Thirty-six thousand guinea-tickets were offered for sale. Only eight thousand were sold. Of these Mr. Parkinson purchased two, and with one of those two acquired the whole collection, against the other purchasers and the twenty-two thousand chances held by Sir Ashton. Mr. Parkinson built an edifice for his valuable prize in Blackfriars Road, and for years, one of the things to be done was ‘to go to the Rotunda.’ In 1806, the famous museum was dispersed by auction. The Surrey Institution next occupied the premises, which subsequently became public drinking-rooms and meeting place for tippling patriots, who would fain destroy the Constitution of England as well as their own.
But ‘man or woman, good my lord,’ let whosoever may be named in connection with Leicester Square, there is one who must not be omitted, namely, Miss Linwood. Penelope worked at her needle to no valuable purpose. Miss Linwood was more like Arachne in her work, and something better in her fortune. The dyer’s daughter of Colophon chose for her subjects the various loves of Jupiter with various ladies whom poets and painters have immortalised; and grew so proud of her work that, for challenging Minerva to do better, the goddess changed her into a spider. The Birmingham lady plied her needle from the time she could hold one till the time her ancient hand lost its cunning. At thirteen she worked pictures in worsted better than some artists could paint them. No needlework, ancient or modern, ever equalled (if experts may be trusted) the work of this lady, who found time to do as much as if she had not to fulfil, as she did faithfully, the duties of a boarding-school mistress. King, Queen, Court, and ‘Quality’ generally visited Savile House, Leicester Fields, where Miss Linwood’s works were exhibited, and were profitable to the exhibitor to the very last. They were, for the most part, copies of great pictures by great masters, modern as well as ancient. Among them was a Carlo Dolci, valued at three thousand guineas. Miss Linwood, in her later days, retired to Leicester, but she used to come up annually to look at her own Exhibition. It had been open about half a century when the lady, in her ninetieth year, caught cold on her journey, and died of it at Leicester in 1844. She left her Carlo Dolci to Queen Victoria. Her other works, sold by auction, barely realised a thousand pounds; but the art of selling art by auction was not then discovered.
In 1788, a middle-aged Irishman from county Meath, named Robert Barker, got admission to Reynolds, to show him a half-circle view from the Calton Hill, near Edinburgh, which Barker had painted in water-colours on the spot. The poor but accomplished artist had been unsuccessful as a portrait-painter in Dublin and Edinburgh. But he had studied perspective closely, an idea had struck him, and he came with it to Reynolds. The latter admired, but thought it impracticable. The Irishman thought otherwise. Barker exhibited circular views from nature, in London and also in the provinces, with indifferent success. At last, in 1793, on part of the old site of Leicester House, a building arose which was called the Panorama, and in which was exhibited a view of the Russian fleet at Spithead. The spectator was on board a ship in the midst of the scene and the view was all around him. King George and Queen Charlotte led the fashionable world to this most original exhibition. For many years there was a succession of magnificent views of foreign capitals, tracts of country, ancient cities, polar regions, battles, &c., exhibited; and ‘Have you been to the new panorama?’ was as naturally a spring question as ‘Have you been to the Academy?’ or the Opera? The exhibition of the ‘Stern Realities of Waterloo’ alone realised a little fortune, and ‘Pandemonium,’ painted by Mr. Henry Selous, was one of the latest of the great successes.
At the north-east corner of Leicester Square, the Barkers, father and son, achieved what is called ‘a handsome competency.’ At the death of the latter, Robert Burford succeeded him, and, for a time, did well; but ‘Fashion’ wanted a new sensation. The panoramas in Leicester Square and the Strand, admirable as they were, ceased to draw the public; and courteous, lady-like, little Miss Burford, the proprietress, was compelled to withdraw, utterly shipwrecked. She used to receive her visitors like a true lady welcoming thorough ladies and gentlemen. The end was sad indeed, for the last heard of this aged gentlewoman was that she was enduring life by needle-work, rarely got and scantily paid, in a lodging, the modest rent of which, duly paid, kept her short of necessary food. An attempt was made to obtain her election to the ‘United Kingdom Beneficent Association,’ but with what result we are unable to record.
Shadows of old Leicester Square figures come up in crowds, demanding recognition. They must be allowed to pass—to make a ‘march past,’ as it were; as they glide by we take note of Mirabeau and Marat, Holcroft, Opie, Edmund Kean, and Mulready, with countless others, to indite the roll of whose names only would alone require a volume.
A HUNDRED YEARS AGO.
Perusing records that are a century old is something better than listening to a centenarian, even if his memory could go back so far. The records are as fresh as first impressions, and they bring before us men and things as they were, not as after-historians supposed them to be.