Part 5

In 1807, he retired from the office of chief cashier, after declining a pension. He had hitherto been accustomed, after the business at the Bank in his department had closed, and he had dined moderately, to order his carriage and drive to Highbury, where he drank tea at a small cottage. Many who lived in that neighbourhood long recollected Newland's daily walk--hail, rain, or sunshine--along Highbury Place. It was said that he regretted his retirement from the Bank; but he used to say that not for 20,000_l._ a year would he return. He then removed to No. 38, Highbury Place. His health and strength declined, it is said, through the distress of mind brought upon him by the forgeries of Robert Aslett, a clerk in the Bank, whom Newland had treated as his own son. It was well known that Abraham had accumulated a large fortune; legacy-hunters came about him, and an acquaintance sent him a ham as a present; but Newland despised the mercenary motive, and next time he saw the donor he said, "I have received a ham from you; I thank you for it," said he, but raising his finger in a significant manner, added, "I tell you it won't do, it won't do."

Newland had no extravagant expectations that the world would be drowned in sorrow when it should be his turn to leave it; and he wrote this ludicrous epitaph on himself shortly before his death:--

Beneath this stone old Abraham lies: Nobody laughs and nobody cries. Where he's gone, and how he fares, No one knows, and no one cares!

His physician, in one of his latest visits, found him reading the newspaper, when the doctor expressing his surprise, Newland replied, smiling, "I am only looking in the paper in order to see what I am reading to the world I am going to." He died November 21, 1807, without any apparent pain of body or anxiety of mind, and his remains were deposited in the church of St. Saviour, Southwark.

Newland's property amounted to 200,000_l._, besides a thousand a year landed estates. It must not be supposed that this was saved from his salary. During the whole of his career, the loans for the war proved very prolific. A certain amount of them was always reserved for the cashier's office (one Parliamentary Report names 100,000_l._), and as they generally came out at a premium, the profits were great. The family of the Goldsmids, then the leaders of the Stock Exchange, contracted for many of these loans, and to each of them he left 500_l._ to purchase a mourning ring. Newland's large funds, it is said, were also occasionally lent to the Goldsmids to assist their various speculations.

The Spendthrift Squire of Halston, John Mytton.

The extravagant fellows of a family, says Sir Bernard Burke, Ulster, have done more to overturn ancient houses than all the other causes put together; and no case could be more in point to establish the fact than the history of John Mytton, descended from the Myttons of Halston, who represented, in the days of the Plantagenets, the borough of Shrewsbury in Parliament, and filled the office of High Sheriff of Shropshire at a very remote period. So far back as 1480, Thomas Mytton, when holding that appointment, was the fortunate captor of Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, whom he conducted to Salisbury for trial and decapitation; and in requital Richard III. bestowed on "his trusty and well-beloved squire, Thomas Mytton," the Duke's forfeited castle and lordship of Cawes. Halston, to which the Myttons transferred their seat from their more ancient residence of Cawes Castle and Habberley, is called in ancient deeds "Holystone," and was in early times a preceptory of Knights Templars. The Abbey, taken down about one hundred and sixty years ago, was erected near where the present mansion stands. In the good old times of Halston, before reckless waste had dismantled its halls and levelled its ancestral woods, the oak was seen here in its full majesty of form; and it is related that one particular tree, coeval with many centuries of the family's greatness, was cut down by the spendthrift squire in the year 1826, and contained ten tons of timber.

In the great civil war, Mytton of Halston was one of the few Shropshire gentlemen who joined the Parliamentary standard. From this gallant and upright Parliamentarian, the fifth in descent was John Mytton, the eccentric, wasteful, dissipated, open-hearted, open-handed Squire of Halston, in whose day and by whose wanton extravagance and folly, a time-honoured family and a noble estate, the inheritance of five hundred years, was recklessly destroyed.

John Mytton was born September 30th, 1796. His father died when he was only eighteen months old, so that his minority lasted almost twenty years; and during its continuance a very large sum of money was accumulated, which, added to a landed property of full 10,000_l._ a year, and a pedigree of even Salopian antiquity and distinction, rendered the Squire of Halston one of the first commoners in England. But a boyhood unrestrained by proper control, and an education utterly neglected, led to a course of profligacy and eccentricity, amounting almost to madness, that marred all these gifts of fortune. Young Mytton commenced by being expelled from both Westminster and Harrow; and though he was entered on the books of the two universities, he did not matriculate at either; the only indication he ever gave of an intention to do so was his ordering three pipes of port wine to be sent to him, addressed "Cambridge." When a mere child, he had been allowed a pack of harriers at Halston, and at the age of ten was a confirmed scapegrace. At nineteen he entered the 7th Hussars, and immediately joined his regiment, then with the army of occupation in France. Fighting was, however, all over, and the young Cornet turned at once to racing and gaming, in which he was a serious loser.

In 1818 he married the eldest daughter of Sir Thomas Tyrrwhitt Jones, Bart., of Stanley Hall. By this lady, who died in 1820, he had an only child, Harriet, married in 1841 to Clement, youngest brother of Lord Hill. After his wife's decease, the wayward extravagance which marked the career of John Mytton has probably no parallel. He would not suffer any one to advise him. When heavy liabilities had been incurred, but previously to the disposal of the first property he sold, his agent assured Mr. Mytton that if he would content himself for the following six years with an income of 6,000_l._, the fine old Shrewsbury estate--the earliest patrimony of his ancestors--might be saved; when besought to listen to this warning counsel, "No, no," replied Mytton; "I would not give a straw for life if it was to be passed on 6,000_l._ a year." The result confirmed the agent's apprehensions: the first acre alienated led to the gradual dismemberment of the whole estate; and from this moment may be dated the ruin of the Myttons of Halston. Such was the prodigality of this unfortunate man, that it was said, "If Mytton had had an income of 200,000_l._, he would have been in debt in five years." Most certain it is that, within the last fifteen years of his life, he squandered full half-a-million sterling, and sold timber--"the old oaks of Halston"--to the amount, it is stated, of 80,000_l._

The late Mr. Apperley (Nimrod) wrote a kindly biography of Mytton, illustrated with coloured plates of his strange adventures. One gives a view of Halston, with its glorious plantations, and its noble sheet of water, through which, as the shortest cut, its eccentric owner is riding home. Another illustrates Mytton's "wild duck shooting." "He would sometimes," says Nimrod, "strip to his shirt to follow wild-fowl in hard weather, and once actually laid himself down on the snow to await their arrival at dusk. On one occasion he out-heroded Herod, for he followed some ducks _in puris naturalibus_, and escaped with perfect impunity." The third plate commemorates a practical joke of the frolic-loving squire. One evening the clergyman and doctor, who had dined at Halston, left to return on horseback. Their host having disguised himself in a countryman's frock and hat, succeeded, by riding across the park, in confronting them, and then, in true highwayman voice, he called out, "Stand and deliver!" and before a reply could be given, fired off his pistol, which had of course only a blank cartridge. The affrighted gentlemen, Mytton used to say, never rode half so fast in their lives, as when, with him at their heels, they fled that night to Oswestry.

Another of the plates exhibits Mr. Mytton in hunting dress, entering his drawing-room full of company mounted on a bear: and another exemplifies the old saying, "Light come, light go." Mytton, travelling in his carriage, on a stormy night from Doncaster, fell asleep while counting the money he had won; the windows were down, and a great many of the bank-notes were blown away and lost. The reckless gambler used often to tell the story as an amusing reminiscence.

Another plate represents Mytton with his shirt in flames. "Did you ever hear," asks Nimrod, "of a man setting fire to his own shirt to frighten away the hiccup? Such, however, was done, and in this manner:--'Oh, this horrid hiccup!' said Mytton, as he stood undressed on the floor, apparently in the act of getting into bed; 'but I'll frighten it away;' so seizing a candle, he applied it to the tail of his shirt, and it being a cotton one, he was instantly enveloped in flames." His life was only saved by the active exertions of two persons who chanced to be in the room.

Mytton married, secondly, Miss Giffard, of Chillington, a match of such misery to the lady, that it ended in a separation. The crisis of the spendthrift's fate was now impending. All the effects at Halston were advertised for sale; and very shortly after Mr. Mytton fled to the Continent to escape from his creditors. "On the 15th of November, 1831," says Nimrod, "during my residence in the town of Calais, I was surprised by a violent knocking at my door, and so unlike what I had ever heard before in that quiet town, that being at hand, I was induced to open the door myself, when, to my no little astonishment, there stood John Mytton. 'In the name of Heaven,' said I, 'what has brought you to France?' 'Why,' he replied, '_just what brought yourself to France_'--parodying the old song--'three couple of bailiffs were hard at my brush.' But what did I see before me--the active, vigorous, well-shapen John Mytton, whom I had left some years back in Shropshire? Oh, no; compared with him, 'twas the reed shaken by the wind; there stood before me a round-shouldered, decrepit, tottering, _old-young_ man, if I may be allowed such a term, and so bloated by drink! But there was a worse sight than this--there was a mind as well as a body in ruins; the one had partaken of the injury done to the other; and it was at once apparent that the whole was a wreck. In fact, he was a melancholy spectacle of fallen man."

It appeared that Mytton had been arrested for a paltry debt and thrown into prison. "I once more," writes Nimrod, "was pained by seeing my friend looking through the bars of a French prison-window. Here he was suffered to remain for fourteen days; on the thirteenth day, I thought it my duty to inform his mother of his situation, and in four days from the date of my letter she was in Calais. After a time Mytton returned to England, but only to a prison and a grave. The representative of one of the most ancient families of his country, at one time M.P. for Shrewsbury and High Sheriff for Shropshire and Merioneth, the inheritor of Halston and Mowddwy and almost countless acres, the most popular sportsman of England, died within the walls of the King's Bench Prison, at the age of thirty-eight, deserted and neglected by all, save a few faithful friends and a devoted mother, who stood by his death-bed to the last."

The announcement of the sad event produced a profound impression in Shropshire: the people within many miles were deeply affected; the degradation of Mytton's later years, the faults and follies of his wretched life, were all forgotten; the generosity, the tenderness of heart, the manly tastes of poor John Mytton, his sporting popularity, and his very mad follies, were recalled with affectionate sympathy. His funeral will long be remembered--three thousand persons attended it, and a detachment of the North Shropshire Cavalry (of which regiment the deceased was Major) escorted his remains to the vault in the chapel of Halston; several private carriages followed, and about one hundred of the tenantry, tradesmen, and friends on horseback closed the procession. The body was placed in the family vault, surrounded by the coffins of twelve of his relatives.

The story of John Mytton is appalling. A family far more ancient and apparently as vigorous as the grand old oaks that once were the pride of Halston, was destroyed, after centuries of honourable and historic eminence, by the mad follies of one man in the brief space of eighteen years! The magnificent Lordship of Dinas Mowddwy, with it 32,000 acres--originally an appanage of the dynasty of Powis--inherited through twelve generations from a coheiress of the Royal Lineage of Powys Wenwynwyn, had been bartered, it is alleged, in adjustment of a balance on turf and gambling transactions.[7]

[7] Abridged from Sir Bernard Burke's very interesting _Vicissitudes of Families_. Second Series. 1860.

What a sad conclusion to the history of a very distinguished race, memorable in the days of the Plantagenets, and renowned in the great Civil War, is the following record, taken from _The Times_, 2nd April, 1834:--"On Monday, an inquest was held in the King's Bench Prison, on the body of John Mytton, Esq., who died there on the preceding Saturday. The deceased inherited considerable estates in the counties of Salop and Merioneth, for both which he served the office of High Sheriff, and some time represented the borough of Shrewsbury in Parliament. His munificence and eccentric gaieties obtained him great notoriety in the sporting and gay circles, both in England and on the Continent. Two medical attendants stated that the immediate cause of his death was disease of the brain (_delirium tremens_), brought on by the excessive use of spirituous liquours. The deceased was in his thirty-eighth year. Verdict--'Natural Death.'"

Lord Petersham.

This eccentric nobleman, who was the eldest son of Charles, third Earl of Harrington, was a leader of fashion some thirty years since; he was tall and handsome; according to Captain Gronow, Lord Petersham very much resembled the pictures of Henry IV. of France, and frequently wore a dress not unlike that of the celebrated monarch. He was a great patron of tailors, and a particular kind of greatcoat was called after him a "Petersham." When young, he used to cut out his own clothes; he made his own blacking, which, he said, would eventually supersede every other. He was also a connoisseur in snuff, and one of his rooms was fitted up with shelves and beautiful jars for various kinds of snuff, with the names in gold. Here were also implements for moistening and mixing snuffs, and Lord Petersham's mixture is to this day a popular snuff. He possessed also a fine collection of snuff-boxes, and it was said, a box for every day in the year. Captain Gronow saw him using a beautiful Sèvres box, which, on being admired, he said was "a nice summer box, but would not do for winter wear." He was equally choice of his teas, and in the same room with the snuffs, upon shelves, were placed tea-canisters, containing Congou, Pekoe, Souchong, Gunpowder, Russian, and other fine kinds. Indeed, his father's mansion, Harrington House, was long famous for its tea-drinking; the Earl and Countess and family, and their visitors, were received upon these occasions in the long gallery, and here the family of George III. enjoyed many a cup of tea. It is told that when General Lincoln Stanhope returned from India after several years' absence, his father welcomed him with "Hallo, Linky, my dear boy! delighted to see you. _Have a cup of tea!_"

Lord Petersham's equipages were unique; the carriages and horses were brown; the harness had furniture of antique design; and the servants wore long brown coats reaching to their heels, and glazed hats with large cockades. Lord Petersham was a liberal patron of the opera and the theatres; and two years after he had succeeded his father in the earldom (of Harrington), he married the beautiful Maria Foote, of Covent Garden Theatre.

The King and Queen of the Sandwich Islands.

In the year 1824, their "savage Majesties" of the Sandwich Islands visited England. They were seen by Miss Berry, who, in her entertaining journal, has thus graphically described their visit:--

"At half-past ten o'clock, I went with the Prince and Princess Lowenstein, their son, and my sister, to Mr. Canning's, the Secretary of State, who received for the first time the King and Queen of the Sandwich Islands. They arrived in the midst of a numerous assembly, all of the best society, and all _en grande toilette_ for a large assembly given at Northumberland House. Mr. Canning entered, giving his hand to a large black woman more than six feet high, and broad in proportion, muffled up in a striped gauze dress with short sleeves, leaving uncovered enormous black arms, half covered again with white gloves; an enormous gauze turban upon her head; black hair, not curled, but very short; a small bag in her hand, and I do not know what upon her neck, where there was no gauze. It was with difficulty that the Minister and his company could preserve a proper gravity for the occasion. The Queen was followed by a lady in waiting as tall as herself, and with a gayer and more intelligent countenance. Then came the King, accompanied by three of his subjects, all dressed, like him, in European costume; and a fourth, whose office I did not know, but he wore over his ordinary coat a scarlet and yellow feather cloak, and a helmet covered with the same material on his head. The King was shorter than his four courtiers, but they all looked very strong, and, except the King, all taller than the majority of those who surrounded them. The two ladies were seated before the fire in the gallery for some time. Mrs. Canning was presented first to them, and then the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester and the Prince Leopold. The Queen took the Duchess of Gloucester by the arm and shook it. One should have pitied them for the way in which all eyes were turned upon them, and for all the observations they occasioned; but it seemed to me that their minds are not sufficiently opened, and that they are not civilized enough either to notice or to suffer from it. From the gallery, Mr. Canning, still holding the Queen's hand, conducted them through the apartment and under the verandah of the garden, where the band of the Guards regiment, in their full uniform, was playing military airs. Her savage Majesty appeared much more occupied by the red-plumed hats of the musicians than by the music. She ought to have been pleased to see that the officer's helmet of her Court surpassed them as to colour. From there they were conducted into the dining-room, where there was a fine collation. The two ladies were seated alone at a table placed across the room, and ate some cake and drank wine. They appeared awkward in all their movements, and particularly embarrassed in their walk; there was nothing of the free step of the savage, being probably embarrassed by the folds of the European dress."

The King and Queen and their suite were wantonly charged with gluttony and drunkenness by persons who ought to have known better. "It is true," observes Lord Byron, in his _Voyage to the Sandwich Islands_, "that, unaccustomed to our habits, they little regarded regular hours for meals, and that they liked to eat frequently, though not to excess. Their greatest luxury was oysters, of which they were particularly fond; and one day, some of the chiefs having been out to walk, and seeing a grey mullet, instantly seized it and carried it home, to the great delight of the whole party; who, on recognizing the native fish of their own seas, could scarcely believe that it had not swum hither on purpose for them, or been persuaded to wait till it was cooked before they ate it." The best proof of their moderation is, however, that the charge at Osborne's Hotel, in the Adelphi, during their residence there, amounted to no greater an average than seventeen shillings a head per day for their table: as they ate little or no butcher's meat, but lived chiefly on fish, poultry, and fruit, by no means the cheapest articles in London, their gluttony could not have been great. So far from their always preferring the strongest liquors, their favourite beverage was some cider, with which they had been presented by Mr. Canning.

The popular comic song of _The King of the Cannibal Islands_ was written _à propos_ to the above royal visit.

Sir Edward Dering's Luckless Courtship.

Sir Edward Dering, the founder of the Surrenden library, and a distinguished member of Parliament in the troublous times of Charles I., was born in the Tower of London in 1598, his father having been deputy-lieutenant of that fortress. He studied at Magdalen College, Cambridge, and was knighted by James I. in 1618. Sir Edward was thrice married. The story of an unsuccessful courtship, after his second widowhood, is as good as a play, and indeed more amusing than many dramas of the period based upon a similar subject. The object of this enterprise was a city dame, the widow of a well-connected mercer, Richard Bennett by name. The widow Bennett, by the custom of London and the will of her husband, was possessed of two-thirds of the deceased's property, besides all her jewels and chains of pearl and gold, her diamond and other rings, her husband's coach and the four grey coach-mares and geldings, with all things thereunto belonging. In addition to these substantial recommendations, she seems to have had some personal charms of her own, and no other encumbrance than one little boy. In those days it was not necessary to advertise for a husband, and Mistress Bennett could not lack suitors. Three of the most conspicuous were named Finch, Crow, and Raven, much to the amusement of London society in those days. The first was Sir Heneage Finch, Recorder of London, who had been Speaker of the House of Commons in 1626, and owned a handsome house at Kensington, since converted into a Royal Palace. The next was Sir Sackville Crow, who was Treasurer of the Navy, of which office he was subsequently deprived, owing to an unfortunate deficit of which he was unable to give a satisfactory account. The third was one Raven, a physician. This fatuous individual, not having found much success in the way of ordinary courtship, could think of no better expedient to gain his ends than to present himself in the widow's bedchamber after she had retired to rest, when, having woke the lady, he proceeded to press his suit. The widow screamed thieves and murder, the servants rushed in, and the doctor was secured and handed over to the parish constable. On the next day he was brought before Mr. Recorder, who found the proceeding to be "flat burglary," and committed his unlucky rival to gaol. When brought up for trial he pleaded guilty to the "burglary," but under advice of the judge withdrew the plea, and was ultimately found guilty of "ill-demeanour," and was condemned to fine and imprisonment.