Supper at Mortimer’s.
“Upon my word, a delicate little hen turkey; what, a Christmas present already! This turkey is from my old fellow-’prentice, Joe Wright,” said Mortimer,[39] “who never forgets us at Christmas. Poor Joe, the valetudinarian! I’d be sworn he procured one of the least in all Derby out of sheer compassion to our evil habits. He knows we always dress his Christmas turkey for supper, and he has generally a hint by way of postscript to his letters, touching the prevalence of apoplexy. Now Master Joe was one of your water-gruel disciples when we were youngsters together at Hudson’s; and I would wager ten pounds to a crown piece, he is just now sitting, Peter Grievous, over that wishy-washy, tasteless, humdrum, drivelling dish, and calling to old Nan Watkins—‘Nanny, have you any nice live coals? Do, pray, let me have my bed warmed.’ Are you a supper eater, Mister Gibbon?”[40] “No, Mister Mortimer; I am a single man, and a bit of a valetudinarian like your friend Mister Wright.” “And a water-gruel eater, I presume?” said Mortimer. “Yes, indeed,” said Gibbon, smiling; “though in truth, I do not know that I am at all the better for these scrupulosities in diet.”
This playfully overdrawn picture of Wright’s habits was probably written before Wright went to Italy. Wright was of very temperate and abstemious habits, which, unfortunately, cannot be said of Mortimer.
Dr. Wolcott, as Peter Pindar, in one of his Poems, called Mr. Wright’s moons silver sixpences; upon being remonstrated with, he said he had not seen any of his moonlights, but supposed the moon must look like a sixpence. Probably this was the passage that Mr. Holland disliked, when he wrote the following lines, had them printed, and pasted them over the passage in his volume of Peter Pindar’s Poems—
“Would’st thou paint Landscape, study Derby Wright,
Where freedom, elegance, and truth unite.
Rich sparkling tints, grand shapes and masses show
How fine his pencil marks the Sunset’s glow;
Nor does his Master-hand less skillful seem,
When silver Cynthia quivers in the stream;
E’en Envy with approving smiles must own
In all Wright paints, Nature and Wright are ONE.”
Mr. Holland showed the book to a friend, who exclaimed, “Well done, Peter, I did not think he would have done Wright so much justice.”
The celebrated Dr. Darwin, who was on friendly terms with Wright, was often consulted by him, respecting his “imaginary complaints,” as the Doctor unjustly called them; and on one occasion told him, “he had but one thing more to recommend, and that was what he would not give, but he thought it would be to his advantage to be engaged in a vexatious lawsuit.” The Poet Doctor alludes to Wright in his “Botanic Garden,” Canto I., line 175, in the following lines—
“So Wright’s bold pencil from Vesuvius’ height,
Hurls his red lavas to the troubled night;
From Calpe starts the intolerable flash,
Skies burst in flames, and blazing oceans dash—
On birds in sweet repose his shades recede,
Winds the still vale, and slopes the velvet mead,
On the pale stream expiring zephyrs sink,
And moonlight sleeps upon its hoary brink.”