[5] The advice offered in the concluding line of Daniel Lambert's advertisement must, however, be followed with certain reserve. The Leicester giant's premature end is hardly an encouragement to would-be imitators. After his first visit to London, in 1806, Daniel Lambert returned to his native place; the year following he repeated his visit, but feeling oppressed by the atmosphere of the metropolis, he made a tour through the principal provincial cities and towns, where he proved a great source of attraction. We are told 'his diet was plain, and the quantity moderate, and for many years he never drank anything stronger than water. His countenance was manly and intelligent; he possessed great information, much ready politeness, and conversed with ease and facility. He had a powerful and melodious tenor voice, and his articulation was perfectly clear and unembarrassed.... Lambert had, however, for some time shown dropsical symptoms. In June, 1809, he was weighed at Huntingdon, and, by the Caledonian balance, was found to be 52 stone 11 lb.; 10 stone 4 lb. heavier than Bright, the miller of Maiden, who only lived to the age of thirty.'
A few days after this last weight was taken, on June 20, Lambert arrived from Huntingdon at the Wagon and Horses Inn, St. Martin's, Stamford, where preparations were made to receive company the next day and during the Stamford races. He was announced for exhibition; he gave his orders cheerfully, without any presentiment that they were to be his last. He was then in bed, only fatigued from his journey, but anxious to see company early in the morning. Before nine o'clock, however, the day following, he was a corpse! He died in his apartment on the ground-floor of the inn, for he had long been incapable of walking up stairs. As may be supposed from his immense bulk and weight, his interment was an arduous labour. His age was thirty-nine. At the Wagon and Horses Inn were preserved two suits of Lambert's clothes; seven ordinary-sized men were repeatedly enclosed within his waistcoat, without breaking a stitch or straining a button.
[6] Francisco Caracci, and General Guise's collection (Somerset-House Gazette), from a note to Mr. Ephraim Hardcastle (Editor):—'Francisco Caracci was the younger brother of Augustino and Annibale; and Antonio, called from his deformity Il Gobbo, was the natural son of Augustino. These were the individuals who formed that celebrated family of painters. The father of Ludovico Caracci was a butcher (era macelago), and the father of Annibale and Augustino a tailor. Annibale resolved to mortify the pride of Ludovico, who despised him on account of his frequently reminding him of their low origin. He therefore privately painted the portraits of the Caracci, as large as life, in a butcher's shop, and showed his picture for the first time to Ludovico, when in company with Cardinal Farnese. It is now in the Guise collection, at Christ Church College, Oxford. Annibale is the butcher weighing the meat, which a soldier (Ludovico) is purchasing. Augustino stands near them. Antonio is lifting down a carcase, which conceals his deformity; and the old woman represents their mother. General Guise is said to have given 1,100l. for this picture, which was purchased for him at Venice. Talking of Oxford, did you ever see this collection? If the old General Guise had no more taste for fighting than for painting, I would have met him and his legions with wooden cannon. Yet I have heard certain bigwigs of the University crack up the Guise Gallery! They are nice social fellows at Christ Church for all this, and men of taste; a conversation on painting is brought to table in hall there, like the wine—devilishly well iced.'
[7] A learned dancing-master in the University of Oxford, who taught politeness also, and published a book upon that subject, fixed the same period for passing a stile in some cases that is here judiciously recommended for the payment of an ostler. His precept was that a well-bred man meeting another on the opposite side of a stile ought on no account to be persuaded to go over first. The name of this ingenious author was Towle. Had two zealous pupils of his school met each other at a stile, it is supposed they must have concluded their lives on the premises.
[8] James Ripley, many years ostler at the "Red Lion," who published a volume of letters.
[9] George Stevens, the originator of the 'Lecture on Heads,' was a very indifferent actor, but a man of humorous parts, and in himself was considered, by his contemporaries, most entertaining company. The idea of the lecture was given him by a country carpenter, who made the character-blocks which formed the subjects of illustration. It proved an extraordinary success in the hands of the originator. He carried it about England, through the States of America, and, on his return, to Ireland; and managed to net some ten thousand pounds by this lucky venture. After he retired more than one actor attempted it, with poor results. Lewis was the most successful of Stevens's imitators, and he had made such arrangements with the author as entitled the latter to a royalty for the use of his 'Lecture on Heads.' It probably derived its principal charm from the style of its delivery. Read in cold blood, its brilliancy and point are by no means startling.
[10] Mary Moser, the lively lady Royal Academician, and famous flower-painter, writing to Mrs. Lloyd, the first wife of the gentleman she subsequently honoured with her hand, conveys the following account of the reigning mode in town, to her friend in the country: 'Come to London and admire our plumes; we sweep the sky! a duchess wears six feathers, a lady four, and every milk-maid one at each corner of her cap! Your mamma desired me to inquire the name of something she had seen in the windows in Tavistock Street; it seems she was afraid to ask; but I took courage, and they told me they were rattle-snake tippets; however, notwithstanding their frightful name, they are not unlike a beaufong, only the quills are made stiff, and springy in the starching. Fashion is grown a monster! pray tell your operator that your hair must measure just three quarters of a yard from the extremity of one wing to the other.'
[11] 'Eighteen years before the date of the investigation (February 1809), Mrs. Clarke, then being about fourteen years of age, resided with her mother and step-father in Black Raven Passage, Cursitor Street. She was a very pretty, sprightly, gaily-disposed girl, being very fond of showing herself, and attracting attention. At this time Mr. Joseph Clarke, son of a respectable builder on Snow Hill (his father was the "great contractor" of his day, and a man reputed to be enormously rich) became enamoured of Miss Thompson, who readily received his addresses. She eloped with him, and they lived together about three years, when he married her. She conducted herself with propriety, and they lived together decently several years; in the course of which she bore him several children, four of whom are alive.'—Gentleman's Magazine, February, 1809.
[12] The name of Mrs. Clarke's father was Thompson, and he, it appears, was a master printer of some respectability, residing in Bowl and Pin Alley, near White's Alley, Chancery Lane, where Miss Thompson was ushered into the world, as Sterne has it, with 'squalls of disapprobation at the journey she was compelled to perform.'
Upon the death of Mr. Thompson, his widow married a Mr. Farquhar, who was engaged as a compositor in the printing house of Mr. Hughes. Miss Thompson was occasionally employed in reading copy to the person engaged as corrector of the press, in which situation she soon attracted the notice of the son of the overseer, who, recognising her abilities, had her placed at a boarding school at Ham, where the young lady, whose 'capacity for elegant improvements' was, if we trust her biographers, of an advanced order, soon acquired ornamental accomplishments; and, from the natural quickness of her parts, she returned, after an absence of two years, so completely altered in her ideas that she thought proper to despise and treat with coldness the attentions of Mr. Day, the well-meaning young gentleman who had been at the charge of finishing her education, it is said, with the view to a future union with this sprightly and promising female prodigy.