The father of Howard had acquired a considerable fortune in business as an upholsterer and carpet warehouseman in Long Lane, Smithfield. He was a dissenter, of Calvinistic principles; and, it is presumed, an Independent. The question has been raised, whether our Howard was descended from any branch of the noble family of that name; but his biographers generally agree in rejecting for him the honours of such a pedigree. Nor can any one be in the least degree solicitous to advance such a claim. The military achievements of a Norman ancestry would diffuse a very incongruous lustre over the name of our Christian philanthropist. Thus much, however, is evident, that at one time there existed some tradition, or belief, or pretence, in the family of the citizen Howard, that they were remotely connected with the noble family whose name they share. "The arms of the Duke of Norfolk, and of the Earls of Suffolk, Effingham, and Carlisle, are placed at the head of the tombstone which Howard erected to the memory of his first wife, on the south side of Whitechapel churchyard." Such is the assertion of the anonymous biographer in the Universal Magazine, (vol. lxxxvi.) who stands alone, we believe, in maintaining the validity of this claim. And Mr Brown, after quoting these words, adds—"From actual inspection of the mouldering monument, I can assure those of my readers who may feel any curiosity on the subject, that this description of its armorial bearings is correct; and am further enabled to add, on the authority of his relative, Mr Barnardiston, that the distinguished individual by whom that monument was erected, occasionally spoke of Lord Carlisle as his relative; thus claiming at least a traditional descent from the Howards, Earls of Suffolk." That such a man as Howard should have used these arms once is significant; that he should have used them only once, is equally so. He was one of the last men, if we have read his character correctly, who would have assumed what he did not, at the time, think himself entitled to; and one of the last who would shrink from claiming a right where his title was clear.
Mr Dixon not only rejects the claim, but is highly indignant that it should ever have been suggested. "Howard sprang from a virgin and undistinguished soil;"—why the upholsterer's should be peculiarly a virgin soil we do not see. "Attempts, however, have not been wanting to vulgarise his origin—to rob its greatness of its most natural charm—by circling his brows with the distant glitter of a ducal crown; by finding in his simple lineaments the trace of noble lines, and in his veins the consecrated currents of patrician blood." Strange waste of eloquent indignation! But he does not keep quite steady in his passion. "No," he exclaims, "let Howard stand alone. His reputation rests upon a basis already broad enough. Why should we pile up Pelion on Olympus?" There was, then, a Pelion to pile upon Olympus? We had thought not. Our author should have kept these red and purple patches at a greater distance: they do not harmonise.
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:—