Mr. Baker,[209] an opulent dealer in lace, was nightly to be found bidding for the choicest impressions, which he seldom allowed any antagonist, however powerful, to carry away. He was well-proportioned, and though sometimes singular in his manner, and too negligent in his dress, was a most honourable man.
Mr. Woodhouse, of Tokenhouse Yard, was also a bidder for fine things; he did not possess so much of the milk of human kindness as Mr. Baker; indeed, his manners were at times a little repulsive, although he had been many years principal cashier in Sir George Prescott’s banking-house. He was an extensive collector of Cipriani’s drawings.[210]
Mr. Musgrave,[211] of Norfolk Street, frequently attended auctions of prints, but particularly those of pictures; he was an accomplished gentleman in his address, and most feelingly benevolent in his actions. His figure was short, his features pleasing, and he seldom went abroad without a rose in his button-hole. When I state that no man could have had fewer enemies, I think even the descendants of “Vinegar Tom”[212] will never haunt my bedside.
There was another truly polite and kind-hearted attendant at Hutchins’s sales, Mr. Pitt, of Westminster. The manners of this gentleman were precise, and he wore a large five-story white wig.
The next collector at this period was Mr. Wodhull,[213] the translator of Euripides. He was very thin, with a long nose and thick lips; of manners perfectly gentlemanly. The great singularity of his appearance arose, perhaps, from his closing his coat from the first button, immediately under his chin, to the last, nearly extending to the bottom of his deep-flap waistcoat-pockets. He seldom spoke, nor would he exceed one sixpence beyond the sum which he had put down in his catalogue, to give for the articles he intended to bid for; and though he frequently went away without purchasing a single lot, or even speaking to any one during the whole evening, he always took off his hat, and bowed low to the company before he left the auction-room.
Mr. Rawle, an accoutrement-maker, then living in the Strand, was a visitor: he was the friend of Captain Grose, and the executor of Thomas Worlidge,[214] the etcher. In his early days he had collected many curious and valuable articles. His cabinets contained numerous interesting portraits in miniature of Elizabethan characters. He was a professed Commonwealth man, and possessed many of the Protector’s, or, according to some writers, the usurper’s letters. He also prided himself upon having the leathern doublet, sword, and hat in which Oliver dissolved the Parliament, and showed a helmet that he could incontrovertibly prove had belonged to him. He likewise frequently expatiated for a considerable time upon a magnificent wig, which he said had been worn by that Merry Monarch, King Charles the Second.[215] This singular character never would allow more than a halfpenny-worth of vegetables to be put upon his table, though they were ever so cheap; and when they were above his price, he went without.[216]
Another singular character of the name of Beauvais, who at one time had flourished at Tunbridge Wells as a miniature-painter,[217] attended the evening auctions. This man, who was short and rather lumpy in stature, indeed nearly as wide as he was high, was a native of France, and through sheer idleness became so filthily dirty in his person and dress, that few of the company would sit by him. Yet I have seen him in a black suit with his sword and bag, in the evening of the day on which he had been at Court, where for years he was a constant attendant. This “Sack of Sand,” as Suett the actor generally called him, sat at the lower end of the table; and as he very seldom made purchases, few persons ventured to converse with him. He frequently much annoyed Hutchins by the loudest of all snoring; and now and then Doctor Wolcot would ask him a question, in order to indulge in a laugh at his mode of uttering an answer, which Peter Pindar declared to be more like the gobbling of a turkey-cock than anything human. He lived in a two-pair-of-stairs back room in St. James’s Market; and, after his death, Hutchins sold his furniture. I recollect his spinet, music-stool, and a few dog’s-eared sheets of lessons sold for three-and-sixpence.
Mr. Matthew Mitchell,[218] the banker, frequently joined these parties, and seldom went away without a purchase of prints under his arm. He was extremely well-proportioned, and walked in what I have often heard the ladies of the old school style a portly manner. He was remarkable for a width of chin, which was full as large as Titus Oates’s, and a set of large white teeth. His features altogether, however, bespoke a good-natured and liberal man. This gentleman was very kind to me when I was a boy, and I never hear his name mentioned but with unspeakable pleasure.
