Peter Plumb’s Diary

Thomas Rowlandson

Peter Plumb’s Diary

London, Thomas Tegg, 20^th May 1810

Etching

Original hand colouring

240 x 340 mm

£220

A fat ‘cit’ and his fat wife sleep in armchairs with a solid round table between them on which are two decanters, glasses, and a punch-bowl. He is by the fire (left); on the hob is a coffee-pot, on the chimney-piece a box of ‘Turkey Tobbacco’ and a long pipe. A fat spaniel lies on a cushion. Behind her mother and on the extreme right a buxom girl sits at a miniature piano being kissed by a plump young man. Her open music-book is inscribed ‘Lucy’s Delight Handell Water Piece’. Beside them on the floor an open book, inscribed ‘a Duett Prestissimo’, lies across a ‘Dumb Flute’. Over the chimney-piece is a placard inscribed: ‘Eating, Drinking and Sleeping, with the generality of People the three important Articles of Life’. On the wall hangs a large ‘Plan of the New Improvement of the Cattle Market in Smithfield’, with four divisions inscribed respectively ‘Sheep Penns’, ‘Swine Market’, ‘Division for Horned Cattle’, and ‘Cow Penns’. Above the door is a heavily framed view of ‘Wapping Docks’. Below the title: ‘This honest Man being of greater Consequence in his own Thoughts, than in the Eye of the World, had for some Years past, kept a Journal of his Life—Videlisset [sic] Monday Eight O Clock—I put on my Clothes, Washed Hands and face—Nine O Clock—Tied my knee Strings, put on my double soaled Shoes Took a Walk to Islington. One O Clock took a Luncheon between Two and Three—Return’d, dined on a Knuckle of Veal and Bacon—Three—Nap as usual—Four to Six Walked in the Fields. Wind S.S.E. —from Six to Ten—went to the Club was half an hour before any body else came— Ten at Night Went to Bed Slept without Waking till Nine next Morning— Tuesday Wenesday Thursday Friday S. S. little or no Variation—’.