[Illustration: SIR JEFFERY DUNSTAN
“His first appearance on any stage.”]
Many a time when I had no inclination to go to bed at the dawn of day,
I have looked down from my window to see whether the author of the
_Sublime and Beautiful_ had left his drawing-room, where I had seen that
great orator during many a night after he had left the House of Commons,
seated at a table covered with papers, attended by an amanuensis who
sat opposite to him.[227] Major Money, who had nearly been lost at sea
with his balloon, at that time lodged in the same house. Of the Major’s
perilous situation at sea, the elder Reinagle made a spirited picture,
of which there is an engraving.[228]
In this year I had the honour for the first time of exhibiting at the
Royal Academy. My production was a portrait of the venerable beech-tree
which stood within memory at a short distance from Sand-pit Gate, in
Windsor Forest, and which tree has been so admirably painted by West.
This picture, which measures five feet in height and seven in length, was
sold by auction at Mr. West’s house, in May 23rd, 1829. My drawing, as
well as many of my studies made from that delightful display of forest
scenery, was highly finished in black chalk; it was purchased by the late
Earl of Warwick, who was not only an admirable draughtsman himself, but
kind to young artists. By that nobleman I was introduced to the Hon. F.
Charles Greville [the Earl’s brother and a Vice-President of the Royal
Society], whose taste for the Fine Arts is too well known to need any
eulogium from me.[229] This gentleman gave Cipriani above one hundred
guineas for an elaborate drawing of the famous Barberini vase, brought
to England by Sir William Hamilton.[230] Several learned writers have
given their conjectures as to the subject so beautifully sculptured on
this vase; but I understand that nothing has been adduced as yet that
sufficiently elucidates it. This vase is deposited in the British Museum.
This grey and silver beech was the loftiest in the forest, and
particularly beautiful when the sun shone upon its ancient limbs; his
capacious and hollow trunk, with a small additional hut, afforded
accommodation for a woodman, his wife, four children, a sow and a
numerous litter of pigs. This happy family retreat, which had frequently
been noticed by King George III., was at last unavoidably obliged,
from the symptoms it exhibited of falling, to submit to the woodman’s
axe--that woodman whose family had weathered many a storm, and had been
screened from the scorching sunbeams under its majestic branches, several
of which, by reason of its “bald and high antiquity,” had not issued
foliage for many a summer. The King, however, who never suffered the
humblest of his subjects whose industry he had noticed, to sigh under
calamity, ordered a snug, neat brick cottage to be built for the honest
occupant and his dependents, which was erected in the same forest, and at
as short a distance as possible from the former residence.
One curious and interesting discovery resulted from the demolition of
this venerable tree. The woodman, who had allowed the smoke from his
peat-piled fire to pass through one of the hollow limbs of the tree for
several years without sweeping it, had, by accumulated incrustations,
produced a mass of the finest brown colour, resembling the present
appearance of that used by Rembrandt, so much coveted by the English
artists. The discovery was made by Mr. Paul Sandby, who was fortunately
passing at the time the timber was on the ground, who immediately secured
a tolerable quantity to enable him to prove that the smoke from forest
fuel, united with the heated branch of a hollow and aged beech, produced
the finest bistre: his son, the present Mr. Sandby, gave me a lump of it,
which I presented to the late Sir George Beaumont.[231] Having mentioned
this bistre to several Roman artists, they informed me that a strong
decoction of the sap of the ilex, or evergreen oak, produces a colour
nearly similar; and of this I have had satisfactory proof. These, and
suchlike bistres, would be much safer for the artist to use than that
called sepia, which is made from the ink of the cuttle-fish, which, being
a marine production, ever retains its saline and pernicious qualities,
as may be seen in several of the numerous drawings made by Guercino,
where the colour has left a blot, which has completely eaten through the
paper. However, after all the trials of our experimentalists to match the
present tint of Rembrandt’s drawings, and however pleasingly ingenious
their discoveries have been, still I am inclined to believe that much, if
not the whole, of the effect of old drawings is owing to that produced
by time; and in this idea I am borne out by a small drawing which the
ever-to-be-revered Flaxman made with a pen in common writing-ink: he drew
it when I was a lad, and it is now a deep rich brown. May we not also
fairly conclude, from the brown tint of most of our old manuscripts,
that time has thus operated upon the ink? if so, the question is, what
will the future colour of that which we now use in imitation, consisting
of many ingredients, be, after fifty-five years, the elapsed time since
I received my drawing from the kind hand of Flaxman? It is a curious
fact, however, that the ink used by the ancient Egyptians on nearly two
hundred specimens of the written inscriptions on papyrus collected by Mr.
Salt,[232] now in the British Museum, are as jet a black as Cozens’s[233]
blotting-ink, or Day and Martin’s far-famed blacking.
1788.
Although not considered an Adonis by the ladies, yet most of those to
whom I had the pleasure to be known, noticed me as a favourite, and by
some my appearance in company was cordially greeted. “Friend Thomas,”
asked one, “pray what play didst thou see last night?” With this
appellation I was frequently addressed, in consequence of my mother
having been a member of the Society of Friends. “_Love’s Labour Lost_,”
being my answer to the pre-engaged fair one, uttered perhaps with a
smile, she was induced to rejoin, “If you had not hitherto been so blind
a son of Venus, you would not have lost my smiles.” After this rebuke,
my pursuit became brisker, and I at last fixed my heart upon my first
wife.[234] Upon becoming a Benedict, I partly recovered the use of my
senses, gave up my clubs, dissolved many connections, and in order to
be faithful to my pledge, “to love and to cherish,” I applied myself
steadily to my etching-table, and commenced a series of quarto plates,
to illustrate Mr. Pennant’s truly interesting account of our great city
(entitled _Some Account of London_), which I dedicated to my patron, Sir
James Winter Lake, Bart.
Sir James was a governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company,--a situation, it is
well known, he filled with credit to himself as well as the satisfaction
of every one connected with that highly-respected body. Sir James most
kindly invited me to take a house near him at Edmonton, where I had the
honour, for the space of seven years, of enjoying the steady friendship
of himself and family. Lady Lake, who then retained much of her youthful
beauty, by her elegance of language and extreme affability charmed every
one. To clever people of every description she was kind, and benevolent
to the poor.
The Lake family consisted of Sir James, his lady, their sons, James,
Willoughby, Atwill, and Andrew,--their daughters, Mary, Charlotte, and
Anne.[235] Their residence, which had long been their family mansion,
was distant about a mile from the Angel Inn, and was called “The Firs,”
in consequence of the approach to the house being planted on either side
with double rows of that tree.
[Illustration: ELIZABETH CANNING
“For my own part, I am not at all brought to believe her story.”
_Horace Walpole_]
1789.
This year proved more lucrative to me than any preceding, for at this
time I professed portrait painting both in oils and crayons; but, alas!
after using a profusion of carmine, and placing many an eye straight
that was misdirected, before another season came, my exertions were
mildewed by a decline of orders, owing not only to the salubrity of the
air of Edmonton, but to the regularity of those who had sat to me, for
they would neither die nor quit their mansions, but kept themselves snug
within their King-William iron gates and red-brick-crested piers, so that
there was no accommodation for new-comers; nor would the red land-owners
allow one inch of ground to the Tooley Street Camomile Cottage
builders.[236] However, I experienced enough to convince me that, had I
diverged along the cross-roads towards the Bald-faced Stag, the highway
to the original Tulip-tree at Waltham Abbey, or the green lanes to
Hornsey Wood House, I might have considerably increased my income; but
this would have been impossible without a conveyance. Nevertheless, as
it was, the reader will hardly believe that my marches of fame were far
more extensive than those of Major Sturgeon;[237] his were confined to
marches and counter-marches, from Ealing to Acton, and from Acton to
Ealing, next-door neighbours: now, my doves took a circuitous flight from
Tottenham to “Kicking Jenny” at Southgate; then to Enfield, ay, even to
its very Wash, rendered notorious by Mary Squires and Bet Canning;[238]
thence over Walton’s famed river Lea: thence up to Chingford’s
ivy-mantled tower; down again, crossing the Lea with the lowing herd, to
Tottenham High Cross, finishing where they put up on the embattlements of
the once noble Castle of Bruce.
It was in the centre of the above vicinities, at “Edmonton so gay,”
the rendezvous of Shakspeare’s merry devil,[239] that _I profiled,
three-quartered, full-faced_, and _buttoned up_ the retired
embroidered weavers, their crummy wives, and tightly-laced daughters.
Ay, those were the days! my friends of the loom, as Tom King declared in
the prologue to _Bon Ton_, when Mother Fussock could ride in a one-horse
chaise, warm from Spitalfields, on a Sunday![240]
1790.
Many a rural walk have I and my beloved enjoyed, accompanied by our
uninvited, playful, tailed butterfly-hunter, through the lonely
honeysuckled lanes to the “Widow Colley’s,” whose nut-brown, mantling
home-brewed could have stood the test with that of Skelton’s far-famed
Elyn--the ale-wife of England, upon whose October skill Henry VIII.’s
Poet Laureate sang.[241] Sometimes our strolls were extended to old
Matthew Cook’s Ferry, by the side of the Lea, so named after him, and
well known to many a Waltonian student. Matthew generally contrived to
keep sixteen cats, all of the finest breed, and, as cats go, of the
best of tempers, all of whom he had taught distinct tricks; but it was
his custom morning and evening to make them regularly, one after the
other, leap over his hands joined as high as his arms could reach: and
this attention to his cats, which occupied nearly the whole of his
time, afforded him as much pleasure as Hartry, the cupper in May’s
Buildings,[242] and his assistant could receive in phlebotomizing, in
former days, above one hundred customers on a Sunday morning, that being
the only leisure time the industrious mechanic could spare for the
operation.
Melancholy as Cook’s Ferry is during the winter, it is still more so
in the time of an inundation, when it is almost insupportable; and
had not Matty enjoyed the society of his cats, who certainly kept the
house tolerably free from rats and mice, at the accustomed time of a
high flood he must have been truly wretched. In this year, during one
of these visitations, in order to gratify my indefatigable curiosity,
I visited him over the meadows, partly in a cart and partly in a boat,
conducted by his baker and Tom Fogin, his barber. We found him standing
in a washing-tub, dangling a bit of scrag of mutton before the best fire
existing circumstances could produce, in a room on the ground floor,
knee-deep in water, whilst he ever and anon raised his voice to his cats
in the room above, where he had huddled them for safety.
The baker, after delivering his bread in at the window, and I, after
fastening our skiff to the shutter-hook, waited the return of Fogin, who
had launched himself into a tub to shave Matthew, who had perched himself
on the coroneted top of a tall Queen Anne’s chair, and drawn his feet as
much under him as possible, and then, with the palms of his hands flat
upon his knees to keep the balance true, was prepared to suck in Fogin’s
tales in the tub during his shave. Tom retailed all the scandal he had
been able to collect during the preceding week from the surrounding
villages; how Dolly _alias_ Matthew Booth, a half-witted fellow, was
stoutly caned by old John Adams, the astronomical schoolmaster, for
calling him “a moon-hauler,”--how Mr. Wigston trespassed on Miss
Thoxley’s waste,--of the sisters Tatham being called the “wax dolls”
of Edmonton, whose chemises Bet Nun had declared only measured sixteen
inches in diameter,--of old Fuller, the banker, riding to Ponder’s End
with a stone in his mouth to keep it moist, in order to save the expense
of drink,--upon Farmer Bellows’s and old Le Grew’s psalm-singing,--of
Alderman Curtis and his Southgate grapery, and of his neighbour, a divine
gentlem--_man_, I had very nearly called him, who had horsewhipped his
wife.
1791.
I remember on a midsummer morn of this year making one of a party of
pleasure, consisting of the worthy baronet Sir James Lake, the elder John
Adams,[243] schoolmaster of Edmonton, Samuel Ireland,[244] author of the
_Thames_, _Medway_, etc. We started from my cottage at Edmonton, and took
the road north. The first house we noticed was an old brick mansion at
the extreme end of the town, erected at about the time of King Charles
I., opposite butcher Wright’s. This dilapidated fabric was let out in
tenements, and the happiest of its inmates was a gay old woman who lived
in one of its numerous attics. She gained her bread by spinning, and as
we ascended she was singing the old song of “Little boy blue, come blow
me your horn” to a neighbour’s child, left to her care for the day.
“Well, Mary,” quoth the a-b-c-darian, “you are always gay; what is your
opinion of the lads and lasses of the present time, compared with those
of your youthful days?” “I’ faith,” answered Mary, “they are pretty much
the same.” She was then considerably beyond her eightieth year. We then
proceeded to Ponder’s End, where I conducted my fellow-travellers to a
field on the left, behind the Goat public-house, to see “King Ringle’s
Well,” but why so called even Mr. Gough has declared he was unable to
discover.[245]
The next place we visited consisted of extensive moated premises, called
“Durance,” on the right of the public road. This house, as tradition
reported, had been the residence of Judge Jeffreys; and here it is said
that he exercised some severities upon the Protestants.[246]
We then returned through Green Street; and at a cottage we discovered
an Elizabethan door, profusely studded with flat-headed nails. This
piece of antiquity Samuel Ireland stopped to make a drawing of, which
circumstance I beg the reader will keep in mind, as it will be mentioned
hereafter. We then, after descanting upon the beauties of Waltham Cross,
proposed to visit the father of the Tulip-trees, an engraving of which
appeared in Farmer’s _History of Waltham Abbey_.[247] We looked in vain
for a portion of King Harold’s tomb. There were remains of it in Strutt’s
early days: he made a drawing of them. Our next visit was to a small
ancient elliptic bridge in a field a little beyond the pin-manufactory;
this bridge has ever been held as a great curiosity, and one of high
antiquity. As we returned through Cheshunt, we rummaged over a basket of
old books placed at the door of the barber’s shop, where Sir James Lake
bought an excellent copy of Brooke’s _Camden’s Errors_ for sixpence,
and also an imperfect copy of Burton’s _Anatomy of Melancholy_, for the
sake of a remarkably fine impression of a portrait of its author on
the title-page. After dining at the Red Lion, we visited another old
moated mansion, the property of Dr. Mayo, said to have been originally
a house belonging to Cardinal Wolsey, or in which he had at one time
resided.[248] After crossing a drawbridge, and passing through the iron
gates, the gardener ushered us into a spacious hall, and showed us a
curiously constructed chair, in which he said the Cardinal’s porter
usually sat. Of this singular chair above mentioned I made a drawing, and
had the honour to furnish the late Marquis of Lansdowne with a copy, to
enable his Lordship to have a set made from it. In an adjoining room was
a bedstead and furniture, considered to be that in which the Cardinal
had slept; it was of a drab-coloured cloth, profusely worked over with
large flowers in variously coloured silks. We were then conducted to an
immense room filled with old portraits. I recollect noticing one in very
excellent preservation of Sir Hugh Myddelton, with an inscription on the
background totally differing from the one by Cornelius Janssen, engraved
by Vertue.[249] Thus ended this pleasant excursion.
1792.
That Vandyke did not possess that liberal patron in King Charles I.
which his biographers have hitherto stated, is unquestionably a fact,
which can be proved by a long bill which I have lately seen (by the
friendly indulgence of Mr. Lemon[250] and his son), in the State Paper
Office, docketed by the King’s own hand. For instance, the picture of his
Majesty dressed for the chase (which I conjecture to be the one engraved
by Strange),[251] for which Vandyke had charged £200, the King, after
erasing that sum, inserted £100; and down in proportion, nay, in some
instances they suffered a further reduction. Of several of the works
charged in the bill, which his Majesty marked as intended presents to his
friends, I recollect one of two that were to be given to Lord Holland was
reduced to the sum of £60. Other pictures in the bill the King marked
with a cross, which is explained at the back by Endymion Porter, that as
those were to be paid for by the Queen, the King had left them for her
Majesty to reduce at pleasure.
That a daughter of Vandyke was allowed a pension for sums owing by
King Charles I. to her father, is also true, as there is a petition
in consequence of its being discontinued still preserved in the State
Paper Office, in which that lady declares herself to be plunged into the
greatest distress, adding that she had been cheated by the purchaser of
her late father’s estate, who never paid for it.[252]
It would be the height of vanity in me to offer anything beyond what the
author of _The Sublime and Beautiful_ has said of Sir Joshua Reynolds,
who died this year at his house in Leicester Square.[253] As Mr. Burke’s
character of this most powerful of painters may not be in the possession
of all my readers, I shall here reprint it.[254]
“The illness of Sir Joshua Reynolds was long, but borne with
a mild and cheerful fortitude, without the least mixture of
anything irritable or querulous, agreeably to the placid and
even tenor of his whole life.
“He had, from the beginning of his malady, a distinct view
of his dissolution; and he contemplated it with that entire
composure which nothing but the innocence, integrity, and
usefulness of his life, and unaffected submission to the will
of Providence, could bestow. In this situation he had every
consolation from family tenderness, which his own kindness to
his family had indeed well deserved.
“Sir Joshua Reynolds was, on very many accounts, one of the
most memorable men of his time. He was the first Englishman
who added the praise of the elegant arts to the other glories
of his country. In taste, in grace, in facility, in happy
invention, and in the richness and harmony of colouring, he was
equal to the great masters of the renowned ages. In portrait he
was beyond them; for he communicated to that description of the
art, in which English artists are the most engaged, a variety,
a fancy, and a dignity derived from the higher branches, which
even those who professed them in a superior manner did not
always preserve, when they delineated individual nature. His
portraits remind the spectator of the invention of history and
the amenity of landscape. In painting portraits, he appeared
not to be raised upon that platform, but to descend to it from
a higher sphere. His paintings illustrate his lessons; and his
lessons seem to be derived from his paintings. He possessed the
theory as perfectly as the practice of his art. To be such a
painter, he was a profound and penetrating philosopher.
“In full happiness of foreign and domestic fame, admired by
the expert in art, and by the learned in science, courted by
the great, caressed by sovereign powers, and celebrated by
distinguished poets, his native humility, modesty, and candour
never forsook him, even on surprise or provocation, nor was the
least degree of arrogance or assumption visible to the most
scrutinising eye, in any part of his conduct or discourse.
“His talents of every kind, powerful from nature, and not
meanly cultivated by letters--his social virtues in all the
relations and in all the habitudes of life--rendered him the
centre of a very great and unparalleled variety of agreeable
societies, which will be dissipated by his death. He had too
much merit not to excite some jealousy, too much innocence to
provoke any enmity. The loss of no man of his time can be felt
with more sincere, general, and unmixed sorrow. ‘Hail! and
farewell!’”
The following letter was addressed to me by my worthy friend Colonel
Phillips:[255]--
“DEAR SIR,--If it was not for having you older than your
friends would wish you, I should be glad you had been of the
party, where I heard an argument between Dr. Johnson and Sir
Joshua Reynolds, on the wonderful power of the human eye. Dr.
Johnson made a quotation which I do not remember. ‘Sir,’ said
Sir Joshua, in reply, ‘that divine effect is produced by the
parts appertaining to the eye, and not from its globe, as is
generally supposed; the skull must be justly proportioned.’
“_Mrs. Cholmondeley._[256]--‘My dear Sir Joshua, was there
nothing in the magic of Garrick’s eye? its comicality. The Duke
of Richmond, the Duke of Dorset, and young Sheridan[257] have
superb eyes; but I don’t know what effect they would have on
the stage.’
“_Sir Joshua._--‘Little or none, Madam; the great beauty
of the Duke of Richmond’s eye proceeded from its fine and
uncommon colour, dark blue, which would be totally lost on the
stage, the light being constantly either too high or too low.
Garrick’s eye, unaccompanied by the action of his mouth, would
not fascinate. When you are near a person, a pretty woman for
instance, and have a good light, the contraction and expansion
of the pupilla, which bids defiance to our art, is delightful;
it is more perceptible in fine grey and light blue eyes, than
in any other colour. We, however, cannot deny the majestic look
of the Belvedere Apollo, though unassisted by iris, pupil,
eye-lashes, or colour.’
“_Dr. Johnson._--‘Sir, a tiger’s eye, and, I am told, a
snake’s, will intimidate birds, so that they will drop from
trees for its prey, without using their wings.’
“After Dr. Johnson had quaffed about twenty-four cups of tea,
he gave a blow of considerable length from his mouth, drew his
breath, and said, ‘Sir, I believe you are right, it is but
rational to suppose so: I wish that rogue Burke was here.’
“I am sorry, my dear Sir, that my memory is not better, so as
to give you verbatim what passed. I feel like a person giving
evidence in a court, trammelled by the apprehension of saying
too much, or, as a late friend of mine said, ‘remembering a
great many circumstances that never happened;’ and I only write
this to show my readiness to comply with any request you could
possibly make of your obliged friend,
“M. PHILLIPS.”
“If you ask how it comes, the faithful Bossy was not present;
Bossy was not always producible after dinner.”
[Illustration: RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN
“Tell Lady Besborough that my eyes will look up to the coffin-lid as
brightly as ever.”]
“_Wednesday, 27th March._