BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 71
use of the small-sword, and subsequently, to teach them to ride in the
menage.”-(‘ During this time,” continues Angelo the younger, ‘‘ my father
frequently took me thither, when he attended his royal pupils, and I rarely came
away without a pocketful of sweetmeats.” At an interview with the King, on
which occasion Tremamondo displayed the various styles of riding on his favourite
horse Monarch, among others that of riding the “great horse,” his Majesty
was pleased to declare that Angelo was the most elegant horseman of his day ;
and it was in consequence of this interview that the King persuaded Mr. West,
the celebrated artist, when he was commissioned to paint the picture of the
“Battle of the Boyne,” to make a study of Tremamondo for the equestrian figure
of King William. He also sat to the sculptor for the statue of King William,
subsequently set up in Merrion Square, Dublin.
While in London, Tremamondo was challenged to a trial of skill with a Dr.
Keys, reputed the most expert fencer in Ireland. The scene of action was in
an apartment of the Thatched House Tavern, where many ladies and gentlemen
were present. When Tremamondo entered, arm-in-arm with his patron, Lord
Pembroke, he found the Doctor without his coat and waistcoat, his shirt sleeves
tucked up, and displaying a pair of brawny arms-the Doctor being a tall
athletic figure. After the Doctor had swallowed a bumper of Cognac he began
the attack with great violence. Tremamondo acted for some time on the defensive,
with all the grace and elegance for which he was renowned, and after
having planted a dozen palpable hits on the breast of his enraged antagonist, he
made his bow to the ladies, and retired amid the plaudits of the spectators.
Angelo the younger relates another anecdote of his father, which he calls
“ a fencing-master’s quarrel.” Shortly after Tremamondo’s appointment as
fencing-master to the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York, a Mr. Redman,
an Irishman, who had been formerly patronised by the royal family, was continually
abusing *Tremamondo for a foreigner, and for having supplanted him.
They met one day in the Haymarket, where words ensued, and then blows-the
Irishman with a shillelah, and the Italian with a cane. On this occasion also,
Tremamondo was victorious, having broken his opponent’s head ; but next day,
to wipe off the disgrace of having fought like porters, he challenged his rival to
meet him with swords, but Redman answered that he would put him in (‘ the
Crown Office,” and immediately entered an action against him in the King’s
Bench, which ended in Tremamondo having to pay 2100 damages and $90
costs.
We
find little more recorded of him than that he was acquainted with almost all the
celebrated characters of his day, whether of the ‘‘ sock and buskin,” or the gymnastic
(( art of equitation,” He was generous in the extreme, and Angelo the
younger had an opportunity at his father’s well-replenished table of forming a
most extensive and interesting acquaintance.
Old Dominico died at Eton in 1802, aged eighty-six, aid was so much in possession
of his faculties that he gave a lesson in fencing the day before his death.
So much for the gallant Dominico Angelo Malevolti Tremamondo.