Chapter XI: Part THE SECOND (9)

[253] On February 23. After lying in state in the Royal Academy, the remains of Sir Joshua Reynolds were interred, on Saturday, March 3, in the crypt of St. Paul’s Cathedral, near the resting-place of Sir Christopher Wren. The pall was borne by ten peers, and the Archbishop of York took part in the service.

[254] Burke’s tribute had appeared in the _Annual Register_.

[255] Lieut.-Colonel Molesworth Phillips, whose career links Dr. Johnson to Charles Lamb, was the companion of Captain Cook on his last voyage. His marriage in 1782 to Susannah Elizabeth, daughter of Dr. Charles Burney, and sister of Fanny Burney, brought him into the Johnson set. He escorted Miss Burney to Westminster Hall to hear Warren Hastings on his defence. Lamb, recalling his old whist-playing friends in his “Letter of Elia to Robert Southey,” names him as “the high-minded associate of Cook, the veteran Colonel, with his lusty heart still sending cartels of defiance to old Time.” He died in 1832.

[256] Mrs. Cholmondeley, who appears several times in Boswell’s _Life_, was a younger sister of Peg Woffington, and the wife of the Hon. and Rev. George Cholmondeley.

[257] “Sheridan had very fine eyes, and he was very vain of them. He said to Rogers on his deathbed, ‘Tell Lady Besborough that my eyes will look up to the coffin-lid as brightly as ever.’”

[258] The Old Bun House at Chelsea flourished for nearly a century and a half, and yielded a livelihood to four generations of the same family. In its best days it was the resort of royalty and rank. Queen Charlotte presented Mrs. Hand with a silver mug, containing five guineas. The shop had a pleasant arcaded front, and, besides buns, offered its customers the sight of a number of curiosities. As many as fifty thousand people would assemble here on Good Friday mornings, and it is clear that Mrs. Hand had reason to issue her curious notice. The site of the Bun House and its garden is on the north side of the Pimlico Road, between Union Street and Westbourne Street. The name of Bunhouse Place, at the back, commemorates the establishment, which disappeared in 1839.

The danger of a mob assembling outside a London bun-shop on Good Friday morning has passed away. Mr. Henry Attwell sadly observed, in _Notes and Queries_, April 28, 1900, that “the last Good Friday of the nineteenth century” found the hot-cross bun degenerated from a spiced bun (“the spice recalling to the few who cared about its religious suggestiveness the embalming of our Lord”) into a vulgarised currant bun marked with deep indentures for convenience of division, instead of the old slight cross in which there was a touch of mystery.

[259] Roger L’Estrange, the pamphleteer and miscellaneous writer (1616-1704), was deprived of his office of surveyor and licenser of the press in 1688.

[260] _The First Book of Architecture_, first published in English in 1668.

[261] Then Montagu House. “I apprehend,” says Smith, in his _Antient Topography of London_, “that the custom of inlaying, or tesselating, wooden floors commenced in England in the reign of King Charles the First, and ended in that of Queen Anne. I have secured patterns of four such floors: two belonging to the reign of Charles the First, and two to that of Charles the Second. No. 1 is from that part of Whitehall lately inhabited by the Duchess of Portland. No. 2 is from Somerset House. Nos. 3 and 4 are from the present old gallery and waiting-room in the Marquis of Stafford’s house in Cleveland Row.”

[262] One of the first exhibitors before the establishment of the Royal Academy (S.). Keyse opened Bermondsey Spa in 1770, and in 1780 obtained a music licence. His greatest bid for public favour was a farewell representation of the Siege of Gibraltar. The present Spa Road crosses the site of the gardens, which were closed about 1805.

[263] See note, p. 269.

[264] George Adams (died 1773) and his son George (died 1796) were mathematical instrument makers to George III. A book by the father on Terrestrial Globes was supplied with a dedication to the King by Dr. Johnson.--Peter Dollond (1730-1820) was second in the line of opticians. He was succeeded by his nephew, George Huggins, who assumed the name of Dollond.

[265] A critic wrote:

“Keyse’s mutton
Show’d how the painter had a strife
With nature, to outdo the life.”

Keyse’s realism had been anticipated by such painters as Jordaens and Snyder, whose butcher’s meat remains painfully juicy in the galleries of Brussels and Antwerp.

[266] “Mrs. Wrighten had a vivacious manner and a bewitching smile, and her ‘Hunting Song’ was popular” (Wroth: _London Pleasure Gardens_).

[267] Captain Edward Topham (1751-1820), after a brilliant regimental career in the Horse Guards, gave himself up to fashion and drama. He produced several plays, and in 1787 founded the _World_, a scurrilous daily paper, which brought him into the law courts. In Rowlandson’s well-known _Vauxhall_, the foremost figure in the crowd is an elderly beau, standing bolt upright, and defying through his glass the stare of a gaudy female of mature years who has found another cavalier. This is Captain, afterwards Major, Topham. He wrote the life of Elwes, the miser.

[268] Jonas Blewitt, who died in 1805, lived at Bermondsey, near the Spa Gardens, for which he wrote many songs. He wrote a _Treatise on the Organ_, and must not be confused with his son, the better-known Jonathan Blewitt, the musical director of the Surrey Theatre.

[269] Jonathan Battishill (1738-1801), composer, organist of Christ Church, Newgate Street, and St. Clement’s, Eastcheap, first became known by his music to the song “Kate of Aberdeen.” His anthems were sung in St. Paul’s Cathedral, and he set many of Charles Wesley’s hymns to music.

[270] Smith underlines _Joseph_ to distinguish him from his better-known brother, James Caulfield, who was the author and printseller, and the publisher of much “Remarkable Persons” literature. Joseph Caulfield was a musical engraver, and a capable teacher of the pianoforte. He lived in Camden Town.

[271] John Montagu, fourth Earl of Sandwich (1718-92), “was the soul of the Catch Club, and one of the Directors of the Concert of Ancient Music, but he had not the least real ear for music, and was equally insensible of harmony and melody” (Charles Butler’s _Reminiscences_). It was his treachery to Wilkes that gave Lord Sandwich his popular nickname, Jemmy Twitcher, taken from Macheath’s words in the _Beggar’s Opera_: “That Jemmy Twitcher should peach me, I own surprised me.”

[272] About the year 1770 Battishill wrote this glee in a competition for a gold medal offered by the Noblemen’s Catch Club.

[273] Smith had been Morland’s fellow-student at the Royal Academy, and they had frequently walked home together. Among his innumerable addresses, Morland had several in the Fitzroy Square region.

[274] Otter’s Pool was a country house at Aldenham, Herts, afterwards for many years the seat of Sir James Shaw Willes, the judge of common pleas.

[275] Surrey Chapel is now occupied by a large machinery firm. Rowland Hill used to say, in allusion to its octagonal form, that he liked a round building because there were no corners for the devil to hide in. Here he won the devotion of his congregation and the esteem of the many distinguished people who came to hear him. Sheridan said: “I go to hear Rowland Hill because his ideas come red-hot from the heart.” Dean Milner said to him, “Mr. Hill! Mr. Hill! I felt to-day ’tis this slap-dash preaching, say what they will, that does all the good.” He died at his house in Blackfriars Road, April 11, 1833, aged 88, and was buried in a vault under his pulpit.

[276] This fanatical advocate of Charles the First’s execution (at St. Margaret’s, Westminster) was one of the regicides executed in 1660.

[277] Smith is nowhere mentioned by Lamb, and other evidence of their acquaintance is wanting.

[278] George Frost (1754-1821) is remembered as the intimate friend of Constable. Smart was John Smart (1740-1811), the miniature painter. He died in London.

“His genius lov’d his Country’s native views;
Its taper spires, green lawns, or sheltered farms;
He touch’d each scene with Nature’s genuine hues,
And gave the _Suffolk_ landscape all its charms.”

[279] Smith had evidently asked Constable to ascertain for him the exact date of Gainsborough’s birth. This is still uncertain: it took place in Sepulchre Street, Sudbury, at the end of April or beginning of May 1727. He was baptized on 14th May of that year in the Independent meeting-house in Sudbury.

[280] James Gubbins was a subscriber to Smith’s _Remarks on Rural Scenery_ (1797), a volume of etchings of cottage and rural scenes around London. One of its drawings represents a squatter’s shanty in Epping Forest, bowered in trees, and is entitled “Lady Plomer’s Palace on the summit of Hawke’s Hill Wood, Epping Forest.”

[281] The Minories drawing referred to by Constable was Smith’s etching in his _Antient Topography_ of the north and east walls of the Convent of St. Clare, the remains of which were destroyed by fire on March 23, 1797. Only a year before, Mr. John Cranch (the C----h of Constable’s letter) had presented Smith with a sketch of the convent. Constable, therefore, refers to the swift supersession of Cranch’s sketch by Smith’s drawing after the fire.

[282] Elizabeth Pope died on 15th March of this year, aged 52. The funeral to the Abbey was met everywhere by great crowds. Her abilities had not been dimmed by those of Garrick, Mrs. Siddons, and Miss Farren, and her private life was blameless. The resemblance she bore to Lady Sarah Lennox was such that George III., seeing her act late in her career, exclaimed to his queen, “She is like Lady Sarah still.” There is a fine story of her parting with Garrick. On June 8, 1776, his last appearance but one, when he was playing Lear to her Cordelia, Garrick said to her with a sigh: “Ah, Bess! this is the last time of my being your father; you must now look out for someone else to adopt you.” “Then, sir,” she exclaimed, dropping on her knees, “give me a father’s blessing.” Garrick, deeply touched, raised her, and said, “God bless you!”

[283] Nevertheless Pope married two more wives. His most lasting affections appear to have been set on table delicacies. Once, when Kean asked him to act with him at Dublin, and take a benefit there, he declined, saying: “I must be at Plymouth at the time; it is exactly the season for mullet.” He maintained that there was but one crime: peppering a beef-steak.

[284] Pope had begun life as a crayon portrait painter in his birthplace, Cork. A highly finished water-colour portrait of Henry Grattan, from his hand, is in the British Museum Print Room.

[285] Francis Cotes, born in Cork Street, 1725, was a foundation member of the Royal Academy, and famous for his crayon portraits. He built himself a house in Cavendish Square (No. 32), in which Romney afterwards lived for twenty-one years, followed by Sir Martin A. Shee. It was demolished in 1904. The British Museum has four portrait subjects by Cotes in crayon. He is poorly represented in the National Gallery by a small portrait of Mrs. Brocas.

[286] Benjamin Green, born at Halesowen, became a drawing-master at Christ’s Hospital, and member of the Incorporated Society of Artists. He published many topographical plates, and engraved the illustrations in Morant’s _History and Antiquities of the County of Essex_ (1768). His drawings of Canonbury Tower and Highbury Barn are in the British Museum Print Room. He died about 1800.

[287] The Right Honourable James Caulfield, first Earl of Charlemont (1728-99), distinguished himself in Ireland politically; in London he mixed with the Reynolds and Johnson set and was a member of the Dilettanti Club. In the college at St. Andrews, which Johnson and Boswell playfully imagined might be staffed by members of the Literary Club, Lord Charlemont was assigned the chair of modern history, and it was on Lord Charlemont that Boswell, Burke, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and others laid the task of bringing Dr. Johnson’s conversational powers into play by asking him whether a ludicrous statement in the newspapers that he was taking dancing lessons from Vestris was true.

[288] Thomas Cheesman, who had been pupil to Bartolozzi, engraved “The Lady’s Last Stake, or Picquet, or Virtue in Danger,” after Hogarth. He lived, successively, at 40 Oxford Street, 71 Newman Street, and 28 Francis Street. His portrait, by Bartolozzi, is in the National Portrait Gallery.

[289] Sir Lawrence Parsons (1758-1841), afterwards Earl of Rosse. Like Lord Charlemont, he was opposed to the Union, and twelve days after the date of this letter he moved in the Irish House of Commons an address to the Crown to expunge a paragraph in favour of the Union. This was carried by a majority of five votes.

[290] Had James Barry possessed no more than a tithe of the suavity of Reynolds or West, his career would have been more fortunate. In vain Burke, his best friend, pointed out that his business was to paint, not to dispute. He used his chair of painting at the Royal Academy to vilify the members to the students. In 1799 the climax arrived, and the Academicians resolved on his expulsion. The King consented, and the following entry appears in the records: “I have struck out the adjoining name, in consequence of the opinion entered in the minutes of the Council, and of the General Meeting, which I fully approve. April 23, 1779.--G. R.” No work of Barry’s is in the National Gallery, but he has an enduring memorial in his six great paintings in the hall of the Society of Arts, John Street. Here he finally lay in state among his works--as Haydon said, “a pall worthy of the corpse.”

[291] John Brand (1744-1806), the excellent historian of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and author of the _Popular Antiquities_. He came to London in 1784, to fill the rectory of St. Mary-at-Hill. In the same year he was appointed Resident Secretary of the Society of Antiquaries, but he continued to discharge his duties in the City, and died there, suddenly, in his rectory. He was buried in the chancel of his church.

[292] The publication Flaxman indicates, and to which he wishes to subscribe, is Smith’s important “Antiquities of Westminster, the old Palace, St. Stephen’s Chapel (now the House of Commons).… Containing two hundred and forty-six engravings of topographical subjects, of which one hundred and twenty-two no longer remain.”

The reduction of the thickness of the side walls of St. Stephen’s Chapel from three feet to one foot gave additional four feet to the width of the chamber. So soon as the wainscotting was removed, it was seen that the walls were adorned with beautiful paintings of scriptural and historical subjects. The discovery excited great interest, both on account of the antiquity of the paintings, which were found to date from Edward III., and the fact that they were painted in oils and were consequently among the earliest specimens of that class of painting. Smith obtained permission to copy them. He began work each morning, as soon as it was light, and was followed so closely by the workmen that they sometimes demolished in the afternoon the painting he had copied in the morning. This task occupied him for six weeks. These valuable drawings are engraved and coloured in the _Antiquities of Westminster_.

[293] Edward Hussey Delaval (1729-1814) of Seaton-Delaval, Northumberland, the chemist, has a claim on the remembrance of Londoners. In 1769 he and Benjamin Franklin were commissioned to report to the Royal Society on the best means of protecting St. Paul’s from lightning. Parliament Stairs, where his house stood, was at the west end of the present Houses of Parliament, giving access to the river from Abingdon Street. Delaval, who traced his descent from the Conqueror’s standard-bearer at Hastings, died here, aged 85.

[294] Parliament Stairs were open several months in the summer for the accommodation of those gentlemen of Westminster School, who practise the manly and healthy exercise of rowing; the key was held by Mr. Tyrwhitt, whose servants regularly opened and closed the gates night and morning.--S.

[295] John Carter, F.R.S. (1748-1817), is airily described by Michael Bryan as “a harmless and inoffensive drudge.” He was employed by the Society of Antiquaries, and by Horace Walpole and others. His chief work, _The Ancient Architecture of England_, occupied him many years. Carter was enthusiastically musical, but the two operas on which he ventured are forgotten.

[296] Richard Bentley, only son of Dr. Bentley, the Master of Trinity. He designed beautiful illustrations for Walpole’s _edition-de-luxe_ of six of Gray’s poems, including the _Elegy_, and gave much assistance in the architectural treatment of Strawberry Hill. Walpole was under no delusion about their joint experiments in Gothic. “Neither Mr. Bentley nor my workmen had _studied_ the science,” he wrote to Thomas Barrett (June 5, 1788); “my house therefore is but a sketch for beginners.”

[297] George Arnald (1763-1841) is represented in the National Gallery by one pleasing landscape, hung in Room XX., “On the Ouse, Yorkshire.” Some of his London subjects are reproduced by Smith in his _Westminster_. His “View of the Palace and Abbey,” painted in 1803, just excludes Delaval’s house on the left.--George Francis Joseph, A.R.A. (1764-1846), was a well-known portrait painter in his day. He is represented in the National Gallery by portraits of Spencer, Perceval, and Sir Stamford Raffles, and in the British Museum Print Room by a water-colour portrait of Charles Lamb, engravings from which appear in many editions of Lamb’s works.

[298] John Ker, third Duke of Roxburgh (1740-1804), one of the greatest of book-collectors, lived at No. 11 St. James’s Square. Smith’s epithet “the late” appertains to the time at which he wrote this passage.

[299] The case of Colonel Joseph Wall was remarkable for the culprit’s twenty years’ evasion of justice. His crime was the murder of a soldier while he was Lieutenant-Governor of Goree, in Senegambia, in 1782. The command of the fort at Goree was an inferior appointment, usually given to some claimant who stood in no great favour with the War Minister, and the troops of the garrison were commonly regiments in disgrace. Wall exercised his authority with great cruelty, and in 1782 punished Benjamin Armstrong, a sergeant, with a wilful severity which resulted in his death. Aware of the nature of his action, Wall fled to France. He then came to England, and was tried by court-martial for cruelty; but the proceedings hung fire, and he went to reside at Bath. He was re-arrested in 1784, but escaped to the Continent. Finally, in 1797, he wrote to the Home Secretary, offering to stand his trial for murder. He was tried, and sentenced to death, and, though the likelihood of a reprieve seemed great, was hanged outside Newgate, January 28, 1802.

[300] The _Gentleman’s Magazine_ records that Dr. Forde, the Ordinary of Newgate, was “a very worthy man, and was much and deservedly esteemed by the City magistrates, who, on his retirement from office, settled on him an annuity which provided for the comforts of his latter days.” Dr. Forde no doubt satisfied the City authorities, but the Parliamentary Committee which investigated the state of the prison in 1814 reported: “Beyond his attendance in chapel, and on those who are sentenced to death, Dr. Forde feels but few duties to be attached to his office. He knows nothing of the state of morals in the prison; he never sees any of the prisoners in private; … he never knows that any have been sick till he gets a warning to attend their funeral; and does not go to the infirmary, for it is not in his instructions.” Dr. Forde was succeeded by the Rev. Mr. Cotton, who first officiated August 8, 1814.

[301] Maria Cosway, wife of Richard Cosway, the miniaturist.

[302] Black Boy Alley was notorious in the eighteenth century, and at one time was infested by a gang who drowned their victims in the Fleet River. No fewer than twenty-one were executed at once, after which the humour of the neighbourhood called the place Jack Ketch’s Common. In 1802, and earlier, Black Boy Alley was the scene of a weekly display of badger-baiting.

[303] In the eighteenth century, Epping sent butter and sausages to the London market, but the industry declined long ago.

[304] Pie Corner was at the Smithfield end of Giltspur Street, a short distance north from the Old Bailey. “A very fine dirty place,” is D’Urfey’s description of this spot, where the Great Fire of London ended. It was long famous for its greasy cook-shops.

[305] In his _Nollekens_ Smith puts the same jibe into the mouth of John Hamilton Mortimer, the painter. “Mortimer made Dr. Arne, who had a very red face with staring eyes, furiously angry by telling him that his eyes looked ‘like two oysters just opened for sauce put upon an oval side-dish of beet-root.’”

[306] Peter Coxe, an auctioneer, and the author of a poem in four cantos called “The Social Day,” published in 1823. He wrote also “The Exposé, or Napoleon Buonaparte unmasked in a Condensed Statement of his Career and Atrocities” (1809). His emollient has escaped my search. Coxe was one of a long line of well-known men who lived in the middle one of the three houses into which Schomberg House, Pall Mall, was divided. He died in 1844.

[307] This generous woman, better known under the lawful title of Lady Hamilton, when I showed her my etching of the funeral procession of her husband’s friend, the immortal Nelson, fainted and fell into my arms; and, believe me, reader, her mouth was equal to any production of Greek sculpture I have yet seen (S.).--Smith’s etching was entitled, “An Accurate View (drawn and etched by J. T. Smith, Engraver of the _Antiquities of London and Westminster_) from the house of W. Tunnard, Esq., on the Bankside, adjoining the Scite of Shakespeare’s Theatre, on Wednesday the 8th January 1806, when the remains of the great Admiral Lord Nelson were brought from Greenwich to Whitehall.”

[308]

“The Fair One, whose charms did the Barber enthral,
At the end of Fleet Market of fish kept a stall:
As red as her cheek no boil’d lobster was seen,
Not an eel that she sold was as soft as her skin.”

THE BARBER’S NUPTIALS.

[309] From _The Wife’s Trial_, Lamb’s dramatic version of Crabbe’s _Confidant_. See Mr. Lucas’s _Works of Charles and Mary Lamb_, vol. v. p. 257.

[310] All previous relic-selling at Newgate was, however, eclipsed by the sale held in the partly demolished prison on Wednesday, 4th February 1903. The following account appeared in the _City Press_ of 7th February:--

“In its way, probably, the sale which Messrs. Douglas Young & Co. conducted in the middle of the week, within the gloomy precincts of crime-stricken Newgate, was the most unique and memorable of its kind ever held. Crowds of the curious and speculative were naturally attracted to the fortress prison site.

“Interest more particularly hovered around the old toll bell, with its famous loyal inscription, and solid ton of metal. The hour was late when the lot (No. 188 in the catalogue) was reached, but that circumstance did not in any way detract from the briskness of the bidding. Starting at £30, the offers rapidly mounted; and, finally, the prized souvenir of many a tragic decade passed into the hands of Mr. Richardson (acting as agent for Madame Tussaud’s) for the exact sum of £100. The old flagstaff, whence the black flag was hoisted immediately after an execution had taken place, fell to the enterprise of Mr. Fox, a Cape gentleman, who, for 11½ guineas, has ensured that in future the Union Jack shall flutter in South African breezes from its fateful masthead.

“The famous oak and iron-cased half-latticed door associated with memories of Mrs. Elizabeth Fry, of philanthropic fame, went for £20; while Sir George Chubb secured for £30, amidst some cheering, the wonderful old massive oak and iron-bound half-latticed main entrance door that was fixed up when the prison was rebuilt after the Great Fire of 1666. A warder’s key-cupboard, fitted with shelf and iron hooks--identical with the one referred to in _Barnaby Rudge_--extracted £12, 10s. from the pockets of the bidder; while the appointments of the condemned cells, both male and female, realised fairly good prices--the former in particular.

“The chapel pulpit, at £8, 10s., was a distinctly disappointing figure; while it cannot be said that £5, 15s. was an extravagant sum to pay for the complete equipment of the execution shed. The taste for criminology, in the shape of the plaster casts of the heads of nine victims of the gallows, worked out at five guineas.

“Some of the liveliest bidding of the day took place over the numerous lots of copper washing bowls, in which the inmates of Newgate testified that cleanliness was next to godliness. The lowest price realised was £2, 12s. 6d. for a set of three bowls; while sets of four realised, on several occasions, as much as £5. Altogether it was a sale in which monotony and curiosity singularly intermingled, and, withal, one ever to be remembered by those who happened to be present.”

[311] The flying physician of the Chapter Coffee House was Dr. William Buchan, who, in the last half of the eighteenth century, was regularly consulted at this coffee-house in St. Paul’s Alley by ailing bookmen. His advice frequently took this form: “Now, let me prescribe for you. Here, John, bring a glass of punch for Mr.----, unless he likes brandy and water better. Take that, sir, and I’ll warrant you’ll soon be well. You’re a peg too low, you want stimulus, and if one glass won’t do, call for a second.” His place was in a box in the north-east corner of the room, known as the “Wittenagemot,” where he not only prescribed, but acted as an arbiter of debate. James Montgomery, in his _Memoirs_, describes him as “of venerable aspect, neat in his dress, his hair tied behind with a large ribbon, and a gold-headed cane in his hand, quite realising my idea of an Esculapian dignitary.”

Buchan was, indeed, a physician of repute, and his _Domestic Medicine, or the Family Physician_, was not only the first English work of its kind, but ran into nineteen large editions. It was said that the publishers gave him £700 down for it, and reaped £700 a year. In Russia and in America and the West Indies the book was welcomed. The Empress Catherine sent the author a gold medallion and a complimentary letter.

To members of the Society of Friends the career of this genial doctor is of some interest, inasmuch as at one time he was physician to the Yorkshire branch of the Foundling Hospital at Ackworth, an unfortunate institution which in 1779 was taken over by this Society, to become the flourishing and historic school of to-day. Buchan lived many years with his son at No. 6 Percy Street, Rathbone Place, and died there February 25, 1806, aged seventy-six. He was buried in the west cloister of Westminster Abbey, near Dr. Richard Jebb, and Wollett, the engraver.

[312] Flockton was for nearly half a century a showman at St. Bartholomew’s and Sturbridge Fairs. These lines appeared on some of his bills:--

“To raise the soul by means of wood and wire,
To Screw the fancy up a few pegs higher;
In miniature to show the world at large,
As folks conceive a ship who’ve seen a barge,
This is the scope of all our actors’ play,
Who hope their _wooden_ aims will not be thrown away!”

He died at Camberwell, April 12, 1794, leaving £5000, most of which he bequeathed to his company. An engraving of his show bears the almost Yankee inscription, “The Only Booth in the Fair;” and on the balustrade of the stairs to its entrance is inscribed the curiously modern injunction, “Tumble up! tumble up!”

[313] Honey Lane Market, famous in the eighteenth century for its provisions, keeps its name close to Cheapside. In 1835, the pillared and belfried market-house gave place to the City of London School, since removed to the Thames Embankment. The “Market” is still an odd oasis of domestic shopping in the City’s larger operations.

[314] This was Belzoni’s “Narrative of the Operations and Recent Discoveries within the Pyramids, Temples, Tombs, and Excavations, in Egypt and Nubia;--and of a--Journey to the Coast of the Red Sea, in search of--the Ancient Berenice;--and another to--the Oasis of Jupiter Ammon. By G. Belzoni. London:--John Murray, Albemarle Street.--1820.” At the end of the book comes “Mrs. Belzoni’s Trifling Account--of the--Women of Egypt, Nubia, and Syria.”

That Belzoni, turned author, retained the physical strength of his showman days, is shown in a story told by Dr. Smiles in his _Memoirs of John Murray_. “Like many other men of Herculean power, he was not eager to exhibit his strength, but on one occasion he gave proof of it. Mr. Murray had asked him to accompany him to the Coronation of George IV. They had tickets of admittance to Westminster Hall, but on arriving there they found that the sudden advent of Queen Caroline, attended by a mob claiming admission to the Abbey, had alarmed the authorities, and who had caused all doors to be shut. That by which they should have entered was held close and guarded by several stalwart janitors. Belzoni thereupon advanced to the door, and, in spite of the efforts of these guardians, including Tom Crib and others of the pugilistic corps who had been engaged as constables, opened it with ease, and admitted himself and Mr. Murray.”

[315] Dr. Robert Richardson (1779-1847) went to Egypt and Palestine with the Earl of Belmore in 1816, and published his _Travels_ in 1822. Lady Blessington lent the book to Byron, who said: “The author is just the sort of man I should like to have with me for Greece--clever both as a man and a physician.” Richardson afterwards settled in Rathbone Place. He died in Gordon Street, Gordon Square, Nov. 5, 1847.

[316] The creator of the Leverian Museum was the eldest son of Sir Darcey Lever, of Alkrington, near Manchester. As a young man he had delighted in horses and birds. His treasures had grown in interest and numbers, until he was persuaded to turn a private hobby into a public speculation. He hired Leicester House in 1771, and for thirteen years maintained and increased it, at a cost of £50,000, against which he could set only £13,000 in receipts. In 1784 he was authorised to issue 36,000 guinea tickets, of which one was to entitle the holder to the entire museum. A proposal for the purchase of the museum by the nation, which Dr. Johnson favoured, came to nothing. Only 8000 tickets had been sold when the drawing took place. The one prize, the museum, was drawn by a Mr. Parkinson, who thus acquired for a guinea the largest general collection in Europe, including the curiosities collected by Captain Cook in his South Sea voyages.

Sir Ashton Lever died suddenly in 1788, at Manchester. Meanwhile Mr. Parkinson had built the Rotunda in Albion Place, at the south end of Blackfriars Bridge, for the display of the “Museum Leverianum.” The scheme failed, and in 1806 the museum was sold by auction at King & Lochee’s rooms in King Street, Covent Garden, the sale lasting sixty-five days. The catalogue filled 410 octavo pages, and there were 7879 lots. The deserted “Rotunda” at Blackfriars deteriorated until it was known to Tom Taylor as “something very much like a penny gaff.” Taylor, by the way, tells us that Sir Ashton Lever conceived the idea of sending a ship-load of potatoes to the defenders of Gibraltar, and this was done.

[317] By “this year” Smith means 1784. His note is little more than a copy of the following newspaper paragraph of May 29, 1784, quoted by Lewis in his _History of Islington_: “Thursday a grand cricket-match was played in the White Conduit Fields. Among the players were the Duke of Dorset, Lord Winchilsea, Lord Talbot, Colonel Tarleton, Mr. Howe, Mr. Damer, Hon. Mr. Lennox, and the Rev. Mr. Williams. A pavilion was erected for refreshments, and a number of ladies attended.”

John Frederick Sackville, third Duke of Dorset (1745-99), was a member of the Hambledon Club, and of the committee which drew up the original laws of the M.C.C. He employed several of the best cricketers of his day, and presented Sevenoaks with a cricket ground. As our Ambassador to France he arranged for a British cricket eleven to play in Paris, but the Revolution disturbances prevented the match.

The Earl of Winchilsea (1752-1826) was also a member of the Hambledon. He introduced four wickets, two inches higher than the standard. “The game is then rendered shorter by easier bowling out,” said the _Hampshire Chronicle_, but the Earl’s plan is still a dream and a controversy.

The Hon. Mr. Lennox is referred to in a newspaper of the period as “nephew to his grace of Richmond,” and he and Lord Winchilsea are described as the chief performers at White Conduit House.

Colonel Sir Banastre Tarleton went through the War of Independence with distinction, and lived with “Perdita” (Mary Robinson) for some years, receiving from her much devotion. He represented Liverpool in Parliament for twenty-two years, and attained the rank of General.

The White Conduit Club, of which these gentlemen were members, has a high importance in the history of cricket, for out of it sprang, in 1787, the Marylebone Cricket Club. “The M.C.C. Club,” says Mr. Andrew Lang in a sketch of cricket history, “may be said to have sprung from the ashes of the White Conduit Club, dissolved in 1787. One Thomas Lord, by the aid of some members of the older association, made a ground in the space which is now Dorset Square. This was the first ‘Lord’s’.” Two removals brought the ground to its present location in St. John’s Wood, where the first recorded match was played, June 22, 1814.

[318] Du Val’s Lane is now represented by Hornsey Road. It seems to have been originally “Devil’s Lane,” but to have been popularly re-named from Claude Duval (1643-70), the highwayman, who, like Dick Turpin, favoured this district. Born at Domfront in Normandy, Du Val came to England in the train of the Duke of Richmond, and took to the road. He was famous for his gallantries to his victims. He was captured on January 17, 1669 or 1670, in the Hole-in-the-Wall Tavern, Chandos Street, and although intercession was made for him by ladies of rank, he was hanged at Tyburn within four days. The exhibition of his body at the Tangier Tavern, St. Giles’s, drew such crowds that it had to be stopped. It is hard to believe that Du Val was accorded a grave in the centre aisle of Covent Garden Church, and that his epitaph began--

Here lies Du Vall: Reader, if male thou art,
Look to thy purse; if female, to thy heart;

but it is so stated in the _Memoirs of Monsieur Du Val_, 1670. His funeral, we read, “was attended with many flambeaux, and a numerous train of mourners, whereof most were of the beautiful sex.”

[319] Nathaniel Hillier, of Pancras Lane, merchant, died March 1, 1783, aged 76 (_Gentleman’s Magazine_).

[320] This tea-pot passed into the possession of that eccentric virtuoso, Henry Constantine Noel, of whom Smith gives an account under 1818. Noel had the following extraordinary inscription engraved on it:--

“We are told by Lucian, that the earthen lamp, which had administered to the lucubrations of Epictetus, was at his death purchased for the enormous sum of three thousand drachmas: why, then, may not imagination equally amplify the value of this unadorned vessel, long employed for the infusion of that favourite herb, whose enlivening virtues are said to have so often protracted the elegant and edifying lucubrations of Samuel Johnson; the zealous advocate of that innocent beverage, against its declared enemy, Jonas Hanway. It was weighed out for sale under the inspection of Sir John Hawkins, at the very minute when they were in the next room closing the incision through which Mr. Cruickshank had explored the ruinated machinery of its dead master’s thorax; so Bray the silversmith, conveyed there in Sir John’s carriage, thus hastily to buy the plate, informed its present possessor, Henry Constantine Noel, by whom it was, for its celebrated services, on the 1st of November 1788, rescued from the undiscriminating obliterations of the furnace.”

[321] In this letter, Charles Townley, the collector of the Townley marbles, probably refers to William Lock (1732-1810), the wealthy connoisseur, and a friend of Madame d’Arblay. He lived at Norbury Park, where he was hospitable to Madame de Staël. He was described as the “arbiter, advocate, and common friend of all lovers of art.”

[322] The “Triumph of Bacchus” was one of eight great pictures which Rubens painted for the palace at Madrid.

[323] Annibale Caracci was employed by Cardinal Farnese to decorate the famous gallery that bears his name. He produced a masterly series of frescoes.

[324] Welbore Ellis, first Baron Mendip, was the third owner of Pope’s Villa at Twickenham, after the poet.

[325] “1811, Feb. 3.--In Great Ormond Street, Atkinson Bush, Esq., in the 76th year of his age” (_European Magazine_, February 1811).

[326] Parton’s book, _Some Account of the Hospital and Parish of St. Giles’ in the Fields, Middlesex_ (1822), by “the late” Mr. John Parton, gives the plan in question, but does not touch on the matter of its authenticity. It is clear, however, that his plans and maps are largely conjectural.

[327] A distinction she shared with Miss Mary Moser. These are the only women who have been members of the Royal Academy, but it cannot be said that their talent was very exceptional. Peter Pindar irreverently said that Mary Moser was made an R.A. for “a sublime Picture of a Plate of Gooseberries.”

[328] The annals of British art do not contain a more tragic story than that of “the late” William Wynn Ryland. A man of great talent, he was engraver to George III., and an exhibitor at the Royal Academy; but it was his fate to be hanged at Tyburn for forging a bond of several thousand pounds. How he presented this document in person at the India House, is narrated by Henry Angelo as a proof of his extraordinary self-command.

“The cashier, on receiving the document, examined it carefully, and referred to the ledger; then, comparing the date, observed, ‘Here is a mistake, Sir; the bond, as entered, does not become due until to-morrow.’

“Ryland, begging permission to look at the book, on its being handed to him, observed: ‘So I perceive--there must be an error in your entry of one day;’ and offered to leave the bond, not betraying the least disappointment or surprise. The mistake appearing to the cashier to be obviously an error in his office, the bond was paid to Ryland, who departed with the money. The next day the true bond was presented, when the forgery was discovered, of course; and, within a few hours after, the fraud was made public, and steps were taken for the recovery of the perpetrator.

“This document, lately in the possession of a gentleman now deceased, I have often seen. It is, perhaps, the most extraordinary piece of deceptive art, in the shape of imitation, that was ever produced.”

A reprieve for Ryland was sought on the ground of his extraordinary abilities, but, as was usual in cases of forgery, without success. George III. is said to have replied: “No; a man with such ample means of providing for his wants could not reasonably plead necessity as an excuse for his crime.” But the artist’s petition for a respite was both granted and renewed. He explained that he desired no extension of life except as the means of completing his last engraving, and so adding to his wife’s stock of plates. The subject was Queen Eleanor sucking the poison from the arm of her husband, Edward I., from a painting by Angelica Kauffmann. He laboured hard on this work, and when he received the first proof from his printer, said, “Mr. Haddril, I thank you; my task is now accomplished.” He was hanged within a week, and his was the last execution at Tyburn. Henry Angelo says that, like Dr. Dodd, Ryland was allowed to proceed to Tyburn in a mourning coach.

The story of William Blake’s prophecy of Ryland’s end is well known. His father had intended to apprentice him to Ryland, but was frustrated by the unaccountable attitude of the boy, who, after they had called on the engraver at his studio, said, “Father, I do not like the man’s face; it looks as if he will live to be hanged.” Twelve years later came the fulfilment. Col. W. F. Prideaux recently mentioned in _Notes and Queries_ that he possesses a curious collection concerning Ryland’s case which was formed by the Rev. H. Cotton, the ordinary of Newgate. It includes the original handbill offering a reward for Ryland’s apprehension, and a drawing of the engraver’s mother by John Thomas Smith.

[329] In the _Dictionary of National Biography_, Miss E. T. Bradley sums up the impressions Angelica Kauffmann made: “Goldsmith wrote some lines to her; Garrick, whom she painted, was much fascinated by her, and Fuseli paid addresses to her. Her most serious flirtation, however, was with Sir Joshua Reynolds, whose acquaintance she made directly she arrived in London. He painted her portrait twice. She frequently visited his studio, and painted a weak and uncharacteristic portrait of the painter, which Bartolozzi engraved. Nathaniel Dance, whom she had met in Italy, is also said to have been hopelessly in love with her.”

[330] Sir Nathaniel Dance-Holland, first baronet (1734-1811), met Angelica Kauffmann in Italy, and was said to have been hopelessly in love with her. He was an original member of the Royal Academy, but resigned his diploma in 1790 on his marriage to Mrs. Drummer, known facetiously as “The Yorkshire Fortune,” from her possession of £18,000 a year. He assumed the additional name of Holland, and sat in Parliament for Grinstead. In his time he was a capable but stiff portrait painter, and painted full-length portraits of George III. and his Queen.

[331] A deed of separation was obtained from Pope Pius VI. After the “Count’s” death, Angelica Kauffmann married in London, July 14, 1781, Antonio Pietro Zucchi, a Venetian painter who had long lived in England, and had been employed by Adam, the architect. He decorated Garrick’s house in the Adelphi. He died in 1795.

[332] Thomas Pitt, first Baron Camelford, was a prominent politician and an opponent of Lord North. At Twickenham, where he settled in 1762, he and Horace Walpole exchanged ideas on Gothic architecture.

[333] Probably the well-known Dr. Bates, M.D., of Missenden, Bucks.

[334] Willey Reveley, architect, and editor of vol. iii. of Stuart’s _Antiquities of Athens_.

[335] Smith’s task had been protracted by his tiresome quarrel with his collaborator, John Sidney Hawkins. They pamphletted and “vindicated” to their hearts’ content, but the dispute is not worth unravelling.

[336] Henry White, then Sacrist of Lichfield Cathedral.

[337] George Dance, who died in 1825, was the architect of the recently demolished Newgate Prison, also of St. Luke’s Hospital and the Guildhall entrance façade. He was the last survivor of the foundation members of the Royal Academy, and was buried in St. Paul’s Cathedral. William Daniell, R.A., was well known for his Indian and Oriental illustrations. He painted a panorama of Madras, and another of “The City of Lucknow and the mode of Taming Wild Elephants.” His painting, “A View of the Long Walk, Windsor,” is in the royal collection.

[338] Fuseli’s quaint violences of speech were many, and gained in effect from his Swiss accent. He swore roundly, a habit which Haydon says he caught from his friend Dr. Armstrong, the poet. He said a subject should interest, astonish, or move; if it did none of these, it was worth “noding by Gode.” A visitor to his imposing, but unsuccessful, Milton Gallery of forty paintings, said to him, “Pray, sir, what is that picture?” “It is the bridging of Chaos; the subject from Milton.” “No wonder,” said the inquirer, “I did not know it, for I never read Milton, but I will.” “I advise you not, sir, for you will find it a d----d tough job.” He said, on looking at Northcote’s painting of the angel meeting Balaam and his ass: “Northcote, you are an angel at an ass, but an ass at an angel.” Once, at the table of Mr. Coutts, the banker, Mrs. Coutts, dressed like Morgiana, came dancing in, presenting her dagger at every breast. As she confronted Nollekens, Fuseli called out, “Strike--strike--there’s no fear; Nolly was never known to bleed.” He recommended a sculptor to find some newer emblem of eternity than a serpent with a tail in its mouth. The _something newer_ (says Cunningham) startled a man whose imagination was none of the brightest, and he said, “How shall I find something new?” “Oh, nothing so easy,” said Fuseli; “I’ll help you to it. When I went away to Rome I left two fat men cutting fat bacon in St. Martin’s Lane; in ten years’ time I returned, and found the two fat men cutting fat bacon still; twenty years more have passed, and there the two fat fellows cut the fat flitches the same as ever. Carve them--if they do not look like an image of eternity, I wot not what does.”

[339] In the last ten years of his stage career Bannister travelled with his “Budget” of songs, anecdotes, and imitations, through England, Scotland, and Ireland.

[340] The Rev. Stephen Weston, F.R.S. (1747-1830), a well-known antiquary and classical scholar, held the Devonshire livings of Mainhead and Little Hempston, Devon, but left that county after the death of his wife. He engaged in some spirited attempts to translate Gray’s _Elegy_ into Greek, and published his _Elegia Grayiana, Græce_, in 1794. He was fond of the French capital, and published _The Praise of Paris_ in 1803. An old friend of Nollekens, he was present at the funeral so airily described by Smith in his life of the sculptor.

[341] Swan _upping_ (or marking) is still carried out yearly on the Thames by the representatives of the Crown and by the Dyers’ and Vintners’ Companies, who have the privilege of keeping swans on the river. Formerly the state barges of the City went up to Staines, and ceremonies were performed. Even to-day the expedition of the swan-markers is picturesque; the skiffs bear the flags of the several authorities, the markers wear flannels and distinguishing jerseys, and the overseers don special tunics and peaked caps. The birds are caught by means of long hooked poles.

[342] Tooke did not, therefore, “try the question” of his silver caddy; but had it not been returned he would have done so in his character of the inimitable litigant. “A court of law,” says Hazlitt, in his masterly portrait of Tooke in _The Spirit of the Age_, “was the place where Mr. Tooke made the best figure in public. He might assuredly be said to be ‘native and endued unto that element.’ He had here to stand merely on the defensive: not to advance himself, but to block up the way: not to impress others, but to be himself impenetrable. All he wanted was _negative success_; and to this no one was better qualified to aspire. Cross purposes, _moot-points_, pleas, demurrers, flaws in the indictment, double meanings, cases, inconsequentialities, these were the playthings, the darlings of Mr. Tooke’s mind; and with these he baffled the Judge, dumbfounded the Counsel, and outwitted the Jury. The report of his trial before Lord Kenyon is a masterpiece of acuteness, dexterity, modest assurance, and legal effect. It is much like his examination before the Commissioners of the Income Tax--nothing could be got out of him in either case!”

[343] He had, indeed, prepared a tomb for himself in his garden at Wimbledon, and the funeral invitations, as first sent out, contemplated his burial here. He was buried in a family vault at Ealing, to which the following inscription was added: “JOHN HORNE TOOKE, late of Wimbledon, Author of the _Diversions of Purley_: was born June 1736, and died March 18, 1812, contented and happy.”

[344] The Rev. William Huntington obtained influence over multitudes by a grotesque piety and a compelling pulpit manner. He appended the initials S.S. to his name, signifying “Sinner Saved.” His true name was Hunt, and he himself tells how he added two syllables to it as a disguise after being called upon to support an illegitimate child. The son of a Kentish day labourer, he had been errand boy, gardener, cobbler, and coal-heaver. At last he turned wholly preacher, and in that character came up to London from Thames Ditton, “bringing two large carts, with furniture and other necessaries, besides a post-chaise well filled with children and cats,” as he relates. He became minister of Margaret Street Chapel, where he urged the power of prayer, telling his hearers that whenever he wanted a thing--a horse, a pair of breeches, or a pound of tea--he prayed for it and it came. In 1788 his admirers built him a chapel in the Gray’s Inn Road at a cost of £9000. He called it Providence Chapel, and was shrewd enough to obtain the personal freehold. He carried pulpit brusqueness to the extreme. “Wake that snoring sinner!” and “Silence that noisy numskull!” were his frequent observations. By his marriage with the widow of Sir James Sanderson, who had been Lord Mayor of London, he gained wealth, and in 1811 he became the tenant of Dr. Valangin’s mansion on Hermes Hill, Pentonville. This eminent Swiss physician had named his estate Hermes Hill in honour of Hermes Trismegithus, the fabled discoverer of chemistry. Huntington’s health failed him, and he exchanged the air of Pentonville for Tunbridge Wells, where he died July 1, 1813. Smith’s story of the disciple who purchased a barrel of beer at the sale of Huntington’s effects is apparently true. Extravagant prices were paid for less perishable souvenirs. An arm-chair worth fifty shillings fetched sixty guineas, and an ordinary pair of spectacles seven guineas. The Pentonville mansion has long disappeared, but Hermes Street dingily perpetuates its curious history.

[345] Smith’s Beef Steak friend, John Nixon, was an Irish factor, who, with his brother Richard, lived over his warehouses in Basinghall Street. He was wealthy and convivial, a bachelor, a good business man, an admirable host, an amateur actor, and a comic artist. His drawing of “The Jolly Undertakers” regaling themselves at the Falcon Tavern, near Clapham Junction, is well known; the landlord’s name was Robert Death, and the undertakers are seen regaling themselves “at Death’s door.” Nixon’s original picture long remained at the Falcon (now rebuilt), and was considered a fixture.

The history of the Sublime Society of Beef Steaks was mournfully recalled two years ago by the closing and subsequent sale of its last home, the Lyceum Theatre. John Rich, the patentee of Covent Garden Theatre, is usually named as its founder, but the germ of the Society (its members loathed the name of Club) lay in the creature needs of his scene painter, George Lambert, of whom Edwards relates in his _Anecdotes of Painting_--

“As it frequently happened that he was too much hurried to leave his engagements for his regular dinner, he contented himself with a beefsteak broiled upon the fire in the painting-room. In this hasty meal he was sometimes joined by his visitors, who were pleased to participate in the humble repast of the artist. The savour of the dish and the conviviality of the accidental meeting inspired the party with a resolution to establish a club, which was accordingly done under the title of the ‘Beefsteak Club’; and the party assembled in the painting-room. The members were afterwards accommodated with a room in the playhouse, where the meetings were held for many years.”

Among the earlier members were Hogarth, Theophilus Cibber, George IV., when Prince of Wales, the Earl of Sandwich, George Colman, Wilkes. Charles Morris, the Laureate of the Beefsteaks, was admitted in 1785, and remained a member till his death in 1838, after being for more than fifty years the life and soul of the Society. “Die when you will, Charles, you’ll die in your youth,” were Curran’s words, and Morris died young at ninety-three. His “Sweet shady side of Pall Mall” is the best London song of its kind.

The Society dined and wined itself into the nineteenth century without a thought of change, but when Covent Garden Theatre was burnt down in 1808, the Beefsteakers, who had taken shelter at the Bedford Coffee House, went to the Lyceum Theatre at the invitation of Samuel James Arnold. There, for sixty years, they met in a banquet room behind the stage. In 1867 the number of members had fallen to eighteen, and in that year the famous coterie closed its doors and sent its Lares and Penates to Christie’s, that mart of abandoned playthings. “Brother” Walter Arnold’s _Life and Death of the Sublime Society of Beef Steaks_ (1871) is a singularly complete and interesting memorial of the “jolly old Steakers of England.”