Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men Part 6

Mr. Muntz married early in life the daughter of a clergyman, by whom he had a large family. He resided first at a pretty rustic place overgrown with ivy, near Soho Pool, called Hockley Abbey. From thence he removed to Ley Hall, near Perry Barr; and finally he went to Umberslade Hall, near Knowle, where he resided for the remainder of his life.

After the great commercial panic of 1825, the question of the proper adjustment of the English currency became a prominent topic of discussion, and various sections of society held contradictory theories. A distinct school of thought upon this subject arose in Birmingham, and comprised amongst its members some very able men of all shades of general political opinion. It became famous, and its theories being urged with great skill and ability, forced themselves upon public attention. Mr. Muntz, as a very young man, embraced their opinions, and advocated them by tongue and pen. In 1829 he wrote a series of letters to the Duke of Wellington upon this subject, which were marked by great ability. It was not, however, until the agitation for the Reform Bill commenced that Mr. Muntz became much known as a politician. He took up this cause with great ardour, and, being gifted with considerable fluency of speech, a powerful voice, a confident manner, and a handsome presence, he soon became immensely popular.

Thomas Attwood, Joshua Scholefield, and George Frederic Muntz were the founders of the Political Union. The two former, as president and vice-president respectively, were of course in the foremost rank, but their young and ardent lieutenant, Muntz, was as powerful and popular as they. His strong and manly voice, and bold outspoken words, had a strange and powerful influence with his audiences. He was a popular favourite, and when the Political Union held their first monster meeting at Beardsworth's Repository, on January 25th, 1830, Muntz was the chairman. As has been written of him, "His burly form, his rough-and-ready oratory, his thorough contempt for all conventionalities, the heartiness of his objurgations, and his earnestness, made him a favourite of the people, and an acceptable speaker at all their gatherings." When Earl Grey, who, as Premier, had endeavoured unsuccessfully to pa.s.s a Reform Bill, resigned, and "the Duke" took his place, bells throughout the country were tolled, and black flags floated from many a tower and steeple. The country was in a frenzy of anger and disappointment. A monster meeting was held on Newhall Hill, and there, in half a dozen words, Muntz sounded the knell of the new Tory Ministry. In tones such as few lungs but his could produce, he thundered in the ears of attentive and eager listeners the words, "To stop the Duke, run for gold." There were no telegraphs in those days, but these words were soon known through the country. A run commenced, such as had seldom been known before, and if it had continued would have produced disastrous effects. The Duke was furious. Warrants were prepared for the apprehension of Attwood, Scholefield, and Muntz, for sedition; but the Ministry had not courage to put them in action. The excitement became more and more intense, and the great Duke, for the first time in his life, was compelled to yield. He resigned, and the unsigned warrants were found in the pigeon-holes at the Home Office by his successors.

The Tory party--Conservatives had not then been invented--seeing how hopeless the struggle was in which they tried to defeat the nation, gave way eventually, and the Reform Bill of 1832 became law. The president and vice-president of the Political Union--Attwood and Scholefield--became the first Members for Birmingham, and political feeling was quiet for a time. It was soon seen, however, that, although the people had taken the outworks, the citadel of corruption had not yet been completely conquered. The church-rate question rose to the front, and became a burning matter of dispute. In Birmingham, on this question, public opinion ran very high. For many years the church-rate had been sixpence and ninepence in the pound per annum.

This was felt to be a most intolerable burden by Churchmen themselves, and the Dissenters thought it a most unjust and unrighteous imposition. For some years there had been very angry discussions on the subject, and most unseemly altercations at the vestry meetings.

On Easter Tuesday, the 28th March, 1837, a meeting was called for the election of the churchwardens of St. Martin's, and for the making of a rate. It was held in the Church. The Rev. Mr. Moseley, rector; Mr.

Joseph Baker, who at that time was clerk to Mr. Arnold, the Vestry Clerk; Mr. Gutteridge, surgeon; Mr. Freer, and others, took their places in a pew on the north side of the organ. Mr. Muntz, Mr. George Edmonds, Mr. Pare, Mr. Trow, and others in great numbers, sat on the south. The Rector took the chair, and proposed Mr. Reeves as his warden for the coming year. To this, of course, there was no opposition, but on the rector saying he should now proceed to elect a people's warden, a row began. Mr. Pare contended that the rector--_ex officio_--had no right to act as chairman while the paris.h.i.+oners elected _their_ warden. Muntz proposed another chairman; the parish books were demanded to be shown; but Mr. Baker put them under his feet and stood upon them. Muntz mounted to the top of the pew and demanded the books, and a scene of great disorder and riot ended in nothing being done. The whole scene appears to have been one of indescribable confusion. The rector was a timid, nervous man, who seemed during the whole proceedings to have almost lost his wits. When Baker refused to give up the books, a rush was made upon the rector's pew, amid cries of "Pitch him over," "Get the books," &c. The panelling of the pew was smashed to atoms. In the midst of the scene, Muntz's burly form was seen, brandis.h.i.+ng his well-known stick. Gutteridge is described as "making incessant grimaces and gesticulations, in a manner which induced the crowd to call him 'Punch,' and to ask him why he had not brought 'Judy' with him." In fact, the whole proceeding was a disgraceful brawl.

For his complicity in this business a criminal information was laid against Muntz, and he was brought, with two or three others, to trial at Warwick, before Chief Justice Park and a special jury. The charge was "tumult, riot, and a.s.sault upon Gutteridge and Rawlins." The trial commenced on Friday, March 30, 1838, and lasted three entire days. The result was a virtual acquittal, Mr. Muntz having been found guilty of "an affray," and not guilty on the other twelve counts of the indictment. Campbell was counsel for the prosecution, and Wilde for the defence, and some sparring took place between them. Campbell in a very rude and insulting manner, _chaffed_ Muntz about his beard, and Wilde retorted with considerable scorn. The cost of the defence was over 2,000.

In January, 1840, upon the retirement of Mr. Attwood from Parliament, Mr. Muntz became a candidate for the vacant seat, and was opposed by the notoriously bigoted Tory, Sir Charles Wetherell. The a.s.sociation of his name with the riots at Bristol a few years before did not add to his prospects of success in Birmingham. It was thought, however, that his relations.h.i.+p to Mr. Spooner would give him a chance, but the poll showed 1,454 votes for Mr. Muntz, and only 915 for Sir Charles.

From the time of his entering the House of Commons, Mr. Muntz's political and public character seems to have become deteriorated.

Whether increasing riches brought increasing conservatism of thought can be hardly ascertained now; but there is no doubt that from this time the hereditary aristocratic tendencies of his mind began to gather force. The head of the paternal tree had long returned from exile to the family chateau, and resumed the position of a landed seigneur; and his son, George Louis Muntz, cousin of George Frederic, had just been elected a Member of the French Chamber of Deputies. Why should not the Muntzes become a family of equal position in England?

No doubt this feeling became a ruling pa.s.sion, and influenced his every thought.

Still, he was a very vain man, and had always told his friends, publicly and privately, that at least _he_ was politically honest and consistent; and he was desirous--spite of his change of views--to retain this self-given character. Hence all sorts of eccentricities, inconsistencies, and absurdities. Hence his constant habit of speaking one way and voting another, and hence his morbid sensitiveness to anything like adverse criticism. In fact, from this time he became utterly incomprehensible, and but for the grateful recollection of the many services of his younger days, would probably have found himself deserted by his political friends.

At this time, too, the egotism, which in his later years became more manifest, began to show itself. He evidently thought himself _somebody_, and did not hesitate to say so on all occasions; until, at length, it was painful to listen to a speech of his. I remember, about the time of the Crimean war, when the organisation of the English army was found to be so lamentably deficient, there was a society established in Birmingham called by some such name as "The Administrative Reform a.s.sociation." A large meeting was held in Bingley Hall, at which all the leading Liberals of the town were present. George Dawson made a capital speech, and Muntz had "a long innings." As we came out, poor Dawson said to me, "They won't be able to print Muntz's speech verbatim." "Why not?" said I. "Why, my dear fellow, no printing office in the world would have capital I's enough."

I have spoken of his dislike to adverse criticism. No one, now, can imagine how he would rage and fume if any newspaper dared to doubt the wisdom of any remark of his. Why, he nearly killed poor Chidlow, the bookseller; shaking him almost to pieces for merely selling a paper in which he was severely criticised. While as for _The Birmingham Journal_, no red rag ever fluttered in the eyes of a furious bull ever caused more rage than the sight of that paper did to Muntz. That _they_ should dare to doubt _his_ infallibility was a deadly crime and an unpardonable sin.

In opposition to this paper, Muntz started a paper of his own, _The Birmingham Mercury_, by which he lost a good deal of money, and did little good. The debts in connection with this newspaper were not paid until after his death.

He certainly was a psychical curiosity, and his ways were "past finding out." He was bold and fearless physically, but there his courage ended. He avowed himself to be a Republican, yet he was an innate aristocrat. He was always declaiming against despotism and tyranny in the abstract, yet he was domineering and arbitrary in his household, in his family, and in his business. He affected primitive simplicity, yet was one of the vainest of men. In fact, his whole nature was a living contradiction.

About the year 1852 he lost, by death, his youngest daughter, to whom he had been devotedly attached. This was a severe blow to him, and from this time the robust physical frame began to exhibit tokens of decay. His hair became gray, and streaks of silver were seen in his magnificent beard. At the election in March, 1857, it was observed that he had greatly changed. He continued to attend the House of Commons until the end of May, when he was somewhat suddenly taken severely ill. It was discovered by the medical attendants that internal tumours, of an alarming nature, had formed, and from this moment his recovery seemed hopeless. He bore his illness with great firmness, although his weakness became pitiable, and the fine frame diminished to a mere skeleton. He became at length unconscious, and on the 30th of July, 1857, he quietly pa.s.sed away in the presence of his family.

The disposition of his vast wealth was marked by great eccentricity.

His will, when published, caused much adverse criticism, and uncomplimentary epithets were freely used. Suffice it to say here, that his property was most unequally, if not unfairly, divided amongst his family, and that he did not leave a farthing to the Charities of the town of his birth--the town which had done so much for him, and for which he had always professed so much attachment.

JOSEPH GILLOTT.

About a hundred and fifty years ago, a gentleman, whose name I have not been able to ascertain, owned the premises in Icknield Street West, now known as Monument House, and in his garden, near the house, he built the tall octagonal tower, now known as the Monument, respecting the origin of which so many various legendary stories are current. It was, no doubt, erected to enable its owner, who was an astronomer, to obtain from its upper chamber a more extensive field of view for his instruments, and thus to enable him to make observations of the heavenly bodies when they were very low down in the horizon.

I am informed, however, by an old inhabitant of Edgbaston, that his father told him, when a little boy, that it, was built by a gentleman named Parrott, who formerly lived in the top house in Bull Street, at the corner of Steelhouse Lane. This gentleman had removed to the house now called Monument House, and built the "Monument" in his garden to enable him--when from age he became too much enfeebled to enjoy it himself--to watch from its upper storeys the sport of coursing, which was extensively practised in the pleasant fields and meadows which then surrounded the house. Be that as it may, it is certain that the tower was, a century ago, known by the name of "Parrott's Folly."[A]

[Footnote A: In a Directory for the year 1800, Monument House is named as the residence of Mr. Parrott Noel.]

From the top storey of this lofty building there was a very extensive range of vision, but when first built there was little to be seen but green fields and open country. Of the few buildings visible, Ladywood House, still standing, occupied the foreground, and was surrounded by a pleasant park. Apparently just beyond was the fine old mansion known as New Hall, which stood where now Great Charles Street intersects Newhall Street, the present roadway being the very site which the house then occupied. St. Philip's Church was being built, and the scaffold of its unfinished tower and dome looked like a huge net of wickerwork. A little to the left, Aston Hall, in the clear atmosphere, seemed only about a mile away. Beyond, on a gentle eminence, Coles.h.i.+ll was distinctly visible, and in the far distance the tower of St. Mary's Church at Coventry reared to the dim and hazy sky its exquisitely tapered and most graceful spire.

I stood within this upper room, a few years ago, on a pleasant evening in the summer-time. From its windows there is still a very extensive view, but how changed! On all sides but one there is nothing to be seen, under the dingy cloud of smoke, but a weary, bewildering ma.s.s of dismal brick and mortar; and even on the north-west, where there are still a few green fields and pleasant gardens in the neighbourhood of the two reservoirs, the eye, reaching beyond there, comes upon the dark and forbidding regions to the west of Dudley. As on that glorious evening I turned my telescope to this point, I was startled by a very curious sight. I had placed the instrument in such a manner that its "field" was completely filled by the ruby-coloured disc of the setting sun. As I looked, I saw the singular apparition of a moving "whimsey"

at the top of Brierley Hill, dark and black against the s.h.i.+ning surface. It was an extraordinary illusion, for it looked exactly as if the rising and falling beam of the engine were attached to the surface of the sun itself.

On the same side, I saw, almost at the foot of the tower on which I stood, a little enclosed garden. It contained at one end a long, low, pavilion-like building, and, here and there, some pleasant alcoves and garden seats. I heard the sound of merry voices, and, I saw two or three sets of gentlemen playing the game known by the unpoetical name of "quoits." Upon inquiry I was told that this was the private ground of the Edgbaston Quoit Club, a select body, consisting mainly of well-to-do inhabitants of that pleasant suburb. By the courtesy of one of the members, I was a few days afterwards conducted over these premises. It was not a club day, so we were alone. The low pavilion, was, I found, the dining-room of the club--for on club days the members met to dine, as a preliminary to the play. It was plainly and very comfortably furnished, and every arrangement seemed to have been made that could conduce to the convenience of the members. At one end was a long row of hat-pegs, and upon these, at various angles, hung a singular a.s.sortment of garden hats and caps, of every imaginable shape and colour. They were the _neglige_ head-coverings of the members, and though altogether dissimilar in most respects, they were alike in one--they were all of very large size.

Phrenologists tell us that the size of a man's head is indicative of his mental power, and these hats certainly bore out the theory, for their owners were mostly self-made men, and were, without exception, men of mark. I will not mention the name of any of those now living, but two of the largest hats there belonged respectively to Walter Lyndon and Joseph Gillott.

Mr. Gillott, we are told, in a newspaper published soon after his death, was "born of poor but honest parents." I should like very much to inquire here, how it is that novel writers, magazine contributors, and newspaper reporters always write "poor _but_ honest." Is there really anything ant.i.thetic or antagonistic in poverty and honesty? To my mind the phrase always seems offensive, and it will be well if it is discontinued in the future. It is one of those little bits of clap-trap so common among reporters, who use phrases of this kind continually, without a thought as to their appropriateness.

However, Joseph Gillott was born in Sheffield about three months before the present century commenced. His parents _were_ poor, but they managed to give him a good plain education, and they taught him self-reliance. They taught him, too, to train and cultivate the fine faculty of observation with which he was naturally endowed. In very early life, we are told, he, by forging and grinding the blades of pen-knives, contributed greatly to the income of the parental household. It is said that even at a very early age, his quick perception and his acute nervous organisation enabled him to produce much finer work than others of far greater experience in the same trade, whose obtuseness had kept them in a state of comparative drudgery all their lives.

When he became of age, and was "out of his time," the cutlery trade in Sheffield was very much depressed, and he came to Birmingham, hoping to obtain employment in a trade which, owing to a caprice of fas.h.i.+on, was just then in an inflated condition. This was the business of making steel buckles, and other articles of polished steel for personal adornment. In this he was very successful, and soon after his arrival in the town, he took a small house in Bread Street, a little way down on the right from Newhall Street, and here he started business for himself. He had no capital, but he had great skill. Mr.

S.A. G.o.ddard, who used to buy from him, tells me that he made very excellent goods, and "came for his money every week." He was a very excellent workman, and possessing as he did the native perception of fitness which we call "taste," he soon obtained abundance of orders, and became prosperous.

At this time the steel pen trade, which has since grown to such enormous dimensions, was only in a tentative condition. Josiah Mason, in conjunction with Perry, of _The Morning Chronicle_ newspaper, was experimenting, and two brothers, named respectively John and William Mitch.e.l.l, were actually making, by a tedious method, a fairly good article. They were a.s.sisted in their work by a sister. By some fortunate accident, Gillott and Miss Mitch.e.l.l met, and after a brief courts.h.i.+p they entered into an engagement to marry. She spoke to her intended husband of the nature of her occupation, and Gillott at once conceived the idea that the _press_, the useful implement then used princ.i.p.ally in the b.u.t.ton trade, might, if proper tools could be made to suit, produce pens in large numbers very rapidly. With his own hands, in a garret of his house, he secretly worked until he had succeeded in making pens of a far better quality than had yet been seen. His process was one in which, una.s.sisted, he could produce as many pens as twenty pairs of hands, working under the old system, could turn out. There was an enormous demand for his goods, and as he wanted help, and secrecy seemed needful, the young people married, and Mr. Gillott used to tell how, on the very morning of his marriage, he, before going to the church, made with his own hands a gross of pens, and sold them at 1s. each, realising thereby a sum of 7 4s.

Continuing to live in the little house in Bread Street, the young couple worked in the garret, no one else a.s.sisting. As an ill.u.s.tration of the primitive condition of the steel pen trade then, it may be mentioned that at this period the pens were "blued" and varnished in a common frying-pan, over a kitchen fire. Orders flowed in so rapidly, and the goods were produced in such quant.i.ties, that the young couple made money faster than they knew what to do with it. They were afraid to invest it, as they did not wish it to ooze out that the business was so profitable. It has been stated that Mr. Gillott had several banking accounts open at this time, being afraid that, if he paid all his profits into one bank, it might excite cupidity, and so engender compet.i.tion. It is also said that he actually buried money in the cellar of his house, lest his marvellously rapid acc.u.mulation of wealth should become known.

At length the demand for his pens became so great that it was impossible to resist the urgent necessity for larger premises and increased labour. Mr. Gillott, accordingly, removed to Church Street, and subsequently took other premises, up the yard by Mr. Mappin's shop in Newhall Street. About the same time, he removed his family to the house at the corner of Great Charles Street, where the Inst.i.tution of Mechanical Engineers had its offices until its recent removal to London. After a few years, he commenced to build the premises in Graham Street, where the business has, ever since, been carried on.

At the time the building was erected, there were few "factories,"

properly so called, in the town, and most of the work of the place was conducted in the low, narrow ranges of latticed-windowed buildings known as "shopping." Mr. Gillott's was, I think, the first Birmingham building in the modern factory style. It was admirably planned, and expensively built. Even, now, when hundreds of factories have arisen, its solid and substantial appearance externally, and the arrangements inside, for order, and for the organisation of labour, are not surpa.s.sed by any of its rivals.

As soon as Mr. Gillott's appliances were of sufficient extent to supply very large quant.i.ties, he commenced to advertise extensively, a practice which he continued during the remainder of his life, and which his son and successor still follows up in a modified form. I perfectly remember, more than forty years ago, his advertis.e.m.e.nts in tine magazines, and on the cover of the "Penny Cyclopaedia." Like everything that Mr. Gillott did, they bore the impress of original thought. After giving his name and address, and a few other particulars as to his wares, the advertis.e.m.e.nts went on to say something like this:

"The number of pens produced in this factory in the year ending December 31st, 1836, was

250,000 grosses, or 3,000,000 dozens, or 36,000,000 pens."

The advertis.e.m.e.nts invariably had the fac-simile of Mr. Gillott's signature, as now; a signature better known, perhaps, than any other in the world, and one with which almost every human being who can write is perfectly familiar. Of course it will be understood that the quant.i.ties given above are altogether imaginary. It is impossible to remember the exact figures after so many years, but they are inserted to show the form the advertis.e.m.e.nts then took.

Faster than the improved facilities at his command enabled him to produce, came the demand for his pens. To meet this, he brought from time to time into use many mechanical appliances, the product of his fertile and ingenious brain, until at length every one of the old processes was superseded, and labour-saving machinery subst.i.tuted. The price of the pens fell from a s.h.i.+lling each to less than that sum per gross, and the steel pen came into universal use. The enormous number of yens produced in Mr. Gillott's works can scarcely be set down in figures, but may be estimated roughly, from the statement made at the time of his death that the average weight of the weekly make of finished pens exceeded five tons. I have tried, by experiment, to arrive at an approximate estimate of the _number_ of pens this weight represents. I have taken a "scratch" dozen of pens, of all sorts and sizes, and ascertaining their weight, have calculated therefrom, and I find that the result is something like sixty thousand grosses, or the enormous number of nearly nine millions of separate pens, sent out from this manufactory every week.

In the course of the forty or fifty years during which Mr. Gillott was in business, many other manufactories of steel pens were established, at some of which, probably, greater _numbers_ of pens were produced than at his own, but the _amount of business_ transacted was in no case, probably, so great. Mr. Gillott did not compete in the direction others took--lowness of price. Like his brother-in-law, Mr. William Mitch.e.l.l, he preferred to continue to improve the quality. It is somewhat remarkable that, after long years of active and severe compet.i.tion, these two houses--the oldest in the trade, I believe--have still the highest reputation for excellence.

It has often occurred to me that the invention of steel pens came most opportunely. Had they not been invented, Rowland Hill's penny postage scheme would probably have failed. There would not have been, in the whole world, geese enough to supply quills to make the required number of pens. Had Byron lived a little later on, his celebrated couplet would not have apostrophised the "gray goose quill," but would probably have run something like this:

"My Gillott pen! thou n.o.blest work of skill, Slave of my thought, obedient to my will."

My purpose, however, in this sketch is not to write a history of the trade by which Mr. Gillott raised himself to fame and fortune, but rather to describe the man himself, as he moved quietly and un.o.btrusively among his fellow men. One of his chief characteristics, it has always struck me, was his intense love of _excellence_ in everything with which he had to do. It was a frequent jocular remark of his that "the best of everything was good enough for him." In this--perhaps unknowingly--he followed Lord Bacon's advice, "Jest in earnest," for he, certainly, earnestly carried out in life the desire to do, and to possess, the "best" that could be attained. Of this peculiarity, some very pleasant stories can be told.

Soon after he had purchased the beautiful estate at Stanmore, near Harrow-on-the-Hill, which he loved so much, and where, in company with his old friend, Pett.i.tt, the artist, he spent so much time in his latter years, he resolved to adorn the grounds with the rarest and most beautiful shrubs and trees obtainable. The trustees of the Jephson Gardens, at Leamington, about the same time, advertised for sale some surplus plants of rare kinds, and Mr. Gillott paid the gardens a visit. He had selected a number of costly specimens, when his eye fell on a tree of surpa.s.sing beauty. He inquired its price, and was told that it was not for sale. He was not a man to be easily baffled, and he still tried to make a bargain. He was at length told that an offer of 50 had already been made for the tree, and refused.

His reply was characteristic: "Well, I've made up my mind to have that tree, and I'll give 100 for it. This offer, with the amount of those I have selected, will make my morning's purchases come to three or four hundred pounds. If I don't have this tree, I won't have any." He had it, and it still adorns the magnificent lawn at Stanmore.

Few people know that he had a fancy for collecting precious stones, simply as rarities. Poor George Lawson (whose tall, erect, and soldier-like figure was well known in the streets of Birmingham and at picture sales, and whose thoroughly good-natured, genial, hearty manner, and singular wealth of humour, made him the favourite "of all circles, and the idol of his own") told me a capital story ill.u.s.trative of this. One of Mr. Lawson's daughters complained to him of tooth-ache, and he advised her to have it extracted. The young lady, who had inherited a large share of her father's rare humour, went immediately to the dentist and had the objectionable tooth removed. There had been a calf's head on the dinner-table that day, and the young lady, on her return, obtained from the cook one of the large molars from the jaw of the calf, which, having been carefully wrapped in paper, was presented to her father as her own. He saw through the trick in an instant, and affecting great astonishment at its enormous size, he put it in his waistcoat pocket, as a curiosity, forming in his own mind a little plot for the following day, when he had an engagement to dine out. The dinner party was at Walter Lyndon's house at Moseley, and here he met Gillott. Lawson, at table, was seated next to a gentleman from London, who wore on his forefinger a ring containing a very magnificent diamond; so large, indeed, as to excite Lawson's attention so much that at length he spoke, "You must really excuse me, but I cannot help admiring the splendid diamond in your ring." "Yes, it's a pretty good one," said the gentleman, handing it to Lawson for inspection. It was pa.s.sed round the table until it reached Gillott, who carefully inspected it and said, "It's a very good one; but I think I have one that'll 'lick' it." Putting his hand into the breast pocket of his coat, he brought out two or three shabby-looking screwed-up bits of paper. Selecting one of these, he opened it, and produced therefrom an unmounted diamond, far surpa.s.sing in size and purity the one in the ring. Precious stones generally became at once the topic of conversation, and it was wondered whether an emerald of equal size would be of equal or, as one contended, even greater value. One gentleman present said that an emerald so large had never yet been seen. Gillott's eye twinkled with a merry humour, as, from another bit of paper, he produced an emerald larger than the diamond, and a minute afterwards trumped both these with a splendid ruby. It was now Lawson's turn. a.s.suming a serious look, he said that Mr. Gillott's specimens were certainly very remarkable, but he could "beat them hollow." Then, with an air of great mystery and care, he produced from his pocket the carefully-enveloped tooth, which he exhibited to his astonished friends as the identical tooth taken from his daughter's jaw the day before.

It is well known that Mr. Gillott had acc.u.mulated a very large and fine collection of violins and other stringed musical instruments.

These, when sold by auction after his death, fetched, under the hammer, upwards of 4,000. About twenty years ago an old friend of mine in Leicesters.h.i.+re, who had met with some heavy losses, desired to sell a fine Stradivarius violin, which had been in his family more than a century, and he sent it to me that I might offer it to Mr.

Gillott. I called upon him to ask permission to bring it to him for inspection. I can recall now the frank, honest, homely Yorks.h.i.+re tone with which he said, "Nay, lad! I shan't buy any more fiddles; I've got a boat-load already." He wouldn't look at it, and I sent it back to its owner, who is long since dead.

World-wide as was his reputation as a manufacturer, he was almost equally renowned as one of the most munificent and discriminating patrons of Art. Possessing, naturally, a most refined taste, and having very acute perceptive powers, he instinctively recognised the _true_ in the work of young artists; and when he saw tokens of more than common ability, he fostered the budding talent in a very generous spirit. So much was thought of his judgment, that the fact of his having bought a picture by an unknown man was quite sufficient to give the artist a position. I heard a story from a Liverpool artist the other day, very characteristic of Mr. Gillott's firm and determined, yet kind and generous, nature. It is well known that he very early recognised the genius of the gifted Mueller, and became his warm supporter. One result of his patronage was that others sought the artist, and by offers of large prices and extensive commissions, induced him to let them have some of his pictures, which Gillott was to have bought. Mueller appears to have become inflated by his great success, and he, in this or some other way, managed to annoy his early friend and patron in a very serious manner. His punishment was swift, severe, and sure. Gillott immediately packed off every Mueller picture he possessed to an auction room in London, with directions that they should be extensively advertised as his property, and sold without the slightest reserve. This step so frightened the Art-world that "Mullers" became a drug in the market, and poor Muller found himself neglected by his quondam friends. He soon came in penitence to Gillott, who again took him by the hand, and befriended him until his untimely death in 1845, at the age of 33. At the sale of Mr. Gillott's pictures after his decease, Muller's celebrated picture, "The Chess Players," fetched the enormous sum of 3,950.

The story of Mr. Gillott's introduction to the great landscape painter, Turner, has been variously told, but the basis of all the stories is pretty much the same. It seems that Gillott, long before Ruskin had dubbed Turner "the modern Claude," had detected the rare excellence of his works, and longed to possess some. He went to the dingy house in Queen Anne Street, and Turner himself opened the door.

In reply to Gillott's questions, he said he had "nothing to sell that _he_ could afford to buy." Gillott, by great perseverance, obtained admission, and tried at first to bargain for a single picture. Turner looked disdainfully at his visitor, and refused to quote a price.

Still Gillott persevered, and at length startled the artist by asking, "What'll you take for the lot in this room?" Turner, half-jokingly, named a very large sum--many thousands--thinking to frighten him off, but Gillott opened his pocket book, and, to Turner's utter amazement, paid down the money in crisp Bank of England notes. From this moment the two men, so utterly unlike in their general character, but so strangely kindred in their love of Art, became on intimate terms of friends.h.i.+p, which lasted until Turner's death in 1851. Mr. Gillott's collection of Turner's works was the largest and finest in private hands in England, and, when they were sold, realised more than five times the money he had paid for them.