It is, I believe, a well-authenticated fact that Wellington and Nelson only met once. On this occasion Wellington was going upstairs at Downing Street and met a man coming down. He afterwards found, on making inquiries, that this man was Nelson, who, on his side, told some one that he had met a most remarkable-looking young man on the stairs at Downing Street. There exists, I have been told, a print depicting what is nothing but a purely imaginary interview between these two great men, for there is no record that any regular meeting ever took place between them.
A GROUP BY DEVIS
Another interesting picture which I possess is one representing the Vanneck family grouped on the lawn of their house at Fulham, with old Putney Bridge (destroyed only a few years ago) standing out in the background. This picture was the work of Arthur Devis, an eighteenth-century painter of portraits and also of what are known as “conversation pieces.” The work of Devis is not very much known to-day, but during his lifetime the painter in question attracted a good deal of attention owing to his very remarkable likeness to the Pretender; indeed, during a period of political excitement he was actually obliged to leave Preston in disguise. Appropriately enough he painted a picture of the “Pretender and his Friends.”
Two prominent figures in my picture are two ladies, daughters of Sir Joshua Vanneck, who both married Walpoles. One became the grandmother of my husband (I have also a miniature of her by Smart), and the other the great grandmother of my cousin, the late Sir Spencer Walpole. Her husband was the Hon. Thomas Walpole, Horace Walpole’s cousin, who lost his fortune owing to the capture of the West Indian Islands by the French, having had the bad luck to accept bills drawn by the Scotch firm of Alexander upon his real property in that quarter of the world. The French Government after this capture at once declared all debts due to English creditors to be annulled; but Mr. Walpole, betaking himself to Paris, after a protracted struggle in the French Courts, eventually obtained a judgment in his favour, and then very honourably handed over his recovered estates to the Bank of England in discharge of his obligations.
After the death of his first wife Mr. Walpole married in Paris Madame de Villegagnon, the widow of the Comte de Villegagnon, and Sir Spencer Walpole possessed the permission signed by the French King—the unfortunate Louis XVI.—which, under such circumstances, it was in those days necessary to obtain.
In addition to pictures I have also a certain number of Walpole relics, amongst them a fine marqueterie clock which formerly belonged to Horace Walpole at Strawberry Hill.
In former years, before the rage for collecting had reached its present pitch, and the extravagant prices of to-day were as yet undreamt of, French art occupied a very different position in the estimation of collectors from that which it does to-day, and occasionally fine old French pictures were to be found in very queer places.
In one of my scrap-books I have a photograph of an old French picture with some notes written at the side which recall to my mind a very kindly action which was performed by Mr. Cobden, and by which he greatly assisted a poor labourer and his family.
Mr. Cobden chanced to be one day walking in a Sussex village with his friend Mr. Robinson (afterwards Sir Charles), of the South Kensington Museum, and came across a child trailing what appeared to be a piece of old board by a string run through two roughly made holes. For some reason or other this board attracted his attention, and examining it, he discovered it to be an old picture evidently of considerable artistic merit.
A FINE OLD PICTURE SAVED