Chapter V

The Society of Arts--Its Foundation--Its Removal to the Adelphi in 1774--James Barry and his Famous Paintings--Visited in John Street by Burke and Johnson--The Latter's opinion of his Genius--Description of his Pictures for the Society--The Work of the Society--"Spot" Ward, the Inventor of "Friar's Balsam"--Johnson speaks in the Great Room--Forsaken by his "Flowers of Oratory."

INSEPARABLY connected with the romance of the Adelphi, and very interesting on its own account, is the history of the Society of Arts, with its memories, not only of painters, but of Johnson and other celebrities. The Society owes its origin to William Shipley (1714-1803), a drawing-master of Northampton, and brother of Jonathan Shipley, Bishop of St Asaph, the friend of Benjamin Franklin. It was established at a meeting held on March 22, 1754, at Rawthmell's Coffee-house, in Henrietta Street, Covent Garden. Its first president was Jacob, Lord Viscount Folkestone. Its complete designation is "The Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce." Smollett, in his _History of England_ (1757), says, somewhat grandiloquently: "The Society is so numerous, the contributions so considerable, the plan so judiciously laid, and executed with such discretion and spirit as to promise much more effectual and extensive advantage to the public than ever accrued from all the boasted academies of Christendom." The Society had various homes prior to settling in the Adelphi. Its first meetings were held over a circulating library in Crane's Court, Fleet Street. A move was made westward to Craig's Court, Charing Cross, and from there the Society went to the Strand, in rooms opposite the New Exchange, and, in 1759, to apartments in Beaufort Buildings, Savoy.

In 1771, the brothers Adam entered into an agreement with the Society for the erection of "a proper building in the Adelphi for the use of the Society and the accommodation of its officers." The first stone was laid by Lord Romney, on March 28, 1772, and the building was opened in 1774. The Great Room, in which are the six famous pictures painted by James Barry, R.A. (1741-1806), between the years 1777 and 1783, is 44 feet in width, 60 feet in depth, and 48 feet in height. The painting of these celebrated pictures is one of the most extraordinary episodes in the history of art. In 1774, the Society of Arts suggested to certain members of the Royal Academy--then newly instituted--that they should paint the interior of the Great Room, and that they should be reimbursed by the public exhibition of the completed works. This proposition was rejected by the academicians, at whose head was Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Barry, as a member, refused the offer. Three years later, however, Barry, having but sixteen shillings in his pocket, applied for permission to execute the work, unaided, and without remuneration. The Society's housekeeper told Benjamin Haydon, the historical painter (1786-1846), that she remembered Barry at work on his frescoes. His violence, she said, was dreadful, his oaths were horrid, and his temper was like insanity. In summer, he started painting at five o'clock, worked until dark, and then etched by lamp-light until eleven at night. Burke and Johnson called once. But no artist dared to brave his wrath. He had his tea boiled in a quart pot, dined on porridge, and drank milk for supper. So poor was the painter that he applied, but in vain, to the Society for a little money, and "an insolent secretary even objected to his charge for colours and models." Subsequently, the Society relented and advanced the artist a hundred pounds. The Society "afterwards indulged him with two exhibitions of his paintings, in 1783 and 1784, which brought him £503, 12s., the Society paying the cost of the exhibitions, which amounted to £174." He was also "rewarded" by the Society with a gold medal. But he had other, and, perhaps, more pleasing recognitions of his talent. That sturdy traveller and philanthropist, Jonas Hanway (1712-1786), came to one of the exhibitions, and the pioneer of the umbrella was so pleased that he insisted upon leaving a guinea instead of the customary shilling. The Prince of Wales gave Barry sittings, and Lord Aldborough declared that the painter had "surpassed Raphael." Lord Romney gave him a hundred guineas for a copy of the heads, and Dr Johnson thought highly of Barry's imaginative powers. "Whatever the hand may have done," he said to Boswell, "the mind has done its part. There is a grasp of mind there which you find nowhere else." Poor, neglected, and half-mad, Barry died at the age of sixty-five. His body lay in state in the Great Room on March 7. He was buried in St Paul's.

Some sixty years ago, said a writer towards the middle of the last century, there might have been seen daily passing in a direction between Oxford Street and the Adelphi, for years together, and through all kinds of weather, one whose appearance told, to even the most casual observer, he looked upon a remarkable man. Referring to himself, in one of his letters to a friend, Barry had once said, "Though the body and the soul of a picture will discover themselves on the slightest glance, yet you know it could not be the same with such a pock-fretted, hard-featured little fellow as I am also"; but neither these personal characteristics, nor the mean garb in which he usually appeared, could conceal the earnestness stamped upon his grave, saturnine countenance, or the air of entire absorption in some mental pursuit, having little in common with the bustle of the everyday business of the world around him. He was a man to make or to keep few friends, and to shun all acquaintances; it was not often, therefore, that, in these passages to and fro, he had any companion; but the event was noticeable when he had, from the striking change in his demeanour. He became full of animation, and of a kind of sparkling cheerfulness; his conversation was at once frank, weighty, and elevating, and even the oaths, with which he made somewhat free, could not spoil the delight of the most fastidious censor of words, whilst borne along on the full and free current of the painter's thoughts. No one but himself at such times would have called his countenance "hard-featured"; its smile was inexpressibly sweet, its look of scorn or anger, when roused, such as few men could have met unmoved. But what was the employment that thus determined for so long a period his daily movements? The answer will require a brief review of his past career. Whilst a young student at Rome, Barry, annoyed by the absurd taunts of foreigners as to the ungenial character of the British soil for the growth of art, was often seduced into answering them in such a manner as suited rather his fiery temper and indomitable will than the cause which he so impatiently espoused. But a better result was his own quiet determination to devote his life to the disproof of the theory. He began admirably, by a strict analysis of his own powers, and by inquiring how they were best to be developed. Here is the result: "If I should chance to have genius, or anything else," he observes, in a letter to a friend, "it is so much the better; but my hopes are grounded upon an unwearied, intense application, of which I am not sparing. At present I have little to show that I value; my work is all underground digging and laying foundations, which, with God's assistance, I may hereafter find the use of. I every day centre more and more upon the art; I give myself totally to it; and except honour and conscience, am determined to renounce everything else." But the writer was without a shilling in the world to call his own; and although he had friends, the best of friends, as they were--one of them at least, Burke, the best of men--he had already received from them the entire means of subsistence while he had been studying so long at Rome, and was determined, therefore, to be no longer a burden to them or to others; but how should he, renouncing all ordinary blandishments of a young painter's career, the "face-painting" and other methods by which genius condescends to become fashionable, or, in other words, to lay down its immortality for the pleasure of being acknowledged immortal--how was he to subsist? It was whilst this question remained, we may suppose, not decisively answered, that the painter thus wrote to another friend:--"O, I could be happy, in my going home, to find some corner where I could sit down in the middle of my studies, books, and casts after the antique, to paint this work and others, where I might have models of nature, when necessary, bread and soup, and a coat to cover me! I should care not what became of my work when it was done; but I reflect with horror upon such a fellow as I am, and with such a kind of art in London, with house-rent to pay, duns to follow me, and employers to look for. Had I studied art in a manner more accommodated to the nation, there would be no dread of this." But from this state of despondency and dissatisfaction he was soon to rise triumphant. Again and again he asked himself how he was to subsist while the great things he meditated should be accomplished, and the answer came: the conclusion was anything but attractive or cheering, but he saw it was the conclusion: no cross, no crown; and he accepted it ungrudgingly. It was not long before he could say, "I have taken great pains to fashion myself to this kind of Quixotism; to this end I have contracted and simplified my cravings and wants, and brought them into a very narrow compass." There are few, we think, of those who may have smiled with pity or contempt at the painter's mean garb, who would not have honoured it while they reverenced him, had they known this. The first apparent opportunity of achieving the object indicated was in connection with the proposed decoration of St Paul's.[28] But this fell through, and it was not until the Society of Arts accepted his offer that he was able to bring himself into line with his own convictions.

_Nathaniel Smith._ 1790.

THE STRAND ENTRANCE TO DURHAM YARD.]

"Let us now ascend the stairs to the first floor, passing through the little ante-room where the alto-relievos of Bacon and Nollekens are mounted high upon the walls, and beneath the portrait of the founder of the Society, which appropriately hangs over the door of the great room, where the painter's works are to be found. The first glance shows us in one way the magnitude of the undertaking; the upper portion of the walls of the whole of the noble room, or hall, as it should rather be called, is covered by the six paintings of which the series consists; as we step from one to another, we perceive that these large spaces have been wrought upon in a large spirit; and a still closer examination opens to our view, pictures of surpassing beauty and grandeur, and scarcely less remarkable as a whole for the successful manner in which they have been executed than for the daring originality of their conception."

Barry's six pictures for the Society of Arts were designed on dignified and important subjects, so connected as to illustrate this great maxim of moral truth: "That the attainment of happiness, individual as well as public, depends on the development, proper cultivation, and perfection of the human faculties, physical and moral, which are as well calculated to lead human nature to its true rank and the glorious designation assigned for it by Providence." To illustrate this doctrine, the first picture exhibits mankind in a savage state, exposed to all the inconvenience and misery of neglected culture; the second represents a Harvest Home, or thanksgiving, to Ceres and Bacchus; the third, the victors at Olympia; the fourth, Navigation, or the Triumph of the Thames; the fifth, the Distribution of Rewards by the Society; and the sixth, Elysium, or the state of final Retribution. Three of these subjects are truly poetical, the others historical. The pictures are all of the same height, viz., eleven feet ten inches; and the first, second, fourth, and fifth are fifteen feet two inches long; the third and sixth, which occupy the whole breadth of the room, at the north and south ends, are each forty-two feet long.

_The Thames._--Personified and represented, of a venerable, majestic and gracious aspect, sitting on the waters in a triumphal car, steering himself with one hand, and holding in the other the mariner's compass. The car is borne along by our great navigators, Sir Francis Drake, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sebastian Cabot, and the late Captain Cook. In the front of the car, and apparently in the action of meeting it, are four figures, representing Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, ready to lay their several productions in the lap of the Thames. The supplicating action of the poor negro slave--or, more properly, of enslaved Africa--the cord round his neck, the tear on his cheek, the iron manacles and attached heavy chain on his wrists, with his hands clasped and stretched out for mercy, denote the agonies of his soul, and the feelings of the artist thus expressed, before the abolition of slavery became the subject of public investigation. Overhead is Mercury, the emblem of commerce, summoning the nations all together; and following the car are Nereids carrying several articles of the principal manufactures of Great Britain. In this scene of triumph and joy the artist has introduced music, and, for this reason, placed among the sea-nymphs his friend, Dr Burney. In the distance is a view of the chalky cliffs on the English coast, with ships sailing, highly characteristic of the commerce of this country, which the picture is intended to record. In the end of this picture, next the chimney, there is a naval pillar, mausoleum, observatory, light-house, or all of these, they being all comprehended in the same structure.

In this important object, so ingeniously produced by the sea-gods, we have at last obtained the happy concurrence and union of so many important desiderata in that opportunity of convenient inspection of all the sculptured communications, the want of which had been so deeply regretted by all who had seen the Trajan and Antonine columns, and other celebrated remains of antiquity.

_The Society._--This picture represents the distribution of the Rewards of the Society. Not far advanced from the left side of the picture stands the late Lord Romney, then president of the Society, habited in the robes of his dignity: near the president stands His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales; and sitting at the corner of the picture, holding in his hand the instrument of the institution, is Mr William Shipley, "whose public spirit gave rise to this Society." One of the farmers, who are producing specimens of grain to the president, is Arthur Young, Esq. Near him Mr More, the late secretary. On the right hand of the late Lord Romney stands the present Earl of Romney, then V.P., and on the left the late Owen Salusbury Brereton, Esq., V.P.[29] Towards the centre of the picture is seen that distinguished example of female excellence, Mrs Montague, who long honoured the Society with her name and subscription. She appears recommending the ingenuity and industry of a young female, whose work she is producing. Near her are placed the late Duchess of Northumberland; the present Duke of Northumberland, V.P.; the late Joshua Steele, Esq., V.P.; Dr Hurd, Bishop of Worcester; Soame Jennings and James Harris, Esqrs.; and the two duchesses of Rutland and Devonshire. Between these ladies, the late Dr Samuel Johnson seems pointing out the example of Mrs Montague to their Graces' attention and imitation. Further advanced is His Grace the late Duke of Richmond, V.P., and the late Edmund Burke, Esq. Still nearer the right-hand side of the picture is the late Edward Hooper, Esq., V.P., and the late Keane Fitzgerald, Esqrs., V.P.; His Grace the late Duke of Northumberland, V.P.; the Earl of Radnor, V.P., William Lock, Esq., and Dr William Hunter are examining some drawings by a youth, to whom a premium has been adjudged: behind him is another youth, in whose countenance the dejection he feels at being disappointed in his expectation of a reward is finely expressed. Near the right side of the piece are seen the late Lord Viscount Folkestone, first president of this Society; his son, the late Earl Radnor, V.P.; and Dr Stephen Hales, V.P. In the background appear part of the water-front of Somerset House, St Paul's, and other objects in the vicinity and view of this Society, as instituted at London. And as a very large part of the rewards bestowed by the Society have been distributed to promote the polite arts of painting and sculpture, the artist has also most judiciously introduced a picture and statue. The subject of the picture is the Fall of Lucifer, designed by Mr Barry, when the Royal Academy had selected six of the members to paint pictures for St Paul's Cathedral; the statue is that of the Grecian mother dying, and in those moments attentive only to the safety of her child. In the corners of the picture are represented many articles which have been invented or improved by the encouragement of this Society. In the lower corner of this picture, next the chimney, are introduced two large models intended by Mr Barry as improvements of medals and coins.

_Elysium, or the State of Final Retribution._--In this sublime picture, which occupies the whole length of the room, the artist has, with wonderful sagacity, and without any of those anachronisms which tarnish the lustre of other very celebrated performances, brought together those great and good men of all ages and nations, who have acted as the cultivators and benefactors of mankind. This picture is separated from that of the Society distributing its rewards by palm trees; near which, on a pedestal, sits a pelican, feeding its young with its own blood, a happy type of those personages represented in the picture, who had worn themselves out in the service of mankind. Behind the palms, near the top of the picture, are indistinctly seen, as immersed and lost in a great blaze of light, cherubims veiled with their wings, in the act of adoration, and offering incense to that invisible and incomprehensible Power which is above them, and out of the picture, from whence the light and glory proceed and are diffused over the whole piece. By thus introducing the idea of the Divine essence, by effect rather than by form, the absurdity committed by many painters is happily avoided, and the mind of every intelligent spectator is filled with awe and reverence.

The groups of female figures, which appear at a further distance absorbed in glory, are those characters of female excellence, whose social conduct, benevolence, affectionate friendship, and regular discharge of domestic duties, soften the cares of human life, and diffuse happiness around them. In the more advanced part, just bordering on the blaze of light (where the female figures are almost absorbed) is introduced a group of poor native West Indian females, in the act of adoration, preceded by angels, burning incense, and followed by their good bishop, his face partly concealed by that energetic hand which holds his crozier, or pastoral staff--who may, notwithstanding the word Chiapa, inscribed on the front of his mitre, be identified with the glorious friar Bartolomeo de las Casas, bishop of that place. This matter of friendly intercourse, continued beyond life, is pushed still further in the more advanced part of the same group by the male adoring Americans and some Dominican friars, where the very graceful incident occurs of one of these Dominicans directing the attention of an astonished Caribb to some circumstance of beatitude, the enjoyment of which he had promised to his Caribb friend. The group below on the left hand in this picture consists of Roger Bacon, Archimedes, Descartes, and Thales; behind them stand Sir Francis Bacon, Copernicus, Galileo, and Sir Isaac Newton, regarding with awe and admiration a solar system, which two angels are unveiling and explaining to them. Near the inferior angel, who is holding the veil, is Columbus, with a chart of his voyage; and close to him Epaminondas, with his shield; Socrates, Cato the younger, the elder Brutus, and Sir Thomas More; a sextumbriate to which, Swift says, all ages have not been able to add a seventh. Behind Marcus Brutus is William Molyneux, holding his book of the case of Ireland; near Columbus is Lord Shaftesbury, John Locke, Zeno, Aristotle, and Plato; and, in the opening between this group and the next, are Sir William Harvey, the discoverer of the circulation of the blood, and the honourable Robert Boyle.

The next group are legislators, where King Alfred the Great is leaning on the shoulder of William Penn, who is showing his tolerant, pacific code of equal laws to Lycurgus. Standing around them are Minos, Trajan, Antoninus, Peter the Great of Russia, Edward the Black Prince, Henry the Fourth of France, and Andrea Doria of Genoa. Here, too, are introduced those patrons of genius, Lorenzo de Medici, Louis the Fourteenth, Alexander the Great, Charles the First, Colbert, Leo the Tenth, Francis the First, the Earl of Arundel, and the illustrious monk Cassiodorus, no less admirable and exemplary as the secretary of state than as the friar in his convent at Viviers, the plan of which he holds in his hand. Just before this group, on the rocks which separate Elysium from the infernal regions, are placed the Angelic Guards; and in the most advanced part an archangel, weighing attentively the virtues and vices of mankind, whose raised hand and expressive countenance denote great concern at the preponderancy of evil. Behind this figure is another angel, explaining to Pascal and Bishop Butler the analogy between Nature and revealed Religion. The figure behind Pascal and Butler, with his arms stretched out, and advancing with so much energy, is that ornament of our latter age, the graceful, the sublime Bossuet, Bishop of Meux. The uniting tendency of the paper he holds in that hand, resting on the shoulder of Origen, would well comport with those pacific views of the amiable Grotius, for healing those discordant evils which are sapping the foundations of Christianity amongst the nations of Europe, where in other respects it would be, and even is, so happily and so well established.

Behind Francis the First and Lord Arundel are Hugo Grotius, Father Paul, and Pope Adrian. Towards the top of the picture, and near the centre, sits Homer; on his right hand, Milton; next him, Shakespeare, Spenser, Chaucer, and Sappho. Behind Sappho sits Alcæus, who is talking with Ossian; near him are Menander, Molière, Congreve, Bruma, Confucius, Mango Capac, etc. etc. Next Homer, on the other side, is Archbishop Fenelon, with Virgil leaning on his shoulder; and near them are Tasso, Ariosto, and Dante. Behind Dante, Petrarca, Laura, Giovanni, and Boccaccio.

In the second range of figures, over Edward the Black Prince and Peter the Great, are Swift, Erasmus, Cervantes; near them Pope, Dryden, Addison, Richardson, Moses Mendelssohn, and Hogarth. Behind Dryden and Pope are Sterne, Gray, Goldsmith, Thomson, and Fielding; and near Richardson, Inigo Jones, Sir Christopher Wren, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Vandyke. Next Vandyke is Rubens, with his hand on the shoulders of Le Soeur, and behind him is Le Brun: next to these are Julio Romano, Dominichino, and Annibal Caracci, who are in conversation with Phidias; behind whom is Giles Hussey. Nicholas Poussin and the Sicyonian maid are near them, with Callimachus and Pamphilius; near Appelles is Corregio; behind Raphaello stand Michael Angelo and Leonardo da Vinci, and behind them, Ghiberti, Donatello, Massachio, Brunaleschi, Albert Dürer, Giotto, and Cimabue.

In the top of this part of the picture the painter has happily glanced at what is called by astronomers the System of Systems, where the fixed stars, considered as so many suns, each with his several planets, are revolving round the Great Cause of all things; and representing everything as affected by intelligence, has shown each system carried along in its revolution by an angel. Though only a small portion of this article can be seen, yet enough is shown to manifest the sublimity of the idea.

In the other corner of the picture the artist has represented Tartarus, where, among cataracts of fire and clouds of smoke, two large hands are seen, one of them holding a fire-fork, the other pulling down a number of figures bound together by serpenting War, Gluttony, Extravagance, Detraction, Parsimony, and Ambition: and floating down the fiery gulf are Tyranny, Hypocrisy, and Cruelty, with their proper attributes; the whole of this excellent picture proving, in the most forcible manner, the truth of that maxim which cannot be too often inculcated: "That the attainment of man's true rank in the creation, and his present and future happiness, individual as well as public, depended on the cultivation and proper direction of the human faculties."[30]

In addition to the Barry pictures, there are, in the Council Room, full-length portraits of the first president by Gainsborough, and of the second president of the Society, Lord Romney, by Reynolds, together with a portrait of Barry. Here, also, are portraits of the Prince Consort (who was president from 1843 until his death in 1861), painted by Horsley, and of the late Queen Victoria and the royal children, painted by Cope. One of the first prizes of the Society was adjudged to Richard Cosway, then a boy of twelve, and afterwards so eminent as a portrait painter in oil and miniatures. But this was before the Society had removed to the Adelphi. John Bacon, Joseph Nollekens, and William Woollett, George Romney, John Flexman, J.M.W. Turner, Edwin Landseer, William Mulready, J.E. Millais, and many other distinguished artists were awarded premiums by the Society, which, says Mr Wheatley, "has been active in promoting commercial and technical education by means of examinations. Out of the technological examinations has grown the wide-spreading action of the City and Guilds of London Technical Institute. A large number of the chief questions of the day, such as the amendment of the Patent Laws; the cheapening of letter, book, and parcel postage; the improvement of musical education, etc., have been dealt with by the Society in the form of discussion and by addresses to the Government. Several conferences have also been held on sanitary matters and on water supply.

The ordinary meetings are held on Wednesday evenings at 8 p.m., from November to May, when papers are read and discussed on subjects relating to arts, manufactures and commerce. There are also connected with the Society three sections: 1. Indian; 2. Foreign and Colonial; 3. Applied Art. These hold meetings for the reading and discussion of papers on their respective subjects on other days of the week. Courses of lectures on popular subjects connected with arts and manufactures are delivered on Monday evenings, and are styled Cantor Lectures, by reason that they owe their origin to a bequest of the late Dr Cantor. The Albert Medal, founded in honour of the Prince Consort, is awarded annually to some eminent man who has distinguished himself by promoting arts, manufactures, or commerce. The first award was to Sir Rowland Hill in 1864, and the list of recipients forms a noble roll of great men."[31] Her late Majesty, Queen Victoria, was awarded the Society's medal in her jubilee year, 1887.

The notorious quack doctor Joshua Ward (1685-1761), who was caricatured by Hogarth, allowed the Italian sculptor, Agostino Carlini, £100 a year, so that he should work on his statue for life. The impudent inventor of "Friar's Balsam" left this statue to the Society of Arts. This quack, who was nicknamed "Spot" Ward, from a birth-mark on his cheek, was the son of a London dry-salter. His skill was so extolled by General Churchill and Lord Chief Baron Reynolds, that he was called in to prescribe for George II. Despite his "remedies"--his famous "drop and pill" was a dangerous compound of antimony--the King recovered, and "Spot" Ward was solemnly voted the thanks of a credulous House of Parliament and allowed the privilege of driving his carriage through St James's Park. He tried to enter Parliament by fraud in 1717, and fled to St Germain, where he maintained himself by his "universal remedies." Pardoned in 1733, he had a wonderful career in London, and amassed a fortune.

_Gércault._

ENTRANCE TO THE ADELPHI ARCHES.]

One of the most interesting of the literary associations of the Adelphi is connected, in tradition, with Oliver Goldsmith, and, as a matter of fact, with Samuel Johnson, both of whom appeared before the Society of Arts. "The great room of the Society now mentioned," says Andrew Kippis, the Nonconformist divine and biographer, at the close of his memoir of Gilbert Cooper, in the _Biographia Britannica_,[32] "was for several years the place where many people chose to try, or to display, their oratorical abilities. Dr Goldsmith, I remember, made an attempt at a speech, but was obliged to sit down in confusion. I once heard Doctor Johnson speak there, upon a subject relating to Mechanics, with a propriety, perspicuity, and energy which excited general admiration." On the other hand, we have the testimony of Boswell that Johnson did not distinguish himself as a speaker in the Adelphi. "I remember that it was observed by Mr Flood, that Johnson, having been long used to sententious brevity and the short flights of conversation, might have failed in that continued and expanded kind of argument which is requisite in stating complicated matters in public speaking; and, as a proof of this, he mentioned the supposed speeches in Parliament, written by him for the magazine, none of which, in his opinion, were at all like real debates. The opinion of one who was himself so eminent an orator must be allowed to have great weight. It was confirmed by Sir William Scott [Baron Stowell, the great Admiralty lawyer], who mentioned that Johnson had told him that he had several times tried to speak in the Society of Arts and Manufactures, but 'had found he could not get on.' From Mr William Gerard Hamilton, I have heard that Johnson, when observing to him that it was prudent for a man who had not been accustomed to speak in public to begin his speech in as simple a manner as possible, acknowledged that he rose in that Society to deliver a speech which he had prepared; 'but,' said he, 'all my flowers of oratory forsook me.'"

I am sorry to destroy a long-cherished illusion, but the worthy Dr Kippis is in error in "remembering" Goldsmith attempting to make a speech in "the great room" of the Society of Arts. This room was not opened until 1774, and on April 4th of that year, Goldsmith--unfortunately for the Kippis tradition--with a mind ill at ease, departed life.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 28: J. Saunders, in Knight's _London_, vol. v., pp. 359-360.]

[Footnote 29: Owen Salusbury Brereton (1715-1798), antiquary; recorder of Liverpool, 1742-98; vice-president, Society of Arts, 1765-98; M.P. for Ilchester, 1775-80.]

[Footnote 30: The above descriptions of Barry's famous pictures in the Adelphi are taken from Brayley's _Beauties of England and Wales, Middlesex_, vol. iii., part ii., pp. 235-241.]

[Footnote 31: _London Past and Present_, vol. i., pp. 71-2.]

[Footnote 32: Vol. iv., p. 266.]