[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: