learned lord's friends availed themselves, by passing many a joke upon
him; all of which he took with the greatest good humour.
Lord Stowell was a great eater, and, says Mr. Surtees, "the feats
which he performed with the knife and fork were eclipsed by those
which he would afterwards display with the bottle." His habits were
slovenly and unclean. "The hand that could pen the neatest of periods
was itself often dirty and unwashed; and the mouth which could utter
eloquence so graceful, or such playful wit, fed voraciously, and
selected the most greasy food." Then again, he was an unquestionable
miser. He kept a very mean establishment. Fond as he was of his wine,
he would drink less at his own than at other tables. "He could drink
any _given_ quantity," as was wittily observed by his brother, Lord
Eldon, but was abstemious where he had to pay. The most painful fact
that remains to be recorded respecting him is, that when his only son
William had formed an attachment that was unexceptionable, he, though
it may be said he rolled in riches, would not make him a sufficient
allowance to enable him to marry. It has been stated that his son died
from the effects of intemperate habits; and it must be added, that but
for this disappointment the young man might have lived. In despair he
plunged into excesses. His father just survived him, and his great
wealth was gathered up by collaterals. Perhaps his fondness of poking
about London, visiting cheap shows, was connected more with his avarice
than with his curiosity. After his elevation to the peerage, he was
actually seen coming out of a penny show in London--cheap excitement!
Like Lord Eldon, though a great friend of the church, he never attended
public worship. What had been said of his brother might have been
said of him, that he was more properly a buttress of the church than
a pillar, for he was never seen inside it. At the same time, there is
no reason to doubt that he was a good Christian; probably, like many
other University men, he had a surfeit of chapels when at college, and
shuddered at the thought of again entering one. With all his failings,
and notwithstanding his avarice, which increased with his years, Lord
Stowell must be regarded as having been, after a peculiar sort, a
kindly, amiable man.
John Day and Fairlop Fair.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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