Note 17 — William Hogarth: PAINTER, ENGRAVER, AND PHILOSOPHER. Essays on the Man, the Work, and the Time.

Tothall’s career was a most curious one. He was the son of an apothecary, was left an orphan, taken care of by an uncle. He ran away to sea; went to the West Indies, Newfoundland, and Honduras; was on one occasion captured by hostile Spaniards, and marched “up the country,” with no other clothing but a woollen cap and a brown waistcoat—a costume almost as primitive as that of an unhappy French governess taken prisoner by some followers of Schamyl, in a raid on the Russians, and driven before them to their mountain home, the poor lady having nothing on but a pair of blue satin corsets. Tothall had his picture painted in the brown waistcoat. Coming afterwards to England, he entered the service of a woollen draper, in Tavistock Court; who, after some time, told him he was a very honest fellow, and that as he the draper only sold cloth, Tothall might have half the shop to sell shalloons and trimmings. He lent him money to buy stock, and recommended him to his chapmen. By and bye, a relative of Tothall in the West Indies sent him a puncheon of rum as a present. The recipient was about to sell the alcohol for what it would fetch—perhaps to the landlord of the Bedford Head—when his master interposed. “I have no use for my cellar,” quoth this benevolent woollen draper. “Do you open the door to the street; tap your puncheon, and draw it off in twopennyworths.” Spirit licences were not yet known. Tothall followed the draper’s advice, speedily sold all his rum at a good profit; sent to the West Indies for more, and drove a merry trade in rum, shalloons, and trimmings, till it occurred to the woollen draper to inform him one morning that he intended to retire, that he might have all his stock at prime cost, and pay him as he could. Why are there no such woollen-drapers now-a-days? Between the shop and the cellar Tothall contrived to realize a very considerable fortune. All this time, this odd man had been assiduously collecting fossils, minerals, and shells, of which he had, at last, a handsome museum. He retired to Dover, and, true to his old adventurous habits, entered into large speculations, in what his biographer modestly calls the “smuggling branch of business.” But a “byeboat,” laden with horses, in which he was interested, having been lost between Flushing and Ostend, and some other speculations turning out disastrously, Tothall became in his later days somewhat straitened in his circumstances. Hogarth used frequently to visit him at a little village near Dover, whither he retired, and where he died four years after our painter. He left 1,500l. in cash, and his collection of shells, &c. sold for a handsome sum.