The Portsmouth Road and Its Tributaries Part 14

XXV

Another celebrated (or rather, notorious) person was used to lie here frequently on his journeys between town and the Isle of Wight. "Liberty"

Wilkes had an estate at Sandown (_he_ calls it "Sandham"), and when he was not busy agitating and be-devilling ministers in London, he was taking the sea-breezes in the Wight and writing innumerable letters to his daughter, Polly.

Statesmen must have breathed much more freely when the demagogue had left London and they were rid for a while, however short, of "his inhuman squint and diabolic grin." If we are to believe his contemporaries and the portrait-painters, he was the ugliest man of his time, with the countenance of a satyr, to match and typify the low cunning and the obscenity of his crooked mind. "His personal appearance," wrote Lord Brougham, "was so revolting as to be hardly human;" and, indeed, apologists for Wilkes' character and appearance are singularly few among historians in these days, when it is the fas.h.i.+on to review by-past notorieties with the whitewash brush.

[Sidenote: _IMPIOUS REVELLERS_]

John Wilkes was born in 1727, and married, when in his twenty-second year, a lady of considerable fortune, who afterwards separated from him, chiefly owing to the disgust and abhorrence with which she looked upon his dissolute habits and profligate acquaintances, amongst whom he counted three of the most notorious rakes of the time, a time excelled in profligacy only by the reign of Charles II. Shortly after this separation, Wilkes joined a burlesque monastery, founded, amongst others, by those three vicious creatures and notorious rakes, Lord Sandwich, Thomas Potter, son of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Sir Francis Dashwood. They occupied the ruins of an old Cistercian monastery that still stands on the banks of the Thames at Medmenham, and pa.s.sed their time in a blasphemous travesty of religion and the monastic life. The "Medmenham Monks," they called themselves, but were known generally as the "h.e.l.l-Fire Club."

[Ill.u.s.tration: JOHN WILKES.]

If the Earl of Sandwich was the champion _roue_, rake, and profligate of a vicious age, certainly Wilkes almost bore away the distinction from him; as we may judge from the result of the election amongst the Medmenham revellers as to who should be chosen to take a place among the round dozen who played a leading part in their midnight orgies.

The Earl of Sandwich, as the greater reprobate of the two, was chosen, and Wilkes revenged himself upon the company by a practical joke, which admirably ill.u.s.trates the nature of their proceedings. "While the profane revellers were feasting and uttering impious jests, Wilkes let loose, from a chest wherein he was confined, a baboon dressed according to the common representations of the Evil One. The moment chosen was during an invocation addressed by Lord Sandwich to his master, the devil. The consternation was indescribable. The terror communicated itself to the baboon, which bounded about the room and finally lighted on Lord Sandwich's shoulders, who in a paroxysm of terror recanted all he had been saying, and, in an agony of cowardice, prayed to Heaven for mercy."

Some years later, in 1757, Wilkes entered Parliament as member for Aylesbury, and became a supporter of the elder Pitt. When Pitt was in opposition and the scandalously venal, corrupt, and utterly incompetent ministry of Lord Bute misgoverned the country, Wilkes started the "North Briton," a periodical satire, both in its contents and its t.i.tle, upon Scotchmen, who were then bitterly hated by the English, and upon the Scots in Parliament and in politics, among whom Bute was the most prominent. The persistent abuse which Wilkes showered upon the ministry had successfully damaged the Government by the time that his forty-fourth number had been published, and upon the appearance of the famous "Number 45," in 1763, containing criticisms of the King's Speech, it was resolved to prosecute him for seditious libel, to search his house, and to arrest himself, his printers, and publishers.

[Sidenote: _'WILKES AND LIBERTY'_]

Wilkes desired nothing better than persecution. He was nothing of a patriot, but only a vulgar schemer who worked for notoriety and gain, and his craft, together with the inconceivable stupidity of the Government in making a martyr of him, a.s.sured him of both. The warrants for his arrest and for the seizure of his papers were declared illegal, and the numerous actions-at-law which he brought against members of the Cabinet and prominent officials in respect of those illegal proceedings, cost the Government which defended them no less than 100,000. Wilkes now reprinted "Number 45," and a majority in the House of Commons ordered the paper to be burned by the common hangman, and on January 19, 1764, voted his expulsion from the House, as the author of a scandalous and seditious libel. He was convicted in the Court of King's Bench for having re-published the obnoxious "Number 45," but did not present himself to receive sentence. He fled, in fact, to France, and resided there for four years, an outlaw. Twice he returned to England and unsuccessfully pet.i.tioned an incredibly obstinate and stupid King for a pardon, which, it is scarcely necessary to add, George III. refused to grant. On the second occasion a general election was in progress, and this agitator then sought re-election to Parliament, and stood for the City of London. Defeated in the City, he issued his election address the following day as a candidate for the county of Middles.e.x, and was returned triumphantly at the head of the poll. "Wilkes and Liberty!" was now the popular cry, and the member for Middles.e.x became more than ever the darling of the mob, the idol of the populace. But the extraordinary stupidity of King, Court, and Government, that had raised so utterly worthless and degraded a fellow as Wilkes to this high pinnacle, kept him there by another expulsion from the Commons, and by fines and imprisonment inflamed the anger of the crowd to such a pitch that Benjamin Franklin said, with every appearance of conviction, "that had Wilkes been as moral a man as the King, he would have driven George III. out of his kingdom." So strong were prejudices in favour of superficial morality in even that licentious age!

So sensible was Wilkes of the advantages conferred upon him by imprisonment, that when the savage mob rescued him from the coach that was conveying him to gaol, he escaped from them and gave himself up, rather than lose the advertis.e.m.e.nt of an incarceration. He had his reward subsequently, when, offering himself for re-election for Middles.e.x, he was returned with an enormous majority over Colonel Luttrell. The House of Commons, however, by a vain and impotent resolution, declared the latter to have been duly elected, and now, chiefly by the aid of folly and fortuitous circ.u.mstances, Wilkes found his fortunes identified with the cause of the Const.i.tution and the liberty of the subject. He was elected Sheriff of London, and became in 1774 Lord Mayor, being returned as a member for Middles.e.x in the same year, unopposed, and for the fifth time.

At this period the citizens of London conferred upon him the post of Chamberlain of the City, a position of great profit and consideration, which must have made amends for many inconveniences in the past.

And now, having attained all he could desire, Wilkes sank the patriot in the courtier. "Hus.h.!.+ you old fool!" said he at this period to an old woman who raised the stale cry of "Wilkes and Liberty" in the street; "that was all over long ago;" and, upon his being presented at Court during his Mayoralty, he made himself so agreeable to the King that the old Monarch declared he had never met so well-bred a Lord Mayor! Wilkes, not to be out-shone when compliments were going free, a.s.sured his Majesty that he had never been a Wilkite; and so, as in the fairy tales, "they lived happily ever afterwards."

[Sidenote: _CORRESPONDENCE_]

Wilkes is seen to best advantage in his letters to his daughter. In them he dropped the turgid vehemence which characterized his public utterances, and became a quiet, mildly humorous gossip, concerned deeply about all manner of insignificant domestic details, the incidents of his journeys, and his sojournings in town or country. But from time to time the leer of the elderly satyr is seen in this correspondence, and pa.s.sages are not infrequent in which the most frank and unlooked-for things, as between father and daughter, may be read. But you shall judge for yourself.

He writes from Newport, Isle of Wight, on June 9, 1772:--

"MY DEAREST POLLY,

"I arrived at Cobham on Sunday before twelve, and dined, like a sober citizen, by one; then sauntered through the elysium of Mr. Hamilton's gardens till eight in the evening, like the first solitary man through Paradise; and afterwards went to bed before ten. Yesterday I got to Guildford by eleven, and paid my compliments to our good friend, Mrs.

Waugh and her family: reached Portsmouth at five."

At a later date he writes from "Sandham" (Sandown) Cottage, a country retreat which he occupied frequently in these latter days, and several references to the Portsmouth Road occur from time to time, as he journeyed between Sandham Cottage and Prince's Court, London. He lay generally at the "Anchor," Liphook, where the landlady, Mrs. Keen, "dull and sour"

though she might have been, according to one of Wilkes' letters, seems to have made the triumphant demagogue and his daughter sufficiently comfortable. Writing on September 14, 1788, he says:--

"MY DEAREST POLLY,

"I arrived at Sandham yesterday afternoon at three, after a lucky pa.s.sage of an hour and five minutes. There was very little wind, and that quite adverse. I therefore hired for four-and-sixpence a wherry with two oars not larger than a Thames boat, and committed myself to our English deity, Neptune, who favourably heard my prayers. The opposition of a little wind to the tide at high water made the beginning of this long voyage rather rough; but the rest was exceedingly pleasant.

"The preceding day I lay at Liphook, and directed Mrs. Keen to send you this week a fine goose, and a brace of partridges....

"The road from Guildford quite to Portsmouth is really enchanting. But I wanted you to enjoy with me these glorious scenes of Nature. I hope, however, that the quiet of your present situation" (Miss Wilkes was visiting the d.u.c.h.ess de la Valliere) "has chased away your feveret, and restored you to sweet sleep, Nature's best nurse. Pray send me such welcome news."

And then this agitator and sometime blasphemous member of the Medmenham h.e.l.l-Fire Club goes on to write verses appreciative of the scenery on the Portsmouth Road. In this wise:--

"Ever charming, ever new, The landscape never tires the view: The verdant meads, the river's flow, The woody vallies warm and low; The windy summit, wild and high, Roughly rus.h.i.+ng on the sky: The pleasant seat, the ruin'd tower, The naked rock, the shady bower; The town and village,"----

But enough, enough. This "poetry" is but journalism cut into lengths and rhymed.

[Sidenote: _WILKES AS CRITIC_]

We find Wilkes as a _poseur_ on literature in one of these entertaining letters to "dearest Polly." He indites from his cottage of Sandham a June letter wherein he says how impatient he is for "the descending showers to call forth all Nature's sweets, and waken all her flowers, for the earth is as thirsty as Boswell, and as cracked in many places as he certainly is in one. His book, however, is that of an entertaining madman. Poor Johnson! Does a friend come and add to the gross character of such a man the unknown trait of disgusting gluttony? I shall bring his two quartos back with me, and will point out numberless mistakes; but there are many excellent things in them. I suspect, not unfrequently, a mistake in the _Dramatis Personae_. He has put down to _Boswell_ what was undoubtedly said by _Johnson_; what the latter did, and what the former could not say. The motto to his book should have been the two lines of Pope,

'Who tells whate'er you think, whate'er you say, And if he lies not, must at least betray.'"

But he has a playful and somewhat engaging style of writing, on occasion.

Perpend:--

"_'Anchor,' at Liphook, "Friday Afternoon, July 8, 1791._

"MY DEAREST POLLY,

"I have found the tench here so remarkably delicate, that nothing could add to their flavour on a certain Alderman's palate but the eating them in your company. They were, indeed, exquisite, and I see a brace playing about, which seem to promise equally. I have therefore spoiled their sport in the watery element, and as they set out this evening, before ten, it is thought they will arrive in Grosvenor Square to-morrow morning, in time for you to decide, at four, if their personal merit is equal to that of their late companions. Two little feathered folks, young and tender, of the same farm, accompany them in their journey, and I hope are not unworthy of being _croques_.

"My best compliments to the nymph of the bosquets in Grosvenor Square.

"Adieu!"

The inclemency of the merry month of May is not of modern date, for Wilkes, who had been travelling from Grosvenor Square to Sandown on the sixth of that treacherous month, in the year of grace 1792, found a fire at the hospitable "Anchor" as welcome as fires generally are in dreary autumn.

"After I left Grosvenor Square," he says, "quite to Liphook, it rained incessantly, and I enjoyed a good fire there as much as I should have done on a raw day of the month of November. I found the spring very backward, except in the immediate environs of London; and nothing but a little purple heath and yellow broom to cheer the eye in the long dreary extent from Guildford to Liphook."

[Sidenote: _TRAVELLING EXPERIENCES_]

Some few days later, he writes a gossipy letter to his daughter, full of little domestic details, most strange and curious to find flowing from the pen of Liberty Wilkes. We find, for instance, "that the gardener's wife increases in size almost as much as his pumpkins," and that "there are thirteen pea-fowls at the cottage, between whom some solemn gallantries are continually pa.s.sing; and the gallinis are as brisk and amorous as any French _pet.i.ts-maitres_. The consequences I foresee.

'Un et un font deux, C'est le nombre heureux, En galanterie, mais quelquefois, Un et un font trois.'"

On another occasion we learn that "the farmers are swearing, the parsons praying, for rain; neither hopeful of any result until the weather changes." About this time--on July 7, 1793--Mr. Wilkes has been returning along the Portsmouth Road from London to the Isle of Wight. He found the dust and heat almost overpowering, and the highway crowded with recruits, both for army and navy, who were no small inconvenience to his progress.

Portsmouth was full of warlike preparations, Lord Howe expecting to sail the same day with a fleet of twenty sail, perfectly well-conditioned, and the men in high spirits at the prospect of coming to blows with the French.

Similarly, the next year, he found the July heat almost beyond endurance.

"I almost melted away," he tells Polly, "from the extreme of a suffocating heat before I arrived at Cobham, and a large bowl of lemonade was scarcely sufficient to wash away the dust, which I had been champing for above three hours." A Mr. Hervey, "brother-in-law to Mr. Lambe, a silversmith, and Common Councilman of my ward," was at that time landlord of the "White Hart," at Cobham. "I was well used by him," says Wilkes, "and the house has a very decent appearance, but the poor fellow had tears in his eyes when he told me of thirty-five horse quartered on him." When he reached Liphook, what with two hounds, chained together in the outhouses of the "Anchor," yelping all night, and the intolerable heat, the patriot had no sleep the livelong night, and so resorted to his post-chaise and departed for Portsmouth at an early hour of the morning.

Those were busy days in the history of the "Anchor," and the constant stream of poorer wayfarers added to the bustle. Poor folk took a shake-down, with what grace they might summon up, in some clean straw on the floor of outhouses and barns, and in this manner slept the sailor-men who were continually tramping up the road or down. Not that sailors were necessarily poor, but the bedrooms that held royalty were judged to be above the tastes and circ.u.mstances of poor Jack, to whom, certainly, clean straw in a barn would seem at any rate infinitely better than the gloomy forecastle which he had just left.

[Sidenote: _DECADENCE_]

But if the sailors a hundred years ago, or thereby, were denied the luxuries of sheets and coverlets, they were free to drink as much as they pleased at the public bar, so long as they had the wherewithal to settle the score. Rowlandson, who travelled this very road, has left a sketch of "Sailors Carousing," by which you can see that Jack was, at any rate, not one of Luther's fools, for the picture shows that he loved "women, wine, and song" to a riotous extent. And Jack come home from a long cruise, with prize-money in his pockets, was as ostentatious as any _nouveau riche_. He would d.a.m.n expense with any lord, and has been known to call for sandwiches at the "Anchor" to place five-pound notes between, and to eat the whole with an insane bravado.