combats my lips were sometimes so cut against my teeth that I could
not eat any salad with vinegar, the acid occasioned so much smarting.
I could lick my antagonist as far as the fight with the gloves was
permitted to go, but in a few days at the word of command the lad was
ready for another licking, so that week after week I had no peace,
and had to lick him again; nor had I resolution enough to withstand
the taunts of being vanquished, if I refused to set to, although my
superior proficiency had been a hundred times asserted. All things
must have an end: every day strengthened my tall and growing limbs,
and every day my power over my antagonist increased, when, for some
ill conduct, he lost his service and these, to him, not very agreeable
encounters. My brother then for a time lost his amusement; 'Othello's
occupation' was gone, for nothing came into service at Cranford that
approached the age of a boy. A new footman was, however, inducted, a
grown man and not a little one, but a cross-grown lout of a fellow;
and, mere boy as I was, we were ordered to the stable, in front of my
brother's usual throne, the corn-bin, and there desired to do battle.
By this time I had got into such habits of pugnacious obedience that if
a bear had been introduced, and I had been told that the beast was to
vanquish me, I should at once have boxed with him. The combat I am now
alluding to was not unlike one of a boy and bear. I stepped back, put
in, and then gave way successfully, for a short time; but at last the
man met me with a half-round blow, and hit me clean down on the rough
stones of the stable. Henry did not seem to care much; but Moreton, who
was present, spoke out loudly against the shame of putting such a boy
to fight with a grown man, and I believe, feeling slightly annoyed at
the way he had overmatched me, our elder brother stopped any further
assault on my part, and suggested that Peter should put the gloves on
with his own servant, a well-built, active little fellow, whom he had
daily thrashed into one of the most expert boxers of his size. Peter,
all agreeable, set to with Shadrach, when the former caught such a
right-hander in the face as sent him as if he had been shot upon the
stable stones. He rose crying, and deprived of all wish for another
blow--my fall very sufficiently avenged. I have often wondered why
I was not cowed by all this brutality, or why I ever took to those
more gentle accomplishments in life that used to get me the name of
'dandy' among some of my rougher compeers. However, time wore on; I
fought through the stable-boys and men-servants, and had sense enough
not to acquire any rudeness of manner, nor dislike to more refined
occupations."
The author then gives some anecdotes of the persons who visited the
Cranford-bridge Inn at this time, most of them for shooting or hunting;
and such is the penalty which one gentleman still alive must pay for
his presence on one of these occasions that Mr. Berkeley stigmatizes
him as a most dangerous companion to shoot with, as he was nearly
peppering his (Mr. B.'s) legs and those of the Duke of York. Liston
and Dowton, the comedians, used also to come to the Cranford-bridge
Inn, and Mr. Berkeley tells a characteristic story of the latter.
The astonishment of John Varley, the artist, who taught his sisters
drawing, at a man on horseback clearing a fence in his presence,
is depicted with a dash of humour, and it is evident from what Mr.
Berkeley says of Varley in other respects that he must have been well
acquainted with his various eccentricities.
Again we come upon some of his hunting experiences in the neighbourhood
of Cranford, such as those shared with Lord Alvanley, who in answer
to the question, "What sport?" at White's, replied, "Oh, the melon
and asparagus beds were devilish heavy--up to our hocks in glass all
day; and all Berkeley wanted was a landing-net to get his deer out of
the water." It was with G. B. also that the late Sir George Wombwell,
having missed his second horse, spoke to one of the surly cultivators
of that stiff vale thus:--"I say farmer, ---- it, have you seen my
fellow?" The man, with his hands in his breeches' pockets, eyed his
questioner in silence for a minute and then exclaimed, "No, upon my
soul I never did!" Hunting about Harrow became very expensive from
the damage it did to the farmers in that district, and the claims for
compensation which it entailed upon Mr. Berkeley and his friends. The
result of this, he says, at once became evident; a mine of wealth would
soon have been insufficient to cover the cost of a single run over the
Harrow vale, and "reluctantly I saw that if I intended to keep hounds I
must go farther from the metropolis, and seek a wilder scene in which
to hunt a fox instead of a stag, and thus take a higher degree in the
art of hunting." Accordingly, negotiations were entered into for his
becoming the master of hounds to the Oakley Club in Bedfordshire for
1,000_l._ a-year, the club taking all the cost of the earth-stopping
upon themselves and other incidental expenses. The depreciation of
West India property which occurred about this time, and the larger
expenses contingent on taking a country in which to hunt a fox four
days a week, made him resolve to give up his seasons in London and
settle down quietly to a country life, thus avoiding every unnecessary
expenditure. His arrangements, in spite of opposition from some members
of the club, appear to have been satisfactory and eventually popular,
until the sport of his last season was positively brilliant, when in
Yardley Chase alone he found seventeen foxes, and killed fourteen of
them with a run.
What Became of the Seven Dials
Whoever is familiar with the history of St. Giles's will recollect
that Seven Dials is an open area so called because there was formerly
a column in the centre, on the summit of which were (_traditionally_)
seven sun-dials, with a dial facing each of the seven streets which
radiate from thence. They are thus described in Gay's _Trivia_:--
"Where famed St. Giles's ancient limits spread,
An in-rail'd column rears its lofty head;
Here to seven streets seven dials count their day,
And from each other catch the circling ray;
Here oft the peasant, with inquiring face,
Bewilder'd trudges on from place to place;
He dwells on every sign with stupid gaze--
Enters the narrow alley's doubtful maze--
Tries every winding court and street in vain,
And doubles o'er his weary steps again."
This column was removed in July, 1773, on the supposition that a
considerable sum of money was lodged at the base; but the search was
ineffectual.
Several years ago, Mr. Albert Smith, who lived at Chertsey, discovered
in his neighbourhood part of the Seven Dials--the column doing duty as
a monument to a Royal Duchess--when he described the circumstance in
a pleasant paper, entitled "Some News of a famous Old Fellow," in his
_Town and Country Magazine_. The communication is as follows:--
"Let us now quit the noisome mazes of St. Giles's and go out and away
into the pure and leafy country. Seventeen or eighteen miles from town,
in the county of Surrey, is the little village of Weybridge. Formerly
a couple of hours and more were passed pleasantly enough upon a coach
through Kingston, the Moulseys, and Walton, to arrive there, over a
sunny, blowy common of pink heath and golden furze, within earshot,
when the wind was favourable, of the old monastery bell, ringing out
the curfew from Chertsey church. Now the South-Western Railway trains
tear and racket down in forty-five minutes, but do not interfere with
the rural prospects, for their path lies in such a deep cutting, that
the very steam does not intrude upon the landscape.
"One of the 'lions' to be seen at Weybridge is Oatlands, with its
large artificial grotto and bath-room, which is said--but we cannot
comprehend the statement--to have cost the Duke of Newcastle, who
had it built, 40,000_l._ The late Duchess of York died at Oatlands,
and lies in a small vault under Weybridge Church, wherein there is
a monument, by Chantrey, to her memory. She was an excellent lady,
well-loved by all the country people about her, and when she died they
were anxious to put up some sort of tribute to her memory. But the
village was not able to offer a large sum of money for this purpose.
The good folks did their best, but the amount was still very humble,
and so they were obliged to dispense with the services of any eminent
architect, and build up only such a monument as their means could
compass. Somebody told them that there was a column to be sold cheap
in a stone mason's yard, which might answer their purpose. It was
accordingly purchased; a coronet was placed upon its summit; and the
memorial was set up on Weybridge Green, in front of the Ship Inn, at
the junction of the roads leading to Oatlands, to Shepperton Locks, and
to Chertsey. This column turned out to be the original one from Seven
Dials.
"The stone on which the 'dials' were engraved or fixed, was sold with
it. The poet Gay, however, was wrong when he spoke of its seven faces.
It is hexagonal in its shape; this is accounted for by the fact that
two of the streets opened into one angle. It was not wanted to assist
in forming the monument, but was turned into a stepping-stone, near
the adjoining inn, to assist the infirm in mounting their horses, and
there it now lies, having sunk by degrees into the earth; but its
original form can still be easily surmised. It may be about three feet
in diameter.
"The column itself is about thirty feet high, and two feet in diameter,
displaying no great architectural taste. It is surmounted by a coronet,
and the base is enclosed by a light iron railing. An appropriate
inscription on one side of the base, indicates its erection in the year
1822; on the others, are some lines to the memory of the Duchess.
"Relics undergo strange transpositions. The Obelisk from the mystic
solitudes of the Nile to the centre of the Place de la Concorde in
bustling Paris--the monuments of Nineveh to the regions of Great
Russell Street--the frescoes from the long, dark, and silent Pompeii
to the bright and noisy Naples--all these are odd changes. But in
proportion to their importance, not much behind them is that of the
old column from the crowded, dismal regions of St. Giles to the sunny
tranquil Green of Weybridge."
[Illustration: Curtis the Biographer of Corder. An Old Bailey
Celebrity.]
An Old Bailey Character.
Some thirty years ago there appeared in the second series of the _Great
Metropolis_[34] a sketch of one Mr. Curtis, an eccentric person who
was to be seen in the New Court in the Old Bailey, as constantly as
the Judge himself. He (Curtis) was known to everybody in and about
the place. For nearly a quarter of a century he had been in constant
attendance at the Old Bailey from the opening to the close of each
session, never being absent with the exception of two occasions,
when attending the county assizes. He wrote short-hand, and was so
passionately fond of reporting that he had taken down for his own
special amusement every case verbatim which came before the New Court;
and such was his horror of the Old Court, that you might as soon expect
to hear the Bishop of London in a Dissenters' chapel as to find Mr.
Curtis in the Old Court. He was notable for early rising: four o'clock
in the morning he considered a late hour. It was an event in his
life to lie in bed till five. By seven he had completed his morning
journeys, which usually embraced a distance--for he was particularly
fond of going over the same ground twice if not thrice in a morning--of
from six to eight miles. Among the places visited, Farringdon Market,
Covent Garden Market, Hungerford Market, and Billingsgate were never
under any circumstances omitted. His own notion was that he had walked
as much within thirty years before seven in the morning as would have
made the circuit of the globe three or four times. He was, perhaps, the
most inveterate pedestrian known; locomotion seemed to be a necessity
of his nature. There was only one exception to this rule--that was,
when he was taking down the trials at the Old Bailey. He considered it
as the greatest favour that could be conferred on him to be asked to
walk ten or twelve miles by an acquaintance. He was very partial to wet
weather, and as fond of a rainy day as if he were a duck. He was never
so comfortable as when thoroughly drenched. Thunder and lightning threw
him into ecstasies; he was known to have luxuriated for some hours on
Dover cliff in one of the most violent thunderstorms ever remembered
in this country. He once walked from the City to Croydon Fair and back
again on three consecutive days of the Fair; making with his locomotive
achievements in Croydon a distance of nearly fifty miles a-day; and
this without any other motive than that of gratifying his pedestrian
propensities. He had a horror of coaches, cabs, omnibuses, and all
sorts of vehicles; and he was not known to have been ever seen in one.
Judging from his partiality to heavy showers of rain, he seemed to be
to a certain extent an amphibious being; and he often declared, with
infinite glee, that he was once thrown into a pond without suffering
any inconvenience. The benefits of air and exercise were manifest
in his cheerful disposition and healthy-looking, though somewhat
weather-beaten countenance: he seemed the happiest little thick-built
man alive.
[34] The popular work of Mr. James Grant.
He not only rose very early, but was also late in going to bed. On an
average, he had not for twenty years slept above four hours in the
twenty-four. He was often weeks without going to bed at all, and it
sufficed him to have two or three hours' doze in his arm-chair, and
with his clothes on. In the year 1834, he performed an unusual feat in
this way: he sat up one hundred consecutive nights and days, without
stretching himself on a bed, or putting himself into an horizontal
position, even for a moment. For one century of consecutive nights, as
Curtis phrased it, he neither put off his clothes to lie down in bed,
nor anywhere else, for a second; all the sleep he had during the time
was an occasional doze in his arm-chair.
Curtis's taste for witnessing executions, and for the society of
persons sentenced to death, was remarkable. He had been present at
every execution in the metropolis and its neighbourhood for the
last quarter of a century. He actually walked before breakfast to
Chelmsford, which is twenty-nine miles from London, to be present at
the execution of Captain Moir. For many years he had not only heard
the condemned sermons preached in Newgate, but spent many hours in the
gloomy cells with the persons who had been executed in London during
that period. He passed much time with Fauntleroy, and was with him a
considerable part of the day previous to his execution. With Corder,
too, of Red Barn notoriety, he contracted a friendship: immediately on
the discovery of the murder of Maria Martin, he hastened to the scene,
and remained there till Corder's execution. He afterwards wrote the
_Memoirs of Corder_, which were published by Alderman Kelly, Lord
Mayor, in 1837-8: the work had portraits of Corder and Maria Martin,
and of Curtis, and nothing pleased him better than to be called the
biographer of Corder.
By some unaccountable fatality, Curtis, where he was unknown, often had
the mortification of being mistaken under very awkward circumstances
for other persons. At Dover he was once locked up all night on
suspicion of being a spy. When he went to Chelmsford to be present
at Captain Moir's execution, he engaged a bed at the Three Cups inn;
on returning thither in the evening the servants rushed out of his
sight, or stared suspiciously at him, he knew not why, till at length
the landlady, keeping some yards distant from him, said in tremulous
accents, "We cannot give you a bed here; when I promised you one, I did
not know the house was full." "Ma'am," replied Curtis, indignantly,
"I have taken my bed, and I insist on having it." "I am very sorry
for it, but you cannot sleep here to-night," was the reply. "I _will_
sleep here to-night; I've engaged my bed, and refuse me at your peril,"
reiterated Curtis. The landlady then offered him the price of a bed
in another place, to which Curtis replied, resenting the affront,
"No, ma'am; I insist upon my rights as a _public_ man; I have a duty
to perform to-morrow." "It's all true. He says he's a public man, and
that he has a duty to perform," were words which every person in the
room exchanged in suppressed whispers with each other. The waiter now
stepped up to Mr. Curtis, and taking him aside, said--"The reason why
Mistress will not give you a bed is because you're the executioner."
Curtis was astounded, but in a few moments laughed heartily at the
mistake. "I'll soon convince you of your error, ma'am," said Curtis,
walking out of the house. He returned in a few minutes with a gentleman
of the place, who having testified to his identity being different from
that supposed, the landlady apologized for the mistake, and, as some
reparation, gave him the best bed in the inn.
[Illustration]
However, a still more awkward mistake occurred. After passing night
after night with Corder in prison, Curtis accompanied him to his trial,
and stood up close behind him at the bar. An artist had been sent from
Ipswich to sketch a portrait of Corder for one of the newspapers of
that town; but the sketcher mistook Curtis for Corder, and in the next
number of the journal Mr. Curtis figured at full length as the murderer
of Maria Martin! He bore the mistake with good humour, and regarded
this as one of the most amusing incidents of his life.
Amidst these harmless eccentricities, Mr. Curtis effected much good
amongst prisoners under sentence of death. "I speak within bounds,"
says the author of the _Great Metropolis_, "when I mention that he
has from first to last spent more than a hundred nights with unhappy
prisoners under sentence of death, conversing with them with all
seriousness and with much intelligence on the great concerns of that
eternal world on whose brink they were standing. I saw a long and
sensible letter which the unhappy man named Pegsworth, who was executed
in March, 1837, for the crime of murder, addressed a few days before
his death to Mr. Curtis, and in which he most heartily thanked Mr. C.
for all the religious instructions and admonitions he had given him;
adding, that he believed he had derived great spiritual benefit from
them."
Bone and Shell Exhibition.
It is curious to note with what odd results of patient labour our
forefathers were amused to the top of their bent. They were Curiosities
in the strictest sense of the term; but as to the information conveyed
by their exhibition, it was generally a _lucus à non lucendo_.
In Suffolk Street, Cockspur Street, an ingenious Mrs. Dards got up a
display of this kind, consisting of an immense collection of artificial
flowers, made entirely by herself with fish-bones, the incessant labour
of many years, of which she said to Mr. J. T. Smith:--"No one can
imagine the trouble I had in collecting the bones for that bunch of
lilies of the valley. Each cup consists of the bones which contain the
brains of the turbot; and from the difficulty of matching the sizes,
I never should have completed my task had it not been for the kindness
of the proprietors of the London, Freemasons', and Crown and Anchor
taverns, who desired their waiters to save the fish-bones for me."
This ingenious person distributed a card embellished with flowers
and insects, upon which was engraven an advertisement, stating the
exhibition to be the labour of thirty years, and to contain "a great
variety of beautiful objects equal to nature." Likewise enabled to
gratify them.
"With bones, scales, and eyes, from the prawn to the porpoise,
Fruit, flies, birds, and flowers, oh, strange metamorphose!"
"Quid Rides?"
"People," says Mr. De Morgan, "are apt to believe that a smart saying
or a ready retort are not a real occurrence; it was made up: it is too
good to be true, &c." Perhaps there is no story which would be held
more intrinsically deniable than that of the tobacconist who adopted
_Quid rides?_ for his motto on his carriage.
A friend, whose years, it will be seen, are many, has given me the
following note:--
"Jacob Brandon was a tobacco-broker in the last century, a remarkable
man in his way, supposed to be rich, a good companion, and extravagant
in his expenses. Before the year 1800, I saw a chariot in Cheapside
with a coat-of-arms, or rather a shield bearing a hand (sample) of
tobacco and a motto, _Quid rides?_ It was an old carriage, and at the
time belonged to a job-master, so the driver told a person who was
curious to know what the arms meant. It was this man's curiosity that
caused my noticing the arms. Mentioning the circumstance in my father's
presence, he said it was Brandon's old carriage. He had become gouty,
and could not walk; he bought the carriage, had it newly painted, and
was asked for his arms. This required consideration. Some thought
Brandon was a Jew, or of Jewish extraction. Be this as it may, he
loved a joke, and cared little for armorial bearings. He was telling
a party in Lloyd's Coffee-house about his new carriage, and that he
had determined to have a symbol of his profession on it, but that
he wanted a motto. A well-known member of Lloyd's, a wit, and, as I
afterwards found out, a curious reader, suggested _Quid rides?_ which
was forthwith adopted. This was Harry Calendon. I knew him well; he
died within the present century. I have found that some of his witty
stories about living persons were taken from old books. My father knew
Brandon well, and employed him. Now, as to _Quid rides?_ being proposed
by some Irish wit as a motto for Lundy Foot, of Dublin, famous for a
particular snuff, I have heard something of the history and habits of
Lundy Foot; he had no carriage with arms on it. His snuff is still sold
with its distinguishing wrapper and stamp, but no _Quid rides?_--which
would certainly have been perpetuated if it had ever been adopted by
the manufacturer of the snuff."
"Bolton Trotters."
This was the cognomen given to the muslin-weavers of Bolton in the days
of their prosperity. The trade was that of a gentleman. They brought
home their work in top-boots and ruffled shirts, carried a cane, and
in some instances took a coach. Many weavers at that time used to walk
about the street with a five-pound Bank of England note spread out
under their hatbands; they would smoke none but long "churchwarden"
pipes, and objected to the intrusion of any other handicraftsmen into
the particular rooms in the public-houses which they frequented.
The "Bolton Trotters" were much addicted to practical joking, of
which Mr. French, in his _Life of Samuel Crompton_, narrates this
story:--"One of the craft visiting Bolton on a market-day, having
delivered his work at the manufacturing warehouse, and obtained
materials for his succeeding work, placed them carefully in one end
of his blue linen wallet, and filled the other end with articles of
clothing and provisions, upon which he had expended his recently
received wages. He had, however, reserved a portion for his accustomed
potation upon such occasions; and that he might enjoy this solace of
his labour in comfort and safety, he left his wallet at the warehouse
before visiting his favourite tavern. The good ale did its office, and
when elevated to just the proper pitch for _trotting_, he met a brother
of the loom, who, like himself, had transacted his day's business,
and was now ready to trudge home with his wallet on his shoulder. The
two weavers mingled with a little crowd gathered together to hear the
strains of the Bolton volunteer band performing near the Swan Hotel.
He who had left his wallet at the warehouse was not, however, too much
engrossed by the martial music to neglect the tempting opportunity
to trot his quondam friend, with whom he stood shoulder to shoulder,
though each looked in a different direction. Provided with a needle
and stout thread, and being the shorter man of the two, he had no
difficulty in sewing the edge of his neighbour's well-filled wallet to
the lapel of his own velveteen jacket, and then, during a momentary
movement in the crowd, adroitly hitched it from his neighbour's to
his own shoulder. An immediate and clamorous charge of robbery was
made, and met by an indignant denial from the trotter, who coolly
remonstrated with the loser on his culpable want of ordinary care,
pointing out, at the same time, at the means he had taken to secure his
own wallet, which no one, he said, could steal from him. This evidence
was unanswerable, particularly as it was supported by many of the
bystanders who had seen the whole transaction, and joined heartily in
the laugh at the weaver who had been so effectually _trotted_ for their
amusement. A reconciliation was effected through the ordinary means on
these occasions, of an adjournment to the alehouse."
[Illustration: Lord Coleraine keeping an Apple-Stall.