"Sir,—Inclosed you have the Dimentions of a Room for a Shaded Hanging to be Done after the Same Pattorn I have Sent per Capt. Tanner, who will Deliver it to you. It's for my own House, & Intreat the favour of you to Get it Done for me, to Come Early in the Spring, or as Soon as the nature of the Thing will admitt. The pattorn is all was Left of a Room Lately Come over here, & it takes much in ye Town & will be the only paper-hanging for Sale here wh. am of Opinion may Answer well. Therefore desire you by all means to Get mine well Done & as Cheap as Possible, & if they can make it more Beautifull by adding more Birds flying here & there, with Some Landskip at the Bottom should Like it well. Let the Ground be the Same Colour of the Pattorn. At the Top & Bottom was a narrow Border of about 2 Inches wide wh. would have to mine. About 3 or 4 Years ago my friend Francis Wilks Esqr. had a hanging Done in the Same manner but much handsomeer Sent over here for Mr Saml Waldon of this place, made by one Dunbar in Aldermanbury, where no doubt he or Some of his Successors may be found. In the other parts of these Hangings are Great Variety of Different Sorts of Birds, Peacocks, Macoys, Squirril, Monkys, Fruit & Flowers &c., But a Greater Variety in the above mentioned of Mr. Waldon's & Should be fond of having mine done by the Same hand if to be mett with. I design if this pleases me to have two Rooms more done for myself. I Think they are handsomer & Better than Painted hangings Done in Oyle, so I Beg your particular Care in procuring this for me, & that the pattorns may be Taken Care off & Return'd with my Goods. Henry Atkins has Ordered Mr. Thos. Pike of Pool[9] to pay you £10 in Liew of the Bill you Returned Protested Drawn by Samll Pike, which hope you'l Receive. Inclosed you have also Cristo Kilby's Draft on King Gould Esqr. for £10 wh. will meet with Due Honour. Design to make you Some other Remittence in a Little Time. Interim Remain Sr. Your Assured Frd & Hume. Servt.
"T. H."
There are certain other adornments about the Hancock House, besides the glass and the wall-papers, which were somewhat beyond the skill of New-England artificers of that time. Another of these exotic features is fully accounted for in the following extract from a letter to "Dear Kilby," dated
"22d Mar. 1739-40.
"I Pray the favour of you to Enquire what a pr. of Capitolls will Cost me to be Carved in London, of the Corinthian Order, 16-1/2 Inches One Way and 9 ye Other,—to be well Done. Please to make my Compliments Acceptable to Mr. Wilks, & believe me to be
"Sr.
"Your assud. Friend & very
"Hume. Sevt.
"T. H."
One more commission for the trusty Wilks remained. It was said of Mr. Hancock, long afterward, in one of the obituary notices called forth by his sudden demise, that "his house was the seat of hospitality, where all his numerous acquaintances and strangers of distinction met with an elegant reception." With a wise prevision, therefore, of the properties necessary to support the character and carry on the business of so bountiful a cuisine, we find him, under cover of a letter of May 24th, 1738, inclosing an order in these terms:—
"1 Middle Size Jack of 3 Guineas price,—Good works, with Iron Barrell, a wheel-fly & Spitt Chain to it."
Several other passages, scattered here and there in these letters, certainly go far to justify a reputation for the love of good cheer on the part of their writer. Throughout all of them, indeed, we are not without frequent indications of "a careful attention to and a laudable admiration of good, sound, hearty eating and drinking." Thus, in a postscript to one of his favors to Wilks, he adds,—"I Desire you also to send me a Chest of Lisbon Lemons for my own use." And again, in a letter to Captain Partington, master of one of his vessels, then in Europe, he writes,—"When you come to any Fruit Country, Send or bring me 2 or 4 Chests of Lemmons, for myself & the Officers of this Port, & Take the Pay out of the Cargo." Alas, that the Plantation Rum Punch of those days should now perforce be included among Mr. Phillips's Lost Arts! He sends a consignment with an order "To Messers Walter & Robt. Scott," as follows:—"I have the favour to ask of you, when please God the Merch'dse Comes to your hands, that I may have in return the best Sterling Medara Wines for my own use,—I don't Stand for any Price, provided the Quality of the wine Answers to it. My view in Shipping now is only for an Oppertunity to procure the best wine for my own use, in which you will much oblidge me." And about the same time he orders from London "1 Box Double flint Glass ware. 6 Quart Decanters. 6 Pint do. 2 doz. handsome, new fashd wine Glasses, 6 pair Beakers, Sorted, all plain, 2 pr. pint Cans, 2 pr. 1/2 pint do. 6 Beer Glasses, 12 Water Glasses & 2 Doz. Jelly Glasses." Well might he write to Kilby, not long after, "We live Pretty comfortable here now, on Beacon Hill."
There is a graphic minuteness about all these trivial directions, which takes us more readily behind the curtain of Time than the most elaborate and dignified chronicles could possibly do. The Muse of History is no doubt a most stately and learned lady,—she looks very splendid in her royal attitudes on the ceilings of Blenheim and in the galleries of Windsor; but can her pompous old stylus bring back for us the every-day work and pleasure of these bygone days,—paint for us the things that come home so nearly "to men's business and bosoms,"—or show us the inner life and the real action of these hearty, jolly old times, one-half so well as the simple homeliness of these careless letters? We seem to see in them the countenances of the people of those long buried years, and to catch the very echo of their voices, in the daily walk of their pleasant and hearty lives. "The dialect and costume," said Mr. Hazlitt, "the wars, the religion, and the politics of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries" (and we may now venture to add for him, of the earlier half of the eighteenth) "give a charming and wholesome relief to the fastidious refinement and over-labored lassitude of modern readers. Antiquity, after a time, has the grace of novelty, as old fashions revived are mistaken for new ones." In the present instance this seems to us to be, more than usually, the effect of Hancock's quaint and downright style. All these letters of his, in fact, are remarkable for one thing, even beyond the general tenor of the epistolary writing of his time, and that is their directness. He is the very antipode to Don Adriano in "Love's Labor's Lost"; never could it be said of him that "he draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument." He does not leave his correspondents to grope their way to his meaning by inferences,—he comes to the point. If he likes more "Macoys, Squirril & Monkys" in his wallpaper than his neighbors,—if he thinks Cox's man ought to be abated, or Glin to do the handsome thing by him, he says so, point-blank, and there's an end.