After the first civilities, and after he had deposited his crutch and stick by the side of a chair, and himself in an adjoining one, and after the glowing pleasure from seeing a fresh face had subsided, and been replaced by a sense of the importance which attaches to the possession of something coveted by another, he talked of the “famous doings,” and “such sights as never were seen before, nor never would be seen again;” and he dimmed the hope of particular information, by “quips, and quirks, and wanton wiles;” and practised the “art of ingeniously tormenting,” by declarations of unbounded knowledge, and that “he could a tale unfold,” but would not; because, as he said, “why should I make other people as wise as I am?” Yet there was a string which “discoursed most excellent music”—it was of himself and of the fame of his exploits. His “companions in arms” had been summoned to their last abiding-place, and, alas,
“They left him alone in his glory!”
John Jones’s topic was not a dry one, nor was John Jones dry, but in the commencement he had “preferred a little porter to any thing else in the world,” except, and afterwards accepted, “a drop of something by itself;” and, by degrees, he became communicative of all he could recollect. In the course of the present article his information will be embodied, with other memoranda, towards a history of the elections of the “borough of Garrett.”
Had an artist been present at the conversation, he might have caught the features of the “Ex-master of the Horse,” when they were heightened by his subject to a humorous expression. He was by no means unwilling to “have his head taken off;” but he deemed the “execution” an affair of so much importance as to solemnize his features from their wonted hilarity while speaking, to the funereal appearance which the writer has depicted, and the engraver perpetuated, in the following [representation]:—
John Jones, of Wandsworth,
MASTER OF THE HORSE AT THE LAST ELECTIONS FOR GARRETT.
As a memorial of a remarkable living character, this [portrait] may be acceptable; he is the only person alive at Wandsworth, of any distinction in the popular elections of its neighbourhood.
The following interesting account respecting Garrett is in “A Morning’s Walk to Kew”—
By Sir Richard Phillips.