Robert Adam also obtained some reputation as a landscape painter. As an architect, he was extensively employed to the last. In the year preceding his death he designed no less than eight public works and twenty-five private buildings. He died at his house in Albemarle Street, from the bursting of a blood-vessel in his stomach, on March 3, 1792. Of the social position he attained, and the estimation in which he was held, no greater proof can be afforded than the record of his funeral in Westminster Abbey. His pall-bearers were the Duke of Buccleuch, the Earl of Coventry, the Earl of Lauderdale, Viscount Stormont, Lord Frederick Campbell, and Richard Pulteney (the botanist).
His younger brother, James, died in the same street, on October 20, two years later, from apoplexy. His work was so closely connected with that of Robert as to be practically undistinguishable. It is thought, by many, that he was solely responsible for the design of Portland Place. At one time he was architect to George III., and was master mason to the Board of Ordnance in North Britain. He published Practical Essays on Architecture, and, at the time of his death, he was engaged on a history of architecture. The eldest brother, John, inherited the business of the father, and remained in Scotland. William Adam is said to have died in 1748, in which case he could hardly have "assisted his brother Robert in building the Adelphi" (Dict. of Nat. Biography).
And Walpole, writing to Mason on July 29, 1773, says: "What are the Adelphi Buildings? Warehouses, laced down the seams, like a soldier's frill in a regimental old coat." Yet the author of The Castle of Otranto did not disdain from asking Robert Adam to design a room for him.
Apart from their financial troubles in building the Adelphi, the Adams brothers had to stand much banter. It was said, with what truth I know not, that they obtained their workmen, "with true patriotism," from Scotland, and that the labours of the artisans were stimulated by countless bagpipes; "but the canny men, finding the bagpipes played their tunes rather too quick, threw up the work, and Irishmen were then employed." In the Foundling Hospital for Wit,[27] the nationality of the architects is rudely assailed:—
"Four Scotchmen, by the name of Adams,
Who keep their coaches and their madams,
Quoth John, in sulky mood, to Thomas,
Have stole the very river from us!
O Scotland, long has it been said,
Thy teeth are sharp for English bread;
What! seize our bread and water too,
And use us worse than jailors do:
'Tis true, 'tis hard; 'tis hard, 'tis true.
Ye friends of George, and friends of James,
Envy us not our River Thames;
Thy Princess, fond of raw-boned faces,
May give you all our posts and places;
Take all to gratify your pride,
But dip your oatmeal in the Clyde."
FOOTNOTES:
[24] The Adelphi and Its Site, 1885.
[25] English Furniture and Furniture Matters of the 18th Century. R.S. Clouston, 1906, pp. 84-86.
[26] Dictionary of National Biography, vol. i., p. 88.