“Romney! expert infallibly to trace …
The mind’s impression too on every face.”
Cowper
Now, as fame and beauty ever carry influence, Emma’s sale was rapid; had she been as lamentable as a Lincolnshire goose after plucking-time, “Misery’s Darling,” or like Alecto when at the entrance of Pandemonium, she would have had a sorry sale.[310] This money-trapping trick, steady John, the waiter at the Chapter Coffee-house, assured me was invariably put in practice whenever superior persons or notorious culprits had been executed. Then to breakfast, but with little or no appetite; however, after selecting one of Isaac Solomon’s H.B.’s, I made a whole-length portrait of the late Governor by recollection, which Dr. Buchan, the flying physician of the “Chapter”[311] frequenters, and several of the Pater-Noster vendors of his Domestic Medicine, considered a likeness; at all events, it was admitted into the portfolio of the Duke, with the following acknowledgment written on the back: “Drawn by memory.”
1803.
About this time, in order to see human nature off her guard, I agreed with a good-tempered friend of mine, one of Richard Wilson’s scholars, to perambulate Bartholomew Fair, which we did in the evening, after taking pretty good care to leave our watches at home. Our first visit was to a show of wild beasts, where, upon paying an additional penny, we saw the menagerie-feeder place his head within a lion’s mouth.
Our attention was then arrested by an immense baboon, called General Jacko, who was distributing his signatures as fast as he could dip his pen in the ink, to those who enabled him to fill his enormous craw with plums, raisins, and figs. The next object which attracted our notice was a magnificent man, standing, as we were told, six feet six inches and a half, independent of the heels of his shoes. The gorgeous splendour of his Oriental dress was rendered more conspicuous by an immense plume of white feathers, which were like the noddings of an undertaker’s horse, increased in their wavy and graceful motion by the movements of the wearer’s head.
As this extraordinary man was to perform some wonderful feats of strength, we joined the motley throng of spectators at the charge of “only threepence each,” that being vociferated by Flockton’s[312] successor as the price of the evening admittance.
After he had gone through his various exhibitions of holding great weights at arm’s-length, etc., the all-bespangled master of the show stepped forward, and stated to the audience that if any four or five of the present company would give, by way of encouraging the “Young Hercules,” alias the “Patagonian Samson,” sixpence apiece, he would carry them all together round the booth, in the form of a pyramid.