Those words "odd," and "singular," and "eccentric," what odd, singular,
eccentric sort of words they are, reader! How often they mean
nothing,--being thrown out, as descriptions of character, by drivelling
Ignorance, who scrapes them up as the dregs,--the mere siftings left at
the bottom of his vocabulary, when he has expended his scant collection
of more definite images-in-syllables. And how much more often are they
affixed to the memories of the living or dead, who have been real
brothers among men, and have thus earned these epithets from jaundiced
envy, or guilty selfishness, or heartless pride and tyranny. How little
it commends to us, either our common nature, or such corrupt fashioning
as ages of wrong have given it, that, if we would become acquainted with
a truly good man,--a being to love and to knit the heart unto,--we must
seek for him among the class of character which the world--woe worth
it!--calls "odd," or "singular," or "eccentric!"
Yet so it is, the best of mankind, those, most veritably, "of whom the
world was not worthy," have been, in their day, either the butt for the
sneers of silliness, or the object of envy's relentless hate, or they
have toiled and toiled, perhaps unto martyrdom, beneath the withering,
blasting frown of pride and oppression. Ay, and let us be honest with
ourselves, and confess, that though years or hard experience may have
bettered our own natures,--for we are all too much like that kind of
fruit which takes long days and many weathers to ripen it, so as to
bring forth its most wholesome flavour,--let us be honest, I say, with
ourselves, and confess, that we were as foolishly willing as others, in
our youth, to laugh at what the varlet world calls oddness, and
singularity, and eccentricity. Some of us, however, now see matters in a
somewhat different light. We have discovered that there is some marrow
of meaning in many of those old saws we once thought so tiresome and
dry,--such as, "All is not gold that glitters," and, "Judge not a nut by
the shell," and the like; and we say, within ourselves, when we are in a
moralising mood, (as you and I are now, reader,) that, if we were young
again, we would not join the world in laughing as we used to laugh with
it, at certain queer folk who dwell in our memories,--for we begin to
have a shrewd suspicion that they were among the true "diamonds in the
rough" of human character.
And, to be truly candid with ourselves, reader, have not you and I
found out, by this time, that we are, to all intents and purposes, as
"odd," and as "singular," and as "eccentric," as other folk? Is not the
jewel of the truth this,--as pointless as the saying may look at first
sight,--that--All men are singular? Hath not every man his likes and his
dislikes, his whims and his caprices, his fancies and his hobbies, his
faults and his failings? And are not these found so strangely interwoven
in our daily thinkings, and sayings, and doings, that they may well make
observers ponder upon them, if they had not enough of similar employment
at home? Nay, if some one unnatural sort of thought, or impression, or
habit, which each of us have, could be seen, at all times, by every
body, in its true dimensions, would it not look as uncouth as one of
those huge boulders of primary rock tumbled down from the mass, and left
sticking out from some late-formed strata of marl, quite at a distance
from its proper place, that the geologists talk of? Would not the
thought, or impression, or habit, if our most attached friends could see
it in its proper moral bulk, dwarf many of our "excellencies," as their
partiality phrases it, and really render us poor deformed things, in
their judgment?
"What, then, do ye mean to preach us into the belief that it is a crime
for us ever to have a hearty, harmless laugh, at a queer fellow when we
chance to see him?" Not exactly so, my lads; but we ought never to
forget that we are queer fellows ourselves. Nor ought we to fail in the
reflection that, if we were fully acquainted with that queer fellow, it
might happen we should discover him to be of infinitely more moral value
than ten thousand of the smooth-trimmed estimables in the eye of the
world, who conform to all its precepts so obediently that they never
anger it. And, much more, if we know enough of the "queer fellow" to be
aware that a true, warm, glowing, fraternal heart for his
fellow-creatures beats in his bosom, notwithstanding a few outward
traits of somewhat striking difference from the crowd, why, then, it
becomes our bounden duty,--I will not say, never to smile at his
peculiarities, for that sort of puritanism will not make us better
men,--but to dwell upon his virtues and excellencies,--to extol them,
yea, to enthrone them, whenever he is seen, or heard, or talked of, by
those with whom we company.
Perhaps political party is more universal than any other bad influence
without, in misguiding Englishmen into ill-natured, or contemptuous, or
depreciatory judgments of their neighbours and fellow-townsmen. The last
dozen or fifteen years, especially, have engendered a superabundance of
this foul canker;--so many new rivalries have sprung up with the great
changes in political and municipal institutions; and men, from the
mightiest to the meanest, have been caught up, and whirled along, in
many instances so involuntarily, into the rush and torrent of change.
And yet, how the lapse of these dozen or fifteen years hath altered the
judgment of many of us, with regard to some men and their party-cries.
What a wide-spread "liberal" laudation, for instance, there was about
the famous definition of a Tory, in the _Times_,--and yet how soon it
became its own "duck-legged drummer-boy," and all that! Nay, how soon
did some of the very chiefs of the potential reforming party,--from
idols of the multitude,--by their refusal to complete what they had
begun, and, indeed, in some instances, by their open manifestation of a
will to undo what they had done,--become its scoff and scorn, nay, even
its detestation!
And then the old "Guilds," or "Corporations," to which the new
"Town-Councils" have succeeded,--what a general tendency to exaggeration
there was in the mode of judging of them, and in the tone of talking and
writing about them, especially in the public prints. How witty were the
newspaper people in their conceits of conserving, or pickling, or
embalming an alderman, and having him placed in the British Museum, as a
curiosity for antiquaries to form profound speculations upon, some ten
or twelve centuries into futurity! Ay, and how eloquently abusive was
the prevailing Whig strain about "nests of corruption," and "rotten
lumber," and "fine pickings," and "impositions, and frauds, and dark
rogueries of the self-elect!" And how the scale has turned, since, in
the greater share of boroughs, where the poor and labouring classes
threw up their hats for joy at "municipal reform,"--and now mutter
discontent at the pride of upstarts become insolent oppressors,--or
openly curse, as in the poverty-stricken and hunger-bitten manufacturing
districts, at the relentless and grinding tyrannies of the recreant
middle-classes whom municipal honours have drawn off from their
hot-blooded radicalism, and converted into cold, unfeeling, merciless
wielders of magisterial or other local power.
There was, it cannot be denied, in the droll trappings and antiquated
mummeries of the old guilds,--in their ermined scarlet cloaks, and funny
cocked hats, and in their maces and staves,--and above all, in the
starch, and march, and swelling, and strut, and pomposity, with which
these were worn or borne,--much that was calculated to tickle the
spectator into mirth; but, really, when one thinks of it, are the
horse-hair wig of a bishop, a judge, or a barrister, the robe and
coronet of a peer, or the crown and sceptre of a king or queen, less
like playthings for upgrown children than were the "regalia" and antique
habits of the old corporation-men? Was Cromwell so far beside the mark
when he called the Speaker's mace a "fool's bauble?"--and might not the
expression be applied with as much fitness to many other "ensigns of
office," as they are called?
And again: though it is true that a grand uncurtaining of robbery,--for
that is the plain English of it,--was made in some, at least, of the old
boroughs, by the inquest of that parliamentary commission which preceded
the sweeping away of the old corporations,--yet are we not, now, become
conscious, that amid the party heat and animosity of the period, much
private excellence was over-shaded or forgotten in the rage of public
censure, nay, that much virtue was denied, even where it was known to
exist, lest the recognition of it should mar the scheme for overthrowing
the party to which that virtue was attached?
This is a long exordium for a fugitive sketch, and it is time to say it
has sprung from reflections created in the mind of an imprisoned
"conspirator" and "mover of sedition," by the flitting across his cell,
in his imagination, of sundry bygone shapes with whom he was, more or
less, familiar at one period of his changeful life. It is the "Old
Corporation" of the ancient and time-honoured city of Lincoln, of which
the writer speaks;--and though wit might discover among its members many
a foible that would form a picture to "make those laugh whose lungs are
tickled o' the sere," yet generosity, and justice, no less, must
confess, that after the most searching inquiry and exposure, they were
neither individually nor collectively stained with the acts of
peculation and embezzlement, nor application of public funds to
political party purposes, which were so heavily, and, no doubt, truly
charged on some of the old guilds in other parts of the country.
Yet they were, as a body, supporters of the _ancien regime_, as was
natural: they had been inured, the greater part of them, through nearly
the whole of their lives, to look upon the established state of things
as the best and fittest;--and, no doubt, the majority of them
conscientiously believed it to be so,--failing, through the confined and
stinted nature of their social training, to reflect that what was
productive to themselves, the few, of pleasure or comfort, might confer
no benefits on the many,--but rather be a source, to these, of deep and
increasing suffering. Passing by many a picture that starts to memory of
"mayoralty," and its ludicrous airs of greatness, and many a
reminiscence of grave joke and lighter whimsicality,--of burlesque
importance, and mirth-moving earnestness about trifles,--recollection
dwells with consolated interest on more durable limnings of simple,
uncorrupted manners, and warm hearts, and really expansive natures, that
belonged to some of that "Old Corporation."
There is one comes before me, vividly, at this moment,--while that sweet
robin-red-breast hops into my day-room, and bends his neck to look at me
so knowingly and friendlily in my loneliness, as he doth, almost
daily;--and the loved bird's image consorts delightfully with him I was
thinking of,--for, above all things, the fine, noble-hearted, yet meek
and gentle old alderman, loved to be thought and esteemed an
_ornithologist_! That was his pride, his loftiest aim, his highest
ambition,--as far as reputation or a name was the subject of his
thought. As for his charities, and enlarged acts of sympathy for his
suffering fellow-creatures, his deeds of mercy and goodness, he strove
to hide them, performing them often by stealth, and half denying the
performance of them, when admiration of his beneficence kindled praise
of it in his hearing. Ah! it is too true: he relieved wretchedness till
his purse was scanty, and his circumstances were straitened;--and
then,--and then,--in spite of his aldermanic dignity, in spite of his
"respectable" family connections, and even the respectability of his own
practice and profession, as a surgeon,--he was mentioned as the
"odd,"--the "singular,"--the "eccentric" Mr. ----!
_That_ is the world. Who would have dreamt that Alderman----was odd, or
singular, or eccentric, had he kept his money, instead of giving it to
the distressed?
But the kind-hearted old man thirsted for reputation as an
_ornithologist_. Well, and in good sooth, he had some solid claim to it.
Birds were his passion; and you seldom met any one who knew so much
about them. I know not whether his relatives keep the book of drawings
which the good man showed to me, as he had showed it to hundreds, with
so much innocent pride;--taking care to relate how it had been begun
when he was a young apprentice, and had taken him years to complete;
above all, that it was the product of early hours stolen from sleep, and
had never robbed, his professional duties of their proper share of
attention. They ought to keep it, however, and to value it too. Not for
the sake of any surpassing excellence in the portraitures of birds with
which it was filled; for, although the good old man was so proud of the
"_real_ birds," which he used to observe it contained, yet they were
embodied to the eye somewhat in Chinese taste, as clearly as I can
remember: rather with exactitude of pencillings and shades, than with
skill in the "drawing" or attitude of the bird, or observance of rules
of perspective, or "fore-shortening," or any of the intricacies of art.
But the heart--the heart of the good man whose hand performed these
curious and laborious limnings--should stamp a precious value on the
book that contained them.
Nor was it a mere unmeaning hobby, this love of the feathered tribe
which was so strong in the benevolent alderman. He was another Gilbert
White in diligence of observation on their habits in the woods and
fields, and on the heath and the moor. In his rural rides as a surgeon,
he was ever learning some fact relative to their economy, and he most
diligently chronicled it. And at the return of the season, he was as
punctually periodical as the fall of the leaf in acquainting his
friendly circle with his impressions relative to the severity or the
openness of the ensuing winter, from his observations on the feathered
tribe. Many of these "prognostications," as some people called them,
although he never assumed the character of a prophet himself, were
registered in the _Stamford Mercury_, the long-established and
ably-conducted medium of information for the extensive though
thinly-peopled district of Lincolnshire; and they so seldom failed to be
realised, that the ornithological surgeon was often complimented on his
prophecies. "Nay," he would reply, "I am no prophet: I only go by
Nature's books: you may do the same, if you'll read them."
Was it his diligent and loving perusal of these books which imbued him
with that never-failing zeal to relieve the miserable? was it by his
continued drinking of the lessons of bounty and care discoverable in
those books, that kept open, to his latest day, the sluices of his
beneficent heart,--so that the icy influences of the world never froze
them up,--but they were left to well out goodness, and tenderness, and
pity, for the poor, and hungry, and sick, and miserable, to the end of
his life?
One cannot suppress a persuasion of this kind; and it seems next to
impossible but that Gilbert White must have gladdened the poor of his
"Selborne," to the very extent of his means, and, perhaps, sometimes
beyond it,--secretly, humbly, and unobtrusively,--while his amiable
mind was displaying so simply and charmingly, in that correspondence
with Tennant and Barrington, its devoted love and admiration of the
characters in "Nature's books." This thought may be but a prejudice of
the imagination; but such prejudices are less criminal than the
prejudices of the judgment or understanding, and one feels unwilling to
have them removed in a case like this: we have, alas! too many examples
of evil contradictions in the characters we thirst to love,--and our
worship even of the noblest intelligences,--such as Bacon,--is too often
checked by them.
In the devoted reader of "Nature's books," however, of whom we are
immediately speaking, there was a delightful harmony of character. "I
cannot pay you, yet, Mr. ----,"--said a poor woman to him, as I walked by
his side, along the High Street of St. Botolph's parish, listening to
his autumnal chronicle,--"I cannot pay you yet, sir, for my husband is
out of work."--"Pr'ythee, never mind, woman," replied the good man.
"Make thyself easy, and get that poor boy a pair of shoes, before thou
pays me!"--"God bless you, sir!" replied the poor woman, with her ragged
and shoeless lad, and dropped a courtesy, while the grateful tear rolled
down her cheek. I looked, with an impulse of admiration, at the face of
the good alderman, as we passed along, and the tears were coursing each
other adown his face likewise!
And how often have I heard,--what, indeed, well-nigh every citizen of
old Lincoln had either heard, or witnessed,--of his bounteous relief of
famishing and clotheless families he was called to attend during the
sickness of a child or father, or the mother's agony of Nature. One
thought presents itself painfully: it is, that while he manifested so
true a fraternity with man, and lived a life of so much private,
unobtrusive blessing,--he was so frequently the victim of encroaching
and designing knaves. His ready loans of money, in his wealthiest days,
to needy tradesmen, were often punctually and honestly returned; but he
was too often victimised. And there is one image now crosses me, very
legibly,--that used to haunt and pester the good-hearted man, even up to
the period of his straitness,--ever goading him with some plea of
difficulty, and essaying to squeeze out of him another sum, under the
unprincipled name of a loan. He was a "limb of the law," who had been
"done up" in his profession, for his want of honesty. And yet I have
some misgivings whether that human being were so morally culpable as his
life of shuffle, and deceit, and meanness, would lead one to think; for
I remember how often I noticed the large indentation across his bald
head, caused by some accident, in which the bone of the skull had been
bent or broken, and, consequently, the brain injured. His career is at
an end, however; and whatever might be the true solution of the problem
of his idiosyncrasy, one cannot help feeling a regret that the best and
finest natures should so often, in this world, become a prey to the
worst,--as in the case of this vile practiser, who often boasted over
his brandy, in the presence of some base associate, that he had gulled
the alderman again!----
Memory calls up another form less distinctly, since it belonged to one
who was much nearer the end of his course; and the impression of his
identity depends more on what others said of him than on any thing like
personal or intimate acquaintance with his character. From some
unskilfulness of speech, or want of grace in outward demeanour, or some
other mark that the world thought "odd," or "singular," or "eccentric,"
he had gained the odd, singular, and eccentric, but very distinctive
_soubriquet_ of Alderman Lob. He was a bulky sort of man externally,
talked thick, yet talked a great deal; was laid up with the gout often,
and passed his closing years totally within doors as an invalid: but
many a poverty-stricken habitant of Lincoln found weekly relief at his
door; and more than one aged and infirm creature prayed for the
lengthening out of his life, in the fear they would be left destitute,
or be compelled to go into the workhouse, when they could no longer
depend on his weekly charity.----
The master-spirit of that old guild, though too mentally acute, and too
successful in the acquirement of wealth to leave room for the world to
term him odd, or singular, or eccentric, united in his composition some
high qualities that now rise in kindly answer to the record memory gives
of the bitter things spoken of him by party. He had been the
"town-clerk" of the guild, and even then wielded the principal power in
it, being really its master, though nominally its servant; and only laid
aside the black gown and quill to don an alderman's ermined cloak,
because he had become too wealthy either to desire longer to reap the
salary, or undergo the fatigue and labour of his first office.
His attention to every man in whom he discerned superior ability,
without regard to conventional grade, and often in defiance of its
rules; his real liberality in giving aid to honest industry, wherever he
found it; his munificence in assisting either the "charities" which are
the just pride of old Lincoln, or any plan for presenting its citizens
with amusement that combined usefulness: these were among his life-long
acts. And, in spite of the keen raillery with which his shrewd
penetration of character often led him to visit the vulgar conceit or
affectation of some with whom his office brought him into frequent
contact, all bore testimony to his intelligence and honour. Nay,
although he was one who never professed any fervid sympathy with popular
progress, and therefore was not likely to become a favourite with a
people so strongly political as the Lincoln cits were a few years ago,
yet so deeply did they regard him as a man who, by the excellence of
his understanding, had done honour to their city in bearing one of its
chief offices, that a general and reverential sorrow was expressed when
his end approached, for it was seen, in his wasted frame and fading eye,
many months before the fatal moment came.
Perhaps their knowledge of the one bitter draught that was mingled with
his life's chalice, during the concluding years of his course, served
greatly to soften their thoughts towards the intellectual chief of the
old municipal institution, even while many of them rejoiced at the
overthrow of the institution itself. His tenderly beloved and highly
accomplished daughter,--his only child,--faded and died; and, therewith,
the charm of life seemed broken for him. How often was this a subject of
kindly-spirited converse among citizens as he passed; and how
reflectingly did they note what they learnt to be his own poignant
observations on that heart-rending bereavement!--his pithy and thrilling
confessions that he had toiled for nothing!--that life was only a scene
of disappointment!--that he had used unceasing exertion to attain
wealth; but he had, now, neither "chick nor child" to leave it to! So
fertile is life in affording moral nurture and correction to all
hearts!--creating sympathy with the sorrowful brother, with him to whom
the bitter cup is appointed; but infusing a salutary admonition,
meanwhile, not to set our hearts too passionately on things of clay,
lest we doom ourselves also to drink of that bitterness!----
He who was esteemed the most "odd," the most "singular," the most
"eccentric" member of that Old Corporation, lingered long after its
demise; and by the popularity of his character, as the only radical
alderman of the Old, became a town councillor, and eventually a mayor,
under the New municipal institution. How rife were the stories of his
furious attacks upon the "self-elect" of the olden time!--and what a
rich hue of the burlesque was thrown around the pictures that were given
of him in daily conversation! Yet, who did not, in spite of his
slenderness of intellect, love him for his incorruptible honesty, and,
above all, for his unfailing benevolence? Oh! there was not a human
being,--beggar, pauper, distressed stranger, or townsman,--who ever went
from his door unrelieved; nor could he pass, in the street, a
fellow-creature whose appearance led him to suppose he had found a real
sufferer, but he must inquire into it, even unsolicited. The abhorrent
enactments of the New Poor Law,--how he hated them!--and how staggered
he felt in his reforming faith, when the "liberal" administration urged
the passing of the strange Malthusian measure! "I cannot understand it!"
he would exclaim, in the hearing of the numerous participants in his
English hospitality; "I never thought that Reform was to make the poor
more miserable, and the poorest of the poor the most miserable: it is a
mystery to me! Surely it is a mistake in Lord Grey and Lord Brougham!"
So the good old man thought and said; but he did not live to see the
"liberal" lawmakers either correct their mistake, or acknowledge that
they had made one,--though agonised thousands pealed that sad truth in
their ears!