Mr. Denison, the father, died in 1806; his son, succeeding to the banking business (the firm being now Denison, Heywood, and Kennard), continued to accumulate; and at his death, in 1849, he left two millions and a half of money. He had sat in Parliament for Surrey since 1818. He was a man of cultivated tastes, and possessed a knowledge of art and elegant literature. He feared to be thought ostentatious, and could with difficulty be prevailed on to have a lodge erected at the entrance to a new road which he had just formed on his estate in Surrey.
Mr. Denison's two sisters were Elizabeth, married, in 1794, to Henry, first Marquis Conyngham; and Maria, married, in 1793, to Sir Robert Lawley, Bart., created, in 1831, Baron Wenlock. Up to the age of twenty-seven, Miss Denison resided with her father in St. Mary Axe. Here the rich and beautiful heiress was won and wedded in 1794 by the Honourable Henry Burton, then a captain, twenty-eight years old, and the eldest son of the fortunate Francis Pierpoint Burton, of Buncraggy, who succeeded through his mother, after the death of her two brothers, to the barony and estates of the old Conynghams, won at the battle of the Boyne by Sir Albert Conyngham, Lieutenant-General of the Ordnance of Ireland, and aggrandized by many forfeitures and marriages subsequently. Captain Burton carried off his wife to Ireland, and only revisited England in his forty-second year, to kiss hands, in 1808, on his promotion to a major-generalship. On succeeding to his father's title and estates, his lordship so improved their condition that he was justly regarded as one of the benefactors of his country; and a visit to his estate at Slane, on the banks of the Boyne, is recorded by Mr. Parkinson in his Experiences of Agriculture in the same terms as a visit to Holkham would have been chronicled in the days of Mr. Coke. The barony of Conyngham was increased to an earldom as a reward for the spirited conduct of his lordship's father, which led to a reciprocity of trade between Ireland and England. Upon the conclusion of the war with France, when George IV. paid a visit to Ireland, he was hospitably received and entertained at Slane Castle. Here, probably, commenced that more intimate acquaintance between His Majesty and the Marquis Conyngham and his family which induced the King, upon his return to England, to invite the whole family to court, and, after they had accepted the invitation, to retain them in his household. In 1816 his lordship was created Viscount Slane (the restoration of an ancient title forfeited in the Rebellion), Earl of Mountcharles, and Marquis Conyngham; and in 1821 he was enrolled in the British Peerage as Baron Minster, of Minster Abbey, in the county of Kent. The Marchioness was left a widow in 1832, and survived until 1861, having attained the venerable age of ninety-two, and lived to see both her sons peers of the realm—the one in succession of his father; the second, Albert Denison, as the heir to her own father's great fortune and estates, with the title of Baron Londesborough.
["Dog Jennings."]
This eccentric character, Henry Constantine Jennings, was born in 1731, and was the son of a gentleman possessed of a large estate at Shiplake, in Oxfordshire. He was educated at Westminster School, and at the age of seventeen years became an ensign in the 1st Regiment of Foot Guards. He held the commission but a short time, and on resigning it went to Italy in company with Lord Monthermer, son of the Duke of Montagu.
While at Rome, young Jennings commenced his first collection of articles of vertu, and ever after obtained the coarse and vulgar sobriquet of "Dog Jennings," in consequence of a circumstance which he thus relates:—"I happened one day to be strolling along the streets of Rome, and perceiving the shop of a statuary in an obscure street, I entered it, and began to look around for any curious production of art. I at length perceived something uncommon, at least; but, being partly concealed behind a heap of rubbish, I could not contemplate it with any degree of accuracy. After all impediments had been at length removed, the marble statue I had been poking for was dragged into open day; it proved to be a huge, but fine dog—and a fine dog it was, and a lucky dog was I to discover and to purchase it. On turning it round, I perceived it was without a tail—this gave me a hint. I also saw that the limbs were finely proportioned; that the figure was noble; that the sculpture, in short, was worthy of the best age of Athens; and that it must be of the age of Alcibiades, whose favourite dog it certainly was. I struck a bargain instantly on the spot for 400 scudi; and as the muzzle alone was somewhat damaged, I paid the artist a trifle more for repairing it. It was carefully packed, and being sent to England after me, by the time it reached my house in Oxfordshire, it had just cost me 80l. I wish all my other bargains had been like it, for it was exceedingly admired, as I well knew it must be, by the connoisseurs, by more than one of whom I was bid 1,000l. for my purchase. In truth, by a person sent, I believe, from Blenheim, I was offered 1,400l. But I would not part with my dog; I had bought it for myself, and I liked to contemplate his fine proportions and admire him at my leisure, for he was doubly dear to me, as being my own property and my own selection."
At the Literary Club, one evening, Jennings' dog was the topic of discussion: "F. (Lord Cipper O'Geary.) 'I have been looking at this famous marble dog of Mr. Jennings', valued at 1,000 guineas, said to be Alcibiades' dog.'—Johnson. 'His tail, then, must be docked. That was the mark of Alcibiades' dog.'—E. (Burke.) 'A thousand guineas! the representation of no animal whatever is worth so much. At this rate, a dead dog would, indeed, be better than a living lion.'—J. 'Sir, it is not the worth of the thing, but of the skill in forming it, which is so highly estimated. Everything that enlarges the sphere of human powers, that shows man he can do what he thought he could not do, is valuable.'"
But Mr. Jennings, like many other collectors, owing to a reverse of fortune, was compelled, in 1778, to break up his collection, which being sold by auction, the dog of Alcibiades brought 1,000 guineas, and became the property of Mr. Duncombe, M.P. It is now at Duncombe Park, in Yorkshire, the seat of Lord Feversham.
It is painful to read that the latter days of Mr. Jennings were spent in the King's Bench; and within the rules of that prison he died, February 17th, 1819, at his lodgings in Belvedere Place, St. George's Fields, in his eighty-eighth year.
[Baron Ward's Remarkable Career.]
Perhaps no man of modern times passed a more varied and romantic life than the famed Yorkshire groom, statesman, and friend of sovereigns, and who played so prominent a part at the Court of Parma; his career strongly exemplifying the adage that truth is stranger than fiction.