Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 54.djvu/247

 frequent visitor at Skelton, and from the books in the library drew many hints.

In the summer of 1767, a few months before Sterne's death, Hall-Stevenson stayed with him at Coxwold, and carried him back to Skelton. They amused themselves on the seashore of the neighbouring Saltburn by racing each other in chariots over the sands. But even in his association with Sterne Hall-Stevenson illustrated his lack of decency. He tried to imitate Sterne's style. Hall-Stevenson's ‘A Sentimental Dialogue between two Souls in the palpable Bodies of an English Lady of Quality and an Irish Gentleman,’ 1768, was a very lame parody of ‘Tristram Shandy.’ Less defensible was Hall-Stevenson's endeavour to complete the ‘Sentimental Journey.’ In 1769, within a year of Sterne's death, he issued, with a brief biographical preface, a disreputable continuation. Although in his character of an author Hall-Stevenson had nothing to lose, this achievement is discreditable to him in the character of a friend. After Sterne's death Hall-Stevenson promised Sterne's daughter to write his life, but was too indolent to make serious effort to carry out the promise.

Hall-Stevenson's careless mode of life, which involved very liberal potations, gradually induced chronic hypochondria. In the ‘Sentimental Journey’ Sterne wrote that Eugenius ‘blamed the weather for the disorder of his nerves.’ The story is told that Hall-Stevenson took to his bed and regarded himself as in extremis whenever there was an east wind, and that one day when the wind came from the east Sterne cured him by tying up the weathercock, and thus led Hall-Stevenson to believe that the wind had changed. He was harassed, too, by pecuniary difficulties, while his relations with his wife were never good. In 1765 he reopened at Selby Hagg, near Skelton, some alum works which had been discontinued for near fifty years; but he failed to make them pay, and gave them up in 1776. On 17 Feb. 1785 he wrote to his grandson that he had been obliged to raise 2,000l. to pay his brother, who had a mortgage on the estate. At the same time he declared that the chief advantages of life had been denied him by premature marriage, and that the scantiness of his fortune had forced him to vegetate in the country, and precluded him from every laudable pursuit suggested by ambition (, Seven Letters by Sterne and his Friends, 1844, p. 17). He died at Skelton next month (March 1785).

By his wife who died in 1790, Hall-Stevenson had two sons, of whom one, John, died unmarried. The surviving son, Joseph William Hall-Stevenson (1741–1786), died within a year of his father, and was succeeded at Skelton Castle by his son, John Hall-Stevenson (1766–1843). The latter, who rebuilt Skelton Castle, assumed in 1788 by royal sign manual the sole surname of Wharton. He was descended from the Wharton family of Gillingwood, Yorkshire, in the female line through Ann Wharton, wife of Ambrose Stevenson and mother of the poetaster's wife. He contested the parliamentary representation of Beverley in the whig interest nine times between 1790 and 1826, and was seven times successful between 1790 and 1820. But the expense of the struggle ruined him, and in 1829 he took refuge within the rules of the queen's bench in Lambeth, where he died on 28 May 1843 (Gent. Mag. 1843, ii. 207). Skelton Castle is now the property of this John Wharton's nephew, John Thomas Wharton, esq.

Hall-Stevenson's works, with some unpublished translations and other pieces, were collected and published in three volumes in 1795. An engraving of Skelton Castle (Crazy Castle) formed the frontispiece. ‘Seven Letters written by Sterne and his Friends,’ hitherto unpublished, were edited from Hall-Stevenson's manuscripts by W. Durrant Cooper, and printed for private circulation in 1844. An edition of the ‘Crazy Tales,’ dated 1825, was absurdly assigned on the title-page to [q. v.] ‘Crazy Tales’ was reprinted privately in 1894.



STEVENSON, JOSEPH (1806–1895), historian and archivist, born at Berwick-upon-Tweed on 27 Nov. 1806, was the eldest son of Robert Stevenson, surgeon, of that town, by his wife, Elizabeth Wilson. His first schooldays were passed at Wooten-le-Wear, and thence he was removed to Durham, where he was placed under the charge of the Rev. [q. v.] He next studied in the university of Glasgow, but does not appear to have graduated. In 1829 he returned to Berwick, with the intention of entering the presbyterian ministry. He became a licentiate of that body, and preached a trial sermon at Hutton, Berwickshire, where he resided for the period necessary to qualify himself for service in the kirk of Scotland. However, he turned his attention to antiquarian and literary pursuits,