p Bibles and Testaments. A self-made
man, almost Napoleonic in appearance, with a habit of blurting out sharp
cynicisms and original epigrams, rather than conversing. He was a great
phrenologist, and I well remember how I, a raw lad, rather trembled in
his presence as I saw his dark, keen eyes directed towards that part of
my person where the brains are supposed to be. I imagine the result was
favourable, as at a later time I spent many a pleasant hour in his
dining-room, gathering wisdom from his after-dinner talk, and inspiration
from his port--as good as that immortalised by Tennyson. Mr. Childs had
a numerous and handsome family, most of whom died after arriving at
manhood. His daughter, who to great personal charms added much of her
father's intellect, did not live long after her marriage, leaving one
son, a leading partner in the great City firm of solicitors, Ashurst,
Morris, and Crisp. After John Childs, of Bungay, I may mention another
East Anglian--D. Whittle Harvey, who was a power in his party and among
the London cabbies--to whom the London cabby owes his badge V.R.--which,
as one of them sagely remarked, was supposed to signify "Whittle 'Arvey,"
an etymology at any rate not worse than that of the savant who in his
wisdom derived gherkin from Jeremiah King. In 1837 Mr. Johnson Fox, born
at Uggeshall, near Wangford--better known afterwards as the Norwich
"Weaver Boy," the "Publicola" of _The Weekly Dispatch_--the great orator
of the Anti-Corn Law League, was preaching in the Unitarian Chapel, South
Place, Finsbury, and a leading man in London literary society. One of
the best-known men in East Anglia was Allan Ransome, of Ipswich, the
young Quaker, who was on very friendly terms with the Strickland family,
who cultivated literature and business with equal zest. Nor, in this
category, should I pass over the name of George Bird, of Yoxford, a local
chemist, who found time to write of Dunwich Castle and such-like East
Anglian themes--I fancy now read by none. A Suffolk man who was making
his mark in London at that time was Crabbe Robinson, the pioneer of the
special correspondent of our later day. And just when Queen Victoria
began to reign, Thomas Woolner, the poet-sculptor, was leaving his native
town of Hadleigh to begin life as the pupil of Boehm, sculptor in
ordinary to the Queen. And yet East Anglia was by no means
distinguished, or held to be of much account in the gay circles of wit
and fashio