LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 129 |
Returning to town, one of the first friends I called upon was
Campbell. It was subsequent to his return from
Algiers. I was much struck with his altered appearance after two years that I had not seen
him. He seemed in low spirits, and was very glad to see me again. I agreed to dine with him
the next day in St. James’s Street, tête-à-tête. I asked him if he felt indisposed. He
replied, that he had never felt well since an attack of fever in Algiers, which had
“shaken his constitution greatly.” I observed that he had lost all that
“spruce” appearance, as Byron characterised
it, which marked him before, and he was depressed in spirits. Wine did not seem to elevate
him as it did once. Some of his remarks were touching—“all things were
rapidly changing, we could never be again as we once were.” He was certain he
should not live long. I attempted to change his mood by observing that his father and
sister had lived to a very advanced age. “No matter,” he replied,
“I am convinced of it—you will outlive me.” I remarked that I
was
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The truth was that his expectations of future good had began to fail,
neither the world nor his hopes of it, getting brighter. As we proceed into age this is
natural with all, but Campbell’s main star was
here. Upon the traditions of the past and his own recollections he built little, clinging
more to the probable possible to
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 131 |
Campbell always aspired after what was more perfect.
and was disappointed at not finding it. Not at all romantic, he lived less than he once did
in the region of fancy, as he grew older; and, in running after shadows, he become more
restless and dissatisfied. He shifted the subject of his studies, when he did study. He
often now left books half-perused, to seek new ones, hunting some ideal object never
overtaken—ever seeking, and not finding. Often abstracted, he had never mentally
travelled towards the elevated in subject, so much as towards the tranquil and beautiful.
His selfishness of mind, if I may so call it, prevented him from troubling others with his
joys or sorrows. He shrank from rude and stern appearances. He showed no great acquaintance
with the deep things of the human heart. He lived among his own fruits and
flowers—fruits and flowers of unquestionable loveliness, of which he was the creator,
particularly in his “Gertrude.” He once asked me which I liked best of his poems, and’I
replied, “Gertrude,” and he replied, “So do
I.” His better scenes there have a Claude-like beauty, unruffled, sweet, and soothing. He rarely becomes
himself identified with his subject, and yet one of his excellencies is, that he treats his
subject as no one besides himself could do, in consequence of which Scott made him an exception from the modern poets, whose works, he said, he
would undertake to parody. He pleases through his own perception of his subject, rather
than of his reader. He delights, rather than astonishes, wooing our admiration with the
graces and elegancies of his verse, and that
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I was again absent from London for several years, working hard for the free-trade cause, during which period, if I ran up to town, time pressed upon me so as to allow me to make only a short call upon the poet. When I came back permanently, we visited each other as before, but the poet had then lamentably changed in person, become thinner, and stricken with an unusually aged appearance. I visited him both in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, where I once more met the Archdeacon Strachan, of Toronto, now become a bishop, and in Victoria Square, his latest residence in London. The poet took occasion to allude to our old breakfast scene at his house in Upper Seymour Street, West, by saying, “Here, my lord bishop is an old acquaintance of yours, I believe.” The doctor was full of good-humour, though priestly as becomes one of the cloth; and the little annoyance I gave him was forgotten. He is since dead.
Before he went to Boulogne to reside, Campbell used to come up to Baker Street, North, where I lodged, to
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 133 |
When I saw the poet laid in that antique locality, I thought it was not
the proper place, doing all honour at the same time to the intention of those who so
ordered it. His wishes in his better days would have been to lie by the Clyde, covered with
the wild flowers of his natal soil. As his body lay in the Jerusalem Chamber, the
recognition of those attending the funeral, interrupted the gloomy retrospections, that
pressed heavily on my mind. I recalled the poet’s words in St. James’ Street,
now verified, that he should go before me to the land of darkness and shadow, of rest and
forgetfulness. While the service was reading in the Abbey, my thoughts, for they were not
to be restrained by the service, so familiar, with the occasion so rare, my thoughts ran
back to an acquaintance and joint labours of nearly thirty years, to labour and relaxation
together in social hours, and to individuals who intermingled with all. Many of
134 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
How should I look back without sadness at such a moment—despite all
my philosophy and a proper re-
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 135 |
Savoir vivre, c’est savoir peindre. |
I left the Abbey, to shut myself up for the day, that I might for a
moment be out of the perpetual masquerade. The unavailing nature of the moody thoughts
136 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
But I must drop the curtain, lifted prematurely, in relation to the precise order of events, and return to the details of the quick, in place of the dead.
I did not foresee I should be tempted to quit London again; but an
offer, which I judged it not prudent to refuse, of going into Staffordshire, was made to
me. The locality was the city renowned for a cruel martyrdom of certain saints, if legends
are to be credited, more worthily for the literary or professional names of Ashmole, Johnson,
Darwin, Garrick, Seward, Harwood, and Salt,
in connection with it either by birth or domicile. In that part of Staffordshire, and
particularly in Lichfield, the cathedral city, the opposition to what was called
“innovation” was indomitable. Sir Robert
Peel, at that time, and for some years afterwards, championed against
free-trade, “to the knife.” The Reform Act had been carried mainly in
consequence of his resistance to throwing open the borough of Retford. A member of some
note on the Conservative side, said to me, that the only vote he ever repented giving in
Parliament, was the vote against a change at East Retford, “for,” said
he, “had we given way in isolated points, a general reform would not have been
carried.” The Reform Act then had passed, and the municipal bill had
neutralized many sources of
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 137 |
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Party spirit ran high. The interest of a nobleman who possessed much
property in the city, had been successful in the return of one Liberal member. The other
was neither Tory, Whig, nor Radical; but as much of either, or of all three, or of neither,
as the Close dictated for the time being. The Close meant the cathedral circle, within
which the church politico-militant ruled despotically. It was walled, except where a
friendly piece of impassable water reflected mitre and shovel-hat alike, on its serene
bosom. Three spires overtopped all, from the loftiest of which Lord Brooke was shot. An individual, named Dyott, an ancestor of a family of that name, yet in the vicinity, while it
was besieged by the Parliament,
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 139 |
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At that moment Sir Robert Peel, at Drayton in Warwickshire, hard by, was a sturdy protectionist. The northern and southern divisions of Stafford returned an equal force pro and con. The Honourable G. Anson, and the present Earl Talbot, sat for the southern division. General Sir George Anson and Sir Edward Scott represented Lichfield, which city was in that part of the county, though a city or county in itself, its limits extending seven miles around the Guildhall.
The Anson family had a noble property in and near the city, which, when the late Earl of Lichfield came into it, was one of the finest in the kingdom. Given to play, a propensity which made him his own enemy, for he had no foe but himself in the world, and deserved to have none. He was one of the kindest, best tempered men of his day, a martyr to the tortures of the gout, yet never suffering them to destroy his equanimity. He one day asked me if I could give him a receipt to cure his disorder—he was then drinking red wine at dinner. I told him to drink white wine only, to rise at six o’clock, and ascend and descend the cathedral tower three or four times every morning before breakfast, I would answer for it his gout would vanish. I had known an officer cured by excavating a cave in a rocky cliff, beginning early in the morning.
“I have no doubt of that, Mr. Redding,” he replied, “but I fear the remedy to me would be worse than the disease.”
“Your lordship is the best judge of that,” I observed
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 141 |
“So do I, but I must bear mine.”
“That is want of faith.”
“No, I dare say it would cure me, but consider what a task it would be.”
“I have no other receipt,” I replied, “mine was Dr. Franklin’s, who cured himself that way.”
Sir Charles Wolsely told me that when the earl was a youth at Shuckborough, both the late Lord Lichfield’s father and himself had often cautioned him against play. The great navigator, Lord Anson, had a propensity that way, and was plundered by sharpers. It would be curious to know whether the example of the great navigator, and the parental cautions might not have acted as temptations. Stolen water is sweet. What is forbidden in early life most strenuously, becomes afterwards an apple of Eve to us. We long to taste, taste, and fall.
The Duke of Sutherland at Trentham,
was little heard of in the county. Lord Harrowby, at
Sandon, was then in advanced years. The Earl of
Shrewsbury, at Alton Towers, distinguished himself on little but the affairs
of the Catholic church, of which he was a member; he was not a strong-minded man. Lord Bagot, of Abbot’s Bromley, was not much heard of.
Earl Talbot, lord-lieutenant of the county, was
considered a good-natured man, devoted to conservative politics. Lord Hatherton, at Teddesley, who succeeded Lord
Talbot as lord-lieutenant, was a liberal in politics, an excellent landlord,
who understood better than any other individual in the county, how to manage an estate
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It is marvellous what wonders a little ink will do spilled judiciously
over virgin paper. It will imbue the dead in soul with vitality. Alcohol is water to it as
a stimulus with the many in similar times, while, unlike
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 143 |
The paper was performing its duty, when the people resolved to have a
representative of their own, in place of Sir Edward
Scott, who feared to declare himself “to be or not to be,” the
slave of the Close. That spot was now left to its own resources. It was not included within
the city until the Reform Bill passed, but it had ruled notwithstanding. Prior to that time
the party created forty shilling annuitants, and bought burgesses to swamp the legal votes.
At one time they used to desire some nobleman, one of the Gower
family, for example, to recommend them members. Efforts were made in vain to emancipate the
voters. The good citizens now determined to try and return a second member in right
earnest. They had made the attempt once before and failed. The municipal bill having
passed, they had now a newspaper, whatever were its demerits, fearless and uninfluenced, to
support their cause. It was a stirring time all over the nation from the effect of the
parliamentary and municipal measures. Lord Lichfield
having come down to command his regiment of yeomanry, I was requested to tell him of the
determination of the citizens. I called upon him, and a long conversation ensued, in which,
referring to the past contests for nearly a century, he stated that no
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LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 145 |
The vested rights of the Close, as they fancied them, were gone, and for ever. The Liberal principles of Lord Alfred Paget were those of the citizens, they only covenanted that his lordship should support the ballot on account of the protection it would afford to the poorer voters, for mechanics had been turned out of employment on voting for him, or work taken away from them. Some went to Australia in consequence. This was not done without exposure of the parties in the paper, nor did I suffer any consideration to stifle an expression of indignation at such proceedings. The Hon. George Anson was opposed for the county, and run close. Peel gave five hundred pounds towards the expences of the colonel’s adversary. The Lichfield election quickly over, I went to Wolverhampton. I found Colonel Anson awaiting the result with great equanimity. Every moment, as the balloting papers came in from different polling-places in the division, now making the result even, now adverse, it became a period of great excitement. I never saw any one behave in a calmer manner. Colonel Anson spoke so well, that I have often thought he might have made a figure in Parliament, superior to most men who sit there.
The Hon. C. P. Villiers and
Mr. Thornley were safe in their seats for
Wolverhampton. I visited Walsall, where Mr. Finch
was successful; nor must I forget Tamworth, where Sir Robert
Peel, secure in his own election, had declared he would not interfere in the
case of a second candidate. Captain Townsend, R.N., now Marquis Townsend, had started for the second seat, and was
opposed by Mr. A’Court, for whom
Sir Robert’s committee, with one or two names only
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It was at this same election, that Sir Robert Peel produced a great laugh on the hustings at Tamworth. I have observed that he did not raise or lower himself according to the class of his auditory; he appeared to be destitute of the power of adaptation, and seemed insensible to effects that other speakers would have foreseen and avoided. Sir Robert said he had been charged with coercing his tenantry; then, with singular deficiency of tact, he singled out among the people beneath, a chubby-faced man, with a countenance of superlative vacancy, one of his tenants. The effect was ludicrous.
“I never coerced my tenantry. There is Peter Bird, one of my tenants; did I ever coerce you, Peter Bird?”
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 147 |
“No, Sir Robert, you never did,” said humble Peter, in a whining tone, which caused a general cachinnation, coupled with the expression of the man’s face, none could help laughing aloud.
I was then using my pen pretty strongly against Sir Robert, and wrote two or three stanzas on the subject, which the people got hold of, and with which they saluted round-faced Peter whenever he came to Tamworth market.* I met Sir Robert Peel in Baker Street, afterwards, and fancied there was a smile brought up by his recollection of the foregoing occurrence; but Sir Robert had then become a free-trader.
I had many opportunities of observing this lamented statesman in the country, and there recurs to my mind little regarding him, to account for the political course he pursued in the latter part of his life. One observation I made while resident near him, was that he had no great love for the aristocracy. The observation was recalled to my mind ten years afterwards, when his will was made public, as having been remarked to some gentlemen at Lichfield. It would be useless to recount the grounds on which I came to that conclusion, but I was right, without imagining my conjecture would be so well proved. I judged from what I had observed in a five years’ residence in his vicinity.
Old Sir Robert Peel was an acute money-scraping man, an enemy to the corn-law while his son supported it.
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The son turned in his horses, and they were seized by the father for the rent due from the previous occupier. So, when the Tamworth bank had a run upon it, Sir Robert went behind the counter, and paid the notes himself. When this was observed, the country-people said, “Oh! there is the rich Sir Robert Peel paying away the money himself—I shan’t take out mine.” “Nor I,” said another; “nor I,” said a third. In less than a year afterwards, the bank broke, and much injured the people in the neighbourhood; but the old gentleman had no assets there. “My father was a plain man of business,” said the late minister. “He never aspired to anything beyond it.”
The change of Sir Robert Peel on
the Catholic Question was singular. It is possible his final decision was effected by the
influence of the Duke of Wellington, who swept away the
barriers of intolerance, and made everything subservient to the due proceeding of the
“Queen’s business,” as he used to phrase it. He did not
exhibit a relish for the Lady of Babylon any more than Sir Robert;
but, having averred that, knowing its miseries, “he would rather lay down his life
than see six weeks’ civil war in Ireland,” it was natural he should pay
small attention to the ana-
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 149 |
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When Peel committed this crime of
sacrificing power on the altar of his country, as his enemies have it—for it was a
crime to their selfish optics—he, had for the first time, become a primary in place
of a secondary. In addition to a defective political education, where obedience was the
habit, and his mind credited anything without questioning, he was become responsible for
all. He was not by nature a man of genius, to strike out new lights. His tendencies were
never precedent, but consequential. In plentitude of power, conviction flashed upon him. He
found himself in a new era—an age of new necessities—amid a generation with
more enlightened views, than when he served his apprenticeship to stale political rules. He
acquired the full conviction of
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 151 |
I write thus full on the subject, because, for above
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I thought Sir Robert the last man to make the noble sacrifice he did for his country’s good. So opposed and so obnoxious was Sir Robert in Staffordshire, where the free-trade question was well understood by the people at an early period, that he could not venture to speak at a nomination of the members for South Staffordshire; and the Lichfield constables seized persons who had carried stones in their pockets, for the purpose of throwing, as the hustings were on a grassy spot. Seven or eight years afterwards, the people would have taken the horses from his carriage, meeting him with cheers. There was not a workman but well understood the question of free-trade; and many of the farmers were very reasonable upon it, knowing the value of the manufacturing districts as their best market.
While at Bath, in the field beyond his kitchen garden,
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 153 |
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I made one at the opening of Oscot Catholic College, between Lichfield
and Birmingham, which had been just completed. I had an invitation from Dr. Weedal, the principal, an ecclesiastic of extensive
acquirements and liberal opinions, who evinced towards me, on more than one occasion, the
greatest politeness and confidence. Sir Charles
Wolsely drove me over. I have lived too long not to discriminate between
bigots in Catholic as well as Protestant churches, and those who have partaken in the
advancement of the times under both creeds. I have lived among Catholics abroad, who never
troubled me about my creed, nor did I them about theirs. That is the secret of peace, I
believe. On the present occasion, a pontifical high mass was celebrated by a bishop and six
clergymen. The “Kyrie”
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 155 |
Having received an invitation from Mr.
Phillips to Grace Dieu Manor, Leicestershire, I went over there to see the
ceremony of the consecration of a new church. I believe young Henry
Wolsely, of Wolsely, and myself, were the only Protestants present. That
part of the ceremony which took place in the open air, reminded me of some scenes in old
paintings. The day was fine; the rich colouring of the dresses of the ecclesiastics, and
bishop in pontificalibus, the cross borne in front, all slowly pacing round the church,
chanting the fiftieth psalm, the prelate sprinkling the walls, and reciting the part of the
service which begins, “Asperge me domine hyssopo et
mundabor,”. was peculiarly fine and striking. I fancied myself carried back
to Catholic
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I paid a visit to Bardon Hill, and the monastery of La Trappe, placed
nearly upon its summit. The brothers came from Meillerie, for some unexplained reason being
compelled to leave France. The prior was an agreeable and well-instructed personage, the
Rev. Mr. Wolfrey. The brethren were simple-minded men. The site of
the monastery was on one of the most barren spots of ground conceivable, covered with rock
and wiry grass. It had been given or let to them for a very long term, by the owner,
Sir G. Beaumont. No English farmer would have
looked at the land, nor accepted it as a gift, high, miserable, and exposed as it was. The
buildings were compact, not extensive, and very plain, except the chapel, which was
remarkably neat, but without costliness. At an hour after midnight, the brothers of the
order assembled at prayers, and worshipped for some hours, until breakfast, after which
they worked, with an hour’s interval to dine. They went to bed at eight
o’clock. An entrance, unornamented, led into a species of court, the chapel being on
the right-hand side going in, and the dormitory over the refectory, on the left. The latter
had small plain deal tables, with seats next the walls. Over each seat was an inscription
in black letters, taken from some passage in the scriptures. The brothers never took animal
food. Vegetables, eggs, fruit, butter, cheese, milk, and wine, the latter
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 157 |
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It may be judged a matter of difficulty, for one circumstanced as I was, to steer clear of displeasing parties in the midst of conflicting religious opinions. I advocated perfect freedom, and took no part myself in any dispute that was not strictly lay, believing that the verb to tolerate implies a power of intolerance somewhere, and that the right to believe from conviction is inherent, and implies the right to disbelieve. I got, perhaps, the love of none for not playing the advocate of any, but of all; yet, I imagine, I secured their respect.
Sir Charles Wolsely, of Wolsely Hall, the well known
radical, had embraced the Catholic faith. His family had been settled at Wolsely from the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries, one branch had gone to Ireland and settled at Wolsely
Bridge there. He had known in Milan my old friend Count
Porro, and invited me over to the hall, within a few yards of the Trent, one
of the most charming situations in the county. The high road from Rugeley to Stafford
separated the deer park from the land near the baronet’s house. This last had
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 159 |
Walking with Sir Charles one morning by the Trent, he pointed to some meadows which were thrown upon his hands. “Yes, Sir Charles, but you let them from year to year. Who will improve land on that tenure? Give your tenant a lease, and you will have no trouble.”
“Yes, and have the land worked out.”
“Not at all,” I replied, “there is Sir Robert Peel, who has some odd notions about land,
gives leases. The old plan won’t do now. The land would be
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Here the old aristocratical prejudice was evident. Then a railway, no great distance from the hall, had caused the inn at Wolsely Bridge to be closed, by which he lost a hundred a year rent. I advised him to convert it into a dwelling-house, the site was charming, and I endeavoured to comfort him by stating that the conveyance by rail must be a great boon to the agricultural interest. I argued that rents had doubled, and people lived better than they ever did before. He seemed to think the manufacturers had taken a slice from the landed interest. I asked him where was there such a market for agricultural produce as Wolverhampton and the iron districts. “Ask Lord Hatherton, who understands this question better than any other proprietor in Staffordshire, if this is not the correct doctrine.”
“How then was it the landholders were so poor?”
I replied because they cultivated the land as they did of old, and would not, as they might, improve it to a double production.
“I can show you my family books,” said Sir Charles, “I remember my grandfather kept his four black coach horses, a couple of hacks for himself, and half a dozen hunters, besides others. I cannot do that. Cobden perhaps could.”
He told me he became a Catholic from conviction, and was not required to
go through any ceremony on the occasion in the chapel at Tixall. A neighbouring clergyman,
however, made a point of anathematizing, Sunday after Sunday, all the people in the parish
who
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 161 |
He was sincere in his opinions. On leaving Staffordshire to visit Italy, while I was in the county, he wrote to me from London, dated St. James’ Place.
“I was so perplexed with business before I left, that I had not time to write to you. Pray send me one of your papers, if not two, if you think you have made a good critique which will suit the Pope and the Cardinals, I will then procure you absolution—unconditionally! Send one to Henry, and then if there is anything that will please the propaganda, he will forward it! I have not been once down at the club, so that I have heard no news.
“I believe about Rugeley they will miss me, for
before I left, I gave up to Mr. G—— seven
acres of potatoe ground, to let seventy-five per cent cheaper than the usual
rent there. They make exactly fifty gardens for the poor, to be let
indiscriminately to Catholics as well as Protestants. This will make the
shovel-hat put on another cock—for it will be sending his parishioners
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Speaking of the wisdom of our fathers as to law, he showed me the grant
to his ancestors of a deer-leap for his park, dated in the reign of Edward II. in latin, about nine inches long, and four fingers wide, enough
to throw a modern conveyancer into hysterics. One of the Wolselys had
been a Baron of the Exchequer in 1300, and a descendant of this baron held the same office
in the time of Edward IV. After I had quitted
Staffordshire, in one of his letters he said, “Do you know Louis Bonaparte? what is that clever fellow about? He has got his two
uncles in London, Murat’s son, and some
old French officers, and if I am not mistaken, has an eye upon France. I bet either he
or Henri against the Duke of Orleans when
Louis Phillipe dies. At any rate there will
be a try for it—that is my opinion. When I go to town I shall try and scrape
acquaintance with him. He would have frightened the present government of France, had
he got possession of Strasburgh. He was within an ace of it. What will your friend
Peel do if Wellington goes off the stage before him?” This is a
singularly prophetic letter, bearing date February 25, 1840. Sir Charles died in 1846, aged 78, a hale active man nearly to the last,
and a protectionist I fear. He was undoubtedly a singular individual, energetic and
straightforward in what he thought right. He was struck off the list of justices of the
peace by Eldon, and the Whigs evaded
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 163 |
The paper having accomplished all that was possible at Lichfield was moved to Wolverhampton, and, in part, a new proprietary formed. There was no trade at Lichfield. The former was a place of much business, waxing rich and populous, but by no means so agreeable a residence as the latter city. The paper increased in circulation, but lost much of its county character. I have omitted to state that at Lichfield I wrote a “Life of William IV.” for a London house. It was undertaken in anticipation of the king’s death, finished, sent up to town and published so close upon the event that I never saw a proof. I laboured day and night upon it, besides doing my customary amount of other duty. It was published anonymously.
Marshal Soult, accompanied by Sir William Napier, whom I had the pleasure of knowing,
stopped an hour or two at Wolverhampton to inspect the iron works of Mr. Barker, a leading ironmaster, on their way to the
Menai Bridge. The printer told me that Sir William had enquired for
me, but unluckily I was at the moment of their unexpected arrival soliloquizing at
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Where neither suffering comes, nor woes, To vex the genius of repose, On death’s majestic shore. |
In other words, I had taken a lone walk to that distant churchyard, and was copying quaint epitaphs, and I thus missed seeing Sir William. Twenty-two years before I had seen the marshal at morning parades with other celebrated soldiers, attending the Bourbons. A score of years had now nearly extinguished the royal race, to the regret of few but their dependants. The History of the Peninsular War, by Sir William Napier, is the only true military history we possess. The battles are given with uncommon clearness of detail. Thiers is praised for his details of combats, but if his land battles are not more correctly given than his naval, they are miserably defective. I translated the first seven volumes of his history, and am tolerably master of his details. I was told by an officer of the Guards, that Sir William Napier was favoured by Wellington with the loan of his papers relative to the Peninsular War, and that some one saying to the duke that Sir William was a radical, he replied, “What of that, he will tell the truth, which is all I want.” I have heard, too, that the duke said Southey’s History of the Peninsular War would do for the history of any war. This confirms me in what I never mentioned in print before, that Southey’s Life of Nelson, so much lauded at one time, is full of inexcusable blunders, showing that he knew little more of naval affairs than the critics who declared it the finest modern biography we possess.
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 165 |
When a youth I had read Shenstone with delight. Delias and Strephons were then the order of the day. I was now near the Leasowes, and having gone into the church of Hales Owen and seen the poet’s modest tomb, and that so much more pretending of Major Haliday, a subsequent possessor of the Leasowes, I continued my way on foot down to where a green lane on the right hand conducts to the precinct marked as the spot consecrated by genius. I found the place in possession of the anti-poetic family of Atwood. Across what were once the great fish ponds of the Abbey of Hales Owen, constituting the attraction of the place, a huge canal embankment has been reared, entirely destroying the view and ruining the charm to which all else was subsidiary. Inscriptions here and there remained, and the building, designed to represent a ruin on the right hand near the entrance, was now in greater perfection than ever, time having clothed it thickly with verdure. Shenstone’s house was long ago demolished, and a new, but plain, edifice erected on its site. All, however, was upon a small scale, which genius made interesting. Even the rigidity of Johnson softened before the exquisite tenderness and simplicity of some of the poet’s verses.
Major Haliday had a daughter to whom Henry
Wolsely, the younger brother of Sir
Charles, whom I have already mentioned, formed an attachment. She was an
heiress. They agreed to elope. Henry had stowed the lady, abigail, and
luggage safely in a carriage and four, at the witching hour of the night. Away they drove
uninterruptedly until they arrived about half way between Birmingham and Litchfield, when
the
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I did not leave Hagley unvisited. It is a fine seat, undoubtedly, but there are others in my view equal to it in the sister counties. Beaudesert is much more princely, but it wants the foliage of Hagley—the “shades of Hagley,” as Lord Littleton wrote it. It was necessary I should sometimes visit the surrounding towns. It was then I availed myself of all worthy sight-seeing. Even the maiden castle of Ashby-de-la-Zouch did not escape me. At Burton I used to lunch with old Sir John Foster, on my desultory and rambling way. He was the Marquis of Anglesey’s agent for Burton on Trent, which place returned a rent roll of twenty-two thousand a year, Sir John at his death was succeeded by Mr. Richardson. The Trent flows very sweetly by the town, and perhaps contributes to the excellence of Bass’s ale.
I was amused by a new theological dispute. The hatred of theologists to
each other, has long been proverbial, one of the strongest proofs that neither
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 167 |
168 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
The members for Wolverhampton in parliament, were the Honourable C. P. Villiers and T. Thornley, Esq., both ardent advocates for free trade. The former may be said to have first embodied the question in parliament, and led the front of the battle. Mr. Cobden came in second, and obtained more of the praise than he merited, though the desire of Sir Robert Peel to give to Manchester all praise in the way of conciliation, or rather so, I believe, than to a member of the aristocracy. Earnest, well read on the question, eloquent, and gentlemanly, never intrusive on the patience of the house, Villiers obtained its ear before Cobden became the champion, interested as well in pocket as in principle in the measure. The constituency of Wolverhampton clung to their representatives, for they were really their choice. There is a straightforwardness in the inhabitants and workmen of the iron districts over the cotton workers, of course I do not include the colliers in either category. I have never known a more correct and constitutional intercourse to exist between a very large constituency, in which there must be many shades of opinion, and its representatives in parliament, than that of Wolverhampton.
I have not noticed the “potteries,” a district till
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 169 |
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While on this topic, I wanted a professional instrument, difficult to make, and went over to Birmingham for the purpose of obtaining it. I was told only one man there could make it. I got his address, entered a narrow passage into a small square dingy court, and mounted a step ladder into a sort of loft. There I saw a middle-aged, plain, working man reading a newspaper, a curious silver tool lay before him. He told me he had lost nearly all the morning trying to find out its use. He was not content to do his work and get his money, he should learn nothing that way, and he did not like to be foiled. He told me he could do what I wanted, or else he believed I must send to London. I was surprised, as I thought anything could be made in Birmingham. He replied:
“We have capital men here, but they can only do one thing. They cannot invent, to add but a little, if that little is new to them.”
“Then they are only able to execute what they have learned?”
“In the best or worst manner, according to the price, and to
improve it when carefully directed how,
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 171 |
“Then you do not think the advancement of the times has increased the inventive faculty?”
“I do not think it has—but the advance of the times has made us perfect in many things, that till now could not be executed.”
“You mean that you dare more now?”
“Yes, Mr. Watt knew of high pressure steam, so did Hornblower, but neither dared to use it—we do use it—as you know in every railroad engine, and even in mines.”
“How is that?”
“Because our tools are more perfect, and we carry workmanship and castings to a size and perfection of which they did not dream.”
“In the same things?”
“Yes, workmanship was rude sixty years ago to what it is now.”
“Then in the workmanship lies the great improvement?”
“Yes, we can now perfect inventions, that were long laid by as impracticable for want of more perfect tools and higher skill in finishing. Things common now were then thought impracticable.”
“Who are the best workmen of all the three kingdoms?”
“Englishmen, for nice finish.”
“Mr. Watt said that no Scotchman ever becomes a first-rate artisan—is that true of his countrymen?”
“Well, I believe it is; our finishers are mostly En-
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This man satisfactorily completed what I wanted him to do. He was continually consulted about difficult matters, yet he did not make money proportionable to his abilities. He had to think as well as work, and that was the impediment. Thinking required leisure, and leisure gained him no direct profit. People applied to him in difficult cases only. No instructions could have formed him: nature was his master and inspirer. He found in the talents in which he outshone his fellow workmen, the impediment to a money elevation, for he made no gains adequate to his ability, although he doubled and sometimes tripled the gains of his fellow workmen; but he could not work with his mind and hands at the same time. Such is the advantage common drudges in life have over the superior capacities, that really give themselves up for all, and receive little in return. I was astonished at the things I saw in the “Toy-shop of Europe,” to which I used frequently to go by the Manchester and Birmingham railroad, to amuse myself by seeing the wonderful processes followed there. I saw that railroad opened—a scene I shall never forget. It was the first completed after the Liverpool and Manchester, in which last Mr. Huskisson was killed. The amazing display of population on this occasion beggared description, seeming the greater novelty of the whole—it was astounding.
The most intellectual and reflecting workmen, and at the same time the
cleverest, or such men as those to whom I have just alluded, are not the men who render
themselves conspicuous as political leaders, orators,
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At Lichfield I had visited the sites connected with the history of Johnson. The house of his father, the bookseller, was inhabited by an ironmonger, and remains much as it was in his day. The stone placed over his father’s remains, in St. Michael’s church, is no longer to be seen, at least, I could not find it, nor get intelligence where it had gone. Chancellor Law munificently erected a statue of Johnson, just opposite the house of old Johnson, while I was in the country. The meadows below the east end of the cathedral, leading towards Stow Church, used to be my noon-day walk. No trace remains there of Johnson’s willow. Miss Porter’s house is still one of the best in the city, built of red brick. Miss Seward’s residence in the Close is near the north-east angle of the cathedral, a roomy old habitation. I met with no one who had a personal recollection of Johnson, although there were several ancient people alive there; but then half a century had elapsed since he died in London, and his later visits to the city were not frequent. I met with some who were acquainted with Darwin. Dr. Harwood, the venerable historian of Lichfield, I knew well. In that city, too, I conversed for the first time with a centenarian, by trade a mason; he was sitting by his fire, and complained only of deafness. He was fresh-coloured and healthy in appearance. I thought him likely to live some years longer; yet life to him seemed not of much moment. It is usually supposed that the love of life increases with years.
I returned to London. The proprietary, to lessen their current expences,
proposed getting a reporter to look after the paper, at a low rate of income, and it
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 175 |
Prior to leaving off my task, I had many gratifying expressions of regret at my departure. I was flattered on being unexpectedly addressed by a member of the lower House.
“You said the other day you were going to leave us. You have been working between thirty and forty years exactly on the same political side—few can say as much. Let me know in what we can be useful to you.”
This was the first time in my life that anything similar had been said
to me. On the other hand, nothing like solicitation for anything of the kind had entered
into my head. It was ever my fault to leave the future to take care of itself. An unusual
flow of health and good spirits, and perhaps no little love of independence, caused in me
too great a forgetfulness of that object which absorbs the souls of the mass of mankind. I
thought it disgraceful to turn. From the day I set out in life, I had been steady, through
evil and good report, to one point. I had seen the triumph of the principles with which I
started. When not employed in my duties of reading and writing, exercise, and sometimes
experimental essays in different sciences, constituted my amusement. I had none of what the
world deems lofty aspirations; in other words, of the art of huckstering and money-making.
Studying the old philosophers early in life, had made me regard the art
176 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
It was not wonderful, therefore, that I was ignorant of any post in
which I could be serviceable, while I was a perfect stranger to all intrigues for selfish
purposes, and often when mingling in society, among men of title, fortune, or influence, my
last idea had been how to turn them to a selfish account, being proud to maintain a species
of social freedom, and even fearful lest my motives should be misconstrued. In pecuniary
matters, I was ever economical. If I found my necessary expenses were met, I troubled my
head no farther, throwing myself ardently into the business before me, which sometimes
happened to be more attractive by being controversial, and from being frequently the leader
in the contest on behalf of my own party. I now reflected seriously on the generous offer,
and that my position was precarious after all. I had been seven years out of London,
severing business connections there. At the same time, I had written one successful
commercial work in my “History of
Wine.” I had lived abroad in different places, for three years on a
stretch, and to me, after my old friend Demaria’s simile, “a bale of goods from a cobbler’s green
bag,” I did know, though I was never engaged in
LITERARY AND PERSONAL. | 177 |
I called occasionally at the Foreign Office, nothing presenting itself for several months, when Lord Melbourne’s administration went out. If there was a post of the kind, for which I was a candidate, vacant at the moment, it was filled up by some name on the list with superior interest. Length of toil, honest service, necessity, go for nothing in place of being justly balanced in considering such claims. After all, I fear, not being a Scotchman, I was not sufficiently a plague to the Foreign Office by persevering solicitude. Under Sir Robert Peel, whose anti-free-trade efforts I had combated at his own door, I had no hope of any kind. I had, therefore, to return to my usual avocations, and falling back upon my labours, seek amusement in waking dreams, and substantial support in vain hopes.
The death of a friend, soon afterwards, cut once more into the circle of
my acquaintance. Dr. Lord, of the Bom-
178 | FIFTY YEARS’ RECOLLECTIONS, |
The best situation for a student, in the summer, to my liking, is some way in the suburbs, and not in London, the window facing the north, and open to the green fields. If it command an extensive landscape so much the better. The eyes may expatiate while the thoughts are far from the scene before them. The position must be noiseless. If the barking of the dog, the crowing of the cock, (which in London, all its good people know, have no discrimination as to day or night, noon or noontide,) if the low of kine be audible, it must be at such a distance as not to startle or visit the porches of the ear too roughly. The miserable kettle they call a bell in the later-built churches, and it is no better, must not be near to make a horrible ringing in the ears, very far from being like that which heard—
Over some wide watered shore Swinging slow with sullen roar. |
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