A Book for a Rainy Day; or, Recollections of the Events of the Years 1766-1833. John Thomas Smith
Hampstead Road.[55] From the “Blue Posts” the houses were irregularly built to a large space called Gresse’s Gardens, thence to Windmill Street, strongly recommended by physicians for the salubrity of the air. The premises occupied by the French charity children were held by the founders of the Middlesex Hospital, which were established in 1755, where the patients remained until the present building was erected in Charles Street. Colvill Court, parallel with Windmill Street northward, was built in 1766; and Goodge Street,[56] farther on, was, I conjecture, erected much about the same time. Mr. Whitefield’s chapel was built in 1754, upon the site of an immense pond, called The Little Sea. This pond, so called, is inserted in Pine and Tinney’s plan of London, published in 1742, and also in the large one issued by the same persons in 1746.[57] Beyond the chapel[58] the four dwellings, then called “Paradise Row,” almost terminated the houses on that side. A turnstile opened into Crab-tree Fields.[59] They extended to the “Adam and Eve” public-house, the original appearance of which Hogarth has also introduced into his picture of the “March to Finchley.” It was at this house that the famous pugilistic skill of Broughton and Slack was publicly exhibited, upon an uncovered stage, in a yard open to the North Road.[60]
GEORGE WHITEFIELD
“Fain would I die preaching.”
The rare and beautiful etching of the before-mentioned picture by Hogarth was the production of Luke Sullivan,[61] a native of Ireland, but how he acquired his knowledge of art I have not been able to learn; most probably he was of Dame Nature’s school, where pupils can be taught gratis the whole twenty-four hours of every day as long as the world lasts. Sullivan’s talents were not confined to the art of engraving; he was, in my humble opinion, the most extraordinary of all miniature painters. I have three or four of his productions, one of which was so particularly fine, that I could almost say I have it on my retina at this moment. It was the portrait of a most lovely woman as to features, flesh, and blood. She was dressed in a pale green silk gown, lapelled with straw-coloured satin; and in order to keep up a sweetness of tone, the artist had placed primroses in her stomacher; the sky was of a warm green, which blended harmoniously with the carnations of her complexion; her hair was jet, and her necklace of pearls.
Lord Orford, whose early attachment to the sleepy-eyed beauties of King Charles II.’s Court, and those with the lascivious leer of that of Louis XIV., as may be inferred by their numerous portraits in the cabinets at Strawberry Hill, would no doubt have preferred his favourites, Cooper and Petitot—names eternally, and many times unjustly, extolled by the admirers of their works to the injury of our artists, whose talents equal, if not surpass, those of every country put together, in, I think I may say, every branch of the fine arts. Upon this too general opinion of the pre-eminence of Petitot, I have now and then had a battle with Mr. Paul Fischer, the miniature painter, who certainly has produced some most highly finished and excellent likenesses of the Royal Family and several persons of fashion, particularly of King George IV. and Sir Wathen Waller, Bart.[62]
Notwithstanding Tottenham Court Road was so infested by the lowest order, who kept what they called a Gooseberry Fair,[63] it was famous at certain times of the year, particularly in summer, for its booths of regular theatrical performers, who deserted the empty benches of Drury Lane Theatre, under the mismanagement of Mr. Fleetwood,[64] and condescended to admit the audience at sixpence each. Mr. Yates, and several other eminent performers, had their names painted on their booths.
The whole of the ground north from Capper’s farm, at the back of the British Museum, so often mentioned as being frequented by duellists, was in irregular patches, many fields with turnstiles. The pipes of the New River Company were propped up in several parts to the height of six and eight feet, so that persons walked under them to gather watercresses, which grew in great abundance and perfection, or to visit the “Brothers’ Steps,” well known to the Londoners. Of these steps there are many traditionary stories; the one generally believed is, that two brothers were in love with a lady, who would not declare a preference for either, but coolly sat upon a bank to witness the termination of a duel, which proved fatal to both. The bank, it is said, on which she sat, and the footmarks of the brothers when pacing the ground, never produced grass again. The fact is that these steps were so often trodden that it was impossible for the grass to grow. I have frequently passed over them; they were in a field on the site of Mr. Martin’s chapel, or very nearly so, and not on the spot as communicated to Miss Porter, who has written an entertaining novel on the subject.[65]
Aubrey, in his Miscellanies, states: “The last summer, on the day of St. John Baptist (1694), I accidentally was walking in the pasture behind Montague House; it was twelve o’clock. I saw there about two or three and twenty young women, most of them well habited, on their knees very busie, as if they had been weeding. I could not presently learn what the matter was; at last a young man told me that they were looking for a coal under the root of a plantain to put under their heads that night, and they should dream who would be their husbands. It was to be found that day and hour.”[66]
JOHN RANN
“Sixteen String Jack.”
1774.
I well remember when, in my eighth year, my father’s playfellow, Mr. Joseph Nollekens, leading me by the hand to the end of John Street, to see the notorious terror of the king’s highways, John Rann, commonly called Sixteen-string Jack, on his way to execution at Tyburn, for robbing Dr. Bell, Chaplain to the Princess Amelia, in Gunnesbury Lane. The Doctor died a Prebendary of Westminster. It was pretty generally reported that the sixteen strings worn by this freebooter at his knees were in allusion to the number of times he had been acquitted. Fortunately for the Boswell illustrators, there is an etched portrait of him; for, be it known, thief as he was, he had the honour of being recorded by Dr. Johnson.[67] Rann was a smart fellow, a great favourite with a certain description of ladies, and had been coachman to Lord Sandwich, when his Lordship resided in the south-east corner-house of Bedford Row. The malefactor’s coat was a bright pea-green; he had an immense nosegay, which he had received from the hand of one of the frail sisterhood, whose practice it was in those days to present flowers to their favourites from the steps of St. Sepulchre’s church, as the last token of what they called their attachment to the condemned,[68] whose worldly accounts were generally brought to a close at Tyburn, in consequence of their associating with abandoned characters. On our return home, Mr. Nollekens, stooping close to my ear, assured me that, had his father-in-law, Mr. Justice Welch, been high constable, we could have walked all the way to Tyburn by the side of the cart.[69]
At this time houses in High Street, Marylebone, particularly on the western side, continued to be inhabited by families who kept their coaches, and who considered themselves as living in the country, and perhaps their family affairs were as well known as they could have been had they resided at Kilburn.[70] In Marylebone, great and wealthy people of former days could hardly stir an inch without being noticed; indeed, so lately as the year 1728, the Daily Journal assured the public that “many persons arrived in London from their country-houses in Marylebone”; and the same publication, dated October 15th, conveys the following intelligence:—
“The Right Hon. Sir Robert Walpole comes to town this day from Chelsea.”
The following lines were inserted by the late Sir William Musgrave, in his Adversaria (No. 5721):—
“Sir Robert Walpole in great haste
Cryed, ‘Where’s my fellow gone?’
It was answered by a man of taste,
‘Your fellow, Sir, there’s none.’ ”
One Sunday morning my mother allowed me, before we entered the little church[71] in