I'll just follow this little thread.....

This is a homile about the unwisdom of borrowing from friends, but the vignette of fashionable life fascinated me, and I decided to see what else I could find in quick google searches.

THE WORLD #3, Thursday, January 18th, 1753

"You are to know, sir, that I am a curate of a parish within ten miles of town, at forty pounds per annum: that I am five-and-thirty years old and that I have a wife and two children. My father, who was a clergyman of some note in the country, unfortunately died soon after I came from college and left me master of seventeen hundred pounds.With this sum, which I thought a very great one, I came up to town, took lodgings in Leicester Fields(1), put a narrow lace upon my frock, learnt to dance of Denoyer (2), bought my shoes of Tull(3), my sword of Becket,(4) my hat of’ Wagner (5), and my snuff box of Deard (6). In short I entered into the spirit of taste, and was looked upon as a fashionable young fellow.

I do not mean that I was really so, according to the town-acceptation of the term; for I had as great an aversion to infidelity, libertinism, gaming, and drunkenness, as the most unfashionable man alive. All that my enemies, or what is more, all that my friends can say against me, is, that in my dress I rather imitated the coxcomb than the sloven; that I preferred good company to reading the fathers; that I liked a dinner at the tavern better than one at a private house; that I was oftener at the play than at evening prayers; that I usually went from the play to the tavern again; and that in five years time I spent every shilling of my fortune.

They may also add, if they please, as the climax of my follies, that when I was worth nothnig myself, I married the most amiable woman in the world, without a penny to her fortune, only because we loved each other to distraction, and were miserable asunder."

(Side note here. This business of marrying sensibly is the basis of a short article I wrote for a collection called FLIRTING WITH PRIDE AND PREJUDICE from Ben Bella Books. On sale now.
http://www.benbellabooks.com/

So I set out to find more about the details above.
1. Leicester Fields became LEICESTER SQUARE. "Few spots in London have such interesting associations as Leicester Square. It takes its name from Leicester House, more than once the residence of royalty; and Leicester Fields, as the place used to be styled, were a favourite resort of duellists. From early in the seventeenth century foreigners have patronised the Square. "http://www.victorianlondon.org/districts/leicestersquare.htm

Following another thread I find that the famous Rabbit Woman (see below) was lodged there in 1726. Make of it what you will. http://www.infopt.demon.co.uk/grub/rabbit.htm

2. Unfortunately for me there is a a current dancing Denoyer which makes quick searching difficult. If anyone knows about the early 18th century dance master Denoyer, please let me know.

3. Tull. I can't find anything about this apparently fashionable shoe maker, but I stumbled across this fascinating court case from 1732, with homosexuality, transvestism and all sorts of confusions!
http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/html_units/1730s/t17320705-30.html

4. Nothing about a sword maker called Becket.

5. From a 1794 directory. Wagner M. H., Hatter, 95, Pall Mall.
http://www.londonancestor.com/kents/kents-w.htm

6. Deard, however, was obviously famous and part of a dynasty.The name first threw up this interesting ad.
"THE most excellent Spirit of Ground-lvy, distill'd to its Perfection: which infallibly cools and sweetens the Blood, and keeps the Stomach in order. It hath a more than ordinary Effect upon the Lungs, by preventing and wearing off short husking Coughs; immediately stops any violent Fit of Coughing. In any Case where the Blood wants rectifying, (especially Consumptions) it is of great Benefit. It easeth all griping Pains, windy and cholerick Humours in the Stomach, Spleen, or Belly, helps against the Yellow-Jaundice and Melancholy. To be taken according to Directions given with it. Seal'd with the Scotch Sold Wholesale by Mrs. Garway, at the Royal Exchange Gate in Cornhill, and Retail by Mr. Stone, Stationer, next to Gate on London-bridge, Mr. Deard, Toyshop, under it....
at 1 s. a bottle."
http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/html_sessions/T17140908.html

The ad is at the end of the record of Old Bailey cases. Note the woman sentenced to be burned for "petty treason", that is , murdering her husband -- her lord and master.

In a piece about Horace Walpole, I find that the tenent of Strawberry Hill before him was "Mrs. Chenevix (nee Deard) was the wife of Paul Daniel Chenevix and the owner of a fashionable London toyshop which, in the Daily Advertiser of 1739, was described as being "on the corner of Warwick Street near Pall Mall".

Elsewhere.25 March 1760:MISS FORD’s second Subscription Concert will be This Day the 25th Instant, at the Little Theatre in theHaymarket. The Vocal Parts by Miss FORD, who will play a Solo on the Viol di Gambo, and a Concerto on the Guittar. Pit and Boxes are laid together, at Half a Guinea each Ticket; Gallery 5s. / Tickets to be had at Mr. Deard’s Toy-shop, at Mr. Garden’s in Saint Paul’s Church-yard; and at Mr. Walsh’s in Catharine-street./ To begin at Seven o’Clock.—The Public Advertiser, Tuesday, 25 March 1760;

Then I also found a Deard in Bath in a poem by Lady Wortley Montague.
"Farewell to Deard's, and all her toys,
Which glitter in her shop,
Deluding traps to girls and boys,
The warehouse of the fop."
That would seem to cover snuffboxes. A toy shop was not what we would consider one, but would sell things like clocks and watches, mechanical devices, musical boxes, and small items like snuffboxes. So Deards of this 18th century poem, and the London one of 1713, and Mrs. Chenevix of 1739 were probably from the same family as the one mentioned in the original piece.

Clearly they sold walking sticks, too. In the novel, Joseph Andrews by Henry Fielding, we have: No sooner did Joseph Andrews perceive the distress of his friend, when first the quick-scenting dogs attacked him, than he grasped his cudgel in his right hand—a cudgel which his father had of his grandfather, to whom a mighty strong
man of Kent had given it for a present in that day when he broke three heads on the stage. It was a cudgel of mighty strength and wonderful art, made by one of Mr Deard's best workmen, whom no other artificer can equal, and who hath made all those sticks which the beaus have lately walked with about the Park in a morning; but this was far his masterpiece. On its head was engraved a nose and chin, which might have been mistaken for a pair of nutcrackers.

Once I start following research threads, I never know where I'll end up, which is the fun of it. It's essential as well, however, because for a historical novelist these threads are the raw materials of our fictional worlds.