49.
On January 10, apropos these drawings, I said: "These views, dated 1846, are of the greatest historic value. Lithographed in black and buff, they have obviously been redrawn from original pencil sketches and came recently into the possession of the Government of Hongkong. They were offered at home to the Colonial Office, which notified Hongkong of the opportunity of acquiring the pictures. The local Government has purchased them to be hung in due course with the Chater collection.
Little else about the drawings or the artist was known at the time. The first eight lithographs had been cut right into the picture. Consequently there was no lithographer's imprimatur on these. About a month later, however, I secured permission to reproduce the last four lithographs of the series. On these was the usual small marginal inscription stating that the artist was Mr. M. Bruce and the reproduction was a lithograph by Mr. A. Maclure.
That interest was aroused in other parts of the world by these drawings is evident from a letter received from England by the last Home mail. It was written by C. F. Gregor Grant of The Garden Flat, Woodbury Park Mansions, Tunbridge Wells, and for the useful information contained, is now reproduced in full.
2
"My nephew", states the writer, "has sent the eight long cuttings from your paper, with reproduction of the sketches of old Hongkong, which I submitted through Sir Walter Hose to the Colonial Office some time ago. I may say that the idea of doing so was entirely his.
"I am gratified to know that they are of so much local interest as to merit notice in your columns and am sorry that all I can tell you about them is that they, or the original sketches, but probably the latter, were given by Mr. Bruce, who was a friend of our family, to my great-uncle, Colesworthy Grant, who was for many years a Professor of Drawing at the Calcutta Academy, and, himself an expert lithographer.
"They look like his work, but I am sorry to say that I did not examine them closely to see whether they bore his initials, a minute C.G. in some inconspicuous place. If they had been reproduced in Hongkong, surely some other copies would have survived, which does not appear to be the case.
"Mr. Bruce was one of those men, who, so far as his own work was concerned, would tolerate nothing but the best. He was, as you say, an expert with the pipes, but he was also an expert with the lathe, and made his own pipes. My grandfather, also a lathe expert, went to see him one day and found him putting the finishing touches to a 'drone'. He found, however, that he had made a trifling mistake in the pattern. With an exclamation of disgust, he threw it aside as useless. My grandfather picked it up and kept it for years as a specimen of his friend's beautiful workmanship."