[153] On the spirited style in which the late Miss Catley, of melodious memory, performed this character, the following lines were written; but I do not recollect having seen them printed:—

[154] The late Lord Orrery was a singularly formal character. Sir Anthony Branville, in The Discovery, was intended for his portrait, and exhibits a strong likeness. It was sometimes the wish of Mr. Garrick to play upon the suavity of this old nobleman, and induce him to contradict himself. This power he exerted very successfully on the following occasion:—Lord Orrery wrote a letter from Ireland to Mr. Garrick, requesting that Mossop might be engaged. The request of a man of rank was, to the manager of Drury Lane, a command, and Mossop was engaged. When, some months afterwards, the peer came to England, he took an early opportunity of breakfasting with Mr. Garrick: the moment he entered the room, he began his favourite subject.

Orrery. "David, I congratulate you: I inquire not about the success of your theatre; with yourself and Mossop, it must be triumphant. The Percy and the Douglas both in arms, have a right to be confident. Separate, you were two bright luminaries; united, you are a constellation—the Gemini of the theatric hemisphere. Excepting yourself, my dear David, no man that ever trod on tragic ground has so forcibly exhibited the various passions that agitate, and I may say agonize, the human mind. He makes that broad stroke at the heart which, being aimed by the hand of nature, reaches the prince or the peasant, the peer or the plebeian. He is not the mere player of fashion; for the player of fashion, David, may be compared to a man tossed in a blanket: the very instant his supporters quit their hold of the coverlet, down drops the hero of the day. However, as general assertions do not carry conviction, I will arrange my opinions under different heads, not doubting your assent to my declarations, which shall be founded on facts, and built upon experience. First of the first,—his voice; his voice is the vox argentea of the ancients, the silver tone, of which so much has been written, but which never struck upon a modern ear till Mossop spoke,—'then mute attention reigned.'"

Garrick. "Why, my Lord, as to his voice, I must acknowledge that it is loud enough; the severest critic cannot accuse him of whispering his part; for, egad, it was so sonorous, that the people had no occasion to come into the theatre: they used to go to the pastrycook's shop in Russel Court, and eat their custards, and hear him as well as if they had been in the orchestra: 'he made the welkin echo to the sound.' No one could doubt the goodness of his lungs, or accuse him of sparing them; but as to—"

Orrery. "What! you have found out that he roars! you have discovered that he bellows!—Upon my soul, David, you are right; he bellows like a bull. We used to call him 'Bull Mossop'—'Mossop the Bull;'—we had no better name for him in the country. But then, David, his eye is an eye of fire; and when he looks, he looks unutterable things: it is scarce necessary that he should speak, for his eye conveys everything that he means, and excepting your own, David, is the brightest, most expressive, most speaking eye, that ever beamed in a—"

Garrick. "Why, my Lord, with the utmost submission to your Lordship, from whose accurate taste and comprehensive judgment I tremble to differ,—does not your Lordship think there is a—a—a dull kind of heaviness,—a blanket, a—"

Orrery. "What! you have discovered that he is blind?—Egad, David, whatever his eye may be, nothing can escape yours. He is as blind as a beetle. There is an opacity, a stare without sight, a sort of filminess, exactly as you describe. But, notwithstanding I allow that he bellows like a bull, and is blind as a beetle, his memory has such peculiar tenacity, that whatever he once receives adheres to it like glue! he does not forget a syllable of his part."

Garrick. "Upon my honour, my Lord, if his memory was what you describe in Ireland, he must have forgot to bring it with him to London; for here, the prompter is obliged to repeat every sentence, and a whole sentence he cannot retain: there is absolutely a necessity for splitting it into parts."

Orrery. "What! you have found that his head runs out. Upon my soul, it never would hold anything: Lady Orrery used to call him 'Cullender Mossop'—Mossop the Cullender:' the fellow could not remember a common distich. But, notwithstanding this, his carriage is so easy, his air so gentleman-like, his deportment has so much fashion, that you perceive at a glance he has kept the best company; and no one who sees him conceives him a player. He looks like one of our house: he has the port of nobility."

Garrick. "As to his port, my Lord, I grant you that the man is tall, and upright enough; but with submission, the utmost submission to your Lordship's better judgment, don't you think there is an awkwardness, a rigid, vulgar, unbending sort of a—a—. We had fencing masters, dancing masters, and drill sergeants, but all would not do; he looked more like a tailor than a gentleman."

Orrery. "What! you think that he is stiff? By the Lord, David, you are right,—nothing escapes you: he is stiff—stiff as a poker: we used to call him 'Poker Mossop;'—we had no better name for him in the country. But however his body might want (as I must acknowledge it did) the graceful, easy bend of the Antinous, his mind was formed of the most yielding and flexible materials: any advice which you gave him, he would take; from you, I am persuaded, a hint was sufficient."

Garrick. "Why, in this, my Lord, I must be bold enough to differ from you in the most pointed and positive terms; for of all the obstinate, headstrong, and unmanageable animals I ever dealt with, he is the most stubborn, the most untractable, the most wrongheaded. I never knew one instance where he followed my instructions in any the smallest degree. If I recommend him to dress a character plain, he comes upon the stage like a gingerbread king; if I advise him to be splendid in his apparel, he endeavours to get a Quaker's habit from the keeper of our wardrobe; and in everything, he—more than I thought belonged to human nature—had that impenetrable, that—that—that—"

Orrery. "So!—you think him obstinate? Upon my soul he is—as obstinate as a pig; he has more of that animal's pertinacity than any man I ever knew in my life. But yet, David, with all these faults, he is—I have not time to enter into particulars.—Be what he will, you have engaged him? I sincerely wish you may agree together, and am, my dear fellow, your most obedient. Say no more.—Farewell.—To Mrs. Garrick present my compliments."

[155] In an ode to the memory of Le-Stue, cook to the late Duke of Newcastle, this was whimsically parodied by a Mr. Shaw, the writer of a monody addressed to Lord Lyttleton:

[156] When a gentleman, whose industry and integrity have raised him to the rank of an Alderman of London, was apprentice, he one Sunday afternoon took a walk with several of his friends to Islington. Considering smoking as a manly accomplishment, he put a pipe in his mouth. A respectable citizen who knew his master, meeting him in the fields, with a grave face accosted him as follows: "How now, Tom! smoking tobacco! pray who was your teacher? If you mean to be rich, unlearn it as fast as you can, for I never knew a man worth a guinea who stuck a pipe in his mouth before he was twenty." "The d—l you did not," replied the boy, "then I will never smoke another." He dashed his clay tube to the ground, and adhered to his resolution.

[157] The sign by which this circumstance is intimated was at first inscribed Goodchild and West. Some of Mr. Hogarth's city friends informing him that it was usual for the senior partner's name to precede, it was altered.

[158] Madame Pompadour, in her remarks on the English taste for music, says "they are invariably fond of everything that is full in the mouth."

[159] The inscription must remind every reader of Pope's lines,—

The Duke of Buckingham's epigram on this magnificent pillar is not so generally known:

[160] To mark the midnight hour, each of the watches is a quarter after twelve.

[161] This reverend gentleman is said to be intended for Mr. Platell, once curate of Barnet.

[162] A copy of this figure on a larger scale is engraved by Mr. Bartolozzi.

[163] The following whimsical notice, written by a believer in transmigration, was a few years ago sent to several country gentlemen, accompanied with a request that the contents might, if possible, be communicated to all the fish and fowl, birds and beasts, in their respective manors:—

"A WARNING TO BIRDS, BEASTS, AND FISHES.

[164] This scene is laid in the cellar of a house near Water Lane, Fleet Street, then known by the name of the "Blood Bowl House;" which curious appellation was given it from the various scenes of riot and murder which were there perpetrated.

[165] This has been supposed to be intended for the same prostitute whom we have before seen exhibited in a garret and a night-cellar: I do not discover the least resemblance.

[166] I have been told that the dealers in perjury at Westminster Hall, as well as the Old Bailey, consider this little circumstance as a complete salvo for false swearing.

[167] A solemn exhortation was formerly given to the prisoners appointed to die at Tyburn, in their way from Newgate. Mr. Robert Dow, merchant tailor, who died in 1612, left £1, 6s. 8d. yearly for ever, that the bellman should deliver to the unhappy criminals, as they went by in the cart, a most pious and awful admonition. An admonition of the same nature was read in the prison of Newgate the night before they suffered.

[168] A man that some persons now living may remember by the name of Tiddy Doll.

[169] Notwithstanding the boasted humanity of our laws, I am told more criminals are annually executed in this little island than in all Europe besides.

[170] I believe it was customary to despatch a second pigeon at the moment the criminal suffered.

[171] Numerous as are the executions, they are not sufficient for the anatomical students. It is not more than four or five years since one of those necessary assistants to the art of chirurgery, called resurrection men, being employed in his vocation of stealing a dead body from a churchyard in the neighbourhood of London, was discovered by a patrole, and shot in the grave. To prevent his employer being disappointed of a subject, and to show her reverence for that art which her husband had lost his life in endeavouring to improve, and save the idle expense of a funeral, his afflicted widow, with the fondness of an Ephesian matron, three days afterwards sold the body of her murdered lord for sixteen shillings, to the very surgeon in whose service he had suffered!

[172] When Oliver Cromwell, attended by Thurlow, once went to dine in the city, the populace rent the air with their gratulations. "Your highness," said the secretary, "may see by this that you have the voice of the people as well as the voice of God."—"As to God," replied the Protector, "I will not talk about Him here; but for the people, they would be more noisy, and more joyful too, if you and I were going to be hanged."

[173] He is somewhat like a porter butt, with a head on it. In the Straits of Thermopylæ he would have been pressed to death; but dead, he might stop a breach better than a better man.

[174] In the second volume of Wood's Body of Conveyancing, p. 180, is a London lease; one of the clauses gives a right to the landlord and his friends to stand in the balcony during the time of "the shows or pastimes upon the day commonly called the Lord Mayor's Day."

[175] In the General Advertiser for March 9, 1748-49, it was thus announced:

"This day is published, price 5s., a Print, designed and engraved by Mr. Hogarth, representing a PRODIGY which lately appeared before the gate of Calais,

"To be had at the Golden Head in Leicester Square, and at the print-shops."

[176] At this election a man was placed on a bulk, with a figure representing a child in his arms: as he whipped it, he exclaimed, "What, you little child, must you be a member?" This election being disputed, it appeared from the register book of the parish where Lord Castlemain was born, that he was but twenty years of age when he offered himself a candidate.