Part 7

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 whenever he found himself in want of words to complete it. When not engaged in his duties as a commissioner of the Stamp Office, he for years amused himself in what he called _etching_; but in what Rembrandt, as well as every true artist, would call scratching. He could not draw, nor had he an eye for effect. To prove this assertion, I will “_end him at a blow_,” by bringing to my informed reader’s recollection the captain’s execrable plate, which he considered to be an improvement upon Rembrandt’s “Three Trees.” Mr. West classed him amongst the conceited men.--“Sir,” said the venerable President, “when I requested him to show me a fine impression of Rembrandt’s Hundred Guilder print, he placed one of his own _restored_ impressions before me, with as much confidence as my little friend Edwards[208] attempts to teach Perspective in the Royal Academy.” Captain Baillie commonly wore a camlet coat, and walked so slowly and with such measured steps, that he appeared like a man heavily laden with jack-boots and Munchausen spurs; and whenever he entered an auction-room, he generally permitted his cough to announce his arrival.

Mr. Baker,[209] an opulent dealer in lace, was nightly to be found bidding for the choicest impressions, which he seldom allowed any antagonist, however powerful, to carry away. He was well-proportioned, and though sometimes singular in his manner, and too negligent in his dress, was a most honourable man.

Mr. Woodhouse, of Tokenhouse Yard, was also a bidder for fine things; he did not possess so much of the milk of human kindness as Mr. Baker; indeed, his manners were at times a little repulsive, although he had been many years principal cashier in Sir George Prescott’s banking-house. He was an extensive collector of Cipriani’s drawings.[210]

Mr. Musgrave,[211] of Norfolk Street, frequently attended auctions of prints, but particularly those of pictures; he was an accomplished gentleman in his address, and most feelingly benevolent in his actions. His figure was short, his features pleasing, and he seldom went abroad without a rose in his button-hole. When I state that no man could have had fewer enemies, I think even the descendants of “Vinegar Tom”[212] will never haunt my bedside.

There was another truly polite and kind-hearted attendant at Hutchins’s sales, Mr. Pitt, of Westminster. The manners of this gentleman were precise, and he wore a large five-story white wig.

The next collector at this period was Mr. Wodhull,[213] the translator of Euripides. He was very thin, with a long nose and thick lips; of manners perfectly gentlemanly. The great singularity of his appearance arose, perhaps, from his closing his coat from the first button, immediately under his chin, to the last, nearly extending to the bottom of his deep-flap waistcoat-pockets. He seldom spoke, nor would he exceed one sixpence beyond the sum which he had put down in his catalogue, to give for the articles he intended to bid for; and though he frequently went away without purchasing a single lot, or even speaking to any one during the whole evening, he always took off his hat, and bowed low to the company before he left the auction-room.

Mr. Rawle, an accoutrement-maker, then living in the Strand, was a visitor: he was the friend of Captain Grose, and the executor of Thomas Worlidge,[214] the etcher. In his early days he had collected many curious and valuable articles. His cabinets contained numerous interesting portraits in miniature of Elizabethan characters. He was a professed Commonwealth man, and possessed many of the Protector’s, or, according to some writers, the usurper’s letters. He also prided himself upon having the leathern doublet, sword, and hat in which Oliver dissolved the Parliament, and showed a helmet that he could incontrovertibly prove had belonged to him. He likewise frequently expatiated for a considerable time upon a magnificent wig, which he said had been worn by that Merry Monarch, King Charles the Second.[215] This singular character never would allow more than a halfpenny-worth of vegetables to be put upon his table, though they were ever so cheap; and when they were above his price, he went without.[216]

Another singular character of the name of Beauvais, who at one time had flourished at Tunbridge Wells as a miniature-painter,[217] attended the evening auctions. This man, who was short and rather lumpy in stature, indeed nearly as wide as he was high, was a native of France, and through sheer idleness became so filthily dirty in his person and dress, that few of the company would sit by him. Yet I have seen him in a black suit with his sword and bag, in the evening of the day on which he had been at Court, where for years he was a constant attendant. This “Sack of Sand,” as Suett the actor generally called him, sat at the lower end of the table; and as he very seldom made purchases, few persons ventured to converse with him. He frequently much annoyed Hutchins by the loudest of all snoring; and now and then Doctor Wolcot would ask him a question, in order to indulge in a laugh at his mode of uttering an answer, which Peter Pindar declared to be more like the gobbling of a turkey-cock than anything human. He lived in a two-pair-of-stairs back room in St. James’s Market; and, after his death, Hutchins sold his furniture. I recollect his spinet, music-stool, and a few dog’s-eared sheets of lessons sold for three-and-sixpence.

Mr. Matthew Mitchell,[218] the banker, frequently joined these parties, and seldom went away without a purchase of prints under his arm. He was extremely well-proportioned, and walked in what I have often heard the ladies of the _old school_ style a portly manner. He was remarkable for a width of chin, which was full as large as Titus Oates’s, and a set of large white teeth. His features altogether, however, bespoke a good-natured and liberal man. This gentleman was very kind to me when I was a boy, and I never hear his name mentioned but with unspeakable pleasure.

Mr. Mitchell had a most serious antipathy to a kitten. He could sit in a room without experiencing the least emotion from a cat; but directly he perceived a kitten, his flesh shook on his bones, like a snail in vinegar. I once relieved him from one of these paroxysms, by taking a kitten out of the room; on my return he thanked me, and declared his feelings to be insupportable upon such an occasion. Long subsequently I asked him whether he could in any way account for this agitation. He said he could not, adding that he experienced no such sensations upon seeing a full-grown cat; but that a kitten, after he had looked at it for a minute or two, in his imagination grew to the size of an overpowering elephant.

At this period Hogarth’s prints were in such high request, that whenever anything remarkable appeared, it was stoutly contested: for Mr. Packer, of Combe’s Brewhouse, was one of the most enterprising of the Hogarth collectors. This gentleman, though his manners sometimes appeared blunt, was highly respected by all who really knew him: it was at this time he became my friend.[219]

He was tall, of good proportion, and well-favoured. He had his peculiarities in dress, particularly as to his hat, which was an undoubted original. Mr. Packer’s opponents in Hogarth prints were two persons, one of the name of Vincent, a tall, half-starved-looking man, who walked with a high gilt chased-headed cane (he had been a chaser of milk-pots, watch-cases, and heads of canes, and he always walked with this cane as a show-article), and the other of the name of Powell, better known under the appellation of “_Old black wig_.”

Henderson, the player,[220] who was also a collector of Hogarth’s works, seldom made his appearance on these boards--John Ireland being his deputy-manager.[221]

I must not omit to mention another singular but most honourable character, of the name of Heywood, nicknamed “Old Iron Wig.” His dress was precise, and manner of walking rather stiff. He was an extensive purchaser of every kind of article in art, particularly Rowlandson’s drawings; for this purpose he employed the merry and friendly Mr. Seguier,[222] the picture-dealer, a schoolfellow of my father’s, to bid for him.

I shall now close this list by observing that my early friend and fellow-pupil, Rowlandson, who has frequently made drawings of Hutchins and his print-auctions, has produced a most spirited etching, in which not only many of the above-described characters are introduced, but also most of the printsellers of the day. There is another, though it must be owned very indifferent, plate, containing what the publisher called “Portraits of Printsellers,” from a monotonous drawing by the late Silvester Harding, whose manner of delineation made persons appear to be all of one family, particularly his sleepy-eyed and gaudily-coloured drawings of ladies.

1787.

At this time my mimic powers induced Delpini the clown,[223] who had often been amused with several of my imitations of public characters, to mention me to Mr. John Palmer,[224] who, after listening to my specimens, promised me an engagement at the Royalty Theatre, which was then erecting; but as that gentleman was too sanguine, and failed in procuring a licence, I, as well as many other strutting heroes, was disappointed.

After this my friends advised me to resume the arts; and, with the usual confidence of an unskilful beginner, I at once presumed to style myself “drawing-master.” However, my slender abilities, or rather industry, were noticed by my kind patrons, who soon recommended me to pupils, and by that pursuit I was enabled, with some increase of talent, to support myself for several years. It is rather extraordinary that mimicry with me was not confined to the voice, for I could in many instances throw my features into a resemblance of the person whose voice I imitated. Indeed, so ridiculous were several of these gesticulations, that I remember diverting one of my companions by endeavouring to look like the various lion-headed knockers as we passed through a long street. Skilful, however, as I was declared to be in some of my attempts, I could not in any way manage the dolphin knockers in Dean Street, Fetter Lane. Their ancient and fish-like appearance was certainly many fathoms beyond my depth; and as much by reason of my being destitute of gills, and the nose of that finny tribe, extending nearly in width to its tremendous mouth, I was obliged to give up the attempt.

When first I saw these knockers, which were all of solid brass, seventeen of the doors of the four-and-twenty houses in Dean Street were adorned with them, and the good housewives’ care was to keep them as bright as the chimney-sweeper’s ladle on May-day. As my mind from my earliest remembrance was of an inquisitive nature, my curiosity urged me to learn why this street, above all others, was thus adorned; and my inquiry was, as I then thought, at once answered satisfactorily.

This ground and the houses upon it belong to the Fishmongers’ Company, was the answer returned by one of the oldest inhabitants; and the heraldic reader will recollect that the arms of that worshipful and ancient body are dolphins. Not being satisfied with this assertion, however, I went to Fishmongers’ Hall, and was there assured that the Company never had any property in Dean Street, Fetter Lane. On the 17th of May, 1829, I visited this street in order to see how many of my brazen-faced acquaintances exposed themselves, and I found that Dean Street was nearly as deficient in its dolphin knockers as a churchyard is of its earliest tombstones, for out of seventeen only three remained.[225]

In the commencement of this year I took lodgings in Gerrard Street, and acquiesced in the regulations of my landlady; one of the principal of which was, that I never was to expect to be let in after twelve o’clock, unless the servant was apprised of my staying out later, and then she was to be permitted to sit up for me. Being in my twenty-first year, of a lively disposition, and moreover fond of theatrical representations, I did not at all times “remember twelve”; for although Mrs. Siddons sounded it so emphatically upon my ear, I could never quit the theatre till half an hour after. My finances at this period being sometimes too slender to afford an additional lodging for the night, and not often venturing to expose myself to insult, or the artful and designing, by perambulating the city, unless the moon invited me, I fortunately hit upon the following expedient, which not only sheltered me from rain, but afforded me a seat by the fireside. I either used to go to the watch-house of St. Paul, Covent Garden, or that of St. Anne, Soho; so, having made myself free of both by agreeing with the watch-house keeper to stand the expense of two pots of porter upon every nocturnal visit, I was enabled to see what is called “life and human nature.”

One of the curious scenes witnessed upon a more recent occasion afforded me no small amusement. Sir Harry Dinsdale, usually called Dimsdale, a short, feeble little man, was brought in to St. Anne’s watch-house, charged by two colossal guardians of the night with conduct most unruly. “What have you, Sir Harry, to say to all this?” asked the Dogberry of St. Anne. The knight, who had been roughly handled, commenced like a true orator, in a low tone of voice, “May it please ye, my magistrate, I am not drunk; it is _languor_. A parcel of the bloods of the Garden have treated me cruelly, because I would not treat them. This day, Sir, I was sent for by Mr. Sheridan to make my speech upon the table at the Shakspeare Tavern, in _Common_ Garden; he wrote the speech for me, and always gives me half a guinea, when he sends for me to the tavern. You see I didn’t go in my Royal robes; I only put ’um on when I stand to be member.” Constable--“Well, but Sir Harry, why are you brought here?” One of the watchmen then observed, “That though Sir Harry was but a little _shambling_ fellow, he was so _upstroppolus_ and kicked him about at such a rate, that it was as much as he and his comrade could do to bring him along.” As there was no one to support the charge, Sir Harry was advised to go home, which, however, he swore he would not do at midnight without an escort. “Do you know,” said he, “there’s a parcel of _raps_ now on the outside waiting for me.”

The constable of the night gave orders for him to be protected to the public-house opposite the west end of St. Giles’s Church, where he then lodged. Sir Harry hearing a noise in the street, muttered, “I shall catch it; I know I shall.” “See the conquering hero comes” (_cries without_). “Ay, they always use that tune when I gain my election at Garrett.”

Although many of my readers may recollect Sir Harry Dinsdale, yet it may be well for the information of others to state who and what he was. Before I commence his history, however, I should observe that the death of Sir Jeffery Dunstan, a dealer in old wigs, who had been for many years returned member for Garrett, first gave popularity to Harry Dinsdale, who, from the moment he stood as candidate, received mock knighthood, and was ever after known under the appellation of “Sir Harry.”[226] There are several portraits of this singular little object, by some called “Honeyjuice,” as well as of his more whimsical predecessor, Sir Jeffery Dunstan, better known as “Old Wigs.” Sir Harry exercised the itinerant trade of a muffinman in the afternoon; he had a little bell, which he held to his ear, smiling ironically at its tingling. His cry was “Muffins! muffins! ladies come buy _me_! pretty, handsome, blooming, smiling maids.” Flaxman the sculptor, and Mrs. Mathew, of blue-stocking memory, equipped him as a hardware man, and as such I made two etchings of him.

Many a time when I had no inclination to go to bed at the dawn of day, I have looked down from my window to see whether the author of the _Sublime and Beautiful_ had left his drawing-room, where I had seen that great orator during many a night after he had left the House of Commons, seated at a table covered with papers, attended by an amanuensis who sat opposite to him.[227] Major Money, who had nearly been lost at sea with his balloon, at that time lodged in the same house. Of the Major’s perilous situation at sea, the elder Reinagle made a spirited picture, of which there is an engraving.[228]

In this year I had the honour for the first time of exhibiting at the Royal Academy. My production was a portrait of the venerable beech-tree which stood within memory at a short distance from Sand-pit Gate, in Windsor Forest, and which tree has been so admirably painted by West. This picture, which measures five feet in height and seven in length, was sold by auction at Mr. West’s house, in May 23rd, 1829. My drawing, as well as many of my studies made from that delightful display of forest scenery, was highly finished in black chalk; it was purchased by the late Earl of Warwick, who was not only an admirable draughtsman himself, but kind to young artists. By that nobleman I was introduced to the Hon. F. Charles Greville [the Earl’s brother and a Vice-President of the Royal Society], whose taste for the Fine Arts is too well known to need any eulogium from me.[229] This gentleman gave Cipriani above one hundred guineas for an elaborate drawing of the famous Barberini vase, brought to England by Sir William Hamilton.[230] Several learned writers have given their conjectures as to the subject so beautifully sculptured on this vase; but I understand that nothing has been adduced as yet that sufficiently elucidates it. This vase is deposited in the British Museum.

This grey and silver beech was the loftiest in the forest, and particularly beautiful when the sun shone upon its ancient limbs; his capacious and hollow trunk, with a small additional hut, afforded accommodation for a woodman, his wife, four children, a sow and a numerous litter of pigs. This happy family retreat, which had frequently been noticed by King George III., was at last unavoidably obliged, from the symptoms it exhibited of falling, to submit to the woodman’s axe--that woodman whose family had weathered many a storm, and had been screened from the scorching sunbeams under its majestic branches, several of which, by reason of its “bald and high antiquity,” had not issued foliage for many a summer. The King, however, who never suffered the humblest of his subjects whose industry he had noticed, to sigh under calamity, ordered a snug, neat brick cottage to be built for the honest occupant and his dependents, which was erected in the same forest, and at as short a distance as possible from the former residence.

One curious and interesting discovery resulted from the demolition of this venerable tree. The woodman, who had allowed the smoke from his peat-piled fire to pass through one of the hollow limbs of the tree for several years without sweeping it, had, by accumulated incrustations, produced a mass of the finest brown colour, resembling the present appearance of that used by Rembrandt, so much coveted by the English artists. The discovery was made by Mr. Paul Sandby, who was fortunately passing at the time the timber was on the ground, who immediately secured a tolerable quantity to enable him to prove that the smoke from forest fuel, united with the heated branch of a hollow and aged beech, produced the finest bistre: his son, the present Mr. Sandby, gave me a lump of it, which I presented to the late Sir George Beaumont.[231] Having mentioned this bistre to several Roman artists, they informed me that a strong decoction of the sap of the ilex, or evergreen oak, produces a colour nearly similar; and of this I have had satisfactory proof. These, and suchlike bistres, would be much safer for the artist to use than that called sepia, which is made from the ink of the cuttle-fish, which, being a marine production, ever retains its saline and pernicious qualities, as may be seen in several of the numerous drawings made by Guercino, where the colour has left a blot, which has completely eaten through the paper. However, after all the trials of our experimentalists to match the present tint of Rembrandt’s drawings, and however pleasingly ingenious their discoveries have been, still I am inclined to believe that much, if not the whole, of the effect of old drawings is owing to that produced by time; and in this idea I am borne out by a small drawing which the ever-to-be-revered Flaxman made with a pen in common writing-ink: he drew it when I was a lad, and it is now a deep rich brown. May we not also fairly conclude, from the brown tint of most of our old manuscripts, that time has thus operated upon the ink? if so, the question is, what will the future colour of that which we now use in imitation, consisting of many ingredients, be, after fifty-five years, the elapsed time since I received my drawing from the kind hand of Flaxman? It is a curious fact, however, that the ink used by the ancient Egyptians on nearly two hundred specimens of the written inscriptions on papyrus collected by Mr. Salt,[232] now in the British Museum, are as jet a black as Cozens’s[233] blotting-ink, or Day and Martin’s far-famed blacking.

1788.

Although not considered an Adonis by the ladies, yet most of those to whom I had the pleasure to be known, noticed me as a favourite, and by some my appearance in company was cordially greeted. “Friend Thomas,” asked one, “pray what play didst thou see last night?” With this appellation I was frequently addressed, in consequence of my mother having been a member of the Society of Friends. “_Love’s Labour Lost_,” being my answer to the pre-engaged fair one, uttered perhaps with a smile, she was induced to rejoin, “If you had not hitherto been so blind a son of Venus, you would not have lost my smiles.” After this rebuke, my pursuit became brisker, and I at last fixed my heart upon my first wife.[234] Upon becoming a Benedict, I partly recovered the use of my senses, gave up my clubs, dissolved many connections, and in order to be faithful to my pledge, “to love and to cherish,” I applied myself steadily to my etching-table, and commenced a series of quarto plates, to illustrate Mr. Pennant’s truly interesting account of our great city (entitled _Some Account of London_), which I dedicated to my patron, Sir James Winter Lake, Bart.

Sir James was a governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company,--a situation, it is well known, he filled with credit to himself as well as the satisfaction of every one connected with that highly-respected body. Sir James most kindly invited me to take a house near him at Edmonton, where I had the honour, for the space of seven years, of enjoying the steady friendship of himself and family. Lady Lake, who then retained much of her youthful beauty, by her elegance of language and extreme affability charmed every one. To clever people of every description she was kind, and benevolent to the poor.

The Lake family consisted of Sir James, his lady, their sons, James, Willoughby, Atwill, and Andrew,--their daughters, Mary, Charlotte, and Anne.[235] Their residence, which had long been their family mansion, was distant about a mile from the Angel Inn, and was called “The Firs,” in consequence of the approach to the house being planted on either side with double rows of that tree.

1789.