The Man Who Set Himself on Fire to Cure Hiccups
He kept 2,000 dogs, some fed on steak and champagne. He rode his pet bear into the drawing room. He cured hiccups by setting himself on fire, then quoted Sophocles in Greek while the burns were still fresh. John Mytton inherited a fortune at two and spent every penny of it — the last, spectacular, ruinous penny. The man his biographer called "a round-shouldered, tottering, old-young man."