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PREFACE. 
 
 In presenting to the world the following exquisite gems of Sir Thomas 
 Lawrence's genius, the proprietor deems it unnecessary to do more than 
 state, that the greater portion of them are now for the first time seen 
 by the public eye, — having been strictly private performances, executed 
 for the personal gratification of the artist, and his nearest and dearest 
 relatives, at those brief periods of relaxation fi:om his professional 
 pursuits which he occasionally and too rarely passed in the bosom of his 
 fanuly connections. On this account they will doubtless be deemed more 
 interesting and attractive, in an intellectual point of view, than those 
 " studies" and unpremeditated sketches of great artists which have at all 
 times been sought for with so much avidity, and preserved with an almost 
 religious care. Inestimable as are the drawings wliich remain to us of 
 Raffaelle, what an incalculable increase of value would attach to any 
 of them, which could be ascertained to have been executed literally in 
 the heart of his domestic circle, and to gratify the parental pride and 
 affection of a beloved sister ! And such, as respects Lawrence, are 
 
 a 
 
11 PREFACE. 
 
 several of the flowers of infant loveliness which are now first offered to 
 public admii-ation in the following pages. 
 
 The portraits of Sir Thomas Lawrence's father and mother, par- 
 ticularly of the latter, will, on the same account, be received with an 
 equal degree of interest and curiosity. 
 
 Thus far as to the extrinsic qualities of many of the following 
 sketches. With respect to their character as works of Art, we shall 
 not, in this place, refer to the point in detail. But we may be allowed 
 to suggest, that, as a collection of studies, with a view to the elementary 
 instruction of youth in that Art, which will, doubtless, shortly become 
 as universal as it is delightful a branch of English education, these 
 sketches, — being fac-similes of the original drawings, — must be deemed 
 inestimable. 
 
 We shall only add here, that the present has been considered a fit 
 opportunity for placing on record, in a condensed and available form, 
 a brief outline of Sir Thomas Lawrence's professional and personal 
 career. In preparing this sketch, its details, and the works which 
 have given immediate occasion to them, have been so arranged, as that 
 each may serve as a comment on, and illustration of, the other ; with this 
 especial difference however, that the only value and interest of the 
 written memorials will be derived from the relation they bear to their 
 pictorial companions. 
 
MEMORIALS 
 
 The whole annals of Art, and we might perhaps include those of Literature 
 also, do not offer another so striking and instructive illustration of the 
 supremacy of genius, intellect, and taste, over adverse influences, as our 
 own day has presented, in the case of Sir Thomas Lawrence,— who, being the 
 son of a man, not merely of a coarse mind and in needy circumstances, but 
 engaged in what must be deemed an almost menial calling; — being moreover 
 totally uninstructed in the Art which he adopted, and almost destitute of the 
 common rudiments of education in other respects; came to be, at an early 
 period of his life, the most distinguished artist of his day in the whole world ; 
 the most consummate judge of Art in its most recondite departments ; and, 
 what is perhaps still more remarkable, "the observed of all observers," in 
 the most refined and . fastidious class of society in Europe, at its most refined 
 and fastidious period. The court circle of George the Fourth was the most 
 " exclusive," in regard to manner and personal bearing, of any period in our 
 history; and Sir Thomas Lawrence is said to have been pronounced, by the 
 head and model of that court, the most perfect gentleman belonging to it. 
 
 It may be observed, however, that notwithstanding the adverse circumstances 
 attending young Lawrence's actual birth, he derived his origin, on both sides, 
 from what may be safely pronounced the most truly respectable class of English 
 
 B 
 
•l 
 
 2 MEMORIALS. 
 
 society — that of the Clergy of the Established Church. The unfortunate position 
 of his parents at the period of his birth was, in fact, the result of one of those 
 juvenile indiscretions, which the best-arranged plans of relatives and friends can 
 neither anticipate nor guard against. 
 
 The father of Sir Thomas Lawrence seems to have united, to some glaring 
 errors and weaknesses of personal character, many estimable and praiseworthy 
 qualities, which in a great measure redeemed his venial faults. The bane 
 of his early career, however, was evidently that (so called) personal vanity, which, 
 shewing itself under another and more noble form in his gifted son, cast a glory 
 round that name which at first it seemed destined to consign prematurely to 
 poverty and disgrace. It was, however, chiefly to his mother that Sir Thomas 
 owed the finer qualities of his genius and intellect. But of this hereafter. 
 
 The father of Lawrence was the only son of the Rev. Mr. Lawrence, and 
 was born at Newbury, in Berkshire, in 1725. He was left an orphan in 
 early childhood ; but by the care of a relation of his father's, Mr. Zachary 
 Agaz, he received the ordinary education of a youth in his class of life, and 
 was, at the age of sixteen, articled to a respectable attorney (Mr, Ginger) 
 of Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire. It is presumable that he served his 
 clerkship with credit and ability, as, at its expiration, his employer offered 
 him a share of his business. This favorable opportunity of being settled 
 in a liberal profession was however declined, in consequence of a small 
 patrimony being about this time left him by his relative Mr. Agaz, on the 
 strength of which he determined to " see the world," — not altogether without 
 the desire, too, that the world should have an opportunity of seeing him—for 
 he was gifted with a handsome person and good deportment, and was by 
 no means unconscious of those advantages. Accordingly, having procured the 
 companionship of a friend of his own age, he at once set out on his travels,— 
 which, as may be supposed, terminated as hastily and inconsiderately as they 
 had commenced. At Tenbury, in Worcestershire,~to which place he first 
 directed his steps, on account of its being the residence of some friends of his 
 family, — he speedily fell in love, which resulted, first in moonlight walks and 
 mutual declarations ; then in despair and verse-making ; and finally in a stolen 
 
MEMORIALS. 
 
 3 
 
 marriage, which brought upon both parties the interminable anger and resent- 
 ment of the lady's father — who would never consent to see her again till he lay 
 on his death bed, when it was too late. This gentleman was the Vicar of 
 Tenbury, the Rev. William Read. 
 
 From Tenbury the newly-married couple went to Thaxted, in Kent, in which 
 place Mr. Lawrence had relations. Here they appear to have lived on his 
 slender property for about three years, at the end of which time they went to 
 Bristol, — where the relations of Mrs. Lawrence had procured her husband 
 a place in the Excise. They remained at Bristol for more than twenty years ; 
 long before the expiration of which period the elder Lawrence's attention to his 
 calling had caused liim to be raised to the situation of supervisor. In 1769 he 
 resigned his situation in the Excise, and took the White Lion Inn, in Broad 
 Street, Bristol. He was also concerned in another undertaking of a similar kind 
 in the same city — the American Coffee-house ; and he held a farm in the 
 neighborhood. These united callings failed him however ; his affairs became 
 involved ; and shortly afterwards, he left Bristol for Devizes, where he had com- 
 passed the means to gain possession of a much larger establishment — the Black 
 Bear, to which all the rank and fashion of the day resorted on their way to Bath, 
 
 The subsequent peregrinations of the family will come more appropriately 
 in our sketch of Sir Thomas's professional career. In the mean time we 
 commend to our reader's attention the annexed portrait of Lawrence's father. It 
 represents him at a much later period of his life than that we have just referred 
 to ; but there is evidently the characteristic expression which explains his early 
 career, blended with the matured and settled self-complacency bespeaking the 
 conscious progenitor of one of the most renowned men of his day. 
 
 Mr. Lawrence died suddenly at his residence in Duke Street, St. James's, 
 in October, 1797. It is said that " Lawrence was engaged at his house in 
 Piccadilly, when a messenger" burst into the room and announced that his father 
 was dying. Lawrence, in the intensity of his feelings, ran out of the house and 
 proceeded through the streets without his hat," to where his father resided. He 
 did not reach the house, however, till his father had expired. 
 
 The following is Lawrence's brief and feeling relation of the event, as 
 
4 
 
 MEMORIALS. 
 
 addressed to his dear friend, and favorite correspondent, Miss Lee, the authoress 
 of the " Canterbury Tales." 
 
 " My Dearest Friend : 
 
 " The cause of my silence is a terrible one~ray father's death. He died before I could reach 
 " him ; but he died full of affection to us, of firm faith and fortitude, and without a groan. 
 
 " Thomas Lawhence." 
 
 We shall, injustice to both parties, close our memorial of the elder Lawrence 
 with a few words of his son, addressed to the same lady, on the occasion of a 
 previous illness of his father. " The country air, peace, and content, will, I 
 trust, soon restore health, and gratify the wishes of his children, to whom, 
 whatever difference of character and disposition there may have been, his 
 essentially worthy nature, and general love for them, make him too dear an 
 object not to form the greatest portion of their solicitude. To be the entire 
 happiness of his children, is, perhaps, the lot of no parent." This is a 
 characteristic passage. Lawrence's fastidious taste will not permit him to avoid 
 glancing at the errors of his father's nature and habits of mind, lest his 
 accomplished friend should suppose that he overlooks them ; but, on the other 
 hand, he touches on them in an amiable and affectionate spirit, that would 
 palliate rather than expose them. 
 
 The mother of Sir Thomas Lawrence was evidently a person very different 
 from, and very superior to, her husband. With the sole exception of her girlish 
 preference for a weak and thoughtless admirer—who, however, in being her 
 admirer, and a sincere and ardent one, redeemed himself from those qualities 
 in her eyes—her character through life presents no one feature that does not 
 claim our respect and affection. A devoted wife, a fond and exemplary mother, 
 a gentle, graceful, and retiring, yet an accomplished and elegant woman— in 
 short, a lady in every sense of the word— the mother of Sir Thomas Lawrence 
 must have happily made up to him, at every period of his bright career, for 
 those prevailing defects, and those more than questionable qualities, which were 
 sometimes so obtrusively exhibited in his other parent, and which, we cannot 
 help feeling, must have perpetually shocked and outraged that intuitive tact 
 
MEMORIALS. 
 
 5 
 
 which was one of the distinguishing features of Lawrence's mind, even from 
 its earliest opening, in his flowery and briUiant childhood. 
 
 Mrs. Lawrence was, as we have said, the daughter of a highly respectable 
 clergyman of the church of England — the Rev. William Read, Vicar of Tenbury, 
 Her mother was the daughter of Andrew Hill, Esq. of Court-de-Hill, Salop, 
 by a Daughter of Sir Thomas Powis, an ancestor of the present Lord Lilford. 
 
 The unsuitableness of the marriage of such a woman with the object of her 
 imprudent choice, may be judged of by what we have related above, as to the 
 unrelenting anger of her father, and by the additional fact that her grandfather, 
 the gentleman above named, who had before her marriage, left her five thousand 
 pounds in his will, altered this bequest to the degrading one of "one shilling." 
 It appears, however, that she had a patrimony of about nine hundred pounds in 
 her own right : another reason — though, we are bound to say, the only one that 
 ever appeared throughout their subsequent life — to cause a suspicion of her having 
 been sought and won with other views than those springing from a real and 
 disinterested attachment. 
 
 We have no other distinct memorials of this lady's life ; but we gather 
 generally that she must have been an exemplary wife and mother, especially in the 
 bringing up of her numerous children. Certain it is, that whatever education her 
 celebrated son received must have emanated from her : for the early source of 
 gain which he became to his father, prevented him from being sent to any school 
 at all, except to an infant one from the age of six to that of eight years. 
 
 But though we have no further details to oifer of this lady's life, we have a 
 deeply interesting memorial of her death, in the form of an affecting letter 
 from her distinguished son to his friend Miss Lee, of which we shall give an 
 extract: — "I have mentioned other griefs, in order to turn my thoughts from that 
 pale virtue whose fading image I can now contemplate with firmness, 1 kiss it 
 and not a tear falls oil the cold cheek. You can have no notion of the grand 
 serenity it has assumed. I cannot but persuade myself, since the fatal stroke, it 
 seems as if the soul, at the moment of departure, darted its purest emanation into 
 the features, as traces of its happier state. * * * * But half an hour since, I 
 had the dear hand in mine, and the fingers seemed unwilling to part with me." 
 
 c 
 
6 
 
 MEMORIALS. 
 
 This touching and beautifully expressed memorial was written, it appears, 
 in the very chamber of death, and within a few brief minutes of the event 
 to which it relates ; and what casts a still deeper interest over the portrait to 
 which we shall now claim the reader's attention, is the fact we are enabled to 
 state concerning it, that it was drawn not more than as many minutes before the 
 decease of the original as the above letter appears to have been written after it. 
 There is, in truth, the hand of death upon it; nor is it without something 
 of that ''grand serenity" which it afterwards assumed; but the "traces of its 
 happier state" which the soul is described as having thrown into it at parting, 
 are not there. 
 
 Another point of deep interest in this Portrait is, the marked resemblance 
 it bears to the illustrious son whose hand traced its "fading image." To 
 those who remember Lawrence during the last few days or weeks of his life, it is 
 more essentially himself than any existing effigy of him — always excepting the 
 expression of sternness which bodily pain had thrown into the countenance 
 at the moment when the features were traced. There is even the same look 
 of death which, to the eyes of some few of his friends, had settled upon his features 
 for many days before danger, or even serious illness, was apprehended. 
 
 We shall now recur more immediately and exclusively to Lawi-ence's own 
 career. 
 
 Perhaps the history of the Fine Arts presents no other so remarkable an 
 instance of precocious and intuitive talent, as we find recorded on indisputable 
 evidence, in the case of Sir Thomas Lawrence. He was born at Bristol, on the 
 4th of May 1769 ; and without having received the smallest instructions in art, 
 or having his thoughts or inclinations directed to it in any collateral way whatever, 
 we find the infant Lawrence, at the age of four or five years, attracting the attention 
 of a really competent judge and artist, Mr. Prince Hoare, by the off-hand 
 manner in which he painted likenesses, and particularly that most difficult and 
 delicate feature of a likeness, the Eye. We may here observe, in proof of the 
 intuitive character of this portion of Lawrence's talent, that it remained his most 
 conspicuous quality to the day of his death, Fuseli, who, whatever difference of 
 opinion there may be as to his practice of Art, was undoubtedly a consummate 
 
MEMORIALS. 
 
 7 
 
 judge of it in the practice of others, used to depreciate Lawrence in all other 
 particulars, but was compelled to admit (with a " but ") that, in the feature in 
 question, no artist, ancient or modern, had ever equalled him. 
 
 At the age of seven years this extraordinary child had excited so general an 
 attention for his premature powers in Portrait-painting, that his own likeness was 
 painted by Mr. Prince Hoare, and engraved for sale by Sherwin. At present this 
 fact would argue little in favor of an artist's celebrity ; for nowadays our 
 aspirants for popularity may have their likenesses engraved for about the same 
 price that any other less flattering and picturesque form of " advertisement " 
 would cost them. But at the period of its occurrence in the case of the child 
 Lawrence, it might be adduced as a decisive evidence of extraordinary curiosity 
 having been excited concerning him. 
 
 Lawrence's father appears to have left Bristol the same year in which Thomas 
 who was his youngest son, was born ; and our first notices of the infant artist's 
 celebrity are connected with the town of Devizes. His father on leaving 
 Bristol in 1769, took the Black Bear Inn at that town, — a house at which all the 
 rank and fashion of the country were accustomed to stop, on their way to Bath, 
 then in the height of its celebrity and vogue. And it was here that our young- 
 artist attracted the notice of many of the most celebrated men of that day — 
 among others, Edmund Burke, Sheridan, Garrick, Foote, Wilks, &c. &c. Much 
 of this attention however was to be attributed to the obtrusive pertinacity of his 
 father, who evidently " exhibited " the child, on the principle indicated by the 
 word we have just used, and more as a gratification to his own personal vanity 
 than from any feeling of the extraordinary evidences of talent displayed by the 
 child ; for he not only never caused him to receive, but would never afterwards 
 permit him to receive, any instructions whatsoever, with a view to his progress 
 and proficiency in the Art for which Nature had given him so marked a disposition 
 and capacity. Moreover, from the evidence which is open to us on this point, we 
 are able to gather, that the father of the predestinated head of English Art 
 attached at least as much value and importance to his son's paltry and vulgar 
 accomplishment of spouting scraps of Plays out of "Enfield's Speaker," under • 
 his (the father's) tuition, as he did to the exquisite talent which led to and insured 
 
8 
 
 MEMORIALS. 
 
 his future celebrity : and it is more than probable that, had not the 'pecuniary 
 value of the latter talent so very early exhibited itself, the name of " Lawrence" 
 would merely have graced the ephemeral annals of the Acted Drama, instead of 
 giving permanent fame, dignity, and national importance to those of an Art on 
 which the historical position and prospects of a nation so much depend. What, 
 for instance, would Italy now be, and what would be her hopes of an ultimate and 
 happy regeneration, if it were not for the eternal fame she enjoys, as the former 
 seat and throne of Art ? 
 
 If we have alluded, more particularly than might seem needful, to the coarse 
 minded vanity of Lawrence's father, in the obtrusive "exhibition" of his gifted 
 child, and his selfish and inexcusable obstinacy in subsequently refusing to allow 
 of that child's availing himself of the proffered means of cultivating his high gifts 
 with a view to their due and fair developement, it is only because we desire to 
 place in a just point of view the full extent and quality of those rare gifts, — 
 which, at no distant period, reached the very highest point even of ideal excellence, 
 in the particular department to which their exercise was directed, not merely in 
 the absence of all external and mechanical aid and instruction, but in spite of the 
 perpetual pressure of adverse influence and counteracting circumstances. In 
 fact, Lawrence's real and deep love and enthusiasm for art have never been duly 
 appreciated ; nor can they be, except by a careful and kindly examination of his 
 personal character, as evinced in his private letters, and his intercourse with the 
 few individuals who ranked among his intimate personal friends. There is 
 nothing more remarkable or more interesting in the history of Art, than some 
 few of the facts and anecdotes that might be gathered on this head. Two or 
 three of the most striking we may refer to hereafter. In the mean time we 
 must proceed in the more immediate course of our narrative. 
 
 The first picture by our infant artist of which there is any distinct record was 
 one painted at Devizes about the year 1775-6, when he was between six and 
 seven years of age. It consisted of two portraits, of Mr. (afterwards Lord) 
 Kenyon and his lady, and was executed, like all his others at that time, in the 
 most unpremeditated manner, during the brief sojourn of the originals at his 
 father's house on their way to Bath. During the three subsequent years young 
 
MEMORIALS. 
 
 9 
 
 Lawrence must have had many opportunities of practising his art, in connection 
 with persons of influence and distinction in public life ; for, at the age of ten 
 years, we find him in the possession of sufficient celebrity to command a public 
 notice and panegyric on his pretensions, in a work which retains its popularity 
 to the present day — the Miscellanies of the Hon. Daines Barrington (1781). 
 It appears too, by this notice, that he had already attempted original Historical 
 Composition, and with a very marked promise of future excellence in that 
 highest department of his noble Art. 
 
 The family of Lawrence left Devizes in- 1779 ; the elder Lawrence abandoning 
 his occupation as an Innkeeper, evidently in the hope of turning the talents of 
 his child to greater pecuniary account than he could expect to realise by his own 
 exertions in his trade. They at first went to Weymouth, a watering place 
 then occupying the rank in Royal favor which has since been usurped almost 
 exclusively by Brighton. In this step, as in every other connected with his 
 son's public career, we trace the short-sighted policy of the elder Lawrence. 
 Weymouth was the frequent resort of the Royal Family ; and he doubtless hoped 
 to obtain for his now celebrated child that regal and courtly patronage, which is 
 as little useful as it is honorable to its receiver, till that period of his career when 
 (if ever) he is able to command instead of sue for it. 
 
 Fortunately the narrow and vulgar views of the father, in hoping prematurely 
 to force into flower, in the hot-bed of royal favor, the vigorous and healthy bud 
 of his child's beautiful genius, were frustrated in their first steps. We have 
 however no distinct record of the career of young Lawrence during his brief 
 sojourn at Weymouth; but in the year 1782, consequently at the age of thirteen, 
 we find him fully established at Bath, as the most popular portrait-painter of that 
 (then) most refined and fashionably-frequented city of the empire ; — and it may 
 be safely stated that, irom this period, his effbrts formed the sole and ample 
 support of his whole family, or at least would have done so under ordinary 
 prudence and management. But here, as every where else during the early 
 period of Lawrence's career, the unhappy defects of his father's character 
 came into play, and laid the foundation of those overwhelming embarrassments 
 which the princely income of his son's after life was not able to overcome, 
 
 D 
 
10 
 
 MEMORIALS. 
 
 and which consequently embittered the otherwise brightest years of that life, 
 and (without question) were the main cause of his premature death, at what 
 should have been the most brilliant and happy period of his otherwise fortunate 
 career. 
 
 Lawrence appears to have resided with his family at Bath for about six years ; 
 during the whole of which period his extraordinary talents, aided not a little we 
 suspect by his extreme beauty of person, and the innate grace and elegance of 
 his manners, made him the pet and idol of the brilliant circle of rank, intellect, 
 and fashion, of which that city was then the favorite resort : nor have we any 
 evidence that the fame and favor thus lavished upon him, induced him in the 
 smallest degree to relax in his love and pursuit of excellence in his art, or in 
 any other manner tended to deteriorate the naturally " blest conditions " of his 
 mind and personal character. 
 
 One of the few existing or recorded results of this happy period of his career, 
 is a portrait of Mrs. Siddons, as Zara, which was engraved at the time, and 
 which is remarkable as being the only portrait he ever executed of that glorious 
 woman,~the majesty of whose beauty in after life seems to have so awe-stricken 
 him, that he could never persuade himself to attempt the production of its 
 semblance on canvas. There is no doubt, however, that he was in some degree 
 deterred from this attempt, by what we cannot help considering as his somewhat 
 overstrained admiration of Sir Joshua's portrait of her as the Tragic Muse— a 
 work which he always declared to be the finest portrait that was ever painted by 
 the hand of man. We mention these two facts in connection with each other, 
 because we deem such connection a characteristic feature of Lawrence's mind 
 and genius. In fact, his ambition was of too personal a character to admit of 
 his reaching that supremacy, in the higher branches of his art, which he 
 unquestionably attained in that of portraiture. Even admitting (which, however, 
 we cannot do) that he possessed the genius adequate to conceive and to produce 
 such works as the Transfiguration and the Peter Martyr, his actual power of 
 executing such productions would have been neutralized, by his certainty of not 
 being able to ea:cel them. Had he lived in Sir Joshua's day, or a fortiori in 
 that of Titian, he would, most likely, have renounced his pencil in despair : not. 
 
MEMORIALS. 
 
 11 
 
 as William Hazlitt did, because he could not fulfil his own conceptions of what 
 Art might and should accomplish, but because 
 
 He could not bear a rival mar the throne, 
 
 much less upon it : — neither of which events he had a moment's cause to dread 
 during his whole brilliant career. 
 
 The only other recorded productions of Lawrence's pencil at Bath, are four 
 admirable copies in crayons, of as many celebrated pictures by the old masters — 
 the Transfiguration of RafFaelle, the Aurora of Guido, the Taking down from 
 the Cross of Daniel di Volterra, and the Vision of St, Romueld, by Andrea 
 Sacchi. The first-named of these is remarkable as being the immediate cause of 
 his quitting Bath for the metropolis, — it having obtained the second prize of the 
 Society of Arts, under circumstances of peculiar and unprecedented honor to the 
 youthful candidate. 
 
 Before closing our brief record of Lawrence's career at Bath, we should mention 
 that it was there he painted his first oil picture-— a figure, the size of life, of 
 Christ bearing the Cross. It is not known whether this picture is in existence or 
 not. 
 
 On reaching London our youthful aspirant for metropolitan fame took up his 
 residence in a spacious and handsome suite of apartments, near the house of 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds, in Leicester Square; and among the earliest incentives 
 which he met with to new exertions in his beloved art, was an interview which he 
 shortly afterwards obtained, with the celebrated Lady Hamilton — the admitted 
 paragon of the day, in personal beauty. 
 
 In now offering to the reader's notice and admiration Lawrence's exquisite 
 portrait of this lady, we cannot help expressing our belief, that his early 
 acquaintance with the original, was among the first and most fertile sources 
 of that poetical conception and inspiration, as to the powers and capacities of the 
 female face, which stayed by Lawrence during the whole of his after life, and were 
 undoubtedly the spring and secret of his vast popularity and success. Much has 
 been said and written, on the extraordinary beauty of this celebrated person, 
 in her best day ; but we doubt if the exquisite glimpse of it which is here given, 
 
12 
 
 MEMORIALS. 
 
 does not surpass every idea of it that may have been previously formed from mere 
 hearsay, as much as, in all probability, the actual object itself surpassed this lovely 
 effigy of it: for Lawrence himself, even in his happiest mood, was wholly 
 incapable of heightening beauty of a description like that which was before him 
 when he made this sketch. In the upward and heaven-directed look, " commercing 
 with the skies" — the mixture of sweetness and voluptuousness in the mouth, — 
 (looking as if, like that of the good princess in the fairy tale, it could not open 
 without shedding forth pearls and rubies)— and the perfectly classical contour and 
 ensemble of the face, suggesting the idea of a muse or a goddess, rather than of 
 a mere "human mortal ;" — in all these particulars the sketch now under notice, 
 slight as it is, has not been surpassed even by Lawrence himself, in his happiest 
 and most elaborate subsequent performances. Indeed there is a halo of natural 
 grace and loveliness about this head, as distinguished from those more artificial 
 and adventitious charms, of Fashion and of Art, which Lawrence afterwards 
 adopted almost exclusively in his delineations of female beauty, which invest this 
 exquisite work with a peculiar value, in the eyes of all lovers of, and believers in, 
 the divinity of our nature; and in the axiom, that the purest and highest type of 
 that divinity is to be found in the female face. 
 
 As the annals of art afford no example of so extraordinary a degree of 
 precocity in the practice of it, as that evinced by the child Lawrence, neither do 
 they offer any parallel to the rapidity of his progress towards the height of 
 excellence and eminence, when he had once fairly commenced his public career 
 in the metropolis. 
 
 He arrived in London in the year 1787, and the exhibition of that year 
 included seven works from his pencil ; which, up to this period, he had confined 
 • exclusively to crayon drawings. In this year, too, he painted his first portrait in 
 oil — a likeness of himself. He was in the same year admitted a student of the 
 Royal Academy^ — September 13, 1787 ;— three years afterwards, November 10, 
 1791, he was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy ; — and in less than 
 three years after that, in 1794, consequently at the age of 24, he became a 
 Royal Academician. His diploma picture, a Gipsy Girl, is now in the Council 
 Chamber of the Academy. 
 
MEMORIALS. 
 
 13 
 
 Lawrence's admission to the Royal Academy caused great excitement among 
 the existing R.A's.— -it having taken place contrary to their views, and by the 
 distinct desire of his Majesty, George the Third ; and (what is of more historical 
 interest) it occasioned a series of odes, as amusing as they were scurrilous, 
 by the celebrated " Peter Pindar." 
 
 In 1792, Lawrence was made painter to the Dilettanti Society, in the place 
 of Sir Joshua Reynolds, then recently deceased ; and shortly afterwards he was 
 appointed Painter in Ordinary to the King. 
 
 From this period the history of Lawrence is but the record of a progressive 
 series of triumphs over all his competitors ; though the latter included the names 
 of Opie and Hoppner, two of the most justly distinguished Portrait Painters that 
 have ever graced the annals of Art in this country. In 1814 he was recalled by 
 the Prince Regent from a brief visit to Paris, in order to paint portraits of some 
 of the illustrious foreigners who were then in London. In 1815 he received the 
 equivocal " honor" of knighthood. But it was in the years 1819-20, that Lawrence 
 achieved his highest triumph, in seizing, as it were by a coup-de-main ^ that 
 European reputation, as the first of living artists, which he retained, almost 
 without question or cavil, to the day of his death. It must be admitted, however, 
 that, in the collateral "appliances and means" of accomplishing this object, he 
 was peculiarly favored and fortunate. We allude to the munificent commission 
 given him by the Prince Regent, to execute that wonderful collection of Portraits, 
 known afterwards as the Waterloo gallery ; and to the remarkable circumstances 
 under which he executed it= 
 
 There is nothing more honorable to Art in general, and more gratifying to its 
 English admirers in particular, than the history of Lawrence's celebrated mission 
 to the continent, during the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle, as related by himself in 
 his private letters to his friends ; and the honors and homage paid to the artist 
 during the course of its brilliant progress, in recalling to the lover and student 
 of Art the glorious era of the Medici, at the same time prove to him, that the 
 loftiest enthusiasm for Art, and the most lavish patronage of it, are not wanting, 
 where the adequate degree of genius is present, which alone can, or ought, to 
 call them forth. Let Art again produce its Raffaelles and Michael Angelos, and 
 
 E 
 
14 
 
 MEMORIALS. 
 
 patronage will not lack its Lorenzos, its Cosmos, and its Leo the Tenths. To 
 look for the sequence in the opposite direction, is to reverse the order, not 
 merely of Art, but of Nature herself. 
 
 Having traced Lawrence's career to its most triumphant point, we shall now 
 return to that more personal and more pleasing portion of our theme which 
 connects itself with the chief, in number, as well as in value and interest, of the 
 Gems of Art forming the Cabinet of which we are called upon to offer a sort of 
 Catalogue Raisonnee. 
 
 There is nothing more gratifying to the enquirer into the records of Lawrence's 
 life, than the uniform affection and reciprocal interest which subsisted between 
 himself and certain members of his immediate family. Though, (after the death 
 of his parents in 1797,) separated from them, no less by distance than by an utter 
 dissimilarity of objects, connections, and pursuits, he never failed (literally to the 
 day of his death, as will be seen in a most affecting manner when we come to 
 speak of that melancholy event) to look forward with the deepest personal interest, 
 and embrace, whenever it was afforded him, an opportunity of escaping from the 
 mingled toils and triumphs of his London career, and snatching a few brief 
 days of really domestic enjoyment, (the only glimpses of it that he ever obtained) 
 in the bosom of his beloved sister's family, at Rugby. Unless something 
 unusually urgent in his engagements unexpectedly arose to prevent him, he 
 made it almost as much a point of conscience as of pleasurable duty, to pay an 
 annual visit to the above-named excellent lady — ^Mrs. Bloxam, the wife of the 
 Rev. Dr. Bloxam, second master of Rugby School, It was during those happy 
 visits — ^" short, and far between" — (and, to those who were the happy recipients 
 of them, still more delightfully resembling "angel's visits") that several of the 
 gems of art we are now to examine were called into existence ; and there they 
 have hitherto been destined to "blush unseen" ; — though assuredly we should ill 
 apply the remainder of the quotation in adding, that they have till now been 
 decreed to "waste their sweetness on the desert air:" — for if there be a place 
 more fitted than any other to hold the memorials of infant sweetness, it is the heart 
 and home of its parents. 
 
 We cannot help looking upon the beautiful emanations of Lawrence's pencil to 
 
MEMORIALS. 
 
 15 
 
 which we are now about to refer in detail, as the most attractive and touching: 
 Memorials of his genius that he has left behind him ; being, as they unquestionably 
 are, the genuine tributes paid by that genius, in its most happy moods and 
 movements, to the purest affections of his heart, and the most amiable traits of 
 his gentle and genial nature. Having stated generally that several of the following 
 effigies of infant grace and loveliness were sketched beside the domestic hearth, 
 and beneath the delighted eye, of the mother who gave birth to the originals — that 
 mother being the beloved sister of the artist, — we do not envy those spectators 
 who can look for the first time upon the cherub faces respectively, without being 
 impelled to call up the scene which first witnessed their mimic creation ; without 
 seeing, in fancy, the head and representative of the most refined of the Arts in the 
 most refined and famous country of modern times — the admired of nations, the 
 • honored of Princes, the caressed of the highborn and the beautiful, the idol and 
 ideal of popular favor and popular fame, — putting off, as a cumbrous and confining 
 garment, all thought and feeling of his adventitious character and position ; 
 relapsing, for a brief space of happy forgetfulness, into the affectionate brother, 
 and the simple-hearted man ; and while the unconscious little prattlers climbed 
 his knees, or sported in infant bliss about his feet, seizing his magic pencil, and 
 fixing for ever those traits of infantile beauty and beatitude, which (so fugitive are 
 they!) even he was never to behold again, except in his own exquisite reflections 
 of them ! 
 
 The " gentle " reader — and we would fain be read by such only — ^will pardon 
 this digression, in favor of the strictly involuntary feeling which has called it 
 forth. 
 
 If modern Art can boast nothing to compare with some of Lawrence's most 
 felicitous productions, in that refined subtilty of individual expression, and that 
 intense vigor and vividness of intellectual developement, to fix the evanescent 
 traits of which has ever been deemed the highest triumph of the pencil, (take for 
 example his wonderful portrait of the Cardinal Gonsalvi) — on the other hand we 
 must contend that no other modern artist has verged so closely on the opposite 
 extreme of the scale, and given us such absolutely true and touching reflections 
 of that " blest condition " of the human features, in which there is no individual 
 
16 
 
 MEMORIALS. 
 
 expression and intellect at all, but only that look of beaming beatitude which the 
 face of healthful and happy childhood invariably displays. 
 
 Not naked and alone, 
 But trailing clouds of glory do we come, 
 
 From God, who is our home. 
 Heav'n lies about us in our infancy : 
 
 And it is the evanescent hues and ever shifting lights of that "heaven," with 
 which Lawrence invests the faces of his children ; making each, as it were, an 
 essence and an emblem of Childhood itself, but without missing those individual 
 features which mark each individual case» It is at once the error and the beauty 
 of the children of RafFaelle and Correggio, that they are over-informed with 
 intellectual expression : — their error, inasmuch as, thus far, they are not mere 
 natural children ; their beauty, — inasmuch as, in ceasing to be the representations 
 of mere "human mortals," they become agents and symbols of a religious creed 
 which makes mortals "half divine." The "ideal," aimed at in their children by 
 the above-named illustrious predecessors of Lawrence, pointed chiefly at the Infant 
 Savior and Saint John— the incarnate Deity himself, and the most "divine" of 
 his apostolic agents and followers: whereas, Lawrence, in his children, sought only 
 to depict, at once truly and worthily, the infant buds of those " bright consummate 
 flowers" of natural beauty which spring so profusely in our English bowers, and 
 decorate and deUght our own firesides. If Lawrence had lived in the day when 
 Painting was but the hand-maid of Religion, we cannot but think that his children 
 would have equalled those of the above-named divine masters, in sentiment and 
 expression, and would have surpassed them (for they do so now) in simplicity and 
 truth. 
 
 The first that we shall give of the portraits of Sir Thomas Lawrence's relatives, 
 is, to our thinking, the very " abstract and brief chronicle " of Childhood itself, 
 in all its happiest and most attractive attributes. We have no notion of the term 
 " beautiful," as applied to any particular child. Where there is health, happiness, 
 and no defective conformation, all children are beautiful. In fact childhood itself 
 is beauty. Behold it in the delightful instance now before us. Observe the eager, 
 
MEMORIALS. 
 
 17 
 
 happy gaze into the " futurity " of the next five minutes — as if the existence of a 
 life were centred in it ! mark the hushing finger, as if the music of the spheres were 
 striking on the enraptured sense ! perchance the sound is but that of a poor street 
 organ ! — ^what then has all the cultivated minstrelsy of after life conveyed 
 impressions to the heart, redolent of half the joy in which that despised instrument 
 is wont to steep it in early childhood ? let the grave man reply, who, some thirty 
 years ago, furnished the happy original of this charming sketch ! It represents 
 Thomas Lawrence Bloxam, second nephew of the Painter. 
 
 The next example we shall give is one representing childhood at a still earlier 
 age. May we be indulged in mooting for a moment a private fancy of our own, 
 touching the unde derivatur of the epithet chubby, as applied to early childhood ? 
 What can it be but cherubic, with the sharp e and the rough r dropped away, or 
 slurred over, at inaccordant with the smooth, soft, pulpy character of the thing to 
 be expressed ! And what more decisive can be adduced, in proof of the derivation, 
 than the chubby cherub on the opposite page ! for the terms are convertible. 
 Humanly speaking, then, the annexed is a portrait of the chubby little Rowland 
 Bloxam, of happy memory, now (for ought we know to the contrary) deceased into 
 the Reverend Rowland Bloxam, of Blank Rectory in the county of Blank, Justice 
 of the Peace, and Gustos Rotulorum ! — speaking in the spirit, it is a sweet and 
 happy impersonation of the cherubic character of childhood in general, as glanced 
 at in the touching and beautiful revelation which declares that " of little children 
 is the Kingdom of Heaven." 
 
 As our Cabinet contains another " gem " very similar to that which has called 
 forth the foregoing remarks, we shall set it here, as a companion jewel. Whatever 
 we have said of the one applies to the other. The latter is Henry Bloxam, third 
 nephew of Sir Thomas. 
 
 Thete is a certain grave sweetness about the face of childhood, which very few, 
 even among the most celebrated of the old masters, have successfully expressed. 
 This fault has arisen, no doubt, from a radical defect and error in their 
 observation and conception of childhood itself, — which is anything but a season 
 of mere light-heartedness and laughter. If the pains and sorrows of after life are 
 more enduring than those of infancy, they are by no means so deep-seated and so 
 
 F 
 
18 
 
 MEMORIALS. 
 
 acute. The agony of an infant who misses its nursing mother, or of a child on 
 first quitting its home for the dreaded banishment of a distant school, is a feeling 
 which even the most tragic events of after life are rarely, if ever, capable of calling 
 forth in all its early force. In fact, nothing but the fugitive nature of a child's 
 feelings could make them endurable, at less than the cost of reason, or of life 
 itself: and the face of a being so constituted is not likely to present a symbol 
 of les ris et les jeux. Moreover, there is a vagueness about the look of 
 childhood, which few artists even attempt to represent. The greater part of the 
 life of children is but a waking vision, 
 
 ': Of that imperial palace whence we came ; 
 
 and this communicates a dreamy and spiritual look to the countenance, which 
 is as beautiful as it is difficult to catch. 
 
 There is in the children of Lawrence more of this look, though it is more subtilely 
 expressed, than in those of any other painter, ancient or modern. And none of 
 his children have it more conspicuously than those we are now commending to 
 public notice and admiration. They are none of them "beautiful" children, in 
 the ordinary sense of that term, as applied to children ; but they have more of 
 the beauty of mere childhood than any others we are acquainted with. Look, tor 
 instance, at the little creature, apparently just roused up, in its night cap, from a 
 sleeping to a waking dream, and gazing (almost staring) forth into the vague 
 and objectless distance before it, as if the mere act of gazing were a glory and 
 a delight. This is evidently the pet of the family, because the latest born : 
 accordingly it is a little "spoiled ;" having, as you see, been suffered to go to bed 
 in its bead necklace, over its night-gear. This is Mary Isabella Bloxam, niece 
 of the artist. 
 
 The last that we have to introduce of these infantile portraits of Lawrence's 
 own relatives, is that of another of his nieces, Lucy Meredith (now Mrs. Aston), 
 daughter of another sister, Mrs. Meredith. She is represented at that pretty age 
 when childhood is just verging on girlhood. And how exquisitely is the ex- 
 pression varied and distinguished from all the preceding ! in those, all indications 
 of the affections and the intellect were utterly absent ; — in this, they are every 
 
MEMORIALS. 
 
 19 
 
 thing. There is no "beauty" — yet how beautiful ! how beaming with blissful 
 hope are those young eyes ; how touched with grave and affectionate sweetness 
 that simple mouth ! Like Juliet, 
 
 She speaks ! yet she says nothing ! — -What of that ? 
 Her eye discoiirses ! 
 
 Yet who shall attempt to " answer it" ?- — for it utters a language intelligible to the 
 heart alone, — which has no words to echo its emotions, and needs none. This is 
 in fact an exquisite flower — fresh and fragrant as the May-bloom — gentle as the 
 snow-drop — yet free and fearless in its innocence, as the white wind-flower, that 
 the tempest itself cannot daunt. 
 
 Lawrence was not less happy in the grouping of his children than he was in 
 their expression ; though very few instances of the former are to be found in his 
 published or exhibited works. The best known is the group of Mr. Calmeady's 
 children, — to which Lawrence himself was accustomed to point, as one of the three 
 or four works that he would most desire to be known by. That group is 
 undoubtedly an exquisite production ; but, we cannot help thinking, it is in some 
 degree tinged with the splendid fault we have attributed to similar works of some 
 of the old masters — that it is over-informed with intellectual, as distinguished from 
 infantile, expression. It may be, however, that we are led to this impression, 
 from our immediate comparison of it with one of the groups we are now to 
 introduce to the public eye, and which is so exquisitely free from the characteristic 
 in question — for we must not again venture to call it a fault. In the Calmeady's 
 children there is a degree of pretension, which interferes with the simplicity and 
 repose that we so much desire, in groups of this nature. They seem to claim that 
 attention and admiration which we never accord willingly, even to a child, except 
 when they are not claimed. 
 
 The opposite of all this is beautifully exemplified in the group we now present 
 to the reader's eye and judgment ; and we cannot help thinking the effect is 
 increased accordingly — at least the permanency of that effect. The celebrated 
 group before referred to, may strike the eye and the imagination more forcibly, 
 and with a more brilliant impression in the first instance ; but we cannot believe 
 
20 
 
 MEMORIALS. 
 
 it will SO deeply engage the affections, or dwell there so long, and with so 
 pleasing a result. Neither can we admit, that, in the real and characteristic 
 beauty of childhood, either of the Calmeady children surpasses the left hand one 
 of the present group. In fact, anything more beautiful than this, is '"'■from the 
 purpose of childhood." The second child in this group is no beauty, it must be 
 confessed ; but there is an individuality about it which is seldom seen in childhood, 
 and which adds to the personal interest of the group. The action of this pretty 
 group is not very distinctly made out ; but it seems to be that of a struggle rather 
 than an embrace ; or rather, a proferred embrace on the one hand, and a struggle 
 to escape from it on the other. There is a point of peculiar interest attached to 
 this group. It is the only existing record of Lawrence's original work ; — that 
 work itself having been finished by another hand, since this copy was made 
 from it. 
 
 Our second group, though full of interest, is not so entirely pleasing as the 
 first, — chiefly, as we conceive, from the unaccountable oversight into which 
 Lawrence has fallen, of drawing the subjects in profile — a style that the face of 
 childhood will rarely, if ever, bear. The action of this group, though as little made 
 out as that of the other, seems to be that of an elder child attempting to carry 
 about in its arms a younger one ; an assumption of infantine superiority at which 
 the lesser spirit is evidently not over pleased or flattered ; for the pride of place 
 is an instinct of our nature which shews itself in the very earliest dawn of the 
 intellectual being. In this point of view there is something excessively pretty 
 and piquant in the present group. The look of mingled remonstrance and reproof 
 in the elder child, at the ungracious reception of its proffered patronage, and the 
 affronted dignity of the younger one, at the idea of being carried about by 
 anybody less important than "mamma" or "nurse", contrast, and at the same 
 time harmonise, very pleasingly, and form a pretty little nursery epic. 
 
 We cannot help thinking there is, beyond the adventitious charm which several 
 of these portraits derive from the fact of their being near and dear relatives of 
 the Painter, an intrinsic interest attached to them, (derived however, probably, 
 from the same source) on account of their being, in every instance, absolutely free 
 from that disposition to beautify his sitters, which, if it was the secret of 
 i 
 
0' I 
 
 ; 1: 
 
MEMORIALS. 21 
 
 Lawrence's mere "popularity," was undoubtedly indulged in to an extent that 
 
 often impaired the truth, and consequently the personal interest, of his likenesses. 
 
 It may be very desirable, to a fading beauty of fashion, to be flattered into the 
 
 * 
 
 persuasion that she is, to day, what she was ten years ago ; and there is no great 
 harm in deceiving the motley visitors of the Royal Academy Exhibition into 
 the same belief. But the real interest and value of a portrait must rest in the 
 eyes and hearts of its ultimate possessors; and they must have strangely 
 constituted tastes and feelings, if they do not value it in the exact proportion 
 that it reflects the true features and expression they seek to preserve. Lawrence 
 seems to have felt this personally, in these family records, and to have acted on 
 the feeling in a way that he never did in any other instances. Look, for example, 
 at the sweet and interesting portrait following this page, — representing Miss 
 Bloxam — once the little pet in the night-cap, described in a preceding page : — 
 " another, yet the same." There is a truth in every trait of it, which must 
 be worth all the flattery in the world, even to the living original herself, much 
 more to those to whom she is united in blood and in affection. She had evidently 
 no marked beauty but that of youth, gentleness, and the affections of a genial 
 nature. Yet there is something about the face, even to the regards of a 
 stranger, which is better than beauty, in the proportion that what appeals to 
 the affections is better than what merely strikes the eye and the imagination with 
 a momentary delight. 
 
 Having glanced at the preceding works in a spirit that, we trust, will meet with 
 a corresponding one in our readers — a spirit of earnest love and deep admiration, 
 rather than of cold and calculating criticism — we shall complete our task, by 
 briefly tracing Sir Thomas Lawrence's career to its premature and melancholy 
 close, and then offering a few words on certain points of his personal character 
 and pretensions. 
 
 It was a remarkable coincidence in the progress of his professional honors, 
 that the last and crowning one of them all, occurred on the very day of his 
 return to his native land, from the fulfilment of a mission which had lifted his own 
 fame, and that of the arts of his country, to a height they had never before 
 reached, and which left all their competitors respectively at an immeasurable 
 
 G 
 
MEMORIALS. 
 
 distance behind. Sir Thomas Lawrence was elected President of the Royal 
 Academy on the 30th of March 1820 — the very day of his arrival in England 
 from his continental mission, after an absence of nearly a year and a half. 
 ' , From this period, till his death, Lawrence's career was one continued triumph, 
 as regards his professional pursuits, and (there is every reason to fear) one con- 
 tinued trial, in reference to his personal comfort, as connected with pecuniary 
 matters. If we allude more specifically than may to some readers appear neces- 
 sary, to this interesting, and, as it has been generally thought, inexplicable point 
 of Sir Thomas Lawrence's personal history, it is because we feel confident that a 
 sufficient solution may be found of the seeming riddle, in those circumstances 
 of his early career, under the ill-directed guidance of his father, to which we 
 have already more than once alluded. That his whole life was " pure as the 
 thought of purity," from the taint of any of those debasing vices which are as 
 fatal to the worldly interests, as they are to the peace and the principles, of their 
 possessor, — we hold to be beyond dispute. But, to use his own words, he 
 " began life badly," in all particulars relating to pecuniary matters, and thus 
 early fixed ujjon himself the first links of a chain of perpetually increasing 
 embarrassments, from which he was never afterwards able to free himself. In 
 building up the noble fabric of his future fame, he thus blended with its 
 materials one, that, besides impairing the external grandeur and beauty of the 
 edifice, cast a perpetual gloom over its inner shrine, which fell like a withering 
 blight upon the heart of the worshipper, and embittered the whole current of his 
 otherwise fortunate career. 
 
 As the remainder of Lawrence's life presents no incidents or features calling 
 for further detail or remark, we shall at once proceed to glance at its melancholy 
 and unexpected close, — which took place at a period when his faculties and fame 
 were at their very highest point, and when they might have been reasonably 
 expected to remain so for a series of brilliant and honorable years. 
 
 To the observant eye of friendship, it was evident that Lawrence's health had 
 been declining, for many weeks, and even months, before his sudden decease- 
 Though he went into company freely to the very last, there was latterly a languor 
 and lassitude of spirit, and a deathlike paleness of hue, which indicated that some 
 
MEMORIALS. 
 
 23 
 
 deep-seated malady was at work within, from which there was everything to 
 dread. Yet it was a happy circumstance that Lawrence himself was wholly 
 unconscious of any such cause for alarm. On the contrary, he had so fully 
 arranged his plans for his annual visit to his sister, Mrs, Bloxam, that the idea 
 of anything preventing the fulfilment of them never entered his thoughts. The 
 circumstances connected with this point are so affecting, and at the same time so 
 impressively instructive, that we shall use them as the medium for completing 
 our biographical memorial of this distinguished man. 
 
 Having previously fixed the day (by letter) on which he would be with 
 Mrs. Bloxam at Rugby, he writes to her on the 17th of December (1829) as 
 follows : — "I am grieved to the soul that urgent circumstances keep me at this 
 time from the comfort of seeing you ; but in the next month I will certainly 
 break away from all engagements, to be with you." — Again on the 19th he writes 
 — '"No — be assured, dear love, dearest sister, that nothing shall detain me from 
 you, on the day, andjTor the days, you mention." 
 
 The nature of the circumstances we are to relate are now rendered doubly 
 touching by the fact, that though Lawrence believed himself to be in perfect health, 
 he believed his dear sister to be dangerously ill ; and she herself was so convinced 
 on this latter point, that her son had sealed her last letter (by her directions) 
 with a hlack seal, in the persuasion that when the letter reached her brother she 
 would have ceased to live ! — On the 26th, Lawrence having in the mean time 
 learned that she was rather better, again writes to her as follows: "I have 
 unfortunately made engagements that demand my attention till the 5th and 6th. 
 On the 6th I have sacredly pledged myself to be with you, and to that all 
 circumstances shall bend." 
 
 In a subsequent letter he states that he will be with her " to a late and simple 
 dinner on Friday (the 8th)." — On Thursday, the 7th, he died ! 
 
 Some interesting details of Lawrence's last hours have been furnished by his 
 friend Miss Croft, who was constantly with him during his brief illness. We 
 shall refer to the closing scene only, — which, on account of its brevity, and the 
 absence of bodily pain, blends a melancholy pleasure with the deep regret it 
 inspires. 
 
24 MEMORIALS. 
 
 The proximate cause of Lawrence's death was a diseased action of the heart. 
 By prompt medical aid he had been recovered once from the effects of this 
 malady ; but during the evening of the 7th of January, 1830, they suddenly came 
 on again, when no one was near him but his faithful servant Jean. On the sudden 
 seizure, he slipped from the arm chair on which he was sitting, and by the time 
 Jean had reached him he was apparently in the act of fainting. As Jean placed 
 his arms about his master to support him, he said mildly — " Jean, my good fellow, 
 this is dying." — " Oh, no sir," was Jean's reply, " it is only fainting." But 
 almost as soon as the latter words were uttered, he stretched himself out, 
 and died. - .; ; . . 
 
 . \ Even in this our brief estimate of Lawrence's professional and personal career, 
 it would be unjust to pass by, without notice, those secondary graces and accom- 
 plishments of mind and manner, which have so seldom been found to adorn the 
 profession his name illustrates. That his mere external bearing was refined and 
 cultivated, to the highest pitch of courtly grace and elegance, we have seen at the 
 outset. What is more rare and valuable, and not to be attained by mere 
 observation and practice, (which the preceding quality is), was that sweetness and 
 suavity of general manner and expression, amounting to " fascination," which 
 excited towards him a personal interest — an individual feeling verging on 
 affection — even in his ordinary acquaintance ; and which fully realized that 
 sentiment in all who were admitted even to an approach towards an intimacy with 
 him. And his private letters to his friends prove beyond question, that this 
 feeling towards him was the natural and necessary result of that universal 
 sympathy, on his part, with the pains and pleasures of others, which is the only 
 certain and safe ground of mutual kindness and affection. That such a man 
 should have passed through life without attaching himself, " for better for 
 worse," to any one individual object — even a dumb animal, or a pet picture or 
 other production of Art — is only another proof of the strength and universality 
 of the sympathy in question. His love for mankind and for Art was of too 
 catholic and all-embracing a nature, to admit of its fixing and confining itself to 
 individual objects in either case. Had he been an eastern monarch, born to 
 
MEMORIALS. 
 
 25 
 
 unbounded wealth and power, he would have elevated into " favorite " sultanas 
 all the handsome women in his dominions ; rendered all the rest of his 
 subjects happy ; and made his palace the receptacle of every graceful or 
 agreeable object, that art or nature was capable of producing. But as he was 
 but a poor painter, he was fain to content himself with falling in love with every 
 handsome woman he saw ; coining his beautiful countenance into smiles and 
 expressions of courtesy to every human being (though it were a beggar in the 
 street) whom he had occasion to address ; and keeping himself in perpetual 
 poverty, by expending every guinea he could obtain (even those in posse as well as 
 in esse) on those very objects of his own Art, parallels to which he had nothing to 
 do but to take pencil in hand and create for himself. 
 
 Lawrence had a taste and a feeling for poetry, by no means ordinary and 
 common-place ; and he was an admirable reader and reciter of it, — especially in 
 its very highest and most refined departments — the writings of Milton and of 
 Shakspeare ; — it would therefore have been singular if he had not tried his 
 own hand upon some of the minor departments of it. That he did so to very 
 graceful and pleasing effect, the following stanzas will evince. The reminiscence 
 of his boyhood, and the curious coincidence alluded to in it, will be read with a 
 pleasing interest, by those who attach a due value to the beautiful simplicity of 
 some portions of Lawrence's personal character. 
 
 ON BEING LEFT ALONE AFTER DINNER. 
 
 How shall I, friend, employ my time, 
 Alone, no book of prose or rhyme. 
 
 Or pencil to amuse me ; 
 Nor pen nor paper to be found. 
 Nor friend to push the bottle round. 
 
 Or for its stay abuse me ? 
 
 The servants come and find me here. 
 And stare upon me, like the deer 
 On Selkirk in Fernandez ; 
 H 
 
MEMORIALS. 
 
 And, quite as tame, they wipe the chairs 
 And scrub, and hum their fav'rite airs. 
 And ask what my command is. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 Well— -here's to her, who, far away, 
 Cares not if I am grave or gay ;— 
 
 And then no more I'll drink ; • 
 But fold my arms and meditate. 
 And clap my feet upon the grate. 
 
 And on grave matters think. 
 
 -* 
 
 'Tis — ^let me see — ^full sixteen years. 
 And wond'rous short the time appears. 
 
 Since, with enquiry warm. 
 With beauty's novel power amazed, 
 I followed 'midst the crowd, and gazed 
 
 On ^'s beauteous form. 
 
 Up Bath's fatiguing streets I ran. 
 Just half-pretending to be man. 
 
 And fearful to intrude ; 
 Hurried I looked on some employ. 
 And limped, to seem some other boy, 
 
 Lest she should think me rude. 
 
 The sun was bright, and on her face, 
 As proud to shew the stranger grace. 
 
 Shone with its purest rays ; 
 And thro' the folds that veil'd her form, . 
 Motion display'd its happiest charm. 
 
 To catch th' admiring gaze. 
 
MEMORIALS. 
 
 27 
 
 The smiling lustre of her eyes. 
 That triumphed in our wild surprize, 
 
 Well I remember still ; 
 They spoke it joy to give delight. 
 And seem'd to say, * If I'm the sight 
 
 Good folks, pray gaze your fill !' 
 
 And can it be that 'neath this roof. 
 Whilst I sit patiently aloof. 
 
 This matchless form can be ! 
 Quick let me fly — avaunt my fears ! 
 'Tis but a door and sixteen years. 
 
 Divide this fair and me. 
 
 Sjs 3|C I !|C sjc ^ 
 
 In connection with these pleasing verses, we have introduced a portrait, which, it 
 is not improbable, (though we have no authority whatever for stating it as a fact — 
 on the contrary, it is a mere random conjecture of our own,) may have been that 
 of the lady glanced at in the above stanzas. Indeed this conjecture has been 
 our chief reason for introducing them. 
 
 The beauty of this divine face is not of that character which Lawrence seemed 
 chiefly to affect — ^that of expression ; but in its way, as the serene and settled 
 result of form chiefly, it is perfect. 
 
 All we feel it necessary to state further of this portrait is, that on the original 
 drawing, which is on a sheet of common letter-paper, folded double, is written 
 " Lady Lonsdale." 
 
 The leading trait of Sir Thomas Lawrence's personal character was one which, 
 with little meaning and still less justice, we seek to denounce and decry, under 
 the depreciating name of " personal vanity ;" — as if the feeling or intellectual 
 quality so called, were not the immediate source of half the good of which we 
 are capable, and, perchance, the collateral source of almost all the rest. What 
 we call, in the vulgar, the inobservant, and the selfish, personal vanity, was in 
 
28 MEMORIALS. 
 
 Lawrence the lofty ambition and the love-inspired emulation which were the 
 springs of all his happy powers, and of all the results of their happiest exercise. 
 Shall we urge and impel men of genius to sacrifice themselves, body and spirit, 
 in the creation of objects which can have but one effect in the ultimate resort — 
 that of giving pleasure and benefit to mankind, where their creators are unknown, 
 or unthought of, or forgotten ; and shall we then turn round and libel the feeling 
 which produced all this pleasure and benefit, by characterising it as " personal 
 vanity ?" The habit is as ungrateful as it is unphilosophical and unjust. If 
 "personal vanity" is capable of creating for our use and benefit a Lawrence, 
 or a Leonardo di Vinci, (and that it is so, what observer of human nature can 
 doubt ?) in heaven's name let us rather dignify it into an element of virtue, 
 than depose it to a level with our vulgar and self-centred passions and vicious 
 propensities ! 
 
 If the portrait of Sir Thomas Lawrence which we have prefixed to this work 
 conveys an adequate impression of his features when they were at rest, nothing 
 but an actual personal acquaintance with the illustrious original could afford the 
 smallest conception of the expression of those features, when roused from their 
 accustomed repose, by that beautiful play of the sympathies of our nature, which, 
 in him, the common courtesies of social life called into active operation. But 
 the bland and beaming smile which came into Lawrence's otherwise care-touched 
 countenance, whenever he addressed any one in the intercourse of daily life, was 
 heightened into a look almost seraphic, during the last few days of his existence, 
 when his accustomed expression of profound melancholy was deepened into one 
 fore-shadowing death itself. It was like the beautiful face of a marble statue, 
 breaking for a brief moment (by some strange magic) into a semblance of 
 beatific life; and then relapsing as suddenly into the death-like stillness and 
 repose which seemed its only proper state of being. Such at least was the 
 impression received by the writer of these pages, on meeting Lawrence at a 
 party, a very few days only before his sudden decease. His smile at that time had 
 something so celestial in it, as contrasted with the sepulchral paleness of the 
 countenance on which it played, (like sun-light on a beautifully sculptured tomb) 
 that it could scarcely be contemplated, by an attentive observer, without an 
 
MEMORIALS. 
 
 19 
 
 emotion in which the presage of approaching death occupied (however uncon- 
 sciously) a chief share. Certain it is, that when, a few days afterwards, the 
 writer heard of Lawrence's death, no touch of surprise was blended with the 
 shock he received from the melancholy tidings. 
 
 We shall close our Memorials of Sir Thomas Lawrence by one which, we are 
 sure, will be deemed peculiarly appropriate to the purpose we have in view. It 
 is an elegiac tribute, written immediately after his death, by the justly celebrated 
 Miss Anna Maria Porter. This elegy has the rare merit of embodying, in a brief 
 and poetical, yet a perfectly unexaggerated form, the universal feelings of the 
 national mind, at the moment when it was written — a moment when all other 
 interests and emotions gave way before that absorbing one, of mingled grief at 
 the loss which England had just sustained, and admiration of the object lost. 
 
 TO THE MEMORY OF SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE. 
 
 Pass on, ye train of Princes and of Peers !* 
 
 Ye weeping friends ! ye followers in Art ! 
 
 And you, ye multitudes, that, hush'd and sad. 
 
 Gaze with your hearts and eyes on one pale bier — 
 
 Pass on, and to its rest the noble clay 
 
 That bier supports most reverently bear ! 
 
 Went ever king more honor'd to his tomb ? 
 
 Went ever king beloved more truly wept ? 
 
 And wherefore should not pomp and public woe 
 
 Wait on our Lawrence dead ? — for he was crown'd 
 
 By nature's mighty hand ! His spirit held 
 
 Command o'er wondrous secrets, and could wake 
 
 At will, on the mute canvas, mould and mind 
 
 Divinely beautiful ! His the sovereign pow'r 
 
 To give his own fine graces to what, else. 
 
 Had common been and harsh ; to catch youth's breath, 
 
 * Where the equipages of foreign ambassadors, &c. are present at a public funeral, it is no doubt 
 to be regarded as typical of the presence of the personages themselves, and therefore of their 
 principals. 
 
 I 
 
MEMORIALS. 
 
 Expression's rainbow hues, and fix day's star. 
 Never to setj in Bard or Hero's eye. 
 
 Now shall our stateliest haUs their ornament 
 Of mien and manner want ; their echoes now 
 Vainly shall wait, to list the silver tones 
 Of that soft voicCj by taste and feeling tuned. 
 The friend shall miss him by the social hearth. 
 Where heart pourM into heart ; the withered hand 
 Which his in charity oft fiU'd, 
 And pressed in filling they shall miss him too. 
 Who lov'd to see his honor'd head bent low 
 And duly to his God, in prayer and praise ! 
 Oh ! precious memories these ! So let the earth 
 Close o'er his hallowed corse ! Let chant and hymn 
 In solemn sweetness float around his bed ; 
 And " dust to dust ' ' in thrilling thought remain 
 For years to come ! Tlie hallowed corse is there. 
 His mortal relict — the pale robe he wore 
 In mortal life ; but he himself is called 
 To brighter regions, where his soul, entranc'd. 
 Hath found its brightest visions dreams no more ! 
 
 FINIS 
 
 LEWIS AND CO., PRINTEHS, IS, FEITH-STREET, SOHO. 
 
/ 
 
GETTY RESEARCH INSTITUTE 
 
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