decide whether continental kings were to draw their
swords at the magical word " Subsidy ; " upon whom
a few were looking with sorrow in the belief that he
had forfeited the pledge he had given when England
and Ireland became an United Kingdom, and whom
the many regarded as the pilot who had come to his
senses, and who could now be trusted with the vessel
A FKELUDE. 43
of the state in the becalmed waters of intolerance.
Soon was the minister walking side by side with the
sovereign, who, courageous as he was, had a dread of
his great servant till he had manacled him. It was
something to me, even this once, to have seen Mr,
Pitt. The face and figure and deportment of the
man gave a precision to my subsequent conception of
him as one of the realities of history. The immo
bility of those features, the erectness of that form,
told of one born to command. The loftiness and
breadth of the forehead spoke of sagacity and firm
ness the quick eye, of eloquent promptitude the
nose (I cannot pass over that remarkable feature,
though painters and sculptors failed to repro
duce it), the nose, somewhat twisted out of the
perpendicular, made his enemies say his face was as
crooked as his policy. I saw these characteristics,
or had them pointed out to me afterwards. But the
smile, revealing the charm of his inner nature that
was to win the love of his intimates, but it was not
for vulgar observation.
Loudly and rapidly did his Majesty always talk as
the royal cortege moved up and down, amidst the
double line of his subjects duteously bowing or curt
seying, and graciously rewarded with nods and smiles
from Queen and Princesses when any familiar face
was recognised. " How do you do, Dr. Burney ? " said
the King, " Why, you are grown fat and young ! Why,
you used to be as thin as Dr. Lind." What mattered
it to Dr. Lind, who was close at hand, that crowds,
noble or plebeian, should then direct their eyes to the
tall gentleman, who is described by Dr. Burney as " a
mere lath " ? From my early years was the person
well known to me of that good physician. He inter-
44 EARLY REMINISCENCES :
csted me, as I learnt that he had been round the
world with Captain Cook. He had stood at my bed
side with another friend, Mr. Battiscomb, the royal
apothecary, as I hovered between life and death ;
when, as my good nurse afterwards told me, she
thought it was all over, for they shook their heads
and talked Latin. Miss Burney writes of Dr. Lind,
in 1785, " He is married and settled here, and follows,
as much as he can get practice, his profession ; but
his taste for tricks, conundrums, and queer things,
makes people fearful of his trying experiments upon
their constitutions, and think him a better conjuror
than physician." He has often charmed me with a
sight of his " queer things." Mr. Hogg has, within
the last few years, given currency to a somewhat
incredible story that Shelley imputed to Dr. Lind
his initiation, when an Eton boy, into the reasons
for hating kings and priests, even as the Wind
sor physician hated them. Perhaps Shelley, who
was credulous in worldly matters, as are most scep
tics in religion, believed that the mysterious little
books which Dr. Lind printed from characters which
he called "Lindian Ogham," cut by himself into
strange fashions from battered printing types which
my father gave him, were the secret modes by which
the illuminati corresponded, even under the very eye
of the Court. I doubt whether he were conjuror
enough to make the shrewd George III. mistake
covert Jacobinism for ostentatious loyalty.
There were eminent men living at Windsor and in
the neighbourhood, from whom I occasionally ob
tained glimpses of knowledge beyond my ordinary
routine of imperfect scheol instruction. My father
took me to see the great telescope of Dr. Herschel at
A PRELUDE. 45
Slough. The clear explanations of the celebrated
astronomer filled me with wonder, if they went be
yond my comprehension. The venerable philosopher,
Jean Andre de Luc (I believe it was somewhat later),
showed me a galvanic pile which he had constructed,
and astonished me by causing the mysterious agency
to ring a little bell. M. Porny, who had been French
master at Eton, and whose grammar and exercises
my father printed for the London publishers, would
occasionally come to see us, and would talk with a
kindly interest about my small acquirements. I have
an earlier remembrance of another amiable foreigner,
the Rev. Charles de Guiffardiere, for whom my father
was printing a French work on Ancient History for the
private use of the Royal Family a gentleman whom
Miss Burney held up to ridicule in her Diary, as Mr.
Turbulent. But must I confess it ? I am inclined
to believe that the stage did for the enlargement of
my mind something more than school lessons some
thing more than these rare opportunities of listening
to the conversation of men of learning and ability.
From my eighth year upwards, I could always obtain
a free admission to that smallest of playhouses, the
Theatre Royal of Windsor, where Majesty oft was
delighted to recreate itself with hearty laughs at the
comic stars of sixty years since. Tragedy was not to
the King s taste. Miss Burney has recorded how he
appreciated the dramatist whose Hamlet and Bene
dick were sometimes here personated by Elliston ;
and whose Richard III. Cooke coarsely but powerfully
enacted on this stage : " Was there ever such stuff
as great part of Shakspere ? only one must not
say so ! But what think you ? What ? Is there not
sad stuff? What? What?" George III. has had
46 EARLY REMINISCENCES I
supporters in this opinion where we might scarcely
look for them. I have heard one such heretic, whose
intellectual dimensions would appear gigantic in
comparison with those of the King, say of the writer
of the sad stuff, " D and I always call him Silly
Billy." The publicity of which I have spoken was,
in the Windsor Theatre, carried to its extremest
limit. That honoured playhouse no longer exists.
The High Street exhibits a dissenting chapel on its
site, whose frontage may give some notion of the
dimensions of that cosy apartment, with its two tier
of boxes, its gallery, and its slips. It was not an
exclusive theatre. Three shillings gave the entrance
to the boxes, two shillings to the pit, and one shilling
to the gallery. One side of the lower tier of boxes
was occupied by the Court. The King and Queen
sat in capacious arm-chairs, with satin playbills
spread before them. The orchestra, which would
hold half a dozen fiddlers, and the pit, where some
dozen persons might be closely packed on each bench,
separated the royal circle from the genteel parties in
the opposite tier of boxes. With the plebeians in the
pit the Royal Family might have shaken hands ; and
when they left, there was always a scramble for their
satin bills, which would be afterwards duly framed
and glazed as spoils of peace. As the King laughed
and cried, " Bravo, Quick ! " or " Bravo, Suett ! " for
he had rejoiced in their well-known mirth-provoking
faces many a time before, the pit and gallery clapped
and roared in loyal sympathy : the boxes were too gen
teel for such emotional feelings. As the King, Queen,
and Princesses retired at the end of the third act, to
sip their coffee, the pot of Windsor ale, called Queen s
ale, circulated in the gallery. At eleven o clock the
A PRELUDE. 47
curtain dropped. The fiddles struck up "God save the
King;" their Majesties bowed around as the house
clapped ; and the gouty manager, Mr. Thornton, lead
ing the way to the entrance (carrying wax-lights and
walking backward with the well-practised steps of a
Lord Chamberlain), the flambeaux of three or four
carriages gleamed through the dimly lighted streets,
and Royalty was quickly at rest.
Our theatre was only open at the Eton vacations.
But there, whether the King and Queen were present
or not, I obtained something like a peep into the outer
world the world beyond the little orb of my country
town. For the Royal Windsor was essentially a country
town of the narrowest range of observation, and the
tiniest circle of knowledge. The people vegetated,
although living amidst a continual din of Royalty
going to and fro of bell-ringing for birthdays of
gun-firing for victories of reviews in the Park of
the relief of the guard, with all pomp of military
music of the chapel bell tolling twice a day,
unheeded by few besides official worshippers of
crowding to the Terrace on Sunday evenings of
periodical holidays, such as Ascot races and Egham
races of rare festivities, such as a fete at Frogmore.
The " loyal," or the " independent " voters of Wind
sor, as they were styled in election bills by rival can
didates, were fierce in their partisanship, but there
was no real principle at the root of their differences.
Through 1801 they were preparing, by rounds of
treating, for an expected election, which occurred in
1802 ; when the Court candidate was returned by a
large majority, and the one who bribed highest of
two "independent" candidates was also returned,
but was finally unseated by a parliamentary com-
48 EARLY REMINISCENCES .
mittee. Those who did not receive bribes were never
scrupulous about administering them. Corruption
was an open and almost a legitimate trade, as I occa
sionally learnt from the talk of those around me.
The Court was an indirect party to the corruption, by
installing two of the most influential of the plebeian
partisans into the snug retirement of the ancient
foundation of the Poor Knights of Windsor. The
institution had lost its character of "Milites Pau-
peres ;" and tailors and victuallers were not held to
desecrate it. In spite of all this laxity of political
morals, the people amongst whom I was thrown
were, for the most part, of honourable private cha
racter. It was a period when there was less compe
tition amongst tradesmen than in the present day.
There were, consequently, fewer of what we now
regard as the common tricks of trade. They sold the
article which they professed to sell ; and were
offended if they were asked to abate their price.
The few gentry were patronising, with a certain
friendliness. The many clergy of the two colleges
had somewhat haughty brows under their shovel
hats, but were charitable and not very intolerant.
The distinction between the trading and the profes
sional classes was not so nicely preserved as it is now.
Respectability was the quality more aimed at by the
attorney and the doctor than what we call gentility ;
and respectability did not mean the pretension of
keeping a gig or a footman display for the world,
and meanness for the household.
One of the most vivid of my recollections of this
period, and indeed of some years after, is that of
the extremely easy mode in which the majority of
the trading classes struggled with the cares of obtain-
A PRELUDE. 49
ing a livelihood. It is not within my remembrance
that anybody worked hard. The absence of extreme
competition appeared to give the old settlers in the
borough a sort of vested interest in their occupations ;
and if sometimes a stranger came amongst them,
with lower prices and lower bows, he would be
regarded as an intruder on the fertile close, who
would soon come to the end of his tether. It was
the same with the attorneys and the apothecaries.
Those who had to preserve a genteel appearance
spent an hour each day under the hands of the
hair-dresser. Every morning the hair was powdered,
the queue was unrolled and rolled up again, the
gossip was talked, the evening paper was glanced
at, and by eleven the good man was behind his
counter. There were a few of the oldest school who
closed their hatch when they went to their noonday
dinner, and no importunity would induce them to
open it. When the baker had drawn his afternoon
batch, he took off his red cap and washed his bald
head, put on his flaxen wig, and sallied forth to spend
his long evening in his accustomed chair at the ale
house, which had become his second home. Some had
a notion that they secured custom to the shop by a
constant round among the numerous hostelries. I
knew a most worthy man, occupying a large house
which his forefathers had occupied from the time of
Queen Anne, who, when he gave up the business to his
son, who, recently married, preferred his own fireside,
told the innovator that he would infallibly be ruined
if he did not go out to make friends over his evening
glass. The secret of these worthy people keeping their
heads above water, in this laissez faire sort of exist
ence, was, that their ordinary habits were frugal, that
3
50 EARLY REMINISCENCES:
they rarely drank wine; never occupied the best room
except on Sunday, and on that day alone had the
"added pudding" of time immemorial. The frugal
habits of all of the middle classes, and the want of
education of many, did not abate anything of their
importance when they were chosen to fill public
offices. Under the guidance of the Town Clerk, cor
porate magistrates generally got through their busi
ness decently. Sometimes they made little slips.
Late in the evening an offender was brought before
one of our mayors, having been detected in stealing
a smock-frock from a pawnbroker s door. " Look in
Burn s Justice, " said his worship to his son ; " look
in the index for smock-frock." " Can t find it, father.
Not there." " What ! no law against stealing smock-
frocks ? D my heart, young fellow, but you ve
had a lucky escape." (Even justices in those times
might incur the penalties against profane oaths.) The
constable demurred at the discharge of the prisoner.
" Well, well ! Lock him up, and we ll see the Town
Clerk in the morning."
Peter Pindar wrote an ode on " Frogmore Fe"te,"
in which he describes the " Pair of England " with
" The family of Orange by their side." This would
take us to 1796 or 1797. It was about the begin
ning of the century that I was present at one of
these fetes, at which, as on previous occasions, how
ever sneered at, there was a real desire to . promote
the pleasures of their neighbours and dependents on
the part of the Royal Family. Amongst other
delights of that occasion, there was a play, or rather
scenes of a play, acted before the mansion, in the co
lonnade of which the Court stood, whilst the common
spectators were grouped on the lawn below. The
A PRELUDE. 51
scenes were from the " Merry Wives of Windsor."
The critical faculty had not then been developed to
stand in the way of my perfect enjoyment. I be
lieved then in the real existence of Slender and
Anne Page; of the French doctor and the Welsh
parson ; of mine host of the Garter, who was un
doubtedly the host of the White Hart. I then knew
an old house at the corner of Sheet Street (alas ! it is
pulled down) where Mr. and Mrs. Ford once dwelt,
and whence Falstaff was carried in the buck-basket
to Datchet Mead. I could then tell the precise spot
where the epicurean knight went hissing hot into the
Thames. Herne s Oak was then to me an undeniable
memorial of centuries past. Forty years afterwards,
I went over the footsteps of my childhood with Mr.
Creswick, and we tried to verify the sites of these
immortal scenes. The pencil of my eminent friend
has shadowed forth some aids to the imagination of
the readers of the " Merry Wives of Windsor," in my
" pictorial" edition. But to my mind there were no
realities such as I had pictured when, after the
Fete at Frogmore, I wandered about, book in hand,
to the fields where Sir Hugh Evans sang "To shallow
rivers," and looked for the " oak with great ragg d
horns," near the pit where the fairies danced. Dili
gent antiquarianism has pointed out a mistake or two
in my conjectural sites. It is of little moment. It
was with a pang that I gave up iny boyish convic
tion that I had gathered acorns beneath "Herne s
Oak," and yielded to the evidence that it had been
cut down. The "undoubting mind" is a youthful
possession beyond all price ; and though the Winter
of scepticism may have come, it is still pleasant to
look back upon the Spring of belief.
52 EARLY REMINISCENCES I
There are some things that are prominent among
the recollections of my nonage, in which the faith of
my inexperience and the doubts of my small know
ledge, were curiously blended. I was a frequent visitor
to the State Apartments and the Bound Tower. I
sometimes accompanied friends who came to see
Windsor ; sometimes was permitted by the kind and
intelligent keeper of the pictures in the Castle to
linger about and look my fill. The State Rooms now
are very different from the State Booms as I remem
ber them. There had been little change, I appre
hend, in the architectural character of the rooms
since the period of Anne and George I, when Sir
James Thornhill painted new allegories to supple
ment the old flatteries of Charles II. by Verrio.
We entered by a staircase under a dome gaudily
decorated with the story of Phaeton and with
lady-like representatives of the four elements, Fire,
Air, Earth, and Water. The pictures in the apart
ments had received a large addition to their num
ber after George III. came to reside at Windsor.
Amongst these additions were the Cartoons. At the
period of which I speak, and during several succeed
ing years, an artist was employed in making the most
elaborate pencil-drawings of these bold designs for
tapestry, which, perpetuated in the most exquisitely
finished engravings, gave a very adequate notion of
the skill of Mr. Holloway, but very little of the
grandeur of RafYaelle. That grandeur I could even
then comprehend in the Ananias, and Paul Preaching
at Athens ; I could feel the exquisite tenderness of
the charge to Peter; but I could not quite under
stand t he large men in the little boat in the Mira
culous Draught of Fishes. The most interesting
A PRELUDE. 52
room, at the beginning of the century, was that
known as Queen Elizabeth s, or the Picture Gallery.
In a few years it was dismantled of its somewhat
choice collection, and became a lumber-room, into
which no one looked. There I -once gazed upon the
Misers of Quintin Matsys well-fed misers, gloating
over their money-heaps, with a joyous expression
quite incompatible with the ordinary notion of the
self-denying misery of avarice. At the end of this
long and narrow room, looking out on the North
Terrace, hung a wonderful Boy and Puppies, by
Murillo. In this gallery were the three grand ancient
paintings of the Battle of Spurs, the Embarkation of
Henry the Eighth, and the Field of the Cloth of Gold.
They first went away to the Society of Antiquaries,
who were forced to acknowledge that they were
only a loan ; and they are now among the heir-looms
of the people at Hampton Court. I hope that I had
not faith enough in the ideal of Lely arid Wissing to
believe that the profuse display of their charms by
most of King Charles s " beauties " was an adequate
representation of female loveliness. In the same
spirit of incredulity I was not quite content to believe
that the Roman Triumph which Verrio had painted
in St. George s Hall in which Edward the Black
Prince and his royal prisoner of France were the
principal personages was a faithful representation
of the costume and manners of the fourteenth cen
tury. The Hound Tower, whose rooms, now private,
were then open to the public gaze at the price of a
shilling, was a miserably -furnished, dreary place,
which had little charm for me, except in the noble
view from its leads. One of these dingy rooms was
hung with faded tapestry, delineating the piteous
54 EARLY REMINISCENCES :
tory of Hero and Leander. Long ago I related the
discourse of the fair guide, who aroused my critical
scepticism in my boyhood, and who was a perpetual
source of enjoyment to me when I could beguile
some unsuspecting stranger into a patient attention
to her learned volubility. " Here, ladies and gentle
men, is the whole lamentable history of Hero and
Leander. Hero was a nun. She lived in that old
ancient nunnery which you see," &c., &c. We have
gained many great and good things through the
Education of the People ; but what have we not lost,
in losing the humorous contrasts of society which
were presented in the days of the Horn-Book.
AT the age of twelve a new life opened upon me.
I was sent to a somewhat famous classical school
that of the Rev. Dr. Nicholas, at Baling. Here, for
the first time, I was stimulated into the ambition to
excel. I had read a good deal for my own pleasure ;
but I had read little for solid improvement. My
command of books had given me advantages over
other boys ; for, although it might have been deemed
a waste of time that I had been devouring plays and
novels without stint, I had thus acquired some com
mand of my own language, and could write it with
ease and correctness. But I soon found that my
desultory knowledge would stand me in little stead
when I had to construe Caesar or Horace. There was
a kind friend at hand in one of the masters Joseph
Heath, a Fellow of St. John s, Oxford whose memory
I shall ever cherish. He helped me over the first dif
ficulties of my advance in the routine of my class. I
soon did my exercises quickly, and did them well ;
but the system of the school was not favourable to
A PRELUDE. 55
steady and continuous exertion in climbing heights
by other than beaten tracks. My memory enabled
me readily to accomplish tasks which to others
were severe labours. But I was very young and
very small, so that I was kept too long amidst slow
class-fellows. Whilst I should have been learning
Greek, I was construing easy Latin authors, writing
a weekly theme, and making verses which required
little talent besides the careful use of the " Gradus
ad Parnassum." Nevertheless my school-life was
a real happiness. My nature bourgeoned under
kindness, and I received unusual favours from the
friend I have mentioned. He treated me in some
degree as his companion. At his house on a Satur
day afternoon I have been admitted to the privilege
of taking a glass of wine with scholars from London,
who came to renew the associations of their Oxford
undergraduate days. One of these was Mr. Ellis, of
the British Museum the Sir Henry Ellis of the pre
sent time whose genial courtesy still reminds me of
the sixty years ago when, as a boy, I first made an
acquaintance which I have never ceased to appreciate
as a man. I was happy at Ealing school, and if I had
been permitted to stay there long enough, I might have
fought my way to some sound scholarship. After little
more than two years I was uprooted from this con
genial soil, to be planted once more in the arid sands
of Windsor, my father s apprentice ; to become my
own instructor ; and, like too many self-teachers, to
dream away the precious years of youth in desultory
reading purposeless, almost hopeless.
56 EARLY REMINISCENCES:
SECTION IL
AT the midsummer of 1805, 1 was taken altogether
from my school. It did not appear to me that I was
changing restraint for freedom. I left with bitter
feelings, for I had imbibed such a tincture of learning
as made me desirous to be a scholar. My father s
determination to put me to business, at the early age
of fourteen, did not pass without some ^emonstrance
from my schoolmaster. His answer was that I had
acquired enough knowledge to fit me for ray station
in life ; and if I became a bookseller was not
likely to be treated as Johnson treated Osborne,
when he knocked him down with a folio, spying,
"Lie there, thou lump of lead." My destiny was
sealed when I signed my indenture of apprentice
ship. My life, however, was not altogether without
opportunities of mental improvement. My first oc
cupation interested me greatly. M. Porny, of whom
I have spoken, died in 1804, leaving my fathei
one of his executors. The co-executor declined to
act. With the exception of a few legacies, all M.
Porny s property, of which the residue exceeded
4000Z., was bequeathed to a small charity school at
Eton. Upon his decease, letters which he had pre
pared were forwarded to his surviving relatives at
Caen, and they manifested an intention to dispute
his chief bequest, under the Statute of Mortmain.
A friendly suit in Chancery was accordingly com
menced ; and it being necessary that a somewhat
voluminous French correspondence should be laid
A TEELUDE. 57
before the Master in Chancery to whom the matter
was referred, my first literary task was to translate
the letters which had been sent and received during
the half century in which M. Porny had found a
refuge in England from the alleged unkindness of