THE MAGIC INFLUENCE OF STANFIELD’S PENCIL
To create a new sensation, and enlist thousands to partake of the refreshing delight created by his versatile and unrivalled talent. Indeed, it will not be requisite to tax ingenuity very greatly to think of an infinite variety of ways by which a large fortune may be made. It has for years past produced from
Three to Five Thousand Pounds a Year,
And this without any artificial aid, or so much of industry and tact as
this wonderful building seems especially to have invited.
Robins’s eloquence very often led him to describe things as they were not, and now and again he had to recant and make amends. He is generally credited with having referred to a gallows which stood upon part of an estate, as a unique and elegant hanging wood, and thereby obtaining a considerably larger sum for the property than it was in any way worth. Among Robins’s many eccentricities this must not be reckoned, as the hanging-wood episode, though true in itself, belongs to an earlier time, the trick having been played during the last century. When a man gets credit for the possession of any peculiarity, every story that can be raked up of a suitable kind takes him for its originator or leading spirit, and innumerable tales were at one time current with regard to the great auctioneer, of which he was perfectly innocent. So it is in other things. What did Foote, Garrick, Sheridan, Hook, Sydney Smith, Hood, Barham, Rogers, Jerrold, and numerous other of our celebrated wits, know of a quarter the sayings and doings that have been ascribed to them? Little indeed, we fancy. But there are some things which Robins did say and do which have not been recorded. In answer to a lady who remarked to him that in his graphic descriptions he must have used up the entire dictionary, Robins said, “Madam, I’ll give five pounds to any charitable society you like to name if you can find me a word I have not used.” Mrs Macauley might have taken him at his word, and would doubtless have won the money, but the lady we speak of declined the contest. There is not much in this, except as showing to what an extent his powers of description led him. Having given one of his sayings, we will conclude with an item from his doings, a description of the villa and garden of W. Harrison, Esq., Q.C. We trust we shall cause no one to be discontented with his or her present abode by giving this description—rather do we hope that one of the new race of picturesque reporters may be tempted by it to study under Robins, and thereby improve his condition:—
In attempting an adequate representation of what has been aptly termed
A LITTLE HEAVEN UPON EARTH,
Much of the difficulty Mr. Robins feared to encounter he is happily relieved from by the extraordinary renown which the late worthy possessor has imparted to this incomparable retreat.
“Thus far we sail before the wind,”
Exclaims the individual who is flattered by having been selected for this interesting Sale, but fear and trembling now succeeds in encountering the Herculean task of pourtraying the countless beauties that are congregated