A. Yes, sir; and once had a great deal of them by heart. (He here quoted a passage from “Spring.”) Shepherd, who formerly kept the Castle inn, showed me a book of Thomson’s writing, which was about the rebellion in 1745, and set to music, but I think he told me not published. (I mentioned this to Mr. Robertson, but he thought Taylor had made small mistake; perhaps it might be some of the patriotic songs in the masque of Alfred.)
Q. The cause of his death is said to have been by taking a boat from Kew to Richmond, when he was much heated by walking?
A. No; I believe he got the better of that; but having had a batch of drinking with Quin, he took a quantity of cream of tartar, as he frequently did on such occasions, which, with a fever before, carried him off. (Mr. Robertson did not assent to this.)
Q. He lived, I think, in Kew Foot-lane?
A. Yes, and died there; at the furthest house next Richmond Gardens, now Mr. Boscawen’s. He lived sometime before at a smaller one higher up, inhabited by Mrs. Davis.
Q. Did you attend on him to the last?
A. Sir, I shaved him the very day before his death; he was very weak, but made a shift to sit up in bed. I asked him how he found himself that morning. “Ah, Wull,” he replied, “I am very bad indeed.” (Mr. Robertson told me, he ordered this operation himself as a refreshment to his friend.)
Taylor concluded by giving a hearty encomium on his character.
This conversation took place at one of the alcoves on Richmond-green, where I accidentally dropped in. I afterwards found it was a rural rendezvous for a set of old invalids on nature’s infirm list; who met there every afternoon, in fine weather, to recount and comment on the “tale of other times.”
I inquired after Lander, and Mrs. Hobart, and Taylor, of Craven-street, but found that none of them were surviving. Mrs. Hobart was thought to have a daughter married in the town, called Egerton; but it was not likely, from the distance of time, that she could impart any thing new.