THE LIFE OF
JOHN MYTTON
E.OUTLED&E & SONS, Limited
Tenth]
For the 3
the skin, sc
etc., and pr
ESSEr
EUKOf
powder. B
20, Hatton
REAE
Manuscript, Archives,
and Rare Book Library
fssue.
EMORY UNIVERSITY
id
ad
he
re-
11-
:or
nd
in
/6,
ier,
foe
ns.
pes
of
ent
for
lite
ES,
aid like
" Dear Sir,-—i am a puarnanu a -
to thank you, for your lozenges have done wonders lor me in relieving my terrible cough.
Since I had the operation of ' Tracheotomy' (the same as the late Empercrof Germany,
and unlike him, thank God, I am si ill alive and getting on well) performed at St. Bar¬
tholomew's Hospital for abduct, or paralysis of the vocal chords, no one could possibly
have had a more violent cough ; indeed, it was so bad at times that it quite exhausted me.
The mucus also, which was very copious and hard, has been softened, and I have been
able to get rid of it without difficulty. " I am, Sir, yours truly,
"Mr. T. Keating. "J- Hill."
3VE EDICAL NO T E.
The above speaks ft r itself. From strict inquiry it appears that the benefit from using
Keating's Cough Lozenges is understated. The operation was a specially severe one,
and was performed by the specialist, Dr. H. T. Butlin, of St. Bartholomew's Hospital.
Since the operation, the only means of relief is the use of these Lozenges. So successful
are they that one affords immediate benefit, although from the nature of the case the
throat irritation is intense. Mr. Hitl kindly allows any reference to be made to him.
THE UTTERLY UNRIVALLED REMEDY
for
COUGHS, HOARSENESS, ANO THROAT TROUBLES,
"KEATING'S COUGH LOZENGES " are sold everywhere, in Tins, 1/1% and 2[9 each
Free by Post, 15 Stamps.
THOMAS KEATING, Chemist, London.
Tenth] Routledge's Railway Library Advertiser.
Thoughts, like Snowflakes on some far-off Mountain Side, go on Accumulating till
some great Truth is loosened, and Falls like an Avalanche on the Waiting World.
At present our lawgivers do not see that the
responsibilities of thoroughly qualified
Plumbers are frequently more important
than a Medical Practitioner's.
THE KING OP FE
JEOPARDY OP X.IFE, THE GR'he
" Former generations perished in venial ienorsi
dreds oi Thousands, neither the victims nor their re t-. t-.
Times Jh
After breathing impure air tor two minutes and
is not a i oint in the human frame but has been
suffered it jury. Fun's "Fruit Salt" is the t
ithe eroundwork of dised-e) irotn tlie blood by n;-.^
restores the nervous >ysiem to its proper condition. OF
freshing, and invigotating. "You cannot overstate i'
INFLUENZA.—FEVERISH COLD.-I
feverish cold, lie in bed for three or fornp'T'/^h AT T"
fire, take ENO'S " FRUIT SALT " freely, I 1 UlN , -tiSQ.
may require. After a few days the marked
Nervous Force, or a Recuperative Diet, u;
avoid relapse.
TtRAWING AN OVERDRAFT ON T:
AJ natural excitement, breathing impure
"FRUIT SALT" is the best known reir
groundwork of disease—from the blood by
sion, headaches, etc., and restores the nert
"FRUIT SALT." It is pleasant, cooling,5 -to - w.. .
state its great value in keeping the blood pure and free from disease.
Palpitation of the heart, caused by Liver Derangement and Indigestion, fre¬
quently called (or mistaken for) Heart Diseask.—" On the 14th of April I purchased a
bottle of your ' FRUIT SALT,' not feeling very well at the time, and it had an effect that I
never anticipated when I bought it. I had suffered more or less since the year 1841 from
Palpitation of the Heart, but very badly during the last few years. The least thing would
produce it during the day, and at night my sleep was very much disturbed. Strange to say,
after the first dose of ' FRUIT SALT,' palpitations suddenly ceased, and have not since re¬
turned. Out of gratitude for the benefit which I have received, I have recommended it to
all my friends both in London and Yarmouth ; at the same time I feel it my duty to state the
above lacts, of which you can make whatever use you please.
" I am, dear Sir, yours respectfully, TRUTH."
rrihe secret of success.—sterling honesty of purpose, without it
A- LIFE IS A SHAM !—" A new invention is brought before the public, and commands
success. A score of abon inable imitations are immediately introduced by the unscrupulous,
who, in copving the original closely enough to deceive the public, and yet not so exactly as
to infringe upon legal rights, exercise an ingenuity that, employed in an original channel,
could not fail to secure reputation and profit."—Adams.
CAUTION.—Examine each Bottle, and see that the Capsule is marlced ENO'S "FRUIT
SALT." Without it you have been impofed on by worthless imitations. Sold by all Chemists.
Directions m sixteen Languages how to prevent Disease. Protection in every Country.
Prepared only at Eno's " Fruit Salt" Works, London, S.T^., by J. C. Eno's Patent.
Tenth} Routledge's Railway^ttbrary Advertiser. [Issue.
FOR
INFANTS
AND
INVALIDS.
"31, Harwood Square,
"N.W.
Mrs. Millar s little hoy—
liken the day he was a year eld
" DEAR SIR,—i-annrppiiwiww'»»«^-. _____
to thank you, for your lozenges have done wend-brought up OH MELLIN S
Since I had the operation of ' Tracheotomy' (th
and unlike him, thank God, lam still alive aiiQQrj ^ then.'"
tholomew's Hospital for abduct, or paralysis of
have had a more violent cr.noh : indeed, it was c
MELLIN'S FOOD BISCUITS
(Manufactured by Carr if Co., Carlisle, specially for O. Mellin).
For Children after Weaning, the Aged, and Dyspeptic. Digestive, Nourishing, Sustaining.
Price 21- and 3/6 per Tin.
MELLIN'S LACTO-CLYCOSE or MILK FOOD
Simply dissolved in warm water is recommended for use when fresh cow's milk disagrees or
caimot be obtained. Price 2and 3/- per Bottle.
SHAKESPEARIAN WISDOM ON THE FEEDING AND REARING OF INFANTS.
A pamphlet of quotations from Shakespeare and portraits of beautiful children, together
with testimonials, which are of the highest interest to all mothers, to be had with samples,
free by post, on application to—
G. MELLIN, Marlboro' Works, Peckham, S.E.
fiftono. S. k P.. 21/1/92
THE
LIFE
OF
JOHN MYTTON, Esq.
SPORTING BOOKS.
Uniform with this Volume.
MR. JORROCK'S JAUNTS AND JOLLITIES.
SCRUTATOR ON FOXHUNTING.
SCRUTATOR'S HORSES AND HOUNDS.
THE TOMMIEBEG SHOOTINGS; or, A Moor
in Scotland.
SPORTING SKETCHES.
NIMROD'S NORTHERN TOUR.
THE STUD FARM.
THE LIFE
or
JOHN MYTTON, Esq.,
OF HALSTON, SHROPSHIRE,
M.P. FOR SHREWSBURY,
HIGH SHERIFF FOR THE COUNTIES OF SALOP AND MERIONETH, AND
MAJOR OF THE NORTH SHROPSHIRE YEOMANRY CAVALRY.
WITH HIS
HUNTING, RACING, SHOOTING, DRIVING, AND
EXTRA VAG ANT EXPLOITS.
BY
nimrod.
NEW EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED
WITH
A MEMOIR OF NIMROD.
LONDON:
GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS, LIMITED,
Broadway, Ludgate Hill.
MANCHESTER AND NEW YORK.
Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co.
Edinburgh and London
PREFACE
TO THE FIRST EDITION.
BISHOP BURNET'S narrative of the re¬
markable passages in the life of the very
celebrated Earl of Rochester has been greatly
valued, not only as an elegant composition, but
as a lesson of instruction to all mankind. The
latter of these honours, to a certain extent, I
may venture to claim as the result of this sketch;
at all events, such is, in part, its design ; and as
no subject is so interesting to man as man, I
have a good theme for my pen, inasmuch as
there is one present to my mind whose equal, as
a private English gentleman, the world never
before saw ; neither is it, for some reasons, desir¬
able the world should ever again see. My only
fear is, that I may be deficient in strength of
pencil to draw the picture to the life, and to re¬
present the anomaly in human nature which the
character of John Mytton presents—at one time,
an honour to his nature ; at another, a satire on
vi
PREFACE.
humanity. What more can be done, than to
strike the balance with an even hand ? And as
the brightness of the sun hides its blemishes, let
me hope the greater part of his faults will be
lost amidst the virtues with which they are
mingled. At all events, my purpose is not to
.hold up the torch to the failings of my old and
never-forsaken friend—my chief object being to
account for them, and leave his virtues to speak
for themselves. I owe him pity on the score of
human nature; he claims it by his own acts and
deeds; and above all, by one act of Him to
whose will all men must bow, and by whom all
men's deeds will be weighed. Let not the lash
of censure, then, fall too heavy upon one who
himself carried charity to excess! Let the
greatness of his fall be unto him as a shield;
let it be remembered he died in a prison, an
epitome of human misery! A glance over his
history, however, may not be unprofitable ; it
will " point a moral," if it do not " adorn a tale."
But it may be objected that I am not the
person fitted to perform this task ; for, " Where
is the man," says Johnson, "who can confine
himself to the exact balance of justice when his
own feelings are unwittingly thrown into the
scale ?" It is true my*regard for the late Mr
PREFACE.
vii
Mytton was won and secured by many sterling
acts of kindness and friendship ; and it is also
true that friendship is not always the sequel of
obligation., I am proud to assert I do not come
within this exception ; and pledging myself to
say nothing that is false, rather than all that is
true, I think I can produce these two results :—
First, I shall unload the memory of a man I
shall never be ashamed to call my friend, of
several weighty imputations which now rest
upon it unjustly; and secondly, I shall show
that the boldest efforts of the human imagina¬
tion cannot much exceed the romance of real
life.
Calais, 1835.
NIMROD.
CONTENTS.
A Notice of Nimrod, .... pp. i—14
PART I.
Pedigree of Mr Mytton—His original name—His con¬
test for the county of Salop—His ancestor Thomas
Mytton—Halston described—Extent of Mr Mytton's
property and its various situations—His education,
and letter to the Lord Chancellor—Nick-named
Mango—Enters the army—His doings at Calais
when in the 7th Hussars—His first marriage—His
sister, her character—His person and mind de¬
scribed—His pugnacious disposition—His dress—
His method of following wild-fowl—His feats in
riding distances on the road, and his walking—His
powers of digestion—His daring exploits, putting his
life to hazard—Upsets a friend in a gig—His wonder¬
ful escapes in carriages—His indifference to pain—
Is taken for a tailor with Lord Derby's hounds—His
treatment of a Jew money-lender—His extraordinary
frolics with his chaplain, his doctor, his butler, the
bear, a horse-dealer, the filly in training, dogs and
foxes—An evening at Halston—His contest with a
ferocious dog—His general character—His reason
for selling an old family estate—His establishment
X
CONTENTS.
at Halston—Amount of his expenditure—His fox¬
hounds, his racing establishment, his game-preserves,
his cellars and his wardrobe—" Light come, light
go"—Tricks played by travellers—His gambling—
Only one John Mytton—The bill for pheasants—His
enjoyment of life—The Halston Chaplain, pp. 15—76
PART II.
With whom compared—His amours—His popularity and
its decline—His excessive drinking, and its influence
on his character and health—His toilet —His gener¬
ous conduct towards his mother—His philanthropy
—How to hire a servant—His talents—His last
contest for the borough of Shrewsbury—The elec¬
tioneering squibs—His politics—His farming—His
timber—His planting—As a sportsman—His hounds,
and a day with them—As a horseman—His shooting
—His racing—His horse Euphrates—His race-cups
—His start and progress on the turf—His handsome
conduct towards his jockey—His autograph—The
Guy Stakes at Warwick—Summary of his racing
career—The stables and boxes at Halston—Number
of the stakes and plates won by his horses—His
second marriage—His conduct in the marriage state
—As a husband and a father, . . pp. 77—148
PART III.
Mr Mytton's character illustrated by anecdotes—His
feats on horseback—His frolics—With waggon-
horses—With a bag fox—With rats on the ice—
After herons—With a badger—With foxes in the
CONTENTS.
xi
bar of an inn—With " a bagman "—With a trainer
—With a broken-kneed horse—With a flannel petti¬
coat—With a horse-breaker—With a baker —With
a Shrewsbury tradesman—The row at a "hell"—
His shooting with a rifle—A cooler after the herons
—Extraordinary performances with hounds—Swim¬
ming the river Severn—Tandem-driving by moon¬
light—In a gig with Nimrod—His gig carried over
the lodge gate—A parallel instance at Wrexham—
"Tom Leigh," of High Leigh, Cheshire—The sale
catalogue—The Shavington Day; "Now for the
honour of Shropshire !" . . pp. 149—176
PART IV.
The breaking up of his establishment at Halston—His
arrival in Calais, and his extraordinary proceedings
there—How to frighten away the hiccup—His mind
becomes disordered by his sufferings—Extraordinary
scenes witnessed by his attendants—Drinks eau-de-
cologne—Gets better, and goes into the country with
Nimrod—Recovers his health, but soon relapses—Is
removed to England—Visits Halston—Thrown into
Shrewsbury gaol—His conduct there, and his former
relation to the gaoler—Removed to the King's
Bench—Release and return to Calais—His conduct
there—Goes back to England—His death in the
Bench—His funeral—His will—"Another" John
Myttoii, .... . 177—234
A
NOTICE OF NIMROD.
A
NOTICE OF NIMROD.
BOSWELL could never have written the Life
of Johnson but for the long intimacy he
had enjoyed with his hero ; and the same might
be said of Nimrod and his Life of John Mytton.
But the parallel can be continued no further.
Boswell methodically prepared himself for his
work from his first interview with the subject of
it, whereas Nimrod and Mr Mytton lived for
years on terms of friendship, without the least
probability of one ever becoming the biographer
of the other. In the common course of events,
indeed, the Halston Squire, as much the younger
man, should have outlived his companion ; while
it was only at a comparatively late period in his
career that Mr Apperley ever engaged himself
upon literary pursuits.
No man, however, could have been more
thoroughly educated up to the position he was
destined to occupy than Charles James Apperley.
2
A NOTICE OF NIMROD.
He was the second son of one Mr Thomas Apper-
ley> a gentleman of good Herefordshire family,
who, from his attainments as a scholar, had been
selected as tutor to the Sir Watkin Wynn of
that time; and hence his eventually settling at
Plas-gronow, in the county of Denbigh, where
Nimrod was born in 1778. Noticeably enough,
the father enjoyed some literary repute, as he
was the author of a book of "Moral Essays,"
which would appear to have been very favour¬
ably received. As his son said of him—" He
corresponded with Doctor Johnson, read Greek
before breakfast, and, being himself a scholar,
he fondly hoped he should have made one of me ;
but, in the weakness of his affection, being unable
to say ' No,' his hopes were blasted. He suffered
me to follow fox-hounds, in a red coat and cap,
like puss in boots, before I was twelve years old."
There is no doubt, though, that young Apperley
was well grounded at home both as a scholar
and as a sportsman, and in due course he pro¬
ceeded to Rugby, where his own natural taste
for the classics was further developed, with all
proportionate profit hereafter. But there was
some " devil" in the boy, and, as Sir Richard
Puleston said of him and another lad, as they
rode up to the cover side, after having been verv
A NOTICE OF NIMROD.
3
riotous on the previous evening in the servants'
hall of a neighbouring gentleman, "They are a nice
couple; at all events, they seem to enter well."
On leaving Rugby, young Apperley received
a commission in Sir Watkin Wynn's Fencible
Cavalry Regiment, called the Ancient British
Light Dragoons, but known in Ireland, where he
joined, as " The bloody Britons," from the active
part they took in crushing the Rebellion of 1798.
"The severity of the losses of the 'Ancient
British' may be judged of by the simple fact of
my having been gazetted youngest cornet on the
1st of April 1798, and becoming nearly senior
lieutenant in little more than a year and a half
and he was paymaster to the regiment at the
time it was disbanded. A year or two after this,
Mr Apperley married Miss Wynn, a cousin of
Sir Watkin's, and a daughter of Mr Wynn, of
Peniarth, once M. P. for the county of Caernarvon;
and in 1801, he took a house at Hinkley, in
Leicestershire. The Quorn was then in its
glory; the renowned Mr Meynell had just given
up the hounds; but Apperley met him in the
field, and no man ever did the thing in better
style than his successor, Lord Sefton, who built
the famous " long stable," had two packs of
hounds and huntsmen, and gave greater prices
A
4
A NOTICE OF NIMROD.
for his horses than had ever been known. During
the three seasons the young Welshman spent at
the little town of Hinkley, he gathered an almost
invaluable store of information. Nor was his
next cast a bad one,—when he moved to Bilton
Hall in Warwickshire, which, until very recently,
had been the property, in right of his wife, of
Addison, the immortal Essayist. Here Mr
Apperley formed that style which subsequently
gave so great a charm to his writings ; following,
as he has recorded it, Doctor Johnson's advice,
who recommends those " who would attain an
English style—familiar but not coarse, and
elegant but not ostentatious—to give their days
and nights to the volumes of Addison." But
Bilton had other points in its favour, at least in
the eyes of the new tenant It was within reach,
although often " a long reach," of four of the most
renowned packs of fox-hounds of the day—the
Quorn, the Pytchley, with John Warde then at
their head, Sir Thomas Mostyn's (afterwards
Mr Drake's country in Oxfordshire), and Mr
Corbet's in Warwickshire. He was a member
of the Stratford-on-Avon Club, and for many
consecutive seasons had, in addition to those at
Stratford-on-Avon, horses at Chapel House near
Woodstock, and also at Middleton Stony near
A NOTICE OF NIMROD.
5
Bicester, with the object of hunting with the
Duke of Beaufort, as well as the other packs
already named. Of course he had to ride great
distances, "to gallop often through the darkness
of a winter's night, over twenty miles, on a very
indifferent road, to a bed ordered at Banbury
and on one particular morning, he rode fifty-one
miles on two hacks, to meet Sir Thomas and
give a greeting to Griff. Lloyd. From Warwick¬
shire Mr Apperley went to Bitterley Court in
Shropshire, and while there joined his friend
Colonel Gould as Captain in the Nottingham
Militia. In 1817 he was living at Breewood in
Staffordshire; and, coming oji to London, con¬
ceived, under the pressure of some pecuniary
difficulties, the idea of writing a book.
During this period, however, it should be said
that Mr Apperley had been qualifying himself
for such a work in other ways. He was in good
practice as a gentleman jockey, was a membei
of the Kingscote Club, and had now and then a
horse in training—Victorine, amongst others.
Then, he knew most of the coachmen on the
road, and when he got on the mail he generally
drove it; but he never was "master of a grey¬
hound in my life," had an invincible dislike to
the rising fashion of battue shooting, and, though
6
A NOTICE OF N1MR0D.
he once promised to write a paper on fishing, he
never carried out his threat. The book upon
hunting proposal was favourably received by Mr
Colburn, the publisher, but " no sooner was I in
Regent Street, on the road to my hotel, than my
course was at once changed. I chanced to meet
a very old friend and brother sportsman, to
whom I communicated my intentions, together
with the result of my interview with Mr Colburn,
when the following parley took place :—
My Friend. "You are wrong in thinking of
writing a book. Go to the Sporting Magazine:
it will answer your purpose much better."
Myself. "The Sporting Magazine! That will
never do ; it is a mere Cockney concern, and no
gentleman writes for it."
My Friend. "Never mind that. Take my
advice, and go to the proprietor of it. If you
write for it, other gentlemen and sportsmen will
soon do so also."
These words were prophetic.
The friend was the father of the writer of this
notice. Sporting literature was, at that time,
at a very low ebb,—if, indeed, in any way recog¬
nised ; and beyond Beckford's " Thoughts on
Hunting" and Daniel's "Rural Sports," there
was hardly a work of any repute to turn to;
A NOTICE OF NIMROD.
7
while the Sporting Magazine was certainly " a
very Cockney concern." But Apperley braved
it, and the first letter, bearing the signature of
" Nimrod," appeared in the New Year's number
of 1822. It was upon " Fox-hunting in Leicester¬
shire," and written just upon twenty seasons
since its author had first hunted in that cele¬
brated county.
The success of these Letters was something
extraordinary; they were so fresh, so genial, so
full of anecdote, and so happily combining the
tastes of the sportsman, the scholar, and the
gentleman. From an unknown work the Sporting
Magazine became the talk of town and country,
and Nimrod's name was in everybody's mouth.
The price of the monthly number was raised
from two shillings to half-a-crown, with occasional
five-shilling parts, and the circulation doubled
in less than two years' time from his engage¬
ment. A coach on the Southampton road was
called the "Nimrod;" a "Nimrod" newspaper
was started; there were Nimrod breeches and
Nimrod blacking; and a huntsman christened
his son after the mighty hunter. The " Letters
on Hunting," and the "Hunting Tours," were
varied by "Papers on the Road," and the "Letters
on the Condition of Hunters." where he went
8
A NOTICE OF NIMROD.
for the hard-meat system in preference to the
two or three months at grass; and the advantage
of his practice is now universally acknowledged,
although it met with some opposition in the out¬
set. He began one of his first articles on the
Road—he was forty-four years of age when he
took to writing—in this way: "A whip has been
much oftener in my right hand for the last
twenty-five years than a penand the Morning
Post spoke in some regret of " a gentleman who
appeared to have passed half his life among
hounds, horses, and coachmen, and whose style
was so excellent that it was a pity it had not
been more worthily directed." The Editor of
the Quarterly Review, on the contrary, was quick
to appreciate the value of this happy union of
power and experience, and he invited Nimrod
to become a contributor to that work; but the
latter was bound down to the Sporting Magazine,
and it was some years before he could comply
with a request that conveyed so high a compli¬
ment. Soon after joining the Magazine, Nimrod,
as he was henceforth known, took Beaurepaire
House, in Hampshire, where he commenced
farming rather extensively. But what with the
hunting tours in the winter, and going about in
the summer, it is no wonder that agriculture did
A NOTICE OF NIMROD.
9
not pay ; and the death of Mr Pittman, the
proprietor of the Sporting Magazine,in December
1827, tended to bring matters to a crisis. The
two had got on capitally together, and Pittman
played his trump-card with great spirit, keeping
him a good stud of horses, and otherwise behav¬
ing very handsomely. A rupture, however, soon
followed on his decease, and in two years' time
Nimrod was off the Magazine ; his contributions
closing with "The German Tour," which he
made in company with Mr Richard Tattersall
and his son. Although fifty years of age, he
wasted from eleven stone seven to ten stone three
pounds, in order to ride for the Gold Cup at
Dobberan, which he won on rather an awkward-
tempered horse called Wildfire. Nimrod pre¬
sented the Cup in his cap and jacket to the Grand-
Duchess of Mecklenburg, when he was honoured
with an invitation to dinner, and before he left
the country a facsimile of the Cup for which he
had ridden the winner was sent to him. But,
the best of all the Tours was that through York¬
shire ; there was so much fresh ground to break
up, such a deal of " character " to study, and so
many good stories to tell. When a ship reached
Calcutta, Colonel Nesbit, the master of the
Calcutta hounds, hastened with others down to
ro
A NOTICE OF NIMROD.
the beach to hear the news. " There are new
ministers in," was the first piece of intelligence.
"Oh, hang the new Ministry ! " said the Colonel.
"Is Nimrod's Yorkshire Tour out yet?" The
only one of Nimrod's family who "took after"
him is the present Colonel Apperley, who went
out to India as a cadet, and for many years
superintended the remount for the cavalry.
The latter part of Nimrod's life was spent in
the neighbourhood of Calais, where he resided for
upwards of twelve years, having left England
somewhere about 1830. Here he wrote more
than ever, although chiefly on his reminiscences
and experience, * but still indulging in an
occasional trip to the old country. Conspicuous
amongst these visits was the northern tour—
through Scotland—which he made at the in¬
stance of his fast friend the late Lord Kintore, and
that appeared in the New Sporting Magazine, a
work which he joined soon after it was started.
During his exile he also contributed in turn
to the Sporting Review and the Sportsman;
amongst his more memorable articles being the
" French Tour," the "Life of John Mytton," the
* Nimrod told the writer, very shortly before his death, that
he had hunted with seventy-three or seventy-four different packs
of hounds.
A NOTICE OF NIMROD.
"Crack Riders of England," " Hunting Counties
and Masters of Hounds," "My Horses," a "Tour
in the Midlands," a "Memoir of John Ward,"
and the " Life of a Sportsman." The last-
named of these was the only work of fiction
Nimrod ever attempted; and this is the fiction
of fact, for almost all the incidents embodied in
the story occurred either to his friends or himself.
Profusely illustrated, it makes a very handsome
volume, and, indeed, nearly all his papers of
any length have been republished in a separate
form.
Another great hit during Nimrod's banish¬
ment, was his engagement with the Quarterly
Review, on which he entered so soon as he was
in a position to do so. The appearance of such
papers in such a place tended still to increase
his reputation, and Nimrod's name became more
famous than ever. But the authorship was not,
for a time, known, and the article on the "Chase"
was, in the first instance, attributed to Lord
Alvanley; though a critic, on running his eye
over the " Road," confidently declared, " Either
the devil or Nimrod wrote this." The effect
was quite sensational. Country rectors wrote
to the Editor in remonstrance ; and Bishops, in
encouragement, bidding Mr Lockhart A
12
A NOTICE OF NIMROD.
leading Meltonian confessed to having gone
three times through the run over Leicestershire
before he could put down the number; and
another reader, fascinated by the description of
the race for the Derby, exclaimed, " This fellow
dips his pen in magic ! for I can hear the horses
breathe, and the silk jackets rustle, as they go
by me."
Hitherto Nimrod had been regarded as rather
a class man ; but now they were all at him, and
he wrote frequently for Fraser, for the New
Monthly, the " Encyclopaedia Britannica," the
Morning Herald newspaper, and a variety of
other publications. So continually was he en¬
gaged, that the inconvenience of living abroad
became very great, and he returned with his
family to England in the beginning of the year
1843. But, as he himself often said, this was
only like the hare doubling back to die in her
own country, for his decease occurred in Pimlico
on the 19th of the following May, after only a
few days' illness, and in the 65th year of his age.
As a successful writer on sporting topics,
Nimrod will always stand alone. He made the
most of an opening that can never occur again.
He has naturally had his followers, but how
many attempts at even the hunting tours have
A NOTICE OF NIMROD.
13
broken down! and how many a book has since
been built upon his foundations ! In some proof
of his influence it may be cited that, during the
twenty years he wrote, the fortune of one sport¬
ing magazine was made, and three others started
in opposition, but that within a short period of
his decease these all centred again in one pro¬
prietorship. The writer of this sketch had the
pleasure of knowing him intimately for years,
and a more delightful companion was never met
with. His works were a reflection of himself—-
abounding in anecdote and quick observation;
his knowledge of men and horses being coupled
with a certain simplicity of manner which has
been well said to be an attribute of true great¬
ness. He was, moreover, a very handsome man,
with a particularly pleasing expression, admir¬
ably caught in Maclise's portrait. At an earlier
period, just on his advent in life, he has been as
happily portrayed by the pen :—
" Nimrod was one of the most fascinating
persons I ever saw ; his figure perfect, light and
active, his features handsome, his complexion
clear, and glowing with health, contrasted by
his dark, closely-curling hair, and eyes that
sparkled with arch intelligence and humour; his
countenance beaming with good-nature and
14
A NOTICE OF NIMROD.
gaiety. He was truly a sunny person ; always
prompt to oblige and promote the pleasure of
his friends ; full of harmless fun and humour;
much readiness in conversation, with observation
of character, and the sort of descriptive power
that has since been recognised in his writings."
One of his essential qualifications was, no
doubt, this talent to amuse; but Nimrod can
take his stand on higher ground. His writings
have done much to raise the character of field-
sports, and to better the condition of that noble
animal, the Horse.
H. C.
THE
LIFE AND DEATH
OF
JOHN MYTTON, Esq.
THE
LIFE AND DEATH
of
JOHN MYTTON, ESQ.
PART I.
u Ubi plura nitent."—Hor.
T T may be unnecessary, perhaps, to go beyond
■L Jive centuries back for the pedigree of John
Mytton. No one, I believe, ever doubted his
being quite thoroughbred. In fact, no half-
bred one could have done much more than half
what he did in the space of his short life; but,
as I have before said of him, " nil violentum est
perpetuum"—" 'tis the pace that kills and he
was no exception to the rule. It having,
however, been stated in the newspapers, that he
had represented the ancient borough of Shrews¬
bury in Parliament, I shall merely show that, if
the ancient relation of his family to a town of
which their ancestors had been inhabitants and
i6
LIFE OF MYTTON.
burgesses upwards of five centuries—in addition
to their ample estates in its immediate neighbour¬
hood—still goes for anything, who had a better
right to the honour than he had ? Looking back
into the history of Shrewsbury, we find the
borough to have been thus represented :—
A.D.
1373. (Reign of Edward III.) Reginold de
Mutton (Mutton was the original name)
and Richard de Pontesbury, members.
1377. Reginold de Mutton and William de
Longenolne, members.
1472. Thomas Mutton and John Hord, members.
1491. William Mutton and Lawrence Hoyser,
members.
1520. Edmund Cole and Adam Mutton, members.
1529. Adam Mutton and Robert Dudley,
members.
1554. Thomas Mytton (now first so called) and
Nicholas Purcell, members.
1690. Richard Mytton and Hon. Andrew New¬
port, members.
1698. Richard Mytton and John Kynaston,
members.
1701. Ditto ditto ditto.
1702. Ditto ditto ditto.
1705. Ditto ditto ditto.
LIFE OF MYTTON.
*7
1710. Richard Mytton and Edward Cresset,
Esq., members.*
l734- John Mytton, grandfather to the subject
of this memoir, stood a severe contest
for the Borough, but was defeated by
Sir Richard Corbet, Bart., and William
Kynaston, Esq. ; and the late John
Mytton, Esq., was elected member,
January 14, 1819, having been opposed
by Panton Corbet, Esq., who soon re¬
signed the contest. Numbers—Myt¬
ton, 384; Corbet, 287.
In so highly an aristocratic county as Shrop¬
shire, and one celebrated for its electioneering
contentions, these extracts may be sufficient to
exhibit the parliamentary pretensions of this
ancient family, and of my departed friend.
In 1480, Thomas Mytton was high-sheriff for
Shropshire, and apprehended the Duke of Buck¬
ingham, who had rebelled against Richard the
Third, and conducted him to Salisbury; where,
as his historian relates, he was instantly tried,
condemned, and executed, according to the
* This election was the result of a very severe contest. The
following was the final state of the poll:—Mytton, 224; Edward
Cresset (ancestor of Cresset Pelham, Esq., late M.P. for the
county), 222; Thomas Jones (ancestor of Sir Tyrwhitt Jones.
Bart.), 177; Sir Edward Leighton, Bart. 131.
E
i8
LIFE OF MYTTON.
summary method practised in those ages. His
reward for this very important service is recorded
in the Harleian MSS., No. 433, in which is
an abstract of the Letters Patent, whereby
" King Richard the Third grants to his trusty
and well-beloved Squire, Thomas Mytton, and
to his heirs-male, the Castle and Lordship of
Cawes, and all appurtenances thereto, amounting
to the value of fifty pounds, and late belonging
to our rebel and traitor, the late Duke of Buck¬
ingham." This Thomas Mytton married one
of the daughters of Sir John Burgh, and was
an immediate ancestor of the subject of this
memoir.
As has been shown, the first conspicuous an¬
cestor of this family was Reginold de Mutton,
of Weston Lizard, Shropshire, now represented
through the Wilbrahams and Newports, by the
present Earl of Bradford; and it is in 1549 that
we first find it seated at Halston, when Sir
Robert Townsend is stated to have rented Mr
Mytton's large mansion at Cotow,he(Mr Mytton)
having removed to his more recent purchase at
Halston, or, as it was then called, Holy Stone,
much celebrated in history as the scene of bloody
deeds in the reign of the first Richard. At this
ancient mansion there was a preceptory of
19
Knights Templars, and afterwards of the Knights
Hospitallers, under a grant from Queen Elizabeth
(who confirmed the alienation of the property
from the Knights of St John of Jerusalem, to
whom it was given by an Earl of Arundel who
possessed it after the Norman Conquest), when
purchased, or rather exchanged for, by Edward
Mytton of Habberley. There was also formerly
an abbey in the village of Halston, taken down
more than a century ago; but there is the church
or chapel of Halston now standing on the domain,
exempt from episcopal jurisdiction, and without
any other revenue than what the chaplain may
be allowed by the owner of it.
Having described ancient, I proceed to modern
Halston ; and, unless very fastidious indeed, my
readers will agree with me in thinking that it
ought to satisfy the desires of every moderate
man. In the first place, its location is good.
Away from any great road, it is within easy
reach of two—the London and Holyhead, and
the Shrewsbury and Chester—without being
subjected to the inconvenience of either; and
the lodge-gates open upon an excellent cross
turnpike-road, leading from Oswestry* to Elles-
* There is now, of course, a railway running through Oswestry,
which is a first-class station on the Welsh Coast line.
20
LIFE OF MYTTON.
mere—distant three miles from the former town
and five from the latter. Being situated on a
flat, the domain is deprived of some of the
advantages the extremely beautiful country by
which it is surrounded affords, but still the tout
ensemble is good. In the front of the mansion
is a lawn, of about sixty acres of prettily-diver¬
sified grass-land, and behind it is a tastily-laid-
out flower-garden, contiguous to a fine tract of
meadow-land, separated from it by a deeply-
sunken fence; and a noble sheet of water, with
the old family chapel at the head of it, gives a
good finish to the landscape. When I say that
the oak is the weed of that part of our island,
I scarcely need add that, in a domain of such
antiquity as Halston, it is—I fear I must write
was—to be seen in its full majesty of form ; and
no estate in the county could produce finer oaks
than thpse which adorned the Halston woods.
I can, indeed, speak to the fact of one which
was cut down, about eight years back, contain¬
ing ten tons of timber, without top or lop !
The plantations, also, all made by Mr Mytton,
and to the extent of three miles, nearly encircle
the domain, and afforded shelter to the super¬
fluity of game which it was his ambition to
possess.
LIFE OF MYTTON.
21
The mansion-house, without pretensions to
magnificence, is replete with every comfort and
convenience for a country gentleman's establish¬
ment ; and is much more commodious than it
appears to be, from the offices being, for the
most part, detached. It contains a hall, in .which
there was a billiard-table, with a library on one
side and Mr Mytton's dressing-room on the
other ; and an excellent dining and two drawing
rooms, connected with each other by double
doors, complete the down-stairs suite. There
also was—oh! I write that word with sorrow—
a small but excellent collection of pictures,
which the catalogue of them showed had been
collected with great care, as ornaments to these,
now naked, walls ; and a thousand guineas were
offered, in my presence, for one of them, * but
nobly refused by the owner of it. The gardens
are most excellent; and, to complete the sketch
of this, to me, sort of earthly paradise, there is
in the grounds surrounding the house, not only
a rookery, but a heronry—very rare in that part
of the world, and every description of shooting
and fishing that the follower of such sports could
require. The surrounding country is also quite
* "Joseph escaping from Potiphar's wife."
22
LIFE OF MYTTON.
upon a par with the "provincials "—if not bettei
than most—for either fox-hounds or harriers.
The property of Mr Mytton has been a good
deal exaggerated, both as regards the annual
value of his estates, and the sum accumulated
in his minority, which was to the extent of
seventeen years. I have good reason to believe
that the former (though it increased afterwards)
was under ten thousand a year, and that the
latter amounted to about ;£6o,ooo. Independ¬
ently of the Halstcn and Habberly estates,
which are in entail, there were three other pro¬
perties in Shropshire, and one in North Wales,
of about ^800 per annum, with a manor and
right of free warren—each very rare in the Prin¬
cipality, and the latter very rare everywhere *
but, alas ! they are lost in the general wreck.
The Welsh domain will be described when I
touch on the subject of shooting.
Having done with the mansion, we will now
proceed to the proprietor of it, who, being born
on the 30th of Sept. 1796, was left fatherless
before he was two years old; and, as if there
was a disposition in his predecessors to drop
into an early grave, neither his great-grandfather
nor his grandfather lived to see a son come of
age. As I can only just remember the father
LIFE OF MYTTON.
23
of Mr Mytton, I am unable to estimate, in this
individual instance, the loss of a father to a son
in his infant state; but in most cases, with heirs
to large estates, it is irreparable. It is written
of the Gracchi that they were educated " non tarn
in gremio quam in sermone matris; "* and,
although it is not every mother that is a Sem-
pronia, their history informs us they were very
little the better for it, if not a great deal the
worse. We cannot marvel at this. When the
plant is young and tender, a gentle force will
incline it to whichsoever way we may wish, but
ere it has even attained its full growth it very
unwillingly bends to our hand ; and thus it is
with human kind. The excessive tenderness of
a fond mother is no match for the wayward
temper of a darling boy; and how often is his
ruin to be traced to this source! In the weak¬
ness of her affection she is unable to say " No ; "
and she only finds out when it is too late, that
the object of her affection will neither bridle his
passions nor restrain his actions at her bidding;
nor indeed, as was unfortunately the case with
the memorable subject of this memoir, at that
* It is difficult to render this passage literally ; but it implies
that the Gracchi were not only nursed, but in part educated,
by their mother.
24
LIFE OF MYTTON.
of any other human being. But was not such
always the case ? The Lacedaemonian lawgiver,
at all events, was of this opinion, when he
ordered the two hounds to be brought into
court to illustrate his argument in favour of
moral restraint. One took after a hare, and
the other ran to his dinner, as each had in his
youth been instructed to do. " There," said the
Spartan, " is the effect of early discipline ; those
animals were whelps of the same litter, but the
difference of education has made one a good
hound, that seldom misses his game, whereas
his brother is a cur, fit for nothing but to lick
the dishes." And thus it is in the stable.
" Fingit equum tenera. docilem cervice magister
Ire viam, quam monstrat eques,"—
writes Horace, when he shows that the temper
of the horse depends upon his treatment when
a colt.
It is scarcely necessary for me to observe that,
before he was ten years old, Master Mytton was
as finished a Pickle as the fondest mother and
his own will could possibly have made him. In¬
deed his neighbour, Sir Richard Puleston, with
a felicity of expression peculiarly his own, christ¬
ened him Mango, the king of the Pickles; and
he proved his title to the honour even to the end
LIFE OF MYTTON.
25
of his life. But Master Mytton was withal a
wonderful favourite in his neighbourhood, because
all his actions were tempered with kindness, as
indeed they were to his very last hour. But
how am I to describe the whole career of his
infant state, his scholastic progress, and his
academical honours ? Why, the task is performed
in a few words. He was expelled Westminster*
and Harrow; knocked down his private tutor in
Berkshire, in whose hands he was afterwards
placed ; was entered on the books of both univer¬
sities, but did not matriculate at either—and the
only outward and visible sign of his ever intend¬
ing to do so, was his ordering three pipes of port
wine to be sent addressed to him at Cambridge.
At the age of eighteen, however, he went a
tour on the Continent by way of something like
"the Finish;" and then returned to Halston,
and his harriers, which he had kept when he was
a child.
* Here he spent ^800 a year, exactly double his allowance.
In some proof of how utterly inadequate this was, it may be
mentioned that he wrote to Lord Eldon, as Lord Chancellor,
requesting an increase of income, as he was going to be married—
being about fourteen years of age at the time ! The reply of his
legal guardian was sufficiently laconic :—" Sir, if you cannot live
on your allowance, you may starve; and if you marry, I will
commit you to prison
26
LIFE OF MYTTON.
But we will now look on him when a man !
As the proud recollections of the Roman fathers
often disturbed the dreams of their sons, it is
possible that our hero, although I never heard
him- speak of him, might have cherished the
recollection of the renowned General Mytton,
apd wished to signalise himself, as he had done,
in arms. Be this as it may, at the age of nineteen
he entered, as a Cornet, the yth Hussars, and
joined them in France, with the army of occupa¬
tion. But, as by this time all fighting was at an
end, Cornet Mytton made himself signal in
sundry other ways. A heavy purse and an open
hand are by no means necessary qualifications
in a soldier; and it was very unlikely that he,
above all men, having only a few months to wait
for being in full possession of his property, should
keep without the magic circle, and not enter into
all kinds of youthful mischief. Some of his feats
were of a merely harmless nature, such as his rac¬
ing exploits—himself the jockey; his borrowing
^3000 of a banker at St Omer one day, and
losing half of it the next at a rascally E. O. table,
which he demolished to atoms, as some satisfac¬
tion for his loss ; but his doings at Calais at this
period were of a more serious nature. He lost
the immense sum of sixteen thousand Napoleons
LIFE OF MYTTON.
2 7
to a certain Captain, at billiards, which sum he
could not then pay. But the score was wiped
off in a more agreeable manner. It being sus¬
pected to have been a cross, which no doubt it
was, the Colonel of his regiment, the late Marquess
of Anglesea, then Earl of Uxbridge, forbade his
paying th& money; and with any other man but
John Mytton such authority would have been
conclusive. He, however, afterwards entered into
correspondence with his opponent, which led to
the publication of pamphlets and placards ; but
a later transaction, in which that person's con¬
duct was implicated, proved how right Lord
Anglesea was in his decision, and how wrong the
victim was in ever holding a communication with
his destroyer.
Quitting the army, and in his twenty-third
year, he entered, for the first time, into the mar¬
riage state; and his wedding was thus announced
in the Shrewsbury papers :—
" On the 21st May 1818, at St George's, Han¬
over Square, by the Rev. William Douglas,
Prebend of Westminster, John Mytton, of Plal-
ston, in this county, Esq., to Harriet Emma
Jones, eldest daughter of the late Sir Tyrwhitt
Jones, Bart., of Stanley Hall, in this county, and
28
LIFE OF MYTTON.
sister to the present Sir Tyrwhitt Jones, Bart.
The bridegroom was attended by the Earl of
Oxbridge, the Earl of Denbigh, Sir Watkin
Williams Wynn, Bart., Colonel Sir Edward
Kerrison, &c., &c. After the ceremony they
returned to the house of Lady Jones, in New
Norfolk Street, where a most elegant breakfast
was provided ; and from thence the happy couple
immediately left London for the seat of the Duke
of Marlborough at Blenheim. Among the com¬
pany present were the Duchess of Marlborough
and Lady Caroline Churchill, Sir John and Lady
Dashwood and Miss Dashwood, Sir Edward and
Lady Kerrison, Lord and Lady Say and Sele
and Miss Twistleton, General and Mrs Gascoyne
and Miss Gascoyne, the Marquess of Blandford
and Lord Charles Churchill, Mr, Mrs, and Miss
Leigh, Sir Tyrwhitt Jones, Mr and Mrs Patton
Bold and the Misses Bold, and many other per¬
sons of distinction."
The issue of this marriage was only one
daughter, who for some time resided with Mrs
Corbet, of Sundorne Castle, Shropshire, widow
of the ever-to-be-revered John Corbet, who so
many years hunted Warwickshire. Mrs Mytton,
whose state of health was always delicate, died a
LIFE OF MYTTON.
29
few years after her marriage. Mr Mytton had
but one sister, who was married to the present
Sir John Hesketh Lethbridge, Bart., then an
eldest son, m March 1817, and she ceased to
exist in the same month of the year 1826, leaving
two sons and four daughters. She was not only
truly elegant in her person, but very highly ac¬
complished, and of a singularly mild and amiable
disposition ; and those who wish for a confirma¬
tion of the eulogium I have passed upon her, may
satisfy themselves by referring to the Gentlemen!s
Magazine for October 1826, page 357, where
her character is very faithfully sketched in some
lines from the pen of a female friend, a niece to
the present Bishop of Norwich. Mytton had a
great respect for this amiable sister, but would
never take her advice, nor indeed that of any
living soul.
Both in person and in mind the gifts of nature
were amply bestowed upon Mr Mytton. In fact,
he possessed what are called the animal faculties
to a degree seldom witnessed ; and had he been
commonly temperate in his mode of living, he
might, barring accidental death, have attained a
very advanced age. The biceps muscle of his
arm was larger than that of Jackson's, the cele¬
brated pugilist, and those of every other part of
3°
LIFE OF MYTTON.
his body were equally exuberant and powerful.
Unfortunately, however, for himself, and often
so for his companions, he was, like Cleanthes of
old, proud of displaying his strength; but, for¬
tunately for mankind, he would not, like
Cleanthes, be instructed in the art of boxing, or
he would have been still more formidable with
his fists. As it was, in a " turn up" he was what
is called a very awkward customer, and, when he
could get at him, he knocked down his man as
if he had been a nine-pin. But he was nearly
ignorant of the science of self-defence, and as I
have already observed, never attempted to attain
it. His bull-dog courage, however, added to his
tremendous blow, enabled him to beat any
ordinary man; and so well was his prowess
known, that few ventured to encounter him.
He had not a handsome face, but by no means
an unpleasing countenance; and, without having
practised the graces, the air and character of the
gentleman were strongly impressed on his car¬
riage. His shoulders were finely formed, with a
very expanded chest—height, about five feet
nine inches; weight, varying in the last twelve
years of his life, from eleven to thirteen stone.
I should think the best battle he ever fought
was in 1826. with a countryman—a Welsh miner
LIFE OF MYTTON.
31
—who offended him by holloaing' the harriers of
Mr Nicholls, of Crumpwell, near Oswestry, to a
fresh hare, when they were on the scent of the
hunted one, and on the point of killing her after
an extraordinary run. The miner told him he
would find him " a tough un," which he did; but
after twenty rounds he cried, " Hold hard,
enoughAnd now appears Mytton in his true
character. The hunted hare being eventually
killed, he gave the miner ten shillings, told him
to go to Halston and get " another bellyful,"
and to order the hare to be cooked for dinner
that day.
Never was constitution so murdered as Mr
Mytton's was ; for, what but one of adamant
could have withstood the shocks, independent
of wine, to which it was almost daily exposed ?
His dress alone would have caused the death of
nine hundred of a thousand men who passed
one part of the day and night in a state of lux¬
ury and warmth. We will take him from the
sole of his shoe to the crown of his hat. He
never wore any but the thinnest and finest silk
stockings, with very thin boots or shoes; so that in
winter he rarely had dry feet. To flannel he was
a stranger since he left off his petticoats. Even
bis hunting-breeches were without lining ; he
32
LIFE OF MYTTON.
wore one small waistcoat, always open in the
front from about the second of the lower buttons;
and about home, he was as often without his hat
as with one. His winter shooting gear was a
light jacket, white linen trousers, without lining
or drawers—of which he knew not the nse; and
in frost and snow he waded through all water
that came in his way. Nor is this all. He would
sometimes strip to his shirt to follow wild-fowl
in hard weather, and once actually laid himself
down on the snow in his shirt only to wait their
arrival at dusk. But Dame Nature took offence at
this, and chastised him rather severely for his dar¬
ing. On one occasion, however, he out-heroded
Herod, for he followed some ducks "in puris
naturalibns"—Anglice, stark-naked—on the ice,*
and escaped with perfect impunity. He was the
only man I ever knew who, I think, at one time
of his life, might have stood some chance of per¬
forming the grand Osbaldeston match over New¬
market, from the ease with which he performed
immense distances on the road on his hacks.
He would ride, several times in the week, to
covers nearly fifty miles distant from Halston,
* This occurred at Woodhouse, the seat of his uncle, who re¬
lated the story to me in London, the circumstance having
occurred since I last visited Shropshire.
LIFE OF MYTTON.
33
and return thither to his dinner. Neither could
any man I ever met in the field walk through
the day with him at his pace. I saw him, on his
own moors in Merionethshire, completely knock-
up two keepers (who accompanied him alter¬
nately), being the whole day bare-headed under
a hot sun. (One of these keepers—whom I
procured for him in Cheshire—was rather a
crack walker, and a noted man with his fists.)
He had the stomach of an ostrich before it was
debilitated by wine, and even against that, it
stood nearly proof to the last; but, it appears,
he once met with his match. Himself and a
friend left London together with eighteen pounds
of filbert-nuts in his carriage, and they devoured
them all before they arrived at Halston. To
use his own words, they sat up to their knees in
nut-shells. But it was often alarming to witness
the quantity of dry nuts he would eat, with the
quantity of port wine which he would drink ;
and on my once telling him, at his own table,
that the ill-assorted mixture caused the death of
a school-fellow of mine,* he carried a dish of fil-
* When mentioning this fact, I was quite unconscious that
General Williams, who was present, was brother to the youth I
alluded to. " You are speaking of a brother of mine," said the
General. Volat irrevocabile verbum ; I had nothing left but to
apologise.
34
LIFE OF MYTTON.
berts into the drawing-room with him, for the
purpose of " clearing decks," as he said. Among
other peculiarities, he never carried a pocket-
handkerchief, for he never had occasion for the
use of one ; he very rarely wore gloves, for his
hands were never cold ; and, although he never
wore a watch, he always knew the hour.
Mr Mytton was a great favourite with the
shopkeepers of Shrewsbury and Oswestry, and
among others, of a sporting hairdresser at
Shrewsbury, to whom he often gave a day's
shooting. This man was his chief purveyor of
filberts, and having an unlimited order for the
purchase of them about the country, declared
that, in one season, he sent to Halston as many
as two cart-loads of them ! As may be supposed,
in return for pheasants and hares, the barber's
shop was now and then the scene of a " lark."
Entering it one evening, Mytton asked what he
could have to drink ? but, before an answer
could be given him, he snatched up a bottle of
lavender-water, and, knocking off the head of it,
drank it off at a draught, saying, " It was a good
preservative against the bad effects of night air."
I shall presently show that this was not his last
performance in this way.
That John Mytton saw his thirty-eighth year,
LIFE OF MYTTON.
35
must be attributed either to the good genius
that accompanied him, or to the signal inter¬
position of Providence, for scarcely a day passed
over his head in which he did not put his life to
the hazard. Some of his escapes, indeed, border
closely on the miraculous; but it would fill a
volume were I to enumerate them. How often
has he been run away with by horses in gigs!
How often struggling in deep water, without
being able to swim! How was it that he did
not get torn to pieces in the countless street-
brawls in which he was engaged ? * and lastly,
how did he avoid being shot in a duel ? The
latter question is soon answered—he never fought
one. In fact, he was always considered some¬
what of a man of licence in society; and although
no one doubted his standing fire, if called upon,
it is my firm persuasion nothing would have in¬
duced him to have aimed at a man to destroy
him. In the saddle, too, he ran prodigious risks
for his life, not only by riding at apparently im-
* In the literal sense of the term, he was once nearly divided
into two John Myttons, at a race-meeting in Lancashire, for
which offence—as well as an attempt to rob him—one man was
transported. One party of thieves wanted to pull him into a
house, and the other out of it, so between both he was nearer
being quartered than divided, and nothing but the great strength
of his frame saved him.
36
LIFE OF MYTTON.
practicable fences, with hounds, but in falling
from his horses when intoxicated. For the
former of these acts he was for many years so
notorious, that it was a common answer to the
question, whether a certain sort of fence could
be leaped, or whether any man would attempt it?
—tkat it would do for Mytton. And his style of
driving was equally remarkable. Whenever the
country people saw a carriage or tandem going
along at a greater speed than usual, they would
cry out, " There goes Mytton !" and run to the
road-side to give him a cheer. He once actually
galloped at full speed over a rabbit-warren, to
try whether or not his horse would fall; which,
of course, it did, and rolled over him. This
perfect contempt of danger was truly character¬
istic of himself; but, not content with the pos¬
session of it, he endeavoured to impart it to his
friends. As he was one day driving one of them
in a gig, who expressed a strong regard for his
neck, with a hint that he considered it in some
danger, Mytton addressed him thus:—"Were
you ever much hurt, then, by being upset in
a gig ?"—"No, thank God, " said his companion,
" for I never was upset in one."—" What! " re¬
plied Mytton, " never upset in a gig ? What
a d—d slow fellow you must have been all your
LIFE OF MYTTON.
37
life 1" And running his near wheel up the bank,
over they both went,—fortunately without either
being much injured!
Shortly after Mr Mytton attained his majority,
he gave a horse-dealer, named Clarke, of Meole,
in Shropshire, an order to purchase for him some
carriage-horses. Putting one of them into a gig
tandem, to see, as he expressed himself," whether
he would make a good leader/' he asked the
dealer, who sat beside him, if he thought he was
a good timber-jumper. On the dealer expressing
a doubt, Mytton exclaimed, " Then we'll try
him !" and a closed turnpike-gate (at Hanwood)
being before him, he gave the horse his head,
and a flanker with his whip at the same moment,
when he cleared the gate in beautiful style, leav¬
ing Mytton and the dealer, and the other horse,
all on the nether side of the gate ; and fortun¬
ately all alive, although the gig was much injured.
He once had a horse that would rear up in his
gig at the word of command, until the hinder
part of it absolutely touched the ground; and,
although he was much given to display this dan¬
gerous accomplishment, no accident was the
result.
I was myself once passing through the town
of Oswestry, only two hours too late to have
38
witnessed a most singular performance of a
team of coach-horses of his, which he had been
exercising in a break. Finding they had the
better of him, he contrived to quit the carriage
without injury, and the horses, being at liberty,
ran at full speed into the town. Unfortunately
a gateway was in their course, into which they
dashed ; and now f(5r the finish. The said gate¬
way led into a parallel street, but narrowing as
it lengthened, there was, towards the farther end
of it, room for the horses, but not for the carriage
to pass. The consequence was, the four horses,
breaking all their harness by the shock, tumbled
head over heels into the street, and, strange to
say, not one of them was killed.
Perhaps the most extraordinary accident that
ever happened to this most extraordinary man
was on his return, after dark, from a race-course,
in his travelling carriage-and-four. The postboys
mistook an old road, which had been stopped up,
for the right one ; and entered it, down hill too,
at the rate of fourteen miles in the hour, when
they came suddenly in contact with some fallen
trees, which were placed across it as a barrier.
The force of the shock may be imagined: the
carriage was broken to pieces; the servant was
pitched from his seat to a very considerable
LIFE OF MYTTON.
39
distance, sustaining a fracture of the skull from
the fall; and Mytton was a good deal hurt—any
other man, perhaps, would have been killed, as
he was fast asleep at the time. The fate of the
horses and the boys I do not at this moment
recollect; but the servant—who, by good conduct,
was promoted by degrees to the post of valet de
chambre to Mr Mytton " from being a boy in my
stable "—has, I fear, never recovered from the
effects of this dire mishap. On another occasion,
when I was on a visit at Sir Bellingham Graham's,
the night being very dark, the postboy conducted
Mytton into a meadow, instead of taking a short
turn in the road ; and, after driving him around
it a great many times without being able to find
his way out, he left him in his carriage, whilst
he went back to Sir Bellingham's for a lantern.
As the household were all gone to rest, the Squire
of Halston must have had a good many turns
round the meadow ; but, fortunately for the
postboy, he never awoke.
Mr Mytton appeared—at least, wished to be
supposed to be—indifferent to pain. A very
few days after he had had so bad a fall with his
own hounds as to occasion the dislocation of
three ribs, and was otherwise much bruised, a
friend in Wales, unconscious of his accident, sent
40
LIFE OF MYTTON.
him a fox in a bag, with a hint that, if turned out
on the morrow, he would be sure to afford sport,
as he was only just caught. "To-morrow, then,"
said Mytton, "we will run him and although
he was lifted upon his horse, having his body
swathed with rollers, and also writhing with pain,
he took the lead of all the field, upon the horse
he called " The Devil," and was never headed
by any man, till he killed his fox, at the end of
a capital hour's run. He was very near fainting
from the severity of this trial; but I remember
his telling me, he would not have been seen to
faint for ten thousand pounds.
Upon another somewhat similar occasion, he
showed his disregard of pain. He was on his
return from the field, with two of his ribs displaced,
and evidently suffering much from a fall. To
enable him to cut off an angle, he got into a fold-
yard, but could not get out of it unless by
riding over some high rails, which he did, in that
state.
In the hilarity of high animal spirits he per¬
formed some feats that were ludicrous, and others
that were painful to witness. Amongst the for¬
mer was his appearance with Lord Derby's stag-
hounds, when he was taken for a London tailor.
Happening to be in town in the hunting season,
LIFE OF MYTTON.
41
he had a desire to see those celebrated hounds,
and Tilbury sent out a horse for the purpose.
On his arrival at the place of meeting in a cab,
which he had driven at an awful rate, he attracted
the notice of the throng, to all of whom save
one he was a stranger. " What a buck he is :
said one. " Who the d—1 is he ?" said another.
" He is a tailor from Londonsaid several, all of
which remarks were carefully re-echoed to him
by his friend. Mytton said nothing, but the
tables were soon turned when Lord Derby's car¬
riage drove up. " What, Mytton !" exclaimed
Lord Stanley* "who would have thought of
seeing you here ? "—putting out his hand to wel¬
come him. " Why, to tell you the truth, Stan¬
ley," said Mytton, " I have ridden over many a
good fellow in my own country, but I never
rode over a Cockney, and I am come here to¬
day for that sole purpose."
His treatment of a London Jew money-lender
was not amiss. Being wearied by delay, he hired
two coal-heavers to knock at his door every
second hour throughout the night, until the
money was forthcoming. But this anecdote
furnishes a painful recollection on the subject of
* Now Earl of Derby.
42
LIFE OF MYTTON.
money-lending". A few years back he borrowed
ten thousand pounds on an annuity at high in¬
terest, and lent nine of it to a friend who has
never been seen in Europe since ! This, although
a type of the man, is no matter for joking; but
the following may be looked upon as frolics.
He had a parson and a doctor dining with him
one evening at Halston, and at a certain hour of
the night they mounted their horses to return to
their homes. Having a carter's frock, and a brace
of pistols, loaded with blank cartridges, at hand,
Mytton mounted a hack, and by a circuitous
rout headed and met them on the road, when,
letting fly both barrels at them, and calling to
them to " stand and deliver," he declared they
never rode half so fast in their lives as they did
from that place to Oswestry, with himself at their
heels. He once stopped and robbed, on this same
road, his own butler, who was returning from the
town with a sum of money he had just received
from the agent. The man had boasted that no one
should ever rob him ; but on Mytton suddenly
putting a pistol to his head by the green gates,
he meekly gave up both the money and his
watch. Mytton was fond of, as well as very
good at, disguising himself, in which way he
played off another trick on the butler. Strolling
LIFE OF MYTTON.
43
one summer's evening about his grounds, he
came across a beggar who was taking his road up
to the house. The Squire at once proposed that
they should exchange clothes, or, at least, their
Outer garments, and the other being naturally
nothing loth, the metamorphosis was quickly
completed. Bidding the man stay where he was,
and with a tattered hat hanging over his eyes,
and otherwise capitally got-up, he returned to
the Hall, where but a few minutes previously he
had been sitting at the dinner-table. Here, he
begged in vain of his own servants ; they only
jeered at him; but, at length, on his asking for
something to drink, they offered him the dregs
of a barrel, which he indignantly refused. "You
fare too well," said he, " and get saucy in your
places, or you, who can have so much good
wholesome beer whenever you choose, would
never give a fellow-creature such stuff as this."
Some of the household now began to fight a little
shy, but the butler, hearing the noise, came out
at once and ordered the sturdy mendicant off
the place, threatening to, if he did not actually,
send for the constables. But, in the interim,
imprudently venturing to put his hand on the
beggar's shoulder, Mytton sent him reeling, as
he did one or two more of the men who came to
44
their superior's assistance. They then let the
dogs loose, when he at once rushed off to the
bear, who more readily recognised her master,
and, released from her chains, raised herself on
her haunches in his defence. This let out the
secret, as none but Mytton would have dared to
have done so much with Nell, as she was called ;
and often afterwards, greatly to the butler's and
the other servants' annoyance, would the small-
beer story be told against them. Then, again,
during harvest-time Mytton went in the garb of a
countryman to Jones, at the Queen's Head, at
Oswestry, and asked for work. The terms being
agreed to at so much a week for the job, the mas¬
ter stood a pot of strong beer to bind the bargain,
and then the new hand quickly called for another,
which he seasoned with brandy. It, of course,
ended in his getting very riotous, and, when just
about to thrash the landlord, who was going to
turn him out, a customer recognised the Squire,
and the joke happily resulted in no serious con¬
sequences to those upon whom it was tried. On
another occasion he was told that the late
George Underhill, the celebrated Shropshire
horse-dealer, was in his house, on his road from
Chester fair. Sending for him into his dining-
room, he made him excessively drunk, and put
LIFE OF MYTTON.
him to bed with two bull-dogs and the bear !
He once rode this bear into his drawing-room
in full hunting costume. The animal carried
him very quietly for a certain time ; but, on being
pricked by the spur, she bit her rider through
the calf of his leg, inflicting a severe wound.
The mention of this bear reminds me of another
amusing anecdote. Having sent one of his
stable-boys with a hack to meet a friend who was
coming by a coach, the latter exclaimed, on rid¬
ing into the Halston stable-yard, " Ah ! bruin!"
—alluding to the bear. " Oh yes, sir/' observed
the lad, "we always brews twice a-week at Hal¬
ston." What I am now going to relate I know
not how to define, for in most people's opinion it
rather exceeds a joke. As we were eatingsome
supper one night in the coffee-room of the hotel
at Chester, during the race week, a gentleman,
who was a stranger to us all, was standing with
his back to the fire, talking very loudly, having
drunk too much wine. "I '11 stop him," said
Mytton ; and getting behind him unperceived,
put a red-hot coal into his pocket!
But I have a better, inasmuch as it was a more
harmless joke, to relate with respect to George
Underhill, the dealer. He rode over one day to
Halston, to dun Mr Mytton for his demand upon
46
LIFE OF MYTTON.
him, which, I believe, was rather a large one.
After having been made comfortable in the
steward's room, Mytton addressed him thus -
" Well, George, here (handing him a letter) is an
order for all your money. Call on this gentle¬
man, as you pass through Shrewsbury, and he
will give it to you in full" Now this gentleman
—also a banker—was one of the governors of
the Lunatic Asylum, and the order for payment
ran thus :—
" Halston.
" Sir,
"Admit the bearer, George Under¬
bill, into the Lunatic Asylum.
"Your obedient servant,
"John Mytton."
The mention of the trick he paid the Jew
money-lender bears a resemblance to one he
paid a toll-keeper near his own house, who had
demanded and received double toll from him on
the score of its being past twelve o'clock at night,
whereas it was only just eleven, and the toll had
been once before paid during the day. Although
it was a bitter cold night, Mytton waited till the
gatekeeper was warm in his bed, and then re¬
passed the gate, of course without paying again.
Nor did the frolic end here. No sooner was the
LIFE OF MYTTON.
47
fellow once more in bed, than the word " Gate ! "
again resounded in his ears; and finding out
whom he had to deal with, he gladly returned the
money and enjoyed the rest of the night in re¬
pose.
The history of this bear may not be unworthy
of notice. Mytton purchased her (it was a female)
when very young, together with a monkey, from
a strolling showman who was passing through
Ellesmere,a town five miles distant from Halston,
for the sum of thirty-five pounds for the two.
Having been upwards of seven years in his pos¬
session, and handled at an early age, the former
was tolerably tractable for an animal so naturally
savage; but she was not to be trifled with by
strangers. It was indeed in consequence of her
injuring one of the servants of the establishment
that Mytton ordered her to be put to death,
which, as fire-arms were not resorted to, was
said to have been a very difficult undertaking.
In self-defence she severely wounded one of her
assailants.
The death of the monkey was quite in char¬
acter with his life—bordering strongly on the
ludicrous. Like his master, Jacko was fond of
his bottle, and mistaking a jar of Day and
Martin's blacking for something of a more vinous
48
LIFE OF MYTTON.
quality, he drank so freely of it as to produce an
illness which deprived him of his eye-sight, and
eventually caused his death. Many of his ex¬
ploits have been related to me, such as his per¬
formance, after hounds, on the horse called
"The Devil," but as I have no personal know¬
ledge of them, I am unwilling to give them pub¬
licity. They bear too close a resemblance to
some old Joe-Miller stories of the same amusing
animal ; as do some similar tales of other
"mounts" on "The Devil."
It is said of Napoleon, that he wished to ban¬
ish the word " impossible " from the French Dic¬
tionary. Mytton must have had some such desire;
for he once told me, at Halston, that he had a
filly in his racing stable which should win the
Oaks (she was named in those stakes), and after¬
wards she herself should put them into his pocket.
On my ridiculing the idea, he said,—" Why
not ? She will now put both her hind feet into
my pockets, and why not her mouth ?" I ac¬
companied him to the stable, and to my horror
witnessed the latter exhibition. Mytton laid
himself down at full length under her belly
with his bare head between her heels, and first
taking up one foot, and then the other, placed
them both in the pockets of bis dressing-gown.
LIFE OF MYTTON.
49
William Dilly, his trainer, witnessed all this as
well as myself; but on his attempting to take
liberties with a horse called Oswestry, in the
next box, who was of a very different temper,
his worthy servant thus addressed him : " You
will do that once too often, sir, with this horse ;
and good-tempered as she is, should your Oaks
filly become alarmed, she will surely knock out
your brains."—" Good advice, Mr Dilly," said I,
as I turned away from the awful scene; " but
you may spare your breath: John Mytton will
be John Mytton ; he heareth not the voice of
the charmer, charm he never so wisely, and, like
Homer's divinities, is always in mischief."
But I must not do as Homer did by his heroes,
make mine a savage. And yet how are we to
define some of the darings and doings of this
extraordinary man ? For example, the following
description of an evening at Halston was given
by me in the Sporting Magazine some years
back. After describing a display of young
foxes which were brought into the dinner-room
for inspection, I thus proceed :—" We were now
offered the company of the bear, but to a man
declined the honour. Byway of a finish, however,
we had one turn-up between a Spanish bull-dog
and an animal called ' Blood?—a cross between a
D
50
LIFE OF MYTTON.
Spanish bull-dog and an English mastiff;
when our host, thinking that Blood was get¬
ting bloody, and might kill the other dog, ran at
him and pinned him by the nose; and although
weighing more than seventy pounds, he raised
him from the ground with his teeth, holding
him suspended for^t least a minute, without the
smallest assistance from his hands." Neither is
this a solitary instance of his contest with fero¬
cious dogs. Returning from hunting one day,
he, with some others, called to lunch at a farm¬
house called the Berries, near Whitchurch, where
there was a very large and savage dog chained in
the yard. "Pray don't go near him, Mr Mytton,"
said his owner, " for he will tear you in pieces if
you do." This was enough for Mytton ; so pull¬
ing a silk handkerchief out of the pocket of a
friend, and lapping it around his left hand, he
advanced with it extended towards the dog, who
immediately seized it with his mouth. Reader—
I fancy I see you shudder! but don't be alarmed;
and when you hear the sequel, perhaps you will
think that the dog might have been the greater
sufferer of the two, provided blood had been
drawn. Catching him by the back of the neck,
however, with his right hand, Mytton instantly
pinned the animal by the nose with his
LIFE OF MYTTON.
51
teeth;* and getting the other hand at liberty,
so pummelled his opponent that he had scarcely
any life left in him. As might be expected,
the dog never afterwards liked the look of his
brother bull-dog or even a red coat, but slunk
into his kennel on the approach of either one
or the other.
The terms " good-natured" and " good-
tempered " are very often confounded by being
indiscriminately applied to the same person or
animal, whereas they admit of no inconsiderable
distinction ; and we have a striking instance here.
Mytton, by nature, was kind and beneficent to a
degree very rarely witnessed. I will not go so
far as to say—what Crabbe's son says of him—
that " no sympathy was like his yet, with a pre¬
tended insensibility to the common sympathies
of our nature, he never saw misery that he did
not wish to relieve it. The conflicting elements
of his character, or, more properly speaking, some
parts of his conduct, may appear to give the lie
to this ; yet all who knew the man know that I
* The first mention of Mr Mytton's name in any of Nimrod's
writings is when, after Chester race-week, he went back to
Halston with his friend, that " hard-riding, harddining, hard-
going, hard-striking, hard-biting, thoroughbred Briton;" the
hard-biting epithet having its application in this anecdote.
52
LIFE OF MYTTON.
have spoken the truth, and the tears of the multi¬
tude that were shed at his grave place it beyond
dispute. In his temper he was sudden and
violent, and, like Achilles, impatient of restraint;
yet his wrath endured but the twinkling of an
eye, and in forgiveness of injuries he had no
equal within my knowledge of mankind. What
a paradox, then, is here ! With all his native good¬
ness of heart, he appeared to wish to make the
world believe he cared no more thanDionysius for
the gods what the world thought or said of him ;
and although his good sense must have convinced
him that there is a profligacy of spirit in defying
the rules of decorum, he oftentimes acted as if
he considered every law, human or divine, of little
worth. But I say again—what a paradox is
here! The man who had no " regard to his
good name " left a good name behind him, that
will be remembered and cherished in Shropshire
for many, many years to come, and for deeds
that would have done honour to an apostle.
When I say that he was charitable to the poor,
and gave them two bushels of wheat a week the
year round, I give him credit for little more than
might be expected from a man of his means, and
of a nature generous to prodigality ; but I have
reason to believe no one knew half the extent of
LIFE OF MYTTON.
S3
his beneficent acts. Tis said of charity, that it
admits of no error but excess ; and to excess
did he often carry it, as I shall presently have
occasion to show. In fact, he was as extravagant
in his virtues as in his vices,—or, I would rather
say, in his failings. The perfection of man's
moral nature is said to be forgiveness of injuries;
but Mytton went a point beyond this. Even
that hard injunction of the Gospel, to love an
enemy—the characteristic of a religion not of
man but of God, and that, as the author of the
"Adventurer" observes, "could have been de¬
livered as a precept only," for society could not
exist under its practice—was no paradox with
him, as I shall produce several instances to prove.
But to return to his nature. Pythagoras, being
asked in what man could resemble the Divinity,
replied, "In beneficence and truth." Here, again,
we have a paradox. The man who sometimes
assumed the character of a fiend, and appeared
to strive against the native goodness of his
heart, answers to that of the Deity ; for inasmuch
as his beneficence was unquestionable, so was his
veracity unimpeachable. Setting aside jesting,
in which none dealt more largely—in fact, he
was a sort of human Silenus—no man could with
more safety be spoken after than Mytton could.
54
LIFE OF MYTTON.
I am quite certain nothing could have induced
him to have uttered a premeditated untruth, for
any unworthy purpose; and there was a good-
humoured and affectionate simplicity about him
that rendered him a great favourite in his neigh¬
bourhood. Again, he was no backbiter. On
the contrary, when he heard the " voice of
slander rankle on the ear," he always turned the
discourse, saying, as my uncle Toby did, when
his Corporal was reckoning up all the rascals of
his regiment, "We will speak of this another
time." In his dealings with the world he was a
man of strict honour and probity; and without
justifying his extravagance, I maybe allowed to.
say that his chief concern, after the last estates
he could sell were disposed of, was not whether
he himself might be left destitute, but whether
there would be enough to pay his creditors in full.
As a master he was kindest of the kind, and a
liberal and most considerate landlord. Surely,
then, this man must have been either counterfeit¬
ing a nature not his own,* or he must have been,
* The following was related to me by the medical gentleman
at Oswestry who attended the accouchement of the first Mrs
Mytton. "Mr Mytton," said he, "was in the billiard-room
when I went to inform him of the birth. 1 What is it ?' he in¬
quired. On my telling him it was a girl, he swore he would
LIFE OF MY TTON.
55
to a certain extent and on certain points, a
madman! No doubt he did the one; and no
doubt he was the other !
The worst feature in poor Mytton's disposition,
and what may be termed the reigning error of
his life, was, not only that he would not bow to
reproof, much less kiss the rod, but he. would
suffer no man either to counsel or advise him,
There was, however, none of obsequium amicos,
Veritas odkim, parit, that Terence speaks of,
about him, for he always received it in good
part, being neither flattered nor offended ; but
he would not take advice, even when given him
by his sincerest friends, and with the purest and
most disinterested motives. He always con¬
sidered it an impeachment of his understanding,
generally exclaiming to those who offered it,
" What the d—1 is the use of my having a head
on my own shoulders, if I am obliged to make
use of yours ?" But, unfortunately, at times his
ears were deaf to the voice of reason, as the
following anecdote will show :—Previously to
the disposal of the first property that he sold, I
happened to be at Halston, and was about to
have it smothered ; but, throwing himself on a sofa, gave vent
to his feelings in a flood of tears, and his anxiety for the well¬
doing of his wife would have done honour to any man."
56
LIFE OF MYTTON.
accompany him to Lichfield races, where each
had horses to run. Just before we set out, his
agent the late Mr Longueville, of Oswestry,
arrived at the house, and wished to speak to me.
As nearly as I can recollect, the following were
his exact words: " I have reason to believe you
can say as much to Mr Mytton as any man can ;
will you have the goodness to tell him you heard
me say, that if he will be content to live on
£6000 per annum for the next six years, he
need not sell the fine old Shrewsbury estate,
that has been so many years in his family, and
at the end of that period he shall not owe a
guinea to any man ?" I fancy I see the form
and features of my old friend, with the manner
in which he received and replied to the flattering
proposition, and many others who knew him as
well as I did will also have the picture in their
mind's eye. Lolling back in his carriage, which
was going at its usual pace, and picking a hole
in his chin, as he was always wont to do when
anything particularly occupied his thoughts, he
uttered not a syllable for the space of some
minutes ; when, suddenly changing his position,
as if rousing from a deep reverie, he exclaimed
with vehemence, "You may tell Longueville to
keep his advice to himself, for I would not give a
LIFE OF MYTTON.
5 7
d—n to live 011 six thousand a yearl' Knowing
his regard and esteem for that worthy gentleman,
it was in vain to urge the subject any further,
for there was that in his manner which convinced
me he was not to be persuaded on this point by
any man,—no, not though one rose from the
dead. Hence is his ruin dated.
From the serious to the jocular is but a step,
and the mention of this circumstance leads to a
joke. A near relation was endeavouring to dis¬
suade him from parting with a certain estate,
on the score of its having been so long in the
family. "Howlong?" inquired Mytton. "Above
five hundred years," was the reply. " The d—1
it has !" he returned; " then it is high time it
should go out of it."
With a perfect contempt for the splendour
of cold-hearted opulence, Mr Mytton lived very
much like a gentleman at Halston, where every¬
thing was in keeping with his fortune and station
in life. There was no unnecessary display—two
men-servants out of livery, and two in livery,
being the full complement at the dinner-table,
nor did he indulge in the luxury of a man-cook.
Although himself a perfect stranger to the science
of economy, his establishment was managed with
considerable regularity; and notwithstanding the
58
LIFE OF MYTTON.
consumption of good things in the servants' hall,
for the number of stable servants was great,
it was not Halston that ruined him. It was
that " largeness of heart, even as the sand that
is on the sea-shore," which Solomon possessed,
but unaccompanied by his means as well as by
his wisdom, which ruined Mr Mytton ; added to
a lofty pride which disdained the littleness of
prudence, and a sort of destroying spirit that
appeared to run a-muck at Fortune. By a rough
computation, and a knowledge of the property he
sold, I should set down the sum total expended at
very little less than half a million sterling within
the last fifteen years of his life !!
But how would this expenditure be accounted
for, if something like a schedule of his disburse¬
ments ,were to be called for ? The task would
be an Herculean one, but Horace would furnish
a commentary upon it. Some persons hunt,
says he; some race, some drink, some do one
thing and some another ; but Mytton, in sporting
language, was "at all in the ring." His fox¬
hounds were kept by himself without any sub¬
scription, and upon a very extensive scale, with
the additional expenses attending hunting two
counties. His racing establishment was on a
still larger scale, having often had from fifteen to
LIFE OF MYTTON.
59
twenty horses in training at the same time, and
seldom less than eight. His average number,
indeed, of thoroughbred stock at home and from
home, including brood-mares and young things,
was about thirty-six! * His game-preserves
were likewise a most severe tax upon his in¬
come. Will it be credited that he paid one bill
of ^"1500 to a London game-dealer for pheasants
and foxes alone! The formation of three miles
of plantation, which this game went in part to
stock, must have cost him an immense sum ;
having had, for several years, as many as fifty
able-bodied labourers in his employ; while the
keepers on the neighbouring properties were
commissioned to save all the vermin they could
for him, and week by week men poured into
Halston with sacks of badgers, stoats, and pole¬
cats.
There is this line somewhere, though I cannot
recollect where—
'' Dress drains our cellars dry "—
but such was not the case at Halston ; and I
* Mytton thus wrote of himself in the year 1825 :—"I own
Longwaist, and some fifty other thoroughbred ones; a few
hunters, a few hounds, course a little, and sometimes fight a main
of cocks." Longwaist was a purchase from Mr Fulwar Craven,
almost as great "a character" as John Mytton himself.
6o
LIFE OF MYTTON.
believe the satire applies to the ladies. It was
hard to say, however, which was the better
stocked of the two, Mr Mytton's wardrobe or
the Halston cellars. I once counted a hundred
and fifty-two pairs of breeches and trousers,
with a proportionate accompaniment of coats
and waistcoats, in the former; and I think I,
on another occasion, described the "hogsheads
of ale, standing like soldiers in close column,
and wine enough in wood and bottle for a Roman
Emperor," in the latter. He made his own malt,
and John Mytton, Licensed Maltster, was
painted in large letters over the malt-house door.
The clothes he would put-on his person just as
they came to his hand, or as his wild fancy
prompted him ; and I have seen him nearly de¬
stroy a new coat at one wearing. His shoes and
boots, all London make, and very light, were
also destroyed in an equally summary manner,
in his long walks over the country, through or
over everything that came in his way. It is im¬
possible even to guess at his annual expense
in post-horses; but every post-boy in England
lamented the fall of "Squire Mytton," their very
best customer. But he was rather hard on them
at times. Returning once from Warwick races
after sleeping at Birmingham, the pace, though
LIFE OF MYTTON.
61
strong, was still not good enough ; and after com¬
plaining in vain, Mytton abruptly ordered the
post-boys to stop. On their doing so, he pulled
one lad off his horse, and his friend the other, and,
packing them into the chaise, the two travellers
mounted in their stead, and so finished the stage.
The appearance of the horses and the boys—for
they had both been badly used—told its tale,
and the golden remedy had, as usual, to be ap¬
plied. On another occasion, with the same com¬
panion, being late in getting to the fixture with
hounds, he ordered the post-boys to take a short
cut down a lane at Steele, near the Twemlows.
There having, however, been just previously a
very heavy rain, this road was rendered impass¬
able, but Mytton would go on, until the chaise
at length fairly stuck fast. There being no other
conveyance handy, the Squire jumped on one of
the posters and his friend on another, and with
the traces hanging about their heels, galloped up
to the cover-side! If he was a friend to post¬
boys, he was equally so to others who served
him, and often as he passed through Birmingham,
he never gave the waiter where he stayed less
than a guinea. I have reason to believe that
the money he has at various times lost (not at
play, for there I should say he was born harm-
62
LIFE OF MYTTON.
less) * would have purchased a pretty estate. I
am afraid to say what was supposed to have
been the amount of bank-notes that were one
night blown out of his carriage on his road from
Doncaster races, but I have reason to believe it
was several thousand pounds! His account of
the affair was this: He had been counting a
large quantity of bank-notes on the seat of his
carriage—in which he was alone—with all the
windows down ; and falling asleep, did not awake
until the night was far spent—his servant paying
the charges on the road. An equinoctial gale
having sprung up, carried great part of the notes
away on its wings, verifying the proverb of "light
come, light go." It was always his custom to
have a large sum of money in his travelling
writing-desk, but it was more than usually large
at this time, in consequence of his having broken
the banks of two well-known London Hells on the
eve of his departure from London for Doncaster.
Like Democritus, however, Mytton laughed at
everything, and always spoke of this as a very
good joke. I have seen him, when he has been
going a journey, take a lot of bank-notes out of
his desk, and, rolling them into a lump, throw
* He was a very dangerous man with a dice-box in his hand.
Wine gave him courage, which generally tells at hazard.
LIFE OF MYTTON.
63
them at his servant's head, as if they had been
waste paper; but his chaplain used to say, he
always knew what the lump contained, and how
far it would carry him—a fact by no means so
clear to. me. I picked up one of these lumps
some years since in the plantations at Halston,
containing £37, which had been there some days
by its appearance ; and as he never had pockets
in his breeches, such occurrences must have been
frequent.
Perhaps there was one cause of expense in¬
curred by John Mytton that is not to be traced to
any other man; but, as Charles the Fifth pro¬
fanely boasted that "there was only one God
and one Charles," surely there never was but one
John Mytton. This said John Mytton would
never open letters secured by wafers, unless he
were acquainted with the hand-writing. Thus
were tradesmen's applications unanswered till
their patience became exhausted, and law pro¬
ceedings were, in consequence, resorted to. But
he cared no more for writs than he did for any¬
thing else, as they, of course, were sent to his
solicitor, and all he knew of them, in his pro¬
sperity, was, that he paid for them. So popular,
however, was he with the lower orders, that, in
his prosperous days, I do not think a bailiff in
64
LIFE OF MYTTON.
the four surrounding counties would have ar¬
rested him, had he been instructed so to do.
It is impossible to separate this sort of vis
comica that attached itself to the various acts of
imprudence of my otherwise truly noble-minded
friend ; and perhaps the anecdote of the London
game-dealer, and his ^"1500 bill, is about as
amusing as any. On his arrival at Halston he
presented it himself to his debtor ; but it ap¬
peared from his subsequent conduct that he little
thought it would have been paid without some¬
thing like a scrutiny into its merits. Here, how¬
ever, was John Mytton H sui generis" again.
" Give me a pen and ink," said he, casting his
eye over the amount, and, scratching the words,
11 Right, John Mytton," with his usual expedition,
under it, exclaimed, " There, take it to my
agent, and get the money." As may be sup¬
posed, the joy of this man was excessive, but
its outbreak was reserved until he saw the agent
at Oswestry draw a cheque at sight for the entire
sum. It was then no longer to be restrained ;
and thus did the dealer in dogs, foxes, pheasants,
and monkeys, et hoc genus omne, give vent to
the noble feelings of his nature. " Oh, my dear
sir," said he, " what can I do for you, in return
for all this kindness ? "—" I have done you no
LIFE OF MYTTON.
65
kindness," said the agent; " the only favour you
can confer upon me is, never to let me see or
hear of you again." This, however, did not
satisfy the pheasant-merchant, who was anxious,
if not to make a display of his gratitude, at all
events to propitiate the good-will of the agent,
and once more addressed him, " Pray, sir," said
he, " are you a married gentleman ? " On being
answered in the affirmative, the nature of the
donation was determined upon. " Then, sir,"
added he, "allow me to present your lady with a
monkey !" Well might the man of law have
exclaimed—
" Quicquid id est, timeo Danaos et dona ferentes
but when he was made acquainted with the
nature of the gift, the would-be giver was very
soon despatched, and I never heard whether he
again made his appearance on a similar errand
at Halston.
The next anecdote that presents itself to my
mind arose out of my seeing him get out of his
carriage at a cover's side, and walk towards his
hunter, to mount him. " There he goes," said
Tom Penn ; "he's a lily, aint he? Give him two
hundred thousand a year, and I '11 bet a hundred
he's in debt in foive (five) years." But it is
66
LIFE OF MYTTON.
necessary to say who this Tom Penn is, or rather
was, for he is also in his grave, having broken
his neck in hunting. He was pad-groom to Sir
Watkin Williams Wynn, Bart., much looked up
to, and consequently often consulted, for his
correct judgment of a hunter, by the help of
which, although an excellent servant, he was
one of the most impudent fellows that ever wore
a livery; or, perhaps, more properly speaking,
what is known in the lower world as " a regular
cool hand."
Now a question arises not unworthy of dis¬
cussion. Did the late Mr Mytton really enjoy
life amidst all this profusion of expenditure ?
and was he, in the best of his days, in a situation
that many poor men would covet ? This, I
think, admits of a doubt. It is true, he had
most of the requisites for a man of a noble
fortune that Horace granted to his friend Tibul-
lus ; but one thing was wanting—the " artemque
fruendi," the art of enjoying it, to which he,
Mytton, was a stranger. Indeed, to a vitiated
palate, always calling for fresh gratifications,
the wealth of Croesus might fail in procuring
that one thing wanting; but there was some¬
thing about my friend that gave one the idea
that to him it was peculiarly denied. There
LIFE OF MYTTON.
6?
was that about him which resembled the rest¬
lessness of the hyena ; and whether in the pur¬
suit of his pastimes, or the gratification of his
passions, there was an unsteadiness throughout,
which evidently showed that, beyond the excite¬
ment of the passing moment, nothing afforded
him sterling pleasure. All those who watched
his actions might perceive, that his object was
to have a taste of everything that was alluring
and delicious, and, like the bee, to rqve from
flower to flower, merely culling a little of the
sweets of each. Look, for example, at the vari¬
ous sources of amusement Halston afforded, and
the small share of calm enjoyment they ap¬
peared to afford the owner of them. What ele¬
gant dinners have I seen him sit down to at his
own table, with no more appetite to partake of
them than an alderman has when singing, " Non
nobis, Domine !" having, an hour or two before,
been eating fat bacon and drinking strong ale
at some tenant's, or other farm-house on his road
home from his field pursuits. Again, if he had
a good race-horse in his stables, he would run
him off his legs, nearly to his destruction ; and he
served his favourite hunters in the same manner.
All this could have been reconciled with youthful
enthusiasm and Welsh blood ; but with Mytton
68
LIFE OF MYTTON.
it could be only traced to one cause, which
grew with his growth, but did not quit him in
his manhood, and finally plunged him into the
abyss of misery!
But if the proprietor of it himself was not satis¬
fied with the resources which Halston afforded,
few of his friends were so unreasonable as to
have looked for amusement and not found it;
for, indeed, the very proprietor of it alone, with
his various appendants and his frolics, was a
constant source of mirth. A celebrated histo¬
rian of the Augustan age, however, now presents
himself to my view, and wisely reminds me, that
decency is a principal virtue in a historian, and
that he should preserve the characters of the
persons, as well as the dignity of the actions, of
those of whom he treats. Heretofore, I trust,
I have written nothing that can be construed
into more than an allowable levity of style, in¬
separable from the chronicling of the sayings
and doings of such a character as is before me ;
and as one object is to display it in every variety
of colour—and the rainbow itself has not more—
I must here introduce a description of an even¬
ing at Halston from my own pen, as published
originally in the Sporting Magazine. As it com¬
mences with an apology, I shall offer none here.
LIFE OF MYTTON.
69
" ' What Cato did, and Addison approved, can¬
not be wrong,' said a learned and accomplished
gentleman of the last century, when he put a
period to a miserable existence. Now, as the
great essayist here named introduced his friend
Sir Roger's chaplain to the world, perhaps I may
be allowed to introduce Mr Mytton's. He is a
very old acquaintance of mine, and I know he
will pardon me for doing so. I cannot exactly
say he is to his patron what Maecenas was to
Augustus, or what FalstafF was to Henry, but
rather what Crispus was to the Roman Emperor.
Crispus lived with four of them, joked with all
of them, and quarrelled with none of them,
though their ears were perhaps more tender than
their hearts. The Halston Chaplain, however,
is entitled to a place in the Sporting Magazine,
having given birth to as much sport as ever was
seen in a race, a cock-pit, or a fox-chase. In a
style peculiarly his own, he says more good
things than any other man I ever met with, and,
by his good humour and inoffensive jokes, has
often made the old Halston welkin ring.
"The connection between them commenced
thus: Soon after the Chaplain left the Univer¬
sity, he resided in the neighbourhood of Halston,
and was fixed upon as a sort of friendly precep-
7°
LIFE OF MYTTON.
tor to the heir apparent to the estate, both be¬
fore and after he left Westminster School; and
here, perhaps, one of the best anecdotes has its
source. It appears there was some difficulty in
persuading the young Squire to go to College;
and when we consider a little, our wonder ceases.
October is the best month for pheasant-shooting;
Christmas lasts till Easter at Halston; and hunt¬
ing, fishing, and shooting, last all the year round.
The Chaplain, however, was employed to use all
his eloquence to induce him to go, and the fol¬
lowing dialogue passed between them :—
" Chaplain. My good sir, you must go to
Oxford ; you must indeed, sir!
"Mr Mytton. I'll see you first.
" Chaplain. Upon my word, sir, you must go.
Every man of fortune ought to go to Christ
Church, if only for a term or so.
" Mr Mytton. Well, then, if I do go, I will go
on the following terms.
" Chaplain. What are they, sir ?
" Mr Mytton. Why, that I never open a book.
" Chaplain. Not the least occasion—not the
smallest, I assure you.
" Mr Mytton. Very well then; I don't mind
going, provided I read nothing but the Racing
Calendar and the Stud Book.
LIFE OF MYTTON.
71
" Chaplain. Excellent books, sir; they will
do very well, indeed.
" The next amusing anecdote of the Chaplain
arose out of the following circumstance :—Going
one morning, as usual, to serve the family church
at Halston, Mr Mytton contrived to take his
sermon out of his pocket, and substitute in its
place the last number of the Sporting Magazine.
When the Chaplain had mounted the rostrum,
and was preparing to throw off, he found his
mistake, and, of course, had nothing to do but
to apologise to his hearers for the loss of his
sermon, and, ' with a well-bred whisper, close the
scene.' It is also said of him, that, having a
tender regard for his patron, and knowing the
natural kindness of his disposition, he has always
avoided wantonly hurting his feelings ; so that,
on some occasions, when it has been his intention
to preach a sermon, which, to use his own words,
he feared might ' hit him hard,' he has been
prepared with another, in case the Squire should
be in church.
"There is another story of the Chaplain, which,
though it has been before recorded, yet it was
not placed to his credit; but to him alone it is
due. About five years back, he applied to his
Diocesan to give him a living, and the Bishop
72
LIFE OF MYTTON.
promised him the first that was vacant. Having
a pretty private fortune of his own, and not
aspiring to a mitre, the Chaplain took the liberty
of requesting that his Lordship would not send
him into the Welsh mountains, but give him an
English living. The Bishop, knowing him to be
a thoroughbred Welshman (and, indeed, no one
would take him for a half-bred one), demanded
of him his reasons for such a request. 'Why,
my Lord,' said the Chaplain, ' my wife does not
speak Welsh.'—'Your wife, sir,' said his Dio¬
cesan; 'what has your wife to do with it? She
does not preach, does she ?'—'No, my Lord,' said
the Chaplain, ' but she lectures /' The Bishop, as
may be expected, took all this in good part, and
the Chaplain was soon afterwards exalted to a
living in the wildest part of the Welsh mountains.
"No man was ever more free from guile than
the Chaplain of Halston and Rector of .
Indeed, some of his intimate friends have doubted
whether he has enough of this subtle art to
enable him to go through the world with eclat.
Being once on a visit at an old lady's house, who
prided herself on the excellence of her cook, he
was requested to carve the bottom dish. On
being asked to help the old lady herself, he
addressed her thus : ' Pray, madam, how do you
LIFE OF MYTTON.
73
like it ? Here is some very much done,—some very
little done,—and some not done at all! On another
occasion, he was dining with an old gentleman
in Gloucestershire, who plumed himself on the
celebrity of his ale. On hearing that the
Chaplain was a Welshman, and reckoned a good
judge, he ordered a fresh cask to be tapped, and
pledged him in a bumper of it after his cheese.
No encomium being passed on it, the old gentle¬
man ventured to ask him how he liked his ale.
' Why, sir,' said the Chaplain, ' we should call it
very good small beer hi Wales!
"I have before observed, that the Halston
Chaplain can neither be compared to Maecenas
nor to Falstaff—being completely ' sui generis!
Some years since, however, he put me in mind
of a scene between the latter and his prince.
We had had rather a hard night at Halston, and
our host was taking a nap, at full length, on the
sofa. After looking at him for some time, his old
preceptor broke out into the following soliloquy:
' Only think, sir, what the Squire, with his abili¬
ties, might have been, and only see what he is!'
" On Sunday last, as is his usual custom after
the duties of the morning, the Chaplain entered
upon those of the evening, and took his place
behind the beef. Here, Lord Chesterfield him-
74
LIFE OF MYTTON.
self never displayed a better grace; for amid the
blaze and radiance of nine srold and three silver
cups—the fruits of some well-contested races—
his rosy face outshone them all; and it may be
said of him, without offence to any one, that he
is equally orthodox in the bottle as in the wood,
being a Christian at all times, and one of the
best-natured persons in the universe."
From my own experience of this extraordinary
character, I ccvuld fill a folio or two with his say¬
ings and doings, which were of the most ludicrous
order,—rendered doubly so by the easy, Epicur¬
ean temper of the man. For example, as he was
one Sunday proceeding on horseback to his
church, a leaf out of his sermon-book accom¬
panied his handkerchief, as he drew it from his
pocket, and, the wind being high at the time, it
was carried over the hedge into a field. " Mr
Owen! Mr Owen!" shouted an Oswestry trades¬
man, who was following him, " a leaf of your
sermon has flown over the hedge ; I'll get
it for you if you will stop."—"Don't trouble
yourself, sir," replied his reverence ; " P11 connect
it"
Then his account, related to myself, of his
lending an hundred pounds to a relation, and
which he had given up for lost, until the said
LIFE OF MYTTON.
75
relation came to spend three days with him, and
boasted of the flourishing state of his finances,
is worthy of being recorded.
" Of course he paid you ?" said I.
"Not a bit of it," replied the Chaplain ; "but
I '11 tell you how he served me. He got rather
more drunk than usual the last night, and, tak¬
ing my hand into his, thus expressed himself,—
' God bless you, Will; you are the only man in
the world that ever lent me a hundred pounds! "
His cousin, the "hunting, racing, cock-fighting
parson," once addressed him thus:—
" Will, I think I shall give you that living of
mine; it is of no use to me."
Will thanked him for his liberality, but hear¬
ing nothing further about the matter for a long
period of time, he ventured to refresh his memory,
when the following answer was returned :—
" Dear Will,—I have changed my mind
about giving you the living; I find it just keeps
my hounds
But, of course, the good Chaplain had in his
time to put up with some horse-play. Mytton
once pushed him into the fish-pool on their re¬
turn from church, as he also ducked Will Staples,
76
LIFE OF MYTTON.
the whipper-in, and Tinkler, his stud-groom. A
more serious matter, however, was when he laid
the wire of a spring-gun in Mr Owen's path on
his way to morning service ; the shock being so
great that the victim of " the joke " was unable
to meet his congregation.
The Chaplain did not long survive his friend
and patron: and it is generally believed that
the accumulated distresses, the fallen state, and
the miserable end of the one, accelerated the
death of the other. At all events, I am informed
that the words, " poor Mytton," were nearly the
last the Halston Chaplain uttered.
PART II.
WITH what extraordinary characters of
ancient and modern times would John
Mytton stand a comparison ? With Nero? Yes;
for Nero fiddled whilst Rome was burning, and
Mytton would have laughed had he seen Halston
in flames. But Nero murdered his mother, and
Mytton made a noble provision for his.* With
Timon of Athens? Yes, as a spendthrift; but
the one hated, and the other was kind to all
mankind. With Napoleon Bonaparte? Yes;
for his historian says of him, "Extreme agitation
was the basis of his existence; motion was his
repose; he lived in a hurricane, and fattened on
anxiety and care." But one drank coffee seven
times a day, and the other drank as many bottles
of port wine! With the poet Byron ? Yes, inas¬
much as each was at Harrow school, and each
fought eight pitched battles during the time he
remained there. With Savage, immortalised by
* He added ,£500 per annum to her jointure.
78
LIFE OF MYTTON.
his biographer, Johnson? Yes, as far as each
had a distinctive mark of genius and originality,
which ranks high amongst the qualities of the
human mind, and each was very deficient in the
to rrrpeirov. But one was chiefly known by his
poverty, his misfortunes, and his wit; the other
inherited riches, and might have set Fortune's
malice at defiance.
The strongest resemblance I can select is be¬
tween the characters of the celebrated Earl of
Rochester and the subject of this memoir;
although in the points on which they differ, the
balance is favourable to the latter. Let us select
the most prominent features, and see how far
they tally and in what they differ:—
Rochester's person was well shaped, and no
man showed more good breeding in society.
Ditto John Mytton.
Rochester thought his constitution was so
strong that nothing could hurt it. Ditto John
Mytton.
" Rochester," says Bishop Burnet, " had a vio¬
lent love of pleasure, and a disposition to extra¬
vagant mirth; the one involved him in great
sensuality, the other led him to many odd
adventures and frolics, in which he was often in
hazard of his life." Ditto John Mytton.
LIFE OF MYTTON.
79
Rochester was turned loose into the world at
a very early age, and so was John Mytton.
The one entered the navy, the other the Seventh
Hussars.
Rochester distinguished himself in an engage¬
ment Mytton was never in one.
Rochester once made himself a mountebank.
Mytton was always more or less one.
Rochester was drunk for five years continually.
Mytton beat him by seven.*
Rochester " pursued low amours, in mean dis¬
guises." Mytton, in proprid persona, seldom
pursued any other.
Rochester slunk away from his friend in a
street-row. Mytton would rather have remained
to have been pummelled to death.
The Duke of Buckingham left it on record
that Rochester refused to fight him. Mytton
was never put to that test.
Rochester wrote libels in which he did not
stick to truth. ' Mytton never said ill-natured
things, much less published them.
Rochester was eminent for the vigour of his
* I am sorry to say one of his oldest friends, and a regular
" pot-companion," made an affidavit—to serve a certain purpose
—that he (Mytton) had been drunk for twelve successive years 1
I think it would have been better that he had had recourse tc
the "Hon mi ricordo•"
8o
LIFE OF MYTTON.
colloquial wit. Mytton was deaf, and therefore
could not shine in conversation. He dealt,
chiefly, in practical jokes.
Rochester is mentioned by Wood as the best
scholar of all the nobility. Mytton might have
harangued an Athenian mob, if he had gone
steadily through Harrow or Westminster school.
Burnet says, " Rochester played many wild
frolics, which it is not for his honour that we
should remember." Ditto John Mytton.
Burnet " touched as tenderly as occasion
would bear" Rochester's faults. Mytton's
spiritual adviser never -touched his at all, if
he could avoid it.
The good Bishop tells us, Dr Balfour " drew
Rochester to read such books as were most
likely to bring him back to love learning and
study." Mytton's tutor recommended the Racing
Calendar and the Stud Book; nevertheless, he
was well read in the classics, though perhaps
not so well as Rochester was. The natural
talent of each was excellent; each was generous
and kind-hearted ; and " video meliora, proboque ;
deteriora sequor—" I see what is better, and
approve it; but follow what is worse,"—would
have been a suitable motto for both. But
Rochester was profane, which Mytton never was.
LIFE OF MYTTON.
81
But I must draw this parallel to a close.
Rochester was charitable to the poor and kind
to his servants; so was Mytton—perhaps to a
still greater degree.
Rochester made himself mad with drink.
Ditto John Mytton. Was not the best of
husbands. Ditto John Mytton. Trusted to a
death-bed repentance. Ditto John Mytton.
Promised to amend his life if he recovered from
his severe illness. So did Old Nick—at least
so the story goes; but John Mytton never
promised what he did not think he should per¬
form. The one exhausted his life at the age
of thirty-three, and the other at thirty-eight;
and although both entered the vineyard at nearly
the eleventh hour — for sackcloth and ashes
suited neither of their tastes—they both died in
penitence and prayer.
Mr Mytton's amours, like Jupiter's, are too
numerous for recital; yet, having been for the
most part of the lowest description, they were
chiefly injurious only to himself, and had nothing
to do with the heart.* But there was this
* One evening in a Chester race week he once managed to
handcuff two girls on the pretence of trying on a pair of
bracelets he had just purchased, and then left them in the
'' couples " to be laughed at.
F
82
LIFE OF MYTTON.
peculiarity in them : I am quite sure Mr Mytton
never attempted the wife of a friend—no, nor
even his mistress! Each would have been as
safe in his hands as the beautiful captive was in
those of Scipio, or the wife and daughters of
Darius in the tent of Alexander the Great.
Indeed, I never heard of his laying siege to the
virtue of any woman ; but if in the market, he
was sure to be the best bidder; and I fear I
must own that he once or twice took it by storm.
Some of his offers for capitulation, however,
were truly ridiculous, though all in character
with the man. For example, he once wrote a
note to a certain celebrated singer, whom he had
only seen for half-an-hour, at a musical festival,
requesting the honour of an interview the next
day, and enclosing a check at sight on the
Oswestry bank for five hundred guineas ! The
lady—who, all the world knows, would have
been quite satisfied with a ten-pound note—™•
having luckily never heard either of John Mytton
or the Oswestry bank, returned the note with
its valuable contents. This reminds me of the
following lines in a poem called " The Passions,"
-—a fair specimen of heterogeneous bathos:—
" Human appetites how strong,
When love exults on fancy's fairy plains,
Or hunger views the mutton at the fire /"
LIFE OF MYTTON.
83
His popularity, independently of family
associations, and recollection of ages long since
gone by; the dashing personal character, and
extreme and unaffected good-humour of the late
Squire of Halston ; together with his fox-hounds,
his race-horses, his game, his wine, his ale, and
many other things besides,—rendered him ex¬
tremely popular in Shropshire; and if he had
but been possessed of a fair share of the to
'rrpeirov, so much esteemed by the ancients, and
so expressive of that exterior propriety of con¬
duct in the common intercourse of life, which the
world is very unwilling to dispense with, he
might have represented the county of Salop in
Parliament as long as he liked to have done so ;
it being the general opinion, that almost all the
independent freeholders would have supported
him. But this is the class of all others who dis¬
like seeing a gentleman sink in the social scale ;
and when I was last in Shropshire, I was sorry to
find my old friend's popularity was on the wane.
His honour and his honesty were still unsul¬
lied ; his heart was as kind as it had ever been ;
but the nearly constant state of intoxication in
which he lived was, I could perceive, become
somewhat insufferable to his oldest friends.
Neither was this the worst. His associating
84
LIFE OF MYTTON.
himself with a late well-known sporting character,
immeasurably inferior to himself in every possible
point of view, gave the finishing blow. And
who can wonder at it ? for it must have been
not only repulsive to good taste, but extremely
mortifying to his friends, to see Mr Mytton of
Halston, with his natural talents and accomplish¬
ments, to say nothing of his connections, making
a bosom friend of a man who had once filled the
honourable post of a waterman to a hackney-
coach stand! But there are moral as well as
fabulous Actaeons in this world, who are surely
devoured by objects of their own choosing; and
here we have an instance of it In what way,
however, can we account for a mind that had
tasted the learning and elegance of Athens and
Rome finding itself at ease in such an unsuitable
association ? Why, only by its being reduced
to a state of perfect apathy and imbecility by
the repetition of vicious and debilitating indul¬
gences.
There is but one excuse for a man being al¬
most perpetually intoxicated, and prostituting
the reason of the man to the appetite of the
brute; and that is, the attempt to divert grief
which he has found it impossible to subdue.
As a balm for wounds which can never heal, or
LIFE OF MYTTON.
85
under the accumulated pressure of pecuniary-
difficulties, the bottle will be resorted to so long
as the world shall stand ; and who can condemn
the wretch that tries the experiment ? But the
subject of this memoir had not such excuses to
plead for his excess in drinking; neither will I
endeavour to find them for him. It was, how¬
ever, to him the Circean cup—the bane of his
respectability, his health, his happiness, and
everything that was dear to him as a man and a
gentleman; and can this be marvelled at ? It
is written of Hercules, that he acquired his im¬
mense strength by feeding on the marrow of
lions ; and how powerful must have been the
stimulus of the almost unheard-of quantity of
from four to six bottles of port wine daily, on
that volcanic excitability of mind which was, not
only by nature, Mr Mytton's, but which had been
acted upon, and increased, by a severe affection
of the brain at an early period of life! Thus,
then, although I offer no excuse for his drink¬
ing, his drinking—for men are tried by wine, says
the proverb, as metals are by fire—furnishes ex¬
cuses, I should rather have said apologies, for his
conduct, inasmuch as his reason was, to a certain
extent, lost in delirium, caused by the fumes of
wine on an already somewhat distempered brain
86
LIFE OF MYTTON.
Many of his acts were not the acts of John
Mytton, but of a man mad, half by nature, and half
by wine; and I think his best and dearest friends
are decidedly of my opinion.
From this account of its host, it may be sup¬
posed that Halston was a scene of general dis¬
sipation and riot. By no means. In short, I
cannot bring to my recollection a single instance
of being one of what may be termed a drunken
party during my frequent visits to the house.
But this is accounted for in more ways than
one. The host had always the start of his
friends, in the first place ; and in the next, long
sittings were not in accordance with.his restless
disposition. In the summer, he would jump out
of the window, and be off. In the winter, he
was anxious to get to the billiard-table, which
was always lighted up after coffee, for the
amusement of himself and his friends ; and here
he was in his element. How then, it may be
asked, did he consume that quantity of port
wine? Why this question is easily answered.
He shaved with a bottle of it on his toilet; he
worked steadily at it throughout the day, by a
glass or two at a time, and at least a bottle with
his luncheon ; and the after-dinner and after-
supper work—not losing sight of it in the bil-
LIFE OF MYTTON.
87
liard-room—completed the Herculean task. No
wonder, then, that Alexander the Great has
been called a " fool to him " in his Bacchanalian
feats ; at all events, he would have been a good
playfellow for him at Persepolis; or that—as
Cicero said of Piso—" his breath smelt like a
vintner's vault." He is, however, a memorable
example of the comparatively harmless effects
of very good wine, which he always had, and just
of a proper age—about eight years old—for,
assisted by exercise, such as he took, it was
many years before it injured him. But, alas !
wine at length lost its charms ; brandy—which
he was a stranger to when I was last at Halston
—was substituted, and the constitution of John
Mytton, perhaps the hardest ever bestowed upon
man, was not proof against that.*
But away, for a moment, with all recollection
of his ill doings, and let us move onwards to¬
wards his good ones; for it is a loss to mankind
when good actions are forgotten. Be assured,
* It would be absurd to offer apology for these remarks,
after the inquest on the body of my departed friend, which
went the round of the newspapers. Besides, my object being
to rescue his memory from imputations that lie against it, and in
some cases, not unjustly, it is in mercy—a dreadful alternative,
I admit—that I exhibit him to the world as both a drunkard
and a madman.
88
LIFE OF MYTTON.
reader, whoever you may be, that if all the kind
good, and charitable acts which poor, drunken,
mad John Mytton performed, were placed in
counterpoise to his bad ones, it would be more
than man dared to say which side might kick
the beam. At all events, like charity, they
would weigh heavily to his credit; and it is con¬
soling to his friends to reflect, that although
great part of that fine property he once pos¬
sessed has passed away to others, and the too
liberal possessor of it is in his grave, those deeds
still remain with him. Man, it is true, is natur¬
ally a beneficent creature ; but be the benefit he
confers never so great, the manner of conferring
it is the noblest part; and in allusion to my
friend, let me illustrate this by one simple
fact:—
When Mr Mytton was at Calais, only a few
months before his death, he chanced to be in a
silversmith's shop, when a French soldier entered
it, with a watch in his hand, which he said he
wished to dispose of for the benefit of a sick
comrade, who wanted some farther comforts
than a barrack afforded. On the silversmith
objecting to the price demanded, Mr Mytton
threw down the money and took up the watch.
" Merciez, Monsieur" said the soldier, and some-
LIFE OF MYTTON.
89
thing else besides, expressive of his grateful
feelings. "Take this to your comrade, also"
said Mytton, placing the watch in his hand.
" Aht Monsieur Anglais !" exclaimed the man,
" que vous dirai-je ? " *
Mytton replied, "RiEN."f Remember, reader!
this was not in his golden days, when money
was as dross; it was one of the last acts of a
noble soul, performed out of almost the last of
the wreck of a splendid income.
The sentimental Sterne would have made a
pathetic story out of this little incident, whereas
I shall leave it to speak for itself; but Mytton
felt what Sterne only made others feel : neither
does the difference between them rest here. The
one is said to have whined over a dead ass, and
starved a living mother. The other would have
laughed at the dead donkey — perhaps have
ridden him to death—but he settled a handsome
annuity on his mother! Such instances, how¬
ever, are of very ancient date ; Aristides prac¬
tised what Cato only preached.
Another instance of his excessive philanthropy
and over-generous, all-forgiving temper, occurs
to me at this moment, which I may here intro-
* What shall I say to you i
+ Nothing.
9°
LIFE OF MYTTON.
duce, though perhaps not without somewhat
retrograding in my arrangement.
As I was passing through Shrewsbury, some
years back, on my road to Halston, I saw a ser¬
vant of his in the town, and asked him if he had
accompanied his master. " I have left Mr
Mytton's service, sir," said the man. " How
so ? " ooserved I, with surprise, knowing him to
have been a favourite servant. His answer was,
that in an evil hour he had been induced to
alter a figure in a bill of Mr Lucas, the veteri¬
nary surgeon at Atherstone, who had attended
one of his master's horses, and it having been
discovered by the agent, he had been discharged.
The morning after I arrived at Halston, I was
told there was a person wanted to speak with
me in the stable-yard, and there stood John,
with a very sorrowful countenance. His object
was to induce me to intercede for him with his
master; and just as I was in the act of discuss¬
ing the point, Mr Mytton made his appearance.
John protested it was the only instance of his
dishonesty (and, indeed, the man bore an excel¬
lent character, having lived nine years previously
with a clergyman in Shropshire) ; and that he
should not have thought of committing it but
for a certain ostler on the road, who persuaded
LIFE OF MYTTON.
9I
him to it; and was about to proceed in the same
supplicating manner, when Mytton seized him
by the collar, and giving him one of his horse¬
like kicks, told him to go into the servants' hall
and put on his livery again. John cared nothing
for the kick ; but on a very strong remonstrance
from the agent—who, indeed, went so far as to
say he should throw up his agency if such con¬
duct were passed over—John was once more
drafted from Halston servants' hall. Mytton's
own notions of a good servant were somewhat
peculiar. In once hiring a keeper he did not go
so much upon character and experience as the
applicant's ability to thrash a certain sweep
that was in the habit of trespassing in the Hal¬
ston covers. A trial was accordingly agreed to,
and the new man put upon the watch. In due
course, the sweep made his appearance, and
after a long fight was well licked. The keeper's
engagement was ratified forthwith, as the sweep
was thoroughly satisfied—and the sweep was
Mytton himself.
I conceive no one knew the limits of Mr
Mytton's natural talents. No doubt they werv.
excellent; and if, instead of having been pro¬
strated to the excess of wine, and its concomi¬
tant dissipation, they had been cultivated and
92
LIFE OF MYTTON.
improved to the utmost, they might have en¬
abled him to have cut a figure in the senate or
as a scholar. He read with unusual rapidity,
and evidently retained what he did read ; for his
literary acquisitions were surprising, considering
the life of tumult he had lead. He had always
a quotation at hand from a Greek or Latin
author, and there was a conscious feeling of
ability about him, which he was somewhat wont
to display. But what says the poet ?
" Without a genius learning soars in vain,
And without learning, genius sinks again;
Their force united crowns the sprightly reign."
And here was this union wanting. He also
wrote his letters, to use a sporting figure, at the
rate of twenty miles in the hour, generally at
his dinner-table, sending them out by his butler
to be sealed, and very often to be directed, for
he never had a secret in his life; and the letters
he received remained for general inspection. I
regret not having one of them to transcribe;
but his off-hand addresses to his constituents,
during his first contest for Shrewsbury, in 1819,
were particularly neat and appropriate, and
were sent to the press before the ink with which
they were written was dry. How much, then,
is it to be lamented, that a man who had such
LIFE OF MYTTON.
93
resources for spending his life in the pleasantest,
as well as the most honourable occupations,
should have thus abused his mental powers, and
subjected himself to misery of any kind beyond
that which is common to all; and that repose
and retirement, the secret wish of mankind,
should by him have been considered valueless,
if not irksome !
I may here reproduce some specimens of Mr
Mytton's off-hand style of writing, in two of his
addresses to the Freeholders of Salop, on his
last unsuccessful attempt to become one of their
representatives in 1831 ; but they fall far short
of the others both in matter and style. In fact
they bear evidence of a mind in decay, and sink¬
ing with the general wreck.
ADDRESS (No. 1).—1831.
"To the Freeholders of the County of Salop.
" GENTLEMEN,—Domestic affliction of no slight
or common nature has latterly limited my inter¬
course with you. My wishes for the prosperity
of my native County have ever in absence held
their usual sway. Having once had the honour
of representing your County Town in Parliament;
94
LIFE OF MYTTON.
feeling that various avocations precluded the
conscientious performance of my duty to my
Constituents, I declined the representation at
the dissolution of that Parliament. I have now
no wife—no family—no hounds—no horses—
(some will say, no steadiness of purpose)—but
feeling that I can devote myself to your service,
should you honour me with your support and
confidence, I venture to offer myself to your
notice as a Candidate for the County, totally
unshackled by prejudice or otherwise, and a
strenuous advocate for Reform.
" Relying upon the strength of the cause I
shall advocate, I throw myself upon your favour,
and shall assuredly take the sense of the County.
I shall look to the vote of every independent
Freeholder. Without making further professions,
"Your faithful friend and servant,
"John Mytton.
*** " Peculiar private business may prevent
my personal attendance, but I look upon it as a
favourable omen, knowing that when absent you
are best remembered.
" May 4IL, 1831."
LIFE OF MYTTON.
95
ADDRESS (No. 2).
" Friends ! Men of Salop,—In declining
3 o
longer to continue the unequal contest in which
I am embarked, I trust you will not consider
my word forfeited. I have (and I trust with
your approbation) come forward to assert the
rights of freemen, and to break the bonds of
tyranny asunder!
" Show yourselves the proud Salopians !
" Gentlemen, I pledge myself to come forward
at the next Election for this great County, which
I have already shaken to its foundation by my
attempt to assert its independence, which shall
be maintained with the vigour of a tiger and the
courage of a lion ! Let your voice, as the falls
of Niagara, rush in force, and with the greatest
velocity bear the fragile barks of corruption
(which of necessity must be destroyed) to some
land, perhaps at present unknown, but let them
not be borne to the shores of Britain.
"I have asked no advice,—much has been
offered, and maturely weighed, during the con¬
test ; but, Gentlemen, did I not feel myself
capable, upon reflection, of duly considering
any subject which may fall under my notice, I
should feel myself unworthy of looking for your
96
LIFE OF MYTTON.
approval. I came forth uncalled for, unpro¬
tected by any great interest; I retire from this
contest in confidence of victory in future; I
adopt one line of conduct, and from that I
will not swerve.
" My thanks for the unbought Votes of nearly
Four Hundred Honest Men are gratefully
tendered to them ;—the cause of Freedom in
our devoted County will assume a brighter com¬
plexion.
" Gentlemen,—You will find me at my post,
the first moment that a Reformed Parliament
will allow it. My reception among you has
indeed been proud; I beg to thank you for that
exhibition of sincerely popular feeling in my
favour, so strongly and so universally evinced.
" I tender my best thanks to the Ladies for
the smiles I have witnessed. Let me now en¬
treat of you to allow the proceedings of Monday
to pass without riot or disturbance, as it would
only entail disgrace upon the cause I advocate.
"I am, Gentlemen,
"Your Servant,
"John Mytton.
" Shrewsbury, May iqth, 1831."
LIFE OF MYTTON.
97
Nor are the two following squibs by any means
amiss. But Mr Mytton's chance to represent his
native county was slight indeed, having only
polled 311 votes ; the "proud Salopians," much
to their credit, not by any means approving of
the degrading association with which they per¬
ceived him to be leagued. There was a time, as
I have already said, when he would have cut a
very different figure on the poll.
" MYTTON AND BEARDSWORTH.
"Arrived last week in this Town, an old broken-
down Racer, from the ' Union Repository,' Bir¬
mingham, with two black Legs, fresh fired and
blistered. He is attended by an old Groom,
grown gray in the service, who has jockeyed him,
unbridled, through many unlucky courses,
and who, having lately considerably lightened
his weight, flatters himself he will Reform his
style of running. The old Horse starts for the
County Stakes this week ; to be run for on the
Quarry Course. The odds are 500 to one against
him ; nevertheless the Brums (i.e., Brummagems)
are in high spirits, he being backed by a few re¬
spectable branches of the MoB-ility here. Gen¬
tlemen are recommended not to go too near the
G
98
LIFE OF MYTTON.
Horse, he being vicious and apt to kick. It is
understood, that should he not win, the Pro¬
prietor will take the Horse back with him to
Birmingham, thinking to work him in a slow
Coach and 'black jobs,' until he is fit for the
knacker.
" Shrewsbury, May gth, 1831."
"A REFORM CANDIDATE'S SPEECH.
"Yes ! gentlemen, upon my soul,
I thank you much for what you've done:
Though at the bottom of the poll,
I've too much ' Bottom ' yet to run.
" I told you all, when first I came,
You'd not find me the man to shirk ;
To play on—now I've lost the game,
Does seem like devilish up-HlLL work.*
" Reform's my vessel, mann'd by Brums,
Who hoist me for their ' Union Jack ;'
She '11 fight till Captain Beardsworth comes
To steer her on some other tack.
" Yes! he has nail'd me to the mast,
Without a rag of CANVASS going ;
* Sir Rowland Hill, Bart., was the successful candidate-
LIFE OF MYTTON.
99
And though we ARE capsized at last,
The Captain 'raised the wind' that's blow¬
ing."*
It is a great accomplishment to be able to
tell a story well, but here Mr Mytton did not
succeed. In the first place, his sense of hearing
was deficient—a great disadvantage in society.
In the next, it was often difficult to determine
whether he were in earnest or in jest, so fond
was he of acting a part in the comedy of life.
Again, he was very epigrammatic in his dis¬
course, his sentences containing few words, and
often leaving his hearers to guess what he really
meant. All, however, was in the essence of
good-humour; and a more inoffensive com¬
panion, in the strict acceptation of that term, no
man with his flow of spirits could possibly be.
If, in the moment of convivial mirth, he let slip
a word which he feared might wound the feel¬
ings of any person, he instantly made reparation,
nor would he rest satisfied until it was fully
acknowledged and atoned for. It is warmth of
heart like this that distinguishes the friend from
the companion, and assimilates friendship to
* It is said that Beardsworth appeared on the hustings with
a bank-note, oi large amount, pinned on his breast.
IOO
LIFE OF MYTTON.
love. As to his politics, although he once was
in Parliament, it would be absurd in me to
attempt to decide what they were, for, during
all the years I was acquainted with him, I never
once heard him give an opinion upon the sub¬
ject. It always struck me as not one of the
maddest of his own acts, but certainly of his
friends who encouraged him, to spend ten thou¬
sand pounds to obtain a seat in Parliament, in
which he is said to have only sat half-an-hour,
and to the duties of which he was by nature
and habits utterly unfitted. I have reason, how¬
ever, to believe—for I never interrogated him—
he was what is termed a Church-and-king man ;
in other words, at that period, a Tory. But on
this subject he was also full of his jokes. For
example, he had a famous race-horse called
Anti-Radical; " but," said he, when speaking of
him, " I always call him Radical when he runs
at Manchester."
Without appearing to care about it, or ever
boasting of his success, Mr Mytton was the best
farmer in his part of the county, occupying
between three and four hundred acres of land.
Strange to say, at one of the Shropshire
agricultural meetings he gained every prize for
clean crops of grain save one, a field of barley;
LIFE OF MYTTON.
101
his claim for which was rejected from a cause
highly typical of the man,—it was found to
contain "wild oats!" As may be supposed,
the report of the judge was the subject of much
merriment to the company. His planting, as I
before observed, was on a still larger scale—his
object having been twofold ; first, to replace the
fine old timber, which he must have been aware
would one day or other fall under the axe;*
and, secondly, to form cover for the game, which,
of course, he was resolved should exceed that of
any other man in the country, and no doubt it
did.
As a general sportsman, few made themselves
more conspicuous than Mr Mytton did. He
was many years a master of fox-hounds (having
kept a pack of harriers from his boyhood), but
his fox-hounds were not of a very high character.
In fact, to produce perfection in a kennel requires
qualities the very reverse of his, namely, circum¬
spection, perseverance, and patience. The estab¬
lishment, as might be expected, with himself at
the head of it, was on a fully competent scale;
* A well-known auctioneer at Shrewsbury said of him, at a
very eariy period of his career, with a fatal gift of prophecy,
" lie '11 put the haxe to the hoaks and the hash."
102
LIFE OF MYTTON.
consisting of two distinct packs of hounds, and
from twenty-five to twenty-eight horses. On
Mr Cresset Pelham relinquishing them, in 1817,
he commenced hunting the Shropshire and
Shififnal (now called Albrighton) countries five
days a week; and continued to do so, with a
fair share of sport, until the close of the season
1821 inclusive, making five seasons in all. His
huntsman was John Crags (killed by a fall from
a restive horse in the stable-yard at Halston),
assisted by Edward Bates, son of Sir Richard
Puleston's huntsman of that name, and Richard
Jones, both very excellent horsemen, and good
men in their places. When he had the Shiffnal
country, which he hunted alternately with his
own, his kennel was at Ivetsy Bank, on the old
Chester road, and he used frequently to ride
from Halston to covers even beyond Ivetsy to
meet his hounds, and return home to dinner,—
making upwards of eighty miles on the road;
and he was known to do this on two successive
days. But the best runs Mr Mytton's hounds
ever had were from covers in his own neighbour¬
hood, with wild travelling foxes that came down
from the Welsh hills. His first pack showed
fair sport, and were not more unsteady than
others I could name. He either sold the greater
LIFE OF MYTTON.
103
part of these hounds, or more likely, lost them
in a match at billiards with an Irish gentleman.
Mr Mytton subsequently purchased another
pack of fox-hounds from Mr Newman, of
Hornchurch, Essex, which he hunted himself,
about Halston, for several successive years,
making up, by foxes purchased in London, for
the confined country to which he was restricted.
I remember, during this second term of it, once
visiting the Halston kennel in company with
Sir Bellingham Graham, where we saw about
thirty couples of hounds. What to call them I
know not; some were as big as my yard-dog,
and here and there a neat little bitch ; and
whether to call them fox-hounds, harriers or
stag-hounds, would take a better judge than me.
This was all very well; but we were next
favoured with another sight not quite so favour¬
able to Sir Bellingham. This was no less than
five brace of foxes to be turned out before this
nondescript pack, a brace of which I subsequently
saw " shook " before them. But the preparation
for this business was not so bad. In the evening,
as we were sitting over our wine, the butler
announced that Mr Tinkler, the stud-groom,
was in waiting. " Send him up," said Mr
Mytton : and Mr Tinkler appeared.
LIFE OF MYTTON.
Tinkler. "What horses will be wanted to¬
morrow, sir ?"
Mr Mytton. " All."
Tinkler. " No, sir, not all, surely ! "
Mr Mytton. " Every one."
Tinkler. " Not the little gray horse, sir ! His
back gets very narrow."
Mr Mytton. " So much the better. I hate a
fat horse."
Tinkler. " Not the brown horse you had from
Sir Bellingham ; his legs begin to get very
round."
Mr Mytton. " That is the very reason why I
will ride him, as it will make them fine."
Tinkler. " Not the Hit-or-Miss mare; you
will want her for the Cheshire."
Mr Mytton. " It will put her in wind."
Remonstrance was in vain. Every horse was
saddled, and the Squire, his three whippers,
with Tom Whitehouse, his jockey, were all
mounted on the best horses in the stud.
I cannot describe our arrival at the covert; I
cannot speak of the hound that " spoke to him
in the gorse ; " I cannot even attempt to describe
the crash when he broke from the covert ; but
—from the inside of a wicker basket with a lid
to it—(oh ! how tame, how languidly does my
LIFE OF MYTTON.
105
pen move over my paper as I write it) !—away
sneaked as fine a fox as ever wore a brush, and
certainly afforded us a very fine run of an hour,
when he fell a victim to the pack, which, I must
say, hunted him well.
Nothing is to be done in Shropshire without
a luncheon ; but, on this day, we had two—first,
at the Inn at Ellesmere, after our run ; and,
secondly, at the house of a very respectable
yeoman, by the name of Wynne (of Criketh),
where the second fox was in waiting. The
second luncheon, however, saved this fox's life;
for, after the usual law was given him, and I
was in the act of mounting my horse, Mr
Wynne came out to me and said, the Squire
proposed one other bumper toast, which he
hoped I would return and drink. The hounds
were then laid on ; but though they were sober,
the faculty of smell had deserted them, and they
never touched upon their game. The exertions
of their huntsman, the Squire himself, however,
were great. Mounted upon Magnet, with his
horn in his mouth, and at three parts speed, he
made his casts with the rapidity of a shaw ; but
one peculiarity attended them. If the fence
into one field was larger than that into another,
that field was preferred—not as most likely to
io6
LIFE OF MYTTON.
hit off his fox, but as most likely to floor some
of his field, who, with his three whippers and
Tom Whitehouse, were hard at his brush. As
the pace was quick, and the country heavy, I was
beginning to calculate upon how long the nags
would live without a check, when an accident
occurred that put a stop to all. A hare got up
in view, which every hound followed into Sir
Edward Kynaston's plantations, and thus ended
the morning's sport. When he again gave up,
these hounds were sold for somewhere about
the value of their skins; nor was this to be
wondered at, when we remember the tricks that
had been played with them.
I could never discover whether or not Mr
Mytton was at heart a sportsman—that is to
say, whether or not he enjoyed seeing his hounds
at work, beyond the mere pleasure any Master
might feel at the finish of a good run ; when,
although he himself had little enough of that
infirmity in his composition, his vanity might be
flattered. I never heard him cheer an individual
hound when drawing or in chase ; nor, with the
exception of Hudibras, had he any favourite
hound, as most Masters have ; neither did he
know the names of all the hounds in his kennel.
This last assertion, however, requires some
LIFE OF MYTTON. \Of
qualification. He would tell his friends he did
not know their names, but whether such was
really the case I cannot take upon myself to
say, knowing his disposition on trifling matters
to disguise his real sentiments.
As a horseman I need say little of Mr Mytton,
his merits having been proclaimed in every
county in which he had hunted. In fact, taking
him at everything, he had not many equals, and
very few superiors in the saddle, for he could
ride over a course as well as over a country.
His prodigious strength was of great service to
his horses, in proof of which they very seldom
tired with him ; and, making allowance for the
seemingly impracticable fences he would ride at,
he got but few falls. Considering his hard usage
of them also, he was fortunate in his stud,
several of his horses lasting many seasons ; and
his famous little horse, Baronet, carried him nine
seasons with hounds, after he had used him as a
charger in the Hussars ! He had his portrait
painted on this horse, having his horn in his
hand, and the hound Hudibras at his side.
Baronet was a mean-looking horse with only
one eye; but Nature had made amends for that
in giving him more than one life, or he would
never have survived the last seven years that he
io8
LIFE OF MYTTON.
was in Mr Mytton's possession. He may be
said to have been as stout as steel; and if there
was rank amongst brutes, this Baronet should
have been raised to the peerage. Having, how¬
ever, mentioned this gallant animal in connection
with his hard-riding master in my "Crack Riders
of England," I will here quote what I there said
of both. In speaking of the master, I say,
" There is no man better entitled to a place
amongst hard—ay, desperate—riders to hounds
than Mr Mytton is, and a welter ■ weight too.
But how is it that he can come under the latter
denomination who, ten or twelve years back,
was riding amongst the gentlemen jockeys tmder
twelve stone ? The question .is best answered by
the fact of his having been, by the aid of excess
in good living, upwards of fifteen, with his
saddle, for some years past; and I think Sir
Bellingham Graham will confirm the truth of
my assertion, that he was nothing short of that
weight, on his capital Hit-or-Miss mare, when
he so distinguished himself in that famous run
with his (Sir Bellingham's) hounds, of an hour
and forty minutes, from Babinswood, in Shrop¬
shire. But it has not been in this run, nor in
that run, in one country or in another country,
that Mytton has made himself signal ; and yet
LIFE OF MYTTON.
109
I might hazard an imputation on my veracity
were I to recount all the extraordinary deeds of
this most extraordinary man in various situa¬
tions with hounds. Indeed, adding the hazards
for his neck that he has encountered in the field
to those to which he has subjected himself else¬
where, the most extraordinary thing after all is,
that he is at this moment in existence. How¬
ever, confining my remarks to his riding, I am
bound to pronounce him one of the most daring
horsemen that ever came under my eye ; and I
must likewise add, that, all things considered,
he has had fewer falls, and tired fewer horses in
chase, than his larking and desperate system of
crossing countries would warrant the expecta¬
tion of. But this has been attributable to the
immense muscular powers of the man ; to a sort
of iron grasp by which he holds his horses in
his hand at all times, and upon all occasions,
which, let your 'slack-rein gentlemen say what
they may, is no small support to a horse going
his (Mytton's) pace over a country, and particu¬
larly over the uneven surface, the deep ditches,
and blind grips of his own county, Shropshire.
Indeed, when I last met him, I asked him
whether it had ever been his fate so to tire a
hunter as not to be able to ride him home, when
no
LIFE OF MYTTON,
he declared he never recollected having done
so. As to the height and width of fences which
have been ridden over by him, I repeat, I am
afraid to recapitulate them ; but I have very re¬
spectable attestation to my having once mea¬
sured a brook* that he rode Baronet over,
in cold blood, in my presence, on our way
home from hunting, and found it exceed, by
some inches, nine yards from hind-foot to hind-
foot ! He afterwards backed Baronet to clear
nine yards over hurdles placed at some distance
from each other ; but he performed the task so
often with him before the appointed time, that
the horse then refused it, and lost his master's
money. In Lord Bradford's park he cleared
one of his Lordship's deer-hurdles, upwards of
six feet high ; and, what is more surprising, he
covered the space of eight yards in length at the
same time. This was accomplished on a horse
called the Hero, which he purchased of me for
500 guineas, and was the same that leaped the
gate with him in Mr Jellico's grounds in Shrop¬
shire, the height of which was seven feet. But
far from pleasing reflections are the result of
looking back upon these brilliant feats of horse-
* The Perry, which runs through the Halston estate.
LIFE OF MYTTON.
Ill
manship, rarely excelled by any one. On the
contrary, we cannot help lamenting that a per¬
son so gifted to shine in the field, as Mr Myt-
ton proved himself to be, should not have taken
more care to preserve, unimpaired, the almost
unequalled natural powers which he possessed,
—so essential to the figure he made."
Nothing need be better than the shooting at
Halston was ; every species of game having
abounded, as the following facts will prove.
The average annual slaughter was,—twelve
hundred brace of pheasants, from fifteen
hundred to two thousand hares, partridges out
of number ! We have turned into the preserves
after luncheon, where the pheasants were as
thick as sparrows at a barn-door and the hares
running about like rabbits. The team consisted
(not of highly broken pointers, but) of four
keepers and three stable-boys, who kept singing
out as the pheasants got up,—" cock—hen—cock
—hen—cock—hen?' Pheasants and hares were
of course slaughtered in abundance ; but don't
let us call this sporting. There was also a good
deal of wild fowl, and very excellent fishing.
Mr Mytton always made a point of killing fifty
brace of partridges the first day of the season
with his own gun ; and I was once at Halston
112
LIFE OF MYTTON.
when he killed that number further on in the
year. A neighbouring gentleman had betted
him fifty guineas against the performance, but
paid forfeit over night. This, however, did not
satisfy the Squire. H*is fame as a shot was
called in question ; so he went forth with his
keepers, and performed the task in about six
hours!
Barring Scotland, few gentlemen had better
moors than Mr Mytton had ; and when I say
that the annual income of his Merionethshire
estate, on which they were, was £800, and that
it consisted of little less than sheep-walk, its
great extent may be imagined, and, consequently,
the extent of the moors. Thirty brace of grouse
was the average daily amount bagged during his
annual visit to Mowddy—or, Mouthy, as it is
pronounced—where he had comfortable accom¬
modations for himself and three or four friends.
The right of free warren likewise gave him
liberty over his neighbours' property, to a cer¬
tain extent, and Mowddy itself is one of the few
manors to be found in North Wales. The
fishing here is likewise of the first description,
and the mountain scenery not to be surpassed in
the Principality. But alas ! although the moun¬
tains will stand fast till time shall be no more
LIFE OF MYTTON.
113
this ancient patrimony has passed into other
hands.
But to return for a moment to Halston, and
the feats of the trigger of the late owner of it
and his friends. Amongst them, the following
may not very easily be exceeded. His brother-
in-law, Mr Walter Giffard, of Chillington,
Staffordshire, afterwards Master of the Albrigh-
ton fox-hounds, and himself, took the field at
eleven o'clock in the forenoon of a short and
dirty winter s day, and between that hour and
the dinner-hour they bagged 600 head of game
from their own guns! To decide a match of
100 guineas a side, he and Mr Giffard, on
another of the " short days before Christmas,"
killed 430 head of game, 333 of which were
pheasants ; and their two opponents 424 head,
all in the Halston preserves. On another
occasion, an intimate friend of his and mine,
together with himself, killed a head of game
every three minutes for five successive hours !
I state this " in verbo sacerdotis," so that the
fact may be relied upon, but I withhold the
reverend slaughterer's name.
It always appeared to me, however, that
racing was more Mr Mytton's passion than
either shooting or hunting; and could he have
H
ii4
LIFE OF MYTTON.
been divested of that destroying spirit which
accompanied him, he might have cut a very
conspicuous figure on what might be called the
country turf. He had the courage to purchase
good horses,—for example, he gave three thou¬
sand guineas for Longwaist—and his never-
failing memory enabled him to measure their
ability by that of others in a manner that turned
to his account. Previously, indeed, to the loss
of his trainer and rider, William Dunn—who
was killed by a fall in riding one of his horses at
Chester*—he had his full share of success ; but
it appeared to forsake him gradually after that
period. The fact was, Dunn was not only an
excellent trainer and rider, but he had some
power over his master to restrain his running
his horses to a stand still, which he would do, if
left to his own discretion, and more for the sake
of showing sport than from desire to win money.
The sideboard at Halston exhibited thirteen
gold cups besides two silver ones, several of
which were the trophies of one horse—the
celebrated Euphrates, who, like one of the old
* This was in 1822, when Dunn was riding a three-year-
old colt, called Mallet. The famous jockey, William Scot,
rode, and also fell, in the same race, but sustained no material
injury.
LIFE OF MYTTON.
115
sort (now become very scarce), continued run¬
ning and winning to his thirteenth year ! The
expenses of his stud, however, must have been
enormous ; not only by consequence of its num¬
ber, but his subscriptions to stakes amounted to
an immense annual sum. He seldom refused to
subscribe to any that were put before him, and
the name of "John Mytton" often appeared as
many as six times to the same race. Of the
science of breeding race-horses he knew little or
nothing ; and the richness of the land at Hal-
ston proved a fatal obstacle to success.
His good nature and kind-heartedness accom¬
panied him everywhere, and particularly to the
race-course. He often started his horses with¬
out a prospect of their winning, for the purpose of
affording sport; overruling the objections of his
trainer by saying, "'Tis a pity the country
people should come so far from home and not
have some fun."* In fact, that class of per¬
sons always built on diversion when "Squire
Mytton's" horses were on the turf, and con¬
sequently, with them the popularity of their
* At Chester he once actually went to his stable and fetched a
horse down to the course himself, which his trainer had not pre¬
pared to run, and, mounting his jockey at the post, won the
prize contended for.
Il6 LIFE OF MYTTON.
owner had no bounds. "Which is he?" they
would cry out, to one of their friends that knew
him. "That's he—that's Mytton," the friend
would reply. " Dang it!" you would hear a
Staffordshire potter or a Walsall nailer exclaim,
" ha looks loike a good un ; they tells me he can
foight nation well"
Before he became too heavy, my friend occa¬
sionally rode among the gentlemen jockeys* of
the day; and here "John Mytton" appeared
again, for, strange to say, he did not like to see
an intimate friend win, although he himself could
not' win. I had a rare specimen of this un¬
accountable frolic in my own person once, when
riding in the same race with him at Lichfield.
He knew he himself had no chance to win, but
was determined I should not; and, by making
several runs at my horse, caused him to break
away with me in the race ; and the little chance
I had was lost by it. I say the "little chance,"
because, although I defeated seven or eight
horses that started against me by at least twenty
lengths, the ninth came up and won cleverly at
the last. This proved to be the famous Hab-
* Mr Mytton's colours were green and white, with a black
cap.
LIFE OF MYTTON.
II7
berley, who was instantly purchased by Mr
Mytton for two hundred guineas, but who had
never started or been heard of before that day.
He was called and entered as a cocktail; but,
as his subsequent running proved, Eclipse was
no more thoroughbred than he was; and no
doubt the original owners of him knew it.
Let us here take a cursory view of his start
and progress on the turf. It appears that he
entered upon its fascinations at the earliest
possible opportunity, viz., on attaining his
majority in 1817. In the book calendar of that
year, there are three horses attached to the
name of "John Mytton, Esq.;" the names of
two of which, "Hazard" and "Neck-or-No-
thing," are highly characteristic of the man, and
especially so at the commencement of his peril¬
ous career on this slippery ground.
He made his dibut at Oswestry on the 23d
of September of the said year, on which day
both the above-named horses ran (Neck-or-
Nothing breaking down) ; also a third, called
Langolee, an Irish horse, purchased by him
when in France, and which lasted him many
years as a whipper-in's horse, and also was
used in the stud, to get hunters.
In the following year, 1818, his name appears
118
LIFE OF MYTTON.
in the Calendar as owner of the following horses :
Langolee, Leopold, Pranks, and Jupiter.
Langolee walked over for a hunter stakes, and
beat Mr Jones's Kill-Devil in a match at Shrews¬
bury in September, which was his blooding of
success on the turf. This year his horses ran at
Oswestry (where "Captain Mytton " gave £^o
to be run for by members of the Oswestry Yeo¬
manry Cavalry), at Wrexham, Holywell Hunt,
and Tarporley Hunt, over the new course on
Delamere Forest.
In 1819, he had Jupiter, Sybil, Tambourine
by Cervantes, Dot-and-go-one, Tattoo, Anti-
Radical, Fox-Huntress by Sultan, and Single-
Peeper, in his racing-stable ; during which year,
however, he experienced the want of success
peculiar to most young turfites.
In 1820, his string of horses was considerably
lengthened. In addition to Anti-Radical and
Leopold, he had gr. f. by Fitzjames, Mande-
ville, Theodore Majocchi (late Handel), Halston
by Langton, Claudius, Chance, The Polacca,
George the Third, Brunette, Paul Potter, and
Victorine.
Anti-Radical won him some good stakes at
Chester, Warwick, Lichfield, Oswestry, Tar¬
porley, and the gold cup at Manchester.
LIFE OF MYTTON.
119
Mandeville won the gold cup at Nantwich and
Nottingham, also 100 gs. at Manchester.
Halston won four stakes, value £200.
1821. Victorine, b. c. by Aladdin, Paul Potter,
The Chancellor, Halston, Doctor, Anti-Radical,
The Ruler, Vade-Mecum, George the Third,
Shrewsbury, Hudibras, Queen Caroline, Hab-
berley, Single-Peeper, Mandeville, Claudius,
Theodore Majocchi, were in his racing-stable.
Halston won the gold cup at Nottingham, also
stakes at Worcester and Chester, value 135 gs.
Anti-Radical again carried off the gold cup
at Manchester, also the Palatine stakes and the
gold cup at Burton ; and Habberley, then called
Acastus, said to be by Shuttlecock dam by Gay-
man, gleaned some good things at the Anson
Hunt, Manchester, Hereford, and Shrewsbury.
Mandeville also won four times, the stakes
amounting to about 200 gs.
Claudius won the gold cup at Cheltenham.
1822. He had Claudius, Mallet, Habberley,
Nettle, The Ruler, Enterprise, Queen Caroline,
Halston, Mandeville, Theodore Majocchi, Anti-
Radical, Circe, Vade-Mecum, Banker, two br.
colts by Filho da Puta, Jovial, ch. m. by Milo,
ch. g. by Young Alexander, Paradigm.
Habberley won the Billesden Coplow stakes
120
LIFE OF MYTTON.
at Croxton Park, the Half-bred stakes at Chester
and Manchester, 40 gs. at Shrewsbury, and 80
gs. at Oswestry.
The Ruler by Rubens won the Sherwood
stakes at Nottingham and £60 at Manchester.
He was induced by a flattering account given
him by the owner of a trial to offer 500 gs. for
this colt at two years old, worth about as many
shillings.
Halston started ten times, and only won £50
at Oswestry. Mandeville won 65 gs. at Nant-
wich; Anti-Radical 60 gs. at Cheltenham.
Banker by Smolensko, after he became Mr
Mytton's property (having been purchased this
year of Mr Charlton, with whom he had won the
cup at Winchester), won the cup at Abingdon,
and 70 gs. at Shrewsbury. One of the Filho
colts won 75 gs. at Lichfield. Jovial by Golum-
pus won the Cocked Hat stakes at Shrewsbury.
The ch. mare by Milo,the silver cup at Oswestry.
The gelding by Young Alexander, the Cocked
Hat stakes at Oswestry. And Paradigm by
Partisan, the Wellington stakes at Basingstoke.
1823. We find Habberley, Banker, Enterprise,
Whittington, Euphrates (purchased of Mr J.
Dilly), Libertine, Ostrich, Clansman, Paradigm,
Anti-Radical, br. c. by Bustard, Sir William
LIFE OF MYTTON.
121
(purchased of Mr Beardsworth), Cae Avon, The
-Devil, placed after his name.
Habberley won the Boston stakes at the Anson
Hunt at Lichfield. Banker won £60 at Buxton.
Whittington, by Filho, won £235 at Chester,
Shrewsbury, Walsall, and Stafford. Euphrates,
then seven years old, by Quiz, won the King's
plate at Chester, and the gold cup at Worcester.
Ostrich, by Bustard (son of Castrel), won 183
gs. in two sums at Knutsford and Warwick;
and the colt by Bustard won £90 in two sums
at Oswestry and Holywell.
1824. He had Habberley, Euphrates, Ostrich,
Oswestry, Berghill, Comte d'Artois, Whittington,
and Ludford.
Euphrates won the gold cups at Cheltenham
and Lichfield, and the Oxfordshire stakes at
Oxford.
Oswestry, by Filho, won £100 at the Pottery,
£75 at Buxton, and the Mostyn and the Halkin
stakes at Holywell. Berghill, by Bustard, won
the Ludford stakes, and £150 in three sums at
Ludlow, Shrewsbury, and Wrexham. Comte
d'Artois, by Bourbon, won £70 and the gold
cup at Worcester, the gold cup at Hereford,
and the Hawarden Castle stakes at Holywell.
Whittington won the gold cup at Oswestry, the
122
LIFE OF MYTTON.
gold cup at Wrexham, another at Stafford, and
£345 in different sums ; while Ludford, by
Manfred, won £5o at Holywell.
1825. Elizabeth, Cara Sposa (late Miss Fyl-
dener), Ludford, Oswestry, Comte d'Artois,
Louisa, b. c. by Amadis, Euphrates, Comrade,
b. f. by Blucher, b. f. by Cannon Ball, b. f. by
Ambo, Flexible.
Ludford won 100 gs. at Oswestry and Holy¬
well. Oswestry won the gold cup at Shrews¬
bury, and £55 at Burton. Comte d'Artois, £"60
at Shrewsbury. Louisa by Orville, £225 at
Chester, 70 gs. at Nottingham, and 100 gs. at
Derby. Euphrates won the gold cups at New¬
ton, Worcester, Lichfield, Wolverhampton, and
Oswestry; also £ 50 at the latter place. Comrade,
by Partisan, won 60 gs. at the Pottery. The
Blucher filly £225 at Holywell, and £50 at
Wenlock. The Cannon Ball filly, £50 at
Oswestry. Flexible, by Whalebone, £120 at
Shrewsbury, £50 at Oswestry, £210 at Holy¬
well ; a pretty good year's work.
1826. Flexible, Whittington, Fisherman,
Euphrates, Balloon, Longwaist, Bowsprit,
Louisa Ashbourn, ch. c. by Sam, b. c. by
Amadis, Harriet Wilson, Lark, and Comrade.
Flexible won the Darlington cup at Wolver-
LIFE OF MYTTON.
123
hampton, and £70 at Cheltenham. Whittington
£60 at Chester. Euphrates carried off the gold
cup at Lichfield, the gold cup and £50 at
Oswestry, the King's plate and £70 at Chester.
Longwaist by Whalebone, won the gold cups at
Newton, Buxton, Worcester, and Warwick, also
£40 at Chester. Bowsprit, by Rainbow, won
£50 at Ludlow. Ashbourn, by Cheshire Cheese,
£60 at Oswestry. Colt, by Amadis, £230 at
Nottingham; and Harriet Wilson, by Manfred,
£40 at Shrewsbury.
1827. Fisherman, Flexible, Lechmere, Elles-
mere, another Halston, by Banker, Euphrates,
Mexican, Lark.
Ellesmere, by Filho, is the first winner of the
above lot, viz., of £ 125 at Nottingham. Halston
won £275 at Chester, £17$ at Ludlow, and the
Chillington stakes at Wolverhampton. Euphrates
won the gold cup and £ 50 at Oswestry, and the
King's plate at Lichfield. Lark, by Rubens,
£55 at Nottingham.
1828. Spruce, Hedgford, Euphrates, Halston,
b. c. by Master Henry, The Crofts, br. f. by Filho.
Spruce, by Skim, won £100 at the Anson
Hunt. Hedgford, by Filho or Magistrate, the
cup and £50 at Chester, and £ 50 at Nottingham.
Euphrates won the cups at Ludlow, Worcester,
124
LIFE OF MYTTON.
Oswestry, and Wrexham, also the King's plate
at Chester. Halston, the Palatine stakes at
Chester, 100 gs. at Newton. 75 gs. at Worcester,
200 gs. at Burton, the Avon stakes at Warwick.
155 gs. at Oswestry, the Taffy and Pengwern
stakes at Holywell.
1829. The numbers were considerably reduced.
Brown filly by Filho, the Crofts, Halston, Hedg-
ford, and Euphrates being the whole of the
horses he had in training.
The Crofts, by Whalebone, won £125 at
Oswestry, and ^50 at Wrexham. Halston, the
Tradesman's cup at Chester, the cup at Knuts-
ford, £350 the Pengwern stakes, and ^115 at
Holywell. Iiedgford,^"63 at Chester. Euphrates,
the gold cups at Ludlow and Wolverhampton,
and the King's plate at Lichfield.
1830. This year brings us to a close, Halston
and Hedgford being the only race-horses he had
left; the former winning £$o at Holywell and
the latter the Cheshire stakes at Chester, £110
at Newcastle, and ^50 at Wrexham.
I find I must here retrace my steps a little,
and this for two reasons. First, I shall follow
the good example set by himself in bearing
testimony to the worth of a good servant; and,
secondly, shall transcribe a letter of his own.
LIFE OF MYTTON.
125
which sets forth the writer of it in his true
character. It will be recollected I asserted
that Mr Mytton's success on the turf somewhat
declined after the death of his trainer and rider-
William Dunn. Let it not be supposed, how¬
ever, that I intend in the least degree to dis¬
parage the good conduct or abilities of his
subsequent trainers or riders, but to impute
it to that "tide," as Shakespeare calls it, in
every man's affairs, wherein fortune has a share,
which, despite of everything and everybody, will
now and then set against him. I have good
reason to believe that Mr William Dilly and
my old servant, Thomas Horsley, did all that
could 'be done for Mr Mytton as trainers of
his horses; and the fair ability of his jockey,
Whitehouse, is very generally acknowledged.
His master's opinion of him, however, is here un¬
hesitatingly given in one of the prettiest letters,
if I may use such an epithet, that I ever perused.
" To the Editor of the Salopian Journal.
" SIR,—Having lately heard it asserted, as
the general opinion, that the defeat of my cele¬
brated horse, Longwaist, may be attributed
to the dishonesty of his rider, I feel called
upon, as his owner, to express my most firm
126
LIFE OF MYTTON.
and unshaken confidence in his integrity, till
now unimpeached, and, in truth, unimpeachable.
"Nothing but anxiety to rescue the fame and
character of a highly-valued servant and de¬
servedly-admired rider, would induce me to
trespass qn your valuable columns ; but feel¬
ing that the character of Whitehouse is as
unspotted and as valuable to himself as that
of the highest of our nobles is to him, I cannot
resist making my confidence in his worth and
integrity thus public.
"' Who steals my purse, steals trash ; 'tis something, nothing;
'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands :
But he that filches from me my good name,
Robs me of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed.'
"I am, Sir,
"Your obedient servant,
John Mytton*
" Halston?
* The following is a copy of his autograph : strongly indica¬
tive of the rapidity with which he used his pen on all common
occasions :—
LIFE OF MYTTON.
127
As appendant to the above, I may here in¬
troduce the following tickler that he wrote to
the Editor of the Old Sporting Magazine in the
spring of 1831, in answer to some observations
that had been made about Mr Beardsworth and
the horse Birmingham :—
"GUY STAKES AT WARWICK.
"SIR,—If there is one thing more absolutely re¬
quisite than another in a letter which is intended
for the public eye, it is accuracy; or, to speak
more plainly, truth—a qualification that your
correspondent, The Young Forester, has in
your Magazine of this month (February) un¬
happily overlooked.
" In page 247, he says, ' The stake at Warwick
has been awarded to the owner of Cetus, who
was second, in consequence of the present owner,
of Birmingham having refused to pay some
paltry £25 forfeit for a stake at Winchester,
where the horse was engaged in the name of
the person whom Mr Beardsworth bought him
of.'—This is notoriously untrue; and, by the
manner in which the writer speaks of the
transaction altogether, it is to be feared it is
wilfully so
128
LIFE OF MYTTON.
"The next paragraph I apprehend, too, is
incorrect; but which I will not speak so posi¬
tively about, because I know but little of racing,
and therefore am unwilling to compete with so
precocious a youth as this appears to be.
"He says, ' It has long been one of the best
acknowledged rules of racing, that no horse is
entitled to be a winner until all the arrears due
for such animal have been paid up.' Is he sure
of that ? Where is the rule to be found ? Has
he not made a mistake ? and instead of the words
*
'to be a winner,' should he not have said 'to
start ?' This talented gentleman may not see
the difference. Great wits, they say, have short
memories—perhaps they are short-sighted too !
In my humble judgment, there is a great deal
of difference. By making use of the word 'start,'
you afford the owner an opportunity of paying
the stake in arrears, if applied for, instead of
letting the onus hang over his head till he has
defeated his antagonists.
" And now I would ask, did Sir Mark Wood
' most honourably' make any application to the
Stewards or Clerk of the Course before Birming¬
ham started at Warwick for the paltry £25
forfeit at Winchester ? The young forester
answers this question partly, asserting, ' he ap-
LIFE OF MYTTON.
129
prised both trainer and master, previous to the
race, of the objection he had to make.' Now if
he had done so, I should say they (that is, the
trainer and master) were not the proper persons
to apprise. The Stewards (or, at all events, the
Clerk of the Course) were the proper persons;
but, unfortunately for The Young Forester's
veracity, here is another untruth : Sir Mark
Wood did not 1 most honourably' apprise Mr
Beardsworth (the owner), previously to the race,
of the objection he had to make.
"' Save me from my friends,' he says, ' has
been the cry through many ages ;' but instead
of Mr Beardsworth echoing it, I guess the Jockey
Club and Sir Mark Wood are more likely to
apply it to this doughty genius, and conjure him,
if he is determined to attempt to take their part,
that he will assert only that which is true.
" I am, Sir, your humble Servant,
"John Mytton.
" Halston, Feb. 19, 1831."
Mr Mytton and his confederate disputed the
decision which gave the race to Cetus, and
brought an action against the stewards for the
recovery of the stakes; but in this they were
again worsted.
I
130
LIFE OF MYTTON.
A summary of Mr Mytton's actual racing
career may be comprised in a few words. He
had too many horses, in the first place, and
too many of them not good enough to pay
their way. It is evident he was anxious to have
good ones in his stables by the prices he gave;
but he bought several of that sort after their day
was gone by: for example, Comte d'Artois,
Banker, Longwaist, &c., &c. He had, however,
several good winners—old Euphrates at their
head ; and Whittington, Oswestry, and Halston
were esteemed very "smart" horses in the
racing world. Indeed, it is believed that in
some hands they would have been trump cards.
As for himself, as a racing man, he was too
severe upon his horses; they rarely came out
fresh, after Chester and one or two other places;
and therefore, this fact admitted, he had, I think,
as much success as he could have expected. He
seldom backed his horses to any serious amount;
generally, not at all.
His stables were, as has been before stated,
upon Delamere Forest, in Cheshire, and he had
at different times four training grooms—William
Dunn (also his rider, who was killed); Maurice
Jones, one of the old sort; William Dilly, and
Thomas Horsely. Jones had always one answer
LIFE OF MYTTON.
to his master's question, " Shall we win this race,
Maurice ? "—" Well, I can't say, indeed, sir; but
I think we shall be nigh handy, please God." His
home-stud groom, Tinkler, was also one of the old
sort, a careful nurser of young racing stock, but
too fond of green meat to contend with young
horses of the present day. Mr Mytton never
bred a good race-horse.
This anecdote of Maurice Jones reminds me
of another. I was once on a visit to the late Mr
Bayzand, of sporting notoriety, when he received
a letter enclosing a bill of expenses for training
from " old Sadler," as he was called, father to
the more generally known Isaac Sadler. It con¬
tained the following postscript: " I have had a
terrible summer of it; won nothing; but, by the
blessing of God, hope to do better next year."
The stables and boxes at Halston have the
doors covered with a greater or less number of
" plates," as the tips won by race-horses in run¬
ning are called. They are painted light-blue,
with white in the centre, on which are printed
most of the horses' names, and the stakes won
by them in every year, up to the close of 1827.
Each stake or race won has a plate to record it,
and these are arranged by half-dozens in a line
across the breadth of the door. The career of
132
LIFE OF MYTTON.
any particular horse is given on the door of the
stable or box he once occupied, and there are
nine stables and box doors covered with plates
in the following order:—
On the door of the first set of stables are 27 plates in comme
moration of as many races.
On the door of the second stable
third
fourth
fifth
sixth
seventh
eighth
ninth
17
18
24
5
6
16
26
26
Total, 165 races.
But there are many stakes not recorded in
this way; and I was told none had been entered
since the year 1827.
The following horses, amongst others, won
stakes, plates, and matches, to the number
specified against their respective names, viz.—
Brought forward,, 7
Langolee
2
Milo Mare
I
Single-Peeper
1
Harriette Wilson .
I
Fox-Huntress
1
Mandeville
8
Chance .
1
Ruler
2
Sir Oliver
1
Libertine
1
Jovial .
1
Victorine
2
7
22
f.IFE OF MYTTON.
13 3
Brought forward,,
22
Brought forward, 117
Mallet ....
4
Paul Potter .
1
Whittington .
14
Bowsprit
1
Alexander
2
Colt by Amadis
• O
Habberley
13
Oswestry
6
Cara Sposa .
2
Ludford
4
Ashbourn
I
Geranium
3
Anti-Radical.
17
Cannon-ball Filly .
1
Banker ....
4
Louisa .
3
Ostrich ....
2
George the Third .
1
Comrade
I
Halston
7
Colt by Bustard
2
Sir William .
4
Euphrates . . .
l6
Chancellor . .
1
Flexible.
6
Nettle .
1
Longwaist
5
Paradigm
1
Tattoo .. ..
2
Berghill
6
Handel ....
2
Comte d'Artois
5
Claudius . , .
2
117
16S
Turning from his more public life as a sports¬
man to his domestic relations as a husband and
a father, a delicate hand is certainly required
when speaking of Mr Mytton's conduct towards
his two wives ; for the mind naturally revolts
from retracing circumstantially anything inti¬
mately connected with the* sacred compact
between man and wife. But, as the reader will
perceive, I should fail in my object, in writing
this memoir of my departed friend, if I shrank
from the arduous and painful task. I need no
justification for the performance of it: I find it,
first, in the fact of the notoriety given through
134
LIFE OF MYTTON.
the public journals to the proceedings in
Chancery on the final separation of Mr Mytton
from that amiable lady who survived him : and,
secondly, in numerous misrepresentations that
have gone forth to the world, which, to the ut¬
most of my ability, I shall endeavour to clear
up. I wish, however, for one sip of Lethe now,
and that my readers could partake with me of
the same cup ; for as in criminal law good char¬
acter bears no weight against positive evidence,
at least as regards the verdict returned, so I
much fear the numerous virtues of my old friend
will not here more than balance the account,
unless large credit be given him on one score.
The follies of mankind are familiar to our view,
and we can always find an excuse for them ; but
it is difficult to account for that evil principle
which prompts a man to give pain to a woman
whom in his heart he loves, and whom he has
every earthly reason to love. Sic visum est diis
—" 'Tis the will of the gods," said the ancients
—a poor excuse, if not a little blasphemous;
and I should rather lay it to poor human
nature, who sometimes exhibits herself in most
mysterious guises, as was the case here,
accompanied by errors and failings over which,
as we are not permitted to command oblivion,
Lir'E OF MYTTON.
135
delicacy and humanity would fain draw the
veil.
But this painful part of my subject, if my end
is to be attained, will not admit of concealment,
and the evil must at once be laid bare to our
view. I reluctantly admit, that Mr Mytton's
conduct in the marriage state is in great part
indefensible, and can only be palliated by a due
allowance, which must not be denied him, for
that sort of insane delirium under which he so
frequently laboured—no matter from what cause
—and to which so many of his otherwise unac¬
countable acts—not the acts of John Mytton
per se—can alone be placed. Delusion is the
true character of insanity ; and when I say that
great part of his unjustifiable, and, by the world,
I fear, hitherto unpardoned treatment of two of
the most exemplary and virtuous women in
existence, was jealousy, nothing more need be
said to establish this point. What says the
poet ? and beautifully has he said it—
" It is jealousy's peculiar nature
To swell small things to great; nay out of nought
To conjure much ; and then to lose its reason
Amid the hideous phantoms it has formed."
In the case before us, not only the groundless¬
ness, but the unreasonableness of his suspicions,
136
LIFE OF MYTTON.
were such as could have emanated from no sound
mind, which never dreams of effects unconnected
with a cause ; and this is nearly the sole
mitigation I have to offer for one of the great¬
est blemishes human nature can sustain. On this
point he was mad ; on others, only eccentric;
but as has been falsely said of wit, "thin par¬
titions do their bounds divide." The fate of each
of these ladies, however, has been a hard one.
The one dropped into an early grave ; the other
would have been torn from him by her friends
had she not made up her mind to abandon him,
lest like Semele in Jupiter's she might have
found her death in his embraces *
But, setting aside this monomaniasm, what
* So tender is woman's fame, that the very breath of calumny
will taint it. It behoves me then to say, that in their situation
as wives, two more correct in their conduct might have been
searched for in vain, than the ladies I am now alluding to. Any
man but Mr Mytton would have been proud of exhibiting them
in public, but had they lived in the days of Pericles, or even
been the wives of the Great Mogul, they could scarcely have
been more secluded than they were at Halston. Not even a
race-ball would he let them be present at for some years of his
life! To what motive but jealousy, or what is worse, suspicion,
could such conduct be attributed ? In justice to the deceased
husband, however, 1 must state that the health of the first Mrs
Mytton was very delicate when she was married, which may
account for her premature death.
LIFE OF MYTTON.
further extenuation have I to offer ? I answer,
as regards his second lady, none, save madness.
His first and himself were not well assorted.
She had been nursed on the lap of refinement
and fashion, to which her betrothed was a
stranger, and was, by consequence, ill calculated
to be the wife of a rough country squire, who
had never been at Almack's in his life, and who
had something like a sovereign contempt for all
such exclusive associations. Nor was this all;
and should any young female's eye rest for a
moment on this page, let it well observe, that it
may well mark, one rock on which thousands
of her sex have split, and which she to whom I
am alluding did not steer clear of. The first
Mrs Mytton conducted herself with coldness to
her husband's old friends and companions, the
sons of the native gentry of his neighbourhood,
in every respect her equal. To a man of Mytton's
temperament, to whom an old friend was " as
the core of the heart, or the apple of his eye,"
this could not have been without its effect; and
on one occasion is said to have drawn tears from
him, during a dinner-party at his own house :
and from my knowledge of the man, I doubt
not the fact.
There is a readiness to believe ill reports
LIFE OF MYTTON.
without examination into their truth, and we
are often found guilty by those who will not
trouble themselves to look into the accusation.
Is all true, then, that has been reported, and
credited by too many, of Mr Mytton's conduct
to his first wife ? Certainly not. Fame loves
to double, and the world is not only credulous,
but loud, and too often scurrilous, in its censure.
Not content with the various embellishments of
vulgar rumour, absolute falsehoods were in
general circulation ; and amongst them the
following:—He was accused of having thrown
her lap-dog—curse those lap-dogs! married
women have no business with such pests—upon
the fire; but fortunately for the memory of my
departed friend, the act that gave rise to the
vile report I myself was a witness to. He
merely took it up in his arms, threw it half-way
up to the drawing-room ceiling, and caught it,
without injury, on its descent. The butler (who
happened to be in the room at the time) called
out, " O Mr Mytton, you '11 kill the dog ;" and
the lady screamed and cried; and on this was
the dreadful charge founded. In the hilarity
of high animal spirits, Mytton was much given
to practical jokes, as all his friends know. Thus
on the same lady once accompanying him to
LIFE OF MYTTON.
139
the kennel, he shut the door upon her for an
instant, after he himself had got outside of it;
and this was magnified into his wishing, or, I
believe intending, that she might be devoured
by his fox-hounds. Again, he threw her into
deep water! Nonsense; he was never mad
enough to do that. He merely, one very hot
day, pushed her into the shallow of his lake at
Halston, a little over her shoes. All this was,
no doubt, wrong to a young lady who had been
brought up so tenderly as Miss Jones had been
reared, but with a hundred young ladies I could
name, who had been differently treated in their
childhood, nothing would have been thought of
it beyond a joke. And then we should look at
the man. If, independently of his own immediate
connections, he had a greater regard for one
person than for any other, I have reason to
believe it was for his Halston chaplain, and he
was two or three times nearly being the death
of him—once absolutely confining him to his
bed for several weeks, from the consequences of
his having, by way of a " lark," knocked him
over some iron railing at his hall door at Halston.
Cruelty was not the property—no, not even the
excrescence—of his nature; although, in his
practical jokes, I admit he was rough, judging
140
LIFE OF MYTTON.
perhaps, of other people's corporeal feelings by
his own *
I have said he was without excuse for ill con¬
duct to his second wife, and I must again say,
why? Not merely was her beauty the weakest
of her charms, and her disposition and temper
most amiable, but all who knew her will join
with me in saying, that if a wife had been
selected for Mr Mytton.with a view of reclaim¬
ing him, and making him a domestic character
and a kind husband, she might have been the
woman fixed upon for the experiment. Like
Terence's lover, then, he should not only have
sworn never to have forsaken, or unkindly treated
her, forasmuch as she was the object of his choice,
and had been with difficulty obtained; but there
was that suitableness of temper the (" conveniunt
mores" of the poet), which the one valued so
highly, and the other had not, perhaps, met with
before. In short, there was every prospect of
happiness from this union, and for some years
* How many times have I overheard such remarks as the
following made on Mr Mytton, by ladies, in my hearing, in dis¬
tant parts of England, and, indeed, now and then nearer home.
" Oh, he is a brute t he threw his wife's dog on the fire, and burnt
it alive. He tried to drown her, and wanted his hounds to
eat her alive." Pshaw !
LIFE OF MYTTON.
141
indeed it appeared to be realised; but whether
it was that he once again nursed a vulture to
feed on his own heart, or whether it was not in
his nature to live comfortably for any length of
time with a woman, however suited to his taste,
and however dear to his heart, is a question not
to be resolved by man. He has, certainly, been
exhibited as a pattern of ruffianism in his conduct
towards this amiable lady; and as some detail
of it has already been before the public, a repeti¬
tion would be useless, as well as painful to the
humanity of my readers. But here comes the
paradox. He loved this woman to distraction ;
he would have given the apple of his eye for her
at any time; he would have risked twenty lives
to have gotten her back again, and obtained her
forgiveness ; he raved about her in his madness ;
and sent her his dying benediction ! Were those
brutal deeds, then, the deeds of the kind-hearted
John Mytton—kind to every living soul but the
woman whom he loved to distraction ? Oh no ;
they were the deeds of a man visited by the
hand of the Almighty, afflicted with a dis¬
tempered brain, a monomaniac beyond all doubt.
Could he then, like Sylla, have got an act of
oblivion passed in his favour for this sad stain
on his otherwise good name, he would perhaps
142
LIFE OF MYTTON.
have passed even an earthly tribunal. But how
fortunate is it, O man, and especially for you
who may be the loudest to condemn him, that
we have reason to hope there is more mercy in
heaven than in this often too reproachful world.
But is it possible, it will still be asked, that
Mr Mytton could have really loved either, or
both, of his amiable wives ? Indeed, reader, he
did; and, woman-like, despite of his conduct,
they both loved him. Neither did they reproach
him. He could not complain with the noble
bard—
" Though my many faults , defaced me,
Could no other arm be found,
Than the one which once embraced me,
To inflict a cureless wound ? "
But he might have joined his brother exile, in
his plaintive song—
" All my faults, perhaps, thou knowest;
All my madness, none can know;
All my hopes, where'er thou goest,
Whither, yet with thee they go."
And I speak from experience on these points.
In the fatal illness of his first wife, I obeyed the
call of friendship, and went to him at Clifton
Hot Wells, where she died; and I can vouch for
LIFE OF MYTTON.
143
his sufferings on that occasion. Who that has
ever seen him look upon her portrait at Halston,
and speak of her afterwards, could doubt the
truth of what I have asserted ? And yet, could
they both rise from their graves, and were he to
meet her again in all her beauty, and with all
her charms, as he had met her before on their
bridal day, I would not answer for many years
of domestic happiness, even with the experience
of the past to boot. " What is passion," says
my Uncle Tobby, "but a wild beast?" and un¬
less restrained by reason, or subdued by temper¬
ance, it is as furious and violent as the brute beast
himself. We may throw a gem to a cock, or a
pearl to a swine, but each would be better pleased
with much humbler fare sought for and selected
to their wild taste and pleasure; and I need not
apply the moral here. It has been shown beyond
a doubt, that it was not in the power of woman—
no, nor in the power of himself—to have made.
John Mytton a good husband; indeed he ought
not to have entered into the marriage state at
all.
We must, then, still proceed in the catechetical
mood. How could any woman venture on Mr
Mytton as a husband after the publicity given
to the history of his proceedings towards his
144
LIFE OF MYTTON.
first wife ? I answer, in the first place, many of
the evil reports in circulation were found to be
untrue. Secondly, there was a great intimacy,
as well as congeniality, if I may apply the word
here, between the brothers of his second lady
and himself, who could see nothing but what
was congenial in their brother-sportsman and
friend. Again, why was Venus (the Egyptian
one) represented standing naked on a lion, but
to indicate that love conquers even the fiercest
beast? Here, then, was the lion in toils. The
suing lover was on his very best behaviour during
the days of probation, to which I was myself a
witness, for he often made my house his home,
as it was within two miles of that of the object
of his choice. Again, " Credula res amor est"—
Love believes everything; and not only the
young lady—and young she was, for, if my
memory serves me, she was only in her seven¬
teenth year—but we all believed there was a
fair prospect of happiness in the anticipated
union. Neither was it suffered to take place with¬
out due consideration. The pros and the cons
were nicely weighed and weighed again by the
anxious mother, and they appeared nearly to
balance the scales. Still it was long before her
mind was made up, and in the intimacy of our
LIFE OF MYTTON
friendship she put the following home question
to me:—" Had you a daughter marriageable,"
said this amiable lady, and exemplary pattern
of a wife and mother,* "would you like to see
her married to Mr Mytton?" I very well
remember my answer, which was this : " In my
opinion, Lady Charlotte, Mr Mytton has no
business with a wife at all; but should he marry
your daughter Caroline, there is a greater
prospect of his making a good husband to her'
than to any other woman in the whole world."
Now, not only did my words prove true, but for
several years he was a good husband, and had
it not been for " the grave of reason" which
excess in wine became to him, as indeed it does
to most other men, I doubt not he would have
continued in the same course. But what an
exemplary wife did Miss Caroline Giffard become
to him ! How well did she bear her seclusion
from society! what allowance did she make for
his libertine life! how much did it cost her to
estrange her heart from him who had stamped
it with its first impression! " I cannot help
loving him, with all his faults," said she to me,
one evening at Halston, after recounting some
* Lady Charlotte Giffard, a daughter of the House of Devon.
K
146
LIFE OF MYTTON.
of his acts, which only a madman would have
committed; and were my life to endure a
thousand years, I could never lose my recol¬
lection, unless I lost my reason, of that distressing
scene. But it is true, thought I, as I listened to
the sad tale, what is said of woman, that Heaven
is pleased to make distress become her, and
dresses her most amiably in tears.
But independently of conduct towards herself,
there were other circumstances which must have
been the source of much pain to this amiable
lady. Nothing is more precious to a woman's
heart than the good name and credit of him she
loves. The unfortunate turf connection, then, be¬
tween Mr Mytton and the person I have just pre¬
viously alluded to, sank deep in that of the lady in
question, and well might it have stung her honest
pride to the quick. The best of men is not free
from human infirmity; but of all the vices, short
of what is termed " the great offence," to which
a gentleman can be addicted, nothing so far
debases and lowers him in the eyes of all who
have an interest in his welfare, as his quitting
the rank to which he by birth belongs. 'Tis the
last step to a general dereliction of all gentle¬
manlike feelings, and a sorry compliment to his
former friends. "Tell me with whom you asso-
LIFE OF MYTTON.
H7
date," said the sage, " and I'll tell you what you
are," was one of the noblest lessons, if not the
severest rebuke, ever given to mankind. It
is the voice of custom echoed by the voice of
reason.
I have but little to say of Mr Mytton as a
father; but that little is in his favour. He was
very fond of his children, although, as may be
expected, he had a peculiar way of showing his
affection for them ; such as tossing them in the
air as he did the lap-dog, giving view-holloas in
their ears at a very tender age, throwing oranges
at their heads, and indulging in all such practical
jokes; but as the brute said of the eels he was
skinning, it was " nothing when they were used
to it," and I think his conduct towards them
was nearly sans reproche. He often spoke of
them in his exile ; and when he came in contact
with other persons' children about the age of his
own, a close observer would detect the workings
of a strong inward feeling which it was not in
his power to conceal. But why should he wish
to conceal it ? There is a chord in the breast of
a savage that responds to the voice of nature !
John Mytton himself could alone answer this
question ; but as a celebrated character in anti¬
quity wished for a window in his breast that
148
LIFE OF MYTTON.
every one might see into it, a peep into that of
this man would have exhibited qualities and
virtues which not only the world refused to give
him credit for, but which he himself seemed
resolved it should not believe he possessed.
Strange and unfathomable man ! Hypocrisy is
the homage which vice pays to virtue. God
knows you paid her nothing in that coin; you
seemed determined to make us think you kept
no account with her at all 1
PART III.
HARACTER, it is said, may be best illus¬
trated by anecdote, and no man's career
ever afforded a greater clue in this way than that
of John Mytton. As his Memoirs have passed
through succeeding editions, further material
has offered itself with which it is here proposed
to deal, having always in view the primary in¬
tention of the work. The best of these stories
are fortunately, as it will be seen, to be gathered
up about home.
On one occasion, on his returning from hunt¬
ing, and when within a couple of miles of Hal-
ston, Mr Mytton laid a trifling wager with one of
the party who accompanied him, that he would
reach home the first. He suffered his friend tc
take the lead until they arrived on the Halston
domain, and were going at speed in a line with
the lake, which is one of considerable breadth ;
when, suddenly pulling up his horse, and forcing
him into the water, he landed in safety on the
LIFE OF MYTTON.
other side. Thus, by cutting off an acute angle,
he gained a considerable advantage over his
competitor; and, jumping the sunken fence into
the flower-garden, arrived first at his hall-door.
It must be remembered that he could not swim,
even across a duck-pond !
It has been already shown how regardless Mr
Mytton was of weather, whether hot or cold;
and with the thermometer at zero, he would be
seen walking to his stables before breakfast, with
nothing on his person but his shirt, dressing-
gown, and slippers. On one occasion he mounted
a hunter in this partial attire, and accompanied
by one of his guests, equally wild as himself,
rode bare-backed over the country for three or
four miles. Then he once took Staples, Sir
Bellingham Graham's man, who was fresh to
" those parts," for a look at the country, on the
day before hunting. Mytton on Milo showed
the way, and Staples on the Hit-or-Miss mare
followed, over some miles of stiff country, and
with the Perry in their line. The stranger did
very well until they came to a particularly green
meadow, when Mytton drove on to his companion
and landed him in a bog, from which he with
much difficulty extricated himself. In some of
these frolics, however, he ascertained the good
LIFE OF MYTTON.
properties of his horses, which, perhaps, he would
not otherwise have been acquainted with. For
example, at the end of a capital run, in Shrop -
shire, his whipper-in rode a horse called Oliver,
over a brook which Mytton's own horse refused.
" Stop !" said he to him; " it is fit that the master
should ride the best horse." And from that day
till the horse became blind, which was not for
several seasons afterwards, no person but himself
rode Oliver with hounds.
Frolics of all sorts delighted him. On one
occasion, a thought struck him that a good race
might be made between waggon-horses; and
seeing four of his own at the moment, he ordered
all their gearing, except their bridles, to be taken
off. He then mounted one of them, and per¬
suaded three of his friends to jockey the others,
and away they went! By a preconcerted plan,
however, Mytton placed the waggoner at a spot
where the ground was somewhat on the descent,
with orders to cry out " Who-ho /" at a signal to
be given by himself. The word was given
accordingly, when the horses, knowing the voice,
and glad to obey the word, stopped so suddenly
as to occasion two of his three friends, who rode
on the bare back, to roll from their seats, and
fall headlong to the ground.
152
LIFE OF MYTTON.
In a long frost, Mytton was often at a loss
for out-of-door sport, although he was far from
being particular as to the means by which it
could be procured ; so little so, indeed, that I
remember his once letting out a fox, and a lot
of his own hounds to hunt him, when he was
aware that no horseman, not even himself, had
a chance to follow them over two fields, and
consequently they were seen no more till the
next morning. Being, however, during one
very hard frost, quite at a loss for a lark, he sent
to Oswestry for twenty pairs of skates, which he
distributed amongst his servants, stable lads and
others, most of whom, as may be supposed,
were quite new to this work. He then had a
number of rats turned down on the ice, before
terriers, one of each at a time, when tumbling
was the order of the day. But a circumstance
occurred which put a stop to the diversion, if such
it could be called ; and I only wonder that the
person who was the cause of it escaped with
whole bones. The purveyor of the rats was the
cowman, who was paid by the tails for his rats
on all other occasions, and to ensure payment
for these, had actually cut off their tails before
turning them down ! Mytton accidentally dis¬
covered this by seeing blood upon the ice ; and
LIFE OF M YTTON. 15 3
had not the old cowman been a favourite ser¬
vant, he would have had to pay dearly for his
cruelty.
I have already stated that there was a
heronry at Halston, in which there were
annually from fifty to eighty nests. Mytton
expressed a wish to have some of the young
herons taken, in order to satisfy himself of the
asserted superiority of heron over rook-pie.
The nests being on the very tops of high trees,
neither his keepers, nor any other person about
the house, would undertake to get them. " Here
goes then !" said Mytton ; and stripping off
his coat and waistcoat, he ascended a tree of
prodigious height, and safely brought down his
prize.
Whilst in the Seventh Hussars, and quartered
with the army of occupation in France, he heard
of a badger that no dog in that country was ableto
draw. Having offered a bet, which was accepted,
that he wouldproduce a dog in a certain given time
that woidd perform the feat, he at once ordered
his favourite servant ("old John," as he always
called him, and who was in his service from his
boyhood) to go to a village called Cockshut, in
Shropshire, and bring back with him one of
Burroughs' dogs. Nor did the order end here.
154
LIFE OF MYTTON.
" If Burroughs won't sell his dog," said Mytton,
" bring him over, dog and all, at his own price!"
The dog, however, was bought for eight pounds,
and drew the badger in great style. He was a
small animal, half-bull half-terrier ; and having
been brought back to England by Mytton, re¬
mained at Halston, where he was well taken
care of, till he died.
Many of his frolics were of a ludicrous, at the
same time of a perfectly harmless, nature. On
going into the bar of the Lion Inn, Shrewsbury,
one evening, when somewhat " sprung " by wine,
he was told there was a box in the coach-office
for him ; which contained two brace of foxes.
He ordered this to be brought to him ; when tak¬
ing up the poker, he knocked off the lid, and out
came the foxes, to the great fright of the land¬
lady and some of her female friends. Mytton
gave them a halloa as they " broke," but they
smashed such a lot of glass and crockery-ware,
that the joke must have been an expensive one.
After a blank day with Sir Edward Smythe's
hounds, which then hunted the Shrewsbury
country, the Squire determined upon a lark when
he got home. He accordingly ordered some
draft hounds, which he had in his kennel at
Halston, together with all the terriers and bull-
LIFE OF MYTTON.
155
dogs about the house, to be taken to a certain
spot, where he also ordered to be assembled all
the servants of his establishment, mounted on
whatever they could catch, down to ponies,
donkeys, or mules. A fox was then turned
out, and the scene was, as might be imagined, a
ludicrous one, although signalised by an act of
unintentional cruelty. A stable boy on a fast
pony, happening to be first up when the fox was
laid hold of by the hounds, cut off his brush*
instanter, when the animal, in his struggles, got
out of the lad's grasp, and went some distance
before he was again run into. But Mr Mytton
was often in the habit of mounting his servants
with his hounds, chiefly for the sake of witness¬
ing the falls they got, from their want of skill in
horsemanship.
On Crouch the trainer once making a call at
Halston, the Squire took him out shooting, on
the plea of killing him some game. They
* The famous Jack Shirley purposely once did the same
thing when out with the pack of a noble lord, who was not his
master. He took the fox from the hounds, when alone with
them, and having cut off and pocketed his brush, threw him
over a thick hedge. On the huntsman coming up, Shirley
particularly requested to have the brush if they should kill him ;
and on the hounds again running into their fox, great was the
astonishment of the " field " to find that he had none !
iS6
LIFE OF MYTTON.
presently came to a brook, through which Mr
Mytton, as usual, waded, bidding the other
follow him. But Crouch, who had filled out
from a jockey boy into a round little tub of a
man, naturally hesitated—he had no change of
clothes with him, would be out of his depth, and
so on. "Jump up, then!" said Mytton, "and
I '11 carry you over;" and with great reluctance
Crouch at last did jump up. But, alas! the
Squire only performed half his promise, for, on
getting into the middle of the stream, he pitched
the little man clean over his head into it. And
he was equally fond of creating amusement,
even at the expense of his own person. For
example, during his successful contest for the
borough of Shrewsbury, in 1819, he threw him¬
self from the car in which hewas being "Chaired"
home from the hustings, through a window, into
the Lion Inn, at the imminent hazard of his
life. But the turmoil of a contested election
was a fine field for John Mytton. On one
occasion the principal champion of the opposing
party stood opposite to his inn, challenging any
man to contend with him. Mytton listened to
his bravado for a while ; till his Welsh blood
being excited, he set to, and thrashed the fellow
to his heart's content in five rounds. He then put
LIFE OF MYTTON.
*57
something in the beaten man's fist, as he said,
" to make him comfortable for the evening."
Mytton was very much beloved by the labour¬
ing classes within a large circle round his house,
and he would enter their cottages without in¬
vitation or ceremony. His horse having fallen
with him one day, and broken his knees very
badly, he applied to an old woman by the road¬
side for some linen bandages ; but being unable
to furnish anything of the kind, he thus addressed
her : "Never mind, my good woman, bring your
scissors here, and cut off the tail of my shirt, and
then you may cut up the sleeves of it, which will
make capital bandages." On another occasion,
after having been long exposed to cold on the
Hawkestone hills, with hounds, he entered a
house near Wem, taking his favourite hunter,
Baronet, along with him ; and having ordered a
good fire to be made to warm himself and his
horse, started for home again, saying they were
both all the better for it. He was by no means
particular as to what he helped himself or his
horse to on these occasions; and is said once to
have seriously injured a horse by dosing him as
he dosed himself—with wine ; * while he started
* It is stated by a correspondent that the horse I allude to,
called Sportsman, dropped down dead in his gig, in consequence
i58
LIFE OF MYTTON.
a fashion, since more generally adopted in some
parts, of treating his hunters to a quart or two
of warm beer.
Again, he once rode at the Ellesmere Canal,
and of course got a ducking. Finding himself
very cold on the road home, he exchanged his
wet coat for a flannel petticoat which he espied
on a cottager's garden hedge ; and slipping it
over his head, travelled on with his hounds, to
the great amusement of the villagers he en¬
countered by the way.
In speaking of Mr Mytton as a horseman, I
have stated the singular fact of his never having
so completely tired his horses in the field as to
have been obliged to walk home, which I in great
part attribute to his strength of hand in assisting
them in their work. It is true he rode none but
good ones; but he really appeared to have a
sort of magic influence over their tempers—at
all events, it seemed as if they sympathised with
him in his frolics—for they were always tranquil
under him, and would do almost anything he re¬
quired of them. He would ride them up the
hall steps and down the steps, and through the
of his owner having given him a bottle of mulled port wine at
Wrexham. I knew the horse well, but cannot vouch for the
cause of his death.
LIFE OF MYTTON.
159
house, without their appearing to be in the least
disconcerted or alarmed. The Lord Waterford
doings in this way had long been anticipated by
John Mytton, who would often ride round his
billiard-table; and one night after dinner rode
a black pony up-stairs into his chaplain's bed¬
room. But the pony refused to come down
again, and so passed the night in his reverence's
quarters.
Mytton may be said to have lived in a storm,
for a row was his delight. Nevertheless, al¬
though there was an apparent ferocity of tem¬
per about him at times, it was blended with
much kindness of heart, and he scarcely ever
thrashed a man that he did not give him some¬
thing afterwards as amends. I remember hear¬
ing of an unfortunate horsebreaker having been
carried, nolens volens, by a half-broken colt into
the midst of his hounds. Mytton flogged him
severely, and then gave him a guinea. A baker,
for much the same offence, received much the
same treatment, and had his basket of bread
thrown amongst the hounds; but this of course
was eventually well paid for. He would not,
however, suffer any man to take an improper
liberty with him, and, in that case, there was no
compensation for a thrashing. A Shrewsbury
i6o
LIFE OF MYTTON.
tradesman, when a little " sprung," ventured to
call him "Johnny." Mytton floored him on
the spot.
He was the dread of the owners of the minor
gambling-tables who frequent country races, for
he was given to break their banks in more ways
than one. I have said, he was often a great
winner; but he would demolish the entire ap¬
paratus if he suspected any unfair advantage to
be taken of himself, or of any other person in
the room. At Warwick races, in 1824, he and
his companions not only broke a rouge-et-noir
table to atoms, but gave the proprietor of it and
his gang a sound drubbing into the bargain.
He was once, together with some others, sur¬
prised by the Mayor of Chester, in the act ot
playing hazard, in a room hired for that pur¬
pose, on the Sunday evening previous to the
races; but on seeing his worship enter he put
his winnings into his hat, the hat on to his head,
and then walked away unnoticed, being taken
only for a spectator. He was losing heavily one
night at Chester, when he turned very faint.
"Take him away," said somebody; "he's too
drunk to play."
"No, no," answered a friend at his side; "wash
his mouth out and give him another chance."
LIFE OF MYTTON.
They did so, when he not only won all his
money back, but a good stake to boot.
I have spoken of Mytton as a shot, and I be¬
lieve no sportsman need be superior to what he
was at one time of his life. For myself, I only
knew him as a game shot, as the term is, never
having seen him with either pistol or rifle in his
hand. It has, however, been represented to me
that he was a most superior marksman with a
rifle, so superior indeed as to be able to hit the
edge of a razor at the distance of thirty yards,
and occasionally to split his ball! " Credai
Judceus "—I do not add " non ego ; " yet I nevei
chanced to hear of such a wonderful perform¬
ance. But I will transcribe the rest of the
story, and leave my readers to make the best
of it.
" He would," writes my informant, " cross the
yard at Halston, and shoot from one of the iron
gates on the drive, or carriage-road, to the coal-
house wall, a distance of fifty-five yards, and put
his ball through the peg-hole of a trimmer (used
for pike-fishing). The trimmer-cork, in this in¬
stance, was placed on the tame fox's cub, or
kennel, with the flat side towards Mytton's aim;
and it invariably fell to the ground on each time
of being fired at the ball actually going through
162 LIFE OF MYTTON.
the aperture where the peg of the trimmer is put
in, and not above an inch and a half diameter,
covered with a piece of white paper, pasted
thereon, to ascertain the fact! This he has
done over and over again, to the amazement of
all who have witnessed it, and with his rifle to
his shoulder, and not on a rest, as might be ima¬
gined by some. Talk of Americans, for their
precision in shooting, after this! It cannot be
surpassed, if equalled." To this account is added
the fact of his having shot rats with a rifle
from the top of his house, and sundry other
achievements rather too marvellous to relate.*
Still he riddled the vane of his own chapel;
and on one very cold morning, after a very
warm night, jumped into the pool merely to
get a shot at some herons which he had dis¬
turbed while pheasant shooting.
But, as I have already said, no phase in Myt-
ton's character is so interesting as that which is
illustrated by his exploits in riding and driving.
During the period of Sir Bellingham Graham's
hunting Shropshire, he performed several gallant
feats in the field. Whilst suffering severely from
* For example, he is represented as having more than once put
a ball through a man's hat whilst on his head J
LIFE OF MYTTOA.
the effects of a fall, and with his right arm in a
sling, he rode his favourite horse, Baronet, ovei
Lord Berwick's park-paling at Atsham, near
Shrewsbury, to the astonishment of the whole
field ; Sir Bellingham himself exclaiming—
" Well done, Neck-or-Nothing ! you are not a
bad one to breed from !"
With the same hounds he signalised himself
greatly in a run from Bomer Wood to Haugh-
mond Hill, when the river Severn brought the
field to check. Three or four of them managed
to get their horses into a boat, but Mytton
scorned such assistance. " Let all who call
themselves sportsmen," he exclaimed, "follow
me !" and, dashing into the stream, gained the
opposite bank, and was one of the very few who
saw the fox killed. It must again be observed
that Mytton was no swimmer, and the Severn is
broad and deep, and the banks none of the best.
Still he did not always disdain the aid of the
boat, and on his own hounds once crossing the
Severn at Quatford, the Squire jumped into the
boat alone, and quickly shoving her off, landed
on the opposite side and sent her adrift! The
rest of the field had to go round by Bridgnorth.
Then, he fell into one of the deepest parts of
the same river out of a ferry-boat, when luckily
164
LfFE OF MYTTON.
not alone, as he was saved by his companion
catching him by one of his legs, as he was just
being sucked under the boat.
On another occasion he nearly lost his life in
the Severn, also in a run with his own hounds,
near Bridgnorth. All the field but himself
crossed it by a horse ferry-boat, but he gallantly
plunged into it, notwithstanding that the river
was much swollen by rain at the time. His
mare, Cara Sposa, was carried a long way down
the stream by the current, and although she at
length gained the opposite side with him, the
bank would not admit of her landing herself.
His whipper-in, Ned Evans, however, who had
crossed by the boat, fortunately came to his
assistance, and pulled him up the bank, leav¬
ing the mare in the water. Nor does the
story end here. Jumping upon the whip's
horse, Mytton got to his hounds, and the mare
was eventually brought ashore without much
injury.
Still I have reason to believe the hair-breadth
escapes on wheels even exceeded those in the
saddle — which, perhaps, may be in some
measure accounted for by his early predilec¬
tion for tandem-driving—the most hazardous
business of any, even in the best of hands—and
LIFE OF MYTTON.
Mytton was no coachman * The following feat
certainly out-herods Herod ; but my readers
shall have it exactly as I myself had it, accom¬
panied with the following remark—Nothing, we
are led to believe, is impossible with God; no¬
thing was improbable of the late John Mytton.
" He was one day," says my correspondent,
" engaged to dine with a friend at some distance
from Halston, and came, as usual, in his tandem.
After dinner, the conversation turning on the
danger of that mode of harnessing horses, from
the little command the driver can have over the
leader, Mytton at once expressed his dissent
from this doctrine ; and being under the influ¬
ence of the ' rosy god,' offered to bet a pony
(.£2S) round, that he would that night drive
his tandem across the country into the turnpike
road, a distance of half a mile, having in his pro¬
gress to get over a sunk fence, three yards wide;
a broad, deep drain; and two stiff quick-set
fences, with ditches on the further side! This
bet was taken by several of the party present to
* When I say he was " no coachman," I mean he knew
nothing of the science or system of driving four horses. He
would, however, now and then take hold of a team in the
Holyhead mail, and I was told that when he did, he never
attempted to lark.
LIFE OF MYTTON.
the tune of £150 and upwards; and after the
necessary preparations, all turned out to see the
fun—although in justice it should be said, as
Mytton was then under age, it was not only pro¬
posed to him that the bets made should be off,
but he was strongly persuaded not to make the
attempt. This, however, with him had always
a contrary effect; and twelve men with lanterns
on poles, having been procured, to aid the light
of the moon, on the appointed signal being given,
away went Mytton.
" The first obstacle was the sunk fence, into
which, as may be expected, he was landed; but
the opposite side being on a gradual slope, from
bottom to top, the carriage and its inmate, by
dint of whipping, were drawn out without receiv¬
ing any injury. Nowise disconcerted, he sent
his team at the next fence—the wide drain—and
such was the pace he went at, that it was cleared
by a yard, or more; but the jerk pitched Mytton
on the wheeler's back. Crawling over the dash¬
ing-leather, he resumed his seat and got his horses
again into the proper direction, and taking the
two remaining fences in gallant style, got safe
into the turnpike road, and won his wager. This
occurred at Mr Walford's of Cronkhill, about four
miles from Shrewsbury."
LIFE OF MYTTON.
167
The above appears somewhat of a miraculous
adventure; but that Mytton was equal to the
attempt, no one who knew him as well as I knew
him would doubt. Indeed I have already stated
a fact (I think in my "Shropshire Tour") bearing
some relation to it. He was driving me from
Shrewsbury to Chillington to dinner, and after
one or two trifling occurrences, such as knocking
down a bullock, and breaking a shaft of the gig
on the road, we found ourselves in an awkward
predicament. By having taken a wrong turn,
on approaching the house, we found ourselves in
a field with no means of getting out of it, except
by a gate by which we had entered, and we were
already behind time for dinner. " We '11 manage
it," said Mytton ; " this horse is a capital fencer ;
so do you get over the fence (a hedge and ditch)
and catch him." He then merely unbuckled the
bearing-rein, gave the horse a cut with his whip,
and over he came, gig and all, without the slight¬
est accident.
Having shown a friend over his stud at
Halston, and also his hounds, he told him he
had something still better worth his seeing in
reserve for him ; and on opening his coach-house
doors, he thus addressed him: "You see that
gig. Last night it was carried clean over my
LIFE OF MYTTON.
lodge gate, and it is not a bit the worse for it;
nor, as you have seen, is the horse that carried
it over." Now this sounds rather marvellous ;
but the inhabitants of the town of Wrexham,
in Denbighshire, can well remember a somewhat
similar circumstance occurring at a villa close to
that town, some twenty years back. A horse,
the property of Mr Watkin Hayman, ran away
with his gig from the door, and carried it over a
high palisade gate, without injury to either him¬
self or the gig. I went the next day to see the
gate, and the only impression left upon it was
the fracture of one of the spikes, or points, of
the top rail. But Mytton would wantonly seek
accidents from gigs and phaetons ; and, latterly,
I never entered into one with him, but on con¬
dition of his having nothing to do with the reins.
I remember seeing him get out of his phaeton at
the hall door at Halston, and instead of letting
a servant drive it round to the stables, start the
horses off by themselves at a gallop; and,
strange to say, they conducted the carriage
safely into the yard, although they had two
rather sharp turns to make, and one gate to go
through. This was in the lifetime of the first
Mrs Mytton, who had more than one provi¬
dential escape from this same phaeton.
LIFE OF MYTTON.
169
In his love of frolics I never knew or heard of
but one person anywise his equal. This was
the well-known "Tom Leigh/' as he was gener¬
ally called, of High Leigh, in Cheshire,—a
gentleman of very large fortune, and altogether
a truly singular character. He had a regular
pit-fall in his grounds, into which he would walk
a stranger who came to visit him, and sundry
other manoeuvres, which he called sport. Even
the parson of the parish was not exempt from
being made the subject of a lark, as the follow¬
ing anecdote will show. Imagining himself to
be a good judge of horse-flesh, he invariably
brought his new purchases to the Squire of High
Leigh, partly for his approbation, and partly in
proof of his own skill in the selection of them.
On one occasion, the nag was ordered into the
stable, and his Reverence also well taken care of
for the night, the next being a hunting morning.
"Now, Doctor," said the Squire, as soon as
breakfast was over, " we will go into the stables
and see this famous new horse of yours, of
which you have talked to me so much." But he
was not to be found. The parson declared he
himself put him in a particular stall; and there,
in truth, he was ; but the Squire having ordered
him to be cropped and docked over-night, his
i7 o
LIFE OF MYTTON.
owner had not the slightest recollection of him.
As may be supposed, a hearty laugh was raised
at his expense, and there was an end of all future,
somewhat boring, exhibitions of inferior animals
to a man who had some of the best horses that
money could procure, and who was really a
judge of them. But I was never an admirer of
practical jokes, especially when, as in this in¬
stance, the sufferings of an animal form a feature
in them. Neither were many of the frolics of
poor Mytton creditable to him. In the first
place, they are always inconsistent with man-
hoot' ; and in the next, knowing no bounds with
him, they often led him into excesses which en¬
dangered his character as a man, and verified
the censure passed upon them by Horace :—
"Lusit amabiliter; donee jam ssevus apertam
In rabiem verti ccepit jocus."
Still, some idea might have been formed of
his zeal in the pursuit of every description of
true sport, from the catalogue of effects sold at
Halston when the establishment was broken up.
The furniture of the net-house, for instance, in¬
cluded three bush nets, 26 and 28 yards long, 5
deep ; two small mesh nets for bushes ; three
larger mesh nets ; two drag nets, with large
tunnels; four trammel flue nets, of various sizes;
LIFE OF MYTTON.
171
one minnow net; one minnow net and pole ;
three gutter nets; two casting nets ; two drum
nets ; one cleaching net; one large salmon net;
one gudgeon, or fine meshed brook net; four
landing nets, of various sizes ; six fishing poles;
four bait cans ; two large fish cans ; two angling
chairs ; two coracles, or small fishing boats ; two
eel spears ; two trout spears ; one salmon spear;
fishing cases and rods, of every description.
In the engine house and aviary there were
six pheasant nets; three rabbit nets, and several
purse nets; two pairs of lark nets ; one partridge
net; various rabbit traps, in lots; one hundred
and twenty-eight vermin traps, of every descrip¬
tion ; one badger cub; two fox cubs; thirteen
dog kennels ; fourteen ferret boxes ; three cages
for wild animals; nine bird cages ; sixteen pairs
of quoits ; two sets of bowls; sundry cricket-bats
and balls.
The guns ran to six rifles of various bores:
nine double-barrelled guns; four single ; with
some dozens of powder-flasks, shot-belts, and
gun-cases; and the saddle-room would, no doubt,
have told as significant a tale.
As something of a finish—for to this it was
fast coming—Mytton never made himself much
more conspicuous in the field than he did upon
172
LIFE OF MYTTON.
what was well known in the hunting circles of
Cheshire, Shropshire, and Staffordshire, as " The
Shavington day." This was an arranged trial
of speed, nose and bottom, between the fox¬
hounds of Sir Harry Mainwaring, of Peover
Hall, Cheshire, commonly called "the Cheshire
houndsthe pack kept jointly by Sir Edward
Smythe, of Acton Burnal Park, Mr Smythe
Owen, of Candover Hall, and Mr Lloyd, of
Aston Hall, Salop, better known as "the Shrop¬
shire hounds;" and that of Mr Wicksted, whose
kennel was at Betley, near Newcastle-under-
Lyne, from which he hunted what is called " the
Woore country" (once hunted by the late Sir
Thomas Mostyn, previously to his taking Ox¬
fordshire), and likewise a part of Shropshire.
The interest evinced for many surrounding miles
in this extraordinary, and I believe I may add
unique, undertaking, was immense ; and it was
supposed that, independently of the contents of
carriages, there were considerably more than a
thousand horsemen in the field, with about seven
hundred of these in scarlet.
Mytton, as usual, was resolved to make him¬
self remarkable in more ways than one; and on
the preceding evening, he arrived at Whitchurch,
to be near to the scene of action, and where he had
LIFE OF MYTTON.
173
ordered the best dinner that could be provided
for himself and two friends who accompanied
him. But the dinner at Whitchurch and its
evils were not " sufficient for the day ;" he had
his carriage round in the evening, and drove to
the village of Wrenbury, the rendezvous of the
different packs, where a main of cocks was
being fought. Having seen what was going
on there, he returned to his quarters at Whit¬
church, and after drawing a commercial traveller
from his bed, and dosing him with wine, retired
at length to his own.
The place of meeting was Shavington Hall,
the seat of that hearty old buck, that real
specimen of an Irish nobleman, Viscount Kil-
morey,—who, although but little of a fox-huntei
himself, was a great promoter of the sport, by
his strict preservation of foxes ; and who left an
excellent name behind him as one of "the right
sort." The time fixed was eleven o'clock, and
at that hour a sight highly enjoyable to sports¬
men presented itself, and indeed to all descrip¬
tions of persons who witnessed it; for, as is well
known, there is nothing which adds more to fine
scenery, in which this park abounds, than a
well-attended pack of hounds at work in the
covers.
174
LIFE OF MYTTON.
The modus operandi was this:—Six couples
out of each pack were selected for the trial,
attended in the field by their respective hunts¬
men—namely, Will Head, afterwards with Lord
Hastings, for the Cheshire ; Will Staples, hunts¬
man to Sir Edward Smythe, Mr Lloyd, of Aston,
and Mr Smythe Owen, for the Shropshire; and
Charles Wells, once huntsman to the Oakley,
for Mr Wicksted. Will Head acted as leading
man of tlie day, by reason of this being in the
country which his hounds claimed as their own,
as well as the Cheshire being the senior pack.
These were the best days of the Tomkinsons,
the Gleggs, the Brookes, Jack Ford, and sundry
other first-flight Cheshire men; so that it may
be imagined that a spirit of rivalry amongst men
would accompany the trial of speed in hounds,
and that Mytton would be amongst the foremost
to distinguish himself. That he came prepared
to do so was evident by the fact of his having
had the famous Hit-or-Miss mare reserved for
this particular occasion, orders having been given
to his groom to " have her right fit to go ;" while
he mounted Captain Owen, of Woodhouse, on
"The Devil."
Precisely at the hour of twelve the business of
the day commenced ; the "United" packs were
LIFE OF MYTTON.
175
thrown into what is called the Big Wood, in
Shavington Park, from which a fox almost im¬
mediately broke, and, having stood before them
for thirty minutes, at a very severe pace, was
lost near the village of Cloverly. Mytton very
soon got the lead, and very soon lost it, and
nearly his life at the same time; for coming to
a deep sunk fence, or ha-ha, at which there was
a high and stiff rail, on the rising side he halloed
out—
" Now for the honour of Shropshire !"
And gallantly charged it This challenge, as
it were, indicated two things—first, that he con¬
sidered the fence something like a stopper ;
and, secondly, that he was determined not to be
beaten by any man in the field so long as his
mare could keep on her legs. But the drop, or the
crowd in getting at it, proved too much for her,
and she gave him a severe fall,—in addition to
his being much hurt by another person's horse,
that had followed him, coming upon him and
crushing him ; there being a dozen or so down
together.
The place, in fact, was a regular " Squire
trap," and although Mytton quickly remounted
and went on bleeding and bare-headed—for his
hat was too much crushed to be worth picking
176
LIFE OF MYTTON.
up, the horse in his wake having alighted on it—
he was so much shaken by the fall as to be un¬
able again to take his usual place, and he did
little more than follow a leader during the re¬
mainder of the day. They had, however, two
pretty things; a second fox being found in
Lord Combermere's park, but the hounds were
stopped after running for about twenty minutes,
as this proved to be a vixen ; and a third fox
was chopped in cover. The Shropshire, with
Chanter and Orator, claimed to have the best of
the " hunting;" but Will Head, for the Cheshire,
was always with his hounds, and the honours
may be said to have been divided.
The Shavington Day was on the 7th of April,
1829, when Mr Mytton's active career as a
sportsman was rapidly coming to a close. By
the end of another season he was off the turf;
and in the year after that had turned his back
upon Halston.
PART IV.
I* HAD not seen Mr Mytton for at least two
years previously to my quitting England,
but I had heard some unpleasant reports touch¬
ing his pecuniary affairs ; yet it was not until I
read the advertisement in The Times of the-sale
of all his effects at Halston, that'I found his
race was run. As the greatness of every man's
fall is measured by the height from which he
fell, my heart bled as I waded through the melan¬
choly detail of objects so familiar to my mind,
so dear to himself, and also associated with
brighter days of my own. " Poor fellow ! " said
I, to a mutual friend who was at my side.
" Better he had never lived than to have to taste
those bitter moments which in future must be
his portion. He who towered like the cedar
will now be trampled upon like the bramble,
and perhaps neglected by those whom his
bounty once fed." What became of him, how¬
ever, after the sale of his effects at Halston—for
everything was sold except Euphrates, the race-
M
178 LIFE OF MYTTON.
horse—it is not material to inquire; and I only
know that, being in fear of arrest by creditors,
he sojourned for some time at a small hotel in
Richmond,* from which place are to be dated
circumstances and events deeply affecting his
future short but melancholy term of life.
On the 5th of November 1831, during my
residence in the town of Calais, I was surprised
by a violent knocking at my door, and so unlike
what I had ever heard before in that quiet town,
that, being at hand, I was induced to open the
door myself; when, to my no little astonish¬
ment, there stood John Mytton! "In God's
name," said I, "what has brought you to
France ?" " Why," he replied, "just what
brought yourself to France; (parodying the old
song) three couple of bailiffs were hard at my
brush." But what did I see before me ? The
active, vigorous, well-shapen John Mytton,
whom I had left some years back in Shrop¬
shire ? Oh no ! Compared with him, 'twas the
" reed shaken by the wind ;" there stood before
* Before going there, I believe, he was a good deal at one of
the fashionable bachelor hotels in Bond Street, where he might
be seen sitting down to dinner with bailiffs, money-lenders, and
ragamuffins of all sorts, who haunted and followed him wherever
he went.
LIFE OF MYTTON.
179
me a round-shouldered, decrepit, tottering old-
young man, if I may be allowed such a term,
and so bloated by drink that I might have ex¬
claimed with Ovid—
" Accedant capiti cornua, Bacchus erisF *
But there was a worse sight than this. There
was a mind, as well as a body, in ruins ; the one
had partaken of the injury done to the other, and
it was at once apparent that all was a wreck. In
fact, he was a melancholy spectacle of fallen man
—of one over whom all the storms of life seemed
to be engendered in one dark cloud.
After drinking some wine he took his leave of
me abruptly, saying he was going in a carriage to
Guines, a small town eight miles from Calais,
where he had been quartered, when in the Hus¬
sars, with the army of occupation ; but, taking
me affectionately by the hand, said, " I shall
come to you to-morrow, for I have a great deal
to say to you." The morrow came, and he him¬
self came, accompanied by Mr Vaughton,f and I
hope neither of us may have occasion to witness
* " If you had but horns on your head, you would be
Bacchus."
+ A brother sportsman from Warwickshire, at this time resid¬
ing in France.
i8o
LIFE OF MYTTON.
such another scene. His pecuniary affairs ap¬
peared not to give him a moment's uneasiness.
As regarded them, fancy, or something worse, had
dressed the future prospect with the gayest
colours ; he had seventy thousand pounds to
receive, he said, after all his debts should be
paid; had engaged M'Donald, the jockey, to be
his trainer and rider of his new stud of race-horses;
and had purchased a capital house in Curzon
Street, May Fair, where, of course, there were
a knife and fork for me, and bail for ten thousand
pounds ! Neither did he appear to care two¬
pence for what had occurred at Halston. It
was to be reinstated in its former splendour, and
once more was I to be his guest. It would have
been cruel to have undeceived him here. Like the
good citizen of Argos, he might have upbraided
us for so doing, and exactly in his words:—
" Pol me occidistis, amici,
Non servastis," ait, " cui sic extorta voluptas,
Et demptus per vim mentis gratissimus error." *
But the sore was not yet laid bare. A very ele¬
gant writer has observed, "There are some strokes
of calamity that scathe and scorch the soul,
* "It would have been better, my friends, that you should
have destroyed me, than to have deprived me of the most agree¬
able delusion of the human mind."
LIFE OF MYTTON.
181
that penetrate the vital seat of happiness, and
blast it, never again to put forth bud or blossom
and this we could perceive was his case. He
was writhing under one of them, the madness of
wounded affection, and though vanquished he
would not yield. "I'11 have my wife back again, by
G—d," said he. " Look at these marks," pointing
to a wound on each wrist, which it appeared he
had purposely kept from healing; " they handcuffed
me;* but so help me G—d, I'll have her yet.''
Here a violent hysteric affection put an end to
the scene; but it was evident that not only had
the "iron entered into his soul," but that the foun¬
dation of his happiness was sapped, and, that,
in his then course of life, either his reason or his
health must give way.
One week's experience of his proceedings—
for he was never sober throughout the day—
confirmed me in the above view of his case, and
I thought it my duty to take some precautions.
The first step was to interrogate his valet as to
* He alluded to a desperate attempt he had made to regain
possession of his wife, after she had returned to her family at ChiL
lington Hall; when it was found absolutely necessary for the
constables to handcuff him, before they could make themselves
secure of his person. It has been stated that he knocked down
eight persons in the rencontre. No doubt he went "big with
daring determinations," but he was foiled by a good look-out.
182
LIFE OF MYTTON.
what instrument he had in his possession by
which he could put an end to what, if he ever
suffered himself to take a clear and sober view
of it, must have been a barren and cheerless ex¬
istence ; and the next to inform his friends of my
fears. Barring his mother, his uncle, Mr Owen of
Woodhouse, near Shrewsbury (one of his guar¬
dians), was his nearest relation; to whom I stated
my apprehensions that his nephew would either
go mad, or die, and very shortly too, and wished
for his advice as to how I should act in case my
suspicions should prove well grounded. His
answer, as regarded myself, was kind, and that
of a gentleman ; but as concerned his nephew, it
was conclusive. He had never, he said, taken
his advice in any one instance, therefore he de¬
clined offering it on the occasion on which I
sought it; and muchsoever as he lamented the
ruin that had befallen him, it was a consolation
to him to reflect that he had not in the smallest
degree contributed to it. (This letter is dated
November 25, 1831, just twenty days after his
nephew's arrival at Calais.)
It may be easily imagined that the arrival of
my old friend at Calais, in the state in which he
then appeared, was anything but what I could
have desired. My pen was at that time employed
LIFE OF MYTTON.
183
on a very interesting subject, and I knew, from
past experience, how many times in the day I
should be interrupted by him. But I had shared
his prosperity, and I was not going to desert
him in his adversity. He did not, however,
want for society at Calais. He gave dinners at
his hotel; and as Epicurus's wise man would
cultivate friendship, as he would the earth for
what it produces, there were plenty such wise
men to be found in Calais.* This, however, was
not the worst of it. Still wiser men followed
him from London, as I shall straightways take
occasion to show, as also how fortunately their
designs were frustrated.
Although my house, with its humble fare, was
always open to Mr Mytton, I never made one
of his dinner-parties; but one evening, about
nine o'clock, he came into my dining-room,
accompanied by a man in a rough great-coat,
whom he introduced as a livery-stable keeper in
Edgeware Road, but who, in my eye, had every
appearance of a London thief. On hearing Mr
* Here the character of the man appears in its true colour.
One gentleman, previously unknown to him, borrowed his coat,
with the Anson hunt button on it,—rather unceremoniously, as
he said, to go to a ball. He ordered his valet to line the
gentleman's own coat sleeves with fish-hooks against he called
for it the next day.
184
LIFE OF MYTTON.
Mytton say something of a draft or bill, I asked
this person what was the amount of his demand
on Mr Mytton, when he replied, "under ;£ioo."
To cut this story short, then, I shall only state,
that I cautioned my friend against giving bills
in a foreign country, and also requested his old
acquaintance, Mr Longden, then residing at
Calais, to caution him—for our suspicions were
equally aroused—but we were both equally re¬
pulsed with " Mind your own business," or
words to that effect; and the rascals succeeded
that evening, after he left my house, in getting
his signature to a bill for ^200!* And even
this was nearly being not the worst of it. A
gang of swindlers, of which this fellow was one,
were in the town with stamps suitable to £ 5000,
for which amount they intended to get him to
sign bills, with the promise of remitting him the
money for them.
But this was only the commencement of that
memorable evening's work. After repairing to
the hotel where the bill was signed, Mr Mytton
and his friend sallied forth to a " finish," and
* The payment of this bill was stopped by placards in the
streets of London, in which the names of other gentlemen who
had been swindled by the same party appeared.
LIFE OF MYTTON.
185
somewhere about midnight returned to the
hotel; and now comes the climax.
But, reader, one word with you first. You
have heard, no doubt, of many memorable deeds
performed by fire. You have read that some¬
body set fire to Troy, Alexander to Persepolis,
Nero to Rome, a baker to London, a rascally
Caliph to the treasures of Alexandria, and the
brave Mutius Scsevola to his own hand and arm,
to frighten the proud Porsenna into a peace;
but did you ever hear of a man setting fire to
his own shirt, to frighten away the hiccup ?
Such, however, is the climax I have alluded to
and this was the manner in which it was per¬
formed. " D—n this hiccup ! " said Mytton, as
he stood undressed on the floor, apparently in
the act of getting into his bed ; " but I'll frighten
it away so seizing a lighted candle, he applied
it to the tail of his shirt, and it being a cotton
one, he was instantly enveloped in flames.
Now, how was his life saved ? is the next
question that might be asked. Why, by the
active exertions of his London customer, and
of another stout and intrepid young man that
happened to be in the room, who jointly threw
him down on the ground, and tore his shirt
from his body piecemeal. Then here again
LIFE OF MYTTON.
comes John Mytton : "The hiccup is gone by
!" said he, and reeled naked into his bed.
It is easily to be supposed that the irregular
life Mr Mytton was at this time leading had
its due weight with his valet; and, although he
had been some four or five years in his service,
he had left him that night to his fate, and was
pursuing his own pleasures in Calais. The fol¬
lowing morning, however, between the hours of
seven and eight, he came to inform me of what
his master had done, and wished me to come
instantly to see him. " What doctor have you
got ? " said I. " None" replied the man. " Send
for Dr Souville immediately," added I, "and
I will come to your master as soon as I am
dressed."
Shall I. ever forget the scene this morning
presented ? There lay Mr Mytton, not only
shirtless but sheetless, with the skin of his breast,
shoulders, and knees of the same colour with a
newly-singed bacon hog. He saluted me, as
usual, with a view-holloa, but I told him that
was no time for joking, and asked him why he
committed so silly an act, and one that might
very probably be the cause of his death ? In
fact, had the flames caught his body one inch
lower down, his intestines would have been
LIFE OF MYTTON.
18;
burnt, and he must have perished. His answer
was;—the answer of a madman—that he wished
to show me how he could bear pain. The scene
closed with the arrival of the doctor, who applied
the usual palliatives, but whose opinion as to
the result it was then almost useless to ask
for.
Any man but John Mytton would have tried
to have aided the exertions of his doctor to alle¬
viate sufferings which very shortly became severe,
but he absolutely added fuel to the fire. The
more he smarted, the more he drank; but like
the Spartan boy, he never squeaked. " Can't I
bear pain well ?" he would say to me six times
in the day; and in truth he did bear it well. But
although it sometimes happens, that the spirit
is willing whilst the flesh is weak, here the flesh
was the stronger of the two ; for the mind of the
sufferer very soon became affected. I have,
however, omitted to mention one act he com¬
mitted the day after his accident, which, if com¬
mitted by any other man but himself, would
have been evidence to have shown that he was
already mad. "Is not going to dine with
you to-day ? " said he to me. On my answer¬
ing in the affirmative, he observed, that I might
have asked himself to have met him. " It would
188
LIFE OF MYTTON.
cost you your life," resumed I; " you must be
stark mad to think of going out in the state you
are at present." He gave me one of those looks
which generally implied mischief, and which
were well understood by his friends; but said
nothing more at the moment. Just after we
were seated at our dinner, however, in walked
John Mytton ; but although he sat out the meal
and half an hour besides, he fainted twice, and
was glad to return to his bed. But even this is
a trifle to what he afterwards did. He had been
five weeks in his bed, when he declared he would
dine with me on New Year's-day. Nothing but
the strait waistcoat would have restrained him,
and he came; and moreover, because there were
not four horses to the carriage to take him back
to his hotel—not three hundred yards—he would
walk without even a great-coat, but supported
by two persons; and although the air was cold
and damp, he was not a whit the worse for it.
What would some people give for such a consti¬
tution as his! and how difficult was it even for
him to destroy it!
Of all the uncertainties of our present state,
said Dr Johnson, the most dreadful and alarm¬
ing is the uncertain continuance of reason; and
although there may be " a pleasure in madness
LIFE OF MYTTON.
189
madmen only know," it is harrowing to the feel¬
ings of others to behold it. My prediction re¬
specting Mr Mytton was fulfilled ; he became,
to a certain extent, deranged in about a fort¬
night after the burning, and it was quite evident
he would very shortly become a maniac. Symp¬
toms at length gave apprehension of his becom¬
ing at times dangerous ; the strait waistcoat was
ordered, and the men were in readiness in the
house to apply it. "Wait," said I, "and let me
try, once more, if I can arouse him to a sense of
his situation ;" and, entering his chamber alone,
the following conversation passed:—
" Mytton," said I, " I come to tell you that
your doctors assure me you will be a corpse in
three days, unless you give up drinking brandy."
—" So much the better," he replied ; " I wish to
die."—"That is not the speech of a man of your
good understanding," I observed. "You may
yet see happy days, if you will give up drinking
brandy. Will you promise me you will give it
up?" He said he would not; but on my tell¬
ing him there were men in the house ready to
put his person under restraint, he said he would
promise to drink only what his doctors might
allow him ; and this was all I wanted. The
keepers and the waistcoat were dismissed.
190 LIFE OF MYTTON.
His mind soon experienced the benefit of this
wholesome change; but the irritation from the
burning brought his life into peril. In fact, Dr
Souville told me he did not expect him to live,
apprehending typhus would ensue ; and, as an
old Warwickshire brother sportsman * who saw
him, said of him, " No other man but Mytton
would have survived." He would faint on being
moved from his bed to his chair, and he had
every symptom of sinking nature. Under these
circumstances, I had a duty to perform which
I did not shrink from ; but never should I have
dreamt of making public the result, were it not
that I consider it honourable to the man, and it
cannot fail of being satisfactory to his friends.
Sitting opposite to him, then, by the fireside, I
thus, in pain, addressed him. " I think it right
to tell you, your life is in danger; I know you
too well not to be convinced that you will not
scoff at what I am going to suggest. Would
you like to see our clergyman, Mr Liptrot ? He
is a liberal-minded, worthy man, without an
atom of humbug about him."—" Draw your
chair by the side of me," said Mytton. On my
placing it on his right, he requested me to place
* Mr Henry Wyatt.
LIFE OF MYTTON.
I9I
it on his left, and to sit myself down upon it:
when; putting his left hand into mine, he struck
his breast violently with his right, and with as
much vehemence as in his then weak state he
could command, exclaimed, " I never intention¬
ally injured any person in my life, and I hope
God will forgive me." These words were fol¬
lowed by a flood of tears ; yet how exactly do
they resemble those of Manfred to the Abbot of
St Maurice:—
'' I hear thee. This is my reply; whate'er
I may have been, or am, doth rest between
Heaven and myself. I shall not choose a mortal
To be my mediator."
The offer of sending for the clergyman was
declined, but without further remark.
Cicero says, no man in his sound mind is quite
destitute of religion : and even unsound as poor
Mytton's, to a certain extent, always was, I am
quite sure he was not destitute of it, although
his proud spirit was loth to own a dread of any¬
thing, either human or divine. But supposing
he had never owned it to man, we are not to
imply that he did not own it to his God ; for al¬
though the fall of Solomon is told, we know
nothing of his repentance. I shall have occasion,
LIFE OF MYTTON.
however, to show, that the subject of this memoir
was a sincere, though perhaps a late penitent;
and I rejoice at having it in my power to do so,
as I should have been sorry to hear that he
" died and made no sign."
There is a scrap of Latin which has often met
my eye, and is as often applied to nations as to
individuals, but I cannot say I know the author
of it: " Quos Dens (or quem Jupiter) vultperdere,
prius dementatwhich is as much as to say,
that those persons whom the Almighty wishes
to destroy, He previously causes to grow mad
(which is, I believe, the literal and only mean¬
ing of demento, a word not in use in elegant
Latin.) I know not on whose authority the
conduct of man's Maker is thus, I think, im¬
piously speculated upon ; but should a fiat so
dreadful have been really pronounced, let us
hope it will plead in favour of some of the acts
of poor John Mytton, for which, with a heart
like his, nothing short of madness could possibly
account or justify.*
* It never before fell to my lot to watch the motions and
actions of persons labouring under a temporary aberration
of the mind, much more to receive letters from them. Amongst
the numerous ones which my poor friend wrote to me
in that melancholy situation, the following convince me that
LIFE OF MYTTON.
193
On the morrow of the day on which I had
the conversation with Mr Mytton on the serious
condition in which he then appeared placed, he
however discordant may be the instrument of thought (the brain)
at the time, though some keys may jar, there are others which
yield the usual tones to the same touch :—
"Dear Ramrod (for Nimrod),
"You shall not stay longer with old Jack Longden in my
sitting-room, but come up-stairs to see a Hero, late Ghillington,
die the death of a saint."
Here was the ruling passion, strong even in madness and in
death, for he was very ill at the time. Hero was the horse he
bought of me, which he afterwards called Chillington; and he
married a daughter of the ancient house of Chillington. There
were as many as half a dozen dashes under some of these words.
Again, there was the following, in which the fatal passion for
the Circean cup—that cup which, like Nabal's, turned a heart
of flesh to a heart of stone—too plainly appears.
"Dear Ram.,
" 'Jam satis terris nivis atque dirae grandinis misit Pater,
et rubente' porto. Here goes a bumper to old Ram.
"(Signed) John Mytton."
This extraordinary production is dated "the Gallies," and
directed thus :—" Fall at a rasper ! To Mytton's best friend."
The quotation from Horace is worth notice, inasmuch as every
word is rightly spelled, the punctuation correct, and the capital
"P" in Pater, as in the original. There were six dashes under
the word "rubente," and four under "porto," but the inverted
commas ceased at " rubente !" The following postscript was
added to it:—
" Nummi si nolo custodi rendere vinctus
Praemii num mi (eheus miseri!) restat ahenea turris ? "
" Prison or not to prison—can it be a debt, as it's not self*
N
194
LIFE OF MYTTON
asked me, as he lay in bed, to get a sheet of
paper and write what he dictated. I did so,
and it consisted of the following lines
" Condemn'd in youth to meet the grave,
I hope to be received above ;
Render my soul to Him who gave,
My latest breath to you, my love."
He then requested they might be placed in his
view on the door of his chamber (where they
remained for a considerable time). " And," said
he, "when I die, I trust to your sending them
to my wife." I told him I would do so; and
had he died at that time, I should certainly have
complied with the request.
It would be both useless and tedious to describe
the various scenes that passed in the chamber
of my poor friend, who was guarded day and
night by three persons at a time, after he re-
contracted, non sponte sua, nec voluntate meorum filiorum."
Here it appears his Latin is not quite so correct; but he
alludes to the impression that he was not aware on what account
his liberty was denied him. This last epistle was succeeded by
another the same day, which shows that the brain became more
disturbed:—"Dear Ram.,—H—1 to pay! come here instantly,
they are all found out—-poison. Ever J. M." I have a hundred
such notes, the dates of all which I marked, and I suppose Mr
Roberts, the proprietor of his hotel, had as many. On perusing
several of them, I could have exclaimed with Shakespeare,—
"Oh, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown ! "
LIFE OF MYTTON.
195
covered his strength ; but some of these scenes
would put the powers of description at defiance.
His conversation, for example, with these persons,
who were English smugglers, was at times ludi¬
crous in the extreme, and highly characteristic
of the man* Previously to this precaution, how¬
ever, rather an awful scene was witnessed by me.
A servant from his hotel came to inform me
that Mr Mytton had got six carving-knives in
his possession, and was by himself in his room.
Mr Vaughton and myself entered it, and such
we found to be the case, with the trifling differ¬
ence that only two of the six were carving knives,
the other four being dinner or case-knives. He
* There was nothing that medical skill or humanity could sug¬
gest left untried to relieve the sufferings of Mr Mytton. Several
of his friends sat up, or lay on a spare bed, the whole night in
his room ; and of course I took my turn. It happened one night
that I was accompanied on my watch by a waiter from some hotel
in London, who was sent over to Mr Roberts' hotel for the pur¬
pose oflearning the French language. " Nimrod!" exclaimed Mr
Mytton; but I feigned sleep. "Nimrod!" he repeated, " I want
to talk to you ;" but I was still asleep. " Come then," said he to
the waiter, " sit by me and talk to me. You have heard of my
hounds?"—"Your hounds, sir?" said the man, a thoroughbred
Cockney. " I can't say as I ever did."—" Why, you d—d fool,
where have you lived all your life? Did you never hear of
Euphrates?"—"I can't say as I did, sir," replied the man.
' 'What !" said Mytton, " never heard of Euphrates the race-horse ?
I'll have you smothered to-morrow, by G—d! Get back to
your great chair, and go to sleep !"
196
LIFE OF MYTTON.
was lying on his bed, with the six knives in his
hands, when I placed myself at its side, and Mr
Vaughton, a very powerful man, stood at the
foot. "Heyday, Squire!" said I, "what are
you going to do with all those knives ?"—"Come
and lay down by my side," said he, "and I'll
show you " (of course, I begged to be excused).
" I have made your fortune, and old Vaughton's
too—a hundred and fifty thousand pounds apiece
for each of you ; for I have found out that these
knives will extract fire from flesh!'—" Ah !" said
Mr Vaughton; "but how much better would
they do that, if they were warmed at the fire /"
—" To be sure," replied our poor deluded friend;
and, giving them into his hands, they were soon
put outside the door. Now, it will, no doubt, ap¬
pear a mystery in what way these knives could
have been procured; and well it may. But,
will it be credited, that they had been given to
him by his own servant, of whom I had only a
few weeks before required possession of every¬
thing, even to his nail-knife, by which a wound
to his person could be given ? Such, however,
was the case; and it is scarcely necessary to
observe, that the man was from that hour for¬
bidden to come near his person, and soon after¬
wards was discharged.
LIFE OF MYTTON.
197
The effects of education on first-rate talent
shine forth when little expected, as was the case
with Mr Mytton, even when his mental aberra¬
tions were nearly at their height.
In one of his paroxysms he talked eight-and-
forty hours without ceasing ; and, as it may be
supposed under such violent excitement, a re¬
collection of last year's clouds would not be
more difficult than a record of the unconnected
jargon which he at that time uttered. But in
his calmer moments, when he saw me by his
bedside, he would quote Greek and Latin
authors with surprising readiness, and when he
found he was incorrect, would pause until he
recovered the text. In several of these quota¬
tions it was beyond doubt apparent, that the
bereavement of his family and the desolation at
Halston were present to his mind ; for in some
particular instances I could not be mistaken.
In giving that beautiful passage from Sophocles,
wherein QEdipus recommends his children to the
care of Creon, I am quite certain he was applying
it in his mind to the first-named calamity ; and an
epigram from the Greek " Anthologia," on the
fall of Troy and the death of Hector, which, he
would very often repeat, had a sympathetic
allusion to the ruin at Halston and his own fall.
198
LIFE OF MYTTON.
But the following criticism could scarcely have
been expected from a mind in ruins. In reply to
the numerous messages he would send to the
bar of his hotel, some answer was generally to
be manufactured, and " master has not got such
a thing in the house," was by no means an un¬
common one. It happened one day, however,
that the attendant in waiting brought him what
he had sent him for, but delivered it into his
hands with the usual announcement—" Mr
Roberts hasn't got no such thing, sir,"—he
having procured it elsewhere.
" Why," said Mytton, looking the man in the
face, in my presence, " you are a Greek."
" No, sir, I arn't," he replied.
" But I '11 be if you are not," continued
Mytton, " for in Greek two negatives make the
affirmative stronger;" and roared into his ear,
" ifiov ov hvvacrOe iroielv ovhev, says the
Bible."
The fellow stared, and well, indeed, might Mr
Mytton's uncle say, as he did in his letter to me,
when lamenting his nephew's situation, and con¬
trasting it with what it might have been—" Heu,
ubi lapsus ! "
But we will bring this scene to a close.
Having reason to believe that, either by his
LIFE OF MYTTON.
I99
powers of eloquence or by the force of that
sympathy in a British sailor for the absence of
grog, which is inseparable from his character, and
will be a formidable opponent to Temperance
Societies on the coast, he had prevailed upon
one or two of these otherwise honest guardians
to procure him spirits by stealth,* it was deter¬
mined by Mrs Mytton, his mother, who had for
some time been in painful but unremitting
attendance on her son, that I should proceed to
London, and state his case to Dr Sutherland,
as, in fact, we were making no progress towards
recovery. The result was, two experienced
attendants being sent to Calais, by whose skil¬
ful treatment an alteration for the better was
soon apparent, and their patient able to take
his airings in a carriage. It is, however, singular,
that the only time it was found necessary to put
my poor friend under absolute personal restraint,
was during the time I was absent from him in
London, and on my return, John Mytton like,
he spoke of it as a very good joke.
The scene now changes again, and somewhat
* He would at this time frequently send for eau-de-cologne,
under the pretext of using it as perfume, or otherwise externally,
on his person. We soon, however, by the quantity consumed,
ascertained that he drank it!
200
LIFE OF MYTTON.
of a brighter prospect appears. Although Mr
Mytton had every comfort, as well as every con¬
venience, at the Royal Hotel in Calais,—the
landlord of which, Mr Roberts, is a person of
superior education and conduct, and was much
esteemed by his unfortunate guest,—yet when
it was considered that he had been occupying
the same apartments so long, in sickness and in
sorrow, it was desirable, on the approach of
spring, that he should breathe a purer air ; and
a chateau was looked for in the neighbouring
country. But here arose a difficulty. The few
persons who had such things to let were alarmed
at the idea of a gentleman and his keepers, and
fearing the occupation of them by such tenants
might leave a stain on their premises, refused to
let them on any terms. What, then, was to be
done ? His removal to England would have
been his removal to a prison ; so, at the request
of Mrs Mytton, I consented to hire a ch&teau,
and to receive him as an inmate until his re¬
covery was completed. But I went beyond this:
I undertook to make a trial of managing him
myself, without the aid of his keepers ; and the
first ten days bade fair for success. He con¬
formed to regular hours; enjoyed his meals ;
did not exceed his bottle of light wine; was, I
LIFE OF MYTTON.
201
thought, never happier in his life, and the recruit¬
ment of his health was beyond all expectation.
But, luckily for all parties, at the request of his
mother, who was gone to England, his keepers
still remained in Calais, to await the issue of
the experiment ; for at the end of a fortnight he
stole away to Calais unobserved, got at the
brandy bottle, and then it was all over with my
" brief authority." It was with great difficulty
that I could prevail on him to return to dinner
for three successive evenings ; and on the fourth
he was outrageous, threatening to murder a
gentleman at table who had been most kind to
him in his illness. It then became necessary to
send to Calais for his keepers ; and by eight
o'clock the next morning, with the advice of his
doctors, he was under their care.
Provision was made for this somewhat anti¬
cipated change. The chateau afforded ample
accommodation for the whole party; but as, in
all such cases, it is necessary to separate the
patient from persons and objects which are
sources of mental excitement, Mr Mytton and
his attendants had apartments separate from
mine, and which were arranged in the most con¬
venient manner for all purposes of safety. The
attendance of these young men acted like a
202
LIFE OF MYTTON.
charm upon their patient, who recovered his
former serenity on being told that he was again
placed under the surveillance of the police for
striking a Frenchman in Calais. But let all
those whose constitutions are the worse for wear,
by indulging in midnight revels and strong
drink, and who may take a glance at the Life of
John Mytton, mark and digest what I am now
about to state. When he left the town of Calais,
he was gradually recovering his strength of body
and mind, but was very feeble on his legs, and
could scarcely enter a carriage without assistance.
He had not been at this chateau a month before,
by regular living and daily exercise in sea air,
he was able to walk six or seven miles in the
middle of the day without the slightest fatigue,
and to take a walk in the evening besides. His
meals were eaten with a relish, and without the
aid of Cayenne pepper, to the use of which he
before knew no bounds; and his sleep was
tranquil and refreshing. Now methinks it will
be asked, How did he employ his time ? Why,
painful but striking is the answer to this ques¬
tion. He to whom the whole world had ap¬
peared insufficient to afford pleasure, and who
had spent hundreds of thousands of pounds in
pursuit of it, was now completely happy in the
LIFE OF MYTTON.
203
occupation of picking up sea-shells in the morn¬
ing, and washing them in vinegar in the evening!
So eager was he in this his favourite pursuit,
that he would scarcely finish his dinner before
he would enter upon the last-mentioned office,
and would absolutely stand for two or three
hours at a time brushing shells with a nail-brush
dipped in vinegar! They were then laid with
great precision in drawers, which he would never
suffer any one but himself to open. All this,
with the perusal of the Morning Herald, the Age,
and the Calais (French) Journals, formed the
business of the day.
It is almost needless for me to state that at
this period the intellect of my friend was in a
state of great imbecility—the consequence of
extreme exhaustion, produced by extreme ex¬
citement. Nevertheless, it was the opinion of
his attendants, as well as of Drs. Souville and
Winder, who saw him two or three times a-week,
that, by pursuing the plan they were then acting
upon, he would in time recover his strength of
mind as well as that of his body ; and there also
was a chance—as his old friend and neighbour
in his own county, Colonel Proctor, then at
Boulogne, observed—of his altering his former
course of life, from the experience he might have
204
LIFE OF MYTTON.
of the benefits arising from temperance and ex¬
ercise. But alas, poor man! this chance was
denied him. At the end of the second month
he was, by false representations made to his
mother, once more let loose; and from that
hour to the last of his life, his poor shattered
barque was never out of a sea of troubles. He
had nearly been suffocated with brandy on his
voyage to London by the steamer, the day after
he left the chateau ; and, as was evident to all
parties, so soon as he was caught in England he
would be in a gaol! Why, then, was he taken
to England ? and why was his life thus suffered
to be sacrificed ? Why, merely to enable him
to sign deeds conveying away the last remaining
acre of his unentailed property, which he could
not do when in the situation from which he was
taken, and which, it appears, when done, did
not secure his person from the griping fangs of
the law. He did sign them, however, and his
own death-warrant by the same act and deed.
There might be other reasons for getting him to
England, which it may perhaps be unsafe for me
to commit to paper ; to my mind they were
conclusive.
I shall take but a bird's-eye view of his career
in England ; but, carrying on the allegory, we
LIFE OF MYTTON.
205
may compare his situation to that of small birds
pursued by hawks. Every bailiff in London was
on the look-out for him ; and above all places in
the world, he went to Halston to avoid them!
Oh! what must have been his feelings on the
first view of his deserted hall—the scene of all
his former splendour ? They must have some¬
what resembled those of " The Last Man," when
viewing the capitals of the world, and himself
alone left to mourn over them ; but as they are
incommunicable by words, I leave them to the
imagination, and likewise to the sympathy of
the reader.
" Such a house broke !
So noble a master fallen ! All gone ! and not
One friend to take his fortune by the arm,
And go along with him."
Let us hope, however, that he was neither
sober nor in his senses—at all events, that some
respite was in mercy granted to his intellectual
faculties, as a guard to his heart from the assaults
of sufferings that might otherwise have been
beyond man's nature to endure! But his stay
here was short; he was hurried off to Shrewsbury
Gaol, whence, in the course of time, he was re¬
moved to the King's Bench Prison, in London.
Now here again comes "John Mytton!"
During his sojourn in the first-named prison,
206
LIFE OF MYTTON.
he was visited by several of his old friends—
influential gentlemen in the county—who oftered
their services in arranging his difficulties, pro¬
vided he would put his affairs into their trust;
but he rejected all their overtures. Either
Caesar or nobody he was resolved to be so
long as he was above ground ; and how exactly
did he come under that denomination of persons
of whom Horace speaks—
" Quem neque pauperies, neque mors, neque vincula terrent; "
and how plumply did he give the lie to the
adage that adversity is the school of reform!
The toad was ugly and venomous; but he saw
no "precious jewel in his head."
But there was something savouring of the
serio-romantic in Mr Mytton's being placed in
durance for debt, in the prison of a town with
which the deeds of his ancestors were so deeply
and brilliantly associated—in a town in which his
word would, but a short time before, have been
good for ten thousand pounds, and in which he
once sat high in the people's hearts; and also in
relation to the altei ed situation in which he him¬
self once stood towards the keeper of that prison.
The governorship becoming vacant, the contest
for it was a severe one, and it was solely by the
LIFE OF MYTTON.
20/
influence and exertions of Mr Mytton that the
then gaoler, Mr Griffiths, filled it. He, however,
not only did credit, but honour, to his bene¬
factor's choice, as no man in Shrewsbury was, I
believe, more respected than he, neither could
any man exceed him in the various and arduous
duties he had to perform, tempering mercy with
justice; and although Shakespeare says, "Seldom
when the steeled gaoler is the friend of man,"
Mr Griffiths was unceasing in his kind attention
to his patron now become his prisoner. Indeed
Mr Mytton not only acknowledged this to me,
but told me he was very comfortable in Shrews¬
bury Gaol.
On a writ of certiorari being executed, my
poor degraded friend was conveyed to London,
in the custody of Mr Griffiths, and transferred
to that of the Marshal of the King's Bench,
where I saw him for the first time since he left
the chateau in France. But what a change for
the worse was here ! He was the same bloated,
unhealthy-looking son of Bacchus that he ap¬
peared on his arrival in Calais, and he had a leg
in a state nearly approaching mortification. In
fact, his surgeon told me he would owe his life
—at all events, the preservation of his leg—
solely to the kindness of a fellow-prisoner, who
208
LIFE OF MYTTON.
prevented his drinking spirits; and such, no
doubt, was the case.
I am not able to say how long he remained in
the Bench, but on his exit John Mytton—unus
ex omnibus—appears again ; but to what account
shall we place the act I am about to mention;
for it appears to me to want a name ? It is not,
however, without a plea. The heart of man has
been elegantly compared to a creeping plant,
which withers unless it have something around
which it can entwine; but towards what a frail
trellage did that of this man yearn for its support!
Walking one day over Westminster Bridge, the
following dialogue occurred between himself and
a female of a class which the reader will not be
at a loss to name, but on whom he had never
before set his eyes.
Mr Mytton. " How do ye do ? "
The Female. "Very well, I thank ye; how
do you do ? "
Mr Mytton. " Where are you going ?"
The Female. "I don't know."
Mr Mytton. " Then come and live with me
I '11 settle £500 a year upon you."
Here was no law's delay: no worm in the
bud; no concealment feeding on the damask
cheek; but love at first sight, if any love there
LIFE OF MYTTON.
209
was. The bargain being struck, the broomstick
jumped over, the happy couple soon afterwards
arrived at Calais, at the Crown Hotel — Mr
Roberts, under such circumstances, being com¬
pelled to decline the honour of their company.
But the strangest part of the affair is to come.
This young woman, then only in her twentieth
year, whom no doubt some scoundrel had se¬
duced and abandoned, was not only possessed of
considerable personal charms, but proved to be
very respectably connected,* and conducted her¬
self towards her protector so much better than
could be expected, considering whence she was
imported, and that his lusty love had gone " in
quest of beauty," and not " in search of virtue,"
that I saw a letter to her from his mother, ac¬
knowledging her kindness towards her son. But
wife or mistress made no difference with Mytton.
If he were not, generally speaking, a madman,
to a certain extent, on the subject of a woman,
and, above all, of a woman he loved, he was a
monomaniac; and some extraordinary scenes
were the fruits of this extraordinary connection.
* The late Lord Arundel, who was at this time sojourning
at the Royal Hotel, on his road to Italy, confirmed to me the
respectability of her connections on hearing their names men¬
tioned.
O
210
LIFE OF MYTTON.
The green-eyed monster played his part as
usual, and at times a nod or a look was suspicion
strong as holy writ.
I must hark back here for a moment. On the
morrow after Mr Mytton arrived from London,
he was arrested for ^25 at the suit of the holder
of one bill out of four for ^25 each, which he
had been most improperly induced to accept in
favour of a person resident in Calais, who had
not the slightest claim upon his liberality, and
conveyed to the prison of the town. His
solicitor being then with him, there was no diffi¬
culty in releasing him to the extent of that in¬
dividual sum; but it was considered expedient
to detain him in custody until it could be ascer¬
tained what was become of the three other bills >
when it was at length agreed that two of them
should be given up, and that his liability only
extended to ^"50. Here then will appear the
character of the kind-hearted John Mytton in
its true light. Almost any man but himself
would have been outrageous at this breach of
confidence and good feeling, but not so John
Mytton. The first step he took after his release
from the prison was, to call upon the person who
had caused him to be thus disgraced, and to
walk arm-in-arm with him on the market-place,
LIFE OF MYTTON.
211
lest, as he said, the affair might injure his
character in the town, he being a professional
man. Reader, I '11 bar you from one book, and
one book alone ; you shall then search the pages
of ancient and modern history, and I challenge
you to produce me a nobler instance of a nobler
heart than the one I have now given you. The
power of bearing and forbearing, which consti¬
tuted Epictetus's wise man, comes, perhaps, next
to it in theory.
But the storm soon gathers again. After so¬
journing a certain time at the Crown Hotel, in
Calais, with a score to his name of a thousand
francs, he came to my house in the country, to
inform me he should go to England on the
morrow. It was in vain that I told him he
could not do so without first paying his bill
which I knew he had not, at that time, the
means of doing. He, however, put himself into
the Boulogne coach the next afternoon, meaning
to embark from that town, having, perhaps for¬
tunately, informed the barber who shaved him
of his intentions, which intentions the barber, of
course, conveyed instanter to the landlord ; and
the following day found him in Boulogne gaol.
Also luckily for him, his agent arrived the same
day ; but his creditor had previously agreed
212
LIFE OF MYTTON.
to release him, on an undertaking from Mr
Roberts, of the Royal Hotel, and myself, to
bring him back to Calais. The distraining land¬
lord has since paid the debt of nature; but he
was quite free from blame with regard to the
steps he pursued ; and Mr Mytton was kind as
usual to him on his return.
Shortly after this, Mr Mytton and his chlre
amie took their departure for Lisle : but what
they did at Lisle I did not trouble myself to in¬
quire. Their return to Calais, however, forms
another interesting scene in this—I know not
what to call it, but perhaps the ancient Greeks
would have called it Spa/xa rov ftiov, or comedy
of life. J ust as I was sitting down to dinner one
evening of a very hot day in August, I espied a
person at the bottom of my avenue, approaching
my house on foot. " Is it possible," said I,
" that person can be Mytton ? " Mytton, how¬
ever, it was; and shall I ever forget the state he
was in—shirtless, waistcoatless, neckclothless,
with his trousers and coat stained with blood,
as well as in a state of very great exhaustion
from fatigue. Now then for his account of him¬
self. He had set forward, it appeared, in a
diligence from Lisle to Calais, but had quarrelled
with Susan (his chere amie's name) at St Omer,
LIFE OF MYTTON.
213
and refused to proceed in her company any
farther. When she left him behind at St Omer
to proceed to Calais, he had nearly four
napoleons in his pocket; but getting into a
street-row in that town, he had been well licked
and robbed * of all save three Belgic sous.
With this small sum he started to walk to Calais,
twenty-seven long miles, and under a burning
sun ; but becoming dead beat before the sun set,
he put up at a small public-house, or caberet,
by the road-side; and the account he gave of
his proceedings in it was a most ludicrous one.
He wheedled the old woman, he said, out of
some supper; but then what was to be done for
something to drink ? " Why," he continued, " I
can leave part of my clothes in pawn in the
morning; so got two glasses of gin and water,
gin being cheaper than brandy." On refreshing
himself at my house, and putting his person in¬
to something like a decent condition, he walked
into Calais, and made it up with Susan.
The comedy is now at an end, at least for the
present, and something very like a tragedy suc¬
ceeds to it. Poor Mytton was, a few days after,
again arrested for £200, being the amount of
* I should rather say he had lost this money out of his pocket.
214
LIFE OF MYTTON.
the score he had run up at a certain French
hotel in London, where himself and his partner
had been sojourning after the bargain had been
struck on the bridge, and from whence he had
been obliged to bolt in a hurry, as the bailiffs
were in the house in pursuit of him. But the
landlord, being a Frenchman, had recourse to
the privileges of a Frenchman, and I was once
more pained by seeing my friend looking
through the bars of a French prison window.
Here he was suffered to remain—the why and
the wherefore can only be answered by his
solicitors in London, as the sale of his estates
had been completed—for fourteen days ; on the
thirteenth day, I thought it my duty to inform
his mother of his situation ; and in four days
from the date of my letter she was in Calais.
It would be painful to me to relate, as well as
to my readers to be made acquainted with, a
detail, of the acts and deeds of this unhappy
man during the rest of the time he spent in
Calais, where his mother remained to protect
him as far as it was in her power to do so. But
it was brandy, brandy, brandy, morning, noon,
and night, which of course drove him to mad¬
ness ; and a disposition to insult the French
people, made it necessary to remove him.
LIFE OP MYTTON.
215
England was again determined upon, where not
only a prison, but the grave yawned to receive
him, and in a prison he died. Thus fell John
Mytton ; by nature, what God must have in¬
tended every man should be ; by education, or
rather from the want of proper education, nearly
at last what man should not be. The seed was
good ; but it fell among thorns and was choked.
So soon as I was informed that Mr Mytton
was once more within the walls of the King's
Bench Prison, I felt assured he would never quit
them but on his bier,—neither did he. But as
the poet says,—
"Better to sink beneath the shock,
Than moulder piecemeal on the rock."
And I was happy when I heard the fatal sub¬
poena had arrived, for adversity had exhausted
her vial, and it was evident that, with the excep¬
tion of the unsubdued affection of his mother
there was, for him, no balm in Gilead. It ap¬
peared that in about three weeks after his incar¬
ceration, he was seized with paralysis of the
extremities, which bade defiance to the treat¬
ment of Dr Maton and Mr Brodie, who indeed
from the first, considered it a case without hope.
It may be, however, a consolation to those who
216
LIFE OF MYTTON.
bad a regard for him, to learn that his sufferings
vere not severe ; that his mother was by his bed¬
side at the last; and that as he had been con¬
versing rationally with his medical attendants
within half an hour of his decease, his life must
have departed like the flickering flame of a lamp
which goes out by the last crackle. But it is
astounding to think, from the rapidity with
which his lamp of life must have burned, that
he lived to complete his thirty-eighth year. As
I said of him before, Nil violentum estperpetuum ;
Phaeton's car went but a day!
A brother sportsman and a brother prisoner
(well known at Melton Mowbray) who, as I have
before mentioned, had been extremely kind to
my poor friend during his first and second incar¬
ceration, and who was a constant attendant on
his sick-bed, wrote me, unsolicited, some inter¬
esting particulars relating to his illness and the
last scenes of his eventful life, which it gives me
pleasure to make known. The " virtue of
suffering well," which Johnson allowed to Savage,
could by no one be denied to Mytton, whose
bearing and forbearing, as I have before shown,
are perhaps not exceeded by any man's; but in
the opinion of his friend he took much to heart
this second confinement in the King's Bench,
LIFE OF MYTTON.
217
although his proud spirit would not suffer him
to acknowledge it; and he thought it hastened
his end. As to his dying in peace with all man¬
kind, how could he die otherwise who never
attempted to revenge himself on any human
being, but who, though his communication was
not " yea, yea, or nay, nay," so far from demand¬
ing the eye for the eye, and the tooth for the
tooth, would have actually given his cloak to
him who stole his coat; whose heart was as warm
as those of half the world are cold ; and whose
warmth of heart had brought him into the prison
in which he died ! And how did he die ? As
he appeared to live—in dread of nothing, human
or divine? Certainly not; although it may
tauntingly be said, he trusted to the delusive
support of a death-bed repentance. Let no man,
however, venture to pronounce sentence here,
but leave it to that bar at which justice will be
tempered with mercy; where, unless I formed
a very erroneous opinion of the late Mr Mytton
—and who had a much more intimate knowledge
of him than myself?—and a still more mistaken
one of the attributes of Him by whom he will be
judged, he will find acceptance before many who
have carried a much fairer face to the world.
Few receive the white garment and carry it with
218
LIFE OF MYTTON.
out a stain before the judgment-seat. John
Mytton certainly did not: it was soiled and
stained with the impurities of our nature, with
even more than can be placed to that account;
and the world has no proof that they were at¬
tempted to be washed out by his tears ; but I
appeal to my own experience of him, to that of
his brother prisoner and friend who attended
him in his last days, in the hour indeed when the
heart knows no guile and in which the tongue
seldom hazards an untruth, whether he did not
then own to man what he had previously only
owned to his God. Although it appears he did
not consider his life in imminent danger, he had
the church service read to him nearly every day,
and more particularly on Good Friday, when he
held a long conversation with his brother prisoner
on the sacrament, but which, although he ex¬
pressed himself very properly in his allusions to
it, it does not appear he partook of. Of both his
wives he spoke in the tenderest terms of affection,
as also of his children by each, and expressed a
strong desire to see his present wife and all his
children together ; but alas ! that wish was a vain
one. Immediately after his decease, a cast was
taken of his features by the celebrated phreno¬
logist, Mr Deville, in the Strand, at the express^
LIFE OF MYTTON.
219
request of his mother, in which it is said the cha¬
racter of the man is very clearly developed.
The first public notice of his decease that
reached this country was contained in a very
neatly written paragraph in the Globe, in which
the following short but just character was given
him:—"His princely magnificence and eccentric
gaieties obtained him great notoriety in the
sporting and gay circles, both in England and
on the Continent. His failings, which leaned to
virtue's side, greatly reduced him, and he has
left numerous friends to lament the melancholy
fact of his dying in a prison, which, contrasted
with his former splendour, furnishes a striking
illustration of the mutability of mundane affairs."
This account went the round of the papers, with
the exception of Bell's Life in London, which in¬
advertently stated that he had spent the fortunes
of two wives, but which the Editor immediately
contradicted on my authority. That of his first,
which was ten thousand pounds, was settled on
his only daughter by her; what his second wife's
fortune was, I never heard; but whatever it
might have been, I have reason to believe it
remained for the benefit of his younger children.
It is too much the practice of the world, at
least so says the satire, to adore the rising sun,
220
LIFE OF MYTTON.
and to condemn him when going down; but
neither errors nor crimes (if such, reader, you
will have them), nor adversity, could chill the
grateful recollections of the splendour that had
once illuminated Halston, and of the many
otherwise, perhaps, sad hearts which had been
warmed by its genial rays. But even indepen¬
dent of this, there was a tenderness and com¬
passion of nature in both the sayings and doings
of poor John Mytton, which had fixed him firmly
in the hearts and affections of the people within
many miles of his house, and there he remained
fixed to the last. In proof of this his funeral
excited very general, indeed I might say, almost
unequalled sympathy. The amazing number
of three thousand persons were present at it,
several appearing unable to stifle their feelings,
and only obtaining relief by their tears. And
what brought together this assemblage of per¬
sons of all conditions, even to the poorest ?
Not, as Shakespeare says, to
" tender down
Their services to Lord Timon ; his large fortune,
Upon his good and gracious nature hanging."
No; but to shed a tear on the bier of a man
whose " large fortune" and whose " gracious
nature " were no more; of a man who died in a
LIFE OF MYTTON.
221
gaol; of one who, with " all his imperfections
on his head," would never die in their hearts or
memory ! But no more of this. The subject is
too painful to dwell on ; and I should be untrue
to myself if I did not admit, that my own tears
would have mingled with those shed over the
grave of John Mytton, and that they have more
than once mingled with the ink which has traced
his devious course, and marked his miserable
end.
The following account of the funeral appeared
in the Shrewsbury Chronicle:—
"FUNERAL OF
THE LATE JOHN MYTTON, Esq.
"We last week announced the death of this
gentleman. His body was conveyed from
London, where he expired, to this town, with all
solemnity. On passing through the town, many
of the shops were closed ; and crowds assembled
to take a last look on his bier, and pay the
homage of a sigh to the memory of John Mytton.
We rejoice to say, that before his death the con¬
solations of religion had been eagerly resorted
to, and afforded him both comfort under affliction
and hope in the prospect of eternity.
222
LIFE OF MYTTON.
"A hearse with four horses (driven by an
attached servant of the deseased), a mourning
coach and four, and another carriage, formed
the melancholy cavalcade through Shrewsbury.
On the road to Oswestry, every mark of respect
was paid; and at the Queen's Head, the corpse
was met by a detachment of the North Shrop¬
shire Cavalry (of which regiment the deceased
was Major), who escorted them to the vault in
the chapel of Halston, where the remains were
deposited at three o'clock on Wednesday after¬
noon. The procession was exceedingly well
arranged under the direction of Mr Dunn, of
London, assisted by Messrs Hanmer and
Gittins, of this town, and entered the domain of
Halston in thefollowing order:—
" Four Trumpeters of the North Shropshire Cavalry.
Capt. Croxon and Capt. Jones.
Thirty-two Members of the Cavalry.
A Standard of the Regiment covered with Crape.
Forty-two Members of the Cavalry.
Adjutant Shirley and Cornet Nicolls.
Mr Dunn (undertaker) and Mr Gittins.
Two Mutes.
Carriage of the Revds. W. Jones and J. D. PigotL
Two Mourning Coaches and four, with the
Pall-Bearers.
LIFE OF MYTTON.
223
Hon. T. Kenyon. A. W. Corbett, Esq.
R. A. Slaney, Esq., M.P. J. R. Kynaston, Esq.
J. C. Pelham, Esq. Rev. H. C. Coton.
The Hearse, drawn by Four Horses, with
THE BODY,
In a Coffin covered with Black Velvet, with massive Handles,
richly ornamented, the Plate inscribed
'John Mytton, Esq., of Halston,
'Born 30th of Sept. 1796,
'Died 29th of March 1834.'
(The Hearse was driven by Mr Bowyer, the Deceased's Coach¬
man, who, with Mr M'Dougal, another Servant, attended
him in his last moments.)
Mourning Coach with two Mourners, the Rev. E. H. Owen
(Deceased's Uncle), and the Hon. and Rev. R. Noel Hill.
Mrs Mytton's Carriage.
Lady Kynaston's Carriage, with Mr W. H. Griffiths and Mr
Cooper.
Carriage of A. W. Corbett, Esq.
Carriage of the Rev. Sir Edward Kynaston, Bart.
Carriage of the Rev. E. H. Owen.
Carriage of R. A. Slaney, Esq., M.P.
Carriage and Four of the Hon. Thomas Kenyon.
J. Beck, Esq., in his Carriage.
Dr Cockerill and Lieut. Tudor, in Carriage.
Carriage of T. N. Parker, Esq.
Carriage of W. Ormsby Gore, Esq., M.P.
Carriage of Viscountess Avonmore.
Several Cars, &c., with Friends.
Mr Broughall, Agent.
u About One Hundred of the Tenantry, Tradesmen, and
Friends on Horseback, closed the procession. Among these
224
LIFE OF MYTTON.
were Messrs Longueville, Cartwright, Bolas, Hughes, J. Howell,
S. Windsor, J. Williams, Morris, Griffiths, Venables, D.
Thomas, W. Francis, R. Edwards, Farr, Blandford, Rogers,
Davis, &c., &c.
"The Mutes were old men, brothers, John and Edward
Nicholas, of Whittington ; the latter was mute at the funeral of
the deceased's grandfather ; John was mute at the grandfather's
funeral, the father's funeral, and that of Mr Mytton.
"A mourning peal was rung at Oswestry, and
the bells of Shrewsbury, Ellesmere, Whittington,
Halston, &c., tolled during the day. The num¬
ber of spectators was immense, and the road
along which the procession slowly moved was
bedewed with the tears of thousands who wished
to have a last glance. Everything was conducted
with the greatest order; but there was a great
rush to enter the chapel on the body being taken
out of the hearse. The body was placed on a
shelf in the family vault, under the communion
table of Halston Chapel, surrounded by the
coffins of twelve of his relatives."
The family of Mytton, as has already been
shown, is an ancient one; and the inhabitants
of Shropshire and Wales are attached to it from
many old historical, personal, and feudal recol¬
lections. Halston is called in ancient deeds
Haly stone or Holy stone. Near it stood the
abbey, taken down about a century ago. Meyric
LIFE OF MYTTON. 225
Lloyd, lord of some part of Uch Ales, in the
reign of Richard I., would not yield subjection
to the English Government, under which the
hundred of Dyffryn Clwyd, and several others,
were then ; and having taken some English
officers that came there to execute the law,
killed several of them. For this fact he forfeited
his lands to the king; fled, and took sanctuary
at Halston, where he was taken to the protection
of its possessor, John Fitzalen, Earl of Arundel.
In the Saxon era the lordship of Halston be¬
longed to Edrio ; at which time there were on it
two Welshmen and one Frenchman. After the
Norman conquest, Halston became the property
of an Earl of Arundel, and was given by that
family to the Knights of St John of Jerusalem.
In the 26th of Henry VIII., the commandry
was valued at £160, 14s. iod. a year. Upon
the abolition of many of the military religious
orders, Henry VIII. empowered John Sewster,
Esq., to dispose of this manor to Alan Horde,
who made an exchange with Edward Mytton,
Esq., of Habberley ; which alienation was after¬
wards confirmed by Queen Elizabeth. The
church or chapel of Halston is a donative, with¬
out any other revenue than what the chaplain is
allowed by the owner, and is of exempt juris-
p
226
LIFE OF MYTTON.
diction. Halston was the birth-place of the
famous General Mytton.
Immediately after the funeral his last will was
read, in which he had bequeathed all that he had
to leave equally amongst all his children, and to
which the Hon. Thomas Kenyon, of Pradoe,
near Oswestry, and R. A. Slaney, Esq., M.P.
for Shrewsbury, were appointed executors. He
had previously, at Calais, made a will to which
Sir Edward Smythe, Mr Owen of Woodhouse,
Shropshire (hisuncle),and myself, were appointed
executors, in which his all was left to his only
child by his first wife. The alteration, however,
was immaterial, his " all," poor fellow! that is to
say, his disposable personal property, being
nothing ; but it is consoling to think that estates
amounting to ^4500 per annum were out of his
reach, by entail, and still remain to his family.
Thus is it possible, that by the aid of a ten
years' minority, and barring another John
Myttori" Halston and its oaks* may yet
flourish.*f*
* It has been stated to me, that the amount of timber sold by
Mr Mytton at various times was ,£80,000, but I will not pledge
myself to the fact.
t But there was another John Mytton, and Halston has
passed into other hands. Seges ubi Troja fuit, and prize
Herefords have had the place of horses and hounds. The
LIFE OF MYTTON.
•227
One question may very naturally be asked,
Why was not that substitute for the law of
Corinth, the High Court of Chancery, appealed
to, to endeavour to stop the final dissipation of
the unentailed portion of this fine property, since
it is quite evident that for the last several years,
the unfortunate proprietor was not equal to the
management of it; no, not more so than a child
of six years old ? This question is answered
Worcester Journal of January, 1838, is answerable for the
following :—
"John Mytton Redivivus!—One day last week young
Mytton, a youth about twelve years of age, the eldest son of the
late lamented Squire of Halston, was out in a very hard day
with the fox-hounds, and at the dusk of evening found himself
in a turnip-field, a considerable distance from home, with his
pony so dead beat that he could proceed no further. The youth
had too much of the inherent spirit of his father to leave his
favourite, and therefore took out his handkerchief, tied it to the
bridle of his pony and then to his wrist, laid down by the side of
his wearied hunter, and went to sleep for the greater part of the
night. On the first blush of morning he got up, and finding his
pony refreshed, proceeded home, when his appearance dissipated
the alarm which had been created by his unaccountable absence.
He went to bed for a short period, and in two hours from his
arrival at the hall of his ancestors was out ferreting rabbits, quite
hearty and well. On being asked if he had not heard any one
during the night, he said he had, and within a short distance
too; and on being further asked why he did not call out and
make his situation known, he replied he was afraid to do that,
as he thought he should be well thrashed for being in the turnip
field at that time of night."
228
LIFE OF MYTTON.
in many ways. Mr Mytton's nearest connec¬
tions were compelled, early in life, to leave him
to his fate, their endeavours to save him from
ruin having been always rejected by himself.
He would not, like Savage, spurn the friend who
presumed to dictate to him, but he heeded him
not. That he was half-mad without drink, and
rendered quite mad with it, no man who knew
him latterly can for a moment doubt; and a
waggon-load of evidence could be produced to
prove that fact. But let us suppose a commission
of inquiry, a writ De Lunatico inquirendo to have
been issued ! Why the result would have been
this ; he would have kept himself sober for two
days, and like Sophocles before the Areopagus,
would have dumbfounded his opponents. I
am, however, quite certain, that from the time
he arrived first at Calais to the day of his death,
bordering on three years, he had not the slightest
insight into his own pecuniary affairs, nor did
he know, to thousands, how he stood in the
world; and, moreover, if he had had ten thousand
pounds put into his hands any one day, he
would not have had a shilling of it left by that
day week ! I can bring a host of evidence to
back me in this assertion ; and it was in vain
that his friends asked him to call for something
LIFE OF MYTTON.
229
like a statement of his cash-account from those
who received his purchase money for estates
sold for upwards of fifty thousand pounds,
subsequently to his arrival in Calais.
Having now traced this extraordinary char¬
acter, this anomaly in human nature, this mix¬
ture of very right and very wrong, this strange
compound of contradictory qualities, through the
various stages of his eventful life, over which he
may be said to have posted with the rapidity
with which he travelled on the road, or rather
with which he crossed a country after his hounds,
knocking down everything before him, I shall
bring his memoir to an end ; and if I have
followed him through a long train of errors or
follies which mark his eventful course, it has not
been for the purpose of exposing, but of account¬
ing for them. If I have bared the sore with one
hand, I have endeavoured to find a balm for it
with the other, and it would be needless to de¬
mand of me, " Who hath required this at your
hands?" I had the concurrence of those most
nearly and dearly connected with him ; one of
whom observed, with no less feeling than truth,
that the task I have undertaken would " do the
living service, and rescue the character of the
dead." The man himself has passed away, yet
230
LIFE OF MYTTON.
his good deeds remain. As to his follies, we
will cast them to the winds ; but, unfortunately
for his character when alive, as well as for his
memory now, he is no more.
'' There is a lust in man no charm can tame,
Of loudly publishing his neighbour's shame :
On eagles' wings immortal scandals fly,
While virtuous actions are but born and die."
He has been represented as a monster for acts he
has never committed, and why should the sun be
thus permitted, and " falsely thus," to go down
upon his shame ? It is true there is one mourn¬
ful blemish on his character, which, as has
already been said, I wish could be washed in
Lethe and forgotten, as I offer no extenuation
for it but insanity. But if I can have given the
lie to one single calumny which an ill-natured
world has cast upon John Mytton unjustly, I
shall be satisfied. He is the best man, says one of
the best judges of mankind, that has the fewest
faults; but he that has none is not to be found
on this earth.* Poor Mytton's faults were the
faults of the head, not of the heart; than which
no man had a sounder or a kinder. They were
numerous, I admit; but let not their number be
* '' Vitiis nemo sine nascitur ; optimus llle
Qui minimus urgetur."—Hor.
LIFE OF MYTTON.
231
augmented, neither let his many virtues be for¬
gotten ; and above all, remember the years in
which he suffered adversity! This part of his
history, however, cannot be without a useful
moral. The contemplation of distress, no matter
how created, corrects the pride of prosperity,
softens the mind of man, and makes the heart
better. Indeed, it was by such representations
to the public eye that the nature of man was
first polished and refined.*
The service done to the living only com¬
mences here. By pointing out the fatal rock on
which Mr Mytton struck, a beacon is erected
which might warn others, if they would see it,
who are entering now on the voyage of life;
* I one day told Mr Mytton, in jest, I should write a history
of his life, if I survived him. " I shall write it myself," he re¬
plied, " like Antoninus's lead' eavrdv ! " In a frolic, I did write
his epitaph some years since at Halston, and it was, I am sorry
to say, prophetic. It ran thus:—
" Here lies John Mytton ; his short career is past—
The pace was quick, and therefore could not last;
From end to end he went an arrant burst,
Determined to be nowhere, or be first.
No marble monument proclaims his fate,
No pompous emblems of funereal state ;
But let this simple tablet say,
That, upon a much lamented day,
There went to ground, beneath this mouldering sod,
An honest man—the noblest work of God."
232
LIFE OF MYTTON.
and the viscissitudes of his latter days and the
melancholy circumstances of his death, are fear¬
ful lessons to the present possessors of what he
once was master of, namely, all that might make
life desirable and happy. That memorable
position, then, that good is often the con¬
sequence of evil, is once more illustrated ; and,
as the poet says, it often happens, when they
little dream of it, that
" The sons of men may owe
The fruits of bliss to bursting clouds of woe."
Let me indulge in a few more moral reflections,
as such themes do not often present themselves
to my pen. Man has been represented the
miracle of nature, and truly John Mytton does
not give the lie to this. Perhaps no character
in modern times can be found as a parallel to
his, which is on one side dark and desolate, yet,
if we turn the reverse, it is not difficult to deter¬
mine to which side the balance inclines. But in
human nature beauty and deformity are so
closely linked, that, in my opinion, the character
of no man can be very nicely weighed. Not
only are there vices and virtues which bear so
strong a resemblance to each other, that it is not
easy to determine where the former end, and
where the latter begin, but the virtues of some
LIFE OF MYTTON.
233
men are so obscured by their vices, and the vices
of others so softened down by their virtues (as
in both respects was the case here), that it is
next to impossible to separate the chaff and
cockle from the good grain. As for reconciling
the contradictions and inconsistencies we have
now been recounting, it would be vain to at¬
tempt it, unless, as Johnson with his usual force
says, "by those inconsistencies which folly pro¬
duces and infirmity suffers in the human mind."
At all events, an analysis of such a character as
that now in our view, can only be effected by a
sort of debtor and creditor account of good and
evil, holding the balance with a charitable hand.
But it must be said of Mytton, what Clarendon
said of Cromwell, and what had been said of
another more than a thousand years back, that
his enemies (if he had any) could not condemn
him without commending him at the same time.
His cardinal virtue was benevolence of heart ;
his besetting sin, a destroying spirit, not amen¬
able to any counsel, and an apparent contempt
for all moral restraint. In fact, like Charles the
Fifth, who impiously asserted "there was but
one Charles and one God," Mytton appeared to
aim at similar notoriety; and every man pays a
dear price for that. To a prodigality of heart
234
LIFE OF MYTTON.
he added a prodigality of hand which no such
fortune as his could suffice, and I am very much
of Tom Penn's opinion, " that if he had had two
hundred thousand a year he would have been in
debt in five years." But although his extrava¬
gance might have reduced Mr Mytton to want,
he would have remained a man of unblemished
integrity in rags, and nothing would have en¬
gaged him in dishonest practices. Oh no ! He
had a spirit which, it is true, was " marred in its
beauty," but, in this respect, never forgetful of
its own nobleness. He was faithful to his
friends, an indulgent landlord, and a most kind
master; and, last but not least in the novelty,
with all this consideration for the happiness of
others, he appears to have possessed very little
for himself.
But he is now, ill-fated man ! safe in his urn;
and let no one attempt to throw more stones at
his monument. There are specks in the sun,
straggling weeds amongst the choicest flowers ;
and until the sons of Adam cease to be the sons
of Adam, perfection must not be expected from
them. From a retrospect of his career let this
moral be drawn:—Life has been compared to
wine ; it must not be drawn to the dregs: and all
who may have it in their power, as he had, to
LIFE OF MYTTON.
235
drain nature to satiety, will find out at last—as
I myself have at last found out—that tranquillity
of mind and health of body, which form the
happiness as well as the security of life, are not
to be enjoyed under the tyrant rule of passion,
and nowhere without something like discretion
to guide and direct us in our ordinary concerns
and pursuits.
THE ENT>.
PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO.
EDINBURGH AND LONDON
MORLEY'S UNIVERSAL LIBRARY.
In Monthly Volumes.
I SHERIDAN'S PLAYS.
2. PLAYS FROM MOLlllRE. By English Dramatists.
3. MARLOWE'S FAUSTUS AND GOETHE'S FAUST.
4. CHRONICLE OF THE CID.
5. RABELAIS' GARGANTUA AND THE HEROIC DEEDS OF
PANTAGRUEL.
6. THE PRINCE. By Machiavelli.
7. BACON'S ESSAYS.
8. DEFOE'S JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR.
9. LOCKE ON TOLERATION AND ON CIVIL GOVERNMENT;
with Sir ROBERT FILMER'S PATRIARCHA.
10. BUTLER'S ANALOGY OF RELIGION.
11. DRYDEN'S VIRGIL.
12. Sir WALTER SCOTT'S DEMONOLOGY and WITCHCRAFT.
13. HERRICK'S HESPERIDES.
14. COLERIDGE'S TABLE-TALK; with THE ANCIENT MARI¬
NER and CHRISTABEL.
15. BOCCACCIO'S DECAMERON.
16. STERNE'S TRISTRAM SHANDY.
17. HOMER'S ILIAD. Translated by George Chapman.
18. MEDIAEVAL TALES.
19. JOHNSON'S RASSELAS; and VOLTAIRE'S CANDIDE.
20. PLAYS AND POEMS. By Ben Jonson.
21. HOBBES'S LEVIATHAN.
22. BUTLER'S HUDIBRAS.
23. IDEAL COMMONWEALTHS; MORE'S UTOPIA; BACON'S
NEW ATLANTIS ; and CAMPANELLA'S CITY of the SUN.
24. CAVENDISH'S LIFE OF WOLSEY.
25 and 26. DON QUIXOTE (Two Volumes).
27. BURLESQUE PLAYS AND POEMS.
28. DANTE'S DIVINE COMEDY. Longfellow's Translation.
29. GOLDSMITH'S VICAR OF WAKEFIELD, PLAYS and
POEMS.
Morley's Universal Library—continued.
30. FABLES AND PROVERBS FROM THE SANSKRIT.
31. CHARLES LAMB'S ESSAYS OF ELIA.
32. THE HISTORY OF THOMAS ELLWOOD. Written by
Himself.
33. EMERSON'S ESSAYS, REPRESENTATIVE MEN, AND
SOCIETY AND SOLITUDE.
34. SOUTHEY'S LIFE OF NELSON.
35. DE QUINCEY'S OPIUM-EATER, SHAKSPEARE, GOETHE.
36. STORIES OF IRELAND. By Maria Edgeworth.
37. THE PLAYS OF ARISTOPHANES. Translated by Frere.
38. SPEECHES AND LETTERS. By Edmund Burke.
39. THOMAS 1 KEMPIS IMITATION OF CHRIST.
40. POPULAR SONGS OF IRELAND. Collected by Thomas
Crofton Croker.
41. THE PLAYS OF iESCHYLUS. Translated by R. Potter.
42. GOETHE'S FAUST. The Second Part.
43. FAMOUS PAMPHLETS.
44. SOPHOCLES. Translated by Francklin.
45. TALES OF TERROR AND WONDER.
46. VESTIGES OF THE NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.
47. THE BARONS' WARS, &c. By Michael Drayton.
48. COBBETT'S ADVICE TO YOUNG MEN.
49. THE BANQUET OF DANTE. Translated by Elizabeth
Price Sayer.
50. WALKER'S ORIGINAL.
51. POEMS AND BALLADS BY SCHILLER.
52. PEELE'S PLAYS AND POEMS.
53. HARRINGTON'S OCEANA.
54. EURIPIDES—ALCESTIS, &c.
55. ESSAYS. By Winthrop Mackworth Praed.
56. TRADITIONAL TALES. Allan Cunningham.
57. HOOKER'S ECCLESIASTICAL POLITY. Books I. to IV.
58. EURIPIDES—THE BACCHANALS, &c.
GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS,
London, Glasgow, and New York.
ROUTLEOGE'S RED-LINE POETS.
In crown 8vo, gilt edges, -with. Illustrations, 3s. 6d. each.
Longfellow, Complete,
Cowper.
Milton.
Wordsworth.
Southey.
Goldsmith,
Burns.
Moore.
Byron.
Pope.
Scott.
Herbert.
Campbell
Shakespeare.
Cfiaucer.
Willis.
Sacred Poems.
Choice Poems and Lyrics.
Book of Humour, Wit, and Wisdom.
Wise Sayings of the Great and Good.
Lover's Poems.
Book of Familiar Quotations.
Spenser,
Mrs. Hemans.
Shelley.
Keats.
Coleridge.
Dodd's Beauties of Shakespeare.
The Christian Year.
Edgar Allan Poe.
Hood.
Comic Poetry of the Ninetec-nU.
Century.
The Book of Ballads.
Lord Lytton's Dramas,
Lord Lytton's Poems.
Bloomfield.
Crabbe.
Thomson.
Grey, Parnell, Collins.
What Men have Said about Woman,
By H. Southsate.
The following Volumes
Kirke White. By Southey. Il¬
lustrated by Birket Foster.
James Montgomery.
Shakespeare Gems.
Longfellow's Dante—Faradiso.
Longfellow's Dante—Inferno.
Leigh Hunt.
Dryden.
are without Red Lines :—
Ainsworth's Ballads.
Rogers.
L. E. L.
Percy's Reliques.
Longfellow's Tales of a Waysidt
Inn. Complete Edition
Longfellow's Prose Works.
The Mind of Shakespeare.
ROUTLEDGE'S STANDARD LIBRARY,
In post 8 vo, toned paper, cloth, 3^. 6d. each.
The Arabian Nights.
Don Quixote.
Gil Bias.
Curiosities of Literature. By Isaac
D'Israeli.
One Thousand and One Gems of
British Poetry.
The Blackfriars Shakespeare.
Cruden's Concordance. *
Boswell's Life of Dr. Johnson.
The Works of Oliver Goldsmith.
The Family Doctor.
Sterne's Works.
Ten Thousand Wonderful Thingrs
ROUTLEDGE'S STANDARD LIBRARY-***'""*
Extraordinary Popular Delusions.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations.
The Spectator (unabridged).
Routledge's Modern Speaker.
One Thousand and One Gems of
Prose.
Pope's Homer's Iliad and Odyssey.
Josephus. Trans, by Whiston.
Book of Proverbs, Phrases, Quota¬
tions, and Mottoes.
The Book of Modern Anecdotes-
Theatrical, Legal, and American.
Book of Table Talk. By W. C.
Russell.
Letters of Junius. Woodfall's Edi¬
tion.
Charles Lamb's Works.
Froi3sart's Chronicles,
D'Aubigne's History of the Refor¬
mation.
The Rev. James White's History of
England.
Macaulay — Selected Essays and
Miscellaneous Writings.
Carleton's Traits and Stories of the
Irish Peasantry, ist Series.
Carleton's Traits and Stories of the
Irish Peasantry. 2d Series.
Essays by Sydney Smith.
Daiite. Longfellow's Translation.
Frescott's Ferdinand and Isabella.
Vol. x.
Frescott's Ferdinand and Isabella.
Vol. 2.
Prescott's Ferdinand and Isabella.
Vol. 3.
Frescott's
Vol. 1.
Frescott's
Vol. 2.
Frescotfs
Vol. 3.
Frescott's Conquest of Peru. Vol. 1.
Frescott's Conquest of Peru. Vol. 2.
Frescott's Conquest of Peru. Vol. 3.
Frescott's Charles the Fifth. Vol. 1.
Prescott's Charles the Fifth. Vol. 2.
Frescott's History of Philip H.
Vol.
Frescott's History of Philip Hi.
Vol. 2.
Prescott's History of Philip H
Vol. 3.
Frescott's Biographical and Critical
Essays.
Napier's History of the Peninsula*
War. 1807-10.
Napier's History of the Peninsular
War. 1810-12. ,
White's Natural History of Sel-
borne.
Dean Milman's History of the
Jews.
Percy's Reliques of Ancient Poetry.
Chaucer's Poetical Works.
Longfellow's Prose Works.
Spenser's Poetical Works.
Asmodeus. By Le Sage.
The Book of British Ballads.
Plutarch's Lives (Langhorne's
Translation).
The Book of Epigrams. By W
Davenport Adams.
Longfellow'B Poetical Works (Com¬
plete Copyright Edition).
Lempriere's Classical Dictionary.
Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations.
The Works of FatherProut. Edited
by Charles Kent.
Carleton's Traits and Stories of the
Irish Peasantry. The T wo Series
Complete in One Volume.
Walker's Rhyming Dictionary.
Macfarlane's History of British
India, down to Relief of Canda-
har.
Defoe's Journal of the Plague and
the Great Fire of London. With
Illustrations on Steel by George
Cruikshank.
Glimpses of the Past. By Charles
Knight.
Michaud's History of the Crusades.
Vol. 1.
Michaud's History of the Crusades
Vol. 2.
I Michaud's History of the Crusades
1 Vol. 3.
Conquest of Mexico.
Conquest of Mexico.
Conquest of Mexico.
e J Routledge's Railway Library Advertiser. [Issue.
HARTMAF'N S WOOD-WOOL DIAPERS.
Most Comfortable and Healthful for Homo
Use and when Travelling.
NO WASHING BEQTJISED,
In Packcis QUI. liair iloren.
" " IS., Is. 4d., Us. one dozeai.
Jan be obtained from, all Ladies* Outfitting Establishments,
* ra*frtS U" a Packe-is of one dozen at, Is. S5d.f
JS. 70 . una 55a., post iree, with descriptive Circular,
containing TestimMmals fr^m all the principal Hospitals
and Leading Member^ of the Medical Profession. Single
Samples post tiee on application.
Address " THE MANAGERESS,"
THE SANITARY WOOD WOOL CO., Lim., 26, Thavles Inn, Holborn, London, E.C
Gold Medals, Paris, 1878 : 1889.
JOSEPH EILLOTT'S PENS.
Numbers for use by BANKERS :—Barrel Pens, 225, 226, 262.
Slip Pens, 332, 909, 287, 166, 404. In Fine, Medium,
and Broad Points.
ESTABLISHED 1851.
BIRKBECK BANK,
SOUTHAMPTON BUILDINGS, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON,
THREE per CENT. INTEREST allowed on DEPOSITS, repayable
on demand.
TWO per CENT. INTEREST on CURRENT ACCOUNTS, calcu¬
lated on the minimum monthly balances, when not drawn below ^100.
STOCKS, SHARES, and ANNUITIES purchased and sold, and
Letters of Credit and Circular Notes issued.
SAVINGS DEPARTMENT.
For the encouragement of Thrift the Bank receives small sums on
deposit, and allows Interest, at the rate of THREE per CENT, per
annum, on each completed ^1. The Interest is added to the principal on
the 31st March annually.
BIRKBECK BUILDING SOCIETY.
How to Purchase a House for Two Guineas per Month.
BIRKBECK FREEHOLD LAND SOCIETY.
How to Purchase a Plot of Land for Five Shillings per Month.
The birkbeck ALMANACK with full particulars on application.
FRANCIS RAVENSCROFT, Mana-ter.
Tenth]
Routledge's RailwAy--Lit>rary Advei liner.
[Issue,
'"For Ease, Strength and Durability,
BRITISH
ARGOSY
BRACES
ABE THE BEST
AND
Mast Suitable for Summer
Wear.
A Very Serviceable and
Elegant Brace.
OF ALL HOSIERS AND DRAPERS THROUGHOUT THE WORLD.
1 USED IN THE ROYAL NURSERIES- ^
MATTHEW
PREPARED FULLERS'EARTH
Is invaluable for Protecting the Skin and Preserving the
Complexion from Winds, Redness, Roughness,
Chaps, etc.
6d. & 1s. OF ALL CHEMISTS.
Is the BEST REMEDY
yet Discovered.
It acts lite mastic in rolieviir.?
pain and throbbing, and soon
cures the worst Coins and
Bunions It is especially useful
for redticinfr Eulavtred (treat Tot;
Joints, which so mar the sym¬
metry of the feet..
thousands have been cured,
Some of whom have suffered for fifty years ie i t h a u t being able to get relief from any
other remedy. A trial of a box is earnestly solicited, as Immediate Belief is Sure.
Boxes Is. l$d., of all Chemists; free for II stamps, from the Sole Makers :
M. BEETHAM & SOW, CHEMISTS, CHELTENHAM.
Tenth] Routledge's Railway Library Advertiser. [Issue.
For all
From the Laboratory of I
THOMAS JACKSON the Year
Strangeways, MANCHESTER. [ Round. |
H.R.H. PRINCE
ALBERT'S
CACHOUL
DAINTY MORSELS IN THE FORM
OF TINY SILVER BULLETS,
WHICH DISSOLVE IN THE MOUTH,
AND SURRENDER
TO THE BREATH THEIR HIDDEN
FRAGRANCE.
At 6d.,
Or by Post,
for 7d.
JACKSON'S
BENZINE
RECT.
For taking out GREASE, OIL, PAINT, &c.,
from Carpets, Curtains, Clothes, Drapery,
Dresses, be the material Cotton, Linen,
Silk, or Wool, the texture Fine or Coarse.
It cleans admirably Kid Gloves and Satin
Slippers, Furs, Feathers, Books, Cards, Manu¬
scripts. It may be freely used to rinse and
wash Frail or Gilt Trifles, to which water would
be destructive.
At 6d., Is.,
and 2s. 6d.
Parcel Post,
3d. extra.
REGISTERED
Sold
in Bottles at
6d. & Is.
Or by
Inland JPost
Is. 2d.
JACKSON'S
CHINESE
DIAMOND
CEMENT
UJ
o
<
H
lEt
FOR MENDING EVERY ARTICLE OF
ORNAMENT OR FURNITURE, CHINA,
GLASS, EARTHENWARE, &c. It surpasses
in neatness, in strength, and cheapness, and
retains its virtues in all climates. It has
stood the test of time, and in all quarters of
the globe.
WANSBROUGH'S
METALLIC
NIPPLE
SHIELDS
FOR LADIES NURSING.—By wearing the
WANSBROUGH Shields in ordinary, whilst
the nipples are healthy, they screen from all
external sources of irritation. They are easy to
wear, holding on like Limpets. Sore Nipples
heal whilst reposing in the bath of milk secreted
within the Shields, which give at the same time
both Comfort and Protection.
livery box in labelled ^ ey
Wanxbrough's
At
Is. per Pair,
or by
Inland Post, |
Is. 2d.
JACKSON'S
RUSH
For the removal of Hair without a
Kazor, from the Arms, Heck, or Face, as
well as Sunburn or Tan.
The activity of this depilatory is notable. It
is easy and safe. It leaves a Whole Skin and •
a Clean Complexion.
At Is.
By Inland
Post, Is. 2d.
. QO SOLD BY THE PRINCIPAL 1
| DRUGGISTS.
For Abroad
at Foreign
Postal Rates.
80,000, S. & B„ 21/1/92.
The Habit of Health.
HvcV»WSWNw'VWWV\.*V\A^*V\'VV.,VV^'WV'\. ■-V>
CIVILIZATION by Soap is only
j skin-deep directly; but indirectly
there is no limit to it.
If we think of soap as a means of clean¬
liness only, even then PEARS' SOAP
is a matter of course. It is the only soap
that is all soap and nothing but soap—no
free fat nor free alkali in it.
But what does cleanliness lead to? It
leads to a wholesome body and mind ; to
clean thoughts; to the habit of health; to
manly and womanly beauty.
PEARS' SOAP has to do with the
wrinkles of age—we are forming them
now. If life is a pleasure, the wrinkles will
take a cheerful turn when they come ; if a
burden, a sad one. The soap that frees us
from humors and pimples brings a lifeful of
happiness Wruikies wilt come; let us
give them the cheerful turn
Virtue and wisdom and beauty are only
the habit of happiness.
CIVILIZATION by soap, pure soap,
PEARS" SOAP, that has no alkali in it—
nothing but soap—-is more than skin-deep.
PRINTED BY EDMUND EVANS, RACQUET COURT, f fcHET STRKf f. • ONI ON".