We have at last had some rains, which I hope extended to Yorkshire, and that your lordship has found Wentworth Castle in the bloom of verdure. I always, as in duty bound, wish prosperity to every body and every thing there, and am your lordship's ever devoted and grateful humble servant.
Letter 221To The Rev. Mr. Cole.
Strawberry Hill, June 16, 1781. (PAGE 282)
Your last account of yourself was so indifferent, that I am impatient for a better: pray send me a much better.
I know little in your way but that Sir Richard Worseley has just published a History of the Isle of Wight, with many views poorly done enough.(434) Mr. Bull(435) is honouring me, at least my Anecdotes of Painting, exceedingly. He has let every page into a pompous sheet, and is adding every print of portrait, building, etc. that I mention, and that he can get, and specimens of all our engravers. It will make eight magnificent folios, and be a most valuable body of our arts. Nichols the printer has published a new Life of Hogarth,(436) of near two hundred pages- -many more, in truth, than it required: chiefly it is the life of his works, containing all the variations, and notices of any persons whom he had in view. I cannot say there are discoveries of many prints which I have not mentioned, though I hear Mr. Gulston(437) says he has fifteen such; but I suppose he only fancies so. Mr. Nichols says our printsellers are already adding Hogarth's name to several spurious. Mr. Stevens, I hear, has been allowed to ransack Mrs. Hogarth's house for obsolete and unfinished plates, which are to be completed and published. Though she was not pleased with my account of her husband, and seems by these transactions to have encouraged the second, I assure you I have much more reason to be satisfied than she has, the editor or editors being much civiller to living me than to dead Hogarth—yet I should not have complained. Every body has the same right to speak their sentiments. Nay, in general, I have gentler treatment than I expected, and I think the world and I part good friends.
I am now setting about the completion of my AEdes Strawberrianae. A painter is to come hither on Monday to make a drawing of the Tribune, and finish T. Sandby's fine view of the gallery, to which I could never get him to put the last hand. They will Then be engraved with a few of the chimney-pieces, which will complete the plates. I must add an appendix of curiosities, purchased or acquired since the Catalogue was printed. This will be awkward, but I cannot afford to throw away an hundred copies. I shall take care if I can that Mr. Gough does not get fresh intelligence from my engravers, or he will advertise my supplement, before the book appears. I do not think it was very civil to publish such private intelligence, to which he had no right without my leave; but every body seems to think he may do what is good in his own eyes. I saw the other day, in a collection of seats (exquisitely engraved), a very rude insult on the Duke of Devonshire. The designer went to draw a view of Chiswick, without asking leave, and was not hindered, for he has given it; but he says he was treated illiberally, the house not being shown without tickets, which he not only censures, but calls a singularity, though a frequent practice in other places, and practised there to my knowledge for these thirty years: so every body is to come into your house if he pleases, draw it whether you please or not, and by the same rule, I suppose, put any thing into his pockets that he likes. I do know, by experience, what a grievance it is to have a house worth being seen, and though I submit in consequence to great inconveniences, they do not save me from many rudenesses. Mr. Southcote(438) was forced to shut up his garden, for the savages who came as connoisseurs scribbled a thousand brutalities, in the buildings, upon his religion. I myself, at Canons, saw a beautiful table of oriental alabaster that had been split in two by a buck in boots jumping up backwards to sit upon it.
I have placed the oaken head Of Henry the Third over the middle arch of the armoury. Pray tell me what the church of Barnwell, near Oundle, was, which his Majesty endowed, and whence his head came. Dear Sir, Yours most sincerely.
(434) Sir Richard Worsley is better known by his splendid work, the "Museum Worsleianum; or, a Collection of antique Basso-relievos, Bustos, Statues, and Gems; with views of places in the Levant, taken on the spot, in the years 1785-6-7;" in two volumes, folio. Sir Richard sat many years in Parliament for the borough of Newport, and was governor of the Isle of Wight, where he died in 1805.-E.
(435) Richard Bull, Esq. a famous collector of portraits.-E.
(436) " Biographical Anecdotes of William Hogarth; and a Catalogue of his Works, chronologically arranged; with occasional Remarks."-E.
(437) Joseph Gulston, Esq. also an eminent portrait collector.-E.