“Did you know Gainsborough, Sir?” “Oh! I remember him; he was an odd man at times. I recollect my master Hayman coming home after he had been to an exhibition, and saying what an extraordinary picture Gainsborough had painted of the Blue Boy; it is as fine as Vandyke.”[499] “Who was the Blue Boy, Sir?” “Why, he was an ironmonger, but why so called I don’t know. He lived at the corner of Greek and King Streets, Soho; an immensely rich man.” “Did you know Mrs. Abington?” “Oh yes; she was a most delightful actress of women of fashion, though she made herself very ridiculous by attempting the part of _Scrub_.[500] Mr. Hoole, when he heard she was to play the character that evening, sent for a chair and went to see her; but he said it was so truly ridiculous, that he was quite disgusted. Ay, I see you have got Nollekens’s bust of Dr. Johnson. I made two drawings of him when I was at Oxford: one was for Sir Robert Chambers,[501] who married the pretty Miss Wilton, that went to India; who had the other, I can’t immediately say. I remember the Doctor asked me what countryman I was.--‘A Londoner, Sir, a Londoner.’ ‘And where born?’ ‘In the parish of Ethelburga, in Bishopsgate Within.’ It is a very small church; but my father and mother[502] were buried there, though I suppose, by this time, there’s nothing of them left. My friend Jonathan Tyers took milk and water for upwards of twenty years at his meals, though he very well knew what a good glass of wine was, as well as any man in England. Ay, and a fine haunch of venison, too. Many and many a time I have dined with him in the gardens, when I was making the drawing for Boydell, of Hayman’s picture of the Admirals. Mr. Tyers gave very excellent dinners, I must say.” The truly skilful manner in which Mr. John Seguier has proceeded with the pictures painted by Rubens, which adorn the ceiling of Whitehall Chapel, will, I hope, prove a lasting record of his success in picture-cleaning. When first I ascended the scaffold, my astonishment was beyond conception at the enormous size of the objects. The children are more than nine feet, and the full-grown figures from twenty to twenty-five in height. The pictures were in a most filthy and husky state. However, it afforded me infinite delight to hear Mr. Seguier declare, that he firmly believed he should be able to remove Cipriani’s washy colouring completely; and that he expected to find that of Rubens in its pristine state. Upon my seeing these pictures on the floor, after they had been cleaned,[503] I found his predictions verified, and can now, by the judicious nourishment afforded to the canvas, announce their effect to be truly glorious. Every precaution has been taken, under the able direction of Sir Benjamin Clarke Stevenson, to render the roof impervious to the most inveterate weather, so that posterity, in all probability, may long enjoy the beauties of these masterpieces of art.