but if any gentleman chuse to give me any thing, I am ready to receive their favours." The above oration is headed by "This is my original speech;" below it is added as follows: "N. B. When sir John Harper's man arrived on the hustings with flying colours, he began to insult sir Jeffery, who immediately made him walk six times round the hustings, ask his honour's pardon, drop his colours and dismount." With this information the bill concludes. A song printed at the time, but now so rare as not to be met with, further particularizes some of the candidates at this election. In the absence of an original copy, the parol evidence of "old John Jones of Wandsworth," has been admitted as to certain verses which are here recorded accordingly. GARRETT ELECTION SONG, 1781. Recited by the "ex-master of the horse," at the "Plume of Feathers," Wands worth, on the 14th of June, 1826. At Garratt, lackaday, what fun! Sir William Swallowtail came next No Wilkes, but liberty, was there; Sir William Swallowtail was one William Cock, a whimsical- basket-maker of Brentford, who deeming it proper to have an equipage every way suitable to the honour he aspired to, built his own carriage, with his own hands, to his own taste. It was made of wicker, and drawn by four high hollow-backed horses, whereon were seated dwarfish boys, whimsically dressed for postilions. In allusion to the American war, two footmen rode becoachman wore a wicker hat, and sir fore the carriage tarred and feathered, the William himself, from the seat of his vehicle, maintained his mock dignity in grotesque array, amidst unbounded applause. The song says, that sir William Swallowtail came "with hand-bells playing all the way," and "old John Jones," after he "rehearsed" the song, gave some account of the player on the hand-bells. The hand-bell player was Thomas Cracknell, who, at that time, was a pubbican at Brentford, and kept the " Wilkes's Head." He had been a cow-boy in the service of lady Holderness; and after he took that public-house, he so raised its custom that it was a place of the first resort in Brentford " for man and horse." With an eye to business, as well as a disposition to waggery, he played the handbells in support of sir William Swallowtail, as much for the good of the " Wilkes's Head" as in honour of his neighbour Cock, the basket-maker, who, with his followers, had opened Cracknell's house. Soon after the election he let the "Wilkes's Head," and receiving a handsome sum for good-will and coming-in, bound himself in a penalty of 201. not to set up within ten miles of the spot. In the afternoon of the day he gave up possession, he went to his successor with the 201. penalty, and informed him he had taken another house in the neighbourhood. It was the sign of the "Aaron and Driver," two race-horses, of as great celebrity as the most favoured of the then Garrett candidates. Cracknell afterwards became a rectifier or distiller at Brentford. Sir John Harper was by trade a weaver, and qualified, by power of face and Sir John Harper's Election, 1781. Long as we live there'll be no more As members of the House of Commons. The preceding engraving is from a large drawing, by Green, of a scene at this election in 1781, taken on the spot. Until now, this drawing has not been submitted to the public eye. In the above accurate representation of the spot, the sign of the Leather Bottle in Garrett-lane is conspicuous. Its site at that time was different from that of the present public-house bearing that name. It is further observable, that " Harper for ever" is inscribed on the phaeton of the mock candidate for the mock honours of the mock electors; and that the candidate himself is in the act of haranguing his worthy constituents, some of whose whimsical dresses will give a partial idea of the whimsical appearance of the assembled multitude. Every species of extravagant habiliment seems to have been resorted to. The little humourist in a large laced cocked hat, and his donkey in trappings, are particularly rich, and divide the attention of the people on foot with sir John Harper himself. The vender of a printed paper, in a large wig, leers round at him in merry glee. The sweeps, elevated on their bit of "come-up," are attracted by the popular candidate, whose voice seems rivalled by the patient animal, from whose back they are cheering their favourite man. In this election, we find the never-tobe-forgotten sir Jeffery Dunstan, who it is not right to pass without saying something more of him than that on this occasion he was a mere candidate, and unsuccessful. He succeeded afterwards to the seat he sought, and will be particularly noticed hereafter; until when, it would perhaps be more appropriate to defer what is about to be offered respecting him; but the distinguished favour of a communication from C. L. on such a subject, seems to require a distinguished place; his paper is therefore selected to prematurely herald the fame of the celebrated crier of "old wigs" in odd fashioned days, when wigs were a common and necessary addition to every person's dress. REMINISCENCE OF SIR JEFFERY DUNSTAN BY C. L. To the Editor of the Every-Day Book. To your account of sir Jeffery Dunstan in columns 829-30 (where, by an unfortunate Erratum the effigies of two Sir Jefferys appear, when the uppermost figure is clearly meant for sir Harry Dimsdale) you may add, that the writer of this has frequently met him in his latter days, about 1790 or 1791, returning in an evening, after his long day's itinerancy, to his domicile a wretched shed in the most beggarly purlieu of Bethnal Green, a little on this side the Mile-end Turnpike. The lower figure in that leaf most correctly describes his then appearance, except that no graphic art can convey an idea of the general squalor of it, and of his bag (his constant concomitant) in particular. Whether it contained "old wigs" at that time I know not, but it seemed a fitter repository for bones snatched out of kennels, than for any part of a Gentleman's dress even at second hand. The Ex-member for Garrat was a melancholy instance of a great man whose popularity is worn out. He still carried his sack, but it seemed a part of his identity rather than an implement of his profession; a badge of past grandeur; could any thing have divested him of that, he would have shown a poor forked animal" indeed. My life upon it, it contained no curls at the time I speak of. The most decayed and spiritless remnants of what was once a peruke would have scorned the filthy case; would absolutely have "burst its cearments." No, it was empty, or brought home bones, or a few cinders possibly. A strong odour of burnt bones, I remember, blended with the scent of horse-flesh seething into dog's meat, and only relieved a little by the breathings of a few brick kilns, made up the atmosphere of the delicate suburban spot, which this great man had chosen for the last scene of his earthly vanities. The cry of "old wigs" had ceased with the possession of any such fripperies; his sack might have contained not unaptly a little mould to scatter upon that grave, to which he was now advancing; but it told of vacancy and desolation. His quips were silent too, and his brain was empty as his sack; he slank along, and seemed to decline popular observation. If a few boys followed him, it seemed rather from habit, than any expectation of fun. Alas! how changed from him, But it is thus that the world rewards its favourites in decay. What faults he had, I know not. I have heard something of a peccadillo or so. But some little deviation from the precise line of rectitude, might have been winked at in so tortuous and stigmatic a frame. Poor Sir Jeffery! it were well if some M. P.'s in earnest have passed their parliamentary existence with no more offences against integrity, than could be laid to thy charge! A fair dismissal was thy due, not so unkind a degradation; some little snug retreat, with a bit of green before thine eyes, and not a burial alive in the fetid beggaries of Bethnal. Thou wouldst have ended thy days in a manner more appropriate to thy pristine dignity, installed in munificent mockery (as in mock honours you had lived) a Poor Knight of Windsor ! Every distinct place of public speaking demands an oratory peculiar to itself. The forensic fails within the walls of St. Stephen. Sir Jeffery was a living instance of this, for in the flower of his popularity an attempt was made to bring him out upon the stage (at which of the winter theatres I forget, but I well remember the anecdote) in the part of Doctor Last.❤ The announcement drew a crowded house; but notwithstanding infinite tutoringby Foote, or Garrick, I forget whichwhen the curtain drew up, the heart of Sir Jeffery failed, and he faultered on, and made nothing of his part, till the hisses of the house at last in very kindness dismissed him from the boards. Great as his parliamentary eloquence had shown itself; brilliantly as his off-hand sallies had sparkled on a hustings; they here totally failed him. Perhaps he had an aversion to borrowed wit; and, like my Lord Foppington, disdained to entertain himself (or others) with the forced products of another man's brain. Your man of quality is more diverted with the natural sprouts of his own. THE GARREtt Oath. C. L. tre-royal in Drury-lane." On turning to the "dramatis persone," it will be foun he performed Major Sturgeon himself, and, likewise, Matthew Mug in the same piece: Mrs. Clive playing Mrs. Sneak to Weston's Jerry Sneak. Foote's "Mayor of Garratt may be deemed an outline of the prevailing drollery and manners of the populace at Wandsworth: a scene or two here will be amusing and in place. This dramatist sketched so much from the life, that it is doubtful whether every marked character in his "comedy" had not its living original. It is certain, that he drew Major Sturgeon from old Justice Lamb, a fishmonger at Acton, and a petty trading justice, whose daughter was married by Major Fleming, a gentleman also "in the commission of the peace," yet every way a more respectable man than his father-in-law. Referring, then, to Foote's "comedy," sir Jacob Jollup, who has a house at Garratt, holds a dialogue with his man Roger concerning the company they expect Sir J. Are the candidates near upon coming? Roger. Nic Goose, the tailor from Putey, they say, will be here in a crack, sir Jacob. |