not even know their titles: but he has made a discovery in my
way which you may be sure I believe, for it proves what I expected and
hinted in my 'Anecdotes of Painting,' that the use of oil colours was
known long before Van Eyck." Raspe, he went on to say, had discovered
a MS. of Theophilus, a German monk in the fourth century, who gave
receipts for preparing the colours, and had thereby convicted Vasari of
error. "Raspe is poor, and I shall try and get subscriptions to enable
him to print his work, which is sensible, clear, and unpretending."
Three months later it was, "Poor Raspe is arrested by his _tailor_. I
have sent him a little money, and he hopes to recover his liberty, but I
question whether he will be able to struggle on here." His "Essay on the
Origin of Oil Painting" was actually published through Walpole's good
service in April 1781. He seems to have had plans of going to America
and of excavating antiquities in Egypt, where he might have done good
service, but the bad name that he had earned dogged him to London. The
Royal Society struck him off its rolls, and in revenge he is said to
have threatened to publish a travesty of their transactions. He was
doubtless often hard put to it for a living, but the variety of his
attainments served him in good stead. He possessed or gained some
reputation as a mining expert, and making his way down into Cornwall,
he seems for some years subsequent to 1782 to have been assay-master and
storekeeper of some mines at Dolcoath. While still at Dolcoath, it is
very probable that he put together the little pamphlet which appeared
in London at the close of 1785, with the title "Baron Munchausen's
Narrative of his Marvellous Travels and Campaigns in Russia," and having
given his _jeu d'esprit_ to the world, and possibly earned a few guineas
by it, it is not likely that he gave much further thought to the matter.
In the course of 1785 or 1786, he entered upon a task of much greater
magnitude and immediate importance, namely, a descriptive catalogue of
the Collection of Pastes and Impressions from Ancient and Modern Gems,
formed by James Tassie, the eminent connoisseur. Tassie engaged Raspe
in 1785 to take charge of his cabinets, and to commence describing
their contents: he can hardly have been ignorant of his employe's
delinquencies in the past, but he probably estimated that mere casts of
gems would not offer sufficient temptation to a man of Raspe's eclectic
tastes to make the