Eccentric Lord Coleraine.
J. T. Smith, in his _Life of Nollekens_, has left these sensible
remarks upon a class of persons whose lives present many instances
of right feeling and upright conduct, although mixed up with less
estimable qualities. "I believe," says Mr. Smith, "every age produces
at least one eccentric in every city, town, and village. Be this as it
may, go where you will, you will find some half-witted fellow, under
the nickname either of Dolly, Silly Billy, or Foolish Sam, who is
generally the butt and sport of his neighbours, and from whom, simple
as he may sometimes be, a sensible answer is expected to an unthinking
question: like the common children, who will, to our annoyance, inquire
of our neighbour's parrot what it is o'clock. In some such light
Nollekens was often held by his brother artists; and I once heard
Fuseli cry out, when on the opposite side of the street: 'Nollekens,
Nollekens, why do you walk in the sun? If you have no love for your few
brains, you should not melt your coat buttons!'"[35]
[35] Fuseli had one day sharply criticised the work of a brother
R.A., whom he sought to alleviate by remarking that the conceited
scene-painter, Mr. Capon, to whom Sheridan had given the nickname of
"Pompous Billy," had piled up his lumps of rock as regularly on the
side scene, as a baker would his quartern-loaves upon the shelves
behind his counter to _cool_.
The eccentric character is, likewise, sure to be found in London,
where there are several curious varieties of this class of persons to
be met with. In our walks, perchance, we may meet a man who always
casts his eye towards the ground, as if he were ashamed of looking any
one in the face; and who pretends, when accosted, to be near-sighted,
so that he does not know even the friend that had served him. This
short-sightedness is very common. Indeed, he draws his hat across his
forehead to act as an eye-shade, so that his sallow visage cannot
be immediately recognised, which makes him look as if he had done
something wrong; whilst his coat is according to the true Addison cut,
with square pockets large enough to carry the folio _Ship of Fools_.
No man was more gazed at than Lord Coleraine, who lived near the New
Queen's Head and Artichoke, in Marylebone Fields, and who never met
Nollekens without saluting him. "Well, Nollekens, my old boy, how goes
it? You never sent me the bust of the Prince." To which Nollekens
replied: "You know you said you would call for it one of these
days, and give me the money, and take it away in a hackney-coach."
"I remember," says J. T. Smith, "seeing his lordship, after he had
purchased a book entitled the _American Buccaneers_, sit down close
to the shop from which he had bought it, in the open street, in St.
Giles's, to read it. I also once heard Lord Coleraine, as I was passing
the wall at the end of the Portland Road, where an old apple-woman,
with whom his lordship held frequent conversations, was packing up her
fruit, ask her the following question: 'What are you about, mother?'
'Why, my lord, I am going home to my tea; if your lordship wants any
information I shall come again presently.' 'Oh! don't balk trade. Leave
your things on the table as they are: I will mind your shop till you
come back;' so saying, he seated himself in the old woman's wooden
chair, in which he had often sat before whilst chatting with her.
Being determined to witness the result, after strolling about till the
return of the old lady, I heard his lordship declare the amount of his
receipts by saying: 'Well, mother, I have taken threepence-halfpenny
for you. Did your daughter Nancy drink tea with you?'"
Eccentric Travellers.
Curious stories are told of tourists being so fascinated by certain
incidents in their travels as to be diverted from their purposes by
finding themselves so comfortable as to wish to proceed no further--a
lesson of content which is rarely lost on sensible persons.
It is told of an English gentleman, who started on a tour in 1815, the
year of the battle of Waterloo, that he landed at Ostend, with the
design of pushing on to Brussels, and took his place in the canal-boat
that plied between Brussels and Ghent. The traveller went abroad,
not merely to see foreign lands, but with the hope of meeting with
illustrious personages and distinguished characters. Finding, however,
that on board the _trekschuit_ he not only fell in with many persons
worth meeting, but had the opportunity of sitting down with them at the
_table-d'hôte_, he thought he could not do better, and went backwards
and forwards, never getting farther than Ghent.
Mr. Thackeray, in his _Vanity Fair_, gives this somewhat different
version of the story:--"The famous regiment ... was drafted in
canal-boats to Bruges, thence to march to Brussels. Jos. accompanied
the ladies in the public boats; the which all old travellers in
Flanders must remember for the luxury and accommodation they afforded.
So prodigiously good was the eating and drinking on board these
sluggish but most comfortable vessels, that there are legends extant of
an English traveller, who, coming to Belgium for a week, and travelling
in one of these boats, was so delighted with the fare there, that he
went backwards and forwards from Ghent to Bruges perpetually, until the
railroads were introduced, when he drowned himself on the last trip of
the passage-boat." Possibly the catastrophe is an embellishment.
To these ana, Mr. Sala has added the story of the Englishman, who is
_said_ to have made a bet that Van Amburgh, the lion-tamer, would be
eaten by his voracious pupils within a given time; and who followed him
about the continents of Europe and America in the hope of seeing him at
last devoured, and so winning his stakes. Eugène Sue introduces this
mythical Englishman among the _dramatis personæ_ of the _Wandering Jew_.
The Russians, also, have a story of an eccentric traveller--of course,
an Englishman--who posted overland, and in the depth of winter, to
St. Petersburgh, merely to see the famous wrought-iron gates of the
Summer Garden. He is said to have died of grief at finding the gates
superior to those at the entrance to his own park at home. Add to this
the lying traveller, who boasted that he had been everywhere, and who,
being asked how he liked Persia, replied that he scarcely knew, as _he
had only stayed there a day_. Note, likewise, among eccentricities, the
nobleman of whom it was inquired, at dinner, what he thought of Athens
during an Oriental tour. He turned to his body-servant, waiting behind
his chair, and said, "_John, what did I think of Athens?_"
In May, 1865, died Charles Waterton, "the gentle and gifted squire" of
Walton Hall, in Yorkshire, in his eighty-second year. Of this gentleman
one of the most eccentric incidents in modern travel is related to
have occurred in his wanderings in South America. His attendant Indian
had made an instrument to take a cayman, or alligator, of Guiana,
on the banks of the Essequibo river. It was very simple; there were
four pieces of tough, hard wood, a foot long, and about as thick as
your little finger; they were tied round the ends of a rope in such a
manner that if you conceive the rope to be an arrow, these four sticks
would form the arrow's head; or that one end of the four united sticks
answered to the point of the arrow's head, while the other end of the
sticks expanded at equal distances round the rope. Now, it is evident
that if the cayman swallowed this, the other end of the rope (which was
thirty yards long) being fastened to a tree, the more he pulled the
faster the barbs would stick into his stomach. The hook was well baited
with flesh, and entrails twisted round the rope for about a foot above
it. Into the steep sand-banks of the river the Indian pricked a stick,
and at its extremity was fixed the machine which hung suspended about a
foot from the water. Mr. Waterton and his companions then went back to
their hammocks for the night.
Next morning was found a cayman ten feet and a half long, fast to
the end of the rope. The next point was to get him out of the water
without injuring his scales. After revolving many projects, Mr.
Waterton had his canoe brought round; he then took out the mast, eight
feet long, and as thick as his wrist, and wrapped the sail round the
end of it; he then sunk down on one knee, about four yards from the
water's edge, backed by his seven attendants, and pulled the cayman to
the surface; he plunged furiously, and immediately went below again
on their slackening the rope; they pulled again, and out he came. "By
the time," says Mr. Waterton, "the cayman was within ten yards of me,
I saw he was in a state of fear and perturbation; I instantly dropped
the mast, sprung up, and jumped on his back, turning half round as I
vaulted, so that I gained my seat with my face in a right position. I
immediately seized his fore-legs, and, by main force, twisted them on
his back; thus they served me for a bridle." He now plunged furiously,
and lashed the sand with his tail. The people stoutly dragged him and
the traveller about forty yards on the sand. After repeated attempts to
regain his liberty, the cayman gave in, exhausted. Mr. Waterton then
tied up his jaws, and secured his fore-feet in the position he had
held them; there was still another struggle; while some of the people
pressed upon his head and shoulders, Mr. Waterton threw himself upon
his tail, keeping it down to the ground; and having conveyed the cayman
away, his throat was cut, and dissection commenced.
This account of "catching a crocodile" was at first regarded as a
"downright falsehood." Pliny, in his _Natural History_, however,
describes a race of men who swam after the crocodile of the Nile, "and
mounted on his back, like horsemen, as he opens his jaws to bite, with
his head turned up, they thrust a club in his mouth, and holding the
ends of it, one in the right hand and the other in the left, they bring
him to shore, as if captive with bridles." In a rare book of plates
of field sports one represents, probably from this account of Pliny,
some men riding on crocodiles, and bringing them to land by means of a
pole across their mouths, whilst others are killing them with large
clubs. Beneath is inscribed in Latin: "Tentyra, an island of the Nile,
in Egypt, is inhabited by an intrepid people, who climb the crocodile's
back, and, bridling his mouth with a staff, force him out of the river,
and slay him."
Dr. Pococke describes a method of taking the crocodile in Egypt still
more like that of South America. He says: "They make some animal cry
at a distance from the river, and when the crocodile comes out, they
thrust a spear into his body, to which a rope is tied; they let him go
into the water to spend himself, and afterwards, drawing him out, run a
pole into his mouth, and, jumping on his back, tie his jaws together."
To return to the Squire of Walton Hall.
Waterton is thus characterised by a personal friend:--He was one of
those men whose life, reaching back and retaining many characteristics
of the past, contrasted the present sameness with a manner of life much
more varied, but now almost forgotten. Rising always at three in the
morning, he gave an hour, as he said, "to the health and preservation
of the soul," and was then ready for the occupations and pursuits of
the day. His conversation and manners had that charm which comes of
ancestry, of ancient riches, and a polished education enlivened by a
sparkling wit.
In attachment to his religion he was as zealous as his great ancestor,
Sir Thomas More, whose clock, from the house at Chelsea, still tells
the hours at Walton Hall. His undoubting faith, and the consolations it
afforded him, might, indeed, be envied by some of those who worship at
other altars.
His hospitality was kind and generous: a stewed carp from the lake
carried you back to the good old times, and furnished a dish not soon
to be forgotten.
To those who knew him well there was something remarkably genial in
the society of the good old squire, and his manner of receiving and
bidding them adieu will be long remembered by his friends.
Mr. Thackeray, in _The Newcomes_, relates of Mr. Waterton this
interesting trait:--"A friend who belongs to the old religion took me,
last week, into a church where the Virgin lately appeared in person
to a Jewish gentleman, flashed down upon him from heaven in light and
splendour celestial, and, of course, straightway converted him. My
friend bade me look at the picture, and kneeling down beside me, I
know, prayed with all his honest heart that the truth might shine down
upon me too; but I saw no glimpse of heaven at all, I saw but a poor
picture, an altar with blinking candles, a church hung with tawdry
strips of red and white calico. The good, kind W. went away, humbly
saying, 'That such might have happened again if Heaven so willed it.' I
could not but feel a kindness and admiration for the good man. I know
that his works are made to square with his faith, that he dines on a
crust, lives as chastely as a hermit, and gives his all to the poor."
Elegy on a Geologist.
Archbishop Whately, one day, with genial humour, wrote a supposed
"Elegy on Dr. Buckland," of which the following is a portion:--
"Where shall we our great Professor inter,
That in peace may rest his bones?
If we hew him a rocky sepulchre
He'll rise and brake the stones,
And examine each stratum that lies around,
For he's quite in his element underground.
If with mattock and spade his body we lay
In the common alluvial soil,
He'll start up and snatch these tools away
Of his own geological toil;
In a stratum so young the Professor disdains
That embedded should lie his organic remains.
Then exposed to the drip of some case-hardening spring
His carcase let stalactite cover,
And to Oxford the petrified sage let us bring
When he is encrusted all over;
There, 'mid mammoths and crocodiles, high on a shelf,
Let him stand as a monument raised to himself."
[Illustration]
_ECCENTRIC ARTISTS._
Gilray and his Caricatures
The name of James Gilray stands pre-eminent in the annals of graphic
satire. In his hands, caricature became an art, and one that exercised
no unimportant influence on the kingdom of Great Britain. Previous to
this time, there is little challenging admiration in his department of
art. The satire for the most part was brutal where it had point, and
clumsy even in invention and execution.
Hogarth, Gay, Fielding, Pope, Swift, and Arbuthnot all aided the
progress of satire. France was satirized by Hogarth as a lean
personage, all frill and wristbands, with no shirt, dieting constantly
on frogs, and wearing wooden shoes. If to this we add Goldsmith's
hatred of the French, because they were slaves and wore wooden shoes,
we have the amount of the materials lying ready for the caricaturists'
use. The hatred towards our Scotch brethren, so strongly manifested
under the Bute administration, supplied the caricaturists with
hackneyed and profitless jokes. The satirical points of the wits
and humorists we have just named, and a few obscure caricaturists,
were selected, arranged, and adapted by the genius of Gilray to
illustrate, by the etching-needle, a series of political events, as
important as those of any country of modern times; and in Gilray's
works is preserved a pictorial record of the History of England during
the greater part of the reign of George III. An artist to excel in
caricature must possess abilities of a superior order, not only as a
designer and an etcher, but must have a deep knowledge of life, and
be conversant with the progress of public business; he must be a good
and a ready reasoner upon nearly all questions; his love of truth and
justice should enable him to detect the fallacies of argument, and
the injustice consequent upon false or injudicious public acts. A
keen sense of the ridiculous should direct his pencil; and then, by
a few touches, the true caricaturist, in the most striking manner,
mercilessly exposes the follies and the consequences of such acts. In
Gilray, of all men before him, was found the union of these requisites.
Of Gilray's early life little is known: it is supposed that he was born
at Chelsea, in 1757. Mr. Smith, late of Lisle Street, the well-known
connoisseur in prints, himself a collector of Gilray's works, states
that Gilray was first placed with Ashby, the writing-engraver, who
resided at the bottom of Holborn Hill, and afterwards was either a
pupil or an assistant with the celebrated Francis Bartolozzi, which
is doubtless founded on truth; as the mastery of the etching-needle,
occasional use of the graver, the mysteries of biting, re-biting,
and other practical points of engraving so completely possessed by
Gilray, could hardly have been attained elsewhere than in the studio
of an experienced engraver. An active imagination, an acute sense of
the ridiculous points of character, or of personal appearance, and a
facility of drawing and etching, would in most cases disqualify any
student for the quiet and laborious profession of a line-engraver. That
Gilray should have abandoned the higher branches of engraving cannot
excite either wonder or regret, as, in all probability, the rank of a
merely tolerable line-engraver was exchanged for the highest position
that can be awarded to the caricaturist; whose works, eagerly expected
by the sovereign down to the poorest labourer, invigorated the national
feeling against a powerful enemy, hourly watching an opportunity to
light up rebellion in the kingdom, with a determination to invade and
subjugate Old England.
Gilray made his first appearance as a caricaturist about 1782. Before
his time, it was usual for these satires to be published anonymously;
and it is very likely that Gilray might have thus published a few
caricatures before he openly set up as a caricaturist by profession,
and boldly put his name to his productions. The dispute between the
two admirals, Keppel and Sir Hugh Palliser, caused a great public
sensation. Keppel was tried by a court martial, and acquitted; and
Palliser retired from the service. The caricaturist took up the needles
and etched a naval pair of breeches and legs, writing underneath,
"Who's in Fault? Nobody?" but a head appears over the waistband--and
that is Sir Hugh Palliser's; _he_ was the _nobody_ in fault. A
comparison of this print with others of Gilray's will convince anyone
acquainted with the details of etching that it is Gilray's. It bears
the date of 1779. His first acknowledged production is dated 1782.
Having opened his battery of fun, he kept up a continued fire upon
his political victims until 1811, when an aberration of mind rendered
powerless the mighty hand which had "done the state some service."
Gilray was fortunate in meeting with Miss Humphrey, the printseller,
in St. James's Street; for, in his insane periods, she proved a most
kind and attached friend. He lived in her house, and mainly supported
her trade by the sale of his caricatures. It is said that both parties
had once resolved on matrimony, and were actually walking to church
to become man and wife; when, in the course of the walk, they both
reflected upon the approaching state of bondage, and mutually agreeing
not to sacrifice their liberty by so rash an act as marriage, walked
home again!
In the house of Miss Humphrey, Gilray found ample employment, an
excellent spot for marking down his game; here he heard all the news
and gossip of the day over a friendly table. Her shop being No. 29, St.
James's Street (and afterwards in the occupation of a printseller),
was of all others the best situated for Gilray's purpose, as his
victims were unconsciously walking daily to and fro before the shop.
Behind the window was Gilray, pencil in hand, taking off the heads
of the ministers and of the opposition. In this way he became so
familiarised with their features, that he could drolly exaggerate,
almost out of all humanity, the nose and lank figure of "Billy Pitt,
the heaven-born minister," and yet preserve so much likeness, that the
portrait was immediately recognised. Loutherburg, the eminent artist
and scene-painter, went to Valenciennes, after the seige in 1793, to
sketch the military works. He was accompanied by Gilray, who sketched
the officers. On their return, they were introduced to the king.
George III. did not comprehend the slight sketches made by Gilray;
and, remarking that he did not understand "the caricatures," sadly
offended Gilray, who had intended them as veritable portraits, and
had not the least idea of being "funny." Disappointed with the royal
criticism, he went home, and the next day caricatured his Majesty,
examining a miniature of Oliver Cromwell, by means of _candle-ends_ and
_save-alls_. He showed it to his friends, and said: "I wonder whether
the _royal_ connoisseur will _understand this_?"
The severity and fearful amount of ridicule at Gilray's command,
exposed him to threats of personal chastisement, and sometimes to
the probability of a prosecution. Fox was more than once disposed to
prosecute the artist, or the publishers--and not without reason; for in
some of his portraits he was the incarnation of diabolical sensuality.
Burke always figured as a half-starved Jesuit; and Sheridan, himself
a satirist, could scarcely stand the attacks of the caricaturist on
his red nose and portly person. However, they wisely foresaw that a
prosecution would be an excellent advertisement for the offensive
prints; so the senators sat down, and gratified themselves with
enjoying a hearty laugh at each other. George III. was more than once
severely attacked by Gilray; but he bore it with great good humour.
The facile invention, extraordinary humour, and rapid execution of
Gilray's works were marvellous. Some of his subjects are full of
figures, carefully drawn, although exaggerated. A complete collection
of his works amounts to no less than fifteen hundred! An over-taxed
imagination, constantly on the rack, watching opportunities, and the
rapidity with which the design, the etching, finishing, printing, and
publishing of the prints required to be executed, told fearfully upon
his mind. His mental powers failed, and the mirth-inspiring son of
genius became dead to the world. Some lucid intervals occurred, in one
of which he etched the well-known plate of the "Barber's Shop," after
Bunbury. Poor Gilray was deprived of his reason in the year 1811, from
which time, until his death in 1815, he was the wretched occupant of a
garret in Miss Humphrey's house. Here, at the barred windows, he was
sometimes seen by that esteemed artist, Kenny Meadows, who contemplated
the mad artist with horror. Miss Humphrey entirely supported Gilray
until death claimed what disease had left of the great satirist. He
threw himself out of an up-stairs window, and died of the injuries
he received, on the 1st of June, 1815. He was buried at St. James's
Church, Piccadilly, where a tablet is erected to his memory.