Read Ebook: English Eccentrics and Eccentricities by Timbs John

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"I remember visiting the Opera when late dinners were the rage, and the hour of refection was carried far into the night. I was again placed near the fugleman of fashion, for to his movements were all eyes directed, and his sanction determined the accuracy of all conduct. He bowed from box to box, until recognizing one of his friends in the lower tier, 'Temple,' he exclaimed, drawling out his weary words, 'at--what--hour--do--you--dine--to-day?' It had gone half-past eleven when he spoke.

"I saw him once enter St. James's Church, having at the door taken a ponderous red morocco prayer-book from his servant; but although prominently placed in the centre aisle, the pew-opener never offered him a seat; and stranger still, none of his many friends beckoned him to a place. Others in his rank of life might have been disconcerted at the position in which he was placed; but Skeffington was too much of a gentleman to be in any way disturbed; so he seated himself upon the bench between two aged female paupers, and most reverently did he go through the service, sharing with the ladies his book, the print of which was more favourable to their devotions than their own diminutive liturgies."

Sir Lumley Skeffington continued to the last to take especial interest in the theatre and its artists, notwithstanding his own reduced fortunes. He was a worshipper of female beauty, his adoration being poured forth in ardent verse. Thus, in the spring 1829, he inscribed to Miss Foote the following ballad:

When the frosts of the Winter in mildness were ending, To April I gave half the welcome of May; While the Spring, fresh in youth, came delightfully blending The buds that are sweet, and the songs that are gay.

As the eyes fixed the heart on a vision so fair, Not doubting, but trusting what magic was there, Aloud I exclaim'd, with augmented desire, I thought 'twas the Spring, when in truth 'twas Maria!

When the fading of stars in the region of splendour Announc'd that the morning was young in the east, On the upland I rov'd, admiration to render, Where freshness, and beauty, and lustre increas'd.

Whilst the beams of the morning new pleasures bestow'd, While fondly I gaz'd, while with rapture I glow'd, In sweetness commanding, in elegance bright, Maria arose! a more beautiful light.

Again, on the termination of the engagement of Miss Foote, at Drury Lane Theatre, in May, 1826, Sir Lumley addressed her in the following impromptu:

Maria departs! 'tis a sentence of dread; For the Graces turn pale, and the Fates droop their head! In mercy to breasts that tumultuously burn, Dwell no more on departure, but speak of return. Since she goes when the buds are just ready to burst, In expanding its leaves, let the willow be first. We here shall no longer find beauties in May; It cannot be Spring when Maria's away! If vernal at all, 'tis an April appears, For the blossom flies off in the midst of our tears.

Sir Lumley, through the ingratitude and treachery of

Friends found in sunshine, to be lost in storm,

became involved in difficulties and endless litigation, and his latter years were clouded with sorrow; still his buoyant spirits never altogether left him, although "the observed of all observers" passed his latter years in compulsory residence in a quarter of the great town ignored by the Sybarites of St. James's.

Now Vestris, the tenth of the Muses, To Mirth rears a fanciful dome, We mark, while delight she infuses, The Graces find beauty at home.

In her eye such vivacity glitters, To her voice such perfections belong, That care, and the life it embitters, Find balm in the sweets of her song.

When monarchs o'er valleys are ranging, A court is transferr'd to the green; And flowers, transplanted, are changing Not fragrance, but merely the scene.

'Tis circumstance dignifies places; A desert is charming with spring! And pleasure finds twenty new graces Wherever the Vestris may sing!

Sir Lumley, who had long been unheard of in fashionable circles, died in London in 1850 or 1851.

"Romeo" Coates.

This celebrated leader of fashion, who rejoiced in the sobriquets of "Romeo" and "Diamond," obtained the former from his love of amateur acting, and the latter from his great wealth obtained from the West Indies. He was likewise noted by his splendid curricle, the body of which was in the form of a cockleshell, bearing the cock-bird as his crest; and the harness of the horses was mounted with metal figures of the same bird, with which got associated the motto of "Whilst we live, we'll crow."

"At length he commenced: his appeals to the heart were made by the application of the left hand so disproportionately lower down than 'the seat of life' has been supposed to be placed; his contracted pronunciation of the word 'breach,' and other new readings and actings, kept the house in a right joyous humour, until the climax of all mirth was attained by the dying scene of

that gallant, gay Lothario:

but who shall describe the grotesque agonies of the dark seducer, his platted hair escaping from the comb that held it, and the dark crineous cordage that flapped upon his shoulders in the convulsions of his dying moments, and the cries of the people for medical aid to accomplish his eternal exit? Then, when in his last throes his coronet fell, it was miraculous to see the defunct arise, and after he had spread a nice handkerchief on the stage, and there deposited his head-dress, free from impurity, philosophically resume his dead condition; but it was not yet over, for the exigent audience, not content 'that when the men were dead, why there an end,' insisted on a repetition of the awful scene, which the highly flattered corpse executed three several times, to the gratification of the cruel and torment-loving assembly."

Mr. Coates, who by his cockleshell curricle had acquired some of his celebrity, lost his life by a vehicular accident: he died February 23, 1848, from being run over in one of the London streets. He was in his seventy-sixth year.

Abraham Newland.

There ne'er was a name so handed by fame, Thro' air, thro' ocean, and thro' land, As one that is wrote upon every bank note, And you all must know Abraham Newland. Oh, Abraham Newland! Notified Abraham Newland! I have heard people say, sham Abraham you may, But you must not sham Abraham Newland.

For fashion or arts, should you seek foreign parts, It matters not wherever you land, Jew, Christian, or Greek, the same language they speak That's the language of Abraham Newland! Oh, Abraham Newland! Wonderful Abraham Newland! Tho' with compliments cramm'd, you may die and be d--d, If you hav'n't an Abraham Newland.

The world is inclin'd to think Justice is blind; Lawyers know very well they can view land; But, Lord, what of that, she'll blink like a bat At the sight of an Abraham Newland. Oh, Abraham Newland! Magical Abraham Newland! Tho' Justice, 'tis known, can see through a millstone, She can't see through Abraham Newland.

Your patriots who bawl for the good of us all, Kind souls! here like mushrooms they strew land; Tho' loud as a drum, each proves orator mum, If attack'd by an Abraham Newland! Oh, Abraham Newland! Invincible Abraham Newland! No argument's found in the world half so sound As the logic of Abraham Newland!

The French say they're coming, but sure they are mumming; I know what they want if they do land; We'll make their ears ring in defence of our king, Our country, and Abraham Newland. Oh, Abraham Newland! Darling Abraham Newland! No tricolour, elf, nor the devil himself Shall e'er rob us of Abraham Newland.

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.

The Spendthrift Squire of Halston, John Mytton.

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.

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.

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 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.

Lord Petersham.

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 , 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:--

Sir Edward Dering's Luckless Courtship.

It was on the morning after Dr. Raven's mad freak that Sir Edward Dering presented himself as a suitor. How he commenced this important enterprise, and how he sped, we learn from a minute journal which he kept of his proceedings, and which he did not afterwards think it necessary to burn. Here are a few entries. Thus begins the journal:--

Nov. 20. Edmund, King. I adventured, was denied. Sent up a letter, which was returned, after she had read it.

This repulse rendered it necessary to resort to crooked means. Servants are corruptible, and so we find--

Unpromising this, but Sir Edward does not lose courage.

There is hope, then, but we must not relax. Same day.

I set Sir John Skeffington upon Matthew Cradock.

Matthew Cradock is a cousin of the widow, and her trusty adviser. Same day.

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