“How wholesome is’t to breathe the vernal air,
And all the sweets it bears, when void of care.”[493]
Here the Waltonian, too, will find a seat, and view the canal—
“Kissing with eddies soft the bordering grass.”
My thanks are here offered to my friend Mr. West,[494] late of Drury Lane Theatre, now a professor of music, for the kind loan of an imperfect copy (which he met with at a stall) of a work of rarity, of which I have not been able to hear of another copy. It is not mentioned by Watt, and, what is more remarkable, the Rev. Hartwell Horne,[495] of the British Museum, never heard of it. It is a small quarto, bearing the following title:—
“THE
POST ANGEL,
OR,
UNIVERSAL ENTERTAINMENT.
“London: printed, and to be sold by A. Baldwin, near the Oxford Arms, in Warwick Lane, 1702, where is to be had the first and second volume, or any single month, from January, 1701, to this time; price of each, one shilling.”[496]
Page 191 of the third volume affords the admirers of wax effigies the following information:—
“TO THE EDITOR.
“Sir,—You having promised to give an account of the curiosities of art, as well as the wonders of nature, I thought it would oblige the public to acquaint you that the effigies of his late Majesty, King William III., of glorious memory, is curiously done to the life in wax, dressed in coronation robe, with so majestic a mien that nothing seems wanting but life and motion, as persons of great honour upon the strictest view have with surprise declared. Likewise the effigies of several persons of quality, with a fine banquet, and other curiosities in every room, passing to and from the King’s apartment, are all to be seen at Mrs. Goldsmith’s, in Green Court, in the Old Jury, London.”