Part 21

[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.”