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LIFE AND ANECDOTES OF NOLLEKENS, THE SCULPTOR.*

NOLLEKENS, the celebrated sculptor, was the son of an indifferent painter (originally from Antwerp). In early life he obtained several premiums for medals, from the Society of Arts. In 1737 he went to Rome, where he applied himself to his art.

Whilst at Rome, Nollekens was recog nized by Mr. Garrick, with the familiar exclamation of "What! let me look at you! are you the little fellow to whom we gave the prizes at the Society of Arts?"

"Yes, Sir," being the answer, Mr. Garrick invited him to breakfast the next morning, and kindly sat to him for his bust, for which he paid him twelve guineas. Sterne also sat to him when at Rome, and that bust brought him into great notice. Barry, the historical painter, who was extremely intimate with Nollekens at Rome, took the liberty one night, when they were about to leave the English coffee-house, to exchange hats with him; Barry's was edged with lace, and Nollekens's was a very shabby plain one. Upon his returning the hat the next morning, he was requested by Nollekens to let him know why he left him his goldlaced hat. Why, to tell you the truth, my dear Joey," answered Barry, "I fully expected assassination last night: and I was to have been known by my laced hat." This villanous transaction, which might have proved fatal to Nollekens, he often related, and generally added-“It is what the Old Bailey people would call a true bill against Jem."

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The patrons of Nollekens, being characters professing taste and possessing wealth, employed him as a very shrewd collector of antique fragments; some of which he bought on his own account; and, after he had dexterously restored them with heads and limbs, he stained them with tobaccowater, and sold them, sometimes by way of favour, for enormous sums.

The following is an anecdote concerning some of these fragments, which Nollekens himself related:-Jenkins, a notorious dealer in antiques and old pictures, who resided at Rome for that purpose, had been commissioned by Mr. Locke, of Norbury Park, to send him any piece of sculpture which he thought might suit him, at a price not exceeding one hundred guineas; but Mr. Locke, immediately upon the receipt of a head of Minerva, which he did not like, sent it back again, paying the carriage and all other expenses. Nollekens, who was then also a resident in Rome, having purchased a trunk of a Minerva for fifty pounds, found,

"Nollekens, and his Times: comprehending a Life of that celebrated Sculptor, &c. &c. By J.T.

Smith."

upon the return of this head, that its propor tion and character accorded with his torso. This discovery induced him to accept an offer made by Jenkins of the head itself; and two hundred and twenty guineas to share the profits. After Nollekens had made it up into a figure, or, what is called by the venders of botched antiques, "restored it," which he did at the expense of about twenty guineas more for stone and labour, it proved a most fortunate hit, for they sold it for the enormous sum of one thousand guineas! and it is now at Newby, in Yorkshire. Nollekens, who wished upon all occasions to save every shilling he possibly could, was successful in another manoeuvre. He actually succeeded as a smuggler of silk stockings, gloves, and lace; his contrivance was truly ingenious, and perhaps it was the first time that the custom-house officers had ever been so taken in. His method was this: all his plaster busts being hollow, he stuffed them full of the above articles, and then spread an outside coating of plaster at the back across the shoulders of each, so that the busts appeared like solid casts. His mode of living when at Rome was most filthy: he had an old woman, who, as he stated, "did for him," and she was so good a cook, that she would often give him a dish for dinner, which cost him no more than threepence. "Nearly opposite to my lodgings," he said, "there lived a porkbutcher, who put out at his door at the end of the week a plateful of what he called cuttings, bits of skin, bits of gristle, and bits of fat, which he sold for twopence, and my old lady dished them up with a little pepper and a little salt; and with a slice of bread, and sometimes a bit of vegetable, I made a very nice dinner." Whenever good dinners were mentioned, he was sure to say-“ Ay, I never tasted a better dish than my Roman cuttings." By this time, the name of Nollekens was pretty well known on the Stock Exchange of London, as a holder to a considerable amount.

In 1771, enriched by such rascally pursuits, he was elected an associate, and in the following year a royal academician; and his practice in London increased to the utmost extent. He then married a Miss Welch (daughter of Justice Welch, and the Pekuah in Rasselas); an admirable match, if penuriousness and selfish wretchedness could make a match admirable. He was not surpassed by Elwes himself; and of her like ness, praised be the sex! we never read of a sufficiently miserly prototype.

It is surprising to consider how many persons of good sense and high talent visited Mrs. Nollekens, though it probably was principally owing to the good character her father and sister held in society. Dr. Johnson and Miss Williams were often there, and they generally arrived in a hackney-coach, on ac

count of Miss Williams's blindness. When the doctor sat to Mr. Nollekens for his bust, he was very much displeased at the manner in which the head had been loaded with hair, which the sculptor had insisted upon, as it made him look more like an ancient poet. The sittings were not very favourable, which rather vexed the artist, who, upon opening the street-door, a vulgarity he was addicted to, peevishly whined-" Now, doctor, you did say you would give my busto half an hour before dinner, and the dinner has been waiting this long time." To which the doctor's reply was-" Bow-wow-wow!" The bust is a wonderfully fine one, and very like, but certainly the sort of hair is objectionable; having been modelled from the flowing locks of a sturdy Irish beggar, originally a street pavior, who, after he had sat an hour, refused to take a shilling, stating, that he could have made more by begging! Doctor Johnson also considered this bust like him; but, whilst he acknowledged the sculptor's ability in his art, he could not avoid observing to his friend Boswell, when they were looking at it in Nollekens's studio-" It is amazing what ignorance of certain points one sometimes finds in men of eminence:" though, from want of knowing the sculptor, a visitor, when viewing his studio, was heard to say-" What a mind the man must have from whom all these emanated!"

His singular and parsimonious habits were most observable in his domestic life. Coals were articles of great consideration with Mr. Nollekens; and these he so rigidly economised, that they were always sent early, before his men came to work, in order that he might have leisure time for counting the sacks, and disposing of the large coals in what was originally designed by the builder of his house for a wine-cellar, so that he might lock them up for parlour use. Candles were never lighted at the commencement of the evening; and whenever they heard a knock at the door, they would wait until they heard a second rap, lest the first should have been a runaway, and their candle wasted. Mr. and Mrs. Nollekens used a flat candlestick when there was any thing to be done; and I have been assured that a pair of moulds, by being well nursed, and put out when company went away, once lasted them a whole year!

Nollekens was very ignorant of the common forms of respect. During the time that he was taking the bust of his late majesty, George III., he gave an instance of this. A modeller keeps his clay moist by spirting water over it, and this he does with his mouth. Nollekens, in the presence of the king, did this, and that without apprising his majesty of what he was about doing. This coarse conduct was very different to Mr. Bacon, the sculptor, who, before he attended for the purpose of taking the king's model,

provided himself with a silver syringe, with which he could easily throw the water into the recesses of the model, without making so disagreeable a noise in the royal presence.

Nollekens, with respect to this bust of his majesty, affirmed, that he had more trouble and anxiety with the drapery of it, than with any of his other productions. He assured Mr. Joseph, the associate of the Royal Academy, that after throwing the cloth once or twice every day for nearly a fortnight, it came excellently well, by mere chance, from the following circumstance:Just as he was about to make another trial with his drapery, his servant came to him for money for butter; he threw the cloth carelessly over the shoulders of his lay-man, in order to give her the money, when he was forcibly struck with the beautiful manner in which the folds had fallen; and he hastily exclaimed, pushing her away—“ Go, go, get the butter." And he has frequently been heard to say, that that drapery was by far the best he ever cast for a busto.

The following is a description of Nollekens's person. His figure was short, his head big, and it appeared much increased by a large crowned hat, of which kind he was very fond; but his dress-hat, which he always sported when he went to court, or to the Academy dinners, was nearly flat, and he brought it from Rome. His neck was short, his shoulders narrow, his body too large, particularly in the front lower part, which resembled that of Tenducci, and many other falsetto-singers; he was bow-legged and hook-nosed-indeed, his leg was somewhat like his nose, which resembled the rudder of an Antwerp packet-boat; his hips were rather thin, but between his brows there was great evidence of study. He was very fond of his rules, and continued to wear them long after they had become unfashionable; indeed, until they were worn out. A drab was his favourite colour, and his suit was generally made from the same piece; though now and then he would treat himself with a striped Manchester waistcoat, of one of which he was so fond, that he sat to Abbot for his portrait in it.

When Doctor Burney lived in St. Martin'sstreet, he frequently indulged his friends in small recherché musical parties; at one of which, whilst Piozzi and Signora Cori (le Minitrici) were singing a duettino enchantingly, accompanied by her husband Dominica, on the violin (the father of Madame Dussek), Nollekens happened to drop in by accident; and after the bravos, bravissimos, and all the expressive ogles of admiration had diminished, Nollekens called out-" Doctor Burney, I don't like that kind of music; I heard a great deal of it in Italy, but I like the Scotch and English music better."Doctor Burney, with some degree of irritation, stepping forward, replied-" Suppose a

person to say "Well, I have been to Rome, saw the Apollo, and many fine works, but for all that, give me a good barber's block." "Ay, that would be talking like a fool," rejoined the sculptor.

Nollekens was strangely insensible to the beauties of the immortal Shakspeare. He never visited the theatre when his plays were performed, though he was actively alive to a pantomime, and frequently spake of the capital and curious tricks in Harlequin Sorcerer. He also recollected with pleasure Mr. Rich's wonderful and singular power of scratching his ear with his foot like a dog: and the street-exhibition of Punch and his wife delighted him beyond expression.

Miss Welch brought down upon herself his eternal hatred, by kindly venturing to improve him in his spelling. She had a little book in which she put down the sculptor's way of spelling words. The following instances may serve as specimens: "yousual, scenceble, obligin, modle, wery, gentilman, promist, sarvices, desier, Inglish, perscription, hardently, jenerly, moust, devower, Jellis, Retier, sarved, themselfs, could for cold, clargeman, facis, cupple, foure, sun for son, boath sexis, daly, horsis, ladie, cheif, talkin, tould, shee, sarch, paing, ould mades, racis, yoummer in his face, palas, oke, lemman, are-bolloon, sammon, chimisters for chemists, yoke for yolk, grownd," &c. &c.

Before Nollekens became the reader of the daily papers, he frequently amused himself by recording on the covers of letters what he considered curious daily events. The following memoranda were copied from the back of one of his charcoal sketches, and will at once convince the reader of the estimation in which he sometimes held his leisure moments :-" 1803, May 23d. Lady Newborough brought forth a second sun. Sweep the parlour and kitchen chimneys. Clean the cestern in the kitchen. Lent Northcot the cable rope and the piece of hoke tre.-1805, Dec. 30th. Mrs. Whiteford brought to bed of a sun.-1806, Feb. 8th. Died Mrs. Peck, in Marlbrough Street. April 14th. The Duke of Gloster came to my house.-June 28th. The Duke and Duches of York came to my house.-July 7th. His R. H. the Duke of Cumberland made me a visit.-July 19th. Lord Wellesley began to set.-August 4th. Sent to Lord Yarborough the head of Sir Isack Nuton.-1808. December 16th. Sent Mr. Bignell, by order of Lady Jersey, Lord Jersey's head in a case. 1809, Jan. 12th. Cast-off Mr. Pitt for Mr. Wilberforce, by order of Lord Muncaster. April 11th. The Dukes of York, Cumberland, and Cambridge, made me a visit." Mr. Nollekens, when modelling the statue of Pitt, for the Senate House, Cambridge, threw his drapery over his man Dodimy, who, after standing in an immovable position for the unconscionable space of two hours, had per

mission to come down and rest himself; but the poor fellow found himself so stiff, that he could not move. "What!" exclaimed Nollekens, "can't you move yourself? then you had better stop a bit." In eating, nothing could exceed the meanness of Mr. and Mrs. Nollekens; for whenever they had a present of a leveret, which they always called a hare, they contrived, by splitting it, to make it last for two dinners for four persons. The one half was roasted, and the other jugged.

This couple were perfectly congenial in point of meanness. It was the custom of Mrs. Nollekens, when purchasing tea and sugar at her grocer's, just as she was quitting the counter, to request either a clove or a bit of cinnamon, to take some unpleasant taste out of her mouth; but she never was seen to apply it to the part so affected; so that, with Nollekens's nutmegs, which he pocketed from the table at the Academy dinners, they contrived to accumulate a little stock of spices, without any expense whatever. He for many years made one at the table of what was at this time called the Royal Academy Club; and so strongly was he bent upon saving all he could privately conceal, that he did not mind paying two guineas a-year for his admission ticket, in order to indulge himself with a few nutmegs, which he contrived to pocket privately; for as red-wine negus was the principal beverage, nutmegs were used. Now it generally happened, if another bowl was wanted, that the nutmegs were missing. Nollekens, who had frequently been seen to pocket them, was one day requested by Rossi, the sculptor, to see if they had not fallen under the table; upon which Nollekens actually went crawling beneath upon his hands and knees, pretending to look for them, though at that very time they were in his waistcoat pocket. He was so old a stager at this monopoly of nutmegs, that he would sometimes engage the maker of the negus in conversation, looking at him full in the face, whilst he slily, and unobserved as he thought, conveyed away the spice: like the fellow who is stealing the bank note from the blind man in that admirable print of the Royal Cock-pit, by Hogarth.-I believe it is generally considered, that those who are miserly in their own houses, almost to a state of starvation, when they visit their friends or dine in public, but particularly when they are travelling, and know that they will be called upon with a pretty long billlay in what they call a good stock of every thing, or of all the good things the landlord thinks proper to spread before them. This was certainly the case with Nollekens when he visited Harrowgate, in order to take the water for his diseased mouth. He informed his wife that he took three half-pints of water at a time, and as he knew the bills would be

to go on with his busto? The king, however, with his usual indulgence to persons as ignorant as Nollekens was of the common marks of respect, observed-" So Nollekens, where were you yesterday?"

Nollekens." Why, as it was a Saint's day, I thought you would not have me; so I went to see the beasts fed in the Tower." The King." Why did you not go to Duke-street?"

Nollekens." Well, I went to the Tower; and do you know, they have got two such lions there! and the biggest did roar so; my heart! how he did roar !" And then he mimicked the roaring of the lion, so loud and so close to the king's ear, that his majesty moved to a considerable distance to escape the imitation, without saying, like Bottom in the comedy

pretty large at the inn, he was determined to indulge in the good things of this world; so that one day he managed to get through "a nice roast chicken, with two nice tarts and some nice jellies." Another day he took nearly two pounds of venison, the fat of which was at least "two inches thick ;" at breakfast he always managed two muffins, and got through a plate of toast; and he took good care to put a French roll in his pocket, for fear he should find himself hungry when he was walking on the common by himself. -Our sculptor would sometimes amuse himself on a summer's evening, by standing with his arms behind him at the yard-gate, which opened into Titchfieldstreet. During one of these indulgences, as a lady was passing, most elegantly dressed, attended by a strapping footman in silver-laced livery, with a tall giltheaded cane, she nodded to him, and smilingly asked him if he did not know her. On his reply that he did not recollect her"What, Sir!" exclaimed she-" do you forget Miss Coleman, who brought a letter SIR WALTER SCOTT'S RESIDENCE. to you from Charles Townly to show legs with your Venus? why I have been with you twenty times in that little room, to stand for your Venus!" "Oh, lauk-a-daisy! so you have," answered Nollekens ;-" why what a fine woman you're grown! come, walk in, and I'll show you your figure; I have done

it in marble."

"When I was modelling George the Third's busto," observed Nollekens, "I was commanded to attend at Buckingham-house at seven o'clock in the morning, for that was the time his majesty shaved. After he had shaved himself, and before he had put on his stock, I modelled my busto." I sot him down, to be even with myself, and the king seeing me go about him, and about him, said to me-"What do you want?" I said"I want to measure your nose. The queen tells me I have made my nose too broad.""Measure it then," said the king." Ay, my good friend," observed Dalton, who had been intimate with Nollekens during their stay at Rome--" I have heard it often mentioned in the library; and it has also been affirmed, that you pricked the king's nose with your said callipers."

The following anecdote is current, but on what authority it rests, I know not: allowing the story to be true, it could come only from an attendant on the king-certainly not from his majesty, nor from Nollekens; however, I could name half-a-dozen persons who continue to relate it.

The story runs thus:-When Mr. Nollekens attended the king the following day, to receive his majesty's commands as to the time for the next sitting, as he approached the royal presence, instead of making an apology on the Saint's account, he merely wished to know when he might be allowed

"Let him roar again, let him roar again."

"STEPPING westward," as Wordsworth narrow, low, arched room, which runs quite says, from the hall, you find yourself in a across the house, having a blazoned window

again at either extremity, and filled all over with smaller pieces of armour and weapons, such as swords, firclocks, spears, arrows, darts, daggers, &c. &c. &c. Here are the pieces, esteemed most precious by reason of their histories respectively. I saw, among the rest, Rob Roy's gun, with his initials, R. M.C. i. e. Robert Macgregor Campbell, round the touch-house; the blunderbuss of Hofer, a present to Sir Walter from his friend Sir Humphrey Davy; a most magnificent sword, as magnificently mounted, the gift of Charles the First to the great Montrose, and having the arms of Prince Henry worked on the hilt; the hunting bottle of bonnie King Jamie; Buonaparte's pistols (found in his carriage at Waterloo, I believe), cum multis aliis. I should have mentioned that stags' horns and bulls' horns (the petrified relics of the old mountain monster, I mean), and so forth, are suspended in great abundance above all the doorways of these armories; and that in one corner, a dark one as it ought to be, there is a complete assortiment of the old Scottish instruments of torture, not forgetting the very thumbikins under which Cardinal Carstairs did not flinch, and the more terrific iron crown of Wisheart the Martyr, being a sort of barred head-piece, screwed on the victim at the stake, to prevent him from crying aloud in his agony.

Beyond the smaller, or rather, I should say, the narrower armoury, lies the dining parlour proper, however; and though there is nothing Udolphoish here, yet I can well

believe that when lighted up, and the curtains drawn at night, the place may give no bad notion of the private snuggery of some lofty lord abbot of the time of the Canterbury Tales. The room is a very handsome one, with a low and very richly carved roof of dark oak again; a huge projecting bow window, and the dais elevated more majorum; the ornaments of the roof, niches for lamps, &c. &c.; in short, all the minor details are, I believe, fac similies after Melrose.

A narrow passage leads to a charming breakfast-room, which looks to the Tweed on one side, and towards Yarrow and Ettricke, famed in song, on the other; a cheerful room, fitted up with novels, romances, and poetry, I could perceive, at one end; and the other walls almost entirely covered with a most valuable and beautiful collection of water-colour drawings, chiefly by Turner, and Thomson of Duddingstone, the designs, in short, for the magnificent work, entitled "Provincial Antiquities of Scotland."

Returning towards the armoury, you have, on one side of a most religious-looking corridor, a small greenhouse, with a fountain playing before it the very fountain that in days of yore graced the cross of Edinburgh, and used to flow with claret at the coronation of the Stuarts-a pretty design, and a standing monument of the barbarity of modern innovation. From the small armoury you pass, as I said before, into the drawing. room, a large, lofty, and splendid salon, with antique ebony furniture and crimson silk hangings, cabinets, china, and mirrors quantum suff. From this you pass into the largest of all the apartments, the library, which, I must say, is really a noble room. It is an oblong of some fifty feet by thirty, with a projection in the centre, opposite the fire-place, terminating in a grand bow window, fitted up with books also, and, in fact, constituting a sort of chapel to the church. The roof is of carved oak again-a very rich pattern-I believe chiefly à la Roslin, and the book-cases, which are also of richly carved oak, reach high up the walls all round. The collection amounts, in this room, to some fifteen or twenty thousand volumes, arranged according to their subjects: British history and antiquities filling the whole of the chief wall; English poetry and drama, classics and miscellanies, one end; foreign literature, chiefly French and German, the other. The cases on the side opposite the fire are wired and locked, as containing articles very precious and very portable. One consists entirely of books and MSS. relating to the insurrection of 1715 and 1745; and another (within the recess of the bow window), of treatises de re magica, both of these being (I am told, and can well believe), in their several ways, collections of the rarest curiosity. My cicerone pointed out, in one corner, a magnificent set of Mountfaucon, ten volumes folio, bound in

the richest manner in scarlet, and stamped with the royal arms, the gift of his present majesty. There are few living authors of whose works presentation copies are not to be found here. My friend showed me inscriptions of that sort in, I believe, every European dialect extant. The books are all in prime condition, and bindings that would satisfy Mr. Dibdin. The only picture is Sir Walter's eldest son, in hussar uniform, and holding his horse, by Allan of Edinburgh, a noble portrait, over the fire-place; and the only bust is that of Shakspeare, from the Avon monument, in a small niche in the centre of the east side. On a rich stand of porphyry, in one corner, reposes a tall silver urn filled with bones from the Piræus, and bearing the inscription-"Given by George Gordon, Lord Byron, to Sir Walter Scott, Bart." It contained the letter which accompanied it till lately: it has disappeared; no one guesses who took it, but whoever he was, as my guide observed, he must have been a thief for thieving's sake truly, as he durst no more exhibit his autograph than tip himself a bare bodkin. Sad, infamous tourist, indeed! Although I saw abundance of comfortable-looking desks and arm chairs, yet this room seemed rather too large and fine for work, and I found accordingly, after passing a double pair of doors, that there was a sanctum within and beyond this library. And here, you may believe, was not to me the least interesting, though by no means the most splendid part of the suite.

The lion's own den proper, then, is a room of about five-and-twenty feet square by twenty feet high, containing of what is properly called furniture nothing but a small writing-table in the centre, a plain arm-chair covered with black leather-a very comforta ble one though, for I tried it-and a single chair besides, plain symptoms that this is no place for company. On either side of the fire-place there are shelves filled with duodecimos and books of reference, chiefly, of course, folios; but except these there are no books save the contents of a light gallery which runs round three sides of the room, and is reached by a hanging stair of carved oak in one corner. You have been both at the Elisée Bourbon and Malmaison, and remember the library at one or other of those places, I forget which; this gallery is much in the same style. There are only two portraits, an original of the beautiful and melancholy head of Claverhouse, and a small full length of Rob Roy. Various little antique cabinets stand round about, each having a bust on it: Stothard's Canterbury Pilgrims are on the mantelpiece; and in one corner I saw a collection of really useful weapons, those of the forest-craft, to wit-axes and bills and so forth of every calibre. There is only one window pierced in a very thick wall, so that the place is rather sombre; the

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