Southern Branch 
 * of the 
 
 University of California 
 
 Los Angeles 1 
 
 Form L I 1 
 
 PR 
 
 MS. 
 
 I 
 
 ■)
 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below 
 
 NOV -2 3 mrt 
 
 VOV 
 
 "^ 3 T92f 
 
 •(ay '^ 9 1934 
 
 juN 1 2 la^e 
 
 cJUL 1 5 193P 
 
 ^AY 2 3 1939 
 1940 
 
 JUN 5 1943 
 
 Form L-9-15?n-8,'26 

 
 HAZLITT MEMOIRS

 
 / >V ' 
 
 FOUR GENERATIONS OF A 
 LITERARY FAMILY 
 
 THE HAZLITTS IN ENGLAND, IRELAND, AND 
 
 AMERICA 
 
 THRIR FRIENDvS AND THEIR FORTUNES 
 1725— 1896 
 
 r,\' 
 W. CAREW HAZLITT 
 
 WITH PORTRAITS REPRODUCED EROM MINIATURES BY 
 
 yOHN HAZLITT 
 
 IN TWO V O L U :M E S 
 VOL. II. 
 
 LONDON AND NEW YORK 
 GEORGE RED WAY 
 
 1897 
 
 78514
 
 
 FOUR GENERATIONS OF A 
 LITERARY FAMILY 
 
 THE THIRD GENERATION 
 
 [CO.\T/.\lJED) 
 
 VOL. II. 20
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The Court of Bankruptcy — JMy father's legal experiences and 
 friends — Baron Grant — Vice-Chancellor Bacon — Mr. Com- 
 missioner Goulburn — Hazlitt Road, West Kensington — Lord 
 Kenyon — Lord Brougham — Lord Chancellor Westbury — 
 Lord Coleridge — Mr. Justice Hawkins — Serjeant Wilkins — 
 Street and the Law Courts — Baxter and the Tichborne case 
 — Sir Charles Lewis, M. P. — Illiteracy of lawyers — My father 
 and George Henry Lewes — John Payne Collier — The Second 
 Shakespear Folio. 
 
 When my father first went to the Court of Bank- 
 ruptcy In 1854, his knowledge of his work was, 
 I fear, very rudimentary. But by appHcation and 
 through a receptive mind he gradually became one 
 of the most efficient officers in the building. Of 
 his successor I hear on all sides a very poor account. 
 His Honour seems, so far, to know as little as my 
 father did, and to be unable or unwilling to learn. 
 
 The late Chief Registrar, when I spoke to him of 
 the editor and proprietor of a society paper now 
 departed, mentioning his apparently flourishing state, 
 observed that he thought the time had come for
 
 4 rn/Rn genkraiion 
 
 him to pax- his crcdilors the rcmainint^ 19s. 6d. in 
 the pound. 
 
 M\ father has crc now consulted the present 
 writer on cases before him, and he occasionally 
 instanced remarkal^le courage on the part of solici- 
 tors in the direction of charoes. I remember that 
 he reduced one claim from ,^192 to ^12, and then 
 deemed the amount allowed to the honest practitioner 
 too hi^h. Me had a good deal of trouble with some 
 eminent firms, whose representatives came to the 
 Court with an equally imperfect knowledoe of their 
 business and of the law. Barcjn Grant, while he 
 was still in evidence, called at the Court, and laid 
 before the Registrar, in connection with some 
 pending arrangement, securities valued by him at 
 ,^200,000. My father had to signify to the Baron 
 that commercially they were worth precisely nothing. 
 
 Vice-Chancellor Bacon was of a very placid laisscr 
 aller temperament, and seldom allowed himself to 
 be perturbed by any untoward incident or turn. He 
 more than once said to mv father, when the latter 
 seemed e.xcited about .some case before the Court : 
 ' Point de zele, my dear fellow — point de zele.' 
 
 At the time that Mr. Kay, afterward judge, 
 practised before Bacon, it used to be said that the 
 latter spelled equity with a Jz because he was ruled
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 
 
 by the counsel's views, and so long as suitors might 
 choose the \ .C. before whom they would appear, 
 the plan in a doubtful case was to retain Kay, and 
 have the matter tried by Bacon. 
 
 1 could never exactly understand why Bacon was 
 promoted to the Bench. He certainly disappointed 
 the e.xpectations which had been formed of him 
 while he wore silk, and no man's judgments were 
 more frequently reversed on appeal. To succeed in 
 the discharge of judicial functions, as in other things, 
 demands unwearied industrv. even thouQ^h one 
 possess greater talent than Bacon had ; but I do 
 not think that Bacon was what the copy-books call 
 app/iqttc — he took matters too easily, as the anecdote 
 which I have given above may imply. 
 
 My father had a much wider experience of practice 
 in bankruptcy, and would have been better qualifieid 
 than either Bacon or Cave for the place of Chief 
 Judge. His decisions, when he has sat vicariously 
 on the Bench, have been almost invariably upheld ; 
 but 
 
 ' Non cuivis homini contingit adire Corinthum.' 
 
 I suppose that there never was a man so extrava- 
 gantly estimated as Bacon. 
 
 It is not generally known that one of the two 
 persons to whom the Turk appeals in the cartoon in
 
 THIRD GENERATION 
 
 Pituclh July 31, iSSo. is my father — the other, of 
 course, is Gladstone. 
 
 I was talking to \\\\ father at the Bankruptcy 
 Court about some one whom we both thought to be 
 not overwise. 'Well,' said Mr. Registrar dryly, 
 'he ivas a fool, and as much of a rogue with it as 
 his incapacity ivould permit' 
 
 The Registrar, on his way home by train fnjm 
 the Court to Richmond, observed that one of his 
 fellow-passengers had let something in her hand 
 drop, and he said to the fellow with her : ' I think 
 the young woman has let her parcel fall.' The 
 party referred to looked daggers, but made no 
 remark till she left the carriage just after, and, turn- 
 ing to the venerable Registrar, relieved her pent-up 
 resentment by the crushing retort, delivered with an 
 im.mense air : 'Thank you. young man.* 
 
 Mr. Commissioner Goulburn, who had been a 
 Cornet in the armv, in answer to some one who had 
 asked him if he was not once a Welsh judge, said : 
 * Yes ; I was one with an understanding' — meaning, 
 on certain conditions. 'Oh,' returned his friend, 
 ' I never heard before of a Welsh judge who pos- 
 sessed such a thinof.' 
 
 Goulburn told my father, when the law permitting 
 personal petitions in bankruptcy was passed, that
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 
 
 he knew a Cornet Goulburn who would have been 
 very glad of such a facility. 
 
 Though I think that I have seen the same joke 
 related of some one else, I perfectly remember, when 
 Goulburn once fell on his head out of his carriage 
 on the pavement, an inquiry was made as to the 
 damage done to the latter. 
 
 It was Mr. Commissioner Fonblanque, of the 
 Bankruptcy Court, who, when a suitable motto for 
 the Serjeants' rings was mooted, suggested Scilicet. 
 
 When Hazlitt Road. West Kensington, was so 
 christened, some one asked the builder why he gave 
 it that name, and whether it was after the author 
 of Table-Talk (Maclise Road being immediately 
 adjacent). ' Oh no !' he replied ; ' after dear old 
 Mr. Registrar Hazlitt!' That gentleman, perhaps, 
 in his official capacity had let him off more easily 
 than he expected or deserved. 
 
 Lord Kenyon spoke of Julian the Apostate as 
 Julian the Apostle. But perhaps one appellation is 
 as sensible and fit as the other. The Emperor 
 provoked the enmity of the clergy or priesthood by 
 his advanced opinions, and since the Church for- 
 merly influenced so much the making of history, 
 all who incurred its displeasure have naturally come 
 down to us with tarnished characters.
 
 8 TIIIKIJ GfiNERATION 
 
 Ol the old scliDol of la\\\crs l)roii^L;Iiaiii w.i-. 
 perhaps the last, if he was not the greatest. He 
 was a man of varied attainments, and spared no 
 labour to render himself conversant with ever}- 
 subject which happened to be coming before him 
 as a judge or as a legislator, and which he had not 
 studied, no matter how mean or trivial it might 
 appear. He did not account it sufficient for a 
 lawyer to be read onl\- in the statute-book, the rules 
 of the turf, the daily paper, and Joe Miller, or 
 deem that the demands of culture were satisfied by 
 the possession of a library. He was my fathers 
 steadfast friend, and the intimate associate from 
 college days of my great-uncle Stoddart. 
 
 Brougham's physical constitution was as perfect 
 a marvel as his intellectual activity and versatilit)'. 
 His power of endurance must have been enormous, 
 and he was far from abstemious in any sense. The 
 fatigue and strain which, in his earlier professional 
 career he constantly bore, would have killed nine 
 men out of ten. Port and brandy, of which he so 
 freely partook, instead of impairing his energy, 
 served as invigorating and recuperative stimu- 
 lants. 
 
 The great Chancellor was apparently led b)- the 
 coincidence of the name to make his country seat
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 
 
 (Brougham Hall) near the ancient castle in West- 
 moreland where Queen Elizabeth stayed and was 
 entertained in one of her numerous progresses. 
 
 Lord Chancellor Westbury once took part in a 
 discussion on eternal punishment, of which he 
 repudiated the existence, and, lawyer-like, he wound 
 up his argument by saying : 'Hell is dismissed with 
 costs !' 
 
 Westbury was remarkable for preserving the old 
 pronunciation of certain words, such as whole, hot, 
 which he pronounced wolc, zvoL When Mr. 
 Registrar Hazlitt was at work with him on the 
 Bankruptcy Bill, 1869, he once said to him: 'I am 
 sick, Hazlitt, of the wole business.' 
 
 His lordship, like many other great men, had his 
 foibles, and one of them was in the shape of an 
 Italian Countess, whom he scandalized some of his 
 guests at Hackwood Hall by placing at the head of 
 his table. Yet he was not wanting in polite atten- 
 tions to his wife, whose parcels, and even bonnet- 
 boxes, he would often be seen carrying home. 
 Many a time he borrowed sixpence of some one at 
 hand to pay for his omnibus. 
 
 A bookseller assured me that he had been com- 
 missioned to make the catalocjue of the late Lord 
 Coleridge's private library, but that, owing to certain
 
 lo THIRD GENERATION 
 
 circumstances, the business was a rather deh'cate 
 one. I believe that this was ;i thorough fiction, for 
 Coleridge's books were sold in the ordinary way by 
 Sotheby and Co., and the person who was employed 
 by the auctioneers to go to the house to look at the 
 collection informed me that he discovered no trace 
 of anything of the sort beyond the presence of such 
 generally recognised works as the Arabiaii Niglits 
 or Payne's version of Boccaccio. 
 
 As Lamb's friend and correspondent, Alsop, very 
 truly pointed out, the man to whom his family owed 
 any distinction which they acquired was neglected 
 by them, and the anticlimax was reached in a noble 
 and learned lord, who inherited the name and 
 nothing else. 
 
 Mr. Justice Hawkins, whose partiality for the 
 turf is very well known, had once a horse case 
 before him. There had been some betting on a 
 horse for the Derby, and at the last moment the 
 animal was scratched. 11 is lordship interrupted the 
 speech of the learned counsel in order to inquire 
 what he meant by scratched. ' My lord,' said th(! 
 counsel, lookinLf verv siirnificantlv at Hawkins, ' I 
 am not exactly in a position to tell your lordship off- 
 hand, but I will consult' — eyeing the Bench all the 
 time — 'a very high judicial authority, and shall be
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY ii 
 
 prepared to give your lordship the information to- 
 
 morrow mornmo-. 
 
 Serjeant Wilkins, who died in poverty, com- 
 menced his professional career at Liverpool, but 
 afterward removed his practice to Durham. His 
 first case there was the defence of a young woman 
 committed for the murder of her illegitimate child, 
 and it brought him at once into notoriety. When 
 the case for the Crown had closed, leaving no doubt 
 of the prisoner's guilt, Wilkins rose, looked at the 
 judge, then at the prisoner, then at the jury. Then 
 he seemed to be collecting himself; but a second 
 and third time he did the same thing. The Court 
 was in a state of astonishment ; but after the third 
 repetition Wilkins left his place, went up to the 
 dock, tore off a piece from the wretched tatters in 
 which the girl was dressed, and, holding it up, cried : 
 ' This was the cause of all ! Now, gentlemen, I 
 consent to a verdict of Guilty.' The prisoner was 
 convicted, but her sentences was commuted — at a 
 time when commutations were less usual. At the 
 next sessions thirty briefs awaited Wilkins. 
 
 Street, who took the superintendence and drew 
 the plans of the new Courts of Justice in London, 
 had travelled a good deal abroad, including Italy, 
 and had seen many public buildings everywhere,
 
 I 2 
 
 rillR I ) ('. EN ERA TION 
 
 erected at intcrxals piect.nieal from pecuniary or 
 other exigencies in xarioiis tastes or schools of 
 architecture. He had the opportunity, with the 
 hnr area clearetl lor the purpose, of placiuL;' on the 
 site a grand homogeneous structure — there was no 
 pretence for irregularity of design — and what did 
 he do? He did just as a Chinese tailor would do, 
 if you gave him a pair of breeches with a patch in 
 them as a pattern. It was certainly a deplorable 
 muddle, yet characteristic enough, no doubt, of all 
 similar arrangements in this country. There was 
 no adequate provision for light, air, or hearing, and 
 solid mahogany doors had to be unhinged, that the 
 panels might be cut out and glass squares sub- 
 stituted, when it was found by this person of genius 
 that staircases or corridors were in almost complete 
 darkness at mid-day. 
 
 Baxter, of the great firm of solicitors, Baxter, 
 Rose and Norton, in (ireat Queen Street, West- 
 minster, afterward In X'ictoria Street, was an Evan- 
 gelical preacher, and used to go down to Alder- 
 shot to deliver discourses U) the soldiers. This pro- 
 cured him the name of //o/v Baxter. The business 
 of his firm was at one time extraordinarily great ; 
 they had 130 clerks in 32 rooms. It might be said 
 of them, as 1 bjrace d(jes of Rome : 
 
 ' Suis et ipsa Roma viribus ruit.'
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 
 
 Baxter himself was not considered a first-rate 
 man of business ; but he was an excellent lawyer, 
 and much consulted in railway cases. He carried 
 about an inch of pencil, and often amended a clause 
 in a Bill by adding- a few words, as when he out- 
 witted Sir James Allport, of the Midland, in the 
 ' running- ' question with the WoK^erhampton and 
 Walsall, by inserting the words 'and account,' which 
 precluded the Midland from evading- the liability to 
 pay under certain contingencies. 
 
 The misfortune of Baxter was his support of the 
 Tichborne Claimant ; it led to a reconstruction of 
 the firm, and he died a poor man. I have been 
 told that there was little doubt as to the relationship 
 of Orton to the family, and that the Colonel of the 
 reofiment to which Tichborne had belonged re- 
 cognised the Claimant as the same man who had 
 served under him, when he happened to see him 
 coming out of Court, and mentioned the matter to 
 Baxter casually, without knowing that the latter was 
 concerned in the defence. 
 
 A late well-known jeweller in Richmond, Surrey, 
 was saying that, while he was engaged in breaking 
 up sovereigns for his professional purposes, Mr. 
 Arnold, the police magistrate, came into the shop, 
 and asked him what he was doing. He answered
 
 14 
 
 I lllKh CIINI'IRATION 
 
 ih.u Ik: hopt-il he was doiiiL; no harm, bul did noL 
 like being cliallcnoc d hy such an authority. There 
 seems, however, no objection to utihzinjj;- the currency 
 for jewellery, so long as it is not defaced and passed 
 into otlu;r hands. Vou may destroy it, but you 
 must not tamper with it. 
 
 In a case at a London police court, where two 
 jews were parties, the: magistrate asked one of them 
 whether he called himself Monlagu. Me replied in 
 the affirmative. He asked him again if it had 
 always been his name, and he said that he believed 
 so. 'Had it ever been Moses .■^' 'Well, yes; but 
 Moses and Montagu were the same.' ' Oh, then,' 
 said the magistrate, ' I suppose that the Moses in 
 the Bible was also known as Montacju.' The race 
 being so ancient, and its prospective advantages so 
 excepti(^nal, it seems strange that so many Jews 
 should be anxious to disguise their nationality and 
 nomenclature. The late Mr. Hyman Montagu, the 
 numismatist, married a Miss Moses, who became 
 Mrs. Montagu ; but she ought by right to have kept 
 her maiden name. Montagu did not desire to pass 
 as a Jew, but it was relevantly to him that some one 
 expressed to me his regret that the extinction of the 
 Hebrews had not been accomplished by King John. 
 
 My father told me the following anecdote about
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 15 
 
 Sir Charles Lewis, M.P. Lewis had had his full- 
 length portrait presented to him by his constituents 
 just before some one called to see him. ' 1 have 
 something to shew you,' said Lewis, and took the 
 other into the room where the likeness had been 
 placed. ' What do you think of it ?' he asked. 
 'Very good indeed,' replied the friend, 'except that 
 the artist has painted you with your hands in your 
 own pockets.' 
 
 A curious circumstance happened to an intimate 
 friend. Several thousand pounds, which he had 
 been entitled to expect, were left elsewhere, owing 
 to offence taken by the lady-relative who had the 
 money at her disposition. He came behind her 
 chair at dinner one day as a boy, and pulled her cap 
 or her wig. At the death of the party to whom she 
 bequeathed it, he willed it away with other property, 
 but this money could only pass by deed ; my friend 
 brought his action, and recovered it. I observed 
 to him that in this instance the uill was not as good 
 as the deed. 
 
 A man, who had bought land at Brockley in 
 Kent, when it was cheap, and boundaries were 
 occasionally obscure, used to classify his property 
 jocularly among his intimates as freehold, leasehold, 
 and catchhold.
 
 1 6 THIRD C EM E RAT ION 
 
 Tlu: ot-ncral illilcracy of lh(' Ic^jal profession is 
 tolerably well known to such as have mixed in that 
 kind of society, or even have taken the trouhlc to 
 study the Law Reports in th(; d.iiK' press. The 
 explanation is that lawvers are specialists, and have 
 no leisure to devote to topics outside their vocation. 
 Of the two. barristers are perhaps more open to this 
 charge than solicitors ; ycl there is little enough to 
 choose between them. An eminent O.C., speaking 
 on this subject to my father, observed that he was 
 not at all so well versed as he could have desired 
 in jjoints of general culture, but that most men at 
 the Bar were utterly ignorant of languages, even of 
 Latin and French, and of literary history. Another 
 learned counsel mentioned to mvself his intention of 
 writing a luonoi^rain on a subject in which he 
 happened to feel an interest. 
 
 It is a painful business if you have to go into 
 Court on any matter pertaining to literary copyright. 
 It is vast odds if the judge, the counsel, and the 
 solicitors are not absolute blanks, unless they have 
 very greatly improved since I committed my father 
 to an action in respect to his edition of Montaigne. 
 I was never more fri'jfhtened in mv whole life, for it 
 was not more than a sum of £\o that was at issue. 
 I worked hard, however, to protect my father's
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 17 
 
 pocket, and the result was that the defendant had 
 to pay about ^300 in costs on both sides. If the 
 suit had concerned the Turf, the Stocls; Exchanofe, 
 or the Prize Rino', there would have been less 
 difficulty. 
 
 But the Lord Chief Baron Pollock was an honour- 
 able exception to the prevailing rule. He was a 
 person of cultivated taste, and liked to gather round 
 him men of letters and artists. Thackeray used to 
 visit at the house. The Chief Baron expressed 
 in a letter of 1868 to his friend Dr. Diamond, of 
 Twickenham, a warm admiration of my grandfather, 
 and he stated there that he always kept Hazlitt's 
 volumes near him. 
 
 The late Lord Chief justice Coleridge and Mr. 
 Justice Day belong to the roll of book-collectors. 
 
 The last time that my father saw George Henry 
 Lewes, husband of George Eliot (Miss Mary 
 Evans), he was standing, like Collier, at Charing 
 Cross, and presented a singular appearance, being 
 dressed from top to toe in white, and the only thing 
 about him that was not white was his red hair and 
 beard. 
 
 There is always in printing even unpublished 
 matter of comparatively modern date a feeling of 
 uncertainty and indecision as to the wisdom of the 
 
 VOL. II. 21
 
 i8 THIRD GENERATION 
 
 proceeding. A K-Ucr whicli has the sanction of 
 age does not require such high testimonials as one 
 of jx-rhaps superior interest, of wliich the subject- 
 matter hears on persons either still among us or 
 recently added t<»thc appurtenances of the past. I 
 hold a large number ol notes, many curious in their 
 \\a\-, from Leigh Hunt. Douglas Jerrold, William 
 Jerdan, Bulwer, the Procters, Dickens, Harrison 
 Ainsworth, Laman Hlanchard, and others, on which 
 the crust. I take it. will have to accumulate some- 
 what before they become publisher's game. 
 
 There are here and there a few which may 
 possess a special interest, or which, though of recent 
 origin, treat of questions which have acquired a 
 tincture of historical character, and I may not be 
 blamed for citinor them in evidence, if I do not 
 transcribe theni at length. 
 
 P>ut there is in my collection, independentl)' of all 
 these, a large assortment of communications on 
 literary topics from several of my own more par- 
 ticular correspondents — Payne Collier, Halliwell- 
 Phillipps, and so on — which must certainly await 
 the time when they may have gained a sort of 
 classic nosegay, and be read by some forthcoming 
 generation in a longer perspective. 
 
 Some of these epistolarx remains owe their
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 19 
 
 interest to bygone days, and incidentally illustrate 
 points of biography and literature already beginning, 
 like wine of the fifth year, to acquire a tone and 
 a bouquet. I could fill volumes with such things ; 
 but let me select from a bundle of about sixty two 
 or three letters from John Payne Collier, whose 
 father was acquainted with the Lamb circle, and 
 who was for some time a colleaofue of Hazlitt on 
 the Morning Chi'onicle. The first and second are 
 addressed to mv father ; the former was written 
 in consequence of the scandal arising from the 
 alleged Shakespear fabrications. 
 
 Collier often joined Hazlitt in his box at the 
 theatre, and would ask his opinion about the piece 
 in course of performance — what he thought of this 
 or of that — and ' then the next morning,' said 
 my grandfather, ' what 1 had told him appeared 
 in the newspaper as his.' Peter Patmore did much 
 the same thing. 
 
 Riverside, 
 
 Maidenhead, 
 
 March 22, i860. 
 ]\Iy dear Hazlitt, 
 
 I am especially gratified by your note, because it so 
 happens that you seem ahnost the only one of my old co-mates 
 who remember me with any feeling of regard. I do not say that 
 you are the only one, because there is one other who has expressed 
 somewhat similar sentiments regarding me. Vou know that while
 
 20 Tf/Ih-I) GI'SERATION 
 
 you and I were fellow lal)()Uicrs in tlie same not very profilaljle, 
 nor very aj^reeable field, if I did not do my best to make every 
 man my friend, I did nothing to render any man my enemy. Vet 
 I hear that the great body of those who were similarly employed 
 are now, for some reason or other, opposed to me, and take 
 pleasure in forwarding the views of my adversaries by such means 
 as happen to be in their power. 
 
 This is rather hard upon a man who all his life exerted him- 
 self, as far as he could, to advance and elevate the position of 
 journalists, (iod knows that I never was, and certainly am not 
 now, in a position to excite the envy of my contemporaries. 
 
 Therefore I thank you the more heartily for coming forward in 
 the unsolicited way you have done. 
 
 The discovery of that corrected folio, 1632, is to be made the 
 bane of the latter part of my life, if my enemies can accomplish it. 
 
 I know that you have got on, and are getting on well, and I am 
 
 most rejoiced at it. I trust, too, that all about you are prosperous 
 
 and happy. 
 
 I am, as I have always been. 
 
 Yours most sincerely, 
 
 J. Payne Collier. 
 
 \\'illiam Hazlitt, Est;. 
 
 What the true history of the Shakespear emen- 
 dations in the foh'o of 1632 was and is, and whence 
 they were derived. I ani far from pretending to 
 know. But Collier, like the majorilx of our com- 
 mentators on old English literature, was essentially 
 a dull man ; and it is incontestable that, while 
 nearly all the proposed improvements were too 
 clever for him to have originated, some of them 
 were such as only an ear-witness could have handed
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 21 
 
 down. My father was always of opinion that, who- 
 ever inserted the manuscript matter in the Devon- 
 shire second folio, it was not Collier, and I quoted 
 to him in support of such a view that splendid 
 correction of the passage where Mrs. Quickly 
 narrates the end of Falstaff. 
 
 I am bound to confess that whenever I applied 
 to Collier for information on literary facts within 
 his presumed knowledge, I always found him anxious 
 to parry inquiry. He usually sent evasive answers 
 to my not unreasonable call for fuller particulars 
 about a book or a statement, for which he was 
 perhaps the sole authority. 
 
 In the second (1865), also to my father, the 
 writer, after entering into some matters of unim- 
 portant detail, goes on to refer to his literary amuse- 
 ments, his personal affairs, and his mode of life. 
 
 This trifling diverts my old age (I atn nearly 77), and keeps me 
 from being devoured by ennui and selfishness. Men who have no 
 employment at my time of life think a great deal too much about 
 themselves. 
 
 You are prosperous, and your family, I am rejoiced to hear, 
 sufficiently so. I'hey say that it is bad for a family to be too well 
 provided for. I should like to try the experiment, as I told the 
 late Duke of Devonshire, when he asserted that I was richer and 
 happier than he. 
 
 Both my sons and one of my daughters are married, and the 
 two first have large families. 
 
 What a time it is since we met — or rather parted — at Charing
 
 22 THIRD GENERATION OF A LITERARY FAMILY 
 
 Cross, when you told me that you hoped to obtain some office. 
 You have a good one, and deserve it. 1 have none, and deserve 
 none. I might have been a Pohce Magistrate or a Colonial 
 Judge, but I refused the first, and my late wife would not let me 
 take the last. She would rather have lived upon ^300 a year 
 here, than upon ^3,000 a year in Ceylon or the West Indies. 
 Now 3 or 400 a year is the extent of my income ; Ijut I live by 
 the riverside in a charming part of the country, and my daughter 
 keeps my house — never sparingly, but always economically. 
 
 I declare that I am writing almost as badly as you or your son 
 Carew. The fact is that my old hand is rheumatic. 
 
 Good-bye. Health and happiness to you and yours ! 
 
 1 he concluding specimen to myself was a reply 
 to an application for assistance in the preparation 
 of the Memoirs, and is dated June 2, 1867. The 
 interesting portion, after all, is that which immediately 
 concerns Hazlitt : 
 
 'The only remembrance I have of your Grandfather is the 
 note-book I mentioned to you, and which he gave me. You will 
 not be surprised, therefore, at my unwillingness to part with it. 
 If I had any other relic, it should be yours. He was not in the 
 habit of writing to me, and we, of course, often met at the 
 M\orning\ C[hronicle] Office and at the Fives Court, where I was 
 fond of seeing him play. He was famous for what was called 
 Volley.' 
 
 The manuscript \-olume here mentioned has been 
 already described by me in the Memoirs as the one 
 which was among Collier's books, and as containing 
 the transcript of Coleridge's Christabcl.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The Club founded by Jerrold and his friends — Its distinguished 
 members and guests — Thackeray — The melodists and other 
 entertainers — Charles Dickens the younger, my father, Holl, 
 and Dillon Croker — Hazlitt's Wiltshire songs — 'The AVilt- 
 shire Convict's Farewell ' — A general favourite — Anecdotes 
 of Jerrold — Sir B. W. Richardson — Dr. Diamond — Farther 
 glimpses of John Hazlitt the painter — Sundays at Twicken- 
 ham House — Account of the house, its contents and its 
 visitors — Sir Frederick Pollock — Hepworth Dixon — Dr. 
 Doran — The Fasti of Our Club — ' Shakespear at Our 
 Club,' iS6o — Evans's. 
 
 Beiween forty and fifty years ago Douglas Jerrold 
 and a few friends established a social club called 
 the Hooks and Eves. I believe that the number 
 was very limited at first, but it was at all events 
 made up to forty, when the name was changed to 
 the Forty Thieves. The final nomenclature, Our 
 Club, was adopted in or prior to i860. My father 
 was an original member, either a Hook or an Eye. 
 He became in due course one of the Forty, and he 
 continued with the set when it was rebaptized for 
 the third time. One by one all have passed away.
 
 24 THIRD GENERATION 
 
 DuriiiL;- a lon^;- scries (jf seasons a l^oocI evening 
 ir.iLiht be fairly counted upon. Jerrold himself, his 
 son Hlanchard Jerrold, Shirley Brooks, the younger 
 Dickens, Dillon Croker, Henry Holl, Dr. Diamond, 
 Dr. Richardson. F. \V. Cosens, Sir George Jessel, 
 Charles Knight, Hepworth Dixon, Professor Masson. 
 Joseph Durham and Richard Woolner the sculptors, 
 Robert Keeley, Dr. Doran, my father, and others 
 — all these I have seen round the dinner - table 
 together or in succession, and besides the roll of 
 members there were the guests, as each fellow 
 had the privilege of introducing one or more 
 friends. 
 
 I remember that Horace May hew once brought 
 Thackeray. They came after dinner, and I recollect 
 I hackeray's commanding figure as he entered the 
 door. It was the only time I ever saw him. He 
 paused on the threshold in a hesitating manner, 
 as if uncertain of his reception, and his introducer 
 had almost to push him forward. 
 
 The younger Dickens, my father, Holl, and 
 Croker were the mainstay of the institution in one 
 respect, for each of them, if present, was expected 
 to favour the company with a song or recitation. 
 Dickens generallv sanor 'Tom Bowlin-T.' Holl and 
 Croker furnished recollections of the old and livin''-
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 25 
 
 actors. Hazlitt contributed one of his West-Country 
 songs. There was a fair gathering, as a rule, of 
 men of mark and likelihood, and some good talk 
 passed. 
 
 Chappell, in his Popular Music of the Olden Time, 
 has printed one of Hazlitt's Wiltshire ditties, which 
 I have so often heard my father give with all the 
 gusto and raciness of the local twang, to the infinite 
 enjoyment of the audience, and here is the remain- 
 ing production from a copy in Mr. Registrar's 
 autograph : 
 
 THE WILTSHIRE CONVICT'S FAREWELL. 
 
 Come, all you young fellaws, wherever that you be ; 
 Come, all you young m'idens, j'in choruus with me; 
 'Tis of ten stout young fellaws as was tried the other d'y ; 
 And they are bound doon for Woolwich to set s'il for Botany B'y. 
 
 With a right fol dc riddle, fol de ray. 
 
 Then we went from the D'vizes bound doon in iron so strong ; 
 From D'vizes unto Fisherton they march'd us all along; 
 As I was passing by I heard the people s'y : 
 ' What a pity such foine fellaws should be gaain' to Botany B'y !' 
 
 JVith a right fol, etc. 
 
 Then in comes the j'iler about six o'clock ; 
 Then in comes the j'iler our doors to unlock. 
 Saying : ' Come, my lads, make ready, for ye must haste aw'y, 
 For you're boun' doon for Woolwich to set s'il for Botany B'y.' 
 
 With a right fol, etc.
 
 26 THIRD GENERATION 
 
 Then in comes pretty Sally, wiili ten guineas in her han', 
 Saying : 'Take this, my laddies, I've brought ye all I can.* 
 So fill us up a glass, I will drink my love's adieu ; 
 'Tis ten thousan' to one I ever more sees you. 
 
 // //// a right Jul ^ etc. 
 
 And when we gets to Botany H'y some letters we will write, 
 Unto our loving sweethearts and pretty girls in white ; 
 So kind heaven now protect us for ever and a d'y, 
 And God send every Wiltshire lad safe home fro' Botany B'y !' 
 
 With a right /oi\ etc. 
 
 This effusion was a wonderful favourite, and was 
 invariably encored, a circumstance which made the 
 singer a less frequent visitor of late years, as a call 
 for Hazlitt was as much a i)art of the evening as the 
 dinner itself The Lord Chief Baron Pollock, whom 
 I have already introduced, was greatly delighted 
 with the performance when he heard it. 
 
 My father not only possessed a voice, which with 
 proper training might have proved a fine one, but 
 was a highly proficient whistler, and would accom- 
 pany himself or another to the piano. He carried 
 what is generally a nuisance to a pleasing accom- 
 plishment, as those who have heard him might 
 testify. During the best years of his life, and 
 chiefiy in Brompton and Chelsea days, he was 
 much in request at musical soirees. He once 
 laboured under a not uncommon form of delicate
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 27 
 
 embarrassment, in going in morning dress, and 
 told me that he kept himself intrenched behind 
 the piano to conceal the incorrectness of his nether 
 habiliments. 
 
 It was an inexorable ordinance of the club that 
 invited guests should, in response to the toast of 
 their health, which was equally peremptory, deliver 
 an oration. But if there was more than a single 
 stranger, one spoke for the rest, whereas at the 
 Noviomagian gatherings each individual had to rise 
 in turn — a refinement of cruelty. 
 
 Professor Bain, of Aberdeen, told me, when I 
 once met him out at dinner, two or three anecdotes 
 of Jerrold which I had not heard before. 
 
 Jerrold was dining at some place where a salad 
 was put on the table. Some one observed that it was 
 unusually gritty. Jerrold calls the waiter, and says : 
 ' What's this ?' ' Salad, sir.' ' No,' says Jerrold, 
 ' it's a gravel walk with a good many weeds in it.' 
 
 He was at a lecture on the races of men, and 
 specimens of the various types were exhibited. 
 When the Caucasian type was shown, ' Ah,' he 
 says, ' that's the type I would go to press with.' 
 
 This reminded me of the story of the girl in an 
 omnibus on a very cold day, who observed to a 
 fellow-passenger that it was fine embracing weather.
 
 28 THIRD GENERATION 
 
 In reference to a literarx' man, who was supjj(jsed 
 to be dead, but who, ihoiicrh of great age, proved to 
 be still extant, Jerrold said : ' He may be ever green, 
 but he is never rtv/,' 
 
 Holl and Croker, of whom tlu: latter was never, I 
 believe, a member, were excellent mimics. I used 
 to prefer I loll. His impersonations of some of the 
 characters of O'Smith, Keeley, JMacready, Fechter, 
 Charles Kean, Buckstone, and Webster were capital. 
 He was always ready, when he was in fair cue, to 
 favour us with a specimen at his own house in 
 camera.. My old friend, Henry James Byron, was 
 also a very clever hand at hitting off Buckstone and 
 other artists of his ()\\\\ day ; but some of those 
 whom Holl had known were before his time. 
 
 One of the standard pleasantries at Our Club was 
 at the expense of Dr. (now Sir W. W.) Richardson, 
 an extremely pleasant and popular member, but a 
 prominent advocate of teetotalism. A noble lord 
 having bequeathed his fme cellar of wines to 
 Richardson, the latter found himself in possession 
 of a white elephant of very unusual dimensions. 
 Of course, the doctor could not dream of drinking 
 the wine himself, still less of offering it to his friends. 
 Nor could he sell it, nor could he present it to a 
 public institution. What would he do ? One
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 29 
 
 suggestion was that he should run it down the 
 sewer, where it would destroy the rats ; but this 
 was deliberate cruelty to animals, and the doctor 
 was a kind-hearted man. The liquor was ultimately 
 wasted, I believe. 
 
 Dr. Diamond, of Our Club, and Dr. Powell, were 
 the two earliest amateur photographers in England. 
 The latter dined with my father at Brompton when 
 he was last in Eno-land on a visit from the Mauritius. 
 He had become acquainted there with the only son 
 of John Hazlitt the miniature-painter, who, after 
 settling at Demerara, removed to Mauritius, and 
 died there. He possessed a few miniatures executed 
 by his father, but I never heard what became of 
 them. He had at one time accumulated a tolerable 
 fortune, and lived to lose it, to make a second, and 
 lose a great part of that, too, in a commercial paper. 
 VVe corresponded together during many years, and 
 his letters to me contain many interesting particulars 
 relatino- to the island. He once forwarded to me 
 some representations as to political parties there, 
 with the desire that I should get them printed. I 
 submitted them (unread, I confess) to an editor, 
 who returned them with the observation that their 
 appearance in his columns would have probably 
 involved the paper in several lawsuits.
 
 30 TIIIRI) GENERATION 
 
 The Sundays at Twickenham House, while 
 1 )iamond resided there, and so long as the establish- 
 uienL and its excellent husL were in their palmier 
 state, were remarka1)ly enjoyable and instructive. 
 The circle which collected round the Doctor during- 
 several years included a long catalogue of names 
 illustrious in letters and art. Some (jf the same set 
 which assembled at Our Club and at the Novio- 
 magians formed also the habitual visitors at Twicken- 
 ham, where there was a free entree and a hearty 
 welcome for every recognised comer. Three o'clock 
 was the dinner- hour. 
 
 The house was filled with valuable curiosities of 
 every description ; but the speciality of Diamond was 
 old china, about which his knowledge and fund of 
 anecdote were inexhaustible. The room in which 
 we all dined resembled a crockery shop : every 
 available nook and corner was filled ; the cases were 
 two or three deep, and the drawers of the cabinets, 
 if opened, disclosed treasures which the owner him- 
 self had almost forgotten, but of which he soon 
 recalled every particular — the place and date of 
 purchase, the name and personal history of the 
 former owner, and the circumstances under which 
 he had secured this teapot or that jar. 
 
 It was not an unfrequent obs(;rvation on his part
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 31 
 
 that his friend Lord Willoughby d'Eresby, who was 
 a connoisseur of old china, considered no thorough 
 judge ought to require to see the potter's mark, but 
 should be able to pronounce what the piece was 
 from the texture and the paste. 
 
 The Doctor had also a few coins, a few prints, and 
 a few books, and latterly he was bitten by the rat- 
 tailed spoon and Queen Anne plate crazes. I 
 remember him when he was extraordinarily tenacious 
 of his acquisitions, and would not have listened to 
 any proposal to part with his specimens. One day 
 he shewed me a very fine old Vincennes saucer, to 
 which I had the cup ; but his piece was badly 
 broken, and I should not have valued it, yet 
 he anticipated me by saying that he never let 
 anything leave his hands. 
 
 Toward the end, however, his feeling in this 
 respect underwent a great change, and many of the 
 beautiful old bits of plate and other rarities mysteri- 
 ously disappeared ; and the house with its circular 
 drawing-room, once the residence of Sir John 
 Hawkins, and the grounds, and our kind-hearted 
 entertainer, and nearly all who once met under that 
 hospitable roof, have disappeared, too. There was 
 an atmosphere enveloping the whole spot, and 
 seemino- to raise it out of the dead level of comnion-
 
 32 TlllKh GENERATION 
 
 place c\fry-cl.iy life; ami ot i^ood larc there was no 
 stint, nor of ij^ootl talk. 
 
 May I be jxirdoned for jicrpetuating so trivial a 
 trait as the wav the s^ood Doctor had, on a Sunday 
 in sijrinL:' or in suninier, in the i^arden, of finding: a 
 worm, placing it on the open palm of one hand, and 
 whistling, when a robin appeared, and, after circum- 
 spectly reconnoitrin''' for a few moments, aliorhted on 
 Diamond's hand, seized its prey, and llew off to a 
 more convenient place for its meal. Our host used 
 to relate that it was his practice to patronize the 
 Maid of Honour shop at Richmond for his cheese- 
 cakes ; but he had them made at home after detecting 
 a hair of a maid in one of those acquired by 
 purchase. A very similar confection was formerly, 
 and may be yet, made at an old-fashioned depot at 
 Wokingham in Berkshire. The Doctor had an 
 eccentric lady patient, who once engaged with him 
 in a theological discussion on the teaching of 
 St. Paul the Apostle. He entered a little into the 
 views and doctrines of the latter on a certain point ; 
 but his listener interrupted him by observing : ' Ah, 
 yes. I am aware of it ; but that's just where Paul and 
 I differ.' 
 
 Diamond unquestionably carried away with him 
 much curious and unicjue information about those
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 33 
 
 matters which interested him, and it was hard to 
 say what had not done so at some period or other 
 of his active and observant Hfe. On china, books, 
 engravings, birds' eggs, stuffed birds, medals, and 
 coins, he could discourse largely and learnedly, and 
 in conversation on any of these topics, he was 
 peculiarly suppleinentaL He generally knew all 
 that you did and a little more. If you mentioned 
 a man who was tolerably in years in your youth, 
 and narrated some trait of him, the Doctor would be 
 very apt to chime in with, ' Ah, sir. I knew his 
 father,' and so forth ; and he did so without improper 
 assumption or any desire to give umbrage. 
 
 Diamond wrote little ; I think that he occasionally 
 contributed to N^otcs and Queries — an excellent mis- 
 cellany at one time, notwithstanding that Thomas 
 Wright assured me he never saw anyone read it 
 except an old woman once in an omnibus. The 
 Doctor's friends often pressed him to prepare a 
 ■descriptive catalogue of his china, with all the 
 valuable and attractive niinuticE, of which he was 
 the sole repository. But he never did. 
 
 My late brother was his executor ; and I conclude 
 that it was only in a Pickwickian sense that he once 
 said of him, that he was the most trustworthy man 
 he knew, for if he engaged to do anything, you 
 
 VOL. II. 22
 
 34 THIRD GENERATION 
 
 niiirht depend upon it l]i;it he would not. My 
 hrother h;ul no literary taste, but was a reader, and 
 possessed some sense ol humour, lie repeated to 
 nie what an omnihus-driver had once said to him, as 
 he sat by him on the box : 'Ave 'eared say. sir, as 
 there's countries where c:lephants burrows in the 
 ground.' 
 
 Mr. Hepworth Dixon, at one time editor of the 
 Athcnccuiu, was, I have understood, the son of a 
 Lancashire mill-hand. He was a clever but super- 
 ficial ]:)erson, and had no breedinc^-. lerrold used 
 to call him ' Ha'porth Dixon,' 1 had a conversa- 
 tion with Dixon at the Atheucnnii office about the 
 relative merits of two of our old poets, Herbert 
 and Crashaw, and he said to me. paring- his nails, 
 when I had expressed my preference for Crashaw : 
 ' Well, that's a matter of opinion.' I do not imagine 
 he knew anything about either ; and when Henry 
 Holl was once speaking at Our Club about our old 
 writers, Dixon broke in with some critical remarks, 
 and concluded with. 'Just the sort of thing, you 
 know, that Jack Webster would have said,' without 
 the faintest idea of Webster or his style of writing. 
 He never did much after leaving the AtJicnccuvi. 
 1 )ilke took him rather unexpectedly at his word 
 when they differed on some principle, and he t(^]d
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 
 
 S-i 
 
 ' Charlie ' that he was ready to go If he could get 
 another man to suit him better, which ' Charlie ' 
 did. 
 
 As an editor, Dixon was, on the whole, com- 
 paratively fair and moderate in the tone which he 
 maintained, and which he prescribed to his staff of 
 re\'iewers. He enjoined them, I understand, not 
 only to be just, but to be generous, where a book 
 possessed a reasonable share of merit and evidences 
 of genuine work. 
 
 It was a trait perfectly in keeping with Dixon's 
 utter want of sensibility and training, that one 
 Sunday, at Diamond's, he took up his son, and 
 threw him into the centre of a splendid box hedge 
 on which the doctor especially prided himself — a 
 hedire, so far as I recollect, some four feet across. 
 It stood — alas! it stands no lonfjer — close bv a 
 fence formed of old Culloden sword-blades. 
 
 Dixon utilized his vacations by visiting some 
 locality likely to yield marketable stuff for a book 
 aLrainst the next winter season. One year he went 
 to Cyprus, and after a six weeks' stay appeared 
 in due course as the historian of that island and 
 ancient seat of arts and fjovernment. These literarv 
 m.mufactures can onlv be viewed in the same lio-ht 
 as the artist's ' [)()t-boilcr,' but in this particular case
 
 36 Til 1 1x1) GENF.KATION 
 
 tlic question is whclhcr llu: writer was capable of 
 an\ thine better and more durable. 
 
 The author of Spiritual Wives was j^dfted with 
 the art uf quick study. He came, saw, and con- 
 quered. The histor\" of an ancient emj)ire or the 
 picture of a latter-day heresy, it mattered little. He 
 had the knack of disguising his lack of knowledge and 
 information under a specious and flippant style em- 
 phatically Di.Konian, and his object was achieved. H is 
 work meant money, even if at present it means naught. 
 
 It was amusing to listen to him as he delivered 
 a speech on some subject, such as Shakespear, 
 with which his conversance was of the most de- 
 plorably limited and inaccurate nature ; and it was 
 this facility for uttering a string of commonplaces 
 in the absence of a competent knowledge of the 
 topic under treatment which first led me to speculate 
 on the title (jf Parliamentary and other orators to 
 rank ipso facto as pos.sessors of first-class gifts, or, 
 in other words, whether iluency oi speech is not, 
 except in a few cases, the actual outcome of a 
 deficiency of critical acquaintance with a subject. 
 
 The younger Dickens sang well, and Lawrence 
 had his song, too, with the j^eculiarity of ignoring 
 a certain letter of the alphabet. The last visit I 
 paid with my father to the Club, there were only
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 37 
 
 nine present — Cordy Jeaffreson, he and I, and six 
 others (all knights). 
 
 Dr. Doran came to dine at my father's at Brompton 
 about 1857. I was a very young' man then, and 
 heard Doran, in speaking of books, declare to my 
 father that he never gave more than fourpence 
 for any. I had at that time a very imperfect 
 acquaintance with bibliography, but I remember 
 that I formed a verv unfavourable estimate of 
 Doran's library. I do not think that it was ever 
 publicly sold. 
 
 The last letter which Doran ever wrote was 
 addressed to my father, and is inserted by Mr. 
 Cordy Jeaffreson in the biographical notice which 
 he wrote at the time of our comnion friend's death. 
 Doran had been private physician at one period 
 of his life to the Earl of Harewood. I once met 
 him and Dixon at a private dinner given by 
 F. W. Cosens, and I was infinitely disgusted by the 
 coarseness of both in their conversation. I do not 
 think that our kind host was either pleased or 
 flattered by the gross vulgarity of the two distin- 
 o-uished litttfj-ateiirs. 
 
 The Club passed some of its happiest and most 
 prosperous times under the Piazza in Covent Garden, 
 while it occupied a room at Clun's Hotel, next door 
 
 ^ Q 
 
 J 
 
 14
 
 38 IIIIRD GENERATION 
 
 to l^vans's. It has sinc(^ migrated from plact; to 
 place, and at each removal has. I fear, left some 
 ot its old pri'stigc hchiiul. ll hids fair to shrink 
 into a Cii/yitt ))iortuuni. M\- fathc-r, ' the last ol the 
 Romans.' at It-ngth orave up attending ; and, as 
 Lamb said of himself in reference to the London 
 Mai^azinc in its declininL;' days. Cordy Jeaffreson 
 and Macmillan (not the publisher) linc^er among 
 the rafters of the sinking shi]) like the last rats. 
 
 Our Club long kej)t up its Shakespear night, 
 when it became from season to season increasingly 
 difficult to moot an\- fresh point, and to lend an 
 original air to the gathering, of which the guests 
 form a majority. There is also the annual meeting. 
 Some years ag^o it was h(;ld at Richmond. My 
 father inyited me to join him, and W'oolner was 
 there. The^chief thing which I recollect is that, as 
 we were comini.^ away to the train, W'oolner's lau''h 
 could be heard from one end of the hill to the other. 
 
 What may' be called the Fasti of the club were 
 composed by I loll and Brooks at different times. 
 The production of the formcT bears no note of date, 
 and describes a representative evening in the 
 earlier and brighter epoch, but after the loss of 
 Jerrold. It is entitled. The Retaliation Jnntated. 
 
 Shirley P)rooks prepared his effusion, the only
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 39 
 
 other relic of the kind, for a special occasion — the 
 Shakespear anniversary. It proceeds on the plan 
 of making each of the company, members or guests, 
 deliver a sentiment more or less appropriate to the 
 circumstances or characteristic of the supposed 
 speaker. It is sufficiendy clever and interesting 
 to warrant its insertion here, more particularly as 
 it is probably almost unknown even to the present 
 
 generation : 
 
 SHAKESPEAR AT OUR CLUB. 
 April 21, i860. 
 
 R. Fenton. 
 Why, how now, what does Master Fenton here ? Truly an 
 honest gentleman. 
 
 O. Delepierre. 
 
 He has done nobly, and cannot go without any honest man's 
 voice ; therefore let him be Consul, and the Gods give him joy. 
 
 G. Duplex. 
 How he solicits Heaven 
 Himself best knows. But strangely visited people, 
 The mere despair of surgery, he cures. 
 
 P. Cunningham. 
 
 If you want drier logs. 
 
 Call Peter, he will tell you where they lie. 
 
 F. Lawrence. 
 Now, afore God, this reverend lioly Laicrence, 
 All our whole city is much bound to him.
 
 40 THIRD GENERATION 
 
 J. H. I'AkkN. 
 
 This is the Serjeant. 
 
 I charge you I)) the law, 
 ■Whereof you are a well-deserving pillar, 
 Proceed to [the bench of] Judgment. 
 
 (i. JKS.SEL. 
 
 And you, his yoke fellow of Ecjuity, 
 Bench by his side. 
 
 li. Mavhkw. 
 
 The Prince of Darkness is a gentleman, 
 Modo he's called, and Malm. 
 
 C. Dickens, Junk. 
 Your mind is tossing on the ocean. They are not China dishes, 
 but very good dishes. 
 
 G. Chesterton. 
 
 Not your Gaoler, then. 
 But your kind host. 
 
 \V. IlAZIlTT. 
 
 Or Zumiherset or York, all's one to him. 
 
 W. IT. Cooke. 
 Yea, marry, William Cook, bid him come hither. Any pretty 
 little tiny kickshaws tell William Cook. 
 
 J. C. O'Down. 
 
 The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces. 
 The solemn temples, the great Globe itself. 
 Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve. 
 
 Allen, 
 He sings several tunes, faster than you'll tell money. He hath 
 songs for man or woman, and the prettiest love songs for maids, 
 without mischief, ii'hich is strange.
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 41 
 
 H. Dixox. 
 
 He gives you all the duties of a man, 
 
 Trims up your praises with a princely tongue, 
 
 Speaks your deservings like a chronicle, 
 
 And chides your truant youth with such a grace. 
 
 H. HOLL. 
 
 He shall taste of my bottle. If he have never fasted wine befotr, 
 it will go near to remove his fit. . . . 
 
 He's a Brave God, and bears Celestial Liquor. 
 
 F. Joyce. 
 
 He is something stern, 
 But, if he vow a friendship, he'll perform it. 
 
 F. SiBSON. 
 
 He is a gentleman. One that indeed 
 Physics the subject. 
 
 W. A. Matthews. 
 
 My man's as true as steel. 
 
 W. B. Jkrrold. 
 Thou bearest thy father's face. 
 
 Thy father's moral part 
 Mayst thou inherit too. 
 
 D. Masson. 
 
 Sir, we bless God for you. Your reasons at dinner (and else 
 where) have been sharp and sententious, pleasant without scurrility, 
 witty without affectation, audacious without impudency, learned 
 without opinion, and strange without heresy. . . . Well said, 
 I )avy, 
 
 J. Hannav. 
 
 He did ever fence the right, 
 Nor buckle falsehood with :\ pedigree.
 
 42 THIRD GENERATION 
 
 J. li. TdMAI-IN. 
 
 Now, what news on the Rialto? 
 What news amont^ the Merchants ? 
 
 F. M. Evans. 
 In faith, he is a worthy gentleman, 
 Exceedingly well read, and profited, 
 And wondrous affable, and bountiful. 
 
 C Knight. 
 (Shakespear /o</.) He is a Knight, and will not any way dis- 
 honour //le. 
 
 T. Reeks. 
 
 Shall we be thus afflicted in his wreaks ? 
 
 J. W. Davison. 
 He hath the musician's melanclioly, which is fantastical. 
 
 R. Orridge. 
 Sing, sir ! Vou shall not i>o/) us out of our melody. He gave 
 you such a masterly Report for art and exercise in your Defence. 
 
 J. DORAN. 
 
 After my death I wish no otlier herald, 
 No other speaker of my living actions. 
 Than such a chronicler. 
 
 S. Brooks. 
 Such Brooks are welcome to me that overflow such liquor. 
 
 The Treasurer. 
 (K. Hamstede loq.) Vou owe me No Subscription. 
 
 I have entered into these details about Our 
 Club, because it has constituted since its commence-
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 43 
 
 ment a feature in the social life of my father — nay, in 
 my own ; and it was the only institution of the kind 
 with which either of us has ever been connected, 
 save a concern in Arundel Street, of which my 
 father* enjoyed an ephemeral membership ; this must 
 have been the place to which, no liquor fit to touch 
 being procurable on the premises, Frank Talfourd 
 said that it was necessary to come drunk. I have, 
 no doubt, kept unwisely aloof from literary fellow- 
 ship, and my life has been disadvantageously 
 secluded. A lady, when I once, in reply to an in- 
 quiry, told her that I had never joined any society, 
 turned round on me, and rather unkindly observed : 
 ' Perhaps you think that you are a society in your- 
 self.' 
 
 I did not even join the INIerchant Taylors' Old 
 Boys Club, though I have been repeatedly honoured 
 by an invitation to do so. I once attended a dinner 
 as a guest, and all the faces were strange. There 
 was no one there, save perhaps the V^icar of Upper 
 Hackney, who had been with me in the forties in 
 Suffolk Lane. I left the scene early, never to 
 revisit it. 
 
 * My father died at Addlestone in Surrey, February 21, 1893, 
 in his eighty-second year. His grandfather, the Rev. W. H., was 
 hving there in 1814. See i., 127.
 
 4 4 rilIRD GENERATION OF A LITERARY FAMILY 
 
 A famous resort close by Chin's was Evans's. 
 I'.\ans, who started the Cider Cellars in Maiiien 
 Lane about 1831, was orii^inally a singer, and had 
 an enoacrement at one of the theatres at what was 
 then accounted a heavy salary. But, losing his 
 ^■oice, he arranoed to retire with a sum, and started 
 the establishment so well identified with his name. 
 The speciality in Maiden Lane was kidneys and 
 stout ; there was no wine till just before the removal 
 to the Piazza in Covent Garden ; and no women 
 were admitted. There was music and singing, and 
 for some time a man named Sloman was the 
 l)ianist.
 
 THE FOURTH GENERATION 
 PART I.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Childhood of the writer — Merchant Taylors' School — The old- 
 fashioned regime — What 1 learned there, and did not learn 
 — Anecdotes of the place and the masters — Remarks on 
 University education — The treatment of the classical writers 
 — Dr. Bellamy — The Rev. John Bathurst Deane — The 
 Merchant Taylors' Company — The War Office in 1S54 — 
 Sir Robert Hamilton — My intimacy with him and his family 
 — Abuses in the service and mismanagement of our military 
 affairs — Recollections of two years' stay in the War Office — 
 My Irish programme — Hamilton's tale of second-sight — My 
 Venetian studies — Macaulay and Ruskm — The librarian at 
 St. Mark's — A little incident on the Piazzetta — My maiden 
 literary publication — Murray's proposed Dictionary of Ahitional 
 BiograpJiy — My Early Popular Poetry. 
 
 The narrative, as we proceed, has necessarily and 
 unavoidably become rather involved and irregular 
 by reason of the extent to which the later portions 
 overlap each other, and the writer plays the double 
 part of a showman and an actor in his own person. 
 I have done my best to obviate the admitted incon- 
 venience and impropriety, so far as the circumstances 
 and my ability would permit. 
 
 Two of the earliest reminiscences which I have
 
 4S FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 are connected with our residence at Alfred Place ; 
 the death of in\ vounfjer brother Richard in a fit 
 in I S39 — he lies, poor little ft-llow ! in ])rom])ton 
 churchyard ; and the visit of Lord Lansdowne to 
 in\- father on horseback to deliver a copy of the 
 catalogue of his pictLires for a projected edition o{ 
 Hazlitt's C?'ificis?Jis on Aii. 
 
 I also realize the almost opaque deafness of John 
 Landseer, whom my father, when I was as a great 
 treat in his ccjmpany, met at one of the theatres, and 
 with whom it amounted to an interruption of the 
 performance to converse. The great painter. Sir 
 Edwin, inherited, or at least acquired in later life, this 
 unfortiuiate characteristic. The elder Landseer had 
 known Hazlitt himself in the London Magazine 
 days. 
 
 The principal part of my education was received 
 at Merchant Taylors' School, in Suffolk Lane, to 
 which I was nominated through my fathers cousin, 
 the Rev. William Welwood Stoddart, of St. John's 
 College, Oxford, in 1842. The course of studies 
 there at that time was very slightly varied, I appre- 
 hend, from what it had been a century before. The 
 only subjects taught were Hebrew, Greek, Latin, 
 writing, mathematics, and arithmetic. The school 
 was held in an upper and a lower n^om, of which
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 49 
 
 the latter was reserved for the writing and arithmetic 
 classes in the afternoon. In the upper apartment 
 during the mornings, the five forms, with the 
 Monitors and Prompters, and sixth form, on a sort 
 of raised platform at the top, followed their studies 
 or repeated their lessons to four masters. In 1842, 
 and for some time after, these were Dr. Bellamy, 
 Mr. Bathurst Deane, Mr. Blunt, and Mr. Russell. 
 In the afternoons this room was devoted to mathe- 
 matics. There were about 200 boys altogether ; 
 but a small minority took the more difficult classics 
 and mathematics, and a still smaller one Hebrew, 
 although I understood that Bellamy was a fair 
 Hebraist. Prayers were read every morning before 
 school by one of the sixth form, who knelt in the 
 centre of the room just below the Monitors' table, 
 and held a printed sheet in front of him with the 
 appointed ritual. It was long my duty to perform 
 this ceremonv. 
 
 Before I quitted this institution in 1850, it had 
 undergone a remarkable development. Vigorous 
 efforts were made to meet modern demands by 
 enlarging- the programme and extending the utility 
 of the old foundation. One by one, French, draw- 
 ingf, music, and other sciences, were added to the 
 meagre educational regime of my own earlier boy- 
 
 VOL. II. 23
 
 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 hood. I stayed long enough to join tlie French 
 class, and one of m\ most agreeable associations is 
 the delightful manner of Delille, who presided over 
 it. What a contrast t<^ the other instructors! He 
 was before his time. 
 
 1 never heard to what influence or agency the 
 improvement of the school was due, but as it e.xisted 
 down to 1850 it was little better than a charity 
 school of a high grade. Ihere was once a year a 
 strange piece of archaism in the shape of an 
 Examination or Probation Day. when we had to 
 put in an appearance at eight o'clock in the morning, 
 and to have our breakfast on the premises. All 
 the arrangements were of the meanest and most 
 barbarous character. Except that the luciut was 
 differentiated by the modern introduction of sausage 
 rolls, three-cornered-tarts, and Bath buns, the scene 
 was perchance, in its general costume, not dissimilar 
 from what it had been in the founder's life-time. Of 
 course the Merchant Taylors' Company could not 
 afford to fmd us our modest rejmst. For 200 
 boys it might have involved them in an outlay 
 of /"lo. 
 
 It long used to be considered a good joke to lay 
 hold of everv newcomer to the establishment, and 
 throw him into a large clothes-chest upstairs as an
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 51 
 
 Introductory ceremony ; it was at any rate a dry 
 christening ; and if it did no good, it did little harm. 
 It is curious how a mere accident gave me a peculiar 
 ascendency over nearly the whole school. While I 
 was in the fifth form, a schoolfellow (Fat Nelham) 
 attacked me one day, and I went for him. I was 
 very strong, and I thrashed him well. My reputa- 
 tion and prestige were placed on the most solid 
 foundation from that hour till the day on which I 
 left. I was honoured by the sobriqjict of the ' Black 
 Sheep,' not by reason of any misdemeanour of which 
 I had to plead guilty, but on account of the awe 
 which my exploit inspired. 
 
 Better books, better masters, more liberal ideas, 
 have no doubt set Merchant Taylors' on a totally 
 different footing from the place as I knew it nearly 
 fifty years ago. I spent eight years of my life within 
 the walls of the old mansion in Suffolk Lane, and I 
 came out Q-ronnded. 
 
 I believe that I possessed a slight knowledge of 
 figures, of Latin, of Greek, and of French. I had 
 mastered a few of the problems of Euclid, and 
 quadratic equations. Writing was an art which I 
 never acquired either then or since, although many 
 of the printers of Great Britain, and a very large 
 number of correspondents all over the world, have
 
 52 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 made tho best of a sort of suljsiitutc for the Knglish 
 written character in voo[ue with me. 
 
 I shall never forget the mingled despair and con- 
 tempt which his futile endeavours to educate me in 
 this direction inspired in the breast of an eminent 
 calligrapher, commissioned by my father in after- 
 years to qualify me for clerical duties. My chief at 
 the War Office declared that, it he had not had 
 absolute ocular testimony to the contrary, he should 
 have thought that I held my pen with my left 
 foot. 
 
 They employed Lempriere, Anthon, and Bos, 
 among other class-books in my day. The informa- 
 tion imparted by these works was, according tf> 
 present notions, meagre and imperfect enough ; but 
 they marked an advance on the yet older material. 
 Lempriere's Classical Dictionary was, in particular, 
 a hiehlv creditable commencement on modern lines. 
 The first edition was in 1792, but Hazlitt, as a boy, 
 met the author at Li\-erj)ool two years before, and 
 tells his father in a letter that he paid him (L.) 
 great attention. 
 
 The Lemprieres are Jersey people, and the 
 lexicographer's grandson is now living at Roselle. 
 The late Sir John Millais was a countryman of theirs, 
 and is made by an interviewer to offer very high
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 53 
 
 testimony to their character and breeding. By the 
 way, the said interviewer misunderstood the Presi- 
 dent of the Academy where he refers to his know- 
 ledge of Hazlitt — he meant my father. Sir John 
 was not born till 1829. 
 
 In the main, whatever I have acquired may be 
 regarded not unfairly or very disrespectfully as self- 
 taught. I have in nearly the whole intervening 
 period occupied my time in reading and writing 
 books by way of supplementing compulsorily my 
 shortcomings ; and here I must not be understood 
 to imply that the deficiency would or could have 
 been made good by a longer course at the school 
 and a translation to the University, for on that 
 topic I hold my own special convictions, which gain 
 strength as I grow older ; an academical career may 
 be socially beneficial ; but it warps and narrows the 
 intellect, and as the colleges of Oxford and Cam- 
 bridge are constituted, they do not form the best 
 training for a man who aspires to independent 
 thought, although I quite see and grant that they 
 are excellent nurseries for clergynien, schoolmasters, 
 and mathematicians. I never met with anv Mer- 
 chant Taylor who had attained distinction beyond 
 that possibly latent in a colonial bishopric or a silk 
 gown ; and all the University men with whom I
 
 54 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 have associated have struck me as wanting in 
 orii^inalitv of ideas. 
 
 Even in those isolated instances, where distin- 
 guished persons have belonged to one of our 
 ancient seminaries of learning, I am tempted to 
 ask myself the question, how far greater they 
 might have been, had they never graduated. There 
 seems to be an atmosphere about those time- 
 hallowed spots, to which the blood assimilates, and 
 which renders the brain proof against external 
 thought and progress. Time will alone modify 
 this growth of centuries, and then everyone who 
 is really great will be, from contact with the master- 
 minds of antiquity, and from a power of collating 
 ancient with modern philosophy, all the more 
 eminent. 
 
 The spirit and temper in which the classical 
 authors, as they are termed, were taught, were 
 utterly deceptive and unprofitable. Poets and 
 prose-writers, like Homer, Horace, Herodotus, 
 Caesar, instead of being introduced to our notice 
 and rendered intelligible and tano^ible to us as 
 writers, of whom the best part still lived, were 
 made to appear impersonal abstractions. There 
 was no attempt to bring these masters before us 
 u\ their relationship to their own times and to ours.
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 
 
 55 
 
 I was usually considered a rather proficient scholar. 
 My name repeatedly, almost habitually, stands at 
 the head of the respective forms in the printed 
 school-lists, and I preserve five volumes purchased 
 at the cost of the Gild of Merchant Taylors, and 
 handed to me as prizes between 1845 and 1850 ; 
 they are of the usual type and quality. 
 
 But I declare that It was not till lonof after I had 
 bidden farewell to Suffolk Lane that I acquired any- 
 thing resembling a correct estimate of the great 
 authors of antiquity, and learned that they were 
 men of fiesh and blood, actual realities, as much 
 as Chaucer and Spenser, or as Shakespear and 
 Milton. 
 
 Progress has been made since that clay in this 
 salutary direction. There is Sir Theodore Martin's 
 charming monograph on Horace, and the present 
 writer printed long since a paper having a similar 
 aim on a particular aspect of Homer's Odyssey. 
 
 When I entered Merchant Taylors' I was eight 
 years old, and I continued for some time after, while 
 I was an occupant of the Petty Form, to wear a 
 tunic or frock with clocked stockings. I believe that 
 I was rather proud of a very smart red velvet dress 
 which my mother had made me ; but Dr. Bellamy 
 beckoned me up to hini one memorable day, and
 
 56 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 made a deep improssion on my mind by saying, 
 though good-humoLirctlK' enough, that if my parents 
 tUd not find me a pair of trousers, he thought he 
 should have to try and see what he could do to 
 make a man of nie. 
 
 It was a very long journey for a little boy in those 
 days from Old Brompton to Suffolk Lane. We 
 were due at nine in the morning. The founders of 
 the charity had not provided for scholars residing 
 beyond the precincts of the City. Not merely were 
 there no trains, but the; omnibus service was verv 
 imperfect, and witli my parents' humbk; means cabs 
 were out of the question. There were small 
 omnibuses, holding ten inside, plying between 
 London and Hounslow, Brentford, and Richmond, 
 and a few others which accommodated twelve. On 
 the Brompton and Chelsea roads I do not retain in 
 m.y memory the first experiments. I walked to and 
 from Sloane Street, and from or to that point a 
 Hounslow omnibus conveyed me to my destination ; 
 my place was reserved. All these vehicles were in 
 the hands of private proprietors. There were no 
 fiires below sixpence when I began to ride to and 
 tro. The Richmond hackney carriages had drivers 
 and conductors in livery, but their terminus was 
 in St. Paul's Churchyard, and the charge for the
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 57 
 
 entire distance was a shilling. I jot down these 
 trivial facts for the sake of comparison. 
 
 Deane, who was master of the fourth and fifth 
 forms in my time, was author of the first work in 
 English on Serpent-worship and of a biography of 
 his ancestor, General Deane. He was a rather 
 irascible and foolish person, addicted to giving 
 extravagant tasks and personal chastisement, and 
 to Bath buns, of which the undevoured remainder 
 often distended his cheek on entering the school- 
 room after lunch, awakening a titter which, if the 
 culprit was detected, brought down on him an 
 order (usually rescinded) to write out the Iliad or 
 the yEneid. But these vao^aries indicate to us a 
 little in how untrue and unfortunate a lioht the 
 classics were viewed by the teachers of a generation 
 or so back, and made to appear to their pupils. 
 
 I once fell under the displeasure of Deane wdien 
 he was Q-iving: our form some Eno-lish dictation to 
 turn into Latin by rendering ' the soil of Rhodes ' 
 sohiin viarniii ; and I also incurred his censure by 
 making virtziosiis the Latin equivalent of ' virtuous.' 
 
 Mr. Barlow, who presided over the junior after- 
 noon classes in arithmetic and writinof, was, of 
 course, baptized Billy Barlow. An unlucky wight 
 was overheard by him using this irreverent sobriquet.
 
 SS FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 and summoned to his dt;sk. TakiiiL;' him by (jiic car, 
 he said to him : ' M\- name, small boy, is not Mr. 
 \\'il-li-am I>arlow, but Mr. Sam-u-el Barlow,' spell- 
 inc^ out the words, and giving at each syllable a 
 lug at the offender's auricular pendant. Barlow was 
 rather short-sighted. A boy played him a practical 
 joke one day by spitting on the floor just where the 
 old fellow used to patrol up and down before the 
 tables, and poor Barlow stooped down, mistaking the 
 white object for a shilling. 
 
 Of the seminary where I acquired my alphabet I 
 have given some further particulars in ScJiools, 
 ScJiool-books, and Schoolmasters, 1888. 
 
 I witnessed one morning on Ludgate Hill, as I 
 passed to school in the omnibus, a not unusual 
 spectacle in those days. At the turning to the Old 
 Bailey a man who had been hanged that morning 
 was still suspended in the air, preparatory to being 
 cut down. It was not then quite nine o'clock, and 
 an hour was always allowed to intervene. This was 
 about 1845. 
 
 In the printed account of the Merchant Taylors' 
 Company there is some difficulty about a piece of 
 land which was left to the Gild in trust, and I 
 mentioned to Mr. Nash, the clerk, one day, in much 
 later life, that I thought I knew where it was.
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 59 
 
 'Where?' he asked. 'Why,' said I, 'your hah 
 stands upon it.' 
 
 I confess that I look back without pleasure at the 
 two years which I passed during the Crimean cam- 
 paign in the W^ar Office about 1S54, and a few- 
 years after quitting school. 
 
 The late Sir Robert Hamilton and I were both 
 supernumeraries, and both failed to pass the examina- 
 tion for the permanent staff. All our colleagues, 
 high and low, temporary or otherwise, were men, as 
 a rule, of inferior type. I believe that Hamilton 
 and myself are the only two who succeeded in our 
 several ways in emerging from that slough, or rising 
 above the ordinary dead-level of official routine. 
 
 Hamilton, whose family belonged to Shetland, 
 was always considered a remarkably able accountant 
 and man of business. He constantly came down to 
 my father's house at Brompton to dinner ' when we 
 were clerks together,' but I lost sight of him when, 
 by the assiduous support of Sir Charles Trevelyan 
 (his father's distant connection by marriage), he 
 succeeded in outstripping me, so far as official status 
 went. 
 
 He was a son of the Rev. Zachary Macaulay 
 Hamilton, a relative of the historian, and incumbent 
 of a parish in Shetland not far from Lerwick, where
 
 6o FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 part of liis income was cl(jri\cd irom a tithe of 
 iKTrincr. It was throiicxh Macaulav and his sister, 
 who married Trevelyan, that my fellow-clerk was 
 enabled to profit by his natural intelligence and 
 iiuliistry. 
 
 An extremelv intimate friend of Hamilton was 
 Charles Ogilvy of Lerwick, who is, however, not 
 otherwise memorable than as the victim of a strange 
 C()rrLi[)tion of his name by a correspondent into 
 Huckleford. An old acquaintance of my uncle 
 Reynell, a i\Ir. Hicks, was transformed in a similar 
 way into /.v. 
 
 The Crimean War thus found Hamilton and 
 myself a little behind the scenes. I had acted 
 durinc*- a short time before as editor of the evenini^ 
 edition of the Daily AVecr, where my successor was 
 the present Sir John Robinson. It was certainly 
 not a very creditable campaign from beginning to 
 end, whatever the general reader or critic, looking 
 back after forty years, may think of it. I was in 
 two or three departments, and Hamilton visited the 
 Crimea, as did my own brother ; and we all heard 
 more than enoueh of the shameful abuses and 
 blunders in the commissariat, clothing, medical, and 
 other services, of the shoddy arms and accoutre- 
 ments, the brown-paper boots, the useless swords
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 6i 
 
 and bayonets, and the surgeons sent in one direction, 
 and their drugs and appb'ances in another. Then, 
 when we had everything in order, because the 
 French could not proceed, we abandoned the busi- 
 ness, and let Russia restore Sebastopol, What we 
 did achieve was by pluck and muscle ; our Generals 
 were deplorable. The part played by His Royal 
 Hisfhness the late Commander-in-Chief is familiar. 
 
 If we had to do the same kind of thing- over again, 
 should we not perpetrate the same blunders and 
 incur enormous outlay before we were thoroughly 
 in working order ? We want plenty of time to look 
 round. If we were as great as a Government as we 
 are as a people, we should be strong-, and we might 
 be proud, indeed. But there is no School of States- 
 manship, and we are ruled by a succession of gentle- 
 men-adventurers of ancient family and their pluto- 
 cratic allies, who spend our money and amerce us in 
 credit without remorse. See, at the present moment 
 have we not at the helm the old firm of Derby, 
 Disraeli, and Cecil reconstructed, with the junior 
 partner at the head ? The new members of the 
 house are as dear to the latter as holy-water is said to 
 be to H.^I. the Devil ; but, you perceive, Salisbury 
 is where he is through them; they hold him up; and 
 in his riper life he has grown so that he requires a
 
 62 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 good deal of that. It comes to this, wiih our make- 
 shift political system, that our rulers are periodically, 
 whenever there is any real difficulty or peril, falling 
 back on the nation, and the ' Humble and Oblig-ed' has 
 to pa\' the double bill In honour and cash. Luckily, 
 our foreign fri(^nds know pretty w('ll that, when it 
 comes to the point, they have to reckon with the 
 people, and not with the Government. 
 
 The only gain I derived from my two years' stay 
 at the War Office was the information with which 
 my colleague, Mr. Leslie, furnished me about my 
 grandfather's second wife, whom he had known as a 
 girl of about nineteen in her parents' home in Scot- 
 land before she married Colonel Bridorewater. But, 
 curiously enough, he had not retained her maiden 
 name. 
 
 I am not, however, without some curious reminis- 
 cences of my association w'lth that establishment. 
 One of the most genial and conciliatory personages 
 with whom I was brought into contact was Gleig, 
 the Chaplain- General, who was at W'aterloo, and 
 who lived to a patriarchal age (ninety-four, I believe); 
 and one of the most distasteful, the Right Honour- 
 able Sir Frederic Peel, about whom I committed to 
 writing an official minute, for which, looking back, 
 I feel surprised that I was not cashiered, inasmuch
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 63 
 
 as I gave the Under-Secretary of State the He direct. 
 I remember the late Marquis of Clanricarde coming 
 to Whitehall Place in the summer season in a pair 
 of trousers which I took it that his lordship had pur- 
 chased from a necessitous Ethiopian minstrel ; and I 
 had a very agreeable chat one day with the Marquis 
 of Westminster, father of the present Duke, a man 
 concerning whom all sorts of odd contradictory 
 stories used to circulate. 
 
 Of course, my colleagues were individuals infinitely 
 various in their ideas and qualifications, and the 
 majority struck me as having little enough of one 
 or the other. Many were grossly ignorant ; hardly 
 one possessed a considerable degree of gentlemanly 
 culture, save Mr. Wheeler, who published the book 
 on Herodotus. The reply to a letter from a noble 
 Duke was addressed by one of these luminaries to. 
 ' Messrs. Buckingham and Chandos,' but it was 
 luckily intercepted. 
 
 If I had pursued my official career, I might be at 
 present a richer and more dignified member of 
 society, but I should not be writing these Memorials. 
 When Hamilton was Under-Secretary for Ireland, 
 I roughly formulated a scheme for the settlement of 
 that unhappy country, and it may be known to a 
 few that in 1886, in a pamphlet, which was mainly
 
 64 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 a criticism on Mr. ( iladstoiu^'s policy at home and 
 abroad. I poiiilcd out what had struck mc as heini;- 
 the weak points in his management of Irish affairs. 
 
 Hut in my i)lan I entered a little; further into 
 detail, and set forth what appeared to me at that 
 time the only method of vindicating' public order, 
 and protectin;^^ the- peaceable portion of the com- 
 munitv in that part of the Empire. I scarcely see 
 ground for hopincj that without a stronger element 
 of militarism anv plans f^r the Lfradual social antl 
 moral amelioration of the country are likely to 
 succeed, and I should be one for giving Mr. Balfour, 
 or anyone else who is willing to accept such a thank- 
 less commission, even a freer hand than at present 
 against a factious and selfish minority. 
 
 Hamilton told me this curious little story of 
 second-sight : A j^arty of fishermen started one; 
 day from Lerwick ; the weather was pretty fair, 
 and their friends were there to see them off. 
 After their departure, a storm arose, and great 
 anxiety was felt for the absent boat. The relatives 
 came down tr) the shore to make incjuiries and to 
 watch, but nothing was heard of it, till one of the 
 look-out group (so ran the tale) descried the craft 
 nearing land, saw it touch the ground, and the 
 inmates file out, one by one, and proceed to their
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 65 
 
 homes in the town. But the boat had really been 
 wrecked, and all hands lost, and some of the bodies 
 were subsequently washed ashore, 
 
 I see no objection to state that a version of T/ic' 
 Months from the French of Garcin de Tassy, 
 printed in Chainbcrs s Journal for December 10, 
 1853, was, so far as my memory goes, my first in- 
 dependent literary effort, and brought me the 
 apparently extravagant sum of fifty shillings. I 
 certainly did not look for so much money, but it 
 was a form of surprise and oppression of which in 
 later life I have not been troubled by too frequent 
 ■experience. 
 
 Before Smith and Elder started their Dictionary 
 of N'ationa/ Biography, John Murray projected a 
 similar undertaking under the inevitable Williani 
 Smith, with Thompson Cooper as sub-editor. The 
 latter was a capable man. He set me to compile 
 certain lives, and the manuscript was duly delivered. 
 After a lapse of time, I wrote to Smith (the late Sir 
 William), and suggested a settlement. He asked 
 me to wait till the book was printed. I might have 
 waited till the proverbial Greek Calends. The 
 work was abandoned. Of course Albemarle Street 
 paid the score. 
 
 F. spoke favourably of m\' Early Popular Poetry, 
 
 VOL. II. 24
 
 66 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 |.iil)llsh<'(l oxer lhirt\- years iv^o in the ' Library of 
 Old Aulliors.' aiul remarked thai il was the best 
 iwciilN sliilline^ wortli he knew. ' lUit,' said he, 
 * of course von did not wrile all the notes yourself/ 
 1 \v me.uU to Hatter me. jU'rhaps. There ar(," various- 
 wavs of doini: that. I know full well that the work 
 cost me a vast amount of labour, and brought me a 
 very small return. 
 
 It is com|)arati\ely immaterial at the present 
 jimcture under what circumstances m\" career shaped 
 itself after War Office da\s to what it has been 
 and is. 
 
 My interest in the historical antiquities of Venice 
 aru.se, 1 remember. Injm reading .Smedley's Skch/ics 
 from I'ciicfiaii //is/ory, and I Mattered mvself that 
 something more worthy of th(; subject might be the 
 result ot my own labours, more esjiecially when I 
 was ajjj:)rised that the large French work by Count 
 Daru was far trom satisfactorw This was in 1853, 
 when I was a youth of nineteen ; my opportunities- 
 of consulting books were rather limited, and my 
 father's circumstances rendered it at that time out 
 of the question to purchase any. I succeeded, how- 
 ever, in procuring a reading ticket for the British 
 Museum, and we had a subscription to the London 
 Library. At a distance of forty-four years from
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 6/ 
 
 that date, when we were residing in Chelsea, I am 
 still keenly looking out for e\'ery fresh point illustra- 
 tive of that subject ; I have already printed separate 
 papers from time to time illustrative of Venetian 
 Architecture, Trade, Coinage, Prison Discipline, and 
 other points, and some day 1 shall reproduce the 
 book in a different form from the edition of i860, 
 in four volumes, which was only too indulgently 
 received. But it was the work of a young man of 
 five-and-twenty. 
 
 While 1 was planning my history. I wrote a 
 polite letter to Mr. Ruskin, soliciting his advice 
 regarding method and authorities, and that philan 
 thropist did me the honour to leave my appeal un" 
 answered. When the first crude edition appeared 
 in 1858 (I was only twenty- three), my father sent a 
 copy to Macaulay, who replieci in a most kind note, 
 saying all that he could say — that the work did 
 credit to so young a writer. 
 
 I have always thought that in Mr. Ruskin's 
 literary vein was to be detected a trace of his 
 physical conditions, which so influentially operated 
 on his life. 
 
 When I was at V^enice in 1883, I visited the Librarx' 
 of St. Mark, and asked the custodian whether he 
 could shew me any interesting manuscripts or
 
 68 FOURTH GENERATION OE A LET ERA RY FAMILY 
 
 dlhcr arcliivL's relating to the old Republic. He 
 went awa)', and when he returned he horc! in his 
 hands a copy ol ni\ own hook on the subject. I 
 sujjpose that he thought it the only one which I was 
 likt;l\ to understand. 
 
 A friend and ni\ self were one day strolling about 
 the Piazzetta, and we noticed a couple of women, 
 who might have stepped out of s(jme cinquecento 
 can\as, and presently a gond(jlier (perhai)s in league 
 with them) made signs to us, and called out : 
 * Comandare, signori ?' He saw that we were not 
 keen upon his boat, and he added, as an induce- 
 ment, in another tongue : ' Avec mesdames ?'
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Letters of Charles Lamb — The two concurrent editions by- 
 Canon Ainger and the writer — Observations on the Canon's 
 treatment of the subject, and attitude toward me — Mischief 
 arising from imperfect and unfaithful texts — The Canon's 
 lost opportunity — His want of care, knowledge, and ex- 
 perience — Talfourd and the Letters — My other literary 
 efforts — Bibliographical labours — Samples of my corre- 
 spondents. 
 
 Two essays of recent years in the direction of pre- 
 senting the singular and extensive correspondence 
 of Charles Lamb in a better and more complete 
 shape appear to have been undertaken about the 
 same time, independently of each other, by the 
 present writer and Canon Ainger. Both had before 
 them the antecedent labours of Talfourd, Fitzgerald. 
 Babson, Cowden Clarke, Kegan Paul, Procter, and 
 one or two more, not to mention that I enjoyed the 
 advantage of having already launched an edition of 
 the works in 1868 and a monograph on Charles 
 and Mary Lamb six years later, while Canon Ainger 
 had in addition an opportunity of consulting and
 
 70 FOfh'JH CLM'.h'AJ ION 
 
 iisint; ihc 1 la/lill Imok, which ])n'C('(.l(cl his own in 
 order of j)iil)ncatioii h\ tuo \fars. 
 
 The Aintzcr aiul Ilazlitt collections of the Letters 
 cniistilute. as I have said, the two latest attempts 
 to serve the Mns/lish-speakin''' communitv in this 
 particular direction. Hut than the treatment and 
 temper manifest in the books of the layman antl 
 the Canon nothini;- can well be imagined more 
 ihorouLrhlv distinct and unsvmpathetic. The evi- 
 dent object of the latter has been to draw together 
 as many specimens as he, in council with a few 
 trusted ailvisers, deemed sufficient to convey to the 
 reader an idea of the subject, and to eliminate with- 
 out comment all jjassajj^es calculated to shock the 
 delicacy of j)rudish perusers, however characteristic 
 they might be of the author and the age, and h(jw- 
 cver important for a full comj^rehension of the 
 subject-matter. The writings of Lamb are to be 
 administered to us in elegant or genteel extracts, 
 like spoon-meat. On this principle, nothing in time 
 would be sacred from these meddlino- Philistines. 
 All our classics- na\ , the Bible — would have their 
 turn. 
 
 It may be a moot ])oint wliether the Church is 
 entitled to lay a \eLo on the exerci.se of private 
 jutlgmtmt in religious quc^stions ; but an ecclesiastic
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 71 
 
 who devotes his leisure to the belles lettres ought 
 surely to permit some latitude to his readers in a 
 purely literary question affecting, comparatively 
 speaking, a very limited and a very liberal con- 
 stituency. 
 
 The committal by God-fearing publishers of the 
 letters and other writinos of Lamb to the editorial 
 
 o 
 
 supervision and censorship of reverend personages 
 must strike thousands on both sides of the Atlantic 
 and among English-speaking communities in general 
 as a grotesque anticlimax. We recall to our 
 memory somehow the passage in the Elian paper 
 on the " Old and New Schoolmaster," where Lamb 
 describes the pedagogue who offered to instruct him 
 in the science of literary composition. Because the 
 sensitive imagination of a lawyer or a Churchman 
 descries indelicacy where none was intended, and at 
 the time none was perceived, are the writings of an 
 English classic to be emasculated? 
 
 And if English publishers insist on employing 
 gentlemen of dignified position and squeamish 
 temper to edit their books, and there arises a 
 natural reaction against this sort of abuse, the 
 porcess, instead of being, as now, openly avowed, 
 will be carried out under the rose, so that by 
 degrees ordinary readers will scarcely know what
 
 ■J 2 FOUR'in GENLRATION 
 
 the oltlrr wriurrs cuininitlcd lo p.qjLi-, l)Ul will he 
 hcliK'cl In jiisl as much as is considered good and 
 safe for ihcni lo receive. 'I'his is the clerical 
 element under new colours. 
 
 The Master of lh< r(:nii)lc. is entitled to the 
 honour (»f haxing Lii\-en for the first time much 
 \aluable matter, and in numerous instances of 
 havinj^- restored missing; or corrujjt ])assa(res ; hut 
 his undcrtakin'' is far from satisfactory, nor could 
 it well be expected to be otherwise. It was due 
 to the co-operation of others, who were more 
 fmiiliar with the ground than himself, that the 
 Canon's labours jjroved even so fruitful as the)' 
 actualK' are, foi' he was a comparatively new 
 worker in the held. 
 
 Nevertheless, the opjjorlnnii) was before him, 
 with the prestige and rejHitation which his pro- 
 fessional rank conferred, of rendering a signal 
 service to the Lambs and to us by bringing within 
 reach of everyone such a bod) and sequence 
 of epistolary matter as it had never fdlen to the 
 lot of any preceding editor to accumulate. Yet 
 he did nothing of the sort, but laid l)efore the 
 jjublic- -professed!) not as an exhaustive assemblage 
 of letters, but as one embracing e\ery thing of 
 imixjrtance and interest (in his o[)inion) — an arbitrary
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 73 
 
 selection — arbitrary in two ways : in the rejection 
 of entire documents, and in the castration without 
 reason of many of those actually printed ; and I 
 maintain that an irreparable wrong has been done 
 to literature by this niauvaise /ionic and this counter- 
 feit gentility. 
 
 The Works of Lamb, if we take out of the account 
 Mrs. Leicester' s School and the rest of that little 
 group, can never be widely popular reading. By 
 the younger student they will, as time goes on, 
 be less and less appreciated, with the exception 
 of a few of the lighter articles in Elia ; and now 
 that all personal motives for suppression have ceased 
 to operate, what useful end is attained by the 
 continuance of Bowdler in office ? 
 
 Canon Ainger was, in 1887, as I have said, a 
 rather new hand at this sort of work, and w-as 
 indebted to friends all round for help and guidance, 
 not merely in the editorship of the Letter's, but 
 in that of the Essays. I feel bound in self-defence 
 to state that he consulted me, amono- manv others, 
 on questions of authorship, and in particular he 
 asked whether two papers in the Loudon Magazine 
 by Procter and Allan Cunningham were by Lamb — 
 a circumstance which I should not have mentioned, 
 had not the Canon, after adoj)ting so much of my
 
 74 
 
 Fouh'Tii gi:ni:ra tion 
 
 |.l.m .111(1 icxt. imi'trovcd the occasion h\' a dis- 
 ingenuous and improper disparagement of my enter- 
 prize. There comes into one's head a jjassage in 
 a great dnim.itist about a man s purse and his good 
 name. 
 
 As for tile TalfoLird text of liis friend's epistolary 
 writings, one can never tell whether one is reading 
 Lamb or his executor. E\en in 184S, however, 
 Talfourd was hampered b\' the survival of many 
 who might be naturally supposed to take umbrage 
 at certain allusions In the correspondence, and he 
 held it to be necessary, as perhaps it was, to refuse 
 admittance into his select garland of much which 
 there is no longer any adequate justification for 
 keeping back. The judge was to Lamb what 
 Southe\" might have been to his own offspring 
 if he had yielded to the temporary clamour, and 
 brought into the wcjrld the ' Family' Doclor. 
 
 Canon Ainger was (|uite differently situated in 
 1808. I lis hands were free. 
 
 The Canon's volumes constitute a disappointing 
 un-Elia-like medlev of texts — ofood, bad, and in- 
 different — and of letters often deficient of beginning, 
 middle, or end. Instead of being, as they might 
 have Ijeen. and as we were entitled to expect 
 that they would have been, a marked .step in
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 75 
 
 advance of the 1886 book, they are actually re- 
 troorressive and reactionary, a backslidinof Tal- 
 fourdward. 
 
 ' Incidit in Ainger, cupiens vitare Talfourdiuii.'' 
 
 The worst feature about the Canon's book, next 
 to his insufficient recognition of previous labours, 
 is his exasperating rev'elation in his prefatory 
 remarks, that there were, and are. certain letters 
 to Manning, Procter, and so forth, which he has 
 not given. He tantalizes us with extracts which 
 only render us desirous of the whole, nor does 
 he plead any valid reason for the exclusion. Again, 
 it is surely bad enough to find that some of the 
 letters were not received or admitted till it became 
 necessary to throw them into the notes at the 
 end. But, with portions of the correspondence 
 under his eyes by the favour of the owners, to 
 help us, and that out (jf due chronological order, 
 ■only to extracts, is heinous. 
 
 It has not been without the deepest regret that 
 I have offered the comment which precedes on 
 the book of the Master of the Temple — a gentleman 
 of whose learning and amiability one hears equally 
 good accounts. 
 
 Of my own 1 have only a few more words to
 
 76 FOLK I II GESERATION 
 
 say. Althoii^li I was iiKlcrati<j^al)lc in huiuinj^ on 
 llir last occasion lor unpublislicd l<;tt(,'rs of Lamb, 
 as well as lor the nu.-ans of collatiiiL!' those- alreadv 
 in ivpt- with the oriij^inal nianiiscrij)ts, I was by 
 no means so successful as I could ha\c desired 
 in cither of these respects. Not merely the aj)- 
 pearance at intervals of letters unknown to Tallourd 
 in the jHiblications <jf others, but my own systematic 
 appropriation ot every autograph scrap which came 
 into the market or into the hands of friends, has 
 gradually, however, j)roduced a result which, still 
 imperfect as I know it to be, even those (including 
 myself) vvhcj were aware that a considerable un- 
 printed residue was in existence, could scarcely 
 have hf)ped to realize. 
 
 M\ IJian R(-Cf)veries, rather than Discoveries, 
 are divisible into four epochs or stages : i<S68, when 
 I added ver\ notabl\- to the correspondence in 
 Moxon and Co.'s editi(jn ; 1874, when I brought 
 out my Mary aud C/iai Ics Lamb, on which the 
 late Mrs. Ciilchrist based much of her volume ; 
 1886, when I completed Bell and Sons' edition, 
 already specified; and 1S96, when I have just 
 recentl)- gathered into a small book the biographical 
 and epistolary gleanings of the last decade, including 
 sixty -four new or uncollected notes and letters.
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 77 
 
 The aggregate effect has been, and is. to cast 
 a vast amount of new and unexpected light on 
 the personal and literary history of the brother 
 and sister, and to widen very importantly and 
 interestingly their already fairly large circle of 
 friends and admirers. 
 
 My other literary publications extend over an 
 exceptionally large area from the self-educational 
 motive, which has partly underlain them through- 
 out ; they embrace Early and Modern History and 
 Biography, Poetry and the Drama, and other depart- 
 ments of the dc/ies /el ires. But they are before the 
 section of the reading community which cares for 
 such topics as I have happened to treat, and I shcdl 
 say no more about that point. My bibliographical 
 researches, stretching over thirty-six years (i860 to 
 1896), have, I hope, been of value to some, as I 
 am sure that they have been a source of pleasure to 
 myself. 
 
 This is the only civilized country in the world in 
 which an undertakinof of national maonitude would 
 have been permitted to devolve on an individual of 
 slender means, and where he would have found him- 
 self reduced to the necessity of printing his Collec- 
 tions at a pecuniary sacrifice. I have at last six 
 volumes in type, and I add to my manuscript
 
 7S J'Ol'h-l/l GENERATION 
 
 accumulations (1a\ 1)\ clay : il is my amhitinn to 
 consolidate the whole in one alphabet, and to enable 
 Cireat Britain lo ])()int lo such a work of reference 
 antl aiithorily as no otlur Ii-uropean literature can 
 boast of possessing. This is a part of my habitual 
 employment. \ et only a part a small one. 
 
 An acquaintance tlattered me by saying that he 
 thought I was the nKxst indolent person whom he 
 had ever known, and my brother would declare that 
 he never saw me doing any work. Only to think, 
 what a plague I should ha\e been to society had 1 
 been even moderatelv industrious I I once discon- 
 certed O. b\' observing to him mischievously that 
 1 had laid myself across the age. ' Laid yourself 
 across the age ?' he repeated after me with his eyes 
 fully expanded. He did not ([uite perceive my 
 drift. What I meant was that I had produced 
 certain books which would in all probability perforce 
 remain works ot reference and keep my name before 
 a portion, at least, of the public during, if not after, 
 m\ life. O. did not pursue the subject, nor did I 
 open my mind to him ; but he left me, considerably 
 to my amusement, with the- im|)ression that I was a 
 deuced conceited fellow. 
 
 From my personal point of view, gentlemen, 
 during the last thirty and odd years, seem to have
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 79 
 
 crathered too-ether, rep;ardless of time and cost, all 
 the most curious and rare books of former periods 
 in order to send them, when the result in each case 
 justified them in giving me so much trouble, to the 
 auction-rooms for my use. It is so infinitely more 
 comfortable, you perceive, to work in this sort of 
 piecemeal fashion — a library or so at a time — and 
 the process can always be going' on. Other parties 
 do their share, and I mine. They beat the bush, 
 and I catch the bird. 
 
 There still remain a few collections which I have 
 not yet had the means of examining, particularly 
 those at Ham House, and in the possession of the 
 representative of Mr. Cunliffe of the Albany. The 
 former library, when I applied for leave to take a 
 note of a certain volume, was declared to be ' in a 
 state of chaos '—rather a o-ood hearing for an 
 opportunist ! 
 
 It is, I venture to conclude, supertiuous to mention 
 that I could readily fill more than a single volume 
 with details of my literary correspondence and biblio- 
 graphical experiences. Probably no one has an 
 adequate idea of the extraordinary variety of the 
 written demands or representations which have 
 been addressed to me since I began to assume the 
 form of a distinct individuality on certain branches
 
 So FOURTH GENERATION OF A LET ERA RY FAMILY 
 
 of knowlcdi^c and In(|iiin'. M\" s|)('cial hent niiuhl 
 lead some to aiimir llial my \ icws wcrct almost 
 <^.\clLisi\cl\ souL^ht on maiu-rs connected with old 
 books: hut such is h\- no means the case. 
 
 1 ha\'e in in\ minds eye about a ream of paper 
 coveretl with extracts from Ihirns by a clerk in the 
 service of the (ireat Western Railway, solicitinij^ my 
 opinion, and a loni;' letter from an operative at 
 Newcastle-on-Tvne. wishing to know if I deemed it 
 expedient for him to emigrate with his family. 
 Some of those who honoured me with these and 
 other questions were occasional in their appeals ; 
 others, till I had in self-defence to expostulate, 
 interviewed me through the ]:)ost two or three times 
 a week. Xow and then my help was recognised ; 
 more frequentK' it was not. 
 
 Hut the worst luck was. where one had furnished 
 the most imi)ortant material to a Reverend Doctor 
 lor his edition of an earlv poet, and Ik; disparaged 
 its value in acknowledfjino: its arri\al, was absolutelv 
 silent as to the source whence he derived the manu- 
 scripts, and cited them throughout as the basis and 
 backbone (jf his volumes. He was not merely a 
 Doctor, but a Reverend one. Think of that, Master 
 Brook!
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The western suburbs of London — Their aspect half a century since 
 — The made ground in Knightsbridge, Battersea, Westminster, 
 and elsewhere — Delahaye Street and the chief pastrycook of 
 Charles II. — Long Ditch — Gradual formation of highways 
 and growth of buildings — The ancient waterways in Knights- 
 bridge and Old Brompton — Carriers' carts, waggons, and 
 coaches — Some account of the system and its incidence — 
 Suggestion as to Shakespear — The primitive omnibus — That 
 which ran to Edmonton in Charles Lamb's time — Loneliness 
 and insecurity of the suburban roads — Anecdote of Hazlitt — 
 Precautions against highwaymen and footpads — Netting or 
 Nutting Hill — Waggon houses at Knightsbridge, and on the 
 Oxford and Uxbridge Roads — Changes on the northern side 
 of the Metropolis — The scattered markets — Their value — 
 That at Knightsbridge — Snipe in Tuthill Fields and at Mill- 
 bank — Partridges, snipe, and rabbits on Barnes Common — 
 The turnpikes — Those at Hyde Park Corner and Tyburn, etc. 
 — The Farmer of the Gates. 
 
 1 NOW propose to devote some space to a description 
 of the suburban districts in which we as a family, 
 and I as the founder of an independent home in the 
 usual course of events, resided and moved between 
 1838 and the present time, taking occasion to inter- 
 sperse the topographical sketch with particulars of 
 VOL. II. 25
 
 82 FOUinii GENERATION 
 
 sucli hiciids and acqiiaiiUances as \vc were lorLinial.c 
 tiioiigh to acquire wiihin this radius, and especially 
 ill Old Bronipton from lime tu time, and of others 
 of whom OLH^ knowledge was more indirect, yet 
 sufficiently considerable tojustil)" a passing mention. 
 
 The westward route from Sloane Street — as at 
 one time, indeed, from Il\de Park Corner— lay fifty 
 years since between garden-houses, only broken 
 occasionally by stretches of dead wall a|)[)ertaining 
 to the Park or some ancient mansion, by lines of 
 fencing where a nursery abutted on the road, or b\- 
 the boundary hedge of a market-garden. The 
 undulating and uneven surface betrayed the absence 
 of a Highway Board for the parish ; and the varia- 
 tions in the elevation and width of the footpaths 
 were traceable to changes in the character of the 
 buildings adjoining. 
 
 If there were such a thing as a ])lan of Old 
 Brompton and the environs as they appeared many 
 hundreds cjf years ago, it would present to our view 
 an open and })r()babl\' uncultivated tract, abounding 
 in wood and morass, and intersected by streams 
 flowing from the northern heights of Hampstead, 
 Highgate, and Mollowa\-. Within living memory 
 a few of these water-courses still existed, while others 
 had dwindled intf) ditches or, as in the case of the
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 83 
 
 Efra, which flowed into the Thames at X'auxhall, 
 and was navigable by small craft up to Brixton or 
 further, had been converted into an underground 
 sewer, except where a portion may be yet seen 
 dammed up at the Lawn. Queen Elizabeth is 
 said to have ascended the Efra in her barge, 
 possibly on a visit to one of her court at Streatham 
 or Brixton. 
 
 There are probably many who have not taken 
 into account the vast changes produced in the course 
 of ages by the creation or improvement of thorough- 
 fares. Modern Paris is said to be eight feet higher 
 than it was in the days of Philip Augustus. Modern 
 London stands twenty feet above the Roman city. 
 The bulk of the superficial area of all great centres 
 of population and building is made ground, which, as 
 immense bodies of soil or iiuick are frequently 
 transported from a distance to supply a vacuiiui 
 where the gravel or sand has been removed, as 
 well as for the purpose of raising the level, is apt to 
 do violence to geological harmony. 
 
 Thus, in the decline of a district from its early 
 speciality of aspect, and its adaptation to a general 
 standard suitable to the requirements of the builder, 
 we find a varietv of contributino; factors. Some of the 
 details are bound to \ary according to the level ; but
 
 S.j FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 the rcfnniiiiiL;' hand of ilu; ciiUtrprisinpr owikt or 
 sjK-ciilalor is c(]iial to all cMncrj^encics. In lowlands 
 the caust!vva\- and the shoot pla)- a leading' part. 
 They did so in Hattersea. where th(-\" ar(; even now 
 eniptvine the mud-carts da\- 1)\- dav, antl in l'imlic(x 
 where, between KniL-htsbridoe and the river, la\- a 
 desolate waste, dotted w iih j>ontls. the wreckage of 
 LbLir\- h^u-ni and the conti'-uous helds, I used 
 to think that Battersea I^elds, with the Red House 
 and olher amenities, were not all that could be 
 desired ; yet I would joyfully \ote for their restora- 
 tion instead of the actual scene which they present, 
 with their honeycomb of railway-line and doleful 
 blocks of poverty-stricken houses. 
 
 The hedge, the park-j)ale, or the buttress wall, 
 gives wa\ to the railing bc^fore a terrace or a row of 
 detached or semi-detached houses, and these are 
 subsequently degraded into places of business, of 
 which the front-gardens make a j)art. So it has 
 been in I^rompton on the West, and in W'hitechapel 
 on the East — exact 1\ the same law and same process. 
 
 In parts of Westminster, built on the ancient 
 Thorny Island, thev have come, in la\ intr founda- 
 tions, on submerged and buried willows, formerly 
 flourishing on the banks of the water-courses, which 
 branched from the Thames inland, and of which the
 
 OF A LI I Eli A RY FAMILY 8 
 
 D 
 
 solti modern vestige is the Long Water in St. James's 
 Park. One of these channels passed through the 
 existing Delahaye Street, a thoroughfare named 
 after Pierre de la Haye, Chief Confectioner to 
 Charles IP, who died in 1684, and is buried at 
 Mickleham. He had two houses here, of which 
 one went to the St. Aubyns with his coheiress ; the 
 other belongs to a personal friend of the writer, and 
 it was in rebuilding the premises about fifty years 
 since that the original nature of the soil, and the 
 strangely altered conditions of the scene, were 
 brought to licrht. 
 
 The site of the southern extremity of Delahaye 
 Street, where Royal Charles's head - pastrycook 
 lived, was once designated Long Ditch, the original 
 stream having degenerated in the usual manner. 
 I)Ut the levels hereabout must have suffered a 
 remarkable chanQ-e, and nearlv the whole of the- 
 ground, as it now stands, is doubtless artificial. It 
 was two centuries aeo several feet lower — in a line 
 with the Stuart willow-beds. 
 
 Then, again, in the Cit\- jjroper, look at the 
 W'allbrook, which once fiowed through the moor, 
 now only known by tradition, but originally stretch- 
 ing at least as far as the site of the Bank of Plngland. 
 On removino; an old house in Coleman Street in
 
 86 FOLRTII GENERATION 
 
 1896, the peal)- bollum Ucis reached, with ils Roman 
 remains. 
 
 Tile brook degenerates into a ditch, the latter into 
 a sewer, as civilization atUances or as the builder 
 spreads his ravages. The oV\ maps do not assist iis 
 much in tracing the waterways of this particular 
 tract. 1 here were at least two. of which one, the 
 most wester! \', llowed ihroLigh Brompton \'ale 
 across the fields and th(' h'ulham Road, before it 
 was constructed as a hio-hwav, and so through 
 Chelsea to the Thames. A second tra\ersed Hyde 
 I'ark and Knightsbridge, as I ha\-e elsewhere noted. 
 
 Of the ri\ulet which crossed the Western Road at 
 Knightsbridge, mention occurs in the literature of the 
 'I udor era. and m\- uncle Reynell remembers it 
 betore it was transformed into a covered drain. 
 Some of the portion which llowed through Hyde 
 Park has been filled up within m\ time. 
 
 The environs of London on all sides were formerlv 
 rich in roadside Inns, of which the custom was 
 derived in i)rincipal measure from tlu- waggoners, 
 carriers, and stage-coaches which plied between 
 the Metroj)olis and the pnninces. The carriers 
 and coaches had regular davs for QfoinQ: and return- 
 ing to London, Westminster, and South wark, and 
 small penny and twopenny handbooks were published
 
 OF A LITERACY FAMILY 87 
 
 from time to time to enable travellers, or persons 
 desirous of transmitting parcels and messages, to 
 keep themselves informed of the times of arrival and 
 departure on the various routes. 
 
 It once took m.y own family a week to reach 
 Wales or Cornwall. 
 
 Anterior to omnibuses and railways, the transport 
 service was, in fact, performed by coaches, waggons, 
 and carts ; the two latter were employed not only 
 by the lower, but by the middle class, and such a 
 man as Shakespear, when even the coach was un- 
 known, must have journeyed to and from Stratford 
 in a waggoners or carrier's conveyance. The 
 supply of fish to inland towns within a measurable 
 time was by cart or van from the nearest port. 
 The local dealer kept a vehicle constantly on the 
 road, and had to arrange for relays of horses. 
 
 Folks whose traditions happen to be associated 
 with the West End may not have heard, as a rule, 
 of any halting-stages or starting-points less central 
 than the White Horse Cellar (whence my grand- 
 father set out for W^interslow Hut, and on a special 
 occasion on his way to see the Fight), or the houses 
 in Coventry Street and Holborn. where the Old 
 Bell yet survives. But about Bishopsgate and in 
 the Borough this feature in everyday life, prior to
 
 88 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 liiilwiiys aiitl other inodcTii iippliiinccs, was s(t(!ii in 
 ils fullcsl vigour aiul pictiiresqiicness, and iIk; attt-ii- 
 dant costliIU^ss and loss of time would under present 
 mercantile: antl social conditions be out (»f the ques- 
 tion. A late City Chamberlain (Scott), who died at 
 eight\-nine, and had known personally sixt) Lord 
 Mayors, paid half a crown, when he became rich 
 enough to afford it, for his fare part of the journey 
 from Hampstead to the Cit\ , in what he described 
 as 'a blue-bellied' coach. 
 
 Piccadilly, Westminster. liolborn, Bishopsgate, 
 Islington, and the Borough, we see, were the i)oints 
 of departure and arrival for the mails, and a little 
 later on came the long-distance omnibus, starling 
 from some of these centres. Judging from the 
 number of coaches (about sixteen) which left Picca- 
 dilly and the Angel at Islington dail\ . there must 
 have been a large comj:)1(Mnent altogeth(.T ; and 
 there were al.so the mail-carts and post-chaises, the 
 latter w ith the- boy - outrider. This illustrates 
 Dunton's peri(jdical, 169810 1 700, entitled The Posl- 
 hoy robbed of /lis Mail. One i)rime feature; in the 
 coach was the guard, with his blunderbuss and 
 pistols, which were so carefull) wrapped uj) against 
 the weather that a hiijhwavman mi-'ht hav(! scuttl<-d 
 the conveyance before- they could be disengaged.
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 89 
 
 The Piccadilly coaches chietiy took the Great 
 Western Road on their way to Oxford, Worcester, 
 Salisbury, Devizes, and elsewhere ; but one crossed 
 Putney Bridge en route for Portsmouth. The 
 northern, eastern, and southern counties were served 
 from Islington, Bishopsgate, Westminster, and 
 South wark. In my earlier days, the omnibus which 
 used to take Charles Lamb and his friends to and 
 from Edmonton still started regularly from the 
 Flower- Pot at Bishopsgate. I never went by it 
 further than Tottenham. A second ran between 
 the Bell, in Holborn, and Wendover, and a tedious 
 journey it was. You had earned more than the fare 
 when you alighted, if it was in the winter, after 
 nightfall. 
 
 Places which now constitute part of our great 
 city were till a comparatively recent date com- 
 pletely isolated from it, and distinct hamlets or 
 townships. Hounslow. Turnham Green, Brent- 
 ford, and even Kensington and Old Brompton, 
 were rendered independent of the capital by wide 
 stretches of open ground and impracticable roads — 
 the latter such as are pictured by Macaulay in his 
 History of England and by man\- trax'ellers and 
 diarists of the eighteenth century. Vet within my 
 time and recollection manv of these outskirts were
 
 90 FOUR I II GENERATION 
 
 dclij^lulLil rcjlrciils, and lo .l inotlcrn eye faljulcjusly 
 rural and solitarw Thosc! who have; only known 
 ihc western approacli to London since 1S50 must 
 be strangers to what it was when 1 was a boy. 
 My nn)ther, who was born in 1804, remembers that 
 when she was a child, and li\cd in her father's 
 house in iilack Lion Lane, Bayswater, there were 
 no buildings between them and LLirrow. The 
 Oxford Road, as it was called, was so desolate in 
 Lhizlitt's day that he was afraid to traverse it by 
 night. 
 
 My grandfather, when he walked to the Reynells', 
 became at last so alarmed by the reports which 
 reached his ears that he purchased a brace of 
 j)istols, which his son used to carry, till, growing 
 UK^re afraid of the weapons than of the footpads, he 
 discarded them. 
 
 Within comparatively recent years what is Lan- 
 caster Gate was a meadcnv with a hedge to the 
 hifjhwav. Iietween this meadow and Porchester 
 Terrace was a tea-garden. The property here- 
 about included the Bread and Cheese land left to 
 I'addington parish by maiden ladies for the periodi- 
 cal distribution of relief fnjm the church-steeple. It 
 was alter my settlement in Addison Road, Kensing- 
 ton, in 1S62. that those sweeping changes occurred,
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 91 
 
 which thoroughly demoralized the neighbourhood 
 and drove me to Barnes. Like old General Boone, 
 who hunted up to ninety, I retreat before civilization. 
 
 Notting Hill, properly Nutting HilL is at present 
 beyond redemption. I recollect it a very pleasant 
 countrified locality, surrounded on the north and 
 west by fields. I have walked from Clarendon 
 Road, even after that was built, the whole way to 
 Hampstead with very few houses, and those 
 scattered about, between. Notting Barns, which 
 was a farm lying between Notting Hill and Camp- 
 den Hill, still survives in a small patch of open 
 irround near Bute House and in Farm Street, 
 which is just where the old turnpike gate stood. 
 \'ou 00 down from the main thorouo-hfare in enter- 
 ing Farm Street, probably because the highroad has 
 been much raised. 
 
 I have mentioned that the environs ot London 
 on this side were down even to 1850 very lonely 
 and insecure, and that both the highwayman and 
 footpad formerly infested the whole tract of country 
 now almost completely covered by houses and pro- 
 tected by well - lighted thoroughfares and police. 
 hi the Kensinfjton highroad, near Knicrhtsbridg-e 
 Barracks, stood a queer old hostelry with the back 
 looking to the Park, and I have always understood
 
 i)2 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 that this was a rc^uln' haiiiu of the knights of the 
 post, \s lio, if pursued into ihc jji'dniscs. cscaj)(.;d at 
 the rear into the large o|)en space l^ehind, and so 
 «'Ot away Iroin the not \c'r\' dexterous or alert 
 guardians of public safety and order who preceded 
 our modern ronsta])le. A second lay at the junction 
 of the l'"ulhain Road and Hell and Horns Lane, 
 and a third formed part of a short row of very 
 aiui(|ue shops on the northern side of the Fulhain 
 Road, opposite Stewart's Grove. In the Fulham 
 Fields there was a very quaint halting-place of this- 
 kind ; it was on the right-hand going toward Ham- 
 mersmith IJroadway. It was known as the Cirey- 
 hound, and was a noted haunt of highwaymen ; and 
 the site of Holcrofts in the \illao-e itself was origin- 
 ally occupied b\' a similar establishment before it 
 was transformed into a private mansion — the usual 
 process inverted. 
 
 The oldest house at W'alham Green was the 
 King's I lead, previousix' known as the Hare and 
 Hounds, and datinei: from 1 6<So ; and at Tutnev the 
 Fox and Hounds, of llenrx' X'lll.'s time, once 
 famous for its bowlinsf-preen. 
 
 There were waLT^'on-houses of a similar type, no 
 doubt, on those sides of the cit\ with which I was 
 less familiar. Three xct lincrered in modern times :
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 93 
 
 two on the Uxbridge and one on the Oxford Road. 
 Of the former, one lay at the corner of Wood Lane, 
 facnig Shepherd's Bush ; the other, not far from 
 Kew Bridge, was a halting-place for George III. 
 on his way to Windsor. Many must call to mind 
 how recently at Bayswater, opposite the Park, 
 survived an ancient structure seeming to have no 
 relationship to the scene around it. 
 
 The changes in the route from the Metropolis to 
 the north have been, even since the present century, 
 equally immense. The road to Barnet used to be 
 straight down Gray's Inn Lane, till it was diverted 
 through the Bishop of London's park at Padding- 
 ton. The rate which o^ave its name to Hitrheate 
 was placed to collect the Bishop's tolls. I personally 
 spoke at the Holborn end of Gray's Inn Lane to a 
 well-known artist about forty years since, who re- 
 membered a haystack where the St. Pancras station 
 now is. 
 
 The scattered markets, which formerly lay at 
 intervals over all this area, possess greater signifi- 
 cance than may at first sight appear. Thev were 
 the sole depots for the convenience of the house- 
 holder when all the small neighbourhoods about 
 the west and other parts of the Metropolis were 
 yet detached hamlets, with oases of meadow or
 
 94 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 dcmt'snc l^ctwccii tlv.-in. I ina\ mention Oxford 
 Market. Nc-wjxtrt Market. Clare Market, Carnaln 
 Market. Sht^pherd's Market (at the foot of Down 
 Street. I'iccadill) ). Chelsea Market, and the one 
 which, ever since I can remember, has been at 
 l\niL;Iusbridge. or rather on the western side of 
 Sloane Street, near the remains of Knightsbridge 
 (jfeen. 
 
 M\ maternal grandfather Reynell, who was born 
 in 1777. remembered Sloane Street parth" in carcase, 
 and his son (m\' uncle) has fished for sticklebacks 
 in the ponds about the Five Fields, Pimlico — the 
 area between Sloane Scjuare and St. Peter's Church. 
 Cattle used to graze on the site; of Belgrave Square 
 within living memory, and my informant recollected 
 the erection of the Square railing. 
 
 We have all heard of the sport enjoyed by 
 General Oglethorpe in the time of Oueen Anne, 
 where Regent Street now is, and snipe were also 
 shot within living memory in Tuthill h'ields behind 
 P)ird Caf^e Walk. The old door beloiwinQ- to the 
 barracks, from which some of the officers sallied 
 in j)ursuit of their game, was till lately preserved 
 ni si/?i : but snipe were also to be found in the 
 osier-beds and the Willow Walk at Pimlico, near 
 the present Warwick Square and Street.
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 93 
 
 It is curious how manv chanp'es of this kind 
 have been accompHshecl by the builder. Partridges 
 were occasionally seen, not many years ago, in the 
 immediate neio-hbourhood of Barnes Common, in 
 the eight-acre field adjoining Mill Lodge — they 
 may have been strays from Richmond Park — and 
 I have been credibly informed that on the common 
 itself snipe were to be got. There are still rabbit- 
 burrows there, but the population will soon drive 
 away the makers and occupants. The cuckoo and 
 the nightingeJe are yet habitual visitors ; but they 
 become year by year rarer and shyer. 
 
 London, in allusion to its numerous turnpikes, 
 gained the Theban sobriquet of the Hiuidrcd-gatcd. 
 There was a parallel series on all the main roads. 
 From the Piccadilly side, the first was at Hyde 
 Park Corner, with the weighing apparatus a little 
 lower down for the heavier traffic. This bar was 
 successively set back to Sloane Street and the 
 Queen's Elm, before which within living memory 
 the actual tree spread its branches and its shadow, 
 lending its name equally to the terrace opposite, 
 which dates from about 1822, when Mayers the 
 baker built his premises at the corner of what was 
 long known as Elm Terrace. The general structure 
 on the northern side from the church to the end
 
 96 FOURTH GENERATION OF A LFTERARY FAMILY 
 
 of Hroinj)!!)!! Row has not yet undergone vital 
 alteration, except the renKJval of the gardens and 
 the cnlan^eineni • >(" frontages; hut o])])()site the 
 entire aspect is changed for l)etter or for worse, 
 as people nia\- think. These suburban gates were 
 lonor farnud In lonas Levi, whose name was to 
 be toLind upon them, and who is recollected by old 
 inhabitants coming periodically down to inspect his 
 propert)-. The speculation must have succeeded, 
 for Le\'i li\ed in good style at Kingsgate Castle, 
 near Broadstairs. He was a large shareholder in 
 the Brighton Railwav. 
 
 I take it that the KinLr's and Queen's Roads 
 were originally out of the category of public 
 thoroughfares, and had consequently no toll-gates. 
 The latter was a virtual cul-de-sac at both ends 
 till it was opened up by the modern builder and 
 the removal of the barrier at Chelsea Hos})ital, 
 and e\-en now it is not a main artery. 
 
 The gate at Hyde Park Corner was exactly 
 ])arallel with the one al Tvburn. near the Marble 
 Arch. '1 he latter was removed in 1829. On a 
 blue earthenware cheese - plate belonging to the 
 commencement of the present century is painted 
 a view of Tyburn turn[)ike, with all the country 
 toward P)ayswat('r and lulgeware open.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Knightsbridge — Original levels and boundaries — Traces of it in 
 1371 and 1526— Knightsbridge Green—The old watch-house 
 — Old Brompton — Brompton Row — Some of its early in- 
 habitants — Count Rumford — Anecdote of the Duchess of 
 Kent — Mrs. Lloyd of Crown Court — Grove House — William 
 Wilberforce — Elliot's Pine Pits — John Hunt— Some account 
 of Faulkner the historian— Bell and Horns Lane —Pollard's 
 School — Gore Lane — Charles Mathews— Robert Cruikshank 
 — Sir John Fleming's daughters — Cromwell House — Bromp- 
 ton Vale — Chelsea Pound — Curious discovery there — Vestiges 
 of Chelsea Common — Brompton nurseries — Walnut-tree 
 Walk — The Bull — Czunter the pastrycook — Brompton Heath 
 — Thistle Grove— Little Chelsea— Purser's Cross. 
 
 In 1840 there were very few shops In the Brompton 
 Road between Sloane Street and the Bell and 
 Horns, and again between that and the Queen's 
 Elm. 
 
 The original village of Knightsbridge extended 
 in a broken and irregular manner or form from 
 the western corner of Sloane Street (then unknown) 
 to the end of Queen's Buildings. There were at 
 the outset no houses on the southern side till you 
 passed Sloane Street, nor on the northern till 
 
 VOL. II. 26
 
 98 I-uCh'/Jl GENERAllON 
 
 you reached llu- villat^c ol IJroinplon. E\cn now 
 the peculiar Icxcls shew that the primitive road 
 (includini;- the pathway) has undergone repeated 
 alterations. Of the media-val Knii^htsbridii^e men- 
 tinned in records of the fourteenth, fifteenth, and 
 sixteenth centuries, probably not a vestige remains ; 
 and the made ground here, as well as at Hrompton 
 Row. was found necessary to lift the residences, 
 which were- L^raduall)- erected, above the uncared- 
 for and sometimes almost impassable coach and 
 cart track. The place derived its name from the 
 bridge which (above the modern Albert Gate) 
 spanned the stream rimnini;- from the Xorth of 
 London across Hyde Park and Pimlico to its 
 outlet into the Thames opposite Vauxhall. This, 
 structure in some shape was of \ery great antiquit)-. 
 It was the theatre of an adventure narrated in the 
 Hundred Merry Tales, 1526, but one by no means. 
 merr\- in its ddnouemenl . 
 
 We hear in 1371 — 525 years ago — of Knii^hts- 
 bridge as a hamlet, to which the Butchers' Gild 
 was permitted to .send cattle for slaughtering 
 purposes. A second principal abattoir was Strat- 
 ford-leTk)W. 
 
 Plantagenet Knightsbridge presumably consisted 
 of a sino;le row of tenements, first on the northern
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 99 
 
 side by the old bridge, and then (after an interval) 
 of others on the southern side, where Queen's 
 I^uildings at present stand, the former facing the 
 fields tov/ard the riv^er, where Eburv Farm subse- 
 quently extended, and having at the back an 
 enormous sandy area, now partly represented by 
 Hyde Park, the latter facing an open heath, 
 successively reduced to a green and a triangular 
 grass-plot, and looking behind, till the eighteenth 
 century was far advanced, on a wide expanse of 
 waste. I have understood that there was no 
 reofular grrass - land in the Park till Georofe III. 
 caused parts to be sown with seed as a relief to 
 his eyes when he began to suffer from ophthalmia. 
 There used to lie in the rear toward Sloane Street 
 a nest of curious antique hovels, which might have 
 been part, in their first state, of the primaeval hamlet. 
 They were reached by a court, possibly once a 
 lane. 
 
 On the once waste plot between the present 
 Kniohtsbridoe Green and Sloane Street stood the 
 watch-house for the district, and a friend remembers 
 peeping in at the window one day when he was 
 a boy, and seeing the body of a woman just re- 
 covered from the Serpentine lying for identification. 
 The ordinary use of these places was as a lock-up
 
 loo FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 for pickpockets ami othrr nocturnal offenders till 
 ihev were takc'ii before the niai^istrate. 
 
 Kni'jlitsbricltjfe Circ^en must ha\'e bet:n in its 
 second state, so to speak — that is, subsequentK' 
 t(} the creati(jn of Dronipton Row and Oueen's 
 Huildiniis — of much cfreater extent than I can 
 recollect it. It appears to ha\e fallen a gradual 
 prey to encroachment 1)\' private persons and the 
 Highw.iN lioard ; but it is easy to recognise th.it 
 the whole tract was at the outset waste of the 
 Manor of Kensington, and came down in a fork 
 to the point where Sloane Street at present opens 
 into Knightsbridge. 
 
 Oueen's Buildings, which face the Green, were 
 originally private residences, with small plots of 
 pleasure-ground divided from them by the footway 
 exactly as the case was in Hronijjton Row ; and 
 these spaces were gradualK' absorbed into the 
 thorouj^hfare, one or two at the western extremitv 
 being the last to disappear. At the opposite corner, 
 where the ground began to recover the natural 
 level, you formerly descended a short flight *>f 
 steps to the first shop. Here-, in fact, the country 
 at one time recommenced, and all was ojjen in 
 the rear. There is in a story-book of 1526 an 
 account of a thief making his escape across the
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY loi 
 
 fields just at this point. There were down to my 
 time only a few primiti\'e places of business on 
 the southern side, facing" Brompton Row, and then 
 private houses standing back in long gardens. That 
 was doubtless the second state of the locality, when 
 it had ceased to be meadow or arable land protected 
 by hedges. 
 
 Many of us recall the cavalry barracks in Ken- 
 sington Gardens, near the turnpike at Gloucester 
 Road ; but there were also barracks for the foot- 
 guards on the site of St. Paul's, Knightsbridge, 
 the church standing where the old barrack-yard 
 once was. 
 
 The scene is as different as if we were looking 
 back on occurrences of two centuries ago. The 
 exigencies of traffic, the feverish competition of 
 trade, the seething population springing up around 
 us and choking many healthy forms of the earlier 
 English life, have accomplished the metamor- 
 phosis : 
 
 ' In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas 
 Corpora.' 
 
 The region now incorporated in South Kensington, 
 but formerly known as Old Brampton, was once 
 and long a country village, or little more. The
 
 I02 FOURTH GESERATION 
 
 scenes amid which I spent nuicli of my youth 
 now siir\ivc onK in the mind's eye. The ancient 
 mansions wliich al)()unded there, the historical sites 
 or records, the delightful residences in grounds, 
 the market gardens, and, Ijest of all, the (juaint 
 Old \'ale. have vanished like a dream. 
 
 Brompton R(nv. which connected the place itself 
 on the northern side of the road with Knightsbridge 
 Green (in its far greater aniplitude) at an epoch 
 long posterior to the existence of Old Brompton as 
 an independent name and locality, I take to have a 
 topographical affinity with Chigwell Row, Channor 
 Row, and Forest Row, a block of buildings erected 
 (jn the skirt of a hamlet or a waste. The first 
 houses which occupied the site were of low eleva- 
 tion and humble pretensions ; they lay back some 
 forty or fifty feet from the main road, and the 
 boundar\-line of their front-gardens, with the pro- 
 jection on the opposite side, where Grcne House 
 stood, left a narrow passage for vehicles of all kinds, 
 yet enough to meet the demand of that day. I3uring 
 a protracted period the dwellings just here enjoyed 
 an uninterrupted view of the open area behind, so 
 far as the eye could scan. 
 
 The Row about 1 840 presented altogether a 
 sufficiently picturesque aspect ; it was quiet, green.
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 
 
 and rural ; and the grape vines trained over one or 
 two of the exteriors, with the clusters hano^ino- un- 
 molested in the season, may give some idea of the 
 thorough transition which the locality has undergone 
 since my early years. 
 
 Faulkner, in speaking of the villages which 
 bounded the town of Kensington proper on the 
 southern side, mentions O/d and N'ew Brompton ; 
 but he omits to delimit them, and to do so would 
 now involve o-reater trouble than it would have done 
 seventy years ago, when Faulkner wrote his account 
 of Kensington. 
 
 Still, I think it probable that New Brompton was 
 the name applied to the eastern end, including 
 Brompton Row, and that Old Brompton centred 
 round Cromwell or Hale House, Cromwell Lane, 
 and the lower end of Bell and Horns Lane toward 
 Brompton Hall and Cowper House. The Row was 
 plainly, as 1 have suggested, an aftergrowth, and 
 originally abutted on the waste of Kensington 
 Manor, without any other buildings between it and 
 the Manor of Hyde. Like Queen's Buildings oppo- 
 site, its level was probably raised to what we now 
 see it, when at a later date private residences of a 
 superior character were erected there. 
 
 Two celebrities who resided in Brompton Row
 
 lo^ FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 wert' Sir Px'nj.imlii Tliompson, better known as 
 Count Rumfonl. who was there quite in the l)egin- 
 in'nij' ot the century, and Leach, a boatswain who 
 had servcnl on the Victory, and had lost an arm. 
 He was full of all sorts of yarns, and his conversa- 
 tion was eai^erly sought by the frequenters of the 
 Crown and Sceptre at the corner of Rauston Street, 
 going- toward Montpelier Square, where Trafalgar 
 was fought over again almost nightl}' in a recital 
 accompanied by copious potations of malt liquor. 
 Leach had an adroit way of ordering a half-j^int of 
 beer in a quart measure, and his tankard was con- 
 stantly replenished for him by his admiring audience. 
 He it was who used to o^ive an account of the 
 Duchess of Kent, the Queen's mother, tripping on 
 some occasion and saving herself by catching at 
 the stump of Leach's arm, on which occasion Her 
 Royal Highness, according to the narrator, ex- 
 pressed her satisfaction at being able to lean on the 
 buttocks (bulwarks) of luigland. This may have 
 been while the Duke and his wife resided at Kent 
 House, Kensington Core. 
 
 Count Rumford did not i)robably reside long at 
 Old Brompton. I have seen a letter from him 
 written there in iSoi, and in the following year he 
 settled in France. He was one of the earliest im-
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 105 
 
 provers of our domestic stove. John Reeve I 
 notice elsewhere. 
 
 I must not omit to record Mrs. Cooper, who in 
 my boyhood kept the confectioner's shop in the 
 Row, and made a speciaHty of the Brompton Bun, 
 of which I was a munificent patron. 
 
 A notabihty of a different character in the Row 
 was denoted by a brass plate with the name Lloyd 
 on it, attached to one of the doors. Mrs. Lloyd 
 resided here, and was a person of some means. She 
 had a son, an officer in one of the line regiments. 
 Mrs. Lloyd was, in fact, in business — -what business 
 was not exactly known, not even to her son. Her 
 headquarters, however, as a matter of fact, were in 
 Crown Court, St. James's, where she could shew a 
 cheval-glass in a silver mounting, given to her by 
 H.R.H. the Prince Regent ; I dare say that she 
 was very proud of it. 
 
 A very sad story was connected with this woman 
 and this house. One day a lady brought a gentle- 
 man there, and the door was opened by Mrs. Lloyd. 
 The gentleman was her son — he had discovered the 
 secret ; and he never recovered from the shock. 
 The poor fellow's commission had been bought out 
 of Crown Court. 
 
 Facing Brompton Row lay Grove House and
 
 io6 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 other j)riv;itc rcsidencL's in LiTouncls. Grove House 
 h.id been ihe aljodc ol William W'ilberforce, bul in 
 1840 was conxerted inl<» a dame-school, kept by 
 Mrs. W'arne, a connection of CoKjnel IMaceroni, 
 aide-de-camp t<> Murat, the brother-in-law (jt 
 Xapoleon. Mrs. W'arne did her best to initiate the 
 writer into some ol the rudiments of learning. Her 
 governess, Miss Foster, who married Osborn the 
 nurseryman, tried to make me an advanced scholar 
 1)\ teachinL: me a few words of French, and one 
 day it came to the turn of the word oiii. ' Say ou/, 
 W'illv,' (luoth the ladv. ' I won't sav oiti, Miss 
 Foster,' was my hard)-, Loftus-like reply. 
 
 A jiortion (jf the extensive c^ardens once attached 
 to these old buildings survives in the small oblong 
 enclosure of Ovington Square. 
 
 At the back of Grove Place, bLlliot's Pine Pits 
 occupied ten acres, extending nearly to the western 
 side ol Hans Place, formerly a delightful spot where 
 Sir Charles Shuckboroui^h had a mansion in qrrounds. 
 Elliot afterward removed to Pulham, but he 
 naturally found pine-growing unremunerative when 
 a better specimen than he could produce for a 
 guinea was obtained from abroad for half a crown. 
 
 In one of the small houses in Grove Place, Mr. 
 John ikint, Leigh Hunt's elder brother, spent his
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 107 
 
 last days and died. I recall visits which we paid 
 to him there. His wife, like old Mrs. Hazlitt, was 
 addicted to distinguishing him as ' ?Jiy Mr. Hunt.' 
 She might have had good reasons for this. 
 
 In Alexander Place was a magazine for the sale, 
 amono- other sundries, of short basket-hilted iron 
 swords and wooden broadswords. Mv brother and 
 I fouoht a roiitrancc with the former, and exhausted 
 many a pair, regardless of the outlay, which was 
 fourpence each ; but the broadsword was a shilling, 
 and was only for ceremonial use. The reports 
 which came to us from our elders of the sanguinary 
 conflicts in transpontine melodramas led to this play- 
 ino: at soldiers or brio^ands ; but I think that the 
 shilling weapon associated itself in my mind with a 
 commission in the Household Cavalry. How many 
 foster such illusions and mental cobwebs, varying 
 only in character as time goes on ! 
 
 Faulkner, who wrote the local histories of Chelsea 
 and other places, was a second-hand bookseller at 
 the corner of Smith Street, Chelsea, nearly opposite 
 Gough House. He was a little man, and had a 
 brother as small as himself, who lately (1895) died 
 in Paulton Square. Faulkner brought out his 
 Brentford and Ealing \\\ 1843, and proposed to my 
 father, then living in Church Street, Chelsea, to
 
 io8 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 fxchangc a copy fur some book ol my father's doing. 
 I recollect — it was about 1S47 — I'aLilkiur l(tlt his 
 own book, the equivalent not being ready, and called 
 nearly every day, till my father t(jld him, I think, he 
 might ha\e his volume back again. 
 
 I have the most distinct impression of I-Jell and 
 Horns Lane, commencing with the old-fashioned 
 unpretending hostelry at the corner, with its yard, 
 in which a cobbler had his stall. 
 
 A hedge bounded the lane right down the .south 
 side, where Thurloe Place and Square were subse- 
 quently erected, and the ditch was a good hunting- 
 ground for the rat-catcher. On the north side of 
 the lane beyond lirompton Church la\- Pollard's 
 School, a nursery ground, Ingestrie House, and a 
 number of other detached residences in their own 
 grounds. Webster and Harley the actors lived 
 there. The high massive wall enclosing the nursery 
 and Ingestrie House was supported by buttresses, 
 which formed a source of alarm in those days to 
 women and childrcni who were passing after dusk, 
 from fear of attacks b\- thieves or footpads. Leigh 
 Hunt said that these buttresses reminded him of 
 the legs of the Knave of Clubs. At the other end 
 of the lane was the Hoop and To)' public-house, 
 originally a \ery primitive establishment, with trees
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 109 
 
 in front of it. Nearly opposite on the north was 
 Gore Lane, leading to Kensington Govor or Gore, 
 and down there, on the right hand, was a house 
 once tenanted by Charles Mathews the younger. 
 
 I accompanied my father as a child to the sale of 
 the effects at Ingestrie House prior to its demoli- 
 tion. The only private residence of all those once 
 standino- hereabout which still remains is that 
 formerly rented by Sir John Fleming", who had 
 two handsome daughters. These ladies long kept 
 their maiden condition, but had their love affairs. 
 Their father used to say that they were very good 
 girls, and never did him any discredit. 
 
 Prospect Place owed its once more appropriate 
 designation to the complete absence of any buildings 
 between the lane at that point and the Fulham 
 Road, till the first wing of the Consumption Hospital 
 was begun, and Sumner Terrace was erected. 
 
 On some of the ground nearly opposite the 
 Toxophilite Society held its meetings. Robert 
 Cruikshank, the brother of George, was one of the 
 members. 
 
 Pursuing the course of the lane, one had Cowper 
 House on the left and Brompton Hall, a house with 
 eagles over the entrance, on the right, and turning 
 sharply round by the latter, the pedestrian found
 
 no FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 himsc-ll in another and nari\)wcr lane, which led 
 tn Hroinpton \'alc, the Almshouses, two or three 
 nurseries, and then either to Gloucester Road throui^h 
 a turning' to the left or to Kensington across the 
 tieMs. Hv takincr the; ritfht-hand instead of the left, 
 which hroiio^ht \ou to Gloucester Road, vou reached, 
 down a short cul-dc-sac, the entrance to Cromwell 
 House, otherwise called Hale House, one of the 
 man\- reputed residences of the Protector Cromwell, 
 and of which w^\ uncle Revnell was the latest 
 occupier. One of the mantels from this ancient 
 edifice, which stood in four acres of ground, is now 
 in the South Kensington ^Museum, but it has been 
 unskilfully repaired. 
 
 The V^ale, of which no trace now remains, lav on 
 the rio;ht-hand side of Cromwell Lane, turniiiLr down 
 from Rrompton Hall toward Gloucester Road and 
 Kensington, h was approached through a door- 
 way, and consisted of a group of cottages on either 
 side of a sinuous footpath. There was no carriage- 
 road. Each residence stood in about half an acre of 
 garden ground, and was enclosed by a high black 
 fence. The \'ale, which partly abutted on Crom- 
 well Lane, had been originally formed by the 
 enclosure of some of the demesne of Cromwell 
 House, and the waste plots along the lane were
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY m 
 
 gradually occupied by houses of various styles, 
 includinof one where the Gunnino-s formerly lived. 
 On the left-hand side once stood Bute House, and 
 beyond it the Almshouses. 
 
 When I knew the Vale, three of the residents 
 were the Reynells, the Spag-nolettis, and the 
 Edward Wrights. The ditch which traversed it 
 and skirted the Reynells' garden on the southern 
 side (one of its slopes was their strawberry-bed) 
 came out at the Admiral Keppel inn, where the 
 Chelsea Pound stood, and where there was a meet- 
 ing of cross-roads. When they were draining this 
 ground about sixty years since, the skeleton of a 
 man who had been buried in lime — a suicide or a 
 murderer — was discovered. 
 
 On the site of Pelham Crescent was Colville's 
 Nursery, or, rather, one of them. A path, flanked 
 by a ditch on one side and a hedge on the other, 
 led right across to that portion of Bell and Horns 
 Lane, by Brompton Hall. The Crescent was built 
 about 1S37 by Bonnin. Old people recollect the 
 fields there, and the stile over which you had to 
 climb to the path which led to Brompton Hall. 
 Pelham Place was a much later creati(jn, teste 
 ineipso. Our relatives. Sir John and Lady Stod- 
 dart, on their return from Malta, were among
 
 I I 2 rO UK Tfl G EKERA TI ON 
 
 the earliest residents there. This was about 
 
 1S45. 
 
 I am reminded thai <)j)i)Osite Pelham Crescent 
 there was in my early time a considerable open 
 sj)ace immediately at the back ol Pond Place, and 
 I went w itli 11. |. P)\"n)ii. when we were quite lads. 
 to see a fair held there. This space may have been 
 the last vestige of Chelsea Common, which, accord- 
 ing- to Lysons, consisted of thirty-seven acres, and 
 la\' between the Fulham and K inch's Roads. I 
 believe that St. Luke's Church and churchyard 
 occupy part of the area, for it is observable that an 
 unusually large piece of ground was assigned to this 
 purpose, bespeaking the relatively small value of 
 land at the time. 
 
 Onslow Square covers the (jld grounds of several 
 mansions, including Cow per H(juse. It is the 
 mutilated a\'enue of the last which is seen in the 
 centre and in a passage leading from the P\ilham 
 Road. Many years since a gentleman in this 
 square had a large collection of papers on Old 
 lirompton, but who he was, and what became of 
 them, 1 n(j\'er heard. 
 
 P)ell and Horns Lane practically extended to 
 Larl s Court, and was bounded on both sides the 
 whole way down to about 1850 by private mansions
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 
 
 or other houses, market-gardens, and nurseries, 
 among which I may mention those of Gray, 
 Siggers, Colville, Conway (by the turnpike, where 
 the Bolton estate was laid out), Rigby, and Kirke. 
 ]\Iy mother bought her morello cherries for pre- 
 -servino- at Conway's. 
 
 The lane eventually debouched near what is now 
 the Brompton Cemetery and the Redcliffe estate, 
 imd on the left was Walnut-tree Walk, leading to 
 the Fulham Road (a not very safe place for pedes- 
 trians, as I have known ladies robbed at mid-day), 
 while on the rieht the road wound round to 
 Kensington, and brought one out opposite Holland 
 House. 
 
 On the right and left of Walnut-tree Walk, and 
 between that and the cemetery, there was nothing 
 but market-grounds and orchards, except a field on 
 the right, where, years after the presence of any 
 actual danger, a board was to be seen, warning the 
 public ' to beware of the bull' 
 
 On the other side of the cemetery toward the 
 Fulham Fields was a country road, where one of 
 my godfathers, Sir Goldsworthy Gurney, inventor 
 of the Bude Light and of the Steam Tram, was the 
 first, I believe, to put up houses. I accompanied 
 him as a youth on his visits to his property, and 
 
 VOL. II. 27
 
 114 FuUiail GENERAilUN 
 
 liavc the tla\(,)iir of llu-. reel currants yd on ni)' 
 palate, which I gathcrcil in the rcniains of the old 
 dismantled orchard. 
 
 An amusing experience befell my father while he 
 was in his earl}' married life a visitor at Gurney's in 
 Cornwall. He was rather addicted to woodmanship^ 
 and sallied out one day with an axe, wherewith he 
 lopped a number of trees on somebody else's estate. 
 The owner applied to Gurney, who was on the 
 commission of the peace, for a warrant for his 
 guest's apprehension, and that document I possess. 
 But I believe that the matter occasioned some 
 merriment, and was amicably settled. 
 
 The ground now occupied by the Brompton 
 Cemetery was a market - garden down to 1836,. 
 when, or in 1837, it was surveyed, enclosed, and 
 laid out. The whole area between it and Walnut- 
 tree Walk, and between the Earl's Court and 
 Fulham Roads, was also cultivated, and principally 
 orchards. The grounds of Mr. Toogood's house at 
 the Earl's Court end of the Walk, and Mr. Popart's 
 at the other, nearly met. This was a thoroughly 
 rural bit. 
 
 Gunter the pastrycook lived at Earls Court, 
 while it was still a retired and rustic neighbour- 
 hood. Of course, he had had the opportunity of
 
 OF A L ITER A RY FA MIL Y 115 
 
 buying up all the parcels of land outside the 
 Harrington and other estates on both sides of the 
 Fulhani Road, and he eventually employed George 
 Godwin the architect, one of the first occupiers of 
 the houses In Pelham Crescent, to lay out the 
 property for him In what Is known as Bolton's, 
 Tregunter Road, where Halllwell-Phllllpps resided 
 many years, and (on the opposite side) In Gunter's 
 Grove, on the borders of Chelsea and Fulham. 
 
 A friend of mine, who was articled to Godwin, 
 recollects Pollard the schoolmaster, next door to 
 Brompton Church, coming In every week to see the 
 Builder, which was then a comparatively new under- 
 taking, at Pelham Crescent. Pollard sold his school- 
 site to the Oratory. 
 
 Opposite Chelsea Park, or Wharton Park, as It 
 was originally named, in Little Chelsea, lay Brompton 
 Heath, an open space which must have originally 
 extended from the vIllao;e of Little Chelsea to Swan 
 Lane on the east side, and have abutted on the 
 Earl's Court Road, or continuation of Bell and 
 Horns Lane. This has all utterly vanished. 
 Thistle Grove preserves In Its name an Indication 
 of the former condition of the site. 
 
 Thistle Grove appears to have been parcelled out 
 Into bulldinof allotments about i8r6, and was a cul-
 
 1 1 6 FOURTH GENERA TION OF A LIT ERA RY FA MIL Y 
 
 lic-sac at the northern end, the extension known as 
 Drayton Grove being imder cultivation, and the 
 sole aj^proach from the I'^ilhani Road at this j)oint 
 to Karl's Court and Kensington being through th(' 
 narrow lane at the back of the Grove. 
 
 Beyond Little Chelsea la\- W'alham Green and 
 l-\i]ham, and to the south Sand's End and Parson's 
 Green, all detached hamlets separated from London 
 and each other by wide stretches of open land or 
 garden, now consolidated into one huge continuous 
 street, as it were, resonant with some of the least 
 attractive forms of modern life. Scarcely anything 
 but Peterborough House and Fulham Palace remain 
 to shew what this side of the Metropolis originally 
 was. P^ulham Palace possesses a unique interest 
 as the only moated house within the Metropolitan 
 area. 
 
 Between Walham Green and Pulham, on the left- 
 hand side, after turning the angle in the road by 
 the modern fire-engine house, lay Purser's Cross, 
 which is lost in the so-called Percy Cross House 
 opposite.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Anecdotes of the Duke of York and Duke of Wellington — Thomas 
 Wright, F.S.A., and Madame Wright — The Carter Halls at the 
 Rosery — Anecdote about Tennyson — Guizot at Old Brompton 
 — An original letter from him to my father — Gloucester Lodge 
 — George Canning — Don Carlos — Braham the singer — 
 Brompton 'parliament' — A mysterious resident fn Brompton 
 Vale — The Spagnolettis — The HoUs— Henry Holl the actor 
 — His circle — G. V. Brooke — Holl as a mimic and story- 
 teller — Dickens and Forster — Some account of the latter — 
 Frank Holl, R.A.— Dr. Duplex. 
 
 Fifty years ago, Siggers the market-gardener had 
 a large piece of the ground on the Earl's Court side, 
 opposite Conway's Nursery, and contiguous to the 
 turnpike. I met Siggers by chance many years 
 since, and entered into conversation with him about 
 the old place. He narrated a curious anecdote of 
 the Duke of York. He had instructed all his 
 children never to accept gratuities from strangers ; 
 it was a very secluded and thinly-poptilated part, 
 and the precaution was necessary enough. His 
 daughters came home one day, and told him that a 
 gentleman on horseback had stopped them, asked
 
 iiS FOUR 11 1 C.h'.NERATION 
 
 them ihcir names, aiul, pulling- ii shilling out of his 
 pocket, stooped to offer il lo them. They declined 
 to recei\e il, and ihc ^endeman asked their reason. 
 1 iiey said that lluir f.ilher had ordered them not to 
 take money from anyone. From their description 
 Siggers guessed who their interviewer had been, 
 
 Jhis account probably relerred to the time when 
 the Duke ke[)t Mrs. Carey at h'ulham or another 
 lady at the White House, I'ulnc}'. His Royal 
 Highness had children b\- the former, who passed 
 under the name of (libbs, and strongly resembled 
 the Georges. They went to Roy's school, at 
 Burlington House, I^'ulham, and were afterward 
 drafted into the War Office. 
 
 The public service at that period was the ordinary 
 destination of the offsh(K)ts or superannuated ser- 
 vants of the nobility and of Royalty. Indeed, so 
 L'.te as the time of the Crimean War such was still 
 th(- case. Wliile I was at the War Office, a son of 
 Sidney Herbert was on the staff under an assumed 
 name ; he was well nursed. 
 
 Siggers told me some (jueer and un[)roducible 
 stories of the (jld Duke of Wellinorton in connection 
 with Brompton, where he favoured a resort par- 
 taking of the character of a casino and something 
 else. His Grace was a regular Orlando Inamorato
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY i 19 
 
 or Don Juan, and not always of a very high 
 type. 
 
 He had the habit of keeping at Apsley House a 
 considerable amount in bank-notes, and on one 
 occasion, when he was paying for a heavy purchase, 
 the vendor respectfully suggested a cheque. But 
 the Duke told him. that he liked to settle such 
 matters in cash, as he did not wish Coutts's to know 
 what a fool he was sometimes. 
 
 In Sydney Street, Fulham Road, during the last 
 years of his life resided Thomas Wright, the dis- 
 tinguished antiquary and man of letters, the intimate 
 associate of Halliwell-Phillipps. Wright married 
 a discarded mistress of Francisque Michel. I saw 
 her once or twice — a lady of imposing appearance, 
 but, from what Halliwell gave me to understand, and 
 from what I learned otherwise, by no means a 
 crown to her husband, unless it was one of thorns. 
 A credulous relative of mine described her to me 
 on one occasion as a scion of the ancient French 
 noblesse. Very possible ; and this noblesse yielded 
 an abundant crop of such phenomena. 
 
 She was poor Wright's evil genius. He was a 
 man of vast industry and erudition, and deserved a 
 better fortune. Halliwell allowed him a pension 
 suppleniental to the munificent one of ^65 with
 
 1 .'o FOriail C, EN ERA TION 
 
 \shich ihc discerning and iniparii.il Uritish Guvcrn- 
 nicnt rccjuilcd tiiirty years of archiLological scholar- 
 ship and research. 
 
 The royal housekeej)er at Kew Palace, her 
 ne[)he\v informs me, has ^350 a year, with lodging 
 and perquisites. How equitable and how con- 
 sistent ! 
 
 Wright was not a journalist, nor a Liverpoo} 
 man, nor a Scot, or Mr. Gladstone and his alter ego 
 might have made him a grant out of the public 
 tunds, followed at a decent interval by a pension for 
 life, as they did in the case of a very young man 
 who had written a few copies of verses, and who 
 will, it is to be feared, be a charge on the taxpayers 
 during the next forty or fifty years, thanks to these 
 two eminent Liberal statesmen. 
 
 One of the small detached houses along the 
 Earl's Court Road, before you came to Jenny 
 Lind's, was the Rosery, or, as Jerrold called it, the 
 Roguery. I recollect b(;ing taken here as a bo)- to 
 see the Carter Halls, and being struck by their 
 wall-plums, the bloom on which yet lives in my 
 mind's eye. My companion (or, rather, I supj)ose 
 I ought to say, escort) was Lil\ IJlanchard, afttrr- 
 ward Mrs. Blanchard Jerrold. 
 
 Mrs. Carter Hall was generally allowed to be a
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 121 
 
 very accomplished and able woman ; I have always 
 heard that the gray mare was the better horse in 
 this case, and ' Cairter,' as she used to call him, was 
 little better than a book-maker. Yet he continued 
 during- a long series of years to earn a handsome 
 income out of journalism and letters, and to secure 
 a pension. He never failed from lack of courage. 
 He asked Moxon and Co. £600 for the right to 
 reprint in book - form his Memories of VVidters, 
 which he had communicated to some periodical. 
 
 This was toward the close of his career. I 
 happened to be the next client whom the firm was 
 to see, and Hall went out as I went in. His aspect 
 was truly venerable, and 1 noted the amplitude of 
 his shirt-collar, to which he was indebted for the 
 sobriquet of SJiirt-Collar Hall. 
 
 The personage who received us both in succes- 
 sion was the manager eno-ao-ed to look after Moxon's 
 business after his death for the benefit of the widow, 
 Lamb's Emma Isola. He did not do much to pro- 
 mote the interests of his unlucky employer. One 
 of his exploits, I was informed, was to signify his 
 disapprobation of the late Poet Laureate by surmount- 
 ing his portrait in Moxon's parlour with ass's ears. 
 Because the present deponent objected to certain 
 commercial irreeularities in connection with an
 
 I 2. 
 
 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 edition of Charles Lamb's works in iS68, the same 
 indivichial launched through the hospitable columns 
 of the .IthciKnuii some amenities not worth remem- 
 bcrinif about 'the tribe of I lazlitt,' which yet sur- 
 vives. 
 
 A temporcU-)' resident in Brompton about this 
 time was tlie ex-Minister Guizot, whose works on 
 Civilization and the English Revolntion of 1 640 my 
 father translated. He sent the books to Guizot, 
 and received the following; acknowled""ment : 
 
 SrR, 
 
 Je vous remercie beaucoup des quatre volumes que vous 
 avez voulu ni'envoyer. Je suis heureux que mes ouvrages aient 
 rencontre un traducteur tel que vous, et si je rencontre en lisant 
 votre traduction quelques inexactitudes qui meritent d'etre re- 
 marquees, je miinprcsscrai de vous les signaler. 
 
 Re^evez, je vous prie, Tassurance de nia consideration trbs 
 
 distinguee. 
 
 Guizot. 
 
 Brompton, Juillet, 1848. 
 
 The father of Guizot had perished on the scaffold 
 in the first Revolution, and as, next to his master, 
 he was the best hated man in France in 1848, he 
 naturally lost no time in placing the Channel 
 between himself and his countrymen. Those who 
 were in Paris at the acute crisis must remember the 
 ominous cries of 'A has Gnizot f
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 123 
 
 One of the famous old houses in Brompton was 
 Gloucester Lodge, built for the Duke of Gloucester, 
 one of the sons of George III, It stood on the 
 right-hand side of the Gloucester Road on the way 
 to Kensington. George Canning afterward lived 
 there, and at a later period Don Carlos, whose 
 sudden disappearance one morning in July, 1834, 
 was soon explained by his arrival as the head of an 
 insurrectionary movement in Spain. The building, 
 which occupied with its grounds a considerable 
 area, surrounded by a very high fence, remained 
 unoccupied for a long time, and was at last pulled 
 down. Just before its demolition I went over it 
 with my boyish and almost life-long acquaintance, 
 Henry James Byron, whose name will recur. 
 
 Although Michael's Place and Grove and Bromp- 
 ton Crescent, now no more, are in the parish of 
 Chelsea, they were in such immediate contiguity to 
 Old Brompton that I may be excused for mention- 
 ing the residence of Braham the singer — Lamb's 
 ' J^w, gentleman, and angel ' — in the house at the 
 end of Michael's Grove. The sino-er's dauo-hter 
 became Lady W'aldegrave. My father, who had a 
 very promising voice, was, as we have heard, very 
 nearly becoming his pupil. 
 
 Leading up to Bra ham's house, on the left hand.
 
 124 1-UL'kIll GENERATION 
 
 and iioi far froiii ilic liighroaci, was Hume the 
 baker's, a depot for white and brown parlianunt, 
 oblong cakes of farinaceous material slightly 
 sweetened, and cruciforml\- divided on the face 
 into four smaller squares. The brown variety is 
 still in commerce ; but the other is forgotten, and 
 the cruciformitv has been discontinued. A curious 
 book might be written on the origin and archaeology 
 of sweets. 
 
 W^ithin the limits of Chelsea lay als(j York Place, 
 adjoining the Jewish Ikirial Ground, and opposite 
 the Consumption Hospital. I merely refer to It 
 because there was in m\ nonage a preparatory 
 establishment kept in one of the houses by Dr. 
 Frampton, who, when I was among his pupils, freely 
 applied the ruler to our knuckles, and also employed 
 the old-fashioned abacus for arithmetical purposes. 
 I was of the day -scholars, and Frampton rather un- 
 commercially took us out for a walk bc^fore dinner, 
 which put a serious edge on our appetites. We had 
 pudding twice a week— plum-pudding on Tuesdays 
 and baked rice on Thursdays. The former was 
 always the day when my step on the homeward 
 route was most elastic. 
 
 From the preference shown by many of the 
 musical and theatrical professions for this delightful
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 125 
 
 retreat, we are led to infer that the soft air of the 
 locality recommended itself to the bronchial require- 
 ments of these gentlemen and ladies, as well as 
 the attraction of the rural scenery and quiet. 
 
 I judge it to have been one of the truest pleasures 
 of my life, if not one of its greatest privileges, to 
 contemplate with my own eyes the beautiful hamlet 
 of Old Brompton, as it appeared prior to the 
 Exhibition of 185 1, which virtually destroyed it — 
 and not it alone. When I was a child this outskirt 
 of London was much in its primitive condition as 
 it had been in the days of the early Georges, if 
 not of the Stuarts. Fragments of it yet remain to 
 shew what it has been, just about Alexander Place 
 and Square, the old Church, the Queen's Elm, and 
 a few other points. 
 
 A mysterious personage preceded my uncle as 
 tenant of the premises in the Vale. It was a forger 
 or utterer, or both, of flash bank-notes ; and an old 
 gardener, who afterward worked for Mr. Reynell, 
 gave this account of him, that he rode out every 
 morning on horseback, and returned in the evening, 
 both his beast and himself presenting the appearance 
 of having ridden far and hard. It was conjectured 
 that his practice was to change the notes at different 
 points, and at as considerable a distance as possible
 
 126 lUURTH GENERATION 
 
 from licadciiiartcrs. W'liat l)ccamc of the fellow the 
 narrator did not know ; if h(: was apprehended, the 
 ' three-legged mare ' was his infallible destiny, and 
 the mere f.ict that Iiis j)roceedinL4S were capable of 
 explanation seems to shew that the fraud was dis- 
 covered, if it was not pimished. 
 
 Through the Reynells we knew the Spagnolettis, 
 through the latter the k^irrens, and through these 
 the Holls, and so on. This was in the early forties. 
 The Byrons became acquainted with us through my 
 father's engagement in the reporting gallery. 
 
 Spagnoletti, father of my old friend Charles 
 Spagnoletti, was not only the son of the famous 
 leader of the Italian Opera, and one of the immortal 
 triumvirate in the ballad of Old Kino; Coh\ but he 
 married the daughter of Stowasser, leader of the 
 Horse Guards Band. My friend's father was a 
 first-rate musical teacher, and might have done very' 
 well in his profession. Ikit he was not very 
 methodical, and was greatly addicted to the gentle, 
 but not remunerative, science of angling. Many a 
 time, when his i)upils were expecting him, Spagno- 
 letti absented himself on the plea of indisposition, 
 while he had really set off on a pleasant little excur- 
 sion with his rod and baof. He was another of the 
 worthies of the Vale.
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 127 
 
 Charles Spagnoletti narrated to me the following- 
 naughty little story : 
 
 A lad, whose mother had bought some lamb, and 
 had forgotten to ask her husband, who was the 
 leader of the church choir, how she was to dress it, 
 was sent after his father to make the inquiry, and 
 reached the place when the service had already 
 commenced. He went up into the organ-loft, and 
 affected to join in the anthem, chanting : 
 
 ' Mother has bought a quarter of lamb, and how shall she 
 doit?' 
 
 To which the parent, responding, said : 
 
 'Roast the leg, boil the loin, and make a pudding of the 
 suet.' 
 
 It is well known that the boys in the choir 
 frequently mimic the choral intonation in talking to 
 each other, when they have cast their white clerical 
 bed-gowns. 
 
 I also owe to him a second anecdote : 
 Mr, James Forbes and Sir Edward Watkin, 
 long the two leading spirits on the Chatham and 
 Dover and South-Eastern Railways, conferring to- 
 gether on some arrangements propounded by the 
 former to be for mutual advantage. W^atkin allowed
 
 1.^8 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 his friend to j^o on for some time, hut, ;it last inter- 
 rupting, said \cr\' (|ui(tly : ' And wlierc; do I come 
 in, James ?' 
 
 When we first knew the Holls, thev rc:sided in a 
 small cottage in Stewart's Grove, a turning out of 
 the h^ilham Road. lie was a handsome man, and 
 had married a \cr\- pretty woman. .So far back as 
 I can remember, Henrv I loll had an encrajrement at 
 the Haxmarket under Webster's manaijement. but 
 latterly he joined Gustavus \^'lsa Brooke at the 
 Olympic, and eventually gave up the stage. He 
 was the author of a few dramatic triHes and two or 
 three novels, of which the best, the A7//;'',s- MaiL 
 was founded on an incident connected with the 
 Haslemere district — ^his wife's native place. 
 
 We often saw P)rooke at Chelsea. He was one 
 of those lost in the Loudon in iS66. Holl j)layed 
 second to him In .Shakespear and melodrama. As 
 a boy I was most im[)ressed by the American 
 tragedian's Othello, Richard III., and Sir Giles 
 Overreach. I presumed to .set him before Charles 
 Kean all rotrnd ; he had a better presence and voice. 
 Alike in Kean and in his wife the voice failed, but 
 he (Kean) was fairly good in such pieces as the 
 Corsican Bi'others and Pizarro. 
 
 Holl had known a \cry wide circle of educated
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 1^9 
 
 and intelligent people ; his family had been always 
 associated with art ; and his own ties were princi- 
 pally dramatic and literary. He was fond of books, 
 and sought the acquaintance of bookish men. There 
 were few of the prominent authors of his day whom 
 he had not met, and with some of them he was on 
 intimate terms. He was a man of excellent address, 
 but I always looked upon him as rather artificial. 
 
 I mention elsewhere his entertaining imitations of 
 his leading theatrical contemporaries — Keeley, Buck- 
 stone, Macready, Webster, and others. When Holl 
 was in the right cue, an evening spent at his house 
 in Brompton over talk about the old poets and 
 playwrights, or, as an alternative, a taste of our host's 
 quality as a remembrancer of other men's styles, was 
 an enrichment of the experience and the thought. 
 To his great annoyance, people often confounded 
 the late Henry Howe and him, both at one time 
 members of the Haymarket establishment ; and I 
 believe that the displeasure was reciprocal. 
 
 Holl used to say that when Dickens and Forster 
 took a long walk together, the latter, being some- 
 what pursy, had to pause occasionally to get breath, 
 and would try to make Dickens relax his pace by 
 drawing his attention to the beauty of the scenery, 
 especially if the route was uphill. H oil's mode of 
 
 VOL. II. 28
 
 i-,o fuUR'lU GENERATION 
 
 l( llin;4 llu; slorx was \<t\ funny — the way thai 
 I'orstcr puffL-d and Mew. antl lickl liis sides with. 
 
 ' M\ cUar Dickens, just observe that bit ' lie 
 
 was an excellent raconteur as well as mimic. 
 
 I |)()inicd out lono- aj^o that the Ptill Stumps 
 l>leasantr\" in ricki^'ick was borrowed from the 
 School for // V/.s, a jest-book j)ublished in 1813. I 
 ha\'e heard that the notion ^^{ the Golden Dustman 
 in Our Mutual I'ricud was derixed from the 
 immense pile of dust which remained for many 
 years untouched at the back of Gray's Inn Lane, 
 somewhere between Coldbath Fields and Mount 
 Pleasant, and that a largfe sum was eventualK' 
 cleared by the owner, who .sold it to the Russian 
 Government in i S : 2, after the destruction of Moscow, 
 to mix with the lime for cement. I L{ive this dit for 
 what it is worth. 
 
 John Forster — Lady Bulwers Butcher's Bo) — 
 was a self-made man, \f'rv agreeable to those who 
 could ke-ej) him at a distance, but highly unpleasant 
 when he chose. A cabman once described him 
 idiomatically as 'an arbitrary cove.' There was a 
 small jcu d esprit about him related in connection 
 with some wine at the dinner-table, of which Forster, 
 on being asked, characteristically affected to know- 
 nothing.
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 131 
 
 * What's this wine, John ?' he says to his man. 
 
 ' Three-and-six," says John. 
 
 The artificial condescension of Forster was a 
 thing never to be forgotten. This manner arose 
 from his poor training, and was a kind of self- 
 protection. He did not know how you were going 
 to approach him, and he put out his elbow first. 
 His letters to me were polite enough, but he was 
 unpleasantly overbearing to those who did not hold 
 their ground. He was a thorough beggar on horse- 
 back, 
 
 Frank Holl, the Academician, a nephew of our 
 old acquaintance, was most unassuming and agree- 
 able, but very irritable, partly owing, perhaps, to 
 his always indifferent health, for he was a chronic 
 sufferer from angina pectoris, and 1 w^as surprised at 
 his lastino- even so lono- as he did. 
 
 One day, when a right reverend prelate was 
 sitting for his portrait, everything seemed to go 
 wrong. Holl could not find his colours, and when 
 he found them he missed somethino; else. Then 
 something slipped clown ; Holl began to mutter 
 curses on Fortune, and at last he swore audibly, 
 till the Bishop got up and, taking his hat, wished 
 the painter good-morning, observing, ' You are the 
 most unofentlemanlv man, Mr. Holl, I ever met.'
 
 1 32 FOURTH GENERA TION OF A LFfERA RY FA MIL Y 
 
 A common acquaintance ol ihc I lolls and our- 
 selves was l)r. l)u|)le.\, M.l)., to whom 1 have 
 understood that the Duplex lamp owed its origin. 
 I he name always haunts me as a felicitous one 
 for a novel, wh(."re the cciural character was sonK* 
 medical Janus.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The Byrons — H. J. Byron and his family — Early development of 
 a dramatic taste — As a medical student — My peculiar intimacy 
 with him — Our evenings together — People I met at his house 
 — Story of him and Arthur Sketchley — Byron's earliest love- 
 affair — The Bancrofts — Mary Wilton at the Strand — Robert- 
 son — Anecdotes of Byron — One of his last sayings — Robinson 
 Crusoe and Miss Larkin — Cupid and Psyche. 
 
 The Byrons were a second family with whom 
 we met in those days. Henry Byron, father of 
 Henry James Byron the dramatist, was on the 
 Morning Post, and secretary of the Conservative 
 Association. He had married Josephine Bradley, 
 daughter of a medical man at Buxton, and an 
 extremely attractive woman ; and young Byron, 
 when he left school, was intended to take up 
 his grandfather's profession. I, of course, knew 
 him when we were lads together, and his father 
 lived in a small house near Eaton Square. Henry 
 Byron, who was related to the poet, had been 
 a College man, and had squandered a fortune. 
 He obtained a consular appointment in later life.
 
 1 34 J'^^ ' h'Tii r, i:ni-:ra tion 
 
 The t'ldcr lUroii was a most ufCMiIal fellow, and 
 a thorouL^h LicntU-inaii 1)\ breeding and instinct ; 
 hut he was (lej:)lorabl\ insincere, and thai dt^fcct 
 was tloLibtless aiiLiTavalcd In' his slraitc:ned circiini- 
 stances and his fondness for little dinners and 
 other sweet impoverishments. I remember that we 
 generalK knew when the I)) roiis ol Pimlico were 
 expecting friends to tlinner. as an a[)plication ior 
 a loan of wine, If not of other accessories, was 
 at the last almost a matter of course. When he 
 obtained his appointnKMil, he prtjposed to requite 
 mv father's manifold kindness b\' an early consiirn- 
 ment of choice cigars and preserved ortolans, which 
 never presented themselves. \or did we expect 
 them. 
 
 The dramatic bias of young Byron betrayed itself 
 at a verv i)recocious aw. He used, almost as a 
 schoolbo}' at St. P('t(^r's. U) compose scenes, and, 
 like a second .Molicre, recite th('m before his father's 
 cook when Mr. cuid Mrs. Hyron were out. hVom 
 the date of his father's departure for Hayti till 
 his marriage and settlemenL in Brompton, I saw- 
 nothing of him. The last glimpse which I had 
 had was as a medical student with a practitioner 
 near Westbourne Grove. 
 
 It was of the latter individual that he quoted
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 135 
 
 the joke about the boiled rice on two successive 
 days for dinner, and his principal's exclamation : 
 "What! boiled rice aoain ! How we do live!" It 
 was to Hep worth Dixon that they used to ascribe 
 the impatient rejection of ice-pudding' at a dinner, 
 because he understood the waiter to offer a more 
 familiar dish. 
 
 Subsequently to Henry James Byron and myself 
 resuming our intercourse, in direct consequence of 
 our accidental meeting one day in 1858 near the 
 Queen's Elm, I probably saw more of him than 
 anyone till within a few years of his death, when 
 certain private circumstances produced an estrange- 
 ment. But during a long succession of years I 
 had the good fortune to enjoy his society and 
 conversation, and I affirm that, while I knew Byron, 
 I owed to him some of the pleasantest days of 
 my life, and that in losing him I lost that which 
 it was out of my power to replace. 
 
 The evenings which he and myself had 
 together at Brompton and in Doughty Street 
 proved to me his inexhaustible store of humour 
 and fun, and that his productions for the stage 
 and the press were very inferior to his real powers 
 of talk and aptitude for repartee. His remarks 
 and his anecdotes, unlike those of duller men, were
 
 ,36 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 (livcrtin<; aiul rac\ without Ix-in^- coarse ; and I 
 believe tliai it his training' liad been better, and 
 his miiul more l)ahinced, he nii^ht ha\e shone in 
 the most brilhant socictx . The lax and corrupt 
 school into which he uas brought by his choice 
 of a dramatic and theatrical career exercised the 
 most pernicious inlUi(;ncc on a not ver)' staunch 
 character. The environments of the theatres and 
 the seductions of the green-room sapped his morals 
 and his health. 
 
 At Doucrhtv Street I met Sothern and his wife, 
 Mrs. Charles Mathews. Edward and Albert Levi, 
 Arthur Sketchley, Tom Robertson. Marie Wilton, 
 Bancroft, and man\- others. It was the house 
 associated with Byron's most prosperous period 
 and with his unhappy downfall through the Liver- 
 pool speculation. The Levis were the sons of 
 J. M. Levi, who was at one time a j)rinter in 
 Fleet Street. He jniblished a six})enny series of 
 Tales, including [oaii of Naples, for which he 
 paid my father as the translator ^7 los. I 
 recollect Mr. Levi handing me the sum on my 
 father's account, and I likewise call to mind a 
 small trait of the same crentleman when he was 
 proprietor of the Daily Telegraph, namely, his 
 aversion to tautolog) . He must have emphasized
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 137 
 
 this sentiment to lead Byron to mention it to me. 
 The Levis were long on the most cordial terms 
 with my friend. 
 
 While Byron, Arthur Sketchley. and myself were 
 once at early dinner, an area sneak found his way 
 to the kitchen window, and made off with the 
 silver teapot and some spoons. It was very droll 
 to watch Byron, with his tall, slim figure, and 
 George Rose (Sketchley's real name), a very 
 Falstaff, pursuing the thief into the neighbouring 
 square, and picking u\) the spoons, which the 
 fellow dropped one by one, to enable him to 
 secure the teapot, at all events. But he was 
 overtaken. 
 
 Byron's earliest acknowledged theatrical flame 
 was the accomplished lady once known far and 
 wide as Miss Woolgar. It was a lad's fancy for 
 a woman considerably his senior, and the passion, 
 such as it was, was quenched by the mortifying 
 discovery that his goddess was in reality a married 
 person playing under her maiden name— in fact, 
 that she was the wife of Alfred Mellon. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft were architects of their 
 own fortune. He was a provincial actor, whom 
 Byron took up, and brought from Liverpool to 
 the Prince of Wales's Theatre, lormerly the Qiieciis.
 
 138 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 Dustliolc, when ii was first opened under the joint 
 nianagenient of 15\rt)n .md Marie Wilton, l^ancroft, 
 <ilthouL;h harc-l\- tolerable in private life as I saw 
 him on his first settlement in London, made a very 
 <^entlemanl\- and careful performer on the boards. 
 
 Marie Wilton. 1 heard from li)ron, who was very 
 intimate w ith her through their theatrical companion- 
 ship, and called her indifferently Marie and Wilton, 
 was the daughter of strolling players. I knew 
 nothincr (jf her till through his association with 
 the Strand Theatre I saw her in his burlesques, 
 where she was very much applauded for her success 
 in the dnakdoicus. I recollect her retrousse^ nose, 
 her very curtailed jx^tticoats, and her saucy carriage. 
 Quant u))i nuitata ! They tell me she is now a 
 grandc dame living in a fashionable square, and 
 plays now and then ' to oblige.' 
 
 Robertson, author of several well-known Society 
 pieces, attracted notice as a playwright at last ; but 
 his fortunes had been sadly checkered, and his 
 succe-ss came to<j late to be of much ser\ice to him. 
 When his comedy of Ours was in course of perform- 
 ance at the Prince of W'^ales's Theatre, the name 
 was posted up all over the neighbourhood, and some 
 Frenchmen went, thinking it was an exhibition (jf 
 bears.
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 139 
 
 When Byron and I have been together talking 
 over things, putting matters in queer lights, or doing 
 a little quiet scandal about common acquaintance, 
 we have sometimes become so convulsed with 
 laughter that we have been scarcely able to keep 
 our feet. It was a favourite trick to pace up and 
 down the room while we talked, and often he took 
 one side and I the other. fie was thoroughly 
 honourable, though extravagant and unbusinesslike. 
 When his affairs were on the drift, and he was short 
 of money, I offered to lend him a considerable sum ; 
 but he declined to take it, not being certain whether 
 he should have it in his power to repay me. 
 
 He proposed as a motto for the booking-office at 
 the Prince of Wales's, ' So much for Booking 'm.' 
 
 My old friend was a lover of good things in a 
 convivial sense as well as otherwise, and keenly 
 enjoyed his meals when there was anything to his 
 liking on the table. I once impudently suggested 
 that the family motto, instead of Ci edc Byrou, should 
 be Greedy Byron. 
 
 Byron amused me by his description of his inter- 
 views with old Mr. Swanborough, who was stone deaf. 
 The two sat at opposite sides of a table, and Byron, 
 having provided himself with a series of small slips 
 of paper, had to do his part of the conversation by
 
 140 FOVKTII GESERATION 
 
 writing' clown wh.ii he had lo sa\ . and uassing llie 
 niemoranduiii ()\(r Id ihe manager. Swanborough 
 read it. and rc'j)liid orall)' : hut sometimes, when the 
 topic under discussion iinoKcd a serious divergence 
 of opinion, the singular medley of written and verbal 
 dialogue became more and more animated, till the 
 dramatist exhaustc^d his stock of material and his 
 companion grew breathless with excitement and 
 indio^nant cresticulation. Bvron, however, main- 
 tained his amicable relati<jns with the Strand during 
 many years, and it was the scene of some of his 
 earliest successes. 
 
 He was mentioning one dav at dinner that he 
 had met the manager of the Surrey Theatre. This 
 was when his pieces were commanding high figures, 
 or bringing him in a splendid royalt)-. The manager 
 said that he should be \er\ happ\' to arrange for 
 something. J). : ' Well, it's only a question of 
 price. How much do you gi\e ?' ' Well,' replied 
 Manager. ' I have given £^.^ Ji. : ' Oh. don't let 
 me rob you of all that mone\-, m\ boy.' 
 
 I was told a story about a barn-stormer who used 
 to make the round of the out-of-the-way Scotish 
 towns and [)];•) the regular pieces, not forgetting 
 Ha7)ilct. He and his com[)any were so successful 
 that thev ventured at last to raise the tariff from
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 141 
 
 threepence to sixpence, when the Prince of Denuiark 
 was put upon the stage. The audience was, of 
 course, rather dissatisfied and mutinous, and after 
 the performance, says Sandy to Jock : ' Wall, an' 
 what did ye think of it ?' ' Wall,' says Jock, ' it 
 Avar pratty well, but war not a saxpenny Handet.' 
 
 Someone having been sent up into the gallery of a 
 theatre where Nelly Farren was playing in CiLpid 
 and Psyche, to test the acoustic properties of the 
 building for her voice, heard two men debating the 
 signification of the title of the piece and the proper 
 mode of pronouncing the name ; one said to the 
 other : 'It's Cupid and Zych, you know ; you must 
 pronounce it like z in zinc' 
 
 As in the case of Henry Holl and so many others, 
 the special characteristics of Byron were purely 
 personal. He was in a certain sense the first and 
 the last of his family. He had a daughter, however, 
 who married Major Seton. She was telling me one 
 day that the present Lord Byron called at Colonel 
 Byron's while she was staying there to ask the 
 Colonel or one of his sisters what relation he was to 
 the poet of the same name, in case he should be 
 questioned. 
 
 Byron and myself happened to bring out a novel 
 concurrently. I forget the title of his, and that of
 
 14-^ FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 iniiu; is not worth pn-scrxin^-. 1 1 was in 1S65. 
 
 W'c both knew ihr cdiior of llic vcrv well, and 
 
 I applied to that gentleman for lca\n- to review my 
 friend's book, and he tn review mine We were 
 mutually encomiastic too much so, I fear. Gentle 
 reader, if you have not vet printed anMhini;', be sure, 
 before you do, that \ ou engage your critics, and see 
 that they are perfect in their parts. Of course, they 
 must all be friendlw but their friendliness has io be 
 adroitly varied, and even to be thinly sprinkled 
 with guarded ([ualification, for that evinces a dis- 
 criminating vein and the hand of a man whom money 
 will not buy. I am rather proud to be able to say 
 that this w^as the sole occasion on which I thus 
 compromised myself 
 
 When Byron brought out his Robinson Crusoe, he 
 had a little difficult}' with one of the lad\' artistes, 
 Miss Sophia Larkin, because the latter had a part 
 assigned to her (that of the mariner of York himself) 
 which required her investiture in tights, and the fair 
 performer was not too slight in figure. There was 
 some fun over the matter at the time, but Miss 
 Larkin j)iill(;d through — the tights and the part. 
 The author was immensely tickled, however, when 
 his bu.xom Crusoe pr(*sent(!d herself for approval. 
 
 The remarkable gauehei'ies about per.sons who
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 143 
 
 were till yesterday, so to speak, among us, only 
 become amusing from their preposterous character. 
 The son of a publisher in Fleet Street, who had 
 something to do with Byron's literary productions, 
 when I asked him whether he had not frequently 
 seen him at his father's place of business, promptly 
 replied : ' Yes ; he wrote the School fo)' Scandal.' 
 
 One of the last sayings recorded of him was when 
 Hollino-shead and one or two others were with him 
 
 o 
 
 at the last, and John Colman the actor asked him 
 if he was not the first Hamlet he ever saw. ' No,' 
 replied Byron, leaning on his arm in bed, ' you 
 mistook me, John ; I said you were the zvorst.^ 
 
 I used now and then to venture at Byron's table 
 to edge in something of my own. When the 
 advertisements of a now wellnigh forgotten public 
 character were placarded everywhere in the London 
 thoroughfares, I remarked that those were the Woodiu 
 walls of old England. Woodin was for some time 
 the rage. He was to be seen at the Hall in King 
 William Street, Strand, where the Christy Minstrels 
 once performed, and where loole's Theatre now 
 stands. 
 
 Neighbours of the Byrons — that is, of H. J. 
 Byron's parents — in the region bordering on Sloane 
 Square, and equally a family which my father knew
 
 1 44 FOLK I'll G his ERA J ION 
 
 throuoh his association with th(! press, were the 
 
 McCahes. They were Irish folks and Romanists. 
 
 .nul had Hterary evenings, .ii which my father was 
 
 occasionall)- present. 1 le would sa\ that if he got 
 
 McCabe on a theological jjoint, and fancied that he 
 
 had him in a corner, his opponent would always slip 
 
 somehow between his legs. lie used to speak of 
 
 this L>entleman as Falhcr McCabc or as the Patriarch 
 
 of Pinilico. Many years after McCabe's retirement 
 
 to Ireland, he wrote to me personally to solicit mv 
 
 aid in obtaining a publisher for a monograph which 
 
 he had written on the Romano- British T^mperor 
 
 Carausius '\\\(i work was scholarly enough, but 
 
 the topic was not judged to be saleable. 
 
 Two names intimately identified with our P)romp- 
 ton, and indeed Chelsea, life are those of 
 Blanchard and Keymer, families connected by 
 marriage. I ha\e. I find, mentioned both else- 
 where.* and incidental!) 1 refer in these pages to 
 HIanchard and his daughter, wife of Blanchard 
 Jerrold. Keymer lived at Kennington, opposite 
 the Common, and subsequenth' at Peckham R\e, 
 and under his hospitable root assembled Kenny 
 Meadows, James Hannay, F, G. Stephens, whom 
 1 so vividly remember in his studio at Lupus 
 
 * Letters of Charles Lainb^ i886, ii. 290, 433.
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 145 
 
 Street, Pimlico, and many other literary men and 
 artists. 
 
 Our host's eldest daughter is best known as the 
 late Mrs. Charles Heaton, and as Editor of Cunning- 
 ham's Lives of the Painters. 
 
 Meadows was a desperate stay-maker. He liked 
 his glass perhaps a little too well, and he had no 
 notion of hours. The Keymers often went to bed, 
 and left their Q-uest to finish the bottle and find his 
 way out. Meadows w^as a fair designer, but had a 
 very poor idea of drawing. 
 
 There are many who look upon Rowland's 
 Odonto and Macassar Oil as mere trade terms, but 
 Rowland and his wife lived somewhere about Forest 
 Hill, and were, at any rate, acquainted with the 
 Keymers. He was a small man and she a large 
 lady. One night there was an alarm of thieves, and 
 the two got out of bed and proceeded downstairs to 
 reconnoitre, she leading the way, and little Rowland 
 bringing up the rear with the hem of her night-dress 
 in his hand. So the scene was described to me at 
 the time, and it must have been one calculated to 
 disconcert the apprehended invaders. 
 
 One of Charles Lamb's latest contributions to a 
 particular class of literature was written in Keymer's 
 album. 
 
 VOL. II. 29
 
 146 FOURTH GENERA HON OF A LFIERARY FAMILY 
 
 At that time, what a ncii^hhoiirhood it was ! All 
 the environs were rural ; ihey had not been 
 sociaHzed ; Dulwich Wood had not been desecrated. 
 Halliwell-Phillipps lived at Brixton Rise, Ruskin 
 at Denmark Hill. City merchants chose these 
 southern suburbs for their residences, as they had 
 the northern a veneration earlier.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The old actors at Brompton — John Reeve — Listen — TheKeeleys 
 — Mrs. Chatterton — Some account of Mr. and Mrs. Keeley — 
 The Farrens — Characters played by old Mr. Farren — Contre- 
 temps at a dinner-party at Thurloe Place — Durrant Cooper, 
 F.S.A. — His canards — One about the Queen and Prince 
 Albert — William Farren the younger — Sir Henry Irving — 
 Webster and Harley — Anecdotes of both — Buckstone — As an 
 actor — The short-petticoat movement — Madame Vestris and 
 Miss Priscilla Horton — Menken's Mazeppa — Mrs. Fitzwilliam 
 — The Spanish Dancers — Behind the scenes at Jerrold's 
 benefit — Charles Mathews and his second wife — Edward 
 Wright — Paul Bedford — The Adelphi melodrama — The more 
 modern pantomime — A daily incident at Old Brompton — 
 The French Plays and Ethiopian Serenaders at the St. James's 
 — The Kenneys — The Baron de Merger — His father and 
 Napoleon I. — My visit to the Chateau of Plessis-Barbe, 
 near Tours — De Merger and the Third Empire — My first 
 acquaintance with the illustrated French literature — Dumas — 
 Henri Miirger's Scenes de la Vie Bohhns — Compared with 
 Du Maurier's Trilby — Saxe Bannister — His Life of Paterson, 
 founder of the Bank of England — Mrs. Astor at Old Bromp- 
 ton —Her relationship to the Reynells — John Jacob Astor — 
 Origin of his fortune. 
 
 Among the actors who formerly made Old Brompton 
 their home from its rural attractions, which recom- 
 anended it to them, or otherwise, was John Reeve,
 
 148 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 who li\c(l in !)nHnpt()ii l\n\v. and whom a lew still 
 siir\i\inL:' nia\- rtjnu-nibcr at ihc Adt-Iuhi in ihc 
 Coif/niissaria/ : l,islon, who had one of the smaller 
 houses, afterward for vcars in Chanc('r\-, in St. 
 George's Terrace, opposite Hyde Park ; Mr. and 
 Mrs. Keele\'. the Ikickstones. the harrens, Mathews 
 the xoun^er. who had a jdacc in large grounds in 
 Gore Lane, and Edward Wright. Reeve, who 
 died in 1838. lies in l^romj^ton churchyard. I have 
 noted ab(jve the connection of Mrs. Chatterton with 
 Brompton S(|uare after her marriage to Place, the 
 literarv tailor. 
 
 The Harl of Carlisle, whose name is associated 
 with the Russell. Grev. and Minto set. is said to 
 have resembled Liston : they were both remarkable 
 for their plainness. 
 
 The Keeleys were familiar figures in Brompton 
 in mv boyhood, and .Mrs. Keeley still survives. 
 The last time 1 met them was in I)rompton Row, 
 and my impression was that they were even then — 
 it is fift) years ago — pretty old. I5ut young people 
 have that sort r)f notion about their seniors, where 
 the difference is sometimes not so very considerable. 
 This distinguished couple belonged to an epoch 
 which can never return or be so much as realized 
 by those who did not form part of it either
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 149. 
 
 personally or by direct tradition. Such as had the 
 privilege of intimacy with Keeley or his wife might 
 listen to their account of the stage as they found 
 it — as it was ivken Hazlitt ivi^ote. What have we 
 now but a shrunk volume of capacity spread over 
 an infinitely ampler superficies ? 
 
 I have I personally known three generations of 
 Farren. The original William Farren lived, when 
 I first remember him, in Brompton Square. He 
 was a man of the most gentlemanly appearance and 
 address, and his wife was a handsome and showy 
 woman. My father, when he lived at Thurloe 
 Place, got into trouble by asking some rather 
 starchy people to meet them at dinner. Farren 
 excelled in old men's parts. I saw him in Grand- 
 father Whitehead, the character he was playing at 
 the Strand when he was seized with a fit. 
 
 His son Henry, who died young, took the same 
 sort of business, when he was hardly more than 
 twenty. His other son William, who cut a sorry 
 figure when he first came on the boards, became 
 eventually a finished and delightful artist. 
 
 My uncle Reynell told mc that the elder Farren 
 was considered very fine as Ur. Primrose in the 
 Vicar of Wakejield. 
 
 It was Durrant Cooper, the Sussex antiquary,
 
 I50 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 aiul his amial)I(' sister, who met the I'arnMis on 
 tht! occasion jusl alhidccl to, and the lormcr was 
 scandalized at ha\in;.^ to sit down at tal)Ie. or at 
 his sister having to do so, with — -well, it was 
 a case, as rumour went, of Bonaparte and Josephine, 
 according to Talleyrand's mot, over again, and per- 
 haps with no better foundation. Farren and his 
 wife were a remarkably majestic couple. It is more 
 than fifty years since, ) et I retain their appearance 
 distinctly. Child as I was, I thought the Coopers 
 too squeamish ; perhaps it was because my })arents 
 did so. 
 
 Cooper had been solicit(jr to the l\ef(jrm Club, 
 but proved too porous. He was a lamentable 
 chatterbox, and some of his caz/an/s were excruci- 
 ating, but a thoroughly good-hearted fellow and an 
 excellent local archa:ologist. One of Cooper's tales 
 for the Marines was about the late Prince Consort. 
 He made out that the Queen, when Her Majesty 
 found her husband stopi)ing out late rather frequently, 
 put her royal foot dcnvn, and declared that she would 
 not permit him t(^ go so often to that Mr. Cooper's 
 in Bloomsburw 
 
 William I-'arren the \ ounger, as we used to call 
 him. succeeded in keeping or recovering some of 
 the property left by his father, and latterl)- j)er-
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 151 
 
 formed only very occasionally, or for benefits. He 
 formed a plan one autumn for revisiting Italy, when 
 an offer or proposal arrived from one of the theatres, 
 inviting him to take his favourite part in Holcroft's 
 Road to Ruin. He wrote back, asking, as his 
 daughter told me, exorbitant terms, in the hope 
 that the manager might decline, and he might go 
 abroad. But I believe that he was disappointed. 
 
 Farren resembled, in the extraordinary change 
 which occurred in the public estimation of his power 
 and value as an actor, a second distino^uished 
 theatrical character of our time, Sir Henry Irving, 
 than whom any one more desperately hopeless at 
 the outset probably never trod the stage. But the 
 comparison ends with the broad circumstances ; for 
 Farren has risen to his present position by un- 
 assisted ability and genius, while Irving seems to 
 have owed his triumph to collateral auspices and the 
 happy (not new) idea of making his pieces spectacu- 
 larly attractive and accurate — accurate, so far as his 
 knowledge permits. Sir H. Irving does not seem 
 to be very well advised in his presentments, which 
 are, of course, useful to make out any shortcomings 
 in strict dramatic art. The popular ideas, or want 
 of ideas, on certain theatrical subjects may answer 
 for a Covent Garden or Drury Lane pantomime ;
 
 i;2 
 
 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 but when a iiKinat^cr aspires t() classical pro[)ricty, 
 \\c expect soiiielhing rather better. 
 
 Henjamin W'el^stc-r and John I birley were both 
 inhabitants of liell and I lorns Lane. The former 
 had a house in that portion which was demolished 
 to widen tlie thoroughfare opposite the Kensington 
 Musetim. Harle\- lived in one lower down on the 
 same side of the way, facing the site of rhurlt)e 
 Square. \\v had (juitted the stage before my time, 
 but 1 recollect Webster both at the Adelplii and 
 Haymarket. He was in his true element in melo- 
 drama, and might have done infinitely better if he 
 had never deserted his old quarters in the Strand. 
 I retain in mv mind a tri\ial incident about Harlev, 
 which must l)e half a centurv old. Some street 
 musicians played before his house, to his infinite 
 annoyance, and when thc\ asked the servant for a 
 doHccin\ Harley desired to see them pcrsonallv. 
 They w-ere not pleased when he. in response to 
 their appeal, explained his idea that they had come 
 to apologize. 
 
 When Webster brought out Moulc Crista at the 
 Adelphi, it was thought, as his daughter had married 
 Mr. Kdward Levi, son of the proprietor of the 
 Daily Telegraph, that a good lift might be fairl\- 
 looked for in that (juarter. Sala was sent to notices
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 153 
 
 It, and the critique was anxiously expected. The 
 next mornina: a most elaborate and characteristic 
 account of Dumas, ph'c el fils, their various works, 
 their careers, and so forth, running to two or three 
 columns, appeared in the Te'egraph. and at the very 
 end there was a casual announcement that Mr. 
 Webster had recently produced a drama on the 
 romance of JMoiitc Crisio. 
 
 Webster was a liberal, kind-hearted man. When 
 Dion Boucicault was once on the eve of starting 
 for America, he went to him, and asked him to 
 advance him ;^ioo on a manuscript ]^lay he brought 
 with him. Webster did so, and did not discover, 
 till his o^ood friend had gone, that onlv the title-leaf 
 was filled in. 
 
 This reminds me once more of Byron, who. being 
 A^ery behindhand with some piece he had undertaken 
 to write for one of the theatres, was waited on by the 
 lessee. The latter complaining of delay, H. J. B. 
 assured him that he had begun the production, and 
 shewed him a sheet of paper on which was written 
 Acf /., Scene 1. 
 
 Webster died poor, yet it used to be averred that 
 at more than one period of his career he might have 
 retired with an ample fortune. 
 
 In a note from Buckstone to my father he men-
 
 ^54 FOURIII GENERATION 
 
 tions tlu' trni/s>i/ IlcniiH as a j)iec(' which the 
 latter hael r(:n)innu:nd'.:cl It) his iiuticc. 1 he title is 
 suggestive of the (^)I)iiro- or the Siirre\', or cvcmi of 
 the ineridian of" .Shor(^clitch. It was beyond dou!)t 
 ahundantl) sensational and sanguinary — perhaps 
 rather i(^o much so tor the Theatre; Roval, Hav- 
 market. 
 
 It must ha\e struck many besides myself that the 
 parts in which iUickstonc- appeared were mere noiiis 
 dc theatre. His acting was essentially personal. 
 He performed under a \ariety of designations, but 
 it was always liuckstone under an alias : the same 
 voice, the same gestures, the same mannerism. He 
 never threw himself into a part, or realized to the 
 spectators an\ character but his own ; and if he is 
 remembered as having excelled in anything. I take 
 it to be the case that it was a creation which fairly 
 suited his style, and in which h(! could not perpe- 
 trate any serious imj)ropriety. 
 
 The short-skirt mo\'ement in the ballet and ex- 
 travaganza undci- the aus[;Ices of \'estris at the 
 Lyceum, and during Buckstone's management at the 
 Haymarket in Miss Priscilla Horton's palm)' days, 
 made considerable progress just before the period 
 when the burlesque came so much into vogue, with 
 its supremel) offensive and silly impersonations of
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 155 
 
 female characters by men. The abridged petticoats 
 of the ladies proceeded, no doubt, to an intolerable 
 pitch ; and they tried, as Byron said, to outstrip 
 one another. Speaking" of Menken, he remarked 
 that her costume began too late, and ended too 
 soon, and with more particular reference to his 
 Mazeppa, he calculated her toilet in the first act 
 at thousands, and in the third, where she is lashed 
 to the wild steed of the desert, at 4|d. 
 
 The Spanish Dancers also made their debut at 
 the Haymarket about forty years since, and I, as a 
 mere spectator, was very agreeably impressed by 
 their graceful and restrained action, shewing the 
 compatibility of this class of art with decorum. 
 
 Buckstone was very deaf, and his son, who lived 
 under the same roof with him in Brompton Square, 
 inherited the infirmitv. Such as were familiar with 
 the men will appreciate the oddity of the two Buck- 
 stones conversing and shouting at each other, each 
 in turn with his hand to his ear to catch what the 
 other said. The younger Buckstone had at one 
 time an engagement under his father at the Hay- 
 market. 
 
 I was once taken by my father to Richmond 
 Lodge, Putney, where Mrs. Fitzwilliam lived under 
 Buckstone's protection. It was a low-pitched
 
 156 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 buiiLj^alow house, Kihl; Ii.uk from ihc road, just 
 before \()U came to the .Irai) J>oy : it has now Im-cii 
 piillci,! (low II lo make room lor a row ol modem 
 buildings of ihe common stereotyped character. 
 
 The verv first time 1 was behind the scenes at 
 any theatre was at the ])erformance for Jerrold's 
 benefit at the Olympic, when I saw Mrs. Fitz- 
 william and Madame \ estris. I went behind once 
 or twice during- Byrons management of the Prince 
 of Wales's ; but 1 found the practice rather dis- 
 illusionizinof. There was, of course, a wonderful 
 contrast between what Madame X'estris had been, 
 and what she l^ecame in old a_i(e. Byron went to 
 see her toward the last at the house called Holcnjfts 
 at b ulham, and f(Aind her darning Charles Mathews's 
 stockings. 
 
 They were both mournfully extravagant creatures, 
 iuul had run through a fortune — or two. The 
 second .Mrs. Mathews, whom I met at Doughty 
 Street, tried hard t< > induce her husband to economize. 
 The verv last time I saw him was in Sotheran's 
 shop in the Strand. He was as jaunty as could be, 
 w ith his cigar in his mouth and the old gay swagger ; 
 it cannot have been Ioiilt before his death. 
 
 A near neighbcjur (jI ni\ uncle Reynell, while he 
 was in Bnjmjjlon \'ale, was Edward Wright, the
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 157 
 
 eminent Adelphi comedian, whose name used to be 
 so much coupled with that of Paul Bedford. The 
 Wrights and Reynells became very intimate, and 
 the friendship even survived the lifetinie of Wright 
 himself. He afterward removed to Merton Villa 
 at Chelsea, and I have often seen him standing at 
 the corner, in the King's Road, waiting for the 
 omnibus. During a length of years he was para- 
 mount at the Adelphi, and excelleci in farce and 
 melodrama. Bedford and he generally played to- 
 gether, and Wright saved money, which partly dis- 
 appeared in bricks and mortar (his besetting sin) 
 and partly through legal channels. 
 
 Wright belonged to the school of Liston, Robson, 
 Toole, and Buckstone, but was unlike them all. He 
 was a genuine personality, and could hold the 
 Adelphi audience in the hollow of his hand, so to 
 speak. He had only to shew half his droll face, 
 and the house was convulsed. Bedford and he, 
 Celeste and Webster, went far to make the Adelphi 
 what it was in the days of the U'^j-cck Ashore and 
 the Green Bushes. 
 
 Wallack is not much remembered by the play- 
 goers of our day ; but in the once favourite melo- 
 drama of Don C(^sar de Bazau, when he supported 
 the chief part, he was thought unsurpassed. I have
 
 158 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 seen him more than once al ihc Haymarket in that 
 ])icce, and \i\i(ll\' retain ihc son*^, acconij^anic-tl by 
 the guitar, whcrt.' the disguised brigand reveals him- 
 self to the terrified hi TMine. 
 
 They at present ])r<)duce pantomimes year by year 
 at the h()US(.'S with names which are little more than 
 clothes-pegs. /^uss in Hoots. Cinderella, Aladdin, 
 Jxobinson Ciiisoe, . /// Habiu cire mere noms de gueri'e. 
 There is scarcely any of the true comic element 
 left ; they are pieces of spectacular incongruity, 
 setting at defiance all known or accepted facts. 
 l^)Ut these meretricious shows seem to appeal suc- 
 cessfully to uncritical sightseers. The earliest thing 
 of the kind I can call to mind was at Covent Garden. 
 It was Robinson Crusoe, where the curtain rose to 
 a view of the ship, occupying the whole of the stage, 
 and the hero the only person seen. The serious 
 piece of the evening was l)alfe's Bohemian Girl. 
 
 Manv of these theatrical celebrities were, we thus 
 see, associated with Old ])rompton, Kensington, or 
 Chelsea, and it was an e\c;rv-dav occurrcMice to meet 
 some of them walkinLi' to town in the forenoon <jn 
 their way to rehearsal, oi- in the sixpenny omnibus 
 proceeding to the business of the evening. Penny 
 fares and morning performances were yet to come. 
 I am also speaking of a period when theatres
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 159 
 
 were few, and when Sadler's Wells was very little 
 frequented by West-Enders, while the Theatre 
 Royal, Shoreditch, might have as well been in 
 Tasmania. But the Adelphi, Surrey, and Astley's 
 were great houses for certain specialities. 
 
 I accompanied my father as a boy to see at 
 St. James's Theatre two very dissimilar entertain- 
 ments, the French Plays, where Lablache, Lemaitre, 
 Achard, Cartigny, and other artists, made their first 
 appearance before a London audience, and the 
 Ethiopian Scrcnaders, the prototype of Christy s 
 Minstrels. 
 
 Comparatively limited, however, as the theatres 
 
 were in number, some of them were often let, 
 
 faute de miezix, for conjuring" and other miscellaneous 
 
 purposes. M. Philippe, at the St. James's, was the 
 
 first conjurer I ever saw. 
 
 When we were in Brompton, either at Alfred 
 or Prospect Place, the Kenneys lived in South 
 Street, Alexander Square. The name and fame 
 of Kenney are at the present moment chiefly 
 identified with his Sivcethearts and Wives. He 
 had married the widow of Holcroft, and was a 
 dramatist almost jure uxoris. When I saw him 
 he was sadlv afflicted, and the household was 
 broken up by his death. All the members of the
 
 i6o FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 family, inclucling Mrs. Kcnney, were dcliglufiil 
 associates, and acconiplishc;d iikmi and women. 
 
 James, the eldest son. was in the; Post-Office, 
 and was a short, dark man. \ery pleasant and 
 full of anecdote, like his mother, but strancreh" 
 choleric. He had hjdgings in an upper story 
 in the Strand at one time, and ovvino- to some 
 squabble over the tea-table threw a quartern loaf 
 out of the window on to the hat of a passer-by. 
 His vouuL^er brother, Charles, was a mercurial, 
 hilarious fellow, who carried the garcon into middle 
 life. He used to prei)are librettos for the operas, 
 and pretty indifferent the) were. 
 
 All the Kenneys shone in a particular sort of 
 conversation ; they had mixed in very good society, 
 and in their comj^any there was very slight risk 
 of not being entertained. 1 hey were all rather 
 prone to hyperbole, and the odd part was that 
 each would put you on your guard as to the 
 propensity of the rest in this direction. 
 
 One of Mrs. Kenneys daughters by Holcroft 
 married thf; Haron de Merger, of Plessis Barbe, 
 near Tours, and her brother was settled at Tours 
 itself as a civil engineer. I spent some time at 
 the Mergers' in 1855 or thereabout, and I laid the 
 opening scene of the ballad of the Baron' s Daughter
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY i6i 
 
 at the point where the bridge spans the Loire 
 by the city. 
 
 De Merger's father had been in the service of 
 the great Napoleon, and had been invited by him 
 to become one of his aides-de-camp, but he decHned. 
 His son used to tell me how the Emperor never 
 met the elder Merger without saying to him : ' Ah, 
 M. Merger, why would you not become my aide- 
 de-camp ?' 
 
 My host spoke very fair English. I suppose 
 that it was hot, thirsty weather when I was at 
 the chateau, but I have in my remembrance the 
 Baron's disinterested counsel to me on sanitary 
 grounds never to swallow down too much claret, 
 but to moisten the lips and throat with it. I had 
 contracted the tertian ague during a previous visit 
 to the Netherlands, and had a recurrence of it 
 here. De Merger cured me with a tasteless coffee- 
 coloured tisane, in which the leadinQ- inofredient was 
 the inner bark of the elm. 
 
 De Merger was in politics a Rouge, and belonged 
 to a very advanced political club at Tours, to which 
 he took me one evening, and where I was some- 
 what uneasy, lest the police should pay us a visit. 
 It was the dawn of the Third Empire. In fact, 
 he himself was rather alarmed one day when a 
 
 VOL. 11. 30
 
 1 62 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 small detachmcnl uf cavalry gallopccl over the 
 bridge of the moat, and drew up in front of the 
 house. He imagined that the soldiers might ha\-e 
 instructions to arrest him as a malcontent. It turned 
 out, however, that they had merely come to solicit 
 a boii'c. 
 
 It was while I was in the South of France that 
 I first made an acquaintance with the illustrated 
 French literature of the Dumas type and period. 
 It was early in the fifties. Perhaps the most 
 interesting and remarkable books were Monte 
 Cristo and Henri ^\\xrg'tx's Scenes de la Vie Bohhue, 
 1 85 1, the former, of course, still well remembered, 
 but Miirger's admirable book only a few years ago 
 made familiar to the modern English reader in a 
 translation issued by the late Henry Vizetelly. 
 
 The nearest approach to it that we have is Mr. 
 Du r^Iaurier's Trilby, where his own student life 
 and that of some of his friends are evidently 
 portrayed. I think that I could fill in the names. 
 Trilby herself is an idealized model, and the English 
 writer's altogether appears to be a translation — and 
 not a very good one — of the French 'ensemble,' 
 the expression used when a woman poses for the 
 whole fio'ure. 
 
 A daughter of Mrs. Kenney by her final husband
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 163 
 
 married rather late in life Cox, proprietor of the 
 British Gallery in Pall Mall. This person was 
 very intimate with Joseph Gillott, the Birmingham 
 pen-manufacturer, whose collection of paintings he 
 assisted to form. I believe thdX Joe, as Cox called 
 him, was largely instrumental in building up the 
 other's fortune. The contents of the British Gallery 
 were estimated by the owner at ^100,000 ; but 
 when a day of adversity arrived, and the property 
 was sold, the public modified these figures to a 
 very serious extent. 
 
 There was another household of which we saw 
 some little about this time — that of Mr. Saxe 
 Bannister, who wrote the Life of Paterson, founder 
 of the Bank of England. Bannister had been 
 Attorney-General in one of our colonies, and was 
 a man with a grievance which, with Paterson and 
 teetotalism, absorbed his whole thought and con- 
 versation, and constituted, I believe, no inconsider- 
 able part of his estate. It was Paterson who 
 originated the Council of Trade and Plantations, 
 the prototype of the Board of Agriculture, which 
 Arthur Young, its other promoter, not improbably 
 conceived to be a novelty in our administrative 
 system. 
 
 I may also mention the widow of Astor, of the
 
 i64 FOURTH GENERATION OF A LFIERARY FAMILY 
 
 Tottenham Court Road, llic i)ianolortc-niakcr. Slic 
 lived, I ha\(' heard, in Brompton Crescent. One 
 of her daun;-hters was the second wife of Mr, George 
 Reynell, nn maternal great-uncle. The American 
 millionaire, John Jacc^b Astor, was a younger 
 brother of this one, who fitted him out when he 
 went to America to make, not seek, his fortune, 
 which was largely due to successful investments 
 in land in or near New York. Of this his sister- 
 in-law assured ^\x. Reynell. when he once called 
 on her at Brompton. John Jacob Astor used to 
 send his nephews and nieces in England every 
 year handsome presents. Considering his vast 
 wealth, they were poor. Mrs. George Reynell 
 had only about ;^300 a year of private income.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Kensington — A relic of St. Mary Abbot's — Norland House and its 
 spring — Former solitariness of the neighbourhood — General 
 Fox — Carl Engel — The Bowmans — Fulham — Walham Green 
 and the vicinity — Primaeval forest — State of the roads between 
 
 Fulham and the adjacent places — C Cottage — Captain 
 
 Webb, the highwayman — Specimens of our causeries at C 
 
 Cottage — Anecdotes related by both of us of our professional 
 and other acquaintances — Lock — Sir Matthew Thompson — 
 Brunei — Cockburn — George and Robert Stephenson — 
 Thomas Brassey — Lord Grimthorpe — -Some of my tales. 
 
 Mv walks when I lived at Kensington (1862 to 1S81) 
 as a householder on my own account, extended over 
 the whole region within a dozen miles or so, and 
 of course took in places in the immediate vicinity. 
 It may be worth noting, in reference to St. Mary 
 Abbot's, of which the grounds once probably ex- 
 tended to Addison Road, that during my residence 
 in the immediate neio-hbourhood an ancient silver 
 crucifix was dug up in one of the gardens on the 
 eastern side of the road ; the relic was by possi- 
 bility the property of one of the members of the 
 Abbey.
 
 1 66 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 One of the earliest attempts to build on the hig-h- 
 road to Uxbridge was on the site of Norland House, 
 fur many years occupied by the Urummonds. It 
 was a \-erv larcrc structure, standing- back from the 
 thoroughfare, and was celebrated for a sprint', called 
 the Norland Spring, within the walls. This still 
 exists in a house in Norland Terrace. But at the 
 time that the original mansion stood, the whole 
 neighbourhood was perfectly countrified, and very 
 desolate. There were only a few dwellings dotted 
 here and there. The builder had not entered upon 
 the ground. No one had dreamed of Addison 
 Road and its siuToundings. My uncle Reynell 
 recollected the spot when there was scarcely a house 
 there. I remember it a pri\'ate thoroughfare with a 
 bar at the northern extremity, and not a break or 
 turning from end to end. General Charles F"ox, 
 brother of Lord Holland, lived in a house on the 
 Uxbridge Road in large grounds taken out of 
 Holland Park. He had married Lady Mary Fitz- 
 clarence, one of the daughters of William IV. by 
 Mrs. Jordan ; and he was a noted coin-collector, 
 particularly of the Greek series. After his death 
 his cabinet was sold to the German Government 
 for ^23,000. Fox was a familiar figure in Addison 
 Road about i860.
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 167 
 
 Next door to us at Addison Road lived Carl 
 Engel, the eminent musical antiquary and expert. 
 He had married a sister of the late Sir William 
 Bowman the oculist. Bowman's daughter was a 
 somewhat studious maiden, and I used to see her 
 occasionally at Engel's. I remember that she spoke 
 to me of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales as a book of 
 which she had heard, and which she would like to 
 read. I lent it to her without reflection, and it was 
 returned to me with compliments and many thanks 
 too soon to admit the possibility of the girl having 
 read it. She had shown it to mamma. What 
 would Chaucer have thouoht of the works of fiction 
 which were not, I presume, judged unfit for Miss 
 Bowman's perusal, and which were either vapid or 
 meretricious? Her brother, whom I also saw at 
 Engel's, the latter always alluded to as ' the good 
 bo-oy ' — the present Sir Paget Bowman, I appre- 
 hend. After his first wife's death Eno^el eng^ao^ed 
 himself to a second lady, but on the eve of the 
 marriage hanged himself in a bedroom cupboard. 
 
 Fulham, like Brompton, was a quiet country 
 hamlet, apportioned between labourers' cottages ; 
 mansions of long standing and historical interest, 
 such as Moore Park and Fulham Park (both oblite- 
 rated), and Holcrofts, where Charles Mathews
 
 i68 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 latterly resided — of course in style (also a thing 
 of the [)ast) ; wide acres of arable and pasture; 
 the \illaoe itself; and the old-fashioned mcxited 
 Palace, where the vernal glor\- of the scene on an 
 April day is worth the whole episcopal bench. 
 
 Walham and Parson's Greens, again, and Eel- 
 brook Common, mark the site of an extensive 
 primeval forest of which the vestiges were dis- 
 covered in forming the line of railway from Earl's 
 Court, and which was long sparingly covered with 
 building's. This forest doubtless stretched from 
 the river-banks over the whole adjacent country ; 
 the subsoil below the alluvial formation was de- 
 scribed to me as resembling black soap ; and its 
 effect on vegetation was electrical. 
 
 What a retrospect the imagination fills up behind 
 one of the sluggish rivulet meandering through the 
 dark unbroken wold to the Thames, and of Master 
 Piers of Fulham, that an(j:ler ag^es before Walton, 
 and Master Geoffrey Chaucer enjoying together a 
 spring morning's fishing or fowling, where now 
 
 The greater portion of the comnion at Walham 
 Green has been ruthlessly absorbed ; the erection of 
 a church was, as usual, the first act of spoliation. 
 
 It may be taken for granted that all the by-paths 
 and lanes connecting Fulham with Hammersmith
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 169 
 
 and Kensington were, half a century since, alike 
 lonely and insecure. The roads on the outskirts in 
 this as in other directions were infested by high- 
 waymen of various pretensions. In old C 
 
 Cottage, opposite the Bishop's Palace, while it re- 
 mained what its name imports, lived during some 
 time a Captain Webb, whose business called him 
 away after dusk. He used to saddle his horse 
 every evening, and sally forth in quest of booty. 
 He was of the race of Turpin and Macheath. He 
 haunted doubtless some locality at a measurable 
 distance from his headquarters. There was an 
 ample choice : Putney and Wimbledon, Hounslow 
 and Bagshot, and much of the route between these 
 points and home. 
 
 The evenings at C Cottage, P'ulham — not 
 
 Captain's Webb's, but a gentler entertainer's, who 
 had a share in the promotion of the North- Western, 
 Midland, and other railways — have formed within 
 the last twenty years the opportunity of collecting 
 numerous notices of bygone and forgotten facts 
 about persons and places, with which the owner as 
 my by a long way senior was more or less intimately 
 conversant. He was educated at Burlington House, 
 Fulham, which has been already mentioned. His 
 earliest recollection is being taken on somebody's
 
 I70 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 shoiiltk'r to sec the procession ;it the coronation of 
 George IV. 
 
 M\" triciul met with a cooper in I'ulhani who had 
 
 been Webb's servant at C Cottage as a youth. 
 
 and who nimembered waiting on the company whom 
 his master occasionally invited to dinner. In these 
 cases the party usually broke up about midnight, 
 but, instead of going home, dispersed on their re- 
 spective beats in quest of plunder. It was like; a 
 meet before the hunt. Webb lies in Fulham church- 
 yard. 
 
 The principal market-gardeners and florists in 
 Fulham were Osborn and the Bagleys. The latter 
 had two extensive plots of ground at Sand's End. 
 One of them was a great tomato-grower. Osborn 
 faced Elysium Villas, now meriting that name no 
 longer. 
 
 A. told me that he dined with Lock the engineer 
 the evenins: that the line fn:)m \\auxhall to Waterloo 
 was opened. It cost upwards of ^800,000, on 
 which he understood that Lock took 5 per cent. 
 
 The most expensive piece of work on which he 
 himself was ever engaged was the Wolverhampton 
 and Walsall, the extent being only six and a half 
 miles, and the cost ;^650,ooo. 
 
 He was mentioning on the same occasion that.
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 171 
 
 when he was in full professional swing, if a ;^ic,ooo 
 job had been brought to him, he would have given 
 ^100 to have it taken away again, as these small 
 contracts often involved an actual loss. 
 
 The late Sir Matthew Thompson used to say to 
 him : ' When I am at Guisley, I am the squire ; 
 when I am at Derby, I am chairman of the Midland 
 Railway ; and when I am at Bradford, I am a 
 common brewer.' 
 
 A. said that it was through Brunei asking him 
 to recommend a counsel for a great case which was 
 then impending in Parliament that the late Chief 
 Justice Cockburn obtained his first important brief. 
 Cockburn was then, curiously enough, in the Queen's 
 Bench — not as a judge, but as a debtor for ^150, and 
 Brunei had to 2fet him out before his services were 
 available. 
 
 My friend often saw him after that, and furnished 
 him with technical information, which enabled Cock- 
 burn to surprise witnesses by the amount of know- 
 ledge which he appeared to possess of the luimUice 
 of engineering work. The old judge would call at 
 A.'s office either on his way to the Court or on his 
 return. 
 
 When Cockburn went down to Leicester as a 
 commissioner to inquire into the management of
 
 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 the Corporation, he spciil a ^ood deal ul his lime 
 al iMollier Slack's, and if he was wanted, it was the 
 surest place to tind him. It used U) be alleged that 
 he ilrcw up his report there. In his earlier pro- 
 fessional life a lady (not always the same) was ofl;en 
 to bo obser\ed walking up and down outside West- 
 minster llall waitinir f'>i' the learned ccjunsel. No 
 one probably could have related such a varied series 
 of honncs-f art tines. To the country, which paid 
 him so well for his services, he proved himself grate- 
 ful In' distributing his sinistral representatives of both 
 sexes pretty freely, when there was a berth at his 
 disposal or the conditional holder of one, as the case 
 might be. You tcjok the place perhaps the place 
 and the lady, perhaps. Cockburn was a familiar 
 figure in the thoroughfares which he had to traverse 
 from the Court to his house : a small man, negligent 
 in his attire, and with his neckerchief as frequently 
 as not hind part before. But he was a great lawyer ; 
 some of his successors on the Bench have proved 
 themselves his inferiors in capacity, and his equals, 
 or nearly so, in less desirable respects. 
 
 Cockburn was very grateful to those who had 
 served him in earlx' life. He was, like the present 
 Mr. Justice Hawkins, one of the party which accom- 
 panied A. in his shooting excursions.
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 173 
 
 George Stephenson, even in his time, said that, 
 give him a clear and good road without fishings, 
 and he would make a train run a hundred miles an 
 hour. He had a poor opinion of canals, and declared 
 that they would all become in the end dry ditches. 
 A. observed to me, when I referred to the railway 
 journey between Manchester and Warrington over 
 Chat Moss, that the most striking thing was to 
 stand on the line a quarter of an hour before a 
 train came up, and feel the vibration arise and 
 gradually increase, as if the whole spongy mass had 
 one pulse and one centre of motion. 
 
 It was from Robert Stephenson that my friend 
 acquired the habit of leaving his throat open and 
 not wearing a comforter, which, as Stephenson said, 
 tended to render you susceptible to cold, especially 
 when, as in those days, and in both their cases, you had 
 to travel so constantly at all hours of the day and night. 
 Not long before Thomas Brassey's death, while 
 he was staying at Hastings, he sent for John 
 Stephenson, who had rendered him valuable service 
 in his undertakings as an assistant. When he 
 arrived, the old contractor was very kind in his 
 manner and kept him for some time in conversation ; 
 and when at last he left, Brassey pressed something 
 into his hand. It was a cheque for ^5,000.
 
 174 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 John Flabcll, the conlractor fnjin ihe iilack 
 CouiUr\-, was sclcclcel lo do ihc lunncllini^ on 
 the Brin"htun line, and liad some 350 men under 
 him. These roLi^h fellows rather scandalized the 
 then quiet district, and the local parson beg"ged 
 I'labell to tr\' and keep them in better order. 
 ' And can't you get them to come to church ?' 
 r'labell on the next Saturday pay-day bribed the 
 navvies with a [promise of a pint each if they 
 came to church next day in their best ; and they 
 not only came accordingly, but filled the building 
 before the rest of the congregation arrived. Flabell 
 and his lady were there, too. The other worshippers 
 presented themselves, saw no room, and went away 
 in a fume. Presently a loud tap was heard on 
 one of the windows, and a voice outside shouted : 
 ' Gaffer, gaffer ; can't get in. Doiit forget the 
 pint f 
 
 The printed evidence taken in railway bills before 
 Parliamentary committees occasionally offers rather 
 amusing features, and it is necessarily lilllc known. 
 Lord Grimthorpe as Mr. Peckett-Denison was a 
 very noted figure in these matters and scenes in 
 the old days. His cross-examination of Sir Frederick 
 Pramwell, whose name is so much associated with 
 public business, arbitrations, and so forth, in one
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 175 
 
 instance, when Bramwell opposed the promoters 
 of a new northern line, was inimitable for its 
 dexterity. From posing as a personage of immense 
 practical experience in that class of enterprise, he 
 was by a series of cleverly-marshalled questions 
 whittled down at last to the solitary superintendence 
 of the West Bromwich Gas Works ; and when 
 Beckett - Denison had forced from his adversary 
 this admission, he said to him with exasperating 
 suavity : ' I think, Sir Frederick, we need not 
 detain you any longer.' Of course, I am relating 
 an incident which is now only historical. 
 
 Hawksley the engineer, being under examination 
 in some case by Lord Grimthorpe. w^as very decided 
 in his replies, and Grimthorpe observed to him : 
 ' You appear, Mr. Hawksley, to have formed very 
 definite opinions about most things.' The other 
 assenting, Beckett- Denison added : ' x-\nd pray tell 
 us, are there any points on which you have not 
 arrived at a conclusion ?' ' Why, yes,' returned 
 Hawksley ; ' I can think of three.' ' What are 
 they?' Beckett-Denison inquired. 'Wills, clocks, 
 and bells,' said Hawksley, referring to the other's 
 three failures. Had he lived to the present day, he 
 mio-ht have added to the list. 
 
 A. and myself knew in common the two Kennies
 
 .76 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 — Sir John aiul his l^rother George. The original 
 Rennie died in 1821. He was an eminent book- 
 collector, and his library was sold some years 
 after his death. His son, Sir John, reserved the 
 first and third folios of Shakespear — 1623-63. I 
 have a very lively remembrance of accompanyinf^ 
 the second Rennie (Sir John, not George) to 
 Antwerp when I was a youth, and his impatience 
 to disembark, which nearly led to my immersion 
 in the Scheldt. It was just then thought that 
 I micjht trv my hand at enoineerinof, and I did 
 for ei"ht months. 
 
 Anyone who only knows Antwerp as it is to-day 
 can have a very imperfect idea of what it was when 
 I landed there with Rennie in 1852. 
 
 If I was under no other obligations to the Rennies, 
 I owed to them this — that I planted my foot on 
 that historical ground, that my eye fell on Antwerp, 
 before a thousand gables and a labyrinth of steep, 
 tortuous, dark streets or water-lanes were clean 
 swept away to meet the demands of commerce, 
 more tyrannous than Spaniard or Austrian. 
 
 Before I knew Antwerp well, I asked a Belgian 
 the way one day to the Cathedral. I inquired for 
 la Cathddi'ale. He regarded me with an opaque 
 stare. I repeated the question. He shook his
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 177 
 
 head. Presently a light began to break on his 
 honest countenance, and he lifted a finger signifi- 
 cantly. ' Ah !' he cried, ' Monsieur cherche la 
 Cathe-DRALE !' 
 
 In the Galerie ciit Roi, at Brussels, I was once 
 accosted by a person who spoke good English, and 
 demanded if he could serve me in his capacity as 
 cicerone to one of the places of resort for a certain 
 purpose in the City. He said that his fee was five 
 francs. 'Well,' I answered, 'and do you depend on 
 this employment?' ' No,' said he. 'What do you 
 do, then, in the day .'^' 'Why,' said he, 'I shew 
 gentlemen and ladies over St. Gudule.' This ran 
 on all fours with the female pluralist, who, C. 
 mentioned, in an island not a thousand miles from 
 Southampton was reputed to be the only suspicious 
 character, but who on Sundays acted as pew-opener 
 at her parish church. 
 
 I related to A. a singular little episode which 
 occurred while I was in the Netherlands under the 
 Rennies. I often spent from Saturday to Monday 
 under the hospitable roof of an English friend at 
 Yerseke, a few miles from Bath. We played at 
 whist one Saturday evening, and suddenly a card 
 was missed. We searched for it everywhere in 
 vain till by chance someone descried it stuck fast 
 
 VOL. II. 31
 
 178 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 ill my slipper. No effort or ingenuity of mine 
 could ha\e placed it there. 
 
 Henry Wright, my host, who afcc^rward married 
 a dauo^hter of the second Duke of Wellinoton and 
 became secretary to the Duke of Sutherland, was 
 a low-built man about five-and-twenty, and was 
 extraordinarily supple and agile. I have seen him 
 clear eicfhteen feet on the level with a ver\^ short 
 run, and when we were alone at Yerseke he 
 would in the not very spacious drawing-room go 
 to one end, and spring over the loo-table with a 
 fresh pair of long wax candles in the centre of 
 it without extino^uishinof the liLrhts. 
 
 I used to travel from Bath to Yerseke in a 
 top - heavy antediluvian coach, passing through 
 several villages on the way. In one, on either 
 side of the road, was an avenue of pear-trees, 
 with the ripe fruit hanging from the branches. 
 When I told A. of this, he concurred with me 
 in thinking- that if it had been in Enofland the 
 public would have picked the pears to prove their 
 social and political equality. 
 
 My lodgings at Bath faced the chapel. I re- 
 counted to A. a petty incident which I witnessed 
 one day as I looked out of my window. A small 
 procession, headed by a man and a woman, came
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 179 
 
 up and entered the chapel. I asked my landlady 
 what they were going- to do. To be married. 
 Well, they had lived together twenty years, these 
 two Hollanders, just to see how they suited each 
 other before they passed the probationary stage. 
 
 Among my associates on the polders, which 
 Rennie engaged to enclose and reclaim, were 
 Mr. Winder and Heer Miiller, the last a most 
 gentlemanly and agreeable Hollander, who spoke 
 broken English, with a very pretty and very French 
 wife. I was once with him on the river (that is, 
 the Scheldt) in a boat, and seeing how inveterately 
 he smoked, I naturally asked him whether he was 
 very fond of it. 'Yes,' was his answer, 'for it 
 do make me dink.' At a dinner given by Winder 
 to the Dutch officers of the small garrison at Bath, 
 he, in responding to the toast of his absent wife's 
 health, declared that he loved her better than his 
 life ; but he put life in the wrong gender. The 
 two old women with whom I lodged in this place 
 remembered the visit of Napoleon and Maria 
 Louisa there more than forty years before. 
 
 Siib rosd, I fell in love at Bath (which they pro- 
 nounce Bats), or rather just outside it, with a maiden 
 of the country called Antje Dronkers, whose papa 
 pursued some local industry ; but we were both
 
 1 So FOURTH GENERA TION OF A LITERARY FAMILY 
 
 persons intins lingiKC, and this kept the flame low. 
 I do not recollect any tears. 
 
 l)Ut 1 told A. that I did recollect crying, because 
 I had sent to my father for a little pecuniary aid, 
 my salary being modest, and he had remitted half a 
 crown, which was all he could afford, he wrote. I 
 felt ashamed of myself that I should not have been 
 more thoughtful than to ask for ilie money, and I 
 tried to earn forgiveness some time afterward, when 
 I had saved enough, by purchasing a scent- bottle, 
 which I took to the captain of one of the steam- 
 boats plying between London and Antwerp, and 
 asked him to deliver it to niy DiotJier at Chelsea, 
 which he did. 
 
 I put it to A. whether such reminiscences were 
 not prouder and sweeter than fame or wealth, and 
 he said that he thought so. He was much my 
 senior, but his mother was constantly on his lips. 
 
 A , as a former large employer of labour, appre- 
 ciated my relation of a small experience, when I 
 was last in Rouen. I saw a man saunterino-, as 
 I was, up a street, pipe in mouth, and took him 
 for a fellow-traveller. He turned out to be a 
 Londoner, who had come there in search of zuork, 
 and wanted to know if I could recommend him.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Fulham causeries {cotifmued) — Earnshaw the chronometer-maker 
 — Tom Sayers the pugilist — Watch-house in Marylebone Lane 
 — Glyn the banker — Laura Bell — Skittles — The Leicestershire 
 set — The Bell at Leicester — Captain Haymes — Story of a 
 Bishop at Harrogate — An adventure at York — George Tom- 
 line — Some account of him and his father — The Fasten 
 Letters — Barrington the pickpocket — A curious shop in 
 Seven Dials. 
 
 Of Thomas Earnshaw, the famous chronometer- 
 maker in Bloomsbury (the second of the name), 
 my friend was full of anecdotes. He possesses 
 a chronometer, which Earnshaw gave him. The 
 latter, a small man with a disproportionately large 
 head, and not remarkable for the elegance either 
 of his dress or his diction, was a violent democrat 
 and something of a freethinker. He did not prosper 
 very much with the clerical authorities in his parish. 
 When the collector called for an Easter offering, 
 he feigned a difficulty in comprehending his mean- 
 ing. ' Easter offering } What is that, sir ?' ' Why, 
 Mr. Earnshaw, what they give every year to the
 
 i82 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 rector. It is usual, sir.' ' Is it, sir .^ Well, here is 
 si.xpence to buy a length of rope ftjr his reverence 
 to hani^- himself.' He once took part in a {)olitical 
 open-air meeting in Clerkenwell, and was very- 
 fierce and trenchant in his language before he 
 addressed his audience. When he ascended the 
 platform, he was going to commence, when the 
 superintendent of police pulled him by the skirt 
 of his coat, and whispered to him, as a man whom 
 he knew and humoured : * Mr. Earnshaw, pray 
 come down. If you speak, I must take you.' And 
 Earnshaw melted away among the crowd. 
 
 It must have been very funny when little 
 Earnshaw, having been chosen headborough for 
 his parish, called on the rector-archdeacon and 
 apprised him of his nomination by the votes of 
 his fellow-parishioners ; and, says he, ' I shall be 
 obliged, Mr. Archdeacon, if you will accompany 
 me to explain to me my outdoor duties, as I am 
 in a difficulty about them, and the law prescribes 
 that in such case I shall apply to you, sir.' 
 
 A. is of the Clockmakers' Gild. I told him 
 about the watch which Calvert had mentioned to 
 me (whether truly or not, God knows) as having 
 been made about 1680 for his ancestor Lord 
 Baltimore, proprietor of Maryland, by John Pepys,
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 183 
 
 who, according to my informant, occupied seven 
 months in the work. He offered to shew it to me 
 if I would go up to his house in Camden Town. 
 
 We were speaking of Tom Sayers the pugilist. 
 He was a Staffordshire man, and a bricklayer by 
 trade. Brassey employed him to do some of the 
 two-arched bridge at Rugeley on the North Western. 
 He was a pleasant, civil little fellow, nimble on 
 his feet, and standing about five feet six ; but 
 the muscles of his arms were as hard as iron. 
 
 The old watch-house in Marylebone Lane, from 
 which the Charlies for that district used to turn 
 out every evening to the number of the days in 
 the year, was referred to. No man knew before- 
 hand to what beat he would be ordered, and the 
 practice was to bring the file to a halt, call a 
 name, and give him his round. This checked 
 collusion and bribery. There was a similar insti- 
 tution on Islington Green, at Knightsbridge, and 
 elsewhere. 
 
 Glyn the banker, speaking to A. about the 
 gain to the Bank of England and other similar 
 institutions from the loss of their notes, related 
 a curious instance of the ignorance of seamen in 
 money matters. Before Trafalgar, the crews had 
 been paid in Bank of England notes, the wages
 
 1 84 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 ha\ing accumulated and specie beiiii;' scarce ; and 
 many of them, not havinir the opportunity, j)erhaps, 
 of spendini;" iheir earnings in the free manner 
 usual with the profession, carried them down to 
 Portsmouth, but before embarking took the pre- 
 caution to exchange them for local Bank paper, 
 which, like the Scotchman of former days and 
 his ^i note, they thought better security than 
 that of the National establishment. The Portsea 
 Bank made a good haul over the transaction, as 
 so many of the hoklers of its paper went to the 
 bottom. 
 
 Thistlethwaite, who was a life-tenant of a large 
 property on the Paddington estate, and who 
 married Laura Bell, lived in Grosvenor Square. 
 A singular illustration of the universality of com- 
 missions or tips occurred one day. He had told 
 a man to send him round a horse on ai)proval 
 or inspection, and the animal was duly trotted 
 up and down his side of the square, when 
 
 Captain , of the Guards, happened by the 
 
 merest accident to pass that way. He learned 
 what was going on, and his opinion was asked 
 by T. Pie was loud in his commendations ; but 
 unluckily T. differed and declined, and the Captain 
 in the Guards lost his percentage.
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 185 
 
 It was a singular household. Thistlethwaite and 
 his wife, a very pretty little woman, did not see 
 much company, and did not agree very well. 
 Every evening there was a sort of state dinner 
 at eight, and a costly dessert, and only those two, 
 one at one extremity of a long table, and the 
 other at the other. The latest occasion on which 
 they came before the public was in a sort of petty 
 cause cHebre, which T. won, arising from Laura's 
 extravagance and a huge bill sent in by a West 
 End firm for dress. Before she married, Laura 
 Bell had a house in Wilton Place, where she 
 received her gentlemen friends, like a modern 
 
 Aspasia or Phryne. The late Marquis of 
 
 was a noted figure there, and he often came on 
 his white pony. The pony was carried off one 
 day by a preconcerted arrangemen.t, and was not 
 recovered without a handsome reward. 
 
 Skittles, who was of a similar type to Laura 
 Bell, was at one time in equal vogue, and used 
 to hold a sort of levee at a West End Restaurant. 
 A noble Lord paid her homage in his younger 
 days, if he did not keep her. I have heard that 
 when his lordship told her that he had spent upon 
 her enough to build the Great Eastern, she replied 
 that she had spent upon him enough to float that
 
 1 86 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 ship. But pour Skittles came to grief, and died 
 in very bad circumstances indeed. 
 
 We spoke of the British earthworks so widely 
 spread over England, and sometimes buried in 
 underwood. I had just returned from Elsted in 
 Sussex. Outside the Fitzhall estate there, I told 
 A., I noticed some remains of this sort. They 
 lie unheeded, being so common. I added that, 
 as I was climbing up Trundle Hill by Goodwood 
 with ]\Ir. Piggott, of Fitzhall, he informed me that 
 from the summit one could see almost all the 
 kingdoms of the earth. ' And are you,' I inquired, 
 ' the gentleman who shews them ?' 
 
 I mentioned to A. a trait of the unphilosophical 
 and guileless simplicity of childhood. My son, 
 when he was a very little fellow, was with me 
 in a field in Wales, and we observed a cow gazing 
 at a dog, after the manner of her kind. The boy 
 looked up at me, and .said with a dry gravity : 
 ' Might be its mother.' 
 
 The late Mr. Thomas Miles, land - agent of 
 Keyham, near Leicester, who probably knew more 
 of the concerns of the families for miles round than 
 any individual of his time, used to tell A. that 
 Jones, the parson at A.shby, would have a cloth 
 laid over the drawing - room carpet on Sundays
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 187 
 
 between services, and have a couple of cocks in 
 'to give them wind.' This was about 1830. 
 
 Mr. Miles, who was born at the close of the 
 last century, was one of those rare characters 
 who seem to possess in one sense neither progenitors 
 nor descendants. He left no actual representative 
 to fill his place. In his professional capacity he 
 naturally enjoyed a good deal of the confidence 
 of his clients, but Miles was regarded by all those 
 who employed him as a personal friend. He was 
 the never - failing resource when anyone was in 
 trouble or in straits, and many a delicate piece 
 of business outside his immediate or strict functions 
 it fell to his lot, in the course of a prolonged life, 
 to discharge. 
 
 A remarkably fine Stilton cheese received from 
 Leicester one Christmas (1889-90) led to a con- 
 versation on the subject. Stilton cheese, A. said, 
 had been made at Leicester, Coldnewton, and 
 other places near ever since he remembered. 
 They got their name from the circumstance that 
 their peculiar character was first noticed by the 
 frequenters of the Angel at Stilton, which is some 
 thirty-five miles from Leicester, and they became 
 known as Stilton cheeses. But they were never 
 made there. Of late years, since the practice of
 
 1 88 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 sending the milk ;i\v;iy to London and other great 
 centres set in, they have lost their reputation, 
 and a cheese of the old ty[)e. full of butler, is an 
 absolute rarity. \'()u have, in fact, to get it built 
 expressly for you. 
 
 Amon^- the Leicestershire set in the forties was 
 Captain Haymes, formerly of the Guards, and a 
 Waterloo nian. He lived to be ninety-four, and 
 hunted within six months of his death. He lived 
 at Great Glen, near Leicester, had a select circle 
 of intimates, a good cellar of port, and a knife 
 and fork for any of the set at three p.m. — the 
 then usual hour for dinner in the middle classes 
 both in town and country. Haymes and his guests 
 drank water with their dinner, and port after, and 
 each man had his bin and his bottle. The butler 
 knew everybody's taste. Haymes deprecated too 
 much talk over the wine. He would say, if there 
 was a tendency to conversation in excess of what 
 he judged desirable : ' Gentlemen, I hope you like 
 your wine ? Drink it, then. Don't talk, or you'll 
 get drunk.' 
 
 But Hanbur)- the brewer used to hold that no 
 man should be pronounced drunk if he could lie 
 in bed without being held there. 
 
 Haymes and Mrs. Packe- Reading owned between
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 189 
 
 them nearly the whole of the parish. The latter 
 conceived the notion of establishino- schools for the 
 children, and sent Mr. Miles to Havmes to invite 
 him to join her. 'What!' said the Waterloo man, 
 'schools — education! Damn education! There 
 was my old soldier who could neither read nor 
 write, and he attended to his business as my 
 body - servant. Now I have a fellow who is a 
 scholar forsooth ; why, he spends most of his time 
 in reading the paper and my letters.' 
 
 Miss Reading, who married Charles William 
 Packe, M.P. for the southern division of Lincoln- 
 shire, kept her maiden name. Her husband took 
 the property with the proviso that there should 
 be no jointures or dowers made ; and as she had 
 a separate estate, it was arranged in that way. 
 
 Michael Bass the brewer told Packe that when 
 the Bank holiday had been instituted, the first 
 year's brewings of his firm alone increased by 
 ^90,000, and had never receded. 
 
 Leicester itself in the early times was, as we 
 all know, an important coaching and hunting centre, 
 and I believe that the Bell was one of the leadino- 
 
 O 
 
 houses. A. remembered it before the place had 
 declined through the railways. Yet I stayed there 
 with him a few years since only on our way from
 
 i^o FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 Harrogate, and wc found a capital cellar of port — 
 or the remains of one, at least — left by Boyer the 
 landlord, who had been c/icf c\t Badminton. They 
 let us have an excellent bottle of '47 for los., 
 which in London would have cost a guinea or 
 more. This is a class of possibility which shrinks 
 dav bv dav. 
 
 Speaking of Harrogate, there was a Bishop at 
 one of the hotels. His lordship desired to insert 
 his address on a letter, and was dubious on a 
 point of orthography. ' Waiter, is there a zu in 
 Harrogate ?' ' Well, my lord, they do say as 
 the — sexton's wife — sometimes, my lord.' ' Answer 
 my question, sir. Is Harrogate spelled with or 
 without a Tt; ?' The prelate's dilemma was so far 
 excusable, for the Spa owed its name to its con- 
 tiguity to one of the gates of Knaresborough Forest, 
 of which the Stray is the last vestige. 
 
 A. and I strolled one day into a curiosity shop 
 in York. We saw nothing ; but the owner invited 
 us to accompany him to his other store, and we 
 followed him up a ladder into a chamber above. 
 The place was a model of disorder and congestion. 
 My eye caught sight of two large china figures 
 in the distance. ' What were thev T ' Chelsea — 
 old — mag^nificcnt.' This owner evidentlv read in
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 191 
 
 our looks our desire to enjoy a closer inspection, 
 but the position was impregnable. We seemed 
 as if we might be customers. Isaac looked about 
 him, seized a pair of tongs, balanced his person 
 with much adroitness and agility, and the objects 
 were before us. A. turned to me. I shook my 
 head and muttered Tournai. We did not exchange 
 any more words, but while the tongs were absorbed 
 with the restoration of the magnificent old Chelsea 
 to its stronghold, we descended the ladder, pro- 
 fessing our acknowledgments, and enierged. I 
 asked A. if he felt more easy outside, and he 
 said that he did. 
 
 There was a settlement in the Bradgate estate 
 of the Earl of Stamford requiring the outlay of 
 ;i^i,ooo a year on plate, and at last this obligation 
 led to the grates in the reception and other rooms 
 being of silver. 
 
 Beriah Botfield, best known from his work on 
 the Cathedral Libraries of England, also produced 
 other books, especially the Steimnata Bottevilliana, 
 where he laboured to prove his consanguinity with 
 the Thynnes of Longleat, more to his own satis- 
 faction, I have understood, than that of the late 
 Lord Bath ; and he formed a considerable library 
 at Decker Hill, Shifnal, dispersed after his death.
 
 192 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 In Br()m})ton Cemetery is a tomb inscribed only 
 with the sinMe word Laura. There lies interred 
 a lady, to whom Botfield was romantically attached. 
 
 It was a settlement in this estate that a pipe 
 of port should be laid down every year ; but when 
 the property passed to Mr. Garnett, a clergyman 
 with a large family and an abstainer, he had the 
 proviso set aside by the Court of Chancery. 
 
 A. had always kept a good cellar of wine, and 
 we had frequent conversations on the subject. I 
 found that he was interested when I mentioned 
 that at the sale of Lord Peterborough's collection 
 in Portman Square in 1812, port of 1802 (only 
 ten years old) brought 90s. a dozen ; while claret 
 of the same year was carried to £6 los. a dozen ; 
 and six bottles of malaga, said to be fifty years 
 old, reached £6 lis., or upward of a guinea each. 
 
 I took the occasion to notice that Athenceus, 
 in his Deipnosophista:, lets us understand how the 
 ancient Greeks laid down their wine from three 
 to sixty years, according to its strength and character, 
 just as we do. 
 
 The coal-field in the Forest of Dean is one of 
 the latest geological deposits or formations of the 
 kind, said A. to me. In some of the coal which 
 used to be got thence there are traces of the fir-
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 193 
 
 bark almost visible to the naked eye, but readily 
 distinguishable under the microscope. 
 
 Sir Roderick Murchison held that coal existed 
 everywhere. Yes, the possibilities of it, given suf- 
 ficient pressure. But a good deal never becomes 
 more than lignite, and that is probably what the 
 Dover seam is. 
 
 When the Earl of Lichfield's property was sold 
 at Shuckborough, George Robins was employed 
 as the auctioneer, and, from his usual fashion of 
 delivering an impressive preliminary address, some- 
 thing uncommon was expected on this occasion. 
 But George ascended the rostrum and said : 'My 
 name is George Robins. Porter, bring the first 
 lot.' 
 
 After the death of Mr. George Tomline in 1889, 
 the portion of the famous Paston Correspondence, 
 which appears to have been lent out of the Royal 
 collection in the last century, and which Mr. Gairdner 
 was unable to trace, was discovered among the papers 
 at Orwell Park, near Ipswich. Considering the 
 circumstances connected with the matter, it is strange 
 that Mr. Gairdner should not have thougfht of 
 making an inquiry in that quarter ; but his edition 
 is not at all satisfactory, and I now hope to see a 
 new and complete one. From what one knows of 
 
 VOL. II. 32
 
 194 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 Georo-c Tomline himself, I do not imaofine that he 
 had any notion personally that he possessed these 
 manuscripts. He had no taste for literature. 
 
 Comparatively triHing incidents are so soon for- 
 gotten nowadays, that it may be hardly recollected 
 that it was Tomline who for years kept up a 
 controversy with the Government as to the right of 
 every British subject to have his bullion coined into 
 money at the Mint on demand. 
 
 Tomline's father, Dr. George Prettyman. had 
 taken the name of Tomline on succession to the 
 property of Tomline, the Bristol sugar-baker. The 
 latter, it is traditionally said, made the acquaintance 
 of the prelate in a perfectly accidental manner 
 through seeing him in his park, where Tomline was, 
 as a stranger and a visitor to the locality, strolling 
 about. The Bishop at first sent someone to warn 
 the trespasser off, then, learning at the inn where 
 he stayed who he was, invited him to breakfast the 
 next morning, and finally put him up at the j)alace. 
 Tomline left him all his money — about a million, 
 something; like half of which his son lost in the 
 Felixstow railway scheme. 
 
 The unreserved portion of the effects of Tomline 
 was sold lately at Christie's and on the premises. 
 Mr. jNliles of Keyham remembered well his father,
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 195 
 
 the Bishop of Winchester, who had been tutor to 
 the younger Pitt. Through this connection Dr. 
 Tomhne succeeded in obtaining a footing in nearly- 
 all the Enclosure Acts, and particularly in Charn- 
 wood Forest and at Banbury, On his mother's side, 
 George Tomline was allied to the Bagot-Lanes, 
 descendants of the Lane who befriended Charles II. 
 after the Battle of Worcester ; and it was from this 
 source that the Ribey Grove estate, comprising a 
 large property in Great Grimsby, was derived. 
 
 The Orwell Park estate, twenty-four miles long 
 by seven miles wide, was all in a ring-fence, except 
 a small triangular piece owned by a lawyer. This 
 Tomline never succeeded in securing, and it vexed 
 him, because it broke the continuity of his shooting. 
 He used to say that he would have covered it with 
 five-pound notes to get rid of the proprietor. 
 
 A fashionably atcired gentleman called on a 
 London mechanician with a sketch of an instrument 
 which he desired to be made for him. The shop- 
 keeper examined the drawing with some curiosity, 
 and at last undertook to execute the order, but 
 observed that it would cost fifteen guineas. His 
 customer did not object, however, so long as the 
 work was done to his satisfaction, and went away, 
 promising to call at an appointed time. He came
 
 196 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 accordingly, approved of the work, and i)ut down 
 the money, which the other deposited in his purse. 
 Before the party left the shop, the mechanician took 
 the liberty of demanding, as the instrument was of 
 such a peculiar character, what its utility was. ' I 
 will tell you, sir,' quoth his customer, leaning across 
 the counter to him ; ' the fact is, it is a contrivance 
 fo7' picking pockets.' The man was so disconcerted 
 that he lost all presence of mind, and before he could 
 collect himself, Barrington (for it was he) had left 
 the premises, carrying with him the apparatus and 
 the purse. Barrington was a regular frequenter of 
 Ranelagh Gardens, which he found a highly lucrative 
 hunting-ground. 
 
 Bull-baiting was still carried on in the Midlands 
 and in the North down to the second half of the 
 nineteenth century ; and the women enjoyed the 
 sport as keenly as the men. At Leigh, near Preston, 
 according to a story told me by a Leigh man, a 
 fellow, in a room with his wife and a dog trained to 
 this exercise, laid his head on the table ; the dog 
 rushed at his nose, the husband cried out from the 
 pain, and would have got up ; but says the woman, 
 ' Lie still, man, he must draw blood, or he will be 
 just ruined.' 
 
 A., all the years I have known him, has taken the
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 197 
 
 Times newspaper. The unique and long unassail- 
 able pi^estige enjoyed by Mr. Walter's undertaking 
 is a phenomenon unlike anything else in journalistic 
 literature. It was almost a fetich. Without being 
 so constituted, the organ possessed an official 
 authority. Its statements were judicial. A good 
 deal of this superstition (for superstition it was) 
 proceeded from the consummate tact of the manage- 
 ment. The Editor of the Thnes was impersonal ; 
 no one was supposed to know who he was ; the 
 public had as distinct a notion of his individuality as 
 of the Cumaean Sibyl or the Grand Lama of Thibet. 
 Now all is changed. Yet A. is of the old school ; 
 and he clings to his Times, and will do so usque ad 
 Jinem. When you have disposed of his other pleas 
 for it, he brings up his last reserve — it is printed on 
 better paper. The field is to him ! 
 
 A. referred to Buckingham in Seven Dials, who 
 supplied the rope for executions, and mentioned 
 that there used to be in the window a specimen with 
 a notice — ' Any length cut.' It was a peculiar twist, 
 and specially manufactured for the purpose.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Hammersmith — Turnham Green — Linden House — Its association 
 with a cause celebre — Dr. Griffiths and his distinguished 
 friends — Origin of his fortune— Thomas Griffiths Wainewright, 
 the poisoner — Putney — Ladies' Schools — The Trimmers — 
 Fairfax House — Madame Daranda's — Alterations in the 
 High Street — Remains of an ancient building — The rivulet 
 down the street — Tokenhouse Yard — Morris and his father — 
 Anecdote of them relative to the occupation of Paris in 1815 
 — Edward Gibbon's birthplace — Roehampton — Wandsworth 
 — The ' Black Sea ' — Beauties of the neighbourhood — 
 Wimbledon Common — Its historical interest and import- 
 ance — Barnes — Explanation of the discovery of Roman coins 
 there. 
 
 The state uf the village of Hammersmith is slightly 
 indicated by a very rough woodcut on the title of a 
 tract of 1 64 1, shewing a few low-pitched cottages 
 by the side of the highroad, such as lately existed 
 beyond the site of the new St. Paul's School. Few 
 places near London have so thoroughly lost within 
 the last two generations their old aspect and attrac- 
 tion, and are more hopelessly abandoned to the forms 
 of modern suburban life. The engraving to which I 
 have referred represents the flight of the Vicar of
 
 FO UR TH GENERA TION OF A L IT ERA RY FA MIL Y igg 
 
 Christ Church, Newgate Street, from his Parha- 
 mentary enemies, and there is the inscription on it : 
 ' The Way to Hauiniersniith' 
 
 We hear very Httle indeed of this hamlet (for 
 it was nothing more) in history and Hterature. 
 There was a very curious case of alleged diabolical 
 possession connected with it, in which the principal 
 actor was Susanna, wife of John Fowles. The 
 particulars are printed in a contemporary pamphlet 
 (1698). 
 
 Many years subsequently to my settlement in 
 the neighbourhood Hammersmith preserved a fair 
 share of its original appearance and seclusion, and 
 could boast many historical residences, foremost 
 among which was Brandenburg House, removed 
 about 1827 to make room for the new bridge. 
 
 I trust that my distinguished friend, Mr, G. L. 
 Gomme, F.S.A., may find leisure to publish his 
 father's and his own Collections toward a new 
 History of this parish. 
 
 TuRNHAM Green was another of the spots which 
 I periodically visited in my desultory rambles in 
 the neighbourhood of Kensington during the twenty 
 years which I passed in that once pleasant suburb. 
 In the earlier part of my sojourn there Turnham
 
 200 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 Green had not lost by any means so much of 
 its original character and aspect as it has since, 
 and most of the fme old houses in grounds were 
 still standino-. 
 
 Among them, foremost in more than one point 
 of interest, was Linden House, on the left side 
 of the highroad as you approach the Green. 
 This 'capital' mansion, which was demolished in 
 1879, was for many years the residence of Dr. 
 Ralph Griffiths, proprietor of the Monthly Review^ 
 and he died here in 1803. Griffiths had been 
 acquainted with many of the famous men of his 
 time, including Johnson and Goldsmith ; and he 
 was on intimate terms with Wedgwood, whose 
 partner Hentley was his neighbour at one time. 
 The Doctor, of whom I gave many years since 
 all the particulars within my reach, played his 
 trump card by buying of Cleland the manuscript 
 of Fa7iny Hill, and employing a second hand to 
 improve the book, which is said to have been 
 worth ^20,000 to him. 
 
 I visited the house shortly prior to its removal, 
 and as I passed along the spacious passage leading 
 from the grand old-fashioned doorway to the hall, 
 ascending on the way two or three short flights 
 of steps, it awakened an interesting reflection —
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 201 
 
 how often that very ground had been trodden 
 before me by the literary and artistic ornaments 
 of the preceding century. 
 
 But nearer my own time it had a very different 
 association and quite another sort of tenant in that 
 consummate scoundrel, Thomas Griffiths Waine- 
 wright, the Jamts Weathercock of the London 
 Magazine, and the intimate on equal terms at one 
 period of his life of well-nigh the whole world of 
 letters and art. 
 
 Wainewright was on his mother's side the grandson 
 of Dr. Griffiths, and by administering strychnine 
 to the only son of his benefactor became heir 
 to such portion of the property as was represented 
 by the house and its effects. I was the first to 
 trace the consanguinity between these two men 
 with so little in common, and to furnish, so far 
 as I could, the whole sad and terrible story of 
 Wainewright's career down to his apprehension by 
 one of the Bow Street runners at the Tavistock 
 in Covent Garden in 1837. I likewise identified 
 him under two other previously unsuspected nonis 
 de plume. 
 
 Putney has always been noted for its schools, 
 and some of the earliest Ladies' Colleges in England
 
 202 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 were established there. Evelyn refers to that kept 
 by Mistress Bath sua Makins, who before the 
 Troubles had been LTOverness to the Princess 
 Henrietta, one of the daughters of Charles I. ; and 
 Herrick, in his Hespej^ides, 1648, commemorates 
 Mistress Mary Portman as "The School and pearl 
 of Putney." She died in 1671. 
 
 Mrs. Trimmer kept a ladies' school here, and 
 her family had establishments for voun'^ i^entlemen 
 through at least two generations at the large house 
 where Colonel Chambers, Garibaldi's Englishman, 
 afterward lived. This school was founded by Mr. 
 Carmalt, whose name survives in the block of 
 houses erected on the site. 
 
 By the way, at Wimbledon, some time since. 
 Dr. Birch kept a seminary for youths. Had 
 Thackeray's eye fallen on the brass plate outside } 
 
 A very early and curious glimpse of Putney occurs 
 in a few of his letters in 15 19, to his Government, 
 of the V^enetian Envoy to the Court of Henry VI H., 
 Sebastian Giustinian, who retired hither, while the 
 plague was prevailing in London. 
 
 In one of Lilburne's tracts, printed in 1649, 
 he speaks of the future Protector and his son- 
 in - law, Ireton, holding an earnest conversa- 
 tion in a garden-house at Putney ; but he does
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 203 
 
 not specify whether it was Fairfax House or some 
 other, and the writer on the next page brings 
 before us Ireton standing before the fireside at 
 his quarters in Kingston, so that he had probably- 
 come over to consult the Lord General. And 
 after the interview we hear that he mounted his 
 horse, and departed hurriedly on his return. The 
 little village (for it was no more) was for the time 
 the centre of Enoland. 
 
 The two capital mansions were, at all events, 
 Fairfax House and the one formerly occupied by 
 Madame Daranda, of which the site w^as subse- 
 quently converted into a terrace, now swept away. 
 It has been said that at the sale of the Daranda 
 effects title-deeds to certain property in Putney 
 were acquired, or were, at least, brought to light. 
 This and Fairfax House were the places where 
 the Parliamentary leaders met during the Civil 
 War, and where they were quartered. 
 
 There used to be Pike Lane near the church. 
 It was the spot where the soldiers piled their 
 weapons during their stay here. 
 
 I possess an etching by Arthur Ball of the 
 supposed nunnery (ultimately converted into shops) 
 which immediately faced the church just by the 
 Surrey end of the old bridge.
 
 204 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 At j)r(S(iii what was down to i860 a village 
 is a sorrowful desolation of bricks and mortar, 
 touchinL;" Wandsworth on one hand and Barnes 
 on the other. The whole of the High Street 
 appears to be made ground ; the levels must formerly 
 have been far lower ; for in carrying out long since 
 some public works, at the corner facing the entrance 
 gates to Lime Grove, the foundations of an extensive 
 red-brick building were discovered below the surface, 
 and a rivulet flowed from the top of the street to 
 the river on the right-hand side within memory. 
 A second stream divided Putney from Wandsworth 
 just by the modern railway bridge and East Putney 
 station. It has lonof been converted into a closed 
 sewer. The ' spacious house with gardens and 
 lands,' to use the historian's own expression, which 
 was the birthplace of the illustrious Gibbon, I 
 suppose to have faced the dead wall of Lime 
 Grove, the seat of the St. Aubyn family down 
 to about 1858, and extended back to the present 
 site of St. J(jhn's Church, which was in comparatively 
 recent times a meadow. It is customary to identify 
 the residence of Gibbon's father with Lime Grove 
 itself; but this I apprehend to be erroneous. The 
 description of th(; place scarcely answers to the 
 latter, which was a mansion in an extensive park,
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 205 
 
 stretching up Putney Hill in one direction, and 
 along the Upper Richmond Road toward Wands- 
 worth in another. 
 
 All trace of either building has disappeared, as 
 well as that of the home of the Portens, his 
 maternal relatives, where he spent a portion of his 
 childhood, unless, which is not improbable, it is 
 substantially the same as the residence immediately 
 adjoining the church and churchyard, as Gibbon 
 himself describes it in his Autobiog7'aphy, long 
 occupied by Mrs. Major. 
 
 The only personages whom we have at present 
 in Putney seem to be the author of Atalanta in 
 Calydon, and his friend and companion, Mr, 
 Theodore Watts- Dunton. It is unnecessary to 
 say that a fund of gossip and anecdote has already 
 accumulated round the former. 
 
 It is an illustration of altered conditions that, when 
 the South-Western Railway opened its station here, 
 it was feared that the traffic would only be a summer 
 one. Time was when the shooting of the George I. 
 wooden bridge, with its irregular square openings 
 for traffic and its picturesque Dutch toll-house, 
 was accounted by oarsmen a notable feat, as it 
 demanded a quick eye and a knowledge of the 
 current.
 
 2o6 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 I have; never seen any explanation of the name 
 still attached to a minor turning- out of the High 
 Street — Tokoihouse Yard. Here, no doubt, were 
 struck — or at least issued — the tokens of the seven- 
 teenth century (1657-68) enumerated by Williamson, 
 and some of them especially relevant to the local ferry. 
 
 A singular character lived at Putney many years 
 — a Mr. Morris. He had been a tailor, like his 
 father before him. He was with Poole and Buck- 
 master before he set up for himself on Ludgate Hill. 
 Morris was an astronomer, a musician, a mechanic, 
 and a botanist, and, indeed, seemed to possess some 
 knowledge of everything. He had been a great reader. 
 
 His father was at one time in the army, and 
 served at Waterloo. He was afterward orderly 
 Serjeant to the Duke of Wellington, and was with 
 him at Paris during the occupation in 1815. One 
 of young Morris's earliest reminiscences was going 
 with his father one day to the Palace with despatches 
 for the Duke, and being patted on the head by 
 Louis XVHI., who held out his hand for him to 
 kiss. But he would not, he told me because 
 he disliked PVenchmen, who, he had heard, ate frog. 
 
 I think that the ordinary authorities are silent on 
 the point ; but Lamb, in a letter to Patmore, men- 
 tions that the legs are the only edible part of this
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 207 
 
 creature, and that they are of a rabbity flavour. If 
 a cat takes possession of one in a garden, it eats 
 the legs and leaves the rest. 
 
 My uncle Reynell, who lived here from 1855 to 
 1892, told me that he had seen the late Mr. W. H. 
 Smith, M.P., First Lord of the Treasury, at the 
 bookstall personally inspecting the accounts, and 
 satisfying himself that everything was in order. 
 
 The original hamlet of Roehampton, on the 
 western side of Putney Heath, on rather low ground, 
 consisted of the King's Head, a wooden structure, 
 and forty or fifty cottages and shops of timber and 
 thatch. There was only a single narrow, steep 
 street, with a quaint side-alley or so. It is at present 
 greatly improved. Does the name import a fairly 
 remote epoch, before Wimbledon Park was enclosed, 
 or the various encroachments on the Heath had 
 commenced, when the deer roamed at pleasure over 
 the whole adjoining area, and the village was a mere 
 group of keepers' and labourers' huts ? 
 
 Wandsworth Common, on the other side of Putney, 
 was in my time a magnificent expanse, and preserved 
 its dimensions down to about 1875, when much fell 
 a prey to Railway, Builder, Church, and Patriotic 
 Institution. Those who are as old as myself, or
 
 ro8 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 older, must remember the lovely spot known as the 
 Black Sea, which was equally used for bathing and 
 angling. It was a large sheet of water over-canopied 
 with ancient trees. 
 
 The entrance from Putney into Wandsworth was 
 twenty years ago a pleasingly rural and characteristic 
 bit, resonant with the music of Nature. You had 
 not to go as far as Nightingale Lane, Tooting, to 
 hear that songster. Not only in Turnham Green, 
 Chiswick, Bedford Park, Fulham, and Barnes, were 
 it and the cuckoo regular visitors in their respective 
 seasons, but at the point where Putney merges in 
 Wandsworth, so long as the vicinity was open and 
 quiet. Both on the right and left hand of the road 
 formerly lay stretches of garden and pasture, and 
 on the former side the footway rose two or three 
 feet above the road, and was bordered by fine old 
 trees. The carriage-way had been even then widened 
 from the original dimensions, when the whole extent 
 from the village was a lane, the dead wall of Lime 
 Grove, Sir John St. Aubyn's, occupying the greater 
 part of the southern side. Altogether, Wandsworth 
 has so far been less denaturalized than its more 
 westerly neighbour. The lane at the top of Putney 
 Hill leadinor into Wandsworth used to be called 
 Cutathwart, vulgarly Cut-throat, Lane.
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 209 
 
 Beyond Roehampton, to the south and west, ex- 
 tends Wimbledon Common, of which the more thickly 
 wooded portion on the Kingston side forms one of 
 the most interesting spots in the vicinity of the 
 Metropolis, as it is, to a large extent, in its primitive 
 condition, and may be once more enjoyed, when the 
 shooting-butts are happily abandoned, by the pedes- 
 trian without danger and molestation, provided that 
 the golf-players are kept within reasonable bounds. 
 There is very slight doubt that the point known as 
 Caesar's Camp was the site of British earthworks, 
 and that the entire ground represents the scene of 
 conflicts between the Britons and the Romans, and 
 a fortified position of the former, when they retired 
 from the more immediate precincts of the river. 
 
 Barnes may be regarded as the last important 
 suburban survival, with its own common, the ex- 
 tensive grounds of Barn Elms, and an expanse 
 behind of 3.000 or 4,000 acres of heath, parkland, 
 and demesne, including that unique feature. Putney 
 Park Lane and its immediate environs. Barnes has 
 lived to see the successive degradation of Putney, 
 Wandsworth, Richmond, Hammersmith, Fulham, 
 Chiswick, Turnham Green, Acton, and Ealing. 
 
 In the Antiquary for July, 18S5, I collected all 
 
 VOL. IL , 2>3
 
 2IO FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 the available iiil()rniati(jn of a local or manorial 
 nature. One of the quern stones is still to be seen 
 at the garden entrance to a house on Mill II ill. 
 The common was once the home of many rare 
 descriptions of fern and aquatic plants ; and in the 
 marshy part near the cemetery the latter still Hourish 
 to some extent, and attract certain uncommon genera 
 of the moth. Altogether, the entomology of this 
 narrow area is still fairly extensive and interesting. 
 Dr. Diamond told me that the common was once 
 famous for a particular species of fly, of which he 
 mentioned the name ; but it has escaped my memory. 
 
 Prior to the advent of the railway and the builder, 
 it was a sequestered spot. I have bathed as a boy in 
 the large sheet of water on the southern side near 
 the present station ; and I remember a foot-race 
 which Sir Robert Hamilton and mvself had at the 
 cross-roads when we were at the War Office tO""ether, 
 but his longer legs made me a very bad second. 
 My uncle Foulkes was intimate with Mr. Scarth, 
 owner of a large estate at Barnes, now divided. 
 He lived at Mill Hill, and had an Arab boy as one 
 of his servants. He had brought him home from 
 his travels in the East, and eventually set him up in 
 a public-house at Putney, still called after him. 
 
 Northcote the painter once met Hazlitt with the
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 211 
 
 remark. ' There's been such a beau-ti-ful murder, 
 sir.' There must be some inborn principle in our 
 moral nature which renders these things attractive, 
 and holds them fast in the memory. Those which 
 I never forgot are the cases of James Greenacre, 
 in Putney Park Lane, immediately adjacent to 
 Barnes, in 1837; of Mr. De la Rue, murdered at 
 Highgate, by Hocker, in 1845 ! ^^'^ o^ ^^^- O'Connor, 
 the victim of the Mannings, in 1849. My father 
 was personally acquainted with O'Connor, who 
 was a reporter on one of the papers. Not far from 
 St. Helier, jersey, you have the small house pointed 
 out where the Mannings lived prior to their settle- 
 ment in London. 
 
 In Barnes churchyard is a yew-tree, planted, as 
 appears from the register, in 1653 (possibly to 
 inaugurate the Protectorate). When I last saw it, 
 it did not present an aspect of great antiquity. Here 
 was buried in 1672 Abiezer Cobb alias Higham, a 
 fanatic in the davs of Cromwell ; he was a native of 
 Warwick, and was at one time post-master of Merton 
 College, Oxford. 
 
 Lysons, writing nearly a century ago, loosely 
 estimates the common at about 150 acres; but its 
 extent was formerly greater. On the southern side 
 the Charity estate and the SouthAVestern Railway
 
 212 FOUinJI(:i:M:h'ATI()X OFA LlTEkARV FAMILY 
 
 jireniisos, and on the iiorihcrn ihe cemetery, have 
 been taken out of it, and encroachments have 
 formerl) been made everywhere. It originally 
 stretched from the Richmond Road on the south, to 
 the borders of Mortlake on the west, to the village 
 of Barnes on the north, and the boundary ditch 
 between Barnes and Putney eastward. Of course, 
 it has fallen, in common with othc^r open s})aces, a 
 prey to indifference, ignorance, and dishonesty (the 
 most ancient trespass dating back to the Plantagenet 
 times). The pound, which stood near Mill Hill, no 
 longer exists ; it forms the scene of a well-known 
 metrical Jeu cfcspi'-il, in which Ouin and Foote are 
 the actors. The mill was valued at fifteen shillings 
 a year 800 years ago. 
 
 Between this and Roehampton, in relaying the 
 drains, many years since, between the Jesuits' College 
 and the Convent, the workmen came upon a con- 
 siderable number of children's skeletons, of which 
 the historv was unknown. 
 
 It may be convenient to mention that the occa- 
 sional discovery of Roman coins on the shore at 
 P)arnes is supposed to b(^ due to the utilization of 
 the soil removed in laying the foundations of the 
 modern London Bridge up the river, where it served 
 to make up the towing-path at the point named.
 
 THE FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 PART II.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The Royal Family — The library given by George IV. to the 
 nation — The Duke of Sussex — The Queen — The ' Jubilee ' 
 coinage — Our obligations to Her Majesty — Orders of Merit 
 for civilians — Penalty of a long reign — The Queen thinks a 
 book too dear — The offer of Her Majesty to pay income-tax 
 — A curious disillusionizing glimpse — The Royal Family as 
 people of business — The Prince Consort — The Albert 
 Memorial — A few particulars and anecdotes — Princess 
 Beatrice at Darmstadt — The Battenbergs and Batenborgs — - 
 The Duke of Cambridge — The Kaiser — Le Grand Monarque 
 — Caroline Bonaparte — Louis XVHI. — Nicholas of Russia 
 and his son — Sir Roderick Murchison — Napoleon HI. and 
 my father — The Emperor's alleged parentage. 
 
 The late Lord Romilly used to say that the great 
 book-collector, Richard Heber, was once dining with 
 George IV. soon after the accession of the latter, 
 and the Russian Ambassador was also at table. 
 The King was speaking to the Ambassador about 
 the library his father had collected, and was saying 
 that he did not care much about it. He added that 
 he thought he should not mind letting it go, and the 
 Russian Envoy intimated that his Imperial m^aster, 
 he felt assured, would be only too glad to become
 
 2i6 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 the purchaser. The King seemed to like the 
 notion ; but nothing more was said just then. 
 Ileber left the table, to hasten to the Premier's, 
 told liim what had passed, said that it would be a 
 disgrace to the country if the books went, and so on, 
 and Lord Liverj)Ool waited on His Majesty and gave 
 him to understand that it would not do, but that if 
 he would present them to the nation, he (Liverpool) 
 would use his influence to get a vote in the Commons 
 to pay the King's debts. 
 
 This view of the circumstance attending the gift 
 to the public in 1823 of the Royal Library formed 
 bv George IIL is in direct conflict with that 
 commonly received, .uid will read curiously by the 
 side of the glowing eulogiums on the niiinificence 
 and literary zeal of His Majesty, both as Prince and 
 King, which meet our eye in various contemporary 
 Ijublications. 
 
 Miss Clara Maceroni said that at a party, where 
 she met the Duke of Sussex, the King's brother, 
 His Royal Highness was asked to sing, and when 
 he had finished there was cordial applause. He 
 whispered to someone near him : 'It was well 
 enough for a Duke.' This was the collector of 
 Bibles and miscellaneous literature sold in 1827. 
 The taste for books certainly appears to have been
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 217 
 
 hereditary in the older members of the Hanoverian 
 Hne ; and we trace it back to other branches, beside 
 that of Liineburg. Now Books have gone out of 
 favour, and Horses and Cards have their turn. The 
 Kaiser Napoleon-Nelson's toys, soldiers and ships, 
 are perhaps to be preferred. The Duke belonged 
 to the Second St. James's Royal Arch Lodge 
 of Masons, which is entitled to wear a crown in 
 its badge. I have given some account in my 
 Livery Companies of London of the probable origin 
 of this movement. 
 
 I have only once seen the Queen. It was on 
 Constitution Hill, when Her Majesty was driving 
 in a carriage and pair with one or two others ; the 
 Prince was not with her. In response to my 
 respectful salutation. Her Majesty bowed to me ; 
 for not a soul save myself was in sight. This was 
 in the days when the old Duke of Wellington was 
 to be met with in Piccadilly sometimes, leading his 
 horse at the edge of the kerb. 
 
 How many hundreds of thousands must be in the 
 position of never having seen our present Sovereign, 
 and of being acquainted with her features only 
 through the coinage. They may well wonder 
 whether all the pieces of money represent the same 
 personage.
 
 2iS FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 The most singular circumstance connected with 
 what is improperly ternK.'d the Jubilee money — for 
 the type was settled without reference to that 
 anniversary — is that, although it is by a German 
 artist, ii is not even by a good one. Her Majesty's 
 Government, perhaps, would nr)t pay the price for a 
 first-class design. lil<ti that for the beautiful com- 
 memorative thaler of Maria Theresa, produced in 
 1888 under the auspices of the Numismatic Society 
 of \ ienna. 
 
 It really constitutes an interesting consideration, 
 that the majority of the subjects of the British 
 Crown have never beheld the countenance of the 
 Sovereign, nor heard the tone of her voice. It is 
 an understood thin'-" thai there is an au'^ust 
 personage at the head of affairs, and the machinery 
 works tolerably well. Rut what effect the stealthy 
 levelling down may produce, no one is far-sighted 
 enough to forecast. We might go farther and fare 
 worse ; and perhaps sufficient influence may be 
 brought to bear on popular sentiment by the united 
 agency of all responsible citizens to stop at such 
 reforms as may be practicable in the existing system 
 without changing its external characteristics. 
 
 Her Majesty has unquestionably contributed to 
 impart a higher and purer t(jne to society, and if
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 219 
 
 there are such things as corruption and immorality 
 (are there ?), they have to be a good deal more sicb 
 rosd. It was quite time in 1837 that a term should 
 be put to the scandalous state of affairs under the 
 four Georges and William IV., which Greville in his 
 Mer7ioirs, and Thackeray and Carlyle, and indeed 
 Dickens, in their works, did so much to expose. 
 
 We complain of having rulers of foreign origin, 
 yet we never succeeded very well when we had 
 Englishmen over us. Since Bosworth — 410 years 
 ago — our Kings and Queens have been Welsh, 
 Scotish, Dutch, or German. 
 
 There seems a probability that in the future, if 
 Great Britain chooses to retain the present form of 
 government, the succession will pass to the indirect 
 line, and we shall find ourselves once again with an 
 Anglo-Scotish instead of an Anglo-German dynasty. 
 It seems singular that at a distance of 182 years 
 from the Hanoverian accession the Court should 
 still be so German in sympathy and spirit ; but so 
 it is. 
 
 It is the inevitable penalty of a lengthened reign 
 to lose all early, and many later, friends, associates, 
 and servants. The Oueen has lived to see one old 
 face disappear after another, and to be surrounded 
 by almost totally different conditions from those in
 
 220 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 which she was brou«j;-hi up, ami il is no slight |)raise 
 to say thai our Sovereign has in large measure 
 adapted herself to the vast change. 
 
 It is characteristic of Her Majesty's usual frugality, 
 that when a bookseller sent a stray from the old 
 Royal Library to be submitted to her by the 
 librarian at Windsor, for ^^150, she wrote on the 
 memorandum : ' A very nice book — but the price !' 
 
 How different from her royal grandfather, who 
 was a munificent book-buyer, and, even if the figure 
 had been rather outrageous, would not in his better 
 days have stuck at a few pounds to secure such an 
 article, and he had probably far less means for the 
 purpose than Her Majesty. 
 
 The alleged offer of our Sovereign at the outset to 
 pay income-tax was very properly met in the nega- 
 tive. A certain specific sum having been set aside 
 for the Queen's use in her official capacity, it would 
 have been undignified on the part of the nation to 
 have insisted on any deduction. On the contrary, 
 the Prince Consort was said to have left a will, which 
 was never proved, its provisions being kept a secret ; 
 and it seems a question whether, had the point been 
 pressed, it was, under such circumstances, a valid 
 document, the Prince being a subject of the Crown, 
 however exalted his rank.
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 221 
 
 Is it not apt to strike one as a case where the 
 realities of life infringe on the melodramatic present- 
 ment, where one, going- through the throne-room at 
 Buckingham Palace, and seeing no one, ventures to 
 approach the seat of majesty, only to discover beneath 
 it a dustpan and a broom ? But it is, after all, yet 
 stranger that we should so constantly forget that 
 kings and queens are human beings like ourselves, 
 who look down upon us from the very elevation con- 
 ferred on them by us for our own convenience. 
 
 The creation, with the Queen's approval, of Orders 
 of Merit of late years, and the admission in some 
 cases of ladies, is, as it appears to me, a very 
 sagacious and opportune movement. Civilians, as 
 well as soldiers and sailors, must be freely decorated 
 and honoured. We shall want a solid barrier ao-ainst 
 
 o 
 
 aggressive Socialism ; and the Queen and the Court 
 are apparently aware of it, judging from their some- 
 what promiscuous affability and their almost affecting 
 solicitude for the health even of the Unpresented. 
 
 Our Royal Family are excellent people of business, 
 and from the time of the Great Exhibition of 1851 
 onward have had the most favourable opportunities 
 of making advantageous investments in every direc- 
 tion, and of almost every class. The late Prince 
 Consort knew how to manage his private affairs with
 
 222 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 all that attention to detail which is so essential to 
 commercial success — an aptitude derived from his 
 youthful experiences in the Vaterland. Was there 
 not a story of some cheque which a certain artist 
 framed, and hung on the wall, as a souvenir of a 
 transactiijn with His Royal Highness? 
 
 But His Roval Hiofhness shewed his common 
 sense in declining to join the Freemasons, on the 
 ground that he would not swear allegiance to laws 
 of which he had no previous cognizance. The lady, 
 whose newly-admitted husband refused disclosure 
 of the arcana, was perhaps not far from the truth 
 when she said that they amounted to nothing more 
 than early duck and green peas — a housekeeper's 
 w^ay of putting it. 
 
 My uncle Reynell gave me to understand that the 
 late Duke of Cambridije, father of the ex-Com- 
 mander-in-Chief, acquired from the Government for 
 ^8,000 the Combe Wood property, for which a 
 farmer in the neighbourhood was prepared to give 
 double the money. 
 
 My wife came home to our house at Kensington 
 one afternoon, and told me that she had seen the 
 Queen at the Albert Memorial in Hyde Park. She 
 was standing there w4ien Her Majesty drove up and 
 approached the spot. The Queen stopped in front
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 223 
 
 of the Memorial, close by my wife, and the latter 
 heard her say, ' Very nice.' This made me laugh, 
 for it reminded me of what the fellow said about the 
 Marlborough gems. But it was declared at the time 
 that the Memorial was not at first, when brand new, 
 unlike a large piece of gilt gingerbread. 
 
 I was crossing Putney Bridge on the evening of 
 December 14, 1861, when I heard the Bell of 
 St. Paul's toll, and I asked the gatekeeper what was 
 the matter. He told me that the Prince Consort 
 was dead. 
 
 It was a saying that His Royal Highness set the 
 example of men dispensing with gloves on ordinary 
 occasions. 
 
 After the death of the Prince Consort at so early 
 an age, the Queen is said to have suffered from 
 insomnia to such an extent that Her Majesty's 
 health was seriously impaired, and there was even a 
 degree of anxiety on the subject. 
 
 There used to be a curious superstition about 
 ' Queen's weather.' It was said that Her Majesty 
 appointed a day for a given ceremony, and the rest 
 was a foregone conclusion. Anyone might securely 
 make his own arrano-ements ; it would be ' Oueen's 
 weather.' His Grace the Primate of All England 
 formerly authorized special forms of prayer for rain
 
 224 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 or (IroLi^lu ; hut, as the mono candid country {)ar.son 
 declared, it depends on the quarter from which the 
 wind blows. We do improve a little, in spite of the 
 Church. 
 
 A Swiss LTentleman from Zurich, whom I met at 
 a house in the country, gave me an odd account of 
 the fire near Darmstadt, where the Princess Beatrice 
 was staying. She was in Ijed, about one in the 
 morning, and was so tormented by mosquitoes that 
 she rose, lit a candle, and rang for her maid. The 
 two, in their nightdresses, candle in hand, began to 
 hunt for the small game. When a gnat was seen 
 overhead, one or the other bobbed up to try and 
 catch it in the flame, and at last one of them set fire 
 to the curtains. The whole place was soon in a 
 blaze, and the Princess and her maid ran down to 
 the courtyard for their lives, just as they were. Her 
 Royal Highness lost all her clothes, as well as 
 (I understood) the pearls of the Duchess of Kent, 
 which she had had from the Queen. 
 
 The Battenbergs of Hesse - Darmstadt have 
 nothincr to do with the cji^reat house of Brederode, 
 Barons of Bronkhorst in Gronsfelt and of Baten- 
 borg, which belonged to Gelderland, and became, 
 and remained during centuries, one of the most dis- 
 tinguished families in the Low Countries. It was
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 225 
 
 Hendrik van Brederode of this ancient and illus- 
 trious line who personally presented to the Duchess 
 of Parma in 1566, on behalf of the Netherlands, a 
 protest against the establishment there of the In- 
 quisition, and who raised troops at his own expense 
 to resist the Spaniards. 
 
 When the Prince of Wales brought his new wife 
 from abroad, and arrived with her in London, it was 
 remarked that the first thing the Princess did was to 
 run into the Bricklayers' Arms. 
 
 His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge 
 married a Miss Fairbrother, daughter of the 
 theatrical publisher in Catherine Street, Strand, 
 who was the mother of Colonel Fitzgeorge and 
 other children. The Colonel, whom I have met at 
 a boarding-house at Ramsgate, united himself to a 
 Quaker lady, whose parents used . to frequent the 
 same watering-place. The Duke's alliance was 
 equally creditable to his courage and judgment. 
 The lady was an excellent and exemplary person, 
 whose memory is sweeter and purer than that of 
 some royal and serene highnesses. 
 
 The German Kaiser is understood to ascribe his 
 withered arm to the corrupt blood on his mother's 
 side. It has no doubt been deteriorating through 
 intermarriages and other agencies, and it was not 
 
 VOL. II. 34
 
 226 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 very pure when George I. came over, so th.it it is 
 no doubt A step in the right direction to have begun 
 to seek alHances outside the charmed circle. Ikit, 
 after all, the alleged taint has only gone back 
 whence it came, to the Vaier/and. 
 
 No Act of Parliament can safeguard even im})erial 
 and royal personages from the pernicious conse- 
 quences of contravening the law of nature. 
 
 If Louis XIV. was, as reported, the son of M. le 
 Grand by the Queen, he was very properly called 
 Le Grand Monarque. The word car7vssein French 
 was originally feminine. But Louis, when young, 
 having once called for 7//on airrosse, its gender was, 
 from deference to his most Christian majesty, altered 
 thenceforward. Madame de Maintenon succeeded 
 to other ladies, whose influence had been paramount 
 with the King by turn. Some one proposed to call 
 her Madame Maintenant. 
 
 It used to be said that the Bourbons never forgot 
 and never learned anything. Is not this equally 
 true of the Stuarts ? 
 
 An English gentleman who was in Paris in 1848, 
 when the remains of the First Napoleon arrived 
 there froni St. Helena, saw the coffin, which was on 
 view for a short time at the Invalides, and described 
 it as hardly larger than a child's. The Duke of
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 227 
 
 Wellington and the Emperor are said to have been 
 of the same height, five feet six inches, and the 
 latter would be wasted by illness before his death. 
 Yet this account seems scarcely credible. 
 
 The Napoleon relics at Madame Tussaud's are 
 the most interesting feature in the exhibition, and 
 they will remain so. 
 
 There are, of course, persons living who recollect 
 the foundress of this place of entertainment ; she 
 died in the forties, and her wax figure, which used 
 to be not far from the entrance in Baker Street, 
 was so realistic that when my father-in-law came up 
 from the country in 1S51, and visited Tussaud's, he 
 took it to be the little old lady herself; and next to 
 her, I think, was Cobbett, to whom, the story goes, 
 he offered a pinch of snuff 
 
 I confess that I laid down Masson's Napoleon 
 ct Ics Fciniues with a very unusual feeling — that I 
 could read it again. It is decidedly 71 piece justifica- 
 tive, and one not without its sadness. 
 
 Caroline Buonaparte sat to Canova for one of his 
 classical models absolutely naked. Being asked 
 whether she did not feel uncomfortable, she replied, 
 ' Why, no ; it was not cold ; there was a fire in the 
 room.' There is a medalet with the three sisters 
 of Napoleon as the Three Graces.
 
 228 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 There is an on dit about Louis X\MII. wliicli 
 may be true or not. After his restoration, he; asked 
 Fouchc whether lie had ever set spies over him. 
 The Minister of Police under Napoleon admitted 
 that he had. The Kinor asked who it was. Fouche 
 said, ' The Comte de Blacas.' ' How much did he 
 get .•*' was the farther inquir\-. ' Two hundred 
 thousand francs a year.' ' Ah, \\v\\' said Louis, 
 'he was honest, after all. / had half.' 
 
 This was the same nobleman whose collections, 
 partly acquired, perhaps, out of the secret-service 
 money, are now in the British Museum. 
 
 I have heard it said of Nicholas of Russia that 
 he remarked on one occasion to his son, afterward 
 Alexander IL, 'You and I are the onlv honest 
 men in the Empire,' and that was because it did 
 not pay them to be otherwise. Sir Roderick 
 Murchison, who had, in the course of his geological 
 researches, experienced great assistance from the 
 Czar Nicholas, and been enabled to explore the 
 mineral riches of the Ural range, inverted his glass 
 when, in the Crimean war, he was present at a 
 banquet, and the success of the operations against 
 Russia was proposed as a toast. 
 
 While the late Emperor Napoleon IIL was 
 residing in London in 1839, my father sent him a
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 229 
 
 copy of the biography of his illustrious relative, 
 and received as a souvenir in return the Lettres 
 dc Napoleon a Josephine, 1833. with an inscription 
 on the flyleaf; ' Offer t par le P" Napoleon Louis a 
 Monsieur Hazlitt en memoire de I'ouvraoe de son 
 pere sur Tempereur Napoleon. Londres, le 18 Mai, 
 
 1839.' 
 
 His Majesty favoured a certain Dutch Admiral 
 in his phlegmatic temperament ; he bore no resem- 
 blance to his reputed father, the King of Holland : 
 and until the matter was more or less generally 
 known, his cousin Jerome, who was in the secret, 
 and was in possession of all the facts, used his 
 power as a financial lever. Prince Napoleon used 
 to call the Emperor the kite in the eagle's nest.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Sir Rol)ert Peel in 1817 — Mr. Gladstone — My pamphlet on 
 public affairs (r886) — General Gordon — Illustrations of Mr. 
 Gladstone's acquaintance with Ireland and its events — Sir 
 Henry Taylor — General Cunningham — Lord Rosebery — The 
 Primroses of Adelaide, South Australia — A Scotish friend's 
 recollections of them and other early colonists — Draper, 
 the chaplain of the London — Instances of longevity — The 
 Tollemaches — Our great families — Mr. Evelyn, of Wootton 
 — A visit to the house — The library — Martin Tupper — 
 Charles Mackay. 
 
 The late Mr. Henderson, who was sixty-three years 
 clerk to the Horners' Company, told me (January 
 17, 1890) that he was eighty-eight years of age. 
 He had a remarkably full head of hair and a flowing 
 beard, with very little admixture of gray ; but he 
 was much bent, and walked feebly. He mentioned 
 to me that his father took him in 181 7 to the 
 House of Commons, and that he often went there 
 afterward. He recollected listening to the speeches 
 of Canning and Peel, of whom the latter struck him 
 at the time as very young in appearance, like a red- 
 headed boy. His father, he said, pointed to Peel,
 
 FOURTH GENERATION OF A LITERARY FAMILY 231 
 
 and declared that if he hved he would make a 
 name. 
 
 I was told by one of the older officials in Cox 
 and Greenwood's, in Craig's Court, that Sir Robert 
 Peel on one occasion applied at some moment of 
 pressure to Mr. Cox for an advance of ^500,000 
 for a few days for the Government, and that Cox 
 said that he could have a million the next morning 
 if he wanted it. 
 
 A reference has been already made to Lord 
 Palmerston in connection with my father's career 
 as a journalist. It was Palmerston who was ques- 
 tioned in the House as to the duties of archdeacons. 
 He had not an idea himself, and asked everybody 
 near him. Not a soul could say. No one was 
 aware that an archdeacon was a sort of ecclesiastical 
 surveyor and appraiser appointed for each county 
 or district. The minister had to inform the honour- 
 able member that an archdeacon was a personage 
 who discharged archidiaconal functions. 
 
 When a stipendiary magistrate's place fell vacant 
 during Palmerston's Home Secretaryship, he arrived 
 at Downing Street one morning, and was con- 
 fronted with a pile of letters. ' What the devil 
 are these T said he to his subordinate. ' Applica- 
 tions for the vacant magistracy.' ' Do they think
 
 '.32 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 I am (>•oi^^• to read all these damned thiiT's ? 
 D'ye know,' addressing- the sub. ' anyone who 
 would do ?' ' There's Mr, lUirrell, my lord — Mr. 
 Hurrt^ll of Gray's Inn, a very good man.' ' Well, 
 well,' said Palmerston, ' let him have it, then.' 
 And Hurrcll had it, and held it many years. He 
 was an intimate friend of Sir John Stoddart and 
 of m\- father, from whom I had the story. 
 
 I first saw Mr. Gladstone at the London Library, 
 St. James's Square, in 1859. I had never seen 
 him before, and likenesses of him were comparatively 
 rare at that time. But I felt sure it was he. I 
 saw him again at his own house in the following 
 year, and after that I never set eyes on him till 
 1890, when I met him at a book- shop in New 
 Oxford Street. I had meanwhile published, prior 
 to the General Election of 1887, my Address to 
 the Electors of Alid-Siun'cy (Kingston Division), 
 which one of the Conservative party described as 
 'a parting kick' to the Separatists and Home 
 Rulers. In that interval of thirty years Mr. Glad- 
 stone reached the summit of his political glory and 
 the lowest point of his political impotence. 
 
 One of the counts in my indictment against 
 him in my pamphlet was the treatment by the 
 Ministry, of which he was the responsible head.
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 233 
 
 of poor, brave Gordon. It was impressive to 
 read in the papers recently that Gordon admitted 
 having carried out many executions, but always, 
 before he crave the order, laid his Bible on his 
 knee, that the Almighty might reverse his judg- 
 ment if He thought fit, and, quoth Gordon, He 
 never did. What sublime fanaticism ! What fatuity 
 beyond all redemption — almost beyond credibility ! 
 A child's brain joined to a man's heart ! This 
 was the very Bible, perchance, which the General's 
 sister gave to the Queen after his death. 
 
 Mr. told me one day that Mr. Gladstone 
 
 had been in his shop, and he had told him that 
 if he desired to study the history of Ireland, and 
 had not leisure to work up the subject, he (the 
 bookseller) had a gentleman who would do it for 
 him. But Mr. Gladstone replied that he only wanted 
 knowledge sufficient for Parliamentary purposes. 
 This was ' the old Parliamentary hand,' of whom we 
 have all heard more than enough ; and who has 
 inflicted greater injury on the country than any 
 individual within my knowledge, and the observa- 
 tion reads with the letter he wrote to a cor- 
 respondent, advising him to study Irish history, 
 which he had done, so far as his engagements 
 would permit.
 
 234 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 If 'the fatal prjft of beauty' was the curse of 
 Italy, the fatal oift of words has been the curse 
 of England in the i)erson of a gentleman who 
 was unfit to become a responsible Minister of the 
 Crown. 
 
 Sir Henrv Taylor used to relate an anecdote 
 of Mr. Stephen, father of Sir James, illustrative 
 of the gratitude of the authorities toward those 
 who exert themselves in the civil service. You 
 may, he said, wear out a finger in writing ; you 
 may wear out a second and a third, and all they 
 will have to remark is, What deformed fingers 
 you have ! 
 
 The late General Cunningham, one of a trio 
 of accomplished brothers, sons of Allan Cunning- 
 ham, mentioned that the word piissy for a cat 
 came, he believed, from the Persian piishy, and 
 was used to distinguish the Persian breed from 
 our own. He also suggested that Jio^^shead was 
 a corruption of ox-hide, a measure equal to the 
 capacity of an ox's hide. It might therefore 
 somewhat vary according to the prevailing breed 
 in different countries. 
 
 Lord Rosebery once said a good thing about 
 Lord ^leath and his fondness for securing re- 
 creation-grounds. 'Why, you know,' said he,
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 235 
 
 ' Meath would like to pull down the whole of 
 London, and make it an open space for the use 
 of the inhabitants.' 
 
 Mr. Primrose, an uncle of Lord Rosebery, was 
 a brewer at Adelaide, South i\ustralia, and was 
 a near neighbour of my friend the late Mr. 
 Archibald Jaffrey. He lived to a good old age, 
 but was a great tippler, and was very unfortunate 
 in his family, nearly the whole of which predeceased 
 him. When Lord Rosebery visited Adelaide, he 
 called on the Primroses, and went over the 
 brewery, tasting the various ales ; and he was 
 very well received. These Primroses first figure 
 in the time of James VI. of Scotland, under whom 
 they laid the foundation of their fortunes. 
 
 Lord Rosebery was a special protege of Mr. 
 Gladstone, and an admitted failure as a political 
 and Parliamentary leader. As a rich man, he 
 was apt to be a valuable ally, and when Mr. 
 Gladstone felt it necessary to retire, he let his 
 lordship slip into his seat, ere long to slip out 
 of it again. I was brought up among Liberals, 
 and with a respect for their principles, till I 
 could not avoid seeing that those principles were 
 merely a passport to office, and that much of 
 the Liberalism consisted in beino- free with other 
 
 o
 
 2?6 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 people's money in a [)ublic s('nse. Lord Rosebery's 
 l)reiiiicrshij) was not eiuirclv do/ni Jidc, so long 
 as Mr. Gladstone was in the i)romj)ter's box. It 
 was a disagreeable blend, of which even his lord- 
 ship, perhaps, grew a little tired, if not ashamed. 
 
 Jaffrey was saying that a \'isitor to the gallery 
 at Holy rood, after looking at the portraits of the 
 Scotish kings on the walls, inquired of the old 
 woman who shewed the place to him : ' Did you 
 do these ?' And, she shaking her head, he added : 
 'You might have done better.' 
 
 Jaffrey was born near Stirling in 1817, and left 
 his home January 1, 1839, on his way to seek 
 his fortune in South Australia. He witnessed at 
 Liverpool the terrific storm of that month, which 
 strewed the whole coast with bodies and wreckage, 
 and the splendid sight, when the calm returned, 
 of the Mersey filled with craft in full sail pre- 
 paring to leave for their destinations. He re- 
 minded me of the later one of January, 1866, in 
 which the LoJidon was lost in the Bay of Biscay, 
 Draper, the chaplain, praying to the last in the 
 midst of the drowning crew and passengers. At 
 that moment Draper's son was proceeding to one 
 of our convict settlements, unknown to him, having 
 been found guilty of some felony.
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 237 
 
 The old-fashioned type of pedagogue survived in 
 Scotland in the actual flesh in Sir Walter's dav, for 
 Jaffrey gave me a description of Munro, his own 
 schoolmaster at Stirling, with his ballups and his 
 spectacles on the top of his head — two or three 
 pairs sometimes — which impressed me at the time 
 with a persuasion that the cause of learning was 
 even more backward in the North than with us ; and 
 this would have been about 1825. 
 
 It is a singular circumstance that, from its geo- 
 logical lay, Stirling is affected by nearly every shock 
 of earthquake of a severe character which occurs 
 within a very broad zone. 
 
 Jaffrey told me many curious stories about the 
 earlier settlers in South Australia — among others, a 
 brother of George Grote the historian, and a son of 
 Charles Babbage. He was mentioning to me that 
 Sir Henry Ayers, who at one time filled a high 
 position at Adelaide, used to say that David, ' the 
 man after God's own heart,' probably had no hand 
 whatever in the Psalms which pass under his name, 
 unless it was the one where he speaks of walking up 
 to his ankles in the blood of his enemies. 
 
 He (that is, Jaffrey) assured me that he was per- 
 sonally acquainted with all the circumstances of the 
 case where a man in a Scotish village, when gold
 
 238 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 was much scarcer than it is at present, made money 
 by exhibiting" at a loawbee a head a sovereign in liis 
 possession. He had cleared a fair amount in this 
 wa\-, when someone (there is always a last man) 
 came, and put down his coin. The other, however, 
 said : ' I canna shew ye the piece ; but ye can see 
 the paper it was wrop in.' 
 
 My old acquaintance died in 1893. It is remark- 
 able enough that his father was born in 1766, so 
 that the two lives covered 127 years. The family 
 at one time owned the property on which the field 
 of Bannockburn is situated. I shall notice two 
 other striking cases of transmission of a name and 
 race through few links, partly arising from late 
 marriages, which, so far as Scotland was concerned, 
 were formerly much more usual. 
 
 A son of Captain Groves, R.N., was born in 
 1829, when his father was sixty years of age. The 
 latter was born in i 769. The Captain used to tell 
 a story apropos of the former defective victualling 
 of ships, even those belonging to the service, and 
 how, when his vessel was once weather-bound, they 
 had to catch all the rats aboard, and cook them. 
 They tasted like chicken. 
 
 The late Captain Maude, R N., who died in 
 October, 1886, in his eighty-eighth year, was the
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 239 
 
 son of the first Lord Hawarden, who was born in 
 1729, and whose father, again, Sir Robert Maude, 
 was born in 1673. Here three generations lasted 
 2 1 3 years, 
 
 I have in an antecedent chapter furnished some 
 analogous data in relation to our own family. 
 
 Lord Tollemache sold his Reynolds and Gains- 
 borough portraits, I understand, to Colnaghi for 
 ;^6o,oco, to provide for his second family of nine. 
 He did not wish to send them to Christie's, on 
 account of the publicity, and came to terms with the 
 print-seller, whose first business would be, of course, 
 to notify the fact to everyone likely to be a cus- 
 tomer. His lordship bargained for an engraving of 
 each to put in the places of the oils. I believe that 
 his estate in Cheshire is charged with a heavy 
 annual sum for plantations. 
 
 A neighbour of mine at Kensington knew one of 
 the Tollemaches in New Zealand, where he had a 
 large property. He told me that this gentleman 
 would take off his shirt and stockings, and wash 
 them himself in a roadside pool. 
 
 Another of this race, a tall, ungainly, ill-dressed 
 man of elderly appearance, with a cape which 
 barely covered his elbows, and a weather-beaten 
 umbrella, used to frequent in my brother's time the
 
 240 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 Judges' Chambers, and declaim with equal vehe- 
 mence and zest ajj^ainst the rascality of his brother, 
 with whom he was en''a'>ed in some mysterious 
 litigation. It appeared to be his chief employ- 
 ment. 
 
 It is to be lamented, for their own sakes and that 
 of their country, that the British aristocracy is either 
 so poor, or, if otherwise, so sordid. The recent 
 death of Baron Hirsch ])ut it into my head to con- 
 sider how much prouder we might be of those who 
 enjoy sundry mediaeval designations, no longer 
 articulate or proper to the time, if they could follow 
 a little^ — to the extent of their power in each case — 
 the example of such a man, or of Count Tolstoi. 
 One can scarcely wonder at Lord R. and Lord C. 
 not being anxious to take their seats in the Upper 
 Chamber. 
 
 The great families of the country, titled and un- 
 titled, appear to be broadly classifiable into two cate- 
 gories : those which accumulate and hoard their 
 resources, and those which dissipate them ; and it 
 mav be difficult to determine which involves the 
 larger amount of injustice and inconvenience, hi a 
 vast artificial community no ideal redistributive 
 arrangement is probably feasible. 
 
 A lady, who had been employed as a governess
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 241 
 
 in some of the great German houses, was describing 
 to me the extraordinary wealth and splendour of 
 some of their establishments, and was saying that 
 in England we have a very imperfect idea of this 
 question, deriving our knowledge from the impe- 
 cunious foreigners who come over here. My in- 
 formant instanced to the contrary Count Schonborn, 
 whose family repeatedly filled the archiepiscopal see 
 of Mainz, and who possessed nine residences at 
 least, all maintained in perfect repair, and many of 
 them seldom or never visited by him. Pommers- 
 felder Castle appears to be the principal mansion. 
 The present (1896) Count's grandfather sold some 
 of the Gobelin tapestry and other effects ; but the 
 furniture, books, and pictures are said to be very 
 fine, and the first-named to be in the English taste 
 of the beginning of the century. 
 
 A friend at Dorking, whom I was visiting, gave 
 me an account of his visit to Mr. W. J. Evelyn at 
 Wootton. He and a companion found Evelyn alone, 
 and the latter asked them to stay dinner. The 
 somewhat Barmecide repast was laid in the ban- 
 queting-hall — a pair of soles, a fowl, and a jelly. 
 They had coffee before dinner, and tea with it, but 
 no wine or beer. The servant-maid brought in the 
 dishes, and left them to help themselves. Evelyn 
 
 VOL. II. 35
 
 242 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 rose when he had finished his fish, and put the 
 empty plate on the sideboard. The others had to 
 di) the same. Evelyn grasped liis teacuj) with liis 
 hand, instead of taking it by the handle. He spoke 
 very brusquely, and was dressed in a very rough 
 manner. He had been gardening when they 
 arrived. 
 
 Mv friend noticed a crood many books in the 
 library, a model of John Evelyn's tomb in Wootton 
 Church, the manuscript of the Diary, and some fine 
 old plate of the Diarist's time, including a tall silver 
 cup in the original leathern case. 
 
 Evelyn and Martin Tupper were schoolfellows, 
 and Tupper used to be invited to stay at Wootton. 
 Charles Mackay, the poet, who spcmt his last days, 
 and died, in a small cottage at the foot of Box Hill, 
 was also occasionally asked there. This was so far 
 creditable to Evelyn, as poor Mackay could not 
 possibly be of the slightest utility to him, and did 
 not offer the same sort of interesting personal asso- 
 ciation as Tupper. 
 
 The name of Macka\' awakens in mv mind the 
 curious reflection that John Timbs and he were 
 two of the men whom my good father, solicitous 
 for my settlement in life, held up to me as great 
 exemplars, and likely to prove inlluential helpers ;
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 243 
 
 for at one period both lived in good style, and 
 seemed to make literature pay. Timbs died in 
 the Charterhouse. 
 
 I have observed that librarians are often selected 
 with a special regard to their ignorance of literature 
 and books, and such was the case here. Evelyn 
 himself has no feeling in this direction, though a 
 fairly good botanist, and so far doing- credit to his 
 name ; but he might have pitched on someone who 
 would have helped to recover the numerous volumes 
 which, in Upcott's time, were abstracted from the 
 collection. These are sometimes reported to Evelyn 
 at exorbitant prices ; but he has most frequently 
 missed them altogether, when they might, by a little 
 management, be secured on moderate terms. The 
 list of these strays, which I have drawn up and 
 printed, and which receives periodical additions, 
 begins to be a sadly long one. 
 
 The house has, in short, been mercilessly stripped 
 of its ancient treasures, and the present owner is 
 not proud enough, though to the full rich enough, 
 to redeem them when he can, notwithstanding the 
 somewhat heavy penalty payable for his predecessors' 
 gross neglect of the acquisitions and belongings of 
 the historical Evelyn. It was only the other day 
 that the Wootton copy of the first edition of
 
 2 44 FOURTH GENERA TION OF A LITERARY FAMILY 
 
 Spenser's FaVry Ouccti was sold at an auction for 
 £']\. 1 1 is many years since it left its old home. 
 
 My Uorking friend related to me the following. 
 A clergyman there meets a little girl, and, regarding 
 her thoughtfully and solemnly, says, ' Child, do you 
 know who made that vile body of yours Y ' Yes. 
 sir,' replies the child; 'mother made the body, and 
 I made the skirt.' 
 
 It was from this gentleman, who had been many 
 years on the medical staff undcT the Indian Gov^ern- 
 ment, that I heard a singular case of infectious 
 disease missincr a treneration. An Enorlishman, 
 walking somewhere outside a town in British India, 
 saw a beautiful Hindoo girl bathing in a pool, and 
 was irresistibly smitten by her attractions. The 
 result was a daughter, who married, and who herself 
 had one. The Hindoo's child never betrayed any 
 symptoni of carrying in her blood the germ of a 
 particular malady actually communicated by the 
 mother ; but the taint betrayed itself in the grand- 
 daughter, to whom it pro\ed fatal, after she had 
 conveyed it to her husband. A tardy retribution, 
 and an unmerited one !
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Literary jottings — Shakespear — The Shakespear Papers — Shake- 
 spear and Bacon — The Sonnets — Yorick — Tennyson — Some 
 new particulars of him and his father — Longfellow — Brown- 
 ing — The poet and Lord Coleridge — The Browning Society 
 — The arrangements for his interment — Amusing anecdote — 
 The Trinity College MS. of Chaucer — Halliwell's Shake- 
 speariana — A curious episode at his daughter's wedding — 
 Dr. Ingleby — The Hatless Headman — G. A. Sala — Alexander 
 Ireland. 
 
 It seems to me obvious that one main source of the 
 obscurity of Shakespear's life was the failure of his 
 contemporaries to understand his greatness. Other- 
 wise they must have committed to writing" more 
 about him. But probably a second reason was the 
 puritanical element in the family, which would view 
 at best with indifference any monuments or records 
 illustrative of the dramatist. In a former section I 
 have cited a passage from Miss Hazlitt's American 
 Diajy, where she speaks of having met at Perth 
 Amboy a Mr. Shakespear, who resembled the 
 portraits which she had seen of the great poet. 
 
 It is not generally known that, in April, 1616, the
 
 i4(^ FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 very month of Sliakespear's death, there was a great 
 fire at Stratford ; but whether any of tlie jiapers or 
 books perished there, we do not learn. 
 
 Our information about Bacon is meagre enough, 
 although he moved in so much higher a sphere, 
 socially speaking. 
 
 Rightly or wrongly, I formulated, in early days, 
 in my own mind an impression that Bacon was a 
 man of short stature, from his disparaging allusion 
 in one of his Essays to tall persons, whose heads he 
 likens to the meanly-furnished upper storeys of lofty 
 houses. 
 
 The most curious part of his personal history 
 seems to be that which has no direct connection 
 with it — that is to say, the fact that the two greatest 
 Englishmen should have been contemporaries, and 
 yet have apparently known nothing of each other, 
 which probably led to the silly theory that both 
 were one and the same. 
 
 Shakespear, in the line, 
 
 ' From fairest creatures we desire increase,' 
 
 has touched the voluptuous or sensual side of 
 cruelty. 
 
 1 1 has constantly struck me, from my intimacy as 
 a bibliographer with the elaborate and explanatory 
 style of Elizabethan title-pages, how remarkable in
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 247 
 
 Its simplicity, brevity, and unobtrusiveness, is that 
 to our poet's two earliest productions, which came 
 from the press, let us bear in mind, when he was 
 barely thirty, yet when he was already making his 
 mark. You have to turn over the leaf to discover 
 the author. There are only half a dozen other 
 examples of such reticence in or about the same 
 period within my knowledge. Barnfield, in his 
 Affeclionate ShepJiei'd^ i594> published when he 
 was a youth of twenty, and the editor of England'' s 
 Helicon, 1600, may have equally borrowed from 
 Shakespear. Barnfield does not even disclose his 
 name in a dedication. 
 
 It has long since been mentioned by the present 
 writer that the Mr. W. H. of the Sonnets was 
 almost undoubtedly not the Earl of Pembroke. W^e 
 have two sorts of testimony to the contrary, which, 
 taken together, seem to be fairly conclusive. In 
 1 6 10, Thomas Thorp, the T. T. of the Sonnets^ 
 inscribed to John Florio the first edition of a version 
 of Epictetns and Cebes in English in terms pedantic 
 and mysterious enough, yet such as the stationer 
 might employ toward a man of letters. In 16 16 
 Thorp brought out an enlarged impression, and 
 dedicated it to William, Earl of Pembroke, in a 
 totally different strain ; for even where Thorp applies
 
 248 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 the (jxprc'ssion, ' 1 rue and real upholder ol learned 
 endeavours,' to his lordship, he merely ([uotes what 
 the translator had said. So, in loio and 1616, we 
 trace the state of feehnj^' of ihorp toward Florio 
 and Lord Pembroke respectively, and it does not 
 accord with the hypothesis that the person addressed 
 in 1 009 by him as Mr. JT. II. can be the same as 
 the person addressed by him in 1616 as * Idie Right 
 Honourable William, Earl of Pembroke.' 
 
 In an early manuscript copy of Middleton's Game 
 at Chess, formerly in the possession of Mr. C. J. 
 Stewart the bookseller, there is a dedication to 
 I\Ir. ]Villiaiu tiaminond, evidently a coeval lover 
 and patron of letters ; and how much more likely it 
 is that Thorp, having acquired the Sonnets in the 
 form of loose, unconsecutive papers, should have 
 arranged them to the best of his ability, and have 
 connected with them on publication such a name as 
 that of Hammond ! 
 
 I cannot help cherishing the belief that in Yorick 
 the poet had an eye to Tarlton. He makes Hamlet 
 call him ' The King's Jester,' and say, ' He hath 
 borne me on his back a thousand times.' Tarlton 
 died in 1588, when Shakespear was still a young 
 man. 
 
 One of .the most prominent of the gentry at ,
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 249 
 
 and a justice of peace and quorum, expressed his 
 opinion that I was a clever man. It may be easily 
 imagined how sensible I was of the flattery, when I 
 add that he thought Shakespear a clever man too. 
 But, seriously speaking, cleverness has become an 
 equivocal term. 
 
 The obscurity of Shakespear's personal history 
 impels one to seek explanations which are, after all, 
 at best empirical. His unique genius made him 
 stand out so conspicuously from among his literary 
 contemporaries, ' Sicut inter ignes luna minores,' 
 that there was a sort of repellent influence, amount- 
 ing in the case of a man like Jonson to pique or 
 jealousy, and in still less distinguished persons to 
 awe. The sun draws toward it lesser bodies ; but, 
 then, they are planetary ones of inferior magnitude, 
 in which sensibility is absent. I conjecture that our 
 great poet, a sort of human Sun, lacked camaraderie. 
 Who but he, save perhaps Daniel from a clearly 
 different motive, ever withdrew from the scene of 
 his triumphs to end his days in a dull and bigoted 
 country village .^ Had he been only such another 
 as Jonson, or Beaumont, or Shirley, we should have 
 known more about him. Shakespear must have 
 secretly felt his own immense transcendency, and at 
 the same time the failure of others to recognise it ;
 
 250 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 and to such a cause one may not err in assi<^ning 
 his retirement to Stratford in the ])riine of life, 
 although there aqain the sympathy with him was 
 even shghter either among the townspeople or 
 his own circle. Was it not a most self-contained 
 career ? 
 
 A neighbour told me one day an anecdote of 
 Tennyson. About thirty-five years ago this gentle- 
 man was at Somersby, in Lincolnshire, where the 
 poet's father lived, and an old servant of the family, 
 when he went away, said to him, ' You'll be sure, 
 sir, and remember me to Master Alfred.' 
 
 Old Dr. Tennvson was rather — well, verv irritable. 
 Hie tale goes that his cook, her dress having caught 
 fire one day, first ran to her master's door, but, being 
 afraid of his temper, went back, and out into the 
 yard, screaming for help. The air fanned the fiames, 
 and the woman died of her burns. The Doctor, to 
 prevent the recurrence of such a tragedy, had a butt 
 of water placed outside the kitchen door, so that the 
 cook, if she became ignited again, might jump or be 
 lifted into it, and not trouble him. 
 
 Rich men, and even lords, may make verses, 
 though they do not usually cut a very good figure 
 among the freemen of Parnassus. Tennyson was 
 made a peer, because he had first proved himself a
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 251 
 
 man of genius, and had, moreover, written adulatory 
 addresses ex officio to the Sovereign. 
 
 Emily Davison, daughter of Sir Henry, an Indian 
 functionary of our acquaintance in Brompton days, 
 used to visit a friend of her father's in Onslow 
 Square, and met Tennyson there. The first time 
 she saw him, he was leaning out of the drawing- 
 room window, smoking a pipe with the strongest 
 tobacco, and very roughly dressed, and, the house 
 being in the painter's hands, she took him for one 
 of the workmen — a not unnatural notion for a 
 schoolgirl, as Miss Davison then was. 
 
 A pretty little story is told of Longfellow and his 
 love for children, which, as usual, was understood 
 and reciprocated. A little fellow was taken to the 
 poet's house, and found Longfellow in his library. 
 The child looked round the room, and after a while 
 ventured to ask if his host, among his books, had 
 Jack the Giant-killer. Longfellow had to own that 
 his collection did not boast it. The boy said nothing, 
 but, paying a second visit, approached Longfellow, 
 holding something in one hand very firmly. He 
 had brought him two cents to buy a copy of the de- 
 ficient romance, which was to be 'all his own book.' 
 
 At one time Robert Browning used to follow the 
 dictates of his own inspiration, and produced poetry,
 
 252 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 when he hjid anything worili saying and printing. 
 I)ut latlcrK- I understand that his publishers would 
 jog him (jn the elbow, and let hi:n know that there 
 was room for a new volume, and the bard would 
 cast about for a subject or a peg to hang a book 
 upon. Messrs. Smith and Elders' cheques are very 
 excellent secLirities ; but they are an indifferent 
 Tenth Muse. 
 
 Mv uncle once went with Robertson, editor of the 
 Westminster Review, to wait on Brownino^ at his 
 London residence on the subject (jf an article for the 
 periodical, and vi\idly retained an impression of the 
 flowered dressing-gown in which the poet came 
 down to them. There was no idea at that time that 
 he would become a writer of such importance. 
 
 Browning having sent to Lord Coleridge one of 
 his new poetical productions, the latter expressed his 
 admiration of what little he was able to understand. 
 Browninfy observed that if such a reader could com- 
 prehend ten per cent, of his work, he ought to be 
 well satisfied. 
 
 I agree so far with the late Mr. Reynell, that it 
 was a bizarre kind of i)roceeding to start a Society 
 to expound the writings of a living author, and I 
 have heard it whispered that the oracle, on being 
 pressed for a solution of some obscure pass^ige in a
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 253 
 
 composition, had sometimes to confess that he could 
 not help the inquirer, though he had no doubt that 
 he knew what he meant when he wrote it. This 
 goes some way to justify Lord Coleridge's criticism. 
 
 Browning died without doing more than leave 
 verbal instructions in respect to his funeral or 
 burial-place. He said that, if he died at Paris, he 
 desired to lie by his father there ; if at Florence, by 
 his wife in the old cemetery ; and if at Venice, in 
 some particular church, which I have forgotten — 
 not, I believe, at Lido. The difficulty was, so far 
 as Florence was concerned, that the old cemetery 
 had been closed, and that the municipality could 
 not grant permission for his interment there without 
 some special Ministerial authority; and the family de- 
 clined the proposal to exhume his wife, and lay both 
 together in the new ground. It was then that Dean 
 Bradley, who had wavered so long as it was a mere 
 question of compliment, came forward, and assented 
 to his remains being deposited in the Abbey. 
 
 I heard from F. an odd story related to him by 
 A. S. of a visit paid to two sporting acquaintances 
 in Buckincrhamshire. S. referred to the recent 
 
 o 
 
 death of Browning, and one of the Nimrods, turn- 
 ing to the other thoughtfully, said, ' Poor Browning ! 
 did he hunt with you ?'
 
 2 54 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 V. lias, as I .ilwavs maintain, one rulini£ charac- 
 tcristic. He is the most uncommercial man I ever 
 met. It has not been my lot to com(; across a 
 person so thoroughly superior to pecuniary con- 
 siderations. On one occasion, when the money 
 could scarcely have been indifferent to him, two 
 literary commissions were thrown in his way : one 
 was worth £\20\ the other was gratuitous — what 
 they term honorary. He j)referred the latter. He 
 was mentioning to me the case of the Trinity 
 College manuscript of Chaucer, borrowed by 
 Halliwell-Phillipps from the then librarian without 
 any voucher given, and never returned, as the 
 borrower alleged, after the death of the librarian, 
 that he had restored it to him. It was afterward 
 in a lot which came into the hands of Rodd, the 
 bookseller, either from an auction or by private 
 purchase, and shown to Sir F. Madden, then Keeper 
 of the Manuscripts at the British Museum. Madden 
 recognised the volume, although the Chaucer portion 
 had been taken out and destroved, and the remain- 
 ing two parts bound up separately ; but he could 
 hardlv swear to it in its altered state ; it is now in 
 the Museum. Bond told me without reserve, when 
 he was Keeper, that he would not buy any manu- 
 script from Phillipps ; and, in fact, I have heard
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 255 
 
 that he did one or two queer things in the printed 
 book department. 
 
 When the Birmingham folks decHned his Shake s- 
 peariana at ^7,000, an American lady offered to 
 buy them, and present them to the New York 
 Shakespear Society, if they would undertake to 
 preserve them. H alii well, I understand, was made 
 F.R.S. on the belief that he would draw up the 
 catalogue of the Society's library, which he never 
 did, though he had promised to do it. But it was 
 easier fifty years ago to gain admission. 
 
 I have already referred to Phillipps's extraordinary 
 nervousness. He invited me to the wedding of his 
 second daughter to Mr. Hall, and at the breakfast, 
 when the health of the father of the bride was pro- 
 posed and drunk, I heard a sudden rusde of paper 
 all over the room, and anon perceived that (by a 
 preconcerted arrangement, no doubt) the response 
 was being circulated in the form of a printed slip, 
 owing to Phillipps's constitutional inability to get on 
 his feet and say a few words. 
 
 I saw his second wife once or twice at Holling- 
 bury Copse. It was said that her aunt imagined 
 that Phillipps had his eye on her, and was surprised 
 and piqued when she found that it was ' my niece ' 
 who was the object of pursuit.
 
 1^6 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 Dr. Ini^leby, of X'alcntincs, near Ilford, the Shake- 
 spearian scholar, used to tlrive out aljout the neigh- 
 bourhood without his hat. and went bv the name of 
 the J/ailcss Iltaduum. When I knew Ingleby, he 
 rented Wanstead from Lord Cowley, and I recall 
 a delightful drive with him in a d<jgcart through the 
 woods, and the imminent risk I more than once ran 
 of having my head broken by contact with some 
 overhanging bough. 
 
 Valentines is a historical mansion, where Arch- 
 bishop Tillotson formerly resided, and an avenue 
 called his Walk still remains. But all the fine 
 old wood -carving by Grinling Gibbons has been 
 replaced by plaster. 
 
 The late G. A. Sala was a man of rare industry 
 and capacity. He was a journalist par excellence, 
 and his other works were assemblages of articles in 
 book f(jrm. lUit he shewed great power and Huency 
 as a public speaker. I heard him with a good deal 
 of interest and amusement one evening at a dinner 
 at the Mansion Mouse, where he was far away the 
 leading star among the after-dinner orators. He 
 poked some fun at Sir William Smith, of the 
 Dictionaries, as X.o his (Sala's) notion, till he met 
 him there in the flesh, that he was a sort of uoniinis 
 iinibra.
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 257 
 
 Sala was an unimaginative Alexandre Dumas 
 pere. He was eminently successful, I should 
 imagine, in a pecuniary point of view, yet, like the 
 true Bohemian, died none the richer for that. 
 
 The late Mr. Alexander Ireland, of Manchester, 
 who was, I believe, an Edinburgh man, made him- 
 self known to me about 1866. He professed to 
 take a warm interest in the writings of my grand- 
 father, and during many years we corresponded 
 together. But, as a person who has alike inherited 
 and accumulated a vast amount of information on 
 all sorts of subjects and people, I have met with 
 passing many of these almost hysterically enthusi- 
 astic interviewers, asking one for opinions about 
 British Columbia, Burns, Lamb, Hazlitt, the early 
 English poets, and a legion of other topics ; and 
 Ireland was no exception to the rule These folks 
 gush for a season, while they glean and recon- 
 noitre, then put up their note-books and wish you 
 good-day. 
 
 The gentleman just now in question overrated 
 his intimacy with me, as I have already implied, 
 by appropriating without leave or adequate acknow- 
 ledgment the material collected by me and printed 
 in my 1867 Hazlitt book. I was more sorry than 
 angry, because in the interval I had brought 
 
 VOL. II. 36
 
 258 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 together, unknown lo him. a mass of new informa- 
 tion, which phiced my worthy accjuaintance in the 
 unenviable silualiun described by Macaulay. I 
 cannot altogether refrain from dwelling on the 
 matter, because I am constantly given to under- 
 stand that the person who thus obliged me /s tJie 
 0)ily recognised aulhority on the subject ! 
 
 I have involuntarily acted as bush-beater to two 
 in succession — to Mr. Ireland for Hazlitt and to 
 Canon Ainger for Lamb, and need I say how 
 deeply sensible I am of the double honour ? 
 
 Ireland was engaged to print in confidence the 
 Vestiges of Creation, by the late Robert Chambers, 
 published anonymously. The copies were sent up 
 by the typographer to the London houses, and the 
 authorship was for some time kept as a close secret. 
 But, like other secrets, greater and smaller, it was 
 in due course divulged. 
 
 When I first visited him at Bowdon, on the 
 Cheshire side of the Irwell, he appeared to be in 
 affluent circumstances through his interest in the 
 Manchester Examiner and his general printing 
 business, and he subsequently built a large house 
 in the same suburb to accommodate his library. 
 Of his later history I know very little, except that 
 he sold his books, retired to Southport, and ulti-
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 259 
 
 mately returned to Bowdon, There was a serious 
 loss of money, I understood, by the editorial mis- 
 management of the paper, and Ireland and his wife 
 were temporarily in great straits. It was then, I 
 suppose, that Mr. Gladstone gave him ^200 out of 
 the Royal Bounty. 
 
 He had an old-fashioned way of asking after my 
 wife. He would always say : ' I hope that Misti'ess 
 Hazlitt is well. Mistress Ireland is pretty well, I 
 thank you.' The second Mistress Ireland, who is 
 also no more, was a remarkably intelligent and 
 agreeable woman, the daughter of a gentleman 
 named Nicholson, in Cumberland ; her brother, 
 Henry Alleyne Nicholson, published an interesting 
 monograph on the geology of Cumberland and 
 Westmoreland, 1868. 
 
 Ireland had a son and a daughter by his first 
 wife. The son I never met, but I recollect Miss 
 Ireland, who resembled her father in height and 
 general appearance. There was at one time a talk 
 of this lady marrying one of our modern verse- 
 writers.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Literary acquaintances — The Rev. Thomas Corser — His early 
 knowledge of our famih at W'em — Mr. James Crossley — A 
 Milton anecdote — The Rev. Alexander Dyce — My personal 
 contact with him — The Rev. John Mitford —Henry Bradshaw 
 — My obligations to him — His peculiarities — Henry Huth — 
 Sketch of his life — My long and intimate acquaintance with 
 him — His earliest experiences as a collector — His library 
 catalogue — Mrs. Huth — Huth's indifferent health — Circum- 
 stances of his death — My conversations with him on various 
 subjects — Herbert Spencer — The Leigh Hunt memorial — 
 Huth's liberality of character and feeling. 
 
 Mv old and excellent acquaintance, the Rev. 
 Thomas Corser, the distinguished book-collector, 
 of Stand, near Manchester, was a native of Whit- 
 church, and had been a great angler in his earlier 
 days. He interested me, when I saw him at Stand, 
 by telling me that his father was very intimate with 
 Mr. Jenkins, who was Presbyterian minister at 
 Whitchurch, and on verv affectionate terms with 
 my great-grandfather at Wem. I went to Stand 
 two or three times, and Corser was always most 
 friendly. The Rectory was a small detached house
 
 FOURTH GENERATION OF A LITERARY FAMILY 261 
 
 near the church, and the books were from insuffi- 
 cient space stowed away in bedroom cupboards and 
 even under beds, Corser had to Ho^ht a candle to 
 look for a Caxton in a cupboard. He could give 
 you a good glass of port, and was not averse to it 
 himself His library cost, he told me, ^9,000, and, 
 although many of the books were given away, 
 realized ^20,000. It curiously illustrates the change 
 in the market value of some old books, that Corser 
 kept his second folio Shakespear in the dining-room 
 among the more ordinary works. A five-pound 
 note secured a good copy in his day. 
 
 A second leading figure in Manchester literary 
 circles some years since was Mr. James Crossley, 
 a retired solicitor and an enthusiastic book-lover. 
 I saw him repeatedly, when I visited the city, and 
 I ever found him most urbane and communicative. 
 He remembered Piccadilly, Manchester, when two 
 vehicles could not pass each other there. His 
 collection of books was very extensive and multi- 
 farious ; but he had certain specialities, particularly 
 the writings of Defoe and of Lancashire and 
 Cheshire authors. 
 
 The removal of his library, when he left Picca- 
 dilly to reside elsewhere, occupied three weeks, to 
 the amazement and loss of the contractor, who,
 
 262 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 SLirveyiniT it cursorily, calculated on achieving the 
 task in as many days, and estimated accordini^ly. 
 
 Crossley was rather a keen hand at a bargain, 
 and was during months engaged in a treaty for a 
 copy of the first edition of Paradise Lost. When 
 he had settled on the price, he asked the vendor if 
 he had any more copies ; he would take all he had. 
 The price for a fine copy thirty years ago was a 
 couple of guineas, at which figure I acquired a 
 beautiful one in the original sheep from Tomlins, 
 in Great Russell Street, and when an American 
 agent offered me double. I thought that he was in 
 jest. 
 
 The Rev. Alexander Dyce was invariably willing 
 to afford any information to me on literary or 
 bibliographical subjects. When my father was first 
 acquainted with him he lived in Gray's Inn. He 
 was a bachelor. I met him one day at Russell 
 Smith's, in Soho Square, a singularly huge, sham- 
 bling, awkward, ungainly figure. He had come 
 about an eighteenpenny book he required for use. 
 There was some negotiation as to an abatement of 
 the price, and ultimately he left the shop, book in 
 hand. In a few moments he returned, and asked 
 Smith if, when he had done with it, he would take 
 the volume back at a reasonable reduction. On
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 263 
 
 another occasion when I met Dyce, it was the 
 sale of the hbrary of the Rev, John Mitford in 
 i860, and he spoke of Mitford's handwriting as a 
 curious mixture of neatness and illegibihty — in fact, 
 that the writer had come to him before then to 
 ask him to assist in deciphering it. 
 
 There was a creepy story about Mitford and a 
 mysterious affair which took place at his rectory in 
 Suffolk. A dead child was discovered behind a 
 chimney-piece. 
 
 This gentleman edited many of the modern poets 
 "for Whittingham ; but all that he did, I understand, 
 was to prefix a poorly-worded memoir and a passable 
 sonnet. The texts took care of themselves. 
 
 Of the late Mr. Henry Bradshaw, of the Univer- 
 sity Library, Cambridge, 1 now regret that I saw 
 so little. Through my old friend, Mr. G. A. Green- 
 hill, of Emmanuel, whom I have known since he 
 was a Bluecoat boy, I had been in communication 
 with Bradshaw some little time before I went up to 
 Cambridge in 1875 to examine personally as many 
 of the rarities there as I could. 
 
 I was in the habit of applying to Bradshaw for 
 occasional assistance in regard to unique books at 
 Cambridge, and as he was a very bad correspondent, 
 I employed Greenhill to go to him, and obtain the
 
 264 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 required infonniilion. The curious part was that 
 Bradshaw seated himself al one: of the tables with 
 Cireenhill. and wrote him a note, which he threw 
 across. When I waited on him myself, however, 
 no man could have been more courteous or more 
 liberal. Incidentally naming to him one day in 
 conversation the Oxendens of Barham, near Canter- 
 bury, he gave me to understand that he was related 
 to that family. I think that his sister was Lady 
 Oxenden. 
 
 Bradshaw was sadly unpractical and inconsequent. 
 He entered warmly into projects, but scarcely ever 
 pursued the matter any farther. Publishers an- 
 nounced books by him as about to appear, because, 
 judging him by ordinary rules, they concluded that 
 some arrangement, into which he had ostensibly 
 entered, was a settled affair, whereas our excellent 
 friend probably thought no more about it. 
 
 Bradshaw had some project for rearranging Sir 
 David Lyndsay's works, as they occur in my Collec- 
 tions, according to Furnivall ; but I never under- 
 stood what it was, nor did it come to anything, and 
 when I mentioned the matter to David Laing, he 
 did not seem to see what room or scope there could 
 be for it ; Lyndsay's case stands so differently from 
 Chaucer and the author of Piers PloiLo-huiau.
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 265 
 
 The last time we met was In London, not very- 
 long prior to his unexpected death, and he informed 
 me that a gentleman at Cambridge had just brought 
 to light a tract which had been mislaid, adding that, 
 as soon as he returned home, he would ask him to 
 transmit me a full account. I knew too well that 
 this was all that 1 should ever hear of it. 
 
 I honestly consider it nevertheless a privilege and 
 an honour to have met Bradshaw, and to have asso- 
 ciated with him, for however brief a term. He was 
 so thoroughly genuine and original. It was Furni- 
 vall who gave me the account of him which was 
 substantially printed at the time in a memoir. Brad- 
 shaw's life was sacrificed to his inveterate neglect to 
 take exercise. 
 
 It was somewhat amusing to hear George Bullen 
 speak of him as a man who had been absurdly over- 
 rated in his (Bullen's) opinion. 
 
 During my stay at the University upward of 
 twenty years since, I visited most of the libraries, 
 and left very little unnoted. I had at Magdalen 
 a rather interestinor conversation with the chamber- 
 fellow of Minors Bright, who was himself away. He 
 furnished me with a few samples of the passages in 
 Pepys's Diary which Bright had deemed It necessary 
 to suppress. One I remember was where the Secre-
 
 266 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 tary to th(t Admiralty (U^scribcd his intrigue with a 
 pretty Dutch lady (it was well for his domestic 
 peace that the account was in cryptogram), and 
 another referred to his dilemma at his lodgings, 
 where he was overtaken in the night, and secreted 
 something in the chimney, yi?///t' (/c cabinet. 
 
 A perfectly fortuitous circumstance introduced me 
 in the winter of 1866 to the late Mr. Henry Huth. 
 I solicited in writing the particulars of a unique 
 volume which he had lately acquired, and he 
 responded by inviting me to his house to inspect 
 it. My conversance with the class of literature in 
 which he ultimately took the greatest amount of 
 interest, and for which his library is remarkable, led 
 to a continuance of our intercourse, and during ten 
 years I saw him regularly, as a rule, on Sunday 
 afternoons when he was in town. My practice was 
 to go to his house about one, lunch with the family, 
 and spend two or three hours afterward in the 
 librarv with Mr. Huth. Sometimes a g-uest or two 
 called — Mr. Turner, Mr. Russell, or Mr. Gayangos ; 
 but more frequently we were alone. 
 
 Mr. Huth was a gentleman, a scholar, and a 
 linguist. He was particularly affable and kind, and 
 no one could be less ostentatious and presuming. 
 He afforded me enormous assistance in the prepara-
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 267 
 
 tion of the later letters of my Handbook, and was at 
 all times ready to lend me books, irrespectively of 
 their pecuniary value. I have known what it was 
 to return home from one of mv afternoons with him 
 with a hundred-guinea tome under my arm or in 
 my pocket. 
 
 He was born in 181 5, I believe in Finsbury, 
 where his father, Mr. Frederick Huth, lived at all 
 events when he was a boy. He told me that his 
 brothers and sisters and himself were taken out for 
 exercise in what was then the open ground about. 
 It was still the fashion for men of business in the 
 City to fix themselves tolerably near to their offices, 
 and the Huths removed from Finsbury to Clapton, 
 formerly another favourite resort of City men. 
 
 The founder of the firm of F. Huth and Co. was 
 originally a clerk in a mercantile establishment at 
 Hamburg. He went thence to Spain, where he 
 settled and married a Spanish lady; but in 181 2, 
 during the disturbances in the Peninsula, he 
 determined to remove to England. It was with 
 great difficulty that he escaped, and shots were 
 fired into the vessel in which he embarked. His 
 aptitude for business gradually gave him a footing 
 in London, and he, from modest beginnings, rose to 
 a share in more ambitious transactions. His son.
 
 268 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 who chardctcristically described his father to me as 
 an adventurer, mentioned that folks opened their 
 eyes when a hill drawn upon V . Mulh and Co. for 
 ^30,000 came into the market, and was duly met. 
 But Frederick Huth was evidently a man of 
 
 genius. 
 
 The house accepted any sort of factorship on 
 a large scale. Huth told me, by way of illustration, 
 that a sincjle transaction in silkworms' eoras from 
 Japan to Italy was worth to them /^2 5,000, or 
 10 per cent, on a quarter of a niillion. It is not 
 everybody who can afford to be generous that 
 proves so ; but V. Huth and Co., as the firm 
 continues to be called, were in nearly every public 
 subscription in London for a handsome figure — 
 where or what the object was, so long as it was 
 legitimate, it did not signify. 
 
 Huth never went back beyond his father, but 
 he shewed me a queer - looking portrait on the 
 staircase at Prince's Gate, which purported to be 
 the effigy of a certain person of his name, whether 
 related to him or not, I am, as he was, uncertain. 
 My former ^icquaintance married a Viennese, whose 
 brother was a Consul at Hamburg, and a quiet, 
 pleasant fellow enough. Mrs. Huth laid greater 
 stress, poor soul ! on her husband's wealth than
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 269 
 
 he did, for of all the men whom I have known 
 he was the most unassuming. As a book-collector, 
 he possessed a tolerable knowledge of the insides 
 of volumes, and he was the master of several 
 languages. It was a saying of his — that no man 
 could be a Q-entleman who did not understand Latin. 
 
 He has said to me more than once that all that 
 he wanted was peace and quietness. In anyone 
 else this would have been affectation : but I think 
 it was the begfinnincr of that nervous debilitv which 
 so strongly developed itself, and led to his going 
 abroad one year for change and relief. I have 
 known him so overcome by depression that he 
 declared himself to me unable to face the process 
 of looking for a book on the shelves. Halliwell- 
 Phillipps was nearly as hypochondriacal while he 
 lived at Brompton. 
 
 Although Huth had the command of a well- 
 appointed stable in town (that at W^'kehurst, he 
 told me, was nearly as large as the house), his 
 regular routine was to go to the City in the morning 
 in a four-wheeled cab, and to walk home, taking 
 the booksellers in his way. The carriages were 
 for the ladies. 
 
 The earliest dealings of Huth with booksellers 
 were when he was quite a young man, and he
 
 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 used to buy classics of Baldock in Holborn. I 
 do not fancy that he retained an)- of his juvenile 
 acquisitions. At a later period his brother Louis, 
 to whom he once introduced me, and who lived 
 with his wife (there was no family) in a large 
 house, jocularly termed Windsor Castle, in Sussex, 
 was slightly smitten by bibliomania, and frequented 
 the shop of Pa\ne and F'oss. Old Spanish rc^mances 
 were his game, and one day, when the two brothers 
 were there together, Henry diffidently asked the 
 price of one of those excessively rare early folio 
 tales of chivalry. The bookseller replied. Eight ; 
 but his questioner did not know whether he meant 
 pounds or shillings. Louis Huth, however, bought 
 it, and subsequently, when he abandoned the pursuit, 
 handed over the volume to the other. 
 
 While the Daniel sale was going on in 1864, my 
 friend was at Thames Ditton, and Joseph Lilly used 
 to bring down the day's purchases every evening. 
 Huth gave me a droll account of Lilly's embarrass- 
 ment, when he asked him on one of these occa- 
 sions into the room where they were at dessert, 
 and begged him to take a glass of wine. TTie 
 old bookseller spilled the liquor over the table- 
 cloth and his own clothes, and retreated in the 
 utmost confusion into the servants' hall.
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 271 
 
 The circumstances of poor Huth's tragic end 
 are perhaps not generally known. One evening 
 in December, 1878, when the other members of 
 the family were from home, he appears to have 
 sat as usual in the little book-room out of the 
 hall, and in rising to have had a slight fit, as 
 there was evidence that, in trying to save himself, 
 he bent the fire-screen. He recovered, however, 
 for the time, and went up by the front-staircase 
 to bed. On the way he experienced a second 
 and more violent seizure, and fell backward, 
 fracturing the skull ; and the next morning the 
 servants, not finding him in the breakfast-room, 
 discovered him on the stairs. Life had been long 
 extinct, but there is the possibility that, had his 
 wife and children not been in the country, he might 
 have been saved. 
 
 I shall never cease to regret that Huth permitted 
 the catalogue of his library to suffer curtailment, 
 and to fall under the control of a gentleman of 
 great experience and capacity in certain directions, 
 but of no literary training or sympathy. The 
 consequence is that the volumes, which the owner 
 of the collection fondly hoped to render immaculate, 
 are replete alike with grave and with absurd errors, 
 and that, in spite of my earnest representations.
 
 272 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 much v.'iluahlc information has been suppressed. 
 Yet it was peculiarly a case in which expense 
 was immaterial, and ii did not signify a straw 
 whether the work made tive, or six, or ten volumes. 
 
 The catalogue does not contain all the Huth 
 books. He did not for some reason w^ish the 
 Chinese Bible, which someone sold to him in the 
 streets of Mexico, inserted ; and he always told 
 me that there was a copy of one of Southwell's 
 books, which he intended to restore to Stonyhurst 
 College, from which it was a stray, not desiring to 
 keep anything under such circumstances. I do not 
 know what was actually done. 
 
 His successor in the possession of the books 
 projects, I understand, a Supplement, including 
 his own acquisitions since his father's death. Of 
 these I have very slight knowledge, except that 
 they comprise an undescribed translation by Haring- 
 ton (not Sir John) of Cornelius Agrippa in Com- 
 mendation of Matrimony, printed by John Skot 
 in 1528. A Table of Errata might be a desirable 
 feature in the proposed Appendix, and it would 
 be a long one. For instance, in one place the 
 Romish Breviary of 15 18 is stated to have been 
 printed at the expense of the Count and Countess 
 Frangepane [Frangipani] while they were confined
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 273 
 
 as prisoners of war ' in the gaol called Dorasel 
 [Torcello, near Venice^! But Dorasel was the 
 Venetian form of Torricella, the state-prison con- 
 tiguous to the Ducal Palace at Venice itself. This 
 is merely by way of example. The particular item 
 was not catalogued by me. 
 
 Huth, as a commercial man, regarded the 'knock- 
 out ' in auctions as a moot question. He saw, what 
 many others cannot help seeing, the injustice of one, 
 or two, or more experts attending a public sale of 
 any kind, and virtually giving away the fruit of a 
 life-long study of some subject for the benefit of the 
 vendor's estate ; and it is to be noted that, while a 
 share of the prejudice against the process is due to 
 the class of persons principally concerned in it, an 
 arrangement substantially similar is capable of being 
 made between two gentlemen or two purchasers of 
 acknowledged position, who may say to one another : 
 ' I will leave such a lot to you, if you will leave such 
 another to me'; or, ' Do you buy lot 10, and what- 
 ever you give for it I will recoup you, instead of 
 bidding myself, and perhaps, by drawing attention, 
 making it dearer.' The methods of varying the 
 * knock-out,' in short, are numerous ; and it may 
 seem to many (I think it did so to Huth) that the 
 chief objection is superficial, in two senses — an 
 
 VOL. II. 37
 
 274 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 objection lo the idea of vulgar brokers reselling 
 goods in a vulgar pot-house parlour over their 
 liquor, and the objection which a judge or other 
 illiterate person might raise prima Jacie without 
 any ])ractical conversance with the bearings of the 
 matter. 
 
 It is related that at the Mason sale in i 79S the 
 Duke of Roxburgh and Lord Althorp obtained 
 what they severally wanted at moderate prices by 
 one bidding for the two, and then tossing up after- 
 ward. This was a type of ' knock-out,' omitting 
 some of the less genteel agr^mens. 
 
 It was Huth who laid down very fairly, as I 
 thought, the principle on which men should be 
 estimated and accepted by society. This is a most 
 important point at the present time, when the classes 
 have become so mixed. He considered that the 
 character of the occupation ought to govern the 
 matter ; he remarked that he would not recognise 
 a lucifer-match-maker, a blacking-maker, or a dealer 
 in any other sordid or offensive commodity, what- 
 ever his means or surroundings might be. 
 
 But this does not appear to me to cover the whole 
 ground, or even to touch the most material element. 
 Something depends, no doubt, on the employment ; 
 but we have also to look at what a man is, and there
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 275 
 
 is then the chronic difficulty that the acquaintance 
 must be personal, as the master of the house is 
 nearly always in these cases far superior to the rest. 
 It asks three generations to make a family, and too 
 often by that time the money has disappeared, and 
 the members are slatu qjio ante — not quite so well 
 off, because they have pretensions which they are 
 too poor to support. 
 
 Mr. Huth set aside Sunday afternoons, as I 
 mention, for the visits of his bibliographical acquaint- 
 ance, and he would make no exceptions to this rule, 
 although I have occasionally called on a week-day 
 in the evening, when I saw so much of him. The 
 late Lord Ashburnham expressed a desire to see the 
 library, but intimated some difficulty or scruple 
 about Sundays, and Mr. Huth told me that there 
 the matter rested. I never heard that his lordship 
 came. 
 
 Here I once or twice met Herbert Spencer. He 
 struck me as rather frail and languid. I do not 
 know that any very striking observation escaped 
 from him in my hearing. But I was impressed by 
 his statement of the breakdown of a trial which he 
 had given to vegetarianism, and the loss of brain- 
 power which he had experienced from that sort of 
 diet. F. found the same thing. He came to one's
 
 • 76 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 house and dined, like a rabbit, on a cabbage or a 
 lettuce ; but he had to return to animal food. 
 
 Herbert Spencer stayed three or four years ago 
 at Dorking with Grant Allen, while I was in the 
 same neighbourhood ; and I heard that he was then 
 in very failing health and terribly nervous and 
 crotchety. He had conceived an intolerance of 
 remarks of a commonplace and unfruitful character, 
 and had brought with him an apparatus which he 
 could at pleasure slip over his ears, and which spared 
 him the pain of auricular contact with less gifted 
 mortals. Yet how vast a profit some of our greatest 
 writers have derived from the comparative study of 
 inferior minds ; and the investigation of graduated 
 intellectual force must be very incomplete without 
 a survey of every form and measure of development. 
 But I conclude that Herbert Spencer adopted this 
 precaution as a valetudinarian in self-defence. 
 
 We sometimes talked on religious topics. Huth 
 used to say that he was not himself a church-goer, 
 but that he never interfered with the arran<*-ements 
 of the house in this respect, leaving it open to his 
 children to follow their own inclinations. As so 
 often happens, whatever distinguished him above 
 other persons of great wealth was a life-tenancy ; 
 his qualities were personal and not transferable.
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 277 
 
 When the Leigh Hunt Memorial started, he gave 
 me ^5 toward it, and it led to him remarking that he 
 once sent ^20 to a son of the author, who pleaded 
 great distress. I felt bound to explain to him that 
 it was probably no such matter, and that the 
 applicant was a person who made use of his name 
 for begging purposes. 
 
 He seldom spoke about money, unless it was to 
 ask the price of a book, and that was not often. 
 Even when he employed me to execute literary 
 work, he left the remuneration open. But I recollect 
 that, when I once spoke of someone who had ^7,000 
 a year, he quietly observed that it was a very nice 
 income to have, yet a man could not do much 
 with it. 
 
 It was a pleasant little trait which Huth once 
 related to me of his sister, who lived on Wimbledon 
 Common. A verv old friend arrived at the house 
 on a visit, and she (I forget her married name, but 
 she was the wife of a partner in the house) was at 
 hand to receive him personally in the hall, and to 
 take his bag, or whatever he carried, from him, of 
 course, to transfer it to a servant. But the attention 
 under the circumstances was what Huth's own wife 
 would have called very ' sweet.' 
 
 He was rather ceremonious and reserved ; I
 
 278 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 ascribed this to his Spanish l)lo()d. At first, in 
 his letters. I was Sir, then Dear Sir. Once I 
 became J/y Dear Sir ; but he repented this (pushing 
 familiarity, and returned and adhered to the middle 
 form. I was comparatively indifferent to these 
 details. Huth maintained me for over ten years, 
 and enabled me to carry out my bibliographical 
 design. That was his value, and it was a high one. 
 Huth mentioned to me once at table that the 
 firm kept a certain number of professional works in 
 Moorgate Street, where their place of business was 
 at that time, for reference and consultation. 'Ah!' 
 I was tempted to say, ' that is your Cliitty library. 
 But my worthy ac(|uaintance was joke-proof. 
 
 He was more exempt than anyone I have met 
 from that narrow partiality for their own property, 
 whatever it maybe, which distinguishes the majority 
 of amateurs. He was essentially a man of liberal 
 feeling in all questions ; but he offered a powerful 
 contrast to such petty-minded collectors as George 
 Daniel, of Canonbury, who invariably pronounced 
 his own copies of books the nc plus ultra of 
 excellence and xalue. 
 
 The prepossession in favour of personal appur- 
 tenances, no matter how unimportant they may be, 
 frequendy co-exists, however, with the most amiable
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 279 
 
 qualities. The owner of a few defaced coins, some 
 odds and ends of china, a ragged regiment of non- 
 descript books, does not seek to enlarge his know- 
 ledge or to refine his taste, even if he has the 
 opportunity. You may tell him where the true 
 examples are to be seen, or you may possess them 
 yourself, and exhibit them to him. It is his mission 
 or cue to admire, not what is worthy of admiration, 
 but what is his. He has passed through life with 
 his eyes shut, and declines to open them to please 
 you or me. The brokers' shops have made his house 
 a shoot for the last half-century ; but he is perfectly 
 satisfied, and is impervious to argument. This is 
 he history of the lamentable assemblages of literary 
 and artistic effects which every season brings to the 
 hammer. The unsophisticated enthusiast is the 
 dealer's and auctioneer's godsend. 
 
 Huth and some of his friends projected about 
 1868 a new literary 'paper, and promised me a place 
 upon the staff; but nothing came of it. Truth was 
 once wittily defined to be another and better World; 
 we certainly want another and better AthencFitm — 
 something, as Huth thought, younger and healthier. 
 Periodicals experience the ailments of old age, like 
 ourselves. I do not see Sir Charles Dilke's paper 
 myself once in ten years, but I understand, from the
 
 28o FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 author of the Sorro7CJS of Sa/aii and otht;!' reliable 
 authorities, that it does not improve in amiability or 
 
 uenerositw 
 
 Macaulay pronounced criticism extinct in this 
 country long before he died ; but it would be 
 desirable to possess, at any rate, an organ free from 
 bias and animus, and capable of informing its readers 
 what the books sent to it for notice really are. There 
 is no necessity, in general, to call into service the 
 almost painful culture of official pluralists ; all that 
 seems to be ordinarily required is a certain measure 
 of educated intelligence and a certain measure of 
 equity. Of course, we want something more than 
 the flippant school-usher and the strait-witted com- 
 positor, whose eyes instinctively gravitate to accents 
 and commas, something higher than the Erratuni- 
 hunter, and more respectable than the party with the 
 vendetta, whose commission, or even whose friend's, 
 to execute a book you may have unluckily inter- 
 cepted. These prevailing types demonstrate the 
 justice of Macaulay 's remark, and explain Mr. 
 Huth's sense of a deficiencv in this direction. 
 
 I may honestly affirm that I am profoundly in- 
 different on the subject ; but the publishers may 
 naturally complain that their commercial investments 
 suffer from the present unsatisfactory condition of
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 281 
 
 affairs, while they so importantly contribute to keep 
 the paper on its feet by their advertisements. Might 
 not the proprietor of the AtJiencetun, who is so very 
 liberal in politics, carry the feeling and principle 
 into the conduct of his periodical ? Or, as an 
 alternative, might not the Law of Libel be made 
 more stringent and summary ? 
 
 Reviewing in the press is a process and system of 
 which the general reader of daily and weekly pub- 
 lications has a very limited and imperfect idea. He 
 is apt to misunderstand its nature and significance. 
 A review of a work is simply the opinion of one 
 man about another man's book. The critic may by 
 possibility come to his task with some foreknowledge 
 of the subject, as when a member of the staff of a 
 public institution is employed to notice ex catliedni a 
 book dealing with his speciality, and rubs down any 
 unfortunate wight who has presumed to encroach 
 on the peculiar domain of these Trades-Unionists — 
 only themselves or their assigns warranted. This 
 signifies, so far as the official range goes, that the 
 normal literary man contributes to pay the salary of 
 the very person who thus narrows his opportunities 
 of employment, and is not unlikely, in addition, to 
 lampoon him in the papers, while the official enjoys 
 the advantage of his prestige in Bloomsbury and
 
 r82 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 elsewhere in granting- audiences to j:)iiblishers eager 
 to have the honour of ])lacing his name on their 
 title-pages, in lieu of ignobly waiting on them. By 
 all means let us have a schedule of themes which 
 may only l)e handled by the I lluiiiiiiati. Or, shall 
 certain books not be legally current without the old 
 PennissiL Superiormii ? 
 
 But, as a rule, it is almost necessarily the case 
 that the critic derives his acquaintance with the 
 topic treated from a more or less cursory perusal 
 of the volume in his hands, and it is not invariably 
 found that he takes such pains as a conscientious 
 judge should do to make himself a master of 
 the bearings and of the author's plan. Of course, 
 the instances are phenomenally rare where a re- 
 viewer bestows on his undertaking an adequate 
 amount of labour and thought, to say nothing of his 
 outlay for material to enable him to do justice to his 
 author and to himselt. I do not wish to dwell too 
 much on the less usual aspect of the matter, where it 
 is the fashion to say all that is pleasant about the 
 production of a friend, and much that is false and 
 foolish about that of an enemy or rival book-builder, 
 for I verily believe this cruel and cowardly practice 
 to be on the decline among critics of any repute. 
 
 There is one thing to be said in favour of the
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 283 
 
 hypercritical and drastic style which distinguishes a 
 few organs : it keeps authors and editors in their 
 places. They might, after a while, begin to fancy 
 themselves rather clever fellows with a middling 
 knowledge of a subject or so ; but the heel of the 
 censor presses on their neck ever and anon, and they 
 are reminded by him or his assigns that they are 
 damned fools. 
 
 I have alluded to my personal want of interest in 
 the notices of my literary efforts. I have also, I 
 fear, been rather backward in replying to challenges 
 in the press. Once it happened that someone wished 
 to know my authority for ascribing" a particular tract 
 to a particular writer, and Mr, Huth recommended 
 me to send a reply to the editor. Eventually, when 
 he found me indomitably apathetic on the point, he 
 very kindly set to work and wrote a letter for me, or 
 in my name, I forget which. He was certainly most 
 friendly, and when I borrowed a valuable book now 
 and then, and I suggested that it should be packed 
 up, he, instead of calling a servant, did it himself, 
 for, if there is a thing in which I succeed worse than 
 in writing, it is in making a parcel. 
 
 I surprised C. by saying that although I had seen 
 the finest libraries in the country, and they had 
 served me passing well in a bibliographical sense, my
 
 284 FOURTH GENERA TION OF A LITERARY FAMILY 
 
 private inclination as a book-lover was in favour of 
 the humbler a-atherinLT which a man makes from 
 choice of the authors or volumes for which he has 
 a genuine personal affection. I like the old-fashioned 
 book-closet, as I do the china-closet. There are two 
 classes of literature to which one may be partial : 
 one, which it seems sufficient to borrow at need, and 
 another, which cannot be spared, lest we should 
 desire to turn to a passage or to peruse once more a 
 favourite poem or paper. There is a want of intimacy 
 between the book and its owner in your great library. 
 He is the caretaker rather than the master.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Literary acquaintances {continued) — The Tyssens — F. W. Cosens 
 — What he said to me about himself — His taste for Spanish 
 hterature and early English books — His generous contribution 
 to the Stratford-on-Avon Fund — A strange mistake by a noble 
 lord — The first book printed at New York — Mr. E. P. Shirley 
 — Value of pamphlets illustrated— David Laing — His varied 
 acquirements and disinterested character — A member of the 
 old Scotish school — His literary performances — What they 
 cost him and what he gained by them — Sir Walter Scott's 
 ' Dear George ' — Relics of Sir Walter — The Britwell Library 
 — Its origin and fortunes — Samuel Christie-Miller — His 
 criticisms on the books — Indebtedness of the library to the 
 Heber sale — Frederic Locker-Lampson — His advantages 
 as a man of fortune — Comparison of himself with Henry 
 Huth — His vers de socieie — As a man — As a buyer — Locker's 
 father and brother- — The Mutual Admiration Society. 
 
 Three members of the Tyssen family were dis- 
 tinguished early in the century in different ways. 
 One brother was a book-collector, a second a numis- 
 matist, a third a sportsman. At dinner one evening, 
 when the three were together, and a friend, an 
 Admiral R. N., made the fourth, the enthusiast for 
 coins threw on the table a rare early English silver 
 penny. ' There !' cried he. ' Congratulate me. I
 
 286 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 ""ave twenty guineas for it.' Of course they did. 
 W hen he left the room, the sportsman remarked, 
 ' What a fool ! Why, he might have got a couple of 
 pointers with the money!' 'Ah!' chimed in the 
 sailor ; 'or, better still, the model of a shij).' The 
 bibliophile w^as generous enough to sy.y nothing. 
 This I had from the son of one of those present. 
 
 Concurrently with my knowledge of Mr, Huth, I 
 formed the acquaintance of the late Mr. Frederic 
 William Cosens, the wine-shipper, a self-raised and 
 self-educated man, but a person of the kindest and 
 most amiable character, and of tastes which did him 
 infinite honour. He laboured under many draw- 
 backs. He told me that he was thrown on the world 
 to make his living at fifteen ; he had worked hard at 
 his business during the best years of his life ; and 
 when he sought me out some five-and-twenty years 
 since, he was only just beginning to relax his attend- 
 ance on his commercial duties. His relationship 
 with Spain as a wine-importer had naturally led him 
 to contract an interest in the literature of that 
 country, and the circle into which he was drawn at 
 home lent him an inducement to extend his range 
 as a collector to our own early literature, especially 
 Shakesperiana and poetical manuscripts. He was one 
 of the most munificent contributors to the Stratford-
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 287 
 
 on-Avon Fund; and he was of the Forty whom I have 
 commemorated in a preceding section. Huth, as a 
 Spanish scholar, thought rather poorly, I must own, 
 of Cosens s efforts as a translator from Lope de Vega 
 of certain novels cognate in their subject to Shake- 
 spear. 
 
 Book-collectors are, as a rule, remarkably super- 
 ficial. I was once at a bookseller's while the present 
 
 Earl of C was looking at the first book printed 
 
 at New York — the Laws and Acts of the State, 
 which issued from the parent-press of William Brad- 
 ford in 1693-94, bearing, of course, the same relation 
 to American literature and bibliography as a Caxton 
 does to our own. Yet, incredible as it may appear, 
 his lordship put the precious volume down, with the 
 remark that it did not interest him, 7iof having been 
 printed in America. At the foot of the title-page 
 he might have read : 'At Nezu York, Printed and 
 sold by William Bradford, P^Hnter to Their 
 Majesties^ King VVilliani and Qneen Mary, 1694. 
 It was the copy which had belonged to Lord Chan- 
 cellor Somers. 
 
 Mr. Charlemagne Tower knew better, and the 
 unique book is at present, by his bequest, in the 
 library of the Pennsylvania Historical Society. From 
 having been since Lord Somers's day in the centre
 
 288 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 of a volume of tracts, it is in the most beautiful con- 
 dition imaginable. 
 
 It rather surprised me, I confess, to hear the late 
 Mr. I'^velyn Philip Shirley, who was greatly in- 
 terested in all matters relating to early Irish history, 
 say that he did not include tracts in his collection, 
 as it is to that class of record, transmitting to us, as 
 they do, the impressions of contemporaries, and pre- 
 serving facts not to be found in larger works, that 
 we owe so much information which would have been 
 otherwise lost. 
 
 Fox, in his Boo/e of Martyrs, especially in the 
 first edition, has inserted the texts of a large number 
 of pamphlets, sometimes ipsissiniis vci'bis, but more 
 usually in substance, and in certain cases we are 
 unable, perhaps, to detect his obligations from the 
 disappearance of the originals. Stow did much the 
 same, I think, in his Chronicle. 
 
 I hold a number of letters on literary or biblio- 
 graphical topics from David Laing, who was not 
 only an interesting man as a link between the Scot- 
 land of Sir Walter Scott and the Scotland which 
 we know, but was quite an Aristarchus in his way, 
 occupying a position, as I have always contended, 
 never attained by any literary person on this side of 
 Tweed. Laing was, in a certain sense, ambidexter.
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 289 
 
 He was equally at home in the old Scotish writers 
 and in the more modern. While he intimately knew, 
 and cordially appreciated, the author of Waverley, 
 he vindicated from oblivion and neglect the writings 
 of Knox and of the early viakars. But I suspect 
 that with us Southrons his sympathy was less pro- 
 found. 
 
 The only occasion on which I had the honour 
 of shaking him by the hand was in the Museum 
 Reading Room. We met by appointment, and I 
 shall never forget the veteran antiquary's change of 
 countenance and accent when I suggested that he 
 should dine with me at Kensington on the next 
 ensuing Sabbath. He might have been the disciple 
 of Knox, as well as his editor. He was of the unco' 
 guid and godly. I heard from him, however, almost 
 down to the last, and often forwarded information 
 to him about books beyond his reach, bearing on 
 some undertaking on which he was engaged. He 
 was the very opposite to a bookmaker. Except 
 Henry Bradshaw, no one of my time ever chewed 
 the cud over an author or a subject as Laing did. 
 His edition of William Dunbar, which had been 
 commenced in 1820, was not published till 1834, 
 nor did the supplement appear till 1865, because he 
 had been hoping to recover certain pieces or facts, 
 
 VOL. ir. 38
 
 290 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 which, after all, he never did ; and his edition of 
 Robert Henryson, although he was collecting the 
 material for xi pari passu with Uunbar, did not see 
 the light till the Supplement to the latter poet just 
 mentioned came out. It was in hand between thirty 
 and forty years. 
 
 He used to explain how this arose. He did not 
 derive any pecuniary advantage froni these publica- 
 tions ; his personal means were limited. He had 
 manifold occupations, and the printing process had 
 to await a convenient opportunity. He was a pure 
 littdrateiLv, and a fine old fellow, to boot. I have 
 known him travel miles at his own expense to verify 
 some trivial point in person, instead of acquiring the 
 information at second-hand. 
 
 When I was in Edinburgh about 1855, Sir Walter 
 Scott's ' dear George ' was dead ; but his son, T. G. 
 Stevenson, kept a bookshop in Prince's Street in a 
 sort of cellar, to which you descended by a few steps. 
 His near neighbour, William Paterson. and he had 
 an odd way of putting visitors, to whom they gave 
 the • confidence, on their guard one against the 
 
 Oth'T 
 
 Sir Walter's inkstand, which he used in his office 
 at i xlinburgh while he discharged the duties of 
 She '-iff-deputy, came to his assistant or closet-keeper,
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 291 
 
 Mr. Carmichael, whose daughter Charlotte inherited 
 it, and used to shew it as a curiosity, 
 
 Messrs. Ballantyne and Co. have at their London 
 house the desk upon which Scott corrected his 
 proofs in his private room at their office. 
 
 Mr. Wilham Henry Miller, the founder of the 
 celebrated Britwell Library, was an attorney at Edin- 
 burgh, and made his fortune by farming the City 
 sewage, or, at all events, by a share in the enter- 
 prise. When ' Measure ' Miller, as he was called, 
 from his habit of carrying about an inch-rule to test 
 the relative tallness of copies, began to collect, I do 
 not quite know ; but he was a buyer at the White 
 Knights sale in 18 19, where he gave over ^60 for 
 the Book of St. Albans, printed by W^ynkyn de 
 Worde in 1496. An odd story was once afloat that 
 Miller was really a woman ; but how that may have 
 been, I cannot say. He had no family, at any rate, 
 and died without issue in or about 1849, leaving 
 sisters, but bequeathing his property, including the 
 library, to his cousin. Miss Marsh, as I am credibly 
 informed, who left it to a Mr. Samuel Christy, of 
 the firm of hatters in Piccadilly, to whom he or she 
 had taken a liking-. This individual took the name 
 of Miller, and altered his original name into Christie. 
 He came into a pretty good thing for a hatter, as
 
 292 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 Riviere the bookbinder used to remark to me. 
 He had the house at Craigentinny, near Edinburgh ; 
 a second at Britwell, near Maidenhead ; and a town 
 house in St. James's Place — the same which had 
 once belonged to Samuel Rollers. Christie-Miller 
 was a very commonplace, illiterate man, very proud 
 of his possessions, of which he spoke as if they had 
 been in his family since the Conquest, and laughably 
 distrustful of any and every one. Bradshaw once 
 went to Britwell to see some of the books, and little 
 Miller watched him, as a cat watches a mouse. His 
 own vulgar instincts led him to suspect even a man 
 above suspicion. 
 
 He remarked to me one day that he did not quite 
 understand the value and interest of these old books, 
 and he particularly insisted on the incorrectness of 
 the orthography, which was a further betrayal of his 
 extraction. 
 
 He more than once rather contemptuously referred 
 to the Huth books, saying that it was impossible for 
 the owner to have secured more than a few here 
 and there of the rarer early English works in poetry 
 and romance ; and, of course, had it not been for 
 the Daniel and Corser sales, Huth would have 
 never succeeded in obtaining much, although his 
 large resources and the incessant vigilance of Lilly
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 293- 
 
 and other caterers for him did a great deal. It was 
 rather absurd, however, for a parvenu Hke the 
 hatter to pose as a man of the old school, seeing 
 that the library came to him ready-made and by a 
 fluke, and that his knowledge of it was infinitesimal. 
 It may be added that the Brit well Library itself is 
 what we see it mainly through the acquisition by 
 the founder at the Heber sale of the rarest early 
 English books at relatively nominal amounts. 
 
 Mr. Frederic Locker- Lampson always struck me 
 as a droll figure. He posed as a friend to men of 
 letters, and subscribed, I believe, to the Literary 
 Fund ; yet he held up his head as if his sole status 
 had been his ancient descent and his territorial 
 importance, whereas in reality his main title to 
 notice was what he did in vers de societd — some very 
 clever and pretty things, but assuredly no poetry. 
 Like Tennyson, he was destitute of humour ; but of 
 course he lacked Tennyson's power. 
 
 Mr. Locker- Lampson was comparing his position 
 with that of Huth one day in conversation with me, 
 and pleading on his own behalf that he had at any 
 rate done something — meaning the Londoii Lyrics. 
 But Huth was a man of altogether superior calibre 
 and morale. The other was a virtuoso, and perhaps 
 a little of the petit inaitre. He was one of the
 
 2 94 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 spoiled children of fortune. His metrical trifles 
 shewed you, if you did not know him, that he had 
 a taste for culture and a handsome balance at his 
 banker's. Canon G. \'ery judiciously observed to 
 me that culture mioht make or mar ; the young 
 men who affect it too frequently carry the hobby 
 to a point where it becomes distasteful or ridiculous. 
 But Locker, as a man of fortune, had no object to 
 gain by enunciating extreme opinions. He held the 
 middle way. 
 
 It was one of the most grotesque sights possible 
 to see him, as I did one day, arrive in a high-pitched 
 chariot at Couttss with some of his belongings. He 
 was perched up on a seat which placed him on a 
 level with the top of an omnibus or a hay-cart, 
 and his expression and air were ludicrously cox- 
 ombical. 
 
 But it was when I had occasion to call at his 
 residence one evening, and he was in full dress, that 
 I was most amused. I had met him in town just 
 before in a stupendous fur-coat, in which he might 
 have passed for a man of fifteen stone ; and in his 
 swallow-tails, with his attenuated frame and his 
 wizen face, you felt as if you could lift him with one 
 hand. 
 
 He honoured me by sending me a volume called
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 295 
 
 Patchwork, published in 1879 ; but he did not 
 mention that it was on the exact Hnes of one edited 
 by myself a few years before. He might be sup- 
 posed not to be aware of it ; we moved in such 
 different circles. 
 
 Locker also gave me a copy of his London 
 Lyrics, with a request that I would send him my 
 written opinion of it. I did so with a certain diffi- 
 culty, as in a budget of vers de socictc, not of the 
 highest class, one scarcely knew what to say. I 
 have not looked into the book for years ; it left on 
 my mind an agreeable impression of a few neatly- 
 turned and graceful stanzas with the same fault 
 which the writer displayed as a collector — an absence 
 of breadth and strength. I remember that Locker 
 characteristically asked me to call for the little 
 volume at a wine-shop in Piccadilly, in which he 
 then had an interest. 
 
 Locker, in his parsimonious ways, curiously 
 resembled his relative by marriage, the late Poet 
 Laureate. I met him in the Strand shortly after his 
 accession to the Lampson property through his 
 second wife, and congratulated him. He looked 
 rather grave, and said, ' Ah, yes ; but it is terrible 
 to think of the expense I have to incur for 
 repairs.'
 
 •96 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 It always seemed to me that Locker assumed a 
 false attitude. Mis claim to consideration was not 
 that he enjoyed so many thousands a year jnre 
 ?/.vons, but (as he owned himself) that he was the 
 author of a creditable little book of verses, a lover 
 of old literature, and the possessor of a certain 
 feelino- for art. A man of fortune who is also a 
 man of letters is apt to be persuaded by his friends 
 that he is a man of genius. Locker was a second- 
 rate versifier of the Dobson and Calverley school. 
 
 He was very manneristic in the way in which he 
 approached you as an applicant for information on 
 literary or bibliographical matters. He assumed an 
 air of bland and almost infantile simplicity, and was 
 apt to draw you out, unless you were on your guard. 
 He once asked me, when I was at his house, to 
 write a note on a flyleaf of a very rare edition of 
 VieywoocVs Ii/>t£-7^a7ns, 1550, which he had bought 
 of John Pearson, calculating that some day my 
 attestation as to the book mioht make it fetch a few 
 pounds more. 
 
 He was a very poor and injudicious buyer. He 
 selected, it is true, for the reputation rather than for 
 the mere rarity, and was so far wise. But he had a 
 fiddling, undecided way of setting about his acquisi- 
 tions, and the booksellers thought him mean. His
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 297 
 
 collection was formed without any particular method, 
 and its importance has been greatly overrated. Most 
 of his rarest books are miserable copies. 
 
 One day, at Chesham Place, Locker was speaking 
 of the habit of stealing books, apropos of something 
 I had told him about a fellow who habitually 
 abstracted a volume whenever he went to Russell 
 Smith's in Soho Square, and, like Lamb in writing 
 about Fauntleroy, he looked at his own hands, and 
 laughingly wondered whether, had he been put to 
 his shifts, he might not have done something of the 
 same sort. His daughter, who afterward married 
 one of Tennyson's sons, was in the room. 
 
 By the way, the modus operandi of the party 
 above mentioned was remarkable ; he stood on the 
 mat by the door out of sheer humility (as it was 
 thought), with his hands behind his back, and while 
 he engaged the bookseller's attention by some 
 query, he managed to insinuate any volume on the 
 shelves in the rear, which happened to be accessible, 
 into his tail-pocket. 
 
 An odd adventure which I once had in reference 
 to a rare Elizabethan tract in Locker's hands 
 reminds me that the pursuit of knowledge under 
 difficulties receives its share of illustration from the 
 experiences of the book-hunter. Infinitely diverse
 
 298 FOURTH G1':NERATI0N 
 
 are the methods by which I have accomplished the 
 task, piecemeal, of drawing;- together authentic parti- 
 culars of the early printed literature of my country 
 lor the first time on a systematic and comprehensive 
 principle ; how far I have succeeded 1 shall leave 
 others to discover and decide ; but I may just 
 suggest a comparison between my Collections 1867- 
 96 and the best authorities previously available or 
 extant. At the auction-rooms I have seldom met 
 with much inconvenience ; the leading- members of 
 the book-trade have, as a rule, been most helpful ; 
 and the British Museum staff has invariably done 
 its best to promote my objects. But among the 
 minor dealers I have known what it is to witness 
 disappointment, when, instead oi an expected and 
 desired customer, it was only a person in search of 
 a title, or some such matter, who had presented 
 himself. 
 
 I have just above alluded to Locker. He had 
 aoreed, if I would come to Chesham Place, where 
 he then resided, that he would let me see the 
 volume in question ; but when I went, everyone 
 was out, and the book was in charge of a domestic, 
 apparently a kitchenmaid, who apprised me that I 
 mioht look at it, but that I was on no account to 
 take it away, Mr. Locker said. I archly feigned
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 299 
 
 unawareness of this superfluous communication for 
 the sake of the highly welcome addition to my 
 stores, yet thinking how differently Huth would 
 have behaved. The latter, in truth, possessed 
 qualities rarer and more valuable than the rarest 
 and most valuable book in his fine library. 
 
 Altogether Locker was a man of the time, and 
 owed his position to the fact that he was a person 
 of means and a oenuine amateur. His taste for 
 books he had perhaps inherited from his father, 
 Captain Locker, who seems to have been a collector, 
 and whose ex libris I have seen. This was the 
 Edward Locker who published the Naval Gallery 
 of Greenwich Hospital and other now not very well 
 recollected works. 
 
 Locker was accustomed to say of a certain book- 
 seller who had 'done time,' that when he met him 
 his eyes always mechanically gravitated to his hair. 
 
 I shall never forget his gratification, when I once 
 met him in a shop, and shewed him, at his request, 
 while the owner had gone upstairs in quest of some- 
 thing, a copy of a very rare old play, at intercepting 
 it on its way to Mr. Huth, who subsequently found 
 another copy. Locker clapped it in his pocket as 
 if he had purloined it. 
 
 Locker was assuredly not prepossessing in his
 
 J 
 
 oo FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 physical appearance, yet he seems to be entitled to 
 rank among modern lady-killers, and owed his 
 fortune, which so materially seccjnded his literary 
 and social advancement, as it had done in the case 
 of Disraeli, to two successive marriages. 
 
 I have often smiled at the sort of common accord 
 with which the booksellers spoke of him as ' Fred 
 Locker ' ; it was a piece of affectionate familiarity, 
 almost camaraderie, by which he might or might 
 not have been flattered. I cannot be sure whether 
 his rather artificial affabilitv or bonJwiuie was mis- 
 construed by some of those to whom he addressed 
 himself. 
 
 He was eminently a gentleman, however, and 
 his manners were even courtly, yet virile. He 
 struck one as a person accustomed to excellent 
 society, as of course he was. Some men are apt 
 to be a little too effeminate — too ladylike. There 
 
 is , for example. A couple of girls looking in 
 
 at a photographer s window, one exclaimed, ' Oh, 
 there's Mr. ! Isn't \\^ pretty 7 
 
 Locker's brother, who formerly edited the Graphic, 
 paid him full fraternal homage by the sympathetic 
 and obsequious way in which he deployed his eye- 
 glass. I do not know what other literary claims he 
 possessed.
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 301 
 
 The Mutual Admiration Society, to which this 
 class of writer has owed so much, and which, again, 
 thence derives its raison d'etre, have of late had a 
 merry and triumphant time of it, puffing their friends 
 and themselves on strict debtor and creditor prin- 
 ciples, and abusing- non-subscribers till, as a natural 
 consequence, they have done their full part in 
 discrediting criticism, even among persons not 
 professedly versed in literary matters, and in pros- 
 tituting the press, so far as they can, to party and 
 personal objects. 
 
 But this unhealthy and mischievous movement 
 has far outgrown the promise of its youth — its 
 limits, as Locker knew it — and the production of a 
 species of literary work, accompanied by so-called 
 artistic embellishments, is at present arranged with 
 the most minute and laborious attention to every 
 detail. The text of a book may be apparently 
 worthless, and the illustrations equally so, but by 
 favour of a sort of critical mesmerism two negatives 
 become an affirmative. 
 
 Imprimis, you must buy the book written by one 
 of the set ; the progress toward publication, and 
 the actual day of appearance, will be brought under 
 your notice by a succession of paragraphs, diplo- 
 matically distanced, which it is to be hoped you
 
 302 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 will not find too cxcitlnir ; but vou must not read 
 the volume till you have gone through the official 
 reviews of it, which will ofuide vou to the beauties, 
 and instruct you how to appreciate them. Other- 
 wise vou mav miss the clue. 
 
 It was a very different matter when the old 
 writers, as Professor Arber points out, in his Preface 
 to TottelFs Miscellavy, 1557, 'wrote for their own 
 delectation and for that of their friends : and not for 
 the general public' The new school has no such 
 disinterested enthusiasm and retiring- temper, but 
 is a svstematic scheme for hoaxino" the readers and 
 buyers of books by means of puffs in the organs 
 of the press, with which it is their first business to 
 connect themselves. The book itself is a secondary 
 consideration ; it is sufficient for the purchaser or 
 peruser to understand that it is wTitten by the great 
 
 Mr. , whose name and doings he sees so often 
 
 recorded in the columns of a particular class of 
 paper ; he is not to know that the paragra[)h is from 
 the same pen as the book, or from that of some 
 altei'' e^o, another member of this distins^uished co- 
 operative society of Horn and Bellows Blowers, and 
 he must sometimes wonder, when he takes a copy 
 in his hand, whether it is really the article of which 
 so much has been said.
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 303 
 
 All that seems requisite to complete this ingenious 
 machinery seems to be the hoarding and the sand- 
 wich. 
 
 Even this sort of history repeats itself. The 
 silly and fulsome descriptions of the home life, the 
 elegant interior, the toilette, the familiar mood, the 
 diet, of these exquisites of the age, recall the 
 Sentimentalities of that prince of prigs and cox- 
 combs, Mr, Janus Weathercock, satirized by Hazlitt 
 in the Dandy ScJwoI—2\'a.s, in vain ! Tainen zisqite 
 recnrrit. One sickens of the trash spun out about 
 the Great Impressionists dismounted from their 
 pedestals and consorting with ordinary mortals, like 
 the gods of Olympos,
 
 CHAPTER VL 
 
 Robert Herrick and the Perry-Herricks of Beautnanor Park, 
 Loughborough — My visit to the house — Cherry Ripe — 
 Dorothy King — To keep a true Lent — Other book-col- 
 lectors of my time — R. S. Turner — E. H. Lawrence — 
 Story of Ruskin and the Cypriot antiquities of Cesnola — 
 The Freres of Roydon Hall — Their literary associations 
 — A portion of the Paston Letters sold with the library 
 — My Cornish acquaintances — Llanhydrock — Mr. and 
 Mrs. Agar-Robartes — Thomas Couch of Bodmin and 
 Jonathan Couch of Polperro — Henry Sewell Stokes, the 
 poet — My conversation with him about I'ennyson — The 
 pack-horse road and the British huts near Bodmin — Mr. 
 Aldrich of Iowa, a friend of Jefferson Davis and an 
 autograph-collector, at Barnes. 
 
 I PAID a flying visit to Beaumanor Park, near 
 Loughborough, in 1869, to see the Herrick manu- 
 scripts, which it was necessary to collate for an 
 edition of the poet undertaken gratuitously by 
 me for the Library of Old Author's. 
 
 Mr. W. Perry- Herrick, an indirect descendant 
 of the poet, shewed me the stables on this occasion, 
 with some of the curious old-fashioned carriages,
 
 FOURTH GENERATION OF A LITERARY FAMILY 305 
 
 which had belonged to members of his family 
 in the present and last century ; and in the house 
 was the truckle-bed on which, according to his 
 account, Richard III. slept the night before 
 Bosworth. You see at Leicester the little bridge 
 over the Stour which occupies the site, and may 
 follow the lines, of that which Richard crossed on 
 horseback on his way to the fatal field, and they 
 shew you the very spot where his foot struck 
 against the side, and refer to the old woman's 
 prophecy. 
 
 Mr. Perry- Herrick more immediately owed his 
 large fortune to his connection with the Perrys of 
 Wolverhampton, two brothers, who had an interest 
 in the deep coal, and by very penurious habits 
 amassed, it is said, ^2,000,000. I do not think that 
 much, if any, of the house built by the poet's uncle 
 remains. 
 
 It is a highly touching trait, which a writer in 
 the Ouai'terly Review for 18 10 preserves, of an 
 old woman, named Dorothy King, who lived, as 
 her parents had done, at Dean Prior, the poet 
 Herrick's residence and preferment in Devonshire. 
 The Review^er states that he found, on a visit to 
 the spot, that Mrs. King used to repeat five of 
 Herrick's Noble Ntunbers, including his Litany, 
 
 VOL. II. 39
 
 3o6 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 which she called her Prayers, and she had no 
 idea that they had ever been printed, or that 
 the writer's name was known outside her native 
 village. She had learned them, as a child, from 
 her mother. 
 
 Only a few days ago I heard a common boy 
 in the street singing Cherry Ripe. Of course, he 
 had no idea who wrote the verses, nor had he 
 the whole poem. He had caught it from someone 
 else. If you had stopped him and said that it 
 was produced by a clergyman in Devonshire, named 
 Robert Herrick, two hundred and odd years since, 
 he would have grinned from ear to ear and been 
 as wise as before. I passed on. 
 
 There is a tradition that Herrick, on his super- 
 session at the time of the Commonwealth, repeated 
 to himself his ' Farev/ell to Dean Bourn ' as he 
 crossed the brook on his way to return to London. 
 
 But I think that the finest thinof in all the 
 Hesperides is to be found among the Noble 
 Numbers : 
 
 TO KEEP A TRUE LENT. 
 
 I. Is this a Fast, to keep 
 
 The Larder leane ? 
 
 And cleane 
 From fat of ^'eales, and Sheep ?
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 307 
 
 2. Is it to quit tlie dish 
 
 Of Flesh, yet still 
 To fill 
 The platter high with Fish ? 
 
 3. Is it to fast an houre, 
 
 Or rag'd to go, 
 
 Or show 
 A down-cast look, and sowre ? 
 
 4. No : 'tis a Fast, to dole 
 
 Thy sheaf of wheat, 
 
 And meat 
 Unto the hungry Soule. 
 
 5. It is to fast from strife. 
 
 From old debate, 
 
 And hate ; 
 To circumcise thy life. 
 
 6. To show a heart grief-rent : 
 
 To sterve thy sin. 
 
 Not Bin ; 
 And that's to keep thy Lent. 
 
 R. S. Turner and E. H. Lawrence were, as 
 collectors, two men of the rarest taste and dis- 
 crimination, and in their personal appearance two 
 of the most commonplace. Lawrence had a curious 
 idiosyncrasy of signing himself F.S.A. even on 
 his cheques. But no one comprehended better 
 the difference between a fine article and a poor 
 one than he did. He was, I believe, a thoroughly 
 kind-hearted fellow, and from his vocation as a
 
 J 
 
 08 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 stockbroker must have accumulated a handsome 
 fortune. The only ])urchase i)n his j)art I never 
 understood was that of a miscellaneous assemblage 
 of Cypriot glass and pottery. 
 
 I am prompted to mention here that while the 
 Cypriot antiquities of Cesnola were being- packed 
 at Rollin and Feuardent's in Great Russell Street, 
 preparatory to their transfer to the American 
 Government, which bought them entire for ^16,000, 
 several distinguished persons interested in art came 
 to see them, among others Ruskin, who made some 
 sketches from these fine objects. 
 
 He went down on his knees to examine the 
 details more carefully, but many had been already 
 pacl-ced up. ' Ah,' said he, ' I wish I had known 
 of this before. I must c^o to America to see them 
 when they are on view.' Did he ? 
 
 The British Museum would have gladly purchased 
 a few ; but, as Cesnola observed, they would have 
 left him with the less valuable bulk. 
 
 Turner's death was even more melancholy than 
 Huth's. He had long suffered from morbid depres- 
 sion, and at last threw himself from the top of the 
 well- staircase of a hotel at Brighton. His physical 
 bearing was just as unprepossessing and unaristo- 
 cratic as Lawrence's ; but he had a more polished
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 309 
 
 manner, and spoke correctly. I do not think that 
 he was a scholar, but he knew a great deal about 
 French and Italian books. The former, which cost 
 him about ^3,000, fetched ^15,000. 
 
 Among the sufferers from the acute agricultural 
 depression in East Anglia were the Freres of 
 Roydon Hall, Norfolk. In February, 1896, as I 
 was laying down my pen, Mr. John Tudor Frere, 
 who had previously sold other inherited effects, and 
 had found it necessary to live in the lodge attached 
 to the Hall, parted at Sotheby's rooms with certain 
 of his books, which derived their chief interest from 
 including the collections of Sir John Fenn. The 
 library had been formed by Sheppard Frere, John 
 Frere. and John Hookham Frere, the last a man of 
 some literary and political repute in his day, and a 
 friend of Byron, Coleridge, etc. The prices realized 
 were wholly in excess of the value. I saw three or 
 four members of the family in the auction- room, and 
 I understood that many lots were bought in, and 
 that there is a considerable body of books behind 
 unsold. A portion of the Pas ton Letters (about 
 two-fifths) fetched ^400, and ought, with the Tom- 
 line volumes elsewhere referred to, to find a home 
 in the British Museum. 
 
 Another of my bibliographical expeditions was to
 
 3IO FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 Llanhydrock, near Bodmin, Cornwall, the seat of 
 the late Mr. Agar-Robartes, M.P., afterward Lord 
 Robartes. He had married the daughter of Mr. 
 Carew of Antony. Both Robartes and his wife 
 were very polite and attentive, and shewed me, or 
 allowed me to examine, the rare and curious books 
 in the Long Room there. The house was built by 
 John, Lord Roberts, first Earl of Radnor, Lord- 
 Lieutenant of Ireland in the time of Charles I L, 
 and had his initials and the date of erection carved 
 on several parts of the premises. I once attended 
 the little church in the Park, and Robartes himself 
 read the lessons. There were several old horses 
 wandering about, their term of service expired ; 
 for their master never allowed one to be de- 
 stroyed. 
 
 I was permitted to take what notes I pleased of 
 the old books in the Long Room, and I met with a 
 few singularly rare items. Mrs. Robartes was good 
 enough to look out personally for me some volumes 
 containing manuscript remarks by the first Earl of 
 Radnor, who died in 1685. My examination of the 
 library was very cursory, as I was accom[)anied by 
 a friend who entertained no literary sympathies ; 
 and I have recently understood that there are some 
 undescribed books and tracts overlooked by me,
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 311 
 
 and that a catalogue of the whole collection may be 
 expected. 
 
 Robartes was a very benevolent man, and spent 
 a good deal In charity In the poorer quarters of 
 London, as well as In his native county. His only 
 son Charles, the present Lord Robartes, was a lad 
 when I was last In Cornwall ; he had been very 
 simply brought up, and It was said that he thought 
 much of being asked out to tea. 
 
 One of our common acquaintances at this time 
 (1875) was Mr. Thomas Couch of Bodmin, the 
 eminent archaeologist, whose father, Jonathan Couch 
 of Polperro, wrote the work on British Fishes. 
 The latter derived his Information on Ichthyology 
 from personal research, and was often to be seen 
 about the precincts of the fishing village, where he 
 lived and died. In primitive attire and barefoot, on 
 his way to the shore and rocks or on his return. 
 Thomas Couch, who assisted me in my edition of 
 Brand's Popular Antiquities, compiled a Glossary 
 of Words used in East Cornivall, of which a copy, 
 given me by him in 1865, contains large manuscript 
 additions made by me in the course of my Cornish 
 sojourns. He long acted as confidential adviser to 
 Robartes in matters of local charity and distress. 
 
 The last time I was at Bodmin, I saw In the
 
 312 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 Asylum poor n]ii;ht, the acc()nij)lishc(l artist, and 
 author of ./ U'tc/c a( the Laud's E)id \ he was 
 hopck'ssly hypochondriacal. 
 
 But one of the most noted characters in those 
 parts, thirty years or so since, was Mr. William 
 Hicks, whose powers as a raconteur of Cornish 
 stories have probably never been surpassed. His 
 accurate and droll rendering of the provincial patois 
 and mannerism was irresistible. He was a perfect 
 host in himself at any entertainment. Hicks was 
 intimate with Jackson the water-colour painter, and 
 recei\-ed him at his house during many years ; and 
 Jackson executed quite a series of complimentary 
 pictures for Hicks, who highly prized them. After 
 his death, they were unfortunately removed to a 
 damp house, and I understood that they suffered 
 serious detriment. 
 
 The literary circle here in my time also com- 
 prised Sir John Maclean, author of a History of the 
 Deanery of Triog Minor and other works ; William 
 Jago, a thoughtful and well-informed local antiquary ; 
 and Henry Sewell Stokes, the Cornish poet ; and 
 there was Bliuht. 
 
 My daughter had written to Mr. Jago's, describing 
 in rather glowing colours an article of dress just 
 acquired ; and her young correspondent replied,
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 313 
 
 ' Your hat Is a dream.' She was probably un- 
 acquainted with the fact that this expression is 
 common in French Hterature. 
 
 When I met Stokes, he spoke of Tennyson 
 havine been with him, and of their conversation 
 together about the Arthur Poems. Stokes said 
 that T. admitted to him his obHgations to the old 
 metrical Morte Arthur, and I went so far as to 
 express my opinion that, looking at the antiquity 
 and priority of it, the prototype was the finer pro- 
 duction, and it is extraordinary how modern it 
 strikes one as being in comparison with much of 
 the poetry belonging to the same period. This is 
 the common attribute of oenius — to make us lose 
 sight of chronological boundaries. It is so with 
 Chaucer. It is so with Shakespear. I would add, 
 it is so largely with the author of Piers P loughman. 
 The essence is of all time ; the outward texture 
 only is antique. 
 
 The County Asylum occupies a large plot of 
 ground formerly open and the site of the gallows. 
 The name Bodinin is identical with Bodiiam or 
 Bodenhani ; the original town lay at some distance in 
 the valley. 
 
 On the hioh "round above, three roads run 
 parallel with each other : the pack-horse road, the
 
 314 FOURTH GENERATION OF A LFTERARY FAMILY 
 
 old coach road, aiul llic! modern coach road. Just 
 about here there are some strange low-fiitched 
 hovels, which they call British huts. 
 
 The pack-horse tracks are of the greatest antiquity. 
 They just remind me of those over the mountains 
 in Cumberland, some distance from I^roughton-in- 
 Furness. The keeper of the inn at Broughton, in 
 former days, used to see the packmen from a long 
 way off coming over the hills, and set to work to 
 brew his ale, which was ready against their arrival. 
 They eat the oat-cake in this country, as they do in 
 Nidderdale, instead of bread. 
 
 Mr. Aldrich of Iowa, who has been onlv one of 
 the gentlemen on the other side of the Atlantic to 
 honour me by their correspondence and personal 
 visits, formed the plan of establishing at Webster 
 City, where he lived, a public collection of auto- 
 graphs and manuscripts, and he had met with some 
 considerable success in inducing people, her Britannic 
 Majesty included, to contribute to his object. I 
 gave him some Hazlitt manuscript. 
 
 When he last called on me, he had not long since 
 visited Jefferson Davis and his wife, who were very 
 cheerful, with just enough to live upon from the 
 wreck of their fortune. His attainder was never 
 reversed ; but he was left unmolested.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The auction-rooms — -Development and machinery of sales by 
 auction — The cataloguer — Influence of sale-catalogues on 
 prices — Origin of my career as a bibliographer — Sotheby's — 
 Account of some of the early sales there — Strange personality 
 of Mister Sotheby — The Wolfreston sale in 1856 — How it 
 came about. 
 
 Mv bibliographical, numismatic, and other cognate 
 pursuits naturally brought me into contact with those 
 auction-rooms which lend themselves to the disper- 
 sion of literary and artistic objects. Of all my 
 haunts in pursuit of information, the famous 
 emporium in Wellington Street has been the most 
 constant and the most productive. 
 
 Sales under the hammer originally embraced every 
 description of merchandise within the covers of a 
 single catalogue, just as the fine art auctioneer was 
 a gradual evolution from the house-salesman. A 
 very cursory examination of the catalogues of the 
 last and earliest quarter of the present century will 
 satisfy one that such was the case. As matters now 
 stand, the various kinds of property submitted to
 
 3i6 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 comi^jctition arc not only as a rule caretulh' classified 
 and separately oftered, but certain houses are con- 
 sidered the most advantageous for the realization of 
 particulcU- effects. \ uu are told that you must send 
 pictures and china to Christie's ; books, manuscripts, 
 autographs, and coins to Sotheby's ; and musical 
 copyrights and literature, and theatrical wardrobes, 
 to Puttick's. 
 
 There is some truth in this ; but there is a good 
 deal of superstition and prejudice, too, founded on 
 an imperfect conv^ersance with the bearings and 
 inner working of the system. For much depends 
 on an agency to a certain extent independent of the 
 auctioneer. A large proportion of the property sent 
 into the rooms for sale is catalogued by outsiders ; 
 there is in many cases no one on the premises 
 cjualified to describe correctly and advantageously 
 antiquities, coins, autographs, prints, or even manu- 
 scripts and books of other than (ordinary character. 
 The expert has to be called in ; it does not signify 
 what house it is ; the work is his, not the auctioneer's; 
 and the result is mainly in his hands. 
 
 If things of value are consigned to Christie's, 
 Sotheby's, Puttick's, or elsewhere, the same course 
 is pursued, and more than probably the same persons 
 are employed. The immediate seller is the medium
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 317 
 
 for taking the order from the owners, commissioning 
 the expert, and keeping the account. If he is above 
 the normal standard, he may have a fair idea before- 
 hand of the nature of the issue, or he may be 
 acquainted with one class of goods more than with 
 another. Not seldom his estimate is derived from 
 the information supplied to him by his agent, the 
 cataloguer ; and, of course, this is a common incident 
 in these transactions, as parties so frequently apply 
 for advances to meet pressing engagements. The 
 auctioneer is, then, mainly a book-keeper, a financier, 
 and a salesman. The volume of his business is apt 
 to be in the ratio of his floating capital, his adminis- 
 trative machinery, and his competence in the 
 rostritiu. 
 
 The machinery, as we perceive, is threefold : the 
 counting-house and establishment, the expert in 
 the background, and the auctioneer's more or less 
 influential personality. Where you have these three 
 conditions fulfilled to a nicetv. the success of a house 
 almost follows as a corollary. But how rarely such 
 a thino occurs ! 
 
 And, again, the expert — that very important 
 factor in this industry — is a Free Lance, whose 
 services are at the command of every paymaster. 
 Given a good time, a good cataloguer, and good
 
 3i8 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 property, the countino-house is nearly bound to 
 prove secondary ; and any respectable firm has it 
 in its power to arrange with owners in need of 
 immediate accommodation. Perhaps middle-class 
 or uaitrai effects depend in chief measure on the 
 atmosphere in which they are submitted for sale. 
 You can give away your property, if it is second- 
 rate, at Christie's or Sotheby's without going farther : 
 you can sell it for the maximum worth on any 
 recognised ground, if certain essential conditions are 
 complied with. 
 
 The principle of publishing the results of sales of 
 literary and other high-class property has had the 
 effect of opening the eyes of persons who happen to 
 possess anything of value, and even in the most 
 pressing cases to render careful realization almost 
 as important to the credit of an auctioneer as the 
 payment on account and a prompt settlement are in 
 their way ; and here the expert comes in at every 
 turn. The auctioneer, unless he is a Crichton 
 among auctioneers, ma\', if he acts on his own 
 judgment, either lose his money by lending too 
 much, or may lose the business by offering too 
 litde ; the details of the sale have to be controlled 
 by the cataloguer, and, if he is worthy of his hire, 
 are safest in his hands ; and, after all, the means
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 319 
 
 which are open to any or every house of providing 
 itself with proper financial and executive resources 
 are normal mercantile problems. A well-established 
 and straightforward firm, with an untarnished record 
 and known facilities for converting property into the 
 utmost equivalent cash, may treat the rest as a fore- 
 gone conclusion. 
 
 Many things have occurred since I first became 
 acquainted with Sotheby's. As a mere youth, I 
 had collected for a passing literary purpose an 
 assortment of books which circumstances obliged 
 me to realize when I had done with them. I 
 sent them there. It was my first experience of 
 an auction, and it was a sorrowful one. The 
 volumes, many in handsome new liveries, went 
 for next to nothino^. Someone then in Castle 
 Street, now in Piccadilly, bought largely at the 
 sale. It was somewhere about 1858. I thought 
 that I had made up my mind to turn my back 
 on Sotheby's for ever. To buy books and sell 
 them again was clearly a losing game. How little 
 I knew about myself, of what the future would 
 develop, of the direction given to a career by 
 some slight and fortuitous cause ! 
 
 A copy of Lowndes's Bibliographer s Mamial, 
 purporting- to be a guide to old English books,
 
 320 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 fell just about the same time In my way. I can 
 hardlv idl how it was, but 1 becfan to discern 
 and note shortcomings in it. My copy became 
 a repository for marginalia and cuttings. It was 
 as if Sotheby's had baited a hook with that work, 
 ofuessing that I must bite and be caught ; and I 
 did, and was ! This is another way of saying that 
 I forgave Sotheby's, and stole back to the old 
 ijfround. 
 
 I found myself once more in Wellington Street, 
 yet with a difference. Some three years had 
 elapsed. A strange new awakening had taken 
 place, I was a bibliographer, with some of the 
 chrysalis still visible. I had begun to make 
 memoranda and copy titles. Neither myself nor 
 anyone else at that juncture was aware that I 
 should carry the hobby further than scores of 
 others who have done the same thino- ever since 
 Sotheby's was established, left their mark on a 
 few tly-leaves, and there stopped. 
 
 In 1858 the celebrated library of Dr. Philip 
 Bliss was sold here. I did not attend it, but I 
 purchased a lot or so. I had sold my own {:)roperty 
 rather cheaply. I bought these new items rather 
 dear. I was not discouraged, simply because I 
 was impelled by a secret bent, an innate hies,
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 
 
 which was steadily and irresistibly disclosing itself. 
 My eyes were turned on other publications treating 
 of our old English authors, and I saw how curiously 
 they resembled the Manual I had and each other 
 in the imperfect justice which they did to the 
 subject. I felt that I could do something better, 
 and I soon began to try. 
 
 Of Christie's and Puttick's, and the other emporia 
 where books are knocked down, and occasionally, 
 as in my case, the hopes of their owners with them, 
 I have enjoyed a more limited experience. One 
 point the three haunts which I have been specify- 
 inp- have in common, for as there is no Christie 
 and no Puttick, so there is no Sotheby. It is a 
 7101U de inarteati. Everybody knows Sotheby's. 
 No one would dream of mentioning to you that 
 he was going to Wilkinson's, or had made a 
 purchase at Sotheby, Wilkinson, and Hodge's. 
 These modern excrescences the public repudiates. 
 
 The business of the house has enormously ex- 
 panded ; it has identified itself with almost every 
 big affair in books, prints, coins, china, all the 
 days I am able to recall. I have grown up into 
 a slowly-developing knowledge of that eventful and 
 ever-changing scene. I have witnessed all the most 
 important properties which have been submitted to 
 
 VOL. II. 40
 
 ^22 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 o 
 
 the hammer In those rooms. I have beheld genera- 
 tions of collectors, generations of booksellers, come 
 and go. It is not that I am very old, but it has 
 been my fortune to mingle much with my seniors, 
 and I once surprised and amused someone who 
 was speaking to me of Mr. Coventry Patmore 
 by saying: 'Yes, I knew his father and mother, 
 and his grandmother.' What is more to the im- 
 mediate purpose, I knew Sotheby's when there was 
 a Sotheby, and was in the room when, in 1864, 
 the tidino-s came of his death bv drowning- while 
 on an anG^lintr excursion. I retain his short, slicrht 
 figure perfectly in my mind. 
 
 The last of the Sothebys, besides the works on 
 typographical antiquities and other matters with 
 which his name is honourably connected, compiled 
 a bibliographical account of the Early English Poets, 
 so far as their publications came under the notice 
 of the firm in Wellington Street. The manuscript 
 was offered to the British Museum bv his widow, 
 and Bond consulted me about the purchase, from 
 which I felt bound to dissuade him, as it was an 
 imperfect and jejune performance which my own 
 labours had gone very far to reduce to a ca/>7il 
 niortuum. 
 
 It was precisely when the sale of the grand
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 323 
 
 Harleian library, of which the catalogue was drawn 
 up for Osborne by Dr. Johnson, was impending, 
 and a larger share of public notice was attracted 
 to these matters, that Samuel Baker started in 
 York Street, Covent Garden. The maiden sale 
 was the collection of books belonging to Thomas 
 Pellet, M.D., which lasted sixteen days, and pro- 
 duced ^859 odd. 
 
 Of course, very interesting days have been ex- 
 perienced where the financial result was not very 
 striking, as when, in 1799, the firm disposed of 
 the library of the Right Hon. Joseph Addison, 
 * Author and Secretary of State,' for ^533 4s. 4d. ; 
 and in 1833 of that of 'the Emperor Napoleon 
 Buonaparte' {sic), removed from St. Helena, for 
 ^450 9s. (his tortoiseshell walking-stick bringing 
 £t^^ \y?>.) \ and, once more, when the drawings 
 of T. Rowlandson. the caricaturist, were sold in 
 1818 for £'joo. Are not those living who would 
 now add a third o, and think the lot not too high ? 
 But the portions of the stupendous Heber library 
 dispersed here in 1834, owing to what Dibdin 
 called the bibliophobia, nearly ruined the auctioneers. 
 They rallied from the blow, however, and have 
 never suffered any relapse to bad times, whatever 
 account they may be pleased to give of the very
 
 324 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 piping ones which they have known pretty well 
 e\er since '45. when Mr. lienjamin Heywood 
 Uriyht s important Hljrary was entrusted t(j their care. 
 
 1 cannot help thinking, however, that whatever 
 credit the existing managemcint may fairly claim, it 
 was the second Sotheby — the Mister Sotheby of or 
 about 1816-30— who impressed on the concern his 
 powerful and enduring individuality. He had a 
 long innings, and had excellent opportunities of 
 building up the structure which his son and suc- 
 cessor inherited. The latter was the link between 
 the old rdginie and the new. He lived to see many 
 modifications, and to contract an alliance with fresh 
 blood ; and he survives to-day in Wellington Street, 
 hard by Waterloo Bridge, as certainly as Shake- 
 speare does in Stratford-upon-Avon, and elsewhere, 
 carrying on his affairs by proxy, as it were. Others, 
 for the sake of convenience, act on his behalf; 
 nevertheless, no one should deceive himself. The 
 place is ' Sotheby's ' in 1896 just as it was in 1796. 
 
 Two more modern personalities with whom I 
 have come into very frequent contact during my 
 visits to Sotheby's were Mr. John Wilkinson, who 
 died in the commencement of 1894 at a patriarchal 
 age, and Mr. Edward Grose Hodge. Of the latter, 
 who in bygone — half-historical — times occupied a
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 325 
 
 stool in the counting-house as a book-keeper, and 
 was conspicuous by his raven-black locks. I shall 
 say nothing, because I could only reiterate the 
 common feeling about his capacity for business, his 
 gentlemanly address, and his thorough independence 
 of character. 
 
 Mr. Wilkinson was the principal seller in my 
 earlier days. His appearance, as it was impressed 
 on my mind when I became an habitual frequenter of 
 the rooms about 1858, was very agreeable, and his 
 manner highly prepossessing ; he was then in the 
 full vigour of life. Halliwell and he were very 
 intimate, and I have dined with him at Halliwell's 
 table. One not very unreasonable idiosyncrasy on 
 his part was his tenacious resistance to the admis- 
 sion of anyone else to a share in the conduct of the 
 sales ; he persisted in keeping his junior partner out 
 so long as he physically could. He liked to lord 
 over the whole show to the very last. I think that 
 the spirit of monarchy remains rather strong in 
 Wellington Street. 
 
 I understand that the ivory hammer which Mr. 
 George Leigh used during his brief association with 
 the house as a partner had belonged to Langford 
 the auctioneer. It was given by the former to Mr. 
 Benjamin Wheatley, an employe at that time, after-
 
 326 FOURTH GENERATION OF A LITERARY FAMILY 
 
 ward a partner in another firm ; and It Is now In the 
 possession of his son, Mr. II. B. Wheatley. 
 
 I can just recall the Wolfreston sale in 1S56. I 
 was not actuall)- present, but I heard a good deal 
 about it soon afterward. It was a small collection 
 of early English books and tracts formed under the 
 Tudors and Stuarts ; the copies were often uncut, 
 and as often imperfect or dog's-eared. But there 
 were among them a few startling rarities — some not 
 even till then put on record by the learned in these 
 affairs. The owner would have gladly accepted 
 ^30 for the lot, and the day's sale realized ^750. 
 Think of that ! Is it nothing to have Sotheby's to 
 our friend } In spite of disappointments, which will 
 sometimes happen, and llat Saturday afternoons, 
 when sovereigns are constantly knocked down for 
 ten shillings each, this institution is among our 
 public benefactors not the least. 
 
 One of the family — the Wolfrestons, not the 
 Sothebys — dined with me years after, and told me 
 how it was. The books had lain in a corner of the 
 library time out of mind unnoticed and unheeded, 
 and it was thought as well to get rid of them. They 
 should have marked the day with a white stone 
 when a friend (he was a friend) recommended them 
 to apply to Wellington Street.
 
 CHAPTER YIII. 
 
 Persons whom I have met at Sotheby's — A recollection of 1858 — 
 George Daniel of Canonbury — Some account of him and his 
 books — His visit to Charles Mathews the elder at Highgate 
 — He tells me a story of Charles Lamb — Samuel Addington 
 — His extraordinary character as a collector — His method of 
 buying — Compared with Quaritch — The Sixpenny Solicitor 
 — Booksellers at Sotheby's — Curious methods of bidding — 
 The bundle hunter, past and present — ^His fallen fortunes 
 — The smaller room at Sotheby's — Anecdote of a Bristol 
 teapot. 
 
 Letting alone the professional element at Sotheby's, 
 to which I shall advert in a moment, think of the 
 names which rise up to one's lips — names of persons 
 eminent in nearly every vocation and walk of life : 
 men of genius, of culture, of rank, the student, 
 the amateur, the spectator ! I have beheld with my 
 own eyes J. B. Inglis, who had sold a magnificent 
 library in 1826, before I was born, and lived to 
 form a second ; George Daniel, David Laing, Henry 
 Bradshaw, Alexander Dyce, John Forster, J. O. 
 Halliwell, Sir Stirlmg Maxwell, Henry Stevens of 
 Vermont, Sir Thomas Phillipps of Middle Hill,
 
 328 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 George Smith. Chnstic-Millcr. R. S. TuriK-r, and 
 Samuel Addington. Hut Lord Melbourne, Tommy 
 Hill (Paul Pry), Lord Macaulay, I\l. Libri. Phili]) 
 Bliss, Bulkelev Bandinel, Lord Crawford, and a 
 host of others, have crossed this threshold. Henry 
 Huth looked in once or twice while the Daniel sale 
 was going on, and you brush elbows at this moment 
 with other notabilities of our own day. 
 
 So it has always been ; there is a weird fascina- 
 tion, there is a charm, which draws us all more or 
 less toward the spot where the game of chance (for 
 such it is) is being played, even if we do not enter 
 the lists, or let our own voices become audible. 
 Leioh F^unt used to be fond of telling- me how he 
 had attended the Roxburghe sale in 1812, just as 
 a looker-on, out of a sort of speculative curiosity, 
 which it might ask a separate paper to define. 
 
 The tap of the hammer against the desk is often 
 awaited with considerable anxiety by those actually 
 competing for the lot before the room. 
 
 I had a singular adventure here in 1858. Among 
 a mass of rubbish a unique copy of the Earl of 
 Surrey's L^nglish Virgil was put up one day. The 
 bidding for it sto})ped at £6 12s. 6d. At that sum 
 it was mine. But the hammer did not fall. The 
 auctioneer repeated the amount several times, and
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 329 
 
 kept his eye on the open door. The company did 
 not understand what this strange movement signi- 
 fied. No one topped my offer. All at once, breath- 
 less, rushed in Mr. Thorpe, agent for the library at 
 Britwell. asked what lot was up, and what price 
 had been reached. ' £6 12s. 6d.,' now said Mr. 
 Wilkinson, unmasking, and I lost my gem, which 
 Mr. Thorpe carried off at ^20. How I disliked 
 him ! 
 
 An occasional visitor to the rooms was George 
 Daniel, of Canonbury, whom I well recollect. I 
 sat next to him at a sale, and when some ordinary 
 bookseller's lot was knocked down in his name, I 
 innocently inquired if he had purchased it. ' No, 
 sir,' he urbanely replied ; ' if I were to buy all t/iat 
 Mr. Daniel does, I should have an Alexandrian 
 library.' The authentic G. D. was a retired 
 accountant, whose idiosyncrasy consisted of i^ares 
 moTfCMix, bonnes boiiches, uniques — copies of books 
 with a provenance, or in jackets made for them by 
 Roger Payne ; nay, in the original parchment or 
 paper wrapper, or in a bit of real mutton, which 
 certain men call sheep. He was a person of literary 
 tastes, and had written books in his day. But his 
 chief celebrity was as an acquirer of those of others, 
 provided always that they were old enough or rare
 
 v.o FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 o^ 
 
 enough. All ilcin never passed into his possession 
 without at once i/>so facto gaining new attributes, 
 almost invariabK worded in a holoirraph memor- 
 anduni on the lly-leaf. 
 
 1 )anicl was in the market at a f(jrtunate and 
 pecuHar juncture, just when prices were depressed, 
 about the time of the great Heber sale. His 
 marvellous gleanings came to the hammer j)re- 
 cisely when the quarto Shakespear, the black-letter 
 romance, the unique book of Elizabethan verse, 
 had grown worth ten times their weight in sover- 
 eigns. Sir William Tite. j. O. Halliwell, and 
 Henrv Iluth, were to the front. 
 
 It was in 1864. What a wonderful sight it was! 
 No living man had ever witnessed the like. Copies 
 of Shakespear printed from the prompters' manu- 
 scripts and published at fourpence, fetched ^300 or 
 £\oo. I remember old Joseph Lilly, when he had 
 secured the famous ballads, which came from the 
 Tollemaches (jf Helmingham Hall, holding up 
 the folio volume in which they were contained in 
 triumph, as Mr. Huth happened to enter the room. 
 
 Poor Daniel! He had no mean estimate of his 
 treasures ; what he had was always better than 
 what you had. Books, prints, autographs, it was all 
 the same. I met him one morning in Long Acre.
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 331 
 
 I had bought a very fine copy of Taylor the Water 
 Poet. ' Oh yes, sir,' he said, ' I saw it ; but not 
 quite so fine as mine.' He went up to Highgate 
 to look through Charles Mathews the elder's 
 engravings. They were all duplicates — of course, 
 inferior ones. ' Damn him, sir !' cried Mathews 
 afterward to a friend ; ' I should like him to have 
 had a duplicate of my poor leg.' 
 
 This was the commercial bias of the ex- 
 accountant. 
 
 Another thing which I had direct from Daniel 
 was the occasional habit which Charles Lamb had 
 of paying him a visit, and looking at his old books — 
 looking at them, not touching. ' For,' said Daniel 
 to me, ' you know, sir, I could not have allowed 
 that. Why, Mr. Lamb would turn over the leaves 
 of a volume with his wet finoer '—and the narrator 
 represented the operation in the street, so far as 
 he could without a book and with gloved hands — 
 ' and I always kept a particular copy of old ballads 
 for him.' 
 
 While Daniel's books were on view at the 
 auction-room, in 1864, one of his family came for 
 the purpose of seeing them, as it appeared that he 
 never shewed his treasures to his children. From 
 the account which a descendant gave me, I judge
 
 332 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 that \\\v. haiulsomc result of the sale did not prove 
 of much benefit to those interested. 
 
 Daniel was a virtuoso rather than a connoisseur. 
 He studied the commercial barometer, and knew 
 the rio;ht thini^'s to buy. Still, as th(^ money expended 
 would have realized at compound interest more than 
 even the extravagant prices paid for his biblio- 
 graphical rarities in 1864, and as he could not have 
 forecast the issue, some credit is due to him for 
 having preferred to invest his savings as he chd in 
 early English books. He purchased in later life 
 very sparingly, and so far did not obey the ordinary 
 instincts of the collector, whose zest is derived from 
 acquiring, not from possessing. He is apt to contem- 
 plate the treasures which he has secured with the 
 sated feeling of the author toward the printed 
 transfers from his own mind. 
 
 A noted and conspicuous character in the rooms 
 durinof many years, whenever anv remarkable 
 objects were to be submitted to competition, was 
 Mr. Samuel Addington, of St. Martin's Lane. A 
 tall, imposing figure, with an inclination at the last 
 to stoop somewhat, Addington deserves to be 
 regarded in one or two respects as the most extra- 
 ordinary person who frequented Sotheby's in my 
 earlier recollection. He was, like R. S. Turner
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 2,2,2, 
 
 and Edwin Lawrence, illiterate, but also, like them, 
 a man of the keenest and truest instinct for what 
 was worth having, and withal of commanding- 
 presence. 
 
 His collections of Prints, Miniatures, Books, Manu- 
 scripts, Coins, were a-per-se. I once had occasion to 
 solicit for a literary acquaintance the loan of the 
 miniature of Dr. Donne by Oliver, and Addington 
 shewed me some of his gems, and gems they were. 
 His knowledge of them was mainly per Catalogue. 
 When he upset a tray of coins, someone had to go 
 and set it in order aofain. It was his instinct which 
 was so surprising. His handwriting was rather 
 worse, I think, than mine, and was wanting in 
 character. 
 
 I frequently met him at Sotheby's and in the 
 street (he generally walked with his head slightly 
 inclined and his hands crossed behind his back), and 
 have more than once seen him arming Mrs. Noseda, 
 the printseller, to the Royal Academy. She was the 
 only person on whose judgment in her particular line 
 he relied. But Addington also saw a good deal of 
 Wareham, the dealer in antiquities, and, it is said, 
 helped him. 
 
 He bought in his time almost everything, and of 
 the finest and choicest, for the cost did not signify.
 
 334 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 He lived over his shoj) In llic T.ane, and was a 
 liachelor with some ^15,000 a y(,'ar. I think that he 
 dined nearer the Eh'zabethan hour than most of us 
 do ; and when thc.Te was something to attract him 
 to Wellington Street, it was his not unfrequent habit 
 to arrive there on the stroke of one p.m., his frugal 
 dessert — an orange — in his hand. If you were on 
 the scent after a prize in the rooms, and Addington 
 had fixed his mind upon the same lot, you were as 
 one whose chance had gone. 
 
 He was perhaps the first who set the precedent of 
 giving prices for articles totally beyond record and 
 example. It was his cue, and it is, so to speak, his 
 epitaph. Addington, as a collector, followed some- 
 what parallel lines to Ouaritch as a man of busi- 
 ness — he declined to be beaten. As some of us are 
 said to be makers of historv, Addinorton was, and 
 the autocrat of the auction-room still is, a maker of 
 market values and prices current. I hardly believe 
 that his knowledge of books and other curiosities 
 was in any way great. He watched the biddings 
 carefully, ignored all lots which fell at humble prices, 
 but began to prick up his ears when /"lO or ^20 
 had been reached. His entrance into the fray was 
 ordinarily prefigured by the relegation of his glasses 
 to the top of his head.
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 335 
 
 Let me consecrate a few lines to a widely different 
 individual who haunted this purlieu in my youth, the 
 Sixpenny Solicitor. He was a tall, poorly-clad man 
 who wore an appallingly bad hat. I kept his name 
 in my head, as I did the odour which accompanied 
 him in my nostrils, for years. I regret the loss of 
 the one, not that of the other. Someone thinks that 
 it was Adams ; perhaps so — but no matter. He used 
 to sit at the table too, but as far as he could from 
 everybody else. He might harbour a consciousness 
 that he was not too welcome ; and sixpence was his 
 Alpha and his Omega. Ay, and you would have been 
 surprised at the lots which fell to him. He was one 
 of the surest customers of the firm, for he invariably 
 paid cash, which is a strongly-marked exception to 
 the general rule. Poor fellow ! at last I lost sight of 
 him. Of his humble profits much, I fear, went in 
 the purchase of liquor, probably on a par in quality 
 with his habiliments and his hat. 
 
 Among the booksellers who have assembled here, 
 and whose acquaintance and sympathy I have 
 enjoyed through many pleasant, if laborious, years, 
 I may enumerate Joseph Lilly, the Boones, Bernard 
 Quaritch, F. S. Ellis, the two Molini, the younger 
 Pickering, James Toovey (of the Temple of Leather 
 and Literature, Piccadilly), George Willis, Edward
 
 ^^6 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 Stibbs, the two Wallers, the Russell-Smiths, the 
 Walfords, Willitiin Reeves, George Bumstead, and 
 the Riniells. I once fell in with Robert Triphook, 
 and conversed with him ; but he had retired before 
 my time. The elder Boone had a curious way of 
 bidding ; he sat just under the auctioneer, and would 
 tap the heel of Mr. Wilkinson's boot with his pencil. 
 
 Bumstead, who executed commissions for Georofe 
 Smith and Sir Stirling Maxwell, usually stood by 
 the side of the rostrum, and, laying his hand on his 
 right cheek, made his thumb turn as on a hinge, 
 each movement signifying an advance. A third was 
 supposed to remain in the field so long as he kept 
 his eye on the seller, or continued to strike his 
 catalogue with his pencil. 
 
 These and other droles were the strategists, the 
 employers of a secret language. Is it necessary to 
 say that they all conceived themselves unobserved ^ 
 But, again, there was the opposite extreme — the 
 stentorian throat, generally of some provincial or 
 Continental tyro, which made the room vibrate, and 
 everybody present look round ; and an occasional 
 episode, a generation ago, was the shout with which 
 poor Tom Arthur, if he had indulged rather too 
 freely at his mid-day repast before the sale, bade 
 at random for whatever was on the table.
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 
 
 One signal difference between Sotheby's as it now 
 exists, and the house as I was familiar with it in my 
 younger days, lies in the almost ruined hopes of the 
 Bundle-hunter. There was a time when this 
 peculiar pursuit was attended by lucrative results, 
 and partook of that adventurous complexion so dear 
 to the trader, the dream of whose life it is to become 
 rich soon and retire early. Weird tales used to be 
 related of fabulous bargains acquired by keen and 
 persistent study of the Bundle. 
 
 Those are livino- who remember what it was to 
 discover in the heart of one some gem beyond price, 
 some reputed iiitrotivablc. The very interior was a 
 terra incognita, a Pandora's box, a possible Eldorado. 
 A relic of the days of the earlier Tudors or a 
 Wynkyn de Worde, a lost Elizabethan fragment or 
 some piece by Taylor the Water Poet, which the 
 world had long de'spaired of ever beholding, can it 
 be that such, and many more like these — nay, better 
 — were once not seldom the portions of the wary 
 and diligent harvestman ? Ay, indeed ; and not very 
 different was it of old with the composite volume — 
 the heterogeneous assemblage of pieces united by 
 unforeseeing owners or indiscreet bibliopegists (bless 
 them both !) in unholy wedlock ; nor with the folio 
 volume, lettered outside perchance, ' Old News- 
 
 VOL. II, 41
 
 338 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 papers,' and tlic resting-place of black-letter ballads 
 threescore antl upward, which, a Ijeneficent sj^irit 
 casting a spell on all save one alone, no other eye 
 discerned. 
 
 Yet now and again the labours of the seeker are 
 still rewarded. Stories have been rife within reason- 
 able years of literary bijoitx disinterred by the vigilant 
 and sagacious explorer from unpromising, nay, 
 repellent, upper stratifications of ragged, dust- 
 ingrained, penny-box ware. Mark you, the suc- 
 cessful expert of the Victorian era has all his work 
 before him. He has to be wary to excess. He 
 has to snatch the right moment for investigating the 
 contents of these 'parcels,' as the phrase is. He 
 must assure himself that no enemy is in ambush. 
 A quick eye, a deft hand, and an impassible 
 demeanour are essential. 
 
 Let him not be too sansfuine till the hammer is 
 down, and the prize is his ; for instances are cited 
 by the knowing in these by-paths of research where 
 the hidden quarry has been secretly noted by more 
 than a single hunter — by a second Argus — and then, 
 while others have beaten the bush, the auctioneer it 
 is who catches the hare ; for, however sorrowful it 
 may be to relate it, the baffled game operates 
 exactly in a contrary direction, and the article,
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 339 
 
 instead of dropping for a song, realizes in the heat 
 of exasperated competition a figure which makes 
 the occupant of the rostrum lick his lips, as it is not 
 etiquette for him to betray emotion in any other 
 way. 
 
 But the prevailing experience at present is cer- 
 tainly in the direction opposite to that which the 
 nugget-digger desiderates. The auctioneer's staff, 
 doubtless obeying instructions, is most distastefully 
 minute in detailing out the contents of lots and 
 parcels, and in searching beforehand for hidden ore. 
 From the bundle-hunter's seeing-point the game is 
 well-nigh up. Ere long the bladder will be pricked, 
 and he will be like another Othello. When a 
 volume of commonplace tracts fills an entire page, 
 if not two, of a catalogue, it is time for him to break 
 his staff The latter-day auctioneer, sooth to say, 
 errs on the side of accentuation. 
 
 It seems, however, as if the keenest and most 
 jealous competition, the most strongly emphasized 
 printed accounts, and the latest improvements in 
 distributing and circulating catalogues of sales, are 
 unequal to the removal of a curious phenomenon 
 which periodically recurs, and yet on each occasion 
 is declared to be so remarkable that it cannot by 
 possibility happen again : I mean the Frost — the
 
 340 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 sudden and capricious fall of the temperature in the 
 room, or in the veins of those frequenting- it, to zero. 
 
 Who shall attempt to explain it ? Provided always 
 that property of a certain stamp usually protects 
 itself by guaranteeing attendance and opposition, 
 it is not that the character of the sale is unfavour- 
 able, or that of the articles offered liable to question, 
 for I have had personal experience of cases where 
 some of the rarest books and best copies went at 
 nominal figures. The trade 'hung off'; there was 
 a likelier sale elsewhere ; business was quiet and 
 stocks were full ; or it was an occasion where the 
 national library might have filled many gaps, and 
 the authorities were enjoying a nap, or the Trustees 
 had sagaciously interdicted farther expenditure for 
 the time being, because Parliament had not passed 
 the vote, and they were too proud or too cautious 
 to go on credit. At one time, mediocre copies of 
 more or less common books are found realizing 
 artificially high prices ; at another, old English 
 plays and poetry, and historical tracts of the utmost 
 rarity, are given away. Lotteries are forbidden by 
 statute, yet this is the greatest lottery of all ! 
 
 Now it begins, I apprehend, to be better under- 
 stood that it is not only the property which governs 
 the result, but the atmosphere and the name. Some 
 years ago, for instance, Mr, Gladstone placed his
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 341 
 
 old china in the hands of Christie's for sale. It was 
 a very second-rate collection, but the reputation of 
 the owner drew a company which was willing to pay 
 for sentiment. 
 
 Of the smaller room looking to Wellington Street, 
 and a later addition, where the coin, print, and 
 autograph sales are often held, I do not profess to 
 know much. The earliest boom, by the way, in 
 the numismatic department was the noble collection 
 of Marmaduke Trattle in 1832, which brought 
 nearly ^11,000. In later life, when my own atten- 
 tion was directed to one or two studies outside the 
 library, I acquired the habit of looking on now and 
 then while these collateral descriptions of property 
 were changing hands, but I seldom intervened. 
 
 On the dispersion of the Edkins collection of 
 Bristol porcelain many years ago, my brother had 
 been asked by Dr. Diamond of Twickenham, who 
 could not be there in person, if he would mind 
 going to ^20 for a certain teapot. The trust was 
 accepted, and the holder of this heavy commission 
 (as it seemed to him to be) imagined himself the 
 central figure in a thrilling episode — the hero, in 
 fact, of the day. When the item came on, a gentle- 
 man stepped forward and said to the auctioneer : 'If 
 it will save the time of the company, sir, I will say 
 ;^io5 just to start you !'
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 One or two coin-collectors — I^ord Ashburnham — How he lost his 
 first collection — Edward Wigan — Illustration of his en- 
 thusiasm — The Blenheim sale — The Marlborough gems 
 — The Althorp Library — The house in Leicester Square 
 — Its history and development — Remarkable sales which 
 have been held by Messrs. Puttick and Simpson — Books — 
 Manuscripts — Autographs — My obligations to the house 
 — The Somers Tracts. 
 
 The late Earl of Ashburnham formed two collec- 
 tions of Greek coins. The first he used to carry- 
 about with him in his yacht, and it was taken by 
 pirates. Lord A. saw one of his coins offered for 
 sale in a Greek or Mediterranean town, and it led 
 to a revival of the hobby. His cabinet was not 
 extensive, but included many rare pieces. 
 
 Mr. Edward Wigan, of the great hop firm in the 
 Borough, whose cabinets were privately bought by 
 Rollin and Feuardent of Paris after his death, was 
 one of the most ardent collectors we have ever had 
 of Greek and Roman silver and copper coins. But 
 of Greek copper he made a speciality. He bought
 
 FOURTH GENERATION OF A LITERARY FAMILY 343 
 
 a good deal of Whelan in the Hay market, and Mr. 
 F. Whelan, then a boy, recollects his visits to his 
 father's, when the sherry was invariably brought 
 out, and any fresh acquisition discussed. One day 
 a rare type of Greek money lay on Whelan 's table, 
 and Wigan was tantalized by the announcement 
 that it was not for immediate sale. He went on 
 talking to Whelan, and every now and then 
 reverting to the coin. At last he took up a slip 
 of paper, and, writing his name at the foot, 
 cried : ' There, fill it up with what figure you 
 like.' He could afford to be liberal. He told 
 F. W. that his share of the profits one half-year 
 was ^34,000. 
 
 Wigan to a considerable extent derived his taste 
 for coins from General York-Moore, with whom 
 he grew very intimate, and in whose company he 
 was often to be seen — too often, some say ; for the 
 General was convivial to a fault. 
 
 The Duke of Marlborough, I believe, imagined that 
 the proceeds of the sale of the Blenheim library would 
 be handed over to him ; but the trustees insisted on the 
 fund being applied to the improvement of the estate, 
 and a round sum went in a contract with Fentums 
 for new grates for Blenheim. W^hile the auction 
 was going on in Leicester Square, a firm of solicitors
 
 344 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 at Manchester was kept informed from day to day 
 of the result. 
 
 The gentleman who gave a large sum for the 
 Marlborough gems, without knowing much about 
 them, once allowed the Rev. S. S. Lewis, of Corpus, 
 Cambridge, to shew the collection to a friend of 
 his. But the owner chose to be present, and after 
 observino- silence for some time, while Lewis was 
 doing the honours, he ventured to interpolate at a 
 pause in the proceedings a humble piece of criticism. 
 Taking up one of the treasures, he said to the 
 yisitor : 'That's nice f 'Nice! Mr. ,' ex- 
 claimed Lewis; '"nice" is a word to apply to a 
 jam-tart, not to an ancient gem.' 
 
 Lewis himself left an important collection of coins 
 and other antiquities to Corpus. I was told that 
 he had laid out ^500 a year on this fancy or [)ursuit 
 during more than twenty years. Among much that 
 was mediocre in point of preservation (for Lewis did 
 not specially study what is called s(ate\ there were 
 many fine things which he had acquired during his 
 travels in Greece and elsewhere. Someone related 
 to me an odd trait in him, when a young lady who 
 had died testified her regard for Lewis by leaving 
 him ^5,000. He went into an ordinary shop with 
 the cheque, and asked my informant if he would
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 345 
 
 oblige him with change. He had a brother, whom 
 I never saw, but who had, I was told, a funny way, 
 if he met you and you made an observation which 
 struck him, of saying: 'Ah! very curious,' pulling 
 out a memorandum - book ; 'would you mind me 
 jotting that down ?' 
 
 Lord Spencer told me in 1868, when I paid a 
 visit to Althorp to take notes of some of the books 
 so far unseen by me, many years prior to the dis- 
 persion of the Blenheim-Sunderland library, that 
 the latter books were so neoflected that birds had 
 built their nests behind the shelves. 
 
 Hearing recently that the Spencer collection 
 had gone to Manchester, and recalling the look of 
 Althorp as it was when the library remained there, I 
 asked someone in town what had been done to fill 
 up the gaps ; and I was told that the large billiard 
 room with the gallery had been clean sivept away, 
 and that the empty shelves were replenished with 
 all sorts of commonplace stuff gathered from the 
 shops. What a fall ! They sold Wimbledon to 
 save the books, and they have sold the books to 
 save themselves. What would Dibdin's Spencer 
 say, if he could behold Althorp almost a sepulchre ? 
 Let the pictures and china go, and the house might 
 as well be levelled with the ground.
 
 346 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 There are many not willing to acknowledge them- 
 selves very old who remember the porticoed entrance 
 in Piccadilly, a little westward from St. James's 
 Church, where lay the place of business of Messrs. 
 Puttick and Simpson. It is only about a dozen 
 years since the building stood there ; but the sale- 
 room itself had been already demolished, necessi- 
 tating- the removal elsewhere ; and every trace of it 
 and the other buildings which occupied the site has 
 disappeared. Nor had the names which I now 
 give been identified with the locality much more 
 than a decade. But it was old ground, and they 
 succeeded to an established and respectable inherit- 
 ance. In 1/94 this spot held the Great Room of 
 Mr. Stewart, who continued here alone till 1825-26, 
 when Mr. Benjamin Wheatley, a member of the 
 staff at Sotheby's, and Mr. Adlard, a son of the 
 printer of that name, purchased the business with 
 the understandincr that the old name should 
 stand for a time, the house being styled Stewart, 
 Wheatley and Adlard. It was in the days of the 
 nominal triumvirate that the famous library of the 
 Rev. Theodore Williams was sold here. 
 
 Mr. Stewart did not long survive his arrangement 
 with Messrs. Wheatley and Adlard, the two latter 
 being found carrying on the concern in 1830, and in
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 347 
 
 1837 Mr. Wheatley died. The latter was a man of 
 superior attainments, and sold many fine collections, 
 including part of the Heber library. The interest 
 seems to have passed into the hands of Messrs. 
 John and James Fletcher shortly afterward, but a 
 son of Mr. Wheatley was admitted for the sake of 
 the familiar name ; the style of the firm for a short 
 time was Fletcher and Wheatley, but in 1843 ' Mr. 
 Fletcher ' occurs on the catalogues, and he inserts, 
 as a novel feature, a notice to executors, assignees, 
 and others, stating that he is prepared to make 
 advances to the extent of three-fourths of the value 
 of goods actually in his hands. Of course, the value 
 was what Mr. Fletcher computed it to be, and, to go 
 back for a moment to 1837, we observe at the end 
 of a catalogue of dramatic poetry an announcement 
 of other sales in prospect, in one of which there was 
 to be a fine portrait of the second Marquis of Bute 
 by Gainsborough. 
 
 It was while the late Mr. B. R. Wheatley belonged 
 to the firm, and prior to his father's death, that the 
 auction-room was converted on one occasion into a 
 theatre for the production of Goldsmith's She Stoops 
 to Conquer by amateurs, Mr. Wheatley himself, 
 then quite a lad, with a strong taste and talent for 
 theatricals, taking the part of Tony Lumpkin.
 
 348 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 We lose sight of Mr. Fletcher in 1846, in which 
 year he sold a further portion of the stock of Mr. 
 John Bohn, and come face to face with the now long- 
 familiar names of Piittick and Simpson, the former, 
 who had been a clerk to Mr. Fletcher, takinor Mr. 
 Simpson into partnership. This change took place 
 between April and July, 1846, and in all their earlier 
 catalogues the new firm describe themselves as suc- 
 cessors to Mr. Fletcher. Mr. Puttick was an active 
 man of business, and from this point we have to date 
 the commencement of a period of distinct progress 
 and improvement. 
 
 To enumerate even the more important auctions 
 which have been held in the Great Room, 191, Pic- 
 cadilly, and since the removal to 47, Leicester 
 Square, in 1858, would occupy more space than I 
 can spare. Taking, so far as literary property is 
 concerned, 1846 as my point of departure, I may 
 give a few items : 
 
 The Donnadieu Books and Manuscripts, ^3,923 ; the Libri 
 Collection, ^8,929 ; Books and Manuscripts of Dawson Turner, 
 £9A5Z 19s. ; Books and Manuscripts of Edward Crowninshield, 
 of Boston, N.E., ;^4,826 6s. ; Books and Manuscripts of Sir 
 Edward Dering, ^7,259 i6s. ; the Emperor Maximilian's Mexican 
 Library (1869), ^^3,985 12s. 6d. ; Books from William Penn's 
 Library, ;^i,350 ; Books of Sir Edward Nicholas, Secretary to 
 Charles L (1877), ^977 i6s. ; the Sunderland Library (1881-83) 
 ^60,000; the Gosford Library (1884), ^11,318 5s. 6d. ; the 
 Hartley Library (1885-87), ^16,530.
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 349 
 
 But the list is inexhaustible. 
 
 Then, in the department of Autograph Letters, 
 there is a continuous record from 1848, if we exclude 
 such as form part of prior miscellaneous sales. Many 
 of us recollect the Oilier Collection — not so long ago 
 — when a sonnet, and a published one, too. in the 
 handwritino- of Keats, realized here ^8 i ;s. 
 
 Numerous catalogues before us shew that Mr- 
 Redford in his ' Art Sales,' as well as Mr. Tuer in 
 his Bartolozzi volume, does imperfect justice to the 
 pictures and prints which have found new owners 
 under the hammer here and in Piccadilly right away 
 from 1806. A suggestive clause presents itself in 
 the Conditions of Sale attached to this class of pro- 
 perty so far back as 181 2, when intending buyers of 
 paintings are apprised by Mr. Stewart that ' to 
 prevent inconveniences that frequently attend long 
 and open accounts, the remainder of the purchase- 
 money is to be absolutely paid on or before delivery.' 
 
 The prices obtained were, in the old days, fairly 
 high ; but even chef Dottvres (as Mr. Stewart was 
 pleased to write it) did not invariably answer the 
 expectations of the parties interested. Do we not 
 still find the same thing occasionally ? 
 
 The series of priced catalogues from 1805 (the 
 earliest in the possession of ]\Iessrs. Puttick and
 
 550 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 Simpson) to the present time is a strange sort of 
 homily on the fortunes of famihes, the progress of 
 learning, and the caprices of taste. 
 
 To the litti'i'alcui' and bibHographer, through all 
 the long vista of years, these classic rooms, associated 
 with Sir Joshua Reynolds and his friends, and with 
 the Western Literary Institution, have afforded 
 many and many a precious gem and fascinating dis- 
 cover)^ 
 
 It would be unorateful to the house in Leicester 
 Square if I were not to confess that it has yielded 
 me in my time many a pleasant discovery and many 
 an excellent bargain. Was it not there that I bought 
 the classic Somers Tracts in thirty folio volumes, 
 with the ' Laws of New York,' 1693 — the first book 
 printed there, I take it — and several other unique 
 Americana amon"- them ? Did I not attend the 
 great Surrenden sale there, when the Dering books 
 were offered, and have to my next neighbour at the 
 table no less a man than John Forster, Esquire ? 
 How vividly I call to mind pointing out to him the 
 rarity and interest of an uncut copy on large paper 
 of Archbishop Laud's ' Speech in the Star Chamber,' 
 1637, and his magnificent affability in rendering me 
 thanks ! 
 
 The contributors to the press, as a rule, depend on
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 351 
 
 the priced catalogue of a sale for their guidance in 
 selecting the items for the paragraph which they 
 draw up for the organ by which they happen to be 
 employed. They seldom possess much independent 
 experience. They let their eyes run down the 
 columns, and note the highest prices, the disadvan- 
 tage being that they are apt to miss the rarities 
 which go, perchance, below their value, no less than 
 to cite without comment the lots which on some 
 special account fetch artificial figures.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 The British Museum —My recollection of the old building and 
 Reading Room — Members of the staff whom I have known — 
 Panizzi and the New General Catalogue — Sir Henry Ellis — 
 George Bullen — Grenville Collection — Mr. Grenville and my 
 father — The frequenters of the Reading Room — Mr. Glad- 
 stone's views about the Museum staff — Proposed insulation 
 of the national collections — Publishers — Different schools or 
 types — George Routledge — Henry George Bohn — George 
 Willis — A literary adventure — Some other booksellers — The 
 Leadenhall and Cornhill schools of painting — The edition 
 de luxe — The Illustrated Copy. 
 
 The present Principal Librarian and Keeper of 
 the Printed Books at the British Museum are 
 respectively the fifth and fourth holders of the 
 office whom I have known. After the retirement 
 of Sir Henry Ellis in 1856, the inOuence of Lord 
 Brougham procured the appointment of Antonio 
 Panizzi, who had succeeded in ingratiating himself 
 with that once powerful statesman and Minister. 
 He also courted old Mr. Grenville. 
 
 Jones, who followed Panizzi, owed his fortune 
 to the latter ; but Dr. Bond was selected partly
 
 FOURTH GENERATION OF A LITERARY FAMILY 353 
 
 on the alternate principle, and partly from the 
 absence of anyone at the moment from the other 
 Departments willing or competent to take the post. 
 Dr. Newton had the first offer, and declined. Bond 
 was by far the best and most liberal man whom 
 we have had ; but Sir E. M. Thompson, who was 
 brought up under him in the Manuscript Depart- 
 ment, was the most judicious choice which the 
 Trustees could have made when Bond resiofned. 
 
 When I first frequented the Museum, the old 
 Reading Room was, of course, still in use. Mr. 
 Watts was keeper of the Printed Books. At that 
 time the national library was very weak in early 
 English literature, and Watts took comparatively 
 little interest in it, having made no special study 
 of the subject. Under the advice of one or another, 
 certain gaps had been filled up as opportunities 
 presented themselves, and at the Bright sale in 
 1845 more particularly the Museum authorities 
 secured many valuable items. W^ithin the last 
 thirty years, however, under the auspices of Mr. 
 Rye, Mr. Bullen, and Mr. Garnett, the acquisitions 
 in this direction have been continuous and immense. 
 Even phenomenal prices have been given for ex- 
 ceptionally interesting and important articles, and 
 had it not been for the keenness of private compe- 
 
 VOL. II. 42
 
 354 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 tition, the national collection would at this moment 
 be marvellously complete. But the annual grant 
 for the library is moderate ; and while the English 
 or American amateur can afford to outbid the 
 Trustees, the latter can afford on their part to 
 wait. They are, as I have more than once re- 
 marked, the heirs of all men. 
 
 Yet it is more than ridiculoustoexpend;^22, 000,000 
 on the Navy, because that step strengthens the 
 Government in the popular estimation, and to 
 make a pretence of economy in another direction, 
 of which the general knowledge is less clear, 
 by paring down the allowance for books and 
 manuscripts a thousand or so. It is not that 
 Ministers care for the Navy more than the 
 Museum ; but the Navy means Votes, and the 
 other does not. 
 
 At the same time, the steady absorption of our 
 early literature by the British Museum, and of 
 ancient books generally by that and other public 
 libraries in Europe and America, with the tendency 
 to destroy volumes belonging to the theological 
 and scientific series, for which the demand has 
 ceased, must have the ultimate effect of narrowing 
 the opportunities for forming important private 
 cabinets, and of o^raduallv diminishincr the bulk of
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 355 
 
 old printed matter in existence ; and with what 
 is actually valueless much which was highly de- 
 serving of preservation has not only perished in 
 the past, but perishes from ignorance or accident 
 year by year. 
 
 Take one case out of thousands. An old gentleman 
 in Suffolk was discovered by his cousin, my in- 
 formant, not long since, making a bonfire of some 
 old books, including a copy of Burton's Anatomy 
 of Melancholy, 162 1. On being challenged for 
 his reason for committing this act of vandalism, 
 the owner remarked that he had been looking into 
 the Burton, and did not think it was a fit book 
 for the girls — his four daughters, of whom the 
 most juvenile was about fifty. 
 
 Here was one of the makers of rare books ! 
 The same wise gentleman had included in the 
 holocaust a manuscript Diary kept by his father 
 during sixty years. 
 
 The magnum opus of Panizzi was, I believe, the 
 New General Catalogue of the Printed Books. On 
 this scheme and his editorial work on the lives and 
 writings of Dante, Ariosto, and Boiardo, his fame 
 rests. I prefer to limit myself to a passing criticism 
 on that section of the Panizzi undertaking of which 
 my bibliographical labours and researches have led
 
 356 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 me to take special cognizance, and I must affirm 
 that the arrangement of the entries is most em- 
 barrassing and most troublesome. Items, instead 
 of being placed under obvious heads, are reached 
 with more or less sacrifice of time by cross-references 
 to other volumes of the Catalogue and other letters 
 of the alphabet, necessarily occupying the time of 
 workers and consulters. 
 
 Some of the present staff of officials are fully 
 sensible of the injudicious character of the plan 
 pursued, and seem to be of my opinion, that the 
 whole fabric ought to be reconstructed in the public 
 interest. The pedantic and nonsensical practice ot 
 mixing up I and J and U and V, and of ranging 
 certain classes of books under Academies, must 
 ultimately be given up. 
 
 The fifth article of the Protest made by the late 
 Mr, Bolton Corney against the appointment of 
 Panizzi to the head of the Museum in 1856 runs 
 thus : ' Because the said Antonio Panizzi, on account 
 of the failure of his engagements with regard to 
 the Catalogue of printed books, and the fictions 
 and absurdities of the only fragment thereof hitherto 
 published, appears to have deserved reprehension 
 rather than promotion.' 
 
 When my father lived in Great Russell Street
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 357 
 
 in 1846, the Museum was still enclosed within a 
 dead wall, and was guarded by sentinels. 
 
 It was from Sir Henry Ellis that I obtained my 
 first reader's ticket. My next step was to lose it, 
 and during about twenty years I held none, nor 
 was ever challenged. Then came the dynamite 
 scare, and one day I was stopped at the door 
 of the Library. ' You know me ?' I said. ' Yes, 
 sir,' 'How singular!' 'Well, you see, sir, it is 
 our orders. If you were the Archbishop of 
 
 Canterbury, sir ' This appeal I was powerless 
 
 to resist, and I went round the other way. 
 
 I never saw Ellis ; but I had to communicate 
 with him in 1869 on a literary matter in which he 
 had a voice. So far back as 181 3 he had edited 
 Brand's Popular Antiquities ; and without taking 
 into account the legal bearing of his phenomenal 
 survivorship till I had printed off, and was ready 
 to issue, my new recension, I found myself in the 
 dilemma of having to secure his assent prior to 
 publication. Ellis peremptorily refused ; but twelve 
 days after he died, and, although the copyright did 
 not ipso facto determine, I launched my scheme 
 neck or naugrht. The letter to me, written in his 
 ninety-second year, was probably the last which the 
 old gentleman ever despatched.
 
 358 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 My father foiiiul himself In a similar dilemma, 
 when he inserted in the Romancist, in 1840, a tale 
 called the Ckildroi of the Abbey, written generations 
 before ; Ijiit he was less fortunate than myself The 
 authoress emerged, to his consternation, from her 
 hiding-place, and had to be 'squared.' God knows 
 if she might not do the same thing now, if anyone 
 had the hardihood to try the experiment I 
 
 The late Mr. George Bullen is my authority for 
 stating that at Paris they have among the archives 
 both the original Edict of Nantes and the original 
 Revocation. Panizzi told Bullen that ' he never 
 knew a Protestant turn Papist unless he was a 
 damned fool, or a Papist turn Protestant unless he 
 was a damned rogue.' 
 
 Bullen was civilly elbowed out of the Keepership 
 of the Printed Books, as Reid was out of that of 
 the Prints. He had applied to F. for a testimonial 
 to support his candidature for Bond's place as prin- 
 cipal librarian ; but F. excused himself. At the 
 same time, it is due alike to Bullen and Reid, and 
 I may add Vaux, to testify that they always dis- 
 played toward myself, as a student and inquirer, the 
 utmost amount of friendly sympathy and interest. 
 
 Bullen had, however, a tiresome and tantalizing 
 way of disparaging the commercial value (of which
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 359 
 
 he, in fact, knew little or nothing) of any rare book 
 submitted to his approval, and then making a great 
 splutter about the remarkable acquisition which the 
 Museum had obtained through his discernment. 
 From his want of knowledge, the national library 
 missed many deside7'ata. His predecessor Rye was 
 a stronger man, and relied on his own judgment ; 
 whereas Bullen made the circuit of the building, if 
 something was offered, in quest of opinions upon 
 it. For what zvas he there? He was paid for Ids 
 opinion ; and he had none. 
 
 The weakest proceeding under his Keepership 
 was the compilation of the three-volume catalogue 
 of Early English Literature, which might, without 
 detriment on the one hand, and with positive ad- 
 vantage on the other, have been, in the first place, 
 digested into one ; but the book abounds with errors 
 of every description, nor is it easy to see of what 
 use, save as a work of strictly local reference, a new 
 and improved edition would be, since the whole of 
 the most valuable material is more fully, if not more 
 accurately, described elsewhere. 
 
 I recollect, as an old frequenter of the place, the 
 curious episodes of Vaux and Madden ; but I desist 
 from entering into them, as they are of no general 
 interest.
 
 36o FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 A reminiscence of the Museum, as agreeable as 
 it is permanent, is the gracious reply by Mr. Watts, 
 when he was superintendent of the Reading Room, 
 to my explanation that I was Mr. Hazlitt's son. 
 ' Mr. Hazlitt yourself,' Mr. Watts was kind enough 
 to say. The words made me feel that I was really 
 an individual. 
 
 The Grenville collection at the Museum is, of 
 course, infinitely precious ; but the owner unfor- 
 tunately displayed too little caution in examining 
 the copies of books which he bought, and many 
 of which have proved imperfect. I recollect that, 
 when my father resided at Old Brompton in the 
 early forties in Mr. Grenville's lifetime, he occa- 
 sionally obtained the loan of some volume for a 
 passing literary purpose, and that the old servant 
 who brought it to our house flattered his master, 
 as we thought, by his resemblance to him in his 
 general manner and bearing. 
 
 How many a worthy soul with a mysterious pied 
 a tei're — God knows where or what — finds shelter 
 and warmth beneath the ample and friendly dome 
 of the new Reading Room ! What many of them 
 do, how they live, may be within the knowledge of 
 some ; all that I can affirni is that, within my ex- 
 perience, a succession of them, which seems inter-
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 361 
 
 minable, has come and gone, and has vexed the 
 souls of hapless officials, to whom Job the prophetic 
 was, in point of patience, a baby. 
 
 The Superintendent must perforce be genial and 
 obliging- to all comers. It is in his diploma. The 
 public has been exceedingly fortunate here. Mr. 
 Watts, Mr. Bullen, Mr. Garnett, Mr. Fortescue, 
 and Mr. Wilson, have left in succession nothing to 
 be desired in the way of courtesy and good temper. 
 I once watched a lady-reader, who had manifestly 
 made some subject her absorbing study, while she 
 catechized Mr. Garnett, and I have to avow that 
 even he at last came to the end of his resources. 
 But he had a thousand topics at his fingers' ends, 
 the lady, perhaps, only that one. 
 
 I am not going for an instant to allege that Mr. 
 Garnett is addicted to favouritism ; but if any gende- 
 man calls to see him, and finds that he has an American 
 lady with him, his best plan is to say that he will look 
 in again that day week. Our lady-cousins from 
 the other side are certainly desperate button-holers. 
 
 Such odd figures, occasionally with cloaks of im- 
 posing amplitude — such bizarre costumes ! Gende- 
 men of foreign extraction and ancient lineage — • 
 maybe, counts in the land of their birth ; elderly 
 persons of the softer sex in modey toilettes, in
 
 362 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 whom the softness has become barely recognisable, 
 with whom one almost associates the notion of a 
 snuffbox ; damsels in spectacles, who, if they do 
 time-work, spend unconscionably too large a share 
 of the day in mild flirtations with picturesquely 
 pallid and 7ic^gligii young men, which relieve the 
 pervading silence with a sort of sotto-voce buzz. If 
 one had the means of forming these and the rest 
 to be found in the Rotunda any given morning into 
 a procession, what spectacle stranger ? — and if one 
 could get at the story of the Thousand and One 
 Readers, it might have its instructive and amusing 
 side. Ah me ! it would have its mournful and tragic. 
 I have now and then used the Medal and Print 
 rooms, and have always met with the utmost con- 
 sideration. The late Keeper of the Prints told me 
 a curious anecdote about the Temptation by Diirer. 
 The Museum example was very fine ; but a gentle- 
 man called one day, asked to see it, and said that 
 he had a better one, he thought. Would they like 
 to look at his ? Of course, Mr. Reid was incredu- 
 lous, and replied that they would. The owner 
 brought it shortly after : it completely eclipsed the 
 one in the national collection, and Mr. Edwards 
 presented it. They never heard a word more about 
 him, except that that was his name.
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY ^G^ 
 
 Dr. Gray, of the Natural History Section, received 
 Du Chaillu, the African explorer, on his visit to 
 London and the Museum, and, there being some 
 scepticism at the time as to the truth of the writer's 
 account of the gorilla, and Gray seeming to share 
 the prevailing doubts, Du Chaillu expressed his 
 disapprobation by spitting in his face. It was a 
 brother of Gray who was engaged as an assistant 
 by Sir Richard Phillips, and who is the boy attend- 
 ing the author on the vignette of the title-page of 
 Phillips's Morjiings Walk from London to Kew, 
 1817. Gray's brother had also a taste for natural 
 history and botany. He was subsequently secretary 
 at Crockford's. 
 
 The shabbiest tricks are played by persons 
 frequenting the Reading Room, as no one will be 
 surprised to hear who has studied the physiognomy 
 and costume of many of those admitted. Bullen 
 shewed me one day a volume of one of the Quarterlies 
 with several pages cut out by a student, who had 
 presumably a commission to copy the matter. 
 Another time both copies of Halliwell's Dictionary 
 of Old Plays had been simultaneously stolen. Even 
 the leaden weights disappeared. A detective was 
 placed at a reading-desk to reconnoitre ; he lost his 
 great-coat, which he had laid on the back of his
 
 364 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 chair ; and the thief was not detected till a second 
 spy was stationed in the roof to watch for him. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone used to hold that the employments 
 here were of such an exceptionally ag"reeable and 
 compensating character that gentlemen should be 
 readily found willing to fulfil them on the most 
 reasonable terms — a proposition which might be 
 equally applicable to the staff of a pastrycook or a 
 dealer in sweetmeats. The result — not a very satis- 
 factory or proud one — is seen in the notorious resort 
 to outside work for publishers, periodicals, and 
 auctioneers. Certain members of the staff, in fact, 
 go so far as to look upon given topics as their free- 
 hold, and resent personally, or through their friends 
 on the press, the interference of unofficial workers, 
 as if some provinces of research were a sort of 
 literary Tom Tiddler's Ground. This seems to be 
 an injustice and an anonialy calling for rectifica- 
 tion. 
 
 The scheme for insulating the building as a means 
 of security against fire, and of obtaining additional 
 space by the demolition of all the surrounding 
 houses, is all very well ; but a still more immediate 
 danger is the residential principle and privilege, 
 which involve a peculiar risk, owing to the exemp- 
 tion of the officials in their homes from the eye of
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 365 
 
 any night-watcher ; and at the South Kensington 
 estabHshment it is even worse, as certain members 
 of the staff have open fires in their private rooms, 
 and smoke there, as they do in some of the Oxford 
 and Cambridge college libraries. There will be a 
 terrible catastrophe one day, and has not Parliament 
 given ^200,000 to remove, as we were told, the 
 mischief? In 1865 there was a fire in the Binding- 
 Department, but the loss was happily less serious 
 than it mi^ht have been. 
 
 There are schools of Publishers as there are of 
 Art and Cookery. We get the old-established 
 respectable houses, which deal only with certain 
 classes of books and people, and correspond with 
 you on quarto paper. There are the specialists, 
 who limit themselves to subjects or topics. There 
 are the opportunists, who seek to profit by every 
 ephemeral taste and fancy which takes the public 
 captive. There are the book-drapers, who treat 
 literature like any other dry goods, and sell it in 
 gross, as If it were cheese or sugar. They will 
 deliver you a hundredweight of Dickens, or shoot 
 down into your shop-cellar half a ton of ' assorted ' 
 sixpenny ware. 
 
 Someone was speaking to me of a publisher who 
 suffered imprisonment for issuing immoral French
 
 366 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 books in an Enoflish dress, and was remindinfr me 
 of the applicability of Macaulay's criticism on the 
 spasmodic virtue of the British public and authorities; 
 for almost before the prisoner's term had expired, 
 another house brought out the same things without 
 comment. It is not what is done, but the doer and 
 the manner of doing. 
 
 ' One man may steal a horse, and another may 
 not look over the hedge.' A person is prosecuted 
 and imprisoned, no doubt deservedly, for publishing 
 objectionable books. The auctioneers issue cata- 
 logues giving full and appetizing titles of others ten 
 times as bad, and offer them for public inspection 
 and sale with impunity. 
 
 There comes into my hands opportunely for 
 recommendation as a model and beau iddal of what 
 I mean, a ' Catalogue of Valuable and Rare Books 
 and Manuscripts, Consisting of Duplicates from the 
 Library of the Right Hon. the Earl of Crawford, 
 and A Selection from the French Library of the 
 Right Hon. Lord Ashburton.' The singular and 
 unusual part is that one does not know where the 
 first Right Honourable ends, and the second Right 
 Honourable begins. Mayhap, one has bought up 
 the other ; but however that may be, the foreign 
 element is a fairly representative one as regards the
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 367 
 
 most licentious literature of all periods, with notes 
 drawing attention to the character of the lot in manv 
 instances, where there might be a doubt in the mind 
 of the bidder. 
 
 It is a great mistake to suppose that improper 
 literature is mostly sold in such places as Holywell 
 Street. The West End is the actual centre. The 
 
 residual stock of the late Mr. was said at the 
 
 time to have been secured en bloc for a foreign 
 market ; viais on ne sail pas totijonrs. I was told 
 (to be sure, not by a person of unimpeachable 
 veracity) that those items in a celebrated Yorkshire 
 library which were too bad for the auctioneers were 
 not thrown into the moat, as generally believed, but 
 secured by him by a coup de main, of which he was 
 justly proud. 
 
 Two men whom I should select as, in their re- 
 spective lines, models of integrity in the publishing 
 way are Mr. William Reeves and the late Mr. John 
 Russell-Smith ; but the latter was less liberal than 
 Reeves. Certain houses, of course, carry loyally 
 out any undertaking into which they may enter, and 
 their word is as oood as their bond. But there are 
 others with which it is an absolute courtship of 
 misery to deal, even if you hold them in the clauses 
 of an agreement as in a vice.
 
 368 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 The late George Routledge was a very frank and 
 unpretending North -Countryman, though latterly 
 rather fond of letting one know that he was a justice 
 of the peace. The last time I saw him was at his 
 place of business at the back of Ludgate Hill. He 
 mentioned to me that he had been served with a 
 notice of action by a lady for some remark about 
 her in a book recently published by him, but which 
 he had not examined, or even seen, prior to issue ; 
 and he also told me that he had just had an in- 
 dignant letter from some clergyman for reprinting 
 Voltaire's Candide in Professor Morley's cheap 
 series. I took the occasion to inquire where the 
 Professor saw the affinity between Candide and 
 Johnson's Rasselas, which he had put together in a 
 volume on that account. 
 
 When I first remember Routledge, he was in 
 Soho Square, where Chidley had been before him, 
 and where Russell-Smith succeeded him. My old 
 acquaintance, Mr. Henry Pyne, late Assistant Tithe 
 Commissioner, used to refer sometimes to him, for 
 Routledge had been at first, by the interest of the 
 Member for Carlisle, a clerk in that office, and 
 occasionally his first wife would bring him his 
 dinner in a pocket handkerchief 
 
 I was in lodgings in Buckingham Street, Strand,
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 369 
 
 in 1862, when I was informed that a gentleman 
 wished to see me. I went down, and found Rout- 
 ledge on the stairs. He had come personally to 
 ask me to prepare a second edition of a small 
 fugitive volume, which he had published in 1858, 
 on British Columbia, and which I had with my 
 excellent father's help compiled in the first furor 
 of the emigration movement in two or three 
 weeks. 
 
 The firm of Chapman and Hall, like many others, 
 traded, to a certain extent, for many years under a 
 no7n de guerre, one of the partners being non- 
 existent. Somebody once asked Frederick Chap- 
 man of whom the house really consisted. ' I'm 
 Chapman,' he replied, ' and that's Hall' 
 
 Some memorabilia about the late Henry George 
 Bohn are already in print. Many others might, no 
 doubt, be collected. 
 
 I was told that at a wine sale Bohn insisted on 
 tasting all the samples, and became incapable of 
 looking after himself; they had to carry him down 
 and put him into a cab. He found the next morn- 
 ing that he had bought two hundred dozen. 
 
 He was very fond of boasting about being invited 
 to great folks' houses. He told a confrere one day 
 that it was a verv singular thino- that at Lord 's 
 
 VOL. II. 43
 
 370 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 there was no fish. ' Ah,' rejoined the other wickedly, 
 * perhaps they ate it all upstairs.' 
 
 It was an (^difyini^- spectacle to watch Henry 
 Bohn and his brother John verbally sparring across 
 the table at Sotheby's. I was not present when 
 E. is reported to have openly told Bohn that 
 some statement was the biggest lie which he had 
 ever uttered, and that it must by consequence be a 
 big one. 
 
 As regarded the relations between Bohn and his 
 sisters, he used to insist that he had made them 
 handsome proposals, which they rejected. They 
 came into Russell-Smith's, in Soho Square, when 
 I was there one day, to beg him to give them 
 sixpence. 
 
 The predecessor of John Bohn as principal cata- 
 loguer at Sotheby's was Bryant, of Wardour Street, 
 who supplied Dr. Bliss and other collectors of a 
 bygone generation with some of their treasures, and 
 who had a hand in the new edition of Lowndes. 
 Bryant, who died in 1864, once made this very 
 judicious observation to me — that there were many 
 books which occurred very seldom, and when they 
 did, were worth very little. 
 
 The edition of Lowndes which bears the name 
 of H. G. Bohn as the overseer was, in fact, done.
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 371 
 
 SO far as it was done at all, by Bryant, with the 
 occasional assistance of others. Bohn, when anyone 
 came to him with a complaint of mistakes in the 
 book, used always to exclaim, ' Oh, it was that ass 
 Bryant ' ; but if you went to Bohn, and mentioned 
 that some particular article was improved, he would 
 say, ' Ah, yes, I did that myself ' 
 
 J. W. Parker, the publisher, speaking- of books 
 which paid, asked F. what book he supposed had 
 proved most remunerative to him. On F. shaking 
 his head, Parker said, ' Why, I gave my daughter 
 ^25, thirty-six years ago, to compile a little selec- 
 tion of hymns and psalms, and last year it brought in 
 ^200 profit, and it has never been worthless to me.' 
 
 There are here and there instances where a firm, 
 enjoying an independent fortune, consults its own 
 pleasure or caprice in its selection of authors and its 
 espousal of schemes, sometimes quite irrespectively 
 of the financial question ; it is Maecenas in the 
 counting-house ; and modern littt^ratezcrs, even if 
 they are not Horaces, might be apt to find a better 
 account in paying their addresses to such than to 
 noble lords or royal highnesses, who have nowa- 
 days, as a rule, very different fish to fry. 
 
 If ever there should come a time when publisher 
 and author act in loyal and mutually satisfactory
 
 372 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 co-operation, it would be the Golden Aj^c indeed — 
 the lion lying d(j\vn with the himb. iilthough which 
 is the lion and which is the lamb in this case I 
 forbear to pronounce. 
 
 * Repairs neatly executed' might be a good title 
 for a paper on the well-known literary contingency, 
 
 where a famous author, such as , or , or 
 
 , is just the least weak in his information, his 
 
 grammar, and his points, and where some obscure 
 person in the background is engaged by the pub- 
 lisher with his privity and at his cost to make the 
 otherwise c/icf iCocuvre exactly suitable for public 
 use and view. The odd part comes when the 
 famous author carries about his volume, as a sample 
 of his cunning and style, and perhaps receives a 
 commission to execute a second masterpiece. 
 
 It can only yield astonishment to general readers 
 to hear that there have lone been individuals whose 
 most lucrative employment consists in ' finishing,' to 
 use bookbinders' parlance, works which have been 
 ' forwarded ' by the author. The name of the 
 former seldom appears, and it is often the case — 
 always, where it happens that anyone has much 
 credit to lose — that it is to the reviser's advantage 
 that he should preserve a strict incognito. For 
 here the exceptions, where a manuscript emerges
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 373 
 
 from this process a source of gratifying surprise to 
 the parties concerned, are so rare, that they prove 
 the rule indeed. Every season witnesses the sale 
 of hundredweights of written matter by auction or 
 otherwise, which has been carefully prepared by 
 the departed author with a view to publication by 
 Murray or Longman, and which is at last en ro2ite 
 to that Alma Mater of Scriblerus, the omnivorous 
 paper-mill. 
 
 George Willis the bookseller, who recently 
 passed away at an advanced age, and who is asso- 
 ciated in the mind of the more modern collector 
 with the late firm of Willis and Sotheran, was an 
 Essex man. My father told me that he recollected 
 him as a stall-keeper in Prince's Street, Coventry 
 Street, and his wife attended to the stall while he 
 went in quest of stock. He used to say that his 
 main idea was to buy for a shilling and sell for 
 eighteen-pence — very good interest, but only six- 
 pence. Mrs. Willis has been seen at her husband's 
 stall with an umbrella over her head. 
 
 I believe that he subsequently occupied the corner 
 shop where Noah Huett was in my time — originally 
 small premises, which Huett enlarged. Then he 
 went to the Piazza in Covent Garden, where he 
 failed. But he was a man of persevering character
 
 374 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 and commercial aptitude, and during the time that 
 he was in partnership with Mr. Sotheran com- 
 pletely recovered his position. Willis and Sotheran's 
 General Catalogue for 1862 long remained a 
 standard work of reference. 
 
 I personally remember Willis as a very pleasant, 
 courteous, and intelligent man of business, and his 
 Ctirrent Notes — a sort of illustrated Notes and 
 Qtiei'ies — is a favourite book with many. He joined 
 his sons in the card-making way, and, as I heard, 
 lost a good deal of the money which he had taken 
 out of the concern in the Strand. 
 
 I owed to WmIHs a rather curious experience. He 
 introduced me, about 1865, to a member of the 
 Society of Friends, a former neighbour of his at 
 Reigate, and an eminent photographer, who, having 
 executed a series of views in Egypt, desired to 
 publish the work with a poetical letter-press in the 
 old spelling. I agreed to revise this for him, and 
 after some delay the first instalment arrived, was 
 put as far as possible into form in a couple of hours, 
 and was despatched home. Hearing no more for 
 some time, I dropped the poetical photographer a 
 civil reminder, and was then apprised that he had 
 abandoned the project. But he kept his engage- 
 ment with me. It was £2"=^ not very hardly earned.
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 375 
 
 I have sometimes speculated whether he would 
 have printed the text in Gothic letter. Good, as 
 Jerrold once said of a weak play shown to him, was 
 not the word for his literary offspring. 
 
 Baldock in Holborn I have already introduced. 
 Not far from him were the places of business of 
 Petheram and Newman. The former had an 
 assistant named John Hotten, a Cornish man, better 
 known as John Ca7)ideii Hotten, who, before he set 
 up in business in London, spent some time in the 
 United States at Petheram's suo-orestion. Newman 
 was a strictly upright man, and dealt in topography. 
 He found in his later days, when his health failed, a 
 valuable friend in Leonard Hartley the collector, at 
 whose house in Hastings he died. 
 
 A rather good story was once told about Newm.an. 
 There was a sale at Sotheby's just in his way, rich 
 in the very class of books which he wanted for 
 Hartley and other clients. He was not an habitual 
 attendant at the auctions, but on this occasion he 
 was there in person, and bade for every lot. A 
 whisper circulated that it was a rig; that it was 
 Newman's property. ' Let him have his stuff back 
 again,' said his confreres. But it turned out that 
 they were mistaken ; and some of them had to go 
 round to him the next day and give him his own
 
 376 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 price for what they required, or rincl that the items 
 were bought on commission lor common accjuaint- 
 ances. 
 
 Mr. F. S. ElHs used to say that the meaning of 
 the term confrere in the book trade was a man 
 who would cut your throat, if he could do it with 
 impunity. 
 
 Another person of whom I bought a few curious 
 books was Elkins. He had an odd little shop at the 
 top of Lombard Street, about the size of a rabbit- 
 hutch, into which, as into a spider's web, he was wont 
 to inveigle the unwary. Let it pass. He did me no 
 great harm. He laid his net, I conceive, for the 
 City groundlings, who are still affectionately nursed 
 by Jew and Gentile, planting on the route from rail- 
 way terminus to counting-house triumphs of pictorial 
 art. Occasionally these interesting characters reside 
 on a line, and enter into conversation with their 
 fellow-passengers, who are quite casually apprised 
 that certain masterpieces of the Leadenhall or 
 Cornhill school are to be seen at such and such 
 an address. But the old book-shop has migrated 
 westward. 
 
 The book-buyer is not exempt from the danger 
 which besets all other classes of enthusiasts for what 
 strikes the fancy as rare or curious, or both. It is
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 2>n 
 
 by no means invariably the case that an inexperi- 
 enced collector can safely place himself in the hands 
 of an occupier of ordinary business premises ; he will 
 probably have to pay for his education before he can 
 trust to his own judgment ; but the back-parlour, 
 where property is introduced to gentlemen of means 
 by enterprising merchants, whose affairs are entirely 
 conducted by correspondence, is the rock to be 
 avoided. It is a type of the confidence-trick. 
 
 E. H. was laughing at that almost effete phan- 
 tasma, the edition de luxe ; and he said that he 
 thought, if the craze had gone much farther, it would 
 have been necessary for an intending purchaser, 
 before his book came hom^e, to hire a paddock. The 
 only kind of work suitable for such treatment is what 
 may be termed literary bijotiterie. 
 
 Another unwholesome development is the Illus- 
 trated Copy. This first arose from the Grangerite 
 movement, and, the trade having accumulated a 
 vast number of portraits and views, every book 
 which contained copious references to persons and 
 places became a convenient and remunerative shoot 
 for these productions, intrinsically and independently 
 unsaleable. The conception has been worn well- 
 nio-h threadbare, but there must be up and down the 
 world cartloads of this species of manufacture, since
 
 378 FOURTH GENERATION 
 
 it was found to be so profitable, and appealed to so 
 many who were not critical judges of prints or 
 drawinos. 
 
 There is not one book of this character in ten 
 thousand which is unimpeachable throughout. To 
 obtain certain material it is necessary to wait perhaps 
 months, perhaps years ; and the commercial illus- 
 trator cannot afford to lock up his capital too long. 
 It is only in those excessively rare cases where a 
 private connoisseur of fortune engages in the under- 
 taking that a creditable result accrues. But, from 
 the increasing scarcity of fine early prints in the 
 right state, the pursuit has become almost hopelessly 
 difficult. Even the few examples purchased by the 
 late Air. Huth struck me as very unequal and 
 unsatisfying. 
 
 I have arrived at the conclusion of my somewhat 
 peculiar and somewhat difficult undertaking, of which 
 the scope and dimensions exceed by much my 
 original estimate. But there was a strong tempta- 
 tion throughout, under the different sections into 
 which I have divided the work, to bring forward 
 as I proceeded, details only occurring to my memory 
 by association or accident ; and I sincerely and 
 respectfully hope that these may not too often
 
 OF A LITERARY FAMILY 379 
 
 strike my readers either as trivial or obnoxious. 
 It becomes rather hard, when one has to deal 
 with a vast number of names, and with infinite 
 matters of fact, opinion, and taste, to draw the line 
 with absolute precision, and to avoid in all cases 
 personalities affecting the departed, or expressions 
 of feeling which may prove unpalatable to a few still 
 among us. There has not been on my part any 
 desire to give wilful or wanton umbrage to anyone. 
 I think that my references to living contemporaries, 
 as well as to those whom we have lost, are, as a rule, 
 neither unjust nor intemperate ; and my farewell 
 wish is, that my volumes may, on the whole, be 
 treated as a not unacceptable addition to the class 
 to which they belong. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 BILLING AND SONS, I'RINTERS, GUILDFORn.
 
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