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Cockney Past and Present A Short History of the Dialect
of London 1st Edition William Matthews Digital Instant
Download
Author(s): William Matthews
ISBN(s): 9781138915930, 1138915939
Edition: 1st
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Year: 2015
Language: english
 R O U T L E D G E L IB R A R Y ED ITIO N S:
TH E E N G L IS H L A N G U A G E

Volume 17

COCKNEY PAST AND PRESENT

Page Intentionally Left Blank
COCKNEY PAST AND PRESENT
A Short History of the Dialect of London

W ILLIA M M ATTH EW S

RRoutledge
Taylor & Francis Group
LONDON AND NEW YORK
First published in 1938
This edition first published in 2015
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon O X14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, N Y 10017
Routledge is an imprint o f the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 1938 William Matthews
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to
infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN : 978-1-138-92111-5 (Set)

ISBN : 978-1-315-68654-7 (Set) (ebk)
ISBN : 978-1-138-91593-0 (Volume 17) (hbk)
ISBN : 978-1-315-68992-0 (Volume 17) (ebk)

Publisher’s Note
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 COCKNEY
PAST AND PRESENT
A Short History of the Dialect
of London

By

WILLIAM MATTHEWS, M.A., Ph .D.

LONDON

G E O R G E R O U T L E D G E & SONS, LT D .
BROADWAY H O U SE : 68-74 CARTER LANE, E.C.
 First published 1938

Printed in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner Ltd., Frome and London
 CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE

PREFACE lX

I SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES I

II EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES 2 5

III PRESENT-DAY CocKNEY • 62
IV CocKNEY IN THE Music-HALL 82

v MANNERISMS AND SLANG 10 5

VI PRONUNCIATION AND GRAMMAR I 56
VII THE INFLUENCE oF CocKNEY oN STANDARD ENGLISH 20 I

BIBLIOGRAPHY 2 33
INDEX • 237

v
Page Intentionally Left Blank
 O f all those historic dialects which still distinguish, to a greater
or less degree, the speech o f most Englishmen, none is o f such
interest as Cockney, that noble blend of East Mercian, Kentish,
and East Anglian, which, written by Chaucer, printed by Caxton,
spoken by Spencer and Milton, and surviving in the mouths o f
Sam Weller and Mrs. Gamp, has, in a modified form and with
an artificial pronunciation, given us the literary English o f the
present day.
P r o f e sso r E r n e st W e e k l e y .

T h e Cockney mode of speech, with its unpleasant twang, is a

modern corruption without legitimate credentials, and is unworthy
of being the speech of any person in the capital city o f the Empire.
Report of the Conference on the Teaching of English
in London Elementary Schools, 1909.

T h e average Cockney is not articulate. He is often witty; he

is sometimes eloquent; he has a notable gift of phrase-making and
nick-naming. Every day he is enriching the English tongue with
new forms o f speech, new cliches, new slang, new catchwords.
T h e new thing and the new word to describe the new thing are
never very far apart in London. But the spirit, the soul, o f the
Londoner is usually dumb.
E d w in Pugh in Harry the Cockney, 1902.
Page Intentionally Left Blank
 PREFACE

O
F all the non-standard forms of English, Cockney is
the most generally despised and downtrodden. The
languidness of the Oxford accent and the mint-new pre-
cision of the B.B.C.’s young men draw more abuse than
they warrant; but they are more often admired. Regional
dialects provide targets for music-hall artists and journ-
alists, but most of us accord to them the reverence due to
a presumed antiquity, and accept the catchwords con-
cerning their peculiar virtues. Who has not at some
time praised the delightful burr, the rich brogue or the
downright vigour of some dialect which he found diffi-
culty even in understanding? W e may venture to
express a dislike for the dialect of some of the larger
towns, Glasgow or Bradford for instance, but we would
as soon keep our hats on in church as to speak slightingly
of the county dialects. And as for the dialect speakers,
they are intoxicated with their own counties and their
own music. W e mere Londoners, who humbly suffer
the gibes of even Glaswegians at our dialect, are always
impressed by the self-regard of the many societies of
------shire men who gather year by year to hymn in
reassumed dialects the praise of reassumed beverages.
W e may wonder why their gatherings are held in London
— dulcior disstpere in loco!— but we are profoundly
impressed.
ix
 PREFACE

There is no Society of Cockneys. Not even in the

outposts of Empire do Londoners meet together to renew
formally the delights of four-ale and spring onions or to
admire the speech of Bethnal Green and Peckham Rye.
So far from priding themselves upon their dialect, most
Londoners are acutely conscious that it is pitch. Cock-
ney is the characteristic speech of “ the greatest city of
the greatest empire that the world has known” . But
Cockney is such a pariah that not even the philologists
have a good word for it. They deny it the status of a
dialect and describe it as a vulgar speech based upon error
and misunderstanding. No bones would have been
broken had harsh words been all. But the disrepute of
Cockney has been so repellent to scholars that no serious
attempt has ever been made to study the vulgar speech
of London either historically or in its existing form.
The county dialects commanded the time and money of
the English Dialect Society for a generation and inspired
one of the greatest of all works on language, Wright’s
English Dialect Dictionary. The dialects of Pewsey and
Windhill— how many people have ever heard of them?
— have been the subjects of two brilliant books. But
Cockney, the characteristic speech of a city of six, or is
it seven million people, has been ignored. Even in
Wright’s dictionary it is represented only by an occa-
sional note. A few continental students have refused
to be put off by the lowness of Cockney, but even they
have sheltered under the umbrella of literature. They
have given us studies of the Cockney dialect according to
Dickens, according to Thackeray, according to Punch
and even according to Shaw. But it has occurred to
 PREFACE

nobody to give us a study of the dialect according to

Mr. ’Enery ’Awkins of New Cut.
“ Nobody loves a fairy when she’s forty,” runs the old
song. People have always been willing to praise the
Cockney of the old days, but ever since pundits first
began to discuss the dialect they have abused it in its
existing form. I had always been a little puzzled why
Cockney should have been singled out for such contempt,
until I found in Walker’s Pronouncing Dictionary, 1791,
what appears to be the true explanation. Cockneys, says
Walker, “ have the disadvantage of being more disgraced
by their peculiarities than any other people. The grand
difference between the metropolis and the provinces is
that people of education in London are generally free
from the vices of the vulgar; but the best-educated people
in the provinces, if constantly resident there, are sure to
be tinctured with the dialect of the country in which they
live. Hence it is that the vulgar pronunciation of Lon-
don, though not half so erroneous as that of Scotland,
Ireland, or any of the provinces, is, to a person of correct
taste, a thousand times more offensive and disgusting.”
When we reckon with the glamour which the pastoral
tradition has given to the country dialects, Walker’s
explanation enables us to understand why the language
of a remote village claims the attention of scholars, while
the language of London is neglected or abused.
For my own part, I have no great objection to Cockney
being described as vulgar or even to its being denied
officially the status of a dialect, although I should like to
enter a formal protest against a recent dictum that it
cannot be a dialect because it has not a characteristic
 PREFACE

pronunciation and because its vocabulary is principally

thieves’ slang. I think I could guarantee to pick out a
Londoner in heaven or hell, and the cant which forms a
small proportion of Cockney slang is common to many
of the county dialects themselves. The neglect of Cock-
ney is more serious than the vilification of it, however.
For, as the characteristic speech of the capital of England,
it has been by far the most important of all non-standard
forms of English for its influence upon accepted speech
ever since accepted speech emerged. It is impossible to
write a satisfactory history of standard English without
understanding the history of Cockney.
The Cockney dialect is being gradually suppressed.
Its natural vigour is so great that it refuses to die with
decent celerity. But the feeling of inferiority induced
by the attacks of business men and school-teachers makes
the Cockney ashamed of his dialect. He may not give
it up immediately: natural independence will make the
Cockney child throw off the schoolmaster’s yoke as soon
as he gets outside the class-room. But the time soon
comes when he is forced to submit, when he finds that
business advancement and social respectability are incom-
patible with a Cockney accent. He waters down his
speech until it approximates to the ideal of the school-
master. He is seldom wholly successful: I have heard
Cockney nuances in the senior common-rooms of Univer-
sity colleges. But hundreds of thousands of Londoners
who, but for the attacks upon Cockney, would have been
using the colourful speech of the capital, now use that
thin gruel of a language, Modified Standard.
Cockney is being done to death by snobbery, sup-
 PREFACE

ported by arguments drawn from shoddy aesthetics, utilitar-

ianism and false history. Such factors are not new in
linguistic history: very readable studies might be written
on the influence of prudery and dogmatic ignorance on
the English language. The chief difference is that the
educational system has provided an army for the attack.
The gibes of critics in the eighteenth and early nine-
teenth centuries had little effect: when they were taken
up by thousands of school teachers they became steam-
rollers. But while acknowledging the antiquity of such
attacks and their naturalness to pedagogues, we may ven-
ture to doubt their wisdom. Year in and year out the
Cockney dialect has enriched Standard English, not with
the frozen words of scholarship and science, but with
words rich in personality, words informed by mockery,
optimism, cynicism, humour. To suppress the Cockney
dialect, the most creative form of English, will not neces-
sarily stop the creation of such words altogether, but it
will certainly reduce the supply. The language of a
costermonger compels attention, but has anybody ever
been titillated by the language of a London clerk?
Schoolmasters cannot ignore Cockney, and few of
them would dare to praise it. Many doubt the wisdom
of suppressing it, however, and they believe they can
resolve their dilemma by advocating a double standard.
I know teachers who tell their pupils that it is their own
concern how they speak among themselves, but for their
own good they should also be able to speak standard
English. This attitude, which has recently been adopted
by the B.B.C. too, seems to me to add insult to injury.
Is Cockney a poor relation to be kept in the back room
 PREFACE

when there are visitors? And is it imagined that Cock-

neys will be satisfied to use among themselves a dialect
which is not good enough for conversation with educated
people?
The present book is an attempt to remedy some of the
injuries of Cockney by tracing, so far as the available
material will permit, the growth of the vulgar speech of
London from the sixteenth century until the present day.
I dare not hope that I shall succeed in checking the vili-
fication of the dialect: I cannot imagine anybody re-
straining the thousands of provincial teachers who daily
lay down the laws of correct speech to Cockney children.
And I have no desire to inaugurate a Society for the
Preservation of Cockney: we have more than enough of
such mausoleums already. I shall feel amply satisfied if
I merely succeed in correcting some popular errors con-
cerning the dialect and in persuading English philologists
that aesthetic and moral dislike of vulgar forms of speech
are inadequate reasons for leaving them to be dealt with
by foreigners.

To the many Cockneys who consciously or uncon-

sciously have assisted me with this book, I tender my
sincere gratitude. Few of them will read this book, but
will those few accept on behalf of all my thanks for the
enjoyment I have had in hearing them talk and in listen-
ing to their reminiscences? To two people I owe a par-
ticular debt. To my mother I am indebted for many
details drawn from her extensive repertoire of music-hall
songs and children’s chants and from her intimate know-
ledge of the dialect as it was spoken about forty years ago.
xiv
 PREFACE

To Mr. Eric Partridge I am grateful for several valuable

suggestions and for the loan of proof sheets of the
additional material for the new edition of his dictionary
of slang. M y indebtedness to this great work is obvious
in my discussion of present-day Cockney slang.

xv
Page Intentionally Left Blank
 COCKNEY PAST AND PRESENT

CHAPTER I

TH E S IX T E E N T H AND SE V E N -
T E E N T H C E N TU R IE S

T
H E material for the study of Cockney in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is far from
being what one would wish. Despite the prejudices of
reviewers and literary men, the best observations come
from solemn people. Those flashes of insight which one
may always rely upon a reviewer to discover in another
novelist are as often the erratic light of the ignis fatuus
as a lumen siccum. One would like to have a solemn,
painstaking phonetic treatise on the London speech of
this period. But, although studies of English pronun-
ciation were written from the middle of the sixteenth
century, they were concerned solely with accepted
speech, and it was not until the eighteenth century that
the phoneticians began to consider Cockney. In default
of the comments of authorities, we have to fall back on
the Cockney dialogue in Elizabethan and Jacobean plays
and on documents written in a colloquial style by Lon-
doners of the time. In basing our discussion upon
dramatic dialogue, we run the danger of being deceived
by the usual vices (from the objective point of view)
I B
Other documents randomly have
different content
 If the ankles are weak, a surgeon should be consulted without delay. I
have benefited many children by making an elastic lace boot, which, from
the support it affords, compressing the muscles of the foot, and by bearing
well up by means of a spring under the arch of the foot, has prevented
lameness, and restored the feet and ankles to their natural form.

GENTLEMEN’S BOOTS AND SHOES.

The foregoing remarks on ladies’ boots, apply equally to gentlemen’s

half-boots, the same materials being used for dress or summer walking;
they need, therefore, only to be referred to in their proper place, and the
remarks and illustrations, pages 105-108, will convey all that is necessary to
know of the proper shape and true principles of fitting, sufficient length,
straightness of form, and the room in the right place, being the chief points
to be attended to.
Shoes are now very little worn; boots of some kind or other being the
general wear. At present, says the author of “The Shoemaker,” we are
emphatically a booted people; so are the French and the Americans; the
fashion goes onward with the great progress of civilization; it is as it were
its very sign. Homer has applied to his own far-famous countrymen, the
epithet of the well-booted Greeks, a somewhat singular coincidence at first
sight, though doubtless he meant no more than some sort of stiff leg-
covering, as a protection necessary to the warriors of whom he sang, and
bearing no likeness to the gay delicate boot of later times.
The fame of the English in this way is not, however, altogether new;
though from what the present generation must have observed since the
introduction of the Wellington, it may seem to be otherwise. We were, it
appears, a booted people before, or at least were so considered.
“I will amaze my countrymen,” said Gondemar, Spanish ambassador, to
the court of James I., “by letting them know on my return that all London is
booted, and apparently ready to walk out of town.” The reflection certainly
is curious; the old poets and heroes were booted, and the hero of Waterloo
has given as proud a distinction to our own boot. But then people in past
days, when they had their boots on, were thought to look prepared for a
journey, whereas, at present, the boot is almost as domestic a thing as the
slipper. We go to the ballroom in it, the theatre, the houses of parliament,
and even royalty itself is approached in the boots!
 The Wellington is unquestionably the most gentlemanly thing of its kind,
and all the attempts of the Bluchers, Alberts, Clarences, Cambridges, and
such like, to rival it, most signally fail. Its well-known character for style,
wear, and facility of repair, has stamped it the boot of the present day.
A good Wellington boot of the softest calf-leather, the sole moderately
thick, the waist hollow and well-arched, firm and yet flexible, cut to go on
without dragging all your might with boothooks, and made with an
intermediate sole of felt to prevent creaking, is the best boot for general
wear that can be made.
The varnished or patent leather Wellington, is a handsome article of the
same class, and is generally made with a tongue, the legs being of colored
morocco leather. It is now brought to a great state of perfection, and our
bootclosers are the most perfect in the matter of fancy-closing and stabbing,
in Europe.
For many years, this department of the trade has been quite distinct from
shoemaking, or boot-making. Originally, closing, making the boot, shoe,
and slipper, and even ladies’ and children’s shoes, was the work of one
individual; now they are separate branches, and the closer has not only risen
in this country, but his work is universally celebrated from this
circumstance, for its strength and beauty. Perhaps nothing in the way of
workmanship is equal to what is termed blind-stabbing: the leather, held
between the workman’s knees, is pierced with a small pointed awl, which
he holds together with the flax or silken thread that is to follow, in his right
hand; his left on the inside of the bootleg, and in the dark, in an instant
sends through the bristle, and receives through the same little hole the point
of the right hand one; the thread is drawn, the stitch formed, quickly another
hole is made, and the same operation repeated.
Nothing in the way of sewing or stitching, can equal this blind-stabbing,
one half of which is done in the dark, the skill being acquired by constant
practice, and the extreme delicacy of the touch; from twenty to thirty
stitches have been done to the inch in this way, and in prize-work as many
as sixty, every stitch being clear, sharply defined, beautifully regular.
The Elastic Boot for Gentlemen, is a light and easy article; it does
not encumber the leg, and, unlike the half-and-half Clarence, with its valve
of folded leather, and all kinds of holes and contrivances, it fits the ankle
like a stocking, and readily yields and elasticates to every motion of the feet
and legs.

The cut represents an elastic boot with a golosh of leather all round, the
upper part being cloth, silk, prunella, cashmere, kid, or the silk-stocking
net; the material generally determining the kind of boot it is to be, and the
thickness of the sole. When it is required that the elastic boot should have
the appearance of a Wellington, it is made entirely of leather, spring and all,
and thus made, when on the foot, has every appearance of it, as no join is
ever detected above the instep, when the trowsers accidentally rise a little
higher than the wearer of a would-be Wellington sometimes wishes them.
Travellers find these boots great comforts, they take up very little room
in the portmanteau, are soon cleaned, and are on and off in an instant; if
made of patent leather, they need only a wipe with an old silk handkerchief.
No boothooks are ever required, the best hooks being nature’s own, the
fingers, and the only bootjack ever wanted, is the toe of one boot applied to
the heel of the other.
Dress Pumps are almost the only shoes now worn; they are generally
made of patent leather, and should be cut to sit well at the quarters.
The Oxonian Shoe is, however, a very useful article, and if properly
made, is the best shoe for walking and for wear. It laces up in front with
three or four holes, and sits snug about the quarters and heel; the vamp
comes well above the joint, and never hurts, by seams or pressure, the little
toes: if it were not for the seam across the instep, girding and making it
difficult to get the shoe on, and the frequent breaking at that part from the
strain it undergoes, no shoe could be better.
I have, however, effected a great improvement in it, which remedies the
evil at once, gives great freedom in putting on, and entirely prevents the
breaking of the seam and vamp; this improvement would, however, be
hardly intelligible from description, and must therefore be seen to be
understood properly. For shooting, and strong wear, it will be found
extremely suitable, and it is perhaps the best of all shoes for young
gentlemen.
Stockings, Washing the Feet, &c.—Much more of comfort to the feet
depends on the stockings than people are aware of; nothing can be worse
than a stocking too large or too small, the more common case is its
largeness, and when I see a cotton or thread stocking tucked under at the
toe, and by the perspiration of the foot and the tread, become quite hard and
compact, a hard ridge of a seam pressing on the toes, which show the marks
produced by the pressure all over the surface, I wonder how persons can
expect comfort.
The best stockings for general wear, are those made of lamb’s wool,
vigonia, and Shetland knit. The pedestrian well knows the difference on a
long day’s walk, between a cotton or linen stocking and one of wool; he
knows that the former soon becomes hard, damp, and chilly, with the
moisture of the foot, whereas the latter enables him to bear fatigue, defends
his foot from the friction of the shoe, secures it from blisters, and in every
way ministers to his comfort.
Persons, however, who do not use much exercise may indulge in a silk
stocking; ladies will not only find this the most elegant of all coverings for
the feet, but at the same time far more comfortable than either cotton or
linen. If the best silk is considered too expensive, then a thick spun silk is a
good substitute.
The frequent change of the stockings conduces much to comfort, and
they should, in cases of corns or tender feet, be worn inside-out; even the
little seam of a stocking has aggravated in a great measure a corn just
appearing, which but for that pressure, might soon have been got rid of.
Let the feet be bathed at least three times a week in tepid or cold water.
For some years I was in the habit of making easy shoes for the late Sir
Astley Cooper. That eminent surgeon never cramped his feet, nor wore
shoes that would give him pain; but one thing, however, he habitually
accustomed himself to, and that was to immerse his feet in cold water as
soon as he arose, and use a rough towel freely afterward.
In the coldest day of winter, he was to be seen without a great coat, with
silk stockings on his legs, and short breeches, traversing the court of the
hospital, or sitting in his carriage.
The sponge should be applied to the feet, and between the toes, round
the nails, which should be cut just to a level with the toe-end, and then a
good rubbing all over with a dry towel, a little Eau de Cologne to finish off,
and you feel quite another creature.
Every care should be taken that the insensible perspiration of the feet
should be encouraged and allowed to pass off freely. Dr. Wilson, in his
“Practical Treatise on Healthy Skin,” says: “To arrive at something like an
estimate of the value of the perspiratory system, in relation to the rest of the
organism, I counted the perspiratory pores on the palm of the hand, and
found 3,528 to the square inch, (on the heel where the ridges are coarser
2,268). Now each of these pores being the aperture of a little tube of about a
quarter of an inch long, it follows that in a square inch of skin, there exists a
length of tube equal to 882 inches, or 73½ feet. Surely, such an amount of
drainage as 73 feet in every square inch of skin, assuming this to be the
average for the whole body, is something wonderful, and the thought
naturally intrudes itself what if this drainage were obstructed?”
This is too often the case, improper shoes and waterproof materials, not
only check the natural evaporation of the skin, but eventually produce
diseases of the feet in the worst form; nothing so much conduces to general
comfort, as the feet and ankles being in a healthy state, and few things tell
upon the manners and temper more than constant pain and irritability of the
extremities.
The fashions of boots and shoes have met with their share of our
attention and research, the errors of form and make have been pointed out,
the best remedies have been suggested, it now only remains for us to adhere
as closely to nature’s laws as possible. Art may do much, but even Miss
Kilmansegg’s “precious leg” of pure gold, was but a poor substitute for her
more precious lost one.
 “Peace and ease, and slumber lost,
She turned, and rolled, and tumbled, and tossed,
With a tumult that would not settle;
A common case indeed with such,
As have too little, or think too much,
Of the precious and glittering metal.

“Gold! she saw at her golden foot,

The peer whose tree had an olden root,
The proud, the great, the learned to boot,
The handsome, the gay, and the witty—
The man of science, of arms, of art,
The man who deals but at pleasure’s mart,
And the man who deals in the city.”

(1.) Many are the hints thrown out by some of our old herbalists, in their
quaint language, as to the power of some of our indigenous herbs. One
which has certainly some slight influence on corns, and is a great favorite
among the popular writers on corns, is the common house-leek, the sedum
murale. This herb which is found growing on the tops of old garden-walls
and upon the roofs of houses, has a leaf of considerable thickness, owing to
the large quantity of cellular tissue between its upper and lower lamina, in
whose interstices is found considerable juice, which abounds with
hydrochloric acid in a free and uncombined state. Owing, doubtless, to the
presence of the acid, the juice acts upon the indurated mass, softening and
destroying the surface, but leaving the lower parts as great a source of
mischief as ever, and sometimes converting the corn into a more hardened
mass than it was before.—The Diseases of the Feet.
(2.) “There is another way of disposing of a corn,” says Mr. Erasmus
Wilson, “which I have been in the habit of recommending to my friends; it
is effectual, and obviates the necessity for the use of the knife. Have some
common sticking-plaster spread on buff leather; cut a piece sufficiently
large to cover the com and skin around, and have a hole punched in the
middle of exactly the size of the summit of the corn. Now take some
common soda of the oil-shops, and make it into a paste, with about half its
bulk of soap; fill the hole in the plaster with this paste, and cover it with a
piece of sticking-plaster. Let this be done at bed-time, and in the morning
remove the plaster, and wash the corn with warm water. If this operation be
repeated every second, third, or fourth day, for a short time, the corn will be
removed. The only precaution required to be used is to avoid causing pain;
and so long as any tenderness occasioned by the remedy lasts, it must not be
repeated. When the corn is reduced within reasonable bounds by either of
the above modes, or when it is only threatening, and has not yet risen to the
height of being a sore annoyance, the best of all remedies is a piece of soft
buff leather, spread with soap-plaster, and pierced in the centre with a hole
exactly the size of the summit of the corn.”
(3.) It is usually the custom to soak the corns previously to cutting them.
As this is not always convenient, the following method of rendering the
corn soft well serve instead. Take a strip of wash-leather, of size sufficient
to cover the corn, and a strip of oiled silk rather larger; wet the leather and
apply it to the corn, then cover it with the oiled silk, which will prevent the
leather from becoming dry. Keep this on for a few days, wetting the leather
two or three times a day. This will render the corn so soft that the razor may
be applied without causing pain.
 CHAPTER VII.

HISTORY OF BOOTS AND SHOES IN THE UNITED STATES.

T
HE first settlers of New England, Virginia, and other British colonies
in America, brought with them to this country, the fashions of dress
which were prevalent in England at the time of their emigration, being
the same as described in the preceding pages, with regard to boots and
shoes in use in the seventeenth century, in the reigns of the Stuarts, or under
the dominion of the commonwealth, when Cromwell was at the head of
affairs. New England being settled by the puritans, the dresses of the first
English inhabitants of that section were of a plainer character than those of
Virginia and other colonies, where the first settlers were cavaliers, or
adherents of the house of Stuart.
The dress, particularly the boots and shoes, worn by the earlier settlers of
New England, are thus described by Miss Caulkins, in her “History of
Norwich, Connecticut.” “The shoes worn in 1689, were coarse, clumped,
square-toed, and adorned with enormous buckles. If any boots made their
appearance, prodigious was the thumping as they passed up the aisles of the
church; for a pair of boots was then expected to last a man’s life. The tops
were short, but very wide at the top; formed, one might suppose, with a
special adaptation to rainy weather; collecting the water as it fell, and
holding an ample bath for the feet and ankles!
“It is uncertain whether the small clothes had then begun to grow, so as
to reach below the knee, and to be fastened with knee-buckles or not. The
earlier mode was to have them terminate above the knee, and to be tied with
ribands. The common kind were made of leather. Red woollen stockings
were much admired. Swords were customarily worn when in full dress, by
all the earlier settlers of New England, both in a civil and a military
capacity. Hats were at that time made of wool; perhaps two or three at the
church door reverently took off a black ‘beaverett,’ though that was a costly
article in those days. The coat was made with a long straight body, falling
below the knee, and with no collar. The waistcoat was long.”
 As necessity is the mother of invention, many of the earlier settlers of
New England, where mechanics were scarce, were accustomed to
manufacture their own clothing, including boots and shoes. The more
wealthy inhabitants imported their clothing from England, but the farmers
generally made in their own families most of the articles required for
clothes. Individuals who were expert in shoemaking, many of them self-
taught, were sometimes employed by farmers and others to make up a stock
of shoes for the family, once or twice a year. These persons journeyed about
from house to house, in the winter season, taking their tools on their backs.
Leather was occasionally imported from England, but as population in the
colonies increased, tanneries were established, particularly in the large
towns.
A writer in the Old Colony Memorial, gives the following account of
dress among the early inhabitants of New England:—
“In general, men, old or young, had a decent coat, vest, and small
clothes, and some kind of fur hat. Old men had a great-coat and a pair of
boots. The boots generally lasted for life. For common use they had a long
jacket, reaching about half way to the thigh; flannel shirts, woollen
stockings, and thick leather shoes; a silk handkerchief for holydays, which
would last ten years. Shoes and stockings were not worn by the young men,
and by but few men in the farming business.
“As for boys, as soon as they were taken out of petticoats, they were put
into small clothes, summer or winter. This continued until long trowsers
were introduced, which they called tongs. They were but little different
from our pantaloons. These were made of tow-cloth, linen, cotton, or
flannel-cloth, and soon were used by old men and young.
“The women, old and young, wore flannel gowns in the winter. The
young women wore, in the summer, wrappers or shepherdress; and about
their ordinary business, did not wear stockings and shoes. They were
usually contented with one calico gown; but they generally had a calimanco
gown, another of camlet, and some had them made of poplin. The sleeves
were short, and did not come below the elbow. On holydays, they wore one,
two, or three ruffles on each arm—the deepest of which were sometimes
nine or ten inches. They wore long gloves, coming up to the elbow. Round
gowns had not then come in fashion; so they wore aprons. The shoes were
either of thick or thin leather, broadcloth, or worsted stuff, all with heels an
inch and a half high, with peaked toes turned up in a point. They generally
had small, very small muffs, and some wore masks.”
The following extracts from Watson’s Annals of New York, will further
elucidate the fashions as to boots and shoes in the British colonies in
America.
“Before the revolution, no hired man or woman wore any shoes as fine
as calf-skin; that kind was the exclusive property of the gentry. The servants
wore coarse neat’s leather. The calf-skin then had a white rind of sheep-skin
stitched into the top edge of the sole, which they preserved white, as a
dress-shoe, as long as possible.”
The use of boots has come in since the war of independence; they were
first worn with black tops, after the military, strapped up in union with the
knee buttons; afterward bright tops were introduced. The leggings to these
latter were made of buckskin for some extreme beaux, for the sake of close
fitting a well-turned leg.
“Boots were rarely worn; never as an article of dress; chiefly when seen,
they were worn by hostlers and sailors; the latter always wore great
petticoat trowsers, coming only to the knee and then tying close. Common
people wore their clothes for a much longer time than now; they patched
their clothes much and long; a garment was only ‘half worn’ when it
became broken.
“As English colonists we early introduced the modes of our British
ancestors. They derived their notions of dress from France.
“Breeches, close fitted, with silver, stone, or paste gem buckles; shoes or
pumps, with silver buckles of various sizes and patterns; thread, worsted,
and silk stockings, were worn in the colonies previous to the revolution.
The poorer class wore sheepskin and buckskin breeches close set to the
limbs.”
 A glance at any of the numerous engravings copied from Colonel
Trumbull’s national painting, the “Declaration of Independence,” shows the
dress of gentlemen in this country during the American revolution; namely,
small clothes fastened below the knee with buckles, the leg covered only
with stockings, the shoes fastened with large buckles. This fashion
continued until the close of the eighteenth century, when pantaloons and
boots were introduced from France. Mr. Sullivan, in his “Familiar Letters,”
says: “About the end of the eighteenth century, the forms of society
underwent considerable change. The levelling process of France began to
be felt. Powder for the hair began to be unfashionable. A loose dress
(pantaloons) for the lower limbs was adopted. Wearing the hair tied was
given up, and short hair became common. Colored garments went out of
use, and dark or black were substituted. Buckles disappeared. The style of
life had acquired more of elegance, as means had increased.”
A sketch of the manner in which Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, and
other public men, dressed, is given by Mr. Sullivan, in the work above
quoted, and the following extracts may be interesting to our readers:—
“Washington, at his levees, while president [from 1789 to 1797], dressed
in black velvet, his hair powdered and gathered behind in a silk bag, yellow
gloves on his hands; holding a cocked hat, with a cockade in it, and the
edges adorned with a black feather. He wore knee and shoe buckles, and a
long sword, with a polished steel hilt. The scabbard was white polished
leather.”
“Jefferson, in 1797, wore a black coat and light under clothes. He was
then fifty-four years of age.”
“Hamilton, in 1795, being then in his thirty-eighth year, wore at a dinner
party, a blue coat, with bright buttons and long skirts, a white waistcoat,
black silk small clothes, white silk stockings,” (and shoes, of course).
The Hessian or Austrian boot, described in the preceding pages, which
was first used in England, about the year 1789, was soon afterward
introduced into the United States, as was the white-top boot, which came
into fashion in England, early in the
reign of George III. This latter was generally worn with small clothes, and
more frequently by elderly gentlemen than young men. The Hessian or half-
boot was made with a seam in the back, and was worn over pantaloons
fastened around the ankle with ribands or galloons. After a few years, it
gave way to the Suwarrow boot, so named after Suwarroff, a Russian
general, celebrated for his campaigns in Turkey, Poland, Italy, &c. He died
in 1800; soon after which time the Suwarrow boot was introduced into
England and the United States. This boot was worn by citizens, as well as in
the army and navy; it was made with a seam at each side, and reached
nearly to the knee. In front it was scolloped, and ornamented with a black
silk tassel. Sometimes gold tassels were worn by military and naval officers
in full dress. We recollect having seen Commodore Decatur, while his ship,
the United States, lay in the river Thames, in Connecticut, during the war of
1812, wear a pair of elegant Suwarrow boots, with gold tassels, on an
occasion of his being invited to a dinner party in Norwich.
 The Suwarrow boot continued in fashion for about fifteen years, when,
after the battle of Waterloo, it was superseded by the Wellington boot,
which it is well known was named after the duke of Wellington. This boot
seems to have settled the laws of fashion respecting the feet, as decisively
as the battle of Waterloo settled the affairs of Europe.
With regard to the fashions of ladies’ boots and shoes in the United
States, since the American revolution, we have closely followed the
examples set for us by the ladies of Paris and London. Many families still
preserve as relics the high-heeled shoes worn by their female ancestors,
previous to the American revolution. The levelling spirit of the French
revolution, seems to have reached even to ladies’ shoes; for we find that
about 1790, the high heel was dispensed with, and shoes without heels were
introduced. We have heard ladies of the olden time, say that it was hard to
come down in this manner all at once; the effort to walk with no support to
their heels was even painful, and our grandmothers were compelled for a
long time to do penance to the tyrant fashion on tiptoe. Gradually, however,
each lady found her own level, and succeeding generations, having never
known the dangerous elevation of their predecessors, have found less
difficulty in complying with the varying mandates of the goddess of haut-
ton.
William G. Hooker, Esq., of New Haven, Connecticut, has collected
between four and five hundred varieties of shoes, embracing the fashions
for about two centuries in England and the United States.

To return to the fashions for gentlemen’s boots. The Jefferson boot,

which was introduced at about the time when Mr. Jefferson came into the
presidency (in 1801), and which that gentleman was himself fond of
wearing, was laced up in front, as high as the ankles, in some instances
perhaps higher; it was about this time that pantaloons were introduced into
this country from France, and became fashionable.
 The laced boot, which was laced up at the side, came in fashion soon
after the Jefferson boot, but the inconvenience of lacing, prevented it from
being generally adopted.

The snow-shoe, worn in Canada and other countries, is formed of a

framework of wood, strongly interlaced with thongs of leather. It is used by
travellers and hunters to prevent their sinking into the snow, in their
progress from place to place. It causes great pain to the wearer until after
considerable practice in the use of it.
 The Indian moccasin was the boot or shoe worn by the aborigines of
America, before and after the settlement of this country by Europeans. It
was made of deerskin, tanned by a mode peculiar to the Indians, and
smoked; ornamented with beads or porcupines’ quills or feathers, and worn
without soles.
 CHAPTER VIII.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF EMINENT SHOEMAKERS.

F
ROM the numerous instances on record, of individuals who have
belonged to the “gentle craft” (by which name those who have learned
the art of shoemaking are designated), and who by their talents have
acquired distinction and eminence among their fellow-men, as
statesmen, patriots, scholars, poets, or professional men, we select the
following as interesting, and appropriate to this work.

ROGER SHERMAN.

“The self-taught Sherman urged his reasons clear.”

Humphrey’s Poems.

Among the illustrious characters whose names are inscribed upon the
brightest record that adorns the annals of America, few possessed more
solid attainments than Roger Sherman. He belonged to that class of
statesmen who seek rather to convince the reason, than to triumph over the
passions of men. The vigor of his mind appeared more conspicuous in the
plain and simple manner in which it was elicited, than if it had been
ornamented with all the beauties of elocution. But the energy of his address
was not diminished by the absence of fanciful diction, nor the solidity of his
views less admired because his feelings were partially suppressed. Without
indulging in those brilliant bursts of oratory which please and sparkle for a
moment, his impressive manner displayed ideas founded upon calm
deliberation, and a clear perception of the justice of his cause. By a uniform
and dispassionate course, he attained extensive influence in the councils of
his country, and attracted the admiration and esteem of his compatriots. It
has been said of him that he seldom failed to procure the adoption of any
measure which he advocated, and which he considered essential to the
public good.
 Captain John Sherman, the ancestor of the subject of this sketch,
emigrated to Massachusetts from Dedham, in England, about the year 1635.
William, the father of Roger Sherman, was a farmer in moderate
circumstances, and resided at Newton, Massachusetts, where the latter was
born, April 19, 1721. The family removed to Stoughton, in the same state,
in 1723.
There is a striking analogy between the early lives and self-promotion of
Mr. Sherman and of Doctor Franklin. Surmounting difficulties which to
common minds would have been insuperable, they gradually ascended from
the humbler walks of life, to a prominent station among men. Of the
childhood and early youth of Sherman, little is known. He received no other
education than the ordinary country schools in Massachusetts at that period
afforded. He was neither assisted by a public education, nor private tuition.
All the valuable attainments which he exhibited in his future career, were
the result of his own vigorous efforts. By his ardent thirst for knowledge,
and his indefatigable industry, he attained a very commendable
acquaintance with general science, the system of logic, geography,
mathematics; the general principles of philosophy, history, theology; and
particularly law and politics. He was early apprenticed to a shoemaker, and
pursued that occupation until he was twenty-two years of age. He was
accustomed to sit at his work with a book before him, devoting every
moment that his eyes could be spared from the occupation in which he was
engaged.
Mr. Sherman was not one of those to whom the retrospect of past life
was unpleasant. During the revolutionary war, he was placed on a
committee of Congress, to examine certain army accounts, among which
was a contract for the supply of shoes. He informed the committee that the
public had been defrauded, and that the charges were exorbitant, which he
proved by specifying the cost of the leather and other materials, and of the
workmanship. The minuteness with which this was done, exciting some
surprise, he informed the committee that he was by trade a shoemaker, and
knew the value of every article.
The care of a numerous family of brothers and sisters, devolved on Mr.
Sherman at the age of nineteen, on the death of his father, in 1741. He
kindly provided for his mother, and assisted two brothers, afterward
clergymen, to obtain an education.
 He removed in 1743 to New Milford, Connecticut, travelling on foot,
and carrying his shoemaker’s tools upon his back. Soon after this, he
relinquished his trade, and became the partner of an elder brother, a country
merchant at New Milford, which connexion he continued until his
admission to the bar in 1754. He was appointed surveyor of lands for the
county where he resided in 1745. Astronomical calculations of as early date
as 1748, have been found among his papers. They were made by him for an
almanac, then published in New York, and which he continued to supply for
several successive years.
About this time, a lawyer whom he had occasion to consult on business,
advised him to devote his attention to the study of the law. This counsel his
circumstances did not permit him at once to follow, but the intimation he
then received, that his mind was fitted for higher pursuits, no doubt induced
him to devote his leisure moments to those studies which led him to honor
and distinguished usefulness. Having acquired a competent knowledge of
the law, he was admitted to practice in 1754. In the following year he was
appointed a justice of the peace; he was also chosen a representative in the
legislature, and a deacon in the church. Removing to New Haven in 1761,
he was, in 1766, chosen an assistant or member of the upper house of the
colonial legislature. The same year he was appointed a judge of the superior
court of Connecticut, which office he held for 23 years, as he did that of
assistant 19 years. His legal opinions were received with great deference by
the profession, and their correctness was generally acknowledged.
Mr. Sherman took an early and active part in our revolutionary struggle,
and in 1774 was chosen delegate to the first continental congress. Of that
body and the federal congress, he continued a member for the long period
of 19 years, till his death in 1793. In June, 1776, he was appointed on the
committee with Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, and R. R. Livingston, to
prepare the declaration of independence, of which instrument, when
reported, and adopted by congress, he was one of the signers. John Adams
said of Mr. Sherman, that he was “one of the soundest and strongest pillars
of the revolution.” While he was performing indefatigable labors in
Congress, he devoted unremitting attention to duties at home. During the
war he was a member of the governor’s council of safety.
In 1784, Mr. Sherman was elected mayor of the city of New Haven.
About the same time he was one of a committee of two, appointed by the
legislature of Connecticut, to revise the laws of the state. In 1787, he was
chosen, in conjunction with William Samuel Johnson, and Oliver Ellsworth,
a delegate to the national convention, to frame the constitution of the United
States. In that body Mr. Sherman bore a conspicuous part, in debate and on
committees. Having signed the constitution, as adopted, his exertions in
procuring the ratification in Connecticut, were highly important and
successful. He published a series of papers, under the signature of “citizen,”
which materially influenced the public mind in favor of its adoption. After
the ratification of the constitution, he was immediately elected by the
people, as one of their representatives in congress. Though approaching the
seventieth year of his age, he yet took a prominent part in the great topics of
discussion which came before the first congress. He zealously co-operated
with Washington, Hamilton, and others of the same school of politics, in
organizing the government under the constitution. In 1791, a vacancy
having occurred in the senate of the United States, Mr. Sherman was elected
to fill that elevated station, in which he continued until his death, on the 23d
of July, 1793, when he was gathered to his fathers, in the seventy third year
of his age. He died in full possession of all his powers, both of mind and
body.
“The legacy which Mr. Sherman has bequeathed to his countrymen,”
says Professor Edwards, “is indeed invaluable. The Romans never ceased to
mention with inexpressible gratitude, the heroism, magnanimity,
contentment, disinterestedness, and noble public services of him who was
called from the plough to the dictator’s chair. His example was a light to all
subsequent ages. So among the galaxy of great men who shine along the
paths of our past history, we can scarcely refer to one, save Washington,
whose glory will be more steady and unfading than that of Roger Sherman.”
In regard to worldly circumstances, Mr. Sherman was very happily
situated. Beginning life without the aid of patrimonial wealth, or powerful
connexions, he, by his industry and skilful management, always lived in a
comfortable manner, and his property was gradually increasing. He was
never grasping nor avaricious, but liberal in feeling, and in proportion to his
means, liberal in acts of beneficence and hospitality. His manner of living
was in accordance with the strictest republican simplicity.
In his person, Mr. Sherman was considerably above the common stature;
his form was erect and well-proportioned; his complexion very fair, and his
countenance manly and agreeable, indicating mildness, benignity, and
decision. He did not neglect those smaller matters, without the observance
of which a high station can not be sustained with propriety and dignity. In
his dress he was plain, but remarkably neat; and in his treatment of men of
every class, he was universally affable and obliging. In the private relations
of husband, father, and friend, he was uniformly affectionate, faithful, and
constant.
As a theologian, Mr. Sherman was capable of conversing on the most
important subjects, with reputation to himself, and improvement to others.
As an avowed professor of religion, he did not hesitate to appear openly in
its defence, and maintain the doctrines of Christianity. Among his
correspondents were Dr. Jonathan Edwards, Dr. Hopkins, Dr. Trumbull,
President Dickinson, President Witherspoon, Doctor Johnson of
Connecticut, and many others.

DANIEL SHEFFEY.

This gentleman, one of the most distinguished members of the bar in the
state of Virginia, a district of which he represented in Congress for eight
years, namely, from 1809 to 1817, was in early life a shoemaker. His
colleague, John Randolph of Roanoke, once alluded to the fact in debate, in
his usual sarcastic mode, to which Mr. Sheffey retorted by acknowledging
the truth of the allusion, and saying in substance: “The difference, sir,
between the gentleman and myself, is this: that if his lot had been cast like
mine, in early life, instead of rising by industry, enterprise, and study, above
his calling, and occupying a seat on this floor, with which each of us is now
honored by our constituents, he would at this time have been still engaged
at his last on the workbench.”
Mr. Sheffey was a conspicuous member of congress, during the four
terms in which he served in the house, able in debate, and respected as a
man of genius and good judgment. In politics he was attached to the federal
party, and opposed to the declaration of war with Great Britain, and other
measures of Mr. Madison’s administration. On returning from congress, two
years after the conclusion of the war, he applied himself to the practice of
his profession as a lawyer, sustaining a high rank among the members of the
bar in the ancient dominion. On his death, in December, 1830, the courts of
Virginia, and others, united in public demonstrations of respect to his
memory, as a man of genius, a distinguished counsellor, and an eminent and
useful citizen. The records of debates in congress, bear ample testimony to
his talents as a statesman and orator, among the able men with whom he
was associated in the councils of the nation.

GIDEON LEE.

Among the many enterprising sons of New England, who have risen
from humble life, and distinguished themselves by their industry and
talents, the name of Gideon Lee stands conspicuous. Self-educated, and
emphatically self-made, he rose to influence and distinction by the practice
of those virtues which secure the respect and confidence of mankind. He
rose from poverty and obscurity, to occupy, and worthily to fill, the most
honorable situations in the gift of his fellow-citizens, and, by a long life of
great public and private usefulness, distinguished for honesty, industry,
sobriety, benevolence—and beyond this, evincing an enthusiasm in the
cause of education, of the moral and intellectual culture of the people—
entitled himself to be ranked as a patriot and public benefactor.
Gideon Lee was born in the town of Amherst, in the state of
Massachusetts, on the 27th of April, 1778. He lost his father when quite a
child, and was left to the care of his mother, of whom he always spoke in
terms of the warmest affection. After his father’s death, he went to reside
with an uncle, a farmer, in whose service he discharged the humble duties
of looking after the cattle, and was employed in such other occupations as
were suitable to his strength and age.
After remaining some time under the care, and in the employment of his
uncle, he was apprenticed to the tanning and shoemaking business, it being
then the practice to conduct both branches by the same person, working at
the former in the summer, and at the latter during the winter months. For the
tanning department, however, he always retained the strongest partiality. Up
to this period, his opportunities for acquiring knowledge were extremely
limited: a few weeks’ schooling during the winter, and such books as
accidentally fell in his way, were all the means vouchsafed to him. After
learning his trade, or trades, he commenced business on his own account, in
the town of Worthington, Massachusetts, and, by his industry and strict
attention to it, won the regard and confidence of his neighbors. He was
enabled to obtain credit for the purchase of leather, which he manufactured
into shoes; always paying promptly for it at the period he had agreed. The
first hundred dollars he earned, and that he could honestly call his own, he
appropriated to educating himself at the Westfield academy. When that sum
was exhausted, he again betook himself to his trade. His diligence and
application were remarkable; sixteen hours out of the twenty-four, he
usually devoted to labor.
After prosecuting his business for some time alone, he formed a
partnership in trade with a friend; subsequently they were burned out, and
Mr. Lee lost what little property he had accumulated. He then dissolved
with his partner, and removed to the city of New York. But before
establishing himself permanently in the city, he made a voyage to St.
Mary’s, Georgia, taking with him a small adventure in leather. The
adventure not proving a profitable one, he returned to New York, after
remaining one winter at the south. The vessel in which he took passage
being wrecked off Cape Fear, he made the journey to New York, in
company with a Yankee friend, on foot. In one instance on this pedestrian
journey, his money being exhausted, he chopped wood for a farmer, to pay
for his food and lodging.
About the year 1807, Mr. Lee commenced business as a leather-dealer,
in a small building in Ferry street, New York. Being appointed agent for an
extensive tanning establishment in Massachusetts, called the “Hampshire
Leather Manufactory,” he laid the foundation in the city of New York, for a
trade in a branch of domestic industry, which speedily rivalled any in the
other Atlantic cities. His prudence, punctuality, and economy, enabled him
to accumulate means for enlarging his business; and but for feeble health,
the future to him was a bright path of success. In this business, namely, the
selling of leather on commission, he continued for about thirty years, until
his final retirement from mercantile pursuits.
In the fall of 1822, Mr. Lee was elected a member of assembly, in the
New York legislature, where he distinguished himself by his close
application to the business of the house, being seldom out of his place while
it was in session. In 1833, he was elected by the common council of New
York, mayor of that city, having previously served several years in the
capacity of alderman. While discharging the duties of the mayoralty, he
withdrew entirely from active participation in managing the business of his
mercantile house, and devoted all his time and abilities to the public
service. It was a maxim with him, that “whatever was worth doing at all
was worth doing well.” In his communications to the common council, he
never failed on suitable occasions to call their attention to the subject of
public education;—it was a theme on which he never tired.
In 1834, an alteration in the charter, made the office of mayor of New
York elective by the people. A nomination was offered to Mr. Lee, but he
declined a re-election, finding it necessary to return to his mercantile
business. From this period, he contemplated retiring from commercial
pursuits, and accordingly commenced winding up the affairs of his long-
established concern in Ferry street. It was not, however, until the fall of
1836, that he felt himself in a situation to retire from its management.
He then again entered for a short period into public life, and represented
the city of New York in the twenty-fourth congress, where he was
distinguished for his business habits, for his close attention to the interests
of his constituents, and, we might also say, for making short speeches.
Disdaining the arts of the demagogue, he made no efforts to acquire an
ephemeral popularity in the usual modes, and was consequently not re-
elected to congress. His political life may be said to have ended with the
termination of the session of congress, in March, 1837, with an exception.
He was in 1840, chosen a member of the electoral college of New York, for
choosing the president and vice-president of the United States.
In politics Mr. Lee was a democratic republican, and supported the
administrations of Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and Jackson. Disapproving,
however, of the measures of Mr. Van Buren’s administration, he became
what was called a “conservative,” acting with the whigs after the year 1837,
and was chosen by that party one of the electoral college, which gave the
vote of the state to General Harrison, as president of the United States.
Shortly after retiring from congress, Mr. Lee removed to the village of
Geneva, in Ontario county, New York, where he had purchased a beautiful
estate; and in improving and adorning it, and in the education of his
children, he contemplated spending the remainder of his days. He had,
however, but barely commenced, as he expressed it, “winding up his end of
life,” in the manner he had so long and ardently desired, when death
removed him from his labors. He was seized with bilious fever,
accompanied by neuralgia, early in July, 1841, and on the 21st of August
succeeding, was gathered to his fathers, in the sixty-fourth year of his age,
leaving to his family an ample fortune, the honest fruits of a well-spent life.
 Of one who thus lived, it will create no surprise to be informed that he
was prepared to die. Death did not find him a reluctant or unwilling voyager
to his dark domains. At his beckoning he laid down his plans and cares with
cheerfulness and pious resignation to the divine will, and sunk with calm
dignity to his last repose, with a grateful heart for all the blessings and
mercies he had experienced. He died full of faith and hope in the promises
of his Redeemer.
“The lamp of life of such men,” says his friend and biographer, “can not
be extinguished without casting around a gloom; their absence from society
creates a void that must be ever felt. They may leave no blazing reputation
to dazzle or astonish, but they leave one that distributes its invigorating
influence, wherever virtue has a friend, or philanthropy an advocate.”[3]

SAMUEL DREW.

Those individuals who have raised themselves from obscurity to

distinction, always attract our notice; but when that distinction has been
attained in spite of obstacles apparently insurmountable, they become the
especial objects of our curiosity. This feeling is not only laudable but
beneficial. Curiosity leads to knowledge; knowledge causes admiration; and
admiration becomes an incentive to honorable effort. It is this which gives
to biography its value; and of few persons can the biography be more
instructive than that of the subject of this sketch.
Samuel Drew was born on the third of March, 1765, near St. Austell, in
the county of Cornwall, England. He was the second son of four children.
His parents were poor, but pious. His father, who earned a bare subsistence
for himself and family by his daily labor as a husbandman, was a convert to
methodism under the preaching of John Wesley, whose society he joined in
early life. His mother, whom he had the misfortune to lose before he was
ten years old, was a decidedly religious woman, and of strong intellectual
powers. Of her memory he always spoke with reverence and affection; and
the pious lessons which, in his infancy, he learned from her, were never
forgotten.
The poverty of his parents prevented him from receiving many of the
advantages of an early education. He however learned to form the letters of
the alphabet, previous to his mother’s death, but at eight years of age, he
was taken from school, and sent to work at a mill near his father’s cottage,
where tinners refined their ore. His wages were at first three halfpence, and
were afterward advanced to two pence per day. When rather more than ten
years old, his father bound him an apprentice for nine years, to a
shoemaker, in an adjoining parish.
During his apprenticeship, Drew had occasional access to a little
publication called the “Weekly Entertainer,” which was then extensively
circulated in the west of England, and contained many tales and narratives
which interested him. Into the narratives of adventures connected with the
war of the American revolution, he entered with all the zeal of a partisan on
the side of the Americans. He felt a strong desire to join himself to a
privateer, but having no money and few clothes, the idea and scheme were
vain. Besides these periodicals, he read but little, and nearly lost the art of
writing. The treatment he received, while an apprentice, being such as his
disposition could not brook, he left his master when about seventeen, and
refused to return. His father compounded for the residue of the term, and
procured him employment, and further instruction in his business, at
Millbrook, near Plymouth, in which place and neighborhood he continued
about three years. In 1785, when about twenty years of age, he went to St.
Austell, to conduct the shoemaking business for a person who was by trade
a saddler, and had acquired some knowledge of book-binding. With this
employer he continued about two years, and then commenced business as a
shoemaker in that town, on his own account. A miller with whom he was
acquainted, lent him five pounds, as capital in trade, fourteen shillings
being the total of his own cash, his thirst for knowledge having induced him
to lay out in books such money as he could save from his earnings as a
journeyman. He joined the methodist society in 1785, soon after becoming
the subject of religious impressions, under the preaching of the celebrated
Adam Clarke, with whom he soon afterward became acquainted; and the
friendship and intimacy of that distinguished divine, Mr. Drew continued to
enjoy through life. By no one were the peculiar and extraordinary talents
developed by Mr. Drew, more fully appreciated than by his friend Doctor
Clarke. Soon after joining the methodists, Mr. Drew’s abilities were called
into exercise; he was appointed to the charge of a class, and employed as a
local preacher. In this field, except as a class-leader, which he resigned into
other hands, he continued to labor until a few months before his decease.
The occasional perusal of books which were brought to the shop of his
employer to be bound, awakened Mr. Drew to a consciousness of his own
ignorance, and determined him to acquire knowledge. Every moment he
could snatch from sleep and labor, was now devoted to the reading of such
books as his limited finances placed within his reach. One of the difficulties
which he had to encounter at this outset of his literary career, arose from his
ignorance of the import of words. To overcome this, he found it necessary,
while reading, to keep a dictionary constantly at hand. The process was
tedious, but it was unavoidable; and difficulties lessened at every step.
A new world was now opened before him. All its paths were untried, and
in what direction to push his inquiries, he was yet undecided. Astronomy
first attracted his attention; but to the pursuit of this, his ignorance of
arithmetic and geometry was an insuperable obstacle. In history, to which
his views were next directed, no proficiency could be made without
extensive reading, and he had too little command of time and money for
such a purpose. The religious bias which he had received, tended, however,
to give a theological direction to his studies, and from the apparently
accidental inspection of “Locke’s Essay on the Human Understanding,” he
acquired a predilection for the higher exercises of the mind.
In April, 1791, Mr. Drew married, being then in a creditable way of
business as a shoemaker. He was not yet an author, but had obtained a name
for skill and integrity as a tradesman, and was held in respect by his
neighbors. Doctor Franklin’s “Way to Wealth,” fell into his hands about the
time he commenced business for himself. The pithy and excellent advice of
“Poor Richard,” in that work, instructed and delighted him. He placed it in a
conspicuous situation in his chamber, and resolved to follow its maxims.
Eighteen hours out of twenty-four, he regularly worked, and sometimes
longer; for his friends gave him plenty of employment, but until the bills
became due, he had no means of paying wages to a journeyman. He
remarks: “I was indefatigable, and at the year’s end, I had the satisfaction of
paying the five pounds which had been so kindly lent me, and finding
myself, with a tolerable stock of leather, clear of the world.”
By unremitting industry, he at length surmounted such obstacles as were
of a pecuniary nature. This enabled him to procure assistance in his labors,
and thus afforded him some relaxation. Industry and rigid economy were
still indispensable, but his ruling passion, the acquisition of knowledge, he
was enabled to gratify in a limited degree, and for several years, every spare
moment, and all the hours he could snatch from sleep, were devoted to
reading such books as he could procure.
 Referring to this period of his life, in conversation with a friend, Mr.
Drew said: “I once had a very great desire for the study of astronomy, for I
thought it suitable to the genius of my mind, and I think so still; but then—

“Chill penury repressed the noble rage,

And froze the genial current of the soul.”

Dangers and difficulties I did not fear, while I could bring the powers of my
mind to bear upon them, and force myself a passage. To metaphysics I then
applied myself, and became what the world and my good friend Doctor
Clarke call “a metaphysician.”
As he could devote but little time to the acquisition of knowledge, every
moment was fully occupied. “Drive thy business—do not let thy business
drive thee,” was one of those maxims of Dr. Franklin, to which Mr. Drew
adhered; and his example shows that literature may be cultivated, and piety
pursued, without prejudice to our worldly interests.
“During several years,” he observes, “all my leisure hours were devoted
to reading or scribbling; but I do not recollect that it ever interrupted my
business, though it frequently broke in upon my rest. On my labor depended
my livelihood; literary pursuits were only my amusement. The man who
makes shoes is sure of his wages—the man who writes a book is never sure
of anything.”
Mr. Drew’s first attempts at composition, like those of most young
essayists in the paths of literature, were metrical. The earliest known effort
of his muse, was a poetical epistle to his sister, and the next an elegy on the
death of his brother. These were followed by several short poetical pieces,
none of which have been preserved. He left in manuscript a metrical piece
containing about 1200 lines, entitled “Reflections on St. Austell
Churchyard,” dated August, 1792. It is written in the heroic stanza, and has
many excellent couplets, but is too defective in grammar and versification,
to endure the test of criticism. The major part is argumentative—not unlike
“Pope’s Essay on Man,” upon which, possibly, it was modelled: and several
of the arguments tend to prove that the soul is immaterial, and therefore
immortal. This poetical composition is apparently the embryo of Mr.
Drew’s applauded “Treatise on the Human Soul.” From the year 1792,
when this poem was written, until the commencement of his “Essay on the
Soul,” in 1798, no particular circumstance of his literary life is on record.
 His own description of his mode of study at this period of his life is as
follows: “During my literary pursuits, I regularly and constantly attend on
my business, and do not recollect that one customer was ever disappointed
through these means. My mode of writing and study may have in them
perhaps something peculiar. Immersed in the common concerns of life, I
endeavor to lift my thoughts to objects more sublime than those with which
I am surrounded; and while attending to my trade, I sometimes catch the
fibres of an argument, which I endeavor to note, and keep a pen and ink by
me for that purpose. In this state, what I can collect through the day,
remains on any paper which I have at hand, till the business of the day is
despatched, and my shop shut, when, in the midst of my family, I endeavor
to analyze, in the evening, such thoughts as had crossed my mind during the
day. I have no study—I have no retirement—I write amid the cries and
cradles of my children; and frequently, when I review what I have written,
endeavor to cultivate ‘the art to blot.’ Such are the methods which I have
pursued, and such the disadvantages under which I write.”
The circumstances which led to his becoming an author, are these: A
young gentleman with whom he was intimate, by profession a surgeon, put
into his hands the first part of Paine’s Age of Reason, thinking to bring him
over to the principles of infidelity. The sophistry of Paine’s book, Mr. Drew
readily detected; and committing his thoughts to writing in the form of
notes, by the advice of two methodist preachers, to whom he showed them,
he was induced to publish them in a pamphlet entitled, “Remarks on Paine’s
Age of Reason,” in September, 1799. This little work was favorably
received by the public; and it procured for its author, the steady friendship
of the Rev. John Whitaker, a clergyman of high literary reputation.
Upon the Remarks on Paine’s Age of Reason, which first brought Mr.
Drew before the public as an author, a writer in the Anti-Jacobin Review, of
April, 1801, observes, “We here see a shoemaker of St. Austell,
encountering a staymaker of Deal, with the same weapons of unlettered
reason, tempered, indeed, from the armory of God, yet deriving their
principal power from the native vigor of the arm that wields them. Samuel
Drew, however, is greatly superior to Thomas Paine, in the justness of his
remarks, in the forcibleness of his arguments, and in the pointedness of his
refutations.” Mr. Drew had the satisfaction of knowing, that his “Remarks”
were the means of leading the young man who put the Age of Reason into
his hands, to renounce his deistical principles, and to embrace, with full
conviction the doctrines of Christianity. The Remarks on Paine, having been
several years out of print, were republished, in duodecimo, with the author’s
corrections and additions, in 1820.
The appearance in 1802, of the “Essay on the Immateriality and
Immortality of the Soul,” to which Mr. Drew is chiefly indebted for his
reputation as a metaphysician, brought him into honorable notice beyond
his native county. This book was dedicated to the Rev. John Whitaker,
whose patronage had, in a great measure, drawn him forth from obscurity.
The work has since gone through several editions in England and America,
and has been translated into the French language, and published in France.
Encouraged by the favorable reception of this work by the public, Mr.
Drew continued his literary labors. His next important attempt in
metaphysics, was an investigation of the evidences of a general
resurrection. From this investigation, the subject of personal identity was
inseparable; and on these topics he recorded his thoughts till the close of the
year 1805. At that time he took a survey of his work, but was so much
dissatisfied with it, that he threw the whole aside as useless, and half
resolved to touch it no more; nor did it appear in print (after being revised
by the author) until 1809. It was then, like the Essay on the Soul, published
by subscription, and the copyright sold to a London publisher. Fifteen
hundred copies were printed, and a second edition appeared in 1822. This
work on the Resurrection has also been republished in the United States.
In 1805, Mr. Drew entered into an engagement with the late Doctor
Thomas Cope, one of the founders of the Wesleyan methodist missions, to
assist him in his literary labors, which wholly detached him from the
pursuits of trade. From this time literature became his occupation. About
two years previously to this, Mr. Drew had undertaken, in a course of
familiar lectures, to instruct a class of young persons and adults, in English
grammar and composition. A similar course of lectures, with the addition of
geography and astronomy, was delivered by him, in 1811.
Mr. Drew’s various works introduced to the notice, and procured for him
the friendship, of several distinguished individuals. His intimacy with
Doctor Adam Clarke continued through many years, and with him he long
maintained a correspondence. In 1819, at the recommendation of Doctor
Clarke, Mr. Drew was engaged as editor of the Imperial Magazine. This led
to his removal to Liverpool, and thence to London, where he continued to
discharge the duties of editor until 1833. Besides the editorship of the
Magazine, he had the superintendence of all the works issued from the
Caxton press.
In consequence of symptoms of rapidly declining health, Mr. Drew left
London for his native place in Cornwall, in March, 1833, where he died on
the 29th of the same month, at the age of sixty-eight.
Besides the works already mentioned, Mr. Drew was the author of a life
of his friend Doctor Coke, a History of Cornwall, Essays on the Divinity of
Christ and the Necessity of his Atonement, and several other religious
works, of a high character. He was also associated with Doctor Coke in
writing several important works bearing the name of Doctor Coke as author.
Mr. Drew was an acute reasoner and a close and laborious thinker. He
always discovered where truth lay; sophistry rarely escaped his detection;
and to his habit of persevering and patient investigation, we are indebted for
his most elaborate and convincing arguments. He has been called the
“Locke of the nineteenth century.”
Those who would estimate Mr. Drew’s mental powers, should bear in
mind the difficulties which he surmounted. From education he derived no
assistance. His youth was passed in ignorance and poverty; and he was
twenty years of age, before he began to read or to think. Yet before he
attained the meridian of life he had accumulated a vast fund of knowledge.
Nor was that knowledge limited to the subjects on which he wrote; it
extended to various branches of science; and there were few topics of
speculative philosophy, with which he was unacquainted.

ROBERT BLOOMFIELD.

The preceding sketches record the names of individuals who have

severally distinguished themselves in statesmanship, patriotism,
philanthropy, eloquence, and metaphysics. It is pleasing to add to our list,
one whose name is familiar as an English pastoral poet.
Robert Bloomfield was born at the village of Honington, Suffolk county,
England, December 3, 1766, and was the youngest of six children. His
father, George Bloomfield, was a tailor, and died before his youngest son
was a year old, leaving his widow to obtain a scanty subsistence for herself
and family, by teaching a small school, in which Robert was taught to read.
Two or three months’ instruction in writing was all the scholastic
accomplishment that he ever obtained. At the age of eleven he was hired in
the neighborhood as a farmer’s boy, but being found too feeble for
agricultural labor, he was placed with an elder brother in London, to learn
the trade of a shoemaker.
“In the garret where five of us worked,” his brother writes, “I received
little Robert. As we were all single men, lodgers at a shilling per week each,
our beds were coarse, and all things far from being clean and snug. Robert
was our man to fetch all things to hand. At noon he fetched our dinner from
the cook’s shop; and any of our fellow-workmen, that wanted to have
anything brought in, would send him, and assist in his work, and teach him
as a recompense for his trouble.
“Every day when the boy from the public house came for the pewter-
pots, and to hear what porter was wanted, he always brought the yesterday’s
newspaper. The reading of the paper we had been used to take by turns; but
after Robert came, he mostly read for us, because his time was of least
value. He frequently met with words that he was unacquainted with; of this
he often complained. I bought a small dictionary for him. By the help of
this, he in a little time could read and comprehend the long and beautiful
speeches of Burke, Fox, and North.”
When about sixteen years of age, Robert had an opportunity to read
Thomson’s “Seasons”—which was a favorite book with him—Milton’s
“Paradise Lost,” and a few novels. Soon afterward, he left the employment
of his brother, and spent a few months in his native county, with the farmer
with whom he had formerly lived; and here free from the smoke and noise
of London, he imbibed that love of rural simplicity and innocence, which he
afterward displayed in his poems.
Returning to his trade of shoemaker in London, he was bound to Mr.
John Dudbridge, and after he was of age, worked as journeyman for Davies,
ladies’ shoemaker. In a garret, while at work with six or seven others, he
composed his beautiful rural poem, “The Farmer’s Boy.” A great part of this
poem was composed by him, without committing one line to paper. When it
was thus prepared, he said, “I had nothing to do but to write it down.” By
this mode of composition, he studied and completed his “Farmer’s Boy,” in
a garret, among his fellow-workmen, without their ever suspecting or
knowing anything of the matter. That the reader may judge of the merits of
this poem, we quote the invocation:—
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