Richard Cosway Meets the Wandering Jew January 22, 2017
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern , trackback
This story appears in Cyrus Redding’s Fifty Years in the third volume (1858). Redding is describing a Mr. Beckford, an immensely rich Englishman in the late eighteenth, early nineteenth century with whom he was personally acquainted. The following story is not from Beckford but from a friend of Beckford which means, of course, we are at three removes, something unfortunate given the subject matter. The hero of the story (or its dupe) is Richard Cosway, the Regency artist (1742-1821). most famous today for being cuckolded by Thomas Jefferson: what a way to be immortalized… The incident seems to relate to the early nineteenth century. Important context: poor Cosway suffered from mental issues later on in his life and even spent some time in a mental asylum.
[Beckford] related that Cosway, the artist, was a man not a little wrapped up in mental delusions. ‘I was once told,’ he observed, ‘that a friend invited Cosway to dinner. [Cosway] had an idea that [the friend] knew something of magic, and agreed to the invitation, if his friend would consent to his going away at an early hour. On a promise of secrecy, Cosway said he was going that night to meet the Wandering Jew, who had arrived in London. Asking Cosway to permit him also to meet the wanderer, [Richard Cosway] refused, and soon after wished him good evening. Turning into one of the theatres, after the painter’s departure, he saw there [115] Cosway, seated quietly in one of the boxes. He watched him home to his residence in Stratford Place when the performance was over. The next day he asked the painter what he had seen. ‘ Oh’ he replied, ‘wonders beyond all conception but I am forbidden to communicate them.’ [The friend] then told the painter where he had seen him. Cosway denied it with great indignation, and said it was a spirit that had assumed his shape; that such a thing had often happened to him.
Beach is always on the look out for claimed encounters with the Wandering Jew: drbeachcombing At yahoo DOT com
