INCLEDON,
THE SINGER.
'The British National Singer.'
His Majesty King George III.
An artist might have a worse subject for a picture than the interview to which we are about to refer. The Vicar of Manaccan, the Rev. Richard Polwhele, of Polwhele, ever busy in gathering information about Cornwall and Cornishmen, one day near the beginning of the present century, rides over to the quaint and pretty little fishing-cove of Coverack, near the Lizard, to have a chat with old Mrs. Loveday Incledon, the mother of the 'rantin' roarin' blade' (the youngest, I fancy, of a somewhat numerous family) who forms the subject of this memoir. Polwhele probably passed through the quiet little village of St. Keverne (with—that unusual sight in Cornwall—a tall spire and a large church), where our hero was born. Reaching Coverack, the worthy Vicar doubtless opened the siege in due form, and with regular approaches to the old lady; but all his skill and blandishments were in vain. She would tell him plenty about the rebellion of '45, and repeat many scraps of old ballads referring to it; but not one word would she say about her son, then in the meridian of his fame. It was, however, probably she who told Polwhele that all the Incledons were musical, and that her boy Benjamin's aunt was celebrated for her rendering of 'Black-eyed Susan;'—but in the end the Vicar had to remount his nag, and return to his snug Vicarage of Manaccan, not much wiser than when he left it in the morning.
Whether Incledon's mother's reticence was due to old age, or to the almost invariable reluctance of elderly people in the country to discuss family affairs with 'strangers,' it would be hard to say; but it could scarcely be because the mention of her son's name and career gave her pain; for in her declining years he was the main source of her support till she died, after her husband, in 1808, eighty-one years of age. Incledon's father was a member of the medical profession, but probably not entitled to be described, as he was in some of the books of the day, as 'a respectable physician.' There is, however, a cosy little inn at St. Keverne, and on one of the stone posts of the back-door I have seen, deeply cut, the letters 'MICHAEL INCLEDON.' This would seem to give us perhaps the only clue now left to the home, during his boyhood, of the finest English singer of his day.
Cornwall has always been celebrated for the rich quality of its bass voices, but is not remarkable for the number or excellence of those of the tenor register. Incledon may almost be said to have possessed both; for, in his prime, his natural voice ranged from A to G (fourteen notes), and his singularly sweet and powerful falsetto from D to E or F (ten notes). It is not difficult to understand that, even more than a hundred years ago, the fame of a fine voice might travel eastward as far as Exeter Cathedral, where Jackson, whose once popular 'Te Deum' and many pleasing ballads and duets are familiar to most of us, then held the post of organist; and accordingly, under him was little Incledon placed about the year 1772, when eight years old. His voice delighted everybody, and he became 'a little idol.'
Bernard, who wrote the 'Theatrical Retrospections,' made Incledon's acquaintance whilst he was under Dr. Jackson's care, and says he did not at that time perceive anything remarkable in his voice or style. The boy was then a tall, lanky lad of fifteen, chiefly noticeable for his 'courage, gratefulness, and love of the water'—in fact, adds Bernard, more Newfoundland dog than boy. A gentleman of Exeter offered a money reward to any lad who would swim out to a certain moored boat, with a rope on his shoulders, and swim back with it again. The task, however, baffled all the Exeter boys, till young Incledon made the attempt, and, when he had earned the prize, handed the money immediately to a poor widow who had been kind to him. Bernard seems to have been a good friend of Incledon's through life; and Davy, the composer, whose acquaintance was also made about this time, was another. He, too, was a Cornishman, according to some writers,[43] and was Incledon's 'coach' when any new part or song had to be prepared. It was through Bernard that Incledon got his first start in life, at Bath, to which event reference will shortly be made.
But Incledon has not yet left Exeter (although it is not altogether improbable that he had already attempted[44] to do so), and here he continued his duties as chorister for awhile. It is said that when Judge Nares attended service at Exeter Cathedral, he was so entranced by the boy Incledon's singing 'Let the Soul live,' that he burst into tears, and at the end of the service sent the little fellow a present of five guineas. After having failed altogether to trace this piece of music, I am indebted to my friend, Mr. W. H. Cummings, the eminent tenor, and the biographer of Purcell, for the suggestion that it is probably part of one of Jackson's unpublished anthems.