Dr. Samuel Johnson also died this year [1784]; during the time the surgeon was engaged in opening his body, Sir John Hawkins, Knight, was in the adjoining room seeing to the weighing of the Doctor’s tea-pot, in the presence of a silversmith, whom Sir John, as an executor, had called upon to purchase it.[320]
“Mr. Townley presents his compliments to Mr. West, and requests that, when he sees Mr. Lock[321] at his house, he will be so good as to deliver to him the packet sent herewith, containing two prints from Homer’s head,--Mr. T. not knowing where Mr. Lock lives in town. The drawing representing the ‘Triumphs of Bacchus’ by Rubens,[322] in the eighth night’s sale at Greenwood’s, differing much from the bas-relief in the Borghese Villa, from which Caracci is supposed to have composed his picture of that subject in the Farnese Gallery,[323] Mr. T. has no intention to bid for it.
“PARK ST., WESTMINSTER, _21st Feb. 1787_.”
“MY DEAR SIR,--I return you many thanks for your kind information respecting the sale of the marbles at the late Lord Mendip’s house at Twickenham.[324] Had I been there and in spirits, the fine Oriental alabaster vase would not have been sold so cheap, and would probably have come to Park Street. I should also have probably purchased the medallion of an elderly man over a chimney-piece. I shall be glad to find out who bought it, and at what price. I should also have liked the ancient fountain. Pray, what was it sold for, and who bought it?
“I mean to take a farewell look at the _robaccia_ at Wilton, to verify my former notes on that collection.
“I flatter myself that many bad symptoms of my long disorder begin to abate, though it still, I feel, has strong hold upon me. I shall remain here about a fortnight longer, then return to Park Street.
“If you will give me the pleasure of a line from you, you may direct to me, No. 36, Milsom Street, Bath. I am, sir, ever most faithfully yours, etc.
“BATH, 36, MILSOM STREET, _11th June 1802_.”
In the month of June this year, the late Atkinson Bush,[325] then of Great Ormond Street, brought to my house Mr. Parton, vestry-clerk of St. Giles’s-in-the-Fields, with a view to obtain such particulars of that parish as I was acquainted with, he being then busily engaged in collecting materials for its history. In the course of conversation, I was astonished to find that it was his intention to have a plan of the parish engraved for his work, purporting to have been taken between the years twelve and thirteen hundred, a period more than two centuries and a half earlier than Aggas’s plan of London, and from which I could not help observing that in my opinion he had most glaringly borrowed. When he assured me he had not, my request was then to know his authority for producing such a plan, but for that question he was not provided with an answer, nor did he appear to be willing to be probed by further interrogatories. To my great astonishment, when Mr. Parton’s book made its appearance, I not only found this plan professing to be between the years twelve and thirteen hundred so minutely made out, with every man’s possession in the parish most distinctly attributed, but every plot of garden so neatly delineated, with the greatest variety of parterres, walks with cut borders, as if the gardener of William III. or Queen Anne had then been living. As Mr. Parton omitted to give any authority for the introduction of so wonderfully early a piece of ichnography, I applied to several leading men in the parish of St. Giles, but could gain no intelligence whatever respecting it: so much for this plan of St. Giles’s parish, as produced by Mr. Parton.[326]