[223] Carlo Antonio Delpini, the best clown of his day, played at Drury Lane and Covent Garden. He devised many stage mechanisms for pantomimes. In 1783 he arranged a masquerade at the Pantheon in celebration of the coming of age of the Prince of Wales, from whom in his old age he received a gift of £200. Delpini, we are told, had a presentiment that he should not die till the year “eight,” which was realised, for he died in the year 1828, at the age of 88. He was born in the parish of St. Martin, at Rome, and drew his last breath in the parish of St. Martin, London (to be precise, in Lancaster Court, Strand). [224] John Palmer (1742-98), the original Joseph Surface, was known off the stage as Jack Plausible. Once, in patching up a quarrel with Sheridan, he said: “If you could see my heart, Mr. Sheridan,” and was answered, “Why, Jack, you forget I wrote it.” The Royalty Theatre, at which Smith hoped to be employed by him, was the ill-starred house in Well Street, in St. George’s in the East. The opposition of the great theatres caused its degeneration to a house for pantomimes and concerts. Palmer fell into debt and into Surrey Gaol. Nevertheless he appeared at Drury Lane as late as 1798. He is described by Charles Lamb as “a gentleman with a slight infusion of the footman,” for which reason “Jack in Dick Amlet was insuperable.” Palmer died on the stage. His last uttered words, spoken in _The Stranger_, are said to have been: “There is another and a better world,” but this has been disputed: it is contended that the words really uttered by him as he fell were those in the fourth act: “I left them at a small town hard by.” [225] Just forty years after Smith’s visit, in 1869, a correspondent of _Notes and Queries_ had the curiosity to make a similar journey of discovery. He found only one of the dolphin knockers remaining, that on the door of No. 6. In June 1903 I found that this had gone the way of all men and knockers, but I am told it was there up to the early nineties. The neighbourhood can still show a few door-knockers of ancient types. There are old lion’s head-and-ring knockers in Gunpowder Alley and Hind Court. At No. 3 Red Lion Court is a good knocker, into which is introduced a bat with outstretched wings. The old knocker of No. 9 Bell’s Buildings, Salisbury Square, is adorned with the figure of a naked boy playing on a pipe. There is a fine example of a dolphin knocker at 25 Queen Anne’s Gate.