Page:Catalogue of a collection of early drawings and pictures of London, with some contemporary furniture (1920).djvu/61



Sir John Soane is also given, showing his additions and alterations made in 1825. That part of No. 10 containing the entrance from the roadway does not belong to the original structure, although they are linked together by passages. It forms one block with No. 11, and from the style of the pair they cannot have been built much before the middle of the eighteenth century, when they appear in views by J. Maurer, partly occupying the site of the building with gable and low tower, shown in our picture to the extreme right. On this subject the late Mr. C. Eyre Pascoe in his volume entitled "No. 10 Downing Street" was misinformed.

In studying these old pictures it must always be borne in mind that artists attached small importance to rigid accuracy; while fairly correct as regards the main buildings they omitted and arranged with the object of making an agreeable pattern. The trees in Nos. 89 and 96 differ completely, and in the latter the head of the ornamental canal, formed soon after the Restoration, has been introduced out of its place, quite near to the Cockpit. By it are deer, and it is covered with waterfowl. On the bank is a copy in bronze of the Borghese statue of a gladiator, executed at Rome by Hubert Le Sœur, removed by Queen Anne to Hampton Court, and by George IV to Windsor. On the left King Charles II is taking a walk accompanied by various dogs and a crowd of courtiers. Near the buildings a detachment of soldiers in scarlet uniforms marches to the right. The colour carried at their head agrees with that mentioned by F. Sandwith, Lancaster Herald 1676-89, as the ensign of the Lieutenant-Colonel of the Coldstream Guards "from 1670 or thereabout to 1683." According to his description the ensign was of "blue taffeta with a plain white cross, surmounted by a cross of crimson or a cross of St. George." Unfortunately on the scale of our engraving neither the monarch nor this ensign are distinctly visible. There is an illustration of the scene in Pennant's "London" from No. 96 or a replica, and a larger one by S. Mazell. Examples of them are in the Crace Collection, British Museum.

Hendrik Danckerts, or Dankerts, the artist, was born at the Hague about 1630, studied in Italy, and after his return was invited to England by Charles II, who employed him to paint pictures of royal palaces and sea-ports. Walpole speaks of his working in con