Dashall conducted his friend through every part of the Market, amidst a redundancy of fruit, flowers, roots and vegetables, native and exotic, in variety and profusion, exciting the merited admiration of the Squire, who observed, and perhaps justly, that this celebrated emporium unquestionably is not excelled by any other of a similar description in the universe.
1 The late Mr. Christie having at one time a small tract of land under the hammer, expatiated at great length on its highly improved state, the exuberant beauties with which Nature had adorned this terrestrial Paradise, and more particularly specified a delightful hanging wood. A gentleman, unacquainted with Mr. Christie's happy talent at exaggerated description, became the highest bidder, paid his deposit, and posted down into Essex to examine his new purchase, when, to his great surprise and disappointment, he found no part of the description realized, the promised Paradise having faded into an airy vision, “and left not a wreck behind!” The irritated purchaser immediately returned to town, and warmly expostulated with the auctioneer on the injury he had sustained by unfounded representation; “and as to a hanging wood, Sir, there is not the shadow of a tree on the spot!” “I beg your pardon, Sir,” said the pertinacious eulogist, “you must certainly have overlooked the gibbet on the common, and if that is not a hanging wood, I know not what it is!” Another of Mr. Christie's flights of fancy may not unaptly be termed the puff poetical. At an auction of pictures, dwelling in his usual strain of eulogium on the unparalleled excellence of a full-length portrait, without his producing the desired effect, “Gentlemen,” said he, “1 cannot, in justice to this sublime art, permit this most invaluable painting to pass from under the hammer, without again soliciting the honour of your attention to its manifold beauties. Gentlemen, it only wants the touch of Prometheus to start from the canvass and fall abidding!”
Proceeding into Leicester Square, the very extraordinary production of female genius, Miss Linwood's Gallery of Needlework promised a gratification to the Squire exceeding in novelty any thing which he had hitherto witnessed in the Metropolis. The two friends accordingly entered, and the anticipations of Tallyho were superabundantly realized.
This exhibition consists of seventy-five exquisite copies in needlework, of the finest pictures of the English and foreign schools, possessing all the correct drawing, just colouring, light and shade of the original pictures from whence they are taken, and to which in point of effect they are in no degree inferior.
From the door in Leicester Square the visitants entered the principal room, a fine gallery of excellent proportions, hung with scarlet broad-cloth, gold bullion tassels, and Greek borders. The appearance thus given to the room is pleasing, and indicated to the Squire a still more superior attraction. His Cousin Dashall had frequently inspected this celebrated exhibition, but' to Tallyho it was entirely new.
On one side of this room the pictures are hung, and have a guard in front to keep the company at the requisite distance, and for preserving them.
Turning to the left, a long and obscure passage prepares the mind, and leads to the cell of a prison, on looking into which is seen the beautiful Lady Jane Gray, visited by the Abbot and keeper of the Tower the night before her execution.
This scene particularly elicited the Squire's admiration; the deception of the whole, he observed, was most beautiful, and not exceeded by any work from the pencil of the painter, that he had ever witnessed. A little farther on is a cottage, the casement of which opens, and the hatch at the door is closed; and, on looking in at either, our visitants perceived a fine and exquisitely finished copy of Gainsborough's Cottage Children standing by the fire, with chimney-piece and cottage furniture compleat. Near to this is Gainsborough's Woodman, exhibited in the same scenic manner.
Having enjoyed an intellectual treat, which perhaps in originality as an exhibition of needlework is no where else to be met with, our perambulators retired, and reached home without the occurrence of any other remarkable incident.