“To John Thomas Smith, British Museum.”
1833.
Mrs. Piozzi, in her anecdotes of Dr. Johnson, speaking of Porridge Island, says it “is a mean street in London, filled with cook-shops, for the convenience of the poorer inhabitants; the real name of it I know not, but suspect that it is generally known by to have been originally a term of derision.”
Porridge Island consisted of a nest of old rat-deserted houses, lately forming narrow alleys south of Chandos Street, and east of St. Martin’s church, which were originally occupied by numerous cooks for the accommodation of the workmen engaged in erecting the said church.[507]
FOOTNOTES
[1] Two other residences of Smith’s, less definitely associated with his books or etchings, are recorded. The first is No. 8 Popham Terrace, near the Barley Mow Tavern, in Frog Lane, Islington. His sojourn here is mentioned, without dates, by Lewis in his History of Islington (1842). Frog Lane is now Popham Road, of which Popham Terrace appears to have been part. In 1809, Smith was living at No. 4 The Polygon, Somers Town.
[2] Thomas Lowe had taken Marylebone Gardens in 1763, at a rent of £170. Fresh from his triumphs as a tenor at Vauxhall, he made concerts the principal entertainment. In 1768 he compounded with his creditors.
[3] This theatre at Richmond was built two years before Smith’s birth, and was opened in May 1765, by Mr. Love, who spoke a prologue by Garrick. Love was the stage name of James Dance, who, as a son of George Dance, R.A., the City Architect, adopted it that he might not “disgrace his family,” a proceeding on which Genest comments: “Shall we never have done with this miserable cant? Foote, with much humour, makes Papillion say, in The Lyar: ‘As to Player, whatever might happen to me, I was determined not to bring a disgrace upon my family; and so I resolved to turn footman.’” The Devil to Pay, by Charles Coffey, was adapted from a play by Jevon called The Devil of a Wife, first produced at Drury Lane in 1731, when Love played “Jobson” and Mrs. Love “Nell.”