Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 67, No. 411, January 1850

Meanwhile the father of Howard had so little of what is commonly called aristocratic pride, that although he had retired from business, and had a good property – and property, too, in land – to leave to his son, he yet wished that son to tread in his own footsteps. He apprenticed him to a wholesale grocer in Watling Street.

The education of young Howard was such as is, or was, generally given to a lad of respectable parents intended for trade. He was at two schools. Of the first, Howard himself is reported to have said, that, having been there seven years, "he left it not fully taught in any one thing." He left it when a boy, and what boy ever left his school "fully taught in any one thing?" The remark is rather characteristic of the speaker than condemnatory of John Worsley, the schoolmaster in question. His second school was kept by a Mr Eames, a man of acknowledged ability. But how long he remained there is not known. At this school he made the friendship of one Price, afterwards that Dr Price who remains, to all posterity, impaled in Burke's Letter on the French Revolution. The great orator thrust his spear through his thin texture, and pinned him to the board; and never, but in this rich museum, will any one behold or think of Dr Price. Perhaps he deserved a better fate, but his case is hopeless now. Yet, if it can heal his memory to connect his name with one who was not a revolutionary philanthropist, let him have all the benefit of the association. Howard had never acquired the art of writing his own language with ease and correctness, and therefore it will be directly understood how valuable to him, in the preparation of his reports, was the help of a literary friend. That literary friend he found in Dr Price. In a letter to him, Howard writes, "It is from your kind aid and assistance, my dear friend, that I derive so much of my character and influence. I exult in declaring it, and shall carry a grateful sense of it to the last hour of my existence."

After his father's death, Howard purchased his freedom from the wholesale grocer's in Watling Street, and travelled upon the Continent. He was not without taste for the arts; and it was at this time, Mr Brown supposes, that he brought with him from Italy those paintings with which he afterwards embellished his favourite seat at Cardington.

On returning from this tour, he took lodgings at Stoke Newington, in the house of Mrs Loidore, a widow, upwards of fifty, of rather humble station in life, and a perpetual invalid. She, however, nursed him with so much care, through a severe illness, by which he was attacked while residing under her roof, that, on his recovery, he offered her marriage. "Against this unexpected proposal," says Mr Brown, "the lady made remonstrances, principally upon the ground of the great disparity in their ages; but Mr Howard being firm to his purpose, the union took place, it is believed, in the year 1752, he being then in about the twenty-fifth year of his age, and his bride in her fifty-second. Upon this occasion, he behaved with a liberality which seems to have been inherent in his nature, by settling the whole of his wife's little independence upon her sister. The marriage, thus singularly contracted, was productive of mutual satisfaction to the parties who entered it. Mrs Howard was a woman of excellent character, amiable in her disposition, sincere in her piety, endowed with a good mental capacity, and forward in exercising its powers in every good word and work."

Thus runs the sober narrative of Mr Brown. Not so does Mr Dixon let pass the opportunity for fine descriptive writing. Read and admire: —

"As he became convalescent, his plan ripened into form. When the danger had entirely passed away, his health was restored to its accustomed state; he offered her, as the only fitting reward of her services – a toy? an ornament? a purse? a house? an estate? or any of those munificent gifts with which wealthy and generous convalescents reward their favourite attendants? No. He offered her his hand, his name, his fortune! Of course, the good lady was astonished at the portentous shape of her patient's gratitude. She started objections, being older, and having more worldly prudence than her lover. It is even said that she seriously refused her consent to the match, urging the various arguments which might fairly be alleged against it, – the inequality in the years, fortune, social position of the parties, and so forth – but all to no purpose. Howard's mind was made up. During his slow recovery, he had weighed the matter carefully – had come to the conclusion that it was his duty to marry her, and nothing could now change his determination. The struggle between the two must have been extremely curious: the sense of duty on both sides, founded upon honest convictions, no doubt, – the mutual respect without the consuming fire, – the cool and logical weighing of arguments, in place of the rapid pleading of triumphant passion; the young man without the ordinary inspirations of youth, on the one hand; the widow, past her prime, yet simple, undesigning, unambitious, earnestly struggling to reject and put aside youth, wealth, protection, honour, social rank, – the very things for which women are taught to dress, to pose, to intrigue, almost to circumvent heaven, on the other; – form together a picture which has its romantic interest, in spite of the incongruity of the main idea. Humble life is not without its heroic acts. Cæsar refusing the Roman crown, even had he been really serious, and without after-thought in its rejection, is a paltry piece of magnanimity, compared with Mrs Loidore's refusal of the hand of Howard. At length, however, her resistance was overcome by the indomitable will of her suitor. One of the contemporary biographers has thrown an air of romance over the scene of this domestic struggle, which, if the lady had been young and beautiful – that is, if the element of passion could be admitted into the arena – would have been truly charming. As it is, the reader may receive it with such modifications as he or she may deem necessary. 'On the very first opportunity,' says this grave but imaginative chronicler, 'Mr Howard expressed his sentiments to her in the strongest terms of affection, assuring her that, if she rejected his proposal, he would become an exile for ever to his family and friends. The lady was upwards of forty [true enough! she was also upwards of fifty, good master historian,] and therefore urged the disagreement of their years, as well as their circumstances; but, after allowing her four-and-twenty hours for a final reply, his eloquence surmounted all her objections, and she consented to a union wherein gratitude was to supply the deficiencies of passion!' Criticism would only spoil the pretty picture – so let it stand."

Criticism had already spoilt the picture, such as it is. But this matters not to Mr Dixon. The quotation he has thought fit to embellish his pages with, is taken from an anonymous pamphlet published in 1790, under the title of The Life of the late John Howard, Esquire, with a Review of his Travels. Mr Dixon, however, evidently extracts it second-hand from the note in Mr Brown, where it is quoted, with some other passages from the same performance, for the express purpose of refutation and contradiction. This is what Mr Dixon would call artistic– the picking up what had been discarded as worthless, and, with a gentle shade of doubt thrown over its authenticity, making use of it again.

A note of Mr Brown's, in the same page of his memoirs, (p. 634,) will supply us with another instance of this ingenious procedure. That note runs thus: —

"We are informed in the memoirs of Mr Howard, published in the Gentleman's Magazine, that, during the period of his residing as a lodger in the house of Mrs Loidore, he used to ride out in the morning for a few miles with a book in his pocket, dismount, turn his horse to graze upon a common, and spend several hours in reading. 'On a very particular inquiry, however,' says the author of the Life of Mr Howard, inserted in the Universal Magazine, 'of persons very intimate, and who had often rode out with him, we are assured that they never saw, nor ever heard of such a practice.'"

Mr Dixon makes use of the first part of the note, ignoring the second.

"It is said," he writes, gravely suspending his judgment on the authenticity of the fact – "it is said, in a contemporary biographical notice, that he would frequently ride out a mile or two in the country, fasten his nag to a tree, or turn him loose to browse upon the way-side; and then, throwing himself upon the grass, under a friendly shade, would read and cogitate for hours. This statement, if true, would indicate more of a romantic and poetical temperament in Howard, than the generally calm and Christian stoicism of his manner would have led one to expect."

That Mr Dixon never consulted the memoir itself, in the Gentleman's Magazine, we shall by-and-by have an opportunity of showing. That memoir, worthless as an authority, has become notorious for the calumny it originated. But this collator of documents, this inquirer after traditions, this maker of unimaginable researches, has never turned over the pages of the Gentleman's Magazine for that obituary which, owing to its slanderous attack, has excited so much controversy in all the biographies of Howard, his own included.

This wife, so singularly selected, died two or three years after her marriage. Howard is again free and solitary, and again betakes himself to travel. We are in the year 1755, and the great earthquake of Lisbon has laid that city in ruins. He goes to see the grand and terrific spectacle. Dr Aikin calls it a sublime curiosity. We presume that no other motive than curiosity impelled him on this occasion; it would be certainly very difficult to suggest any other. No difficulties, however, daunt Mr Dixon. According to him, – "Howard, attracted by reports of the unexampled sufferings of the survivors, no sooner found himself at his own disposal, than he determined to haste with all possible speed to their assistance!" Single-handed, he was to cope with the earthquake.

Lisbon, however, he was not fated to reach. The vessel he sailed in was taken by a French privateer, and he, with the rest of the passengers and crew, carried into Brest, and there retained prisoner of war. The calamities of imprisonment he here endured himself, and under no mild form: afterwards, when other circumstances had drawn his attention to the condition of the prisoners, the remembrance of his own sufferings came in aid of his compassion for others. "Perhaps," he says, in the preface to his first report, "what I suffered on this occasion increased my sympathy with the unhappy people, whose case is the subject of this book."

Released upon parole, he returned to England, obtained his exchange, and then sat himself down on his estate at Cardington. Here he occupied himself in plans to ameliorate the condition of his tenantry. Scientific studies, and the study of medicine, to which, from time to time, he had applied himself, also engaged his attention. It was at this period he was elected a member of the Royal Society, not assuredly, as Mr Thomas Taylor presumes, from the "value attached" to a few communications upon the state of the weather, but, as Dr Aikin sensibly tells us, "in conformity to the laudable practice of that society, of attaching gentlemen of fortune and leisure to the interests of knowledge, by incorporating them into that body."

Howard now entered into matrimony a second time. On the 25th April 1758, he married Henrietta Leeds, second daughter of Edward Leeds, Esq. of Croxton, in Cambridgeshire. This alliance is pronounced by all his biographers to be in every respect suitable. Parity of age, harmony of sentiment, and, on the part of the lady, the charms of person and amiability of temper, everything contributed to a happy union. And it was so. Unfortunately, the happiness was as brief as it seems to have been perfect. His second wife also expired after a few years, – "the only years," Howard himself has said, "of true enjoyment he had known in life."

On this occasion, Mr Dixon, after infusing into Howard "the bland and insinuating witchery of a virgin passion," proceeds to describe his Henrietta in the most approved language of the novelist: "Although her features were not cast in the choicest mould of Grecian beauty, she was very fair – had large impressive eyes, an ample brow, a mouth exquisitely cut," &c. Shall we never again get the chisel out of the human face?

Connected with this second marriage of Howard, his biographers relate a trait of character which will be differently estimated by different minds – we relate it in the words of Mr Dixon: —

"We must not omit an incident that occurred before the ceremony, which is very significant of Howard's frankness and firmness at this epoch. Observing that many unpleasantnesses arise in families, from circumstances trifling in themselves, in consequence of each individual wishing to have his own way in all things, he determined to avoid all these sources of domestic discord, by establishing his own paramount authority in the first instance. It is just conceivable that his former experience of the wedded life may have led him to insist upon this condition. At all events, he stipulated with Henrietta, that, in all matters in which there should be a difference of opinion between them, his voice should rule. This may sound very ungallant in terms, but it was found exceedingly useful in practice. Few men would have the moral honesty to suggest such an arrangement to their lady-loves at such a season; though, at the same time, few would hesitate to make the largest mental reservations in their own behalf. It may also be, that few young belles would be disposed to treat such a proposition otherwise than with ridicule and anger, however conscious they might be, that as soon as the hymeneal pageantries were passed, their surest means of happiness would lie in the prompt adoption of the principle so laid down.

"Would that men and women would become sincerer with each other! The great social vice of this age is its untrustfulness."

And Mr Dixon thereupon launches into we know not what heroics upon etiquette, upon English law, morals, and the constitution, all à propos of Henrietta's obedience! For our own part, we do not look with much respect upon this stipulation which calls forth the admiration of Mr Dixon, and apparently meets with his cordial sympathy. Such a stipulation would probably be a mere nullity; with, or without it, the stronger will would predominate; but if we are to suppose it a really binding obligation, forming the basis of the conjugal union, it presents to us anything but an attractive aspect. It was the harsh feature in Howard's character, or the mistaken principle that he had adopted – this love of an authority – this claim to a domestic absolutism – which was to give no reasons, and admit of no questioning.

In justice to the character of Howard, we must not leave this matter entirely in the hands of Mr Dixon. Everything he draws is, more or less, a caricature. The authority on which his narration is founded is the following statement of the Rev. S. Palmer, given in Brown, p. 55: —

"The truth is," says Mr Palmer, in his manuscript memoir of his distinguished friend, "he had a high idea (some of his friends may think, too high) of the authority of the head of a family. And he thought it right, because most convenient, to maintain it, for the sake of avoiding the unhappy consequences of domestic disputes. On this principle I have more than once heard him pleasantly relate the agreement he made with the last Mrs Howard, previous to their marriage, that, to prevent all altercation about those little matters which he had observed to be the chief grounds of uneasiness in families, he should always decide. To this the amiable lady readily consented, and ever adhered. Nor did she ever regret the agreement, which she found to be attended with the happiest effects. Such was the opinion she entertained, both of his wisdom and his goodness, that she perfectly acquiesced in all that he did, and no lady ever appeared happier in the conjugal bonds."

Here the matter has a much less repulsive aspect than in Mr Dixon's version, who has, in fact, exaggerated, in his zeal, a trait of Howard's character, which his best friends seem always to have looked upon with more or less of regret and disapproval.

As the only other circumstance connected with Howard's domestic life which we shall have space to mention, has also a peculiar reference to this trait in his character, we will depart from the chronological order of events, and allude to it here. His last wife left him one child, a son. This son grew up a dissolute youth; his ill-regulated life led to disease, and disease terminated in insanity. To this last malady, Mr Brown tells us he is authorised to say that there was a hereditary predisposition – we presume he means upon the mother's side.

Immediately on the death of Howard, there appeared, amongst the obituaries of the Gentleman's Magazine, a memoir of the deceased, in which the miserable fate of the son is directly charged upon the severity of the father. The whole memoir is full of errors. For this, the extreme haste in which it was necessarily written forms an excuse. But no excuse can be given for the perverse and malignant spirit it betrays. The very next number of the magazine opens with four or five letters addressed to Mr Urban, all remonstrating against, and refuting this baseless calumny; and every biographer has felt himself compelled to notice and repel the slander.

The fact is, that the writer or writers of the memoir – for several were engaged in concocting this very hasty and wretched performance – were quite ignorant, both of the education the son had received, and of the profligate course, and the consequent derangement of his health into which he had fallen. They knew only that the son was in a lunatic asylum, and that the father was a severe disciplinarian; and they most unwarrantably combined the two together, in the relation of cause and effect. "All prospects," they say, speaking of the youth, "were blasted by paternal severity, which reduced the young man to such an unhappy situation as to require his being placed where he now is, or lately was."

The vindication of Howard from this slander is complete; the origin of the son's malady is clearly traced; his affection for his child is amply demonstrated, and his unceasing anxiety to train him to virtue and piety is made equally manifest. But his most intimate friends entertained the opinion that his conduct towards his son was not judicious, and that his method of training up the youth was by no means so wisely, as it was conscientiously adopted. This is the sole charge, if such it can be called, to which the father is obnoxious; nor, from this, do we pretend to acquit him.

"It is agreed, on all hands," says Mr Brown, "that Howard entertained the most exalted notions of the authority of the head of a family – notions derived rather from the Scriptural history of patriarchal times than from any of our modern codes of ethics, or systems of education." Accordingly, we are told that he trained up his child from earliest infancy to an implicit obedience. Without once striking the child, but by manifesting a firmness of purpose which it was hopeless to think of shaking, he established such an authority over him that Howard himself, on one occasion, said, that "if he told the boy to put his finger in the fire, he believed he would do it." When he was an infant, and cried from passion, the father took him, laid him quietly in his lap, neither spoke nor moved, but let him cry on till he was wearied. "This process, a few times repeated, had such an effect, that the child, if crying ever so violently, was rendered quiet the instant his father took him." When he grew older, the severest punishment his father inflicted was to make him sit still in his presence, without speaking, for a time proportioned to the nature of the offence. But this impassive, statue-like firmness must have precluded all approach to companionship or confidence on the part of the son. It was still the obedience only of fear. "His friends," we quote from Mr Brown, "and amongst the rest the most intimate of them, the Rev. Mr Smith, thought that in the case of his son he carried those patriarchal ideas rather too far, and that by a lad of his temper (the son is described as of a lively disposition) he would have been more respected, and would have possessed more real authority over him, had he attempted to convince him of the reasonableness of his commands, instead of always enforcing obedience to them on his parental authority." We therefore may be permitted to say, that we look upon this aspect of Howard's character as by no means estimable. As a husband he claimed an unjust prerogative, and as a parent he divorced authority from persuasion, nor allowed obedience to mingle and ally itself with filial affection.

Mr Dixon does not, of course, omit his tribute of indignation against the calumny of the Gentleman's Magazine. We said that he had not given himself the trouble to look at the memoir itself which he denounces. Here is the proof: —

"The atrocious slander to which reference is made," says Mr Dixon, "was promulgated in the Gentleman's Magazine, in an obituary notice of the philanthropist. The charge was made on the strength of one asserted fact– namely, that Howard had once locked up his son for several hours in a solitary place, put the key into his pocket, and gone off to Bedford, leaving him there till he returned at night. On the appearance of this article, the friends of the illustrious dead came forth publicly to dispute the fact, and to deny the inferences deduced from it. Meredith Townsend, one of Howard's most intimate friends, sifted the story to the bottom, and gave the following account of its origin."

The charge was not made on the strength of this one asserted fact – nor on any fact whatever – it was made on the mere authority of the writer. The story alluded to is not to be found in the obituary of the Gentleman's Magazine. The writers of that obituary had never heard of the story, or we may be sure they would have made use of it. The friends of the illustrious dead could not, therefore, have come forward, in refutation of this article, to "dispute the fact and deny the inferences." If Mr Dixon had but read Brown's memoirs attentively he would not have fallen into this blunder, which shows how little else he can have read.

The story alluded to had been circulated during the life of Howard, and when he was absent on one of his journeys. The Rev. Mr Townsend, "many years Mr Howard's pastor at Stoke Newington," took the first opportunity he had of mentioning it to Howard himself, who contradicted it, and related to him the incident which he supposed must have given rise to the report. On the death of Howard the story was again revived, where, or by whom, Mr Brown does not tell us. The Rev. Mr Palmer thereupon obtained from Mr Townsend the explanation which he had received from Howard himself. The letter which the latter gentleman addressed to the Rev. Mr Palmer is given at length in Brown, (note, p. 645.) This letter the Rev. Mr Palmer communicates to the Editor of the Universal Magazine, and mentions that extracts from it, unauthorised by him, had found their way into the Gentleman's Magazine.

The explanation of the story there given, is briefly this. Howard was engaged one day with his child in the root-house, which served also as a summer-house, when the servant came in great haste, to say that a gentleman on horseback wished to speak to him immediately. Not to lose time, he told the little fellow to sit quiet, and he would soon come to him again. To keep him out of mischief he locked the door. The gentleman kept him in conversation longer than he expected, and caused his forgetting the child. Upon the departure of the guest, recollecting where the child had been left, he flew to set him at liberty, and found him quietly sleeping on the matting of the floor.

It was on the 31st March 1765 that Howard lost his second wife. After spending some time in the now melancholy retirement of Cardington, he again quits England for the Continent. Travel is still with him, as with so many others, the mere relief for unavailing sorrow, or for the wasting disease of unemployed energies. It is during this journey to Italy that we are able to trace, more distinctly than usual, the workings of Howard's mind. Some memoranda, and fragments of a diary which he kept, have given us this insight.