1786.
Possibly the present frequenters of print sales may receive some little entertainment from a description of a few of the most singular of those who constantly attended the auctions during my boyish days. The elder Langford, of Covent Garden, introduced by Foote as Mr. Puff, in his farce of The Minor,[195] I well remember; yet by reason of my being obliged to attend more regularly the subsequent evening sales at Paterson’s and Hutchins’s—next-door-neighbour auctioneers, on the north side of King Street, Covent Garden,[196] I am better enabled to speak to the peculiarities of their visitors than those of Mr. Langford.
It was in 1783, during the sales of the extensive collection of Mr. Moser, the first keeper of the Royal Academy,[197] and Mr. Millan, bookseller at Charing Cross,[198] that I noticed the following remarkable characters. I shall, however, first endeavour to describe the person of Paterson, a man much respected by all who really knew him; but perhaps by none with more sincerity than Doctor Johnson, who had honoured him by standing godfather to his son Samuel, and whom he continued to notice as he grew up with the most affectionate regard, as appears in the letters which the doctor wrote in his favour to his friends Sir Joshua Reynolds and Mr. Humphrey, printed by Boswell.[199] Mr. Paterson was in height about five feet eight inches, and stooped a little in the shoulders. When I first knew him, he was a spare man, and wore a powdered clubwig, similar to that worn by Tom Davies, the bookseller and biographer of Garrick, of whom there is an engraved portrait. Paterson was really a walking library, and of manners precisely coinciding with the old school. I remember that by a slight impediment in his speech, he always pronounced the letter R as a V; for instance, Dart’s History of Canterbevy, and a dromedary, he pronounced a dwammedavy; notwithstanding this defect, he publicly lectured on the beauties of Shakspeare.
Mr. Gough,[200] the Editor of Camden’s Britannia, was the constant frequenter of his book-sales. This antiquary was about the same height as the auctioneer, but in a wig very different, as he wore, when I knew him, a short shining curled one. His coat was of “formal cut,” but he had no round belly; and his waistcoat and smallclothes were from the same piece. He was mostly in boots, and carried a swish-whip when he walked. His temper I know was not good, and he seldom forgave those persons who dared to bid stoutly against him for a lot at an auction: his eyes, which were small and of the winky-pinky sort, fully announced the fretful being. As for his judgment in works of art, if he had any it availed him little, being as much satisfied with the dry and monotonous manner of Old Basire,[201] as our late President West was with the beautiful style of Woollett and Hall.
Dr. Lort,[202] the constant correspondent of Old Cole,[203] was a man of his own stamp, broad and bony, in height nearly six feet, of manners equally morose, and in every respect just as forbidding. His wig was a large Busby, and usually of a brown appearance, for want of a dust of powder. He was chaplain to the Duke of Devonshire; and as he wore thick worsted stockings, and walked anyhow through the mud, considered himself in no way obliged to give the street-sweepers a farthing. He had some wit, however, but it was often displayed in a cowardly manner, being mostly directed towards his little opponent, Doctor Gossett,[204] who was unfortunately much afflicted by deformity, and of a temper easily roused by too frequent a repetition of threepenny biddings at Paterson’s. Paterson sold his books singly, and took threepence at a bidding.
Hutchins was about five feet nine inches, but in appearance much shorter by reason of his corpulency. His high forehead, when compared with a perpendicular, was at an angle of forty-five. He was what Spurzheim would call a simple honest man: his wife was of the same build, but most powerfully possessed the organ of inquisitiveness, which induced her to be a constant occupant of a pretty large and easy chair, by the side of the fire in the auction-room, in order that she might see how business was going on. Mr. and Mrs. Hutchins appeared so affectionately mutual in all their public conclusions, that Caleb Whitefoord, the witty wine-merchant, one of the print-sale visitors, attempted to flourish off the following observation as one of his invention: “You see,” said he to Captain Baillie, “Cocker is not always correct; one and one do not in this instance make two.”[205]
Caleb Whitefoord[206] was what is usually called a slight-built man, and much addicted when in conversation to shrug up his shoulders. He had a thin face, with little eyes; his deportment was gentlemanly, though perhaps sometimes too high for his situation in life. His dress, upon which he bestowed great attention, was in some instances singular, particularly in his hat and wig, which were remarkable as being solitary specimens of the Garrick School. He considered himself a first-rate judge of pictures, always preferring those by the old masters, but which he endeavoured to improve by touching up; and when in this conceited employment, I have frequently seen him fall back in his chair, and turn his head from one shoulder to the other, with as much admiration of what he had done, as Hogarth’s sign-painter of the Barley-mow in his inimitable print of Beer Street.
LONDON STREET MERCHANTS: UMBRELLAS TO MEND
ETCHED BY J. T. SMITH
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.
CHRISTIE’S AS “RAINY DAY” SMITH KNEW IT
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.