called from a number of copies on oil-paper by Vertue from the drawings of Holbein in Queen Catherine's Closet at Kensington, were two of those curiosities' which represent the Don Saltero, or Madame Tussaud, side of Strawberry, viz., a tortoise-shell comb studded with silver hearts and roses which was said to have belonged to Mary, Queen of Scots, and (later) the red hat of Cardinal Wolsey. The pedigree of the hat, it must, however, be admitted, was unimpeachable. It had been found in the great wardrobe by Bishop Burnet when Clerk of the Closet. From him it passed to his son the Judge (author of that curious squib on Harley known as the History of Robert Powel the Puppet-Show-Man), and thence to the Countess Dowager of Albemarle, who gave it to Walpole. A carpet in this room was worked by Mrs. Clive, who seems to have been a most industrious decorator of her friend's mansion museum.1 The Star Chamber was but an · 1 Walpole wrote an epilogue - not a very good onefor Mrs. Clive when she quitted the stage; and in the same year, 1769, the Town and Country Magazine linked their names in its Tête-à-Têtes' as 'Mrs. Heildelberg' (Clive's part in the Clandestine Marriage) and 'Baron Otranto' (a name under which Chatterton subsequently satirized Walpole in this identical periodical). See Memoirs of a Sad Dog, Pt. 2, July, 1770. |