the Hon. Mrs. Tollemache, in the character of 'Miranda,' in
_The Tempest_, in which 'Prospero' and 'Caliban' are introduced.

"One of these paintings for the Gallery was 'Puck,' or 'Robin
Goodfellow,' as it has been called, which, in point of expression and
animation, is unparalleled, and one of the happiest efforts of Sir
Joshua's pencil, though it has been said by some cold critics not to be
perfectly characteristic of the merry wanderer of Shakespeare.
'Macbeth,' with the witches and the caldron, was another, and for this
last Mr. Boydell paid him 1,000 guineas; but who is now the possessor of
it I know not.

"'Puck' was painted in 1789. Walpole depreciates it as 'an ugly little
imp (but with some character) sitting on a mushroom half as big as a
milestone.' Mr. Nicholls, of the British Institution, related to Mr.
Cotton that the alderman and his grandfather were with Sir Joshua when
painting the death of Cardinal Beaufort. Boydell was much taken with the
portrait of a naked child, and wished it could be brought into the
Shakspeare. Sir Joshua said it was painted from a little child he found
sitting on his steps in Leicester Square. Nicholls' grandfather then
said, 'Well, Mr. Alderman, it can very easily come into the Shakspeare
if Sir Joshua will kindly place him upon a mushroom, give him fawn's
ears, and make a Puck of him.' Sir Joshua liked the notion, and painted
the picture accordingly.

"The morning of the day on which Sir Joshua's 'Puck' was to be sold,
Lord Farnborough and Davies, the painter, breakfasted with Mr. Rogers,
and went to the sale together. When the picture was put up there was a
general clapping of hands, and yet it was knocked down to Mr. Rogers for
105 guineas. As he walked home from the sale, a man carried 'Puck'
before him, and so well was the picture known that more than one person,
as they were going along the street, called out, 'There it is!' At Mr.
Rogers' sale, in 1856, it was purchased by Earl Fitzwilliam for 980
guineas. The grown-up person of the sitter for 'Puck' was in Messrs.
Christie and Manson's room during the sale, and stood next to Lord
Fitzwilliam, who is also a survivor of the sitters to Sir Joshua. The
merry boy, whom Sir Joshua found upon his doorstep, subsequently became
a porter at Elliot's brewery, in Pimlico."

In 1804, Alderman Boydell applied through his friend, Sir John W.
Anderson, to the House of Commons, for leave to dispose of his paintings
and drawings by