The Stranger and the Statesman by Nina Burleigh

Author:Nina Burleigh [Burleigh, Nina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, History, Nonfiction, Retail, Smithsonian
ISBN: 9781612308494
Publisher: New Word City, Inc.
Published: 2015-03-12T04:00:00+00:00

WHEN HE LEFT Frascati’s late in the evening, Smithson returned to one of a series of rented and furnished apartments he kept in Paris. He lived alone, although he had a devoted English servant, John Fitall, as well as a French servant named H. H. Sailly, who attended him when he was in Paris. His households were always well furnished, and he was never without the accoutrements of a gentleman for entertaining his friends. He was not robust enough to have engaged in the English and French nobility’s hunting pastime, but he did own a gun.

A little of the inner life of Smithson can be divined from the books he read and from his own writings. When he died, Smithson had among his possessions a small library consisting of dozens of books on a wide variety of subjects. Most of them were up-to-date scientific tomes, many written by the men he knew and corresponded with in France, Germany, and England. There were numerous travelogues, one containing descriptions of North America in general and Washington, D.C., in particular. About a third of his books were in French and dealt with French politics or prominent French figures. He also had a copy of a memoir by Louis Dutens, tutor to his half-brother Lord Percy. Dutens had decidedly unflattering opinions of the character of the Duke of Northumberland, which he had published after the duke’s death.

Most of Smithson’s books were not bound in leather but left in the printer’s original form, in what was considered provisional or temporary binding. Wealthy book collectors commonly sent their books to binders to have them bound in leather and sometimes engraved or embossed with a monogram or family crest. Presumably, Smithson did not collect his books as treasures to cherish and display but simply to read.

Smithson’s domestic life was quite orderly, and since he traveled always with a servant, it was a life of some ease, but he also took a personal interest in the management of his own household. He had two cookbooks in his collection, one of which, The Art of Cookery, was published in 1770 and might have belonged to his mother. Both books are thick and exhaustive, explaining how to make every dish known to the English eighteenth-century table, from wines, meats, “ragoos,” and anchovies, to rice, chestnut, and bread puddings, to eggs fried “round as balls,” and syllabubs, cheesecakes, biscuits, and jellies. On a blank page, in his own hand, there is a short list of what were perhaps his favorite dishes, and the page numbers on which they could be found: Scotch collops, beef collops, pulled fowl, pulled mackerel, and a beef and veal stew.

He lived quite well at home, if his kitchen and dining accoutrements are any indication of lifestyle. He owned a plated wire flower basket, plated coffeepots, pairs of wine coolers, glass vinegar cruets, silver and silver-plated candlesticks, vegetable dishes, plate warmers, mahogany cabinets, full china tea service. But he clearly valued his mineral collection - some 10,000

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