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
Her eyes reminded me of Sheridan’s remark on those of Dr. Arne, “Like
two oysters on an oval plate of stewed beet-root.”[305] I regretted
most exceedingly, while she was cutting her rope and twisting her
mouth, that most of her once-famed ivories had absconded; but it gave me
inexpressible delight to see that her lips were not at all chapped. If
Emma’s lips had been ever so deeply cracked, she could not have benefited
by my friend “Social Day” Coxe’s[306] Conservatoria, as it was not then
sold.
Emma in her tender blossom, I understand, assisted her mother in selling
rice-milk and furmety to the early frequenters of Honey Lane market; and
in the days of her full bloom, new-milk whey in White Conduit Fields,
and at the Elephant and Castle. She must have been, as to her outward
charms, during her highest flattery, little inferior to the beautiful
Emma Lyon;[307] but in her last stage, perhaps not altogether unlike
the heroine so voluptuously portrayed by my late highly talented
friend, the Rev. George Huddesford, in his poem entitled “The Barber’s
Nuptials.”[308] Rosy Emma, for so she was still called, was the reputed
spouse of the Yeoman of the Halter, and the cord she was selling as the
identical noose was for her own benefit. This was, according to the
delightful writer, Charles Lamb,
“For honest ends, a most dishonest seeming.”[309]
[Illustration: LADY HAMILTON AS A BACCHANTE
“Romney! expert infallibly to trace …
The mind’s impression too on every face.”
_Cowper_]
Now, as fame and beauty ever carry influence, Emma’s sale was rapid;
had she been as lamentable as a Lincolnshire goose after plucking-time,
“Misery’s Darling,” or like Alecto when at the entrance of Pandemonium,
she would have had a sorry sale.[310] This money-trapping trick, steady
John, the waiter at the Chapter Coffee-house, assured me was invariably
put in practice whenever superior persons or notorious culprits had been
executed. Then to breakfast, but with little or no appetite; however,
after selecting one of Isaac Solomon’s H.B.’s, I made a whole-length
portrait of the late Governor by recollection, which Dr. Buchan, the
flying physician of the “Chapter”[311] frequenters, and several of the
Pater-Noster vendors of his _Domestic Medicine_, considered a likeness;
at all events, it was admitted into the portfolio of the Duke, with the
following acknowledgment written on the back: “Drawn by memory.”
1803.
About this time, in order to see human nature off her guard, I agreed
with a good-tempered friend of mine, one of Richard Wilson’s scholars, to
perambulate Bartholomew Fair, which we did in the evening, after taking
pretty good care to leave our watches at home. Our first visit was to a
show of wild beasts, where, upon paying an additional penny, we saw the
menagerie-feeder place his head within a lion’s mouth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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