_Auctions_ and _Sales_ I constantly attend,
But chuse my pictures by a _skilful Friend_,
Originals and copies much the same,
The picture's value is the _painter's name_.[10]
Of Sculpture he says--
In spite of _Addison_ and ancient _Rome_,
Sir _Cloudesly Shovel's_ is my fav'rite tomb.[11]
How oft have I with admiration stood,
To view some City-magistrate in wood?
I gaze with pleasure on a Lord May'r's head
Cast with propriety in gilded lead,--
the allusion being obviously to Cheere's manufactory of such popular
garden decorations at Hyde Park Corner.
Notes:
[10]: See _post_, "M. Ronquet on the Arts," p. 51.
[11]: "Sir _Cloudesly Shovel's_ Monument has very often given me great
Offence: Instead of the brave rough English Admiral, which was the
distinguishing Character of that plain, gallant Man, he is represented
on his Tomb [in Westminster Abbey] by the Figure of a Beau, dressed in a
long Perriwig, and reposing himself upon Velvet Cushions under a Canopy
of State" (_Spectator_, March 30, 1711).
In Coins and Medals, true to his instinct for liking the worst the best,
he prefers the modern to the antique. In Music, with Hogarth's Rake two
years later, he is all for that "Dagon of the nobility and gentry,"
imported song:--
Without _Italian_, or without an ear,
To _Bononcini's_ musick I adhere;--
though he confesses to a partiality for the bagpipe on the ground that
your true Briton "loves a grumbling noise," and he favours organs and
the popular oratorios.
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