However, his lordship was the autocrat of all bigwigs, and none but the

most stout-hearted ventured to challenge his decisions. When the case

was argued by her counsel before three judges, sitting as a Court of

Gaol Delivery in the middle of September, one Henry Gould, who feared a

Chief-Justice as little as a Gordon riot, appears to have realised

that the law must keep its faith. So he gave a flat contradiction to

the ruling of the King’s Bench. “How can we know that the woman was

cognisant of any other forgery than the one to which she has confessed

unless we bring her to trial?” demanded this judge Gould. “And if we

bring her to trial we break our word!” Nevertheless his two colleagues,

remembering possibly the Mansfield temper and the Mansfield tongue,

maintained the arguments of the Chief-Justice, and thus it was decreed

that Mrs Rudd must go before a jury. Early in November twelve judges

assented to this decision.

[Illustration: _Mrs. Margaret Caroline Rudd at the Bar of the Old Bailey

Published dec.ʳ 15.ᵗʰ 1775 according to Act of Parliament_]

Confident that her long struggle had not been futile, since this breach

of faith must shock the public mind, the beautiful prisoner prepared

to face her terrible ordeal. In a letter from Strawberry Hill we catch

a glimpse of her on the eve of her trial. “... She sent her lawyer a

brief of which he could not make head nor tail. He went to her for one

more clear. ‘And do you imagine’ said she, ‘that I will trust you or

any attorney in England with the truth of my story? Take your brief:

meet me in the Old Bailey, and I will ask you the necessary questions.’

...” And when the time came she kept her promise to help him through.

On Friday, the 8th of December, she was placed in the dock at the Old

Bailey. During her long imprisonment the popular sympathy had come over

to her side, and a friendly crowd filled the galleries before daybreak.

With much tenderness Judge Aston explained to her the reason that she

was put to the bar, his chief argument being the elusive one that she

had not spoken the _whole_ truth before the magistrates. No woman could

have been more dignified or composed. An air of melancholy rested on

her beautiful face, which appeared more pale in contrast to her garb of

mourning. A silk polonese cloak, lined with white persian, was thrown

round her shoulders. Beneath, her gown was black satin, _appliquée_

with wreaths of broad silken ribbons, her skirt draped upon the small

hoop worn with an evening toilet. Above the tall head-dress demanded by

fashion, a white gauze cap, dotted with small knots of black, rested

lightly upon her powdered curls. It was almost the same costume that

she had worn before the three judges.

Only for a short time were the spectators in doubt as to the result of

the trial. None of the evidence was convincing; each witness seemed

more feeble than his predecessor. Serjeant Davy, rough and ready, tore

their statements to tatters. To the jury Mrs Robert Perreau seemed

eager to swear aught that might save the life of her unhappy husband.

Admiral Frankland, in the face of his petticoat theft, appeared to have

pressed the prosecution out of greed and for the sake of revenge. John

Moody, a footman discharged by the prisoner, must have been regarded,

very properly, as a barefaced liar. The famous Christian Hart, another

old servant with a grudge, who was answered on all points by the

evidence of the indefatigable Bailey, could prove nothing concerning

the forgery cited in the indictment.

All the while Mrs Rudd kept on passing notes to her counsel--more than

fifty in number--suggesting questions to baffle the hostile witnesses.

The trial lasted for nearly twelve hours. When the jury returned

into court, after an absence of thirty minutes, Henry Angelo, the

fencing-master, saw the gay auctioneer who was the foreman throw a

meaning smile towards the beautiful prisoner. “Not guilty according to

the evidence before us!” declared the jury, while the court thundered

with applause. At last her bitter ordeal was over, and Margaret Rudd,

smiling through her tears, stepped gaily into a coach that was waiting

at the door of Old Bailey. Then she was driven, post haste, to her new

home with the wicked Lord Lyttelton. Certainly this charming and clever

woman was far from being too good to live.

Naturally, the acquittal of Mrs Rudd determined the fate of the

unfortunate twins, who had been kept alive all this time pending the

result of her trial. Only in one way could Robert, deemed the less

guilty, have been spared. Had Daniel confessed that he was the forger,

exonerating his brother, probably a pardon would have been granted. Not

being built, however, after the fashion of martyrs, he continued to

make frantic protests of innocence, thereby sealing the doom of both.

For arguments that were incredible merely in the case of the apothecary

became preposterous when applied to Daniel. Yet the loyalty of Robert

was admirable, as although he knew that his one hope was to be

dissociated from his brother, he would not pretend that he had been his

dupe. Desperate efforts were made to save the unhappy men. A petition,

signed by more than seventy bankers and influential men of business,

was presented to the King. Mrs Robert Perreau with her three children,

all in deep mourning, flung herself at the feet of the Queen. But good

King George III. was a stranger to mercy, and Justice Mansfield was not

the sort of person to make the introduction.

On Wednesday, the 17th of January 1776--a bitter morning, with keen

frost in the air and deep snow on the ground--the two poor brothers

were led out to die. When they were brought from the chapel into the

day-room within the Press Yard, to await the coming of the hangmen,

they found only a few faithful friends who wished to say farewell.

For, to prevent an unseemly crowd, good Keeper Akerman stood himself

at the gate of the fatal quadrangle, denying entrance even to his own

acquaintances. Daniel Perreau, apparently unmoved, gave a bow to his

friends, and then sought the warmth of the fire. Robert, less resolute

than his brother, was unmanned for an instant by the sight of the cords

and halters upon the table. In a few moments their steps were ringing

across the flags of the courtyard, as with bound arms they followed the

Sheriffs towards the gate. Those who gazed upon these poor victims of a

merciless law testify that their tread was firm and their faces hopeful

and serene. For, save in that first base betrayal of a woman, no one

can accuse Daniel and Robert Perreau of cowardice. Five others bore

them company to the grave.

Shortly after nine o’clock the City Marshals, attended by the full

panoply of sheriffdom, started the procession. Next came an open

cart, covered with black baize, where sat three of the convicts, and

then a hurdle, dragged by four horses, on which rested a pair of

wretches condemned for coining. And last, there followed the sombre

mourning-coach--a special privilege--with the unhappy brothers. All

around lay a winding sheet of snow, crusted thick on the housetops,

piled in deep billows against the walls. A piercing east wind shot down

the Old Bailey, while the prison gleamed in the frosty mist like a

monument of hard black ice.

Beyond Newgate Street the bell in St Sepulchre’s high steeple rang

fiercely over the frozen roofs, as though pealing forth a pæan of

exultation upon the procession of death. Here there came a halt in

the march, while from the steps of the church, in time-honoured

fashion, the sexton delivered his solemn exhortation to the condemned

prisoners:--

“All good people, pray heartily unto God for these poor sinners, who

are now going to their death, for whom this great bell doth toll....

“Lord have mercy upon you,

Christ have mercy upon you.”

Backwards and forwards around the mourning-coach surged the mob,

clamouring with ribald fury for a glimpse of the celebrated forgers.

Robert Perreau, sitting with his back to the horses beside one of the

sheriff’s officers, pulled down the glass meekly, and gazed out with

calm, unruffled features. Then the long journey was resumed. Over the

heavy road the wheels and hoofs slipped and crunched down the slopes

of Snow Hill, and toiled up the steep ascent into Holbourn. Standing

erect in the cart, George Lee, a handsome boy highwayman, gorgeous in a

crimson coat and ruffled shirt, doffed his gold-laced hat with a parade

of gallantry to a young woman in a hackney coach. Then, while a hundred

eyes and a hundred loathsome jests were turned upon her, the poor girl

burst into a flood of tears. In another moment her lover had passed

away for ever. Huddled in the same tumbril with the swaggering youth, a

couple of Jews, condemned for housebreaking, shook and chattered with

dread, their yellow faces livid as death, a strange contrast to their

florid, bombastic companion. Shivering with cold, the two tortured

coiners were jolted over the snow, bound fast to their hurdle, their

limbs turned to ice by the frost. Within the black coach, the brothers

listened calmly and reverently to the prayers with which Ordinary

Villette, who sat by the side of Daniel, supplicated the Almighty to

pardon these victims unworthy of human mercy. And all the while, the

mob--forty thousand strong--shrieked, danced and hurled snowballs,

maddened like fierce animals by the scent of blood.

It was only half-past ten o’clock when the cortege reached the triple

tree. Two separate gallows had been prepared, for it was not meet that

Hebrew and Christian should hang from the same branch. So the tumbril

was drawn under the smaller crossbar, and, their halters being fixed,

the two Jews were left to their rabbi; while highwayman Lee, and the

coiners Baker and Ratcliffe, were placed in a second cart. Seated in

their coach a little distance away, the two brothers watched these

ghastly preparations with unruffled mien. When all was ready Sheriff

Newnham gave them a signal, and they descended to the ground. A moment

later they were standing beside their three wretched compatriots. Then

the Rev. Villette came forward to play his usual part. Holding the same

prayer-book, Daniel and Robert Perreau followed the services with pious

attention, their reverence forming a marked contrast to the swagger

of the boy highwayman. For some time they were allowed to converse

with the Ordinary, and each gave him a paper containing a last solemn

declaration of their innocence. It was noticed that Daniel raised his

eyes to the sky, and boldly asserted that he was guiltless.

At half-past eleven all was ready for the final scene. Ordinary

Villette offered a last shake of the hand; Sheriffs Haley and Newnham

bowed in solemn farewell. Having been fee’d by his distinguished

clients, Jack Ketch gave a moment’s grace while the brothers embraced

tenderly. Faithful unto death, the brave fellows exhibited more

nobility in their last few hours than during the whole of their lives.

As the cart drew away and their foothold slipped beneath them, their

hands were still clasped together. For a full half minute their fingers

remained linked as they dangled in the air, and then fell apart as they

passed into oblivion beside their five dying companions. Four days

later, on Sunday, the 21st of January, they were buried together in a

vault within St Martin’s Church, Ludgate Hill.

No mob could have behaved with more indecency than the howling,

laughing throng that gazed upon this scene of death, increasing by

their wanton rioting the agony of the poor sufferers a thousandfold.

With great difficulty an army of constables--three hundred in

number--kept a clear space around the scaffold. After the spectacle

was over it was found that there had been numerous accidents. A woman

was beaten down and pressed to death; a youth was killed by a fall

from a coach. One of the stands near the gallows collapsed during the

execution, and three or four persons lost their lives.

In the history of crime the case of the unfortunate brothers forms an

important landmark. Although many a forger had gone to the gallows

before, they were the first ‘distinguished victims’ of the merciless

code. Thus their fate served as a precedent. “If Dr Dodd is pardoned,

then the Perreaus have been murdered!” quoth the crazy king, when he

was asked to forgive ‘the macaroni parson’ Henceforth, it was as safe

to blow out a man’s brains as to counterfeit his handwriting. At last,

when the first humane monarch for more than a hundred years set his

face against such butchery the lawgivers were unable to preserve the

bloody statutes that had slaughtered thousands during the half century

which separated the deaths of Robert Perreau and Henry Fauntleroy.

By the side of Mackintosh, Romilly, and Ewart, the fourth George is

entitled to an honourable place.

Public opinion changed once more with wonted inconsistency after

the acquittal of Mrs Rudd, and the apothecary in particular, as the

bankers’ petition indicates, received the widest sympathy. Still, it

seems strange that his guilt could have been doubted by reasonable

persons. No other defence was open to him save the one he used, old as

human sin--it was the woman!--and even this apology involved the most

absurd pretences. Clearly, the fable had been prearranged between the

conspirators. Treachery brought its own reward, and Robert Perreau,

forgetting that there should be honour among thieves, was ruined

because he did not trust his fair accomplice to the full extent. No

doubt she would have soothed sea-dog Frankland just as she pacified

the bankers Drummond.

In all the sordid history the one bright spot is the loyalty of

charming, wicked Mrs Rudd to her grimy confederates, for the scene in

old William Adair’s parlour on that stormy March morning might well

have cost her life. Had the bankers proved to be curmudgeons, the

Perreaus would not have raised a hand to save her from the shambles.

Since she must have known the men who were her associates, she must

have realised also her own risk. Yet still she kept her faith, while

perceiving that safety lay in betrayal. Truly a noble act of heroism,

though based upon a mud-heap. Thus when we bear in mind how the two

brothers repaid her trust, and reflect upon the breach of law-honour

sanctioned by James Mansfield, there comes the obvious suspicion that,

whatever her iniquity, the woman was more than repaid in her own coin.

Little is remembered of her subsequent history. A few days after her

trial it is recorded that she visited the play in Lord Lyttelton’s

chariot. During the following spring she was honoured by the polite

attentions of James Boswell. On the 15th of May of this year, great

Johnson himself declared that he would have visited her at the same

time as his _fidus Achates_ were it not that they had a trick of

putting everything in the newspapers! Possibly other references

occur in ‘Bon Ton Magazines’ or similar _chroniques scandaleuses_,

now treasured in tree calf or crushed morocco, and vended at so many

guineas per ounce. There is a hint somewhere that her charms had begun

to wane, although she was only thirty at the time of her trial, for a

life and experiences such as hers trace lines upon the face and dim

the lustre of the eye. Still, whatever the cause, we may conjecture

that her friendship with Lord Lyttelton did not last much longer than

a couple of years, as, while he succumbed to the famous bad dreams

on the 27th of November, she died before June 1779 in very distressed

circumstances. Possibly she was supplanted by the famous Mrs Dawson.

In the testimony of her contemporaries there is unanimity with regard

to the beauty and wit of Margaret Rudd--the sole grudge, even of the

women, being that she was clever enough to cheat the gallows. To

pretend sympathy with those who were saddened because she received no

punishment is superlative cant, for the penalty would have been out of

all proportion to the offence. Thus the cheers that rang through the

Old Bailey on that December evening long ago find an echo in our hearts

to-day. Moreover, since it was needful to offer up a propitiatory

sacrifice to Mammon, it was a shrewd common-sense that selected the

brothers as the more deserving of the awful atonement.

In the scarlet pages of the chronicles of crime there is not another

dazzling figure such as the mistress of poor Daniel Perreau. Yet she

walks across the dim stage in the guise of no tragedy queen as Miss

Blandy. If at all, she compels our tears amidst our smiles, and such

tears are the most gentle and spontaneous. Light, sparkling, joyous,

she chases pleasure with reckless laughter, meeting the fate of all

who pursue the glittering wisp, heedless of the deepening mire through

which they tread. It is wrong to watch her dainty person with delight,

but we cannot avert our eyes. Alas, _transit gloria mundi_! One of the

most excellent of modern critics speaks truly of this immortal lady as

a forgotten heroine of the _Newgate Calendar_, and she--the idol of

princes and lord mayors--has not received a niche among the national

biographies!

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE PERREAU CASE

I. CONTEMPORARY TRACTS

1. _The Female Forgery_, Or Fatal Effects of Unlawful Love. J. Bew, No.

28 Paternoster Row. Price 1/6. “With a beautiful whole-length portrait

of Mrs Rudd resolving whether to sign the Bond or forfeit her life.

From the capital drawing of an eminent master.” (Published April 22,

1775.)

2. _Forgery Unmasked_, or Genuine Memoirs of the Two Unfortunate

Brothers, Rob. and Daniel Perreau, and Mrs Rudd. A. Grant, Bridges

Street, Covent Garden. Price 1/. “Illustrated with a New and Beautiful

Engraving of Mr Dan. Perreau in the act of threatening to Murder

Mrs. Rudd, unless she would sign the Fatal Bond.” (April 25, 1775. A

pro-Rudd Tract, containing the case of Mrs Rudd, as related by herself,

which appeared originally as a series of letters in the _Morning Post_

from March 27 to April 10.)

3. _Genuine Memoirs of Messieurs Perreau_; (Now under Confinement.)

With many Curious Anecdotes relative to Mrs Rudd; G. Allen, No. 59

Paternoster Row. Price 1/6. Brit. Mus. (April 26, 1775.)

4. _The Genuine Memoirs of the Messers Perreau._ G. Kearsley, 46 Fleet

Street. Price 1/6. (Published May 11, 1775. Second edition June 8,

1775.)

5. _The Trials of Robert and Daniel Perreau._ T. Bell, at (No. 26) the

Top of Bell-Yard, near Temple Bar. Taken down in shorthand by Joseph

Gurney. (June 6, 1775.)

6. _Mr. Daniel Perreau’s Narrative of His Unhappy Case._ T. Evans, No.

50 in the Strand, near York Buildings. Price 2/. Brit. Mus. (June 9,

1775.)

7. _A Letter to the Right Hon. Earl of Suffolk...._ In which the

Innocence of Robert Perreau is demonstrated. T. Hookham, at his

Circulating Library, the Corner of Hanover Street, Hanover Square.

Price 1/. Brit. Mus. (July 13, 1775.)

8. _Facts_, or a Plain and Explicit Narrative of the Case of Mrs. Rudd.

T. Bell, 26 Bell-Yard, Temple Bar. Price 2/. Brit. Mus. (July 1775.

This tract contains the “Case of Mrs. Rudd as related by herself,”

with the addition of her “Narrative,” which appeared originally in the

_Morning Post_. July 1, 3, 4, 7, 10, and 14.)

9. _Observations on the Trial of Mr. Robert Perreau._ With Mr.

Perreau’s Defence, as spoken on His Trial. S. Bladon, No. 16

Paternoster Row. Price 2/. Brit. Mus. (July 17, 1775.)

10. _The True Genuine Lives and Trials, etc. of the Two Unfortunate

Brothers._ Illustrated with Two New and Beautiful Engravings, 1st.

Daniel Perreau threatening to Murder Mrs Rudd .... 2nd. The two

Perreaus lamenting their unhappy fate. J. Miller, White Lion Street,

Goodman’s Fields. Brit. Mus. (1775.)

11. _An Account of the Arguments of Counsel...._ On Sat., Sept. 16.

1775, whether Mrs. Rudd ought to be tried, etc. By Joseph Gurney. Sold

by Martha Gurney, No. 34 Bell-Yard, Temple Bar. 1775. price 1/6. Brit.

Mus.

12. _The Case of Mrs. Margaret Caroline Rudd_, from her first

Commitment to Newgate on Thursday, the 1st of June, last to her final

acquittal at the Old Bailey, Friday, December 8, 1775. J. Bew, No. 28

Paternoster Row. (December 15, 1775.)

13. The Whole Proceedings on the King’s Commission of the Peace, Oyer

and Terminer, and Gaol Delivery for the City of London; and also the

Gaol Delivery for the County of Middlesex; Held at Justice Hall in the

Old Bailey, on Wednesday, the 6th of December, 1775, and the following

Days. Revised and published by John Glynn, Serjeant at Law and Recorder

of London. No. 1. Part I. Printed by William Richardson for Edward and

Charles Dilby, price 9d. (December 19, 1775.)

14. _The Trial at Large of Mrs. Margaret Caroline Rudd._ Elucidated

by such Matter as never before transpired. By Mr. Bailey,

Barrister-at-Law. Sold at No. 26 Bell-Yard near Temple Bar. (1775.)

_London Library._

15. _A Solemn Declaration of Mr. Daniel Perreau...._ Written by himself

and Delivered to a Friend in the Cells of Newgate on Sunday, January

14. 1776. T. Evans, near York Buildings in the Strand, price 1/. Brit.

Mus. (January 22, 1776.)

16. _A Genuine Account of the Behaviour and Dying Words of Daniel and

Robert Perreau._ By the Reverend John Villette, Ordinary of Newgate.

Printed for the Author and sold at his house, No. 1 Newgate St. 1776.

Brit. Mus. (1776.)

17. _An Explicit Account of the Lives, Trials, Dying Words, and Burial

of the Twin Brothers._ Brit. Mus. (1776. Without the publisher’s name.)

18. _Mrs. Marg. Car. Rudd’s Case Considered, Respecting Robert

Perreau._ In an Address to Henry Drummond Esquire, J. Wilkie, No. 71,

In St Paul’s Churchyard. Price 1/. (January 26, 1776.)

19. _Mrs. M. C. Rudd’s Genuine Letter to Lord Weymouth...._ Together

with An Explanation of the Conduct of a certain Great City Patriot. G.

Kearsly in Fleet St. Price 1/. Brit. Mus. (March 5, 1776. The original

letter appeared in the _Morning Post_, January 16, 1776.)

20. _A Letter from Mrs. Christian Hart to Mrs. Margaret Caroline Rudd._

J. Williams. No. 46, opposite Fetter Lane, Fleet Street, price 1/.

Brit. Mus. (Published March 23, 1776.)

21. _She is, and She is Not_; A Fragment of the True History of

Miss Caroline De Grosberg, alias Mrs. Potter, etc. J. Bew, No. 28

Paternoster Row. Price 1/6 Brit. Mus. (Published April 24, 1776.)

22. _Authentic Anecdotes of the Life and Transactions of Mrs. Margaret

Rudd_ ... in a series of letters to ... Miss Mary Lovell. “In two

neat pocket volumes, price 4/ sewed, or 5/ bound, embellished with a

striking likeness taken from the life and engraved by G. Bartolozzi.”

J. Bew, No. 28 Paternoster Row. Brit. Mus. (Published June 16, 1776.)

23. _Prudence Triumphing over Vanity and Dissipation_; or the History

of the Life, Character, and Conduct of Mr. Robert, and Mr. Daniel

Perreau, and Mrs. Rudd. J. Maling, Bookseller, the corner of Fleet

Market, Ludgate-hill; J. Bradshaw, No. 40, St John Street, Clerkenwell;

and J. Naples, Greenwich. Brit. Mus.

24. _A Particular Account of the Dreadful and Shocking Apparitions_ of

the two unfortunate Perreaus. Brit. Mus. (Broadside. Published later

than February 30, 1776.)

Lowndes mentions also:--

25. _An Authentic Account of the Particulars which appeared on the

Trials of Robert and Daniel Perreau._ Nassau, pt. ii. 746.

26. _The History of the Life, Character, and Conduct of Mr. Daniel and

Robert Perreau and Mrs. Rudd._ London 8. vo.

27. _Law Observations on the Case of Mrs. Rudd._ By a Gentleman of the

Inner Temple. 8. vo. 1/6.

II. CONTEMPORARY NEWSPAPERS AND MAGAZINES

1. _The Public Advertiser_, March 15-December 1775. January 1776.

2. _The Daily Advertiser_, do. 15 do. do.

3. _The Morning Chronicle_, do. 13 do. do.

4. _The London Chronicle_, do. 16 do. do.

5. _The Morning Post_, do. 16 do. do.

6. _The Gazetteer_, do. 15 do. do.

7. _Lloyd’s Evening Post_, do. 17 do. do.

8. _The Evening Post_, do. 17 do. do.

9. _The Craftsman_, June 1775.

The _Morning Post_ of Thursday, January 18, 1776, contains a

long account of the execution of the Perreaus. There are full

descriptions in the other newspapers.

10. _Gentleman’s Magazine._

1775.

“The Perreau Frauds,” pp. 148-150, 205.

“Trials of the Perreaus,” pp. 278-284, 300.

“The Case of Mrs. Rudd,” pp. 347, 349, 452, 603-5.

“Poems on Mrs. Rudd,” pp. 443, 492.

1776.

“Petitions on behalf of the Perreaus,” 22, 23, 44.

“Execution of the Perreaus,” 44, 45, 46.

“Pamphlets on the Case,” 176, 278.

1779.

“Reported death of Mrs Rudd,” p. 327.

1800.

“Reported death of Mrs Rudd,” pp. 188, 483.

1809.

1834.

Reference to the Perreau Case, _vide_ obituary notice of Alex.

Adair, part ii. p. 318.

The report of the celebrated Mrs Rudd’s death in vol. lxx.

is inaccurate, as reference to the parish register of

Hardingstone, Northampton, shows that a Mrs William Rudd was

buried on February 7, 1800. There is evidence that she died in

1779.

11. _The London Magazine._ Published by R. Baldwin at the Rose,

Paternoster Row.

(1775), pp. 300-307, 356-7, 376, 429, 488, 602, 657.

(1775), pp. 53-54, 161, 327.

12. _The Town and Country Magazine._ Published by A. Hamilton Junior

near St. John’s Gate.

(1775), pp. 300, 482, 629.

(1776), p. 39.

13. _The Westminster Magazine._ Published by Richardson and Urquhart at

the Royal Exchange, and T. Wright, Essex St., Strand.

(1775), pp. 119, 297, 304, 390, 475, 655.

(1776), pp. 41-43.

14. _The Convivial Magazine._ Published by T. Bell. Bell-Yard near

Temple Bar.

(1775), pp. 33, 98.

(1776), pp. 171, 223, 247, 291.

15. _The Annual Register_, xviii. 229.

THE SONG “ROBIN ADAIR”

V. _Notes and Queries._

Third Series, v. 404, 442, 500; vi. 35, 96, 176, 254.

Fourth Series, viii. 548; ix. 99, 130, 197.

Fifth Series, v. 20.

Eighth Series, vii. 267; x. 196, 242, 426; xi. 32.

Although both words and music may have been plagiarised from

old Irish ballad and old Irish melody, it is probable that

the story of Surgeon Robert Adair and Lady Caroline Keppel

suggested the later version of John Braham, December 17, 1811.

* * * * *

NOTE.--We are indebted to Sir Thomas Frankland for one of the most

charming mezzotints by Wm. Ward, after Hoppner--a picture of his two

daughters.

THE KING’S ENGRAVER

THE CASE OF WILLIAM WYNNE RYLAND, 1783

About the time that Miss Blandy was commencing her ill-fated amour with

Captain Cranstoun, a dark-eyed boy with earnest, clear-cut features,

often carrying a portfolio of drawings under his arm, might have been

met by any one who strolled along Fleet Street or the Strand in the

early morning between Charing Cross and the Old Bailey. From his home

beneath the grim shadow of Newgate prison, where his father, Edward

Ryland, prints and engraves in a house next door to that in which

thief-taker Wild levied blackmail, the young artist trudges each day to

the St Martin’s Lane Academy. And should one meet him in the autumn of

1749, he will be wearing a suit of solemn black; and his grave, eager

face will seem more sombre than wont, for his patron and godfather,

the good and kind Sir Watkin Williams-Wynne, has been killed by a fall

from his horse, to the unspeakable grief of every son of gallant little

Wales.

[Illustration: Guil.ᵘˢ Wynne Ryland,

Hist.ᵆ Calcographus.]

Around the school of drawing where young Ryland is learning his craft,

a new world is springing into life--a world of fancy, grace, and

colour, destined to free old London from the sable sway of dulness.

It is the world of art, over which the deep black deluge has rested

for so long, soon to be peopled with the bright creations of genius.

William Wynne Ryland will see some of these great ones ere he leaves

St Martin’s Lane for the studio of a new master. Often, as he passes

the coffee-tavern of Old Slaughter, he must catch sight of a placid,

round-faced young man, with a mild pair of eyes that seem to need the

aid of glasses, hurrying down Long Acre, while he envies Mr Reynolds,

the portrait-painter, who has the entry to the Club that meets beneath

the roof where Pope has held his court. Or, when he looks up at the

house where the elegant Thornhill lived and worked, now the residence

of Beau Hayman, more at home with the bottle than the brush, he may

observe a tall, sentimental youth springing through the door, whose

thoughts are far away amidst the woods and dales of Sudbury, where

dwells a pretty miss called Peggy. And possibly, a little later, he

will listen to the romantic fable that Tom Gainsborough has married a

princess in disguise. Sometimes he may meet a middle-aged compatriot,

named Richard Wilson, whose glowing scenes from Nature are to wrest the

guerdon from France, and to found the incomparable school of British

landscape.

Frequently a smile will steal over Wynne Ryland’s grave, nervous lips,

as a small boy with a big head and a long, Punch-like body scampers

down the lane, whirling his crooked legs, and he will hail the

truant with the cry: “What, little Joey, have you been tolling for a

funeral?” But the breathless lad, who has wasted too much time in his

favourite game of assisting his friend the sexton at St James’s Church,

scuttles back to his casts and models. Perhaps, one day, this little

Joey Nollekens, who in good time produces many a beautiful bust and

statue, will be allowed to take his friend into the studio of the great

good-natured Roubiliac. “Hush, hush!” we can hear the volatile master

cry, as he drags his young admirer before the figure which his deft

chisel has caressed for a last time; “look, he vil speak in a minute!”

And as the youth gazes upon the noble work, his quick Welsh blood,

warmed by the infection of genius, glows with like ambition to do and

dare. Soon, also, he becomes a pupil of the sculptor in St Peter’s

Court, from whom, whatever else he learns, he must acquire a boundless

self-confidence.

Shortly after the death of his godfather, young Wynne Ryland, now about

seventeen years old, is bound apprentice to engraver Ravenet, who came

over from France to help Hogarth with his plates, and who has set up a

school south of the river in Lambeth Marsh. As the crows flies, it is a

short journey from the Old Bailey, but one must turn up Ludgate Hill,

wind round Black Friars through Water Lane, holding one’s nose if the

wind comes north-west down the grimy Fleet, and from the steps take

wherry to the Surrey side. Across the Thames, the wide, deep ditches,

bordered by their fringes of willows, have changed the moss into a

fertile plain.

Old Ryland is careful to conciliate the French artist now and then by

a judicious commission, which takes the form of woolly book-plates

after Sam Wale--classic pictures according to Queen Anne traditions,

filled with urns and hose-pipe torches, wooden scrolls of parchment,

and busts on pillar-boxes, gentlemen in cotton dressing-gowns, with

stony beards, and demure ladies in flowing nightshirts. We meet these

curious plates in a rare copy of the Book of Common Prayer, with the

sign of Edward Ryland of the Old Bailey, and similar ones in Sir John

Hawkins’ interpretation of Old Isaac. Young Wynne takes his part

in the work, and though Master François gives him the lead, aided

by fellow-countrymen Canot and Scotin, while the senior prentices,

Grignion and Walker, also ply their gravers, a glance at ‘Luke the

Physician,’ or ‘St Matthew at the Receipt of Custom’ will show that the

youthful Welshman already is the equal of the best of them. Thus for

five years he works under Ravenet.

It must have been a happy home in that dingy, sunless house in the Old

Bailey, where Wynne Ryland’s early days were spent. The father, busy

and prosperous, devoted to his wife, eager to encourage the talents of

his boys, and observing proudly, with expert eye, the amazing genius

of his third son. Yet over all there broods the sad shadow of the grim

prison. Often in the night the silence is broken by the hoarse voice of

the bellman chanting this refrain:--

“You prisoners that are within,

Who for wickedness and sin,

“After many Mercies shown you, are now appointed to Dye to

Morrow in the Forenoon: Give Ear and understand that to-morrow

the Greatest Bell of St Sepulchre’s shall toll for you, in Form

and Manner of a Passing Bell, as used to be tolled for those

that are at the Point of Death....”

It is the loathly knell of the unhappy wretches within the deep black

walls. And in the morning the awful boom of St Sepulchre rolls over the

housetops, while a ribald, drunken mob chokes the street. Then comes

the clank and clatter of sheriffs officers, and, as the procession

moves from the iron portals of Newgate, there follows an open cart,

driven by a gruesome creature astride a coffin, and in which, bound and

quaking, lie the poor passengers to Tyburn. Such scenes are a portion

of the boyhood of William Wynne Ryland, the great engraver.

But, after the long years of his apprenticeship have rolled away, a

brighter and more glittering life than dingy old London, or even the

whole world, can show, comes to the young genius. Since his youth Paris

has been whispering to him her enticing summons--Paris, the Cyprus

of art, where beauty, love, and colour walk hand in hand, and where

he whose fingers can fashion their charms may become mightiest of

the mighty. Two friends and old school-fellows are eager to make the

same pilgrimage, and the indulgent parent, whose foresight perceives

whither the talents of his gifted son will lead him, gives his consent.

Although he knows that if the lowering storm-clouds shall burst, a

visit to France may mean exile until the close of the war, he resolves

that the young man shall pursue his art in the studios of the great

French masters. So, early one morning the three enthusiasts mount

Christopher Shaw’s stage-coach at the sign of the ‘Golden Cross’ and

resting at Canterbury over night, reach Dover in good time the next

day. With a fair wind, a stout smack will touch the opposite coast in a

few hours, where they must tolerate a much less speedy team and a more

shaky vehicle along the road to Paris.

It is the eve before the deluge, and a sunset, having no part in the

morrow, most brilliant and gorgeous of aspect. To the eye of the poet

or painter there is no blemish in the fair landscape. His vision rests

only upon graceful palace or shining gardens. Around the fountains,

over the lawns, glide the creatures of Arcadia--beautiful gentlemen

in dazzling frocks and scented ruffles, toying with bejewelled sword

or flicking the lid of a golden snuff-box, moving their satin limbs

in obeisance to their fair partners. Sweet ladies with snowy ringlets

falling upon bare shoulders, the bloom of roses in their cheeks, and

the sheen of pearls on their round breasts, fluttering like butterflies

amidst the flower-beds, clad in shimmering draperies, flashing in

a blaze of colour. Or, in the twinkling of an eye, the picture may

dissolve, to become more entrancing. My lord now trips the mead a

dainty Strephon, tuning his pipes, and shaking the ribbands at his

knees, while his highborn Phyllis, still wearing her powdered hair and

disdainful patches, twirls her silken ankles in the graceful freedom

of short frocks. What though these scenes dwell only on the canvas

of the painter of Valenciennes! They are as real as were visions of

angels to the dreamer Blake! In the eyes of the artist the whole of

laughing France must be a fairy Arcadia such as this, for the witching

Pompadour, who fulfils the thoughts of prescient Watteau, directs the

dance.

Then from the thicket comes the tinkle of silvery laughter, where the

paths wind beneath the branches to lonely dells, through which the

sunlight streams in floods of amber between the leaves. Here, amidst

the gold and olive shadows, which chase each other in flickering play

round some graven image of goat-faced Pan, flits a wanton lady, flying

from her persistent lover, but laughing, tripping, and calling to him

still, as she draws him onward. Or, in the cool grove, crowned by a

wealth of ivy-tinged greenery, a sylph-like figure sweeps through

the air in her velvet swing, and her shining arms, raised to grasp

the ropes, throw the contours of her form into shapely pose. From

the bushes beneath sounds a burst of raillery, as her swain rises to

his feet, gazing with rapture as the pretty girl flies past him and

returns, adoring the tiny slippers, and the silken hose that vanish

in dainty curves beneath a fluttering screen of drapery. The fancy of

Fragonard has painted the spirit of his age--a world full of leaves,

and flowers, and sunshine, where life moves with the rhythmic cadence

of the swing, where every breath is pleasure, recking naught of pain or

death.

Each palace that crowns these fairy gardens, wherein the splendour of

man reaches its highest goal, is a sanctuary dedicated to the worship

of feminine beauty. From every wall glows her picture, majestic in

opulent lines of dazzling flesh--Cytherea draped in creamy foam, or

languishing upon her couch with robes of gossamer, the divinity of

the shrine. All the fair throng of lords and ladies, flashing with

brilliants, shining in silk attire, are her votaries, who bow in

idolatry beneath the spell. More than human are these worshippers, for

they have tasted the honey-dew upon her lips, and have drunk the milk

of Paradise. Yet only half their life-story has been told by François

Boucher. As semi-divinities he has limned them, sporting as children

around their Venus-mother, grovelling as satyrs before the throne of

their queen. We must turn to other pictures to view their destiny.

Their fate is that of all mortals who seek to share the pleasures of

the gods. Duped by the alluring smile of the deity, they spread their

tiny wings to invade her home, and the outraged divinity turns upon

them in her wrath and smites them with death.

Not one of those who immortalise the romance of that fairy age can read

the writing on the wall. Boucher, Fragonard, and their gay school, who

are as blind to the future as the dead painter of Valenciennes, depict

only what they see. The squalid little leech of Boudry is still in his

country home, or wandering, an enthusiastic boy, in greedy pursuit of

science to the sunny south; the sea-green _avocat_ of Arras has not yet

looked upon the light; the lion-hearted tamer of the Gironde also is

unborn. Even the surly, pock-fretten features of giant Mirabeau have

never passed through the streets of Paris. A long, brilliant night is

still before the giddy capital.

None of the ominous hungry growls from squalid purlieus can arrest

the ears of young Wynne Ryland, who has come to Paris to shake off

the memory of sad Old Bailey, who sees naught but the colour and

romance. Thus he breathes into his soul, with strong, eager lungs, the

perfume-scented air. With the enthusiasm of genius he plunges into

work at the seductive studio of the inspector of the Gobelins. Sieur

Boucher is at the summit of his fame, petted by Madame de Pompadour,

commissioned by King Pan. Surely the handsome, dark-faced Welshman, who

can trace on copper the gallant compositions of his master as finely

as any pupil of Le Bas, must have won the love of the gay, profligate

painter. And, should it be his humour, what a strange world Monsieur

Boucher can reveal to the pupil’s eyes! One day, perhaps, he may hold

before him a jewelled fan, glowing with luscious pictures, which he has

just created for la belle Marquise. Or it will be a fancy sketch of

some lacquered tabouret that he has designed for her private room at

Versailles. Sometimes he may grasp the young man’s arm, and, drawing

him a little aside, will open a secret portfolio, whispering, with a

smile upon his pleasure-worn face, and drooping his dissolute eyelids,

“Pour le boudoir de Madame dans l’Hôtel de l’Arsenal.” Then, while

Wynne Ryland gazes upon the beautiful Anacreontic pictures, which no

scene within the cities of the plains can have excelled, his black,

thoughtful eyes will flash with admiration, and his white teeth glitter

between his parted lips. It is no place for innocence, nor for narrow

virtue, this glowing, gilded salon of Sieur Boucher the incomparable.

Yet the young Welshman does not neglect his proper craft. As the work

of later years bears eloquent testimony, none of the gifted pupils of

Le Bas have profited more from the instruction of that famous school.

Jacques Philippe, as might be expected, turns him on to the plates

of his _Fables choisies_, designs after Oudry-interpretations of La

Fontaine parables, spread over four mighty tomes, beloved of the

amateur who collects the _estampes galantes_. Volume II., bearing date

1755, contains a couple of these--with signature in Gallic orthography,

‘G. Riland’--portraits of peacock-feathered jay and boastful mule,

humanised in the text, though strangely wooden in the picture.

Still, the line-engraver, with all his splendid art, is not the master

that moulds the destiny of William Wynne. Among the numerous pupils of

Le Bas is an ingenious person named Gilles Demarteau, who is practising

a new method of working his copper plate with tiny dots which make the

finished print as smooth and soft as a drawing in chalk. Out of this

arises a vehement artistic causerie, for it is a sure fact that a man

of forty, one Jean Charles François, has received a pension of 600

francs for this same invention, which, some say, another before him

invented after all. Ryland, no doubt, learns everything he can from

both pioneers, without troubling to ascertain the original discoverer,

and, as this ‘stipple’ manner takes his fancy, he soon becomes as

dexterous as those who teach him. Further, he finds that this same

dotted plate may be tinted by the engraver’s brush, giving an almost

perfect illusion of a picture in water-colours.

At last the young Welshman makes up his mind to complete the grand

tour, without which the education of an artist is incomplete. Some say

that the medal he gained at the Académie Royale entitles him to free

tuition at Rome. At all events, he flies south to blunt his pencil upon

the gnarled contours of Michael Angelo, and to shade the tender lines

of Raphael--for the immortals of Leyden and Seville have not yet thrown

these high priests from their altar. This same enterprise proves of

much service to him when, in a year or two, the great lords at home

wish him to transcribe, in the novel ‘Demarteau-after-Boucher’ fashion,

their collections of the great masters. Hitherto he has been true to

his first love, the line-engraving, in the dainty fashion of Le Bas,

and the Parisian connoisseurs of ’57, who glue their glasses upon the

rounded limbs of Leda toying with her swan--a print after Boucher which

Ryland has pulled from his plate--acknowledge that some good has come

from Angleterre at last.

With this same work the Welsh engraver first woos the British public,

showing it at the Exhibition of the Society of Artists in Spring

Gardens in the May of ’61. About this date, after an absence of five

summers, when he is in his twenty-ninth year, he returns home to

England. Chance has much in store for him. For a long time the canny

Prime Minister, known to most of his fellow-countrymen as the Boot--an

opprobrious, not a popular term,--has been looking out for a cheap

line in engravings. Some time ago, courtly fellow-Scot Allan Ramsay

had painted wonderful portraits of the noble favourite and royal

Prince George; so, when the first was Premier and the other Defender

of the Faith, it became necessary for the welfare of the nation that

their lineaments should be scattered broadcast through the medium of a

copper-plate.

“Robie Strange is my man,” thinks painter Allan, and makes the

mistake of telling his illustrious ex-sitters before he has caught

his engraver. There is a dreadful _contretemps_. Stout-hearted Robie

is acquainted with Scottish truck--he will have none of them. “Off to

Rome to copy great masters,” is the excuse. “Cannot waste four years

over your pictures!” But in stout Robie’s heart of hearts there may

lurk another motive; for Robie has whirled his claymore at Prestonpans,

and Charlie is his darling. Indeed, he might have gone the way of

wry-necked old Lovat had not a devoted damsel allowed him to hide

beneath her hoop--to whose skirts, very properly, he remained attached

ever after. Robie snorts at the canny price they offer him. A hundred

pounds to engrave the cod-fish features of royal George! when Rome and

the great masters are calling loudly, where he will kiss hands with his

own King James III. “No, thank you!” says Robie, and, packing up chalks

and drawing-board, takes himself off on his travels.

In this dilemma Mæcenas Bute, who, to do him justice, keeps his eyes

open for budding genius, hears of the young Welsh engraver, the beater

of Frenchmen on their own soil. Being an art-collector, probably he

has seen an assortment of the fleshy prints after Boucher. So, as

Robie is with Charlie over the water, Bute secures Ryland to copy his

likeness by the polite Allan, and, in due course, “the handsomest legs

in England”--legs literally fit for a boot--appear in a very creditable

line-engraving, emblazoned with a coat of arms. Thus in this month of

February 1763 William Wynne has reached the top of the tree, happy

and smiling, at Ye Red Lamp, Russell Street, Covent Garden, close to

Button’s and Will’s. The portrait of the beautiful legs, along with

his red-chalk imitations--employed industriously ever since his return

from the Continent in several sketches from the old masters,--convinces

‘Modern Mæcenas’ that Robie’s room is better than his company. A word

whispered in the ear of the royal mother would be enough to persuade

apron-string George that the clever Welshman is the artist for his

features. At all events the great honour is offered, and Taffy, very

shrewdly keeping his head, takes care that, from his point of view, it

is a good deal. It is a most amazing deal--£100 down for the drawings,

£50 a quarter as long as the work lasts, and the proceeds of the

copyright. However, thus it stands--Wynne Ryland blazons himself with

the fearsome title, ‘Calcographus Regis Britanniæ’ and, setting up

in the true manner of a master, begins to take pupils. One of these,

worthy James Strutt, who comes to him the year after his achievement

with the beautiful legs, remains a trusted friend through life, and the

tutor, in turn, of his eldest son, who, alas, meets an early death.

During the next four years, being paid for time, Ryland, like a true

British workman, continues to pick out slowly the salmon-lips and

Gillray stare of his royal master. A large number of the red-chalk

engravings from pictures of the great painters in the possession of

noble patrons belong to this period; and when George is finished, he

goes on to copy Cotes’ picture of the Queen with the infant Princess

Royal in her arms. While he is basking in smiles from the throne, he

is employed in other ways, visiting Paris in the middle of his work to

collect engravings for the royal connoisseur, which prints, we are told

by the festive Wille, are “magnifiques épreuves ... fourniés comme pour

un roi.”

[Illustration: _HIS MAJESTY KING GEORGE III.

ENGRAVED BY RYLAND._]

These are the halcyon times of the artist’s life--these are the days

when we catch a glimpse of him swaggering along Bow Street, with

silver-hilted sword and ample ruffles, by the side of a heavy-jowled

brawler of handsome person and agile, spiteful tongue, listening with

black, eager eyes and flashing teeth to the jibes and sallies of his

friend. Or, beneath the arm of this same aggressive Charles Churchill,

he turns into Will’s coffee-house, and sits in easy deference on

the fringe of a little ring, while he hears a torrent of charming,

vicious diatribe, at the expense of poor patron Bute, pouring from the

wine-stained lips of the cross-eyed apostle of liberty. Or perhaps poet

Charles, who wields the Twickenham rapier in the fashion of a butcher

with his cleaver, may take up this Dunciad of peers, roaring out a

gruesome fable--how poor John Ayliffe was strung up at Tyburn to shut

his lips concerning the crimes of peculator Fox. Then, while they talk

of the forged deed that brought the luckless agent to the gallows, a

shudder may pass through the graceful limbs of artist William as he

thinks what a small matter may take a man to the triple tree.

At other times two chairs will halt in Russell Street, and Ryland and

architect John Gwynn, gorgeous in brocade frocks, satin knee-breeches,

and silk stockings, will step out gaily, giving the order to their

bearers in two significant monosyllables--‘Carlisle House’ And among

all the dazzling throng that crowds the salons of fair Therese Imer,

alas for the worth of poor human nature! the one we know best--better,

even, than the old maid in knickerbockers from Strawberry Hill--is a

broad-limbed Italian, with frizzy hair and fierce nigger eyes; which

same African-tinged gentleman moves through the company with much

self-conscious play of robust leg, and a truculent stare, ogling

such a one as half-draped Iphigenia Chudleigh, or making obeisance

to buxom Caroline Harrington, while the whisper follows, keeping

company the almost filial glance of pretty Sophy Cornelys--“The

famous Casanova--it is the Chevalier de Seingalt.” Then, should Wynne

Ryland draw close while the splendid blackguard babbles French to

Milord Pembroke or Milord Baltimore, he will hear a dreadful tale of

a certain Mademoiselle la Charpillon, who, to the eternal honour of

her frail fame, has humiliated the sooty rascal to his native gutter.

Wynne Ryland and companion John are very fond of these light and airy

assemblies in Soho Square.

For the clever engraver his connoisseur Majesty seems to foster a great

regard. Possibly, the proof prints of Wille--‘fit for a king’--have

been picked up for an old song, and tickle his thrifty soul. At all

events, he is pleased to grant to the artist a most amazing royal

boon; for, at his intercession, he--the third George, by the grace of

God--actually pardons a capital felon. A ne’er-do-weel rascal this

same poor felon, so tradition relates, but all the same he is Wynne

Ryland’s own brother. Near Brentford, or upon breezy Hounslow Heath,

or some such fashionable highwayman resort, in a drunken frolic--after

the fashion of Silas Told’s respited friend David Morgan--he calls upon

two unprotected females to stand and deliver. And for this same

daring frolic the rash Richard Ryland is taken, tried, and handed over

to Jack Ketch. And Jack soon would have made short work of Richard if

the favourite engraver to the King had not moved the royal bowels to

compassion. For, incredible though it may seem, his Majesty does turn

his thumb to the side of mercy, and brother Richard receives pardon;

after which exertion the royal bowels remain obdurate for all time.

[Illustration: CHARLES ROGERS ESQʳ.]

At last the regal portrait is finished, hanging in state upon the walls

of the ‘Great Room’ belonging to the excellent Incorporated Society,

when it opens its exhibition on the 22nd of April 1767. The artist is

now a resident in Stafford Row, close to the Green Park, or, rather,

as he prefers to particularise his address, ‘near the Queen’s Palace,’

upon whose picture, with the slumbering baby Princess in her arms, he

is engaged. His portrait by Pierre Falconet, drawn during the next

year, shows him a man in the prime of life, with clean-cut, delicate

profile and a neat bob-wig tied by black ribbon, published by a dutiful

pupil who trades as Bryer & Co. in Cornhill. This kind of trade,

unhappily, has much allurement for Wynne Ryland, who, with his splendid

monopoly of plates--the royal George, her maternal Majesty, the Modern

Mæcenas with his shapely legs--seems to scent appetising profits. So

Bryer & Co. becomes Ryland & Co., and any of the royal public who

desire these regal portraits must purchase them from the proprietors at

No. 27 Cornhill, near the Royal Exchange. Unhappily for this same No.

27, the public--enamoured of the Wilkes squint and disdaining the regal

stare--do not treat these prints in the manner of hot cakes, and upon

a fateful day in December 1771, No. 27 is in the hands of the broker’s

men.

Early in the same year a strange thing happens in Ryland’s studio. A

proud father brings along his fourteen-year-old son, a boy of splendid

and weird genius, as the sequel shows--a sequel prolific in pictures

of the immortal sheik struggling against his environment of sands and

storms and improvidence, which, like his interpreter Blake, sheik Job,

overwhelmed by tree-trunk legs and half a gale of beard, regards as

the judgment of his God. But this weird boy with the large head and

amazing eyes objects to the parental scheme of making him a pupil of

the great engraver. “Father, I do not like the man’s face,” murmurs boy

Blake, when the pair have left Ryland’s studio. “It looks as if he will

live to be hanged!” “Prescience, intuition--all the things not dreamt

of in thy philosophy,” babble his legatee mystics, bowing the knee

to jaundiced mind as rapturously as to portraits of human abortions,

aping verbal harmony of empty sound, plastering deformities with

giraffe necks and swollen limbs in a wealth of muddy hair and a saffron

skin--good and sedulous disciples. Boy Blake can have heard nothing

of the brother Richard hanging-escape! Such a small affair has never

been breathed by fond parents who go to entrust a weird son to brother

Wynne! Prescience, intuition, are more potent physical instincts than

the throb of suggestion or empiric thought. Thus clamour legatee

mystics, spurning the simple mental machinery put into motion by the

association of ideas.

It has been reserved for a lady of our own times, whose graceful

pen has been devoted to the radiant prints of fair women of olden

days, to tell the romantic story of poor, crushed, bankrupt Ryland

and sweet feminine charity in the person of dove-eyed ‘Miss Angel’ A

scene, alluring as any of the glowing old-world engravings, is this

dainty-coloured picture painted by Mrs Frankau. Within the oak-panelled

studio, through which the winter twilight is stealing in flickering

shadows, the two ardent souls are wrapt in the communion of art. And

while coy, diaphanous Angelica listens to the fascinating tongue of

the virile, dark-skinned Welshman, her quick southern fancy whispers

that this man is the knight-errant who shall write her fame amidst the

stars. Ryland has come with a heart of lead; he goes away with a heart

of gold. For one of the most famous of unions in the annals of painting

has been sealed, and in a little while the prints after Kauffman will

have captured the imagination of the whole world.

In a house in Queen’s Row, Knightsbridge, the great engraver commences

one of those life-and-death struggles that genius alone can wage

successfully against malicious fate. Gradually--for he is young

and strong and brave, while the trust of a sweet woman warms his

courage--he emerges from the choking atmosphere of debt. One by one his

creditors are paid, and at last, free from his bankrupt chains, he is

his own master. It is a fine work, this proud, independent cancelling

of obligations--merely moral claims--a fair tribute to the lady who

has been his tutelar divinity. For it is through his engravings of

Miss Angel’s pictures, to which he applies the ‘stipple method’ which

he learnt in France, that he wins his way back to fame and fortune.

Soon he is a contributor to the newly-formed Royal Academy exhibition,

sending very properly as his first works a couple of drawings copied

from the canvas of the sylph Kauffman. Thus pass three sober years,

while he perfects his new art, living with his young wife far from

the delights of town and the old seductive companionship, first at

Knightsbridge, and then moving a couple of miles further out into rural

Hammersmith.

At last he resolves to tempt the grimy god of trade once more. Better

assets are in his store than a salmon-profile king or maternal majesty,

and he knows that the marketing bourgeois will not be hindered by

squint of Wilkes from clamouring for his many pictures of Venus,

beaming with the soft, dove-like eyes of pretty Miss Angel. So, in the

third year after his bankruptcy, he hangs out his sign once more as an

honest print-seller at No. 159 in the Strand, near Somerset House, by

the corner of Strand Lane, trading as William Wynne Ryland, engraver

to his Majesty. From the first the enterprise flourishes. Angelica’s

plump little Cupids, drawn in rosy chalk, appeal in their suggestive

resemblance to the heart of the British matron; the dainty Angelica

Venus, with her large haunting eyes, becomes a pattern of female

loveliness; Angelica’s mild and chaste interpretations of classic

romance push aside all previous readings. More than all, the Kauffman

pinks and yellows, transformed by the deft fingers of the wonderful

Welshman into soft, rainbow-tinged impressions--like a delicate

painting in water-colours--capture the public fancy. Such engravings

never have been seen before, and never will be seen again. It is not

strange that No. 159 in the Strand becomes one of the most popular

print-shops in London.

During those nine years, from 1774 until the spring of 1783, the

trade venture of the engraver to his Majesty continues to enjoy great

prosperity. Profits reach the sum of two thousand a year, while

stock and plant swell to a total of five figures. Few well-fobbed

merchants, no chair-sporting City dame, can resist the temptations of

that seductive window. A pleasant sight for Miss Angel, that little

knot of open-mouthed shop-gazers with burning pockets, as she passes

in hackney coach, a vision of clinging drapery in her white Irish

polonese. While, if at that moment the happy proprietor steps out,

bound for the counting-house of Sir Charles Asgill and his friend Mr

Nightingale, with whom he is having some considerable bill of exchange

transactions--a glimpse of those large eyes and crest of feathers at

the coach window will bring down his laced hat in a sweep of obeisance,

as he bows to the knees. Then, after the bankers have discounted all

he wants, he will hurry off to Golden Square to show his Miss Angel

the last impressions of some of her pictures, glowing in colours, or

copied in the popular shade of red. Perhaps, one of these days, as he

comes near the studio, a chair may stop as he passes, from which glides

a beautiful lady, wearing a crown of glorious hair, brushed from her

forehead, who rests her starry eyes upon him for a moment with a slight

motion of her tiny rosebud lips. And his heart will beat more quickly

as he recognises the woman whose radiant face has brought poor Daniel

Perreau and his brother to a shameful death.

[Illustration: _IN MEMORY of GENERAL STANWIX’S DAUGHTER who was LOST in

her passage from IRELAND.

Sold at Nᵒ 159 near Somerset House, Strand May 10ᵗʰ, 1774._]

For Wynne Ryland’s conscience is becoming a heavy burden. In spite

of his princely income, artistic improvidence is beginning to weigh

him down. Over his soul the like spirit that swayed Sieur Boucher the

incomparable reigns absolute. Gilded rooms, where the Eo. tables pave

the road to ruin, swallow his guineas in their rapacious maw. His open

hand scatters gold amidst his friends. Miss Angel, his patron saint,

returns to her native land. Although he remains the kind husband

and devoted father, the shadow of sin creeps over his roof-tree. A

pretty girl, whose fresh young beauty has stolen his heart from the

mother of his children, becomes a mistress who squanders his earnings

faster than they are reaped. Those bill of exchange transactions

with bankers Asgill and Nightingale grow more considerable. Friends

and accommodators Ransome and Moreland often receive him in their

counting-house, with his pockets full of crisp notes drawn upon the

Honourable the East India Company of Leadenhall Street; for this clean,

easy paper-credit is always welcomed as deposit for current coin.

At last comes the fatal crash, bursting over the town in a thunderclap,

striking sorrow into the hearts of thousands. On the 3rd of April 1783,

when the London merchant opens his newspaper--_Morning Chronicle or

Daily Advertiser_--he reads there that William Wynne Ryland stands

charged before the Right Hon. the Lord Mayor on suspicion of forging

the acceptance of two bills of exchange for payment of £7114, with

intent to defraud the United East India Company. Kind John Gwynn throws

aside his plans of stately edifices, walking the streets with streaming

eyes, sorrowing for his friend. Statuesque Domenico Angelo hurries to

condole with poor Mary Ryland, and the sight of the agonised wife and

children robs the good-hearted Italian swordsman of sleep. But the

engraver had left his home at Knightsbridge on the first of the month,

and although the City Marshal searches for him in the Old Bailey and in

the Minories, nothing is heard of him for fourteen days.

On the morning of the 15th of April, a drunken woman reels into the

‘Brown Bear’ Bow Street, hiccupping an exciting story that entices

the runners even from their pewter pots. She is the wife of a Stepney

cobbler, who for many days has been harbouring a strange lodger--a man

garbed in an old rusty coat, with green apron and worsted nightcap,

who poses as invalid Mr Jackson who needs the country air; which same

delicate invalid rests indoors all day, only venturing out after

nightfall to enjoy the health-giving April east winds. But he is not

Mr Jackson at all, babbles tipsy Mrs Cobbler Freeman, for, when taking

one of his shoes to her husband to mend, she noticed a bit of paper

pasted on the inside, and, tearing it away, she has seen written his

real name--William Wynne Ryland. This is great news for the ‘Brown

Bear’ runners, and Chief-officer Daly, accompanied by a fellow

robin-redbreast, takes coach with Mrs Cobbler Freeman to Stepney Green.

From his garret window the guilty engraver beholds the coming of the

bloodhounds. With a brief prayer for pardon he flies to his razor, and

when the constables burst through the door they find him stretched upon

the boards with a gash across his throat. Still, he has not cheated

cruel fate. A surgeon staunches his wound, and watchers surround his

bed lest he should seek to meet death once more. In the agony of that

long night, while physical torture conquers even the deep, black pain

of unutterable despair, the wretched sufferer atones for the sins of

a lifetime. Yet on the morrow they take him rudely from his couch,

and while the foul cobbler goes clamouring to the India House for his

blood-money, Ryland is brought before Sir Sampson Wright, who sits in

the place of blind John Fielding in the office at Bow Street. There he

is given over to Governor Smith, who carries him to the Bridewell at

Tothill Fields, where he lies for weeks sick almost unto death.

Newspaper canards spring up in wonted manner like mushrooms from a

dunghill. Mr Ryland, who cannot recover--so they say--has confessed

his crime to Sheriff Robert Taylor, naming also a pair of accomplices,

and hints a third. As he cannot recover--so they say--Keeper Smith

has a couple of men to watch him always, lest he should kill himself.

Newspaper reason uses these odd arguments and more. Among the feasts

of scandal crammed down the public gullet one fact is readily

digested--Ryland is guilty beyond all refutation! Forged E.I.C. bills

have been found in shoals--none but the great engraver could have

been their author--he attempted self-murder because he was certain of

conviction. All true, possibly; nay, probably, but where is the proof?

The trial of the poor sick artist skips a session. In tender mercy

those in power do not shut him up in fetid, overcrowded Newgate, but

allow him to remain under the watchful care of good Keeper Smith. His

kind jailor does everything in his power to lighten his dreary lot,

making him a trusted friend, allowing him to take walks with him in the

open street, confident that he will not break his parole. It is not

until the eve of the session that they drive him to the Old Bailey,

around whose bloodstained walls he used to play with his brothers as a

child.

On Saturday, the 26th of July, he is brought to face his accusers.

Not until the last moment do Crown lawyers intimate the terms of

indictment, for there are several forged bills laid to his charge, and,

conviction appearing a matter of doubt, the Honourable E.I.C. wishes

to be certain of its prey. So Crown lawyers select a minor charge--a

small bill for £210--which they assert Ryland has copied and engraved

from a true document, uttering it knowing it to be forged. Both bills

have been lately in the prisoner’s possession--this is made clear--but

which is the counterfeit? A hard nut for Crown lawyers, since both

are like as two peas. Unless they show that the first which Ryland

had received is the true one, their case falls to the ground, for no

man can copy what he has not seen. A breathless crowd, whose hearts

are all for the man in the dock, watch the ghastly duel of keen wits,

for it is death to one if he is vanquished. Witnesses come and go,

but tierce and parry keep the defendant unscathed. Witnesses advance

and retire, but Crown lawyers find them weak reeds. Banker Ammersley

swears to his signature on the first bill, but this proves nothing, as

Banker Ammersley’s autograph is not the seal of Company John. One Holt,

late E.I.C. secretary, whose brain is not so clear as it was, makes a

dismal display in the box, while the courage of Ryland’s friends mounts

high. One Omer, E.I.C. clerk, tries to spot the true bill, but counsel

Peckham involves him in a maze of legerdemain. All the gallant little

host of well-wishers, who have drunk deeply of newspaper canards, and

still more insidious City gossip, are amazed that Hicks’s Hall should

have deemed such evidence worthy of a true bill--amazed, moreover, that

their friend seems to have a chance of escape.

Suddenly the quick shadow of despair flits across the face of the

prisoner. For a moment the brave, easy self-confidence leaves him

naked to his enemies. Crown counsel Sylvester--who lives in fame as

the judge of maiden Fenning--has played his last card, calling to

the witness-box a calm, unemotional man of commerce, Mr Waterman of

Maidstone, papermaker for twenty years. Then the reason of the Hicks’s

Hall opinion is made clear. Papermaker Waterman brushes aside all

doubts--he made the sheet upon which one of the bills is printed,

recognising the marks of his moulds, distinguishable only by expert

eye. Since this Maidstone Waterman is positive that the paper on which

one of the E.I.C. acceptances is stamped did not reach London till May

1783, it is certain that the first bill which came into the possession

of Ryland was the true one accepted by the Company. Thus two counts of

the indictment are decided--the last bill is the spurious one, and it

was uttered by the prisoner.

Yet what is the whole significance of this carefully accumulated

evidence! Merely that an amazing forgery has been wrought, and that

Ryland alone, who had the motive and the skill, possessed also the

opportunity. Every heart within the crowded court is filled with pity

for the accused man. Bankers Moreland and Ammersley, though called by

the Crown, have striven to assist the defence. Prosecutors Sylvester,

Rous, and Graham have shown no vindictive spirit. Even stripping Judge

Buller--he who drew up a specification of rod for the benefit of

wife-beaters--strives to find a “chasm in the evidence,” endeavouring

to prove that the honourable servants of the E.I.C. have made a

mistake. Finally, when this big-brained lady-whipping Buller comes to

instruct the jury, he specially commends the prisoner’s defence--read

by the clerk of arraigns, as poor Ryland’s throat is too sore for the

effort--for its matter and good sense.

Then mercy hides her face, for the youthful judge lays down calmly

the most astounding of eighteenth-century judicial dogmas. “It stands

prisoner,” declares this Buller, “to show how he came by the bill in

order to prove he did not know it to be forged.” So--musty old twiners

of red tape--they cannot fasten the guilt upon the man, thus with

impotent _tu quoque_ they demand that he shall prove his innocence.

Since they cannot rip him open in the witness-box, they shift their own

burden upon his shoulders. Since he cannot prove his innocence, they

deem him guilty, forgetting the good British legal converse of this

proposition. Bewildered by judicial hair-splitting, the jury at last

withdraw. No direct evidence convicts him--circumstances, prejudice

rather, the whispered stories of numerous E.I.C. bills (forgeries all)

that have passed through the hands of the engraver. If one indictment

does not draw, others will follow--he had the motive, means, and

opportunity, and he flew to his razor when the runners came to take

him. Half an hour of such reasoning kneads the brains of jury into

proper hanging shape, and they decide that to Tyburn the prisoner must

go.

Quiet and brave, as he has been through his long trial, the man in the

dock rises to his feet when his judges return. Courage is stamped on

the strong, deep lines of his face, though the face is white as his

soft ruffles, or as the snowy vest that lies beneath his russet coat.

Coming forward, he listens calmly while they declare him guilty,

bowing to the Bench. A thrill runs through the court when the foreman

pronounces the dread word, but, though all hearts are throbbing with

pain, one fond hope rises in every breast--that the power of a gracious

king will rescue this erring genius from a shameful death. Also, the

poor servant himself thinks first of his royal master; for as he is

conducted back to loathsome Newgate, he tells the friends around him

that, although he has been the victim of persecution, he can perceive a

beam of mercy. Alas, he could not know his sovereign!

A week later the dreary session draws to a close, and Ryland is

brought up again, and alone, before the rest of the convicts, to hear

his sentence. Calmly and bravely he bears this ordeal like the last.

Already two petitions have been presented at Windsor--one the day

after he was condemned, the other on the thirtieth of the month. It is

supposed that he will be kept alive for a while, since he has begged

that his life may be preserved a little longer, not for his own sake,

but that he may finish some plates for the benefit of his wife and

children. Even the heart of royal George may have been touched by the

piteous request. So the prisoner spends the gloomy days in toiling at

his task, scraping the copper sheets with his stipple-graver, literally

dying in harness. Nor is it inadequate work, for when his printer is

allowed to bring him the proofs he is able to murmur with satisfaction,

“Mr Haddrill, my task is finished!” Yet two pictures after all are

left incomplete, one of which Bartolozzi, to whom he sends to beg the

favour, and who owes him as a master of his craft so much, promises

to take in hand, while jovial William Sharp polishes the other. For

King George, when pressed once more to spare the poor artist because

of his great genius, replies sternly--“No; a man with such ample means

of providing for his wants could not reasonably plead necessity as an

excuse for his crime.” Material logic, worthy of the man!

On Friday, the 29th of August, dawns the fatal morning. Before nine

o’clock the outer Press Yard is overflowing with sight-seers; but

because of Governor Akerman’s humane order, none are allowed within the

smaller court to disturb the last moments of the unhappy sufferers.

Presently the iron-studded door of the lodge is flung open, and Sheriff

Taylor, bearing his wand of office, enters the prison to demand the

bodies of his victims. Then through the expectant crowd the turnkeys

slowly force a path, and down this narrow lane the malefactors walk

one by one with hideous clank of fetters. On his knees beside a block

of stone a creature with punch and hammer deftly rids them of their

chains. Five times the strident blows echo through the vaulted walls,

while as many unhappy wretches pass into the hands of the hangman’s

lacqueys, busy with their bonds and cords. Last of all comes a slim,

graceful figure, clad in a suit of mourning with white ruffles and

silver shoe-buckles, unencumbered by chains, walking as unconcernedly

as though he were a spectator of the scene. A shudder runs through

the throng as all eyes rest upon the gifted artist, who, as he passes

on, quietly salutes those friends whom he chances to recognise. With

a respectful bow the Sheriff advances and leads the prisoner to the

lodge, away from the crowded quadrangle.

“Don’t tie Mr Ryland too tight,” he commands the attendants as they

fasten the cords.

“Never mind, sir,” is the quiet answer; “they give me no uneasiness.”

All the time he chats calmly to those around, bearing himself in

this, as through all other scenes to the end, as a brave heart and

a gentleman. Then the clatter of arms is heard outside, for the

City Marshal is bringing up his troop. A moment later the door is

thrown back, and from the steps a stentorian voice bellows aloud,

“Mr Ryland’s coach.” With brisk, easy steps he passes out into the

street, closely followed by the attendant Ordinary. Suddenly he springs

forward, and in an instant a tiny girl has thrown her little hands

around his pinioned arms, while he kisses her passionately--his own

daughter, the child of sin. Tenderly they induce him to hasten the

agonising farewell, but his steel-clad soul is steadfast and unshaken.

Tearing himself away, he hurries on with a firm tread.

Then the procession moves forward. A strong company of Sheriff’s

men and City Marshal’s constables leads the way, parting the dense

surging mob for the progress of the official chariots and the black

mourning-coach that follows next in line. Another carriage, in which

sits one Lloyd, an ex-housebreaker turned psalm-singing penitent, comes

after that of Ryland, and then the pair of loathsome carts with four

more miserable victims. No cant or cowardice marks the bearing of the

poor artist. Unlike the conventional hypocrite of such a time, his lips

do not move in response to the exhortations of white-banded Ordinary

Villette. No prayer-book rests in his fingers. Having made his peace

with God, he does not deign to humour the prejudices of man. Unjustly,

they are sending him to a cruel death. Why should he appear to worship

in the fashion they have chosen? Thus, while the procession moves

onward, his calm, inscrutable face gazes upon the scene that passes

before his eyes.

An amazing spectacle, this eighteenth-century march to Tyburn,

revealing as completely as the roofless city of romance the human

animal taken unawares. No braver picture of dauntless courage ever has

been displayed in battlefield than the serene victim, tied and bound,

who is drawn along slowly to his shameful death. Though the deep toll

of St Sepulchre’s passing bell may beat in cruel blows against his

heart, as he moves past the old church at whose font his brothers and

sisters were given their Christian names, there is no tremor visible

to the thousands who gloat upon his form. Down the slopes of Snow Hill

runs the quick, eager whisper, for the eyes of all seek but one man,

“Which is Mr Ryland?” And the careless murmur swells into a louder

key, “There he is in the coach--that is he--that is Ryland”--the

heartless babble of a multitude of savages. Thicker and thicker teems

the concourse, as the procession crawls over the bridge and up Holbourn

Hill, swollen like a black, turgid river by streams that flow from

haunts of filth and foulness--the sweepings of the slums. Thieves,

cut-throats, hoarse drunkards, and shrill strumpets join in the

delirious march with the loud, mad tread of a thousand clattering feet.

Thus they move onward. Within the sable coach the smug Ordinary is

mumbling scraps of Holy Writ pertaining to the time and place, the

valley of the shadow of death. In response, a hundred ribald oaths and

loathsome jests are pealing all around. Within the sable coach the poor

ecstatic housebreaker is piping a quavering hymn, his joints shaking

in palsy, his eyes, which gleam in horrible whiteness, raised to the

skies. All around, the hands of a hundred thieves are busy at work as

they tramp along in this march to the grave. Beyond Chancery Lane the

wide thoroughfare seems to pass into a new world. Although the street

echoes still to the tread of ten thousand squalid footsteps, high up

on either side, at the windows or in the narrow balconies, wealth and

beauty take their part in the mighty spectacle. Sweet, pale faces

look down, while soft, heaving bosoms press the casements. Beings who

might soar amidst the stars are sunk in the mire--all compelled by the

haunting, irresistible tramp rolling onward in the march of death.

Yet the footsteps never pause. Forward still, winding through St

Giles, the highroad to Tyburn opens to the view. There is no halt now

for the Lazar-house bowl, nor would those fettered men in the carts

wish to quaff it. Huddled together in the first, the three are babbling

supplications; prone and fainting, a half-dying creature is stretched

within the last. In front, the hysterical housebreaker is swaying like

a drunkard on the seat of his coach, still quavering forth his piteous

hymn. Only the artist, whose carriage leads the way to the shambles,

gazing calmly around with grave, stony face, will have no truck with

the cant of humanity. For his thoughts are far distant, fleeing from

the mighty roll of footsteps till they soften to his ears like the

murmur of muffled drums. All around him are visions of bygone days.

Yon narrow road that is pouring forth its human torrent leads to Soho,

where, with the gentle Gwynn, he used to visit the gilded palace of

Therese Cornelys, or that other Carlisle House, the fencing-school of

splendid Angelo. Down that long street is Golden Square, but there is

no pretty Miss Angel to weep for him. And far away, beyond the distant

horizon, lies the palace of his king, but before it there is reared the

gaunt, frightful spectre of the triple tree.

Then the sound of voices swells louder while the march is stayed.

Through the windows of his coach he can see the three bare posts close

at hand, so that he can almost touch them. Slowly the creaking carts

roll forward, halting beneath the wooden bars, and a sweeping circle of

soldiers spreads itself around. Perched upon the park wall is a long

mass of expectant faces. Here and there rise huge stands, tier upon

tier, choked to the full with swaying humanity. As far as the eye can

reach is a dense, surging throng, crushing forward, ever crushing, as

though eager to press the victims to their doom.

Presently the black clouds that have been slowly unfurling their

shadows across the August sky burst in a peal of thunder, and the

tempest rushes through the air. Amidst the flashes of lightning, a

fierce rainstorm hurls itself to earth. For a moment the bloody work

must pause, since it is impossible to stand against the blinding

torrents. Half an hour passes. Then the deluge ceases as suddenly as it

arose. Hastily the Sheriff gives his orders, and soon expert hands have

arranged the ropes around the necks of the three rain-soaked wretches

in the cart. Swiftly the second tumbril, in which the sick man is lying

prostrate, backs to the coach where sits the penitent housebreaker, and

he is summoned to the gallows. In a few moments the halters are placed

upon their heads, while the contrite thief entreats the multitude to

take warning from his fate. At last, when all is ready, they call upon

Mr Ryland. Springing lightly down the steps, he mounts the cart, and

stands beside his two fellow-sufferers--a brave, graceful gentleman in

black, quiet and unflinching. Strange contrast indeed to the swooning

creature on the floor, or to the noisy burglar, who shrieks to heaven,

wringing his hands. Ordinary Villette comes forward, pressing his

holy attentions upon the unhappy artist, who listens to him calmly

and respectfully, while close at hand his wretched companions pray

long and loud. Suddenly there is a shrill, wailing sound, rising and

falling in equal cadence with the see-saw rhythm of a hymn, “The

Sinner’s Lamentation,” which four terror-stricken creatures, with their

heads thrown back, bellow loudly to the skies. And all this time,

firm, motionless, inscrutable, bearing even the greatest ignominy--the

contact of these foul ones--without a tremor, Wynne Ryland stands

silent, waiting for the last cruel moment. Swiftly it comes. His face

is covered, the hangman lashes his horse, the foothold sweeps from

beneath, and he passes into oblivion. To the other five who sway in the

air at his elbow (save one) death also is merciful.

A holiday of butchery, cries Mercy; yea, and more, a holiday in which

butchery alone has a part, giving naught that chance or strength or

valour might lend its victim; butchery a thousand times more squalid

than that of the noble Roman. Ah, but it is the pious retribution of

majestic laws, declares the spirit of those times; the just conclusion

of the social contract; butchery, alas! for these poor victims can have

no resemblance to the gladiators of the arena. Yes, indeed, retorts

Mercy; it is the vengeance of the sacred majesty of commerce, whose

garments have been soiled by the hands of these malefactors, which

cannot be appeased by the code of savages, an eye for an eye, a life

for a life. Yet ’tis stern for the sake of utility, pleads the spirit;

harsh for the public good, so that the evil-doer may be terrified to

the advantage of all innocence, and to the encouragement of a Christian

life. But what of that handsome youth, is the reply, whose face is

seared by vice, and whose hand is in the fob of your sleek, well-fed

City merchant: is this one dismayed by these six dangling victims on

the tree? No, answers the spirit; but we must not adopt a universal

conclusion from a particular case, for how can we judge how many of the

tempted have been saved from crime by the terrible example of the fatal

rope? True in logic, false in truth, Mercy well may thunder--a valid

deduction from _conditional_ premiss, but the terms of jurisprudence

should not be qualified by an ‘if’ Thus, surely, unless we admit the

old Hebrew ‘eye for an eye’ dogma, must we view all legal punishments

that deprive a fellow-creature of his life. Alas, that we are

controlled by the logic of other times!

The same coach that conveyed William Wynne Ryland along the road to

Tyburn brought back his dead body to his friends. Five days later--on

Thursday, the 3rd of September--they took him to the tiny churchyard

of Feltham, beyond Hounslow, where his father and mother had been laid

to rest. For a long time after his death Mrs Ryland continued to keep

a print-shop at the corner of Berners Street, where her husband’s

engravings commanded a large sale. Subsequently she transferred her

business to New Bond Street. From contemporary newspapers we learn that

the Ryland plates were much sought after in Paris when his untimely

fate became known. Nine years later, on the 20th of October 1792, the

unhappy wife went to join her husband in the little grass-plot of the

village by the Thames.

With the exception of that mighty scholar Eugene Aram, the eighteenth

century never suffered deeper loss by the hangman’s rope than in the

death of brave and graceful Wynne Ryland. Just as the marvellous usher

is the greatest of schoolmen, so is the Strand engraver incomparably

the greatest artist that ended his days upon the scaffold. With

him the dissolute and passionate Theodore Gardelle can no more be

contrasted than poet Gahagan with the former. Yet, unlike the sombre

Aram, poor Ryland did not bear the stain of blood upon his hands. Nor

was the evidence of his guilt less open to doubt. Because he failed

to prove his innocence they sent him to his death. Still, although

there was no lack of tears and lamentation, his cruel fate did not

excite the same interest nor cause the universal consternation that

was aroused in similar cases. Neither Horace Walpole, Mrs Delany, nor

George Selwyn speak his name, and gossip Tom Smith merely mentions him

incidentally in a list of engravers. A reason is not far to seek. Not

being a man of fashion, how was it possible that an epoch which had

beheld so many stupendous melodramas should be greatly shocked by his

atonement? Preacher Dodd, the pet of devout ladies; the unfortunate

brothers over whom the charms of Margaret Rudd cast the halo of

romance; soldier-parson Hackman, with his love and madness; poisonous

Captain Donellan of Lawford Hall--all these magnificent criminals had

lately made the march to Tyburn, or elsewhere. Little wonder that

society, _ennuyé_ by the sight of the gallows, had lost its zest for

convict-worship.

To say that William Wynne Ryland might have been the greatest engraver

that the world has seen would be to state an equivocal proposition,

since modern print-science, to which the splendid art has given

birth, scarce realises comparative methods, and has no complete list

of precise terms. Yet the assertion that none have ever excelled him

as a creator of the coloured stipple is a mere platitude. Also, it

would be difficult to name any other artist who has produced finer

work in all the three great branches of engraving--line, dot, and

mezzotint. Still, like every rolling stone, he suggests rather than

demonstrates the possession of superlative powers. Although few surpass

him as a draughtsman, colourist, and craftsman, he shares the fate of

all who pursue unworthy models. While the fair Kauffman sinks into

insignificance in contrast to Sir Joshua, the man who translated her

pictures into their popular form is worthy to take his place beside

all the masters who fashioned engravings after Reynolds. Through the

whole of his life it is the same. In careless vigour he speeds along

the difficult paths that lead to the golden mountain-tops, but never

reaches the summit. To Wale or to Oudry he gives more than to François

Boucher. Smiling Ramsay and courtly Bute snatch him from his allegiance

to the mighty Italians. Always opportunist, the pleasures of the world

entangle him amidst a stifling undergrowth, where his wings may not

expand to bear him aloft, free and unconfined.

Nor are his copies of Angelica the best that she can offer. In humble

servitude he seems to take all that is given to him. The slave of

popular taste, unlike Bartolozzi he never casts off his shackles. A

simpering Venus, an over-fed Cupid, a Grecian warrior with a feminine

frame--these are the subjects upon which he wastes his powers. Even

when opportunity comes to draw a human portrait in the person of a

noble woman, he has to struggle against the mockery of a burlesque

dress--furled Turkish trousers, or a Grecian turban. Yet how different

is the obvious ideal! Since he could transform the work of ‘Miss Angel’

with such wondrous art, conjecture may dream of entrancing pictures

after Gainsborough, in miniature, but in perfect semblance, glowing

with all the gorgeous tints of the great master.

An illustrious feather-pate, gazing with idolatry upon his own modern

photograph, has screamed, “Camera beats the brush! Look upon that

picture, and then presume to tell me that Rembrandt or Velasquez has

fashioned its equal.” Obviously, for those painters never had such a

model as illustrious feather-pate. Yet feather-pate but babbles the

gibberish of his times. All who inveigh against soulless lithograph or

poll-parrot photography, saying that monarchs of the brush are with us

still whose works are worthy of the engraver’s steel, cry as prophets

of the wilderness. “Camera beats the print,” shrieks Cosmos; “magna est

vilitas, et prævalebit.” Thus poor Cinderella, who never went to the

ball with her more gorgeous sisters, is driven even from her home in

the kitchen.

Still, could some god transport Wynne Ryland from the sunny plains,

he would find work for his hand as alluring as the canvas of Angelica

Kauffman. In the gossamer creations of such as Alma Tadema and Blair

Leighton, the soft-coloured print might begin a new life. Is it too

late to hope that ere he passed over the dark river he left his mantle

upon the shore?

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE RYLAND CASE

I. CONTEMPORARY AUTHORITIES

1. _Authentic Memoires of William Wynne Ryland._ Printed for J. Ryall,

No. 17 Lombard Street, 1784. Brit. Mus.

As these _Authentic Memoires_ do not present a very lucid

account, it is necessary to place the principal events of Wynne

Ryland’s career in chronological order:--

Born November 2, 1733, in St John’s Street, Clerkenwell; the

third son and fifth child of Edward and Mary Ryland.

Baptized December 2, at St Martin’s Church, Ludgate, where his

name appears in the register as William Wynn.

Studied at St Martin’s Lane Academy--probably during the latter

half of the forties.

If, as is generally stated, he served an apprenticeship of five

years with Ravenet, he must have been bound to that engraver

before 1750.

The second volume of _Les Fables choisies de la Fontaine_, with

illustrations after Oudry, shows that he was in Paris in 1755.

Having studied for two years under Le Bas, it would seem that

he went to Boucher about 1757. According to most accounts he

remained abroad for five years.

Probably he was in England in 1761, for several of his

red-chalk engravings after the old master were finished during

the next year.

In April 1762 he published at Lichfield Street, Soho, an

engraving of George III., after Ramsay.

In February 1763 his engraving of Lord Bute, after Ramsay, was

finished.

From 1763-67 he was engaged upon the portrait of George III. in

his Coronation Robes, after Ramsay.

In the spring of 1765 he visited Paris on a commission for the

King (_v._ Journal of J. G. Wille).

In 1767 he was living in Stafford Row, Pimlico.

From 1767-69 he was engaged upon the portrait of the Queen,

after Cotes.

In 1767 or 1768 he entered into partnership with his late

pupil, Henry Bryer, at 27 Cornhill. This firm became bankrupt

in December 1771.

In 1772 he was living at Queen’s Row, Knightsbridge, and in

1773 near the Hammersmith turnpike.

In 1774 he opened his print-shop, No. 159 in the Strand.

On November 4, 1782, he deposited the forged bill on the East

India Company with Messrs Ransome, Moreland & Ammersley,

bankers.

On the 1st of April 1783 he fled from his home at

Knightsbridge, and the advertisement offering £300 for his

arrest was published in the newspapers on April 3.

2. _A Catalogue of Mr Ryland’s Exhibition_ at Mr Pollard’s in

Piccadilly. Brit. Mus.

3. _Exhibition Catalogue of Incorporated Society of Artists_, 1761-69.

“In their Great Room in Spring Gardens, Charing Cross.” Brit. Mus.

The following were Ryland’s exhibits:--

1761. No. 215. A Print of “Jupiter and Leda,” after Boucher.

1767. No. 217. A Print of his Majesty in his Coronation Robes after Ramsay.

1769. No. 301. Two Drawings.

No. 302. One Drawing.

4. _Catalogue of the Royal Academy._ 1772-1775. Brit. Mus. The

exhibits of Ryland, with their dates, are as follows:--

1772. No. 227. Vortigern falling in love with Rowena--after A. Kauffman.

No. 228. The interview between Edgar and Elfrida after her marriage

with Athelwald--after A. Kauffman.

No. 229. A Portrait of a child drawing.

1773. No. 259. Domestic Employment--a drawing.

1774. No. 255. A Frame with sundry Portraits.

No. 256. ” ” ”

1775. No. 268. Juno borrowing the Cestus from Venus. A Drawing in

red chalk, after A. Kauffman.

5. _Dodd’s Memoires of English Engravers_, xi. pp. 104-110. Add. MSS.

33404. Brit. Mus.

6. _Joseph Strutt’s Biog. Dic. of Engravers_ (1785-6), ii. 285. Brit.

Mus.

7. _A Collection of Prints in Imitation of Drawings._ 2 vols. 1778.

Edited by Charles Rogers. Brit. Mus.

Ryland contributed fifty-seven plates. These two volumes should

be included in any collection of Ryland’s works.

8. _Nichol’s Literary Anecdotes_ (1813). Vol. iii. 256, vol. v. 668,

681, 686.

9. _Reminiscences of Henry Angelo._ 2 vols. London, 1828-30. Vol. i.

pp. 473-83. New Edition by Joseph Grego and H. Lavers Smith. Kegan

Paul. 1904. Vol. i. pp. 366, 370-75.

Ryland was a frequent visitor at the fencing and riding school,

which the elder Angelo had established at Carlisle House,

Carlisle Street, and which, oddly enough, was the second

building of that name in Soho Square.

10. _Mémoires et Journal de J. G. Wille._ 2 vols. Jules Renouard.

Paris, 1857. Vol. i. pp. 287, 288.

Wille met Ryland in Paris on April 17, April 18, and May 9,

1765. He tells us that he had been acquainted with him when the

English engraver was in France seven or eight years previously

(_i.e._ in 1757-1758), which dates fit in with other known

incidents of Ryland’s life.

II. CONTEMPORARY NEWSPAPERS AND MAGAZINES

1. _The Gentleman’s Magazine_ (1771), p. 572; (1778), p. 594; (1783),

part i. pp. 359, 443; part ii. pp. 626, 710, 714; (1808), part i. p. 87.

2. _The European Magazine_ (1783), part ii. pp. 158, 172-173.

3. _The Morning Post_, April-August 1783.

4. _The Morning Chronicle_, do.

5. _The Morning Herald_, do.

6. _The London Chronicle_, do.

7. _The Public Advertiser_, do.

8. _The Daily Advertiser_, do.

9. _The General Advertiser_, do.

10. _The Whitehall Evening Post_, do.

11. _The London Recorder_, do.

12. _Ayre’s Sunday London Gazette_, do.

13. _The Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser_, do.

14. _Lloyds Evening Post_, do.

The most complete account of the trial will be found in the

_Morning Post_, Monday, July 28, 1783. Those who are interested

in the much-debated question whether the site of the ‘Tyburn

Tree’ was in Connaught Square, Bryanston Street, or Upper

Seymour Street, would do well to remember that on August 29,

1783 (so the papers tell us), the gallows were placed fifty

yards nearer the park wall than usual. Naturally, its position

was changed from time to time.

NOTES

NOTE I.--_Dic. Nat. Biog._ The date of Ryland’s birth is given as July

1732! Nor was he the eldest, but the _third_ son of his father.

NOTE II.--_Eighteenth Century Colour Prints._ Mrs Julia Frankau.

Macmillan (1900).

Mrs Frankau’s explanation of the flight of Ryland is scarcely

plausible. It is not credible that a man who is engaged in a frantic

search for a lost mistress would remain in close hiding, posing as

an invalid, only venturing abroad after dark. Nor is it a tenable

assumption that he attempted to commit suicide in a fit of despair

because he fancied that he was being arrested for debt, and thus might

lose all chance of finding his _chère amie_. One of the strongest

pleas in his defence was that his fortune was ‘princely’ and he

protested that he fled because he could not find the man from whom

he had received the fatal bill. It is a strange coincidence that the

discovery of the fraud upon the East India Company should have taken

place on the eve of his disappearance. Moreover, he was not arrested

for the forgery that secured his conviction. The warrant charged him

with counterfeiting two other bills of exchange to the value of £7114

(as reference to the advertisement columns of the daily papers of April

3 will show), and it was not until this publicity that Mr Moreland,

the banker, examined the bill for £210, which Ryland had deposited

with his house. Thus the accusation of one crime led to the discovery

of another! And it is still more strange that the artist should have

cashed an East India Company bill of the value of £210 on September 19,

1782, while on November 4 he should have handed to his banker another

bill--an exact copy of the first--bearing a similar date, denomination,

and acceptances. Although these two identical bills came into Ryland’s

possession within the space of a few weeks, he did not seek an

explanation of the remarkable coincidence. A careful survey of all the

facts must convince everyone of the guilt of the unfortunate engraver,

but it is a pleasure to be able to agree with Mrs Frankau--except

in some minor details--in her contention that the evidence was not

conclusive. Ryland was convicted because he failed to show that he had

received the forged bill from another person, and to cast thus the

burden of proof from the prosecution to the defence is quite foreign to

the methods of a modern tribunal.

Since the Catholic has become the spoilt child of contemporary

literature, it is not surprising to find Wynne Ryland hailed as

the victim of Protestant persecution. Yet there appears to be no

evidence to support this assumption. There is not a line in the

newspapers of the day to indicate that any anti-Romanist feeling was

aroused, and had such been the case, the _Public Advertiser_, at all

events, whose animosity towards ‘Popery’ is sufficiently evident,

would have trumpeted loudly. It is significant that the mob never

behaved with greater propriety--very unusual conduct in the howling

Tyburn crowd--than on August 29, 1783. How different would it have

been if the word had been whispered that a Papist was going to the

gallows! Strutt and Angelo, who write so sympathetically of their

friend, have nothing to say on this subject, and, indeed, accept his

guilt as proved. Although the former, who wrote in 1785, might have

reason for reticence, yet the latter, whose book was published a

year before the Emancipation Act, could have no reason to suppress

such evidence. Indeed, we have only the doubtful authority of the

_Authentic Memoires_ for the statement that Ryland was a ‘supposed’

Catholic in his early youth. With this very ambiguous suggestion we

must reconcile the strange fact that he was buried in a graveyard of

the Established Church, and that the last rites were performed by

an Anglican clergyman. There are one or two slips of the pen in Mrs

Frankau’s interesting memoir. As the catalogue of the Royal Academy

shows that Ryland contributed his first drawing in 1772--four years

after the institution was established--he was not “one of the earliest

exhibitors.” From the same catalogue it appears that the print-shop

in the Strand was opened in 1774. The date of the publication of the

_Authentic Memoires_, given as 1794, is, of course, a clerical error.

Owing to the footnote attached to Ryland’s letter to Francis Donaldson

of Liverpool, printed in the _Morning Post_, September 2, 1783, the

document must be regarded with suspicion. No trivial disagreement

with the conclusions of Mrs Frankau can diminish the interest of her

delightful account of the great engraver, which must remain the most

valuable of recent monographs.

NOTE III.--There are references to W. W. Ryland in the innumerable

dictionaries of painters and engravers, French, German, and English,

such as Basan, Le Blanc, Portalis and Beraldi, Andreas Andrescen,

Redgrave, Bryan, etc. One of the best of modern notices will be found

in the _Print Collectors’ Handbook_, by Alfred Whitman.

A LIST OF WILLIAM WYNNE RYLAND’S ENGRAVINGS.

(By RUTH BLEACKLEY.)

1. Les Grâces au Bain, after Boucher. }

2. La Belle Dormeuse, do. }

3. Le Repose Champêtre, do. }

4. Vue d’un pont, do. }

5. Berger passant une rivière, do. } 1757-60

6. La petite Repose, do. }

7. La Bonne Mère, do. }

8. La Marchande d’Oiseaux, do. }

9. I. and II. Vue de Fronville, do. }

10. Jupiter and Leda, do. }

11. George III., King of Great Britain. Published April 1762.

12. John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute--after Allan Ramsay. Published

February 1763.

13. George III. in State Robes--after Allan Ramsay. Published 1767.

14. George III. (bust).

15. Queen Charlotte with infant (Princess Royal)--after Cotes.

Published 1769.

16. Diogenes--after Salvator Rosa. Published 1771.

17. Antiochus and Stratonice--after P. da Cortona. Published 1772.

18. General Stanwix’s Daughter--after Angelica Kauffman (called also

“The Pensive Muse”). Published in colours 1774.

19. Hope--after A. Kauffman--(a portrait of herself). Published in

colours, February 7, 1775.

20. A Lady in a Turkish Dress--after A. Kauffman. Oval in colours.

Published May 1, 1775.

21. A Lady in a Greek Dress--(the Duchess of Richmond)--after A.

Kauffman. Published November 20, 1775.

22. Narcissus. Drawn and engraved by Ryland. Published January 12,

1775.

23. Domestick Employment. Drawn and engraved by Ryland, in colours.

Published September 13, 1775.

24. Faith--after A. Kauffman. Published 1776.

25. Dormio Innocuus--after A. Kauffman. Circle in colours. Published

May 21, 1776.

26. Olim Truncus--after A. Kauffman. Circle in colours and red.

Published, first state, April 3; second state, May 1, 1776.

27. Juno cestum a Venere Postulat--after A. Kauffman. Circle in

colours and red. Published January 1, 1777.

28. Achilles lamenting the Death of his friend Patroclus--after

A. Kauffman. Published December 4, 1777, in colours and red.

29. Patience--after A. Kauffman. Published May 27, 1777.

30. Perseverance--after A. Kauffman. Published June 24, 1777.

31. Cupid Bound, with Nymphs breaking his Bow--after A. Kauffman.

Published March 17, 1777.

32. Telemachus returns to Penelope--after A. Kauffman, in colours.

Published December 4, 1777.

33. Venus in her Triumphal Chariot--after A. Kauffman, in colours

and red. Published September 7, 1778.

34. Charles Rogers--mezzotint after Sir Joshua Reynolds. Published

1778.

35. Cleopatra decorating the Tomb of Mark Antony--after A. Kauffman.

Published March 25, 1778, in colours.

36. Telemachus at the Court of Sparta--after A. Kauffman, in colours.

Published 1778.

37. The Judgment of Paris--after A. Kauffman, in colours and red.

Published January 17, 1778.

38. Maria Moulins--after A. Kauffman. Published 1779, in colours

and red.

39. Eloisa--after A. Kauffman. Oval in colours and red. Published

1779.

40. Britannia directing Painting, Sculpture and Architecture to

address themselves to Royal Munificence, etc.--after Cipriani,

in colours and red. Published August 18, 1779.

41. Marianne. Drawn and engraved by Ryland. In colours and red.

Published January 3, 1780.

42. Eleanor sucking the poison from the wound of King Edward--after

A. Kauffman. Published March 1, 1780, in colours.

43. Lady Elizabeth Grey imploring pardon for her husband--after A.

Kauffman. Published 1780, in colours and red.

44. The Flight of Paris and Helen--after A. Kauffman. Published 1781.

45. Venus presenting Helen to Paris--after A. Kauffman. Published

1781.

46. Cymon and Iphigenia--after A. Kauffman. Circle in colours.

Published January 15, 1782.

47. Morning Amusement--after A. Kauffman. Published March 1, 1784.

48. King John signing the Magna Charta--after Mortimer. Published

1785. This plate was finished after Ryland’s death by Bartolozzi

and published by the widow.

49. Interview between Edgar and Elfrida--after A. Kauffman. Published

1786. According to Bryan’s _Dictionary_ this plate was finished

by W. Sharp and published by the widow.

50. Donald MacLeod, aged 102--after W. R. Bigg. Published 1790.

The following I am unable to date:--

51. John, Duke of Lauderdale.

52. Henry, 7th Baron Digby.

53. Churchill, Duke of Marlborough.

54. Charity--after Van Dyck.

55. The Muse Erato--after Joseph Zucchi.

56. Les Muses (Urania, Clio, Thalia, and Erato)--after Cipriani.

57. Sir John Falstaff raising Recruits--after F. Hayman.

58. Interior of a Dutch Cabaret with peasants dancing--after R.

Brackenberg.

59. Penelope awakened by Euryclea--after A. Kauffman.

60. Religion--after A. Kauffman.

61. Ludit Amabiliter--after A. Kauffman. Circle in colours.

62. Penelope hanging up the Bow of Ulysses--after A. Kauffman.

63. Achilles discovered by Ulysses in the disguise of a Virgin--after

A. Kauffman.

64. Andromache weeping over the ashes of Hector--after A. Kauffman.

65. Samma at Benoni’s Grave--after A. Kauffman.

_Note._--The _Morning Herald_, May 5, and the _Morning Post_, August

28, 1783, state that Ryland left unfinished a plate of the Battle of

Agincourt, after Mortimer.

[Illustration: _Sir Joshua Reynolds Pinx._ _John Boydell excudit,

1780._ _F. Bartolozzi Sculpsit._

ANGELICA KAUFFMAN,

_Ex. Academia Regali Artium Londini_

Published Septʳ. 3; 1780 by John Boydell, London.]

BOOK ILLUSTRATIONS

1. The Book of Common Prayer. Published by Edward Ryland, May 1, 1755.

Nine plates by Ryland--after S. Wale.

2. The Book of Common Prayer in Welsh (1770), with the same plates as

in former edition.

3. The Complete Angler, by Isaac Walton, edited by Sir John Hawkins.

With fourteen plates, dated 1759, by Ryland--after S. Wale. First

edition 1760.

4. “Les Fables choisies de la Fontaine.” Illustrated by J. B. Oudry

(1755-59). Seven plates by Ryland in vols. ii., iii., and iv.

5. L’Ecole Des Armes. Par M. Angelo. A Londres: chez R. & J. Dodsley,

Pall Mall. February 1763. Second edition 1765. With forty-seven plates.

A few copies in colours. Ryland engraved fourteen of these plates.

Hall, Grignion, Elliot, and Chamber did the rest--all after drawings by

John Gwynn. Thus Henry Angelo’s account of this work is inaccurate.

6. A Collection of Prints in Imitation of Drawings. Edited by Charles

Rogers. Published London 1778. Contains fifty-seven plates by Ryland in

addition to the mezzotint portrait of Rogers.

7. The School of Fencing, by D. Angelo, edited by Henry Angelo. 1787.

With forty-seven plates, the same as in the first edition. This book

is not well edited, as the letterpress does not always agree with the

pictures.

_Note._--In every case the date of the engraving has been copied from

an existing impression. Possibly there are earlier and later states.

A SOP TO CERBERUS

THE CASE OF GOVERNOR WALL, 1782-1802

“He wandered here, he wandered there,

A fugitive like Cain,

And mourned, like him, in dark despair

A brother rashly slain.”

--_A Tale without a Name._ JAMES MONTGOMERY.

On the 26th of August 1782, a captain in the army, named Joseph Wall,

just come home from foreign service, sat down to compose his report to

the Secretary of State. A glance would tell that he was one of those

chosen by destiny to rule man and enslave woman. Although the swift,

hot courage of the Celt shone in his fearless eyes and slumbered in

his rough-hewn features, the beetling brow, resolute jaw, and fierce,

mobile mouth were softened by the gentle mesmeric charm that marks all

of his race. In stature he was a giant; while his sweeping shoulders,

which towered above the heads of most, the thick, gnarled fingers and

stalwart limbs, indicated a mighty strength. For the rest, he was a

clean-looking man, with light brown hair and a fresh complexion. Yet

the dull grey lines in his face told that the tropics had levied that

tax upon his physique which the British soldier is ever eager to pay.

[Illustration: _Etched by J. Chapman_

GOVERNOR WALL.

_Published by J. Cundee Ivy Lane Janʸ, 1804_]

There was nothing of moment in the officer’s report to Secretary

Townshend. It was merely a rough account of the termination of his

stewardship while Governor for eighteen months at the island of Goree.

Mere chance had thrown this tiny sun-baked rock once more into the

possession of Great Britain. Three years previously the French fleet

under de Vaudreuil, _en route_ to the West Indies, sweeping down upon

Senegal, had seized the English posts at Fort Lewis and Fort James. The

victory of Sir Edward Hughes had reversed the position. By the capture

of the island of Goree, which nestles south of Cape Verde scarcely

three miles from the mainland, the approach to the enemies’ settlements

on the opposite shore was placed in the hands of England. Being a

station of some importance for trading purposes, owing to its proximity

to two great rivers of West Africa, a British garrison remained there

during the course of the war. Though deemed less unhealthy than the

coast, its climate was deadly. Not a mile in length, and scarcely more

than a quarter in breadth, the men had little scope for exercise. All

ranks detested the place. The regiment was composed of the riff-raff of

the army; the officers were those who could get no other appointment.

Joseph Wall was worthy of better things. Nature had made him one

of those soldiers of fortune whom his native land has sent forth

unceasingly year by year into the armies of every country in the world.

About the time of George III.’s accession he had flung aside the

religion of his fathers to obtain a commission, and two years later, at

the age of twenty-five, the young Irishman saw his first fight in the

West Indies. His fiery valour during the storming of Fort Moro gained

him promotion, and he returned home from Havannah in 1762 with the rank

of captain. Fate, however, robbed him of his birthright, for twelve

years of weary peace laid their rust upon his restless soul. Soon an

appointment under Company John took him to Bombay, but opportunity

never came to draw his sword in a war of nations. At the close of his

residence in India he returned to his father’s home, Abbeyleix, in

Queen’s County, a sad example of him whom fortune welcomes with a smile

and then turns away her face for ever. The keen spirit that could find

no outlet under arms was ill fitted for the civilian’s life. Joseph

Wall, the soldier of fortune, possessed none of the grace of humour

which might have softened his red, untamable temper. Broils innumerable

led to many a bloody duel, and on one occasion--so tradition

relates--he crossed swords with ‘Fighting Fitzgerald’ Rumour credits

him also with the death of a faithful friend, and, ’tis said, _dux

femina facti_. Indeed, several affairs of gallantry stain his record,

and once he was called upon to answer an insult to a lady in a court of

justice.