Part 21

“Maz’d, maz’d, what’s maz’d,” then said the King, “I never heerd of zich a thing. What’s maz’d, what, what, my lord?” “Hem,” zed my lord, and blow’d his nose, “Hem, hem, sir, ’tis, I do suppose, Sir, an old Devonshire word.”

Jan Ploughshare is made to say in a later stanza that he has found royalty so disappointing a show that when he gets home to Moreton and reads his Bible he shall for the future “skep the books of Kings.”

The late Rev. Treasurer Hawker further says:—

Kingsbridge may point with some degree of pride to her son’s sturdy independence, his dislike of jobbery and shams, his refusal to be blinded or muzzled in his denunciation of abuses by any powerful position or high rank.... Wolcot was a bad, sensual, vindictive man, yet a certain respect must, I think, be paid to one who in an age inclined to toadyism of big people, did not shrink from confronting the false idols of the day, even if sometimes he toppled them over with undue violence and contempt.—(Sketch of Wolcot read at Kingsbridge, July, 1887. _Transact. Devon. Association._)

A writer in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ gives this most accurate appreciation:—

Wolcot’s humour was broad, and he cared little whether he hit above or below the belt, but he had a keen eye for the ridiculous, and was endowed with a wondrous facility of diction.

The same writer truly says that many of his serious pieces were marked by taste and feeling, and his translation of Thomas Warton’s Latin epigram on sleep dwells in the memory through its happy simplicity.

The story is told of the bargain which he made with the London publishers, who, hearing that he proposed to sell his copyrights, told off one of their representatives to negotiate with him. The agent found the old Doctor quite ready for him, sitting up in bed with a fine churchyard cough in splendid development, and with a side-table furnished with an impressive array of medicines. At first a sum was offered which Peter considered contemptibly small. He asked at once a payment of some three hundred pounds a year, and amidst much painful coughing managed to say, “I shall not live, I know, to enjoy it long, as you may see, so there is no excuse for meanness in my case.” The agent was quite impressed by the scene, and the bargain was closed for two hundred and fifty pounds yearly for his life, with the condition that all future writing was to be for them alone. This was in 1795, and to the chagrin of his publishers he displayed the vitality so often seen in annuitants, and actually lived on for nearly a quarter of a century to enjoy their reluctant generosity.

His minor poems are oftener quoted because they are freer from objectionable matter. _The Razor Seller_, and _The Pilgrim and the Peas_ are well known, and have been used as recitations, but his longer odes and letters had more than a passing notice, they were so strong in their satire, and so numerous as to have affected public opinion. The very Government were alarmed and pressed upon him a pension as a means of preventing further onslaughts upon the foibles and peculiarities of the king. Some preliminary payments were actually received by him, and all was at one time apparently settled in his favour when he suddenly returned the monies paid him, objecting to the conditions of silence and declining all further favours.

Cruel to the peculiarities of others, he was most sensitive himself to criticism, and hungry for praise, as he admits in an appeal to his reviewers:—

I am no cormorant for fame, d’ye see; I ask not _all_ the laurel, but a _sprig_! Then hear me, Guardians of the sacred Tree, And stick a leaf or two about my wig.

In sonnet, ode, and legendary tale, Soon will the press my tuneful works display; Then do not damn ’em, and prevent the sale; And your petitioner shall ever pray.

It must have been hateful to him to have found at last, in Gifford, the scholar and critic who attacked him in the anti-Jacobin magazine in an article entitled “Nil admirari, etc.,” a foeman whose satire was as strong as his own. Gifford speaks of Peter Pindar as “this disgusting subject, the prolific reviler of his Sovereign and impious blasphemer of his God”; hard words for one to put up with, however clearly he may have deserved them. Though his character is not exemplary, and cleverness must not be allowed to atone for lack of moral sense, we do not wish to paint him of too black a hue, if only for charity’s sake. Gifford’s attack was strong and straight, and it may be doubted if Peter’s reputation ever survived it. There was a common fight between these two in which Peter came off worst. He deserved it, for he was the aggressor. Discredited in the popular estimation, he lingered on for a while, and though from 1811 to 1819 he was suffering from blindness and infirmity, he dictated verses until within a few days of his death.

Commencing his London residence in 1781, soon after the publication of his first book of lyric odes, he lived in many different houses, in Southampton Row (1793); Tavistock Row (1794); Chapel Street, Portland Place (1800); 8, Delany Place, Camden Town (1802); 94, Tottenham Court Road (1807); and Latham Place, Somer’s Town, where he died on the 14th January, 1819.

Of his personal appearance much has been said. He has been described as “a thick, squat man with a large, dark and flat face and no speculation in his eye.” There are many portraits of him published, most of them by his _protégé_, Opie, the “Cornish boy,” as he calls him, whom he both educated and boomed in the press, a genius of undoubted merit as a painter. Unless these pictures outrageously flatter him, his must have been a fine physiognomy. We have seen eight or nine portraits, taken at different periods of his life, and in all he appears like a well-bred and handsome man of the style and period of George the Fourth. There is a miniature of him, however, in the National Portrait Gallery, which is said with candour to express many of the disagreeable features of his character. Our own portrait appended to this sketch is from a painting by Opie, engraved by C. H. Hodges, and reproduced in photography by Bailey, of Kingsbridge. One of his most faithful portraits is a miniature by Lethbridge, a Kingsbridge artist of some fame, who was born at Goveton, a little hamlet not far from the town.

Probably the last public compliment ever received by Peter Pindar was the dedication by his scholarly neighbour to him of the well-known _History of Kingsbridge_, published in 1819 (the year of Pindar’s death) by A. Hawkins, Esq., F.H.S. With the terms of that dedication we might fitly close our notice:—

To JOHN WOLCOT, M.D., long accredited at the Court of Apollo as Peter Pindar, Esq., these pages commemorative of the History and Topography of the vicinity of his native earth, are by his permission dedicated as a mark of sincere respect for his superior genius and talents.

If in our sketch of Peter Pindar we have “extenuated aught,” we have been wishful to “set down naught in malice,” and can only endorse the universal opinion as to his talent, with the unconcealed wish that such great power had been allowed to exert itself on a higher plane and to a nobler purpose.

O quantum est in rebus inane! —_Pers. I._ 1.

How vain are all his cares! And oh! what bubbles, his most grave affairs. —_Gifford._

WILLIAM THOMAS ADEY.

HONITON LACE.

BY MISS ALICE DRYDEN.

Situated in the fertile vale of the Otter, surrounded by wooded hills and combes, the quiet little town of Honiton slopes down a hill, crosses the river, and ends at the old Hospital of St. Margaret. The picturesque street seems to have a repose amid its beautiful surroundings commensurate with the peaceful industry that has made its undying fame; for thanks to its having been the head-quarters of the beautiful lace manufacture, the name of Honiton is better known than that of many a big city. That its renown should have overshadowed other places is doubtless owing to its being situated on the great coach roads from London and from Bath to Exeter and the ports beyond; travellers were brought to the spot, who would alight while their horses rested; they would then be offered a box of lace at the inn to select from, while the work-girls themselves looked out for the arrival of the coaches and pressed their wares on the occupants, who took away their purchases to other parts of the country as a speciality of Honiton.

Risdon[12] speaks of it as “a great Market and Thorough-Fair, from East to West,” and Westcote[13] writes:—“It is a great thoroughfare from Cornwall, Plymouth, and Exeter to London; and for the better receipt of travellers, very well furnished with Inns.”

Footnote 12:

_Survey of Devon_, 1605–20 (printed editions, 1785, 1811).

Footnote 13:

_View of Devon_, _circiter_ 1630 (first printed, 1845).

Lace-making has been practically limited to that part of the county south of Exeter which lies between Dorset and the Exe. The industry found its way to Devonshire, if the generally accepted theory be correct, by the Flemish refugees flying from the persecutions of the Duke of Alva. Lace was made on the pillow in the Low Countries about the middle of the sixteenth century, so by the date of the Alva persecution (1568–77) the people might have learnt it in sufficient numbers to start it wherever they set up their new home.

There is much probability to support this theory, and some names of undoubted Flemish origin did and do still exist in Honiton, as Gerard, Murch, Groot, Trump. On the other hand, if there had been any considerable number of Flemings in Devonshire they would surely have founded a Company of their Reformed Church, and no reference is found in the published books of the Archives of the London Dutch Church of any such Company in Devonshire; whereas references abound to places in the eastern counties and Midlands where Flemings were established.

It was not till we read of bone[14] lace that it may be taken to mean pillow lace, made either with fish bones as pins or sheep’s trotters as bobbins. That bones were used as bobbins is stated by Fuller;[15] but the fish bone theory is also possible; pins were very high priced at that time, and it would have been perfectly possible to use fish bones fine enough for the geometrical laces of the sixteenth century.

Footnote 14:

The term _bone_ lace is wrongly interpreted as representing the raised Venetian points, which have been likened to carved ivory or bone.

Footnote 15:

_Worthies_, 1662.

Queen Elizabeth was much addicted to the collecting and wearing of beautiful clothes, but no definite mention of English lace seems to occur in the Royal Wardrobe Accounts.

The earliest mention of Honiton lace is by Westcote—“At Axminster you may be furnished with fine flax thread there spun. At Honiton and Bradnidge with bone lace much in request”;[16] and, referring again to Honiton—“Here is made abundance of bone-lace, a pretty toye now greatly in request”; and therefore the town may say with merry Martial—

In praise for toyes such as this, Honiton second to none is.

Footnote 16:

_View of Devon._

The famous inscription on a tombstone in Honiton Churchyard, together with Westcote, proves the industry to have been well established in the reign of James I. The inscription runs:—

Here lyeth ye body of James Rodge, of Honinton in ye County of Devonshire, (Bonelace Siller, hath given unto the poore of Honinton P’ishe the benyfitt of £100 for ever) who deceased ye 27 of July A^o D^i 1617 ÆTATÆ SVAE 50. Remember the Poore.

There have been traditions that Rodge was a valet who accompanied his master abroad and there, learning the fine Flemish stitches, taught some Devonshire women on his return home, and was enabled to make a comfortable competence by their work.

Rodge was not the only benefactor to the town connected with the industry; there are two others recorded in the seventeenth century. “Although the earliest known MS., Ker’s _Synopsis_, 1561, giving an account of the different towns in Devonshire, makes no mention of lace, we find from it that Mrs. Minifie, one of the earliest named lace-makers, was an Englishwoman.”[17] “She was a daughter of John Flay, Vicar of Buckrell, near Honiton.”[18] She died in 1617, and left money for the indigent townspeople, as did Thomas Humphrey, of Honiton, lace-maker, in 1658.

Footnote 17:

_History of Lace._ Mrs. Palliser, 1901.

Footnote 18:

_Worthies of Devon._ Prince, 1701.

The advantages of the lace trade were realized by the time of the Commonwealth. Fuller,[19] writing during that period, says of bone lace:—

Much of this is made in and about Honyton, and weekly returned to London. Some will have it called Lace, _à Lacinia_, used as a fringe on the borders of cloathes. Bone-lace it is named, because first made with bone (since wooden) bobbins ...

Modern the use thereof in England, and not exceeding the middle of the Raign of Queen Elizabeth. Let it not be condemned for a superfluous wearing, because it doth neither hide nor heat; seeing it doth adorn. Besides, though private persons pay for it, it stands the State in nothing; not expensive of Bullion, like other lace, costing nothing save a little thread descanted on by art and industry. Hereby many children who otherwise would be burthensome to the Parish prove beneficial to their Parents. Yea, many lame in their limbs, and impotent in their arms, if able in their fingers, gain a livelyhood thereby; not to say that it saveth some thousands of pounds yearly, formerly sent over Seas to fetch Lace from Flanders.

Footnote 19:

_Worthies_, 1662.

The English were always ready to protect their own trades and manufactures, and various were the Acts passed to prohibit the importation of foreign lace, for the encouragement of home workers. In 1698 it was proposed to repeal the last Prohibition, and from the text of a Petition sent to the House of Commons, some interesting light is thrown on the extent of the trade at that date.

The making Bonelace has been an ancient Manufacture of England and the Wisdom of our Parliaments all along thought it the interest of this Kingdom to prohibit its Importation from Foreign Parts.... This has revived the said Languishing Manufacture and there are now above one hundred thousand People in England who get their living by it and Earn by meer Labour £500,000 a year, according to the lowest computation that can be made; and the Persons employed in it, are for the most part Women and children who have no other means of Subsistence. The English are now arrived to make as good Lace in Fineness and all other respects, as any that is wrought in Flanders; and particularly since the late Act so great an improvement is made that way that in _Buckinghamshire_ the highest prized lace they used to make was about eight shillings per yard, and now they make lace there of above thirty shillings per yard and in Dorsetshire and Devonshire they now make lace worth Six pound per yard and in other Places proportionable. The Laws formerly made not proving effectual, one more strict passed 36 Years since in the 14th of King Charles II. which said Act recites “That great numbers of the Inhabitants of this Kingdom were then employed in making the said manufacture. Since that time the same has encreased to a great Degree, till of late Years the Art of Smuggling being grown to greater Perfection than formerly, larger quantities of _Flanders_-lace have been clandestinely imported, which occasioned the Enforcing of the former Prohibition Acts by a late one made in the 10th year of his Present Majesty.

Secondly, the Lace which used to come for England is but a small part of their [Flanders] whole Lace-Trade, for they send it to Holland, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, France, Spain, Portugal, etc., whereas we make it chiefly to serve our own Country and Plantations.

... The Lace Manufacture in England is the greatest next to the Woollen and maintains a multitude of People, which otherwise the Parishes must, and that would soon prove a heavy burthen, even to those concerned in the Woollen Manufacture ... on the Resolution which shall be taken in this affair depends the Well-being or ruin of numerous families in their own Country. Many laws have been made to set our Poor on Work and it is to be hoped none will be made to take away work from Multitudes who are already Employed.”

Here follows the numbers of the people in a few places which get their living by making of lace. Those quoted in Devonshire as interesting to compare with the present day are:—

Gittesham 139 Culliton 353 Coumbraleigh 65 Northleigh 32 Sidmouth 302 Axmouth 73 Sidbury 321 Buckerall 90 Farway 70 Upotery 118 Shut and Musbery 25 Southley 45 Fennyton 60 Branscombe Beare and Seaton 326 Widworthy and Offerell 128 Broad Hembury 118 Honyton 1,341 Luppit 215 Axminster 60 Otrey St. Mary 814 Shut and Musbery 25

The Dragoons suppressing Monmouth’s Rebellion in 1680 are stated to have despoiled the poor lacemakers greatly, and at Colyton broke into the house of a dealer in bone lace, Burd by name, and stole his goods to the value of £325.

The trade was still advancing when Defoe wrote in 1724:—

The valuable manufactures of Lace, for which the inhabitants of Devon have long been conspicuous, are extending now from Exmouth to Torbay.

Later still we find the people at Honiton make “the broadest sort that is made in England.”[20] Just previously, in 1753, the first prize was awarded by the Anti-Gallican Society, which encouraged home trade, to Mrs. Lydia Maynard, of Honiton, “in token of six pairs of ladies’ Lappets of unprecedented beauty.” This date seems to have been the zenith of the lace prosperity, and reverses soon after set in.

Footnote 20:

_Complete System of Geography._ Bowen, 1747.

Two fires occurred in Honiton, causing much distress, and the second, in 1765, was of so devastating a character that the town had to be rebuilt. Shawe says, writing at the end of last century:—

For its present condition Honiton is indebted to that dreadful fire which reduced three parts of it to ashes. The houses now wear a pleasing aspect, and the principal street extending from East to West, is paved in a remarkable manner, forming a canal, and well shouldered up on each side with pebbles and green turf, which holds a stream of clear water with a square dipping place opposite each door, a mark of cleanliness and convenience I never saw before.

The American war had an evil effect upon the lace trade; still worse was the French Revolution, and also the change of the fashion in dress; lace was no longer used in profusion in the ladies’ wardrobe, and the demand for it declined to a serious extent for the workers. Worse yet, however, was the introduction of machine net, the first factory being set up at Tiverton in 1815. Lysons[21] writes just afterwards:—

The manufactory of lace has much declined, although the lace still retains its superiority. Some years ago, at which time it was much patronized by the Royal Family, the manufactures of Honiton employed 2,400 hands in the town and in the neighbouring villages; they do not now employ above 300. The lace here made had acquired some time ago the name of Bath Brussels lace; but it is now generally known by its original appellation of Honiton bone (or thread) lace. It has always been manufactured from thread made at Antwerp; the present market price of which is 70l. per lb.; an inferior lace is made in the villages along the coast, of British thread, called Trolly lace.

Footnote 21:

_Britannia_, 1822.

No other reference to Bath Brussels lace is forthcoming; the reason of the name Bath is not apparent. The thread seems always to have been and is still a difficulty to contend with in English lace. It seems impossible to get the very fine, silky, pure flax thread in the home market. A greater part of the lace made at the present time is wasted labour by reason of the coarse cottony thread used.

The evolution (if it may be termed so) of Honiton lace is briefly this. The bone or bobbin lace before mentioned at first consisted of a small and simple imitation of the early Italian pillow laces—mere narrow strips made by coarse threads plaited and interlaced. They got wider and more elaborate as the workers gained experience. Specimens may be seen on three Devonshire monuments of the first part of the seventeenth century. Whether the lace of the district is imitated or not it is probably similar to what would have been made there at that time. On the effigy of a Lady Pole in Colyton Church, her cape is edged with three rows of bone lace. Another, which is in excellent preservation, is on an effigy of Lady Dodderidge in Exeter Cathedral, her cuffs and tucker being a good pattern of geometric design. The third is on an effigy in Combe Martin Church, 1637.[22]

Footnote 22:

There is an example of _opus araneum_ or _lacis_, net work embroidered with a simple floral design, on the collar of Bp. Stafford, 1308, in Exeter Cathedral.

Bobbin laces soon became popular, as they were so much cheaper than the elaborate points; they became so eminently the speciality of Belgium as to make her the classic country of pillow work. Belgium was noted for her linens and delicately spun flax; in consequence, the Flemings departed from the style of their Italian masters, and made laces of their own fine threads; the fashion of wearing flat linen collars, in the early part of the seventeenth century, encouraged the new style. They worked out their own designs, and being fond of flowers, it naturally came about they composed devices of blossoms and foliage.