When Lord Levant quitted the country and this neighbourhood, in which
the tradesmen still deplore him, No. 56, known as Levantine House, was
let to the Pococurante Club, which was speedily bankrupt (for we are too
far from the centre of town to support a club of our own); it was
subsequently hired by the West Diddlesex Railroad; and is now divided
into sets of Chambers, superintended by an acrimonious housekeeper, and
by a porter in a sham livery, who, if you won’t find him at the door,
you may as well seek at the Grapes public-house, in the little lane
round the corner. He varnishes the japan-boots of the dandy lodgers;
reads Mr. Pinkney’s _Morning Post_ before he lets him have it; and
neglects the letters of the inmates of the Chambers generally.
The great rooms, which were occupied as the salons of the noble Levant,
the coffee-rooms of the Pococurante (a club where the play was furious,
as I am told), and the board-room and manager’s-room of the West
Diddlesex, are tenanted now by a couple of artists; young Pinkney the
miniaturist, and George Rumbold the historical-painter. Miss Rumbold,
his sister, lives with him, by the way; but with that young lady of
course we have nothing to do.
I knew both these gentlemen at Rome, when George wore a velvet doublet
and a beard down to his chest, and used to talk about high art at the
Café Greco. How it smelled of smoke, that velveteen doublet of his, with
which his stringy red beard was likewise perfumed! It was in his studio
that I had the honour to be introduced to his sister, the fair Miss
Clara; she had a large casque with a red horse-hair plume (I thought it
had been a wisp of her brother’s beard at first), and held a tin-headed
spear in her hand, representing a Roman warrior in the great picture of
Caractacus George was painting--a piece sixty-four feet by eighteen. The
Roman warrior blushed to be discovered in that attitude: the tin-headed
spear trembled in the whitest arm in the world. So she put it down, and
taking off the helmet also, went and sat in a far corner of the studio,
mending George’s stockings; whilst we smoked a couple of pipes, and
talked about Raphael being a good deal overrated.
I think he is; and have never disguised my opinion about the
“Transfiguration.” And all the time we talked, there were Clara’s eyes
looking lucidly out from the dark corner in which she was sitting,
working away at the stockings. The lucky fellow! They were in a dreadful
state of bad repair when she came out to him at Rome, after the death of
their father, the Reverend Miles Rumbold.
George while at Rome painted “Caractacus;” a picture of “Non Angli sed
Angeli,” of course; a picture of “Alfred in the Neat-herd’s Cottage,”
seventy-two feet by forty-eight; (an idea of the gigantic size and
Michael-Angelesque proportions of this picture may be formed, when I
state that the mere muffin, of which the outcast king is spoiling the
baking, is two feet three in diameter); and the deaths of Socrates, of
Remus, and of the Christians under Nero respectively. I shall never
forget how lovely Clara looked in white muslin, with her hair down, in
this latter picture, giving herself up to a ferocious Carnifex (for
which Bob Gaunter the architect sat), and refusing to listen to the mild
suggestions of an insinuating Flamen; which character was a gross
caricature of myself.
None of George’s pictures sold. He has enough to tapestry Trafalgar
Square. He has painted since he came back to England “The flaying of
Marsyas;” “The smothering of the little boys in the Tower;” “A plague
scene during the great pestilence;” “Ugolino on the seventh day after he
was deprived of victuals,” &c. For although these pictures have great
merit, and the writhings of Marsyas, the convulsions of the little
prince, the look of agony of St. Lawrence on the gridiron, &c., are
quite true to nature, yet the subjects somehow are not agreeable; and if
he hadn’t a small patrimony, my friend George would starve.
Fondness for art leads me a great deal to this studio. George is a
gentleman, and has very good friends, and good pluck too. When we were
at Rome there was a great row between him and young Heeltap, Lord
Boxmoor’s son, who was uncivil to Miss Rumbold; (the young
scoundrel--had I been a fighting man I should like to have shot him
myself!) Lady Betty Bulbul is very fond of Clara, and Tom Bulbul, who
took George’s message to Heeltap, is always hanging about the studio. At
least I know that I find the young jackanapes there almost every day;
bringing a new novel, or some poisonous French poetry, or a basket of
flowers, or grapes, with Lady Betty’s love to her dear Clara--a young
rascal with white kids, and his hair curled every morning. What business
has _he_ to be dangling about George Rumbold’s premises, and sticking up
his ugly pug-face as a model for all George’s pictures?
Miss Clapperclaw says Bulbul is evidently smitten, and Clara too. What!
would she put up with such a little fribble as that, when there is a man
of intellect and taste who--but I won’t believe it. It is all the
jealousy of women.
[Illustration: SOME OF OUR GENTLEMEN.]