Lushington

“ In the “Guild Hall” of “The City of Lushington,” an ancient and very unique social club, which has met for many years in a dark and dingy little back room connected with the Harp Tavern, in Russell Street, Covent Garden, London, are still preserved the chair of Edmund Kean, the hole in the wall made by the quart pot he threw once, in a fit of gross insubordination, at a former “Lord Mayor,” and what is religiously considered by all the citizens of Lushington to be a death-mask of Kean himself. This cast is covered with glass and with dust and its history is lost in the mists of time. ”

“ The derivation of Lushy, we believe, is from a very common expression, that a drunken man votes for Lushington; but perhaps it would be rather difficult to discover the origin of many terms made use of to express a jolly good fellow, and no flincher under the effects of good fellowship. ”

“ E l’odore di montone?—nò! È l’odore di presciutto?—nò! È l’odore delle anime che friggono nell’ inferno.”
I cannot remember whether it was in this or the preceding winter that I spent an evening with Dr. Lushington, the famous judge, who, having been born in the beginning of 1782, and preserving evergreen all the recollections of his long life, was one of the most delightful of men. ”

“ All Alresford may, in fact, be said to have been converted; the bells were rung on the Claimant's arrival there; and Colonel Lushington, the tenant of Tichborne house, invited the Australian stranger and his wife to stay with him there. Colonel Lushington had never seen Roger Tichborne, but he has explained that he was impressed by his visitor's knowledge of the old pictures on the walls, which, it will be remembered, Bogle had been sent by "Mr. Taylor" to reconnoitre. ”

“ At the general election in November 1806 he was returned to the House of Commons in the whig interest for the borough of Great Yarmouth, and on 23 Feb. 1807 spoke in favour of the Slave Trade Abolition Bill (Parl. Debates, viii. 962–3) . Lushington was again returned for Great Yarmouth at the general election in May following, and on 15 March 1808 took part in the debate on the Oude charge against the Marquis Wellesley, whose conduct he severely censured (ib. x. 1038–1041) . ”

“ Indeed it was already suspected in the smoking-room of the Swan that the enormous stranger was the long-expected heir. Suspicion became certainty when the stranger telegraphed for Bogle, and that faithful black, once familiar in the streets of Alresford, suddenly made his appearance there, began reconnoitring the house at Tichborne, contrived to get inside the old home, to learn that it had been let by the trustees of the infant baronet to a gentleman named Lushington, and to examine carefully the position of the old and new pictures hanging on the walls. ”

“ Jagavirarama Venkateswara Ettappa Nayakar Aiyan, who came next in succession, erected a temple dedicated to Subramanyaswami and allotted two villages yielding annually Rupees 900 for its up-keep and maintenance. He erected a choultry and sank a well at Etaiyapuram. In 1827 the Eight Honorable S. Lushington, Governor of Madras, paid a visit to Etaiyapuram. A stone mantapam of exquisite workmanship was erected by the Zemindar at a cost of Rupees 30,000, in honor of Calugachala Murti (a Hindu God) . ”

“ On 25 April 1833 he supported Grote's resolution for the adoption of the ballot, which he considered ‘was indisputably necessary to secure a beneficial exercise of the elective franchise’ (ib. xvii. 645–8) , and on 23 July 1833 declared himself in favour of triennial parliaments (ib. xix. 1141–2) . In supporting Lord Morpeth's amendment to the address on 25 Feb. 1835, Lushington defended himself from Colonel Sibthorpe's attack upon a speech which he had recently made to his constituents in Tower Hamlets (ib. xxvi. 263–71) . ”

“ And not from man, O Lord, to thee;”
since no human goodness can be counted as merit in the sight of God.
SUPPLEMENTARY POEM.
The Epithalamium, or marriage lay, which is added to the great Poem, refers [Pg 147] to the wedding of a younger sister, Cecilia Tennyson, who, about the year 1842, married Edmund Law Lushington, sometime Professor of Greek at the University of Glasgow.
The strong domestic affections of the Poet are prominently shown throughout In Memoriam, and his pleasure at this bridal is very charming. ”

“ William Johnson, who, with a Colonial army and numerous Indian allies under the famous Mohawk chieftain Hendrick, was moving to meet the French at Lake George. The march from New Haven was made by way of Amenia and Dover, in Dutchess County, New York, to the Hudson River, and thence northward to the “dark and bloody ground” of the North Woods. Young Ludington was of a lively and venturesome disposition and, as family traditions show, had a propensity to practical joking which more than once put him in peril of not undeserved punishment, which, however, he managed to avoid. ”

“ We have seen that Henry Ludington, at the age of twenty-one, escorted a company of invalided soldiers from Quebec to Boston in the winter of 1759-60, and thereafter returned to civil life. One of his first acts was to get married, his bride being his cousin, Abigail Ludington, daughter of his father’s younger brother, Elisha Ludington. As already noted, Elisha Ludington upon his marriage had removed from Connecticut to Dutchess County, New York, and had settled in what was known as the Phillipse Patent. ”

“ On October 20 the battle of Chatterton Hill was fought, at White Plains, in which Colonel Ludington’s regiment was engaged, and in which he himself served as one of Washington’s aides, and thus began his acquaintance with the commander-in-chief. When Washington’s army crossed the Hudson River, however, for the “devil’s dance across the Jerseys,” and the superb turning at bay at Trenton, the New York militia levies remained at home, where indeed they were sorely needed. ”

“ Ludington remained at Peekskill, where there presently was a prospect of strenuous work. For having, as they imagined, put Washington to hopeless flight in New Jersey, the British turned a part of their attention to the very thing to which their chief attention should at the outset have been given. Plans were made for an advance up the Hudson, by land and water. West Point was to be avoided by marching up the east shore, where the defenses were not so strong. Such a movement must, of course, be resisted at all hazards. ”

“ The Lusitania children, lying in pitiful rows to await identification in Queenstown, little meek and sodden corpses buffeted out of comeliness by the waves, awoke in the hearts of the men who looked at them a passion of anger and hate which life is too short to appease. ”

“ The Ludingtons were one of the old families of Hilton, a little farming village among the hills of Massachusetts. They were not rich, but were well-to-do, lived in the largest house in the place, and were regarded somewhat as local magnates. Miss Ludington's childhood had been an exceptionally happy one, and as a girl she had been the belle of the village. Her beauty, together, with her social position and amiability of disposition, made her the idol of the young men, recognised leader of the girls, and the animating and central figure in the social life of the place. ”

“ Colonel Ludington was to find some one to serve as a spy in New York, and he was to do it with such prudence and tact that nobody but himself would seem responsible for the negotiations until they had proceeded far enough to give assurance of the fitness and trustworthiness of the man selected for the work. ”

“ And they talk with every other American in this Kingdom. It is often made unpleasant for Americans in the clubs and in the pursuit of their regular business and occupations; and it is always our inaction about the Lusitania. Our controversy with the British Government causes little feeling and that is a sort of echo of the Lusitania. They feel that we have not lived up to our promises and professions. ”

“ He often boasted privately that his friend Ludington would one day accompany him on a visit to General Howe at New York—meaning, of course, as a prisoner. Colonel Ludington, however, completely turned the tables upon his old neighbor and would-be captor. Learning from his secret agents that Holmes was collecting a company of Tories on the Fishkill Plains, he quietly gathered his [150] own regiment for what he warned them was to be an undertaking of much activity and danger. After several days of preparation, he led his men at night to the Tory rendezvous. ”

“ In both of these latter John Jay, who was a neighbor and friend of Henry Ludington, was conspicuous, and it is to be presumed that Henry Ludington himself was either a member of the committees or at least was in active sympathy with their work. In April, 1775, came a crisis and the turning point in the movement for independence. The old Colonial Assembly of New York went out of existence on April 3. ”

“ From 1377 to 1396 Görlitz was a separate duchy ruled by John, a son of the emperor Charles IV., and, like Lower Lusatia, Upper Lusatia owned the authority of Matthias Corvinus from 1469 to 1490, both districts passing a little later with the kingdoms of Hungary and Bohemia to the German king, Ferdinand I. The “six towns” were severely punished for their share in the war of the league of Schmalkalden, and about this time the reformed teaching made very rapid progress in Lusatia, the majority of the inhabitants becoming Protestants. ”

“ British Army in all the campaigns of that war. No complete roster of the Connecticut troops is now in existence, but the “East Haven Register” tells us that many men from East Haven and Branford were enlisted for service with the British Army near the Great Lakes, of whom the greater part were lost through sickness and in battle. In these levies were several members of the Ludington family, beside Henry Ludington. Our genealogical review has already indicated the service in that war of James, Ezra, Timothy, Samuel, Jude, and Amos Ludington, uncles and cousins of Henry Ludington. ”

“ Among the pieces of property left her was a large farm on Long Island several miles out of the city of Brooklyn. Here she had rebuilt the Hilton of her girlhood, in facsimile, with every change restored, every landmark replaced. In the midst of this silent village she had built for her residence an exact duplicate of the Ludington homestead, situated in respect to the rest of the village precisely as the original was situated in the real Hilton. ”

“ And now to our story.
One of the chief men amongst the gipsies on the Borders, at the beginning of the last century, was Lussha Fleckie, who was only inferior in authority among the tribes to King Faa, who dwelt at Kirk Yetholm, and boasted of reigning lord over a free people. Lussha's avocations, like the avocations of all his brethren, were mere apologies for idleness. He was one day a tinker, on another a grinder, and on a third a wandering piper. He was a man of great stature and uncommon strength, and renowned for his exploits as a fisher and a sportsman. ”

“ Such was the community in which Henry Ludington established himself at the beginning of his manhood and married life, and in which he quickly rose to prominence. The extent of his holdings of land, and the fact of his proprietorship of important mills, made him a leading factor in business affairs, while his bent for public business soon led him into both the civil and the military service. At that time, from 1761 to 1769, James Livingston was sheriff of Dutchess County, and early in 1763 Henry Ludington became one of his lieutenants, as sub-sheriff. ”

“ A German war vessel has sunk the Lusitania off the coast of Ireland. A mighty asset which lay on the enemy’s side of the scale is destroyed. Property to the value of many millions is annihilated, and an immeasurable store of moral power and self-confidence of a people whose whole life is centered in the prosperity of its shipping and commerce sank to the bottom with the proud vessel. ”

“ On the other side of a stone pier rose the huge Lusitania with her four funnels. Everyone on our tender moved expectantly forward. There was an official cry: “Britishers first!” The chosen of the Lord! But the horde of ignorant foreigners came surging ahead. Miscellaneously we crowded up the gangway. Another gangway sloped for us on to the Lusitania. Several British policemen and stewards faced us to keep us in line. At so many guardian angels we began to feel depressed.
Medical inspection. The instant we put foot on the deck of the Lusitania, this was our first business. ”

“ In June, 1777, there were indications that the British were planning anew to gain possession of the Hudson River, and thus unite their own northern and southern forces while dividing the eastern from the middle and southern colonies. Colonel Ludington and his regiment were therefore summoned to Peekskill, to strengthen the defenses of the Highlands, and it was not without some difficulty that he was enabled to respond to the call. ”

“ In this fashion Colonel Ludington prepared for the stern activities before him. The “critical time” referred to in the resolutions of the Convention was indeed critical. New York was in imminent danger of being occupied by the British, and British warships were likely soon to ascend the Hudson River. John Jay was intrusted with the making of plans for the defense of the Hudson Highlands. On August 1, Jay, Duer, and others, were made a committee to draft a plan for a new government for the State of New York. ”