Old Reptile was extremely attentive to all that was said, though he had heard the same stories every night for twenty years, and upon all occasions winked oracularly to his nephew to particularly mind what pa.s.sed. About ten the innocent twaddle closed by a man coming in with a lantern to light home old Bickerstaff. They were simple and happy times that Steele describes with such kindly humour; and the London of his days must have been full of such quiet, homely haunts.
Mr. R. Wells, of Colne Park, Halstead, kindly informs us that as late as the year 1765 there was a club that still kept up the name of Kit-Kat.
The members in 1765 included, among others, Lord Sandwich (Jemmy Twitcher, as he was generally called), Mr. Beard, Lord Weymouth, Lord Bolingbroke, the Duke of Queensbury, Lord Caresford, Mr. Cadogan, the Marquis of Caracciollo, Mr. Seymour, and Sir George Armytage. One of the most active managers of the club was Richard Phelps (who, we believe, afterwards was secretary to Pitt). Among letters and receipts preserved by Mr. Wells, is one from Thomas Pingo, jeweller, of the "Golden Head,"
on the "Paved Stones," Gray"s Inn Lane, for gold medals, probably to be worn by the members.
Even in the reign of James I. Shire Lane was christened Rogues" Lane, and, in spite of all the dukes and lords of the Kit-Kat, it never grew very respectable. In 1724 that incomparable young rascal, Jack Sheppard, used to frequent the "Bible" public-house--a printers" house of call--at No. 13. There was a trap in one of the rooms by which Jack could drop into a subterraneous pa.s.sage leading to Bell Yard. Tyburn gibbet cured Jack of this trick. In 1738 the lane went on even worse, for there Thomas Carr (a low attorney, of Elm Court) and Elizabeth Adams robbed and murdered a gentleman named Quarrington at the "Angel and Crown"
Tavern, and the miscreants were hung at Tyburn. Hogarth painted a portrait of the woman. One night, many years ago, a man was robbed, thrown downstairs, and killed, in one of the dens in Shire Lane. There was snow on the ground, and about two o"clock, when the watchmen grew drowsy and were a long while between their rounds, the frightened murderers carried the stiffened body up the lane and placed it bolt upright, near a dim oil lamp, at a neighbour"s door. There the watchmen found it; but there was no clue to guide them, for nearly every house in the lane was infamous. Years after, two ruffianly fellows who were confined in the King"s Bench were heard accusing each other of the murder in Shire Lane, and justice pounced upon her prey.
One thieves" house, known as the "Retreat," led, Mr. Diprose says, by a back way into Crown Court; and other dens had a pa.s.sage into No. 242, Strand. Nos. 9, 10, and 11 were known as Cadgers" Hall, and were much frequented by beggars, and bushels of bread, thrown aside by the professional mendicants, were found there by the police.
The "Sun" Tavern, afterwards the "Temple Bar Stores," had been a great resort for the Tom and Jerry frolics of the Regency; and the "Anti-Gallican" Tavern was a haunt of low sporting men, being kept by Harry Lee, father of the first and original "tiger," invented and made fashionable by the notorious Lord Barrymore. During the Chartist times violent meetings were held at a club in Shire Lane. A good story is told of one of these. A detective in disguise attended an illegal meeting, leaving his comrades ready below. All at once a frantic hatter rose, denounced the detective as a spy, and proposed off-hand to pitch him out of window. Permitted by the more peaceable to depart, the policeman scuttled downstairs as fast as he could, and, not being recognised in his disguise, was instantly knocked down by his friends" prompt truncheons.
In Ship Yard, close to Shire Lane, once stood a block of disreputable, tumble-down houses, used by coiners, and known as the "Smashing Lumber."
Every room had a secret trap, and from the workshop above a shaft reached the cellars to hurry away by means of a basket and pulley all the apparatus at the first alarm. The first man made his fortune, but the new police soon ransacked the den and broke up the business.
In August, 1823, Theodore Hook, the witty and the heartless, was brought to a sponging-house kept by a sheriff"s officer named Hemp, at the upper end of Shire Lane, being under arrest for a Crown debt of 12,000, due to the Crown for defalcations during his careless consulship at the Mauritius. He was editor of _John Bull_ at the time, and continued while in this horrid den to write his "Sayings and Doings," and to pour forth for royal pay his usual scurrilous lampoons at all who supported poor, persecuted Queen Caroline. Dr. Maginn, who had just come over from Cork to practise Toryism, was his constant visitor, and Hemp"s barred door no doubt often shook at their reckless laughter. Hook at length left Shire Lane for the Rules of the Bench (Temple Place) in April, 1824.
Previously to his arrest he had been living in retirement at lodgings, in Somer"s Town, with a poor girl whom he had seduced. Here he renewed the mad scenes of his thoughtless youth with Terry, Matthews, and wonderful old Tom Hill; and here he resumed (but not at these revels) his former acquaintanceship with that mischievous obstructive, Wilson Croker. After he left Shire Lane and the Rules of the Bench he went to Putney.
In spite of all bad proclivities, Shire Lane had its fits of respectability. In 1603 there was living there Sir Arthur Atie, Knt., in early life secretary to the great Earl of Leicester, and afterwards attendant on his step-son, the luckless Earl of Ess.e.x. Elias Ashmole, the great antiquary and student in alchemy and astrology, also honoured this lane, but he gathered in the Temple those great collections of books and coins, some of which perished by fire, and some of which he afterwards gave to the University of Oxford, where they were placed in a building called, in memory of the ill.u.s.trious collector, the Ashmolean Museum.
To Mr. n.o.ble"s research we are indebted for the knowledge that in 1767 Mr. Hoole, the translator of Ta.s.so, was living in Shire Lane, and from thence wrote to Dr. Percy, who was collecting his "Ancient Ballads," to ask him Dr. Wharton"s address. Hoole was at that time writing a dramatic piece called Cyrus, for Covent Garden Theatre. He seems to have been an amiable man but a feeble poet, was an esteemed friend of Dr. Johnson, and had a situation in the East India House.
Another ill.u.s.trious tenant of Shire Lane was James Perry, the proprietor of the _Morning Chronicle_, who died, as it was reported, worth 130,000. That lively memoir-writer, Taylor, of the Sun, who wrote "Monsieur Tonson," describes Perry as living in the narrow part of Shire Lane, opposite a pa.s.sage which led to the stairs from Boswell Court. He lodged with Mr. Lunan, a bookbinder, who had married his sister, who subsequently became the wife of that great Greek scholar, thirsty Dr.
Porson. Perry had begun life as the editor of the _Gazeteer_, but being dismissed by a Tory proprietor, and on the _Morning Chronicle_ being abandoned by Woodfall, some friends of Perry"s bought the derelict for 210, and he and Gray, a friend of Barett, became the joint-proprietors of the concern. Their printer, Mr. Lambert, lived in Shire Lane, and here the partners, too, lived for three or four years, when they removed to the corner-house of Lancaster Court, Strand.
Bell Yard can boast of but few a.s.sociations; yet Pope often visited the dingy pa.s.sage, because there for some years resided his old friend Fortescue, then a barrister, but afterwards a judge and Master of the Rolls. To Fortescue Pope dedicated his "Imitation of the First Satire of Horace," published in 1733. It contains what the late Mr. Rogers, the banker and poet, used to consider the best line Pope ever wrote, and it is certainly almost perfect,--
"Bare the mean heart that lurks behind a star."
In that delightful collection of Pope"s "Table Talk," called "Spence"s Anecdotes," we find that a chance remark of Lord Bolingbroke, on taking up a "Horace" in Pope"s sick-room, led to those fine "Imitations of Horace" which we now possess. The "First Satire" consists of an imaginary conversation between Pope and Fortescue, who advises him to write no more dangerous invectives against vice or folly. It was Fortescue who a.s.sisted Pope in writing the humorous law-report of "Stradling _versus_ Stiles," in "Scriblerus." The intricate case is this, and is worthy of Anstey himself: Sir John Swale, of Swale"s Hall, in Swale Dale, by the river Swale, knight, made his last will and testament, in which, among other bequests, was this: "Out of the kind love and respect that I bear my much-honoured and good friend, Mr.
Matthew Stradling, gent., I do bequeath unto the said Matthew Stradling, gent., all my black and white horses." Now the testator had six black horses, six white, and six pied horses. The debate, therefore, was whether the said Matthew Stradling should have the said pied horses, by virtue of the said bequest. The case, after much debate, is suddenly terminated by a motion in arrest of judgment that the pied horses were mares, and thereupon an inspection was prayed. This, it must be confessed, is admirable fooling. If the Scriblerus Club had carried out their plan of bantering the follies of the followers of every branch of knowledge, Fortescue would no doubt have selected the law as his special b.u.t.t. "This friend of Pope," says Mr. Carruthers, "was consulted by the poet about all his affairs, as well as those of Martha Blount, and, as may be gathered, he gave him advice without a fee. The intercourse between the poet and his "learned counsel" was cordial and sincere; and of the letters that pa.s.sed between them sixty-eight have been published, ranging from 1714 to the last year of Pope"s life. They are short, unaffected letters--more truly _letters_ than any others in the series."
Fortescue was promoted to the bench of the Exchequer in 1735, from thence to the Common Pleas in 1738, and in 1741 was made Master of the Rolls. Pope"s letters are often addressed to "his counsel learned in the law, at his house at the upper end of Bell Yard, near unto Lincoln"s Inn." In March, 1736, he writes of "that filthy old place, Bell Yard, which I want them and you to quit."
Apollo Court, next Bell Yard, has little about it worthy of notice beyond the fact that it derived its name from the great club-room at the "Devil" Tavern, that once stood on the opposite side of Fleet Street, and the jovialities of which we have already chronicled.
CHAPTER VII.
FLEET STREET (NORTHERN TRIBUTARIES--CHANCERY LANE).
The Asylum for Jewish Converts--The Rolls Chapel--Ancient Monuments--A Speaker Expelled for Bribery--"Remember Caesar"--Trampling on a Master of the Rolls--Sir William Grant"s Oddities--Sir John Leach--Funeral of Lord Gifford--Mrs. Clark and the Duke of York--Wolsey in his Pomp--Strafford--"Honest Isaak"--The Lord Keeper--Lady Fanshawe--Jack Randal--Serjeants" Inn--An Evening with Hazlitt at the "Southampton"--Charles Lamb--Sheridan--The Sponging Houses--The Law Inst.i.tute--A Tragical Story.
Chancery, or Chancellor"s, Lane, as it was first called, must have been a mere quagmire, or cart-track, in the reign of Edward I., for Strype tells us that at that period it had become so impa.s.sable to knight, monk, and citizen, that John Breton, Custos of London, had it barred up, to "hinder any harm;" and the Bishop of Chichester, whose house was there (now Chichester Rents), kept up the bar ten years; at the end of that time, on an inquisition of the annoyances of London, the bishop was proscribed at an inquest for setting up two staples and a bar, "whereby men with carts and other carriages could not pa.s.s." The bishop pleaded John Breton"s order, and the sheriff was then commanded to remove the annoyance, and the hooded men with their carts once more cracked their whips and whistled to their horses up and down the long disused lane.
Half-way up on the east side of Chancery Lane a dull archway, through which can be caught glimpses of the door of an old chapel, leads to the Rolls Court. On the site of that chapel, in the year 1233, history tells us that Henry III. erected a Carthusian house of maintenance for converted Jews, who there lived under a Christian governor. At a time when Norman barons were not unaccustomed to pull out a Jew"s teeth, or to fry him on gridirons till he paid handsomely for his release, conversion, which secured safety from such rough practices, may not have been unfrequent. However, the converts decreasing when Edward I., after hanging 280 Jews for clipping coin, banished the rest from the realm, half the property of the Jews who were hung stern Edward gave to the preachers who tried to convert the obstinate and stiff-necked generation, and half to the Domus Conversorum, in Chancellor"s Lane. In 1278 we find the converts calling themselves, in a letter sent to the king by John the Convert, "Pauperes Coelicolae Christi." In the reign of Richard II. a certain converted Jew received twopence a day for life; and in the reign of Henry IV. we find the daughter of a rabbi paid by the keepers of the house of converts a penny a day for life, by special patent.
Edward III., in 1377, broke up the Jewish almshouse in Chancellor"s Lane, and annexed the house and chapel to the newly-created office of Custos Rotulorum, or Keeper of the Rolls. Some of the stones the old gaberdines have rubbed against are no doubt incorporated in the present chapel, which, however, has been so often altered, that, like the Highlandman"s gun, it is "new stock and new barrel." The first Master of the Rolls, in 1377, was William Burstal; but till Thomas Cromwell, in 1534, the Masters of the Rolls were generally priests, and often king"s chaplains.
The Rolls Chapel was built, says Pennant, by Inigo Jones, in 1617, at a cost of 2,000. Dr. Donne, the poet, preached the consecration sermon.
One of the monuments belonging to the earlier chapel is that of Dr. John Yonge, Master of the Rolls in the reign of Henry VIII. Vertue and Walpole attribute the tomb to Torregiano, Michael Angelo"s contemporary and the sculptor of the tomb of Henry VII. at Westminster. The master is represented by the artist (who starved himself to death at Seville) in effigy on an altar-tomb, in a red gown and deep square cap; his hands are crossed, his face wears an expression of calm resignation and profound devotion. In a recess at the back is a head of Christ, and an angel"s head appears on either side in high relief. Another monument of interest in this quiet, legal chapel is that of Sir Edward Bruce, created by James I. Baron of Kinloss. He was one of the crafty amba.s.sadors sent by wily James to openly congratulate Elizabeth on the failure of the revolt of Ess.e.x, but secretly to commence a correspondence with Cecil. The place of Master of the Rolls was Brace"s reward for this useful service. The ex-master lies with his head resting on his hand, in the "toothache" att.i.tude ridiculed by the old dramatists. His hair is short, his beard long, and he wears a long furred robe. Before him kneels a man in armour, possibly his son, Lord Kinloss, who, three years after his father"s death, perished in a most savage duel with Sir Edward Sackville, ancestor to the Earls of Elgin and Aylesbury. Another fine monument is that of Sir Richard Allington, of Horseheath, Cambridgeshire, brother-in law of Sir William Cordall, a former Master of the Rolls, who died in 1561. Clad in armour, Sir Richard kneels,--
"As for past sins he would atone, By saying endless prayers in stone."
His wife faces him, and beneath on a tablet kneel their three daughters.
Sir Richard"s charitable widow lived after his death in Holborn, in a house long known as Allington Place. Many of the past masters sleep within these walls, and amongst them Sir John Trevor, who died in 1717 (George I.), and Sir John Strange; but the latter has not had inscribed over his bones, as Pennant remarks, the old punning epitaph,--
"Here lies an honest lawyer--that is _Strange_!"
The above-mentioned Sir John Trevor, while Speaker of the House of Commons, being denounced for bribery, was compelled himself to preside over the subsequent debate--an unparalleled disgrace. The indictment ran:--
"That Sir John Trevor, Speaker of the House, receiving a gratuity of 1,000 guineas from the City of London, after the pa.s.sing of the Orphans"
Bill, is guilty of high crime and misdemeanour." Trevor was himself, as Speaker, compelled to put this resolution from the chair. The "Ayes"
were not met by a single "No," and the culprit was required to officially announce that, in the unanimous opinion of the House over which he presided, he stood convicted of a high crime. "His expulsion from the House," says Mr. Jeaffreson, in his "Book about Lawyers,"
"followed in due course. One is inclined to think that in these days no English gentleman could outlive such humiliation for four-and-twenty hours. Sir John Trevor not only survived the humiliation, but remained a personage of importance in London society. Convicted of bribery, he was not called upon to refund the bribe; and expelled from the House of Commons, he was not driven from his judicial office. He continued to be the Master of the Rolls till his death, which took place on May 20, 1717, in his official mansion in Chancery Lane. His retention of office is easily accounted for. Having acted as a vile negotiator between the two great political parties, they were equally afraid of him. Neither the Whigs nor the Tories dared to demand his expulsion from office, fearing that in revenge he would make revelations alike disgraceful to all parties concerned."
The arms of Sir Robert Cecil and Sir Harbottle Grimstone gleam in the chapel windows. Swift"s detestation, Bishop Burnet, the historian and friend of William of Orange, was preacher here for nine years, and here delivered his celebrated sermon, "Save me from the lion"s mouth: thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorn." Burnet was appointed by Sir Harbottle, who was Master of the Rolls; and in his "Own Times" he has inserted a warm eulogy of Sir Harbottle as a worthy and pious man.
Atterbury, the Jacobite Bishop of Rochester, was also preacher here; nor can we forget that amiable man and great theologian, Bishop Butler, the author of the "a.n.a.logy of Religion." Butler, the son of a Dissenting tradesman at Wantage, was for a long time lost in a small country living, a loss to the Church which Archbishop Blackburne lamented to Queen Caroline. "Why, I thought he had been dead!" exclaimed the queen.
"No, madam," replied the archbishop; "he is only buried." In 1718 Butler was appointed preacher at the Rolls by Sir Joseph. Jekyll. This excellent man afterwards became Bishop of Bristol, and died Bishop of Durham.
[Ill.u.s.tration: WOLSEY IN CHANCERY LANE (_see page 81_).]
A few anecdotes about past dignitaries at the Rolls. Of Sir Julius Caesar, Master of the Rolls in the reign of Charles I., Lord Clarendon, in his "History of the Rebellion," tells a story too good to be pa.s.sed by. This Sir Julius, having by right of office the power of appointing the six clerks, designed one of the profitable posts for his son, Robert Caesar. One of the clerks dying before Sir Julius could appoint his son, the imperious treasurer, Sir Richard Weston, promised his place to a dependant of his, who gave him for it 6,000 down. The vexation of old Sir Julius at this arbitrary step so moved his friends, that King Charles was induced to promise Robert Caesar the next post in the clerks"
office that should fall vacant, and the Lord Treasurer was bound by this promise. One day the Earl of Tullibardine, pa.s.sionately pressing the treasurer about his business, was told by Sir Richard that he had quite forgotten the matter, but begged for a memorandum, that he might remind the king that very afternoon. The earl then wrote on a small bit of paper the words, "Remember Caesar!" and Sir Richard, without reading it, placed it carefully in a little pocket, where he said he kept all the memorials first to be transacted. Many days pa.s.sed, and the ambitious treasurer forgot all about Caesar. At length one night, changing his clothes, his servant brought him the notes and papers from his pocket, which he looked over according to his custom. Among these he found the little billet with merely the words "Remember Caesar!" and on the sight of this the arrogant yet timid courtier was utterly confounded. Turning pale, he sent for his bosom friends, showed them the paper, and held a solemn deliberation over it. It was decided that it must have been dropped into his hand by some secret friend, as he was on his way to the priory lodgings. Every one agreed that some conspiracy was planned against his life by his many and mighty enemies, and that Caesar"s fate might soon be his unless great precautions were taken. The friends therefore persuaded him to be at once indisposed, and not venture forth in that neighbourhood, nor to admit to an audience any but persons of undoubted affection. At night the gates were shut and barred early, and the porter solemnly enjoined not to open them to any one, or to venture on even a moment"s sleep. Some servants were sent to watch with him, and the friends sat up all night to await the event. "Such houses," says Clarendon, who did not like the treasurer, "are always in the morning haunted by early suitors;" but it was very late before any one could now get admittance into the house, the porter having tasted some of the arrears of sleep which he owed to himself for his night watching, which he accounted for to his acquaintance by whispering to them "that his lord should have been killed that night, which had kept all the house from going to bed." Shortly afterwards, however, the Earl of Tullibardine asking the treasurer whether he had remembered Caesar, the treasurer quickly recollected the ground of his perturbation, could not forbear imparting it to his friends, and so the whole jest came to be discovered.
[Ill.u.s.tration: IZAAK WALTON"S HOUSE (_see page 82_).]
In 1614, 6 12s. 6d. was claimed by Sir Julius Caesar for paving the part of Chancery Lane over against the Rolls Gate.
Sir Joseph Jekyll, the Master of the Rolls in the reign of George I., was an ancestor of that witty Jekyll, the friend and adviser of George IV. Sir Joseph was very active in introducing a Bill for increasing the duty on gin, in consequence of which he became so odious to the mob that they one day hustled and trampled on him in a riot in Lincoln"s Inn Fields. Hogarth, who painted his "Gin Lane" to express his alarm and disgust at the growing intemperance of the London poor, has in one of his extraordinary pictures represented a low fellow writing J.J. under a gibbet.
Sir William Grant, who succeeded Lord Alvanley, was the last Master but one that resided in the Rolls. He had practised at the Canadian bar, and on returning to England attracted the attention of Lord Thurlow, then chancellor. He was an admirable speaker in the House, and even Fox is said to have girded himself tighter for an encounter with such an adversary. "He used," says Mr. Cyrus Jay, in his amusing book, "The Law," "to sit from five o"clock till one, and seldom spoke during that time. He dined before going into court, his allowance being a bottle of Madeira at dinner and a bottle of port after. He dined alone, and the unfortunate servant was expected to antic.i.p.ate his master"s wishes by intuition. Sir William never spoke if he could help it. On one occasion when the favourite dish of a leg of pork was on the table, the servant saw by Sir William"s face that something was wrong, but he could not tell what. Suddenly a thought flashed upon him--the Madeira was not on the table. He at once placed the decanter before Sir William, who immediately flung it into the grate, exclaiming, "Mustard, you fool!""
Sir John Leach, another Master of the Rolls, was the son of a tradesman at Bedford, afterwards a merchant"s clerk and an embryo architect. Mr.
Canning appointed him Master of the Rolls, an office previously, it has been said, offered to Mr. Brougham. Leach was fond, says Mr. Jay, of saying sharp, bitter things in a bland and courtly voice. "No submission could ameliorate his temper, no opposition lend asperity to his voice."
In court two large fan shades were always placed in a way to shade him from the light, and to render Sir John entirely invisible. "After the counsel who was addressing the court had finished, and resumed his seat, there would be an awful pause for a minute or two, when at length out of the darkness which surrounded the chair of justice would come a voice, distinct, awful, solemn, but with the solemnity of suppressed anger--"the bill is dismissed with costs."" No explanations, no long series of arguments were advanced to support the conclusion. The decision was given with the air of a man who knew he was right, and that only folly or villainy could doubt the propriety of his judgments. Sir John was the Prince Regent"s great adviser during Queen Caroline"s trial, and a.s.sisted in getting up the evidence. "How often," says Mr.
Jay, "have I seen him, when walking through the Green Park between four and five o"clock in the afternoon, knock at the private door of Carlton Palace. I have seen him go in four or five days following."
Gifford was another eminent Master of the Rolls, though he did not hold the office long. He first attracted attention when a lawyer"s clerk by his clever observations on a case in which he was consulted by his employers, in the presence of an important client. The high opinion which Lord Ellenborough formed of his talents induced Lord Liverpool to appoint him Solicitor-General. While in the House he had frequently to encounter Sir Samuel Romilly. Mr. Cyrus Jay has an interesting anecdote about the funeral of Lord Gifford, who was buried in the Rolls Chapel.
"I was," he says, "in the little gallery when the procession came into the chapel, and Lord Eldon and Lord Chief Justice Abbott were placed in a pew by themselves. I could observe everything that took place in the pew, it being a small chapel, and noted that Lord Eldon was very shaky, and during the most solemn part of the service saw him touch the Chief Justice. I have no doubt he asked for his snuff-box, for the snuff-box was produced, and he took a large pinch of snuff. The Chief Justice was a very great snuff-taker, but he only took it up one nostril. I kept my eye on the pinch of snuff, and saw that Lord Eldon, the moment he had taken it from the box, threw it away. I was sorry at the time, and was astonished at the deception practised by so great a man, with the grave yawning before him."
When Sir Thomas Plumer was Master of the Rolls, and gave a succession of dinners to the Bar, Romilly, alluding to Lord Eldon"s stinginess, said, "Verily he is working off the arrears of the Lord Chancellor."
At the back of the Rolls Chapel, in Bowling-Pin Alley, Bream"s Buildings (No. 28, Chancery Lane), there once lived, according to party calumny, a journeyman labourer, named Thompson, whose clever and pretty daughter, the wife of Clark, a bricklayer, became the mischievous mistress of the good-natured but weak Duke of York. After making great scandal about the sale of commissions obtained by her influence, the shrewd woman wrote some memoirs, 10,000 copies of which, Mr. Timbs records, were, the year after, burnt at a printer"s in Salisbury Square, upon condition of her debts being paid, and an annuity of 400 granted her.
Wilberforce"s unscrupulous party statement, that Mrs. Clark was a low, vulgar, and extravagant woman, was entirely untrue. Mrs. Clark, however imprudent and devoid of virtue, was no more the daughter of a journeyman bricklayer than she was the daughter of Pope Pius. She was really, as Mr. Cyrus Redding, who knew most of the political secrets of his day, has proved, the unfortunate granddaughter of that unfortunate man, Theodore, King of Corsica, and daughter of even a more unhappy man, Colonel Frederick, a brave, well-read gentleman, who, under the pressure of a temporary monetary difficulty, occasioned by the dishonourable conduct of a friend, blew out his brains in the churchyard of St.
Margaret"s, Westminster. In 1798 a poem, written, we believe, by Mrs., then Miss Clark, called "Ianthe," was published by subscription at Hookham"s, in New Bond Street, for the benefit of Colonel Frederick"s daughter and children, and dedicated to the Prince of Wales. The girl married an Excise officer, much older than herself, and became the mistress of the Duke of York, to whom probably she had applied for a.s.sistance, or subscriptions to her poem. The fact is, the duke"s vices were turned, as vices frequently are, into scourges for his own back. He was a jovial, good-natured, affable, selfish man, an incessant and reckless gambler, quite devoid of all conscience about debts, and, indeed, of moral principle in general. When he got tired of Mrs. Clark, he meanly and heartlessly left her, with a promised annuity which he never paid, and with debts mutually incurred at their house in Gloucester Place, which he shamefully allowed to fall upon her. In despair and revengeful rage the discarded mistress sought the eager enemies whom the duke"s careless neglect had sown round him, and the scandal broke forth. The Prince of Wales, who was as fond of his brother as he could be of any one, was greatly vexed at the exposure, and sent Lord Moira to buy up the correspondence from the Radical bookseller, Sir Richard Phillips, who had advanced money upon it, and was glorying in the escapade.