William Prideaux Courtney

“ JOHN TAYLOR OF THE "SUN."
"Jack" Taylor can pair off with "Jack" Warner. The parson excelled his friend in possessing that natural gaiety of disposition which bubbles up at every moment. The journalist on the other hand had less flow of humour, but he could draw on his memory for a more abundant wealth of anecdote. They had in common the gift of attracting to themselves crowds of friends and acquaintances. Only one person in that age could rival them in the field of friendship. ”

“ Famous Englishmen in all ages are chronicled in the pages of Sir George Murray Smith's costly Dictionary of national biography, and Mr. Frederic Boase in his noble volumes of Modern English biography has summarised, with patient and protracted labour, the lives of everyone of any importance who passed away in the half-century beginning with 1850. But even after this vast increase in the biographical literature of our country many persons conspicuous in their time still want a chronicler. ”

“ He was admitted to his rooms at all hours and one occasion "found the poet in bed with his hair en papillote." Davies was the best talker of them all in this little côterie. He was "always ready and often witty." Hobhouse and Byron invariably went to the wall in their contests of wit with the other pair "and even Matthews yielded to the dashing vivacity of Scrope Davies."
To Byron's eyes Davies appeared more a man of the world than the other members of this little set and he did not expect the death of Matthews to come home to a man of that temperament so keenly as it did to Hobhouse. ”

“ Townshend loved society and lived much in it. With Fox and Sheridan, Hare and Fitzpatrick, he often repaired to Whitbread's country house at Southill, in Bedfordshire. The party used to delight in teasing the leader whom they idolized. Fox, the sweetest-tempered of mankind, bore it all with equanimity but if it became necessary, he put out his paw and crushed them. After his retirement from active life in politics Townshend divided his time between his two houses, that of Ball's Park near Hertford, and his seaside retreat at Brighton. ”

“ The friends whom Davies attracted to his side at Cambridge made easy for him the entrance into the inner life of society in London. He became one of the most fashionable men of his day. Byron, Douglas Kinnaird and Hobhouse "formed one part of the chain," Brummell, Alvanley and Davies another. Gronow no bad judge of a man's fitness for the dining table and the drawing room, who "lived much" with him and Wedderburn Webster called him "one of the most agreeable men I ever met." ”

“ Biographical details of such men as David Garrick can be found in a score of separate memoirs and in the general dictionaries of the literature or the biography of our kingdom, but information on the career of the poetaster whose lines were engraved on Garrick's monument in Westminster Abbey can be looked for with certainty in one authority only. It is in the memoirs of the more obscure of our countrymen that the value of our great biographical dictionary lies, and even within its ample folds five out of the eight lives described in these pages are not to be found. ”

“ The weakness of Rundle revealed itself to the critical eye of Thomas Emlyn, the first unitarian minister in England. He was not so temperate and abstemious as a confessor for the faith ought to be, and Emlyn was not long in remarking that he "did not seem cut out for such sufferings as counsellors are to expect." The truth forced itself upon poor Whiston with even more directness. He was invited to "eat a cheesecake" with Talbot and Rundle, but when the innocent heretic went he found "such a collation of wine and sweet-meats prepared as little corresponded to the terms of the invitation." ”

“ Next month he again expresses his wish to lord Carlisle that he may not leave office before the "occasion will happen to serve poor Warner." Alas, it was too late; the time had slipped away. But the doctor bore his misfortune like a man. "Poor Warner!" writes Selwyn in ten lines of English without a word of French "He is very cheerful and declares with great generosity of mind and justice to you [lord Carlisle] that he shall not complain of his lot; he is persuaded that if you could help him you would, and that there are disappointments which a man must reconcile himself to." ”

“ Few men held a higher place in Fox's friendship than Townshend, a place to which he was well entitled by the elegance of his mind, his various accomplishments and steady adherence throughout life. Though not endowed with eminent parliamentary talents, he possessed an understanding highly cultivated, set off by the most pleasing manners. ”

“ By both John Forster and Thackeray he was selected as the type among the clergy or the easy-going hangers-on of the great, and to the ordinary reader the sentences in which these satirists have pilloried him are the sole recollections of his life which linger in the memory. Warner had a genius for making friends, and early in life attached himself to George Selwyn. For the sake of that wit and his associates poor Warner discharged many duties without receiving any reward for his labours. ”

“ George Selwyn, the friend whom Warner served with such absolute devotion, testifies to his great congregation at Tavistock chapel and his many admirers. Personally he was not one of them. Warner had preached in his chape at Matson, his estate near Gloucester, " and the neighbour- hood flocked to hear him but his style and manner," says Selwyn, " were very different from my ideas of pulpit eloquence. He intended by his intimacy with Garrick to improve them, but it has to my impressions had a very different effect. I love great simplicity in everything, but most in reading and preaching." ”

“ Fox is represented as tired of pastime in the country and he hopes that Townshend is in like case. He indulges in satire over the peculiarities of his opponents in politics and adjures his friend to return to life at Westminster. The young Whig yachtsman is designated the "pride of fop alley though a little tanned" and there is spread before him an alluring picture of the pleasures of life at Brooks's, a worthy man "who blushes to be paid." Hare, the Hare of many friends, complained a year or two later that he seldom saw Fox "except at supper at Brooks's, with lord John Townshend." ”

“ Towards the close of life the thoughts of Metcalfe reverted to the poor of the parish of Hawstead. In 1811 he built, near its church, six almshouses, "after the design of those in the Lewes road, Brighton," which must often have attracted his attention, "as an asylum and for the perpetual maintenance of six persons who having spent an honest and industrious youth and supported themselves, without assistance from others, should have become through age incapable of continuing in the same course. ”

“ A marked advance in the position of women was visible during the closing years of the eighteenth century. This was in the main due to the fact that parents had begun to think them capable of discharging other duties in life than those which were limited by household management, and that considerable improvements had consequently been made in their education. New ideas on their rights and their characters were in the air and Mary Wollstonecraft gave expression to them. Woman had shown that she could vie with man in the realms of fiction. ”

“ The truest of all was no doubt the estimate of Pulteney. "Rundle is far from being the great and learned man his friends would have the world believe him and much farther yet from the bad man his enemies represent him." A year after the appointment Swift still dwelt on his good qualities and the affection in which he was held. "He is a most excessive Whig but without any appearing rancour, . . . besides, £3000 a year is an invincible sweetness."
Rundle crossed to Ireland with the determination of ruling his diocese in a manner acceptable to his clergy. ”

“ Talbot's enormous income as bishop of Durham never sufficed for his profuse expenditure. To play the part of prince-bishop was congenial to him and he enjoyed appearing on horseback at all the reviews which the King attended. His domestic chaplain Rundle partook of his lavishness; he was throughout life fond of the pleasures of the table, and his "cheesecake" parties gradually expanded into more profuse entertainments. ”

“ He was Selwyn's junior by about 17 years, and "dear George " was nearing sixty when their friendship is first recorded in print. From Warner's first letter written at Padua in August, 1778, it would seem that Selwyn and he had travelled from London to Milan together, and had just parted. Padua was a delight to him, and Selwyn must join in his joy. True that the " grass grows in the streets," but how much better was that than the noise of the " unruly rabble " of Milan. ”

“ If the doctor could only get a piece of preferment that would add two or three hundred pounds a year to his income he would be of all men the most happy. Ireland existed at this moment for the benefit of impecunious Englishmen and Selwyn suggested that some preferment in that country, which he might afterwards exchange, should be bestowed upon him. If Selwyn's own benefice of Ludgershall were vacant, he would not ask for Carlisle's services. ”

“ Townshend was in early life remarkable above his fellows for his energy and for his supreme grace of manners. A special feature that characterised him was his "pathetic bow." While still very young he became a constant associate in the daily routine and in the political sympathies of Charles James Fox. He adopted the principles of the Whigs with enthusiasm and stuck to them throughout his life. ”

“ For 38 years Metcalfe and Reynolds were on terms of the closest friendship. They dined together at home and elsewhere and Metcalfe used to be one of the guests of sir Joshua, as the president, at the dinners of the royal academy. He was a friend to men of letters and a liberal patron of the arts and it was through the advice of Reynolds that he bought many of the pictures which formed his collection.
The two friends went for an art tour on the continent in the summer of 1781. Their movements are chronicled by many hands. ”

“ Two months later Davies in a letter to Raikes from the same seaside resort, then the quietest of the resorts on that long line of dunes, challenged Ball Hughes—the name will be familiar to all readers of Gronow as another of the extravagant men of fashion who died on foreign soil—to mortal combat at tennis. They met in fight in March 1840 and Raikes was a witness of the struggle. But now poor Davies was ill. ”

“ Nor is it an inconsiderable advantage to see such works in company with one who has a general rectitude of taste and is not a professor of the art. We are too apt to forget that the art is not intended solely for the pleasure of professors. The opinions of others are certainly not to be neglected, for painters, being educated in the same manner, are likely to judge from the same principles and are liable to the same prejudices." Sir Joshua wrote several letters to Burke while on this expedition. Of the collection at Dusseldorf he wrote enthusiastically that "Rubens reigns here and revels." ”

“ The dead are less to be deplored than the insane. . . . Babylon in all its desolation is a sight not so awful as that of the human mind in ruins. It is a firmament without a sun, a temple without a god. I have survived most of my friends: heaven forbid I should survive myself." Raikes wrote in reply recommending "quiet and calomel" and entered in his diary his fear that "the brandy-bottle has much to do with the excitement." Next day he called on Davies and found him "well and gone out."
In June 1837 Raikes and Davies passed two days in the pleasant town of Gisors. ”

“ Charles Skinner Matthews, Matthews major of boyish life, whose "infinite superiority" Byron stood in awe of, but Matthews at the time that he contemplated contesting the representation of the university, was whelm'd beneath the waters of the Cam (August 1811) . Matthews minor of Eton, "the image, to the very voice of his brother Charles" left his contemporaries at Cambridge to travel through the south of Europe in pursuit of health, and produced the popular "diary of an invalid" which Byron pronounced "most excellent" as one of the three books "of truth or sense upon Italy." ”

“ But the doctor lived and spoke on his own lines. He even went so far, oh grievous offence against propriety ! as " to walk in the streets without gloves." Whatever the " British Fair " may have become, their satirist was restored to them without a change. He was the same genial, kind-hearted, honest old fellow. Hayley was much attached to an illegitimate child, Thomas Alphonso Hayley, a young sculptor and Warner also became fond of him. He addressed the youth in a sportive billet and deter- mined to devote himself to the private education, in a similar manner, of another very promising boy. ”

“ Romney painted in January, 1792, a portrait of Madame de Sillery, his kind friend in Paris, which he gave to Hayley. It was bequeathed by him to Courtenay, by whose daughter it was lent to the Grafton gallery in the spring of 1900 (No. 85) .
Such was the career of the rev. John Warner, D.D. His life was passed in a calling for which he had little liking and his friends were allowed to know his feelings. But he conscientiously held strong opinions in politics, which he did not hide from view and they did not tend to his advancement in his profession. ”