1787.
At this time my mimic powers induced Delpini the clown,[223] who had often been amused with several of my imitations of public characters, to mention me to Mr. John Palmer,[224] who, after listening to my specimens, promised me an engagement at the Royalty Theatre, which was then erecting; but as that gentleman was too sanguine, and failed in procuring a licence, I, as well as many other strutting heroes, was disappointed.
After this my friends advised me to resume the arts; and, with the usual confidence of an unskilful beginner, I at once presumed to style myself “drawing-master.” However, my slender abilities, or rather industry, were noticed by my kind patrons, who soon recommended me to pupils, and by that pursuit I was enabled, with some increase of talent, to support myself for several years. It is rather extraordinary that mimicry with me was not confined to the voice, for I could in many instances throw my features into a resemblance of the person whose voice I imitated. Indeed, so ridiculous were several of these gesticulations, that I remember diverting one of my companions by endeavouring to look like the various lion-headed knockers as we passed through a long street. Skilful, however, as I was declared to be in some of my attempts, I could not in any way manage the dolphin knockers in Dean Street, Fetter Lane. Their ancient and fish-like appearance was certainly many fathoms beyond my depth; and as much by reason of my being destitute of gills, and the nose of that finny tribe, extending nearly in width to its tremendous mouth, I was obliged to give up the attempt.
When first I saw these knockers, which were all of solid brass, seventeen of the doors of the four-and-twenty houses in Dean Street were adorned with them, and the good housewives’ care was to keep them as bright as the chimney-sweeper’s ladle on May-day. As my mind from my earliest remembrance was of an inquisitive nature, my curiosity urged me to learn why this street, above all others, was thus adorned; and my inquiry was, as I then thought, at once answered satisfactorily.
This ground and the houses upon it belong to the Fishmongers’ Company, was the answer returned by one of the oldest inhabitants; and the heraldic reader will recollect that the arms of that worshipful and ancient body are dolphins. Not being satisfied with this assertion, however, I went to Fishmongers’ Hall, and was there assured that the Company never had any property in Dean Street, Fetter Lane. On the 17th of May, 1829, I visited this street in order to see how many of my brazen-faced acquaintances exposed themselves, and I found that Dean Street was nearly as deficient in its dolphin knockers as a churchyard is of its earliest tombstones, for out of seventeen only three remained.[225]
In the commencement of this year I took lodgings in Gerrard Street, and acquiesced in the regulations of my landlady; one of the principal of which was, that I never was to expect to be let in after twelve o’clock, unless the servant was apprised of my staying out later, and then she was to be permitted to sit up for me. Being in my twenty-first year, of a lively disposition, and moreover fond of theatrical representations, I did not at all times “remember twelve”; for although Mrs. Siddons sounded it so emphatically upon my ear, I could never quit the theatre till half an hour after. My finances at this period being sometimes too slender to afford an additional lodging for the night, and not often venturing to expose myself to insult, or the artful and designing, by perambulating the city, unless the moon invited me, I fortunately hit upon the following expedient, which not only sheltered me from rain, but afforded me a seat by the fireside. I either used to go to the watch-house of St. Paul, Covent Garden, or that of St. Anne, Soho; so, having made myself free of both by agreeing with the watch-house keeper to stand the expense of two pots of porter upon every nocturnal visit, I was enabled to see what is called “life and human nature.”
A LONDON WATCH HOUSE
One of the curious scenes witnessed upon a more recent occasion afforded me no small amusement. Sir Harry Dinsdale, usually called Dimsdale, a short, feeble little man, was brought in to St. Anne’s watch-house, charged by two colossal guardians of the night with conduct most unruly. “What have you, Sir Harry, to say to all this?” asked the Dogberry of St. Anne. The knight, who had been roughly handled, commenced like a true orator, in a low tone of voice, “May it please ye, my magistrate, I am not drunk; it is languor. A parcel of the bloods of the Garden have treated me cruelly, because I would not treat them. This day, Sir, I was sent for by Mr. Sheridan to make my speech upon the table at the Shakspeare Tavern, in Common Garden; he wrote the speech for me, and always gives me half a guinea, when he sends for me to the tavern. You see I didn’t go in my Royal robes; I only put ’um on when I stand to be member.” Constable—“Well, but Sir Harry, why are you brought here?” One of the watchmen then observed, “That though Sir Harry was but a little shambling fellow, he was so upstroppolus and kicked him about at such a rate, that it was as much as he and his comrade could do to bring him along.” As there was no one to support the charge, Sir Harry was advised to go home, which, however, he swore he would not do at midnight without an escort. “Do you know,” said he, “there’s a parcel of raps now on the outside waiting for me.”
The constable of the night gave orders for him to be protected to the public-house opposite the west end of St. Giles’s Church, where he then lodged. Sir Harry hearing a noise in the street, muttered, “I shall catch it; I know I shall.” “See the conquering hero comes” (cries without). “Ay, they always use that tune when I gain my election at Garrett.”
Although many of my readers may recollect Sir Harry Dinsdale, yet it may be well for the information of others to state who and what he was. Before I commence his history, however, I should observe that the death of Sir Jeffery Dunstan, a dealer in old wigs, who had been for many years returned member for Garrett, first gave popularity to Harry Dinsdale, who, from the moment he stood as candidate, received mock knighthood, and was ever after known under the appellation of “Sir Harry.”[226] There are several portraits of this singular little object, by some called “Honeyjuice,” as well as of his more whimsical predecessor, Sir Jeffery Dunstan, better known as “Old Wigs.” Sir Harry exercised the itinerant trade of a muffinman in the afternoon; he had a little bell, which he held to his ear, smiling ironically at its tingling. His cry was “Muffins! muffins! ladies come buy me! pretty, handsome, blooming, smiling maids.” Flaxman the sculptor, and Mrs. Mathew, of blue-stocking memory, equipped him as a hardware man, and as such I made two etchings of him.
SIR HARRY DINSDALE
MAYOR OF GARRAT AND EMPEROR ANTI-NAPOLEON
SIR JEFFERY DUNSTAN
“His first appearance on any stage.”
Many a time when I had no inclination to go to bed at the dawn of day, I have looked down from my window to see whether the author of the Sublime and Beautiful had left his drawing-room, where I had seen that great orator during many a night after he had left the House of Commons, seated at a table covered with papers, attended by an amanuensis who sat opposite to him.[227] Major Money, who had nearly been lost at sea with his balloon, at that time lodged in the same house. Of the Major’s perilous situation at sea, the elder Reinagle made a spirited picture, of which there is an engraving.[228]
In this year I had the honour for the first time of exhibiting at the Royal Academy. My production was a portrait of the venerable beech-tree which stood within memory at a short distance from Sand-pit Gate, in Windsor Forest, and which tree has been so admirably painted by West. This picture, which measures five feet in height and seven in length, was sold by auction at Mr. West’s house, in May 23rd, 1829. My drawing, as well as many of my studies made from that delightful display of forest scenery, was highly finished in black chalk; it was purchased by the late Earl of Warwick, who was not only an admirable draughtsman himself, but kind to young artists. By that nobleman I was introduced to the Hon. F. Charles Greville [the Earl’s brother and a Vice-President of the Royal Society], whose taste for the Fine Arts is too well known to need any eulogium from me.[229] This gentleman gave Cipriani above one hundred guineas for an elaborate drawing of the famous Barberini vase, brought to England by Sir William Hamilton.[230] Several learned writers have given their conjectures as to the subject so beautifully sculptured on this vase; but I understand that nothing has been adduced as yet that sufficiently elucidates it. This vase is deposited in the British Museum.
This grey and silver beech was the loftiest in the forest, and particularly beautiful when the sun shone upon its ancient limbs; his capacious and hollow trunk, with a small additional hut, afforded accommodation for a woodman, his wife, four children, a sow and a numerous litter of pigs. This happy family retreat, which had frequently been noticed by King George III., was at last unavoidably obliged, from the symptoms it exhibited of falling, to submit to the woodman’s axe—that woodman whose family had weathered many a storm, and had been screened from the scorching sunbeams under its majestic branches, several of which, by reason of its “bald and high antiquity,” had not issued foliage for many a summer. The King, however, who never suffered the humblest of his subjects whose industry he had noticed, to sigh under calamity, ordered a snug, neat brick cottage to be built for the honest occupant and his dependents, which was erected in the same forest, and at as short a distance as possible from the former residence.
One curious and interesting discovery resulted from the demolition of this venerable tree. The woodman, who had allowed the smoke from his peat-piled fire to pass through one of the hollow limbs of the tree for several years without sweeping it, had, by accumulated incrustations, produced a mass of the finest brown colour, resembling the present appearance of that used by Rembrandt, so much coveted by the English artists. The discovery was made by Mr. Paul Sandby, who was fortunately passing at the time the timber was on the ground, who immediately secured a tolerable quantity to enable him to prove that the smoke from forest fuel, united with the heated branch of a hollow and aged beech, produced the finest bistre: his son, the present Mr. Sandby, gave me a lump of it, which I presented to the late Sir George Beaumont.[231] Having mentioned this bistre to several Roman artists, they informed me that a strong decoction of the sap of the ilex, or evergreen oak, produces a colour nearly similar; and of this I have had satisfactory proof. These, and suchlike bistres, would be much safer for the artist to use than that called sepia, which is made from the ink of the cuttle-fish, which, being a marine production, ever retains its saline and pernicious qualities, as may be seen in several of the numerous drawings made by Guercino, where the colour has left a blot, which has completely eaten through the paper. However, after all the trials of our experimentalists to match the present tint of Rembrandt’s drawings, and however pleasingly ingenious their discoveries have been, still I am inclined to believe that much, if not the whole, of the effect of old drawings is owing to that produced by time; and in this idea I am borne out by a small drawing which the ever-to-be-revered Flaxman made with a pen in common writing-ink: he drew it when I was a lad, and it is now a deep rich brown. May we not also fairly conclude, from the brown tint of most of our old manuscripts, that time has thus operated upon the ink? if so, the question is, what will the future colour of that which we now use in imitation, consisting of many ingredients, be, after fifty-five years, the elapsed time since I received my drawing from the kind hand of Flaxman? It is a curious fact, however, that the ink used by the ancient Egyptians on nearly two hundred specimens of the written inscriptions on papyrus collected by Mr. Salt,[232] now in the British Museum, are as jet a black as Cozens’s[233] blotting-ink, or Day and Martin’s far-famed blacking.