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CHAPTER IV.

EXAMPLES OF THE SELFISH—THE OPPOSITE, THOMAS HUNT—THE LAW—G. COLMAN, PRISON PORTRAITS, ANECDOTES AND APOTHEGMS.

Blow, How, thou winter wind, Thou art not so unkind As man’s ingratitude; Thy tooth is not so keen, Because thou art not seen, Although thy breath be rude. Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, Thou dost not bite so nigh As benefits forgot: Though thou the waters warp, Thy sting is not so sharp, As friends remembered not. Heigh ho! Shakspeare.

In tracing my literary course through sunshine and shade, generally liked for my facile good nature and obliging disposition, if for no better qualities, I am sorry, so near the end of it, to be obliged to repeat how much I have experienced the truth of the maxim, that benefits, like flowers, please only when they are fresh. When I look at the innumerable acknowledgments of services which crowd my study—quires of thanks, and professions of everlasting gratitude, I can scarcely believe that I am living in the same old world which I inhabited some time ago, dispensing kind offices with no parsimonious restrictions.

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I consider it the worst of all standards by which to measure friendship or gratitude, to test it by pecuniary returns. It may be true, that if you would learn the value of money, the readiest and surest method is to try to borrow some; but the axiom does not hold good throughout the reciprocal relations and duties of life. But there are rarely wanting opportunities to evince a grateful sense of obligation, if the hearts of the recipients are right in their breasts, and it fills us with melancholy reflections to contemplate the reverse, when this is not the case. One need not care much for the constitutional ebullition of natural venom; but I confess that I have been somewhat hurt by having my expectations in other quarters disappointed. There were, at least, a few persons in the best literary positions, on the publication of my biography, to evince their grateful, and to me advantageous, remembrance of very considerable services I had rendered them in bygone years. Did they avail themselves of the chances? Alas, no; they had forgotten the days of their adversity when I helped them efficiently up the first steps of the ladder to the position in the periodical press which they now enjoy. Among others, the leaders of two of the most extensively circulated journals in London, and a distinguished critic also connected with the press, treated me and my work either with damning, faint praise, or careless neglect. Slight as my merits may be, they ought never to have missed an occasion on which they might honourably and justly have done their utmost to repay their debt to me. It is painful to think they did not. The first, when taking refuge for a season in a foreign country, and afterwards as a candidate for a literary employment, and under all subsequent circumstances of varied struggles with fortune, was much beholden to my friendly assistance: the second, at a later period, in return for a

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sterling benefit, when he was at a very low ebb, “hopes he will never prove unworthy of my bounty;” and the third, resorting to London as a broken man, with irresistible recommendations to me from those I and the public admired and esteemed, reaped the advantages of my influence, (styled at the time my “giant kindness!”) and though not so well placed as the others, is, nevertheless, a prosperous gentleman on the press, and (as is No. 2) connected with its most successful members. The time arrived for them to show themselves good men and true, and they failed to use it. Common natures are always anxious, if they have risen ever so little, to cast an oblivion over their periods of misfortune; and I truly believe that they often succeed so far as to blind themselves to the misty distance, and consequently fail in performing one of the brightest duties of humanity.

In adversity it is sufficiently annoying to meet with common-place familiar countenances looking so coldly as is enough to give you chilblains; but the aggravation so exquisitely expressed by the immortal bard in the motto to this chapter is indeed a bitter moral distress. You may despise it, but

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at the same time you cannot get rid of a feeling somewhat analogous to that experienced when you have foolishly lost anything of value, and you keep blaming yourself for your carelessness and want of rational circumspection in trusting a cheat and believing in a delusion. In the one case the absurdity of the accident, and in the other the shortsightedness of the act, produces a correspondent sense of shame and annoyance that you could have been guilty of either folly.

When Mr. Canning called the New World into political existence, I happened to have an intimate friend so ill-off on a modicum of half-pay, as to be glad to eke out his scanty means by clerking it in the back office of a bookseller. On one of my Sunday visits to Gloucester Lodge, the great topic of the day was brought up in conversation; and it struck me how eligible the party in question would be for one of the South American appointments. In the spontaneous ardour of regard I spoke of his qualifications, and gave so favourable an account of him, that the result was his attendance in Downing-street next morning (Monday), his satisfactorily passing muster as to fitness, and his immediate appointment to a situation of very considerable responsibility and emolument.

The ebullition of grateful thankfulness it may readily be supposed was overwhelming; but the selfishness of the man of the world so soon intervened, that even before his preparations for his voyage were completed, an evident disposition to throw off a little of the burden of the

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obligation was discernible, and I was made somewhat uncomfortable by the idea that I had rendered a life-important service where it was not truly deserved.

And this was the last blessing and only thanks I ever received from the individual whose fortune I made. A preceding letter returns thanks again “for all your kindnesses to me and my family. Should any of yours wander to the other world, be assured, my dear Jerdan, that I shall be to them a father, as you have been to me a friend.” I got a few trite letters from him during his absence, describing his duties and growing prosperity. He returned home an

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independent, if not a wealthy, man. There has been a public testimonial subscribed to testify the sense entertained by my contemporaries and the country of my “services to literature, science, the fine and useful arts, and benevolent institutions, during a long period of years,” and his name does not even appear in the distinguished and gratifying list!

This individual owes everything to me, and ought to have been ready, if required, to peril half his fortune on my behalf: does not the contemplation of such dark recesses afford a more intense delight when we can turn our eyes away from them, and accustom the retina to the bright and cheering view of the generous and noble deeds which happily counterbalance in society the blackness and baseness of the meaner herd. Of these, thank Heaven! I have had my share; and for them I sometimes shed a grateful tear to the memory of the dead, and give my whole heart with my hand in thankfulness to the living.

All my past life is mine no more, The flying hours are gone; Like transitory dreams given o’er, Whose images are kept in store By memory alone.

And Memory, looking back so far, plays fantastic freaks

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with these images, as life’s kaleidoscope shows them glittering into all kinds of fanciful forms, picturesque, grotesque, lively, brilliant, or strangely dim, as the mental shiftings of the glass present them. It brings before me a friend, among the faithless faithful to the last, and whose loss I still mourn with melancholy regret. I allude to Mr. Thomas Hunt, whom it is necessary, in order to elucidate a future event, to introduce here.

Mr. Hunt was brought up as an architect in the office of Sir John Soane; and his talent and genius were worthy of the school in which he was formed. He became what is called a labourer-in-trust on the establishment which has the charge of the Royal palaces; and when I first became acquainted with him, resided in Stable-yard, St. James’s, where his taste and means enabled him to live in a handsome manner, with an excellent wife and a fine young family rising around him. He was also the surveyor to a London district which included Hatton-garden, Ely-place, and the disgusting slums which yet infect the wretched lanes and alleys that lie between them and what is now the continuation of Farringdon-street, and through which the abominations of Fleet-ditch stagnated on their filthy Stygian way to the silver Thames! I have accompanied him to inspect these places; and Field-lane and adjacent environs, beastly though they yet are, may be deemed gardens of the Hesperides to what they were only thirty years ago. But to return to my friend.

Although Mr. Hunt then held only an inferior situation in the Board of Works, his abilities were so fully appreciated that the principal alterations in St. James’s Palace were committed to his charge. He designed and fitted up the State apartments for holding courts and levees, the splendour and conveniences of which, together with the accessories,

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are attributable to him. He also altered the house towards the park for the abode of the Duke of Clarence, with whom he was an especial personal favourite, as he was with others, both male and female, of the Royal family; and, in short, he was the palatial factotum, esteemed and indulged by all ranks, from the throne itself to the officials in board-rooms, barracks and kitchens, whom he had it in his power to oblige in their several departments, whenever architectural alterations or improvements were required; which, in palaces, is very frequently. Among other results, that from the cuisine was of a kind to nourish epicurism of the most refined order; and it must be owned that our labourer-intrust, and a few of his intimates (some who have since risen to eminence and titles in the royal household) were wont to enjoy these occasions à la Lucullus. They fared like kings, and kings like George IV. knew how to have things done to perfection. Unfortunately such a style of living entailed further expenses, and the kind-hearted and social Hunt consequently became embarrassed. He fell within the fangs of the law, and afforded one other sad instance of the misery inflicted by that predicament, from which, in a position like his, there is no escape. His earnings were very considerable, and his just expectation of preferment full of promise; but in the meantime he was obnoxious to every legal assault, and as Macbeth had a spy in the castle of every thane, so had the persecuted Hunt a bailiff fee’d in almost every sheriff’s officer’s close-barred house in London. Yet this did not save him from frequent arrests, and he led the life described by Walter Scott of a toad under a harrow, of which every tooth gave him a tig. And it would have been worse—absolutely ruinous—but for the protection of person afforded by the palace, where he latterly occupied apartments at the top of one of the gateway-towers,

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and kept as free from trouble as circumstances would permit; sometimes having only Sunday on which to venture from his turret, and sometimes enjoying freedom more at large from having cleared off, or oftener bribed off, pressures. Yet he was not quite so fortunate as a well-known character, connected with the drama to the loss of many thousand pounds, who, being elected an M.P., when next waited upon by a civil catchpole, sent down the message by his servant: “It is of no use your calling now, Sir, my master’s in Parliament;” and upon a troublesome inquiry by a friend, occasioned the question and answer—“Master’s gone out.” Q. (curiously) “Is he in prison?” “No, he’s in the house!”

But such was the lot of my estimable friend and valued contributor to the “Gazette” in its highest range of intelligence. His volumes on Tudor Architecture, published by Messrs. Longman, had great effect in recommending this most consonant style of building again to the choice of country gentlemen; and gracing English landscape with appropriate and picturesque mansions, instead of Greek, Roman, or Palladian inconsistencies, so naked, bizarre, and uncongenial with all the features around, the climate, and the conveniences of life. Bifrons, the seat of the

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Dowager Marchioness of Conyngham, is a fine original specimen of Mr. Hunt’s skill, and the country is now richly studded with structures of which he furnished the earliest examples; and the only drawback to which revival consists in the frequently grotesque imitations committed by blundering architects and uneducated builders.

Mr. Hunt furnished a wearisome example of the truth, that a man held down by debts and duns, cannot too soon bear the brunt of his luckless condition by asserting his own native and independent spirit. Otherwise he will be reined in and curbed as long as he lives, and can produce a guinea to plunder. The race-horse and the draught-horse are alike severely wrought for the benefit of those who obtain the power to ride and drive them for their own benefit. The highest qualities will be called vices, and the strong or noble steed will die unpitied “a hack on the road.”

The fine law-maxim that he who cannot pay in purse, must pay in person, might be worth something if the person really, instead of imaginarily paid. But the canon is a sheer sophism, and a sham apology for the revenge of ruin. See the industrious tradesman or man of talent torn from his labour and family, and incarcerated in gaol overwhelmed by law expenses; and all that is done is not to produce honey, but to convert the working-bee into the useless drone in the social hive. For prison hurts not the rogue long expectant of its arrival and provident against its chances: it is the horror of contamination of honest industry and struggling respectability.

For this is Law, and this is it Which makes us here in prison sit; Which grounded is on holy writ And reason.

Much good has been accomplished in law reforms, since

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the period of which I am now speaking; but so much yet remains to he achieved that I trust a few pages of retrospect may not be without influence in hastening the remedy for the yet remaining evils of the pernicious system. For still is law the Upas tree in its nature and the Banyan in its means of extension. It thus spread its baneful shade from a thousand new roots till it covered the wholesome land; and hapless they who sought a shelter under branches distilling a poison to destroy them. Yet Christianity we are told is part and parcel of the common law; alas, that it should be so small, so homoeopathic a part! Hunt was wont, on the other hand, to cite as a great benefactor of his species a certain active mercantile individual, whose epitaph was, “Here lies a man who never employed an attorney;” and in moments when there could he a respite to “carking care,” would recite the following whimsical parody of a juvenile favourite, on the King’s Bench;

Of the King’s Bench, I remember George Colman giving a vivid description, and sketching characters of much dramatic interest:—A prison optimist, who maintained that

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everything in gaol was superior to aught on the outside, exposed to the persecutions and troubles of society. A celebrated vocalist, ever unconsciously, by fits and starts, humming or whistling airs, the links of which were chained to melancholy reflections, such as—

Ye mind me of departed joys, Departed never to return—

and “Home, sweet home,” and similar ditties. Captain K—ne, a lunatic, who, after his examination, being asked by one of the solicitors, “Do you know me?” answered, “Yes, by nature you are an honest man—by profession a rogue.” He was consequently found to be insane. An old man, who lived three weeks after his committal, praying for nothing but that they would carry him once more outside the walls, in order that he might die happy, but which could not be. An imbecile, from long confinement, imagining that he had succeeded to a large fortune, building a magnificent château in Spain, paying all his debts with cent, per cent, interest, and making every body rich and joyous. A reckless spendthrift officer, of good family, so drunk on the appointed morning, that he could not be taken up to the Insolvent Court to receive his discharge. All these, and more, and scenes in which they figured, did the admirable dramatist sketch and impersonate with striking effect; but I have a yet fresher recollection of his description of four gigantic moonlike circles chalked on the high walls for ball-play, which, whilst walking forth on a gusty night, he likened to huge glistening demon eyes, from the reflected light of the dim lamp below, glaring on the prisoners lodged in the opposite buildings, and affecting them variously according to their situations and feelings. Some of the captive tenantry, occupied in revels, cared nothing for the ominous inspection upon their deeds; others, starving and

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wretched, gazed on the fancied fiend with an intensity of suffering nearly allied to madness. And then the whole was wound up with a ludicrous account of Marshal Jones, the keeper, wheeled round in a chair of state, like the celestial Emperor, dreaded by his subjects; though with far less reason than since his rule, when the greater strictness of the laws enforcing prison discipline, has led to more severity in the treatment of debtor prisoners, whilst criminal prisoners are, in many cases, petted and promoted by spurious benevolence, to their inmost gratification and hopeful delight.

My intimacy with Colman was rather desultory; but still, on numerous occasions, I had the pleasure of meeting him in friendly society, and enjoying the piquant raciness of his conversation. I remember sitting in trio with him after dinner, at my friend Mr. Robert Clarke’s, when he entertained us with his idea of the tale, entitled, “The Two Parsons and One Shirt,” which he afterwards wrote in such humourous verse; and so lame and absurd did the story seem, that Clarke and I agreed that even George Colman could make nothing of it. At the same time, he related an anecdote of a French gentleman, whose purse was in the last stage of emigré vacuity, but who had succeeded in gaining the affections and hand of a young English lady of some fortune. The wedding-day was appointed at St. James’s Church, and poor Monsieur was au désespoir for the means of getting over the ceremony, and whisking off his bride, “accorden to de Anglaise costume,” from the church door for the ex-urban honeymoon. He could not ask for any of the bride’s portion before their union, and in his trouble he consulted the wag of the day; who represented that he could only accommodate him with a small supply for the post chaise, et cetera, and consequently

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advised a very short excursion on the very short resources. And whither does the reader think he sent the deluded Frenchman? To the Elephant and Castle, which he quitted the next day, as “one most noisy and troubled hotel, all de night, dat he never did sleep at!!”

Having fallen into the train of Colman reminiscences, I may as well finish this chapter with a few more examples of his facetious humours, and other anecdotes, after the manner of “Moore’s Memoirs,” edited by Lord John Russell, and exceedingly lauded by critics, who have so justly censured my poor work for its want of sequent connection. But fifty years of literary life, mixed up with “all the world,” defies system. Of the fair sex George was a fervent admirer, and embodied, in the first place, Byron’s verbal creed, though not his practical faith, when he finely says that women are our nurses in youth, our mistresses at a riper age, our companions in old age, and at all ages our comforters and friends.

Walking up the Haymarket one day, with his handkerchief hanging out of his pocket, a good-natured fellow gave him the hint, “You’ll lose your handkerchief, Sir.” “Not,” retorted George, “if you’ll pass on.” The bitter dispute between him and his brother-in-law and partner was wont to explode in violent altercations. In one of these, Mr. Morris accused him of “taking away his name;” and the following dialogue ensued:—C, “How did I take away your name?’ M. “By vilifying me with other odious epithets.” C. “What?” M. “You called me a scoundrel, Sir.” C, with a forced grin, “Keep your name!”

He would illustrate Lord Monboddo’s theory thus. Suppose a comet were to come into collision with a planet, each might partially destroy and replenish each with new races, so as to become a new conjunct orb. By this means one

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comet might replenish our earth with human beings having tails; and another replace them with a superior and tailless order.

We generally see females in mourning, in merrier mood

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and laughing louder than males; especially in public places and holiday times. Something of death seems to have made them more independent.

I conclude these scraps of Colmaniana, with a Shakesperian reading by a provincial performer. Hamlet meditates on the ghost that perhaps

The devil—— Out of my melancholy, (As he is very potent with such spirits,) Abuses me to damn me.

which the actor, rotunda ore, pronounced,

‘The devil—— Out of my melancholy, (As he is very potent with such spirits!) Abuses me too, damme!