In coming to speak of the poets of the cobbler’s stall, the task of selection is found to be by no means an easy one. It is hard enough to tell where to begin; it is harder still to know where to leave off. “This brooding fraternity” of shoemakers, it is said, “has produced more rhymers than any other of the handicrafts.”[130]

In the days of the revival of learning and the reformation of religion in England, shoemakers had their share in the mental and moral awakening. Many of them turned poets, and essayed to write ballads and songs, of which we have a sample in Deloney’s “Delightful, Princely, and Entertaining History of the Gentle Craft.”[132] Such a spirited songster as Richard Rigby, “a brother of the craft,” who undertook to show in his “Song of Praise to the Gentle Craft” how “royal princes, sons of kings, lords, and great commanders have been shoemakers of old, to the honor of the ancient trade,” also deserves to be mentioned. This song, beginning

is no mean performance; its historic allusions may not be unimpeachable, but its poetic ring is genuine. Scores of pieces of a similar character have issued from the cobbler’s room, and either perished, like many another ballad and song of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, or found their way into odd corners of our literature, where they are buried almost beyond hope of resurrection.

Speaking of men who have aspired to be poets and have published their productions, one is fain to begin with a name which, if it could be proved to belong to the gentle craft, would certainly have to stand at the head of the long list of poetical shoemakers—the Elizabethan dramatist Thomas Dekker, who wrote “one of the most light-hearted of merry comedies,” The Shoomaker’s Holyday. One of the most prominent characters in the play is Sir Simon Eyre, the reputed builder of Leadenhall Market, London, and Lord Mayor of the city.[134] Of this worthy, who lived in the time of Henry VI., Rigby, in his “Song in Praise of the Gentle Craft,” says—

It is hard to think that the writer of The Shoomaker’s Holyday, in which the ways of shoemakers and the details of the craft are described with all the ease and exactitude of familiarity, was not a brother of the craft.[135] When the famous quarrel arose between the quondam friends and coworkers, Ben Jonson and Dekker, Jonson in his Poetaster satirized the author of The Shoomaker’s Holyday under the name of Crispinus. This epithet may be simply an allusion to the subject of Dekker’s well-known comedy; but may it not also be regarded as a veritable “cut at a cobbler?”

JAMES WOODHOUSE, THE FRIEND OF SHENSTONE.

James Woodhouse stands first on our list in point of time, but not in regard to ability. He evidently owed his little brief popularity to the friendship of William Shenstone, author of “The Schoolmistress.” Shenstone lived at Leasowes, seven miles from Birmingham, in a charming country-house surrounded by gardens, artistically laid out and cultivated with the utmost care by the eccentric, fantastic poet. Woodhouse, who was born about 1733, was a village shoemaker and eke a schoolmaster at Rowley, two miles off. Shenstone had been obliged to exclude the public from his gardens and grounds at Leasowes on account of the wanton damage done to flowers and shrubs. Whereupon the village shoemaker addressed the poet in poetical terms asking to be “excluded from the prohibition.” In reply Shenstone admitted him not only to wander through his grounds, but to make a free use of his library. “Shenstone found,” says Southey, “that the poor applicant used to work with a pen and ink at his side while the last was in his lap—the head at one employ, the hands at another; and when he had composed a couplet or a stanza, he wrote it on his knee.” Woodhouse was then about twenty-six years of age. His lot must have been rather hard at that time, for, speaking of his wife’s work and his own, he says in one of his poems—

Five years after his introduction to Shenstone, a collection of his poems was published, entitled “Poems on Several Occasions.” About forty years afterward he issued another edition with additional pieces, such as “Woodstock, an Elegy,” “St. Crispin,” etc. In the later years of his life he was living near Norbury Park, and had found a generous patron in Mr. Lock, who superintended the publication of his poetry, and in Lord Lyttleton of Hagley.

JOHN BENNET OF WOODSTOCK, PARISH CLERK AND POET.

The name of Bennet occurs once more in our list, and in this instance, if classed at all, it should be classed with the poets, although it must be confessed that the claim of John Bennet to that honorable title would hardly be allowed in some quarters. This little local celebrity inherited the office of parish clerk from his father, and with it some degree of musical taste, for his father’s psalm-singing is said to have charmed the ear of Thomas Warton, Professor of Poetry at Oxford, and sometime curate of Woodstock. John Bennet, junior, succeeded to the clerkship in Warton’s time, and thus came under the notice of the kindly clergyman, who was a generous patron of men of this class. When Bennet took to writing poetry and thought of publishing, Warton gave him every assistance in his power. A poor uneducated poet could scarcely have fallen into better hands, for the young curate was geniality itself, if we may judge from the estimate of him formed by Southey, who speaks of his “thorough good nature and the boyish hilarity which he retained through life,“ and furthermore adds, ”The Woodstock shoemaker was chiefly indebted for the patronage which he received to Thomas Warton’s good-nature, for my predecessor was the best-natured man that ever wore a great wig.“[136] The shoemaker’s poetry was ”published by subscription” in 1774, and the long list of notable names speaks well for the industry and influence of the patron to whose efforts the splendid array of subscribers must be attributed. Bennet’s poetry, which was not of a very high order of merit, consisted chiefly of simple rhymes on rustic themes, in which he does not forget to sing the praises of the gentleman-like craft to which he belongs; nor does he hesitate frankly to declare that his reason for publishing his rhymes is “to enable the author to rear an infant offspring, and to drive away all anxious solicitude from the breast of a most amiable wife.” Later in life he published another volume, having for its chief piece a poem entitled “Redemption;” and, as a set-off, a kindly preface by Dr. Mavor, Rector of Woodstock. This honest parish clerk of poetical fame died and was buried at Woodstock on the 8th of August, 1803.

RICHARD SAVAGE, THE FRIEND OF POPE.

A far better poet but a far less worthy man than Bennet of Woodstock or Woodhouse of Rowley was Richard Savage, the friend of Pope. From beginning to end the story of his life, as told by Dr. Johnson in his “Lives of the Poets,” is one of the most romantic and melancholy biographies in existence. It only concerns us here to say that Richard Savage, the reputed[137] son of Earl Rivers and the Countess of Macclesfield, was, on leaving school, apprenticed to a shoemaker, and remained in this humble position “longer than he was willing to confess; nor was it, perhaps, any great advantage to him that an unexpected discovery determined him to quit his occupation.” Dr. Johnson thus speaks of this discovery and its immediate results: “About this time his nurse, who had always treated him as her own son, died; and it was natural for him to take care of those effects which, by her death, were, as he imagined, become his own. He therefore went to her house, opened her boxes, and examined her papers, among which he found some letters written to her by the Lady Mason, which informed him of his birth and the reason for which it was concealed. Dissatisfied with his employment, but unable to obtain either pity or help from his mother, to whom he made many tender appeals, he resolved to devote himself to literature. His first attempt in this line was a short poem called ‘The Battle of the Pamphlets,’ written anent the Bangorian Controversy; and his second a comedy under the title ‘Woman’s Riddle.’ Two years after appeared another comedy, ‘Love in a Veil.’ In 1723 he wrote a drama, having for its subject certain events in the life of Sir Thomas Overbury. Previous to the publication of a small volume entitled ‘A Miscellany of Poems,’ Savage wrote the story of his life in a political paper called The Plain Dealer. His best poem, ‘The Wanderer,’ in which are some pathetic passages referring to himself, was published in 1729.” For the story of the life of this unhappy man the reader must be referred to Johnson’s “Lives.” Savage died in the debtors’ prison, Bristol, August 1st, 1743.

THOMAS OLIVERS, HYMN-WRITER, FRIEND AND COWORKER WITH JOHN WESLEY.

It is a relief to turn from the thought of Savage to Thomas Olivers, one of John Wesley’s most intimate friends and zealous coworkers. We have seen already how prominent a part another shoemaker played in the Methodist revival;[138] but Olivers is perhaps better known to the general public than Samuel Bradburn, for the latter has left no mark on our literature, while the former has made a name among hymn-writers as the author of several excellent hymns, and of one, in particular, which holds a place of first rank in Christian hymnology. Olivers’ fame outside Methodism rests chiefly on the fine hymn beginning—

One hymn may seem to be a very narrow basis on which to build a reputation, yet the name of Olivers will as surely be handed down to future generations, on account of this fine sacred lyric, as it would have been if he had written a whole volume of hymns of merely average merit. A dozen instances might be cited in which a single brief poem of rare excellence has won an undying fame for the writer. Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,“ and Michael Bruce’s ”Elegy Written in Spring,“ Wolfe’s ”Burial of Sir John Moore,” and Blanco White’s single sonnet, “Night and Death,” and, in an inferior degree, poor Herbert Knowles’ “Lines Written in the Churchyard of Richmond, Yorkshire,” are cases in point.

Thomas Olivers in his autobiography[139] tells us that he was born at Tregonon in Montgomeryshire in 1725. After the death of his father and uncle, Thomas was left in charge of another relative named Tudor, who sent him to school and afterward bound him apprentice to a shoemaker. He was, by his own account, idle, dissolute, and profane—“the worst boy seen in those parts for the last twenty or thirty years.” His evil conduct compelled him to fly from the scene of his early dissipation as soon as he could; and, after living a wild life at Shrewsbury and Wrexham, he came to Bristol. This city was his spiritual birthplace; for, under a sermon by George Whitfield, the sinful, reckless young Welshman was converted, and became as noted for piety and earnest Christian work as he had once been for blasphemy and opposition to all religion. Shortly after his conversion he removed to Bradford in Wilts, where he joined the Methodists. On recovering from a terrible attack of small-pox he went back to visit the scenes of his early life. In this expedition he had a double object—to obtain a sum of money left him by his uncle, and then to go round to all his creditors and pay his debts. This most Christian conduct won him golden opinions and formed a capital introduction to the preaching of the Gospel; for Olivers had now begun to exercise his rare gifts in that direction. Returning to Bradford, he was soon appointed by John Wesley as a travelling preacher. After preaching in many parts of England and enduring the usual amount of hardship and risk to life and limb incident to the field-preacher’s work in those days, he finally settled in London as John Wesley’s editor, having charge of the Arminian Magazine, and other publications, for which Wesley was responsible. This office he held for twelve years; but he was never quite fit for it, and his chief was reluctantly compelled at last to put a more scholarly man in his place.

In the controversy between Wesley and Toplady on Predestination, etc., a controversy marked by the worst features of the time, the fiery Welshman was put forward to take the leading part on the Arminian side. Nothing could exceed the severity of Toplady’s remarks and the fierceness of his attacks, both on the character and teaching of the veteran preacher, John Wesley, whom all the world now agrees to honor as one of the most devout, unselfish, and useful men who have adorned the Christian Church in any age. Right manfully did the “Welsh Cobbler,” as Olivers was contemptuously styled, stand up for the doctrine of free grace. In his hands Wesley was quite content to leave the work of reply to Toplady’s Zanchius, quietly remarking, “I can only make a few strictures, and leave the young man Toplady to be further corrected by one that is fully his match, Thomas Olivers.”

Tyerman[140] speaks of Olivers as a man of high intellectual power; but “laments that the fiery Welshman undertook to meet the furious Predestinarian with the not too respectable weapons of his own choosing.” What this means may be imagined by the following sample of Toplady’s personalities in this strife of tongues. He says, “Mr. Wesley skulks for shelter under a cobbler’s apron;“ and again, ”Has Tom the Cobbler more learning and integrity than John the Priest?” It must be confessed that Cobbler Tom hit hard in reply. But an end has now come to the discreditable and useless strife; and, happily, it is in no danger of revival; while the hymns written by the pious Calvinist[141] and the zealous Arminian are both alike sung with devout emotion wherever the Saviour’s name is known and adored.

Besides several controversial tracts, Olivers wrote a number of hymns, and is known as the composer of a number of Psalm-tunes.[142] He continued his ministry in London till March, 1799, when he died at the age of seventy-four. He was buried in John Wesley’s tomb, in the City Road Chapel Yard, London, as a token of the esteem in which he was held by Wesley and his friends.

THOMAS HOLCROFT, DRAMATIST, NOVELIST, ETC.[143]

Thomas Holcroft was a much more noteworthy man. At the time of the State Trials he had made a considerable name as a writer of political novels. In his “Anna St. Ives” and “Hugh Trevor” he had exposed the follies and vices of society around him, and had set forth his own political views in a manner well calculated to captivate the fancy of young and ardent reformers. When the trial of Hardy began, Holcroft surrendered himself in court, deeming it base and unmanly to refuse to share the fate of those whose political views he had warmly espoused. Both friends and foes honored him for his chivalrous conduct in the affair. On the acquittal of his friends he was discharged without a trial.

The life of Holcroft is as full of romance as any of those depicted in his novels. He was born in London in 1745. During the first six years of the boy’s life, his father was a shoemaker. Giving up this occupation in 1751, Holcroft, senior, “took to the road” as a hawker and peddler, and his poor child led a vagrant, gypsy-like life, and passed through privations which he could never afterward think of without shame and sorrow. And yet he managed to turn this worst period of his life to some account. The first-hand knowledge it afforded him of nature and human affairs gave freshness and power to the comedies and dramas written in later years. During these early years his father taught him to read out of the Bible, and such was his progress, that in a little while the daily task consisted of eleven chapters. These, he tells us, he could often have missed by telling a falsehood, which his conscience never would allow; and, besides this, he had no wish to evade the task, for the stories of the Old Testament were so full of interest to his boyish mind, that he was eager to go on to the end. While his father and mother were engaged as hawkers, young Holcroft was sent out to beg. In this miserable employment he became quite an expert; and, like many another unfortunate beggar, he was led to draw on his imagination for tales to answer his purpose. On returning home he would recount his adventures, and repeat the marvellous stories he had invented, until his father, who at first admired the lad’s gift as a romancer, came to be ashamed of allowing him to lead such an idle and mischievous life, and put a stop to his escapades.

After this he was employed as a stable-boy and jockey at Newmarket. The change in his circumstances thus brought about was a very happy one, for he had now good fare, a comfortable bed to sleep on, decent or rather smart clothes, of which he was not a little proud; and, added to all this, a certain position in respectable society! His father had a friend at Newmarket who had a taste for reading, and followed the “profession” of feeder and trainer of gamecocks for the pit. This man was struck with Thomas Holcroft’s natural ability, and lent him books to read, such as the “Spectator” and “Gulliver’s Travels.” While at Newmarket he was one day passing a church, and stopped to listen to the music of the choir, then engaged in practice. He ventured to enter the church, and feeling a strong desire to learn to sing, spoke to the leader. Mr. Langham, who, finding the stable-boy had a good voice, admitted him into the choir. He threw himself so heartily into this new and fascinating study, that it was not long before he could read music and sing in good style.

At the age of sixteen, he again went to live with his father, who had once more returned to the shoemaker’s stall, and lived in London. Here he learned enough of the trade to earn a livelihood, but he involved himself in premature cares by an imprudent marriage when only twenty years of age.

And now the passion for a roving life got the better of him, and quitting the monotony of a cobbler’s room, he betook himself to the stage. For seven years he led the life of a strolling player, “and sounded all the depths and shoals” of misery incident to such a precarious existence.

It was not till after his thirtieth year that he began to acquire settled habits of study, to learn the languages—French, German, and Italian—in which he afterward became a ready translator, and to set about any kind of literary work. The first products of his pen appeared in the Whitehall Evening Post. He was in his thirty-fifth year when his first novel, “Alwyn, or the Gentleman Comedian,” appeared. The year after this saw the issue of his earliest comedy, Duplicity, which was put on the stage at Covent Garden Theatre, and had a good run of success. This was followed by some thirty dramatic pieces of one kind or other, in poetry or prose, comedies and comic operas, dramas and melodramas, which last he had the credit of introducing into England. The Road to Ruin is accounted, by some judges of note, the best of his dramas. Holcroft was a man of versatile powers and great industry. His natural gifts were remarkable, and his extensive knowledge was almost entirely self-acquired. As already indicated, he was a very prolific author. Besides the three novels and the plays referred to above, he issued translations from the French of Toucher d’Obsonville and Pierre de Long; from the German, Goethe’s “Herman and Dorothea;” and from the Italian. He spent much of his time in Germany and France, and his interesting work, “Travels into France,” is one of his most valued productions. Thomas Holcroft died 23d March, 1809, at the age of sixty-four, having crowded as much work into his eventful life as most of the leading men of his time.

JOSEPH BLACKET, POET, “THE SON OF SORROW.”

At the beginning of this century there were two young shoemakers in London who were spending their leisure time in hard reading and attempts at musical composition. One of them, [237]
[238]
[239]Robert Bloomfield, a sketch of whom has already been given,[144] is known as widely as the English language itself. The other, Joseph Blacket, made but little stir in the world, and is now well-nigh forgotten. He took to writing poetry at a much earlier age than Bloomfield, who wrote nothing before his sixteenth year, while Blacket, if we may trust the notes in his “Specimens” and “Remains,” began, very characteristically, with “The Sigh,” written at ten years of age. His unhappy life was brought to a close when he was but twenty-four years old. At this age Bloomfield had written very little poetry, and “The Farmer’s Boy” was not begun. But if his genius ripened slowly, it produced fruits far more valuable than those presented to the world by the precocity of poor Blacket. There is nothing of Blacket’s to compare with “The Farmer’s Boy,” or “Richard and Kate,“ or ”The Fakenham Ghost.” It is interesting to know that the two poetical sons of Crispin were acquainted, and cherished a high regard for each other. They seem to have met at the house of Mr. Pratt, Blacket’s patron and editor, and afterward to have exchanged copies of each other’s works, accompanied by friendly letters. What Bloomfield thought of his young friend may be gathered from the following portion of a letter: “The instant I received your volume I resolved to shake hands with you, by letter at least, and to thank you for a pleasure of no common sort. The ‘Conflagration’ is so truly full of fire that it almost burns one’s fingers to read it. ‘Saragossa’ is a noble poem. Choose your own themes, and let the master-tints of your mind have full play.”

In a letter to his friend Mr. Pratt, Blacket says that he was born in 1786 at Tunstill, five miles from Richmond, in Yorkshire. His father was a day-laborer, who had eight children to provide for at the time Joseph was old enough for school.[145] It was therefore fortunate for him that the village schoolmistress took a fancy for him, and taught him for nothing. He stayed with her until he was seven, and then went to a school taught by a master. At the age of eleven he was removed to London, his brother John having engaged to provide a home for him and teach him his trade during the next seven years. In this respect his position was very similar to that of Bloomfield, whose brother George became the guardian of the shy Suffolk lad when he first went up to London.[146] John Blacket was so anxious that his ward should not forget his little learning that he often kept the lad at home to write on Sunday. There were such books in John’s library as “Josephus,” “Eusebius’ Church History,” “Fox’s Martyrs,” all of which were read through by the time Joseph was fifteen years of age. “At that time,” he says, “the drama was totally unknown to me; a play I had neither seen nor read.” One evening a companion called on him and begged him to go and see Kemble play Richard the Third at Drury Lane. His brother John refused consent at first, but yielded at last to the clever strategy of an appeal made in a few impromptu verses, which so greatly pleased and surprised the fond brother, that he at once “gave him leave to go, together with a couple of shillings to defray his expenses.” From this time forth he devoted himself to the study of the poets Milton, Pope, Young, Otway, Rowe, Beattie, Thompson, but especially, and for a time almost exclusively, to Shakespeare. As a young poet it is said of him that “His anxiety to produce something that should be thought worthy of the public in the form of a drama appears to have surpassed all his other cares.... Something of the dramatic kind pervades the whole mass of his papers. I have traced it on bills, receipts, backs of letters, shoe patterns, slips of paper hangings, grocery wrappers, magazine covers, battalion orders for the volunteer corps of St. Pancras, in which he served, and on various other scraps on which his ink could scarcely be made to retain the impression of his thoughts; yet most of them crowded on both sides and much interlined.”[147]

Like most ardent young students in poor circumstances, Blacket was reckless of his health. His hard work by day and loss of nightly sleep sowed the seeds of the disease to which he eventually fell a victim. He married very young, and had the misfortune to lose his wife when he was only twenty-one years of age. A sister who came to nurse her was taken ill of brain fever, and nearly lost her life. “Judge of my situation,” he says to his friend Mr. Pratt, “a dear wife stretched on the bed of death; a sister senseless, whose dissolution I expected every hour; an infant piteously looking round for its mother; creditors clamorous, friends cold or absent. I found, like the melancholy Jaques, that ‘when the deer was stricken the herd would shun him.’” In this wretched position he was obliged to sell everything to pay his debts. No wonder that he became a “son of sorrow,” and that most of the poetry written after this date bears the marks of gloom and distraction of mind. Yet it must be confessed that when the young poet sought to enter on his literary career by the publication of his poems, he had no cause to complain of want of friends. Mr. Marchant, a printer, took kindly to him, and published his first copies of “Specimens” free of expense. It was he who introduced the young aspirant for poetical fame to Mr. Pratt, the editor of the “Remains,” who seems, from the letters published, to have been a man of considerable means, but not of the best judgment in literary affairs. This friend had the most exalted notions of the “genius” of his protÉgÉ, showed him the utmost kindness till the day of his death, and took charge of the funds raised by the publication of his “Remains,” investing them in behalf of the poet’s orphan child. In August, 1809, Blacket removed to Seaham, Durham, to the house of a brother-in-law, gamekeeper to Sir Ralph Milbanke of Castle Eden. The baronet and his family were very kind to him; a horse was lent him; dainty food was sent down for him from the castle; doctors were procured who attended him gratis; Lady Milbanke and Miss Milbanke, afterward Lady Byron, visited him constantly, and interested others in his behalf; among them the Duchess of Leeds, who procured a large number of subscribers to his volume of “Specimens.”[148] No effort was spared by either doctors or friends to save his life and to ensure his reputation as a poet; but to no purpose, as it seemed, in either case. He died of consumption on the 23d of September, 1810, at the house of his brother-in-law, and was buried in Seaham churchyard by his friend Mr. Wallis, rector of the parish, who had been a Christian counsellor and comforter to the young poet during his long illness. At his own request, Miss Milbanke selected the spot for his grave, and caused a suitable monument to be placed over it, on which were inscribed the lines, taken from his own poem, “Reflections at Midnight”—

DAVID SERVICE, AND OTHER SONGSTERS OF THE COBBLER’S STALL.

David Service of Yarmouth represents a pretty numerous class of songsters of the cobbler’s stall, worthy men in their way, but writers of inferior merit, of whom much cannot be said. Such writers were John Foster of Winteringham, Lincolnshire, who owed the publication of his “Serious Poems,” in 1793, to the kindness of the vicar of the parish; J. Johnstone, a Scotchman, who published a small volume of poems in 1823; the Rev. James Nichol of Traquair, Selkirkshire, who in his shoemaking days “published two or three volumes of poetry.”[149] Gavin Wilson, of Edinburgh, who, in 1788, published “A Collection of Masonic Songs,“ of whom Campbell says: ”I knew Gavin Wilson; he was an honest, merry fellow, and a good boot, leather-leg, arm, and hand maker, but as sorry a poetaster as ever tried a couplet.”[150] James Devlin, a man of versatile gifts and most irregular habits, who by turns wrote poetry, corresponded for the Daily News, and contributed to the Spectator, Builder, and Notes and Queries, and died about twenty years ago in poverty and obscurity.[151] These men, as regards their literary merit and fame, excepting perhaps the last, are well represented by the herdboy from the banks of the Clyde, who, after serving his time as a sutor at Greenock, journeyed south in search of work, and settled at Yarmouth, Norfolk, and there, at the age of twenty-seven, published a “Rural Poem,” called “The Caledonian Herdboy,” in 1802. Two years after he was encouraged by his friends to issue “The Wild Harp’s Murmurs” and “St. Crispin, or the Apprentice Boy,” the former being dedicated to that friend of unknown young poets, Capel Lofft, the friend of the Bloomfields and Kirke White. His last adventure in this line bore the romantic title “A Voyage and Travels in the Region of the Brain.” This verse occurs in one of his publications—

But this poet, it is to be feared, obtained neither wealth nor fame.

He became an inmate of the Yarmouth Workhouse, and died there on the 13th of March, 1825. And his “memorial,” like that of many another local celebrity, has well-nigh perished with him.

JOHN STRUTHERS, POET, EDITOR, ETC.

John Struthers, a Scottish poet, the friend of Sir Walter Scott and Joanna Baillie, followed the trade of a shoemaker for many years after he had begun to gain a literary reputation. He was born at Kilbride in Lanarkshire in 1776, and learned his trade in his own home, for his father was a member of the same craft. Struthers is best known in Scotland as the author of “The Poor Man’s Sabbath,” a simple, unpretentious poem, which appeared in 1804, and rapidly passed through several editions.[152] His success in this first venture led to the publication of “The Peasant’s Death,” in 1806; “The Winter’s Day,” in 1811; “The Plough,” in 1816; “The Dechmont,” in 1836. He was the editor of a Scottish anthology, called “The Harp of Caledonia,” in three volumes, to which his friends Sir Walter Scott and Joanna Baillie “sent voluntary contributions.” He wrote a history of Scotland from the Union, 1707 to 1827, by which his reputation was greatly enhanced.

A considerable number of the biographies in Chambers’s “Lives of Illustrious Scotchmen” are from his pen. For several years he held the position of press-corrector for Khull, Blackie & Co., of Glasgow. In 1832 he was made librarian in Stirling’s Library, which office he held until within a few years of his death in 1853. His poetical works were collected and published by himself in 1850. He is spoken of as an excellent specimen of a shrewd, intelligent, strong-minded Scotchman.[153]

JOHN O’NEILL, THE POET OF TEMPERANCE.

The name of John O’Neill is intimately associated with that of George Cruickshank in the work of temperance reform; for not only did Cruickshank prove himself a friend to the poor shoemaker and poet by illustrating his little poem entitled “The Blessings of Temperance,” but it is with good reason declared that these illustrations and the scenes depicted in the poem itself suggested to the artist the leading ideas worked out in his series of plates entitled “The Bottle.” Some of these sketches, as, for example, “The Upas Tree” and “The Raving Maniac and the Drivelling Fool,” derive their titles from O’Neill’s language in the poem itself. So closely, indeed, do the graphic sketches of the artist and the poet correspond, that O’Neill in the later editions of his little work surnamed it “A Companion to Cruickshank’s ‘Bottle.’”[154] On its first appearance the poem was entitled “The Drunkard,” and received favorable notice in the pages of the AthenÆum and the Spectator, besides other journals and papers of less literary merit. “The Drunkard” was not his first work, but it was his best, and the one by which his name became known and honored among teetotallers. As early as 1821 he had published a drama entitled “Alva.” “The Sorrows of Memory” and a number of Irish melodies belonging to different periods in his life were issued a little later. His friend the Rev. Isaac Doxsey, in a sketch prefixed to “The Blessings of Temperance,” speaks of O’Neill as the author of seven dramatic pieces, a collection of poems, and a novel called “Mary of Avonmore, or the Foundling of the Beach,” and of numerous contributions to various periodicals.

John O’Neill was an Irishman, born at Waterford on the 8th of January, 1777. His mother was in wretched circumstances at the time of his birth, having been deserted by a worthless husband, who left her and her little family to the care of fortune. As a boy he was very slow to learn, and gave no indication of the gifts he afterward displayed. He and his brother, much his senior, were apprenticed to a relative who acted as a sort of guardian to the boys. O’Neill’s mind was first awakened to a love for poetry by a drama in rhyme entitled “The Battle of Aughrim,” by a shoemaker named Ansell, which he committed to memory. On leaving the service of his first master he became an apprentice to his brother, but soon quarrelled and the indentures were thrown into the fire. During the Rebellion of 1798 and 1799, when food was at famine prices, he lived in great poverty at Dublin and Carrick-on-Suir; and in the latter place, notwithstanding the miserable state of his affairs, he found some one with love and courage sufficient to enable her to become his wife. It was at this time also that he began to read in earnest, chiefly poetry, though nothing came amiss, and, as a matter of course, every book was borrowed. The first-fruits of his poetic genius, if the term be permissible, were presented to the world in a little satirical poem written at Carrick, “The Clothier’s Looking-Glass.” This was designed to expose what was regarded as the cruelty and heartlessness of the master-clothiers in uniting to reduce the wages of the men. O’Neill was induced to contribute to this trade dispute by a man named Stacey, a printer, under whose guidance the shoemaker acquired some knowledge of the art of printing, and set up a press. The press was a capital adjunct to the pen, which the active young shoemaker and amateur printer was now using pretty freely.

At this time he became a strong political partisan, and used both his pen and press in an election contest in favor of General Matthew, brother of the Earl of Llandaff. It was the Earl’s promise of patronage that induced O’Neill to leave Ireland and settle in London, some time in 1812 or 1813. This promise was never redeemed, for the Earl about this time became a resident in Naples. Disheartened by his disappointment, the poor shoemaker dropped for a time all reading and literary toil and aspiration, and stuck doggedly and sullenly to his last.

For seven years he seems to have neither read nor written anything. At length a long period of “enforced leisure,” occasioned by an accident which made work with the awl impossible, compelled him to betake himself to reading, and thus his mind was roused from its torpor. An English translation of a volume of Spanish novels fell in his way, and its perusal suggested the subject for the drama Alva, which, as we have said, he published in 1821. His other works are named above. None of these seem to have brought him much profit, neither were his attempts at “business for himself,” once as a master-shoemaker and again as a huckster, at all successful. On several occasions he was assisted by grants from the Literary Fund, and was thankful for the kindly aid afforded him by his friends the teetotalers.

In spite of all his hard work as a shoemaker, and his many little literary adventures (perhaps because of them), he was in his old age a very poor man. Mr. Doxsey says in 1851, “John O’Neill and his aged partner dwell in a miserable garret in St. Giles’s.” In his poor earthly estate he had one comfort, at all events—he did not “suffer as an evil-doer,” and he could feel pretty sure that he had done not a little by his graphic pen and rude eloquence to turn many a sinner from a life of misery and shame. His death occurred on the 3d of February, 1858.

JOHN YOUNGER, SHOEMAKER, FLY-FISHER, AND POET.

In 1860 a charming little book on “River Angling for Salmon and Trout”[155] was added to our extensive angling literature by a devout follower of Isaac Walton. The preface showed that it was the work of a Lowland Scotchman, who was accustomed to divide his time between the two “gentle” occupations of shoemaking and fishing, and that this man, John Younger, had an enthusiasm for other things besides making fishing-boots and fishing-rods and lines, and the sport of the river-side. He was a zealous and, we had almost said, a desperate politician. He made corn-law rhymes, which came into the hands and drew forth praise from the pen of Ebenezer Elliott, who sent the best copy of his works as a present to the poetical shoemaker. In 1834 Younger tried the public with a volume of verse under the quaint title, “Thoughts as they Rise.”[156] But the public, like the shy fish of some of his own Scottish rivers, would not “rise” to his bait, for the work fell uncommonly flat. He was much more successful with his “River Angling,” which appeared first in 1840, and again, with a sketch of his life, in 1860. In 1847 John Younger won the second prize for an essay on “The Temporal Advantages of the Sabbath to the Working-Classes,” and it was a proud day for him and his neighbors at St. Boswell’s when he set off to go up to London to receive his reward of £15 at the hands of Lord Shaftesbury in the big meeting at Exeter Hall. Younger, who was all his life a brother of the craft, was born at Longnewton, in the parish of Ancrum, 5th July, 1785. He died and was buried at St. Boswell’s in June, 1860. As we are writing we observe that his autobiography[157] has just been published, concerning which a writer in the AthenÆum remarks,[158] “John Younger, shoemaker, fly-fisher, and poet, has left a Life which is certainly worth reading;“ and adds, ”There is something more in him than a vein of talent sufficient to earn a local celebrity.” With this opinion agree the remarks of the Scotsman and the Sunderland Times, which said of him at the time of his death, “One of the most remarkable men of the population of the South of Scotland, whether as a genial writer of prose or verse or a man of high conversational powers and clear common-sense, the shoemaker of St. Boswell’s had few or no rivals in the South;“ and ”Nature made him a poet, a philosopher, and a nobleman; society made him a cobbler of shoes.” He was certainly a most original character, and his originality and genius appear in every chapter of his Autobiography.

CHARLES CROCKER, “THE POOR COBBLER OF CHICHESTER”.

Charles Crocker, who was born in Chichester, 22d June, 1797, was the son of poor parents, who could not afford to send him to school after he was seven years of age, but they were assisted by friends who procured him admission to the Chichester “Greycoat School.” He was sent before the age of twelve to work as a shoemaker’s apprentice. “This arrangement,” he says in the brief sketch of his life which is given in the preface to his poems,[159] “was perhaps rather favorable than otherwise to the improvement of my mind, for the sedentary labor necessary in this kind of employment, while it keeps the hands fully engaged, gives little or no exercise to the mental faculties, consequently the mind of a person so employed may, without any hindrance to his work, find occupation or amusement in intellectual or imaginative pursuits.” His youthful days were spent in hard work and study. Spite of his schooling, grammar presented a great difficulty when he began to apply himself seriously to literary work. He even went so far as to commit an entire book to memory in his efforts to master the art. He mentions a lecture on Milton by Thelwall as having given him much help in trying to understand the structure of English verse. Besides Milton, Cowper, Collins, and Goldsmith became favorites, and he committed large portions of their writings to memory, and so learned to frame a style. The first volume of his poems was published in 1830, and the third in 1841. He also wrote “A Visit to Chichester Cathedral,” which passed through several editions. Crocker died in 1861.[160]