A correspondent of _Notes and Queries_, Aug. 25, 1860, wrote: “I
remember him well; a stout, burly man with a flaxen wig: he rode
daily into London on a large roan-coloured horse.” It was said
that he was buried in an erect position by his own wish. Gardner’s
tombstone is still carefully preserved, and is a curiosity of
the Hackney Road, whence the inscription can be read through the
churchyard railings. It now runs:
1807
Dr. John Gardner’s
Last and best Bedroom
Who departed this life the 8th
Of April, 1835, in his 84th year.
Also are here Interred two of His
Sons and Two of His Granddaughters.
[158] “Funeral Weever”: John Weever (1576-1632), poet and
antiquary; author of _Ancient Funeral Monuments_, 1631.
[159] “I know not whether Mrs. Nollekens was of Lord Monboddo’s
opinion, that men originally had tails; but I could have informed
her that it has been asserted that the species of monkeys that
have no tails are more inclined to show tricks than those that
have.”--(Smith.)
[160] The antiquary, and correspondent of White of Selborne. He
joined this year (1783) the club founded by Johnson at the Essex
Head in Essex Street, Strand.
[161] Mrs. Nollekens was Mary, second daughter of Mr. Saunders
Welch, the police magistrate. Her flightiness and parsimony are
Smith’s endless sport in his Life of her husband, and he was
willing to believe that her character resembled that of Pekuah, the
favourite attendant of the princess, in _Rasselas_. Miss Hawkins
says in her _Anecdotes_, that Johnson drew Pekuah from Mary Welch,
and that she had this from Anne Welch. In any case, the Doctor
found “Pekuah’s” vivacity agreeable. Smith relates: “I have heard
Mr. Nollekens say that the Doctor, when joked with about her,
observed, ‘Yes, I think Mary would have been mine, if little Joe
had not stepped in.’”
[162] “The name of Norman was so extensively known, that I consider
it hardly possible for many of my readers to be ignorant of his
fame; indeed, so much was he in requisition, that persons residing
out of Town would frequently order the carriage for no other
purpose than to consult Dr. Norman as to the state of Biddy’s
health, just as people of rank now consult Partington or Thompson
as to the irregularities of their children’s teeth” (Smith:
_Nollekens_).
[163] George Keate was a man of miscellaneous talent. His
best-known literary works are his serio-comic poem “The Distressed
Poet” (1787), and his “Account of the Pelew Islands from the
Journal of Captain Henry Wilson.” He enjoyed the friendship of
Voltaire at Geneva, and was careful that the world should know it.
In her _Early Diary_, Miss Burney gives a good portrait of Keate
as she met him “at the house of six old maids, all sisters, and
all above sixty.” She found him a “sluggish” conversationalist who
aimed continually at making himself the subject of discussion,
“while he listened with the greatest nonchalance, reclining his
person upon the back of his chair and kicking his foot now over,
and now under, a gold-headed cane.”
[164] This dealer probably bought dog-skins. “The dexterous of all
dentists” may be explained by the following passage in Smith’s
_Vagabondiana_ (1817): “It is scarcely to be believed that some few
years ago a woman of the name of Smith regularly went over London
early in the morning, to strike out the teeth of dead dogs that had
been stolen and killed for the sake of their skins. These teeth she
sold to bookbinders, carvers, and gilders, as burnishing tools.”
[165] The Last Supper was one of many religious subjects which
the Quaker artist painted for his uncritical patron, George III.
It was a transparent painting, and was let into the east window,
which was structurally altered for its accommodation; but it was
long ago removed, and the window restored. It is a commonplace
that West’s powers lagged far behind his ambition. “Twenty years
after his death,” says Mr. E. T. Cook, “some of his pictures, for
which he had been paid 3000 guineas, were knocked down at a public
sale for £10; and such of his pictures as had been presented to
the National Gallery have now been removed to the provinces.”
West’s work for George III. is represented by seventeen paintings
in the Queen Anne’s Drawing-Room at Hampton Court. These include
“Hannibal Swearing never to make Peace with Rome,” “The Death of
Epaminondas,” “The Death of General Wolfe” (a picture of some
value), “The Final Departure of Regulus from Rome,” etc.
[166] Richard Wyatt of Egham was a well-known amateur, and the
patron of John Opie. He married Priscilla, daughter of John Edgell
of Milton Place, and had three sons and four daughters.
[167] Anne, or Nancy, Parsons is supposed to have been the daughter
of a Bond Street tailor. She lived under the protection of a Mr.
Horton, a West India merchant, with whom she went to Jamaica. On
her return she lodged in Brewer Street, and, after living with
Duke of Dorset and others, became the mistress of the Duke of
Grafton. Junius bitterly says: “The name of Miss Parsons would
hardly have been known if the first Lord of the Treasury had not
led her in triumph through the Opera House, even in the presence of
the Queen. When we see a man act in this manner, we may admit the
shameless depravity of his heart, but what are we to think of his
understanding?” Ultimately Nancy Parsons married Charles, second
Viscount Maynard.
[168] Sir Richard Colt Hoare, second baronet (1758-1838), began
life in the family bank, but, being made independent of business,
he married a daughter of William Henry, Lord Lyttelton, and devoted
himself to travel, study, and his art collections. He completed
histories of ancient and modern Wiltshire, and smaller works, and
was an excellent example of the wealthy antiquary.
[169] George Huddesford (1749-1809) was an artist in early life,
studying under Reynolds; in middle life he took to scribbling,
and showed a turn for satire. A collected edition of his works
appeared in 1801, entitled: “The Poems of George Huddesford, M.A.,
late Fellow of New College, Oxford. Now first collected, including
Salmagundi, Topsy-Turvy, Bubble and Squeak, and Crambe Repetita,
with corrections and original additions.”
[170] These verses begin--
“In Liquorpond-street, as is well known to many,
An Artist resided who shaved for a penny.
Cut hair for three-halfpence, for three pence he bled,
And would draw, for a groat, every tooth in your head.
What annoy’d other folks never spoil’d his repose,
’Twas the same thing to him whether stocks fell or rose;
For blast and for mildew he car’d not a pin,
His crops never fail’d, for they grew on the chin.”
[171] Henry Kett (1761-1825) was a frequent subject of caricatures.
The learned Thomas Warton’s comment on his “Juvenile Poems” was--
“Our Kett not a poet!
Why, how can you say so?
For if he’s no Ovid
I’m sure he’s a Naso.”
From his long face he was known as “Horse” Kett, and, enjoying the
joke, he would say that he was going to “trot down the ‘High.’”
[172] George Stubbs, A.R.A., the great horse-painter of the
eighteenth century. He painted sixteen race-horses, including
Eclipse, for the _Turf Review_. His physical strength was such
that he was said to have carried a dead horse up three flights
of stairs to his dissecting attic. His “Fall of Phaeton” was
popular, and showed him capable of great things. Many of Stubbs’s
finest pictures are now in the possession of the King, the Duke of
Westminster, Lord Rosebery, and Sir Walter Gilbey, who has produced
an important work on his life and art. Stubbs lived for forty years
at 24 Somerset Street, Portman Square.
[173] Woodforde was a dull but correct painter of historical
subjects. He died at Ferrara.
[174] In Horwood’s map of London, of 1799, Orange Court is seen
behind the King’s Mews.
[175] Miss Pope lived in Great Queen Street for forty years.
Among her friends she was known as Mrs. Candour, from her playing
that character, and from her habit of taking the part of any
person spoken against in company. “I never heard her speak ill of
any human being.… I have sometimes been even exasperated by her
benevolence,” says James Smith, who writes delightfully about her
in his Memoirs. Churchill sang her praises--
“See lively Pope advance in jig and trip,
Corinna, Cherry, Honeycombe, and Snip.”
The actress did not die in Great Queen Street, but at 17 Michael’s
Place, Brompton, July 30, 1818.
[176] General John Burgoyne (1722-92) took part in the War of
Independence, and surrendered with 5000 men at Saratoga on October
15, 1777. After a term as Commander-in-Chief in Ireland, he gave
rein to his literary tastes, and wrote, among other plays, his
delightful comedy, _The Heiress_. He died at No. 10 Hertford
Street, August 4, 1792.
[177] It stood in Charlotte Street, looking east along Windmill
Street. Robert Montgomery, of “Satan” memory, became minister of
this chapel in 1843.
[178] Mrs. Mathew, wife of the Rev. Henry Mathew, of Percy Chapel,
was famous for her assemblies at her house, No. 27 Rathbone Place,
and her encouragement of artists. Here were seen Mrs. Barbauld,
Mrs. Chapone, Mrs. Carter, the translator of Epictetus, and Mrs.
Edward Montagu. Mrs. Mathew “was so extremely zealous in promoting
the celebrity of Blake, that, upon hearing him read some of
his early efforts in poetry, she thought so well of them as to
request the Rev. Henry Mathew, her husband, to join Mr. Flaxman
in his truly kind effort in defraying the expense of printing
them” (Smith: _Nollekens_). Mr. Mathew consented, and wrote the
“advertisement” for the volume, which was entitled _Poetical
Sketches, by W. B._, and bore the date 1783. Not a few of the old
houses in Rathbone Place remain, with their ground floors turned
into shops. In these or similar houses lived Nathaniel Hone, R.A.,
who died here in 1784; Ozias Humphry, R.A., at No. 29; E. H.
Bailey, the sculptor; and Peter de Wint.
[179] Smith’s prediction was strikingly borne out at the sale of
the Earl of Crewe’s collection of the productions of Blake, held
at Sotheby’s rooms March 30, 1903. The _Illustrations of the Book
of Job_, containing twenty-two engravings, twenty-one original
designs in colours, and a portrait of Blake by himself, was keenly
contested. Bidding began at £1500, and ended at £5600, at which
price the _Job_ passed to Mr. Quaritch. Blake’s original inventions
for Milton’s “L’Allegro” and “Il Penseroso” brought £1960, and all
the remaining sixteen lots fetched high prices.
[180] Edward Oram, son of Old Oram, assisted Philip James De
Loutherbourg, R.A., in the management of the Drury Lane scenery and
stage effects. “Old” William Oram, “of the Board of Works,” was
Surveyor to that body. He was much employed in panel decoration.
[181] John Ker, third Duke of Roxburgh, the book collector.--Sir
John Fleming Leicester, first Baron de Tabley (1762-1827), was
a patron of artists, and a good draughtsman. The public were
freely admitted to his collection of British pictures at his
house at 24 Hill Street, Berkeley Square.--Mr. Richard Bull was a
well-known figure at the print sales and a subscriber to Smith’s
publications.--Anthony Morris Storer, an ardent collector and
“Graingeriser,” extra-illustrated Grainger’s _Biographical History
of England_, and left the work to Eton College. A rather candid
sketch of Storer is drawn by Rev. J. Richardson in his entertaining
_Recollections of the Last Half Century_.--A note on Dr. Lort
will be found elsewhere.--Mr. Haughton James, F.R.S., was born in
Jamaica; he became a member of the Dilettanti Society in 1763.--Mr.
Charles John Crowle and Sir James Winter Lake, Bart., so frequently
mentioned by Smith, are the subjects of other notes.
[182] In this list of Smith’s patrons the following are of
interest:--The “beautiful Miss Towry” was Anne, daughter of Captain
George Phillips Towry, R.N., commissioner of victualling, who
became the wife of Lord Ellenborough, afterwards Lord Chief Justice
of England, Oct. 17, 1782. Her beauty was so great that passers-by
would linger to watch her watering the flowers on the balcony of
their house in Bloomsbury Square. Lady Ellenborough bore thirteen
children, and, surviving her husband many years, died in Stratford
Place, Oxford Street, Aug. 16, 1843, aged 74. Her portrait was
painted by Reynolds.
Mr. Douglas was James Douglas, author of _Nenia Britannica, a
Sepulchral History of Great Britain_. As a youth he helped Sir
Ashton Lever to stuff birds for his museum. His abilities in
painting were considerable, and we owe to him a full-length
portrait of Captain Grose. His _Travelling Anecdotes_ is an
interesting book.
By “Mr. Chamberlain Clark” Smith means Mr. Richard Clark, but he
antedates his title of City Chamberlain, to which post he was
appointed only in 1798; he held it until 1831, and was Lord Mayor
in 1784.
Dr. Joseph Drury was Headmaster of Harrow for twenty years,
1785-1805. He will always be remembered as Lord Byron’s headmaster.
John Wigston figures in Smith’s notes under the year 1796 as a
patron of Morland.
Information concerning Captain Horsley and the Boddams will be
found in Robinson’s _History of Enfield_.
Mr. Henry Hare Townsend was the owner of Bruce Castle, which he
sold in 1792; it was afterwards occupied by Rowland Hill, who
brought hither his school, disciplined on the “Hazlewood” system,
before he became a public man and the founder of penny postage.
The Mr. Samuel Salt, whose name comes last in Smith’s list of
his patrons, is no other than Charles Lamb’s Samuel Salt of
the Inner Temple. “July 27. At his chambers in Crown Office
Row, Inner Temple, Samuel Salt, Esq., one of the benchers of
that hon. society, and a governor of the South Sea Company”
(_Gentleman’s Magazine_, July 1792).--Lawrence Sterne, at whose
burial he assisted, was laid in the St. George’s (Hanover Square)
burial-ground, facing Hyde Park, March 22, 1788. Sterne’s grave is
well kept.
[183] The formation of Virginia Water was carried out at the
instance of the Duke of Cumberland, as Ranger of Windsor Forest.
Thomas Sandby, his Deputy Ranger, lived in the Lower Lodge,
where he was soon joined by his brother Paul, the eminent
water-colourist. The construction of the Virginia Water occupied
him for several years, but it was completed long before the birth
of Smith. The works were entirely destroyed by a storm in September
1768, and Smith witnessed in this year, 1785, only the finishing
touches to the then reconstructing lake.
[184] In 1796, the Feathers Tavern, on the east side of the square,
made way for Charles Dibdin’s “Sans Souci” theatre, in which he
gave a single-handed entertainment. Here he produced his song, “My
Name d’ye see’s Tom Tough.”
[185] The wealthy and talented “Athenian” Stuart (1713-88) had his
sobriquet from his journey to Athens, and his account of Greek
architecture embodied in _The Antiquities of Athens Measured and
Delineated_, compiled by himself and his fellow-traveller, Nicholas
Revett, and completed by Newton and Reveley. Hogarth satirised
Stuart’s first volume (1762) in his print, “The Five Order of
Perriwigs as they were worn at the Late Coronation, measured
Architectonically.”
[186] Samuel Scott, whose paintings, “Old London Bridge,” “Old
Westminster Bridge,” and a “View of Westminster,” are in the
National Gallery, was one of Hogarth’s companions in the famous
“Tour,” described in Gostling’s verses.
“Sam Scott and Hogarth, for their share,
The prospects of the sea and land did.”
Scott’s portrait by Hudson is in the National Gallery.
[187] See note, p. 98.
[188] Luke Sullivan engraved several of Hogarth’s works, and among
them his “Paul before Felix” (now in Lincoln’s Inn), to which he
sat as model for the angel. He was a handsome, dissipated Irishman,
and lodged at the “White Bear” in Piccadilly. His etching of the
“March to Finchley” is superb. Ireland says that Hogarth had
difficulty in keeping him at work on this plate. Sullivan was
destroyed by his habits, and died prematurely.
[189] Francis Grose (1731-91), the famous antiquary, humorist, and
spendthrift, who is immortalised by Burns--
“A chield’s amang you takin’ notes,
And, faith, he’ll prent it.”
[190] Valuable as this book certainly was for a number of years, it
is now superseded by the elaborate work produced by Dr. Meyrick [_A
Critical Inquiry into Ancient Armour_, by Sir Samuel Rush Meyrick,
1824], an inestimable and complete treasure to the historian, the
artist, and the stage.--S.
[191] Thomas Hearne (1744-1817) belonged to that group of artists
whose tinted topographical drawings initiated water-colour. He
died in Macclesfield Street, Soho, April 13, 1817, and was buried
in Bushey churchyard by Dr. Monro, Turner’s “good doctor” of the
Adelphi, who used to set Turner and Girtin to make drawings for him
in the Adelphi at the price of “half a crown apiece and a supper.”
[192] See note on Mr. Baker, p. 115.
[193] Henry Edridge, A.R.A. (1769-1821), was born in Paddington,
established himself as a portrait painter in Dufour’s Place,
Golden Square, in 1789, and died in Margaret Street, Cavendish
Square. He was the friend and pupil of Thomas Hearne, and, like
him, was buried in Bushey churchyard by the benevolent Dr. Monro.
The British Museum Print Room has pencil portraits by Edridge, and
three of his sketch-books.--William Alexander (1761-1816) preceded
Smith as Keeper of the Prints and Drawings in the British Museum.
He was a skilful water-colourist, and the Print Room has his
original sketches for the illustrations in the officially published
_Ancient Terra-cottas_ and _Ancient Marbles_, dealing with the
Museum collections.--Edmunds was an upholsterer in Compton Street,
Soho.
[194] The elephant was Chunee, the “Jumbo” of the Georgian era.
Smith writes of his arrival under 1785, but it was not until 1809
that he and Mr. Baker could have seen Chunee coming from the
docks. This famous elephant stood eleven feet in height, and was
the attraction at Mr. Cross’s menagerie until March 1826, when his
death was ordered. Chunee’s carcass was valued at £1000. Lord Byron
must have seen Chunee when he “saw the tigers sup” in 1813, and
Thomas Hood’s lament on his death is well known. Exeter Change,
which stood at the Strand end of Burleigh Street, did not long
survive its elephant: in April 1829 it was sold out of existence by
George Robins.
[195] Abraham Langford (1711-74), the most fashionable auctioneer
of his day, had his rooms in the Piazza, Covent Garden. He was
buried in St. Pancras churchyard, and identical laudatory verses
were cut on both sides of his tombstone--
“His spring was such as should have been,
Adroit and gay, unvexed by Care or Spleen,
His Summer’s manhood, open, fresh, and fair,
His Virtue strict, his manners debonair,” etc.
Foote satirised Langford in _The Minor_ as Smirke (not Puff) the
auctioneer, who raises a Guido from “forty-five” to “sixty-three
ten” by declaring that “it only wants a touch from the torch of
Prometheus to start from the canvas.”
[196] Samuel Paterson (1728-1802), originally a stay-maker, became
a bookseller, and about 1753 opened auction rooms in what remained
of Essex House, which stood much on the site of Devereux Court,
Essex Street. He afterwards removed to Covent Garden. He would
have succeeded better in business had he been less fond of reading
the books he sold. He was the first auctioneer who sold books in
lots.--Hassell Hutchins, the auctioneer of King Street, Covent
Garden, died in 1795.
[197] It was George Michael Moser (1704-83) who made the historic
interruption: “Stay, stay, Toctor Shonson is going to say
something.” Born at Schaffhausen, he rose from cabinet-making (in
Soho) and the chasing of watch-cases and cane heads, to be the
First Keeper of the Royal Academy. Sir Joshua Reynolds pronounced
him the first gold-chaser in the kingdom. He enamelled trinkets for
watches with so much skill as to set a fashion, and it was said
that George II. once ordered him a hat full of money for some of
his works. Moser lived in Craven Buildings, which have lately been
demolished to make way for Aldwych and Kingsway. He died, however,
in his official keeper’s residence at Somerset House.
[198] John Millan had a bookshop at Charing Cross for more than
fifty years. Richard Gough, the antiquary, frequented Millan’s
shop, which he describes as “encrusted with Literature and
Curiosities like so many stalactitical exudations.” Behind sat “the
deity of the place, at the head of a Whist party.”
[199] Johnson’s letter to Sir Joshua Reynolds on behalf of young
Paterson was dated June 2, 1783; his three letters to Ozias
Humphrey, April 5, April 10, and May 31, 1784. He asks Humphrey to
allow the boy to frequent his studio and see him paint. The Doctor
had chosen good teachers for the youth. “Humphrey’s miniatures,
before those of any other, remind us of the excellences and
graces of Reynolds” (Redgrave: _A Century of Painters_, i. 421).
Humphrey had himself been greatly encouraged in his youth by
Reynolds, who said to him: “Born in my country, and your mother a
lace-maker!--why, Vandyck’s mother was a maker of lace,” and he
lent him some of his pictures to copy.
[200] Richard Gough (1735-1809), the antiquary whose _British
Topography_, _Sepulchral Monuments_, translation of Camden’s
_Britannia_, and other works, are in every great library. The
_Britannia_ occupied him seven years, and his investigations led
him all over the country. It is said that during the seven years in
which he was translating it he remained so accessible to his family
at Enfield, that no member of it was aware of his undertaking. He
was esteemed by Horace Walpole, who, however, often made a jest of
his antiquary mind. Thus: “Gough, speaking of some Cross that has
been renowned, says ‘there is now _an unmeaning market-house_ in
its place.’ Saving his reverence and our prejudices, I doubt there
is a good deal more _meaning_ in a market-house than in a cross”
(Letter to Rev. W. Cole, Nov. 24, 1780).
[201] There were four Basires in direct succession. Smith refers to
the second in the line, James Basire (1730-1802), the illustrator
of _Vetusta Monumenta_. He compares him unfavourably with William
Woollett (1735-85) and John Hall (1739-97), but it is not clear
that West despised Basire, who, indeed, engraved his _Pylades and
Orestes_.
[202] Dr. Lort was Librarian, not Chaplain, to the Duke of
Devonshire. He moved in the Johnson set. For nineteen years he
held the Rectory of St. Matthew’s, Friday Street, in which church
(now demolished) there was a tablet to his memory. He died at 6
Savile Row, Nov. 5, 1790, after a carriage accident at Colchester.
A water-colour portrait of him, by Sylvester Harding, is in the
British Museum Print Room. In her diary Madam D’Arblay gives an
entertaining picture of Dr. Lort as he appeared in the Thrale
circle at Streatham, where on one occasion he talked against
Dr. Johnson to his face without, it seems, any tragic results.
“His manners,” she says, “are somewhat blunt and odd, and he is
altogether out of the common road, without having chosen a better
path.”
[203] Old Cole, _i.e._ William Cole (1714-1782), was pronounced
by Horace Walpole an “oracle in any antique difficulties.” The
two travelled France together. Cole, who for many years was
in Holy Orders, had filled forty folio volumes with notes on
Cambridgeshire, concerning which he wrote to Walpole: “They are
my only delight--they are my wife and children.” He earned such
nicknames as Old Cole, Cole of Milton (where he lived), and
Cardinal Cole (from his leanings to Romanism). Cole’s “wife and
children” are now in the British Museum MSS. Department.
[204] The Rev. Dr. Isaac Gossett was proud of his long series of
priced catalogues. Every bookseller knew his fad for milk-white
vellum. So keen a bibliophile was Gossett, that an illness which
kept him from the sale of the Pinelli collection vanished when he
was given permission to inspect one of the volumes of the first
Complutensian Polyglot Bible of Cardinal Ximenes, on vellum, and in
the original binding. Dr. Gossett died in Newman Street, December
16, 1812, and was buried in Old Marylebone cemetery.
[205] Edward Cocker (1631-7?), writing master and arithmetician, is
referred to in the phrase “according to Cocker.” The _Dictionary of
National Biography_ gives 1675 as the date of his death, but Mr.
Wheatley (_London Past and Present_) quotes the Register of Burials
at St. George the Martyr’s, Southwark: “Mr. Edward Cocker, Writing
Mr. Aug. 26, 1676.”
[206] The wine and wit of Caleb Whitefoord (1734-1810) were both
good. Smith reports Mrs. Nollekens as saying: “My dear Mrs.
Pardice, you may safely take a glass of it, for it is the last
of twelve which Mr. Caleb Whitefoord sent us as a present; and
everybody who talks about wine should know his house has ever been
famous for claret.” Smith, who often acidulates his ink, suggests
that Whitefoord’s little presents and constant attendance on the
Nollekens’ household showed the covetous collector rather than the
kindly man. Burke, who thought meanly of Whitefoord’s services as
secretary of the Commission for concluding peace with America,
described him as a “diseur de bons mots.” Goldsmith mourns his
wasted abilities in his “Retaliation”--
“Here Whitefoord reclines, deny it who can;
Tho’ he merrily lived, he is now a grave man.
What pity, alas! that so lib’ral a mind
Should so long be to Newspaper Essays confin’d!
…
Whose talents to fit any station were fit,
Yet happy if Woodfall confessed him a wit.”
Whitefoord’s Cross Readings of the newspapers--a form of humour
that has been revived somewhat recently--delighted the town in
1766; Goldsmith envied him the idea, and Johnson praised his
pseudonym--“Papyrius Cursor.” The following are specimens of these
Cross Readings:--
“Yesterday Dr. Pretyman preached at St. James’s--
And performed it with ease in less than sixteen minutes”
“Several changes are talked of at Court--
Consisting of 9050 triple bob-majors.”
“Sunday night many noble families were alarmed--
By the constable of the watch, who apprehended them at cards.”
The wealthy wine-merchant and art lover lived to be the patron in
David Wilkie’s painting, “The Letter of Introduction.” He died in
Argyll Street, and was buried in the churchyard of St. Mary’s,
Paddington, where lie Nollekens, Mrs. Siddons, Haydon, and many
others of note.
[207] Captain William Baillie’s copies of Rembrandt’s etchings
are still bought--by the simple--in the print-shops. The captain
quitted the 18th Light Dragoons in 1761, and joined the Covent
Garden Colony of artists. He knew everybody. Henry Angelo heard him
say that for more than half a century he had passed his mornings
in going from one apartment to another over the Piazza. His works,
which have now little value, were issued by Boydell in 1792, and
re-issued in 1803. One of his exploits, mentioned by Redgrave,
was to purchase for £70 Cuyp’s fine “View of Dort” and convert it
into two separate pictures called “Morning” and “Evening,” which
were afterwards piously purchased for £2200 and reunited. Captain
Baillie died Dec. 22, 1810, aged eighty-seven, at Lisson Green,
Paddington. He was for many years a commissioner of Stamp Duties.
[208] Edwards’ _Anecdotes of Painters_ is a useful little
supplement to Walpole’s larger work. He was buried in old St.
Pancras churchyard, now a recreation ground, where his name,
however, does not appear on the memorial erected by the Baroness
Burdett-Coutts to those whose graves were obliterated. His portrait
in chalk is in the Print Room.
[209] Mr. George Baker, the lace-man, died in St. Paul’s Churchyard
in 1811. He compiled “A Catalogue of Books, Poems, Tracts, and
small detached Pieces, printed at the Press at Strawberry Hill,
belonging to the late Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford,” 4to. Twenty
copies only were printed, and were distributed in May 1811. Mr.
Baker made a lifelong hobby of print-collecting, and his Hogarths,
Woolletts, and Bartolozzis were scarcely surpassed.
[210] Woodhouse’s pictures and drawings were sold in 1801; the
catalogues are in the British Museum.
[211] Joseph Musgrave, Esq., was a subscriber to Smith’s
_Antiquities of Westminster_.
[212] “The most _acid_ of all Manningtree’s evil and jealous-minded
spirits, originally held in the service of that famous
witch-finder-general, Matthew Hopkins” (Smith).--Hopkins, after
bringing old women to execution as witches, was himself “swum”
and hanged in 1647 for witchcraft. “Vinegar Tom” was one of the
“imps” which a one-legged beggar woman named Elizabeth Clarke was
persuaded by Hopkins to declare was under her control. Hopkins had
originally been a lawyer at Manningtree.
[213] Samuel Wodhull, who lived wealthily in Berkeley Square, is
best remembered for his translation of Euripides (1774-82), the
first complete rendering of the Greek tragedian in English. He was
buried at Thenford, his native place, in Northamptonshire.
[214] Thomas Worlidge (1700-66), a skilful etcher after Rembrandt,
and illustrator of a book on antique gems, was nicknamed
“Scritch-Scratch.” He is said to have had thirty-three children
by his three marriages. He lived in the famous house in Great
Queen Street (now divided and numbered 55-56) in which Reynolds
had been the pupil of Thomas Hudson, and which now bears a tablet
proclaiming it one of the homes of Sheridan.
[215] After Rawle’s death, his effects were sold at Hutchins’,
Covent Garden, where this Charles the Second wig was bought by
Suett, the actor, who, says Smith, “to prove to the company that it
would suit him better than his harum-scarum opponent, put it upon
his head, and, thus dignified, went on with his biddings, which
were sometimes sarcastically serious, and at others ludicrously
comic. The company, however, though so highly amused, thought it
ungenerous to prolong the biddings, and therefore one and all
declared that it ought to be knocked down to him before he took
it off his head. Upon this Suett immediately attempted to take it
off, but the ivory hammer, with the ruffled hand of the auctioneer,
after being once flourished over his head, gave it in favour of
the eccentric comedian.” Suett appeared in this wig in Fielding’s
_Tom Thumb_, and we are told that “sick men laughed themselves well
to see him peeping out of the black forest of hair.” Finally this
wonderful wig was lost in the fire which destroyed the theatre
at Birmingham. Mrs. Booth, the mother of the actress, was met by
Suett, and all he said was: “Mrs. Booth, my wig’s gone.”
[216] Rawle died November 8, 1789 (_Gentleman’s Magazine_, 1789).
[217] From the _Public Advertiser_, July 12, 1774: “Miniature
Painting.--Mr. Beauvais, well known at Tunbridge Wells to several
of the nobility and gentry for taking a striking likeness, either
in water colours or India ink. Miniature pictures copied by him
from large pictures, to any size, and pictures repaired if damaged.
He also teaches, by a peculiar method, Persons of the least
capacity to take a Likeness in India Ink, or with a black lead
pencil, in a short time. To be spoke with at Mr. Bryan’s, the ‘Blue
Ball,’ St. Martin’s Street, Leicester Fields, from eleven to one
o’clock.”
[218] “A most facetious, fat gentleman,” is Henry Angelo’s
description of Mr. Mitchell, the wealthy partner in the bank
of Hodsol & Company, and the unstinting patron of Rowlandson.
Mitchell lived in Beaufort Buildings, in the Strand, which two
years ago were demolished for the extension of the Savoy Hotel.
Here the worthy banker loved to gather round him such choice
spirits as Thomas Rowlandson, John Nixon, and Thomas Wolcot (Peter
Pindar). “Well do I remember,” says Henry Angelo, “sitting in
this comfortable apartment, listening to the stories of my old
friend Peter Pindar, whose wit seemed not to kindle until after
midnight, at the period of about his fifth or sixth glass of
brandy and water. Rowlandson, too, having nearly accomplished his
twelfth glass of punch, and replenishing his pipe with choice
Oronooko, would chime in. The tales of these two gossips, told in
one of those nights, each delectable to hear, would make a modern
Boccaccio.”
[219] William Packer of Great Baddow, and of Charlotte Street,
Bloomsbury, was many years in the brewery of Combe, Delafield, &
Company in Castle Street, Long Acre. This brewery was the nucleus
of Watney, Combe, Reid, & Co.’s present establishment.
[220] John Henderson (1747-85) was known as the “Bath Roscius”
from his success at Bath under John Palmer. After a great career
at Drury Lane, he died at his house in Buckingham Street, Adelphi,
November 25, 1785, it was said from a poison accidentally given to
him by his wife. In addition to his Hogarths, he collected books
relating to the drama. His library was described by the auctioneer
who dispersed it as “the completest assemblage of English dramatic
authors that has ever been exhibited for sale in this country.” It
contained many books of crimes and marvels.
[221] John Ireland (died 1808) must not be confounded with the
Shakespearian impostor. He was brought up to watchmaking in Maiden
Lane. With Henderson he frequented the Feathers Tavern in Leicester
Fields, and he wrote the actor’s biography. He is best known by his
_Illustrations to Hogarth_, published by Boydell, and containing
his portrait by Mortimer as frontispiece to the third volume.
[222] The employee is better remembered than the employer. William
Seguier (1771-1843), topographical landscape-painter and picture
restorer, was appointed Keeper of the Royal Pictures by George IV.
He was also the first director of the National Gallery. Haydon
pays him this tribute: “June 19, 1811. Seguier called, on whose
judgment Wilkie and I so much rely. If Seguier coincides with us we
are satisfied, and often we are convinced we are wrong if Seguier
disagrees.”
[223] Carlo Antonio Delpini, the best clown of his day, played at
Drury Lane and Covent Garden. He devised many stage mechanisms for
pantomimes. In 1783 he arranged a masquerade at the Pantheon in
celebration of the coming of age of the Prince of Wales, from whom
in his old age he received a gift of £200. Delpini, we are told,
had a presentiment that he should not die till the year “eight,”
which was realised, for he died in the year 1828, at the age of
88. He was born in the parish of St. Martin, at Rome, and drew his
last breath in the parish of St. Martin, London (to be precise, in
Lancaster Court, Strand).
[224] John Palmer (1742-98), the original Joseph Surface, was
known off the stage as Jack Plausible. Once, in patching up a
quarrel with Sheridan, he said: “If you could see my heart, Mr.
Sheridan,” and was answered, “Why, Jack, you forget I wrote it.”
The Royalty Theatre, at which Smith hoped to be employed by him,
was the ill-starred house in Well Street, in St. George’s in the
East. The opposition of the great theatres caused its degeneration
to a house for pantomimes and concerts. Palmer fell into debt and
into Surrey Gaol. Nevertheless he appeared at Drury Lane as late as
1798. He is described by Charles Lamb as “a gentleman with a slight
infusion of the footman,” for which reason “Jack in Dick Amlet was
insuperable.” Palmer died on the stage. His last uttered words,
spoken in _The Stranger_, are said to have been: “There is another
and a better world,” but this has been disputed: it is contended
that the words really uttered by him as he fell were those in the
fourth act: “I left them at a small town hard by.”
[225] Just forty years after Smith’s visit, in 1869, a
correspondent of _Notes and Queries_ had the curiosity to make a
similar journey of discovery. He found only one of the dolphin
knockers remaining, that on the door of No. 6. In June 1903 I found
that this had gone the way of all men and knockers, but I am told
it was there up to the early nineties. The neighbourhood can still
show a few door-knockers of ancient types. There are old lion’s
head-and-ring knockers in Gunpowder Alley and Hind Court. At No. 3
Red Lion Court is a good knocker, into which is introduced a bat
with outstretched wings. The old knocker of No. 9 Bell’s Buildings,
Salisbury Square, is adorned with the figure of a naked boy playing
on a pipe. There is a fine example of a dolphin knocker at 25 Queen
Anne’s Gate.
[226] The Garrat mock elections have often been described. Garrat
was a rural spot between Wandsworth and Tooting. A committee
organised to protect the village common from encroachments
developed into a roaring municipal farce which was repeated after
every General Election. The publicans of the southern villages
willingly subscribed to the carnival, and reaped handsome profits;
while Foote spread the fame and vogue of the elections by his farce
_The Mayor of Garrat_. A mock knighthood was given, as a matter of
course, to each mayor on his election. The first recorded mayor
was Sir John Harper, a retailer of brick-dust, and the next, the
most famous of all, Sir Jeffery Dunstan, a humorous vagabond whose
ostensible trade was in old wigs. He was constantly portrayed, or
used as the basis of caricature. In one print he is seen standing
on a stool, asking “How far is it from the first of August to
Westminster Bridge?” “Sir Jeffery” used his tongue with great
freedom, and the authorities were so destitute of humour as to
arrest him and obtain his imprisonment. The next Mayor of Garrat
was Sir Harry Dinsdale. He was born in Shug Lane, Haymarket, in
1758, and appears to have haunted the Soho neighbourhood, for he
married a woman out of St. Anne’s workhouse. He died in 1811.
[227] It must have been from his house No. 37, on the north
side of Gerrard Street, now a restaurant, but retaining its old
appearance and marked by a commemorative tablet, that Burke went to
Westminster Hall on May 10, 1787, to impeach Warren Hastings. Of
Burke’s life in Gerrard Street we have no nearer glimpse than that
given by Smith.
[228] General John Money (1752-1817) was one of the earliest of
English aeronauts. It was in an ascent from Norwich, July 22, 1785,
that he was carried out to sea, where he “remained for seven hours
struggling with his fate” before he was rescued.--Philip Reinagle,
R.A. (1749-1833), was an animal, landscape, and dead game painter.
Examples of his landscape work are at South Kensington.
[229] The Charles Greville here referred to was an early patron of
Lawrence at Oxford, when the artist was a mere boy; also of Romney,
whose portrait of Wortley Montague, the eccentric pseudo-Turk, he
both bought and copied.
[230] Sir William Hamilton (1730-1803), who married Emma Hart,
Nelson’s Lady Hamilton, was a keen archæologist, and made a
magnificent collection of Greek vases, which he sold to the British
Museum. He purchased the Barberini, or “Portland,” vase from Byres,
the architect, and sold it for 1800 guineas to the Duchess of
Portland, in the sale of whose property it was bought by the family
in 1829 for £1029. On February 7, 1745, after its acquisition by
the British Museum (Montagu House), it was wantonly broken in
pieces by a visitor named William Lloyd, who was sentenced to a
fine or imprisonment. The fine was paid anonymously.
[231] Smith’s little present to Sir George Beaumont is the more
interesting to us, because of that painter’s well-known love of
brown, and his dictum that “there ought to be at least one brown
tree in every landscape.” Beaumont’s name is inseparably associated
with the National Gallery, and also with Wordsworth’s noble poem on
his picture of Peele Castle in a Storm, containing the lines--
“Ah! then if mine had been the painter’s hand
To express what then I saw; and add the gleam,
The light that never was on sea or land,
The consecration, and the Poet’s dream,--
I would have planted thee, thou hoary pile,
Amid a world how different from this!
Beside a sea that could not cease to smile;
On tranquil land, beneath a sky of bliss.”
[232] Henry Salt, the great traveller and British consul-general in
Egypt. He sold antiquities to the British Museum, and had dealings,
resulting in a quarrel, with Belzoni.
[233] Smith evidently refers to the plan affected by Alexander
(not the greater John Rosher) Cozens, of throwing a blot, and then
working it into a landscape composition.
[234] Smith expresses himself rather oddly here, for he married
only once, his wife being Anne Maria Prickett, who, after a union
of forty-five years, was left his widow.
[235] Sir James Winter Lake, Bart., a man of wealth and culture,
compiled “Bibliotheca Lakeana” (a catalogue of his library) in
1808, and “British Portraits and Historical Prints, collected by J.
W. L.” in the same year. His extra-illustrated _Granger’s History_
extended to forty large folio volumes.
Lady Lake is mentioned in one of the many amusing dialogues
recorded by Smith in his _Life of Nollekens_. Panton Betew, the
silversmith of Old Compton Street, Soho, talking to Nollekens of
their common memories, says: “Ay, I know there were many very
clever things produced there (at Bow); what very curious heads
for canes they made at that manufactory! I think Crowther was the
proprietor’s name; he had a very beautiful daughter, who is married
to Sir James Lake. Nat. Hone painted a portrait of her, in the
character of Diana, and it was one of his best pictures.”
[236] Smith’s general meaning is plain, but I cannot with
confidence explain the reference to Tooley Street. It may
be no more than a slightly contemptuous way of referring to
villa-building tradesmen (nobodies, like the three Tooley Street
tailors) who at that time were building their Camomile Cottages in
the country.
[237] The part of Major Sturgeon, J.P., “the fishmonger from
Brentford,” was played by Foote in his own comedy, _The Mayor of
Garratt_ (1763). Sturgeon brags: “We had some desperate duty, Sir
Jacob … such marchings and counter-marchings from Brentford to
Ealing, from Ealing to Acton, from Acton to Uxbridge. Why, there
was our last expedition to Hounslow; that day’s work carried off
Major Molassas.”… Zoffany painted Foote in this character.
[238] Elizabeth Canning (1734-73), a domestic servant in
Aldermanbury, startled London in 1753 by the circumstantial
story she told of her capture in Moorfields, and her subsequent
imprisonment and ill-treatment at Enfield by “Mother Wells” and
a gipsy woman, Mary Squires. After Squires had been condemned
to death, and Wells had been burned in the hand, the case was
revised, with the result that Squires was pardoned and her accuser
transported for perjury. The affair, which had originally come
before Henry Fielding, the novelist, at Bow Street, aroused an
incredible amount of feeling in London.
[239] _The Merry Devil of Edmonton_ was for long carelessly
attributed to Shakespeare. Mr. Sidney Lee, in his _Shakespeare’s
Life and Work_, says: “It is a delightful comedy … but no sign of
Shakespeare’s workmanship is apparent.”
[240] Thomas King (1730-1805) was a clever comedian. His stage
career in London lasted fifty-four years. In November 1789 he
played the part of Sir John Trotley in Garrick’s _Bon Ton, or
High Life above Stairs_. “His acting,” says Charles Lamb, “left
a taste on the palate sharp and sweet as a quince; with an old,
hard, rough, withered face, like a john-apple, puckered up into
a thousand wrinkles; with shrewd hints and tart replies.” The
prologue of _Bon Ton_ has these lines:--
“Ah! I loves life, and all the joys it yields--
Says Madam Fussock, warm from Spital-fields.
Bone Tone’s the space ’twixt Saturday and Monday,
And riding in a one-horse chair o’ Sunday!
’Tis drinking tea on summer afternoons
At Bagnigge-Wells, with China and gilt spoons!
’Tis laying by our stuffs, red cloaks, and pattens,
To dance _Cow-tillions_, all in silks and sattins!”
[241] Skelton says of Eleanor Rumming--
“She breweth noppy ale,
And maketh thereof fast sale
To travellers, to tinkers.
To sweaters, to swinkers,
And all good ale-drinkers.”
The woman kept an alehouse at Leatherhead, which, it is thought,
Skelton may have visited when staying with his royal master at
Nonsuch Palace. It has been claimed, however, on interesting
evidence, that her alehouse was “Two-pot House,” between Cambridge
and Hardwicke. (See _Gentleman’s Magazine_, Nov. 1794, and
_Chambers’ Book of Days_ under June 21.)
[242] This passage in St. Martin’s Lane was built by a Mr. May,
who lived in a house of his own design in St. Martin’s Lane. Here
Smith himself lived at his father’s house, the Rembrandt Head, No.
18, for some years; the house is now absorbed in Messrs. Harrison’s
printing establishment. I have found no trace of Hartry, the
valiant cupper, but only of a dentist of that name, who may have
been his son.
[243] John Adams, teacher of mathematics, published _The
Mathematician’s Companion_ (1796). “The following use was made
of Hogarth’s plates of the Idle and Industrious Apprentices, by
the late John Adams, of Edmonton, schoolmaster. The prints were
framed and hung up in the schoolroom, and Adams, once a month,
after reading a lecture upon their vicious and virtuous examples,
rewarded those boys who had conducted themselves well, and caned
those who had behaved ill” (Smith: _Nollekens_).
[244] Samuel Ireland was father of William Henry Ireland, who
forged Shakespearean MSS. and put forward the spurious play
_Vortigern_. In his well-known _Graphic Illustrations of Hogarth_
he proves himself rather “a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles than
a contributor of serviceable information” (Austin Dobson: _William
Hogarth_: enlarged ed. 1898). This work must not be confused with
John Ireland’s _Hogarth Illustrated_.
[245] Perhaps it was an ordnance map mistake. “On the south side
of Nag’s Head Lane, near Ponder’s End, is a deep well, probably
the brick conduit noted in Ogilby’s roads 1698, and known by the
name of Tim Ringer’s Well (King’s Ring Well, 2076 in the ordnance
map), which was formerly considered infallible as a remedy for
inflammation of the eyes” (Hodson and Ford: _History of Enfield_,
1873).
[246] Durance, or Durants, was visited by James I. when it was the
home of Sir Henry Wroth, to whom Ben Jonson wrote his lines--
“How blessed art thou, canst love the country, Wroth
…
And though so near the City and the Court,
Art ta’en with neither’s vice or sport.”
Wroth’s executors sold the manor to Sir Thomas Stringer, who
married a daughter of Judge Jeffreys.
[247] “But above all, I must not forget the Tulip Tree, the largest
and biggest that ever was seen; there being but one more in Great
Britain (as I am informed), and that at the Lord Peterborough’s.
It blows with innumerable flowers in the months of June and July”
(John Farmer: _History of Waltham Abbey_).
[248] Known as Cheshunt House or the Great House. When Smith
visited it in 1791, it had been much modernised. There is no
evidence, says Thorne (_Environs of London_), that the o’er great
Cardinal ever lived there. Ten years after Smith’s visit, the Rev.
Charles Mayo pulled down the larger part of the building in order
to repair the remainder. After his time it remained desolate and
neglected.
[249] Cornelius Janssen (1590-1665) is best remembered for his
portrait of Milton as a boy, engraved in the first volume of
Professor Masson’s Life of the poet. His original portrait of Sir
Hugh Myddelton, now in the committee room of the Goldsmiths’ Hall,
represents the great engineer with his left hand resting on a conch
from which a stream of water gushes; over this are inscribed the
words: “Fontes Fondinæ.” This portrait was presented to the Company
by Lady Myddelton.
[250] Robert Lemon, the archivist. He discovered Milton’s “De
Doctrina Christiania,” and gave assistance to Sir Walter Scott.
[251] Sir Robert Strange was engraver to Prince Charles. His
distinguished career was chequered by his political sympathies,
and by his bitter criticism of the Royal Academy, in consequence,
partly, of its exclusion of engravers. Knighted by George III.
(after he had engraved West’s apotheosis of the three royal
children), he died in his last London home in Great Queen Street,
July 5, 1792. See note, p. 82.
[252] The bill of which Smith gives particulars is quoted in
full by William Hookham Carpenter in his _Pictorial Notices of
Sir Anthony Van Dyck_ (1844). “It is more than probable that the
account had been submitted to the supervision of Bishop Juxon, who,
by the influence of Archbishop Laud, was appointed to the office of
Lord Treasurer in 1635, which he held till 1641; and Anthony Wood
tells us ‘he kept the King’s purse when necessities were deepest,
and clamours were loudest.’” Vandyke had from Charles, in addition
to payments against pictures, an annuity of £200 a year and houses
at Blackfriars and Eltham.
[253] On February 23. After lying in state in the Royal Academy,
the remains of Sir Joshua Reynolds were interred, on Saturday,
March 3, in the crypt of St. Paul’s Cathedral, near the
resting-place of Sir Christopher Wren. The pall was borne by ten
peers, and the Archbishop of York took part in the service.
[254] Burke’s tribute had appeared in the _Annual Register_.
[255] Lieut.-Colonel Molesworth Phillips, whose career links Dr.
Johnson to Charles Lamb, was the companion of Captain Cook on his
last voyage. His marriage in 1782 to Susannah Elizabeth, daughter
of Dr. Charles Burney, and sister of Fanny Burney, brought him
into the Johnson set. He escorted Miss Burney to Westminster Hall
to hear Warren Hastings on his defence. Lamb, recalling his old
whist-playing friends in his “Letter of Elia to Robert Southey,”
names him as “the high-minded associate of Cook, the veteran
Colonel, with his lusty heart still sending cartels of defiance to
old Time.” He died in 1832.
[256] Mrs. Cholmondeley, who appears several times in Boswell’s
_Life_, was a younger sister of Peg Woffington, and the wife of the
Hon. and Rev. George Cholmondeley.
[257] “Sheridan had very fine eyes, and he was very vain of them.
He said to Rogers on his deathbed, ‘Tell Lady Besborough that my
eyes will look up to the coffin-lid as brightly as ever.’”
[258] The Old Bun House at Chelsea flourished for nearly a century
and a half, and yielded a livelihood to four generations of the
same family. In its best days it was the resort of royalty and
rank. Queen Charlotte presented Mrs. Hand with a silver mug,
containing five guineas. The shop had a pleasant arcaded front,
and, besides buns, offered its customers the sight of a number
of curiosities. As many as fifty thousand people would assemble
here on Good Friday mornings, and it is clear that Mrs. Hand had
reason to issue her curious notice. The site of the Bun House and
its garden is on the north side of the Pimlico Road, between Union
Street and Westbourne Street. The name of Bunhouse Place, at the
back, commemorates the establishment, which disappeared in 1839.
The danger of a mob assembling outside a London bun-shop on Good
Friday morning has passed away. Mr. Henry Attwell sadly observed,
in _Notes and Queries_, April 28, 1900, that “the last Good Friday
of the nineteenth century” found the hot-cross bun degenerated
from a spiced bun (“the spice recalling to the few who cared about
its religious suggestiveness the embalming of our Lord”) into a
vulgarised currant bun marked with deep indentures for convenience
of division, instead of the old slight cross in which there was a
touch of mystery.
[259] Roger L’Estrange, the pamphleteer and miscellaneous writer
(1616-1704), was deprived of his office of surveyor and licenser of
the press in 1688.
[260] _The First Book of Architecture_, first published in English
in 1668.
[261] Then Montagu House. “I apprehend,” says Smith, in his
_Antient Topography of London_, “that the custom of inlaying, or
tesselating, wooden floors commenced in England in the reign of
King Charles the First, and ended in that of Queen Anne. I have
secured patterns of four such floors: two belonging to the reign
of Charles the First, and two to that of Charles the Second. No. 1
is from that part of Whitehall lately inhabited by the Duchess of
Portland. No. 2 is from Somerset House. Nos. 3 and 4 are from the
present old gallery and waiting-room in the Marquis of Stafford’s
house in Cleveland Row.”
[262] One of the first exhibitors before the establishment of the
Royal Academy (S.). Keyse opened Bermondsey Spa in 1770, and in
1780 obtained a music licence. His greatest bid for public favour
was a farewell representation of the Siege of Gibraltar. The
present Spa Road crosses the site of the gardens, which were closed
about 1805.
[263] See note, p. 269.
[264] George Adams (died 1773) and his son George (died 1796) were
mathematical instrument makers to George III. A book by the father
on Terrestrial Globes was supplied with a dedication to the King
by Dr. Johnson.--Peter Dollond (1730-1820) was second in the line
of opticians. He was succeeded by his nephew, George Huggins, who
assumed the name of Dollond.
[265] A critic wrote:
“Keyse’s mutton
Show’d how the painter had a strife
With nature, to outdo the life.”
Keyse’s realism had been anticipated by such painters as Jordaens
and Snyder, whose butcher’s meat remains painfully juicy in the
galleries of Brussels and Antwerp.
[266] “Mrs. Wrighten had a vivacious manner and a bewitching smile,
and her ‘Hunting Song’ was popular” (Wroth: _London Pleasure
Gardens_).
[267] Captain Edward Topham (1751-1820), after a brilliant
regimental career in the Horse Guards, gave himself up to fashion
and drama. He produced several plays, and in 1787 founded the
_World_, a scurrilous daily paper, which brought him into the law
courts. In Rowlandson’s well-known _Vauxhall_, the foremost figure
in the crowd is an elderly beau, standing bolt upright, and defying
through his glass the stare of a gaudy female of mature years who
has found another cavalier. This is Captain, afterwards Major,
Topham. He wrote the life of Elwes, the miser.
[268] Jonas Blewitt, who died in 1805, lived at Bermondsey,
near the Spa Gardens, for which he wrote many songs. He wrote a
_Treatise on the Organ_, and must not be confused with his son, the
better-known Jonathan Blewitt, the musical director of the Surrey
Theatre.
[269] Jonathan Battishill (1738-1801), composer, organist of Christ
Church, Newgate Street, and St. Clement’s, Eastcheap, first became
known by his music to the song “Kate of Aberdeen.” His anthems were
sung in St. Paul’s Cathedral, and he set many of Charles Wesley’s
hymns to music.
[270] Smith underlines _Joseph_ to distinguish him from his
better-known brother, James Caulfield, who was the author and
printseller, and the publisher of much “Remarkable Persons”
literature. Joseph Caulfield was a musical engraver, and a capable
teacher of the pianoforte. He lived in Camden Town.
[271] John Montagu, fourth Earl of Sandwich (1718-92), “was the
soul of the Catch Club, and one of the Directors of the Concert of
Ancient Music, but he had not the least real ear for music, and
was equally insensible of harmony and melody” (Charles Butler’s
_Reminiscences_). It was his treachery to Wilkes that gave
Lord Sandwich his popular nickname, Jemmy Twitcher, taken from
Macheath’s words in the _Beggar’s Opera_: “That Jemmy Twitcher
should peach me, I own surprised me.”
[272] About the year 1770 Battishill wrote this glee in a
competition for a gold medal offered by the Noblemen’s Catch Club.
[273] Smith had been Morland’s fellow-student at the Royal Academy,
and they had frequently walked home together. Among his innumerable
addresses, Morland had several in the Fitzroy Square region.
[274] Otter’s Pool was a country house at Aldenham, Herts,
afterwards for many years the seat of Sir James Shaw Willes, the
judge of common pleas.
[275] Surrey Chapel is now occupied by a large machinery firm.
Rowland Hill used to say, in allusion to its octagonal form, that
he liked a round building because there were no corners for the
devil to hide in. Here he won the devotion of his congregation and
the esteem of the many distinguished people who came to hear him.
Sheridan said: “I go to hear Rowland Hill because his ideas come
red-hot from the heart.” Dean Milner said to him, “Mr. Hill! Mr.
Hill! I felt to-day ’tis this slap-dash preaching, say what they
will, that does all the good.” He died at his house in Blackfriars
Road, April 11, 1833, aged 88, and was buried in a vault under his
pulpit.
[276] This fanatical advocate of Charles the First’s execution (at
St. Margaret’s, Westminster) was one of the regicides executed in
1660.
[277] Smith is nowhere mentioned by Lamb, and other evidence of
their acquaintance is wanting.
[278] George Frost (1754-1821) is remembered as the intimate friend
of Constable. Smart was John Smart (1740-1811), the miniature
painter. He died in London.
“His genius lov’d his Country’s native views;
Its taper spires, green lawns, or sheltered farms;
He touch’d each scene with Nature’s genuine hues,
And gave the _Suffolk_ landscape all its charms.”
[279] Smith had evidently asked Constable to ascertain for him the
exact date of Gainsborough’s birth. This is still uncertain: it
took place in Sepulchre Street, Sudbury, at the end of April or
beginning of May 1727. He was baptized on 14th May of that year in
the Independent meeting-house in Sudbury.
[280] James Gubbins was a subscriber to Smith’s _Remarks on Rural
Scenery_ (1797), a volume of etchings of cottage and rural scenes
around London. One of its drawings represents a squatter’s shanty
in Epping Forest, bowered in trees, and is entitled “Lady Plomer’s
Palace on the summit of Hawke’s Hill Wood, Epping Forest.”
[281] The Minories drawing referred to by Constable was Smith’s
etching in his _Antient Topography_ of the north and east walls of
the Convent of St. Clare, the remains of which were destroyed by
fire on March 23, 1797. Only a year before, Mr. John Cranch (the
C----h of Constable’s letter) had presented Smith with a sketch of
the convent. Constable, therefore, refers to the swift supersession
of Cranch’s sketch by Smith’s drawing after the fire.
[282] Elizabeth Pope died on 15th March of this year, aged 52.
The funeral to the Abbey was met everywhere by great crowds.
Her abilities had not been dimmed by those of Garrick, Mrs.
Siddons, and Miss Farren, and her private life was blameless. The
resemblance she bore to Lady Sarah Lennox was such that George
III., seeing her act late in her career, exclaimed to his queen,
“She is like Lady Sarah still.” There is a fine story of her
parting with Garrick. On June 8, 1776, his last appearance but one,
when he was playing Lear to her Cordelia, Garrick said to her with
a sigh: “Ah, Bess! this is the last time of my being your father;
you must now look out for someone else to adopt you.” “Then,
sir,” she exclaimed, dropping on her knees, “give me a father’s
blessing.” Garrick, deeply touched, raised her, and said, “God
bless you!”
[283] Nevertheless Pope married two more wives. His most lasting
affections appear to have been set on table delicacies. Once, when
Kean asked him to act with him at Dublin, and take a benefit there,
he declined, saying: “I must be at Plymouth at the time; it is
exactly the season for mullet.” He maintained that there was but
one crime: peppering a beef-steak.
[284] Pope had begun life as a crayon portrait painter in his
birthplace, Cork. A highly finished water-colour portrait of Henry
Grattan, from his hand, is in the British Museum Print Room.
[285] Francis Cotes, born in Cork Street, 1725, was a foundation
member of the Royal Academy, and famous for his crayon portraits.
He built himself a house in Cavendish Square (No. 32), in which
Romney afterwards lived for twenty-one years, followed by Sir
Martin A. Shee. It was demolished in 1904. The British Museum has
four portrait subjects by Cotes in crayon. He is poorly represented
in the National Gallery by a small portrait of Mrs. Brocas.
[286] Benjamin Green, born at Halesowen, became a drawing-master
at Christ’s Hospital, and member of the Incorporated Society of
Artists. He published many topographical plates, and engraved the
illustrations in Morant’s _History and Antiquities of the County of
Essex_ (1768). His drawings of Canonbury Tower and Highbury Barn
are in the British Museum Print Room. He died about 1800.
[287] The Right Honourable James Caulfield, first Earl of
Charlemont (1728-99), distinguished himself in Ireland politically;
in London he mixed with the Reynolds and Johnson set and was a
member of the Dilettanti Club. In the college at St. Andrews, which
Johnson and Boswell playfully imagined might be staffed by members
of the Literary Club, Lord Charlemont was assigned the chair of
modern history, and it was on Lord Charlemont that Boswell, Burke,
Sir Joshua Reynolds, and others laid the task of bringing Dr.
Johnson’s conversational powers into play by asking him whether a
ludicrous statement in the newspapers that he was taking dancing
lessons from Vestris was true.
[288] Thomas Cheesman, who had been pupil to Bartolozzi, engraved
“The Lady’s Last Stake, or Picquet, or Virtue in Danger,” after
Hogarth. He lived, successively, at 40 Oxford Street, 71 Newman
Street, and 28 Francis Street. His portrait, by Bartolozzi, is in
the National Portrait Gallery.
[289] Sir Lawrence Parsons (1758-1841), afterwards Earl of Rosse.
Like Lord Charlemont, he was opposed to the Union, and twelve
days after the date of this letter he moved in the Irish House of
Commons an address to the Crown to expunge a paragraph in favour of
the Union. This was carried by a majority of five votes.
[290] Had James Barry possessed no more than a tithe of the suavity
of Reynolds or West, his career would have been more fortunate. In
vain Burke, his best friend, pointed out that his business was to
paint, not to dispute. He used his chair of painting at the Royal
Academy to vilify the members to the students. In 1799 the climax
arrived, and the Academicians resolved on his expulsion. The King
consented, and the following entry appears in the records: “I
have struck out the adjoining name, in consequence of the opinion
entered in the minutes of the Council, and of the General Meeting,
which I fully approve. April 23, 1779.--G. R.” No work of Barry’s
is in the National Gallery, but he has an enduring memorial in
his six great paintings in the hall of the Society of Arts, John
Street. Here he finally lay in state among his works--as Haydon
said, “a pall worthy of the corpse.”
[291] John Brand (1744-1806), the excellent historian of
Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and author of the _Popular Antiquities_. He
came to London in 1784, to fill the rectory of St. Mary-at-Hill. In
the same year he was appointed Resident Secretary of the Society of
Antiquaries, but he continued to discharge his duties in the City,
and died there, suddenly, in his rectory. He was buried in the
chancel of his church.
[292] The publication Flaxman indicates, and to which he wishes
to subscribe, is Smith’s important “Antiquities of Westminster,
the old Palace, St. Stephen’s Chapel (now the House of Commons).…
Containing two hundred and forty-six engravings of topographical
subjects, of which one hundred and twenty-two no longer remain.”
The reduction of the thickness of the side walls of St. Stephen’s
Chapel from three feet to one foot gave additional four feet to
the width of the chamber. So soon as the wainscotting was removed,
it was seen that the walls were adorned with beautiful paintings
of scriptural and historical subjects. The discovery excited great
interest, both on account of the antiquity of the paintings, which
were found to date from Edward III., and the fact that they were
painted in oils and were consequently among the earliest specimens
of that class of painting. Smith obtained permission to copy them.
He began work each morning, as soon as it was light, and was
followed so closely by the workmen that they sometimes demolished
in the afternoon the painting he had copied in the morning. This
task occupied him for six weeks. These valuable drawings are
engraved and coloured in the _Antiquities of Westminster_.
[293] Edward Hussey Delaval (1729-1814) of Seaton-Delaval,
Northumberland, the chemist, has a claim on the remembrance of
Londoners. In 1769 he and Benjamin Franklin were commissioned to
report to the Royal Society on the best means of protecting St.
Paul’s from lightning. Parliament Stairs, where his house stood,
was at the west end of the present Houses of Parliament, giving
access to the river from Abingdon Street. Delaval, who traced his
descent from the Conqueror’s standard-bearer at Hastings, died
here, aged 85.
[294] Parliament Stairs were open several months in the summer for
the accommodation of those gentlemen of Westminster School, who
practise the manly and healthy exercise of rowing; the key was held
by Mr. Tyrwhitt, whose servants regularly opened and closed the
gates night and morning.--S.
[295] John Carter, F.R.S. (1748-1817), is airily described by
Michael Bryan as “a harmless and inoffensive drudge.” He was
employed by the Society of Antiquaries, and by Horace Walpole and
others. His chief work, _The Ancient Architecture of England_,
occupied him many years. Carter was enthusiastically musical, but
the two operas on which he ventured are forgotten.
[296] Richard Bentley, only son of Dr. Bentley, the Master of
Trinity. He designed beautiful illustrations for Walpole’s
_edition-de-luxe_ of six of Gray’s poems, including the _Elegy_,
and gave much assistance in the architectural treatment of
Strawberry Hill. Walpole was under no delusion about their joint
experiments in Gothic. “Neither Mr. Bentley nor my workmen had
_studied_ the science,” he wrote to Thomas Barrett (June 5, 1788);
“my house therefore is but a sketch for beginners.”
[297] George Arnald (1763-1841) is represented in the National
Gallery by one pleasing landscape, hung in Room XX., “On the Ouse,
Yorkshire.” Some of his London subjects are reproduced by Smith in
his _Westminster_. His “View of the Palace and Abbey,” painted in
1803, just excludes Delaval’s house on the left.--George Francis
Joseph, A.R.A. (1764-1846), was a well-known portrait painter in
his day. He is represented in the National Gallery by portraits of
Spencer, Perceval, and Sir Stamford Raffles, and in the British
Museum Print Room by a water-colour portrait of Charles Lamb,
engravings from which appear in many editions of Lamb’s works.
[298] John Ker, third Duke of Roxburgh (1740-1804), one of the
greatest of book-collectors, lived at No. 11 St. James’s Square.
Smith’s epithet “the late” appertains to the time at which he wrote
this passage.
[299] The case of Colonel Joseph Wall was remarkable for the
culprit’s twenty years’ evasion of justice. His crime was the
murder of a soldier while he was Lieutenant-Governor of Goree,
in Senegambia, in 1782. The command of the fort at Goree was an
inferior appointment, usually given to some claimant who stood
in no great favour with the War Minister, and the troops of the
garrison were commonly regiments in disgrace. Wall exercised
his authority with great cruelty, and in 1782 punished Benjamin
Armstrong, a sergeant, with a wilful severity which resulted in his
death. Aware of the nature of his action, Wall fled to France. He
then came to England, and was tried by court-martial for cruelty;
but the proceedings hung fire, and he went to reside at Bath. He
was re-arrested in 1784, but escaped to the Continent. Finally, in
1797, he wrote to the Home Secretary, offering to stand his trial
for murder. He was tried, and sentenced to death, and, though the
likelihood of a reprieve seemed great, was hanged outside Newgate,
January 28, 1802.
[300] The _Gentleman’s Magazine_ records that Dr. Forde, the
Ordinary of Newgate, was “a very worthy man, and was much and
deservedly esteemed by the City magistrates, who, on his retirement
from office, settled on him an annuity which provided for the
comforts of his latter days.” Dr. Forde no doubt satisfied the City
authorities, but the Parliamentary Committee which investigated the
state of the prison in 1814 reported: “Beyond his attendance in
chapel, and on those who are sentenced to death, Dr. Forde feels
but few duties to be attached to his office. He knows nothing
of the state of morals in the prison; he never sees any of the
prisoners in private; … he never knows that any have been sick
till he gets a warning to attend their funeral; and does not go to
the infirmary, for it is not in his instructions.” Dr. Forde was
succeeded by the Rev. Mr. Cotton, who first officiated August 8,
1814.
[301] Maria Cosway, wife of Richard Cosway, the miniaturist.
[302] Black Boy Alley was notorious in the eighteenth century, and
at one time was infested by a gang who drowned their victims in the
Fleet River. No fewer than twenty-one were executed at once, after
which the humour of the neighbourhood called the place Jack Ketch’s
Common. In 1802, and earlier, Black Boy Alley was the scene of a
weekly display of badger-baiting.
[303] In the eighteenth century, Epping sent butter and sausages to
the London market, but the industry declined long ago.
[304] Pie Corner was at the Smithfield end of Giltspur Street,
a short distance north from the Old Bailey. “A very fine dirty
place,” is D’Urfey’s description of this spot, where the Great Fire
of London ended. It was long famous for its greasy cook-shops.
[305] In his _Nollekens_ Smith puts the same jibe into the mouth of
John Hamilton Mortimer, the painter. “Mortimer made Dr. Arne, who
had a very red face with staring eyes, furiously angry by telling
him that his eyes looked ‘like two oysters just opened for sauce
put upon an oval side-dish of beet-root.’”
[306] Peter Coxe, an auctioneer, and the author of a poem in
four cantos called “The Social Day,” published in 1823. He wrote
also “The Exposé, or Napoleon Buonaparte unmasked in a Condensed
Statement of his Career and Atrocities” (1809). His emollient
has escaped my search. Coxe was one of a long line of well-known
men who lived in the middle one of the three houses into which
Schomberg House, Pall Mall, was divided. He died in 1844.
[307] This generous woman, better known under the lawful title
of Lady Hamilton, when I showed her my etching of the funeral
procession of her husband’s friend, the immortal Nelson, fainted
and fell into my arms; and, believe me, reader, her mouth was equal
to any production of Greek sculpture I have yet seen (S.).--Smith’s
etching was entitled, “An Accurate View (drawn and etched by J. T.
Smith, Engraver of the _Antiquities of London and Westminster_)
from the house of W. Tunnard, Esq., on the Bankside, adjoining the
Scite of Shakespeare’s Theatre, on Wednesday the 8th January 1806,
when the remains of the great Admiral Lord Nelson were brought from
Greenwich to Whitehall.”
[308]
“The Fair One, whose charms did the Barber enthral,
At the end of Fleet Market of fish kept a stall:
As red as her cheek no boil’d lobster was seen,
Not an eel that she sold was as soft as her skin.”