Part 18

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.