Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II.
the risible undertaker, who at the word summons burst into a hearty
laugh, in which he was immediately joined by all but the last speaker.
“The summons is a sore place,” said Jemmy.
“Surely not. I did not speak to him, I spoke to you, Sir; and I have a
right to express myself as I please: if that gentleman has an antipathy
to a summons, am I to be tongue-tied? Although he may sport with
sovereigns, he must be accountable to plebeians; and if I summons you to
shew cause, I see no reason why he should interrupt our conversation.”
1 “D-----n your summons.” This, as one of the company
afterwards remarked, was a sore place, and uttered at a
moment when the irritation was strong on the affected part.
The speaker is a well known extensive dealer in the pottery,
Staffordshire, and glass line, who a short time since in a
playful humour caught a sovereign, tossed up by another
frequenter of the room, and passed it to a third. The
original possessor sought restitution from the person who
took the sovereign from his hand, but was referred to the
actual possessor, but refused to make the application. The
return of the money was formally demanded of the man of
porcelain, pitchers, and pipkins, without avail. In this
state of things the loser obtained a summons against the
taker, and the result, as might be expected, was compulsion
to restore the lost sovereign to the loving subject,
together with the payment of the customary expenses, a
circumstance which had the effect of causing great anger in
the mind of the dealer in brittle wares. Whether he broke
any of the valuable articles in his warehouse in consequence
has not been ascertained, but it appears for a time to have
broken a friendship between the parties concerned: such
breaches, however, are perhaps easier healed than broken or
cracked crockery.
~~222~~~ “Surely not,” was reverberated round the room, accompanied with
a general laugh against the interrupter, who seizing the paper, appeared
to read without noticing what was passing.
The company was now interrupted by the entrance of several strangers,
and our two friends departed on their return homeward for the evening.
CHAPTER XVII
“Roam where you will, o'er London's wide domains,
The mind new source of various feeling gains;
Explore the giddy town, its squares, its streets,
The 'wildered eye still fresh attraction greets;
Here spires and towers in countless numbers rise,
And lift their lofty summits to the skies;
Wilt thou ascend? then cast thine eyes below,
And view the motley groupes of joy and woe:
Lo! they whom Heaven with affluence hath blest,
Scowl with cold contumely on those distrest;
And Pleasure's maze the wealthy caitiffs thread,
While care-worn Merit asks in vain for bread;
Yet short their weal or woe, a general doom
On all awaits,--oblivion in the tomb!”
~~223~~~ Our heros next morning determined on a visit to their
Hibernian friend and his aunt, whom they found had not yet forgot the
entertainment at the Mansion-house, and which still continued to be the
favorite topic of conversation. Sir Felix expressed his satisfaction
that the worthy Citizens of London retained with increasing splendor
their long established renown of pre-eminent distinction in the art of
good living.
“And let us hope,” said Dashall, “that they will not at any future
period be reduced to the lamentable necessity of restraining the
progress of epicurism, as in the year 1543, when the Lord Mayor and
Common Council enacted a sumptuary law to prevent luxurious eating; by
which it was ordered, that the Mayor should confine himself to seven,
Aldermen and Sheriffs to six, and the Sword-bearer to four dishes
at dinner or supper, under the penalty of forty shillings for each
supernumerary dish!”
“A law,” rejoined the Baronet, “which voluptuaries of the present
times would find more difficult of observance than any enjoined by the
decalogue.”
The Squire suggested the expediency of a similar enactment, with a
view to productive results; for were the ~~224~~~ wealthy citizens (he
observed) prohibited the indulgence of luxurious eating, under certain
penalties, the produce would be highly beneficial to the civic treasury.
The Fine Arts claiming a priority of notice, the party determined on
visiting a few of the private and public Exhibitions.
London is now much and deservedly distinguished for the cultivation of
the fine arts. The commotions on the continent operated as a hurricane
on the productions of
genius, and the finest works of ancient and modern times ave been
removed from their old situations to the asylum afforded by the wooden
walls of Britain. Many of them have, therefore, been consigned to this
country, and are now in the collections of our nobility and gentry,
chiefly in and about the metropolis.
Although France may possess the greatest number of the larger works of
the old masters, yet England undoubtedly possesses the greatest portion
of their first-rate productions, which is accounted for by the great
painters exerting all their talents on such pictures as were not too
large to be actually painted by their own hands, while in their larger
works they resorted to inferior assistance. Pictures, therefore, of this
kind, being extremely valuable, and at the same time portable, England,
during the convulsions on the Continent, was the only place where such
paintings could obtain a commensurate price. Such is the wealth of
individuals in this country, that some of these pictures now described,
belonging to private collections, were purchased at the great prices of
ten and twelve thousand guineas each.
Amongst the many private collections of pictures, statues, &c. in
the metropolis, that of the Marquis of Stafford, called the Cleveland
Gallery, is the most prominent, being the finest collection of the old
masters in England, and was principally selected from the works that
formerly composed the celebrated Orleans Gallery, and others, which at
the commencement of the French revolution were brought to this country.
Thither, then, our tourists directed their progress, and through the
mediation of Dashall access was obtained without difficulty.
The party derived much pleasure in the inspection of this collection,
which contains two or three fine pictures of Raphael, several by Titian
and the Caracas, some ~~225~~~ capital productions of the Dutch and
Flemish schools, and some admirable productions of the English school,
particularly two by Wilson, one by Turner, and one by Vobson, amounting,
in the whole, to 300 first-rate pictures by the first masters, admirably
distributed in the new gallery, the drawing-room, the Poussin room
(containing eight chef d'oeuvres of that painter), the passage-room,
dining-room, old anti-room, old gallery, and small room. The noble
proprietor has liberally appropriated one day in the week for the public
to view these pictures. The curiosity of.the visitors being now
amply gratified, they retired, Sir Felix much pleased with the polite
attention of the domestic who conducted them through the different
apartments, to whom Miss Macgilligan offered a gratuity, but the
acceptance of which was, with courteous acknowledgments, declined.
Proceeding to the house of Mr. Angerstein, Pall Mall, our party obtained
leave to inspect a collection, not numerous, but perhaps the most select
of any in London, and which has certainly been formed at the greatest
expense in proportion to its numbers. Among its principal ornaments are
four of the finest landscapes by Claude; the Venus and Adonis, and
the Ganymede, by Titian, from the Colonna palace at Rome; a very fine
landscape by Poussin, and other works by Velasquez, Rubens, Murillo,
and Vandyck: to all which is added the invaluable series of Hogarth's
Marriage-a-la-mode.
Returning along Pall-Mall, our perambulators now reached the Gallery of
the British Institution; a Public Exhibition, established in the year
1805, under the patronage of his late Majesty, for the encouragement and
reward of the talents of British artists, exhibiting during half of the
year a collection of the works of living artists for sale; and during
the other half year, it is furnished with pictures painted by the most
celebrated masters, for the study of the academic and other pupils in
painting. The Institution, now patronised by his present Majesty, is
supported by the subscriptions of the principal nobility and gentry, and
the number of pictures sold under their influence is very considerable.
The gallery was first opened on April 17, 1806.
In 1813, the public were gratified by a display of the best works of
Sir Joshua Reynolds, collected by the industry and influence of the
committee, from the private ~~226~~~ collections of the royal family,
nobility, and gentry; and in 1814, by a collection of 221 pictures of
those inimitable painters, Hogarth, Gainsborough, and Wilson.{1}
1 That the Fine Arts engaged not a little of the attention
of the British Public during the late reign, is a fact too
notorious to require proof. The establishment of the Royal
Academy, in 1768, and its consequent yearly Exhibitions,
awakened the observation or stimulated the vanity of the
easy and the affluent, of the few who had taste, and of the
many who were eager to be thought the possessors of it, to a
subject already honoured by the solicitude of the sovereign.
A considerable proportion of the public was thus induced to
talk of painting and painters, and to sit for a portrait
soon became the fashion; a fashion, strange to say, which
has lasted ever since. Whether the talents of Sir Joshua
Reynolds as a painter, were alone the cause of his high
reputation, may, however, admit of a doubt. From an early
period of life, he had the good fortune to be associated in
friendship with several of the most eminent literary
characters of the age; amongst whom there were some whose
high rank and personal consequence in the country greatly
assisted him to realize one leading object which he had in
view, that of uniting in himself (perhaps for the first time
in the person of an English painter) the artist and the man
of fashion. From his acknowledged success in the attainment
of this object, tending as it did to the subversion of
ancient prejudices degrading to art, what beneficial effects
might not have resulted, had the President exerted his
influence to sustain the dignity of the artist in others!
But satisfied with the place in society which he himself had
gained, he left the rest of the Academy to follow his
example, if they could, seldom or never mixing with them in
company, and contenting himself with the delivery of an
annual lecture to the students. Genius is of spontaneous
growth, but education, independence, and never-ceasing
opportunity, are necessary to its full developement.
Since then they have regularly two annual exhibitions; one, of the best
works of the old masters, for the improvement of the public taste,
and knowledge of the artists, varied by some of the deceased British
artists, alternately with that on their old plan of the exhibition and
sale of the works of living artists.
The directors of this laudable Institution have also exhibited and
procured the loan for study, of one or two of the inimitable cartoons
of Raphael for their students. An annual private exhibition of their