Chapter XXI: Part 21

“That he hath commenced Causeless Suits against his Parishioners in the Court of Star-Chamber, the Court of High Commission, the Court of Audience, the County Court of Devon, the Consistory Court at Exeter, all at once, and hath had above fourtie severall Suits at one time, and above eightie of his Parishioners and others in Suite at one time, and having by vexatious Suits utterlie undone divers of them, their wives and children.

“That he hath had four Bills in the Star-Chambre depending at one time against fourty of his Parishioners, where some have depended twelve yeers, and thereby compelled his Parishioners to travell to London, tearmely from Bradworthie, being 200 miles distant.

* * * * *

“That divers of his Parishioners have several Times been enforced to give Compositions to him, whereof some have payed to him £40, some ten, some four pounds, some lesse, at his pleasure to redeem them from oppression and causeless Suits.

“That he hath prosecuted Nicolas Eliot with unjust and causeless suits this twenty yeers and upward, to his damage above £500, and hath utterly undone him, his wife and children, and hath kept him excommunicate for these two years last past.

“That he hath of meere malice ... undone Robert Judd, his wife and children, by taking wrongfully from them his lands and goods to the value of above £300, not leaving him worth one mouthful of Bread; and in this extreme Povertie did cast into Prison the said Robert Judd, and excommunicated him this eight yeers last past; and the said Judd doth still stand unabsolved, notwithstanding there is no cause against him; nor did his malice cease there, for he hath prosecuted Robt. Judd’s children to their imprisonment and ruine.

“That he having about six or seven yeers since agreed with Anthony Nicholl, one of his Parishioners, for fourteen shillings per annum, in lieu of the Tithes of his Tenement, did notwithstanding shortly after sue Nicholl and threaten him that unless he would give him Twenty shillings per annum, and £5 for so quiet a composition, he would make him spend more yeerly than the Rent of his Tenement, and so forced Nicholl to a new Agreement, and gave him a note under his hand, that for 20 shillings per ann. he should, etc.... Yet two yeers after the latter Agreement he sued Nicholl and forced him to compound by paying 24 shillings per annum, and £5 for his Love.

“That for 3^d due he sued Richard Snowe, in the Consistorie at Exeter, and put him to £4 or £5 charge about it.

“That he suborned Gabriel Williams of Torrington to enforce actions against his Parishioners.

“So he forced William Cann, John Bishop, Richard Lile, Lewis Dennis, Robert Terdrew, John Yee, to come to composition with him.

“That he hath affirmed that if his Chancell were full of Gold and Silver, he would spend it all to be avenged of his Enemies, and that he would never give over his Parishioners with Suits, untill he lay down like a Hare before the Hounds.

“He dealt with one Christopher Pugsley to poyson four of his Parishioners, Thomas Vigers, Richard Facye, Robert Bishop, and Thomas Boundye, and gave 20^s 6^d to said Pugsley to buy Ratsbane with promise of Money upon the Fact committed, which Pugsley attempted three Times, and besides there is more than Suspicion that he poysoned his Predecessor’s Wife, whose Estate he had, and was tied to maintain her during her Life.

“That he Conspired to cause the Death of his Predecessor Twiggs.

“That he carried a Pistoll to kill Mr. Thomas Vigurs then in Suit with him, and did threaten Thomas Woodroffe, a Minister.

“That he dealt with Pugsley to burn the Barn and Corn Mowes of Samuel Chappell.

“That he committed divers Forgeries since he hath been Vicar of Bradworthie.

“That during his Absence above 7 yeers since he left Matthew Lile, a Miller, to read Prayers in Church, and since then Philip Natt, a Taylor.

“That he causeth Dorothie Lang, his daughter, to catechise in Church.

“That being required to baptize a child, he bade the Woman to cast a Dish of Water in the face of the child, and call it _John_ or _Joan_, in the Name of, etc., and this would be well enough. Which Child lived more than 10 weeks after and died unbaptized.

“That he obtained a Licence to sell Wine, and hath kept a Tavern in the Vicarage for four yeers.

“That a Child being baptized, the Woman that held the Child softly and modestly requested him to put back the Child’s Head-covering; he answered, ‘Go thy Wayes home, and teach thy Maid to whip her Cat.’

“That being requested by a parent to christen her child, he answered, ‘What, wilt thou have me christen thy Old Sow?’

“That he affirms the Book of Canticles to be but a kind of bawdy Song.

“That he never preacheth or catechiseth in the Afternoon on Sabbath Days, but goes to the Alehouse, and makes himself so drunk that he can neither go nor stand.” When this was published William Lang was a prisoner in London.

That there is considerable exaggeration in these charges--I have not given all--goes without saying, but that there was a strong case against the vicar nevertheless cannot be doubted. The facts of his legal proceedings against his parishioners were indisputable; the surmises that he had poisoned Mr. and Mrs. Twigg are worthless. That his daughter catechized in church is harmless enough; it is what is done by many a parson’s daughter nowadays where there is no Sunday-school room.

Reckless charges and complaints against the clergy whom their parishioners did not like were eagerly received by the Parliament on one side and by the King on the other. Thus Larkham, the intruding vicar of Tavistock, was petitioned against, and the petition put into the King’s own hand, with twenty-four articles against him, imputing faction, heresy, witchcraft, rebellion, and treason. This was in 1639 or 1640.

Mark Twigg, the vicar, was buried on 9 November, 1622, and seems to have been a son of Ralph Twigg, of Lawhitton, and Joan, daughter of John Cory, of Putford. His widow was buried by Lang in 1638, so that if Lang had the charge of her he endured it for sixteen years. The wife of W. Lang was Helen Hockin; he married her in 1607.

Lang was succeeded by Elias Eastaway in 1641. He was buried 10 June, 1646, when his son, of the same name, quietly stepped into his place. This Elias married Penelope Cleverdon on 25 March, 1647-8; and his daughter, Elizabeth, was baptized 23 January, 1647, before they were married, and she was buried 30 June. Elias had a son of the same name baptized 14 November, 1649, and a daughter in 1652, another son, Elias, in 1653, and a son, Richard, in 1656, and a daughter, Margaret, 1659.

Elias was quite ready to conform, so as to retain his living, at the Restoration, though he had been a burning and a shining light among the Puritans. He held the living till his death in 1680. He had been instituted 10 January, 1648-9, only a few days before the execution of the King.

WILLIAM COOKWORTHY

Augustus was about to indulge the Romans in a great series of spectacles, races in the circus, gladiatorial shows in the arena, and theatrical performances, all gratis, free and for nothing. Down came the rain in torrents all night. The streets were swimming, the Tiber swelled and rolled down a volume of yellow water. The good folks of Rome were in despair. But when morning dawned the skies cleared, the sun shone forth, the streets dried as by magic, and the shows were carried out with the utmost splendour. At night on the palace wall was scrawled in chalk:--

It rained all night, the day was bright,
Jove and Augustus share All-might.

Augustus was flattered and asked who had written these lines. Presently a poetaster, Bathylus, stood forward and confessed that he was the author, and was rewarded most liberally. Next night, the same lines were written on the wall, and under them the line: “I wrote the verse, another claimed the fame,” and underneath four times repeated “Sic vos non vobis,” or “Thus you, but not for you.” Bathylus was sent for and required to complete the lines. He scratched his head, turned red, and declared his inability to do this. Then from the throng came a tall, swarthy man, modest in his bearing, and wrote in chalk:--

Sic vos non vobis nidificatis aves,
Sic vos non vobis velera fertis oves,
Sic vos non vobis melificatis apes,
Sic vos non vobis fertis aratra boves.

That may be rendered thus:--

Thus you, but not for you, birds build their nest,
Thus you, but not for you, ye sheep in fleeces drest,
Thus you, but not for you, ye bees the honey drain,
Thus you, but not for you, ye oxen ploughing strain.

He who wrote this was P. Virgilius Maro, and Bathylus became the laughing-stock of Rome.

_From the original portrait by Opie in the possession of Edward Harrison, Esq., of Watford_]

I tell this story because up to a certain point it illustrates the fortunes of William Cookworthy. At the present day many hundreds of men live in ease and happiness through the discovery of china-clay by Cookworthy, but he himself reaped no advantage by what he discovered.

The town of St. Austell in Cornwall may be said to live on china-clay that is exported to the Staffordshire potteries. Before the discovery by Cookworthy, it was not known that the kaolin, the essential ingredient of porcelain, was to be found anywhere, except in China. But Cookworthy, who has put bread into the mouths of thousands, who created the manufacture of porcelain in England out of home-produced kaolin, reaped not a penny advantage from his discovery.

Kaolin is found elsewhere, in Devon, on the fringe of Dartmoor. Now, the visitor to Plymouth, as he passes by the head of the Laira, will see a milk-white stream flow past the line. It is the overflow from the kaolin works at Lee Moor. Cookworthy did not, however, discover the china-clay on the borders of Dartmoor, where it abounds.

China-clay or kaolin is obtained from highly decomposed granite, and consists of the disintegrated and metamorphosed felspar of that rock. Often on the outskirts of the granitic masses of Cornwall the rock is so decomposed by the percolation of rain-water holding carbonic acid in solution that the granite may be dug with a spade to the depth of twenty feet or more. China-stone also is found similarly composed of disintegrated granite, and contains quartz as well as kaolin. It is used in the manufacture of glaze for earthenware. From S. Austell, where three thousand persons are engaged in raising and cleaning the kaolin, something like forty thousand tons are annually exported to Staffordshire for the manufacture of porcelain. But it is employed also largely in the calico-weaving districts as the principal ingredient in sizing and loading calico. It is also used in paper manufacture for the highly glazed and smooth sheets employed for illustrations.

But to come to William Cookworthy. He belonged to a Quaker family of Kingsbridge. His grandfather, William Cookworthy, married Susanna Wearmouth in 1669, and died in 1708. His father, a weaver, also William Cookworthy, born in 1670, married Edith Dobell in 1704, and died in 1718. William the third Cookworthy was born in 1705. After the father’s death the widow was left in straitened circumstances, and received assistance from the Friends’ Monthly Meeting. Although reduced to poverty, with a family of seven children, the eldest only fourteen years old, the widow struggled bravely through her difficulties. William, the eldest son, was apprenticed after his father’s death to the firm of Bevan, chemists and druggists, London, also Quakers. At the close of his apprenticeship, with the assistance of his employers, he set up for himself as a wholesale chemist and druggist at Plymouth, the firm being entitled Bevan and Cookworthy, and the place of business was in Notte Street, and here he lived for many years, and there died.

“He was in many respects a remarkable man, and his life is one of the most illustrious examples of men who have risen of which England can boast. Emphatically self-made, he had none of the foibles which frequently mark the characters of those who have been the architects of their own fortunes. An industrious man of business, a shrewd and painstaking inventor, deeply versed in the science of the day, valued in society for his geniality and power of conversation, he was at the same time one of the simplest and devoutest of Quakers, and an enthusiastic believer in the views of Swedenborg. He was a firm believer in the divining rod, and left a treatise on its uses. In short, Cookworthy was a man of many sides, but always genial, courageous, and persevering; a man who won the respect and esteem alike of high and low by his strict integrity, wide sympathies, and varied powers; one who, having set his hand to the plough, was not ready to turn back.”[36]

In 1735, at the age of thirty, Cookworthy married Sarah Berry, of a Somerset Quaker family; and about this time he assumed the peculiar dress of the Society, a drab suit and a broad-brimmed hat, and became more accentuated in the phraseology adopted by the sect. He was an absent-minded man. One Sunday, in Exeter, on leaving the house of a friend, a physician, to go to meeting, as the rain was streaming down, he took down a cloak that was hanging in the hall and threw it over his shoulders, little noticing that this was not his own, but that of the owner of the house. In those days a physician’s walking costume was a scarlet cloak, with a gold-headed cane. In this garb Cookworthy strolled into meeting, and into the Ministers’ Gallery to the scandal of all the Friends assembled, but quite unconscious of his transformation.

On another occasion he was on his way to attend the quarterly meeting of the sect at Exeter, and halted at Ashburton to refresh himself and his horse. After having lunched, he took up a copy of _Sir Charles Grandison_, in seven volumes, began to read, read on and on, finished one volume, took up the next, forgot all about his purpose of going to Exeter, and was found by the Friends on their return from that town, and the conclusion of the meeting, still immersed in Samuel Richardson’s novel. As novel-reading is forbidden in the Society, no doubt but that poor Cookworthy was severely reprimanded, and prayed for as a back-slider.

Porcelain in China has a high antiquity, and must have been made there at least 1250 years before it was manufactured in England; it was introduced into Europe in 1518, when it acquired the name of _China_. For a long period it was supposed that the fine white clay consisting of silica and alumina, and called by the Chinese _Kaolin_, was found only in the Celestial Empire, and specimens brought to Europe fetched a high price. At the beginning of the eighteenth century it was discovered in Saxony in an odd way. A merchant named Schnorr, being on a journey, was struck with the whiteness of some clay near Schneeburg, and collecting some of it, thinking it might be employed instead of wheaten flour for the manufacture of hair powder, used it for this purpose. It succeeded, but had this disadvantage, that wigs dressed with the new hair powder were very heavy. An apothecary named Bötcher noticed the increased weight of his wig and instituted inquiries, when he found that the new material used was precisely that which was required for the manufacture of porcelain; and Dresden china was begun to be made by him in 1709, and was carried on with the greatest secrecy, and the exportation of the earth was forbidden under heavy penalties.

In 1745, Cookworthy heard that a similar clay had been discovered in Virginia, and sent a Quaker to procure some for him. Somewhere about 1748 he himself discovered it in Cornwall. He wrote: “I first discovered it in the parish of Germo, in a hill called Tregonnin Hill.” After a long description of the properties of the clay and his experiments upon it, he says: “I have lately discovered that in the neighbourhood of the parish of S. Stephen’s, in Cornwall, there are immense quantities both of the Petunse stone and the Kaulin, and which I believe may be more conveniently and advantageously wrought than those of Tregonnin Hill, as by experiments I have made on them they produce a much whiter body, and do not shrink so much in baking, nor take stains so readily from the fire. S. Stephen’s lies between Truro, S. Austell and S. Columb; and the parish of Dennis, the next to S. Stephen’s, I believe, hath both the ingredients in plenty in it.”

The same materials were afterwards found at Boconnoc, the seat of the Hon. Thomas Pitt, afterwards created Lord Camelford. This discovery led to an acquaintance with Thomas Pitt, and together they obtained a patent in 1768 and started the Plymouth China Factory, that brought the manufacture of porcelain to great perfection; but for some reason did not yield profit to the patentees.

In precisely the same year kaolin was discovered at St. Yrīeix, near Limoges. The wife of a surgeon there had used it for the purpose of bleaching linen, when her husband, suspecting its real value, took it to Bordeaux, and on trial it was found to be the very thing needed as a base to real hard porcelain. The manufactory of Sèvres which had used imported Chinese clay, now employed that of St. Yrīeix; and the Limoges manufacture of porcelain was then started.

After six years’ trial, outlay, and discouragement, the Plymouth China Works were removed to Bristol and the patent was assigned to Richard Champion, a connexion by marriage of the Cookworthy family. The endeavour to make the porcelain manufactures there a paying concern failed as it had at Plymouth, and Champion removed his works to Staffordshire, where the fuel was close at hand. The Bristol patent-right was transferred to a company of six partners. Champion received through Burke, who was then in office, the appointment of Deputy-Paymaster of the Forces, in 1782, when he left Staffordshire, but on a change of Ministry he lost the post, and went to America, where he died in 1787. Neither his family, nor that of Cookworthy, ever received any benefit from the important art and industry they had been the means of establishing. William Cookworthy died on the 17th October, 1780. Among the worthies celebrated in the memorial windows of the Plymouth town hall is “William Cookworthy, Chemist and Potter, the discoverer of the English China-clay, and the first maker in England of true Porcelain.”

Abundant information relative to Cookworthy exists.

_Memoir of William Cookworthy_, by his Grandson, G. H. Harrison. London, 1854.

_Relics of William Cookworthy_, by John Prideaux. London, 1853.

“William Cookworthy and the Plymouth China Factory,” by R. N. Worth, in the _Transactions_ of the Devonshire Association, 1876.

_William Cookworthy_, by Theodore Compton. London, 1894.

Strangely enough, though Cookworthy has not received the recognition due to him as a discoverer. Ure, in his _Dictionary of Arts and Manufactures_ (London, 1853), makes no mention of him. Nor does Tomlinson in his _Cyclopædia of Useful Arts and Manufactures_, London, 1854; nor did Marryatt in the first edition of his _History of Pottery_ in 1850. But Cookworthy has received due acknowledgment in the _Dictionary of National Biography_.

WILLIAM JACKSON, ORGANIST

The autobiography of William Jackson was printed and published for the first time in the _Leisure Hour_, 1882. It is not of much personal interest, as it concerns almost exclusively his musical education and his travels abroad. For instance, concerning his marriage, it is dismissed with the curt remark, “At twenty-three I married.” Nevertheless it affords us some particulars which we might have sought for in vain elsewhere.

He informs us: “Of my family I know nothing but that for many generations they were farmers at Morleigh, an obscure place in the south-west of Devon. It seems trifling to add that all the Jacksons in Devonshire have a family face and person. What mine was may be known by a picture by Rennell, painted at twenty years of age; one by Gainsborough at forty; another by Keenan at seventy. I recollect also sitting for a miniature to Humphrey, for a portrait in crayon to Morland, and for two in oil to Opie.” He goes on to say: “My grandfather Richard Jackson was a serge-maker in Exeter, lived creditably, and acquired what in those days was considered a fortune. He left many children. My father, William, was his second son, to whom he gave a good school education, but not inheriting the prudence of his predecessor, he soon dissipated his little fortune.”

_The celebrated Composer late Organist of the Exeter Cathedral._

_Enchanting harmonist the art is thine,
Unmatch’d to pour the soul dissolving air
That seems poor weeping Virtues hymn divine,
Soothing the wounded bosom of Despair._

_Published as the Act directs April 25, 1819 by Messrs. Hurst Robinson & Co. 90 Cheapside._]

William Jackson of Exeter was born on 28 May, 1730 and began his education at seven, which was continued till he was sixteen. He did not begin his musical studies till twelve years old, when he became a chorister in Exeter Cathedral. He displayed a decided taste for music.

“From a subordinate member of the choir at Exeter I learnt two or three common airs, such as are given to beginners. This was the whole of my instruction for three years which I received from others; by my own assiduous practice I could perform Handel’s organ concertos and some of Corelli’s sonatas--in a wild, irregular manner, no doubt. As yet I was a stranger to any but my own poor performance, when I was carried to hear a young lady, who, among other pieces, played the overture of _Otho_.”

In 1748 he removed to London, where he passed two years under the tuition of John Travers, organist to the King’s Chapel and to St. Paul’s, Covent Garden, and an eminent song composer. He then returned to his native place, where he settled for life as a teacher, professor, and composer of music. He soon attained reputation and employment; but it was not till 1777 that he succeeded to the places of sub-chanter, organist, lay vicar, and master of the choristers in the cathedral. His talents in musical composition were first made known in 1775, when he printed a collection of twelve songs that speedily became popular.

Whilst a boy in London, “In or about 1746,” he says, “the oratorio of _Judas Maccabeus_ was first performed. I squeezed in among the chorus singers, and was remarked by Handel when he entered, as a stranger. ‘Who are you?’ says he. ‘Can you play? Can you sing? If not, open your mouth and pretend to sing; for there must be no idle persons in my band.’ He was right. However, in the course of the evening, by turning his leaf and some other little attentions, there became some sort of intimacy between us, so that I gained admittance to the frequent repetitions of this oratorio.”

Jackson made the acquaintance and gained the friendship of Gainsborough. Of him he says: “His profession was painting, music was his amusement,” and the reverse might be said with equal truth of Jackson. Each undertook to instruct the other in his own art, and Jackson rather prided himself on his paintings than on his music. In his volume of essays, _The Four Ages_, he gives his reminiscences of Gainsborough, and they are amusing. His account can here be briefly summed up:--

“There were times when music seemed to be his employment, and painting his diversion. When I first knew him he lived at Bath, where Giardini had been exhibiting his then unrivalled powers on the violin. His performance made Gainsborough enamoured of that instrument; and conceiving, like the servant maid in the Spectator, that the music lay in the fiddle, he was frantic until he possessed himself of the very instrument which had given him so much pleasure--but seemed much surprised that the music of it remained behind with Giardini.

“He had scarcely recovered this shock when he heard Abel on the viol-di-gamba. The violin was hung on the willow--Abel’s viol-di-gamba was purchased, and the house resounded with melodious thirds and fifths. Many an adagio and many a minuet were begun, but never completed. This was wonderful, as it was Abel’s _own_ instrument, and therefore _ought_ to have produced Abel’s own music.

“Fortunately, my friend’s passion had now a fresh object--Fischer’s hautboy; but I do not recollect that he deprived Fischer of his instrument, though he procured a hautboy.

“The next time I saw Gainsborough he had heard a harper at Bath. The performer was soon left harpless, and now Fischer, Abel, and Giardini were all forgotten--there was nothing like chords and arpeggios.

“More years passed, when, upon seeing a Theorbo in a picture of Van Dyck, he concluded that the Theorbo must be a fine instrument.” But Theorbos were no more played. The nearest approach to one was a lute. On inquiry Gainsborough ascertained that there was a poor German professor who performed on the lute, living in a garret. To him went the artist full of eagerness. The lute he must have. The poor man was reluctant to part with it; but finally sold it for ten guineas.

“But I must have the book of airs for the instrument,” said Gainsborough; “the instrument is no good without the book.” After much haggling, at last the German parted with the music-book for another ten guineas. “In this way,” says Jackson, “Gainsborough frittered away his musical talents, and though possessed of ear, taste, and genius, he never had application to learn his notes.”

Another acquaintance of Jackson’s was Sir Joshua Reynolds. Of him he says: “Whatever defects a critical eye might find in his works, a microscopic eye could discover none in his heart. If constant good-humour and benevolence, if the absence of everything disagreeable, and the presence of everything pleasant, be recommendations for a companion, Sir Joshua had these accomplishments.”

Of Jackson’s musical powers it is not necessary to speak. Details concerning his compositions may be found in Grove’s _Dictionary of Music_, and his songs “Love in thine eyes for ever dwells,” “Take, O take those lips away,” and “Time hath not thinned my flowing hair,” are still not quite dead. His “Te Deum in F” rang through every village church in England.

He made many visits to London, and returned each time more dissatisfied with Exeter, to which he was bound by his occupation as organist of the cathedral, and by his family.

The Literary Society of Exeter and its environs was not inconsiderable in number. Several of the resident clergy, some physicians and other gentlemen, had instituted what they called “The Exeter Society.” They proposed to rival, by volumes of their own, the _Transactions_ of the Manchester Society, whose occasional appearance had attracted some notice. But a committee sitting judicially on the contributions of their neighbours and of each other nearly broke up their friendly intercourse.

In this “Exeter Society” from the first Jackson had declined to enrol himself as a member. He kept aloof; he took no interest in their enterprise. He kept on good terms with the members, not entering into friendship with any, but also keeping free from their rivalries and contentions.

He was known throughout England as “Jackson of Exeter.” This was because, on the publication of his first set of songs, he had described himself as “William Jackson of Exeter” to distinguish himself from another Jackson who was a musician at Oxford. The last twenty years of his life were passed in a voluntary seclusion. A good many regretted this; he supposed that his talents made him an object of jealousy in the petty world of a cathedral city. He was not made as much of there as he deemed that he deserved. Few strangers, however, visited Exeter without seeking an introduction to this eminent man; and his door was always open to those young men who were of a poetical cast of mind. Even Dr. Wolcot, the venomous Peter Pindar, had a kindly word to say for him in verse. His favourite composer of words for his songs was one Bampfylde, a Devonshire poet, whose sonnets have never been collected, and which would not commend themselves to modern taste. Rendal, a polished versifier, composed for him a series of fairy personifications, with distinct scenery and appropriate action, to introduce new combinations of music. The fays were in caverns, on lakes, on a volcano, among glaciers, in the billows of the sea, in groves lit by the evening star. The music of the “Fairy Fantasies,” as these were called, was one of the latest compositions of Jackson.

Jackson occupied and amused himself with literary compositions. His _Thirty Letters_ touched on many interesting points of art, literature, and philosophy.

In _The Four Ages_ he put together a collection of various articles and stories. The volume took its title from the leading essay, in which he showed that the opinion of the Ancients as to a sequence of Golden, Silver, Brass, and Iron Ages should be inverted--that early man began in the Iron Age, and that society and culture were rapidly progressing to the Golden Age.

Dr. Burney said with severity, yet not without some truth, of Jackson: “He has never been remarkable for sailing with the tide of general opinion on any occasion. He would, perhaps, suppose the whole universe rather than himself to be in the wrong, in judging of any of the arts.” The critic ascribed his perverse ingenuity to “prejudice, envy, a provincial taste, or perhaps all together, which prevented his candid attention.”

He possessed a certain amount of wit, but it was of a cumbrous nature. On one occasion, being called upon at a public dinner for a toast, he said: “I have great pleasure, Mr. Chairman, in complying with your command, and give you the opening words of the third Psalm.” The chairman, astonished at the inappropriateness of the idea, stopped the musician short by exclaiming: “Oh, fie, Mr. Jackson! the beginning of a Psalm as a convivial toast?”

“Yes, sir, unless you can suggest a better. I give you _Lord How_.”

But what humour he had acidulated into sarcasm, as he could not move musically with the times. He could not advance out of the restricted circle of his own ideals, which was very narrow. To such a mind, Gothic architecture could only exhibit “an incongruous mass of absurdities--it is a false style, only showing the want of skill in the builders in mixing forms which cannot accord.”

He was greatly incensed that the public appreciated the music of Haydn, Mozart, and even Handel, whose strains were “an imposition of the feelings drawn from illegitimate sources.” Why could not English ears rest satisfied with Greene and Boyce and Blow? He affected to smile on “musical expression,” which he considered so contemptible that fantastic Germans were only capable of attempting it. Did the poet ask, “What passion cannot music raise or quell?” I ask in turn, What passion _can_ music raise or quell? Poets or musicians can only produce different degrees of pure pleasure, and when they have produced this last effect they have attained the utmost in the power of poetry or music. Jackson published his _Observations on the Present State of Music in London_ in 1791, in which he gave vent to his spleen. Dr. Burney replied, “And must we go to Exeter to ask Mr. Jackson how to please and be pleased? Are we to have no music in our concerts but elegies and balads? Mr. Jackson’s favourite style of music has been elegies, but what is an elegy to a tragedy or to an epic poem? He sees but one angle of the art of music, and to that all his opinions are referred. His elegy is no more than a closet in a palace.”

The great Handel Commemoration in Westminster Abbey in 1784 affected the organist of Exeter Cathedral with an attack of the spleen, from which he seems never to have recovered. At first, when that gigantic project was announced, he declared it to be impracticable, for that so stupendous a band, composed of many hundred instruments, could produce only a universal and deafening clash. When, however, the miracle succeeded, he took exception at the selection of pieces that had been performed. Lest Handel should obtain an exclusive triumph, he protested that there were other musicians beside Handel who deserved to be heard, and merited as high honours as were accorded to him. In 1790 came Haydn to London, and the cup of Jackson’s wrath overflowed. His ear could not endure the lively melodies and gorgeous effects of _The Creation_. It was then, in the rage of his heart, that he published his _Observations_. Artists and amateurs, according to him, who welcomed the ravishing music of Haydn were taking “their present musical pleasure from polluted sources.” And on his accustomed principle and in his usual style he declared that, “judging of the sensations of others by his own, the public is not pleased with what it applauds with rapture.”

Jackson entertained the greatest contempt for the physicians of his day, and perhaps not unjustly. He imagined that all the diseases to which man is heir are produced by misconduct and intemperance, and that they could be resisted by sobriety; and prevention, said he, was better than cure. His decision, persevered in, of using only abstinence, when his constitution was broken, precipitated his end. He died of asthma on 5 July, 1803, and was buried in S. Stephen’s Church, Exeter, where is a tablet to his memory, with a eulogistic description of his talents and attainments, written by his friend, William Kendall. The tablet also records the death of his widow, his daughter Mary, and four sons. One of his sons was ambassador to the King of Sardinia, and afterwards to Paris and Berlin. His eldest son, William, at an early age entered the service of the East India Company, and was secretary to Lord Macartney in his embassy to China. He amassed a considerable fortune in India, and married Frances, the only plain daughter of Charles Baring, of Courtlands, near Exmouth. One of the other daughters married Sir Stafford Northcote, Bart., of Pynes, another Sir Samuel Young, Bart., of Formosa Place, on the Thames. William purchased Cowley Barton, where he built Cowley House. The design is said to have been suggested by his father, as bearing some resemblance to an organ front. He was High Sheriff of Devon in 1806. He died in 1842, without leaving any issue.

Among William Jackson’s musical compositions was a setting of Pope’s elegy, _Vital Spark of Heavenly Flame_, which was sometimes used as an anthem, and has been known to be given out by a clerk in a village church thus: “Let us sing to the praise and glory of God--Poppy’s Legacy.”

The authorities for Jackson’s life are:--

Grove’s _Dictionary of Music_.

_A Dictionary of Musicians._ London, 1827.

The autobiography already referred to in _The Leisure Hour_, 1882.

“Jackson of Exeter,” in the _New Monthly Magazine_ for 1832.

G. Townsend, “William Jackson,” in _Transactions_ of the Devonshire Association, 1882.

The _Dictionary of National Biography_, etc.

JOHN DUNNING, FIRST LORD ASHBURTON

At Walkhampton is an old farm called Guatham that had pertained for several generations to the family of Dunning, originally well-to-do yeomen, but not dignified enough to be recorded as bearing arms at the Heralds’ Visitation of 1620. In 1661 Richard Dunning, in a deed, mentions his mother, Wilmot, his sister Mary, and his brother, John Dunning. His wife was Mary, and he had besides his sister Mary another, Margaret, who married Edward Gould, gent., of Pridhamsleigh, in Staverton; the marriage settlement was dated 7 February, 14 Charles II (1662). She died shortly after her marriage, and was buried at Staverton 26 April, 1662, where was erected a brass to her memory bearing the inscription:--

Here lies the gentle Margaret
A pearl in Gold right meetly set.

Her brother Richard held Guatham, and wrote himself “Gentleman.” He was the author of a tract published in the year 1686, in which he described the condition of the poor of the county. Macaulay says:--

“That he understood his subject well it is impossible to doubt; for a few months later his work was reprinted, and was, by the magistrates assembled in quarter sessions at Exeter, strongly recommended to the attention of all parochial officers. According to him the wages of the Devonshire peasant were, without food, about five shillings a week.”

Richard died s.p.

_Sir Joshua Reynolds pinxt._ _F. Bartolozzi sculpt._

LORD ASHBURTON]

John Dunning, brother of the pamphleteer, lived with Mary, his wife, at Guatham. After eleven years of married life he died in 1706, leaving four sons and three daughters. The second of their sons who attained manhood was born in 1701, and bore his father’s name of John. He was bred to the law, and having married Agnes, daughter of Henry Jutsham, of Old-a-Port, in Modbury, settled down as an attorney at Ashburton, probably drawn there by the representations of his uncle Edward Gould. He settled into a house at Gulwell, in the parish of Staverton, a stone’s-throw from the boundary of Ashburton.

This attorney Dunning had a son John born on 18 October, 1731. Attorney Dunning now moved into Ashburton into a house in West Street, where he resided till his death, which took place in 1780. Day by day in his youth did the ugly, ungainly boy John Dunning trudge to the school of Ashburton, occupying the ancient chapel of S. James. This chapel had been decorated with large coats-of-arms in plaster, coloured periodically, of benefactors. Above the master’s desk at the east end were the arms of Ashburton. The other coats were Harris, Gould, Blundell, and Young. As the urchin, ugly as an imp from the abyss, sat on his form looking up at the great blue and gold lion of the Goulds--his uncle’s coat--did it ever flash across his mind that he might eventually, like the cuckoo, kick them out of their nest and gather all their property into his own hands?

At the early age of thirteen he left school and was taken into the paternal office for five years’ service as an articled clerk. Here he acquired the neat and formal hand that distinguished his writing through life.

One of Attorney Dunning’s clients was Sir Thomas Clarke, Master of the Rolls, who employed him as agent to his property about Ashburton. An incident in his stewardship led to important consequences. A legal instrument was prepared by the young John Dunning, who forwarded it to Sir Thomas in his father’s absence, and was accordingly taken to task by his father for his presumption. A letter was dispatched in hot haste to the client, apologizing for the errors which it was feared must be found in a draft prepared by a lad under nineteen, and which his father had not been allowed opportunity of revising. Greatly to the parent’s relief, however, the distinguished lawyer expressed himself perfectly satisfied with the document, and volunteered to push the young man in his profession, and incur the sole charge of fitting him for a career at the Bar. Under this patron’s auspices young Dunning, in the twenty-first year of his age, was entered as a student at the Middle Temple on 8 May, 1752. In turn he made acquaintance with Kenyon, afterwards Lord Kenyon, who succeeded Lord Mansfield on the King’s Bench; also Horne Tooke, who addressed to Dunning that _Letter on the English Particle_, which was afterwards expanded into _The Diversions of Purley_. Out of term these three friends dined together at a little eating-house near Chancery Lane at the modest charge of 7-1/2d. each. Tooke and Dunning would generously add to this a penny for the waitress; but the more thrifty Kenyon rewarded the girl with a halfpenny, and sometimes with the promise to remember her next time.

After four years Dunning was called to the Bar in July, 1756, and betook himself to the Western Circuit, but with little success, owing mainly to his forbidding appearance. Polwhele declares that “had Lavater been at Exeter in 1759, he must have sent Counsellor Dunning to the hospital for idiots. Not a feature marked him for the son of wisdom.” He was stunted in growth, his limbs were misshapen, and his features mean and the general expression repellent. Horne Tooke was wont to tell a story illustrative of Dunning’s personal appearance. On one occasion Thurlow wished to see him privately, and went to the coffee-house that he frequented and inquired of the waiter whether Mr. Dunning was there. The waiter, who was new to the place, said that he did not know him. “Not know him!” roared Thurlow with a volley of oaths. “Go into the room upstairs, and if you see a gentleman there like the Knave of Clubs, tell him that he is particularly wanted.” The waiter did as desired, and returned promptly with Dunning. He alone seemed to be unaware of his own ungainly appearance. One story is told of this when he was retained in defence in an assault case, and his object was to disprove the identity of the person named by an old woman as the aggressor. Abandoning his usual tactics of browbeating the witness, he commenced the cross-examination with much gentleness.

“Pray, my good woman,” he inquired, “are you thoroughly acquainted with this person?”

“O, yes, sir; very well indeed.”

“Come now, describe him to me. Was he short or tall?”

“Stumpy, sir; almost as much so as your honour.”

“Humph! What kind of nose had he?”

“Snubby, as I should say, just like your own, sir, only not cocked up quite so much.”

“Humph! His eyes?”

“Well now, he has a kind of cast in them, sir, a sort of a squint very much like your honour’s eyes.”

“Psha! You may go down.”

In or about 1768 John Dunning was retained in a case of murder. The story told is this:--

Edward Gould, of Pridhamsleigh, died in 1736, and as he was the last of the elder branch of the family, he left all his lands in Staverton, Ashburton, Holne, Widdecombe-on-the-Moor, and Chudleigh to William Drake Gould, of Lew Trenchard, the representative of the next branch, who was then a minor. This William Drake Gould died in 1766, and all his estates devolved on his only son Edward, born in 1740. Edward was a spendthrift and a gambler. One evening he had been playing late and deep, and had lost every guinea he had about him. Then he rode off, put a black mask over his face, and waylaid the man who had won the money of him, and on his appearance, challenged him to deliver. The gentleman recognized him and incautiously exclaimed, “Oh! Edward Gould, I did not think this of you!”

“You know me, do you?” was his reply, and Edward shot him dead. Then he rode to Pridhamsleigh, reversed his horse’s shoes, and sped across Dartmoor to Lew Trenchard.

Now there had been a witness, a man who had seen Edward take up his position, and who, believing him to be a highwayman, had secreted himself and waited an opportunity to effect his escape. Edward Gould was tried for the murder. Dunning was engaged to defend him. It was essential to weaken or destroy the testimony of the witness. On the day of the trial he cross-questioned this same witness sharply.

“How can you be sure that the man on the horse was Mr. Gould,” asked Dunning, “when, as you say, it was past midnight?”

“Sir, the full moon shone on him. I recognized his horse. I knew his coat. Besides, when he had shot the other he removed the mask.”

“The full moon was shining, you assert?”

“Yes, your honour. I saw his face by the clear moonlight.”

“Pass me a calendar,” said the judge. “Who has got a calendar?”

At that time almanacs were not so plentiful as they are now. As it happened, no one present possessed one. Then Dunning said, standing up:--

“My lord, I had one yesterday, and put it, I believe, in my overcoat pocket. If your lordship will send an apparitor into the ante-room to search my pocket, it may be found.”

The calendar was produced. There was no moon on the night of the murder. The evidence against the prisoner broke down, and he was acquitted.

Dunning on the previous day had purchased an almanac, removed the sheets containing among others the month and those preceding and following it, and had had the calendar reprinted, altering the moons so that there might be none on the night in question.

This was considered at the time a clever and sharp bit of practice of Mr. Dunning; it occurred to no one that it was immoral.

This story rests entirely on tradition, but the tradition lived both at Lew Trenchard and at Ashburton. I have been unable to find any record in the Assize Rolls, but then I do not know whether the murder took place in Devon, as the tale goes, or elsewhere, so that I cannot be sure that the trial took place in Exeter, or perhaps at Bath.

Dunning lent Edward Gould large sums. These were repaid every now and then by his mother, but they amounted to so great a sum, all the estates about Ashburton, Widdecombe, Holne, and Staverton being mortgaged, that finally Dunning foreclosed and secured all. Edward Gould retired to end his days in lodgings in Shaldon.

Lew Trenchard would have been lost like the rest had not Edward Gould’s mother secured it by a lease of ninety-nine years.

Dunning had already made his mark before this came on to enhance his fame as an astute lawyer, if the story be true. He had made it in this way:--

After the French had been driven from their settlements in Hindustan, the Dutch East India Company, jealous of the advanced power of their English rivals, addressed a remonstrance against the violation of their privileges as neutrals, alleging sundry acts of interruption of their trade that they held to be unjustifiable. This was presented to Lord Bute, then Prime Minister, and he called on the English company to reply. The drawing up of the counter memorial was confided to John Dunning as a subtle, shrewd, and not scrupulous pleader. It succeeded, and he was rewarded with a fee of five hundred guineas. Seven years had now passed since Dunning’s call to the Bar, and five of these had been years of famine. In 1766 he became Recorder of Bristol, and in 1767 was appointed Solicitor-General. In 1768 he was elected member for Calne, and his entry into Parliament was hailed as a great gain to the Whig party.

“Among the new accessions to the House of Commons at this juncture,” writes Lord Mahon, “by far the most eminent in ability was John Dunning.... He was a man both of quick parts and strong passions; in his politics a zealous Whig. As an orator, none ever laboured under greater disadvantages of voice and manner; but those disadvantages were most successfully retrieved by his wondrous power of reasoning, his keen invective, and his ready wit. At the trial of the Duchess of Kingston for bigamy, when he appeared as counsel against her Grace, Hannah More, who was present, thus describes him: ‘His manner is insufferably bad, coughing and spitting at every word, but his sense and expression pointed to the last degree. He made her Grace shed bitter tears.’”

The case of the Duchess came on upon 17 April, 1776, in Westminster Hall, and lasted five days. As a girl she had been married in a frolic at night in a ruined church; but the Spiritual Court had decreed that this was no proper marriage.

Regarding herself as free, she had married the Duke of Kingston, who died and bequeathed his large fortune to her. At once those who had expected to obtain the inheritance began to stir, and had the unfortunate Duchess tried for bigamy. John Dunning was counsel against her. She belonged to an ancient Devonshire family, but that did not concern him; she was an unfortunate widow beset by foes--that mattered not to him, he attacked her in the grossest manner. As the judges refused to accept the sentence of the Spiritual Court, a conviction of course followed, and she fled from England secretly, to escape being branded in the hand and imprisoned. The hawking and spitting of John Dunning were not due to any complaint, but were tricks he had acquired and had not laboured to master. The herald to an approaching speech from Dunning was a series of laboured and noisy efforts to clear his throat. When speaking his head waggled as if he were afflicted with palsy, and he had the trick of raising his arms to his breast, extending his hands in front of him and flapping them, or paddling with outspread palms, moving them with a rapidity corresponding to the wagging of his tongue. “We have heard it said by those who have seen him while thus employed, that his whole appearance reminded them of some particular species of flat-fish which may occasionally be seen hanging alive outside the fishmongers’ shops, the body wholly motionless, but certain short fins in front vibrating up and down incessantly. To others the exhibition suggested the idea of a kangaroo seated on its hind legs, and agitating its forepaws in the manner that animal is wont to do. All, however, add, that it is only at the first glance they are susceptible of anything about him approaching to the ridiculous. After listening to him for a very few minutes, the attention became wholly engrossed by what he said, and all consciousness of his awkward gesticulations was entirely absorbed in the interest aroused by his discourse.”[37]

Sir William Jones says of his oratory: “His language was always pure, always elegant; and the best words dropped easily from his lips into the best places with a fluency at all times astonishing, and when he was in perfect health, really melodious. His style of speaking consisted of all the turns, appositions, and figures which the old rhetoricians taught, and which Cicero frequently preached, but which the austere and solemn spirit of Demosthenes refused to adopt from his first master, and seldom admitted into his orations.”[38]

In the House of Commons, Dunning pursued an enlightened policy. He advocated the Roman Catholic Relief Bill, he was opposed to the policy of the Government in prosecuting the war with America. He bitterly and savagely opposed sinecure offices, yet no sooner was he raised to the peerage than he accepted one for himself, that of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, with the enormous pension of £4,000 per annum. He had as Solicitor-General acquired the then unprecedented sum of £10,000 per annum. As money-lender he had obtained estates that brought him in large sums; but he ravened for more.

It is not my purpose to follow his political career, but to confine myself to his private life. The days of sevenpenny dinners in the Chancery Lane eating-house were left behind. He unbent after labours of the day in the Literary Club founded by Johnson in 1764, where he met Goldsmith and Sir William Jones, Reynolds, his fellow Devonian, who twice painted his portrait, Gibbon, and Burke. That Johnson and he entertained a mutual admiration is evinced by a conversation recorded by Boswell. “I told him,” says the biographer, “that I had talked of him to Mr. Dunning a few days before, and had said that in his company we did not so much as interchange conversation as listen to him; and that Dunning observed upon this, ‘One is always willing to listen to Dr. Johnson.’ To which I answered, ‘That is a great deal for you, Sir.’ ‘Yes, Sir,’ (said Johnson), ‘a great deal indeed. Here is a man willing to listen, to whom the world is listening all the rest of the year.’”

Dunning now purchased for £4700 the residue of a lease of ninety-nine years of the manors of Spitchwick and Widdecombe. In a letter to his sister he says that the length to which his lease would run would be sixty-three years. It was actually eighty-eight; and he made a very good bargain by the purchase. He built the ugly house at Spitchwick where had formerly stood a chapel of S. Laurence, and did much planting. He had an old servant, John Hext, brought up to London by him from Ashburton. One day the man was late in attendance. “What has delayed thee, John?” asked Dunning. “I was listening to a man playing on the crowd.” “Crowd! crowd! John, that word is dead and buried; say a violin.” On another occasion John Hext, remembering his orders, was remonstrated with by his master for waiting about at the Temple Gate. “I was only waiting,” said John, “till the violin of the people had gone by.”