Part 1

Gentle Reader, a few words before we introduce you to our ECCENTRICS. They may be odd company: yet how often do we find eccentricity in the minds of persons of good understanding. Their sayings and doings, it is true, may not rank as high among the delicacies of intellectual epicures as the Strasburg pies among the dishes described in the Almanach des Gourmands; but they possess attractions in proportion to the degree in which "man favours wonders." Swift has remarked, that "a little grain of the romance is no ill ingredient to preserve and exalt the dignity of human nature, without which it is apt to degenerate into everything that is sordid, vicious, and low." Into the latter extremes Eccentricity is occasionally apt to run, somewhat like certain fermenting liquors which cannot be checked in their acidifying courses.

Into such headlong excesses our Eccentrics rarely stray; and one of our objects in sketching their ways, is to show that with oddity of character may co-exist much goodness of heart; and your strange fellow, though, according to the lexicographer, he be outlandish, odd, queer, and eccentric, may possess claims to our notice which the man who is ever studying the fitness of things would not so readily present.

Many books of character have been published which have recorded the acts, sayings, and fortunes of Eccentrics. The instances in the present Work are, for the most part, drawn from our own time, so as to present points of novelty which could not so reasonably be expected in portraits of older date. They are motley-minded and grotesque in many instances; and from their rare accidents may be gathered many a lesson of thrift, as well as many a scene of humour to laugh at; while some realize the well-remembered couplet or the near alliance of wits to madness.

A glance at the Table of Contents and the Index to this volume will, it is hoped, convey a fair idea of the number and variety of characters and incidents to be found in this gallery of ENGLISH ECCENTRICS.

It should be added, that in the preparation of this Work, the Author has availed himself of the most trustworthy materials for the staple of his narratives, which, in certain cases, he has preferred giving ipsissimis verbis of his authorities to "re-writing" them, as it is termed; a process which rarely adds to the veracity of story-telling, but, on the other hand, often gives a colour to the incidents which the original narrator never intended to convey. The object has been to render the book truthful as well as entertaining.

JOHN TIMBS.

CONTENTS.

WEALTH AND FASHION.

PAGE

The Beckfords and Fonthill 1

Alderman Beckford's Monument Speech in Guildhall 19

Beau Brummel 22

Sir Lumley Skeffington, Bart 36

"Romeo" Coates 41

Abraham Newland 44

The Spendthrift Squire of Halston, John Mytton 48

Lord Petersham 55

The King and Queen of the Sandwich Islands 57

Sir Edward Dering's Luckless Courtship 59

Gretna-Green Marriages 63

The Agapemone, or Abode of Love 68

Singular Scotch Ladies 70

Mrs. Bond, of Hackney 72

John Ward, the Hackney Miser 74

"Poor Man of Mutton" 76

Lord Kenyon's Parsimony 77

Mary Moser, the Flower-Painter 78

The Eccentric Miss Banks 80

Thomas Cooke, the Miser of Pentonville 82

Thomas Cooke, the Turkey Merchant 87

"Lady Lewson," of Clerkenwell 89

Profits of Dust-sifting and Dust-heaps 92

Sir John Dinely, Bart. 95

The Rothschilds 96

A Legacy of Half-a-Million of Money 99

Eccentricities of the Earl of Bridgewater 103

The Denisons, and the Conyngham Family 105

"Dog Jennings" 107

Baron Ward's Remarkable Career 109

A Costly House-Warming 112

Devonshire Eccentrics 113

Hannah Snell, the Female Soldier 116

Lady Archer 122

DELUSIONS, IMPOSTURES, AND FANATIC MISSIONS.

Modern Alchemists 124

Jack Adams, the Astrologer 130

The Woman-hating Cavendish 132

Modern Astrology.—"Witch Pickles" 136

Hannah Green; or, "Ling Bob" 139

Oddities of Lady Hester Stanhope 141

Hermits and Eremitical Life 145

The Recluses of Llangollen 155

Snuff-taking Legacies 158

Burial Bequests 159

Burials on Box Hill and Leith Hill 163

Jeremy Bentham's Bequest of his Remains 166

The Marquis of Anglesey's Leg 169

The Cottle Church 171

Horace Walpole's Chattels saved by a Talisman 174

Norwood Gipsies 177

"Cunning Mary," of Clerkenwell 179

"Jerusalem Whalley" 181

Father Mathew and the Temperance Movement 182

Eccentric Preachers 184

Irving a Millenarian 187

A Trio of Fanatics 189

The Spenceans 197

Joanna Southcote, and the Coming of Shiloh 198

The Founder of Mormonism 210

Huntington, the Preacher 219

Amen—Peter Isnell 231

Strangely Eccentric, yet Sane 232

Strange Hallucination 236

"Corner Memory Thompson" 238

Mummy of a Manchester Lady 239

Hypochondriasis 240

STRANGE SIGHTS AND SPORTING SCENES.

"The Wonder of all the Wonders that the World ever Wondered at" 243

"The Princess Caraboo" 246

Fat Folks.—Lambert and Bright 249

A Cure for Corpulence 256

Epitaphs on Fat Folks 257

Count Boruwlaski, the Polish Dwarf 258

The Irish Giant 270

Birth Extraordinary 271

William Hutton's "Strong Woman" 274

Wildman and his Bees 276

Lord Stowell's Love of Sight-seeing 277

John Day and Fairlop Fair 280

A Princely Hoax 283

Sir John Waters's Escape 285

Colonel Mackinnon's Practical Joking 287

A Gourmand Physician 288

Dick England, the Gambler 290

Brighton Races, Thirty Years since 292

Colonel Mellish 294

Doncaster Eccentrics 296

"Walking Stewart" 300

Youthful Days of the Hon. Grantley Berkeley 304

What became of the Seven Dials 310

An Old Bailey Character 312

Bone and Shell Exhibition 317

"Quid Rides?" 318

"Bolton Trotters" 319

Eccentric Lord Coleraine 321

Eccentric Travellers 323

Elegy on a Geologist 328

ECCENTRIC ARTISTS.

Gilray and his Caricatures 330

William Blake, Painter and Poet 339

Nollekens, the Sculptor 350

THEATRICAL FOLKS.

The Young Roscius 363

Hardham's "No. 37" 368

Rare Criticism 370

The O. P. Riot 371

Origin of "Paul Pry" 372

Mrs. Garrick 374

Mathews, a Spanish Ambassador 378

Grimaldi, the Clown 382

Munden's Last Performance 387

Oddities of Dowton 389

Liston in Tragedy 391

Boyhood of Edmund Kean 398

A Mysterious Parcel 400

Masquerade Incident 402

Mr. T. P. Cooke in Melodrama and Pantomime 404

"Romeo and Juliet" in America 407

The Mulberries, a Shakspearian Club 408

Colley Cibber's Daughter 410

An Eccentric Love-Passage 413

True to the Text 415

MEN OF LETTERS.

Monk Lewis 417

Porson's Eccentricities 425

Parriana: Oddities of Dr. Parr 435

Oddities of John Horne Tooke 444

Mr. Canning's Humour 451

Peter Pindar.—Dr. Wolcot 460

The Author of "Dr. Syntax" 472

Mrs. Radcliffe and the Critics 475

Cool Sir James Mackintosh 478

Eccentricities of Cobbett 481

Heber, the Book-Collector 485

Sir John Soane Lampooned 488

Extraordinary Calculators 490

Charles Lamb's Cottage at Islington 494

Thomas Hood 497

A Witty Archbishop 504

Literary Madmen 508

A Perpetual-Motion Seeker 513

The Romantic Duchess of Newcastle 516

Sources of Laughter 520

CONVIVIAL ECCENTRICITIES.

Busby's Folly and Bull Feather Hall 525

Old Islington Taverns 526

The Oyster and Parched-Pea Club 529

A Manchester Punch-House 530

"The Blue Key" 533

Brandy in Tea 534

"The Wooden Spoon" 535

A Tipsy Village 535

What an Epicure Eats in his Life-Time 536

Epitaph on Dr. William Maginn 538

Greenwich Dinners 539

Lord Pembroke's Port Wine 540

A Tremendous Bowl of Punch 541

MISCELLANEA.

Long Sir Thomas Robinson 542

Lord Chesterfield's Will 542

An Odd Family 543

An Eccentric Host 544

Quackery Successful 545

The Grateful Footpad 546

A Notoriety of the Temple 546

A Ride in a Sedan 548

Mr. John Scott (Lord Eldon) in Parliament 549

A Chancery Jeu-d'Esprit 551

Hanging by Compact 553

The Ambassador Floored 553

"The Dutch Mail" 554

Bad Spelling 556

A "Single Conspirator" 559

A Miscalculation 560

An Indiscriminate Collector 561

The Bishops' Saturday Night 563

"Rather than Otherwise" 564

Classic Soup Distribution 565

Alphabet Single Rhymed 565

Non Sequitur and Therefore 566

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE

"Vathek" Beckford. From a Medallion 1

John Farquhar surveying the Ruins of Fonthill 21

Beau Brummel. From a Miniature 22

Lord Alvanley. A Pillar of White's 27

Beau Brummel in Retirement at Calais 35

Sir Lumley Skeffington in a "Jean de Brie" 36

Sir Lumley Skeffington, as dressed for the "Birthday Ball" 40

Robert Coates, the Amateur of Fashion, as "Romeo" 41

Squire Mytton of Halston on his Bear 48

Lord Petersham; a noble Aide-de-Camp 55

The Eccentric Miss Banks, an Old Maid on a Journey 80

The First Rothschild—a well-known Character on 'Change 96

Hannah Snell, the Female Soldier 116

Lady Archer, Enamelling at her Toilet 122

The Alchemist 124

Jack Adams, the Astrologer 130

A Hermit of the Sixteenth Century 145

Lady Eleanor Butler and Miss Mary Ponsonby, the Recluses of Llangollen 156

Major Peter Labelliere, a Christian Patriot 163

Margaret Finch, the Norwood Gipsy 177

Edward Irving, the Millenarian 184

Joanna Southcote 198

Facsimile of Autograph with Seal of the Elect 209

William Huntington, the Converted Coalheaver 219

The pretended Princess Caraboo 246

Count Boruwlaski, the Polish Dwarf, in Disgrace with his Wife 259

The Prince Regent, a Back View 284

Colonel Mellish and Buckle his Agent 294

Curtis, an Old-Bailey Character 312

Corder, the Murderer of Maria Martin 316

Lord Coleraine, keeping an Apple Stall 321

Nollekens, the Sculptor. From J. T. Smith's Life 350

Master Betty, the "Young Roscius", as "Norval" 363

Mrs. Garrick in her Youth 374

Charles Mathews the Elder 378

Joe Grimaldi as Clown 382

Liston as "Paul Pry" 391

Edmund Kean as "Richard III." 398

T. P. Cooke in "Black Eyed Susan" 404

Charlotte Charke, Colley Cibber's Daughter 411

M. G. Lewis, Author of "the Monk" 417

Professor Porson 425

Dr. Parr 435

William Cobbett, Peter Porcupine and the "Political Register" 481

Jedediah Buxton, the Calculator 490

Lamb's Cottage, Colebrook Row 495

Margaret Lucas, Duchess of Newcastle 516

Lord Eldon (John Scott) 549

ENGLISH ECCENTRICS.

WEALTH and FASHION.

The Beckfords and Fonthill.

The histories of the Beckfords, father and son, present several points of eccentricity, although in very different spheres. William Beckford, the father, was famed for his great wealth, which chiefly consisted of large estates in Jamaica; and the estate of Fonthill, near Hindon, Wilts. He was Alderman of Billingsgate Ward, London, and a violent political partisan with whom the great Lord Chatham maintained a correspondence to keep alive his influence in the City. When Beckford opposed Sir Francis Delaval to contest the borough of Shaftesbury, the latter said—

Art thou the man whom men famed Beckford call?

To which Beckford replied—

Art thou the much more famous Delaval?=

Alderman Beckford died on the 21st of June, 1770, in his second mayoralty, within a month after his famous exhibition at Court, when, after presenting a City Address to George III., and having received his Majesty's answer, he was said to have made the reply which may be read on his monument in Guildhall, but which he never uttered. The day before Beckford died, Chatham forced himself into the house in Soho Square (now the House of Charity), and got away all the letters he had written to the demagogue Alderman. His house at Fonthill, with pictures and furniture to a great value, was burnt down in 1755. The Alderman was then in London, and on being informed of the catastrophe, he took out his pocket-book and began to write, and on being asked what he was doing, he coolly replied, 'Only calculating the expense of rebuilding it. Oh! I have an odd fifty thousand pounds in a drawer, I will build it up again; it won't be above a thousand pounds each to my different children.' The house was rebuilt.

The Alderman had several natural sons, to each of whom he left a legacy of 5,000l.; but the bulk of his property went to his son by his wife, who was then a boy ten years old, and is said to have thus come into a million of ready money, and a revenue exceeding 100,000l. Three years later, Lord Chatham, who was his godfather, thus describes him to his own son William Pitt—"Little Beckford is just as much compounded of the elements of air and fire as he was. A due proportion of terrestrial solidity will I trust come and make him perfect." The promise which his liveliness and precocity had given, was fulfilled by a jeu-d'esprit, written by him in his seventeenth year. This was a small work published in 1780, entitled Biographical Memoirs of Extraordinary Painters, and originated as follows. The old mansion at Fonthill contained a fine collection of paintings, which the housekeeper was directed to show to applicants; but she often told descriptions of the painters and the pictures, which were very ludicrous. Young Beckford, therefore, to methodize and assist the housekeeper's memory, wrote their lives, which she received from her youthful master as matters-of-fact. Thus, after descanting on Gerard Douw, she would add the particulars of that artist's patience and industry in expending four or five hours in painting a broomstick. There were other extravagancies which she believed; a few copies of the book were printed to confirm her belief; hence the book is very rare. Beckford, in after-life, spoke of it as his Blunderbussiana. It was, in fact, a satire upon certain living artists, and the common slang of connoisseurship.

Young Mr. Beckford had been educated at home: he was quick and lively, and had literary tastes; he had a great passion for genealogy and heraldry, and studied Oriental literature. He had visited Paris, and mixed in the society of that capital, in 1778, when he met Voltaire, who gave him his blessing. He had fine taste for music, and had been taught to play the pianoforte by Mozart.

Mr. Beckford travelled and resided abroad until his twenty-second year, when he wrote in French Vathek, a work of startling beauty. More than fifty years afterwards he told Mr. Cyrus Redding that he wrote Vathek at one sitting. "It took me," he said, "three days and two nights of hard labour. I never took off my clothes the whole time. This severe application made me very ill.... Old Fonthill had a very ample loud echoing hall—one of the largest in the kingdom. Numerous doors led from it into different parts of the house through dim, winding passages. It was from that I introduced the Hall—the idea of the Hall of Eblis being generated by my own. My imagination magnified and coloured it with the Eastern character. All the females in Vathek were portraits of those in the domestic establishment of old Fonthill, their fancied good or ill qualities being exaggerated to suit my purpose." An English translation of the work afterwards appeared, the author of which Beckford said he never knew; he thought it tolerably well done.

Vathek was dramatised by the Hon. Mrs. Norton some thirty years since, and was offered to Mr. Bunn for Drury Lane Theatre, but declined; the "exquisite beauties of Mrs. Norton's metrical compositions being overloaded by a pressure of dialogue and a redundancy of scenic effects, the fidelity and rapid succession of which it would have puzzled any scene painter or mechanist to follow."—Bunn's Stage, vol ii., p. 139.

At twenty-four, Mr. Beckford married the Lady Margaret Gordon, daughter of Charles, fourth Earl of Aboyne, but the lady died in three years. In 1784 he was returned to Parliament for Wells; in 1790 he sat for Hindon; but in 1794 he accepted the Chiltern Hundreds, and again went abroad. He now fixed himself in Portugal, where he purchased an estate near Cintra, and built the sumptuous mansion, the decoration and desolation of which some years afterwards Lord Byron described in the first canto of his Childe Harold, in the stanza beginning—

There thou too, Vathek! England's wealthiest son, Once form'd thy Paradise, as not aware When wanton Wealth her mightiest deeds hath done, Meek Peace voluptuous lures was ever wont to shun. Here didst thou dwell, here schemes of pleasure plan, Beneath yon mountain's ever beauteous brow: But now, as if a thing unblest by man, Thy fairy dwelling is as lone as thou! Here giant woods a passage scarce allow To halls deserted, portals gaping wide: Fresh lessons to the thinking bosom, how Vain are pleasaunces on earth supplied; Swept into wrecks anon by Time's ungentle tide!

Many years after, Mr. Beckford published his Travels, one volume of which was An Excursion to the Monasteries of Alcobaça and Batalha. Of the kitchen of the magnificent Alcobaça, he gives the following glowing picture:—"Through the centre of the immense and groined hall, not less than sixty feet in diameter, ran a brisk rivulet of the clearest water, flowing through pierced wooden reservoirs, containing every sort and size of the finest river-fish. On one side, loads of game and venison were heaped up; on the other, vegetables and fruit in endless variety. Beyond a long line of stoves extended a row of ovens, and close to them hillocks of wheaten flour whiter than snow, rocks of sugar, jars of the purest oil, and pastry in vast abundance, which a numerous tribe of lay-brothers and their attendants were rolling out and puffing up into a hundred different shapes, singing all the while as blithely as larks in a cornfield!" The banquet is described as including "exquisite sausages, potted lampreys, strange messes from the Brazils, and others still more strange from China (viz. birds'-nests and sharks'-fins) dressed after the latest mode of Macao, by a Chinese lay-brother. Confectionery and fruits were out of the question here; they awaited the party in an adjoining still more sumptuous and spacious saloon, to which they retired from the effluvia of viands and sauces." On another occasion, by aid of Mr. Beckford's cook, the party sat down to "one of the most delicious banquets ever vouchased a mortal on this side of Mahomet's paradise. The macédoine was perfection, the ortolans and quails lumps of celestial fatness, the sautés and bechamels beyond praise; and a certain truffle-cream was so exquisite, that the Lord Abbot piously gave thanks for it."

Mr. Beckford returned to England in 1795, and occupied himself with the embellishment of his house at Fonthill. Meanwhile, he had studied Ecclesiastical Architecture, which induced him to commence building the third house at Fonthill, considering the second too near a piece of water. In 1801, the superb furniture was sold by auction; when the furniture of the Turkish room, which had cost 4,000l., realized only 740 guineas. Next year there was a sale in London of the proprietor's pictures. In 1807 the mansion was mostly taken down, when the materials were sold for 10,000l.; one wing was left standing, which was subsequently sold to Mr. Morrison, M.P., who added to it, and adapted it for a country seat.

These proceedings were, however, only preliminary to the commencement of a much more magnificent collection of books, pictures, curiosities, rarities, bijouterie, and other products of art and ingenuity, to be placed in the new "Fonthill Abbey," built in a showy monastic style. Mr. Beckford shrouded his architectural proceedings in the profoundest mystery: he was haughty and reserved; and because some of his neighbours followed game into his grounds, he had a wall twelve feet high and seven miles long built round his home estate, in order to shut out the world. This was guarded by projecting railings on the top, in the manner of chevaux-de-frise. Large and strong double gates were provided in this wall, at the different roads of entrance, and at these gates were stationed persons who had strict orders not to admit a stranger.

The building of the Abbey was a sort of romance. A vast number of mechanics and labourers were employed to advance the works with rapidity, and a new hamlet was built to accommodate the workmen. All round was activity and energy, whilst the growing edifice, as the scaffolding and walls were raised above the surrounding trees, excited the curiosity of the passing tourist, as well as the villagers. It appears that Mr. Beckford pursued the objects of his wishes, whatever they were, not coolly and considerately like most other men, but with all the enthusiasm of passion. No sooner did he decide upon any point than he had it carried into immediate execution, whatever might be the cost. After the building was commenced, he was so impatient to get it furnished, that he kept regular relays of men at work night and day, including Sundays, supplying them liberally with ale and spirits while they were at work; and when anything was completed which gave him particular pleasure, adding an extra 5l. or 10l. to be spent in drink. The first tower, the height of which from the ground was 400 feet, was built of wood, in order to see its effect; this was then taken down, and the same form put up in wood covered with cement. This fell down, and the tower was built a third time on the same foundation with brick and stone. The foundation of the tower was originally that of a small summer-house, to which Mr. Beckford was making additions, when the idea of the Abbey occurred to him; and this idea he was so impatient to realize, that he would not wait to remove the summer-house to make a proper foundation for the tower, but carried it up on the walls already standing, and this with the worst description of materials and workmanship, while it was mostly built by men in a state of intoxication.