[173] Woodforde was a dull but correct painter of historical subjects. He died at Ferrara.
[174] In Horwood’s map of London, of 1799, Orange Court is seen behind the King’s Mews.
[175] Miss Pope lived in Great Queen Street for forty years. Among her friends she was known as Mrs. Candour, from her playing that character, and from her habit of taking the part of any person spoken against in company. “I never heard her speak ill of any human being.… I have sometimes been even exasperated by her benevolence,” says James Smith, who writes delightfully about her in his Memoirs. Churchill sang her praises—
“See lively Pope advance in jig and trip,
Corinna, Cherry, Honeycombe, and Snip.”
The actress did not die in Great Queen Street, but at 17 Michael’s Place, Brompton, July 30, 1818.
[176] General John Burgoyne (1722-92) took part in the War of Independence, and surrendered with 5000 men at Saratoga on October 15, 1777. After a term as Commander-in-Chief in Ireland, he gave rein to his literary tastes, and wrote, among other plays, his delightful comedy, The Heiress. He died at No. 10 Hertford Street, August 4, 1792.
[177] It stood in Charlotte Street, looking east along Windmill Street. Robert Montgomery, of “Satan” memory, became minister of this chapel in 1843.
[178] Mrs. Mathew, wife of the Rev. Henry Mathew, of Percy Chapel, was famous for her assemblies at her house, No. 27 Rathbone Place, and her encouragement of artists. Here were seen Mrs. Barbauld, Mrs. Chapone, Mrs. Carter, the translator of Epictetus, and Mrs. Edward Montagu. Mrs. Mathew “was so extremely zealous in promoting the celebrity of Blake, that, upon hearing him read some of his early efforts in poetry, she thought so well of them as to request the Rev. Henry Mathew, her husband, to join Mr. Flaxman in his truly kind effort in defraying the expense of printing them” (Smith: Nollekens). Mr. Mathew consented, and wrote the “advertisement” for the volume, which was entitled Poetical Sketches, by W. B., and bore the date 1783. Not a few of the old houses in Rathbone Place remain, with their ground floors turned into shops. In these or similar houses lived Nathaniel Hone, R.A., who died here in 1784; Ozias Humphry, R.A., at No. 29; E. H. Bailey, the sculptor; and Peter de Wint.
[179] Smith’s prediction was strikingly borne out at the sale of the Earl of Crewe’s collection of the productions of Blake, held at Sotheby’s rooms March 30, 1903. The Illustrations of the Book of Job, containing twenty-two engravings, twenty-one original designs in colours, and a portrait of Blake by himself, was keenly contested. Bidding began at £1500, and ended at £5600, at which price the Job passed to Mr. Quaritch. Blake’s original inventions for Milton’s “L’Allegro” and “Il Penseroso” brought £1960, and all the remaining sixteen lots fetched high prices.