Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 50.djvu/115

 a hundred and fifty yards from Jack Straw's Castle on Hampstead Heath. A silver cream jug, and a bottle which had contained the essential oil of almonds, and which bore several labels of ‘poison,’ were found by his side.

Sadleir's suicide created a great sensation, and a revelation soon followed of his long career of fraud and dishonesty. The ‘Times’ for 10 March 1856 began a leading article with the words ‘John Sadleir was a national calamity.’ The assets of the Tipperary bank were found to be only 35,000l., and the losses of the depositors and others amounted to not less than 400,000l.. The loss fell heavily upon many small farmers and clerks in the south of Ireland, who had been attracted by a high rate of interest to deposit their savings in the bank.

Sadleir, who had dealt largely in the lands sold in the encumbered estate court in Ireland, was found in several instances to have forged conveyances of such land in order to raise money upon them. His frauds in connection with the Royal Swedish Railway Company, of which he was chairman, consisted in fabricating a large number of duplicate shares, and of appropriating 19,700 of these.

The ‘Nation’ (Dublin) described Sadleir at the time of his death as a sallow-faced man, ‘wrinkled with multifarious intrigue, cold, callous, cunning.’ He was a bachelor, and, to all appearance, had no expensive habits; his only extravagance seemed to be that of keeping a small stud of horses at Watford to hunt with the Gunnersbury hounds. The character of Mr. Merdle in Dickens's ‘Little Dorrit’ was, according to its author, shaped out of ‘that precious rascality,’ John Sadleir (, Life of Charles Dickens, bk. viii. p. 1). In the spring of 1856 a curious belief was current that the body found at Hampstead was not Sadleir's, and that he was alive in America. But at the coroner's inquest the identification with Sadleir had been clearly established.

[Gent. Mag. 1856, i. 530; Times 1856, 18 Feb. p. 11, 10 March, p. 8; Sprigge's Life of Wakley; Miss Braddon's Trail of the Serpent; Walford's Old and New London, v. 455.]

 SADLER, ANTHONY (fl. 1630–1680), divine, son of Thomas Sadler, was born at Chitterne St. Mary, Wiltshire, in 1610. He matriculated at St. Edmund Hall, Oxford, on 21 March 1628, graduated B.A. on 22 March 1632, was ordained by Dr. Richard Corbet [q. v.], bishop of Oxford, when only twenty-one, and became chaplain to the Sadler family in Hertfordshire, to whom he was related. During the following twenty years he was curate at Bishopstoke, Hampshire, lived (Wood says beneficed) in London six or seven years, and was chaplain to Lettice, lady Paget, widow of Sir William Paget. By her he was presented in May 1654 to the rectory of Compton Abbas, Dorset, but was rejected by the triers in spite of his certificates from William Lenthall [q. v.], then master of the rolls, and Dr. Thomas Temple. On 3 July he was examined before Philip Nye [q. v.] and four other commissioners. He then printed ‘Inquisitio Anglicana,’ London, 1654, 4to, containing the examination, with comments and complaints. Nye replied with ‘Mr. Sadler re-examined,’ 1654, 4to, in which he declared that Sadler ‘preached not always for edification, but sometimes for ostentation.’ Much graver charges were brought against him later. An order in council was given in December to three members to examine him (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1654, p. 410). He probably lived about London until the Restoration, when, one authority says, ‘being very poor, but well stocked with wife and children, he went up and down a birding for a spiritual benefice.’ He preached an approbation sermon at Mitcham, and was presented to that living by the patron, Robert Cranmer, a London merchant. Sadler soon instituted a suit against Cranmer for dilapidations. It lasted two years and a half. Cranmer had Sadler arrested for libel, but he was liberated after a few days, on giving his bond in 500l. to relinquish the living on 10 April. He was accused of disorderly practices and omitting to perform divine service. He wrote from the Borough prison on 25 Nov. 1664 a petition to George Morley, bishop of Winchester, ‘Strange Newes indeed from Mitcham in Surrey,’ London, 1664. Sadler next obtained an appointment to Berwick St. James, Wiltshire; but in 1681 Seth Ward, bishop of Salisbury, complained to Archbishop Sancroft of his debauchery. Archdeacon Robert Woodward (afterwards dean) advised him, 21 May 1683, to submit to suspension by the bishop, but he petitioned the archbishop against it (, Cat. of Tanner MSS. p. 1091). Wood is wrong in saying he died in 1680. More accurate is Wood's description of him as ‘leaving behind him the character of a man of a rambling head and turbulent spirit.’

Sadler wrote: 1. ‘The Subjects' Joy,’ 1660, 4to, a kind of semi-religious drama. 2. ‘The Loyal Mourner, shewing the murdering of King Charles I. Foreshowing the restoring of Charles II,’ London, 1660, 4to. The latter portion, which he pretends was written in 1648, contains the lines: And now is seen that maugre rebel's plots, The name of C. R. lives, and O. C. rots. 3. ‘Majestie Irradiant,’ a broadside issued in  