Diary of John Quincy Adams, volume 1
1783-11-07
In the forenoon I went with M: W. Vaughan; and saw the Pantheon;1 a place of public entertainment; it is only remarkable for 201one Room which is very large and elegant. We went also to see the Cathedral of St Paul's; the largest Protestant Church, extant. It is very magnificent on the outside; but the inside is by no means extraordinary; there is one thing which they say is to be met with no where else. It is a gallery which is about 100 yards in circumference. If a Person whispers in it: what he says is as distinctly heared on the opposite side as if the person was near. It is called the whispering gallery: we went up to the top of the Church, from which we had a very fine view of the City. From thence went to the academy of arts in the Adelphi; to see a Series of Paintings, by a Mr. Barry; representing the Progress of Society, in six different Pictures.2
Dined at Mr. Copley's.
Originally a theater and public promenade, the Pantheon on Oxford Street was redesigned
by James Wyatt and reopened in 1772; the renovated building was noted chiefly for its
promenade in the rotunda (Wheatley, London Past and Present
).
JQA has confused the Royal Academy of Arts, whose exhibition room was in the
New Somerset House, up the Strand from the Adelphi Buildings, with the Society for the
Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, which was located at the Adelphi. James
Barry's major work, the Progress of Society, which portrayed
in six pictures illustrating the cultivation of “human faculties” in the civilization of
mankind, was exhibited in the Great Room of the Society of Arts (Walter Harrison, A New and Universal History Description and Survey of the Cities of
London and Westminster, The Borough of Southwark and Their Adjacent Parts . . .,
London, 1775, p. 525; Wheatley, London Past and Present
, 3:272; The Yale Edition of Horace Walpole's Correspondence, ed. W. S. Lewis and others, New
Haven, 1937– ,29:33; Ralph N. Wornum, ed., Lectures on Painting by
the Royal Academicians, Barry, Opie and Fusel, London, 1848, p. 42–43).
1783-11-08
Went with Mr. West1 to see the Queen's Palace called Buckingham House; from its having been built by Villiers: Duke of Buckingham;2 in the first Chamber, are the famous Cartoons of Raphael; which were Painted on Paper to be taken on Tapestry; at Brussels; there are 7. of them; they represented several of the Acts of the apostles; the name of the Painter makes it unnecessary to say, in what manner they are executed. In another Room we saw a Number of Paintings of Vandyk, among which was a Picture of Charles the 1st. on horseback; a striking likeness and an admirable Picture. Another Room full of Pictures of Rubens —a Room decorated by Paintings of Mr. West: among which are, the death of General Wolfe, of the Chevalier Bayard; and of Epaminondas, Regulus coming out of the Senate, and Hannibal, swearing eternal enmity to the Romans.3 The Kings Library, in 202which there are 90. folio volumes of Maps. His private model chamber—this is very curious. There are the models of all the ships in the Kings service, of all the dock yards, and fortifications: and an exact model of the fortress of Gibraltar. These are the Principal curiosities in this House; tho' there are a great many other things in it, worth seeing. Dined at Mr. Roger's.4
Benjamin West, the leading American-born neoclassical painter.
Buckingham House was built by John Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham and of Normanby, not
George Villiers, Second Duke of Buckingham. It was subsequently sold to George III in 1762
(Compton Mackenzie, The Queen's House, London, 1953, p.
10–12).
The West paintings, commissioned by George III, are listed in John Galt, The Life of Benjamin West, London, 1816–1820, repr., Gainesville,
Fla., 1960, p. 207.
Adams Family Correspondence
, 4:348; Samuel Cooper to JA, 22 July 1782, Adams Papers).