Tylney, John Child, 2nd Earl
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- Title
- Tylney, John Child, 2nd Earl
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(1712 - 84), 1st surv. s. of 1st E. Tylney of Castlemaine [I]; FRS 1746; suc. fa. as 2nd E. 1750; unm.
1752 - 84 Florence and Naples.
Lord Tylney spent nearly half his life as an elegant exile in Italy. From 1752 he was comfortably based in Florence, although he generally wintered in Naples, and his considerable wealth made him a leading member of the Anglo-Florentine community, even though his 'understanding was not bright'.1 He was something of an enigma, as Robert Harvey explained: 'I coud not avoid thinking of his superb palace on Epping forest & comparing it with his neat but small house here'; he was 'an unhappy man who coud not resist the temptations & instigations of a passion, contrary to reason, & at which nature shudders, which has banish'd him a (willing) exile from his country'.2 Lady Mary Coke correctly said Tylney was 'very much settled in this Country [Italy]' and imagined that he had 'no thoughts of ever returning to England'.3
The ostentatious decoration of his 'pretty house [near the Carmine] and a small garden where he has a great quantity of golden pheasants'4 caused comment. William Beckford of Fonthill noted that he lived 'in a fine house all over blue and silver, with stuffed birds, alabaster Cupids, and a thousand prettinesses more'.5 'One apartment [was] hung with yellow paper ... now adjoining with prints with flower'd borders for frames which has an exceedingly good effect [,] if this house was in an Italians possession they would pass it off as a palace abounding with beauties, & worthy the observations of strangers.'6
Tylney gave a dinner, 'the best and most magnificent I ever saw', after Horace Mann was invested with the Order of Bath in 1768.7 Tylney was clearly a confidant of Mann and Lord Cowper commented that Tylney's presence was 'a great resource for him'.8 Tylney's generosity was also shown in his allowing any English visitor to use his theatre box in Florence when he was away in Naples,9 and in Naples he 'contributed much more to the diversion of that city' where he hosted a public ball in 'a most spacious fine House'.(10) He was several times visited in Italy by his nephews, Charles and James Long, and in May 1764 Gibbon met Tylney in Milan en route for Venice with James (see James Long).
His connections with the arts appear to have been casual. He was listed as a subscriber to Lord Charlemont's Academy for British artists in Rome in May 1752,11 but he does not seem to have collected (even though he was made a member of the Accademia del Disegno in Florence in 176612), and his only commission of note was apparently a figure of Bacchus by Wilton which Horace Mann noted in September 1753.(13) Tylney appears in a conversation group by Patch (YCBA) and in a portrait drawing by the same artist (Fry collection). He was perhaps more interested in music, and was elected to the committee of the Florentine Accademia degli Armonici in 1774.14
In October 1781 when he was moving to Naples for the winter he sold the furniture from his Florentine house as 'his return to Florence is quite uncertain'.15 But less than a year before his death in 1783 he had been described as being 'as hearty as a brick'.16 He died in Naples and his tomb is at Leghorn;17 his great fortune passed to his nephew James Long. See also Thomas Chase and Josiah Child.
1. Harvey jnl.MSS (2 Aug. 1773) See Borroni 1983b. 2. Harvey jnl.MSS (2 Aug. 1773). See Black 1992, 201. 3. Coke Letters, 4:269 (2 Dec. 1773). 4. Yale U., Beinecke lib., Osborn MSS c 332 (Anon.jnl.MSS, 28 Sep. 1778). 5. Beckford, Travel Diaries, [1928], 1:164 (5/6 Oct. 1780). 6. Harvey jnl.MSS (8 Aug. 1773). 7. Wal.Corr., 23:63. 8. Dick corr.MSS (Cowper, 13 Jun. 1778). 9. Orde jnl.MSS (Nov. 1772). 10. Wal.Corr., 24:280 - 1. 11. GM, 22[1752]: 288. 12. Wynne 1990, 537. 13. Wal.Corr., 20:391. T.W.I. Hodgkinson, VAM
Bull., Apr. 1967, 73. 14. Gibson 1987, 236. 15. Hertford CRO, d/epf 310/73 (Jeremy, 19 Oct. 1780). 16. Eg.1970, f.128 (T. Clarke, 20 May 1783). 17. Leghorn Inscr., 40.
H.G. B.