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Abraham Newland.
ОглавлениеAbraham Newland, who was nearly sixty years in the service of the Bank of England, and whose name became a synonym for a bank-note, was one of a family of twenty-five children, and was born in Southwark in 1730. At the age of eighteen he entered the Bank service as junior clerk. He was very fond of music, which led him into much dissipation. Still, he was very attentive to business, and in 1782 he was appointed chief cashier, with a suite of rooms for residence in the Bank, and for five-and-twenty years he never once slept out of the building. The pleasantest version of his importance is contained in the famous song in the Whims of the Day, published in 1800:—
There ne'er was a name so handed by fame,
Thro' air, thro' ocean, and thro' land,
As one that is wrote upon every bank note,
And you all must know Abraham Newland.
Oh, Abraham Newland!
Notified Abraham Newland!
I have heard people say, sham Abraham you may,
But you must not sham Abraham Newland.
For fashion or arts, should you seek foreign parts,
It matters not wherever you land,
Jew, Christian, or Greek, the same language they speak
That's the language of Abraham Newland!
Oh, Abraham Newland!
Wonderful Abraham Newland!
Tho' with compliments cramm'd, you may die and be d—d,
If you hav'n't an Abraham Newland.
The world is inclin'd to think Justice is blind;
Lawyers know very well they can view land;
But, Lord, what of that, she'll blink like a bat
At the sight of an Abraham Newland.
Oh, Abraham Newland!
Magical Abraham Newland!
Tho' Justice, 'tis known, can see through a millstone,
She can't see through Abraham Newland.
Your patriots who bawl for the good of us all,
Kind souls! here like mushrooms they strew land;
Tho' loud as a drum, each proves orator mum,
If attack'd by an Abraham Newland!
Oh, Abraham Newland!
Invincible Abraham Newland!
No argument's found in the world half so sound
As the logic of Abraham Newland!
The French say they're coming, but sure they are mumming;
I know what they want if they do land;
We'll make their ears ring in defence of our king,
Our country, and Abraham Newland.
Oh, Abraham Newland!
Darling Abraham Newland!
No tricolour, elf, nor the devil himself
Shall e'er rob us of Abraham Newland.
In 1807, he retired from the office of chief cashier, after declining a pension. He had hitherto been accustomed, after the business at the Bank in his department had closed, and he had dined moderately, to order his carriage and drive to Highbury, where he drank tea at a small cottage. Many who lived in that neighbourhood long recollected Newland's daily walk—hail, rain, or sunshine—along Highbury Place. It was said that he regretted his retirement from the Bank; but he used to say that not for 20,000l. a year would he return. He then removed to No. 38, Highbury Place. His health and strength declined, it is said, through the distress of mind brought upon him by the forgeries of Robert Aslett, a clerk in the Bank, whom Newland had treated as his own son. It was well known that Abraham had accumulated a large fortune; legacy-hunters came about him, and an acquaintance sent him a ham as a present; but Newland despised the mercenary motive, and next time he saw the donor he said, "I have received a ham from you; I thank you for it," said he, but raising his finger in a significant manner, added, "I tell you it won't do, it won't do."
Newland had no extravagant expectations that the world would be drowned in sorrow when it should be his turn to leave it; and he wrote this ludicrous epitaph on himself shortly before his death:—
Beneath this stone old Abraham lies:
Nobody laughs and nobody cries.
Where he's gone, and how he fares,
No one knows, and no one cares!
His physician, in one of his latest visits, found him reading the newspaper, when the doctor expressing his surprise, Newland replied, smiling, "I am only looking in the paper in order to see what I am reading to the world I am going to." He died November 21, 1807, without any apparent pain of body or anxiety of mind, and his remains were deposited in the church of St. Saviour, Southwark.
Newland's property amounted to 200,000l., besides a thousand a year landed estates. It must not be supposed that this was saved from his salary. During the whole of his career, the loans for the war proved very prolific. A certain amount of them was always reserved for the cashier's office (one Parliamentary Report names 100,000l.), and as they generally came out at a premium, the profits were great. The family of the Goldsmids, then the leaders of the Stock Exchange, contracted for many of these loans, and to each of them he left 500l. to purchase a mourning ring. Newland's large funds, it is said, were also occasionally lent to the Goldsmids to assist their various speculations.
