Volume 1

The Farington diary / edited by James Greig.

  • Joseph Farington
Date:
[1922?-1928]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Farington diary / edited by James Greig. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    portrait with black chalk on the canvass, which employed him near 2 hours. He did not use colour to-day. This is his mode of beginning. [This portrait was to be a present from Lawrence to Mrs. Farington.] May 11.—Called this morning on Fuseli and showed him the first volume of the Thames, [with Farington’s drawings] and desired He would manage to have it decently treated in the Analytical review [Published by Johnson]. He said He would review it himself. May 26.—I went to Cheapside this morning, where I met J. Boydell and Stadler. The accts. of the Ruins were examined.—Combes acct., for the first volume is £364. He estimated it £100, a little under or over.—It appears the Volumes finished in the present manner will amount to abt. £2,100 each. June 3.—Went into Sir Wm. Chambers Box and heard Burke speak against Hastings* ; this is the 3d. day of his reply. Windham read for him.—Grey in the Box part of the time, no other managers came.— Francis sat at the end of the Managers Box.—Mr. Hastings was writing or reading the whole time, and appeared to pay no direct attention to Burke.—Markham was in the Councils Box, and He was much alluded to as being the agent on the Station where the abuse was committed.— But few Commons attended and only abt. 23 or 4 Lords.—The Galleries were well filled. Several relaxations in dress since the beginning of the trial. Grey came into the Managers Box in Boots and Spurs. Several peers came upon the throne behind the Chancellor without Robes, Lord Albemarle in boots. June 4.—Wyatt said a good deal to me abt. Mr. Beckfordf of Fonthill. He thinks him a man of extraordinary abilities, and of un¬ bounded expence. His income from Jamaica for the three last years has not been less than 120,000, a year. Wyatt believes that the greatest part of this enormous sum He expends. Beckford is easy to professional men, but of consummate pride to people in higher situations. * Warren Hastings, Governor-General of India, was tried by the Peers of Great Britain for, among other crimes and misdemeanours, accepting a present of £100,000 from the Nabob of Oude. The Trial, begun on February 13, 1788, lasted 145 days, spread over seven years and three months. He was acquitted on April 23, 1795- Among the Farington papers there is a ticket for the 32nd day of the Trial issued by Sir Peter Burrell, Deputy Great Chamberlain. Gainsborough (who painted portraits of both Burke and Sheridan) went to Westminster Hall on the first day of the trial, and caught a “ chill ” there which brought into activity the disease that ended his life six months later : on August 2nd. Sheridan was one of the mourners at the funeral and Burke was an executor. Charles Grey was second Earl Grey ; Francis was Sir Philip Francis, the reputed author of the “ Letters of Junius.” He was severely wounded in a duel with Warren Hastings. Markham, Archbishop of York, was a staunch friend of Hastings. t William Beckford (1760-1844), son of Alderman Beckford, and author of “ Vathek,” formed an important collection of paintings and entirely rebuilt Fonthill Abbey, Wiltshire, from designs by Wyatt, at a cost of £273,000. In order to ensure the privacy of his home he erected a wall 17 feet high, topped* with iron spikes all round his domain, which was about seven miles in extent. But heavy losses and bad management com¬ pelled him to sell everything and leave Fonthill. A catalogue was made, and 1,500 copies sold at a guinea each, but before the dispersal by auction was possible Mr. James Farquhar purchased the property and its valuable contents for £350,000. This transfer delayed the sale until the end of the following year, when Mr. Phillips, the auctioneer, acting on behalf of the new owner, sold the library, furniture, ornamental art, and paintings. It took forty-one days to effect a clearance, the total realised reaching £43,869 14s., of which sum £13,249 15s. was paid for the pictures. It should be said that Beckford, then in his sixty-third year, bought in some cf the best pictures, and they passed, with the choicer part of his library, as his daughter’s dowry on her marriage to the Duke of Hamilton. The Abbey, with its tower, 280ft. in height, was intended to represent an ideal of Beckford in his “ Vathek,” a work written, by the way, at the age of twenty, in French, at one sitting of three days and two nights. The Abbey fell into a state of ruins in Beckford’s lifetime. VOL. I. 4*