Part 26

The "Bolton Trotters" were much addicted to practical joking, of which Mr. French, in his _Life of Samuel Crompton_, narrates this story:--"One of the craft visiting Bolton on a market-day, having delivered his work at the manufacturing warehouse, and obtained materials for his succeeding work, placed them carefully in one end of his blue linen wallet, and filled the other end with articles of clothing and provisions, upon which he had expended his recently received wages. He had, however, reserved a portion for his accustomed potation upon such occasions; and that he might enjoy this solace of his labour in comfort and safety, he left his wallet at the warehouse before visiting his favourite tavern. The good ale did its office, and when elevated to just the proper pitch for _trotting_, he met a brother of the loom, who, like himself, had transacted his day's business, and was now ready to trudge home with his wallet on his shoulder. The two weavers mingled with a little crowd gathered together to hear the strains of the Bolton volunteer band performing near the Swan Hotel. He who had left his wallet at the warehouse was not, however, too much engrossed by the martial music to neglect the tempting opportunity to trot his quondam friend, with whom he stood shoulder to shoulder, though each looked in a different direction. Provided with a needle and stout thread, and being the shorter man of the two, he had no difficulty in sewing the edge of his neighbour's well-filled wallet to the lapel of his own velveteen jacket, and then, during a momentary movement in the crowd, adroitly hitched it from his neighbour's to his own shoulder. An immediate and clamorous charge of robbery was made, and met by an indignant denial from the trotter, who coolly remonstrated with the loser on his culpable want of ordinary care, pointing out, at the same time, at the means he had taken to secure his own wallet, which no one, he said, could steal from him. This evidence was unanswerable, particularly as it was supported by many of the bystanders who had seen the whole transaction, and joined heartily in the laugh at the weaver who had been so effectually _trotted_ for their amusement. A reconciliation was effected through the ordinary means on these occasions, of an adjournment to the alehouse."

Eccentric Lord Coleraine.

J. T. Smith, in his _Life of Nollekens_, has left these sensible remarks upon a class of persons whose lives present many instances of right feeling and upright conduct, although mixed up with less estimable qualities. "I believe," says Mr. Smith, "every age produces at least one eccentric in every city, town, and village. Be this as it may, go where you will, you will find some half-witted fellow, under the nickname either of Dolly, Silly Billy, or Foolish Sam, who is generally the butt and sport of his neighbours, and from whom, simple as he may sometimes be, a sensible answer is expected to an unthinking question: like the common children, who will, to our annoyance, inquire of our neighbour's parrot what it is o'clock. In some such light Nollekens was often held by his brother artists; and I once heard Fuseli cry out, when on the opposite side of the street: 'Nollekens, Nollekens, why do you walk in the sun? If you have no love for your few brains, you should not melt your coat buttons!'"[35]

[35] Fuseli had one day sharply criticised the work of a brother R.A., whom he sought to alleviate by remarking that the conceited scene-painter, Mr. Capon, to whom Sheridan had given the nickname of "Pompous Billy," had piled up his lumps of rock as regularly on the side scene, as a baker would his quartern-loaves upon the shelves behind his counter to _cool_.

The eccentric character is, likewise, sure to be found in London, where there are several curious varieties of this class of persons to be met with. In our walks, perchance, we may meet a man who always casts his eye towards the ground, as if he were ashamed of looking any one in the face; and who pretends, when accosted, to be near-sighted, so that he does not know even the friend that had served him. This short-sightedness is very common. Indeed, he draws his hat across his forehead to act as an eye-shade, so that his sallow visage cannot be immediately recognised, which makes him look as if he had done something wrong; whilst his coat is according to the true Addison cut, with square pockets large enough to carry the folio _Ship of Fools_. No man was more gazed at than Lord Coleraine, who lived near the New Queen's Head and Artichoke, in Marylebone Fields, and who never met Nollekens without saluting him. "Well, Nollekens, my old boy, how goes it? You never sent me the bust of the Prince." To which Nollekens replied: "You know you said you would call for it one of these days, and give me the money, and take it away in a hackney-coach." "I remember," says J. T. Smith, "seeing his lordship, after he had purchased a book entitled the _American Buccaneers_, sit down close to the shop from which he had bought it, in the open street, in St. Giles's, to read it. I also once heard Lord Coleraine, as I was passing the wall at the end of the Portland Road, where an old apple-woman, with whom his lordship held frequent conversations, was packing up her fruit, ask her the following question: 'What are you about, mother?' 'Why, my lord, I am going home to my tea; if your lordship wants any information I shall come again presently.' 'Oh! don't balk trade. Leave your things on the table as they are: I will mind your shop till you come back;' so saying, he seated himself in the old woman's wooden chair, in which he had often sat before whilst chatting with her. Being determined to witness the result, after strolling about till the return of the old lady, I heard his lordship declare the amount of his receipts by saying: 'Well, mother, I have taken threepence-halfpenny for you. Did your daughter Nancy drink tea with you?'"

Eccentric Travellers.

Curious stories are told of tourists being so fascinated by certain incidents in their travels as to be diverted from their purposes by finding themselves so comfortable as to wish to proceed no further--a lesson of content which is rarely lost on sensible persons.

It is told of an English gentleman, who started on a tour in 1815, the year of the battle of Waterloo, that he landed at Ostend, with the design of pushing on to Brussels, and took his place in the canal-boat that plied between Brussels and Ghent. The traveller went abroad, not merely to see foreign lands, but with the hope of meeting with illustrious personages and distinguished characters. Finding, however, that on board the _trekschuit_ he not only fell in with many persons worth meeting, but had the opportunity of sitting down with them at the _table-d'hôte_, he thought he could not do better, and went backwards and forwards, never getting farther than Ghent.

Mr. Thackeray, in his _Vanity Fair_, gives this somewhat different version of the story:--"The famous regiment ... was drafted in canal-boats to Bruges, thence to march to Brussels. Jos. accompanied the ladies in the public boats; the which all old travellers in Flanders must remember for the luxury and accommodation they afforded. So prodigiously good was the eating and drinking on board these sluggish but most comfortable vessels, that there are legends extant of an English traveller, who, coming to Belgium for a week, and travelling in one of these boats, was so delighted with the fare there, that he went backwards and forwards from Ghent to Bruges perpetually, until the railroads were introduced, when he drowned himself on the last trip of the passage-boat." Possibly the catastrophe is an embellishment.

To these ana, Mr. Sala has added the story of the Englishman, who is _said_ to have made a bet that Van Amburgh, the lion-tamer, would be eaten by his voracious pupils within a given time; and who followed him about the continents of Europe and America in the hope of seeing him at last devoured, and so winning his stakes. Eugène Sue introduces this mythical Englishman among the _dramatis personæ_ of the _Wandering Jew_.

The Russians, also, have a story of an eccentric traveller--of course, an Englishman--who posted overland, and in the depth of winter, to St. Petersburgh, merely to see the famous wrought-iron gates of the Summer Garden. He is said to have died of grief at finding the gates superior to those at the entrance to his own park at home. Add to this the lying traveller, who boasted that he had been everywhere, and who, being asked how he liked Persia, replied that he scarcely knew, as _he had only stayed there a day_. Note, likewise, among eccentricities, the nobleman of whom it was inquired, at dinner, what he thought of Athens during an Oriental tour. He turned to his body-servant, waiting behind his chair, and said, "_John, what did I think of Athens?_"

In May, 1865, died Charles Waterton, "the gentle and gifted squire" of Walton Hall, in Yorkshire, in his eighty-second year. Of this gentleman one of the most eccentric incidents in modern travel is related to have occurred in his wanderings in South America. His attendant Indian had made an instrument to take a cayman, or alligator, of Guiana, on the banks of the Essequibo river. It was very simple; there were four pieces of tough, hard wood, a foot long, and about as thick as your little finger; they were tied round the ends of a rope in such a manner that if you conceive the rope to be an arrow, these four sticks would form the arrow's head; or that one end of the four united sticks answered to the point of the arrow's head, while the other end of the sticks expanded at equal distances round the rope. Now, it is evident that if the cayman swallowed this, the other end of the rope (which was thirty yards long) being fastened to a tree, the more he pulled the faster the barbs would stick into his stomach. The hook was well baited with flesh, and entrails twisted round the rope for about a foot above it. Into the steep sand-banks of the river the Indian pricked a stick, and at its extremity was fixed the machine which hung suspended about a foot from the water. Mr. Waterton and his companions then went back to their hammocks for the night.

Next morning was found a cayman ten feet and a half long, fast to the end of the rope. The next point was to get him out of the water without injuring his scales. After revolving many projects, Mr. Waterton had his canoe brought round; he then took out the mast, eight feet long, and as thick as his wrist, and wrapped the sail round the end of it; he then sunk down on one knee, about four yards from the water's edge, backed by his seven attendants, and pulled the cayman to the surface; he plunged furiously, and immediately went below again on their slackening the rope; they pulled again, and out he came. "By the time," says Mr. Waterton, "the cayman was within ten yards of me, I saw he was in a state of fear and perturbation; I instantly dropped the mast, sprung up, and jumped on his back, turning half round as I vaulted, so that I gained my seat with my face in a right position. I immediately seized his fore-legs, and, by main force, twisted them on his back; thus they served me for a bridle." He now plunged furiously, and lashed the sand with his tail. The people stoutly dragged him and the traveller about forty yards on the sand. After repeated attempts to regain his liberty, the cayman gave in, exhausted. Mr. Waterton then tied up his jaws, and secured his fore-feet in the position he had held them; there was still another struggle; while some of the people pressed upon his head and shoulders, Mr. Waterton threw himself upon his tail, keeping it down to the ground; and having conveyed the cayman away, his throat was cut, and dissection commenced.

This account of "catching a crocodile" was at first regarded as a "downright falsehood." Pliny, in his _Natural History_, however, describes a race of men who swam after the crocodile of the Nile, "and mounted on his back, like horsemen, as he opens his jaws to bite, with his head turned up, they thrust a club in his mouth, and holding the ends of it, one in the right hand and the other in the left, they bring him to shore, as if captive with bridles." In a rare book of plates of field sports one represents, probably from this account of Pliny, some men riding on crocodiles, and bringing them to land by means of a pole across their mouths, whilst others are killing them with large clubs. Beneath is inscribed in Latin: "Tentyra, an island of the Nile, in Egypt, is inhabited by an intrepid people, who climb the crocodile's back, and, bridling his mouth with a staff, force him out of the river, and slay him."

Dr. Pococke describes a method of taking the crocodile in Egypt still more like that of South America. He says: "They make some animal cry at a distance from the river, and when the crocodile comes out, they thrust a spear into his body, to which a rope is tied; they let him go into the water to spend himself, and afterwards, drawing him out, run a pole into his mouth, and, jumping on his back, tie his jaws together." To return to the Squire of Walton Hall.

Waterton is thus characterised by a personal friend:--He was one of those men whose life, reaching back and retaining many characteristics of the past, contrasted the present sameness with a manner of life much more varied, but now almost forgotten. Rising always at three in the morning, he gave an hour, as he said, "to the health and preservation of the soul," and was then ready for the occupations and pursuits of the day. His conversation and manners had that charm which comes of ancestry, of ancient riches, and a polished education enlivened by a sparkling wit.

In attachment to his religion he was as zealous as his great ancestor, Sir Thomas More, whose clock, from the house at Chelsea, still tells the hours at Walton Hall. His undoubting faith, and the consolations it afforded him, might, indeed, be envied by some of those who worship at other altars.

His hospitality was kind and generous: a stewed carp from the lake carried you back to the good old times, and furnished a dish not soon to be forgotten.

To those who knew him well there was something remarkably genial in the society of the good old squire, and his manner of receiving and bidding them adieu will be long remembered by his friends.

Mr. Thackeray, in _The Newcomes_, relates of Mr. Waterton this interesting trait:--"A friend who belongs to the old religion took me, last week, into a church where the Virgin lately appeared in person to a Jewish gentleman, flashed down upon him from heaven in light and splendour celestial, and, of course, straightway converted him. My friend bade me look at the picture, and kneeling down beside me, I know, prayed with all his honest heart that the truth might shine down upon me too; but I saw no glimpse of heaven at all, I saw but a poor picture, an altar with blinking candles, a church hung with tawdry strips of red and white calico. The good, kind W. went away, humbly saying, 'That such might have happened again if Heaven so willed it.' I could not but feel a kindness and admiration for the good man. I know that his works are made to square with his faith, that he dines on a crust, lives as chastely as a hermit, and gives his all to the poor."

Elegy on a Geologist.

Archbishop Whately, one day, with genial humour, wrote a supposed "Elegy on Dr. Buckland," of which the following is a portion:--

"Where shall we our great Professor inter, That in peace may rest his bones? If we hew him a rocky sepulchre He'll rise and brake the stones, And examine each stratum that lies around, For he's quite in his element underground.

If with mattock and spade his body we lay In the common alluvial soil, He'll start up and snatch these tools away Of his own geological toil; In a stratum so young the Professor disdains That embedded should lie his organic remains.

Then exposed to the drip of some case-hardening spring His carcase let stalactite cover, And to Oxford the petrified sage let us bring When he is encrusted all over; There, 'mid mammoths and crocodiles, high on a shelf, Let him stand as a monument raised to himself."

_ECCENTRIC ARTISTS._

Gilray and his Caricatures

The name of James Gilray stands pre-eminent in the annals of graphic satire. In his hands, caricature became an art, and one that exercised no unimportant influence on the kingdom of Great Britain. Previous to this time, there is little challenging admiration in his department of art. The satire for the most part was brutal where it had point, and clumsy even in invention and execution.

Hogarth, Gay, Fielding, Pope, Swift, and Arbuthnot all aided the progress of satire. France was satirized by Hogarth as a lean personage, all frill and wristbands, with no shirt, dieting constantly on frogs, and wearing wooden shoes. If to this we add Goldsmith's hatred of the French, because they were slaves and wore wooden shoes, we have the amount of the materials lying ready for the caricaturists' use. The hatred towards our Scotch brethren, so strongly manifested under the Bute administration, supplied the caricaturists with hackneyed and profitless jokes. The satirical points of the wits and humorists we have just named, and a few obscure caricaturists, were selected, arranged, and adapted by the genius of Gilray to illustrate, by the etching-needle, a series of political events, as important as those of any country of modern times; and in Gilray's works is preserved a pictorial record of the History of England during the greater part of the reign of George III. An artist to excel in caricature must possess abilities of a superior order, not only as a designer and an etcher, but must have a deep knowledge of life, and be conversant with the progress of public business; he must be a good and a ready reasoner upon nearly all questions; his love of truth and justice should enable him to detect the fallacies of argument, and the injustice consequent upon false or injudicious public acts. A keen sense of the ridiculous should direct his pencil; and then, by a few touches, the true caricaturist, in the most striking manner, mercilessly exposes the follies and the consequences of such acts. In Gilray, of all men before him, was found the union of these requisites.

Of Gilray's early life little is known: it is supposed that he was born at Chelsea, in 1757. Mr. Smith, late of Lisle Street, the well-known connoisseur in prints, himself a collector of Gilray's works, states that Gilray was first placed with Ashby, the writing-engraver, who resided at the bottom of Holborn Hill, and afterwards was either a pupil or an assistant with the celebrated Francis Bartolozzi, which is doubtless founded on truth; as the mastery of the etching-needle, occasional use of the graver, the mysteries of biting, re-biting, and other practical points of engraving so completely possessed by Gilray, could hardly have been attained elsewhere than in the studio of an experienced engraver. An active imagination, an acute sense of the ridiculous points of character, or of personal appearance, and a facility of drawing and etching, would in most cases disqualify any student for the quiet and laborious profession of a line-engraver. That Gilray should have abandoned the higher branches of engraving cannot excite either wonder or regret, as, in all probability, the rank of a merely tolerable line-engraver was exchanged for the highest position that can be awarded to the caricaturist; whose works, eagerly expected by the sovereign down to the poorest labourer, invigorated the national feeling against a powerful enemy, hourly watching an opportunity to light up rebellion in the kingdom, with a determination to invade and subjugate Old England.

Gilray made his first appearance as a caricaturist about 1782. Before his time, it was usual for these satires to be published anonymously; and it is very likely that Gilray might have thus published a few caricatures before he openly set up as a caricaturist by profession, and boldly put his name to his productions. The dispute between the two admirals, Keppel and Sir Hugh Palliser, caused a great public sensation. Keppel was tried by a court martial, and acquitted; and Palliser retired from the service. The caricaturist took up the needles and etched a naval pair of breeches and legs, writing underneath, "Who's in Fault? Nobody?" but a head appears over the waistband--and that is Sir Hugh Palliser's; _he_ was the _nobody_ in fault. A comparison of this print with others of Gilray's will convince anyone acquainted with the details of etching that it is Gilray's. It bears the date of 1779. His first acknowledged production is dated 1782. Having opened his battery of fun, he kept up a continued fire upon his political victims until 1811, when an aberration of mind rendered powerless the mighty hand which had "done the state some service." Gilray was fortunate in meeting with Miss Humphrey, the printseller, in St. James's Street; for, in his insane periods, she proved a most kind and attached friend. He lived in her house, and mainly supported her trade by the sale of his caricatures. It is said that both parties had once resolved on matrimony, and were actually walking to church to become man and wife; when, in the course of the walk, they both reflected upon the approaching state of bondage, and mutually agreeing not to sacrifice their liberty by so rash an act as marriage, walked home again!

In the house of Miss Humphrey, Gilray found ample employment, an excellent spot for marking down his game; here he heard all the news and gossip of the day over a friendly table. Her shop being No. 29, St. James's Street (and afterwards in the occupation of a printseller), was of all others the best situated for Gilray's purpose, as his victims were unconsciously walking daily to and fro before the shop. Behind the window was Gilray, pencil in hand, taking off the heads of the ministers and of the opposition. In this way he became so familiarised with their features, that he could drolly exaggerate, almost out of all humanity, the nose and lank figure of "Billy Pitt, the heaven-born minister," and yet preserve so much likeness, that the portrait was immediately recognised. Loutherburg, the eminent artist and scene-painter, went to Valenciennes, after the seige in 1793, to sketch the military works. He was accompanied by Gilray, who sketched the officers. On their return, they were introduced to the king. George III. did not comprehend the slight sketches made by Gilray; and, remarking that he did not understand "the caricatures," sadly offended Gilray, who had intended them as veritable portraits, and had not the least idea of being "funny." Disappointed with the royal criticism, he went home, and the next day caricatured his Majesty, examining a miniature of Oliver Cromwell, by means of _candle-ends_ and _save-alls_. He showed it to his friends, and said: "I wonder whether the _royal_ connoisseur will _understand this_?"