again till Kean made his
+great success in 1814 at Drury Lane. While with a manager named Butler, at
+Northampton, Kean played walking gentlemen, Harlequin, and sang comic
+songs for a salary of fifteen shillings a week. While attached to Butler&#8217;s
+company, he enacted the character of Octavian, in the &#8216;Mountaineers&#8217; with
+such ability, that a gentleman connected with the Haymarket, who saw the
+performance, undertook to procure the young tragedian an engagement,
+provided that he could reach London to appear at a specified time. Kean,
+being without money, could only have travelled on foot, and the journey to
+London by such means would have taken up so much time, that he
+despairingly saw that the engagement must remain unfulfilled. Butler, with
+the greatest good nature, said &#8220;that he would defray the expenses of a
+stage-coach journey.&#8221; Kean, overcome with emotion, exclaimed, &#8220;If ever
+fortune smiles upon my efforts, I will not forget you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The Haymarket engagement proved humiliating, the young actor being cast
+for very insignificant parts. However, in one character, Ganem, in the
+&#8216;Mountaineers,&#8217; by the admirable manner in which he spoke certain words,
+he drew forth such unmistakable applause, that he availed himself of a
+recommendation addressed to John Kemble. In an interview with that
+celebrity, Kean found the eminent tragedian so chilling and unsympathetic
+in manner, that the poor fellow hurried from the theatre stung to the
+quick by his inauspicious reception. He again visited the provinces, and
+again experienced many privations, disappointments, humiliations, and
+rebuffs. Fate appeared to frown upon him; but it must be remembered that
+Kean was young, exceedingly small of stature, unconventional in his style
+of acting, and thoroughly original in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> every assumption that he undertook.
+Moreover, his temper was violent, haughty, and sensitive.</p>
+
+<p>It was during those days, when Edmund Kean, as a strolling player, was
+learning his art, and was making acquaintance with poverty in its most
+bitter forms, that he acquired those habits of intemperance which
+afterwards effected his ruin. After the engagement at the Haymarket, he
+acted at Tunbridge Wells, Portsmouth, Haddesden, Birmingham, and
+Edinburgh. More than once in these journeyings he exhibited at fairs and
+public houses; and for a short time he earned a scanty income in the
+capacity of usher at a school in Hertfordshire. In 1807 at Belfast, he
+played with Mrs. Siddons; and as Jaffier in &#8216;Venice Preserved&#8217; made a
+strong impression. But the tragedienne&#8217;s opinion of him was not
+flattering; for on first seeing him, she remarked, &#8220;he was a horrid little
+man,&#8221; and criticising his enaction in Otway&#8217;s pathetic drama said, &#8220;He
+plays the part very, very well, but there is too little of him wherewith
+to make a great actor.&#8221; Notwithstanding taunts, impecuniosity,
+heart-burnings, and neglect, the young aspirant studied laboriously, and
+allowed no opportunity to slip by which he might gain increased knowledge
+of stage art, and of human nature; but during his hard apprenticeship, he
+was forced to have recourse to many shifts, and to endure much suffering.
+After playing an engagement in Kent, he accepted another for a single
+night at Braintree, in Essex.</p>
+
+<p>On the day that the performance was to take place at Braintree, the actor
+stood, without a farthing in his pocket, on the Kent bank of the Thames.
+Bound to fulfil his engagement, it was necessary for him to cross the
+river; and his impecunious condition precluded all possibility of hiring a
+boat. The strong-willed stroller was not to be daunted. He threw off his
+clothes, tied them into a bundle, which he held in his teeth, plunged into
+the river, and speedily reached the shore. With his clothes saturated with
+water, half-famished, and tired in every limb, he yet went on for &#8220;Rolla,&#8221;
+before the Braintree audience. While performing he fainted, and an illness
+of fever and ague was the consequence of his swimming expedition. On
+recovering he tramped all the way to Swansea, and played in that town. He
+was then in his twentieth year. Proceeding to Gloucester, he became a
+member of Beverley&#8217;s company, and was advertised to play Young Rapid. The
+usual<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> means had been taken to attract an audience, but at the time for
+the rising of the curtain there were only two persons in the auditorium;
+so the eighteenpence taken at the doors were returned to the couple of
+playgoers, and the theatre lights extinguished. A few nights Kean
+performed with a lady who had left the scholastic profession for that of
+the stage, and this lady, Miss Chambers, afterwards became Mrs. Kean. When
+at Stroud, Master Betty was announced to perform Hamlet and Norval; Kean
+found himself cast for Laertes and Glenalvon. The actor could not brook
+what he deemed an indignity,&mdash;that of playing secondary characters to a
+mere boy; and for three days and three nights, he was away from the
+theatre, every individual connected with it being ignorant of his
+whereabouts. On reappearing he said, &#8220;I have been in the fields, in the
+woods, I am starved; I have eaten nothing but turnips and cabbages since
+I&#8217;ve been out; but I&#8217;ll go again, and as often as I see myself put in such
+characters. I won&#8217;t play second to any man living, except to John Kemble.&#8221;
+In the summer of 1808, Kean married Mary Chambers, the wife being nine
+years older than the husband. Soon after the marriage, Beverley told them
+that he intended dispensing with their services, and they soon had to
+drain the cup of poverty to its dregs. To the honour of the woman he had
+taken to his heart, she cheered and soothed him in his tremendous
+struggle. He suffered not only the pangs of poverty, but too often the
+stings of hostile criticisms from provincial scribes, utterly unable to
+appreciate his passionate and original renderings of dramatic
+characterization. At Birmingham he thought himself and his wife well paid,
+when during an engagement they each received a pound for their weekly
+services. So ably did he act that Stephen Kemble made proposals to
+negotiate a London engagement; but Kean deemed that further experience was
+necessary before he should attempt a metropolitan appearance in leading
+characters. Terrible toil and terrible suffering had to be undergone ere
+he was to reach the pinnacle of success.</p>
+
+<p>Closing his performances at Birmingham, he made terms with Andrew Cherry
+to appear at Swansea. So indigent was the actor, that he was necessitated
+to undertake the journey on foot, a journey of 200 miles; and his wife,
+who accompanied him, was likely soon to become a mother. Mr. and Mrs. Kean
+owed money in Birmingham, or possibly the wife might have remained in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>
+town; and from it&mdash;early one summer morning&mdash;they departed on their long
+and wearisome way, adding to their miserable store of money some additions
+as they proceeded, by giving recitations at the residences of the gentry.
+In a fortnight they reached Bristol, were ferried over to Newport, and at
+last reached Swansea, where they obtained lodgings. Kean&#8217;s acting was not
+warmly received; and referring to one of his impersonations in the town,
+he remarked, &#8220;I played the part finely, and yet they would not applaud
+me!&#8221; The actor grew moody, splenetic, and gave way to insobriety. A son
+born to him at this period he named Howard; and it was soon after the
+birth of the child that the Keans left Swansea, with Cherry, for other
+towns in the principality, and subsequently they crossed over to Ireland.
+At Waterford, Kean played tragedy, and in addition for his benefit, gave
+an exhibition of pugilism, tight-rope dancing, singing, and wound up by
+playing the Chimpanzee in the piece called &#8216;La Perouse.&#8217; It was at
+Waterford that Edmund Kean&#8217;s second son, Charles, was born. Beaching
+Scotland, so exhausted were the funds of the actor, that at Dumfries he
+got up an entertainment at a tavern, and the only patron was a shoe-maker,
+who paid sixpence for admission. At Carlisle Kean appealed to the
+barristers on Assize, asking for their presence, when he would deliver a
+series of recitations, his reward to be at their discretion; but the
+appeal was made in vain. In the autumn of 1811, the family in the most
+miserable condition arrived in York, and from the ball-room, Minster Yard,
+Kean issued a circular announcing, &#8220;for one night only,&#8221; an entertainment
+comprising recitals, dramatic selections, imitations of actors, and
+singing by himself, assisted by his wife; but the scheme ended with
+anything but a prosperous result. Under their struggles, husband and wife
+broke into a wail of grief, as they contemplated their innocent and
+unfortunate babes. The mother on her knees, supplicated for spiritual
+influence to annihilate their sufferings by death, but the fiery-willed
+player still kept courage, &#8220;I will go on, I will hope against hope!!&#8221; They
+got to London, where, at Sadler&#8217;s Wells, Kean had a short engagement at
+two pounds a week, and then he had engagements at Weymouth and Exeter; in
+which latter place he played for a salary of one pound a week. Through the
+influence of an old friend, Dr. Drury, Kean at length obtained an
+engagement at Drury Lane. But ere his triumph on the London boards was
+effected, the child, Howard,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> died, an event to which the actor never
+alluded without feelings of grief. While Kean was concluding his Exeter
+performances, his wife and child were desolate in the garret of a house in
+Cecil Street, Strand; and they would have starved, but that the liberality
+of Dr. Drury succoured them. Even on the eve of his Drury Lane success,
+Kean underwent many trials and sufferings. Save Dr. Drury he was without a
+friend. On his <i>d&eacute;but</i>, that memorable evening at Drury Lane, 26th
+January, 1814, the directors of the establishment denied him everything
+calculated to awaken hope and courage. Kean went to the dressing-room, and
+from the dressing-room to the stage, conscious that he had been treated
+with superciliousness, apathy, and injustice. Under such treatment, and
+with all his previous trials, it was only a perfect knowledge of his own
+transcendent powers, that carried him through the ordeal. The effect of
+his triumph in Shylock, may best be described in the words of his late
+biographer. &#8220;In an almost phrenzied ecstasy he rushed through the wet to
+his humble lodging, sprang up the stairs, and threw open the door. His
+wife ran to meet him; no words were required, his radiant countenance told
+all&mdash;and they mingled together the first tears of true happiness they had
+as yet experienced. He told her of his proud achievement, and in a burst
+of exultation exclaimed, &#8216;Mary, you shall ride in your carriage, and,
+Charley my boy,&#8217; taking the child from the cradle and kissing him, &#8216;you
+shall go to Eton, and&#8217;&mdash;a sad reminiscence crossed his mind, his joy was
+overshadowed, and he murmured in broken accents, &#8216;Oh that Howard had lived
+to see it! But he is better where he is.&#8217;&#8221; Pity that so fine a nature as
+Edmund Kean&#8217;s, with his genius, and generous sympathies, should have
+struck on the rock of self-indulgence. But in any estimate of his moral
+shortcomings, the evil influence around his early life, and the effect of
+his early privation, should be steadfastly, and charitably, borne in mind.
+When we remember the conditions under which the actor pursues his calling,
+it is scarcely surprising that the term &#8220;poor players,&#8221; should have become
+proverbial. The victims of a social ban, originating in the bigotry of
+church and conventicle; following a profession, perhaps of all professions
+the most scouted by smooth, smug respectability, and certainly of all
+professions the most liable to fluctuations of success from the caprices,
+whims and &#8220;breeches-pocket&#8221; condition of its patrons; it seems but
+natural<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> that the history of the stage should yield numerous illustrations
+of man impecunious.</p>
+
+<p>Then, too, it must be borne in mind, that the greater number of men and
+women who have recruited the ranks of the histrionics have been people of
+romantic and &#8220;happy-go-lucky&#8221; temperament; light-hearted, generous to a
+fault, unworldly in the money-making sense, and frequently of the most
+irregular and unbusiness-like habits. Such characteristics had Theophilus
+Cibber, Shuter, George Frederick Cooke, Edmund Kean, Ward, and John Reeve;
+and though the precarious nature of the profession, the necessarily
+unsettled habits of its followers, and the unreality of the life, may be
+conducive in a degree to impecuniosity, it seems to me&mdash;and I have
+strutted several fretful hours&mdash;the only real cause of players being
+poorer than other people is due to extravagance and irregularity. Frugal,
+steady, trustworthy habits invariably increase a man&#8217;s well-being, in any
+calling; and the theatrical profession is no exception to the rule.</p>
+
+<p>Richardson, the showman, was born in a workhouse, and was in his early
+years a mere little social arab, cast upon the world without friends or
+education; and he began his social career by exhibiting a little child
+with spotted skin, calling him the &#8220;spotted boy.&#8221; The first venture was
+profitable, and the showman went on making money, and saved it. He then
+set up a show theatre, succeeded so well that year after year he had to
+enlarge it, and at last it became the largest in the kingdom. Richardson
+likewise established a character for honesty, and all that is summed up in
+the words &#8220;manly conduct.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>John Quick&mdash;George the Third&#8217;s favourite comedian&mdash;had, too, in his time
+been poor enough. He was the son of a Whitechapel brewer, and when only
+fourteen years old ran away from home, with the idea of taking to the
+stage for a profession. Without any money in his pocket he started on his
+romantic journey, and managed to find a booth company at Fulham, where he
+was allowed to enact Altamont in the &#8216;Fair Penitent.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>Having played to the satisfaction of the manager, that worthy commanded
+his wife to set the <i>d&eacute;butant</i> down for a whole share of the night&#8217;s
+receipts, which at the close of the last piece amounted to three
+shillings. Quick rose in his profession, and by forethought and prudence
+amassed a fortune of &pound;10,000.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>Braham&#8217;s boyhood was surrounded with hardships and privations. Early left
+an orphan, he was obliged to walk the streets of London as a vendor of
+pencils. In that situation he was befriended by Leoni, a vocalist at the
+synagogue in Duke&#8217;s Place, Covent Garden, who trained the lad&#8217;s voice, so
+remarkable for its peculiar sweetness of tone and expression. For Leoni&#8217;s
+benefit, in 1787, at the Royalty Theatre, Wellclose Square, young Braham
+made his <i>d&eacute;but</i>. His genius, of its kind, was unsurpassable; but it was
+the prudence added to it which laid the foundation of his fortune, which
+would have remained in the possessor&#8217;s hands but that the vocalist entered
+unwittingly on theatrical management.</p>
+
+<p>Even in the more humble departments of theatrical life may be found
+thrifty examples of people, who, versed in the somewhat difficult part of
+making both ends meet, at length found themselves in a reputable and
+flourishing position. Such an instance is that of Bennett, a theatrical
+manager once well known in the Midlands. Bennett possessed a gift for
+doing things himself&mdash;his only assistant being an old lady, one Mrs.
+Gamage. He began his career with a puppet-show, was thrifty on its poor
+proceeds, and eventually became proprietor of a theatre. Bennett was
+successful as an actor at Worcester, Coventry, Shrewsbury, and towns
+adjacent. His travelling-cases, boxes, and chests, had their surfaces
+touched up by the scenic artist, and in the theatre did duty for castle
+walls, palace terraces, and palatial furniture; his helmets, and other
+stage properties, were of canvas, easy to fold up for packing, and many of
+his properties combined several utilities. He would arrange with his
+friends to take money at the doors, and Mrs. Gamage combined the offices
+of candle-snuffer and constable, and during the day she cooked and cleaned
+up at home. Bennett has been known to seek out musical young men in a
+town, and allow them the privilege of singing on his stage; or, if they
+were at all proficient on an instrument, allow them to play in his
+orchestra. He dressed as a fine gentleman by day, and like a mechanic in
+the evening. He died prosperous, and, above all, a churchwarden.</p>
+
+<p>Old Philip Astley, Davidge, John Douglas, and Samuel Phelps, all poor men
+at the outset of life, entered on theatrical management, carried it on
+with care, tact and probity, and all of them died reputable, and in
+comfort. Garrick, the Kembles, Charles<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> Mayne Young, Munden, Richard
+Jones, William Farren, Liston, Macready, and a host of other gifted
+actors, died rich, having lived amidst the respect of the highest social
+circles; but it will be found in each particular case, that they were men
+of high character, and prudent habits.</p>
+
+<p>In some other instances the impecuniosity of actors has resulted from
+short-sightedness to their own interests, imprudence, and utter
+incompetence in business matters, but unfortunately extravagance, and
+other irregular habits of life, have been the frequent cause of poverty.</p>
+
+<p>Nicholson, once lessee of the Newcastle Theatre, by want of business
+habits gradually became a poor man, so poor that he became money-taker at
+Drury Lane, and subsequently died in the workhouse of the town where he
+had been theatrical manager; and Faucit-Saville, formerly lessee and
+manager at Gravesend, Margate, Deal and other theatres, died while engaged
+as money-taker at the City of London Theatre.</p>
+
+<p>Some who saw &#8216;Manfred,&#8217; when revived at Drury Lane by Mr. Chatterton, with
+Phelps as the hero of Byron&#8217;s sombre, but impressive, dramatic poem, may
+possibly, when leaving the house between the acts, have noticed one of the
+checktakers, an old gentleman of stagy deportment, enveloped in an old,
+faded cloak. That individual was no other than the once famous tragedian,
+Mr. Denvil, who was the original Manfred when Bunn produced the tragedy at
+Covent Garden, long ere Mr. Phelps made his <i>d&eacute;but</i> at the Haymarket. In
+the character of Manfred, Denvil made an intense and abiding impression,
+became lessee of theatres in town and country, but from want of <i>nous</i>,
+and from want of prudence, dwindled in the social scale, and sank to the
+menial capacity in which he was to be seen at Drury Lane.</p>
+
+<p>Another specimen of an unsuccessful manager was Huntley May, who had been
+lessee of nearly all the small provincial theatres in the kingdom. This
+man had but a very imperfect sense of honour, part of his business being
+to issue as large bills as he could possibly get printed, announcing the
+most splendid dramatic productions, which, when the evening arrived, were
+never presented. Often his audience grew riotous and pugnacious. One
+night, an assemblage threatened to pull up his benches; but Mr. May, not
+unaccustomed to such scenes, appeared before the footlights and
+exclaimed,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>&#8220;What&#8217;s up now, boys?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Money, money. It&#8217;s a swindle!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Hark at &#8217;em now. Murder and Moses! there&#8217;s broths of boys for yer.
+Money&#8217;s just what I want myself. Think of your Cathedral ground; who lies
+in it? My sainted wife, Norah; poor soul! she loved Exeter so that she
+would come here to be buried among ye. We all love ye! myself and little
+Pat. Aisy now, I&#8217;ll give you a thrate. To-morrow night&#8217;s my benefit, make
+me a thumping house; Norah won&#8217;t forget you in heaven. Behave like
+gentlemen, come early to-morrow night. Good luck to ye!&#8221; which audacious
+address seems by all accounts to have satisfied his easily satisfied
+audience.</p>
+
+<p>But even when the old country managers, and there were many, got their
+living honestly, and by fair means, the profession frequently had the
+hardest of lots. The strolling players were a merry-headed and easily
+contented race; but it would be difficult to name any class of people that
+have known greater oppression. Regarded by a large section of English
+people as rogues and vagabonds, they were often at the mercy of common
+informers and petty-minded magistrates.</p>
+
+<p>A circumstance in the career of Moss, a clever actor, and respectable
+manager, well illustrates such petty persecution. He opened the Whitehaven
+Theatre for a night or two with some success, but in less than a week the
+manager and his troupe were put in &#8220;durance vile.&#8221; Arrested on a Saturday
+night, they had to remain in the &#8220;lock-up&#8221; throughout Sunday. On Monday
+morning they were taken up before the magistrates, and arraigned upon a
+somewhat extraordinary charge. An inhabitant of Whitehaven, a person to
+whom credit was given by his acquaintances for sanity and truthfulness,
+appeared in open court to denounce the strollers, not only as a curse to
+society generally, but to his town in particular. It was declared by this
+individual that &#8220;before the theatre opened there was an immense haul of
+herrings; but since the players had entered the place, the fish had all
+fled, and that in consequence the fishermen were suffering. Misfortune
+always followed the wake of actors; wherever they appeared, they carried a
+curse.&#8221; In spite of reference to sundry tomes of jurisprudence, and
+notwithstanding consultation with the town-clerk, the magistrates could
+not pronounce a verdict. However they prohibited the reopening of the
+theatre, and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> sons of the &#8220;wicked one&#8221; had to pack about their
+business in the best way they could.</p>
+
+<p>Edward Stirling applying to a local magistrate at Romford in Essex, for
+permission to perform for a few nights in the Town Hall, received but
+sorry treatment from the bigoted official.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What, sir! Bring your beggarly actors into this town to demoralize the
+people? No, sir. I&#8217;ll have no such profligacy in Romford; poor people
+shall not be wheedled out of their money by your tomfooleries. The first
+player that comes here I&#8217;ll clap in the stocks as a rogue and a vagabond.
+Good morning, sir.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Even in fair seasons the pay of the strollers was wretched in the extreme.
+In 1826, Mrs. John Noel, desirous of getting her two daughters into
+practical training for the stage, applied to a wandering manager&mdash;Black
+Beverley&mdash;as to whether he could find room for the young ladies in his
+company. Mrs. Noel was informed that his troupe was about visiting
+Highgate, and that her daughters could join, on condition that they would
+put up with the sharing system, and find their own costumes. The
+engagement was accepted, the elder of the two girls (afterwards Mrs.
+George Hodson) being cast for Juliana, and the younger (afterwards Mrs.
+Henry Marston) for Volante in Tobin&#8217;s comedy of &#8216;The Honeymoon.&#8217; Black
+Beverley was to be the Duke Aranza, and the performance was to take place
+at the White Lion Tavern. The young ladies <i>d&eacute;buted</i>, and their
+remuneration was one shilling and sixpence each. The men and women were
+homely, respectable people, and the leading actors eagerly accepted Mrs.
+John Noel&#8217;s invitation to a substantial supper she had packed in a hamper,
+and of which the poor players gratefully partook, eating as if they had
+been without food for days.</p>
+
+<p>A well-known actor remembers playing the Stranger, Philip, in &#8216;Luke the
+Labourer,&#8217; and a farce character at a small theatre in Chelsea, and
+receiving twopence for his services, and then having to walk to the Mile
+End Road!</p>
+
+<p>Phelps, when attached to Huggins&#8217; company, has tramped with his bag on his
+shoulders, more than once a distance of five-and-twenty miles, being
+without coach-money; and his wife and child at Preston had, in the early
+time of Phelps&#8217; career, for nearly a week to subsist on a rather small
+meat-pie. It was a terrible thing some fifty years ago, for some
+stage-stricken swain, or maiden, to depart hundreds of miles, perchance so
+far as Scotland,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> and find themselves in some poorly-paid company. Twenty
+shillings a week would be considered a fair salary. There would be scores
+of miles to travel, certain dresses to find, and upon the residue of the
+scant income the player had to live. When things failed it was sometimes
+literally tragic; for the tyros had little chance of escape, railways and
+cheap steamers being unknown.</p>
+
+<p>What a <i>bizarre</i> picture is that drawn by Edmund Stirling of Ben
+Smithson&#8217;s Agency for Actors, at the &#8220;White Hart&#8221; in Drury Lane!</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Kind-hearted considerate Ben,&#8221; writes his remembrancer, &#8220;a real
+Samaritan, ever ready with food and kindly words to cheer and encourage
+the poor stroller. Ben, strongly impregnated with the &#8216;Mysteries of
+Udolpho&#8217; school, was wont to use grandiloquent words for every day
+purposes. His hostel became a &#8216;castle&#8217;; back parlours, smelling strongly
+of &#8216;baccy,&#8217; tapestry chambers; dilapidated staircases, lumber closets, and
+dark landings, &#8216;galleries, crow&#8217;s-nests, and eagle towers;&#8217; his
+beer-cellars were known as &#8216;dungeon keeps;&#8217; &#8216;Barclay&#8217;s entire&#8217; at
+fourpence per pot became &#8216;nectar,&#8217; like Mr. Dick Swiveller&#8217;s &#8216;rosy wine;&#8217;
+and his two serving-men, plain Bob and Dick, were transformed into
+&#8216;Robarto&#8217; and &#8216;Ricardo.&#8217; Every poor player that arrived, footsore and
+hungered, was styled according to his robe, Kemble, Kean, Munden, or
+Siddons; Smithson knowing full well how pleasantly a little flattery would
+tickle the palate. There was always a bed, supper, and breakfast, money or
+not, in that Mecca for wanderers. Such liberality brought failure in its
+train, and the &#8216;White Hart&#8217;s&#8217; doors speedily closed on Ben and his &#8216;good
+intentions.&#8217;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Not less amusing, too, is Mr. Stirling&#8217;s description of the Brothers
+Strickland and their lesseeship of the Oddfellows&#8217; lodge-room, at the
+Chiswick &#8220;Red Cow,&#8221; where they announced &#8220;A London company for two nights,
+with &#8216;Pizarro,&#8217; as played at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane; elaborate
+scenery and heart-rending effects. Pit, one shilling; boxes, two; and
+standing room, sixpence. Seats booked at the &#8216;Red Cow&#8217; daily from 10 till
+4. Schools and children half-price.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Stirling tried to get employment under the Stricklands, and having wended
+his way to the tavern, was shown into the kitchen, and there found the
+company dressed for the evening&#8217;s performance<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> of &#8216;Pizarro.&#8217; At a table,
+superintending the tea, Elvira sat in faded black robes, wielding a
+tea-pot, and ever and anon scowling at her base destroyer, Pizarro. He sat
+aloof, encased in rusty tin armour, a ferocious wig and locks to match, in
+his hand a long pipe, and by his side an empty glass. Cora, the lovely
+Peruvian maid, employed her soft hands in toasting muffins, assisted by
+her husband, the Spanish Alonzo. Such was the heat of the climate,
+combined with the effects of something short, that Peruvians and Spaniards
+sat socially together, doing their pipes and beer. Strickland engaged
+Stirling to play Richmond on the following Monday, but he wasn&#8217;t to have
+anything for it.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps there is no more pertinent illustration of a chequered career&mdash;a
+career with indigence at one end and splendid wealth at the other&mdash;than
+that furnished by the life of Harriet Mellon, afterwards Mrs. Coutts, and
+subsequently Duchess of St. Alban&#8217;s. She was not the only actress who made
+a fortunate marriage. Anastasia Robinson married the Earl of Peterborough;
+Lavinia Fenton, the original Polly Peachem, in the &#8216;Beggar&#8217;s Opera,&#8217; gave
+her hand to the Duke of Bolton; Louisa Brunton became Countess of Craven,
+and Elizabeth Farren exchanged her name for that of Countess of Derby. But
+not one of those enumerated had known the privations and hardships
+suffered by Harriet Mellon. When raised to affluence as Mrs. Coutts, and
+when coroneted as a duchess, she sometimes with mirth and sometimes with
+pathos referred to those old days of her life, when she was downcast by
+harsh treatment and impecuniosity, and was never ashamed of the time when
+she was nothing more than a poor strolling actress.</p>
+
+<p>In 1789 Harriet Mellon, with her mother and Entwisle, her step-father,
+joined the theatrical company of Stanton. In the city of Lichfield the
+tenement is still pointed out where the Entwisles lodged in a couple of
+rooms, each ten feet by four and three-quarters across, with windows two
+feet square; the rent for the lodgings being two shillings a week. Stanton
+on one occasion obtained a bespeak from a squire, who requested a
+performance of the &#8216;Country Girl.&#8217; The manager was only too glad to play
+anything, so low had been the ebb of his fortunes. No copy of the comedy
+being in the manager&#8217;s possession, an actor was despatched to a town not
+many miles distant for the necessary volume. Extra delay took place, the
+needy <i>commissionnaire</i> having gone on foot,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> putting the coach-money in
+his pocket. When he returned the play-book was cut up leaf by leaf and
+distributed to the company to transcribe; at least to those acquainted
+with the art of penmanship. It is stated that the copyists were few.
+Harriet Mellon, though of junior rank in the company, was cast for Peggy.
+She had the part given her in virtue of her ready and trustworthy memory.
+The girl&#8217;s heart filled with enthusiasm when she learned that she was to
+perform the title <i>r&ocirc;le</i>. But her heart filled with sorrow an hour or two
+afterwards when she inspected the square-cut and dingy, snuff-coloured
+coat, held aloft by the manager, as the garment in which Peggy should
+appear as the boy, the character assumed in the park scene by the country
+girl. Being made acquainted with Harriet&#8217;s disgust at the costume
+furnished by the manager, Mrs. Entwisle bethought her of acquaintances who
+might help her daughter out of the trouble. A lady housekeeper to whom the
+mother applied, suggested the loan of a fashionable suit from one of her
+young masters. The proposition was declined. The housekeeper then stated
+that an idea crossed her: she might be enabled to procure a small and
+well-cut suit of clothes elsewhere.</p>
+
+<p>Mother and daughter spent an anxious afternoon, and about four o&#8217;clock, at
+their lodgings, a lad made his appearance with a parcel, and not long
+afterwards the friendly housekeeper appeared too. The old lady said she
+had called on another old lady in a similar capacity to herself, and by
+her kind offices had procured not the clothes of any young gentleman, but
+the wedding-dress of her old master, and as he was only a &#8220;dwarfy&#8221; when
+young, probably the clothes would fit Harriet. A pang smote the breast of
+Miss Mellon as she thought the garments must be at least thirty years old;
+but the parcel was unfastened, and it was found to contain a light
+amber-coloured silk coat, silver trimmed white satin waistcoat and smalls;
+pale blue silk stockings, shoes laced, stock buckles, and ruffles.</p>
+
+<p>Harriet Mellon was in raptures. Half-past six o&#8217;clock came, the barn was
+crowded, and the one musician, Entwisle, led off with &#8216;Rule Britannia,&#8217;
+&#8216;Britons, strike Home,&#8217; and &#8216;The Bonny Pitman.&#8217; Up went the curtain, and
+the comedy began. The family whose bespeak proved so attractive were
+delighted with the performance, and especially with the acting of Miss
+Harriet. In the park scene the baronet and lady grew particularly grave of
+countenance<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> as they surveyed Peggy in the boy&#8217;s clothes, which gravity
+continued during the remaining part of the entertainment.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning as Harriet was at breakfast, a groom rode up to the door of
+the house where she lodged, and a letter was left for Miss Mellon, which
+proved a formal and frigid communication, requesting information
+respecting the means by which she had acquired the male attire worn by her
+on the previous evening.</p>
+
+<p>The truth soon afterwards came out. The housekeeper to whom Mrs. Entwisle
+applied, not knowing when or for what the dress was wanted, went to the
+housekeeper of the very gentleman who bespoke the play; and his servant
+lent his wedding-dress that had been stowed away since the occasion of his
+nuptials. The young actress was cleared of all imputation, and on leaving
+the neighbourhood received from the baronet&#8217;s lady a present in the shape
+of a handsome frock. Before that time, Harriet&#8217;s mother would not allow,
+on account of shabby attire, the girl&#8217;s attendance at Stafford church, but
+used to send her to Ingestre for Sunday morning worship, because at that
+place she was unknown.</p>
+
+<p>Harriet&#8217;s salary for some years was only fifteen shillings a week.
+Sheridan and the Hon. Mr. Monckton were appointed stewards of the Stafford
+races in 1794, and at the theatre in the town those gentlemen witnessed
+the acting of Miss Mellon as Letitia Hardy and Priscilla Tomboy. On
+Sheridan, the arbiter of London theatricals, affording hope to her that
+she might obtain an engagement at Drury Lane, the Entwisles with their
+daughter left for the metropolis. At a humble lodging in Walworth the
+family subsisted by means of a small sum of money, the proceeds from
+Harriet&#8217;s farewell benefit in the country. Sheridan, a careless and
+procrastinating man, kept Mrs. Entwisle in cruel suspense concerning her
+daughter&#8217;s <i>d&eacute;but</i> at Drury Lane, mother and daughter being continually
+put off by the manager with excuses; but at last the opportunity came.</p>
+
+<p>Drury Lane opened for the season 1795-1796 on the evening of September
+16th, and on that occasion Miss Mellon went on as one of the vocalists, to
+join in the National Anthem. On September 17th the bill of the night
+announced a performance of &#8216;The Rivals,&#8217; &#8220;Lydia Languish by a young lady,
+her first appearance.&#8221; The young lady was the daughter of Mrs. Entwisle.
+She was very nervous at her <i>d&eacute;but</i>, and Sheridan thought it desirable
+that some time should elapse for her to become acquainted with the size
+and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> extent of the house, by joining in choruses before she again tried a
+prominent character. She remained in the background till October. The
+Michaelmas day before the family were exceedingly depressed, the girl&#8217;s
+prospects being uncertain, and her salary only thirty shillings a week.
+Old-fashioned people, and exceedingly superstitious, the Entwisles and
+Harriet bewailed the absence of the luck-bringing goose on the 29th
+September. Through a gift, or by pinching, when strollers, they had
+usually managed to get Christmas mince pies, Shrove Tuesday pancakes,
+Easter tansy pudding, and the Michaelmas goose. It was a matter of sorrow
+to poor Harriet, that her finances would not allow her to purchase a
+goose, for the sake of tasting a bit for good-luck. When informed that she
+could at a Drury Lane cook-shop buy a quarter of the much-honoured bird
+the girl&#8217;s delight knew no bounds. The purchase was made, and she was
+happy.</p>
+
+<p>It came to pass that her fortunes brightened at Drury Lane, where she
+remained twenty years. When Tobin&#8217;s comedy of &#8216;The Honeymoon&#8217; was
+produced, Harriet Mellon made a great hit in the character of Volante.
+Through drawing a prize in the Lottery she was enabled to purchase Holly
+Lodge, Highgate. The <i>Times</i> of March the 2nd announced the marriage of
+&#8220;Thomas Coutts, Esq., to Miss Harriet Mellon, of Holly Lodge, Highgate.&#8221;
+Her husband was a man of enormous wealth. Mrs. Coutts subsequently married
+the Duke of St. Albans, and at her death, in addition to other magnificent
+bequests, left to the lady now known as the Baroness Burdett Coutts, a
+fortune of &pound;1,800,000.</p>
+
+<p>One of the most gifted men that ever trod the stage was George Frederick
+Cooke. Indeed the splendour of his genius is said to have been almost as
+exceptional as the fierceness of his passions, and the recklessness of his
+habits. Drink, gambling, licentiousness, and prodigality, ruined his
+fortunes, and cut short his life. It may be urged in mitigation of his
+excesses, that like Kean he had indifferent home training, and that at a
+very early age he was left to the exercise of his own wilful and sensual
+nature. His father had been a soldier who left his widow in unprosperous
+circumstances. She quitted London, and settled at Berwick-upon-Tweed,
+where her son received an indifferent education, and where on several
+occasions he saw part of the Edinburgh Company perform. Cooke states,
+&#8220;that from that time plays and playing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> were never absent from his
+thoughts, that he pinched his belly to procure play-books, and actually
+studied one particular character,&mdash;Horatio, in the &#8216;Fair Penitent.&#8217;&#8221; His
+mania to get into the play-house has amusing proof in a story, which, in
+after years, Cooke used to relate with gusto, and comicality. He much
+wished to see &#8216;Douglas,&#8217; as did some companions, but all of them were
+without a farthing. They contrived to get into the theatre by a private
+entrance, and secreted themselves under the stage. Hope told them the
+flattering tale that they might steal out during the performance, and join
+the audience, by means of an aperture they had discovered in a passage
+leading to the pit. In carrying out the enterprise they were discovered by
+one of the company, and after a trying interrogatory shamefully turned out
+at the stage-door. Young Cooke, reckless, and persistent, urged his
+companions to go in and conquer notwithstanding an ignominious defeat; so
+they were constantly on the alert, and found by observation that a back
+door was left unguarded, which one evening they entered unperceived.
+Fairly in, the next consideration was, how they could conceal themselves
+until the rising of the curtain; their hope being that amidst the
+confusion and preparation behind the scenes, they might escape notice, and
+enjoy the magic show. Cooke saw a barrel, took advantage of the safe and
+snug retreat, creeping in like the hero of the famous melodrama
+&#8216;Tekeli,&#8217;&mdash;in those days the admiration of the polished playgoing populace
+of the British metropolis. Unfortunately however there was danger in the
+lurking place; he had for companions two large cannon-balls, but the youth
+not being initiated into the mysteries of the scene, did not suspect that
+cannon-balls helped to make thunder in a barrel as well as in a
+twenty-four pounder, and little did poor George Frederick imagine where he
+was. The play was &#8216;Macbeth,&#8217; and in the first scene the thunder was
+required to give due effect to the situation of the crouching witches, as
+the ascending baize revealed those beldames about to depart on their
+mission to meet Macbeth.</p>
+
+<p>It was not long ere the Jupiter Tonans of the theatre, <i>alias</i> the
+property-man, approached and seized the barrel, and the horror of the
+concealed boy may be imagined as the man proceeded to cover the open end
+with a piece of old carpet, and tie it carefully, to prevent the thunder
+from being spilt. Cooke was profoundly and heroically silent. The machine
+was lifted by the brawny stage<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> servitor and carried carefully to the
+side-scene, lest in rolling, the thunder should rumble before its cue. All
+was made ready, the witches took their places amidst flames of resin, the
+thunder-bell rang, the barrel received its impetus with young Cooke and
+the cannon-balls,&mdash;the stage-stricken lad roaring lustily to the amazement
+of the thunderer, who neglected to stop the rolling machine, which entered
+on the stage, and Cooke, bursting off the carpet head of the barrel,
+appeared before the audience to the horror of the weird sisters, and to
+the hilarity of the spectators.</p>
+
+<p>In Stukely, Sir Pertinax, Kitely, Iago, and Richard III., George Frederick
+Cooke was allowed to be unrivalled. But his social position was lowered
+and his fine talents deteriorated by intemperance and debauchery. He was
+in constant debt and difficulties, in spite of excellent emoluments. After
+much trouble, he on one occasion obtained a suit of clothes from a tailor
+indisposed to give credit. Cooke explained to him that there would be no
+doubt about the price being ready on his benefit, which was at hand. The
+tailor, a stage-struck swain, said that if he were allowed to appear on
+the benefit night, in addition to stage tuition from Cooke, the garments
+should be forthcoming. The tragedian agreed to give the instruction, and
+cast him for the post of Catesby, Cooke of course playing Richard. The
+night came, and the &#8220;snip&#8221; ranted and strutted, and in the tent scene,
+after, &#8220;Richard&#8217;s himself again,&#8221; on the entrance of Catesby, the tailor
+in answer to Richard&#8217;s &#8220;Who&#8217;s there?&#8221; halted, and stuttered &#8220;&#8217;Tis I, my
+lord, the early village cock.&#8221; The audience roared; but after silence
+came, the tailor merely repeated the words just as before; upon which
+Cooke unable to keep his gravity or restrain his temper, roared out, &#8220;Then
+why the devil don&#8217;t you crow?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Another good story in connection with impecuniosity and a stage
+performance, is that told of Mossop, who, when at the Smock Alley Theatre,
+Dublin, found himself in a peculiar predicament (the result of irregular
+payments) one night when he was playing Lear. His Kent was a creditor,
+who, as he personated the faithful nobleman supporting his aged master,
+whispered, &#8220;If you don&#8217;t give me your honour, sir, that you&#8217;ll pay me the
+arrears this night before I go home, I&#8217;ll let you drop about the boards.&#8221;
+Mossop alarmed said, &#8220;Don&#8217;t talk to me now.&#8221; &#8220;I will,&#8221; said Kent, &#8220;I
+will;&#8221; adding, &#8220;Down you go.&#8221; The manager<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> was obliged to give the promise,
+and the actor before leaving the theatre received his wages.</p>
+
+<p>John O&#8217;Keefe the author of &#8216;Wild Oats,&#8217; relates a similar curious, and
+humorous anecdote concerning the &#8220;silver tongued&#8221; Spranger Barry. &#8220;The
+first character I saw Barry in was Jaffier, Mossop Pierre, and Mrs. Dancer
+the Belvidera. According to the usual compliment of assisting a dead
+tragic hero to get upon his legs, after the dropping of the curtain, two
+very curt persons walked on the stage to where Barry (the Jaffier) lay
+dead, and, stooping over him with great politeness and attention, helped
+him to rise. All three thus standing one of them said: &#8216;I have an action,
+sir, against you,&#8217; and touched him on the shoulder. &#8216;Indeed&#8217; replied
+Barry. &#8216;This is rather a piece of treachery; at whose suit?&#8217; The plaintiff
+was named and Barry had no alternative but to walk off the stage, and was
+going out of the theatre in their custody. At that moment some
+scene-shifters and carpenters who had been observing the proceedings, and
+knew the situation of Barry, went off and returned almost immediately,
+dragging with them a huge piece of wood, in the rear of which was a bold
+and ferocious looking property-man who grasped a hatchet. Barry said,
+&#8216;What are you about?&#8217; &#8216;Sir,&#8217; said one, &#8216;we are only preparing the altar of
+Merope, for we are going to make a sacrifice.&#8217; The speaker having
+concluded, grasped his hatchet and sternly eyed the bailiffs. &#8216;Be quiet,
+you foolish fellows,&#8217; remonstrated the tragedian, who began to think the
+business serious. The minions of the law also grew apprehensive as the
+sacrificators looked on with fixed and stony eyes. Barry noticing the
+bailiffs beckon, went to them, and drawing him aside they said they would
+quit him if he would give his word of honour that the debt should be
+settled next day.&#8221; The actor was gratefully complimentary to his
+supporters, not forgetting the altar of Merope. The circumstance occurred
+at the Dublin Theatre in 1778.</p>
+
+<p>The narrator of this story has one equally amusing of Mahon and Macklin.
+&#8220;Bob,&#8221; on one occasion said Macklin, &#8220;I intend to have you arrested for
+the debt you owe me, but I am considering whether I shall arrest you
+before or after your benefit.&#8221; &#8220;Oh,&#8221; said Mahon, &#8220;don&#8217;t arrest me at all.&#8221;
+&#8220;Yes, yes, Bob, you know I must; to prison you will have to go.&#8221; &#8220;There&#8217;s
+no occasion.&#8221; &#8220;Oh yes, there is.&#8221; &#8220;Well then, sir, if you must, wait till
+my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> benefit is over.&#8221; &#8220;No! Bob, then you take the money and knock it about
+no one knows how nor where, and I shall never get a shilling of it; but if
+I arrest you before your benefit, some of those lords that you sing for in
+clubs and taverns and jovial bouts may come forward and pay this money for
+you. No, no, I&#8217;ll have you touched on the shoulder before your benefit.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>King, one of the finest comedians of the eighteenth century, and the
+original Sir Peter Teazle, made a large fortune; but lost it at the
+gambling-table. On one occasion he borrowed five guineas for a last stake,
+and he then won two hundred pounds. Escaping from the chamber, he fell on
+his knees, and in answer to a request from a companion, made oath on a
+Bible that he would relinquish his gamester&#8217;s mania. But he became a
+member of the Miles Club, in St. James&#8217;, and at the tables soon lost
+everything, and died in extreme poverty.</p>
+
+<p>Bayle Bernard&#8217;s father&mdash;John Bernard, a clever comedian, and, in his after
+years, a well-known manager of American theatres, went through many
+adventures during the period of his novitiate. After playing at Poole in
+Dorsetshire, and having spent the money he had earned, he thought he
+should return home, according to a promise made to his mother; but his
+success at Poole in playing the character of Major Oakley in the comedy of
+&#8216;The Jealous Wife,&#8217; suppressed the dramatic tyro&#8217;s notion about duty. A
+mania for the stage again seized him, and hearing that his old manager,
+Taylor, was playing at Shaftesbury, Bernard actually determined to join
+him in defiance of any privations that might arise from his being without
+a shilling in his pocket. Having given his mother assurance that he would
+not act again upon closing his engagement at Poole, writing home for
+supplies was out of the question; and though on paying his bill at an inn,
+he discovered that all his coppers at command did not amount to six,
+Bernard persisted in going on to Shaftesbury, a distance of thirty-six
+miles. Entrusting his trunk to a waggoner, he ate his breakfast, scribbled
+a note to his mother, making apology for his delay; tied up his linen in a
+bundle, and took a path across the fields to the high road, in order to
+escape notice from acquaintances who had known him in seemingly dashing
+circumstances. After having proceeded a few miles, he heard the horn of
+the guard from the stage-coach, and fearing it might contain some of his
+old companions, he jumped over a hedge for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> concealment, and in so doing
+alighted in a ditch, and sank up to his knees. On extricating his legs, a
+shoe was left behind, and its loser was compelled to take off his coat,
+roll up his shirt sleeves, and thrust his arm down the deep aperture, to
+recover what had been lost. But it was necessary to support himself by
+planting one foot against the hedge, and by grasping the roots of a holly
+bush, and while so doing his hold gave way at the most critical moment,
+and he was precipitated headlong into the mire. In consequence of the
+disaster he had to delay his journey two hours on the sunny side of a
+hayrick, for the purpose of putting his apparel in something like decent
+order. Arriving at Blandford, fear, fatigue, and vexation, continued to
+exhaust him, and he considered in what way he could most effectually lay
+out the threepence in his pocket. He determined on a glass of brandy, and
+going into an inn, called for the first that he had ever tasted. About to
+depart, having thrown down his coppers, the landlady informed him that two
+of them were bad. Bernard states that a feather might have felled him to
+the ground, and that he seemed to be without sense or motion, while the
+brandy seemed to congeal within him. The landlady looked in his face, and
+noticing his agitation, surmised doubtless the cause; for she
+good-naturedly told him not to mind it, but that should he ever again get
+within easy distance of the place not to forget her. Nearly twenty years
+afterwards, Bernard in company with Incledon, the vocalist, put up at the
+identical place, and related the adventure. Incledon thought on hearing
+the story, that it was Bernard&#8217;s duty to give the house a good turn, and
+so he very generously assisted Bernard to run up a bill in five days to
+twenty pounds.</p>
+
+<p>Ben Webster possessed a budget of amusing stories, involving ludicrous and
+startling incidents, connected with his ups and downs as a poor player. He
+began his professional career as a teacher of music and dancing, and
+having a passion for the stage, was undaunted in his fight with fortune,
+notwithstanding defeats and even humiliation. Hearing that Beverley, of
+the old Tottenham Street theatre, was about opening the Croydon theatre
+for a short season, Webster applied to that manager for the situation of
+walking gentleman.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Full,&#8221; said Beverley.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Can I get in for &#8216;little business,&#8217; and utility?&#8221; pleaded Webster.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>&#8220;Full.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Is there any chance for harlequin, and dancing?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t do pantomime or ballets; besides, I don&#8217;t like male dancers;
+their legs are no draw.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Could you give me a berth in the orchestra?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; said Beverley, in his peculiar manner, and with a strong word,
+which need not be repeated, &#8220;Why, just now you were a walking gentleman!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;So I am, sir; but I have had a musical education, and necessity sometimes
+compels me to turn it to account.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well! what&#8217;s your instrument?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Violin, tenor, violoncello, double bass, and double drum.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well! by Nero! (he played the fiddle you know) here, Harry (calling his
+son), bring the double&mdash;no, I mean a violin out of the orchestra.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Harry Beverley appeared with the instrument, and Webster was requested to
+give a taste of his quality. He began Tartini&#8217;s &#8216;Devil&#8217;s Solo,&#8217; and had
+not gone far when the manager said that the specimen was sufficient,
+offering the soloist an engagement for the orchestral leadership at a
+guinea a week. Webster affirms, &#8220;That had a storm of gold fallen on him it
+could not have delighted Semele more than it did himself. He felt himself
+plucked out of the slough of despond.&#8221; Webster had others to support, had
+to board himself, and in addition he resolved to get out of debt. To
+successfully carry out such arrangements the young professional had to
+practise considerable self-denial, walking to Croydon, ten miles every
+day, for rehearsal, and back to Shoreditch, on twopence&mdash;one penny for
+oatmeal, and the other for milk; and he did it for six weeks, Sundays
+excepted, when he luxuriated on shin of beef and cheek. While Webster was
+at Croydon, the gallery used to pelt the gentlemen of the orchestra with
+mutton pies. Indignation at first was uppermost, but on reflection, the
+assailed musicians made a virtue of necessity, collecting the fragments of
+not over-light pastry, ate them under the stage, and whatever might have
+been their composition, considered them as &#8220;ambrosia.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>To be glad to eat the mutton pies with which the gods pelted the orchestra
+is undoubtedly a realisation of &#8220;out of evil cometh good,&#8221; and is a
+curiosity of impecuniosity; but of all the curious curiosities commend me
+to an arithmetical calculation made by a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> modern actor, who entered on a
+five nights&#8217; engagement at Swansea, at the termination of which he had
+from the treasurer the sum of twenty-five shillings. Mr. Edward Atkins,
+who had to find his own wardrobe, upon entering into an arithmetical
+calculation, discovered that after deducting six shillings for coach
+fares, and five shillings for lodgings, there remained fourteen for
+professional work, being within a fraction of two shillings and ninepence
+halfpenny per evening&#8217;s labour. The following is the list of parts played
+by the comedian, and the amount received for each:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Monday: &#8216;Widow of Palermo&#8217;&mdash;Jeremy (with a handful of snuff and a glass
+of water thrown in his face), 10&#189;<i>d.</i>; &#8216;Is he Jealous?&#8217;&mdash;Belmour,
+9&#189;<i>d.</i>; &#8216;Young Widow&#8217;&mdash;Splash, 1<i>s.</i> 1&#189;<i>d.</i> Tuesday: &#8216;Englishman in
+France; or, Why Didn&#8217;t I Kill Myself Yesterday?&#8217;&mdash;James, 9&#189;<i>d.</i>; &#8216;Mrs.
+White&#8217;&mdash;Peter White (with a medley duet, and mock gavotte, that caused a
+stiffness in the joints for three days), 1<i>s.</i> 1&#189;<i>d.</i>; &#8216;Secret&#8217;
+(without a panel in the scene)&mdash;Thomas, 10&#189;<i>d.</i> Wednesday: &#8216;Carlitz and
+Christine&#8217;&mdash;Carlitz, very cheap, 7&#189;<i>d.</i>; &#8216;Two Gregories&#8217;&mdash;Gregory,
+without goose or ship, 10<i>d.</i>; song, &#8216;What&#8217;s a Woman like?&#8217; 1&#190;<i>d.</i>;
+&#8216;Fortune&#8217;s Frolic&#8217;&mdash;Robin, the talk of the town, 1<i>s.</i> 2&#188;<i>d.</i> Thursday:
+fully prepared with tools and syllables for three pieces, but the theatre
+was closed, 2<i>s.</i> 9&#189;<i>d.</i> Friday: &#8216;Review&#8217;&mdash;Caleb Quotem, with two
+songs, 10&#190;<i>d.</i>; &#8216;Our Mary Ann&#8217;&mdash;Jonathan Junks, 9&#189;<i>d.</i>; &#8216;Loan Me a
+Crown&#8217;&mdash;Lightfoot, fifteen lengths, 7&#188;<i>d.</i>; &#8216;Captain&#8217;s not Amiss&#8217;&mdash;John
+Stock, with clean shirt, the part requiring the actor to take off coat and
+waistcoat, 6<i>d.</i>; walking over to next town on managerial business,
+&#189;<i>d.</i> Total, 14<i>s.</i>&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>For years the name of Charles Mathews was continually bandied about in
+connection with the subject of impecuniosity. Yet the harassing and
+unpleasant circumstances in which the comedian too often found himself
+through want of money were not produced by causes which in many instances
+have brought players into straits, insolvency, and sometimes even
+destitution. The parentage of Mathews was most reputable, his moral and
+intellectual training was all that could be desired, while his business
+habits must have been respectable, holding as he did for some time, with
+credit and capability, an appointment as a district surveyor. His social
+position too was excellent. But he married a very extravagant lady, and in
+conjunction with her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> entered on theatrical speculations, which his tastes
+and nature ill-fitted him to successfully promote; and not possessing
+adequate capital to legitimately advance his various theatrical schemes,
+he became the prey of money-lenders, and bill-discounters. Charles Mathews
+married Madame Vestris on July 18th, 1838, the lady being at that period
+the lessee of the Olympic Theatre, where her management had been
+characterised by exceptional taste and enterprise. But her expenditure,
+whether in relation to her theatre, or private life, had been lavish even
+to recklessness. After playing the seasons in the metropolis and making a
+provincial tour, Mr. and Mrs. Mathews accepted an offer from Stephen
+Price, manager of the Park Theatre, New York, to perform upon secured
+engagements of &pound;20,000, with power at option to prolong their stay.
+However, Price&#8217;s speculation proved a failure, Mathews&#8217; scheme of making a
+speedy fortune &#8220;melted into thin air,&#8221; and then, affirms the disappointed
+comedian, &#8220;began the series of troubles which were destined to clog a
+great portion of my life.&#8221; During the absence of Mr. and Mrs. Mathews for
+their American engagement the Olympic was kept open under the direction of
+a manager appointed by them, and on their return they found the finances
+in a very crippled state; a large amount of debt having been incurred,
+despite the large sums of money Mathews had transmitted across the
+Atlantic. In the hope of extricating himself from his great liabilities he
+took Covent Garden, never calculating the dangers of the perilous and
+uncertain sea on which he was about floating the bark of his fortunes.
+&#8220;Money,&#8221; he says, &#8220;had to be procured at all hazards, and by every means,
+to prop up the concern till this new mine could be worked; and I was
+initiated for the first time in my life into all the mysteries of the
+money-lending art, and the concoction of those fatal instruments of
+destruction called Bills of Exchange.... Brokers and sheriff&#8217;s officers
+soon entered on the scene, and I, who had never known what pecuniary
+difficulty meant, and had never had a debt in my life before, was
+gradually drawn into the inextricable vortex of involvement, a web which
+once thrown over a man can seldom be thrown off again. The consequence was
+not conceived at the time. It was a great speculation, and great
+difficulties appeared the legitimate consequences. Every Saturday was
+looked forward to with terror, for on every Saturday I had to pay,
+including the company, authors, band, carpenters,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> and workmen, employed
+before and behind the curtain, six hundred and eighty-four souls, with
+their wives and families all dependent upon my exertions.&#8221; His liabilities
+were so numerous and heavy, that Mathews conceived that the best plan for
+him to pursue was without delay to wind up the speculation. Pity for him
+that he did not carry out the resolution. But the great success attending
+revivals of the &#8216;Beggar&#8217;s Opera,&#8217; the &#8216;Merry Wives of Windsor,&#8217; and other
+pieces, added to the subsequent still greater success of Boucicault&#8217;s
+&#8216;London Assurance,&#8217; induced the lessee to continue the management.</p>
+
+<p>Everything looked brilliant and prosperous, but he found his position more
+intolerable as the sun of prosperity rose higher over his theatre. He
+states that when he paid no one, no one seemed to care, but the moment
+Jenkins got his money Jones became rampant.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why pay Jenkins? Why not pay me? You&#8217;ve used me shamefully, and you must
+take the consequences.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Writs and executions poured in, and in every direction Mathews beheld the
+harpies of the law waiting to spring upon him, and the thousands he paid
+were partially swallowed up in legal expenses and interest. The
+hydra-headed monster, sixty per cent. was always about his legs. His
+shifts and escapades during this period read like passages from one of
+those comedies to which he used to impart such amusement by his animal
+spirits and humours. Some of the stories told by Mathews of his
+impecunious day, smack of a grim humour. Borrowing money at sixty per
+cent., he informs us, is not the facile operation some imagine, and, he
+adds, is attended by risk and worry even worse than the fearful
+percentage. He well remembered, after a fortnight of very hot weather and
+thinly attended seats at his theatre, having occasion to borrow two
+hundred pounds to patch up the Saturday&#8217;s treasury, and making application
+to a bill-discounter three days before wanting the money.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ah, Mr. Mathews! how d&#8217;ye do? Glad to see you. Have a glass of sherry.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No, thank you. I want a couple of hundred pounds to-morrow.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Certainly, with pleasure. How long do you want it for? Have a glass of
+sherry?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Say three months.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span>&#8220;What security?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;None.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Very good&mdash;I must have a warrant of attorney.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Of course.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;All right, Mr. Mathews; look in at twelve o&#8217;clock to-morrow, and I&#8217;ll
+have it ready. Do have a glass of sherry!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mathews had no belief that the money would be ready at the time named,
+though the impecunious actor kept the appointment. He knew that the
+money-lender was gratified by the frequent appearance of a brougham at the
+door.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, Mr. Mathews, I find I can&#8217;t manage the &pound;200. I can only let you
+have &pound;150. I had no idea I was so short at my bankers. Amount actually
+overdrawn. But I&#8217;ve got a friend to do it for you; it&#8217;s all the same.
+He&#8217;ll be here directly. Bless me, how long he is. Have a glass of sherry?
+Are you going back to the theatre? I&#8217;ll bring him with me in
+half-an-hour.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Neither money-lender nor his friend appeared at the theatre. On Friday
+Mathews again made application for the money.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Didn&#8217;t come till too late; but all right&mdash;you don&#8217;t want it till
+to-morrow, you know. What&#8217;s your treasury hour?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Two.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Be here at twelve and it shall be ready.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The actor was there, punctual to the moment.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;All right. Have a glass of sherry? My nephew Dick has gone to the city
+for the cheque.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But the time is getting on.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Never mind. I&#8217;ll be with you as the clock strikes two.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Four o&#8217;clock arrived, and neither usurer nor money was forthcoming, the
+salaries of the company of course remaining unpaid. A note forwarded
+announced that the money-lender would be with Mathews at six to the
+moment. At seven the long-expected gentleman rushed in breathless.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Such a job Dick&#8217;s had for you, Mr. Matthews! But here I am with the
+money. My friend disappointed me, but I managed without him. My nephew
+will read over the warrant of attorney.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But I&#8217;m just going on the stage; there&#8217;s no time now.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Won&#8217;t take five minutes. Dick, read the warrant. Now, here is the money.
+Let&#8217;s see, &pound;15 left off the old account.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span>&#8220;Oh, pray don&#8217;t deduct that now.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Better, Mr. Mathews, keeps all square. That&#8217;s &pound;15, then the interest
+three months, &pound;17 10<i>s.</i>, and &pound;15, &pound;32 10<i>s.</i> Warrant of Attorney &pound;7
+10<i>s.</i>, that&#8217;s &pound;40. Then my nephew&#8217;s fee, &pound;1 1<i>s.</i>, and my trouble, say
+&pound;1, &pound;42 10<i>s.</i> Here&#8217;s 15<i>s.</i>, that&#8217;s &pound;42 16<i>s.</i> Dick, have you got 4<i>s.</i>?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve got 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i>&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That will do; I&#8217;ve got 6<i>d.</i>, that&#8217;s &pound;43; and &pound;7 cash makes the &pound;50.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes; but I only get &pound;7 odd.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Never mind, keeps all square. Now the &pound;100. Here is a cheque of Gribble
+and Co. on Lloyd&#8217;s for &pound;25 10<i>s.</i>&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What&#8217;s the use of a cheque at this time of night?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Good as the bank, good as the money; you can pay it as money. Fifty
+sovereigns makes &pound;75 10<i>s.</i>, and a ten-pound note makes &pound;85 10<i>s.</i>&mdash;stay,
+it ought to be &pound;95 10<i>s.</i> Here&#8217;s another ten pound note. I forgot&mdash;there
+you are, &pound;95 10<i>s.</i>&mdash;only wants &pound;4 10<i>s.</i> to make up the &pound;100. You haven&#8217;t
+got &pound;4 10<i>s.</i> about you, have you Mr. Mathews, you could lend me till the
+morning, just to get it straight, you know.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I believe I have; there are four sovereigns and ten shillings in silver.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s all right; &pound;4 makes &pound;99 10<i>s.</i> and 10<i>s.</i>&mdash;stop, let&#8217;s count
+them&mdash;count after your own father, as the saying is&mdash;four and five&#8217;s nine,
+and three fourpenny pieces; all right. Stop&mdash;one&#8217;s a threepenny. Got a
+penny, or a post-office stamp? Never mind, I won&#8217;t be hard upon you for
+the penny. There you are, all comfortable. Good evening.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mathews paid away the cheque &#8220;as money.&#8221; Two days afterwards he got an
+indignant note, stating that the cheque was dishonoured. Out of temper,
+Mathews sent for the discounter, and he appeared with alacrity.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Not paid! Gribble&#8217;s cheque not paid&mdash;some mistake&mdash;it&#8217;s as good as the
+Bank. Here, give it to me, I&#8217;ll get it for you in five minutes. How long
+shall you be here?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;An hour.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll be back in twenty minutes.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mathews saw no more of the discounter or the cheque, the scoundrel
+entirely disappearing with the only proof in his pocket. But sometimes
+biters were bit, for an entry in one of the actor&#8217;s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> diaries, dated
+January 1843, states, &#8220;called on Lawrence Levy to pay him &pound;30, but
+borrowed &pound;20 of him instead.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>On one occasion a very gentlemanly man waited on Mathews.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m sorry to trouble you,&#8221; he quietly said, &#8220;but I&#8217;ve a duty to perform,
+and I am sure you are too much a man of the world to quarrel with me. I
+have a writ against you for a hundred pounds, and must request immediate
+payment, or the pleasure of your company elsewhere.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Quite impossible,&#8221; said Mathews, &#8220;at this moment to meet it; but I will
+consult with my treasurer, and see what can be done.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Excuse me,&#8221; said the sheriff&#8217;s officer, &#8220;but I cannot lose sight of you;
+and whatever is to be done, must be done here. Come, pay the money, and
+there&#8217;s an end.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It can&#8217;t be done,&#8221; said Mathews.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why didn&#8217;t you get him to renew the bill?&#8221; replied the other.</p>
+
+
+<p>&#8220;He wouldn&#8217;t renew it; nothing would induce him.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Nonsense,&#8221; said he, &#8220;accept this bill for the same amount, and put your
+own time for payment, and I undertake to get you his receipt.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Agreed,&#8221; answered the actor, accepting the bill, which, without another
+word the sheriff&#8217;s officer took up, threw down the receipt, and walked
+towards the door.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Stop,&#8221; said Mathews, &#8220;you said you couldn&#8217;t leave me without the money.
+What does all this mean?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It means that I paid your debt as I knew you couldn&#8217;t, and now you owe it
+me instead. Be punctual, and I&#8217;ll do as much again.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The sheriff&#8217;s officer just described was not the only one who befriended
+the luckless manager. A kindred functionary of the law, having been struck
+by the cruel conduct of a vindictive tradesman, actually paying the bill
+himself, and receiving the money back from Mathews in instalments of ten
+pounds.</p>
+
+<p>Instances grave and gay might be multiplied of the actor&#8217;s unfortunate
+position and the financial entanglements that, like heavy fetters,
+constrained him at every step. He said that the results of the Covent
+Garden speculation were for the first season <i>sowing</i>, for the second
+<i>hoeing</i>, and for the third <i>owing</i>. On his debts being called in, to his
+dismay he found that including rent the responsibilities amounted to the
+sum of &pound;30,000. Mathews when he learned the fact was aghast, and his only
+remedy was the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> Insolvent Debtors&#8217; Court. Things were made easy for him,
+and he passed a week in an elegantly fitted chamber above the Porters&#8217;
+Lodge of the Queen&#8217;s Bench Prison. He was not unacquainted with that
+prison, having had residence there soon after his first notorious American
+trip, and during that imprisonment he took advantage of the old rules
+pertaining to the liberties of the Bench, and played an engagement at the
+Surrey Theatre. The theatre being a few yards beyond the boundaries of the
+Queen&#8217;s Bench liberties, Davidge, the Surrey lessee, and Cross, lessee of
+the Surrey Zoological Gardens, gave extra bail to enable Charles Mathews
+to have the day rule extended through the evening. A tipstaff was
+stationed at his dressing-room door and at each wing of the stage, to
+watch the actor, who, though out of the Bench, was in custody. When
+absolutely free from his Covent Garden liabilities he with a sense of
+honour that did him credit gave securities for what he considered purely
+personal debts, making himself still liable to the amount of about &pound;4000,
+anticipating that the creditors would treat him with consideration and
+thoughtfulness. He was mistaken, and for years he still had the millstone
+round his neck. During his lesseeship of the Lyceum he was in the same
+straits as he was in the Old Covent Garden days. Accumulated interest, law
+expenses for raising money, grew year after year and Mathews was still in
+his miserable plight of impecuniosity. At length in July 1856, while about
+to play at the Preston Theatre, he was arrested and imprisoned in
+Lancaster Gaol. He chafed under the incarceration, and he has left a
+touching account of the misery he felt on being separated from his wife,
+and of the melancholy influences of his prison-house. His imprisonment
+created much gossip, and ere he left &#8220;durance vile&#8221; a somewhat singular
+recognition of his circumstances took place. His fellow-prisoners in
+Lancaster Gaol communicated with him as follows:</p>
+
+<p>Letter addressed to Charles J. Mathews, in Lancaster Castle, July 1856:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>&#8220;<span class="smcap">Illustrious Sir</span>,</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Permit us to address you as a brother-debtor surrounded by oppressive
+circumstances akin to our own, which are rendered the more striking to
+one who like yourself has acquired a world-wide reputation as an
+artist and elocutionist; and whose uniform kindness and manly conduct
+has excited the admiration of those who now respectfully, through this
+medium, tender you what they consider to be a just meed of
+approbation.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>&#8220;With the newspaper gossip relative to your alleged state of affairs,
+which has been extensively circulated we have nothing to do and we
+know not whether you are fiercely opposed or otherwise; we seek not to
+elicit any facts connected with your position, but we beg most
+earnestly and respectfully to compassionate you as one of the most
+ingenious amongst our common manhood; and having for the most part
+felt the pangs attendant upon the day and hour of tribulation, allow
+us to express the strength of our sympathetic feeling by stating that
+we heartily wish you a signal, complete, and honourable release from
+that load of embarrassment which so unhappily depresses us all, but
+which, by reason of your refined sensibility must necessarily press
+with great force upon your mental organization; and this feeling
+compels us to say, &#8216;Go on and conquer.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Signed on behalf of the members of the Long Room,</p>
+
+<p><span style="margin-left: 2em;">&#8220;<span class="smcap">John Harridge</span>,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">&#8220;<i>Chairman</i>.&#8221;</span></p></div>
+
+<p>Mathews thought that there was an odd flavour of Mr. Micawber about the
+foregoing epistle. Subsequently he did what he should have done years
+before, sought freedom from his liabilities under legal protection. Many
+droll scenes took place when the comedian was under Bankruptcy
+examination. On one occasion Mr. Commissioner Law asked him why he had
+kept a brougham, instead of taking a cab to and fro between his residence
+and the theatre; and the lawyer was told thereupon by the debtor, that the
+brougham was hired from the purest motives of economy.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;In a word,&#8221; said Mathews, &#8220;I really could not afford the price of cabs.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I should have thought that cabs were more economical than a private
+carriage,&#8221; replied Law.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Not at all,&#8221; said Mathews. &#8220;Cabs take ready money, a precious article, to
+be carefully treasured and only parted with under absolute necessity, but
+a brougham can always be hired on credit.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mathews, free of his liabilities, became prosperous, and his latter days
+were marked by success and happiness.</p>
+
+<p>Of his attractiveness on the stage it is almost superfluous to speak; it
+may be said with truth, &#8220;We shall not look upon his like again;&#8221; for
+though not a great actor, he was unapproachable in those light comedy
+parts that require dash and go. I remember seeing him play Dazzle in
+&#8216;London Assurance,&#8217; at Melbourne, exactly thirty years, to the very day,
+from the date of its first performance; and though he was the oldest
+member of the company on the stage that night, he was in manner and
+appearance by far the youngest.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2>
+<p class="title">IMPECUNIOSITY OF ARTISTS.</p>
+
+<p>If there be two things on earth that may be said to have a more direct
+affinity for each other than aught else, those two things are Painting and
+Poverty. The artistic records of the past literally teem with sorrowful
+instances of their close relationship; and unfortunately the alliterative
+connection is by no means unknown in the present day.</p>
+
+<p>Ruskin, who upholds contempt for poverty as a characteristic of our age
+which is both &#8220;just and wholesome,&#8221; complains that we starve our great men
+for the first half of their lives by way of revenge, because they quarrel
+with us, and adds,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;Precisely in the degree in which any painter possesses original
+genius, is at present the increase of moral certainty that during his
+early years he will have a hard battle to fight: and that just at the
+time when his conceptions ought to be full and happy, his temper
+gentle, and his hopes enthusiastic&mdash;just at that most critical period,
+his heart is full of anxieties and household cares: he is chilled by
+disappointments, and vexed by injustice, he becomes obstinate in his
+errors, no less than in his virtues, and the arrows of his aim are
+blunted, as the reeds of his trust are broken.... You may be fed with
+the fruit and fulness of his old age, but you were as the nipping
+blight in his blossoming, and your praise is only as the warm winds of
+autumn to the dying branches.... You feed him in his tender youth with
+ashes and dishonour: and then you come to him, obsequious but too
+late, with your sharp laurel crown, the dew all dried from off its
+leaves: and you thrust it into his languid hand, and he looks at you
+wistfully. What shall he do with it? What can he do, but go and lay it
+on his mother&#8217;s grave.&#8221;</p></div>
+
+<p>In another part of the same work from which I have quoted, he says, with
+exquisite pathos,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;You cannot consider, for you cannot conceive, the sickness of heart
+with which a young painter of deep feeling toils through his first
+obscurity&mdash;his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> sense of the strong voice within him which you will
+not hear, his vain, fond, wondering witness to the things you will not
+see&mdash;his far-away perception of things that he could accomplish if he
+had but peace and time, all unapproachable and vanishing from him,
+because no one will leave him peace or grant him time: all his friends
+falling back from him: those whom he would most reverently obey
+rebuking and paralyzing him: and last and worst of all, those who
+believe in him most faithfully, suffering by him the most bitterly.
+The wife&#8217;s eyes, in their sweet ambition, shining brighter as the
+cheek wastes away: and the little lips at his side parched and pale,
+which one day, he knows, although he may never see it, will quiver so
+proudly when they name his name, calling him &#8216;Our father.&#8217;&#8221;</p></div>
+
+<p>But if these pictures are now drawn from artist life, what must that life
+have been fifty or a hundred years ago? Art was always a plant of slow
+growth in England, and the great masters who were cherished in the Old
+World trade guilds, and flourished so grandly in Italy, Flanders, and
+Holland, had not a single native representative in this country. And when
+at last the land that had so long since produced a Shakespeare, could
+boast its Hogarth, native artists were still few and far between, and
+their chief means of living was found in painting signs. Neglected and
+scornfully humiliated by all classes, isolated from refined society&mdash;such
+as it was&mdash;they suffered the extremes of poverty, with cheerful bravery,
+endured with a light heart, paid back scorn with scorn, and were linked
+together by sympathy and pity in such a bond of brotherly fellowship as is
+now utterly unknown. The taverns were their clubs, bread and cheese their
+fare: and if the rent of their garret homes were not forthcoming, they
+slept in the streets, and, careless Bohemians that they were, laughed
+together over the strangeness, or the dangers, of their nocturnal
+exposures. That their lives often found tragic endings may readily be
+known. Many a terrible story is extant of their heart-sickness and
+despair, of last awful struggles silently, heroically continued against
+overwhelming odds, and of lingering sufferings endured with martyr-like
+patience.</p>
+
+<p>The earliest exhibitions of pictures&mdash;they were mainly street signs and
+portraits&mdash;were organized by the artists themselves for charitable
+purposes, as may be seen by the catalogue of one opened in Spring Gardens,
+in 1761; which contained a design by Samuel Wale, one of the founders of
+the Royal Academy, engraved by Charles Grignion, representing &#8220;The genius
+of painting, sculpture,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> and architecture relieving the distressed;&#8221; and
+these exhibitions were first established in the reign of George II.</p>
+
+<p>The Samuel Wale here mentioned, afterwards R.A., was himself a
+sign-painter; and for many years a whole-length figure of Shakespeare,
+painted by him in the zenith of his powers, figured as the sign of a
+public-house at the north-west corner of Little Russell Street, in Drury
+Lane: while Charles Grignion, when an old man, suffered the then usual
+fate of artists old and young; and an appeal made for him by his brethren
+in 1808, now before me, speaks of him in his ninetieth year in the deepest
+distress, unable to work, with a wife entirely, and a nearly blind
+daughter partially, dependent upon him for support, saying, &#8220;Behold,
+reader, the united claims of virtue, old age, and professional merit, and
+filial and parental suffering.&#8221; It also expressed a not unreasonable hope
+that &#8220;the claims of, a man who had done so much, and done so well, would
+be speedily attended to.&#8221; Grignion died four years afterwards, his latest
+days made smooth by the personal contributions of a few artists and some
+of their patrons, so that the general appeal quoted from above seems to
+have fallen flatly; as well it might when the public regarded English
+artists with contempt, and their brethren were so meanly, miserably poor.</p>
+
+<p>The first native artist whose fame extended beyond his birthplace was
+William Hogarth; but poverty, the bitter badge of all his tribe, he too
+wore. His father, a north-country schoolmaster, settled in London as an
+author and press-reader in the Old Bailey, where on the 10th November,
+1697, the great painter to be was born. Everybody knows how the child&#8217;s
+taste for art found its earliest expression in the eagerness with which he
+watched some poor artist at his work, and not less well known is the fact
+that he was the apprentice of a &#8220;silver plate engraver,&#8221; and afterwards
+devoted himself to engraving on copper coats of arms and ornamental
+headings for shop bills, creeping upwards from such &#8220;small beginnings&#8221; to
+more ambitious efforts, until at last he made a hit by illustrating
+&#8216;Hudibras,&#8217; the commission for which, it is said, he owed to that
+successful caricature of his landlady to which I have previously referred.
+There were then in all London but two print-shops, and they dealt
+principally in foreign productions; so that it can be easily understood
+how, to eke out the shortcomings of his graver, Hogarth taught himself
+painting. Speaking long afterwards of this portion of his career, he said,
+&#8220;I could do little<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> more than maintain myself till I was near thirty;&#8221; and
+added, &#8220;I remember the time when I have gone moping into the city with
+scarce a shilling, but as soon as I had obtained ten guineas there for a
+plate, I have returned home, put on my sword, and sallied forth again,
+with all the confidence of a man who had thousands in his pocket.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>At another time he sold to the print-seller, W. Bowles, some plates he had
+just finished, by weight at half-a-crown a pound avoirdupois; but even
+when Hogarth was a famous man, and, compared with his former state, a
+prosperous one, we find such pictures as &#8220;The Harlot&#8217;s Progress&#8221; and &#8220;The
+Rake&#8217;s Progress&#8221; selling at from fourteen to twenty-two guineas each
+picture, and &#8220;The Strolling Players&#8221; bought by Francis Beckford, Esq., for
+&pound;27 6<i>s.</i>: but as he afterwards complained of that price as much too high,
+Hogarth took it back, and resold it for the same amount. &#8220;Marriage &agrave; la
+Mode,&#8221; after the artist had published engravings from the set of six
+paintings so called, realised &pound;19 6<i>s.</i> In 1797 they were sold for &pound;1381,
+and now form part of our national collection through the bequest of Mr.
+Angerstein. Another of his famous works, &#8220;March of the Guards to
+Finchley,&#8221; was more satisfactorily disposed of by lottery, and it was this
+fact that Hogarth referred to when he said, &#8220;A lottery is the only chance
+a living painter has of being paid for his time.&#8221; From that lottery sprang
+our modern art unions. It was of this picture, in a spirit of bitterness
+provoked by the poverty of his dear friend, its painter, that David
+Garrick wrote in a letter to Henry Fielding:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;Its first and great fault is its being too new, and having too great
+a resemblance to the objects it represents; if this appears a paradox,
+you ought to take particular care in confessing it. This picture has
+too much of the lustre, of that despicable freshness which we discover
+in nature, and which is never seen in the cabinets of the curious.
+Time has not obscured it with that venerable smoke, that sacred cloud
+which will one day conceal it from the profane eye of the vulgar, so
+that its beauties may only be seen by those who are initiated into the
+mysteries of art: these are almost its only faults.&#8221;</p></div>
+
+<p>To the last Hogarth seems to have been a needy, struggling man. That
+unfrocked clergyman and satirical poet, Churchill, after quarrelling with
+the painter &#8220;over a rubber of shilling whist,&#8221; at the Bedford Arms, near
+Covent Garden, attacked him with the bitterest scorn and hatred. Hogarth
+was then growing old and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> feeble, his health was bad, and he was
+melancholy and depressed by the fact that Sir Robert Grosvenor, having
+commissioned him to paint a picture (&#8220;Sigismunda&#8221;), had refused to pay for
+it when finished. At this juncture the mistress of Churchill told the poet
+that he had given Hogarth his death-blow; whereupon he unfeelingly
+remarked, &#8220;How sweet is flattery from the woman we love,&#8221; adding, &#8220;He has
+broken into the pale of my private life, and has set the example of
+illiberality, <i>which I wanted</i>, and as he is dying from the effects of my
+former chastisement I will hasten his death by writing his elegy.&#8221; The
+painter&#8217;s death followed soon after, and all he had to leave his wife were
+his unsold plates, the copyrights of which were secured to her for twenty
+years by an Act of Parliament.</p>
+
+<p>Amongst Hogarth&#8217;s foreign predecessors John Mabuse, or Mabegius, an
+historical and portrait painter, born in 1499, may be mentioned, for the
+sake of telling a story about an ingenious way in which he contrived to
+avoid what might have been the very serious consequences of his
+impecuniosity. While he was in the service of the Emperor Charles V. (many
+of his finest works were painted in this country, he was employed by Henry
+VIII. to paint some of the royal children, and he had among his admirers
+no less a judge of art than Albert Durer), a lord of the court making
+special preparations to receive the Emperor, commanded the whole of the
+royal household to be dressed in rich damask brocade. When the painter was
+measured for his suit he persuaded the tailor to let him have the
+material, and wanting money for a drinking-bout sold it to a
+tavern-keeper, having first made a suit of white paper, which he painted
+in imitation of the damask, and appeared in it before the Emperor, who
+afterwards said the painter&#8217;s costume was of all he saw the handsomest and
+richest. The trick was discovered, but as the Emperor enjoyed the joke and
+laughed heartily, no ill came of it. Some similar freak, however, soon
+after threw him into prison, where he continued to paint.</p>
+
+<p>The mention of art work done in a prison recalls the name of William
+Ryland, an English artist, who was born in London in 1732, studied under
+Francis Boucher in Paris, and soon after his return was appointed engraver
+to the King. He was the first who engraved in the dotted style, and his
+works won him more fame than money. Angelo, the fencing-master, who knew
+Ryland<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> from his boyhood, says he lived in a house in which John Gwynn,
+the painter, whose &#8216;Essay on Design,&#8217; published in 1749, is still known
+amongst students, also occupied apartments. Ryland had a wife and children
+to support, and in the year 1783, to relieve the pressure of his creditors
+(he was then in receipt of a small pension from the King), he forged a
+bond for three thousand pounds, to escape probably by its aid from his
+pecuniary difficulties and his country. The document forged was a most
+extraordinary specimen of imitative art, having thirty or more distinctive
+signatures in every variety of handwriting; some bold and large, some
+cramped, some small, written in various kinds of inks. When it was
+presented for payment at the India House, the cashier after carefully
+examining it and referring to the ledger said, &#8220;Here is a mistake, sir;
+the bond as entered does not become due until to-morrow.&#8221; Ryland begged
+permission to look at the book, and after leisurely and coolly inspecting
+it, said, &#8220;There must be an error in your entry of one day,&#8221; and quietly
+offered to leave the bond. The cashier, however, believing the entry to be
+an erroneous one, paid the money, with which Ryland departed. On the
+following day the true bond was presented, and the crime detected; large
+placards were soon posted all over London, offering a reward of &pound;500 for
+his apprehension.</p>
+
+<p>Ryland&#8217;s first hiding-place was in the Minories, where he remained
+concealed for some days. One evening after dusk he stole out for a walk,
+disguised in a seaman&#8217;s dreadnaught. On Little Tower Hill, one of the
+officers in search of him eyed him very earnestly, passed, repassed him,
+and then advancing said abruptly and confidentially, &#8220;So you are the very
+man I am seeking.&#8221; The artist said so calmly, &#8220;I think you are mistaken, I
+don&#8217;t remember you,&#8221; that the &#8220;runner&#8221; apologised and wished him &#8220;good
+night.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He was taken, however, tried and condemned to death, amidst universal
+expressions of sorrow and regret. Interest was made to obtain mercy on the
+ground of his previous excellent character, and his extraordinary talent
+as an artist and engraver. The King&#8217;s reply was: &#8220;No! a man with such
+talent could not have been unable to provide amply for all his wants.&#8221;
+Angelo said, &#8220;Had a Shakespeare or a Milton committed a similar act of
+fraud in those iron days of jurisprudence, their fate had doubtless been
+the same.&#8221; Ryland petitioned for a respite, on the ground that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> he was
+then engraving the last of a series of plates from the paintings of
+Signora Angelica Kauffman, and was anxious to complete it to enable his
+wife after his execution to support herself and his children. His request
+was granted, and it is stated, &#8220;he laboured incessantly at this his last
+work, and when he received from his printer, Haddril, who was the first in
+his line, the finished proof impression, he calmly said, &#8216;Mr. Haddril, I
+thank you; my task is now accomplished.&#8217;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Having just mentioned Angelica Kauffman, I may pause to note that the
+greatest misfortune of her life has been traced to the poverty of her
+father, Johann Kauffman, for though the story, which is as follows, is
+discredited by some, it has many believers. She was travelling with him in
+her early girlhood through Switzerland, and being very poor they went on
+foot, sleeping at night after each long day&#8217;s journey in some humble
+wayside tavern. On one occasion they were refused admission on the ground
+that two grand English seigneurs had bespoken all the accommodation. The
+poor artist, anxious not to overtax his young daughter&#8217;s failing strength,
+pleaded and protested in vain; and the dispute between him and the
+landlord waxing loud and warm, the attention of one of the Englishmen was
+attracted, and coming forward he politely invited them to become the
+guests of himself and friend. Not quite concealed by the polished courtesy
+of his manner lurked that which secretly alarmed and offended the
+pale-faced, weary girl, and while her unsuspecting father was full of
+grateful thanks, and glad to avail himself of the stranger&#8217;s apparent
+kindness, she whisperingly entreated him to come away. Too anxious on her
+account to risk the chance of a night in the open air, her father accepted
+the invitation, and at table the nobleman, forgetting the respect due to
+her innocence and youth, attempted some liberty, which being repeated,
+caused her to rise suddenly and leave the room. Her father followed, and
+was induced to go with her out of the house. Some years after, when
+Angelica Kauffman had become famous, and was living in England, welcomed
+with pride and enthusiasm in the highest society, and sought after by the
+noblest and most gifted, she met this peer in one of the most brilliant
+circles of the fashionable world, who with great amazement recognised in
+the elegant woman and famous artist the humble pedestrian of the Swiss
+mountains. Seeking an opportunity he passionately entreated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> her to
+forgive him, pleaded that he had never forgotten her, and never could, and
+begged that she would at least accept his most respectful friendship. She
+believed him, trusted him, was again insulted, and refused thenceforth to
+admit him to her society. To induce her to restore him to her favour, he
+offered her marriage, and was calmly and resolutely refused; and on his
+rejection forced himself into her presence, and strove even to win by
+violence that which no other means could give him, but was again baffled.
+To humble and disgrace her he devised a plan, which most probably
+suggested to Lord Lytton the story of his play, <i>The Lady of Lyons</i>. He
+secured the aid of a low-born adventurer, who assumed the name of Count
+Frederic de Horn, introduced him in some way to fashionable society,
+where, approaching Angelica Kauffman, then twenty-six, and in the full
+bloom of womanhood, he rendered the most flattering homage to her genius,
+with an air of the most profound respect and admiration, and gradually
+became familiar and dear to her; and at last told some strange romantic
+story of a terrible misfortune from which she could save him by at once,
+and secretly, becoming his wife. The snare caught her; the marriage was
+performed by a Catholic priest without writings or witnesses. One day
+while painting a portrait of the Queen at Buckingham Palace, in the course
+of conversation the young artist confided to her royal friend the secret
+of her recent mysterious wedding, which resulted in the Count de Horn
+being invited to court. This invitation was, however, not accepted, the
+impostor fearing detection. Her father&#8217;s suspicions being aroused, and the
+facts of the marriage explained to him, he made inquiries and induced
+others to pursue them, which ended in the appearance of the real Count de
+Horn, and the unmasking of the impostor, who only laughed at his dupe, and
+commanded her to follow him, claiming that entire control over her person
+and property to which the poor woman believed he was entitled, until
+further inquiries brought to light the fact that the man had been
+previously married, when the false marriage was formally declared null and
+void.</p>
+
+<p>For my next anecdote I turn to Elizabeth le Brun, the favourite court
+painter of the unfortunate Marie Antoinette, who, when her husband&#8217;s
+reckless and heartless extravagance had reduced her to comparative
+poverty, found herself unable to terminate the once grand receptions at
+which she had received the <i>cr&egrave;me de la cr&egrave;me</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> of her contemporaries.
+They crowded her smaller house as they had crowded her larger one, and for
+lack of chairs seated themselves upon the floor, and she herself tells the
+embarrassment of the Duc de Noailles, who was so old and so excessively
+fat, that as he could neither get down so low, nor rise without
+assistance, was therefore obliged to endure the terrible fatigue of
+standing.</p>
+
+<p>The early years of a more modern, but equally famous, lady-artist, Rosa
+Bonheur, were embittered by her father&#8217;s want of money. As a school-girl
+she felt severely the contrast between the silk dresses, silver mugs,
+spoons, and forks, with a plentiful supply of pocket-money, which her
+companions possessed, and her calico frocks, iron spoon, tin mug, coarse
+shoes, and empty pockets; and her earliest ideas of art, as a means of
+escaping such humiliating conditions, were thereby developed,
+strengthened, and intensified into a restless craving and feverish
+anxiety. Hence she soon began to draw and model in imitation of her
+father, with a passionate eagerness that kept her constantly at work from
+early morning until late at night, and at last startling her father (who
+had long and despairingly considered her too indolent, self-willed, and
+stupid, ever to be in any way useful) by the progress she made, he took
+her through a serious course of preparatory study, and so made her an
+artist. The director of the Louvre, M. Jousselin, declared that while she
+was there forming her judgment, and training eye and hand, he had never
+before witnessed such untiring eagerness and ardour. In her case, the
+impecuniosity which Ruskin regards as so often fatal to the aspirations of
+young and ambitious artists, appears to have been the strongest incentive.
+Surrounded and stimulated by the glorious creations of great artists, the
+first to enter the gallery, and the last to leave it, her strongest desire
+was to aid her artist father in his weary struggle for the support of his
+family; to which she soon began to contribute by the sale of her copies,
+making up for the extreme smallness of the sums they commanded by the
+rapidity with which she produced them. In her seventeenth year she
+achieved such success in making a study from a goat, that she determined
+to turn her attention to the painting of animals from life. Too poor to
+pay for models, she went out daily into the country to study them in the
+fields and lanes. Laden with clay, or canvas, brushes, and colours, she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span>
+would set out in the grey dawn, with nothing but a piece of bread in her
+pocket for the day&#8217;s food, and finding a subject, work on it until the
+light had faded, and then, soaked by rain, or struggling in the rude wind,
+she would make her way, sometimes ten or a dozen miles, through the
+darkness, a sun-browned, hardy, peasant-looking girl, to reach home
+cheerful, and contented with the day&#8217;s work, although hungry and exhausted
+by fatigue. Another way in which she contrived to get models cheaply was
+by passing days amongst the lowing and bleating victims of one of the
+great Parisian slaughter-houses, the <i>Abattoir du Roule</i>, where, seated on
+a bundle of hay, with her colour-box beside her, she painted on from
+morning until dusk, frequently so absorbed that she forgot to eat the
+piece of bread in her pocket. She also studied from the animals when they
+were under the influence of terror and agony, just before they received
+the death-stroke; forcing herself to endure a woman&#8217;s natural repugnance
+to such scenes of blood and torture, rendered doubly painful to her by the
+loving sympathy with which she regarded all the brute creation. In the
+evening she would return home from such studies with her face and clothes
+thickly marked by the flies which in such places congregate so thickly.
+With equal perseverance she also studied in the stables of the Veterinary
+School of Alfort, in the <i>Jardin des Plantes</i>, and in all the horse and
+cattle fairs held in the neighbourhood of Paris; always in the latter case
+wearing male attire, to avoid certain dangers and annoyances to which a
+woman would be subjected if dressed in the clothing of her sex. She was
+regarded as a good-natured, merry boy, and a clever little fellow, by the
+rough characters who visited the fairs, and sympathising with her apparent
+poverty, the graziers and horse-dealers whose animals she drew constantly
+insisted upon standing treat. Occasionally, too, a village dairy-maid
+would make amorous overtures to the handsome &#8220;lad.&#8221; So she gallantly
+wrought, and fought, and paved her upward way to fame and prosperity, her
+father and nature her only teachers, the former&#8217;s impecuniosity her
+constant incentive.</p>
+
+<p>I am reminded here of Sir Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A., for whom also the first
+stimulants to activity in the pursuit of art were the poverty and
+necessities of his father, an exciseman, actor, and innkeeper, who had
+achieved no lasting success in either calling. At one time despairing of
+pecuniary success in the profession he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> began to excel in when but five
+years old, he resolved to take to the stage, despite the anxious
+opposition of his father, who was then looking forward to his son&#8217;s
+artistic efforts for support, having failed as an actor, failed in
+business at Devizes, where he kept &#8220;The Black Bear,&#8221; and having previously
+failed as landlord of &#8220;The White Lion,&#8221; at Bath. Bernard in his
+&#8216;Retrospections,&#8217; speaks of &#8220;Young Lawrence the painter,&#8221; then about
+seventeen, as &#8220;receiving professional instructions from Mr. Hoare of
+Bath,&#8221; and some little time after, with a view to his adopting the stage
+as a profession, Tom Lawrence recited before Bernard and John Palmer the
+actor, when the latter strove to enforce his father&#8217;s opinion, and
+convince him that his prospects as a painter were superior to those he
+would have as an actor. It was some time before he could realize this, and
+when he did he said with a sigh, &#8220;If I could go upon the stage, I thought
+I might be able to help my family much sooner than I can in my present
+employment.&#8221; The earnestness and the regret he expressed in the tone of
+these words deeply affected all who were present. It was many years before
+Thomas Lawrence escaped from the fangs of impecuniosity, so absorbing were
+the drafts made upon his purse by the wants of his parents. His father
+used to hawk his son&#8217;s crayon drawings about London at half a guinea each.
+One of his contemporary biographers, says, &#8220;Sir Thomas, though he
+sometimes confidentially accounted for his straitened circumstances
+through life by referring to his early burdens, never regretted them, nor
+murmured at their reminiscence.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>But the early practice of a painter is seldom profitable, and Nicholas
+Poussin asserts that at the commencement of <i>his</i> career his landscapes
+sold for less than the cost of canvas, oil, and pigments.</p>
+
+<p>Still more remarkable as an instance of artistic success snatched from the
+depths of impecuniosity, is that furnished by the early history of Isaac
+Ware, the famous architect. One day while sitting to Roubillac for his
+bust, he told him the story of himself as a thin, sickly child, who had
+been apprenticed to a chimney-sweep, enduring a life of pain and hardship
+at an age when happier children were in the nursery, and winter or summer,
+in storm or darkness, out in the streets, wailing forth his pitiful
+&#8220;s-w-eee-p,&#8221; before the day broke; chalking on the walls wherever he went
+drawings of the buildings he met with in his travels through the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> streets.
+One day a gentleman passing Whitehall on horseback saw the feeble-looking,
+sooty child tip-toeing to draw the outlines of the street front of that
+building upon its own basement wall; now running into the middle of the
+street to look up at the building, now back to continue his drawing. After
+watching him some little time the gentleman rode up and called to him,
+when the startled boy dropped his chalk in terror, and came forward with
+downcast eyes full of fear. To restore confidence the equestrian threw him
+a shilling, and after inquiring his name, and that of his master, &amp;c., he
+went instantly to the latter, who said the little fellow was of very
+little use to him, being so weak, and, complaining of his chalking
+propensity, showed his visitor what a state his walls were in through the
+young sweep&#8217;s having drawn upon them various views of St. Martin&#8217;s Church.
+The gentleman concluded his visit by purchasing the remainder of the boy&#8217;s
+time, and taking him away. It was to this noble benefactor that Ware owed
+not only his education, which was an excellent one, but the means which
+enabled him afterwards to pursue his art studies in Italy, and upon his
+return his introduction to commissions as an architect. It is said that
+Ware retained the stain of soot in his skin to the day of his death.</p>
+
+<p>This story of Ware&#8217;s boyhood we owe to Nathaniel Smith, the engraver, who
+heard the architect tell it; and speaking of Smith reminds me of a story
+told by his son, who was called in his time &#8220;Rainy-day Smith.&#8221; It is a
+tale of Alderman Boydell, who at twenty-one years of age walked to London,
+because he had no money to come by the waggon, and apprenticed himself to
+Mr. Thorns, an engraver and artist, attending whenever possible, an
+academy opened in St. Martin&#8217;s Lane for poor art students by a group of
+well-known artists, whose subscriptions paid for its support, and to which
+Hogarth contributed his father-in-law&#8217;s casts and models, learning
+perspective at the same time in his own humble lodging after his return at
+night. Boydell being out of his time, and unable to obtain regular
+employment, used to engrave small plates&mdash;views of London and
+landscapes&mdash;print them himself, make them up into little books, and sell
+them to keepers of toyshops to re-sell at sixpence a set of six, or a
+penny each. These shops he visited regularly every Saturday to see if any
+had been sold, and leave others to replace those that had happily been
+disposed of. His best customer was found at the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> sign of &#8220;The Cricket Bat&#8221;
+(all shops then had signs) in Duke&#8217;s Court, St. Martin&#8217;s Lane. On one
+occasion his delight was so excessive on finding so many had been sold
+there as realized five-and-sixpence, that in an outburst of gratitude to
+the shopkeeper he laid out the entire amount with him in the purchase of a
+silver pencil case, which he preserved as a memento of the great event all
+through the rest of his life.</p>
+
+<p>Of a kindred nature to Boydell&#8217;s vicissitudes were the earliest
+experiences of John Opie. As a lad in Cornwall he was so wretchedly poor
+that Dr. Walcot, then practising as a physician at Foy, out of compassion
+employed him to clean knives and forks, and to save him from the ill-usage
+of his father took him into his own house. John going to the
+slaughter-house for paunches to feed the doctor&#8217;s dog with, made a
+portrait of the butcher, which so delighted his employer that he also sat
+for a portrait to the errand boy, which production was equally
+astonishing. The portraits being shown amongst the doctor&#8217;s friends and
+neighbours, one named Phillips sent to London for a complete set of
+artist&#8217;s materials, which he presented to Opie, who painted with them the
+portrait of a parrot so naturally that it spread his fame far and near,
+and started him fairly in art as a portrait painter, his fee for a
+likeness being seven-and-sixpence. The doctor once asked the lad how he
+liked painting, to which question Opie replied enthusiastically, &#8220;Better
+than my bread and meat.&#8221; He was soon afterwards in London, where Sir
+Joshua Reynolds befriended him, and he became known and popular as &#8220;the
+wonderful Cornish genius.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>George Morland must have found impecuniosity a sharp spur, when his
+father, hopelessly weary of his indolence and bad conduct, turned him from
+home, saying, &#8220;I am determined to no longer encourage your idleness; there
+is a guinea, take it and go about your business.&#8221; George succeeded in
+supporting himself, and lived a life of the most degrading dissipation,
+his favourite companions being jockeys, ostlers, carters, money-lenders,
+gipsies, and women of abandoned character. He so cruelly ill-used his
+wife&mdash;a sister of James Ward, R.A.&mdash;that although strongly attached to
+him, she dared not live with him. &#8220;He died,&#8221; as Smith says, &#8220;drunk, in a
+sponging-house in Eyre Street Hill, near Hatton Garden.&#8221; Such a career
+could not but be fruitful of the troubles, cares, dangers, and
+difficulties arising from impecuniosity.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> At one time, when on an
+excursion to the coast of Kent with one of his favourite companions, a
+brother artist, probably to escape duns, they spent their money so freely
+on the road, that long before they reached their destination they were
+penniless and hungry. When nearing Canterbury they espied a homely
+roadside alehouse called &#8220;The Black Bull,&#8221; and hailing it with delight
+they entered, and soon made alarming havoc amongst the lowly edibles and
+potables set before them; smuggled full-proof spirits being ordered and
+disposed of in the most astonishing manner. When the bill was produced
+Morland frankly confessed they were a couple of poor itinerant artists in
+search of employment, and without a penny in the world. &#8220;But,&#8221; said he,
+&#8220;your sign is in a most shameful condition for so respectable a house; let
+me repaint it in settlement of the bill&#8221;&mdash;which amounted to twelve
+shillings and sixpence. The landlord had long wanted a new sign; he agreed
+to the proposition. Morland began the work, and as it could not be
+finished on that day, the host supplied him and his friend with lodging
+for the night. On the following day the new sign was so much to the
+satisfaction of the innkeeper that he furnished the friends with gin to
+the amount of two guineas, together with some food, and when it was
+finished added a few shillings to help them on their way. Many similar
+stories are extant of this celebrated painter. &#8220;The Goat and Boots&#8221; in the
+Fulham Road received a new sign from him in the same way; and to pay
+another tavern score he did a like service for &#8220;The Cricketers&#8221; near
+Chelsea.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. E. V. Rippingale, the painter, used to tell with what despondency,
+when he was a tall, thin, pale, self-taught youth eagerly studying art, he
+was taken one bright morning to see Sir David Wilkie, then residing in
+Kensington. He had just previously been introduced to a Scotch landscape
+painter of some eminence, who, when he asked him what materials were used
+in landscape painting, had eyed him with grim suspicion, and grunted&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Sur, there are sacreets in the art, whuch whun a mon hae foound oot, he
+mun keep to himsel.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Consequently Sir David&#8217;s kindly reception made a deep impression upon him.
+After inquiring what subject the youth was painting, and what branch of
+art his inclinations led him to adopt? if he had studied from the antique
+and from life?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> whether he was instructed or self-taught? &amp;c., the
+talented Scotchman, then a tall, bony young man, with reddish hair, grey
+eyes, high cheek bones, and a broad Scotch accent, said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I shall be very happy to tell you anything I know. You need not fear to
+ask me; the art of a painter is unlike that of a juggler, it does not
+depend upon a trick. In art we have no secrets, and all painters are
+always glad to tell what they know to young fellow-students.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The rest of the interview was devoted to the giving of sound practical
+advice, the inspection of Wilkie&#8217;s paintings and studies, and in the end
+the lanky lad from the country was pressed to come again and bring his
+drawings with him.</p>
+
+<p>Rippingale&#8217;s first visit to Wilkie was paid in 1815, and Haydon has told
+how, after the closing of the Royal Academy Exhibition in 1805, he went to
+breakfast with Wilkie, and reaching his apartment&mdash;he then had but one&mdash;a
+little before the appointed time, found him stark naked on that chilly
+autumnal morning, making a study from himself by the aid of a
+looking-glass. On another occasion the enthusiastic young Scotchman was
+found in a fireless room, shivering with cold, drawing from his own naked
+leg. Wilkie&#8217;s employment was of a very humble and precarious kind at that
+time, and he was then copying the pictures of Barry, in the great room of
+the Society of Arts, for an engraver.</p>
+
+<p>When the painter of those world-famous productions was no more, and his
+body lay in state in the very room which contained them, Wilkie was
+anxious to be present at the funeral, but alas! he had not a black coat,
+and could not afford to buy one. However Haydon had two, and was quite
+willing to lend one, and did so; but unfortunately he was short and
+slight, and Wilkie was tall and big-boned. The effect of the former&#8217;s coat
+upon the latter&#8217;s figure was consequently intensely ludicrous; the sleeves
+terminated far above his wrists, his broad shoulders stretched the seams
+to the very verge of cracking, and the waist buttons had &#8220;gone aloft&#8221;
+half-way up his back. When Haydon met him thus oddly attired, not even the
+solemnity of the occasion could quite suppress his merriment, and the
+piteous entreaty of the young Scotchman&#8217;s looks, and significantly upheld
+finger, increased rather than decreased the tendency, so that the English
+painter afterwards said he once thought the desperate effort he made to
+suppress his laughter would have killed him.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>When Wilkie was hawking his pictures from one shop to another, and
+returning home heart-sick, weary, and hungry, evening after evening, he
+received in nearly every case but one reply, &#8220;We don&#8217;t purchase modern
+pictures.&#8221; Happily this is altered now to some extent, though the
+reception awarded a novice in the present day is not very encouraging if
+all aspirants are treated in a like manner to an extremely clever young
+friend of mine, who, I doubt not, will be heard of some day. When he
+presented his canvas, or sketch, he was told, &#8220;We don&#8217;t buy the paintings
+of unknown men.&#8221; One of Wilkie&#8217;s pictures thus rejected was a little one
+of a subject afterwards re-painted on a larger scale, &#8220;The Blind Fiddler.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Haydon tells how he first saw a notice of Wilkie in a newspaper, and
+hurried to him with huge delight. &#8220;Wilkie,&#8221; he says, &#8220;was breakfasting.
+&#8216;Wilkie,&#8217; said I, &#8216;here&#8217;s your name in the paper.&#8217; &#8216;Where, where?&#8217; said
+Wilkie, ceasing to drink his tea. I then read it aloud to him. Wilkie
+stood up and huzzaed, in which we joined. We then took hands, and danced
+round the table, and sallying forth, spent the day in wandering about in a
+sort of ecstasy in the fields. We supped with Wilkie on red herrings, and
+he took down his little kit, and played us Scotch airs till the dreary
+hour of separation&mdash;these were delightful feelings! The novelty of a thing
+first felt, the freshness of youth, all contributed to render them intense
+and exciting.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>It was said by some one that Wilkie never painted better than when he used
+to take his penny roll and moisten it at the pump. But this statement was
+indignantly contradicted by his friend Haydon in his lectures, and he
+certainly was an authority on the difficulty of painting under
+difficulties.</p>
+
+<p>Another illustration of success preceded by disappointment is to be found
+in the case of Sontagg, who, according to Mr. Robert Kemp, before he
+found his true vocation in landscape painting, aspired to the glory of
+historical and high art. Environed by the bitter poverty of an art
+student, he painted his ideal. It was a Madonna, and as he afterwards
+said, &#8220;one of the worst ever painted.&#8221; When it was finished, he pawned his
+only decent coat to raise $7.50 for a frame in which it was sent to an art
+mart. &#8220;Then he spent the day walking around, and calculating what he would
+do with the thousand the great work would bring him in. Then he called at
+the auction room to collect. &#8216;Had the picture<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> been sold?&#8217; &#8216;It had,&#8217; said
+the clerk. &#8216;How much?&#8217; &#8216;Five dollars and a half.&#8217;&#8221; Sontagg dined on a
+&#8220;free lunch,&#8221; and went to bed in the dark. I may remark for the benefit of
+those uninitiated in Colonial and American drinking customs, the &#8220;free
+lunch&#8221; here spoken of means a meal which is provided gratis by many
+tavern-keepers in America, Australia, and elsewhere. It consists of bread
+and meat, or bread and cheese, placed on the counter, and to which all
+patronising the establishment are welcome. It is said that years after
+this occurrence, when Sontagg became famous, he found this painting over
+the chimney-piece of a little wayside inn in the Wabash County where it
+was a standing jest, and valued as a source of the laughter which kept a
+quarrelsome man and wife from desperate extremes. When their violence was
+at its worst a glance at Sontagg&#8217;s Madonna was sure to provoke such
+merriment that after it they invariably became friendly.</p>
+
+<p>The early life of John Philip, whose glorious pictures of Spanish life won
+him such wide-spread fame, presents an instance of greatness won despite
+extreme poverty, with its attendant drawbacks, and the friendlessness of
+utter obscurity. He began his career as a painter when a mere boy; though
+not upon canvas, millboard nor panel, but upon watering-cans. When
+seventeen years of age he worked his passage from Scotland to London on
+board a coasting-vessel, for the purpose of seeing the exhibition of the
+Royal Academy, and on his return, with a mind richly stored by close
+investigation of the pictures he saw there and in the National
+Galleries&mdash;of which those by Wilkie were the most fascinating and
+instructive&mdash;he painted a picture which attracted the attention of Lord
+Panmure, who generously sent him to study in London, and supplied him with
+the means of support while so engaged. Philip died, as so many sadly
+remember, on Feb. 27th, 1867. One of his earliest attempts was long
+visible outside an old tavern, in the village of Dyce, near his native
+town Aberdeen, where he was born in 1817. At Dyce he was employed as
+herd-boy, and a story is told of his having at that time but two shirts,
+and when one of these was stolen, Johnny said cheerfully to his relative,
+Mrs. Allardyce, &#8220;Never min, ye can mak a shift, wash the ane I hae on, and
+I&#8217;ll gang to my bed till it&#8217;s dry. My puir mither hae often to do that.&#8221;
+Inconvenient as such circumstances must have been, John Philip in the days
+of his prosperity often<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> spoke of the happy days he knew when he was a
+poor little herd-laddie in the pretty little village of Dyce.</p>
+
+<p>Somewhat similar in its start was the life of Henry Dawson, who died in
+1878. Born at Hull in 1811, he commenced the world as a factory-lad at
+Nottingham, in which position he began to paint pictures, which he sold at
+prices ranging from two to twenty shillings; but it was long before he
+achieved the grand success the latter price implied, not indeed before
+1835, and the munificent patron to whose liberality he owed the advance
+was a hairdresser, who for many years remained his best customer. So
+slowly came the fame and prosperity he sought so laboriously and
+patiently, and at last so honourably won, that when he was in his fortieth
+year he actually contemplated opening a small-ware shop to aid him in
+bringing up and educating his family. Indeed had it not been for John
+Ruskin, to whom he applied for advice as to whether he should reluctantly
+abandon his beloved art or persevere in its practice, the profession would
+have lost one of the most powerful of our modern masters in landscape.</p>
+
+<p>He was for many years known only to dealers, who made a glorious harvest
+by reaping where he sowed amidst the cares, anxieties, and inconveniences
+of impecuniosity.</p>
+
+<p>A further proof of what genius and industry can accomplish, be the
+difficulties never so great, is shown by the ultimate success of G. M.
+Kemp, the architect who designed the Scott monument at Edinburgh. He was
+originally a journeyman millwright, and while working at his trade
+contrived, not only to teach himself to draw, but to visit and make
+studies from all the principal ecclesiastical edifices in Scotland, and
+afterwards in England. His plan was to find work in the different places
+he desired to visit; and by this means he acquired such a knowledge of
+architecture that when a prize was offered in open competition for the
+Scott monument, his design was the one unanimously selected,
+notwithstanding the fact that amongst his rivals were many of the leading
+professional architects.</p>
+
+<p>Success unfortunately does not always attend those who work hard and
+deserve substantial recognition; for when some one congratulated William
+Behnes, the sculptor, on his triumphs, and the prosperity that was
+presumed to have followed in their wake, he replied, &#8220;When I die, be that
+event when it may, there will not be two penny pieces left to close my
+eyes.&#8221; He died in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> Middlesex Hospital, in January, 1864, realising his
+prediction to the very letter, so few were his sitters, so small the sums
+they paid.</p>
+
+<p>While Behnes began life as a pianoforte-maker, the great sculptor Chantrey
+commenced his career as a journeyman carpenter, in connection with which
+fact there is an odd story told. One day while inspecting a costly vase in
+the house of the wealthy poet Rogers, he asked with a smile who made the
+table on which the curio stood. &#8220;Curiously enough,&#8221; said Rogers, &#8220;it was
+not made by a cabinet-maker, but by a common carpenter.&#8221; Chantrey asked,
+&#8220;Did you see it made?&#8221; and Rogers, supposing the query to be one of
+incredulity, replied positively, &#8220;Certainly! I was in the room while the
+man finished it with the chisel, and I gave him instructions in placing
+it.&#8221; Chantrey laughed, and said, &#8220;You did. I remember that, and all the
+circumstances perfectly well.&#8221; &#8220;You!&#8221; exclaimed the poet. &#8220;Yes,&#8221; said
+Chantrey quietly. &#8220;I was the carpenter.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>When speaking of signs I omitted to mention George Henry Harlow, an artist
+of considerable eminence, who, like Morland and others, was glad on
+occasions to paint signs to liquidate liquor scores. Harlow, who was born
+in 1787, and died in 1819, quarrelled in the plenitude of his conceit with
+his master, Sir Thomas Lawrence, left his house, and went to live at &#8220;The
+Queen&#8217;s Head,&#8221; in Epsom, where, living extravagantly, his expenses outran
+his means, and he was glad to escape the penalty of his folly by
+repainting the landlord&#8217;s sign. In doing so, with a view to the annoyance
+of Sir Thomas, who had found in Queen Caroline a kind friend and patron,
+he very cleverly caricatured at once Her Majesty, and his late master&#8217;s
+style of portraiture, even putting underneath it his initials and
+address&mdash;T. L., Greek St., Soho. One of the funny ideas of this sign was
+that of painting on one side the face of the Queen, and on the other Her
+Majesty&#8217;s royal back.</p>
+
+<p>There was a sign long displayed at Mole, in North Wales, which was painted
+in the same way by Richard Wilson, &#8220;The English Claude.&#8221; It belonged to a
+tavern called &#8220;The Three Loggerheads;&#8221; only two appeared on the sign, the
+third was to be he who read the sign, as many did, aloud.</p>
+
+<p>This same Richard Wilson, R.A., was a Welshman, the son of the Rector of
+Pineges, where he was born in 1714; and after unsuccessfully working for a
+long time as a painter of portraits, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>landscapes, and historical subjects,
+he at last achieved eminence, and forthwith enjoyed, with so many of his
+talented <i>confr&egrave;res</i>, glory and&mdash;poverty. The incident of his first
+commission from the King will illustrate the kind of remuneration even
+royalty gave for the works of men who had attained the highest rank in
+their arduous profession.</p>
+
+<p>Dalton, the artist, having been appointed keeper of the King&#8217;s pictures,
+suggested that a landscape by Richard Wilson should be included in His
+Majesty&#8217;s collection; and the monarch reposing great faith in his
+judgment, sent poor Dick a commission for a landscape of a given size to
+fit a vacant space in the gallery. In due time the work was finished and
+placed before the King, who exclaimed indignantly,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Hey! what! Do <i>you</i> call this painting, Dalton? Take it away! I call it
+daubing, hey! What! It&#8217;s a mere daub.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Poor Dalton, who was one of Wilson&#8217;s friends and admirers, bowed, looked
+sheepish, and was silent.</p>
+
+<p>Presently his, on this occasion, not over gracious Majesty peevishly
+inquired, &#8220;What does he ask for this daub?&#8221; And when Dalton replied &#8220;One
+hundred guineas,&#8221; the King&#8217;s astonishment was immense.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;One hundred guineas! Hey! What, Dalton! Then you may tell Mr. Wilson it&#8217;s
+the dearest picture I ever saw. Too much&mdash;too much&mdash;tell him I say so.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>A few days after, the artist, being as usual in need of cash, called upon
+Dalton, and in his bluff manner said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, Dicky Dalton, what says his Majesty?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Dalton replied hesitatingly, and with confusion, &#8220;Why&mdash;a&mdash;with&mdash;a&mdash;regard
+to the picture&mdash;a&mdash;As for my&mdash;a&mdash;own opinion&mdash;why&mdash;a&mdash;you know, Mr.
+Wilson, that&mdash;a&mdash;indeed&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Wilson interrupted him with an oath. He saw his friend&#8217;s perplexity, and
+said at once, &#8220;His Majesty don&#8217;t approve&mdash;but I know your friendly
+zeal&mdash;go on.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why in truth, my dear friend, I venture to think the a&mdash;the finishing
+is&mdash;not altogether answerable to His Majesty&#8217;s anticipations.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Humph! Not every leaf made out, hey?&mdash;not every blade of grass? What
+else? Out with it, man.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why then&mdash;a&mdash;His&mdash;His Majesty thinks&mdash;a&mdash;that the price is&mdash;is&mdash;is a
+great deal of money.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span>Wilson took him by the button-hole, looked cautiously round, and in a
+comical whisper said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Tell His Majesty I do not wish to distress him, I will take it by
+instalments&mdash;say a guinea a week.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Neglect and disappointment soured Wilson&#8217;s temper, and made him a very
+surly, irritable man, sometimes quite misanthropical; as well they might,
+considering his great talents and his extreme poverty. It is said that one
+of his most famous historical paintings, on which he had expended many
+months of thought and labour, was sold under the influence of absolute
+necessity for a pot of beer, and the remains of a Stilton cheese!</p>
+
+<p>Mortimer, an artist who used to sometimes occupy an armchair by Wilson&#8217;s
+fireside, and there hear him in splenetic humour moralise like another
+melancholy Jaques, making cynical strictures upon that scoundrel man,
+would say, &#8220;Come, come, my old Trojan&mdash;come, old boy&mdash;I wish I could set
+you purring like old puss there.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Angelo tells how a friend of Dr. Johnson&#8217;s, hearing of Wilson&#8217;s distress,
+said to Mr. Taylor, the artist, &#8220;I wish I knew how to send him ten pounds
+in some delicate way which could not give him offence. Do you think he has
+some very trifling sketch I could buy for that sum? I have no taste for
+pictures, but I would give him a commission if my income were not too
+slender. I am so distressed that so great a genius should be entirely
+without means.&#8221; Taylor told this story delicately to Wilson, who was much
+touched by it, and said, &#8220;I have no scrap such as your friend desires to
+have, but if the thing were not bruited about I would be happy to send him
+one of my easel pictures, which you know I never sell for less than
+sixteen guineas.&#8221; The result was that Wilson received the ten pounds, Dr.
+Johnson&#8217;s friend the sixteen-guinea picture, which it is said he gave away
+the same evening to one of the waiters at Vauxhall.</p>
+
+<p>At the close of his life, when worn out by indifference and neglect, he
+was reduced to solicit the office of librarian to the Royal Academy, of
+which he was acknowledged to be one of the brightest ornaments. He died in
+May 1782, his death accelerated, if not produced, by want; and, sad to
+state, just previous to his decease, help came to him, when it was, alas,
+too late!</p>
+
+<p>As is well known, William Hazlitt, the critic, began life as an artist,
+and was indeed an artist in taste, judgment, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> knowledge, all his life.
+He speaks of his painter&#8217;s experience with enthusiasm in one of his
+papers, saying, &#8220;One of the most delightful parts of my life was one fine
+summer, when I used to walk out of an evening to catch the last light of
+the sun, gemming the green slopes of the russet lawns, and gilding tower
+or tree, while the blue sky, gradually turning to purple and gold, or
+skirted with dusky grey, flung its broad mantle over all, as we see it in
+the great master of Italian landscape.&#8221; Hazlitt abandoned the brush for
+the pen when he found that he could not realize his own conceptions, nor
+satisfy his own critical judgment; but it is evident from the following
+extract that his early art-life was not free from the imputation of being
+impecunious. He says, after receiving the money for a portrait he had
+finished in great haste for the sake of getting the cash, &#8220;I went to
+market myself and dined on sausages and mashed potatoes; and, while they
+were getting ready, and I could hear them frying in the pan, read a volume
+of &#8216;Gil Blas&#8217; containing the account of the fair Aurora. This was in the
+days of my youth. Do not smile, gentle reader. Neither M. de Verry nor
+Louis XVIII. over an oyster <i>p&acirc;te</i>, nor Apicius himself, ever understood
+the meaning of the word luxury better than I did at that moment.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Daniel Maclise&mdash;the son of a Scotch cobbler, who had been a soldier and
+had settled in Ireland&mdash;was sent adrift in the world at a very early age,
+and became a bank clerk. In 1828 he came to London, where he succeeded in
+getting a studentship in the Royal Academy. The money which enabled him to
+do this was earned by a portrait-sketch he made stealthily from Sir Walter
+Scott, while the great Wizard of the North was in the shop of a
+bookseller, named Bolster. Bolster afterwards saw the sketch, and showed
+it to Sir Walter, who, pleased with the lad&#8217;s talent, attached his
+autograph to it. The drawing was lithographed, sold in Bolster&#8217;s shop, and
+with his share of the profit Maclise started himself in his art career.</p>
+
+<p>Poor Benjamin Haydon&mdash;odd compound of greatness and littleness, bravery
+and cowardice, genius and folly, now patient, now despairing, now bitterly
+envious and jealous, and anon sympathetically gleeful over a brother&#8217;s
+triumph&mdash;sipped many a cup of bitterness through his constant state of
+impecuniosity; which chronic condition, he sorrowfully admits in his
+diary, was the result of borrowing, as shown by this extract. &#8220;Here began<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>
+debt and obligation, out of which I have never been, and never shall be,
+extricated as long as I live.&#8221; Haydon, as I said, was a strange mixture,
+and though possessed of a nature truly poetical, he was in some things
+wondrously practical; for the bailiffs put into his house he utilized as
+models. One sat, he tells us in his diary, &#8220;for Cassandra&#8217;s head, and put
+on a Persian bracelet. When the broker came for his money, he burst out
+laughing. There was the fellow, an old soldier, pointing in the attitude
+of Cassandra, upright, and steady as if on guard. Lazarus&#8217;s head was
+painted just after an arrest: Eucles finished from a man in possession:
+the beautiful face in Xenophon in the afternoon after a morning spent in
+begging mercy of lawyers: and Cassandra&#8217;s head was finished in agony not
+to be described, and her hand completed from a broker&#8217;s man.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Sculptors, like artists, have frequently found art a very hard school; and
+amongst others of whom this is true may be mentioned Peter Scheemakers,
+the master Nollekens studied under. When a youth, so fervent was his
+desire to study in Rome, that he actually endured the fatigue of
+travelling from Antwerp into Italy on foot. Unfortunately in Denmark he
+fell sick, and when again fit for the road, he was compelled to sell his
+shirts from his knapsack to procure food; but he was none the less joyous
+when, footsore, haggard, and hungry, he at last entered the Eternal City.
+This was in 1700. The fine figure of King Edward VI., which used to stand
+in the courtyard of St. Thomas&#8217;s Hospital, was the production of
+Scheemakers.</p>
+
+<p>Another sculptor whose history furnishes something curious in connection
+with impecuniosity is John Bacon, who, born in 1740, commenced life as an
+ordinary workman in a Lambeth pottery, where he taught himself to paint on
+china. Afterwards he went as modeller to Mrs. Coade&#8217;s artificial stone
+manufactory, and when he began to display remarkable talent as a sculptor,
+Johnson, who built Berners Street, was very kind to him. He took premises
+for him in Newman Street, and told him to start at once in business for
+himself. Young Bacon was astonished, and frightened. &#8220;How could you do
+so?&#8221; he exclaimed. &#8220;I am not fit for anything of the kind. How can I ever
+hope to pay you the money back?&#8221; Johnson, however, insisted upon the trial
+being made, and said he was quite willing to lose the money if Bacon were
+never able to repay him. The result was that Bacon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> flourished so well
+that when his first great benefactor had become a banker in Bond Street,
+and feared a serious run upon his house, the sculptor came forward eagerly
+to his aid with a loan of forty thousand pounds!</p>
+
+<p>This was truly a freak of fortune, and as a companion picture may be
+mentioned a freak of misfortune, which is attributed to Capitsoldi, a
+talented sculptor, who came from Italy to this country in the last
+century. It is asserted that when he was living in a garret in Warwick
+Street, Golden Square, he had no furniture beyond a table and two chairs;
+but he painted on the walls a suite of furniture with window curtains,
+pictures, and statuary in such excellent perspective, and with such an
+aspect of relief and solidity, that the mean apartment actually appeared
+to be most handsomely and completely furnished.</p>
+
+<p>To return to our subject&mdash;the impecuniosity of artists. The experience of
+John Zoffany, R.A., may be cited. He came to England from Frankfort in
+1735, and about that time there was a celebrated maker of musical clocks,
+named Rimbault, living in Great St. Andrew&#8217;s Street, who was asked one day
+by some one he employed if he could find work for a poor starving artist
+who occupied a garret in the same house. Rimbault desired the man to send
+him, and Zoffany was ultimately engaged to paint clock faces. A portrait
+he painted of Rimbault won him a better engagement of &pound;40 a year as
+assistant to a portrait painter named Benjamin Wilson, who was employed by
+Garrick, the actor. Garrick, being struck by the sudden and remarkable
+improvement which immediately ensued, suspected the truth, and, causing
+enquiries to be made, discovered Zoffany, employed him direct, introduced
+him to his wealthy friends, and gave him that new start in life which
+brought him fame and honour, and made Sir Joshua Reynolds his friend.
+Zoffany is now chiefly known in connection with his excellent
+character-portraits of famous old actors and actresses.</p>
+
+<p>The last, but by no means the least celebrated of the artists I shall
+mention, whose fortunes, or the reverse, have been curiously associated
+with lack of means, is James Barry&mdash;at whose state funeral in St. Paul&#8217;s
+Churchyard poor Wilkie cut such a queer figure in Haydon&#8217;s coat. Barry was
+as eccentric as he was poor. Unlike Richard Wilson, to display his poverty
+was a matter of pride rather than pain; open reproach to those who
+neglected his talent,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> and embittered his life, rather than shame to him.
+His house at 36, Castle Street, Oxford Market, was a standing disgrace to
+the thoroughfare, every window in it was either cracked or broken, and
+part of the roof had fallen in. The iron railing before it was rusty for
+want of paint, broken, and sloping partly inward and partly outward; the
+doorsteps were cracked and broken, the door thickly coated with mud and
+dirt. The room in which he painted had been a carpenter&#8217;s shop, and the
+dust-covered shavings were still in it, while cobwebs hung like thick
+dust-coloured drapery from beams and rafter, and were suspended in
+festoons from every corner, while here and there the daylight shot long
+rays into its dingy, dust-laden atmosphere, through holes where the tiles
+had been broken, or had slipped aside. It had a small fireplace just large
+enough for the glue-pot it was constructed for, and boasted one
+three-legged old deal table, hardly large enough to eat a meal from. Here
+he painted, and etched, and printed his own proofs from a little old
+printing press; and here he received the Right Honourable Edmund Burke on
+that memorable occasion when he was, at his own particular request,
+invited to dine with the painter, and take &#8220;pot luck.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Barry owed much to the generosity of Burke, who had been one of his
+earliest friends and patrons. It is said that he once quarrelled with the
+great statesman for attacking the then anonymous work &#8216;An Essay on the
+Sublime and Beautiful,&#8217; every line of which the young Irish painter, being
+unable to buy the book, had copied, and he would entirely have lost
+control of his temper if Burke had not with a laugh transformed his rage
+into a whirlwind of delight and passionate admiration, by confessing
+himself its author.</p>
+
+<p>When Burke arrived, on the evening appointed, at the ruinous, dirty,
+shabby house in Castle Street, Barry had altogether forgotten the
+appointment. However he ushered him into his studio-wilderness of dust and
+cobwebs, gave him a seat, made up the fire, which was smoking, and while
+it burnt up, went out to purchase some steak, and brought it in wrapped in
+a cabbage leaf. Placing the meat on a gridiron, he spread a towel over the
+little round table, and on it placed a couple of plates, a salt-cellar, a
+little roll of bread, and a dish, which nearly filled it; then, putting
+the tongs into his visitor&#8217;s hands, bade him turn the steak while he went
+out to fetch the beer. He came back quickly, swearing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> and grumbling at
+the wind because it had blown off the frothy head of the stout as he was
+crossing Titchfield Street, and produced from his pocket a couple of
+bottles of port. The meal was enjoyed, the evening passed merrily; and
+Burke afterwards confessed that he had never enjoyed himself more, nor
+eaten more heartily, even at the most sumptuous feast.</p>
+
+<p>Owing to his impecunious circumstances, Barry had been accustomed to take
+his meals in cookshops and coffee-houses of the cheaper kind; and Angelo
+notes as one of his eccentricities his always insisting upon paying for
+his meal at coffee or cookshop rate wherever he might chance to feed. On
+one occasion he was invited to dine with Sir William Beechy and some noble
+guests, and rose at nine o&#8217;clock to depart, having as usual placed two
+shillings upon the table where he had been sitting. The lively knight, who
+knew &#8220;his customer,&#8221; followed him from the dining-room into the hall,
+leaving the door of the former open that his friends might hear.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What are these for?&#8221; asked Sir William, presenting the coins.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;How can you put so preposterous a question? For my dinner to be sure,
+man.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But two shillings is not fair compensation, Barry. Surely it was worth a
+crown.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Baw-baw, man! You know I never pay more.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But you have not paid for your wine.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Shu-shu! If you can&#8217;t afford it, why do you give it? Painters have no
+business with wine.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Barry,&#8221; says Angelo, &#8220;who boasted of making his dinner on a biscuit and
+an apple, had no mercy for those who lessened their means by
+self-indulgence. He was once highly indignant with a lord, who when dining
+at &#8216;Old Slaughter&#8217;s&#8217; in St. Martin&#8217;s Lane&mdash;a famous resort of artists and
+their patrons&mdash;had straw laid down before the house to deaden the noise of
+passing vehicles.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He used to say, as he may have said on the memorable evening with Burke,
+&#8220;Half the common dishes would supersede turtle and venison, if your old,
+pampered peers and mighty patricians were to peep and peer into their own
+cook&#8217;s pot.&#8221;</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
+<p class="title">IMPECUNIOSITY OF AUTHORS.</p>
+
+<p>That memory of William Makepeace Thackeray upon which I care least to
+dwell is the low estimate he had of men of genius in his own profession.
+It may be that this was with him, as it was with Doctor Johnson, a species
+of mock modesty; but it is none the less unpleasant for one to remember
+who so enthusiastically admires his great works. Men of letters have never
+lacked more than enough to slander them and magnify their peccadilloes, to
+sneer at their pride, and lower their social status, without finding such
+enemies in their own camp. You may remember how, in his lectures on the
+English humourists of the last century, Thackeray denied that there was
+any lack of goodwill and kindness towards men of genius in this country,
+or that they often failed to meet with generous and helping hands in the
+time of their necessity. Ignoring all but men of one class (whose follies
+and vices were after all those of their age), and painting these in his
+darkest colours and most repulsive forms, he asked,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;What claim had one of these of whom I have been speaking but genius?
+What return of gratitude, fame, affection, did it not bring to all?
+What punishment befell those who were unfortunate among them but that
+which follows reckless habits and careless lives? For these faults a
+wit must suffer like the dullest prodigal that ever ran in debt. He
+must pay the tailor if he wears the coat; his children must go in rags
+if he spends his money at the tavern; he can&#8217;t come to London and be
+made Lord Chancellor if he stops on the road and gambles away his last
+shilling at Dublin, and he must pay the social penalty of these
+follies, too, and expect that the world will shun the man of bad
+habits; that women will avoid the man of loose life; that prudent
+folks will close their doors as a precaution, and before a demand
+should be made on their pockets by the needy prodigal.&#8221;</p></div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span>There is no gainsaying all this, it is so highly respectable, and I would
+endorse its application as heartily as those did who once so loudly
+applauded it, if (and there is, you know, <i>much</i> virtue in an &#8220;if&#8221;) the
+discouragement spoken of had really been awarded to the vices and follies
+and not to the genius; whereas it must be patent to all who have studied
+the social life of the last century, as Thackeray did, that the direct
+reverse of this was the case&mdash;that such bad habits and such loose lives
+were absolutely the chief conditions upon which the wits of society were
+patronised and encouraged. Therefore a degree of hardness and cruelty in
+the rigid and virtuous superiority of this great writer, who, happily,
+born in a more refined and purer time, so magnifies the vices of the
+unfortunate dead, in order to lessen the pity and respect which their
+greatness won for them. It is this which I do not like to associate with
+the memory of our great novelist.</p>
+
+<p>Poor, half-starved Robert Burns, chained to the oar of impecuniosity,
+toiling like a galley-slave, as he said, for the means of supporting his
+parents and seizing every spare moment for such intellectual improvement
+as was within his reach, had written most of his finest works before the
+patronage of the great introduced him to their bacchanalian revels, and
+carried him as a wonder, and an extraordinary novelty (a peasant poet),
+into the very best Edinburgh society for a season; during which, by dining
+out with the noble and great, he ran a serious risk of dying at home
+through starvation.</p>
+
+<p>It can hardly be said that eighteenth-century patronage and appreciation
+did much for him, or for us. It won him perhaps the dangerous and trying
+occupation of exciseman, at a salary of &pound;70 a year: it matured, if it did
+not absolutely create, the bad habits which plunged him into pecuniary
+cares and difficulties, weakened his intellectual stamina, and destroyed
+his self-respect. He was witty, eloquent, amusing, a genius, and a wonder;
+but when he ceased to be a novelty, the idol of society was ruthlessly
+cast aside, to live or die, any how he could, and we find him copying
+music to procure food for himself and those dear to him. Dissipation and
+trouble carried him off in the prime of his manhood, and the full maturity
+of his genius, when without such patronage as Thackeray believed in,
+seemingly, he might have achieved triumphs loftier than those in the full
+pride of which every patriot has a share.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>An extract from a letter written by Burns to Thomson on the 19th of July,
+1796, says:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;After all my boasted independence, cursed necessity compels me to
+implore you for five pounds. A cruel scoundrel of a haberdasher, to
+whom I owe an account, taking it into his head that I am dying, has
+commenced a process and will infallibly put me in jail. Do for God&#8217;s
+sake send me that sum, and by return of post. Forgive me this
+earnestness; but the horrors of a jail have made me half disheartened;
+I do not ask all this gratuitously; for upon returning health I
+promise, and engage to furnish you with five pounds&#8217; worth of the
+neatest song-genius you have seen.&#8221;</p></div>
+
+<p>Robert Bloomfield did not find those generous and helpful friends of
+genius whom the imagination of Thackeray created to people the eighteenth
+century. He, like Burns, was a farmer&#8217;s boy, who afterward became a
+shoemaker&#8217;s errand-boy, living in a garret at 7, Fisher&#8217;s Court, Coleman
+Street, in which he and four others, one being his brother, worked, and
+slept on &#8220;turn-up&#8221; beds. There he fetched the dinners from the cookshop,
+did the inferior part of the work, and ran errands; taught himself to read
+by the aid of borrowed newspapers and a little dictionary, bought for him
+at a second-hand stall, for fourpence, by one of his fellow-workers, and
+by listening to an eloquent dissenting minister named Fawcett, acquired
+the proper pronunciation of words. He began verse-writing at sixteen, and
+at that age also began to instruct his brother and his partners in the
+Fisher&#8217;s Court garret (for which they paid five shillings a week), and in
+another &#8220;parlour next the sky&#8221; in Blue Hart Court, Bell Alley, where a
+fellow-lodger made him inexpressibly happy by the loan of Milton&#8217;s
+&#8216;Paradise Lost&#8217; and Thomson&#8217;s &#8216;Seasons.&#8217; When he fell in love with a young
+woman named Church, daughter of a boat-builder in the Government Yard at
+Woolwich, he sold his most precious possession (to purchase which he had
+practised much self-denial), his fiddle, on which he had taught himself to
+play. Writing to his brother, he said, &#8220;I have sold my fiddle and got a
+wife.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>His brother says, &#8220;Like most poor men, he got a wife first, and had to get
+household stuff afterwards.&#8221; It took him some years to get out of ready
+furnished lodgings. At length, by hard working, etc., he acquired a bed of
+his own, and hired the room up one pair of stairs at 14, Bell Alley,
+Coleman Street; and there,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> as he worked unaided by costly writing
+materials, amongst the noise and bustle of seven other workmen who,
+conjointly with himself, had hired a garret in the same house as their
+work-room, he composed his famous poem &#8216;The Farmer&#8217;s Boy,&#8217; the latter
+portion of his &#8216;Autumn,&#8217; and the whole of his &#8216;Winter.&#8217; Not a line of
+either was committed to paper before each was corrected, altered,
+improved, and finally completed.</p>
+
+<p>The poet Crabbe was another eighteenth-century genius who failed to find
+the generous, ever-ready patronage and friendship, whereof Thackeray said,
+&#8220;It would hardly be grateful to alter my old opinion that we (men of
+letters) do meet with good will and kindness, with generous and helping
+hands, in the time of our necessity; with cordial and friendly
+recognition.&#8221; Having failed in his medical practice at Aldborough, in
+Suffolk, where, in 1789 he was born, Crabbe borrowed five pounds, and with
+that sum came to London. Taking lodgings near the Exchange, he began his
+literary career full of hope and vigour. But the booksellers, Dodsley and
+Becket, civilly declined his productions; and when he published some poems
+cheaply at his own expense his publisher failed; and the poor poet&#8217;s
+little, carefully husbanded money being exhausted, he applied to Lord
+North for assistance,&mdash;in vain. Then he addressed verses to Lord
+Chancellor Thurlow, who said in reply, &#8220;his avocations did not leave him
+leisure to read verse.&#8221; For a time he lived by selling his clothes, and
+pawning his watch and surgical instruments; then his books were
+reluctantly sold, and then debt came, and he was threatened with
+imprisonment. In the midst of these anxious cares, fears, and sufferings,
+with starvation staring him in the face, he bade the muse a sorrowful
+adieu, and sought work as a druggist&#8217;s assistant. He had but eightpence in
+the world when he wrote to Edmund Burke, and himself left the letter at
+that eminent statesman&#8217;s house in Charles Street. Begging letters from
+starving poets and literary men were familiar enough in those days, and
+Burke received more than his fair share of them. Crabbe has himself told
+us how, weary, penniless, and hungry, being afraid to go back to his
+lodging, he traversed Westminster Bridge all throughout the night
+following the delivery of that letter until daybreak. The letter itself, a
+memorable curiosity of impecuniosity, I here append:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="center"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span>&#8220;<i>To Edmund Burke, Esq.</i></p>
+
+<p>&#8220;<span class="smcap">Sir</span>,&mdash;I am sensible that I need even your talents to apologize for
+the freedom I now take, but I have a plea which, however simply urged,
+will with a mind like yours, sir, procure me pardon. I am one of those
+outcasts on the world who are without a friend, without employment,
+without bread.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Pardon me a short preface. I had a partial father who gave me a
+better education than his broken fortune would have allowed, and a
+better than was necessary, as he could give me that only. I was
+designed for the profession of Physic; but not having the wherewithal
+to complete the necessary studies, the design but served to convince
+me of a parent&#8217;s affection and the error it had occasioned. In April
+last I came to London with three pounds, and flattered myself this
+would be sufficient to supply me with the common necessaries of life
+till my abilities should procure me more; of these I had the highest
+opinion, and a poetical vanity contributed to my delusion. I knew
+little of the world and had read books only. I wrote, and fancied
+perfection in my compositions; when I wanted bread they promised me
+affluence and soothed me with dreams of reputation, whilst my
+appearance subjected me to contempt. In time reflection and want have
+shown me my mistake. I see my trifles in that which I think the true
+light, and whilst I deem them such have yet the opinion that holds
+them superior to the common run of poetical publications.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I had some knowledge of the late Mr. Nassau, the brother of Lord
+Rochford; in consequence of which I asked his lordship&#8217;s permission to
+inscribe my little work to him, knowing it to be free from all
+political allusions and personal abuse. It was no material point to me
+to whom it was dedicated, his lordship thought it none to him, and
+obligingly consented to my request.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I was told a subscription would be the more profitable method for me,
+and therefore endeavoured to circulate copies of the enclosed
+proposals.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I am afraid, sir, I disgust you with this very drill narration, but
+believe me punished in the misery that occasions it. You will conclude
+that during this time I must have been at more expense than I could
+afford&mdash;indeed, the most parsimonious could not have avoided it. The
+printer deceived me, and my little business has had every delay. The
+people with whom I live perceive my situation and find me to be
+indigent and without friends. About ten days since I was compelled to
+give a note for seven pounds to avoid an arrest for about double that
+sum which I owe. I wrote to every friend I had, but my friends are
+poor likewise; the time of payment approached, and I ventured to
+represent my case to Lord Rochford. I begged to be credited for this
+sum till I received it of my subscribers, which I believe will be
+within one month: but to this letter I had no reply, and I have
+probably offended by my importunity. Having used every honest means in
+vain, I yesterday confessed my inability, and obtained with much
+entreaty and as the greatest favour a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> week&#8217;s forbearance, when I am
+positively told that I must pay the money or prepare for a prison.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You will guess the purpose of so long an introduction. I appeal to
+you, sir, as a good, and let me add, a great man. I have no other
+pretensions to your favour than that I am an unhappy one. It is not
+easy to support the thought of confinement, and I am coward enough to
+dread such an end to my suspense.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Can you, sir, in any degree aid me with propriety?</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Will you ask any demonstration of my veracity?</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I have imposed upon myself, but I have been guilty of no other
+imposition. Let me, if possible, interest your compassion. I know
+those of rank and fashion are teased with frequent petitions, and are
+compelled to refuse the requests even of those whom they know to be in
+distress; it is therefore with a distant hope I ventured to solicit
+such favour, but you will forgive me, sir, if you do not think proper
+to relieve. It is impossible that sentiments like yours can proceed
+from any but a humane and generous heart.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I will call upon you, sir, to-morrow, and if I have not the happiness
+to obtain credit with you I must submit to my fate. My existence is a
+pain to myself, and every one near and dear to me are distressed in my
+distress. My connections, once the source of happiness, embitter the
+reverse of my fortune, and I have only to hope a speedy end to a life
+so unpromisingly begun, in which (though it ought not to be boasted
+of) I can reap some consolation from looking to the end of it.</p>
+
+<p><span style="margin-left: 2em;">&#8220;I am, sir, with the greatest respect,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">&#8220;Your obedient and most humble servant,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 6em;">&#8220;<span class="smcap">George Crabbe</span>.&#8221;</span></p></div>
+
+<p>Burke replied immediately, appointing an interview, from which dated the
+change in Crabbe&#8217;s fortune. Money was given to him, apartments provided
+for him at Beaconsfield, where he was treated as if he belonged to the
+generous statesman&#8217;s own family,&mdash;the very publisher who had refused his
+poems was ready enough to publish them when Edmund Burke suggested his
+doing so, and even Lord Thurlow gave him a hundred-pound note. Through his
+patron&#8217;s influence the surgeon afterwards became a clergyman and chaplain
+to the Duke of Rutland. In 1807 the copyright of Crabbe&#8217;s poems was sold
+for three thousand pounds.</p>
+
+<p>Another article in Thackeray&#8217;s belief was, that &#8220;without necessity,&#8221; as he
+said in <i>Fraser&#8217;s Magazine</i> (1846), &#8220;men of genius would not work at all,
+or very little. It does not follow,&#8221; said he, &#8220;that a man would produce a
+great work even if he had leisure. Squire Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon
+with his land, and his rents, and his arms over the porch, was not the
+working<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> Shakespeare; and indolence, or contemplation if you like, is no
+unusual quality in literary men.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The reader will find, in my chapter on the &#8220;Impecuniosity of Artists,&#8221; a
+curious contrast to this opinion in that expressed by Ruskin, in his
+&#8217;Political Economy of Art.&#8216; Our great art critic draws a touching picture
+of the man of genius, toiling painfully through his early years of
+obscurity and neglect, yearning vainly for the peace and time requisite
+for producing great works. And Sir Bulwer Lytton, writing pathetically of
+poor Leman Blanchard, whom Thackeray knew personally, said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;Few men had experienced more to sour them, or had gone through the
+author&#8217;s hardening ordeal of narrow circumstances, of daily labour,
+and of that disappointment in the higher aims of ambition, which must
+almost inevitably befall those who retain ideal standards of
+excellence <i>to be reached but by time and leisure</i>, and who are yet
+compelled to draw hourly upon immatured resources for the practical
+wants of life.&#8221;</p></div>
+
+<p>Blanchard&#8217;s father was a painter and glazier in Southwark, who doubtless
+practised no little self-denial to give his son a good education, which
+could not but, as Sir Bulwer Lytton said, with a faint tinge of an
+old-world prejudice in his words, &#8220;unfit young Leman for the calling of
+his father;&#8221; &#8220;for it developed the abilities and bestowed the learning
+which may be said to lift a youth morally out of trade, and to refine him
+at once into a gentleman.&#8221; He began life at the desk as a clerk in the
+office of Mr. Charles Pearson, a proctor in Doctors&#8217; Commons, and soon
+began to contribute some promising characteristic sketches to a
+publication called <i>The Drama</i>. As a clerk, he was not satisfactory nor
+satisfied; and his father was about to take him from it, and teach him his
+own trade, to avoid which Blanchard tried through the influence of the
+actor, Mr. Henry Johnston, to find an opening on the stage. The histrionic
+friend, however, painted the miseries and uncertainties of his profession
+in such gloomy and terrible colours, that the poor boy&#8217;s heart sank within
+him, and he had turned with despair to obscurity and trade when the
+manager of the Margate Theatre offered him an engagement, which he
+accepted. &#8220;A week,&#8221; says Mr. Buckstone, who was then on intimate terms
+with him, &#8220;was sufficient to disgust him with the beggary and drudgery of
+the country player&#8217;s life, and as there was no &#8216;Harlequin&#8217; steaming it
+from Margate to London Bridge at that day, he performed his journey back
+on foot, having<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> on reaching Rochester but his last shilling&mdash;the poet&#8217;s
+veritable last shilling&mdash;in his pocket.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Buckstone also wrote:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;At that time a circumstance occurred which my poor friend&#8217;s fate has
+naturally brought to my recollection. He came to me late one evening
+in a state of great excitement, informed me that his father had turned
+him out of doors, that he was utterly hopeless and wretched, and was
+resolved to destroy himself. I used my best endeavours to console him,
+to lead his thoughts to the future, and hope in what chance and
+perseverance might effect for him. Our discourse took a livelier turn,
+and after making up a bed on a sofa in my own room I retired to rest.
+I soon slept soundly, but was awakened by hearing a footstep
+descending the stairs. I looked towards the sofa and discovered he had
+left it. I heard the street-door close. I instantly hurried on my
+clothes and followed him. I called to him, but received no answer. I
+ran till I saw him in the distance, also running. I again called his
+name, I implored him to stop, but he would not answer me. Still
+continuing his pace, I became alarmed, and doubled my speed. I came up
+to him near Westminster Bridge; he was hurrying to the steps leading
+to the river. I seized him, he threatened to strike me if I did not
+release him. I called for the watch, I entreated him to return; he
+became more pacified, but still seemed anxious to escape from me. By
+entreaties, by every means of persuasion I could think of, by threats
+to call for help, I succeeded in taking him back.&#8221;</p></div>
+
+<p>After that desperate attempt, Blanchard obtained work as a printer&#8217;s
+reader with Messrs. Bayliss, of Fleet Street.</p>
+
+<p>Thackeray summed up his poor friend&#8217;s condition at this time thus briefly:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;The young fellow, forced to the proctor&#8217;s desk, quite angry with the
+drudgery, theatre-stricken, poetry-stricken, writing dramatic sketches
+in Barry Cornwall&#8217;s manner, spouting &#8216;Leonidas&#8217; before a manager,
+driven away starving from home, penniless and full of romance,
+courting his beautiful young wife.... Then there comes that pathetic
+little outbreak of despair, when the poor young fellow is nearly
+giving up, his father banishes him, no one will buy his poetry, he has
+no chance on his darling theatre, no chance of the wife that he is
+longing for. Why not finish life at once? He has read &#8216;Werter,&#8217; and
+can understand suicide. &#8216;None,&#8217; he says in a sonnet,</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;None, not the hoariest sage, may tell of all<br />
+The strong heart struggles, wills, before it fall.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>If respectability wanted to point a moral, isn&#8217;t there one here?
+Eschew poetry&mdash;avoid the theatre&mdash;stick to your business&mdash;do not read
+German novels&mdash;do not marry at twenty: and yet the young poet marries
+at twenty in the teeth of poverty and experience, labours away not
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span>unsuccessfully, puts Pegasus into harness, rises in social rank and
+public estimation, brings up happily an affectionate family, gets for
+himself a circle of the warmest friends, and thus carries on for
+twenty years, when a providential calamity visits him and the poor
+wife almost together, and removes them both.&#8221;</p></div>
+
+<p>The &#8220;providential calamity&#8221; came in the beginning of 1844, when Mrs.
+Blanchard, the most tenderly-loving of wives, and a devoted mother, was
+attacked by paralysis, which affected the brain, and terminated in
+madness, speedily followed by death. Partial paralysis seized her husband,
+and in a burst of delirium, &#8220;having his little boy in bed by his side, and
+having said the Lord&#8217;s prayer but a short time before, he sprang out of
+bed in the absence of his nurse (whom he had besought not to leave him),
+and made away with himself with a razor.... At the very moment of his
+death his friends were making the kindest and most generous exertions on
+his behalf.&#8221; Thackeray, whom I have quoted, adds: &#8220;Such a noble, loving,
+and generous creature is never without such. The world, it is pleasant to
+think, is always a good and gentle world to the gentle and good, and
+reflects the benevolence with which they regard it.&#8221; This is comfortable
+doctrine, and I would I were sure of its truthfulness. I wonder what poor
+Gerald Griffin would have said of it in the year 1825, when he was
+residing at 15, Paddington Street, Regent&#8217;s Park, London, and, writing to
+his mother in Ireland, said:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;Until within a short time back I have not had, since I left Ireland,
+a single moment&#8217;s peace of mind; constantly running backwards and
+forwards, and trying a thousand expedients, only to meet
+disappointments everywhere I turned.... I never will think or talk
+upon the subject again. It was such a year that I did not think it
+possible I could have outlived, and the very recollection of it puts
+me into the horrors.... When I first came to London my own
+self-conceit, backed by the opinion of one of the most original
+geniuses of the age, induced me to set about revolutionising the
+dramatic taste of the time by writing for the stage. Indeed, the
+design was formed and the first step taken (a couple of pieces
+written) in Ireland. I cannot with my present experience conceive
+anything more comical than my own views and measures at that time. A
+young gentleman totally unknown even to a single family in London
+coming into town with a few pounds in one pocket, and a brace of
+tragedies in the other, supposing that the one will set him up before
+the others are exhausted, is not a very novel, but a very laughable
+delusion. I would weary you, or I would carry you through a number of
+curious scenes into which it led me. Only imagine the model young
+Munsterman<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> spouting his tragedy to a roomful of literary ladies and
+gentlemen; some of high consideration. The applause, however, of that
+circle on that night was sweeter, far sweeter, to me then than would
+be the bravos of a whole theatre at present, being united at the time
+to the confident anticipation of it.&#8221;</p></div>
+
+<p>The result was his introduction to a manager&mdash;all the actors were eager to
+introduce him to their managers, and to one he went.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;He,&#8221; continues poor Griffin, &#8220;let down the pegs that made my
+music.... He was very polite, talked, and chatted about himself, and
+Shiel, and my excellent friend Banim. He kept my play four months,
+wrote me some nonsensical apologies about keeping it so long, and cut
+off to Ireland, leaving orders to have it sent to my lodgings without
+any opinion. I was quite surprised at this, and the more so that
+Banim, who is one of the most successful dramatic writers, at the same
+time saying, what indeed I found every person who had the least
+theatric knowledge join in, that I acted most unwisely in putting a
+play into an actor&#8217;s hands. It was then that I set about writing for
+those weekly publications, all of which, except the <i>Literary
+Gazette</i>, cheated me most abominably. Then finding this to be the
+case, I wrote for the great magazines. My articles were generally
+inserted, but on calling for payment, seeing that I was but a poor
+inexperienced devil, there was so much shuffling and shabby work, that
+it disgusted me, and I gave up the idea of making money that way. I
+now lost heart for everything, got into the cheapest lodging I could
+make out, and there worked on, rather to divert my mind from the
+horrible gloom that I felt growing on me, in spite of myself, than
+with any hope of being remunerated. This, and the recollection of the
+expense I had put William to, and the fears that every moment became
+conviction that I should never be able to fulfil his hopes, or my own
+expectations, all came pressing together upon my mind and made me
+miserable. A thousand and a thousand times I wished that I could lie
+down quietly and die at once, and be forgotten for ever. I can
+describe to you my state of mind at this time. It was not an indolent
+despondency, for I was working hard as I am now, and it is only
+receiving money for the labour of those dreadful hours. I used not to
+see a face that I knew, and after sitting writing all day, when I
+walked in the streets in the evening, it actually seemed to me as if I
+was a different species altogether from the people about me. The fact
+was, from pure anxiety alone, I was more than half dead, and would
+most certainly have given up the ghost, I believe, were it not that by
+the merest accident on earth the library friend (Mr. Forster), who had
+procured me the unfortunate introduction a year before, dropped in one
+evening to have a talk with me. I had not seen him, nor anybody else
+that I knew, for some months, and he frightened me by saying I looked
+like a ghost. In a few days, however, a publisher of his acquaintance
+had got me some things to do, works to arrange, regulate, and revise,
+so he asked me if I would devote a few hours in the middle of every
+day to the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span>purpose for &pound;50 a year. I did so, and among other things
+which I got to revise was a weekly fashionable journal.&#8221;</p></div>
+
+<p>In this letter to his mother he said nothing of being without the
+commonest necessaries of life, of being ashamed to go out by daylight
+because his clothes were so shabby, of passing entire days without
+food&mdash;on one occasion no less than three.</p>
+
+<p>There was in poor old Gerald Griffin no signs of that &#8220;indolence, or
+contemplation if you like,&#8221; which Thackeray considered &#8220;no unusual quality
+in the literary man.&#8221; With despair in his heart he still wrote on, simply
+because the labour in which he had delight physicked the pains of
+impecuniosity. But it was not under such conditions that even Griffin did
+his best work.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. R. P. Gillies, in his &#8216;Memoirs of a Literary Veteran,&#8217; tells how, when
+he was contemplating work of a higher and more ambitious character than he
+had then attempted, &#8220;in consequence of domestic anxieties little or
+nothing was accomplished.&#8221; He merely built some grand literary castles in
+the air (for which he was ridiculed in the &#8216;Noctes Ambrosian&aelig;,&#8217; under the
+name of &#8220;Kempferhausen&#8221;); but he says: &#8220;There were some awkward conditions
+attached to the basis of my aerial structures; for example, I must have
+unbroken tranquillity like that of an anchoret. There must be no shadow on
+the mind of worldly cares and perturbation, otherwise the spells would be
+broken.&#8221; Bread was his incentive to work, but it was the hack work of
+which Scott so bitterly complained, not the great work he yearned to
+accomplish, and could not for want of &#8220;peace and time.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The above allusion is to Sir Walter in the zenith of his fame when,
+through &#8220;long-winded&#8221; publishers&#8217; money being in immediate demand, he
+contemplated abandoning original fiction for the more rapid work of
+compilation. He wanted that to secure not only bread, but the peace and
+time which in common with Ruskin he thought essential to the production of
+great work; and he wrote in his diary, under the date December 18th, 1825:
+&#8220;The general knowledge that an author must write for bread, at least for
+improving his pittance, degrades him and his productions in the public
+eye. He falls into the second rank of estimation,</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8220;&#8216;When the harness sore galls, and the spurs his sides goad,<br />
+And the high-mettled racer&#8217;s a hack on the road.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>It is a bitter thought, but, if tears start, let them flow.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span>Thackeray, despite his self-satisfying opinion about the world&#8217;s being
+always &#8220;so good and gentle&#8221; to the &#8220;gentle and good,&#8221; here held Sir
+Walter&#8217;s opinion, for under the signature of Michael Angelo Titmarsh,
+Esq., he wrote:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;Our calling is only sneered at because it is not well paid. The world
+has no other criterion for respectability. In Heaven&#8217;s name, what made
+the people talk of setting up a statue to Sir William Follet? What had
+he done? He had made thirty thousand pounds!... Directly the men of
+letters get rich they will come in for their share of honour too; and
+a future writer in this miscellany (Fraser&#8217;s) may be getting his
+guineas where we get one, and dining at Buckingham Palace while you
+and your humble servant, dear Padre Francisco, are glad to smoke our
+pipes over the sanded floor of the little D&mdash;&mdash;.&#8221;</p></div>
+
+<p>Sir Walter Scott&#8217;s opinion of writing under peaceful and under troublous
+circumstances was also shown in the following entry, under the same date
+as the above. It runs as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;Poor T. S. called again yesterday. Through his incoherent miserable
+tale I could see that he had exhausted each access to credit, and yet
+fondly imagines that, bereft of all his accustomed indulgences, he can
+work with a literary zeal unknown to his happier days. I hope he may
+labour enough to gain the mere support of his family.&#8221;</p></div>
+
+<p>Poverty is not, however, always fatal to the highest efforts of genius,
+even if it be not essential as an incentive to work; and there is often
+found in &#8220;the labour we delight in&#8221; that which &#8220;physics pain&#8221; (as
+Shakespeare said), even the pains of impecuniosity. Goldoni, speaking of
+his dramatic writings and consequent poverty, says, &#8220;Though in any other
+situation I might have been in easier circumstances, I should never have
+been so happy;&#8221; and who can doubt the happiness of the illustrious Linn&aelig;us
+when he was wandering a-foot with his stylus, magnifying-glass and baskets
+of plants, sharing the peasants&#8217; rustic meals and homely shelter, when he
+gave his own name to the little Lapland flower now called the Linn&aelig;us
+Borealis, because it reminded him of his own position, being &#8220;a little
+northern plant, flowering early, depressed, abject, and long overlooked&#8221;?</p>
+
+<p>Rousseau, writing of his works and life, says:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;It was in a small garret in the new street of St. Etienne du Mont,
+where I resided four years in the midst of physical suffering and
+domestic trouble, that I enjoyed the most exquisite pleasure of my
+life, that of writing and publishing my &#8216;Studies of Nature.&#8217;&#8221;</p></div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span>The <i>Quarterly Review</i> (vol. viii.), comparing the writer who goes to his
+work in a spirit of love for it, and pride in it, with him who labours at
+it merely for the money it produces, says: &#8220;The one is like a thirsty hart
+that comes joyously to refresh itself at the water-brooks, and the other
+to the same beast panting and jaded with the dogs of hunger and necessity
+behind.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>When Olivet presented his elaborate edition of Cicero to the public, he
+said the glory and pleasure he had received in producing it were all he
+required by way of remuneration; money he refused. Pieresc, one of the
+most liberal and generous of men, although his fortune was a small one,
+loved learning only for its own sweet sake, and was never so happy as he
+was when shut up in his study amongst his books and MSS. &#8220;A literary man&#8217;s
+true wealth,&#8221; said he, &#8220;consists in works of art, the treasures of a
+library, and the affections of his fellow-students.&#8221; Lord Wodehouse, when
+re-writing his &#8216;Lectures on History,&#8217; said: &#8220;The task rewarded him with
+that peculiar delight which has often been observed in the latter years of
+literary men, the delight of returning again to the studies of their youth
+and of feeling under the snows of age the cheerful memories of their
+spring.&#8221; Petrarch, writing of himself to a friend, said, &#8220;I read, I write,
+I think; such is my life and my pleasures as they were in my youth.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Beranger, when he was living on the fifth story in the Boulevard St.
+Martin, &#8220;without money and with no certain prospect for the future,&#8221; as he
+himself said, had installed himself in his garret &#8220;with inexpressible
+satisfaction&#8221; because, as he wrote, &#8220;To live alone and to compose verses
+at my leisure appeared to me the very summit of felicity.&#8221; Speaking in the
+spirit of his &#8220;sky parlour,&#8221; he said: &#8220;What a beautiful prospect I enjoyed
+from its window! What delight I had to sit there in the evening hovering
+as it were over the immense city, from which a loud, hoarse murmur
+incessantly ascended, especially when there blended with it the noise and
+tumult of some great storm.&#8221; But there were two sides to this life, and
+time revealed both. With peace and time, bread and cheese and dreams of
+glory, the poet was content and happy, even when thin and pale; he grew
+every day so weak that his father used to say frequently, &#8220;I shall soon
+bury you.&#8221; But he was not dismayed, but starved and wrote on placidly
+enough until the fear of the conscription fell upon him. But even then, as
+he tells us, Providence <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span>befriended him and out of evil brought good. He
+says: &#8220;I was bald at twenty-three in consequence, as I suppose, of
+continuous headaches. When the gendarmes came in search for conscripts I
+removed my hat. They looked at my bald head and were satisfied. They went
+away without me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Again he writes in his fragmentary autobiography:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;Fortune at last suffered herself to be touched by my sorrows. Three
+years had I been vainly seeking some humble form of employment, when,
+urged by a terrible necessity in the beginning of 1804, I sent a
+letter and verses to M. Lucien Bonaparte. My gold watch had been long
+where I left it pledged at the Mont de Pi&eacute;t&eacute;. My wardrobe had dwindled
+to three old patched and often mended shirts, a threadbare overcoat
+also carefully adorned with patches, with one pair of trousers with a
+newly discovered hole in the knee, and a pair of boots which filled me
+with despair whenever I cleaned them, they grew so rapidly worse. I
+had posted to M. Bonaparte four or five hundred verses, and had told
+no one that I had done so, so many applications had been fruitless.&#8221;</p></div>
+
+<p>One day, while sitting in his garret, needle in hand, eyeing lugubriously
+the rent in his trousers, and thinking over some bitter misanthropical
+verses which he was then writing, a letter was brought to him. It seemed a
+letter of consequence&mdash;the handwriting was strange. Trembling with
+excitement, he broke the seal. Joy! joy! joy! The Senator Bonaparte
+desired to see him!</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It was not,&#8221; he wrote, &#8220;my fortune that I first thought of, but Glory! My
+eyes were full of tears, and I thanked God, whom in my moments of
+prosperity I never forgot.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And yet of such men as these Thackeray wrote: &#8220;Bread is the main
+incentive. Do not let us try to blink this fact or imagine that the men of
+the press are working for their honour and glory or go onward impelled by
+the inevitable afflatus of genius.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The elder Disraeli, who said, &#8220;Great authors sustain their own genius by a
+sense of their own glory,&#8221; when Dr. Johnson expressed views on this
+subject according to some extent with Thackeray&#8217;s, called them
+&#8220;commercial, agricultural, and manufacturing views of human nature,&#8221; and
+complained that they lowered genius to the level of a machine, only to be
+set in action by a force exterior to itself.</p>
+
+<p>But doctors disagree, and opinions on every subject always<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> differ. As
+mentioned by me elsewhere, one of the first poets who tried to live by his
+pen was Robert Greene, whose melancholy story is one of the most degrading
+and painful passages in literary biography. He lived in the days of good
+Queen Bess, and has left his own records of forlorn and miserable
+experience. Isaac Disraeli calls him &#8220;the great patriarch and primeval
+dealer in English literature, the most facetious, profligate, and
+indefatigable of the Scribleri family.&#8221; Quaint Anthony Wood, sneering at
+him and his entire fraternity, as he often did, said, &#8220;He wrote to
+maintain his wife and that high, loose course of living which poets
+generally follow;&#8221; one accusation being about as true as the other, for so
+far from maintaining his wife, he shamefully deserted both her and her
+child, leaving her foodless; and the Elizabethan poets are said on the
+whole to have been thrifty, god-fearing men, leading sober and steady
+lives. Charles Knight wrote of him as one who was made desperate and
+reckless by wrongs and neglect, but the pamphlet he wrote called &#8216;The
+Repentance of Robert Greene, Master of Arts,&#8217; taken with his other
+confession, shows him to have been, as Mr. A. H. Wall said (in his &#8216;Poets
+and Players of Shakespeare&#8217;s Time&#8217;), &#8220;an entirely bad and worthless
+fellow, who disgusted his fellow-poets of the Bankside, and plunged into
+such disgraceful excesses that he became shunned and contemned by them,
+finding a welcome nowhere but in the lowest haunts of vice and
+profligacy.&#8221; This was the man who fell foul of his fellow-players and the
+player-poets, calling them &#8220;apes,&#8221; &#8220;rude grooms,&#8221; &#8220;buckram gentlemen,&#8221; and
+&#8220;painted monsters,&#8221; who attacked young Shakespeare when he was dressing
+up, improving, and re-writing old plays, &#8220;as an upstart crow, beautified
+with our feathers,&#8221; and aroused our great bard&#8217;s many friends to anger and
+indignation by saying he had &#8220;a tiger&#8217;s heart wrapped in a player&#8217;s hide,
+and was a bad actor, conceited enough to suppose himself as well able to
+bombast out a blank verse as the best, one who was vain enough to imagine
+himself an absolute Johannes Factotum, the only Shakespeare in the
+country:&#8221; accusations which even Henry Cheetle, who was concerned in their
+publication, afterwards denounced as slanderous and spiteful, saying, &#8220;I
+am as sorry as if the original fault had been my fault, because myself
+hath seen his (Shakespeare&#8217;s) demeanour no less civil than he is excellent
+in the quality he professes, besides divers of worship have reported his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span>
+uprightness of dealing, which argues his honesty, and his facetious grace
+in writing that approves his art.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Greene spent his time now in debauchery and drunkenness, now homeless,
+penniless, and starving, one extreme following the other with fearful
+frequency and rapidity. A contemporary poet, Gabriel Harvey, wrote of him
+as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;Who in London hath not heard of his (Greene&#8217;s) dissolute and
+licentious living, his fond disguisinge of a Master of Arts with
+ruffianly hair, unseemly apparel, and more unseemly company, of his
+vaine glorious and Thrasonicall brassinge; his piperly extemporising
+and Tarletonizing; his apeish counterfeiting of every ridiculous and
+absurd toy ... hys villainous cogging and foisting, his monstrous
+swearinge and horrible forswearing, his impious profaning of sacred
+textes; his other scandalous and blasphemous ravinge: his riotous and
+outrageous surfeitinge: his continual shifting of lodgings; his
+plausable musteringe and banquettynge of roysterly acquaintance at his
+first comminge; his beggarly departing in every hostesses debt; his
+infamous resorting to the Banckside, Shoreditch, Southwarke, and other
+filthy haunts; his obscure lurkinge in basest corners; his pawning of
+his sword, cloake, and what not, when money came short?&#8221; etc.</p></div>
+
+<p>a catalogue of monstrous crimes, vices, and follies (which fills page
+after page) fully borne out by Greene&#8217;s own confessions.</p>
+
+<p>He wrote of himself,</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8220;In prime of youth a rose, in age a weed,<br />
+That for a minute&#8217;s joy payes endless meed.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>His last letter to the poor Lincolnshire lady whom he married, ill-used,
+and cruelly abandoned, was dated from a squalid lodging in Dowgate, where
+he died of want and disease. It ran as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;Doll, I charge thee by the love of our youth and by my soules rest
+that thou wilt see this man (the shoemaker) paide; for if hee and his
+wife had not succoured me I had died in the streetes.</p>
+
+<p><span style="margin-left: 2em;">&#8220;<span class="smcap">Robert Greene.</span>&#8221;</span></p></div>
+
+<p>Doll was the amiable and worthy woman to whom he had previously written:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;The remembrance of many wrongs offered thee and thy unreproved
+virtues add greater sorrow to my miserable state than I can utter or
+thou conceive, neither is it lessened by consideration of thy absence
+(though shame would hardly let me behold thy face) but exceedingly
+aggravated.&#8221;</p></div>
+
+<p>Akin in character to Greene was John Skelton, a popular poet<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> in the reign
+of the seventh Henry, and King Henry the Eighth&#8217;s poet laureate, who wrote
+of himself:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8220;A King to me mine habit gave<br />
+At Oxford the University,<br />
+Advanced I was to that degree:<br />
+By whole consent of their Senate,<br />
+I was made Poet Laureate.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The title being then a university degree, and the habit a robe of white
+and green, embroidered in silk and gold. He took holy orders in 1498, and,
+as old Anthony Wood said, &#8220;having been guilty of many crimes, as most
+poets are,&#8221; Bishop Wykke suspended him from his benefice. In 1501 he was
+in prison for marrying and keeping a mistress, &#8220;a crime amongst the clergy
+of the Romish persuasion both in those days and these,&#8221; says Cibber, &#8220;more
+subjected to punishment than adultery.&#8221; He was a fierce and bitter
+assailant of the clergy, the Dominicans, and Cardinal Wolsey. Many of his
+productions were never printed, but were chanted at markets and fairs, in
+village ale-houses, and in the streets by itinerant ballad-singers, who
+learned them by heart and sent them abroad like floating seeds borne
+hither and thither by the vagrant winds. The author of the &#8216;Lives of the
+Laureates&#8217; said of this poet: &#8220;The brief glance we have of him, the
+scholar and the buffoon, a priest with his married concubine and
+bastardized children, mocking, half in anger half in jest, or it might be
+in the wantonness of sorrow, at the falsehoods by which he was surrounded,
+may justly awaken our sympathy nor fail to suggest a moral.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The misfortunes of poor Spenser I have referred to in dealing with the sad
+side of the subject, but another of the laureates who tasted the full
+bitterness of poverty was Ben Jonson, who began life as a bricklayer,
+became a soldier, and a brave one too, abandoned arms to tread the stage,
+and strolled about the country, trudging beside the waggon containing the
+players&#8217; scenes, and &#8220;properties,&#8221; many a weary mile. From acting plays he
+took to writing plays, the two arts being then more intimately and nobly
+associated than they ever have been since, for the stage has fallen out of
+the hands of poets and players into those of showmen and buffoons. He was
+married and had a son, to whom some of the players stood sponsors.
+Shakespeare, it is traditionally said,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> was one of them, and what his
+necessities were may be readily guessed from the entry in Henslowe&#8217;s diary
+preserved at Dulwich College, in which small sums are entered as advanced
+to Ben Jonson for work he was then doing. A story is related of how he
+came, after many other vain efforts, to the Globe Theatre on the Bankside
+with his play of <i>Every Man in His Humour</i>, which after the manager had
+superficially glanced at he coldly returned as unsuitable. Shakespeare, it
+is said, stood by, and noting, we presume, the melancholy and despairing
+way in which his future dear friend and rival turned to leave the theatre,
+spoke to him, begging leave to read his play, with which he was so well
+pleased that he brought about its acceptance. Poverty haunted Ben with
+more or less closeness all through his career (often it must be confessed
+through the extravagance of his hospitality to brother poets) and was, it
+is said, sadly too intimate with him when he died. When sick in 1629,
+Charles I., who had been generous to him, being supplicated in his favour,
+sent him ten guineas, of which mean gift Smollett says, Jonson spoke as
+follows to the messenger of whom he received it:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;His Majesty has sent me ten guineas because I am poor and live in an
+alley. Go and tell him his soul lives in an alley.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Jonson died on the 6th August, 1637, having long outlived his wife and all
+his children.</p>
+
+<p>It is curious still to note how many of our literary lions began to make
+their way in the world, as Jonson did, on the stage. It was so with
+William Leman Rede, who, starting as an actor at Margate (the Margate
+boards formed indeed the porch through which a very large number of
+histrionic aspirants entered the theatrical profession), became an
+itinerant actor, at one time playing Hamlet in a barn and at another Rover
+on a billiard-table; sometimes foodless and hungry, travelling on foot and
+sometimes luxuriating in a waggon, but always light-hearted and gay. Once
+when he was laughing merrily at the plight he was in on a &#8220;treasury day,&#8221;
+when, in the phraseology of the profession, &#8220;the ghost didn&#8217;t walk,&#8221; that
+is to say when there was no money in hand to pay the actors&#8217; salaries,
+some one asked how he continued to be jolly under such miserably
+depressing circumstances. He replied, &#8220;I drink spring water and dance.&#8221;
+Rede was always a sober, abstemious man. Coming to London in 1825, he
+published his first novel, &#8216;The Wedded Wanderer,&#8217; which was followed by a
+second, &#8216;The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> White Tower,&#8217; each in three volumes. This was followed by
+his &#8216;Crimes and Criminals in Yorkshire,&#8217; and his connection with a weekly
+publication belonging to his brother Thomas, called <i>Oxberry&#8217;s Dramatic
+Biography</i>&mdash;Thomas having married the widow of Oxberry the comedian, by
+whom the serial had been started.</p>
+
+<p>As actor, magazine writer, dramatist, journalist and novelist Rede
+acquired fame but not wealth. One evening he was arrested for debt while
+acting on the stage, by a sheriff&#8217;s officer, who sprang from the pit over
+the orchestra and footlights to secure his prisoner. Rede originated the
+Dramatic Authors&#8217; Society.</p>
+
+<p>Sheridan, to whom I have previously alluded, was another famous literary
+man familiar with the boards and&mdash;need I say?&mdash;with impecuniosity. He was,
+according to Haydon, &#8220;in debt all round to milkman, grocer, baker, and
+butcher. Sometimes his wife would be kept waiting for an hour or more
+while the servants were beating up the neighbourhood for coffee, butter,
+eggs and rolls. While Sheridan was Paymaster of the Navy, a butcher one
+day brought a leg of mutton; the cook took it and clapped it in the pot to
+boil and went upstairs for the money, but the cook not returning, the
+butcher removed the pot-lid, took out the mutton, and walked away with
+it.&#8221; On another occasion Michael Kelly, the musical celebrity, was
+complaining to him of a wine merchant at Hochheim who instead of six dozen
+of wine had sent him sixteen. Sheridan said he would take some off his
+hands if he were not quite able to pay for it, but, said he, &#8220;you can get
+rid of it easily, put up a sign over your door and write on it, &#8216;Michael
+Kelly, Composer of Wines and Importer of Music;&#8217;&#8221; a sly rub which the
+composer received with a laugh, wittily retorting that there was one wine
+so poisonous and intoxicating that he would neither compose nor import,
+and that was &#8220;Old Sherry&#8221; (Sheridan&#8217;s nickname).</p>
+
+<p>One night when Sheridan was at home in a cottage he had about a mile from
+Hounslow Heath, his son Tom asked him for some cash. &#8220;Money, I have none,&#8221;
+was the reply.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But let the consequences be what they may, money I must have,&#8221; said Tom
+fiercely.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;In that case, my dear Tom,&#8221; said the father, &#8220;you will find a case of
+loaded pistols upstairs and a horse ready saddled in the stable, the night
+is dark and you are within half a mile of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> Hounslow Heath&#8221;&mdash;a place of
+terrible repute for highway robbers.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I understand,&#8221; said Tom, &#8220;but I tried that before I came to you.
+Unluckily the man I stopped was Peake, your treasurer, and he told me that
+you had been beforehand with him and robbed him of every sixpence he had
+in the world.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Kelly saw many instances of Sheridan raising money, but one instance in
+particular astonished him. Sheridan was &pound;3000 in arrear with the Italian
+Opera performance; there were continual postponements, and at last the
+singers resolved to strike. Kelly, as manager, received a note that on the
+evening of a certain day they would not sing unless paid, and hurried off
+to Morlands, the bankers in Pall Mall, for advances. The bankers were
+inexorable; like the singers, they were worn out. The manager then flew
+off to Sheridan at his residence in Hertford Street, Mayfair, where he was
+kept waiting two hours. Sheridan was told that if he could not raise &pound;3000
+the theatre must be closed. &#8220;&pound;3000, Kelly,&#8221; he said; &#8220;there is no such sum
+in nature. Are you an admirer of Shakespeare?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;To be sure I am,&#8221; said Kelly, &#8220;but what has Shakespeare to do with &pound;3000
+or the Italian singers?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There is one passage in Shakespeare,&#8221; said Sherry, &#8220;which I have always
+admired particularly, and it is where Falstaff says, &#8216;Master Robert
+Shallow, I owe you &pound;1000.&#8217; &#8216;Yes, Sir John,&#8217; says Shallow, &#8216;which I beg you
+will let me take home with me.&#8217; &#8216;That may not so easily be, Master Robert
+Shallow,&#8217; replies Falstaff. And so say I unto thee, Master Michael Kelly,
+to get &pound;3000 may not so easy be.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Kelly answered that there was no alternative then but to close the
+theatre. Sheridan made Kelly ring the bell and have a Hackney coach
+called, then sat down quite at his ease and read the newspaper. Kelly was
+in an agony. The coach arrived, Sheridan requested Kelly to get into it,
+and went with him. The coach was driven to Morlands&#8217; banking-house&mdash;Kelly
+remained in the coach bewildered. In a quarter of an hour Sherry came out
+of the bank with the required sum in bank notes. Kelly never knew how it
+was obtained. Sherry told Kelly to take the money to the theatre, but to
+save enough out of it for a barrel of oysters, which he, Sheridan, would
+partake of that night at Kelly&#8217;s lodgings in Suffolk Street.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span>On another occasion Kelly and Sheridan were one day in conversation close
+to the gate of the path which was then open to the public, leading across
+the churchyard of St. Paul&#8217;s, Covent Garden, from King Street to Henrietta
+Street. Holloway, a creditor of Sherry&#8217;s, went by on horseback. He spoke
+to Sherry in loud and angry tones, complaining that he could never get
+admittance at Sheridan&#8217;s house, and vowed vengeance on Fran&ccedil;ois, Sherry&#8217;s
+valet, if he did not let him in next time he called in Hertford Street.
+Holloway was in a passion; Sherry, who knew he was vain of his judgment of
+horseflesh, took no notice of the angry boast of Holloway, and burst into
+exclamations of rapture on Holloway&#8217;s steed. Holloway was softened, and
+said his horse was one of the prettiest of creatures. Would not Mrs.
+Sheridan like to have one like it?</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;She would if he could canter well,&#8221; said Sheridan.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Beautifully,&#8221; said Holloway.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Perhaps I should not mind stretching a point for such a one. Will you
+have the kindness to let me see his paces?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;To be sure,&#8221; said the lawyer.</p>
+
+<p>The action was suited to the word, and Sherry cut off through the
+churchyard, where no horse could follow. In spite of his many faults, his
+utter unscrupulousness in money-matters being not the least, it is
+particularly pleasant to refer to one of the incidents at the close of his
+career which reveals a delightful little bit of sentiment and good
+feeling, of which many of his detractors would have us think he was
+incapable. When his goods were taken in execution in Hertford Street,
+Mayfair, Paston, the sheriff&#8217;s officer, said that if there was any
+particular article upon which he set affectionate value, he might secrete
+or carry it off from the premises.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Thank you, my generous fellow,&#8221; said Sheridan. &#8220;No, let all go&mdash;affection
+and sentiment in my situation are quite out of the question. But,&#8221; said
+he, recollecting himself, &#8220;there is one thing which I wish to have.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What is it?&#8221; said Paston, expecting him to name some cabinet or piece of
+plate.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t be alarmed,&#8221; said Sheridan, &#8220;it is only this old book, worth all
+others in the world, and to me of special value, because it belonged to my
+father, and was the favourite of my first wife.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span>Paston looked into it, and it was a dogs&#8217;-eared edition of Shakespeare.</p>
+
+<p>Another great man in the literary and histrionic professions, the
+novelist, Fielding, although of an aristocratic stock, and liberally
+educated, began life almost without pecuniary resources. He came before
+the public first in 1725, and in succession was a showman at Bartholomew
+and other fairs, the owner of a booth for theatrical performances, at one
+time set up in George Yard, from which he found his way to the regular
+boards. In spite of being the son of a general, and the great grandson of
+an earl, his impecuniosity was often great, although he met his
+difficulties with the light-hearted gaiety of a Sheridan, and the careless
+imprudence of a Goldsmith.</p>
+
+<p>Once, when in Ireland, he got into disgrace through giving a dancing-party
+at his rooms; sold his books the next day, ran away from college, loafed
+about Dublin till only a shilling was left, and then went to Cork. There
+he lived three days on the shilling, and said afterwards the most
+delicious meal he ever tasted was a handful of grey peas, given him by a
+girl at a wake, after twenty-four hours&#8217; fasting.</p>
+
+<p>Poor Oliver Goldsmith must, of course, have his place in this chapter, for
+from the time when he wrote street ballads to save himself from starving,
+and was delighted to hear them sung, to when he started on &#8220;the grand
+tour,&#8221; alone and friendless, with one spare shirt, a flute, and a guinea
+in his pocket, to the last scene of hopeless insolvency in which he died,
+his life was one long, hard struggle against pecuniary difficulties. When
+his relatives raised &pound;50 to send him to London to study, he spent and
+gambled all away, and got no farther than Dublin. The result of his wildly
+rash act of going abroad so ill provided he has himself described. In a
+foreign land, when without money, he turned to his flute as a last
+resource, and whenever he approached a peasant&#8217;s cottage towards
+nightfall, he played one of his merriest tunes, and so generally contrived
+to win a shelter for the night, and some food for his next day&#8217;s journey.
+In this way he passed through Flanders, parts of France, Germany and
+Switzerland, reaching Padua at last; remaining there six months to secure
+his medical degree. Returning in 1756, and failing to find employment, he
+was at last taken in by a chemist by way of charity,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> and to preserve him
+from starvation. His friend, Dr. Sleigh, next befriended him, and then he
+became usher to Dr. Milner&#8217;s school in Peckham. Soon after he found
+literary employment, and took a lodging at No. 12, Green Arbour Court, in
+the Old Bailey&mdash;a miserable, dirty room, with but one chair. He did not
+emerge from this squalid, dismal abode until 1760, when improved
+circumstances enabled him to lodge in Wine Office Court, Fleet Street,
+where he received his friends with a freedom and hospitality which soon
+reduced his means to the level of impecuniosity. Here he first met Dr.
+Johnson, who became his dearest friend and best adviser.</p>
+
+<p>Johnson has described how he received one morning a message from poor
+Goldsmith, to the effect that he was in great distress, and as it was not
+in his power to go to the Doctor, begging that the Doctor would come to
+him as soon as possible.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;I sent him a guinea,&#8221; says Johnson, &#8220;and promised to come to him
+directly. I accordingly went as soon as I was dressed, and found that
+his landlady had arrested him for rent, at which he was in a violent
+passion. I perceived that he had already changed my guinea, and had
+got a bottle of Madeira and a glass before him. I put the cork into
+the bottle, desired he would be calm, and began to talk to him of the
+means by which he might be extricated. He then told me that he had a
+novel ready for the press, which he produced to me. I looked into it
+and saw its merits, and told the landlady I should soon return, and,
+having gone to a bookseller, sold it for &pound;60. I brought Goldsmith the
+money, and he discharged his rent, not without rating his landlady for
+having used him so ill.&#8221;</p></div>
+
+<p>The novel thus sold was the &#8216;Vicar of Wakefield,&#8217; and its purchaser,
+Francis Newberry, the bookseller, who kept it unprinted for two years,
+when its author&#8217;s &#8216;Traveller,&#8217; having appeared and proved successful, the
+novel was published (in March 1766) and in a month reached a second
+edition.</p>
+
+<p>In Forster&#8217;s &#8216;Life of Goldsmith,&#8217; the following account of his earliest
+state of penury has no little romantic interest:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;It was,&#8221; says the author of that famous work, &#8220;a year and a half
+after he had entered college, at the commencement of 1747, his father
+suddenly died. The scanty sums required for his support had often been
+intercepted; but this stopped them altogether. It may have been the
+least and most trifling loss connected with that sorrow; but &#8216;squalid
+poverty,&#8217; relieved by occasional gifts, according to his small means,
+from Uncle Contarine, by petty loans from Bryanton or Beatty, or by
+desperate<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> pawning of his books of study, was Goldsmith&#8217;s lot
+henceforward. Yet even in the depths of that despair arose the
+consciousness of faculties reserved for better fortune than continual
+contempt and failure. He would write street ballads to save himself
+from actual starving; sell them at the Reindeer repository in
+Mountrath Court for five shillings apiece, and steal out of the
+college at night to hear them sung.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Happy night, to him worth all the dreary days! Hidden by some dusky
+wall, or creeping within darkling shadows of the ill-lighted streets,
+this poor neglected sizar watched, waited, lingered, listened there,
+for the only effort of his life which had not wholly failed. Few and
+dull perhaps the beggar&#8217;s audience at first, but more thronging,
+eager, and delighted as he shouted forth his newly-gotten ware;
+cracked enough, I doubt not, were those ballad singing tunes; nay,
+harsh, extremely discordant, and passing from loud to low without
+meaning or melody; but not the less did the sweetest music which this
+earth affords fall with them on the ear of Goldsmith. Gentle faces,
+pleased old men, stopping by the way; young lads, venturing a purchase
+with their last remaining farthing; why here was a world in little
+with its fame at the sizar&#8217;s feet! &#8216;The greater world will be
+listening one day,&#8217; perhaps he muttered as he turned with a lighter
+heart to his dull home.&#8221;</p></div>
+
+<p>Johnson&#8217;s sympathy with Goldsmith was, no doubt, warmed and quickened by
+the remembrance of his own early struggles with the foul fiend
+impecuniosity. He remembered well enough his first London lodging in
+Exeter Street, Strand, when, as he said, &#8220;I dined very well for
+eightpence, with very good company, at the Pine Apple in New Street fast
+by. Several of them had travelled, they expected to meet every day; but
+they did not know one another&#8217;s names. It used to cost the rest a
+shilling, for they drank wine; but I had a cut of meat for sixpence, and
+bread for a penny, so that I was quite well served, nay, better than the
+rest, for they gave the waiter nothing.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Johnson used to relate of an Irish painter, that he, the painter,
+practically realised a theory that &pound;30 a year was enough to enable a man
+to live there without being contemptible. He allowed &pound;10 for clothes and
+linen. He said, &#8220;A man might live in a garret at eighteen pence a week.
+Few people would inquire where he lodged; and if they did it was easy to
+say, &#8216;Sir, I am to be found at such a place.&#8217; By spending threepence in a
+coffee-house, he might be for some hours in very good company; he might
+dine for sixpence, breakfast on bread and milk for a penny, and do without
+supper. On clean shirt day he could go abroad and pay visits.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I have already quoted the Doctor&#8217;s views on the subject of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> impecuniosity,
+and this reminds me of a very suggestive incident of his life, which
+perhaps will prove better than anything else the non-desirability of want
+of means. It is unquestionable that in his marvellous dictionary, there
+are parts that are much superior to others, which has been accounted for
+by the fact that he was paid for the work as it progressed&mdash;the publisher
+paying him as his &#8220;copy&#8221; was delivered. Consequently, when his purse was
+full, he worked away <i>con amore</i>, and produced the best result; but on the
+purse growing empty, as those mercenary creditors will do, the Doctor
+worked hurriedly, aiming at making as much &#8220;copy&#8221; as possible, so as to
+replenish his failing treasury.</p>
+
+<p>Thomas Cooper, author of the &#8216;Purgatory of Suicides,&#8217; who also found out
+by severe experience the cheapest way of living in London, tells in his
+autobiography how, after having been at Lincoln as reporter, journalist,
+and miscellaneous literary man, he with his wife left that city for
+London. He says:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;On the 1st of June, 1839, we got on the stage-coach with our boxes of
+books at Stamford, and away I went to make my first venture in London.
+We lodged in Elliott&#8217;s Row, Southwark; I earned five pounds by
+contributing reviews and prose sketches to some papers having but an
+ephemeral existence. I had other ventures and adventures in a small
+way; but it would weary any mortal man to recite; and the recital
+would only be one which has been often told already, by poor literary
+adventurers. The very little I could bring to London was soon gone,
+and then I had to sell my books. I happily turned into Chancery Lane
+and asked Mr. Lumley to buy my beautifully-bound &#8216;Tasso&#8217; and &#8216;Don
+Belleanis of Greece,&#8217; a small quarto black-letter romance, which I had
+bought of an auctioneer in Gainsboro&#8217;, who knew nothing of its value.
+Mr. Lumley gave me liberal prices, wished I could bring him more such
+books, and conversed with me very kindly. We were often at &#8216;low-water
+mark&#8217; now in our fortunes; but my dear wife and I never suffered
+ourselves to sink into low spirits. Our experience, we cheerily said,
+was a part of London adventure, and who did not know that adventurers
+in London often underwent great trials before success was reached? We
+strolled out together in the evenings all over London, making
+ourselves acquainted with its highways and byways, and always finding
+something to interest us in its streets and shop-windows. Every book I
+brought from Lincolnshire, and I had had about 500 volumes great and
+small, had been sold by degrees, and at last I was obliged to enter a
+pawnshop. Spare articles of clothing, and my father&#8217;s old silver
+watch, &#8216;went up the spout,&#8217; as the experience goes of those who most
+sorrowfully know what it means. Travelling-cloak, large box, hat-box,
+and every box or movable that could be spared in any possible way, had
+&#8216;gone to our uncle&#8217;s,&#8217; and we saw ourselves on the very <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span>verge of
+being reduced to threadbare suits when deliverance came. I had been in
+London from the evening of 11th June, 1839, until near the end of
+March, 1840, when I answered an advertisement respecting the
+editorship of a country paper printed in London. I went to the
+printing office in Great Windmill Street, Haymarket, and was engaged
+at a salary of &pound;3 per week; the paper was the <i>Kentish Mercury</i>.&#8221;</p></div>
+
+<p>Very similar was the experience of Robert Southey, who, disowned by
+friends, and without money, came to London seeking literary employment, in
+which alone he found content and happiness.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;For it,&#8221; say his biographers, Messrs. Austin and Ralph, &#8220;he
+sacrificed proffered rank and power; and joyfully devoted to its
+service a toiling life of unexampled industry. Yet this man so wedded
+to his absorbing vocation, in the social capacity of husband, father,
+relative, and friend, stands above reproach.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;His life is one emphatic denial of the daring falsehood, that genius
+and virtue are incompatible.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;England knew not a happier circle than that which for years assembled
+by the humble hearthstone at Greta Hall. It is refreshing to turn
+aside from the world and contemplate that peaceful home, nestling amid
+the Cumberland Mountains.&#8221;</p></div>
+
+<p>Such an opinion again hardly fits in with that of Thackeray already
+quoted.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;On Friday, October 18th, 1794, his aunt, Miss Tyler, turned him out
+of doors on a stormy night, and without a penny in his pocket. He made
+his way on foot, through wind and driving rain, along the dark country
+roads to Bath. Without any visible resource he was thrown upon the
+world, and as he paced the streets, weary, footsore, and sick at
+heart, he dreamed of the lofty things in literature he would strive to
+accomplish, now that he was his own master, with a will unfettered by
+a care for wishes other than his own, and of the pride that would glow
+within the swelling bosom of the fair Edith of his love, for whose
+dear sake he had submitted to be thus cast adrift. An uncle from
+Portugal wished to take him back with him to that country. &#8216;My Edith
+persuades me to go,&#8217; said he, &#8216;and yet weeps at my going.&#8217; And we are
+told how sadly after their secret marriage in Redcliffe Church, his
+maiden wife watched his departure with the wedding-ring she was afraid
+to wear suspended round her neck.&#8221;</p></div>
+
+<p>In Southey&#8217;s life by his son, we read that he had recourse under the
+pressure of impecuniosity to delivering lectures at Bristol, and the
+following prospectus is quoted:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;Robert Southey, of Balliol College, Oxford, proposes to read a course
+of Historical Lectures in the following order:&mdash;1st. Introductory on
+the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> Origin and Progress of Society; 2nd. Legislation of Solon and
+Lycurgus; 3rd. State of Greece from the Persian War to the Dissolution
+of the Achaian League; 4th. Rise, Progress, and Decay of the Roman
+Empire; 5th. Progress of Christianity; 6th. Manners and Irruptions of
+the Northern Nations; Growth of the European States; Feudal System,
+and other equally abstruse subjects.&#8221;</p></div>
+
+<p>The lectures were given in 1795, tickets for the course, 10<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i>,
+sold at Cottle&#8217;s, bookseller, High Street.</p>
+
+<p>Southey stated about this time that if he and Coleridge could get &pound;150 a
+year between them, they would marry and retire into the country.</p>
+
+<p>Another of these friendless dreamers who came to London, seeking literary
+employment and reputation, was George Borrow, the famous author of &#8216;Romany
+Rye,&#8217; &#8216;The Bible in Spain,&#8217; &#8216;Wild Wales,&#8217; etc., the son of a military
+officer. He was born in Norfolk, early in the present century, and began
+life at the desk of a solicitor at Norwich. Becoming disgusted with that
+life, he started off with his stick and bundle to walk to London, where
+with his knowledge of languages he hoped to have no difficulty in earning
+a living. Reaching the great metropolis, he found out Sir Richard
+Phillips, editor and proprietor of the <i>Monthly Magazine</i>, who suggested
+that the young literary adventurer should devote himself to the writing of
+Newgate lives and trials. Having spent his loose cash in buying books on
+the subject, he went carefully to work. Sir Richard Phillips wanted less
+care and more expedition.</p>
+
+<p>Borrow sent in his copy too slowly to please his exacting and overbearing
+employer, whose parsimony was only equalled by his greediness. He was paid
+in bills subject to discount, and led altogether a very wretched life. One
+morning he awoke with the disagreeable conviction that his plight had
+grown desperate, only half-a-crown remaining in his purse. Wandering out
+disconsolately, he saw a bill in the shop window of a bookseller, giving
+notice that a &#8220;novel or tale was much wanted,&#8221; went to his garret, and
+after a meal of bread and water, began to write a fictitious biography of
+&#8216;Joseph Tell.&#8217; At this he continued to work unceasingly, day after day,
+eating nothing but bread, drinking only water, until on the fifth day the
+story was finished. And none too soon, for after he had laid aside the
+pen, want of rest and nourishment had so exhausted him that he swooned
+away. He had threepence left, and to reinvigorate him after he had left
+his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> MS., he spent the whole of that sum at one fell swoop on bread and
+milk, and went to bed penniless. When he called, the bookseller was
+willing to buy the novel, and after some haggling over the price, gave him
+twenty pounds for it, a sum which was as veritable a godsend to him as the
+price of the &#8216;Vicar of Wakefield&#8217; was to Oliver Goldsmith.</p>
+
+<p>Borrow&#8217;s incessant writing reminds me of the incessant reading of the
+poet, Gerald Massey, who was born in 1828, near Tring, in Herts, in a
+little stone hovel, the rent of which was one shilling per week. His
+father was a poor canal boatman, who supported himself and family on ten
+shillings per week, and could not of course afford to give Gerald any
+opportunities of educating himself. As soon as he had attained his eighth
+year, he was set to work at a silk-mill, beginning work at five in the
+morning, and quitting it at half-past six in the evening, for a weekly
+wage of 1<i>s.</i> 9<i>d.</i> He was fifteen years of age when he came to London and
+obtained employment as an errand-boy, and having taught himself to read,
+eagerly devoured every book, paper, and magazine that was within his
+reach.</p>
+
+<p>Says Massey himself:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;Now I began to think that the course of all desire and the sum of all
+existence was to read and get knowledge. Read, read, read. I used to
+read at all possible times and all possible places; up in bed till two
+or three in the morning, nothing daunted by once setting the bed on
+fire. Greatly indebted was I to the bookstalls, where I have read a
+great deal, often folding a leaf in a book, and returning the next day
+to continue the subject; but sometimes the book was gone, and then
+great was my grief. When out of a situation I have often gone without
+a meal to purchase a book.&#8221;</p></div>
+
+<p>Another English poet who sprang from as low an origin, and who as a boy
+was as uneducated as Massey, was John Clare, known as the Northamptonshire
+poet. He was born at Helpston, a village near Peterboro&#8217;, in 1793. His
+father was a poverty-stricken farm labourer, a cripple, unable to exist
+without occasional help from the parish, and whose struggle to keep the
+most wretched of homes, and supply potatoes and water gruel for food, was
+a ceaseless and desperate one. For all that, when the sickly little fellow
+Jack was old enough for school, the few pence requisite for sending him
+there were squeezed out of the poor father&#8217;s weekly pittance, and when the
+boy&#8217;s own paltry earnings<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> in the fields began to come in, merely a few
+pence a week, he was sent to an evening school, the master of which
+allowed him the run of his little library, a privilege of which John
+enthusiastically and gratefully availed himself.</p>
+
+<p>Often his parents returning from work found the boy, after being at school
+till late, crouching down by the fire, and tracing in the faint glimmer of
+a burning log, incomprehensible signs upon bits of paper and even wood,
+too poor to buy paper of the coarsest kind. John was in the habit of
+picking up shreds of the same material, such as used by grocers and other
+tradesmen, and of scratching thereon signs and figures, sometimes with
+pencil, oftener with charcoal. Never were there more ungracious and
+unfavourable conditions for the study of arithmetic and algebra.</p>
+
+<p>A maternal uncle, footman to a lawyer at Wisbech, called one day at
+Helpston, and told the family there was a vacancy for a clerk in his
+master&#8217;s office. John was to apply. The mother ransacked her scanty
+wardrobe, to try and give her son a decent appearance, made him a pair of
+breeches out of an old dress, and a waistcoat out of a shawl, and begged
+from village crones an old white necktie and a pair of old black woollen
+gloves. What he wore was very large and also ancient. His costume excited
+amazement as he went his way. He reached Wisbech by canal boat, saw his
+uncle, was taken to Mr. Councillor Bellamy, who, after inspecting the
+nephew, said, &#8220;Well, I may see him again.&#8221; John, after staying a day or
+two with his uncle, then went back home and became serving lad at the Blue
+Bell, where he was treated well, and was able to pursue his beloved
+studies. There, too, he fell in love with Mary Joyce, daughter of a
+farmer, who forbade his daughter to have anything to do with the beggar
+boy, so he carved her name on every tree.</p>
+
+<p>At this time occurred a great event in the poet&#8217;s life, one ever to be
+remembered with a quickening pulse and a sense of mighty triumph. He had
+read Thomson&#8217;s &#8216;Seasons,&#8217; which had been described to him as only a
+trumpery book which could be bought for 1<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> at Stamford. John had
+only sixpence, and his wages were not due. He went to his father for a
+shilling. Hopeless chance! His mother was also tried for that amount, and
+by superhuman exertion she raised sevenpence; the fraction remaining and
+required was raised at the Blue Bell. The day of the purchase came. Unable
+to sleep through excitement, he was up before<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> daybreak, and started off
+for Stamford in hot haste. A six or seven mile walk was as nothing to the
+ardent lad, and he arrived before the bookseller&#8217;s shop he was seeking had
+its shutters down. He waited and waited, and you can imagine his dismay
+when at last he found that the shop never opened at all that day. So he
+went back to Helpston. By the way a bright thought occurred. By making a
+tremendous effort he obtained twopence more&mdash;proposed to a cowherd boy
+that for one penny he should look after the cattle, and for another penny
+keep the secret that he was going away for a few hours. Monday morning
+arrived, and his confederate. John soon walked the eight miles to
+Stamford. Bookseller&#8217;s shop closed. John sat on the doorstep and waited.
+Directly the door opened, the poor, thin, haggard country boy, with wild
+gleaming eyes, rushed to him for a copy of the &#8216;Seasons.&#8217; The tradesman
+asked questions. John told his story in hurried words, and the bookseller
+said that he would let him have a copy for a shilling. &#8220;Keep the sixpence,
+my boy,&#8221; said the man, and away went John. In Barnack Park, amidst some
+thick shrubs, John Clare read the book. He did not know how to give vent
+to his happiness, but he had a pencil and a piece of coarse crumpled paper
+in his pocket, and on that he wrote his poem the &#8216;Morning Walk.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>The remainder of Clare&#8217;s life presents nothing specially remarkable beyond
+the fact that he was throughout it curiously unlucky; and though from time
+to time he met with good friends, misfortune had marked him for her own,
+and eventually, through brooding over some unsuccessful commercial
+enterprises, his mind gave way.</p>
+
+<p>From John Clare to George Gordon Noel, Lord Byron, is a far cry; the
+former being purely a small pastoral poet, the latter impurely a great
+genius. <i>A propos</i> of being involved and being indebted to the children of
+Israel for supplies, his lordship wrote:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8220;In my young days they lent me cash that way,<br />
+Which I found very troublesome to pay.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Tom Moore says that Byron&#8217;s marriage with the daughter of Sir Ralph
+Milbank was contracted in the hope that her dowry would extricate him from
+his monetary difficulties, but it apparently only increased his misery,
+and, notwithstanding the serious reason for their separation, as given by
+Mrs. Beecher Stowe,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> there is no doubt debt had a considerable share in
+bringing it about, for &#8220;during the first year of his marriage his house
+was nine times in the possession of bailiffs, his door almost daily beset
+by duns, and he was only saved from gaol by the privileges of his rank.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Coming down to the more modern school of writers, it is especially
+noticeable that the circumstances connected with their impecuniosity are
+much less sombre in character than those of the like previous age. Douglas
+Jerrold, the novelist, dramatist and essayist, contributes an amusing
+reminiscence in connection with the first money he earned, a story which
+he himself was wont to relate with great delight in after years. At the
+time of the incident the young fellow&#8217;s home was far from cheerful; his
+mother and sister were away (in all probability acting in the provinces),
+and he and his father were the sole occupants of the lodgings. Old Mr.
+Jerrold was weak and ailing, and anything but good company for the
+high-spirited, happy-natured boy, who eventually developed into one of the
+most witty and satirical authors of his time. The picture of the poor old
+gentleman sitting helplessly in the corner, when the wants of the family
+so needed a strong arm to work for them, was undoubtedly depressing; but
+the dreary monotony was broken on the day when Douglas Jerrold returned
+home excitedly jubilant with his first earnings as an apprentice. A
+thorough Englishman, he naturally thought the occasion must be celebrated
+by a dinner and at once proceeded to purchase the ingredients of a
+beef-steak pie. When he returned, amply repaid for the money he had
+expended by the proud satisfaction visible on his father&#8217;s face, he was
+met by rather a serious difficulty. It was true the materials for the dish
+were all there, but who was to make the delicacy? Mr. Jerrold, senior, was
+incapable, and there was, therefore, nothing for it but for the boy to
+turn to and try his hand at a crust. He did so, and amidst much merriment
+the pie was made, taken to the baker&#8217;s, and eaten by the happy pair (at
+any rate, happy on that occasion), with a relish and pleasure no doubt far
+in excess of that experienced at many of those grander banquets which he
+afterwards graced by his presence. It is said by his son that &#8220;the memory
+of this day always remained vivid to him. There was an odd kind of humour
+about it that tickled him. It so thoroughly illustrated his notions on
+independence that he could<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> not forbear from dwelling again and again on
+it among his friends.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>There is no doubt that Douglas Jerrold cherished the memory of this
+honourable impecuniosity as he did everything else that was noble and
+pure, for in his slashing satire levelled against those meaningless
+decorations or orders of the wealthy he clearly shows his lasting sympathy
+for poverty with honour. He says: &#8220;The Order of Poverty&mdash;how many
+sub-orders might it embrace! As the spirit of Gothic chivalry has its
+fraternities, so might the Order of Poverty have its distinct devices.&#8221; He
+then goes on to enumerate the nobility and dignity of labour exemplified
+in the cases of the peasant, the shepherd, the weaver, the potter, and
+other callings, not neglecting even the pauper, of whom he writes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;And here is a pauper, missioned from the workhouse to break stones at
+the roadside. How he strikes and strikes at that unyielding bit of
+flint! Is it not the stony heart of the world&#8217;s injustice knocked at
+by poverty? What haggardness is in his face! What a blight hangs about
+him! There are more years in his looks than in his bones. Time has
+marked him with an iron pen. He wailed as a babe for bread his father
+was not allowed to earn. He can recollect every dinner&mdash;they were so
+few&mdash;of his childhood. He grew up, and want was with him, even as his
+shadow. He has shivered with cold, fainted with hunger. His every-day
+life has been set about by goading wretchedness.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Around him, too, were the stores of plenty. Food, raiment, and money
+mocked the man half-mad&mdash;mad with destitution. Yet, with a valorous
+heart, a proud conquest of the shuddering spirit, he walked with
+honesty and starved. His long journey of life has been through stormy
+places, and now he sits upon a pile of stones on the wayside, breaking
+them for workhouse bread. Could loftiest chivalry show greater
+heroism, nobler self-control, than this old man&mdash;this weary breaker of
+flints? Shall he not be of the Order of Poverty? Is not penury to him
+even as a robe of honour? His grey workhouse coat braver than purple
+and miniver? He shall be Knight of the Granite if you will. A
+workhouse gem, indeed&mdash;a wretched highway jewel&mdash;yet, to the eye of
+truth, finer than many a ducal diamond.... And so, indeed, in the mind
+of wisdom, is poverty ennobled. And for the Knights of the Golden
+Calf, how are they outnumbered! Let us then revive the Order of
+Poverty. Ponder, reader, on its antiquity! For was not Christ Himself
+Chancellor of the Order, and the Apostles Knight Companions?&#8221;</p></div>
+
+<p>Although Douglas Jerrold may be best remembered by the many for his
+felicitous epigrams and wondrous wit, it should be borne in mind that he
+contributed materially to the high tone<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> that now prevails in our
+literature. The fine spirit was touched to fine issues, and the influences
+which he aided by his life will be his enduring bequest to the future. He
+was, like Dickens, constantly at war with abuses, ever writing with a
+purpose, and always aiming to crush tyranny, injustice, or some kindred
+social monster. Like Dickens, he delighted in assisting the cause of the
+poor and weak, which characteristic, so conspicuous in both, may be
+accounted for by the impecunious surroundings in which they were both
+reared.</p>
+
+<p>With regard to Charles Dickens, undeniably the most popular novelist of
+this century, and generally considered to be one of the greatest
+humourists we have ever had, it would seem as if we had to thank
+impecuniosity for much of his marvellous characterisation; and though he
+bitterly deplored the want of early education and proper home-training, it
+is possible that but for the hardness of his youthful lot he might never
+have developed the faculty of observation to the extent he did. From the
+needy circumstances of his parents he was compelled from very early years
+to think for himself; and this is, according to John Forster, what he
+thought of his father:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;He was proud of me in his way, and had a great admiration of the
+comic singing. But in the ease of his temper and the straitness of his
+means he appeared to have utterly lost at this time the idea of
+educating me at all, and to have put from him the notion that I had
+any claim upon him in that regard whatever. So I degenerated into
+cleaning his boots of a morning and my own, and making myself useful
+in the work of the little house, and looking after my younger brothers
+and sisters (we were now six in all), and going on such poor errands
+as arose out of our poor way of living.&#8221;</p></div>
+
+<p>After his father&#8217;s arrest for debt and his incarceration in the Marshalsea
+(particulars of which are so graphically described in &#8216;David
+Copperfield&#8217;), Charles Dickens, when little more than ten years of age,
+was placed at a blacking manufactory, where he earned the sum of six
+shillings per week, and which is thus described by him:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;The blacking warehouse was the last house on the left hand side of
+the way, at old Hungerford Stairs. It was a crazy tumble-down old
+house abutting, of course, on the river, and literally overrun with
+rats. The wainscotted rooms and its rotten floors and staircase and
+the old grey rats swarming down in the cellars, and the sound of their
+squeaking and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> scuffling coming up the stairs at all times, and the
+dirt and decay of the place, rise up visibly before me as if I were
+there again. My work was to cover the pots of paste blacking first
+with a piece of oil paper and then with a piece of blue paper, to tie
+them round with a string, and then to clip the paper close and neat
+all round, until it looked as smart as a pot of ointment from an
+apothecary&#8217;s shop. When a certain number of grosses of pots had
+attained this pitch of perfection, I was to paste on each a printed
+label, and then go on again with more pots.&#8221;</p></div>
+
+<p>With regard to the way he lived at this time, he says:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;Usually I either carried my dinner with me or went and bought it at
+some neighbouring shop. In the latter case it was commonly a saveloy
+and a penny loaf, and sometimes a fourpenny plate of beef from a
+cookshop, sometimes a plate of bread and cheese and a glass of beer
+from a miserable old public-house over the way&mdash;the &#8216;Swan,&#8217; if I
+remember right, or the Swan and something else that I have forgotten.
+Once I remember tucking my own bread (which I had brought from home in
+the morning) under my arm, wrapped up in a piece of paper like a book,
+and going into the best dining-room in Johnson&#8217;s Alamode Beef House in
+Charles&#8217; Court, Drury Lane, and magnificently ordering a small plate
+of Alamode beef to eat with it. What the waiter thought of such a
+strange little apparition coming in all alone, I don&#8217;t know, but I can
+see him now staring at me as I ate my dinner, and bringing up the
+other waiter to look. I gave him a halfpenny, and I wish now that he
+had not taken it.&#8221;</p></div>
+
+<p>Soon after Dickens entered upon his engagement at the uncongenial blacking
+establishment, his mother&#8217;s home was broken up and she joined his father
+in the debtors&#8217; prison, and Master Charles was then placed with a Mrs.
+Roylance at Camden Town, with whom he lodged for some time, boarding
+himself on his six shillings a week, which he apparently found by no means
+an easy job, as his appetite seems to have troubled him considerably by
+this.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;I was so young and childish and so little qualified&mdash;how could I be
+otherwise?&mdash;to undertake the whole charge of my own existence, that in
+going to Hungerford Stairs of a morning I could not resist the stale
+pastry put out at half price on trays at the confectioner&#8217;s doors in
+Tottenham Court Road. I often spent in that the money I should have
+kept for my dinner. Then I went without my dinner, or bought a roll or
+a slice of pudding. There were two pudding shops between which I was
+divided according to my finances. One was in a court close to St.
+Martin&#8217;s Church (at the back of the church), which is now removed
+altogether. The pudding at that shop was made with currants, and was
+rather a special pudding, but was dear: two penn&#8217;orth not being larger
+than a penn&#8217;orth of more ordinary pudding. A good shop for the latter
+was in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> the Strand, somewhere near where the Lowther Arcade is now. It
+was a stout, hale pudding, heavy and flabby, with great raisins in it
+stuck in whole, at great distances apart. It came up hot, at about
+noon every day, and many and many a day did I dine off it. I know I do
+not exaggerate, unconsciously and unintentionally, the scantiness of
+my resources and the difficulties of my life. I know that if a
+shilling or so were given me by any one I spent it in a dinner or a
+tea. I know that I worked from morning to night with common men and
+boys, a shabby child. I know that I tried, but ineffectually, not to
+anticipate my money, and to make it last the week through, by putting
+it away in a drawer I had in the counting-house, wrapped into six
+little parcels, each parcel containing the same amount, and labelled
+with a different day. I know that I have lounged about the streets
+insufficiently and unsatisfactorily fed. I know that, but for the
+mercy of God, I might easily have been, for any care that was taken of
+me, a little robber or a little vagabond.&#8221;</p></div>
+
+<p>Contemporary with Dickens figured another popular writer of light fiction,
+who, though perhaps a trifle jollier and more genial in his fun, cannot
+claim to be placed in the same category with the immortal author of
+&#8216;Nicholas Nickleby,&#8217; &#8216;A Tale of Two Cities,&#8217; etc. etc. I allude to Albert
+Smith, who whether detailing on paper &#8220;The Adventures of Mr. Ledbury&#8221; or
+recounting to an audience at the Egyptian Hall his &#8220;Ascent of Mont Blanc,&#8221;
+was always extremely amusing.</p>
+
+<p>Owing to a slight similarity in the style of their writing it sometimes
+happened that unfortunate comparisons were made between the two men, when
+naturally poor Albert Smith suffered. For instance, when a friend speaking
+of the two authors to Douglas Jerrold said, that as humourists Charles
+Dickens and Albert Smith &#8220;rowed in the same boat,&#8221; Jerrold replied with
+more or less warmth, &#8220;True, they do row in the same boat, but with very
+different skulls.&#8221; Unlike Dickens, Albert Smith was not practically
+acquainted with absolute poverty, though at times as a student there is no
+doubt he was familiar with that condition known as &#8220;rather short of
+funds,&#8221; and his account of an Alpine journey made on the most economical
+principles may be cited as curious and not unconnected with impecuniosity.</p>
+
+<p>In September 1838 he started from Paris for Chamounix with another equally
+humbly appointed traveller, who like himself intended to do the grand
+Alpine tour with &pound;12, which was to pay for travelling expenses and board
+and lodging for five weeks. They carried their money in five-franc pieces,
+stuffed in leathern belts round their waists, bought two old military
+knapsacks at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> three francs each, and two pairs of hobnailed shoes at five
+and a half francs each. Before starting they made a good breakfast at a
+<i>caf&eacute;</i> and obtained from the cook a dozen hard-boiled eggs for the
+journey, supplying themselves also with a <i>litre</i> of <i>vin ordinaire</i>, a
+flat bottle of brandy, and a leathern cup that folded up. Opposition
+<i>diligences</i> were running on the road from Paris to Geneva, and for two
+pounds they secured seats on one which took seventy-eight successive
+hours&mdash;<i>i.e.</i>, from 8 o&#8217;clock on Friday morning till 2 <span class="smcaplc">P.M.</span> on the
+following Monday. On arriving at the place where the other passengers
+lunched at a cost of three francs, Smith and his friend regaled themselves
+on their eggs, with the addition of some bread and pears bought in the
+town, which place they inspected while their fellow-travellers were
+luxuriating over their <i>d&eacute;je&ucirc;ner</i>. When dinner-time came, instead of
+patronising the hotel, they repaired to a more humble restaurant, and for
+24 sous each obtained all that they required. At night they crept under
+the tarpaulin roof of the <i>diligence</i>, stacked all the luggage on each
+side, and collecting some straw, on which they reclined, slept tolerably
+well. In the morning they walked on before the conveyance started, bathed
+in the river, and after breakfast (managed in the same inexpensive way),
+were picked up by the diligence. In this manner they travelled for the
+three days, observing pretty much the same routine (except on the Sunday,
+when they washed at the fountain in the market-place at Dole, to the great
+delight and amusement of a party of girls, who lent them towels and a huge
+piece of soap), their expenses for the journey to Geneva being &pound;2 12<i>s.</i>
+6<i>d.</i> each. As a specimen of how they managed to do and see so much on so
+very little: at Arpenay, where a cannon is fired to produce a certain
+marvellous echo, they simply waited until a party more capable of paying
+for such a luxury arrived, and then availed themselves of the opportunity.</p>
+
+<p>On the same principle, when starting for the Mer de Glace they followed a
+party at some little distance, and by this means dispensed with the
+services of a guide. They bathed on the top of the Foxlay, and there in
+the springs, washed their linen, spreading their things on the stones
+afterwards to dry; and in such way the Alpine tour was made by the two
+friends completely, safely, and without exceeding the amount of funds they
+possessed.</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely so honourable, though a trifle more exciting, is a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> reminiscence
+related of the late Robert Brough, more generally known to those who were
+acquainted with him and loved him dearly as Bob Brough. Unfortunately he
+was a man who was unable to make his income and expenditure balance:
+whether it was that the former was too small, or the latter too large, it
+matters not; but as a natural consequence, debt and difficulty were his
+constant companions. At one time when things had been going very badly
+(that is, in all probability to mine uncle&#8217;s) he found it necessary to
+seek a more congenial clime. England was found to be unpleasantly hot,
+owing to the warm attention of a money-lending creditor, and foreign
+travel was known to be absolutely imperative. The proprietor of the
+<i>Sunday Times</i> being made acquainted with the circumstances commissioned
+him to write a series of articles, to be entitled &#8220;Brussels Sprouts.&#8221;
+Desirous of executing the commission, and longing for a dip in the sea, he
+started off to Ostend, and on arriving there, was not long in going
+through the preliminaries of taking &#8220;a header.&#8221; He took it, but to his
+horror on coming to the surface he met with what is slangily termed a
+&#8220;facer,&#8221; for he found himself face to face with the identical creditor
+from whom he was fleeing. &#8220;Oh, this is the way my money goes, is it! I&#8217;ll
+lock you up, you&mdash;&mdash;&#8221; began the money-lender, but before the sentence was
+finished Brough dived again, swam to shore, secured his luggage, started
+for Paris, and left the &#8220;Brussels Sprouts&#8221; to take care of themselves.</p>
+
+<p>As I commenced this chapter by quoting the somewhat ungenerous strictures
+of Thackeray on his unhappy brethren, it will be a fitting termination to
+close with an incident of impecuniosity connected with his life, which
+circumstance, by the way, was caused by no fault of his. How could it have
+been? He was so terribly correct and proper! However, when sojourning on
+one occasion in France, he had the misfortune to be robbed of his purse,
+and immediately wrote off to a relative for fresh supplies. In the
+meantime he borrowed a ten-pound note, which he spent in little more than
+a week, thinking he should by that time be in possession of a remittance
+from his aunt. But no remittance came. He then humorously describes the
+horrors that arose in his mind as day after day passed on and there was no
+response from England. His intense desire for a frothy pot of beer,
+ungratified of course from his impecunious state, his alarm<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> lest the
+landlord should present his bill, and his forebodings when passing a
+prison-house, with his elation of spirits when the long-delayed cheque at
+length arrived, are presented with all the charm of comedy and the
+interest of romance, and playfully alluded to in these four lines:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8220;My heart is weary, my peace is gone,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">How shall I e&#8217;er my woes reveal?</span><br />
+I have no money, I lie in pawn,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A stranger in the town of Lille.&#8221;</span></p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2>
+<p class="title">THE ROMANCE OF IMPECUNIOSITY.</p>
+
+<p>Although at first sight the condition of impecuniosity seems more
+calculated to produce practicality, and render persons matter-of-fact, in
+the foregoing chapters there have not been wanting illustrations to prove
+that impecuniosity has been responsible for some romance. The case of
+Angelica Kauffman may be taken as an example. Owing to the poverty of her
+father she was compelled to accept the hospitality of an English peer in
+Switzerland, who insulted her, and afterwards, when unable to obtain a
+favourable reception of his suit, in revenge induced a married adventurer
+to make love to and marry her. This was romantic, without question, and
+undoubtedly attributable to want of money, as but for that she would never
+have been brought in contact with the disgraceful nobleman in question.</p>
+
+<p>When we remember, however, how impecuniosity has been produced, how that
+it has been brought about by misfortune, extravagance, heroism, want of
+principle, want of foresight, inadequacies of justice, eccentricity of
+character, extreme benevolence of disposition, and by other equally varied
+causes, it is not surprising that there should be found considerable
+connection between it and romance, more especially as the consequences of
+the condition have been crime of every description, from comparatively
+venial offences against society to the universally reprobated sins of
+forgery and murder. Again, the strange and unexpected means by which
+people have been delivered from their impecuniosity savours strongly of
+the unreal, of the world of fiction rather than of the world of fact. But
+that real life is prolific of romance has long been acknowledged by all
+but those<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> whose knowledge of human life is small, and whose ignorance of
+history is entire. As the poet pithily puts it&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem"><span style="margin-left: 3em;">&#8220;Truth is always strange,</span><br />
+Stranger than fiction: if it could be told,<br />
+How much would novels gain by the exchange.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Admitting this, and judging from the facts that we are possessed of, what
+marvellously romantic deeds must impecuniosity have been connected with
+that will never be recorded!&mdash;devoted deeds of self-sacrifice that will
+never be known to any save the sufferers! Not long since I read in a
+popular periodical of something suggestively similar. A girl on the way to
+join her husband, to whom she has been only married by the Scotch law,
+learns by accident that her marriage alone stands between her husband and
+a fortune. Circumstances so happening that she can make it appear credible
+that she was on board a vessel that was lost, she does so, believing that
+by her renunciation she is giving up &#8220;all for him.&#8221; &#8220;Truth is stranger
+than fiction,&#8221; and it follows, therefore, that such instances of
+self-abnegation induced by impecuniosity have been and will be found. But
+to facts.</p>
+
+<p>I have included in the list of the causes of impecuniosity the want of
+foresight, and this is painfully instanced by the story of a poor old
+woman at Plymouth, who did not like the formality, or could not afford the
+expense, of having a will prepared. Being exceedingly ill, she thought she
+would like to leave her little property&mdash;furniture, a small amount of
+money, and household movables&mdash;to her neighbours and acquaintances. This
+wish <i>viv&acirc; voce</i> she practically carried out. Of her own proper authority
+she gave and willed away chairs and tables to one, her bed to this friend,
+her cloak to that, money, utensils, nicknacks, to others. Crones,
+housewives, and young women gathered sympathetically around her, and soon
+carried away the various things bequeathed to them. It was not long after
+they had departed that she unexpectedly recovered from her illness, and
+sent to have her things back again, but not one of them could she get, and
+she was left without a rag to cover her or a friend to give her a kind
+word.</p>
+
+<p>Strange as was this circumstance, here is something surpassing strange,
+being the romantic record of one who was literally &#8220;a funny beggar.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Less than half a century since there used to be seen on the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> Quai des
+Celestines in Paris a mendicant holding in one hand some lucifer-matches.
+Wan, self-possessed, scantily but neatly attired, there were in the
+beggar&#8217;s visage traces of refinement and good breeding. Round his neck was
+a loop of black silk ribbon, to which was suspended a piece of pasteboard
+having an inscription to the effect that the wearer was a poor man, and
+craved relief on the plea that &#8220;<i>he had lived longer than he should</i>.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The petitioner&#8217;s history was a singular one. Jules Andr&eacute; Gueret, when
+twenty-five years old, became the possessor of a large fortune. He
+remained a bachelor, and turned his estate into hard cash. An epicurean, a
+man of some taste, and a bit of a philosopher, he began a calculation to
+ascertain how he could best enjoy himself. Making no investments, he kept
+his cash at home. Gueret came to the conclusion that a sober man&#8217;s life
+averaged seventy years, but that a pleasure-seeking, gay man&#8217;s life might
+only last fifty-five or sixty years. He then divided his finances into so
+many equal portions. Each portion was to be an annual allowance, the
+pleasure-seeker arranging that the money should last five-and-thirty
+years. Gueret, in conclusion, made a compact with himself that if he lived
+beyond sixty years of age, suicide would prevent his suffering ills at the
+hands of poverty. But when turned sixty years of age, and when his money
+was exhausted, either love of life or fear of death prevented the once gay
+and opulent Gueret from committing self-destruction. It will be seen that
+it was a terribly true inscription on the bit of pasteboard hanging from
+the neck of the beggar haunting the Quai des Celestines.</p>
+
+<p>The vicissitudes of Gueret were obviously self-created, and <i>&agrave; propos</i> of
+a man&#8217;s idiosyncrasy impelling him on to impecuniosity, there is hardly a
+more curious illustration to be found than that contained in the biography
+of Combe, the author of the &#8216;Adventures of Dr. Syntax.&#8217; This man was a
+born eccentric, perverse, whimsical, and humorous. Possessing natural
+gifts, and the heir to a large fortune, he frittered away his mental
+resources, wasted his patrimony, and often committed acts worthy of the
+simpleton or lunatic. He went through the curriculum of Eton and Oxford,
+and by the refinements of his taste and the elegance of his manners won
+the title of &#8220;Duke Combe.&#8221; In a comparatively short period, by his
+prodigality and reckless expenditure he was reduced to penury, and finding
+no means of subsistence, enlisted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> as a private in the army. While in the
+ranks he was reading one day, when an officer passing him managed to see
+the book, which was a copy of Horace. &#8220;My friend,&#8221; said the officer, &#8220;is
+it possible that you can read Horace in the original?&#8221; &#8220;If I cannot,&#8221; said
+Combe, &#8220;a great deal of money has been thrown away on my education.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Escaping from the English army, he joined the French service, and again
+fleeing, he entered a French monastery, remaining there until he had
+passed his noviciate. He subsequently left the Continent and became a
+waiter in South Wales. On several occasions, while in that capacity, he
+met with acquaintances whom he had known in college days, but he was never
+embarrassed even when seen tripping along with a napkin under his arm.</p>
+
+<p>Combe afterwards married an amiable and devoted woman, and settled down
+for a time as an author. Some of his writings contained questionable
+morality, and others were of scurrilous and venal character. &#8216;Letters from
+a Nobleman to his Son,&#8217; said to be by Lord Lyttelton, and &#8216;Letters from an
+Italian Nun to an English Nobleman,&#8217; said to be by Rousseau, were both
+from the pen of &#8220;Duke Combe.&#8221; At last he became an inmate of the King&#8217;s
+Bench Prison, and he remained there several years. When a friend offered
+to make an arrangement with his creditors, he replied: &#8220;If I compounded
+with those to whom I owe money I should be obliged to give up the little I
+possess, and on which I can manage to live in prison. These rooms in the
+Bench are mine at a very few shillings a week in right of my seniority as
+a prisoner. My habits have become so sedentary, that if I lived in the
+airiest square of West-End London, I should not walk round it once a
+month. I am quite content with my cheap quarters.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>It was in the King&#8217;s Bench Prison that Combe wrote for the publisher
+Ackerman, &#8216;The Adventures of Dr. Syntax in Search of the Picturesque,&#8217;
+&#8216;The Dance of Life,&#8217; and &#8216;The Dance of Death.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>At one period of Combe&#8217;s career Roger Kemble gave him a theatrical
+benefit, and Combe promised to speak an address on the occasion. There had
+been much gossip and many conjectures concerning his real name, history,
+and condition. To such gossip and conjectures he referred when he stood
+before the curtain, and in the presence of a crowded auditory. Then he
+added, &#8220;But now, ladies and gentlemen, I shall tell you who and what I
+am.&#8221; There was an eager and expectant expression on the countenances<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span>
+before him. Combe paused&mdash;all present leaning forward to hear
+him&mdash;gathered himself up, as if for a great effort, and then said, &#8220;I am,
+ladies and gentlemen&mdash;your most obedient, humble servant.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>It is evident Combe&#8217;s peculiar disposition was the cause of his peculiar
+circumstances. He was a perverse, whimsical man, rather than an
+unfortunate one, and it was much the same with the son of Lady Mary
+Wortley Montague, the Hon. Mr. Wortley Montague, notorious for his roving
+and adventurous disposition. When a boy he ran away from home, and became
+a chimney sweep. It is true that young Montague&#8217;s father was cold in his
+manners and severe in his discipline to the lad, who in addition chafed
+under the somewhat stringent arrangements of the Westminster masters, for
+enforcing law and order amongst their pupils. At Westminster School,
+however, where the lad was placed in 1729, he at once showed himself
+brilliant and precocious, but vain, impatient of control, and of truant
+disposition. Reckless and petulant, he resolved to see the world, and
+without a single confidant, one day quitted the seminary, roamed the
+streets, and at night made his way into the fields about Chelsea, and
+there slept till morning. After a few days his stock of money became low,
+and while reading the newspapers over his tavern breakfast, he noticed in
+an advertisement an accurate description of his face, figure, and costume,
+with the notification that a handsome reward would be paid by his parents
+to recover their lost child. Hastily paying his bill, he made his way from
+the tavern, perambulated the streets, utterly at a loss how to act in
+order to shun the humiliation of meeting his father and mother, and of
+again having to undergo the restrictions of domestic and scholastic
+routine. Meeting a chimney-sweeper&#8217;s apprentice, Montague entered into
+conversation with him and agreed to exchange clothes, which transformation
+was accomplished in an empty house. The truant was not satisfied yet, and
+actually accompanied the apprentice to his master&#8217;s house for the purpose
+of trying to become a chimney-sweep himself. From motives of benevolence
+or cupidity the master sweep agreed to induct young Montague into the
+mysteries of cleansing flues, and the lad remained in his employment for
+some months.</p>
+
+<p>During the period of his connection with the &#8220;sooty trade&#8221; the
+aristocratic young truant went through many adventures and played many
+pranks. His roaming disposition, however, caused<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> him to run away from his
+master, which he did without warning, and he soon found himself again
+walking about the streets of the metropolis, his money exhausted. He had
+but one thing left, a carefully-preserved watch, by which he could obtain
+the necessaries of life; driven to desperation, he walked into a
+jeweller&#8217;s shop and offered the watch for sale. The proprietor was
+courteous but wary, and being suspicious that the lad had become possessed
+of the valuable article in a dishonest manner, took the opportunity of
+sending for a constable. Montague was arrested and conveyed to Bow Street,
+where the magistrate closely questioned the culprit. Young Montague, with
+the utmost frankness, gave an account of his strange and romantic
+adventures from the moment when he had quitted Westminster School. It was
+not long ere his parents were made acquainted with the particulars of
+their son&#8217;s flight and safety, and the foolish wanderer was speedily taken
+back with caresses and delight. All was forgotten and forgiven, and in a
+few weeks Montague was reinstated in his old place at Westminster.</p>
+
+<p>It is said that what is bred in the bone comes out in the flesh, and it
+was not long before the crack-brained scholar again became unsettled.
+Through an older companion, young Montague sought the good offices of a
+knavish money-lender, who, making himself acquainted with the lad&#8217;s
+position and prospects, advanced him a sum of money. With the loan he felt
+free to make another flight, and away he went to Newmarket. He was amused
+and delighted with the spectacle of horses, jockeys, and bruisers.
+Enjoying himself at an inn, he fell into the company of card-sharpers, who
+soon eased him of the guineas he had brought down from London. His
+position was unfortunate and perilous, but wandering out through the town,
+he encountered a friend of the family, who resolutely conveyed him back to
+his parents, who, as before, after due admonition, forgave him. The debt
+to the money-lender was paid, and the youngster again found himself
+surrounded by all the luxuries of an aristocratic home. But his restless
+spirit could not endure the harness of conventional life.</p>
+
+<p>Once more he sought the office of the usurer, who made the required
+advances, and he then made up his mind to taste the joys of sea voyages
+and the novelties of foreign travel. Making his way to Wapping, he struck
+up a friendship with the captain of a trading-vessel bound for Cadiz.
+Montague agreed to visit<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> Cadiz with him, making the commander acquainted
+with the particulars of his history. The youth prepared for the journey,
+and thought that his last night in England should be a convivial one, and
+consequently ordered at one of the Wapping taverns a sumptuous supper. The
+landlord during the evening introduced some card-sharping rogues who
+proposed play, and in the course of an hour or two the son of Lady Mary
+had lost heavily. He was made drunk and taken away senseless to bed.</p>
+
+<p>When he came to himself in the morning he found that he had been robbed of
+everything, including his watch, and that he was utterly impotent to pay
+the heavy bill for the previous night&#8217;s banquet. The landlord affected
+much indignation, and went out of the house under the pretence of
+procuring a constable. Young Montague was at his wit&#8217;s end, when the
+hostess advised him to quit the tavern. Taking the hint, he hurried to the
+captain and told his story, and the captain intimated that he would seek
+the landlord. Captain James being a rogue, came to an understanding with
+the Wapping host, who agreed to hand over part of the spoil. James
+returned to the young dupe, and informed him that no redress could be
+afforded, but that if he liked he might work his way out to Cadiz. So
+Montague was the victim of both landlord and captain. During the voyage to
+Cadiz the youth underwent numerous trials and hardships. On landing at
+Cadiz he at once left Captain James and found himself in a foreign town
+without money and without friends. However, he found the Wapping
+card-sharpers had left him a pair of Mocoa sleeve-buttons set in gold, and
+having sold them he lived on the money for a few weeks. When that money
+was exhausted he happened to make the acquaintance of a muleteer, who,
+wanting a helper, found a ready and active one in the adventurous youth.
+All his subsequent adventures were of like irrational character, and he
+died of a fever contracted during foreign travel when a comparatively
+young man.</p>
+
+<p>I now turn to a pathetic story of poverty, in which the victim, but for
+the cruel deeds of a crafty and malignant woman, might have been
+surrounded by the auxiliaries of wealth and feudal splendour. Fortune
+occasionally plays strange pranks, and in the instance I am about to quote
+it will be seen that her caprices sometimes fall on unoffending and worthy
+men with pitiless and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> tremendous severity. More than two hundred and
+fifty years since a miserable bowed man might have been seen working about
+the fields and roads outside Leicester, doing that slavish and drudging
+work which falls to the lot of the English peasant. But for an unhappy
+episode connected with his ancestors he might have been summoned to dinner
+by sound of horn and taken his food from burnished silver. He was the heir
+of the famous Sir Robert Scott of Thirlestane, a cadet of the House of
+Buccleuch. Sir Robert Scott lived in the time of the sixth James of
+Scotland, and was a man of noble character, though of iron will and fiery
+blood, and little knew the awful cloud that gathered over his house when
+he married his second wife. Scott of Thirlestane had a son by his first
+marriage, and the heir was loved by the father with all the intensity and
+tenderness of a strong man&#8217;s nature.</p>
+
+<p>From the time the second wife bore children to Sir Robert, she hated the
+stepson with unceasing and sleepless malignity. She saw that as long as he
+lived the future possessions of her own children would be but little. She
+was cruel, crafty, and unscrupulous: and her worst feelings were excited
+when she learned that Sir Robert proposed building a tower at Gamescleugh
+in honour of the young laird&#8217;s majority. The father had also arranged a
+marriage for his son. The stepmother then entered upon plans to murder him
+on the occasion of the opening of the new castle, when a great festival
+was to take place. Her agent in the crime was John Lally, the family
+piper, who obtained three adders, from which he abstracted poison, and
+conveyed it to Lady Thirlestane, who mixed it with a bottle of wine. On
+the day of festivity the young laird inspected the tower and received from
+Lally&#8217;s hand the poisoned wine in a silver flagon, and drank a hearty
+draught. In an hour the heir of the house of Thirlestane was dead, and
+Lally had fled no one knew whither. News of the heir&#8217;s death soon reached
+the ears of the father, who had the alarm bugle sounded to call together
+his retainers. On the earl calling out to his assemblage, &#8220;Are we all
+here?&#8221; a voice answered, &#8220;Yes, all but John Lally, the piper.&#8221; It was
+ominous, for the husband knew the confidence his wife placed in that
+retainer, and Sir Robert swooned. Strange was it that Sir Robert could not
+be induced to make a public example of his wife; but he announced<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> to his
+friends that the estate belonged to his murdered son, who, if he could not
+enjoy it living, should enjoy it dead. The body of the heir was embalmed
+with drugs and spices, and laid out in state for a year and a day. For
+twelve months the unhappy father kept up one continuous round of costly
+and magnificent revels. Wine flowed like a river, and the scenes of
+carousal were of unprecedented extravagance. Soon after the funeral Sir
+Robert was borne to the grave and the family reduced to utter beggary. The
+stepmother wandered about an outcast and pauper, and in after years the
+heir of the Thirlestane family worked as a common ditcher, as I have
+described.</p>
+
+<p>A similar strange and pathetic story, in which it is shown that the
+innocent suffered for the guilty, is that of Sir John Dinely, who, at the
+beginning of the century, was one of the Poor Knights of Windsor. Dinely
+was a singularly eccentric and unfortunate man. He was often to be seen
+mysteriously creeping by the first light of a winter&#8217;s morning through the
+great gate of the lower ward of Windsor Castle into the narrow back
+streets of the town. He used to wear a roquelaure, beneath which appeared
+a pair of thin legs encased in dirty silk stockings. In wet weather he
+carried a large umbrella and walked on pattens. He lived in one of the
+houses of the military knights, then called Poor Knights, to which body he
+belonged. Except the eccentric possessor, no human being entered his
+abode, and he dispensed with all domestic service. Dinely in the morning
+went forth to make his frugal purchases for the day&mdash;a faggot, a candle, a
+small loaf, and perhaps a herring. The Poor Knight of Windsor might have
+fared better, but every penny except those laid out for absolute
+necessaries of life was capitalised in the promotion of an absorbing and
+quixotic scheme. Regular attendance at St. George&#8217;s Chapel was Dinely&#8217;s
+duty; and the long blue mantle which the Poor Knights wore covered his
+shabby habiliments, as the dingy morning cloak hid red herrings and
+farthing candles.</p>
+
+<p>Such were some of the phases&mdash;sombre, squalid phases&mdash;of Sir John&#8217;s
+existence. But there were periods when the Poor Knight assumed the
+externals of aristocratic opulence. The poor hunchback lover in the
+introduction to the pantomime, who, by the enchanter&#8217;s wand in the
+transformation-scene, becomes the gay and spangled harlequin, typifies
+Dinely dressed for his marketing,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> and Dinely dressed for the promenade.
+Any circumstances drawing together a crowd at Windsor, whether the
+presence of royalty, the attractions of the military parade, or of the
+promenade, did not fail to draw forth Dinely from his poverty-stricken
+home. When he appeared on festive occasions, his cloak was cast aside, and
+he might have sat to any painter desiring to reproduce on canvas a
+gentleman of the time of George II. An embroidered coat, silk flowered
+waistcoat, nether garments of velvet, carefully meeting silk stockings,
+which surmounted shoes and silver buckles, in addition to a lace-edged
+cocked hat, and powdered wig, set off the attenuated figure of the Poor
+Knight of Windsor. His object in so presenting himself was to attract the
+notice of some rich lady for matrimonial ends, matrimony being the medium
+through which he imagined he could transform his splendid dreams into no
+less splendid realities&mdash;the reason for his eccentric economy being
+explained by his history.</p>
+
+<p>In January, 1741, there were two brothers living at Bristol who had become
+enemies on account of an entail of property. The elder of these brothers
+was Sir John Dinely Goodyere, Baronet, the other Samuel Dinely Goodyere, a
+captain in the navy. Estrangement had taken place, but a common friend, at
+Samuel&#8217;s request, brought them together. They dined, had pleasant hours,
+and fraternal words were exchanged. On parting Sir John went his way
+across College Green, and while there was met by his brother and six other
+sailors. Sir John was brutally treated, carried away to a ship, and on it
+he was strangled. Retribution followed swiftly, and in two months Samuel
+Dinely Goodyere had expiated his crime on the gallows.</p>
+
+<p>The Poor Knight of Windsor was the son of the murderer, and it is
+generally believed that the family estates which might have come to
+Captain Goodyere were forfeited to the Crown. To recover the family
+estates was the day dream of Sir John. Not having sufficient money to
+obtain the requisite legal help to regain the lost inheritance, the poor
+old man resorted to the matrimonial scheme. His proceedings were perfectly
+serious, dignified, and earnest. Frequently has he been seen on the
+terrace at Windsor presenting to some county widow or elegantly attired
+gentlewoman a printed paper which with the utmost gravity he would take
+from his pocket. Should<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> the lady accept the paper, Sir John Dinely would
+make her the most profound of bows, and then withdraw.</p>
+
+<p>The following is an extract from one of the documents:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="center">&#8220;<i>For a Wife.</i>&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;As the prospect of my marriage has much increased lately, I am
+determined to take the best means to discover the lady most liberal in
+her esteem by giving her fourteen days more to make her quickest steps
+towards matrimony: from the date of this paper until eleven o&#8217;clock
+the next morning: and as the contest evidently will be superb,
+honourable, sacred, and lawfully affectionate, pray do not let false
+delicacy interrupt you. An eminent attorney here is lately returned
+from a view of my superb gates, built in the form of the Queen&#8217;s
+house. I have ordered him, as the next attorney here, who can satisfy
+you of my possession in my estate, and every desirable particular
+concerning it, to make you the most liberal settlement you can desire,
+to the vast extent of three thousand pounds.&#8221;</p></div>
+
+<p>Some verses conclude, the words being&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8220;A beautiful page shall hold,<br />
+Your ladyship&#8217;s train surrounded with gold.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The advertiser alludes to the forfeiture of the estates in another paper:
+&#8220;Pray, my young charmers, give me a fair hearing; do not let your
+avaricious guardians unjustly fright you into a false account of a
+forfeiture.&#8221; Sir John did not scatter his papers broadcast. It was only to
+those whom he deemed suitable ladies that he distributed his precious and
+grandiloquent invitations. Notwithstanding the seeming allurements of his
+circulars, Sir John Dinely found no nibblers for his bait. One morning the
+accustomed seat in St. George&#8217;s Chapel knew him no more. He was missing.
+The door of his lodging was forced, and in his room he was found ill and
+helpless. Everything about him was of the poorest and most squalid
+character. There was little furniture&mdash;a table and a chair or two. The
+room was strewed with printing type, for he printed his own bills; and in
+a few days Sir John Dinely was borne to the grave.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Wise judges are we of each other,&#8221; said Claude Melnotte contemptuously to
+Colonel Damar when that officer remarked that he &#8220;envied&#8221; the pretended
+Prince of Como, and it would be well for many of us were we to remember
+the rebuke in forming our judgment of our fellows in connection with their
+pecuniary position. A very pitiful story illustrating the argument is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span>
+narrated by Charles Lamb in his essay, &#8220;Christ&#8217;s Hospital Five and Thirty
+Years Ago.&#8221; Referring to some cartoons connected with his old school, the
+author writes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;L&mdash;&mdash; has recorded his repugnance of the school to &#8216;gags,&#8217; or the fat
+of fresh boiled beef, and sets it down to some superstition; but these
+unctuous morsels are never grateful to young palates (children are
+universal fat-haters), and in strong, coarse, boiled meats, unsalted,
+are detestable. A gag-eater in our time was equivalent to a ghoul, and
+held in equal detestation. There was a lad who suffered under this
+imputation.</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8216;It was said<br />
+He ate strange flesh.&#8217;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He was observed, after dinner, carefully to gather up the remnants
+left at the table (not many nor very choice fragments, you may credit
+me), and in an especial manner these disreputable morsels he would
+convey, and secretly stow, in the settle that stood at his bedside.
+None saw when he ate them. It was rumoured that he privately devoured
+them in the night. He was watched, but no traces of them, of such
+midnight practices were discoverable. Some reported that on leave-days
+he had been seen to carry out of the bounds a large blue check
+handkerchief, full of something. This, then, must be the accursed
+thing. Conjecture next was at work to imagine how he could dispose of
+it. Some said he sold it to the beggars. This belief generally
+prevailed. He went about moping&mdash;none spake to him. No one would play
+with him. He was excommunicated&mdash;put out of the pale of the school. He
+was too powerful a boy to be beaten, but he underwent every mode of
+that negative punishment which is more grievous than many stripes.
+Still he persevered. At length he was observed by two of his
+schoolfellows, who were determined to get at the secret, and had
+traced him one leave day for the purpose, to enter a large worn-out
+building, such as there exists specimens of in Chancery Lane, which
+are let out to various scales of pauperism, with open door and a
+common staircase. After him they silently slunk in, and followed by
+stealth up four flights of stairs, and saw him tap at a poor wicket,
+which was opened by a poor woman meanly clad. Suspicion was now
+ripened into certainty. The informers had secured their victim.
+Accusation was formally preferred, and retribution most signal was
+looked for. Mr. Hatherway investigated the matter. The supposed
+mendicants, the receivers of the mysterious scraps, turned out to be
+the parents of the boy. This young stork, at the expense of his own
+good name, had all this while been feeding the old birds.&#8221;</p></div>
+
+<p>A striking story of the unknown resources and trials of the
+poverty-stricken is the following, a favourite one with that capital
+<i>raconteur</i>, the late Julian Young.</p>
+
+<p>A certain diplomatist was many years ago despatched by the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> English
+Government on an embassy extraordinary to one of the continental courts,
+where his handsome person and the urbanity of his manners made him a
+general favourite. On his departure the sovereign to whom he was
+accredited presented him with a small box of unusual value as a mark of
+his esteem. It had on its lid a miniature of the king set in brilliants of
+great beauty. When he had retired from public life and happened to give a
+dinner to any of his friends, he was fond of producing it at the dessert,
+as it afforded him an opportunity of descanting on the king&#8217;s appreciation
+of his services. On one of these occasions the box was brought forth,
+handed by the butler to the master, and passed round. The last person into
+whose hands it went was an old general, who, from some failure in
+investments, was known to be in embarrassed circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>In due course all rose to join the ladies, and in so doing the owner of
+the snuff-box looked round for it in order that it might be replaced in
+the cabinet. Not seeing the box, the owner immediately made inquiries
+concerning it, and asked the gentlemen to make search for it, suggesting
+that it was possible that some one in a fit of absence might have placed
+it in his pocket. Everybody denied having any knowledge of it, though one
+or two present declared that the old general was the last person in whose
+hands they remembered to have seen it. &#8220;Having seen it before,&#8221; the old
+general said, &#8220;he had but bestowed a cursory glance upon it and then
+placed it in the centre.&#8221; The strictest search about the room was then
+made, but only with fruitless results. The owner of the box assumed much
+gravity of manner, and having referred to the seriousness of the loss,
+said, &#8220;I suspect no one, and that I may have no cause to do so, I must ask
+you to let me search you all without distinction.&#8221; Two or three rose to
+depart, but they were anticipated by their entertainer, who put his back
+against the door and refused egress to any one. The old general stepped
+forward and said, &#8220;Sir, do you mean to insult us because we have drunk
+your wine? If any one dares to oppose my exit from this room, I shall call
+him to account.&#8221; The old grizzled warrior strode out with a firm and
+defiant air. Known to be poor, and from his determined departure on the
+occasion of the proposed search, the general was coldly and shyly regarded
+by those who knew the circumstances, and by those who afterwards heard of
+them.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span>Some time later, at the same host&#8217;s table, the butler, hearing the story
+of the lost snuff-box, informed his master that on the occasion alluded to
+be had taken it up and deposited it in a little drawer at the end of a
+sideboard, where it had been occasionally kept, and the butler went to the
+drawer and found the lost treasure.</p>
+
+<p>As quickly as possible the next morning the owner of the snuff-box sought
+the old general, told him everything, and made him an ample apology. They
+were at once friendly as of old. After some conversation, the owner of the
+snuff-box said, &#8220;But may I ask you why you so resolutely refused to be
+searched?&#8221; &#8220;Alas!&#8221; said the soldier, &#8220;I refused to be searched because,
+though I had not stolen your snuff-box, I had stolen your food. I blush to
+own, sir, that the greater part of every morsel put upon my plate was
+transferred to a pocket-handkerchief (spread upon my knee beneath the
+table), and taken home to a starving wife and family.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Equally, if not more romantic is another military story, also related by
+Julian Young, which, were it not for the unquestionable <i>bona fides</i> of
+that gentleman, might well be questioned, so suggestive is it of a page
+from a novel.</p>
+
+<p>An aristocratic lady residing on the family estate in Ireland advertised
+for a governess for her daughters. The successful candidate was a young
+French lady of talent and fascinating manners. She had not long taken up
+her residence with the lady and her daughters when she inspired the nephew
+of her mistress with a tender passion. A gentleman of principle, and only
+possessing slender means, he resolved to control his sentiment and in no
+way reveal it.</p>
+
+<p>Some months elapsed, and one morning while the family were at breakfast,
+they were surprised by the entrance of a servant, who inquired of the lady
+of the house if she could see visitors. Asking who they were, she was
+informed that the party consisted of two gentlemen, who had travelled
+there in a coach-and-four, attended by a livery servant, evidently a
+foreigner. Thinking that visitors at such an early hour must have
+important business, the servant was told by his mistress that she would at
+once see them. She remained with the visitors some little time, and then
+returned, informing the governess that her presence was immediately
+required by the two gentlemen, who had come on important business.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span>The governess was absent more than half an hour, and on her return to the
+breakfast-room appeared to be labouring under strong excitement. She then
+begged Lady E&mdash;&mdash; to be kind enough to step into the library to speak to
+two friends of hers, who had something of great importance to communicate.
+The mistress of the establishment complied, and the governess, left with
+her pupils, was interrogated with much amusing curiosity by them on the
+strange visit of two gentlemen at such an early hour in the day. The
+governess, in a tremor of nervousness, answered nothing, left her pupils,
+and going to her own apartment, locked herself in.</p>
+
+<p>The interview between Lady E&mdash;&mdash; and the strangers was exceedingly
+interesting. One of the visitors spoke to her in French, and at great
+length. Having prefaced what he had to say by apologising for the seeming
+intrusion, Lady E&mdash;&mdash; was informed that he was delegated by the governess
+to perform a duty which rightly devolved upon herself, but which she had
+not the moral courage to discharge. It was also stated by the speaker that
+Mademoiselle H&mdash;&mdash; acknowledged gratefully the extraordinary kindness with
+which she had been treated. Lady E&mdash;&mdash; was then told that in pretending to
+be dependent on her own exertions for bread, the governess had imposed on
+her mistress. She was, it was said, as well born as Lady E&mdash;&mdash;, and almost
+as opulent. It was at the request of the visitors that Mademoiselle H&mdash;&mdash;
+had answered the advertisement, for the reason that perhaps under such a
+roof as Lady E&mdash;&mdash;&#8217;s the young lady would be spared the persecution of an
+unscrupulous kinsman, who conceived that his cousin was endeavouring to
+supplant him in the good graces of a relative whose favours he had
+forfeited solely by misconduct. The older kinsman alluded to had just
+died, and had bequeathed his sole possessions to the governess. She was
+mistress of a ch&acirc;teau in Southern France, in addition to an unencumbered
+rent-roll of &pound;7000 a year. In conclusion, the gentleman in his own name
+and that of his fellow trustee begged to state that in a month&#8217;s time the
+presence of Mademoiselle H&mdash;&mdash; would be imperative, for the purpose of
+hearing the will read, and to meet the avocat, the executors, and certain
+other persons interested. Complimenting the mistress of the Irish mansion
+upon her urbanity, the visitors withdrew, jumped into their carriage, and
+were driven away as rapidly as they came.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span>The daughters of Lady E&mdash;&mdash; and her nephew were made acquainted with the
+good fortune of the French governess. She had won the affections of her
+pupils, and they regretted parting with her. However, they rejoiced at her
+prosperity. The nephew&#8217;s heart glowed with hope and affection. Had he been
+richer he would before have declared his passion. On hearing his aunt&#8217;s
+recital of the governess&#8217;s actual position he at once resolved to press
+his suit. When Mademoiselle H&mdash;&mdash; had listened to his declaration of love,
+she met it with haughty demeanour and frigid words, stating that she
+suspected her money had more attraction for him than her person, assigning
+as her reason for such impression that he had shunned her while he thought
+her poor, but had sought her as soon as he had found her to be rich. He
+assured her that he had loved her at first sight, but had been deterred by
+honourable motives and the smallness of his fortune from thinking of
+matrimony; that he had purposely kept out of danger&#8217;s way, but that as to
+wishing to marry her for the sake of her money, it was a cruel imputation,
+and stung him to the quick. He then quitted her soon afterwards, mounted a
+horse, rode away and found a notary public. When he again saw Mademoiselle
+H&mdash;&mdash; he put into her hands a document by which he conveyed to her
+unconditionally and absolutely every farthing he had in the world. In
+return for it he asked for the lady&#8217;s hand and heart. He added that if he
+proved unworthy of her, her money would be in her own power, and that if
+he lived to deserve her love, he was sure she would never let him want.
+She yielded to his solicitations, and they eloped.</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely had the honeymoon run its course when the husband discovered that
+he was united to a penniless woman. In spite of his reserve the governess
+had detected his passion, and by the aid of confederates and her own
+adroitness had made herself possessor of his patrimony. The victim sought
+to repair his fortune at the sword&#8217;s point in the Crimean war, where he
+obtained considerable distinction.</p>
+
+<p>Incredible as this narrative may seem, there is a yet more marvellous one
+which must be true, since &#8220;it was in the papers.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>In the autumn of 1827 two men were examined at the Marylebone police-court
+under circumstances of a peculiar and suspicious nature. The night
+previously a patrol in the New<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> Road watched the men, and subsequently saw
+them deep in conversation by a lamp-post, and soon afterwards one man
+deliberately began to tie his companion up to the lamp-post, the suspended
+man offering no resistance to the labours of the improvised Jack Ketch.
+The patrol interfered, and both men proceeded to beat him with great
+violence. Some watchmen of the district hearing the cries of the assailed
+constable hastened to the spot, and the constable&#8217;s assailants were
+secured. While being examined before the magistrate, the men stated that
+they had been gambling by the light from the lamp, and that one of them
+had lost all his money to the other, and had then staked his clothes. The
+winner demurred to continue playing for the reason that if he again won he
+should not care to strip the loser of his habiliments. His enthusiastic
+companion rejoined that should he again lose, life would be worthless to
+him. A bargain was made to again play, it being understood that the
+unsuccessful gambler if again unlucky should be hung by his companion, who
+should strip him when dead. The fellow lost, and informed the magistrate
+that he was only submitting to the terms of the treaty when the patrol
+came up and interfered with himself and his companion. The magistrate
+concluding they had been intoxicated, discharged them with a caution.</p>
+
+<p>A remarkably grim passage this in a gambler&#8217;s life, and unfortunately most
+of the selections in this section of the subject are more or less sombre,
+for romance is naturally more associated with tragedy than comedy.
+&#8220;Pitiful, wondrous pitiful,&#8221; is my next illustration, which is related by
+Sir Walter Scott, who when attending Dugald Stewart&#8217;s lectures on Moral
+Philosophy used to sit by the side of an amiable youth, in whose society
+he afterwards took great interest. They became companions, and frequently
+used to stroll out beyond the city, enjoying the charms of road and
+stream. One day during the perambulation they met a singularly venerable
+&#8220;Blue Gown,&#8221; a beggar of the Edie Ochiltree stamp, clean and ruddy. The
+beggar had three or four times previously encountered Scott, who with his
+usual good-heartedness had relieved him in answer to solicitation. When
+Mr. Scott and his fellow-student passed the old man, the companion of
+Scott exhibited peculiar restlessness and confusion. The beggar again had
+something dropped into his hand by Scott, who said soon afterwards to his
+companion, &#8220;Do you know anything to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> dishonour of the old beggar?&#8221;
+&#8220;God forbid!&#8221; said the youth, and bursting into tears added, &#8220;I am ashamed
+to speak to him; he is my father! He has laid by for himself, but he
+stands bleaching his head in the wind, that he may get means to pay for my
+education.&#8221; Scott spoke words of tenderness and sympathy to the
+mendicant&#8217;s son, and kept his secret.</p>
+
+<p>Some time afterwards he again met the hale &#8220;Blue Gown.&#8221; &#8220;God bless you!&#8221;
+said the old man; &#8220;you have been kind to Willie. He has often spoken of
+it. Come to our roof, for my boy has been ill. It will strengthen him, if
+you will go and see him.&#8221; At 2 o&#8217;clock on the following Saturday, Willie&#8217;s
+old fellow-student found the old man and his son waiting to receive him at
+their little cottage outside the city. It was a modest little tenement,
+and Willie sat on a bench before the door to enjoy the sunshine. The son
+of the voluntary mendicant looked wan and emaciated. He had been very ill.
+There was a dinner of mutton, potatoes and whisky. They all enjoyed
+themselves, and during their conversation the old man said, &#8220;Please God I
+may live to see my bairn wag his head in a pulpit yet.&#8221; Scott left them
+with tokens of good will and friendship. He communicated the story to his
+mother, who informed her husband, and it was at no distant time that Dr.
+Erskine&#8217;s influence (through the good offices of Mr. and Mrs. Scott)
+obtained the old man&#8217;s son a tutorship in the north of Scotland.</p>
+
+<p>To quit the pathetic for a moment, it would scarcely be thought likely
+that that necessary but extremely practical article&mdash;blacking&mdash;has ever
+been associated with romance; but Mr. Smiles tells the story of a poor
+soldier having one day called at the shop of a hairdresser who was busy
+with his customers and asked relief, stating that he had stayed beyond his
+leave of absence, and unless he could get a lift on the coach, fatigue and
+severe punishment awaited him. The hairdresser listened to his story
+respectfully, and gave him a guinea. &#8220;God bless you, sir!&#8221; exclaimed the
+soldier, astonished at the amount. &#8220;How can I repay you? I have nothing in
+the world but this,&#8221; pulling out a dirty piece of paper from his pocket;
+&#8220;it is a receipt for making blacking&mdash;it is the best that was ever seen;
+many a half-guinea I have had for it from the officers, and many bottles I
+have sold. May you be able to get something for it to repay you for your
+kindness to the poor soldier!&#8221; Oddly enough that dirty piece of paper
+proved worth half a million of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> money to the hairdresser. It was no less
+than a receipt for the famous Day and Martin&#8217;s blacking, the hairdresser
+being the late Mr. Day.</p>
+
+<p>The picture of little ones asking for bread and the parents finding none
+in the cupboard is a very old story. Domestic affection, struggling amidst
+difficulties and distress, has produced heroes and martyrs innumerable,
+but few more interesting than Peter Stokes, famous in years gone by as the
+&#8220;Flying Pieman.&#8221; Every day at the beginning of the present century
+(excepting when it rained) the familiar figure of that now historic
+personage might have been seen in the steep thoroughfare between Staple&#8217;s
+Inn and Field Lane. Peter obtained the <i>sobriquet</i> of &#8220;Flying Pieman&#8221; from
+the celerity of his movements. There was some slight mistake concerning
+his nickname, for Peter Stokes sold baked plum pudding, not pies. Stokes
+was one of the celebrated old-fashioned London characters, as well known
+to cockneys of that period as Billy Waters or the negro crossing-sweeper
+at the foot of Ludgate Hill.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after the clock of St. Andrew&#8217;s Church struck twelve, Stokes used to
+turn out of Fetter Lane with a tray of smoking hot plum pudding, the
+pudding cut into twelve slices, the price of each being a penny. Peter
+carried his tray in one hand and a bright silver scapula in the other. The
+customer received his slice of pudding from the scapula after a penny had
+been deposited upon the tray (Peter never gave change), the &#8220;Flying
+Pieman,&#8221; as he perambulated or as he stopped, never being known to utter
+any other word than &#8220;Buy, buy, buy.&#8221; He always wore a black vest,
+swallow-tailed coat, stout silk stockings, and shoes with bright silver
+buckles, while a snowy white apron and faultlessly frilled shirt completed
+a modish and impressive costume. No hat or cap adorned his head, the hair
+of which was close cropped and powdered.</p>
+
+<p>Peter Stokes was sometimes known to have disposed of fifty rounds of
+pudding <i>per diem</i>. His customers have often included aldermen, ladies of
+quality, and blue blood bucks, but they received no more attention than
+did rougher and humbler patrons. The &#8220;Flying Pieman&#8221; was attentive to
+everybody, but he never turned back for anybody. Making his way deftly
+through crowds of pedestrians, hackney coaches or waggons, the &#8220;Flying
+Pieman&#8221; went straight on, calling out &#8220;Buy,&#8221; and only stopped for the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span>
+proffered penny; but his real history was indeed a curious one.
+Contemporary with him was a portrait painter in Rathbone Place. The artist
+painted with great assiduity in the morning, and his evening parties
+though homely, were pleasant and refined. A devoted wife and affectionate
+children cheered the life of the amiable and industrious artist. He was a
+genial-faced man, with dark brown hair. This artist and Peter Stokes were
+identical. When young, Stokes made a love-match, married upon next to
+nothing, and in a few years found himself the father of several children.
+A modest, industrious, painstaking artist, he found but few to sit to him
+for a portrait. Things grew exceedingly bad with him.</p>
+
+<p>One day he heard one of his boys crying for something to eat, and the
+artist found that his wife had no bread to give the hungry child. Peter
+Stokes hurried from his home with an almost wet picture, which he
+deposited at a neighbouring pawnbroker&#8217;s. Returning, the needy artist saw
+at a street-corner a boy selling baked potatoes, and moreover the artist
+observed that the boy was doing a busy trade. Crushing pride, and taking
+his faithful and devoted wife into close confidence, Peter unfolded a plan
+by which he too might sell something profitable in the street. Mrs. Stokes
+seconded the suggestion, and Peter soon commenced his career as a vendor
+of baked plum pudding. He threw a desperate card, but it turned up trumps.
+Stokes&#8217;s portraits have gone to the limbo of oblivion, but the peculiar
+method by which he impressed the crowd with his tray of baked plum pudding
+shows at any rate that its vendor had a good eye for artistic effect.</p>
+
+<p>If it were, as some will doubtless say, &#8220;a sin and shame&#8221; that an artist
+of Peter Stokes&#8217;s ability should have to turn itinerant vendor of
+pennyworths of pudding, the old adage &#8220;Be sure your sin will find you out&#8221;
+was at fault for once; but to make up for the omission in his case, how
+wonderfully true was the proverb in the romantic history of Lord Chief
+Justice Holt, whose impecuniosity caused him to commit an act that
+resulted in a truly tragic <i>finale</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Sir John Holt, famous for his integrity, firmness, and great legal
+knowledge, who filled the office of Recorder of London for a year and a
+half, losing it in consequence of his uncompromising opposition to the
+abolition of the &#8220;Test&#8221; Act, and whose upright discharge of the important
+duties of Lord Chief Justice gained<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> him the highest honour and esteem,
+was as a youth wilful and dissipated. In some respects his deeds at that
+period bore likeness to those of the madcap Prince Hal, when that
+personage was the associate of Falstaff. He was a roysterer, gambler and,
+according to some, highwayman. To use Lord Campbell&#8217;s words, &#8220;They even
+relate, many years after that, when he was going the circuit as Chief
+Justice, he recognised a man convicted capitally before him as one of his
+own accomplices in a robbery, and that having visited him in gaol, and
+inquired after the rest of the gang, he received this answer: &#8216;Ah! my
+lord, they are all hanged but myself and your lordship.&#8217;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>On one occasion, Holt, with a band of dissolute and reckless companions,
+found himself participator in the perplexing results of a common
+bankruptcy. They were without the prospect of obtaining a supper. It was
+then agreed that they should make their way singly, each individual to do
+the best he could for himself. The band of roysterers separated, Holt
+finding himself on a lonely and cheerless road. He was intrepid, nimble
+witted, and full of self-possession. Spurring his horse, he set off at a
+gallop. Arriving in front of a little hostelry, he alighted from his
+steed, handed it over to the care of an ostler, and without more ado went
+into the house and ordered the best entertainment that it could afford.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever hardships he had undergone, Holt had now the pleasing expectation
+of a savoury supper and comfortable lodgment. Waiting for a smoking dish,
+the odour from which pleasantly saluted his nostrils, he carelessly
+strolled from the chamber where he had been sitting into the kitchen.
+There the hostess was busy in her culinary labours, while near the blazing
+fire sat a girl about thirteen years old, pale, haggard, and shivering in
+an ague fit. John Holt, though a &#8220;ne&#8217;er do weel,&#8221; and a wild impetuous
+fellow was not without the instinct of a compassionate heart. He asked
+many questions concerning the malady of the young girl as she moaned and
+rocked herself in the warmth of the ruddy embers. The mother replied that
+for a year her daughter had been stricken by the ague, that the labour of
+the doctors trying to cure her had been in vain, and that their charges
+had nearly brought the fortunes of the house to ruin.</p>
+
+<p>The young student having listened to the story of the mother&#8217;s misfortune,
+then spoke in contemptuous terms of doctors all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> round, bade her take
+courage and be of good cheer, for he was acquainted with a specific that
+would speedily take away her daughter&#8217;s ague. &#8220;Indeed,&#8221; said Holt, &#8220;you
+need be under no further concern, for you may assure yourself the girl
+shall never have another fit.&#8221; Taking a piece of parchment from his breast
+pocket, he with much gravity and deliberation proceeded to inscribe some
+Greek characters on the scrap, and having concluded his work, charged the
+mother to bind the parchment upon her daughter&#8217;s wrist, allowing it to
+remain there until the ague departed. By some strange coincidence, or by
+the effects wrought upon the sympathies of the girl at the appearance and
+touch of the supposed charm, her ague did depart, and returned no more, at
+least not during the week John Holt remained the guest of mine hostess.</p>
+
+<p>When he deemed it prudent or convenient to depart, he asked for his bill
+with that confidence so often masking the demeanour of the bold adventurer
+reduced to impecuniosity. But the hostess, smiling and embarrassed, said
+she could make no demand for payment, and further added that she rather
+felt in the position of one owing something, than as one having something
+to receive. Indeed, she expressed sorrowfully that she could in no way
+compensate her guest for the miraculous cure which he had wrought, and
+that had she but known him sooner the expense of forty pounds would not
+have been swallowed up by the <i>posse</i> of useless doctors. Overcome by the
+profuse thanks and grateful acknowledgments of his hostess John Holt
+condescended to waive paying his week&#8217;s bill, and departed with much
+hilarity on his journey.</p>
+
+<p>As months and years rolled away, the incidents of a busy life and the
+assiduous practice of his profession crowded out of John Holt&#8217;s memory the
+recollection of his strange and facetious adventure at the hostelry on the
+Oxford road. Holt&#8217;s habits changed. He became the wise and impartial
+judge, so admirable and so competent, that even his stern Tory father
+(spite of the son&#8217;s Liberal politics) grew proud of the man who in his
+youthful career at Oxford had been the wildest of the wild, and the most
+erring of the erring. The years have gone on, and when we turn again to
+John Holt, he is approaching his sixtieth year. The scene is still in the
+county of Oxford, but this time in one of the principal towns. The Summer
+Assizes are being held, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> the judges are sitting in all wonted
+solemnity and state. In the Criminal Court a cause of unusual interest is
+being heard.</p>
+
+<p>At the bar there stands a poor, miserable and decrepit old woman. As she
+looks at the grave and dignified judge she shakes with terror. The causes
+of her fear are solemn and significant, for she is about to be tried for
+her life, on the charge of being a witch. In those days of which I am
+writing, there existed a terrible superstition in the popular mind
+concerning witchcraft, believed as it was to be the crime of all others
+the most destructive to man and the most impious in the sight of God. The
+comely, dignified and shrewd-eyed judge excites the keenest interest in
+the crowded court, for he is one of the &#8220;men of mark&#8221; of his age, the
+profound lawyer, the incorruptible dispenser of justice, and the champion
+of truth and freedom.</p>
+
+<p>Witnesses are called. They give their evidence in a plain unpretentious
+manner, and it is certain that they possess a firm faith in what they
+allege against the miserable prisoner. The principal accusation against
+her is that she holds in her possession a potent and mysterious charm. It
+enables her to spread disease, or to cure it, and it is further stated
+that she has lately been detected using it. &#8220;Has anybody seen it?&#8221;
+inquires the judge. &#8220;Yes, please you, my lord, and it is now here ready to
+be produced.&#8221; His lordship directs that it shall be handed to him, and his
+order is obeyed. Behold! nothing but a dirty ball wrapped round with rag
+and pack-thread. Removing these, he discovers a scrap of stained and
+time-worn parchment inscribed with characters in his own handwriting.
+Chief Justice Holt, after the lapse of forty years, recognises the Greek
+letters which he had scrawled in the inn kitchen situate on the Oxford
+road.</p>
+
+<p>Deep silence reigns in the crowded court-house, and every eye is turned on
+the judge. Lifting his head from his hands, in which it had been buried
+for a few moments, he says to the jury,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Gentlemen, I must now relate an incident of my life which ill-suits my
+position. To conceal that incident would be to increase the awful folly
+which I must atone. Did I conceal that folly of which I was guilty, I
+should endanger innocence and countenance superstition. This so-called
+charm which these poor ignorant people suppose to have the power of life
+and death is a senseless piece of parchment, on which with my own hand I
+wrote<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> and gave the poor woman. This poor woman for no other reason stands
+before me accused of witchcraft.&#8221; Chief Justice Holt then narrated the
+whole story of his adventure in his early years at the woman&#8217;s hostelry on
+the Oxford road, and the recital produced such an effect upon the minds of
+the jury that his old hostess was not only acquitted, but was one of the
+last persons tried for the crime of witchcraft in this country.</p>
+
+<p>I turn to another country and to incidents enveloped in a brighter and
+pleasanter atmosphere. Readers of the older French literature are familiar
+with the notes, verses, and dramas of Alexis Piron. The Burgundian
+<i>bon-vivant</i> knew many adventures and much impecuniosity; but
+notwithstanding Fortune&#8217;s buffets he retained &#8220;a revenue of good spirits,&#8221;
+and when turned fifty years of age he participated in a bit of romance.</p>
+
+<p>One evening after supper he went to the shop of a grocer, Gallet, a
+song-writer and boon companion. A female entered the shop and asked for
+some coffee and matches. Gallet was away, so the poet undertook to serve
+the lady, saying to her, &#8220;Is that all you want?&#8221; The grocer entering
+added, &#8220;Mademoiselle ought to have a husband in the bargain.&#8221; &#8220;Excellent,&#8221;
+said Piron, &#8220;if the damsel will take up with any kind of wood for her
+arrow.&#8221; A blush suffused the lady&#8217;s cheeks, and she departed without
+making rejoinder.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning she visited the poet. &#8220;Monsieur,&#8221; said she with trepidation,
+&#8220;we are two children of Burgundy. I have long wanted to see a man of so
+much wit, and having learned yesterday that it was you with whom I had to
+do in M. Gallet&#8217;s shop, I have come to-day without ceremony to pay you a
+visit. How weary you must grow here! I was very much afraid of finding
+some handsome lady from the theatre, but, heaven be praised!&#8221;&mdash;with a
+glance at the extreme poverty of his surroundings&mdash;&#8220;you live like a
+Trappist. Have you never thought of making an end of this?&#8221; Said Piron: &#8220;I
+leave the care of that to la Camarde; but if you please, what do you
+mean?&#8221; &#8220;I wish to say, have you ever thought of marriage?&#8221; &#8220;Not much.
+Mademoiselle, pray sit down while I light the fire.&#8221; &#8220;You don&#8217;t know,
+Monsieur Piron! it will make you laugh.&#8221; &#8220;So much the worse.&#8221; &#8220;I shall
+speak plainly. If your heart, has the same sentiment as mine&#8221;&mdash;the poet
+was wonder-stricken, and looked at the lady in silence&mdash;&#8220;in a word,
+Monsieur Piron, I come to offer you my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> hand and heart, not forgetting my
+life-annuity of two thousand livres.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The poet controlled his merry temper, and was touched when he thought what
+a compassionate friend had been vouchsafed to him. He saw the woman&#8217;s eyes
+moist with tears, and he embraced her. &#8220;I leave to you,&#8221; said he, &#8220;all the
+preparations for the wedding. Gallet will write the epithalamium.&#8221; &#8220;You
+will make me, Monsieur Piron, the happiest person in the world I did not
+hope for so happy a conclusion, for&mdash;I do not wish to conceal anything
+from you&mdash;I am <i>fifty-five</i>!&#8221; &#8220;Well,&#8221; said Piron, with a slight shrug, &#8220;we
+have over a hundred years between us. We would have done well to have met
+sooner.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>This marriage took place amid festivity. The old maid had a good heart and
+an amiable temper. She proved a faithful sister, friend, and servant to
+Piron. He had aromatic coffee in the morning, the beverage being all the
+more palatable, as it was accompanied by the maker&#8217;s cheerful gossip in
+the chimney-corner. Madame Piron expressed herself enthusiastically about
+her husband&#8217;s writings, and Piron felt no longer alone, was able to refuse
+going out to dinner in bad weather, and had a crown in his pocket when he
+sauntered in the sunshine. He was well off enough to occasionally give
+alms, and at last he could receive friends at his hearth. This episode in
+the life of Piron is one of the brightest romances of impecuniosity.</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely less happy is an anecdote of Quin the actor, who, if he said many
+spiteful things, was not incapable of a generous action. James Thomson,
+another of the brotherhood of genius, found himself immured in a
+sponging-house. In his dolorous and solitary condition he was one evening
+surprised by a visit from Quin. They cracked a bottle, and as the night
+wore away a choice supper was served by one of the attendants of the
+prison. Thomson, a sensitive nervous man, partook of the dishes with
+indifferent appetite, for his thoughts wandered to the payment of the
+bill. Another bottle of claret was drunk, and the visitor rose to depart.
+&#8220;Mr. Thomson,&#8221; said Quin, &#8220;before I go, let me say that there is an
+account between us.&#8221; Thomson was alarmed, and stammered out that he was
+unaware of any obligations. &#8220;They are mine,&#8221; replied Quin. &#8220;I have
+received so much delight from the writings of James Thomson, that I
+consider myself his debtor at least for a hundred pounds.&#8221; Saying this,
+he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> placed a note for that amount on the table, shook the astonished poet
+by the hand, and bowed himself out.</p>
+
+<p>I will conclude the selections of romantic impecuniosity with the case of
+Thomas De Quincey, who, according to some authorities, being afraid of an
+oral examination at Oxford College, left the university by stealth and
+wandered away, his stock of money being scant and his whereabouts quite
+unknown to his friends. He wandered about Denbighshire, Merionethshire,
+and Carnarvonshire. Lodging at some place, De Quincey took affront at
+something said by a landlady, and abruptly left his quarters. In his
+&#8220;Confessions of an Opium Eater&#8221; he says,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;This leaving the lodgings turned out a very unfortunate occurrence
+for me, because living henceforward at inns, I was drained of my money
+very rapidly. In a fortnight I was reduced to short allowance, that is
+I could allow myself only one meal a day. From the keen appetite
+produced by constant exercise and mountain air acting on a youthful
+stomach I soon began to suffer greatly on this slender regimen, for
+the single meal which I could venture to order was coffee or tea.
+This, however, was at length withdrawn, and afterwards so long as I
+remained in Wales I subsisted either on blackberries, hips, haws,
+etc., or on the usual hospitalities which I now and then received for
+such little services as I had an opportunity of rendering. Sometimes I
+wrote letters of business for cottagers who happened to have relations
+in Liverpool or London. More often I wrote love-letters to their
+sweethearts for young women who had lived as servants in Shrewsbury or
+any other towns on the English border. On all such occasions I gave
+great satisfaction to my humble friends, and was generally treated
+with hospitality; and once in particular near the village of
+Llan-y-styndw (or some such name), in a sequestered part of
+Merionethshire, I was entertained for upwards of three days by a
+family of young people with an affectionate and fraternal kindness
+that left an impression upon my heart not yet impaired. The family
+consisted at that time of four sisters and three brothers, all grown
+up, and all remarkable for elegance and delicacy of manners. So much
+beauty and so much native good breeding and refinement I do not
+remember to have seen before or since, in any cottage, except once or
+twice in Westmoreland and Devonshire. They spoke English, an
+accomplishment not often met with in so many members of one family,
+especially in villages remote from the high road. There I wrote, in my
+first introduction, a letter about prize-money for one of the
+brothers, who had served on board an English man-of-war, and more
+privately, two love-letters for two of the sisters. They were both
+interesting-looking girls, and one of uncommon loveliness. In the
+midst of their confusion and blushes whilst dictating, or rather
+giving me general instructions, it did not require any great
+penetration to discover that what they wished was &#8220;that their letters
+should be as kind as was consistent with proper maidenly pride.&#8221; I
+continued so to temper my <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span>expressions as to reconcile the
+gratification of both feelings, and they were as much pleased with the
+way in which I expressed their thoughts as, in their simplicity, they
+were astonished at my having so readily discovered them. The reception
+one meets with from the women of a family generally determines the
+tenor of one&#8217;s whole entertainment. In this case I had discharged my
+confidential duties as secretary so much to the general satisfaction,
+perhaps also amusing them with my conversation, that I was pressed to
+stay with a cordiality which I had little inclination to resist. I
+slept with the brothers, the only unoccupied bed standing in the
+apartment of the young women; but in all other points they treated me
+with a respect not usually paid to purses as light as mine, as if my
+scholarship were sufficient evidence that I was of gentle blood.&#8221;</p></div>
+
+<p>Farther on he says,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>&#8220;The only friend I had in this strange poverty of mine on first coming
+to London was a young woman. She was one of that unhappy class who
+belong to the outcasts and pariahs of our female population. For many
+weeks I had walked at night with this poor friendless girl up and down
+Oxford Street, or had rested with her on steps, or under the shelter
+of porticoes. One night when we were pacing slowly along Oxford
+Street, and after a day when I had felt unusually ill and faint, I
+requested her to turn off with me into Soho Square. Thither we went,
+and we sat down on the steps of a house which to this hour I never
+pass without a pang of grief and an inner act of homage to the spirit
+of the unhappy girl in memory of the noble act she performed. Suddenly
+as we sat I grew much worse: I had been leaning my head against her
+bosom. I sank from her arms and fell backwards on the steps. Uttering
+a cry of terror, but without a moment&#8217;s delay, she ran off into Oxford
+Street, and in less time than could be imagined returned to me with a
+glass of port wine and spices that acted upon my empty stomach, which
+at that time would have rejected all solid food, with an instantaneous
+power of restoration, and for this glass the generous girl without a
+murmur paid out of her own humble purse, at a time, be it remembered,
+when she had scarcely wherewithal to purchase the bare necessaries of
+life, and when she could have no reason to expect that I should ever
+be able to reimburse her.&#8221;</p></div>
+
+<p>I will conclude this chapter with two most truly remarkable stories. The
+first is one which Sir Walter Scott used to relate with his own inimitable
+powers of story-telling, and which, as the victim was his own cousin, the
+narrative on the lips of the novelist ever excited profound interest in
+the minds of listeners. It would seem that as a midshipman his cousin
+Watty was extremely popular on ship-board and on shore. He was a bit of a
+rip, but generous to a fault, handsome, merry and reckless. After one
+memorable long voyage he put in with others at Portsmouth, and enjoyed
+those roysterings, love<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> passages, tavern pleasures, and adventures so
+dear to the heart of &#8220;Jack ashore.&#8221; With a couple of companions Watty
+Scott was in the unenviable position of being left high and dry on the
+strand of impecuniosity. Moreover the three jolly sailors had run up an
+immense bill at a tavern on the Point, the settlement of which haunted
+them by day and by night. In their recklessness, almost amounting to
+despair, they still went on living high, and steeping recollection of
+their liabilities in the fumes of baccy and the odours of the flowing
+bowl.</p>
+
+<p>At last came the fatal and imperative orders from official quarters that
+they must &#8220;ship off.&#8221; Summoning up their best graces and most insinuating
+powers of expression in the way of eloquence, they sought an interview
+with their hostess, and acquainted her with their foolish but unfortunate
+position; to which account she listened with attention and deep interest.
+She was informed not only of their perfect inability to meet the bill, but
+that in a short period they were bound to be on board ship. Their caterer
+turned a deaf ear to the revelation of their poverty, and in the most
+virago-like manner fiercely informed them &#8220;that they could not budge an
+inch.&#8221; The sailors pleaded in earnest tones for her mercy, but in the
+course of an hour they found themselves guarded by bailiffs, and in one of
+the parlours of the hostelry the three youths, for they were nothing more,
+sat in moody contemplation of their impending disgrace.</p>
+
+<p>Towards evening their creditor sought them with a less fierce aspect and
+uttered words less bitter and explosive than those of which she had
+delivered herself in the morning. She told her debtors she would give them
+a chance, and proposed a plan by which her claim could be cancelled. The
+sailors were told by her that she was a lone woman and had long wanted a
+marriage certificate &#8220;to give her a respectable position in her calling,&#8221;
+that one of them must marry her&mdash;which one she didn&#8217;t care a curse&mdash;but by
+all that was holy if she didn&#8217;t marry one of them, all three should be
+packed off to gaol, and the ship must go without them. Remonstrance,
+promises to pay in a few months, the unreasonableness of the request, in
+fact everything said by the discomfited sailors was in vain. It was
+impossible to pacify her, and the victims of impecuniosity saw that the
+woman&#8217;s proposal was the only means of escaping from disgrace and
+humiliation. After taking counsel among themselves, the three sailors drew
+lots for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> the hymeneal martyrdom, and the ill-luck fell on Watty Scott.
+Next morning the midshipman and the landlady were spliced, and returned to
+the tavern, where a rich and liberal dinner awaited the newly married
+couple and the two fortunate companions of the bridegroom; and in the
+afternoon the three sailors were tumbled into a wherry, and were soon
+aboard ship. The marriage was kept a secret, and the first to reveal it
+was Watty Scott, who one day at a town in Jamaica, reading a newspaper,
+saw an account of a trial for murder and robbery in connection with a
+Portsmouth tavern, and having read all particulars, exclaimed, &#8220;Thank God,
+my wife&#8217;s hanged!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The other anecdote is more appalling in detail than anything I can
+remember, and is recorded of a German nobleman who was a contemporary of
+the first Napoleon.</p>
+
+<p>The story opens in the solitary chamber of a dilapidated ch&acirc;teau situated
+on the skirts of the Black Forest in Germany. In a corner of the chamber
+sits a young man of aristocratic mien and military garb, his face buried
+in his hands, and his whole demeanour indicating the most intense
+hopelessness and sorrow. The courtyard and gardens of the ch&acirc;teau, as they
+may be seen from the windows of the room in which the young man has sunk
+upon a seat, are everywhere pervaded by an air of desolation. Tokens of
+past opulence and taste may be observed in dismantled and untended
+flower-beds, fallen vases and statues, and in the unhinged and rusting
+iron gates. Forlorn as is the appearance of the interior and exterior of
+the once beautiful ch&acirc;teau, it is not more forlorn and desolate than the
+heart of the young soldier, sole tenant of the silent and deserted
+chamber. The young man&#8217;s history had been most melancholy. His mother,
+harshly used by the man who at the altar had sworn to love and cherish
+her, had died when he was only nineteen years of age. Her death was caused
+by a broken heart, and the son, finding that he held no place in the
+esteem or affections of the surviving parent, gladly accepted the offer of
+a commission in an Austrian company of hussars.</p>
+
+<p>After five years of hard and active service, respite and tranquil leisure
+fell to the lot of the young soldier, and with the instincts of a loyal
+and affectionate heart, he set out in the direction of his father&#8217;s
+residence on horseback, attended by his ordinary military servant.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span>On the second day&#8217;s journey while going in the direction of the parental
+home he found himself benighted in the midst of the Black Forest. It was a
+perilous and wearisome journey, which, however, found relief by the
+appearance of lights in what seemed to be some kind of human habitation.</p>
+
+<p>It proved to be a rough and isolated inn, where the officer and his
+orderly were soon housed, after accommodation had been found for their
+horses. Everything about the cabaret was rough, uncomfortable, and
+unprepossessing. The only man in attendance was of ruffianly and sinister
+aspect. The orderly after supper was requested by his master to sleep
+(ready for call) near the horses under the manger in the stable, and
+afterwards the officer (carefully concealing a pair of pistols under his
+cloak) requested to be shown to his sleeping apartment, which proved to be
+little better than a loft. He placed the oil lamp on a chair, laid his
+sword by it, and threw himself down on the rude pallet-bed without taking
+off his clothes. Not feeling sleepy he turned his pillow, and found that
+it was stained with blood recently shed, and which strengthening the
+apprehensions formed on his entrance into the house, at once impelled him
+to cock his pistols and draw his sword.</p>
+
+<p>For an hour or two the house seemed to be wrapped in profound silence, and
+just as the wearied guest found that drowsiness was stealing over him he
+cast his eyes across the room and noticed that a portion of the flooring
+heaved and rose. The officer crept from the bed and stood sword in hand
+watching a trap-door which had been quietly raised by a hand. With all the
+strength he could command and with all the quickness he could exercise he
+smote the hand, when the trap closed, and beneath it he heard a smothered
+cry. Hurrying down stairs, he reached the front door, unbarred it, made
+his way to the stable, and roused the servant. In a short time master and
+man were galloping away on the road, and the rest of their journey was
+secure and without adventure. On the third day he reached the ch&acirc;teau of
+his father. It was the soldier&#8217;s birthplace, and his heart filled with
+grief when he saw that his once-loved home was deserted and seemingly
+tenantless. Decay seemed to have invaded everything. No summons awaited
+their thundering knocks at the hall-door, but at one of the windows could
+be seen the pallid, ghastly visage of a man watching. Master and man made
+a forcible entry<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> into the house, and sought the room at the window of
+which had peered the strange and repulsive face. On entering the room the
+young soldier recognised his father, haggard and scowling, who when he saw
+his son&#8217;s extended hand held up a mutilated stump and said, &#8220;That&#8217;s your
+answer.&#8221; The father, ruined by reckless living, had, owing to his
+impecuniosity, joined a lawless gang frequenting the cabaret, and had
+sought to rob and murder his own son.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center">THE END</p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center">LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,<br />
+STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+
+<p><strong>Footnotes:</strong></p>
+
+<p><a name="f1" id="f1" href="#f1.1">[1]</a> The elder D&#8217;Israeli in summing up the character of this
+extraordinary man, who left behind him more than 6000 MSS., says, &#8220;A
+scholar of great acquirements and of no mean genius; hardy and
+inventive, eloquent and witty; he might have been an ornament to
+literature, which he made ridiculous; and the pride of the pulpit
+which he so egregiously disgraced; but having blunted and worn out
+that interior feeling which is the instinct of the good man, and the
+wisdom of the wise, there was no balance in his passions, and the
+decorum of life was sacrificed to its selfishness. He condescended to
+live on the follies of the people, and his sordid nature had changed
+him till he crept, &#8216;licking the dust with the serpent.&#8217;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><a name="f2" id="f2" href="#f2.1">[2]</a> Many struggles had to be endured, however, before this pinnacle of
+prosperity was attained.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Curiosities of Impecuniosity, by H. G. Somerville
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+Project Gutenberg's Curiosities of Impecuniosity, by H. G. Somerville
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Curiosities of Impecuniosity
+
+Author: H. G. Somerville
+
+Release Date: December 30, 2011 [EBook #38439]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CURIOSITIES OF IMPECUNIOSITY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
+generously made available by The Internet Archive.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  CURIOSITIES OF IMPECUNIOSITY.
+
+
+  BY H. G. SOMERVILLE,
+
+  AUTHOR OF
+  "NOT YET," "SELF AND SELF-SACRIFICE," ETC.
+
+
+  LONDON:
+  RICHARD BENTLEY & SON, NEW BURLINGTON STREET, W.
+  Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen.
+  1896.
+
+
+
+
+  LONDON:
+  PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
+  STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+It is customary for the proprietor when starting a newspaper or periodical
+to issue a notice to the public explaining--or purporting to explain--the
+_raison d'etre_ of the new venture, which notices, with very trifling
+exceptions, are to the effect that the projected journal "will supply a
+want long felt."
+
+I might, in sending forth the following pages, state something similar
+with perfect truth, since if the little work be as successful as (I say it
+with all modesty) it ought to be, it will unquestionably _supply_ a want
+long felt--by the author.
+
+It is frequently averred nowadays that much that is written bears evidence
+of being of a non-practical character, and under these circumstances, I
+felt I should take a pardonable pride in being able to point to one volume
+in the English language to which this stigma could not be applied; for I
+flatter myself the subject of Impecuniosity is one with which I have
+long--too long--been practically familiar.
+
+H. G. SOMERVILLE.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+  CHAP.                                                  PAGE
+
+     I. THE MORAL AND IMMORAL EFFECTS OF IMPECUNIOSITY      1
+
+    II. IMPECUNIOSITY OF THE GREAT                         13
+
+   III. THE SHIFTS OF IMPECUNIOSITY                        25
+
+    IV. THE LUCK AND ILL LUCK OF IMPECUNIOSITY             48
+
+     V. THE INGENUITY OF IMPECUNIOSITY                     73
+
+    VI. THE IMPECUNIOSITY OF ACTORS                        87
+
+   VII. IMPECUNIOSITY OF ARTISTS                          132
+
+  VIII. IMPECUNIOSITY OF AUTHORS                          158
+
+    IX. THE ROMANCE OF IMPECUNIOSITY                      196
+
+
+
+
+CURIOSITIES OF IMPECUNIOSITY.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE MORAL AND IMMORAL EFFECTS OF IMPECUNIOSITY.
+
+
+"I wish the good old times would come again, when we were not quite so
+rich," says Bridget Elia. "I am sure we were a great deal happier. A
+purchase is but a purchase now that you have money enough. Formerly it
+used to be a triumph. When we coveted a cheap luxury, we were used to have
+a debate two or three days before, and to weigh the for and against, and
+think what we might spare it out of, and what savings we could hit upon
+that would be an equivalent. A thing was worth buying then, when we felt
+the money we paid for it. Do you remember the brown suit which you made to
+hang upon you, it grew so threadbare, and all because of that folio
+Beaumont and Fletcher which you dragged home late at night from Barker's
+in Covent Garden? Do you remember how we eyed it for weeks before we could
+make up our minds to the purchase, and had not come to a determination
+till it was near ten o'clock on the Saturday night, when you set off from
+Islington, fearing you should be too late; and when the old bookseller
+with some grumbling opened his shop, and by the twinkling taper lighted
+out the relic from his dusty treasure-house, and when you lugged it home
+wishing it were twice as cumbersome, and when you presented it to me, and
+when we were exploring the perfection of it, and while I was repairing
+some of the loose leaves with paste, which your impatience would not
+suffer to be left till daybreak, was there no pleasure in being a poor
+man? Do you remember our pleasant walks to Enfield, and Potter's Bar, and
+Waltham, when we had a holiday? Holidays and all other fun are gone now we
+are rich,--and the little hand-basket in which I used to deposit our day's
+fare of savoury cold lamb, and how you would pry about at noontide for
+some decent house where we might go in and produce our store, only paying
+for the ale that you must call for, and speculate upon the looks of the
+landlady. We had cheerful looks for one another, and would eat our plain
+food savourily. You are too proud to see a play anywhere now but in the
+pit. Do you remember where it was we sat when we saw the 'Battle of
+Hexham,' and 'The Surrender of Calais,' and Bannister and Mrs. Bland in
+'The Children of the Wood,' when we squeezed out our shillings apiece to
+sit three or four times in a season in the one shilling gallery? You used
+to say that the gallery was the best place for seeing, and was the best
+place of all for enjoying a play socially, that the company we met there,
+not being in general readers of plays, were obliged to attend the more. I
+appeal to you whether, as a woman, I met generally with less attention and
+accommodation than I have since in more expensive situations in the house.
+You cannot see, you say, in the gallery now. I am sure we saw--and heard
+too--well enough then; but sight and all, I think, is gone with our
+poverty."
+
+But this is not the experience of every one. "Moralists," Sydney Smith
+remarks, "tell you of the evils of wealth and station, and the happiness
+of poverty. I have been very poor the greater part of my life and have
+borne it, I believe, as well as most people; but I can safely say I have
+been happier for every guinea I have earned."
+
+Doctor Johnson, in addition to alleging that "Poverty is a great enemy to
+human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues
+impracticable and others extremely difficult," maintains that "poverty
+takes away so many means of doing good, and produces so much inability to
+resist evil, both natural and moral, that it is by all virtuous means to
+be avoided." Burns is stronger still in his denunciation, exclaiming,
+"Poverty, thou half-sister of death, thou cousin-german of hell, where
+shall I find force of execration equal to the amplitude of thy demerits?"
+But in striking contrast to these, is that remarkable passage in George
+Sand's 'Consuelo,' in which every known blessing and virtue is attributed
+to "the goddess--the good goddess--of poverty."
+
+Samuel Smiles is of opinion that "nothing sharpens a man's wits like
+poverty. Hence many of the greatest men have originally been poor men.
+Poverty often purifies and braces a man's morals. To spirited people
+difficult tasks are usually the most delightful ones. If we may rely upon
+the testimony of history, men are brave, truthful, and magnanimous, not
+in proportion to their wealth, but in proportion to the smallness of their
+means."
+
+With this I agree to a certain extent; but I claim for impecuniosity
+certain charms and characteristics not associated with poverty. To me the
+former conveys the idea of a temporary shortness of funds; the latter of a
+chronic state of want.
+
+I should also have preferred to say, "Nothing sharpens a man's wits like
+impecuniosity," for to many minds poverty, _pur et simple_, has been
+simply crushing.
+
+A volume might be filled with the different opinions that have been
+expressed on this subject, and as there is abundant proof that many who
+have become great in science, literature, and art, have found insufficient
+means a stimulus to exertion, it must be conceded that poverty is a
+splendid thing for those who are equal to fighting against it.
+
+Although impecuniosity has been most extensively experienced by actors,
+authors, and artists, many of the mighty in law, medicine, and the army
+and navy, have furnished instances of its universality, but comparatively
+few cases are to be found connected with commerce. Of course it may be
+urged that the struggles of business men are, with few exceptions,
+unrecorded; but still I think their experience on this subject is rather
+of "the trials of poverty."
+
+The history of George Moore furnishes an interesting instance of the early
+struggles of a literally "commercial" man. When he came to London in 1825,
+he was possessed of a most modest amount of money; and on the day
+following his arrival in London he made application after application for
+employment without success, being sometimes received with laughter on
+account of his country-cut clothes and Cumberland dialect. At the
+establishment of Messrs. Meeking in Holborn, he was asked if he wanted a
+porter's situation. So broken-hearted was he at his many rebuffs, that he
+could not send a letter home, it was so blotted with tears.
+
+At last he was engaged by Mr. Ray, of Soho Square, at a salary of L30 a
+year, and bargained with a man driving a pony-cart to convey the box
+containing all his personal effects. They had not proceeded far when Moore
+missed the man: pony, cart, and trunk had vanished.
+
+The poor fellow sat down on a doorstep almost broken-hearted at his
+misfortune.
+
+After waiting for two hours, not knowing what to do for the best, he
+beheld a pony-cart approaching, and his joy may be imagined when he
+recognised the identical man with his identical trunk.
+
+The carrier, who had called somewhere in a bye-street and so missed Moore,
+did not scruple to laugh at him for his "greenness" in trusting a
+stranger. In gratitude, young Moore proffered the man his whole capital,
+consisting of nine shillings, which the driver declined, saying "he had
+agreed for five, and five was all he wanted," an instance of honesty which
+Mr. Moore, the merchant, never forgot.
+
+Want of money does not always demoralise. Andrew Marvell, the son of a
+Yorkshire minister and schoolmaster, entered Trinity College, Cambridge,
+at the early age of thirteen. Decoyed from home by the Jesuits, he was
+discovered by his father in a bookseller's in London, and induced to
+return to college, where he took his B.A. degree in 1628. He then appears
+to have travelled considerably in France and Italy, while from 1663 to
+1665 he was secretary to the Embassy to Muscovy, Sweden, and Denmark. In
+1660 he was chosen to represent his native town, Kingston-on-Hull, in
+Parliament. Here he made himself so obnoxious to the governing party, that
+his life was threatened, and he was forced to go into hiding. His
+conspicuous ability and marvellous wit were acknowledged by all, and
+appreciated by Charles II., who took pleasure in his company, and on one
+occasion instructed his Lord Treasurer to ferret him out, and ascertain in
+what way he could help him. At this time Marvell was living in a court off
+the Strand, up two pair of stairs, and there Lord Danby, abruptly opening
+the door, discovered him writing. He suggested that the Treasurer had
+mistaken his way; but his lordship replied, "Not now I have found Mr.
+Marvell;" adding that "His Majesty wished to know what he could do to
+serve him." Marvell replied that "it was not in His Majesty's power to
+serve him;" adding that "he knew full well the nature of Courts, having
+been in many; and that whosoever is distinguished by the favour of the
+prince, is expected to vote in his interest." Lord Danby told him that
+"His Majesty, from the just sense he had of his merit alone, desired to
+know whether there was any place at Court he could be pleased with." The
+answer to this was that "he could not with honour accept the offer, since
+if he did he must either be ungrateful to the king in voting against him,
+or false to his country in giving in to the measures of the Court. The
+only favour therefore which he begged of His Majesty was, that he would
+esteem him as faithful a subject as any he had, and more truly in his
+interest by refusing his offers, than he could have been by embracing
+them." After this Lord Danby said that "the king had ordered Mr. Marvell
+L1000, which he hoped he would receive till he could think of something
+farther to ask His Majesty;" whereupon Marvell called to his
+serving-boy,--
+
+"Jack, what had I for dinner yesterday?"
+
+"The little shoulder of mutton."
+
+"Right! What shall I have to-day?"
+
+"The blade bone boiled."
+
+"Right! You see, my lord, my dinner is provided, and I do not want the
+piece of paper."
+
+The Lord Treasurer departed, finding his mission vain; and, shortly
+afterwards, Marvell sent his boy out to borrow a guinea from a friend. The
+incorruptible integrity he had displayed was by no means due to affluence.
+
+Another historical case where poverty and patriotism have been blended is
+that of Admiral Rodney. At the general election in 1768 he was returned
+for Northampton, after a violent contest, the expense of which, combined
+with a fatal passion for gaming, compelled him to fly from the
+importunities of his creditors.
+
+While residing in Paris he is said to have been occasionally in want of
+the veriest trifle for necessaries, which fact becoming known, the French
+Government, through the Duc de Biron, offered him high rank in their navy.
+His reply was worthy of a sailor and a gentleman. "Monsieur le Duc," said
+he, "my distresses have driven me from my country, but no temptation can
+estrange me from her service; had this offer been voluntary on your part,
+I should have considered it an insult; but it proceeds from a source that
+can do no wrong."
+
+The foregoing illustrations of the inability of impecuniosity to drag
+certain characters from off their high pedestal of honour, are
+unfortunately counterbalanced by the considerably too numerous instances
+of those who have not been proof against its degrading effects. The
+characteristics of such as have succumbed are naturally the antitheses of
+those just referred to; instead of strong, healthy, moral minds, their
+natures are found to be more or less weak, selfish, and in every case
+wanting, to some extent, in self-respect. The last-named attribute
+undoubtedly supplying the chief cause of defection.
+
+In this category may be placed Desiderius Erasmus, one of the most
+remarkable scholars of the 15th and 16th centuries, if not, as is
+considered by some, one of the most illustrious men that ever lived. The
+benefits that he conferred on the world at large by his profound and
+extensive erudition are so priceless that it seems a shame to pillory one
+so revered; but "necessity has no law," and as he was chronically
+necessitous his weakness on one occasion must be laid bare.
+
+Independently of his failing to rise superior to the want of money, which
+will be referred to directly, it will be seen that his character lacked
+nobility, by his own confession. He was at the time of Luther pre-eminent
+in the world of letters, his fame as a student of the deepest research was
+world-wide, acknowledged not only by the sovereigns and popes of Europe,
+but by our own monarch, Henry VIII., and by all the men of learning of
+that age. Thus his power and influence were immense, and it is deeply to
+be regretted that his cowardice should have prevented him from espousing
+the doctrines of Luther, since there is no doubt he believed in them.
+
+  "Many loved truth and lavished life's best oil
+  Amid the dust of books to find her,
+  Content at last for guerdon of their toil
+  With the cast mantle she had left behind her.
+  Many in sad faith sought for her,
+  Many with crossed hands sighed for her,
+  But these our brothers fought for her,
+  At life's dear peril wrought for her,
+  So loved her that they died for her."
+
+Erasmus was not one of those who died for the love of truth, but rather
+one who "with crossed hands, sighed for her," since in one of his letters
+he says,--
+
+"Wherein could I have assisted Luther if I had declared myself for him,
+and shared the danger along with him? Only thus far, that, instead of one
+man, two would have perished. I cannot conceive what he means by writing
+with such a spirit (so fearlessly); one thing I know too well, that he
+hath brought a great odium upon the lovers of literature. It is true that
+he hath given us many wholesome doctrines and many good counsels, and I
+wish he had not defeated the effect of them by his intolerable faults. But
+if he had written everything in the most unexceptionable manner I had no
+inclination to die for the sake of truth. Every man has not the courage
+requisite to make a martyr; and I am afraid, that if I were put to the
+trial, I should imitate St. Peter."
+
+Deliciously truthful this, is it not? The practical way in which he
+reveals his creed, "self-preservation is the first law of nature," is
+particularly interesting, more especially as it is so thoroughly in
+keeping with the sentiments displayed on the occasion when from want of
+money he penned the following letter to his friend James Battus,
+beseeching him to dun the Marchioness of Vere, in the following terms:
+
+"You must go to her and excuse my shyness on the ground that I cannot
+tolerate explaining my difficulties in person. Tell her the need I am in.
+That Italy is the place to get a degree; explain to her how much more
+honour I am likely to do her than those theologians she keeps about her.
+They give forth mere commonplaces. I write what will last for ever. Tell
+her that fellows like them are to be met with everywhere--the like of me
+only appears in the course of many ages--_i.e._ if you don't mind drawing
+the long-bow in the cause of friendship. What a discredit it would be to
+her should St. Jerome"--whose works he was preparing--"appear with
+discredit for the want of a few gold pieces."
+
+That the opinions expressed were perfectly truthful there is no
+gainsaying; but the taste, or rather, want of it, that dictated such an
+epistle is pitiable, and materially mars the character of one who as far
+as learning is concerned was indisputably great.
+
+If culture could avail against the deteriorating effects of impecuniosity
+the career of Orator Henley would have been a different one. The son of a
+Leicestershire vicar, and educated at St. John's, Cambridge, he attained
+considerable eminence as a linguist, and while keeping a school in his
+native place compiled his 'Universal Grammar,' which was written in ten
+languages. He afterwards came to be regarded as a sort of ecclesiastical
+outlaw, having a room in Newport Market, Leicester Square, where he
+started as a quack divine and public lecturer, Sundays being devoted to
+divinity, Wednesdays and Thursdays to secular orations, the charge for
+admission one shilling. He afterwards migrated to Clare Market, and became
+a favourite among the butchers; but though gifted with much oratorical
+power, he obtained but a precarious subsistence. When at his pecuniary
+worst he seems to have been at his inventive best, and in proportion to
+the lowness of his funds his audacity rose. On one occasion when
+particularly pressed he advertised a meeting for shoemakers to witness a
+new invention for making shoes, undertaking to make a pair in presence of
+the audience in an incredibly short space. When the evening arrived, and
+the room was filled with the followers of Crispin, Mr. Henley simply cut
+the tops off a pair of old boots, and thereby illustrating the motto to
+his advertisement, "Omne majus continent in se minus" ("The greater
+includes the less").[1]
+
+    [1] The elder D'Israeli in summing up the character of this
+    extraordinary man, who left behind him more than 6000 MSS., says, "A
+    scholar of great acquirements and of no mean genius; hardy and
+    inventive, eloquent and witty; he might have been an ornament to
+    literature, which he made ridiculous; and the pride of the pulpit
+    which he so egregiously disgraced; but having blunted and worn out
+    that interior feeling which is the instinct of the good man, and the
+    wisdom of the wise, there was no balance in his passions, and the
+    decorum of life was sacrificed to its selfishness. He condescended to
+    live on the follies of the people, and his sordid nature had changed
+    him till he crept, 'licking the dust with the serpent.'"
+
+Dr. Howard, the Rector of St. George's, Southwark, and Chaplain to the
+Dowager Princess of Wales, towards the close of the last century, was
+invariably short of money, a fact pretty well known to his tradesmen. On
+one occasion he ordered a canonical wig from a peruke-maker's in Leicester
+Fields, and the porter had instructions not to leave it till the bill was
+paid.
+
+Arrived at the rectory, the man asked for the doctor.
+
+"I've brought your wig home, sir."
+
+"Oh, ah," replied the doctor; "quite right--you can leave it. Just put it
+down there."
+
+"No, I can't leave it, sir--that is, without the money."
+
+"Oh, very well, then. I'll try it on."
+
+The man handed him the wig, and as soon as the doctor put it on, he said
+to the messenger,--
+
+"This article has been bought and delivered; if you dare to touch it, I
+will prosecute you for robbery."
+
+Dr. Howard once preached from the text, "Have patience with me, and I will
+pay thee all"--a passage gratifying to the feelings of an audience
+including many of his creditors. He dwelt at considerable length on the
+blessings and duty of patience, till it was time to close, and then said,
+"Now, brethren, I am come to the second part of my discourse, which is,
+'And I will pay ye all,' _but that I shall defer to a future
+opportunity_."
+
+Colton, the author of 'Lacon,' who became vicar of the poor living of Kew
+and Petersham, must likewise be included in the list of those who have
+succumbed to circumstances. Finding himself unable to pay the price of
+apartments in the neighbourhood of his living, he transported his gun,
+fishing-rod, and few books (one of which was De Foe's 'History of the
+Devil') to Soho, where he rented a couple of rooms in a small house
+overlooking St. Anne's burial-ground. There he wrote his book of
+'Aphorisms,' a broken phial placed in a saucer serving him as an inkstand.
+His copy was written on scraps of paper and blank sides of letters, and he
+dined at an eating-house, or cooked a chop for himself. At one time he
+opened a wine-cellar in another person's name under a Methodist chapel in
+Dean Street, Soho, a position for a spiritual adviser which would scarcely
+be tolerated even in these days of considerable religious liberty.
+
+Many amusing stories are told of Joe Haines, a comedian of the time of
+Charles II., sometimes called "Count" Haines. It is said that he was
+arrested one morning by two bailiffs for a debt of L20, when he saw a
+bishop, to whom he was related, passing along in his coach. With ready
+resource he immediately saw a loophole for escape, and, turning to the men
+he said, "Let me speak to his lordship, to whom I am well known, and he
+will pay the debt and your charges into the bargain."
+
+The bailiffs thought they might venture this, as they were within two or
+three yards of the coach, and acceded to his request. Joe boldly advanced
+and took his hat off to the bishop. His lordship ordered the coach to
+stop, when Joe whispered to the divine that the two men were suffering
+from such scruples of conscience that he feared they would hang
+themselves, suggesting that his lordship should invite them to his house,
+and promise to satisfy them. The bishop agreed, and calling to the
+bailiffs, he said, "You two men come to me to-morrow morning, and I will
+satisfy you."
+
+The men bowed and went away pleased, and early the next day waited on his
+lordship, who, when they were ushered in, said, "Well, my men, what are
+these scruples of conscience?"
+
+"Scruples?" replied one of them, "we have no scruples! We are bailiffs, my
+lord, who yesterday arrested your cousin, Joe Haines, for a debt of L20,
+and your lordship kindly promised to satisfy us."
+
+The trick was strange, but the result was stranger, for his lordship,
+either appreciating its cleverness, or considering himself bound by the
+promise he had unintentionally given, there and then settled with the men
+in full.
+
+John Rich, manager of the Lincoln's Inn Fields and Covent Garden Theatres,
+1681-1761, was another dramatic delinquent. It was owing to his marvellous
+ability as harlequin that pantomime achieved its popularity. His
+gesticulation is said to have been so perfectly expressive of his meaning
+that every motion of his hand or head was a kind of dumb eloquence,
+readily understood by the audience. One evening, when returning from the
+theatre in a cab, having ordered the coachman to drive to the "Sun," a
+tavern in Clare Market, he threw himself out of the coach window and
+through the open window of the tavern parlour, just as the driver was
+about to draw up. The man then descended from the box, touched his hat,
+and stood waiting for his passenger to alight. Finding at length there was
+no one visible he besought a few blessings on the scoundrel who had
+imposed upon him, remounted his box, and was about to drive off, when
+Rich, who had been watching, vaulted back into the vehicle, and, putting
+his head out, asked, "where the devil he was driving to?" Almost paralyzed
+with fear the driver got down again, but could not be persuaded to take
+his fare, though he was offered a shilling for himself, exclaiming, "No
+no, that won't do. I know you too well for all your shoes; and so Mr.
+Devil, for once you're outwitted." In addition to his successful
+pantomimes, his production of the 'Beggar's Opera' was a wonderful hit;
+but he seems never to have been well off, and was at one time in such
+difficulties that he hit upon the clever expedient of taking a house
+situated in three different counties in order to free himself from the
+attentions of sheriffs' officers.
+
+One name must not be omitted from this section of the subject, that of
+Richard Brinsley Sheridan. His adroitness in profiting by his very
+practical jokes commenced soon after his leaving Harrow, when spending a
+few days at Bristol. He wanted a new pair of boots, but, not having money
+to pay for them, ordered a pair from two bootmakers, to be sent home on
+the morning of his departure, payment being promised on delivery. When the
+first tradesman arrived he complained of the fit of one boot, and when the
+second came he objected to his make of the boot for the other foot. Each
+bootmaker took a boot back to be stretched. When the dupes called next
+day, each displaying a boot, they found that Sheridan had departed in the
+fellow pieces of their property.
+
+Later in life his difficulties became chronic, but his ingenuity was
+generally equal to them. Having arranged to give a banquet to the
+leaders of the Opposition, he found himself on the morning of the event
+without port or sherry, his wine-merchant having positively refused to
+supply any more without payment. In this dilemma he sent for Chalier, and
+told him he wished to settle his account. The wine-merchant, much
+delighted, proposed running home for it, when Sheridan stopped him with
+"What do you say to dining with me to-day? Lord This, and Sir So-and-so
+That" (mentioning several celebrities), "will be here." The offer was
+accepted with enthusiasm, the merchant leaving his office early in order
+to dress for the occasion. As soon as he made his appearance Sheridan
+despatched a messenger to the clerk at the office, to the effect that Mr.
+Chalier desired so many dozen of different kinds of wine sent at once,
+which instructions were promptly executed, the Burgundy, hock, &c., &c.
+arriving just in time for the dinner.
+
+One Friday evening at Drury Lane, just after the half-price money had been
+taken, Sheridan was informed by his treasurer that unless a certain amount
+could be raised there was not sufficient to pay the salaries of even the
+subordinates, and the house would have to close the following Monday.
+After making certain suggestions which were voted useless by his
+business-man, Sherry took a look at the meagrely-filled house, and calling
+a servant, said to him, "You see that stout, goodtempered-looking man in
+such and such a box?" "Yes, sir." "Immediately the act-drop is down go to
+him; have a boy who can bow gracefully precede you with a pair of wax
+candles. Open the box-door, and in a voice loud enough to be heard by
+everyone, say, 'Mr. Sheridan requests the pleasure of a private interview
+with you, sir.' Treat him with the greatest attention, and see that a
+bottle of the best port and a couple of wine-glasses are placed in my
+study." These directions were all carried out, and when the manager was
+alone with his visitor, after expressing the great pleasure he always
+experienced in seeing any one from Staffordshire, he said, "I think you
+told me you came to London twice a year." "Yes," was the reply, "January
+and June, to receive my dividends. I have been to the bank to-day and got
+my L600." "Ah you are in Consols, whilst I, alas, am Reduced and can get
+nothing till April, when you know the interest is paid, and till then I
+shall be in great distress." "Oh," said his constituent, "let not that
+make you uneasy; if you give me the power of attorney to receive the money
+for you, I can let you have L300, which I shall not want till then." "Only
+a real friend," said Sheridan, "could have made such a proposition." The
+L300 duly changed hands, and when April came the power of attorney was
+handed to Sheridan to sign, "I never spoke of Consols in Reduced," said
+he, "I only spoke of my Consols being reduced. Unhappy is the man who
+cannot understand the weight of prepositions." The Stafford man went to
+Sheridan in a fearful rage, but the latter was as cool as a cucumber. He
+made a clean breast of it, and told all. "But," he said, "my dear sir, I
+am now commanded to go to the Prince Regent, to whom I shall narrate your
+noble conduct. My carriage is waiting, and I can take you to Carlton
+House." The creditor was delighted. He shook Sherry by the hand,
+exclaiming, "I forgive you, never mention the debt again," to which
+Sheridan readily assented, and we may be sure kept his word for once. The
+carriage came, into which both entered, but when it arrived at Carlton
+House Sheridan alighted, closed the door, and told the coachman to drive
+the gentleman to his hotel. The Stafford man expostulated that he
+understood he was going into Carlton House, when Sheridan calmly told him,
+"That's another mistake of yours," and of course, though his statement
+inferred as much, he only said he would take his constituent _to_ Carlton
+House. It goes without saying that at the next election the Staffordshire
+elector voted on the other side.
+
+There is no doubt that at last Sheridan was so desperately involved that
+his life became, "not to put too fine a point on it," that of a schemer.
+He lived in an atmosphere of duns, but such a thorough master was he of
+the subject that it was the tradesmen who eventually were "done" by him.
+It was customary for them to assemble early in the morning to catch him
+before he went out, and when informed "Mr. Sheridan is not down yet, sir,"
+they were shown into the rooms on each side of the entrance-hall. When he
+had finished his breakfast he would say, "Are those doors all shut, John?"
+and on being informed that they were, would deliberately walk out as
+pleased as though he had obtained a great moral victory.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+IMPECUNIOSITY OF THE GREAT.
+
+
+It must be admitted that impecuniosity is impartial, the peer and the
+peasant being equally open to its visits, and the Sovereign, under certain
+conditions, as liable to its influence as the subject. Edward the Third
+was compelled to pawn his jewels, and his imperial crown three times, once
+abroad, and twice to Sir John Wosenham, his banker, in whose custody the
+crown remained eight years. Henry the Fifth was also under the necessity
+of pawning his crown and the silver table and stools which he had from
+Spain. The Black Prince made the same use of his plate, and Queen
+Elizabeth was obliged to part with some of her jewels.
+
+More than two centuries ago when Clerkenwell was a sort of Court quarter
+of London, and could boast amongst other distinguished residents the Duke
+and Duchess of Newcastle, this couple, both of whom are remembered by
+their literary eccentricities, had more than once to patronise the
+pawnbroker. The duke, who was a devoted Royalist, after his defeat at
+Marston Moor, retired with his wife to the Continent, and with many
+privations owing to pecuniary embarrassments suffered an exile of eighteen
+years, chiefly in Antwerp, in a house which belonged to the widow of
+Rubens.
+
+Many of our most illustrious families have been indebted to the exertions
+or the genius of some humble ancestor. The case of Charles Abbot,
+afterwards Lord Tenterden, is a typical one. He was the son of a
+Canterbury barber, and at the age of seven was admitted on the foundation
+of the King's School in that town, where he soon attracted attention by
+his industry and intelligence. At an early age he much wished to become a
+chorister, and was so disappointed when he failed that in after years,
+when visiting the Cathedral with Mr. Justice Richards, who commended the
+voice of a singer in the choir, his lordship exclaimed, "Ah, that is the
+only man I ever envied. When at school in this town, we were candidates
+for a chorister's place and he obtained it." When seventeen, there was no
+prospect for the clever youth but the drudgery of trade, and on this
+becoming known in the school there was a general wish expressed that his
+perseverance and ability should be rewarded. To private generosity he was
+indebted for his outfit, the trustees conferring a small exhibition upon
+him, and adding a pittance which enabled him to live, with rigid economy,
+until he took his B.A. degree. When asked by Mr. Lamont, the father of the
+lady to whom he was engaged, what means he had to maintain a wife, he
+replied, "The books in this room and two pupils in the next."
+
+Sir Peter Laurie, when Lord Mayor of London, said at a dinner given to the
+judges: "What a country is this we live in! In other parts of the world
+there is no chance except for men of high birth and aristocratic
+connections, but here genius and industry are sure to be rewarded. You see
+before you the example of myself, the chief magistrate of the metropolis
+of this great empire, with the Chief Justice of England sitting at my
+right hand, both now in the highest offices of the State, and both sprung
+from the very dregs of the people." There are many men who would have been
+anything but pleased at this reference to their humble extraction; but it
+was not distasteful to his lordship.
+
+Macready, in recounting a visit to Canterbury Cathedral, says he was shown
+by the verger the spot where a little shop once stood, and was informed
+that when Lord Tenterden last visited the Cathedral, he said to his son,
+"Charles, you see this little shop. I have brought you here on purpose to
+show it you. In that shop your grandfather used to shave for a penny. That
+is the proudest reflection of my life. While you live never forget that,
+my dear Charles," an injunction which, coming from a Chief Justice of
+England who died worth L120,000, ought to have a salutary effect on
+upstarts.
+
+The equally famous Lord Erskine, though a man of gentle birth, was
+nevertheless indebted, to a certain extent, to impecuniosity for the
+greatness he achieved, since that impelled him to the spirited defence of
+Captain Baillie, which attracted the attention of all England. Called to
+the bar on the 3rd July, 1778, Erskine made his first appearance in public
+on the 24th November. Previous to this time he had been unknown. His first
+brief fell to his lot in this way: A certain Captain Baillie, who, for
+gallant services, had been appointed to a post in Greenwich Hospital,
+discovered the gravest abuses there, and brought the state of things to
+the notice of those in power, but being unable to get them remedied,
+determined to publish the facts of the case. His statement implicated Lord
+Sandwich, the First Lord of the Admiralty, who, to serve his political
+purposes, had filled the vacant posts at the Hospital with certain
+landsmen. The Board of Admiralty immediately suspended the captain, and a
+criminal information for libel was lodged against him, the case exciting
+the greatest public interest. During the vacation Erskine had met Captain
+Baillie at the house of a mutual friend, and, utterly unconscious of his
+presence, had, after dinner, so strongly censured the shameful practices
+ascribed to Lord Sandwich that the captain immediately inquired who the
+young fellow was, and on being told that Erskine had formerly been in the
+navy, but had recently been called to the bar, he exclaimed with warmth,
+"Then that's the man I'll have for my counsel!"
+
+In due course this now historic trial came on, when the young barrister's
+marvellous speech created an impression called by Lord Campbell, "the most
+wonderful forensic effort of which we have any account in our annals. It
+was the _debut_ of a barrister just called, and wholly unpractised in
+public speaking, before a court crowded with men of the greatest
+distinction, belonging to all parties of the State. He came after four
+eminent counsel, who might have been supposed to have exhausted the
+subject. He was called to order by a venerable judge, whose word had been
+law in that hall above a quarter of a century. His exclamation, 'I will
+_bring_ him' (Lord Sandwich) 'before the Court!' and the crushing
+denunciation of Lord Sandwich, in which he was enabled to persevere, from
+the sympathy of the bystanders, and even of the judges, who, in
+strictness, ought to have checked his irregularity, are as soul-stirring
+as anything in this species of eloquence presented to us by ancient or
+modern times." As Erskine walked along the hall after the rising of the
+judges, attorneys flocked around him with their briefs. When asked how he
+had the courage to stand up so boldly against Lord Mansfield, he replied
+that he fancied he could feel his little children plucking at his robe,
+and that he heard them saying, "_Now, father, is the time to get us
+bread!_"
+
+Lord Eldon's life furnishes abundant proof that he was perfectly familiar
+with adversity. The son of a "fitter" employed in conveying coals in
+barges from the pits to the different ports on the Tyne, John Scott was
+born at Newcastle on the 4th June, 1751, and after being educated at the
+Grammar School in the town would have been apprenticed to his father's
+business but for the remonstrances of his brother William (afterwards Lord
+Stowell), who had obtained an Oxford scholarship, and subsequently a
+fellowship at the University. The success of the one son induced the
+father to send John also to college, where he at first studied for the
+church. While at Oxford he made a runaway match with Miss Bessy Surtees,
+the daughter of a Newcastle banker. The young couple went to the Queen's
+Head, at Morpeth, but on the third morning of their married life their
+funds were exhausted, and they had no home to go to. Mrs. Scott was
+naturally very much upset at the predicament in which they were placed,
+but while lamenting it she suddenly caught sight of a fine wolf-dog
+belonging to the family, called Loup, whose presence at Morpeth was to her
+the joyous sign that help was at hand. In a few moments Mr. Henry Scott,
+her husband's brother, entered the room. John Scott had written a
+repentant letter from Morpeth to his father, which had the desired effect,
+and the younger brother had been sent to announce pardon to the offending
+couple, and to invite them to take up their abode under the parental roof.
+The year of grace allowed for retaining a fellowship after marriage having
+elapsed, Mr. Scott abandoned the thought of taking holy orders and studied
+law. He was called to the bar in 1776, when he says, "Bessy and I thought
+all our troubles were over, and we were to be rich almost immediately."
+This golden dream was however speedily dissipated, for during the first
+year the total amount of his professional income was ten shillings and
+sixpence. But when Lord Chancellor, and living in a magnificent mansion in
+the vicinity of Hyde Park, he often referred to this period of poverty as
+the happiest time of his life, for then, he maintained, his wife, to whom
+he was always passionately attached, was able to show him attentions never
+so freely bestowed when Society asserted its claims on them. Like Lord
+Tenterden he gloried in the obstacles he had overcome, and used to point
+to a small house in Cursitor Street, saying "There was my first perch;
+many a time have I run down to Fleet Market to buy sixpennyworth of sprats
+for supper."
+
+Edward Lord Thurlow, who rose to the woolsack in 1778, was not always
+affluent. After being called to the bar in 1758 he seldom had the means of
+going on circuit, and it is asserted that on one occasion he reached the
+assizes on a horse that _he had taken out on trial from London_. Lord
+Chief Justice Kenyon is found guilty of having been poor on the evidence
+of Horne Tooke, his constant companion when they were students, who, with
+a friend named Dunning, used to dine with him in vacation-time at a small
+eating-house in Chancery Lane, for 7-1/2_d._ a head. Says Tooke, "Dunning
+and myself were generous for we gave the girl who waited on us a penny a
+piece, but Kenyon rewarded her with a halfpenny, and sometimes with only a
+promise."
+
+Sir Samuel Romilly also says, "At a later period of my life--after a
+success at the bar which my wildest and most sanguine dreams had never
+painted to me--when I was gaining an income of L8000 or L9000 a year--I
+have often reflected how all that prosperity had arisen out of the
+pecuniary difficulties and confined circumstances of my father."
+
+Lord Campbell, before he was Lord Chief Justice and Lord Chancellor of
+England, often knew the inconvenience of want of money. The son of the
+Rev. Dr. Geo. Campbell, second minister of Cupar, Fifeshire, he was
+educated at the local Grammar School and the University of St. Andrew's,
+and though intended originally for the ministry, after spending some years
+at college gave up the idea of the church, and went up to London to try
+some more congenial occupation. His first appointment was as tutor to a
+Mr. Webster, and while engaged in that capacity he penned the following
+letter:
+
+"My dear brother,--I live very economically; I dine at home for a
+shilling, go to the coffee-house once a day, 4_d._, to the theatre once a
+week, 3_s._ 6_d._ My pen will keep me in pocket-money. I this day begin a
+job which I must finish in a fortnight, and for which I am promised two
+guineas, but alas! Willy Thompson paymaster. He owes me divers yellow-boys
+already. I go no farther than write the history of the last war in India
+for him till he pays me all."
+
+After this he obtained the post of reporter and dramatic critic to the
+_Morning Chronicle_, but in 1800 he determined to try the law, and entered
+himself a student of Lincoln's Inn. At this time, however, there was a
+strong feeling against one of their set having anything to do with
+journalism, so that his position was uncomfortable and mortifying, and his
+reporting prevented him from forming any acquaintance with his
+fellow-students. He entered a special pleader's office in 1804, and in
+June 1805, was able exultingly to announce that "he was no longer a
+newspaper man." Called to the bar in 1806, he became a bencher in 1827;
+member of Parliament for Stafford in 1830; Solicitor-General in 1832;
+Attorney-General in 1834; Lord Chancellor of Ireland in 1841; Chancellor
+of the Duchy of Lancaster in 1846 (in which year he produced his
+celebrated work 'The Lives of the Chancellors'); Lord Chief Justice in
+1850, and Lord Chancellor in 1859.
+
+Sir Rowland Hill, to whom we are indebted for the penny postage system,
+was the son of a Birmingham schoolmaster, a man of simple, but high
+character. An outbuilding attached to their house contained benches,
+blacksmith's forge, and a vice. Here Rowland and his brother spent much
+spare time and cash, which latter he remarks was very scanty. "Ever since
+I can remember," he writes, "I have had a taste for mechanics, but the
+best mechanician wants materials and materials cost money," and this want
+caused his brother and himself on Good Friday morning to turn tradesmen.
+They had been sent with a basket to buy a quantity of hot cross buns for
+the family and as they went along were much amused by the itinerant
+vendors, who were calling out, as was the custom in Birmingham then,
+
+  "Hot cross buns! Hot cross buns! One a penny, two a penny, hot cross
+      buns,
+  Sugar 'em, and butter 'em, and clap 'em in your muns, one a penny,
+      two a penny, hot cross buns."
+
+On their way home the boys in the pure spirit of fun began to repeat the
+cry, Matthew, the elder, being a capable mimic; and to their surprise they
+found the public respond to their offers, the result being that the
+youngsters soon "sold out," and had to return for more to the wholesale
+establishment, the difference in this case between buying and selling
+being, as is usual, very well worth the trouble. When the family lived at
+Hill Top, his mother presented Rowland with a portion of the garden for
+his own use, covered with horehound, which he was about to root out to
+make way for his flowers, when he was given to understand that the
+horehound possessed a monetary value. Immediately on discovering this, he
+cut it up carefully, tied it in bundles, and borrowing a basket from his
+mother started off to the market-place, where he took up his position with
+all the air of a regular trader, but was saved the bother of retail
+dealing by disposing of his entire stock for eightpence to a woman
+standing near, who he presumed made a hundred per cent. by the
+transaction, though with true business tact she complained of her
+purchase, and told him to tell his mother, "she must tie up bigger bunches
+next time." The proceeds of the sale went to purchase some tools and
+materials for the mechanical contrivances spoken of.
+
+The early years of Benjamin Franklin (one of a family of seventeen) were
+uncongenially spent with his father, a soap-boiler and tallow-chandler,
+and his brother, a printer. When seventeen years old he sold his books and
+took a passage from Boston to New York, whence he was advised to proceed
+to Philadelphia in search of work. On arriving there he tells us that he
+was "fatigued with walking, rowing, and the want of sleep, and very
+hungry: my whole stock of cash consisted in a single dollar, and about a
+shilling in copper coin, which I gave to the boatmen for my passage. At
+first they refused it, on account of my having rowed: but I insisted on
+their taking it. Man is sometimes more generous when he has little money
+than when he has plenty, perhaps to prevent his being thought to have but
+little. I walked towards the top of the street, gazing about till near
+Market Street, where I met a boy with bread. I had often made a meal of
+dry bread, and inquiring where he had bought it, I went immediately to the
+baker's he directed me to. I asked for biscuits, meaning such as we had in
+Boston. That sort it seems was not made in Philadelphia. I then asked for
+a threepenny loaf, and was told they had none. Not knowing the different
+prices, nor the names of the different sorts of bread, I told him to give
+me three pennyworth of any sort. He gave me accordingly, three great puffy
+rolls. I was surprised at the quantity, but took it; and having no room in
+my pockets, walked off with a roll under each arm, and eating the other.
+Thus I went up Market Street, as far as Fourth Street, passing by the door
+of Mr. Read, my future wife's father, when she, standing at the door, saw
+me, and thought I made, as I certainly did, a most awkward, ridiculous
+appearance. Then I turned and went down Chestnut Street, and part of
+Walnut Street, eating my roll all the way, and coming round, found myself
+again at Market Street Wharf, near the boat I came in, to which I went for
+a draught of the river water; gave my other rolls to a woman and her child
+that came down the river in the boat with us, and were waiting to go
+farther. Thus refreshed, I walked again up the street, which by this time
+had many clean-dressed people in it, who were all walking the same way. I
+joined them, and thereby was led into the great Meeting House of the
+Quakers, near the market. I sat down among them, and after looking round
+awhile and hearing nothing said, being very drowsy through labour and want
+of rest the preceding night, I fell fast asleep, and continued so till the
+meeting broke up, when some one was kind enough to rouse me. This,
+therefore, was the first house I was in, or slept in, in Philadelphia."
+
+A strange beginning to the career of one who, in addition to his valuable
+discoveries in electricity, lived to attain the highest honours his
+country could bestow, and to be the ambassador to foreign countries; whose
+marvellous intelligence carried out diplomatic undertakings which
+undoubtedly affected the destinies of nations. It is interesting to note,
+now that electricity plays such a leading part in the inventions of the
+day, that when Franklin made his discovery of the identity of lightning
+and electricity, it was sneered at, and people asked, "Of what use is it?"
+To which he replied, "What is the use of a child? It may become a man."
+
+William Cobbett is another example of the wonderful results to be attained
+by temperance, frugality, and unflagging industry, who, originally an
+uninteresting yokel, rose to be a power in the land, to edit political
+papers, to write political pamphlets (one of which had a circulation of
+100,000), and to pen, amongst other most important matter, a volume of
+'Advice to Young Men,' which, if followed by the rising generation, could
+not fail to make them more worthy the name of Englishmen. At the time
+referred to, when he was eleven years old, he was employed in the Bishop
+of Winchester's garden at Farnham Castle, and happening to hear of the
+royal gardens at Kew, he thought that he should like to be employed there,
+started off next morning with only the clothes he was wearing, and
+sixpence halfpenny in his pocket, he arrived at Richmond towards evening,
+having expended threepence halfpenny on bread and cheese and small beer
+and as he jogged along tired and weary with his walk of thirty miles he
+was attracted to a bookseller's window, in which was displayed a
+second-hand copy of Swift's 'Tale of a Tub,' price 3_d._ He expended his
+remaining coppers on its purchase, sat down in an adjoining field, read
+till he could see no longer, then putting the book into his pocket he
+dropped off to sleep by the side of a haystack. In the morning, roused by
+the birds, he continued his journey to Kew Gardens, where he succeeded in
+getting engaged by an old Scotch gardener. A year, or two after this, when
+he was working again in his native town of Farnham, the old idea of
+getting into a larger field of action came back to him, and while waiting
+one day for some young women whom he had arranged to escort to Guildford
+fair, he was tempted by the sight of the London coach, secured the one
+vacant place, and before he had time to realise the importance of the
+step, was being whirled away in the direction of the metropolis. When he
+arrived the next morning at the Saracen's Head on Ludgate Hill, his
+possessions amounted to two shillings and sixpence, but fortunately he had
+managed to interest a hop merchant, one of his fellow-passengers, who took
+him home, and in the course of a day or two managed to obtain a situation
+for him in a lawyer's office. Here he soon discovered that he had made a
+"miserable exchange," for his want of skill as a penman made his duties
+exceptionally irksome, and his close, confined lodging was very wretched
+to one coming fresh from fields musical with the sweet songsters of the
+spring.
+
+Eight months later, he enlisted in the 54th regiment of foot, and was
+ordered to Nova Scotia in twelve months. Here in five years, by temperance
+and industry, he managed (doing clerical work for the quarter-master and
+pay-sergeant) to save L150, and it was while serving with this regiment
+that he acquired a knowledge of Lindley Murray. "I learned grammar," he
+says, "when I was a private soldier on the pay of sixpence a day. The edge
+of my berth was my seat to study in; my knapsack was my book-case; a bit
+of board lying on my lap was my writing-table, and the task did not demand
+anything like a year of my life. I had no money to purchase candle or oil;
+in winter time I could rarely get any evening light but that of the fire,
+and only my turn even of that. And if I, under such circumstances, and
+without parent or friend to advise or encourage me, accomplished this
+undertaking, what excuse can there be for any youth, however poor, however
+pressed with business, or however circumstanced as to room or other
+conveniences? To buy a pen or a sheet of paper, I was compelled to forego
+some portion of food, though in a state of half-starvation; I had no
+moment of time that I could call my own, and I had to read and to write
+amidst the talking, laughing, singing, whistling, and brawling of at least
+half a score of the most thoughtless of men, and that, too, in the hours
+of their freedom from all control. Think not lightly of the farthing that
+I had to give now and then, for pen, ink, or paper! That farthing was,
+alas! a great sum to me! I was tall as I am now; I had great health and
+great exercise. The whole of the money not expended for us at market was
+twopence a week for each man. I remember, and well I may, that on one
+occasion, I, after all necessary expenses, had on a Friday made shifts to
+have a halfpenny in reserve, which I had destined for the purchase of a
+red herring in the morning; but when I pulled off my clothes at night, so
+hungry then as to be hardly able to endure life, I found that I had lost
+my halfpenny! I buried my head under the miserable sheet and rug, and
+cried like a child!"
+
+Wonderful, however, as were the achievements of Franklin and Cobbett in
+self-education, they were both eclipsed by Elihu Burritt. The son of a
+shoemaker, he was at the age of sixteen apprenticed to the "village
+blacksmith," and from that time applied himself to the study of languages
+with such success, that he mastered French, German, Italian, Latin, Greek,
+Hebrew, Spanish, Bohemian, Polish, Danish, Syriac, Samaritan, Turkish,
+Ethiopic and Persian. To understand how he accomplished this, we take a
+glance at his diary.
+
+"_Monday, June 18_: Headache; forty pages Cuvier's 'Theory of the Earth,'
+sixty-four pages French, eleven hours' forging. _Tuesday_: sixty-five
+lines of Hebrew, thirty pages of French, ten pages Cuvier's 'Theory,'
+eight lines Syriac, ten ditto Danish, ten ditto Bohemian, nine ditto
+Polish, fifteen names of stars, ten hours' forging. _Wednesday_:
+twenty-five lines Hebrew, fifty pages of astronomy, seven hours' forging.
+_Thursday_: fifty-five lines Hebrew, eight ditto Syriac, eleven hours'
+forging. _Friday_: unwell; twelve hours' forging. _Saturday_: unwell;
+fifty pages of Natural History, ten hours' forging. _Sunday_: lessons for
+Bible class."
+
+There were times when, for a short season, he abandoned the anvil, and
+devoted his whole time to study; but after a few months' absence from the
+forge he would return to earn money for his support, and for the purchase
+of books. Hearing one day of an Antiquarian Library at Worcester, U.S., he
+determined to go there to work as a journeyman, for the sake of obtaining
+access to such rare books, and started off to walk. It was a long journey,
+and when he reached Boston Bridge, footsore and weary, he encountered a
+waggon being driven by a boy, who was going to Worcester, forty miles
+distant. All his valuables consisted of a dollar and an old silver watch.
+He availed himself of the chance of a lift, but felt reluctant to part
+with his single dollar, and suggested that the waggoner should take his
+watch, which, if properly repaired, would be worth a great deal more than
+his indebtedness, also suggesting that, in the event of the boy having the
+watch mended, he should give Burritt the difference in money if they met
+again in Worcester.
+
+The young blacksmith obtained work on his arrival, and some short time
+after received a visit from the waggon lad, who honourably brought him a
+few dollars, the estimated difference. Some years afterwards Burritt
+happened to be travelling from Worcester to New Britain by railway, when
+he was accosted by a handsome, well-dressed fellow-traveller.
+
+"You have forgotten me, Mr. Burritt?"
+
+Burritt was obliged to confess that he had.
+
+"Oh," said he, "I'm the boy to whom you gave the watch. I'm now a student
+of Harvard College."
+
+After chatting for a bit, Burritt said,--
+
+"I should like to have that watch back again."
+
+"You shall," said the student. "I sold it, but I know where it is."
+
+In a few days he received the watch, which hung for many years in his
+printing-office as a memento of early vicissitudes.
+
+Michael Faraday, unquestionably one of the greatest English chemists and
+natural philosophers, had few educational advantages before he was
+apprenticed to a bookbinder in Blandford Street, Manchester Square, and
+while working at his trade he constructed an electrical machine and other
+scientific apparatus. These having been seen by his master, Mr. Riebau, he
+called the attention of Mr. Dance to them, and he took the boy with him to
+hear the last four lectures delivered by Sir Humphry Davy at the Royal
+Institution. Faraday took copious notes of the lectures, and afterwards
+wrote them out fairly in a quarto volume, and sent it to Sir Humphry,
+begging him for employment, that he might quit the trade he hated, and
+follow science, which he loved. The answer is a model of kindness and
+courtesy:
+
+    "_December 24th, 1812._
+
+    "SIR,
+
+    "I am far from displeased with the proof you have given me of your
+    confidence, and which displays great zeal, power of memory, and
+    attention. I am obliged to go out of town, and shall not be settled in
+    town till the end of January. I will then see you at any time you
+    wish. It would gratify me to be of any service to you. I wish it may
+    be in my power.
+
+        "I am, sir,
+          "Your obedient, humble servant,
+            "H. DAVY."
+
+Through Sir Humphry's interest, Faraday obtained the post of assistant in
+the laboratory of the Royal Institution, where he remained ever
+afterwards, eventually becoming its first professor. Tyndall says of
+Faraday, "His work excites admiration, but contact with him warms and
+elevates the heart. Here, surely, is a strong man. I love strength, but
+let me not forget its union with modesty, tenderness, and sweetness in
+the character of Faraday.... Taking the duration of his life into account,
+this son of a blacksmith and apprentice to a bookbinder had to decide
+between a fortune of L150,000 on the one side, and his unendowed science
+on the other. He chose the latter, and died a poor man. But his was the
+glory of holding aloft among the nations the scientific name of England
+for a period of forty years." In 1835, when Sir Robert Peel retired from
+office, he recommended Faraday to William IV. for a pension of L300. The
+minute was placed in the hands of Lord Melbourne, Peel's successor, who
+saw Faraday, and involved him in religious and political discussion,
+wanting to entrap the philosopher into a promise to support the
+Government. Failing in this, Lord Melbourne said, "I look upon the whole
+system of giving pensions to literary and scientific people as a piece of
+gross humbug." To which Faraday replied, "After this, my lord, I see that
+my business with you is ended. I wish you good morning." The next day Lord
+Melbourne received the following letter:
+
+    "MY LORD,
+
+    "After the pithy manner in which your Lordship was pleased to express
+    your sentiments on the subject of pensions that have been granted to
+    literary and scientific persons, it only remains for me to relieve
+    you, as far as I am concerned, from all further uneasiness. I will not
+    accept any favour at your hands nor at the hands of any Cabinet of
+    which you are a member.
+
+        "M. FARADAY."
+
+It is said that for some years Faraday's income never exceeded L22 a year,
+and it is a fact that when a youth he was much exercised about the
+purchase of an electrical machine which he had seen in an optician's
+window, price 4_s._ 6_d._ He had no money, but out of his dinner allowance
+he saved the requisite sum, and this machine was the one he used in all
+those early experiments which led to some of his great discoveries.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE SHIFTS OF IMPECUNIOSITY.
+
+
+In 1748 there resided in the wilds of Connaught a lady named Gunning, of
+whom little is known but that before her marriage she was the Hon. Bridget
+Bourke, and that after it she became the mother of two exquisitely
+beautiful daughters, destined to make such a stir in Society, as was
+unknown before, and has been unequalled since. Before they left Dublin
+they were invited to some brilliant festivities at the Castle, which were
+on a scale of magnificence unequalled, it is said, in the memory of the
+oldest courtier. To such an entertainment Mrs. Gunning was anxious to
+introduce her daughters, for their faces were literally their fortunes;
+but the overwhelming difficulty of dress presented itself. They had
+nothing that by any amount of manipulation could be transformed into Court
+costumes, so in her difficulty Mrs. Gunning obtained an introduction to
+Tom Sheridan, who was then managing the Dublin Theatre. He was struck by
+the beauty and grace of the girls, placed the wardrobe of the theatre at
+their disposal; and by lending them the dresses of Lady Macbeth and
+Juliet, in which they appeared most lovely, enabled them to obtain the
+_entree_ to that aristocratic circle in which they afterwards shone so
+brilliantly. In addition to providing the necessary garments for the great
+event Tom Sheridan is credited with superintending the finishing touches
+of their toilets, for which it is said he claimed a kiss from each as his
+reward. These beautiful creatures were at one time in even greater straits
+for funds.
+
+Miss Bellamy, the actress, asserts that she once found Mrs. Gunning and
+her children in the greatest distress, with bailiffs in the house and the
+family threatened with immediate eviction. With the assistance of her
+man-servant, who stood under the windows of the house at night, after the
+bailiffs were admitted, everything that could be carried away, was
+removed. But for this and other help the Gunnings were not grateful.
+Indeed, in the case of the Countess of Coventry who had borrowed money
+from Miss Bellamy, presumably for her wedding _trousseau_, the monetary
+obligation was repaid by unpardonable insult. One night when this actress
+was playing Juliet, and had just arrived at the most impressive part of
+the tragedy, the countess, who occupied the stage-box, uttered a loud
+laugh. Miss Bellamy was so overcome by the interruption that she was
+obliged to leave the stage, and when Lady Coventry was remonstrated with,
+she replied that "since she had seen Mrs. Cibber act Juliet she could not
+_endure_ Miss Bellamy." When they came to London in the autumn of 1751 the
+fashionable world went mad after "the beautiful Miss Gunnings," who were
+positively mobbed in the Park and elsewhere, and were compelled on one
+occasion to obtain the protection of a file of the Guards. When they
+travelled in the country the roads were lined with people anxious to catch
+a glimpse of their lovely faces; and hundreds of people were known to
+remain all night outside an inn at which they were staying, in order to
+behold them in the morning.
+
+Not many months after their _debut_ in London, the Duke of Hamilton, owner
+of three dukedoms in Scotland, England, and France, and regarded as the
+haughtiest man in the kingdom, became deeply enamoured of the younger
+sister, and was married to her at Mayfair Chapel one night at half-past
+twelve o'clock, the suddenness of the ceremony compelling the divine who
+performed the service to make use of a ring from a bed-curtain.
+
+The elder sister, became Countess of Coventry in the following March, and
+was then acknowledged as leader of fashion in the metropolis, although
+from the seclusion in which the early part of her life had been spent in
+Ireland, she was little fitted, so far as accomplishments were concerned,
+to hold that post. Her reign was brief as it was brilliant. In 1759 her
+health completely broke down, and she died in October 1760, of
+consumption, the result of artificial aids to beauty, which in her case
+were utterly unnecessary.
+
+Curran, the advocate and wit, experienced vicissitudes almost as
+startling. He was born at Newmarket, County Cork, in 1750, and describes
+himself as "a little ragged apprentice to every kind of idleness and
+mischief, all day studying whatever was eccentric in those older, and
+half the night practising it for the amusement of those who were younger
+than myself. One morning I was playing at marbles in the village ball
+alley, with a light heart and a lighter pocket. The gibe, and the jest,
+and the plunder, went gaily round. Those who won laughed, and those who
+lost cheated, when suddenly there appeared amongst us a stranger of a very
+venerable and cheerful aspect. His intrusion was not the least restraint
+upon our merry little assemblage; he was a benevolent creature, and the
+days of infancy (after all, the happiest we shall ever see) perhaps rose
+upon his memory. God bless him! I see his fine form, at the distance of
+half a century, just as he stood before me in the little ball alley in the
+days of my childhood. His name was Boyse; he was the rector of Newmarket.
+To me he took a particular fancy.... Some sweetmeats easily bribed me home
+with him. I learned from poor Boyse my alphabet, and my grammar, and the
+rudiments of the classics: he taught me all he could, and then he sent me
+to the school at Middleton--in short, _he made a man of me_. I recollect
+it was about five-and-thirty years afterwards when I had risen to some
+eminence at the bar, and when I had a seat in Parliament, and a good house
+in Ely Place, on my return one day from Court, I found an old gentleman
+seated alone in the drawing-room, his feet familiarly placed on each side
+of the Italian marble chimney-piece, and his whole air bespeaking the
+consciousness of one quite at home. He turned round--it was _my friend of
+the ball alley_. I rushed instinctively into his arms. I could not help
+bursting into tears. Words cannot describe the scene that followed. 'You
+are right, sir--you are right; the chimney-piece is yours, the pictures
+are yours, the house is yours; you gave me all I have--my friend--my
+father!'"[2]
+
+    [2] Many struggles had to be endured, however, before this pinnacle of
+    prosperity was attained.
+
+After leaving school at Middleton, Curran passed to Trinity College,
+Dublin, which he entered as a sizar when nineteen years of age. He does
+not appear to have distinguished himself at the University, from whence he
+proceeded to London, and contrived, _quodcunque modo_, to enter his name
+on the books of the Middle Temple. At that time, he says, he read "ten
+hours every day; seven at law, and three at history and the general
+principles of politics, and that I may have time enough"--it is believed
+he wrote for the magazines, etc., as a means of support--"I rise at
+half-past four. I have contrived a machine after the manner of an
+hour-glass, which wakens me regularly at that hour. Exactly over my head I
+have suspended two vessels of tin, one above the other. When I go to bed,
+which is always at ten, I pour a bottle of water into the upper vessel, in
+the bottom of which is a hole of such a size as to let the water pass
+through so as to make the inferior reservoir overflow in six hours and a
+half;" so that if he wished to remain in bed after daylight, he could only
+do so by consenting to a cold shower-bath.
+
+He was called to the bar in 1775, and for some time had a tremendously
+uphill fight, wearing, according to his own account, his teeth to the
+stumps at the Cork Sessions without any adequate recompense. He then
+removed to Dublin, and for a time fared no better. "I then lived" said he,
+"upon Hog Hill: my wife and children were the chief furniture of my
+apartments, and as to my rent it stood pretty much the same chance of
+liquidation with the National Debt. Mrs. Curran, however, was a
+barrister's lady, and what she wanted in wealth she was determined should
+be supplied by dignity. The landlady, on the other hand, had no idea of
+any gradation except that of pounds, shillings, and pence. I walked out
+one morning to avoid the perpetual altercations on the subject, in no very
+enviable mood. I fell into the gloom, to which from my infancy I had been
+occasionally subject. I had a family for whom I had no dinner, and a
+landlady for whom I had no rent. I had gone abroad in despondence, I
+returned home almost in desperation. When I opened the door of my study,
+where _Lavater_ alone could have found a library, the first object which
+presented itself was an immense folio of a brief, twenty gold guineas
+wrapped up beside it, and the name of _Old Bob Lyons_ marked upon the back
+of it. I paid my landlady, bought a good dinner, gave Bob Lyons a share of
+it, and that dinner was the date of my prosperity." From this time he
+rapidly rose to the top of his profession, and his services were eagerly
+sought for. Wonderfully eloquent, with a highly imaginative and powerfully
+poetic mind, his sway was something marvellous, for, added to these gifts,
+his wit and power of mimicry were unapproachable.
+
+In the case of Valentine Jamerai Duval, who ultimately became Professor of
+Antiquities and Ancient and Modern Geography in the Academy of Luneville,
+youthful hardships occasioned extraordinary expedients. The son of
+labouring people, at the age of fourteen he was ignorant of the alphabet.
+His occupation was that of turkey-keeper, but after an attack of
+small-pox, which nearly killed him, he wandered through certain parts of
+Champagne, then in a condition of famine, in search of employment. When he
+reached the Duchy of Lorraine, he obtained a situation as shepherd, and
+became acquainted with the hermit, Brother Palimon, whom he helped in his
+rural labours. In return for these services the hermit gave him
+instruction, and subsequently he lived as a labourer with the four hermits
+of St. Anne, studying arithmetic and geography in his leisure moments. His
+one object then was to obtain books, impossible without money, which,
+situated as he was, seemed equally unattainable. Finding out, however,
+that a furrier at Luneville purchased skins, he set snares for wild
+animals, and by this means realised enough money to procure the books he
+coveted.
+
+But beyond the self-denial of Curran with his primitive invention for
+early rising, and the contrivance of Duval for obtaining the needful, is
+the interesting career of Bernard Palissy, the Potter, who, in addition to
+his fame as an artist in pottery, was celebrated as a glass painter,
+naturalist, philosopher, and for his devotion to the Protestant cause in
+the sixteenth century. Born in 1510, at Chapelle Biron, a poor hamlet near
+the small town of Perigord, he was brought up as a worker in painted
+glass, in pursuit of which occupation he travelled considerably, devoting
+all the spare time of his wanderings to the study of natural history, in
+which he delighted. Though an ardent student of nature, he yet found
+opportunity to make himself acquainted with the teaching of Paracelsus, of
+the alchemists and of the reformers of the Church. He did not settle down
+till nearly thirty years of age, when he established himself at Saintes as
+a painter on glass, and surveyor, and then turned his attention to the
+making of pottery and the production of white enamel, which latter was
+useless excepting as a covering for ornamental pottery, and at this time
+Palissy was not sufficiently skilled to make a rough pipkin. Under these
+circumstances it is not surprising that his wife took exception to the
+money expended in the purchase of drugs, the buying of pots, and the
+building of a furnace, as the loss of time told heavily on his limited
+resources; and it would be perfectly truthful to say that the first things
+Bernard Palissy produced in the way of pottery were family jars. Mrs.
+Palissy was undoubtedly very wroth at his going on in this way, more
+especially because, as is so frequently the case, his family increased as
+his income decreased, and she succeeded at last in stopping his
+experiments for a time. He then obtained an appointment as Surveyor to the
+Government, in which profession he was remarkably proficient, but before
+very long the old craving for experimenting returned with redoubled
+vigour, and he again set to work in search of white enamel. The expense
+incurred was so great that his wife and children became ragged and hungry:
+nothing daunted, he broke up twelve new earthen pots, hired a glass
+furnace, and for months continued watching, burning, and baking. At last
+his eager eyes were gladdened by the sight of a piece of white enamel
+amidst the bakings. Urged on by this, he felt he must have another
+furnace; he succeeded in obtaining the bricks on credit, became his own
+bricklayer's boy and mason, and built the structure himself. On one
+occasion he spent six days and nights watching his baking clay, sleeping
+only a few minutes at a time near his fire, but disappointment was all the
+result. The vessels were spoilt. In desperation he borrowed more money for
+his experiments, which was consumed in like manner, until at last he was
+without fuel for the furnace. Insensible to everything but the project on
+which he was bent, he tore up the palings from the garden, and when these
+were exhausted he broke up the chairs and tables. His wife and children
+rushed about frantic, thinking that he had lost his senses, and well they
+might when they saw the demolition of the furniture followed by the
+tearing up of the floor. Success ultimately crowned his praiseworthy
+perseverance, but not until he had devoted sixteen years of unremunerated
+labour, enduring unexampled fatigue and discouragements. When at length he
+succeeded in obtaining a pure white enamel he was enabled to produce works
+in which natural objects were represented with remarkable skill, his fame
+spread rapidly, his sculptures in clay and his enamelled pottery being at
+once accepted as works of art of the highest order. His career, however,
+was destined to be remarkable at every stage, for no sooner had he
+acquired renown and riches than he was subjected to religious persecution,
+which would have ended in death had it not been for the Duke de
+Montmorency, one of his patrons, who succeeded in rescuing him from
+prison. When established in Paris, assisted by his sons, he continued to
+produce most remarkable specimens of ornamental pottery, and in addition
+to his artistic labours instituted a series of conferences which were
+attended by the most distinguished doctors and scientific _savants_, where
+he set forth his views on fountains, stones, metals, etc., desirous of
+knowing whether the great philosophers of antiquity interpreted nature as
+he did. Although in the ordinary sense an unlettered man, his theories
+were never once controverted, and for ten years his lectures were
+delivered before the most enlightened of that age, but his teaching once
+more arousing the animosity of his religious opponents, he was thrown into
+the Bastille, where he died after being incarcerated for two years.
+
+After such a "shift" as having to tear up the floor of a dwelling, most
+other instances might be expected to appear more or less tame; but the
+experiences of William Thom, the Inverary poet, are scarcely inferior in
+intensity. This untutored, but extremely sweet songster, whose first poem,
+'Blind Boys' Pranks,' appeared in the _Edinburgh Herald_, was a hand-loom
+weaver, who was deprived of his occupation by the failure of certain
+American firms, and compelled to tramp the country as a pedlar. Before
+resorting to that line of life, and when in the receipt of the sum of five
+shillings weekly, he relates how on a memorable spring morning, he
+anxiously awaited the arrival of this small amount: and though the clock
+had struck eleven, the windows of the room were still curtained, in order
+that the four sleeping children, who were bound to be hungry when awake,
+might be deluded into believing that it was still night, for the only food
+in their parents' possession was one handful of meal saved from the
+previous day. The mother with the tenderest anxiety sat by the babes'
+bedside lulling them off to sleep as soon as they exhibited the least sign
+of wakefulness, and speaking to her husband in whispers as to the cooking
+of the little meal remaining, for the youngest child could no longer be
+kept asleep, and by its whimpering woke the others. Face after face sprang
+up, each little one exclaiming, "Oh, mither, mither, give me a piece;" and
+says the poor fellow, "The word sorrow was too weak to apply to the
+feelings of myself and wife during the remainder of that long and dreary
+forenoon." When compelled to leave the humble dwelling which,
+poverty-stricken though it was, had all the endearing influences of home,
+he made up a pack consisting of second-hand books and some trifling
+articles of merchandise, and sadly started with wife and bairns through
+mountain paths and rugged roads, often sleeping at night in barns and
+outhouses. The precarious nature of a pedlar's life must have been
+terribly trying to one so sensitive, especially when, as in his case, it
+ended in his having to have recourse to the profession of musical beggar.
+Before entering Methven he sold a book to a stone-breaker on the road, the
+proceeds of which (fivepence halfpenny) was all the money he possessed.
+The purchaser when making the bargain had noticed Thom's flute which he
+carried with him, and had offered such a good price for the instrument
+that the poet had been much tempted to part with it, though it had been
+his solace and companion on many and many an occasion. Thinking that
+possibly it might be the means of his earning a few pence, he resisted the
+temptation to part with it, and soon after took up his post outside a
+genteel-looking house, and played 'The Flowers of the Forest' with such
+exquisite expression that window after window was raised, and in ten
+minutes after he found himself possessed of three and ninepence, which sum
+was increased to five shillings before he reached his lodging.
+
+It would hardly be possible to conceive anything more truly touching than
+the shift of William Thom, when he practised the pardonable deception upon
+his hungry children of turning day into night, though for downright
+deprivation the experience of John Ledyard, the traveller, may be said to
+excel it. This celebrated discoverer, who came into Europe from the United
+States in 1776, when making a tour of the world with Captain Cook, as
+corporal of a troop of Marines, arrived in England in 1780. He then formed
+the design of penetrating from the North West to the East Coast of
+America, for which purpose Sir Joseph Banks furnished him with some money.
+He bought sea stores with the intention of sailing to Nootka Sound, but
+altered his mind, and determined to travel overland to Kamschkatka, from
+whence the passage is short to the opposite shore of the American
+continent. Towards the close of the year 1786, he started with ten guineas
+in his pocket, went to and from Stockholm, because the Gulf of Bothnia was
+frozen; proceeding north he walked to the Arctic Circle, passed round the
+head of the Gulf of Bothnia, and descended on its east side to St.
+Petersburg, where he arrived in March 1787, without shoes or stockings.
+He proceeded to the house of the Portuguese Ambassador, who gave him a
+good dinner, and obtained for him twenty guineas on a bill drawn in the
+name of Sir Joseph Banks, with which sum he proceeded to Yakutz,
+accompanying a convoy of provisions, and there met Captain Cook. He says
+in his Journal, "I have known both hunger and nakedness to the utmost
+extremity of human endurance. I have known what it is to have food given
+me as charity to a madman, and I have at times been obliged to shelter
+myself under the miseries of that character to avoid a heavier calamity.
+My distresses have been greater than I have ever owned, or will own to any
+man. Such evils are terrible to bear, but they never yet had power to turn
+me from my purpose."
+
+To have to submit to be thought a lunatic to escape starvation must
+certainly have been rather trying, though from the fact of part of the
+journey being performed without shoes or stockings it would certainly look
+as if John Ledyard were anything but particular; and it is well for us
+that he and other glorious pioneers were not, otherwise we should not be
+living in such an age of marvellous enlightenment as is our present
+privilege. Round the world in eighty days, facilitated by Cook's tourist
+coupons would hardly have been practicable, had not men like Ledyard been
+martyrs in the cause of exploration.
+
+_Apropos_ of travelling in days gone by, an incident in the life of the
+Rev. Henry Tevuge presents a somewhat strange shift; at any rate, strange
+for a clergyman. This eccentric clerical was Rector of Alcester in 1670,
+and afterwards Incumbent of Spernall, which he appears to have left in
+1675, for on May 20th in that year he writes, "This day I began my voyage
+from my house at Spernall, in the county of Warwick, with small
+accoutrements, saving what I carried under me in an old sack. My steed
+like that of Hudibras, for mettle, courage, and colour (though not of the
+same bigness), and for flesh, one of Pharaoh's lean mares ready to seize
+(for hunger) on those that went before her, had she not been short-winged,
+or rather leaden-heeled. My stock of moneys was also proportionable to the
+rest; being little more than what brought me to London in an old coat and
+breeches of the same, an old pair of hose, and shoes, and a leathern
+doublet of nine years old and upwards. Indeed, by reason of the
+suddenness of my journey, I had nothing but what I was ashamed of, save
+only
+
+  "An old fox broad sword, and a good black gown,
+  And thus old Henry came to London Town."
+
+At that time chaplains were not provided with bed or bedding, and the
+divine, having no money, and wishing to redeem a cloak which had been long
+in pawn for 10_s._, he sold his lean mare, saddle and bridle for 26_s._,
+released the cloak, but only to re-pledge it for L2. A writer, alluding to
+that period, says "it must have been a rare time for cavaliers, clerical
+and secular, when the cloak that had been pawned for 10_s._ acquired a
+fourfold value when offered as a new pledge." It must have been a rare
+time for clergymen of the Church of England when a navy chaplain is found
+on such intimate terms with "No. 1 round the corner," but that
+circumstance is accounted for by the fact that the Rev. Mr. Tevuge is
+spoken of as having "contracted convivial and expensive habits."
+
+The literary, musical, and dramatic professions are the most prolific in
+furnishing curious cases of impecuniosity; and separate chapters will be
+devoted to those three branches of art, but there are a few instances more
+directly of the nature of "shifts" which I have included in the present
+portion of the subject; amongst others being the incident of Dr. Johnson
+dining with his publisher, and being so shabby that, as there was a third
+person present, he hid behind a screen. This happened soon after the
+publication of the lexicographer's 'Life of Savage,' which was written
+anonymously, and though the circumstance of the hiding must have been
+rather humiliating to the mighty Samuel, yet the attendant consequences
+were pleasant. The visitor who was dining with Harte, the publisher, was
+Cave, who, in course of conversation, referred to 'Savage's Life,' and
+spoke of the work in the most flattering terms. The next day, when they
+met again, Harte said, "You made a man very happy yesterday by your
+encomiums on a certain book." "I did?" replied Cave. "Why, how could that
+be; there was no one present but you and I?" "You might have observed,"
+explained Harte, "that I sent a plate of meat behind a screen. There
+skulked the biographer, one Johnson, whose dress was so shabby that he
+durst not make his appearance. He overheard our conversation, and your
+applause of his performance delighted him exceedingly." It is also
+recorded that so indigent was the doctor on another occasion that he had
+not money sufficient for a bed, and had to make shift by walking round and
+round St. James' Square with Savage; when, according to Boswell, they were
+not at all depressed by their situation, but in high spirits, and brimful
+of patriotism; inveighing against the ministry, and resolving that they
+would _stand_ by their country.
+
+Being thus intimately associated, it is only natural that the doctor in
+his 'Life of Savage' should thoroughly believe that individual's version
+of his own birth and parentage, which was that he was the illegitimate son
+of the Countess of Macclesfield, and that his father was Lord Rivers; the
+birth of Richard Savage giving his mother an excuse for obtaining a
+divorce from her husband, whom she hated. It is stated that "he was born
+in 1696, in Fox Court, a low alley leading out of Holborn, whither his
+mother had repaired under the name of Mrs. Smith--her features concealed
+in a mask, which she wore throughout her confinement. Discovery was
+embarrassed by a complication of witnesses; the child was handed from one
+woman to another until, like a story bandied from mouth to mouth, it
+seemed to lose its paternity." Lord Rivers, it is alleged, looked on the
+boy as his own, but his mother seems always to have disliked him; and the
+fact that Lady Mason, the mother of the countess, looked after the child's
+education, and had him put to a Grammar School at St. Albans, certainly
+favours the view of his aristocratic parentage. He was subsequently
+apprenticed to a shoemaker, but discovering the secret, or the supposed
+secret, of his birth, for not a few discredit his story, he cut leather
+for literature, and appealed to his mother for assistance. His habit was
+to walk of an evening before her door in the hope of seeing her, and
+making an appeal; but his efforts were in vain, he could neither open her
+heart nor her purse. He was befriended by many, notably by Steele, Wilks
+the actor, and Mrs. Oldfield, a "beautiful" actress, who allowed him an
+annuity of L50 during her life; but in spite of all the assistance he
+received, his state was one of chronic impecuniosity. No sooner was he
+helped out of one difficulty than he managed to get into another, and
+though he is described by some biographers as a literary genius, his
+genius seemed principally a knack of getting into debt. Rambling about
+like a vagabond, with scarcely a shirt to his back, he was in such a
+plight when he composed his tragedy (without a lodging, and often,
+without a dinner) that he used to write it on scraps of paper picked up by
+accident, or begged in the shops which he occasionally stepped into, as
+thoughts occurred to him, craving the favour of pen and ink as if it were
+just to make a memorandum.
+
+The able author of 'The Road to Ruin' was likewise one who had travelled
+some distance on that thorny path, for at one time he found himself in the
+streets of London without money, without a home, or a friend to whom his
+shame or pride would permit his making known his necessity. Wandering
+along he knew not whither, plunged in the deepest despondency, his eye
+caught sight of a printed placard, "To Young Men," inviting all spirited
+young fellows to make their fortunes as common soldiers in the East India
+Company's Service. After reading it over a second time he determined
+without hesitation to hasten off and enroll himself in that honourable
+corps, when he met with a person he had known at a sporting club he had
+been in the habit of frequenting. His companion seeing his bundle and
+rueful face, asked him where he was going, to which Holcroft replied that
+had he enquired five minutes before he could not have told him, but that
+now he was "for the wars." At this his friend appeared greatly surprised,
+and told him he thought he could put him up to something better than that.
+Macklin, the famous London actor, was going over to play in Dublin, and
+had asked him if he happened to be acquainted with a young fellow who had
+a turn for the stage, and, said his friend, "I should be happy to
+introduce you." The offer was gladly accepted, and when the introduction
+had been managed Holcroft was asked by Macklin "what had put it into his
+head to turn actor?" to which he replied, "He had taken it into his head
+to suppose it was genius, but that it was very possible he might be
+mistaken."
+
+Holcroft was engaged for the tour, became an actor, and though he does not
+appear to have shone particularly strong on the stage, acquired
+considerable celebrity as a dramatic author, his play before mentioned
+being one of the few works of the old dramatists that has not become out
+of date with the playgoing public.
+
+More than one literary man of note, has been compelled by poverty to
+accept the Queen's shilling. Coleridge, according to one of his
+biographers, left Cambridge partly through the loss of his friend
+Middleton, and partly on account of college debts. Vexed and fretted by
+the latter, he was overtaken by that inward grief which in after life he
+described in his 'Ode to Dejection.'
+
+  "A grief without a pang, void, dark, and drear,
+  A stifled, drowsy, unimpassioned grief,
+  Which finds no natural outlet, no relief,
+  In word, or sigh, or tear."
+
+In this state of mind he came to London, strolled about the streets till
+night, and then rested on the steps of a house in Chancery Lane. Beggars
+importuned him for alms and to them he gave the little money he had left.
+Next morning he noticed a bill to the effect that a few smart lads were
+wanted for the 15th Elliot's Light Dragoons. Thinking to himself "I have
+all my life had a violent antipathy to soldiers and horses, and the sooner
+I can cure myself of such absurd prejudices the better," he went to the
+enlisting-station, where the sergeant finding that Coleridge had not been
+in bed all night, made him have some breakfast and rest himself.
+Afterwards, he told him to cheer up, to well consider the step he was
+about to take, and suggested that he had better have half-a-guinea, go to
+the play, shake off his melancholy and not return. Coleridge went to the
+theatre, but afterwards resought the sergeant, who was extremely sorry to
+see him, and saying with evident emotion, "Then it must be so," enrolled
+him. In the morning he was marched to Reading with his new comrades, and
+there inspected by the general of the district. Looking at Coleridge, that
+officer said,--
+
+"What's your name?"
+
+"Comberback!"
+
+"What do you come here for, sir?"
+
+"For what most other persons come, to be made a soldier!"
+
+"Do you think you can run a Frenchman through the body, sir?"
+
+"I do not know," said Coleridge, "as I never tried, but I'll let a
+Frenchman run me through the body, before I'll run away."
+
+"That will do," said the general; and Coleridge was turned into the ranks.
+
+Alexander Somerville, author of 'Cobdenic Policy,' 'Conservative Science
+of Nations,' &c., &c., was also driven to the extremity of enlisting under
+circumstances more or less humorous. Unlike Coleridge, Alexander
+Somerville was not of gentle birth, being, as he styles himself in 'The
+Autobiography of a Working Man,' "One who has whistled at the plough." He
+received as a boy but scant education, being sent to a common day school
+where cruel discipline and unnecessary severity preponderated over
+learning. Though put to farm-work, where he was by turns carter, mower,
+stable-boy, thresher, wood-sawyer and excavator, his natural intelligence
+and love of books made him anxious to turn his face from the parish of
+Oldhamstocks, where he was brought up, in a westerly direction towards
+Edinburgh. When about eighteen years of age he was much interested in the
+Reform Bill of 1830, and gave evidence then of his enthusiasm for
+politics, became canvasser for a weekly newspaper, but does not appear to
+have succeeded in this vocation, for his circumstances were such that he
+wandered about moneyless; and meeting with an old chum they agreed to go
+and have a chat at any rate with the recruiting corporal of the dragoon
+regiment popularly known as the Scots Greys.
+
+"My companion," he says, "had seen the Greys in Dublin, and having a
+natural disposition to be charmed with the picturesque, was charmed with
+them. He knew where to enquire for the corporal, and having enquired, we
+found him in his lodging up a great many pairs of stairs, I do not know
+how many, stretched in his military cloak, on his bed. He said he was glad
+to see anybody upstairs in his little place, now that the regimental order
+had come out against moustachios; for since he had been ordered to shave
+his off, his wife had sat moping at the fireside, refusing all consolation
+to herself and all peace to him. 'I ha'e had a weary life o't,' he said
+plaintively 'since the order came out to shave the upper lip. She grat
+there. I'm sure she grat as if her heart would ha'e broken when she saw me
+the first day without the moustachios.' Having listened to this and heard
+a confirmation of it from the lady herself, as also a hint that the
+corporal had been lying in bed half the day, when he should have been out
+looking for recruits, for each of whom he had a payment of ten shillings,
+we told him that we had come looking for him to offer ourselves as
+recruits. He looked at us for a few moments, and said if we 'meant' it he
+saw nothing about us to object to; and as neither seemed to have any beard
+from which moustachios could grow, he could only congratulate us on the
+order that had come out against them as we should not have to be at the
+expense of getting burnt corks to blacken our upper lips, to make us look
+uniform with those who wore hair. We assured the corporal that we were in
+earnest, and that we did mean to enlist, whereupon he began by putting the
+formal question, 'Are you free, able and willing to serve his Majesty King
+William the Fourth?'
+
+"But there was a hitch, two shillings were requisite to enlist two
+recruits, and there was only one shilling. We proposed that he should
+enlist one of us with it, and that this one should then lend it to him to
+enlist the other. But his wife would not have the enlistment done in that
+way. She said 'That would not be _law_: and a bonny thing it would be to
+do it without it being law. Na na,' she continued, 'it maun be done as the
+law directs.' The corporal made a movement as if he would take us out with
+him to some place where he could get another shilling but she thought it
+possible that another of the recruiting party might share the prize with
+him--take one of us or both: so she detained him, shut the door on us,
+locked it, took the key with her and went in search of the King's
+requisite coin. Meanwhile as my friend was impatient I allowed him to take
+precedence of me, and have the ceremony performed with the shilling then
+present. On the return of the corporal's wife, who though younger than he
+in years seemed to be an 'older soldier,' I also became the King's man."
+
+In connection with music the name of Loder, the clever composer (author of
+the 'Night Dancers' and other charming musical compositions), recalls an
+interesting episode in his life revealing a remarkable shift to which he
+was put. One evening when leaving his lodgings with a friend named Jay for
+the purpose of enjoying a quiet little dinner at Simpson's, he received an
+ominous tap on the shoulder from one of those individuals whose attentions
+are not appetising, since without you can settle the little amount, they
+require your immediate company. Loder was by no means able to satisfy the
+law's demands, and the sheriff's officer refused to lose sight of his man,
+even though "he had a most particular appointment;" so the only thing to
+be done was to invite the bailiff to join them at dinner. After the repast
+was concluded the party repaired to Sloman's, a notorious spunging-house
+in Cursitor Street, Chancery Lane, when just as Jay was taking leave of
+Loder the latter remembered having something in his pocket which might be
+turned to account. It was a song by Samuel Lover. "Goodbye, old fellow,"
+said Loder. "Come to-morrow morning, and see what I shall have ready." As
+soon as his friend had gone he set to work and set Lover's words of 'The
+Three Stages of Love' to music, which was a most successful and
+satisfactory way of composing himself to sleep, for when Jay called in the
+morning he received a manuscript which, when taken to Chappell's, realised
+L30. The proceeds enabled Loder to pay the debt, and dine with his friend
+at Simpson's in the afternoon, without the unwelcome guest of the
+preceding day.
+
+John Palmer, the original Joseph Surface, in which character he was
+considered unapproachable, was a man evidently of the greatest
+plausibility. When complimented by a friend upon the ease of his address,
+he said, "No, I really don't give myself the credit of being so
+irresistible as you have fancied me. There is one thing, though, which I
+think I _am_ able to do. Whenever I am arrested I can always persuade the
+sheriff's officer to bail me."
+
+Contemporary with John Palmer was another celebrated comedian, also
+addicted to more extravagant tastes than his income warranted--Charles
+Bannister, who made his first appearance in London with Palmer in a piece
+called the "Orators" in May 1762. In this he gave musical imitations, but
+the performances taking place in the mornings, his convivial habits over
+night precluded him from shining as he might have done; a fact which was
+noticed by Foote, the manager. To this Bannister replied, "I knew it would
+be so; I am all right at night, but neither I, nor my voice, can _get up_
+in the morning." He was invariably in difficulties: on the death of Sir
+Theodosius Boughton, the topic of the hour in 1781, as he was said to have
+been poisoned by laurel water, Bannister, said "Pooh! Don't tell me of
+your laurel leaves; I fear none but a bay-leaf" (bailiff). Once when
+returning from Epsom to town in a gig, accompanied by a friend, they were
+unable to pay the toll at Kennington Gate, and the man would not let them
+pass. Bannister immediately offered to sing a song, and struck up 'The
+Tempest of War.' His voice was heard afar, the gate being soon thronged by
+voters returning from Brentford, who encored his effort, and the
+turnpike-man, calling him a noble fellow, expressed his willingness to pay
+"fifty tolls for him at any gate."
+
+John Joseph Winckelmann, who became one of the most famous of German
+writers on classical antiquities, was the son of a poor cobbler, who not
+only had to struggle with poverty, but with disease which, while his boy
+was yet young, compelled him to avail himself of the hospital. When
+placed at the burgh seminary there, the rector was struck with young
+Winckelmann's dawning genius, and by accepting less than the usual fee,
+and getting him placed in the choir, contrived that the boy should receive
+all the advantages the school afforded. The rector continued to take the
+greatest interest in his apt pupil, made him usher, and when seventeen
+years of age, sent him to Berlin with a letter of introduction to the
+rector of a gymnasium, with whom he remained twelve months. While there
+Winckelmann heard that the library of the celebrated Fabricius was about
+to be sold at Hamburgh, and he determined to proceed there on foot and be
+present at the sale. He set out accordingly, asking charity (a practice
+not considered derogatory to struggling students in Germany) of the
+clergymen whose houses he passed; and, having collected in this way
+sufficient to purchase some of his darling poets at the sale, returned to
+Berlin in great glee. After studying at Halle and elsewhere for six years,
+his early passion for wandering revived, and fascinated with a fresh
+perusal of Caesar's 'Commentaries,' he began in the summer of 1740 a
+pedestrian journey to France, to visit the scene of the great Roman's
+military exploits. His funds, however, soon became exhausted, and when
+close to Frankfort-on-the-Maine, he was obliged to return.
+
+When he arrived at the bridge of Fulda, he remarked his own dishevelled,
+travel-stained appearance, and believing himself alone, began to effect an
+alteration. He had pulled out a razor, and was about to operate on his
+chin, when he was disturbed by shrieks from a party of ladies, who,
+imagining that he was about to make away with himself, cried loudly for
+help. The facts were soon explained, and the fair ones insisted on his
+accepting a monetary gift that enabled him to return without
+inconvenience.
+
+It was not until the year 1755, when Winckelmann was thirty-eight years of
+age, and had published his first book, the 'Reflections on Imitation of
+the Greeks in Painting and Statuary,' that he freed himself from penury.
+
+Flaxman, who throughout his honourable life seems to have entertained a
+most modest view of his own talents, married before he had acquired
+distinction, though regarded as a skilful and exceedingly promising pupil;
+and when Sir Joshua Reynolds heard of the indiscretion of which he had
+been guilty, he exclaimed, "Flaxman is ruined for an artist!" But his
+mistake was soon made manifest. When Mrs. Flaxman heard of the remark, she
+said, "Let us work and economize. It shall never be said that Ann Denham
+ruined John Flaxman as an artist;" and they economised accordingly, her
+husband undertaking amongst other things to collect the local rates in
+Soho.
+
+It is to a "shift" of this nature that we are to a certain extent indebted
+for the writings of Bishop Jeremy Taylor. After the death of Charles I.,
+Dr. Taylor's living of Uppingham, in Rutlandshire, was sequestered, and
+the gifted ecclesiastic repaired to Golden Grove, Carmarthenshire, and
+taught a school for the subsistence of his children and himself. While
+thus employed, he produced some of those copious and fervent discourses,
+whose fertility of composition, eloquence of expression and
+comprehensiveness of thought, have enabled him to rank as one of the first
+writers in the English language.
+
+Beau Brummell, the autocrat of fashion when in his zenith, was in the days
+of his decline particularly shifty. After George IV. had cut him, and when
+he was about to depart for France to undertake the consulate of Caen, he
+made a desperate effort to raise money, and, amongst other people, he
+wrote to Scrope Davies for a couple of hundred pounds, which he promised
+to repay on the following morning, giving as a reason for his request,
+that the banks were shut for the day, and all his money was in the Three
+per Cents. To this Davies, who happened to know how hard up Brummell was,
+sent the following laconic reply:--
+
+    "MY DEAR GEORGE,
+
+    "'Tis very unfortunate, but all _my_ money is in the Three per Cents.
+
+        "Yours,
+          "S. DAVIES."
+
+Brummell's appointment at Caen, owing to the representations of Madame la
+Marquise de Seran, and others who had known him in London, was known in
+that place some time before he arrived, which had the effect of making all
+the young Frenchmen of the Carlist party anxious to become acquainted with
+him. Soon after he was settled down, three of them paid him a morning
+visit, and, though late in the day, found him deep in the mysteries of his
+toilet. They naturally wished to retire, but Brummell insisted on their
+remaining. "Pray stay," said he, as he laid down the silver tweezers with
+which he had just removed a straggling hair, "pray remain; I have not yet
+breakfasted--no excuses. There is a _pate de foie gras_, a game pie," and
+many other dainties that he enumerated with becoming gastronomic fervour,
+but which failed to overcome the scruples of the young men, who went away
+enchanted with Brummell's politeness and hospitality, one of the trio
+afterwards remarking that "he must live very well."
+
+There is not the slightest doubt that the beau was pretty sure his
+visitors had breakfasted, and it was only the extreme improbability of
+their accepting his invitation that made him give it. Had they taken him
+at his word, instead of the magnificent repast which he offered them, his
+guests would have sat down to an uncommonly plain breakfast, for the
+polite and hospitable host had nothing but a penny roll and the coffee
+simmering by his bedroom fire. On another occasion a visitor called on
+him, and in course of conversation said he was going to dine with a
+certain Mr. Jones, a retired soap-boiler, who had radically opposed the
+appointment of a man like Brummell to superintend the British interests at
+Caen.
+
+"Well I think I shall dine there too," said Brummell.
+
+"But you haven't an invitation, have you?"
+
+"No," was the reply; "but I think I shall dine there all the same."
+
+As soon as the caller left, Brummell sent a _pate de foie gras_, which he
+had received from Paris, with a grand message to Jones. The courtesy
+seemed so disinterested, that the Radical sent a pressing invitation by
+return; and when Brummell's visitor of the morning joined the party, he
+saw the beau installed in the seat of honour at the hostess's right.
+Brummell told his friend next day how he had managed. The gentleman said,
+"But I did not see the pie on the table."
+
+"True," explained Brummell; "I know it never made its appearance. It was a
+splendid pie--a _chef-d'oeuvre_, and I felt deeply interested in its fate.
+When going away I inquired what had been done with the pie. The cook said,
+'Master had kept it for Master Harry's birthday.' To be the 'cut and come
+again' of a nursery dinner. To be the prey of the little Joneses and their
+nurses was atrocious. It was an insult to me and my pie! 'Go,' I said, 'to
+your kitchen; I particularly want to see the _pate de foie gras_.' Feeling
+that it would have been a sin to leave it with such people, I took it
+away. It was not honest, but as I cut into it this morning I almost felt
+justified, for I never inserted a knife into such another."
+
+It certainly was anything but honest, and it would have been well had
+Brummell remembered the childish saying about "give a thing and take a
+thing," but where a person's _amour-propre_ is touched on such an
+important matter as a game pie it would not be right of course to judge
+the action by the ordinary standard. The idea of taking the pie back for
+the reasons alleged was really funny, though the fact of the beau being
+extremely "hard up" very possibly had a good deal to do with his conduct.
+_Apropos_ of this condition it may be news to some to know that there once
+existed an institution called the "Hard Up Club" the formation of which is
+alluded to by "Baron" Nicholson in his autobiography. He says "just before
+I left the Queen's Bench I had a visit from Pellatt (a well-known man
+about town in that day, who had formerly been clerk and solicitor to the
+Ironmongers' Company), with the news that he and another jolly old friend
+of mine had made a discovery of a place of rest suitable to our condition
+in life, which I must say was seedy in every respect. Pellatt had been in
+the habit of coming over to the Bench almost daily to dine with me and
+others, who were delighted with his amusing qualities. He gave excellent
+imitations of the past and present London actors, and his genius for
+entertaining was brought into active operation in our prison circle. The
+history of the discovery of 'The Nest,' or tranquil house of
+entertainment, was this: Pellatt and a friend of his, 'Old Beans' (whose
+right name was Bennett, yclept 'Old Beans' for shortness), were strolling
+about the Strand one foggy November night, their habiliments were
+uncomfortably ventilated, their crab-shells of the order hydraulic; snow
+was on the ground, and their castors 'shocking bad hats.' Not liking to
+enter any very public places they strayed round the back streets on the
+river side of the Strand, and turning from Norfolk Street into Howard
+Street, _vis-a-vis_ they perceived a tavern, a dull, unlighted (save by a
+dim lamp), small, old-fashioned public-house in Arundel Street, with the
+sign of 'The Swan.' '"The Swan,"' said Pellatt, as he read the sign, 'will
+never sink! Beans, old fellow, we'll go into the 'Never Sink!'
+
+"The house was better known for years afterwards by this name than by its
+real sign. The two wayfarers entered. Old Charles Mathews in his 'At
+Home' used to tell a story of pulling up at a road-side inn, and
+interrogating the waiter as to what he could have for dinner.
+
+"'Any hot joint?' said the traveller.
+
+"'No, sir; no hot joint, sir.'
+
+"'Any cold one?'
+
+"'Cold one, sir? No, sir; no cold one, sir.'
+
+"'Can you broil me a fowl?'
+
+"'Fowl, sir? No, sir; no fowl, sir.'
+
+"'No fowl, and in a country inn!' exclaimed Mathews. 'Let me have some
+eggs and bacon then.'
+
+"'Eggs and bacon, sir?' said the waiter. 'No eggs and bacon, sir.'
+
+"'Confound it,' at length said the traveller. 'What have you got in the
+house?'
+
+"'An execution, sir,' was the prompt response of the doleful waiter.
+
+"And so it was at 'The Swan.' When Pellatt and his friend entered the
+parlour there was but a glimmer of light, and no fire. A most civil man,
+whose name turned out to be Mathews, informed his guests that he would
+instantly light a fire and make them comfortable.
+
+"'Not worth while,' said Pellatt, 'We only want a glass of gin and water,
+and a pipe.'
+
+"The host would not be denied. In a few minutes there was a blazing fire,
+the hot grog was upon the table, and Pellatt and Old Beans were smoking
+away like steam. The supposed landlord was invited to take a seat with
+them, and during the conversation informed them that he was the man in
+possession, and that he was allowed to provide a little spirits, and a
+cask of beer, and reap the profits himself just to keep the house open
+until a purchaser could be found for it, and he further stated how glad he
+should be if the gentlemen would come again. Being told by Pellatt all
+about the 'Never Sink,' when I again left the Queen's Bench Prison, and
+visited the outer world, I aided them in establishing what we dignified by
+the title of 'The Hard Up Club.' Its institution commenced by Old Beans
+being appointed steward, and in that capacity began his campaign by buying
+a pound of cold boiled beef at Cautis's, Temple Bar, and four pennyworth
+of hot roasted potatoes from the man who stood with the baked 'tatur' can
+in front of Clement's Inn. As the club increased in number so did our
+commissariat in supplies and importance, and the office of 'Old Beans'
+became no sinecure. His duty, and it was performed _con amore_, was to be
+in attendance early in the day at the club to provide the dinner. The
+money to pay for this was invariably collected over night; and I have
+known the funds to be so short that 'Old Beans's' ingenuity has been
+frequently and greatly taxed to meet the necessary requirements and
+expenditure. A shoulder of mutton was a familiar dish, Beans preparing
+heaps of potatoes, and with a skilful culinary nicety, for which he was
+eminent, making the onion sauce himself. A bullock's heart was also a
+favourite with us, provided always that Old Beans made the gravy and
+stuffing. I said to our gracious and economical steward the first day we
+had the ox heart, 'Beany, you'll want some gravy beef.'
+
+"'The deaf ears' (the hard, gristly substance attached to the top of a
+bullock's heart), said he, 'will make excellent gravy. The 'Hard Ups'
+can't afford beef. No, no, we'll make the deaf ears do.' It may be
+imagined that Old Beans's place was a difficult one. One Kay, a large,
+seedy lawyer, who wore shabby black and white stockings, and shoes, was
+always behindhand with his share of cash. If a shilling were required, Kay
+would pay into the hands of the steward about nine pence halfpenny, vowing
+that he had no more, and Beans always declared himself out of pocket by
+Kay. We had, however, a visitor who added lustre to our association, but
+he was not a dining member--he could not be--his means were too limited
+even for our humble carousings. This member was a very old man, Colonel
+Curry, formerly a member of the Irish Parliament. He lodged in one room in
+Arundel Street, therefore the 'Never Sink' was to him a convenient
+hostelry, and he could do as he liked. He did so. On a small shelf over
+the parlour-door the colonel kept his own table-napkin, mustard, pepper,
+and salt. He also had a small gravy-tight tin case, and in that he brought
+with him every day four pennyworth of hot meat, generally bought at the
+corner of Angel Inn Yard, Clement's Inn. All he spent at the 'Never Sink'
+was three halfpence for a glass of rum, which he diluted from six o'clock
+in the evening till eleven o'clock at night: in the last mixing the rum
+was unrecognisable, the water colourless. Curry was a proud Irishman,
+never accepting the oft-proffered hospitality of others. His conversation
+was delightful, amusing, instructive. He never complained, and we were
+left to doubt whether his economy proceeded from parsimony or poverty; but
+from his highly honourable sentiments I should conclude the latter. It was
+a rule with the club that all the good sort of fellows with whom the
+members might be acquainted should be pressed into the general service of
+the club: thus any member who in better days had been a good customer to a
+thriving publican (and there was scarcely one exception in the whole
+society) should use his best endeavour to introduce that publican to the
+'Never Sink,' and get him to stand treat. The number of dinners and
+liquors obtained by such endeavours were prodigious. The club included
+several members of the republic of letters, who, to quote Tom Hood, had
+not a sovereign amongst them. Indeed, they had but one passable crown. One
+hat served nine; their shirts were latent; their dinners intermittent, and
+their grog often eleemosynary. Nothing sparkled about them but their wit,
+which was as keen as their appetites. The man of genius crouches in social
+poverty in a commonwealth of mutual privation.
+
+  "'There wit, subdued by poverty's sharp thorn,
+  Was joined by wisdom equally forlorn;
+  And stinted genius took a draught of malt
+  On baked potatoes mixed with attic salt.'"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE LUCK AND ILL LUCK OF IMPECUNIOSITY.
+
+
+Shakespeare, though he says "There's a divinity doth shape our ends,
+rough-hew them how we will," admits that "There is a tide in the affairs
+of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune," which certainly
+looks as if we had something to do with the matter. "Man," it has been
+said, "is the architect of his own fortune," but it is equally a fact that
+some individuals have many more chances than others of making that
+fortune, especially those who are apparently undeserving. In the same way,
+impecuniosity has with some been the very means of introducing them to the
+road to success, while it has only plunged others in suffering.
+
+Amongst the former may be ranked Benjamin Charles Incledon, who flourished
+in the latter part of the eighteenth century, and in the beginning of the
+nineteenth. He was born at Callington, in Cornwall, and at a very early
+age was a choir-boy in Exeter Cathedral, in which city he received his
+musical education from Jackson, the composer. At sixteen he entered the
+navy, and in the course of the two years that he remained in the service
+was in several engagements. When the _Formidable_ was paid off at Chatham,
+in 1784, the young sailor turned his steps towards Cornwall, but when he
+reached Hitchen Ferry, near Southampton, he had got rid of whatever money
+he started with, and had to ask assistance of a recruiting sergeant, who
+not only gave him the means to get ferried over, but invited him to a
+public-house in the town, where they made merry over bread and cheese, and
+ale. The company became convivial, and Incledon, in his turn, sang a
+ballad which delighted everybody, but especially the prompter of the
+Southampton Theatre, who happened to be sitting in the bar-parlour smoking
+his pipe, and who rushed out to his manager before the song was finished
+to tell him of the _rara avis_ he had found. Collins, the manager,
+returned forthwith, and was so delighted with the sailor's vocal abilities
+that he offered him an engagement at _half-a-guinea a week_, there and
+then, which offer was accepted, Incledon making his first appearance as
+Alphonso in 'The Castle of Andalusia.' His career was most successful, and
+he is spoken of by more than one authority as the first English singer on
+the stage of his day.
+
+Under the circumstances it must surely be conceded, that the impecuniosity
+which caused him to sing that song at that particular time, was
+particularly lucky, and Incledon is not the only individual who has been
+blessed with good fortune through the same means. In 'The Life of a
+Showman,' by D. G. Miller, that gentleman relates that one winter's
+afternoon he arrived with his family at a Cumberland village in a most
+pitiable plight, for though he had several "children he had but one
+sixpence." The journey, effected with a horse and cart, had been extremely
+trying, because across the road they had travelled ran a small rivulet,
+which was frozen, and a passage through which had to be made for the
+horse, the driver standing upon the shafts across the back of the horse,
+while the showman waded through the water nearly up to his waist, a state
+of discomfort enhanced by the plunging of the horse and the shrieks of the
+children. When the party arrived at the public-house (where there was a
+large room which was occasionally let for entertainments, &c.), they were
+nearly frozen, and proceeded to warm themselves by the kitchen fire. After
+calling for a quart of ale, and paying for it with the solitary sixpence
+in his possession, the showman proceeded to look after his properties, and
+found that the man with the cart, being anxious to get back, had unloaded
+the luggage at the door. Enquiring of the landlady if he could engage the
+large room for a few nights for a very superior exhibition, the itinerant
+performer was informed by her, "I can't tell, but I think not. The last
+people who were here didn't pay the rent. However, the landlord is not at
+home, and I can say nothing about it."
+
+After this he asked if they could be supplied with some tea, and on being
+replied to in the affirmative, says, "The expression on my wife's face
+seemed to say, 'Are you mad--where will you get the money to pay for it?'
+I paid no attention, however, to her look: the tea was got ready, and we
+sat down and made a hearty meal--at least, the children and I did. As to
+my wife, she was alarmed at my conduct, and was too frightened to eat,
+although she had tasted nothing since breakfast."
+
+After tea he asked if they could be accommodated with beds, but was
+refused by the landlord, who showed his suspicions. The showman pointed to
+the snow, which was falling heavily, and asked permission for his wife and
+children to remain by the fire all night, professing to be able to pay,
+and at last the landlord sulkily agreed to let them have beds. After the
+wife and children retired, a good number of customers came in, and a
+raffle was started for a watch, thirty members at a shilling. While this
+was being arranged the visitors joked and sang, and presently the showman
+was asked if he would oblige with a song; he readily complied, and was
+voted a jolly good fellow by all present, including the landlord, who
+apologised then for having demurred about the accommodation. When the
+raffle began, it was found there was one more subscriber wanted, and the
+showman was asked to join, which he said he would gladly do, but his wife
+kept the purse and she had gone to bed, and being very tired he did not
+like to disturb her. The landlord at once said, "Certainly not, here's a
+shilling; pay me in the morning." He accepted the proffered coin, threw
+the dice, and won the watch, which he sold for a sovereign. He then gave
+an exhibition of his skill with sleight of hand tricks, to the great
+delight of the customers, and was informed by the landlord before he went
+to bed that he could have the big room for a night or two. To this he
+replied, "I will think it over," and joined his wife, whom he found in a
+state of the greatest trepidation at the thought of their not having the
+money to pay for their board and lodging. He set her fears literally at
+rest, by showing her the proceeds of the watch he had sold. The next and
+two following evenings he gave three most successful performances in the
+big room, and finally left the village with flying colours, _en route_ for
+Carlisle. His good fortune, as in the case of Incledon, being fairly
+attributable to the singing of a song; which savours strongly to my mind
+of what is generally understood by the term "lucky."
+
+Though somewhat different in detail, the impecuniosity of the late
+distinguished journalist, G. A. Sala, when a young man, was equally
+felicitous. Born in 1827 of not over-wealthy parents (Mrs. Sala was an
+operatic singer and teacher of music), he from an early age suffered with
+bad eyes, which prevented him learning to read until he was nine years
+old. When fourteen he began to earn his own living, and from that time
+till he was four-and-twenty, his mode of existence seems to have been more
+or less precarious. At one time engaged in copying plans of projected
+railways, then acting as assistant scene-painter at fifteen shillings a
+week, afterwards designing the cheapest and least elegant description of
+valentines, and subsequently drawing woodcuts for those inferior
+periodicals pretty generally known as "penny dreadfuls." In the year 1851
+his health gave way while he was pursuing the avocation of an engraver.
+The acids used in engraving so affecting his eyes that for a time he was
+quite blind, and loss of eyesight meant loss of work, and loss of work
+involved loss of income. The poverty he suffered at this time must have
+been of the direst; but though he had lost almost everything else, he
+never apparently quite lost heart, and when his sight improved he dashed
+off an article called "The Key of the Street," descriptive of a night
+spent by a poor wanderer in London, which he sent in to Dickens, who had
+not long started _Household Words_. The feelings of the homeless man were
+described in a manner that shows the writer _felt_ his subject, although
+it is hinted that the experiences related may have been the result of
+caprice.
+
+He says, "I have no bed to-night. Why, it matters not. Perhaps I have lost
+my latch-key--perhaps I never had one; yet am fearful of knocking up my
+landlady after midnight. Perhaps I have a caprice--a fancy--for stopping
+up all night. At all events, I have no bed; and, saving ninepence
+(sixpence in silver, and threepence in coppers), no money. I must walk the
+streets all night; for I cannot, look you, get anything in the shape of a
+bed for less than a shilling. Coffee-houses, into which--seduced by their
+cheap appearance--I have entered, and where I have humbly sought a
+lodging, laugh my ninepence to scorn. They demand impossible
+eighteenpences--unattainable shillings. There is clearly no bed for me.
+
+"It is midnight--so the clanging tongue of St. Dunstan's tells me--as I
+stand thus bedless at Temple Bar. I have walked a good deal during the
+day, and have an uncomfortable sensation in my feet, suggesting the idea
+that the soles of my boots are made of roasted brickbats. I am thirsty too
+(it is July and sultry), and just as the last chime of St. Dunstan's is
+heard, I have half-a-pint of porter, and a ninth part of my ninepence is
+gone from me for ever. The public-house where I have it (or rather the
+beer-shop, for it is an establishment of 'the glass of ale and sandwich'
+description) is an early closing one, and the proprietor, as he serves me,
+yawningly orders the potboy to put the shutters up, for he is 'off to
+bed.' Happy proprietor! There is a bristly-bearded tailor too, very beery,
+having his last pint, who utters a similar somniferous intention. He calls
+it 'Bedfordshire.' Thrice happy tailor!
+
+"I envy him fiercely, as he goes out, though, God wot, his bedchamber may
+be but a squalid attic, and his bed a tattered hop-sack, with a slop
+great-coat from the emporium of Messrs. Melchisedek & Son, and which he
+had been working at all day, for a coverlid. I envy his children (I am
+sure he has a frouzy, ragged brood of them) _for they have at least
+somewhere to sleep. I haven't_."
+
+Then follows a most graphic account of the persons encountered during the
+eight hours' enforced prowl (including a flying visit to a fourpenny
+lodging-house, which was not a "model" of cleanliness), all the personages
+met with, and the occurrences witnessed being described with a freshness
+and fidelity that stamped the author as a descriptive writer of uncommon
+power. Charles Dickens at once forwarded a cheque for the contribution
+named, and, in the words of Oliver Twist, "asked for more;" and the late
+George Augustus Sala has for years been regarded as the journalist _par
+excellence_ of the day.
+
+In like manner the needy circumstances of Charlotte Cushman had much to do
+with her obtaining an engagement at the Princess's Theatre, and making the
+great reputation she achieved in England. When first introduced to Mr.
+Maddox, the then lessee and manager of the house in Oxford Street, she did
+not impress him favourably. She had no pretensions to beauty, and Mr.
+Maddox considered she had not the qualities essential to a stage heroine.
+From London she went to Paris, in the hope of getting engaged by an
+English company performing there, but failing, and having obtained a
+letter of introduction from some one supposed to have great influence with
+the lessee, she again sought Mr. Maddox, with no better result. Stung to
+the quick by this second repulse, and made desperate by her critical
+situation, she turned when she had almost reached the door, exclaiming,
+"I know I have enemies in this country, but" (here she cast herself on her
+knees, raising her clenched hand aloft), "so help me Heaven, I'll defeat
+them!" Mr. Maddox was at once satisfied with the tragic power of his
+visitor, and offered her an engagement forthwith.
+
+If there is any doubt as to Charlotte Cushman's success being attributable
+to impecuniosity the case of O'Brien, the celebrated Irish giant, is most
+clear.
+
+This lengthy individual, whose height was 8ft. 7in., was born at Kinsale,
+where, with his father, he laboured as a bricklayer. His extraordinary
+size soon attracted the attention of a travelling showman, who, on payment
+of L50 per annum, acquired the right of exhibiting him for three years in
+England.
+
+Not satisfied with this extremely good bargain, his master tried to sublet
+him to another person in the show business, a proceeding which Cotter (the
+giant's real name) objected to, and for which objection he was saddled
+with a fictitious debt, and thrown into Bristol Jail. This apparent
+misfortune was, in the end, one of the luckiest things that could have
+happened to him. While in prison he was visited by a gentleman who took
+compassion on his distress, and believing him to be unjustly detained,
+very generously became his bail, ultimately investigating the affair so
+successfully as to obtain for him not only his liberty but his freedom to
+discontinue serving his taskmaster any longer. It happened to be September
+when he was liberated, and by the further assistance of his benefactor he
+was enabled to set up for himself in the fair then held in St. James's,
+and such an attraction did he prove that in three days he realised the
+considerable sum of L30. From that time he continued to exhibit himself
+for twenty-six years, when, having realised a fortune sufficient to enable
+him to keep a carriage and live in luxury, he retired into private life.
+
+A practical joke led to the ultimate success of Edward Knight, a popular
+comedian of last century. While with Mr. Nunns, manager of the Stafford
+company, he received a message from a stranger desiring his presence at a
+certain inn. On repairing thither he was courteously received by a
+gentleman who desired to show his gratification at Knight's performance by
+giving him permission to use his name (Phillips) to Mr. Tate Wilkinson,
+the manager of the York Theatre, who, the stranger felt sure, on account
+of his intimacy with him would be sure to give Knight a good engagement.
+Next morning a letter was sent by the elated actor, who in due course
+received the following reply:
+
+    "Sir,--I am not acquainted with any Mr. Phillips, except a rigid
+    Quaker, and he is the last man in the world to recommend an actor to
+    my theatre. I don't want you.
+
+      "TATE WILKINSON."
+
+This rebuff was so unexpected, and so mortifying, that the recipient sent
+a short and sharp answer:
+
+    "Sir,--I should as soon think of applying to a Methodist parson to
+    preach for my benefit as to a Quaker to recommend me to Mr. Wilkinson.
+    I don't want to come.
+
+      "E. KNIGHT."
+
+After an interval of twelve months, when the elder Mathews seceded from
+his company, he wrote to Knight as follows:
+
+    "Mr. Methodist Parson,--I have a living that produces twenty-five
+    shillings per week. Will you hold forth?
+
+        "TATE WILKINSON."
+
+The invitation was gladly accepted, and for seven years he continued at
+York with unvarying success; at the end of which time he obtained an
+engagement at Drury Lane, and became a metropolitan favourite.
+
+Though perhaps not so striking an example as any of the foregoing, an
+episode in the life of William Dobson (called by Charles the First "the
+English Tintoret") is more or less of the same fortunate nature. Dobson,
+who always betrayed in his best efforts the want of proper training, was,
+as a boy, apprenticed to a Mr. Peake, who was more of a dealer in, than a
+painter of, pictures, and who consequently was anything but a competent
+teacher. Nevertheless, his collection of paintings, which included some by
+Titian and Van Dyck, was most valuable to the youngster, who copied both
+those masters with such wonderful correctness that none but an _expert_
+could detect the difference. When very young, and very poor, he managed to
+get one of his copies of a Van Dyck exhibited in a shop window on Snow
+Hill, which, strangely enough, was seen by no less a person than the
+author of the original, who immediately sought out the individual who had
+reproduced his work with such fidelity, and finding him toiling away in a
+miserable garret, took him by the hand, and brought him to the notice of
+King Charles.
+
+Another instance of luck not dissociated with impecuniosity is found in
+the case of Perry, of _The Morning Chronicle_. Educated at Marischal
+College, Aberdeen, which he entered in 1771, he was first employed in that
+town as a lawyer's clerk; but full of literary ambition, and possessed of
+much literary culture, he made his way to Edinburgh, where he almost
+starved, not being able to find employment of any kind. From Edinburgh he
+went to Manchester, where he just managed to eke out an existence; but
+believing London was the El Dorado for men of letters, he was not content
+till he had started for the great city. Amongst others who had promised
+him work was Urquart, the bookseller, to whom he wrote without success.
+One morning he called upon that gentleman, and was leaving the shop after
+a fruitless interview, when the bookseller said he had just experienced
+great pleasure in reading an article in _The General Advertiser_, and,
+said he, "If you could write like that, I could soon find you an
+engagement." It so happened that Perry had sent in an article to that
+paper, and his joy may be imagined when he was able to claim the lauded
+production as his own; bringing out of his pocket another of the same
+sort, which he was about to drop into the editor's box as before. He was
+immediately engaged as a paid contributor to _The General Advertiser_ and
+_Evening Post_, and ultimately became editor and proprietor of _The
+Morning Chronicle_.
+
+One of the most remarkable of the lucky illustrations, however, is that of
+Hogarth, when he was a struggling artist. At the time referred to, when
+studying at St. Martin's Lane Academy, he was oftentimes reduced to the
+lowest possible water-mark; and while laying the foundation of his future
+celebrity, he was exposed to all the humiliating inconveniences too
+frequently associated with penury, not the least of such annoyances being
+the contemptuous insolence of an ignorant letter of lodgings. The story
+goes that on one of these occasions when he was unmercifully dunned by his
+landlady for the small sum of a sovereign, he was so exasperated that,
+with a view to being revenged upon her, he made a sketch of her face so
+excruciatingly ugly, that it revealed at once his marvellous power as a
+caricaturist.
+
+Turning to the opposite side of the subject--the unlucky, there is, it
+must be admitted, a dearth of similarly appropriate examples. It is not
+that there is any scarcity of cases of great misfortune in connection with
+impecuniosity, but the circumstances connected with such cases are not so
+apparently the result of accident. In the lucky instances enumerated the
+chance element was conspicuous, but the same cannot be said of the adverse
+anecdotes; for they, or rather those that have come under my notice, are
+unfortunate cases rather than unlucky. For instance, the impecuniosity
+that introduced the Irish giant to some one he would not otherwise have
+met, who put him in the way of realising a competency, was manifestly
+lucky; but the impecuniosity that attended Stow, the antiquary, in his
+latest years, could not in the same sense be called _un_lucky, inasmuch as
+it was owing to no particular act or chance circumstance that he continued
+poor. The kind of cases that I consider would more properly illustrate
+this phase of the subject would be those of persons who, from, say,
+missing an appointment with some patron of eminence owing to being hard
+up, lost an opportunity of advancement, which never occurred again; or by
+not having some small amount of ready money were unable to avail
+themselves of an advantageous offer, which would have resulted in a
+fortune. That such mishaps have occurred in the long list of unrecorded
+lives there is little doubt; but I cannot call any to remembrance at the
+present time. The only instances I have met with in my research being
+those of unfortunate persons, whose histories of hardship would be more
+fittingly recounted as the sad side of impecuniosity.
+
+The individual just referred to, John Stow, the antiquary, is a most
+melancholy case in point. A profound scholar in every sense, he devoted
+his life and substance to the study of English antiquities; oftentimes
+travelling tremendous distances on foot to save monuments, and rescue rare
+works from the dispersed libraries of monasteries. His enthusiasm for
+study was unbounded, and at his death he left stupendous excerpts in his
+own handwriting. At an advanced age, when worn out by study and travel,
+and the cares and anxieties of poverty--for he was utterly neglected by
+the pretended patrons of learning--his other troubles were increased by
+most acute pains in the feet, which he good-humouredly referred to by
+saying "his affliction lay in that part which formerly he had made so much
+use of." At last he became so necessitous that he petitioned James the
+First for a licence to collect alms for himself, "as a recompense for his
+labour and travel of forty-five years, in setting forth the Chronicles of
+England, and eight years taken up in the Survey of the Cities of London
+and Westminster, towards his relief now in his old age: having left his
+former means of living, and only employing himself for the service and
+good of his country"--which petition was granted by letters patent under
+the Great Seal, permitting him to seek assistance from all well-disposed
+people within this realm of England. The terms in which this permit was
+set forth ("to ask, gather, and take the alms of all our loving subjects")
+were scarcely correct; that is to say, "to ask, gather, and take the alms
+of all our loving subjects--who will give" would have been more complete;
+for though the letters patent were published by the clergy from their
+pulpits, the result was so trifling that they had to be renewed for
+another twelvemonth; one entire parish in the city subscribing but seven
+and sixpence to the poor scholar's appeal.
+
+Learning in Stow's time, and for a long time after, was evidently but
+poorly patronised, for his is by no means an isolated experience. Myles
+Davies, author of 'Athenae Britannicae,' &c., published in 1716, suffered
+similar neglect; his mind, it is alleged, becoming quite confused amidst
+the loud cries of penury and despair.
+
+Alluding to those who were supposed to support such as himself, he
+scathingly says, "Some parsons would halloo enough to raise the whole
+house and home of the domestics to raise a poor crown; at last all that
+flutter ends in sending Jack or Tom out to change a guinea, and then 'tis
+reckoned over half-a-dozen times before the fatal crown can be picked out,
+which must be taken as it is given, with all the parade of almsgiving
+[Davies, be it remembered, was a Welsh divine], and so to be received with
+all the active and passive ceremonial of mendication and alms-receiving,
+as if the books, printing, and paper were worth nothing at all, and as if
+it were the greatest charity for them to touch them, or let them be in the
+house. 'For I shall never read them,' says one of the five-shilling chaps.
+'I have no time to look into them,' says a third. ''Tis so much money
+lost,' says a grave dean. 'My eyes being so bad,' said a bishop, 'that I
+can scarce read at all.' 'What do you want with me?' said another. 'Sir, I
+presented you the other day with my 'Athenae Britannicae,' being the last
+part published.' 'I don't want books, take them again; I don't understand
+what they mean.' 'The title is very plain,' said I, 'and they are writ
+mostly in English.' 'I'll give you a crown for both the volumes.' 'They
+stand me, sir, in more than that, and 'tis for a bare subsistence I
+present or sell them; how shall I live?' 'I care not a farthing for
+that--live or die, 'tis all one to me.' 'Damn my master,' said Jack,
+''twas but last night he was commending your books and your learning to
+the skies, and now he would not care if you were starving before his eyes;
+nay, he often makes game at your clothes, though he thinks you the
+greatest scholar in England.'"
+
+So much for the way literature was encouraged in the sixteenth and
+seventeenth centuries, and that it was little better in the eighteenth
+century is only too well-known a fact; for "in those days, a large
+proportion of working literary men were little better than
+outcasts;--persons exiled from decent society, partly by their own vices,
+partly by the fact of their following a profession which had hardly
+acquired a recognised standing in the world, or found for itself a
+definite and indisputable sphere of usefulness. The reading public was not
+sufficient to maintain an extensive fraternity of writers, and the writers
+consequently often starved, and broke their hearts in wretched garrets, or
+earned a despicable living by flattering the great."
+
+These animadversions are especially meant to apply to that class of
+_litterateurs_ known as "Grub Street pamphleteers," but not a few notable
+names in the world of letters can be found to verify the gloomy picture.
+Nathaniel, or "Nat" Lee, as he is more often called, was one of those who
+failed to find fortune, but it must be admitted his "own vices" are
+answerable for his indigence. The son of a clergyman, he was educated at
+Westminster School, and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took his
+B.A.; and, at a very early age, manifested conspicuous ability for
+dramatic writing; his first effort, 'Nero, Emperor of Rome,' produced in
+1675, being received with marked success. From that time until his death,
+which occurred fifteen years later, he brought out eleven plays, not one
+of which was a failure, but he was so rakishly extravagant as to be
+frequently plunged into the lowest depths of misery. In November 1684, his
+excesses, coupled with a naturally excitable temperament, succeeded in
+fitting him to be an inmate of Bedlam, where he was confined for four
+years. On his release in April 1688, he resumed his occupation of
+dramatist, producing 'The Princess of Cleve' in 1689, and 'The Massacre
+of Paris' the following year. Notwithstanding the considerable profits
+arising from these performances he was reduced to so low an ebb, that a
+weekly stipend of 10_s._ from the Theatre Royal was his chief dependence.
+He died the same year, 1690, the result of a drunken frolic in the street;
+and although the author of eleven plays, all acted with applause, and
+dedicated, when printed, to the Earls of Dorset, Mulgrave, and Pembroke,
+and the Duchesses of Portsmouth and Richmond, who were numbered among his
+patrons, _he was buried by the Parish_ of St. Clement Danes, Strand.
+
+The vicissitudes of Spenser, in contrast to those of the author just
+referred to, were undoubtedly due to a want of appreciation on the part of
+those in power; for none of his biographers even hint at want of rectitude
+in his past life. Created Poet Laureate by Queen Elizabeth, he, for some
+time, only wore the barren laurel, and possessed the place without the
+pension; for Lord Treasurer Burleigh, for some motive or other,
+intercepted the Queen's intended bounty to him. It is said that Her
+Majesty, upon Spenser presenting some poems to her, ordered him L100, but
+that her Lord Treasurer, objecting to it, said with considerable scorn,
+"What! all this for a song?" Whereupon the Queen replied, "Then give him
+what is reason." Some time after, the poet, not having received the
+promised gift, penned the following poetic petition--
+
+  "I was promised on a time,
+  To have reason for my rime; (_sic_)
+  From that time unto this season
+  I received nor rime nor reason"--
+
+which, when sent to his sovereign, had the desired effect of producing the
+monetary reward, and also obtained for Lord Burleigh the reprimand he so
+well deserved. That Spenser felt keenly the neglect to which he was
+subsequently subjected is pretty clearly shown in the following lines--
+
+  "Full little knowest thou, that hast not try'd
+  What hell it is in suing long to bide:
+  To lose good days that might be better spent,
+  To wast long nights in pensive discontent:
+  To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow,
+  To feed on hope, to pine with fear and sorrow:
+  To have thy Prince's grace, yet want her peers,
+  To have thy asking, yet wait many years:
+  To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares,
+  To eat thy heart with comfortless despairs:
+  To fawn, to crouch, to wait, to ride, to run,
+  To spend, to give, to want, to be undone"--
+
+which is but one of many bemoanings of hard and undeserved treatment; and
+though there be some who have accused him of lacking philosophy in thus
+making known his poverty, I should think it very much too literally _poor_
+philosophy that would suffer in silence when it comes to a matter of bread
+and cheese. There were times, of course, in Spenser's history, when his
+genius was fully acknowledged, both before and after the neglect recorded,
+when, for instance, he made the acquaintance of that chivalrous poet
+soldier, Sir Philip Sidney--the historically self-denying Sir Philip, who
+when mortally wounded at the battle of Zutphen, and about to revel in a
+draught of water that he had called for, denied himself the coveted drink,
+and gave it away to a poor comrade. He it was who was the first to
+recognise Spenser's great claim as a poet. It is stated that when a
+perfect stranger to Sir Philip, Spenser went to Leicester House, and
+introduced himself by sending in the ninth canto of 'The Fairy Queen,'
+which he had just completed.
+
+The young nobleman was much surprised with the description of "Despair" in
+that canto, and betrayed an unusual kind of transport on the discovery of
+so new and uncommon a genius. After he had read some verses he called his
+steward, and bade him give the person who brought those verses L50; but
+upon reading the next stanza, he ordered the sum to be doubled. The
+steward was as much surprised as his master, and thought it his duty to
+make some delay in executing so sudden and lavish a bounty; but upon
+reading one stanza more, Sir Philip raised his gratuity to L200, and
+commanded the steward to give it immediately, lest, as he read farther, he
+might be tempted to give away his whole estate. Unfortunately this
+generous patron was killed at the early age of thirty-two, and it was
+after his decease that Spenser for a time was under a cloud. Subsequently
+he was befriended by the Earl of Leicester, and upon the appointment of
+Lord Grey of Wilton to be Lord Deputy of Ireland, the poet became his
+secretary, and was rewarded by a grant from the Queen of three thousand
+acres. This he was not destined to enjoy very long, for in the rebellion
+of Tyrone he was plundered, and deprived of his estate, and when he
+arrived in England he was heart-broken by his misfortunes. He died in the
+greatest distress on the 16th January, 1599, and though interred in
+Westminster Abbey at the expense of the Earl of Essex, his death according
+to Ben Jonson was actually occasioned by "lack of bread."
+
+It is difficult to determine which is the more pitiable, the want and
+misery produced by the neglect of others, or the destitution resulting
+from evil courses; both demand our commiseration, though some of the stern
+moralists affect to have "no pity" for those whose troubles are the
+outcome of self-indulgence and dissipation. "A fellow-feeling makes us
+wondrous kind," and only those who have been the victims of that enslaving
+mania for drink, which has blasted so many bright lives will have
+compassion for such a man as Samuel Boyce. This misguided mortal, the son
+of a dissenting minister, was born at Dublin in the year 1708, and when
+eighteen was sent to the Glasgow University, his father having designed
+him for the ministry. He married when he had been at college little more
+than a year, and soon developed habits of indulgence and extravagance,
+which effectually ruined him, in spite of much assistance received from
+the nobility and others. In the year 1731 he published a volume of poems,
+to which is subjoined the "Tablature of Cebes," and a letter upon liberty,
+which appeared originally in the _Dublin Journal_ five years previously.
+These productions gained him considerable reputation and substantial
+patronage from the Countess of Eglinton, to whom they were dedicated.
+
+His next successful effort was an elegy upon the death of the Viscountess
+Stormont (a woman of the most refined taste, well versed in science, and a
+great admirer of poetry), entitled, 'The Tears of the Muses,' which so
+pleased Lord Stormont, the deceased lady's husband, that he advertised for
+the author in one of the weekly papers, and caused his attorney to make
+him a very handsome present. In addition to the favour of Lady Eglinton
+and Lord Stormont, he was also befriended by the Duchess of Gordon, who
+gave him most material assistance while he continued in Scotland; and when
+he went to London, gave him a letter of introduction to Pope, and obtained
+another for him to Sir Peter King, Lord Chancellor of England. He had many
+other most valuable recommendations when he arrived in the metropolis,
+and possessing as he did ability of no common order, his opportunities
+were exceptionally fine; but nothing can withstand the devastating
+influences of the demon of drink; and at the age of thirty-two he is
+described as reduced to such an extremity of human wretchedness that he
+had not a shirt, a coat, or any kind of apparel to put on. The sheets in
+which he lay were carried to the pawnbroker's, and he was obliged to be
+confined to his bed with no other covering than a blanket, and in this
+condition, thrusting his arm through a hole, he scribbled a quantity of
+verse for the _Gentleman's Magazine_.
+
+His genius was not confined to poetry, for he was skilled in painting,
+music, and heraldry; but by his pen alone, had he chosen to live decently,
+he could have commanded a very good living. His translations from the
+French were admittedly excellent; but the drawback to employing him at
+this work was that when he had copied a page or two he would pawn the
+original and re-pawn it as often he could induce his acquaintances to "get
+it out" for him. On one occasion Dr. Johnson managed to get up a sixpenny
+subscription for him in order to redeem his clothes, but the effort to
+help him was useless, for within two days he pawned them again, and the
+last state was at any rate no better than the first. He seems to have been
+so demoralised by drink that he was dead to every sense of honour and
+humanity; for, whenever he obtained half-a-guinea, whether by writing
+poetry or a begging letter, he would sit squandering it in a tavern while
+his wife and child starved at home. He got from bad to worse, and in 1742,
+when locked up in a spunging-house, sent the following appeal to Cave:
+
+"I am every moment threatened to be turned out here, because I have not
+money to pay for my bed two nights past, which is usually paid beforehand;
+and I am loth to go into the Compter, till I can see if my affairs can
+possibly be made up. I hope, therefore, you will have the humanity to send
+me half-a-guinea for support till I finish your papers in my hands. I
+humbly entreat your answer, not having tasted anything since Tuesday
+evening I came here; and my coat will be taken off my back for the charge
+of the bed, so that I must go into prison naked, which is too shocking for
+me to think of."
+
+There are several accounts given of his death, which occurred when he was
+but forty-one years of age; and, though they vary as to the precise nature
+of his end, there is no doubt that it was accelerated by the habit he
+indulged in--of drinking hot beer to excess, which at last obscured and
+confused his intellectual faculties.
+
+The sad side of impecuniosity is, unfortunately, so vast a subject that it
+would require an entire volume, instead of part of a chapter, to properly
+record the miseries of mind and body endured by those in past ages, who,
+not unknown to fame, have been permitted to pine and die in despair. The
+poets alone, so prolific are they in this respect, would furnish material
+sufficient; but the neglect of genius is anything but an uncommon thing,
+and therefore commonplace sufferings might not be regarded as
+"_Curiosities_ of impecuniosity," though in one sense it certainly is
+curious that their wants should not have been recognised. Men like Henry
+Carey or Cary, the author of 'Sally in our Alley,' and said by some to be
+the composer of the National Anthem, who was considered by all authorities
+to be a true son of the Muses, have been driven to desperation through
+want. It is said, "At the time that this poet could neither walk the
+streets nor be seated at the convivial board without listening to his own
+songs and his own music--for in truth the whole nation was echoing his
+verse, and crowded theatres were applauding his wit and humour; while this
+very man himself, urged by his strong humanity, founded a 'Fund for
+Decayed Musicians'--he was so broken-hearted, and his own common comforts
+so utterly neglected, that in despair, not waiting for nature to relieve
+him from the burden of existence, he laid violent hands on himself; and
+when found dead _had only a halfpenny in his pocket_."
+
+The following lines written some time before his melancholy end show that
+he was no stranger to the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," and
+that his self-destruction was not the result of momentary madness, but
+rather induced by the humiliating torture of ills long borne.
+
+  "Far, far away then chase the harlot Muse,
+  Nor let her thus thy noon of life abuse;
+  Mix with the common crowd, unheard, unseen,
+  And if again thou tempt'st the vulgar praise,
+  May'st thou be crown'd with birch instead of bays!"
+
+The untimely end of Chatterton is a companion picture to that of Cary,
+but the circumstances of his early death, his being without food for two
+days, and his poisoning himself with arsenic and water, when lodging at
+Mrs. Angel's, a sack-maker in Brook Street, Holborn, are so well known
+that it is only necessary to mention his melancholy fate, which if it
+stood alone in the history of literature would be sufficient to show there
+is a very pathetic side to impecuniosity. Although this rash act is
+attributed to the state of starvation to which the poet was reduced, there
+is little doubt that Horace Walpole by his unsympathising, though strictly
+correct, reproof had much to do with the disordered condition of the poor
+fellow's mind. When living at Bristol, Chatterton became possessed of some
+parchments which had been extracted from the coffin of a Mr. Canynge, and
+upon these he produced some poetry, which he described as a production of
+Thomas Canynge, and of his friend, one Thomas Rowley, a priest; sent them
+to Walpole and asked for assistance to enable him to quit his uncongenial
+occupation, and pursue one more poetic. The poems were submitted to
+competent antiquaries, and pronounced forgeries, whereupon Horace Walpole
+refused the boy's application for help, at the same time reproving the
+attempted fraud in the most cold and cutting terms. For this treatment the
+great wit and prince of letter-writers has been severely censured; one
+writer remarking, "Just or unjust, the world has never forgiven Horace
+Walpole for Chatterton's misery. His indifference has been contrasted with
+the generosity of Edmund Burke to Crabbe, a generosity to which we owe
+'The Village,' 'The Borough,' and to which Crabbe owed his peaceful old
+age, and almost his existance. The cases were different, but Crabbe had
+his faults, and Chatterton was worth saving. It is well for genius that
+there are souls in the world more sympathising, less worldly, and more
+indulgent, than those of such men as Horace Walpole."
+
+Another most melancholy, and equally tragical record connected with
+impecuniosity is furnished in the life of Dr. Dodd, a literary divine, and
+one of the most popular preachers of the last century; though _his_
+troubles were not the outcome of actual want, but rather the result of
+want of self-control and principle. He commenced as a writer for the
+press, published 'The Beauties of Shakespeare,' obtained several
+lectureships, which he held with great success, and subsequently became
+Chaplain to the King. The list of his different appointments is most
+numerous, and most of them not only important, but highly remunerative,
+but his extravagance was such that no income would have been sufficient to
+keep him out of debt. Owing to his excesses he lost the royal favour, and
+though he was in the receipt of a large income from his preaching, it was
+not enough to satisfy his expensive habits, and he foolishly sent an
+anonymous letter to Lady Apsley offering her L3000 if she would prevail on
+her husband, the Lord Chancellor, to appoint him to the rectory of St.
+George's, Hanover Square. The letter was traced to the doctor, and in
+consequence his name was struck off the list of royal chaplains. After a
+sojourn abroad he returned to this country, obtained from Lord
+Chesterfield a living in Buckinghamshire, but could not forsake his old
+habits; he still plunged into debt, and _from being pressed for money_
+forged the name of his patron to a bill for L4200, was tried, found
+guilty, and executed at the Old Bailey, in 1777.
+
+The career of Thomas Otway, the dramatist, though short, for he was but
+thirty-four years of age when he died, was one continued course of
+monetary difficulty, the result of irregular living. The son of a Sussex
+rector and educated at Winchester and Christ Church, Oxford, he betrayed
+no anxiety to follow his father's footsteps, but at the age of
+twenty-three manifested a most practical preference for Thespis rather
+than theology, though he does not seem to have possessed any great genius
+for acting. He subsequently became a cornet in a regiment, which was sent
+to Flanders, but distinguished himself most as a dramatic writer, for
+which profession he was eminently suited, many of his plays meeting with
+exceptional success, particularly 'Venice Preserved,' which has held
+possession of the stage for about two hundred years. His circumstances,
+never good, gradually went from bad to worse, owing to his dissolute
+proclivities, and he died at last on the 14th April, 1685, in a wretched
+state of penury, at a public-house called 'The Bull,' on Tower Hill,
+whither he had gone to avoid the too pressing attention of his creditors.
+It is generally believed that the actual cause of his death was choking,
+which occurred through his having been without food for some time, and
+then too eagerly devouring a piece of bread which, through the generosity
+of a friend, he had been able to purchase. That Otway should have excelled
+in tragedy is not surprising, the power that he displayed in depicting
+domestic suffering being easily accounted for by the fact that he must
+have been constantly experiencing distress in private life, for when his
+tragic end was brought about he was hiding from sheriff's officers, his
+misery terminating only with death.
+
+It is terribly sad to see such men as these, blessed with natural gifts
+far beyond the common, yet in spite of these endowments sinking to a lower
+level than their inferiors in intellect; and unfortunately the literary
+list of these erring ones is a long one, for since the days of Robert
+Greene, said to be the first Englishman who wrote for a living, and who
+died in the house of a poor shoemaker, who took pity upon him when he was
+destitute, there have always been men unable to withstand the seductions
+of vicious courses, and who have consequently paid the penalty of
+intemperance, and immorality, by death-beds of misery, and remorse, to say
+nothing of the life-long inconveniences of impecuniosity. Lamentable as is
+the contemplation of these lost lives, there is yet a sadder picture
+still, for pitiable as it is to think of men, indifferent alike to their
+well-being in this world and in that which is to come, the sadness is
+intensified when the object of pity is a woman, one who has been referred
+to as "a sort of female Otway, without his genius."
+
+The individual in question was Colley Cibber's younger daughter,
+Charlotte, whose education from her earliest years was eminently
+masculine, which resulted in the girl becoming proficient in manly sports
+and pastimes, such as shooting, hunting, riding, &c. When very young she
+married Mr. Richard Clarke, a celebrated violinist, with whom she soon
+disagreed, and from whom she speedily separated, and she then devoted
+herself to the stage, and commenced a career, which for strange and
+harrowing vicissitudes is unequalled in the annals of British
+biography--one day courted, admired and affluent; the next an outcast,
+uncared for, and despised. Singularly enough, the first character she
+assumed on the stage after the quarrel with her husband was Mademoiselle
+in 'The Provoked Wife,' in which character, and several subsequent
+assumptions at the Haymarket Theatre, she was highly successful, and
+obtained an uncommonly good salary. Her temper however, like herself, was
+eccentric, and it was not long before she quarrelled with Fleetwood, the
+manager, and left the theatre at a moment's notice. From being a regular
+performer, she then took to travelling about the country with strollers,
+and shared with them the starvation fate that is so often associated with
+their nomadic existence. Tiring of this, she set up as a grocer, in Long
+Acre, but failed in that business, as well as at puppet-show keeping, at
+which she tried her hand in a street near the Haymarket. On the death of
+her husband, she was thrown into prison for debt, but released by the
+subscriptions of ladies of questionable repute, whose charity is
+proverbially more conspicuous than their virtue. After remarrying, and
+again becoming a widow, Charlotte Clarke (for by that name she has always
+been known) assumed male attire, and obtained occasional engagements at
+the theatres, and, though she suffered most distressing deprivations was
+able to present so good an appearance, that an heiress became madly
+attached to her, and was inconsolable when the wretched woman revealed her
+sex. The next adventure she claims to have participated in is her becoming
+valet to an Irish nobleman, which situation she did not retain for any
+length of time; and then she attempted to earn her living as a
+sausage-maker, but was unsuccessful. Twice she became a tavern proprietor,
+and for a time was in the most flourishing circumstances, but her
+prosperity was excessively ephemeral, and amongst the other occupations
+that she is credited with having undertaken are those of waiter at the
+King's Head, Marylebone; worker of a set of puppets, and authoress of her
+extraordinary biography, which she published in 1755. It was with the
+proceeds of this book that she was enabled to open one of the
+public-houses mentioned; but the amount realised by its sale was not of
+much benefit to the poor misguided creature, for within five years (she
+died in 1760), she was discovered in a more wretched, forlorn condition
+than ever, according to the account of two gentlemen who visited her. The
+widow, who, petted and pampered by her parents, had, as a child been
+brought up in luxury, was then domiciled in a wretched, thatched hovel in
+the purlieus of Clerkenwell Bridewell, at that time a wild suburb, where
+the scavengers used to throw the cleansings of the streets. The house and
+its scanty furniture sufficiently indicated the extreme poverty of the
+inmates.
+
+"Mrs. Clarke sat on a broken chair by a little scrap of fire, and the
+visitors were accommodated with a rickety deal board. A half-starved dog
+lay at the authoress's feet; a cat sat on one hob, and a monkey on the
+other; while a magpie perched on the back of its mistress's chair. A
+worn-out pair of bellows served for a writing-desk, and a broken cup for
+an inkstand; these were matched by the pen, which was worn down to the
+stump, and was the only one on the premises. The lady asked thirty
+guineas for the copyright. The bookseller offered five, but was at length
+induced by his friend to give ten, on condition that Mr. Whyte (the
+friend) would pay a moiety and take half the risk of the novel."
+
+In the year 1759 she played Marplot, in 'The Busybody,' for her own
+benefit at the Haymarket, when the following advertisement appeared.
+
+"As I am entirely dependent on chance for a subsistence, and am desirous
+of getting into business, I hope the town will favour me on the occasion,
+which, added to the rest of their indulgence, will ever be gratefully
+acknowledged by their truly obliged, and obedient servant, CHARLOTTE
+CLARKE."
+
+This was shortly before her death, which took place on the 6th April,
+1760.
+
+It would be extremely difficult to find a more sorrowful story in
+connection with impecuniosity than that of Colley Cibber's daughter; and
+though the degraded character of the greater part of her life has robbed
+her misfortunes of much of the sympathy that would otherwise have been
+freely accorded, it would have been well if some who have animadverted so
+severely upon her shortcomings had remembered that much in her life that
+was so unwomanly was undoubtedly due to her masculine and defective
+training.
+
+The celebrated actress Mrs. Jordan--whose acting, according to
+Hazlitt--"gave more pleasure than that of any other actress, because she
+had the greatest spirit of enjoyment in herself"--was so unfortunate in
+her last days, that she is fully entitled to a place with those whose
+monetary embarrassments have been particularly sad. For years she had
+lived in uninterrupted domestic harmony with the Duke of Clarence,
+afterwards William the Fourth; but when the connection was suddenly
+severed in 1811, a yearly allowance of L4400, was settled upon her for the
+maintenance of herself and daughters; with a provision that, if Mrs.
+Jordan should resume her profession, the care of the duke's daughters,
+together with L1500 per annum allowed for them, should revert to his Royal
+Highness. Within a few months of this arrangement she did return to the
+stage, but through having incautiously given blank notes of hand to a
+friend in difficulties on the understanding that the amounts to be filled
+in were but small, she awoke one morning to find herself called upon to
+pay amounts utterly beyond her power. In her terror and dismay she fled
+to France, but her peace of mind was gone. Separated from her children,
+and racked by the torturing thought of the liability she was unable to
+discharge, she gradually pined away, and died in terrible distress of mind
+at St. Cloud in June 1816.
+
+Contrasted with its brilliant beginning the close of Mrs. Jordan's life is
+painfully sad, and it might be urged that the sorrowful end was but an
+instance of retributive justice on account of the fair and frail one's
+social sin. Experience, however, proves that the breaking of the moral law
+does not always involve punishment in this life, and even if this were not
+so, many instances could be cited of misfortunes as heavy, and far
+heavier, falling to the lot of those who to all intents and purposes have
+led blameless lives.
+
+Foremost among such cases would be the crushing blow that befell the noble
+and greatly gifted novelist and poet, Sir Walter Scott, at the age of
+fifty-five years, when, having given to the world the greater part of
+those glorious works that have placed his name pre-eminent in the world of
+literature, and being, as was supposed, the happy enjoyer of a handsome
+fortune and splendid estate, it transpired that he was a ruined man. So
+successful had been his literary labours for thirty years that it was
+generally and naturally supposed that the enormous sums spent on
+Abbotsford were the proceeds of his novels and poems, but it seems he had
+for a long time been a partner in the printing firm of Ballantyne & Co.,
+who were closely connected with Messrs. Constable, the publishers. These
+firms had engaged in transactions of a speculative character, and in the
+commercial crisis of 1825 both failed, Sir Walter's immense private
+fortune being swallowed up in the crash, while as a partner in the house
+of Ballantyne he was responsible for the enormous amount of L147,000. At
+the time of this calamity his health had already been considerably
+shattered, the slightly grey hair had in the year 1819 been turned to
+snowy white by an attack of jaundice, and his frame further enfeebled four
+years later by an attack of apoplexy, so that it would not have been
+surprising if this frightful crash had proved his death-blow. Far from it;
+with a heroism unparalleled, and a high sense of honour, that adds more
+lustre to his name than the most brilliant effusion of his pen, he
+determined manfully to face this overwhelming catastrophe, refusing all
+proffered aid, and merely asking for time. "Gentlemen," said he to the
+creditors, "time and I against any two. Let me take this good ally into
+my company, and I believe I shall be able to pay you every farthing. It is
+very hard thus to lose all the labours of a lifetime and to be made a poor
+man at last when I ought to have been otherwise, but, if God grant me life
+and strength for a few years longer, I have no doubt I shall redeem it
+all." The redemption referred to his property, all of which he gave up,
+retiring into modest lodgings, where he zealously set to work to
+accomplish the Herculean task of writing off the gigantic sum named.
+'Woodstock,' which realised L8228, was the first novel after his
+misfortune, and that occupied him only three months; but it was as, he
+said, "very hard" at his time of life to every day perform the allotted
+task of producing thirty pages of printed matter, for the work on which he
+was then occupied was not that fiction which he wrote with such facility,
+but a voluminous 'Life of Napoleon Buonaparte,' necessitating reference to
+no end of books and papers; and day after day for many a month might he
+have been seen, slowly and sorrowfully, wading through work after work in
+order to verify each date and fact. The nine volumes were finished in
+1827, and these were followed by 'The Chronicles of the Canongate,' 'Tales
+of a Grandfather,' 'The Fair Maid of Perth,' 'Count Robert,' and 'Castle
+Dangerous'--the last named published in 1831--a year before his death,
+which may be fairly attributed to the undue strain of mind and body; the
+_raison-d'etre_ of this overtaxing of his strength being simply and solely
+impecuniosity.
+
+The picture of this truly great man being obliged to wear out the last
+years of his life by unceasing labour when he should have been enjoying a
+well-earned rest, is excessively sad and touching--but the sadness is to
+some extent relieved by the heroic nature of the act. The melancholy end
+of the man is swallowed up in the imperishable name he has left behind,
+which name, for generations to come, will serve as the synonym of honour.
+Sad, far more sad, were the closing days of Sheridan, whose last moments
+were also darkened by impecuniosity, but utterly unrelieved by any acts of
+self-sacrifice; and made far more melancholy by the fact that the monetary
+misery was caused by unnecessary extravagance.
+
+Alas, poor Sheridan! If ever man in his declining days had good reason to
+say with the preacher, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity," thou hadst!
+for thou wert bitterly punished at the last, by the desertion and neglect
+of those who should have succoured and solaced thee. True thy
+shortcomings were many, but only one blessed with such brilliant gifts
+could possibly realise thy temptation; and the sorrow thou didst endure
+must silence detraction. Says one of his biographers, "For six years after
+the burning of the old theatre, he continued to go down and down. Disease
+now attacked him fiercely. In the spring of 1816 he was fast waning
+towards extinction. His day was past, he had outlived his fame as a wit
+and social light; he was forgotten by many, if not by most, of his old
+associates. He wrote to Rogers, 'I am absolutely undone and
+broken-hearted.' Poor Sheridan! in spite of all thy faults, who is he
+whose morality is so stern that he cannot shed one tear over thy latter
+days! God forgive us, we are all sinners; and if we weep not for this
+man's deficiency, how shall we ask tears when our day comes? Even as I
+write, I feel my hand tremble and my eyes moisten over the sad end of one
+whom I love, though he died before I was born. 'They are going to put the
+carpets out of window,' he wrote to Rogers, 'and break into Mrs. S.'s room
+and _take me_. For God's sake let me see you!' See him! see one friend who
+could and would help him in his misery! Oh, happy man may that man count
+himself who has never wanted that one friend, and felt the utter
+helplessness of that want. Poor Sheridan! had he ever asked, or hoped, or
+looked for that Friend out of _this_ world it had been better; for 'the
+Lord thy God is a jealous God,' and we go on seeking human friendship and
+neglecting the divine till it is too late. He found one hearty friend in
+his physician, Dr. Bain, when all others had forsaken him. The spirit of
+White's and Brookes', the companion of a prince and a score of noblemen,
+the enlivener of every fashionable table, was forgotten by all but this
+one doctor. Let us read Moore's description. 'A sheriff's officer at
+length arrested the dying man _in his bed_, and was about to carry him off
+in his blankets to a spunging-house, when Dr. Bain interfered?' Who would
+live the life of revelry that Sheridan lived to have such an end? A few
+days after, on the 7th July, 1816, in his sixty-fifth year, he died. Of
+his last hours the late Professor Smythe wrote an admirable and most
+touching account, a copy of which was circulated in manuscript. The
+professor, hearing of Sheridan's condition asked to see him, with a view
+not only of alleviating present distress, but of calling the dying man to
+repentance. From his hands the unhappy Sheridan received the Holy
+Communion; his face during that solemn rite--doubly solemn when it is
+performed in the chamber of death--'expressed,' Smythe relates, '_the
+deepest awe_.' That phrase conveys to the mind impressions not easy to be
+defined, not easy to be forgotten.
+
+"Peace! There was not peace even in death, and the creditor pursued him
+even into the 'waste wide,' even to the coffin. He was lying in state,
+when a gentleman in the deepest mourning called, it is said, at the house,
+and introducing himself as an old and much-attached friend of the
+deceased, begged to be allowed to look upon his face. The tears which rose
+in his eyes, the tremulousness of his quiet voice, the pallor of his
+mournful face, deceived the unsuspecting servant, who accompanied him to
+the chamber of death, removed the lid of the coffin, turned down the
+shroud, and revealed features which had once been handsome, but long since
+rendered almost hideous by drinking. The stranger gazed with profound
+emotion, while he quietly drew from his pocket a bailiff's wand, and
+touching the corpse's face with it, suddenly altered his manner to one of
+considerable glee, and informed the servant that he had arrested the
+corpse in the King's name for a debt of L500. It was the morning of the
+funeral, which was to be attended by half the grandees of England, and in
+a few minutes the mourners began to arrive. But the corpse was the
+bailiff's property till his claim was paid, and nought but the money would
+soften the iron capturer. Canning and Lord Sidmouth agreed to settle the
+matter, and over the coffin the debt was paid."
+
+The pall-bearers were the Duke of Bedford, the Earl of Lauderdale, Earl
+Mulgrave, Lord Holland, Lord Spencer, and the Bishop of London, and the
+body was followed by two Royal Highnesses--the Dukes of York and
+Sussex--by two Marquises, seven Earls, three Viscounts, five Lords, and a
+perfect army of honourables and right honourables. This _show_ of respect
+and homage after death, when nothing had been done to assuage his last
+sufferings in life, was regarded by those who loved him as a bitter
+mockery, and Moore's lines justly denounced it.
+
+  "Oh, it sickens the heart to see bosoms so hollow,
+    And friendship so false in the great and high-born,
+  To think what a long line of titles may follow,
+    The relics of him who died friendless and lorn!
+  How proud they can press to the funeral array
+    Of him whom they shunned in his sickness and sorrow,
+  How bailiffs may seize his last blanket to-day,
+    Whose pall shall be held up by nobles to-morrow!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE INGENUITY OF IMPECUNIOSITY.
+
+
+In the opening chapter, several instances of considerable ingenuity were
+referred to; but as the conduct of the individuals in question was not
+_sans peur et sans reproche_, the cases came under the head of the immoral
+effects of the want of money, and were necessarily not illustrations of
+ingenuity proper, but ingenuity slightly improper.
+
+In the present chapter, the majority of the reminiscences related are
+innocent of the unscrupulous characteristics, and are intended to be
+examples of the theory that "nothing sharpens a man's wits like poverty,"
+which assertion can be supported by the accepted axiom "necessity is the
+mother of invention;" for it stands to reason that people are more or less
+stimulated to exercise their faculties of contrivance in proportion to
+their need. Hence it is that the very needy become exceptionally sharp in
+more senses than one.
+
+The men who have made their mark in any department of knowledge, or have
+achieved positions of eminence, are for the most part, those who have
+wanted to be clever, or those who have wanted to attain certain celebrity.
+It is the _want_ of the thing that has enabled them to devote their whole
+lives to study, or given them the power to persevere; and so it is with
+regard to impecuniosity. The want of money--that is an anxious desire for
+it on account of its being needed--has caused men to cudgel their brains
+to extricate themselves from their difficulties, has made them plot and
+plan, scheme and contrive, or, in other words, has greatly developed the
+gift of ingenuity.
+
+Charles Phillips, the barrister, who, when first he practised at the Old
+Bailey bar, was remarkably hard up, was wont to relate, with great glee,
+how he succeeded with one of his early briefs, which he had from an
+Israelite attorney, in what might be termed "Jewing" the Jew. The case
+involved an indictment brought by one omnibus company against another
+for "nursing" (that is, too closely following one another for the purpose
+of driving the rival off the road), and the trial lasted over three days.
+For this brief, which was an important one, he had received a
+disgracefully small fee, which he could not decline on account of his
+necessitous condition; but he determined, if he could get a chance, to be
+equal with his parsimonious employer, and on the last day of the trial the
+opportunity came. The attorney was most anxious that Phillips himself
+should examine a noted Paddington driver, who was a most important
+witness, and early on the morning he accosted the barrister, saying: "What
+an interesting day this will be in Court. You have to examine the
+Paddington coachman. The Court is crowded with conductors and drivers from
+all parts."
+
+"Indeed," said Phillips, "I feel no interest in it. The trial has lasted
+three days, and look at my miserable fee. Now you _must_ give me ten
+guineas, or I won't examine him."
+
+The Jew was thunderstruck, and white with fear for the issue of his cause,
+declared he had not such a sum with him, but said he would leave the
+amount at Phillips' chambers after the trial. The counsel knowing his man,
+and what his promise was worth, declined the proposition, whereupon the
+other produced his cheque-book, and forthwith wrote out a cheque for the
+sum demanded. As soon as the barrister received it, he asked to be excused
+for a few moments, on the plea that he would have to hand over another
+brief which he had to a brother counsel. He then privately gave the cheque
+to one of the attendants, telling him to run as hard as he could, or take
+a cab, and get the cheque cashed as quickly as possible. On his return, he
+managed to keep his victim engaged in conversation till he thought the
+messenger had obtained a sufficient start, feeling sure that the Jew,
+although so much interested in the trial, would rush off to the bank and
+stop payment. It was as Phillips anticipated; but the attorney was not
+quite quick enough, for, as he rushed into the bank, the man with the
+money came out, and the state of perspiration and cursing in which the
+baffled Israelite regained the Old Bailey can be understood without
+detailing.
+
+There is no doubt in Phillips' case that impecuniosity sharpened his wits;
+for the transaction was nothing more nor less than a piece of _sharp
+practice_, indefensible on strictly moral grounds, but hardly blameable
+when the character and conduct of the grinding attorney are remembered.
+
+The name of Phillips is associated with another record of ingenuity; but
+in the second instance it was Harlequin Phillips--no relation whatever of
+the legal luminary, though from his aptitude in taking advantage of an
+adversary he was worthy to be related, or at any rate his anecdote is.
+
+This celebrated pantomimist, who was contemporaneous with Garrick, and was
+regarded as one of the cleverest men in his profession at that time, was
+not clever enough to keep himself out of debt and the spunging-house,
+though he proved himself equal to making his escape from custody by an
+admirably-conceived plan. After treating the bailiff very freely, he
+pretended that he had a dozen of particularly choice wine at home, already
+packed, which he begged permission to send for, to drink while he was
+detained, offering to pay sixpence a bottle for the privilege.
+
+His custodian acceded to the request, and Phillips wrote a letter giving
+particulars of what he wanted, which letter was duly despatched to his
+residence. Some time after, a sturdy porter presented himself with the
+load, and the turnkey called to his master that a porter with a hamper for
+Mr. Phillips had come. "All right," replied the bailiff; "then let nothing
+but the porter and hamper out." The messenger, who was an actor thoroughly
+accustomed to "heavy business," came in, apparently loaded with a weighty
+hamper, and went out as lightly as if he were carrying an empty package,
+though in reality it contained Mr. Phillips inside.
+
+This was indeed _carrying out the character of harlequin_ (who is always
+supposed to be invisible) "to the letter;" and shows that the pantomimist
+of the past was an inventive genius, in addition to being an agile
+acrobat, and more or less up to tricks. _A propos_ of tricks, the life of
+Philippe, the conjuror, introduces a legitimate illustration of a man poor
+in pocket, but rich in resource. Though he appeared at the St. James' and
+Strand Theatres in 1845, under the name of Philippe, his real cognomen was
+Talon-Philippe Talon.
+
+Born at Alais, near Nismes, where he carried on the trade of confectioner,
+he came to London, and subsequently went to Aberdeen, in the hope of
+succeeding as a manufacturer of Scotch sweets; but found himself unable to
+compete with the native makers, and in possession at last of nothing but a
+quantity of unsaleable confectionery. In utter despair of being ever able
+to get rid of his stock, he bethought him of turning conjuror, having
+always had a great _penchant_ for sleight-of-hand performances, and being,
+he believed, equal to giving an exhibition in public. Certain apparatus,
+was, however, necessary, which, of course, in his insolvent condition, he
+was unable to purchase. He made a visit to the theatre, and found
+that--fortunately for him--the entertainment being given was anything but
+successful; the bill, theatrically speaking, was "a frost," and the
+manager consequently open to discuss any scheme for pulling up the
+business. In a moment Philippe saw his opportunity, and suggested that two
+or three special performances should be given, at which every person
+paying for admission should have with his check a packet of confectionery
+given to him, and a ticket entitling the holder to a chance in a prize of
+the value of L15. The suggestion was acted upon, the bait took, and the
+result was a succession of crowded houses, whereby Talon cleared off all
+his stock of sweets, netting a sufficient sum to enable him to purchase
+conjuring apparatus, which enabled him to give a series of entertainments
+with great success; the same that were subsequently represented with such
+profit in England, France, Austria, and elsewhere. Talon, or Philippe, as
+he was known to the entertaining public, was the first to perform with
+bare arms, and was one of the first to introduce the "globes of fish"
+trick in this country.
+
+Another of the "legitimate" description of examples is found connected
+with the theatrical experience of Mr. C. W. Montague, who for years was a
+very well-known circus-manager, having been connected at one time or
+another with the equestrian establishments of Messrs. Sanger, Bell, F.
+Ginnetts, Myers, Newsome, and George Ginnett. Some years ago, when he
+joined the circus owned by the last-named at Greenwich, he found that
+business was in a most melancholy condition; the show, although a very
+good one, failed to fetch the people in, and the receipts, not sufficient
+to pay expenses, were getting worse and worse. This dismal state of things
+was most disheartening to Montague, who was at his wits' end to know what
+to do, when one day, while he was being shaved, the barber noticing some
+one who had just passed the shop, said: "There goes poor Townsend." "And
+who might he be?" asked the manager; being told in reply that the
+gentleman referred to had originally represented Greenwich in Parliament,
+but owing to great pecuniary difficulties had been obliged to resign. It
+also transpired that the late M.P. was a most excellent actor, the barber
+having seen him enact Richard III. "quite as good as any right down
+reg'ler perfeshional." In addition, Mr. Townsend had been deservedly
+popular in the district, and especially in Deptford; for he had been the
+means, when in the House of Commons, of getting dockyard labourers' wages
+considerably advanced. These two facts, combined with the broken-down
+appearance of the gentleman spoken of, immediately presented themselves to
+Mr. Montague in a business light. What a capital idea it would be if he
+could manage to get the ex-M.P. to appear in the circus! So popular a man
+would be a tremendous draw! With this object in view, he waited upon Mr.
+Townsend the next morning, and put the proposition to him, but without
+success. The unfortunate gentleman admitted that his circumstances were
+such that the prospect of making money by the venture was most tempting;
+but his pride would not admit of his accepting the offer. The idea of
+appearing as a paid performer in a circus in the very place where he had
+been regarded with such respect was repugnant to his feelings, and he felt
+that he could not consent to the sacrifice of dignity. Away from Greenwich
+he would not have minded; but this arrangement of course would have been
+no good to Mr. Montague. Nothing daunted by the refusal, the theatrical
+man of business determined not to give up the idea, but on several
+subsequent occasions pressed him hard, using such powerful arguments in
+favour of the scheme that at last Mr. Townsend consented to appear as
+Richard "for twelve nights only," on sharing terms. As soon as this was
+arranged, another and by no means unimportant difficulty presented itself.
+With the exception of Mr. Ginnett and his manager, there was no one in the
+company capable of supporting the tragedian; but stimulated by the
+seriousness of the situation, Mr. Montague set to work, cut down the
+tragedy with unsparing energy, and so arranged a version that enabled Mr.
+Ginnett and himself to double the parts of Richmond, Catesby, Norfolk,
+Ratcliffe, Stanley, and the ghosts. Notwithstanding these drawbacks, the
+production (which would never have been thought of or undertaken but for
+the impecunious state of affairs) proved a palpable hit, Townsend's share
+being so considerable that he insisted on treating the company to a
+supper, shortly after which he went to America.
+
+The mention of America, and connected with circus managing, naturally
+suggests to the mind the name of that arch-humbug, but most successful
+showman, P. T. Barnum, who was not always the wealthy caterer he now is.
+On the contrary, his early life was associated with such poverty-stricken
+surroundings, that the want of money had undoubtedly much to do with that
+smartness for which his name has become famous. His father died leaving
+the family very badly off, the mother being put to all sorts of straits to
+keep the home together; and when Barnum--who was first of all a farmer's
+boy--commenced his career, he, according to his own account, "began the
+world with nothing, and was barefooted at that." His first berth of any
+consequence was a clerkship in a general store, at which time he was
+"dreadfully poor;" but, says he, "I determined to have some money."
+Consequently, impelled by impecuniosity, he speedily became ingenious. One
+day, when left in charge of the business, a pedlar called with a waggon
+full of common green glass bottles, varying in size from half a pint to
+half a gallon. The store was what was called a barter store. A number of
+hat manufacturers traded there, paying in hats, and giving store orders to
+many of their _employes_, and other firms did likewise, so that the
+business boasted an immense number of small customers. The pedlar was
+anxious to do business, and Barnum knew that his employers had a quantity
+of goods that were regarded as unsaleable stock. Upon these he put
+inordinately high prices, and then expressed his willingness to barter
+some goods for the whole lot of bottles. The pedlar was only too glad,
+never dreaming of disposing of all his load, and the exchange was
+effected. Shortly after, Mr. Keeler, one of the firm, returned, and, on
+beholding the place crowded with the bottles, asked in amazement, "What
+_have_ you been doing?" "Trading goods for bottles," replied Barnum; to
+which his employer made the unpalatable rejoinder, "You are a fool;"
+adding, "You have bottles enough for twenty years."
+
+Barnum took the reproof very meekly, only saying that he hoped to get rid
+of them in less than three months, and then explained what goods he had
+given in exchange. The master was very pleased when he found that his
+assistant had got rid of what was regarded as little better than lumber,
+but still was dubious as to how on earth he would be able to find
+customers for the glass, more especially as there was a quantity of old
+tinware, dirty and flyblown, about which Barnum was equally sanguine. In a
+few days the secret was out. His _modus operandi_ was this: a gigantic
+lottery--1000 tickets at 50 cents each. The highest prize 25 dollars,
+payable in goods; any that the customers desired to that amount. Fifty
+prizes of five dollars each, the goods to that amount being mentioned, and
+consisting as a rule of one pair cotton hose, one cotton handkerchief,
+two tin cups, four pint glass bottles, three tin skimmers, one quart glass
+bottle, six nutmeg graters, and eleven half-pint glass bottles. There were
+100 prizes of one dollar each, and 100 prizes of fifty cents each, and 300
+prizes of twenty-five cents each, glass and tinware forming the greater
+part of each prize. Headed in glaring capitals "Twenty-five dollars for
+fifty cents; over 500 prizes." The thousand tickets sold like wild-fire,
+the customers never stopping to consider the nature of the prizes.
+Journeyman hatters, boss hatters, apprentice boys, hat-trimmers, people of
+every class and kind bought chances in the lottery, and in less than ten
+days all the tickets were sold.
+
+This was Barnum's first stroke of business, the success of it no doubt
+having much to do with his subsequent enterprises; and as, according to
+his own showing, the scheme was the result of needy circumstances, and a
+determination to have money, it is impossible to say how much his present
+prosperity is due to that early expedient.
+
+To give a less modern instance of the power of impecuniosity to render
+people ingenious, there is an anecdote of this nature recorded of Captain
+William Winde, a celebrated architect, the dates of some of whose designs
+are 1663-1665. Amongst many other of his achievements is included
+Buckingham House, in St. James's Park, which he designed for the Duke of
+Buckingham, but the money for which he could not obtain. The edifice was
+nearly finished when the arrears of payment were so considerable that the
+architect felt he could not continue unless he obtained a settlement; but
+how to do it? That was the thing. Asking was perfectly useless, and
+writing to his grace was equally ineffectual. At last a brilliant idea
+occurred to him. He requested the duke to mount the leads, to behold the
+wonderful view that could be obtained therefrom, and when the noble owner
+complied, he locked the trap-door, and threw the key away.
+
+"Now," said Winde, "I am a ruined man, and unless I have your word of
+honour that the debts shall be paid, I will instantly throw myself over."
+
+"What is to become of me?" asked the duke.
+
+"_You shall come along with me!_" replied Winde; whereat his grace
+immediately promised to pay, and the trap was opened at a given signal by
+a workman who was in the plot.
+
+There is a similar kind of story told of Sir Richard Steele and a
+carpenter who had built a theatre for him, but who was unable to get his
+money. Finding all ordinary means of no avail, the carpenter took the
+opportunity when Sir Richard had some friends present, who had assembled
+for the purpose of testing the capabilities of the building, of going to
+the other end of the theatre; and when told to speak out something pretty
+loudly, to test the acoustic properties, roared as loud as ever he could
+that he wished to goodness Sir Richard Steele would settle his account.
+This is the same individual who gave a splendid entertainment to all the
+leading people of the time, and had them waited upon by a number of
+liveried servants. After dinner Steele was asked how such an expensive
+retinue could be kept upon his fortune, when he replied he should be only
+too glad to dispense with his servants' services, but he found it
+impossible to get rid of them.
+
+"Impossible to get rid of them?" asked his friends. "What do you mean?"
+
+"Why, simply that these lordly retainers are bailiffs with an execution,"
+replied Steele, adding that "he thought it but right that while they
+remained they should do him credit."
+
+It is said that his friends were so amused by the humorous ingenuity
+displayed, that they paid the debt, which is not unlikely, considering how
+popular he was. As a literary man, Steele was always regarded with the
+highest esteem, and his personal merits were equally recognised, since his
+want of economy was considered his only sin, it having been said of him
+that "he was the most innocent rake that ever entered the rounds of
+dissipation."
+
+The same could not be said of Sheridan unfortunately, whose ingenuity
+under monetary pressure (and when wasn't he pressed for money?) was
+remarkable. One of the least harmless of the many incidents recorded of
+this character is the circumstance of his obtaining a handsome watch from
+Harris the proprietor of Covent Garden Theatre. He had made innumerable
+appointments with Harris, none of which had ever been kept, and at last
+the manager sent word through a friend that if Sherry failed to be with
+him at one o'clock as arranged, he would positively have nothing more to
+do with him. Notwithstanding the importance of the interview, at three
+o'clock Sheridan was at Tregent's, a famous watchmaker's, and in course of
+conversation he told Tregent that he was on his way to see Harris.
+
+"Ah!" said the watchmaker, "I was at the theatre a little while ago, and
+he was in a terrible rage with you--said he had been waiting for you since
+one."
+
+"Indeed," said Sheridan; "and what took you to Covent Garden?"
+
+"Harris is going to present Bate Dudley with a gold watch," was the reply;
+"and I took him a dozen to choose from."
+
+Sheridan left on hearing this, and went straight to the theatre, where he
+found Harris exceedingly wroth at having, as he said "had to wait over two
+hours."
+
+"My dear Harris," began the incorrigible one, "these things occur more
+from my misfortune than my faults, I assure you. I thought it was but one
+o'clock. It happens I have no watch, and am too poor to buy one. When I
+have one, I shall be as punctual as any one else."
+
+"Well," replied the manager, "you shall not want one long. Here are
+half-a-dozen of Tregent's best--choose whichever you like."
+
+Sheridan did not hesitate to avail himself of the offer; nor did he, as it
+will be understood, select the least expensive one of the number.
+
+_A propos_ of watchmakers, there is the story of Theodore Hook dining with
+one with whom he was utterly unacquainted save by name, which ingenious
+plan was evolved through lack of funds. Driving out one afternoon with a
+friend in the neighbourhood of Uxbridge, Hook remembered that he had not
+the means wherewith to procure dinner, and turning to his companion said,
+"By the way, I suppose you have some money with you?" But he had reckoned
+without his host. "Not a sixpence--not a sou," was the reply, the last
+turnpike having taken his friend's last coin. Both were considerably
+crestfallen, for it was getting late, and the drive had made them
+remarkably hungry. What was to be done? Presently they passed an
+exceedingly pretty residence. "Stay," said Hook, "do you see that
+house--pretty villa, isn't it? Cool and comfortable--lawn like a
+billiard-table. Suppose we dine there?" "Do you know the owner?" asked the
+friend. "Not the least in the world," laughed Hook. "I know his name. He
+is the celebrated chronometer-maker. The man who got L10,000 premium from
+Government, and then wound up his affairs and his watches." Without
+another word they drove up to the door, asked for the proprietor, and were
+ushered into the worthy tradesman's presence. "Oh, sir," said Hook,
+"happening to pass through your neighbourhood, I could not deny myself the
+pleasure and honour of paying my respects to you. I am conscious it may
+seem impertinent, but your celebrity overcame my regard for the common
+forms of society, and I, and my friend here, were resolved, come what
+might, to have it in our power to say that we had seen you, and enjoyed
+for a few minutes, the company of an individual famous throughout the
+civilised world." The old man blushed, shook hands, and after conversing
+for a few minutes, asked them if they would remain to dinner, and partake
+of his hospitality? Hook gravely consulted with his friend, and then
+replied that he feared it would be impossible for them to remain. This
+only increased the watchmaker's desire for their society, and made him
+invite them more pressingly, till, at length the pretended scruples were
+overcome, the pair sitting down to a most excellent repast, to which they
+both did more than justice.
+
+On another occasion, when Hook was very much worried for money, he went as
+a _dernier ressort_ to a publisher who knew him, in the hope that he would
+help him; but unfortunately the man knew him "too well," and refused,
+unless he had something to show that he would get his money's worth, or at
+any rate a portion of it. Thereupon Hook went home, sat up all night,
+wrote an introduction to a novel "on a new plan," appended a hurried
+chapter, which he took the next day to the publisher, asserting that he
+had had a most liberal offer for it elsewhere, and so persuaded the man to
+advance the required sum.
+
+Amusing as are many of the anecdotes quoted, there is one which may be
+called "divinely" funny, being connected with a once well-known
+theologian--Dr. John Brown of Haddington. This famous Biblical
+commentator, who flourished from 1784 to 1858, was anything but rich in
+this world's goods; and so poor when staying at Dunse, that he went into a
+shop and asked to be accommodated with a halfpennyworth of cheese. The
+shopman, awfully disgusted with the meanness of the order, remarked
+haughtily, that "they did not make" such small quantities; upon which the
+doctor asked, "Then what's the least you can sell?" "A penn'orth," was the
+reply. On the divine saying "Very well," the man proceeded to weigh that
+quantity, and then placed it on the counter, anticipating to be paid for
+it. "Now," said Dr. Brown, "I will show you how to sell a halfpennyworth
+of cheese;" upon which, in the coolest manner conceivable, he cut the
+modicum into two pieces, and appropriating one half, put down his coin and
+departed.
+
+Impecuniosity in addition to sharpening men's wits, by which expression
+is understood the sharpening of the inventive faculties, has also the
+power of making sharp man's wit, as instanced in the case of the beggar
+who accosted Marivaux, the well-known French writer of romance. This
+mendicant, who appears to have been what we were wont to call a "sturdy
+rogue," looked so unlike what one soliciting alms should, that the man of
+letters said to him, "My good friend, strong and stout as you are, it is a
+great shame that you do not go to work;" when he was met with the reply,
+"Ah, master, if you did but know how lazy I am!" for which amazing
+audacity, he was rewarded by Marivaux, who said, "Well, I see thou are an
+honest fellow. Here's a piece of money for you."
+
+Though, perhaps not strictly witty, the man's remark was excessively
+comic, and for aught I know, it may have been his conduct that gave rise
+to the now well-known expression--"funny beggar."
+
+For impromptu wit connected with impecuniosity, there is the case of Ben
+Jonson, who was invited to dinner at the Falcon Tavern, by a vintner, to
+whom he was much in debt, and then told that if he could give an immediate
+answer to four questions, his debt should be forgiven him. The
+interrogatories put to him by the vintner were these, "What is God best
+pleased with? What is the Devil best pleased with? What is the World best
+pleased with? and what am I best pleased with?" To which Ben replied:
+
+  "God is best pleased when men forsake their sin.
+  The devil is best pleased when they persist therein.
+  The world's best pleased when thou dost sell good wine,
+  And thou'rt best pleased when I do pay for mine."
+
+To return to the instances of ingenuity, the late Charles Mathews must be
+remembered; for he claims the credit of having been successful in
+extracting money from Jew bailiffs, which, incredible as it may seem at
+first, would really appear to have been the case. He says, "I might relate
+a thousand stories of my hair-breadth 'scapes and adventures, with a class
+of persons wholly unknown, happily, to a large portion of the population,
+and whose names inspire terror to those who do not know them;--officers of
+the Jewish persuasion, who are supposed to represent the majesty of the
+law in its most forbidding aspect, but to whom I have been indebted for so
+many acts of kindness, that I have frequently blessed my stars that they
+were interposed between me and the tomahawking Christians by whom they
+were employed, and from whom no mercy could have been extracted. I have
+had two of those functionaries in adjacent rooms, and _have borrowed the
+money from one to pay out the other_, with many such like incidents."
+
+There is no doubt that on the subject of bailiffs this most popular light
+comedian was an authority; for his experience of them was considerable,
+and it is therefore gratifying to find him bearing testimony to the good
+qualities of the much-maligned individual, who, as "the man in
+possession," is so often provocative of anger, malice, and all
+uncharitableness in the breasts of those who have to entertain him. It
+would be unwise, however, for any one to be so led away by the eulogistic
+remarks of Charles Mathews as to expect to be able to go and do likewise,
+in the matter of borrowing money from them; for it must be remembered,
+that without exception he was the most entertaining man in existence, and
+blest with persuasive powers unparalleled. At the same time, it is
+perfectly true that they are nothing like as formidable as they are
+supposed to be (this is reliable--for a distant relation of mine once knew
+a person, who had a friend that was sold up--Ahem!), and if it were not
+for their partiality for wearing an extra number of coats and waistcoats,
+and invariably carrying a stout stick, which characteristics render them
+unmistakable to the practised eye, they would not be so objectionable, as
+they are by no means devoid of sympathy, and are always open to reason in
+the shape of gin and water.
+
+Though not of so pronounced a type as some that have been quoted, there is
+an anecdote illustrative of ingenuity, recorded of Samuel Foote, who, in
+the days of his youth, and hard-upishness, wrote 'The Genuine Memoirs of
+the Life of Sir John Dinely Goodere, Bart., who was murdered by the
+contrivance of his own brother.' The author was nephew to the murdered
+man, and the assassin; but so poor was he, that on the day he took his MS.
+to the publishers he was actually without stockings. On receiving his pay
+for the book (L10), he stopped at a hosier's in Fleet Street, to replenish
+his wardrobe, but just as he issued from the shop, he met two old Oxford
+associates, lately arrived in London for a frolic, and they bore him off
+to a dinner at the "Bedford:" where, as the wine began to take effect, his
+unclad condition began to be perceivable, and he was questioned as to
+"what the deuce had become of his stockings?" "Why," said Foote--the
+stockingless Foote--"I never wear any at this time of the year, till I am
+going to dress for the evening, and you see"--pulling his purchase out of
+his pocket, and silencing the laugh and suspicion of his friends--"I am
+always provided with a pair for the occasion."
+
+Equally humorous is the story told of the Honourable George Talbot, the
+brother of the Earl of Shrewsbury, a man well known about town during the
+time of the Peninsular War. He was a reckless spendthrift, and in Paris,
+where he had spent thousands, he was reduced to absolute want. Though a
+man of decidedly bad principles, he was what is termed a good Roman
+Catholic; that is to say, a regular attendant at Mass, and when he found
+it impossible to raise money anywhere else he bethought him of the clergy,
+and repaired to confession. He revealed everything to the priest, at least
+with regard to his penniless condition, and after much interrogation, and
+deliberation, was told to "trust in Providence." Seemingly much struck by
+the advice, he said he would come again, and on his second visit, retold
+his story, with the addition that nothing at the time of the interview had
+turned up; when he was met with the same counsel as before, and enjoined
+to "trust in Providence." Somewhat chapfallen at the failure of his visit,
+he went away, but after a few days again presented himself to the abbe,
+whom he thanked effusively for his good advice on the two previous
+occasions, and then begged the pleasure of his company to dinner at a
+well-known fashionable restaurant. The invitation was accepted, and the
+two sat down to a most sumptuous repast, the delicacy of the viands being
+only surpassed by the choiceness of the wine. When the meal was concluded
+the bill was handed to Talbot, who said that his purse was quite empty,
+and had been so for a long time, but that he thought he could not do
+better than follow his confessor's advice and "trust in Providence." The
+Abbe Pecheron (the confessor) saw the joke, paid for the dinner, and so
+interested himself in Talbot's case, that he obtained from the
+spendthrift's friends in England sufficient to enable him to return to
+this country.
+
+Not the least ingenious of the many instances to be met with, however, is
+one attributed to a widow, who, in the days of Whitecross Street and the
+Bench, was arrested for debt. This lady, who is described as of fair and
+dashing appearance, with great powers of fascination, soon began to pine
+for her liberty, and petitioned for leave "to live within the rules,"
+which request was granted. She then took a house in Nelson Square, and
+became a reigning queen of pleasure, her Thursday evening _reunions_ being
+deemed so delightful, that invitations for them were most eagerly sought
+for. Her admirers were legion (that is of the male sex), one at last
+being successful in obtaining her coveted hand, and the marriage took
+place in due course. When the happy pair returned to Nelson Square after
+the ceremony, the tipstaves, who had become acquainted with the affair,
+put in an appearance as the newly married couple were about to start on
+their honeymoon, informing the lady that they would arrest her, and take
+her to the Bench, if she attempted to leave "the rules." Nothing
+disconcerted by this apparent stopper to her happiness, she calmly, but
+majestically exclaimed, "Indeed! You forget there is no such person as the
+lady named in your warrant. I am no longer Mrs. A., but Mrs. B. There is
+my husband, and he is responsible for my debts."
+
+"Then, sir," said the tipstaff, "I must arrest you."
+
+The lady smiled sarcastically, saying, "I think it will be time enough to
+arrest my husband when you have served him with a writ. If you have one,
+produce it; if not, kindly stand aside, and allow us to enter the coach."
+The officers could but comply, for they saw they had been outwitted, and
+were compelled to stand meekly by, while the clever widow, observing "Now,
+my love, let us be off," jumped into the carriage, and drove away with her
+husband.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE IMPECUNIOSITY OF ACTORS.
+
+
+There is a letter extant, written to Sir Francis Walsingham in 1586, in
+which the writer speaks "with pious indignation of overcrowded playhouses
+and deserted churches;" and says "it was a wofull sight to see two hundred
+proude players jett in their silks where fyve hundred pore people sterve
+in the streetes." From this and many similar allusions we glean that
+actors were not in the infancy of our English dramatic art the shabby
+impecunious class they afterwards became. They were on the whole well to
+do, and highly respectable men of college education, who were in most
+cases poets as well as players, patronised and encouraged by all classes,
+except those who were so bitterly jealous of their extraordinary
+influence--the clergy. A special Act of Parliament was passed in the reign
+of Queen Elizabeth for their encouragement and protection, and they had
+that which many of the well-born and wealthy envied them--the right of
+wearing the badges of royal and noble families, ensuring them respect,
+hospitality, and protection, wherever they went. The profession of the
+player was not then open to all comers, and those who dared to adopt it
+without licence from "any baron, or person of high rank, or two justices
+of the peace," were "deemed and treated as rogues and vagabonds;" prison
+and the whipping-post, or cart-tail, stocks, and the pillory, being but
+the milder forms of that treatment promised them in the often quoted,
+commonly misrepresented, Act of "good Queen Bess."
+
+Some of the dramatic poets and players, plunging headlong into dissipation
+and debauchery, were at length abandoned by their fellows, and sank into
+the depths of misery and extreme poverty; but the majority prospered, and
+went about in their silks and velvets, with roses in their shoes, and
+swords by their sides, no longer the poor scholars they had been in their
+college days--the licensed beggars, who, when they came into a town, set
+all the dogs barking--but prosperous gentlemen of fair repute, such as
+were Shakespeare, and Edward Alleyn, the founder of the Hospital and
+College at Dulwich.
+
+But a great change was at hand when the rebellion broke out, and civil war
+gave the Puritans dominant power. Their stage-plays and interludes were
+abolished, and the players' occupation was gone. Worse still, the very Act
+of Parliament which had been created for their protection was turned
+against them, and they were classed with the rogues and vagabonds against
+whom it had formerly protected them. Then the whipping and imprisonment,
+and even selling into slavery, became the poor players' miserable
+ill-fortune, and the reign of impecuniosity began in all its rigorous
+severity and terror. The London playhouses, which, between the years 1570
+and 1629, had grown from one (the Theatre in Shoreditch) to seventeen,
+were shut up, and had all their stages, chambers (boxes, we call them),
+and galleries pulled down. Small wonder was it, therefore, that the
+players, almost to a man, drew their swords for the King, and fought
+stoutly under the royal banner. In the 'Historia Histrionica,' printed in
+1699, we read the following dialogue:
+
+"Lovewit. 'Prythee, Trueman, what became of these players when the stage
+was put down, and the rebellion raised?'
+
+"Trueman. 'Most of 'em, except Lown, Taylor, and Pollard, who were
+superannuated, went into the King's army, and, like good men and true,
+served their old master, though in a different, yet more honourable,
+capacity. Robinson was killed at the taking of a place (I think Basing
+House) by Harrison (he that was after hanged at Charing Cross), who
+refused him quarter, and shot him in the head after he had laid down his
+arms, abusing Scripture at the same time in saying, "Cursed is he that
+doeth the work of the Lord negligently." Mohun was a captain (and after
+the wars were ended here served in Flanders, where he received pay as a
+major); Hart was a lieutenant of horse under Sir Thomas Dathson, in Prince
+Rupert's regiment; Burt was cornet in the same troop, and Shatterd,
+quarter-master. Allen, of the Cockpit, was a major, and
+quarter-master-general at Oxford. I have not heard of one of these players
+of note who sided with the other party, but only Swanston, and he
+professed himself a Presbyterian, took up the trade of a jeweller, and
+lived in Aldermanbury, within the territory of Father Calamy: the rest
+either lost, or exposed, their lives for their King. When the wars were
+over, and the Royalists wholly subdued, most of 'em who were left alive
+gathered to London, and for a subsistence endeavoured to revive their old
+trade privately. They made up one company out of all the scattered members
+of several; and in the winter before the King's murder, 1648, they
+ventured to act some plays, with as much caution and privity as could be,
+at the Cockpit (now Drury Lane Theatre). They continued undisturbed for
+three or four days; but at last, as they were representing the tragedy of
+'The Bloody Brother' (in which Lowin acted Aubrey; Taylor, Rolla; Pollard,
+the cook; Burt, Latorch; and, I think, Hart, Otto), a party of
+foot-soldiers beset the house, surprised 'em about the middle of the play,
+and carried them away in their habits, not permitting them to shift, to
+Hatton House, then a prison, where, having detained them some time, they
+plundered them of their clothes and let 'em loose again. Afterwards, in
+Oliver's time, they used to act privately, three or four miles, or more,
+out of town, now here, now there, sometimes in noblemen's houses, in
+particular Holland House, at Kensington, where the nobility and gentry who
+met--but in no great numbers--used to make up a sum for them--each giving
+a broad piece, or the like--and Alexander Goffe (the woman-actor at
+Blackfriars) used to be jackall, and give notice of the time and place. At
+Christmas and Bartholomew Fair they used to bribe the officer who
+commanded at Whitehall, and were thereupon connived at, to act, for a few
+days, at the "Red Bull," but were sometimes, notwithstanding, disturbed by
+soldiers. Some picked up a little money by publishing the copies of plays
+never before printed, but kept up in MS.; for instance, in the year 1652,
+Beaumont and Fletcher's 'Wild Goose Chase' was printed in folio, for the
+public use of all the ingenious, as the title-page says, and the private
+benefit of Jown Lowin and Joseph Taylor, servants to his late Majesty; and
+by them dedicated to the honoured few lovers of dramatic poetry: wherein
+they modestly intimate their wants, and with sufficient cause; whatever
+they were before the wars, they were afterwards reduced to a necessitous
+condition.'"
+
+Hard times these for the poor wandering players.
+
+It is curious to note that a reputed natural son of Oliver Cromwell
+became an actor. This was Joe Trefusis, nicknamed "Honest Joe," described
+as a person of "infinite humour and shrewd conceits." On one occasion,
+driven, we presume, by impecuniosity, Joe volunteered as a seaman, and
+served under the Duke of York. This was just before the memorable
+sea-fight between the duke and the Dutch admiral, Van Tromp, in which Joe
+took part, as he confessed, with great fear, which was not, you may be
+sure, decreased when one of the sailors, grimly preparing for the strife,
+said to him "Now, master play-actor, you're a-going to take part in one of
+the deepest and bloodiest tragedies you ever heard of."
+
+Another player of Puritan descent was the famous American actress,
+Charlotte Cushman, the name of her ancestor, Robert Cushman, being one
+that figures honourably and prominently as a leader amongst the Pilgrim
+Fathers. She tells us many anecdotes of the impecuniosity which afflicted
+her in the early days of her career. It was decided that she should
+abandon singing, and commence acting, and her first essay was to be in--of
+all parts--"Lady Macbeth"! She was then a tall, thin, fair-skinned,
+country girl, and being unable to procure a suitable costume, Madame
+Closel, a short, fat, dark-complexioned French woman, was applied to, and
+laughed heartily at the ludicrous idea of her clothes being worn by Miss
+Cushman, who says,--
+
+"By dint of piecing out the skirt of one dress it was made to answer for
+an under-skirt, and then another dress was taken in in every direction to
+do duty as an over-dress, and so make up the costume. And thus I essayed
+for the first time the part of Lady Macbeth."
+
+At that time her only place for study was an empty garret in the house in
+which she lodged, and her practice was to shut herself up in it alone, and
+sitting on the floor commit her "lines" to memory.
+
+Miss Cushman was not the only actress whom impecuniosity and consequent
+vocal efforts led to the stage. The famous Kitty Clive, whose maiden name
+was Rafter, was originally maid-of-all-work to Miss Knowles, who lodged at
+Mrs. Snells, a well-known fan-painter, in Church Row, Hounsditch. The Bell
+Tavern immediately opposite this house, was kept by a Drury Lane
+box-keeper, named Watson, at which house an actor's beef-steak club was
+held. One morning, when Harry Woodward, Dunstall, and other well-known
+London actors were in their club-room, they heard a girl singing very
+sweetly and prettily in the street outside, and going to the window found
+that the cheerful notes emanated from the throat of a charming little
+maid-servant, who was scrubbing the street-door step at Mrs. Snell's
+house. The actors looked at each other and smiled, as they crowded the
+open window to listen, and the final result was, in 1728, the introduction
+of the poor singer to the stage. She afterwards married Counsellor Clive,
+and being not a little of the shrew, it is said, quarrelled with him so
+seriously, that before the honeymoon was fairly out, the "happy pair"
+agreed to separate. It must not, however, be supposed that Kitty Clive was
+born to a menial position: she was the daughter of an Irish gentleman,
+ruined, as so many Irish gentlemen were, by their adherence to the cause
+of James II.
+
+Amongst those so ruined was the father of the illustrious actor and
+dramatic author, Charles Macklin, who on one occasion, when about to
+insure some property, was asked, "How the clerk should designate him?"
+
+"Call me," replied the actor, "Charles Macklin, a vagabond by Act of
+Parliament"--the old law of Queen Elizabeth, which the Puritans had
+extended to all players, being then unrepealed.
+
+There was doubtless a tinge of bitterness in the joke; for Macklin's early
+experience had been a severe and trying one, in the gaunt school of
+poverty and hardship.
+
+When in his twenty-sixth year, being ashamed of depending upon his poor
+old mother for his living, he left home, and travelling as a steerage
+passenger from Dublin to Bristol, arrived in that opulent city when a
+third-class company of players were performing there. He took lodgings
+over a mean little snuff and tobacco shop, next door but one to the
+theatre, and there became acquainted with a couple of the players, a man
+and a woman, who introduced him behind the scenes. To this he owed his
+introduction to the stage; for the manager detecting signs of histrionic
+taste and ambition in the young Irishman, engaged him, despite his
+strongly pronounced brogue, to play Richmond in Shakespeare's 'Richard
+III.'
+
+James Kirkman, said to have been a natural son of Macklin's, writing of
+his _debut_, said, "Considering the strong vernacular accent with which
+Mr. Macklin (then MacLaughlin) spoke, the reader would be at a loss to
+account for the applause which he met with on his first appearance, if he
+was not told that Bristol has always been so much inhabited by the Irish
+that their tones in speaking have become familiar there."
+
+The young Irish enthusiast afterwards travelled with this little company,
+making himself generally useful, by writing the playbills and distributing
+them--printing was too costly for poor strollers in those days--by
+carpentery when the stage had to be set up in some barn or inn-yard, by
+writing on occasions prologue or epilogue, without which no play was then
+considered complete, by composing and singing topical songs,
+"complimentary and adulatory to the village in which they happen to play,"
+to use his fist, which he did with great skill and strength, when the
+vulgar rustic audiences were disturbed by the quarrelsome, or were rude
+and coarsely offensive to his professional sisters and brethren. Kirkman
+says, "His circle of acting was more enlarged than Garrick's; for in one
+night he played Antonia, and Belvidera in 'Venice Preserved,' harlequin in
+the interlude, or entertainment, sang three comic songs between the acts,
+and between the play and the entertainment indulged the audience with an
+Irish jig"; often doing this when his share of the profits (for the
+original sharing system of Shakespeare's day then prevailed among
+strollers) was not more than four or five pence per night, to which was
+usually added a share of the candle-ends, candles being in use for
+lighting the stage, affixed round hoops to form chandeliers for the
+auditorium, in the making of which Macklin displayed peculiar skill.
+
+There is a good story told by Kirkman of a time when Macklin was with a
+company of strollers in Wales. One night they had the misfortune to arrive
+in Llangadoc, a little place in Carmarthenshire, so late that neither
+shelter, beds, nor food enough for all could be obtained, and Macklin,
+who, "from the high rank he held in the company was entitled to the first
+choice," resigned his claim in favour of a member of the corps who was too
+sick and weak to pass the night in the open air.
+
+Kirkman, telling the story, says: "After supping with 'Lady Hawley,'
+Macklin made his bow and retired to the room where the luggage was stored.
+Here he undressed himself and adopted the following humorous expedient: He
+instantly arrayed himself in the dress of Emilia in the 'Moor of Venice'
+(a part he occasionally played), tied up a small bundle in a handkerchief
+and slipped out of the house unperceived. In about a quarter of an hour he
+returned, apparently much fatigued, and addressing the landlady in the
+most piteous terms, recounted a variety of misfortunes that had befallen
+'her,' and concluded the speech with a heart-moving request that 'she'
+might have shelter for the night, as 'she' was a total stranger in that
+part of the country. The supposed young woman was informed by the
+unsuspecting landlady that all her beds were full, but that in pity for
+her distressed condition some contrivance would be made to let her have
+part of a bed. Charles now hugged himself at the success of his scheme,
+and, after he had partaken of some refreshment, was, to his great
+astonishment, conducted by the servant to the bedroom of the landlady
+herself, where he was left alone to undress. In this dilemma he scarcely
+knew how to act. To retreat he knew not how without risking discovery.
+However, into bed he went, convulsed with silent laughter. He had not been
+in bed many minutes before Mrs. 'Boniface,' who was upwards of sixty
+years, but completely the character in size and shape, made her
+appearance. Charles struggled hard with himself for some moments, but the
+comic scene had such an effect on him at last that he could contain
+himself no longer, and at the instant the old lady got into bed burst into
+a fit of laughter."
+
+Mrs. Boniface, believing "the poor young girl was in a fit," got up as
+fast as she could, and roared out so loudly and effectually for help that
+everybody in the house was alarmed, and the itinerant actresses coming
+into the chamber discovered, to their intense astonishment, who it was
+that the landlady had given half of her bed to. The laughter spread, was
+taken up on the stairs, and echoed from room to room, until the whole
+house rang with it. The anger of the landlady was appeased. This occurred
+in 1730 or 1731.
+
+An old friend of mine, who in his time has been actor, artist, journalist,
+dramatist, and novelist, and is now a well-known London editor, once told
+me the following story of his first connection with the stage.
+
+He was a feeble, consumptive lad of sixteen, when the drunkenness and
+cruelty of a worthless step-father drove him penniless from home. All
+through one long, wretched, and utterly hopeless day he had been wandering
+through the streets of London seeking employment. Naturally shy,
+reserved, and timid, his awkward mode of addressing a stranger while
+perplexed what account to give of himself, together with the hesitation,
+stammering, and blushing which accompanied it, had brought upon him
+nothing but scornful treatment, insulting suspicions, and failure after
+failure. He found himself at the close of a long, hot day, with burning
+feet and aching limbs, hungry, faint, and plunged into the very lowest
+depths of despair, on the banks of the New River, where he had often been
+before to fish. His desire was to escape observation, and he dragged
+himself along, passed fishermen and boys, until, finding their line
+stretched out from one to another still far ahead, he sat down in the long
+grass completely exhausted, and turning on his face, wept silently.
+
+Now it so happened that a tall, lank, sallow-faced young fisherman, with a
+beard of a fortnight's growth, and clothes of a once fashionable cut, but
+then threadbare, discoloured, ill-fitting, and very greasy at the cuffs
+and collar, particularly noted the tall, thin boy, and presently strolled
+up to, and sat down beside him.
+
+"Hallo, guv'nor," said he; "what's up?"
+
+The poor boy had no voice and no heart to reply, so he pretended to be
+asleep.
+
+"Wat's yer been a doin' on? Run away from home?"
+
+After a pause, and without moving, the poor lad said,--
+
+"I've got no home now."
+
+"Where do you come from?"
+
+"Not very far."
+
+"Where are you going to?"
+
+"Don't know."
+
+"Have you got any money?"
+
+"None."
+
+"Where's your father and mother?"
+
+"Father's dead."
+
+"And yer mother? Can't she keep yer? Ain't she got no home neither?"
+
+The boy felt that any attempt to reply would betray his violent emotion.
+He got up silently and walked away.
+
+The stranger followed, overtook him, and walked beside him.
+
+"You've come from a long way off, young un--ain't yer?"
+
+The runaway nodded, although he was really within about a mile and a half
+of his starting-point.
+
+"Yer seems awfully tired. Why I do b'lieve as yer a crying. Wot's the
+matter?"
+
+There was an expression of sincere sympathy in the man's face, and my
+young friend answered in a low faint voice, broken with sobs,--
+
+"I've no home, and no relatives or friends to go to; and I don't know what
+to do."
+
+The man eyed him very curiously before he replied,--
+
+"My lodgin's in Clerkenwell, not so very far from here; the bed 'ull 'old
+two. Come home and sleep with me; and we'll take in a couple of black
+puddin's, or a faggot, or something nice an' 'ot for supper. Come along."
+
+The stranger was a poor mender of shoes, who lived in a squalid garret, at
+the top of an old house, overcrowded with lodgers; a foolish lazy fellow
+enough, without a principle of honesty, or a care for respectability or
+cleanliness in his entire composition, but withal a kindly one. Necessity
+drives sternly. The boy looked at his companion's dirty linen and unwashed
+face and neck, and with a glance at the river, a longing, despairing look,
+which did not escape the stranger's quick observation, turned and
+reluctantly went with him.
+
+When they were in bed he began to tell his mournful story, and fell asleep
+at the beginning of it. In the morning the dirty son of St. Crispin
+explained that he was a supernumerary at the theatres, as well as a snob,
+and that he was engaged for the Princess's Theatre, where Macready was
+then playing.
+
+"If you like," said he, "I'll take you to the super-master; he lives close
+by in Hatton Garden, all amongst the Italians on the Hill."
+
+He did so, and an engagement followed. This piece of luck filled the
+unfortunate lad's heart with delight. The pay was only a shilling a night,
+but he could live on it; and it was the first step in a profession of
+which he had dreamed as the summit of human ambition and felicity ever
+since he first saw a play performed "with real water" on the boards of old
+Sadler's Wells. With what tremulous eagerness and delight he went to
+rehearsal with his dirty friend and benefactor! With what wonder and
+curiosity he inspected the stage-door, the wings and the dressing-room
+under the stage, and with what awe he eyed the mighty magician who lorded
+it above his fellows with such undemonstratively quiet and yet most
+impressive dignity!
+
+The play was Shakespeare's 'King Lear,' and in the combat scene the lists
+were formed on the stage by short battle-axes and long spears, the former
+being stuck upright in holes arranged for their reception, two of the
+latter placed crossways, and one on the top of them horizontally between
+each axe. Macready was particularly anxious that this should be done
+rapidly, and without hesitation; and the efforts of the supers to carry
+out his instructions were simply ludicrous. The men with the battle-axes
+couldn't hit upon the holes, and some absolutely went down upon their
+knees to feel for them, while the spearmen either were awfully slow and
+nervously careful, or they missed the supports and created a clatter and
+confusion, which appeared to plunge Macready into a furious state of anger
+and disgust. The new super, all eyes and ears, shared the great
+tragedian's feelings; he saw at once that the entire effect depended upon
+the dash and spirit of the soldier's action in eagerly and readily
+extemporising these warlike barriers; and he devised a plan by which his
+axe was thrust as it were at once into the earth, with scarcely a downward
+glance. He was pointing out how readily this was done, to his neighbours
+on either side, and telling them to pass the hint along, when he was
+startled by the deep strong voice of the tragedian, who had come up to
+him, and said abruptly, "What's your name, my man?"
+
+"My friend did, what I am not going to do (not having his permission), he
+told Macready his name, and he, after a grunt, and a quick, keen glance
+from under his knitted brows, repeated it aloud, saying,--
+
+"I shall not forget it. It's the name of the first super I ever saw with
+brains."
+
+On the night of the first performance some few days after, my friend was
+taken out of his ordinary soldier costume, and arrayed more carefully and
+picturesquely in a more costly fashion to play the part of a knight in
+special attendance upon the king, from whom he had the honour of receiving
+a message. Alas! that honour cost him a friend--the jealousy of the
+shoemaker broke out in spite and bitterness which accumulated and
+intensified to such an extent that at the end of the week he was caught in
+the act of hiding in the dark behind one of the beams of wood supporting
+the stage, for the purpose of throwing a big stone at the poor fellow with
+whom, under the influence of pity, he had shared his food and lodging. It
+was impossible to conceive a more cowardly or malignant rascal than this
+fellow had become under the influence of envy and jealousy.
+
+The class of theatrical people employed as supernumeraries (commonly
+called "supers") form the background figures of stage pictures, soldiers,
+sailors, peasants, citizens, mobs, &c., playing the dumb accessory parts;
+and they are as a rule neither too respectable nor too intelligent. To
+train and teach them is a task which sorely tries the patience of the
+super-master, and their lazy, poverty-stricken, and generally not too
+cleanly aspect is provocative of contempt and dislike amongst the actors.
+Their pay is not extravagant, being usually a shilling a night, but their
+histrionic pride is great, and their reverence for the actors profound,
+while for one to stand a little closer to the footlights than his fellows
+do, and consequently nearer the audience, or to be selected to go on alone
+to deliver a letter or receive a message, is the very summit of his
+ambition; a dangerous elevation, too, for from the time that he is so
+gloriously distinguished he is regarded with envy, spite, and malice, by
+his fellows, who try their best to oust him and take his place. This, my
+friend, above mentioned, soon experienced, for his life became a
+succession of bitter annoyances and coarse insults, varied when necessity
+compelled with an occasional fight, in which, despite his feeble health he
+generally contrived to give a fair account of his adversary, inheriting
+some of his father's skill as a boxer, and having been a constant student
+of that art when at school. At the termination of the Macready
+performances he was engaged at one of the old tavern theatres of those
+days, now known as the Britannia Theatre, then as the Britannia Saloon,
+where the stage-manager, a gentle and kindly old man (Mr. Wilton) was
+particularly good to him, and at last, after hearing him read a
+Shakespearian speech, entrusted him with small parts, contrary to the
+conviction of Mrs. Lane, the clever wife of the then proprietor, in whose
+place she now reigns. She, finding that the boy blushed and stammered when
+she spoke to him, pronounced him unfit for the experiment.
+
+"He has an impediment in his speech," said she.
+
+Some years after, my friend having in the meantime abandoned the stage for
+art (of which he was for years an ardent, indefatigable student), under
+the pressure of severe impecuniosity, became a country scene-painter and
+afterwards an actor, playing in the course of his theatrical career a wide
+range of second and third-rate parts, sometimes doubling as many as three
+or four in a single piece, and often both playing and painting scenery.
+Once, while Miss Mary Glover was manageress of the Cheltenham and Bath
+theatres, in consequence of the non-arrival of about half the expected
+company, he doubled tremendously, playing four characters in the burlesque
+and two in the farce, with the most rapid changes of "make up" and
+costume, one being a comic nigger with songs. Miss Glover had taken the
+theatre under the pressure of impecuniosity, trusting to the chance of
+success for the payment of her company. At the end of the first week she
+paid half salaries, at the end of the second and third weeks no salaries,
+or, in the parlance of the initiated, "the ghost did not walk," and great
+doubtless was the trouble and suffering consequently endured. My friend
+was reduced to bread and butter for meals, and found even those materials
+none too plentiful, when one evening he was summoned into the
+dressing-room of Miss Glover. The lady was in tears, but they were tears
+of indignant rage.
+
+"Sir!" said she, "I was never so insulted in all my life!"
+
+"What's wrong, madam? Who has insulted you?"
+
+"Who has insulted me, sir! Why you have!" cried she, with a look of
+astonishment.
+
+"I, madam! How?" he exclaimed with a similar expression.
+
+"Look at your gloves, sir!"
+
+"Well, madam, they are clean, I washed them myself."
+
+"But, sir! Berlin gloves! It's monstrous! I was never so treated before in
+all my life! Paltry cotton. You ought to be ashamed of yourself--a leading
+character too. I never played with a gentleman before in your part who did
+not wear new white kids!"
+
+"I laughed," said my friend. "It was rude, I know, but for the life of me
+I couldn't help it. Here was my employer living in comparative luxury at
+first-class lodgings in a fashionable town, abusing a poor devil whom she
+had cheated and half-starved, because, in a back-street garret with
+scarcely a penny in his pocket, he did not wear nightly, as he otherwise
+would have done, a new pair of white kid gloves!"
+
+The late Miss Oliver, who stood by at the time, called the fellow who
+dared to laugh at a manageress in such dire distress, "a brute."
+
+On another occasion Mr. Huntley May Macarthy, a once well-known and very
+eccentric provincial manager, abruptly closed the theatre at Bury St.
+Edmunds, after keeping it open a week or ten days, leaving the unfortunate
+company to escape from the dilemma of debt and difficulty into which so
+many of them were deeply plunged. Some had drawn a fortnight's salary in
+advance, to pay their travelling expenses to Bury St. Edmunds, and they
+had all been gathered from far and near by the London agent. In that case
+my friend the editor found his ark of safety in falling back upon his old
+profession. He painted the portrait of a local celebrity, which, being
+exhibited in the town, soon brought him sitters enough to enable him to
+help himself and spare something for one or two of his less happily
+situated brothers and sisters in misfortune. I remember my friend remarked
+as curious on each of these occasions the quietude with which the
+histrionics submitted to be so unfairly treated. Neither in the case of
+Miss Glover nor that of Mr. Macarthy were there any attacks made upon them
+to the face, heartily as they were cursed and abused behind their backs.
+
+In explanation of this I may recall what Mrs. Mathews said of her husband,
+the elder Mathews, when he suffered under the same infliction, which in
+the old days of "circuits" and "strolling companies" was a very common one
+and is still by no means unknown. She said,--
+
+"I have heard Mr. Mathews say that he has gone to the theatre at night
+without having tasted anything since a meagre breakfast, determined to
+refuse to go on the stage unless some portion of his arrears was first
+paid. When, however, he entered the green-room his spirits were so cheered
+by the attention of his brethren, and the _eclat_ of his reception that
+his fainting resolution was restored, all his discontent utterly banished
+for the time, and he was again reconciled to starvation: nay, he even felt
+afraid of offending the unfeeling manager, and returned home silent upon
+the subject of his claims."
+
+No actor was ever better acquainted with poverty than that extraordinary
+man Edmund Kean. Endowed with rare genius, and a potency of will, that
+impelled him to surmount any obstacle lying in the pathway leading towards
+fame, this player's fate was yet infelicitous. Maternal solicitude, moral
+training, and those circumstantial influences which induce regular habits,
+were alike denied him. All the regularities, vicissitudes, vexations,
+disappointments, sorrows, trials and romance common to the lives of
+strolling players, characterized the early career of Edmund Kean. Through
+his mother he was related to George Saville, Marquis of Halifax. That
+mother was Ann Carey, grand-daughter of Henry Carey, the reputed author of
+our National Anthem. The father of Edmund Kean was Aaron Kean, generally
+described as an architect, but described by some as a stage carpenter, and
+by others as a tailor. In a melancholy and miserable chamber of a house,
+situated at no great distance from Holborn, Edmund Kean first saw the
+light, on November 4th, 1787. It is stated by Miss Tidswell, the actress,
+that "about half-past three in the morning Aaron Kean, the father, came to
+me, and said, 'Nance Carey is with child, and begs you to go to her at her
+lodgings in Chancery Lane.' Accordingly my aunt and I went with him and
+found Nance Carey near her time. We asked her if she had proper
+necessaries, and she replied, 'No--nothing'; whereupon Mrs. Byrne begged
+the loan of some baby-clothes, and Nance Carey was removed to the chambers
+in Gray's Inn, which her father then occupied, and it was there that the
+future tragedian was born." Ann Carey had been under the protection of
+Aaron Kean, and he afterwards abandoned her. She came of an unfortunate
+stock, for Henry Carey, as I have stated, notwithstanding his talents was
+always in difficulties, which only forsook him when he committed
+self-destruction; and his son, George Saville Carey--printer, mimic,
+scientific lecturer, and occasional poetaster and dramatist--would have
+been without a decent burial, but for the charity of a few friends. His
+daughter when only fifteen years old, quitted her home and became a
+strolling actress; but when out of an engagement she would return to
+London, and pick up a scanty home in its streets as a hawker. It was in
+such occupation that Aaron Kean first saw the woman.
+
+In addition to her irregular habits, Edmund Kean's mother was selfish,
+calculating, and cruel. It was not long after his birth that the child,
+with his strangely beautiful dark eyes and winning ways, was actually
+abandoned by his unnatural parent. Ann Carey quitted the metropolis to
+join a wandering troupe of Thespians, and when she next saw her child, he
+was three years old, and living under the protection of a poor man and
+his wife, in Soho. It is said that these worthy people had found little
+Edmund hungry and forlorn, and left in a doorway, one winter's night.
+
+Of the boy's history, after the mother had abandoned him to the period
+when he found succour from the kind couple in Soho, nothing is known. Ann
+Carey demanded her child, and quickly turned her offspring to profit;
+getting him engaged to appear as a reposing Cupid in one of the Opera
+House ballets, and subsequently to appear in a Drury Lane pantomime--the
+boy was little more than three years old. When in 1794 at Drury Lane, John
+Kemble produced 'Macbeth' with exceedingly novel stage business, Edmund
+Kean was one of the goblin troupe, introduced for the purpose of giving
+additional impressiveness to the incantation scene. It was not long
+afterwards that he played the part of a page in the 'Merry Wives of
+Windsor.' His education was of the slightest, and intermittent; he was a
+pupil at a small school in Orange Court, Leicester Square, and at another
+place of instruction in Chapel Street, Soho; and the expenses for such
+education were defrayed by a few generously disposed people, who were
+impressed by the boy's beauty and intelligence. Ann Carey, almost
+destitute, went away from Castle Street, Leicester Fields, and, with her
+boy found a lodging in Ewer Street, Southwark. Young Edmund, restive and
+adventurous, determined to run away from home, and with a few necessaries
+tied up in a bundle slung on a stick, made his way to Portsmouth, and
+engaged himself in the capacity of cabin boy for a ship bound to Madeira.
+Not sufficiently robust to do some of the work incidental to his duties,
+he resolved to be again free; which he accomplished by feigning deafness.
+Discharged at the end of the return voyage, he walked from Portsmouth to
+London, and hungry, footsore and heart-weary, made his way to the old
+lodging in Southwark. He found that his mother had left her shabby
+tenement for a place in Richardson's show troupe, then perambulating the
+country.
+
+He bethought him that he might find a shelter under the roof of his uncle,
+Moses Kean, who lived in Lisle Street, Leicester Square. This uncle, who
+was a mimic, ventriloquist, and general entertainer, received young Edmund
+Kean kindly, gave him a home, and became his preceptor in many of the
+mysteries belonging to the histrionic art. Miss Tidswell, the
+acquaintance of his mother, and an actress of respectable position at
+Drury Lane, also showed great interest in the welfare of the boy. He made
+progress in the arts of dancing, singing, declamation, and fencing, and
+even in those days he became familiar with the creations of Shakespeare.
+Through the influence of Miss Tidswell, he obtained an engagement for some
+parts at Drury Lane, Prince Arthur in 'King John' being one. The boy
+excited notice, as the following anecdote related by Mrs. Charles Kemble
+shows.
+
+"One morning before the rehearsal commenced, I was crossing the stage,
+when my attention was attracted by the sounds of loud applause issuing
+from the direction of the green-room. I enquired the cause, and was told
+that it was only little Kean reciting 'Richard III.' My informant said
+that he was very clever. I went into the green-room and saw the little
+fellow facing an admiring group, and reciting lustily."
+
+On the death of Moses Kean, his nephew's only real friend was Miss
+Tidswell. Under her he studied Shakespearian characters, and while
+residing with her joined the company of Saunders, Bartholomew Fair. There
+he gave imitations of the nightingale and monkey, of the form and movement
+of the snake; and at Bartholomew Fair he acted the part of Tom Thumb. Soon
+afterwards, hearing that his mother was acting at Portsmouth, he set out
+from London for the seaport named; but on reaching it discovered that the
+information given him concerning Anna Carey was incorrect. His situation
+was trying, for he was destitute and friendless. Young Kean, however, had
+a bold heart, and a brain full of resources. He hired, on credit, a room
+in one of the Portsmouth taverns, and announced an entertainment
+consisting of "Selections from 'Hamlet,' 'Richard III.,' and 'Jane Shore,'
+with a series of acrobatic performances, and some exquisite singing, and
+all by Master Carey, of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane." The entertainment
+was sufficiently successful for it to be repeated, and having paid all
+expenses, the entertainer found himself three pounds in pocket. Edmund
+Kean at this time was fourteen years old.
+
+Reciting Rolla's "address to the Peruvians" one evening before an audience
+at Sadler's Wells, a country manager, then present, was so much impressed
+by the declamation of the lad, that young Kean received an offer to play
+leading characters for twenty nights at the York Theatre. The offer was
+accepted, he was highly successful, and for many years from the time of
+that York engagement, the future tragedian of Drury Lane underwent the
+vicissitudes peculiar to the life of the old-fashioned stroller. It was
+not long ere he encountered the famous showman, Richardson, who speedily
+made terms with the precocious and versatile youth. It turned out that
+Anne Carey was in the company. She proposed that her son should join with
+her in her labours, and that she should receive his earnings. But they did
+not long labour together, and parted, not to meet again till Kean made his
+great success in 1814 at Drury Lane. While with a manager named Butler, at
+Northampton, Kean played walking gentlemen, Harlequin, and sang comic
+songs for a salary of fifteen shillings a week. While attached to Butler's
+company, he enacted the character of Octavian, in the 'Mountaineers' with
+such ability, that a gentleman connected with the Haymarket, who saw the
+performance, undertook to procure the young tragedian an engagement,
+provided that he could reach London to appear at a specified time. Kean,
+being without money, could only have travelled on foot, and the journey to
+London by such means would have taken up so much time, that he
+despairingly saw that the engagement must remain unfulfilled. Butler, with
+the greatest good nature, said "that he would defray the expenses of a
+stage-coach journey." Kean, overcome with emotion, exclaimed, "If ever
+fortune smiles upon my efforts, I will not forget you."
+
+The Haymarket engagement proved humiliating, the young actor being cast
+for very insignificant parts. However, in one character, Ganem, in the
+'Mountaineers,' by the admirable manner in which he spoke certain words,
+he drew forth such unmistakable applause, that he availed himself of a
+recommendation addressed to John Kemble. In an interview with that
+celebrity, Kean found the eminent tragedian so chilling and unsympathetic
+in manner, that the poor fellow hurried from the theatre stung to the
+quick by his inauspicious reception. He again visited the provinces, and
+again experienced many privations, disappointments, humiliations, and
+rebuffs. Fate appeared to frown upon him; but it must be remembered that
+Kean was young, exceedingly small of stature, unconventional in his style
+of acting, and thoroughly original in every assumption that he undertook.
+Moreover, his temper was violent, haughty, and sensitive.
+
+It was during those days, when Edmund Kean, as a strolling player, was
+learning his art, and was making acquaintance with poverty in its most
+bitter forms, that he acquired those habits of intemperance which
+afterwards effected his ruin. After the engagement at the Haymarket, he
+acted at Tunbridge Wells, Portsmouth, Haddesden, Birmingham, and
+Edinburgh. More than once in these journeyings he exhibited at fairs and
+public houses; and for a short time he earned a scanty income in the
+capacity of usher at a school in Hertfordshire. In 1807 at Belfast, he
+played with Mrs. Siddons; and as Jaffier in 'Venice Preserved' made a
+strong impression. But the tragedienne's opinion of him was not
+flattering; for on first seeing him, she remarked, "he was a horrid little
+man," and criticising his enaction in Otway's pathetic drama said, "He
+plays the part very, very well, but there is too little of him wherewith
+to make a great actor." Notwithstanding taunts, impecuniosity,
+heart-burnings, and neglect, the young aspirant studied laboriously, and
+allowed no opportunity to slip by which he might gain increased knowledge
+of stage art, and of human nature; but during his hard apprenticeship, he
+was forced to have recourse to many shifts, and to endure much suffering.
+After playing an engagement in Kent, he accepted another for a single
+night at Braintree, in Essex.
+
+On the day that the performance was to take place at Braintree, the actor
+stood, without a farthing in his pocket, on the Kent bank of the Thames.
+Bound to fulfil his engagement, it was necessary for him to cross the
+river; and his impecunious condition precluded all possibility of hiring a
+boat. The strong-willed stroller was not to be daunted. He threw off his
+clothes, tied them into a bundle, which he held in his teeth, plunged into
+the river, and speedily reached the shore. With his clothes saturated with
+water, half-famished, and tired in every limb, he yet went on for "Rolla,"
+before the Braintree audience. While performing he fainted, and an illness
+of fever and ague was the consequence of his swimming expedition. On
+recovering he tramped all the way to Swansea, and played in that town. He
+was then in his twentieth year. Proceeding to Gloucester, he became a
+member of Beverley's company, and was advertised to play Young Rapid. The
+usual means had been taken to attract an audience, but at the time for
+the rising of the curtain there were only two persons in the auditorium;
+so the eighteenpence taken at the doors were returned to the couple of
+playgoers, and the theatre lights extinguished. A few nights Kean
+performed with a lady who had left the scholastic profession for that of
+the stage, and this lady, Miss Chambers, afterwards became Mrs. Kean. When
+at Stroud, Master Betty was announced to perform Hamlet and Norval; Kean
+found himself cast for Laertes and Glenalvon. The actor could not brook
+what he deemed an indignity,--that of playing secondary characters to a
+mere boy; and for three days and three nights, he was away from the
+theatre, every individual connected with it being ignorant of his
+whereabouts. On reappearing he said, "I have been in the fields, in the
+woods, I am starved; I have eaten nothing but turnips and cabbages since
+I've been out; but I'll go again, and as often as I see myself put in such
+characters. I won't play second to any man living, except to John Kemble."
+In the summer of 1808, Kean married Mary Chambers, the wife being nine
+years older than the husband. Soon after the marriage, Beverley told them
+that he intended dispensing with their services, and they soon had to
+drain the cup of poverty to its dregs. To the honour of the woman he had
+taken to his heart, she cheered and soothed him in his tremendous
+struggle. He suffered not only the pangs of poverty, but too often the
+stings of hostile criticisms from provincial scribes, utterly unable to
+appreciate his passionate and original renderings of dramatic
+characterization. At Birmingham he thought himself and his wife well paid,
+when during an engagement they each received a pound for their weekly
+services. So ably did he act that Stephen Kemble made proposals to
+negotiate a London engagement; but Kean deemed that further experience was
+necessary before he should attempt a metropolitan appearance in leading
+characters. Terrible toil and terrible suffering had to be undergone ere
+he was to reach the pinnacle of success.
+
+Closing his performances at Birmingham, he made terms with Andrew Cherry
+to appear at Swansea. So indigent was the actor, that he was necessitated
+to undertake the journey on foot, a journey of 200 miles; and his wife,
+who accompanied him, was likely soon to become a mother. Mr. and Mrs. Kean
+owed money in Birmingham, or possibly the wife might have remained in the
+town; and from it--early one summer morning--they departed on their long
+and wearisome way, adding to their miserable store of money some additions
+as they proceeded, by giving recitations at the residences of the gentry.
+In a fortnight they reached Bristol, were ferried over to Newport, and at
+last reached Swansea, where they obtained lodgings. Kean's acting was not
+warmly received; and referring to one of his impersonations in the town,
+he remarked, "I played the part finely, and yet they would not applaud
+me!" The actor grew moody, splenetic, and gave way to insobriety. A son
+born to him at this period he named Howard; and it was soon after the
+birth of the child that the Keans left Swansea, with Cherry, for other
+towns in the principality, and subsequently they crossed over to Ireland.
+At Waterford, Kean played tragedy, and in addition for his benefit, gave
+an exhibition of pugilism, tight-rope dancing, singing, and wound up by
+playing the Chimpanzee in the piece called 'La Perouse.' It was at
+Waterford that Edmund Kean's second son, Charles, was born. Beaching
+Scotland, so exhausted were the funds of the actor, that at Dumfries he
+got up an entertainment at a tavern, and the only patron was a shoe-maker,
+who paid sixpence for admission. At Carlisle Kean appealed to the
+barristers on Assize, asking for their presence, when he would deliver a
+series of recitations, his reward to be at their discretion; but the
+appeal was made in vain. In the autumn of 1811, the family in the most
+miserable condition arrived in York, and from the ball-room, Minster Yard,
+Kean issued a circular announcing, "for one night only," an entertainment
+comprising recitals, dramatic selections, imitations of actors, and
+singing by himself, assisted by his wife; but the scheme ended with
+anything but a prosperous result. Under their struggles, husband and wife
+broke into a wail of grief, as they contemplated their innocent and
+unfortunate babes. The mother on her knees, supplicated for spiritual
+influence to annihilate their sufferings by death, but the fiery-willed
+player still kept courage, "I will go on, I will hope against hope!!" They
+got to London, where, at Sadler's Wells, Kean had a short engagement at
+two pounds a week, and then he had engagements at Weymouth and Exeter; in
+which latter place he played for a salary of one pound a week. Through the
+influence of an old friend, Dr. Drury, Kean at length obtained an
+engagement at Drury Lane. But ere his triumph on the London boards was
+effected, the child, Howard, died, an event to which the actor never
+alluded without feelings of grief. While Kean was concluding his Exeter
+performances, his wife and child were desolate in the garret of a house in
+Cecil Street, Strand; and they would have starved, but that the liberality
+of Dr. Drury succoured them. Even on the eve of his Drury Lane success,
+Kean underwent many trials and sufferings. Save Dr. Drury he was without a
+friend. On his _debut_, that memorable evening at Drury Lane, 26th
+January, 1814, the directors of the establishment denied him everything
+calculated to awaken hope and courage. Kean went to the dressing-room, and
+from the dressing-room to the stage, conscious that he had been treated
+with superciliousness, apathy, and injustice. Under such treatment, and
+with all his previous trials, it was only a perfect knowledge of his own
+transcendent powers, that carried him through the ordeal. The effect of
+his triumph in Shylock, may best be described in the words of his late
+biographer. "In an almost phrenzied ecstasy he rushed through the wet to
+his humble lodging, sprang up the stairs, and threw open the door. His
+wife ran to meet him; no words were required, his radiant countenance told
+all--and they mingled together the first tears of true happiness they had
+as yet experienced. He told her of his proud achievement, and in a burst
+of exultation exclaimed, 'Mary, you shall ride in your carriage, and,
+Charley my boy,' taking the child from the cradle and kissing him, 'you
+shall go to Eton, and'--a sad reminiscence crossed his mind, his joy was
+overshadowed, and he murmured in broken accents, 'Oh that Howard had lived
+to see it! But he is better where he is.'" Pity that so fine a nature as
+Edmund Kean's, with his genius, and generous sympathies, should have
+struck on the rock of self-indulgence. But in any estimate of his moral
+shortcomings, the evil influence around his early life, and the effect of
+his early privation, should be steadfastly, and charitably, borne in mind.
+When we remember the conditions under which the actor pursues his calling,
+it is scarcely surprising that the term "poor players," should have become
+proverbial. The victims of a social ban, originating in the bigotry of
+church and conventicle; following a profession, perhaps of all professions
+the most scouted by smooth, smug respectability, and certainly of all
+professions the most liable to fluctuations of success from the caprices,
+whims and "breeches-pocket" condition of its patrons; it seems but
+natural that the history of the stage should yield numerous illustrations
+of man impecunious.
+
+Then, too, it must be borne in mind, that the greater number of men and
+women who have recruited the ranks of the histrionics have been people of
+romantic and "happy-go-lucky" temperament; light-hearted, generous to a
+fault, unworldly in the money-making sense, and frequently of the most
+irregular and unbusiness-like habits. Such characteristics had Theophilus
+Cibber, Shuter, George Frederick Cooke, Edmund Kean, Ward, and John Reeve;
+and though the precarious nature of the profession, the necessarily
+unsettled habits of its followers, and the unreality of the life, may be
+conducive in a degree to impecuniosity, it seems to me--and I have
+strutted several fretful hours--the only real cause of players being
+poorer than other people is due to extravagance and irregularity. Frugal,
+steady, trustworthy habits invariably increase a man's well-being, in any
+calling; and the theatrical profession is no exception to the rule.
+
+Richardson, the showman, was born in a workhouse, and was in his early
+years a mere little social arab, cast upon the world without friends or
+education; and he began his social career by exhibiting a little child
+with spotted skin, calling him the "spotted boy." The first venture was
+profitable, and the showman went on making money, and saved it. He then
+set up a show theatre, succeeded so well that year after year he had to
+enlarge it, and at last it became the largest in the kingdom. Richardson
+likewise established a character for honesty, and all that is summed up in
+the words "manly conduct."
+
+John Quick--George the Third's favourite comedian--had, too, in his time
+been poor enough. He was the son of a Whitechapel brewer, and when only
+fourteen years old ran away from home, with the idea of taking to the
+stage for a profession. Without any money in his pocket he started on his
+romantic journey, and managed to find a booth company at Fulham, where he
+was allowed to enact Altamont in the 'Fair Penitent.'
+
+Having played to the satisfaction of the manager, that worthy commanded
+his wife to set the _debutant_ down for a whole share of the night's
+receipts, which at the close of the last piece amounted to three
+shillings. Quick rose in his profession, and by forethought and prudence
+amassed a fortune of L10,000.
+
+Braham's boyhood was surrounded with hardships and privations. Early left
+an orphan, he was obliged to walk the streets of London as a vendor of
+pencils. In that situation he was befriended by Leoni, a vocalist at the
+synagogue in Duke's Place, Covent Garden, who trained the lad's voice, so
+remarkable for its peculiar sweetness of tone and expression. For Leoni's
+benefit, in 1787, at the Royalty Theatre, Wellclose Square, young Braham
+made his _debut_. His genius, of its kind, was unsurpassable; but it was
+the prudence added to it which laid the foundation of his fortune, which
+would have remained in the possessor's hands but that the vocalist entered
+unwittingly on theatrical management.
+
+Even in the more humble departments of theatrical life may be found
+thrifty examples of people, who, versed in the somewhat difficult part of
+making both ends meet, at length found themselves in a reputable and
+flourishing position. Such an instance is that of Bennett, a theatrical
+manager once well known in the Midlands. Bennett possessed a gift for
+doing things himself--his only assistant being an old lady, one Mrs.
+Gamage. He began his career with a puppet-show, was thrifty on its poor
+proceeds, and eventually became proprietor of a theatre. Bennett was
+successful as an actor at Worcester, Coventry, Shrewsbury, and towns
+adjacent. His travelling-cases, boxes, and chests, had their surfaces
+touched up by the scenic artist, and in the theatre did duty for castle
+walls, palace terraces, and palatial furniture; his helmets, and other
+stage properties, were of canvas, easy to fold up for packing, and many of
+his properties combined several utilities. He would arrange with his
+friends to take money at the doors, and Mrs. Gamage combined the offices
+of candle-snuffer and constable, and during the day she cooked and cleaned
+up at home. Bennett has been known to seek out musical young men in a
+town, and allow them the privilege of singing on his stage; or, if they
+were at all proficient on an instrument, allow them to play in his
+orchestra. He dressed as a fine gentleman by day, and like a mechanic in
+the evening. He died prosperous, and, above all, a churchwarden.
+
+Old Philip Astley, Davidge, John Douglas, and Samuel Phelps, all poor men
+at the outset of life, entered on theatrical management, carried it on
+with care, tact and probity, and all of them died reputable, and in
+comfort. Garrick, the Kembles, Charles Mayne Young, Munden, Richard
+Jones, William Farren, Liston, Macready, and a host of other gifted
+actors, died rich, having lived amidst the respect of the highest social
+circles; but it will be found in each particular case, that they were men
+of high character, and prudent habits.
+
+In some other instances the impecuniosity of actors has resulted from
+short-sightedness to their own interests, imprudence, and utter
+incompetence in business matters, but unfortunately extravagance, and
+other irregular habits of life, have been the frequent cause of poverty.
+
+Nicholson, once lessee of the Newcastle Theatre, by want of business
+habits gradually became a poor man, so poor that he became money-taker at
+Drury Lane, and subsequently died in the workhouse of the town where he
+had been theatrical manager; and Faucit-Saville, formerly lessee and
+manager at Gravesend, Margate, Deal and other theatres, died while engaged
+as money-taker at the City of London Theatre.
+
+Some who saw 'Manfred,' when revived at Drury Lane by Mr. Chatterton, with
+Phelps as the hero of Byron's sombre, but impressive, dramatic poem, may
+possibly, when leaving the house between the acts, have noticed one of the
+checktakers, an old gentleman of stagy deportment, enveloped in an old,
+faded cloak. That individual was no other than the once famous tragedian,
+Mr. Denvil, who was the original Manfred when Bunn produced the tragedy at
+Covent Garden, long ere Mr. Phelps made his _debut_ at the Haymarket. In
+the character of Manfred, Denvil made an intense and abiding impression,
+became lessee of theatres in town and country, but from want of _nous_,
+and from want of prudence, dwindled in the social scale, and sank to the
+menial capacity in which he was to be seen at Drury Lane.
+
+Another specimen of an unsuccessful manager was Huntley May, who had been
+lessee of nearly all the small provincial theatres in the kingdom. This
+man had but a very imperfect sense of honour, part of his business being
+to issue as large bills as he could possibly get printed, announcing the
+most splendid dramatic productions, which, when the evening arrived, were
+never presented. Often his audience grew riotous and pugnacious. One
+night, an assemblage threatened to pull up his benches; but Mr. May, not
+unaccustomed to such scenes, appeared before the footlights and
+exclaimed,--
+
+"What's up now, boys?"
+
+"Money, money. It's a swindle!"
+
+"Hark at 'em now. Murder and Moses! there's broths of boys for yer.
+Money's just what I want myself. Think of your Cathedral ground; who lies
+in it? My sainted wife, Norah; poor soul! she loved Exeter so that she
+would come here to be buried among ye. We all love ye! myself and little
+Pat. Aisy now, I'll give you a thrate. To-morrow night's my benefit, make
+me a thumping house; Norah won't forget you in heaven. Behave like
+gentlemen, come early to-morrow night. Good luck to ye!" which audacious
+address seems by all accounts to have satisfied his easily satisfied
+audience.
+
+But even when the old country managers, and there were many, got their
+living honestly, and by fair means, the profession frequently had the
+hardest of lots. The strolling players were a merry-headed and easily
+contented race; but it would be difficult to name any class of people that
+have known greater oppression. Regarded by a large section of English
+people as rogues and vagabonds, they were often at the mercy of common
+informers and petty-minded magistrates.
+
+A circumstance in the career of Moss, a clever actor, and respectable
+manager, well illustrates such petty persecution. He opened the Whitehaven
+Theatre for a night or two with some success, but in less than a week the
+manager and his troupe were put in "durance vile." Arrested on a Saturday
+night, they had to remain in the "lock-up" throughout Sunday. On Monday
+morning they were taken up before the magistrates, and arraigned upon a
+somewhat extraordinary charge. An inhabitant of Whitehaven, a person to
+whom credit was given by his acquaintances for sanity and truthfulness,
+appeared in open court to denounce the strollers, not only as a curse to
+society generally, but to his town in particular. It was declared by this
+individual that "before the theatre opened there was an immense haul of
+herrings; but since the players had entered the place, the fish had all
+fled, and that in consequence the fishermen were suffering. Misfortune
+always followed the wake of actors; wherever they appeared, they carried a
+curse." In spite of reference to sundry tomes of jurisprudence, and
+notwithstanding consultation with the town-clerk, the magistrates could
+not pronounce a verdict. However they prohibited the reopening of the
+theatre, and the sons of the "wicked one" had to pack about their
+business in the best way they could.
+
+Edward Stirling applying to a local magistrate at Romford in Essex, for
+permission to perform for a few nights in the Town Hall, received but
+sorry treatment from the bigoted official.
+
+"What, sir! Bring your beggarly actors into this town to demoralize the
+people? No, sir. I'll have no such profligacy in Romford; poor people
+shall not be wheedled out of their money by your tomfooleries. The first
+player that comes here I'll clap in the stocks as a rogue and a vagabond.
+Good morning, sir."
+
+Even in fair seasons the pay of the strollers was wretched in the extreme.
+In 1826, Mrs. John Noel, desirous of getting her two daughters into
+practical training for the stage, applied to a wandering manager--Black
+Beverley--as to whether he could find room for the young ladies in his
+company. Mrs. Noel was informed that his troupe was about visiting
+Highgate, and that her daughters could join, on condition that they would
+put up with the sharing system, and find their own costumes. The
+engagement was accepted, the elder of the two girls (afterwards Mrs.
+George Hodson) being cast for Juliana, and the younger (afterwards Mrs.
+Henry Marston) for Volante in Tobin's comedy of 'The Honeymoon.' Black
+Beverley was to be the Duke Aranza, and the performance was to take place
+at the White Lion Tavern. The young ladies _debuted_, and their
+remuneration was one shilling and sixpence each. The men and women were
+homely, respectable people, and the leading actors eagerly accepted Mrs.
+John Noel's invitation to a substantial supper she had packed in a hamper,
+and of which the poor players gratefully partook, eating as if they had
+been without food for days.
+
+A well-known actor remembers playing the Stranger, Philip, in 'Luke the
+Labourer,' and a farce character at a small theatre in Chelsea, and
+receiving twopence for his services, and then having to walk to the Mile
+End Road!
+
+Phelps, when attached to Huggins' company, has tramped with his bag on his
+shoulders, more than once a distance of five-and-twenty miles, being
+without coach-money; and his wife and child at Preston had, in the early
+time of Phelps' career, for nearly a week to subsist on a rather small
+meat-pie. It was a terrible thing some fifty years ago, for some
+stage-stricken swain, or maiden, to depart hundreds of miles, perchance so
+far as Scotland, and find themselves in some poorly-paid company. Twenty
+shillings a week would be considered a fair salary. There would be scores
+of miles to travel, certain dresses to find, and upon the residue of the
+scant income the player had to live. When things failed it was sometimes
+literally tragic; for the tyros had little chance of escape, railways and
+cheap steamers being unknown.
+
+What a _bizarre_ picture is that drawn by Edmund Stirling of Ben
+Smithson's Agency for Actors, at the "White Hart" in Drury Lane!
+
+"Kind-hearted considerate Ben," writes his remembrancer, "a real
+Samaritan, ever ready with food and kindly words to cheer and encourage
+the poor stroller. Ben, strongly impregnated with the 'Mysteries of
+Udolpho' school, was wont to use grandiloquent words for every day
+purposes. His hostel became a 'castle'; back parlours, smelling strongly
+of 'baccy,' tapestry chambers; dilapidated staircases, lumber closets, and
+dark landings, 'galleries, crow's-nests, and eagle towers;' his
+beer-cellars were known as 'dungeon keeps;' 'Barclay's entire' at
+fourpence per pot became 'nectar,' like Mr. Dick Swiveller's 'rosy wine;'
+and his two serving-men, plain Bob and Dick, were transformed into
+'Robarto' and 'Ricardo.' Every poor player that arrived, footsore and
+hungered, was styled according to his robe, Kemble, Kean, Munden, or
+Siddons; Smithson knowing full well how pleasantly a little flattery would
+tickle the palate. There was always a bed, supper, and breakfast, money or
+not, in that Mecca for wanderers. Such liberality brought failure in its
+train, and the 'White Hart's' doors speedily closed on Ben and his 'good
+intentions.'"
+
+Not less amusing, too, is Mr. Stirling's description of the Brothers
+Strickland and their lesseeship of the Oddfellows' lodge-room, at the
+Chiswick "Red Cow," where they announced "A London company for two nights,
+with 'Pizarro,' as played at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane; elaborate
+scenery and heart-rending effects. Pit, one shilling; boxes, two; and
+standing room, sixpence. Seats booked at the 'Red Cow' daily from 10 till
+4. Schools and children half-price."
+
+Stirling tried to get employment under the Stricklands, and having wended
+his way to the tavern, was shown into the kitchen, and there found the
+company dressed for the evening's performance of 'Pizarro.' At a table,
+superintending the tea, Elvira sat in faded black robes, wielding a
+tea-pot, and ever and anon scowling at her base destroyer, Pizarro. He sat
+aloof, encased in rusty tin armour, a ferocious wig and locks to match, in
+his hand a long pipe, and by his side an empty glass. Cora, the lovely
+Peruvian maid, employed her soft hands in toasting muffins, assisted by
+her husband, the Spanish Alonzo. Such was the heat of the climate,
+combined with the effects of something short, that Peruvians and Spaniards
+sat socially together, doing their pipes and beer. Strickland engaged
+Stirling to play Richmond on the following Monday, but he wasn't to have
+anything for it.
+
+Perhaps there is no more pertinent illustration of a chequered career--a
+career with indigence at one end and splendid wealth at the other--than
+that furnished by the life of Harriet Mellon, afterwards Mrs. Coutts, and
+subsequently Duchess of St. Alban's. She was not the only actress who made
+a fortunate marriage. Anastasia Robinson married the Earl of Peterborough;
+Lavinia Fenton, the original Polly Peachem, in the 'Beggar's Opera,' gave
+her hand to the Duke of Bolton; Louisa Brunton became Countess of Craven,
+and Elizabeth Farren exchanged her name for that of Countess of Derby. But
+not one of those enumerated had known the privations and hardships
+suffered by Harriet Mellon. When raised to affluence as Mrs. Coutts, and
+when coroneted as a duchess, she sometimes with mirth and sometimes with
+pathos referred to those old days of her life, when she was downcast by
+harsh treatment and impecuniosity, and was never ashamed of the time when
+she was nothing more than a poor strolling actress.
+
+In 1789 Harriet Mellon, with her mother and Entwisle, her step-father,
+joined the theatrical company of Stanton. In the city of Lichfield the
+tenement is still pointed out where the Entwisles lodged in a couple of
+rooms, each ten feet by four and three-quarters across, with windows two
+feet square; the rent for the lodgings being two shillings a week. Stanton
+on one occasion obtained a bespeak from a squire, who requested a
+performance of the 'Country Girl.' The manager was only too glad to play
+anything, so low had been the ebb of his fortunes. No copy of the comedy
+being in the manager's possession, an actor was despatched to a town not
+many miles distant for the necessary volume. Extra delay took place, the
+needy _commissionnaire_ having gone on foot, putting the coach-money in
+his pocket. When he returned the play-book was cut up leaf by leaf and
+distributed to the company to transcribe; at least to those acquainted
+with the art of penmanship. It is stated that the copyists were few.
+Harriet Mellon, though of junior rank in the company, was cast for Peggy.
+She had the part given her in virtue of her ready and trustworthy memory.
+The girl's heart filled with enthusiasm when she learned that she was to
+perform the title _role_. But her heart filled with sorrow an hour or two
+afterwards when she inspected the square-cut and dingy, snuff-coloured
+coat, held aloft by the manager, as the garment in which Peggy should
+appear as the boy, the character assumed in the park scene by the country
+girl. Being made acquainted with Harriet's disgust at the costume
+furnished by the manager, Mrs. Entwisle bethought her of acquaintances who
+might help her daughter out of the trouble. A lady housekeeper to whom the
+mother applied, suggested the loan of a fashionable suit from one of her
+young masters. The proposition was declined. The housekeeper then stated
+that an idea crossed her: she might be enabled to procure a small and
+well-cut suit of clothes elsewhere.
+
+Mother and daughter spent an anxious afternoon, and about four o'clock, at
+their lodgings, a lad made his appearance with a parcel, and not long
+afterwards the friendly housekeeper appeared too. The old lady said she
+had called on another old lady in a similar capacity to herself, and by
+her kind offices had procured not the clothes of any young gentleman, but
+the wedding-dress of her old master, and as he was only a "dwarfy" when
+young, probably the clothes would fit Harriet. A pang smote the breast of
+Miss Mellon as she thought the garments must be at least thirty years old;
+but the parcel was unfastened, and it was found to contain a light
+amber-coloured silk coat, silver trimmed white satin waistcoat and smalls;
+pale blue silk stockings, shoes laced, stock buckles, and ruffles.
+
+Harriet Mellon was in raptures. Half-past six o'clock came, the barn was
+crowded, and the one musician, Entwisle, led off with 'Rule Britannia,'
+'Britons, strike Home,' and 'The Bonny Pitman.' Up went the curtain, and
+the comedy began. The family whose bespeak proved so attractive were
+delighted with the performance, and especially with the acting of Miss
+Harriet. In the park scene the baronet and lady grew particularly grave of
+countenance as they surveyed Peggy in the boy's clothes, which gravity
+continued during the remaining part of the entertainment.
+
+Next morning as Harriet was at breakfast, a groom rode up to the door of
+the house where she lodged, and a letter was left for Miss Mellon, which
+proved a formal and frigid communication, requesting information
+respecting the means by which she had acquired the male attire worn by her
+on the previous evening.
+
+The truth soon afterwards came out. The housekeeper to whom Mrs. Entwisle
+applied, not knowing when or for what the dress was wanted, went to the
+housekeeper of the very gentleman who bespoke the play; and his servant
+lent his wedding-dress that had been stowed away since the occasion of his
+nuptials. The young actress was cleared of all imputation, and on leaving
+the neighbourhood received from the baronet's lady a present in the shape
+of a handsome frock. Before that time, Harriet's mother would not allow,
+on account of shabby attire, the girl's attendance at Stafford church, but
+used to send her to Ingestre for Sunday morning worship, because at that
+place she was unknown.
+
+Harriet's salary for some years was only fifteen shillings a week.
+Sheridan and the Hon. Mr. Monckton were appointed stewards of the Stafford
+races in 1794, and at the theatre in the town those gentlemen witnessed
+the acting of Miss Mellon as Letitia Hardy and Priscilla Tomboy. On
+Sheridan, the arbiter of London theatricals, affording hope to her that
+she might obtain an engagement at Drury Lane, the Entwisles with their
+daughter left for the metropolis. At a humble lodging in Walworth the
+family subsisted by means of a small sum of money, the proceeds from
+Harriet's farewell benefit in the country. Sheridan, a careless and
+procrastinating man, kept Mrs. Entwisle in cruel suspense concerning her
+daughter's _debut_ at Drury Lane, mother and daughter being continually
+put off by the manager with excuses; but at last the opportunity came.
+
+Drury Lane opened for the season 1795-1796 on the evening of September
+16th, and on that occasion Miss Mellon went on as one of the vocalists, to
+join in the National Anthem. On September 17th the bill of the night
+announced a performance of 'The Rivals,' "Lydia Languish by a young lady,
+her first appearance." The young lady was the daughter of Mrs. Entwisle.
+She was very nervous at her _debut_, and Sheridan thought it desirable
+that some time should elapse for her to become acquainted with the size
+and extent of the house, by joining in choruses before she again tried a
+prominent character. She remained in the background till October. The
+Michaelmas day before the family were exceedingly depressed, the girl's
+prospects being uncertain, and her salary only thirty shillings a week.
+Old-fashioned people, and exceedingly superstitious, the Entwisles and
+Harriet bewailed the absence of the luck-bringing goose on the 29th
+September. Through a gift, or by pinching, when strollers, they had
+usually managed to get Christmas mince pies, Shrove Tuesday pancakes,
+Easter tansy pudding, and the Michaelmas goose. It was a matter of sorrow
+to poor Harriet, that her finances would not allow her to purchase a
+goose, for the sake of tasting a bit for good-luck. When informed that she
+could at a Drury Lane cook-shop buy a quarter of the much-honoured bird
+the girl's delight knew no bounds. The purchase was made, and she was
+happy.
+
+It came to pass that her fortunes brightened at Drury Lane, where she
+remained twenty years. When Tobin's comedy of 'The Honeymoon' was
+produced, Harriet Mellon made a great hit in the character of Volante.
+Through drawing a prize in the Lottery she was enabled to purchase Holly
+Lodge, Highgate. The _Times_ of March the 2nd announced the marriage of
+"Thomas Coutts, Esq., to Miss Harriet Mellon, of Holly Lodge, Highgate."
+Her husband was a man of enormous wealth. Mrs. Coutts subsequently married
+the Duke of St. Albans, and at her death, in addition to other magnificent
+bequests, left to the lady now known as the Baroness Burdett Coutts, a
+fortune of L1,800,000.
+
+One of the most gifted men that ever trod the stage was George Frederick
+Cooke. Indeed the splendour of his genius is said to have been almost as
+exceptional as the fierceness of his passions, and the recklessness of his
+habits. Drink, gambling, licentiousness, and prodigality, ruined his
+fortunes, and cut short his life. It may be urged in mitigation of his
+excesses, that like Kean he had indifferent home training, and that at a
+very early age he was left to the exercise of his own wilful and sensual
+nature. His father had been a soldier who left his widow in unprosperous
+circumstances. She quitted London, and settled at Berwick-upon-Tweed,
+where her son received an indifferent education, and where on several
+occasions he saw part of the Edinburgh Company perform. Cooke states,
+"that from that time plays and playing were never absent from his
+thoughts, that he pinched his belly to procure play-books, and actually
+studied one particular character,--Horatio, in the 'Fair Penitent.'" His
+mania to get into the play-house has amusing proof in a story, which, in
+after years, Cooke used to relate with gusto, and comicality. He much
+wished to see 'Douglas,' as did some companions, but all of them were
+without a farthing. They contrived to get into the theatre by a private
+entrance, and secreted themselves under the stage. Hope told them the
+flattering tale that they might steal out during the performance, and join
+the audience, by means of an aperture they had discovered in a passage
+leading to the pit. In carrying out the enterprise they were discovered by
+one of the company, and after a trying interrogatory shamefully turned out
+at the stage-door. Young Cooke, reckless, and persistent, urged his
+companions to go in and conquer notwithstanding an ignominious defeat; so
+they were constantly on the alert, and found by observation that a back
+door was left unguarded, which one evening they entered unperceived.
+Fairly in, the next consideration was, how they could conceal themselves
+until the rising of the curtain; their hope being that amidst the
+confusion and preparation behind the scenes, they might escape notice, and
+enjoy the magic show. Cooke saw a barrel, took advantage of the safe and
+snug retreat, creeping in like the hero of the famous melodrama
+'Tekeli,'--in those days the admiration of the polished playgoing populace
+of the British metropolis. Unfortunately however there was danger in the
+lurking place; he had for companions two large cannon-balls, but the youth
+not being initiated into the mysteries of the scene, did not suspect that
+cannon-balls helped to make thunder in a barrel as well as in a
+twenty-four pounder, and little did poor George Frederick imagine where he
+was. The play was 'Macbeth,' and in the first scene the thunder was
+required to give due effect to the situation of the crouching witches, as
+the ascending baize revealed those beldames about to depart on their
+mission to meet Macbeth.
+
+It was not long ere the Jupiter Tonans of the theatre, _alias_ the
+property-man, approached and seized the barrel, and the horror of the
+concealed boy may be imagined as the man proceeded to cover the open end
+with a piece of old carpet, and tie it carefully, to prevent the thunder
+from being spilt. Cooke was profoundly and heroically silent. The machine
+was lifted by the brawny stage servitor and carried carefully to the
+side-scene, lest in rolling, the thunder should rumble before its cue. All
+was made ready, the witches took their places amidst flames of resin, the
+thunder-bell rang, the barrel received its impetus with young Cooke and
+the cannon-balls,--the stage-stricken lad roaring lustily to the amazement
+of the thunderer, who neglected to stop the rolling machine, which entered
+on the stage, and Cooke, bursting off the carpet head of the barrel,
+appeared before the audience to the horror of the weird sisters, and to
+the hilarity of the spectators.
+
+In Stukely, Sir Pertinax, Kitely, Iago, and Richard III., George Frederick
+Cooke was allowed to be unrivalled. But his social position was lowered
+and his fine talents deteriorated by intemperance and debauchery. He was
+in constant debt and difficulties, in spite of excellent emoluments. After
+much trouble, he on one occasion obtained a suit of clothes from a tailor
+indisposed to give credit. Cooke explained to him that there would be no
+doubt about the price being ready on his benefit, which was at hand. The
+tailor, a stage-struck swain, said that if he were allowed to appear on
+the benefit night, in addition to stage tuition from Cooke, the garments
+should be forthcoming. The tragedian agreed to give the instruction, and
+cast him for the post of Catesby, Cooke of course playing Richard. The
+night came, and the "snip" ranted and strutted, and in the tent scene,
+after, "Richard's himself again," on the entrance of Catesby, the tailor
+in answer to Richard's "Who's there?" halted, and stuttered "'Tis I, my
+lord, the early village cock." The audience roared; but after silence
+came, the tailor merely repeated the words just as before; upon which
+Cooke unable to keep his gravity or restrain his temper, roared out, "Then
+why the devil don't you crow?"
+
+Another good story in connection with impecuniosity and a stage
+performance, is that told of Mossop, who, when at the Smock Alley Theatre,
+Dublin, found himself in a peculiar predicament (the result of irregular
+payments) one night when he was playing Lear. His Kent was a creditor,
+who, as he personated the faithful nobleman supporting his aged master,
+whispered, "If you don't give me your honour, sir, that you'll pay me the
+arrears this night before I go home, I'll let you drop about the boards."
+Mossop alarmed said, "Don't talk to me now." "I will," said Kent, "I
+will;" adding, "Down you go." The manager was obliged to give the
+promise, and the actor before leaving the theatre received his wages.
+
+John O'Keefe the author of 'Wild Oats,' relates a similar curious, and
+humorous anecdote concerning the "silver tongued" Spranger Barry. "The
+first character I saw Barry in was Jaffier, Mossop Pierre, and Mrs. Dancer
+the Belvidera. According to the usual compliment of assisting a dead
+tragic hero to get upon his legs, after the dropping of the curtain, two
+very curt persons walked on the stage to where Barry (the Jaffier) lay
+dead, and, stooping over him with great politeness and attention, helped
+him to rise. All three thus standing one of them said: 'I have an action,
+sir, against you,' and touched him on the shoulder. 'Indeed' replied
+Barry. 'This is rather a piece of treachery; at whose suit?' The plaintiff
+was named and Barry had no alternative but to walk off the stage, and was
+going out of the theatre in their custody. At that moment some
+scene-shifters and carpenters who had been observing the proceedings, and
+knew the situation of Barry, went off and returned almost immediately,
+dragging with them a huge piece of wood, in the rear of which was a bold
+and ferocious looking property-man who grasped a hatchet. Barry said,
+'What are you about?' 'Sir,' said one, 'we are only preparing the altar of
+Merope, for we are going to make a sacrifice.' The speaker having
+concluded, grasped his hatchet and sternly eyed the bailiffs. 'Be quiet,
+you foolish fellows,' remonstrated the tragedian, who began to think the
+business serious. The minions of the law also grew apprehensive as the
+sacrificators looked on with fixed and stony eyes. Barry noticing the
+bailiffs beckon, went to them, and drawing him aside they said they would
+quit him if he would give his word of honour that the debt should be
+settled next day." The actor was gratefully complimentary to his
+supporters, not forgetting the altar of Merope. The circumstance occurred
+at the Dublin Theatre in 1778.
+
+The narrator of this story has one equally amusing of Mahon and Macklin.
+"Bob," on one occasion said Macklin, "I intend to have you arrested for
+the debt you owe me, but I am considering whether I shall arrest you
+before or after your benefit." "Oh," said Mahon, "don't arrest me at all."
+"Yes, yes, Bob, you know I must; to prison you will have to go." "There's
+no occasion." "Oh yes, there is." "Well then, sir, if you must, wait till
+my benefit is over." "No! Bob, then you take the money and knock it about
+no one knows how nor where, and I shall never get a shilling of it; but if
+I arrest you before your benefit, some of those lords that you sing for in
+clubs and taverns and jovial bouts may come forward and pay this money for
+you. No, no, I'll have you touched on the shoulder before your benefit."
+
+King, one of the finest comedians of the eighteenth century, and the
+original Sir Peter Teazle, made a large fortune; but lost it at the
+gambling-table. On one occasion he borrowed five guineas for a last stake,
+and he then won two hundred pounds. Escaping from the chamber, he fell on
+his knees, and in answer to a request from a companion, made oath on a
+Bible that he would relinquish his gamester's mania. But he became a
+member of the Miles Club, in St. James', and at the tables soon lost
+everything, and died in extreme poverty.
+
+Bayle Bernard's father--John Bernard, a clever comedian, and, in his after
+years, a well-known manager of American theatres, went through many
+adventures during the period of his novitiate. After playing at Poole in
+Dorsetshire, and having spent the money he had earned, he thought he
+should return home, according to a promise made to his mother; but his
+success at Poole in playing the character of Major Oakley in the comedy of
+'The Jealous Wife,' suppressed the dramatic tyro's notion about duty. A
+mania for the stage again seized him, and hearing that his old manager,
+Taylor, was playing at Shaftesbury, Bernard actually determined to join
+him in defiance of any privations that might arise from his being without
+a shilling in his pocket. Having given his mother assurance that he would
+not act again upon closing his engagement at Poole, writing home for
+supplies was out of the question; and though on paying his bill at an inn,
+he discovered that all his coppers at command did not amount to six,
+Bernard persisted in going on to Shaftesbury, a distance of thirty-six
+miles. Entrusting his trunk to a waggoner, he ate his breakfast, scribbled
+a note to his mother, making apology for his delay; tied up his linen in a
+bundle, and took a path across the fields to the high road, in order to
+escape notice from acquaintances who had known him in seemingly dashing
+circumstances. After having proceeded a few miles, he heard the horn of
+the guard from the stage-coach, and fearing it might contain some of his
+old companions, he jumped over a hedge for concealment, and in so doing
+alighted in a ditch, and sank up to his knees. On extricating his legs, a
+shoe was left behind, and its loser was compelled to take off his coat,
+roll up his shirt sleeves, and thrust his arm down the deep aperture, to
+recover what had been lost. But it was necessary to support himself by
+planting one foot against the hedge, and by grasping the roots of a holly
+bush, and while so doing his hold gave way at the most critical moment,
+and he was precipitated headlong into the mire. In consequence of the
+disaster he had to delay his journey two hours on the sunny side of a
+hayrick, for the purpose of putting his apparel in something like decent
+order. Arriving at Blandford, fear, fatigue, and vexation, continued to
+exhaust him, and he considered in what way he could most effectually lay
+out the threepence in his pocket. He determined on a glass of brandy, and
+going into an inn, called for the first that he had ever tasted. About to
+depart, having thrown down his coppers, the landlady informed him that two
+of them were bad. Bernard states that a feather might have felled him to
+the ground, and that he seemed to be without sense or motion, while the
+brandy seemed to congeal within him. The landlady looked in his face, and
+noticing his agitation, surmised doubtless the cause; for she
+good-naturedly told him not to mind it, but that should he ever again get
+within easy distance of the place not to forget her. Nearly twenty years
+afterwards, Bernard in company with Incledon, the vocalist, put up at the
+identical place, and related the adventure. Incledon thought on hearing
+the story, that it was Bernard's duty to give the house a good turn, and
+so he very generously assisted Bernard to run up a bill in five days to
+twenty pounds.
+
+Ben Webster possessed a budget of amusing stories, involving ludicrous and
+startling incidents, connected with his ups and downs as a poor player. He
+began his professional career as a teacher of music and dancing, and
+having a passion for the stage, was undaunted in his fight with fortune,
+notwithstanding defeats and even humiliation. Hearing that Beverley, of
+the old Tottenham Street theatre, was about opening the Croydon theatre
+for a short season, Webster applied to that manager for the situation of
+walking gentleman.
+
+"Full," said Beverley.
+
+"Can I get in for 'little business,' and utility?" pleaded Webster.
+
+"Full."
+
+"Is there any chance for harlequin, and dancing?"
+
+"I don't do pantomime or ballets; besides, I don't like male dancers;
+their legs are no draw."
+
+"Could you give me a berth in the orchestra?"
+
+"Well," said Beverley, in his peculiar manner, and with a strong word,
+which need not be repeated, "Why, just now you were a walking gentleman!"
+
+"So I am, sir; but I have had a musical education, and necessity sometimes
+compels me to turn it to account."
+
+"Well! what's your instrument?"
+
+"Violin, tenor, violoncello, double bass, and double drum."
+
+"Well! by Nero! (he played the fiddle you know) here, Harry (calling his
+son), bring the double--no, I mean a violin out of the orchestra."
+
+Harry Beverley appeared with the instrument, and Webster was requested to
+give a taste of his quality. He began Tartini's 'Devil's Solo,' and had
+not gone far when the manager said that the specimen was sufficient,
+offering the soloist an engagement for the orchestral leadership at a
+guinea a week. Webster affirms, "That had a storm of gold fallen on him it
+could not have delighted Semele more than it did himself. He felt himself
+plucked out of the slough of despond." Webster had others to support, had
+to board himself, and in addition he resolved to get out of debt. To
+successfully carry out such arrangements the young professional had to
+practise considerable self-denial, walking to Croydon, ten miles every
+day, for rehearsal, and back to Shoreditch, on twopence--one penny for
+oatmeal, and the other for milk; and he did it for six weeks, Sundays
+excepted, when he luxuriated on shin of beef and cheek. While Webster was
+at Croydon, the gallery used to pelt the gentlemen of the orchestra with
+mutton pies. Indignation at first was uppermost, but on reflection, the
+assailed musicians made a virtue of necessity, collecting the fragments of
+not over-light pastry, ate them under the stage, and whatever might have
+been their composition, considered them as "ambrosia."
+
+To be glad to eat the mutton pies with which the gods pelted the orchestra
+is undoubtedly a realisation of "out of evil cometh good," and is a
+curiosity of impecuniosity; but of all the curious curiosities commend me
+to an arithmetical calculation made by a modern actor, who entered on a
+five nights' engagement at Swansea, at the termination of which he had
+from the treasurer the sum of twenty-five shillings. Mr. Edward Atkins,
+who had to find his own wardrobe, upon entering into an arithmetical
+calculation, discovered that after deducting six shillings for coach
+fares, and five shillings for lodgings, there remained fourteen for
+professional work, being within a fraction of two shillings and ninepence
+halfpenny per evening's labour. The following is the list of parts played
+by the comedian, and the amount received for each:--
+
+"Monday: 'Widow of Palermo'--Jeremy (with a handful of snuff and a glass
+of water thrown in his face), 10-1/2_d._; 'Is he Jealous?'--Belmour,
+9-1/2_d._; 'Young Widow'--Splash, 1_s._ 1-1/2_d._ Tuesday: 'Englishman in
+France; or, Why Didn't I Kill Myself Yesterday?'--James, 9-1/2_d._; 'Mrs.
+White'--Peter White (with a medley duet, and mock gavotte, that caused a
+stiffness in the joints for three days), 1_s._ 1-1/2_d._; 'Secret'
+(without a panel in the scene)--Thomas, 10-1/2_d._ Wednesday: 'Carlitz and
+Christine'--Carlitz, very cheap, 7-1/2_d._; 'Two Gregories'--Gregory,
+without goose or ship, 10_d._; song, 'What's a Woman like?' 1-3/4_d._;
+'Fortune's Frolic'--Robin, the talk of the town, 1_s._ 2-1/4_d._ Thursday:
+fully prepared with tools and syllables for three pieces, but the theatre
+was closed, 2_s._ 9-1/2_d._ Friday: 'Review'--Caleb Quotem, with two
+songs, 10-3/4_d._; 'Our Mary Ann'--Jonathan Junks, 9-1/2_d._; 'Loan Me a
+Crown'--Lightfoot, fifteen lengths, 7-1/4_d._; 'Captain's not Amiss'--John
+Stock, with clean shirt, the part requiring the actor to take off coat and
+waistcoat, 6_d._; walking over to next town on managerial business,
+1/2_d._ Total, 14_s._"
+
+For years the name of Charles Mathews was continually bandied about in
+connection with the subject of impecuniosity. Yet the harassing and
+unpleasant circumstances in which the comedian too often found himself
+through want of money were not produced by causes which in many instances
+have brought players into straits, insolvency, and sometimes even
+destitution. The parentage of Mathews was most reputable, his moral and
+intellectual training was all that could be desired, while his business
+habits must have been respectable, holding as he did for some time, with
+credit and capability, an appointment as a district surveyor. His social
+position too was excellent. But he married a very extravagant lady, and in
+conjunction with her entered on theatrical speculations, which his tastes
+and nature ill-fitted him to successfully promote; and not possessing
+adequate capital to legitimately advance his various theatrical schemes,
+he became the prey of money-lenders, and bill-discounters. Charles Mathews
+married Madame Vestris on July 18th, 1838, the lady being at that period
+the lessee of the Olympic Theatre, where her management had been
+characterised by exceptional taste and enterprise. But her expenditure,
+whether in relation to her theatre, or private life, had been lavish even
+to recklessness. After playing the seasons in the metropolis and making a
+provincial tour, Mr. and Mrs. Mathews accepted an offer from Stephen
+Price, manager of the Park Theatre, New York, to perform upon secured
+engagements of L20,000, with power at option to prolong their stay.
+However, Price's speculation proved a failure, Mathews' scheme of making a
+speedy fortune "melted into thin air," and then, affirms the disappointed
+comedian, "began the series of troubles which were destined to clog a
+great portion of my life." During the absence of Mr. and Mrs. Mathews for
+their American engagement the Olympic was kept open under the direction of
+a manager appointed by them, and on their return they found the finances
+in a very crippled state; a large amount of debt having been incurred,
+despite the large sums of money Mathews had transmitted across the
+Atlantic. In the hope of extricating himself from his great liabilities he
+took Covent Garden, never calculating the dangers of the perilous and
+uncertain sea on which he was about floating the bark of his fortunes.
+"Money," he says, "had to be procured at all hazards, and by every means,
+to prop up the concern till this new mine could be worked; and I was
+initiated for the first time in my life into all the mysteries of the
+money-lending art, and the concoction of those fatal instruments of
+destruction called Bills of Exchange.... Brokers and sheriff's officers
+soon entered on the scene, and I, who had never known what pecuniary
+difficulty meant, and had never had a debt in my life before, was
+gradually drawn into the inextricable vortex of involvement, a web which
+once thrown over a man can seldom be thrown off again. The consequence was
+not conceived at the time. It was a great speculation, and great
+difficulties appeared the legitimate consequences. Every Saturday was
+looked forward to with terror, for on every Saturday I had to pay,
+including the company, authors, band, carpenters, and workmen, employed
+before and behind the curtain, six hundred and eighty-four souls, with
+their wives and families all dependent upon my exertions." His liabilities
+were so numerous and heavy, that Mathews conceived that the best plan for
+him to pursue was without delay to wind up the speculation. Pity for him
+that he did not carry out the resolution. But the great success attending
+revivals of the 'Beggar's Opera,' the 'Merry Wives of Windsor,' and other
+pieces, added to the subsequent still greater success of Boucicault's
+'London Assurance,' induced the lessee to continue the management.
+
+Everything looked brilliant and prosperous, but he found his position more
+intolerable as the sun of prosperity rose higher over his theatre. He
+states that when he paid no one, no one seemed to care, but the moment
+Jenkins got his money Jones became rampant.
+
+"Why pay Jenkins? Why not pay me? You've used me shamefully, and you must
+take the consequences."
+
+Writs and executions poured in, and in every direction Mathews beheld the
+harpies of the law waiting to spring upon him, and the thousands he paid
+were partially swallowed up in legal expenses and interest. The
+hydra-headed monster, sixty per cent. was always about his legs. His
+shifts and escapades during this period read like passages from one of
+those comedies to which he used to impart such amusement by his animal
+spirits and humours. Some of the stories told by Mathews of his
+impecunious day, smack of a grim humour. Borrowing money at sixty per
+cent., he informs us, is not the facile operation some imagine, and, he
+adds, is attended by risk and worry even worse than the fearful
+percentage. He well remembered, after a fortnight of very hot weather and
+thinly attended seats at his theatre, having occasion to borrow two
+hundred pounds to patch up the Saturday's treasury, and making application
+to a bill-discounter three days before wanting the money.
+
+"Ah, Mr. Mathews! how d'ye do? Glad to see you. Have a glass of sherry."
+
+"No, thank you. I want a couple of hundred pounds to-morrow."
+
+"Certainly, with pleasure. How long do you want it for? Have a glass of
+sherry?"
+
+"Say three months."
+
+"What security?"
+
+"None."
+
+"Very good--I must have a warrant of attorney."
+
+"Of course."
+
+"All right, Mr. Mathews; look in at twelve o'clock to-morrow, and I'll
+have it ready. Do have a glass of sherry!"
+
+Mathews had no belief that the money would be ready at the time named,
+though the impecunious actor kept the appointment. He knew that the
+money-lender was gratified by the frequent appearance of a brougham at the
+door.
+
+"Well, Mr. Mathews, I find I can't manage the L200. I can only let you
+have L150. I had no idea I was so short at my bankers. Amount actually
+overdrawn. But I've got a friend to do it for you; it's all the same.
+He'll be here directly. Bless me, how long he is. Have a glass of sherry?
+Are you going back to the theatre? I'll bring him with me in
+half-an-hour."
+
+Neither money-lender nor his friend appeared at the theatre. On Friday
+Mathews again made application for the money.
+
+"Didn't come till too late; but all right--you don't want it till
+to-morrow, you know. What's your treasury hour?"
+
+"Two."
+
+"Be here at twelve and it shall be ready."
+
+The actor was there, punctual to the moment.
+
+"All right. Have a glass of sherry? My nephew Dick has gone to the city
+for the cheque."
+
+"But the time is getting on."
+
+"Never mind. I'll be with you as the clock strikes two."
+
+Four o'clock arrived, and neither usurer nor money was forthcoming, the
+salaries of the company of course remaining unpaid. A note forwarded
+announced that the money-lender would be with Mathews at six to the
+moment. At seven the long-expected gentleman rushed in breathless.
+
+"Such a job Dick's had for you, Mr. Matthews! But here I am with the
+money. My friend disappointed me, but I managed without him. My nephew
+will read over the warrant of attorney."
+
+"But I'm just going on the stage; there's no time now."
+
+"Won't take five minutes. Dick, read the warrant. Now, here is the money.
+Let's see, L15 left off the old account."
+
+"Oh, pray don't deduct that now."
+
+"Better, Mr. Mathews, keeps all square. That's L15, then the interest
+three months, L17 10_s._, and L15, L32 10_s._ Warrant of Attorney L7
+10_s._, that's L40. Then my nephew's fee, L1 1_s._, and my trouble, say
+L1, L42 10_s._ Here's 15_s._, that's L42 16_s._ Dick, have you got 4_s._?"
+
+"I've got 3_s._ 6_d._"
+
+"That will do; I've got 6_d._, that's L43; and L7 cash makes the L50."
+
+"Yes; but I only get L7 odd."
+
+"Never mind, keeps all square. Now the L100. Here is a cheque of Gribble
+and Co. on Lloyd's for L25 10_s._"
+
+"What's the use of a cheque at this time of night?"
+
+"Good as the bank, good as the money; you can pay it as money. Fifty
+sovereigns makes L75 10_s._, and a ten-pound note makes L85 10_s._--stay,
+it ought to be L95 10_s._ Here's another ten pound note. I forgot--there
+you are, L95 10_s._--only wants L4 10_s._ to make up the L100. You haven't
+got L4 10_s._ about you, have you Mr. Mathews, you could lend me till the
+morning, just to get it straight, you know."
+
+"I believe I have; there are four sovereigns and ten shillings in silver."
+
+"That's all right; L4 makes L99 10_s._ and 10_s._--stop, let's count
+them--count after your own father, as the saying is--four and five's nine,
+and three fourpenny pieces; all right. Stop--one's a threepenny. Got a
+penny, or a post-office stamp? Never mind, I won't be hard upon you for
+the penny. There you are, all comfortable. Good evening."
+
+Mathews paid away the cheque "as money." Two days afterwards he got an
+indignant note, stating that the cheque was dishonoured. Out of temper,
+Mathews sent for the discounter, and he appeared with alacrity.
+
+"Not paid! Gribble's cheque not paid--some mistake--it's as good as the
+Bank. Here, give it to me, I'll get it for you in five minutes. How long
+shall you be here?"
+
+"An hour."
+
+"I'll be back in twenty minutes."
+
+Mathews saw no more of the discounter or the cheque, the scoundrel
+entirely disappearing with the only proof in his pocket. But sometimes
+biters were bit, for an entry in one of the actor's diaries, dated
+January 1843, states, "called on Lawrence Levy to pay him L30, but
+borrowed L20 of him instead."
+
+On one occasion a very gentlemanly man waited on Mathews.
+
+"I'm sorry to trouble you," he quietly said, "but I've a duty to perform,
+and I am sure you are too much a man of the world to quarrel with me. I
+have a writ against you for a hundred pounds, and must request immediate
+payment, or the pleasure of your company elsewhere."
+
+"Quite impossible," said Mathews, "at this moment to meet it; but I will
+consult with my treasurer, and see what can be done."
+
+"Excuse me," said the sheriff's officer, "but I cannot lose sight of you;
+and whatever is to be done, must be done here. Come, pay the money, and
+there's an end."
+
+"It can't be done," said Mathews.
+
+"Why didn't you get him to renew the bill?" replied the other.
+
+"He wouldn't renew it; nothing would induce him."
+
+"Nonsense," said he, "accept this bill for the same amount, and put your
+own time for payment, and I undertake to get you his receipt."
+
+"Agreed," answered the actor, accepting the bill, which, without another
+word the sheriff's officer took up, threw down the receipt, and walked
+towards the door.
+
+"Stop," said Mathews, "you said you couldn't leave me without the money.
+What does all this mean?"
+
+"It means that I paid your debt as I knew you couldn't, and now you owe it
+me instead. Be punctual, and I'll do as much again."
+
+The sheriff's officer just described was not the only one who befriended
+the luckless manager. A kindred functionary of the law, having been struck
+by the cruel conduct of a vindictive tradesman, actually paying the bill
+himself, and receiving the money back from Mathews in instalments of ten
+pounds.
+
+Instances grave and gay might be multiplied of the actor's unfortunate
+position and the financial entanglements that, like heavy fetters,
+constrained him at every step. He said that the results of the Covent
+Garden speculation were for the first season _sowing_, for the second
+_hoeing_, and for the third _owing_. On his debts being called in, to his
+dismay he found that including rent the responsibilities amounted to the
+sum of L30,000. Mathews when he learned the fact was aghast, and his only
+remedy was the Insolvent Debtors' Court. Things were made easy for him,
+and he passed a week in an elegantly fitted chamber above the Porters'
+Lodge of the Queen's Bench Prison. He was not unacquainted with that
+prison, having had residence there soon after his first notorious American
+trip, and during that imprisonment he took advantage of the old rules
+pertaining to the liberties of the Bench, and played an engagement at the
+Surrey Theatre. The theatre being a few yards beyond the boundaries of the
+Queen's Bench liberties, Davidge, the Surrey lessee, and Cross, lessee of
+the Surrey Zoological Gardens, gave extra bail to enable Charles Mathews
+to have the day rule extended through the evening. A tipstaff was
+stationed at his dressing-room door and at each wing of the stage, to
+watch the actor, who, though out of the Bench, was in custody. When
+absolutely free from his Covent Garden liabilities he with a sense of
+honour that did him credit gave securities for what he considered purely
+personal debts, making himself still liable to the amount of about L4000,
+anticipating that the creditors would treat him with consideration and
+thoughtfulness. He was mistaken, and for years he still had the millstone
+round his neck. During his lesseeship of the Lyceum he was in the same
+straits as he was in the Old Covent Garden days. Accumulated interest, law
+expenses for raising money, grew year after year and Mathews was still in
+his miserable plight of impecuniosity. At length in July 1856, while about
+to play at the Preston Theatre, he was arrested and imprisoned in
+Lancaster Gaol. He chafed under the incarceration, and he has left a
+touching account of the misery he felt on being separated from his wife,
+and of the melancholy influences of his prison-house. His imprisonment
+created much gossip, and ere he left "durance vile" a somewhat singular
+recognition of his circumstances took place. His fellow-prisoners in
+Lancaster Gaol communicated with him as follows:
+
+Letter addressed to Charles J. Mathews, in Lancaster Castle, July 1856:--
+
+    "ILLUSTRIOUS SIR,
+
+    "Permit us to address you as a brother-debtor surrounded by oppressive
+    circumstances akin to our own, which are rendered the more striking to
+    one who like yourself has acquired a world-wide reputation as an
+    artist and elocutionist; and whose uniform kindness and manly conduct
+    has excited the admiration of those who now respectfully, through this
+    medium, tender you what they consider to be a just meed of
+    approbation.
+
+    "With the newspaper gossip relative to your alleged state of affairs,
+    which has been extensively circulated we have nothing to do and we
+    know not whether you are fiercely opposed or otherwise; we seek not to
+    elicit any facts connected with your position, but we beg most
+    earnestly and respectfully to compassionate you as one of the most
+    ingenious amongst our common manhood; and having for the most part
+    felt the pangs attendant upon the day and hour of tribulation, allow
+    us to express the strength of our sympathetic feeling by stating that
+    we heartily wish you a signal, complete, and honourable release from
+    that load of embarrassment which so unhappily depresses us all, but
+    which, by reason of your refined sensibility must necessarily press
+    with great force upon your mental organization; and this feeling
+    compels us to say, 'Go on and conquer.'
+
+    "Signed on behalf of the members of the Long Room,
+
+        "JOHN HARRIDGE,
+          "_Chairman_."
+
+Mathews thought that there was an odd flavour of Mr. Micawber about the
+foregoing epistle. Subsequently he did what he should have done years
+before, sought freedom from his liabilities under legal protection. Many
+droll scenes took place when the comedian was under Bankruptcy
+examination. On one occasion Mr. Commissioner Law asked him why he had
+kept a brougham, instead of taking a cab to and fro between his residence
+and the theatre; and the lawyer was told thereupon by the debtor, that the
+brougham was hired from the purest motives of economy.
+
+"In a word," said Mathews, "I really could not afford the price of cabs."
+
+"I should have thought that cabs were more economical than a private
+carriage," replied Law.
+
+"Not at all," said Mathews. "Cabs take ready money, a precious article, to
+be carefully treasured and only parted with under absolute necessity, but
+a brougham can always be hired on credit."
+
+Mathews, free of his liabilities, became prosperous, and his latter days
+were marked by success and happiness.
+
+Of his attractiveness on the stage it is almost superfluous to speak; it
+may be said with truth, "We shall not look upon his like again;" for
+though not a great actor, he was unapproachable in those light comedy
+parts that require dash and go. I remember seeing him play Dazzle in
+'London Assurance,' at Melbourne, exactly thirty years, to the very day,
+from the date of its first performance; and though he was the oldest
+member of the company on the stage that night, he was in manner and
+appearance by far the youngest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+IMPECUNIOSITY OF ARTISTS.
+
+
+If there be two things on earth that may be said to have a more direct
+affinity for each other than aught else, those two things are Painting and
+Poverty. The artistic records of the past literally teem with sorrowful
+instances of their close relationship; and unfortunately the alliterative
+connection is by no means unknown in the present day.
+
+Ruskin, who upholds contempt for poverty as a characteristic of our age
+which is both "just and wholesome," complains that we starve our great men
+for the first half of their lives by way of revenge, because they quarrel
+with us, and adds,--
+
+    "Precisely in the degree in which any painter possesses original
+    genius, is at present the increase of moral certainty that during his
+    early years he will have a hard battle to fight: and that just at the
+    time when his conceptions ought to be full and happy, his temper
+    gentle, and his hopes enthusiastic--just at that most critical period,
+    his heart is full of anxieties and household cares: he is chilled by
+    disappointments, and vexed by injustice, he becomes obstinate in his
+    errors, no less than in his virtues, and the arrows of his aim are
+    blunted, as the reeds of his trust are broken.... You may be fed with
+    the fruit and fulness of his old age, but you were as the nipping
+    blight in his blossoming, and your praise is only as the warm winds of
+    autumn to the dying branches.... You feed him in his tender youth with
+    ashes and dishonour: and then you come to him, obsequious but too
+    late, with your sharp laurel crown, the dew all dried from off its
+    leaves: and you thrust it into his languid hand, and he looks at you
+    wistfully. What shall he do with it? What can he do, but go and lay it
+    on his mother's grave."
+
+In another part of the same work from which I have quoted, he says, with
+exquisite pathos,--
+
+    "You cannot consider, for you cannot conceive, the sickness of heart
+    with which a young painter of deep feeling toils through his first
+    obscurity--his sense of the strong voice within him which you will
+    not hear, his vain, fond, wondering witness to the things you will not
+    see--his far-away perception of things that he could accomplish if he
+    had but peace and time, all unapproachable and vanishing from him,
+    because no one will leave him peace or grant him time: all his friends
+    falling back from him: those whom he would most reverently obey
+    rebuking and paralyzing him: and last and worst of all, those who
+    believe in him most faithfully, suffering by him the most bitterly.
+    The wife's eyes, in their sweet ambition, shining brighter as the
+    cheek wastes away: and the little lips at his side parched and pale,
+    which one day, he knows, although he may never see it, will quiver so
+    proudly when they name his name, calling him 'Our father.'"
+
+But if these pictures are now drawn from artist life, what must that life
+have been fifty or a hundred years ago? Art was always a plant of slow
+growth in England, and the great masters who were cherished in the Old
+World trade guilds, and flourished so grandly in Italy, Flanders, and
+Holland, had not a single native representative in this country. And when
+at last the land that had so long since produced a Shakespeare, could
+boast its Hogarth, native artists were still few and far between, and
+their chief means of living was found in painting signs. Neglected and
+scornfully humiliated by all classes, isolated from refined society--such
+as it was--they suffered the extremes of poverty, with cheerful bravery,
+endured with a light heart, paid back scorn with scorn, and were linked
+together by sympathy and pity in such a bond of brotherly fellowship as is
+now utterly unknown. The taverns were their clubs, bread and cheese their
+fare: and if the rent of their garret homes were not forthcoming, they
+slept in the streets, and, careless Bohemians that they were, laughed
+together over the strangeness, or the dangers, of their nocturnal
+exposures. That their lives often found tragic endings may readily be
+known. Many a terrible story is extant of their heart-sickness and
+despair, of last awful struggles silently, heroically continued against
+overwhelming odds, and of lingering sufferings endured with martyr-like
+patience.
+
+The earliest exhibitions of pictures--they were mainly street signs and
+portraits--were organized by the artists themselves for charitable
+purposes, as may be seen by the catalogue of one opened in Spring Gardens,
+in 1761; which contained a design by Samuel Wale, one of the founders of
+the Royal Academy, engraved by Charles Grignion, representing "The genius
+of painting, sculpture, and architecture relieving the distressed;" and
+these exhibitions were first established in the reign of George II.
+
+The Samuel Wale here mentioned, afterwards R.A., was himself a
+sign-painter; and for many years a whole-length figure of Shakespeare,
+painted by him in the zenith of his powers, figured as the sign of a
+public-house at the north-west corner of Little Russell Street, in Drury
+Lane: while Charles Grignion, when an old man, suffered the then usual
+fate of artists old and young; and an appeal made for him by his brethren
+in 1808, now before me, speaks of him in his ninetieth year in the deepest
+distress, unable to work, with a wife entirely, and a nearly blind
+daughter partially, dependent upon him for support, saying, "Behold,
+reader, the united claims of virtue, old age, and professional merit, and
+filial and parental suffering." It also expressed a not unreasonable hope
+that "the claims of, a man who had done so much, and done so well, would
+be speedily attended to." Grignion died four years afterwards, his latest
+days made smooth by the personal contributions of a few artists and some
+of their patrons, so that the general appeal quoted from above seems to
+have fallen flatly; as well it might when the public regarded English
+artists with contempt, and their brethren were so meanly, miserably poor.
+
+The first native artist whose fame extended beyond his birthplace was
+William Hogarth; but poverty, the bitter badge of all his tribe, he too
+wore. His father, a north-country schoolmaster, settled in London as an
+author and press-reader in the Old Bailey, where on the 10th November,
+1697, the great painter to be was born. Everybody knows how the child's
+taste for art found its earliest expression in the eagerness with which he
+watched some poor artist at his work, and not less well known is the fact
+that he was the apprentice of a "silver plate engraver," and afterwards
+devoted himself to engraving on copper coats of arms and ornamental
+headings for shop bills, creeping upwards from such "small beginnings" to
+more ambitious efforts, until at last he made a hit by illustrating
+'Hudibras,' the commission for which, it is said, he owed to that
+successful caricature of his landlady to which I have previously referred.
+There were then in all London but two print-shops, and they dealt
+principally in foreign productions; so that it can be easily understood
+how, to eke out the shortcomings of his graver, Hogarth taught himself
+painting. Speaking long afterwards of this portion of his career, he said,
+"I could do little more than maintain myself till I was near thirty;" and
+added, "I remember the time when I have gone moping into the city with
+scarce a shilling, but as soon as I had obtained ten guineas there for a
+plate, I have returned home, put on my sword, and sallied forth again,
+with all the confidence of a man who had thousands in his pocket."
+
+At another time he sold to the print-seller, W. Bowles, some plates he had
+just finished, by weight at half-a-crown a pound avoirdupois; but even
+when Hogarth was a famous man, and, compared with his former state, a
+prosperous one, we find such pictures as "The Harlot's Progress" and "The
+Rake's Progress" selling at from fourteen to twenty-two guineas each
+picture, and "The Strolling Players" bought by Francis Beckford, Esq., for
+L27 6_s._: but as he afterwards complained of that price as much too high,
+Hogarth took it back, and resold it for the same amount. "Marriage a la
+Mode," after the artist had published engravings from the set of six
+paintings so called, realised L19 6_s._ In 1797 they were sold for L1381,
+and now form part of our national collection through the bequest of Mr.
+Angerstein. Another of his famous works, "March of the Guards to
+Finchley," was more satisfactorily disposed of by lottery, and it was this
+fact that Hogarth referred to when he said, "A lottery is the only chance
+a living painter has of being paid for his time." From that lottery sprang
+our modern art unions. It was of this picture, in a spirit of bitterness
+provoked by the poverty of his dear friend, its painter, that David
+Garrick wrote in a letter to Henry Fielding:--
+
+    "Its first and great fault is its being too new, and having too great
+    a resemblance to the objects it represents; if this appears a paradox,
+    you ought to take particular care in confessing it. This picture has
+    too much of the lustre, of that despicable freshness which we discover
+    in nature, and which is never seen in the cabinets of the curious.
+    Time has not obscured it with that venerable smoke, that sacred cloud
+    which will one day conceal it from the profane eye of the vulgar, so
+    that its beauties may only be seen by those who are initiated into the
+    mysteries of art: these are almost its only faults."
+
+To the last Hogarth seems to have been a needy, struggling man. That
+unfrocked clergyman and satirical poet, Churchill, after quarrelling with
+the painter "over a rubber of shilling whist," at the Bedford Arms, near
+Covent Garden, attacked him with the bitterest scorn and hatred. Hogarth
+was then growing old and feeble, his health was bad, and he was
+melancholy and depressed by the fact that Sir Robert Grosvenor, having
+commissioned him to paint a picture ("Sigismunda"), had refused to pay for
+it when finished. At this juncture the mistress of Churchill told the poet
+that he had given Hogarth his death-blow; whereupon he unfeelingly
+remarked, "How sweet is flattery from the woman we love," adding, "He has
+broken into the pale of my private life, and has set the example of
+illiberality, _which I wanted_, and as he is dying from the effects of my
+former chastisement I will hasten his death by writing his elegy." The
+painter's death followed soon after, and all he had to leave his wife were
+his unsold plates, the copyrights of which were secured to her for twenty
+years by an Act of Parliament.
+
+Amongst Hogarth's foreign predecessors John Mabuse, or Mabegius, an
+historical and portrait painter, born in 1499, may be mentioned, for the
+sake of telling a story about an ingenious way in which he contrived to
+avoid what might have been the very serious consequences of his
+impecuniosity. While he was in the service of the Emperor Charles V. (many
+of his finest works were painted in this country, he was employed by Henry
+VIII. to paint some of the royal children, and he had among his admirers
+no less a judge of art than Albert Durer), a lord of the court making
+special preparations to receive the Emperor, commanded the whole of the
+royal household to be dressed in rich damask brocade. When the painter was
+measured for his suit he persuaded the tailor to let him have the
+material, and wanting money for a drinking-bout sold it to a
+tavern-keeper, having first made a suit of white paper, which he painted
+in imitation of the damask, and appeared in it before the Emperor, who
+afterwards said the painter's costume was of all he saw the handsomest and
+richest. The trick was discovered, but as the Emperor enjoyed the joke and
+laughed heartily, no ill came of it. Some similar freak, however, soon
+after threw him into prison, where he continued to paint.
+
+The mention of art work done in a prison recalls the name of William
+Ryland, an English artist, who was born in London in 1732, studied under
+Francis Boucher in Paris, and soon after his return was appointed engraver
+to the King. He was the first who engraved in the dotted style, and his
+works won him more fame than money. Angelo, the fencing-master, who knew
+Ryland from his boyhood, says he lived in a house in which John Gwynn,
+the painter, whose 'Essay on Design,' published in 1749, is still known
+amongst students, also occupied apartments. Ryland had a wife and children
+to support, and in the year 1783, to relieve the pressure of his creditors
+(he was then in receipt of a small pension from the King), he forged a
+bond for three thousand pounds, to escape probably by its aid from his
+pecuniary difficulties and his country. The document forged was a most
+extraordinary specimen of imitative art, having thirty or more distinctive
+signatures in every variety of handwriting; some bold and large, some
+cramped, some small, written in various kinds of inks. When it was
+presented for payment at the India House, the cashier after carefully
+examining it and referring to the ledger said, "Here is a mistake, sir;
+the bond as entered does not become due until to-morrow." Ryland begged
+permission to look at the book, and after leisurely and coolly inspecting
+it, said, "There must be an error in your entry of one day," and quietly
+offered to leave the bond. The cashier, however, believing the entry to be
+an erroneous one, paid the money, with which Ryland departed. On the
+following day the true bond was presented, and the crime detected; large
+placards were soon posted all over London, offering a reward of L500 for
+his apprehension.
+
+Ryland's first hiding-place was in the Minories, where he remained
+concealed for some days. One evening after dusk he stole out for a walk,
+disguised in a seaman's dreadnaught. On Little Tower Hill, one of the
+officers in search of him eyed him very earnestly, passed, repassed him,
+and then advancing said abruptly and confidentially, "So you are the very
+man I am seeking." The artist said so calmly, "I think you are mistaken, I
+don't remember you," that the "runner" apologised and wished him "good
+night."
+
+He was taken, however, tried and condemned to death, amidst universal
+expressions of sorrow and regret. Interest was made to obtain mercy on the
+ground of his previous excellent character, and his extraordinary talent
+as an artist and engraver. The King's reply was: "No! a man with such
+talent could not have been unable to provide amply for all his wants."
+Angelo said, "Had a Shakespeare or a Milton committed a similar act of
+fraud in those iron days of jurisprudence, their fate had doubtless been
+the same." Ryland petitioned for a respite, on the ground that he was
+then engraving the last of a series of plates from the paintings of
+Signora Angelica Kauffman, and was anxious to complete it to enable his
+wife after his execution to support herself and his children. His request
+was granted, and it is stated, "he laboured incessantly at this his last
+work, and when he received from his printer, Haddril, who was the first in
+his line, the finished proof impression, he calmly said, 'Mr. Haddril, I
+thank you; my task is now accomplished.'"
+
+Having just mentioned Angelica Kauffman, I may pause to note that the
+greatest misfortune of her life has been traced to the poverty of her
+father, Johann Kauffman, for though the story, which is as follows, is
+discredited by some, it has many believers. She was travelling with him in
+her early girlhood through Switzerland, and being very poor they went on
+foot, sleeping at night after each long day's journey in some humble
+wayside tavern. On one occasion they were refused admission on the ground
+that two grand English seigneurs had bespoken all the accommodation. The
+poor artist, anxious not to overtax his young daughter's failing strength,
+pleaded and protested in vain; and the dispute between him and the
+landlord waxing loud and warm, the attention of one of the Englishmen was
+attracted, and coming forward he politely invited them to become the
+guests of himself and friend. Not quite concealed by the polished courtesy
+of his manner lurked that which secretly alarmed and offended the
+pale-faced, weary girl, and while her unsuspecting father was full of
+grateful thanks, and glad to avail himself of the stranger's apparent
+kindness, she whisperingly entreated him to come away. Too anxious on her
+account to risk the chance of a night in the open air, her father accepted
+the invitation, and at table the nobleman, forgetting the respect due to
+her innocence and youth, attempted some liberty, which being repeated,
+caused her to rise suddenly and leave the room. Her father followed, and
+was induced to go with her out of the house. Some years after, when
+Angelica Kauffman had become famous, and was living in England, welcomed
+with pride and enthusiasm in the highest society, and sought after by the
+noblest and most gifted, she met this peer in one of the most brilliant
+circles of the fashionable world, who with great amazement recognised in
+the elegant woman and famous artist the humble pedestrian of the Swiss
+mountains. Seeking an opportunity he passionately entreated her to
+forgive him, pleaded that he had never forgotten her, and never could, and
+begged that she would at least accept his most respectful friendship. She
+believed him, trusted him, was again insulted, and refused thenceforth to
+admit him to her society. To induce her to restore him to her favour, he
+offered her marriage, and was calmly and resolutely refused; and on his
+rejection forced himself into her presence, and strove even to win by
+violence that which no other means could give him, but was again baffled.
+To humble and disgrace her he devised a plan, which most probably
+suggested to Lord Lytton the story of his play, _The Lady of Lyons_. He
+secured the aid of a low-born adventurer, who assumed the name of Count
+Frederic de Horn, introduced him in some way to fashionable society,
+where, approaching Angelica Kauffman, then twenty-six, and in the full
+bloom of womanhood, he rendered the most flattering homage to her genius,
+with an air of the most profound respect and admiration, and gradually
+became familiar and dear to her; and at last told some strange romantic
+story of a terrible misfortune from which she could save him by at once,
+and secretly, becoming his wife. The snare caught her; the marriage was
+performed by a Catholic priest without writings or witnesses. One day
+while painting a portrait of the Queen at Buckingham Palace, in the course
+of conversation the young artist confided to her royal friend the secret
+of her recent mysterious wedding, which resulted in the Count de Horn
+being invited to court. This invitation was, however, not accepted, the
+impostor fearing detection. Her father's suspicions being aroused, and the
+facts of the marriage explained to him, he made inquiries and induced
+others to pursue them, which ended in the appearance of the real Count de
+Horn, and the unmasking of the impostor, who only laughed at his dupe, and
+commanded her to follow him, claiming that entire control over her person
+and property to which the poor woman believed he was entitled, until
+further inquiries brought to light the fact that the man had been
+previously married, when the false marriage was formally declared null and
+void.
+
+For my next anecdote I turn to Elizabeth le Brun, the favourite court
+painter of the unfortunate Marie Antoinette, who, when her husband's
+reckless and heartless extravagance had reduced her to comparative
+poverty, found herself unable to terminate the once grand receptions at
+which she had received the _creme de la creme_ of her contemporaries.
+They crowded her smaller house as they had crowded her larger one, and for
+lack of chairs seated themselves upon the floor, and she herself tells the
+embarrassment of the Duc de Noailles, who was so old and so excessively
+fat, that as he could neither get down so low, nor rise without
+assistance, was therefore obliged to endure the terrible fatigue of
+standing.
+
+The early years of a more modern, but equally famous, lady-artist, Rosa
+Bonheur, were embittered by her father's want of money. As a school-girl
+she felt severely the contrast between the silk dresses, silver mugs,
+spoons, and forks, with a plentiful supply of pocket-money, which her
+companions possessed, and her calico frocks, iron spoon, tin mug, coarse
+shoes, and empty pockets; and her earliest ideas of art, as a means of
+escaping such humiliating conditions, were thereby developed,
+strengthened, and intensified into a restless craving and feverish
+anxiety. Hence she soon began to draw and model in imitation of her
+father, with a passionate eagerness that kept her constantly at work from
+early morning until late at night, and at last startling her father (who
+had long and despairingly considered her too indolent, self-willed, and
+stupid, ever to be in any way useful) by the progress she made, he took
+her through a serious course of preparatory study, and so made her an
+artist. The director of the Louvre, M. Jousselin, declared that while she
+was there forming her judgment, and training eye and hand, he had never
+before witnessed such untiring eagerness and ardour. In her case, the
+impecuniosity which Ruskin regards as so often fatal to the aspirations of
+young and ambitious artists, appears to have been the strongest incentive.
+Surrounded and stimulated by the glorious creations of great artists, the
+first to enter the gallery, and the last to leave it, her strongest desire
+was to aid her artist father in his weary struggle for the support of his
+family; to which she soon began to contribute by the sale of her copies,
+making up for the extreme smallness of the sums they commanded by the
+rapidity with which she produced them. In her seventeenth year she
+achieved such success in making a study from a goat, that she determined
+to turn her attention to the painting of animals from life. Too poor to
+pay for models, she went out daily into the country to study them in the
+fields and lanes. Laden with clay, or canvas, brushes, and colours, she
+would set out in the grey dawn, with nothing but a piece of bread in her
+pocket for the day's food, and finding a subject, work on it until the
+light had faded, and then, soaked by rain, or struggling in the rude wind,
+she would make her way, sometimes ten or a dozen miles, through the
+darkness, a sun-browned, hardy, peasant-looking girl, to reach home
+cheerful, and contented with the day's work, although hungry and exhausted
+by fatigue. Another way in which she contrived to get models cheaply was
+by passing days amongst the lowing and bleating victims of one of the
+great Parisian slaughter-houses, the _Abattoir du Roule_, where, seated on
+a bundle of hay, with her colour-box beside her, she painted on from
+morning until dusk, frequently so absorbed that she forgot to eat the
+piece of bread in her pocket. She also studied from the animals when they
+were under the influence of terror and agony, just before they received
+the death-stroke; forcing herself to endure a woman's natural repugnance
+to such scenes of blood and torture, rendered doubly painful to her by the
+loving sympathy with which she regarded all the brute creation. In the
+evening she would return home from such studies with her face and clothes
+thickly marked by the flies which in such places congregate so thickly.
+With equal perseverance she also studied in the stables of the Veterinary
+School of Alfort, in the _Jardin des Plantes_, and in all the horse and
+cattle fairs held in the neighbourhood of Paris; always in the latter case
+wearing male attire, to avoid certain dangers and annoyances to which a
+woman would be subjected if dressed in the clothing of her sex. She was
+regarded as a good-natured, merry boy, and a clever little fellow, by the
+rough characters who visited the fairs, and sympathising with her apparent
+poverty, the graziers and horse-dealers whose animals she drew constantly
+insisted upon standing treat. Occasionally, too, a village dairy-maid
+would make amorous overtures to the handsome "lad." So she gallantly
+wrought, and fought, and paved her upward way to fame and prosperity, her
+father and nature her only teachers, the former's impecuniosity her
+constant incentive.
+
+I am reminded here of Sir Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A., for whom also the first
+stimulants to activity in the pursuit of art were the poverty and
+necessities of his father, an exciseman, actor, and innkeeper, who had
+achieved no lasting success in either calling. At one time despairing of
+pecuniary success in the profession he began to excel in when but five
+years old, he resolved to take to the stage, despite the anxious
+opposition of his father, who was then looking forward to his son's
+artistic efforts for support, having failed as an actor, failed in
+business at Devizes, where he kept "The Black Bear," and having previously
+failed as landlord of "The White Lion," at Bath. Bernard in his
+'Retrospections,' speaks of "Young Lawrence the painter," then about
+seventeen, as "receiving professional instructions from Mr. Hoare of
+Bath," and some little time after, with a view to his adopting the stage
+as a profession, Tom Lawrence recited before Bernard and John Palmer the
+actor, when the latter strove to enforce his father's opinion, and
+convince him that his prospects as a painter were superior to those he
+would have as an actor. It was some time before he could realize this, and
+when he did he said with a sigh, "If I could go upon the stage, I thought
+I might be able to help my family much sooner than I can in my present
+employment." The earnestness and the regret he expressed in the tone of
+these words deeply affected all who were present. It was many years before
+Thomas Lawrence escaped from the fangs of impecuniosity, so absorbing were
+the drafts made upon his purse by the wants of his parents. His father
+used to hawk his son's crayon drawings about London at half a guinea each.
+One of his contemporary biographers, says, "Sir Thomas, though he
+sometimes confidentially accounted for his straitened circumstances
+through life by referring to his early burdens, never regretted them, nor
+murmured at their reminiscence."
+
+But the early practice of a painter is seldom profitable, and Nicholas
+Poussin asserts that at the commencement of _his_ career his landscapes
+sold for less than the cost of canvas, oil, and pigments.
+
+Still more remarkable as an instance of artistic success snatched from the
+depths of impecuniosity, is that furnished by the early history of Isaac
+Ware, the famous architect. One day while sitting to Roubillac for his
+bust, he told him the story of himself as a thin, sickly child, who had
+been apprenticed to a chimney-sweep, enduring a life of pain and hardship
+at an age when happier children were in the nursery, and winter or summer,
+in storm or darkness, out in the streets, wailing forth his pitiful
+"s-w-eee-p," before the day broke; chalking on the walls wherever he went
+drawings of the buildings he met with in his travels through the streets.
+One day a gentleman passing Whitehall on horseback saw the feeble-looking,
+sooty child tip-toeing to draw the outlines of the street front of that
+building upon its own basement wall; now running into the middle of the
+street to look up at the building, now back to continue his drawing. After
+watching him some little time the gentleman rode up and called to him,
+when the startled boy dropped his chalk in terror, and came forward with
+downcast eyes full of fear. To restore confidence the equestrian threw him
+a shilling, and after inquiring his name, and that of his master, &c., he
+went instantly to the latter, who said the little fellow was of very
+little use to him, being so weak, and, complaining of his chalking
+propensity, showed his visitor what a state his walls were in through the
+young sweep's having drawn upon them various views of St. Martin's Church.
+The gentleman concluded his visit by purchasing the remainder of the boy's
+time, and taking him away. It was to this noble benefactor that Ware owed
+not only his education, which was an excellent one, but the means which
+enabled him afterwards to pursue his art studies in Italy, and upon his
+return his introduction to commissions as an architect. It is said that
+Ware retained the stain of soot in his skin to the day of his death.
+
+This story of Ware's boyhood we owe to Nathaniel Smith, the engraver, who
+heard the architect tell it; and speaking of Smith reminds me of a story
+told by his son, who was called in his time "Rainy-day Smith." It is a
+tale of Alderman Boydell, who at twenty-one years of age walked to London,
+because he had no money to come by the waggon, and apprenticed himself to
+Mr. Thorns, an engraver and artist, attending whenever possible, an
+academy opened in St. Martin's Lane for poor art students by a group of
+well-known artists, whose subscriptions paid for its support, and to which
+Hogarth contributed his father-in-law's casts and models, learning
+perspective at the same time in his own humble lodging after his return at
+night. Boydell being out of his time, and unable to obtain regular
+employment, used to engrave small plates--views of London and
+landscapes--print them himself, make them up into little books, and sell
+them to keepers of toyshops to re-sell at sixpence a set of six, or a
+penny each. These shops he visited regularly every Saturday to see if any
+had been sold, and leave others to replace those that had happily been
+disposed of. His best customer was found at the sign of "The Cricket Bat"
+(all shops then had signs) in Duke's Court, St. Martin's Lane. On one
+occasion his delight was so excessive on finding so many had been sold
+there as realized five-and-sixpence, that in an outburst of gratitude to
+the shopkeeper he laid out the entire amount with him in the purchase of a
+silver pencil case, which he preserved as a memento of the great event all
+through the rest of his life.
+
+Of a kindred nature to Boydell's vicissitudes were the earliest
+experiences of John Opie. As a lad in Cornwall he was so wretchedly poor
+that Dr. Walcot, then practising as a physician at Foy, out of compassion
+employed him to clean knives and forks, and to save him from the ill-usage
+of his father took him into his own house. John going to the
+slaughter-house for paunches to feed the doctor's dog with, made a
+portrait of the butcher, which so delighted his employer that he also sat
+for a portrait to the errand boy, which production was equally
+astonishing. The portraits being shown amongst the doctor's friends and
+neighbours, one named Phillips sent to London for a complete set of
+artist's materials, which he presented to Opie, who painted with them the
+portrait of a parrot so naturally that it spread his fame far and near,
+and started him fairly in art as a portrait painter, his fee for a
+likeness being seven-and-sixpence. The doctor once asked the lad how he
+liked painting, to which question Opie replied enthusiastically, "Better
+than my bread and meat." He was soon afterwards in London, where Sir
+Joshua Reynolds befriended him, and he became known and popular as "the
+wonderful Cornish genius."
+
+George Morland must have found impecuniosity a sharp spur, when his
+father, hopelessly weary of his indolence and bad conduct, turned him from
+home, saying, "I am determined to no longer encourage your idleness; there
+is a guinea, take it and go about your business." George succeeded in
+supporting himself, and lived a life of the most degrading dissipation,
+his favourite companions being jockeys, ostlers, carters, money-lenders,
+gipsies, and women of abandoned character. He so cruelly ill-used his
+wife--a sister of James Ward, R.A.--that although strongly attached to
+him, she dared not live with him. "He died," as Smith says, "drunk, in a
+sponging-house in Eyre Street Hill, near Hatton Garden." Such a career
+could not but be fruitful of the troubles, cares, dangers, and
+difficulties arising from impecuniosity. At one time, when on an
+excursion to the coast of Kent with one of his favourite companions, a
+brother artist, probably to escape duns, they spent their money so freely
+on the road, that long before they reached their destination they were
+penniless and hungry. When nearing Canterbury they espied a homely
+roadside alehouse called "The Black Bull," and hailing it with delight
+they entered, and soon made alarming havoc amongst the lowly edibles and
+potables set before them; smuggled full-proof spirits being ordered and
+disposed of in the most astonishing manner. When the bill was produced
+Morland frankly confessed they were a couple of poor itinerant artists in
+search of employment, and without a penny in the world. "But," said he,
+"your sign is in a most shameful condition for so respectable a house; let
+me repaint it in settlement of the bill"--which amounted to twelve
+shillings and sixpence. The landlord had long wanted a new sign; he agreed
+to the proposition. Morland began the work, and as it could not be
+finished on that day, the host supplied him and his friend with lodging
+for the night. On the following day the new sign was so much to the
+satisfaction of the innkeeper that he furnished the friends with gin to
+the amount of two guineas, together with some food, and when it was
+finished added a few shillings to help them on their way. Many similar
+stories are extant of this celebrated painter. "The Goat and Boots" in the
+Fulham Road received a new sign from him in the same way; and to pay
+another tavern score he did a like service for "The Cricketers" near
+Chelsea.
+
+Mr. E. V. Rippingale, the painter, used to tell with what despondency,
+when he was a tall, thin, pale, self-taught youth eagerly studying art, he
+was taken one bright morning to see Sir David Wilkie, then residing in
+Kensington. He had just previously been introduced to a Scotch landscape
+painter of some eminence, who, when he asked him what materials were used
+in landscape painting, had eyed him with grim suspicion, and grunted--
+
+"Sur, there are sacreets in the art, whuch whun a mon hae foound oot, he
+mun keep to himsel."
+
+Consequently Sir David's kindly reception made a deep impression upon him.
+After inquiring what subject the youth was painting, and what branch of
+art his inclinations led him to adopt? if he had studied from the antique
+and from life? whether he was instructed or self-taught? &c., the
+talented Scotchman, then a tall, bony young man, with reddish hair, grey
+eyes, high cheek bones, and a broad Scotch accent, said,--
+
+"I shall be very happy to tell you anything I know. You need not fear to
+ask me; the art of a painter is unlike that of a juggler, it does not
+depend upon a trick. In art we have no secrets, and all painters are
+always glad to tell what they know to young fellow-students."
+
+The rest of the interview was devoted to the giving of sound practical
+advice, the inspection of Wilkie's paintings and studies, and in the end
+the lanky lad from the country was pressed to come again and bring his
+drawings with him.
+
+Rippingale's first visit to Wilkie was paid in 1815, and Haydon has told
+how, after the closing of the Royal Academy Exhibition in 1805, he went to
+breakfast with Wilkie, and reaching his apartment--he then had but one--a
+little before the appointed time, found him stark naked on that chilly
+autumnal morning, making a study from himself by the aid of a
+looking-glass. On another occasion the enthusiastic young Scotchman was
+found in a fireless room, shivering with cold, drawing from his own naked
+leg. Wilkie's employment was of a very humble and precarious kind at that
+time, and he was then copying the pictures of Barry, in the great room of
+the Society of Arts, for an engraver.
+
+When the painter of those world-famous productions was no more, and his
+body lay in state in the very room which contained them, Wilkie was
+anxious to be present at the funeral, but alas! he had not a black coat,
+and could not afford to buy one. However Haydon had two, and was quite
+willing to lend one, and did so; but unfortunately he was short and
+slight, and Wilkie was tall and big-boned. The effect of the former's coat
+upon the latter's figure was consequently intensely ludicrous; the sleeves
+terminated far above his wrists, his broad shoulders stretched the seams
+to the very verge of cracking, and the waist buttons had "gone aloft"
+half-way up his back. When Haydon met him thus oddly attired, not even the
+solemnity of the occasion could quite suppress his merriment, and the
+piteous entreaty of the young Scotchman's looks, and significantly upheld
+finger, increased rather than decreased the tendency, so that the English
+painter afterwards said he once thought the desperate effort he made to
+suppress his laughter would have killed him.
+
+When Wilkie was hawking his pictures from one shop to another, and
+returning home heart-sick, weary, and hungry, evening after evening, he
+received in nearly every case but one reply, "We don't purchase modern
+pictures." Happily this is altered now to some extent, though the
+reception awarded a novice in the present day is not very encouraging if
+all aspirants are treated in a like manner to an extremely clever young
+friend of mine, who, I doubt not, will be heard of some day. When he
+presented his canvas, or sketch, he was told, "We don't buy the paintings
+of unknown men." One of Wilkie's pictures thus rejected was a little one
+of a subject afterwards re-painted on a larger scale, "The Blind Fiddler."
+
+Haydon tells how he first saw a notice of Wilkie in a newspaper, and
+hurried to him with huge delight. "Wilkie," he says, "was breakfasting.
+'Wilkie,' said I, 'here's your name in the paper.' 'Where, where?' said
+Wilkie, ceasing to drink his tea. I then read it aloud to him. Wilkie
+stood up and huzzaed, in which we joined. We then took hands, and danced
+round the table, and sallying forth, spent the day in wandering about in a
+sort of ecstasy in the fields. We supped with Wilkie on red herrings, and
+he took down his little kit, and played us Scotch airs till the dreary
+hour of separation--these were delightful feelings! The novelty of a thing
+first felt, the freshness of youth, all contributed to render them intense
+and exciting."
+
+It was said by some one that Wilkie never painted better than when he used
+to take his penny roll and moisten it at the pump. But this statement was
+indignantly contradicted by his friend Haydon in his lectures, and he
+certainly was an authority on the difficulty of painting under
+difficulties.
+
+Another illustration of success preceded by disappointment is to be found
+in the case of Sontagg, who, according to Mr. Robert Kemp, before he found
+his true vocation in landscape painting, aspired to the glory of
+historical and high art. Environed by the bitter poverty of an art
+student, he painted his ideal. It was a Madonna, and as he afterwards
+said, "one of the worst ever painted." When it was finished, he pawned his
+only decent coat to raise $7.50 for a frame in which it was sent to an art
+mart. "Then he spent the day walking around, and calculating what he would
+do with the thousand the great work would bring him in. Then he called at
+the auction room to collect. 'Had the picture been sold?' 'It had,' said
+the clerk. 'How much?' 'Five dollars and a half.'" Sontagg dined on a
+"free lunch," and went to bed in the dark. I may remark for the benefit of
+those uninitiated in Colonial and American drinking customs, the "free
+lunch" here spoken of means a meal which is provided gratis by many
+tavern-keepers in America, Australia, and elsewhere. It consists of bread
+and meat, or bread and cheese, placed on the counter, and to which all
+patronising the establishment are welcome. It is said that years after
+this occurrence, when Sontagg became famous, he found this painting over
+the chimney-piece of a little wayside inn in the Wabash County where it
+was a standing jest, and valued as a source of the laughter which kept a
+quarrelsome man and wife from desperate extremes. When their violence was
+at its worst a glance at Sontagg's Madonna was sure to provoke such
+merriment that after it they invariably became friendly.
+
+The early life of John Philip, whose glorious pictures of Spanish life won
+him such wide-spread fame, presents an instance of greatness won despite
+extreme poverty, with its attendant drawbacks, and the friendlessness of
+utter obscurity. He began his career as a painter when a mere boy; though
+not upon canvas, millboard nor panel, but upon watering-cans. When
+seventeen years of age he worked his passage from Scotland to London on
+board a coasting-vessel, for the purpose of seeing the exhibition of the
+Royal Academy, and on his return, with a mind richly stored by close
+investigation of the pictures he saw there and in the National
+Galleries--of which those by Wilkie were the most fascinating and
+instructive--he painted a picture which attracted the attention of Lord
+Panmure, who generously sent him to study in London, and supplied him with
+the means of support while so engaged. Philip died, as so many sadly
+remember, on Feb. 27th, 1867. One of his earliest attempts was long
+visible outside an old tavern, in the village of Dyce, near his native
+town Aberdeen, where he was born in 1817. At Dyce he was employed as
+herd-boy, and a story is told of his having at that time but two shirts,
+and when one of these was stolen, Johnny said cheerfully to his relative,
+Mrs. Allardyce, "Never min, ye can mak a shift, wash the ane I hae on, and
+I'll gang to my bed till it's dry. My puir mither hae often to do that."
+Inconvenient as such circumstances must have been, John Philip in the days
+of his prosperity often spoke of the happy days he knew when he was a
+poor little herd-laddie in the pretty little village of Dyce.
+
+Somewhat similar in its start was the life of Henry Dawson, who died in
+1878. Born at Hull in 1811, he commenced the world as a factory-lad at
+Nottingham, in which position he began to paint pictures, which he sold at
+prices ranging from two to twenty shillings; but it was long before he
+achieved the grand success the latter price implied, not indeed before
+1835, and the munificent patron to whose liberality he owed the advance
+was a hairdresser, who for many years remained his best customer. So
+slowly came the fame and prosperity he sought so laboriously and
+patiently, and at last so honourably won, that when he was in his fortieth
+year he actually contemplated opening a small-ware shop to aid him in
+bringing up and educating his family. Indeed had it not been for John
+Ruskin, to whom he applied for advice as to whether he should reluctantly
+abandon his beloved art or persevere in its practice, the profession would
+have lost one of the most powerful of our modern masters in landscape.
+
+He was for many years known only to dealers, who made a glorious harvest
+by reaping where he sowed amidst the cares, anxieties, and inconveniences
+of impecuniosity.
+
+A further proof of what genius and industry can accomplish, be the
+difficulties never so great, is shown by the ultimate success of G. M.
+Kemp, the architect who designed the Scott monument at Edinburgh. He was
+originally a journeyman millwright, and while working at his trade
+contrived, not only to teach himself to draw, but to visit and make
+studies from all the principal ecclesiastical edifices in Scotland, and
+afterwards in England. His plan was to find work in the different places
+he desired to visit; and by this means he acquired such a knowledge of
+architecture that when a prize was offered in open competition for the
+Scott monument, his design was the one unanimously selected,
+notwithstanding the fact that amongst his rivals were many of the leading
+professional architects.
+
+Success unfortunately does not always attend those who work hard and
+deserve substantial recognition; for when some one congratulated William
+Behnes, the sculptor, on his triumphs, and the prosperity that was
+presumed to have followed in their wake, he replied, "When I die, be that
+event when it may, there will not be two penny pieces left to close my
+eyes." He died in the Middlesex Hospital, in January, 1864, realising his
+prediction to the very letter, so few were his sitters, so small the sums
+they paid.
+
+While Behnes began life as a pianoforte-maker, the great sculptor Chantrey
+commenced his career as a journeyman carpenter, in connection with which
+fact there is an odd story told. One day while inspecting a costly vase in
+the house of the wealthy poet Rogers, he asked with a smile who made the
+table on which the curio stood. "Curiously enough," said Rogers, "it was
+not made by a cabinet-maker, but by a common carpenter." Chantrey asked,
+"Did you see it made?" and Rogers, supposing the query to be one of
+incredulity, replied positively, "Certainly! I was in the room while the
+man finished it with the chisel, and I gave him instructions in placing
+it." Chantrey laughed, and said, "You did. I remember that, and all the
+circumstances perfectly well." "You!" exclaimed the poet. "Yes," said
+Chantrey quietly. "I was the carpenter."
+
+When speaking of signs I omitted to mention George Henry Harlow, an artist
+of considerable eminence, who, like Morland and others, was glad on
+occasions to paint signs to liquidate liquor scores. Harlow, who was born
+in 1787, and died in 1819, quarrelled in the plenitude of his conceit with
+his master, Sir Thomas Lawrence, left his house, and went to live at "The
+Queen's Head," in Epsom, where, living extravagantly, his expenses outran
+his means, and he was glad to escape the penalty of his folly by
+repainting the landlord's sign. In doing so, with a view to the annoyance
+of Sir Thomas, who had found in Queen Caroline a kind friend and patron,
+he very cleverly caricatured at once Her Majesty, and his late master's
+style of portraiture, even putting underneath it his initials and
+address--T. L., Greek St., Soho. One of the funny ideas of this sign was
+that of painting on one side the face of the Queen, and on the other Her
+Majesty's royal back.
+
+There was a sign long displayed at Mole, in North Wales, which was painted
+in the same way by Richard Wilson, "The English Claude." It belonged to a
+tavern called "The Three Loggerheads;" only two appeared on the sign, the
+third was to be he who read the sign, as many did, aloud.
+
+This same Richard Wilson, R.A., was a Welshman, the son of the Rector of
+Pineges, where he was born in 1714; and after unsuccessfully working for a
+long time as a painter of portraits, landscapes, and historical subjects,
+he at last achieved eminence, and forthwith enjoyed, with so many of his
+talented _confreres_, glory and--poverty. The incident of his first
+commission from the King will illustrate the kind of remuneration even
+royalty gave for the works of men who had attained the highest rank in
+their arduous profession.
+
+Dalton, the artist, having been appointed keeper of the King's pictures,
+suggested that a landscape by Richard Wilson should be included in His
+Majesty's collection; and the monarch reposing great faith in his
+judgment, sent poor Dick a commission for a landscape of a given size to
+fit a vacant space in the gallery. In due time the work was finished and
+placed before the King, who exclaimed indignantly,--
+
+"Hey! what! Do _you_ call this painting, Dalton? Take it away! I call it
+daubing, hey! What! It's a mere daub."
+
+Poor Dalton, who was one of Wilson's friends and admirers, bowed, looked
+sheepish, and was silent.
+
+Presently his, on this occasion, not over gracious Majesty peevishly
+inquired, "What does he ask for this daub?" And when Dalton replied "One
+hundred guineas," the King's astonishment was immense.
+
+"One hundred guineas! Hey! What, Dalton! Then you may tell Mr. Wilson it's
+the dearest picture I ever saw. Too much--too much--tell him I say so."
+
+A few days after, the artist, being as usual in need of cash, called upon
+Dalton, and in his bluff manner said,--
+
+"Well, Dicky Dalton, what says his Majesty?"
+
+Dalton replied hesitatingly, and with confusion, "Why--a--with--a--regard
+to the picture--a--As for my--a--own opinion--why--a--you know, Mr.
+Wilson, that--a--indeed----"
+
+Wilson interrupted him with an oath. He saw his friend's perplexity, and
+said at once, "His Majesty don't approve--but I know your friendly
+zeal--go on."
+
+"Why in truth, my dear friend, I venture to think the a--the finishing
+is--not altogether answerable to His Majesty's anticipations."
+
+"Humph! Not every leaf made out, hey?--not every blade of grass? What
+else? Out with it, man."
+
+"Why then--a--His--His Majesty thinks--a--that the price is--is--is a
+great deal of money."
+
+Wilson took him by the button-hole, looked cautiously round, and in a
+comical whisper said,--
+
+"Tell His Majesty I do not wish to distress him, I will take it by
+instalments--say a guinea a week."
+
+Neglect and disappointment soured Wilson's temper, and made him a very
+surly, irritable man, sometimes quite misanthropical; as well they might,
+considering his great talents and his extreme poverty. It is said that one
+of his most famous historical paintings, on which he had expended many
+months of thought and labour, was sold under the influence of absolute
+necessity for a pot of beer, and the remains of a Stilton cheese!
+
+Mortimer, an artist who used to sometimes occupy an armchair by Wilson's
+fireside, and there hear him in splenetic humour moralise like another
+melancholy Jaques, making cynical strictures upon that scoundrel man,
+would say, "Come, come, my old Trojan--come, old boy--I wish I could set
+you purring like old puss there."
+
+Angelo tells how a friend of Dr. Johnson's, hearing of Wilson's distress,
+said to Mr. Taylor, the artist, "I wish I knew how to send him ten pounds
+in some delicate way which could not give him offence. Do you think he has
+some very trifling sketch I could buy for that sum? I have no taste for
+pictures, but I would give him a commission if my income were not too
+slender. I am so distressed that so great a genius should be entirely
+without means." Taylor told this story delicately to Wilson, who was much
+touched by it, and said, "I have no scrap such as your friend desires to
+have, but if the thing were not bruited about I would be happy to send him
+one of my easel pictures, which you know I never sell for less than
+sixteen guineas." The result was that Wilson received the ten pounds, Dr.
+Johnson's friend the sixteen-guinea picture, which it is said he gave away
+the same evening to one of the waiters at Vauxhall.
+
+At the close of his life, when worn out by indifference and neglect, he
+was reduced to solicit the office of librarian to the Royal Academy, of
+which he was acknowledged to be one of the brightest ornaments. He died in
+May 1782, his death accelerated, if not produced, by want; and, sad to
+state, just previous to his decease, help came to him, when it was, alas,
+too late!
+
+As is well known, William Hazlitt, the critic, began life as an artist,
+and was indeed an artist in taste, judgment, and knowledge, all his life.
+He speaks of his painter's experience with enthusiasm in one of his
+papers, saying, "One of the most delightful parts of my life was one fine
+summer, when I used to walk out of an evening to catch the last light of
+the sun, gemming the green slopes of the russet lawns, and gilding tower
+or tree, while the blue sky, gradually turning to purple and gold, or
+skirted with dusky grey, flung its broad mantle over all, as we see it in
+the great master of Italian landscape." Hazlitt abandoned the brush for
+the pen when he found that he could not realize his own conceptions, nor
+satisfy his own critical judgment; but it is evident from the following
+extract that his early art-life was not free from the imputation of being
+impecunious. He says, after receiving the money for a portrait he had
+finished in great haste for the sake of getting the cash, "I went to
+market myself and dined on sausages and mashed potatoes; and, while they
+were getting ready, and I could hear them frying in the pan, read a volume
+of 'Gil Blas' containing the account of the fair Aurora. This was in the
+days of my youth. Do not smile, gentle reader. Neither M. de Verry nor
+Louis XVIII. over an oyster _pate_, nor Apicius himself, ever understood
+the meaning of the word luxury better than I did at that moment."
+
+Daniel Maclise--the son of a Scotch cobbler, who had been a soldier and
+had settled in Ireland--was sent adrift in the world at a very early age,
+and became a bank clerk. In 1828 he came to London, where he succeeded in
+getting a studentship in the Royal Academy. The money which enabled him to
+do this was earned by a portrait-sketch he made stealthily from Sir Walter
+Scott, while the great Wizard of the North was in the shop of a
+bookseller, named Bolster. Bolster afterwards saw the sketch, and showed
+it to Sir Walter, who, pleased with the lad's talent, attached his
+autograph to it. The drawing was lithographed, sold in Bolster's shop, and
+with his share of the profit Maclise started himself in his art career.
+
+Poor Benjamin Haydon--odd compound of greatness and littleness, bravery
+and cowardice, genius and folly, now patient, now despairing, now bitterly
+envious and jealous, and anon sympathetically gleeful over a brother's
+triumph--sipped many a cup of bitterness through his constant state of
+impecuniosity; which chronic condition, he sorrowfully admits in his
+diary, was the result of borrowing, as shown by this extract. "Here began
+debt and obligation, out of which I have never been, and never shall be,
+extricated as long as I live." Haydon, as I said, was a strange mixture,
+and though possessed of a nature truly poetical, he was in some things
+wondrously practical; for the bailiffs put into his house he utilized as
+models. One sat, he tells us in his diary, "for Cassandra's head, and put
+on a Persian bracelet. When the broker came for his money, he burst out
+laughing. There was the fellow, an old soldier, pointing in the attitude
+of Cassandra, upright, and steady as if on guard. Lazarus's head was
+painted just after an arrest: Eucles finished from a man in possession:
+the beautiful face in Xenophon in the afternoon after a morning spent in
+begging mercy of lawyers: and Cassandra's head was finished in agony not
+to be described, and her hand completed from a broker's man."
+
+Sculptors, like artists, have frequently found art a very hard school; and
+amongst others of whom this is true may be mentioned Peter Scheemakers,
+the master Nollekens studied under. When a youth, so fervent was his
+desire to study in Rome, that he actually endured the fatigue of
+travelling from Antwerp into Italy on foot. Unfortunately in Denmark he
+fell sick, and when again fit for the road, he was compelled to sell his
+shirts from his knapsack to procure food; but he was none the less joyous
+when, footsore, haggard, and hungry, he at last entered the Eternal City.
+This was in 1700. The fine figure of King Edward VI., which used to stand
+in the courtyard of St. Thomas's Hospital, was the production of
+Scheemakers.
+
+Another sculptor whose history furnishes something curious in connection
+with impecuniosity is John Bacon, who, born in 1740, commenced life as an
+ordinary workman in a Lambeth pottery, where he taught himself to paint on
+china. Afterwards he went as modeller to Mrs. Coade's artificial stone
+manufactory, and when he began to display remarkable talent as a sculptor,
+Johnson, who built Berners Street, was very kind to him. He took premises
+for him in Newman Street, and told him to start at once in business for
+himself. Young Bacon was astonished, and frightened. "How could you do
+so?" he exclaimed. "I am not fit for anything of the kind. How can I ever
+hope to pay you the money back?" Johnson, however, insisted upon the trial
+being made, and said he was quite willing to lose the money if Bacon were
+never able to repay him. The result was that Bacon flourished so well
+that when his first great benefactor had become a banker in Bond Street,
+and feared a serious run upon his house, the sculptor came forward eagerly
+to his aid with a loan of forty thousand pounds!
+
+This was truly a freak of fortune, and as a companion picture may be
+mentioned a freak of misfortune, which is attributed to Capitsoldi, a
+talented sculptor, who came from Italy to this country in the last
+century. It is asserted that when he was living in a garret in Warwick
+Street, Golden Square, he had no furniture beyond a table and two chairs;
+but he painted on the walls a suite of furniture with window curtains,
+pictures, and statuary in such excellent perspective, and with such an
+aspect of relief and solidity, that the mean apartment actually appeared
+to be most handsomely and completely furnished.
+
+To return to our subject--the impecuniosity of artists. The experience of
+John Zoffany, R.A., may be cited. He came to England from Frankfort in
+1735, and about that time there was a celebrated maker of musical clocks,
+named Rimbault, living in Great St. Andrew's Street, who was asked one day
+by some one he employed if he could find work for a poor starving artist
+who occupied a garret in the same house. Rimbault desired the man to send
+him, and Zoffany was ultimately engaged to paint clock faces. A portrait
+he painted of Rimbault won him a better engagement of L40 a year as
+assistant to a portrait painter named Benjamin Wilson, who was employed by
+Garrick, the actor. Garrick, being struck by the sudden and remarkable
+improvement which immediately ensued, suspected the truth, and, causing
+enquiries to be made, discovered Zoffany, employed him direct, introduced
+him to his wealthy friends, and gave him that new start in life which
+brought him fame and honour, and made Sir Joshua Reynolds his friend.
+Zoffany is now chiefly known in connection with his excellent
+character-portraits of famous old actors and actresses.
+
+The last, but by no means the least celebrated of the artists I shall
+mention, whose fortunes, or the reverse, have been curiously associated
+with lack of means, is James Barry--at whose state funeral in St. Paul's
+Churchyard poor Wilkie cut such a queer figure in Haydon's coat. Barry was
+as eccentric as he was poor. Unlike Richard Wilson, to display his poverty
+was a matter of pride rather than pain; open reproach to those who
+neglected his talent, and embittered his life, rather than shame to him.
+His house at 36, Castle Street, Oxford Market, was a standing disgrace to
+the thoroughfare, every window in it was either cracked or broken, and
+part of the roof had fallen in. The iron railing before it was rusty for
+want of paint, broken, and sloping partly inward and partly outward; the
+doorsteps were cracked and broken, the door thickly coated with mud and
+dirt. The room in which he painted had been a carpenter's shop, and the
+dust-covered shavings were still in it, while cobwebs hung like thick
+dust-coloured drapery from beams and rafter, and were suspended in
+festoons from every corner, while here and there the daylight shot long
+rays into its dingy, dust-laden atmosphere, through holes where the tiles
+had been broken, or had slipped aside. It had a small fireplace just large
+enough for the glue-pot it was constructed for, and boasted one
+three-legged old deal table, hardly large enough to eat a meal from. Here
+he painted, and etched, and printed his own proofs from a little old
+printing press; and here he received the Right Honourable Edmund Burke on
+that memorable occasion when he was, at his own particular request,
+invited to dine with the painter, and take "pot luck."
+
+Barry owed much to the generosity of Burke, who had been one of his
+earliest friends and patrons. It is said that he once quarrelled with the
+great statesman for attacking the then anonymous work 'An Essay on the
+Sublime and Beautiful,' every line of which the young Irish painter, being
+unable to buy the book, had copied, and he would entirely have lost
+control of his temper if Burke had not with a laugh transformed his rage
+into a whirlwind of delight and passionate admiration, by confessing
+himself its author.
+
+When Burke arrived, on the evening appointed, at the ruinous, dirty,
+shabby house in Castle Street, Barry had altogether forgotten the
+appointment. However he ushered him into his studio-wilderness of dust and
+cobwebs, gave him a seat, made up the fire, which was smoking, and while
+it burnt up, went out to purchase some steak, and brought it in wrapped in
+a cabbage leaf. Placing the meat on a gridiron, he spread a towel over the
+little round table, and on it placed a couple of plates, a salt-cellar, a
+little roll of bread, and a dish, which nearly filled it; then, putting
+the tongs into his visitor's hands, bade him turn the steak while he went
+out to fetch the beer. He came back quickly, swearing and grumbling at
+the wind because it had blown off the frothy head of the stout as he was
+crossing Titchfield Street, and produced from his pocket a couple of
+bottles of port. The meal was enjoyed, the evening passed merrily; and
+Burke afterwards confessed that he had never enjoyed himself more, nor
+eaten more heartily, even at the most sumptuous feast.
+
+Owing to his impecunious circumstances, Barry had been accustomed to take
+his meals in cookshops and coffee-houses of the cheaper kind; and Angelo
+notes as one of his eccentricities his always insisting upon paying for
+his meal at coffee or cookshop rate wherever he might chance to feed. On
+one occasion he was invited to dine with Sir William Beechy and some noble
+guests, and rose at nine o'clock to depart, having as usual placed two
+shillings upon the table where he had been sitting. The lively knight, who
+knew "his customer," followed him from the dining-room into the hall,
+leaving the door of the former open that his friends might hear.
+
+"What are these for?" asked Sir William, presenting the coins.
+
+"How can you put so preposterous a question? For my dinner to be sure,
+man."
+
+"But two shillings is not fair compensation, Barry. Surely it was worth a
+crown."
+
+"Baw-baw, man! You know I never pay more."
+
+"But you have not paid for your wine."
+
+"Shu-shu! If you can't afford it, why do you give it? Painters have no
+business with wine."
+
+"Barry," says Angelo, "who boasted of making his dinner on a biscuit and
+an apple, had no mercy for those who lessened their means by
+self-indulgence. He was once highly indignant with a lord, who when dining
+at 'Old Slaughter's' in St. Martin's Lane--a famous resort of artists and
+their patrons--had straw laid down before the house to deaden the noise of
+passing vehicles."
+
+He used to say, as he may have said on the memorable evening with Burke,
+"Half the common dishes would supersede turtle and venison, if your old,
+pampered peers and mighty patricians were to peep and peer into their own
+cook's pot."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+IMPECUNIOSITY OF AUTHORS.
+
+
+That memory of William Makepeace Thackeray upon which I care least to
+dwell is the low estimate he had of men of genius in his own profession.
+It may be that this was with him, as it was with Doctor Johnson, a species
+of mock modesty; but it is none the less unpleasant for one to remember
+who so enthusiastically admires his great works. Men of letters have never
+lacked more than enough to slander them and magnify their peccadilloes, to
+sneer at their pride, and lower their social status, without finding such
+enemies in their own camp. You may remember how, in his lectures on the
+English humourists of the last century, Thackeray denied that there was
+any lack of goodwill and kindness towards men of genius in this country,
+or that they often failed to meet with generous and helping hands in the
+time of their necessity. Ignoring all but men of one class (whose follies
+and vices were after all those of their age), and painting these in his
+darkest colours and most repulsive forms, he asked,--
+
+    "What claim had one of these of whom I have been speaking but genius?
+    What return of gratitude, fame, affection, did it not bring to all?
+    What punishment befell those who were unfortunate among them but that
+    which follows reckless habits and careless lives? For these faults a
+    wit must suffer like the dullest prodigal that ever ran in debt. He
+    must pay the tailor if he wears the coat; his children must go in rags
+    if he spends his money at the tavern; he can't come to London and be
+    made Lord Chancellor if he stops on the road and gambles away his last
+    shilling at Dublin, and he must pay the social penalty of these
+    follies, too, and expect that the world will shun the man of bad
+    habits; that women will avoid the man of loose life; that prudent
+    folks will close their doors as a precaution, and before a demand
+    should be made on their pockets by the needy prodigal."
+
+There is no gainsaying all this, it is so highly respectable, and I would
+endorse its application as heartily as those did who once so loudly
+applauded it, if (and there is, you know, _much_ virtue in an "if") the
+discouragement spoken of had really been awarded to the vices and follies
+and not to the genius; whereas it must be patent to all who have studied
+the social life of the last century, as Thackeray did, that the direct
+reverse of this was the case--that such bad habits and such loose lives
+were absolutely the chief conditions upon which the wits of society were
+patronised and encouraged. Therefore a degree of hardness and cruelty in
+the rigid and virtuous superiority of this great writer, who, happily,
+born in a more refined and purer time, so magnifies the vices of the
+unfortunate dead, in order to lessen the pity and respect which their
+greatness won for them. It is this which I do not like to associate with
+the memory of our great novelist.
+
+Poor, half-starved Robert Burns, chained to the oar of impecuniosity,
+toiling like a galley-slave, as he said, for the means of supporting his
+parents and seizing every spare moment for such intellectual improvement
+as was within his reach, had written most of his finest works before the
+patronage of the great introduced him to their bacchanalian revels, and
+carried him as a wonder, and an extraordinary novelty (a peasant poet),
+into the very best Edinburgh society for a season; during which, by dining
+out with the noble and great, he ran a serious risk of dying at home
+through starvation.
+
+It can hardly be said that eighteenth-century patronage and appreciation
+did much for him, or for us. It won him perhaps the dangerous and trying
+occupation of exciseman, at a salary of L70 a year: it matured, if it did
+not absolutely create, the bad habits which plunged him into pecuniary
+cares and difficulties, weakened his intellectual stamina, and destroyed
+his self-respect. He was witty, eloquent, amusing, a genius, and a wonder;
+but when he ceased to be a novelty, the idol of society was ruthlessly
+cast aside, to live or die, any how he could, and we find him copying
+music to procure food for himself and those dear to him. Dissipation and
+trouble carried him off in the prime of his manhood, and the full maturity
+of his genius, when without such patronage as Thackeray believed in,
+seemingly, he might have achieved triumphs loftier than those in the full
+pride of which every patriot has a share.
+
+An extract from a letter written by Burns to Thomson on the 19th of July,
+1796, says:
+
+    "After all my boasted independence, cursed necessity compels me to
+    implore you for five pounds. A cruel scoundrel of a haberdasher, to
+    whom I owe an account, taking it into his head that I am dying, has
+    commenced a process and will infallibly put me in jail. Do for God's
+    sake send me that sum, and by return of post. Forgive me this
+    earnestness; but the horrors of a jail have made me half disheartened;
+    I do not ask all this gratuitously; for upon returning health I
+    promise, and engage to furnish you with five pounds' worth of the
+    neatest song-genius you have seen."
+
+Robert Bloomfield did not find those generous and helpful friends of
+genius whom the imagination of Thackeray created to people the eighteenth
+century. He, like Burns, was a farmer's boy, who afterward became a
+shoemaker's errand-boy, living in a garret at 7, Fisher's Court, Coleman
+Street, in which he and four others, one being his brother, worked, and
+slept on "turn-up" beds. There he fetched the dinners from the cookshop,
+did the inferior part of the work, and ran errands; taught himself to read
+by the aid of borrowed newspapers and a little dictionary, bought for him
+at a second-hand stall, for fourpence, by one of his fellow-workers, and
+by listening to an eloquent dissenting minister named Fawcett, acquired
+the proper pronunciation of words. He began verse-writing at sixteen, and
+at that age also began to instruct his brother and his partners in the
+Fisher's Court garret (for which they paid five shillings a week), and in
+another "parlour next the sky" in Blue Hart Court, Bell Alley, where a
+fellow-lodger made him inexpressibly happy by the loan of Milton's
+'Paradise Lost' and Thomson's 'Seasons.' When he fell in love with a young
+woman named Church, daughter of a boat-builder in the Government Yard at
+Woolwich, he sold his most precious possession (to purchase which he had
+practised much self-denial), his fiddle, on which he had taught himself to
+play. Writing to his brother, he said, "I have sold my fiddle and got a
+wife."
+
+His brother says, "Like most poor men, he got a wife first, and had to get
+household stuff afterwards." It took him some years to get out of ready
+furnished lodgings. At length, by hard working, etc., he acquired a bed of
+his own, and hired the room up one pair of stairs at 14, Bell Alley,
+Coleman Street; and there, as he worked unaided by costly writing
+materials, amongst the noise and bustle of seven other workmen who,
+conjointly with himself, had hired a garret in the same house as their
+work-room, he composed his famous poem 'The Farmer's Boy,' the latter
+portion of his 'Autumn,' and the whole of his 'Winter.' Not a line of
+either was committed to paper before each was corrected, altered,
+improved, and finally completed.
+
+The poet Crabbe was another eighteenth-century genius who failed to find
+the generous, ever-ready patronage and friendship, whereof Thackeray said,
+"It would hardly be grateful to alter my old opinion that we (men of
+letters) do meet with good will and kindness, with generous and helping
+hands, in the time of our necessity; with cordial and friendly
+recognition." Having failed in his medical practice at Aldborough, in
+Suffolk, where, in 1789 he was born, Crabbe borrowed five pounds, and with
+that sum came to London. Taking lodgings near the Exchange, he began his
+literary career full of hope and vigour. But the booksellers, Dodsley and
+Becket, civilly declined his productions; and when he published some poems
+cheaply at his own expense his publisher failed; and the poor poet's
+little, carefully husbanded money being exhausted, he applied to Lord
+North for assistance,--in vain. Then he addressed verses to Lord
+Chancellor Thurlow, who said in reply, "his avocations did not leave him
+leisure to read verse." For a time he lived by selling his clothes, and
+pawning his watch and surgical instruments; then his books were
+reluctantly sold, and then debt came, and he was threatened with
+imprisonment. In the midst of these anxious cares, fears, and sufferings,
+with starvation staring him in the face, he bade the muse a sorrowful
+adieu, and sought work as a druggist's assistant. He had but eightpence in
+the world when he wrote to Edmund Burke, and himself left the letter at
+that eminent statesman's house in Charles Street. Begging letters from
+starving poets and literary men were familiar enough in those days, and
+Burke received more than his fair share of them. Crabbe has himself told
+us how, weary, penniless, and hungry, being afraid to go back to his
+lodging, he traversed Westminster Bridge all throughout the night
+following the delivery of that letter until daybreak. The letter itself, a
+memorable curiosity of impecuniosity, I here append:
+
+    "_To Edmund Burke, Esq._
+
+    "SIR,--I am sensible that I need even your talents to apologize for
+    the freedom I now take, but I have a plea which, however simply urged,
+    will with a mind like yours, sir, procure me pardon. I am one of those
+    outcasts on the world who are without a friend, without employment,
+    without bread.
+
+    "Pardon me a short preface. I had a partial father who gave me a
+    better education than his broken fortune would have allowed, and a
+    better than was necessary, as he could give me that only. I was
+    designed for the profession of Physic; but not having the wherewithal
+    to complete the necessary studies, the design but served to convince
+    me of a parent's affection and the error it had occasioned. In April
+    last I came to London with three pounds, and flattered myself this
+    would be sufficient to supply me with the common necessaries of life
+    till my abilities should procure me more; of these I had the highest
+    opinion, and a poetical vanity contributed to my delusion. I knew
+    little of the world and had read books only. I wrote, and fancied
+    perfection in my compositions; when I wanted bread they promised me
+    affluence and soothed me with dreams of reputation, whilst my
+    appearance subjected me to contempt. In time reflection and want have
+    shown me my mistake. I see my trifles in that which I think the true
+    light, and whilst I deem them such have yet the opinion that holds
+    them superior to the common run of poetical publications.
+
+    "I had some knowledge of the late Mr. Nassau, the brother of Lord
+    Rochford; in consequence of which I asked his lordship's permission to
+    inscribe my little work to him, knowing it to be free from all
+    political allusions and personal abuse. It was no material point to me
+    to whom it was dedicated, his lordship thought it none to him, and
+    obligingly consented to my request.
+
+    "I was told a subscription would be the more profitable method for me,
+    and therefore endeavoured to circulate copies of the enclosed
+    proposals.
+
+    "I am afraid, sir, I disgust you with this very drill narration, but
+    believe me punished in the misery that occasions it. You will conclude
+    that during this time I must have been at more expense than I could
+    afford--indeed, the most parsimonious could not have avoided it. The
+    printer deceived me, and my little business has had every delay. The
+    people with whom I live perceive my situation and find me to be
+    indigent and without friends. About ten days since I was compelled to
+    give a note for seven pounds to avoid an arrest for about double that
+    sum which I owe. I wrote to every friend I had, but my friends are
+    poor likewise; the time of payment approached, and I ventured to
+    represent my case to Lord Rochford. I begged to be credited for this
+    sum till I received it of my subscribers, which I believe will be
+    within one month: but to this letter I had no reply, and I have
+    probably offended by my importunity. Having used every honest means in
+    vain, I yesterday confessed my inability, and obtained with much
+    entreaty and as the greatest favour a week's forbearance, when I am
+    positively told that I must pay the money or prepare for a prison.
+
+    "You will guess the purpose of so long an introduction. I appeal to
+    you, sir, as a good, and let me add, a great man. I have no other
+    pretensions to your favour than that I am an unhappy one. It is not
+    easy to support the thought of confinement, and I am coward enough to
+    dread such an end to my suspense.
+
+    "Can you, sir, in any degree aid me with propriety?
+
+    "Will you ask any demonstration of my veracity?
+
+    "I have imposed upon myself, but I have been guilty of no other
+    imposition. Let me, if possible, interest your compassion. I know
+    those of rank and fashion are teased with frequent petitions, and are
+    compelled to refuse the requests even of those whom they know to be in
+    distress; it is therefore with a distant hope I ventured to solicit
+    such favour, but you will forgive me, sir, if you do not think proper
+    to relieve. It is impossible that sentiments like yours can proceed
+    from any but a humane and generous heart.
+
+    "I will call upon you, sir, to-morrow, and if I have not the happiness
+    to obtain credit with you I must submit to my fate. My existence is a
+    pain to myself, and every one near and dear to me are distressed in my
+    distress. My connections, once the source of happiness, embitter the
+    reverse of my fortune, and I have only to hope a speedy end to a life
+    so unpromisingly begun, in which (though it ought not to be boasted
+    of) I can reap some consolation from looking to the end of it.
+
+        "I am, sir, with the greatest respect,
+          "Your obedient and most humble servant,
+            "GEORGE CRABBE."
+
+Burke replied immediately, appointing an interview, from which dated the
+change in Crabbe's fortune. Money was given to him, apartments provided
+for him at Beaconsfield, where he was treated as if he belonged to the
+generous statesman's own family,--the very publisher who had refused his
+poems was ready enough to publish them when Edmund Burke suggested his
+doing so, and even Lord Thurlow gave him a hundred-pound note. Through his
+patron's influence the surgeon afterwards became a clergyman and chaplain
+to the Duke of Rutland. In 1807 the copyright of Crabbe's poems was sold
+for three thousand pounds.
+
+Another article in Thackeray's belief was, that "without necessity," as he
+said in _Fraser's Magazine_ (1846), "men of genius would not work at all,
+or very little. It does not follow," said he, "that a man would produce a
+great work even if he had leisure. Squire Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon
+with his land, and his rents, and his arms over the porch, was not the
+working Shakespeare; and indolence, or contemplation if you like, is no
+unusual quality in literary men."
+
+The reader will find, in my chapter on the "Impecuniosity of Artists," a
+curious contrast to this opinion in that expressed by Ruskin, in his
+'Political Economy of Art.' Our great art critic draws a touching picture
+of the man of genius, toiling painfully through his early years of
+obscurity and neglect, yearning vainly for the peace and time requisite
+for producing great works. And Sir Bulwer Lytton, writing pathetically of
+poor Leman Blanchard, whom Thackeray knew personally, said,--
+
+    "Few men had experienced more to sour them, or had gone through the
+    author's hardening ordeal of narrow circumstances, of daily labour,
+    and of that disappointment in the higher aims of ambition, which must
+    almost inevitably befall those who retain ideal standards of
+    excellence _to be reached but by time and leisure_, and who are yet
+    compelled to draw hourly upon immatured resources for the practical
+    wants of life."
+
+Blanchard's father was a painter and glazier in Southwark, who doubtless
+practised no little self-denial to give his son a good education, which
+could not but, as Sir Bulwer Lytton said, with a faint tinge of an
+old-world prejudice in his words, "unfit young Leman for the calling of
+his father;" "for it developed the abilities and bestowed the learning
+which may be said to lift a youth morally out of trade, and to refine him
+at once into a gentleman." He began life at the desk as a clerk in the
+office of Mr. Charles Pearson, a proctor in Doctors' Commons, and soon
+began to contribute some promising characteristic sketches to a
+publication called _The Drama_. As a clerk, he was not satisfactory nor
+satisfied; and his father was about to take him from it, and teach him his
+own trade, to avoid which Blanchard tried through the influence of the
+actor, Mr. Henry Johnston, to find an opening on the stage. The histrionic
+friend, however, painted the miseries and uncertainties of his profession
+in such gloomy and terrible colours, that the poor boy's heart sank within
+him, and he had turned with despair to obscurity and trade when the
+manager of the Margate Theatre offered him an engagement, which he
+accepted. "A week," says Mr. Buckstone, who was then on intimate terms
+with him, "was sufficient to disgust him with the beggary and drudgery of
+the country player's life, and as there was no 'Harlequin' steaming it
+from Margate to London Bridge at that day, he performed his journey back
+on foot, having on reaching Rochester but his last shilling--the poet's
+veritable last shilling--in his pocket."
+
+Buckstone also wrote:
+
+    "At that time a circumstance occurred which my poor friend's fate has
+    naturally brought to my recollection. He came to me late one evening
+    in a state of great excitement, informed me that his father had turned
+    him out of doors, that he was utterly hopeless and wretched, and was
+    resolved to destroy himself. I used my best endeavours to console him,
+    to lead his thoughts to the future, and hope in what chance and
+    perseverance might effect for him. Our discourse took a livelier turn,
+    and after making up a bed on a sofa in my own room I retired to rest.
+    I soon slept soundly, but was awakened by hearing a footstep
+    descending the stairs. I looked towards the sofa and discovered he had
+    left it. I heard the street-door close. I instantly hurried on my
+    clothes and followed him. I called to him, but received no answer. I
+    ran till I saw him in the distance, also running. I again called his
+    name, I implored him to stop, but he would not answer me. Still
+    continuing his pace, I became alarmed, and doubled my speed. I came up
+    to him near Westminster Bridge; he was hurrying to the steps leading
+    to the river. I seized him, he threatened to strike me if I did not
+    release him. I called for the watch, I entreated him to return; he
+    became more pacified, but still seemed anxious to escape from me. By
+    entreaties, by every means of persuasion I could think of, by threats
+    to call for help, I succeeded in taking him back."
+
+After that desperate attempt, Blanchard obtained work as a printer's
+reader with Messrs. Bayliss, of Fleet Street.
+
+Thackeray summed up his poor friend's condition at this time thus briefly:
+
+    "The young fellow, forced to the proctor's desk, quite angry with the
+    drudgery, theatre-stricken, poetry-stricken, writing dramatic sketches
+    in Barry Cornwall's manner, spouting 'Leonidas' before a manager,
+    driven away starving from home, penniless and full of romance,
+    courting his beautiful young wife.... Then there comes that pathetic
+    little outbreak of despair, when the poor young fellow is nearly
+    giving up, his father banishes him, no one will buy his poetry, he has
+    no chance on his darling theatre, no chance of the wife that he is
+    longing for. Why not finish life at once? He has read 'Werter,' and
+    can understand suicide. 'None,' he says in a sonnet,
+
+        'None, not the hoariest sage, may tell of all
+        The strong heart struggles, wills, before it fall.'
+
+    If respectability wanted to point a moral, isn't there one here?
+    Eschew poetry--avoid the theatre--stick to your business--do not read
+    German novels--do not marry at twenty: and yet the young poet marries
+    at twenty in the teeth of poverty and experience, labours away not
+    unsuccessfully, puts Pegasus into harness, rises in social rank and
+    public estimation, brings up happily an affectionate family, gets for
+    himself a circle of the warmest friends, and thus carries on for
+    twenty years, when a providential calamity visits him and the poor
+    wife almost together, and removes them both."
+
+The "providential calamity" came in the beginning of 1844, when Mrs.
+Blanchard, the most tenderly-loving of wives, and a devoted mother, was
+attacked by paralysis, which affected the brain, and terminated in
+madness, speedily followed by death. Partial paralysis seized her husband,
+and in a burst of delirium, "having his little boy in bed by his side, and
+having said the Lord's prayer but a short time before, he sprang out of
+bed in the absence of his nurse (whom he had besought not to leave him),
+and made away with himself with a razor.... At the very moment of his
+death his friends were making the kindest and most generous exertions on
+his behalf." Thackeray, whom I have quoted, adds: "Such a noble, loving,
+and generous creature is never without such. The world, it is pleasant to
+think, is always a good and gentle world to the gentle and good, and
+reflects the benevolence with which they regard it." This is comfortable
+doctrine, and I would I were sure of its truthfulness. I wonder what poor
+Gerald Griffin would have said of it in the year 1825, when he was
+residing at 15, Paddington Street, Regent's Park, London, and, writing to
+his mother in Ireland, said:
+
+    "Until within a short time back I have not had, since I left Ireland,
+    a single moment's peace of mind; constantly running backwards and
+    forwards, and trying a thousand expedients, only to meet
+    disappointments everywhere I turned.... I never will think or talk
+    upon the subject again. It was such a year that I did not think it
+    possible I could have outlived, and the very recollection of it puts
+    me into the horrors.... When I first came to London my own
+    self-conceit, backed by the opinion of one of the most original
+    geniuses of the age, induced me to set about revolutionising the
+    dramatic taste of the time by writing for the stage. Indeed, the
+    design was formed and the first step taken (a couple of pieces
+    written) in Ireland. I cannot with my present experience conceive
+    anything more comical than my own views and measures at that time. A
+    young gentleman totally unknown even to a single family in London
+    coming into town with a few pounds in one pocket, and a brace of
+    tragedies in the other, supposing that the one will set him up before
+    the others are exhausted, is not a very novel, but a very laughable
+    delusion. I would weary you, or I would carry you through a number of
+    curious scenes into which it led me. Only imagine the model young
+    Munsterman spouting his tragedy to a roomful of literary ladies and
+    gentlemen; some of high consideration. The applause, however, of that
+    circle on that night was sweeter, far sweeter, to me then than would
+    be the bravos of a whole theatre at present, being united at the time
+    to the confident anticipation of it."
+
+The result was his introduction to a manager--all the actors were eager to
+introduce him to their managers, and to one he went.
+
+    "He," continues poor Griffin, "let down the pegs that made my
+    music.... He was very polite, talked, and chatted about himself, and
+    Shiel, and my excellent friend Banim. He kept my play four months,
+    wrote me some nonsensical apologies about keeping it so long, and cut
+    off to Ireland, leaving orders to have it sent to my lodgings without
+    any opinion. I was quite surprised at this, and the more so that
+    Banim, who is one of the most successful dramatic writers, at the same
+    time saying, what indeed I found every person who had the least
+    theatric knowledge join in, that I acted most unwisely in putting a
+    play into an actor's hands. It was then that I set about writing for
+    those weekly publications, all of which, except the _Literary
+    Gazette_, cheated me most abominably. Then finding this to be the
+    case, I wrote for the great magazines. My articles were generally
+    inserted, but on calling for payment, seeing that I was but a poor
+    inexperienced devil, there was so much shuffling and shabby work, that
+    it disgusted me, and I gave up the idea of making money that way. I
+    now lost heart for everything, got into the cheapest lodging I could
+    make out, and there worked on, rather to divert my mind from the
+    horrible gloom that I felt growing on me, in spite of myself, than
+    with any hope of being remunerated. This, and the recollection of the
+    expense I had put William to, and the fears that every moment became
+    conviction that I should never be able to fulfil his hopes, or my own
+    expectations, all came pressing together upon my mind and made me
+    miserable. A thousand and a thousand times I wished that I could lie
+    down quietly and die at once, and be forgotten for ever. I can
+    describe to you my state of mind at this time. It was not an indolent
+    despondency, for I was working hard as I am now, and it is only
+    receiving money for the labour of those dreadful hours. I used not to
+    see a face that I knew, and after sitting writing all day, when I
+    walked in the streets in the evening, it actually seemed to me as if I
+    was a different species altogether from the people about me. The fact
+    was, from pure anxiety alone, I was more than half dead, and would
+    most certainly have given up the ghost, I believe, were it not that by
+    the merest accident on earth the library friend (Mr. Forster), who had
+    procured me the unfortunate introduction a year before, dropped in one
+    evening to have a talk with me. I had not seen him, nor anybody else
+    that I knew, for some months, and he frightened me by saying I looked
+    like a ghost. In a few days, however, a publisher of his acquaintance
+    had got me some things to do, works to arrange, regulate, and revise,
+    so he asked me if I would devote a few hours in the middle of every
+    day to the purpose for L50 a year. I did so, and among other things
+    which I got to revise was a weekly fashionable journal."
+
+In this letter to his mother he said nothing of being without the
+commonest necessaries of life, of being ashamed to go out by daylight
+because his clothes were so shabby, of passing entire days without
+food--on one occasion no less than three.
+
+There was in poor old Gerald Griffin no signs of that "indolence, or
+contemplation if you like," which Thackeray considered "no unusual quality
+in the literary man." With despair in his heart he still wrote on, simply
+because the labour in which he had delight physicked the pains of
+impecuniosity. But it was not under such conditions that even Griffin did
+his best work.
+
+Mr. R. P. Gillies, in his 'Memoirs of a Literary Veteran,' tells how, when
+he was contemplating work of a higher and more ambitious character than he
+had then attempted, "in consequence of domestic anxieties little or
+nothing was accomplished." He merely built some grand literary castles in
+the air (for which he was ridiculed in the 'Noctes Ambrosianae,' under the
+name of "Kempferhausen"); but he says: "There were some awkward conditions
+attached to the basis of my aerial structures; for example, I must have
+unbroken tranquillity like that of an anchoret. There must be no shadow on
+the mind of worldly cares and perturbation, otherwise the spells would be
+broken." Bread was his incentive to work, but it was the hack work of
+which Scott so bitterly complained, not the great work he yearned to
+accomplish, and could not for want of "peace and time."
+
+The above allusion is to Sir Walter in the zenith of his fame when,
+through "long-winded" publishers' money being in immediate demand, he
+contemplated abandoning original fiction for the more rapid work of
+compilation. He wanted that to secure not only bread, but the peace and
+time which in common with Ruskin he thought essential to the production of
+great work; and he wrote in his diary, under the date December 18th, 1825:
+"The general knowledge that an author must write for bread, at least for
+improving his pittance, degrades him and his productions in the public
+eye. He falls into the second rank of estimation,
+
+  "'When the harness sore galls, and the spurs his sides goad,
+  And the high-mettled racer's a hack on the road.'
+
+It is a bitter thought, but, if tears start, let them flow."
+
+Thackeray, despite his self-satisfying opinion about the world's being
+always "so good and gentle" to the "gentle and good," here held Sir
+Walter's opinion, for under the signature of Michael Angelo Titmarsh,
+Esq., he wrote:
+
+    "Our calling is only sneered at because it is not well paid. The world
+    has no other criterion for respectability. In Heaven's name, what made
+    the people talk of setting up a statue to Sir William Follet? What had
+    he done? He had made thirty thousand pounds!... Directly the men of
+    letters get rich they will come in for their share of honour too; and
+    a future writer in this miscellany (Fraser's) may be getting his
+    guineas where we get one, and dining at Buckingham Palace while you
+    and your humble servant, dear Padre Francisco, are glad to smoke our
+    pipes over the sanded floor of the little D----."
+
+Sir Walter Scott's opinion of writing under peaceful and under troublous
+circumstances was also shown in the following entry, under the same date
+as the above. It runs as follows:
+
+    "Poor T. S. called again yesterday. Through his incoherent miserable
+    tale I could see that he had exhausted each access to credit, and yet
+    fondly imagines that, bereft of all his accustomed indulgences, he can
+    work with a literary zeal unknown to his happier days. I hope he may
+    labour enough to gain the mere support of his family."
+
+Poverty is not, however, always fatal to the highest efforts of genius,
+even if it be not essential as an incentive to work; and there is often
+found in "the labour we delight in" that which "physics pain" (as
+Shakespeare said), even the pains of impecuniosity. Goldoni, speaking of
+his dramatic writings and consequent poverty, says, "Though in any other
+situation I might have been in easier circumstances, I should never have
+been so happy;" and who can doubt the happiness of the illustrious Linnaeus
+when he was wandering a-foot with his stylus, magnifying-glass and baskets
+of plants, sharing the peasants' rustic meals and homely shelter, when he
+gave his own name to the little Lapland flower now called the Linnaeus
+Borealis, because it reminded him of his own position, being "a little
+northern plant, flowering early, depressed, abject, and long overlooked"?
+
+Rousseau, writing of his works and life, says:
+
+    "It was in a small garret in the new street of St. Etienne du Mont,
+    where I resided four years in the midst of physical suffering and
+    domestic trouble, that I enjoyed the most exquisite pleasure of my
+    life, that of writing and publishing my 'Studies of Nature.'"
+
+The _Quarterly Review_ (vol. viii.), comparing the writer who goes to his
+work in a spirit of love for it, and pride in it, with him who labours at
+it merely for the money it produces, says: "The one is like a thirsty hart
+that comes joyously to refresh itself at the water-brooks, and the other
+to the same beast panting and jaded with the dogs of hunger and necessity
+behind."
+
+When Olivet presented his elaborate edition of Cicero to the public, he
+said the glory and pleasure he had received in producing it were all he
+required by way of remuneration; money he refused. Pieresc, one of the
+most liberal and generous of men, although his fortune was a small one,
+loved learning only for its own sweet sake, and was never so happy as he
+was when shut up in his study amongst his books and MSS. "A literary man's
+true wealth," said he, "consists in works of art, the treasures of a
+library, and the affections of his fellow-students." Lord Wodehouse, when
+re-writing his 'Lectures on History,' said: "The task rewarded him with
+that peculiar delight which has often been observed in the latter years of
+literary men, the delight of returning again to the studies of their youth
+and of feeling under the snows of age the cheerful memories of their
+spring." Petrarch, writing of himself to a friend, said, "I read, I write,
+I think; such is my life and my pleasures as they were in my youth."
+
+Beranger, when he was living on the fifth story in the Boulevard St.
+Martin, "without money and with no certain prospect for the future," as he
+himself said, had installed himself in his garret "with inexpressible
+satisfaction" because, as he wrote, "To live alone and to compose verses
+at my leisure appeared to me the very summit of felicity." Speaking in the
+spirit of his "sky parlour," he said: "What a beautiful prospect I enjoyed
+from its window! What delight I had to sit there in the evening hovering
+as it were over the immense city, from which a loud, hoarse murmur
+incessantly ascended, especially when there blended with it the noise and
+tumult of some great storm." But there were two sides to this life, and
+time revealed both. With peace and time, bread and cheese and dreams of
+glory, the poet was content and happy, even when thin and pale; he grew
+every day so weak that his father used to say frequently, "I shall soon
+bury you." But he was not dismayed, but starved and wrote on placidly
+enough until the fear of the conscription fell upon him. But even then, as
+he tells us, Providence befriended him and out of evil brought good. He
+says: "I was bald at twenty-three in consequence, as I suppose, of
+continuous headaches. When the gendarmes came in search for conscripts I
+removed my hat. They looked at my bald head and were satisfied. They went
+away without me."
+
+Again he writes in his fragmentary autobiography:
+
+    "Fortune at last suffered herself to be touched by my sorrows. Three
+    years had I been vainly seeking some humble form of employment, when,
+    urged by a terrible necessity in the beginning of 1804, I sent a
+    letter and verses to M. Lucien Bonaparte. My gold watch had been long
+    where I left it pledged at the Mont de Piete. My wardrobe had dwindled
+    to three old patched and often mended shirts, a threadbare overcoat
+    also carefully adorned with patches, with one pair of trousers with a
+    newly discovered hole in the knee, and a pair of boots which filled me
+    with despair whenever I cleaned them, they grew so rapidly worse. I
+    had posted to M. Bonaparte four or five hundred verses, and had told
+    no one that I had done so, so many applications had been fruitless."
+
+One day, while sitting in his garret, needle in hand, eyeing lugubriously
+the rent in his trousers, and thinking over some bitter misanthropical
+verses which he was then writing, a letter was brought to him. It seemed a
+letter of consequence--the handwriting was strange. Trembling with
+excitement, he broke the seal. Joy! joy! joy! The Senator Bonaparte
+desired to see him!
+
+"It was not," he wrote, "my fortune that I first thought of, but Glory! My
+eyes were full of tears, and I thanked God, whom in my moments of
+prosperity I never forgot."
+
+And yet of such men as these Thackeray wrote: "Bread is the main
+incentive. Do not let us try to blink this fact or imagine that the men of
+the press are working for their honour and glory or go onward impelled by
+the inevitable afflatus of genius."
+
+The elder Disraeli, who said, "Great authors sustain their own genius by a
+sense of their own glory," when Dr. Johnson expressed views on this
+subject according to some extent with Thackeray's, called them
+"commercial, agricultural, and manufacturing views of human nature," and
+complained that they lowered genius to the level of a machine, only to be
+set in action by a force exterior to itself.
+
+But doctors disagree, and opinions on every subject always differ. As
+mentioned by me elsewhere, one of the first poets who tried to live by his
+pen was Robert Greene, whose melancholy story is one of the most degrading
+and painful passages in literary biography. He lived in the days of good
+Queen Bess, and has left his own records of forlorn and miserable
+experience. Isaac Disraeli calls him "the great patriarch and primeval
+dealer in English literature, the most facetious, profligate, and
+indefatigable of the Scribleri family." Quaint Anthony Wood, sneering at
+him and his entire fraternity, as he often did, said, "He wrote to
+maintain his wife and that high, loose course of living which poets
+generally follow;" one accusation being about as true as the other, for so
+far from maintaining his wife, he shamefully deserted both her and her
+child, leaving her foodless; and the Elizabethan poets are said on the
+whole to have been thrifty, god-fearing men, leading sober and steady
+lives. Charles Knight wrote of him as one who was made desperate and
+reckless by wrongs and neglect, but the pamphlet he wrote called 'The
+Repentance of Robert Greene, Master of Arts,' taken with his other
+confession, shows him to have been, as Mr. A. H. Wall said (in his 'Poets
+and Players of Shakespeare's Time'), "an entirely bad and worthless
+fellow, who disgusted his fellow-poets of the Bankside, and plunged into
+such disgraceful excesses that he became shunned and contemned by them,
+finding a welcome nowhere but in the lowest haunts of vice and
+profligacy." This was the man who fell foul of his fellow-players and the
+player-poets, calling them "apes," "rude grooms," "buckram gentlemen," and
+"painted monsters," who attacked young Shakespeare when he was dressing
+up, improving, and re-writing old plays, "as an upstart crow, beautified
+with our feathers," and aroused our great bard's many friends to anger and
+indignation by saying he had "a tiger's heart wrapped in a player's hide,
+and was a bad actor, conceited enough to suppose himself as well able to
+bombast out a blank verse as the best, one who was vain enough to imagine
+himself an absolute Johannes Factotum, the only Shakespeare in the
+country:" accusations which even Henry Cheetle, who was concerned in their
+publication, afterwards denounced as slanderous and spiteful, saying, "I
+am as sorry as if the original fault had been my fault, because myself
+hath seen his (Shakespeare's) demeanour no less civil than he is excellent
+in the quality he professes, besides divers of worship have reported his
+uprightness of dealing, which argues his honesty, and his facetious grace
+in writing that approves his art."
+
+Greene spent his time now in debauchery and drunkenness, now homeless,
+penniless, and starving, one extreme following the other with fearful
+frequency and rapidity. A contemporary poet, Gabriel Harvey, wrote of him
+as follows:
+
+    "Who in London hath not heard of his (Greene's) dissolute and
+    licentious living, his fond disguisinge of a Master of Arts with
+    ruffianly hair, unseemly apparel, and more unseemly company, of his
+    vaine glorious and Thrasonicall brassinge; his piperly extemporising
+    and Tarletonizing; his apeish counterfeiting of every ridiculous and
+    absurd toy ... hys villainous cogging and foisting, his monstrous
+    swearinge and horrible forswearing, his impious profaning of sacred
+    textes; his other scandalous and blasphemous ravinge: his riotous and
+    outrageous surfeitinge: his continual shifting of lodgings; his
+    plausable musteringe and banquettynge of roysterly acquaintance at his
+    first comminge; his beggarly departing in every hostesses debt; his
+    infamous resorting to the Banckside, Shoreditch, Southwarke, and other
+    filthy haunts; his obscure lurkinge in basest corners; his pawning of
+    his sword, cloake, and what not, when money came short?" etc.
+
+a catalogue of monstrous crimes, vices, and follies (which fills page
+after page) fully borne out by Greene's own confessions.
+
+He wrote of himself,
+
+  "In prime of youth a rose, in age a weed,
+  That for a minute's joy payes endless meed."
+
+His last letter to the poor Lincolnshire lady whom he married, ill-used,
+and cruelly abandoned, was dated from a squalid lodging in Dowgate, where
+he died of want and disease. It ran as follows:
+
+    "Doll, I charge thee by the love of our youth and by my soules rest
+    that thou wilt see this man (the shoemaker) paide; for if hee and his
+    wife had not succoured me I had died in the streetes.
+
+        "ROBERT GREENE."
+
+Doll was the amiable and worthy woman to whom he had previously written:
+
+    "The remembrance of many wrongs offered thee and thy unreproved
+    virtues add greater sorrow to my miserable state than I can utter or
+    thou conceive, neither is it lessened by consideration of thy absence
+    (though shame would hardly let me behold thy face) but exceedingly
+    aggravated."
+
+Akin in character to Greene was John Skelton, a popular poet in the reign
+of the seventh Henry, and King Henry the Eighth's poet laureate, who wrote
+of himself:
+
+  "A King to me mine habit gave
+  At Oxford the University,
+  Advanced I was to that degree:
+  By whole consent of their Senate,
+  I was made Poet Laureate."
+
+The title being then a university degree, and the habit a robe of white
+and green, embroidered in silk and gold. He took holy orders in 1498, and,
+as old Anthony Wood said, "having been guilty of many crimes, as most
+poets are," Bishop Wykke suspended him from his benefice. In 1501 he was
+in prison for marrying and keeping a mistress, "a crime amongst the clergy
+of the Romish persuasion both in those days and these," says Cibber, "more
+subjected to punishment than adultery." He was a fierce and bitter
+assailant of the clergy, the Dominicans, and Cardinal Wolsey. Many of his
+productions were never printed, but were chanted at markets and fairs, in
+village ale-houses, and in the streets by itinerant ballad-singers, who
+learned them by heart and sent them abroad like floating seeds borne
+hither and thither by the vagrant winds. The author of the 'Lives of the
+Laureates' said of this poet: "The brief glance we have of him, the
+scholar and the buffoon, a priest with his married concubine and
+bastardized children, mocking, half in anger half in jest, or it might be
+in the wantonness of sorrow, at the falsehoods by which he was surrounded,
+may justly awaken our sympathy nor fail to suggest a moral."
+
+The misfortunes of poor Spenser I have referred to in dealing with the sad
+side of the subject, but another of the laureates who tasted the full
+bitterness of poverty was Ben Jonson, who began life as a bricklayer,
+became a soldier, and a brave one too, abandoned arms to tread the stage,
+and strolled about the country, trudging beside the waggon containing the
+players' scenes, and "properties," many a weary mile. From acting plays he
+took to writing plays, the two arts being then more intimately and nobly
+associated than they ever have been since, for the stage has fallen out of
+the hands of poets and players into those of showmen and buffoons. He was
+married and had a son, to whom some of the players stood sponsors.
+Shakespeare, it is traditionally said, was one of them, and what his
+necessities were may be readily guessed from the entry in Henslowe's diary
+preserved at Dulwich College, in which small sums are entered as advanced
+to Ben Jonson for work he was then doing. A story is related of how he
+came, after many other vain efforts, to the Globe Theatre on the Bankside
+with his play of _Every Man in His Humour_, which after the manager had
+superficially glanced at he coldly returned as unsuitable. Shakespeare, it
+is said, stood by, and noting, we presume, the melancholy and despairing
+way in which his future dear friend and rival turned to leave the theatre,
+spoke to him, begging leave to read his play, with which he was so well
+pleased that he brought about its acceptance. Poverty haunted Ben with
+more or less closeness all through his career (often it must be confessed
+through the extravagance of his hospitality to brother poets) and was, it
+is said, sadly too intimate with him when he died. When sick in 1629,
+Charles I., who had been generous to him, being supplicated in his favour,
+sent him ten guineas, of which mean gift Smollett says, Jonson spoke as
+follows to the messenger of whom he received it:
+
+"His Majesty has sent me ten guineas because I am poor and live in an
+alley. Go and tell him his soul lives in an alley."
+
+Jonson died on the 6th August, 1637, having long outlived his wife and all
+his children.
+
+It is curious still to note how many of our literary lions began to make
+their way in the world, as Jonson did, on the stage. It was so with
+William Leman Rede, who, starting as an actor at Margate (the Margate
+boards formed indeed the porch through which a very large number of
+histrionic aspirants entered the theatrical profession), became an
+itinerant actor, at one time playing Hamlet in a barn and at another Rover
+on a billiard-table; sometimes foodless and hungry, travelling on foot and
+sometimes luxuriating in a waggon, but always light-hearted and gay. Once
+when he was laughing merrily at the plight he was in on a "treasury day,"
+when, in the phraseology of the profession, "the ghost didn't walk," that
+is to say when there was no money in hand to pay the actors' salaries,
+some one asked how he continued to be jolly under such miserably
+depressing circumstances. He replied, "I drink spring water and dance."
+Rede was always a sober, abstemious man. Coming to London in 1825, he
+published his first novel, 'The Wedded Wanderer,' which was followed by a
+second, 'The White Tower,' each in three volumes. This was followed by
+his 'Crimes and Criminals in Yorkshire,' and his connection with a weekly
+publication belonging to his brother Thomas, called _Oxberry's Dramatic
+Biography_--Thomas having married the widow of Oxberry the comedian, by
+whom the serial had been started.
+
+As actor, magazine writer, dramatist, journalist and novelist Rede
+acquired fame but not wealth. One evening he was arrested for debt while
+acting on the stage, by a sheriff's officer, who sprang from the pit over
+the orchestra and footlights to secure his prisoner. Rede originated the
+Dramatic Authors' Society.
+
+Sheridan, to whom I have previously alluded, was another famous literary
+man familiar with the boards and--need I say?--with impecuniosity. He was,
+according to Haydon, "in debt all round to milkman, grocer, baker, and
+butcher. Sometimes his wife would be kept waiting for an hour or more
+while the servants were beating up the neighbourhood for coffee, butter,
+eggs and rolls. While Sheridan was Paymaster of the Navy, a butcher one
+day brought a leg of mutton; the cook took it and clapped it in the pot to
+boil and went upstairs for the money, but the cook not returning, the
+butcher removed the pot-lid, took out the mutton, and walked away with
+it." On another occasion Michael Kelly, the musical celebrity, was
+complaining to him of a wine merchant at Hochheim who instead of six dozen
+of wine had sent him sixteen. Sheridan said he would take some off his
+hands if he were not quite able to pay for it, but, said he, "you can get
+rid of it easily, put up a sign over your door and write on it, 'Michael
+Kelly, Composer of Wines and Importer of Music;'" a sly rub which the
+composer received with a laugh, wittily retorting that there was one wine
+so poisonous and intoxicating that he would neither compose nor import,
+and that was "Old Sherry" (Sheridan's nickname).
+
+One night when Sheridan was at home in a cottage he had about a mile from
+Hounslow Heath, his son Tom asked him for some cash. "Money, I have none,"
+was the reply.
+
+"But let the consequences be what they may, money I must have," said Tom
+fiercely.
+
+"In that case, my dear Tom," said the father, "you will find a case of
+loaded pistols upstairs and a horse ready saddled in the stable, the night
+is dark and you are within half a mile of Hounslow Heath"--a place of
+terrible repute for highway robbers.
+
+"I understand," said Tom, "but I tried that before I came to you.
+Unluckily the man I stopped was Peake, your treasurer, and he told me that
+you had been beforehand with him and robbed him of every sixpence he had
+in the world."
+
+Kelly saw many instances of Sheridan raising money, but one instance in
+particular astonished him. Sheridan was L3000 in arrear with the Italian
+Opera performance; there were continual postponements, and at last the
+singers resolved to strike. Kelly, as manager, received a note that on the
+evening of a certain day they would not sing unless paid, and hurried off
+to Morlands, the bankers in Pall Mall, for advances. The bankers were
+inexorable; like the singers, they were worn out. The manager then flew
+off to Sheridan at his residence in Hertford Street, Mayfair, where he was
+kept waiting two hours. Sheridan was told that if he could not raise L3000
+the theatre must be closed. "L3000, Kelly," he said; "there is no such sum
+in nature. Are you an admirer of Shakespeare?"
+
+"To be sure I am," said Kelly, "but what has Shakespeare to do with L3000
+or the Italian singers?"
+
+"There is one passage in Shakespeare," said Sherry, "which I have always
+admired particularly, and it is where Falstaff says, 'Master Robert
+Shallow, I owe you L1000.' 'Yes, Sir John,' says Shallow, 'which I beg you
+will let me take home with me.' 'That may not so easily be, Master Robert
+Shallow,' replies Falstaff. And so say I unto thee, Master Michael Kelly,
+to get L3000 may not so easy be."
+
+Kelly answered that there was no alternative then but to close the
+theatre. Sheridan made Kelly ring the bell and have a Hackney coach
+called, then sat down quite at his ease and read the newspaper. Kelly was
+in an agony. The coach arrived, Sheridan requested Kelly to get into it,
+and went with him. The coach was driven to Morlands' banking-house--Kelly
+remained in the coach bewildered. In a quarter of an hour Sherry came out
+of the bank with the required sum in bank notes. Kelly never knew how it
+was obtained. Sherry told Kelly to take the money to the theatre, but to
+save enough out of it for a barrel of oysters, which he, Sheridan, would
+partake of that night at Kelly's lodgings in Suffolk Street.
+
+On another occasion Kelly and Sheridan were one day in conversation close
+to the gate of the path which was then open to the public, leading across
+the churchyard of St. Paul's, Covent Garden, from King Street to Henrietta
+Street. Holloway, a creditor of Sherry's, went by on horseback. He spoke
+to Sherry in loud and angry tones, complaining that he could never get
+admittance at Sheridan's house, and vowed vengeance on Francois, Sherry's
+valet, if he did not let him in next time he called in Hertford Street.
+Holloway was in a passion; Sherry, who knew he was vain of his judgment of
+horseflesh, took no notice of the angry boast of Holloway, and burst into
+exclamations of rapture on Holloway's steed. Holloway was softened, and
+said his horse was one of the prettiest of creatures. Would not Mrs.
+Sheridan like to have one like it?
+
+"She would if he could canter well," said Sheridan.
+
+"Beautifully," said Holloway.
+
+"Perhaps I should not mind stretching a point for such a one. Will you
+have the kindness to let me see his paces?"
+
+"To be sure," said the lawyer.
+
+The action was suited to the word, and Sherry cut off through the
+churchyard, where no horse could follow. In spite of his many faults, his
+utter unscrupulousness in money-matters being not the least, it is
+particularly pleasant to refer to one of the incidents at the close of his
+career which reveals a delightful little bit of sentiment and good
+feeling, of which many of his detractors would have us think he was
+incapable. When his goods were taken in execution in Hertford Street,
+Mayfair, Paston, the sheriff's officer, said that if there was any
+particular article upon which he set affectionate value, he might secrete
+or carry it off from the premises.
+
+"Thank you, my generous fellow," said Sheridan. "No, let all go--affection
+and sentiment in my situation are quite out of the question. But," said
+he, recollecting himself, "there is one thing which I wish to have."
+
+"What is it?" said Paston, expecting him to name some cabinet or piece of
+plate.
+
+"Don't be alarmed," said Sheridan, "it is only this old book, worth all
+others in the world, and to me of special value, because it belonged to my
+father, and was the favourite of my first wife."
+
+Paston looked into it, and it was a dogs'-eared edition of Shakespeare.
+
+Another great man in the literary and histrionic professions, the
+novelist, Fielding, although of an aristocratic stock, and liberally
+educated, began life almost without pecuniary resources. He came before
+the public first in 1725, and in succession was a showman at Bartholomew
+and other fairs, the owner of a booth for theatrical performances, at one
+time set up in George Yard, from which he found his way to the regular
+boards. In spite of being the son of a general, and the great grandson of
+an earl, his impecuniosity was often great, although he met his
+difficulties with the light-hearted gaiety of a Sheridan, and the careless
+imprudence of a Goldsmith.
+
+Once, when in Ireland, he got into disgrace through giving a dancing-party
+at his rooms; sold his books the next day, ran away from college, loafed
+about Dublin till only a shilling was left, and then went to Cork. There
+he lived three days on the shilling, and said afterwards the most
+delicious meal he ever tasted was a handful of grey peas, given him by a
+girl at a wake, after twenty-four hours' fasting.
+
+Poor Oliver Goldsmith must, of course, have his place in this chapter, for
+from the time when he wrote street ballads to save himself from starving,
+and was delighted to hear them sung, to when he started on "the grand
+tour," alone and friendless, with one spare shirt, a flute, and a guinea
+in his pocket, to the last scene of hopeless insolvency in which he died,
+his life was one long, hard struggle against pecuniary difficulties. When
+his relatives raised L50 to send him to London to study, he spent and
+gambled all away, and got no farther than Dublin. The result of his wildly
+rash act of going abroad so ill provided he has himself described. In a
+foreign land, when without money, he turned to his flute as a last
+resource, and whenever he approached a peasant's cottage towards
+nightfall, he played one of his merriest tunes, and so generally contrived
+to win a shelter for the night, and some food for his next day's journey.
+In this way he passed through Flanders, parts of France, Germany and
+Switzerland, reaching Padua at last; remaining there six months to secure
+his medical degree. Returning in 1756, and failing to find employment, he
+was at last taken in by a chemist by way of charity, and to preserve him
+from starvation. His friend, Dr. Sleigh, next befriended him, and then he
+became usher to Dr. Milner's school in Peckham. Soon after he found
+literary employment, and took a lodging at No. 12, Green Arbour Court, in
+the Old Bailey--a miserable, dirty room, with but one chair. He did not
+emerge from this squalid, dismal abode until 1760, when improved
+circumstances enabled him to lodge in Wine Office Court, Fleet Street,
+where he received his friends with a freedom and hospitality which soon
+reduced his means to the level of impecuniosity. Here he first met Dr.
+Johnson, who became his dearest friend and best adviser.
+
+Johnson has described how he received one morning a message from poor
+Goldsmith, to the effect that he was in great distress, and as it was not
+in his power to go to the Doctor, begging that the Doctor would come to
+him as soon as possible.
+
+    "I sent him a guinea," says Johnson, "and promised to come to him
+    directly. I accordingly went as soon as I was dressed, and found that
+    his landlady had arrested him for rent, at which he was in a violent
+    passion. I perceived that he had already changed my guinea, and had
+    got a bottle of Madeira and a glass before him. I put the cork into
+    the bottle, desired he would be calm, and began to talk to him of the
+    means by which he might be extricated. He then told me that he had a
+    novel ready for the press, which he produced to me. I looked into it
+    and saw its merits, and told the landlady I should soon return, and,
+    having gone to a bookseller, sold it for L60. I brought Goldsmith the
+    money, and he discharged his rent, not without rating his landlady for
+    having used him so ill."
+
+The novel thus sold was the 'Vicar of Wakefield,' and its purchaser,
+Francis Newberry, the bookseller, who kept it unprinted for two years,
+when its author's 'Traveller,' having appeared and proved successful, the
+novel was published (in March 1766) and in a month reached a second
+edition.
+
+In Forster's 'Life of Goldsmith,' the following account of his earliest
+state of penury has no little romantic interest:--
+
+    "It was," says the author of that famous work, "a year and a half
+    after he had entered college, at the commencement of 1747, his father
+    suddenly died. The scanty sums required for his support had often been
+    intercepted; but this stopped them altogether. It may have been the
+    least and most trifling loss connected with that sorrow; but 'squalid
+    poverty,' relieved by occasional gifts, according to his small means,
+    from Uncle Contarine, by petty loans from Bryanton or Beatty, or by
+    desperate pawning of his books of study, was Goldsmith's lot
+    henceforward. Yet even in the depths of that despair arose the
+    consciousness of faculties reserved for better fortune than continual
+    contempt and failure. He would write street ballads to save himself
+    from actual starving; sell them at the Reindeer repository in
+    Mountrath Court for five shillings apiece, and steal out of the
+    college at night to hear them sung.
+
+    "Happy night, to him worth all the dreary days! Hidden by some dusky
+    wall, or creeping within darkling shadows of the ill-lighted streets,
+    this poor neglected sizar watched, waited, lingered, listened there,
+    for the only effort of his life which had not wholly failed. Few and
+    dull perhaps the beggar's audience at first, but more thronging,
+    eager, and delighted as he shouted forth his newly-gotten ware;
+    cracked enough, I doubt not, were those ballad singing tunes; nay,
+    harsh, extremely discordant, and passing from loud to low without
+    meaning or melody; but not the less did the sweetest music which this
+    earth affords fall with them on the ear of Goldsmith. Gentle faces,
+    pleased old men, stopping by the way; young lads, venturing a purchase
+    with their last remaining farthing; why here was a world in little
+    with its fame at the sizar's feet! 'The greater world will be
+    listening one day,' perhaps he muttered as he turned with a lighter
+    heart to his dull home."
+
+Johnson's sympathy with Goldsmith was, no doubt, warmed and quickened by
+the remembrance of his own early struggles with the foul fiend
+impecuniosity. He remembered well enough his first London lodging in
+Exeter Street, Strand, when, as he said, "I dined very well for
+eightpence, with very good company, at the Pine Apple in New Street fast
+by. Several of them had travelled, they expected to meet every day; but
+they did not know one another's names. It used to cost the rest a
+shilling, for they drank wine; but I had a cut of meat for sixpence, and
+bread for a penny, so that I was quite well served, nay, better than the
+rest, for they gave the waiter nothing."
+
+Johnson used to relate of an Irish painter, that he, the painter,
+practically realised a theory that L30 a year was enough to enable a man
+to live there without being contemptible. He allowed L10 for clothes and
+linen. He said, "A man might live in a garret at eighteen pence a week.
+Few people would inquire where he lodged; and if they did it was easy to
+say, 'Sir, I am to be found at such a place.' By spending threepence in a
+coffee-house, he might be for some hours in very good company; he might
+dine for sixpence, breakfast on bread and milk for a penny, and do without
+supper. On clean shirt day he could go abroad and pay visits."
+
+I have already quoted the Doctor's views on the subject of impecuniosity,
+and this reminds me of a very suggestive incident of his life, which
+perhaps will prove better than anything else the non-desirability of want
+of means. It is unquestionable that in his marvellous dictionary, there
+are parts that are much superior to others, which has been accounted for
+by the fact that he was paid for the work as it progressed--the publisher
+paying him as his "copy" was delivered. Consequently, when his purse was
+full, he worked away _con amore_, and produced the best result; but on the
+purse growing empty, as those mercenary creditors will do, the Doctor
+worked hurriedly, aiming at making as much "copy" as possible, so as to
+replenish his failing treasury.
+
+Thomas Cooper, author of the 'Purgatory of Suicides,' who also found out
+by severe experience the cheapest way of living in London, tells in his
+autobiography how, after having been at Lincoln as reporter, journalist,
+and miscellaneous literary man, he with his wife left that city for
+London. He says:
+
+    "On the 1st of June, 1839, we got on the stage-coach with our boxes of
+    books at Stamford, and away I went to make my first venture in London.
+    We lodged in Elliott's Row, Southwark; I earned five pounds by
+    contributing reviews and prose sketches to some papers having but an
+    ephemeral existence. I had other ventures and adventures in a small
+    way; but it would weary any mortal man to recite; and the recital
+    would only be one which has been often told already, by poor literary
+    adventurers. The very little I could bring to London was soon gone,
+    and then I had to sell my books. I happily turned into Chancery Lane
+    and asked Mr. Lumley to buy my beautifully-bound 'Tasso' and 'Don
+    Belleanis of Greece,' a small quarto black-letter romance, which I had
+    bought of an auctioneer in Gainsboro', who knew nothing of its value.
+    Mr. Lumley gave me liberal prices, wished I could bring him more such
+    books, and conversed with me very kindly. We were often at 'low-water
+    mark' now in our fortunes; but my dear wife and I never suffered
+    ourselves to sink into low spirits. Our experience, we cheerily said,
+    was a part of London adventure, and who did not know that adventurers
+    in London often underwent great trials before success was reached? We
+    strolled out together in the evenings all over London, making
+    ourselves acquainted with its highways and byways, and always finding
+    something to interest us in its streets and shop-windows. Every book I
+    brought from Lincolnshire, and I had had about 500 volumes great and
+    small, had been sold by degrees, and at last I was obliged to enter a
+    pawnshop. Spare articles of clothing, and my father's old silver
+    watch, 'went up the spout,' as the experience goes of those who most
+    sorrowfully know what it means. Travelling-cloak, large box, hat-box,
+    and every box or movable that could be spared in any possible way, had
+    'gone to our uncle's,' and we saw ourselves on the very verge of
+    being reduced to threadbare suits when deliverance came. I had been in
+    London from the evening of 11th June, 1839, until near the end of
+    March, 1840, when I answered an advertisement respecting the
+    editorship of a country paper printed in London. I went to the
+    printing office in Great Windmill Street, Haymarket, and was engaged
+    at a salary of L3 per week; the paper was the _Kentish Mercury_."
+
+Very similar was the experience of Robert Southey, who, disowned by
+friends, and without money, came to London seeking literary employment, in
+which alone he found content and happiness.
+
+    "For it," say his biographers, Messrs. Austin and Ralph, "he
+    sacrificed proffered rank and power; and joyfully devoted to its
+    service a toiling life of unexampled industry. Yet this man so wedded
+    to his absorbing vocation, in the social capacity of husband, father,
+    relative, and friend, stands above reproach.
+
+    "His life is one emphatic denial of the daring falsehood, that genius
+    and virtue are incompatible.
+
+    "England knew not a happier circle than that which for years assembled
+    by the humble hearthstone at Greta Hall. It is refreshing to turn
+    aside from the world and contemplate that peaceful home, nestling amid
+    the Cumberland Mountains."
+
+Such an opinion again hardly fits in with that of Thackeray already
+quoted.
+
+    "On Friday, October 18th, 1794, his aunt, Miss Tyler, turned him out
+    of doors on a stormy night, and without a penny in his pocket. He made
+    his way on foot, through wind and driving rain, along the dark country
+    roads to Bath. Without any visible resource he was thrown upon the
+    world, and as he paced the streets, weary, footsore, and sick at
+    heart, he dreamed of the lofty things in literature he would strive to
+    accomplish, now that he was his own master, with a will unfettered by
+    a care for wishes other than his own, and of the pride that would glow
+    within the swelling bosom of the fair Edith of his love, for whose
+    dear sake he had submitted to be thus cast adrift. An uncle from
+    Portugal wished to take him back with him to that country. 'My Edith
+    persuades me to go,' said he, 'and yet weeps at my going.' And we are
+    told how sadly after their secret marriage in Redcliffe Church, his
+    maiden wife watched his departure with the wedding-ring she was afraid
+    to wear suspended round her neck."
+
+In Southey's life by his son, we read that he had recourse under the
+pressure of impecuniosity to delivering lectures at Bristol, and the
+following prospectus is quoted:--
+
+
+    "Robert Southey, of Balliol College, Oxford, proposes to read a course
+    of Historical Lectures in the following order:--1st. Introductory on
+    the Origin and Progress of Society; 2nd. Legislation of Solon and
+    Lycurgus; 3rd. State of Greece from the Persian War to the Dissolution
+    of the Achaian League; 4th. Rise, Progress, and Decay of the Roman
+    Empire; 5th. Progress of Christianity; 6th. Manners and Irruptions of
+    the Northern Nations; Growth of the European States; Feudal System,
+    and other equally abstruse subjects."
+
+The lectures were given in 1795, tickets for the course, 10_s._ 6_d._,
+sold at Cottle's, bookseller, High Street.
+
+Southey stated about this time that if he and Coleridge could get L150 a
+year between them, they would marry and retire into the country.
+
+Another of these friendless dreamers who came to London, seeking literary
+employment and reputation, was George Borrow, the famous author of 'Romany
+Rye,' 'The Bible in Spain,' 'Wild Wales,' etc., the son of a military
+officer. He was born in Norfolk, early in the present century, and began
+life at the desk of a solicitor at Norwich. Becoming disgusted with that
+life, he started off with his stick and bundle to walk to London, where
+with his knowledge of languages he hoped to have no difficulty in earning
+a living. Reaching the great metropolis, he found out Sir Richard
+Phillips, editor and proprietor of the _Monthly Magazine_, who suggested
+that the young literary adventurer should devote himself to the writing of
+Newgate lives and trials. Having spent his loose cash in buying books on
+the subject, he went carefully to work. Sir Richard Phillips wanted less
+care and more expedition.
+
+Borrow sent in his copy too slowly to please his exacting and overbearing
+employer, whose parsimony was only equalled by his greediness. He was paid
+in bills subject to discount, and led altogether a very wretched life. One
+morning he awoke with the disagreeable conviction that his plight had
+grown desperate, only half-a-crown remaining in his purse. Wandering out
+disconsolately, he saw a bill in the shop window of a bookseller, giving
+notice that a "novel or tale was much wanted," went to his garret, and
+after a meal of bread and water, began to write a fictitious biography of
+'Joseph Tell.' At this he continued to work unceasingly, day after day,
+eating nothing but bread, drinking only water, until on the fifth day the
+story was finished. And none too soon, for after he had laid aside the
+pen, want of rest and nourishment had so exhausted him that he swooned
+away. He had threepence left, and to reinvigorate him after he had left
+his MS., he spent the whole of that sum at one fell swoop on bread and
+milk, and went to bed penniless. When he called, the bookseller was
+willing to buy the novel, and after some haggling over the price, gave him
+twenty pounds for it, a sum which was as veritable a godsend to him as the
+price of the 'Vicar of Wakefield' was to Oliver Goldsmith.
+
+Borrow's incessant writing reminds me of the incessant reading of the
+poet, Gerald Massey, who was born in 1828, near Tring, in Herts, in a
+little stone hovel, the rent of which was one shilling per week. His
+father was a poor canal boatman, who supported himself and family on ten
+shillings per week, and could not of course afford to give Gerald any
+opportunities of educating himself. As soon as he had attained his eighth
+year, he was set to work at a silk-mill, beginning work at five in the
+morning, and quitting it at half-past six in the evening, for a weekly
+wage of 1_s._ 9_d._ He was fifteen years of age when he came to London and
+obtained employment as an errand-boy, and having taught himself to read,
+eagerly devoured every book, paper, and magazine that was within his
+reach.
+
+Says Massey himself:
+
+    "Now I began to think that the course of all desire and the sum of all
+    existence was to read and get knowledge. Read, read, read. I used to
+    read at all possible times and all possible places; up in bed till two
+    or three in the morning, nothing daunted by once setting the bed on
+    fire. Greatly indebted was I to the bookstalls, where I have read a
+    great deal, often folding a leaf in a book, and returning the next day
+    to continue the subject; but sometimes the book was gone, and then
+    great was my grief. When out of a situation I have often gone without
+    a meal to purchase a book."
+
+Another English poet who sprang from as low an origin, and who as a boy
+was as uneducated as Massey, was John Clare, known as the Northamptonshire
+poet. He was born at Helpston, a village near Peterboro', in 1793. His
+father was a poverty-stricken farm labourer, a cripple, unable to exist
+without occasional help from the parish, and whose struggle to keep the
+most wretched of homes, and supply potatoes and water gruel for food, was
+a ceaseless and desperate one. For all that, when the sickly little fellow
+Jack was old enough for school, the few pence requisite for sending him
+there were squeezed out of the poor father's weekly pittance, and when the
+boy's own paltry earnings in the fields began to come in, merely a few
+pence a week, he was sent to an evening school, the master of which
+allowed him the run of his little library, a privilege of which John
+enthusiastically and gratefully availed himself.
+
+Often his parents returning from work found the boy, after being at school
+till late, crouching down by the fire, and tracing in the faint glimmer of
+a burning log, incomprehensible signs upon bits of paper and even wood,
+too poor to buy paper of the coarsest kind. John was in the habit of
+picking up shreds of the same material, such as used by grocers and other
+tradesmen, and of scratching thereon signs and figures, sometimes with
+pencil, oftener with charcoal. Never were there more ungracious and
+unfavourable conditions for the study of arithmetic and algebra.
+
+A maternal uncle, footman to a lawyer at Wisbech, called one day at
+Helpston, and told the family there was a vacancy for a clerk in his
+master's office. John was to apply. The mother ransacked her scanty
+wardrobe, to try and give her son a decent appearance, made him a pair of
+breeches out of an old dress, and a waistcoat out of a shawl, and begged
+from village crones an old white necktie and a pair of old black woollen
+gloves. What he wore was very large and also ancient. His costume excited
+amazement as he went his way. He reached Wisbech by canal boat, saw his
+uncle, was taken to Mr. Councillor Bellamy, who, after inspecting the
+nephew, said, "Well, I may see him again." John, after staying a day or
+two with his uncle, then went back home and became serving lad at the Blue
+Bell, where he was treated well, and was able to pursue his beloved
+studies. There, too, he fell in love with Mary Joyce, daughter of a
+farmer, who forbade his daughter to have anything to do with the beggar
+boy, so he carved her name on every tree.
+
+At this time occurred a great event in the poet's life, one ever to be
+remembered with a quickening pulse and a sense of mighty triumph. He had
+read Thomson's 'Seasons,' which had been described to him as only a
+trumpery book which could be bought for 1_s._ 6_d._ at Stamford. John had
+only sixpence, and his wages were not due. He went to his father for a
+shilling. Hopeless chance! His mother was also tried for that amount, and
+by superhuman exertion she raised sevenpence; the fraction remaining and
+required was raised at the Blue Bell. The day of the purchase came. Unable
+to sleep through excitement, he was up before daybreak, and started off
+for Stamford in hot haste. A six or seven mile walk was as nothing to the
+ardent lad, and he arrived before the bookseller's shop he was seeking had
+its shutters down. He waited and waited, and you can imagine his dismay
+when at last he found that the shop never opened at all that day. So he
+went back to Helpston. By the way a bright thought occurred. By making a
+tremendous effort he obtained twopence more--proposed to a cowherd boy
+that for one penny he should look after the cattle, and for another penny
+keep the secret that he was going away for a few hours. Monday morning
+arrived, and his confederate. John soon walked the eight miles to
+Stamford. Bookseller's shop closed. John sat on the doorstep and waited.
+Directly the door opened, the poor, thin, haggard country boy, with wild
+gleaming eyes, rushed to him for a copy of the 'Seasons.' The tradesman
+asked questions. John told his story in hurried words, and the bookseller
+said that he would let him have a copy for a shilling. "Keep the sixpence,
+my boy," said the man, and away went John. In Barnack Park, amidst some
+thick shrubs, John Clare read the book. He did not know how to give vent
+to his happiness, but he had a pencil and a piece of coarse crumpled paper
+in his pocket, and on that he wrote his poem the 'Morning Walk.'
+
+The remainder of Clare's life presents nothing specially remarkable beyond
+the fact that he was throughout it curiously unlucky; and though from time
+to time he met with good friends, misfortune had marked him for her own,
+and eventually, through brooding over some unsuccessful commercial
+enterprises, his mind gave way.
+
+From John Clare to George Gordon Noel, Lord Byron, is a far cry; the
+former being purely a small pastoral poet, the latter impurely a great
+genius. _A propos_ of being involved and being indebted to the children of
+Israel for supplies, his lordship wrote:
+
+  "In my young days they lent me cash that way,
+  Which I found very troublesome to pay."
+
+Tom Moore says that Byron's marriage with the daughter of Sir Ralph
+Milbank was contracted in the hope that her dowry would extricate him from
+his monetary difficulties, but it apparently only increased his misery,
+and, notwithstanding the serious reason for their separation, as given by
+Mrs. Beecher Stowe, there is no doubt debt had a considerable share in
+bringing it about, for "during the first year of his marriage his house
+was nine times in the possession of bailiffs, his door almost daily beset
+by duns, and he was only saved from gaol by the privileges of his rank."
+
+Coming down to the more modern school of writers, it is especially
+noticeable that the circumstances connected with their impecuniosity are
+much less sombre in character than those of the like previous age. Douglas
+Jerrold, the novelist, dramatist and essayist, contributes an amusing
+reminiscence in connection with the first money he earned, a story which
+he himself was wont to relate with great delight in after years. At the
+time of the incident the young fellow's home was far from cheerful; his
+mother and sister were away (in all probability acting in the provinces),
+and he and his father were the sole occupants of the lodgings. Old Mr.
+Jerrold was weak and ailing, and anything but good company for the
+high-spirited, happy-natured boy, who eventually developed into one of the
+most witty and satirical authors of his time. The picture of the poor old
+gentleman sitting helplessly in the corner, when the wants of the family
+so needed a strong arm to work for them, was undoubtedly depressing; but
+the dreary monotony was broken on the day when Douglas Jerrold returned
+home excitedly jubilant with his first earnings as an apprentice. A
+thorough Englishman, he naturally thought the occasion must be celebrated
+by a dinner and at once proceeded to purchase the ingredients of a
+beef-steak pie. When he returned, amply repaid for the money he had
+expended by the proud satisfaction visible on his father's face, he was
+met by rather a serious difficulty. It was true the materials for the dish
+were all there, but who was to make the delicacy? Mr. Jerrold, senior, was
+incapable, and there was, therefore, nothing for it but for the boy to
+turn to and try his hand at a crust. He did so, and amidst much merriment
+the pie was made, taken to the baker's, and eaten by the happy pair (at
+any rate, happy on that occasion), with a relish and pleasure no doubt far
+in excess of that experienced at many of those grander banquets which he
+afterwards graced by his presence. It is said by his son that "the memory
+of this day always remained vivid to him. There was an odd kind of humour
+about it that tickled him. It so thoroughly illustrated his notions on
+independence that he could not forbear from dwelling again and again on
+it among his friends."
+
+There is no doubt that Douglas Jerrold cherished the memory of this
+honourable impecuniosity as he did everything else that was noble and
+pure, for in his slashing satire levelled against those meaningless
+decorations or orders of the wealthy he clearly shows his lasting sympathy
+for poverty with honour. He says: "The Order of Poverty--how many
+sub-orders might it embrace! As the spirit of Gothic chivalry has its
+fraternities, so might the Order of Poverty have its distinct devices." He
+then goes on to enumerate the nobility and dignity of labour exemplified
+in the cases of the peasant, the shepherd, the weaver, the potter, and
+other callings, not neglecting even the pauper, of whom he writes:--
+
+    "And here is a pauper, missioned from the workhouse to break stones at
+    the roadside. How he strikes and strikes at that unyielding bit of
+    flint! Is it not the stony heart of the world's injustice knocked at
+    by poverty? What haggardness is in his face! What a blight hangs about
+    him! There are more years in his looks than in his bones. Time has
+    marked him with an iron pen. He wailed as a babe for bread his father
+    was not allowed to earn. He can recollect every dinner--they were so
+    few--of his childhood. He grew up, and want was with him, even as his
+    shadow. He has shivered with cold, fainted with hunger. His every-day
+    life has been set about by goading wretchedness.
+
+    "Around him, too, were the stores of plenty. Food, raiment, and money
+    mocked the man half-mad--mad with destitution. Yet, with a valorous
+    heart, a proud conquest of the shuddering spirit, he walked with
+    honesty and starved. His long journey of life has been through stormy
+    places, and now he sits upon a pile of stones on the wayside, breaking
+    them for workhouse bread. Could loftiest chivalry show greater
+    heroism, nobler self-control, than this old man--this weary breaker of
+    flints? Shall he not be of the Order of Poverty? Is not penury to him
+    even as a robe of honour? His grey workhouse coat braver than purple
+    and miniver? He shall be Knight of the Granite if you will. A
+    workhouse gem, indeed--a wretched highway jewel--yet, to the eye of
+    truth, finer than many a ducal diamond.... And so, indeed, in the mind
+    of wisdom, is poverty ennobled. And for the Knights of the Golden
+    Calf, how are they outnumbered! Let us then revive the Order of
+    Poverty. Ponder, reader, on its antiquity! For was not Christ Himself
+    Chancellor of the Order, and the Apostles Knight Companions?"
+
+Although Douglas Jerrold may be best remembered by the many for his
+felicitous epigrams and wondrous wit, it should be borne in mind that he
+contributed materially to the high tone that now prevails in our
+literature. The fine spirit was touched to fine issues, and the influences
+which he aided by his life will be his enduring bequest to the future. He
+was, like Dickens, constantly at war with abuses, ever writing with a
+purpose, and always aiming to crush tyranny, injustice, or some kindred
+social monster. Like Dickens, he delighted in assisting the cause of the
+poor and weak, which characteristic, so conspicuous in both, may be
+accounted for by the impecunious surroundings in which they were both
+reared.
+
+With regard to Charles Dickens, undeniably the most popular novelist of
+this century, and generally considered to be one of the greatest
+humourists we have ever had, it would seem as if we had to thank
+impecuniosity for much of his marvellous characterisation; and though he
+bitterly deplored the want of early education and proper home-training, it
+is possible that but for the hardness of his youthful lot he might never
+have developed the faculty of observation to the extent he did. From the
+needy circumstances of his parents he was compelled from very early years
+to think for himself; and this is, according to John Forster, what he
+thought of his father:--
+
+    "He was proud of me in his way, and had a great admiration of the
+    comic singing. But in the ease of his temper and the straitness of his
+    means he appeared to have utterly lost at this time the idea of
+    educating me at all, and to have put from him the notion that I had
+    any claim upon him in that regard whatever. So I degenerated into
+    cleaning his boots of a morning and my own, and making myself useful
+    in the work of the little house, and looking after my younger brothers
+    and sisters (we were now six in all), and going on such poor errands
+    as arose out of our poor way of living."
+
+After his father's arrest for debt and his incarceration in the Marshalsea
+(particulars of which are so graphically described in 'David
+Copperfield'), Charles Dickens, when little more than ten years of age,
+was placed at a blacking manufactory, where he earned the sum of six
+shillings per week, and which is thus described by him:--
+
+    "The blacking warehouse was the last house on the left hand side of
+    the way, at old Hungerford Stairs. It was a crazy tumble-down old
+    house abutting, of course, on the river, and literally overrun with
+    rats. The wainscotted rooms and its rotten floors and staircase and
+    the old grey rats swarming down in the cellars, and the sound of their
+    squeaking and scuffling coming up the stairs at all times, and the
+    dirt and decay of the place, rise up visibly before me as if I were
+    there again. My work was to cover the pots of paste blacking first
+    with a piece of oil paper and then with a piece of blue paper, to tie
+    them round with a string, and then to clip the paper close and neat
+    all round, until it looked as smart as a pot of ointment from an
+    apothecary's shop. When a certain number of grosses of pots had
+    attained this pitch of perfection, I was to paste on each a printed
+    label, and then go on again with more pots."
+
+With regard to the way he lived at this time, he says:
+
+    "Usually I either carried my dinner with me or went and bought it at
+    some neighbouring shop. In the latter case it was commonly a saveloy
+    and a penny loaf, and sometimes a fourpenny plate of beef from a
+    cookshop, sometimes a plate of bread and cheese and a glass of beer
+    from a miserable old public-house over the way--the 'Swan,' if I
+    remember right, or the Swan and something else that I have forgotten.
+    Once I remember tucking my own bread (which I had brought from home in
+    the morning) under my arm, wrapped up in a piece of paper like a book,
+    and going into the best dining-room in Johnson's Alamode Beef House in
+    Charles' Court, Drury Lane, and magnificently ordering a small plate
+    of Alamode beef to eat with it. What the waiter thought of such a
+    strange little apparition coming in all alone, I don't know, but I can
+    see him now staring at me as I ate my dinner, and bringing up the
+    other waiter to look. I gave him a halfpenny, and I wish now that he
+    had not taken it."
+
+Soon after Dickens entered upon his engagement at the uncongenial blacking
+establishment, his mother's home was broken up and she joined his father
+in the debtors' prison, and Master Charles was then placed with a Mrs.
+Roylance at Camden Town, with whom he lodged for some time, boarding
+himself on his six shillings a week, which he apparently found by no means
+an easy job, as his appetite seems to have troubled him considerably by
+this.
+
+    "I was so young and childish and so little qualified--how could I be
+    otherwise?--to undertake the whole charge of my own existence, that in
+    going to Hungerford Stairs of a morning I could not resist the stale
+    pastry put out at half price on trays at the confectioner's doors in
+    Tottenham Court Road. I often spent in that the money I should have
+    kept for my dinner. Then I went without my dinner, or bought a roll or
+    a slice of pudding. There were two pudding shops between which I was
+    divided according to my finances. One was in a court close to St.
+    Martin's Church (at the back of the church), which is now removed
+    altogether. The pudding at that shop was made with currants, and was
+    rather a special pudding, but was dear: two penn'orth not being larger
+    than a penn'orth of more ordinary pudding. A good shop for the latter
+    was in the Strand, somewhere near where the Lowther Arcade is now. It
+    was a stout, hale pudding, heavy and flabby, with great raisins in it
+    stuck in whole, at great distances apart. It came up hot, at about
+    noon every day, and many and many a day did I dine off it. I know I do
+    not exaggerate, unconsciously and unintentionally, the scantiness of
+    my resources and the difficulties of my life. I know that if a
+    shilling or so were given me by any one I spent it in a dinner or a
+    tea. I know that I worked from morning to night with common men and
+    boys, a shabby child. I know that I tried, but ineffectually, not to
+    anticipate my money, and to make it last the week through, by putting
+    it away in a drawer I had in the counting-house, wrapped into six
+    little parcels, each parcel containing the same amount, and labelled
+    with a different day. I know that I have lounged about the streets
+    insufficiently and unsatisfactorily fed. I know that, but for the
+    mercy of God, I might easily have been, for any care that was taken of
+    me, a little robber or a little vagabond."
+
+Contemporary with Dickens figured another popular writer of light fiction,
+who, though perhaps a trifle jollier and more genial in his fun, cannot
+claim to be placed in the same category with the immortal author of
+'Nicholas Nickleby,' 'A Tale of Two Cities,' etc. etc. I allude to Albert
+Smith, who whether detailing on paper "The Adventures of Mr. Ledbury" or
+recounting to an audience at the Egyptian Hall his "Ascent of Mont Blanc,"
+was always extremely amusing.
+
+Owing to a slight similarity in the style of their writing it sometimes
+happened that unfortunate comparisons were made between the two men, when
+naturally poor Albert Smith suffered. For instance, when a friend speaking
+of the two authors to Douglas Jerrold said, that as humourists Charles
+Dickens and Albert Smith "rowed in the same boat," Jerrold replied with
+more or less warmth, "True, they do row in the same boat, but with very
+different skulls." Unlike Dickens, Albert Smith was not practically
+acquainted with absolute poverty, though at times as a student there is no
+doubt he was familiar with that condition known as "rather short of
+funds," and his account of an Alpine journey made on the most economical
+principles may be cited as curious and not unconnected with impecuniosity.
+
+In September 1838 he started from Paris for Chamounix with another equally
+humbly appointed traveller, who like himself intended to do the grand
+Alpine tour with L12, which was to pay for travelling expenses and board
+and lodging for five weeks. They carried their money in five-franc pieces,
+stuffed in leathern belts round their waists, bought two old military
+knapsacks at three francs each, and two pairs of hobnailed shoes at five
+and a half francs each. Before starting they made a good breakfast at a
+_cafe_ and obtained from the cook a dozen hard-boiled eggs for the
+journey, supplying themselves also with a _litre_ of _vin ordinaire_, a
+flat bottle of brandy, and a leathern cup that folded up. Opposition
+_diligences_ were running on the road from Paris to Geneva, and for two
+pounds they secured seats on one which took seventy-eight successive
+hours--_i.e._, from 8 o'clock on Friday morning till 2 P.M. on the
+following Monday. On arriving at the place where the other passengers
+lunched at a cost of three francs, Smith and his friend regaled themselves
+on their eggs, with the addition of some bread and pears bought in the
+town, which place they inspected while their fellow-travellers were
+luxuriating over their _dejeuner_. When dinner-time came, instead of
+patronising the hotel, they repaired to a more humble restaurant, and for
+24 sous each obtained all that they required. At night they crept under
+the tarpaulin roof of the _diligence_, stacked all the luggage on each
+side, and collecting some straw, on which they reclined, slept tolerably
+well. In the morning they walked on before the conveyance started, bathed
+in the river, and after breakfast (managed in the same inexpensive way),
+were picked up by the diligence. In this manner they travelled for the
+three days, observing pretty much the same routine (except on the Sunday,
+when they washed at the fountain in the market-place at Dole, to the great
+delight and amusement of a party of girls, who lent them towels and a huge
+piece of soap), their expenses for the journey to Geneva being L2 12_s._
+6_d._ each. As a specimen of how they managed to do and see so much on so
+very little: at Arpenay, where a cannon is fired to produce a certain
+marvellous echo, they simply waited until a party more capable of paying
+for such a luxury arrived, and then availed themselves of the opportunity.
+
+On the same principle, when starting for the Mer de Glace they followed a
+party at some little distance, and by this means dispensed with the
+services of a guide. They bathed on the top of the Foxlay, and there in
+the springs, washed their linen, spreading their things on the stones
+afterwards to dry; and in such way the Alpine tour was made by the two
+friends completely, safely, and without exceeding the amount of funds they
+possessed.
+
+Scarcely so honourable, though a trifle more exciting, is a reminiscence
+related of the late Robert Brough, more generally known to those who were
+acquainted with him and loved him dearly as Bob Brough. Unfortunately he
+was a man who was unable to make his income and expenditure balance:
+whether it was that the former was too small, or the latter too large, it
+matters not; but as a natural consequence, debt and difficulty were his
+constant companions. At one time when things had been going very badly
+(that is, in all probability to mine uncle's) he found it necessary to
+seek a more congenial clime. England was found to be unpleasantly hot,
+owing to the warm attention of a money-lending creditor, and foreign
+travel was known to be absolutely imperative. The proprietor of the
+_Sunday Times_ being made acquainted with the circumstances commissioned
+him to write a series of articles, to be entitled "Brussels Sprouts."
+Desirous of executing the commission, and longing for a dip in the sea, he
+started off to Ostend, and on arriving there, was not long in going
+through the preliminaries of taking "a header." He took it, but to his
+horror on coming to the surface he met with what is slangily termed a
+"facer," for he found himself face to face with the identical creditor
+from whom he was fleeing. "Oh, this is the way my money goes, is it! I'll
+lock you up, you----" began the money-lender, but before the sentence was
+finished Brough dived again, swam to shore, secured his luggage, started
+for Paris, and left the "Brussels Sprouts" to take care of themselves.
+
+As I commenced this chapter by quoting the somewhat ungenerous strictures
+of Thackeray on his unhappy brethren, it will be a fitting termination to
+close with an incident of impecuniosity connected with his life, which
+circumstance, by the way, was caused by no fault of his. How could it have
+been? He was so terribly correct and proper! However, when sojourning on
+one occasion in France, he had the misfortune to be robbed of his purse,
+and immediately wrote off to a relative for fresh supplies. In the
+meantime he borrowed a ten-pound note, which he spent in little more than
+a week, thinking he should by that time be in possession of a remittance
+from his aunt. But no remittance came. He then humorously describes the
+horrors that arose in his mind as day after day passed on and there was no
+response from England. His intense desire for a frothy pot of beer,
+ungratified of course from his impecunious state, his alarm lest the
+landlord should present his bill, and his forebodings when passing a
+prison-house, with his elation of spirits when the long-delayed cheque at
+length arrived, are presented with all the charm of comedy and the
+interest of romance, and playfully alluded to in these four lines:--
+
+  "My heart is weary, my peace is gone,
+    How shall I e'er my woes reveal?
+  I have no money, I lie in pawn,
+    A stranger in the town of Lille."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE ROMANCE OF IMPECUNIOSITY.
+
+
+Although at first sight the condition of impecuniosity seems more
+calculated to produce practicality, and render persons matter-of-fact, in
+the foregoing chapters there have not been wanting illustrations to prove
+that impecuniosity has been responsible for some romance. The case of
+Angelica Kauffman may be taken as an example. Owing to the poverty of her
+father she was compelled to accept the hospitality of an English peer in
+Switzerland, who insulted her, and afterwards, when unable to obtain a
+favourable reception of his suit, in revenge induced a married adventurer
+to make love to and marry her. This was romantic, without question, and
+undoubtedly attributable to want of money, as but for that she would never
+have been brought in contact with the disgraceful nobleman in question.
+
+When we remember, however, how impecuniosity has been produced, how that
+it has been brought about by misfortune, extravagance, heroism, want of
+principle, want of foresight, inadequacies of justice, eccentricity of
+character, extreme benevolence of disposition, and by other equally varied
+causes, it is not surprising that there should be found considerable
+connection between it and romance, more especially as the consequences of
+the condition have been crime of every description, from comparatively
+venial offences against society to the universally reprobated sins of
+forgery and murder. Again, the strange and unexpected means by which
+people have been delivered from their impecuniosity savours strongly of
+the unreal, of the world of fiction rather than of the world of fact. But
+that real life is prolific of romance has long been acknowledged by all
+but those whose knowledge of human life is small, and whose ignorance of
+history is entire. As the poet pithily puts it--
+
+        "Truth is always strange,
+  Stranger than fiction: if it could be told,
+  How much would novels gain by the exchange."
+
+Admitting this, and judging from the facts that we are possessed of, what
+marvellously romantic deeds must impecuniosity have been connected with
+that will never be recorded!--devoted deeds of self-sacrifice that will
+never be known to any save the sufferers! Not long since I read in a
+popular periodical of something suggestively similar. A girl on the way to
+join her husband, to whom she has been only married by the Scotch law,
+learns by accident that her marriage alone stands between her husband and
+a fortune. Circumstances so happening that she can make it appear credible
+that she was on board a vessel that was lost, she does so, believing that
+by her renunciation she is giving up "all for him." "Truth is stranger
+than fiction," and it follows, therefore, that such instances of
+self-abnegation induced by impecuniosity have been and will be found. But
+to facts.
+
+I have included in the list of the causes of impecuniosity the want of
+foresight, and this is painfully instanced by the story of a poor old
+woman at Plymouth, who did not like the formality, or could not afford the
+expense, of having a will prepared. Being exceedingly ill, she thought she
+would like to leave her little property--furniture, a small amount of
+money, and household movables--to her neighbours and acquaintances. This
+wish _viva voce_ she practically carried out. Of her own proper authority
+she gave and willed away chairs and tables to one, her bed to this friend,
+her cloak to that, money, utensils, nicknacks, to others. Crones,
+housewives, and young women gathered sympathetically around her, and soon
+carried away the various things bequeathed to them. It was not long after
+they had departed that she unexpectedly recovered from her illness, and
+sent to have her things back again, but not one of them could she get, and
+she was left without a rag to cover her or a friend to give her a kind
+word.
+
+Strange as was this circumstance, here is something surpassing strange,
+being the romantic record of one who was literally "a funny beggar."
+
+Less than half a century since there used to be seen on the Quai des
+Celestines in Paris a mendicant holding in one hand some lucifer-matches.
+Wan, self-possessed, scantily but neatly attired, there were in the
+beggar's visage traces of refinement and good breeding. Round his neck was
+a loop of black silk ribbon, to which was suspended a piece of pasteboard
+having an inscription to the effect that the wearer was a poor man, and
+craved relief on the plea that "_he had lived longer than he should_."
+
+The petitioner's history was a singular one. Jules Andre Gueret, when
+twenty-five years old, became the possessor of a large fortune. He
+remained a bachelor, and turned his estate into hard cash. An epicurean, a
+man of some taste, and a bit of a philosopher, he began a calculation to
+ascertain how he could best enjoy himself. Making no investments, he kept
+his cash at home. Gueret came to the conclusion that a sober man's life
+averaged seventy years, but that a pleasure-seeking, gay man's life might
+only last fifty-five or sixty years. He then divided his finances into so
+many equal portions. Each portion was to be an annual allowance, the
+pleasure-seeker arranging that the money should last five-and-thirty
+years. Gueret, in conclusion, made a compact with himself that if he lived
+beyond sixty years of age, suicide would prevent his suffering ills at the
+hands of poverty. But when turned sixty years of age, and when his money
+was exhausted, either love of life or fear of death prevented the once gay
+and opulent Gueret from committing self-destruction. It will be seen that
+it was a terribly true inscription on the bit of pasteboard hanging from
+the neck of the beggar haunting the Quai des Celestines.
+
+The vicissitudes of Gueret were obviously self-created, and _a propos_ of
+a man's idiosyncrasy impelling him on to impecuniosity, there is hardly a
+more curious illustration to be found than that contained in the biography
+of Combe, the author of the 'Adventures of Dr. Syntax.' This man was a
+born eccentric, perverse, whimsical, and humorous. Possessing natural
+gifts, and the heir to a large fortune, he frittered away his mental
+resources, wasted his patrimony, and often committed acts worthy of the
+simpleton or lunatic. He went through the curriculum of Eton and Oxford,
+and by the refinements of his taste and the elegance of his manners won
+the title of "Duke Combe." In a comparatively short period, by his
+prodigality and reckless expenditure he was reduced to penury, and finding
+no means of subsistence, enlisted as a private in the army. While in the
+ranks he was reading one day, when an officer passing him managed to see
+the book, which was a copy of Horace. "My friend," said the officer, "is
+it possible that you can read Horace in the original?" "If I cannot," said
+Combe, "a great deal of money has been thrown away on my education."
+
+Escaping from the English army, he joined the French service, and again
+fleeing, he entered a French monastery, remaining there until he had
+passed his noviciate. He subsequently left the Continent and became a
+waiter in South Wales. On several occasions, while in that capacity, he
+met with acquaintances whom he had known in college days, but he was never
+embarrassed even when seen tripping along with a napkin under his arm.
+
+Combe afterwards married an amiable and devoted woman, and settled down
+for a time as an author. Some of his writings contained questionable
+morality, and others were of scurrilous and venal character. 'Letters from
+a Nobleman to his Son,' said to be by Lord Lyttelton, and 'Letters from an
+Italian Nun to an English Nobleman,' said to be by Rousseau, were both
+from the pen of "Duke Combe." At last he became an inmate of the King's
+Bench Prison, and he remained there several years. When a friend offered
+to make an arrangement with his creditors, he replied: "If I compounded
+with those to whom I owe money I should be obliged to give up the little I
+possess, and on which I can manage to live in prison. These rooms in the
+Bench are mine at a very few shillings a week in right of my seniority as
+a prisoner. My habits have become so sedentary, that if I lived in the
+airiest square of West-End London, I should not walk round it once a
+month. I am quite content with my cheap quarters."
+
+It was in the King's Bench Prison that Combe wrote for the publisher
+Ackerman, 'The Adventures of Dr. Syntax in Search of the Picturesque,'
+'The Dance of Life,' and 'The Dance of Death.'
+
+At one period of Combe's career Roger Kemble gave him a theatrical
+benefit, and Combe promised to speak an address on the occasion. There had
+been much gossip and many conjectures concerning his real name, history,
+and condition. To such gossip and conjectures he referred when he stood
+before the curtain, and in the presence of a crowded auditory. Then he
+added, "But now, ladies and gentlemen, I shall tell you who and what I
+am." There was an eager and expectant expression on the countenances
+before him. Combe paused--all present leaning forward to hear
+him--gathered himself up, as if for a great effort, and then said, "I am,
+ladies and gentlemen--your most obedient, humble servant."
+
+It is evident Combe's peculiar disposition was the cause of his peculiar
+circumstances. He was a perverse, whimsical man, rather than an
+unfortunate one, and it was much the same with the son of Lady Mary
+Wortley Montague, the Hon. Mr. Wortley Montague, notorious for his roving
+and adventurous disposition. When a boy he ran away from home, and became
+a chimney sweep. It is true that young Montague's father was cold in his
+manners and severe in his discipline to the lad, who in addition chafed
+under the somewhat stringent arrangements of the Westminster masters, for
+enforcing law and order amongst their pupils. At Westminster School,
+however, where the lad was placed in 1729, he at once showed himself
+brilliant and precocious, but vain, impatient of control, and of truant
+disposition. Reckless and petulant, he resolved to see the world, and
+without a single confidant, one day quitted the seminary, roamed the
+streets, and at night made his way into the fields about Chelsea, and
+there slept till morning. After a few days his stock of money became low,
+and while reading the newspapers over his tavern breakfast, he noticed in
+an advertisement an accurate description of his face, figure, and costume,
+with the notification that a handsome reward would be paid by his parents
+to recover their lost child. Hastily paying his bill, he made his way from
+the tavern, perambulated the streets, utterly at a loss how to act in
+order to shun the humiliation of meeting his father and mother, and of
+again having to undergo the restrictions of domestic and scholastic
+routine. Meeting a chimney-sweeper's apprentice, Montague entered into
+conversation with him and agreed to exchange clothes, which transformation
+was accomplished in an empty house. The truant was not satisfied yet, and
+actually accompanied the apprentice to his master's house for the purpose
+of trying to become a chimney-sweep himself. From motives of benevolence
+or cupidity the master sweep agreed to induct young Montague into the
+mysteries of cleansing flues, and the lad remained in his employment for
+some months.
+
+During the period of his connection with the "sooty trade" the
+aristocratic young truant went through many adventures and played many
+pranks. His roaming disposition, however, caused him to run away from his
+master, which he did without warning, and he soon found himself again
+walking about the streets of the metropolis, his money exhausted. He had
+but one thing left, a carefully-preserved watch, by which he could obtain
+the necessaries of life; driven to desperation, he walked into a
+jeweller's shop and offered the watch for sale. The proprietor was
+courteous but wary, and being suspicious that the lad had become possessed
+of the valuable article in a dishonest manner, took the opportunity of
+sending for a constable. Montague was arrested and conveyed to Bow Street,
+where the magistrate closely questioned the culprit. Young Montague, with
+the utmost frankness, gave an account of his strange and romantic
+adventures from the moment when he had quitted Westminster School. It was
+not long ere his parents were made acquainted with the particulars of
+their son's flight and safety, and the foolish wanderer was speedily taken
+back with caresses and delight. All was forgotten and forgiven, and in a
+few weeks Montague was reinstated in his old place at Westminster.
+
+It is said that what is bred in the bone comes out in the flesh, and it
+was not long before the crack-brained scholar again became unsettled.
+Through an older companion, young Montague sought the good offices of a
+knavish money-lender, who, making himself acquainted with the lad's
+position and prospects, advanced him a sum of money. With the loan he felt
+free to make another flight, and away he went to Newmarket. He was amused
+and delighted with the spectacle of horses, jockeys, and bruisers.
+Enjoying himself at an inn, he fell into the company of card-sharpers, who
+soon eased him of the guineas he had brought down from London. His
+position was unfortunate and perilous, but wandering out through the town,
+he encountered a friend of the family, who resolutely conveyed him back to
+his parents, who, as before, after due admonition, forgave him. The debt
+to the money-lender was paid, and the youngster again found himself
+surrounded by all the luxuries of an aristocratic home. But his restless
+spirit could not endure the harness of conventional life.
+
+Once more he sought the office of the usurer, who made the required
+advances, and he then made up his mind to taste the joys of sea voyages
+and the novelties of foreign travel. Making his way to Wapping, he struck
+up a friendship with the captain of a trading-vessel bound for Cadiz.
+Montague agreed to visit Cadiz with him, making the commander acquainted
+with the particulars of his history. The youth prepared for the journey,
+and thought that his last night in England should be a convivial one, and
+consequently ordered at one of the Wapping taverns a sumptuous supper. The
+landlord during the evening introduced some card-sharping rogues who
+proposed play, and in the course of an hour or two the son of Lady Mary
+had lost heavily. He was made drunk and taken away senseless to bed.
+
+When he came to himself in the morning he found that he had been robbed of
+everything, including his watch, and that he was utterly impotent to pay
+the heavy bill for the previous night's banquet. The landlord affected
+much indignation, and went out of the house under the pretence of
+procuring a constable. Young Montague was at his wit's end, when the
+hostess advised him to quit the tavern. Taking the hint, he hurried to the
+captain and told his story, and the captain intimated that he would seek
+the landlord. Captain James being a rogue, came to an understanding with
+the Wapping host, who agreed to hand over part of the spoil. James
+returned to the young dupe, and informed him that no redress could be
+afforded, but that if he liked he might work his way out to Cadiz. So
+Montague was the victim of both landlord and captain. During the voyage to
+Cadiz the youth underwent numerous trials and hardships. On landing at
+Cadiz he at once left Captain James and found himself in a foreign town
+without money and without friends. However, he found the Wapping
+card-sharpers had left him a pair of Mocoa sleeve-buttons set in gold, and
+having sold them he lived on the money for a few weeks. When that money
+was exhausted he happened to make the acquaintance of a muleteer, who,
+wanting a helper, found a ready and active one in the adventurous youth.
+All his subsequent adventures were of like irrational character, and he
+died of a fever contracted during foreign travel when a comparatively
+young man.
+
+I now turn to a pathetic story of poverty, in which the victim, but for
+the cruel deeds of a crafty and malignant woman, might have been
+surrounded by the auxiliaries of wealth and feudal splendour. Fortune
+occasionally plays strange pranks, and in the instance I am about to quote
+it will be seen that her caprices sometimes fall on unoffending and worthy
+men with pitiless and tremendous severity. More than two hundred and
+fifty years since a miserable bowed man might have been seen working about
+the fields and roads outside Leicester, doing that slavish and drudging
+work which falls to the lot of the English peasant. But for an unhappy
+episode connected with his ancestors he might have been summoned to dinner
+by sound of horn and taken his food from burnished silver. He was the heir
+of the famous Sir Robert Scott of Thirlestane, a cadet of the House of
+Buccleuch. Sir Robert Scott lived in the time of the sixth James of
+Scotland, and was a man of noble character, though of iron will and fiery
+blood, and little knew the awful cloud that gathered over his house when
+he married his second wife. Scott of Thirlestane had a son by his first
+marriage, and the heir was loved by the father with all the intensity and
+tenderness of a strong man's nature.
+
+From the time the second wife bore children to Sir Robert, she hated the
+stepson with unceasing and sleepless malignity. She saw that as long as he
+lived the future possessions of her own children would be but little. She
+was cruel, crafty, and unscrupulous: and her worst feelings were excited
+when she learned that Sir Robert proposed building a tower at Gamescleugh
+in honour of the young laird's majority. The father had also arranged a
+marriage for his son. The stepmother then entered upon plans to murder him
+on the occasion of the opening of the new castle, when a great festival
+was to take place. Her agent in the crime was John Lally, the family
+piper, who obtained three adders, from which he abstracted poison, and
+conveyed it to Lady Thirlestane, who mixed it with a bottle of wine. On
+the day of festivity the young laird inspected the tower and received from
+Lally's hand the poisoned wine in a silver flagon, and drank a hearty
+draught. In an hour the heir of the house of Thirlestane was dead, and
+Lally had fled no one knew whither. News of the heir's death soon reached
+the ears of the father, who had the alarm bugle sounded to call together
+his retainers. On the earl calling out to his assemblage, "Are we all
+here?" a voice answered, "Yes, all but John Lally, the piper." It was
+ominous, for the husband knew the confidence his wife placed in that
+retainer, and Sir Robert swooned. Strange was it that Sir Robert could not
+be induced to make a public example of his wife; but he announced to his
+friends that the estate belonged to his murdered son, who, if he could not
+enjoy it living, should enjoy it dead. The body of the heir was embalmed
+with drugs and spices, and laid out in state for a year and a day. For
+twelve months the unhappy father kept up one continuous round of costly
+and magnificent revels. Wine flowed like a river, and the scenes of
+carousal were of unprecedented extravagance. Soon after the funeral Sir
+Robert was borne to the grave and the family reduced to utter beggary. The
+stepmother wandered about an outcast and pauper, and in after years the
+heir of the Thirlestane family worked as a common ditcher, as I have
+described.
+
+A similar strange and pathetic story, in which it is shown that the
+innocent suffered for the guilty, is that of Sir John Dinely, who, at the
+beginning of the century, was one of the Poor Knights of Windsor. Dinely
+was a singularly eccentric and unfortunate man. He was often to be seen
+mysteriously creeping by the first light of a winter's morning through the
+great gate of the lower ward of Windsor Castle into the narrow back
+streets of the town. He used to wear a roquelaure, beneath which appeared
+a pair of thin legs encased in dirty silk stockings. In wet weather he
+carried a large umbrella and walked on pattens. He lived in one of the
+houses of the military knights, then called Poor Knights, to which body he
+belonged. Except the eccentric possessor, no human being entered his
+abode, and he dispensed with all domestic service. Dinely in the morning
+went forth to make his frugal purchases for the day--a faggot, a candle, a
+small loaf, and perhaps a herring. The Poor Knight of Windsor might have
+fared better, but every penny except those laid out for absolute
+necessaries of life was capitalised in the promotion of an absorbing and
+quixotic scheme. Regular attendance at St. George's Chapel was Dinely's
+duty; and the long blue mantle which the Poor Knights wore covered his
+shabby habiliments, as the dingy morning cloak hid red herrings and
+farthing candles.
+
+Such were some of the phases--sombre, squalid phases--of Sir John's
+existence. But there were periods when the Poor Knight assumed the
+externals of aristocratic opulence. The poor hunchback lover in the
+introduction to the pantomime, who, by the enchanter's wand in the
+transformation-scene, becomes the gay and spangled harlequin, typifies
+Dinely dressed for his marketing, and Dinely dressed for the promenade.
+Any circumstances drawing together a crowd at Windsor, whether the
+presence of royalty, the attractions of the military parade, or of the
+promenade, did not fail to draw forth Dinely from his poverty-stricken
+home. When he appeared on festive occasions, his cloak was cast aside, and
+he might have sat to any painter desiring to reproduce on canvas a
+gentleman of the time of George II. An embroidered coat, silk flowered
+waistcoat, nether garments of velvet, carefully meeting silk stockings,
+which surmounted shoes and silver buckles, in addition to a lace-edged
+cocked hat, and powdered wig, set off the attenuated figure of the Poor
+Knight of Windsor. His object in so presenting himself was to attract the
+notice of some rich lady for matrimonial ends, matrimony being the medium
+through which he imagined he could transform his splendid dreams into no
+less splendid realities--the reason for his eccentric economy being
+explained by his history.
+
+In January, 1741, there were two brothers living at Bristol who had become
+enemies on account of an entail of property. The elder of these brothers
+was Sir John Dinely Goodyere, Baronet, the other Samuel Dinely Goodyere, a
+captain in the navy. Estrangement had taken place, but a common friend, at
+Samuel's request, brought them together. They dined, had pleasant hours,
+and fraternal words were exchanged. On parting Sir John went his way
+across College Green, and while there was met by his brother and six other
+sailors. Sir John was brutally treated, carried away to a ship, and on it
+he was strangled. Retribution followed swiftly, and in two months Samuel
+Dinely Goodyere had expiated his crime on the gallows.
+
+The Poor Knight of Windsor was the son of the murderer, and it is
+generally believed that the family estates which might have come to
+Captain Goodyere were forfeited to the Crown. To recover the family
+estates was the day dream of Sir John. Not having sufficient money to
+obtain the requisite legal help to regain the lost inheritance, the poor
+old man resorted to the matrimonial scheme. His proceedings were perfectly
+serious, dignified, and earnest. Frequently has he been seen on the
+terrace at Windsor presenting to some county widow or elegantly attired
+gentlewoman a printed paper which with the utmost gravity he would take
+from his pocket. Should the lady accept the paper, Sir John Dinely would
+make her the most profound of bows, and then withdraw.
+
+The following is an extract from one of the documents:--
+
+    "_For a Wife._"
+
+    "As the prospect of my marriage has much increased lately, I am
+    determined to take the best means to discover the lady most liberal in
+    her esteem by giving her fourteen days more to make her quickest steps
+    towards matrimony: from the date of this paper until eleven o'clock
+    the next morning: and as the contest evidently will be superb,
+    honourable, sacred, and lawfully affectionate, pray do not let false
+    delicacy interrupt you. An eminent attorney here is lately returned
+    from a view of my superb gates, built in the form of the Queen's
+    house. I have ordered him, as the next attorney here, who can satisfy
+    you of my possession in my estate, and every desirable particular
+    concerning it, to make you the most liberal settlement you can desire,
+    to the vast extent of three thousand pounds."
+
+Some verses conclude, the words being--
+
+  "A beautiful page shall hold,
+  Your ladyship's train surrounded with gold."
+
+The advertiser alludes to the forfeiture of the estates in another paper:
+"Pray, my young charmers, give me a fair hearing; do not let your
+avaricious guardians unjustly fright you into a false account of a
+forfeiture." Sir John did not scatter his papers broadcast. It was only to
+those whom he deemed suitable ladies that he distributed his precious and
+grandiloquent invitations. Notwithstanding the seeming allurements of his
+circulars, Sir John Dinely found no nibblers for his bait. One morning the
+accustomed seat in St. George's Chapel knew him no more. He was missing.
+The door of his lodging was forced, and in his room he was found ill and
+helpless. Everything about him was of the poorest and most squalid
+character. There was little furniture--a table and a chair or two. The
+room was strewed with printing type, for he printed his own bills; and in
+a few days Sir John Dinely was borne to the grave.
+
+"Wise judges are we of each other," said Claude Melnotte contemptuously to
+Colonel Damar when that officer remarked that he "envied" the pretended
+Prince of Como, and it would be well for many of us were we to remember
+the rebuke in forming our judgment of our fellows in connection with their
+pecuniary position. A very pitiful story illustrating the argument is
+narrated by Charles Lamb in his essay, "Christ's Hospital Five and Thirty
+Years Ago." Referring to some cartoons connected with his old school, the
+author writes:--
+
+    "L---- has recorded his repugnance of the school to 'gags,' or the fat
+    of fresh boiled beef, and sets it down to some superstition; but these
+    unctuous morsels are never grateful to young palates (children are
+    universal fat-haters), and in strong, coarse, boiled meats, unsalted,
+    are detestable. A gag-eater in our time was equivalent to a ghoul, and
+    held in equal detestation. There was a lad who suffered under this
+    imputation.
+
+      'It was said
+      He ate strange flesh.'
+
+    "He was observed, after dinner, carefully to gather up the remnants
+    left at the table (not many nor very choice fragments, you may credit
+    me), and in an especial manner these disreputable morsels he would
+    convey, and secretly stow, in the settle that stood at his bedside.
+    None saw when he ate them. It was rumoured that he privately devoured
+    them in the night. He was watched, but no traces of them, of such
+    midnight practices were discoverable. Some reported that on leave-days
+    he had been seen to carry out of the bounds a large blue check
+    handkerchief, full of something. This, then, must be the accursed
+    thing. Conjecture next was at work to imagine how he could dispose of
+    it. Some said he sold it to the beggars. This belief generally
+    prevailed. He went about moping--none spake to him. No one would play
+    with him. He was excommunicated--put out of the pale of the school. He
+    was too powerful a boy to be beaten, but he underwent every mode of
+    that negative punishment which is more grievous than many stripes.
+    Still he persevered. At length he was observed by two of his
+    schoolfellows, who were determined to get at the secret, and had
+    traced him one leave day for the purpose, to enter a large worn-out
+    building, such as there exists specimens of in Chancery Lane, which
+    are let out to various scales of pauperism, with open door and a
+    common staircase. After him they silently slunk in, and followed by
+    stealth up four flights of stairs, and saw him tap at a poor wicket,
+    which was opened by a poor woman meanly clad. Suspicion was now
+    ripened into certainty. The informers had secured their victim.
+    Accusation was formally preferred, and retribution most signal was
+    looked for. Mr. Hatherway investigated the matter. The supposed
+    mendicants, the receivers of the mysterious scraps, turned out to be
+    the parents of the boy. This young stork, at the expense of his own
+    good name, had all this while been feeding the old birds."
+
+A striking story of the unknown resources and trials of the
+poverty-stricken is the following, a favourite one with that capital
+_raconteur_, the late Julian Young.
+
+A certain diplomatist was many years ago despatched by the English
+Government on an embassy extraordinary to one of the continental courts,
+where his handsome person and the urbanity of his manners made him a
+general favourite. On his departure the sovereign to whom he was
+accredited presented him with a small box of unusual value as a mark of
+his esteem. It had on its lid a miniature of the king set in brilliants of
+great beauty. When he had retired from public life and happened to give a
+dinner to any of his friends, he was fond of producing it at the dessert,
+as it afforded him an opportunity of descanting on the king's appreciation
+of his services. On one of these occasions the box was brought forth,
+handed by the butler to the master, and passed round. The last person into
+whose hands it went was an old general, who, from some failure in
+investments, was known to be in embarrassed circumstances.
+
+In due course all rose to join the ladies, and in so doing the owner of
+the snuff-box looked round for it in order that it might be replaced in
+the cabinet. Not seeing the box, the owner immediately made inquiries
+concerning it, and asked the gentlemen to make search for it, suggesting
+that it was possible that some one in a fit of absence might have placed
+it in his pocket. Everybody denied having any knowledge of it, though one
+or two present declared that the old general was the last person in whose
+hands they remembered to have seen it. "Having seen it before," the old
+general said, "he had but bestowed a cursory glance upon it and then
+placed it in the centre." The strictest search about the room was then
+made, but only with fruitless results. The owner of the box assumed much
+gravity of manner, and having referred to the seriousness of the loss,
+said, "I suspect no one, and that I may have no cause to do so, I must ask
+you to let me search you all without distinction." Two or three rose to
+depart, but they were anticipated by their entertainer, who put his back
+against the door and refused egress to any one. The old general stepped
+forward and said, "Sir, do you mean to insult us because we have drunk
+your wine? If any one dares to oppose my exit from this room, I shall call
+him to account." The old grizzled warrior strode out with a firm and
+defiant air. Known to be poor, and from his determined departure on the
+occasion of the proposed search, the general was coldly and shyly regarded
+by those who knew the circumstances, and by those who afterwards heard of
+them.
+
+Some time later, at the same host's table, the butler, hearing the story
+of the lost snuff-box, informed his master that on the occasion alluded to
+be had taken it up and deposited it in a little drawer at the end of a
+sideboard, where it had been occasionally kept, and the butler went to the
+drawer and found the lost treasure.
+
+As quickly as possible the next morning the owner of the snuff-box sought
+the old general, told him everything, and made him an ample apology. They
+were at once friendly as of old. After some conversation, the owner of the
+snuff-box said, "But may I ask you why you so resolutely refused to be
+searched?" "Alas!" said the soldier, "I refused to be searched because,
+though I had not stolen your snuff-box, I had stolen your food. I blush to
+own, sir, that the greater part of every morsel put upon my plate was
+transferred to a pocket-handkerchief (spread upon my knee beneath the
+table), and taken home to a starving wife and family."
+
+Equally, if not more romantic is another military story, also related by
+Julian Young, which, were it not for the unquestionable _bona fides_ of
+that gentleman, might well be questioned, so suggestive is it of a page
+from a novel.
+
+An aristocratic lady residing on the family estate in Ireland advertised
+for a governess for her daughters. The successful candidate was a young
+French lady of talent and fascinating manners. She had not long taken up
+her residence with the lady and her daughters when she inspired the nephew
+of her mistress with a tender passion. A gentleman of principle, and only
+possessing slender means, he resolved to control his sentiment and in no
+way reveal it.
+
+Some months elapsed, and one morning while the family were at breakfast,
+they were surprised by the entrance of a servant, who inquired of the lady
+of the house if she could see visitors. Asking who they were, she was
+informed that the party consisted of two gentlemen, who had travelled
+there in a coach-and-four, attended by a livery servant, evidently a
+foreigner. Thinking that visitors at such an early hour must have
+important business, the servant was told by his mistress that she would at
+once see them. She remained with the visitors some little time, and then
+returned, informing the governess that her presence was immediately
+required by the two gentlemen, who had come on important business.
+
+The governess was absent more than half an hour, and on her return to the
+breakfast-room appeared to be labouring under strong excitement. She then
+begged Lady E---- to be kind enough to step into the library to speak to
+two friends of hers, who had something of great importance to communicate.
+The mistress of the establishment complied, and the governess, left with
+her pupils, was interrogated with much amusing curiosity by them on the
+strange visit of two gentlemen at such an early hour in the day. The
+governess, in a tremor of nervousness, answered nothing, left her pupils,
+and going to her own apartment, locked herself in.
+
+The interview between Lady E---- and the strangers was exceedingly
+interesting. One of the visitors spoke to her in French, and at great
+length. Having prefaced what he had to say by apologising for the seeming
+intrusion, Lady E---- was informed that he was delegated by the governess
+to perform a duty which rightly devolved upon herself, but which she had
+not the moral courage to discharge. It was also stated by the speaker that
+Mademoiselle H---- acknowledged gratefully the extraordinary kindness with
+which she had been treated. Lady E---- was then told that in pretending to
+be dependent on her own exertions for bread, the governess had imposed on
+her mistress. She was, it was said, as well born as Lady E----, and almost
+as opulent. It was at the request of the visitors that Mademoiselle
+H---- had answered the advertisement, for the reason that perhaps under
+such a roof as Lady E----'s the young lady would be spared the persecution
+of an unscrupulous kinsman, who conceived that his cousin was endeavouring
+to supplant him in the good graces of a relative whose favours he had
+forfeited solely by misconduct. The older kinsman alluded to had just
+died, and had bequeathed his sole possessions to the governess. She was
+mistress of a chateau in Southern France, in addition to an unencumbered
+rent-roll of L7000 a year. In conclusion, the gentleman in his own name
+and that of his fellow trustee begged to state that in a month's time the
+presence of Mademoiselle H---- would be imperative, for the purpose of
+hearing the will read, and to meet the avocat, the executors, and certain
+other persons interested. Complimenting the mistress of the Irish mansion
+upon her urbanity, the visitors withdrew, jumped into their carriage, and
+were driven away as rapidly as they came.
+
+The daughters of Lady E---- and her nephew were made acquainted with the
+good fortune of the French governess. She had won the affections of her
+pupils, and they regretted parting with her. However, they rejoiced at her
+prosperity. The nephew's heart glowed with hope and affection. Had he been
+richer he would before have declared his passion. On hearing his aunt's
+recital of the governess's actual position he at once resolved to press
+his suit. When Mademoiselle H---- had listened to his declaration of love,
+she met it with haughty demeanour and frigid words, stating that she
+suspected her money had more attraction for him than her person, assigning
+as her reason for such impression that he had shunned her while he thought
+her poor, but had sought her as soon as he had found her to be rich. He
+assured her that he had loved her at first sight, but had been deterred by
+honourable motives and the smallness of his fortune from thinking of
+matrimony; that he had purposely kept out of danger's way, but that as to
+wishing to marry her for the sake of her money, it was a cruel imputation,
+and stung him to the quick. He then quitted her soon afterwards, mounted a
+horse, rode away and found a notary public. When he again saw Mademoiselle
+H---- he put into her hands a document by which he conveyed to her
+unconditionally and absolutely every farthing he had in the world. In
+return for it he asked for the lady's hand and heart. He added that if he
+proved unworthy of her, her money would be in her own power, and that if
+he lived to deserve her love, he was sure she would never let him want.
+She yielded to his solicitations, and they eloped.
+
+Scarcely had the honeymoon run its course when the husband discovered that
+he was united to a penniless woman. In spite of his reserve the governess
+had detected his passion, and by the aid of confederates and her own
+adroitness had made herself possessor of his patrimony. The victim sought
+to repair his fortune at the sword's point in the Crimean war, where he
+obtained considerable distinction.
+
+Incredible as this narrative may seem, there is a yet more marvellous one
+which must be true, since "it was in the papers."
+
+In the autumn of 1827 two men were examined at the Marylebone police-court
+under circumstances of a peculiar and suspicious nature. The night
+previously a patrol in the New Road watched the men, and subsequently saw
+them deep in conversation by a lamp-post, and soon afterwards one man
+deliberately began to tie his companion up to the lamp-post, the suspended
+man offering no resistance to the labours of the improvised Jack Ketch.
+The patrol interfered, and both men proceeded to beat him with great
+violence. Some watchmen of the district hearing the cries of the assailed
+constable hastened to the spot, and the constable's assailants were
+secured. While being examined before the magistrate, the men stated that
+they had been gambling by the light from the lamp, and that one of them
+had lost all his money to the other, and had then staked his clothes. The
+winner demurred to continue playing for the reason that if he again won he
+should not care to strip the loser of his habiliments. His enthusiastic
+companion rejoined that should he again lose, life would be worthless to
+him. A bargain was made to again play, it being understood that the
+unsuccessful gambler if again unlucky should be hung by his companion, who
+should strip him when dead. The fellow lost, and informed the magistrate
+that he was only submitting to the terms of the treaty when the patrol
+came up and interfered with himself and his companion. The magistrate
+concluding they had been intoxicated, discharged them with a caution.
+
+A remarkably grim passage this in a gambler's life, and unfortunately most
+of the selections in this section of the subject are more or less sombre,
+for romance is naturally more associated with tragedy than comedy.
+"Pitiful, wondrous pitiful," is my next illustration, which is related by
+Sir Walter Scott, who when attending Dugald Stewart's lectures on Moral
+Philosophy used to sit by the side of an amiable youth, in whose society
+he afterwards took great interest. They became companions, and frequently
+used to stroll out beyond the city, enjoying the charms of road and
+stream. One day during the perambulation they met a singularly venerable
+"Blue Gown," a beggar of the Edie Ochiltree stamp, clean and ruddy. The
+beggar had three or four times previously encountered Scott, who with his
+usual good-heartedness had relieved him in answer to solicitation. When
+Mr. Scott and his fellow-student passed the old man, the companion of
+Scott exhibited peculiar restlessness and confusion. The beggar again had
+something dropped into his hand by Scott, who said soon afterwards to his
+companion, "Do you know anything to the dishonour of the old beggar?"
+"God forbid!" said the youth, and bursting into tears added, "I am ashamed
+to speak to him; he is my father! He has laid by for himself, but he
+stands bleaching his head in the wind, that he may get means to pay for my
+education." Scott spoke words of tenderness and sympathy to the
+mendicant's son, and kept his secret.
+
+Some time afterwards he again met the hale "Blue Gown." "God bless you!"
+said the old man; "you have been kind to Willie. He has often spoken of
+it. Come to our roof, for my boy has been ill. It will strengthen him, if
+you will go and see him." At 2 o'clock on the following Saturday, Willie's
+old fellow-student found the old man and his son waiting to receive him at
+their little cottage outside the city. It was a modest little tenement,
+and Willie sat on a bench before the door to enjoy the sunshine. The son
+of the voluntary mendicant looked wan and emaciated. He had been very ill.
+There was a dinner of mutton, potatoes and whisky. They all enjoyed
+themselves, and during their conversation the old man said, "Please God I
+may live to see my bairn wag his head in a pulpit yet." Scott left them
+with tokens of good will and friendship. He communicated the story to his
+mother, who informed her husband, and it was at no distant time that Dr.
+Erskine's influence (through the good offices of Mr. and Mrs. Scott)
+obtained the old man's son a tutorship in the north of Scotland.
+
+To quit the pathetic for a moment, it would scarcely be thought likely
+that that necessary but extremely practical article--blacking--has ever
+been associated with romance; but Mr. Smiles tells the story of a poor
+soldier having one day called at the shop of a hairdresser who was busy
+with his customers and asked relief, stating that he had stayed beyond his
+leave of absence, and unless he could get a lift on the coach, fatigue and
+severe punishment awaited him. The hairdresser listened to his story
+respectfully, and gave him a guinea. "God bless you, sir!" exclaimed the
+soldier, astonished at the amount. "How can I repay you? I have nothing in
+the world but this," pulling out a dirty piece of paper from his pocket;
+"it is a receipt for making blacking--it is the best that was ever seen;
+many a half-guinea I have had for it from the officers, and many bottles I
+have sold. May you be able to get something for it to repay you for your
+kindness to the poor soldier!" Oddly enough that dirty piece of paper
+proved worth half a million of money to the hairdresser. It was no less
+than a receipt for the famous Day and Martin's blacking, the hairdresser
+being the late Mr. Day.
+
+The picture of little ones asking for bread and the parents finding none
+in the cupboard is a very old story. Domestic affection, struggling amidst
+difficulties and distress, has produced heroes and martyrs innumerable,
+but few more interesting than Peter Stokes, famous in years gone by as the
+"Flying Pieman." Every day at the beginning of the present century
+(excepting when it rained) the familiar figure of that now historic
+personage might have been seen in the steep thoroughfare between Staple's
+Inn and Field Lane. Peter obtained the _sobriquet_ of "Flying Pieman" from
+the celerity of his movements. There was some slight mistake concerning
+his nickname, for Peter Stokes sold baked plum pudding, not pies. Stokes
+was one of the celebrated old-fashioned London characters, as well known
+to cockneys of that period as Billy Waters or the negro crossing-sweeper
+at the foot of Ludgate Hill.
+
+Soon after the clock of St. Andrew's Church struck twelve, Stokes used to
+turn out of Fetter Lane with a tray of smoking hot plum pudding, the
+pudding cut into twelve slices, the price of each being a penny. Peter
+carried his tray in one hand and a bright silver scapula in the other. The
+customer received his slice of pudding from the scapula after a penny had
+been deposited upon the tray (Peter never gave change), the "Flying
+Pieman," as he perambulated or as he stopped, never being known to utter
+any other word than "Buy, buy, buy." He always wore a black vest,
+swallow-tailed coat, stout silk stockings, and shoes with bright silver
+buckles, while a snowy white apron and faultlessly frilled shirt completed
+a modish and impressive costume. No hat or cap adorned his head, the hair
+of which was close cropped and powdered.
+
+Peter Stokes was sometimes known to have disposed of fifty rounds of
+pudding _per diem_. His customers have often included aldermen, ladies of
+quality, and blue blood bucks, but they received no more attention than
+did rougher and humbler patrons. The "Flying Pieman" was attentive to
+everybody, but he never turned back for anybody. Making his way deftly
+through crowds of pedestrians, hackney coaches or waggons, the "Flying
+Pieman" went straight on, calling out "Buy," and only stopped for the
+proffered penny; but his real history was indeed a curious one.
+Contemporary with him was a portrait painter in Rathbone Place. The artist
+painted with great assiduity in the morning, and his evening parties
+though homely, were pleasant and refined. A devoted wife and affectionate
+children cheered the life of the amiable and industrious artist. He was a
+genial-faced man, with dark brown hair. This artist and Peter Stokes were
+identical. When young, Stokes made a love-match, married upon next to
+nothing, and in a few years found himself the father of several children.
+A modest, industrious, painstaking artist, he found but few to sit to him
+for a portrait. Things grew exceedingly bad with him.
+
+One day he heard one of his boys crying for something to eat, and the
+artist found that his wife had no bread to give the hungry child. Peter
+Stokes hurried from his home with an almost wet picture, which he
+deposited at a neighbouring pawnbroker's. Returning, the needy artist saw
+at a street-corner a boy selling baked potatoes, and moreover the artist
+observed that the boy was doing a busy trade. Crushing pride, and taking
+his faithful and devoted wife into close confidence, Peter unfolded a plan
+by which he too might sell something profitable in the street. Mrs. Stokes
+seconded the suggestion, and Peter soon commenced his career as a vendor
+of baked plum pudding. He threw a desperate card, but it turned up trumps.
+Stokes's portraits have gone to the limbo of oblivion, but the peculiar
+method by which he impressed the crowd with his tray of baked plum pudding
+shows at any rate that its vendor had a good eye for artistic effect.
+
+If it were, as some will doubtless say, "a sin and shame" that an artist
+of Peter Stokes's ability should have to turn itinerant vendor of
+pennyworths of pudding, the old adage "Be sure your sin will find you out"
+was at fault for once; but to make up for the omission in his case, how
+wonderfully true was the proverb in the romantic history of Lord Chief
+Justice Holt, whose impecuniosity caused him to commit an act that
+resulted in a truly tragic _finale_.
+
+Sir John Holt, famous for his integrity, firmness, and great legal
+knowledge, who filled the office of Recorder of London for a year and a
+half, losing it in consequence of his uncompromising opposition to the
+abolition of the "Test" Act, and whose upright discharge of the important
+duties of Lord Chief Justice gained him the highest honour and esteem,
+was as a youth wilful and dissipated. In some respects his deeds at that
+period bore likeness to those of the madcap Prince Hal, when that
+personage was the associate of Falstaff. He was a roysterer, gambler and,
+according to some, highwayman. To use Lord Campbell's words, "They even
+relate, many years after that, when he was going the circuit as Chief
+Justice, he recognised a man convicted capitally before him as one of his
+own accomplices in a robbery, and that having visited him in gaol, and
+inquired after the rest of the gang, he received this answer: 'Ah! my
+lord, they are all hanged but myself and your lordship.'"
+
+On one occasion, Holt, with a band of dissolute and reckless companions,
+found himself participator in the perplexing results of a common
+bankruptcy. They were without the prospect of obtaining a supper. It was
+then agreed that they should make their way singly, each individual to do
+the best he could for himself. The band of roysterers separated, Holt
+finding himself on a lonely and cheerless road. He was intrepid, nimble
+witted, and full of self-possession. Spurring his horse, he set off at a
+gallop. Arriving in front of a little hostelry, he alighted from his
+steed, handed it over to the care of an ostler, and without more ado went
+into the house and ordered the best entertainment that it could afford.
+
+Whatever hardships he had undergone, Holt had now the pleasing expectation
+of a savoury supper and comfortable lodgment. Waiting for a smoking dish,
+the odour from which pleasantly saluted his nostrils, he carelessly
+strolled from the chamber where he had been sitting into the kitchen.
+There the hostess was busy in her culinary labours, while near the blazing
+fire sat a girl about thirteen years old, pale, haggard, and shivering in
+an ague fit. John Holt, though a "ne'er do weel," and a wild impetuous
+fellow was not without the instinct of a compassionate heart. He asked
+many questions concerning the malady of the young girl as she moaned and
+rocked herself in the warmth of the ruddy embers. The mother replied that
+for a year her daughter had been stricken by the ague, that the labour of
+the doctors trying to cure her had been in vain, and that their charges
+had nearly brought the fortunes of the house to ruin.
+
+The young student having listened to the story of the mother's misfortune,
+then spoke in contemptuous terms of doctors all round, bade her take
+courage and be of good cheer, for he was acquainted with a specific that
+would speedily take away her daughter's ague. "Indeed," said Holt, "you
+need be under no further concern, for you may assure yourself the girl
+shall never have another fit." Taking a piece of parchment from his breast
+pocket, he with much gravity and deliberation proceeded to inscribe some
+Greek characters on the scrap, and having concluded his work, charged the
+mother to bind the parchment upon her daughter's wrist, allowing it to
+remain there until the ague departed. By some strange coincidence, or by
+the effects wrought upon the sympathies of the girl at the appearance and
+touch of the supposed charm, her ague did depart, and returned no more, at
+least not during the week John Holt remained the guest of mine hostess.
+
+When he deemed it prudent or convenient to depart, he asked for his bill
+with that confidence so often masking the demeanour of the bold adventurer
+reduced to impecuniosity. But the hostess, smiling and embarrassed, said
+she could make no demand for payment, and further added that she rather
+felt in the position of one owing something, than as one having something
+to receive. Indeed, she expressed sorrowfully that she could in no way
+compensate her guest for the miraculous cure which he had wrought, and
+that had she but known him sooner the expense of forty pounds would not
+have been swallowed up by the _posse_ of useless doctors. Overcome by the
+profuse thanks and grateful acknowledgments of his hostess John Holt
+condescended to waive paying his week's bill, and departed with much
+hilarity on his journey.
+
+As months and years rolled away, the incidents of a busy life and the
+assiduous practice of his profession crowded out of John Holt's memory the
+recollection of his strange and facetious adventure at the hostelry on the
+Oxford road. Holt's habits changed. He became the wise and impartial
+judge, so admirable and so competent, that even his stern Tory father
+(spite of the son's Liberal politics) grew proud of the man who in his
+youthful career at Oxford had been the wildest of the wild, and the most
+erring of the erring. The years have gone on, and when we turn again to
+John Holt, he is approaching his sixtieth year. The scene is still in the
+county of Oxford, but this time in one of the principal towns. The Summer
+Assizes are being held, and the judges are sitting in all wonted
+solemnity and state. In the Criminal Court a cause of unusual interest is
+being heard.
+
+At the bar there stands a poor, miserable and decrepit old woman. As she
+looks at the grave and dignified judge she shakes with terror. The causes
+of her fear are solemn and significant, for she is about to be tried for
+her life, on the charge of being a witch. In those days of which I am
+writing, there existed a terrible superstition in the popular mind
+concerning witchcraft, believed as it was to be the crime of all others
+the most destructive to man and the most impious in the sight of God. The
+comely, dignified and shrewd-eyed judge excites the keenest interest in
+the crowded court, for he is one of the "men of mark" of his age, the
+profound lawyer, the incorruptible dispenser of justice, and the champion
+of truth and freedom.
+
+Witnesses are called. They give their evidence in a plain unpretentious
+manner, and it is certain that they possess a firm faith in what they
+allege against the miserable prisoner. The principal accusation against
+her is that she holds in her possession a potent and mysterious charm. It
+enables her to spread disease, or to cure it, and it is further stated
+that she has lately been detected using it. "Has anybody seen it?"
+inquires the judge. "Yes, please you, my lord, and it is now here ready to
+be produced." His lordship directs that it shall be handed to him, and his
+order is obeyed. Behold! nothing but a dirty ball wrapped round with rag
+and pack-thread. Removing these, he discovers a scrap of stained and
+time-worn parchment inscribed with characters in his own handwriting.
+Chief Justice Holt, after the lapse of forty years, recognises the Greek
+letters which he had scrawled in the inn kitchen situate on the Oxford
+road.
+
+Deep silence reigns in the crowded court-house, and every eye is turned on
+the judge. Lifting his head from his hands, in which it had been buried
+for a few moments, he says to the jury,--
+
+"Gentlemen, I must now relate an incident of my life which ill-suits my
+position. To conceal that incident would be to increase the awful folly
+which I must atone. Did I conceal that folly of which I was guilty, I
+should endanger innocence and countenance superstition. This so-called
+charm which these poor ignorant people suppose to have the power of life
+and death is a senseless piece of parchment, on which with my own hand I
+wrote and gave the poor woman. This poor woman for no other reason stands
+before me accused of witchcraft." Chief Justice Holt then narrated the
+whole story of his adventure in his early years at the woman's hostelry on
+the Oxford road, and the recital produced such an effect upon the minds of
+the jury that his old hostess was not only acquitted, but was one of the
+last persons tried for the crime of witchcraft in this country.
+
+I turn to another country and to incidents enveloped in a brighter and
+pleasanter atmosphere. Readers of the older French literature are familiar
+with the notes, verses, and dramas of Alexis Piron. The Burgundian
+_bon-vivant_ knew many adventures and much impecuniosity; but
+notwithstanding Fortune's buffets he retained "a revenue of good spirits,"
+and when turned fifty years of age he participated in a bit of romance.
+
+One evening after supper he went to the shop of a grocer, Gallet, a
+song-writer and boon companion. A female entered the shop and asked for
+some coffee and matches. Gallet was away, so the poet undertook to serve
+the lady, saying to her, "Is that all you want?" The grocer entering
+added, "Mademoiselle ought to have a husband in the bargain." "Excellent,"
+said Piron, "if the damsel will take up with any kind of wood for her
+arrow." A blush suffused the lady's cheeks, and she departed without
+making rejoinder.
+
+Next morning she visited the poet. "Monsieur," said she with trepidation,
+"we are two children of Burgundy. I have long wanted to see a man of so
+much wit, and having learned yesterday that it was you with whom I had to
+do in M. Gallet's shop, I have come to-day without ceremony to pay you a
+visit. How weary you must grow here! I was very much afraid of finding
+some handsome lady from the theatre, but, heaven be praised!"--with a
+glance at the extreme poverty of his surroundings--"you live like a
+Trappist. Have you never thought of making an end of this?" Said Piron: "I
+leave the care of that to la Camarde; but if you please, what do you
+mean?" "I wish to say, have you ever thought of marriage?" "Not much.
+Mademoiselle, pray sit down while I light the fire." "You don't know,
+Monsieur Piron! it will make you laugh." "So much the worse." "I shall
+speak plainly. If your heart, has the same sentiment as mine"--the poet
+was wonder-stricken, and looked at the lady in silence--"in a word,
+Monsieur Piron, I come to offer you my hand and heart, not forgetting my
+life-annuity of two thousand livres."
+
+The poet controlled his merry temper, and was touched when he thought what
+a compassionate friend had been vouchsafed to him. He saw the woman's eyes
+moist with tears, and he embraced her. "I leave to you," said he, "all the
+preparations for the wedding. Gallet will write the epithalamium." "You
+will make me, Monsieur Piron, the happiest person in the world I did not
+hope for so happy a conclusion, for--I do not wish to conceal anything
+from you--I am _fifty-five_!" "Well," said Piron, with a slight shrug, "we
+have over a hundred years between us. We would have done well to have met
+sooner."
+
+This marriage took place amid festivity. The old maid had a good heart and
+an amiable temper. She proved a faithful sister, friend, and servant to
+Piron. He had aromatic coffee in the morning, the beverage being all the
+more palatable, as it was accompanied by the maker's cheerful gossip in
+the chimney-corner. Madame Piron expressed herself enthusiastically about
+her husband's writings, and Piron felt no longer alone, was able to refuse
+going out to dinner in bad weather, and had a crown in his pocket when he
+sauntered in the sunshine. He was well off enough to occasionally give
+alms, and at last he could receive friends at his hearth. This episode in
+the life of Piron is one of the brightest romances of impecuniosity.
+
+Scarcely less happy is an anecdote of Quin the actor, who, if he said many
+spiteful things, was not incapable of a generous action. James Thomson,
+another of the brotherhood of genius, found himself immured in a
+sponging-house. In his dolorous and solitary condition he was one evening
+surprised by a visit from Quin. They cracked a bottle, and as the night
+wore away a choice supper was served by one of the attendants of the
+prison. Thomson, a sensitive nervous man, partook of the dishes with
+indifferent appetite, for his thoughts wandered to the payment of the
+bill. Another bottle of claret was drunk, and the visitor rose to depart.
+"Mr. Thomson," said Quin, "before I go, let me say that there is an
+account between us." Thomson was alarmed, and stammered out that he was
+unaware of any obligations. "They are mine," replied Quin. "I have
+received so much delight from the writings of James Thomson, that I
+consider myself his debtor at least for a hundred pounds." Saying this,
+he placed a note for that amount on the table, shook the astonished poet
+by the hand, and bowed himself out.
+
+I will conclude the selections of romantic impecuniosity with the case of
+Thomas De Quincey, who, according to some authorities, being afraid of an
+oral examination at Oxford College, left the university by stealth and
+wandered away, his stock of money being scant and his whereabouts quite
+unknown to his friends. He wandered about Denbighshire, Merionethshire,
+and Carnarvonshire. Lodging at some place, De Quincey took affront at
+something said by a landlady, and abruptly left his quarters. In his
+"Confessions of an Opium Eater" he says,--
+
+    "This leaving the lodgings turned out a very unfortunate occurrence
+    for me, because living henceforward at inns, I was drained of my money
+    very rapidly. In a fortnight I was reduced to short allowance, that is
+    I could allow myself only one meal a day. From the keen appetite
+    produced by constant exercise and mountain air acting on a youthful
+    stomach I soon began to suffer greatly on this slender regimen, for
+    the single meal which I could venture to order was coffee or tea.
+    This, however, was at length withdrawn, and afterwards so long as I
+    remained in Wales I subsisted either on blackberries, hips, haws,
+    etc., or on the usual hospitalities which I now and then received for
+    such little services as I had an opportunity of rendering. Sometimes I
+    wrote letters of business for cottagers who happened to have relations
+    in Liverpool or London. More often I wrote love-letters to their
+    sweethearts for young women who had lived as servants in Shrewsbury or
+    any other towns on the English border. On all such occasions I gave
+    great satisfaction to my humble friends, and was generally treated
+    with hospitality; and once in particular near the village of
+    Llan-y-styndw (or some such name), in a sequestered part of
+    Merionethshire, I was entertained for upwards of three days by a
+    family of young people with an affectionate and fraternal kindness
+    that left an impression upon my heart not yet impaired. The family
+    consisted at that time of four sisters and three brothers, all grown
+    up, and all remarkable for elegance and delicacy of manners. So much
+    beauty and so much native good breeding and refinement I do not
+    remember to have seen before or since, in any cottage, except once or
+    twice in Westmoreland and Devonshire. They spoke English, an
+    accomplishment not often met with in so many members of one family,
+    especially in villages remote from the high road. There I wrote, in my
+    first introduction, a letter about prize-money for one of the
+    brothers, who had served on board an English man-of-war, and more
+    privately, two love-letters for two of the sisters. They were both
+    interesting-looking girls, and one of uncommon loveliness. In the
+    midst of their confusion and blushes whilst dictating, or rather
+    giving me general instructions, it did not require any great
+    penetration to discover that what they wished was "that their letters
+    should be as kind as was consistent with proper maidenly pride." I
+    continued so to temper my expressions as to reconcile the
+    gratification of both feelings, and they were as much pleased with the
+    way in which I expressed their thoughts as, in their simplicity, they
+    were astonished at my having so readily discovered them. The reception
+    one meets with from the women of a family generally determines the
+    tenor of one's whole entertainment. In this case I had discharged my
+    confidential duties as secretary so much to the general satisfaction,
+    perhaps also amusing them with my conversation, that I was pressed to
+    stay with a cordiality which I had little inclination to resist. I
+    slept with the brothers, the only unoccupied bed standing in the
+    apartment of the young women; but in all other points they treated me
+    with a respect not usually paid to purses as light as mine, as if my
+    scholarship were sufficient evidence that I was of gentle blood."
+
+Farther on he says,--
+
+    "The only friend I had in this strange poverty of mine on first coming
+    to London was a young woman. She was one of that unhappy class who
+    belong to the outcasts and pariahs of our female population. For many
+    weeks I had walked at night with this poor friendless girl up and down
+    Oxford Street, or had rested with her on steps, or under the shelter
+    of porticoes. One night when we were pacing slowly along Oxford
+    Street, and after a day when I had felt unusually ill and faint, I
+    requested her to turn off with me into Soho Square. Thither we went,
+    and we sat down on the steps of a house which to this hour I never
+    pass without a pang of grief and an inner act of homage to the spirit
+    of the unhappy girl in memory of the noble act she performed. Suddenly
+    as we sat I grew much worse: I had been leaning my head against her
+    bosom. I sank from her arms and fell backwards on the steps. Uttering
+    a cry of terror, but without a moment's delay, she ran off into Oxford
+    Street, and in less time than could be imagined returned to me with a
+    glass of port wine and spices that acted upon my empty stomach, which
+    at that time would have rejected all solid food, with an instantaneous
+    power of restoration, and for this glass the generous girl without a
+    murmur paid out of her own humble purse, at a time, be it remembered,
+    when she had scarcely wherewithal to purchase the bare necessaries of
+    life, and when she could have no reason to expect that I should ever
+    be able to reimburse her."
+
+I will conclude this chapter with two most truly remarkable stories. The
+first is one which Sir Walter Scott used to relate with his own inimitable
+powers of story-telling, and which, as the victim was his own cousin, the
+narrative on the lips of the novelist ever excited profound interest in
+the minds of listeners. It would seem that as a midshipman his cousin
+Watty was extremely popular on ship-board and on shore. He was a bit of a
+rip, but generous to a fault, handsome, merry and reckless. After one
+memorable long voyage he put in with others at Portsmouth, and enjoyed
+those roysterings, love passages, tavern pleasures, and adventures so
+dear to the heart of "Jack ashore." With a couple of companions Watty
+Scott was in the unenviable position of being left high and dry on the
+strand of impecuniosity. Moreover the three jolly sailors had run up an
+immense bill at a tavern on the Point, the settlement of which haunted
+them by day and by night. In their recklessness, almost amounting to
+despair, they still went on living high, and steeping recollection of
+their liabilities in the fumes of baccy and the odours of the flowing
+bowl.
+
+At last came the fatal and imperative orders from official quarters that
+they must "ship off." Summoning up their best graces and most insinuating
+powers of expression in the way of eloquence, they sought an interview
+with their hostess, and acquainted her with their foolish but unfortunate
+position; to which account she listened with attention and deep interest.
+She was informed not only of their perfect inability to meet the bill, but
+that in a short period they were bound to be on board ship. Their caterer
+turned a deaf ear to the revelation of their poverty, and in the most
+virago-like manner fiercely informed them "that they could not budge an
+inch." The sailors pleaded in earnest tones for her mercy, but in the
+course of an hour they found themselves guarded by bailiffs, and in one of
+the parlours of the hostelry the three youths, for they were nothing more,
+sat in moody contemplation of their impending disgrace.
+
+Towards evening their creditor sought them with a less fierce aspect and
+uttered words less bitter and explosive than those of which she had
+delivered herself in the morning. She told her debtors she would give them
+a chance, and proposed a plan by which her claim could be cancelled. The
+sailors were told by her that she was a lone woman and had long wanted a
+marriage certificate "to give her a respectable position in her calling,"
+that one of them must marry her--which one she didn't care a curse--but by
+all that was holy if she didn't marry one of them, all three should be
+packed off to gaol, and the ship must go without them. Remonstrance,
+promises to pay in a few months, the unreasonableness of the request, in
+fact everything said by the discomfited sailors was in vain. It was
+impossible to pacify her, and the victims of impecuniosity saw that the
+woman's proposal was the only means of escaping from disgrace and
+humiliation. After taking counsel among themselves, the three sailors drew
+lots for the hymeneal martyrdom, and the ill-luck fell on Watty Scott.
+Next morning the midshipman and the landlady were spliced, and returned to
+the tavern, where a rich and liberal dinner awaited the newly married
+couple and the two fortunate companions of the bridegroom; and in the
+afternoon the three sailors were tumbled into a wherry, and were soon
+aboard ship. The marriage was kept a secret, and the first to reveal it
+was Watty Scott, who one day at a town in Jamaica, reading a newspaper,
+saw an account of a trial for murder and robbery in connection with a
+Portsmouth tavern, and having read all particulars, exclaimed, "Thank God,
+my wife's hanged!"
+
+The other anecdote is more appalling in detail than anything I can
+remember, and is recorded of a German nobleman who was a contemporary of
+the first Napoleon.
+
+The story opens in the solitary chamber of a dilapidated chateau situated
+on the skirts of the Black Forest in Germany. In a corner of the chamber
+sits a young man of aristocratic mien and military garb, his face buried
+in his hands, and his whole demeanour indicating the most intense
+hopelessness and sorrow. The courtyard and gardens of the chateau, as they
+may be seen from the windows of the room in which the young man has sunk
+upon a seat, are everywhere pervaded by an air of desolation. Tokens of
+past opulence and taste may be observed in dismantled and untended
+flower-beds, fallen vases and statues, and in the unhinged and rusting
+iron gates. Forlorn as is the appearance of the interior and exterior of
+the once beautiful chateau, it is not more forlorn and desolate than the
+heart of the young soldier, sole tenant of the silent and deserted
+chamber. The young man's history had been most melancholy. His mother,
+harshly used by the man who at the altar had sworn to love and cherish
+her, had died when he was only nineteen years of age. Her death was caused
+by a broken heart, and the son, finding that he held no place in the
+esteem or affections of the surviving parent, gladly accepted the offer of
+a commission in an Austrian company of hussars.
+
+After five years of hard and active service, respite and tranquil leisure
+fell to the lot of the young soldier, and with the instincts of a loyal
+and affectionate heart, he set out in the direction of his father's
+residence on horseback, attended by his ordinary military servant.
+
+On the second day's journey while going in the direction of the parental
+home he found himself benighted in the midst of the Black Forest. It was a
+perilous and wearisome journey, which, however, found relief by the
+appearance of lights in what seemed to be some kind of human habitation.
+
+It proved to be a rough and isolated inn, where the officer and his
+orderly were soon housed, after accommodation had been found for their
+horses. Everything about the cabaret was rough, uncomfortable, and
+unprepossessing. The only man in attendance was of ruffianly and sinister
+aspect. The orderly after supper was requested by his master to sleep
+(ready for call) near the horses under the manger in the stable, and
+afterwards the officer (carefully concealing a pair of pistols under his
+cloak) requested to be shown to his sleeping apartment, which proved to be
+little better than a loft. He placed the oil lamp on a chair, laid his
+sword by it, and threw himself down on the rude pallet-bed without taking
+off his clothes. Not feeling sleepy he turned his pillow, and found that
+it was stained with blood recently shed, and which strengthening the
+apprehensions formed on his entrance into the house, at once impelled him
+to cock his pistols and draw his sword.
+
+For an hour or two the house seemed to be wrapped in profound silence, and
+just as the wearied guest found that drowsiness was stealing over him he
+cast his eyes across the room and noticed that a portion of the flooring
+heaved and rose. The officer crept from the bed and stood sword in hand
+watching a trap-door which had been quietly raised by a hand. With all the
+strength he could command and with all the quickness he could exercise he
+smote the hand, when the trap closed, and beneath it he heard a smothered
+cry. Hurrying down stairs, he reached the front door, unbarred it, made
+his way to the stable, and roused the servant. In a short time master and
+man were galloping away on the road, and the rest of their journey was
+secure and without adventure. On the third day he reached the chateau of
+his father. It was the soldier's birthplace, and his heart filled with
+grief when he saw that his once-loved home was deserted and seemingly
+tenantless. Decay seemed to have invaded everything. No summons awaited
+their thundering knocks at the hall-door, but at one of the windows could
+be seen the pallid, ghastly visage of a man watching. Master and man made
+a forcible entry into the house, and sought the room at the window of
+which had peered the strange and repulsive face. On entering the room the
+young soldier recognised his father, haggard and scowling, who when he saw
+his son's extended hand held up a mutilated stump and said, "That's your
+answer." The father, ruined by reckless living, had, owing to his
+impecuniosity, joined a lawless gang frequenting the cabaret, and had
+sought to rob and murder his own son.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+  LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
+  STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Curiosities of Impecuniosity, by H. G. Somerville
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