Threescore and Ten Years, 1820 to 1890
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1820 TO RECOLLECTIONS THREESCORE AND TEN YEARS 1820 TO 189O RECOLLECTIONS BY il!*^* W. J. LINTON NEW YOEK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1894 COPYRIGHT, 1894, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 629343 CONTENTS PAGE I. Death, CHAPTER Earliest Kecollections ; Stratford; III. Caroline Hone and Cruik- of George ; Queen ; Press State Lotteries Coin- shank ; Gangs ; ; Copper age; Cheap Illustrated Serials; Scott's Poems and House . ". Novels School ; Wanstead .1 ; Days II. Dulwich The CHAPTER Apprenticeship ; College ; The Cruikshanks Hood Picture Gallery ; ; ; Henry Hunt Old London Richard ; Bridge ; City Sights ; Carlile Jonathan Wooler Grievances ; ; Popular ; . Fairs . , . 8 Carlton House CHAPTER III. Church Services; Landor; ; First Perversion First Friend W. J. ; My ; Huggins, Marine Painter to William IV.; Duncan; Wade; * * Home . - . -- .16 CHAPTER IV. W. J. Fox; Southwood Smith; Eliza Sarah Flower Adams W. B. Adams Wat- Flower ; ; ; The Poor Man's Move- son ; Hetherington ; Guardian; for a Free Press wood Moore Hibbert 24 ment ; Hey ; ; Charter CHAPTER V. The People's ; Major Cartwright ; Men's Association Crown and The London Working ; The Chartist Convention O'Con- Anchor Conference ; ; nor The Odd Fellow Watson 32 ; Spies ; ; Hetherington ; Lovett and Collins Bronterre CHAPTER VI. ; Cooper ; Outbreak in Wales Frost Pro- O'Brien ; O'Connor ; ; ; test against Death Punishment; Carlyle; Fairfield Festival Hunt . 40 ; Leigh iii iy CONTENTS CHAPTER VII. The Hewitts; Tennyson; The Toyn- The Bandieras bees; Mazzini; Worcell; Stolzman; ; at the Post Office Carlisle Election . 48 Letter Opening ; CHAPTER VIII. Partnership with John Orrin Smith; Artists and Work; Illustrated London News ; Ingram; Punch; Jerrold; Leech; The Doyles; Lady Morgan 55 CHAPTER IX. William and David Scott; Wells; Sibson 61 CHAPTER X. Bennoch & Twentyman; Haydon; Mead- ows; Henning; Other Artist Friends; Hall's Book of Ballads; The National, a Library for the People; Instruction Chartist In- Mutual Society ; Meetings ; stitute of the Fine Arts ...... 71 CHAPTER XI. Ebenezer Jones ; Our Visit to the Lake A Tour in Scotland London Life Country ; ; again ; Prosecutions for Haslam A Blasphemy ; ; Shelley ; Characteristic Incident ; The Queen's Bench Prison ; Powell; Koebuck; Thomas 79 CHAPTER XII. Hugh Williams; Rebecca and her Daugh- ters; With Sibson in Wales; Travel Eisks; St. Ives; Boulogne; Miteside; Brantwood . .89 CHAPTER XIII. The Peoples' International League; The Three of Address to Days February ; Congratulatory France; With Mazzini in Paris; George Sand; Lamen- nais TJie Cause the ; of People 98 CHAPTER XIV. A with the Irish in the Day ; Writing Irish Nation; Charles Gavan Duffy; Conversations with Carlyle; Carlyle and Duffy on Linton; Misrep- resentations of Mazzini . ; Carlyle's Worth 107 CHAPTER XV. Leigh Hunt and His Family; On TJie Spectator; Going to Miteside; The Leader ; Thornton Hunt ; G. H. Larken W. E. Forster Minter Lewes; ; ; Lausanne Mazzini Morgan ; ; ; Herzen ; Lamennais ; Forbes . ; George Combe ; Kobert Owen 116 CONTENTS V PAGE CHAPTER XVI. The English Republic; The Plaint of Freedom; Walter Savage Landor; Duffy; Carlyle; Cowen Other Deceased British Joseph ; Helpers ; Painters and other Work; Moxon; Visitors and Friends; Physicians 124 XVII. Possessions To the CHAPTER My ; Stolzman; Top of Scawfell 132 CHAPTER XVIII. The Poles at Liverpool; Meeting at Herzen Bakounine . 138 Hanover Square ; ; XIX. Worcell Mazzini American CHAPTER ; ; Sympa- thy; Grant 148 XX. Norwood Colonel Keid Slo- CHAPTER ; ; Babbage ; O'Connell Frances man; Cobden; ; Wright; Owen; Oastler Paxton Place Per- Landor ; Browning ; ; ; ; ronet Thompson; P. A. Taylor; Hickson; Ebenezer Elliott; George Dawson; F. W. Newman; J. H. Newman Dickens ; Epps ; Bowring ; ; Holyoake ; Bradlaugh 155 XXI. Euskin John Der- CHAPTER ; Forster; Eobson; went Coleridge; Wordsworth; Dr. Davy; Harriet Mrs. Millner Gibson Martineau; ; Mediums; Dupotet; Kossuth Medici The Hills Mrs. ; ; Rouge ; ; Craik ; Dobell; Rossetti; Swinburne; Barmby; Thorn; The Chartist Epic; Robert Montgomery; Lover; G. S. Reid 166 Phillips ; Hughes ; Mayne .... CHAPTER XXII. Millais and other Artists The ; Foggos; Wornum; Sibson; Torn Landseer; George Cruik- shank Orsini Kiallmark ; Tennyson ; ; ; Richard Lane Flatou Garth Wilkinson Gilchrist Linnell ; ; ; ; ; Sykes 176 CHAPTER XXIII. Alfred Stevens; Young Mitchell; Wehnert The . ; Wellington Monument 183 yi CONTENTS FAQE CHAPTER XXIV. Garibaldi in Sicily; The British Le- de Eohan . gion ; Captain 189 CHAPTER XXV. The Theatres; Charles Kemble; Mac- Braham Pasta Grisi and Mario Lablache ready ; ; ; ; ; Schroeder Devrient The Staudigl ; ; Keeleys ; Mrs. Nesbit Mrs. Glover Ellen Tree Vestris ; ; ; ; Tyrone Power Charlotte Jefferson Edwin ; Cushman ; ; Booth; Amateur Acting; Barnard Modjeska; ' Greg- : - ory ... -'v' . 194 CHAPTER XXVI. Francis Train Bunker Hill George ; ; Herbert to New York In- Spencer ; Voyage ; Cooper stitute Peter A. S. Hewitt Dr. Simmer ; Cooper ; ; ; Frank Leslie; Squier; Cluseret; Pelletier; Aaron Powell; Wendell Phillips; The Fosters; Theodore Parker Edmund Davis Lands Colonisa- ; ; Kentucky ; tion in Montana Frederick . 202 ; Douglas ; Negro Bones CHAPTER XXVII. American Poets Stedman ; Bryant ; ; Stoddard; Mrs. Stoddard; Bayard Taylor; Lowell; Whittier Emerson Alcott Whitman Longfellow ; ; ; ; ; Mrs. Bret Harte Fre- Howe; Anthony; ; Whipple ; mont; Agassiz; Other Notables; Tilden; Madame A. T. Stewart and Cuba Gen- Blavatsky ; ; Cespedes ; eral Butler Sumner Anderson Adams . ; ; ; ; Page 213 Late Years British Museum Aus- CHAPTER XXVIII. ; ; tin Dobson Excursions Paris and B. F. ; ; Oxford ; Stevens words . ^. ; Closing ...'-. 225 KECOLLECTIONS RECOLLECTIONS CHAPTER I Earliest Recollections; Stratford; Death of George HE.; Queen Caroline Hone and Cruikshank Press State Lotteries ; ; Gangs ; ; Copper Coinage; Cheap Illustrated Serials; Scott's Poems and School Wanstead House. Novels; Days ; SOME vague remembrance I still have of the house in which I was born (December 7, 1812) and in which I lived till I was five years old: one of " " a row of private houses, Ireland's Row in the Mile-End Road, at the east end of London, close to Charrington's brewery, a brewery I believe still prosperously existing. The house was in the parish of Stepney, the parish for all folk born at sea. My real recollections begin with 1820, the year in which George III. ceased to be nominal king of England. My family was then living at Stratford, some four miles out of what was distinctly London in those " days : not Chaucer's Stratford atte Bowe," where the prioress learned French (which is now only Bow), but a continuation distinguished of old as " Long Stratford, one of the fords for folk to dance over my Lady Lea," fords bridged over in my time B 1 2 THREESCORE AND TEN YEARS by, I think, four bridges between Old Bow Church and Stratford proper, now a busy railroad centre then a straggling hamlet of the parish of West Ham, where in old time had been an abbey, and connected with it one of the largest and handsomest churches in England. Early in 1820 I was one evening walking with my father in our garden, a garden in which we showed with pride two almost unknown " vegetables, rhubarb (American pie-plant ") and sea- kail, when we heard the far sound of a deep-toned bell. It was the great bell of St. Paul's Cathedral, only used on the most solemn of State occasions. " My father spoke : The old king is dead." Next I recollect being in the City, on a visit to some relations, and seeing daily the processions of the city companies (the old-time guilds) passing through the streets with banners and bands of music on their way westward to Hammersmith to present their loyal addresses to Queen Caroline, who, denied her place at court, was there living. For her, if only out of censorious disrespect for the royal husband who rejected her, public sympathy was very strongly evoked. It did not even need her acquittal by the packed and partial tribunal to which she was shamefully dragged by the sovereign profligate to make all that was liberal in England take part with her against him. The queen's cause was also taken advantage of as an anti-governmental policy, calling forth William Hone's political pasqui- nades, in illustration of which the genius of George RECOLLECTIONS 3 Cruikshank first made its appearance. Shelley's (Edipus Tyrannus (Swellfoot the Tyrant, alias gouty George IV.) had its impulse in the same conflict. My father was what was then called " a Queen's Man," and of course took in Hone's pamphlets, The House that Jack built, The Man in the Moon, The Political Showman, The Queens Matrimonial Ladder, and several others. Some of relics of old are before fierce them, days, me now ; but clever, the cuts by Cruikshank not unworthy of his after fame. I can not charge my memory with any observation of them in that childish period of life but I must have seen them whether then my ; interested or not. Not long afterwards was the queen's funeral : on the 7th of June in that year 1820. It was said that she died heart-broken at her disappointment in not being able to obtain admittance to Westminster Abbey, to there insist on her right of coronation as undivorced queen. Refusing her even a grave in England, her body was ordered to be conveyed to Brunswick to be buried there among her own kin- folk. An attempt was made to smuggle the removal through the by-streets of London, but the people barred the way and forced the cortege through the principal thoroughfares. Two, there may have been three, mourning coaches, escorted by a few mud- " bespattered horse-guards, the Oxford Blues," formed the funeral procession as it passed through Stratford, passing my father's door, on the way to 4 THREESCORE AND TEN YEARS the port of Harwich. It was the shabbiest notable funeral I ever saw. Very different had been the funeral of Nelson, on which occasion my father as a volunteer kept on Ludgate Hill the way of the solemn procession to St. Paul's, where under the central dome the greatest English admiral since Blake was buried with the utmost honour that could be rendered to the victorious and heroic sailor.