As most of my readers have perused this work, I shall only state that, shortly after the arrival of Belzoni and his wife in England, my friend Dr. Richardson,[315] the traveller, who had been kind to them in every possible way when in Egypt, introduced me to them when they lodged in Downing Street, Westminster. Here I not only had great pleasure in seeing my steady supporter again, but enjoyed most pleasantly the conversation I had with his enterprising partner, whose sensible and intrepid cast of features well accorded with her artless, unsophisticated, and interesting “Trifling Account,” to which I have alluded.
In 1784, when Sir Ashton Lever petitioned the House of Commons for a lottery for his museum, Mr. Thomas Waring made the following declaration before the Committee to whom the petition was referred:—“That he had been manager of Sir Ashton’s collection ever since it had been brought to London in the year 1775; that it had occupied twelve years in forming; and that there were upwards of twenty-six thousand articles. That the money received for admission amounted, from February 1775 to February 1784, to about £13,000, out of which £660 had been paid for house-rent and taxes.” Sir Ashton Lever proposed that his whole museum should go together, and that there should be 40,000 tickets at one guinea each.[316]
BARTHOLOMEW FAIR
Few people would believe that so lately as this year, the Duke of Dorset, Lord Winchilsea, Lord Talbot, Colonel Tarleton, Mr. Howe, Mr. Damer, Hon. Mr. Lennox, and the Rev. Mr. Williams played at cricket in an open field near White Conduit House.[317] Who could have conjectured that Du Val’s Lane, branching from Holloway, within memory so notoriously infested with highwaymen that few people would venture to peep into it even in mid-day, should, in 1831, be lighted with gas?[318]
In 1784, Nathaniel Hillier’s[319] collection of prints was sold by Christie: they were well selected as to impression, but much deteriorated in value by Mr. Hillier’s attachment to strong coffee, with which he had stained them. It has been acknowledged by one of the family that, what with the expense of staining, mounting, and ruling, his collection only brought them one-fifth of the cost of the prints in the first instance.
Dr. Samuel Johnson also died this year [1784]; during the time the surgeon was engaged in opening his body, Sir John Hawkins, Knight, was in the adjoining room seeing to the weighing of the Doctor’s tea-pot, in the presence of a silversmith, whom Sir John, as an executor, had called upon to purchase it.[320]