Of Bosbury, in Herefordshire, aged fifty-eight, admitted January 20th
1820. This poor old eccentric had been a farmer and butcher; and,
according to his own fanciful account, was eminent for his great
wealth, as well as for his scientific management in agriculture, and
his extensive credit. Half Herefordshire belonged to him. He purchased
splendid houses and extensive estates at auctions, without sixpence
in his pocket towards paying the purchase-money, for no one doubted
his means of payment. He invented a new mode of thatching hay and
corn-stacks, by tiling them over like the roofs of houses. The subject
of tythes had apparently occupied much of his temper as well as his
genius. He hated all parsons: he quarrelled with the rector of his
own parish, who lived near him, and to annoy him, he would blow an
imaginary horn from his own window all night. He used occasionally to
follow the rector to market; and at one time continued to annoy him by
blowing this horn at his ear all round the market-place, and seemed
highly tickled at the recollection of this imaginary prank.
He was constantly occupied by some ingenious invention, according to
his own story, and contrived many new-fangled fish-ponds, dove-cotes,
ploughs, threshing-machines, gates, and fences; planted trees, and
contrived many whimsical erections, of which he talked without order or
regularity.
It is a rule of this establishment, that when calm patients are
insensible to the calls of nature, they are removed from the upper
galleries to the basement story, where they sleep on straw. This man,
who was remarkably cleanly in his habits, conceived a strong dislike
to his keeper up stairs, and could not agree with him: and this
antipathy was probably increased by an attachment he had contracted
for the keeper in the basement story. He had applied several times
to be removed down to that part of the building, without effect: but
at length he drew upon his inventions for a stratagem to obtain his
object, which was by plastering his bed, sheets, blankets, and the
floor and walls of his apartment with filth, and this operation gained
his point.
His malady after a considerable time so far abated, that he was
permitted to go out on a month’s leave of absence; he came back
apparently quite well, returned thanks, and was discharged cured on the
7th of December 1820, and returned to his small farm. But the state
of agricultural affairs were not calculated to keep him tranquil, nor
revive his domestic attachments. He came home on a very cold night, and
probably influenced by the spice of his recent disease, he forcibly
turned his whole family out of doors, to seek shelter where they could
from the severity of the weather amongst their neighbours, for the
night; and he then set down with perfect composure, to enjoy the
comforts of solitary meditation over a pitcher of ale and a pipe, and
afterwards retired to bed.