1795.
Having often heard my father expatiate upon the extraordinary talents of Keyse,[262] the proprietor of Bermondsey Spa, as a painter, I went one July evening to Hungerford, and engaged “Copper Holmes”[263] to scull me to “Pepper Alley Stairs”; from thence I proceeded to the gardens. This I was the more anxious to accomplish, as that once famed place of recreation was most rapidly on the decline. I entered under a semicircular awning next to the proprietor’s house, which I well remember was a large wooden-fronted building, consisting of long square divisions, in imitation of scantlings of stone. My surprise was great, for no one appeared, but three idle waiters, and they were clumped for the want of a call. The space before the orchestra, which was about a quarter the size of that of Vauxhall, was in the centre, totally destitute of trees, the few that these gardens could then boast of being those planted close to the fronts of the surrounding boxes of accommodation, as a screen to prevent the public from overlooking the gardens.
My attention was attracted by a board with a ruffled hand, within a sky-blue painted sleeve, pointing to the staircase which led “To the Gallery of Paintings.” In this room I at first considered myself as the only spectator; and as the evening sun shone brilliantly, the refraction of the lights gave me a splendid and uninterrupted view of the numerous pictures with which it was closely hung, each of which had just claims to my attention, as I found myself frequently walking backwards to enjoy their deceptive effects. When I had gone round the gallery, which by the bye was oblong, and in size similar to that of the Academician, J. M. W. Turner, in Queen Anne Street, I voluntarily recommenced my view, but, in stepping back to study the picture of the Green-stall, “I ask your pardon,” said I, for I had trodden upon some one’s toes; “Sir, it is granted,” replied a little thick-set man, with a round face, arch look, closely curled wig, surmounted by a small three-cornered hat, put very knowingly on one side, not unlike Hogarth’s head in his print of the Gates of Calais. “You are an artist, I presume; I noticed you from the end of the gallery when you first stepped back to look at my best picture. I painted all the objects in this room from nature and still life.” “Your Greengrocer’s Shop,” said I, “is inimitable; the drops of water on that Savoy appear as if they had just fallen from the element. Van Huysum could not have pencilled them with greater delicacy.” “What do you think,” said he, “of my Butcher’s Shop?” “Your pluck is bleeding fresh, and your sweetbread is in a clean plate.” “How do you like my bull’s eye?” “Why it would be a most excellent one for Adams or Dollond[264] to lecture upon. Your knuckle of veal is the finest I ever saw.” “It’s young meat,” replied he; “any one who is a judge of meat can tell that from the blueness of its bone.” “What a beautiful white you have used on the fat of that South Down leg! or is it Bagshot?”[265]
“Yes,” said he, “my solitary visitor, it is Bagshot; and as for my white, that is the best Nottingham, which you or any artist can procure at Stone and Puncheon’s, in Bishopsgate Street Within. Sir Joshua Reynolds,” continued Mr. Keyse, “paid me two visits. On the second, he asked me what white I had used; and when I told him, he observed, ‘It is very extraordinary, Sir, how it keeps so bright; I use the same.’ ‘Not at all, Sir,’ I rejoined: ‘the doors of this gallery are open day and night; and the admission of fresh air, together with the great expansion of light from the sashes above, will never suffer the white to turn yellow. Have you not observed, Sir Joshua, how white the posts and rails on the public roads are, though they have not been repainted for years?—that arises from constant air and bleaching.’
J. M. W. TURNER, R.A.
FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH BY J. T. SMITH
“Come,” said Mr. Keyse, putting his hand upon my shoulder, “the bell rings, not for prayers, nor for dinner, but for the song.” As soon as we had reached the orchestra, the singer curtsied to us, for we were the only persons in the gardens. “This is sad work,” said he, “but the woman must sing according to our contract.” I recollect that the singer was handsome, most dashingly dressed, immensely plumed, and villainously rouged; she smiled as she sang, but it was not the bewitching smile of Mrs. Wrighten,[266] then applauded by thousands at Vauxhall Gardens. As soon as the Spa lady had ended her song, Keyse, after joining me in applause, apologised for doing so, by observing that, as he never suffered his servants to applaud, and as the people in the road (whose ears were close to the cracks in the paling to hear the song), would make a bad report if they had not heard more than the clapping of one pair of hands, he had in this instance expressed his reluctant feelings.
As the lady retired from the front of the orchestra, she, to keep herself in practice, curtsied to me with as much respect as she would had Colonel Topham been the patron of a gala night.[267] “This is too bad,” again observed Keyse; “and I am sure you cannot expect fireworks!” However, he politely asked me to partake of a bottle of Lisbon, which upon my refusing, he pressed me to accept of a catalogue of his pictures.
Blewitt[268] (who at that time lived in Bermondsey Square), the scholar of Jonathan Battishill,[269] was the composer for the Spa establishment. The following verse is the first of his most admired composition,—“In lonely cot by Humber’s side.”
My old and worthy friend Joseph Caulfield,[270] Blewitt’s favourite pupil, of whom he learned thorough bass, related to me the following anecdote of a musical composer, as told him by his master:—“When I was going upstairs,” said Blewitt, “to the attics, where one of my instructors lived (for I had many), I hesitated on the second-floor landing-place, upon hearing my master and his wife at high words. ‘Get you gone!’ said the lofty paper-ruffled composer, ‘retire to your apartments!’ This command of her lord she did not immediately obey; however, in a short time after, I heard the clattering of plates against the wall, and upon entering the room, I discovered that the lady had retired, but not before she had covered the whitewashed wall profusely with the unbroiled sprats.”
“I was at a musical party,” continued my friend Joseph, “at Lord Sandwich’s,[271] in Hertford Street, Mayfair, when, among other specimens of the best masters, I heard Battishill’s beautiful composition of
“Amidst the myrtles as I walk,
Love and myself thus entered talk,
‘Tell me,’ said I, in deep distress,
‘Where I may find my Shepherdess.’”[272]
Upon expressing my pleasure at hearing the above performed in so superior a style, his Lordship told me he had written a sequel, which he thus repeated:—
“Love said to me, ‘Thou faithful swain,
Thy search in myrtle groves is vain;
Examine well thy noblest part,
Thou’lt find her seated in thy heart.’”
It appears that in poetry, as well as in painting and prints, and also in dwellings, decorations, and dress, there has ever been a fashion for a time. Battishill was the composer of that justly celebrated glee, commencing with “Underneath this myrtle shade.” Myrtles, after having had a great run, were succeeded by Cupid’s darts; and that little rogue Love played old gooseberry with the hearts of Chloes and Colins, Robins and Robinets; then the ever-blooming lasses of Patterdale and Richmond Hill attracted our giddy notice. These were succeeded by “Bacchus in green ivy bound,” giving “Joy and pleasure all around.” After that, moonlight meetings were preferred, and “Buy a broom, ladies,” was continually dinning our ears “through and through.”