A Book for a Rainy Day; or, Recollections of the Events of the Years 1766-1833

Captain William Baillie[207] was also an amateur in art; he suffered from an asthma, which often stood his friend by allowing a lengthened fit of coughing to stop a sentence whe...

This year proved more lucrative to me than any preceding, for at this time I professed portrait painting both in oils and crayons; but, alas! after using a profusion of carmine,...

“SIR,--You having promised to give an account of the curiosities of art, as well as the wonders of nature, I thought it would oblige the public to acquaint you that the effigies...

In 1816 he succeeded William Alexander as Keeper of the Prints, and it is probable that he soon afterwards took up his residence at No. 22 University Street.[1] He was living he...

One of the subjects selected by Mr. Jonathan Tyers, for the artists who decorated the boxes for supper-parties in Vauxhall Gardens,[36] was that of Milkmaids on May-day. In that...

The walls are painted with a subdued red, a colour considered by most artists best calculated to relieve pictures, particularly those with broad gold frames. The first picture w...

“Interest more particularly hovered around the old toll bell, with its famous loyal inscription, and solid ton of metal. The hour was late when the lot (No. 188 in the catalogue...

The coachman was immediately curbed; and when Mr. Noel’s friend had parted with him, by shaking his hand in the coach, the coachman, touching the front of his hat, wished to kno...

Mrs. Abington, in order to keep up her card-parties, of which she was very fond, and which were attended by many ladies of the highest rank, absented herself from her abode to l...

[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 nea...

[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 probab...

As we were tacking about, the wind standing fair to drop the lady at Vauxhall-stairs, our old weathergage, the waterman, who reminded me of Copper Holmes, thus addressed a loppe...

[433] This elaborate and beautiful work stands in the centre of St. Andrew’s Chapel. Beneath a canopy supported on columns lie the effigies of Lord and Lady Norris, and round th...

[342] Tooke did not, therefore, “try the question” of his silver caddy; but had it not been returned he would have done so in his character of the inimitable litigant. “A court...

The actors at this time wore immense wigs, particularly Bullock, Penkethman, etc.; Cibber’s was in moderation. It must here be observed, that I now allude to their private wigs;...

[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 Pad...

Mr. West, to whom I had sat for the head of St. John in his picture of the Last Supper, for the altar of St. George’s Chapel, Windsor,[165] frequently engaged me to bid for him...

“But surely I need dwell no longer upon a subject with which you are so much better acquainted; and, indeed, the state of my health, and particularly of my eyes, is such as to r...

[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 i...

[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,...

Mrs. Fountayne was a vain, dashing woman, extremely fond of appearing at Court, for which purpose, as was generally known, she borrowed Lady Harrington’s jewels.[80] Indeed, her...

[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 rig...

[380] This certificate does not answer Smith’s inquiry: the place of the marriage. As a matter of fact, Dr. Francklin’s chapel, where the ceremony was performed, was not in Grea...

In 1784, when Sir Ashton Lever petitioned the House of Commons for a lottery for his museum, Mr. Thomas Waring made the following declaration before the Committee to whom the pe...

As the lady retired from the front of the orchestra, she, to keep herself in practice, curtsied to me with as much respect as she would had Colonel Topham been the patron of a g...

[485] These views may still be seen in Crowle’s “Pennant,” in the Print Room. The first represents London from Somerset House about 1795, and the second Somerset House from the...

“Indeed, Sir!” is the general exclamation of a passenger in a stage coach, whenever any one observes that he had seen Garrick perform; at least, such an observation has fallen f...

The highly flattering manner in which my work, entitled _Nollekens and his Times_, was generally received, induced me to collect numerous scattered biographical papers, which I...

Garrick-- Seen by Smith, 87. Farewell of the stage, 70-74, 228. Death and burial, 80-81. His eyes, 146. And Mrs. Pope, 163. And Mrs. Abington, 215-216. Presented with a cup, 250...