Part 5 (2/2)

I am really almost ashamed to repeat this absurd story; but many persons now alive can remember the strong belief in the existence of the pig-faced lady which prevailed in the public mind at the time of which I speak. The shops were full of caricatures of the pig-faced lady, in a poke bonnet and large veil, with ”A pig in a poke” written underneath the print. Another sketch represented Sir William Elliot's misadventure, and was ent.i.tled, ”Beware the pig-sty!”

HOBY, THE BOOTMAKER, OF ST. JAMES'S STREET [Sidenote: _Captain Gronow_]

Hoby was not only the greatest and most fas.h.i.+onable bootmaker in London, but, in spite of the old adage, _ne sutor ultra crepidam_, he employed his spare time with considerable success as a Methodist preacher at Islington. He was said to have in his employment three hundred workmen; and he was so great a man in his own estimation that he was apt to take rather an insolent tone with his customers. He was, however, tolerated as a sort of privileged person, and his impertinence was not only overlooked but was considered as rather a good joke. He was a pompous fellow, with a considerable vein of sarcastic humour.

I remember Horace Churchill (afterwards killed in India with the rank of major-general), who was then an ensign in the Guards, entering Hoby's shop in a great pa.s.sion, saying that his boots were so ill made that he should never employ Hoby for the future. Hoby, putting on a pathetic cast of countenance, called to his shopman:

”John, close the shutters. It is all over with us. I must shut up shop; Ensign Churchill withdraws his custom from me.”

Churchill's fury can be better imagined than described.

On another occasion the late Sir John Sh.e.l.ley came into Hoby's shop to complain that his top-boots had split in several places. Hoby quietly said:

”How did that happen, Sir John?”

”Why, in walking to my stables.”

”Walking to your stables!” said Hoby, with a sneer. ”I made the boots for riding, not walking.”

Hoby was bootmaker to the Duke of Kent; and, as he was calling on H.R.H.

to try on some boots, the news arrived that Lord Wellington had gained a great victory over the French army at Vittoria. The duke was kind enough to mention the glorious news to Hoby, who coolly said:

”If Lord Wellington had had any other bootmaker than myself he never would have had his great and constant successes; for my boots and prayers bring his lords.h.i.+p out of all his difficulties.”

One may well say that there is nothing like leather; for Hoby died worth a hundred and twenty thousand pounds.

Hoby was bootmaker to George III., the Prince of Wales, the royal dukes, and many officers in the Army and Navy. His shop was situated at the top of St. James's Street, at the corner of Piccadilly, next to the Old Guards Club. He was bootmaker to the Duke of Wellington from his boyhood, and received innumerable orders in the duke's handwriting, both from the Peninsula and France, which he always religiously preserved.

Hoby was the first man who drove about London in a tilbury. It was painted black, and drawn by a beautiful black cob. This vehicle was built by the inventor, Mr. Tilbury, whose manufactory was, fifty years back, in a street leading from South Audley Street into Park Street.

HARRINGTON HOUSE AND LORD PETERSHAM [Sidenote: _Captain Gronow_]

When our army returned to England in 1814 my young friend, Augustus Stanhope, took me one afternoon to Harrington House, in Stable-yard, St. James's, where I was introduced to Lord and Lady Harrington, and all the Stanhopes. On entering a long gallery, I found the whole family engaged in their sempiternal occupation of tea-drinking. Neither in Nankin, Pekin, nor Canton was the teapot more a.s.siduously and constantly replenished than at this hospitable mansion. I was made free of the corporation, if I may use the phrase, by a cup being handed to me; and I must say that I never tasted any tea so good before or since.

As an example of the undeviating tea-table habits of the house of Harrington, General Lincoln Stanhope once told me that, after an absence of several years in India, he made his reappearance at Harrington House, and found the family, as he had left them on his departure, drinking tea in the long gallery. On his presenting himself, his father's only observation and speech of welcome to him was, ”Hallo, Linky, my dear boy! delighted to see you. Have a cup of tea?”

LORD ALVANLEY [Sidenote: _Captain Gronow_]

From the time of good Queen Bess, when the English language first began to a.s.sume somewhat of its present form, idiom, and mode of expression, to the day of our most gracious sovereign Queen Victoria, every age has had its punsters, humorists, and eloquent conversationalists; but I much doubt whether the year 1789 did not produce the greatest wit of modern times, in the person of William Lord Alvanley.

After receiving a very excellent and careful education, Alvanley entered the Coldstream Guards at an early age, and served with distinction at Copenhagen and in the Peninsula; but, being in possession of a large fortune, he left the Army, gave himself up entirely to the pursuit of pleasure, and became one of the princ.i.p.al dandies of the day. With the brilliant talents which he possessed, he might have attained to the highest eminence in any line of life he had embraced.

Not only was Alvanley considered the wittiest man of his day in England, but, during his residence in France, and tours through Russia and other countries, he was universally admitted to possess, not only great wit and humour, but _l'esprit francais_ in its highest perfection; and no greater compliment could be paid him by foreigners than this. He was one of the rare examples (particularly rare in the days of the dandies, who were generally sour and spiteful) of a man combining brilliant wit and repartee with the most perfect good-nature. His manner, above all, was irresistible; and the slight lisp, which might have been considered as a blemish, only added piquancy and zest to his sayings.

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