[241] Skelton says of Eleanor Rumming—
“She breweth noppy ale,
And maketh thereof fast sale
To travellers, to tinkers.
To sweaters, to swinkers,
And all good ale-drinkers.”
The woman kept an alehouse at Leatherhead, which, it is thought, Skelton may have visited when staying with his royal master at Nonsuch Palace. It has been claimed, however, on interesting evidence, that her alehouse was “Two-pot House,” between Cambridge and Hardwicke. (See Gentleman’s Magazine, Nov. 1794, and Chambers’ Book of Days under June 21.)
[242] This passage in St. Martin’s Lane was built by a Mr. May, who lived in a house of his own design in St. Martin’s Lane. Here Smith himself lived at his father’s house, the Rembrandt Head, No. 18, for some years; the house is now absorbed in Messrs. Harrison’s printing establishment. I have found no trace of Hartry, the valiant cupper, but only of a dentist of that name, who may have been his son.
[243] John Adams, teacher of mathematics, published The Mathematician’s Companion (1796). “The following use was made of Hogarth’s plates of the Idle and Industrious Apprentices, by the late John Adams, of Edmonton, schoolmaster. The prints were framed and hung up in the schoolroom, and Adams, once a month, after reading a lecture upon their vicious and virtuous examples, rewarded those boys who had conducted themselves well, and caned those who had behaved ill” (Smith: Nollekens).
[244] Samuel Ireland was father of William Henry Ireland, who forged Shakespearean MSS. and put forward the spurious play Vortigern. In his well-known Graphic Illustrations of Hogarth he proves himself rather “a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles than a contributor of serviceable information” (Austin Dobson: William Hogarth: enlarged ed. 1898). This work must not be confused with John Ireland’s Hogarth Illustrated.