faintly Pope's lines which made the fame of the Man, but I retained only
a general impression of them as praising a public benefactor who did
astonishing things on a very small income and thus was to put to shame
certain men of wealth in Pope's day who did for their fellow creatures
nothing at all. But nowhere could I find the lines. The guide-books
refer to them lightly as though they were in every consciousness, and
pass on. No shop had a copy of Pope; none of the picture post-cards
quoted them; they were not on the monument in the church; they were
nowhere in the hotel. And this is odd, because it was probably not until
the illustrious London poet had set the seal of his approval on their
late townsman and benefactor that the people of Ross realised not only
how very remarkable had he been, but also that to be associated with
such a personage might mean both distinction and profit. For the phrase
"The Man of Ross" is now everywhere: he who once fathered orphans and
the unfortunate now spreads his cloak over tea-shops, inns, and
countless commercial ventures.
Here, however, is the passage, from the third _Moral Epistle_. P. the
poet, it will be recalled, is moralising on riches, in metrical
conversation with B.--Lord Bathurst:--
P. Rise, honest Muse! and sing the Man of Ross:
Pleased Vaga echoes through her winding bounds,
And rapid Severn hoarse applause resounds.
Who hung with woods yon mountain's sultry brow?
From the dry rock who bade the waters flow?
Not to the skies in useless columns tost,
Or in proud falls magnificently lost,
But clear and artless, pouring through the plain
Health to the sick and solace to the swain.
Whose causeway parts the vale with shady rows?
Whose seats the weary traveller repose?
Who taught that heaven-directed spire to rise?
"The Man of Ross," each lisping babe replies.
Behold the market-place with poor o'erspread!
The Man of Ross divides the weekly bread;
He feeds yon almshouse, neat, but void of state,
Where Age and Want sit smiling at the gate;
Him portioned maids, apprenticed orphans, blessed
The young who labour, and the old who rest.
Is any sick? The Man of Ross relieves,
Prescribes, attends, the med'cine makes and gives.
Is there a variance? enter but his door,
Balk'd are the courts, and contest is no more.
Despairing Quacks with curses fled the place,
And vile attorneys, now an useless race.
B. Thrice happy man! enabled to pursue
What all so wish, but want the power to do!
Oh say, what sums that generous hand supply?
What mines, to swell that boundless charity?
P. Of Debts and Taxes, Wife and Children clear,
This man possest--five hundred pounds a year.
Blush, Grandeur, blush! proud Courts, withdraw your blaze!
Ye, little Stars! hide your diminished rays.
B. And what? no monument, inscription, stone?
His race, his form, his name almost unknown?
P. Who builds a church to God, and not to fame,
Will never mark the marble with his name:
Go, search it there,[1] where to be born and die,
Of rich and poor makes all the history;
Enough, that Virtue filled the space between;
Prov'd, by the ends of being, to have been.
[Footnote 1: In the Parish Register.]
If the impression conveyed by those lines is that the Man of Ross was
more of a saint than a Herefordshire squire, the fault is the poet's and
in part his medium's. The Augustan couplet tended to a heightening,
dehumanising effect. As a matter of fact, John Kyrle would seem to have
soared not at all: the plainest and most direct of men, he took to
altruism and municipal improvements very much as his neighbours took to
agriculture or cock-fighting. It was his amusement or hobby to make Ross
a more livable-in place.
But before the poem is examined more closely, let me give the outline of
John Kyrle's life. His father was Walter Kyrle of Ross, a barrister and
J.P., and M.P. for Leominster in the Long Parliament. John was born on
May 22nd, 1637, and educated at Ross Grammar School and Balliol College.
He then passed on to the Middle Temple, but on succeeding to his
father's property, worth about L600 a year, he settled down at Ross and
commenced philanthropy, and never relaxed his efforts until his death
many years later. He lived in the house opposite the very charming
Market-hall, unmarried, and cared for by a relation named Miss Judith
Bubb. He sat commonly in a huge and very solid chair, established on its
stout legs like a rock, which I saw not long since in the window of Mr.
Simmonds' old curiosity shop in Monmouth, where it serves as a show and
a lure. According to a portrait of the Man of Ross which exists, made
surreptitiously (for he would have none of your limners) as he sat at
worship, he was tall, broad-shouldered, of sanguine complexion, with a
big nose. He wore a brown suit and a short bushy wig, and he had a loud
voice. He visited a dame's school once a week, and on hearing of any
delinquency would reprimand the infant in these words: "Od's bud, Od's
bud, but I will mend you!" A burly man with a red face, big nose, and
loud voice speaking thus might, to the young, be a too terrifying
object, but we must guess that John Kyrle tempered the wind. "The
Dictionary of National Biography" says that although tradition gives
Kyrle credit for releasing poor debtors and starting them on new
careers, and that although for so long, as Pope tells us, he stood
between attorney and litigant, the law was ultimately too much for him,
and he too became involved in a suit. He lived to be eighty-seven, dying
of sheer old age on November 7th, 1724. His body lay in state in the
church of Ross for nine days and was then buried without a head-stone.
For the prose of Kyrle's life and achievements, as distinguished from
Pope's poetry, we have to go first to the diary of Thomas Hearn the
antiquary. Under the date April 9th, 1732-33, Hearn writes: "He (John
Kirle or Kyrle) was a very humble, good-natured man. He was a man of
little or no literature. He always studied to do what good charitable
offices he could, and was always pleased when an object offered. He was
reverenced and respected by all people. He used to drink and entertain
with cider, and was a sober discreet man. He would tell people when they
dined or supped with him that he could (if they pleased) let them have
wine to drink, but that his own drink was cider, and that he found it
most agreeable to him, and he did not care to be extravagant with his
small fortune. His estate was five hundred pounds per annum, and no
more, with which he did wonders. He built and endowed a hospital, and
built the spire of Ross. When any litigious suits fell out, he would
always stop them and prevent people's going to law. They would, when
differences happened, say, go to 'the great man of Ross,' or, which they
did more often, go to 'the man of Ross,' and he will decide the matter.
He left a nephew, a man good for little or nothing. He would have given
all from him, but a good deal being entailed he could not. He smoked
tobacco, and would generally smoke two pipes if in company, either at
home or elsewhere."
A year later Hearn corrected certain of these statements. Thus: "1734.
April 16. Mr. Pope had the main of his information about Mr. Kirle,
commonly called _the Man of Ross_ (whom he characterizeth in his poem of
the 'Use of Riches') from Jacob Tonson the book-seller, who hath
purchased an estate of about a thousand a year, and lives in
Herefordshire, a man that is a great, snivelling, poor-spirited whigg,
and good for nothing that I know of. Mr. Brome tells me in his letter
from Ewithington on November 23rd, 1733, that he does not think the
truth is strained in any particulars of the character, except it be in
his being founder of the church and spire of Ross ... but he was a great
benefactor; and at the re-casting of the bells gave a tenor, a large
bell. Neither does Mr. Brome find he was founder of any hospital, and he
thinks his knowledge in medicine extended no further than kitchen
physick, of which he was very liberal, and might thereby preserve many
lives.
"April 18. Yesterday Mr. Matthew Gibson, minister of Abbey Dore in
Herefordshire, just called upon me. I asked him whether he knew Mr.
Kirle, commonly called _the Man of Ross_. He said he did very well, and
that his (Mr. Matthew Gibson's) wife is his near relation; I think he
said he was her uncle. I told him the said _Man of Ross_ was an
extraordinary charitable, generous man, and did much good. He said he
did do a great deal of good, but that was all out of vanity and
ostentation, being the vainest man living, and that he always hated his
relations and would never look upon, or do anything for them, though
many of them were very poor. I know not what credit to give to Mr.
Gibson in that account, especially since this same Gibson hath more than
once, in my presence, spoke inveterately against that good honest man
Dr. Adam Ottley, late Bishop of St. David's. Besides, this Gibson is a
crazed man, and withall stingy, though he be rich, and hath no child by
his wife."
Another authority, more or less a contemporary, on the Man of Ross was
Thomas Hutcheson, barrister, a descendant who became the owner of
Kyrle's property. According to him Pope's questioning line:--
Who hung with woods yon mountain's sultry brow?
rather too sumptuously covers the planting of a "long shady walk, of
nearly a mile and a half ... called Kyrle's Walks, on the summit of the
eminence commanding a beautiful prospect of the Wye." The poet's next
query:--
From the dry rock who bade the waters flow?
is answered thus: "The Man of Ross promoted, and partly assisted by his
own pecuniary aid, the erection of a small water work near the river
Wye, which supplied the town of Ross with water, in which article it was
very deficient before," A further commentary was drawn from Mr.
Hutcheson by the couplet:--
Behold the market-place with poor o'erspread!
The Man of Ross divides the weekly bread.
"He kept open house every market-day; any person without distinction
might meet on that day at his hospitable board, which, according to the
stories related to me by some old tenants, consisted of a joint of meat
of each sort. The poor, who were always in waiting on that day, and
every other, had distributed to them, by his own superintendence, the
whole of the remains of each day, besides continual distributions of
bread, etc."
As to Pope's question:--
Whose causeway parts the vale with shady rows?
it seems that the poet was desperately out. The causeway connecting the
town with the river dated from before the fourteenth century, but Kyrle
probably saw to its proper maintenance.
Finally, let us see what the Sage of Fleet Street has to say to the
statement:--
The Man possest--five hundred pounds a year,
and its implication that everything was done on that sum. In the
critical notice of Pope in "The Lives of the Poets," Dr. Johnson
remarks: "Wonders are willingly told and willingly heard. The truth is,
that Kyrle was a man of known integrity and active benevolence, by whose
solicitation the wealthy were persuaded to pay contributions to his
charitable schemes; this influence he obtained by an example of
liberality exerted to the utmost extent of his power, and was thus
enabled to give more than he had. This account Mr. Victor received from
the Minister of the place, and I have preserved it, that the praise of a
good man being made more credible, may be more solid. Narrations of
romantic and impracticable virtue will be read with wonder, but that
which is unattainable is recommended in vain; that good may be
endeavoured, it must be shown to be practicable."
So much for all the advocates--angeli and diaboli! But I think we need
pay little attention to Mr. Gibson's testimony. Even though he were in
part right, and a tinge of self-esteem or love of applause crept into
the Man's benefactions, they remain benefactions no less, costing him as
much money, and reaching the same goals. But away with such belittlings!
Let us rather remember that the Rev. Matthew Gibson was crazed, stingy
withal, and had no child by his wife. Personally I agree with my friend
Mr. A. L. Humphreys, who has put it on record that, in his belief, it
would be a good thing if every parish had a Man of Ross in preference
to a parson. No harm necessarily in a parson as well, but the Man is
more important.
At least one more poetical tribute from genius did John Kyrle win. Among
the _Juvenile Poems_ of Samuel Taylor Coleridge is this:--
_Lines written at the King's Arms, Ross, formerly the house of the "Man
of Ross."_
Richer than Miser o'er his countless hoards,
Nobler than Kings, or king-polluted Lords,
Here dwelt the Man of Ross! O, Traveller, hear!
Departed Merit claims a reverent tear.
Friend to the friendless, to the sick man health,
With generous joy he viewed his modest wealth;
He heard the widow's heaven-breathed prayer of praise,
He marked the sheltered orphan's tearful gaze,
Or where the sorrow-shrivelled captive lay,
Poured the bright blaze of Freedom's noon-tide ray.
Beneath this roof if thy cheered moments pass,
Fill to the good man's name one grateful glass:
To higher zest shall Memory wake thy soul,
And Virtue mingle in the ennobled bowl.
But if, like me, through life's distressful scene
Lonely and sad thy pilgrimage hath been;
And if thy breast with heart-sick anguish fraught,
Thou journeyest onward tempest-tossed in thought;
Here cheat thy cares! in generous visions melt,
And dream of goodness thou hast never felt!
The sad and lonely poet, tempest-tossed in thought, who wrote those
lines, was then twenty-one, on a walking tour with his friend Hucks,
trying to construct Pantisocracy and forget Mary Evans.
For one "of little or no literature" the Man of Ross did not do so
badly.
But there was even more honour to come. When, in 1876, the late Miranda
Hill addressed a public letter to "Those who love Beautiful Things," and
called upon her readers to help in getting more sweetness and light into
the homes of the poor, and particularly the poor of London, the response
took the form of a Society to which the name of John Kyrle was (at the
suggestion of Mr. Benjamin Nattalie) given: the Kyrle Society. During
its many years of activity, the Kyrle Society has done much to realise
the idealism of its founders--for with Miranda Hill was associated her
sister, the late Octavia Hill, that indomitable fighter for all that is
good and ameliorative in life, whom, in her serene old age, a symphony
in grey and silver, I used often to see walking on that height above
Crockham Hill which her energies acquired for the nation as an open
space for ever. In a speech which she made at one of the meetings of the
Kyrle Society not long before her death, Octavia Hill thus summed up
certain of the needs which that excellent organisation strove to supply.
"Men, women, and children," she said, "want more than food, shelter,
and warmth. They want, if their lives are to be full and good, space
near their homes for exercise, quiet, good air, and sight of grass,
trees, and flowers; they want colour, which shall cheer them in the
midst of smoke and fog; they want music, which shall contrast with the
rattle of the motors and lift their hearts to praise and joy; they want
suggestion of nobler and better things than those that surround them day
by day.... I assure you that I believe these things have more influence
on the spirit than we are at all accustomed to remember. They cultivate
a sense of dignity and self-respect, as well as breaking the monotony of
life."
These things has the Kyrle Society dispensed and will continue to
dispense, among its countless and noble activities; and it is pleasant
to think that that stolid old Man of Ross, in this new incarnation, has
become so imaginatively sympathetic. How little can he ever have thought
of this transmutation of his kindly busy-bodydom into something so fine
and rare! But it was a true instinct which set his ancient name on the
modern banner; and if ever a new motto is called for, the merits of
"Od's bud, Od's bud, but I will mend you!" should be considered.
[Illustration: LAURA COMBINES BREAKFAST AND PHILANTHROPY. _See "The
Innocent's Progress"--Plate 3_]
THE INNOCENT'S PROGRESS
One thing leads to another, and had I not entered Mr. Simmonds' old
curiosity shop in Monmouth to make inquiries about the Man of Ross's
arm-chair, which nearly fills the window, I might never have met with
"The Elegant Girl," and "The Elegant Girl" is one of the comeliest books
I ever coveted.
Having asked all my questions about the chair, which has much of the
stern solidity of a fortress, I went upstairs and immediately was
rejoiced by the sight of one of the engravings (Plate 2) which are
reproduced in this volume. It was one, said Mr. Simmonds, of a series,
and he showed me eight others--nine in all--each with its moral verses
underneath--and I was enchanted, so delicate is the colouring and so
distinguished the design, so naive the educational method and so easy
the triumph. The reproductions here are absurdly small--the size of the
originals is 9-1/2 inches wide by 6 high--but though they give nothing
of the tinting they retain something of the spirit, and the very
striking composition is unimpaired by reduction.
Mr. Simmonds thought nine a complete set, but I felt that an even number
was more probable, and, in time, was proved to be right; but it was long
before I could obtain sight of the other three and discover that they
belonged to a book and had been taken from their binding to decorate a
nursery's walls. There are excitements in this form of hunt--_la chasse
au bouquin_--commensurate with those that accelerate the pulses of
wearers of pink coats, and some were mine as the scent grew hot and
hotter. My first coverts were the print shops, but they were blank; then
I drew the famous Bloomsbury spinneys, both the Reading Room and the
Print Room, but they were blank too; and then, tally ho! away to the
South Kensington gorse. It was here I had the luck to ascertain--through
a reference to Tuer's "Pages and Pictures"--that "The Elegant Girl" was
a book; and forthwith I turned to my friends the booksellers, and in
High Street, Marylebone, got directly on the trail, which took me to
Hampstead, where a copy of the work (the only one of which I have yet
heard) was run to earth. It is this copy that now lies before me--the
property of Mr. C. T. Owen, a famous collector of what the trade calls
"juveniles," who has very kindly permitted the plates to be photographed
for the present volume.
Mr. Simmonds thought the drawings the work of Adam Buck, an artist of
child life, who has lately been the mode; but London experts differ. No
doubt (they say) Buck's influence is apparent, but no more. The only
name is that of Alais, the engraver, on the title-page, and I do not
find that Alais ever worked for Buck, but there are at South Kensington
child scenes by Singleton engraved by him. "The Elegant Girl" may be
Singleton's. Equally may the designs be by a foreigner, for there is a
distinctly foreign suggestion here and there, notably in the furniture.
The plates are not aquatints but were coloured by hand: the extreme
scarcity of the volume probably being due to this circumstance, only a
small edition having been prepared and that, I should imagine, at a high
figure. To-day, of course, the value of the book is vastly higher.
All, or very nearly all, the old-fashioned writers for children had but
one purpose animating their breasts; and that purpose was to make
children better. I don't say that to-day we try to make them worse; but
their naughtiness can amuse us, as apparently it never could our
ancestors, and wild flowers can be preferred to the products of the
formal parterre. Even Miss Edgeworth came out nominally as "The Parents'
Assistant," although her native kindliness and sense of narrative were
too much for her; and even she thought of the child too much as plastic
material. Children as children excited little interest; but a child as a
progressive moral animal, susceptible of moulding, a potential adult and
citizen, was worth making books for, if in return it was responsive and
mended its ways. There were of course a few books for the young which
told an honest story--Charles and Mary Lamb's "Tales from Shakespeare"
and "Mrs. Leicester's School" are early and shining examples--but the
idea of amusement for amusement's sake was rare. And nonsense for the
young, which later was to become a cult, did not exist before Edward
Lear. Nothing can, of course, happen out of its time, and therefore the
speculation is idle; but none the less it would be entertaining to
visualise the effect of "Alice in Wonderland" on the little Fairchilds.
What would Mr. Fairchild say to it? The work of a clergyman, too! Would
not he return with renewed relish to the congenial task of repeating to
his brood Biblical verses illustrating the wickedness of man's heart?
(Incidentally--but this is not the place, for "The Elegant Girl" is
waiting--there are some interesting reflections to be recorded on the
circumstance that the entertainment of the young has never been in such
willing and safe hands as those of the celibates. All the writers I
have just glanced at (save Mrs. Sherwood) were unmarried. This need not
be taken as any aspersion upon matrimony--there must be marriage and
giving in marriage in order that little readers may exist--but it ought
to be remembered whenever the single state is under criticism. Think of
the injustice of the foreshadowed Bachelor Tax falling upon Lewis
Carroll!)
"The Elegant Girl," the date of which is 1813, sets out to improve too,
for this is the title: "The Elegant Girl, or Virtuous Principles the
True Source of Elegant Manners"; but its lessons are so unprejudiced and
persuasive that no one can object. Moreover, a very exceptional artistic
talent was employed: the best available rather than the cheapest. With
such attractive jam, who could resent the pill? Alone, the pictures do
very little in the didactic way, but to the detached artist came an ally
in the shape of a gentle--and probably, I think, female--bard. Each of
the twelve drawings has a six-lined stanza to drive home the picture and
inculcate a maxim of sound and refined behaviour.
In the first plate Laura (the elegant girl is, of course, named Laura)
is seen in her little bedroom at her morning prayers, and, thus
fortified, she then goes through the day in eleven episodes, all
tending, as the Americans say, to uplift. Washed and dressed, she
joins, in Plate No. 2, her mother at early lessons in a charming library
such as neither Vermeer nor Whistler would have disdained. According to
the verses, Laura is careless of "what becomes her best," but to the
casual male eye she seems to have chosen her trousers with no little
discretion. Having sufficiently "explored the arts and sciences," she
is, in Plate No. 3, ready for breakfast, again with her mother. Her
father was--where? Possibly he was dead; possibly (the date is 1813) at
the wars; probably still in bed. At any rate his daughter passes her day
of edification entirely without his assistance.
Breakfast affords the opportunity of a lesson in practical philanthropy,
for chance sends a beggar to the window, and Laura craves, and is
granted, permission to give him food and drink. In Plate No. 4 she has a
music lesson--a lesson that "is not thrown away," for
By Science taught with taste to play,
She'll charm erewhile the listening throng
And sing with modest grace her song.
In Plate No. 5, having slipped a red smock over her dress, but still
retaining the captivating trousers, Laura practises painting. In No. 6,
substituting a purple smock for the red one, she teaches the little
villagers their A.B.C.--a form of altruistic employment which those
can best approve
Who virtue and religion love.
In Plate No. 7, Laura, in yellow, acquires the rudiments of obedience
and refrains from eating forbidden fruit. In Plate No. 8, in green, she
carries food to an aged dame. In Plate No. 9, in blue, she brings a cup
of broth to her mother, who, "languid and pale," reclines, like Madame
Recamier, on an exceedingly uncomfortable couch. It is thus that Laura,
in early days,
Maternal tenderness repays.