A correspondent of Notes and Queries, Aug. 25, 1860, wrote: “I remember him well; a stout, burly man with a flaxen wig: he rode daily into London on a large roan-coloured horse.” It was said that he was buried in an erect position by his own wish. Gardner’s tombstone is still carefully preserved, and is a curiosity of the Hackney Road, whence the inscription can be read through the churchyard railings. It now runs:
1807
Dr. John Gardner’s
Last and best Bedroom
Who departed this life the 8th
Of April, 1835, in his 84th year.
Also are here Interred two of His
Sons and Two of His Granddaughters.
[158] “Funeral Weever”: John Weever (1576-1632), poet and antiquary; author of Ancient Funeral Monuments, 1631.
[159] “I know not whether Mrs. Nollekens was of Lord Monboddo’s opinion, that men originally had tails; but I could have informed her that it has been asserted that the species of monkeys that have no tails are more inclined to show tricks than those that have.”—(Smith.)
[160] The antiquary, and correspondent of White of Selborne. He joined this year (1783) the club founded by Johnson at the Essex Head in Essex Street, Strand.
[161] Mrs. Nollekens was Mary, second daughter of Mr. Saunders Welch, the police magistrate. Her flightiness and parsimony are Smith’s endless sport in his Life of her husband, and he was willing to believe that her character resembled that of Pekuah, the favourite attendant of the princess, in Rasselas. Miss Hawkins says in her Anecdotes, that Johnson drew Pekuah from Mary Welch, and that she had this from Anne Welch. In any case, the Doctor found “Pekuah’s” vivacity agreeable. Smith relates: “I have heard Mr. Nollekens say that the Doctor, when joked with about her, observed, ‘Yes, I think Mary would have been mine, if little Joe had not stepped in.’”
[162] “The name of Norman was so extensively known, that I consider it hardly possible for many of my readers to be ignorant of his fame; indeed, so much was he in requisition, that persons residing out of Town would frequently order the carriage for no other purpose than to consult Dr. Norman as to the state of Biddy’s health, just as people of rank now consult Partington or Thompson as to the irregularities of their children’s teeth” (Smith: Nollekens).
[163] George Keate was a man of miscellaneous talent. His best-known literary works are his serio-comic poem “The Distressed Poet” (1787), and his “Account of the Pelew Islands from the Journal of Captain Henry Wilson.” He enjoyed the friendship of Voltaire at Geneva, and was careful that the world should know it. In her Early Diary, Miss Burney gives a good portrait of Keate as she met him “at the house of six old maids, all sisters, and all above sixty.” She found him a “sluggish” conversationalist who aimed continually at making himself the subject of discussion, “while he listened with the greatest nonchalance, reclining his person upon the back of his chair and kicking his foot now over, and now under, a gold-headed cane.”
[164] This dealer probably bought dog-skins. “The dexterous of all dentists” may be explained by the following passage in Smith’s Vagabondiana (1817): “It is scarcely to be believed that some few years ago a woman of the name of Smith regularly went over London early in the morning, to strike out the teeth of dead dogs that had been stolen and killed for the sake of their skins. These teeth she sold to bookbinders, carvers, and gilders, as burnishing tools.”
[165] The Last Supper was one of many religious subjects which the Quaker artist painted for his uncritical patron, George III. It was a transparent painting, and was let into the east window, which was structurally altered for its accommodation; but it was long ago removed, and the window restored. It is a commonplace that West’s powers lagged far behind his ambition. “Twenty years after his death,” says Mr. E. T. Cook, “some of his pictures, for which he had been paid 3000 guineas, were knocked down at a public sale for £10; and such of his pictures as had been presented to the National Gallery have now been removed to the provinces.” West’s work for George III. is represented by seventeen paintings in the Queen Anne’s Drawing-Room at Hampton Court. These include “Hannibal Swearing never to make Peace with Rome,” “The Death of Epaminondas,” “The Death of General Wolfe” (a picture of some value), “The Final Departure of Regulus from Rome,” etc.