[300] The Gentleman’s Magazine records that Dr. Forde, the Ordinary of Newgate, was “a very worthy man, and was much and deservedly esteemed by the City magistrates, who, on his retirement from office, settled on him an annuity which provided for the comforts of his latter days.” Dr. Forde no doubt satisfied the City authorities, but the Parliamentary Committee which investigated the state of the prison in 1814 reported: “Beyond his attendance in chapel, and on those who are sentenced to death, Dr. Forde feels but few duties to be attached to his office. He knows nothing of the state of morals in the prison; he never sees any of the prisoners in private; … he never knows that any have been sick till he gets a warning to attend their funeral; and does not go to the infirmary, for it is not in his instructions.” Dr. Forde was succeeded by the Rev. Mr. Cotton, who first officiated August 8, 1814.
[301] Maria Cosway, wife of Richard Cosway, the miniaturist.
[302] Black Boy Alley was notorious in the eighteenth century, and at one time was infested by a gang who drowned their victims in the Fleet River. No fewer than twenty-one were executed at once, after which the humour of the neighbourhood called the place Jack Ketch’s Common. In 1802, and earlier, Black Boy Alley was the scene of a weekly display of badger-baiting.
[303] In the eighteenth century, Epping sent butter and sausages to the London market, but the industry declined long ago.
[304] Pie Corner was at the Smithfield end of Giltspur Street, a short distance north from the Old Bailey. “A very fine dirty place,” is D’Urfey’s description of this spot, where the Great Fire of London ended. It was long famous for its greasy cook-shops.
[305] In his Nollekens Smith puts the same jibe into the mouth of John Hamilton Mortimer, the painter. “Mortimer made Dr. Arne, who had a very red face with staring eyes, furiously angry by telling him that his eyes looked ‘like two oysters just opened for sauce put upon an oval side-dish of beet-root.’”
[306] Peter Coxe, an auctioneer, and the author of a poem in four cantos called “The Social Day,” published in 1823. He wrote also “The Exposé, or Napoleon Buonaparte unmasked in a Condensed Statement of his Career and Atrocities” (1809). His emollient has escaped my search. Coxe was one of a long line of well-known men who lived in the middle one of the three houses into which Schomberg House, Pall Mall, was divided. He died in 1844.
[307] This generous woman, better known under the lawful title of Lady Hamilton, when I showed her my etching of the funeral procession of her husband’s friend, the immortal Nelson, fainted and fell into my arms; and, believe me, reader, her mouth was equal to any production of Greek sculpture I have yet seen (S.).—Smith’s etching was entitled, “An Accurate View (drawn and etched by J. T. Smith, Engraver of the Antiquities of London and Westminster) from the house of W. Tunnard, Esq., on the Bankside, adjoining the Scite of Shakespeare’s Theatre, on Wednesday the 8th January 1806, when the remains of the great Admiral Lord Nelson were brought from Greenwich to Whitehall.”
“The Fair One, whose charms did the Barber enthral,