Georgian London: Into the Streets (52 page)

‘
Parliament of Monsters
’: William Wordsworth,
The Prelude
(London, 1850), Book 7, l. 714.

‘
One gentleman poked
’: Mrs Matthews,
Memoirs of Charles Matthews, Comedian: Volume 4
(London 1839), 133.

‘
apparently smiling on me
’: Giovanni Belzoni,
Narrative of the Operations and Recent Discoveries within the Pyramids, Temples, Tombs and Excavations in Egypt and Nubia
(London, 1822), 39.

‘
live decently
’: Johann Wilhelm von Archenholz, quoted by Gordon Mackenzie in
Marylebone: Great City North of Oxford Street
(London, 1972), 94.

‘
the next Entertainment
’: Bernard Mandeville, ‘Of Execution Day, the Journey to Tyburn, and a Word in Behalf of Anatomical Dissections’,
An Enquiry into the Causes of the Frequent Executions at Tyburn
(London, 1725), Chapter 3.

In 1718, John Price
: details of Price’s life and death are taken from Old Bailey Proceedings Online (
www.oldbaileyonline.org
, accessed 6 February 2012), trial of John Price, the quondam Hangman (April 1718), tl7180423-24.

In 1763, James Boswell watched
: details of Paul Lewis’s hanging are
taken from Old Bailey Proceedings Online, Ordinary of Newgate’s account (May 1763), OA17630504, and James Boswell,
London Journal 1762–1763
(London, 1952 edition), 245.

‘
incessant Assiduity
’: C. E. Wright, ‘Portrait of a Bibliophile VIII, Edward Harley, 2nd Earl of Oxford, 1689–1741’,
The Book Collector
, vol. 2 (1962), 170.

‘
in very great measure
’: A. S. Turberville,
A History of Welbeck Abbey and its Owners
(London, 1938), 384.

They lodged at
: Mackenzie,
Marylebone
, 180.

‘
Saxonic element
’: Robert DeMaria,
The Life of Samuel Johnson: A Critical Biography
(Oxford, 1993), 114.

‘
the handsomest man
’:
Extracts from the diary of Thomas Hearne
(London, 1869), entry dated 19 July 1734.

‘
many scarce and valuable
’: William Curtis,
A Catalogue of the British Medicinal, Culinary, and Agricultural Plants Cultivated in the London Botanic Garden
(London, 1783), ii.

‘
the finest piece
’: Milo Keynes, ‘The Portland Vase: Sir William Hamilton, Josiah Wedgwood and the Darwins’,
Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London
, vol. 52, no. 2 (July 1998), 237.

‘
I wish you may soon come
’: letter dated 5 February 1784, ibid., 239.

‘
a simple woman
’:
The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford, in 6 Volumes
, for 1785 (London, 1840), 6.

‘
we knick-knack men
’: Susan Jenkins,
Portrait of a Patron: The Patronage and Collecting of James Brydges, 1st Duke of Chandos (1674–1744)
(Aldershot, 2007), 128.

‘
was once standing … purposely for him
’: John Thomas Smith,
Nollekens and his Times: Volume I
(London, 1829), 107–8.

Billy grew up in the house
: the details of Billy’s life are taken from Henry Mayhew,
London Labour and the London Poor: Volume II
(London, 1851), 467–9.

‘
the Dunghill
’: Henry Whistler quoted in Trevor Burnard, ‘European Migration to Jamaica, 1655–1780’,
The William and Mary Quarterly
, ser. 3, vol. 53, no. 4 (October 1996), 786.

The average white
: ibid., 779.

‘
flamboyant eccentric
’: Lesley Lewis, ‘Elizabeth, Countess of
Home, and Her House in Portman Square’,
The Burlington Magazine
, vol. 109, no. 773 (August 1967), 450.

‘
known among all
’: William Beckford quoted in Leo Hollis,
The Stones of London: A History in Twelve Buildings
(London, 2010), 163.

‘
Are there any grounds
’: Donna T. Andrew (ed.),
London Debating Societies 1776–1799
(London, 1994), 154.

‘
Ought not the Word Obey
’: ibid., 291.

‘
She diffuses
’: quoted in David Brandon and Alan Brooke,
Marylebone and Tyburn Past
(London, 2007), 33.

‘
brilliant in diamonds
’: quoted in Hollis,
The Stones of London
, 179.

‘
the woman clothed
’:
Leeds Mercury
, 22 October 1803.

Yet many hundreds
: Jan Bondeson,
The Pig-Faced Lady of Manchester Square & Other Medical Marvels
(Stroud, 2006), 163.

‘
Do Ladies … affirmative
’: Andrew,
London Debating Societies
, 178.

By the late eighteenth century
: Anne Laurence (ed.),
Women and Their Money, 1700–1950: Essays on Women and Finance
(Oxford, 2008), 14.

John Elwes
: the details of his life are taken from
The Lives and Portraits of Curious and Odd Characters
(London, 1852), 52–63.

‘
the finest street
’: quoted in Hollis,
The Stones of London
, 27.

‘
the Best Drawings
’: Roy Porter and Aileen Ribeiro,
Richard and Maria Cosway: Regency Artists of Taste and Fashion
(Edinburgh, 1995), 20.

‘
Cosway, though a well-made little man
’: Smith,
Nollekens and his Times
, 325.

‘
the last time I called
’: Porter and Ribeiro,
Richard and Maria Cosway
, 30.

‘
at the Elder Christie
’s Picture-Sales’: Allan Cunningham,
The lives of the most eminent British painters, sculptors and architects
(London, 1833), 4.

‘
kept [a Florence hotel]
’:
A Brief Account of the Roads of Italy
(London, 1775), 23.

‘
kept a house in style
’: ‘Recollections of Richard Cosway’ in
Library of the Fine Arts or Repertory of Painting, Sculpture, Architecture and Engraving, Volume 4
(London, 1832), 186.

‘
they were not fashionable
’: William Hazlitt,
The Plain Speaker: Opinion on Books, Men and Things
(London, 1870), 131.

He was part of
: See Vincent Carretta (ed.),
Unchained Voices: An Anthology of Black Authors in the English-Speaking World of the Eighteenth Century
(Kentucky, 1996).

Richard Cosway died suddenly
: Smith,
Nollekens and his Times
, 325.

Dr Fountain was a friend of Handel
: this anecdote and the descriptions of Marylebone Gardens on the following pages are taken from the definitive account by Mollie Sands,
The Eighteenth-Century Pleasure Gardens of Marylebone, 1737–1777
(London, 1987).

‘
the turbulent
’: Robert Bell,
Description of the Conditions and Manners of the Peasantry of Ireland
(London, 1804), 27.

‘
The extensive waste
’: Charles Knight,
Passages from a Working Life
(London, 1873), 119.

‘
had then an evil reputation
’: ibid.

‘
took Water … Symphonies
’:
Daily Courant
, 19 July 1717.

‘
In fact, the whole river
’: Thomas Pennant,
An Account of London
(London, 1790), 281.

In Rotherhithe
: ibid., 56.

‘
the best mode … Maritime Labourers
’: Patrick Colquhoun,
A Treatise on the Commerce and Police of the River Thames
(London, 1797).

Industrial mills
: Roy Porter,
London:
A Social History
(London, 1994), 196.

‘
They were hospitable
’: Henry Mayhew,
London Labour and the London Poor: a cyclopaedia of the condition and earnings of those that will work, those that cannot work, and those that will not work: Volume III
(London, 1851), 328.

‘
The pleasantest way
’: Don Manuel Gonzales, Portuguese merchant, quoted by John Pinkerton in
A General Collection of the Best and Most Interesting Voyages and Travels in all Parts of the World: Volume 2
(London, 1808), 85.

‘
piteously … Monsoon Dock
’: quoted in M. Dorothy George,
London Life in the XVIIIth Century
(London, 1930), 66.

‘
On the river
’: Ned Ward,
The London Spy
, first published 1706 (London, 1955 edition), 177.

‘
broil’d … onions
’: ibid., 33.

‘
This being the day
’: A. G. Linney,
Peepshow of the Port of London
(London, 1929), 93.

‘
the Waters
’:
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 1683–1775
, vol. 26 (1708–9), 454–78.

‘
I remember well
’: Gordon Home,
Old London Bridge
(London, 1931), 254.

‘
all sorts of Hair … Diamonds
’: ibid., 317.

‘
bridge of wonders
’: James Howell,
Londonopolis
(London, 1657).

Of the 27 people
: Home,
Old London Bridge
, 277.

‘
My folly in undertaking … and drowned
’: ibid., 264.

‘
One day Rennie
’s bridge’: G. B. Besant,
London Bridge
(London, 1927), 10.

‘
that nautical hamlet
’: see Walter Thornbury, ‘The Thames Tunnel, Ratcliff Highway and Wapping’,
Old and New London: Volume 2
(London, 1878), 128–37.

‘
in use as often
’: Pennant,
An Account of London
, 282.

‘
Fishermen off Poplar
’: Linney,
Peepshow
, 80.

‘
being in a ship
’: James Boswell,
Journal of a Tour of the Hebrides
(London, 1807 edition), 126.

‘
persons who had not any
’: Richard Thornton,
History of London
(London, 1785), 142.

‘
pestered with women
’: Admiral John Mennes to Pepys, 19 April 1666, quoted in Suzanne J. Stark,
Female Tars: Women Aboard Ship in the Age of Sail
(London, 1998), 5.

‘
I consider it right
’: quoted in Stark,
Female Tars
, 20.

‘
in sight and hearing
’: ibid., 43.

‘
Of all the human race
’: quoted in Gregory Fremont-Barnes,
Nelson’s Sailors
(Oxford, 2005), 48.

‘
between the houses
’: Pennant,
An Account of London
, 427.

‘
best remembered atrocities
’: John Timbs,
Romance of London: Strange Stories, Scenes and Remarkable Persons of the Great Town, Volume 2
(London, 1865), 81.

‘
A long narrow street
’: Pennant,
An Account of London
, 281.

‘
spontaneous gangrene
’:
Morning Chronicle
, 23 January 1832.

‘
hideous … boat-houses
’: Edward Walford, ‘Lambeth: Waterloo Road’,
Old and New London: Volume 6
(London, 1878), 407.

‘
or, as it is called
’: Thomas Pennant,
An Account of London
(London, 1790), 55.

‘
What folly
’: quoted in ibid., 56.

‘
savage … designing to be present
’: as reported in
The Loyal Protestant and True Domestick Intelligence
, 7 April 1682.

‘
once more set upon
’: report collected in
The Gentleman’s Magazine
, vol. 86, part I (1816), 207.

‘
a match to be fought
’: Walter Thornbury, ‘Hockley-in-the-Hole’,
Old and New London: Volume 2
(London, 1878), 308.

‘
barbarous treatment
’: William Hogarth, ‘Remarks on Various Prints’,
Anecdotes of William Hogarth, Written by Himself
(London, 1833), 64.

‘
a fine horse
’: report collected in
The Gentleman’s Magazine
, 86 (I), 207.

‘
the great resort
’: Thomas Dobson, ‘London’,
Encyclopedia: Volume X
(Philadelphia, 1798), 263.

‘
balsamic … ferment in nature
’: James Stevens Curl, ‘Spas and Pleasure Gardens of London, from the Seventeenth to the Nineteenth Centuries’,
Garden History
, vol. 7, no. 2 (Summer 1979), 60.

‘
with Bowling greens … fireworks
’: ‘Waterloo Road’,
Survey of London, Volume 23. Lambeth: South Bank and Vauxhall
(London, 1951), 25–31.

‘
which had for that purpose
’: Pennant,
An Account of London
, 32–3.

‘
that substantial
’: ‘Vauxhall Gardens and Kennington Lane’,
Survey of London, 23
, 146–7.

‘
Pinery … free of Insects
’: as advertised in the
St James’s Chronicle
, 9 September 1775.