Nancy Dawson is stated to have died at Haverstock Hill, May 27, 1767. Her portrait in oils still hangs in the Garrick Club, and the print-sellers are familiar with her figure in theatrical costume. She is believed to have been born about 1730, to have been the daughter of a Clare Market porter, and to have lived in poverty in St. Giles’s or in a Drury Lane cellar. The rather ill-supported narratives of her career speak, as does Smith, of her waiting on the skittle-players at a Marylebone tavern, which Mr. George Clinch thinks (_Marylebone and St. Pancras_) may have been the old “Rose of Normandy” in High Street. Nancy Dawson’s fortune was made in 1759 in the Beggars’ Opera. The man who danced the hornpipe among the thieves happened to have fallen ill, and his place was taken by Nancy, who was then a rising young actress. From that moment her success was secure. Her real monument is the song beginning-- “Of all the girls in our town, The black, the fair, the red, the brown, That dance and prance it up and down, There’s none like Nancy Dawson! Her easy mien, her shape so neat, She foots, she trips, she looks so sweet, Her ev’ry motion’s so complete, I die for Nancy Dawson!” [24] Musgrave’s note continues: “Whom she deserted upon his discovering that she had an intrigue with the exciseman of that district.” [25] Rubens’s beautiful second wife, Helena Fourment, who was only sixteen when he married her. She is the subject of not a few of his pictures. [26] Nollekens, the sculptor, highly approved of puddings for children, and would say, “Ay, now, what’s your name?” “Mrs. Rapworth, sir.” “Well, Mrs. Rapworth, you have done right; I wore a pudding when I was a little boy, and all my mother’s children wore puddings.” [27] The parent of the Royal Academy, as an exhibiting body, was the Foundling Hospital in Guilford Street. A number of painters, including Hogarth, Reynolds, Richard Wilson, and Gainsborough, agreed to present pictures to Captain Coram’s charity. These were shown with such success, that the possibility of holding remunerative exhibitions was perceived, and in 1760 a free exhibition was opened in the rooms of the Society of Arts. In following years exhibitions were held in Spring Gardens. In 1765 the “Incorporated Society of Artists of Great Britain” obtained its charter; but disputes arose, and three years later twenty or more painters successfully petitioned George III. to establish the “Royal Academy of Arts in London.” So many of the original members of the Royal Academy are mentioned by Smith, that it will be useful to insert their names. They were all nominated by George III.: