CHAPTER IV.

THE LUCK AND ILL LUCK OF IMPECUNIOSITY.

Shakespeare, though he says "There's a divinity doth shape our ends, rough-hew them how we will," admits that "There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune," which certainly looks as if we had something to do with the matter. "Man," it has been said, "is the architect of his own fortune," but it is equally a fact that some individuals have many more chances than others of making that fortune, especially those who are apparently undeserving. In the same way, impecuniosity has with some been the very means of introducing them to the road to success, while it has only plunged others in suffering.

Amongst the former may be ranked Benjamin Charles Incledon, who flourished in the latter part of the eighteenth century, and in the beginning of the nineteenth. He was born at Callington, in Cornwall, and at a very early age was a choir-boy in Exeter Cathedral, in which city he received his musical education from Jackson, the composer. At sixteen he entered the navy, and in the course of the two years that he remained in the service was in several engagements. When the _Formidable_ was paid off at Chatham, in 1784, the young sailor turned his steps towards Cornwall, but when he reached Hitchen Ferry, near Southampton, he had got rid of whatever money he started with, and had to ask assistance of a recruiting sergeant, who not only gave him the means to get ferried over, but invited him to a public-house in the town, where they made merry over bread and cheese, and ale. The company became convivial, and Incledon, in his turn, sang a ballad which delighted everybody, but especially the prompter of the Southampton Theatre, who happened to be sitting in the bar-parlour smoking his pipe, and who rushed out to his manager before the song was finished to tell him of the _rara avis_ he had found. Collins, the manager, returned forthwith, and was so delighted with the sailor's vocal abilities that he offered him an engagement at _half-a-guinea a week_, there and then, which offer was accepted, Incledon making his first appearance as Alphonso in 'The Castle of Andalusia.' His career was most successful, and he is spoken of by more than one authority as the first English singer on the stage of his day.

Under the circumstances it must surely be conceded, that the impecuniosity which caused him to sing that song at that particular time, was particularly lucky, and Incledon is not the only individual who has been blessed with good fortune through the same means. In 'The Life of a Showman,' by D. G. Miller, that gentleman relates that one winter's afternoon he arrived with his family at a Cumberland village in a most pitiable plight, for though he had several "children he had but one sixpence." The journey, effected with a horse and cart, had been extremely trying, because across the road they had travelled ran a small rivulet, which was frozen, and a passage through which had to be made for the horse, the driver standing upon the shafts across the back of the horse, while the showman waded through the water nearly up to his waist, a state of discomfort enhanced by the plunging of the horse and the shrieks of the children. When the party arrived at the public-house (where there was a large room which was occasionally let for entertainments, &c.), they were nearly frozen, and proceeded to warm themselves by the kitchen fire. After calling for a quart of ale, and paying for it with the solitary sixpence in his possession, the showman proceeded to look after his properties, and found that the man with the cart, being anxious to get back, had unloaded the luggage at the door. Enquiring of the landlady if he could engage the large room for a few nights for a very superior exhibition, the itinerant performer was informed by her, "I can't tell, but I think not. The last people who were here didn't pay the rent. However, the landlord is not at home, and I can say nothing about it."

After this he asked if they could be supplied with some tea, and on being replied to in the affirmative, says, "The expression on my wife's face seemed to say, 'Are you mad--where will you get the money to pay for it?' I paid no attention, however, to her look: the tea was got ready, and we sat down and made a hearty meal--at least, the children and I did. As to my wife, she was alarmed at my conduct, and was too frightened to eat, although she had tasted nothing since breakfast."

After tea he asked if they could be accommodated with beds, but was refused by the landlord, who showed his suspicions. The showman pointed to the snow, which was falling heavily, and asked permission for his wife and children to remain by the fire all night, professing to be able to pay, and at last the landlord sulkily agreed to let them have beds. After the wife and children retired, a good number of customers came in, and a raffle was started for a watch, thirty members at a shilling. While this was being arranged the visitors joked and sang, and presently the showman was asked if he would oblige with a song; he readily complied, and was voted a jolly good fellow by all present, including the landlord, who apologised then for having demurred about the accommodation. When the raffle began, it was found there was one more subscriber wanted, and the showman was asked to join, which he said he would gladly do, but his wife kept the purse and she had gone to bed, and being very tired he did not like to disturb her. The landlord at once said, "Certainly not, here's a shilling; pay me in the morning." He accepted the proffered coin, threw the dice, and won the watch, which he sold for a sovereign. He then gave an exhibition of his skill with sleight of hand tricks, to the great delight of the customers, and was informed by the landlord before he went to bed that he could have the big room for a night or two. To this he replied, "I will think it over," and joined his wife, whom he found in a state of the greatest trepidation at the thought of their not having the money to pay for their board and lodging. He set her fears literally at rest, by showing her the proceeds of the watch he had sold. The next and two following evenings he gave three most successful performances in the big room, and finally left the village with flying colours, _en route_ for Carlisle. His good fortune, as in the case of Incledon, being fairly attributable to the singing of a song; which savours strongly to my mind of what is generally understood by the term "lucky."

Though somewhat different in detail, the impecuniosity of the late distinguished journalist, G. A. Sala, when a young man, was equally felicitous. Born in 1827 of not over-wealthy parents (Mrs. Sala was an operatic singer and teacher of music), he from an early age suffered with bad eyes, which prevented him learning to read until he was nine years old. When fourteen he began to earn his own living, and from that time till he was four-and-twenty, his mode of existence seems to have been more or less precarious. At one time engaged in copying plans of projected railways, then acting as assistant scene-painter at fifteen shillings a week, afterwards designing the cheapest and least elegant description of valentines, and subsequently drawing woodcuts for those inferior periodicals pretty generally known as "penny dreadfuls." In the year 1851 his health gave way while he was pursuing the avocation of an engraver. The acids used in engraving so affecting his eyes that for a time he was quite blind, and loss of eyesight meant loss of work, and loss of work involved loss of income. The poverty he suffered at this time must have been of the direst; but though he had lost almost everything else, he never apparently quite lost heart, and when his sight improved he dashed off an article called "The Key of the Street," descriptive of a night spent by a poor wanderer in London, which he sent in to Dickens, who had not long started _Household Words_. The feelings of the homeless man were described in a manner that shows the writer _felt_ his subject, although it is hinted that the experiences related may have been the result of caprice.

He says, "I have no bed to-night. Why, it matters not. Perhaps I have lost my latch-key--perhaps I never had one; yet am fearful of knocking up my landlady after midnight. Perhaps I have a caprice--a fancy--for stopping up all night. At all events, I have no bed; and, saving ninepence (sixpence in silver, and threepence in coppers), no money. I must walk the streets all night; for I cannot, look you, get anything in the shape of a bed for less than a shilling. Coffee-houses, into which--seduced by their cheap appearance--I have entered, and where I have humbly sought a lodging, laugh my ninepence to scorn. They demand impossible eighteenpences--unattainable shillings. There is clearly no bed for me.

"It is midnight--so the clanging tongue of St. Dunstan's tells me--as I stand thus bedless at Temple Bar. I have walked a good deal during the day, and have an uncomfortable sensation in my feet, suggesting the idea that the soles of my boots are made of roasted brickbats. I am thirsty too (it is July and sultry), and just as the last chime of St. Dunstan's is heard, I have half-a-pint of porter, and a ninth part of my ninepence is gone from me for ever. The public-house where I have it (or rather the beer-shop, for it is an establishment of 'the glass of ale and sandwich' description) is an early closing one, and the proprietor, as he serves me, yawningly orders the potboy to put the shutters up, for he is 'off to bed.' Happy proprietor! There is a bristly-bearded tailor too, very beery, having his last pint, who utters a similar somniferous intention. He calls it 'Bedfordshire.' Thrice happy tailor!

"I envy him fiercely, as he goes out, though, God wot, his bedchamber may be but a squalid attic, and his bed a tattered hop-sack, with a slop great-coat from the emporium of Messrs. Melchisedek & Son, and which he had been working at all day, for a coverlid. I envy his children (I am sure he has a frouzy, ragged brood of them) _for they have at least somewhere to sleep. I haven't_."

Then follows a most graphic account of the persons encountered during the eight hours' enforced prowl (including a flying visit to a fourpenny lodging-house, which was not a "model" of cleanliness), all the personages met with, and the occurrences witnessed being described with a freshness and fidelity that stamped the author as a descriptive writer of uncommon power. Charles Dickens at once forwarded a cheque for the contribution named, and, in the words of Oliver Twist, "asked for more;" and the late George Augustus Sala has for years been regarded as the journalist _par excellence_ of the day.

In like manner the needy circumstances of Charlotte Cushman had much to do with her obtaining an engagement at the Princess's Theatre, and making the great reputation she achieved in England. When first introduced to Mr. Maddox, the then lessee and manager of the house in Oxford Street, she did not impress him favourably. She had no pretensions to beauty, and Mr. Maddox considered she had not the qualities essential to a stage heroine. From London she went to Paris, in the hope of getting engaged by an English company performing there, but failing, and having obtained a letter of introduction from some one supposed to have great influence with the lessee, she again sought Mr. Maddox, with no better result. Stung to the quick by this second repulse, and made desperate by her critical situation, she turned when she had almost reached the door, exclaiming, "I know I have enemies in this country, but" (here she cast herself on her knees, raising her clenched hand aloft), "so help me Heaven, I'll defeat them!" Mr. Maddox was at once satisfied with the tragic power of his visitor, and offered her an engagement forthwith.

If there is any doubt as to Charlotte Cushman's success being attributable to impecuniosity the case of O'Brien, the celebrated Irish giant, is most clear.

This lengthy individual, whose height was 8ft. 7in., was born at Kinsale, where, with his father, he laboured as a bricklayer. His extraordinary size soon attracted the attention of a travelling showman, who, on payment of £50 per annum, acquired the right of exhibiting him for three years in England.

Not satisfied with this extremely good bargain, his master tried to sublet him to another person in the show business, a proceeding which Cotter (the giant's real name) objected to, and for which objection he was saddled with a fictitious debt, and thrown into Bristol Jail. This apparent misfortune was, in the end, one of the luckiest things that could have happened to him. While in prison he was visited by a gentleman who took compassion on his distress, and believing him to be unjustly detained, very generously became his bail, ultimately investigating the affair so successfully as to obtain for him not only his liberty but his freedom to discontinue serving his taskmaster any longer. It happened to be September when he was liberated, and by the further assistance of his benefactor he was enabled to set up for himself in the fair then held in St. James's, and such an attraction did he prove that in three days he realised the considerable sum of £30. From that time he continued to exhibit himself for twenty-six years, when, having realised a fortune sufficient to enable him to keep a carriage and live in luxury, he retired into private life.

A practical joke led to the ultimate success of Edward Knight, a popular comedian of last century. While with Mr. Nunns, manager of the Stafford company, he received a message from a stranger desiring his presence at a certain inn. On repairing thither he was courteously received by a gentleman who desired to show his gratification at Knight's performance by giving him permission to use his name (Phillips) to Mr. Tate Wilkinson, the manager of the York Theatre, who, the stranger felt sure, on account of his intimacy with him would be sure to give Knight a good engagement. Next morning a letter was sent by the elated actor, who in due course received the following reply:

"Sir,--I am not acquainted with any Mr. Phillips, except a rigid Quaker, and he is the last man in the world to recommend an actor to my theatre. I don't want you.

"TATE WILKINSON."

This rebuff was so unexpected, and so mortifying, that the recipient sent a short and sharp answer:

"Sir,--I should as soon think of applying to a Methodist parson to preach for my benefit as to a Quaker to recommend me to Mr. Wilkinson. I don't want to come.

"E. KNIGHT."

After an interval of twelve months, when the elder Mathews seceded from his company, he wrote to Knight as follows:

"Mr. Methodist Parson,--I have a living that produces twenty-five shillings per week. Will you hold forth?

"TATE WILKINSON."

The invitation was gladly accepted, and for seven years he continued at York with unvarying success; at the end of which time he obtained an engagement at Drury Lane, and became a metropolitan favourite.

Though perhaps not so striking an example as any of the foregoing, an episode in the life of William Dobson (called by Charles the First "the English Tintoret") is more or less of the same fortunate nature. Dobson, who always betrayed in his best efforts the want of proper training, was, as a boy, apprenticed to a Mr. Peake, who was more of a dealer in, than a painter of, pictures, and who consequently was anything but a competent teacher. Nevertheless, his collection of paintings, which included some by Titian and Van Dyck, was most valuable to the youngster, who copied both those masters with such wonderful correctness that none but an _expert_ could detect the difference. When very young, and very poor, he managed to get one of his copies of a Van Dyck exhibited in a shop window on Snow Hill, which, strangely enough, was seen by no less a person than the author of the original, who immediately sought out the individual who had reproduced his work with such fidelity, and finding him toiling away in a miserable garret, took him by the hand, and brought him to the notice of King Charles.

Another instance of luck not dissociated with impecuniosity is found in the case of Perry, of _The Morning Chronicle_. Educated at Marischal College, Aberdeen, which he entered in 1771, he was first employed in that town as a lawyer's clerk; but full of literary ambition, and possessed of much literary culture, he made his way to Edinburgh, where he almost starved, not being able to find employment of any kind. From Edinburgh he went to Manchester, where he just managed to eke out an existence; but believing London was the El Dorado for men of letters, he was not content till he had started for the great city. Amongst others who had promised him work was Urquart, the bookseller, to whom he wrote without success. One morning he called upon that gentleman, and was leaving the shop after a fruitless interview, when the bookseller said he had just experienced great pleasure in reading an article in _The General Advertiser_, and, said he, "If you could write like that, I could soon find you an engagement." It so happened that Perry had sent in an article to that paper, and his joy may be imagined when he was able to claim the lauded production as his own; bringing out of his pocket another of the same sort, which he was about to drop into the editor's box as before. He was immediately engaged as a paid contributor to _The General Advertiser_ and _Evening Post_, and ultimately became editor and proprietor of _The Morning Chronicle_.

One of the most remarkable of the lucky illustrations, however, is that of Hogarth, when he was a struggling artist. At the time referred to, when studying at St. Martin's Lane Academy, he was oftentimes reduced to the lowest possible water-mark; and while laying the foundation of his future celebrity, he was exposed to all the humiliating inconveniences too frequently associated with penury, not the least of such annoyances being the contemptuous insolence of an ignorant letter of lodgings. The story goes that on one of these occasions when he was unmercifully dunned by his landlady for the small sum of a sovereign, he was so exasperated that, with a view to being revenged upon her, he made a sketch of her face so excruciatingly ugly, that it revealed at once his marvellous power as a caricaturist.

Turning to the opposite side of the subject--the unlucky, there is, it must be admitted, a dearth of similarly appropriate examples. It is not that there is any scarcity of cases of great misfortune in connection with impecuniosity, but the circumstances connected with such cases are not so apparently the result of accident. In the lucky instances enumerated the chance element was conspicuous, but the same cannot be said of the adverse anecdotes; for they, or rather those that have come under my notice, are unfortunate cases rather than unlucky. For instance, the impecuniosity that introduced the Irish giant to some one he would not otherwise have met, who put him in the way of realising a competency, was manifestly lucky; but the impecuniosity that attended Stow, the antiquary, in his latest years, could not in the same sense be called _un_lucky, inasmuch as it was owing to no particular act or chance circumstance that he continued poor. The kind of cases that I consider would more properly illustrate this phase of the subject would be those of persons who, from, say, missing an appointment with some patron of eminence owing to being hard up, lost an opportunity of advancement, which never occurred again; or by not having some small amount of ready money were unable to avail themselves of an advantageous offer, which would have resulted in a fortune. That such mishaps have occurred in the long list of unrecorded lives there is little doubt; but I cannot call any to remembrance at the present time. The only instances I have met with in my research being those of unfortunate persons, whose histories of hardship would be more fittingly recounted as the sad side of impecuniosity.

The individual just referred to, John Stow, the antiquary, is a most melancholy case in point. A profound scholar in every sense, he devoted his life and substance to the study of English antiquities; oftentimes travelling tremendous distances on foot to save monuments, and rescue rare works from the dispersed libraries of monasteries. His enthusiasm for study was unbounded, and at his death he left stupendous excerpts in his own handwriting. At an advanced age, when worn out by study and travel, and the cares and anxieties of poverty--for he was utterly neglected by the pretended patrons of learning--his other troubles were increased by most acute pains in the feet, which he good-humouredly referred to by saying "his affliction lay in that part which formerly he had made so much use of." At last he became so necessitous that he petitioned James the First for a licence to collect alms for himself, "as a recompense for his labour and travel of forty-five years, in setting forth the Chronicles of England, and eight years taken up in the Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster, towards his relief now in his old age: having left his former means of living, and only employing himself for the service and good of his country"--which petition was granted by letters patent under the Great Seal, permitting him to seek assistance from all well-disposed people within this realm of England. The terms in which this permit was set forth ("to ask, gather, and take the alms of all our loving subjects") were scarcely correct; that is to say, "to ask, gather, and take the alms of all our loving subjects--who will give" would have been more complete; for though the letters patent were published by the clergy from their pulpits, the result was so trifling that they had to be renewed for another twelvemonth; one entire parish in the city subscribing but seven and sixpence to the poor scholar's appeal.

Learning in Stow's time, and for a long time after, was evidently but poorly patronised, for his is by no means an isolated experience. Myles Davies, author of 'Athenæ Britannicæ,' &c., published in 1716, suffered similar neglect; his mind, it is alleged, becoming quite confused amidst the loud cries of penury and despair.

Alluding to those who were supposed to support such as himself, he scathingly says, "Some parsons would halloo enough to raise the whole house and home of the domestics to raise a poor crown; at last all that flutter ends in sending Jack or Tom out to change a guinea, and then 'tis reckoned over half-a-dozen times before the fatal crown can be picked out, which must be taken as it is given, with all the parade of almsgiving [Davies, be it remembered, was a Welsh divine], and so to be received with all the active and passive ceremonial of mendication and alms-receiving, as if the books, printing, and paper were worth nothing at all, and as if it were the greatest charity for them to touch them, or let them be in the house. 'For I shall never read them,' says one of the five-shilling chaps. 'I have no time to look into them,' says a third. ''Tis so much money lost,' says a grave dean. 'My eyes being so bad,' said a bishop, 'that I can scarce read at all.' 'What do you want with me?' said another. 'Sir, I presented you the other day with my 'Athenæ Britannicæ,' being the last part published.' 'I don't want books, take them again; I don't understand what they mean.' 'The title is very plain,' said I, 'and they are writ mostly in English.' 'I'll give you a crown for both the volumes.' 'They stand me, sir, in more than that, and 'tis for a bare subsistence I present or sell them; how shall I live?' 'I care not a farthing for that--live or die, 'tis all one to me.' 'Damn my master,' said Jack, ''twas but last night he was commending your books and your learning to the skies, and now he would not care if you were starving before his eyes; nay, he often makes game at your clothes, though he thinks you the greatest scholar in England.'"

So much for the way literature was encouraged in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and that it was little better in the eighteenth century is only too well-known a fact; for "in those days, a large proportion of working literary men were little better than outcasts;--persons exiled from decent society, partly by their own vices, partly by the fact of their following a profession which had hardly acquired a recognised standing in the world, or found for itself a definite and indisputable sphere of usefulness. The reading public was not sufficient to maintain an extensive fraternity of writers, and the writers consequently often starved, and broke their hearts in wretched garrets, or earned a despicable living by flattering the great."

These animadversions are especially meant to apply to that class of _littérateurs_ known as "Grub Street pamphleteers," but not a few notable names in the world of letters can be found to verify the gloomy picture. Nathaniel, or "Nat" Lee, as he is more often called, was one of those who failed to find fortune, but it must be admitted his "own vices" are answerable for his indigence. The son of a clergyman, he was educated at Westminster School, and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took his B.A.; and, at a very early age, manifested conspicuous ability for dramatic writing; his first effort, 'Nero, Emperor of Rome,' produced in 1675, being received with marked success. From that time until his death, which occurred fifteen years later, he brought out eleven plays, not one of which was a failure, but he was so rakishly extravagant as to be frequently plunged into the lowest depths of misery. In November 1684, his excesses, coupled with a naturally excitable temperament, succeeded in fitting him to be an inmate of Bedlam, where he was confined for four years. On his release in April 1688, he resumed his occupation of dramatist, producing 'The Princess of Cleve' in 1689, and 'The Massacre of Paris' the following year. Notwithstanding the considerable profits arising from these performances he was reduced to so low an ebb, that a weekly stipend of 10_s._ from the Theatre Royal was his chief dependence. He died the same year, 1690, the result of a drunken frolic in the street; and although the author of eleven plays, all acted with applause, and dedicated, when printed, to the Earls of Dorset, Mulgrave, and Pembroke, and the Duchesses of Portsmouth and Richmond, who were numbered among his patrons, _he was buried by the Parish_ of St. Clement Danes, Strand.

The vicissitudes of Spenser, in contrast to those of the author just referred to, were undoubtedly due to a want of appreciation on the part of those in power; for none of his biographers even hint at want of rectitude in his past life. Created Poet Laureate by Queen Elizabeth, he, for some time, only wore the barren laurel, and possessed the place without the pension; for Lord Treasurer Burleigh, for some motive or other, intercepted the Queen's intended bounty to him. It is said that Her Majesty, upon Spenser presenting some poems to her, ordered him £100, but that her Lord Treasurer, objecting to it, said with considerable scorn, "What! all this for a song?" Whereupon the Queen replied, "Then give him what is reason." Some time after, the poet, not having received the promised gift, penned the following poetic petition--

"I was promised on a time, To have reason for my rime; (_sic_) From that time unto this season I received nor rime nor reason"--

which, when sent to his sovereign, had the desired effect of producing the monetary reward, and also obtained for Lord Burleigh the reprimand he so well deserved. That Spenser felt keenly the neglect to which he was subsequently subjected is pretty clearly shown in the following lines--

"Full little knowest thou, that hast not try'd What hell it is in suing long to bide: To lose good days that might be better spent, To wast long nights in pensive discontent: To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow, To feed on hope, to pine with fear and sorrow: To have thy Prince's grace, yet want her peers, To have thy asking, yet wait many years: To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares, To eat thy heart with comfortless despairs: To fawn, to crouch, to wait, to ride, to run, To spend, to give, to want, to be undone"--

which is but one of many bemoanings of hard and undeserved treatment; and though there be some who have accused him of lacking philosophy in thus making known his poverty, I should think it very much too literally _poor_ philosophy that would suffer in silence when it comes to a matter of bread and cheese. There were times, of course, in Spenser's history, when his genius was fully acknowledged, both before and after the neglect recorded, when, for instance, he made the acquaintance of that chivalrous poet soldier, Sir Philip Sidney--the historically self-denying Sir Philip, who when mortally wounded at the battle of Zutphen, and about to revel in a draught of water that he had called for, denied himself the coveted drink, and gave it away to a poor comrade. He it was who was the first to recognise Spenser's great claim as a poet. It is stated that when a perfect stranger to Sir Philip, Spenser went to Leicester House, and introduced himself by sending in the ninth canto of 'The Fairy Queen,' which he had just completed.

The young nobleman was much surprised with the description of "Despair" in that canto, and betrayed an unusual kind of transport on the discovery of so new and uncommon a genius. After he had read some verses he called his steward, and bade him give the person who brought those verses £50; but upon reading the next stanza, he ordered the sum to be doubled. The steward was as much surprised as his master, and thought it his duty to make some delay in executing so sudden and lavish a bounty; but upon reading one stanza more, Sir Philip raised his gratuity to £200, and commanded the steward to give it immediately, lest, as he read farther, he might be tempted to give away his whole estate. Unfortunately this generous patron was killed at the early age of thirty-two, and it was after his decease that Spenser for a time was under a cloud. Subsequently he was befriended by the Earl of Leicester, and upon the appointment of Lord Grey of Wilton to be Lord Deputy of Ireland, the poet became his secretary, and was rewarded by a grant from the Queen of three thousand acres. This he was not destined to enjoy very long, for in the rebellion of Tyrone he was plundered, and deprived of his estate, and when he arrived in England he was heart-broken by his misfortunes. He died in the greatest distress on the 16th January, 1599, and though interred in Westminster Abbey at the expense of the Earl of Essex, his death according to Ben Jonson was actually occasioned by "lack of bread."

It is difficult to determine which is the more pitiable, the want and misery produced by the neglect of others, or the destitution resulting from evil courses; both demand our commiseration, though some of the stern moralists affect to have "no pity" for those whose troubles are the outcome of self-indulgence and dissipation. "A fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind," and only those who have been the victims of that enslaving mania for drink, which has blasted so many bright lives will have compassion for such a man as Samuel Boyce. This misguided mortal, the son of a dissenting minister, was born at Dublin in the year 1708, and when eighteen was sent to the Glasgow University, his father having designed him for the ministry. He married when he had been at college little more than a year, and soon developed habits of indulgence and extravagance, which effectually ruined him, in spite of much assistance received from the nobility and others. In the year 1731 he published a volume of poems, to which is subjoined the "Tablature of Cebes," and a letter upon liberty, which appeared originally in the _Dublin Journal_ five years previously. These productions gained him considerable reputation and substantial patronage from the Countess of Eglinton, to whom they were dedicated.

His next successful effort was an elegy upon the death of the Viscountess Stormont (a woman of the most refined taste, well versed in science, and a great admirer of poetry), entitled, 'The Tears of the Muses,' which so pleased Lord Stormont, the deceased lady's husband, that he advertised for the author in one of the weekly papers, and caused his attorney to make him a very handsome present. In addition to the favour of Lady Eglinton and Lord Stormont, he was also befriended by the Duchess of Gordon, who gave him most material assistance while he continued in Scotland; and when he went to London, gave him a letter of introduction to Pope, and obtained another for him to Sir Peter King, Lord Chancellor of England. He had many other most valuable recommendations when he arrived in the metropolis, and possessing as he did ability of no common order, his opportunities were exceptionally fine; but nothing can withstand the devastating influences of the demon of drink; and at the age of thirty-two he is described as reduced to such an extremity of human wretchedness that he had not a shirt, a coat, or any kind of apparel to put on. The sheets in which he lay were carried to the pawnbroker's, and he was obliged to be confined to his bed with no other covering than a blanket, and in this condition, thrusting his arm through a hole, he scribbled a quantity of verse for the _Gentleman's Magazine_.

His genius was not confined to poetry, for he was skilled in painting, music, and heraldry; but by his pen alone, had he chosen to live decently, he could have commanded a very good living. His translations from the French were admittedly excellent; but the drawback to employing him at this work was that when he had copied a page or two he would pawn the original and re-pawn it as often he could induce his acquaintances to "get it out" for him. On one occasion Dr. Johnson managed to get up a sixpenny subscription for him in order to redeem his clothes, but the effort to help him was useless, for within two days he pawned them again, and the last state was at any rate no better than the first. He seems to have been so demoralised by drink that he was dead to every sense of honour and humanity; for, whenever he obtained half-a-guinea, whether by writing poetry or a begging letter, he would sit squandering it in a tavern while his wife and child starved at home. He got from bad to worse, and in 1742, when locked up in a spunging-house, sent the following appeal to Cave:

"I am every moment threatened to be turned out here, because I have not money to pay for my bed two nights past, which is usually paid beforehand; and I am loth to go into the Compter, till I can see if my affairs can possibly be made up. I hope, therefore, you will have the humanity to send me half-a-guinea for support till I finish your papers in my hands. I humbly entreat your answer, not having tasted anything since Tuesday evening I came here; and my coat will be taken off my back for the charge of the bed, so that I must go into prison naked, which is too shocking for me to think of."

There are several accounts given of his death, which occurred when he was but forty-one years of age; and, though they vary as to the precise nature of his end, there is no doubt that it was accelerated by the habit he indulged in--of drinking hot beer to excess, which at last obscured and confused his intellectual faculties.

The sad side of impecuniosity is, unfortunately, so vast a subject that it would require an entire volume, instead of part of a chapter, to properly record the miseries of mind and body endured by those in past ages, who, not unknown to fame, have been permitted to pine and die in despair. The poets alone, so prolific are they in this respect, would furnish material sufficient; but the neglect of genius is anything but an uncommon thing, and therefore commonplace sufferings might not be regarded as "_Curiosities_ of impecuniosity," though in one sense it certainly is curious that their wants should not have been recognised. Men like Henry Carey or Cary, the author of 'Sally in our Alley,' and said by some to be the composer of the National Anthem, who was considered by all authorities to be a true son of the Muses, have been driven to desperation through want. It is said, "At the time that this poet could neither walk the streets nor be seated at the convivial board without listening to his own songs and his own music--for in truth the whole nation was echoing his verse, and crowded theatres were applauding his wit and humour; while this very man himself, urged by his strong humanity, founded a 'Fund for Decayed Musicians'--he was so broken-hearted, and his own common comforts so utterly neglected, that in despair, not waiting for nature to relieve him from the burden of existence, he laid violent hands on himself; and when found dead _had only a halfpenny in his pocket_."

The following lines written some time before his melancholy end show that he was no stranger to the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," and that his self-destruction was not the result of momentary madness, but rather induced by the humiliating torture of ills long borne.

"Far, far away then chase the harlot Muse, Nor let her thus thy noon of life abuse; Mix with the common crowd, unheard, unseen, And if again thou tempt'st the vulgar praise, May'st thou be crown'd with birch instead of bays!"

The untimely end of Chatterton is a companion picture to that of Cary, but the circumstances of his early death, his being without food for two days, and his poisoning himself with arsenic and water, when lodging at Mrs. Angel's, a sack-maker in Brook Street, Holborn, are so well known that it is only necessary to mention his melancholy fate, which if it stood alone in the history of literature would be sufficient to show there is a very pathetic side to impecuniosity. Although this rash act is attributed to the state of starvation to which the poet was reduced, there is little doubt that Horace Walpole by his unsympathising, though strictly correct, reproof had much to do with the disordered condition of the poor fellow's mind. When living at Bristol, Chatterton became possessed of some parchments which had been extracted from the coffin of a Mr. Canynge, and upon these he produced some poetry, which he described as a production of Thomas Canynge, and of his friend, one Thomas Rowley, a priest; sent them to Walpole and asked for assistance to enable him to quit his uncongenial occupation, and pursue one more poetic. The poems were submitted to competent antiquaries, and pronounced forgeries, whereupon Horace Walpole refused the boy's application for help, at the same time reproving the attempted fraud in the most cold and cutting terms. For this treatment the great wit and prince of letter-writers has been severely censured; one writer remarking, "Just or unjust, the world has never forgiven Horace Walpole for Chatterton's misery. His indifference has been contrasted with the generosity of Edmund Burke to Crabbe, a generosity to which we owe 'The Village,' 'The Borough,' and to which Crabbe owed his peaceful old age, and almost his existance. The cases were different, but Crabbe had his faults, and Chatterton was worth saving. It is well for genius that there are souls in the world more sympathising, less worldly, and more indulgent, than those of such men as Horace Walpole."

Another most melancholy, and equally tragical record connected with impecuniosity is furnished in the life of Dr. Dodd, a literary divine, and one of the most popular preachers of the last century; though _his_ troubles were not the outcome of actual want, but rather the result of want of self-control and principle. He commenced as a writer for the press, published 'The Beauties of Shakespeare,' obtained several lectureships, which he held with great success, and subsequently became Chaplain to the King. The list of his different appointments is most numerous, and most of them not only important, but highly remunerative, but his extravagance was such that no income would have been sufficient to keep him out of debt. Owing to his excesses he lost the royal favour, and though he was in the receipt of a large income from his preaching, it was not enough to satisfy his expensive habits, and he foolishly sent an anonymous letter to Lady Apsley offering her £3000 if she would prevail on her husband, the Lord Chancellor, to appoint him to the rectory of St. George's, Hanover Square. The letter was traced to the doctor, and in consequence his name was struck off the list of royal chaplains. After a sojourn abroad he returned to this country, obtained from Lord Chesterfield a living in Buckinghamshire, but could not forsake his old habits; he still plunged into debt, and _from being pressed for money_ forged the name of his patron to a bill for £4200, was tried, found guilty, and executed at the Old Bailey, in 1777.

The career of Thomas Otway, the dramatist, though short, for he was but thirty-four years of age when he died, was one continued course of monetary difficulty, the result of irregular living. The son of a Sussex rector and educated at Winchester and Christ Church, Oxford, he betrayed no anxiety to follow his father's footsteps, but at the age of twenty-three manifested a most practical preference for Thespis rather than theology, though he does not seem to have possessed any great genius for acting. He subsequently became a cornet in a regiment, which was sent to Flanders, but distinguished himself most as a dramatic writer, for which profession he was eminently suited, many of his plays meeting with exceptional success, particularly 'Venice Preserved,' which has held possession of the stage for about two hundred years. His circumstances, never good, gradually went from bad to worse, owing to his dissolute proclivities, and he died at last on the 14th April, 1685, in a wretched state of penury, at a public-house called 'The Bull,' on Tower Hill, whither he had gone to avoid the too pressing attention of his creditors. It is generally believed that the actual cause of his death was choking, which occurred through his having been without food for some time, and then too eagerly devouring a piece of bread which, through the generosity of a friend, he had been able to purchase. That Otway should have excelled in tragedy is not surprising, the power that he displayed in depicting domestic suffering being easily accounted for by the fact that he must have been constantly experiencing distress in private life, for when his tragic end was brought about he was hiding from sheriff's officers, his misery terminating only with death.

It is terribly sad to see such men as these, blessed with natural gifts far beyond the common, yet in spite of these endowments sinking to a lower level than their inferiors in intellect; and unfortunately the literary list of these erring ones is a long one, for since the days of Robert Greene, said to be the first Englishman who wrote for a living, and who died in the house of a poor shoemaker, who took pity upon him when he was destitute, there have always been men unable to withstand the seductions of vicious courses, and who have consequently paid the penalty of intemperance, and immorality, by death-beds of misery, and remorse, to say nothing of the life-long inconveniences of impecuniosity. Lamentable as is the contemplation of these lost lives, there is yet a sadder picture still, for pitiable as it is to think of men, indifferent alike to their well-being in this world and in that which is to come, the sadness is intensified when the object of pity is a woman, one who has been referred to as "a sort of female Otway, without his genius."

The individual in question was Colley Cibber's younger daughter, Charlotte, whose education from her earliest years was eminently masculine, which resulted in the girl becoming proficient in manly sports and pastimes, such as shooting, hunting, riding, &c. When very young she married Mr. Richard Clarke, a celebrated violinist, with whom she soon disagreed, and from whom she speedily separated, and she then devoted herself to the stage, and commenced a career, which for strange and harrowing vicissitudes is unequalled in the annals of British biography--one day courted, admired and affluent; the next an outcast, uncared for, and despised. Singularly enough, the first character she assumed on the stage after the quarrel with her husband was Mademoiselle in 'The Provoked Wife,' in which character, and several subsequent assumptions at the Haymarket Theatre, she was highly successful, and obtained an uncommonly good salary. Her temper however, like herself, was eccentric, and it was not long before she quarrelled with Fleetwood, the manager, and left the theatre at a moment's notice. From being a regular performer, she then took to travelling about the country with strollers, and shared with them the starvation fate that is so often associated with their nomadic existence. Tiring of this, she set up as a grocer, in Long Acre, but failed in that business, as well as at puppet-show keeping, at which she tried her hand in a street near the Haymarket. On the death of her husband, she was thrown into prison for debt, but released by the subscriptions of ladies of questionable repute, whose charity is proverbially more conspicuous than their virtue. After remarrying, and again becoming a widow, Charlotte Clarke (for by that name she has always been known) assumed male attire, and obtained occasional engagements at the theatres, and, though she suffered most distressing deprivations was able to present so good an appearance, that an heiress became madly attached to her, and was inconsolable when the wretched woman revealed her sex. The next adventure she claims to have participated in is her becoming valet to an Irish nobleman, which situation she did not retain for any length of time; and then she attempted to earn her living as a sausage-maker, but was unsuccessful. Twice she became a tavern proprietor, and for a time was in the most flourishing circumstances, but her prosperity was excessively ephemeral, and amongst the other occupations that she is credited with having undertaken are those of waiter at the King's Head, Marylebone; worker of a set of puppets, and authoress of her extraordinary biography, which she published in 1755. It was with the proceeds of this book that she was enabled to open one of the public-houses mentioned; but the amount realised by its sale was not of much benefit to the poor misguided creature, for within five years (she died in 1760), she was discovered in a more wretched, forlorn condition than ever, according to the account of two gentlemen who visited her. The widow, who, petted and pampered by her parents, had, as a child been brought up in luxury, was then domiciled in a wretched, thatched hovel in the purlieus of Clerkenwell Bridewell, at that time a wild suburb, where the scavengers used to throw the cleansings of the streets. The house and its scanty furniture sufficiently indicated the extreme poverty of the inmates.

"Mrs. Clarke sat on a broken chair by a little scrap of fire, and the visitors were accommodated with a rickety deal board. A half-starved dog lay at the authoress's feet; a cat sat on one hob, and a monkey on the other; while a magpie perched on the back of its mistress's chair. A worn-out pair of bellows served for a writing-desk, and a broken cup for an inkstand; these were matched by the pen, which was worn down to the stump, and was the only one on the premises. The lady asked thirty guineas for the copyright. The bookseller offered five, but was at length induced by his friend to give ten, on condition that Mr. Whyte (the friend) would pay a moiety and take half the risk of the novel."

In the year 1759 she played Marplot, in 'The Busybody,' for her own benefit at the Haymarket, when the following advertisement appeared.

"As I am entirely dependent on chance for a subsistence, and am desirous of getting into business, I hope the town will favour me on the occasion, which, added to the rest of their indulgence, will ever be gratefully acknowledged by their truly obliged, and obedient servant, CHARLOTTE CLARKE."

This was shortly before her death, which took place on the 6th April, 1760.

It would be extremely difficult to find a more sorrowful story in connection with impecuniosity than that of Colley Cibber's daughter; and though the degraded character of the greater part of her life has robbed her misfortunes of much of the sympathy that would otherwise have been freely accorded, it would have been well if some who have animadverted so severely upon her shortcomings had remembered that much in her life that was so unwomanly was undoubtedly due to her masculine and defective training.

The celebrated actress Mrs. Jordan--whose acting, according to Hazlitt--"gave more pleasure than that of any other actress, because she had the greatest spirit of enjoyment in herself"--was so unfortunate in her last days, that she is fully entitled to a place with those whose monetary embarrassments have been particularly sad. For years she had lived in uninterrupted domestic harmony with the Duke of Clarence, afterwards William the Fourth; but when the connection was suddenly severed in 1811, a yearly allowance of £4400, was settled upon her for the maintenance of herself and daughters; with a provision that, if Mrs. Jordan should resume her profession, the care of the duke's daughters, together with £1500 per annum allowed for them, should revert to his Royal Highness. Within a few months of this arrangement she did return to the stage, but through having incautiously given blank notes of hand to a friend in difficulties on the understanding that the amounts to be filled in were but small, she awoke one morning to find herself called upon to pay amounts utterly beyond her power. In her terror and dismay she fled to France, but her peace of mind was gone. Separated from her children, and racked by the torturing thought of the liability she was unable to discharge, she gradually pined away, and died in terrible distress of mind at St. Cloud in June 1816.

Contrasted with its brilliant beginning the close of Mrs. Jordan's life is painfully sad, and it might be urged that the sorrowful end was but an instance of retributive justice on account of the fair and frail one's social sin. Experience, however, proves that the breaking of the moral law does not always involve punishment in this life, and even if this were not so, many instances could be cited of misfortunes as heavy, and far heavier, falling to the lot of those who to all intents and purposes have led blameless lives.

Foremost among such cases would be the crushing blow that befell the noble and greatly gifted novelist and poet, Sir Walter Scott, at the age of fifty-five years, when, having given to the world the greater part of those glorious works that have placed his name pre-eminent in the world of literature, and being, as was supposed, the happy enjoyer of a handsome fortune and splendid estate, it transpired that he was a ruined man. So successful had been his literary labours for thirty years that it was generally and naturally supposed that the enormous sums spent on Abbotsford were the proceeds of his novels and poems, but it seems he had for a long time been a partner in the printing firm of Ballantyne & Co., who were closely connected with Messrs. Constable, the publishers. These firms had engaged in transactions of a speculative character, and in the commercial crisis of 1825 both failed, Sir Walter's immense private fortune being swallowed up in the crash, while as a partner in the house of Ballantyne he was responsible for the enormous amount of £147,000. At the time of this calamity his health had already been considerably shattered, the slightly grey hair had in the year 1819 been turned to snowy white by an attack of jaundice, and his frame further enfeebled four years later by an attack of apoplexy, so that it would not have been surprising if this frightful crash had proved his death-blow. Far from it; with a heroism unparalleled, and a high sense of honour, that adds more lustre to his name than the most brilliant effusion of his pen, he determined manfully to face this overwhelming catastrophe, refusing all proffered aid, and merely asking for time. "Gentlemen," said he to the creditors, "time and I against any two. Let me take this good ally into my company, and I believe I shall be able to pay you every farthing. It is very hard thus to lose all the labours of a lifetime and to be made a poor man at last when I ought to have been otherwise, but, if God grant me life and strength for a few years longer, I have no doubt I shall redeem it all." The redemption referred to his property, all of which he gave up, retiring into modest lodgings, where he zealously set to work to accomplish the Herculean task of writing off the gigantic sum named. 'Woodstock,' which realised £8228, was the first novel after his misfortune, and that occupied him only three months; but it was as, he said, "very hard" at his time of life to every day perform the allotted task of producing thirty pages of printed matter, for the work on which he was then occupied was not that fiction which he wrote with such facility, but a voluminous 'Life of Napoleon Buonaparte,' necessitating reference to no end of books and papers; and day after day for many a month might he have been seen, slowly and sorrowfully, wading through work after work in order to verify each date and fact. The nine volumes were finished in 1827, and these were followed by 'The Chronicles of the Canongate,' 'Tales of a Grandfather,' 'The Fair Maid of Perth,' 'Count Robert,' and 'Castle Dangerous'--the last named published in 1831--a year before his death, which may be fairly attributed to the undue strain of mind and body; the _raison-d'être_ of this overtaxing of his strength being simply and solely impecuniosity.

The picture of this truly great man being obliged to wear out the last years of his life by unceasing labour when he should have been enjoying a well-earned rest, is excessively sad and touching--but the sadness is to some extent relieved by the heroic nature of the act. The melancholy end of the man is swallowed up in the imperishable name he has left behind, which name, for generations to come, will serve as the synonym of honour. Sad, far more sad, were the closing days of Sheridan, whose last moments were also darkened by impecuniosity, but utterly unrelieved by any acts of self-sacrifice; and made far more melancholy by the fact that the monetary misery was caused by unnecessary extravagance.

Alas, poor Sheridan! If ever man in his declining days had good reason to say with the preacher, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity," thou hadst! for thou wert bitterly punished at the last, by the desertion and neglect of those who should have succoured and solaced thee. True thy shortcomings were many, but only one blessed with such brilliant gifts could possibly realise thy temptation; and the sorrow thou didst endure must silence detraction. Says one of his biographers, "For six years after the burning of the old theatre, he continued to go down and down. Disease now attacked him fiercely. In the spring of 1816 he was fast waning towards extinction. His day was past, he had outlived his fame as a wit and social light; he was forgotten by many, if not by most, of his old associates. He wrote to Rogers, 'I am absolutely undone and broken-hearted.' Poor Sheridan! in spite of all thy faults, who is he whose morality is so stern that he cannot shed one tear over thy latter days! God forgive us, we are all sinners; and if we weep not for this man's deficiency, how shall we ask tears when our day comes? Even as I write, I feel my hand tremble and my eyes moisten over the sad end of one whom I love, though he died before I was born. 'They are going to put the carpets out of window,' he wrote to Rogers, 'and break into Mrs. S.'s room and _take me_. For God's sake let me see you!' See him! see one friend who could and would help him in his misery! Oh, happy man may that man count himself who has never wanted that one friend, and felt the utter helplessness of that want. Poor Sheridan! had he ever asked, or hoped, or looked for that Friend out of _this_ world it had been better; for 'the Lord thy God is a jealous God,' and we go on seeking human friendship and neglecting the divine till it is too late. He found one hearty friend in his physician, Dr. Bain, when all others had forsaken him. The spirit of White's and Brookes', the companion of a prince and a score of noblemen, the enlivener of every fashionable table, was forgotten by all but this one doctor. Let us read Moore's description. 'A sheriff's officer at length arrested the dying man _in his bed_, and was about to carry him off in his blankets to a spunging-house, when Dr. Bain interfered?' Who would live the life of revelry that Sheridan lived to have such an end? A few days after, on the 7th July, 1816, in his sixty-fifth year, he died. Of his last hours the late Professor Smythe wrote an admirable and most touching account, a copy of which was circulated in manuscript. The professor, hearing of Sheridan's condition asked to see him, with a view not only of alleviating present distress, but of calling the dying man to repentance. From his hands the unhappy Sheridan received the Holy Communion; his face during that solemn rite--doubly solemn when it is performed in the chamber of death--'expressed,' Smythe relates, '_the deepest awe_.' That phrase conveys to the mind impressions not easy to be defined, not easy to be forgotten.

"Peace! There was not peace even in death, and the creditor pursued him even into the 'waste wide,' even to the coffin. He was lying in state, when a gentleman in the deepest mourning called, it is said, at the house, and introducing himself as an old and much-attached friend of the deceased, begged to be allowed to look upon his face. The tears which rose in his eyes, the tremulousness of his quiet voice, the pallor of his mournful face, deceived the unsuspecting servant, who accompanied him to the chamber of death, removed the lid of the coffin, turned down the shroud, and revealed features which had once been handsome, but long since rendered almost hideous by drinking. The stranger gazed with profound emotion, while he quietly drew from his pocket a bailiff's wand, and touching the corpse's face with it, suddenly altered his manner to one of considerable glee, and informed the servant that he had arrested the corpse in the King's name for a debt of £500. It was the morning of the funeral, which was to be attended by half the grandees of England, and in a few minutes the mourners began to arrive. But the corpse was the bailiff's property till his claim was paid, and nought but the money would soften the iron capturer. Canning and Lord Sidmouth agreed to settle the matter, and over the coffin the debt was paid."

The pall-bearers were the Duke of Bedford, the Earl of Lauderdale, Earl Mulgrave, Lord Holland, Lord Spencer, and the Bishop of London, and the body was followed by two Royal Highnesses--the Dukes of York and Sussex--by two Marquises, seven Earls, three Viscounts, five Lords, and a perfect army of honourables and right honourables. This _show_ of respect and homage after death, when nothing had been done to assuage his last sufferings in life, was regarded by those who loved him as a bitter mockery, and Moore's lines justly denounced it.

"Oh, it sickens the heart to see bosoms so hollow, And friendship so false in the great and high-born, To think what a long line of titles may follow, The relics of him who died friendless and lorn! How proud they can press to the funeral array Of him whom they shunned in his sickness and sorrow, How bailiffs may seize his last blanket to-day, Whose pall shall be held up by nobles to-morrow!"