[8] In the miscellaneous pages of his _Nollekens_, Smith reports Elizabeth Carter, of “Epictetus” fame, as saying to a Covent Garden fruiterer, named Twigg (jocularly known as the “Twig of the Garden”): “I recollect, Sir, when Mr. Garrick acted, hackney chairs were then so numerous that they stood all round the Piazzas, down Southampton Street, and extended more than half-way along Maiden Lane, so much were they in requisition at that time.” [9] Voltaire first came to London in May 1726, after his confinement in the Bastille, landing at Greenwich on a cloudless night. His first impressions of London are quoted by Mr. Archibald Ballantyne in his interesting _Voltaire’s Visit to England_. After being the guest of Bolingbroke, Voltaire returned to Paris in a state of indecision, but, again crossing the Channel, he settled at Wandsworth, where he found a friend and host in Sir Everard Falkener. He met Pope, and improved his English by attending the theatres. Chetwood says: “I furnished him every evening with the play of the night (at Drury Lane), which he took with him into the orchestra (his accustomed seat): in four or five months he not only conversed in elegant English, but wrote it with exact propriety.” Voltaire became a well-known figure in London, and wrote his _Henriade_ in his London lodging at the sign of the “White Peruke,” Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, next door to the Bedford Head. [10] _Notes of Proceedings and Occurrences during the British Embassy to Pekin_, 1816. Geo. Thos. Staunton, 1824. Printed for Private Circulation. [11] Pliny the Younger, in writing to his friend, Baebius Macer, on the habits and life of his uncle, C. Plinius Secundus (Pliny the elder), says: “A shorthand writer constantly attended him, … who, in the winter, wore a particular sort of warm gloves, that the sharpness of the weather might not occasion any interruption to my uncle’s studies; and for the same reason, when in Rome, he was always carried in a chair. I recollect his once taking me to task for walking. ‘You need not,’ he said, ‘lose these hours.’ For he thought every hour gone that was not given to study” (_Letters of Pliny the Younger_, bk. iii. letter 5, p. 82. Bohn’s Classical Library). [12] The Catalogue of this exhibition is entitled: “A Catalogue of the Paintings, Sculptures, Architecture, Models, Drawings, Engravings, etc., now exhibiting under the Patronage of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce, at their Great Room in the Strand, London.” It credits Mr. Nathaniel Smith, St. Martin’s Lane, with the following:-- 210. A bust as large as life. 211. A figure of Time, imitating a bronze.