368 
THOMAS BRITTON. 
the middle of the d7th century, at or near Higham Ferrars, in North- 
amptonshire, He served as an apprentice to a small-coal man in 
London, and set up in the same trade in Clerkenwell. It was his 
business to go about the streets of London with his sack on his back, 
calling “Small Coals but with this occupation, than which none can 
be meaner, he was a chemist, a collector of curious books, and, above 
all, a musical amateur. His taste for chemistry he imbibed from his 
neighbour. Dr. Garencieres ; and his ingenuity enabled him to contrive 
a moving laboratory, built by himself at a small expense, with which he 
performed many curious experiments. Of the nature of these we are 
not informed ; but as many of the books he had picked up, related 
to the Rosicrucian philosophy, it is not improbable that he might 
waste some of his small-coal in search after the grand secret. His 
daily rounds through a part of the town abounding in book-stalls, 
probably first made him a collector of curiosities in that way, and 
eventually introduced him to those acquaintances which so much 
distinguished him in his sphere of life. 
About the commencement of the eighteenth century, a passion pre- 
vailed among several persons of distinction, for collecting old books 
and MSS. ; and it was their Saturday’s amusement during winter, to 
ramble through various quarters of the town, in pursuit of those trea- 
sures. The earls of Oxford, Pembroke, Sunderland, and Winchelsea, 
and the duke of Devonshire, were of this party, and Mr. Bagford 
and other collectors assisted them in their researches. Britton appears 
to have been employed by them ; and as he was a very modest, decent, 
and unpresuming man, he was a sharer in their conversation, when 
they met after their morning’s walk at a bookseller’s shop in Ave-Ma- 
ria-lane. Britton used to pitch his coal-sack on a bulk at the door, 
and, drest in his blue frock, to step in and spend an hour with the corn- 
pany. 
But it was not only by a few bookish lords that his acquaintance 
was cultivated : his humble roof was frequented by assemblies of the 
flash and gay ; and this small-coal man has the singular honour of 
having set the first example in this country of that elegant and rational 
amusement, the musical concert. His fondness for music caused him 
to be knowm to many amateurs and performers, who formed themselves 
into a club at his house, where capital pieces were played by some of 
the first professional artists and other practitioners. Dr. Pepusch, 
and even Handel, have here displayed their powers on a harpsichord, 
and here Dubourg played his first solo on the violin. Britton’s house 
was an old mean building, of which the ground-floor was a repository 
for coals ; over this was the concert-room, long, low, and narrow, and 
ascended to by a pair of stairs from the outside, scarcely to be mounted 
without crawling. Yet some of the fairest ladies of the land were 
seen to trip up this awkward ascent without airs or hesitation. 
This musical meeting commenced in 1678, and it was aflirmed 
that it was absolutely gratuitous ; but in process of time, probably 
after Britton had taken a more convenient room in the next house, a 
subscription was made of ten shillings a year each, for which, how- 
ever, he provided musical instruments. He had also a very good 
collection of ancient and modern music by the best authors. Mr. 
