John Soane, Architect
My friend David Barbour suggested I see the home of John Soane, a 19th-century architect who lived in Lincoln’s Inn Fields.
Soane collected Roman antiquities partly as teaching aides for students when Rome was off limits for military reasons.
John Soane
Today, the house is a museum by act of Parliament.
It may be large but it is so crammed with architectural models and castings that it seems quite small.
Soane House, Detail
The highlight, for me at least, was found in Soane’s “Picture Room” where, in amongst the fancy Italian drawings were four original William Hogarth paintings, The Humours of an Election.
Hogarth was an 18th-century “pictorial satirist” and all around establishment nose tweaker.
Soane’s owning and displaying the paintings would have been a statement, for sure.
It made him a man of the people, or nearly so.
I was intrigued that Soane would collect and prominently display Hogarth’s works and asked a docent about the two, unaware if their lives crossed paths.
Without hesitation he offhandedly informed me that Soane was but eleven years old when Hogarth died in 1764.
I checked–he was right–very impressive.
Canvassing for Votes by William Hogarth
Hogarth’s paintings are full of irony and social commentary.
Pass the Scalpel
Where else in the world can you be in a museum book store and find titles such as, The History of Limb Amputations and Operations That Made History?
So it is at the Hunterian, a medical museum across the Fields from Soane’s which came highly recommended, though I am not sure why.
I found myself watching brain surgery and then staring at shelves full of pickled innards.
Lunch would have to wait.
I have to admit, the history of antiseptic (carbolic) was interesting as was the dismal history of 19th century hospitals where the mortality rate from infection was up to 75%.
When ill, you stayed home at all costs.
There was an exhibit of the 18th century removal of kidney stones with a quote from a barber-surgeon, “O Lord when thou takest me, take me not through the bladder.”
It couldn’t have been a pretty way to go.
And, another graphic explaining that “trepanning” the act of drilling a hole in the skull to treat brain injuries, is at least 12,000 years old.
Dr. Johnson
Dr. Johnson
Meandering through the streets of Holburn I nearly bumped into a statue of my favorite Brit, Dr. Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), the infamous “poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor, lexicographer and talker.”
Best Johnson quotes:
-Hell is paved with good intentions.
-The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.
-Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
-Second marriages are the triumph of hope over experience.
Thames-side
The river looks to be slightly more than a quarter mile wide at Victoria Embankment near where it makes a 90 degree turn to the east.
It’s full of excursion boats and barges, some rather large.
They are moored or docked on the north and south sides of the river leaving a rather small navigable channel which is bustling with traffic, including tug-drawn barges.
With such a small waterway, hydrodynamic ship interaction has to be a common problem.
MV Millenium Time
Last year a sightseeing vessel, the Millennium Time, struck a tug with barges in tow injuring nine people.
Keep a lively lookout, mate.