pain--it was such a one as I by no means deserved in answer to one
written in the true Spirit of kindness, however it might have been
constructed.--Mr Sterne had repeatedly told me, that his Daughter was
as well acquainted with my Character as he was with my Appearance--in
all his letters wrote since my leaving England this Circumstance
is much dwelt upon. Another, too, that of Mrs Sterne being in too
precarious a State of Health, to render it possible that she would
survive many months. Her violence of temper (indeed, James, I wish
not to recriminate or be severe just now) and the hatefulness of her
Character, are strongly urged to me, as the Cause of his Indifferent
Health, the whole of his Misfortunes, and the Evils that would probably
Shorten his Life--the visit Mrs Sterne meditated, some time antecedent
to his Death, he most pathetically lamented, as an adventure that would
wound his Peace and greatly embarrass his Circumstances--the former
on account of the Eye Witness He should be to his Child’s Affections
having been alienated from Him by the artful Misrepresentations of
her Mother under whose Tutorage she had ever been--and the latter,
from the Rapacity of her Disposition--for well do I know, says he,
‘that the sole Intent of her Visit is to plague and fleece me--had I
Money enough, I would buy off this Journey, as I have done several
others--but till my Sentimental Work is published I shall not have a
single sou more than will Indemnify People for my immediate Expenses.’
The receipt of this Intelligence I heard of Yorick’s Death. The
very first Ship which left us Afterwards, I wrote to Miss Sterne
by--and with all the freedom which my Intimacy with her Father and
his Communications warranted--I purposely avoided speaking of her
Mother, for I knew nothing to her Advantage, and I had heard a great
deal to the reverse--so circumstanced--how could I with any kind of
Delicacy Mention a Person who was hateful to my departed Friend, when
for the sake of that very Friend I wished to confer a kindness on
his Daughter--and to enhance the value of it, Solicited her Society
and consent to share my Prospects, as the highest Favor which could
be shown to Myself--indeed, I knew not, but Mrs Sterne, from the
Description I had received of her, might be no more--or privately
confined, if in Being, owing to a Malady, which I have been told the
violence of her temper subjects her to.”[19]
[19] British Museum, Add. MSS. 34527.
It has been stated by many writers that the cause of the unhappy life
led by the Drapers at Bombay was the fault of Sterne, whose insidious
flatteries undermined the lady’s moral rectitude. This, not to put too
fine a point on it, is a conclusion as absurd as it is unwarrantable.
Mrs Draper was far too intelligent not to realise that Sterne was a
sentimentalist, and not to understand that such allusions as to her
being his second wife were, if in bad taste, at least meant to be
playful, seeing that he was, and knew he was, standing on the threshold
of the valley of the shadow of death. Mrs Draper left her husband
six years after she had said farewell to Sterne, not because of the
author’s influence on her, but because her patience, weakened by a
long course of unkind behaviour, was finally outraged by her husband’s
obvious partiality for her maid, Mrs Leeds. She had long desired to
leave Draper, and now a legitimate excuse was furnished, which in the
eyes of all unprejudiced persons justified the step.
Draper, who seems to have had some suspicion of her intention, watched
her closely, and for a while it was impossible for her to get away.
At last she escaped from Mazagon on board a King’s cutter, and it was
stated that she had eloped with one of her admirers, Sir John Clark.
The truth was that she accepted his escort to the house of her uncle,
Thomas Whitehall, who lived at Masulipatam.
MRS DRAPER TO THOMAS MATHEW SCLATER
“Rajahmundy, 80 miles from Masulipatam,
“_January 20th, 1774_.
“... I will let you into my present situation. I live entirely with my
uncle, and I shall continue to do so to the last hour of my life if he
continues to wish it as much as he does at present.”
Whether her uncle did not continue to desire her company, or whether
she tired of the life, cannot be determined, but later, in the year
1774, Mrs Draper returned to England. There she took up her friendship
with the Jameses from the point at which it had been interrupted by her
departure seven years earlier for India, and she was soon the centre of
a distinguished circle. The publication, in 1775, of some of Sterne’s
letters to her made her somewhat unpleasantly notorious, and she
withdrew from London to the comparative seclusion of Bristol, where she
remained until her death, three years later. She was buried in Bristol
Cathedral, where a monument, depicting two classical figures bending
over a shield, one bearing a torch, the other a dove, was erected in
her honour. The shield bore the inscription:
Sacred
To the Memory
of
MRS ELIZA DRAPER,
in whom
Genius and Benevolence
were united.
She died August 3, 1778,
aged 35.
The Demoniacs
’Twas at Jesus College, Cambridge,” Sterne wrote in the last year of
his life, “I commenced a friendship with Mr H----, which has been most
lasting on both sides.” This “Mr H----” was the notorious John Hall,
who added to his patronymic the name of Stevenson after his marriage
in 1739 with an heiress, Anne, daughter of Ambrose Stevenson of Manor
House, in the parish of Lanchester, county Durham. Born in 1718, the
second son of Joseph Hall, counsellor-at-law of Durham, by his wife,
Catherine, eldest daughter of Edward Trotter of Skelton Castle, near
Guisborough, John Hall-Stevenson, to call him by the name by which
he is best known, went in his eighteenth year to the University, for
which, though he did not there distinguish himself, he cherished to
the end of his days a sincere regard. “I should recommend Cambridge as
a place infinitely preferable to the Temple,” he wrote to his eldest
grandson, on 17th February 1785, “and particularly on account of the
connections you may form with young gentlemen of your own age, of the
first rank, men that you must live with hereafter: it is the only time
of life to make lasting, honourable, and useful friendships. These
advantages were lost to me and blasted by premature marriage, the
scantiness of my fortune forced me to vegetate in the country, and
precluded me from every laudable pursuit suggested by ambition.”
The friendship between Sterne and Hall-Stevenson must have been of
rapid growth, as Hall-Stevenson went to Jesus College in June 1835, and
Sterne left the University when he took his degree in the following
January. Hall-Stevenson has been, no doubt accurately, described as a
very precocious lad, with Rabelaisian tastes, and again and again his
influence with Sterne has been made an excuse for the humorist’s lapses
from morality and decency. This, however, is most unfair, for when the
young men became acquainted Hall-Stevenson was only seventeen years of
age, whereas Sterne was two-and-twenty. Be this as it may, of their
intimacy at this time there is no doubt, and tradition tells how they
studied together--it would be interesting in the light of subsequent
events to know what they studied. They called each other cousin, though
the relationship, if any, was most remote. “Cousin Anthony Shandy,”
Hall-Stevenson in days to come signed himself, and Sterne, in the
famous dog-Latin letter written a few months before he died, addressed
him: “_mi consobrine, consobrinis meis omnibus carior_.”
Hall-Stevenson remained at Cambridge until 1838, then went abroad for
a year, and on his return made the “premature marriage” to which
allusion has been made. When he and Sterne met again is a problem
not easy to solve. Sterne, writing to Bishop Warburton in June 1760,
mentioned that he did not know Hall-Stevenson’s handwriting. “From a
nineteen years’ total interruption of all correspondence with him,” he
said, “I had forgot his hand.” Since Sterne is so precise in giving
the number of years, it would seem as if he and his college friend had
written to each other until 1741, and that in this year the youthful
intimacy, after the manner of its kind, had lapsed. Probably for
some years they may have drifted apart, but there is an abundance of
evidence to show that long before 1760 they were again on the best
terms.
The threads of the college friendship, it has generally been stated,
were gathered together when Skelton Castle came into the possession of
Hall-Stevenson, who thenceforth resided there. As to when this happened
the writers on Sterne only agree in remarking that it was not until
after 1745, in which year, after the rebellion, Lawson Trotter, the
owner of the castle and a noted Jacobite, fled the country; some say
that then the property passed to his sister, Hall-Stevenson’s mother,
and at her death to her son; others that it passed direct to the
nephew as the next in tail. All these statements are inaccurate. Lawson
Trotter sold Skelton Castle to Joseph Hall in 1727, and Hall-Stevenson,
his elder brother having died in childhood, inherited the estate at the
death of his father six years later.
Skelton Castle, which is believed to date back before the Conquest,
had been added to, a square tower here, a round tower there, by many
of its occupiers, Bruces, Cowpers, Trotters, until, when it came into
the hands of Hall-Stevenson, it was a quaint patchwork edifice, erected
on a platform supported by two buttressed terraces, which raised it
high above the surrounding moat. Hall-Stevenson, amused by the picture
presented by its medley of architectural styles, christened it “Crazy
Castle,” and wrote some humorous verses descriptive of it, well worthy
to be preserved, especially as they are almost the only lines from his
pen that can be printed in this respectable age:
“There is a Castle in the North,
Seated upon a swampy clay,
At present but of little worth,
In former times it had its day.
This ancient Castle is call’d CRAZY,
Whose mould’ring walks a moat environs,
Which moat goes heavily and lazy,
Like a poor prisoner in irons.”
Skelton Castle was at this date more than half ruined, as the owner was
at some pains to indicate:
“Many a time I’ve stood and thought,
Seeing the boat upon this ditch,
It look’d as if it had been brought
For the amusement of a witch,
To sail amongst applauding frogs,
With water-rats, dead cats and dogs.
The boat so leaky is, and old,
That if you’re fanciful and merry,
You may conceive, without being told,
That it resembles Charon’s wherry.
A turret also you may note,
Its glory vanish’d like a dream,
Transform’d into a pigeon-coat,
Nodding beside the sleepy stream.
From whence, by steps with moss o’ergrown,
You mount upon a terrace high,
Where stands that heavy pile of stone,
Irregular, and all awry.
If many a buttress did not reach
A kind and salutary hand,
Did not encourage and beseech,
The terrace and the house to stand,
Left to themselves, and at a loss,
They’d tumble down into the foss.
Over the Castle hangs a Tow’r,
Threat’ning destruction every hour;
Where owls, and bats, and the jackdaw,
Their vespers and their Sabbath keep,
All night scream horribly, and caw,
And snore all day in horrid sleep.
Oft at the quarrels and the noise
Of scolding maids or idle boys,
Myriads of rooks rise up and fly,
Like legions of damn’d souls,
As black as coals,
That foul and darken all the sky.”
Hall-Stevenson was, as has been remarked, a poor man, and could not
afford to undertake the task of repairing the vast structure, though
once he thought of making an effort to do so. When Sterne heard of
this he wrote protesting against any interference with the fine old
structure, and seasoned his letter with a touch of worldly wisdom that
comes quaintly from him:
“But what art thou meditating with axes and hammers?--‘_I know the
pride and the naughtiness of thy heart_,’ and thou lovest the sweet
visions of architraves, friezes and pediments with their tympanums,
and thou hast found out a pretence, _à raison de cinq livres sterling_
to be laid out in four years, &c. &c. (so as not to be felt, which is
always added by the d----l as a bait) to justify thyself unto thyself.
It may be very wise to do this--but ’tis wiser to keep one’s money in
one’s pocket, whilst there are wars without and rumours of wars within.
St ---- advises his disciples to sell both coat and waistcoat--and go
rather without shirt or sword, than leave no money in their scrip to go
to Jerusalem with. Now those _quatre ans consecutifs_, my dear Anthony,
are the most precious morsels in thy _life to come_ (in this world),
and thou wilt do well to enjoy that morsel without cares, calculations,
and curses, and damns, and debts--for as sure as stone is stone,
and mortar is mortar, &c., ’twill be one of the many works of thy
repentance.--But after all, if the Fates have decreed it, as you and I
have some time supposed it on account of your generosity, ‘_that you
are never to be a monied man_,’ the decree will be fulfilled whether
you adorn your castle and line it with cedar, and paint it within side
and without side with vermilion, or not--_et cela étant_ (having a
bottle of Frontiniac and glass at my right hand) I drink, dear Anthony,
to thy health and happiness, and to the final accomplishments of all
thy lunary and sublunary projects.”
Notwithstanding this sage counsel, Hall-Stevenson called in an
architect, presently to be referred to as “Don Pringello,” who, to
his credit, declined to tamper with the building, and succeeded in
inducing the owner to abandon the plan of reconstruction.
Hall-Stevenson from time to time visited London, and made acquaintance
with Horace Walpole, and also with Sir Francis Dashwood and John
Wilkes, who introduced him to the Monks of Medmenham and also gave him
a taste for politics, that afterwards found vent in some satirical
verses. Lack of means, however, prevented his taking any considerable
part in metropolitan gaieties, and he lived most of his life on his
estate, making an occasional stay at Scarborough or some other northern
watering-place. At Skelton, as William Hutton phrased it happily, he
“kept a full-spread board, and wore down the steps of his cellar.”
Steeped in Rabelaisian literature, he caught something of the spirit of
the books he had perused; and, inspired by the example of the deceased
Duke of Wharton and of his friend Dashwood, he gathered round him a
body of men with similar tastes, and founded, in imitation of the
Hell-fire Club and the Monks of Medmenham, a society which has passed
into history as the Demoniacs.
The number of members of this convivial community cannot have been
considerable. Hall-Stevenson in “Crazy Tales” gives eleven stories,
each supposed to have been told by one of the band, the identity of
the narrator being veiled under a nickname; and if this may be accepted
as a guide, then there were but eleven Demoniacs in 1862--though, in a
later edition, were added, “Old Hewett’s Tale,” and “Tom of Colesby’s
Tale.” In most cases it has been easy to discover the names of the
members. “Anthony” of the “Crazy Tale” was, of course, the host; and
“My Cousin” Sterne, though he was also known among the fraternity as
“The Blackbird,” probably because of his clerical attire, and under
this _sobriquet_ was made the subject of one of Hall-Stevenson’s
“Makarony Fables.” “Zachary” was Zachary Moore, of Lofthouse, a
fashionable man about town, who spent a great fortune in riotous
living; though the only story of his extravagance that has been handed
down is, that his horses were always shod with silver, and that when a
shoe fell off or was loose, he would have it replaced with a new one.
He was a jovial fellow, and popular.
“What sober heads hath thou made ache!
How many hath thou kept from nodding!
How many wise ones, for thy sake,
Have flown to thee, and left off plodding.”
Thus he was apostrophised by Hall-Stevenson, who subsequently indited
an epitaph for him, which while it does much credit to the writer’s
heart, does less to his head: such a prodigal as Moore was lucky to be
presented with an ensigncy.
“Z. M. Esq.” (thus runs the epitaph), “A Living Monument, of the
Friendship and Generosity of the Great; After an Intimacy of Thirty
Years With most of The Great Personages of these Kingdoms, Who did him
the Honour to assist him, In the laborious Work, Of getting to the far
End of a great Fortune; These his Noble Friends, From Gratitude For the
many happy Days and Nights Enjoyed by his means, Exalted him, through
their Influence, In the forty-seventh year of his Age, To an Ensigncy;
which he actually enjoys at present at Gibraltar.”
The “Privy Counsellor” of the “Tales” has been said to be Sir Francis
Dashwood, but upon what grounds this statement has been made is not
clear: if the assumption is accurate, the “Privy Counsellor” cannot
often have attended the gatherings of the brethren, being usually
otherwise engaged in London. “Panty,” an abbreviation of Pantagruel,
is known to have been the Rev. Robert Lascelles, subsequently the
incumbent of Gilling, in the West Riding; and “Don Pringello,” whose
name has not transpired,[20] has his niche in “Tristram Shandy,” where
it is mentioned: “I am this moment in a handsome pavilion built by
Pringello upon the banks of the Garonne.” Don Pringello also receives
honourable mention in a scholium to the Tale inscribed to his name by
“Cousin Anthony.”
[20] It has hitherto been assumed that “Don Pringello” was the playful
form given by the Demoniacs to one Pringle. The present writer has been
so fortunate as to enlist the kind offices of Mr W. J. Locke and Mr
Rudolf Dircks in an endeavour to trace this architect; but neither an
English Pringle nor a Spanish Don Pringello has been discovered.
“Don Pringello” (Hall-Stevenson wrote) “was a celebrated Spanish
Architect, of unbounded generosity. At his own expense, on the other
side of the Pyrenean Mountains, he built many noble castles, both for
private people and for the _public_, out of his own funds; he repaired
several palaces, situated upon the pleasant banks of that delightful
river, the Garonne, in France, and came over on purpose to rebuild
CRAZY-CASTLE; but, struck with its venerable remains, he could only be
prevailed upon to add a few ornaments, suitable to the stile and taste
of the age it was built in.”
“Old Hewett” was that eccentric William Hewett, or Hewitt, introduced
into “Humphrey Clinker” by Smollett, who prophesied that, “his
exit will be as odd as his life has been extravagant.” Smollett’s
anticipation was justified, even before the novel was published, as the
author mentions in a footnote. Hewett in 1767, being then over seventy
years of age, was attacked by an internal complaint, and, to quote
Smollett,
“he resolved to take himself off by abstinence; and this resolution he
executed like an ancient Roman. He saw company to the last, cracked
his jokes, conversed freely, and entertained his guests with music. On
the third day of his fast, he found himself entirely freed from his
complaint; but refused taking sustinence. He said the most disagreeable
part of the journey was past, and he should be a cursed fool indeed
to put about ship when he was just entering the harbour. In these
sentiments he persisted, without any marks of affectation; and thus
finished his course with such ease and serenity, as would have done
honour to the firmest stoic of antiquity.”
There are still unaccounted for, “Captain Shadow,” “The Student of
Law,” “The Governor of Txlbury,” “The Lxxb,” “The Poet,” and “Tom
of Colesby”; and against these may be placed other frequenters of
Skelton Castle--though it is possible some may not have been of the
brotherhood. There were Garland, a neighbouring squire; and Scroope,
whom Sterne referred to as “Cardinal S.” and who was probably a parson;
and “G.” of the printed letters, whose name in the originals is given
as Gilbert. More likely to have been Demoniacs were Hall-Stevenson’s
younger brother, Colonel George Lawson Hall (who married a daughter
of Lord William Manners), and Andrew Irvine, called by his familiars
“Paddy Andrews,” master of the Grammar School at Kirkleatham. Because
Dr Alexander Carlyle met at Harrogate in the company of Hall-Stevenson
that Charles Lee who subsequently became a general in the American
army, and fought against his countrymen in the War of Independence,
Lee has been written down one of the society; but it is improbable he
was enrolled, if only because, leaving England in 1751 at the age of
twenty, he was not again in his native land before “Crazy Tales” was
written, except for a few months in the spring of 1761.
The Demoniacs (and the title may for the nonce be taken to include all
the frequenters of Skelton Castle) have been damned by each succeeding
writer who has taken them for his subject; but it is extremely doubtful
if they were as black as they have been painted. Had they been merely
vulgar debauchees, it is inconceivable that Sterne would have let them
make the acquaintance, not only of his wife, but also of the young
daughter he cherished so tenderly; and it is only one degree less
unlikely that they would have won and retained his affectionate regard
for a score of years, or that he would have read to them “Tristram
Shandy” and have desired their opinion of the various instalments of
that work. His letters are full of references to the Demoniacs, and he
rarely wrote to “dear Cousin Anthony” without sending greetings to his
associates, and expressing the wish that he was with them.
“Greet the Colonel [Hall] in my name, and thank him cordially from me
for his many civilities to Madame and Mademoiselle Sterne, who send
all due acknowledgments” (he wrote from Toulouse, 12th August 1762;
adding in a postscript:) “Oh! how I envy you all at Crazy Castle! I
would like to spend a month with you--and should return back again for
the vintage.... Now farewell--remember me to my beloved Colonel--greet
Panty most lovingly on my behalf, and if Mrs C---- and Miss C----, &c.
are at G[uisborough], greet them likewise with a holy kiss--So God
bless you.”
A couple of months later, Sterne, still at Toulouse, addressed
Hall-Stevenson:
“If I had nothing to stop me I would engage to set out this morning,
and knock at Crazy Castle gates in three days less time--by which time
I should find you and the Colonel, Panty, &c. all alone--the season I
most wish and like to be with you.”
Again and again are allusions to the Crazelites, as Sterne often called
them:
“I send all compliments to Sir C. D[ashwoo]d and G----s. I love them
from my soul. If G[ilber]t is with you, him also” (he wrote from
Coxwold, 4th September 1764; and from Naples, two years later:).
“Give my kind services to my friends--especially to the household of
faith--my dear Garland--to the worthy Colonel--to Cardinal S[croope],
and to my fellow-labourer Pantagruel.”
Even in the last year of his life he looked forward to being present at
a reunion at the castle: “We shall all meet from the east, and from the
south, and (as at the last) be happy together.”
Faults the Demoniacs certainly had; but there is no reason to believe,
indeed there is not a jot or tittle of evidence to support the
suggestion, that they performed the blasphemous rites associated
with the more famous institutions that served as their model. Their
indulgences were limited to coarse stories and deep potations; which,
after all, were regarded as venial sins in the eighteenth century.
Even so, of course, it must be admitted they were not fit company for
clergymen, and it is a matter for regret that Sterne should have been
of the party. Doubtless Laurence told his story of “A Cock and a Bull”
with the best of them; but he was no drunkard, and tried to induce
Hall-Stevenson to give up the habit of heavy drinking.
“If I was you, quoth Yorick, I would drink more water, Eugenius” (so
runs a passage in “Tristram Shandy”). “And, if I was you, Yorick,
replied Eugenius, so would I.”
On the other hand, several of the Demoniacs were men of intelligence.
With all his vices, Dashwood had brains of no mean order; Irvine, the
schoolmaster, and a Cambridge D.D., had, at least, some reading; and
Lascelles, a keen fisherman, could write verses--not very good verses,
it is true--in Latin and English. It is doubtful, however, if he was
that Robert Lascelles who in 1811 wrote the “Letters on Sporting,”
in which he treated of angling, shooting, and coursing; although
this rare work has been attributed to him. William Hewett, too, was a
cultured man; he had been tutor to the Marquis of Granby, and was a
friend of Voltaire. He had a pretty wit. It has been told how being
in the Campidoglio at Rome, Hewett, who owned “no religion but that
of nature,” made up to the bust of Jupiter, and, bowing very low,
exclaimed in the Italian language, “I hope, sir, if ever you get your
head above water again, you will remember that I paid my respects to
you in your adversity.” Indeed that carousals at Skelton Castle were
confined to the evening is shown by Hall-Stevenson’s account of his
guest’s occupations during the day.
“Some fell to fiddling, some to fluting,
Some to shooting, some to fishing,
Some to pishing and disputing,
Or to computing by wishing.
And in the evening when they met
(To think on’t always does me good,)
There never met a jollier sett,
Either before, or since the Flood.”
Nor was Hall-Stevenson a mere voluptuary. Even though the critic may
have exaggerated who wrote of him: “He could engage in the grave
discussions of criticism and literature with superior power; he was
qualified to enliven general society with the smile of Horace, the
laughter of Cervantes; or he could sit on Fontaine’s easy chair, and
unbosom his humour to his chosen friends”; yet there is no doubt that
he was a good classical scholar, and, for an Englishman, exceptionally
well read in the _belles lettres_ of Europe, in a day when such
knowledge was rare.