A Book for a Rainy Day; or, Recollections of the Events of the Years 1766-1833Smith, John Thomas
History
A Book for a Rainy Day; or, Recollections of the Events of the Years 1766-1833
Smith, John Thomas
Great Britain -- Social life and customs -- 18th century; Great Britain -- Social life and customs -- 19th century
We then returned through Green Street; and at a cottage we discovered
an Elizabethan door, profusely studded with flat-headed nails. This
piece of antiquity Samuel Ireland stopped to make a drawing of, which
circumstance I beg the reader will keep in mind, as it will be mentioned
hereafter. We then, after descanting upon the beauties of Waltham Cross,
proposed to visit the father of the Tulip-trees, an engraving of which
appeared in Farmer’s _History of Waltham Abbey_.[247] We looked in vain
for a portion of King Harold’s tomb. There were remains of it in Strutt’s
early days: he made a drawing of them. Our next visit was to a small
ancient elliptic bridge in a field a little beyond the pin-manufactory;
this bridge has ever been held as a great curiosity, and one of high
antiquity. As we returned through Cheshunt, we rummaged over a basket of
old books placed at the door of the barber’s shop, where Sir James Lake
bought an excellent copy of Brooke’s _Camden’s Errors_ for sixpence,
and also an imperfect copy of Burton’s _Anatomy of Melancholy_, for the
sake of a remarkably fine impression of a portrait of its author on
the title-page. After dining at the Red Lion, we visited another old
moated mansion, the property of Dr. Mayo, said to have been originally
a house belonging to Cardinal Wolsey, or in which he had at one time
resided.[248] After crossing a drawbridge, and passing through the iron
gates, the gardener ushered us into a spacious hall, and showed us a
curiously constructed chair, in which he said the Cardinal’s porter
usually sat. Of this singular chair above mentioned I made a drawing, and
had the honour to furnish the late Marquis of Lansdowne with a copy, to
enable his Lordship to have a set made from it. In an adjoining room was
a bedstead and furniture, considered to be that in which the Cardinal
had slept; it was of a drab-coloured cloth, profusely worked over with
large flowers in variously coloured silks. We were then conducted to an
immense room filled with old portraits. I recollect noticing one in very
excellent preservation of Sir Hugh Myddelton, with an inscription on the
background totally differing from the one by Cornelius Janssen, engraved
by Vertue.[249] Thus ended this pleasant excursion.
1792.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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