open in the night, and his cabinets and trunks forced and plundered.
The Lord of Strawberry was at his villa when he received by a courier
the intelligence of the burglary. In an admirable letter to Sir Horace
Mann he thus narrates the sequel:--"I was a good quarter of an hour
before I recollected that it was very becoming to have philosophy
enough not to care about what one does care for; if you don't care
there's no philosophy in bearing it. I despatched my upper servant,
breakfasted, fed the bantams as usual, and made no more hurry to town
than Cincinnatus would if he had lost a basket of turnips. I left in my
drawers 270_l._ of bank-bills and three hundred guineas, not to mention
all my gold and silver coins, some inestimable miniatures, a little
plate, and a good deal of furniture, under no guard but that of two
maidens.... When I arrived, my surprise was by no means diminished. I
found in three different chambers three cabinets, a large chest, and
a glass case of china wide open, the locks not picked, but forced,
and the doors of them broken to pieces. You will wonder that this
should surprise me when I had been prepared for it. Oh! the miracle
was that I did not find, nor to this hour have found, the least thing
missing. In the cabinet of modern medals, there were, and so there are
still, a series of English coins, with downright John Trot guineas,
half-guineas, shillings, sixpences, and every kind of current money.
Not a single piece was removed. Just so in the Roman and Greek cabinet;
though in the latter were some drawers of papers, which they had
tumbled and scattered about the floor. A great exchequer chest, that
belonged to my father, was in the same room. Not being able to force
the lock, the philosophers (for thieves that steal nothing deserve the
title much more than Cincinnatus, or I) had wrenched a great flapper
of brass with such violence as to break it into seven pieces. The trunk
contained a new set of chairs of French tapestry, two screens, rolls
of prints, and a suit of silver stuff that I had made for the king's
wedding. All was turned topsy-turvy, and nothing stolen. The glass case
and cabinet of shells had been handled as roughly by these impotent
gallants. Another little table with drawers, in which, by the way, the
key was left, had been opened too, and a metal standish that they ought
to have taken for silver, and a silver hand-candlestick that stood upon
it, were untouched. Some plate in the pantry, and all my linen just
come from the wash had no more charms for them than gold or silver. In
short I could not help laughing, especially as the only two movables
neglected were another little table with drawers and the money, and a
writing box with the bank-notes, both in the same chamber where they
made the first havoc. In short, they had broken out a panel in the
door of the area, and unbarred and unbolted it, and gone out at the
street-door, which they left wide open at five o'clock in the morning.
A passenger had found it so, and alarmed the maids, one of whom ran
naked into the street, and by her cries waked my Lord Rommey, who lives
opposite. The poor creature was in fits for two days, but at first,
finding my coachmaker's apprentice in the street, had sent him to Mr.
Conway, who immediately despatched him to me before he knew how little
damage I had received, the whole of which consists in repairing the
doors and locks of my cabinets and coffers.
"All London is reasoning on this marvellous adventure, and not an
argument presents itself that some other does not contradict. I insist
that I have a talisman. You must know that last winter, being asked by
Lord Vere to assist in settling Lady Betty Germaine's auction I found
in an old catalogue of her collection this article, '_The Black Stone
into which Dr. Dee used to call his spirits_.' Dr. Dee, you must know,
was a great conjuror in the days of Queen Elizabeth and has written a
folio of the dialogues he held with his imps. I asked eagerly for this
stone; Lord Vere said he knew of no such thing, but if found, it should
certainly be at my service. Alas, the stone was gone! This winter I
was again employed by Lord Frederic Campbell, for I am an absolute
auctioneer, to do him the same service about his father's (the Duke of
Argyle's) collection. Among other odd things he produced a round piece
of shining black marble in a leathern case, as big as the crown of a
hat, and asked me what that possibly could be? I screamed out, 'Oh
Lord, I am the only man in England that can tell you! It is Dr. Dee's
Black Stone!' It certainly is; Lady Betty had formerly given away or
sold, time out of mind, for she was a thousand years old, that part of
the Peterborough collection which contained natural philosophy. So, or
since, the Black Stone had wandered into an auction, for the lotted
paper is still on it. The Duke of Argyle, who bought everything, bought
it. Lord Frederic gave it to me; and if it was not this magical stone,
which is only of high-polished coal, that preserved my chattels, in
truth I cannot guess what did."
At the Strawberry Hill sale, in 1842, this precious relic was sold
for 12_l._ 12_s._, and is now in the British Museum. It was described
in the catalogue as "a singularly interesting and curious relic of
the superstition of our ancestors--the celebrated _Speculum of Kennel
Coal_, highly polished, in a leathern case. It is remarkable for having
been used to deceive the mob, by the celebrated Dr. Dee, the conjuror,
in the reign of Queen Elizabeth," &c. When Dee fell into disrepute,
and his chemical apparatus and papers and other stock-in-trade were
destroyed by the mob, who made an attack upon his house, this Black
Stone was saved. It appears to be nothing more than a polished piece of
cannel coal; but this is what Butler means when he says:--
Kelly did all his feats upon
The devil's looking glass--a stone.
[Illustration: Margaret Finch, the Norwood Gipsy.]
Norwood Gipsies.
Two centures ago, Norwood, in Surrey, was celebrated as the haunt
of many of the gipsy-tribe, who in the summertime pitched their
blanket-tents beneath its shady trees. Thus we find Pepys recording
a visit to the place, under the date of August 11th, 1688:--"This
afternoon my wife, and Mercer, and Deb. went with Pelling to the
gipsies at Lambeth, and had their fortunes told; but what they did I
did not inquire." [Norwood is in the southern part of Lambeth parish.]
From their reputed knowledge of futurity, the Norwood gipsies were
often consulted by the young and credulous. This was particularly the
case some sixty or seventy years ago, when it was customary among the
working class and servants of London to walk to Norwood on the Sunday
afternoon to have their fortunes told, and also to take refreshment
at the Gipsy House, said to have been first licensed in the reign of
James the First. The house long bore on its sign-post a painting of the
deformed figure of Margaret Finch, the Queen of the gipsies.
The register of Beckenham, under the date of October 24th, 1740,
records the burial of Margaret Finch, who lived to the age of 109
years. After travelling over various parts of the kingdom (during the
greater part of a century), she settled at Norwood, whither her great
age and the fame of her fortune-telling attracted numerous visitors.
From a habit of sitting on the ground, with her chin resting on her
knees, the sinews became so contracted that she could not rise from
that posture. After her death they were obliged to enclose her body in
a deep square box. Her funeral was attended by two mourning-coaches, a
sermon was preached on the occasion, and a great concourse of people
attended the ceremony. There is an engraved portrait of this gipsy
queen, from a drawing made in 1739.
In the summer of 1815, the gipsies of Norwood were "apprehended as
vagrants, and sent in three coaches to prison," and this magisterial
interference, and the increase of houses and population, have long
since driven the gipsies from their haunts; but the association is
preserved in the Gipsy Hill station of the Crystal Palace Railway.
"Cunning Mary," of Clerkenwell.
Early in the seventeenth century, one Mary Woods, of Norwich, a
person who professed skill in palmistry, came to London in the way
of her vocation, and lodged at the house of one Crispe, a barber,
in Clerkenwell. Having received such a valuable inmate, the barber
soon afterwards removed "Cunning Mary" and her husband to the more
fashionable neighbourhood of the Strand, and there the barber became a
willing agent in procuring subjects or patients for his female lodger.
One branch of her business consisted in furnishing ladies who desired
to become mothers with charms and medicines which would assist them in
attaining their end. In the next house to Somerset Place dwelt a Mrs.
Isabel Peel, wife of a tradesman, who to her great grief was childless.
The barber, at his lodger's suggestion, whispered in her ear, that the
very skilful person who was an inmate of his house could provide her
with means to help forward her desires. An interview was arranged, and
by "fair speech and cozening skill" Mary Woods persuaded Mrs. Peel
of her power, but demanded no less a sum than twenty pounds for its
exercise. In cash, the amount was beyond the patient's means, but she
delivered to her adviser "two lawn and other wrotte (wrought) wares,"
and received in return a small portion of an infallible powder, which
the cunning woman sewed in a little piece of taffeta, and bade the
aspirant after maternity wear it round her neck.
The news that a woman of such marvellous skill had come to lodge in
Westminster soon spread. Anxious ladies in many of the neighbouring
mansions sent for her, and she specially got a footing in Salisbury
House. Mrs. Jane Sacheverell, who attended on Lady Cranborne, was one
of her victims. The Countess of Essex had several interviews with her
in the same friendly mansion, and gave her a diamond ring worth fifty
or sixty pounds, sent by her husband the Earl, out of France, with
directions to pawn it, in order to procure a portion of the infallible
powder, "which was very costly." The Countess also bestowed upon Mrs.
Woods "certain pieces of gold worth between thirty and forty pounds."
When the affair was called in question, Mrs. Woods asserted that the
Countess gave her these things to procure "a kind of poison that would
be in a man's body three or four days without swelling," and that this
poison was to be given to the Earl of Essex. But Mrs. Woods was an
infamous person, whose uncorroborated assertion was worth nothing, and
she had previously mentioned to Mrs. Peel that her employment by the
Countess had relation merely to the child-giving powder.
Mrs. Woods possessed other faculties besides those with reference to
which she was consulted by Mrs. Peel and Mrs. Sacheverell. She could
"help" ladies to husbands, and "cause and procure whom they desired to
have, to love them." On this branch of her business she was consulted
by Mrs. Cooke, Lady Walden's gentlewoman, who gave her twenty pounds
and more, in twenty-shilling pieces of gold; and, finally, also, by
Mrs. Clare, who is described as lying in the Court at Whitehall, and as
being a waiting gentlewoman in attendance upon the young Lady Windsor.
Mrs. Clare, like several other of the ladies named, had no ready money,
but the fees paid by her were very handsome. They comprised a standing
cup and cover of silver gilt, worth fourteen pounds; a petticoat of
velvet, layed with three silver laces, that cost forty pounds; and two
diamond rings, the one worth twenty pounds, and the other five pounds.
After the bubble had burst, and Cunning Mary absconded with her
plunder, Mrs. Peel says that she "ripped the taffeta to see what
powder it was, and found it but a little dust swept out of the flower
(floor?)."[21]
[21] S. P. Dom. James I., vol. lxxvii., quoted in Pinks's _History of
Clerkenwell_, Appendix.
Jerusalem Whalley.
Mr. Whalley was elected for Newcastle, 1785, before he was of age,
which was not unusual in Ireland, and sat for it to 1790, and for
Enniscorthy from 1797 to June, 1800. He acquired the sobriquet of
_Jerusalem Whalley_ in consequence of a bet, said to have been
20,000_l._, that he would walk (except where a sea-passage was
unavoidable) to Jerusalem and back within twelve months. He started
September 22, 1788, and returned June 1, 1789.
Lord Cloncurry describes Whalley as a perfect specimen of the Irish
gentleman of the olden time. Gallant, reckless, and profuse, he made no
account of money, limb, or life, when a feat was to be won, or a daring
deed to be attempted. He spent a fine fortune in pursuits not more
profitable than his expedition to play ball at Jerusalem; and rendered
himself a cripple for life by jumping from the drawing-room window
of Daly's club-house, in College Green, Dublin, on to the roof of a
hackney-coach which was passing.
The lawless behaviour of the yeomanry corps which he commanded obtained
for him another and less agreeable appellation, "Bever-chapel Whalley."
His residence in Stephen's Green was, in 1855, converted into a
nunnery. Sir Jonah Barrington states that 4,000_l._ was paid to Mr.
Whalley by Mr. Gould, M.P. for Kilbeggan.
Whalley, "Buck Whalley" as he was sometimes called, is stated to
have been the founder of the Hell-fire Club. Having a taste for the
fine arts, and means to gratify it, he accumulated a large number
of valuable paintings in his mansion at Stephen's Green, Dublin, of
which the following account has appeared in the _Dublin University
Magazine_:--"In the centre of the south side of St. Stephen's Green
stands a noble building, with a large stone lion reposing over the
entrance, and finding his legs and tail encroached on by grass and
weeds. This mansion belonged to the great Buck Whalley, and witnessed
many a noble feast and mad carouse during the viceroyalty of the Duke
of Buckingham. At last, when all the pleasures that could be procured
on Irish land were tried, and found to result in satiety and disgust,
and his tailor and wine-merchant began to disturb him, he sought new
excitement in his wager that he would have a game of ball against the
walls of Jerusalem; and he succeeded, as already stated. A bard, who
contributed to a collection of political squibs, entitled, _Both Sides
of the Gutter_, sang the going forth of the expedition: it is entitled,
_Whalley's Embarkation_, to the tune of 'Rutland Gigg.'"
Father Mathew and the Temperance Movement.
No great cause was ever inaugurated with more eccentric or more
genuine fervour than the advocacy of the Temperance principles by
Father Mathew, the Capuchin Friar. "Here goes in the name of God!"
said the Father, on the 10th of April, 1838, when he pledged his name
in the cause of Temperance, and, together with the Protestant priest,
Charles Duncombe, the Unitarian philanthropist, Richard Dowden, and
the stout Quaker, William Martin, publicly inaugurated a movement at
Cork, destined in a few years to count its converts by millions, and to
spread its influence as far as the English language was spoken. In this
good work, the habitually impulsive temperament of the Irish was acted
upon for the purest and most beneficial of purposes; and one element
of its success lay in the unselfishness of the Father, who was himself
a serious sufferer by the results of his philanthropic exertions. A
distillery in the south of Ireland, belonging to his family, and from
which he himself derived a large income, was shut up in consequence
of the disuse of whisky among the lower orders, occasioned by his
preaching. But his "Riverance" was most unscrupulously tyrannized over
by his servant John, a wizened old bachelor, with a red nose, privately
nourished by Bacchus; and he was only checked in his evil doings when
the Father, more exasperated than usual, exclaimed, "John, if you go on
in this way, I must certainly leave this house." On one occasion, there
was a frightful smack of whisky pervading the pure element which graced
the board, which he accounted for by saying he had placed the forbidden
liquid, with which he "cleaned his tins," in the jug by mistake.
The Temperance cause prospered, but Father Mathew, through his
eccentric love of giving, found it impossible to keep out of debt,
which ever kept him in thraldom. The hour of his deepest bitterness
was when, while publicly administering the pledge in Dublin, he was
arrested for the balance of an account due to a medal manufacturer; the
bailiff to whom the duty was entrusted kneeling down among the crowd,
asking his blessing, and then quietly showing him the writ.
This is one of the many anecdotes told by Mr. Maguire, in his admirable
Life of Father Mathew, who, we learn from the same authority, at a
large party attempted to make a convert of Lord Brougham, who resisted,
good-humouredly but resolutely, the efforts of his dangerous neighbour.
"I drink very little wine," said Lord Brougham; "only half-a-glass at
luncheon, and two half glasses at dinner; and though my medical adviser
told me I should increase the quantity, I refused to do so." "They are
wrong, my lord, for advising you to increase the quantity, and you are
wrong in taking the small quantity you do; but I have my hopes of you."
And so, after a pleasant resistance on the part of the learned lord,
Father Mathew invested his lordship with the silver medal and ribbon,
the insignia and collar of the Order of the Bath. "Then I will keep
it," said Lord Brougham, "and take it to the House, where I shall be
sure to meet the old Lord ---- the worse of liquor, and I will put it
on him." Lord Brougham was as good as his word; for, on meeting the
veteran peer, he said: "Lord ----, I have a present from Father Mathew
for you," and passed the ribbon quietly over his neck. "Then I'll tell
you what it is, Brougham, by ---- I will keep sober for this day," said
his lordship, who kept his word, to the great amusement of his friends.
[Illustration: Edward Irving.]
Eccentric Preachers.
Scores, nay, hundreds of volumes have been gathered upon the oddities
of character which mankind, in all ages, have presented to the
observant writer who loves to "shoot folly as it flies." Voltaire has
said, "Every country has its foolish notions.... Let us not laugh at
any people;" and it would be difficult to find any age which has not
its curiosities of character, to be laughed at and turned to still
better account; for, of whatever period we write, something may be done
in the way of ridicule towards turning the popular opinion. Diogenes
owes much of his celebrity to his contempt of comfort, by living in a
tub, and his oddity of manner. Orator Henley preached from his "gilt
tub" in Clare Market, and thus earned commemoration in the _Dunciad_:--
Still break the benches, Henley, with thy strain,
While Sherlock, Hare and Gibson preach in vain;
O, worthy thou of Egypt's wise abodes,
A decent priest, where monkeys were the gods!
But Fate with butchers placed thy priestly stall,
Meek modern faith to murder, hack, and haul.
Eccentricity has its badge and characteristics by which it gains
distinction and notoriety, and which in some cases serve as a lure to
real excellence. The preaching of Rowland Hill is allowed to have been
excellent; but his great popularity was won by his eccentric manner,
and the many piquant anecdotes and witticisms, and sallies of humour
unorthodox, with which, during his long ministry, he interlarded
his sermons. However, he thought the end justified the means; and
certain it is that it drew very large congregations. The personal
allusions to his wife, which Rowland Hill is related to have used in
the pulpit, were, however, fictitious, and at which Hill expressed
great indignation. "It is an abominable untruth," he would exclaim;
"derogatory to my character as a Christian and a gentleman. They would
make me out a bear."
The success of Edward Irving, the popular minister of the National
Scotch Church in London, was of a more mixed character. It is stated,
upon good authority, that he first chose the stage as a profession,
and acted in Ryder's company, in Kirkaldy, a few miles from Edinburgh,
about fifty-five years since. The obliquity of his vision, his dialect,
and peculiarly awkward gait and manner, created so much derision, that
he left the stage for the pulpit, after about three months' probation.
Irving's sermons were not liked at first; and it was not until he was
recognised by Dr. Chalmers that Irving became popular. But he was
turned out of his church, and treated as a madman, and he died an
outcast heretic. "There was no harm in the man," says a contemporary,
"and what errors he entertained, or extravagancies he allowed in
connection with supposed miraculous gifts, were certain in due time
to burn themselves out." It was not so much the error of his doctrine
as the peculiarity of his manner, the torrent of his eloquence, his
superlative want of tact, that provoked his enemies, and frightened
his friends. The strength of his faith was wonderful. Once, when
he was called to the bedside of a dying man late at night he went
immediately. Presently he returned, and beckoned one of his friends to
accompany him. The reason was, that he really believed in the efficacy
of prayer, and held to the promise--"If _two_ of you shall agree on
earth as touching anything that ye shall ask, it shall be done." It was
necessary, therefore, that two should go to the sick man. So, also,
he had a child that died in infancy, to whom he was in the habit of
addressing "words of godliness, to nourish the faith that was in him."
And Irving adds that the patient heed of the child was wonderful. He
really believed that the infant, by some incomprehensible process,
could guess what he was saying, and profit by it. His love for children
was very great; and he, a very popular man in London, might be seen,
day by day, marching along the streets of Pentonville of an afternoon,
his wife by his side, and his baby in his arms.
His sermons had a large sale, going through many editions. But Irving
complains that, in spite of these large sales, he could never get the
religious publishers to whom he had entrusted his book to give him
anything but a pitiful return. It is amusing to find him in one letter
complaining that there is neither grace nor honour in the religious
booksellers, and requesting his wife in negotiating the sale of his
next venture to "try Blackwood, or some of these worldlings," in the
evident expectation that "these worldlings" were a good deal more
liberal in their dealings, not to say honest, than those whom he
regarded as his peculiar friends.
Irving a Millenarian.
The Millenarians proudly claim the late Edward Irving as having been
one of the most earnest believers in the personal reign of Christ.
In his latter days he was a Millenarian in the strictest sense of
the word. From the year 1827 to 1830, the Millenarianism question
was brought under the notice of thousands of Christians, who, though
remarkable for their knowledge of Scripture on other points, had never
bestowed a single thought on the question of Christ's personal reign on
earth. The cause of this was the prominence given to it by the Rev. E.
Irving, then at the summit of his popularity. Solely with the generous
view of assisting a Spanish friend, he had, in the previous year,
studied the Spanish language, and had made such progress as to be able
to translate it into English. Just at this time appeared in Spanish,
_The Coming of the Messiah in Glory and Majesty_, with which Irving was
much struck, as powerfully expressing his own views on the Millenarian
question, that he at once set to work, and translated it into English.
Its author professed to have been a Jewish convert to Christianity,
and gave the name of Juan Josaphat Ben-Ezra on the title-page. He was,
however, a Spanish priest and a Jesuit. It is not known whether Mr.
Irving was aware of the fraud which had been thus practised upon the
readers of the book; he described it as "the chief work of a master's
hand," and "a masterpiece of reasoning," and "a gift which he had
revolved well how he might turn to profit."