[208] Edwards’ Anecdotes of Painters is a useful little supplement to Walpole’s larger work. He was buried in old St. Pancras churchyard, now a recreation ground, where his name, however, does not appear on the memorial erected by the Baroness Burdett-Coutts to those whose graves were obliterated. His portrait in chalk is in the Print Room.
[209] Mr. George Baker, the lace-man, died in St. Paul’s Churchyard in 1811. He compiled “A Catalogue of Books, Poems, Tracts, and small detached Pieces, printed at the Press at Strawberry Hill, belonging to the late Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford,” 4to. Twenty copies only were printed, and were distributed in May 1811. Mr. Baker made a lifelong hobby of print-collecting, and his Hogarths, Woolletts, and Bartolozzis were scarcely surpassed.
[210] Woodhouse’s pictures and drawings were sold in 1801; the catalogues are in the British Museum.
[211] Joseph Musgrave, Esq., was a subscriber to Smith’s Antiquities of Westminster.
[212] “The most acid of all Manningtree’s evil and jealous-minded spirits, originally held in the service of that famous witch-finder-general, Matthew Hopkins” (Smith).—Hopkins, after bringing old women to execution as witches, was himself “swum” and hanged in 1647 for witchcraft. “Vinegar Tom” was one of the “imps” which a one-legged beggar woman named Elizabeth Clarke was persuaded by Hopkins to declare was under her control. Hopkins had originally been a lawyer at Manningtree.
[213] Samuel Wodhull, who lived wealthily in Berkeley Square, is best remembered for his translation of Euripides (1774-82), the first complete rendering of the Greek tragedian in English. He was buried at Thenford, his native place, in Northamptonshire.
[214] Thomas Worlidge (1700-66), a skilful etcher after Rembrandt, and illustrator of a book on antique gems, was nicknamed “Scritch-Scratch.” He is said to have had thirty-three children by his three marriages. He lived in the famous house in Great Queen Street (now divided and numbered 55-56) in which Reynolds had been the pupil of Thomas Hudson, and which now bears a tablet proclaiming it one of the homes of Sheridan.
[215] After Rawle’s death, his effects were sold at Hutchins’, Covent Garden, where this Charles the Second wig was bought by Suett, the actor, who, says Smith, “to prove to the company that it would suit him better than his harum-scarum opponent, put it upon his head, and, thus dignified, went on with his biddings, which were sometimes sarcastically serious, and at others ludicrously comic. The company, however, though so highly amused, thought it ungenerous to prolong the biddings, and therefore one and all declared that it ought to be knocked down to him before he took it off his head. Upon this Suett immediately attempted to take it off, but the ivory hammer, with the ruffled hand of the auctioneer, after being once flourished over his head, gave it in favour of the eccentric comedian.” Suett appeared in this wig in Fielding’s Tom Thumb, and we are told that “sick men laughed themselves well to see him peeping out of the black forest of hair.” Finally this wonderful wig was lost in the fire which destroyed the theatre at Birmingham. Mrs. Booth, the mother of the actress, was met by Suett, and all he said was: “Mrs. Booth, my wig’s gone.”
[216] Rawle died November 8, 1789 (Gentleman’s Magazine, 1789).
[217] From the Public Advertiser, July 12, 1774: “Miniature Painting.—Mr. Beauvais, well known at Tunbridge Wells to several of the nobility and gentry for taking a striking likeness, either in water colours or India ink. Miniature pictures copied by him from large pictures, to any size, and pictures repaired if damaged. He also teaches, by a peculiar method, Persons of the least capacity to take a Likeness in India Ink, or with a black lead pencil, in a short time. To be spoke with at Mr. Bryan’s, the ‘Blue Ball,’ St. Martin’s Street, Leicester Fields, from eleven to one o’clock.”