Eccentric Lord Coleraine
J. T. Smith, in his Life of Nollekens, has left these sensible remarks upon a class of persons whose lives present many instances of right feeling and upright conduct, although mixed up with less estimable qualities. “I believe,” says Mr. Smith, “every age produces at least one eccentric in every city, town, and village. Be this as it may, go where you will, you will find some half-witted fellow, under the nickname either of Dolly, Silly Billy, or Foolish Sam, who is generally the butt and sport of his neighbours, and from whom, simple as he may sometimes be, a sensible answer is expected to an unthinking question: like the common children, who will, to our annoyance, inquire of our neighbour’s parrot what it is o’clock. In some such light Nollekens was often held by his brother artists; and I once heard Fuseli cry out, when on the opposite side of the street: ‘Nollekens, Nollekens, why do you walk in the sun? If you have no love for your few brains, you should not melt your coat buttons!’”35
The eccentric character is, likewise, sure to be found in London, where there are several curious varieties of this class of persons to be met with. In our walks, perchance, we may meet a man who always casts his eye towards the ground, as if he were ashamed of looking any one in the face; and who pretends, when accosted, to be near-sighted, so that he does not know even the friend that had served him. This short-sightedness is very common. Indeed, he draws his hat across his forehead to act as an eye-shade, so that his sallow visage cannot be immediately recognised, which makes him look as if he had done something wrong; whilst his coat is according to the true Addison cut, with square pockets large enough to carry the folio Ship of Fools. No man was more gazed at than Lord Coleraine, who lived near the New Queen’s Head and Artichoke, in Marylebone Fields, and who never met Nollekens without saluting him. “Well, Nollekens, my old boy, how goes it? You never sent me the bust of the Prince.” To which Nollekens replied: “You know you said you would call for it one of these days, and give me the money, and take it away in a hackney-coach.” “I remember,” says J. T. Smith, “seeing his lordship, after he had purchased a book entitled the American Buccaneers, sit down close to the shop from which he had bought it, in the open street, in St. Giles’s, to read it. I also once heard Lord Coleraine, as I was passing the wall at the end of the Portland Road, where an old apple-woman, with whom his lordship held frequent conversations, was packing up her fruit, ask her the following question: ‘What are you about, mother?’ ‘Why, my lord, I am going home to my tea; if your lordship wants any information I shall come again presently.’ ‘Oh! don’t balk trade. Leave your things on the table as they are: I will mind your shop till you come back;’ so saying, he seated himself in the old woman’s wooden chair, in which he had often sat before whilst chatting with her. Being determined to witness the result, after strolling about till the return of the old lady, I heard his lordship declare the amount of his receipts by saying: ‘Well, mother, I have taken threepence-halfpenny for you. Did your daughter Nancy drink tea with you?’”