a dibdin rarity
planned. But the artist still felt justly entitled to the full amount. Then came the work of making the finished drawings and overseeing the various engravers. No price was fixed at the time of the commission, but Lewis agreed to take it on, expending the next two years in ‘unremitting labour’. Only when the work was published did Dibdin request an account, apparently making an observation to their mutual friend, Mr. Masquerier, which Lewis found inappropriate for fixing the prices. He submitted his account, reflecting the value of the drawings alone and not the time devoted to supervision of the engraving. Dibdin objected. Arbitrators were chosen and awarded Lewis £ 430 6 s 6 d (less 13 s 6 d of Lewis’s bill of £ 431). It took two more months before Dibdin and Lewis settled on a schedule of payments: these were over a long period, no interest was allowed, and £ 80 remained outstanding (the August 1822 bill). All this, Lewis claimed, he had borne in silence but the reports so damaging to his reputation led him to act: I addressed Mr. Dibdin on the subject; and also requested, that as the original drawings had been sold, he would take up his remaining bills. – To two of my Letters I received no answer; except a message, that the bill for 150 l ., due in May would be taken up when the money from the sale of the drawings was received. 16 Lewis included his third letter to Dibdin, one of 12 March 1822, in which he repeated the concerns that forced him to a ‘public discus- sion’, ending: ‘I trust, however, that, in making a statement of the exact nature of the transactions between us, I shall neither be led into any impropriety of expression, nor incorrectness of statement.’ 17 He printed Dibdin’s reply of the same date in which the author denied any knowledge of the damaging reports and reserved the right of a reply to the statement. Lewis closed his remarks with a reiteration of the modest sums received and that part of it was still unpaid, ‘though it is now four months since Mr. Dibdin sold the drawings, and put the price in his pocket’. 18 In these words, Lewis provides an approximate date for the earlier
16 . Lewis, ‘The following observations’ and ‘Advertisement’, p. 5. 17 . Lewis, ‘The following observations’ and ‘Advertisement’, p. 6. 18 . Lewis, ‘The following observations’, p. 8.
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