PART III

.

THE TRAGEDY OF OTHELLO; OR, FINE FLEECY HOSIERY. The Marrow-fat Family. Jollity Burlesqued, and Beggars and Ballad-singers.

The doors to be opened at six o’clock, and to begin precisely at seven. Boxes, Upper Circle, 4s.; Lower Circle, 3s.; Pit, 2s., Gallery, 1s.

N.B. Care has been taken to have the Theatre well aired.”

1810.

My reader will find by the following copy of a paper written by the Rev. Stephen Weston, B.D.,[340] and read at the Society of Antiquaries’ meeting, 25th January 1810, that the term Swan-_hopping_ is to be considered a popular error.

“It appears in the Swan-rolls, exhibited by the Right Honourable Sir Joseph Banks, that the King’s were doubly marked, and had what was called two nicks, or notches. The term, in process of time, not being understood, a double animal was invented, unknown to the Egyptians and Greeks, with the name of the Swan with Two Necks. But this is not the only ludicrous mistake that has arisen out of the subject, since Swan-upping, or the taking up of Swans, performed annually by the Swan companies, with the Lord Mayor of London at their head, for the purpose of marking them, has been changed by an unlucky aspirate into Swan-hopping, which is not to the purpose, and perfectly unintelligible.”[341]

1811.

In the summer of this year, the Earl of Pembroke allowed me to copy a picture at Wilton, painted by the celebrated architect, Inigo Jones. It is a view of Covent Garden in its original state, when there was a tree in the middle. The skill with which he has treated the effect is admirable.

There is also, in that superb mansion, a companion picture of Lincoln’s Inn Fields by the same artist.

1812.

The political career of John Horne Tooke, Esq., is well known, and the fame of his celebrated work, entitled the _Diversions of Purley_, will be spoken of as long as paper lasts.

In the year 1811 a most flagrant depredation was committed in his house at Wimbledon by a collector of taxes, who daringly carried away a silver tea and sugar caddy, the value of which amounted, in weight of silver, to at least twenty times more than the sum demanded, for a tax which Mr. Tooke declared he never would pay. This gave rise to the following letter:--

“TO MESSRS. CROFT AND DILKE.

“GENTLEMEN,--I beg it as a favour of you, that you will go in my name to Mr. Judkin, attorney, in Clifford’s Inn, and desire him to go with you both to the Under Sheriff’s Office, in New Inn, Wych Street.

“I have had a distress served upon me for taxes, at Wimbledon, in the county of Surrey.

“By the recommendation of Mr. Stuart, of Putney, I desire Mr. Judkin to act as my attorney in replevying the goods; and I desire Mr. Croft and Mr. Dilke to sign the security-bond for me that I will try the question.

“Pray show this memorandum to Mr. Judkin.

“JOHN HORNE TOOKE.

“WIMBLEDON, _May 17th, 1811_.”

As Mr. Croft and Mr. Dilke were proceeding on the Putney Road, they met the tax-collector with the tea-caddy under his arm, on his way back with the greatest possible haste to return it, with an apology to Mr. Tooke,--that being the advice of a friend. The two gentlemen returned with him, and witnessed Mr. Tooke’s kindness when the man declared he had a large family.[342]

On the 18th of March this year (1812), Mr. Tooke died, at his house at Wimbledon. He was put into a strong elm shell. The coffin was made from the heart of a solid oak, cut down for the purpose. It measured six feet one inch in length; in breadth at the shoulders, two feet two inches; the depth at the head, two feet six inches; and the depth at the feet, two feet four inches. This enormous depth of coffin was absolutely necessary, in consequence of the contraction of his body. His remains were conveyed in a hearse and six, to Ealing, in Middlesex, attended by three mourning coaches with four horses to each. It was Mr. Tooke’s wish to have been buried in his own ground; but to this the executors very properly made an objection.[343]

1813.

At the sale of the effects of the Rev. William Huntington (vulgarly called the “Coal-heaver”), which commenced on the 22nd of September, and continued for three following days, at his late residence, Hermes Hill, Pentonville, one of his steady followers purchased a barrel of ale, which had been brewed for Christmas, because he would have something to remember him by.[344]

[Illustration: WILLIAM HUNTINGTON (S.S.)

“I cannot get D.D. for want of cash, therefore I am compelled to fly to S.S., by which I mean Sinner Saved.”]

1814.

Mr. John Nixon, of Basinghall Street, gave me the following information respecting the Beefsteak Club. Mr. Nixon, as Secretary, had possession of the original book. Lambert’s Club was first held in Covent Garden Theatre, in the upper room, called the “Thunder and Lightning;” then in one even with the two-shilling gallery; next in an apartment even with the boxes; and afterwards in a lower room, where they remained until the fire. After that time, Mr. Harris insisted upon it, as the playhouse was a new building, that the Club should not be held there. They then went to the Bedford Coffee-house next door. Upon the ceiling of the dining-room they placed Lambert’s original gridiron, which had been saved from the fire. They had a kitchen, a cook, and a wine-cellar, etc., entirely independent of the Bedford Coffee-house. When the Lyceum, in the Strand, was rebuilt, Mr. Arnold fitted up a room for the Beefsteak Club, where it remained until the late fire.

The society held at Robins’s room was called the “Ad Libitum” Society, of which Mr. Nixon had the books; but it was a totally different society, quite unconnected with the Beefsteak Club.[345]

1815.

One of the biographers of Mrs. Abington, the first actress who played the part of Lady Teazle in the _School for Scandal_, and so justly celebrated in characters of ladies in high life, states that she died on the 1st of March 1815, in her 84th year. Another informs us that she died on the 4th; but neither of the writers say where she died, or where she was buried; on inquiry, I found that she died at Pall Mall.[346] Of all the theatrical ungovernable ladies under Mr. Garrick’s management, Mrs. Abington, with her capriciousness, inconsistency, injustice, and unkindness, perplexed him the most. She was not unlike the miller’s mare, for ever looking for a white stone to shy at. And though no one has charged her with malignant mischief, she was never more delighted than when in a state of hostility, often arising from most trivial circumstances, discovered in mazes of her own ingenious construction.[347]

Mrs. Abington, in order to keep up her card-parties, of which she was very fond, and which were attended by many ladies of the highest rank, absented herself from her abode to live _incog._ For this purpose she generally took a small lodging in one of the passages leading from Stafford Row, Pimlico,[348] where plants are so placed at the windows as nearly to shut out the light, at all events, to render the apartments impervious to the inquisitive eye of such characters as Liston represented in _Paul Pry_. Now and then she would take the small house at the end of Mount Street, and there live with her servant in the kitchen, till it was time to reappear; and then some of her friends would compliment her on the effects of her summer’s excursion.

“ADELPHI, _November 9_.

“Mr. Garrick’s compliments to Mrs. Abington, and has sent her on the other side a little alteration (if she approves it, not else) of the epilogue, where there seems to be a patch: it should, he believes, run thus:--

“Such a persecution! ’Tis the great blemish of the constitution! No human laws should Nature’s rights abridge, Freedom of speech, our dearest privilege; Ours is the wiser sex, though deemed the weaker, I’ll put the Question, if you’ll cheer me, _Speaker_.

“Suppose me now bewig’d, etc.[349]

“Mrs. A. is at full liberty to adopt this alteration or not. Had not our house overflowed last night in a quarter of an hour, from the opening of Covent Garden had suffered much. As it was, there was great room in the pit and gallery at the end of the third act.

“Much joy I sincerely wish you at your success in Lady Bab. May it continue till we both are tired, you with playing the part, and I with seeing it.

“MRS. ABINGTON, 62, PALL MALL.”

* * * * *

TO RICHARD COSWAY, ESQ., R.A.

“I have found another letter, which you will see is part of the history I took the liberty of troubling you with. I cannot express how much I am obliged to you for your goodness and friendly confidence in telling me what you had heard of this trumpery matter, as it has given me an opportunity of convincing you, in some little degree, that _my conduct_ stands in no need of protection, nor can at any time subject me to fears from threatful insinuations of necessitous adventurers. I am, Sir, your very much obliged and humble servant,

“F. ABINGTON.”

* * * * *

TO RICHARD COSWAY, ESQ., R.A.

“Mrs. Abington will feel herself most extremely mortified indeed if she has not some hope given her that Mr. and Mrs. Cosway will do her the very great honour of coming to her benefit this evening.

“She has been able to secure a small balcony in the very midst of persons of the first rank in this country, which she set down in the name of Mrs. Cosway, till she hears further; it holds two in front, and has three rows holding two upon each, so that Mr. Cosway may accommodate four other persons after being comfortably seated with Mrs. Cosway.

“_February 10th._ Nine o’clock.”

* * * * *

“ADELPHI, _December 8th_.

“DEAR MADAM,--I altered the beginning of your epilogue, merely for your ease and credit. I leave it wholly to your own feelings to decide what to speak or what to reject. I find the epilogue is liked, and therefore I would make it as tolerable as possible for you. I assure you, upon my word, that if you please yourself, you will please me. In my hurry I find, looking over the lines this afternoon, that I have made a false chime. I have made _directed_ and _corrected_ to chime, which will not do: suppose them thus,

“Does not he know, poor soul, to be _detected_ Is what you hate, and more to be corrected.--

or thus:--

“Does not he know, in faults to be _detected_ Is what you hate, and more to be _corrected_.[350]

“I most sincerely wish you joy of your friend’s success. The comedy will be in great vogue.

“I am, Madam, your very humble Servant,

“D. GARRICK.”

Bad pen, and gouty fingers, Poor Anacreon, thou growest old![351]

* * * * *

“PALL MALL, _November 4th, 1794_.

“Mrs. Abington begs leave to present her compliments to Mr. Webster, and to assure him that she feels perfectly ashamed of the trouble which she has repeatedly given him, and is now about to give him; but, indeed, she has so much dependence upon the goodness of his heart, as well as of his understanding, that she flatters herself he will forgive her committing herself to him, upon matters which require more sense as well as more management than falls to the share of the generality of her acquaintance. The enclosed letter will explain to Mr. Webster the nature of Mrs. Abington’s present difficulty, as he will see she is in danger of losing the fine picture which has been for near six years in the hands of Mr. Sherwin, for the purpose of making a print from it. There is not one moment to be lost, if Mr. Webster will have the goodness to undertake the business; and she begs of him not to mention the matter further.

“The picture is the property of Mrs. Abington, and given by Sir Joshua Reynolds to Mr. Sherwin at his own particular request, that Sir Joshua would favour him so far as to let him have the preference of the many artists who, at the time the picture was painted, applied for it to engrave a plate from it.

“Mrs. Abington begs leave to present her kindest love and regards to Mrs. Webster, and flatters herself that the whole family are perfectly well.

“She has this moment heard that all the armaments will now end in peace.

“To JOHN WEBSTER, ESQ., Duke Street, Westminster.”

As Sherwin’s plate from this beautiful picture was published by the late Mr. John Thane,[352] on February 1st, 1791, and as Mrs. Abington’s letter to Mr. Webster is dated November 4th, 1794, it appears that the engraver retained it nearly four years after the plate was finished; so that, according to Mrs. Abington’s date, it must have been upwards of two years in hand.

My old friend, Mr. Thomas Thane, son of the publisher, who is now in possession of the plate, kindly gave me impressions of it in three states. The first is a great rarity: a proof before any letters, and the reduction of the plate. The second is after the sides of the plate had been reduced, with the names of the painter, engraver, and publisher, perfectly engraved, and the name of Roxalana slightly etched. The third and last state is, after the etched name Roxalana has been taken out and engraved higher in the plate, to make room for some lines of poetry.

At page 70 of the Wilmot Letters in the British Museum is the following letter, addressed by the Hon. Horace Walpole to Mrs. Abington the actress:--

“PARIS, _September, 1771_.

“If I had known, Madam, of your being at Paris, before I heard it from Colonel Blaquière,[353] I should certainly have prevented your flattering invitation, and have offered you any services that could depend on my acquaintance here. It is plain I am old, and live with very old folks.”[354]

Further on the same writer observes:--

“I have not that fault at least of a veteran, the thinking nothing equalled to what they admired in their youth. I do impartial justice to your merit, and fairly allow it not only equal to that of any actress I have seen, but believe the present age will not be in the wrong, if they hereafter prefer it to those they may live to see. Your allowing me to wait on you in London, Madam, will make me some amends for the loss I have had here; and I shall take an early opportunity of assuring you how much I am, Madam, your most obliged humble servant,

“HORACE WALPOLE.”

* * * * *

“MADAM,--You may certainly always command me and my house. My common custom is to give a ticket for only four persons at a time; but it would be very insolent in me, when all laws are set at nought, to pretend to prescribe rules. At such times there is a shadow of authority in setting the laws aside by the legislature itself; and though I have no army to supply their place, I declare Mrs. Abington may march through all my dominions at the head of _as large_ a troop as she pleases;--I do not say, as she can muster and command, for then I am sure my house would not hold them. The day, too, is at her own choice; and the master is her very obedient humble servant,

“HOR. WALPOLE.

“STRAWBERRY HILL, _June 11, 1780_.”

* * * * *

MRS. ABINGTON TO MRS. JORDAN.

“NO. 19, ETON STREET, GROSVENOR PLACE,

“_January 6th, 1807_.

“I beg leave, dear Madam, to make my grateful acknowledgments for the favour of your kind remembrance. Your ticket with those of dear Miss Betsworth, and the Miss Jordans, was sent to my present habitation on New Year’s day.

“I have not slept in London since I came from the Wealds of Kent, where I passed my summer upon a visit to Sir Walter and Lady Jane James, and their lovely family.[355] It is near a grand scene of Gothic magnificence, called Bayham Abbey, a seat of Lord Camden’s, the brother of Lady Jane. In their peaceful retreat and accomplished society, I have very much recovered my health and spirits, and hope to have the happiness of seeing you soon, as I am now looking for something to inhabit in London. In the meantime, if you, dear Madam, or the Miss Jordans, will do me the honour of calling at my present abode, which are two rooms, where I keep my clothes and trumpery, I shall be much flattered; and beg you to accept the compliments of the season, and a sincere wish that you may see many, many returns, with every happiness you are so well entitled to expect. Adieu, my dearest Madam. Be pleased to make my compliments to the ladies, and believe me your most obliged, etc.,

“F. ABINGTON.”[356]

[Illustration: MRS. JORDAN

“The very sound of the little familiar word _bud_ from her lips … was a whole concentrated world of the power of loving.”--_Leigh Hunt_]

1816.

As a playful relaxation from my former more serious applications, I commenced my work of the most remarkable London Beggars, with biographical sketches of each character.[357] By this publication I gained more money than by all my antiquarian labours united. Her late Majesty, Queen Charlotte, and the Princess Elizabeth, much encouraged their publicity; but I must acknowledge that my greatest success was owing to the warm and friendly exertions of the late Charles Cowper,[358] Esq., of the Albany, a gentleman whose memory must be dear to every one who had the pleasure of knowing him.

Much about this time, the Print Room of the British Museum was closed, in consequence of the death of the highly talented Mr. William Alexander, when several friends exerted their interest to procure me the situation of Keeper, an appointment which, I hope, I have held with no small benefit to that National Institution, and with credit to myself. The interest required to obtain this appointment may be conceived, when the number of candidates is considered. The following letter was written by his Grace the late Archbishop of Canterbury to one of his Grace’s relations:--

“ADDINGTON, _Sept. 16th, 1816_.

“MY DEAR MADAM,--With such interest as Mr. J. T. Smith possesses, I am astonished he should think it worth while to waste his strength in pursuit of such a trifling office as that which is now vacant in the Museum.

“It is impossible to resist the testimony which your Ladyship, and many others, have borne to his merits and qualifications. He certainly shall have my vote; and I have reason to believe he will have the votes of the other two principal Trustees, to whom the appointment belongs.

“C. CANTUAR.”[359]

1817.

Perhaps the only gala day now which gladdens the heart of the loyal spectator, is the one afforded by Thomas Doggett, comedian, on the 1st of August, to commemorate the accession of the House of Brunswick. This scene is sure to be picturesque and cheerful, should the glorious sun, “that gems the sea, and every land that blooms,” reflect the pendent streamers of its variegated show, in the quivering eddies of Father Thames’s silver tide. At what time Mr. Thomas Doggett was born, I am ignorant. All I have been able to glean of him is, that Castle Street, Dublin, has been stated as the place of his birth; and that he had the honour of being the founder of our water games. Colley Cibber, speaking of him, says, “As an actor he was a great observer of Nature; and as a singer he had no competitor.” He was the author of the _Country Wake_, a comedy, and was a patentee of Drury Lane Theatre until 1712; and my friend, Mr. Thomas Gilliland,[360] in his work entitled _The Dramatic Mirror_, states his death to have taken place on the 22nd of September 1721.

In 1715, the year after George I. came to the throne, Doggett, to quicken the industry and raise a laudable emulation in our young men of the Thames, whereby they not only may acquire a knowledge of the river, but a skill in managing the oar with dexterity, gave an orange-coloured coat and silver badge, on which was sculptured the Hanoverian Horse, to the successful candidate of six young watermen just out of their apprenticeship, to be rowed for on the 1st of August, when the current was strongest against them, starting from the “Old Swan,” London Bridge, to the “Swan” at Chelsea. On the 1st of August 1722, the year after Doggett’s death, pursuant to the tenor of his will, the prize was first rowed for, and has been given annually ever since.[361]

“They gripe their oars; and every panting breast Is raised by turns with hope, by turns with fear deprest.”

This gratifying sight I have often witnessed; and the never-to-be-forgotten Charles Dibdin considered it so pleasing a subject, that in 1774 he brought out at the Haymarket Theatre a ballad opera, entitled _The Waterman, or the First of August_. In this piece, Tom Tug, the hero, is in love with a gardener’s daughter, before whom he sings,

“And did you not hear of a jolly young waterman, Who at Blackfriars’ Bridge used for to ply; And he feathered his oars with such skill and dexterity, Winning each heart, and delighting each eye,” etc.

Poor Tug, who considered himself slighted for another lover, whom the girl of his heart appeared to prefer, after declaring that he would go on board a man-of-war to cast away his care, sings a song, of which the following is the first verse:--

“Then farewell, my trim-built wherry, Oars and coat and badge farewell! Never more at Chelsea ferry Shall your Thomas take a spell,” etc.

However, Tom rowed for Doggett’s Coat and Badge, which he had an eye upon, in order to obtain the girl, if possible, by his prowess. She was seated at the Swan, and admired the successful candidate before she discovered him to be her suitor Thomas, then

“Blushed an answer to his wooing tale.”

The part of Tom Tug was originally performed by Charles Bannister, and esteemed so great a favourite, that Mr. Garrick selected the entertainment of _The Waterman_, to follow the comedy of _The Wonder_, on the evening of his last performance on the stage.[362] Had the author of _The Waterman_, when composing that little entertainment, suspected that the Plague’s blood-red bills of

“LORD, HAVE MERCY UPON US,”

had been fixed upon this house, the Swan, his Muse most likely would have whispered, “You must not sadden these scenes.” Pepys, in his _Diary_, made the following entry:--

“_April 9th, 1666._--Thinking to have been merry at Chelsey, but being come almost to the house, by coach, near the water-side, a house alone, I think the Swan, a gentleman walking by called to us to tell us that the house was shut up of the sickness.”

1818.

It is scarcely possible for any person, possessing the smallest share of common observation, to pass through ten streets in London, without noticing what is generally denominated a character, either in dress, walk, pursuits, or propensities. As even my enemies are willing to give me credit for a most respectful attention to the ladies, I hope they will not in this instance impeach my gallantry, because I place the fair sex at the head of my table of remarks, as to the eccentricity of some of their dresses. Miss Banks,[363] the sister of Sir Joseph, was looked after by the eye of astonishment wherever she went, and in whatever situation she appeared. Her dress was that of the _Old School_; her Barcelona quilted petticoat had a hole on either side for the convenience of rummaging two immense pockets, stuffed with books of all sizes. This petticoat was covered with a deep stomachered gown, sometimes drawn through the pocket-holes, similar to those of many of the ladies of Bunbury’s time, which he has introduced in his prints. In this dress I have frequently seen her walk, followed by a six-foot servant with a cane almost as tall as himself.

Miss Banks, for so that lady was called for many years, was frequently heard to relate the following curious anecdote of herself. After making repeated inquiries of the wall-vendors of halfpenny ballads for a particular one which she wanted, she was informed by the claret-faced woman, who strung up her stock by Middlesex Hospital-gates, that if she went to a printer in Long Lane, Smithfield, probably he might supply her Ladyship with what her Ladyship wanted. Away trudged Miss Banks through Smithfield, “_all on a market-day_”; but before she entered Mr. Thompson’s shop, she desired her man to wait for her at the corner, by the plumb-pudding stall. “Yes, we have it,” was the printer’s answer to the interrogative. He then gave Miss Banks what is called a book, consisting of many songs. Upon her expressing her surprise when the man returned her eightpence from her shilling, and the great quantity of songs he had given her, when she only wanted one,--“What, then!” observed the man, “are you not one of our chanters? I beg your pardon.”

It has been stated that this lady and Lady Banks, out of compliment to Sir Joseph, who had been deeply engaged in the production of wool, had their riding-habits made of his produce, in which dresses those ladies at one period upon all occasions appeared. Indeed, so delighted was Miss Banks with this _overall_-covering, that she actually gave the habit-maker orders for three at a time,--and they were called _Hightum_, _Tightum_, and _Scrub_. The first was her best, the second her second best, and the third her every-day one.

I have been informed that once, when Miss Banks and her sister-in-law visited a friend with whom they were to stay several days, on the evening of their arrival they sat down to dinner in their riding-habits. Their friend had a large party after dinner to meet them, and they entered the drawing-room in their riding-habits. On the following morning they again appeared in their riding-habits; and so on, to the astonishment of every one, till the conclusion of their visit.

Being in possession of an immense number of tradesmen’s tokens current at this time, I left them in Soho Square, with a note begging Miss Banks’s acceptance of any she might want. After a few hours, her footman’s knock at my door announced the arrival of Miss Banks, who entered the parlour holding up the front of her riding-habit with both hands, the contents of which she delivered upon the table, at the same time observing “that she considered herself extremely obliged to me for my politeness, but that, extraordinary as it might appear, out of so many hundred there was not one that she wanted.”

Although Miss Banks displayed great attention to many persons, there were others to whom she was wanting in civility. I have heard that a great genius, who had arrived a quarter of an hour before the time specified upon the card for dinner, was shown into the drawing-room, where Miss Banks was putting away what are sometimes called _rattle-traps_.[364] When the visitor observed, “It is a fine day, Ma’am,” she replied, “I know nothing at all about it; you must speak to my brother upon that subject when you are at dinner.” Notwithstanding the very singular appearance of Miss Banks, she was in the prime of life, a fashionable whip, and drove four-in-hand.

Mrs. Carter,[365] the translator of Epictetus, was also singular in her dress. Her upper walking-garment, in the latter part of her life, which was cut short, was more like a bed-gown than anything else. The last time I met this benevolent lady was in 1801, at Mrs. Dards’s exhibition,[366] an immense collection of artificial flowers made entirely by herself with fish-bones, the incessant labour of many years. I remember, in the course of conversation, Mrs. Dards observed, “No one can imagine the trouble I had in collecting the bones for that bunch of lilies of the valley; each cup consists of the bones which contain the brains of the turbot; and from the difficulty of matching the sizes, I never should have completed my task had it not been for the kindness of the proprietors of the London, Free-Masons’, and Crown and Anchor Taverns, who desired their waiters to save all the fish-bones for me.”

[Illustration: HENRY CONSTANTINE JENNINGS (OR NOEL)

“… barring his eccentricities.”]

This ingenious person distributed a card embellished with flowers and insects, upon which was engraven the following advertisement:--

NO. 1, SUFFOLK STREET, COCKSPUR STREET.

“MRS. DARDS begs leave to inform her friends in particular, and the public in general, that after a labour of thirty years, she has for their inspection and amusement opened an exhibition of shell-work, consisting of a great variety of beautiful objects equal to nature, which are minutely described in the catalogue. Likewise is enabled to gratify them

“_With bones, scales, and eyes, from the prawn to the porpoise,_ _Fruit, flies, birds, and flowers, oh, strange metamorphose!_”

“Open from ten to six in the summer,--from ten to four in the winter.

“ADMITTANCE 1s. CATALOGUE 6d.”

Mr. Jennings,[367] latterly known as Constantine Noel, barring his eccentricities, was an accomplished gentleman, a traveller of infinite taste, and one of the most liberal and entertaining companions imaginable. Mr. Noel’s figure was short, thin, and much bent by age; and he was very singular in his dress. The crown of his hat fitted his head as close as a _pitch-plaster_; his coat was short, of common cloth, and, like Mr. Wodhull’s, regularly buttoned up from his waist to his chin. His stockings were not striped blue and white, like those of Sir Thomas Stepney,[368] but of _pepper-and-salt_ mixture, and of worsted. He stepped astride in consequence of the bowness of his legs, and generally attracted notice by striking his walking-stick hard on the stones with his right arm fully extended, while his left hung swinging low before him. He wore thick-sole shoes, with small buckles, and seldom showed linen beyond the depths of his stock.

My father, who knew him well, used to relate the annexed anecdote. Mr. Noel one day, when at the corner of Rathbone Place, close to Wright’s, the intelligent grocer, finding himself rather fatigued, called repeatedly to the first coachman, who, after laughing at him for some time, increased the insult by observing, “A coach, indeed! a coach! who’s to pay for it?”

“You rascal,” exclaimed Mr. Noel, clenching his stick in the position of chastisement, “why don’t you come when I call, Sir; I’ll make an example of you, I will.”

The coachman continued laughing, till a gentleman accosted Mr. Jennings thus:--“My worthy friend, what is all this about?”

The coachman was immediately curbed; and when Mr. Noel’s friend had parted with him, by shaking his hand in the coach, the coachman, touching the front of his hat, wished to know of his _honour_ “_Where to?_”

“I’ll give you a pretty dance,” replied Mr. Noel; “drive me to h----, you rascal; to Whitechapel, and from thence to Hyde Park Corner. I’ll take care it shall be long enough before you get any dinner, you rascal, I will.” Then, with a nod and a smile to the assembled crowd, he declared, to their no small amusement, “I’ll punish him.”

Dr. Burges, of Mortimer Street, whose singular figure has been etched by Gillray, under which he wrote, “From Warwick Lane,” was one of the last men who wore a cocked-hat and deep ruffles. What rendered his appearance more remarkable, he walked on tiptoe.[369]

It was the regular custom of Mr. Alderman Boydell, who was a very early riser, at five o’clock, to go immediately to the pump in Ironmonger Lane. There, after placing his wig upon the ball at the top of it, he used to sluice his head with its water. This well-known and highly respected character,[370] who has done more for the British artists than all the print-publishers put together, was also one of the last men who wore the three-cornered hat commonly called “Egham, Staines, and Windsor.”

I recollect another character, a bricklayer, of the name of Pride, of Vine Street, Piccadilly, who wore the three-cornered hat commonly called “The Cumberland Cock.”[371]

1822.

In October this year the venerable Mrs. Garrick departed this life, when seated in her armchair in the front drawing-room of her house in the Adelphi. She had ordered her maid-servants to place two or three gowns upon chairs, to determine in which she would appear at Drury Lane Theatre that evening, it being a private view of Mr. Elliston’s improvements for the season. Perhaps no lady in public and private life held a more unexceptionable character. She was visited by persons of the first rank; even our late Queen Charlotte, who had honoured her with a visit at Hampton, found her peeling onions for pickling. The gracious Queen commanded a knife to be brought, saying, “I will peel some onions too.” The late King George IV. and King William IV., as well as other branches of the Royal Family, frequently honoured her with visits.

In the course of conversation with Mrs. Garrick (to whom I had been introduced by the late Dr. Burney), that lady expressed a wish to see the collection of Mr. Garrick’s portraits, which the Doctor had most industriously collected. After the honourable trustees had purchased the Doctor’s library, which contained ten folio volumes of theatrical portraits, I reminded Mrs. Garrick of her wish, in consequence of which I received the following letter:--

“Mr. Beltz[372] presents his compliments to Mr. Smith, and is desired by his respected friend Mrs. Garrick to acquaint him, in answer to the favour of his letter of the 12th inst., that she proposes (unless she should hear from Mr. Smith that it will be inconvenient to him) to do herself the pleasure of calling on him at the British Museum on Tuesday next, between twelve and one, for the purpose of inspecting the prints of Mr. Garrick, to which Mr. Smith refers.

“HERALDS’ COLLEGE, _Aug. 18th, 1821_.”

On the appointed morning Mrs. Garrick arrived, accompanied by Mr. Beltz. She was delighted with the portraits of Mr. Garrick, many of which were totally unknown to her. Her observations on some of them were extremely interesting, particularly that by Dance, as Richard III.[373] Of that painter she stated, that Mr. Garrick, who had been the artist’s best friend and benefactor, behaved in the most dirty manner in return; for in the course of his painting the picture Mr. Garrick had agreed to give him two hundred guineas for it. One day at Mr. Garrick’s dining-table, where Dance had always been a welcome guest, he observed that Sir Watkin Williams Wynn,[374] who had seen the picture, spontaneously offered him three hundred guineas for it. “Did you tell him it was for me?” questioned Mr. Garrick. “No, I did not.” “Then you mean to let him have it?” Garrick rejoined. “Yes, I believe I shall,” replied the painter. “However,” observed Mrs. Garrick, “my husband was very good; he bought me a most handsome looking-glass, which cost him more than the agreed price of the picture; and that was put up in the place where Dance’s picture was to have hung.” Mrs. Garrick being about to quit her seat, said she should be glad to see me at Hampton. “Madam,” said I, “you are very good; but you would oblige me exceedingly by honouring me with your signature on this day.” “What do you ask me for? I have not taken a pen in my hand for many months. Stay, let me compose myself; don’t hurry me, and I will see what I can do. Would you like it written with my spectacles on, or without?” Preferring the latter, she wrote “E. M. Garrick,” but not without some exertion.

“I suppose now, Sir, you wish to know my age. I was born at Vienna, the 29th of February, 1724, though my coachman insists upon it that I am above a hundred. I was married at the parish of St. Giles at eight o’clock in the morning, and immediately afterwards in the chapel of the Portuguese Ambassador, in South Audley Street.”

A day or two after Mrs. Garrick’s death, I went to the Adelphi, to know if a day had been fixed for the funeral. “No,” replied George Harris, one of Mrs. Garrick’s confidential servants; “but I will let you know when it is to take place. Would you like to see her? she is in her coffin.” “Yes, I should.” Upon entering the back room on the first-floor, in which Mr. Garrick died, I found the deceased’s two female servants standing by her remains. I made a drawing of her, and intended to have etched it. “Pray, do tell me,” looking at one of the maids, “why is the coffin covered with sheets?” “They are their wedding sheets, in which both Mr. and Mrs. Garrick wished to have died.” I was informed that one of these attentive women had incurred her mistress’s displeasure by kindly pouring out a cup of tea, and handing it to her in her chair. “Put it down, you hussey; do you think I cannot help myself?” She took it herself, and a short time after she had put it to her lips, died. This lady continued her practice of swearing now and then, particularly when any one attempted to impose upon her. A stonemason brought in his bill with an overcharge of sixpence more than the sum agreed upon; on which occasion he endeavoured to appease her rage by thus addressing her:--“My dear Madam, do consider”--“My dear Madam! What do you mean, you d---- fellow? Get out of the house immediately. My dear madam, indeed!!”

On the following day I received the promised letter, by the post.

“SIR,--The funeral is fixed to leave the Adelphi Terrace soon after ten o’clock to-morrow morning. Mrs. Garrick’s carriage, the Dowager Lady Amherst’s, Dr. Maton’s, and Mr. Carr’s[375] are the only carriages that will join the funeral. Your obedient servant,

“GEORGE HARRIS,

“Servant to Mrs. Garrick.”

On the day of the funeral, Miss Macauley,[376] the authoress, wishing to see this venerable lady interred, placed herself under my protection; but when we arrived at the Abbey, we were refused admittance by a person who observed, “If it be your wish to see the waxwork, you must come when the funeral’s over, and you will then be admitted into Poets’ Corner, by a man who is stationed at the door to receive your money.”

“Curse the waxwork!” said I; “this lady and I came to see Mrs. Garrick’s remains placed in the grave.”--“Ah, well, you can’t come in; the Dean won’t allow it.” As soon as the ceremony was over, we were admitted for sixpence at the Poets’ Corner, and there we saw the earth that surrounded the grave, and no more, as we refused to pay the demands of the showmen of the Abbey. Surely this mode of admission to see the venerable structure, and the monuments put up there at a most liberal expense by the country, as memorials of departed worth, is an abominable disgrace to the English Government.[377]

Being disappointed in a sight of the burial, I applied to my friend, the Rev. Thomas Rackett, one of Mrs. Garrick’s executors, for a list of those persons who attended the funeral.

IN THE FIRST COACH.

Christopher Philip Garrick, and Nathan Egerton Garrick, great-nephews of David Garrick; the Rev. Thomas Rackett, and George Frederick Beltz, Esq., Lancaster Herald, Executors of Mrs. Garrick’s will.

IN THE SECOND COACH.

Thomas Carr, Esq., Mrs. Garrick’s solicitor; and Mrs. Carr.

IN THE THIRD COACH.

Mr. James Deane, Agent to Mr. Carr, frequently employed by Mrs. Garrick; Mr. Freeman, of Spring Gardens, Mrs. Garrick’s apothecary.

THOMAS RACKETT.[378]

_December 4th, 1827._

[Illustration: THE GARRICKS

“The fops that join to cry you down Would give their ears to get her.”

_Edward Moore on Garrick’s Marriage_]

As Mr. Garrick was married by his friend, the celebrated Dr. Francklin,[379] who at that time had a chapel in Great Queen Street, I was anxious to ascertain whether the ceremony took place there or at the parish church. I therefore applied to my friend, the Rev. Charles M’Carthy, who favoured me with the following certificate:--

June 22, 1749. David Garrick, of St. Paul, Covent Garden; and Eva Maria Violetti, of St. James’s, Westminster.

T. FRANKLIN. C. M’CARTHY, Curate and Reg.[380]

1823.

In 1822, to the disgrace of the Antwerp picture collectors, notwithstanding their professed zeal for the protection of high works of art, they allowed the most precious gem, their boasted corner-stone, to be carried away from their city. However, to the great honour of Mr. Smith, the picture-dealer, it was secured for England.

This corner-stone, which had been coveted by most of the amateurs in the world, was no less a treasure than the picture known under the appellation of the “Chapeau de Paille,”[381] by Rubens, which had been in the Lunden’s, and then the Steir’s family, from the time it was sold after the painter’s death, to the 29th of July, 1822, the day on which it was brought to auction for the benefit of the last possessor’s family.

When the auctioneer ordered the doors of the case in which it was kept to be thrown open, every person took off his hat, and greeted the picture with loud and repeated cheerings. After the company had, for some time, gratified their eyes, the doors were locked and biddings commenced, the company remaining uncovered till the bidders were silent. It was then knocked down for the sum of thirty-two thousand seven hundred florins, to a foreigner displaying an orange ribbon, hired by the real purchaser, Mr. Smith, who suspected that if an Englishman had offered to bid, he would have brought down a direful opposition. When it was discovered that it was to be conveyed to England, the Antwerpers not only shed tears, but followed it to Mr. Smith’s place of residence, expressing the strongest desire to take their farewell look. Mr. Smith, not willing to risk its safety, gave a seaman five guineas to convey it on shipboard by night, and saw it safely landed on British ground.

Upon its arrival in London, King George IV. commanded a sight of it; and on the morning of Tuesday, September 3rd, Mr. Smith had it conveyed from his house in Marlborough Street, to Carlton Palace, where it was placed in the King’s dressing-room, the King keeping the key of the case, that only private friends might see it. After the expiration of a fortnight, the picture was returned; and in the month of March, 1823, it was publicly exhibited at Stanley’s rooms. The Right Hon. Sir Robert Peel became its liberal purchaser and protector. This picture is painted on oak, and has been joined at the lower part across the hands, and there is every reason for believing that Rubens painted it in the frame, as the ground was unpainted upon, within the width of the rabbit.

The popular report respecting this picture is, that it was the portrait of Elizabeth Lunden, a young woman to whom Rubens was particularly partial, who died of the small-pox, to the great grief of the painter.

In this year I find the following letter in my album:--

“MY DEAR SIR,--Your desire to know the place of my nativity, the profession for which I was intended, my first appearance on the stage, and in town. This both honours and gratifies me, inasmuch as your request places my name with men of genius and education, the persons of all others I am most ambitious to be found with.

“The city of Bristol gave me birth, in 1778.[382] I was brought up an artist, which profession I quitted for studies more congenial to my feelings. Immortal Shakspeare wrought the change, and his great contemporaries added fuel to flame. Notwithstanding this mighty stimulus, in the year 1798 I made my first attempt, in the part of young Hob, in _Hob in the Well_,[383] in a town in Radnorshire, the theatre a barn in the environs; the receipts seven shillings; my share sevenpence. I removed from this luxury to the Stafford Company, thence to the York Theatre, where I succeeded my friend Mathews, and in which situation I remained seven years.

“October 12th, 1809, I made my début in London, in the Theatre Royal, Lyceum, with the Drury Lane Company. The devouring element had destroyed that magnificent pile Old Drury, which caused the professors to employ that place of refuge. The pieces I selected for the terrific ordeal, were _The Soldier’s Daughter_ and _Fortune’s Frolic_;[384] the characters, Timothy Quaint and Robin Roughhead. The public were infinitely more kind than my negative merits deserved; and with gratitude I acknowledge, that up to the present period, their bounty very far exceeds the humble ability of their devoted servant, and your true friend,

“EDWARD KNIGHT.[385]

“THEATRE ROYAL, DRURY LANE,

“GARDEN COTTAGE, COVENT GARDEN, GROUND CHAMBERS,

“_Nov. 15th, 1823_.”

1824.

The following notice is written in my album this year, by Major Cartwright:--

“John Cartwright, born at Marnham, near Tuxford, in the county of Nottingham, on the 17th of September, 1740, old style, corresponding with the 28th, new style. In the year 1758 he entered the naval service, under the command of Lord Howe; was promoted to a lieutenancy in September, 1762, and continued on active service until the spring of 1771. Then retiring to recruit his health, he remained at Marnham till invited by his old Commander-in-chief, in the year 1775 or 1776; but not approving of the war with America, he declined accepting the proffered commission. About the same time he became Major of the regiment of Nottinghamshire Militia, then for the first time raised in that county, in which he served seventeen years.

“When George III. arrived at the year of the Jubilee, a naval promotion of twenty Lieutenants to the rank of Commanders, and the name of J. C. standing the twentieth on the list, he was commissioned as a Commander accordingly.

“In the year 1802 he published _The Trident_, a work in quarto, having for its object to promote that elevation of character which can alone preserve the vital spirit of a navy, as well as to furnish an inexhaustible patronage of the arts.

“JOHN CARTWRIGHT, residing in Burton Crescent, _26th Jan., 1824_.”

The Major died on the 23rd of September this year, at his house in Burton Crescent, at the venerable age of eighty-four.[386]

1825.

An author, in whose real character I was for many years deceived, frequently importuned me to caricature literary females. But this malicious advice, being repugnant to my feelings, I never could listen to, nor is it my intention even to make public a memory-sketch now in my possession of the adviser, when he was stooping over and pretending to kiss the putrid corpse of him a portion of whose vast property he is in possession of, and, I was going to say, happily enjoys.[387] Profoundly learned as the person above alluded to considers himself to be, the reader will, after perusing the following lines, written purposely for my album, be convinced that jealousy towards the fair sex must be that man’s master-passion.

IMPROMPTU LINES BY MISS BENGER, ON THE PAUCITY OF INFORMATION RESPECTING THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF SHAKSPEARE.

Lives there, redeemed from dull oblivion’s waste, One cherished line that _Shakspeare’s_ hand has traced? Vain search! though glory crowns the poet’s bust, His story sleeps with his unconscious dust. Born--wedded--buried! Such the common lot, And such was his. What more? almost a blot! Even on his laurelled head with doubt we gaze; And _fancy_ best his lineaments portrays. Thus like an Indian deity enshrined, In mystery is his image; whilst the mind To us bequeathed, belongs to all mankind. Yet here he lived; his manly high career Of strange vicissitude, was measured here. Not his the envied privilege to hail The Eternal City! or in Tempe’s vale Breathe inspiration with luxurious sighs, And dream of Heaven beneath unclouded skies. His sphere was bounded, and we almost trace His daily haunts, where he was wont to chase Unwelcome cares, or visions fair recall; His breath still lingers on the cloistral wall, With gloom congenial to his spirit fraught; And thou, O Thames, his lonely sighs hast caught. When one, the rhyming Charon of his day, Who tugged the oar, yet conned a merry lay, Full oft unconscious of the freight he bore, Transferred the musing bard from shore to shore. Too careless _Taylor!_ hadst thou well divined The marvellous man to thy frail skiff consigned, Thou shouldst have craved one tributary line, To blend his glorious destiny with thine! Nor vain the prayer!--who generous homage pays To genius, wins the second meed of praise.[388]

The much-famed Cup, carved from Shakspeare’s Mulberry-tree, lined with, and standing on a base of silver, with a cover surmounted by a branch of mulberry leaves and fruit, also of silver-gilt, which was presented to Mr. Garrick on the occasion of the Jubilee at Stratford-upon-Avon, was sold by Mr. Christie on May the 5th, 1825,[389] who addressed the assembly nearly in the following words, for the recollection of which I am obliged to the memory of my worthy friend, Henry Smedley, Esq.:[390]--

“Though this is neither the age nor the country in which relics are made the objects of devotion, yet that which I am now to submit to you must recall to your recollection the Stratford Jubilee, when the pilgrims to the shrine of Avon were actuated by a zeal as fervent as could have been exhibited either at Loretto or Compostella. Let me then entreat a liberal bidding, when I invoke you by the united names of Shakspeare and of Garrick. I perceive that this little Cup is now submitted to eyes well accustomed to appreciate the most exquisite treasures of ancient arts; and that the rough and natural bark of the mulberry-tree is regarded with as much veneration as the choicest carving of Cellini or Fiamingo.”

After one hundred guineas had been bid, Mr. Christie added, “I was wishing that I had some of Falstaff’s sack here, with which I might fill the Cup, and pledge this company, so as to invigorate their biddings; but I think I may say now that at least there is no want of spirit among them.”

1826.

The term _busby_, now sometimes used when a large bushy wig is spoken of, most probably originated from the wig denominated a buzz, frizzled and bushy. At all events, we are not satisfied that the term busby could have arisen, as many persons believe, from Dr. Busby, Master of Westminster School, as all his portraits either represent him with a close cap, or with a cap and hat.[391]

During a most minute investigation of a regular series of English portraits, which I was led into by a friend, in order, if possible, to clear up this point, I was induced to look for the origin of wigs in England, and their various sorts and successions, by commencing at the time of William the Conqueror. In this search I was not able to find any representation of wigs earlier than those worn by King Charles II.[392] upon his Restoration, in proof of which I refer the reader to Faithorne’s numerous portraits of that monarch, and he will find that that sort of wig continued to be worn, with very little deviation, by succeeding kings till George II.’s time, with whom it ended. The Merry Monarch, it has been stated, followed the fashion of wearing a wig from Louis XIV.,[393] with whom that custom commenced with the kings of France. The Duke of Burgundy wore a wig.

King George III. commenced his reign with wearing his own hair dressed and powdered in the style of Woollett’s beautiful engraving of his Majesty,[394] after a picture painted by Ramsey. King George III. wore a wig, in the latter part of his reign, made from one of those worn by Mr. Duvall, one of the masons of the Board of Works, with which shape his Majesty was much pleased.

The line in Pope,

“Eternal buckle takes in Parian stone,”

alludes to the wig carved on the monument of Sir Cloudesley Shovel in Westminster Abbey.[395]

This sort of wig, which received the appellation of “A Brown George,” was also worn by several persons of rank, particularly the late Earl of Cremorne.[396] Townsend, a Bow-street officer, condescendingly noticed by the King, thought proper to wear a wig of this kind, in which he appeared at the morning service in Westminster Abbey.

It is worthy of observation, that in the reign of King Charles II. the Lord Mayors of London followed his Majesty’s example, by wearing wigs precisely of the same make, and equal to those worn by the Royal Family, the highest courtiers, and persons of the first eminence in official capacities. Nay indeed, Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, a wood and coal-monger, wore wigs of this shape, perhaps because he was a Justice of the Peace within the King’s Court. The same kind of wig, equally deep, but with curls rather looser and more tastefully flowing, was also worn by the following high literary characters in the reigns of Charles II., James II., William III., and Queen Anne:--Waller, Dryden, Addison, Steele, Congreve, Vanbrugh, Butler, Rowe, Prior, Wycherley, etc.[397] Of these, perhaps the two last-mentioned were the most foppish in their wigs, particularly Wycherley, from whom the sets of large and beautifully engraven combs of the finest tortoise-shell are named. With these combs (which were carried in cases in their pockets) the wearers of wigs adjusted their curls, ruffled and entangled by the wind. These combs are held as curiosities by many of our old families. The last I saw was in the possession of the friendly Dr. Meyrick, author of _The History of Armour_. I have somewhere read that Wycherley, who was esteemed one of the handsomest men of his day, was frequently seen standing in the pit of the theatre combing and adjusting the curls of his wig, whilst in lolling conversation with the first ladies of fashion in the boxes.[398] Most of Sir Godfrey Kneller’s portraits were painted in this flowing wig, particularly that celebrated series entitled Queen Anne’s Admirals.[399] These pictures were lately moved by command of King George IV. from Hampton Court Palace to the Nautical Gallery in Greenwich Hospital, where they are placed to the highest advantage among numerous other portraits of England’s naval victors.

The actors at this time wore immense wigs, particularly Bullock, Penkethman, etc.; Cibber’s was in moderation. It must here be observed, that I now allude to their private wigs; their state wigs were, as they are now, purposely caricatured to please the galleries.[400] I believe that the first wig worn by an English divine was that of John Wallis,[401] engraved by Burghers, and published at Oxford in the year 1699; it was profusely curled, but not so deep over the shoulders as those of statesmen.

There were many singular, and, indeed, learned characters whose wigs were peculiarly shaped, such, for instance, as that of Bubb Doddington, Lord Chesterfield, and the Duke of Newcastle. MacArdell’s print of Lord Anson, after a picture by Sir Joshua Reynolds, was, I have every reason to think, the first of the shape erroneously called the Busby. This sort, Dr. Samuel Johnson, Armstrong, Hunter, the Rev. George Whitfield, Lord Monboddo, etc., wore in their latter years.

[Illustration: DR. OLIVER GOLDSMITH

“The fellow took me for a tailor.”]

The earliest engraved portraits of Dr. Johnson exhibit a wig with five rows of curls, commonly called “a story wig.”[402] Among the old dandies of this description of wig we may class Mr. Saunders Welch, Mr. Nollekens’ father-in-law--he had nine storeys. So was that worn by Mr. Nathaniel Hillier,[403] an extensive print-collector, as is represented in an engraved portrait of that gentleman. Dr. Goldsmith’s wig was small and remarkably slovenly, as may be seen by Bretherton’s etching. Sir Joshua’s portrait of him is without a wig. Mr. Garrick’s wigs (I mean his private ones) were three in number,--the first is engraved by Wood, published in the year 1745; the second is by Sherwin, engraved for Tom Davies; the last is from a private plate by Mrs. Solly, after a drawing by Dance. I will leave off here with the wig, and give a few instances of the tails. These perhaps originated with the Chinese, but the first specimen of a tail, which I have hitherto been able to procure, to which a date can be given, is in Sherwin’s print of Frederick, King of Prussia.[404]

1827.

The Londoners, but more particularly the inhabitants of Westminster, who had been for years accustomed to recreate within the chequered shade of Millbank’s willows, have been by degrees deprived of that pleasure, as there are now very few trees remaining, and those so scanty of foliage, by being nearly stript of their bark, that the public are no longer induced to tread their once sweetly variegated banks.[405]

Here, on many a summer’s evening, Gainsborough, accompanied by his friend Collins, amused himself by sketching docks and nettles, which afforded the Wynants and Cuyp-like effects to the foregrounds of his rich and glowing landscapes. Collins resided in Tothill Fields, and was the modeller of rustic subjects for tablets of chimneypieces in vogue about seventy years back. Most of them were taken from Æsop’s Fables, and are here and there to be met with in houses that have been suffered to remain in their original state. I recollect one, that of the “Bear and Bee-hives,” in the back drawing-room of the house formerly the mansion of the Duke of Ancaster on the western side of Lincoln’s Inn Fields.[406]

Millbank, which originally extended with its pollarded willows from Belgrave House[407] to the White Lead Mills at the corner of the lane leading to “Jenny’s Whim,” afforded similar subjects to those selected by four of the old rural painters; for instance, the boat-builders’ sheds on the bank, with their men at work on the shore, might have been chosen by Everdingen;[408] the wooden steps from the bank, the floating timber, and old men in their boats, with the Vauxhall and Battersea windmills, by Van Goyen;[409] the various colours of the tiles of the cart-sheds, entwined by the autumnal tinged vines, backed with the most prolific orchards, with the women gathering the garden produce for the ensuing day’s market, would have pleased Ruysdael;[410] and the basket-maker’s overhanging smoking hut, with a woman in her white cap and sunburnt petticoat, dipping her pail for water, might have been represented by the pencil of Dekker.[411] It was within one of the Neat House Gardens[412] near this bank that Garnerin’s kitten descended from the balloon which ascended from Vauxhall Gardens in the year 1802.[413] This descent is thus handed down in a song attributed to George Colman the younger, entitled

PUSS IN A PARACHUTE.

Poor puss in a grand parachute Was sent to sail down through the air, Plump’d into a garden of fruit, And played up old gooseberry there. The gardener, transpiring with fear, Stared just like a hundred stuck hogs; And swore, though the sky was quite clear, ’Twas beginning to rain cats and dogs.

Mounseer, who don’t value his life, In the Thames would have just dipped his vings, If it vasn’t for vetting his vife, For vimen are timbersome things: So at Hampstead he landed her dry; And after this dangerous sarvice, He took a French leave of the sky, And vent back to Vauxhall in a Jarvis.

1828.

Most willingly would I have resigned all the pleasures I ever enjoyed, save that of my wedding-day, to have joined the throng of enthusiastics in art, who assembled at Nuremberg this year, to do homage to the memory of that morning star in art, Albert Dürer. Of the many descriptions of the proceedings upon that glorious occasion, none gave me higher delight than that of Mr. L. Schutze,[414] of Carlsruhe, an artist of very considerable abilities, who, upon my requesting him to favour me with an account, goodnaturedly complied with my wishes, but with all the diffidence of one who had not long written in the English language.

“At the festival which took place in Nuremberg, 1828, on the 6th and 7th of April, the month on which Albert Dürer died three hundred years before, some pupils of Cornelius in Munich, intended to paint some transparent sceneries, the most interesting ones, taken from his life, and to exhibit them at the Festival. For this purpose they gave notice to the magistrates and to the artists that they would arrive on the 28th of March. The magistrates and artists were quite satisfied with this offer, and resolved to welcome them some miles from Nuremberg. Two gentlemen of consideration offered their coaches, with four horses, and the most part of the artists took post-coaches, all with four horses. One gentleman, Mr. Campe,[415] a very clever man, and member of the Artists’ Society, who led the procession, which consisted of eight coaches with about thirty artists, took a barrel with wine in his coach, and also a very old and interesting pitcher, which was presented to A. Dürer by one of his particular friends. About eight miles from Nuremberg, in Reichersdorf, we stopped at the inn, intending to wait for the artists from Munich. Mr. Campe ordered a good breakfast, and put up his barrel and golden pitcher. Scarcely was all prepared, and the breakfast ready, when we saw the artists arrive (we called them ‘Cornelians,’ after the name of their master[416]), with a flag and green branches in their caps, and merry singing. A loud _vivat_ was the first expression of welcome; they were quite astonished to find there so great a company. We now invited them to come in, and to take refreshments after their fatigues. The first proceeding was now to fill the pitcher with wine, and to drink their health. There were about thirty-six artists from Munich. After having made some speeches, having taken the breakfast, and emptied the barrel, we, all quite refreshed and pleased, took place in our chair-waggons, into which we invited also the Cornelians, and rode back to Nuremberg.

“At the old castle we all descended from our waggons, and saw the old building, which is so very interesting in the history of Germany. Then we went down to the house of Albert Dürer, where all the strangers who arrived entered their names in a book. Several gentlemen of consideration had offered to give lodging to some of the strange artists, which was accepted with great pleasure by them. Many others of them had free lodging in the inns. The magistrates paid all their necessaries during their stay. Every day artists and strangers arrived, and the house of Albert Dürer was the place of meeting. The Cornelians began to paint their transparencies: they had drawn the sketches for them already in Munich. There were seven pictures; they represented, firstly, Albert Dürer coming in receiving instructions from Wohlgemuth; secondly, his marriage ceremony; thirdly, the Banquet in Utrecht; fourthly, the Goddess of Art crowns Albert Dürer and Raphael; fifthly, Dürer on board ship; sixthly, the death of Dürer’s mother; seventhly, Dürer’s death. We artists in Nuremberg painted Dürer’s figure, and several allegories and writings, about sixty feet high altogether, also transparencies, which we intended to exhibit on the road, opposite his house.

“Cornelius and many of the first artists from Munich, and from other parts of Germany, arrived, and Dürer’s house was always crowded: certainly a very interesting time to make acquaintance with artists from several parts of the continent, and also to see again old friends. The 6th of April, in the morning at six o’clock, we went altogether to the grave of Albert Dürer. It was very bad weather, all the night, much snow was falling, and a very disagreeable wind blew. When we arrived at the grave, and the musicians, who were with us, began to play, and we began to sing, the sun at once appeared and looked friendly down upon us. We sang three songs with accompaniments of instruments; and then a speech was made, after which we went home. Scarcely were we arrived there, when it again began to snow, and it was very disagreeable all the day.

“After noon, at half past six o’clock, an Oratorium composed by Schneider,[417] took place in the Town-house. Mr. Schneider came himself from Dessau, two hundred and fifty miles from Nuremberg, to direct it. In the Town-house may still be seen a triumphal procession, painted on the wall by Albert Dürer. On one side the musicians were placed, and opposite to them the seven transparencies were exhibited; they were beautifully finished and pleased everybody.

“After the oratorium a splendid supper took place, where all the artists took part, and also several gentlemen of consideration. Mr. Campe distributed to those present some printed poems and books, containing interesting tales or descriptions of clever men, contemporaries of Albert Dürer. Then there were music and dancing.

“On the 7th, at nine in the morning, there was a meeting in the Town-house; all the artists were dressed in black, and had flat hats and swords, except the strangers. The magistrates distributed medals with Dürer’s portrait. At half past eleven o’clock the procession began:--the magistrates, the two burgomasters, the clergymen, many officers, and all the artists, about three hundred persons together. The military with music made a line in the streets through which the procession passed. The King was expected, but did not come. In the Milk-market (now called Albert Dürer’s Place) the procession commenced; some speeches were made, then the foundation-stone of a monument to Albert Dürer was laid, and trumpets and cymbals resounded. Then all was finished, and all went home. At two o’clock a brilliant dinner took place in the Court of Bavaria, accompanied by music; and several poems and songs were distributed, and the poor were not forgotten,--a rich collection being made for them. In the theatre, the play called _Albert Dürer_ was performed; and then our great transparency was illuminated, and on the house where Albert Dürer was born, and likewise where he had lived during the latter part of his life, several inscriptions were illuminated. A procession with flambeaux and fireworks ended the festival-day. Some of the richest inhabitants arranged dinners and suppers, and other rejoicings, to honour the artists. The magistrates ordered also a very brilliant supper on the last evening, before the artists parted, and bade them farewell.

“L. SCHUTZE.”

[Illustration: THE WIG IN ENGLAND

A MACARONI READY FOR THE PANTHEON]

For the following dates I am indebted to Albert Dürer’s Diary, contained in the _Foreign Quarterly Review_ for January 1833, a work replete with most interesting information. Albert Dürer was born in 1471; his father taught him the goldsmith’s craft. In 1486 he was bound for three years to Michael Wohlgemuth, an engraver on wood. He was married to Agnes, an _un-lamb-like_ daughter of Hans Frey. He died on the 6th of April, 1528, of a decline. His wife, an avaricious shrew, “_gnawed him to his very heart,--he was dried up to a faggot_.”[418] Little did Albert Dürer think, particularly from the period of his unhappy marriage to the hour of his dissolution, when he was only fifty-seven years of age, that such honours would be paid to his memory.

The following letter is perhaps worth insertion here:--

“QUEEN STREET, MAYFAIR,

“_Dec. 22, 1828_.

“MY DEAR SIR,--Shortly after my return from Rome, in 1798, I espied a bust in Rosso Antico, lying under a counter at a broker’s shop, in Great Portland Street. I recognised its antiquity; it was _a Faun_, large as life, in the best style of art. I bought it for the trifling sum of £1. I had it in my study many months. During this period, I often assisted Nollekens in the architectural department of his monuments, receiving no thanks; but an invitation one day, as we talked Italian together. On accidentally mentioning my antique Faun, he came to see it, and was so struck with its beauty, that he would never rest till he got it out of my hands. He succeeded, by offering me some models of his own, and ten pounds. Wishing to oblige him, I let him have the bust, and he sent me two miserable models not much higher than my thumb, of a Bacchus and Ariadne, since broken to pieces.

“This bust was in the collection at his sale, and it was knocked down by Christie to the Duke of Newcastle for a hundred and sixty pounds.

“With great respect, ever yours truly,

“CHARLES HEATHCOTE TATHAM.”[419]

The following letter is curious:--

“In the winter of 1815, making a tour of the Netherlands, I was in Bruges when the well-known statue, or rather group, of the ‘Virgin and Child,’ by Michael Angelo Buonarotti, which had been carried from the church of Notre Dame to Paris, was restored, in a packing-case, to that church. On this occasion a procession of the priests and officers of the church, and of some of the municipal officers, took place; and a Mass was celebrated. About a month afterwards, I was again in Bruges, and saw this fine work of art replaced in its former situation, on the altar of one of the small chapels. It is, indeed, a wonderful work.

“I was about the same period in Antwerp, and was present when the pictures which had been taken to Paris, arrived in carriages, and were escorted into the city by an English regiment, then in garrison there (either the 15th or 25th of infantry), preceded by the band of that regiment playing ‘God save the King,’ and accompanied by the members of the Academy of Antwerp, and the magistracy of the city. I own I felt all the pride of an Englishman at seeing these works of art, which British valour had regained, thus restored to the places from whence they had been pillaged.

“STEPHEN PORTER.[420]

“TEMPLE, _Feb. 5, 1828_.”

In July, I went to Hungerford Stairs to gain what information I could respecting “Copper Holmes.” A waterman, whose face declared he had seen a few liberal days, accosted me with the usual question, “Oars, sculler?” I shook my head; but, upon a nearer approach, asked him the following question, “How long has Copper been dead?” “There sits his widow at that window mending her stockings,” said he; “we’ll go and put it to her.”

On approaching her the waterman said, “This gentleman wants to know how long Copper has been dead?” “How do you do?” said I, “your husband has often in my early days rowed me to Pepper Alley.” “He died,” said the woman (who retained enough in her care-worn features to induce me to believe she had been pretty), sticking her needle on her cap, “he died, poor fellow, on the 3rd of October, 1821, and a better man never trod shoe-leather. He was downright and honest, and what he said he would do, he did. I had been his wife two-and-twenty years; but he married me after he left the _Ark_. His first wife lived in the _Ark_ with her children.” “What vessel had the _Ark_ been?” “She had been a Westcountryman, and it cost him altogether (with her fittings-up with sheets of copper) one hundred and fifty pounds, and that gave him the name of ‘_Copper Holmes_.’ His Christian name was Thomas. Ay, Sir, his lawsuit with the City crippled him:[421] but I will say this for him, his Majesty had not a better subject than poor Copper.” While she uttered this declaration, both her eyes, which were seriously directed to her nose, were moistened with the tears of affectionate memory, which induced me to turn to my new acquaintance the waterman, and ask where he was buried? “In the Waterman’s churchyard, Sir, under the pump-pavement on the south side of St. Martin’s church.[422] Lord bless you! don’t you know the Waterman’s burying-ground? I could take you to the spot where fifty of us have been buried.” “What was his age?” “Sixty-six when he died.”

After parting with the widow, I requested the master of the ceremonies to allow his man to ferry me over to the King’s Head Stairs, Lambeth Marsh. “He shall,” said Charles Price; “and I’ll go with you, too.” The waggish, though youthful countenance of the lad employed to bring in our boat, revived the pleasure Mathews had afforded me in his description of Joe Hatch,[423] and induced me to inquire after the waterman whose look, voice, and manner he had borrowed for that inimitable representation. “George Heath, you mean, Sir,” answered the boy; “Of Strand Lane,” observed Price; “Heath is his real name. Lord bless ye, he’s a good-hearted fellow! Why, I have often known him put his hand in his pocket and relieve a fellow-creature in distress.”

This mention of Hatch induced me to question Price as to the Halfpenny Hatch,[424] where Astley had first rode,[425] before he took the ground at the foot of Westminster Bridge, on which the present Amphitheatre stands. Before Price could answer, as we had made the shore, “You will find the Halfpenny Hatch (for it still remains, though in a very ramshackled state) at the back of St. John’s Church, Waterloo Road, at the end of Neptune Place,” I was told upon my landing by a little chubby, shining, red-faced woman, in what was formerly called a _mob-cap_. Thither I went, and to my great surprise found the Halfpenny Hatch in a dell, by reason of the earth being raised for the pavement of the adjacent streets.[426] Field was the name of the person who occupied the house; and, only a few years ago, money was received for the accommodation of the public who chose to go through the hatch. It was built subsequent to the year 1771, by Curtis, the famous botanist,[427] whose name it still retains; but the original Hatch-house, Mrs. Field informed me, was still standing at the back of the present one.

The ground belonging to the Halfpenny Hatch was freehold, of about seven acres, and sold by the Curtis family to Messrs. Basing, Atkins, and Field, for the sum of £3500. They disposed of it in about six months afterwards to Mr. Roupell, the present owner, for the sum of £8000.[428] Being determined to take a sketch of the remains of this vine-mantled Halfpenny Hatch, I took water at Strand Lane Stairs[429] on the following evening, where I found George Heath busily engaged in his boat. Upon seeing a poor chimney-sweeper who descended the steps with me, he stood up and cried out, “I tell you what, Sir Cloudesley Shovel, although you are a miller, depend upon it, I’ll dust your jacket for the injury you have done my vessel.” A ferryman observed, “His wife was gone to take a walk up Highgate Hill.” “A strainer,” observed George Heath. During the time occupied in sketching, William Field, who lives in the Hatch, pointed out part of the gate which had received a bullet, supposed to have been aimed by some scoundrel at the elder Mr. Curtis, who providentially escaped, though the ball, which came from a considerable distance, passed only a few inches above his head.

1829.

On the 25th of July, 1829, being on my way to the great Sanctuary, my pleasure was inconceivable upon observing that the intended repairs of Whitehall Chapel had commenced. The scaffolding was erected before its street-front, and the masons had begun their restorations at the south corner, strictly according with the fast decaying original.[430] “Well,” said I to my respected friend, Mr. Henry Smedley, whose house I had entered just as the chimes of the venerable Abbey and St. Margaret’s had agreed to complete their quarters for nine, “I am delighted to find that Inigo’s beautiful front of Whitehall is in so fair a way of recovery.”[431]

Bonington’s drawings, held at a respectful distance from the _butter-dish_, were the next topic of conversation.[432] “I agree with you,” observed my friend, “they are invaluable; even his slightest pencil-touches are treasures. I have shown you the studies from the figures which surround Lord Norris’s monument in the Abbey; have they not all the spirit of Vandyke?[433] Ay, that drawing of the old buildings seems to be your favourite; what a snug effect, and how sweetly it is coloured!--there never was a sale of modern art so well attended.”

After taking boat at the Horse Ferry for Vauxhall,--for the reader must be informed that Mr. Smedley and myself had an engagement to pass the day with Mr. William Esdaile, on Clapham Common,[434]--I asked the waterman some questions as to “Copper Holmes.” He could not speak correctly as to the time of his death, but said that he had been much reduced by the lawsuit he had with the City about his barge. “Yes, that I know,” said I; “and it certainly was a nuisance on the banks of the Thames, and also an encroachment upon the City’s rights and privileges.”

On arriving at Mr. Esdaile’s gate, Mr. Smedley remarked that this was one of the few commons near London which had not been enclosed.[435] The house had one of those plain fronts which indicated little, but upon ascending the steps I was struck with a similar sensation to those of the previous season, when first I entered this hospitable mansion. If I were to suffer myself to utter anything like an ungrateful remark, it would be that the visitor, immediately he enters the hall, is presented with too much at once, for he knows not which to admire first, the choice display of pictures which decorate the hall, or the equally artful and delightful manner in which the park-like grounds so luxuriantly burst upon his sight. Mr. Esdaile entered the library during our admiration of its taste of design and truly pleasing effect.

The walls are painted with a subdued red, a colour considered by most artists best calculated to relieve pictures, particularly those with broad gold frames. The first picture which attracted our notice was the upper one of two upon the easel nearest the window. The subject is a Virgin and Child, attributed to Albert Dürer, though I must own the style is so elegantly sweet, with so little of the German manner, that I should have considered it the work of a high Italian master. The upper one of the two pictures on the correspondent easel near the bookcase, is from the exquisite pencil of Adrian Ostade; it was the property of Monsieur de Calonne,[436] at whose auction Mr. Esdaile purchased it when he became a collector of pictures.

It would be highly presumptuous in me to attempt to describe the pictures from so cursory a view. Suffice it to say, they are chiefly of the first class; and I cannot charge the possessor with an indifferent specimen. Wilson and Gainsborough were honoured with two of the best places in this room, which commands a most beautiful view of the grounds. In passing to the best staircase, our eyes were attracted by the works of Rubens, Ruysdael, Salvator Rosa, etc. I was highly gratified with the standing of the colours of one of the rich landscapes from the easel of my old and worthy friend, George Arnald, A.R.A. This picture was originally purchased by my revered patron, Richard Wyatt, of Milton Place, Egham, at whose sale Mr. Esdaile bought it. Two sumptuously rich and large dishes of Oriental china, with their stands, occupy the corners of the staircase, which leads to several chambers; the walls of the left-hand one of which are adorned with drawings, framed and glazed, by Cipriani and Bartolozzi; but more particularly with several architectural ruins by Clerisseau, in his finest manner. On the north side of this room stands a magnificent japan glazed case, which contains specimens of the Raphael ware and Oriental porcelain, with two richly adorned alcoves, with figures of Gibbon the historian, and his niece, manufactured at Dresden.

In Mr. Esdaile’s bedroom are other specimens of curious porcelain, of egg-shell plates, cups and covers of the dragon with five claws, and two exquisite black and mother-o’-pearl flower-pots, from the collection of the Duchess-Dowager of Portland. On the top of a curiously wrought cabinet, in the drawing-room below stairs, stand three dark rich blue vases of Sèvres, and two vases of deep blue, embossed with gold leaves, from the Chelsea manufactory. These articles, with a curious figure of Harlequin set in precious stones, the body of which is formed of an immense pearl, were purchased by Mr. Esdaile at the sale of her late gracious Majesty Queen Charlotte. The lower parts of the japan case in the upper room are filled with drawings; so are two other cases which stand on the western side of the room, made purposely for their reception.

The first drawings of our repast this day (for it would take twenty to see the whole) were those by the inimitable hand of Rembrandt, many of which were remarkably fine, one particularly so, of a man seated on a stile near some trees, which appear to have been miserably affected by a recent storm. This drawing is slight, and similar in manner to the artist’s etching, called by some collectors the “Mustard Print.” One of the drawings with landscapes on both sides is remarkably curious, as they are drawn with what is called “the Metallic Pen”; it is certainly the first specimen of the kind I have seen. The Ostade drawings were our next treat, two of which the artist etched; one is the long print of a merry-making on the outside of an alehouse, penned and washed; the other is of the backgammon-players, completely finished in water-colours. At this time the servant announced nooning; after which Mr. Smedley requested to see Hogarth’s prints, in order to report to Mr. Standly[437] the rarities in Mr. Esdaile’s collection. In this, however, we were disappointed, as it did not contain any which that gentleman did not possess.

On our return to Mr. Esdaile’s room, we were indulged with several of Hogarth’s drawings. A volume containing numerous drawings by Wilson was then placed on the table. “Bless me,” said I, “here is the portrait of my great-uncle, Tom of Ten Thousand.”[438] This is the identical drawing thus described by Edwards:--“It may, however, be asserted, that he drew a head equal to any of the portrait-painters of his time. A specimen of which may be seen by a drawing, now in the possession of J. Richards, Esq., R.A.,[439] which is the portrait of Admiral Smith, and which was drawn before Wilson went abroad. It is executed in black and white chalk, as large as life, upon brown French paper, and is treated in a bold, masterly manner; but this is not a work which can authorise the critic to consider him as superior to the other portrait-painters of his day.”[440]

This drawing was made by Wilson, before he commenced the picture which I am now in possession of, so well engraved in mezzotinto by Faber. Of these inestimable drawings, which are mostly in black chalk, stumped, perhaps the most interesting are those for Celadon and Amelia, and the Niobe. Valuable and truly epic as these specimens certainly are, I must say, for my own part, I should give the preference to the book containing those by Gainsborough, of rustic scenery. I had seen many of them before, in the possession of the artist, Colonel Hamilton, Mr. Nassau, and Mr. Lambert. Two that were possessed by the latter, are stamped with Gainsborough’s initials in gold.

Dr. Richardson,[441] Mr. Esdaile’s son-in-law, having arrived, and dinner being announced, we gave up these fascinating sources of pleasure, for that which would enable us to enjoy them another day.

The Doctor, with his accustomed elegance of manners, delighted us during our repast with some most interesting observations made during his travels; after which, Flora invited us to the garden, where Mr. Esdaile had, with his usual liberality, allowed her to display some of her most rare as well as picturesque sweets. On our return from the enchanting circuit of the grounds, our general conversation was on the pleasures we had received; and, indeed, so delighted were we with the entertainment of the day, that we talked of little else till our arrival at Westminster Bridge.

[Illustration: LONDON STREET MERCHANTS: DOOR-MATS

ETCHED BY J. T. SMITH]

Beautiful and truly valuable as Mr. Esdaile’s drawings unquestionably are, it would not only be considered an impeachment upon my judgment, but a conviction of the deepest injustice towards that wonderful collection so classically formed by Sir Thomas Lawrence, were I not unequivocally to state, that this latter is by far the most choice, as well as extensive, of any I have yet seen or heard of, and perhaps it may be stated with equal truth, ever formed. What catalogue can boast so formidably of Michael Angelo, Raphael, Claude, Rubens, and Rembrandt?[442] Surely none; for I have seen those of Sir Peter Lely, the Duke of Argyle, and Hudson,[443] at the last of whose sales the immortal Sir Joshua employed me as one of his bidders, his pupil Mr. Score[444] was another. It would be assuming too much, to attempt a description of the individual and high importance of the productions of all the four above-mentioned masters, possessed by the liberal President.

As prospective pleasures are seldom realised, a truth many of my readers must acknowledge, and being determined never to colour a picture at once, but to await the natural course of events,[445] I on the 3rd of August started with my wife for Hampton Court, not only to see the present state of that palace, but to notice the sort of porcelain remaining there, without fixing upon any further plan for the completion of the day’s amusement.

King William III., who took every opportunity of rendering these apartments as pleasing to him as those he had left in the house in the Wood, introduced nothing by way of porcelain, beyond that of delf, and on that ware, in many instances, his Majesty had W. R., surmounted by the crown of England, painted on the fronts. Of the various specimens of this clumsy blue and white delf, displayed in the numerous rooms of this once magnificent palace, the pride of Wolsey and splendour of Henry VIII., the eight large pots for the reception of King William III.’s orange-trees, now standing in her Majesty’s gallery, certainly have claims to future protection. As for the old and ragged bed-furniture, it is so disgraceful to a palace, that, antiquary as I in some degree consider myself, I most heartily wish it in Petticoat Lane. In passing through the rooms, I missed the fine whole-length picture of Admiral Nottingham,[446] and also the thirty-four portraits of the Admirals. The guide informed me that they were presented by our present King, William IV., to the Painted Hall at Greenwich. “A noble gift,” said I, “but where can they put them up?” In order to take some refreshment, we entered the parlour of the “Canteen,” that being the sign of the suttling-house of the Palace. During our stay, Legat’s[447] fine engraving from Northcote’s forcibly effective picture of the “Death of the Princes in the Tower,” which honoured the room, caught the attention of one of two other visitors to the Palace. “Bless me,” said he, “are those brutes going to smother those sweet babes? Why, they are as beautiful as the Lichfield children.”[448] The observation was not made to me, and as the subject has been too often mentioned, I shall forbear saying more about it.

As my wife and I were strolling on, in order to secure places for our return to London in the evening, I ventured to pull the bell at Garrick’s Villa, and asked for permission to see the temple in which Roubiliac’s figure of Shakspeare had originally been placed.[449] Mr. Carr, the present proprietor of the estate, received us with the greatest politeness. Upon expressing a hope that my love for the fine arts would plead my apology for the intrusion, he assured me it would afford him no small pleasure to walk with us to the lawn. “Do sit down, for a tremendous storm appears to be coming on; we must wait a little.” His lady, of most elegant manners, at this moment entered the room and cordially joined in her husband’s wishes to gratify our curiosity, observing that, if we pleased, she would show us the house. This offer was made in so delightful a manner, that we were truly sensible of the indulgence.

Upon returning to a small room which we had passed through from the hall, “Ah! ah!” said I, “you are curious in porcelain, I see,--the crackle. What fine Dresden! I declare here is a figure of Kitty Clive, as the _Fine Lady_ in Lethe, from the Chelsea manufactory.”[450] There is an engraving of this by Moseley, with the landscape background etched by Gainsborough. This figure of Mrs. Clive, which was something less than a foot in height, was perfectly white, and one of a set of celebrated characters, viz., John Wilkes; David Garrick, in _Richard the Third_; Quin, in _Falstaff_; Woodward, in the _Fine Gentleman_; the Duke of Cumberland, etc. Most of these were characteristically coloured, and are now and then to be met with.[451]

“How you enjoy these things!” observed Mrs. Carr. “This is the drawing-room; the decorated paper is just as it was in Mr. Garrick’s time; indeed, we have had nothing altered in the house. I never enter this room without regretting the enormous expense we were obliged to incur, in taking down a great portion of the roof, owing to a very great neglect in the repairs of the house during Mrs. Garrick’s time. Fortunately it was discovered just as we took possession of the premises, or the consequences might have been fatal.” “Your grounds are beautiful,” observed my wife. “Yes,” said Mrs. Carr, “and several of the trees were planted by Mrs. Garrick; that mulberry-tree was a sucker from Shakspeare’s tree at Stratford; that tulip-tree was one of her planting, and so was the cedar. Now you shall see our best bed-room.” The end of this room which contains the bed is divided from the larger portion by a curtain suspended across the ceiling, which gives it the appearance of a distinct drawing-room, for the comfort of a visitor, if indisposed. “We will now go to Mr. and Mrs. Garrick’s bed-room.” Notwithstanding the lowness of the ceiling, the room still carries an air of great comfort. Here we were again gratified with a display of some choice specimens of Oriental porcelain.

We then descended to the dining-room, in which were portraits of the Tracy family. On one side of the chimneypiece hangs a half-length picture of Mrs. Garrick, holding a mask in her right hand. This was painted by Zoffany,[452] before her marriage, who was one of her admirers; over the sideboard hangs a portrait of Tom Davies, the author of the _Life of Garrick_, who had been his steadfast friend.[453] We then returned to the bow-room, in which we were first received; from thence we entered the library, and were then shown Mr. Garrick’s dressing-table. On our return to the bow-room, I asked Mr. Carr in what part of the house Hogarth’s Election pictures had hung. “In this,” said he; “one on either side of the fireplace.”[454]

The rain still continuing, our amiable shelterers insisted on our staying dinner, as it was impossible to see the Temple in such a storm. We accepted this hospitable invitation; and in the course of conversation Mrs. Carr assured us that we were not only seated upon the sofa frequently occupied by Dr. Johnson, but also the identical cover. “Now, Mrs. Smith, I will show you my Garrick jewels, which Mr. Carr, in consequence of a disappointment I received, by their not being left to me by will, according to Mrs. Garrick’s repeated promises, most liberally purchased for me at the price fixed upon them by Messrs. Rundell and Bridge; for I must inform you that the intimacy of my family with Mrs. Garrick was of thirty years’ standing, and that lady and I were inseparable.” The first treasure produced was a miniature of Mr. Garrick, set in brilliants; the second, a rich bracelet of pearls, containing the hair of Mr. and Mrs. Garrick. Mrs. Carr politely presented my wife and myself with impressions of a profile of Mr. Garrick, contemplating the features of Shakspeare.

After dinner was announced, and in the course of taking our wine, I thanked our worthy hosts for their hospitality. “This house,” said Mr. Carr, “was ever famous for it. Dr. Johnson has frequently knocked up Mr. and Mrs. Garrick at a very late hour, and would never go to bed without a supper.”[455] I asked his opinion as to the truth of the anecdote related by Lee Lewis concerning Mrs. Garrick’s marriage. “There certainly is,” he replied, “a mystery as to who her father was.” Mrs. Carr observed that, after Mrs. Garrick had read Lewis’s assertions, she, with her usual vivacity, exclaimed, “He is a great liar; Lord Burlington was not my father, but I am of noble birth.”

“Is it true,” I asked, “that Lord Burlington gave Mr. Garrick £10,000 to marry her?”

“No, nor did Mrs. Garrick ever receive a sum of money from Lord Burlington: she had only the interest of £6000, and that she was paid by the late Duke of Devonshire.”[456]

The rain now subsided; and as we passed through the passage cut under the road, Mrs. Carr stopped where Mrs. Garrick had frequently stood, while she related the following anecdote. ‘_Capability Brown_,’[457] was consulted as to the communication of these grounds with those by the water. Mr. Garrick had an idea of having a bridge to pass over the road, similar to the one at Pain’s Hill;[458] but this was objected to by _Capability Brown_, who proposed to have a tunnel cut. Mr. Garrick at first did not like that idea; but Dr. Johnson observed, “David! David! what can’t be over-done may be under-done.”[459]

As we entered the Temple, instead of seeing a vacant recess, we were agreeably surprised to find that the present owner had occupied it by a cast of Roubiliac’s statue of Shakspeare, most carefully taken by Mr. Garrard,[460] similar to the one with which he furnished the late Mr. Whitbread for the hall of Drury Lane Theatre. On our return to the villa, we were shown a small statue of Mr. Garrick, in the character of Roscius; but by whom it was modelled I was not able to learn. The following inscription was placed under the plinth:--“This figure of Garrick was given to Mr. Garrard, A.R.A., by his widow, and is now respectfully presented to Mrs. Carr, to be placed in Garrick’s Villa, July 14, 1825.”

In the bow-room, in which we again were seated, is a portrait of Mr. Hanbury Williams, and also two drawings of Mr. and Mrs. Garrick, by Dance, of which there are lithographic engravings by Mrs. Solly, the daughter of the Rev. Mr. Racket, with impressions of which that lady honoured me for my wife’s illustrated copy of the _Life of Dr. Johnson_. Mrs. Solly also favoured me with a sight of a pair of elegant garnet bracelets, which had been left to her by Mrs. Garrick. The bell, Nollekens’s old friend, announced the arrival of the stage, and we took our departure.

On the following morning, taking advantage of the Museum vacation allowed to officers of that establishment, and feeling an inquisitive inclination to know in what way the portraits of the admirals had been disposed of in Greenwich Hospital, I went thither, where I found a display of great taste in the distribution of the pictures which adorn the Painted Hall of that national and glorious institution. Many of my readers will recollect that in second editions of works errors are usually corrected. Such, I understand, has been the case in the hanging of the pictures in this splendid gallery; for, in the first instance, numerous small and also indifferent subjects were hung at the top of the room, and the spectator was told that this arrangement was merely to produce uniformity, until a period arrived when larger and better productions could occupy their places. The liberality of King William IV., who gave no fewer than fifty-five pictures, in addition to the very valuable presents made by the Governors of the British Institution, enabled Mr. Seguier, keeper of the royal collection, to display his best taste in the re-arrangement.

All the small pictures have been taken away, and a most judicious display of whole-length portraits, the size of life, occupy their spaces. Modern artists must not only be pleased with the truly liberal manner in which their works are here exhibited, but will rejoice in having an opportunity of retouching and improving their pictures, from the manner in which the light falls upon them--an advantage always embraced in large edifices by the old masters, but perhaps more particularly by Rubens, who, it is well known, worked upon his performances after they had been elevated to their respective destinations. I must own, without a wish to cast the least reflection upon the works of other modern artists displayed in this gallery, that the noble picture of the Battle of Trafalgar, painted by Arnald, the Associate of the Royal Academy, at the expense of the Governors of the British Institution, at present arrests most powerfully the attention.

As I was admiring the dignity of the Hampton Court admirals, who never appeared to such advantage, a well-known voice whispered over my shoulder, “You are not aware, perhaps, that Vandevelde painted the sea-distances in those pictures?” “No,” answered I; “that is a very interesting fact;” adding that “I could not believe Kneller to have been the painter of all the heads.” Mr. Seguier rejoined, “Dahl, in my opinion, painted some of them.”[461] In the course of conversation he gave me no small pleasure by observing that he had read my work of _Nollekens and his Times_.--“I can answer as to the truth of nine-tenths of what you have asserted,” said he, “having known the parties well.”

Upon leaving this interesting gallery, a pleasing thought struck me, that if a volume of naval history, commencing with the early ballads in the Pepysian Library, and ending with the delightful compositions of Dibdin, were printed, and given to every collier’s apprentice as a reward for his good behaviour, it might create in him that spirit of emulation which, when drafted from his vessel, would induce him to defend the long-famed wooden walls of Old England most undauntedly. Humble as the versification of these our old ballads may justly be considered, yet I have frequently seen the tear of gratitude follow the melody of Incledon while singing the song of “Admiral Benbow.”[462]

[Illustration: CHARLES DIBDIN

“He found a voice for the British sailor.”

_Tom Taylor_]

“What, upon the old trot, Master?” observed a funny-mover,[463] as I descended the rotten old stairs of Hungerford Market. “Will you make one with us? I know you don’t mind where you steer.” We had hardly made Chelsea Reach, when one of our crew noticed a foundered freshman, who had most ingeniously piloted himself into a cluster of osiers, in order to adjust his cravat, as a lady in our boat was to meet him that evening in Vauxhall Gardens. Our steersman, who was fond of a bit of fun, thus assailed him, “I say, Maty, why you’re water-logged there; you put me in mind of the Methodist parson who ran adrift last Saturday nearly in the same place: he made a pretty good thing of it.” “Ay,” observed a dry old fresh-water passenger in our boat, “I saw the fellow; and when the Battersea gardeners[464] quizzed him, he attempted to stand up like a poplar; but the wind operating upon his head, it hung like a bulrush. However, when he was seated, instead of advising them to make ready for simpling-time, or bespattering them with low language, he exercised his pulpit volubility in favour of vegetables, declaring that for years he had lived upon them, and insisted that every young person of every climate should eat nothing else, strengthening this opinion with the following quotation from Jeremy Taylor, who declared that ‘a dish of lettuce and a clear fountain would cool all his heats.’ After this he most strenuously advised them to ask more money for their pecked fruit than they had been accustomed to receive, observing, that they should keep Shakspeare’s caution in mind, ‘Beware all fruit but what the birds have pecked.’[465] At the close of his address, a descendant of old Mother Bagley, called ‘The King of Spades,’ proposed to his men not only to join him in all their coppers, but to fresh-water the poor fellow’s boat, for which he thanked them, and declared that he was almost ready to float in his own perspiration; but that he, like Sterne’s[466] ‘Starling,’ could not get out. The Mortlake boys soon gave him three cheers, and away he scuttled like an eel towards Limehouse Hole, sticking as close to his boat as a toad to the head of a carp.”

At this the lady simpered. “Bless your heart, fair one,” observed the narrator, addressing the lady who was destined for Vauxhall Gardens, “you never saw such a skeleton as this vegetable-eater. As for his complexion, it was for all the world like--what shall I say?”

“Perhaps a Queen Anne’s guinea,” observed our waterman, “that they used to let into the bottom of punch-ladles”--many of which were frequently to be seen in the pawnbrokers’ windows in Wapping.

“As for his voice during his preaching,” rejoined our entertaining companion, “no lamb’s could be more innocent.”

As we were tacking about, the wind standing fair to drop the lady at Vauxhall-stairs, our old weathergage, the waterman, who reminded me of Copper Holmes, thus addressed a lopped Chelsea Pensioner:--“I say, old Granby,[467] people say that he who loves fighting is much more the sexton’s friend than his own.” “Ay, Master Smelter,” answered the corporal, “we are all alive here, and, like the Greenwich boys, willing to fight again; Old England for ever!”

I then requested the waterman to put me on shore, in order to visit Chelsea College, purposely to see what had been done with my friend Ward’s allegorical picture of the Triumph of the Duke of Wellington. The Right Hon. Noblemen and Gentlemen, Governors of the British Institution, wishing to perpetuate the memory of the noble victory on the plains of Waterloo, they, with their accustomed liberality to the fine arts, commissioned James Ward, Esq., R.A., to paint an allegorical picture worthy a place in the Hall of that glorious establishment, Chelsea Hospital. Having heard that Mr. Ward’s picture had been hung up, I went thither, but, to my utter astonishment, found it not only suspended without a frame (just as a showman in a fair would put out his large canvas to display “the true and lively portraiture” of a giant, the Pig-faced Lady, or the Fire-eater), but with its lower part projecting over a gallery, just like the lid of a kitchen salt-box; so that the upper and greater half, being on an inclined plane, had copiously received the dust, and doubtless, if it be allowed to accumulate, the Duke’s scarlet coat will undergo a brick-dust change, and his cream-coloured horses become the dirtiest of all the drabs.

If this picture be considered worth preserving, why expose it so shamefully to injury by suffering it to hang as it does? If, on the contrary, why not at once consign it to the waters of oblivion, by casting it into Chelsea Reach? Mr. Ward’s superior talents have been in numerous instances acknowledged by some of the best judges.

Descending Villiers Street on one of my peregrination mornings, a tremendous storm obliged me to request shelter of Mrs. Scott, the wife of the present keeper of York Terrace, and successor of Hugh Hewson, a man who declared himself to be the genuine character famed by Dr. Smollett in _The Adventures of Roderick Random_, under the appellation of Hugh Strap.[468] Here I met with a young man whose father had attended Hewson’s funeral, who informed me that Hugh had been frequently known to amuse the ambulators of that walk by recapitulating the enterprising events which had taken place during his travels with the Doctor. Hugh, who had for years followed the trade of a hairdresser, was buried in St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields, and his funeral was attended by three generations.

On my way towards Hungerford Stairs, my organ of inquisitiveness was arrested by two carvings in stone, of a wheatsheaf and sickles, let into either side of the north-end houses in the alley leading to the “The Swan.” A waterman informed me that the south portion of Hungerford Market was originally allotted for the sale of corn, but I have since learned that that device is the crest of the Hungerford family. “Pray now,” said I to my oracle, “do enumerate the signs of Swans remaining on the banks of the Thames, between London and Battersea Bridges.” “Why, let me see, Master, there’s the Old Swan at London Bridge, that’s one;--there’s the Swan in Arundel Street, two;--then ours here, three;--the Swan at Lambeth, that’s down, though;--well then, the Old Swan at Chelsea, but that has long been turned into a brewhouse, though that was where our people rowed to formerly, as mentioned in Doggett’s Will; now they row to the sign of the New Swan beyond the Physic Garden; we’ll say that’s four;--then there’s the two Swan signs at Battersea, six.”[469]

Next evening, away I trudged to take water with George Heath (Mathews’s Joe Hatch) at Strand Lane. “I find the Swan to be your usual sign up the river,” said I.

“Why, yes,” replied George; “I don’t know what a coach, or a waggon and horses, or the high-mettled racer have to do with our river. Bells now, bells, we might have bells, because the Thames is so famous for bells.” Bless me, thought I, how delighted would my old friend Nollekens have been, had he heard this remark!

[Illustration: A PLEASURE PARTY ON THE THAMES]

“You like bells, then, Master Heath?”

“Oh yes! I was a famous ringer in my youth, at St. Mary Overies. They are beautiful bells; but of all the bells give me Fulham; oh, they are so soft, so sweet![470] St. Margaret’s are fine bells; so are St. Martin’s; but after all, Fulham for my money, I say. I forget where you said I was to take you to, Master?”

“Row me to Hungerford,” said I.

Here I alighted, and then went round to Wood’s coal-wharf, at the foot of Northumberland Street,[471] where the said Mr. Wood dwells in the very house in which Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey resided, who was strangled in Somerset House.[472] Sir Edmund Berry was a woodmonger, and became the court justice. In this appointment he was so active, that during the time of the Great Plague, 1665, which continued to rage in 1666, upon the refusal of his men to enter a pest-house, to bring out a culprit who had furnished a thousand shops with at least a thousand winding-sheets stolen from the dead, he ventured in alone, and brought the wretch to justice. In Evelyn’s interesting work on medals, the reader will find that four were struck, commemorative of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey’s death; and in addition to the elaborately engraved portraits noticed by Granger, he will also find an original picture of him in the waiting-room adjoining the vestry of St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields, where he was interred, and his funeral sermon preached by Dr. Lloyd.[473]

In a little work published in 1658, entitled _The Two Grand Ingrossers of Coals, viz. the Woodmonger and the Chandler_,[474] the reader will find the subtle practices of the coal-vendors shortly after that article was in pretty general use.

It is curious to observe how fond Horace Walpole, and indeed all his followers, have been of attributing the earliest encouragement of the fine arts in England to King Charles I. That is not the fact; nor is that Monarch entitled, munificent as he was, to that degree of praise which biographers have thought proper to attribute to him as a liberal patron; and this I shall immediately prove. King Henry VIII. was the first English Sovereign who encouraged painting, in consequence of Erasmus introducing Hans Holbein to Sir Thomas More, who showed his Majesty specimens of that artist’s rare productions. Upon this the king most liberally invited him to Whitehall, where he gave him extensive employment, not only in decorating the panels and walls of that palace with portraits of the Tudors, as large as life, but with easel pictures of the various branches of his family and courtiers, to be placed over doors and other spaces of the state chambers.

Holbein may be recorded as the earliest painter of portraits in miniature, which were mostly circular, and all those which I have seen were relieved by blue backgrounds. He was also the designer and draughtsman of numerous subjects for the use of the court jewellers, as may be seen in a most curious volume preserved in the print-room of the British Museum, many of which are beautifully coloured. Holbein must have been a most indefatigable artist, for he was not only employed to paint that fine picture of King Henry granting the charter to the Barber-Surgeons,[475] now to be seen in Barbers’ Hall, Monkwell Street,[476] that in Bridewell of King Edward VI. granting the charter to the citizens of London,[477] but numerous portraits for the Howards, and other noble families; indeed, the quantity of engravings from the burin of Hollar and other artists, from Holbein’s works, prove that painter to have been just as extensively employed as Vandyke.

[Illustration: SIR EDMUND BERRY GODFREY

“He was esteemed the best Justice of Peace in England.”

_Burnet_]

King Charles I., it is stated, became possessed of numerous portraits drawn by Holbein, of several personages of the crown and court of King Henry VIII., from characters high in office, to _Mother Jack_,[478], considered to have been the nickname of Mrs. Jackson, the nurse of Prince Edward. These interesting drawings, it is said, the King parted with for a picture; but how they again became the property of the Crown, I am uninformed. However, true it is that they were discovered in Kensington Palace, and taken from their frames and bound in two volumes. During Mr. Dalton’s[479] librarianship he etched many of them in his coarse and hurried manner. Since then Mr. Chamberlaine,[480] his successor, employed Mr. Metz[481] to engrave one or two as specimens of an intended work, but Mr. Bartolozzi’s manner being considered more likely to sell, that artist was engaged to produce the present plates, which certainly are far from being facsimiles of Holbein’s drawings, which I have seen. Many of this master’s invaluable pictures are engraved and published in the work entitled _Portraits of Illustrious Personages of Great Britain_; accompanied by the biographical lucubrations of Edmund Lodge, Esq.[482]

The liberality of the brothers Paul and Thomas Sandby, Royal Academicians, will be remembered by every person who had the pleasure of being acquainted with them; but more particularly by those who benefited by their disinterested communications and cheering encouragement in their art. For my own part, I shall ever consider myself indebted to them for a knowledge of lineal perspective. By their indefatigable industry, the architecture of many of the ancient seats of our nobility and gentry will be perpetuated; and I may say, but for the very accurate and elaborate drawings taken by Paul from Old Somerset House gardens, exhibiting views up and down the river, much of the Thames scenery must have been lost.[483] The view up the river exhibits the landing-stairs of Cuper’s Gardens, and that part of the old palace of Whitehall then inhabited by the Duchess of Portland, upon the site of which the houses of that patron of the arts, Lord Farnborough,[484] and other noblemen and gentlemen, have recently been erected. The one down the river displays an uninterrupted view of the buildings on either side to London Bridge, upon which the houses are seen, by reason of Blackfriars Bridge not then being erected. These drawings are in water-colours, and are preserved in the thirteenth volume of Pennant’s interesting account of London, magnificently illustrated, and bequeathed to the print-room of the British Museum by the late John Charles Crowle, Esq.[485]

Should my reader’s boat ever stop at York Watergate,[486] let me request him to look up at the three upper balconied windows of that mass of building on the south-west corner of Buckingham Street. Those, and the two adjoining Westminster, give light to chambers occupied by that truly epic historical painter, and most excellent man, Etty, the Royal Academician, who has fitted up the balconied room with engravings after pictures of the three great masters, Raphael, Nicholas Poussin, and Rubens.

The other two windows illumine his painting-room, in which his mind and colours resplendently shine, even in the face of one of the grandest scenes in Nature, our river Thames and city edifices, with a most luxuriant and extensive face of a distant country, the beauties of which he most liberally delights in showing to his friends from the leads of his apartments, which, in my opinion, exhibit the finest point of view of all others for a panorama. The rooms immediately below Mr. Etty’s[487] are occupied by Mr. Lloyd, a gentleman whose general knowledge in the graphic art, I and many more look up to with the profoundest respect. The chambers beneath Mr. Lloyd’s are inhabited by Mr. Stanfield,[488] the landscape-painter, whose clear representations of Nature’s tones have raised the scenic decorations of Drury Lane Theatre to that pinnacle of excellence never until his time attained, notwithstanding the productions of Lambert, Richards, nay, even Loutherbourg. Mr. Stanfield’s easel pictures adorn the cabinets of some of our first collectors, and are, like those of Callcott, Constable, Turner, Collins, and Arnald, much admired by the now numerous publishers of little works, who unquestionably produce specimens of the powers of England’s engravers, which immeasurably out-distance the efforts of all other countries.

However, although I am willing to pass the highest encomiums on the landscape-engraver for his Liliputian labours, I am much afraid, in the course of time, we shall have productions smaller still; and that the diminutive size of a watch-paper, measuring precisely in diameter _one inch, two-eighths, and one-sixteenth_, will be the noblest extent of their labours. To men of their talent (and there are several among these pigmy burinists), I will venture, now I am upon the silver streams of noble Father Thames, to lead their attention to Woollett’s Fishery, but more particularly to West’s La Hogue, and then let them ask themselves this question: Would it not redound more to our glory to be master of equal excellence in the grand style in which those works are produced, than to contribute too long to the illustrations of scrapbooks only? Yes, gentlemen, I think you would say so. Let me endeavour, then, to arrest your gravers from this blinding of the public, by reducing your works to so deplorable a nicety, that by-and-by you will find yourselves totally blind. Why not, as talent is not wanting, prove to the collectors that England has more Woolletts than one? It is true there are several at present engaged in engraving plates from the fine old pictures in the National Gallery, who have my cordial good wishes for their success; yet I trust that, after that task is at an end, they will, with a considerable augmentation to their numbers, pay a becoming respect so justly due to modern painters of their own country, whose works in historical subjects, as well as portraits and landscape, extinguish unquestionably those of foreign powers; and I may say, with equal truth, equal most of those of the old schools. Such a publication, however successful their present one may be, I can answer for it would be patronised by the noblemen and gentlemen of England with redoubled liberality, and in such tasks the engravers will have the opportunity of producing finer things by the more powerful, and indeed inestimable advantage of having their progressive proofs touched upon by the painters themselves.

“Pull away, my hearty” (for I was again in a boat).--“To Westminster, Master?”--“Ay, to Westminster.”

Being now in view of the extensive yards which for ages have been occupied by stone and marble merchants, “Ay,” said I, “if these wharfs could speak, they, no doubt, like the Fly, would boast of their noble works. Was it not from our blocks that Roubiliac carved his figures of Newton, the pride of Cambridge, and that of Eloquence, in Westminster Abbey; Bacon’s figure of Mars, now in Lord Yarborough’s possession; Rossi’s Celadon and Amelia, and Flaxman’s mighty figure of Satan, in the Earl of Egremont’s gallery at Petworth; as well as three-fourths of Nollekens’s numerous busts, which, according to whisperings, have only been equalled by Chantrey? And then, has not our Carrara been conveyed to the studios of Westmacott and Baily?[489]”

[Illustration: JOHN FLAXMAN R.A.

“This little man cuts us all out in sculpture.”

_Bankes_]

After the truly interesting information the print-collectors have received from the pen of Mr. Ottley,[490] a gentleman better qualified than any I know to speak on works of art, more particularly those of the ancient schools of Italy, it would be the highest audacity in me to offer my own observations, however conversant my friends are pleased to consider me on those subjects. All I shall therefore now add to Mr. Ottley’s valuable stock of knowledge are the following circumstances, which occurred respecting that beautiful impression in sulphur, taken from a pax, engraved by Tomaso Finiguerra, before the said impression was so liberally purchased by the Duke of Buckingham, who has most cheerfully afforded it an asylum at Stowe. It has been for many years in the Print-Room of the British Museum.[491]

Mr. Stewart favoured me, at my earnest request, with the following statement of the fortunate manner in which he secured this unique and inestimable production as a treasure for England.

“The sulphur cast, from the celebrated pax of ’Maso Finiguerra, came into my hands in the following manner:--The Cavalier Seratti, in whose valuable collection it originally existed, was captured in going from Cagliari to Leghorn, and carried to Tunis, where he resided, I believe, for one or two years; but, dying in captivity, the Dey of Tunis took possession of the whole of his property. Such part of it as was not of any intrinsic value was sold to a party of Jews, who brought it over to Malta with a view of sending it to Great Britain for sale. This took place about the commencement of 1804. The property coming from Barbary was of course placed in the lazaretto. While there the plague broke out in the island, and it was a full year before the property was liberated. The Jews by this time had become apprehensive, owing to the numerous obstacles they had encountered in the realisation of their projects; and my friend the Abbate Bellanti, librarian to the Government Library, with a view to retain the collection in his native island, induced a Maltese merchant to make the Jews such an offer for the whole of the Seratti collection as they at last accepted. The merchant, however, retracted; and the abbot, after having made himself responsible for the bargain towards the Jews, found himself in an unpleasant predicament. In this dilemma he applied to me, and I readily engaged to fulfil the agreement which the merchant had forfeited. The sulphur in question formed the object of a separate bargain. I paid the value of £15 for it. I was very unfortunate in the transmission of my collection to England, two ships having been cast away in the Channel in November, 1815, both with a considerable portion of my property on board. I was more successful with the third portion, which arrived in 1816; in this was the sulphur cast. I never would have parted with it but for the above accident, whereby at that time I was much straitened in my circumstances.

“The sulphur I sold to Mr. Colnaghi for £150, which I thought a low price at the time for such an interesting and unique curiosity, indispensable for illustrating and fixing the date of the invention of the art of engraving (as it is now called). This sulphur, with the print preserved at Paris, and the pax of Finiguerra himself, preserved at Florence, together with the entry in the journal of the Goldsmiths’ Company, also preserved at Florence, showing the date of the completion of the pax to be 1452, form altogether an irrefragable chain of proof which must satisfy the most sceptical. By a memorandum in Seratti’s own handwriting, which is amongst my papers (but having been sent from Bombay to Liverpool, I have not yet got), it appears that he purchased the sulphur from a painter, who bought it with a heap of other trinkets at the stall of a petty dealer in Florence: and on acquiring it Seratti compared it with the pax itself, and ascertained it to be the genuine work of Finiguerra.

“I may add a few observations of my own, not altogether irrelevant to the subject.

“The silver vessel, or pax, generally enclosed some relic, and was kissed by the congregation or other individuals in token of devotion; and the Count Seratti mentions that the one of which this sulphur is in part a facsimile, is very much worn by this repeated act of devoutness. The word pax appears to be a corruption of pyxis, a box; and we have in Shakspeare _a pyx of little value_. The engraving was usually filled up with a metallic mixture of a dark composition, which, being fused by the action of fire, became incorporated with the vessel itself. This process was called Niello, or Anniello, Niellare, or Anniellare; hence our _anneal_, the term probably derived from _nigellum_, or perhaps even from Mêl, the Indian term for _black_, and applied to indigo, by which name that dye was originally known in Europe, and it was probably used in the composition before alluded to. The term _anniello_, and the purpose to which these pyxes were applied, is further illustrative of a passage in Shakspeare, which I believe has hitherto puzzled commentators. It is this:--Hamlet accuses his uncle of having dispatched his father ‘unhousel’d, unanointed, _unanneal’d_;’ it alludes to the custom in Catholic countries of offering relics preserved in their pyxes to be kissed after extreme unction.

“I shall be happy to communicate any further particulars respecting this interesting vestige of art which may be required of me, in as far as I am able.

“J. STEWART.

“_2nd May, 1829._”

1830.

The glowing evening of the 16th of July added lustre to the enchanting grounds of William Atkinson, Esq. of Grove End, Paddington;[492] and perhaps, if I were to assert that few spots, if any, excel in the variety of its tasteful walks and unexpected recesses, I should not outstep the verge of truth.

The villa was designed by Mr. Atkinson, with his usual attention to domestic comfort; the grounds were peculiarly manured under his direction, and the rarest trees and choicest plants he could procure from all the known parts of the globe were planted by his own hand, and that too in the course of the last twelve years. On the knolls the antiquary will find sculpture from Carthage; and in the silent trickling dells the mineralogist specimens of the varieties of English stone, imbedded in the most picturesque strata. The delightful surprise of the spectator is beyond belief, particularly on turning back to view his trodden path, when that sun which fired the mind of Claude sparkles among the gently waving branches from climes he may never visit. Upon my observing to Mrs. Atkinson that in this meandering retreat my mind would be instantly soothed, that lady then recalled to my recollection Allan Ramsay’s _Gentle Shepherd_, by repeating the following lines:

“How wholesome is’t to breathe the vernal air, And all the sweets it bears, when void of care.”[493]

Here the Waltonian, too, will find a seat, and view the canal--

“Kissing with eddies soft the bordering grass.”

My thanks are here offered to my friend Mr. West,[494] late of Drury Lane Theatre, now a professor of music, for the kind loan of an imperfect copy (which he met with at a stall) of a work of rarity, of which I have not been able to hear of another copy. It is not mentioned by Watt, and, what is more remarkable, the Rev. Hartwell Horne,[495] of the British Museum, never heard of it. It is a small quarto, bearing the following title:--

“THE POST ANGEL, OR, UNIVERSAL ENTERTAINMENT.

“London: printed, and to be sold by A. Baldwin, near the Oxford Arms, in Warwick Lane, 1702, where is to be had the first and second volume, or any single month, from January, 1701, to this time; price of each, one shilling.”[496]

Page 191 of the third volume affords the admirers of wax effigies the following information:--

“TO THE EDITOR.

“SIR,--You having promised to give an account of the curiosities of art, as well as the wonders of nature, I thought it would oblige the public to acquaint you that the effigies of his late Majesty, King William III., of glorious memory, is curiously done to the life in wax, dressed in coronation robe, with so majestic a mien that nothing seems wanting but life and motion, as persons of great honour upon the strictest view have with surprise declared. Likewise the effigies of several persons of quality, with a fine banquet, and other curiosities in every room, passing to and from the King’s apartment, are all to be seen at Mrs. Goldsmith’s, in Green Court, in the Old Jury, London.”

From the following flummery bespattered on this wax-worker by the editor of the _Post Angel_, I may, with the greatest probability, conclude that his substance was just as vulnerable as that of many of the hirelings who feed themselves by puffing what they denominate “the fine arts,” and that he had no objection to a dozen of port, _had it been ever so crusted_.

“The Observator” states that “the ingenuity of man hath found out several ways to imitate Nature, and represent natural bodies to the eye by sculpture, picture, carving, waxwork, etc.; and though some of the ancients were famed for this art, as Zeuxis and Apelles, yet our last ages have outstripped them, and made considerable improvements, as may be easily discernible to those who are skilled in antiquities, and have observed the _rude_ and _coarse_ pieces of the ancients. Those that question the truth of this, need but step to that famous artist, Mrs. Goldsmith, in the Old Jewry, whose _workmanship_ is so absolute (_in the effigies which she has made of his late Majesty_), as it admits of no correction. She also made the late Queen, the Duke of Gloucester, to the general satisfaction of a great number of the nobility and gentry. I am not for the Hungarian’s wooden coat of mail, the work of fifteen years; nor Myrmeride’s coach with four horses, so little that you might hide them under a fly’s wing: these are but a laborious loss of time, an ingenious profusion of one of the best talents we are entrusted with; but _this effigy of his late Majesty_ has taken up but a small part of Mrs. Goldsmith’s time, and yet it is made with so much art, that nothing seems wanting but life and motion. I own,” continues this time-server, “’tis little wonder to see a picture have motion; but Mrs. Goldsmith is such a person (as all will own that see this effigy which she has made of King William), that she has almost found the secret to make even dead bodies alive.”

[Illustration: THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH, R.A.

“We are all going to heaven, and Van Dyck is of the company.”

_His dying words_]

1832.

“You are never idle,” observed my _old_, OLD, very OLD friend John Taylor,[497] as he entered my parlour on the 3rd of November, in his ninety-third year: “bless me, how like that is to your father! Well, Howard is a very clever fellow! Pray now, do tell me, did your father know Churchill? My friend Jonathan Tyers introduced me to him in Vauxhall Gardens much about the time Hogarth represented him as a bear with a pot of porter.[498] I think, to the best of my recollection, the print was brought out in 1763. Mr. Tyers asked Mr. Churchill what he thought of it. ‘Oh!’ said he, ‘it is a silly thing, Sir. I should have thought Hogarth had known better.’” I then requested Mr. Taylor to describe Mr. Churchill’s dress for Vauxhall Gardens. “Oh! not as a clergyman, not in black, as he appeared in the pit of the theatre. Let me see: his coat was blue, edged with a narrow gold lace; a buff waistcoat; but I won’t be certain whether that was laced or not--I rather think it was not. He had black silk small-clothes, white silk stockings, small silver shoe-buckles, and a gold-laced three-cornered hat.”

“Did you know Gainsborough, Sir?” “Oh! I remember him; he was an odd man at times. I recollect my master Hayman coming home after he had been to an exhibition, and saying what an extraordinary picture Gainsborough had painted of the Blue Boy; it is as fine as Vandyke.”[499] “Who was the Blue Boy, Sir?” “Why, he was an ironmonger, but why so called I don’t know. He lived at the corner of Greek and King Streets, Soho; an immensely rich man.” “Did you know Mrs. Abington?” “Oh yes; she was a most delightful actress of women of fashion, though she made herself very ridiculous by attempting the part of _Scrub_.[500] Mr. Hoole, when he heard she was to play the character that evening, sent for a chair and went to see her; but he said it was so truly ridiculous, that he was quite disgusted. Ay, I see you have got Nollekens’s bust of Dr. Johnson. I made two drawings of him when I was at Oxford: one was for Sir Robert Chambers,[501] who married the pretty Miss Wilton, that went to India; who had the other, I can’t immediately say. I remember the Doctor asked me what countryman I was.--‘A Londoner, Sir, a Londoner.’ ‘And where born?’ ‘In the parish of Ethelburga, in Bishopsgate Within.’ It is a very small church; but my father and mother[502] were buried there, though I suppose, by this time, there’s nothing of them left. My friend Jonathan Tyers took milk and water for upwards of twenty years at his meals, though he very well knew what a good glass of wine was, as well as any man in England. Ay, and a fine haunch of venison, too. Many and many a time I have dined with him in the gardens, when I was making the drawing for Boydell, of Hayman’s picture of the Admirals. Mr. Tyers gave very excellent dinners, I must say.”

The truly skilful manner in which Mr. John Seguier has proceeded with the pictures painted by Rubens, which adorn the ceiling of Whitehall Chapel, will, I hope, prove a lasting record of his success in picture-cleaning. When first I ascended the scaffold, my astonishment was beyond conception at the enormous size of the objects. The children are more than nine feet, and the full-grown figures from twenty to twenty-five in height. The pictures were in a most filthy and husky state. However, it afforded me infinite delight to hear Mr. Seguier declare, that he firmly believed he should be able to remove Cipriani’s washy colouring completely; and that he expected to find that of Rubens in its pristine state. Upon my seeing these pictures on the floor, after they had been cleaned,[503] I found his predictions verified, and can now, by the judicious nourishment afforded to the canvas, announce their effect to be truly glorious. Every precaution has been taken, under the able direction of Sir Benjamin Clarke Stevenson, to render the roof impervious to the most inveterate weather, so that posterity, in all probability, may long enjoy the beauties of these masterpieces of art.

“UPPER GOWER STREET, BEDFORD SQUARE, _16th November 1832_.

“MY DEAR SIR,--As I am desirous to make your valuable collection of letters from bygone professional characters complete, gratify me by accepting the accompanying original communication from Mrs. Abington to Mrs. Jordan.[504] It will call to your remembrance the period when that skilful and excellent man, John Bannister, delighted the town by _his_ performances; whose retirement from public life in June, 1815 (after thirty-seven years of hard and honest service), opened the doors of Old Drury to a young aspirant for histrionic honours in the person of your humble servant.

“I need not here enumerate _all_ the advantages derived from a constant association with such an artist as John Bannister. An uninterrupted friendly intercourse of many years manifested the sincerity in which he penned the following note to me a short time after my appearance at Drury Lane Theatre:--

“‘65 GOWER STREET, _Dec. 30, 1815_.

“‘MY DEAR SIR,--I have been confined to my room more than three weeks with the gout; but I am now recovering, though slowly. Early next week, will you favour me with a visit in Gower Street? It will please me to give you all the information and gratification in my power, and to converse with you personally about theatrical matters.

“‘You are my successor, and I beg leave to say that I do not know any person more calculated to tread in my shoes. I sincerely hope you may never have occasion for the _gouty ones_! I remain, my dear Sir, yours sincerely,

“‘JOHN BANNISTER.’[505]

“‘TO J. P. HARLEY, ESQ., Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.’

“And now, my dear Sir, with every sincere hope for your continued health and happiness, believe that I am very truly yours,

“J. P. HARLEY.[506]

“TO JOHN THOMAS SMITH, British Museum.”

1833.

Mrs. Piozzi, in her anecdotes of Dr. Johnson, speaking of Porridge Island, says it “is a mean street in London, filled with cook-shops, for the convenience of the poorer inhabitants; the real name of it I know not, but suspect that it is generally known by to have been originally a term of derision.”

Porridge Island consisted of a nest of old rat-deserted houses, lately forming narrow alleys south of Chandos Street, and east of St. Martin’s church, which were originally occupied by numerous cooks for the accommodation of the workmen engaged in erecting the said church.[507]

FOOTNOTES

[1] Two other residences of Smith’s, less definitely associated with his books or etchings, are recorded. The first is No. 8 Popham Terrace, near the Barley Mow Tavern, in Frog Lane, Islington. His sojourn here is mentioned, without dates, by Lewis in his _History of Islington_ (1842). Frog Lane is now Popham Road, of which Popham Terrace appears to have been part. In 1809, Smith was living at No. 4 The Polygon, Somers Town.

[2] Thomas Lowe had taken Marylebone Gardens in 1763, at a rent of £170. Fresh from his triumphs as a tenor at Vauxhall, he made concerts the principal entertainment. In 1768 he compounded with his creditors.

[3] This theatre at Richmond was built two years before Smith’s birth, and was opened in May 1765, by Mr. Love, who spoke a prologue by Garrick. Love was the stage name of James Dance, who, as a son of George Dance, R.A., the City Architect, adopted it that he might not “disgrace his family,” a proceeding on which Genest comments: “Shall we never have done with this miserable cant? Foote, with much humour, makes Papillion say, in _The Lyar_: ‘As to Player, whatever might happen to me, I was determined not to bring a disgrace upon my family; and so I resolved to turn footman.’” _The Devil to Pay_, by Charles Coffey, was adapted from a play by Jevon called _The Devil of a Wife_, first produced at Drury Lane in 1731, when Love played “Jobson” and Mrs. Love “Nell.”

[4] “A convivial glass-grinder, then residing at No. 6, in Earl Street, Seven Dials, and who had, for upwards of fifty years, worn a green velvet cap,” is Smith’s note on his uncle. In his _Nollekens_ he says: “In the British Museum there is a brass medal of Vittore Pisano, a painter of Verona, executed by himself … his cap, which is an upright one with many folds, reminded me of that sort usually worn, when I was a boy, by the old glass-grinders of the Seven Dials.”

[5] Dr. William Hunter (1718-83) was elder brother of the celebrated Dr. John Hunter, to whom in 1768 he gave up his house in Jermyn Street, taking possession of the one he had built for himself in Windmill Street. In 1764 he had been appointed Physician Extraordinary to the Queen. He became a foundation member of the Royal Academy, as Professor of Anatomy. It is related that half an hour before his death he exclaimed: “Had I a pen, and were I able to write, I would describe how easy and pleasant a thing it is to die.”

[6] Now rebuilt as No. 38.

[7] Strype’s edition of Stow, 1720, contains many such plates. John Kip, the engraver, was born in Amsterdam. He died at Westminster in 1722.

[8] In the miscellaneous pages of his _Nollekens_, Smith reports Elizabeth Carter, of “Epictetus” fame, as saying to a Covent Garden fruiterer, named Twigg (jocularly known as the “Twig of the Garden”): “I recollect, Sir, when Mr. Garrick acted, hackney chairs were then so numerous that they stood all round the Piazzas, down Southampton Street, and extended more than half-way along Maiden Lane, so much were they in requisition at that time.”

[9] Voltaire first came to London in May 1726, after his confinement in the Bastille, landing at Greenwich on a cloudless night. His first impressions of London are quoted by Mr. Archibald Ballantyne in his interesting _Voltaire’s Visit to England_. After being the guest of Bolingbroke, Voltaire returned to Paris in a state of indecision, but, again crossing the Channel, he settled at Wandsworth, where he found a friend and host in Sir Everard Falkener. He met Pope, and improved his English by attending the theatres. Chetwood says: “I furnished him every evening with the play of the night (at Drury Lane), which he took with him into the orchestra (his accustomed seat): in four or five months he not only conversed in elegant English, but wrote it with exact propriety.” Voltaire became a well-known figure in London, and wrote his _Henriade_ in his London lodging at the sign of the “White Peruke,” Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, next door to the Bedford Head.

[10] _Notes of Proceedings and Occurrences during the British Embassy to Pekin_, 1816. Geo. Thos. Staunton, 1824. Printed for Private Circulation.

[11] Pliny the Younger, in writing to his friend, Baebius Macer, on the habits and life of his uncle, C. Plinius Secundus (Pliny the elder), says: “A shorthand writer constantly attended him, … who, in the winter, wore a particular sort of warm gloves, that the sharpness of the weather might not occasion any interruption to my uncle’s studies; and for the same reason, when in Rome, he was always carried in a chair. I recollect his once taking me to task for walking. ‘You need not,’ he said, ‘lose these hours.’ For he thought every hour gone that was not given to study” (_Letters of Pliny the Younger_, bk. iii. letter 5, p. 82. Bohn’s Classical Library).

[12] The Catalogue of this exhibition is entitled: “A Catalogue of the Paintings, Sculptures, Architecture, Models, Drawings, Engravings, etc., now exhibiting under the Patronage of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce, at their Great Room in the Strand, London.” It credits Mr. Nathaniel Smith, St. Martin’s Lane, with the following:--

210. A bust as large as life.

211. A figure of Time, imitating a bronze.

[13] Smith’s naval ancestor won his sobriquet, “Tom of Ten Thousand,” very easily. He had compelled the French corvette _Gironde_ to salute the British colours in Plymouth Sound, for which, on complaint, he was dismissed the navy for exceeding his instructions, but was shortly reinstated. The public believed that he had fired into the _Gironde_ to compel its respect to our flag, and on this exaggerated report gave him the name “Tom of Ten Thousand.” Smith, who rose to high rank, but won no great personal distinction, presided over the court-martial which condemned Admiral Byng in 1757.

It may be added that the name “Tom of Ten Thousand” has been borne by several men, notably by Thomas Thynne of Longleat, who was so called on account of his wealth. He was murdered in Pall Mall in February 1682, by three assassins hired by Count Königsmark. The murder is realistically portrayed on his tomb in the south aisle of Westminster Abbey. Another “Tom of Ten Thousand” was Thomas Hudson, a native of Leeds, who lost a large fortune in the South Sea Scheme, and, becoming insane, wandered the streets of London for years, leaning on a crutch.

[14] These coincidences of residence seem to be overstated by Smith. It must have been after, not before, his visit to Italy, which he made in his 36th year, that Wilson took apartments in the Piazza on the north side of Covent Garden. He lived above the rooms of Cock, the auctioneer, who was followed by Langford, and later still by George Robins. Sir Peter Lely had lived in the same house from 1662 until his death in 1680, and here his collections were sold in 1667. Smith seems to be wrong about Kneller. This painter’s house had been on the east side of the Square, known as the Little Piazza. Its garden, stretching back to Bow Street, was the scene of the famous quarrel between Kneller and Dr. Ratcliffe. A tenant who did precede Wilson was Hogarth, who, though he did not reside at Cock’s, had exhibited here his “Mariage à la Mode” gratis, with a view to its sale.

Wilson had a model made of a portion of the Piazza, which he used as a receptacle for his implements. The rustic work of the piers was provided with drawers, and the openings of the arches held pencils and oil bottles. An unbending devotion to his Italian manner of painting (he so Italianised a view of Kew Gardens that George the Third failed to recognise it) and a rough temper brought this fine painter to humbler dwellings in Charlotte Street, Great Queen Street, and Foley Place; finally, to a room in Tottenham Street. His fortunes were mended at the last by his appointment as Librarian to the Royal Academy, and his succession to a small estate in Wales on the death of his brother.

[15] See a plate in the _Lady’s Magazine_ of 1870, in which Miss Catley wears such elbow ruffles in the character of Rosetta in _Love in a Village_.

[16] The death of Molly Mogg was thus announced in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_: “Mrs. Mary Mogg, at Oakingham: she was the person on whom Gay wrote the song of ‘Molly Mogg.’” This song was first printed in _Mist’s Weekly Journal_ of August 27, 1726, with a note stating that “it was writ by two or three men of wit (who have diverted the public both in prose and verse), upon the occasion of their lying at a certain inn at Ockingham, where the daughter of the house was remarkably pretty, and whose name is Molly Mogg.” These “men of wit” were supposed to have been Pope, Swift, and Gay, and it was believed that they had together concocted the song, but the weight of evidence is in favour of Gay’s sole authorship. There is, however, enough doubt to warrant one in holding to the pleasant tradition that the three poets, over their cups at the Rose Inn, made the song which began (original version):--

“Says my Uncle, I pray you discover What has been the cause of your woes, That you pine and you whine like a lover? I’ve seen Molly Mog of the Rose.

Oh, Nephew! your grief is but folly, In town you may find better prog; Half a crown there will get you a Molly, A Molly much better than Mog.

…

The school boys delight in a play-day, The schoolmaster’s joy is to flog; The milk-maid’s delight is in May day, But mine is in sweet Molly Mog.”

[17] Finch’s Grotto Garden stood on the site now occupied by the headquarters of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade. It was opened--six years before John Thomas Smith was born--on the strength of a spring in the grounds which a Dr. Townshend was willing to declare medicinal. Concerts and fireworks were given with fair success, and here “Tommy” Lowe accepted engagements after his failure in the management of Marylebone Gardens. The tavern was burnt down in May 1795, and was replaced by another called the “Goldsmith’s Arms,” afterwards styled the “Old Grotto New Reviv’d.” This tavern bore the inscription--

“Here Herbs did grow And flowers sweet, But now ’tis call’d Saint George’s Street.”

All that is known about Finch’s Grotto is told by Mr. Warwick Wroth in his admirable _London Pleasure Gardens of the Eighteenth Century_.

[18] This famous aid to the teething of children was invented about the year 1717, when there appeared a _Philosophical Essay upon the Celebrated Anodyne Necklace_, dedicated to Dr. Paul Chamberlen (who died in this year), and the Royal Society. This tract, quoted by Mr. J. Eliot Hodgkin in _Notes and Queries_ of Feb. 16, 1884, argues the advantages of the necklace as follows:--

“For since the difficult _Cutting of Children’s Teeth_ proceeds from the hard and strict Closure of their _Gums_; If you get Them but once separated and opened, the _Teeth_ will of themselves Naturally come Forth; Now the Smooth Alcalious Atoms of the _Necklace_, by their insinuating figure and shape, do so make way for their Protrusion by gently _softening_ and _opening_ the hard swelled _Gums_, that the TEETH will of themselves without any difficulty or pain CUT and come out, as has been sufficiently proved.”

Mr. Hodgkin describes the necklace as “of beads artificially prepared, small, like barley-corns,” costing five shillings. An early depôt was Garraway’s at the Royal Exchange Gate. In Smith’s day they were sold in Long Acre by Mr. Burchell at the sign of the Anodyne Necklace, and the price was still “5s. single,” with “an allowance by the dozen to sell again.” Burchell advertised: “After the Wearing of which about their Neck but One night, Children have immediately cut their TEETH with Safety, who but just before were on the Brink of the Grave.”

[19] According to Daulby’s numbering.

[20] For some curious erudition on go-carts see Smith’s _Life of Nollekens_, where he says (1829 ed. i. 221): “When I was a boy, the go-cart was common in every toy-shop in London; but it was to be found in the greatest abundance in the once far-famed turners’ shop in Spinning-wheel Alley, Moorfields: a narrow passage leading from those fields to the spot upon which the original Bethlehem Hospital stood in Bishopsgate Street. In 1825-26, however, both Spinning-wheel Alley and Old Bethlehem were considerably altered and widened, and subsequently named Liverpool Street.”

[21] Hone says: “The late King George IV. and his brothers and sisters, all the royal family of George III., were rocked. The rocker was a female officer of the household, with a salary” (_Every Day Book_). Rocker cradles are to-day made in Ireland by villagers, and sold from door to door.

[22] Two artists, father and son, bore the name of Israel von Meckenen. They flourished in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, and appear to have collaborated on some 250 prints. The British Museum has a fine set of their engravings.

[23] The stone inscribed “Here lies Nancy Dawson” no longer exists. M. Dorsay Ansell, the obliging keeper of the burial-grounds (now laid out as one recreation-ground) of St. George the Martyr and St. George’s, Bloomsbury, is frequently applied to for information as to its existence. Eighteen years ago, when these grounds were formed, careful search was made for interesting stones, and the gravestone of Zachary Macaulay, among others, was discovered by Mr. Ansell. That of Nancy Dawson was never found, but it may be buried out of sight.

Nancy Dawson is stated to have died at Haverstock Hill, May 27, 1767. Her portrait in oils still hangs in the Garrick Club, and the print-sellers are familiar with her figure in theatrical costume. She is believed to have been born about 1730, to have been the daughter of a Clare Market porter, and to have lived in poverty in St. Giles’s or in a Drury Lane cellar. The rather ill-supported narratives of her career speak, as does Smith, of her waiting on the skittle-players at a Marylebone tavern, which Mr. George Clinch thinks (_Marylebone and St. Pancras_) may have been the old “Rose of Normandy” in High Street.

Nancy Dawson’s fortune was made in 1759 in the Beggars’ Opera. The man who danced the hornpipe among the thieves happened to have fallen ill, and his place was taken by Nancy, who was then a rising young actress. From that moment her success was secure. Her real monument is the song beginning--

“Of all the girls in our town, The black, the fair, the red, the brown, That dance and prance it up and down, There’s none like Nancy Dawson!

Her easy mien, her shape so neat, She foots, she trips, she looks so sweet, Her ev’ry motion’s so complete, I die for Nancy Dawson!”

[24] Musgrave’s note continues: “Whom she deserted upon his discovering that she had an intrigue with the exciseman of that district.”

[25] Rubens’s beautiful second wife, Helena Fourment, who was only sixteen when he married her. She is the subject of not a few of his pictures.

[26] Nollekens, the sculptor, highly approved of puddings for children, and would say, “Ay, now, what’s your name?” “Mrs. Rapworth, sir.” “Well, Mrs. Rapworth, you have done right; I wore a pudding when I was a little boy, and all my mother’s children wore puddings.”

[27] The parent of the Royal Academy, as an exhibiting body, was the Foundling Hospital in Guilford Street. A number of painters, including Hogarth, Reynolds, Richard Wilson, and Gainsborough, agreed to present pictures to Captain Coram’s charity. These were shown with such success, that the possibility of holding remunerative exhibitions was perceived, and in 1760 a free exhibition was opened in the rooms of the Society of Arts. In following years exhibitions were held in Spring Gardens. In 1765 the “Incorporated Society of Artists of Great Britain” obtained its charter; but disputes arose, and three years later twenty or more painters successfully petitioned George III. to establish the “Royal Academy of Arts in London.” So many of the original members of the Royal Academy are mentioned by Smith, that it will be useful to insert their names. They were all nominated by George III.:

Sir Joshua Reynolds. Benjamin West. Thomas Sandby. Francis Cotes. John Baker. Mason Chamberlin. John Gwynn. Thomas Gainsborough. J. Baptist Cipriani. Jeremiah Meyer. Francis Milner Newton. Paul Sandby. Francesco Bartolozzi. Charles Catton. Nathaniel Hone. William Tyler. Nathaniel Dance. Richard Wilson. G. Michael Moser. Samuel Wale. Peter Toms. Angelica Kauffman. Richard Yeo. Mary Moser. William Chambers. Joseph Wilton. George Barret. Edward Penny. Agostino Carlini. Francis Hayman. Dominic Serres. John Richards. Francesco Zuccarelli. George Dance. William Hoare. Johan Zoffany.

A year and a day after the foundation of the Royal Academy, it was resolved: “There shall be a new order, or rank of members, to be called Associates of the Royal Academy.” Of the first twenty Associates, the following are mentioned in the _Rainy Day_: Richard Cosway, John Bacon, James Wyatt, Joseph Nollekens, James Barry (all of whom were afterwards R.A.’s); and Antonio Zucchi, Michael Angelo Rooker, and Biagio Rebecca.

The first Royal Academy exhibition was opened to the public in Pall Mall “immediately east of where the United Service Club now stands” (Wheatley) on the 26th of April, 1769. Two years later, the King assigned rooms in Somerset House to the Academy, but his offer was not utilised until the new Somerset House was ready, in 1780. Here the annual exhibitions were held for fifty-eight years. The Academicians then migrated to the eastern half of the National Gallery building in Trafalgar Square. In 1869 the removal to Burlington House was made. The history of the rise and progress of the Royal Academy, which Smith wished might have been undertaken by its secretary, Henry Howard, R.A., has been written very fully by William Sandby, and again recently by the late J. E. Hodgson, R.A., and Mr. F. A. Eaton in collaboration.

[28] In this riot in St. George’s Fields, five or six people were killed by the Guards, and about fifteen wounded.

[29] Henry Fuseli (1741-1825) had come to London in 1763. On presenting himself before Sir Joshua Reynolds, the following dialogue occurred: “How long have you studied in Italy?” “I never studied in Italy--I studied in Zurich--I am a native of Switzerland--do you think I should study in Italy? and, above all, is it worth while?” “Young man, were I the author of these drawings, and were I offered ten thousand a year _not_ to practise as an artist, I would reject the proposal with contempt.”

[30] Dr. John Armstrong, whose poem, “The Art of Preserving Health,” was long famous, is now best remembered as the author of a few stanzas in Thomson’s _Castle of Indolence_ describing the morbid effects of indolence. Haydon writes of Fuseli: “He swore roundly, a habit which he told me he contracted from Dr. Armstrong.”

[31] Sir John Eardley-Wilmot, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, decided several cases arising out of Wilkes’s libels: his reply to Lord North’s extraordinary letter was the only one he could make. In spite of Wilkes’s easy victory at the poll, the House of Commons declared that Colonel Luttrell ought to have been elected, and his name was substituted for Wilkes’s in the return, a proceeding which inflamed the situation.

[32] Henry William Bunbury stands apart from his fellow-caricaturists as a wealthy amateur. He was the second son of the Rev. Sir William Bunbury, Bart., of Great Barton, Suffolk, and married Catherine Horneck, the “Little Comedy” of Goldsmith. Bretherton was an engraver and printseller in Bond Street. He engraved nearly all Bunbury’s drawings, and it was said that he alone could do so with good effect.

[33] For almost a century the exodus of the London citizens to the outlying country was considered fair game for satire. Bunbury’s caricature of 1772 only records the humours which Robert Lloyd had touched in “The Cit’s Country Box,” printed in No. 135 of the _Connoisseur_.

“The trav’ler with amazement sees A temple, Gothic or Chinese, With many a bell and tawdry rag on, And crested with a sprawling dragon. A wooden arch is bent astride A ditch of water four feet wide; With angles, curves, and zigzag lines, From Halfpenny’s exact designs. In front a level lawn is seen, Without a shrub upon the green; Where taste would want its first great law, But for the skulking sly Ha-Ha; By whose miraculous assistance You gain a prospect two fields distance. And now from Hyde Park Corner come The gods of Athens and of Rome: Here squabby Cupids take their places, With Venus and the clumsy graces; Apollo there, with aim so clever, Stretches his leaden bow for ever.”

Even Cowper saw little but absurdity in the demand for villas and “summer-houses.”

“Suburban villas, highway-side retreats, That dread th’ encroachment of our growing streets, Tight boxes neatly sash’d, and in a blaze With all a July sun’s collected rays, Delight the citizen, who, gasping there, Breathes clouds of dust, and calls it country air.”

Horace Smith, Lord Byron, and Thomas Hood all touched more or less satirically on this subject.

[34] There is a confusion here. Walpole in his _Anecdotes of Painting_ deals only with Jonathan Richardson the elder (1665-1745), portrait painter and critic; Smith refers to his son (1694-1771). The two were greatly attached to each other. There was a story that they sketched each other’s faces every day. Old Richardson, who wrote a treatise on _Paradise Lost_, was able to study the classics only through his son, on whom he doted. Hogarth made a caricature, which he suppressed, of the father using his son as a telescope to read the writers of Greece and Rome. W. H. Pyne says of Old Richardson in _Wine and Walnuts_: “He seldom rambled city-ways, though sometimes he stepped in at the ‘Rainbow,’ where he counted a few worthies, or looked in at Dick’s and gave them a note or two. He would not put his foot on the threshold of the ‘Devil,’ however, for he thought the sign profane. Fielding would run a furlong to escape him; he called him Doctor Fidget.”

[35] The milkmaids’ chief haunt was Islington, whence hundreds of them carried the milk into London every morning. In his print “Evening,” the scene of which is laid outside the “Middleton Head,” Hogarth has an Islington milkmaid milking a cow, and in his “Enraged Musicians,” a milkmaid with her cry of _Milk Belouw_ contributes to the town noises. The “garlands of massive plate” which the milkmaids carried round on May Day were borrowed of pawnbrokers on security. One pawnbroker, says Hone, was particularly resorted to. He let his plate at so much per hour, under bond from housekeepers for its safe return. In this way one set of milkmaids would hire the garland from ten o’clock till one, and another from one till six, and so on during the first three days of May. These customs had all but passed away when Smith wrote his _Rainy Day_, but long after the milkmaids had ceased to celebrate the London May Day the chimney-sweepers brought out their Jacks-in-the-green, specimens of which have been seen in the streets in the last twenty years. In 1825, Hone speaks of the dances round the “garland” as a “lately disused custom.”

[36] The boxes and pavilions at Vauxhall were decorated with paintings at the suggestion of Hogarth, who permitted his “Four Times of the Day” to be copied by Francis Hayman. He also presented Tyers with a picture from his own hand, “Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn,” receiving in acknowledgment a gold ticket inscribed “In perpetuam Beneficii memoriam,” and giving admission to “a coachfull” of people. The Vauxhall paintings chiefly represented sports and sentimental scenes. Among Hayman’s works were, “The Game of Quadrille,” “Children Playing at Shuttlecock,” “Leap Frog,” “Falstaff’s Cowardice Detected,” etc. In November 1841, twenty-four of these pictures, all in a dirty condition, were sold in the Gardens at prices varying from 30s. to £10.

[37] Marcellus Lauron, or Laroon (1653-1702), was born at the Hague, and came to London, where he painted draperies for Sir Godfrey Kneller and executed his “Cryes of London,” engraved by Tempest. His son, Captain Marcellus Lauron, or Laroon, was soldier, artist, and actor, and a friend of Hogarth.

[38] Probably Dr. George Armstrong, brother of Dr. John Armstrong, author of the poem, “The Art of Preserving Health.”

[39] In Smith’s boyhood the “Queen’s Head and Artichoke” was a rural tavern and tea-garden in Marylebone Park, quarter of a mile north of the New Road, now Marylebone Road. The Marylebone Gardens were in decline, and their place was taken by three smaller resorts, the “Queen’s Head and Artichoke,” the “Jew’s Harp,” and the “Yorkshire Stingo.” The two first-named places were connected by a zigzag path known as Love Lane. In his _Nollekens_ Smith has this choice morsel: “Mrs. Nollekens made it a rule to allow one servant--as they kept two--to go out on the alternate Sunday; for it was Mrs. Nollekens’ opinion that if they were never permitted to visit the ‘Jew’s Harp,’ ‘Queen’s Head and Artichoke,’ or Chalk Farm, they never would wash _theirselves_.” The site of the “Artichoke” was covered by Decimus Burton’s Colosseum.

[40] The “Jew’s Harp,” dubiously explained as a corruption of _jeu trompe_, _i.e._ toy-trumpet, stood near the lower portion of the Broad Walk in Regent’s Park. Its arbours and tea-garden were long an attraction to the London youth. Here Arthur Onslow, when Speaker, was accustomed to sit in an evening smoking his pipe, and sharing in the tavern talk. The landlord’s discovery that his guest was the Speaker of the House of Commons cost him his customer, for when Onslow found himself received at the “Jew’s Harp” with ceremony, he discontinued his visits.

[41] This farm in the possession of Thomas Willan was taken by order of the Treasury for the formation of Regent’s Park in 1794. It contained about 288 acres.

[42] Marylebone Gardens had their main entrance in High Street, Marylebone, and extended eastward to Harley Street.

[43] Richard Kendall’s farm, comprising about 133 acres, was absorbed in Regent’s Park.

[44] The “Green Man” (rebuilt) stands east of Portland Road, Metropolitan Railway Station, on the site of the “Farthing Pie House,” at which scraps of mutton put into a crust were sold for a farthing. The rural state of this neighbourhood, and the regrets which the spread of London awakened, are set forth in Dr. Ducarel’s speech in the chapter, “Nothing to Eat,” in Ephraim Hardcastle’s (William Henry Pyne’s) delightful _Wine and Walnuts_:--

“‘Verily I cannot get this mighty street out of my head,’ said the Doctor. ‘And then there is the new park--what do you call it? Mary-le-bone--no, the Regent’s Park: it seems to be an elegant, well-planned place, methinks, and will have a fine effect, no doubt, with its villas and what not, when the shrubs and trees have shot up a little. But I shall not live to see it, and I care not; for I remember those fields in their natural, rural garb, covered with herds of kine, when you might stretch across from old Willan’s farm there, a-top of Portland Street, right away without impediment to Saint John’s Wood, where I have gathered blackberries when a boy--which pretty place, I am sorry to see, these brick-and-mortar gentry have trenched upon. Why, Ephraim, you metropolitans will have half a day’s journey, if you proceed at this rate, ere you can get a mouthful of fresh air. Where the houses are to find inhabitants, and, when inhabited, where so many mouths are to find meat, must be found out by those who come after.’”

[45] Smith seems to have understated the facts. James Easton, the author of a curious work, entitled “_Human Longevity_, recording the name, age, place of residence, and year of the decease of 1712 persons, who attained a century and upwards, from A.D. 66 to 1799, etc.” (Salisbury, 1799), enumerates sixty-one cases in this year as against Smith’s forty-eight. He gives the following particulars of the three cases named by Smith:--

“Mrs. Keithe--133, of Newnham, Gloucestershire. She, lived moderately, and retained her senses till within fourteen days of her death. She left three daughters, the eldest aged one hundred and eleven; the second one hundred and ten; the youngest one hundred and nine. Also seven great, and great great grandchildren.

“Mr. Rice--115, of Southwark, cooper.

“Mrs. Chun--138, near Litchfield, Staffordshire; resided in the same house one hundred and three years. By frequent exercise, and temperate living, she attained so great longevity. She left one son and two daughters, the youngest upwards of one hundred years.”

[46] According to one story, Mother Damnable was Jinney, the daughter of a Kentish Town brick-maker, named Jacob Bingham. After living with a marauder named Gipsy George, who was hanged for sheep-stealing, Jinney passed from the protection of one criminal to another, until she was left a lonesome and embittered woman. She lived in her own cottage, built on waste land by her father, and abused everyone.

“’Tis Mother Damnable! that monstrous thing, Unmatch’d by Macbeth’s wayward women’s ring. For cursing, scolding, fuming, flinging fire I’ the face of madam, lord, knight, gent, cit, squire.”

The story went that on the night of her death hundreds of persons saw the Devil enter her house. On the site rose the inn which bore her portrait as its sign. Smith’s mention of the terror with which it was regarded may have reference to its loneliness and gruesome traditions. In his own day the inn was a pleasant resort. “Then the old Mother Red Cap was the evening resort of worn-out Londoners, and many a happy evening was spent in the green fields round about the old wayside houses by the children of poorer classes. At that time the Dairy, at the junction of the Hampstead and Kentish Town roads, was not the fashionable building it is now, but with forms for the pedestrians to rest on, they served out milk fresh from the cow to all who came” (John Palmer, _St. Pancras_). This dairy, so long a landmark to North Londoners, has just disappeared in favour of a “Tube” railway station.

[47] This curious work may still be seen in Little Denmark Street, where its forty or fifty writhing figures, incrusted with grime, look at a little distance like some ordinary floral design. The original “Resurrection Gate” was erected about the year 1687, in accordance with an order of the vestry. The bill of expenses is extant, and its terms were contributed by Dr. Rimbault to _Notes and Queries_ of June 23, 1864, showing the cost to have been £185, 14s. 6d., of which £27 was paid for the carving to an artist named Love. In 1900, the present Tuscan gate in Little Denmark Street was erected with the old carving inserted.

[48] Probably Charles Harriot Smith, the architect, who was at first a stone-carver. He died in 1864.

[49] The Reverend James Bean was Vicar of Olney, Buckinghamshire, and assistant librarian at the British Museum. He died in 1826, and was buried in St. George’s, Bloomsbury, burial-ground.

[50] Strype says these almshouses bore the inscription, “St. Giles’s Almshouse, anno domini 1656.” They were removed in 1782.

[51] Originally Queen Anne’s Square and now Queen Anne’s Gate.

[52] The Pound stood, as Smith indicates, in the broad space where St. Giles High Street, Tottenham Court Road, and Oxford Street met; it was removed in 1765.

[53] This song, entitled “Just the Thing,” is valuable as a portrait of the eighteenth-century “hooligan,” ancestor of Mr. Clarence Rook’s nineteenth century “Alf” in _Hooligan Nights_:--

“On Newgate steps Jack Chance was found, And bred up near St. Giles’s Pound, My story is true, deny it who can, By saucy, leering Billingsgate Nan. Her bosom glowed with heartfelt joy When first she held the lovely boy. Then home the prize she straight did bring, And they all allow’d he was just the thing.

At twelve years old, I have been told, The youth was sturdy, stout, and bold; He learn’d to curse, to swear, and fight, And everything but read and write.

But when he came to man’s estate, His mind it ran on something great, A-thieving then he scorn’d to tramp; So hir’d a pad and went on the scamp. At clubs he all Flash Soup did sing. And they all allow’d he was just the thing.

His manual exercise gone through, Of Bridewell, Pump, and Horse Pond too, His back had often felt the smart Of Tyburn strings at the tail of a cart. He stood the patter, but that’s no matter, He gammon’d the Twelve, and work’d on the water, Then a pardon he got from his gracious King, And swaggering Jack was just the thing.

Like a captain bold, well arm’d for war. With bludgeon stout, or iron bar, At heading a mob, he never did fail, At burning a mass-house, or gutting a jail; But a victim he fell to his country’s laws, And died at last in religion’s cause. NO POPERY! made the blade to swing, And when tuck’d up he was just the thing.”

[54] Mr. George Clinch, in his _Marylebone and St. Pancras_, says that there is some reason to think that a portion at least of Capper’s farm still remains. A large furniture establishment at Nos. 195-198, Tottenham Court Road, exhibits on a wall in the rear two tablets marking the boundary of St. Pancras and St. Giles-in-the-Fields, and bearing eighteenth-century dates. An old lease of the property, Mr. Clinch adds, contains a clause binding the tenant to keep stabling for forty head of cattle, and it is known that the premises were once used as a large livery stable.

[55] Hanway Street now boasts only one milliner, but has several art and curiosity shops of the kind Smith loved. The “Blue Posts” (rebuilt) is still at the corner of Hanway Street. Mr. Joshua Sturges’ book, published in 1800, was on draughts, not chess. It was entitled _Guide to the Game of Draughts_, and was dedicated by permission to the Prince of Wales. It has an engraved frontispiece, “Figure of the Draught Table.”

Sturges was probably not buried, as Smith states, in the Hampstead Road, but in St. Pancras cemetery (see _Notes and Queries_, Series II. x. 64). Lovers of draughts may be glad to have a copy of his epitaph. It ran thus: “SACRED TO THE MEMORY of MR. JOSHUA STURGES. Many years a RESPECTABLE LICENSED VICTUALLER in this Parish; who departed this Life the 12th of August, 1813. Aged 55 years. He was esteemed for the many excellent Qualities he possessed, and his desire to improve the Minds, as also to benefit the Trade of his Brother Victuallers. His Genius was also eminently displayed to create innocent and rational amusement to Mankind, in the Production of his Treatise on the difficult game of Draughts, which Treatise received the Approbation of his Prince, and many other Distinguished Characters. In private Life he was mild and unassuming; in his public capacity neither the love of Interest or domestic ease, could separate this faithful Friend from the Society of which he was a Member, in the performance of Duties which his Mind deemed Paramount to all others. His example was worthy of Imitation in this World. May his Virtues be rewarded in the next. Peace to his Soul, and respected be his Memory.”

[56] Goodge Street (named after a Marylebone property owner) still retains some of its original houses, but no house whose ground floor has not been converted into a shop. Windmill Street, on the other hand, is a quaint little street of artificers in wood and metal, instrument makers, etc., many of its houses remaining in their first state, with forecourts. The rural traditions of this street are supported at No. 40 by a vine, bearing bunches of unripened grapes in August 1903. Colvill Court is now called Colvill Place, but it is essentially a court. The name Gresse’s Gardens (after the father of Alexander Gresse the water-colour painter) survives in Gresse Street, a queer little dusty, dusky byway, easy to enter from Rathbone Place, but difficult to quit at its southern end by Tudor Place. Here His Majesty’s mail vans are stabled.

[57] This pond is plainly marked also in Rocque’s map of 1745. Considering its interesting name, it has obtained singularly little mention by topographers.

[58] Whitefield built his chapel--in 1756, not 1754--on land leased for seventy-one years from General Fitzroy. He opened it on November 7th of the same year, preaching a sermon from the text, “Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” A house for the minister and twelve almshouses were added, and the chapel enlarged. Whitefield proposed to be buried in its vaults, and told to his congregation, “Messrs. John and Charles Wesley shall also be buried there. We will all lie together.” All three were buried elsewhere, but Mrs. Whitefield was buried here: her remains and those of all other persons, except Augustus Toplady, were removed to Chingford cemetery when the present building was begun. A remarkable monument was that to John Bacon, R.A., the sculptor, with its impressive inscription: “What I was as an artist seemed to me of some importance while I lived, but what I really was, as a believer in Jesus Christ, is the only thing of importance to me now.” After a serious fire in 1857, the original brick building was altered out of knowledge, and was finally demolished in 1889. For some years an iron chapel and an appeal for subscriptions occupied the ground. In 1892 the present ornately fronted chapel, inscribed “Whitefield Memorial,” was built. In 1903, the present minister, the Reverend C. Silvester Horne, received “recognition” as the thirteenth minister in succession to Whitefield.

[59] More correctly, Crab and Walnut Tree Field.

[60] Smith makes a slip in locating the historic fight between Broughton and Slack in April 1750, at the “Adam and Eve” tavern. It took place in Broughton’s own Amphitheatre near Adam and Eve Court in the Oxford Road. Smith correctly states the position of this Amphitheatre in his _Antient Topography of London_ (1810): “Broughton’s Amphitheatre is still standing; it is at the south-west corner of Castle Street, Wells Street; the lower part is a coal shed, the upper a stage for timber.” Its site is now occupied by No. 62 Castle Street East, close to Adam and Eve Court.

Here it was that the founder of the modern prize-ring, whose “Broughton rules” were observed everywhere until 1838, met disaster in his fight with the plucky Norwich butcher. The result was his retirement from the ring, and the loss by his backer, the Duke of Cumberland, of a bet of £10,000. In his later years, Broughton lived in Walcot Place, Lambeth, where he died, aged 85. He was buried in Lambeth Church. A monument to him in the West Walk of the Cloisters of Westminster Abbey describes him as “Yeoman of the Guard”; and it is stated in the _Dictionary of National Biography_ that a place among the Yeomen was obtained for him by the Duke of Cumberland. In his _Historical Memorials of Westminster Abbey_, Dean Stanley says: “After his name on the gravestone is a space, which was to have been filled up with the words ‘Champion of England.’ The Dean objected, and the blank remains.” But the blank does not remain. It was filled in 1832 with the names of Roger Monk, another Yeoman of the Guard, and his wife. It is worthy of note, too, that the _earliest_ name on the tablet is that of Broughton’s wife, Elizabeth, who was actually buried here.

[61] See note p. 105.

[62] Fischer had the further distinction of being married to a daughter of J. T. S., whose other daughter married a Mr. Smith, a sculptor.

[63] Gooseberry Fair followed the suppressed Tottenham Fair. Both were held in and about the Adam and Eve Tavern. Richard Yates and Ned Shuter appeared together at various London fairs.

[64] Charles Fleetwood threw Drury Lane into confusion both behind and before the scenes, by his unpunctual payment of salaries, and by attempting to introduce pantomimes against the wishes of the old play-goers. This led to noisy scenes in 1744, in one of which Horace Walpole stigmatised Fleetwood as “an impudent rascal” from his box, and was embarrassed by the enthusiastic approval of the audience.

[65] The exact site of the famous Footsteps is not easily determined. Dr. Rimbault (_Notes and Queries_, February 2, 1850) says that it was reputed to be “at the extreme termination of the north-east end of Upper Montague Street.” It is placed a little farther west by Robert Hill, the water-colour painter, who stated in a letter, quoted by Mr. Wheatley in his _London_: “I well remember the Brothers’ Footsteps. They were near a bank that divided two of the fields between Montague House and the New Road, and their situation must have been, if my recollection serves me, what is now Torrington Square.” Smith says the Footsteps were “on the site of Mr. Martin’s chapel, or nearly so.” Mr. John Martin, the Baptist minister, had the chapel in Keppel Street. It still exists. This brings the Footsteps a few yards south, but Smith’s indefiniteness must be taken into account. That these markings were visible as late as 1800 is proved by the following entry in the Commonplace Book of Joseph Moser: “June 16th, 1800. Went into the fields at the back of Montague House, and there saw, for the last time, the Forty Footsteps: the building materials are there to cover them from the sight of man.” The feeling with which these curious marks were regarded by educated people may be judged by a letter quoted in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ of December 1804, in which the writer expresses his conviction that “the Almighty has ordered it as a standing monument of his great displeasure of the horrid sin of duelling,” an opinion in which the poet Southey concurred. In 1828, Miss Jane Porter published her novel, _The Field of the Forty Footsteps_.

[66] Nearly a hundred years later, a similar superstition survived in London, and is thus noted by Brand in his _Popular Antiquities_: “In the _Morning Post_, Monday, May 2nd, 1791, it was mentioned ‘that yesterday, being the first of May, according to annual and superstitious custom, a number of persons went into the fields and bathed their faces with the dew on the grass, under the idea that it would render them beautiful.’”

[67] The occasion was a dinner at Tom Davies’s in 1762. “BOSWELL: Does not Gray’s poetry, sir, tower above the common mark? JOHNSON: Yes, sir; but we must attend to the difference between what men in general cannot do if they would, and what every man may do if he would. Sixteen-string Jack towered above the common mark.” Dr. William Bell, whom Rann robbed, was Rector of Christ Church, London, 1780-99, and treasurer of St. Paul’s Cathedral.

[68] Probably a mistake. These nosegays were given to condemned criminals on their way to Tyburn by the St. Sepulchre authorities. Rann was one of the last to receive the gift.

[69] Saunders Welch, the father of Mrs. Nollekens, was educated in Aylesbury workhouse, and for many years was a grocer in Museum Street, then Queen Street. He succeeded Fielding as a Justice of the Peace for Westminster. Smith says in his _Nollekens_ that he met many people who recollected seeing him as High Constable of Westminster, “dressed in black, with a large, nine-storey George the Second’s wig highly powdered, with long flowing curls over his shoulder, a high three-cornered hat, and his black baton tipped with silver at either end, riding on a white horse to Tyburn with the malefactors.” A long and warm friendship existed between Saunders Welch and Dr. Johnson. “Johnson, who had an eager and unceasing curiosity to know human life in all its variety, told me that he attended Mr. Welch in his office for a whole winter, to hear the examinations of the culprits” (Boswell).

[70] To-day, High Street, Marylebone, is perhaps the most perfect High Street left in London. Neither from its north end in Marylebone Road nor from Oxford Street does it receive heavy traffic; its shops exist for the fine streets and squares around it, and it offers them the best of most things, from a tender chicken to a county history.

[71] “In the year 1741, the old church in which Hogarth has introduced his “Rake at the Altar with the Old Maid” was taken down, and the present one built on its site; so that the writers who have stated that the scene took place in the present edifice must acknowledge their error, if they will take the trouble to refer to Hogarth’s fifth plate of the Rake’s Progress, where they will find its publication to have taken place June 25, 1735.”--S.

[72] Probably Christopher Norton, of the St. Martin’s Lane Academy.

[73] Tradition reports that from Elizabeth it came to the Forsyths, and thence to the Duke of Portland. In his _Marylebone and St. Pancras_, Mr. Clinch writes: “In the year 1703 a large school was established here by Mr. De la Place. That gentleman’s daughter married the Rev. John Fountayne, Rector of North Sidmouth, in Wiltshire, and the latter succeeded Mr. De la Place in the school. The school is said to have obtained a considerable reputation among the nobility and gentry, whose sons there received an educational training previously to their removal to the universities.”

[74] “Mr. Fountayne had one son, afterwards Dean of York, and three daughters, viz. Mrs. Hargrave, Mrs. Jones, and Mrs. Metz. Mrs. Hargrave was lately living; she was the wife of Counsellor Hargrave, and was esteemed a great beauty. Another daughter of Monsieur De la Place married the Rev. Mr. Dyer, brother to the author of _Grongar Hill_, to whose nephew, the late Mr. Dyer, the printseller, I am obliged for some parts of the above information.”--S.

[75] Reproduced in Mr. Clinch’s _Marylebone and St. Pancras_ (1890).

[76] Michael Angelo Rooker (1743-1801), the water-colour painter and engraver. “His works are drawn with conscientious accuracy, and show a sweet pencil” (Redgrave). He died March 3, 1801, in Dean Street, Soho, and was buried in the ground belonging to St. Martin-in-the-Fields, in the Kentish Town Road. Examples of his work are hung at South Kensington.

[77] The wonderful extra-illustrated copy presented to the Museum by John Charles Crowle, and valued at £5000.

[78] That is to say tiled.

[79] The Rev. John Fountayne was more than “noticed” by Handel; the two men were intimate. A grandson of Fountayne wrote in 1832: “One evening as my grandfather and Handel were walking together and alone, a new piece was struck up by the band. ‘Come, Mr. Fountayne,’ said Handel, ‘let us sit down and listen to this piece--I want to know your opinion of it.’ Down they sat, and after some time the old parson, turning to his companion, said, ‘It is not worth listening to--it’s very poor stuff.’ ‘You are right, Mr. F.,’ said Handel, ‘it is very poor stuff--I thought so myself when I had finished it.’ The old gentleman, being taken by surprise, was beginning to apologise; but Handel assured him there was no necessity; that the music was really bad, having been composed hastily, and his time for the production limited; and that the opinion given was as correct as it was honest” (Hone’s _Year Book_). “Clarke” was doubtless Dr. Adam Clarke, the Wesleyan, who died in Bayswater in 1832, and was well known for his bibliographical and theological works.

[80] Lady Harrington might well lend her jewels, since she often borrowed. Horace Walpole tells how, at the Coronation of George III., she appeared “covered with all the diamonds she could borrow, hire, or seize, with the air of Roxana, the finest figure at a distance.”

[81] The great actress. She played Violante to Garrick’s Don Felix in the actor’s last appearance.

[82] In his _Memoirs_, the Rev. John Trusler, who was educated at Dr. Fountayne’s school, does not spare Mrs. Fountayne’s tuft-hunting tendencies. In one instance she was covered with ridicule through the action of a Soho pastry-cook named Jenkins, who, wishing his son to enter the school, arranged that he should do so under the name of the Prince De Chimmay. When Mrs. Fountayne discovered that his father made tarts a mile from the school door, “she had the laugh so much against her, that she could not show her face for months.”

[83] The Royal College of Physicians, then housed in Warwick Lane.

[84] Norfolk Street was the northern continuation of Newman Street; it is now merged in Cleveland Street.

[85] John Baptist Locatelli, a native of Verona, had his studio in Union Street, Tottenham Court Road, from 1776. He was befriended by Horace Walpole, with whom he quarrelled bitterly over a group representing Theseus offering assistance to Hercules. Walpole refused to take this work, although he had already paid the sculptor £350 on account, and was probably justified, since Nollekens said the group looked “like the dry skins of two brickmakers stuffed with clotted flocks from an old mattress.” Locatelli worked also for the brothers Adam, and he superintended the carving of the basso-relievos put up by Nollekens on the outside of the Sessions House, Clerkenwell Green. In 1796 he left England for Milan, where Buonaparte employed him and granted him a pension. (See Smith’s _Life of Nollekens_, 1829, pp. 119-123, and Thornbury’s _British Artists_, vol. ii. pp. 9-16).

[86] Wilson, upon whom a note has been given under the year 1766, lived at No. 36 Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square, within a few minutes’ walk of this group of elms. He was accustomed of a fine evening, says Redgrave, to throw open his window and invite his friends to enjoy with him the glowing sunset behind the Hampstead and Highgate hills. Fitzroy Square was not begun until 1790-94. To-day the miles between Charlotte Street and these northern heights are filled by streets. Nevertheless, Hampstead church can still be seen from Charlotte Street, piercing the northern distance, and, but for the slight deflection of Rathbone Place, it would be visible from Oxford Street. John Constable afterwards lived in the same street. The elms under which Wilson and Baretti walked must have had their roots in the ground on which the east side of Cleveland Street is built.

[87] It is difficult to form an idea of this instrument. It was beaten with a rolling-pin, and appears to have been used as a drum in such a way (according to the manner in which it was struck) as to produce something like notes. This is indicated in Bonnell Thornton’s burlesque, _Ode to St. Cecilia’s Day_, in which occur the well-known lines which amused Dr. Johnson:--

“In strains more exalted the salt-box shall join, And clattering and battering and clapping combine; With a rap and a tap while the hollow side sounds. Up and down leaps the flap, and with rattling rebounds.”

The character of the neighbourhood round the “Farthing Pie House” (Portland Road Station) in Smith’s boyhood, may be judged by Smith’s statement in his _Vagabondiana_, that “when the sites of Portland Place, Devonshire Street, etc., were fields, the famous Tommy Lowe, then a singer at Mary-le-bone Gardens, raised a subscription, to enable an unfortunate man to run a small chariot, drawn by four muzzled mastiffs, from a pond near Portland Chapel, called Cockney Ladle, which supplied Mary-le-bone Bason with water, to the ‘Farthing Pie House’ … in order to accommodate children with a ride for a halfpenny.”

[88] By Queen Anne Street Smith means the street which has borne the successive names of Little Queen Anne Street, Queen Anne Street East, Foley Place, and (now) Langham Street. The present Queen Anne Street is on the _west_ side of Portland Place; it was originally Great Queen Anne Street, then Queen Anne Street West. A curious interest attaches to these streets, neither of which runs, as it seems destined to do, into Portland Place. Thus:--

[Illustration]

Their failure to run directly into Portland Place (see dotted lines) is a relic of Foley House which occupied the site of the Langham Hotel, and interposed its gardens where these streets would have joined. It was afterwards intended to build a Queen Anne Square at the foot of Great Portland Street, but this project fell through.

[89] There were many ponds in the fields on which the streets of St. Pancras and Marylebone are built. In an early view of Whitefield’s Tabernacle, a pond is delineated on a spot now covered, as nearly as may be judged, by Torrington Square. Farther west, on the site of Duke Street, Portland Place, was the Cockney Ladle, in which small boys bathed at the risk of having their clothes seized by the parish beadles. Close by this--on the site of the backs of the east side of Harley Street--was the Marylebone Basin, a dangerously deep water. Many drownings occurred in ponds of which no trace or memory remains. Thus, the _St. James’s Chronicle_ of August 8, 1769, says: “Two young chairmen [_i.e._ carriers of sedan chairs] were unfortunately drowned on Friday Evening last, in a Pond behind the North-Side of Portman-Square. They had been beating a Carpet in the Square, and being thereby warm and dirty agreed to bathe in the above Pond, not being aware of its great Depth. The Man who first went in could swim, and while he was swimming his Companion went in, but being presently out of his Depth he sunk. The Swimmer immediately made to the Place to save his Companion; but he, coming up again under the Swimmer, laid fast hold of him, and they both sunk down together and were drowned.”

[90] “On Friday last, Mr. Carlile, a Quaker of about 17 years of age, had the misfortune to fall into Marylebone-Bason, and was drowned” (_Daily Advertiser_, June 18, 1744).

[91] And from their contiguity to a French Protestant chapel, founded in 1756.

[92] The difficulty of writing recent history is exemplified by Smith in his account of Marylebone Gardens, which is far excelled by Mr. Warwick Wroth’s chapter on Marylebone Gardens in his _London Pleasure Gardens of the Eighteenth Century_ (1896). Fully to annotate Smith’s chronology of these gardens would require many pages, and the result would be unsatisfactory. I shall therefore deal with only the more prominent names he mentions.

[93] May 7, 1668.

[94] M. Wroth says: “In 1691 the place was known as Long’s Bowling Green at the Rose, and for several years (_circ._ 1679-1736) persons of quality might have been seen bowling there during the summer-time.

‘At the Groom Porters battered bullies play; Some Dukes at Marybone bowl time away.’”

These lines, often erroneously attributed to Lady Mary Wortley Montague, occur in Pope’s _The Basset-table, an Eclogue_.

[95] Rockhoult, or Rockholt House, was at Leyton, in Essex, and was “for a short period an auxiliary place of amusement for the Summer to the established Theatres” (_Gentleman’s Magazine_, July 1814). It was opened about 1742, and was apparently regarded as “the place to spend a happy day.” A ballad to “Delia” exclaimed--

“Delia, in whose form we trace All that can a virgin grace, Hark where pleasure, blithe as May, Bids us to Rockholt haste away.”

[96] “The principal shareholder and manager of Ranelagh at this date was Sir Thomas Robinson, Bart., M.P., whose gigantic form was for many years familiar to frequenters of the Rotunda; a writer of 1774 calls him its Maypole, and Garland of Delights. Robinson lived at Prospect Place, adjoining the gardens.”

[97] The New Wells belonged to the Islington group of pleasure gardens, and stood on ground now occupied by Lower Rosomon Street, Clerkenwell. It flourished 1737-50, and numbered a collection of rattlesnakes among its attractions.

[98] Cuper’s Gardens, a great resort. The Feathers Tavern at the end of Waterloo Bridge is the successor of the tavern originally in the gardens, the site of which is traversed by the Waterloo Road. They were closed in 1759, after which Dr. Johnson, passing them in a coach with Langton, Beauclerk, and Lady Sydney Beauclerk (mother of his friend), jokingly proposed, to Lady Sydney’s horror, that they should lease them: “She had no notion of a joke, sir; she had come late into life, and had a mighty unpliable understanding.”

[99] Advertised as “the Pariton, an instrument never played in publick before.”

[100] Mary Ann Falkner was a niece of George Falkner, the Dublin printer, whom Foote caricatured on the stage. She appeared at Marylebone from 1747 to about 1752, giving such songs as “Amoret and Phyllis,” “The Happy Couple,” and “The Faithful Lover.” Much sought after, she remained faithful to her husband, a linen draper named Donaldson, until his conduct threw her under the protection of the second Earl of Halifax.

[101] M. Wroth says, on good evidence, that Trusler became proprietor only in 1756.

[102] The career of young John Trusler, afterwards the Rev. Dr. Trusler, is interesting. Without a collegiate training, he took Holy Orders, and officiated as a curate in London. His eye for business revealed to him the possibilities of sermon-mongering, and he was soon making a respectable income by supplying clergymen all over the country with sermons in script characters. His operations became something of a scandal, and Cowper scourged him in “The Task”--

“He grinds divinity of other days Down into modern use, transforms old print To zigzag manuscript, and cheats the eyes Of gallery critics by a thousand arts. Are there who purchase of the doctor’s ware? Oh, name it not in Gath! It cannot be That grave and learned clerks should need such aid. He doubtless is in sport, and does but droll, Assuming thus a rank unknown before-- Grand caterer and dry-nurse of the Church!”

Trusler also issued the morning and evening services so printed and punctuated as to indicate to incompetent readers how they should be delivered. Cowper writes--

“He teaches those to read, whom schools dismiss’d, And colleges, untaught; sells accent, tone, And emphasis in score, and gives to prayer The _adagio_ and _andante_ it demands.”

Prospering at this business, Trusler set up a publishing establishment in Wardour Street, from which he issued manuals of all kinds, including his most respectable work, _Hogarth Moralised_, in which Mrs. Hogarth became a partner and collaborator. At the age of 85 he died in his villa at Englefield Green, Middlesex.

[103] Miss Trusler’s seed and plum cakes were famous. In a judgment on Mrs. Cornelys for keeping an objectionable house, Sir John Fielding sagely remarked that her Soho assemblies were unnecessary, having regard to the many attractions elsewhere, such as “Ranelagh with its music and fireworks, and Marylebone Gardens, with music, wine, and plum-cake.”

[104] The arrival of three Cherokee Indian chiefs in the spring of 1762 roused the liveliest interest in London. These braves came over in token of friendship after the ratification of a treaty of peace at Charlestown, South Carolina. They were well-made men, six feet in height, and were dressed, says the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ (May 1762), “in their own country habit with only a shirt, trousers, and mantle round them; their faces are painted of a copper colour, and their heads adorned with shells, feathers, ear-rings, and other trifling ornaments. They neither of them can speak to be understood, and very unfortunately lost their interpreter in their passage. A house is taken for them in Suffolk Street, and cloaths have been given them in the English fashion.” Among the thousands of Londoners who went to see the “Cherokee Kings” was Oliver Goldsmith.

[105] By an indenture dated August 30, 1763. This document, which Smith’s namesake Thomas Smith quoted in his _History of the Parish of Marylebone_, shows that the Gardens were attached to the Rose Tavern, and that they contained walks, statuary, boxes, benches, and musical appliances and books. Lowe’s lease was for fourteen years at the annual rent of £170.

[106] Not the well-known Stephen Storace (who was born only in this year), but his father, a Neapolitan, described by George Hogarth as “a good performer on the double bass in the band of the Opera House.”

[107] Nan Catley won hearts by her breezy manner and air of camaraderie. Hers “was the singing of unequalled animal spirits; it was Mrs. Jordan’s comedy carried into music.… She was bold, volatile, audacious” (Boaden: _Life of Mrs. Siddons_).

[108] Long before this, Dick Turpin had appeared in the Garden itself, and had surprised Mrs. Fountayne, the wife of the Marylebone schoolmaster, with a kiss. He impudently remarked, “Be not alarmed, madam; you can now boast that you have been kissed by Dick Turpin. Good-morning!”

[109] Lowe was now glad to obtain singing engagements at Sadler’s Wells and other tea-gardens. His career from riches to poverty is illustrated in the story, told by John Taylor in his _Records of My Life_, that, soon after becoming master of Marylebone Gardens, he was seen riding thither in his chariot with a large iron trunk behind it, which he explained he had purchased “to place the profits of the Gardens in.” Taylor adds that he had last seen Lowe in a lane near Aldersgate Street, coming out of a butcher’s shop, with some meat in a checked handkerchief.

[110] An editorial note in the third edition of the _Rainy Day_ suggests that this name was made popular by Prior’s “Chloe.” This seems probable, for Prior gave all the vogue of an ideal to this woman, who, in real life, was the wife of a coachman in Long Acre, and was described by Johnson as “a despicable drab of the lowest species.”

[111] See note on Weston, p. 208.

[112] Charles Bannister, the vocalist and actor, father of the more famous John Bannister.

[113] Signor Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, born near Ancona in the first decade of the eighteenth century, composed numerous operas and oratorios. Of the former his _La Serva Padrona_ was revived in London as late as 1873.

[114] Felix Giardini, a Piedmontese musician, came to England in 1750, and met with encouragement. He died in Russia in 1793. After hearing him play at Bath, Gainsborough bought his viol-di-gamba, but was soon disgusted to find that the music remained with the Italian. Horace Walpole was not enthusiastic about Giardini as a composer, and advised Mason to employ Handel to set his _Sappho_. “Your Act is classical Athenian; shall it be subdi-di-di-vi-vi-vi-ded into modern Italian?”

[115] Dr. Arnold’s appearance at Bow Street was in respect of a rocket-stick which had descended in the sacrosanct garden of Mrs. Fountayne.

[116] “To James Winston, Esq. [secretary to the Garrick Club, and several times mentioned in the diary of John Payne Collier], I am obliged for the above notices; indeed, to that gentleman’s disinterested indulgence I am also indebted for many other curious particulars introduced in this work, selected from his most extensive and valuable library of English Theatrical Biography, both in manuscript and in print, a collection formed by himself during the last thirty years.”--S.

[117] “Torré was a printseller in partnership with the late Mr. Thane, and lived in Market Lane, Haymarket.”--S.

[118] Dr. William Kenrick, the rampageous critic and playwright. His comedy _The Duellist_ is his best-remembered work. In July 1774 he began a course of lectures in the “Theatre for Burlettas” at Marylebone Gardens, which he termed “a School of Shakespeare,” an entertainment which he also gave at the Devil Tavern in Fleet Street. Kenrick attacked Dr. Johnson’s Shakespeare. On Goldsmith saying that he had never heard of Kenrick’s writings, the doctor replied: “Sir, he is one of the many who have made themselves public, without making themselves known.”

It is curious that Smith omits to mention Dr. Johnson’s rampageous visit to the Gardens to see Torré’s fireworks, with his friend George Steevens, the Shakesperian commentator. It may have taken place in this year, 1774.

[119] Robert Baddeley began his connection with the stage as cook to Foote. He was the original Moses in the _School for Scandal_. It was he who bequeathed £100 to provide the cake and wine which actors and journalists still consume on Twelfth Night. He is stated by Dr. Doran to have been the last actor to wear the royal livery of scarlet, which, as “His Majesty’s Servants,” the Drury Lane players were entitled to assume.

[120] A posthumous son of Henry Carey, author of “Sally in our Alley.” “Saville Carey I have heard sometimes touch Nan Catley’s manner feebly in the famous triumph of her hilarity, ‘Push about the Jorum’” (Boaden: _Life of Mrs. Siddons_). His worthless daughter, Nance Carey, bore to one Kean, a tailor, or a builder, a child whom she neglected and abandoned. This boy became Edmund Kean, the great actor (Doran’s _Their Majestys’ Servants_, vol. ii. pp. 523-26).

[121] These initials thinly disguise such well-known entertainers as Garrick, Bannister, Mrs. Baddeley, and the singers Mr. Darley, Mr. Vernon, and Nan Catley, all of whom were imitated by the versatile Carey.

[122] As Abel Drugger, one of his finest parts.

[123] The “Forge of Vulcan” was Signor Torré’s masterpiece; in it appeared Venus and Cupid in dialogue, in more or less relevant circumstances of flame and lava.

[124] Fantoccino, the Italian puppet-entertainment, was introduced to France by an Italian named Marion (hence “marionettes”), and then into England. The great London Fantoi show of the eighteenth century was Flockton’s.

Breslaw, the conjurer, began his London appearances in 1772, in Cockspur Street. In 1774 he gave his entertainment on alternate days here and at the “King’s Arms” opposite the Royal Exchange. It is told of him while performing at Canterbury, he promised the Mayor that if the duration of his licence were extended he would give one night’s receipts to the poor. The Mayor agreed, and the conjurer had a full house. Hearing nothing further of the money, the Mayor called on Breslaw to inquire. The following dialogue ensued.

“Mr. Mayor, I have distributed the money myself.”

“Pray, sir, to whom?”

“To my own company, than whom none can be poorer.”

“This is a trick!”

“Sir, we live by tricks.”

[125] Baggio Rebecca, decorative painter, died in 1808. Of his election as Associate of the Royal Academy in 1771, Leslie says: “Academic advancement was rapid in those days. Every man who displayed the least ability was certain of election.” Rebecca had a small share in decorating the Royal Academy lecture-room at Somerset House.

[126] Most of these localities have ceased to be the resort of bird-fanciers. To-day the chief London quarters for song-birds are St. Giles’s, Leadenhall Market, and, above all, Sclater Street in Spitalfields, known as “Club Row.”

[127] The sights in this famous cockpit are recorded by Hogarth in his print of 1759, and by Rowlandson in Ackermann’s _Microcosm of London_ (1808).

Bainbridge Street survives as a narrow lane behind New Oxford Street, leading from Dyott Street to the back of Meux’s brewery.

At the beginning of the eighteenth century the cockpit behind Gray’s Inn (its exact locality is not easily discovered), enjoyed “the only vogue” (Hatton). Mr. William B. Boulton (_The Amusements of Old London_, 1901) quotes a description of it by Von Uffenbach, a German traveller, who says it was specially built for the sport.

Pickled-Egg Walk, afterwards Crawford’s Passage (now Crawford Passage, Ray Street, Clerkenwell), was named after the proprietor of the Pickled-Egg Tavern, who brought from the West of England a recipe for pickled eggs and supplied this novel cate to his customers. Pink mentions a tradition that Charles II. once paused here in a suburban journey and ate a pickled egg. The mains fought at the cockpit here were regularly advertised in the newspapers.

Charles Hughes and Charles Dibdin, the song-writer, opened the “Royal Circus and Equestrian Philharmonic Academy” in 1782.

Cock-fighting was made illegal in 1849, but a statement in _Cocking and its Votaries_ (1895), by S. A. T. (for private circulation), makes it quite manifest that “not a few wealthy men in England still follow up this sport, stealthily but with much zeal--a fact that is as discreditable to the guardians of the law as it is to themselves.” I quote Mr. J. Charles Cox in his admirable edition of Strutt’s _Sports and Pastimes_ (1903).

[128] Behind this formal entry lies the most affecting farewell scene ever enacted on a London stage. The doors of Drury Lane Theatre were opened at “half after five” on that evening of June 10, 1776, and the profits of the performance were announced to be given to the Theatrical Fund. It was but the last of a series of farewell nights in which Garrick had played his great parts for the last time to densely crowded houses. As Mr. Percy Fitzgerald says: “Other actors retire in one night, Garrick’s departure filled a whole season and only culminated on this last night.” “Last night,” he wrote, “I played Abel Drugger for the last time. I thought the audience were cracked, and they almost turned my brain.”

On June 5, King George and his Queen attended to see Garrick’s last “Richard.” Distinguished people were turned nightly from the doors, and many became almost frantic to think that they must see Garrick now or never again. Hannah More wrote: “I pity those who have not seen him. Posterity will never be able to form the slightest idea of his perfections.… I have seen him within three weeks take leave of Benedick, Sir John Brute, Kitely, Abel Drugger, Archer, and Leon.”

On the last night, of all, Garrick played Don Felix in Mrs. Centilivre’s comedy, which he chose, perhaps, as a foil to the tragedy of his farewell. In his Life of the actor Mr. Fitzgerald thus describes the supreme moment: “He retired slowly--up--up the stage, his eyes fixed on them with a lingering longing. Then stopped. The shouts of applause from that brilliant amphitheatre were broken by sobs and tears. To his ears were borne from many quarters the word ‘Farewell! Farewell!’ Mrs. Garrick was in her box, in an agony of hysterical tears. The wonderful eyes, still brilliant, were turned wistfully again and again to that sea of sympathetic faces, one of the most brilliant audiences perhaps that ever sat in Drury Lane; and at last, with an effort, he tore himself from their view.”

[129] Garrick’s last season at Drury Lane was Mrs. Siddons’ first. She was but twenty-one years of age, and made no striking success, though “her type was enlarged in the bill” (Boadley).

[130] A single short fall of lace from the hat has been far from unfashionable in recent years. Fans were carried later than 1776. A print of two ladies in outdoor costume in the _Gallery of Fashion_, published in May 1796, is reproduced by Fairholt, who remarks: “Both ladies carry the then indispensable article--a fan.” Indeed, the fashion-plates of the eighteenth century disclose hardly any period in which fans were not carried out of doors.

[131] Norton Street is now Bolsover Street, running south from near Portland Road Station, parallel east of Great Portland Street. In the eighteenth century it had considerable pretensions. From it Sir William Chambers’s funeral proceeded to the Abbey in March 1796. Wilson, Turner, and Wilkie all painted here. It is now a dull macadamised street in whose houses upholstering, steel-cutting, etc., are carried on.

[132] Smith erroneously notes that “this house, subsequently inhabited by the Duchess of Bolton, Sir John Nicholl, Sir Vicary Gibbs, and by Sir Charles Flower, Bart., has been recently pulled down, and several houses built upon the site.” The premises remain to this day, but they form several houses. As early as 1776 Northouck noted that Baltimore House was “either built without a plan, or else has had very whimsical owners; for the door has been shifted to different parts of the house, being now carried into the stable-yard.”

[133] The map engraved for Northouck’s _History of London in 1772_ shows that Smith was justified in these statements. The unexpected break in the houses which still occurs on the south side of Guilford Street is a relic of the desire to leave this square open to Highgate. This intention was defeated when the north side of Guilford Street was built. Thenceforward the north-westward growth of London was rapid, and by 1845 rurality had been pushed up to Chalk Farm by advancing brick and mortar.

[134] This Italian painter exhibited portraits and water colours at the Royal Academy from 1774 to 1778. He painted the principal ceiling at the old East India House.

[135] This painting is said to represent Mary, and her son James (afterwards James I. of England) as a boy four years of age. Doubts have been thrown on its history. (See _Gentleman’s Magazine_, vols. xlviii. and xlix.)

[136] A fortune-teller by tea-leaves, the leaves being “grouted” or turned over in the cup.

[137] At this time Charles Towneley (1737-1805) was living at No. 7 Park Street (now, with Queen Anne’s Square, named Queen Anne’s Gate), where he entertained, among others, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Nollekens, and Johann Zoffany. The Townley collection of Greek and Roman statues, altars, urns, busts, etc., now in the British Museum, was freely shown to the public in Park Street.

[138] It was from Mr. Tunnard’s house, on Bankside, that Smith etched the river procession which brought Nelson’s body to Whitehall, mentioned in Smith’s note, p. 182.

[139] The manager, and afterwards part proprietor, of Thrale’s brewery. He hung a fine mezzotint portrait of Johnson in the counting-house, and when Mrs. Thrale, in Johnson’s presence, asked him why he had done so, he replied, “Because, madam, I wish to have one wise man there.” “Sir,” said Johnson, “I thank you. It is a very handsome compliment, and I believe you speak sincerely.”

[140] The Rev. James Beresford became Rector of Kibworth Beauchamp, Lincoln, in 1812. He died in 1840.

[141] Elizabeth Carter, of “Epictetus” fame, the friend of Dr. Johnson. See note, p. 231.

Anna Letitia Barbauld, the well-known miscellaneous writer, whose poem “Life! I know not what thou art” is her one imperishable composition.

Angelica Kauffman, the painter (1741-1807). See Smith’s account of her under the year 1807.

Mrs. Sheridan was the beautiful, clever, and faithful wife of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, whom she assisted in the management of Drury Lane Theatre.

Charlotte Lenox, born in New York, 1720, was the author of _The Life of Harriot Stuart_, in which she portrayed her own youth. She found interest in high quarters, and was given apartments in Somerset House, which, however, she lost when that building was demolished. Dr. Johnson insisted on his friends sitting up all night at the Devil Tavern to celebrate Mrs. Lenox’s “first literary child” (_Harriot Stuart_), an immense apple pie being part of the entertainment. In the morning the waiters were so sleepy that the party had to wait two hours for their reckoning.

Mrs. Montague, the original “blue stocking,” had little womanly taste, but her mind was well stored and active; she lived in an atmosphere of English and foreign talent, and her assemblies at Montague House, in Portman Square, are historical. Dr. Johnson was severe on her _Essay on the Writings and Genius of Shakespeare_, remarking: “Reynolds is fond of her book, and I wonder at it; for neither I nor Beauclerk nor Mrs. Thrale could get through it.”

Hannah More had appeared in the London literary firmament in 1774; her tragedy _Percy_ had just been given by Garrick, and her star was in brightest ascension.

Such was the fame of Mrs. Catherine Macaulay, author of a forgotten _History of England_, that Dr. Wilson, Rector of St. Stephen’s, Walbrook, erected a statue to her in the chancel of that church during her lifetime. It was very properly removed by his successor.

Mrs. Elizabeth Griffith wrote several plays which Garrick presented with success. _The Letters of Henry and Frances_, which she wrote in collaboration with her husband, a dramatist, were popular.

[142] At No. 5 (now No. 4) Adelphi Terrace, Garrick lived between 1772 and 1779. He died at about 8 a.m. The house is distinguished by a commemorative tablet, as also (recently and more artistically) is his previous residence in Southampton Street, Strand.

[143] Boswell says: “Garrick’s funeral was talked of as extravagantly expensive, but Dr. Johnson, from his dislike to exaggeration, would not allow that it was distinguished by an extraordinary pomp. ‘Were there not six horses to each coach?’ said Mrs. Burney. JOHNSON: ‘Madam, there were no more six horses than six phœnixes.’” On this Croker notes: “There certainly were, and Johnson himself went in one of the coach and six.” Richard Cumberland saw Johnson standing beside the grave, at the foot of Shakespeare’s statue, bathed in tears. Horace Walpole wrote to the Countess of Ossory, February 1, 1779: “Yes, madam, I do think the pomp of Garrick’s funeral perfectly ridiculous,” and he gave his reasons with epigrammatic force. Others were of the same opinion; and John Henderson, the actor, wrote “a rather bitter impromptu on Mr. Garrick’s Funeral,” in which Garrick is represented as directing the pageant.

“‘Call all my carpenters--bid George attend. And ransack Monmouth Street from end to end; Buy all the black, defraud the starving moth. Or let him, if he will, defile the cloth: Bring moth and all--we have no time to lose-- If there’s not black enough, then buy the blues.’ … Thus far he spoke, in an imperial tone, And quite forgot the funeral was his own.”

[144] Antonio Zucchi, A.R.A., who became Angelica Kauffmann’s second husband, was employed by the brothers Adam, the architects of the Adelphi. The cost of the mantelpiece is given by Mr. Wheatley as £300, the probable figure. Mrs. Garrick died in the same house in 1822.

[145] The “English Grotto,” as it was called, was one of the Islington group of tea-gardens. Its proprietor, Jackson, pleased his public by an ingenious water-mill, an “enchanted fountain,” and a display of gold and silver fish. A pleasingly rustic view in the Crace collection is reproduced by Mr. Wroth in _London Pleasure Gardens of the Eighteenth Century_.

[146] Francesco Bartolozzi, R.A., was an original member of the Royal Academy, and he engraved its diploma. His rapid rise, and his appointment to be engraver to the King at £300 a year, were disturbing to Sir Robert Strange, who treated him with misplaced contempt. “Let Strange beat that if he can,” exclaimed Bartolozzi, on executing his “Clytia.” Unfortunately he was improvident, and his studio became a manufactory of facile chalk studies, to many of which he put only the finishing touches. After a brilliant career in England, he went to Lisbon, where he was knighted, and died there in 1815, in his 88th year.

[147] John Hinchliffe (1731-94), the son of a livery-stable keeper in Swallow Street, was born in Westminster, and educated at Westminster School. He was consecrated Bishop of Peterborough, Dec. 17, 1769. He bought some of Smith’s youthful imitations of Rembrandt and Ostade. A note on Sherwin will be found under 1782.

[148] In 1781, Mary Robinson (1758-1800), known as “Perdita,” had ceased to be the mistress of the Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV., whose bond for £20,000, never paid, was exchanged for the pension of £500 a year awarded her by Fox in 1783. She was portrayed by Reynolds twice, and by Romney, Gainsborough, Hoppner, Zoffany, and twice by Cosway.

The original name of Mrs. Robinson’s family had been M’Dermott, which had been changed by an ancestor to Darby. Mrs. Darby had brought up her daughter under difficult circumstances. Obliged to earn her own living during her husband’s absence in America, she started a ladies’ boarding school in Little Chelsea, in which the future “Perdita” (as we learn from her autobiography) taught English literature to the daughters of the well-to-do citizens, and read to them “sacred and moral lessons on saints’ days and Sunday evenings.” The “high personage” referred to in this paragraph is of course the Prince, in whom Richard Cosway, the courtly miniaturist, found a lavish patron.

[149] Anticipating, on a higher scale, Dickens’s servant-girl bride, who, on stepping into a hackney-coach after the ceremony, “threw a red shawl, which she had, no doubt, brought on purpose, negligently over the number on the door, evidently to delude pedestrians into the belief that the hackney-coach was a private carriage” (_Sketches by Boz_).

[150] Smith’s first master, John Keyse Sherwin, had been a pupil of Bartolozzi. In his studio in St. James’s Street, he was patronised by the Duchesses of Devonshire and Rutland, Lady Jersey, and other ladies of rank, many of whom were eager to figure in his drawing of “The Finding of Moses,” in which the Princess Royal appeared as Pharaoh’s daughter. He was a wonderfully skilful portrait artist: “I have often seen him,” says Smith, “begin at the toe, draw upwards, and complete it at the top of the head in a most correct and masterly manner. He had also an extraordinary command over the use of both his hands.” He was an irregular worker, however, and debt and dissipation helped to kill him at the age of 39.

The sitting given to Sherwin by Mrs. Siddons took place soon after her re-appearance at Drury Lane Theatre, the beginning of her real fame, October 10, 1782. After opening with Isabella in Garrick’s version of _The Fatal Marriage_, she played Euphrasia in _The Grecian Daughter_.

[151] William Henderson, a collector, lived at No. 33 Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square, where he was the neighbour of Constable.

[152] Mathews’ collection, the formation of which had been the passion of his later years, was not dispersed. It consisted almost entirely of portraits, and on these he is said to have laid out about £5000. For their accommodation the younger Mathews built a special gallery for his father at Ivy Cottage, Kentish Town, from a design by Pugin. In gratifying his tastes, Mathews found that he had sacrificed his privacy to sight-seers; the rural cottage in which he had sought peace became a show-place. The collection ultimately passed to the Garrick Club.

[153] Apparently Smith refers to his will, as it then existed; but, as a matter of fact, he left no will. On his death, letters of administration were granted to his widow, the value of his estate being only £100. The second of the two witnesses was doubtless John Pritt Harley. See note, p. 321.

[154] John Charles Crowle of Fryston Hall, Wakefield, lawyer and antiquary, was a member of the Dilettanti Society, and its Secretary, 1774-78. He was a noted joker and boon companion, and left a tangible proof of his interest in art and antiquity in the illustrated and interleaved copy of Pennant’s _History of London_ which he bequeathed to the British Museum. He died in 1811.

[155] Rats’ Castle is described by Smith in his _Nollekens_ as “a shattered house then standing on the east side of Dyot Street, and so called from the rat-catchers and canine snackers who inhabited it, and where they cleaned the skins of those unfortunate stray dogs who had suffered death the preceding night.” Nollekens obtained models for his Venuses from Mrs. Lobb, an elderly lady in a green calash, at the Fan Tavern in Dyot Street. This street was named after Richard Dyot, a parishioner of St. Giles-in-the-Fields. “The name was changed to George Street in consequence of a filthy song which attained wide popularity, but the original name was restored in 1877” (Wheatley).

[156] This inscription appears to be incorrect. An editorial note to the 1845 (second) edition of the _Rainy Day_ points out that this well-known beggar died April 25, 1788, and that the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ recorded his death thus: “In Bridewell, where he was confined a second time as a vagrant, the man known by the name of Old Simon, who for many years has gone about this city covered with rags, clouted shoes, three old hats upon his head, and his fingers full of brass rings. On the following day, the Coroner’s Inquest sat on his body, and brought in their verdict, ‘Died by the visitation of God.’”

[157] Dr. John Gardner, a well-known character, erected his tomb in the churchyard of St. Leonard’s, Shoreditch, some years before his death, and inscribed it:

DR. JOHN GARDNER’S LAST AND BEST BEDROOM,

but finding that he was assumed to be already dead, and that his practice as a worm-doctor in Norton Folgate was declining, he interpolated the word “intended” thus:

DR. JOHN GARDNER’S INTENDED LAST AND BEST BEDROOM.

A correspondent of _Notes and Queries_, Aug. 25, 1860, wrote: “I remember him well; a stout, burly man with a flaxen wig: he rode daily into London on a large roan-coloured horse.” It was said that he was buried in an erect position by his own wish. Gardner’s tombstone is still carefully preserved, and is a curiosity of the Hackney Road, whence the inscription can be read through the churchyard railings. It now runs:

1807

Dr. John Gardner’s Last and best Bedroom Who departed this life the 8th Of April, 1835, in his 84th year. Also are here Interred two of His Sons and Two of His Granddaughters.

[158] “Funeral Weever”: John Weever (1576-1632), poet and antiquary; author of _Ancient Funeral Monuments_, 1631.

[159] “I know not whether Mrs. Nollekens was of Lord Monboddo’s opinion, that men originally had tails; but I could have informed her that it has been asserted that the species of monkeys that have no tails are more inclined to show tricks than those that have.”--(Smith.)

[160] The antiquary, and correspondent of White of Selborne. He joined this year (1783) the club founded by Johnson at the Essex Head in Essex Street, Strand.

[161] Mrs. Nollekens was Mary, second daughter of Mr. Saunders Welch, the police magistrate. Her flightiness and parsimony are Smith’s endless sport in his Life of her husband, and he was willing to believe that her character resembled that of Pekuah, the favourite attendant of the princess, in _Rasselas_. Miss Hawkins says in her _Anecdotes_, that Johnson drew Pekuah from Mary Welch, and that she had this from Anne Welch. In any case, the Doctor found “Pekuah’s” vivacity agreeable. Smith relates: “I have heard Mr. Nollekens say that the Doctor, when joked with about her, observed, ‘Yes, I think Mary would have been mine, if little Joe had not stepped in.’”

[162] “The name of Norman was so extensively known, that I consider it hardly possible for many of my readers to be ignorant of his fame; indeed, so much was he in requisition, that persons residing out of Town would frequently order the carriage for no other purpose than to consult Dr. Norman as to the state of Biddy’s health, just as people of rank now consult Partington or Thompson as to the irregularities of their children’s teeth” (Smith: _Nollekens_).

[163] George Keate was a man of miscellaneous talent. His best-known literary works are his serio-comic poem “The Distressed Poet” (1787), and his “Account of the Pelew Islands from the Journal of Captain Henry Wilson.” He enjoyed the friendship of Voltaire at Geneva, and was careful that the world should know it. In her _Early Diary_, Miss Burney gives a good portrait of Keate as she met him “at the house of six old maids, all sisters, and all above sixty.” She found him a “sluggish” conversationalist who aimed continually at making himself the subject of discussion, “while he listened with the greatest nonchalance, reclining his person upon the back of his chair and kicking his foot now over, and now under, a gold-headed cane.”

[164] This dealer probably bought dog-skins. “The dexterous of all dentists” may be explained by the following passage in Smith’s _Vagabondiana_ (1817): “It is scarcely to be believed that some few years ago a woman of the name of Smith regularly went over London early in the morning, to strike out the teeth of dead dogs that had been stolen and killed for the sake of their skins. These teeth she sold to bookbinders, carvers, and gilders, as burnishing tools.”

[165] The Last Supper was one of many religious subjects which the Quaker artist painted for his uncritical patron, George III. It was a transparent painting, and was let into the east window, which was structurally altered for its accommodation; but it was long ago removed, and the window restored. It is a commonplace that West’s powers lagged far behind his ambition. “Twenty years after his death,” says Mr. E. T. Cook, “some of his pictures, for which he had been paid 3000 guineas, were knocked down at a public sale for £10; and such of his pictures as had been presented to the National Gallery have now been removed to the provinces.” West’s work for George III. is represented by seventeen paintings in the Queen Anne’s Drawing-Room at Hampton Court. These include “Hannibal Swearing never to make Peace with Rome,” “The Death of Epaminondas,” “The Death of General Wolfe” (a picture of some value), “The Final Departure of Regulus from Rome,” etc.

[166] Richard Wyatt of Egham was a well-known amateur, and the patron of John Opie. He married Priscilla, daughter of John Edgell of Milton Place, and had three sons and four daughters.

[167] Anne, or Nancy, Parsons is supposed to have been the daughter of a Bond Street tailor. She lived under the protection of a Mr. Horton, a West India merchant, with whom she went to Jamaica. On her return she lodged in Brewer Street, and, after living with Duke of Dorset and others, became the mistress of the Duke of Grafton. Junius bitterly says: “The name of Miss Parsons would hardly have been known if the first Lord of the Treasury had not led her in triumph through the Opera House, even in the presence of the Queen. When we see a man act in this manner, we may admit the shameless depravity of his heart, but what are we to think of his understanding?” Ultimately Nancy Parsons married Charles, second Viscount Maynard.

[168] Sir Richard Colt Hoare, second baronet (1758-1838), began life in the family bank, but, being made independent of business, he married a daughter of William Henry, Lord Lyttelton, and devoted himself to travel, study, and his art collections. He completed histories of ancient and modern Wiltshire, and smaller works, and was an excellent example of the wealthy antiquary.

[169] George Huddesford (1749-1809) was an artist in early life, studying under Reynolds; in middle life he took to scribbling, and showed a turn for satire. A collected edition of his works appeared in 1801, entitled: “The Poems of George Huddesford, M.A., late Fellow of New College, Oxford. Now first collected, including Salmagundi, Topsy-Turvy, Bubble and Squeak, and Crambe Repetita, with corrections and original additions.”

[170] These verses begin--

“In Liquorpond-street, as is well known to many, An Artist resided who shaved for a penny. Cut hair for three-halfpence, for three pence he bled, And would draw, for a groat, every tooth in your head.

What annoy’d other folks never spoil’d his repose, ’Twas the same thing to him whether stocks fell or rose; For blast and for mildew he car’d not a pin, His crops never fail’d, for they grew on the chin.”

[171] Henry Kett (1761-1825) was a frequent subject of caricatures. The learned Thomas Warton’s comment on his “Juvenile Poems” was--

“Our Kett not a poet! Why, how can you say so? For if he’s no Ovid I’m sure he’s a Naso.”

From his long face he was known as “Horse” Kett, and, enjoying the joke, he would say that he was going to “trot down the ‘High.’”

[172] George Stubbs, A.R.A., the great horse-painter of the eighteenth century. He painted sixteen race-horses, including Eclipse, for the _Turf Review_. His physical strength was such that he was said to have carried a dead horse up three flights of stairs to his dissecting attic. His “Fall of Phaeton” was popular, and showed him capable of great things. Many of Stubbs’s finest pictures are now in the possession of the King, the Duke of Westminster, Lord Rosebery, and Sir Walter Gilbey, who has produced an important work on his life and art. Stubbs lived for forty years at 24 Somerset Street, Portman Square.

[173] Woodforde was a dull but correct painter of historical subjects. He died at Ferrara.

[174] In Horwood’s map of London, of 1799, Orange Court is seen behind the King’s Mews.

[175] Miss Pope lived in Great Queen Street for forty years. Among her friends she was known as Mrs. Candour, from her playing that character, and from her habit of taking the part of any person spoken against in company. “I never heard her speak ill of any human being.… I have sometimes been even exasperated by her benevolence,” says James Smith, who writes delightfully about her in his Memoirs. Churchill sang her praises--

“See lively Pope advance in jig and trip, Corinna, Cherry, Honeycombe, and Snip.”

The actress did not die in Great Queen Street, but at 17 Michael’s Place, Brompton, July 30, 1818.

[176] General John Burgoyne (1722-92) took part in the War of Independence, and surrendered with 5000 men at Saratoga on October 15, 1777. After a term as Commander-in-Chief in Ireland, he gave rein to his literary tastes, and wrote, among other plays, his delightful comedy, _The Heiress_. He died at No. 10 Hertford Street, August 4, 1792.

[177] It stood in Charlotte Street, looking east along Windmill Street. Robert Montgomery, of “Satan” memory, became minister of this chapel in 1843.

[178] Mrs. Mathew, wife of the Rev. Henry Mathew, of Percy Chapel, was famous for her assemblies at her house, No. 27 Rathbone Place, and her encouragement of artists. Here were seen Mrs. Barbauld, Mrs. Chapone, Mrs. Carter, the translator of Epictetus, and Mrs. Edward Montagu. Mrs. Mathew “was so extremely zealous in promoting the celebrity of Blake, that, upon hearing him read some of his early efforts in poetry, she thought so well of them as to request the Rev. Henry Mathew, her husband, to join Mr. Flaxman in his truly kind effort in defraying the expense of printing them” (Smith: _Nollekens_). Mr. Mathew consented, and wrote the “advertisement” for the volume, which was entitled _Poetical Sketches, by W. B._, and bore the date 1783. Not a few of the old houses in Rathbone Place remain, with their ground floors turned into shops. In these or similar houses lived Nathaniel Hone, R.A., who died here in 1784; Ozias Humphry, R.A., at No. 29; E. H. Bailey, the sculptor; and Peter de Wint.

[179] Smith’s prediction was strikingly borne out at the sale of the Earl of Crewe’s collection of the productions of Blake, held at Sotheby’s rooms March 30, 1903. The _Illustrations of the Book of Job_, containing twenty-two engravings, twenty-one original designs in colours, and a portrait of Blake by himself, was keenly contested. Bidding began at £1500, and ended at £5600, at which price the _Job_ passed to Mr. Quaritch. Blake’s original inventions for Milton’s “L’Allegro” and “Il Penseroso” brought £1960, and all the remaining sixteen lots fetched high prices.

[180] Edward Oram, son of Old Oram, assisted Philip James De Loutherbourg, R.A., in the management of the Drury Lane scenery and stage effects. “Old” William Oram, “of the Board of Works,” was Surveyor to that body. He was much employed in panel decoration.

[181] John Ker, third Duke of Roxburgh, the book collector.--Sir John Fleming Leicester, first Baron de Tabley (1762-1827), was a patron of artists, and a good draughtsman. The public were freely admitted to his collection of British pictures at his house at 24 Hill Street, Berkeley Square.--Mr. Richard Bull was a well-known figure at the print sales and a subscriber to Smith’s publications.--Anthony Morris Storer, an ardent collector and “Graingeriser,” extra-illustrated Grainger’s _Biographical History of England_, and left the work to Eton College. A rather candid sketch of Storer is drawn by Rev. J. Richardson in his entertaining _Recollections of the Last Half Century_.--A note on Dr. Lort will be found elsewhere.--Mr. Haughton James, F.R.S., was born in Jamaica; he became a member of the Dilettanti Society in 1763.--Mr. Charles John Crowle and Sir James Winter Lake, Bart., so frequently mentioned by Smith, are the subjects of other notes.

[182] In this list of Smith’s patrons the following are of interest:--The “beautiful Miss Towry” was Anne, daughter of Captain George Phillips Towry, R.N., commissioner of victualling, who became the wife of Lord Ellenborough, afterwards Lord Chief Justice of England, Oct. 17, 1782. Her beauty was so great that passers-by would linger to watch her watering the flowers on the balcony of their house in Bloomsbury Square. Lady Ellenborough bore thirteen children, and, surviving her husband many years, died in Stratford Place, Oxford Street, Aug. 16, 1843, aged 74. Her portrait was painted by Reynolds.

Mr. Douglas was James Douglas, author of _Nenia Britannica, a Sepulchral History of Great Britain_. As a youth he helped Sir Ashton Lever to stuff birds for his museum. His abilities in painting were considerable, and we owe t