Upon expressing my pleasure at hearing the above performed in so superior a style, his Lordship told me he had written a sequel, which he thus repeated:—
“Love said to me, ‘Thou faithful swain,
Thy search in myrtle groves is vain;
Examine well thy noblest part,
Thou’lt find her seated in thy heart.’”
It appears that in poetry, as well as in painting and prints, and also in dwellings, decorations, and dress, there has ever been a fashion for a time. Battishill was the composer of that justly celebrated glee, commencing with “Underneath this myrtle shade.” Myrtles, after having had a great run, were succeeded by Cupid’s darts; and that little rogue Love played old gooseberry with the hearts of Chloes and Colins, Robins and Robinets; then the ever-blooming lasses of Patterdale and Richmond Hill attracted our giddy notice. These were succeeded by “Bacchus in green ivy bound,” giving “Joy and pleasure all around.” After that, moonlight meetings were preferred, and “Buy a broom, ladies,” was continually dinning our ears “through and through.”
1796.
In the summer of this year, the late John Wigston, Esq., then of Millfield House, Edmonton, having repeatedly expressed a wish to see the famous George Morland before he commenced a collection of his pictures, I having been known to that child of nature in my boyish days, offered to introduce them to each other.[273] Morland then resided in Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square, in the house formerly inhabited by Sir Thomas Apreece. He received us in the drawing-room, which was filled with easels, canvases, stretching-frames, gallipots of colour, and oil-stones; a stool, chair, and a three-legged table were the only articles of furniture of which this once splendid apartment could then boast. Mr. Wigston, his generous-hearted visitor, immediately bespoke a picture, for which he gave him a draft for forty pounds, that sum being exactly the money he then wanted; but this gentleman had, like most of that artist’s employers, to ply him close for his picture.
GEORGE MORLAND