Part 22

[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.