[4] “A convivial glass-grinder, then residing at No. 6, in Earl Street, Seven Dials, and who had, for upwards of fifty years, worn a green velvet cap,” is Smith’s note on his uncle. In his _Nollekens_ he says: “In the British Museum there is a brass medal of Vittore Pisano, a painter of Verona, executed by himself … his cap, which is an upright one with many folds, reminded me of that sort usually worn, when I was a boy, by the old glass-grinders of the Seven Dials.”
[5] Dr. William Hunter (1718-83) was elder brother of the celebrated Dr. John Hunter, to whom in 1768 he gave up his house in Jermyn Street, taking possession of the one he had built for himself in Windmill Street. In 1764 he had been appointed Physician Extraordinary to the Queen. He became a foundation member of the Royal Academy, as Professor of Anatomy. It is related that half an hour before his death he exclaimed: “Had I a pen, and were I able to write, I would describe how easy and pleasant a thing it is to die.”
[7] Strype’s edition of Stow, 1720, contains many such plates. John Kip, the engraver, was born in Amsterdam. He died at Westminster in 1722.
[8] In the miscellaneous pages of his _Nollekens_, Smith reports Elizabeth Carter, of “Epictetus” fame, as saying to a Covent Garden fruiterer, named Twigg (jocularly known as the “Twig of the Garden”): “I recollect, Sir, when Mr. Garrick acted, hackney chairs were then so numerous that they stood all round the Piazzas, down Southampton Street, and extended more than half-way along Maiden Lane, so much were they in requisition at that time.”
[9] Voltaire first came to London in May 1726, after his confinement in the Bastille, landing at Greenwich on a cloudless night. His first impressions of London are quoted by Mr. Archibald Ballantyne in his interesting _Voltaire’s Visit to England_. After being the guest of Bolingbroke, Voltaire returned to Paris in a state of indecision, but, again crossing the Channel, he settled at Wandsworth, where he found a friend and host in Sir Everard Falkener. He met Pope, and improved his English by attending the theatres. Chetwood says: “I furnished him every evening with the play of the night (at Drury Lane), which he took with him into the orchestra (his accustomed seat): in four or five months he not only conversed in elegant English, but wrote it with exact propriety.” Voltaire became a well-known figure in London, and wrote his _Henriade_ in his London lodging at the sign of the “White Peruke,” Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, next door to the Bedford Head.