Page:Eight Friends of the Great - WP Courtney.djvu/41



Rh the increased expense of erecting a monument in St. Paul's, to provide the balance and Bacon was content to erect it on the faith of this promise. This settled the question. The statue was placed in St. Paul's, near one of the central pillars under the dome.

The total amount received was £957 13 o. The balance sheet begins on 16 April 1790 with "cash received from sundries £569 13 o." Through the influence of Reynolds a contribution of £100 was voted by the council of the Royal Academy on 25 June 1791 towards the erection of the monument but the vote was subsequently disallowed by George III. The actual subscriptions in 1791 included £42 through Samuel Whitbread, £5 5 o from lord Eliot, £100 from Cadell the publisher, £5 5 o from Barnard the bishop of Killaloe, £21 through sir W. Scott and ten guineas from Adey, a relative no doubt of Johnson's women-friends at Lichfield. A subscription of £5 5 o was paid by sir William Forbes through Boswell in 1792 & £10 10 o apiece came from Percy, the bishop of Dromore, and George Steevens. In 1796 Whitbread paid in a further sum of £50 & so did the Thrale girls. The sum of £5 5 o was contributed by Mrs. Burke in 1798 and Bacon himself gave four subscriptions, amounting to £35 15 o in 1799.

The payments to Bacon amounted in all to £927 13 o and £30 was swallowed up in expenses and in the deduction of two subscriptions of £2 2 o each, one twice entered, the other marked as returned. The whole story shows the difficulties and differences which may be connected with the erection of a memorial to the illustrious dead if the matter is not pushed to a conclusion at the moment of his death.

For 38 years Metcalfe and Reynolds were on terms of the closest friendship. They dined together at home and elsewhere and Metcalfe used to be one of the guests of sir Joshua,