[335] Smith’s task had been protracted by his tiresome quarrel with his collaborator, John Sidney Hawkins. They pamphletted and “vindicated” to their hearts’ content, but the dispute is not worth unravelling.
[336] Henry White, then Sacrist of Lichfield Cathedral.
[337] George Dance, who died in 1825, was the architect of the recently demolished Newgate Prison, also of St. Luke’s Hospital and the Guildhall entrance façade. He was the last survivor of the foundation members of the Royal Academy, and was buried in St. Paul’s Cathedral. William Daniell, R.A., was well known for his Indian and Oriental illustrations. He painted a panorama of Madras, and another of “The City of Lucknow and the mode of Taming Wild Elephants.” His painting, “A View of the Long Walk, Windsor,” is in the royal collection.
[338] Fuseli’s quaint violences of speech were many, and gained in effect from his Swiss accent. He swore roundly, a habit which Haydon says he caught from his friend Dr. Armstrong, the poet. He said a subject should interest, astonish, or move; if it did none of these, it was worth “noding by Gode.” A visitor to his imposing, but unsuccessful, Milton Gallery of forty paintings, said to him, “Pray, sir, what is that picture?” “It is the bridging of Chaos; the subject from Milton.” “No wonder,” said the inquirer, “I did not know it, for I never read Milton, but I will.” “I advise you not, sir, for you will find it a d——d tough job.” He said, on looking at Northcote’s painting of the angel meeting Balaam and his ass: “Northcote, you are an angel at an ass, but an ass at an angel.” Once, at the table of Mr. Coutts, the banker, Mrs. Coutts, dressed like Morgiana, came dancing in, presenting her dagger at every breast. As she confronted Nollekens, Fuseli called out, “Strike—strike—there’s no fear; Nolly was never known to bleed.” He recommended a sculptor to find some newer emblem of eternity than a serpent with a tail in its mouth. The something newer (says Cunningham) startled a man whose imagination was none of the brightest, and he said, “How shall I find something new?” “Oh, nothing so easy,” said Fuseli; “I’ll help you to it. When I went away to Rome I left two fat men cutting fat bacon in St. Martin’s Lane; in ten years’ time I returned, and found the two fat men cutting fat bacon still; twenty years more have passed, and there the two fat fellows cut the fat flitches the same as ever. Carve them—if they do not look like an image of eternity, I wot not what does.”
[339] In the last ten years of his stage career Bannister travelled with his “Budget” of songs, anecdotes, and imitations, through England, Scotland, and Ireland.
[340] The Rev. Stephen Weston, F.R.S. (1747-1830), a well-known antiquary and classical scholar, held the Devonshire livings of Mainhead and Little Hempston, Devon, but left that county after the death of his wife. He engaged in some spirited attempts to translate Gray’s Elegy into Greek, and published his Elegia Grayiana, Græce, in 1794. He was fond of the French capital, and published The Praise of Paris in 1803. An old friend of Nollekens, he was present at the funeral so airily described by Smith in his life of the sculptor.
[341] Swan upping (or marking) is still carried out yearly on the Thames by the representatives of the Crown and by the Dyers’ and Vintners’ Companies, who have the privilege of keeping swans on the river. Formerly the state barges of the City went up to Staines, and ceremonies were performed. Even to-day the expedition of the swan-markers is picturesque; the skiffs bear the flags of the several authorities, the markers wear flannels and distinguishing jerseys, and the overseers don special tunics and peaked caps. The birds are caught by means of long hooked poles.
[342] Tooke did not, therefore, “try the question” of his silver caddy; but had it not been returned he would have done so in his character of the inimitable litigant. “A court of law,” says Hazlitt, in his masterly portrait of Tooke in The Spirit of the Age, “was the place where Mr. Tooke made the best figure in public. He might assuredly be said to be ‘native and endued unto that element.’ He had here to stand merely on the defensive: not to advance himself, but to block up the way: not to impress others, but to be himself impenetrable. All he wanted was negative success; and to this no one was better qualified to aspire. Cross purposes, moot-points, pleas, demurrers, flaws in the indictment, double meanings, cases, inconsequentialities, these were the playthings, the darlings of Mr. Tooke’s mind; and with these he baffled the Judge, dumbfounded the Counsel, and outwitted the Jury. The report of his trial before Lord Kenyon is a masterpiece of acuteness, dexterity, modest assurance, and legal effect. It is much like his examination before the Commissioners of the Income Tax—nothing could be got out of him in either case!”
[343] He had, indeed, prepared a tomb for himself in his garden at Wimbledon, and the funeral invitations, as first sent out, contemplated his burial here. He was buried in a family vault at Ealing, to which the following inscription was added: “JOHN HORNE TOOKE, late of Wimbledon, Author of the Diversions of Purley: was born June 1736, and died March 18, 1812, contented and happy.”
[344] The Rev. William Huntington obtained influence over multitudes by a grotesque piety and a compelling pulpit manner. He appended the initials S.S. to his name, signifying “Sinner Saved.” His true name was Hunt, and he himself tells how he added two syllables to it as a disguise after being called upon to support an illegitimate child. The son of a Kentish day labourer, he had been errand boy, gardener, cobbler, and coal-heaver. At last he turned wholly preacher, and in that character came up to London from Thames Ditton, “bringing two large carts, with furniture and other necessaries, besides a post-chaise well filled with children and cats,” as he relates. He became minister of Margaret Street Chapel, where he urged the power of prayer, telling his hearers that whenever he wanted a thing—a horse, a pair of breeches, or a pound of tea—he prayed for it and it came. In 1788 his admirers built him a chapel in the Gray’s Inn Road at a cost of £9000. He called it Providence Chapel, and was shrewd enough to obtain the personal freehold. He carried pulpit brusqueness to the extreme. “Wake that snoring sinner!” and “Silence that noisy numskull!” were his frequent observations. By his marriage with the widow of Sir James Sanderson, who had been Lord Mayor of London, he gained wealth, and in 1811 he became the tenant of Dr. Valangin’s mansion on Hermes Hill, Pentonville. This eminent Swiss physician had named his estate Hermes Hill in honour of Hermes Trismegithus, the fabled discoverer of chemistry. Huntington’s health failed him, and he exchanged the air of Pentonville for Tunbridge Wells, where he died July 1, 1813. Smith’s story of the disciple who purchased a barrel of beer at the sale of Huntington’s effects is apparently true. Extravagant prices were paid for less perishable souvenirs. An arm-chair worth fifty shillings fetched sixty guineas, and an ordinary pair of spectacles seven guineas. The Pentonville mansion has long disappeared, but Hermes Street dingily perpetuates its curious history.