The first two editions of _A Book for a Rainy Day_ appeared in 1845,
twelve years after John Thomas Smith’s death, and a third appeared in
1861. As these editions do not contain half a dozen notes other than
Smith’s own, this may claim to be the first annotated edition. It is also
the first in which numerous original misprints have been (as I hope)
corrected.
The lapse of seventy years has made many notes necessary. I have
endeavoured to write these in the spirit of the book, making them
something more than brief categorical answers to questions suggested
by Smith’s journal. His own notes were interesting after-thoughts, and
for this reason, and to avoid confusion, the great majority are now
incorporated in his text. Where any are retained as footnotes, Smith’s
authorship is indicated. If my additions to the book seem profuse, I can
only plead that the _Rainy Day_ offers to the annotator that abundance of
material which has long pleased and bewildered its “Grangerisers.” And
our climate has not improved.
I wish to acknowledge the use I have made of the _Dictionary of
National Biography_, _Notes and Queries_, Mr. Wheatley’s _London Past
and Present_, Mr. George Clinch’s _Bloomsbury and St. Giles’s_, and
his _Marylebone and St. Pancras_, Mr. Warwick Wroth’s _London Pleasure
Gardens of the Eighteenth Century_, Mr. Percy Fitzgerald’s _Life of
Garrick_, Mr. Austin Dobson’s _Hogarth_, Mr. Laurence Binyon’s _Catalogue
of Drawings by British Artists in the Print Department_, the _Gentleman’s
Magazine_, the works of Cunningham and Redgrave, and such autobiographies
as those of Henry Angelo, Thomas Dibdin, John Taylor, W. H. Pyne, Sir
Nathaniel Wraxhall, B. R. Haydon, Madam D’Arblay, Dr. Trusler, and
Letitia Hawkins. It is remarkable how John Thomas Smith’s own books
supplement each other. His _Nollekens and his Times_ is an inexhaustible
budget of facts, and its usefulness has been increased by the index
provided in Mr. Gosse’s edition of 1895.
It should be remembered that the year-dates which Smith uses as chapter
headings do not represent the times at which the respective chapters were
written. I judge that Smith was engaged on the _Rainy Day_ only in the
last three years of his life. His chronology is rather happy-go-lucky.
For example, it must not be supposed that Dr. Burgess, of Mortimer
Street, wore his cocked hat and deep ruffles in 1816, or that in that
year Alderman Boydell might have been seen putting his head under the
pump in Ironmonger Lane. These men died some years earlier. In accordance
with the text of the third edition, Smith’s curious mention of the death
of Dr. Johnson will be found under the year 1803.