[Illustration: JAMES BARRY, R.A.
“I reflect with horror upon such a fellow as I am, and with such a kind
of art, with house-rent to pay and employers to look for.”]
1799.
On the 4th of August this year, died at his mansion in Rutland Square,
Dublin, the Right Hon. James, Earl of Charlemont,[287] who was born 18th
of August, 1728. This gentleman was truly a nobleman, for he was one of
the greatest patrons of the fine arts this country could boast of. He was
the great friend of Hogarth; bought many of his pictures, particularly
that most elegant performance so justly celebrated under the title of
“The Lady’s Last Stake,” so admirably engraven by Mr. Cheesman.[288] The
following is a copy of an original letter given to me by a late worthy
friend; it is addressed to the late Sir Lawrence Parsons, Bart.,[289] and
written by Lord Charlemont within eight months of his Lordship’s death.
“DUBLIN, _12th Jan., 1799_.
“MY DEAR SIR LAWRENCE,--As nothing has ever affected me
with more painful astonishment than the shameful apathy and
consequent silence of the country at the present desperate
crisis of our fate as a nation, so have I experienced few more
real pleasures than in having found, by the public papers,
that a meeting of your county, at least, has been called; a
pleasure which, though principally derived from my ardent
zeal for the public service, is still further increased by
my friendship for you, as I am too well acquainted with your
sentiments to doubt for a moment that such call has been in the
highest degree satisfactory and flattering to your feelings.
Neither can I entertain the slightest apprehension that the
result of any meeting of Irishmen will be other than the firm
and spirited condemnation of a measure, replete with every
disgrace and danger in their country. Never, indeed, were my
beloved countrymen so forcibly called upon as at the present
emergency, maturely to form their opinions and to speak aloud
the dictates of their hearts. Their ancestors call upon them
from their graves to preserve those national rights which they
have transmitted to them. Their children from their cradles,
with mute but prevailing eloquence, beseech them to protect
and to defend their birthrights; and, with a more awful voice,
their country calls upon them not by their silence to betray
her dearest interests, or by their supineness to leave _her_
enslaved whom they found free! Thus invoked, is it possible
that Irishmen should remain silent?
“But surely I need dwell no longer upon a subject with which
you are so much better acquainted; and, indeed, the state of
my health, and particularly of my eyes, is such as to render
it impossible for me to write more.--I must therefore, however
unwillingly, conclude by assuring you that I am, and ever
shall be, my dearest Parsons, your most faithful and truly
affectionate
“CHARLEMONT.”
In this year, James Barry, the painter of those mighty pictures on the
walls of the great room of the Society of Arts, received a severe blow
by having his name erased from those of the Royal Academicians by King
George III., who believed what had been represented respecting the
Professor’s conduct in the Royal Academy.[290]
“BUCKINGHAM STREET, FITZROY SQUARE.
“DEAR SIR,--Permit me to thank you for the satisfaction of
having seen that curious monument of English antiquity, St.
Stephen’s Chapel, Westminster, when the ancient architecture
and painting were discovered by the removal of the modern
wainscot, which formed the interior of the House of Commons.
“Notwithstanding this branch of antiquity has never been
my particular pursuit, I am highly gratified to see such
materials in the general history of art rescued from oblivion
by publication, for which, Sir, we are indebted to your zeal
and industry, as some of the interesting pictures were effaced
soon after their discovery, by ignorant curiosity; in addition
to the careless and ruinous manner in which the discovery
itself was made, of which circumstances I complained to several
persons on the spot, particularly to the Rev. Mr. Brand,[291]
Secretary to the Antiquarian Society.
“As the best testimony I can give to the fidelity and ability
of your publication, give me leave to subscribe my name for
a copy of the work, and to offer such assistance as I can
give, in general observations on the arts of design, when St.
Stephen’s Chapel was in its splendour.
“I remain, dear Sir, with great regard, your much obliged
“JOHN FLAXMAN.”
The admission of one hundred additional members into the House of
Commons, arising from the union with Ireland, obliged Mr. Wyatt to cut
away the side-walls of the room internally, in order to make recesses for
two extra benches.[292]
[Illustration: THE OLD HOUSE OF COMMONS]
1801.
In the autumn of this year I passed a most agreeable day with the Hon.
Hussey Delaval,[293] at his house near Parliament Stairs.[294] This
learned and communicative gentleman, among whose works that on Colours is
generally considered the most interesting, was as friendly to me, as the
jealousy of that well-known odd compound of nature, my antagonist, John
Carter,[295] who was of our party, would allow; for with that artist’s
opinions as to Gothic architecture, Mr. Delaval so entirely coincided,
that he employed him to provide the ornamental decorations of his house,
which were mostly in putty mixed with sand, and in some instances
cast from the decorations of several Gothic structures, particularly
Westminster Abbey. This house was originally fire-proof, the floors being
of stone or composition, and the window-sashes of cast iron, but since
the death of Mr. Delaval, wood has been substituted for the sashes and
other parts.
The apartments are ten in number, besides small offices. The lower rooms
consist of two halls: in the north wall of the first are three pretty
Gothic recesses for seats, for servants or persons in waiting; the second
hall is filled with Gothic figures placed upon brackets under canopies.
The chimney-piece and other parts of the dining-parlour looking over the
Thames, are decorated in a similar manner; the kitchen is on the same
floor towards the north. The staircase leading to the first-floor is a
truly tasteful little specimen, not equalled by anything at Strawberry
Hill, which, by reason of Mr. Bentley’s[296] fancy mouldings interfering
so often with parts which are really chaste, must be considered a
_mule_ building. The drawing-room and library also look over the water.
On the same floor are two bed-chambers towards the west; above which
are two attics, with a door opening upon the embattled leads over the
drawing-room. Upon these leads we took our wine--attended by female
servants only, as Mr. Delaval never would allow a man-servant to enter
the house, but with messages--and here enjoyed the glowing, Cuyp-like
effect of the sun upon west-country barges laden either with blocks of
stone or fresh-cut timber, objects ever picturesque on the water. Mr.
Delaval was so pleased with this scenery, and the pencil of my friend G.
Arnald, Associate of the Royal Academy, that he bespoke two pictures of
him, Views up and down the River, the figures in which, by the order of
Mr. Delaval, were painted by his friend G. F. Joseph, A.R.A. They were
exhibited at Somerset House.[297]
1802.
How often do we find peculiar attachments and propensities in the minds
of persons of reported good understanding. Within my time, many men have
indulged most ridiculously in their eccentricities. I have known one who
had made a pretty large fortune in business, get up at four o’clock in
the morning and walk the streets to pick up horseshoes which had been
slipped in the course of the night, with no other motive than to see how
many he could accumulate in a year. I also remember a rich soap-boiler
who never missed an opportunity of pocketing nails, pieces of iron hoops,
and bits of leather, in his daily walks; and these he would spread upon a
large walnut-tree three-flapped dining-table, with a similar view to that
of the above-mentioned gentleman. This wealthy citizen would often put on
a red woollen cap, in shape like those worn by slaughter-house men, and
a waggoner’s frock, in order to stoke his own furnace; after which, he
would dress, get into his coach, and, attended by tall servants in bright
blue liveries, drive to his villa, where his hungry friends were waiting
his arrival.
The allusion to these peculiarities, which certainly are harmless, will
serve by way of prelude to a more extraordinary one. The late Duke of
Roxburgh,[298] whose wonderful library will ever be spoken of with the
highest delight by bibliomaniacs, had an attachment to the portraits
of malefactors as closely as Rowland Hill to his petted toad. I made
many drawings of such characters for his Grace during their trials or
confinement; that which I made this year, was of Governor Wall, whose
trial produced much discussion.[299] Having been deprived of admission
at the Old Bailey on the day of his trial, I went to the Duke, and he
immediately wrote to a nobleman high in power, for an order to admit me
to see the unfortunate criminal in the condemned cell, which application
was firmly, and, in my humble opinion, very properly, refused. I walked
home, where I found Isaac Solomon waiting to show me some of his improved
black-lead pencils. Isaac, upon hearing me relate to my family the
disappointment I had experienced, assured me that he could procure me
a sight of the Governor, if I would only accompany him in the evening
to Hatton Garden, and smoke a pipe with Dr. Forde, the Ordinary of
Newgate,[300] with whom he said he was particularly intimate. Away we
trudged; and, upon entering the club-room of a public-house, we found the
said Doctor most pompously seated in a superb masonic chair, under a
stately crimson canopy placed between the windows. The room was clouded
with smoke, whiffed to the ceiling, which gave me a better idea of what I
had heard of the Black Hole of Calcutta than any place I had seen. There
were present at least a hundred associates of every denomination; of
this number, my Jew, being a favoured man, was admitted to a whispering
audience with the Doctor, which soon produced my introduction to him.
“Man’s life is all a mist, and in the dark our fortunes meet us.”
Standing beneath a masonic lustre, the Doctor immediately recognised me
as a friend of John Ireland, but more particularly of his older crony,
Atkinson Bush; he requested me to take a pipe, to me a most detestable
preliminary. He then whispered, “Meet me at the felon’s door at the break
of day.” There I punctually applied, but, notwithstanding the order of
the Doctor, I found it absolutely necessary, to protect myself from an
increasing mob, to show the turnkey half-a-crown, who soon closed his
hand and let me in. I was then introduced to a most diabolical-looking
little wretch, denominated “the Yeoman of the Halter,” Jack Ketch’s head
man. The Doctor soon arrived in his canonicals, and with his head as
stiffly erect as a sheriff’s coachman when he is going to Court, with an
enormous nosegay under his chin, gravely uttered, “Come this way, Mr.
Smith.”
As we crossed the Press-yard a cock crew; and the solitary clanking of
a restless chain was dreadfully horrible. The prisoners had not risen.
Upon our entering a stone-cold room, a most sickly stench of green twigs,
with which an old round-shouldered, goggle-eyed man was endeavouring to
kindle a fire, annoyed me almost as much as the canaster fumigation of
the Doctor’s Hatton Garden friends.
[Illustration: NEWGATE CHAPEL ON THE EVE OF SEVERAL EXECUTIONS]
The prisoner entered. He was death’s counterfeit, tall, shrivelled, and
pale; and his soul shot so piercingly through the port-holes of his head
that the first glance of him nearly petrified me. I said in my heart,
putting my pencil in my pocket, God forbid that I should disturb thy last
moments! His hands were clasped, and he was truly penitent. After the
Yeoman had requested him to stand up, “he pinioned him,” as the Newgate
phrase is, and tied the cord with so little feeling, that the Governor,
who had not given the wretch the accustomed fee, observed, “You have
tied me very tight;” upon which Dr. Forde ordered him to slacken the
cord, which he did, but not without muttering. “Thank you, Sir,” said the
Governor to the Doctor, “it is of little moment.” He then observed to the
attendant, who had brought in an immense iron shovelful of coals to throw
on the fire, “Ay, in one hour that will be a blazing fire;” then, turning
to the Doctor, questioned him: “Do tell me, Sir: I am informed I shall
go down with great force; is it so?” After the construction and action
of the machine had been explained, the Doctor questioned the Governor as
to what kind of men he had at Goree. “Sir,” he answered, “they sent me
the very riffraff.” The poor soul then joined the Doctor in prayer; and
never did I witness more contrition at any condemned sermon than he then
evinced.
The sheriff arrived, attended by his officers, to receive the prisoner
from the keeper. A new hat was then partly flattened on his head; for,
owing to its being too small in the crown, it stood many inches too high
behind. As we were crossing the Press-yard, the dreadful execrations
of some of the felons so shook his frame, that he observed, “the clock
had struck;” and, quickening his pace, he soon arrived at the room
where the sheriff was to give a receipt for his body, according to the
usual custom. Owing, however, to some informality in the wording of
this receipt, he was not brought out so soon as the multitude expected;
and it was this delay which occasioned a partial exultation from those
who betted as to a reprieve, and not from any pleasure in seeing him
executed. For the honour of England, I may say we are not so revengeful
as some of our Continental neighbours have been; as Mrs. Cosway[301]
assured me that she was in the room with David, then esteemed the first
painter in Paris, at the time that he and Robespierre were in power; and
that when the Reporter, from the guillotine, came in to announce eighty
as the number of persons executed that morning, David, in the greatest
possible rage, exclaimed, “No more!”
[Illustration: DR. ARNE