To the
special inquiry of JANUS DOUSA I can say nothing, but I would fain ask
who was Katherine Wilhelmina Schweickhardt? I have in my possession a
series of eight etchings of studies of cattle, by H.W. Schweickhardt,
published in 1786, and dedicated to Benjamin West. My father was very
intimate with Schweickhardt, and I think acted in some sort as his
executor. I do not know when be died but it must be thirty years since I
heard my father speak of his friend, who was then deceased, but whether
recently or not I cannot say. I am rather disposed to think the event
was comparatively a remote one: he left a widow. Was Mrs. Bilderdijk his
daughter? The etchings are exceedingly clever and artistical; my copy
has the artist's name in his own handwriting. If I am not mistaken,
Schweickhardt lived, when my father knew him, at Lambeth, then a
picturesque suburb very unlike the "base, common, and popular" region
which it has since become. B.T. Pouncy, another clever artist of that
day, and a friend of my father's, resided there also. Pouncy published
some etchings which, although not professedly views of Lambeth, were in
reality studies in that locality. When I was a boy I remember my father
pointing out to me the Windmill, which was the subject of one of them.
The Mrs. Bilderdijk who translated Roderick, was, according to Southey,
the second wife of her husband. How did JANUS DOUSA learn that her
maiden name was Schweickhardt?
G.J. DE WILDE.
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