“We are told by Lucian, that the earthen lamp, which had administered to the lucubrations of Epictetus, was at his death purchased for the enormous sum of three thousand drachmas: why, then, may not imagination equally amplify the value of this unadorned vessel, long employed for the infusion of that favourite herb, whose enlivening virtues are said to have so often protracted the elegant and edifying lucubrations of Samuel Johnson; the zealous advocate of that innocent beverage, against its declared enemy, Jonas Hanway. It was weighed out for sale under the inspection of Sir John Hawkins, at the very minute when they were in the next room closing the incision through which Mr. Cruickshank had explored the ruinated machinery of its dead master’s thorax; so Bray the silversmith, conveyed there in Sir John’s carriage, thus hastily to buy the plate, informed its present possessor, Henry Constantine Noel, by whom it was, for its celebrated services, on the 1st of November 1788, rescued from the undiscriminating obliterations of the furnace.”
[321] In this letter, Charles Townley, the collector of the Townley marbles, probably refers to William Lock (1732-1810), the wealthy connoisseur, and a friend of Madame d’Arblay. He lived at Norbury Park, where he was hospitable to Madame de Staël. He was described as the “arbiter, advocate, and common friend of all lovers of art.”
[322] The “Triumph of Bacchus” was one of eight great pictures which Rubens painted for the palace at Madrid.
[323] Annibale Caracci was employed by Cardinal Farnese to decorate the famous gallery that bears his name. He produced a masterly series of frescoes.
[324] Welbore Ellis, first Baron Mendip, was the third owner of Pope’s Villa at Twickenham, after the poet.
[325] “1811, Feb. 3.—In Great Ormond Street, Atkinson Bush, Esq., in the 76th year of his age” (European Magazine, February 1811).
[326] Parton’s book, Some Account of the Hospital and Parish of St. Giles’ in the Fields, Middlesex (1822), by “the late” Mr. John Parton, gives the plan in question, but does not touch on the matter of its authenticity. It is clear, however, that his plans and maps are largely conjectural.
[327] A distinction she shared with Miss Mary Moser. These are the only women who have been members of the Royal Academy, but it cannot be said that their talent was very exceptional. Peter Pindar irreverently said that Mary Moser was made an R.A. for “a sublime Picture of a Plate of Gooseberries.”
[328] The annals of British art do not contain a more tragic story than that of “the late” William Wynn Ryland. A man of great talent, he was engraver to George III., and an exhibitor at the Royal Academy; but it was his fate to be hanged at Tyburn for forging a bond of several thousand pounds. How he presented this document in person at the India House, is narrated by Henry Angelo as a proof of his extraordinary self-command.
“The cashier, on receiving the document, examined it carefully, and referred to the ledger; then, comparing the date, observed, ‘Here is a mistake, Sir; the bond, as entered, does not become due until to-morrow.’