Quiz of the week
1) What type of bean is used to make Baked Beans?
2) For whom was the Royal Pavilion in Brighton, East Sussex, built?
3) How many months of the year consist of 31 days?
4) Where would gaiters be worn?
5) Which bird lends its name to the act of complaining?
1) Haricot 2) George IV 3) Seven 4) On the lower leg 5) Grouse
Cabinet of curiosities by David Profumo
Pipe tamper
THE dealer who sold me this nice little antique, carved-ivory pipe-tobacco tamper assured me that the quizzical character was Dr Syntax from a novel by Scottish author Tobias Smollett, but this proved misleading. There is indeed a Syntax—a schoolmaster with a (1748)—but this gentleman proves to be the Revd Dr Syntax, that creation of the prolific artist Thomas Rowlandson. He made him the subject of a series of hand-coloured plates, first appearing in 1809 in the short-lived and later in several volumes.
