"Yes, the little old oil-picture of the 'Gin-Palace Bar' is mine sure enough. I can remember it as distinctly as though it had been painted yesterday. Great casks of liquor in the background; little stunted figures (including one of a dustman with a shovel) in the foreground. Details executed with laborious niggling minuteness; but the whole work must be now dingy and faded to almost total obscuration, since I remember that in painting it I only used turpentine for a medium, the spirit of which must have long since 'flown,' and left the pigment flat or 'scaly.'
"The thing was done in Paris six-and-twenty years ago (Ap. 1852), and being brought to London, was sold to the late Adolphus Ackermann, of the bygone art-publishing firm of Ackermann & Co., 96 Strand (premises now occupied by E. Rimmel, the perfumer), for the sum of five pounds. I hope that you did not give more than a few shillings for it, for it was a vile little daub. I was at the time when I produced it an engraver and lithographer, and I believe that Mr. Ackermann only purchased the picture with a view to encourage me to 'take up' oil-painting. But I did not do so. I 'took up' literature instead, and a pretty market I have brought my pigs to! At all events, you possess the only picture in oil extant from the brush of
Yours very faithfully,
George Augustus Sala."
To H. N. Pym, Esq.
When Mr. Sala afterwards called to see the picture, he altered his mind as to its being "a vile little daub," and found the colours as fresh and bright as when painted. We greatly value it, if only as the cause of a lasting friendship it started with the artist.
His own portrait by Vernet, in pen and ink, now graces our little gallery; it is a back view, taken amidst his books, and a most characteristic and excellent likeness of this accomplished and versatile gentleman. [1]
One of our guest-chambers is solemnly dedicated to the honour and glory of "Mr. Punch," and on its walls hang some original oil sketches by John Leech, drawings by Charles Keene, Mr. Harry Furniss, Randolph Caldecote, Mr. Bernard Partridge, Mr. Anstey Guthrie, and Mr. Du Maurier; whilst kindly caricatures of some of the staff, and a print of the celebrated dinner-table, signed by the contributors, complete the decoration of a very cheery little room.
FOOTNOTE:
[ [1] Whilst these pages are passing through the press, George Augustus Sala has been mercifully permitted to rest from his labours. An unfortunate adventure with a new paper brought about serious troubles, physical and financial, and ended his useful and hard-working life in gloom: as Mr. Bancroft (a mutual friend) observed to the editor of this volume, "It is so sad when the autumn of such a life is tempestuous."--December 8, 1895.