410 



Monthly Review of Literature, 



compacted hU words. He shook his head, nthe elder Angelcy as the son takes pains to 



designate him, and followed the profession 

 of a fencer till a very late period never 

 with the success of his father, for, by the 

 changes of fashion, Angelo's "occupation" 

 was in fact "gone." But with his father's 

 friends he was of course mixed up, and 

 especially with those whose professions and 

 merits bring them conspicuously before the 

 public such persons flock together, how- 

 ever different their actual pursuits publicity 

 is the common link and accordingly players 

 and playwrights, musicians, painters, quacks, 

 poets, and paper scribblers, come naturally 

 together. In society of this kind was 

 Henry Angelo born and bred, and with his 

 talent for mimickry and conviviality, he 

 maintained his position, and was long a 

 welcome companion at clubs and coffee- 

 houses, when clubs were very different from 

 the dry and unsocial things they are now 

 become. 



Angelo was himself sent to Eton, and of 

 being an Etonian he is not a little proud, 

 and forces it accordingly pretty often upon 

 his readers being as anxious to establish 

 his own gentility as his father's though 

 talking about such a thing is not perhaps 

 the best way of establishing the claim. But 

 no matter : gentility is after all a compara- 

 tive matter, and few people use the same 

 standard. After leaving Eton, Angelo was 

 sent to France to learn the language, and 

 complete the circle of his accomplishments, 

 being destined, it seems, for the army ; but 

 the fates were against him, and the next 

 best thing to wielding the weapons of war 

 in the field, was to teach the use of them, in 

 mimic battle, in a quiet apartment at home. 

 He had, however, the satisfaction of getting 

 commissions for three of his own sons in 

 after life. 



" After having mixed" says he (with a 

 very innocent sort of vanity) " for more 

 than half a century, in every class of so- 

 ciety, with princes and peers I say it with 

 reverence and respect with authors, com- 

 posers, musicians, poets, painters, players, 

 and having been a member of many clubs 

 and communities of highly talented wor- 

 thies of all professions, I may be presumed'* 

 (be allowed to presume does he mean ?) 

 " to enrol my name among those who are 

 said to have 'seen life.'' " 



Of course he has as good pretensions to 

 present his Reminiscences as Reynolds, and 

 Dibdin, and others, with which we have 

 recently been deluged ; and Angelo's vo- 

 lume is of the same stamp precisely- not 

 on the whole perhaps better, and certainly 

 not on the whole worse. The same con- 

 spicuous names are perpetually recurring in 

 all of them, and often the very same stories : 

 for instance, Wilkes and the Lord Mayor 

 and again the painter Jervas, and " poor 

 little Tit 



made a grimace, to intimate the angvy spirits, 

 which the women manifest. 



More than once the good la,dy expresses 

 her fears that in all this gossipping about 

 strange places and strange persons much 

 valuable time is lost ; and once, after de- 

 scribing the tombs at Sorrento, she apolo- 

 gizes adding, "I fear there is too. much 

 amusement and interest in these curious in- 

 vestigations ; at least in my own case, I 

 find my thoughts often occupied with them, 

 tp the exclusion of better things. Yet here, 

 too (and this is a most lucky recollection 

 it reconciles all) a lesson of instruction 

 Biay be received, where we are forcibly re- 

 minded that generation after generation 

 passess away. And where are now this 

 crowd of immortal spirits once inhabiting 

 this earth," &c. &c. 



Reminiscences of Henry Angelo ; 1828. 

 "JVhen swords constituted a part of fashion- 

 able dress, the wearers were liable occasion- 

 ally to be called upon to make use of them, 

 and some dexterity in handling the weapon 

 was of course indispensable. Fencing ac- 

 cordingly became a branch of a gentleman's 

 education, and the professors of a science) 

 to speak profanely, thus exclusively belong- 

 ing to gentlemen, by a very natural blunder 

 claimed themselves to be something ap- 

 proaching to gentlemen. The pretensions 

 of these persons supporting them as they 

 did on what was for the most part merely 

 ornamental a very subordinate part of the 

 more substantial structure were of course 

 generally most contemptible. Exceptions 

 there were, as there are among players and 

 fiddlers, and Angelo, the father of the Re- 

 miniscent, was one of them. He was the 

 son of a merchant of Leghorn, who gave 

 him a liberal education, and then left him, 

 we suppose, to carve his own fortunes. He 

 came into this country at a time when 

 foreigners were all in all none but foreign 

 artists and professors were patronized by the 

 royal family and their attendants and be- 

 ing well introduced, and possessing tact 

 enough to see the weakness of others, and 

 Vith confidence in his own adroitness, he set 

 about turning his accomplishments to a pro- 

 fitable purpose. He could ride and fence ; 

 he commenced teaching both, and made 

 himself acceptable to the rank and opulence 

 of the country by his skill, or his reputation 

 for skill, in horse flesh, and thus worked 

 himself into the acquirement of 2,000 

 a year, and sometimes, says his son, 4,000. 

 This success, coupled with some compa- 

 nionable qualities, not only admitted him 

 to the tables of the great, but enabled him 

 also to gather round his own professional 

 jnen of all sorts choice spirits and ban 

 vivants, with excellent appetites, but bare 

 boards and empty cellars at home. 



Henry Angelo, the author of this volume 

 jpf Reminiscences, which is soon, it seems, 



but Angelo has got more 

 t among the painters and caricaturists than 

 be -followed by. another, was the son of the players ; and, aided by the records of 



