UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Mrs. Denton .J. Snider
 
 
 : .'-." 
 
 ' m 
 
 ' 
 
 mm \ 
 
 jm - m 
 
 ' 
 
 
 m : 
 
 
 ' :-.*' ^'^'-- m 1 
 
 B HHt .' : . ' 
 
 S me \ 1 ' : -- : m 
 
 ' '":-./'-"":'"- . JM . 
 
 - - . 8 . . .
 
 BOHN'S STANDARD LIBRARY. 
 
 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 VOL. I.

 
 A 
 
 THE LIVES 
 
 OP THE MOST 
 
 EMINENT BKITISH PAINTEES 
 
 BY ALLAN /CUNNINGHAM. 
 
 REVISED EDITION. 
 
 ANNOTATED AND CONTINUED TO THE PRESENT TIME 
 
 BY MRS. CHARLES HEATON. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: GEOEGE BELL AND SONS, YOEK STKEET, 
 
 COVENT GARDEN. 
 1879.
 
 CHISW.CK PRESS =-C. WHITTINGHAM, TOOKS CO 
 CHANCERY LANE.
 
 Art 
 Librarx 
 
 461 
 C9II 
 v.1 
 
 EDITOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 WHEN" first I undertook the preparation of a new 
 ^ edition of Allan Cunningham's well-known work, I 
 
 feared that my task would be more difficult than it has 
 proved. In some departments of art-history, modern re- 
 search and criticism have brought to light so many new 
 facts and effected such a complete change of opinion that 
 many books of much more recent date have become almost 
 useless as works of reference. As regards British art this 
 has not been the case. Little of any great importance 
 7 has been discovered since Cunningham wrote ; and our 
 ^ shrewd Scottish Vasari having been more careful in retail- 
 . ing mere gossip and hearsay than his renowned Aretine pre- 
 *Niecessor, his pleasant biographies still retain almost all their 
 old value. Indeed, though much criticism has been brought 
 to bear of late years on several of the painters whose lives 
 has recorded, it is curious to find how little our real 
 knowledge has been widened. Take for instance the life 
 of Blake. In spite of the Blake c^lUe .that has arisen in 
 the present day, and the torrent of eloquent writing that 
 it has called forth, it is doubtful whether there can be found 
 anywhere a more lifelike and vigorous sketch of this extra- 
 ordinary man than that given by Cunningham, nor one on 
 the whole more accurate. Of course much new knowledge 
 has been gained of late years concerning Blake's works ; 
 but this, with such criticism as seemed of most interest, I 
 have been able to add in foot-notes. 
 
 So it has been with the other biographies. My task 
 one of correction, and addition of new matter has all 
 f been accomplished in notes. I have in no instance inter- 
 t fered with the original text except in the correction of 
 ' mere verbal errors. For many of these notes I have been 
 indebted to a mass of material (courteously placed at my 
 
 3551)15 
 
 1
 
 vi EDITOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 disposal by Mr. John Fowler, of Sharrowhead) , collected 
 by Allan Cunningham himself, and by his son Colonel 
 Cunningham, with a view to a new edition. Some few of 
 the corrections therefore are due to the author, but the 
 greater part of the information of the foot-notes has been 
 gained since his time. Those not marked " Ed." appeared 
 in the former editions. 
 
 Besides this work of editing, it was deemed desirable, for 
 the further utility of a standard work, that it should be 
 continued down to the present day. I have therefore 
 prepared short biographies of some of the most eminent 
 British artists who have died since Cunningham's time. 
 Want of space has compelled the omission of many names 
 that otherwise might well claim a place, especially those 
 of our great water-colour painters, who have, without 
 doubt, risen to high eminence. Possibly their lives may 
 be added at some future time, but for the present I have 
 been obliged to confine my work exclusively to painters in 
 oil, selecting among these such as are best known to fame, 
 or who seemed most noteworthy. Continuations are gene- 
 rally dull affairs, and I cannot pretend that my " Lives " 
 are written in the same lively vein as Cunningham's : still 
 I hope they will not be found without value and interest. 
 And as our interest in any work is always greater if we 
 know something of the author, I have also added a short 
 account of Allan Cunningham himself the sturdy Scotch 
 stonemason, who by his own unaided exertions achieved 
 both independence and fame, and who has written one of 
 the best works of biography in the English language. 
 
 MARY M. HEATON. 
 
 LESSNESS HEATH, KENT.
 
 LIFE OF ALLAN CUNNINGHAM. 
 
 A LLAN CUNNINGHAM, like most Scotchmen, claimed 
 **> descent from an ancient family. The Cunninghams 
 of Cunningham had been bold barons in their day, had 
 drawn the claymore for their king, and had held large 
 possessions in Ayrshire. Allan's more immediate pro- 
 genitors, however, were simply small tenant farmers in 
 the neighbourhood of Edinburgh ; and his father, John 
 Cunningham, having been obliged to give up farming on 
 his own account, filled the office of land-steward or factor 
 to several gentlemen. John Cunningham was a man of 
 superior intellect to that usually found in the position he 
 occupied ; he had, it is said, some knowledge of scientific 
 agriculture, and he was " fond of collecting all that was 
 characteristic of his country," a taste transmitted to several 
 of his sons. The mother also was a woman of good educa- 
 tion and considerable ability, having a poetic fancy and 
 great taste for literature. 
 
 To this worthy and somewhat uncommon pair were 
 born nine children five sons and four daughters all of 
 whom seem to have been remarkable for more than ordi- 
 nary capabilities, several of them besides Allan evincing a 
 talent for poetry, and possessing literary power. Allan, 
 the fourth son, was born at Blackwood, in Dumfriesshire, 
 in a cottage on the banks of the Nith, on the 7th of 
 December, 1784. Soon after his birth, however, his parents 
 removed to Dalswinton, with which village, as we see in 
 his verses, all his earliest memories were associated. Here 
 he gained what knowledge he could at a dame-school, 
 learning, at all events, to spell through the Bible, and was 
 then, at eleven years of age, placed with his elder brother 
 James to learn the trade of stonemason. 
 
 From henceforth, one would imagine, there could not
 
 viii LIFE OF ALLAN CUNNINGHAM. 
 
 have been much opportunity for literary culture, but 
 " where there's a will there's a way," and the boy stone- 
 mason was as wilful as could be desired in the pursuit of 
 knowledge. " In the evenings," says his recent biographer, 
 the Rev. David Hogg, " after the labours of the day were 
 over, as well as at the midday hour, he read with avidity 
 every book within his reach, listened eagerly to every 
 snatch of old ballad he heard sung, treasured up every 
 story told, his own imagination amply supplying any omis- 
 sion in the narrative or any failure in the memory of the 
 narrator." Moreover, he taught himself English grammar, 
 and managed by constant practice to acquire facility in 
 composition. 
 
 Yet we must by no means think of young Allan as a 
 pale student condemned during the day to an uncongenial 
 occupation, and only happy when burning midnight oil. 
 On the contrary, his labours as a stonemason do not seem 
 to have been at all distasteful to him, and when freed from 
 them he appears to have been foremost in every piece of 
 merry mischief going on in the neighbourhood. Numerous 
 stories are told of his youthful pranks, in most of which he 
 was assisted by a young fellow named M'Ghie, the son of 
 a weaver, and Allan's chief friend at this time. On one 
 occasion, Mr. Hogg relates, when the inhabitants of their 
 village were suffering like the rest of England from a 
 nightmare fear of a French invasion, they awoke one morn- 
 ing and found every house in the place mysteriously marked 
 with a number. Great was the alarm, for the village was 
 not far from the coast, and it was feared that the enemy 
 had secretly landed and were making observations. Every 
 one was kept on the alert, and it was not for some time 
 that it was discovered that a heartless hoax had been 
 played on the worthy folk of Kirkmahoe. After this a 
 placard was secretly posted in several places, offering a 
 reward of 50 for the conviction of the offenders " who 
 had been guilty of wantonly, maliciously, and profanely 
 imitating David's numbering of the people, and the mark- 
 ing of the dwellings of the Israelites," but it was never 
 found out until Mr. M'Ghie revealed the secret, a short 
 time before his death, which happened in 1868, that he
 
 LIFE OF ALLAN CUNNINGHAM. IX 
 
 and Allan were not only the perpetrators of the joke, but 
 also the authors of the subsequent placard. 
 
 A wider mystification was soon to be carried into effect 
 by the incorrigible Allan. He was now, although still 
 working diligently as a stonemason, and even acquiring a 
 considerable reputation for his skill in the trade, trying 
 the strength of his muse in various verses that he contri- 
 buted from time to time to a London magazine called 
 " Literary Recreations," under the signature of " Hidal- 
 lan," the name of one of Ossian's heroes. The editor of 
 this magazine, an Irishman named Eugenius Roche, was 
 evidently proud of having a young, self-taught poet to in- 
 troduce to his public, and gave him every encouragement, 
 so that hopes of literary fame began to dawn upon him, 
 and all the time that could be spared from building whin- 
 stone was given to composing national songs. " My dear 
 James," he writes to his eldest brother about this time, 
 " I have been holding high converse in the path of song 
 since I saw you. I have composed eleven ' split new ones,' 
 one of which I have enclosed. Want of time prevents my 
 sending more which I deem of superior worth. I have no 
 place to compose my mind in but in the Babelonian slang 
 of tongues which compose a workman's kitchen. I am, 
 however, much at my ease and comparatively serious." 
 Comparatively, it will be observed. Though now twenty- 
 five and a highly esteemed workman, to whom was always 
 confided the most artistic portion of the building in hand, 
 and who had even been offered a partnership by his 
 master, the spirit of fun was still strong within him. 
 
 This was suddenly called forth in an unexpected direction 
 ill 1809, when Mr. Crornek, a London engraver, whose 
 dealings with Stothard and Blake I shall hereafter have 
 occasion to notice, came to Dumfriesshire with the former 
 artist, who was then collecting materials for his illustrations 
 to Burns, and got introduced to Allan Cunningham. Cromek 
 was fond of dabbling in antiquarian pursuits, and was de- 
 lighted to find his young friend Allan well versed in all the 
 old ballad literature of his country. " In one of their con- 
 versations on modern Scottish song," writes Mr. Peter 
 Cunningham in the introduction to his edition of his
 
 X LIFE OF ALLAN CUNNINGHAM. 
 
 father's Poems and Songs, " Cromek made the discovery 
 that the Dumfries mason on eighteen shillings a- week was 
 himself a poet. Mrs. Fletcher may have told him as much : 
 this, however, is immaterial. Cromek, in consequence of 
 this discovery, asked to see some of his ' effusions.' They 
 were shown to him, and at their next meeting he observed, 
 as I have heard my father tell with great good humour, 
 imitating Cromek's manner the while, ' Why, sir, your 
 verses are well very well ; but no one should try to write 
 songs after Robert Burns, unless he could write like him 
 or some of the old minstrels.' 
 
 " The disappointed poet nodded assent, changed the con- 
 versation, and talked about the old songs and fragments 
 of songs to be picked up among the peasantry of Niths- 
 dale. , 
 
 " ' Gad, sir ! ' said Cromek, ' if we could but make a 
 volume Gad, sir ! see what Percy has done, and Ritson, 
 and Mr. Scott more recently with his Border Minstrelsy.' " 
 
 The idea instantly flashed across young Allan's mind of 
 providing what Cromek thus ardently desired, by passing 
 upon him a volume of imitations of his own, as genuine 
 remains collected from the old inhabitants of Nithsdale 
 and Galloway. The fun of the thing was probably at first 
 its chief recommendation. It was irresistible, and without 
 thinking anything more about it, Allan Cunningham com- 
 mitted himself to the undertaking. 
 
 Cromek was easily gulled, or more likely pretended to 
 be, and when Allan sent him a few fragments as specimens, 
 cried eagerly for more. Under these circumstances the 
 supply, of course, was not likely to fail, and many charming 
 ballads and songs, such as the " Bonnie Lady Anne," " She's 
 gone to dwell in Heaven," " It's Hame and it's Hame," 
 " Thou hast sworn by thy God," and others, were promptly 
 despatched to London. 1 These, though written, it is true, 
 
 1 Cromek, before leaving Scotland, had given Allan Cunningham a 
 MS. book to copy the songs he collected into, bearing this inscription 
 on the cover : 
 
 " When this book is filled with old unpublished songs and ballads, and 
 with remarks on them, historical and critical, by Allan Cunningham, it 
 must be sent to R. H. Cromek 64, Newman Street, London.
 
 LIFE OF ALLAN CUNNINGHAM. XI 
 
 in the old style of verse, were not of a nature to deceive 
 acute criticism and it is not improbable that they did not, 
 even at the first, impose upon Cromek, who was a tolerably 
 good judge in such matters, as is proved by some of his re- 
 marks upon them. He kept a discreet silence, however, and 
 professed a firm belief in the various old women and others 
 whom Cunningham made out he consulted. Only in one 
 of his letters he especially cautions Allan " not to divulge 
 the secrets of the prison-lioiise" and to let " no mortal eyes 
 keek in " language scarcely consistent with the collection 
 simply of a few national songs. However this may be, 
 Crornek assumed the whole merit and management of the 
 proposed volume, which was finally published in 1810, 
 under the title of " Nithsdale and Galloway Song," Cromek 
 being the reputed collector and editor, though in reality 
 Cunningham wrote the whole the interesting introduction 
 and descriptive notes, as well as the ballads themselves. 
 
 Meanwhile, on Cromek' s recommendation and persua- 
 sion, Allan had taken the bold step of renouncing his trade 
 of stonemason, leaving kith and kin and the girl he loved, 
 and coming up to town to try his fortune. Cromek, it 
 would seem, had somewhat misled Allan with regard to his 
 prospects in London. Cromek himself at this time was in 
 constant difficulties, and was not in a position to assist 
 
 " The writer of this knows enough of the last-mentioned gentleman to 
 warrant him in assuring Mr. Cunningham that his exertions will not 
 only be gratefully acknowledged, but when an opportunity occurs, 
 kindly returned. 
 
 " Dumfries, Sept. 18th, 1809." 
 
 Such were the terms of the contract entered into between author and 
 publisher. Perhaps if Allan Cunningham had known a little more about 
 business matters at this time he would have been more cautious in ac- 
 cepting them. It does not appear that he ever received a penny from 
 Cromek for all his work in the matter, and when the book wiis pub- 
 lished he had even to buy copies to give to his friends. When Cromek 
 presented him with a copy for himself he accompanied it with the re- 
 mark, " It has been a costly work, and I have made nothing by it ; but it 
 
 is d d good, let the critics say what they will ; and when it goes to a 
 
 second edition I will give you something handsome." This is related by 
 Peter Cunningham from his father's own account. Cromek died before 
 the second edition came out, so had not an opportunity of redeeming his 
 promise.
 
 xii LIFE OF ALLAN CUNNINGHAM. 
 
 materially an ambitious young author, however much he 
 might wish to do so ; but it was doubtless a disappointment 
 to Allan after waiting some time to find nothing better offer 
 itself than employment with a sculptor of little note named 
 Bubb, by whom he was engaged at twenty-five shillings a 
 weejc, a sum afterwards increased by four shillings, as he tells 
 his brother in one of his home letters. " I am unco well 
 myself," he writes ; " G-od be blessed for it and praised too. 
 I have four shillings a week added to my wages. We had 
 designed a general strike, and many are yet out of employ- 
 ment. One of our men was turned off, and I am now 
 considered the soul and nerve of the shop, and the master 
 has taken a great regard for me, so I live very well and hap- 
 pily. I have left my old lodgings, and a young man called 
 Thomas Lowrie, a cabinet-maker from Dumfries, has joined 
 me in taking a neat room, where I will be cheaper and more 
 heartsome. Indeed, London is in no way suitable to any but 
 a married person. I breakfast in one house, dine in another, 
 sup in a third, and go to bed in a fourth. In every one 
 of these places Extortion must have in her accursed hand. 
 The thing is, everybody must live, and we buy one another 
 like other vermin. So it would be no wonder were I found 
 married in some letter or another soon." A pretty con- 
 clusion this for the prudent Allan to come to, that to save 
 himself from extortion, and to reduce expenses, he had 
 better get married ! 
 
 This subtilty of reasoning would not probably have oc- 
 curred to him, had he not already, as before hinted, lost his 
 heart before he left Scotland, to a bonnie Dumfries lassie, 
 whom he has celebrated as the Lovely Lass of Preston Mill. 
 
 " There's comely maids on Dee's wild banks, 
 
 And Nith's romantic vale is fu', 
 
 By Innely Cludcn's hermit stream 
 
 Dwells monie a gentle damn, I trow ! 
 
 O, they are lights of a gladsome kind, 
 
 As ever shone on vale or hill ; 
 
 But there's a light puts them a' out, 
 
 The lovely lass of Preston Mill." 
 
 This " lovely lass," Jean Walker by name, now came to 
 shine upon him in London. They were married on the 1st
 
 LIFE OF ALLAN CUNNINGHAM. xm 
 
 of July, 1811, and we may hope he found her skill as a 
 housekeeper successful in defeating London extortion. 
 
 Fortunately , in addition to his work with the chisel, Allan 
 Cunningham was now beginning to find constant employ- 
 ment for his pen. On coming to London he had called on 
 several editors, and among others upon Eugenius Roche, 
 who had published his first effusions in the " Literary 
 Recreation s." This gentleman was now editing a paper 
 called "The Day," and he kindly gave Allan an appoint- 
 ment upon it as reporter, which he held for some years, 
 until his health obliged him to give it up. By this means, 
 and with the aid of an occasional guinea or two for a 
 " split new song," contributed to one of the magazines, he 
 managed to push along and continued, as he says, " to keep 
 his head above water, and on occasion take the middle of 
 the causeway with an independent step," even though 
 children now came to add to the economies of his house- 
 hold. 
 
 But after a few years of this uncertain kind of work a 
 new career opened out for him. On his first coming to 
 London Cromek had introduced him to Chantrey, then only 
 a rising young sculptor. The introduction at the time had 
 no result, but now that Chantrey was beginning to be 
 known to fame he bethought him of Cunningham as being 
 likely to assist him in his work, and accordingly engaged 
 him as superintendent of his workshop at a small salary 
 at first, but this grew as time went on and business 
 became more plentiful and profitable. The connection 
 thus fonned between these two young men, both of 
 whom had begun life amidst the same humble surround- 
 ings and had struggled through difficulties to independence 
 was of the greatest advantage to both. It was indeed 
 based on the warmest regard, Chantrey always regarding 
 Cunningham as his dearest friend, and Cunningham having 
 a deep affection and profound admiration for Chantrey. 
 Besides the assistance he rendered to him in carrying out 
 his works in sculpture, he acted also as Chantrey's secre- 
 tary and amanuensis, and was left in sole charge when 
 Chantrey, as often happened, went away for months at a 
 time on foreign travel.
 
 xiv LIFE OF ALLAN CUNNINGHAM. 
 
 It has been said that Chaiitrey was sometimes indebted 
 to his poetic assistant for suggestions for his designs, but 
 no one has pointed out with certainty any work in sculpture 
 actually designed by Allan Cunningham. He had not 
 indeed any creative power in art, though he was faithful 
 in executing designs from the clay model. 
 
 But while thus engaged in the sculptor's studio by day, 
 he still wielded the pen at night, contribxiting numerous 
 articles to the " London Magazine," " Blackwood," and 
 other magazines. 
 
 In 1817, he writes thus to one of his old friends in Scot- 
 land : " I wish I could tell you good tidings of myself, but I 
 have nothing better to tell you than that I am toiling 
 ardently for ' saps o' cream ' to three boy bairns, and coats 
 of callimanco to my wife. I preserve a decent silence in 
 verse and prose, and I believe some of my best friends think 
 I have sleeked my gab for ever. Believe not one word of it. I 
 will come out among them all some morning like a trumpet 
 sounding in a lonely glen." 
 
 He was indeed now preparing for a higher flight in the 
 realms of poetry than any he had yet attempted no less 
 than the writing of a tragedy which he hoped to see 
 brought out on the stage. As may be surmised, however, 
 his strength was not equal to this most difficult of tasks, 
 though it is one upon which so many young poets have 
 tried their " 'prentice hand." " Sir Marinaduke Maxwell " 
 was published in March, 1822, together with a few songs 
 and the fine ballad of the " Mermaid of Galloway," which 
 had before appeared in Cromek's volume. This little 
 volume had been most favourably received by the critics, 
 most of whom were loud in praise of the " toxtching poetry of 
 Scotland." Some few, however, suspected a cheat. Bishop 
 Percy avowed that the poems were " too good to be old," 
 and Hogg, who had made the acquaintance of Allan and his 
 brother James on the Scottish hills, boldly declared that his 
 friend " Allan Cunningham was the author of all that was 
 beautiful in the work." Sir Walter Scott was of the same 
 opinion, but Professor Wilson was the first person who, as 
 Hogg put it, " laid the saddle on the right horse." In a 
 review in "Blackwood's Magazine" for December, 1819, he
 
 LIFE OF ALLAN CUNNINGHAM. \V 
 
 distinctly stated it as his belief that both the appendix and 
 the poems themselves belonged to Allan Cunningham. 
 " Can the most credulous person," he says, "believe that 
 Mr. Cromek, an Englishman, an utfer stranger in Scotland, 
 should have been able, in a few days' walk through Niths- 
 dale and Galloway, to collect, not a few broken fragments 
 of poetry only, but a number of finished and perfect poems 
 of whose existence none of the inquisitive literary men or 
 women of Scotland had ever before heard, and that too in 
 the very country which Robert Burns had beaten to its every 
 bush ? but independently of all this, the poems speak for 
 themselves and for Allan Cunningham." 
 
 This appreciative review, from so excellent an authority, 
 fairly established Allan Cunningham's reputation. It did 
 him good service with the publishers, and encouraged him 
 to persevere in writing, which for some years past he had 
 almost given up. It cannot be said, however, that " Sir 
 Marmaduke Maxwell " was in any way a success. Before 
 publishing it he sent the MS. to Sir Walter Scott, who, 
 in the kindest manner, wrote him a long letter of advice 
 and criticism, telling him of the faults of the piece, and 
 that he did not think it fitted for the modern stage. This 
 view was confirmed by the actor Terry, and Allan Cunning- 
 ham, disheartened, never again attempted dramatic compo- 
 sition. " Sir Marmaduke Maxwell " is now remembered 
 chiefly through Sir Walter Scott's kindly allusion to it in 
 his introduction to " The Fortunes of Nigel." 1 
 
 1 "Author. But there is my friend Allan has written just such a 
 play as I might write myself in a very sunny day, and with one of 
 Bramah's extra patent pens. I cannot make neat work without such 
 appurtenances. 
 
 " Captain. Do you mean Allan Ramsay ?" 
 
 " Author. No, nor Barbara Allan either. I mean Allan Cunning- 
 ham, who has just published his tragedy of ' Sir Marmaduke Maxwell,' 
 full of merry-making and murdering, kissing and cutting of throats, 
 and passages which lead to nothing, and which are very pretty passages 
 for all that. Not a glimpse of probability is there about the plot, but 
 so much animation in particular passages, and such a vein of poetry 
 through the whole, as I dearly wish I could infuse into my " Culinary 
 Remains," should I ever be tempted to publish them. With a popular 
 impress people would read and admire the beauties of Allan ; as it is, 
 they may, perhaps, only note his defects, or, what is worse, not note
 
 XVI LIFH OF ALLAN CUNNINGHAM. 
 
 Cunningham's admiration for Sir Walter Scott had once 
 led him, when a mere lad, to walk all the way from Dal- 
 swinton to Edinburgh in order to catch sight of the great 
 author. It must, therefore, have been extremely gratifying 
 to him when Scott came to London in 1820 to make his 
 acquaintance in Chantrey's studio. Scott, even at their 
 first interview, soon put Cunningham at his ease, " having," 
 as he says, " the power I had almost called it the art 
 but art it was not of winning one's heart and restoring 
 one's confidence, beyond any man I ever met ; " and the two 
 lovers of Scottish song soon became friends. They met 
 often afterwards at Chantrey's studio, and discussed old 
 ballads and other kindred subjects with national enthu- 
 siasm. 
 
 Cunningham's next work was a collection, in two volumes, 
 of the tales he had contributed from time to time to 
 the " London Magazine." These were published under the 
 title of " Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish 
 Peasantry," and included many curious relics of fairy 
 belief, some of them enshrined by him in verse. He also 
 republished his " Cameronian Tales," that had appeared in 
 " Blackwood ; " but his principal work at this time was a 
 collection of Scottish songs, in making which Sir Walter 
 Scott gave him much valuable assistance. This work, which 
 was gratefully dedicated to Sir Walter Scott, appeared in 
 four volumes in 1826. Many of the songs in it are Allan 
 Cunningham's own, and the introduction and notes, his- 
 torical and critical, were all written by him, and are ex- 
 tremely interesting. 
 
 Next followed a work of a different kind a piratical 
 romance in broad Scotch, full of battle, murder, and sudden 
 death, but in no other way remarkable. It was called 
 " Paul Jones," and was pronounced, even by his friend the 
 Ettrick Shepherd in one of his " Noctes," to be " a most 
 decided failure." The public also were of much the same 
 opinion about another romance, " Sir Michael Scott," pub- 
 
 him at all. But never mind them, honest Allan, you are a credit to 
 Caledonia for all that. There are some lyrical effusions of his, too, 
 which you would do well to read, Captain. ' It's Hame and it's Hame ' 
 is equal to Burns."
 
 LIFE OF ALLAN CUNNINGHAM. xvii 
 
 lished in 1827. "My chief object," writes Cunningham 
 regarding this work, " was to write a kind of Gothic 
 romance, a sort of British Arabian Nights, in which I 
 could let loose my imagination among the mythological 
 beings of fireside tales and old superstitions." But suc- 
 cessful as he was in his national tales and character 
 sketches, it would seem that he wanted the requisite 
 power for constructing a continuous story filled with the 
 necessary dramatis personce. As Scott told him of his 
 tragedy, there is in his novels " a fine tone of supernatural 
 impulse," but the interest is not kept up, because the effort 
 to preserve it is too distinctly visible. Two other romances, 
 "Lord Roldan" and the "Maid of Elvar," followed 
 " Michael Scott." Both are now forgotten. 
 
 The first mention I find of the " Lives of the British 
 Painters " occurs in a letter to his friend Mr. Eitchie, of 
 the " Scotsman," dated 20th October, 1828. He asks in 
 this for some information concerning Jameson, and says, 
 " I have some notion of writing the ' Lives of the British 
 Painters ' on the plan of Johnson's ' Lives of the Poets.' 
 I am full of information on the subject, have notions of my 
 own in keeping with the nature of the art, and I think a 
 couple of volumes would not be unwelcome from one who 
 has no theory to support, and who will write with full 
 freedom and spirit." These two volumes, as we know, after- 
 wards extended to six, the material increasing considerably 
 as he went on. The first two were published in 1829, and called 
 forth the following complimentary opinion from Prof. Wil- 
 son. " Allan Cunningham's ' Lives of the British Painters ' 
 I know not which of the two volumes is the best are 
 full of a fine and an instructed enthusiasm. He speaks 
 boldly but reverentially of genius, and of men of genius ; 
 strews his narrative with many flowers of poetry, disposes 
 and arranges his materials skilfully, and is, in a few words, 
 an admirable critic on art an admirable biographer of 
 artists." 
 
 Cunningham himself, sending the first volume, containing 
 the lives of Hogarth, Wilson, Reynolds, and Gainsborough, 
 to his friend Ritchie, before mentioned, says of his work : 
 " This ought to be the most popular of anything I have yet 
 
 b
 
 Xviii LlfE OF ALLAN CUNNINCllAM. 
 
 written, because I think it has more life and variety of 
 narrative and anecdote than any of my works. I have read 
 much, inquired much, and thought much, and formed my 
 narratives from the best materials, and have endeavoured to 
 impress them with a popular stamp." Their popularity 
 was indeed immediate, and a second edition was required 
 of the first two volumes long before the others were ready 
 for publication. 12,000 copies were printed of the third 
 volume, which appeared in 1830, the sale of the others 
 having meanwhile risen to 14,000. 
 
 In 1831 he carried out a long-cherished desire to revisit 
 Scotland, and passed a few days amid the well- remembered 
 scenes of his early life ; but his father was now dead, 
 and the family scattered, so that there must have been 
 as much of sadness as of pleasure in his recollections. 
 Some of his Nithsdale friends, however, who were natu- 
 rally proud of the poet their vale had produced, instituted 
 a dinner in his honour, which is noteworthy as having 
 called forth, it is said, the first public speech made by 
 Thomas Carlyle. In less of Carlylese than his later utter- 
 ances, our great latter-day Seer told the assembled com- 
 pany that he had come down from his retreat in the hills 
 to meet Allan Cunningham at a time when scarcely any 
 other circumstance would have induced him to move half- 
 a-mile from home. He conceived that a tribute could 
 not be paid to a more deserving individual, nor did he 
 ever know of a dinner being given which proceeded from 
 a purer principle. " When Allan left his native place," 
 he continued, " he was poor, unknown, and unbefriended ; 
 nobody knew what was in him, and he himself had only a 
 slight consciousness of his own powers. He now comes 
 back : his worth is known and appreciated, and all Britain 
 is proud to number him among her poets." This warm 
 recognition of his countrymen must have been very grate- 
 ful to hard-working Allan, for he was hard-working still 
 " toiling," as he says, " in marble and bronze all day, and 
 at night dipping the pen in biographical ink to earn an 
 honest penny for the bairns' bread." The " bairns " were 
 now, however, fine strapping fellows of great promise. 
 The two eldest, Joseph and Alexander, had got govern-
 
 LIFE OF ALLAN CUNNINGHAM. six 
 
 merit appointments in India; a third son, Francis, had 
 also just gone out, and his youngest, Peter, was in the 
 Audit Office, and was already beginning to be known in 
 literature. Allan Cunningham's letters to his mother, 
 published in his biography, are full of accounts of the 
 doings of these clever sons, whose success in life was a 
 great source of satisfaction in his declining years. 
 
 After the publication of the " Lives of the Painters," 
 the next work of importance Cunningham undertook was 
 an edition, in eight volumes, of the works of Burns, with 
 a life of the poet. This was a task for which he was well 
 fitted, and one, no doubt, in which he, as a brother poet, 
 took great delight ; still the work that it entailed must 
 have been very great, though he speaks in poetical terms 
 of having merely 
 
 " Gather'd, Burns, thy scatter'd flowers 
 Wi' filial hand." 
 
 His labours, however, are probably more correctly de- 
 scribed in the following letter to Mr. Thomas Keightley, 
 the author of the " Fairy Mythology," who had written to 
 him on some question of Elfin lore : 
 
 " 27, Lower Belgrave Place, 
 " 16 Dec. 1833. 
 
 " Dear Sir, I have used you ill, and myself worse, for 
 my silence looks as though I slighted you and was an ill- 
 natured fellow. My life is that of a drudge : marble, 
 bronze, clay, plaster, and drawings by day, and writing 
 criticisms and idle lives, and other matters (all useful to 
 one who has a wife and weans) during the evenings, drove 
 elves and fairies out of my head. This was the less ma- 
 terial since I have almost nothing to tell you. I am far 
 from the land of Faery and cannot help myself to a lapful 
 of anecdotes, all true and marvelloxis, from some fanciful 
 old woman. 
 
 " The Lancashire goblin or elve after whom you inquire, 
 was described to me at third hand : his name of Padfoote, 
 or Padfoot, is rustical enough. His chief business was to 
 scare the benighted traveller ; and the way in which he
 
 XX LIFE OF ALLAN CUNNINGHAM. 
 
 accomplished it, was by taking a stride below the ground 
 for every stride the traveller took above it ; as the mortal 
 fled, the immortal followed, and when the former thought 
 he outstripped the wind and halted to listen, he heard 
 Padfoote, to his horror, panting and enjoying a hoarse 
 and unearthly laugh immediately below him. In this he 
 resembles Will-o'-wisp : when Will has decoyed his victim 
 into a quagmire or impassable lake, he hangs his treacher- 
 ous lanthorn above him for a moment, then douses the 
 glim and vanishes with an unearthly laugh. 
 
 " You will find a fanciful account of a Faery funeral in 
 my ' Life of Blake ' in the ' Lives of the Painters.' If I 
 had leisure I might give you some wizard light from the 
 north on our Dumfriesshire elves, but I am over head and 
 ears in Burns and his works. God bless and prosper your 
 work. 
 
 " Yours ever, 
 
 "ALLAN CUNNINGHAM. 
 
 " Commend me to Taylor a better man and a kinder 
 never breathed." l 
 
 In 1841 the long service which Cunningham had ren- 
 dered to his friend Chantrey was, to his infinite sorrow, 
 brought to a close by the death of the sculptor. Allan 
 had long been meditating giving up " toiling in marble 
 and bronze," but it was sad to have his labours thus 
 ended. He was asked to continue the work that Chantrey 
 had undertaken, but this he refused, only pledging him- 
 self to finish such works as Chantrey had already mo- 
 delled. Even this, it is doubtful whether he was able to 
 fulfil, for these two faithful friends, who had each begun 
 life under the same humble conditions, and who had worked 
 together without intermission for twenty-eight years, were 
 not long divided even in death. Chantrey left Cunning- 
 ham an annuity of .100, to be continued to his widow ; 
 but he only received one payment of it before he followed 
 Chantrey to the grave. His health, from over- work and 
 
 1 I quote this letter in full, as revealing much of the kindly nature 
 of the writer. It is in my own collection, and has never before been 
 published.
 
 LIFE OF ALLAN CUNNINGHAM. XXI 
 
 other causes, had for some time been giving way, and on 
 the 29th of October, 1842, a second attack of paralysis 
 ended in his death, at the age of fifty-seven. He was 
 buried at Kensal Green. 
 
 Allan Cunningham's last literary labour was the life of 
 his friend and countryman, Sir David Wilkie, the proofs 
 of which work occupied him only two days before his 
 death. It was published in 1843, in three volumes. He 
 also contemplated a series of " Lives of the Poets," and, 
 indeed, he speaks in one of his letters of the first volume 
 being " all but ready," but this work has not as yet 
 been given to the world. In person Allan Cunningham 
 is described, by a writer in the " Gentleman's Maga- 
 zine," as having been " a tall, stout man, somewhat high- 
 shouldered, broad-chested, and altogether strongly pro- 
 portioned. He had a noble brow, and dark expressive eyes 
 set beneath shaggy eyebrows. His accent was strongly 
 Scotch, and he expressed himself, when warmed into a 
 subject, with eloquence and feeling ; but, generally speak- 
 ing, his manner was quiet and reserved not, however, 
 timid and gauche, like that of Sir David Wilkie, but easy 
 and self-possessed quiet from a habit of observing, rather 
 than from a dislike to conversation." Add to this, that 
 in all his dealings he was straightforward, right-minded, 
 and conscientious, true to himself and others, full of " the 
 pith o' sense and pride o' worth," and we have a picture of 
 " the honest man " of Burns, who 
 
 " Tho' e'er sae poor, 
 Is king o' men for a ; that."
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 MY undertaking is now concluded, and I have the agree- 
 able duty of thanking my friends for their aid, the 
 public for its kindness, and critics for much mildness and 
 forbearance. I at first imagined that three volumes, or at 
 most four, would hold all I had to say ; but as the work 
 advanced, new sources of intelligence were opened. What 
 was intended for a sketch took a more important form, 
 and I soon perceived that I required more room, and 
 greater fulness, both of narration and remark. The deaths, 
 too, of such men as Lawrence and Jackson obliged me to 
 extend my plan ; nor am I sure that I have yet admitted 
 all artists of merit and genius into my volumes. 
 
 In tracing the lives and delineating the characters of 
 the chief men of our native school of art, I have en- 
 deavoured to be scrupulously impartial : it was my wish 
 to speak warmly of merits and candidly of faults, and in 
 no way to sacrifice my own opinion in matters either of 
 taste or conduct. Yet, with all my care, I have, I fear, 
 committed many mistakes. I had to gather intelligence 
 from various sources, written and oral, and seek original 
 matter on all sides. In extracting a consistent narrative 
 from my many-coloured materials, I have not, I am afraid, 
 always reconciled contradictions, or taken the true version 
 of a story which had many variations. 
 
 I have incurred obligations to many friends during the 
 course of the work, but to none so much as to Mr. Lock- 
 hart, who not only suggested the undertaking, but, when 
 in town, has been so kind as to help me in its progress, 
 often pruning what was redundant, and bringing light to 
 what was obscure. Mr. Southey has likewise aided me, 
 and by his too favourable expressions regarding the merits 
 of my first volume, encouraged me much with the rest.
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 Lord Dover also has afforded me, in many cases, the ad- 
 vantage of his taste and knowledge. To the friendship of 
 Sir Andrew Halliday I am indebted for all that is interest- 
 ing in the life of Cosway ; and the communications of 
 those accomplished antiquaries, Mr. Charles Kirkpatrick 
 Sharpe, of Hoddom, and Mr. David Laing, of Edinburgh, 
 were invaluable to me when treating of artists of Scottish 
 birth. Of the members of the Royal Academy, my friends 
 Mr. Chantrey and Mr. Wilkie have assisted me the most ; 
 not so much with direct communications, as by conversa- 
 tion through which I obtained the advantage of their taste 
 and experience. 
 
 I now bid farewell to a work which has occupied me 
 many an evening hour. Had I been in a situation to 
 bestow undivided attention on it, I might have rendered 
 it worthier of my subject. As it is, I hope the public will 
 not be less generous than a distinguished painter, who, in 
 writing of the first five volumes, said, " I differ from you 
 as to some small things, but I cordially agree with you in 
 the general estimate of character, and judgment of works 
 of genius." 
 
 A. C. 
 
 London, February 28, 1833.
 
 LIVES 
 
 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 IT was not without diffidence that I undertook this work ; 
 nor have I forgotten the satiric complaint of my coun- 
 tryman " Will no one write a book on what he under- 
 stands ? " 
 
 But the hands which hold the pencil are not always 
 willing or able to hold the pen, and artists of literary 
 attainments are either more profitably employed, or pru- 
 dent enough to avoid an undertaking where there is more 
 certainty of censure than of praise. I may also urge, in 
 extenuation of my temerity, that as art reflects nature, 
 through nature it must be judged. 
 
 The history of art, and the lives, and characters, and 
 works of its earlier professors, are scattered through many 
 volumes, and are to be sought for in remote collections, 
 private cabinets, and public galleries. Our paintings are 
 widely diffused, nor are they all contained in the island ; 
 and the biographical materials collected by the indiscri- 
 minating diligence of Vertue, and brightened here and 
 there by the wit or the sagacity of Walpole, lie strangely 
 heaped together. The other sources of information consist 
 chiefly of the lectures and discourses of the Professors, the 
 accidental notice of the historian or the poet, anecdotes 
 collected by lovers of gossip connected with eminent men, 
 and certain detached biographies, dictated, some by the
 
 2 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 affection of friends, others by the malevolence of enemies, 
 but most of them drawn up with the hurried indifference 
 of men writing for bread. Of these works some are con- 
 cise and barren, others overflowing and diffuse, and all are 
 more or less liable to be charged with inaccuracy of criti- 
 cism, with describing what ought to be, rather than deli- 
 neating what is. 
 
 From materials thus varied and contradictory, it is my 
 wish to extract a clear and concise account of our early 
 art, with the lives and characters of the most eminent 
 British artists. Before the birth of Hogarth, there are 
 many centuries in which we relied wholly on foreign skill 
 With him, and after him, arose a succession of eminent 
 painters, who have spread the fame of British art far and 
 wide. Of their conduct as men I hope to speak with can- 
 dour. Of their works I shall express my own sentiments, 
 wherever I have the power of personal examination. 
 Where this is impracticable for many paintings are in 
 foreign lands, some are shut up in inaccessible galleries, 
 and others have perished through time or accident I 
 shall follow what are generally esteemed the safest autho- 
 rities. 
 
 Though the lives of men devoted to silent study and 
 secluded labour contain few of those incidents which 
 embellish the biographies of more stirring spirits, yet they 
 are scarcely less alluring and instructive. Their works 
 are at once their actions and their history, and a record 
 of the taste and feeling of the times in which they 
 flourished. We love to know under what circumstances 
 a great work of art was conceived and completed : it is 
 pleasing to follow the vicissitudes of their fortunes whose 
 genius has charmed us to sympathize in their anxieties, 
 and to witness their triumph. 
 
 Poetry, Painting, Sculpture, and Music, are the natural 
 offspring of the heart of man. They are found among 
 the most barbarous nations ; they flourish among the 
 most civilized ; and springing from nature, and not from 
 necessity or accident, they can never be wholly lost in the 
 most disastrous changes. In this they differ from mere 
 inventions; and, compared with mechanical discoveries,
 
 EARLr ART IN ENGLAND. 3 
 
 are what a living tree is to a log of wood. It may indeed 
 be said that the tongue of poetry is occasionally silent, 
 and the hand of painting sometimes stayed ; but this 
 seems not to affect the ever-living principle which I claim 
 as their characteristic. They are heard and seen again in 
 their season, as the birds and flowers are at the coming 
 of spring ; and assert their title to such immortality as 
 the things of earth may claim. It is true that the poetry 
 of barbarous nations is rude, and their attempts at paint- 
 ing uncouth ; yet even in these we may recognize the 
 foreshadowings of future excellence, and something of the 
 peculiar character which, in happier days, the genius of 
 the same tribe is to stamp upon worthier productions. 
 The future Scott, or Lawrence, or Chantrey, may be in- 
 dicated afar off in the barbarous ballads, drawings, or 
 carvings, of an early nation. Coarse nature and crude 
 simplicity are the commencement, as elevated nature and 
 elegant simplicity are the consummation, of art. 
 
 When the Spaniards invaded the palaces of Chili and 
 Peru, they found them filled with works of art. Cook 
 found considerable beauty of drawing and skill of work- 
 manship in the ornamented weapons and war canoes of the 
 islanders of the South Sea ; and in the interior recesses of 
 India, sculptures and paintings, of no common merit, are 
 found in every village. In like manner, when Caesar landed 
 among the barbarians of Britain, he found them acquainted 
 with arts and arms ; and his savage successors, the Saxons, 
 added to unextinguishable ferocity a love of splendour and 
 a rude sense of beauty, still visible in the churches which 
 they built, and the monuments which they erected to their 
 princes and leaders. All those works are of that kind 
 called ornamental : the graces of true art, the truth of 
 action and the dignity of sentiment, are wanting ; and 
 they seem to have been produced by a sort of mechanical 
 process, similar to that which creates figures in arras. Art 
 is, indeed, of slow and gradual growth ; like the oak, it is 
 long of growing to maturity and strength. Much know- 
 ledge of colour, much skill of hand, much experience in 
 human character, and a deep sense of light and shade, 
 have to be acquired, to enable the pencil to embody the
 
 4 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 conceptions of gerfius. The artist has to seek for all this 
 in the accumulated mass of professional knowledge which 
 time has gathered for his instruction : and with his best 
 wisdom, and his happiest fortune, he can only add a 
 little more information to the common stock, for the bene- 
 fit of his successors. In no country has Painting risen 
 suddenly into eminence. While Poetry takes wing at once, 
 free and unincumbered, her sister is retarded in her ascent 
 by the very mechanism to which she must at last owe at 
 least half her glory. In Britain, Painting was centuries iii 
 throwing off the fetters of mere mechanical skill, and in 
 rising into the region of . genius. The original spirit of 
 England had appeared in many a noble poem, while the 
 two sister arts were still servilely employed in preserving 
 incredible legends, in taking the likeness of the last saint 
 whom credulity had added to the calendar, and in con- 
 founding the acts of the apostles in the darkness of 
 allegory. 
 
 Henry the Third, a timid and pious king, founded many 
 cathedrals, and enriched them with sculpture and with 
 painting to an extent and with a skill which merited the 
 commendation of Maximm. 1 The royal instructions of 
 1233 are curious, and inform us of the character of art at 
 that remote period, and of the subordinate condition of its 
 professors. In Italy indeed, as well as in England, an 
 artist was then, and long after, considered as a mere me- 
 chanic. He was commonly at once a carver of wood, a 
 maker of figures, a house and heraldry painter, a carpenter, 
 an upholsterer, and a mason ; and sometimes, over and 
 
 1 The name of William Torel has been handed down as a sculptor of 
 this period. To him are attributed the fine recumbent statues of Henry 
 the Third and Queen Eleanor on their tombs in Westminster Abbey, 
 which are about the earliest specimens of English metal statuary we 
 possess. There are casts from several of his works in the South Ken- 
 sington Museum, where likewise may be found casts of several other 
 beautiful works of English sculpture of the thirteenth and fourteenth 
 centuries. Unfortunately the names of the authors of these works have 
 not been preserved, or else perhaps it might not be so easy to slight 
 early English art, or to assert that " Genius had not then come to its 
 aid." Though foreign workmen were undoubtedly employed in the 
 building of our cathedrals, much of the work done bears a genuine 
 national stamp. ED.
 
 EARLY ART IN ENGLAND HENRY III. 5 
 
 above all this, he was a tailor. Genius had not then come 
 to the aid of art, and paintings and statues were ordered 
 exactly as chairs and tables are now. 
 
 Much of the undisciplined talent of the nation was em- 
 ployed by Henry the Third on the building and embellish- 
 ing of his Cathedrals and palaces : foreign artists, too, 
 were imported ; and the manufacture of saints and legends 
 was carried on under the inspection of one William, a 
 Florentine. 1 Those productions take their position in 
 history, and claim the place, if not the merit, of works of 
 taste and talent. At best they were but a kind of religious 
 heraldry: the most beautiful of the virgins and the most 
 dignified of the apostles were rude, clumsy, and ungraceful, 
 with ill-proportioned bodies and most rueful looks. 
 
 That the religious paintings of that period were such as 
 I have described them, there is sufficient evidence ; that 
 those of a national or domestic kind were similar in cha- 
 racter may be safely inferred. There is no account of the 
 nature of those paintings which belonged to the royal 
 Castle of Winchester; but we may conclude that they 
 were not the same as those which aided the priests of the 
 abbeys in explaining religion to an illiterate people. Wai- 
 pole presumes he says not on what authority that when 
 Henry the Third directed his chamber in Winchester to 
 be painted with " the same pictures as before," they were 
 of an historical nature. Historical, or religious, or domes- 
 tic, the passage referred to by Walpole proves that the art 
 of painting had been introduced early among us : perhaps 
 it even countenances the tradition that it is as old as Bede. 
 Vertue indeed urges, with more nationality than proba- 
 bility, the claim of England to early knowledge in art, and 
 our acquaintance with the mystery of oil colours, before 
 they appeared in Italy. In sculpture considerable talent 
 
 ' This artist received a salary of sixpence a day for his services. We 
 know the names also of several English artists who worked for Henry the 
 Third. Master Edward of Westminster, or Edward Fitzodo, supposed to 
 havo been the son of the king's goldsmith Odo, appears to have been master 
 of the works at Westminster ; Master Walter had twenty marks paid 
 him for "pictures in onr great chamber at Westminster;" and Master 
 John of Gloucester, the king's plasterer, and Master John of St. Omers, 
 are also mentioned in the records of this reign. ED.
 
 6 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 was shown before this period ; but he who proves that 
 equal skill was exhibited in Painting has likewise to prove 
 that the artists were Englishmen a circumstance contra- 
 dicting tradition, and unsupported by history. The early 
 works of art in this island were from the hands of fo- 
 reigners. It was the interest of Rome to supply us with 
 painters as well as priests, whose mutual talents and mu- 
 tual zeal might maintain, and extend, and embellish re- 
 ligion. There is no honour surrendered in relinquishing 
 our claims to such productions; the best of them dis- 
 played no genius, and exhibited little skill. 1 
 
 The arts seem to have suffered some neglect during the 
 reigns of Edward the First and Second the chronicles of 
 the church and the state annalist are alike silent. Paint- 
 ing, which requires seclusion and repose, was ill suited to 
 the temper of the conqueror of Wales and Scotland, and 
 was not likely to obtain patronage from a fierce nobility, 
 whose feet were seldom out of the stirrup. All art was 
 neglected save that which embellished armour, and weapons, 
 and military trappings. Elegance was drowned in absurd 
 pomp, and luxury in grotesque extravagance. 
 
 Art and knowledge were more in favour during the long 
 reign of Edward the Third. Poetry and learning were of 
 his train ; a better taste and a more temperate splendour 
 distinguished the court ; the country became rich as well 
 as powerful, and the martial barbarism of the preceding 
 reigns was sobered down into something like elegance. The 
 ladies laid aside those formidable pyramids which made 
 the face seem the centre of the body, and the nobles escaped 
 out of the courtly boots of the first Edward, with the square 
 turned-up toes fastened to the knees by chains of gold. 
 There was everywhere a growing sense of what was becom- 
 ing and elegant, yet the character of the times was de- 
 cidedly martial. The actions of the Black Edward in France 
 and Spain gave lustre to the arms of England. A spirit 
 for martial adventure, tempered with high feeling and 
 romantic generosity, spread among the nobles. He was 
 accounted of little note in the land who preferred domestic 
 
 ' See ante, note 1. ED.
 
 EARLY ART IN ENGLAND EDWARD III. 7 
 
 repose to active war, or who imagined that the best pro- 
 ductions of the human mind could be compared to the 
 fame of a well-fought field. Sentiments and feelings such 
 as these ushered in chivalry ; to the influence of which we 
 owe so much, since it brought with it mildness, mercy, 
 high honour and heroic daring, and many of the sweets 
 and amenities of social life. 
 
 The art of painting during this reign partook of the war- 
 like spirit of the king ; the royal commissions for saints, 
 virgins, and apostles gave way to orders for gilded armour, 
 painted shields, and emblazoned banners St. Edward was 
 less in request than St. George. No works of art were 
 produced in this period which induce me to lament their 
 loss, and the oblivion which has come over them. 1 
 
 1 The beautiful chapel of St. Stephen's, Westminster, so long the House 
 of Commons, was rebuilt by Edward the Third, and was decorated by 
 his express command in the richest manner possible. Sir Charles East- 
 lake speaks of the rebuilding of this chapel as being " an important event 
 in the history of Northern Art," and of the paintings with which it was 
 decorated as " among the most interesting specimens of transalpine art 
 extant." * Unfortunately these interesting paintings can scarcely now be 
 said to be " extant," only a few relics of them having been preserved in the 
 fire which destroyed the old Houses of Parliament in 1834. These relics 
 are now in the British Museum, and although greatly injured, show that 
 they must have been executed by a skilful hand. The figures, though 
 of course stiff, are not entirely without grace, and there is even some 
 attempt at expression in the faces. The whole of the walls of this rich 
 little chapel were painted over with Scripture histories and the repre- 
 sentations of historical events. These appear to have been executed in 
 oil colours, on the prepared surface of the interior stone-work, and were 
 evidently the work of an artist or of artists who possessed a good know- 
 ledge of all technical processes. Mention is indeed made in an old 
 German MS. of the fourteenth century, dealing with methods and 
 recipes for painting, of the "London practice" as if it was something 
 peculiar. " If you wish," says the author, " to make a beautiful clothlet 
 blue colour after the Ludnun, i.e., London practice," proceed according to 
 the recipe given. This evidently shows that the London painters of this 
 date were recognized by their foreign brethren. The blue colour even 
 now is apparent in the remains saved from St. Stephen's. 
 
 In this same chapel were also numerous sculptures of a good style of 
 workmanship, especially on the screen which stood at the entrance to 
 the door. The dignity and grace of some of these figures is said to 
 
 Eastlake. " Materials for the History of Oil Painting."
 
 8 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 During the civil wars which succeeded, the waste of 
 human life was immense ; the contest was fierce and of 
 long continuance; and the destruction of castles and 
 churches involved the treasures of knowledge in ruin, and 
 checked the progress of the elegant arts. In the intervals 
 of repose, indeed, painting was not idle ; but her efforts 
 displayed neither originality of thought nor skill of execu- 
 tion. For many reigns art continued to work patiently at 
 its old manufacture. No new paths were explored ; nor 
 had the painter any other aim than that of mechanically 
 reproducing the resemblance of that which had preceded 
 him. Those works are the first blind gropings of art after 
 form and colour. The faces are without thought, the limbs 
 without proportion, and the draperies without variety. 
 
 Among them there is one which merits notice, chiefly 
 because it is one of the earliest of our attempts at his- 
 torical portraiture which can be authenticated. It is a 
 painting on wood ; the figures are less than life, and repre- 
 sent Henry the Fifth and his relations. It measures four 
 feet six inches long, by four feet four inches high, and was 
 in the days of Catholic power the altar-piece of the church 
 of Shene. An angel stands in the centre holding in his 
 hands the expanding coverings of two tents, out of which 
 the king, with three princesses, and the queen, with four 
 princesses, are proceeding to kneel at two altars, where 
 crosses, and sceptres, and books are lying. They wear 
 long and flowing robes, with loose hair, and have crowns 
 on their heads. In the background, St. George appears in 
 the air, combating with the dragon, while Cleodelinda 
 kneels in prayer beside a lamb. It is not, indeed, quite 
 certain that this curious work was made during the reign 
 of Henry the Fifth, but there can be little doubt of its 
 being painted as early as that of his son. The monarch 
 was not more fortunate than the apostles of the church ; 
 for neither his heroic character, nor the presence of prin- 
 cesses of the blood-royal, could animate the conception, 
 
 have been quite remarkable, considering the date at which they were exe- 
 cuted. The Society of Antiquaries has published coloured copies of the 
 paintings formerly existing in St. Stephen's Chapel. " Vetusta Monu- 
 menta," vol. vi. ED.
 
 EARLY ART IN ENGLAND HENRY V. 
 
 or raise the artist above the usual cold level of bar- 
 barism. 
 
 Painting, nevertheless, may be said to have advanced a 
 step or two during that period of blood and confusion, and 
 the love of art was gaining a little ground. The demand 
 for saints and legends was sensibly diminishing ; a more 
 rational taste in all things was dawning; men's sympathies, 
 national and social, mingled freely in literature, and mode- 
 rately in art. Portraits were frequently attempted; but 
 they are grim and grotesque present an image of death 
 rather than of life : and show but glimpses of that feeling 
 and truth of character which distinguish true works of art. 
 But though the draperies seem copied from the winding- 
 sheet rather than from the robe, and the faces from death 
 rather than from life ; still it was something to attempt to 
 follow nature, and showed a spirit willing to be freed from 
 the shackles of imitation, and a desire to escape from the 
 thraldom of the church. 
 
 At this period the character of an English artist was 
 curiously compounded ; he was at once architect, sculptor, 
 carpenter, goldsmith, armourer, jeweller, saddler, tailor, 
 and painter. There is extant, in Dugdale, a curious example 
 of the character of the times, and a scale by which we can 
 measure the public admiration of art. It is a contract be- 
 tween the Earl of Warwick and John Ray, citizen and tailor, 
 London, in which the latter undertakes to execute the em- 
 blazonry of the earl's pageant in his situation of ambas- 
 sador to France. In the tailor's bill, gilded griffins mingle 
 with Virgin Marys ; painted streamers for battle or pro- 
 cession, with the twelve apostles ; and " one coat for his 
 grace's body, lute with fine gold," takes precedence of St. 
 George and the Dragon. 
 
 The superstition of the church formed a grotesque union 
 with the frivolities of heraldry and the follies of courtiers 
 and kings. The baron who patronized in his youth the 
 gilded pomps and painted vanities of the court and camp, 
 entertained other feelings as he approached the grave, and 
 at once soothed a timorous conscience, and appeased a rapa- 
 cious church, by benefactions to abbeys of painted saints and 
 profitable manors. This was the time age of barbaric splen-
 
 10 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 dour; mankind wanted the taste to use their wealth wisely, 
 and knew no way to estimate excellence save by price. The 
 quantities of silver and gold, precious stones, and expensive 
 colours, employed in works of art, were immense. Art, 
 unequal to the task of touching the heart by either action 
 or sentiment, appealed to our sense of what is costly, and 
 trusted to her materials. The taste and genius of the 
 G-reeks enabled them to use rich materials, and perhaps to 
 use them wisely ; but our fathers acted as if all the charm 
 lay in abundance of costly things. We had gilded kings 
 with golden crowns ; gilded angels with golden halos ; and 
 gilded virgins sitting nursing golden children on golden 
 clouds : the heaven above was gold, and so was the earth 
 beneath. 
 
 Yet art, in what was conceived to be a far humbler pur- 
 suit, made some atonement for all this. Before, and some 
 time after, the invention of printing, literature was diffused 
 over the land by means of the pen, and a skilful transcriber 
 had more than the reputation which a clever printer enjoys 
 now. Of the volumes thus produced, many were eminently 
 beautiful : a single volume was the subject of a dying be- 
 quest, and the works of a favourite author were received 
 as pledges for the repayment of large loans, and even for 
 the faith of treaties. The hand of the painter added 
 greatly to the value of those volumes. The illustration of 
 missals, and of books of chivalry and romance, became a 
 favourite pursuit with the nobles, and a lucrative employ- 
 ment to artists. Illustrations on this scale required a deli- 
 cate hand which excelled in miniature resemblances, and a 
 fancy in keeping with the genius of the author. Many of 
 those performances are beautiful. But their beauty is less 
 that of sentiment than of colour. In some of the most 
 remarkable there is vivid richness and delicacy of hue 
 approaching the lustre of oil-painting. They are valuable 
 also for their evidence of the state of art for the light 
 which they throw on the general love of mankind for lite- 
 rature ; and for the information which they indirectly con- 
 vey concerning the condition of our courts and nobles. 
 
 The subjects of those illustrations are very various. 
 They represent the dresses, ceremonies, and portraits of
 
 ILLUMINATIONS TAPESTRY. 11 
 
 the chief men of the times, while they embody the concep- 
 tions of the author. They were richly bound, and clasped 
 with silver or gold, and deposited in painted cabinets and 
 in tapestried rooms. They were exhibited on great occa- 
 sions, and their embossed sides and embellished leaves 
 were submitted to nobles, and knights, and poets. They 
 were the pride and formed part of the riches of their pos- 
 sessors. The art of printing, and the Eef ormation, which 
 that art so greatly served, threw those illuminated rarities 
 first into the shade, and afterwards into the fire. The zeal 
 of the reformers was let loose upon the whole progeny of 
 the church of Rome, and wooden saints and gilded missals 
 served to consume one another. The blunt rustics and 
 illiterate nobles, who composed the torrent which swept 
 away the long-established glories of the papal church, con- 
 founded the illuminated volumes of poets and philosophers 
 with the superstitious offspring of the Lady of the Seven 
 Hills. Over this havoc there has been much lamentation. 
 I grieve for the literature for the illuminations my sorrow 
 is more moderate. Into the latter the true genius of art 
 had not ascended, as sap into the tree, to refresh it into 
 life and cover it with beauty. They looked like processions 
 of lay-figures, rather than groups of breathing beings. 
 
 The art of tapestry as well as the art of illuminating 
 books, aided in diffusing a love of painting over the island. 
 It was carried to a high degree of excellence. The earliest 
 account of its appearance in England is during the reign 
 of Henry the Eighth, but there is no reason to doubt that 
 it was well known and in general esteem much earlier. 
 The traditional account, that we were instructed in it by 
 the Saracens, has probably some foundation. The ladies 
 encouraged this manufacture by working at it with their 
 own hands ; and the rich aided by purchasing it in vast 
 quantities whenever regular practitioners appeared in the 
 market. It found its way into church and palace, cham- 
 ber and hall. It served at once to cover and adorn cold 
 and comfortless walls. It added warmth, and, when snow 
 was on the hill and ice in the stream, gave an air of social 
 snugness which lias deserted some of our modern man- 
 sions.
 
 12 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 At first the fibres and groups, which rendered this 
 manufacture popular, were copies of favourite paintings ; 
 but, as taste improved and skill increased, they showed 
 more of originality in their conceptions, if not more of 
 nature in their forms. They exhibited, in common with 
 all other works of art, the mixed taste of the times a 
 grotesque union of classical and Hebrew history of mar- 
 tial life and pastoral repose of Greek gods and Romish 
 saints. Absurd as such combinations certainly were, and 
 destitute of those beauties of form, and delicate gradations 
 and harmony of colour which distinguish paintings wor- 
 thily so called still, when the hall was lighted up, and 
 living faces thronged the floor, the silent inhabitants of 
 the walls would seem, in the eyes of our ancestors, some- 
 thing very splendid. As painting rose in fame, tapestry 
 sunk in estimation. The introduction of a lighter and less 
 massive mode of architecture abridged the space for its 
 accommodation, and by degrees the stiff and fanciful crea- 
 tions of the loom vanished from our walls. The art is now 
 neglected. I am sorry for this, because I cannot think 
 meanly of an art which engaged the heads and hands of 
 the ladies of England, and gave to the tapestried hall of 
 elder days fame little inferior to what now waits on a 
 gallery of paintings. 
 
 During the reign of Henry the Seventh, painting ren- 
 dered Italy the most renowned nation of the earth ; but 
 till near his death our island continued, as of old, in gross 
 ignorance of all that genius, beauty or grandeur, give to 
 art. Now and then the effigy of a prince or an earl was 
 painted legends were imaged forth for the church pa- 
 geants were stitched and daubed for the nobles stones 
 were quarried for the manufacture of saints trees cut 
 down in the royal parks to be chipped into apostles and 
 art, to the ordinary eye, seemed in full employment. But 
 true art there was .none. 1 
 
 It would neither be instructive nor amusing to give an 
 
 1 In the reign of Henry the Sixth, England at all events possessed one 
 native artist of high merit. This was William ' Austen, the sculptor 
 of the beautiful monument to Kichard, Earl of Warwick, in St. Mary's 
 Church in Warwick. This work is considered by Wornum to be little
 
 EARLY ART HENRY VII. 13 
 
 account of those lampoons upon human nature which our 
 painters at this period perpetrated under the name of por- 
 traits. The likeness of Jane Shore will enable us to form 
 some notion of the existing skill in the art. Tradition and 
 history unite in conferring great personal beauty on this 
 unfortunate woman, and have thus impressed an image of 
 loveliness upon our minds which few painters, perhaps, 
 could realize. The Jane Shore of the artists has no charms 
 such as could have proved fatal to her peace. She pos- 
 sesses none of those attractions 
 
 " Which from the wisest win their best resolves." 
 
 Sir Thomas More has given us a glowing account of one 
 of her portraits : it is one of the oldest descriptions of an 
 English work of art, and I shall transcribe the passage : 
 " Her stature was mean, her hair of a dark yellow, her face 
 round and full, her eyes gray: delicate harmony being 
 betwixt each part's proportion and each proportion's co- 
 lour ; her body fat, white, and smooth ; her countenance 
 cheerful, and like to her condition. The picture which I 
 have seen of her was such as she rose out of her bed in 
 the morning, having nothing on but a rich mantle cast 
 under one arm and over her shoulder, and sitting on a 
 chair on which one arm did lie." " Her forehead," adds 
 Walpole, describing her portrait at Eton, " is remarkably 
 large, her mouth and the rest of her features small, her 
 hair of the admired golden colour : a lock of it, if we may 
 believe tradition, is still extant in the collection of the 
 
 inferior in design to that of Austen's great Italian contemporaries, 
 Donatello and Ghiberti. 
 
 Henry the Seventh also seems to have been not unmindful of the revival 
 of art that was going on in Italy and elsewhere in his time. He employed 
 several foreign artists, and it is by no means certain that Van Mander 
 was incorrect in asserting that Mabuse came to England in this reign, 
 though, strange to say, no record of his visit here can be found. Another 
 Flemish painter, however, Lucas Horembout of Ghent, undoubtedly 
 settled in England either in this reign or the next, as also his father 
 Gerard and his sister Susanna, of whom Diirer says in his journal that 
 " it is a great wonder a woman should do so well." Immer/eel records of 
 this Susanna that she married an English sculptor named Whorstley. 
 Eu.
 
 14 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 Countess of Cardigan, and is marvellously beautiful, seem- 
 ing to be powdered with golden dust, without prejudice to 
 its silken delicacy." 1 
 
 We must receive such descriptions with caution. The 
 words of Sir Thomas More are expressive of a portrait 
 beautiful both in conception and execution a work seem- 
 ingly beyond the power of our artists, at that period, to 
 produce. He probably thought it excellent, because others 
 with which he compared it were utterly abominable. In a 
 better informed age, John Evelyn, a gentleman of taste 
 and talents, pronounced the heathen atrocities of Verrio, in 
 Windsor Castle, sublime compositions, and their painter 
 the first of mankind. The silenced gods of the ancients 
 infested then, and long after, both our literature and our 
 conversation and the accomplished Evelyn was pleased 
 to see those divinities embodied, of whom he had read so 
 much. 
 
 The commencement of the reign of Henry the Eighth was 
 auspicious for art. The monarch was young, learned, 
 liberal, and gallant a lover of the ladies, and of all sorts 
 of magnificence. He desired to rival the splendour of 
 foreign courts, and, if money could have accomplished it, 
 he would have surpassed Charles the Fifth and Francis 
 the First in glory. He opened his treasury, and scat- 
 tered his father's hoards with no sparing hand. Foreign 
 artists began to appear at court, and an enthusiasm 
 for works of talent was awakened. Skilful portrait-paint- 
 ing the noble art of expressing the sentiments of the 
 soul in the lineaments of the face rose more and more 
 in estimation, and England seemed in a fair way of 
 having a school of art created in her own spirit. A sore 
 evil, however, accompanied the foreign artists to England 
 the incurable malady of allegory. This disease in art 
 
 1 There were three examples of this early traditional portrait at the 
 First National Portrait Exhibition. The one here mentioned as being 
 at Eton, the one at Hampton Court, and another belonging to King's 
 College, Cambridge. This work can scarcely be regarded as a portrait 
 in the sense in which we now understand that term. It is probably 
 purely imaginary, painted at some later date as a memento of this 
 unfortunate beauty. The portrait of Rosamond Clifford (Fair Rosa- 
 mond) is another instance of a traditionary portrait of this kind. ED.
 
 ACCESSION OF HENRY VIII. 15 
 
 arose from the misuse of learning from a desire of cheap 
 adulation, and an utter poverty of fancy. An art was 
 discovered which soothed the pride of learning, and was 
 too mystical for the vulgar the art of personifying vir- 
 tues, and employing heathen gods to do the duty of sound 
 divines. Minerva and Venus, and Juno and Jupiter, with 
 all the exploded progeny of Olympus, were seen following 
 in the train of Christian monarchs with high-heeled boots, 
 laced cravats, and three-storied wigs. This bastard off- 
 spring of learning swarmed in our palaces and churches. 
 The pedantry of poets, the mysteries of the church, and 
 the grotesque combinations of heraldry, all united in en- 
 couraging this absurd deviation from truth and nature. 1 
 
 Art, in no nation, could well be lower than it was in 
 England when Henry the Eighth succeeded his father, and 
 artists never stood lower, either in the scale of genius or in 
 the estimation of mankind. They were numbered with the 
 common menials of the court ; they had their livery suit, 
 their yearly dole, and their weekly wages. 2 Their works 
 too were worthy of their condition. I transcribe the fol- 
 lowing singular memorandum from a book belonging to 
 the Church of St. Mary, in Bristol : the subject referred 
 to is a religious pageant, which seems to have been com- 
 posed of strange materials, and to have been the united 
 production of all the incorporations. 
 
 " Memorandum : That Master Cumings hath delivered : 
 the 4th day of July, in the year of our Lord, 1470, to Mr. 
 Nicholas Bettes, Vicar of Eadcliffe, Moses Couteryn, Philip 
 Bartholomew, and John Brown, Procurators of Eadcliffe, 
 beforesaid, a new sepulchre, well gilt, and cover thereto ; 
 an image of God Almighty rising out of the said sepulchre, 
 with all the ordinance that longeth thereto ; that is to 
 say, Item. A lath, made of timber, and iron work thereto. 
 Item. Thereto longeth heaven, made of timber and stained 
 
 1 This is true of a later period ; but allegory did not take its rise, as 
 here implied, at the court of Henry the Eighth. ED. 
 
 a This was the case in other countries besides England. Even the 
 great Jan Van Eyck held the office of " Vurlet de ckambre " to Philippe le 
 Bon, and had his " yearly dole '' or " weekly wages." Such offices were 
 by no means undignified, but often involved great trust and honour. ED.
 
 16 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 cloth. Item. Hell, made of timber and iron-work, with 
 devils in number thirteen. Item. Four knights, armed, 
 keeping the sepulchre, with their weapons in their hands, 
 that is to say, two axes and two spears. Item. Three pair 
 of angels' wings ; four angels, made of timber, and well 
 painted. Item. The Father, the crown and visage ; the 
 ball, with a cross upon it, well gilt with fine gold. Item. The 
 Holy Ghost coming out of heaven into the sepulchre. Item. 
 Longeth to the angels four chevelers." 
 
 The rude simplicity of this curious memorial, and the 
 singular mixture of carving and painting, and chipping and 
 hewing, which the work required, will speak for themselves. 
 Scarcely less ludicrous are the written instructions which 
 Henry the Eighth left for a monument to his own memory. 
 " The king shall appear on horseback," says this strange 
 document, " of the stature of a goodly man, while over 
 him shall appear the image of G-od the Father, holding 
 the king's soul in his left hand, and his right hand ex- 
 tended in the act of benediction." The whole was to be in 
 bronze, and much of it was completed, but the parsimony 
 of Elizabeth prevailed over her respect for her father ; the 
 work was stopped, and the Puritan parliament sold the 
 whole for 600. 
 
 A reformation came which affected religion, literature, 
 art, and the civil and social condition of mankind. This 
 great change arose not, as has been widely asserted, 
 through the voluptuousness of the king for that was but 
 as a drop to the torrent ; it sprung from the impulse which 
 knowledge had given to the nation, and which nothing 
 could withstand or resist. It is to be regretted that in 
 this salutary change from superstition to wisdom, there 
 were men found rude and savage enough to lift their 
 hands against much that was worthy and valuable. We 
 may doubt if the pictures which were destroyed in the 
 English churches are to be regretted very sorely ; but the 
 Reformation struck at the scope and spirit of Italian art. 
 The war which it waged against the superstitious beliefs 
 and idle ceremonies of the old church, included not only 
 her images (which had been at least abused to idolatrous 
 ends) but the whole of her religious paintings. Our re-
 
 THE REFORMATION. 17 
 
 formers were purifiers of religion, not patrons of art ; nor 
 could they perceive any sort of connection between the 
 rules of belief and moral obedience laid down by our 
 Saviour, and the glowing creations and lively fictions of 
 Italian limners. They perceived, too, that the weak and 
 the ignorant considered even painted altar-pieces as a sort 
 of divinities ; so, by one decisive movement, they swept 
 them away, and crushed the religious art of Italy in the 
 very act of filling our churches with its splendid products. 
 Thus did the early reformers ; thus the weak Somerset 
 the politic Elizabeth and the zealous Puritans of the 
 times of Cromwell. These last completed the crusade by 
 stabling their chargers in the stalls of the cathedrals. 1 
 
 Portraiture survived the general wreck : and Henry the 
 Eighth, who was as vain as he was cruel, protected and 
 sheltered it at court, where, indeed, all was safe except 
 virtue and innocence. He was sensible of the lustre which 
 literature and art can shed upon the throne ; he saw the 
 rival kings of France and Spain marching to battle or to 
 negotiation with poets and painters in their trains, and 
 he envied not a little the unattainable brilliancy of their 
 courts. 2 Vanity and ostentation, rather than true love of 
 art, induced him to patronize Hans Holbein, and to fix 
 him in England by kindness and caresses, as well as by a 
 regular pension. 
 
 This was the first painter of eminence who came to 
 England, and with him the art in which genius shines may 
 be said to have commenced. His name had already been 
 
 1 Notwithstanding all these methods of destruction the number of old 
 paintings which still exist in our churches is very considerable. The 
 Science and Art Department of the Committee of Council on Education 
 has lately published a pamphlet containing a list of buildings in England 
 in which have been found wall paintings and other painted decorations, of 
 dates previous to the middle of the sixteenth century. The list is by no 
 means perfect, yet it enumerates no fewer than 568 churches and other 
 buildings in P^ngland in which paintings still exist. ED. 
 
 2 Henry the Eighth is said to have invited Raphael, Primaticcio, and 
 some other great Italian painters to England, but none of them chose to 
 exile themselves among the barbarians, as the English were then considered 
 in polite Italy. Leonardo da Vinci is almost theonly example we have of 
 a great Italian master taking service with a foreign potentate. Several 
 minor Italian painters, however, came to- England, either on Henry's 
 
 C
 
 18 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 spread far and wide by the obvious and peculiar beauty of 
 his productions, and by the eloquent praises of Erasmus. 
 Stung with the neglect of his talents at Basle, his native 
 place, and his domestic peace embittered by the froward 
 temper of his wife, he was willing to seek for peace and 
 profit in another land. He accordingly came to England 
 in 1526, in the thirtieth year of his age. 1 This island, at 
 that period, presented a fine field for the display of a 
 creative and original genius. England had dismissed the 
 pageantry of the Romish Church ; and cleared of all pre- 
 ceding works of the pencil, with a taste improved and a 
 mind enlarged, and great wealth whoever appeared will- 
 ing to work in her spirit, she was ready to welcome and 
 reward him. The genius of Holbein was too literal and 
 mechanical for this. He was skilful in plain fidelity of 
 resemblance, and could imitate whatever stood before him 
 in living flesh and blood ; but he was deficient in imagi- 
 nation in the rare art of embodying visions of grace and 
 beauty. 
 
 He wrought at the court of Henry with a diligence, and, 
 what was better, with a skill new to the country. His 
 works are chiefly portraits, and are all distinguished by 
 truth and by nature. His Sir Thomas More has an air of 
 boldness and vigour, and a look at once serene and acute, 
 which attest the sincerity of the resemblance ; his Anne 
 
 invitation, or by their own desire. Among them were Luca Penni, and 
 Girolamo da Trevisi, the latter of whom possibly designed the large 
 historical paintings of the Field of the Cloth of Gold, formerly at Windsor, 
 but which now decorate the rooms of the Society of Antiquaries at Bur- 
 lington House. Henry also had no fewer than three Serjeant painters 
 before Holbein's time, namely, Anthony Toto, Andrew Wright, and 
 John Brown, who built the Painters' Hall for the Company of " Painter 
 Stainers," whose first charter was granted in the reign of Edward the 
 Sixth. The portrait of this worthy is said to be still preserved, but I 
 cannot find where it now is. ED. 
 
 1 Holbein's birth is now considered to have taken place in 1498, which 
 would make him only twenty-eight at this time. The reasons here 
 assigned for his leaving Basle are mere surmise, but it is certain that he 
 came to England in 1 526, bringing with him a letter of introduction from 
 Erasmus to Sir Thomas More, who received him most kindly and lodged 
 him in his own house at Chelsea. He was afterwards taken into the 
 service of the king with an annual salary of 30 besides payment for his 
 works. En.
 
 HENRY VIII. HOLBEIN. 19 
 
 Boleyn is graceful and volatile ; his King Henry bluff and 
 joyous, with jealous eyes and an imperious brow. He was 
 not always so faithful to nature, and knew how to practise 
 the flattery of his profession. He lavished so much beauty 
 on Anne of Cleves, that the king, who had fallen in love 
 with the picture, when the original came to his arms, re- 
 garded her with aversion and disgust, exclaimed against 
 the gross flattery of Hans, and declared she was not a 
 woman, but a Flanders mare. This anecdote, however, 
 confirms the painter's claim to fidelity in his other like- 
 nesses : he was no habitual flatterer, or Henry would not 
 have given implicit faith to him. On another occasion Hol- 
 bein went to Flanders to draw the picture of the Duchess- 
 Dowager of Milan the intended successor to Jane Seymour. 
 She was a princess of equivocal virtue, but of ready wit. 
 " Alas ! " said she, " the king of England asks me to be his 
 wife ; what answer shall I give to him ? I am unfortunate 
 enough to have but one head ; had I two, one of them 
 should be at his highness's service." 
 
 It is traditionally asserted that the king employed Hol- 
 bein to paint the portraits of the fairest young ladies in 
 his kingdom, that, in case of the frailty of a queen, he 
 might go to his gallery and select her successor. This 
 story, which I can desire no one to credit, seeing that his 
 majesty had ready access to the originals, is countenanced 
 by an anecdote related by Vermander. One day, while the 
 artist was painting in private the portrait of a favourite 
 lady for the king, a great lord unexpectedly found his way 
 into the chamber. The painter, a brawny powerful man, 
 and somewhat touchy of temper, threw the intruder down- 
 stairs, bolted the door, ran to the king by a private pas- 
 sage, fell on his knees, asked for pardon, and obtained it. 
 In came the courtier, and made his complaint. " By God's 
 splendour," exclaimed the king (this was his customary 
 oath), " you have not to do with Hans, but with me. Of 
 seven peasants I can make seven lords, but I cannot make 
 one Hans Holbein, even out of seven lords." 
 
 The works of Holbein were once very numerous in 
 England, but some were destroyed during the great civil 
 wars ; others were sold abroad by the Puritan parliament,
 
 20 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 and many perished when the great palace of Whitehall 
 was burned. The original drawings, eighty-nine in num- 
 ber, which he made of the chief persons of Henry's court, 
 are the greatest curiosity in her present Majesty's collec- 
 tion. Charles the First exchanged them with the Earl of 
 Pembroke for the splendid St. George of Eaphael ; Pem- 
 broke gave them to the Earl of Arundel ; they suffered 
 something in the vicissitudes of the civil war, and at last 
 found their way back, it is not remembered how, into the 
 Eoyal Gallery. "A great part of these drawings," observes 
 Walpole, " are exceedingly fine, and in one respect prefer- 
 able to the finished pictures, as they are drawn in a bold 
 and free manner. And though they have little more than 
 the outline, being drawn with chalk upon paper stained of 
 a flesh colour, and scarce shaded at all, there is a strength 
 and vivacity in them equal to the most perfect portraits." 
 Holbein died of the plague in 1554. 1 His works have 
 sometimes an air of stiffness ; but they have always the 
 look of truth and life. He painted with great rapidity and 
 ease, wrought with the left hand, 2 and dashed off a portrait 
 at a few sittings. He was gay and joyous, lived freely, and 
 spent his pension of two hundred florins and the money he 
 received for his works with a careless liberality. He had 
 a strong frame, a swarthy sensual face, a neck like a bull, 
 and an eye unlikely to endure contradiction. It would be 
 unjust to his fame to withhold the information that his 
 talents were not confined to pictures. Like other eminent 
 artists, his mind took a range beyond the brush and the 
 easel. He was an able architect : he modelled and he 
 carved. He was skilful, too, in designing ornaments, and 
 in making drawings for printed books ; some of which he 
 is said to have cut himself. Sir Hans Sloane had a book 
 of jewels of his designing which is now in the British 
 
 1 The date of Holbein's death has always been a subject of dispute, 
 and even quite recently the controversy respecting it has been revived. 
 The evidence, however, seems conclusive that this master must have 
 died in London between the 7th of October and the 29th of November, 
 1543. ED. 
 
 2 There is no authority for this tradition. In his portrait in the Arundel 
 collection he holds his brush in his right hand, as also in the Duke of 
 Buccleuch's miniature. ED.
 
 SIR ANTONIO MORE. 21 
 
 Museum. Inigo Jones had another book of his designs 
 for weapons, hilts, ornaments, scabbards, sword-belts, 
 buttons, hooks, hat-bands, girdles, shoe-clasps, knives, 
 forks, salt-cellars, and vases. 
 
 Neither the presence of Holbein, nor the influence of his 
 works, could prevail against the mercantile mode of bar- 
 gaining for works of art ; they continued to be weighed 
 out or measured like other commercial commodities. An 
 artist was looked upon as a manufacturer, and his produc- 
 tions were esteemed according to their extent, and the 
 time consumed in making them. Francis Williamson, of 
 Southwark, and Symon Symonds, of Westminster, glaziers, 
 on the 3rd of May, in the 18th of Henry the Eighth, 
 undertook to " glaze curiously and sufficiently four win- 
 dows of the upper story of the church of King's College, 
 Cambridge, of orient colours and imagery, of the story of 
 ' the Old Law and of the New Law, after the manner and 
 goodness in every point of the King's new chapel at West- 
 minster, also according to the manner of Bernard Flower, 
 glazier, deceased, to be paid after the rate of sixteenpence 
 per foot for the glass." Other engagements of the same 
 nature might be cited, all proving that works of English 
 art were bargained for by measure, and that groups and 
 figures, requiring taste and genius to create, were ordered 
 like bricks and tiles, by the dozen and the long hundred. 
 " Yet as much," observes Walpole, " as we imagine our- 
 selves arrived at higher perfection in the arts, it would not 
 be easy for a master of a college now to go into St. Mar- 
 garet's parish or Southwark, and bespeak the roof of such 
 a chapel as that of King's College, and a dozen or two of 
 windows so admirably drawn, and order them to be sent 
 home by such a day, as if he was bespeaking a chequered 
 pavement or a church Bible." It is remarkable that one 
 of the finest of those windows contains the story of Sap- 
 phira and Ananias, as told by Raphael in the Cartoons. 
 
 Painting maintained its place in popular estimation 
 during the brief and guilty reign of Mary. Sir Antonio 
 Moro, for his portrait of the queen, received from Philip 
 a chain of gold, with the more substantial addition of a 
 pension of four hundred a-year as painter to the king.
 
 22 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 Moro followed Philip into Spain, lived in much splendour, 
 and in close intimacy too with the monarch, which was not 
 without its danger. One day, it is said, Philip laid his 
 hand jestingly on Moro' a shoulder in the presence of his 
 courtiers, and, as the artist was professionally engaged, he 
 touched the royal hand with a brush dipped in carmine. 
 The courtiers stood aghast at this criminal breach of court 
 etiquette, and Philip himself surveyed for a moment in 
 silence that awful hand, which even ladies knelt to kiss 
 with a serious look. The painter saw his error he knelt, 
 sued for forgiveness, and obtained it from the king but 
 not from the inquisition, who believed, or said, that 
 Moro had got from the English heretics a charm where- 
 with he bewitched Philip. He retired from a country so 
 dangerous for a man of free manners, and pleased the 
 Duke of Alva so much with some portraits of favourite 
 ladies, that he was made receiver of the revenue of West 
 Flanders, a lucrative appointment whereon Sir Antonio 
 forthwith threw away his brushes and burnt his easel. 
 
 Queen Elizabeth courted wits and coquetted with war- 
 riors, but disregarded art and artists. She encouraged 
 nothing that promised to be expensive, and the strong 
 Protestant feeling of the nation, still writhing under the 
 recollection of her sister's severities, excluded madonnas 
 and saints, and even ap'ostles, from the cathedrals. " There 
 is no evidence," says Walpole, in his own sarcastic way, 
 " that Elizabeth had much taste for painting ; but she 
 loved pictures of herself. In them she could appear really 
 handsome, and yet, to do the profession justice, they seem 
 to have flattered her the least of all her dependants : there 
 is not a single portrait of her that one can call beautiful. 
 The profusion of ornaments with which they are loaded 
 are marks of her continual fondness for dress, while they 
 entirely exclude all grace, and leave no more room for a 
 painter's genius than if he had been employed to copy an 
 Indian idol totally composed of hands and necklaces. A 
 pale Roman nose, a head of hair loaded with crowns and 
 powdered with diamonds, a vast ruff, a vaster fardingale, 
 and a bushel of pearls, are the features by which every- 
 body knows at once the pictures of Queen Elizabeth."
 
 QUEEN ELIZABETH DE HEERE. 23 
 
 Elizabeth was determined to know everything, and 
 wished to appear skilful in matters which she had neither 
 studied, nor could, without study, fairly comprehend. She 
 directed artists, and laid down rules for their productions, 
 not for the advantage of the nation, but for her own. On 
 one occasion, when she sat for her portrait, she ordered it 
 to be painted " with the light coming neither from the 
 right nor from the left, without shadows, in an open 
 garden light :" a mere conceit and the conceit, too, of 
 one unacquainted with the principles of the art she pre- 
 sumed to direct. Raleigh informs us that she ordered all 
 pictures of herself, done by unskilful artists, to be collected 
 and burned ; and in 1563 she issued a proclamation for- 
 bidding all persons, save " especial cunning painters, to 
 draw her likeness." She quarrelled at last with her look- 
 ing-glass as well as with her painters ; during the latter 
 years of her life the maids of honour removed mirrors, as 
 they would have removed poison, from the apartments 
 about to be occupied by the virgin queen. 
 
 Lucas de Heere, a native of Ghent, a poet, a painter, and 
 a wit, came in this reign to England, where he executed 
 several portraits. He was employed to paint the gallery 
 of the Earl of Lincoln, in which he represented the charac- 
 ters of several nations. When he came to the English, he 
 painted a naked man with a pair of shears and cloths of 
 various colours lying beside him, as a satire on our fickle- 
 ness in fashions. This thought is borrowed from Andrew 
 Borde, who, to the first chapter of his Induction to Know- 
 ledge, prefixed a naked Englishman, accompanied with 
 these lines : 
 
 " I am an Englishman, and naked I stand here, 
 Musing in mind what raiment I shall wear ; 
 Now I will wear this, and now I will wear that, 
 And now will I wear I cannot well tell what." 
 
 De Heere, proceeding more warily with the queen than 
 with the nation, depicted her majesty in a rich dress, with 
 crown, sceptre, and globe, coming out of her palace with 
 Juno, Pallas, and Venus, as her companions ; Juno drops 
 her sceptre, Venus scatters her roses, and Cupid flings away
 
 24 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 his arrows. The poverty of the invention is as remarkable 
 as the intolerable grossness of the flattery. 1 
 
 The great Earl of Nottingham, whose defeat of the Ar- 
 mada established the throne of his mistress, employed 
 Cornelius Vroom, a native of Haarlem, to draw the designs 
 of his successive victories over the Spaniards, and the whole 
 was wrought in tapestry by Francis Spiering. It is a 
 noble and national work. It is divided into ten battles, 
 and contains the portraits of twenty-seven naval com- 
 manders. These portraits have the air of real likenesses ; 
 indeed, as the tapestry was wrought while the original 
 persons were living, the artist could not well indulge in 
 imaginary features. The painter had for his drawing one 
 hundred pieces of gold ; the arras cost ten pounds one 
 shilling per ell, a high price, and, as it measures seven 
 hundred and eight ells, the whole amounted to upwards of 
 seven thousand pounds. This was a work worthy of the 
 noble House of Howard. James the First repaid the money 
 to the earl, and the crown became proprietor of the work ; 
 and the Puritan commonwealth placed it (where it still 
 remains) in the House of Lords then used by the Com- 
 mons as a committee-room. 
 
 Towards the close of Elizabeth's reign, Hilliard and 
 Oliver began to distinguish themselves, and they are pro- 
 bably the earliest natives of this island who have any 
 claim to the name of artists. The former was the son of 
 the Queen's goldsmith, and was allowed to study from the 
 heads of Holbein : the parentage of the latter is unknown, 
 " nor is it of any importance," says Walpole, " for he was a 
 genius, and they transmit more honour by blood than they 
 can receive." Hilliard enjoyed the protection of the court, 
 and became popular ; 2 Oliver obtained the patronage of 
 the nation, and merited all which it bestowed. The chief 
 
 1 Federigo Zucchero was another eminent foreigner who was employed 
 by Queen Elizabeth. It is of him the story is told of the queen requesting 
 to be painted without shadows. Mark Gerard, or Garrard of Bruges, 
 was likewise a favourite portrait painter at Elizabeth's court. Three 
 portraits by him are in the possession of the Marquis of Exeter, and seve- 
 ral others were exhibited at the First National Portrait Exhibition. ED. 
 
 2 Five portraits attributed to Hilliard appeared at the First National 
 Portrait Exhibition, among them a careful portrait of Queen Elizabeth,
 
 BILLIARD OLIVER. 25 
 
 merit, indeed, of Hilliard is, that he helped to form the 
 taste and discipline the hand of Oliver. The works of the 
 latter are all miniatures ; in the estimation of judges they 
 rival those of Holbein, and may be compared with those 
 of Cooper, who, living in a freer age, and studying under 
 Vandyke, scarce compensates by all the boldness of his 
 expression for the severe nature and delicate fidelity of the 
 elder hand. Oliver died in 1617, aged sixty-two years, leav- 
 ing behind him many works of exquisite skill and beauty. 
 If the long reign of Elizabeth was inglorious for art, 
 neither will that of James introduce us to names of note, 
 or to works of lasting reputation. James, though an un- 
 gainly man and no very gracious monarch, had high 
 qualities: he loved peace, he loved learning, he loved 
 poetry and he loved art a little. He encouraged first 
 and then pensioned My tens, a native of the Hague, whose 
 reputation was such, that in the opinion of many it suffered 
 but a slight eclipse on the appearance of Vandyke. This 
 artist was at first employed in portraiture, but he after- 
 wards copied in little many works of the great painters of 
 Italy ; nor did the originals, it is said, suffer much either 
 in richness of colour or in beauty of sentiment, so skilful 
 was his pencil. 1 The younger Oliver, too, made himself 
 known about this period by numerous miniature por- 
 traits of the chief persons about court. This branch of 
 art was encouraged by the prevailing fashion of wearing 
 miniatures richly set in gold and diamonds ; they were no 
 longer concealed in boxes and cabinets of carved ebony, 
 but displayed publicly around the neck, and employed to 
 embellish the velvet dresses of the courtly and the high- 
 painted on canvas in oils, and another of Mary Queen of Scots. It was 
 of this painter that Dr. Donne wrote : 
 
 " An hand or eye 
 
 By Hilliard drawn is worth a historye 
 
 By a worse painter made." ED. 
 
 1 Two foreign artists of reputation besides Daniel Mytens, namely, 
 Cornelius Janssens, and Paul van Somer, worked in England during 
 James's reign. Of English artists, the sculptor Nicholas Stone, was per- 
 haps the best, but both the Olivers, Isaac and Peter, had a well-merited 
 reputation. There are several miniatures by them in Her Majesty's 
 collection at Windsor. Eu.
 
 26 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 born. This harmless vanity, while it encouraged art, ex- 
 posed its works to the risk of continual accidents. 1 
 
 The English at this period were rich and proud, and 
 sensible of the fame which successful art brings to a 
 nation. But there was a strong feeling entertained against 
 them by foreign princes and foreign artists. They were 
 denounced by the ancient church as incurable heretics ; 
 they were dreaded by sea and land ; and it was reckoned 
 dangerous to the soul, and not very safe to the body, 
 to have interchange of civilities with men whom the 
 saints had abandoned, and the Pope consigned to per- 
 dition. We were unable, therefore, either to allure over 
 artists of talent, or to become the purchasers of many 
 works of eminence. The general aversion which the mass 
 of the community entertained towards the appearance of 
 paintings in churches, began, however, sensibly to abate. 
 Painted windows, altar-pieces, and works of a scriptural 
 character, became common as the episcopal church grew 
 strong. The king encouraged their reappearance ; the 
 dignitaries of the church sanctioned it ; and the people, 
 naturally fond of flashy colours and of pomp and show, 
 made no opposition though the Puritans called it a 
 bowing of the knee to Baal, and a setting up of the image 
 worship of the Lady of Babylon. 
 
 To the commencement of the reign of Charles the First 
 all lovers of art and literature look with joy, and to the 
 conclusion with sorrow. His spirit was lofty, his discern- 
 ment great, his taste refined, and his nature generous. 
 The purity of his court and the dignity of his manners 
 were models for other nations. Into his palaces he intro- 
 duced works of art of the first merit, and to his friendship 
 men of talents and attainments. He filled his cabinets 
 and his galleries with all the works of genius which he 
 could procure in other countries or in his own. He en- 
 couraged merit of the first order. Inigo Jones was his 
 architect, and Vandyke was his painter. 
 
 Of the contents of King Charles's galleries we have 
 
 1 Cunningham omits to mention another English miniature painter of 
 about this date, John Hoskins, whose works were very highly esteemed. 
 He died in 1664. ED.
 
 KING CHARLES I. 27 
 
 various accounts, but all agreeing that they contained 
 many works of very high talent. Prince Henry, it is true, 
 shares with his brother the merit of patronizing painting ; 
 and the Earl of Arundel has also the honour of being one 
 of the foremost in forming the national taste, by a judicious 
 assemblage of works of art. But the collection of the 
 prince was small, for he died early ; and that of the earl 
 was chiefly, if not wholly, in sculpture ; l while the gallery 
 of the king was rich in paintings from the best masters. 
 The merit, however, of commencing the royal collection is 
 due to Henry the Eighth. It contained in his time one 
 hundred and fifty pieces, including miniatures ; and when 
 we reflect on the deficiency of public taste, on the foreign 
 wars which that king waged, his contest with the Church 
 of Home, and his domestic labours in courting, crowning, 
 and uncrowning queens, we cannot but feel that he did 
 much for art. His wardrobe accounts in the British 
 Museum contain the list of his pictures ; and though the 
 artists' names are not mentioned, it is easy to trace that 
 many are by Holbein, and pleasing to know that some of 
 them are still in the Eoyal collection. This curious docu- 
 ment confirms the accounts of the domestic splendour and 
 public magnificence of Henry. 
 
 The influence of a king of true taste, like Charles, was 
 soon visible in the nation. The foreign countries, who, to 
 Elizabeth and James, had presented necklaces, and jewels, 
 and splendid toys, now propitiated the English court with 
 gifts of the fairest works of art. The states of Holland, 
 instead of ivory puzzles, and cabinets formed after the in- 
 genious pattern known to schoolboys by the name of the 
 Walls of Troy, sent Tintorets and Titians. The King of 
 Spain presented the Cain and Abel of John of Bologna, 
 with Titian's Venus del Pardo ; and other states courted 
 Charles by gifts of a similar nature, though of less value. 
 He employed skilful painters to copy what he could not 
 purchase. Through the interposition of Rubens he ob- 
 tained the Cartoons of Raphael, and by the negotiation of 
 
 1 This is scarcely correct. We know that a large number of drawings 
 were collected by the Earl of Arundel, many of which have found 
 their way into the British Museum. ED.
 
 28 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 Buckingham, the collection of the Duke of Mantua, con- 
 taining eighty-two pictures, principally by Julio Romano, 
 Titian, and Correggio. These and others rendered the 
 great gallery of Whitehall a place of general attraction ; 
 there the king was oftener to be found than in his own 
 apartments ; all who loved and encouraged art went there ; 
 and so careful was Charles of those favourite works that 
 on the occasion of a public banquet, he caused a temporary 
 place of accommodation to be constructed, rather than run 
 any risk of soiling the paintings by the vapour of candles 
 and torches. 
 
 This gallery contained in all four hundred and sixty 
 pictures, by thirty-seven different artists. Of these, eleven 
 were by Holbein, eleven by Correggio, sixteen by Julio 
 Romano, ten by Mytens, seven by Parmegiano, nine by 
 Raphael, seven by Rubens, three by Rembrandt, seven by 
 Tintoret, twenty-eight by Titian, sixteen by Vandyke, four 
 by Paul Veronese, and two by Leonardo da Vinci. All 
 these were the private property of the king. The nobles, 
 imitating the example of the throne, purchased largely 
 whenever an opportunity offered. In 1625 Buckingham 
 persuaded Rubens to sell him his own private collection, 
 consisting of thirteen pictures by his own hand, nineteen 
 by Titian, thirteen by Paul Veronese, seventeen by Tin- 
 toret, three by Leonardo da Vinci, and three by Raphael. 
 
 Charles considered this noble gallery but as the com- 
 mencement of one much more valuable and magnificent, 
 and he proceeded to collect materials with taste and enthu- 
 siasm. By a letter, written with his own hand, he invited, 
 though in vain, Albano into England. Buckingham ex- 
 hausted all his arts of persuasion to entice over Carlo 
 Marratti ; and Venet, a French painter of eminence, was 
 solicited with the same bad success. 1 What money failed 
 to purchase or patronage to secure, was obtained by chance. 
 The Infanta of Spain sent, as her representative to the 
 English Court, the accomplished Rubens. He was wel- 
 comed with great honour, and during the remission of 
 
 1 I cannot find this name in the early annals of French art. Perhaps 
 Simon Vouet is meant 3 a painter of great reputation at the court of 
 Louis XIII. ED.
 
 VANDTKE. 29 
 
 public duty was prevailed upon to embellish the Ban- 
 queting Room of Whitehall with the Apotheosis of 
 King James a work distinguished by such freedom and 
 vigour of drawing, and such magnificence of colour, as 
 excited general admiration. To the fame of this great 
 painter nothing can now be added by praise, and as 
 little can be taken from it by censure. The singular 
 ease, vigour, and life which he imparted to all that he 
 touched, the freedom and truth of his drawing, and the 
 glowing and unlaboured excellence of his colouring, have 
 been written upon and talked about in every nation ; and 
 the universal eulogy need not be repeated here. 1 Kubens 
 remained one year in England, and gave by his works a 
 visible impulse to art. Frigid imitation, and cold and 
 mechanical covering, began to rise into boldness and varied 
 richness ; we had no longer forms without freedom, and 
 faces without life. We have at present in Britain eighty- 
 eight paintings by the hand of this great master. 
 
 Charles was equally fortunate in obtaining the aid of 
 Vandyke ; it came too, as many things of much value 
 come, in a way that may be called accidental. The painter 
 had heard of the honour which art received in England, 
 and arrived in London in 1632, in the thirty-fourth year 
 of his age. He remained a short time quite unnoticed,- 
 and retired to the Continent in disgust. The king, then 
 learning what a treasure he had lost, employed Sir Kenelm 
 Digby to soothe him and bring him back ; and in this he 
 was successful. Vandyke returned, was admitted into the 
 ranks of the royal painters, and as he wrought with equal 
 rapidity and success, soon gave such evidence of his abilities 
 as delighted the monarch, and consequently captivated the 
 whole court. The queen, then young and lovely, sat to 
 him, and so did her sons ; her example was followed by 
 many lords and ladies of the court, and also by the king, 
 
 1 From fame thus established the sharp censure with which Fuseli 
 visits the allegories of the school of Rubens can subtract little. There 
 is much bitterness, but there is also not a little of truth in the remarks. 
 " Those allegorical histories are empty representations of themselves, 
 the supporters of nothing but clumsy forms and clumsier conceits ; they 
 can only be considered as splendid improprieties, as the substitute for 
 wants which no colour can palliate and no tints supply."
 
 30 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 who bestowed a knighthood and a pension of two hundred 
 a-year upon the fortunate artist. No portrait painter 
 indeed ever merited royal favour more. 
 
 Vandyke had studied under Eubens " Fame," says 
 Walpole, " attributes to his master an envy of which his 
 liberal nature was, I believe, incapable, and makes him 
 advise Vandyke to apply himself chiefly to portraits. If 
 Eubens gave the advice in question, he gave it with reason, 
 not maliciously. Vandyke had a peculiar genius for por- 
 traits ; his draperies are finished with a minuteness of truth 
 not demanded in historic compositions ; besides, his inven- 
 tion was cold and tame ; nor does he any where seem to 
 have had much idea of the passions and their expression 
 portraits require none." This seems but a cold acknow- 
 ledgment of the talents of this great artist, whose portraits 
 are now, and are likely to remain, the wonder of all nations. 
 Of those works, this island alone possesses more than two 
 hundred. He has been equalled in freedom by Eeynolds, 
 
 f and surpassed in the fascination of female loveliness by 
 Lawrence, but no one has yet equalled him in manly dig- 
 
 nity ; in the rare and important gift of endowing his heads 
 with power to think and act. With all his vigour, he 
 has no violent attitudes, no startling postures ; all is 
 natural and graceful. Whatever his figures do, they do 
 easily ; there is no straining. Man in his noblest form and 
 attitudes was ever present to his fancy ; he strikes his sub- 
 jects clearly and cleverly out ; he disdains to retire into the 
 
 \ darkness of backgrounds, or to float away the body into a 
 Njloud or a vapour. All his men are of robust intellect, for 
 he is a painter of mind more than of velvet or silk ; yet he 
 throws a cloak over a cavalier with a grace which few have 
 attained. His ladies are inferior to his men ; they seldom 
 equal the fresh innocent loveliness of nature. He re- 
 mained long in this country ; and to his pencil we owe 
 many portraits of the eminent persons who embellished or 
 embroiled the most unfortunate of English reigns. 
 
 " Vandyke's pictures," observes Barry, " are evidently 
 painted at once, with sometimes a little retouching, and 
 they are not less remarkable for the truth, beauty, and 
 freshness of the tints, than for the masterly manner of 
 their handling or execution." Of the St. Sebastian and
 
 VANDYKE JAMESONE. 31 
 
 Susanna by thg same artist, in the Dusseldorf gallery, 
 Reynolds remarks, " they were done when he was very 
 young ; he never afterwards had so brilliant a manner of 
 colouring ; it kills every thing near it. Behind are figures 
 on horseback, touched with great spirit. This is Van- 
 dyke's first manner, when he imitated Eubens and Titian, 
 which supposes the sun in the room ; in his pictures after- 
 wards he represented common daylight." 
 
 The public mind during this period was laden and heav- 
 ing with another leaven ; and that fierce spirit was visibly 
 at work which turned our churches into stables, and 
 levelled the ancient fabric of our monarchy with the dust. 
 Men of talent turned their attention to more important 
 matters than those of art ; and I cannot help feeling sur- 
 prised that a time teeming with the elements of strife and 
 commotion should have produced an artist of such merit 
 as George Jamesone. Of this painter, distinguished by 
 the name of the Scottish Vandyke, less is known than I 
 could wish. He was the son of an architect, and was born 
 at Aberdeen in the year 1586. He went abroad ; studied 
 under Eubens in the company of Vandyke ; returned to 
 Scotland in 1628 ; and commenced his professional career 
 at Edinburgh. His earliest works are chiefly painted on 
 panel ; he afterwards used fine linen cloth. Having made 
 some successful attempts in landscape and history he re- 
 linquished them for portraiture a branch of the art which 
 this island has never failed to patronize. He acquired 
 much fame in his day, and was considered after Vandyke 
 the ablest of the scholars of Eubens. His excellence 
 consists in softness and delicacy, and in a manner broad 
 and transparent. His colouring is beautiful ; his shades 
 not changed, but helped by varnish ; and there is very 
 little appearance of the pencil. 
 
 When Charles visited Scotland in 1633, he sat for his 
 portrait to Jamesone, and rewarded him with a diamond 
 ring from his own finger. Many of his portraits are still 
 to be found in the houses of the Scottish nobility and 
 gentry. So well had he caught the manner and spirit of 
 Vandyke, that several of his heads have been imputed to 
 his more famous contemporary. I imist not omit to men- 
 tion that some of his pictures are in the college of his
 
 32 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 native place, and that " The Sybils," a work of merit, was 
 copied, according to tradition, from two of the beauties of 
 Aberdeen. 
 
 The prices which he received for his pictures seem 
 small, even in the swelling numbers of the Scottish cur- 
 rency. In the genealogy of the House of Breadalbane 
 occurs the following singular memorandum it is dated 
 1635 : " Sir Colin Campbell, eighth laird of Glenorchy, 
 gave unto George Jamesone, painter in Edinburgh, for 
 Robert and David Bruces, kings of Scotland, and Charles 
 the First, king of Great Britain, and his majesty's queen, 
 and for nine more of the queens of Scotland, their portraits 
 which are in the hall of Balloch (nowTaymouth), the sum 
 of two hundred and threescore pounds. Moreover the said 
 Sir Colin gave to the said George Jamesone for the knight 
 of Loch ore's lady, and the first countess of Argyle, and 
 six of the ladies of Glenorchy, their portraits, and the said 
 Sir Colin his own portrait, which are set up in the chamber 
 of Deas at Balloch, one hundred and fourscore pounds." 
 
 In spite of all this apparent penury of price, Jamesone 
 died rich. His works still maintain their original reputa- 
 tion ; and he goes down as the first native of this island 
 who excelled in works of art as large as life. 1 
 
 1 It is strange that Cunningham, who accords elsewhere a separate 
 biography to Jamesone, should hare omitted altogether to notice his con- 
 temporary, William Dobson, our first English painter of portrait beyond 
 miniature size, and who also was the first to attempt history. William 
 Dobson was born in London in 1610. He was apprenticed in early life 
 to Sir Robert Peake, a painter and picture dealer of small note, under 
 whose instruction he learnt to copy the works of Vandyke and other 
 masters. One of these copies drew the attention of Vandyke, who gene- 
 rously helped the young painter and introduced him to Charles the First, 
 who at Vandyke's death made him his Serjeant painter and Groom of 
 the Privy Chamber. But the evil times in which he lived, and his own 
 dissipated life, proved fatal to any great achievement of his art. At the 
 outbreak of the civil war we find him in prison for debt, and soon after- 
 wards dying, at the age of thirty-six, in St. Martin's Lane, London. His 
 portraits, many of which have appeared at the National Portrait Exhibi- 
 tion, and some recently at the " Old Masters," Burlington House, have 
 undoubted merit, though they are somewhat stiff and hard in style. 
 There is an excellent one of himself and his wife at Hampton Court, a 
 portrait of Cleveland the poet in the Ellesmere collection, and a good 
 group of family portraits at Devonshire House. He has left besides his
 
 CHARLES I. 33 
 
 An anecdote is related of Charles, which it would be 
 wrong to omit. The king wished to employ Bernini the 
 sculptor, and tried in vain to allure him into England. 
 Not succeeding in this, and still desirous to have one of his 
 works, he employed Vandyke to draw those inimitable 
 profiles and full face now in the royal gallery, to enable 
 the sculptor to make his majesty's bust. Bernini surveyed 
 these materials with an anxious eye, and exclaimed, 
 " Something evil will befall this man ; he carries misfor- 
 tune on his face." Tradition has added, in the same 
 spirit, that a hawk pursued a dove into the sculptor's 
 study, and, rending its victim in the air, sprinkled with its 
 blood the finished bust of King Charles. I have also 
 heard it asserted that stains of blood were still visible on 
 the marble when it was lost in the fire which consumed 
 Whitehall. 
 
 It would be instructive to ascertain how far art had re- 
 sumed its old sway in our churches under the friendly 
 governments of James and Charles to learn how many 
 windows were refilled with painted glass, and how many 
 altar-pieces, representing Scripture story, had reappeared 
 when the fierce Puritans vanquished the chivalry of 
 Charles, and purged anew the sanctuary, to the fullest 
 sense of the proclamations of Henry, Edward, and Eliza- 
 beth. This cannot now be known. 
 
 The fierce war which ensued, and the strange desolation 
 which fell on rank, station, and all established things, was 
 sure to make art a victim. The " pulpit, drum ecclesiastic," 
 assailed the beloved paintings of the monarch, as things 
 vain, frivolous, and sinful ; and stigmatized their admirers 
 and abettors as persons possessed with an unclean spirit. 
 The fury of the parliament fell upon the royal galleries. 
 The presence of art in the land was accounted superfluous ; 
 to despise whatever increased external dignity was merito- 
 rious ; and to lop and prune the blossomed boughs from 
 the stately tree of civil and religious government, was not 
 only deemed a merit, but a duty. To strip off, therefore, 
 the exterior magnificence of the old government, was the 
 
 portraits a few historical pictures, in particular " The Beheading of 
 St. John the Baptist," at Wilton House. ED. 
 
 D
 
 34 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 first act of the new; and they proceeded to sell by common 
 auction the hereditary furniture of the palaces, the heir- 
 looms of the monarchy, and the collection of paintings 
 made under the auspices of their kings. A list of these 
 works of art was made out, imaginary prices attached to 
 each, and the public purpose named the war in the north 
 and in Ireland to which the money arising from the sale 
 should be applied. The Puritans affected to despise those 
 productions, because they wished to insult the king's 
 memory ; and they desired to sell them, because they had 
 need of the money. But not finding this a sufficient justi- 
 fication, they pretended a fanatic hatred to certain classes 
 of works, and ordered these to be burned as Henry and 
 Elizabeth had done before. The following is transcribed 
 from the Journals of the House of Commons, of 23rd 
 July, 1645. " Ordered, that all such pictures and statues 
 there (York House), as are without any superstition, shall 
 be forthwith sold for the benefit of Ireland and the north. 
 Ordered, that all such pictures there, as have the representa- 
 tion of the Virgin Mary upon them, shall be forthwith burnt. 
 Ordered, that all such pictures there, as have the repre- 
 sentation of the second person in the Trinity upon them, 
 shall be forthwith burnt." " This was a worthy contrast," 
 says Walpole, " to Archbishop Laud, who made a star- 
 chamber business of a man who broke some painted glass 
 in the cathedral at Salisbury. The cause of liberty was 
 then, and is always, the only cause that can excuse a civil 
 war; yet if Laud had not doated on trifles, and the Presby- 
 terians been squeamish about them, I question whether 
 the nobler motives would have had sufficient influence to 
 save us from arbitrary power. They are the slightest ob- 
 jects which make the deepest impression on the people. 
 They seldom fight for the liberty of doing what they have 
 a right to do, but because they are prohibited or enjoined 
 some folly that they have, or have not, a mind to do." 
 
 The wild order for the dispersion and destruction of the 
 royal collections was not immediately, nor indeed ever was 
 fully, obeyed. The sales lingered for six or eight years ; 
 they were retarded by the unsettled state of the republican 
 government, and by the intrigues of Cromwell. It appears 
 that even the order for the destruction of paintings re-
 
 THE CIVIL "WAR THE PURITANS. 35 
 
 presenting the Virgin and the Saviour was very imper- 
 fectly fulfilled. The Puritans, having put them down by 
 a vote as superstitious, allowed not a few of them to 
 escape the flames, and pass silently into the possession 
 of private purchasers whom they were unwilling to dis- 
 oblige. 
 
 They stigmatized art; silenced dramatic actors; shut 
 up the playhouses ; and, having conquered and dispersed 
 all their enemies, had full leisure to dispute and quarrel 
 among themselves ; and they did not neglect the oppor- 
 tunity. As they were debating about the booty, a wily 
 and daring spirit interposed, and seized at one grasp the 
 fruits of all their deliberations, prayers, mortifications, 
 plots, and battles. Cromwell, with all his talents, had 
 little feeling for the higher excellency of art. His chief 
 instruction to the painter of his portrait was to remember 
 the warts and moles. He was not insensible, however, 
 that lustre is proper to a court ; and, as soon as he became 
 possessed of absolute power, put an end to all sales of the 
 royal furniture and paintings. 1 For many fine works this 
 order came too late ; they had been dispersed beyond 
 recall. Some of the best were bought by the King of 
 Spain, and arrived at Madrid at the same time with the 
 ambassadors of the exiled King a circumstance which 
 puzzled sorely the Spanish etiquette. Many were sold to 
 persons connected with the old court, many to mere pic- 
 ture-dealers, and some to the more sensible and spirited 
 of the Puritans. The celebrated Colonel Hutchinson was 
 an extensive purchaser ; Oliver Cromwell's name appears 
 early in the list of buyers. Some had the misfortune to 
 purchase just when the Lord General was about to assume 
 Sovereign power, and their bargains were declared void ! 
 One of those disappointed dealers had the audacity to 
 petition Charles the Second for a restitution of his lot of 
 pictures the result is not known. Into a dozen galleries 
 Charles had collected upwards of twelve hundred works of 
 art ; most of these were dispersed by public sale during 
 the years from 1645 to 1652, and they produced to the 
 
 1 It must not be forgotten that it is to Cromwell we owe the preserva- 
 tion of the Raphael Cartoons for the nation. They were valued by the 
 Commissioners at J&300 but Cromwell prevented them being sold. Far
 
 36 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 republicans thirty-eight thousand pounds. 1 Another fato 
 befell the gallery of the Duke of Buckingham. The pic- 
 tures were sold privately, to support the second duke 
 during the misery of exile, and, what is worse, they were 
 chiefly purchased by foreigners. 
 
 There is no doubt, after all, that very many of the royal 
 pictures remained in England. At the Restoration, when 
 Pepys visited the royal gallery, he declares that he missed 
 few of his old favourites ; and we see by the catalogue of 
 James the Second, that the crown was in his time repos- 
 sessed of many of its ancient paintings. But the unfor- 
 tunate fire at Whitehall completed what the Puritans did 
 imperfectly, and destroyed a vast number of noble works. 
 
 Of the painters who appeared during the Commonwealth 
 little need be said. 2 Painting and sculpture are of slow 
 growth, and seldom thrive amidst wars and convulsions. 
 
 less creditable was the conduct of Charles II., who actually sold them to 
 Barillon, the minister of Louis XIV., the purchase being all but con- 
 cluded, when they were again saved to England, this time by the inter- 
 vention of Lord Danby, who entreated Charles not to part with such 
 inestimable treasures. The Puritans, indeed, though doubtless they have 
 much to answer for, scarcely deserve the sweeping condemnation that is 
 here bestowed upon them. More works of art perished through ignorance 
 and neglect under the Kestoration and during the succeeding reigns than 
 were destroyed by their fanaticism. But it is customary to attribute 
 every sin of this kind to these uncompromising patriots. ED. 
 
 1 I shall transcribe the prices of some of the most celebrated pictures, 
 more for the sake of amusing the reader, than with the hope of instruct- 
 ing purchasers. The Cartoons of Raphael, .300 ; the Royal Family, 
 <150; King Charles on horseback, 200; the Triumphs of Julius 
 Caesar, 1,000; the Twelve Caesars of Titian, 1,200; the Muses, by 
 Tintoret, 100 ; the Nativity, by Julio Romano, 500 ; Sleeping Venus, 
 by Correggio, 1,000; the Venus del Pardo, by Titian, 600; Venus 
 attired by the Graces, by Guido, 200 ; a little Madonna and Christ, 
 by Raphael, 800; St. George, by Raphael, 150; our Lady, Christ, 
 and others, by Palma, '200 ; Erasmus and Frobinius, by Holbein, 
 200; Satyr Flayed, by Correggio, 1,000; Mercury teaching Cupid 
 to read in the presence of Venus, by Correggio, 800 ; the head of 
 King Charles, a bust by Bernini, 800 ; and Christ washing the feet of 
 his Disciples, 300. This list contains, as the reader will observe, 
 several pictures condemned to the flames as superstitious. We have no 
 means of knowing into whose hands the whole of those works went. 
 The St. George was purchased by France. 
 
 * Chief of these was Robert Walker, Cromwell's portrait painter, who 
 died about 1660. There were several interesting portraits by him of the 
 Cromwell Family at the first Portrait Exhibition, including one of Robert
 
 THE RESTORATION. 37 
 
 Men have not peace of mind nor leisure during rebellions 
 and treasons to cultivate what is elegant ; and when a 
 man's head is not safe on his shoulders, it is not likely 
 that he will spend his time sitting for his likeness. James 
 the Second indeed acted otherwise. He was sitting for 
 his portrait, as a present to Pepys, when word was brought 
 to him of the landing of the Prince of Orange. The ar- 
 tist was confounded, and laid down his brush. " Go on, 
 Kneller," said the king, betraying no outward emotion 
 " go on, and finish your work ; I wish not to disappoint 
 my friend Pepys." 
 
 For the character of those times and their influence 
 on art, I transcribe, without entirely approving, the words 
 of Walpole. " The arts were in a manner expelled with 
 the royal family from Britain. The magnificence the 
 people have envied they grow to detest; and, mistaking 
 consequences for causes, the first objects of their fury are 
 the palaces of their masters. If religion is thrown into 
 the quarrel, the most innocent are catalogued with sins. 
 This was the case in the contest between Charles and his 
 parliament. As he had blended affection to the sciences 
 with a lust of power, nonsense and ignorance were adopted 
 into the liberties of the subject. Painting became idola- 
 try; monuments were deemed carnal pride, and a vene- 
 rable cathedral seemed equally contradictory to Magna 
 Charta and the Bible. Learning and wit were construed 
 to be as heathen. What the fury of Henry the Eighth 
 had spared, was condemned by the Puritans. Euin was 
 their harvest, and they gleaned after the Reformers. Had 
 they countenanced any of the softer arts, what would 
 those arts have represented ? How picturesque was the 
 figure of an Anabaptist ? But sectaries have no ostensible 
 enjoyments : their pleasures are private, comfortable, and 
 gross. The arts that civilize society are not calculated for 
 men who rise on the ruins of established order." 
 
 The noble poetry of Milton, the fine taste and lofty feel- 
 ings of Colonel Hutchinson, as well as the actions and 
 speeches of many of the great worthies who warred on the 
 side of civil and religious freedom, furnish a sufficient answer 
 
 Cromwfll, the father of (ho Protector. Walker's best known portrait of 
 Oliver Cromwell is ut Warwick Castle. ED. 
 
 355915
 
 38 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 to the exclusive claim, which Walpole sets up for the epis- 
 copal church, to all that is witty, and learned, and elegant. 
 
 Under the influence of the Restored King the character 
 of the nation seemed changed as if by sudden enchant- 
 ment the people leapt from dreary prayers and intermin- 
 able sermons to dice, and dance, and debauch. For the 
 stately and chivalrous court of Charles the First for the 
 martial austerity of Cromwell and his companions, we had 
 profligates, gamblers, paid informers, hired stabbers, and 
 titled strumpets ; while over the whole scene of courtly 
 iniquity presided a prince pensioned by the enemies of his 
 country the most witty and polished of profligates. 
 
 The impurities of tb^cpurt infected literature : it toot, 
 away the natural grace of innocence and simplicity from 
 our youth ; and art also was renewed in a spirit corre- 
 sponding with the unwholesome state of society. It was 
 no longer grave and devout, as under the first Charles. It 
 was dedicated to the task of recording the features of 
 lordly rakes and courtly wantons. Loose attire and looser 
 looks were demanded now. No one was so ready to comply 
 as Sir Peter Lely, and it must be confessed that no other 
 artist could have brought such skill and talent to the task. 
 
 When Cromwell sat to Lely, he said, " I desire you will 
 use all your skill to paint my picture truly like me, and 
 not flatter me at all ; but remark all those roughnesses, 
 pimples, warts, and everything as you see me ; otherwise 
 I never will pay one farthing for it." When the softer 
 customers of Charles's palace sat to the same painter, they 
 laid his talents under no such restrictions. He seemed to 
 consider himself chief limner at the court of Paphos. No 
 one knew better than he how to paint 
 
 " The sleepy eye that spoke the melting soul ; " 
 
 to imitate the fascinating undulations of female bosoms, 
 or give voluptuous glow and solid softness to youthful 
 flesh and blood. The beauties of Windsor, as they are 
 called, kindled up old Pepys, who says in his Memoirs, 
 that he called at Mr. Lely's, who was " a mighty proud 
 man and full of state," where he saw the Duchess of Cleve- 
 land " sitting in a chair, dressed in white satin ;" also 
 Lady Castlemaine, " a most blessed picture, of which he was
 
 SIR PETER LELY SIR GODFREY KNELLER. 39 
 
 resolved to have a copy." The lapse of a century and a 
 half has purified the air round those gay and jmerry 
 madams, and we can look on Lady Castlernaine and her 
 companions as calmly as on the Venus de Medicis. " The 
 bugle eyeball and the cheek of cream " have done with 
 their magic now. 
 
 Lely, however, did not wholly dedicate his pencil to the 
 condescending beauties of Charles's court: he has pre- 
 served the features of statesmen who contrived to walk 
 upright even in those slippery times : nor did he neglect 
 the men of genius who flourished in his day. He painted 
 Clarendon, Cowley, Butler, Selden, and Otway. He formed 
 a gallery of the works of Vandyke and other eminent 
 artists, which was sold at his death for twenty-six thousand 
 pounds. He maintained the state of a gentleman, and pre- 
 served the dignity due to art in his intercourse with the 
 court. Of the numerous works which he painted for he 
 was a diligent and laborious man upwards of seventy are 
 still in the island, portraits of ladies of rank or note, and 
 of men of birth or genius. 
 
 To the coming of Kneller some writers have attributed 
 the death of Lely. But he died suddenly ; and jealousy 
 and mortification are more slow in their operations. The 
 new artist was indeed a man of talent, but there was no- 
 thing of that high order about him which could be sup- 
 posed capable of sickening the soul, or shortening the life 
 of the other. The works of Kneller are numerous : they 
 are almost exclusively portraits ; and over whatever he pro- 
 duced he threw an air of freedom and a hue of nature not 
 unworthy of Vandyke. All the sovereigns of his time, all 
 the noblemen of the court, all the men of genius in the 
 kingdom, and almost all the ladies of rank or of beauty in 
 England, sat for their portraits. When he painted the 
 head of Louis the Fourteenth, the king asked him what 
 mark of his esteem would be most agreeable to him : the 
 painter answered modestly and genteelly that he should 
 feel honoured if his Majesty would bestow a quarter of an 
 hour upon him, that he might execute a drawing of his 
 face for himself. It was granted. He painted Dryden in 
 his own hair, in plain drapery, holding a laurel, and made 
 him a present of the work. The poet repaid this by an
 
 40 THE BRITISH PAINTERS, 
 
 epistle containing encomiums such as fw painters de- 
 serve: 
 
 " Such are thy pictures, Kneller ! such thy skill, 
 That nature seems obedient to thy will, 
 Comes out and meets thy pencil in the draught, 
 Lives there, and wants but words to speak the thought." 
 
 To the incense of Dry den was added that of Pope, Addison, 
 Prior, Tickell, and Steele. No wonder the artist was vain. 
 
 But the vanity of Kneller was redeemed by his naivete 
 and rendered pleasant by his wit. " Dost thou think, man," 
 said he to his tailor, who proposed his son for a pupil, 
 "dost thou think, man, I can make thy son a painter? 
 No ! God Almighty only makes painters." His wit, how- 
 ever, was that of one who had caught the spirit of Charles 
 the Second's wicked court. He once overheard a low fellow 
 cursing himself. " God damn you ! indeed ! " exclaimed 
 the artist in wonder ; " God may damn the Duke of Marl- 
 borough, and perhaps Sir Godfrey Kneller ; but do you 
 think he will take the trouble of damning such a scoundrel 
 as you?" The servants of his neighbour, Dr. Radcliffe, 
 abused the liberty of a private entrance to the painter's 
 garden, and plucked his flowers. Kneller sent word that 
 he must shut the door up. " Tell him," the doctor peevishly 
 replied, " that he may do anything with it but paint it." 
 " Never mind what he says," retorted Sir Godfrey, " I can 
 take anything from him but physic." 
 
 Kneller was one day conversing about his art, when he 
 gave the following neat reasons for preferring portraiture. 
 " Painters of history," said he, " make the dead live, 
 and do not begin to live themselves till they are dead. 
 I paint the living, and they make me live ! " In a conversa- 
 tion concerning the legitimacy of the unfortunate son of 
 James the Second, some doubts having been expressed by 
 an Oxford doctor, he exclaimed with much warmth, " His 
 father and mother have sat to me about thirty-six times 
 a-piece, and I know every line and bit of their faces. Mein 
 Gott ! I could paint King James now by memory. I say 
 the child is so like both, that there is not a feature in his 
 face but what belongs either to father or to mother ; this 
 I am sure of, and cannot be mistaken : nay, the nails of 
 his fingers are his mother's, the queen that was. Doctor,
 
 ARCHITECTURAL PAINTING. 41 
 
 you may be out in your letters, but I cannot be out in 
 my lines." 
 
 To four distinguished foreign artists, then, we are in- 
 debted for portraits of the most eminent persons who ap- 
 peared in England during a long course of years. The 
 truth, force, and elegance of many of their works are 
 yet unsurpassed. I am aware that there is a certain 
 air of stiffness in the portraits of Holbein, that several of 
 Vandyke's are unequal to his talents, that Lely is loose 
 and many of his pictures unlike, and that Kneller ex- 
 hibits much sameness and very little imagination ; yet, 
 with all these drawbacks, each has left works which will 
 never be neglected. The Olivers, 1 and James Jamesone, 
 and Cooper, it is true, were native artists ; but miniature- 
 painters and mere imitators of Vandyke can have little 
 right to be classed among masters. 8 
 
 A certain kind of painting obtained great reputation in 
 this island during the reigns of the Stuarts, which may be 
 called the architectural. It professed to be the handmaid of 
 
 1 Concerning some of the portraits of the younger Oliver, Vertue 
 relates the following characteristic story: "After the Restoration, 
 Charles made many inquiries about the miniatures of Oliver which had 
 been in his father's-gallery, and expressed a great desire to obtain them. 
 He could hear no account of them. At last he was told by one Rogers, 
 of Isleworth, that both father and son were dead, but that the son's 
 widow was living at Isleworth, and had many of their works. The 
 king went privately and unknown with Rogers to see them. The widow 
 showed several finished and unfinished, with many of which the king 
 being pleased, asked if she would sell them. She replied she had a 
 mind the king should see them first, and, if he did not purchase them, 
 she would think of disposing of them. The king discovered himself, on 
 which she produced some more pictures which she seldom showed. The 
 king desired her to set her price : she said she did not care to make a 
 price with his majesty, she would leave it to him ; but promised to look 
 over her husband's books, and let his majesty know what prices his 
 father, the late king, had paid. The king took away what he liked, and 
 sent Rogers to Mrs. Oliver with the option of a thousand pounds, or an 
 annuity of three hundred a-year for her life. She chose the latter. 
 Some years afterwards it happened that the king's mistresses had begged 
 all or most of these pictures : Mrs. Oliver said, on hearing it, that if 
 she had thought the king would have given them to such strumpets, he 
 never should have had them. This reached the court ; her pension was 
 stopped, and she never received it afterwards." 
 
 * Among the forgotten painters of this time may be mentioned Robert 
 Streater (1624 1680), who enjoyed a great reputation in his day. 1'epys
 
 42 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 architecture ; when the mason, and carpenter, and plasterer, 
 had done their work, its professors made their appearance, 
 and covered walls and ceilings with mobs of the old di- 
 vinities nymphs who represented cities crowned beldams 
 for nations and figures, ready ticketed and labelled, 
 answering to the names of virtues. The national love of 
 subjecting all works to a measure-and- value price, which 
 had been disused while art followed nature and dealt in 
 sentiment, was again revived, that these cold mechanical 
 productions might be paid for in the spirit which con- 
 ceived them. 
 
 The chief apostles of this dark faith were two foreigners 
 and one Englishman Verrio, La Gruerre, and Sir James 
 Thornhill. Rubens, indeed, and others, had deviated from 
 nature into this desert track only to return again to human 
 feelings with a heartier relish. But Thornhill and his 
 companions never deviated into nature. The shepherd- 
 esses of Sir Peter Lely were loose in their attire, loose in 
 their looks, and trailed their embroidered robes among the 
 thorns and brambles of their pastoral scenes, in a way 
 which made the staid dames of the Puritans blush and 
 look aside. But the mystic nymphs of Thornhill or La 
 Guerre, though evidently spreading out all their beauties 
 and making the most of their charms, could never move the 
 nerves of a Stoic. It is in vain that a goddess tumbles naked 
 through a whole quarter of the sky. It is astonishing how 
 much and how long these works were admired, and with 
 what ardour men of education and talent praised them. 1 
 
 Thornhill enjoys all the advantage of the praise of Pilk- 
 ington, and the approbation of Lord Orf ord. " His genius," 
 says the former, " was well adapted to historical and allegori- 
 cal compositions. He possessed a fertile and fine invention, 
 
 speaks of him as " the great history painter," and says that many 
 think his pictures in the theatre at Oxford better than those of Rubens 
 at Whitehall ; " but," adds the sagacious Pepys, " I do not so fully think 
 so ; but they will certainly be very noble, and I am mightily pleased to 
 see the man and his work, which is very famous." Alas ! for his fame. 
 Cunningham does not even mention him ! ED. 
 
 1 It is admitted even by Walpole " that no reign since the arts have 
 been in any estimation produced fewer works that will deserve the atten- 
 tion of posterity than that of George I." ED.
 
 SIB JAMES THORNHILL. 43 
 
 and sketched his thoughts with great ease, freedom, and 
 spirit. He was so eminent in many parts of his profession, 
 that he must for ever be ranked among the first painters 
 of his time." ..." Sir James Thornhill," says Walpole, "a 
 man of much note in his time, who succeeded Verrio, and 
 was the rival of La Guerre in the decorations of our palaces 
 and public buildings, was born at Weymouth, in Dorset- 
 shire ; was knighted by George the First, and was elected 
 to represent his native town in parliament. His chief 
 works were the dome of St. Paul's ; an apartment at Hamp- 
 ton Court ; the altar-piece of the chapel of All Souls, at 
 Oxford ; another for Weymouth, of which he made them 
 a present ; the hall at Blenheim ; the chapel at Lord Orford's 
 at Whimpole, in Cambridgeshire ; the saloon and other 
 things for Mr. Styles, at More Park, Hertfordshire ; and 
 the great hall of Greenwich Hospital. Yet, high as his 
 reputation was, and laborious as his works were, he was 
 far from being generously rewarded for some of them, and 
 for others he found it difficult to obtain the stipulated 
 prices. His demands were contested at Greenwich, and 
 though La Fosse received 2,000 for his works at Montague 
 House, and was allowed .500 for his diet besides, Sir 
 James could obtain but forty shillings a square yard for the 
 cupola of St. Paul's, and I think no more for Greenwich. 
 
 I now approach the period when native painters of genius 
 and fame make their appearance men whose works merit 
 minute examination, and whose lives contain matters of 
 lasting interest. It is plain that up to this time no British 
 artist had arisen capable of leading the way in painting 
 no one who possessed at once talent for original composi- 
 tion, and skill to render his conceptions permanent. The 
 heart of the country had as yet been but little moved by 
 this art ; and all the splendid colouring, and academic 
 forms, the fixed and approved attitudes and long-estab- 
 lished graces, went for nothing, when a man appeared who 
 sought lasting fame and found it in moral sentiment, 
 nervous satire, sarcastic humour, and actual English life.
 
 44 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 WILLIAM HOGARTH. 
 
 WILLIAM HOGAETH was born in the parish of St, 
 Bartholomew the Great, London, on the 10th of 
 December, 169 7. 1 That he was baptized on the 28th of 
 the same month, we have the authority of his own manu- 
 scripts the parish registers have been examined for con- 
 firmation with fruitless solicitude. He was a descendant 
 of the family of Hogard, Hogart, or Hogarth, of Kirkby- 
 Thore, in the county of Westmoreland ; 2 his father being 
 the youngest of three brothers the eldest of whom lived 
 and died in the condition of yeoman, on a small here- 
 ditary freehold in the vale of Bampton. The second held 
 
 1 The precise locality of his birth was Ship Court, Old Bailey, a few 
 doors from Ludgate Hill. The house, with several others, was pulled 
 down in 1862, to make room for Messrs. Dickinson's paper warehouse. 
 ED. 
 
 2 Nichols says, in his earlier years he wrote himself Hogart or 
 Hogard, but in this he is certainly incorrect. His father to his books 
 and his letters added Richard Hogarth, and there is no reason to believe 
 that the son, even for a time, refused to adopt an improvement so grace- 
 ful. That the name, in London pronunciation, would have the con- 
 cluding th hardened into t, there can be little doubt ; such is the fate of 
 all northern names with similar terminations. Thus in conversation he 
 was called Hogart, which the following lines, from Swift's " Legion 
 Club," sufficiently prove : 
 
 " How I want thee, humourous Hogart ! 
 Thou, I hear, a pleasant rogue art ! 
 Were but you and I acquainted, 
 Every monster should be painted ; 
 You should try your graving tools 
 On this odious group of fools ; 
 Draw the beasts as I describe them 
 From their features while I gibe them. 
 Draw them like, for I assure-a 
 You'll need no caricatura ; 
 Draw them so that we may trace 
 All the soul in every face."
 
 HOGARTH. 45 
 
 the plough at Troutbeck, in the same district ; and Eichard, 
 the youngest, having been educated at the school of St. 
 Bees, carried thence his learning and his health to the 
 great market of the metropolis. 
 
 For his small success in London we have the testimony 
 of his son. He arrived, we know not at what period ; 
 obtained employment as a corrector of the press ; married 
 a woman whose name or kindred no one has mentioned ; l 
 kept it is not known how long a school in Ship Court, 
 Old Bailey ; and having sought in vain for the distinction 
 of an author and the patronage of the powerful, sunk 
 under disappointed hope and incessant labour about the 
 year 1721 leaving one son, WILLIAM, and two daughters, 
 whose names were Ann and Mary. 
 
 When the fame of William Hogarth was such as ren- 
 dered some account of his kindred a matter of public 
 curiosity, it was discovered that his uncle, who lived at 
 Troutbeck, was a rustic poet and satirist, whose rude and 
 witty productions (in the opinion of Adam Walker, the 
 natural philosopher) reformed the manners of the people 
 as much, at least, as the sermons of the clergyman ; and 
 that he had written a singular and humorous dramatic 
 poem on the destruction of Troy, which was acted with 
 applause in the open air, among the pastoral hills, by the 
 peasants of Westmoreland. " The wooden horse " says 
 the philosopher, " Hector dragged by the heels the fury 
 of Diomed the flight of Eneas and the burning of the 
 city, were all represented. I remember not what fairies 
 had to do in all this ; but as I happened to be about 
 three feet high at the time I personated one of those 
 tiny beings. The stage was a fabric of boards placed 
 about six feet high, on strong posts ; the green-room was 
 partitioned off with the same materials, its ceiling was the 
 canopy of heaven, and the boxes, pit, and galleries, were 
 laid out into one by the great Author of Nature, for they 
 were the green slope of a fine hill." When Nichols col- 
 
 1 Of Mrs. Hogarth, the mother of the painter, it is stated in the 
 " Gentleman's Magazine " for June 11, 1735, that she " died of a fright 
 occasioned by the fire on the 9th instant." For an account of this fire 
 see " Gentleman's Magazine," vol. v. p. 330.
 
 46 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 lected his anecdotes of Hogarth, 1 he was desirous of tast- 
 ing the spirit of the rustic dramatist of Westmoreland ; 
 am! many ballads and satires were gathered and laid 
 before him. George Steevens a fellow-labourer in the 
 collection made the following estimate of their merits 
 " These poems are every way contemptible. Want of 
 grammar, metre, sense, and decency, are their invariable 
 characteristics." But a critic who recognized only humour 
 and burlesque in the works of the immortal nephew, 
 might see nothing but the defects of the Bard of Trout- 
 beck ; the man who wrote to excite the laughter of a rus- 
 tic audience, was not likely to be solicitous about grammar, 
 or fastidious about delicacy of phrase. 
 
 Respecting his father also inquiries were made ; but 
 they were left unanswered till the death of the painter, 
 when the following particulars were found among his 
 memoranda. Richard Hogarth wrote a volume of about 
 four hundred pages as an addition 'to Littleton's Latin 
 Dictionary, and obtained testimonials to its usefulness and 
 merit "from some of the greatest scholars in England, 
 Scotland, and Ireland." He submitted it to a bookseller 
 with the intention of printing it, but delays took place, 
 and the work was finally withdrawn and laid aside. He 
 then published " Grammar Disputations ; or an Examina- 
 tion of the Eight Parts of Speech, by way of Question and 
 Answer, English and Latin, whereby Children in a very 
 little time will learn not only the knowledge of Grammar, 
 but likewise to speak and write Latin, as I have found by 
 good experience." These are his own words ; the book 
 was printed in 1712 of his success let his son speak. " I 
 aaw the difficulties," says William, " under which my father 
 laboured ; the many inconveniences he endured from his 
 
 1 This curious work was written by two able men, John Nichols and 
 George Steevens ; but the former had the sole reputation of the author- 
 ship from 1785 till 1810, when in the second edition the different con- 
 tributions were distinguished. By following the first edition, I have 
 done unintentional wrong to the memory of Nichols. The passages 
 most injurious to Hogarth were written, it appears, by Steevens, who 
 seems to have taken pleasure in mingling his own gall with the milk of 
 his coadjutor's narrative. In this edition [2nd] I have made all the re- 
 paration I can for such a very natural mistake.
 
 HOGARTH. 47 
 
 dependence, living chiefly on his pen ; and the cruel treat- 
 ment he met with from booksellers and printers. I had 
 before my eyes the precarious situation of men of classi- 
 cal education ; it was, therefore, conformable to my own 
 wishes that I was taken from school, and served a long 
 apprenticeship to a silver-plate engraver." Walpole is, 
 therefore, mistaken when he says that Hogarth was the 
 son of a low tradesman. 
 
 Of the extent of his education we have no account; 
 but, as his father was an enthusiastic scholar, we have no 
 reason to suppose that it was neglected. He has been 
 accused of ignorance ; and friends and enemies united in 
 upbraiding him with misspelling his native language. But 
 when knowledge was required he showed no deficiency ; 
 some of his memorandums and remarks are well and 
 cleverly written ; and much of the misspelling on his 
 plates is evidently intentional, and for the sake of effect. 
 Correct spelling, however, was not then common, and men 
 of literary attainments must share in the reproach. Of his 
 age, when he was apprenticed to Ellis Gamble, an eminent 
 silversmith' in Cranbourne Street, there is no notice; 1 he 
 was old enough to observe that the classical knowledge of 
 his father was no protection against sorrow and want. His 
 own reflecting mind influenced him in the choice of a busi- 
 ness which brought daily bread, in preference to the preca- 
 rious honours of scholarship. There were other reasons, 
 which are best related in his own words : 
 
 " As I had naturally a good eye and fondness for draw- 
 ing, shows of all sorts gave me uncommon pleasure when 
 young, and mimickry, common to all children, was remark- 
 able in me. An early access to a neighbouring painter 
 drew my attention from play ; and I was, at every possible 
 opportunity, employed in making drawings. I picked up 
 an acquaintance of the same turn, and soon learnt to draw 
 the alphabet with great correctness. My exercises when at 
 school were more remarkable for the ornaments which 
 
 1 It is usually supposed that his apprenticeship ended in 1718, so that 
 we may conclude that it began about the year 1711. He had set up for 
 himself in business in Cranbourne Alley as early as 1720, and his first 
 known print is said by Wornum to have been his own shop bill. ED.
 
 48 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 adorned them, than for the exercise itself. In the former, 
 I soon found that blockheads, with better memories, would 
 soon surpass me: but for the latter I was particularly 
 distinguished." 
 
 Nothing better could be done with a boy who thus 
 adorned his school exercises, than to make him an artist. 
 But probationary study in painting, or in sculpture, pro- 
 vides neither food nor clothes, and, as Hogarth required 
 both, he was placed in a situation which procured them. 
 The choice he made was a fortunate one. Drawing and 
 engraving made part of his profession ; and even shields, 
 crests, supporters, coronets, and ciphers, afforded to his 
 young hand the means of gaining facility and precision. 1 
 Before his apprenticeship expired, however, he had gone 
 far beyond these things; he had conceived a new and 
 happy style of art rough-hewn his own notions of excel- 
 lence, and taken a satiric sitting or two from public vice 
 and folly. 
 
 " I soon found," he observes, " this business in every 
 respect too limited. The paintings of St. Paul's and 
 Greenwich Hospital, which were at that time going on, ran 
 in my head, and I determined that silver-plate engraving 
 should be followed no longer than necessity obliged me to 
 it. Engraving on copper was at twenty years of age my 
 utmost ambition. To attain this it was necessary that I 
 should learn to draw objects something like nature, instead 
 of the monsters of heraldry, and the common methods of 
 study were much too tedious for one who loved his plea- 
 sure and came so late to it ; for the time necessary to learn 
 in the usual mode would leave me none to spare for the 
 ordinary enjoyments of life. This led me to considering 
 whether a shorter road than that usually travelled was not 
 to be found. The early part of my life had been employed 
 
 1 The shop card that he engraved for his master, Ellis Gamble, is 
 still extant, and is reproduced in G. A. Sala's " William Hogarth, Painter, 
 Engraver, and Philosopher." On it is represented a winged figure bear- 
 ing a branch, with an inscription (both in French and English) under- 
 neath, stating that "Ellis Gamble, Goldsmith, at the Golden Angel, in 
 Cranboume Street, Leicester Fields, makes, buys, and sdls all sorts of 
 plate, rings, and Jewells, etc.'" ED.
 
 HOGARTH. 49 
 
 _n a business rather detrimental than advantageous to 
 those branches of the art which I wished to pursue, and 
 have since professed. I had learned by practice to copy 
 with tolerable correctness in the ordinary way, but it oc- 
 curred to me that there were many disadvantages attending 
 this method of study, as having faulty originals, &c. ; and, 
 even when the pictures or prints to be imitated were by the 
 best masters, it was little more than pouring water out of 
 one vessel into another." 
 
 Nichols asserts that the skill and assiduity of Hogarth 
 were, during his term of servitude, of singular assistance 
 to his family and to his master. He was, I doubt not, a 
 dutiful son, and on the whole a faithful servant ; but it is 
 seldom that the labours of an apprentice increase a mas- 
 ter's fortune. He has the general notion of his business 
 to acquire, his hand to discipline, and his taste to correct ; 
 and these things with the cleverest must be the work of 
 time. Hogarth, to be sure, was no common apprentice ; 
 yet his account of his own feelings and aspirations yields 
 no support to the supposition of Nichols. He found his 
 profession too limited ; he grew weary of the monotonous 
 monsters of heraldry ; he loved his pleasure ; and loved 
 too to think upon the dignity of art and its honours. 
 That a youth so aspiring and ardent always employed his 
 hands for his master's advantage, appears doubtful. When 
 released from his indenture, we find him skilful as an en- 
 graver, a good draughtsman, with considerable knowledge 
 in colouring. During the acquisition of much of this 
 knowledge, I am afraid that he was not of " singular as- 
 sistance " to Ellis Gamble. He served his time without 
 any complaint nor have I heard of any commendation. 1 
 
 Of those early days I find this brief notice in Smith's 
 "Life of Nollekens," the sculptor. " I have several times 
 heard Mr. Nollekens observe, that he had frequently seen 
 Hogarth, when a young man, saunter round Leicester Fields 
 
 1 A magnificent melon-shaped teakettle, engraved with heads in 
 medallion and scrolls by Hogarth, on a circular stand, finely chased 
 with musks, scrolls, and medallions, and dated 1722, was sold at Lord 
 Willoughby do Eresby's sale in 1869. It was from Lord Tenterden's 
 collection. A. C. 
 
 E
 
 50 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 with his master's sickly child hanging its head over his 
 shoulder." It is more amusing to read such a book than 
 safe to quote it. Hogarth had ceased to have a master for 
 seventeen years, was married to Jane Thornhill, kept his 
 carriage, and was in the full blaze of his reputation when 
 Nollekens was born. 
 
 Of his short-hand way of acquiring knowledge we have 
 some account from himself. His dislike of academic in- 
 struction, and his natural and proper notion of seeing art 
 through stirring life, are very visible in all he says or 
 writes. Copying other men's works he considered to re- 
 semble, pouring wine out of one vessel into another ; there 
 was no increase of quantity, and the flavour of the vintage 
 was liable to evaporate. He wished to gather in the fruit, 
 press the grapes, and pour out the wine for himself. His 
 words are instructive ; he is speaking of his own aspira- 
 tions after fame, and the unsatisfactory mode of study 
 commonly recommended to students. 
 
 " Many reasons led me to wish that I could find the 
 shorter path fix forms and characters in my mind and, 
 instead of copying the lines, try to read the language, and, 
 if possible, find the grammar of the art, by bringing into 
 one focus the various observations I had made, and then 
 trying by my power on the canvas how far my plan enabled 
 me to combine and apply them to practice. For this pur- 
 pose I considered what various ways, and to what different 
 purposes, the memory might be applied; and fell upon one 
 most suitable to my situation and idle disposition ; laying 
 it down first as an axiom, that he who could by any means 
 acquire and retain in his memory perfect ideas of the sub- 
 jects he meant to draw, would have as clear a knowledge 
 of the figure as a man who can write freely hath of the 
 twenty-five letters of the alphabet, and their infinite com- 
 binations." 
 
 In this power of picturing in air the characters which 
 composed his productions, Hogarth had great mastery. No 
 man indeed can make a true design who is deficient in pic- 
 torial fancy, and wants the vivid imagination which calls 
 up, in moving form and breathing expression, the beings 
 with whom he is to people his canvas. By a succession of
 
 HOGARTH. 51 
 
 efforts by slow and repeated touches by studying a pos- 
 ture here and a character there glancing one moment at 
 life and another at art a man may elaborate out a work 
 which shall claim and even obtain a place amongst ttie pro- 
 'ductions of genius ; but it will want those vivid and natural 
 graces, and that lifelike air, which an imagination contain- 
 ing the picture within itself stamps upon its creations : even 
 though blameless in its separate parts, it will appear de- 
 fective as a whole. 
 
 Possessing this vividness of imagination, Hogarth was 
 ready at a moment to embody his subjects ; and by a saga- 
 city all his own, and a spirit of observation which few have 
 equalled, he had ever original characters at command. He 
 seldom copied on the spot the peculiar objects which caught 
 his notice ; he committed them to memory, and his memory, 
 accustomed to the task, never failed him. If, however, 
 some singularly fantastic form or outre face came in his 
 way, he made a sketch on the nail of his thumb, and car- 
 ried it home to expand at leisure. 
 
 " I had (he writes) one material advantage over my 
 competitors, viz., the early habit I acquired of retaining in 
 my mind's eye, without coldly copying it on the spot, what- 
 ever I intended to imitate. Sometimes, but too seldom, I 
 took the life for correcting the parts I had not perfectly 
 enough remembered, and then I transferred them into my 
 own compositions. Instead of burdening the memory with 
 musty rules, or tiring the eye with copying dry or damaged 
 pictures, I have ever found studying from nature the 
 shortest and safest way of obtaining knowledge in my art. 
 A choice of composition was the next thing to be considered, 
 and my constitutional idleness naturally led me to the use 
 of such materials as I had previously collected ; and to this 
 I was further induced by thinking that, if properly com- 
 bined, they might be made the most useful to, society in 
 painting, although similar subjects had often failed in 
 writing and preaching." 
 
 From a mind so formed, a hand so diligent, and a spirit 
 so observing, it was natural to expect something striking 
 and original. Of his first attempt at satire, the following 
 story is related by Nichols, who had it from one of Ho-
 
 52 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 garth's fellow- workmen : One summer Sunday during his 
 apprenticeship, he went with three companions to High- 
 gate, and the weather being warm and the way dusty, they 
 went into a public-house and called for ale. There hap- 
 pened to be other customers in the house, who to free 
 drinking added fierce talking, and a quarrel ensued. One 
 of them, on receiving a blow with the bottom of a quart 
 pot, looked so ludicrously rueful, that Hogarth snatched 
 out a pencil and sketched him as he stood. It was very 
 like and very laughable, and contributed to the restoration 
 of order and good-humour. On another occasion he strolled, 
 with Hayman the painter, into a cellar, where two women 
 of loose life were quarrelling in their cups. One of them 
 filled her mouth with brandy and spirted it dexterously in 
 the eyes of her antagonist. " See ! see ! " said Hogarth, 
 taking out his tablets and sketching her " look at the 
 brimstone's inouth." This virago figures in " Modern Mid- 
 night Conversation." 
 
 Anecdotes such as these were related in vain to Lord 
 Orford, who was too dainty and delicate to be the bio- 
 grapher of a man accustomed to search in scenes of low 
 sensuality, as well as elsewhere, for the materials of his 
 productions. That a biographer with gold buckles in his 
 shoes should hesitate to follow the steps of one who was 
 no picker of paths, was natural ; nor is it matter of sur- 
 prise that a Horace Walpole should conclude the conversa- 
 tion of a Hogarth to have been gross, and his mind unin- 
 formed Lord Orford considered all men as uninformed 
 who had not received an university education; and all 
 human beings as gross in conversation who were unac- 
 quainted with the conventional courtesies of fashionable life. 
 
 Ireland, too, in a work full of information concerning 
 our artist's compositions and character, considers him as an 
 unenlightened man, and one who " had not much bias to- 
 vards what has obtained the name of learning." 
 
 If Hogarth showed little bias towards learning, it 
 was because his powerful mind was directed to studies 
 where the knowledge of actual life in all its varieties was 
 chiefly essential where an eye for the sarcastic and the 
 ludicrous, and a mind to penetrate motives and weigh
 
 HOGARTH. 53 
 
 character, were worth all the lights of either school or 
 college. But there is no proof that he was a man gross and 
 uninformed, or that he thought lightly of learning. He 
 was indeed a zealous worshipper of knowledge ; but he 
 loved to pluck the fruit fresh from the tree with his own 
 hand. Of want of learning no man of Hogarth's pitch of 
 mind will boast ; it is the open sesame which clears up the 
 mysteries of ancient lore, and acquaints us with the lofty 
 souls and social sympathies of the great worthies of the 
 world. Our artist had not time for everything ; he could 
 not, circumstanced as he was, have been both a scholar of 
 any eminence, and the first man in a new walk of art. But 
 it is unjust to set him down as despising in the abstract, 
 what his own great natural genius enabled him to do 
 without. 
 
 Ireland having asserted that Hogarth had little bias to- 
 wards learning, and Walpole that he was gross and ignorant, 
 Nichols brings against him the additional charge of 
 extreme poverty in his earlier years. There is no proof 
 that he suffered tinder the twofold evil of ignorance and 
 want. That his parents were poor we have his own admis- 
 sion ; but he never spoke of absolute indigence. The wages 
 of industry would do the same for him as for others : his 
 food might be plain and his dress coarse his lodging mean, 
 and little money in his pocket ; still he was no object of 
 compassion while the expense of his living was covered by 
 his earnings. " Owing," says Hogarth, " to my desire to 
 qualify myself for engraving on copper, and to the loss 
 which I sustained by piratical copies of some of my earlier 
 and most popular prints, I could do little more than maintain 
 myself until I was near thirty ; but even then I was a 
 punctual paymaster." 
 
 " Being one day," says Nichols, " distressed to raise so 
 trifling a sum as twenty shillings in order to be revenged 
 of his landlady, who strove to compel him to payment, he 
 drew her as ugly as possible, and in that single portrait 
 gave marks of the dawn of superior genius. Other autho- 
 rities intimate, that had such an accident ever happened to 
 Hogarth, he would hardly have failed to talk of it after- 
 wards, as he was always fond of contrasting the necessities
 
 54 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 of his youth with the affluence of his maturer age. He has 
 been heard to say of himself, " I remember the time when 
 I have gone moping into the city with scarce a shilling, 
 but as soon as I have received ten guineas there for a plate, 
 I have returned home, put on my sword, and sallied out 
 again with all the confidence of a man who had thousands 
 in his pockets." 
 
 That young Hogarth held the same contest with fortune 
 for bread, which is the usual lot of unfriended genius, there 
 can be little doubt. Before the world felt his talents, and 
 while he was storing his mind and his portfolio with nature 
 and character, then was the season of fluctuating spirits, 
 rising and falling hopes, churlish landladies, and importu- 
 nate creditors. When he had conquered all these difficulties, 
 his vanity and who would not be vain in such circum- 
 stances ? loved to dwell on those scenes of labour and 
 privation, and fight over again the battle which ended so 
 honourably to him as a man, and so gloriously to him as an 
 artist. But, even under the worst view which he himself 
 gives of his condition, one can hardly call Hogarth poor ; 
 he paid all he owed he had a sword at home, a shilling in 
 his pocket, and an engraving in his hands which raised ten 
 guineas. With a head so clear, hands so clever, and youth 
 and independent feelings on his side, he could not be des- 
 titute and he never was. 
 
 With much appearance of accuracy, Ireland releases him 
 from his apprenticeship in 1718, when he was one-and- 
 twenty years old ; and Walpole sends him to the academy 
 in St. Martin's Lane, where he " studied drawing from the 
 life, in which he never attained great excellence." Of his 
 habits of diligence in drawing from set figures I have already 
 spoken, and in his own words, he loved rather to study in 
 the wild academy of nature, and to seek in life for those 
 materials with which neither lectures nor examples could 
 supply him. If we allow seven years for the term of his 
 apprenticeship, he must have been indentured at fourteen ; 
 his father, therefore, may be relieved from the suspicion 
 of inattention to his education he seems to have instilled 
 as much knowledge into the mind of his only son as was 
 consistent with the boy's years and habits.
 
 HOGARTH. 55 
 
 The first work of any merit which appeared from the 
 hand of Hogarth, was called " The Taste of the Town,"- 
 engraven in 1724. 1 The reigning follies of the day were 
 sharply lashed ; and the town was so much taken with this 
 satiric image of itself, that it became profitable to pirate 
 the piece : a fraud which deprived the artist of the fruit of 
 his labour, and compelled him to sell his etchings at any 
 price the piratical printseller chose to give. " The Taste 
 of the Town (says Ireland) is now entitled The Small 
 Masquerade Ticket, or Burlington Gate, in which the follies 
 of the town are severely satirized by the representation of 
 multitudes properly habited crowding to the masquerade. 
 The leader of the figures wears a cap and bells, and a garter 
 round his right leg, while before him a satyr holds a purse 
 containing a thousand pounds a satii'ical glance at 
 majesty ; the kneeling figure, pouring eight thousand 
 pounds at the feet of Cu/zoni, the Italian singer, has been 
 said to resemble Lord Peterborough. Opera, masque, and 
 pantomime are in glory, while the works of our great 
 dramatists are trundled to oblivion on a wheelbarrow. On 
 the summit of Burlington Gate he placed the fashionable 
 artist, William Kent, brandishing his palette and pencils, 
 with Michael Aiigelo and Raphael for supporters." 
 
 At this time it appears that he did not apply himself 
 wholly to original compositions ; he had a mother and 
 
 1 According to Sala this appeared in 1723 ; but before this, in 1721, 
 Hogarth had published his " Allegory of the South Sea," which was sold 
 at the prico of one shilling by Mrs. Chilcot, in Westminster Hall, and B. 
 Caldwell, in Newgate Street. In this satirical print Hogarth has repre- 
 sented a company of all ranks and ages seated on the wooden horses of 
 a merry -go-round, which whirls dizzily above iho heads of the spec- 
 tators. In the foreground one man is broken on the wheel, and another 
 to the right is being Hogged. On the left is a winged demon hacking at 
 a figure of Fortune with a scythe, while in the background are crowds 
 of women pushing into a doorway, above which is written " Baffle for 
 husbands with lottery fortunes in here." An inscription on the base of a 
 tall pillar to the right records that " This monument was erected in me- 
 mory of the destruction of the city by the South Sea, 1720." 
 
 The humour in this piece is not as evident as in Hogarth's later pro- 
 ductions, yet we have a little touch of it in the roan who is ia such 
 ecstasies at beholding the mutilated figure of Fortune, that he does not 
 perceive that a thief is picking his Docket. En.
 
 56 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 sisters to assist, and success in his new and original path 
 being uncertain continued to make sure of bread by en- 
 graving arms and crests. Coats-of-arms, symbols, ciphers, 
 shop-bills, and etchings on bowls and tankards, have 
 been since collected and shown to the world as productions 
 of the early days of Hogarth. That some of these bear an 
 impress like his I mean not to deny ; but all the works 
 which the necessities of genius compel it to perform, are 
 not therefore excellent and worthy of being treasured up. 
 The poet wisely says, that 
 
 " Strong necessity supreme is 
 'Mongst sons of men." 
 
 All artists are more or less compelled to toil for subsis- 
 tence ; and even the most fortunate often execute commis- 
 sions alien to their feelings. By these things they should 
 not be judged. 
 
 Hogarth soon felt where his strength was to lie ; and 
 others began to feel it too. The booksellers employed him 
 to embellish books with cuts and frontispieces. Illustra- 
 tions of literature were not then very common, nor was the 
 style of their execution in general at all creditable to art. 
 In Mortraye's " Travels " there are fourteen cuts bearing the 
 name .of Hogarth ; seven more may be found in the " G-olden 
 Ass of Apuleius," printed in 1724; in Beaver's "Military 
 Punishments of the Ancients " there are fifteen headpieces ; 
 and five frontispieces from the same hand decorate the five 
 volumes of " Cassandra," printed in 1725. He likewise 
 designed and engraved two cuts for " Perseus and Andro- 
 meda ; " and, what lay more out of his way, two for Milton. 1 
 The date of the latter is uncertain ; nor have I found that 
 they incurred censure or received praise, unless they are 
 
 1 These are very strange performances, not at all in Hogarth's usual 
 style. They are surmised by Nichols to have been executed for some 
 operatic piece or oratorio, and not for any edition of Milton. The one 
 print represents Satan seated on a throne in a magnificent hall, with a 
 countless host surging beneath him ; the other the Father and Son in 
 heaven, surrounded by a glory of cherubim. A ray of light, looking 
 something like a huge cylinder, departs from the rainbow on which they 
 are seated, designed, it is supposed, to point the way to the newly-created 
 world. Satan, here represented as a little black imp, takes the same 
 course. ED.
 
 HOGARTH. 57 
 
 included in the following sweeping condemnation of Wai- 
 pole : "No symptoms of genius," says he, "dawned in those 
 early plates." There is, indeed, little of that peculiar spirit 
 which distinguished his after- works ; but they are well 
 worth examination, were it but to learn the lesson which 
 genius reckons ungracious that no distinction is to be 
 obtained without long study and well-directed labour. 
 
 Into the " Hudibras," published in 1726, a larger portion 
 of his satiric spirit was infused. "This was among the first 
 of his works," observes Walpole, " that marked him as a 
 man above the common ; yet in what made him then 
 noticed, it surprises me now to find so little humour in an 
 undertaking so congenial to his talents." This censure is 
 to be admitted with some abatement. That he has given 
 in the seventeen plates of that performance vivid and 
 accurate images of his witty original, I am not prepared to 
 say. It is seldom that the pencil catches the same inspi- 
 ration as the pen, and it would be wonderful if it did. 
 There are many bright points and graces in poetry on 
 which painting can find no colours to bestow, which look 
 simple and seem easy to be embodied, but which are too 
 elusive and quicksilvery to take a hue and shape. The 
 poetry of Butler, graphic as it is, and full of images of 
 fun and humour, will always keep its ascendancy, and, 
 in the width of its range, and by the rapidity of its motion, 
 baffle the rivalry of any pencil. It is not where Hogarth 
 has followed, but where he has departed from the poet, 
 that the charm of his embellishments lies. By one or two 
 skilful additions, awakening a similar train of thought 
 and humour, he has increased the graphic glee of his 
 author. 
 
 The work was published by subscription, and Allan 
 Ramsay, the poet a man after Hogarth's own heart, and 
 not unlike him in look a lover of rough ready wit, broad 
 humour, and social merriment subscribed he was a 
 bookseller as well as a poet for thirty copies. Twelve of 
 the plates were published separately, and inscribed by the 
 artist to " William Ward, of Great Houghton, Northamp- 
 tonshire, and Allan Eamsay of Edinburgh." 1 A little praise 
 1 These arc generally known as the " large sot." ED.
 
 58 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 was then valuable ; kindness shown to genius at the com- 
 mencement of its career is seldom forgotten. A friendly 
 intercourse (of which, however, I can discover no farther 
 traces than some hasty lines by the poet) seems to have 
 been carried on after this between Ramsay and Hogarth. 
 But the poet's son forgot his father's affection, in the feud 
 which arose between the members of the fraternity of 
 painters and Hogarth. The animosities of artists are only 
 surpassed in sharpness and malignity by those of religious 
 sects. Of these designs Hogarth thought so well, that in 
 after-life he often lamented having parted with them. 
 
 A patron very different from the poet of the " Gentle 
 Shepherd" appeared in the person of W. Bowles, of the 
 Black Horse in Cornhill. " I have been told," says Nichols, 
 " that he bought many a plate from Hogarth by the weight 
 of the copper, but am only certain that this occurrence 
 happened in a single instance, when the elder Bowles 
 offered, over a bottle, half-a-crown a pound weight for a 
 plate just then completed." This story is an odd one ; 
 and yet there can be little doubt of its truth ; nor, indeed, 
 was it to every one that the generous Bowles offered such 
 high terms. Major, the engraver, said, that when he was 
 young and desirous to go abroad for improvement, he 
 offered for sale two plates of landscapes, one of them called 
 " Evening," which he had just finished. This was one of 
 his best works. Bowles was much pleased with the per- 
 formance, and paid, as improvement was Mr. Major's ob- 
 ject, he would give him in exchange two pieces of plain 
 copper of the same dimensions. This patron had the true 
 English notion of things. Thornhill sold paintings to the 
 government at two guineas the Flemish ell; and Hogarth's 
 engravings were estimated at half-a-crown per pound 
 avoirdupois. 
 
 Though Hogarth at this period used both the crayon and 
 the brush, he was still little known except as an engraver. 
 He was looked upon generally as a mere etcher of copper, 
 and his productions were regarded I copy with shame 
 and anger the unjust and injurious language of Fuseli 
 " as the chronicle of scandal, and the history-book of the 
 vulgar." If a man like Fuseli could write thus when Ho-
 
 HOGARTH. 59 
 
 garth had the fame of many years on his head, we may 
 wonder less at the conduct of one Morris, an upholsterer, 
 who engaged him in 1727 to make a design for tapestry, 
 and afterwards discovered to his confusion that he had 
 commissioned an engraver instead of a painter. The work 
 ordered by the upholsterer was a representation of the 
 Element Earth ; and in what fashion the task was per- 
 formed cannot now be known. Morris, however, refused 
 to pay for it, and was sued for the price twenty pounds 
 for workmanship, and ten pounds for materials. 
 
 " I was informed," said the defendant, when the trial 
 came on before the Lord Chief -Justice, " by Mr. Hogarth, 
 that he was skilled in painting, and could execute the 
 design of the Element of the Earth in a workmanlike 
 manner. On learning, however, afterwards that he was an 
 engraver and not a painter, I became uneasy, and sent one 
 of my servants to him, who stated my apprehensions, to 
 which Mr. Hogarth replied that it was certainly a bold and 
 unusual kind of undertaking, and if Mr. Morris did not 
 like it when finished he should not be asked to pay for it. 
 The work was completed and sent home ; but my tapestry- 
 workers, who are mostly foreigners, and some of them the 
 finest hands in Europe, and perfect judges of performances 
 of that nature, were all of opinion that it was not finished 
 in a workmanlike manner, and that it was impossible to 
 execute tapestry by it." Such was this classical upholder's 
 defence, and it prevailed. 
 
 Patronage by the pound weight, and jury- verdicts which 
 refused to him the name of a painter, suited ill with the 
 haughty heart and sarcastic spirit of Hogarth. A more 
 congenial subject than that suggested by Mr. Morris ere 
 long presented itself, and called forth his proper powers. 
 Bambridge, warden of the Fleet Prison, and Huggins, his 
 predecessor, were accused, in 1729, before the House of 
 Commons, of breaches of trust, extortions and cruelties, 
 and sent to Newgate. The examination passed in the 
 presence of Hogarth, who sketched the scene in a way 
 which has called the following happy description from the 
 pen of Walpole : 
 
 " The scene is a committee of the Commons ; on the
 
 60 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 table are the instruments of torture. A prisoner in rags 
 and half starved appears before them ; the poor man has a 
 good countenance, which adds to the interest. On the 
 other hand is the inhuman jailer. It is the very figure 
 which Salvatcr Rosa would have drawn for lago in the 
 moment of detection. Villany, fear, and conscience are 
 mixed in yellow and livid upon his countenance ; his lips 
 are contracted by tremor, his face advances as eager to lie, 
 his legs step back as thinking to make his escape, one 
 hand is thrust forward into his bosom, the fingers of the 
 other are catching uncertainly at his buttonholes. If this 
 was a portrait, it is the most striking that ever was drawn ; 
 if it was not, still finer." The face was that of Bambridge, 
 the rest was the imagination of the artist. 
 
 By labouring for the booksellers, and by designing and 
 etching little scenes of town life and folly, Hogarth suc- 
 ceeded in gradually withdrawing himself from the drudgery 
 of his original profession, and in establishing a name with 
 the world for satiric skill and dramatic sketching. But 
 the prices which he obtained were small so little, indeed, 
 compared with what others received then, and what he was 
 afterwards paid, that he seems ashamed to mention them. 
 He could not disguise from himself that artists of very in- 
 ferior powers, but of more courtly address, were growing 
 rich by painting portraits of the opulent and the vain, and 
 lived in splendour and affluence. Kent, the architect and 
 painter, seems to have fixed, if he did not merit, Hogarth's 
 peculiar indignation : he was, as we have already seen, the 
 first artist who felt the touch of his satiric hand. This 
 man had painted an altar-piece for St. Clement's Church, 
 sufficiently absurd of itself for all the purposes of ridicule ; 
 but Hogarth was not satisfied till he had increased the 
 public merriment by a caricature. There was, indeed, 
 little to do, but it was done effectually. The print raised 
 an universal laugh through the parish, and Gibson, Bishop 
 of London, on his visitation to the church, smiled as he 
 looked on the original, and ordered the churchwardens to 
 remove it. It was taken down accordingly, September 7, 
 1725, on which a parishioner wrote and printed a con- 
 gratulatory letter, with a motto from Exodus : " And he
 
 HOGARTH. 61 
 
 took the calf which they had made, and burnt it in the 
 fire, and ground it to powder, and strewed it upon the 
 water, and made the children of Israel drink of it." There 
 is a puritanic touch in this. No wonder that Hogarth was 
 indignant at the popularity of such a pretender in painting 
 as Kent, who, not contented with the fame of an architect 
 and ornamental gardener, aspired also to the merits of 
 sculpture, and encumbered Westminster Abbey with some 
 of his absurd conceptions. For his popularity we have the 
 words of Walpole : " He was not only consulted for furni- 
 ture, as frames of pictures, glasses, tables, chairs, &c., but 
 for plate, for a barge, for a cradle. And so impetuous was 
 fashion, that two great ladies prevailed on him to make 
 designs for their birth-day gowns. The one he dressed in 
 a petticoat decorated with columns of the five orders, and 
 the other like a bronze, in a copper-coloured satin, with 
 ornaments of gold." 
 
 The unsparing ridicule which the prints of Hogarth 
 threw on this personage, was very acceptable to Sir James 
 Thornhill, who, desirous of distinction as an architect, 
 found Kent, in his fourfold capacity of painter, sculptor, 
 architect, and ornamental gardener, a rival that met him 
 at every turn. These satiric compositions are supposed by 
 Ireland to have been something like the price of admission 
 tickets to Sir James Thornhill' s academy in St. Martin's 
 Lane. That Hogarth did attend that academy he has 
 himself recorded ; but his time was wasted in controversies 
 with his brother students, on the propriety of studying art 
 from paintings or from nature. In the acrimony of dis- 
 putation he learned to despise the former too much ; and 
 declaimed vigorously against borrowed postures and aca- 
 demic groups. " The most original mind (said he), if 
 habituated to these exercises, becomes inoculated with the 
 style of others, and loses the power of stamping a spirit of 
 its own on canvas." On this theme he was fluent and 
 bitter. He was amused, however, with the following retort 
 of one of his brethren. " Hogarth, by the doctrine which 
 you preach and practise, it seems that the only way to 
 draw well k not to draw at all ; and I suppose if you 
 wrote on the art of swimming, you would not permit your
 
 62 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 scholars to go into the water till they had learned to 
 swim." 
 
 He had, however, other motives than an artist's for 
 courting the notice of Thornhill and frequenting his aca- 
 demy. To what their intimacy amounted previously we 
 know not ; but on the 23rd of March, 1729, Hogarth, then 
 in his thirty-second year, married Jane, the only daughter 
 of Sir James, aged twenty. 1 He is called in the marriage 
 register of the parish, an eminent designer and engraver 
 and his father-in-law, serjeant-painter and history-painter 
 to the king. The match was neither hasty nor imprudent 
 on the side of the lady ; but it was accomplished without 
 the consent of parents, and her father was offended. 
 Thornhill had been, or was then, a member of parliament 
 was history-painter to the king, and a person of public 
 importance and fame in his day, and conceived that his 
 only daughter might have been wooed and won by a man 
 of higher birth and larger income. He could not foresee 
 his unwelcome son-in-law's future eminence ; and he knew 
 his present inability to maintain his wife in the style in 
 which she had been educated. Hogarth was as yet acknow- 
 ledged by few even as a painter ; his works were obviously 
 deficient in the elegant and elaborate drawing recommended 
 by academies, and preached upon by Sir James himself ; 
 they wanted harmony of colouring; and, more than all, 
 they bore a stamp and impress of thought materially dif- 
 ferent from what had found favour with any artist of 
 established reputation. Hapless, no doubt, appeared the 
 aspirations of one who turned obstinately aside from the 
 beaten way who had the audacity to despise gods and 
 goddesses, regarded allegory as a subject for laughter, and 
 was seeking to make sentiment triumph over mere form, 
 and human nature over conventional beauty. The old 
 man's wrath was of two years' duration ; it subsided as all 
 fiery feelings must. He was mollified by the entreaties of 
 his wife, the submissiveness of his daughter, and above 
 all, we may believe by the rising reputation of Hogarth. 
 
 1 They were married at old Paddington Church. The marriage is 
 recorded in Hogarth's own little Bible, now in the possession of Mr. 
 Graves, the eminent printseller. ED.
 
 HOGARTH. 63 
 
 His high spirit, no doubt, inclined him to resent the 
 conduct of Sir James Thornhill ; but his wife's affection 
 and his own good sense subdued the rising feeling, and he 
 set himself diligently to work, in the hope of being able to 
 maintain his wife in such fashion as became her. He 
 resolved to be wise and prudent ; laid aside his satiric 
 designs took a house in Leicester Fields, and commenced 
 portrait-painter ; " the most ill-suited employment," says 
 Walpole, " to a man whose turn was certainly not flattery, 
 nor his talent adapted to look on vanity without a sneer. 
 Yet his facility in catching a likeness, and the method he 
 chose of painting familiar and conversation pieces in small, 
 then a novelty, drew him prodigious business for some 
 time. It did not last, either from his applying to the real 
 bent of his disposition, or from his customers apprehend- 
 ing that a satirist was too formidable a confessor for the 
 devotees of self-love." 
 
 To be eminently popular in portrait-painting requires 
 more than mere skill and talent. Hogarth was a man of 
 plain manners, unpolished address, and encumbered with 
 the dangerous reputation of a satirist. He was unac- 
 quainted with the art of charming a peer into a patron, by 
 putting him into raptures with his own good looks. There 
 were other drawbacks. The calm contemplative look, the 
 elegance of form without the grace of action, and motion- 
 less repose approaching to slumber, were not for him whose 
 strength lay in kindling figures into life, and tossing them 
 into business. A collection of isolated lords and ladies, 
 each looking more lazily than the other into vacancy, com- 
 pared with historical pictures, are as recruits drawn up in 
 line and put into position by the drill-sergeant, compared 
 to soldiers engaged in the tumult of battle, animated with 
 high passions, and determined to do or die. 
 
 Hogarth's account of this part of his life is brief and 
 modest. " I married (he says), and commenced painter of 
 small conversation pieces from twelve to fifteen inches high. 
 This, having novelty, succeeded for a few years. But though 
 it gave somewhat more scope for the fancy, it was still but 
 a less kind of drudgery ; and as I could not bring myself to 
 act like some of my brethren, and make it a sort of manu-
 
 64 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 factory to be carried on by the help of backgrounds and 
 drapery painters, it was not sufficiently profitable to pay 
 the expenses my family required." This is a very imper- 
 fect account of his labours as a portrait-painter ; he seems 
 unwilling to dwell on a department wherein he was not 
 quite successful, and he hastens to the compositions to 
 which he owes his immortality. It would, however, be 
 unjust to his memory to pass over the matter so lightly j 
 for, in truth, some of his portraits are very vigorous per- 
 formances. 1 
 
 Of his conversation pieces there are many of his life- 
 size portraits few. Compared with the productions of the 
 great masters of the art of portraiture, those of Hogarth 
 are alike distinguished for their vigorous coarseness and 
 their literal nature. They are less deficient in ease and 
 expression than in those studied airs and graceful affecta- 
 tions by which so many face-makers have become famous. 
 Ladies, accustomed to come from the hands of men prac- 
 tised in professional flattery with the airs of goddesses, 
 and sometimes with the name, would ill endure such a 
 plain-spoken mirror as Hogarth's. Another circumstance 
 must be mentioned. It was the practice of those days to 
 see genius much more willingly and readily in the works 
 of the dead than in those of the living : and perhaps the 
 fashion is not yet gone out. There is no danger of making 
 a mistake in praising a Raphael or Correggio, but there is 
 some in determining the merits of any new production ; 
 and great lords even now-a-days are frugal of com- 
 mendation, till the voice of the people gives confidence to 
 their taste. With such men it was the fortune of our por- 
 trait-painter to come frequently in contact; disputes en- 
 sued ; and he was no picker of pleasant words. None of 
 these circumstances were very likely either to augment the 
 number of Hogarth's sitters, or to cheat him into good- 
 humour with an originally uncongenial task. 
 
 His portraits of himself are all very clever, and all very 
 like. In one he is accompanied by a bull- dog of the true 
 English breed ; and in another he is seated in his study, 
 
 1 Undoubtedly they are. Allan Cunningham even scarcely does jus- 
 tice to Hogarth's high powers of realistic portrait painting. ED.
 
 HOGARTH. 65 
 
 with his pencil ready, and his eye fixed and intent on a 
 figure which he is sketching on the canvas. He has a short, 
 good-humoured face, full of health, observation, and saga- 
 city. He treated his own physiognomy as he treated his 
 friends' seized the character strongly, and left grace and 
 elegance to those who were unable to cope with mind and 
 spirit. On the palette which belongs to the first-named of 
 these two portraits there is drawn a waving line, with the 
 words, " Line of beauty " a hieroglyphic of which no one 
 could at first divine the meaning. The mystery was after- 
 wards solved in his "Analysis of Beauty," a. volume which 
 gained Hogarth few friends and many enemies. 
 
 In his family-piece of Mr. and Mrs. Garrick, there is 
 more nature and less dignity than was likely to please a 
 pair who, constitutionally vain, had been fed daily and 
 nightly, through a long series of years, with the flatteries 
 of play-writing poets, play-going lords, and player-admir- 
 ing painters. The great Eoscius appeared seated by an 
 ordinary-looking table, with a not very extraordinary-look- 
 ing wife coming behind him and taking the pen out of his 
 hand. Garrick was dissatisfied with the representation of 
 himself, and said so ; the lady said nothing as to herself, 
 but complained that her dear husband looked less noble in 
 art than in nature. Hogarth drew his pencil across David's 
 mouth, and never touched the piece again. The picture 
 was unpaid for at Hogarth's death, and his widow sent it 
 to Mrs. Garrick, unaccompanied by any demand. In Gar- 
 rick as Richard the Third he was more fortunate. The 
 tyrant starts from his couch in true terror and natural 
 agony. The figure, however, is too muscular and massy. 
 
 Hogarth's portrait of Henry Fielding, executed after 
 death from recollection, is remarkable as being the only 
 likeness extant of the prince of English novelists. It has 
 various histories. According to Murphy, Fielding had 
 made many promises to sit to Hogarth, for whose genius 
 he had a high esteem, but died without fulfilling them ; a 
 lady accidentally cut a profile with her scissors, which re- 
 called Fielding's face so completely to Hogarth's memory, 
 that he took up the outline, corrected and finished it, and 
 made a capital likeness. The world is seldom satisfied 
 
 F
 
 66 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 with a common account of anything that interests it more 
 especially as a marvellous one is easily manufactured. The 
 following, then, is the second history. Garrick, having 
 dressed himself in a suit of Fielding's clothes, presented 
 himself unexpectedly before the artist, mimicking the step 
 and assuming the look of their deceased friend. Hogarth 
 was much affected at first, but, on recovering, took his 
 pencil, and drew the portrait. For those who love a soberer 
 history, the third edition is ready. Mrs. Hogarth, when 
 questioned concerning it, said, that she remembered the 
 affair well ; her husband began the picture, and finished 
 it, one evening in his own house, and sitting by her side. 1 
 
 Captain Coram, the projector of the Foundling Hospital, 
 sat for his portrait to Hogarth, and it is one of the best he 
 ever painted. 2 There is a natural dignity and great bene- 
 volence expressed in a face which, in the original, was 
 rough and forbidding. This worthy man, having laid out 
 his fortune and impaired his health in acts of charity and 
 mercy, was reduced to poverty in his old age. An annuity 
 of a hundred pounds was privately purchased, and when 
 it was presented to him he said, " I did not waste the 
 wealth which I possessed in self-indulgence or vain ex- 
 pense, and am not ashamed to own that in my old age I 
 am poor." 
 
 The last which I shall notice of this class of productions 
 is the portrait of the celebrated demagogue John Wilkes. 
 This singular performance originated in a quarrel with 
 that witty libertine and his associate Churchill, the poet : 
 it immediately followed an article, from the pen of Wilkes, 
 in the " North Briton," which insulted Hogarth as a man 
 and traduced him as an artist. It is so little of a carica- 
 ture, that Wilkes good-humouredly observes somewhere in 
 
 1 Hogarth's portrait of Fielding is a simple outline sketch drawn in 
 his usual manner in a few bold lines. It is set in an oval frame and 
 raised on a shelf upon which lie copies of Fielding's works, an ink-bottle, 
 a sword, and two masks. The likeness is evidently characteristic. It 
 was intended as a frontispiece for an edition of Fielding, and was 
 engraved for this purpose by Basire. ED. 
 
 2 This picture now hangs in the Foundling Hospital, together with 
 " The March to Finchley," which belongs to the same institution. ED.
 
 HOGARTH. 67 
 
 his correspondence, " I am growing every day more and 
 more like my portrait by Hogarth." The terrible scourge 
 of the satirist fell bitterly upon the personal and moral 
 deformities of the man. Compared with his chastisement 
 the hangman's whip is but a proverb, and the pillory a post 
 of honour. He might hope oblivion from the infamy of 
 both ; but from Hogarth there was no escape. It was little 
 indeed that the artist had to do, to brand and emblazon 
 him with the vices of his nature ; but with how much dis- 
 crimination that little is done ! He took up the correct 
 portrait, which Walpole upbraids him with skulking into a 
 court of law to obtain, and in a few touches the man sunk, 
 and the demon of hypocrisy and sensuality sat in his stead. 
 It is a fiend, and yet it is Wilkes still. It is said that 
 when he had finished this remarkable portrait, the former 
 friendship of Wilkes overcame him, and he threw it into 
 the fire, from which it was saved by the interposition of 
 his wife. 1 
 
 To describe his portraits, or even barely to enumerate 
 them, would take more space than can be spared ; but the 
 reader will be pleased to know the extent of his employ- 
 ment and the nature of his engagements. I transcribe the 
 following account from a manuscript list written by the 
 artist, and entitled "Account taken January 1st, 1731, of 
 all the pictures that remain unfinished half-payment re- 
 ceived." He had been then married about a year. 
 
 " A family-piece, consisting of four figures, for Mr. Rich, 
 begun in 1728. An assembly of twenty-five figures, for 
 Lord Castlemain, begun Aug. 28, 1729. Family of four 
 figures, for Mr. Wood, 1728. A conversation of six figures, 
 for Mr. Cork, Nov. 1728. A family of five figures, for 
 Mr. Jones, March, 1730. The committee of the House of 
 Commons, for Sir Arch. Grant, Nov. 5, 1729 ; the Beggars' 
 
 1 He does not seem to have been troubled with much compunction 
 when he wrote about it: "This renowned patriot's portrait, drawn 
 like as I could as to features, and marked with some indications of his 
 mind, fully answered my purpose. The ridiculous was apparent to 
 every eye ! A Brutus ! A saviour of his country with such an aspect 
 was so arrant a farce, that, though it gave rise to much laughter in the 
 lookers-on, gulled both him and his adherents to the bone." ED.
 
 68 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 Opera, for ditto. A single figure, for Mr. Kirkman, April 18, 
 1730. A family of nine, for Mr. Vernon, Feb. 27, 1730. An- 
 other of two, for Mr. Cooper. Another of five, for the Duke 
 of Montague. Two little pictures, for ditto. Single figure, 
 for Sir Robert Pye, Nov. 18, 1730. Two little pictures, 
 called Before and After,' for Mr. Thomson, Dec. 7, 1730. 
 A head, for Mr. Sarmond, Jan. 12, 1730 Pictures be- 
 spoke for the present year." Here the memorandum con- 
 cludes. 1 There is nothing said of the amount of price, and 
 it has been observed that Hogarth has nowhere acknow- 
 ledged what money he received for his family-pieces and 
 portraits. For his Garrick as Eichard the Third he had 
 .200 ; but that was later in life, when his fame justified 
 the demand. It is believed that, at the period we are now 
 treating, his prices were extremely low. 
 
 I have already mentioned some of the reasons which 
 Hogarth assigned for relinquishing portrait painting ; there 
 were other reasons behind, and these he expressed in a 
 manner sufficiently bitter when, near the close of his career, 
 he looked back on early days, and thought of the impedi- 
 ments which rivalry and affectation had thrown in his way 
 to riches and fame. " For the portrait of Garrick as Eichard 
 (says he) I received more than any English artist ever 
 before received for a single portrait, and that too by the 
 
 1 Two admirable portraits by Hogarth, of brilliant colouring and in 
 an excellent state of preservation, have lately been bequeathed to the 
 Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge. They represent a certain Dr. 
 Thomas Arnold, of Ashby in Leicester, who is said to have been a per- 
 sonal friend of Hogarth's, and his daughter. It is recorded by one of his 
 biographers that Hogarth was in the habit of going down to Ashby occa- 
 sionally to stay with Dr. Arnold, and this would seem to be borne out 
 by a landscape representing the house and park at Ashby, bequeathed 
 with the two portraits, and which, according to family tradition, was 
 also painted by Hogarth, although some authorities consider it to be an 
 early Wilson. Hogarth's treatment of landscape is seen in several of 
 his pictures, such as "The March to Finchley," two of the election 
 series, the plate of "Evening," in "Times of the Day," and the little 
 glimpse of sea and coast in the plate called " France ; " but he did not 
 often introduce landscape backgrounds, and very few examples of simple 
 landscape by him are known. Among the two or three supposed to be 
 by him may bo mentioned an interesting little picture a view of the 
 Old Kent Road, in the possession of Mr. Prior, of Trinity College, Cam- 
 bridge. ED.
 
 HOGARTH. 69 
 
 sanction of several painters who were consulted about the 
 price. Notwithstanding all this, the current remark was, 
 that portraits were not my province ; and I was tempted 
 to abandon the only lucrative branch of the art ; for the 
 practice brought the whole nest of phyzmongers on my back, 
 where they buzzed like so many hornets. All those people 
 had their friends, whom they incessantly taught to call my 
 women harlots my ' Essay on Beauty ' borrowed and my 
 engraving contemptible. This so much disgusted me that 
 I sometimes declared I would never paint another portrait, 
 and frequently refused when applied to ; for I found, by 
 mortifying experience, that whoever will succeed in this 
 branch must . adopt the mode recommended in Gay's 
 ' Fables,' and make divinities of all who sit to him. 
 Whether or not this childish affectation will ever be done 
 away is a doubtful question ; none of those who have at- 
 tempted to reform it have yet succeeded ; nor, unless por- 
 trait painters in general become more honest and their 
 customers less vain, is there much reason to expect they 
 ever will." . . . Hogarth afterwards embodied his satire in 
 a small print, wherein the current of royal favour is set 
 forth as watering the trees of Painting, Sculpture, and 
 Architecture : the two latter nourish luxuriantly ; but of 
 the former a single branch, and a low one, alone remains 
 green and this, by an ingenious contrivance, is shown to 
 represent Portrait. 
 
 During this busy period, whilst he was contending with 
 the world for bread, and with his brother artists for repu- 
 tation in " the only lucrative branch of the art," he was 
 silently collecting materials for those works of a satirical 
 and moral order on which his fame depends. He had not 
 forgotten the precepts which he laid down, to the amuse- 
 ment of his fellow-students, about studying from living 
 nature. To find excellence in art without perfection of 
 form to make use of human beings such as they moved 
 and breathed before him and to embody the characters 
 with which observation had peopled his fancy, was the 
 wish of Hogarth ; and to this task he now addressed him- 
 self with the alacrity of one stung by disappointment, and 
 who is determined to vindicate his confidence in nature
 
 70 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 and his consciousness of his own strength. The schools 
 in which he delighted to study were the haunts of social 
 freedom scenes where the chained-up natures of men are 
 let loose by passion, wine, and contradiction. With sub- 
 jects well suiting the sarcastic talent of the artist London 
 abounded, and neither public vice nor private deformity 
 escaped his satiric strokes. 
 
 I have mentioned the displeasure of Sir James Thornhill 
 respecting his daughter's marriage, and that time and the 
 rising fame of his son-in-law softened the old gentleman's 
 feelings gradually into kindness and affection. During 
 this period Hogarth designed and etched the first portion 
 of the " Harlot's Progress," so much to the gratification 
 of Lady Thornhill, that she advised her daughter to place 
 it in her father's way. " Accordingly one morning (says 
 Nichols) Mrs. Hogarth conveyed it secretly into his dining- 
 room. When he rose, he inquired from whence it came, 
 and by whom it was brought. When he was told, he cried 
 out, ' Very well ! very well ! The man who can make 
 works like this, can maintain a wife without a portion.' 
 He designed this remark as an excuse for keeping his 
 purse-strings close ; but soon after became both reconciled 
 and generous to the young people." The reconciliation 
 was sincere. Hogarth was ever the earnest admirer and 
 the ready defender of the conduct and reputation of Sir 
 James Thornhill. 
 
 The artist has told with the pen the reasons which in- 
 duced him to " turn his thoughts to painting and engraving 
 subjects of a modern kind and moral nature a field not 
 broken up in any country or age." I transcribe his own 
 memorandums. 
 
 " The reasons which induced me to adopt this mode of 
 designing were, that I thought both critics and painters 
 had, in the historical style, quite overlooked that interme- 
 diate species of subjects which may be placed between tho 
 sublime and the grotesque. I therefore wished to compose 
 pictures on canvas similar to representations on the stage ; 
 and further hope that they will be tried by the same test 
 and criticised by the same criterion. Let it be observed, 
 that I mean to speak only of those scenes where the human
 
 HOGARTH. /I 
 
 species are actors, and these I think have not often been 
 delineated in a way of which they are worthy and capable. 
 
 " In these compositions, those subjects that will both en- 
 tertain and inform the mind, bid fair to be of the greatest 
 public utility, and must therefore be entitled to rank in 
 the highest class. If the execution is difficult though 
 that is but a secondary merit the author has a claim to a 
 higher degree of praise. If this be admitted, comedy in 
 painting, as well as in writing, ought to be allotted the 
 first place, as most capable of all these perfections, though 
 the sublime, as it is called, has been opposed to it. Ocular 
 demonstration will carry more conviction to the mind of a 
 sensible man than all he would find in a thousand volumes, 
 and this has been attempted in the prints I have composed. 
 Let the decision be left to any unprejudiced eye ; let the 
 figures in either pictures or prints be considered as players, 
 dressed either for the sublime for genteel comedy or 
 farce for high or low life. I have endeavoured to treat 
 my subjects as a dramatic writer; my picture is my stage, 
 my men and women my players, who, by means of certain 
 actions and gestures, are to exhibit a dumb show." 
 
 Those who are not satisfied of the accuracy of Ho- 
 garth's notions by his prints and his pictures, have little 
 chance of being overcome by the force of his written argu- 
 ments. I am afraid few will be disposed to rank comedy 
 above tragedy, or common life higher than the heroic. 
 The actions of lofty minds and the pursuits of inspired 
 men will always maintain a higher place in the estimation 
 of mankind, than the mere picturesque exploits of inferior 
 characters. Entertainment and information are not all 
 that the mind requires at the hand of an artist. We wish 
 to be elevated by contemplating what is noble, to be 
 warmed by the presence of the heroic, and charmed and 
 made happy by the sight of purity and loveliness. We 
 desire to share in the lofty movements of fine minds to 
 have communion with their images of what is godlike 
 and to take a part in the raptures of their love and in the 
 ecstasies of all their musings. This is the chief end of 
 high poetry, of high painting, and of high sculpture ; and 
 that man misunderstands the true spirit of those arts who
 
 72 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 seeks to deprive them of a portion of their divinity, and 
 argues that information and entertainment constitute their 
 highest aim. It was well for Hogarth that he painted 
 and engraved far beyond his own notions. 
 
 The "Harlot's Progress" was commenced in 1731, and 
 appeared in a series of six plates in 1734. It was received 
 with general approbation. Compliments in verse and prose 
 were poured upon his prints and upon his person ; and as 
 money followed fame, his father-in-law was relieved from 
 his fears and Hogarth from his necessities. The boldness 
 of the attempt, the fascinating originality and liveliness of 
 the conception, together with the rough ready vigour of 
 the engraving, were felt and enjoyed by all. The public 
 saw, with wonder, a series of productions combined into 
 one grand moral and satiric story exhibiting, in truth, a 
 regular drama, neither wholly serious nor wholly comic, in 
 which fashionable follies and moral corruptions had their 
 beginning, their middle, and their end. Painters had been 
 employed hitherto in investing ladies of loose reputation 
 with the hues of heaven, and turning their paramours into 
 Adonises ; here was one who dipped both in the lake of dark- 
 ness, and held them up together to the scorn and derision 
 of mankind. Here we had portraits of the vicious and the 
 vile not the idle occupants of their places, but active in 
 their calling, successful in their shame, and marching 
 steadily and wickedly onwards ; while not a porter looked 
 at them in the printsellers' windows without feeling his 
 burden lighter as he named them. Hogarth's fellow 
 artists saw with surprise those monitory and sarcastic 
 creations, which refused to owe any of their attractions to 
 the established graces of the schools, or to the works of 
 any artist new or old. The mixture of the satiric with the 
 solemn the pathetic with the ludicrous of simplicity 
 with cunning and virtue with vice, was but an image of 
 London and of human nature. The actors some of them 
 at least might be regarded as the evil spirits of the time, 
 whom a mighty hand had come to exorcise and lay. 
 
 The merit of those compositions lies less in their personal 
 satire, than in their general presentation of the character 
 of a great and lascivious city. Yet the portraitures mark
 
 HOGARTH. 73 
 
 the intrepid spirit of the artist ; for some whom he ridi- 
 culed were powerful enough to make their resentment be 
 felt. For their resentment he appears to have cared little. 
 One of them a polished personage who moved in polite 
 circles still bore the brand of Pope when he was pilloried 
 to everlasting infamy by Hogarth. To reclaim such a 
 hardened offender was beyond satire's art, or even religion's 
 power ; to bottle up the viper was the surest way ; and 
 there he stands, expecting his fit associate, the procuress, 
 to lead innocence into his toils. The dramatic cast of the 
 whole composition the march from modesty to folly 
 from folly to vice from vice to crime and from crime to 
 death, contributed less, it is said, to the immediate popu- 
 larity of the work than the portraits of Colonel Charteris, 
 Kate Hackabout, Mother Needham, Parson Ford, and 
 one who should not be confounded with publicans and 
 sinners Mr. Justice Gonson. 1 
 
 An anecdote is related by Nichols, which confirms the 
 account of the sudden popularity of the " Harlot's Pro- 
 gress," and the accuracy of the likenesses. " At a Board 
 of Treasury, which was held a day or two after the appear- 
 ance of the third scene, a copy was shown by one of the 
 lords, as containing, among other excellencies, a striking 
 likeness of Sir John Gonson. It gave universal satisfac- 
 tion ; from the Treasury each lord repaired to the print- 
 shop for a copy of it ; and Hogarth rose completely into 
 fame. This anecdote was related by Christopher Tilson, 
 one of the chief clerks in the Treasury, and at that period 
 under- secretary of state." Stories such as this are often told 
 concerning the success of works of genius. The approba- 
 tion of the Lords of the Treasury was as necessary, in the 
 eyes of one of their clerks, for the fame of the " Harlot's 
 Progress," as their signatures were for the validity and cir- 
 culation of an official document. What signified genius, 
 life, humour, and moral reprehension, until two or three 
 
 1 Justice Gonson was distinguished for the extravagance of his ad- 
 dresses to the Grand Juries. They were composed, it is said, by Henley 
 of the " Gilt Tub." The daily papers praised them in their own spirit. 
 " Sir John Gonson," says the " Daily Post," " gave a most incom- 
 parable, learned, and fine charge to t'ie Grand Jury."
 
 74 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 official underlings clapped their hands at the likeness of 
 Sir John Gonson ? The clerks of the treasury, however, are 
 quite mistaken: fame is still the free gift of the people; it 
 was so in Hogarth's time, and it will continue to be so. 
 
 While Hogarth was etching the "Harlot's Progress," he 
 found leisure to attack a more dangerous antagonist than 
 either Kent, Ford, or Charteris. He had the audacity to 
 satirize Pope. "Pope," says Johnson, "published in 1731 
 a poem called ' False Taste,' in which he very particularly 
 and severely criticises the house, the furniture, the gardens, 
 and the entertainments of Timon, a man of great wealth 
 and little taste. By Timon he was universally supposed, 
 and by the Earl of Burlington, to whom the poem is ad- 
 dressed, was privately said to mean the Duke of Chandos, 
 a man perhaps too much delighted with pomp and show, 
 but of a temper kind and beneficent, and who had conse- 
 quently the voice of the public in his favour. A violent 
 outcry was, therefore, raised against the ingratitude and 
 treachery of Pope, who was said to be indebted to the 
 patronage of Chandos for a present of a thousand pounds, 
 and who gained the opportunity of insulting him by the 
 kindness of his invitation." 
 
 Hogarth's hostility to Pope might have arisen from, his 
 connection with Sir James Thornhill, whose uneasiness 
 under the success of Pope's friend Kent, the architect, has 
 already been noticed ; or it may have originated in the 
 public odium which the poet incurred by wantonly attack- 
 ing a kind and benevolent nobleman. Of his motives it is 
 difficult to judge ; of the sharpness of his satire there can 
 be but one opinion. He has painted Burlington Gate, with 
 Kent on the summit, in his threefold capacity of painter, 
 sculptor, and architect, flourishing his palette and pencils 
 over the heads of his astonished supporters, Michael An- 
 gelo and Raphael. On a scaffold, a little lower down, 
 Pope stands, whitewashing the front ; and whilst he makes 
 pillar and pilaster shine, his wet brush besprinkles Lord 
 Chandos, who is passing by. Lord Burlington serves the 
 poet in the condition of a labourer. 1 
 
 1 This, though the description reads somewhat alike, is not the same 
 plate as that described at page 55. This is sometimes called "The 
 Man of Taste."
 
 HOGARTH. 75 
 
 Of all this Pope took no notice, though he resented the 
 " Pictured Shape " from the hand of a very inferior satirist. 
 " Either Hogarth's obscurity," says Nichols, "was his pro- 
 tection from the lash of Pope, or perhaps the bard was too 
 prudent to exasperate a painter who had already given 
 such proofs of his ability in satire." The poet was not a 
 person to be easily intimidated, and the name of Hogarth, 
 then in full fame, must have been familiar to him. Pope 
 remained silent, whether to the satisfaction or sorrow of 
 the painter cannot now be ascertained. Much blame had 
 been incurred by the satire on Chandos, and the poet 
 might be unwilling to provoke further discussion or prolong 
 the strife. It is, however, probable that Pope regarded 
 Hogarth as a vulgar caricaturist, beneath his notice. 
 
 Thornhill now thought so well of his son-in-law that he 
 sought his aid in some of his ornamental paintings. A 
 task of that kind suited ill with the temper or the talents 
 of Hogarth, nor did it correspond altogether with those 
 theories of composition which he had laid down with so 
 much ardour to his companions, and realized in his own 
 works. But he probably considered the gods, goddesses, 
 and allegorical progeny of his father-in-law as the best of 
 their kind, and wished him to be the sole manufacturer of 
 what he contemptuously called the " sublime." He cer- 
 tainly accompanied Sir James to Headly Park, in Hants, 
 where he furnished a satyr, and some other undistinguished 
 figures, to the story of Zephyrus and Flora. 1 
 
 Hogarth, whose poverty had hitherto detained him. in 
 town, was now rich enough to take summer lodgings at 
 
 Redgrave speaks of some paintings that seem to have some relation 
 with Hogarth as still existing at No. 75, Dean Street, Soho. a house 
 :it present occupied by a manufacturer of tinned wares. In the hall of 
 this house there is a long passage or gallery leading past the front door 
 to two rooms at the back. One side of this is painted so as to imitate a 
 colonnaded corridor with a balustrade al>ove it, with figures represented 
 as looking over it towards the spectator ; these figures resemble in 
 style those in Hogarth's pictures. As the house, according to tradition, 
 was the one in which the Thornhills lived at the time when Hogarth 
 ran away witli their daughter, Redgrave thinks it not unlikely that 
 Hogarth, In-fore this event, might have helped his future father-in-law in 
 its decoration, and have introduced the figures which were probably 
 portraits. One of these figures is a black servant with a turban, such 
 as we see in the " Marrhiire a la Mode." Ki>.
 
 76 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 Lambeth Terrace; the house which he occupied is still 
 shown, and a vine pointed out which he planted. While 
 residing there he became intimate with the proprietors of 
 Vauxhall Gardens, and embellished them with designs. 
 He drew the " Four Parts of the Day," which Hayman 
 copied ; the two scenes of " Evening " and " Night," with 
 portraits of Henry the Eighth and Anne Boleyn. For this 
 assistance, which seems to have been gratuitous, the pro- 
 prietor presented him with a gold ticket of admission for 
 himself and a friend, which he enjoyed long, and his wife 
 after him. Some of those works have perished ; nor is this 
 much to be regretted they had little of the peculiar 
 character which distinguished his other productions. 
 
 Among the manuscript notes left by Hogarth, in which 
 he recorded the feelings of his early days, and the notions 
 which he entertained in art, there is a short account of his 
 labours as an historical painter. It cannot be commended 
 for candour ; and it exhibits the levity of a man who was 
 so pleased with success of another sort, that he thought 
 much too lightly of works which the ablest find some diffi- 
 culty in performing. " I entertained some thoughts," he 
 writes, " of succeeding in what the puffers in books call 
 the great style of history painting ; so that, without having 
 had a stroke of this grand business before, I quitted small 
 portraits and familiar conversations, and with a smile at 
 my own temerity commenced history painter, and on a 
 great staircase at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, 1 painted two 
 Scripture stories ' The Pool of Bethesda' and 'The Good 
 Samaritan' with figures seven feet high. These I pre- 
 sented to the charity, and thought they might serve as a 
 specimen to show that, were there an inclination in England 
 for encouraging historical pictures, such a first essay might 
 prove the painting them more easy attainable than is gene- 
 rally imagined. But as Religion, the great promoter of 
 this style in other countries, rejected it in England, and I 
 was unwilling to sink into a portrait manufacturer, and 
 still ambitious of being singular, I soon dropped all expec- 
 tations of advantage from that source, and returned to the 
 pursuit of my former dealings with the public at large." 
 1 He was a governor of this hospital. ED.
 
 HOGARTH. 77 
 
 An inscription, which accompanies these historical paint- 
 ings in the hospital, intimates that they were finished and 
 presented by our artist in 1736. Of their character much 
 need not be said ; it is evident that Hogarth himself never 
 considered them as the fairest fruits of his fancy, and others 
 have treated them with still less respect. For historical 
 and poetical subjects he seems to have possessed strong 
 power ; but he wanted discipline of hand, and that patient 
 laboriousness of study without which works of a high 
 order are seldom achieved. He had a keen sense of character, 
 eminent skill in grouping, and facility perhaps unrivalled 
 in giving to his numerous figures one combined, clear, and 
 consistent employment ; but of the art of elevating and en- 
 nobling he seems to have known little, and to have had 
 no desire of learning more. The grandeur of a Macbeth 
 or a Hamlet was not included in the theory which he was 
 resolved to follow ; it took in Thersites, but left out Aga- 
 memnon. He could hold the mirror up to folly, show 
 vice her visage till she writhed with anguish, and paint 
 lasciviousness as disgusting as one of Swift's Yahoos ; but 
 the serene beauty of innocence, and the dignity of tragic 
 emotion, were things beyond his power, or at least beyond 
 his ambition. 
 
 " He was ambitious (says Walpole) of distinguishing 
 himself as a painter of history, but the burlesque turn of 
 his mind mixed itself with the most serious subjects. In 
 his ' Danac,' the old nurse tries a coin of the golden shower 
 with her teeth to see if it is true gold ; in the ' Pool of 
 Bethesda,' a servant of a rich ulcerated lady beats back a 
 poor man who sought the same celestial remedy. Both 
 circumstances are justly thought but rather too ludicrous. 
 It is a much more capital fault that ' Danac ' herself is a 
 mere nymph of Drury. He seems to have conceived no 
 higher idea of beauty." 
 
 That Hogarth had ever dreamt of imitating the severity 
 of the Italian school, there is no reason to believe. He 
 saw the actions of mankind under another aspect he 
 painted under another planetary influence than that of the 
 saints, and was not unwilling to mingle a little of a gayer 
 feeling with the sincerity of the old strain. The story of
 
 78 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 " Danae " caunot well be told with a serious face, nor is it 
 proper to paint it gravely and Hogarth hung mirth and 
 sobriety in a balance. The want of personal beauty in the 
 lady is a more material blemish. The employment of the 
 servant at the " Pool of Bethesda " is satirical, but not 
 ludicrous. The conception of those works is their chief 
 merit ; nor are they necessarily unhistoric because they 
 differ in character from works called historical. Satire and 
 humour come within the meaning of history ; they mingle 
 in man's loftiest moods ; they are present in epic poetry 
 and in tragedy, and can only be required to keep away 
 when sacred things are revealed and made visible. In 
 all our poetry which is not devoted expressly to devotion, 
 there are strokes of humour and passages of a gay and 
 satiric kind ; and, what is more to the purpose, they mingle 
 with the most tragic occurrences of life. We ought, there- 
 fore, to be pleased with an artist who works so much in the 
 spirit of nature and poetry. 
 
 The sarcasm and humour of his ordinary compositions 
 infected, in the estimation of the world, the whole of his 
 performances. Few seemed disposed to recognize, in any of 
 his works, a higher aim than that of raising a laugh. Somer- 
 ville, the poet, inscribed the "Eural Games" to Hogarth in 
 these words : " Permit me, Sir, to make choice of you for 
 my patron, being the greatest master in the burlesque way. 
 Your province is the town leave me a small outride in 
 the country, and I shall be content." Fielding had another 
 feeling of the artist's merits : " He who would call the 
 ingenious Hogarth a burlesque painter, would, in my 
 opinion, do him very little honour; for sure it is much 
 easier, much less the subject of admiration, to paint a man 
 with a nose, or any other feature, of a preposterous size, or 
 to expose him in some absurd or monstrous attitude, than 
 to express the affections of man on canvas. It hath been 
 thought a vast commendation of a painter to say his figures 
 seem to breathe ; but surely it is a much greater and nobler 
 applause that they appear to think." The " Harlot's 
 Progress" is no burlesque production nor jesting matter 
 it exhibits, in the midst of humour and satire, a moral 
 pathos which saddens the heart.
 
 HOGARTH. 79 
 
 In 1734 Hogarth lost his father-in-law, of whose talents 
 he thus wrote in the Obituary of Sylvanus Urban : " Sir 
 James Thornhill, Knight, the greatest history painter this 
 kingdom ever produced : witness his elaborate works in 
 Greenwich Hospital, the cupola of St. Paul's, the altar- 
 pieces of All Souls' College in Oxford, and the church in 
 Weymouth, where he was born. He was not only by 
 patents appointed history painter to their late and present 
 majesties, but serjeant-painter, by which he was to paint 
 all the royal palaces, coaches, barges, and the royal navy. 
 This late patent he surrendered in favour of his only son 
 John. He left no other issue but one daughter, now the 
 wife of Mr. William Hogarth, admired for his. curious 
 miniature conversation pieces." In the following year he 
 lost his mother. She lived near him in Cecil Court, St. 
 Martin's Lane, and her death was hastened by an alarm 
 which she received from a fire in the neighbourhood, 
 kindled by a woman in revenge for having received notice 
 to quit her house. " I shall make," said this incendiary, 
 " such a bonfire on the twentieth of June as will warm all 
 my rascally neighbours." And she kept her word. Mrs. 
 Hogarth lived to have her maternal solicitude rewarded 
 by the eminence of her only son. Few mothers enjoy such 
 honour, for few sons obtain such reputation. Her death 
 was thus noticed in the newspapers : " June llth, 1735, 
 died Mrs. Hogarth, mother of the celebrated painter " a 
 date which fails to correspond with the threat of her 
 neighbour. She left her daughters who lived unmarried 
 in a ready-made clothes shop at Little Britain Gate, 
 where they were aided by their brother, who loved them 
 very tenderly. 1 
 
 1 The shop card that Hogarth executed for these sisters when they 
 set up in business, probably about 1725, is still extant. It represents 
 a group of mother, father, and children, in a somewhat bare room, one 
 of the children occupying attention by having a coat tried on. Above 
 are the Royal arms, and beneath the inscription : 
 
 " Mary & Ann Hogarth 
 
 From the old Frock shop the corner of the long walk facing the Cloysters. 
 Removed to y Kings Arms joyning to y e Little Britain-gate near Long 
 Walk. Sells y e best and most Fashionable Ready Made Frocks, sutes of
 
 80 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 The " Harlot's Progress " was followed by the " Eake's 
 Progress," in a series of eight scenes, each complete in it- 
 self, and all uniting in relating a domestic history in a way 
 at once natural, comic, satiric, and serious. The folly of 
 man, however, was not so warmly welcomed by the public 
 as that of woman had been. Hogarth was now his own 
 dangerous rival. No one preceded, and no one had fol- 
 lowed him, in his course; and the new work was measured 
 less by its actual merits than by those of the " Harlot's 
 Progress," and the surprise and admiration which that en- 
 tirely novel performance had excited. The gloss of novelty 
 was dimmed, the fine edge of curiosity was blunted, and 
 criticism was no longer to be surprised into approbation ; 
 it had leisure to be captious and seek for faults nor was 
 it slow in finding them. " The ' Eake's Progress,' " says 
 Walpole, " though perhaps superior to the ' Harlot's Pro- 
 gress,' had not so much success as the other, from want of 
 novelty ; or is the print of the ' Arrest ' equal to the 
 others." The inferiority of the " Arrest " was felt by 
 Hogarth himself ; he tried to improve it, but without 
 success. He added figures; but neither heightened the 
 action, nor brightened the sentiment. 
 
 The boldness, originality, and happy handling of those 
 productions made them general favourites, and by the aid 
 of the graver they were circulated over the island with the 
 celerity of a telegraphic despatch. For the " Harlot's 
 Progress " no less than 1,200 subscribers' names were 
 entered on the artist's books. Theophilus Gibber con- 
 verted it into a pantomime ; it also appeared on the stage 
 in the shape of a ballad opera, under the name of the 
 "Jew Decoyed; or, a Harlot's Progress." Fan-mounts were 
 likewise made containing miniature representations of all 
 the six plates ; these were usually printed off with red ink, 
 three compartments on one side, and as many on the other. 
 Of the " Eake's Progress " the success is less distinctly 
 stated, but it must have been great ; for it was satisfactory 
 
 Fustian, Ticken & Holland, Stript Dimmity & Flanel Wastcoats, blue 
 and Canvas Frocks & bluecoat boys Dra rs . Likewise Fustians, Tickens, 
 Hollands, White Stript Dimitys, White & Stript Flanels in y e Piece by 
 Wholesale or Retale at Reasonable Rates." ED.
 
 HOGARTH. 81 
 
 to the artist himself, who was now confirmed in his own 
 notions of what was fittest for art. In those fourteen 
 plates are contained the stories of two erring creatures who 
 run their own separate careers ; and never did dramatist or 
 painter read two such sharp, satiric, and biting lessons to 
 mankind. In the first series a young woman is conducted 
 from innocence through six scenes of woe, wickedness, and 
 guilt ; coming pure from the country into the pollution of 
 London, she is decoyed and deceived ; she deceives in her 
 turn; rises to guilty splendour, to sink in more guilty 
 woe ; and finally perishes amid wretches as guilty and as 
 miserable as herself. In the other series of engravings a 
 young man steps unexpectedly from poverty to fortune, 
 from rustic dependence to lordly wealth, by heiring a 
 sordid miser, of whose den and hoards the artist introduces 
 him in the act of taking possession. He despises and de- 
 serts the woman whom he had wooed and vowed to marry ; 
 starts on a wild career of extravagance, dissipation, and 
 folly ; is beset and swindled by speculators of all kinds ; 
 parades through various haunts of sin and of splendour ; 
 till with a fortune dissipated, a constitution ruined, his 
 fame blighted, and his mind touched, he is left raving mad 
 in Bedlam. Mirth and woe, humour and seriousness, a 
 brilliant rise and a dark ending, are seen often together in 
 this world, and the painter has not separated them. The 
 brief and agitated careers of two fellow-mortals are repre- 
 sented ; the truth of nature is closely observed ; a series 
 of actions all conducive to the catastrophe are exhibited, 
 and were they arranged for the stage, and personated by 
 first-rate actors, hardly could the impression be more 
 vivid, or the moral strengthened. Nor has the painter 
 sought to win and move us by beauty of form, or by any 
 exterior grace ; there is youth, but there is little loveliness 
 nor is its absence felt. 
 
 " The curtain," says Walpole, " was now drawn aside, 
 and his genius stood displayed in its full lustre. From 
 time to time he continued to give these works, which 
 should be immortal if the nature of his work will allow it. 
 Even the receipts for his subscriptions had wit in them. 
 Many of his plates he engraved himself, and often ex-
 
 82 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 punged faces etched by his assistants when they had not 
 done justice to his ideas." 
 
 The fame of Hogarth was now so well established that 
 the daily and weekly collectors of news began to find it 
 worth while to describe what works he was engaged in, 
 and the characters which were satirized in his composi- 
 tions. To the industry of those persons we are indebted 
 for various curious particulars concerning the chief persons 
 in the "Harlot's Progress" and "Rake's Progress." Mary 
 Moffat and Kate Hackabout divide between them the fame 
 of the frail heroine. The latter, a personage familiar to 
 the sitting magistrates of the day, supplied the name ; and 
 the former, a free dame who lived in some state, suggested 
 the circumstance of beating hemp in the House of Correc- 
 tion in a gown richly laced with silver. The patched and 
 sanctified-looking procuress was a certain Mother Need- 
 ham, of whose history the catastrophe may be sufficient. 
 She incurred in her vocation sentence to be pilloried in 
 Park Lane, and was so roughly handled by the populace 
 that she survived but a few days. 
 
 The infamous life of Colonel Charteris was notorious, 
 and our artist has not spared him. After the verse of 
 Pope and the pencil of Hogarth, but one thing more could 
 be wanted, and the profligate obtained that also to wit, an 
 epitaph by Dr. Arbuthnot : " Here continueth to rot the 
 body of Francis Charteris, who, with an inflexible con- 
 stancy, and inimitable uniformity of life, persisted, in spite 
 of age and infirmities, in the practice of every human vice, 
 excepting prodigality and hypocrisy ; his insatiable avarice 
 exempted him from the first his matchless impudence from 
 the second." 
 
 Of Justice Gonson, who was indefatigable in rum- 
 maging out ladies of loose reputation, and fortunate in 
 the detection of thieves and robbers, it is needless to 
 speak, since his looks have had the sanction of the lords 
 of the treasury, and his voice the satiric commendation of 
 Pope 
 
 " Talkers I've learn'd to bear ; Motteux I knew 5 
 Henley himself I've heard, and Budgell too. 
 The doctors' wormwood style, the hash of tongues 
 A pedant makes, the storm of Gonson's lungs."
 
 HOGARTH. 83 
 
 The justice wears the look of one in authority, and enters 
 the house of Hogarth's heroine with slow and cautious 
 steps. The portrait of Dr. Sacheverel, the pistols of the 
 highwayman, her "true love," the print of the Virgin 
 Mary, the stolen watches and jewels these things are so 
 many glimpses into the private life and conversation of the 
 unfortunate. 
 
 The fat and lean physicians, who disturb the expiring 
 sinner with their disputes, were well-known characters, 
 who paisoned and slew in their day with more success than 
 attends the most practised quacks of the present genera- 
 tion. The meagre son of ^Esculapius was Dr. Misaubin, a 
 foreigner ; his corpulent adversary was home-born, and 
 only differed with his brother about the means of conduct- 
 ing their patient to repose and death. They were men well 
 qualified to fulfil the parting words of a witty northern 
 baronet to his son, who was about to proceed into England 
 to practise as a physician. " Go, my son, into the land of 
 the Southron ; they will find in thee the avenger of the 
 battle of Pinkie." 
 
 The persons who crowd the eight busy scenes of the 
 " Rake's Progress" are not so well known; many are be- 
 lieved to be portraits. The hero himself is probably only 
 the personation of the vices which the painter proposed to 
 satirize ; through which the treasures amassed by sordid 
 meanness were to be as ignobly squandered. In the halo 
 round the head of the antiquated beldam, whom he mar- 
 ries to support his extravagance, we see a satiric touch at 
 that spiritual school of painting to which Hogarth never 
 bore any love. The two sedate personages in the scene of 
 the gaming-table are one Manners (of the family of Rut- 
 land), to whom the Duke of Devonshire lost the great estate 
 of Leicester Abbey, and a highwayman, who sits warming 
 his feet at the fire, waiting quietly till the winner departs, 
 that he may, with a craped face and a cocked pistol, fol- 
 low and seize the whole. " Old Manners," says Ireland, 
 " was the only person of his time who amassed a con- 
 siderable fortune by the profession of a gamester." Ho- 
 garth has shown him exercising his twofold avocation of 
 miser and gamester, discounting a note of hand to a noble- 
 man with a greedy hand and a rapacious eye.
 
 84 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 In another scene tlie actors in the drama of prodigality 
 are numerous and well chosen. The rake, holding his 
 morning levee, appears stiff and ungraceful in his rich 
 dress and newly-acquired importance, and is surrounded 
 by visitors well qualified to reduce him from affluence to 
 poverty. Paris sends a tailor, a dancing-master, a milliner, 
 a master of fencing, and a blower of the French horn ; we 
 have besides an English prize-fighter, a teacher of Italian 
 music, a garden architect, a bravo, a jockey, and a poet. 
 One of those worthies, Dubois, a Frenchman, was memor- 
 able for his enthusiasm in the science of defence, and for 
 having died in a quarrel with an Irishman of his own name 
 and profession, as fiery and skilful as himself. Another 
 was Figg, the prize-fighter, noted in the days of Hogarth 
 for beating half-a-dozen intractable Hibernians, which ac- 
 counts for the words on the label "A Figg for the Irish." 
 The teacher of music resembles Handel, and the embel- 
 lisher of gardens has the look of Bridgman a person who 
 modestly boasted that his works " created landscape, rea- 
 lized painting, and improved nature." If the subjects which 
 painting embodies could be as clearly described by the pen 
 there would be less use for the pencil ; nothing short of 
 the examination of these varied productions can properly 
 satisfy curiosity. " The ' Rake's Levee Room,' " says Wai- 
 pole, " the ' Nobleman's Dining Room,' the ' Apartments 
 of the Husband and Wife ' in ' Marriage a.- la- Mode,' the 
 ' Alderman's Parlour,' the ' Bedchamber,' and many others 
 are the history of the manners of the age." 
 
 The fame of Hogarth and the profit arising from his 
 pieces, excited needy artists and unprincipled printsellers 
 to engrave some of the most popular of his works, and dis- 
 pose of them for their own advantage. The eight prints of 
 the " Rake's Progress " were pirated by Boitard, published 
 on one large sheet a fortnight before the originals appeared, 
 and called " The Progress of the Rake, exemplified in the 
 Life of Ramble Gripe, Esq., Son and Heir of Sir Positive 
 Gripe." They were executed, too, with a skill which 
 threatened to impair his income. Hogarth complained 
 with much bitterness of this audacious proceeding ; and, 
 to put a stop to such depredations, and secure to painters
 
 HOGAHTH. 85 
 
 generally a fair profit in their own compositions, he applied 
 to Parliament, and obtained an Act in 1735, for recogniz- 
 ing a legal copyright in designs and engravings, and re- 
 straining copies of such works from being made without 
 consent of the owners. 
 
 A few very plain words, one would have thought, might 
 have expressed this very plain meaning ; but in Acts of 
 Parliament the meaning is apt to be lost amidst the multi- 
 tude of phrases, as a figure is sometimes obscured in the 
 abundance of its drapery. One Huggins, the friend of 
 Hogarth, drew the Act, and worded it so loosely and 
 vaguely, that when resorted to as a remedy in the case of 
 Jeffreys the printseller, it was the opinion of Lord Hard- 
 wicke, before whom the trial came on, that no person claim- 
 ing under an assignment from the original inventor of the 
 paintings or designs copied, could receive any benefit from, 
 it. " Hogarth," says Sir John Hawkins, " attended the 
 hearing of the cause, and lamented to me that he had em- 
 ployed Huggins to draw the Act, adding that, when he 
 first projected it, he hoped it would be such an encourage- 
 ment to art, that engravers would multiply, and the shops 
 of printsellers become as numerous as those of bakers : 
 a hope (adds Hawkins) which seems pretty nearly grati- 
 fied." 
 
 From his pencil and his graver Hogarth obtained, a two- 
 fold fame, and a right to a twofold profit of which he 
 naturally desired to secure the advantages to himself. His 
 paintings, notwithstanding his general reputation, con- 
 tinued, however, low-priced ; they were considered more as 
 the corrupted offspring of a random inspiration, than as 
 the legitimate productions of study and art. His graver 
 was to him as a second right hand ; he thus multiplied his 
 works by the hundred and by the thousand, increased his 
 income, and established his fame everywhere. Hogarth 
 stood alone here ; by holding the graver with his own 
 hand, he communicated to the prints an autograph impor- 
 tance which materially increased their value. Few painters 
 of eminence have engraved their own pictures. Hogarth 
 and Martin the latter as eminent for splendid imagina- 
 tion in historical landscape as the former for his human
 
 86 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 nature have secured to themselves the value of their 
 works, and gratified purchasers with the certainty of pos- 
 sessing prints which have the merit of being originals 
 rather than copies. 
 
 The attention which the Legislature paid to the artist's 
 wishes, in passing his Bill for the encouragement of the 
 arts of designing and engraving, was so much to his satis- 
 faction, that he engraved a small print, with emblematic 
 devices, to commemorate the event. What symbols failed 
 in expressing, he supplied by means of words and the 
 symbols and the words were both very laudatory. On the 
 top of the plate, Hogarth etched a royal crown, shedding 
 rays on mitres and coronets, on the Great Seal, on the 
 Speaker's hat, and other symbols, indicating the united 
 wisdom of king, lords, and commons. Underneath was 
 written, " In humble and grateful acknowledgement of the 
 grace and goodness of the legislature, manifested in the 
 act of parliament for the encouraging of the arts of de- 
 signing, engraving, &c., obtained by the endeavours, and 
 almost at the sole expense, of the designer of this print, 
 in 1735 ; by which, not only the professors of those arts 
 were rescued from the tyranny, frauds, and piracies, of 
 monopolizing dealers, and legally entitled to the fruits of 
 their own labours ; but genius and industry were also 
 prompted by the most noble and generous inducements to 
 exert themselves ; emulation was excited, ornamental com- 
 positions were better understood, and every manufacture, 
 where fancy has any concern, was gradually raised to a 
 pitch of perfection before unknown : insomuch that those 
 of Great Britain are at present the most elegant and the 
 most in esteem in Europe." 
 
 Such is the account which Hogarth considerately gave 
 of the works which this Act was framed to protect and 
 encourage. There is something too much of the manufac- 
 turer in it, and more than is modest of the personal im- 
 portance of the artist. Nor has he properly described the 
 works intended to be protected. His own productions are 
 of another order than the " ornamental," and no one but 
 himself has yet ventured to call them elegant. His satiric 
 compositions, like the verses of his uncle " had more effect
 
 HOGARTH. 87 
 
 on the manners of the people than the sermons of the 
 parish parson " they were useful, but not ornamental. 
 He calls himself, however, only a designer and engraver 
 letting the name of painter lie till he should lift it like a 
 banner, and display it on a new field of glory. 
 
 In 1736, Hogarth dropped one or two more of his burn- 
 ing satires on the reigning follies of London. " The Sleep- 
 ing Congregation," in which a heavy parson is promoting, 
 with all the alacrity of dulness, the slumber of a respect- 
 able, but singular auditory, is very clever. Similar scenes 
 must arise on the fancy of all who look on this work. 
 Sleep seems to have come over the whole like a cloud. The 
 last who yields is the clerk, a portly man, with a shining 
 face. One of his eyes is closed, and the other is only kept 
 open by a very fine young woman, who is sleeping very 
 earnestly at his left hand. He is conscious of the tempta- 
 tion ; his efforts to keep awake are very ludicrous but it 
 is easy to see that sleep is to be the conqueror. The second 
 design was that of the " Distrest Poet " a subject half- 
 serious, half-comic. The bard himself is evidently one of 
 those who 
 
 " Strain from hard-bound brains eight lines a year ; " 
 
 and, though the subject in hand is a gold-mine, inspiration 
 descends slowly. He is as busy with one hand as if the 
 muse could be won by scratching, and holds the pen in the 
 other wet with ink, to note down the tardy and reluctant 
 words. His wife, a sweet-looking, thrifty body, as a poet's 
 spouse requires to be, applies her hands to a certain kind 
 of work which will not disturb with its noise the painful 
 reverie of her husband ; she is seeking at the same time to 
 soothe, by mild looks and well-chosen words, the clamour 
 of a milkwoman, who exhibits an unliquidated tally. 1 
 
 In the same year he published two prints, the titles of 
 which I forbear to transcribe, from pictures painted at the 
 request of some vulgar or vicious nobleman. " He re- 
 pented," says Steevens, " of having engraved them ; and 
 
 1 This picture is now in the possession of the Marquis of Westminster. 
 Bo.
 
 88 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 almost every possessor of his works will wish they had 
 been withheld from the public." 
 
 " South wark Fair " another early work, but for which 
 there is no certain date, 1 is one of his most elaborate per- 
 formances. It is, however, too crowded, too busy, and too 
 extensive, and wants, what all his other works have, that 
 central point of attraction round which all lesser and sub- 
 ordinate things should revolve. It exhibits a lively image 
 of the noisy hurly-burly scenes in which our ancestors loved 
 to indulge, and in which the gentry and nobles mingled 
 without fear or alarm. Some sixty years ago the fields 
 around a village fair were filled with the carriages of 
 people of rank and condition, and noblemen, with their 
 wives and daughters, mixed in the crowd, and kept, by 
 their presence, the rustic part of the visitors in subordina- 
 tion. With this less graphic portion of the show, Ho- 
 garth has not meddled. Strolling players, fire-eaters, 
 jugglers 
 
 " . . . . Katterfelto, with his hair on end, 
 
 At his own wonders wondering for his bread " 
 
 simple-faced countrymen, nimble pickpockets, and ladies 
 with roguish eyes, are the actors who fill his stage. One of 
 the most successful characters is that of the strutting 
 Amazon in a hat and feather, the sole heroine in a gang 
 of hedge comedians beating up for an audience. On this 
 patched, painted, and buskined beauty, two clowns are 
 staring their senses away in gaping ecstasy of enjoyment. 
 Of " Modern Midnight Conversation," which famous 
 piece we now come to, it is said by Ireland that most of 
 the figures were portraits. This is likely ; but nothing 
 can exceed the drunken joyousness of this assembly. 
 Around a table some dozen persons are, or have been, 
 seated, and upon them strong wine and brandy punch have 
 done their good offices. They are talking, swearing, sing- 
 ing, falling, sleeping, smoking, swilling, and huzzaing with 
 a spirit which life alone can rival. A parson, the high 
 priest of these festivities, personifies the satire of Thomson, 
 
 1 An advertisement which appeared in the " Craftsman " fixes the date 
 of" Southwark Fair" as 1733. A. C.
 
 HOGARTH. 89 
 
 and sits " a black abyss of drink." His intellects and 
 power of swallow survive amidst the general wreck of his 
 companions : with a pipe in one hand and a corkscrew in 
 the other, which he uses as a tobacco- stopper, he still pre- 
 sides with suitable gravity, 
 
 " And to mere mortals seems a priest in drink." 
 
 Sir John Hawkins says this divine is Henley the orator, 
 the victim of Pope ; but, according to Mrs. Piozzi, he is no 
 other than Parson Ford, 1 a near relative of Dr. Johnson, 
 and famous in his day for profligacy. 
 
 1 Parson Ford. Hereby hangs a tale and on this subject we have 
 obtained, through the intrepidity of Boswell, Johnson's own opinion; it 
 is very curious. " Parson Ford, sir, was my acquaintance and relation, 
 my mother's nephew. He had purchased a living in the country, but 
 not simoniacally. I never saw him but in the country. I have been 
 told he was a man of great parts : very profligate ; but I never heard 
 he was impious." Boswell " Was there not a story of his ghost having 
 appeared ? " Johnson " Sir, it was believed. A waiter at the Hum- 
 mums, in which house Ford died, had been absent for some time, and 
 returned, not knowing that Ford was dead. Going down to the cellar, 
 according to the story, he met him ; going down again he met him a 
 second time. When he came up, he asked some of the people of the 
 house what Ford could be doing there. They told him that Ford was 
 dead. The waiter took a fever, in which he lay for some time. When 
 he recovered, he said he had a message to deliver to some woman from 
 Ford ; but he was not to tell what or to whom. He walked out ; he was 
 followed ; but somewhere about St. Paul's they lost him. Pie came back 
 and said he had delivered the message, and the woman exclaimed that 
 we are all undone. Dr. Pellett, who was not a credulous man, inquired 
 into the truth of this story, and he said the evidence was irresistible." 
 
 Of Henley the orator, who shares with Ford the reputation of sup- 
 plying the tippling parson to Hogarth's design, the following charac- 
 teristic story is related : Henley was drinking in the Grecian Coffee 
 House, in company of a friend, when he was heard to say, " Pray, what 
 is become of our old acquaintance, Dick Smith ? I have not seen him 
 for years." Friend " I really don't know : the kast time I heard of 
 him he was at Ceylon, or some other of our West India settlements." 
 Henley " Ceylon, sir ? you have made two mistakes ; Ceylon is not 
 one of our settlements, and is in the East Indies, not the West." Friend 
 " That I deny." Henley " The more shame for you ; every boy 
 eight years old knows the truth of what I say." Friend " Well, well, 
 be it as you will. Thank God, I know very little about these sort of 
 things." Henley " What ! you thank God for your ignorance, do 
 you ? " Friend " I do, sir ; what then ? " Henley " You have much 
 to be thankful for."
 
 90 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 The merry group, among whom the reverend gentleman 
 is seated, have emptied twenty- three flasks, and the twenty- 
 fourth is decanting. Even the timepiece seems infected 
 with the fume of the liquor, for the hour and minute hands 
 do not agree. In justification of the propriety of giving 
 the priest a corkscrew, the following anecdote was related 
 by Lord Sandwich : " I was in a company where there were 
 ten parsons, and I made a wager privately and won it 
 that among them there was not one prayer-book. I then 
 offered to lay another wager, that among the ten parsons 
 there were half a score of corkscrews it was accepted ; the 
 butler received his instructions, pretended to break his 
 corkscrew, and requested any gentleman to lend him one, 
 when each priest pulled a corkscrew from his pocket." 
 This print has carried the name of Hogarth into the re- 
 motest lands. It is considered in France and Germany the 
 best of all his single works. 
 
 The next work of Hogarth was " The Enraged Musi- 
 cian." This sensitive mortal, by the frogs on his coat, ap- 
 pears to be a Frenchman ; and by the splendour of his 
 dress, and grandeur of his house, we at once see that he is 
 one of those successful performers who, with better fortune 
 than Glasgerion, who harped fish out of the water, succeed 
 in fiddling the gold out of misers' pockets. To perplex 
 and distress the refined ear of this delicate Monsieur, the 
 artist has assailed him with such a mixture and uproar of 
 vexatious sounds as defies one to contemplate. It seems 
 impossible to increase his annoyance by the addition of 
 any other din, save the braying of an ass, which Cowper 
 says is the only unmusical sound in nature. " This 
 strange scene," said a wit of the day, " deafens one to 
 look at." 
 
 " This design," says Ireland, " originated in a story which 
 was told to Hogarth by Mr. John Festin, who is the hero 
 of the print. He was eminent for his skill in playing upon 
 the hautboy and German flute, and much employed as a 
 teacher of music. To each of his scholars he dedicated one 
 hour each day." " At nine o'clock one morning," said he, 
 " I waited upon my Lord Spencer, but his lordship being 
 out of town, from, him I went to Mr. V n, now Lord
 
 HOGARTH. 91 
 
 V n ; it was so early that he was not arisen. I went 
 
 into his chamber, and opening a window sat down on the 
 window seat. Before the rails was a fellow playing upon 
 the hautboy. A man with a barrow full of onions offered 
 the piper an onion if he would play him a tune ; that ended, 
 he offered a second for a second tune ; the same for a third, 
 and was going on ; but this was too much I could not 
 bear it it angered my very soul. Zounds, said I, stop 
 here ! This fellow is ridiculing my profession he is play- 
 ing on the hautboy for onions ! " 
 
 In the spirit of this story the artist has gone to work. 
 Of vocal performers there is the dustman, shouting " Dust, 
 ho ! dust, ho ! " the wandering fishmonger, calling, " Floun- 
 ders ! " a milkmaid crying, " Milk above ! milk below ! " a 
 female ballad- singer, chanting the doleful story of the 
 " Lady's Fall " her child and a neighbouring parrot 
 screaming the chorus ; a little French drummer beats " rub- 
 a-dub, rub-a-dub," without remorse, singing all the time ; 
 two cats squall and puff in the gutter tiles ; a dog is howl- 
 ing in dismay ; while like a young demon, overlooking and 
 inspiring all, a sweep-boy, with nothing un-black about 
 him save his teeth and the whites of his eyes, proclaims 
 that his work is done from the top of a chimney-pot. Of 
 instrumental accompaniments there is good store. A post- 
 man with his horn, a stroller with his hautboy, a dustman 
 with his bell, a paviour with his rammer, a cutler grinding 
 a butcher's cleaver ; and " John Long, Pewterer," over a 
 door, adds the clink of twenty hammers striking on metal 
 to the medley of out-of-door sounds. 
 
 The following advertisement in the " Daily London 
 Post " for November, 1740, fixes the date of this amusing 
 production. " Shortly will be published a New Print, 
 called the ' Provoked Musician,' designed and engraved by 
 William Hogarth ; being the companion to a print repre- 
 senting a Distrest Poet, published some time since. To 
 which will be added a third, on Painting, which will com- 
 plete the set ; but as this subject may turn upon an affair 
 depending between the Right Hon. the Lord Mayor and 
 the author, it may be retarded for some time." What the 
 affair pending between Hogarth and the city was, no
 
 92 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 one has informed us. Parsons was at that time Lord 
 Mayor. 
 
 The " Four Times of the Day," in four prints, were the 
 next works which appeared. 1 " In the ' Progress of the 
 Harlot ' and the ' Adventures of the Rake,' Hogarth dis- 
 played," says Ireland, " his powers as a painter of moral 
 history ; in the ' Four Times of the Day ' he treads poetic 
 ground." 
 
 He treads London streets, and finds his materials in its 
 follies. The first scene is called " Morning." The sun is 
 newly risen, and there is snow on the housetops. An old 
 maiden lady, prim, withered, miserly, and morose, is walk- 
 ing to church, with a starved and shivering f ootboy bearing 
 her prayer-book. A more than common sourness is in her 
 look ; for she sees, as if she saw them not, two fuddled beaux 
 from Tom King's Coffee-house earnestly caressing two of 
 the daughters of folly. The remains of a night-fire glimmer 
 on the pavement ; a young girl with a fruit-basket is wann- 
 ing her hands, while a beggar-woman, her companion, is 
 soliciting charity in vain from the lady who is on her way 
 to church. The door of Tom King's Coffee-house is filled 
 with a crowd of drunken and riotous companions. Swords, 
 cudgels, and all such missiles as hasty anger picks up, are 
 employed and the strife grows fast and furious. Snow 
 on the ground and icicles at the eaves are a chilling pros- 
 pect ; but to suit the season and the scene there is an open 
 shop where liquor is sold ; and to meet disease there is the 
 flying physician, Doctor Rock, expatiating to a motley and 
 marvelling audience on the miracles wrought by his medi- 
 cine, which he dispenses, as his sign-post shows, by letters- 
 patent. It is said that the old maiden in this print was 
 the portrait of a lady, who was so incensed at the satire 
 that she struck Hogarth out of her will ; she was pleased 
 at first, for the resemblance was strong, till some good- 
 natured friend explained it in a way injurious to the for- 
 tune of the artist. Churchill, the poet, deprived himself 
 of a legacy in a similar way, by singing of 
 
 1 Sala says that the designs for these prints were made for the decora- 
 tion of Vauxhall, but I cannot find any confirmation of his statement. 
 ED.
 
 HOGARTH. 93 
 
 " Famed Vine Street, 
 
 Where heaven, the kindest wish of man to grant, 
 Gave me an old house and an older aunt." 
 
 Tom King's Coffee-house was famed for riots and dissipa- 
 tion. The proprietor, Mrs. Moll King, the relict of Thomas, 
 was well acquainted with the magistrates, and suffered in 
 purse, and also in her person, for keeping a disorderly 
 house. Retiring from business, and that bad eminence the 
 pillory, to the hill of Hampstead, she lived on her early 
 gains, paid for a pew in church, was charitable at appointed 
 seasons, and died in peace in 1747. 
 
 The second scene is "Noon." A crowd of people are 
 coining from church an affected Frenchwoman, with a fop 
 of a husband and an indulged child, are foremost. A 
 servant girl, returning with a pie from the baker's, is stopped 
 by a blackamoor, and from the alacrity with which her cheek 
 and his lips come together, they may be considered as old 
 acquaintances : both victuals and virtue, however, seem in 
 some danger. The most natural portion of the picture is 
 where the poor boy, in placing hastily a baked pudding on 
 the head of a post to rest himself, has broken the dish and 
 scattered the contents. His mouth is gaping in misery, his 
 eyes are shut, yet running over with tears, and he is scratch- 
 ing his head in a ludicrous agony which surpasses descrip- 
 tion. A poor, half -famished child is devouring some of the 
 smoking fragments. " The scene is laid," says Ireland, " at 
 the door of a French Chapel in Hog Lane, a part of the town 
 at that time almost wholly peopled by French refugees or 
 their descendants. The congregation is exclusively French, 
 and the ludicrous saluting of the two withered beldams is 
 national. By the dial of St. Giles's Church we see that it 
 is only half-past eleven. At this early hour, in those good 
 times, there was as much good eating as there is now at six 
 o'clock in the evening. From twenty pewter measures 
 hanging on the wall, it would seem that good drinking too 
 was considered worthy of attention." 
 
 The third is " Afternoon," and the hour five o'clock. 
 The foreground is occupied by a husband and wife walking 
 out to enjoy the air. What the painter intended the for- 
 mer should be taken for may be guessed by the relative
 
 94 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 position in which his head and the horns of a neighbouring 
 cow are placed : as for his partner, she is so portly, so 
 proud, so swollen with spite, and saturated with venom, 
 that Hogarth has evidently collected into her looks the 
 malice and the poison of a whole district of false and 
 domineering wives. She is fatigued too with the walk, 
 angry with she knows not what, and obviously looking out 
 for a victim worthy of her wrath. The scene is laid on the 
 bank of the New River, near Sadler's Wells, and includes 
 a public-house, with the head of Sir Hugh Middleton on 
 its sign-post the only memorial, by the way, which London 
 ever raised to the memory of that spirited person. He 
 was an opulent goldsmith, and beggared himself by an 
 undertaking which gave pure water to the city, and wealth 
 to many of those who took up his speculation after him. 
 
 The fourth scene is " Night." It was the practice at 
 that time to kindle fires openly in the public streets on 
 occasions of rejoicing ; and, as this was the twenty-ninth 
 of May, boughs of oak were stuck over signs, and wreathed 
 in the hats of the merry spirits of the hour. London 
 seems to be reeling with intoxication. In the Freemason, 
 staggering home from the tavern assisted by a waiter, Ho- 
 garth is supposed to have satirized Sir Thomas de Veel ; Sir 
 John Hawkins, indeed, says that he could discover no such 
 resemblance but the resemblance probably lay less in the 
 person than in the practice of Sir John's brother-justice. 
 Magistrate or not, a city Xantippe is showering a midnight 
 favour upon him from a window. " The Salisbury Flying 
 Coach, oversetting and broken by passing through the 
 bonfire, is said," observes Ireland, " to be an intended 
 burlesque upon a right honourable peer, who was accus- 
 tomed to drive his own carriage over hedges and rivers, and 
 has been sometimes known to drive three or four of his 
 maid- servants into a deep water, and there leave them in 
 the coach to shift for themselves." The practical fun of 
 this facetious peer has been imitated in more modern 
 times. On the whole, " Night" scarcely satisfies expecta- 
 tion indeed it falls considerably below the excellence of 
 its companions ; grouping more varied, and a scene richer 
 in satiric touches, were expected from the hand of one
 
 HOGARTH. 95 
 
 whose fault lay not in the scantiness but in the excess of 
 materials. The Duke of Ancaster purchased the first two 
 of these pictures for seventy-five guineas ; and the remain- 
 ing pair were sold to Sir William Heathcote for forty- six. 1 
 
 The next production was the " Strolling Actresses," one 
 of the most imaginative and amusing of all the works 
 of Hogarth. In a huge barn, fitted up like a theatre, 
 the invention of the artist has assembled such a com- 
 pany of performers as never before or since met to dress, 
 rehearse, and prepare themselves for the amusement of 
 mankind. The " Devil to Pay in Heaven " is the play 
 they are preparing to exhibit a rustic drama, invented 
 to ridicule those Religious Mysteries which so long kept 
 possession of the stage, and which, in the times of the 
 Romish Church, were under the direction of the clergy. 
 Such is the common account ; and such might have been 
 the aim of the satirist but the scene seems better cal- 
 culated to ridicule the ornamental painters of those days, 
 who filled parlours and halls with mobs of the heathen 
 divinities. 
 
 The dramatis personae are principally ancient deities, 
 and these of the first order. The names of Jupiter, Juno, 
 Diana, Apollo, Flora, Night, Syren, Aurora, and Cupid 
 figure on the playbill; and these personages are accom- 
 panied by a ghost, two eagles, two dragons, two kittens, 
 and an aged monkey. Juno is sitting on an old wheel- 
 barrow, which serves occasionally for a triumphal car ; she 
 stretches out one leg, raises her right hand, and rehearses 
 her part ; while Night, dressed in a starry robe, is mend- 
 ing her stocking. The Star of Evening, which rises over 
 the head of Night, is a scoured tin-mould used in making 
 tarts. A veteran damsel with one eye, and a dagger fixed 
 
 1 Concerning the prints of these pictures George Faulkner thus writes 
 from Dublin : " Mr. Delany tells me that you are going to publish more 
 prints. Your reputation is sufficiently known to recommend any thing 
 of yours, and I shall be glad to serve you. You may send me fifty sets, 
 providing you take back what I cannot sell. I have often the pleasure 
 of drinking your health with Dr. Swift, who is a great admirer of yours, 
 and hath made mention of you in his poems with great honour, and 
 desired me to thank you for your kind present, and to accept of his 
 service."
 
 96 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 in her mantle by way of skewer, represents the Tragic 
 Muse ; she is cutting a cat's tail to obtain blood for some 
 solemn purpose, and grins well pleased as it drops into the 
 broken dish. Two little devils, with horns just budded, 
 are contesting the right to a pot of ale, out of which one 
 of them is drinking lustily ; the pot had occupied a Grecian 
 altar, on which lies a loaf of bread beside a tobacco-pipe, 
 about whose orifice a slight smoke still lingers. 
 
 The centre of the design is occupied by Diana, stripped 
 to her chemise. The inspiration of her part had come upon 
 her as she prepared to dress ; one foot rests on her un- 
 appropriated hoop, her head is stuck full of flowers and 
 feathers, and she rehearses her speech with more enthu- 
 siasm of look than modesty of manner. She is unlike her 
 companions she is young, blooming, and beautiful. Flora 
 is seated at her toilet, and it would wrong her looks to say 
 that she had no need of it. Her toilet is a wicker basket, 
 which contains the regalia of the company ; she smooths 
 her hair with a piece of candle, holds the dredger ready, 
 and casts her eye on a broken looking-glass, apparently 
 with some satisfaction. Apollo and Cupid are endeavour- 
 ing to bring down a pair of stockings, hung out to dry on 
 a cloud ; but the wings of the God of Love are unable to 
 raise him, and he has recourse to a ladder. Aurora sits 
 on the ground, with the Morning Star among her hair ; 
 she is in the service of the Syren, who offers to Ganymede 
 a glass of gin, which he gladly accepts in the hope of 
 curing an aching tooth. The She, who personates the Bird 
 of Jove, is feeding her child ; a regal crown holds the 
 saucepan stuffed with pap ; the child, frightened by the 
 enormous beak of the eagle, is crying lustily. In a corner 
 a monkey in a long cloak, a bag wig, and solitaire, is 
 moistening the plumed kelmet of Alexander the Great. 
 
 There is no limit to the drollery. One kitten touches 
 an old lyre with apparent skill another rolls an imperial 
 orb ; cups and balls are there, to intimate the sleight-of- 
 hand pursuits of the company ; and, as a moral remon- 
 strance, two judges' wigs and an empty noose are near. A 
 mitre, filled with tragedies and farces, and a dark lantern, 
 are placed on a pulpit cushion.
 
 HOGARTH. 97 
 
 The wit, the humour, and amusing absurdities of this 
 performance are without end. Into the darkest nook the 
 artist has put meaning, and there is instruction or sarcasm 
 in all that he has introduced. There is such a display of 
 the tinsel wealth and the symbols of vulgar enjoyment of 
 the strolling community such a ludicrous intermixture of 
 heaven with things of the earth earthy, and such a con- 
 trast of situations and characters, that the eye is never 
 wearied, for the mind is ever employed. It would be un- 
 fair not to note that a hen has found a roost for her 
 chickens and herself on a set of unemployed waves, which 
 are manufactured to perform the part of a storm at sea ; 
 and that materials are collected for fabricating that iden- 
 tical kind of dramatic thunder of which John Dennis was 
 the inventor and maker. The bill assures us that this is 
 positively the last performance of the diabolical drama in 
 this place: the barn, therefore, instead of ringing with 
 comic mirth or with tragic distress, is destined in future 
 to re-echo only the sound of the flail and fanners. This 
 wondrous picture was sold to Francis Beckford, Esq., for 
 .27 6s. : he thought the price too much, and returned it 
 to the painter, who afterwards disposed of it to Mr. Wood, 
 of Littleton, for the same price. The genius of Hogarth 
 was frequently obliged to bow to the parsimony of the rich 
 and the presumption of the ignorant. 1 
 
 Hogarth was now in his forty-eighth year : his fame was 
 established ; he was rich enough to maintain a carriage ; 
 and though brother artists conceded to him the name of 
 painter with whimsical reluctance, he was everywhere re- 
 ceived with the respect and honour due to a man of 
 high talents and uncommon attainments. Success seldom 
 teaches humility : it wrought no material change in Ho- 
 garth. When a poor student he displayed the same firmness 
 of purpose in his pursuits, and defended his adherence to 
 the dramatic species of painting (which he invented) with 
 
 1 This admirable picture was, unfortunately, destroyed in a fire that 
 took place at Littleton House, near Staines, on the 18th of December, 
 1874. The painter's receipt for the purchase-money was attached to it, 
 by which it appeared that it was painted for Mr. Wood, for the sum of 
 twenty-five guineas. It is stated to have been insured for 1,000. ED. 
 
 H
 
 98 TIIK BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 the same warmth, decision, and enthusiasm, which charac- 
 terized him now. Throughout his life his pursuits and 
 his opinions were the same. He imagined a new national 
 style of composition ; and to this he adhered from youth 
 to age ; for the short periods devoted to portrait-painting 
 cannot be considered as any abandonment of his original 
 purpose but only as sacrifices to necessity. 
 
 Hogarth supported himself by the sale of his prints : 
 the prices of his paintings kept pace neither with his fame 
 nor with his expectations. He knew, however, the passion 
 of his countrymen for novelty how they love to encourage 
 whatever is strange and mysterious ; and, hoping to profit 
 by these feelings, the artist determined to sell his principal 
 paintings by an auction of a very singular nature. 
 
 On the 25th of January, 1745, he offered for sale the six 
 paintings of the "Harlot's Progress," the eight paintings 
 of the " Hake's Progress," the " Four Times of the Day," 
 and the " Strolling Actresses," on the following condi- 
 tions : 
 
 1. Every bidder shall have an entire leaf numbered in 
 the book of sale, on the top of which will be entered his 
 name and place of abode, the sum paid by him, the time 
 when, and for which picture. 
 
 2. That on the day of sale, a clock striking every five 
 minutes shall be placed in the room ; and when it hath 
 struck five minutes after twelve, the first picture mentioned 
 in the sale-book shall be deemed as sold ; the second pic- 
 ture, when the clock hath struck the next five minutes 
 after twelve, and so on in succession till the whole nineteen 
 pictures are sold. 
 
 3. That none advance less than gold at each bidding. 
 
 4. No person to bid on the last day, except those whose 
 names were before entered in the book. As Mr. Hogarth's 
 room is but small, he begs the favour that no persons, 
 except those whose names are entered in the book, will 
 come to view his paintings on the last day of sale. 
 
 This plan was new, startling and unproductive. It 
 was probably planned to prevent biddings by proxy, and 
 to secure to the artist the price which men of wealth and 
 rank might be induced to offer publicly for works of ge-
 
 HOGARTH. 99 
 
 nius. " A method so novel," observes Ireland, " probably 
 disgusted the town ; they might not exactly understand 
 this tedious formula of entering their names and places of 
 abode in a book open to indiscriminate inspection ; they 
 might wish to humble an artist who, by his proposals, 
 seemed to consider that he did the world a favour in suf- 
 fering them to bid for his works ; or the rage for paintings 
 might be confined to the admirers of the old masters ; be 
 that as it may, he received only four hundred and twenty- 
 seven pounds seven shillings for his nineteen pictures a 
 price by no means equal to their merit. The prints of the 
 ' Harlot's Progress ' had sold much better than those of 
 the Eake's, yet the paintings of the former produced 
 only fourteen guineas each, while those of the latter were 
 sold for twenty-two. That admirable picture, ' Morning,' 
 brought twenty guineas, and ' Night,' in every respect in- 
 ferior to almost any of his works, six-and-twenty." Such 
 was the reward, then, to which the patrons of genius 
 thought these works entitled. More has been since given, 
 over and over again, for a single painting, than Hogarth 
 obtained for all his paintings put together. 
 
 The coldness of the town and the reserve of wealthy 
 purchasers, however, may have arisen, in part at least, 
 from another cause than the singularity of the mode of 
 sale. The wit and humour of Hogarth were ever ready to 
 flow out ; and here, unfortunately for his profit, he sent 
 forth his satire in the shape of a card of admission to his 
 sale. This production which, among the lovers of art, 
 has obtained the name of the " Battle of the Pictures " 
 is still more singular than his plan of auction ; he seemed 
 resolved never to do an ordinary thing in a common way. 
 As he had not spared his speech in ridicule of those who 
 thought all beauty and excellence were contained in the 
 old religious paintings, so neither did he feel disposed to 
 spare them when the subject came fairly before his pencil. 
 
 It is no easy matter to describe with accuracy this 
 curious card. On the ground are placed three rows of 
 paintings from the foreign school one row of the " Bull 
 and Europa" another of "Apollo flaying Marsyas" and 
 a third of " St. Andrew on the Cross." There are hun-
 
 100 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 dreds of each, to denote the system of copyism and im- 
 posture which had filled the country with imitations and 
 caricatures. Above them is an unfurled flag, emblazoned 
 with an auctioneer's hammer ; while a cock, on the summit 
 of the sale-room, with the motto " p-u-f-s," represents 
 Cocks, the auctioneer, and the mode by which he disposed 
 of those simulated productions. On the right hand, in the 
 open air, are exposed to sale the principal pictures of Ho- 
 garth, and against them, as if moved by some miraculous 
 wind, the pictures of the old school are driven into direct 
 collision. The foreign works seem the aggressors the 
 havoc is mutual and equal. A " Saint Francis " has pene- 
 trated, in a very ludicrous way, into Hogarth's " Morning " 
 a " Mary Magdalen " has successfully intruded herself 
 into the third scene of the "Harlot's Progress," and the 
 splendid saloon scene in " Marriage-a-la-Mode " suffers 
 severely by the " Aldobrandini Marriage." " Thus far," as 
 Ireland observes, " the battle is in favour of the ancients ; 
 but the aerial combat has a different termination ; for by 
 the riotous scene in the ' Rake's Progress ' a hole is made 
 in Titian's 'Feast of Olympus,' and a 'Bacchanalian,' by 
 Rubens, shares the same fate from ' Modern Midnight 
 Conversation.' " 
 
 Having sold his nineteen favourite pictures at a price 
 which must have stung his proud spirit, he imagined and 
 executed a new series of moral, instructive, and satiric 
 paintings. These are the six scenes of " Marriage-a-la- 
 Mode." That he thought very well of this new series, is 
 countenanced by the circumstance of his making the saloon 
 scene one of the combatants in the " Battle of the Pic- 
 tures," though it had not been exposed to sale at the time, 
 nor even engraved. They show the same command of 
 character, the same knowledge of human life, the same 
 skill in grouping, the same art of uniting many different 
 parts into one clear consistent story the same satiric 
 force and dramatic detail which characterize his best pro- 
 ductions. They also show the same undaunted spirit in 
 grappling with human depravity. The victim is higher 
 the sacrificing weapon is the same. 
 
 Of this work Dr. Shebbeare formed a novel, called the
 
 HOGARTH. 101 
 
 " Marriage Act," and the author of the " Clandestine Mar- 
 riage " found the story of his drama in its scenes. Our 
 artist gave the following intimation of its appearance in the 
 " London Daily Post " of April 7th, 1743 : " Mr. Hogarth 
 intends to publish by subscription six plates, from copper- 
 plates engraved by the best masters in Paris, after his own 
 paintings the heads, for the better preservation of the 
 characters and expressions, to be done by the author 
 representing a variety of modern occurrences in high life, 
 and called ' Marriage-a-la-Mode.' Particular care is taken 
 that the whole shall not be liable to any exception on 
 account of indecency or inelegancy ; and that none of the 
 characters represented shall be personal." Hogarth seldom 
 sought to conceal either his pleasure or his vexation his 
 feelings flowed into his advertisements as well as into his 
 conversation. He alludes to the charges which his enemies 
 were ever ready to bring against him, of grossness and 
 personality and it is evident that he cares very little for 
 their censures. 
 
 The first scene of this series represents the preparations 
 for marriage between the daughter of a rich citizen and 
 the son and heir of a proud old peer. The bride's father, a 
 prudent, sordid man, cares little for the bridegroom's an- 
 cient pedigree, which is satirically exhibited as issuing out 
 of the mailed lions of the Bastard of Normandy but he 
 respects the ample securities which the aged nobleman lays 
 before him. The young lord, a fop in his dress and some- 
 thing of a fool in his looks, gazes at his person in the 
 glass, and practises with his snuff-box infinitely more to 
 his own satisfaction than to that of his intended who 
 turns half from him in scorn plays with her wedding- 
 ring, and listens, as much as offended pride will allow, to 
 the words of Mr. Silvertongue, a smooth and insinuating 
 lawyer. Beside them there are two spaniels, coupled con- 
 trary to their inclinations, and pulling different ways 
 symbolical of the happiness to be expected from the ap- 
 proaching union. 
 
 Of the other five pictures of the series, a less particular 
 description may serve ; their story of domestic misery is 
 neither involved nor mysterious. The peer sought wealth
 
 102 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 for his son, the citizen rank for his daughter and so two 
 vain, giddy, and extravagant young persons are united. 
 Dissensions forthwith ensue. My lord runs a career of ex- 
 travagance and dissipation, neglects his wife, and associates 
 with gamblers, spendthrifts, and courtesans. My lady 
 resents the coldness and neglect of her husband, listens 
 too much to the eloquence of the lawyer, frequents the 
 gaming-tables of people of rank, and impairs by degrees 
 her fortune and her reputation. At length, in the midst 
 of a heartless scene, where outlandish fiddlers and singers, 
 and other expensive consumers of time, are assembled 
 where my Lord some-one listens to their music in joy, and 
 my Lady I have forgotten her name faints with ecstasy 
 the heroine of "Marriage-a-la-Mode" consents to a meet- 
 ing at a masquerade ; and we see her no more till she ap- 
 pears kneeling in her night-dress, in a bagnio, before her 
 injured husband, who has just received a mortal thrust from 
 the sword of her seducer. The change is indeed sudden ; 
 but from splendour to misery the way is often short enough, 
 and from innocence to guilt there is but a step. The con- 
 cluding scene is in the house of the lady's father: her 
 husband had been murdered : the last dying speech of her 
 paramour lies at her feet she ought not, nor does she seek, 
 to live. The unfortunate empties a phial of laudanum, and 
 expires her only child twines its little arms round her 
 neck, and the sordid old father carefully removes a costly 
 ring from her finger. Such is the outline of a dramatic 
 story which it would require a volume to describe; so 
 great, so various, and so lavish is its wealth of satire and 
 pathos with such waste of ornament, such overflowing 
 knowledge of life, nature, and manners, has Hogarth em- 
 blazoned this domestic tragedy. The world rewarded these 
 works with immediate approbation ; many sets of the en- 
 gravings were sold ; and the artist announced the original 
 paintings for sale in the public papers. 
 
 Hogarth had long waged war with tongue, with pen, and 
 with pencil, against the opulent tribe of picture-dealers, 
 and all those who aided in the introduction of copies of 
 foreign masters to the injury of the native school. Such 
 unremitting hostility seems to have suited the temper, as
 
 HOGARTH. 103 
 
 much as it gratified the pride, of the painter; and though 
 he sometimes experienced sharp retorts and suffered a little 
 in the fracas, he had the supreme satisfaction of making 
 his opponents ridiculous. In his advertisement for the sale 
 of the " Marriage-a-la-Mode," in 1750, the following charac- 
 teristic passage occurs : " As, according to the standard 
 so righteously and so laudably established, by picture- 
 dealers, picture-cleaners, picture-frame makers, and other 
 connoisseurs, the works of a painter are to be esteemed 
 more or less valuable as 1 they are more or less scarce, and 
 as the living painter is most of all affected by the inferences 
 resulting from this, and other considerations equally candid 
 and edifying, Mr. Hogarth, by way of precaution, not puff, 
 begs leave to urge, that probably this will be the last sale 
 of pictures he may ever exhibit, because of the difficulty of 
 vending such a number at once to any tolerable advantage, 
 and that the whole number he has already exhibited, of 
 the historical or humorous kind, does not exceed fifty ; of 
 which the three sets called the 'Harlot's Progress,' the 
 ' Rake's Progress,' and that now to be sold, make twenty ; 
 so that, whoever has a taste of his own to rely on, and is 
 not too squeamish, and has courage enough to own it by 
 daring to give them a place in a collection till Time, the 
 supposed finisher; but real destroyer of paintings, has ren- 
 dered them fit for those more sacred repositories where 
 schools, names, heads, masters, &c., attain their last stage 
 of preferment, may from hence be convinced that multipli- 
 city at least of his, Mr. Hogarth's, pieces, will be no dimi- 
 nution of their value." 
 
 This is petulant enough, and in very indifferent taste. 
 His strange advertisements, and still stronger plans of sale, 
 stirred up the spirit of the town against him, and the re- 
 sult is thus related by Mr. Lane, who unexpectedly became 
 the public purchaser of the " Marriage-a-la-Mode." " The 
 sale was to take place by a kind of auction, where every 
 bidder was to write on a ticket the price he was disposed 
 to give, with his name subscribed to it. These papers were 
 to be received by Mr. Hogarth for the space of one month, 
 and the highest bidder at twelve o'clock on the last day of 
 the month was to be the purchaser. This strange mode of
 
 104 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 proceeding probably disobliged the public, and there seemed 
 to be at that time a combination against Hogarth, who, 
 perhaps from the frequent and extraordinary approbation 
 of his works, might have imbibed some degree of vanity, 
 which the town in general, friends and foes, seemed resolved 
 to mortify. If this was the case, and to me it was fully 
 apparent, they fully effected their design ; for on the 6th 
 of June, 1750, which was to decide the fate of this capital 
 work, when I arrived at the Golden Head, expecting, as was 
 the case at the sale of the ' Harlot's Progress,' to find his 
 study full of noble and great personages, I only found 
 Hogarth and his friend Dr. Parsons, secretary to the Eoyal 
 Society. 1 I had bid 1 10; no one arrived ; and ten minutes 
 before twelve, I told the artist I would make the pounds 
 guineas. The clock struck, and Mr. Hogarth wished me 
 joy of my purchase, hoping it was an agreeable one; I said 
 perfectly so. Dr. Parsons was very much disturbed, and 
 Hogarth very much disappointed, and truly with great 
 reason. The former told me the painter had hurt himself 
 by naming so early an hour for the sale, and Hogarth, who 
 overheard him, said, in a marked tone and manner, ' Per- 
 haps it may be so.' I concurred in the same opinion, said 
 he was poorly rewarded for his labour, and, if he chose, he 
 might have till three o'clock to find a better bidder. Ho- 
 garth warmly accepted the offer, and Dr. Parsons proposed 
 to make it public. I thought this unfair, and forbade it. 
 ' At one o'clock,' Hogarth said, ' I shall trespass no longer 
 on your generosity ; you are the proprietor, and, if you are 
 pleased with the purchase, I am abundantly so with the 
 purchaser.' He then desired me to promise that I would 
 not dispose of the paintings without informing him, 
 nor permit any person to meddle with them under pre- 
 tence of cleaning them, as he always desired to do that 
 himself." 
 
 1 The artist, some one informed Nichols, on the morning of this mor- 
 tifying day, put on his best wig, strutted away one hour, and fretted 
 away two more, muttering as he moved up and down, "No picture- 
 dealer shall be allowed to bid." There is little in this it is proper for 
 a man to dress well when he expects good company and Hogarth had 
 a very proper hatred for picture-dealers.
 
 HOGARTH. 105 
 
 The excellence of these six noble pictures was acknow- 
 ledged by the whole nation, and they were in frames worth 
 four guineas each ; ye"t no one felt them to be worth more 
 than ninety pounds six shillings. 1 
 
 Well might the proud heart of Hogarth be stung as he 
 closed this memorable sale. He knew how opulent the 
 land was, and how lavish of its wealth to the impostor, the 
 mountebank, and the cheat. On Farinelli, the Italian singer, 
 for one night's performance in the Opera of " Artaxerxes," 
 the nobles of England showered more riches than would 
 have purchased all the productions which Hogarth ever 
 painted. Gold boxes, diamond rings, diamond buckles, 
 &c., came in such abundance, that the vain creature ex- 
 claimed, " There is but one God and one Farinelli." " The 
 sums lavished," says Ireland, " upon exotic warblers, would 
 have paid an army ; the applause bestowed upon some of 
 them would have turned the brain of a saint. It was little 
 short of adoration." 
 
 Hogarth projected a corresponding series of paintings 
 under the name of the "Happy Marriage," and made some 
 progress in the designs. He had, indeed, gone so far as to 
 sketch out the whole six scenes in colours ; and Steevens, 
 holding the pen in Nichols's anecdotes, gives us a descrip- 
 tion of them which he obtained from a gentleman whom 
 the painter had indulged with a hasty glance : " The time 
 supposed was immediately after the return of the parties 
 from church, and the scene lay in the hall of an antiquated 
 country mansion. On one side the new- married couple were 
 represented sitting. Behind them was a group of their 
 
 1 Colonel Cawthome, who inherited them from Lane, sold them to 
 Angerstein for 1,381, in the year 1797. 
 
 Every one knows this magnificent series of paintings, which now 
 hang in the National Gallery, having been purchased with the rest of 
 the Angerstein collection, in 1824. In them Hogarth's powers as a 
 colourist are seen more strikingly than in any of his other works, ex- 
 cept, perhaps, in the " March to Finchley," which is a masterwork of 
 brilliant and yet thoroughly harmonious colouring. Allan Cunningham 
 scarcely does justice to Hogarth's powers as a painter, for although he 
 does not agree with Walpole " that as a painter Hogarth has slender 
 merit," yet while extolling his pictorial qualities, he fails to point out 
 that, simply as a painter i.e. a master of the art of laying colours 
 Hogarth holds no insignificant position. ED.
 
 106 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 young friends, of both sexes, in the act of breaking the 
 bride-cake over their heads. In front appeared the father 
 of the young lady grasping a bumper, and drinking with a 
 seeming roar of exultation, to the future happiness of her 
 and her husband. By his side was a table covered with re- 
 freshments. Under the screen of the hall several rustic 
 musicians in grotesque attitudes, together with servants 
 and tenants, were arranged. Through the arch by which 
 the room was entered, the eye was led along the passage 
 into the kitchen, which afforded a glimpse of sacerdotal 
 luxury. Before the dripping-pan stood a well-fed divine 
 in his gown and cassock, with his watch in his hand, giving 
 directions to a cook, dressed all in white, who was employed 
 in basting a haunch of venison." 
 
 This work, which bore the promise of great excellence, 
 and also of great moral value, was never finished; and why 
 the artist discontinued his labour it is now in vain to in- 
 quire. If wedded life could not supply him, as Steevens 
 absurdly and injuriously supposes, with six successive images 
 of domestic happiness, he was truly an unfortunate man. That 
 the painter's own marriage-bed was unblessed with children 
 is true ; but surely the absence of children does not imply the 
 absence of all that is picturesque in human enjoyment. If 
 it were so Hogarth had many friends more fortunate in 
 this respect than himself ; and, for an imagination such as 
 his, it could have been no hard task to endow his wedded 
 pair with a progeny worthy of the patriarchs. Nor is wedded 
 felicity necessarily made up of continual seriousness, grave 
 admonitions, examples of regular conduct, and precepts of 
 wisdom and prudence. It embraces enough of mirth, enough 
 of folly, enough of humour, to have mingled well with the 
 austere composure, and meek affection, and graver duties 
 of domestic life and to have formed a work of the pictu- 
 resque kind which Steevens desired, and which Hogarth 
 excelled in. We may seek some other cause than want of 
 proper materials for the abandonment of this design. 
 
 A work of a less important character came across his fancy. 
 He had been an apprentice, and witnessed the various ways 
 in which the youth of London wasted or improved their 
 time. He was aware of the allurements which tempt boys
 
 HOGARTH. 107 
 
 to idleness, and knew from experience how necessary indus- 
 try is to obtain success in any pursuit of profit and honour. 
 Under the influence of these feelings, he conceived and 
 etched his twelve scenes of alternate " Industry and Idle- 
 ness," and in 1747 gave them to the world. Their aim was 
 better than their execution ; for, from a wish to render them 
 popular amongst those whose purses were light, and whose 
 condition needed* them most, he made the size of his prints 
 moderate and the price low. Hogarth thus modestly an- 
 nounces his object and his work: '" Industry and Idle- 
 ness ' exemplified in the conduct of two fellow 'prentices ; 
 where one, by taking good courses, and pursuing points for 
 which he was apprenticed, becomes a valuable man, and an 
 ornament to his country : the other, by giving way to idle- 
 ness, naturally falls into poverty, and ends fatally, as ex- 
 pressed in the last print." The thrifty citizens of London 
 welcomed these works warmly, and hung them in public 
 and private places as guides and examples to their children 
 and dependents. They are not equal in character to many 
 of the works of the artist ; but they are plain, natural, 
 and impressive scenes, and fulfil the purpose of the moral 
 painter. 
 
 Hogarth met Lord Lovat at St. Albans, on his way to 
 the Tower and the scaffold, and painted his portrait. " I 
 took this likeness," said the artist, " when Simon Frazer 
 was relating on his fingers the numbers of the rebel forces 
 such a chieftain had so many men, &c. He received me 
 with much cordiality embraced me as I entered, and kissed 
 me, though he was under the hands of abarber. The muscles 
 of his neck appeared of unusual strength more so than I 
 had ever seen." When the plate was finished, a printseller, 
 of a more liberal nature than Mr. Bowles, offered its weight 
 in gold for it. The impressions could not be taken off so 
 fast as they were wanted, though the rolling press wrought 
 without intermission. It produced at the rate of about 
 twelve pounds per day for several weeks. The brave and 
 wily old chieftain lived like a robber and died like a 
 Roman. 
 
 Soon after the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, Hogarth went 
 into France, to extend his sphere of observation. His
 
 108 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 journey was short, and his stay brief. He imagined him- 
 self in a land as free as England ; began to sketch one 
 of the gates o'f Calais ; was arrested as a spy, and carried 
 before the governor for examination. The offence which 
 he had unwittingly committed was thought serious enough 
 to warrant his immediate transportation to England, and 
 this seems to have been performed in a manner calculated 
 to embitter his feelings. Two guards accompanied him on 
 board, and, after having insolently twirled him round and 
 round on the deck, told him he might proceed on his voy- 
 age without further molestation. This circumstance was 
 not calculated to lessen that sturdy, good-humoured sort 
 of dislike which old-fashioned English people even now 
 entertain towards France, and of which Hogarth had his 
 full share. He arrived at Dover deeply incensed ; and, as 
 he was of a temper which resented injuries, something sar- 
 castic and bitter was expected from his pencil. 
 
 Those persons who went with Hogarth to France, Hay- 
 man the painter and Cheere the sculptor, find an excuse for 
 the governor of Calais in the blunt rudeness and uncivil 
 curiosity of their companion. They were witnesses of his 
 conduct, and of his arrest and dismissal. They related on 
 their return that he was displeased, from the first, with the 
 people, with the country, with the houses, and with the 
 fare. All he looked upon was declared to be in bad taste ; 
 the houses, he said, were either gilt or befouled ; he laughed 
 when he saw a ragged boy ; and, at the sight of silk stock- 
 ings with holes hi them, he burst out into very imprudent lan- 
 guage. In vain his friends warned him to be more cautious 
 in his remarks ; for as Calais swarmed with Scotch and 
 Irish, he was not to imagine that his sarcasms were con- 
 cealed in his foreign language. He mocked their fears, and 
 ridiculed his companions as the unworthy sons of a free 
 country. This certainly was unadvised and arrogant. 
 
 Hogarth sought to avenge the affront he had received by 
 a design called the " Boast Beef of Old England." It was 
 recommended to national prejudice by the tempting name, 
 but it cannot be considered as one of his happy works. The 
 scene is laid at the gate of Calais. A French cook appears 
 staggering under an immense piece of roasted beef ; a well-
 
 HOGARTH. 109 
 
 fed monk stays him to gaze on it, and seems anxious to 
 bless and cut and a half-starved meagre community of 
 soldiers surround the reeking wonder with looks ridicu- 
 lously wistful. Hogarth is seated busily sketching the scene, 
 and the hand of a Frenchman is laid on his shoulder, de- 
 noting his arrest. There is not much venom in this ; such 
 a satire could be invented without much outlay of inven- 
 tion. A man is not necessarily famishing because he eats 
 little roast beef; nor are abstemiousness and cheerfulness 
 under privation very happy subjects of ridicule. 1 I have 
 not heard that any Frenchman was hurt by this national 
 satire. An Englishman felt it more acutely. Pine the 
 painter sat for the portrait of the friar, and hence acquired 
 the name of Father Pine, which he disliked so much that 
 he requested the likeness might be altered. Of his tour 
 in France, Hogarth, it is said, loved not to speak. He 
 scarcely counted that man his friend who alluded to it. He, 
 who had made so many men appear ridiculous, had no wish 
 to seem so himself. He ventured, however, to write in his 
 memorandum book, " The first time an Englishman goes 
 from Dover to Calais, he must be struck with the different 
 face of things at a little distance. A farcical pomp of war, 
 pompous parade of religion, and much bustle with very 
 little business. To sum up all, poverty, slavery, and innate 
 insolence, covered with an affectation of politeness, give you 
 even here a true picture of the manners of the whole nation. 
 The friars are dirty, sleek, and solemn ; the soldiery are lean, 
 ragged, and tawdry ; and, as to the fishwomen, their faces 
 are absolute leather." 
 
 A painting of a serious character escaped from his 
 hand during the pressure of more engrossing engagements 
 the " Presentation of young Moses to the daughter of 
 Pharaoh." It appeared in 1751. There is an air of serene 
 and simple dignity about it, which is some relief to the 
 scenes of boisterous humour and moral reproof of his other 
 performances. The original was presented to the Found- 
 
 1 The figure of his half-starved French snntincl has since been copied 
 at the top of our printed advertisements for recruits a well-fed English 
 soldier stands opposite. The appeal had probably some effect, for it has 
 often been repeated. A. C.
 
 110 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 ling Hospital. The receipt for the print of his work was 
 nearly as valuable as the print itself. It is a "St. Paul be- 
 fore Felix," designed in the Dutch style ; nothing can sur- 
 pass it for broad humour. The saint stands and harangues 
 on a three-footed stool ; and such is the power of his elo- 
 quence, that the Roman more than trembles witness the 
 compressed nostrils of his companions ; a Jew, with flash- 
 ing eyes and a ready knife, surveys his expected victim, 
 while a little sooty devil, with a malicious eye and white 
 teeth, saws away one of the feet from the Apostle's stool. 1 
 Sir Robert Strange, in his " Inquiry into the Rise and Es- 
 tablishment of the Royal Academy," says, that the dona- 
 tions made by painters of their works to the Foundling 
 Hospital, led to the idea of those exhibitions which now 
 prove so lucrative at Somerset House. Hogarth was the 
 first and most extensive of all these benefactors. 
 
 The " Four Stages of Cruelty " was his next work and 
 I wish it never had been painted. There is indeed great skill 
 in the grouping, and profound knowledge of character ; but 
 the whole effect is gross, brutal, and revolting. A savage 
 boy grows into a savage man, and concludes a career of 
 cruelty and outrage by an atrocious murder, for which he 
 is hanged and dissected. The commencement is painful ; 
 and the conclusion can scarcely be looked upon save by 
 men practised in surgery, or the shambles. 
 
 The " March of the Guards to Finchley " is a per- 
 formance of a different character ; it is steeped in humour 
 and strewn over with delightful absurdities. The approach 
 
 1 This incident of the little devil sawing the leg of the Apostle's stool 
 while the clumsy angel who upholds it has fallen asleep, was only added 
 in the second state of this curious plate, which was probably intended by 
 Hogarth as a burlesque upon Rembrandt, many of the types, the effect 
 of light, and indeed the whole composition resembling somewhat the 
 great Dutch master. Allan Cunningham does not mention that Hogarth 
 likewise painted this subject in 1750 for Lincoln's Inn. Baron Wynd- 
 ham having left ,200 for the purpose of adorning the hall with a painting, 
 Hogarth, at Lord Mansfield's suggestion, was commissioned to execute 
 it. The painting differs totally from the humorous print, being conceived 
 in the dignified Italian style with figures slightly reminiscent of Raphael 
 in the Cartoons. The classic figure of Tertullus in particular contrasts 
 forcibly with the cunning bewigged Jew who occupies the same position 
 in the burlesque print. ED.
 
 HOGARTH. Ill 
 
 of Prince Charles, in the fatal Forty-five, is supposed by 
 Hogarth to summon the heroes of London to the field ; 
 and the very nature of the important contest is expressed 
 in the central group of the composition, where a grenadier 
 stands, a ludicrous picture of indecision, between his 
 Catholic and Protestant doxies. The scene is laid in 
 Tottenham Court Road. In the distance, the more orderly 
 and obedient portion of the soldiery are seen marching 
 northward ; but, if discipline conducts the front, confusion 
 brings up the rear. A baggage waggon moves lumbering 
 along in the middle of the way, with its burden of women, 
 babies, knapsacks, and camp-kettles and around it is 
 poured a reeling and disorderly torrent of soldiers, in- 
 flamed or stupefied with liquor, and stunned and distracted 
 by the clamour of wives, children, and concubines. There 
 is such staggering and swaggering such carousing and 
 caressing such neglect of all discipline and obedience 
 to nothing save the caprice of the moment as probably 
 never was witnessed; and yet all is natural, consistent, 
 characteristic. 
 
 It was inscribed before publication to George the Second, 
 and a print was sent to the palace for royal examination 
 and approval. The king, himself a keen soldier, had na- 
 turally expected to see a more serious and orderly work 
 one more in honour of those favourite Guards who had 
 marched so readily against the rebels. " The first ques- 
 tion," says Ireland, "was to a nobleman in waiting 
 ' Pray, who is this Hogarth ? ' 'A painter, my liege.' 
 ' Painter I hate painting, and poetry too ! neither the 
 one nor the other ever did any good. Does the fellow 
 mean to laugh at my Guards ? ' ' The picture, an please 
 your majesty, must undoubtedly be considered as a bur- 
 lesque.' ' What, a painter burlesque a soldier ! he de- 
 serves to be picketed for his insolence. Take his trum- 
 pery out of my sight.' " Such is the story : it is easier to 
 transcribe than to believe it literally. The painter, however, 
 by all accounts, was mortified by the reception which his 
 work received from his majesty. He certainly dedicated it 
 in a pet to the King of Prussia, as an encourager of art, 
 and received a handsome acknowledgment from Frederick.
 
 112 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 Hogarth meant no more by this work than a piece of 
 humorous and good-natured satire. The freedom which 
 an Englishman enjoys allows him to laugh at the failings 
 and the follies of high and low; the ministers of the 
 crown, the ministers of the church, judges, courtiers, 
 sailors, and soldiers, all are alike liable to be satirized and 
 lampooned. No one can walk along our streets without 
 observing, in almost every printseller's window, the most 
 audacious caricatures and representations of the highest 
 as well as the humblest of the land ; the toleration of such 
 works is only a proof of the liberty of the people, and the 
 good sense and good nature of their rulers. 
 
 When, however, Wilkes quarrelled with Hogarth, he 
 discovered on a sudden the malice of the " March of the 
 Guards to Finchley," and rated the artist roundly. These 
 are the words of honest, conscientious John: "In the 
 year 1746, when the Guards were ordered to march to 
 Finchley, on the most important service they could be 
 employed in the extinguishing a Scottish rebellion, which 
 threatened the entire ruin of the illustrious family on the 
 throne, and, in consequence, of our liberties Mr. Hogarth 
 came out with a print to make them ridiculous to their 
 countrymen and to all Europe ; or perhaps it was rather 
 to tell the Scots, in his way, how little the Guards were 
 to be feared, and that they might safely advance. That 
 the ridicule might not stop here, and that it might be as 
 offensive as possible to his own sovereign, he dedicated 
 the print to the King of Prussia, as an encourager of the 
 arts. Is this patriotism ? In old Home, or in any of the 
 Grecian states, he would have been punished as a pro- 
 fligate citizen, totally devoid of all principle. In England 
 he is rewarded, and made serjeant-painter to that very 
 king's grandson." 
 
 How little all this bitterness of Wilkes was called for or 
 deserved, a few dates will show. The battle of Culloden, 
 which extinguished the rebellion and the hopes of the 
 House of Stuart for ever, was fought and won in 1746 
 and the print of which Wilkes complains was published in 
 1750. What a hardened hater of his country Hogarth 
 must have been and what indomitable rebels those Scotch-
 
 HOGARTH. 113 
 
 men, who, after rotting four years on the moor of Drum- 
 mossie, were readj to profit by the information of the 
 painter, that the Guards were not to be feared, and that 
 they had nothing to do but to advance boldly on London ! 
 There is nothing so blind as anger. The very heads of 
 their chiefs were blackening in the sun and wind on Tem- 
 ple Bar three years before this horrid print made its 
 appearance ; and Mr. Wilkes had published many numbers 
 of his " North Briton," and eaten many a good dinner in 
 company with Mr. Hogarth, before he discovered that trea- 
 son had been committed in the " March to Finchley." 
 
 The original painting was, on the publication of the 
 print, disposed of by a kind of lottery, established on a 
 surer principle of remuneration than that adopted in the 
 case of " Marriage-a-la-Mode." Seven shillings and six- 
 pence was fixed as the price of a print ; and every pur- 
 chaser of a print was entitled to a chance in the lottery 
 for the picture. Eighteen hundred and forty- three chances 
 were subscribed for; a hundred and sixty-seven tickets, 
 which remained, were presented to the Foundling Hos- 
 pital. One of the Hospital's tickets drew the desired 
 prize ; and on the same night Hogarth delivered the paint- 
 ing to the governors, not a little pleased that it was to 
 adorn a public place. The artist gained .300 by this 
 speculation. "A lottery," he observed, " is the only way 
 a living painter has of being paid for his time." The late 
 Duke of Ancaster offered the Hospital .300 for the paint- 
 ing ; it could not, of course, be accepted. 
 
 His next pictures were those of " Beer Street " and 
 " Gin Lane " two very clever works, which have been 
 well described by Ireland. " In the first, we see healthy 
 and happy beings inhaling copious draughts of a liquor 
 which seems perfectly congenial to their mental and cor- 
 poreal powers : in the second, a group of emaciated wretches, 
 who, by swallowing liquid fire, have consumed both." Beer 
 the artist considers as nutritive and strengthening gin as 
 poisonous and pernicious. Those who adhere to the former 
 look fresh and hale, perform all the duties of manhood, 
 and the functions of their stations, and die respected and 
 regretted ; while those who tipple the latter, pollute the
 
 114 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 brain, sap the strength, and become a burden to them- 
 selves, and a disgrace to human nature. Hogarth's beer- 
 bibbers are very joyous, pleasant personages the lovers 
 of gin are squalid and hideous ; in the neighbourhood of 
 the first, honest occupations abound and prosper in the 
 region of the others, the only person who looks happy and 
 thriving is a sordid pawnbroker, at whose house the 
 wretches dispose of their rags, scarcely leaving themselves 
 enough to conceal their shame. 
 
 The two pictures called " France " and " England," 
 which followed these, are inspired by the same sort of 
 feeling as the " Roast Beef," and may rank in the same 
 class. They are intensely national, and severely ludicrous. 
 In the former, the French are represented in active pre- 
 paration for the invasion of England, and heroic fire never 
 animated such a mob of odd mortals to keep time to fife 
 and drum. A priest tries the edge of an axe, which, with 
 chains and instruments of torture, accompanies the in- 
 vaders ; whilst a soldier spits with his sword five frogs, 
 and roasts them over the fire of a bivouac the sight and 
 smell cheer his passing countrymen. A vessel lies close 
 to the shore, planks are laid between the land and the 
 deck, and the meagre and reluctant heroes of the Grand 
 Monarque proceed on board. The other picture is better. 
 The artist has assembled under the sign of the " Jolly Old 
 Duke of Cumberland " a recruiting party, with such other 
 liegemen of the King of England as love of merriment and 
 love of drink might draw fortuitously together. Beef, 
 bread, and beer have formed the ample regale ; and the 
 threatened invasion by France is now the topic of conver- 
 sation. The ardour of the moment has induced a young 
 rustic to volunteer into the line ; the artful or anxious re- 
 cruit augments his height by standing slily on tiptoe, and 
 the prudent sergeant slopes his measuring rod to enable 
 him to pass muster in inches. A facetious grenadier has 
 drawn a large caricature of the King of France, who 
 brandishes a long sword with one hand, and a gibbet with 
 an empty noose in the other, and exclaims in a label, 
 " You take a my fine ships ; you be de pirate, you be de 
 teef ; me send my grand armies and hang you all " The
 
 HOGARTH. 115 
 
 national contempt of danger is well expressed by this 
 group of military worthies ; and, had the artist lived in 
 later times, he would have seen the same feeling enthu- 
 siastically manifested by the whole island, when the 
 danger was every way more imminent, and the talent of 
 the invader warranted the severest apprehension. The 
 engravings from these pictures were published in 1756, 
 and accompanied with verses by David Garrick, more illus- 
 trative of the good- will of the great actor, than of his 
 poetical genius. 
 
 Hogarth was peculiarly the painter for the people ; he 
 loved to contemplate their scenes of fun and festivity, and 
 expose their follies. "It is worth your while to come to 
 England," thus Sherlock wrote to a Frenchman at Paris, 
 " were it only to see an election and a cock-match. There 
 is a celestial spirit of anarchy and confusion in these two 
 scenes that words cannot paint, and of which no country- 
 man of yours can form even an idea." Hogarth performed 
 what words could not accomplish, and, in a series of prints 
 on these popular subjects, exhibited the anarchy of an 
 English election and the confusion of a cockpit. 
 
 Of the Cockpit I shall speak first, for the subject is 
 more contracted in its nature, and less generally interest- 
 ing than the other. On a platform two cocks, trimmed 
 and armed with steel spurs, are pitted against each other, 
 and a crowd of eager and motley sportsmen press around. 
 No one can look on this scene of barbarity and swindling 
 without feeling conscious that the artist took from living 
 reality the iniquity which he drew. " The scene," says 
 Ireland, " is probably laid at Newmarket ; and in this 
 motley group of peers, pickpockets, butchers, rat-catchers, 
 gentlemen, and gamblers, Lord Albemarle Bertie, being 
 the principal figure, is entitled to precedence. What ren- 
 dered his lordship's passion for amusements of this de- 
 scription very singular, was his being totally blind. In 
 this place he is beset by seven steady friends, five of whom 
 offer to bet with him at the same instant on the event of 
 the battle. One of them, a lineal descendant of Filch, 
 taking advantage of his blindness and negligence, endea- 
 vours to convey away a bank-note, deposited in our digni-
 
 11C THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 fied gambler's hat, to his own pocket ; of this attempt his 
 lordship is apprised by a ragged potboy and an honest 
 butcher ; but he is so much engaged in the pronunciation 
 of these important words, ' Done ! done ! done ! ' that he 
 cannot attend to their hints, and it seems more than pro- 
 bable that the stock will be transferred, and the note ne- 
 gotiable in a few seconds." A Trench marquis looks con- 
 temptuously upon the scene, and mutters, " Sauvages ! 
 sauvages ! " I know not what influence the satire of the 
 painter had on this horrid pastime it could not be much : 
 those who delight in such scenes are case-hardened beyond 
 the reach of satire. 
 
 An election of a member of parliament opens a wide 
 field ; and it cannot but be acknowledged that the painter 
 handles his subject with all that is requisite both of know- 
 ledge and of feeling. The subject is divided into four 
 scenes the "Entertainment," the " Canvassing for Votes," 
 the "Polling," and the "Chairing." The first was finished 
 in 1755, and the last appeared in 1758. The whole were 
 received with very general approbation. Of those varied 
 scenes of feasting and bribery, canvassing and corruption, 
 sober villainy and tipsy drollery, eating and drinking, 
 fighting and fooling, it would require a volume to give a 
 full account. In allusion to those periodical contests Vol- 
 taire remarked that the English went mad once every seven 
 years, and these four pictures sustain to a great extent the 
 accuracy of the sarcasm. In other works which the artist 
 executed he gave us but a portion of society, a glimpse of 
 public or of domestic life, a satiric exposition of some 
 particular vice or darling folly ; but in these he has shown 
 us the majesty of the people, broad and unfettered, in the 
 full and free exercise of constitutional functions, and the 
 enjoyment of more than royal powers. 
 
 The first scene is laid at an inn, where the table is 
 spread and the cellar-doors thrown open for the friends of 
 the court candidate. This seeker of a seat in St. Stephen's 
 was one Mr. Thomas Potter, a gentleman with an easy un- 
 embarrassed air, and a look of courteous assurance ; he is 
 at the head of the table, and seems to have finished his 
 dinner. A tipsy beldam is whispering in his ear ; and a
 
 HOGAKTH. 117 
 
 voter, with all the easy familiarity which the times war- 
 rant, knocks their heads together, and shakes the ashes of 
 his pipe among the candidate's powdered curls. At the 
 other end of the table sits a corpulent dignitary of the 
 borough corporation, with a forty-horse power of swallow. 
 He has, however, gulped oysters till his breath is stopped, 
 and a friendly barber-surgeon restores him by opening a 
 vein. All around the table streams a full and flowing tide 
 of electors barbers, cobblers, and counsellors the briber 
 and the bribed, the rustic wit, the village politician, and 
 the parson, with 
 
 " A voice like the sea, and a drouth like a whale," 
 
 are mingled in wild and ludicrous disorder. Showers of 
 stones, from the partisans of the patriotic and popular can- 
 didate, make their way through the windows ; and the fierce 
 uproar without contrasts with the drunken festivity within. 
 The portrait of Sir John Parnell was introduced into this 
 scene at his own request : " My face," he said, " is well 
 known in Ireland, and will help the sale of the engraving." 
 The second scene, the " Canvass," is laid in the street of 
 the borough. Bribery and corruption are busy. A free- 
 holder is represented, standing independent and erect, 
 between two bustling agents of the contending factions, 
 both of whom are putting gold into his not unwilling 
 hands. He stands, the accurate personification of that 
 adage roughened into rhyme by the wit of the poet, 
 
 " The value of a thing 
 
 Is just the price that it will bring." 
 
 His wishes are with the heaviest purse and the most 
 liberal hand : and while interest advises him to take all 
 that both will give, conscience counsels him to vote for the 
 best paymaster. He stands, like the balance of justice, 
 with gold in either scale ; and one sees the mercury of 
 sordid satisfaction ascending within him as guinea drops 
 after guinea into his avaricious hands. The British Lion 
 a fragment of the prow of a ship sits swallowing the 
 Lily of France ; beside it, the buxom landlady of one of 
 the candidate's inns is counting the gains she has made by 
 her interest in the borough, while an able-bodied grenadier
 
 118 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 looks on, conscious that ere all be over he is like to have a 
 share in the spoil. A crowd in the distance, inflamed by 
 drink, inspired by the freedom of these festive times, and 
 touched a little by personal interest, are engaged in a fierce 
 attack on the " Crown " public-house. A rustic, whose 
 natural stupidity seems increased by drink, is employed in 
 sawing away the projecting beam from the wall which sup- 
 ports the sign, wholly unconscious that when the Crown 
 falls he will fall also. Both candidates are busied in 
 bribing and conciliating the male and female proprietors 
 of the borough ; and a very ancient and meritorious son of 
 freedom, Punch, has declared himself a candidate upon the 
 united interest of fun and frolic. 
 
 The third is the " Polling." The lame, the blind, the 
 deaf, the maimed, the dying, and even the dead, are 
 moving or carried onward to the hustings. The first man 
 who tenders his vote is an old soldier, who has lost a leg 
 and his right hand ; he is opposed by a quibbling attorney, 
 on the ground that the law requires the voter to lay his 
 right hand on the sacred book and swear. The second 
 voter is deaf, and not a little insane ; but he is prompted 
 by Dr. Shebbeare, who is roaring into his ear the name of 
 the candidate to whom he promised his vote. This worthy 
 person was pilloried by Mansfield for a libel on the king, 
 and pensioned into silence by Bute. The third voter is a 
 sick man, borne along in a blanket, with his doctor by his 
 side. This is a satire on Dr. Barrowby, who persuaded a 
 dying patient to accompany him in his chariot to vote for 
 Sir George Vandeput ; the man went, voted, and expired. 
 The rear of the electors is brought up by a blind man and 
 a cripple. The carriage of Britannia is overturning, while 
 her coachman and footman are cheating at cards on the 
 box. A woman admonishes them in vain, by holding up 
 for sale a last dying speech, inscribed with a ready gibbet 
 and an empty noose. 
 
 The fourth and concluding scene is the " Chairing of 
 the Member," and it is one of the busiest and best of the 
 series. This fortunate person who was thought to look 
 very like Bubb Doddington, afterwards Lord Melcombe 
 is seated on a chair, raised on the shoulders of four
 
 HOGARTH. 119 
 
 brawny constituents, and borne in triumph through the 
 free and loyal borough of Guzzledown. Foes, however, 
 mingle with friends, and it cannot be supposed that his 
 triumph will be endured without oppositioi. and strife. 
 The fray which is to trouble him in the midst of his 
 success is begun. A thrasher, with his flail, prostrates by 
 a blow, meant for another, one of the living props of the 
 chair; the member's wig rises from his head with fear; a- 
 lady swoons at the sight; a sow, with a litter of pigs, goefl 
 grunting in desperation through the thickest of the mob j 
 while a scared goose flies over the borough, to carry to St. 
 Stephen's an account of the insult offered to the pure and 
 honourable House in this attack on the independent repre- 
 sentative of Guzzledown. David Garrick gave the painter 
 some two hundred pounds for those truly national produc- 
 tions. 
 
 Of the likenesses of living persons introduced into these 
 designs, it is scarcely necessary to speak. There are merits 
 which are temporary and fleeting ; faces are forgotten as 
 generations pass away ; and of all the millions who lived 
 and breathed in 1756, a few names only remain on the 
 sunny side of oblivion. All who smarted from the artist's 
 satire are as cold and silent as himself ; and by inserting 
 in my narrative the names of Thomas Potter, Dr. Sheb- 
 beare, the Rev. Dr. Cosserat, and Sir John Parnell nay, 
 even of Lord Melcombe and the Duke of Newcastle I add 
 but little to the interest of these four pictures. The me- 
 rits of original fancy, natural action, ceaseless humour, 
 and amusing and instructive incident, are matters of 
 another kind ; and these keep, and will keep, the works of 
 Hogarth as fresh and interesting as they ever were. All 
 who are acquainted with the business of the English hust- 
 ings will perceive and feel the accuracy of these designs. 
 There is always some noisy patriot of the hour to mislead 
 and inflame the people ; there is always some shrewd and 
 crafty courtier to soothe and bribe his way ; and shall we 
 ever want a swarm of sordid electors to sell their votes to 
 the most opulent ? 
 
 I hare remarked elsewhere that when Hogarth painted 
 his own portrait he etched upon the palette a winding
 
 120 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 line, with this motto, " Line of Beauty and Grace." The 
 mystery of the winding line and these words remained un- 
 explained till 1753, when he published the "Analysis of 
 Beauty," a work very clearly and cleverly written, contain- 
 ing many original and natural notions concerning art, and 
 composed on purpose to establish the principle, that the 
 winding or serpentine line is the foundation of all that is 
 fair and beautiful in the works of art, as well as the pro- 
 ductions of nature. The examples which he cites, and the 
 arguments which he uses, are ingenious, if not convincing. 
 In nature the leaves which clothe the trees, and the flowers 
 which cover the ground, with all that buds and blooms, 
 and yields fragrance or fruit, are formed of winding lines. 
 The line of grace is found in the varied beauty of the hills, 
 in the grandeur of the mountains, in things the most 
 minute or magnificent. The beasts, the birds, the insects, 
 and the fishes, support or illustrate the maxim of the artist ; 
 and in the shells which cover our shores, the most beauti- 
 ful undulating lines are united with the most exquisite 
 colours. Of woman's beauty and of man's gracefulness we 
 may say the same. The heavens above, the earth beneath, 
 and the waters under the earth, are all supporters of the 
 universal principle of which Hogarth claims the merit of 
 being the discoverer. 
 
 Of the great artists of Greece and the eminent artists 
 of Italy, he observes that they wrought in the express 
 spirit of the great principle of nature from the glorious 
 instinct of genius more probably than from knowledge. 
 Their works contain the line of beauty in its most natural 
 and elegant forms, and he nowhere observed stiff and rigid 
 lines in any of the highest productions. This was accom- 
 plished, he supposes, by imitating with great exactness the 
 beauties of nature. Michael Angelo, he imagines, had some 
 notion of the existence of this principle, when he advised 
 his scholar, Marcus de Siena, to make " a figure pyramidi- 
 cal, serpent-like, and multiplied by one, two, and three ; 
 in which precept the whole mystery of the art consisteth ; 
 for the greatest grace and life which a picture can have is, 
 that it expresses motion, which painters call the spirit of 
 a picture."
 
 HOGAKTH. 121 
 
 A book of so much pretension coming from a self-edu- 
 cated man, accompanied with numerous etchings illustrat- 
 ing the author's principles of excellence in art, and contain- 
 ing, moreover, some little satire upon portrait painters and 
 copiers of pictures, was not likely to go unchallenged. He 
 expected to be laughed at by some, and ridiculed by others : 
 in a little epigram he whimsically enough describes his own 
 feelings : 
 
 " What ! a book, and by Hogarth ! then, twenty to ten, 
 All he's gain'd by the pencil he'll lose by the pen." 
 " Perhaps it may be so howe'er, miss or hit, 
 He will publish here goes it is double or quit." 
 
 Those who were hurt worst spoke first. It was not indeed 
 likely that a man who openly scorned the mere mechanical 
 productions of the easel, who thought and said that aca- 
 demies which instructed students in making new pictures 
 from old ones were injurious to art, and that portrait paint- 
 ing was unworthy of genius, would be allowed to publish 
 such a bold lesson without opposition or remark. A storm 
 of verse and prose assailed his heresy, and spared neither 
 his works, his person, nor his fireside. 
 
 The truth of the principle of beauty was sharply ques- 
 tioned and severely ridiculed ; and the authorship of the 
 volume itself was ascribed to some literary friends. Hogarth 
 modestly says, that he persuaded a friend to correct his 
 language, and prepare his work for the press. It was urged 
 that a man gross in conversation, unacquainted with lite- 
 rary composition, and of very humble scholarship, was un- 
 likely to be the author of a work which, to sustain their 
 own theory, the critics acknowledged to be clever. It was 
 remarked too, with some show of triumph, that he could 
 not spell his native language, and specimens of careless or 
 intentional misspelling were quoted from his prints. Even 
 John Wilkes, long after the controversy had subsided, 
 strove to renew the clamour by a fierce invective, in which 
 he calls him " the humorous W. Hogarth, the supposed 
 author of the ' Analysis of Beauty.' He never caught," 
 says the veracious patriot, " a single idea of beauty, grace, 
 or elegance ; but, on the other hand, he never missed the
 
 122 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 least flaw in almost any production of nature or of art. This 
 arose in some measure from his head, but much more from 
 his heart. After ' Marriage-a-la-Mode,' the public wished 
 for a series of prints of a ' Happy Marriage.' Hogarth 
 made the attempt, but the rancour and malevolence of his 
 mind made him very soon turn away with envy and disgust 
 from objects of so pleasing contemplation, to dwell and 
 feast a bad heart on others of a hateful cast, which he pur- 
 sued, for he found them congenial, with the most unabat- 
 ing zeal and the most unrelenting gall." 
 
 All such remarks might have been spared. Hogarth had 
 natural genius enough to conceive, and knowledge sufficient 
 to enable him to mature, the new discovered principle of 
 beauty, and render it worthy of publication. That the 
 skill and kindness of his friends suggested emendations 
 there can be no doubt, since he says so himself ; but no 
 one can dispute the title to the work with him, and no critic 
 of comprehension or candour will cast suspicion upon his 
 claim of authorship, because he made blunders in syntax 
 and mistakes in spelling. Men of great literary eminence 
 might be named who made slips in both ; nor have there 
 been wanting men who denied to poets the merit of their 
 own productions. Garth was accused of not writing his 
 " Dispensary," and from Allan Ramsay some have tried to 
 take away the honours of the " G-entle Shepherd." Time 
 has disposed of all these objections, and allowed, in spite 
 of the malice of Wilkes, that the " Analysis of Beauty " is 
 the work of Hogarth : but the truth of the principle which 
 the work was composed to establish, has not yet received 
 universal sanction. 
 
 Of those who affected to laugh at the Analysis, the bit- 
 terest was Wilkes, but the most eminent was Walpole. 
 " The book," he says, " is the failing of a visionary, whose 
 eyes were so little open to his own deficiencies, that he be- 
 lieved he had discovered the principle of grace, and with the 
 enthusiasm of 'a discoverer cried out, Eureka ! This was his 
 famous ' Line of Beauty,' the ground- work of his Analysis, 
 a book which has many sensible hints and observations, 
 but that did not carry the conviction nor meet the general 
 acquiescence he expected. As he treated his contempora-
 
 HOGARTH. 123 
 
 ries with scorn, they triumphed over him in turn, and imi- 
 tated him to expose him. Many wretched burlesque prints 
 came out to ridicule his system. There was a better answer 
 to it in one of the two prints that he gave to illustrate his 
 hypothesis. In the ball, had he confined himself to such 
 outlines as compose awkwardness and deformity, he would 
 have proved half his assertion; but he has added two 
 samples of grace, in a young lord and lady, that are strik- 
 ingly stiff and affected: they are a Bath beau and a coun- 
 try beauty." So writes Walpole : the principle of beauty, 
 however, was not necessarily unfounded because the pain- 
 ter failed in creating two figures excelling in beauty and 
 grace, any more than his heart was corrupt and envious be- 
 cause he did not choose to paint a " Happy Marriage." 
 
 Of what Hogarth himself thought of the excellence of 
 his new discovery, and the acrimony of his enemies, there 
 is an ample account by his own hand. I select some cha- 
 racteristic passages. " No Egyptian hieroglyphic ever 
 amused more than my ' Line of Beauty ' did for a time. 
 Painters and sculptors came to me to know the meaning 
 of it, being as much puzzled with it as other people, till I 
 explained it by publishing my Analysis. Then, indeed, and 
 not till then, some found it out to be an old acquaintance 
 of theirs, though the account they could give of its proper- 
 ties was very near as satisfactory as that which a day- 
 labourer who constantly uses the lever could give of that 
 machine as a mechanical power." This is the language of 
 a man at peace with himself, and satisfied with his success ; 
 the following is dictated by a heart much less at ease : 
 
 " My preface and introduction to the Analysis contain a 
 general explanation of the circumstances which led me to 
 commence author ; but this has not deterred my opponents 
 from loading me with much gross, and I think unmerited 
 obloquy. Among other crimes of which I am accused, it is 
 asserted that I have abused the ' Great Masters ; ' this is 
 far from being just. So far from attempting to lower the 
 ancients, I have always thought, and it is universally ad- 
 mitted, that they knew some fundamental principles in 
 nature which enabled them to produce works that have been 
 the admiration of succeeding ages ; but I have not allowed
 
 124 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 this merit to those leaden headed imitators, who, having no 
 consciousness of either symmetry or propriety, have at- 
 tempted to mend nature, and, in their truly ideal figures, 
 gave similar proportions to a Mercury and a Hercules." 
 
 Another and a better spirit influenced him in the follow- 
 ing passage he is proposing to seek the principles of beauty 
 in nature, instead of looking for them in mere learning. 
 His words are plain, direct, and convincing. " Nature is 
 simple, plain, and true in all her works, and those who 
 strictly adhere to her laws, and closely attend to her ap- 
 pearances in their infinite varieties, are guarded against any 
 prejudicial bias from truth; while those who have seen 
 many things that they cannot well understand, and read 
 many books which they do not fully comprehend, notwith- 
 standing all their parade of knowledge, are apt to wander 
 about it and about it ; perplexing themselves and their 
 readers with the various opinions of other men. As to those 
 painters who have written treatises on painting, they were 
 in general too much 1aken up with giving rules for the 
 operative part of the art, to enter into physical disquisitions 
 on the nature of the objects. With respect to myself, I 
 thought I was sufficiently grounded in the principles of my 
 profession to throw some new lights on the subject : and, 
 though the pen was to me a new instrument, yet, as the 
 mechanic at his loom may possibly give as satisfactory an 
 account of the materials and composition of the rich bro- 
 cade he weaves as the smooth-tongued mercer, surrounded 
 with all his parade and showy silks, I trusted that I might 
 make myself tolerably understood by those who would take 
 the trouble of examining my book and prints together for, 
 as one makes use of signs to convey his meaning in a lan- 
 guage of which he has little knowledge, I have occasionally 
 had recourse to my pencil." 
 
 But to fix the fluctuating principles of taste the object 
 of the "Analysis of Beauty" was a flight beyond the 
 powers of Hogarth. Every master spirit that appears on 
 the earth goes to work in his own peculiar way ; and though 
 the structures which he raises are founded in nature, yet 
 they differ in the exterior effect and internal arrangement 
 from what has preceded them, as the Gothic architecture
 
 HOGARTH. 125 
 
 differs from the Grecian. The rules which one man lays 
 down for composition are overthrown by another, who forms 
 his own laws and these again are swept away by the next 
 succeeding spirit, as readily as a wave of the sea obliterates 
 words written on its sands. But if any man ever discovered 
 the universal principle on which all works of lasting glory 
 in art are constructed, it seems to have been Hogarth. The 
 great law which he promulgates belongs to universal nature 
 it was in nature that he found it, and by nature he has 
 explained it. The bird flies, the stream flows, the flower 
 springs, the sun runs his course, and the ocean rolls his 
 waves, all in accordance and conformity with his undulat- 
 ing line of beauty and grace. Men, whose feelings were 
 imbued with nature, wrought by a kind of instinctive in- 
 spiration in the right way, when they executed those statues 
 and paintings which continue to astonish the earth. Wai- 
 pole was amazed to find that an old ballad-maker had 
 obeyed, in Gill Morrice, all the precepts of Horace with- 
 out having heard of the poet. In truth, nature dictates 
 what is right to those whose minds are lofty, and who pas- 
 sionately feel the subject of their meditation. 
 
 If Hogarth felt annoyed by the petulance of painters 
 and critics, who sought to destroy his reputation, overturn 
 his system, and wound the peace of his family, he must 
 have been very sensibly gratified by the praise which poured 
 in upon him from foreign parts, and from Englishmen of 
 talent and intelligence. Amongst the latter, Warburton 
 added his testimony to the merits of Hogarth, in the fol- 
 lowing intrepid words : "I was pleased," says the Bishop, 
 in a letter to the artist, " that you have determined to give 
 us your original and masterly thoughts on the great prin- 
 ciples of your profession. You owe this to your country, 
 for you are both an honour to your profession, and a 
 shame to that worthless crew professing vertu and con- 
 noisseurship ; to whom all that grovel in the splendid 
 poverty of wealth and taste are the miserable bubbles." 
 It would appear from this that Warburton had seen the 
 Analysis before publication. After this it would be un- 
 fair to withhold the praise of Benjamin West a painter 
 prudent in speech and frugal in commendation. " I re-
 
 126 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 member, when I was a lad," says Smith, in his account of 
 Nollekens, " asking the late venerable President West, 
 what he thought of Hogarth's 'Analysis of Beauty,' and 
 his answer was ' It is a work of the highest value to 
 every one studying the art. Hogarth was a strutting, 
 consequential little man, and made himself many enemies 
 by that book ; but now that most of them are dead, it is 
 examined by disinterested readers, unbiassed by personal 
 animosities, and will be more and more read, studied, and 
 understood.'" 
 
 The collection of pictures belonging to Sir Luke Schaub 
 was dispersed in 1758, by public auction, when Sir Thomas 
 Seabright became the proprietor of a " Sigismunda," 
 imputed to Correggio, for the sum of .400. The effect 
 which this circumstance had upon the mind of Hogarth is 
 described by Walpole, in words which I dare not soften 
 and cannot commend: " From a contempt of the ignorant 
 vertuosi of the age, and from indignation at the impudent 
 tricks of picture-dealers, whom he saw continually recom- 
 mending and vending vile copies to bubble-collectors, and 
 from having never studied indeed, having seen few good 
 pictures of the great Italian masters, he persuaded him- 
 self that the praises bestowed on those glorious works were 
 nothing but the effects of ignorance. He talked this lan- 
 guage till he believed it ; and having heard it often asserted, 
 as is true, that time gives a mellowness to colours and 
 improves them, he not only denied the proposition, but 
 maintained that pictures only grew black and worse by 
 age. He went farther he determined to rival the ancients, 
 and unfortunately chose one of the finest pictures in Eng- 
 land as the subject of his competition. This was the 
 celebrated ' Sigismunda ' of Sir Luke Schaub, said to be 
 painted by Correggio probably by Furino but no matter 
 by whom. It is impossible to see the picture or read 
 Dry den's inimitable tale, and not feel that the same soul 
 animated both. After many essays, Hogarth produced his 
 ' Sigismunda,' but no more like Sigismunda than I to 
 Hercules. Not to mention the wretchedness of the colour- 
 ing, it was the representation of a maudlin strumpet just 
 turned out of keeping ; and, with eyes red with rage and
 
 HOGARTH. 127 
 
 usquebaugh, tearing off the ornaments her keeper had given 
 her. To add to the disgust raised by such vulgar expres- 
 sion, her fingers were bloodied by her lover's heart, that 
 lay before her like that of a sheep for her dinner." 
 
 This is severe, pointed, and untrue. The Sigismunda 
 of Hogarth is not tearing off her ornaments, nor are her 
 fingers bloodied by her lover's heart. It is said that the 
 picture resembled Mrs. Hogarth, who was a very handsome 
 woman ; and to this circumstance Wilkes maliciously 
 alludes in his unprincipled attack on her husband. " If 
 the ' Sigismunda,' " says this polite patriot, " had a resem- 
 blance of anything ever seen on earth, or had the least 
 pretence to either meaning or expression, it was what he 
 had seen, or perhaps made in real life his own wife in 
 an agony of passion ; but of what passion no connoisseur 
 could guess." That Mrs. Hogarth sat for the picture of 
 " Sigismunda" seems to have been known to conscientious 
 John, and this is supported by that lady's conduct to 
 Walpole. The noble biographer sent her a copy of his 
 " Anecdotes," accompanied by a courtly and soothing note ; 
 but she was so much offended by his description of the 
 " Sigismunda," that she took no notice of his present. The 
 widow of the artist was poor and an opinion so ill-natured 
 so depreciating and so untrue, injured the property 
 which she wished to sell : she loved too the memory of her 
 husband, and resented in the dignity of silence the malicious 
 and injurious attack. She considered the present as an 
 insult offered when she had no one to protect her. I love 
 her pride and reverence her affection. 
 
 Sir Eichard Grosvenor, for whom the " Sigismunda " 
 was painted, thought as unfavourably of it as Walpole 
 himself. In Hogarth's memorandum-book the follow- 
 ing account of the matter is written by his own hand it 
 seems fair and candid, and has not been contradicted: 
 " This transaction having given rise to many ridiculous 
 falsehoods, the following unvarnished tale will set all in 
 its true light. The picture of ' Sigismunda ' was painted 
 at the earnest request of Sir Richard Grosvenor, now Lord 
 Grosvenor, in the year 1759, at a time when Mr. Hogarth 
 had fully determined to leave off painting, partly on
 
 128 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 account of ease and retirement, but more particularly 
 because he had found by thirty years' experience that his 
 pictures, except in an instance or two, had not produced him 
 one quarter of the profit which arose from his engravings. 
 However, the flattering compliments, as well as generous 
 offers made him by the above gentleman, who was im- 
 mensely rich, prevailed upon the unwary artist to undertake 
 this difficult subject, which (being seen and fully approved 
 of by his lordship whilst in hand) was, after much time 
 and the utmost efforts, finished but how, the painter's 
 death can only positively determine. The price required 
 for it was therefore not on account of its value as a pic- 
 ture, but proportioned to the value of the time it took in 
 painting." 
 
 The statement is further confirmed by the following 
 letter, which the artist addressed to Sir Richard Gros- 
 venor : " I have done all I can to the picture of ' Sigis- 
 munda ; ' you may remember you was pleased to say you 
 would give me what price I should think fit to set upon 
 whatever I would paint for you ; and, at the same time that 
 you made this generous offer, I, in return, made it my re- 
 quest that you would use no ceremony in refusing the 
 picture when done, if you should not be thoroughly satis- 
 fied with it. This you promised should be as I pleased, 
 which I now entreat you would comply with, without the 
 least hesitation, if you think four hundred pounds too 
 much money for it. One more favour I have to beg, which 
 is, that you will determine on this matter as soon as you 
 can conveniently, that I may resolve whether I shall go on 
 with another picture for Mr. Hoare the banker on the same 
 terms, or stop here." 
 
 The answer of Sir Richard Grosvenor was short and 
 could not fail to wound deeply the feelings of Hogarth : 
 " I should sooner have answered yours of the 13th instant," 
 says this patron of native genius, " but have been mostly 
 out of town. I understand by it that you have a com- 
 mission from Mr. Hoare for a picture. If he should have 
 taken a fancy to the ' Sigismunda,' I have no sort of objec- 
 tion to your letting him have it ; for I really think the 
 performance so striking and inimitable, that the constantly
 
 HOGARTH. 129 
 
 having it before one's eyes would be too often occasioning 
 melancholy ideas to arise in one's mind, which a curtain's 
 being drawn before it would not diminish the least." This 
 is sufficiently lordly and insulting. That Hogarth endured 
 it without retort may be imputed either to pride or to the 
 love of repose for age and its infirmities were now coming 
 upon him. It made, however, a deep impression upon his 
 mind, which even the controversy, into which he was soon 
 afterwards precipitated, with Churchill and Wilkes, could 
 not efface. Like his uncle, the artist was something of a 
 poet, and the following lines, upon the conduct of his 
 patron, are not without cleverness they possess a rarer 
 merit good nature. He alludes to the " Sigismunda." 
 
 " Nay, 'tis so moving, that the knight 
 Can't even bear it in his sight ; 
 Then who would tears so dearly buy, 
 As give four hundred pounds to cry ? 
 I own he chose the prudent part, 
 Rather to break his word than heart, 
 And yet, methinks, 'tis ticklish dealing 
 With one so delicate in feeling." 
 
 " Sigismunda," thus refused by the person for whom it 
 was painted, and traduced and ridiculed by the artists of 
 the day, remained on Hogarth's hands. Of its excellence 
 he certainly had some doubts ; yet his pride forbade him 
 to allow this he desired his widow not to dispose of it 
 for less than five hundred pounds. But a picture, like a 
 play, once condemned seldom rises into popularity. His 
 injunctions were obeyed, nor was the " Sigismunda" sold 
 tiU the death of Mrs. Hogarth, when it was bought by 
 Boydell. 
 
 I have now to give some account of Hogarth's quarrel 
 with Churchill and Wilkes a quarrel which embittered 
 the few remaining days of the great artist, and brought no 
 increase of reputation to his adversaries. The pencil and 
 pen of the painter, and the pens of the politician and the 
 poet, were eagerly dipped in the gall of this bitter dis- 
 pute : Let us attend to Hogarth's words first he speaks 
 coolly and reasonably. He alludes first to the abuse which 
 he says the expounders of the mysteries of old pictures had 
 heaped on his " Sigismunda," and the influence it had on
 
 130 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 his health : " However mean the vender of poisons may 
 be, the mineral is destructive to me its operation was 
 troublesome enough. Ill-nature spread so fast, that now 
 was the time for every little dog in the profession to bark 
 and revive the old spleen which appeared at the time of 
 the ' Analysis.' The anxiety that attends endeavouring 
 to recollect ideas long dormant, and the misfortunes which 
 clung to this transaction coming on at a time when nature 
 demands quiet, and something besides, exercise to cheer it, 
 added to my long sedentary life, brought on an illness 
 which continued twelve months. But when I got well 
 enough to ride on horseback, I soon recovered. This 
 being at a period when war abroad and contention at home 
 engrossed every one's mind, prints were thrown into the 
 background, and the stagnation rendered it necessary that 
 I should do some timed thing, to recover my lost time and 
 stop a gap in my income. This drew forth my print of 
 ' The Times,' a subject which tended to the restoration of 
 peace and unanimity, and put the opposers of those humane 
 objects in a light which gave great offence to those who 
 were trying to ferment destruction in the minds of the 
 populace." 
 
 The account rendered by Wilkes himself corresponds 
 pretty nearly with that of Hogarth : " Wilkes (says the 
 Patriot himself) was waging open war with the Scottish 
 minister, Lord Bute, when Hogarth sacrificed private friend- 
 ship at the altar of party madness, and lent his aid to the 
 government. A friend informed him that the painter was 
 about to publish a print, satirizing Pitt, Temple, Churchill, 
 and himself. He remonstrated, and remarked, that the 
 subjects suitable for his pencil were those of an universal 
 or moral nature. The answer was, that neither Wilkes 
 nor Churchill were included in the satire, though Pitt and 
 Temple were. On this Wilkes informed Hogarth, that he 
 should never resent reflections on himself, but if his friends 
 were attacked, he should then deem himself wounded in 
 the most sensible part, and avenge their cause as well as 
 he was able. ' The Times ' appeared, and was instantly 
 followed by an attack in the ' North Briton' on ' The King's 
 Sergeant-Painter, William Hogarth.' "
 
 HOGARTH. 131 
 
 The attack was sharp and malicious and Hogarth was 
 not a person to be bearded with impunity. It would seem, 
 however, that he had not anticipated any resentment on 
 the part of Wilkes and Churchill, whose persons his satire 
 had spared, and with whom he lived in a sort of friendly 
 intercourse, resembling an armed neutrality. Wilkes, with 
 unconscious naivete, when he heard of the contemplated 
 assault upon him and his friends, requested Hogarth to 
 meddle with moral subjects and as the same request 
 suited Churchill, it was made in both their names. Pre- 
 cious advice to Hogarth ! He had poured out his strength, 
 from youth to age, on profligacy, male and female ; he 
 had rebuked the folly of popular projectors ; read a lesson, 
 and a terrible one, to the heartless alliances which rank 
 forms with riches ; attacked the House of Commons in 
 the corrupt elections of members of parliament and, at 
 the hazard of his sovereign's displeasure, satirized the royal 
 guards. Hogarth now held the situation of sergeant- 
 painter to the king, and might think himself justified, if 
 not called upon, in defending the government. " The 
 Times " at any rate presented a fit subject for humorous 
 satire, and he was not sparing. And for Wilkes whose 
 whole life was one systematic and continual act of aggres- 
 sion against others, who had devoted himself to the service 
 of a faction, and spared neither wit nor falsehood in 
 furthering of his cause for him to order Hogarth to relin- 
 quish his own constant satiric employment, and leave to 
 him a monopoly of party bitterness, seems a strange and 
 romantic demand. 
 
 When the venomous article in the " North Briton " ap- 
 peared, Hogarth, who had not then attacked Wilkes, felt 
 deeply the insinuations which it contained, both in a 
 domestic and a loyal sense, and sought immediate revenge. 
 What the pen was to the politician, the pencil was to the 
 artist, and he accordingly produced that celebrated piece, 
 which can scarcely be called a caricature, since it represents 
 strongly, but truly, the bodily and mental image of John 
 Wilkes. The artist has placed in the civic chair this 
 patron saint of purity and liberty a mark for perpetual 
 laughter and loathing. For what he thought of his work
 
 132 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 we have his own words : " My friends advised me," says 
 Hogarth, " to laugh at the nonsense of party writing 
 who would mind it ? But I could not rest ; for 
 
 " ' He that filches from me my good name, 
 Robs me of that which not enriches him, 
 And makes me poor indeed.' 
 
 Such being my feelings, I wished to return the compli- 
 ment, and turn it to some advantage. This renowned 
 patriot's portrait, drawn as like as I could as to features, 
 and marked with some indications of his mind, answered 
 my purpose. The ridiculous was apparent to every eye. 
 A Brutus a saviour of his country with such an aspect 
 was so arrant a farce, that, though it gave rise to much 
 laughter in the lookers-on, it galled both him and his 
 adherents. This was proved by the papers being crammed 
 every day with invectives against the artist, till the 
 town grew sick of thus seeing me always at full length. 
 Churchill, Wilkes's toadeater, put the ' North Briton ' 
 into verse in an ' Epistle to Hogarth ; ' but as the abuse was 
 precisely the same, except a little poetical heightening, it 
 made no impression, but perhaps effaced or weakened the 
 black strokes of the ' North Briton.' However, having an 
 old plate by me, with some parts ready sunk as a back- 
 ground and a dog, I began to consider how I could turn so 
 much work laid aside to some account and so patched up 
 a print of Master Churchill, in the character of a bear. The 
 pleasure and pecuniary advantage derived from these two 
 engravings, together with occasionally riding on horseback, 
 restored me to as much health as can be expected at my 
 time of life." 
 
 Of the attack by Churchill, Hogarth speaks lightly 
 and with reason. The poet's character entitled him to take 
 no such liberty with a man of genius, whose name was spot- 
 less ; he had first disgraced the clerical character by his 
 libertinism, and afterwards flung it aside in scorn and con- 
 tempt of all decorum : he then commenced satirist by pro- 
 fession, with great success, and during a short and loose 
 life published various poems, of very unequal merits, though 
 all vehement, bitter, and distinguished by a vigorous swing
 
 HOGARTH. 133 
 
 of versification, recalling a shadow at least of the charm 
 of Dryden. Licentious manners, with wit at will, made 
 Churchill welcome to Wilkes, a man as gay, as witty, 
 and as loose as himself. The abuse of such a personage 
 ought not to have been very formidable, but his popularity 
 made it so ; and with the buyers and quoters of his libels 
 be the blame : " Hogarth," he thus writes to Wilkes, 
 " has broke into my pale of private life, and set that exam- 
 ple of illiberality which I wanted. I intend an elegy on 
 him, supposing him dead ; but (naming a cour- 
 tesan) tells me, with a kiss, that he will be really dead 
 before it comes out, for that I have already killed him. 
 How sweet is flattery from the woman we love ! " 
 
 The consistency of Churchill no one can praise; the 
 malevolence of his nature all must condemn. Of Hogarth 
 he had already written very sharp and venomous things, 
 and had pulled him down, as he boasted and imagined, 
 to the brink of the grave, before the artist moved his 
 pencil against him. In his celebrated epistle he had accused 
 the great painter of being envious, jealous, and vain ; of 
 liking his own works, and disliking those of the ancients ; 
 and, finally, of being weak, helpless, and grey-headed ; and 
 yet, when Hogarth retaliates in a feeble performance, the 
 poet cries out in an ecstasy " He has broken into my pale 
 of private life, has set the example of illiberality which I 
 wanted, and, as he is dying from the effects of my former 
 chastisement, I shall hasten his decease by writing his 
 elegy." An attack such as this came ungracefully from a 
 man so impure as Churchill. He writes the atrocious letter 
 which I have quoted, with his concubine at his side, to re- 
 ward his satire with her purchased caresses. Wilkes says 
 truly, in allusion to his own portrait, that he did not make 
 himself, and cared little about the beauty of the case that 
 contained his soul ; neither did Hogarth make himself old 
 yet Churchill exults in the declining health and old age 
 of Hogarth, and rejoices that his enemy is nigh the grave. 
 The green ear is spared sometimes no more than the ripe 
 the youthful poet was near his own. Milton was not 
 unwilling to claim the merit of having shortened the life 
 of Salmasius, and Churchill had such faith in the terrors
 
 134 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 of his own verse, that his vanity was pleased when the 
 death of Hogarth was imputed to his satire. On the whole 
 this quarrel showed more venom than wit : " Never," 
 says Walpole, " did two angry men of their abilities throw 
 mud with less dexterity." 
 
 The print of " The Times," which occasioned these in- 
 vectives, verses, and caricatures, is a performance exclu- 
 sively political and therefore of local and temporary inte- 
 rest. We must view it through the vista of the year 1764, 
 and not with the hope that general knowledge of nature 
 will supply us with skill to feel and comprehend it. To 
 those unacquainted with the bickerings, and heartburnings, 
 and political manoeuvrings of those shifting and slippery 
 times, the print will appear as a ridiculous mystery, or an 
 unintelligible riddle. It was intended as a satire upon Mr. 
 Pitt, afterwards Earl of Chatham a man of commanding 
 eloquence and astonishing energy of mind ; but who was 
 accused of being more charmed with the applause of the 
 mob, than became one aspiring to the rule of a mighty 
 nation. 
 
 The last work of Hogarth was worthy of his genius, and 
 is known to the world by the title of " Credulity, Super- 
 stition, and Fanaticism." It was the intention of the artist 
 to give a literal representation of the strange effects result- 
 ing from literal and low conceptions of sacred things ; as 
 also of the idolatrous tendency of pictures in churches, and 
 prints in religious books. To exemplify this he had not 
 far to travel ; the more grovelling of the sectaries they 
 whose enthusiastic delusions Bishop Lavington terms " re- 
 ligion run mad " supplied the first ; the Church of Rome 
 the old queen and mother of hypocrisy and corruption 
 furnished the rest. 
 
 He has pictured forth a fierce preacher and a startled 
 congregation. Over the heads of his audience the divine 
 shakes a god with his right hand, holding a devil as a re- 
 serve in his left, to intimate that should the former fail to 
 draw them to godliness, with the latter will be their por- 
 tion. He thinks, with Bums, that, 
 
 " The fear of hell's a hangman's whip, 
 To hold the wretch in order."
 
 HOGARTH. 135 
 
 His looks speak plainly and never did fanatic preside 
 over a congregation more devoutly delirious. One hearer 
 lias sprung to his feet in a kind of agony of rapture ; the 
 hair of a second has risen fairly on end, and seems resolved 
 to stand ; a third has fallen into a swoon ; a fourth hugs 
 an image with peculiar ecstasy ; a fifth a female devotee 
 faints, and falls back in a very ecstatic manner ; while 
 the sixth, one of the soft sex, whose celestial visions, like 
 those of Saint Theresa, suffer discredit by the loose com- 
 pany she keeps, has got a male devotee at her left hand, 
 whose touches have shaken her sanctity so much, that she 
 is dropping the image of her patron saint from her bosom. 
 A Turk looks in at the window, smoking his cigar, and 
 seemingly highly pleased at the sight of superstition which 
 surpasses his own. The burlesque of Hogarth, after all, 
 goes no farther than the seriousness of others. " Over a 
 Popish altar at Worms," says Burnet, " there is a picture, 
 one would think invented to ridicule transubstantiation. 
 There is a windmill, and the Virgin Mary throws Christ 
 into the hopper, and he comes out at the eye of the mill 
 all in wafers, which a priest takes up to give to the 
 people." 
 
 But the time was now approaching when superstition, 
 and folly, and vice were to be relieved from the satiric pencil 
 which had awed them so long the health of Hogarth be- 
 gan to decline. He was aware of this, and purchased a 
 small house at Chiswick, to which he retired during the 
 summer, amusing himself with making slight sketches and 
 retouching his plates. This house stood till lately on a 
 very pretty spot ; but the demon of building came into the 
 neighbourhood, choked up the garden, and destroyed the 
 secluded beauty of Hogarth's cottage. The garden, well 
 stored with walnut, mulberry, and apple trees, contained a 
 small study, with a headstone placed over a favourite bull- 
 finch, on which the artist had etched the bird's head and 
 written an epitaph. The cottage contained many snug 
 rooms, and was but yesterday the residence of a man of 
 learning and genius Mr. Gary, the translator of Dante. 
 The change of scene, the free fresh air, and exercise on horse- 
 back, had for a while a favourable influence on Hogarth's
 
 136 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 health ; but he complained that he was no longer able to 
 think with the readiness, and work with the elasticity of 
 spirit, of his earlier years. The friends of the artist ob- 
 served, and lamented, this falling away ; his enemies 
 hastened to congratulate Churchill and Wilkes on the 
 success of their malevolence ; and these men were capable 
 of rejoicing in the belief that the work of nature was their 
 own. 
 
 Though the health of Hogarth was declining, his spirits 
 and powers of humour did not forsake him. In one of his 
 memorandum books he remarks " I can safely assert that 
 I have invariably endeavoured to make those about me 
 tolerably happy ; and my greatest enemy cannot say I ever 
 did an intentional injury ; though, without ostentation, I 
 could produce many instances of men that have been essen- 
 tially benefited by me. What may follow, God knows." 
 This was written nigh the close of his life, and seems en- 
 titled to the respect of a rigid self-examination ; a confes- 
 sion which has a sacred air deserves confidence. To Wilkes 
 on the whole rather than to Churchill, I must impute 
 the vexation which aggravated his illness. Whatever merit 
 there may be in disturbing the latter days of a man of 
 genius, and in pouring additional bitterness into the part- 
 ing cup, must be conceded to the former: " One, till now," 
 thus Hogarth writes, " rather my friend and flatterer, at- 
 tacked me in so infamous and malign a style, that he him- 
 self, when pushed even by his best friends, was driven to 
 so poor an excuse as to say he was drunk when he wrote 
 it. Being at that time very weak, and in a kind of slow 
 fever, it could not but seize on a feeling mind." It would, 
 however, be unjust to deny that Churchill did all he could 
 to depreciate the genius, and infest the dying bed of Ho- 
 garth. In his poem of " Independence," published in the 
 last week of September, 1764, he contemptuously considers 
 him as already in the grave : these are his words 
 
 " Hogarth would draw him, envy must allow, 
 E'en to the life, were Hogarth living now." 
 
 It is painful enough to contemplate a sharp and mali- 
 cious spirit anticipating the grave, and exulting over a
 
 HOGARTH. 137 
 
 dying man ; but it is still more sorrowful to think that 
 the profligate Churchill has been commended for the cow- 
 ardly rancour with which he thus insulted one so far supe- 
 rior to himself in worth as well as in genius. 
 
 Hogarth left Chiswick on the 25th of October, 1 764, and 
 returned to his residence in Leicester Square. He was 
 very weak, yet exceedingly cheerful ; for as the decline of 
 his health was slow, he experienced no violent attacks 
 nature was silently giving way ; his understanding con- 
 tinued clear, he had full possession of his mental faculties, 
 but wanted the vigour to exert them. With the nature of 
 his disorder no physician seems to have made himself 
 acquainted ; nor is there any account of who attended 
 him ; yet we must not suppose that he was without the 
 benefit of medical advice, or that he had no faith in physic. 
 Next day, having received an agreeable letter from Dr. 
 Franklin, he rough-wrote an answer, and finding himself 
 exhausted, retired to bed. He had lain but a short while 
 when he was seized with a vomiting, and, starting up, rung 
 the bell with such violence that he broke it in pieces. 
 Mary Lewis, a worthy and affectionate relative, came and 
 supported him in her arms till, after two hours' suffering, 
 he expired, from a suffusion of blood among the arteries 
 of the heart. 
 
 Hogarth was buried without any ostentation in the 
 churchyard of Chiswick; where a monument, with the 
 family arms, was erected to his memory, and inscribed 
 with the following words : " Here lieth the body of 
 William Hogarth, Esq., who died October the 26th 1764, 
 aged sixty-seven years." A mask, a laurel wreath, a palette, 
 pencils and book, inscribed Analysis of Beauty, are carved 
 on one side of the monument, accompanied by the following 
 verses by Garrick : 
 
 " Farewell, great painter of mankind ! 
 
 Who reach'd the noblest point of art, 
 Whose pictured morals charm the mind, 
 
 And through the eye correct the heart. 
 If Genius fire thce, reader, stay, 
 
 If nature touch thee, drop a tear, 
 If neither move thee turn away 
 
 For Hogarth's honour'd dust lies here."
 
 138 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 Another and a higher hand, that of Dr. Johnson, supplied 
 an epitaph more to the purpose, but still unworthy: 
 
 " The hand of him here torpid lies 
 That drew the essential forms of grace : 
 
 Here closed in death the attentive eyes 
 That saw the manners in the face." 
 
 His sister Ann followed him to the grave in 1771, and 
 his wife, who loved him living, and honoured him dead, 
 was laid beside him, in November, 1789, in the eightieth 
 year of her age and there was an end of the House of 
 Hogarth. 
 
 William Hogarth was rather below the middle size ; his 
 eye was peculiarly bright and piercing ; his look shrewd, 
 sarcastic, and intelligent ; the forehead high and round. 1 
 An accident in his youth had left a scar on his brow, and 
 he liked to wear his hat raised so as to display it. He was 
 active in person, bustling in manner, and fond of affecting 
 a little state and importance. He was of a temper cheerful, 
 joyous, and companionable ; fond of mirth and good-fellow- 
 ship, 2 desirous of saying strong and pointed things ; 
 
 1 His own admirably-painted portrait in the National Gallery gives us 
 a faithful idea of his shrewd, honest face. He has represented himself 
 leaning on piled yolumes of Shakespeare, Milton, and Swift, as if these 
 were his favourite authors. His little dog Trump, with a physiognomy 
 something like his master's, is also there, ready to snarl at " old masters " 
 on occasion, while his palette, with his cherished " line of beauty and 
 grace " marked upon it, fills the left-hand corner. This portrait, which 
 is dated 1745, was engraved by Hogarth himself in 1749. It is affirmed 
 by several of his biographers that he used this plate for his satirical print 
 of Churchill as a Russian bear, but it does not seem certain from his own 
 account that this was so, in spite of the strong similarity of arrangement. 
 He himself merely says, " Having an old plate by me with some part 
 ready sunk as a background and a dog, I began to consider how I could 
 turn so much work to account, and so patched up a print of Master 
 Churchill in the character of a bear." Surely if it had been the finished 
 plate of his own portrait he thus " patched up," he would have men- 
 tioned it. ED. 
 
 * Hogarth's joviality and good-fellowship are abundantly manifest in 
 the amusing record he has left us of his rollicking tour in Kent, made 
 with four chosen companions in 1732. The original sketch-book, con 
 taining an account of the doings of this eccentric and lively party, is now 
 in the British Museum, having been purchased, in 1847, for about 100. 
 0n the title-page of this merry volume is written "An account of what
 
 HOGARTH. 139 
 
 ardent in friendship and in resentment. His lively con- 
 versation his knowledge of character his readiness of 
 speech and quickness of retort, made many covet his 
 
 seem'd most remarkable in the Five Days' peregrination of the Five 
 Following persons, viz., Messieurs Tothall, Scott, Hogarth, Thornhill, 
 and Forrest. Begun of Saturday, May the 27th, 1732, and Finished on 
 the 31st of the same month. ( Abi tu et fac similiter.' Inscription of 
 Dulwich Colledge." Hogarth, and Scott a landscapist of some note in his 
 day, though now chiefly known to us in connection with this tour, were 
 the artists of the party : Thornhill made the map; Tothall was treasurer; 
 while Forrest wrote an account of the proceedings, which was afterwards 
 turned into humorous Hudibrastic verse by their friend the Rev. W. 
 Gostling. He relates how the party started at first of morn from Covent 
 Garden "to see the world by land and water;" how they took a tilt- 
 boat down the river, and, borne along by a mackerel gale, and refresh- 
 ing themselves from time to time with biscuit, beef, and gin, arrived at 
 Gravesend about six, where they went to a certain Mrs. Bramble's and 
 got breakfast and a barber for their wigs ; how they then set out to 
 walk to Rochester, drinking three pots of ale on the way, which enabled 
 them 
 
 " By ten 
 At Rochester to drink again ; " 
 
 How they saw the Castle, Cathedral, and Watt's Hospital, and took up 
 their quarters at the " Crown," where the fare, consisting 
 
 " Of soles, flounders, with crab sauce, 
 A stuffed and roast calf's heart beside, 
 With purt'nance minced and liver fryed ; " 
 
 and the liquor, "fresh beer and sound port," were so much to their taste 
 that they decided not to rise from table till three o'clock ; how after this 
 heavy dinner, Scott and Hogarth were still able to play Scotch-hop in the 
 Town-hall ; how they then went on to Chatham, where they treated 
 themselves to shrimps, and then, after more drink, went to bed. Their 
 adventures on the next day, Sunday, are of a similar kind, perhaps even 
 more " frolicksome and gay," for they play all sorts of tricks with one 
 another, just like schoolboys, and pelt each other with stones and other 
 weapons, and commit no end of merry foolery. At night they have all 
 to sleep in one room, which again arouses their combative propensities, 
 and the next day they travel on to Queenborough, where Hogarth makes 
 a clever sketch of its 
 
 "One short street, 
 Broad and well pav'd and very neat." 
 
 After some experience of sea-sickness off Sheerness, and various other 
 adventures, they get back on Wednesday to Gravesend, and from thence 
 to London, where they arrive, it is to be feared, neither sadder nor wiser 
 men. Eu.
 
 140 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 company, who were sometimes the objects of his satire; but 
 he employed his wit on those who were present, and spared 
 or defended the absent. His personal spirit was equal to 
 his satiric talents ; he provoked, with his pencil, the temper 
 of those whom it was not prudent to offend ; with him no 
 vice nor folly found shelter behind wealth, or rank, or power. 
 As to the licence of his tongue, he himself often said that 
 he never uttered that sentence about a living man which 
 he would not repeat gladly to his face : as to his works, he 
 always felt conscious of their merit, and predicted with 
 equal openness that his name would descend with no 
 decrease of honour to posterity. He loved state in his 
 dress, good order in his household, and the success of his 
 works enabled him to indulge in the luxuries of a good 
 table and pleasant guests. 
 
 No one, save Wilkes, ever questioned his domestic 
 serenity; and his insinuation, which I shall not repeat, 
 appears to have been made without the slightest cause, and 
 for the sake of saying something sharp and annoying. He 
 was a good husband, and Jane Thornhill was an indulgent 
 wife. He felt the injurious insinuations of Wilkes, chiefly on 
 his wife's account ; and his widow resented the discourteous 
 language of Walpole, and the coarse invectives of Steevens, 
 with a temper and a calmness which command all respect. 
 
 " In his relations of husband, brother, friend, and 
 master," says Ireland, " he was kind, generous, sincere, 
 and indulgent ; in diet abstemious, but in his hospitalities, 
 though devoid of ostentation, liberal and free-hearted : not 
 parsimonious, yet frugal ; but so comparatively small were 
 the rewards then paid to artists, that after the labour of a 
 long life he left a very inconsiderable sum to his widow, 
 with whom he must have received a large portion." To 
 this Steevens reluctantly adds, that Hogarth was a punctual 
 paymaster was uniformly kind to his sisters and to his 
 cousin Mary Lewis ; and what I hold, though last, not 
 least that his domestics had remained many years in his 
 service, and that he painted all their portraits and hung 
 them up in his house. 
 
 By her husband's will Mrs. Hogarth received the sole 
 property of his numerous plates, and the copyright was
 
 HOGABTH. 141 
 
 secured to her for twenty years by act of parliament. 
 There were seventy- two plates from which such a number 
 of impressions were regularly sold as produced a very 
 respectable annual income. But she outlived the period 
 of her right ; and indeed, even before this was the case, 
 through the fluctuation of public taste, the sale of the 
 prints had so much diminished as to reduce Mrs. Hogarth 
 to the border of want. The interposition of the king with 
 the Royal Academy at length obtained for her an annuity 
 of <40, which she lived but two years to enjoy. 
 
 Steevens, a person who misconceived Hogarth's genius, 
 since he said it was exclusively comic, and who was there- 
 fore likely to misunderstand his character, has described 
 him as a man whose whole powers of pleasing were con- 
 fined to his pencil whose manners were gross and uncul- 
 tivated whose social ambition aspired no higher than to 
 shine in a club of mechanics, and who was rarely admitted 
 into polite circles. Much of this cannot be true. The 
 society into which his profession threw him was often of a 
 high order ; he had painted portraits and family conver- 
 sation-pieces for many years ; he had corresponded with 
 and kept the company of men eminent for rank and talent, 
 and his letters to Lord Charlemont and Eichard Lord 
 Grosvenor, are distinguished for their courtesy and for- 
 bearance. He had sat too with Gray the poet at the table 
 of Walpole ; and Walpole himself, the biographer of the 
 artist, and one unlikely to forget a breach of decorum or 
 signal grossness in conversation, since it would have em- 
 bellished the portraiture he was soon to draw, has been 
 silent. The account which West gave of his being a little 
 bustling and important man his love of dress and good 
 order the state which he affected for he kept his car- 
 riage and his very love of speaking of early hardships in 
 contrast to his present condition, all these circumstances 
 seem to contradict the testimony of Steevens. 
 
 Nor is the opinion of this person entitled to much more 
 consideration when, upon the subject of the indelicacy of 
 the works of Hogarth, he opposes the decision of Walpole. 
 " When the Flemish painters attempt humour," says the 
 latter, " it is by making a drunkard vomit ; they take
 
 142 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 evacuations for jokes ; and when they make us sick, they 
 think they make us laugh. A boor hugging a frightful 
 frow is a frequent incident even in the works of Teniers. 
 The views of Hogarth were more generous and extensive 
 mirth coloured his pictures, but benevolence designed 
 them he smiled like Socrates, that men might not be 
 offended at his lectures, and might learn to laugh at their 
 ownf ollies." This sensible and accurate estimate displeased 
 Steevens, who proceeded to examine into the grossnesses 
 and indelicacies, real and imaginary, of a man whom he 
 sought to dissect rather than criticize ; and in this impure 
 pursuit he is gratified with the detection of open even 
 of dawning delinquencies. The account of his discoveries 
 may be very briefly dismissed ; they are few and incon- 
 siderable in regard to so voluminous an artist, and they 
 are such as naturally presented themselves in works which 
 had a higher aim, as a picture of vice mingles with the 
 sermon which brands and crushes it. Indeed it is won- 
 derful that these blemishes are so few and so trivial. In 
 grappling with folly, and in combating with crimes, he 
 was compelled to reveal the nature of that which he pro- 
 posed to satirize ; he was obliged to set up sin in its high 
 place, before he could crown it with infamy. He shows 
 depravity for the sake of amending it the Flemings ex- 
 hibited indecency for our amusement 1 and it was Mr. 
 Steevens' s own fault that he could not see the distinction. 
 
 Of Hogarth many anecdotes are related some are trivial 
 and unimportant, others refer to his character and habits 
 and modes of study ; I shall select a few of the latter, as 
 the reader may be desirous to see the first eminent artist 
 whom our country produced, as others saw him, and to 
 know how he looked among his brethren of the pencil and 
 the graver. 
 
 Hogarth treated those who sat for their portraits with a 
 courtesy which is not always practised now. " When I sat 
 to Hogarth," said Mr. Cole, "the custom of giving vails to 
 servants was not discontinued. On taking leave of the 
 painter at the door, I offered his servant a small gratuity, 
 but the man very politely refused it, telling me it would 
 be as much as the loss of his place if his master knew it.
 
 HOGARTH. 143 
 
 This was so uncommon and so liberal in a man of Hogarth's 
 profession at that time of day, that it much struck me, as 
 nothing of the kind had happened to me before." Nor 
 is it likely that such a thing would happen again Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds gave his servant <6 annually of wages, 
 and offered him <100 a-year for the door ! 
 
 It was Hogarth's custom to sketch out on the spot any 
 remarkable face which struck him, and of which he wished 
 to preserve an accurate remembrance. He was once ob- 
 served in the Bedford coffee-house drawing something with 
 a pencil on the nail of his left thumb he held it up to a 
 friend who accompanied him it was the face, and a very 
 singular one, of a person in the same room the likeness 
 was excellent. 1 He had dined with some friends at a tavern 
 and as he threw his cloak about him to be gone, he ob- 
 served his friend Ben Eead sound asleep, and presenting 
 a most ridiculous physiognomy : Hogarth eyed him for a 
 moment, and saying softly, " Heavens, what a character!" 
 called for pen and ink, and drew his portrait without sit- 
 ting down : a curious and clever likeness, and still exist- 
 ing. 
 
 It was in a temporary summer residence at Isleworth 
 that he painted the " Rake's Progress." The crowd of 
 visitors to his study was immense. He often asked them 
 if they knew for whom one or another figure in the picture 
 was designed, and when they guessed wrong he set them 
 right. It was generally believed that the heads were chiefly 
 portraits of low characters well known in town. In the 
 
 1 Four clever drawings, representing characters who frequented 
 " Button's," are now in the British Museum. They are drawn in strong 
 outline and washed with Indian ink or bistre, as was the custom with 
 Hogarth, which gives a very decided character to the faces. The writer 
 possesses a characteristic drawing of the same kind, in which a 
 company of two gentlemen and a lady are represented seated at a table 
 playing cards. A black servant hands tea, and a child plays with a 
 little dog. The outlines in this drawing are very black and firm, and 
 the whole is drawn in a most masterly manner. There are also two oil 
 sketches by Hogarth in the British Museum, one of which represents 
 " Orator Henley Christening a Child." One of the most graceful female 
 figures Hogarth has ever drawn occurs in this sketch; the other is merely 
 a sketch of a female head. ED.
 
 144 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 " Miser's Feast " he introduced Sir Isaac Shard, a person 
 proverbially avaricious ; his son, a young man of spirit, 
 heard of this, and calling at the painter's requested to see 
 the picture. The young man asked the servant whether 
 that old figure was intended for any particular person, who 
 answered it was thought to be very like one Sir Isaac Shard, 
 whereupon he drew his sword and slashed the canvas. 
 Hogarth heard the bustle, and was very angry. Young 
 Shard said, " You have taken an unwarrantable licence I 
 am the injured party's son, and ready to defend my con- 
 duct at law." He went away, and was never afterwards 
 molested. 
 
 With a dissatisfied sitter the artist was more fortunate. 
 A nobleman of ungainly looks and a little deformed sat 
 for his picture ; Hogarth made a faithful likeness accord- 
 ing to the receipt of Oliver Cromwell ; the peer was offended 
 with this want of courtesy in a man by profession a 
 flatterer, and refused to pay for the picture, or to take it 
 home. Hogarth was nettled, and informed his lordship, 
 that unless he sent for it within three days, he should dis- 
 pose of it, with the addition of a tail, to Hare the wild- 
 beast man. The picture was instantly paid for, removed, 
 and destroyed. A similar story is related of Sir Peter 
 Lely. 
 
 Concerning Hogarth's vanity, Mr. Belchior, a surgeon of 
 some note, told the following story to Nichols, whose ear 
 was a little too open to anything that confirmed Steevens's 
 theory of the artist's ignorance and want of delicacy. " Ho- 
 garth, being at dinner with Dr. Cheselden and some other 
 company, was informed that John Freke, surgeon of St. 
 Bartholomew's hospital, had asserted in Dick's coffee- 
 house, that Greene was as eminent in composition as 
 Handel. ' That fellow, Freke,' cried Hogarth, ' is always 
 shooting his bolt absurdly one way or another. Handel is 
 a giant in music, Greene only a light Florimel kind of com- 
 poser.' ' Ay, but,' said the other, ' Freke declared you 
 were as good a portrait-painter as Vandyke.' ' There he 
 was in the right,' quoth Hogarth ; ' and so I am, give me 
 but my time and let me choose my subject.' " 
 
 With Dr. Hoadley, who corrected the manuscript of the
 
 HOGARTH. 145 
 
 " Analysis of Beauty " for the press, Hogarth was on such 
 friendly terms that he was admitted into one of the private 
 theatrical exhibitions which the doctor loved, and was ap- 
 pointed to perform, along with Grarrick and his entertainer, 
 a parody on that scene in Julius Caesar where the ghost 
 appears to Brutus. Hogarth personated the spectre ; but 
 sounretentive (wearetold) was his memory, that though 
 the speech consisted only of two lines he was unable to get 
 them by heart, and his facetious associates wrote them on 
 an illuminated lantern, that he might read them when he 
 came upon the stage. Such is the way in which anecdotes 
 are manufactured, and conclusions of absence or imbecility 
 drawn. The speech of the ghost written on the paper lantern 
 formed part of the humour of the burlesque. Men, dull in 
 comprehending the eccentricities of genius, set down what 
 passes their own understanding to the account of the other's 
 stupidity. 
 
 His thoughts were so much employed on scenes which 
 he had just witnessed, or on works which he contemplated, 
 that he sometimes had neither eyes nor ears for anything 
 else ; this has subjected him to the charge of utter absence 
 of mind. " At table," says Nichols, " he would sometimes 
 turn his chair round as if he had finished eating, and as 
 suddenly would re-turn it and fall to his meal again." Ac- 
 cording to this writer soon after our artist set up his 
 carriage, he went to visit Beckford, who was then Lord 
 Major ; the day became stormy during the interview ; and 
 when Hogarth took his leave, he went out at a wrong door 
 forgot that he had a carriage could not find a hackney 
 coach, and came home wet to the skin, to the astonishment 
 of his wife. This is a good story and it may be true. 
 When Fonthill, the residence of Beckford, was burnt, five 
 out of six of the paintings of " The Harlot's Progress " 
 were unfortunately consumed. The whole series of the 
 " Rake's Progress " escaped into the safe keeping of John 
 Soane, the architect, together with " The Four Election 
 Pictures." For the former he gave 570 guineas for the 
 latter 1,732. 
 
 Accompanying the prints of Hogarth's favourite works, 
 appeared explanations in verse, sometimes with the names
 
 146 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 of the authors, but oftener without, and all alike distin- 
 guished by weakness and want of that graphic accuracy 
 which marked the engravings. London was at that time 
 infested with swarms of wandering verse-makers, who wrote 
 rhymes on occasions of public mourning or private distress, 
 and who supplied printsellers with jingling commendations 
 of the works which they published. They wrote epigrams 
 for half-a-crown each a fair price for four wretched lines. 
 From such men Hogarth is supposed to have obtained 
 many of the verses which are attached to his prints. But 
 less charitable persons have ascribed them all to himself. 
 
 Heidegger, a Swiss, and the Thersites of his day, had. a 
 face beyond the reach of caricatura: his portrait by Ho- 
 garth is nature without addition or exaggeration, and it 
 appears in all its hideousness 
 
 " Something between a Heidegger and owl " 
 
 in the little humorous print of the " Masquerade." This 
 man obtained the management of the Opera House, was 
 countenanced by the court, and amassed a fortune. Being 
 once asked in company what nation had the greatest inge- 
 nuity " The Swiss ! " exclaimed Heidegger. " I came to 
 England without a farthing, where I gain five thousand a 
 year, and spend it : now I defy the cleverest of you all to 
 do the same in Switzerland." 
 
 Hogarth was fond of making experiments in his profes- 
 sion. He resolved to finish the engraving of the first print 
 of the " Election," without taking a proof to ascertain the 
 success of his labours. He had nearly spoiled the plate, 
 and was so affected with the misadventure that he ex- 
 claimed, " I am ruined." He soon, however, proceeded to 
 repair the damage which his haste or obstinacy had caused, 
 and with such good fortune that the print in question is 
 one of the clearest and cleverest of all his productions. 
 
 " When Barry, the painter," says Smith, "was asked if he 
 had ever seen Hogarth, ' Yes once,' he replied, ' I was 
 walking with Joe Nollekens through Cranbourne Alley, 
 when he exclaimed, 'There! there's Hogarth.' 'What,' 
 said I, ' that little man in a sky-blue coat ? ' Off I ran, 
 and though I lost sight of him only for a moment or two,
 
 HOGARTH. 147 
 
 when I turned the corner into Castle Street, he was pat- 
 ting one of two quarrelling boys on the back, and looking 
 steadfastly at the expression in the coward's face, cried, 
 ' Damn him, if I would take it of him at him again.' " x 
 
 The character of William Hogarth as a man is to be 
 sought for in his conduct, and in the opinions of his more 
 dispassionate contemporaries ; his character as an artist 
 is to be gathered from numerous works, at once original 
 and unrivalled. His fame has flown far and wide ; his 
 skill as an engraver spread his reputation as a painter ; 
 and all who love the dramatic representation of actual life 
 all who have hearts to be gladdened by humour all who 
 are pleased with judicious and well-directed satire all 
 who are charmed with the ludicrous looks of popular folly 
 and all who can be moved with the pathos of human 
 suffering are admirers of Hogarth. That his works are 
 unlike those of other men, is his merit, not his fault. He 
 belonged to no school of art ; he was the produce of no 
 academy ; no man living or dead had any share in forming 
 his mind, or in rendering his hand skilful. He was the 
 spontaneous offspring of the graphic spirit of his country, 
 as native to the art of England as independence is, and 
 he may be fairly called, in his own walk, the first-born of 
 her spirit. 
 
 He painted life as he saw it. He gives no visions of 
 bygone things no splendid images of ancient manners ; 
 he regards neither the historian's page nor the poet's song. 
 He was contented with the occurrences of the passing day 
 with the folly or the sin of the hour ; to the garb and 
 fashion of the moment, however, he adds story and senti- 
 ment for all time. 
 
 The morality of Hogarth has been questioned ; and in- 
 deed the like has befallen Crabbe. We may smile as we 
 look at his works, and we may laugh all this is true : 
 
 1 It is almost impossible that this story can be true. Barry arrived in 
 London some time in 1764, and Hogarth died in the October of that same 
 year. Moreover, Nollekens went to Italy in 1760, and did not return 
 until 1770, therefore could never have seen Barry on English soil until 
 six years after Hogarth's death. The story is told in Smith's " Nolle- 
 kens," which we have already seen is an untrustworthy authority.
 
 148 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 the victims whom Hogarth conducts pass through many 
 varied scenes of folly, and commit many absurdities ; but 
 the spectacle saddens as we move along, and if we com- 
 mence in mirth, we are overwhelmed with sorrow at last. 1 
 His object was to insinuate the excellence of virtue by 
 proving the hideousness of vice ; and, if he has failed 
 who has succeeded ? As to other charges, preferred by the 
 malice of his contemporaries, time and fame have united 
 in disproving them. He has been accused of want of 
 knowledge in the human form, and of grace and serenity 
 of expression. There is some truth in this perhaps ; but 
 the peculiar character of his pictures required mental 
 vigour rather than external beauty, and serene Ma- 
 donna-like loveliness could not find a place among the 
 follies and frivolities of the passing scene. He saw a way 
 of his own to fame, and followed it ; he scorned all imita- 
 tion, and by words and works recommended nature for an 
 example and a monitress in art. 
 
 His grammatical accuracy and skill in spelling have been 
 doubted by men who are seldom satisfied with anything 
 short of perfection ; and they have added the accusation, 
 that he was gross and unpolished. Must men of genius 
 be examples of both bodily and mental perfection ? Look 
 at the varied works of Hogarth, and say could a man over- 
 flowing with such knowledge of men and manners be called 
 illiterate or ignorant ? He was of no college but not there- 
 fore unlearned ; he was of no academy yet who will ques- 
 tion his excellence in- art? He acquired learning by his 
 study of human nature in his intercourse with the world 
 in his musings on the changes of seasons and on the 
 varying looks of the nation and the aspect of the universe. 
 He drank at the great fountain of information, and went 
 by the ancient road ; and till it is shown that his works 
 
 1 Charles Lamb in his well known essay " On the Genius and 
 Character of Hogarth," points out the mistake of supposing that Hogarth 
 was " one of those whose chief ambition was to raise a laugh." He says 
 of his prints, " A set of severer satires (for they are not so much 
 comedies which they have been likened to, as they are strong and mas- 
 culine satires) less mingled with anything of mere fun, were never 
 written upon paper or graven upon copper. They resemble Juvenal or 
 the satiric touches in ' Timon of Athens.'" ED.
 
 HOGARTH. 149 
 
 are without knowledge, I shall look on him as a well-in- 
 formed man. 
 
 In his memorandums respecting the establishment of an 
 Academy of Art in England he writes well and wisely. 
 Voltaire asserts that, after the establishment of the French 
 Academy, not one work of genius appeared, for all the 
 painters became mannerists and imitators. Hogarth agrees 
 with the acute Frenchman ; he declares that " the institu- 
 tion will serve to raise and pension a few bustling and 
 busy men, whose whole employment will be to tell a few 
 simple students when a leg is too long, or an arm too short. 
 More (says Hogarth) will flock to the study of art than 
 what genius sends ; the hope of profit, or the thirst of dis- 
 tinction will induce parents to push their offspring into 
 the lecture-room, and many will appear and but few be 
 worthy. The paintings of Italy form a sort of ornamental 
 fringe to their gaudy religion, and Rome is the general 
 store-shop of Europe. The arts owe much to Popery, and 
 Popery owes much of its universality to the arts. The 
 French have attained to a sort of foppish magnificence in 
 art ; in Holland selfishness is the ruling passion, and in 
 England vanity is united with selfishness. Portrait- 
 painting, therefore, has succeeded, and ever will succeed 
 better in England than in any other country, and the 
 demand will continue as new faces come into the market. 
 Portrait-painting is one of the ministers of vanity, and 
 vanity is a munificent patroness ; historical painting seeks 
 to revive the memory of the dead, and the dead are very 
 indifferent paymasters. Paintings are plentiful enough in 
 England to keep us from the study of nature ; but students 
 who confine their studies to the works of the dead, need 
 never hope to live themselves ; they will learn little more 
 than the names of the painters : true painting can only be 
 learnt in one school, and that is kept by nature." These 
 are the written words of a man illiterate and gross, who 
 was unacquainted with grammar and could not spell ! In 
 this free, clear, and pithy way, Hogarth handled the great 
 question of public instruction in art, and his conduct has 
 been imputed to envy of the growing fame of Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds. If those sarcastic strictures arose from envy
 
 150 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 of which I find no traces the envy of Hogarth was met 
 by the contempt of Reynolds ; for never in all his letters 
 and discourses does Sir Joshua, save once or so, and that 
 with more of censure than of praise, allude even to the 
 existence of his eminent contemporary. 1 
 
 It is seldom that envy urges such sensible reasons for 
 its opposition. Hogarth disliked a formal school, because 
 he was the pupil of nature, and foresaw that students 
 would flock to it from the feeling of trade rather than the 
 impulse of genius, and that it would become a manufactory 
 for conventional forms and hereditary graces. He sati- 
 rized some of the dark masters, and laughed at as well 
 he might their legions of saints and Madonnas. He saw 
 their influence in England, and he lamented it and lam- 
 pooned them ; but he was not, therefore, insensible to the 
 merits of the more eminent masters. Opulent collectors 
 were filling their galleries with the religious paintings of 
 the Romish Church, and vindicating their purchases by 
 representing these works as the only patterns of all that 
 is noble in art and worthy of imitation. Hogarth per- 
 ceived that all this was not according to the natural spirit 
 of the nation ; he well knew that our island had not yet 
 poured out its own original mind in art, as it had done in 
 poetry ; and he felt assured that such a time would come, 
 if native genius were not overlaid systematically by mock 
 patrons and false instructors. In this mood he looked 
 coldly too coldly perhaps on foreign art ; and perhaps 
 too fondly on his own productions. But even there, where 
 vanity soonest misleads the judgment, he thought wisely. 
 He contemplated his own works, not as things excellent 
 in themselves, but as the rudiments of future excellence, 
 and looked forward with the hope that some happier Ho- 
 garth would arise, and raise on the foundation which he 
 had laid a perfect and lasting superstructure. 
 
 " As a painter," says Walpole, " Hogarth has slender 
 merit." What is the merit of a painter ? If it be to re- 
 
 1 A distinguished member of the Royal Academy remarked publicly 
 on this passage in the first edition that Sir Joshua might as well be 
 censured for not naming Fielding and Richardson, as Hogarth was no 
 painter !
 
 HOGARTH. 151 
 
 present life to give us an image of man to exhibit the 
 workings of his heart to record the good and evil of his 
 nature to set in motion before us the very beings with 
 whom earth is peopled to shake us with mirth to sadden 
 us with woeful reflection to please us with natural group- 
 ing, vivid action, and vigorous colouring Hogarth has 
 done all this and if he that has done so be not a painter, 
 who will show us one ? I claim a signification as wide for 
 the word painter as for the word poet. But there seems 
 a disposition to limit the former to those who have been 
 formed under some peculiar course of study and produced 
 works in the fashion of such and such great masters. 
 This I take to be mere pedantry ; and that as well might 
 all men be excluded from the rank of poets, who have not 
 composed epics, dramas, odes, or elegies, according to the 
 rules of the Greeks.
 
 EICHAED WILSON. 
 
 OP the life of EICHAKD WILSON little more is known 
 than what is related by Wright ; whose account, im- 
 perfect and unsatisfactory as it is, was sought for by its 
 author in many sources, and procured with difficulty and 
 fatigue. As the remembrance of the artist himself faded 
 on men's memories, the character of his works began to 
 rise in public estimation. Then, and not till then, the 
 lovers of art perceived that the productions of an English- 
 man, who lived in want and died broken-hearted, equalled, 
 in poetic conception and splendour of colouring, many of 
 the works of those more fortunate painters, who had kings 
 for their protectors, and princes and nobles for their com- 
 panions. 
 
 He was the third son of a clergyman in Montgomery- 
 shire, whose family was of old standing ; and his mother 
 was one of the Wynns of Leeswold a name of great an- 
 tiquity, and enriched with the blood of the kings of the 
 principality. He was born in the year 1713. l His love of 
 art appeared early. How this came upon him, in a place 
 where there were no paintings to awaken his emotions, we 
 are not informed ; but a slight cause will arouse a strong 
 natural spirit. He loved, when a child, to trace figures of 
 men and animals, with a burnt stick, upon the walls of the 
 house ; and his father seems to have been willing to en- 
 courage, rather than repress, this unprofitable propensity. 
 But he must have carried his experiments much farther, 
 and put them into a more alluring shape, before he suc- 
 ceeded in impressing a sense of his talents on his relation, 
 Sir George Wynn, who took him I know not at what age 
 to London, and placed him under the care of one Wright, 
 a painter of portraits, too obscure even for the notice of 
 
 1 According to Redgrave he was born on the 1st of August, 1714. ED.
 
 WILSON. 153 
 
 Walpole. His progress under such a master could be but 
 little ; and no better account can be rendered than that 
 he lived by portraits, and was distinguished among his 
 wretched contemporaries so far as to be employed to paint 
 a picture of the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York, 
 for their tutor, the Bishop of Norwich. This happened in 
 1748, when Wilson was thirty-five years old. 
 
 Wilson's portraits, whether numerous or not, are now 
 forgotten, with the annual thousands which were then, as 
 now, produced to meet the demand of new faces ; nor were 
 they marked, according to all but universal opinion, by any 
 of those happy and graceful touches which please us so 
 much in his landscapes. Edwards, indeed, in his " Anec- 
 dotes of Painters," asserts that in drawing a head he was 
 not excelled by any of the portrait-painters of his time 
 that his treatment was bold and masterly, and his colour- 
 ing in the style of Eembrandt : but Edwards is alone as 
 to this matter. 1 
 
 A great and salutary change was soon to be wrought in 
 the character of his productions. In his six-and- thirtieth 
 year he was enabled by his own savings and the aid of his 
 friends to go to Italy, where his talents procured him notice, 
 and his company was courted by men of sense and rank. 
 He continued the study and practice of portrait-painting, 
 and, it is said, with fair hopes of success, when an accident 
 opened another avenue to fame, and shut up the way to 
 fortune. Having waited one morning till he grew weary 
 for the coming of Zucarelli, the artist, he painted, to be- 
 guile the time, a scene, upon which the window of his 
 friend looked, with so much grace and effect that Zucarelli 
 was astonished, and inquired if he had studied landscape. 
 Wilson replied that he had not. " Then I advise you," 
 (said the other) "to try for you are sure of great success." 
 The counsel of one friend was confirmed by the opinion of 
 another. This was Vernet, a French painter a man whose 
 generosity was equal to his reputation, and that was 
 
 1 A portrait in full length of J. H. Mortimer, by Richard Wilson, 
 was some time ago in the possession of Mr. John Britton, who valued it 
 at 150 guineas, and in 1842 wrote a pamphlet about it and the paintings 
 and merits of Wilson in general. A. C.
 
 154 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 high. One day, while sitting in Wilson's painting-room, 
 he was so struck with the peculiar beauty of a newly- 
 finished landscape that he desired to become its proprietor, 
 and offered in exchange one of his best pictures. This was 
 much to the gratification of the other ; the exchange was 
 made, and, with a liberality equally rare and commendable, 
 Vernet placed his friend's picture in his exhibition-room, 
 and when his own productions happened to be praised or 
 purchased by English travellers, the generous Frenchman 
 used to say, "Don't talk of my landscapes alone, when 
 your own countryman, Wilson, paints so beautifully." 
 
 These praises, and an internal feeling of the merits of 
 his new performances, induced Wilson to relinquish por- 
 trait-painting, and proceed with landscape. He found 
 himself better prepared for this new pursuit than he had 
 imagined ; he had been long insensibly storing his mind 
 with the beauties of natural scenery, and the picturesque 
 mountains and glens of his native Wales had been to him 
 an academy when he was unconscious of their influence. 
 He did not proceed upon that plan of study much recom- 
 mended, but little practised of copying the old masters, 
 with the hope of catching a corresponding inspiration ; 
 but he studied their works, and mastered their methods of 
 attaining excellence, and compared them carefully with 
 nature. By this means he caught the hue and character 
 of Italian scenery, and steeped his spirit in its splendour. 
 His landscapes are fanned with the pure air, warmed with 
 the glowing suns, filled with the ruined temples, and spark- 
 ling with the wooded streams and tranquil lakes of that 
 classic region. 1 His reputation rose so fast that he ob- 
 tained pupils. Mengs, out of regard for his genius, painted 
 his portrait ; and Wilson repaid this flattery with a fine 
 landscape. 
 
 After a residence of six years abroad, he returned to 
 England to try his fortune with his own countrymen ; and 
 the commencement was promising. On his arrival in 
 London, he took apartments on the north side of Covent 
 
 1 Some of his sketches and studies of this period were published at 
 Oxford in 1811, under the title " Studies and Designs by Richard Wilson, 
 done at Rome in the year 1752." ED.
 
 WILSON. 155 
 
 Grarden, where Lely, Kneller, and Thornhill had lived and 
 laboured, and associated with all men distinguished for 
 taste and talent. His picture of " Niobe " confirmed, if it 
 did not increase, the reputation which had followed him 
 from Italy, and his view of Rome raised him to a distinc- 
 tion not surely difficult at that time to attain that of the 
 ablest landscape-painter of his country. The Duke of Cum- 
 berland bought the first l and the Marquis of Tavistock 
 the second of these pieces : the prices have not been re- 
 corded, but they were probably low. He assisted in in- 
 stituting the Royal Academy ; and on the death of Hay- 
 man solicited and obtained the situation of librarian a 
 place of small profit, but not to be despised by one who 
 had to inspire his countrymen with a new taste, before he 
 could expect to have a succession of purchasers. 
 
 The love of landscape-painting spread very slowly so 
 slowly that, after the sale of a few of his works among the 
 more distinguished of the lovers of art, he could not find 
 a market for the fruits of his study and had the mortifi- 
 cation of exhibiting pictures of unrivalled beauty before 
 the eyes of his countrymen in vain. He soon began to feel 
 that in relinquishing portrait-painting he had forsaken the 
 way to wealth and fashionable distinction, and taken the 
 road to certain want and unprofitable fame. The appeal 
 which his original pursuit made to individual vanity was 
 felt, and through it he had acquired a decent livelihood, 
 which his present employment seemed to deny him. To 
 paint the varied aspect of inanimate nature to clothe 
 the pastoral hills with flocks, to give wild-fowl to the 
 lakes, ringdoves to the woods, blossoms to the boughs, 
 verdure to the earth, and sunshine to the sky, is to paint 
 landscape it is true but it is to paint it like a district- 
 surveyor, instead of grouping its picturesque beauties, 
 and inspiring them with what the skilful in art call 
 the sentiment of the scene. Wilson had a poet's feel- 
 
 1 Wilson painted two duplicates of this picture, probably one was for 
 the Duke of Cumberland; but the picture now in the National Gallery 
 was painted for Sir George Beaumont, by whom it was presented to the 
 nation in 1826. It is perhaps the best known of all Wilson's works, 
 having been many times engraved. ED.
 
 156 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 ing and a poet's eye, selected his scenes with judgment, 
 and spread them out in beauty and in all the fresh luxury 
 of nature. He did for landscape what Eeynolds did for 
 faces with equal genius, but far different fortune. A fine 
 scene, rendered still more lovely by the pencil of the artist, 
 did not reward its flatterer with any of its productions 
 either of oil, or corn, or cattle ; as Kneller found dead men 
 indifferent paymasters so inanimate nature proved but a 
 cold patroness to Wilson. 
 
 It was the misfortune of Wilson to be unappreciated in 
 his own day ; and he had the additional mortification of 
 seeing works wholly unworthy of being ranked with his, 
 admired by the public and purchased at large prices. The 
 demand for the pictures of Barret was so great, that the 
 income of that indifferent dauber rose to two thousand 
 pounds a-year ; and the equally weak landscapes of Smith 
 of Chichester were of high value in the market at the 
 time when the works of Wilson were neglected and dis- 
 regarded, and the great artist himself was sinking, in the 
 midst of the capital, under obscurity, indigence, and 
 dejection. He was reduced, by this capricious ignorance 
 of the wealthy and the titled, to work for the meanest 
 of mankind. Hogarth, as we have seen, sold some of his 
 plates for half-a-crown a pound weight and Wilson 
 painted his " Ceyx and Alcyone " for a pot of beer and 
 the remains of a Stilton cheese ! l His chief resource for 
 subsistence was in the sordid liberality of pawnbrokers, to 
 whose hands many of his finest works were consigned wet 
 
 1 From an eminent member of the Royal Academy, I have received 
 the following version of this story to which I could add three others 
 I have retained in the text the most popular one. 
 
 " In the anecdote of Wilson's painting the ' Ceyx and Alcyone ' there 
 is a slight mistake. The Castle and Rock of the picture were painted 
 from and not for a pot of porter and a Stilton cheese. From what I 
 have repeatedly heard Farington say, it was not so much the low prices 
 which Wilson got for his pictures, as the general want of employment, 
 which he had to complain of. For such pictures as those of his which 
 Farington had, and Constable has, he used to receive from ten to fifteen 
 guineas, which, according to the value of money then, is quite equal to 
 the prices received by almost any of us now. I won't name the excep- 
 tions I can only say that I am not one."
 
 WILSON. 157 
 
 from the easel. One person, who had purchased many 
 pictures from him, when urged by the unhappy artist to 
 buy another, took him into his shop-garret, and, pointing 
 to a pile of landscapes, said, " Why, look ye, Dick, you know 
 I wish to oblige, but see ! there are all the pictures I have 
 paid you for these three years." To crown his disappoint- 
 ments in a contest for fame with Smith of Chichester 
 the Royal Society decided against Wilson. 
 
 To account for the caprice of the public, or even for the 
 imperfect taste of a Royal Society, is less difficult than to 
 find a reason for the feelings of dislike, and even hostility, 
 with which Wilson was regarded by Reynolds. We are told 
 that the eminent landscape-painter, notwithstanding all 
 the refinement and intelligence of his mind, was somewhat 
 coarse and repulsive in his manners. He was indeed a 
 lover of pleasant company, a drinker of ale and porter 
 one who loved boisterous mirth and rough humour : and 
 such things are not always found in society which calls 
 itself select. But what could the artist do ? The man 
 whose patrons are pawnbrokers instead of peers whose 
 works are paid in porter and cheese whose pockets con- 
 tain little copper and no gold whose dress is coarse and 
 his house ill-replenished must seek such society as cor- 
 responds with his means and condition he must be con- 
 tent to sit elsewhere than at a rich man's table covered 
 with embossed plate. That the coarseness of his manners 
 and the meanness of his appearance should give offence to 
 the courtly Reynolds, is not to be wondered at that they 
 were the cause of his hostility I cannot believe, though 
 this has often been asserted. Their dislike was in fact 
 mutual ; and I fear it must be imputed to something like 
 jealousy. 
 
 In those moments of irritation and animosity, the cold, 
 calm temper of Reynolds gave him a manifest advantage 
 over an opponent irritable by nature, and soured and stung 
 by disappointment and misfortune. The coarse and un- 
 skilful vehemence of poor Richard was no match for the 
 cautious malignity of the President, who enjoyed the double 
 advantage of lowering his adversary's talents in social con- 
 versation, and ex cathedra, in his Discourses. Reynolds
 
 158 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 seems to have been a master in that courtly and malevolent 
 art ascribed by Pope to Addison, of teaching others to 
 sneer without sneering himself, and " damning with faint 
 praise." As a specimen, I transcribe the following passage 
 from one of the President's discourses : 
 
 " Our ingenious academician, Wilson, has, I fear, been 
 guilty, like many of his predecessors, of introducing gods 
 and goddesses, ideal beings, into scenes which were by no 
 means prepared to receive such personages. His landscapes 
 were in reality too near common nature to admit super- 
 natural objects. In consequence of this mistake in a very 
 admirable picture of a storm which I have seen of his hand, 
 many figures were introduced in the foreground, some in 
 apparent distress, and some struck dead, as a spectator 
 would naturally suppose, by the lightning, had not the 
 painter injudiciously, as I think, rather chosen that their 
 death should be imputed to a little Apollo who appears in 
 the sky with his bent bow, and that these figures should 
 be considered as the children of Niobe. The first idea 
 that presents itself is that of wonder in seeing a figure in 
 so uncommon a situation as that in which the Apollo is 
 placed, for the clouds on which he kneels have not the 
 appearance of being able to support him." 
 
 This criticism was uttered, indeed, when Wilson was in 
 the grave, and when it could not hurt him personally ; it 
 nevertheless proves the insinuating nature of the critic's 
 hostility ; and that long and rooted dislike had made him 
 shut his eyes on excellences to which he could not other- 
 wise have been insensible. The man whose landscapes 
 obtained him a high name for poetic feeling and elegant 
 nature, was not likely to select a common scene for the 
 tragic representation of the death of Niobe and her 
 children ; and, as that mournful story was his subject, it 
 was necessary to people the landscape with the proper his- 
 torical actors. 1 Niobe and her offspring are on earth their 
 destroyer is in heaven ; and, as the scene is very grand and 
 magnificent, I cannot conceive that anything is out of place 
 
 1 The figures in Wilson's landscapes were not always painted by him- 
 self. He sometimes received assistance from Mortimer and Hayman. 
 ED.
 
 WILSON. 159 
 
 or out of character. The Apollo is proportioned to the 
 picture, and seems too buoyant and aerial to need even the 
 support of a cloud ; neither is he kneeling, but floating 
 majestically away on one of those boding clouds which 
 accompany thunder. While accusing Wilson of intro- 
 ducing gods and goddesses, Sir Joshua forgot that he 
 himself was in the practice of baptizing the living ladies 
 of England after heathen goddesses, and that he was a 
 dealer in the common-place flattery of raising ordinary 
 mortals to divine honours. He was aware, when he wrote 
 his criticism, that Wilson had had a hard contest with 
 fortune for existence, and that he died heart-broken by 
 poverty and disappointment ; it was therefore unkind and 
 ungenerous to attempt to interrupt the quiet progress of 
 his works to the fame which he could not but know awaited 
 them. 
 
 It is related that, at a meeting of the members of the 
 Academy on a social occasion, Reynolds proposed the 
 health of Gainsborough as the best landscape-painter; on 
 which Wilson added aloud, and the best portrait-painter too. 
 The President pretended not to have been aware of the 
 presence of Wilson, and made a courtly explanation. 
 Wilson, who received the apology with a kind of dissatis- 
 fied growl, was afterwards accused by his companions of 
 wanting a proper spirit of conciliation by which, said they, 
 he might have profited, for the President could endure to 
 be flattered, and was kind to those who submitted to his 
 ascendancy. Reynolds had never experienced any reverse 
 of fortune the applause of the world was with him, and 
 much of its money in his pocket ; he might therefore have 
 afforded to be indulgent to a man of genius suffering under 
 the want of honour, and even the want of bread. 
 
 Nor was the President of the Academy the only person 
 who distressed him with injurious opinions. A certain 
 coterie of men, skilful in the mystery of good painting, 
 came to the conclusion that the works of Wilson were 
 deficient in the gayer graces of style, and sent Penny, an 
 academician, whom Barry worshipped as one of the chief 
 painters on earth, to remonstrate with the artist, and in- 
 form him that, if he hoped for fame or their good opinion,
 
 160 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 lie must imitate the lighter style of Zucarelli. Wilson 
 was busied on one of his works when this courier from the 
 Committee of taste announced himself and delivered his 
 message. He heard him in silence proceeded with his 
 labours then stopped suddenly, and poured forth a 
 torrent of contemptuous words which incensed the whole 
 coterie, and induced them to withdraw any little protection 
 which their opinion had extended over him. 
 
 As the fortune of Wilson declined his temper became 
 touched he grew peevish and in conversation his lan- 
 guage assumed a tone of sharpness and acidity which ac- 
 corded ill with his warm and benevolent heart. Some men 
 are raised to stations where the meanness of their nature 
 shows but the more deformed and repulsive by the con- 
 trast ; while others, originally of amiable character, soured 
 by neglect, and stung by undeserved insult, forget by 
 degrees dignity in despair, and allow their minds to be- 
 come as squalid as their dress. 
 
 Wilson had, nevertheless, spirit enough at all times to 
 resent impertinence. When Zoffani, in his satiric picture 
 of the Royal Academy, represented him with a pot of 
 porter at his elbow, he instantly selected, like Johnson on 
 an occasion little dissimilar, a proper stout stick, and 
 vowed he would give the caricaturist a satisfactory thrash- 
 ing. All who knew Wilson made sure he would keep his 
 word; but Zoffani prudently passed his brush over the 
 offensive part, and so escaped the cudgelling. On one occa- 
 sion Jones, a favourite pupil, invited him to see a large 
 landscape which he had painted he looked, and exclaimed, 
 " How, Mr. Jones, what have you been doing ? you have 
 stolen my temple ! " " Is it too dark, Sir ? " said Jones. 
 " Oh, black enough of all conscience ! " answered the other, 
 and instantly retired. 
 
 He was fond of the company of Sir William Beechey, 
 and at his house he frequently reposed from the cares of 
 the world and the persecution of fortune. He was ab- 
 stemious at his meals, rarely touching wine or ardent 
 spirits his favourite beverage was a pot of porter and a 
 toast ; and he would accept that when he refused all other 
 things. This was a luxury of which he was determined to
 
 WILSON. 161 
 
 have the full enjoyment he took a moderate draught 
 sat silent a little while, then drank again, and all the time 
 eyed the quart vessel with a satisfaction which sparkled in 
 his eyes. The first time that Wilson was invited to dine 
 with Beechey, he replied to the request by saying, " You 
 have daughters, Mr. Beechey, do they draw ? All young 
 ladies draw now." " No, Sir," answered his prudent enter- 
 tainer, " my daughters are musical." He was pleased to 
 hear this, and accepted the invitation. Such was the blunt 
 honesty of his nature, that when drawings were shown him 
 which he disliked, he disdained, or was unable to give a 
 courtly answer, and made many of the students his enemies. 
 Reynolds had the sagacity to escape from such difficulties 
 by looking at the drawings and saying, " Pretty, pretty," 
 which vanity invariably explained into a compliment. 
 
 His process of painting was simple; his colours were 
 few, he used but one brush, and worked standing. 1 He 
 prepared his palette, made a few touches, then retired to 
 the window to refresh his eye with natural light, and re- 
 turned in a few minutes and resumed his labours. Beechey 
 called on him one day, and found him at work ; he seized 
 his visitor hastily by the arm, hurried him to the remot- 
 est corner of the room, and said, " There, look at my 
 landscape this is where you should view a painting if you 
 wish to examine it with your eyes, and not with your nose." 
 He was then an old man, his sight was failing, his touch 
 was unsure, and he painted somewhat coarsely, but the 
 effect was wonderful. He too, like Reynolds, had his 
 secrets of colour, and his mystery of the true principles in 
 painting, which he refused to explain, saying, " They are 
 like those of nature, and are to be sought for and found in 
 my performances." Of his own future fame he spoke 
 seldom, for he was a modest man, but, when he did speak 
 
 1 Wright, who had the information from one of Wilson's pupils, states 
 that the colours he used were " white, Naples yellow, vermilion, light 
 brown, and dark ochre, lake, yellow lake, lampblack, Prussian blue, 
 ultramarine, and burnt sienna." His greens have become wofully 
 darkened by time, and many of his paintings are very much cracked 
 (probably from the too free use of mastic magilph), so that now it is 
 difficult to appreciate their pristine appearance. ED. 
 
 M
 
 162 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 of it, lie used expressions which the world has since sanc- 
 tioned. " Beechey," he said, " you will live to see great 
 prices given for my pictures, when those of Barret will not 
 fetch one farthing." 
 
 The salary of librarian rescued him from utter starva- 
 tion; indeed, so few were his wants, so simple his fare, and 
 so moderate his appetite, that he found it, little as it was, 
 nearly enough. He had as he grew old become more neg- 
 lectful of his person as fortune forsook him he left a 
 fine house for one inferior ; l a fashionable street for one 
 cheap and obscure ; he made sketches for half-a-crown, and 
 expressed gratitude to Paul Sandby for purchasing a number 
 from him at a small advance of price. His last retreat in 
 this wealthy city was a small room somewhere about 
 Tottenham-Court Road ; an easel and a brush a chair 
 and a table a hard bed with few clothes a scanty meal 
 and the favourite pot of porter were all that Wilson 
 could call his own. A disgrace to an age which lavished 
 its tens of thousands on mountebanks and projectors 
 on Italian screamers, and men who made mouths at 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 In this wretched retreat he was found out by a lady of 
 rank, who, desirous of obtaining a good landscape, applied 
 to an acquaintance, a student in art, to recommend a 
 first-rate painter. The youth mentioned Wilson, and ac- 
 companying the patroness to his apartment, placed some 
 of his best landscapes in proper lights, and with much tact 
 detained the lady at the other end of the room, lest the 
 
 1 For many years during the latter part of his life Wilson lived at 
 No. 36, Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square. He liked this house and took 
 a lease of it because of the view that it afforded him of the country around 
 Hampstead. " He was accustomed of a fine evening," writes Redgrave, 
 " to throw open his window and invite his friends to enjoy with him the 
 glowing sunset behind the Hampstead and Highgate hills. He and Mar- 
 lowe the water-colour painter used to sketch the old elms in front of 
 Marylebone Gardens, the Vauxhall of the Northern district, now entirely 
 blotted out and forgotten. Woollet the engraver subsequently lived in 
 the same house ; two arched windows, long since bricked up, were the 
 painter's rooms, and out of the upper one we may fancy him with his 
 shaved head and tasseled cap looking "from time to time under his shading 
 hand to refresh his eye with light. A practice we are told that he con- 
 tinually followed." ED.
 
 WILSON. 163 
 
 rough appearance of their finish should alarm her. She 
 was so much pleased, that she commissioned two pictures, 
 fixed the prices, and drove away. Wilson detained his 
 young friend by the arm, looked feelingly in his face, and 
 said, " Tour kindness is all in vain I am wholly destitute 
 I cannot even purchase proper canvas and colour for 
 these paintings." The young man gave him twenty pounds 
 for he was related to rich people then went home and 
 said to himself, " When Wilson, with all his genius, starves, 
 what will become of me?" He laid palette and pencils 
 aside, pursued his studies at College, and rose high in the 
 Church. 
 
 It is reported that Reynolds relaxed his hostility at 
 last and, becoming generous when it was too late, ob- 
 tained an order from a nobleman for two landscapes at a 
 proper price. This kindness softened the severity of 
 Wilson's animadversions on the president ; but old age 
 with its infirmities was come upon him; his sight was 
 failing, his skill of touch was forsaking him ; and his 
 naturally high spirit had begun to yield at last to the re- 
 peated injuries of fortune. London was relieved from 
 witnessing the melancholy close of his life. A small estate 
 became his by the death of a brother ; and, as if nature 
 had designed to make some amends for the neglect of man- 
 kind, a profitable vein of lead was discovered on his ground. 
 When this twofold good fortune befell him, he waited on 
 his steady friend, Sir William Beechey, to ask him if he 
 had any commands for Wales. His spirits were then high, 
 but appeared assumed, for his health was visibly declining, 
 and his faculties were impaired. He put his hands to each 
 side, and pressing them, said, with a sorrowful smile, " Oh ! 
 these back settlements of mine ! " He took an affecting 
 farewell of Sir William, and set out for his native place, 
 where, far from the bitterness of professional rivalry, and 
 placed above the reach of want, he looked to enjoy a few 
 happy days. 
 
 He arrived safely at Colomondie, beside the village of 
 Lanverris, in Denbighshire, and took up his residence 
 with his relation, Mrs. Jones. The house was elegant and 
 commodious, and the situation of that kind which Wilson
 
 164 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 loved. It stood among fine green hills, with old romantic 
 woods, picturesque rocks, verdant lawns, deep glens, and 
 the whole was cheered with the sound as well as the sight 
 of running water. He was now in affluence was loved 
 and respected by all around him and, what was as much 
 to him, or more, he was become a dweller among scenes 
 such as had haunted his imagination, even when Italy 
 spread her beauty before him. He wrought little and 
 walked much ; the stone on which he loved to sit, the 
 tree under which he shaded himself from' the sun, and the 
 stream on the banks of which he commonly walked, are all 
 remembered and pointed out by the peasantry. But he 
 wanted what wealth could not give youth and strength 
 to enjoy what he had fallen heir to. His strength failed 
 fast his walks became shorter and less frequent and 
 the last scene he visited was where two old picturesque 
 fir-trees stood, which he loved to look at and introduce 
 into his compositions. Walking out one day, accompanied 
 by a favourite dog whether exhausted by fatigue, or over- 
 come by some sudden pain, Wilson sank down, and found 
 himself unable to rise. The sagacious animal ran home, 
 howled, pulled the servants by their clothes, and at last 
 succeeded in bringing them to the aid of his master. He 
 was carried home, but he never fairly recovered from the 
 shock. He complained of weariness and pain, refused 
 nourishment, and languished and expired in May, 1782, 
 in the sixty-ninth year of his age. 
 
 As a landscape-painter the merits of Wilson are great ; 
 his conceptions are generally noble, and his execution 
 vigorous and glowing ; the dewy freshness, the natural 
 lustre and harmonious arrangement of his scenes, have 
 seldom been exceeded. He rose at once from the tame 
 insipidity of common scenery into natural grandeur and 
 magnificence his streams seem all abodes for nymphs, 
 his hills are fit haunts for the muses, and his temples 
 worthy of gods. His whole heart was in his art, and he 
 talked and dreamed landscape. He looked on cattle aa 
 made only to form groups for his pictures, and on men as 
 they composed harmoniously. One day, looking on the 
 fine scene from Eichmond Terrace, and wishing to point
 
 WILSON. 165 
 
 out a spot of particular beauty to the friend who accom- 
 panied him " There," said he, holding out his finger, 
 " see, near those houses there, where the figures are." 
 He stood for some time by the waterfall of Terni in speech- 
 less admiration, and at length exclaimed, " Well done : 
 water, by God ! " In aerial effect he considered himself 
 above any rival. When Wright of Derby offered to ex- 
 change works with him, he answered, " With all my heart. 
 I'll give you air, and you will give me fire." 
 
 " Wilson," says Fuseli, discoursing on art in 1801, " ob- 
 served nature in all her appearances, and had a charac- 
 teristic touch for all her forms. But though, in effects 
 of dewy freshness, and silent evening lights, few have 
 equalled and fewer excelled him, his grandeur is oftener 
 allied to terror, bustle, and convulsion than to calmness 
 and tranquillity. He is now numbered with the classics 
 of the art, though little more than the fifth part of a 
 century has elapsed since death relieved him from the 
 apathy of cognoscenti, the envy of rivals, and the neglect 
 of a tasteless public ; for Wilson, whose works will soon 
 command prices as proud as those of Claude, Poussin, or 
 Elzheimer, 1 resembled the last most in his fate, and lived 
 and died nearer to indigence than ease." 
 
 Wilson's landscapes are numerous, and are scattered, 
 as they should be, through public galleries and private 
 rooms. 2 They are in general productions of fancy rather 
 than of existing reality scenes pictured forth by the 
 imagination rather than transcribed from nature ; yet 
 there is enough of nature in them to please the commonest 
 clown, and enough of what is poetic to charm the most 
 fastidious fancy. He sometimes indeed painted fac-similes 
 of scenes, but his heart disliked such unpoetic drudgery ; 
 for his thoughts were ever dwelling among hills and 
 streams renowned in story and song, and he loved to ex- 
 patiate on ruined temples and walk over fields where great 
 
 1 This prediction has been fully realized. Several of his pictures have 
 fetched high prices lately. His picture of " Apollo and the Seasons " sold 
 at Kogers's sale for 700 guineas. ED. 
 
 2 Many of them have been seen of late years at the Winter Exhibi- 
 tions at Burlington House. ED.
 
 166 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 deeds had been achieved, and where gods had appeared 
 among men. He was fortunate in little during his life 
 his " View from Kew Gardens," though exquisite in colour 
 and in simplicity of arrangement, was returned by the 
 King, for whom it was painted ; nor was the poetic loveli- 
 ness of his compositions felt till such acknowledgment was 
 useless to the artist. 
 
 The names of a few of his principal compositions will 
 show the historical and poetical influence under which he 
 wrought : " The Death of Niobe," " Phaeton," " Morn- 
 ing," " View of Rome," " Villa of Mecaenas at Tivoli," 
 " Celadon and Amelia," " View on the Eiver Po," " Apollo 
 and the Seasons," " Meleager and Atalanta," " Cicero at 
 his Villa," " Lake of Narni," " View on the Coast of Baise," 
 " The Tiber near Rome," " Temple of Bacchus," " Adrian's 
 Villa," " Bridge of Rimini," " Rosamond's Pond," " Lan- 
 gallon Bridge," " Castle of Dinas Bran," " Temple of Venus 
 at Baise," " Tomb of the Horatii and Curatii," " Broken 
 Bridge of Narni," and " Nymphs Bathing." His pencil 
 sometimes forsook subjects of classic or poetic fame, and 
 dwelt on scenes of natural loveliness ; some of these are 
 very captivating compositions there is a light let in upon 
 the hills, and a verdant freshness l among the trees, such 
 as few painters have surpassed. He frequently copied his 
 own pictures, as want of bread or the taste of his customers 
 dictated ; this, which all others have done with impunity, 
 has been made matter of reproach ; there are men who 
 will not be pleased, and some who deserve not to be pleased, 
 and Wilson experienced the enmity of both. 
 
 In person he was above the middling size ; his frame 
 was robust, and inclining to be corpulent ; his head was 
 large, and his face red and blotchy ; he wore a wig with 
 the tail plaited into a club, and a three-cocked hat accord- 
 ing to the fashion of his time. In his earlier days, when 
 hope was high, he was a lover of gay company and of gay 
 attire ; he sometimes attended the Academy in St. Martin's 
 Lane, in a green waistcoat ornamented with gold lace. 
 He loved truth and detested flattery ; he could endure a 
 
 1 This " verdant freshness " has greatly faded since Cunningham's 
 time. ED.
 
 WILSON. 167 
 
 joke but not contradiction. He was deficient in courtesy 
 of speech in those candied civilities which go for little 
 with men of sense, but which have their effect among the 
 shallow and the vain. His conversation abounded with 
 information and humour, and his manners, which were at 
 first repulsive, gradually smoothed down as he grew ani- 
 mated. Those who enjoyed the pleasure of his friendship, 
 agree in pronouncing him a man of strong sense, intelli- 
 gence, and refinement, and every way worthy of those 
 works which preserve the name of Eichard Wilson.
 
 Sill JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 JOSHUA, the son of the Reverend Samuel Reynolds and 
 Theophila Potter, his wife, was the tenth of eleven 
 children, 1 five of whom died in infancy. He was born at 
 Plympton, in Devonshire, on Thursday, July 16th, 1723, 
 three months before the death of Sir Godfrey Kneller, 
 " thus perpetuating," say some of his biographers, " the 
 hereditary descent of art." This descent of talent had a 
 better security for continuation than the life of a new-born 
 child. Wilson was ten years old, and Hogarth had already 
 distinguished himself. The admirers and disciples of Sir 
 Joshua imagined that the mantle of art remained sus- 
 pended in the air from the day of Kneller' s ascent, and 
 refrained from descending upon other shoulders till their 
 favourite rose to manhood and eminence. The pride of 
 Reynolds would have resented, in life, this compliment 
 from his friends he who shared, in imagination, the im- 
 perial robe of Michael Angelo, would have scorned the 
 meaner mantle of Godfrey Kneller. 
 
 Few men of genius are allowed to be born or baptized in 
 an ordinary way; some commotion in nature must mark the 
 hour of their birth, some strange interposition must deter- 
 mine their name the like happened to young Reynolds. 
 His father, a clergyman of the established church, gave him 
 the scriptural name of Joshua, in the belief, says Malone, 
 who had the legend from Bishop Percy, of Dromore, that 
 some enthusiast of the same name might be induced to give 
 him a fortune. The family motives, as recorded by North- 
 cote, had more of the shrewdness of calculation in them. 
 An uncle, from whom something might be expected, lived 
 in the neighbourhood, and lie was a Joshua. Owing to the 
 
 1 According to the dates of the baptism of these children, as registered 
 at Plympton, he was the seventh child. ED.
 
 REYNOLDS. 169 
 
 haste or carelessness of the clergyman, the church may 
 claim some share in the marvels which accompanied his 
 birth ; he was baptized in one name, and entered in the 
 parish register in another the Joshua of all the rest of 
 the world is a Joseph at Plympton. 
 
 The Keverend Samuel Reynolds, a pious and indolent 
 man, who performed, without reproach, his stated duties 
 in religion, and presided, with the reputation of a scholar, 
 in the public school of Plympton, seems to have neglected, 
 more than such a parent ought, the education of his son. 1 
 It is true that the boy, inspired (as Johnson intimates in 
 his life of Cowley) with Eichardson's " Treatise on Paint- 
 ing," appeared, like Hogarth before him, to be more in- 
 clined to make private drawings than public exercises ; 
 and it is likewise true that his father rebuked those de- 
 linquencies, on one occasion at least, by writing on the 
 back of a prohibited drawing, "Done by Joshua out of 
 pure idleness." But transient rebuke will not cure habitual 
 inattention the education which we miss in youth we 
 rarely obtain in age, and a good divine and a learned 
 parent could not but know how much learning adorns the 
 highest and brightens the humblest occupation. North- 
 cote, the pupil, and lately the biographer, of Eeynolds, 
 reluctantly admits his master's deficiency in classical at- 
 tainments. But his incessant study of nature, and practice 
 in art, his intercourse with the world at large, and fami- 
 liarity with men of learning and ability, accomplished in 
 after-life much of what his father had neglected in youth. 
 "The mass of general knowledge by which he was dis- 
 
 1 There does not seem to be any real ground for reproach in this 
 matter. Even as a young man Sir Joshua was not deficient in ordinary 
 education. Of course, like most born artists, he preferred sketching on 
 the back of his exercises to acquiring Latin and Greek ; but this surely 
 was not his father's fault. A portrait of the elder Reynolds, painted by 
 his son, is still preserved in the Cottonian Library at Plymouth. It re- 
 presents a somewhat bald-headed, round-faced man, with a peculiarly 
 mild and placid countenance. His income as Master of the Plympton 
 Grammar School was only 120 a year; but upon this he seems to have 
 brought up hia seven children who lived beyond infancy very creditably. 
 Several letters of his are extant, having relation to his son Joshua's 
 settlement in London, which show him to have been by no means a care- 
 less father. ED.
 
 170 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 tinguished," says Northcote, "was tlie result of much 
 studious application in his riper years." " I know "no 
 man," observed Johnson to Boswell, " who has passed 
 through life with more observation than Sir Joshua Rey- 
 nolds." 
 
 His father, however, conceived that he had acquired 
 learning sufficient for the practice of physic, for to that 
 profession he was originally destined. He observed to 
 Northcote that if such had been his career in life, he 
 should have felt the same determination to become the 
 most eminent physician, as he then felt to be the first 
 painter of his age and country. He believed, in short, 
 that genius is but another name for extensive capacity, 
 and that incessant and well-directed labour is the inspira- 
 tion which creates all works of taste and talent. 
 
 His inclination to idleness as to reading and industry in 
 drawing, began to appear early. " His first essay," says 
 Malone, who had the information from himself, " was 
 copying some slight drawings made by two of his sisters, 
 who had a turn for art : he afterwards eagerly copied such 
 prints as he met with among his father's books : particu- 
 larly those which were given in the translation of 'Plu- 
 tarch's Lives,' published by Dry den. But his principal 
 fund of imitation was Jacob Catt's ' Book of Emblems,' 
 which his great grandmother by the father's side, a Dutch- 
 woman, had brought with her from Holland." The prints 
 in " Plutarch " are rude and uncouth ; those in the " Book 
 of Emblems " are more to the pxirpose, and probably im- 
 pressed upon him by the comparison, that admiration of 
 foreign art which grew with his growth and strengthened 
 with his strength. 
 
 When he was some eight years old, he read "The 
 Jesuit's Perspective " with so much care and profit, that 
 he made a drawing of Plympton school, a plain Gothic 
 building, raised partly on pillars, in which the principles 
 of that art were very tolerably adhered to. His father, a 
 simple man, and easily astonished, exclaimed when he saw 
 this drawing, " This is what the author of the ' Perspective ' 
 asserts in his preface, that by observing the rules laid 
 down in this book, a man may do wonders for this is
 
 REYNOLDS. 171 
 
 wonderful." Had the old man lived to see the great 
 works of his son, in what words would he have expressed 
 his admiration ? 
 
 The approbation of his father, with his own natural love 
 of art, induced him more and more to devote his time to 
 drawing, and neglect his studies at school. He drew 
 likenesses of his sisters and of various friends of the 
 family ; his proficiency increased with practice ; and his 
 ardour kept pace with his growing skill. Kichardson's 
 treatise on Painting was now put into his hands, " The 
 perusal of which," says Malone, " so delighted and in- 
 flamed his mind, that Raphael appeared to him superior 
 to the most illustrious names of ancient or modern times 
 a notion which he loved to indulge all the rest of his 
 life." 
 
 With no other guides but such prints as he could col- 
 lect, and little support but his own enthusiasm, Reynolds 
 made many drawings and many portraits, in which his 
 friends, who now began to be attracted by his progress, 
 perceived an increasing accuracy of outline, and a growing 
 boldness and freedom. Of those boyish productions no 
 specimen, I believe, is preserved ; l he himself probably 
 destroyed them, being little pleased with what he had 
 done ; but it is inconceivable that a youth like this, who 
 gave so little of his leisure to other knowledge, should 
 have executed nothing worthy of remembrance at the age 
 of nineteen. There is no doubt that, as soon as he had a 
 fair field for the display of his talents, he showed a mind 
 stored with ready images of beauty, and a hand capable of 
 portraying them with truth and effect. 
 
 A provincial place, like Plympton, was too contracted 
 for his expanding powers, and a friend and neighbour, of 
 the name of Cranch, 2 advised that Joshua should be sent 
 
 1 A portrait is still preserved at Plymouth of the Rev. Thomas Smart, 
 tutor in the family of the first Lord Edgcumbe, which is said to have 
 been painted by Reynolds when he was not more than twelve years old. 
 It is stated by Mr. Tom Taylor to be " not without character, and of a 
 certain broad cleverness." ED. 
 
 1 Or Craunch, a gentleman of independent fortune who lived at 
 Plympton, and who seems to have been the first to perceive the talent of 
 the young Joshua. He advanced money to help in his journey to Italy,
 
 172 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 to study and improve himself in London. To London he 
 was accordingly sent, on the 14th of October, 1741, 
 and on the 18th of the same month, the day of Saint 
 Luke, the patron saint of painters, he was placed under 
 the care of Mr. Hudson. Of this propitious circumstance, 
 his biographers take particular notice it keeps the chain 
 of remarkable circumstances unbroken. This favourite of 
 the fates was born three months before the death of 
 Kneller was named Joshua in a kind of speculation upon 
 Providence and commenced his studies in London on the 
 day of Saint Luke. Fortune having done her best, young 
 Eeynolds had nothing more to do but stand in the way and 
 be pushed silently on to wealth and reputation. 
 
 Hudson, the most distinguished portrait-maker of that 
 time, was nevertheless a man of little skill and less talent ; 
 who could paint a head, but without other aid was unable 
 to place it upon the shoulders. He was in truth a mere 
 manufacturer of portraits ; and as the taste and practice of 
 Reynolds lay in the same line, there was some propriety in 
 the choice. The timely counsel of his neighbour Cranch 
 would have long afterwards been rewarded with the present 
 of a silver cup had not an accident interfered. " Death," 
 says Northcote, " prevented this act of gratitude I have 
 seen the cup at Sir Joshua's table." The painter had the 
 honour of the intention and the use of the cup a twofold 
 advantage, of which he was not insensible. 
 
 At this time Hogarth was in the full enjoyment of his 
 fame. His works were the wonder of every one, and an 
 example to none. His peculiar excellence indeed was of 
 such an order that rivalry there was hopeless ; and no 
 artist had the sagacity to see that, by adopting a style 
 more sober and less sarcastic, with a greater infusion of 
 beauty, a name as great or greater than his might have been 
 achieved. Students consumed their time in drawing in- 
 
 and always took a lively interest in his career. Joshua himself is 
 reported by his father to have said that " he would rather be an apothe- 
 cary than an ordinary painter ; but if he could be bound to an eminent 
 master, he would choose painting." Hudson was then considered all 
 that could be desired in the way of eminence. He received .120 as 
 premium with his distinguished pupil, and Joshua was bound to him for 
 four years, but did not remain quite two. ED.
 
 REYNOLDS. 173 
 
 cessantly from other men's works, and vainly thought, by 
 gazing constantly on the unattainable excellence of Raphael 
 and Correggio, to catch a portion of their inspiration. When 
 any one departed from such tame and servile rules, he was 
 pronounced a Gothic dreamer, and unworthy of being num- 
 bered among those happy persons patronized by Saint Luke. 
 This accounts for the name of Hogarth being rarely or 
 never found in the lectures or letters of the artists of his 
 own time. Men who are regularly trained to the admira- 
 tion of a certain class of works adroit few into the ranks o 
 painting who have not a kind of academic certificate, and 
 lop carefully away all wild or over-flourishing branches from 
 the tree of regular art. Amongst persons of this stamp, to 
 admire Hogarth amounts to treason against the great mas- 
 ters. The painters of those days were worshippers of the 
 " grand style " a term which would seem to mean some- 
 thing alone and unapproachable, for no man offered to 
 make any approaches to it by works that partook of either 
 dignity or imagination. 
 
 Reynolds proceeded with his studies under Hudson ; but 
 it seldom happens that a man of no genius and moderate 
 skill can give sound counsel to one who longs for distinction, 
 and has the talent to obtain it. Instead of studying from 
 the best models, he caused his pupils to squander time in 
 making careful copies from the drawings of Guercino. 
 These he executed with so much skill, that it was difficult 
 to distinguish them from the originals ; and some of them 
 are, at this present moment, shown in the cabinets of the 
 curious as the masterly drawings of Guercino. 
 
 While he remained with Hudson he went to a sale of 
 pictures, and just before the auctioneer commenced he 
 observed a great bustle at the door, and heard " Pope ! 
 Pope ! " whispered round the room. All drew back to 
 make way for the poet to pass, and those who were near 
 enough held out their hands for him to touch as he went 
 along. Reynolds held out his, and had the honour of a 
 gentle shake, of which he was ever after proud. This was 
 one of the early anecdotes of his life which he loved to 
 relate ; it shows the enthusiasm of the young painter, and 
 the popularity of the great poet.
 
 174 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 He continued for two years in the employment of 
 Hudson, and acquired with uncommon rapidity such pro- 
 fessional knowledge as could then and there be obtained. 
 He painted during that period various portraits, of which 
 he never gave any account, and made many sketches and 
 studies which would require a minute description to be 
 comprehended. It is enough to say, that in general 
 they contained the germ of some of his future graces, 
 and displayed considerable freedom of handling and truth 
 of delineation. Among the productions most worthy of 
 remembrance was the portrait of an elderly servant- woman 
 of Hudson's, in which, says Northcote, he discovered a 
 taste so superior to the painters of the day, that his 
 master, not without displaying a strong feeling of jealousy, 
 foretold his future eminence. It was accidentally exhibited 
 in Hudson's gallery, and obtained general applause. This 
 was more than the old man could endure. Without any 
 warm or angry words, a separation took place, and Rey- 
 nolds returned into Devonshire. 
 
 Had his talents been known, and had his works at that 
 period been publicly exhibited, Reynolds would have re- 
 mained in London ; for patronage is ever ready to en- 
 courage skill such as his, exerted in such a department. 
 He returned home, however, in 1743, and passed three 
 years in company, from which, as he informed Malone, 
 little improvement could be got. Of this misemployment 
 of his time he always spoke with concern. He had, how- 
 ever, the good sense to consider his disagreement with 
 Hudson as a blessing ; otherwise, he confessed, it might 
 have been very difficult for him to escape from the tame- 
 ness and insipidity, from the fair tied wigs, blue velvet 
 coats, and white satin waistcoats, which his master bestowed 
 liberally on all customers. Of the use of the three years 
 in question, Reynolds was certainly a competent judge ; 
 yet weight must be allowed to the opinion of Northcote, 
 who says, that during this period he produced many por- 
 traits, particularly one of a boy reading by a reflected light, 
 which were undoubtedly very fine. And in truth Sir 
 Joshua himself seems to have acknowledged this, when, on 
 seeing some of these pieces at the distance of thirty years,
 
 REYNOLDS. 175 
 
 he lamented that in so great a length of time he had made 
 so little progress in his art. 1 
 
 It was indeed impossible for a mind so active and a hand 
 so ready to continue idle : and there can be no doubt that 
 Reynolds was silently improving himself, even though he 
 was not satisfied with the progress. There were few paintings 
 of excellence indeed near him, but it is not on admirable 
 paintings alone that a painter should look ; there was 
 beauty and manliness enough in Devonshire for the pur- 
 poses of his profession, and when he was weary of that, 
 there were the images which he had stored away in his 
 memory, and which his fancy could recall whenever it was 
 desirable. It is more satisfactory to some of his profes- 
 sional friends to think, that he studied with profit the 
 works of William Gandy of Exeter a painter, some of 
 whose portraits Reynolds certainly spoke of as equal to 
 those of Rembrandt. 2 One of Gandy 's works he particularly 
 admired, the portrait of an Alderman of Exeter, placed in 
 one of the public buildings of that place ; and one of his 
 observations he took much pleasure in repeating, namely, 
 that a picture should have a richness in its texture as if 
 the colours had been composed of cream or cheese. 
 
 When he was two-and-twenty years old, Reynolds and 
 his two youngest unmarried sisters took a house at the 
 town of Plymouth Dock : 3 here he occupied the first floor, 
 and employed his time in painting portraits. It must be 
 confessed that many of his productions, up to this period, 
 were carelessly drawn in common attitudes, and undis- 
 tinguished by those excellences of colouring and power of 
 
 1 His father, in a letter to Mr. Cutliffe, a gentleman who took great 
 interest at this time in the young Joshua, speaks of his having painted 
 twenty portraits, and having ten more bespoke. This was in 1744, and 
 several portraits of Devonshire worthies of this early date are in the 
 possession of Mr. Kendal, of Pelym, M.P. These achievements throw 
 some doubt on the alleged misemployment of his time. ED. 
 
 * This William Gandy was the son of James Gandy, a pupil of Van- 
 dyck's, who painted so much in his master's style that some of his pic- 
 tures have been passed off for Vandyck's. The son seema to have 
 painted in a different style. Tom Taylor speaks of his portraits as being 
 " broadly and forcibly painted." ED. 
 
 ' It was probably not until after his father's death, in 174C, when he 
 was twenty-three, that he settled at Plymouth. ED.
 
 176 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 expression which have made his name famous. His old 
 master, Hudsom, was still strong within him. One hand 
 was hid in the unbuttoned waistcoat, the other held the 
 hat ; and the face was looking forward with that vacant 
 listlessness which is the mark of a sitter who conceives 
 portrait-painting to resemble shaving, and that the sine 
 qua non is to keep his features stiff and composed. One 
 gentleman desired to be distinguished from others, and 
 was painted with his hat on his head ; yet so inveterate had 
 the practice of painting in one position become, that if 
 there be any truth in a story as yet uncontradicted when 
 the likeness was sent home, the wife of the patient dis- 
 covered that her husband had not only one hat on his head, 
 but another under his arm. It is, however, well known 
 that, even when his reputation was high, Reynolds per- 
 mitted ladies, and gentlemen too, to select for themselves 
 the positions they wished to be painted in ; and his Devon- 
 shire patrons of this early period might, in all likelihood, 
 consider it as desirable to appear, as much as possible, like 
 their fathers and their friends. When left to the freedom 
 of his own will, some of his attitudes, even in these days, 
 were bold enough. A portrait of himself, which repre- 
 sents him with pencils and palette in his left hand, and 
 shading the light from his eyes with his right, was painted 
 at this time, and is, without doubt, a work of great 
 merit. 1 
 
 Miss Chudleigh, a young lady of rare beauty, afterwards 
 too famous as Duchess of Kingston, happened to be on a 
 visit at Saltram, in the neighbourhood of Plymouth, and 
 sat for her portrait. This seems to have pleased Rey- 
 nolds less than another sitter, whom he obtained at the 
 same time, for he could not foresee that she would become 
 a duchess. This was the commissioner of Plymouth Dock ; 
 he wrote to his father with a joy which he sought not to 
 conceal, that he had painted the likeness of the greatest 
 man in the place. The performance which obtained him 
 
 1 This masterly painting is now in the National Portrait Gallery. It 
 certainly represents him as quite a young man ; but it is supposed by 
 some critics to hare been executed at a somewhat later period, when his 
 style was more formed. ED.
 
 REYNOLDS. 177 
 
 most notice was the portrait of Captain Hamilton, of the 
 noble family of Abercorn. It was painted in 1746. 
 
 On Christmas day, in the year 1746, his father died. 
 He was a man of respectable learning, and remarkable for 
 the innocence of his heart and the simplicity of his manners. 
 He was what is called an absent man, and was regarded by 
 his parishioners as a sort of Parson Adams. Of his f orget- 
 fulness it is said that, in performing a journey on horse- 
 back, one of his boots dropped off by the way, without 
 being missed by the owner ; and of his wit for wit also 
 has been ascribed to him ! it is related that, in allusion 
 to his wife's name, Theophila, he made the following 
 rhyming domestic arrangement : 
 
 " When I say The 
 Thou must make tea 
 When I say Offey 
 Thou must make coffee." 
 
 Reynolds was now twenty-three years old, and his name 
 was beginning to be heard beyond the limits of his native 
 county. He had acquired the friendship and patronage of 
 the third Lord Edgcumbe, and of Captain, afterwards 
 Lord Keppel. He had paid a second visit to London, and 
 lived for a time in Saint Martin's Lane, then the favourite 
 residence of artists, and where something which resembled 
 an academy was established. His growing fame and skill 
 acquired and secured friends, and his graceful and un- 
 presuming manners were likely to forward his success ; he 
 was polite without meanness, and independent without 
 arrogance. 
 
 Rome, which is in reality to painters what Parnassus is 
 in imagination to poets, was frequently present to the 
 fancy of Reynolds : and he longed to see with his own eyes 
 the glories in art, of which he heard so much. In May, 
 1749, Captain Keppel was appointed Commodore in the 
 Mediterranean station, for the purpose of protecting the 
 British merchants from the insults of the Algerines, and 
 he invited Reynolds to accompany him. The young artist 
 willingly embarked with the full equipment of his pro- 
 fession, and, touching at Lisbon, went ashore and witnessed
 
 178 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 several religious processions. He next visited Gibraltar ; 
 and on the 20th of July landed at Algiers, where he was 
 introduced to the Dey, who behaved with civility, and 
 dismissed Keppel and his companion with assurances of 
 amity and good-will, which he afterwards seemed dis- 
 inclined to keep. From Algiers they sailed for Minorca, 
 and landed at Port Mahon on the 23rd of August. The 
 friendship of Keppel, and the kindness of General Blakeney, 
 were here very serviceable ; through their influence and his 
 own skill, Reynolds was employed to paint portraits of 
 almost all the officers in the garrison ; and, as he lived free 
 of all expense at the governor's table, he improved his for- 
 tune at the same time that he exercised his talents. 
 
 Reynolds was detained in Minorca longer than he 
 wished. As he was taking an airing on horseback, his 
 horse took fright, and rushed with him down a precipice, 
 by which his face was severely cut, and his lip so much 
 bruised that he was compelled to have some of it cut 
 away. A slight deformity marked his mouth ever after. 
 His deafness was imputed by some to the same misfortune ; 
 but that misfortune dated from a dangerous illness in 
 Rome.' After a residence of three months, he left Port 
 Mahon, landed at Leghorn, and went directly to Rome. 
 
 Of his first sensations in the Metropolis of Art he has 
 left us a minute account. " It has frequently happened, 
 (says he) as I was informed by the keeper of the Vatican 
 that many of those whom he had conducted through the 
 various apartments of that edifice, when about to be dis- 
 missed, have asked for the works of Raphael, and would 
 not believe that they had already passed through the 
 rooms where they are preserved : so little impression had 
 those performances made on them. One of the first painters 
 in France once told me that this circumstance happened to 
 himself : though he now looks on Raphael with that venera- 
 tion which he deserves from all painters and lovers of the 
 art. I remember very well my own disappointment when 
 I first visited the Vatican ; but on confessing my feelings 
 to a brother student, of whose ingenuousness I had a high 
 opinion, he acknowledged that the works of Raphael had 
 the same effect on him, or rather they did not produce the
 
 REYNOLDS. 179 
 
 effect which he expected. This was a great relief to my 
 mind ; and on inquiring further of other students, I found 
 that those persons only who, from natural imbecility, ap- 
 peared to be incapable of relishing those divine perfor- 
 mances, made pretensions to instantaneous raptures on first 
 beholding them. In justice to myself, however, I must 
 add, that though disappointed and mortified at not finding 
 myself enraptured with the works of this great master, I 
 did not for a moment conceive or suppose that the name of 
 Baphael, and those admirable paintings in particular, owed 
 their reputation to the ignorance and prejudice of man- 
 kind ; on the contrary, my not relishing them, as I was 
 conscious I ought to have done, was one of the most 
 humiliating circumstances that have ever happened to me ; 
 I found myself in the midst of works executed upon prin- 
 ciples with which I was unacquainted : I felt my ignorance 
 and stood abashed. All the indigested notions of paint- 
 ing which I had brought with me from England, where the 
 art was in the lowest state it had ever been in, (it could 
 not, indeed, be lower,) were to be totally done away and 
 eradicated from my mind. It was necessary, as it is ex- 
 pressed on a very solemn occasion, that I should become as 
 a little child. Notwithstanding my disappointment, I pro- 
 ceeded to copy some of those excellent works. I viewed 
 them again and again ; I even affected to feel their merit, 
 and admire them more than I really did. In a short time 
 a new taste and a new perception began to dawn upon me, 
 and I was convinced that I had originally formed a false 
 opinion of the perfection of art, and that this great painter 
 was well entitled to the high rank which he holds in the 
 admiration of the world. The truth is, that if these works 
 had really been what I expected, they would have contained 
 beauties superficial and alluring, but by no means such as 
 would have entitled them to the great reputation which they 
 have borne so long, and so justly obtained." 
 
 That Reynolds had imagined the Vatican filled with 
 works of another order from what he found there, is only 
 informing us that in his earlier years he thought diffe- 
 rently from Raphael. He had been accustomed to admire 
 stiff or extravagant attitudes, and to put faith in works
 
 180 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 deficient in the sober dignity and majestic simplicity which 
 distinguished the illustrious Italian. He saw those noble 
 productions ; and though at first he could not feel their 
 excellence, he, before he left Rome, became one of their 
 daily worshippers. All this was very natural : but the con- 
 clusion which Reynolds draws, viz. that none but an imbe- 
 cile person can be alive at first sight to the genius of a 
 Raphael, is certainly rash, and, most probably, erroneous. 
 
 " Having " (he says) " since that period frequently re- 
 volved the subject in my mind, I am now clearly of opinion, 
 that a relish for the higher excellences of art is an acquired 
 taste, which no man ever possessed without long cultiva- 
 tion and great labour and attention. On such occasions as 
 that which I have mentioned, we are often ashamed of our 
 apparent dulness ; as if it were to be expected that our 
 minds, like tinder, should catch fire from the divine spark 
 of Raphael's genius. I flatter myself that now it would be 
 so, and that I have a just and lively perception of his great 
 powers ; but let it be always remembered, that the excel- 
 lence of his style is not on the surface, but lies deep ; and 
 at the first view is seen but mistily. It is the florid style 
 which strikes at once, and captivates the eye for a time, with- 
 out ever satisfying the judgment. Nor does painting in this 
 respect differ from other arts. A just poetical taste, and 
 the acquisition of a nice discriminative musical ear are 
 equally the work of time. Even the eye, however perfect 
 in itself, is often unable to distinguish between the bril- 
 liancy of two diamonds ; though the experienced jeweller 
 will be amazed at its blindness ; not considering that there 
 was a time when he himself could not have been able to 
 pronounce which of the two was the more perfect." 
 
 I must repeat that I doubt as to all this. True art is 
 nature exalted and refined ; but it is nature still. We look 
 on a noble scene on a high mountain on a mighty sea 
 on a troubled sky or on any of the splendid pictures which 
 the Lord of the Universe spreads before His creatures, and 
 we require no long course of study, no series of academic 
 lectures on light and shade, to enable us to feel their 
 grandeur or their beauty. If the study of many years, and 
 great labour and attention, be absolutely necessary to en-
 
 REYNOLDS. 181 
 
 able men to comprehend and relish the nobler productions 
 of the poet and the painter then who has not judged by 
 guess and admired by random some of the most glorious 
 works of the human mind ? That it cost Eeynolds much 
 time and study to understand and admire them is nothing : 
 he had to banish preconceived false notions ; to dismiss 
 idolized and merely conventional beauties, and strip him- 
 self of laboured absurdities, with which he had been be- 
 decking himself from his infancy. He had to rise out of 
 false art into true nature and this was not to be done in 
 a day. But is it necessary that all men should start with 
 a false theory? The acquisition of a natural taste in 
 poetry, or a correct musical apprehension, may be the work 
 of time with some, but they are as certainly a kind of in- 
 spiration in others. Reynolds himself seems to have thought 
 with more accuracy when he wrote as follows: 
 
 "The man of true genius," (says he) "instead of spend- 
 ing all his hours, as many artists do while they are at Borne, 
 in measuring statues, and copying pictures, soon begins to 
 think for himself, and endeavours to do something like 
 what he sees. I consider general copying a delusive kind 
 of industry; the student satisfies himself with the appear- 
 ance of doing something ; he falls into the dangerous habit 
 of imitating without selecting, and of labouring without 
 any determinate object; as it requires no effort of the 
 mind, he sleeps over his work, and those powers of inven- 
 tion and disposition, which ought particularly to be called 
 out and put in action, lie torpid, and lose their energy for 
 want of exercise. How incapable of producing anything 
 of their own those are who have spent most of their time 
 in making finished copies, is an observation well known to 
 all who are conversant with our art." 
 
 To Reynolds' s own written account I may add the testi- 
 mony of a friend, who often conversed with him upon the 
 glories of Rome : " When arrived in that garden of the 
 world," says Northcotc, " that great temple of the arts, his 
 time was diligently and judiciously employed in such a 
 manner as might have been expected from one of his talents 
 and virtue. He contemplated with unwearied attention 
 and ardent zeal the various beauties which marked the style
 
 182 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 of different schools and different ages. It was with no 
 common eye that he beheld the productions of the great 
 masters. He copied and sketched in the Vatican such 
 parts of the works of Raphael and Michael Angelo as he 
 thought would be most conducive to his future excellence, 
 and by his well-directed study acquired, whilst he contem- 
 plated the best works of the best masters, that grace of 
 thinking, to which he was principally indebted for his sub- 
 sequent reputation as a portrait-painter." l 
 
 Much, however, as Reynolds in his lectures inculcates 
 the necessity of constantly copying the great masters it 
 appears that he did but little in this way himself. " Of 
 the few copies which he made while at Rome," says Malone, 
 " two are now in the possession of the Earl of Inchiquin, 
 who married his niece, Miss Palmer, ' St. Michael the Arch- 
 angel Slaying the Dragon,' after Guido, and ' The School of 
 Athens,' from Raphael both masterly performances." 
 Rome at that period swarmed with those English connois- 
 seurs and travellers of taste whom Hogarth so sharply 
 satirized and hated so cordially ; they were all anxious to 
 have copies of favourite works made by an artist so able as 
 Reynolds ; he felt, however, the folly of multiplying pic- 
 tures, and eluded their alluring offers. " Whilst I was at 
 Rome," he says, " I was very little employed by travellers, 
 and that little I always considered as so much time lost." 2 
 
 1 It was while studying in the Vatican that he caught the severe cold 
 which brought on the deafness with which he was ever after afflicted. 
 ED. 
 
 * In one of his Roman note-books is the following list of the copies of 
 pictures he made at Rome : 
 
 ' In the Villa Medici, the ' Vase of the Sacrifice of Iphigenia.' 
 
 1 In the Corsini Palace, April 16 (in the afternoon), 1750, 'Anno 
 
 Jubilei.' 
 
 ' 1. A Study of an Old Man's Head, reading, by Rubens. 
 ' 2. April 17 to 19. A Portrait of Philip II., by Titian. 
 ' 3. April 20. Rembrandt's Portrait, by himself. 
 ' 4. April 21 to 23. St. Martino on horseback, giving the devil, who 
 appeared to him in the shape of a beggar, his cloak. Captain Black- 
 quier'sP. An Old Beggar Man. My Own Picture. Jacamo's Picture. 
 " 5. Began May 30, finished June 10. St. Michael by Guido. A foot 
 
 from my own. 
 
 " 6. June 13. The ' Aurora' of Guido, a sketch. June 15. Went to 
 Tivoli. August 15. Worked in the Vatican." ED.
 
 REYNOLDS. 183 
 
 Of the character and course of his technical studies in 
 Rome, he has left a minute account ; which, however, is 
 chiefly valuable to the student in painting for the lan- 
 guage is that of the craft. Having filled his mind with the 
 character of the great painters, and possessed himself, as 
 he believed, with no small portion of their spirit, he pro- 
 ceeded to examine into the mechanical sorcery of their exe- 
 cution, and to dissect the varied colours which were blended 
 on their canvas : " The Leda in the Colonna Palace by 
 Correggio," he says, " is dead-coloured white, and black or 
 ultramarine in the shadows ; and over that is scumbled 
 thinly and smooth a warmer tint I believe caput mor- 
 tuum. The lights are mellow, the shadows bluish, but 
 mellow. The picture is painted on a panel, in a broad, 
 large manner, but finished like an enamel ; the shadows 
 harmonize, and are lost in the ground. 1 
 
 " ' The Adonis ' of Titian in the Colonna Palace is dead- 
 coloured white, with the muscles marked bold ; the second 
 painting has scumbled a light colour over it ; the lights a 
 mellow flesh-colour ; the shadows in the light parts of a 
 faint purple hue ; at least they were so at first. That 
 purple hue seems to be occasioned by blackish shadows 
 under, and the colour scumbled over them. I copied the 
 Titian with white, umber, niinio, cinnabar, black ; the 
 shadows thin of colour. 
 
 " Poussin's landscapes in the Verospi palace are painted 
 on a dark ground made of Indian red and black. The same 
 ground might do for all other subjects as well as landscapes. 
 
 " In respect to painting the flesh tint, after it has been 
 finished with very strong colours, such as ultramarine and 
 carmine, pass white over it very very thin with oil. I be- 
 lieve it will have a wonderful effect. Make a finished sketch 
 of every portrait you intend to paint, and by the help of 
 that dispose your living model ; then finish at the first 
 time on a ground made of Indian red and black." 
 
 1 It is difficult to know what painting of Leda Sir Joshua here de- 
 scribes, Correggio's celebrated painting of that subject now in the Berlin 
 Museum never having been, so far as it is known, in the Colonna Palace. 
 There is a copy of this work in the Palazzo Rospigliosi at Rome. Pos- 
 sibly it was this tkat Sir Joshua thus studied. En.
 
 184 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 Through all his loiters and memorandums there are 
 scattered allusions to his favourite art, and the works of 
 the chief masters ; and opinions are given and a scale of 
 comparative excellence laid down in a manner equally clear, 
 candid and accurate. It is true that he dictates rules for 
 the guidance of others which he did not follow himself. 
 When he became acquainted with all the wiles and strata- 
 gems of position and light and shade, he could dispense 
 with the practice of making sketches of portraits, and de- 
 pend on his experience. 
 
 " In comparison- with Titian and Paul Veronese," he 
 observes, " all the other Venetian masters appear hard ; 
 they have in a degree the manner of Rembrandt all mezzo- 
 tinto, occasioned by scumbling over their pictures with some 
 dark oil or colour. There is little colour in the shadows, 
 but much oil they seem to be made only of a drying oil 
 composed of red lead and oil. There are some artists who 
 are diligent in examining pictures, and yet are not at all 
 advanced in their judgment ; although they can remember 
 the exact colour of every figure in the picture ; but not re- 
 flecting deeply on what they have seen, or making observa- 
 tions to themselves, they are not at all improved by the 
 crowd of particulars that swim on the surface of their 
 brains ; as nothing enters deep enough into their minds to 
 do them benefit through digestion. A painter should form 
 his rules from pictures rather than from books or precepts. 
 Eules were first made from pictures, not pictures from rules. 
 Every picture an artist sees, whether the most excellent or 
 the most ordinary, he should consider from whence that 
 fine effect, or that ill effect proceeds ; and then there is no 
 picture ever so indifferent, but he may look at to his profit." 
 
 On our English connoisseurs and travellers of taste he 
 has written some sharp and just remarks. This country, 
 at that period, and long after, exported swarms of men with 
 the malady of vertu upon them, who brought back long 
 lists of pictures, and catalogues of artists' names and set 
 up for dictators here at home with no other stock. " The 
 manner," says Reynolds, " of the English travellers in 
 general, and of those who most pique themselves on study- 
 ing vertu is that, instead of examining the beauties of these
 
 REYNOLDS. 185 
 
 works of fame, and why they are esteemed, they only in- 
 quire the subject of the picture, and the name of the painter, 
 the history of a statue, and where it is found, and write 
 that down. Some Englishmen, while I was in the Vatican, 
 came there, and spent about six hours in writing down 
 whatever the antiquary dictated to them. They scarcely ever 
 looked at the paintings the whole time." 
 
 Reynolds extended his inquiries amongst the remains 
 of ancient art, and endeavoured to ascertain, by what 
 he could glean from the classic writers, and by what he 
 could discover in the remaining statues, how far the 
 paintings of ancient Greece resembled those of modern 
 Rome. His conclusions can only be considered as expres- 
 sions of belief, on a subject with regard to which we have 
 not the materials of certain knowledge. He stayed in 
 Rome till his judgment ripened, and gazed on the pro- 
 ductions of Raphael and Michael Angelo till the mercury 
 of his taste rose to the point of admiration. He then 
 concluded, that, as those works were the most perfect in 
 the world, the paintings of antiquity must have been in 
 character the same in short, that the " grand style " had 
 descended direct from Apelles to Raphael. From an anec- 
 dote in Pliny, of the painter and the partridge, he con- 
 ceived that a lively copy of nature was held as a vulgar 
 thing by the painters of Greece, and that they approached 
 living life no nearer than the sculptor of the Belvedere 
 Apollo. This theory, however, appears to be contradicted 
 by the Elgin marbles, and by the poetry of the nation, 
 which is full of graphic images of homely, as well as heroic 
 life. These conclusions, and his constant admonition to 
 study the " grand style," and think of nothing but what is 
 heroic or godlike as a subject for the pencil, have helped to 
 misdirect the minds of students, and beget a monotony of 
 composition, through which nothing but strong and decided 
 genius can break. Few men are born with powers equal 
 to the divine grandeur of such works and many a good 
 painter of domestic life may attribute the laborious dulness 
 of his historic compositions to the incessant cry of all aca- 
 demies about the study of the " grand style." Hear how 
 Reynolds commends the absence of nature
 
 186 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 " Suppose a person while he is contemplating a capital 
 picture by Raphael or the Carracci, whilst he is wrapped 
 in wonder at the sight of ' St. Paul preaching at Athens,' 
 and the various dispositions of his audience or is struck 
 with the distress of the mother in the ' Death of the Inno- 
 cents ' or with tears in his eyes beholds the ' Dead Christ ' 
 of Carracci would it not offend him to have his attention 
 called off to observe a piece of drapery in the picture 
 naturally represented ? " 
 
 What is it that drapery ought to resemble and where- 
 withal shall a man be clothed that his garments may not 
 look too natural ? The living St. Paul himself was under 
 no such apprehension ; nor is it recorded that he failed in 
 any of his missions because the heathen paid more attention 
 to his clothes than his eloquence. The sentiment and 
 character of the figure will dictate the drapery, and when 
 these are strong, and true, and natural, they will always 
 predominate over the accessories. Had he advised to 
 clothe a figure gaily or gravely, according to the style of 
 the countenance and gesture, Reynolds would have spoken 
 more in keeping with his own practice. 1 
 
 He seems to have employed his time at Rome chiefly in 
 studying all the varieties of excellence, and in acquiring 
 that knowledge of effect which he was so soon to display. 
 The severe dignity of Angelo or Raphael he had no chance 
 of attaining, for he wanted loftiness of imagination, with- 
 out which no grand work can ever be achieved ; but he had 
 a deep sense of character, great skill in light and shade, a 
 graceful softness and an alluring sweetness, such as none 
 have surpassed. From the works of Leonardo da Vinci, 
 Fra. Bartolomeo, Titian, and Velasquez, he acquired know- 
 ledge, which placed fortune and fame within his reach ; 
 yet of these artists he says little, though he acknowledges 
 the portrait of " Innocent the Tenth," by the last-named of 
 them, to be the finest in the world. 
 
 Few original productions came from the hand of Reynolds 
 while he remained at Rome. He painted a noble portrait 
 
 1 Reynolds certainly never meant that drapery or any other detail 
 should be unnatural, as Cunningham seems to think ; he only warns his 
 pupils against making such things too obtrusive. ED.
 
 REYNOLDS. 187 
 
 of himself, and left it in that city : and he also painted a 
 kind of parody on " Raphael's School of Athens," into 
 which he introduced about thirty likenesses of English 
 students, travellers and connoisseurs, and amongst others 
 that of Mr. Henry, of Straffan, in Ireland, the proprietor 
 of the picture. " I have heard Reynolds himself say," re- 
 marks Northcote, " that it was universally allowed that 
 he executed subjects of this kind with much humour and 
 spirit ; yet he thought it prudent to abandon the practice, 
 since it might corrupt his taste as a portrait- painter, whose 
 duty it was to discover only the perfections of those whom 
 he represented." 
 
 During the period of his studies at Rome, Reynolds was 
 the companion of John Astley, who had been his fellow 
 pupil in the school of Hudson. This was an indifferent 
 artist and an imperfect scholar for he would rather run 
 three miles to deliver a message by word of mouth than 
 write the shortest note ; but his person attracted the notice 
 of a lady of noble birth, who moreover brought him a very 
 handsome fortune. Before his marriage, he was poor and 
 nearly destitute ; yet he had a proud heart, and strove to 
 conceal his embarrassments. One summer day, when the 
 sun was hot, and he, Reynolds, and a few others, were in- 
 dulging themselves in a country excursion, there was a 
 general call to cast off coats Astley obeyed with manifest 
 reluctance, and not until he had stood many sarcasms from 
 his friends. He had made the back of his waistcoat out 
 of one of his own landscapes, and when he stripped, he 
 displayed a foaming waterfall, much to his own confusion, 
 and the mirth of his companions. 
 
 From Rome, Reynolds went to Bologna and Genoa. 
 He was not one of those artists who see or think they 
 see through all the deep mysteries of conception and 
 execution at a glance ; he perused and reperused, and con- 
 sidered and compared with the assiduity and anxiety of a 
 man ambitious to be counted with the foremost, and re- 
 solved not to fail for want of labour. He was more frugal 
 of his remarks while at these cities than when he was at 
 Rome ; nor are the few which he did set down of any 
 value, either to students or travellers. From Genoa he
 
 188 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 proceeded to Parma, and this is his memorandum respect- 
 ing the painting in the cupola of the cathedral. 1 
 
 " Eelieve the light part of the picture with a dark ground, 
 or the dark part with a light ground, whichever will have 
 the most agreeable effect, or make the best mass. The 
 cupola of Parma has the dark objects relieved, and the 
 lights scarcely distinguishable from the ground. Some 
 whole figures are considered as shadows ; all the lights 
 are of one colour. It is in the shadows only that the 
 colours vary. In general, all the shadows should be of 
 one colour, and the lights only to be distinguished by dif- 
 ferent tints ; at least it should be so when the background 
 is dark in the picture." 
 
 From Parma, Eeynolds travelled to Florence, where he 
 remained two months, observing much, but committing 
 few remarks to writing ; and from thence to Venice, where 
 his stay was still shorter. This is the more remarkable, since 
 the Venetian school influenced his professional character far 
 more powerfully than all the other schools of art put together : 
 and his silence concerning the excellences of the famous 
 masters of Venice, and his short abode there, have occasioned 
 some curious speculations. 2 It has been observed that Rey- 
 nolds admired one style and painted another ; that with 
 Raphael and Michael Angelo, and " the great masters " and 
 
 1 This is the celebrated dome-painting by Correggio representing the 
 " Assumption of the Virgin," in which the figures rise as it were from a 
 dark background into a perfect sea of light. In Reynolds's time it was 
 probably in better preservation than now, and must have afforded a rare 
 scope for study to such an observant artist. The influence of Correggio 
 is often apparent in Reynolds's practice of chiaroscuro. ED. 
 
 2 It is true that he only made a short stay in Venice, from the 24th of 
 July to the 16th of August; but his note-books show that he made good 
 use of his time while there. His Venetian notes are fuller and more 
 technical than any others. He himself tells us of the method he followed 
 in acquiring a knowledge of the principles upon which the Venetian 
 masters worked : " When I observed an extraordinary effect of light and 
 shade in any picture, I took a leaf out of my pocket-book, and darkened 
 every part of it in the same gradation of light and shade as the picture, 
 leaving the white paper untouched to represent the light, and this with- 
 out any attention to the subject, or to the drawing of the figures." 
 
 This does not seem as though he were seeking to hide the means by 
 which he acquired his skill, as Allan Cunningham accuses him of doing. 
 
 ED.
 
 REYNOLDS. 189 
 
 "the grand style " on his lips, he dedicated his own pencil 
 to works of a character into which little of the lofty, and 
 nothing of the divine, could well be introduced. To have 
 explained by what means or by what studies he acquired 
 his own unrivalled skill in art, would have been more to 
 the purpose than comments upon Correggio, or Raphael, 
 or Michael Angelo. He has chosen to remain silent, and 
 artists must seek for the knowledge which made the for- 
 tune of Reynolds elsewhere than in his counsel. 
 
 " After an absence," says Malone, " of near three years, 
 he began to think of returning home ; and a slight circum- 
 stance, which he used to mention, may serve to show that, 
 however great may have been the delight which he derived 
 from residence in a country that Raphael and Michael 
 Angelo had embellished by their works, the prospect of re- 
 visiting his native land was not unpleasing. When he was 
 at Venice, in compliment to the English gentlemen then 
 residing there, the manager of the opera one night ordered 
 the band to play an English ballad tune. Happening to 
 be the popular air which was played or sung in almost 
 every street just at the time of their leaving London, by 
 suggesting to them that metropolis, with all its endearing 
 circumstances, it immediately brought tears into Reynolds' s 
 eyes, as well as into those of his countrymen who were pre- 
 sent." " Thus nature will prevail," adds Northcote, " and 
 Paul Veronese, Tintoret, and even Titian, were all given 
 up at the moment, from the delightful prospect of again 
 returning to his native land." On his way over Mount 
 Cenis, he met Hudson and Roubiliac hasting on to Rome. 
 At Paris, he found Chambers, the architect, who after- 
 wards aided him in founding the Royal Academy. Here 
 he painted the portrait of Mrs. Chambers, daughter of 
 Wilton, the sculptor, who was eminently beautiful. She 
 is represented in a hat, which shades part of her face. The 
 picture was much admired, and must have raised high ex- 
 pectations. 
 
 He arrived in England in October, 1752, and after visiting 
 Devonshire for a few weeks, obeyed the solicitations of 
 Lord Edgcuinbe and his own wishes, and established him- 
 self as a professional man in Saint Martin's Lane, London.
 
 190 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 He found such opposition as genius is commonly doomed 
 to meet with, and does not always overcome. The boldness 
 of his attempts, the freedom of his conceptions, and the 
 brilliancy of his colouring, were considered as innovations 
 upon the established and orthodox system of portrait 
 manufacture. The artists raised their voices first ; and of 
 these Hudson, who had just returned from Eome, was 
 loudest. His old master looked for some minutes on a 
 Boy, in a turban, which he had just painted, and exclaimed, 
 with the addition of the national oath " Reynolds, you 
 don't paint so well as when you left England ! " Ellis, an 
 eminent portrait-maker, who had studied under Kneller, 
 lifted up his voice the next " Ah ! Eeynolds, this will 
 never answer. Why, you don't paint in the least like Sir 
 Godfrey." The youthful artist defended himself with much 
 ability, upon which the other exclaimed in astonishment at 
 this new heresy in art " Shakespeare in poetry and 
 Kneller in painting, damme ! " and walked out of the 
 room. This sharp treatment and the constant quotation 
 of the names of Lely and Kneller, infected the mind of 
 Reynolds with a dislike for the works of these two popular 
 painters, which continued to the close of his life. 
 
 He thus describes the artists with whom he had to con- 
 tend in the commencement of his career. " They have got 
 a set of postures, which they apply to all persons indiscri- 
 minately ; the consequence of which is, that all their pic- 
 tures look like so many sign-post paintings ; and if they 
 have a history or a family-piece to paint, the first thing they 
 do is to look over their common-place book, containing 
 sketches which they have stolen from various pictures ; 
 then they search their prints over, and pilfer one figure 
 from one print and another from a second ; but never take 
 the trouble of thinking for themselves." From the re- 
 proach of dealing in long-established attitudes, Reynolds 
 himself is by no means free ; but he never copied a posture 
 which he failed to make his own, by throwing over it the 
 charm of a graceful fancy and the elegance of nature. 
 
 The contest with his fellow artists was of short continu- 
 ance. The works which had gained him celebrity were not 
 the fortunate offspring of some happy moment, but of one
 
 REYNOLDS. 191 
 
 who could pour out such pictures in profusion. Better ones 
 were not slow in coming. He painted the second Duke of 
 Devonshire, and this increased his fame. He next painted 
 his patron Commodore Keppel and produced a work of 
 such truth and nobleness that it fixed universal atten- 
 tion. This gallant seaman in pursuing a privateer, ran 
 his ship aground on the coast of France, and was made 
 prisoner in the midst of his exertions to save his crew from 
 destruction. He was released from prison, and acquitted 
 of all blame by a court-martial. The portrait represents 
 him just escaped from shipwreck. The artist deviated from 
 the formal style of his rivals, and deviated into excellence. 
 The spirit of a higher species of art is visible in this per- 
 formance, yet the likeness was reckoned perfect. 1 
 
 But so unsettled is fashion, so fluctuating is taste, so 
 uncertain is a man of genius of obtaining the reward he 
 deserves so little can he depend upon the immediate 
 triumph of intellect over pretension, that the popularity of 
 any contemptible competitor annoys and disturbs him. 
 So it happened to Reynolds. One Liotard, a native of 
 Geneva, of little skill and of no genius, but patronized 
 by several noblemen, rose suddenly into distinction 
 and employment. Of this Reynolds spoke and wrote 
 with much impatience and some bitterness. " The only 
 merit in Liotard's pictures" (he says) "is neatness, which, 
 as a general rule, is the characteristic of low genius, or 
 rather no genius at all. His pictures are just what ladies 
 do when they paint for their amusement ; nor is there any 
 person, how poor soever their talents may be, but in a very 
 few years, by dint of practice may possess themselves of 
 every qualification in the art which this great man has got." 
 This is sufficiently severe it is, however, just. The por- 
 traits of his rival were facsimiles of life they had no 
 vigour, no elegance, no intellect they were minute .with- 
 out grace, and laboured without beauty. The friends of 
 Liotard, finding that no honour was reflected back upon 
 them by their patronage, withdrew their protection ; his 
 name sunk into silence, and he returned to the Continent, 
 
 1 Reynolds executed several portraits of this brave officer. The best 
 known is now in the National Gallery. ED.
 
 192 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 leaving an open field and the honour of the victory to 
 Reynolds the first time that a British painter had 
 triumphed in such a contest. He now removed from 
 Saint Martin's Lane, the Grub Street of artists, and took 
 a handsome house on the north side of Great Newport 
 Street. His portrait of Keppel and his picture of the two 
 Grevilles, brother and sister as Cupid and Psyche and his 
 success in the contest for distinction with Liotard brought 
 business in abundance, and his apartments were filled with 
 ladies of quality and with men of rank, all alike desirous 
 to have their person preserved to posterity by one who 
 touched no subject without adorning it. " The desire to 
 perpetuate the form of self-complacency," says Northcote, 
 " crowded the sitting-room of Reynolds with women who 
 wished to be transmitted as angels, and with men who 
 wished to appear as heroes and philosophers. From his 
 pencil they were sure to be gratified. The force and feli- 
 city of his portraits, not only drew around him the opulence 
 and beauty of the nation, but happily gained him the 
 merited honour of perpetuating the features of all the 
 jjminent and distinguished men of learning then living." 
 fit is not a little amusing to read Reynolds' s lofty com- 
 mendations of Raphael and Angelo to observe how warmly 
 he poured out his admiration over the severe dignity of 
 their productions, and how enthusiastically he laboured to 
 establish the serene majesty of the " grand style " in op- 
 position to all other works ; and then to look at him in his 
 own person commencing the regular manufacture of faces 
 as soon as he has leisure to establish himself. I sincerely 
 believe, however, that in devoting his pencil to portraits he 
 not only took the way to fortune, but followed the scope of 
 his nature. He was deficient in the lofty apprehension of 
 a subject ; had little power in picturing out vividly scenes 
 from history or from poetry ; and, through this capital 
 deficiency of imagination, was compelled to place in reality 
 before him what others could bring by the force of fancy. 
 He was now thirty years old, his fame was spread far 
 and wide, and the number of his commissions augmented 
 daily. In the force and grace of expression, and in the 
 natural splendour of colouring, no one could rival him ;
 
 REYNOLDS, 193 
 
 success begot confidence in his own powers ; he tried bolder 
 attitudes and more diversified character, and succeeded in 
 every attempt. A close observer of nature, he laid hold of 
 every happy attitude into which either negligence or study 
 threw the human frame. On one occasion, he observed 
 that a noble person, one of his sitters, instead of looking 
 the way the painter wished, kept gazing at a beautiful 
 picture by one of the old masters. The artist instantly 
 pressed this circumstance into service. " I snatched the 
 moment," he observes, " and drew him in profile with as 
 much of that expression of a pleasing melancholy as my 
 capacity enabled me to hit off. When the picture was 
 finished, he liked it, and particularly for that expression, 
 though, I believe, without reflecting on the occasion of it." 
 Some time in the year 1754, he acquired the acquain- 
 tance, and afterwards the friendship, of Samuel Johnson. 
 How this happened is related by Boswell. The artist was 
 visiting in Devonshire, and in an interval of conversation 
 or study opened the "Life of Savage." While he was 
 standing with his arm leaning against the chimney-piece, 
 he began to read, and it seized his attention so strongly, 
 that, not being able to lay down the book till he had finished 
 it, when he attempted to move he found his arm totally 
 benumbed. He was solicitous to know an author, one of 
 whose books had thus enchanted him, and by accident or de- 
 sign he met him at the Miss Cotterals in Newport Street. It 
 was Keynolds's good fortune also to make a remark, which 
 Johnson perceived could only have arisen in the mind of a 
 man who thought for himself. The ladies were regretting 
 the death of a friend, to whom they owed great obligations : 
 " You have, however, the comfort," said Reynolds, " of 
 being relieved from the burden of gratitude." They were 
 shocked at this selfish suggestion ; but Johnson maintained 
 that it was true to human nature, and, on going away, ac- 
 companied Reynolds home. Thus commenced a friendship 
 which was continued to old age without much interruption. 1 
 
 1 Johnson never seems to have said a morose word about Reynolds. 
 He greatly admired the deaf artist's powers of observation, and once 
 remarked, " When Reynolds tells mo anything I am possessed of an idea 
 the more," a rare tribute of praise from such a man. ED. 
 
 o
 
 194 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 The rough and saturnine Johnson was very unlike the 
 soft, the graceful, and flexible Beynolds. The former, the 
 most distinguished man of his time for wit, wisdom, various 
 knowledge, and original vigour of genius, had lived neg- 
 lected nay, spurned by the opulent and the titled tUl 
 his universal fame forced him on them ; and when, after 
 life was half spent in toil and sorrow, he came forth at 
 length from his obscurity, he spread consternation among 
 the polished circles by his uncouth shape and gestures, 
 more by his ready and vigorous wit, and an incomparable 
 sharpness of sarcasm, made doubly keen and piercing by 
 learning. His circumstances rendered it unnecessary to 
 soothe the proud by assentation, or the beautiful by fine 
 speeches. He appeared among men not to win his way 
 leisurely to the first place by smiles and bows; but to 
 claim it, take it, and keep it, as the distinction to which he 
 was born, and of which he had been too long defrauded. 
 The course which his art required Reynolds to pursue, was 
 far different from this. The temper of Hogarth had in- 
 jured his practice in portraiture ; the lesson had been re- 
 cently read, and the prudent and sagacious Reynolds re- 
 solved not to drive fortune from his door by austerity 
 of manners and surly and intractable independence of spirit. 
 He who would succeed as a portrait-painter must practice 
 the patience and the courtesy of a fine lady's physician. It 
 is not enough to put the sitter into a suitable posture : he 
 must also by conversation move him into a suitable mood 
 of mind, and that natural and unembarrassed ease of ex- 
 pression without which there can be no success. He has, 
 moreover, to keep him thus, throughout the whole of a 
 tedious operation. No one will suppose that the difficul- 
 ties are less with patients of the softer sex. To the vain 
 and the whimsical, Reynolds opposed constant courtesy, 
 and soothed them by that professional flattery to which 
 they are generally accessible. 1 Disappointment and un- 
 
 1 It was not so much flattery that Reynolds practised as an idealiza- 
 tion of the commonplace. Never before had a painter exercised his art 
 with such delicate perception and profound understanding as Sir Joshua. 
 " No wonder," as I have written elsewhere, " that fair women and high- 
 born men nocked to his studio, for while they saw their very thoughts, as
 
 REYNOLDS. 195 . 
 
 merited neglect had for ever roughened Johnson ; his trade 
 polished Reynolds. The flattery which the latter practised 
 with his pencil helped to smooth his tongue ; and I am 
 surprised that Northcote, a man shrewd and observing, 
 should have been unconscious of this, when he accuses the 
 former of pride, envy, and vulgarity, and compares the dis- 
 courtesy of his inquiring in the presence of the Duchess 
 of Argyle, " How much, Reynolds, do you think we could 
 win in a week, if we were to work as hard as we could ? " 
 with the graceful and accommodating manners of his old 
 master. Reynolds, however whether from that kind of 
 feeling which induces one man to admire another for what 
 he wants himself, or from a desire of profiting by the wis- 
 dom and the wit, the conversational eloquence and opulent 
 understanding, of Johnson cultivated the friendship of 
 the great author assiduously and successfully : and of the 
 fruit which he derived from the intercourse he thus speaks 
 in one of his " Discourses on Art." 
 
 " Whatever merit these ' Discourses ' may have must be 
 imputed in a great measure to the education which I may 
 be said to have had under Dr. Johnson. I do not mean 
 to say, though it certainly would be to the credit of these 
 
 it were, revealed, on his canvas, and their individuality fully preserved, 
 they yet, at the same time, saw themselves, by the magic of his art, lifted 
 above the region of commonplace into a realm of poetry and grace." 
 " To wander through a gallery of his portraits," says a modern critic, 
 " is to wander through a court where the manners are sweet, because of 
 goodness, and graceful without effort, because the grace is inborn." Yet, 
 strange to say, even with the most unpromising sitters, this nobility and 
 effortless grace were never attained at the sacrifice of truth ; not that Sir 
 Joshua ever reproduced accurately, as photography now does, every little 
 blemish and disturbing passion on the faces of his sitters. His was not 
 the patient skill of a Denner, to count hairs and map wrinkles, but the 
 deep insight of the true artist, who 
 
 " Poring on a face 
 
 Divinely through all hindrance finds the man 
 Behind it, and so paints him that his face, 
 The shape and colour of a mind and life, 
 Lives for his children ever at its best." 
 
 Just such a heritage has Reynolds left to the present generation 
 the portraits of its great-grandmothers and great-grandfathers, "ever at 
 their best." ED.
 
 196 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 ' Discoures ' if I could say it with truth, that he contri- 
 buted even a single sentiment to them ; but he qualified 
 my mind to think justly. No man had, like him, the art 
 of teaching inferior minds the art of thinking. Perhaps 
 other men might have equal knowledge, but few were so 
 communicative. His great pleasure was to talk to those 
 who looked up to him. It was here he exhibited his 
 wonderful powers. The observations which he made on 
 poetry, on life, and on everything about us, I applied to 
 our art with what success others must judge." 
 
 The price which Reynolds at first received for a head 
 was five guineas ; the rate increased with his fame, and 
 in the year 1755 his charge was twelve. Experience about 
 this time dictated the following memorandum respecting 
 his art. " For painting the flesh : black, blue-black, 
 white, lake, carmine, orpiment, yellow- ochre, ultramarine, 
 and varnish. To lay the palette : first lay, carmine and 
 white in different degrees ; second lay, orpiment and white 
 ditto; third lay, blue-black and white ditto. The first 
 sitting, for expedition, make a mixture as like the sitter's 
 complexion as you can." Some years afterwards I find, 
 by a casual notice from Johnson, that Reynolds had raised 
 his price for a head to twenty guineas. 
 
 The year 1758 was perhaps the most lucrative of his 
 professional career. The account of the economy of his 
 studies, and the distribution of his time at this period 
 is curious and instructive. It was his practice to keep 
 all the prints engraved from his portraits, together with 
 his sketches, in a large portfolio ; these he submitted to 
 his sitters ; and, whatever position they selected, he im- 
 mediately proceeded to copy it on the canvas, and paint 
 the likeness to correspond. He received six sitters daily, 
 who appeared in their turns ; and he kept regular lists 
 of those who sat, and of those who were waiting until a 
 finished portrait should open a vacancy for their admis- 
 sion. He painted them as they stood on his list, and 
 often sent the work home before the colours were dry. 
 Of lounging visitors he had a great abhorrence, and, as 
 he reckoned up the fruits of his labours, " Those idle 
 people," said this disciple of the grand historical school
 
 REYNOLDS. 197 
 
 of Raphael and Angelo, " those idle people do not con- 
 sider that my time is worth five guineas an hour." This 
 calculation incidentally informs us that it was Reynolds' s 
 practice, in the height of his reputation and success, to 
 paint a portrait in four hours. 
 
 His acquaintance with Johnson induced him, about this 
 time, to write for the " Idler " some papers on exact imi- 
 tations of nature and the true conception of beauty. These 
 essays are not remarkable either for vigour or for ele- 
 gance ; they set nothing old in a new light. He claims for 
 painting the privilege of poetry in selecting fit subjects 
 for the pencil, in imitating what is pure and lofty, and 
 avoiding the mechanical drudgery of copying with a servile 
 accuracy all that nature presents. He asserts that poetry 
 is the sister of painting ; that both exercise authority over 
 the realms of imagination ; and that the latter alone adds 
 intellectual energy to the productions of fancy. Concern- 
 ing our conceptions of the beautiful, he says that the pro- 
 ductions of nature are all of themselves beautiful ; and 
 that custom, rather than the surpassing loveliness of par- 
 ticular objects, directs our admiration. He expended 
 much thought in the composition of these papers ; and, 
 as they were required by Johnson to meet some sudden 
 emergency, he sat up all night, which occasioned a sharp 
 illness that detained him awhile from his pencil. In 
 these essays, he urges his favourite theory of contemplat- 
 ing and practising the more grave and serenely poetical 
 style of painting, and his love of the religious productions 
 of the great apostles of Romish art is visible in every 
 page. His remarks are deficient in that original spirit 
 which distinguishes the ruder memorandums of Hogarth ; 
 and, what is odd enough, he seems to comprehend less 
 clearly than the other the scope and character of the works 
 of the great foreign masters, though he had lived long in 
 daily contemplation of their productions. 
 
 Notwithstanding his professional diligence, and the 
 time which be was compelled to yield to the attachment of 
 friends and the curiosity of strangers, he found leisure to 
 note down many useful remarks concerning his art ; some 
 of which seem coloured by the imagination or moulded by
 
 198 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 the sagacity of Johnson. " The world," he says, " was 
 weary of the long train of insipid imitators of Claude and 
 Poussin, and demanded something new ; Salvator Eosa saw 
 and supplied this deficiency. He struck into a new and 
 savage sort of composition, which was very striking. San- 
 nazarius, the Italian poet, for the same reason substituted 
 fishermen for shepherds, and changed the scene to the sea. 
 Want of simplicity is a material imperfection either in con- 
 ception or in colouring. There is a pure, chaste, modest, 
 as well as a bold, independent glaring colour; men of 
 genius use the one, common minds the other. Some pain- 
 ters think they never can enrich their pictures enough, and 
 delight in gaudy colours and startling contrasts. All hurry 
 and confusion in the composition of the picture should be 
 avoided ; it deprives the work of the majesty of repose. 
 When I think on the high principle of the art, it brings to 
 my mind the works of L. Carracci, and the ' Transfiguration ' 
 of Raphael. There every figure is ardent and animated, 
 yet all is dignified. A solemnity pervades the whole pic- 
 ture, which strikes every one with awe and reverence." No 
 artist ever had a finer sense of excellence could distin- 
 guish more accurately between various degrees of merit in 
 all the great productions of the pencil, or lay down happier 
 rules for composition. He probably never lived a day with- 
 out thinking of Michael Angelo, Raphael, or Correggio ; 
 he certainly never wrote a professional memorandum with- 
 out introducing their works or their names : a circum- 
 stance which blunts the sting of those lines in Eetalia- 
 tion 
 
 " When they talk'd of their Eaphaels, Correggios, and stuff, 
 He shifted his trumpet, and only took snuff." 
 
 The influence of an artist of commanding skill now be- 
 gan to be manifest : those who admired the moral scenes 
 of the shrewd and sarcastic Hogarth, were no less delighted 
 with the works of one who had all the grace and beauty 
 which long acquaintance with foreign pictures had taught 
 them to admire. It was pleasing to national pride to see 
 an Englishman measure himself successfully with Lely or 
 Vandyke; and personal vanity was hourly pampered by
 
 REYNOLDS. 199 
 
 his hand. Commissions continued to pour in the artist 
 engaged several subordinate labourers, who were skilful in 
 draperies raised his price in 1760 to twenty-five guineas, 
 and began to lay the foundation of a fortune. 
 
 It has been said that Hogarth observed the rising fame 
 of Reynolds with vexation and with envy ; but of this I 
 have observed no proofs, either in his works or in his me- 
 morandums ; and as he was not given to dissembling, but 
 a bold, blunt man, it seems likely that he would have 
 taken some opportunity of expressing such feelings if they 
 had really existed. The cold and cautious nature of Rey- 
 nolds rendered him, in the opinion of Johnson, almost in- 
 vulnerable; but I think Hogarth would have found a 
 way to plague even him, had he been so disposed. For the 
 envy of Hogarth we have the authority of George Steevens, 
 who lived near those times ; but his assertion is to be re- 
 ceived, with caution, if not with distrust. He was no ad- 
 mirer of the man whose character he undertook to delineate, 
 and in the same book, where he depreciated the dead, he 
 defiled the living. Hogarth may have laid himself open to 
 such a suspicion by the manner in which he opposed the 
 foundation of public lectures, and the establishment of an 
 Academy. 
 
 In the year 1760 a scheme, long contemplated and often 
 agitated, was carried into execution the establishment of 
 an exhibition of the works of British artists. Concerning 
 this undertaking Johnson thus writes to Baretti : " The 
 artists have established a yearly exhibition of pictures and 
 statues, in imitation, I am told, of foreign academies. This 
 year was the second exhibition. They please themselves 
 much with the multitude of spectators, and imagine that 
 the English school will rise much in reputation. Reynolds 
 is without a rival, and continues to add thousands to thou- 
 sands, which he deserves, among other excellencies, by re- 
 taining his kindness for Baretti. This exhibition has filled 
 the heads of the artists and lovers of art. Surely life, if it 
 be not long, is tedious ; since we are forced to call in the 
 assistance of so many trifles to rid us of our time of that 
 time which never can return." 
 
 One of the biographers of Reynolds imputes the reflec-
 
 200 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 tions contained in the conclusion of this letter, " to that 
 kind of envy, which perhaps even Johnson felt, when com- 
 paring his own annual gains with those of his more fortu- 
 nate friend." They are rather to be attributed to the sense 
 and taste of Johnson, who could not but feel the utter 
 worthlessness of the far greater part of the productions 
 with which the walls of the exhibition room were covered. 
 Artists are very willing to claim for their profession and 
 its productions rather more than the world seems disposed 
 to concede. It is very natural that this should be so ; but 
 it is also natural that a man of Johnson's caste should be 
 conscious of the dignity of his own pursuits, and agree with 
 the vast majority of mankind in ranking a Homer, a Vir- 
 gil, a Milton, or a Shakespeare immeasurably above all the 
 artists that ever painted or carved. Johnson, in a conver- 
 sation with Boswell, defined painting to be an art " which 
 could illustrate, but could not inform." 
 
 The catalogue to this new exhibition was, however, 
 graced with an introduction from the pen of the doctor 
 which contains the following passage. " An exhibition of 
 the works of art, being a spectacle new in the kingdom, 
 has raised various opinions and conjectures among those 
 who are unacquainted with the practice of foreign nations. 
 Those who set their performances to general view, have too 
 often been considered the rivals of each other; as men 
 actuated, if not by avarice, at least by vanity, as contend- 
 ing for superiority of fame, though not for a pecuniary 
 prize. It cannot be denied or doubted that all who offer 
 themselves to criticism are desirous of praise ; this desire 
 is not only innocent but virtuous, while it rs undebased by 
 artifice or unpolluted by envy : and of envy or artifice, those 
 men can never be accused, who, already enjoying all the 
 honours and profits of their profession, are content to stand 
 candidates for public notice with genius yet unexperienced 
 and diligence yet unrewarded ; who, without any hope of 
 increasing their own reputation or interest, expose their 
 names and their works only that they may furnish an op- 
 portunity of appearance to the young, the diffident, and the 
 neglected. The purpose of this exhibition is not to enrich 
 the artist, but to advance the art ; the eminent are not
 
 REYNOLDS. 201 
 
 flattered with preference, nor the obscure insulted with con- 
 tempt ; whoever hopes to deserve public favour, is here in- 
 vited to display his merit." 
 
 This is very specious and splendid ; but the artists of 
 fortune and reputation who planned and directed this work, 
 were more likely to seek stations of importance for their 
 own paintings, than to be solicitous about obtaining such 
 for the labours of the nameless. Positions of precedence 
 were likely to be eagerly contended for among the contri- 
 buting artists ; and it is probable that Johnson did not 
 pen these conciliatory paragraphs without a secret smile. 
 
 In the year 1761 accumulating wealth began to have a 
 visible effect on Eeynolds's establishment. He quitted 
 Newport Street, purchased a fine house on the west side of 
 Leicester Square, furnished it with much taste, added a 
 splendid gallery for the exhibition of his works, and an 
 elegant dining-room ; and finally taxed his invention and 
 his purse in the production of a carriage, with wheels 
 carved and gilt, and bearing on its panels the four seasons 
 of the year. Those who flocked to see his new gallery 
 were sometimes curious enough to desire a sight of this 
 gay carriage ; and the coachman, imitating the lackey who 
 showed the gallery, earned a little money by opening the 
 coach-house doors. His sister complained that it was too 
 showy " What ! " said the painter, " would you have one 
 like an apothecary's carriage ? " 
 
 By what course of study he attained his skill in art, 
 Reynolds has not condescended to tell us ; but of many 
 minor matters we are informed by one of his pupils with 
 all the scrupulosity of biography. His study was octagonal, 
 some twenty feet long, sixteen broad, and about fifteen feet 
 high. The window was small and square, and the sill nine 
 feet from the floor. His sitter's chair moved on castors, 
 and stood above the floor a foot and a half ; he held his 
 palettes by a handle, and the sticks of his brushes were 
 eighteen inches long. He wrought standing, and with great 
 celerity. He rose early, breakfasted at nine, entered his 
 study at ten, examined designs or touched unfinished por- 
 traits till eleven brought a sitter ; painted till four ; then 
 dressed, and gave the evening to company.
 
 202 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 His table was now elegantly furnished, and round it 
 men of genius were often found. He was a lover of poetry 
 and poets ; they sometimes read their productions at his 
 house, and were rewarded by his approbation, and occa- 
 sionally by their portraits. Johnson was a frequent and 
 a welcome guest : Percy was there too, with his ancient 
 ballads and his old English lore; Goldsmith with his 
 latent genius, infantine vivacity and plum-coloured coat, 
 and Sterne with his witty and licentious conversation. 
 Burke and his brothers were constant guests ; and Grarrick 
 was seldom absent, for he loved to be where greater men 
 were. It was honourable to this distinguished artist that 
 he perceived the worth of such men, and felt the honour 
 which their society shed upon him ; but it stopped not 
 here he often aided them with his purse, nor insisted upon 
 repayment. It has, indeed, been said that he was uncivil 
 to Johnson, and that once, on seeing him in his study, he 
 turned his back on him and walked out ; but to offer such 
 an insult was as little in the nature of the courtly painter, 
 as to forgive it was in that of the haughty author. Eeynolds 
 seems to have loved the company of literary men more 
 than that of artists ; he had little to learn in his profession, 
 and he naturally sought the society of those who had know- 
 ledge to impart. They have rewarded him with their ap- 
 probation ; he who has been praised by Burke, and who 
 was loved by Johnson, has little chance of being forgotten. 
 
 He obtained the more equivocal approbation of Sterne, 
 of whom he painted a very clever portrait, with the finger 
 on the brow and the head full of thought. 1 The author of 
 " Tristram Shandy," speaking of his hero's father, says, 
 " Then his whole attitude had been easy, natural, unforced, 
 Eeynolds himself, great and graceful as he paints, might 
 have painted him as he sat." The death of Sterne is said 
 to have been hastened by the sarcastic raillery of a lady 
 whom he encountered at the painter's table. He offended 
 her by the grossness of his conversation, and, being in a 
 declining state of health, suffered, if we are to believe the 
 
 1 This interesting portrait is now in the possession of the Marquis of 
 Lansdowne, who lent it to the second exhibition of Old Masters at Bur- 
 lington House. ED.
 
 REYNOLDS. 208 
 
 story, so severely from her wit that he went home and 
 died. That man must be singularly sensitive whose life 
 is at the mercy of a woman's sarcasm : the most of us are 
 content to live long after we are laughed at. 1 
 
 Reynolds' s next work, " Garrick between Tragedy and 
 Comedy," has been highly praised. Figures of flesh and 
 blood, however, never work well with figures of speech. 
 Shadow and substance cannot enter into any conversation : 
 the player standing irresolute between two such persona- 
 tions is an absurdity which the finest art and it is not 
 wanting cannot redeem. The soldier pondering between 
 nis Catholic and Protestant doxies, in Hogarth's " March 
 to Finchley," is natural and irresistibly comic ; but David 
 Garrick between his shadowy heroines is another affair. 
 
 Reynolds meditated a larger and more elaborate work 
 a composition displaying Garrick in his various powers as 
 a comic and tragic actor. The principal figure was designed 
 to be David himself in his own proper dress, speaking a 
 prologue. A little retired were to appear groups of figures 
 in the costume and character of the various heroes, from 
 Hamlet down to Abel Drugger, in the representation of 
 which the actor had obtained his fame. All these were to 
 be portraits, gently modified according to character. This 
 idea was never probably sketched ; it seems strange and un- 
 natural ; there could be no unity, as they were all individual 
 personations, which fitted each other in the ludicrous 
 manner of the scraps composing a medley. Garrick, how- 
 ever, who laboured under a double load of vanity as actor 
 and author, was charmed with the idea, and cried out, 
 " That will be the very thing which I desire : the only 
 way, , that I can be handed down to posterity." 
 
 While this eminent actor's portrait was in progress, he 
 mentioned to Reynolds that he once sat to Gainsborough, 
 whose talents he did not admire, and whom he puzzled 
 
 1 To poor Sterne there is an inglorious memorial among the nettles of 
 Bayswater burial-ground a wretched headstone, inscribed with the 
 more wretched rhymes of a tippling fraternity of Freemasons. The 
 worst is not yet told : his body was sold by his landlady to defray his 
 lodgings, ana was recognized on the dissecting-table by one who had 
 caroused with him, and enjoyed his witty and licentious conversation.
 
 204 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 by altering the expression of his face. Every time the 
 artist turned his back the actor put on a change of coun- 
 tenance, till the former in a passion dashed his pencils on 
 the floor, and cried, " I believe I am painting from the 
 devil rather than from a man." He sat often to Eeynolds 
 for different portraits : and on one of these occasions com- 
 plained wofully of the unceasing sarcasms of Foote. 
 " Never mind him," replied the shrewd painter " he only 
 shows his sense of his own inferiority : it is ever the least 
 in talent who becomes malignant and abusive." 
 
 In the year 1 762, the health of Reynolds having been 
 impaired by constant labour, he went into Devonshire, ac- 
 companied by Johnson. He was welcomed with something 
 of a silent approbation ; for the populace of England know 
 little, and care less, about either painting or poetry, or any 
 such matters. The applause, too, of a man's native place 
 is generally the last which he receives ; for those who knew 
 him in youth will not readily allow that in capacity he is 
 superior to themselves, and are apt to regard the coming 
 of his fame among them as an intrusion to be resented. 
 But Reynolds was a man armed in that philosophic calm- 
 ness which no disappointment could ruffle or disturb. He 
 received a kind welcome from the learned and scientific 
 Mudges, and was distinguished by the notice of all men 
 remarkable for knowledge or station. A homage was paid 
 him by one then young and nameless, who has since risen 
 high. " Mr. Reynold* was pointed out to me (says North- 
 cote) at a public meeting, where a great crowd was assem- 
 bled. I got as near him as I could, from the pressure of 
 the people, to touch the skirt of his coat, which I did with 
 great satisfaction to my mind." All who have souls to 
 feel the influence of genius, will applaud this touch of 
 youthful enthusiasm. 
 
 A gentleman whom they visited indulged Johnson with 
 new honey and clouted cream, of which he swallowed so 
 liberally that his entertainer grew alarmed. To the pru- 
 dent and discreet Reynolds the same person presented a 
 large jar of very old nut oil a professional prize which the 
 painter carried home in his own coach, regarding it as 
 worthy of his personal attention. He returned to London
 
 RETNOLDS. 205 
 
 restored to health, and recommenced his interrupted 
 labours. 
 
 His commissions were now so numerous and important, 
 that he found it necessary to have several young persons 
 to aid him in the minor details of his undertakings. It is 
 seldom, however, that pupils work sedulously for their 
 master's benefit ; and it is not to every one who cries " Go 
 to I will be an artist," that nature has been prodigal. 
 One pupil took to drinking, and soon died : others in 
 various ways annoyed and disappointed him. He was, 
 however, a clear-headed man and a zealous instructor, and 
 seems on the whole to have turned the skill of his young 
 men to some account. He informed Johnson that he was 
 obtaining by his profession six thousand pounds a year a 
 large income in those days, when portraits brought but 
 twenty-five guineas each. 
 
 The Literary Club was founded by Johnson in 1764, 
 and, amongst other men of eminence and talent, it 
 numbered Reynolds. It is true that he assumed not to 
 himself the distinction which literature bestows ; but his 
 friends knew too well the value of his presence to lose it 
 by a fastidious observance of the title of their club. Poets, 
 painters, and sculptors are all brothers ; and, even had he 
 Deen less eminent in his art, the sense, information, and 
 manners of Eeynolds would have made him an acceptable 
 companion in the most intellectual society. He was, how- 
 ever, rather alarmed on hearing that people spoke of him 
 as " one of the wits," and exclaimed : " Why have they 
 named me as a wit? I never was a wit in my life." 
 Reynolds had other merits, not unworthy of the considera- 
 tion of men so out of favour with fortune at that time as 
 Johnson, and Goldsmith, and Burke. He had a heavy 
 purse and an hospitable table. 
 
 In 1764 he was attacked with a serious illness, which 
 was equally sudden and alarming. He was cheered by the 
 anxiety of many friends, and by the solicitude of Johnson, 
 who wrote from Northamptonshire " I did not hear of 
 your sickness till I heard likewise of your recovery, and 
 therefore escaped that part of your pain which every man 
 must feel to whom you are known as you are known to me.
 
 206 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 If the amusement of my company can exhilarate the lan- 
 guor of a slow recovery, I will not delay a day to come to 
 you; for I know not how I can so effectually promote 
 my own pleasure as by pleasing you, or my own interest 
 as by preserving you; in whom, if I should lose you, 
 I should lose almost the only man whom I can call a 
 friend." He to whom Johnson could thus write must 
 have possessed many noble qualities ; for no one could 
 estimate human nature more truly than that illustrious 
 man. Our artist recovered slowly and resumed his studies. 
 The same year which alarmed England respecting the health 
 of Reynolds, deprived it of Hogarth. 
 
 Lady Sarah Bunbury sacrificing to the Graces, Lady 
 Elizabeth Keppel in the dress she wore when bridesmaid 
 to the Queen, and Lady Waldegrave one of the beauties 
 of the day appeared from Eeynolds's pencil in 1765, and 
 were regarded by Barry as among the happiest of his 
 works. He commended them for the greatness of the style, 
 the propriety of the characters, the force of light and shade, 
 and the delicacy of the colouring. 
 
 Artists of eminence now rose thick and fast. Barry had 
 made his appearance under the affectionate patronage of 
 Edmund Burke. West landed from Italy to exhibit him- 
 self in the character of an historical painter ; and the 
 names of others, of scarcely less note, began to be heard 
 of. But the ascendancy of Eeynolds was still maintained : 
 he had charmed effectually the public eye ; and kept the 
 world chained to him by the strong and enduring link of 
 vanity. 
 
 To the SHAKESPEARE of Johnson, published in 1765, 
 Reynolds furnished some notes, which show his good sense 
 and good feeling, and are deficient only where no one could 
 have expected him to excel in black-letter reading and old 
 dramatic lore. He had neither the daring ingenuity of a 
 Warburton, nor the philosophical sagacity of a Johnson ; 
 but he tasted with as deep a feeling as either the rich ex- 
 cellence of the great dramatist. 
 
 From this period to the establishment of the Royal 
 Academy in 1768, Reynolds applied himself diligently to 
 portraiture, and, though he produced few works wherein
 
 REYNOLDS. 207 
 
 fancy mingled with and cheated reality, he executed many 
 fine likenesses, among which that of Mrs. Molesworth is 
 distinguished for ease and beauty, and the matronly grace 
 and simplicity of costume. Ramsay, the son of a more 
 distinguished father, Allan Kamsay, the poet, and Cotes, 
 another painter of that time, had all the patronage of the 
 court, and were in good employment. Walpole says of 
 Ramsay, that he was the most sensible man of all living 
 artists. Those men stood between Reynolds and royal 
 favour; yet he painted in 1766 the Queen of Denmark, 
 when she was about to go on her unhappy voyage. She 
 seemed impressed with a presentiment of her coming mis- 
 fortunes; for the artist always found her in tears. Of 
 English artists Burke thus writes to Barry, who was study- 
 ing at Rome : " Here they are as you left them ; Reynolds 
 now and then striking out some wonder." He says in 
 another letter, " I found that Reynolds' s expectation of 
 what would be your great object of attention were the 
 works of Michael Angelo, whom he considers as the Homer 
 of painting. I could find that his own study had been 
 much engrossed by that master, whom he still admires most. 
 He confined himself for months to the Capella Sistina." 
 
 The Royal Academy was planned and proposed in 1768 
 by Chambers, West, Cotes, and Moser ; the caution or 
 timidity of Reynolds kept him for some time from assist- 
 ing. A list of thirty members was made out ; and West, a 
 x>rudent and amiable man, called on Reynolds, and, in a 
 conference of two hours' continuance, succeeding in per- 
 suading him to join them. He ordered his coach, and, 
 accompanied by West, entered the room where his brother 
 artists were assembled. They rose up to a man, and saluted 
 him " President." He was affected by the compliment, but 
 declined the honour until he had talked with Johnson and 
 Burke ; he went, consulted his friends, and having con- 
 sidered the consequences carefully, then consented. He 
 expressed his belief at the same time that their scheme 
 was a mere delusion : the King, he said, would pot patronize 
 nor even acknowledge them, as his majesty was well known 
 to be the friend of another body the Incorporated Society 
 of Artists.
 
 208 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 The plan of that Society (established in 1765) had failed 
 to embrace all the objects necessary for the advancement 
 of art ; several painters of reputation were not of their 
 number ; and the new institution, now formed for the pur- 
 pose of extending the usefulness of such a scheme, was the 
 work of many heads. Much that was old was adopted, 
 something new was added, and the whole was carefully 
 matured into a simple and consistent plan. The professed 
 objects were an academy of design for the instruction of 
 students, and an annual exhibition, which should contain 
 the works of the academicians, and admit at the same time 
 all other productions of merit. The funds for the further- 
 ance of this design were to come from the fruits of the 
 annual exhibition. The King, who at first looked coldly 
 upon the project, as it seemed set up in opposition to the 
 elder society, on further consideration offered voluntarily 
 to supply all deficiencies annually from his private purse. 
 This enabled the members to propose rewards for the en- 
 couragement of rising genius ; and at a future period to 
 bestow annuities on the most promising students, to defray 
 their expenses during their limited residence at Rome. 
 Johnson was made professor of ancient literature, a station 
 merely honorary and Goldsmith professor of ancient his- 
 tory, another office without labour and without emolument 
 which secured him a place, says Percy, at the yearly 
 dinner. Of this honour Goldsmith thus writes to his 
 brother : " I took it rather as a compliment to the insti- 
 tution than any benefit to myself. Honours to one in my 
 situation, are something like ruffles to a man who wants a 
 shirt." Lastly, the King, to give dignity to the Royal 
 Academy of Great Britain, bestowed the honour of knight- 
 hood on the President ; and seldom has any such distinc- 
 tion been bestowed amidst more universal approbation. 
 Burke, in one of his admirable letters to Barry, says 
 " Reynolds is at the head of this academy. From his 
 known public spirit, and warm desire of raising up art 
 among us, he will, I have no doubt, contrive this institu- 
 tion to be productive of all the advantages that could 
 possibly be derived from it ; and whilst it is in such hands 
 as his, we shall have nothing to fear from those shallows
 
 REYNOLDS. 209 
 
 and quicksands upon which the Italian and French 
 academies have lost themselves." Johnson was so elated 
 with the honour of knighthood conferred on his friend, that 
 he drank wine in its celebration, though he had abstained 
 from it for several years ; and Burke declared there was a 
 natural fitness in the name for a title. Of his election as 
 president Northcote says, what I would fain disbelieve, 
 " that he refused to belong to the society on any other 
 conditions." How this is to be reconciled with his con- 
 fusion and surprise at being hailed President, as above 
 described, I cannot determine. The gentleman who relates 
 it is cautious and candid, and not likely to hazard such 
 an assertion lightly. Of Sir Joshua's capacity to fill the 
 station of President, and to render it respectable by his 
 courtesy and embellish it by his talents, no one ever enter- 
 tained a doubt ; but it was unworthy of him to stipulate 
 for it, and I hope Northcote is for once mistaken. 1 
 
 He voluntarily imposed on himself the task of compos- 
 ing and delivering discourses for the instruction of students 
 in the principles and practice of their art. Of these he 
 wrote fifteen : all distinguished for clearness of conception 
 and for variety of knowledge. They were delivered during 
 a long succession of years, and in a manner cold and some- 
 times embarrassed, and even unintelligible. His deafness, 
 and his abhorrence of oratorical pomp of utterance, may 
 have contributed to this defect. A nobleman who was 
 present at the delivery of the first of the series, said, " Sir 
 Joshua, you read your discourse in a tone so low that I scarce 
 heard a word you said." " That was to my advantage," 
 replied the President, with a smile. 2 
 
 1 In a letter from J. Sheepe to Garrick, quoted in Leslie and Taylor's 
 Life, it is said, " Sir Joshua has made it a condition of his acceptance of 
 Presidentship that he should be allowed to paint the king and queen," 
 and the King, we are told, promised to sit to him. Cotton also affirms 
 that " the king and queen honoured Reynolds by sitting for thoir portraits 
 this year, 1779." This seems to have been the only time that he painted 
 their majesties. West, as we know, was the favourite at Court, ana it was 
 through his influence chiefly that the new Academy obtained Royal pa- 
 tronage. ED. 
 
 1 Allan Cunningham's slight commendation scarcely gives a fair idea 
 of the high value of Sir Joshua's " Discourses " at the time when they 
 
 P
 
 210 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 He distinguished himself in the first exhibition of the 
 Academy by paintings of the Duchess of Manchester and 
 her son, as "Diana disarming Cupid;" Lady Blake, as 
 " Juno receiving the cestus from Venus ; " and Miss Morris, 
 as " Hope nursing Love." The grace of design and beauty 
 of colouring in these pictures could not conceal the classical 
 affectation of their titles, and the poverty of invention in 
 applying such old and exhausted compliments. Poor Miss 
 Morris was no dandier of babes, but a delicate and sensi- 
 
 were first delivered. At this time a merely arbitrary teaching of a few 
 traditionary rules and practices was all that a student could hope to 
 gain from an Academical course. These " Discourses " undoubtedly laid 
 the foundation of a more scientific and systematic mode of instruction. 
 " Read as a whole," writes Redgrave, " they are a body of sound precept 
 such as no other school ever started with ; and unless each artist is to be- 
 gin from the beginning and ignore what has gone before, it will be no 
 waste of time to study the art precepts of the great President, if it is only 
 to test their truth by trying to confute them." This confutation it must 
 be admitted is often enough supplied by the precepts themselves, for 
 they are constantly contradictory one to another, but on the whole 
 such a mass of careful observation and sound induction, had never before 
 been gathered together since Da Vinci wrote the profound maxims of his 
 " Trattato." Nor is the literary merit of the " Discourses " to be over- 
 looked. Their style is so good and so carefully studied that at first it 
 was supposed that Burke had aided the author in their composition, and 
 Dr. Johnson also was charged with having written them, a charge which 
 elicited the indignant rejoinder, " Sir Joshua Reynolds, sir, would as soon 
 get me to paint for him as to write for him." Amidst the almost univer- 
 sal admiration that these " Discourses " have called forth, it is amusing to 
 jead the furiouscommentary that the ever eccentric Blake wrote upon them. 
 " I consider Reynolds's ' Discourses,'" he says, " as the simulation of the 
 hypocrite who smiles particularly when he means to betray. His praise 
 of Raphael is like the hysteric smile of revenge, his softness and candour 
 the hidden trap and the poisoned feast. He praises Michael A ngelo for 
 qualities which Michael Angelo abhorred ; and he blames Raphael for 
 the only qualities which Raphael valued. Whether Reynolds knew what 
 he was doing is nothing to me. The mischief is the same whether a man 
 does it ignorantly or knowingly. I always considered true art and true 
 artists to be particularly insulted and degraded by the reputation of these 
 ' Discourses ; ' as much as they were degraded by the reputation of Rey- 
 nolds's paintings, and that such artists as Reynolds are at all times hired 
 by Satan for the depression of art ; a pretence-of art to destroy art." 
 
 It is easy to understand the antagonism that the seething spirit of 
 Blake would feel to that of the serene and successful Sir Joshua. The 
 two men indeed were opposite poles both in their character and their 
 art. ED.
 
 REYNOLDS. 211 
 
 tive spinster, unfit for the gross wear and tear of the stage 
 who fainted in the representation of Juliet, and died 
 soon after. 1 Of Lady Blake's title to represent Juno, I 
 have nothing to say a modern lord would make an indiffe- 
 rent Jupiter ; and what claim a Duchess of Manchester, 
 with her last-born in her lap, could have to the distinction 
 of Diana, it is difficult to guess. 
 
 Sir Joshua guided his pen with better taste than his pencil 
 in the first year of his presidency. He, at the request of 
 Burke, addressed a letter of advice to Barry, which made 
 a strong impression on the mind of that singular man. 
 " Whoever," says Sir Joshua, " is resolved to excel in paint- 
 ing, or indeed in any other art, must bring all his mind to 
 bear upon that one object from the moment that he rises 
 till he goes to bed : the effect of every object that meets a 
 painter's eye, may give him a lesson, provided his mind is 
 calm, unembarrassed with other objects, and open to in- 
 struction. This general attention, with other studies, con- 
 nected with the art, which must employ the artist in his 
 closet, will be found sufficient to fill up life, if it were much 
 longer than it is. Were I in your place, I would consider 
 myself as playing a great game, and never suffer the little 
 malice and envy of my rivals to draw off my attention from 
 the main object, which, if you pursue with a steady eye, it 
 will not be in the power of all the Cicerones in the world 
 to hurt you. Whilst they are endeavouring to prevent the 
 gentlemen from employing the young artists, instead of 
 injuring them, they are in my opinion doing them the 
 greatest service. 
 
 " Whoever has great views, I would recommend to him, 
 whilst at Eome, rather to live on bread and water than 
 lose advantages which he can never hope to enjoy a second 
 time, and which he will find only in the Vatican ; where, I 
 will engage, no cavalier sends his students to copy for him. 
 The Capella Sistina is the production of the greatest genius 
 that was ever employed in the arts ; it is worth consider- 
 ing by what principles that stupendous greatness of style 
 is produced ; and endeavouring to produce something of 
 
 1 On the very day on which this beautiful picture r>f her was first 
 exhibited at the Royal Academy. ED.
 
 212 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 your own on those principles, will be a more advantageous 
 method of study than copying the St. Cecilia in the Bor- 
 ghese, or the Herodias of Guido, which may be copied to 
 eternity without contributing a jot towards making a man 
 a more able painter. If you neglect visiting the Vatican 
 often, and particularly the Capella Sistina, you will neglect 
 receiving that peculiar advantage which Borne can give 
 above all other cities in the world. 1 In other places you 
 will find casts from the antique, and capital pictures of the 
 great painters ; but it is there only that you can form an 
 idea of the dignity of the art, as it is there only that you 
 can see the works of Michael Angelo and Raphael." Barry, 
 who at that time was awed by the fame of Reynolds, re- 
 ceived this letter with thankfulness, and acknowledged it 
 with civility ; but his precipitancy of nature hindered him 
 from profiting much by it. 
 
 When Dr. Goldsmith published his " Deserted Village," 
 he inscribed it to Sir Joshua in a very kind and touching 
 manner : " The only dedication I ever made," says the 
 doctor, " was to my brother, because I loved him better 
 than most other men. He is since dead. Permit me to 
 inscribe this poem to you." The poet was a frequent guest, 
 with Johnson, at the table of the painter, which was 
 adorned and enlivened by the presence and the talents of 
 Miss Reynolds herself a painter and poetess, and eminent 
 for her good sense and ready wit. This lady was a great 
 favourite of Johnson, who was fond of her company, and 
 acknowledged oftener than once the influence of her con- 
 versation. 
 
 I have already said that Reynolds was an admirer of 
 Pope. A fan, which the poet presented to Martha Blount, 
 and on which he had painted, with his own hand, the story 
 
 1 Sir Joshua is one of the very few English artists who have gone 
 through the ordeal of early study at Rome without losing anything of 
 their own individuality. This was probably due in a great measure to 
 his avoidance of mere copying. He must partly be held responsible, 
 however, for that straining after the grand style and "high art," as it 
 was called, which proved such a stumbling-block in the path of so many 
 of our English painters. He certainly inculcated this " stupendous 
 greatness of style" by Ids teaching, though he did not reach after it him- 
 self in practice. ED.
 
 REYNOLDS. 213 
 
 of Cephalus and Procris, with the motto " Aura Veni," was 
 to be sold by auction, and Sir Joshua sent a person to bid 
 for it as far as thirty guineas. The messenger imagined that 
 he said thirty shillings, and allowed the relic to go for two 
 pounds ; a profit, however, was allowed to the purchaser, 
 and it was put into the hands of the President. " See," 
 said he, to his pupils who gathered round him, " see the 
 painting of Pope this must always be the case when 
 the work is taken up from idleness, and is laid aside when 
 it ceases to amuse ; it is like the work of one who paints 
 only for amusement. Those who are resolved to excel must 
 go to their work, willing or unwilling, morning, noon, and 
 night ; they will find it to be no play, but very hard labour." 
 This fan was afterwards stolen out of his study ; as a relic 
 of that importance cannot be openly displayed to the world 
 by the person who abstracts it, it is not easy to imagine 
 what manner of enthusiast the thief could be. 
 
 At a festive meeting where Johnson, Reynolds, Burke, 
 Garrick, Douglas, and Goldsmith were conspicuous, the idea 
 of composing a set of extempore epitaphs on one another 
 was started. Two very indifferent lines of ordinary waggery 
 by Garrick, offended Goldsmith so much that he avenged 
 himself by composing the celebrated " Poem of Retalia- 
 tion," in which he exhibits the characters of his compa- 
 nions with great liveliness and talent. The character of 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds is drawn with discrimination and 
 delicacy ; it resembles, indeed, his own portraits, for the 
 features are a little softened and the expression a little 
 elevated ; it is, nevertheless, as near the truth as the affec- 
 tion of the poet would permit him to come. The lines 
 have a melancholy interest, from being the last which the 
 author wrote. 
 
 " Here Reynolds is laid, and, to tell you my mind, 
 
 He has not left a wiser or better behind ; 
 
 His pencil was striking, resistless, and grand ; 
 
 His manners were gentle, complying, and bland ; 
 
 Still born to improve us in every part, 
 
 His pencil our faces, his manners our heart." 
 
 That he was an improver of human faces no one could be 
 more conscious than Goldsmith ; his portrait by Reynolds
 
 214 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 is sufficiently unlovely, yet it was said by the artist's 
 sister to be the most nattered likeness of all her brother's 
 works. 
 
 In 1771 James Northcote became his pupil. Of which 
 he thus speaks : " As from the earliest period of my 
 being able to make any observation, I had conceived Bey- 
 nolds to be the greatest painter that ever lived, it may be 
 conjectured what I felt when I found myself in his house 
 as a scholar." He unites with Malone in assuring us that 
 such were the gentleness of Sir Joshua's manners, the 
 refinement of his habits, the splendour of his establish- 
 ment, and the extent of his fame that almost all the men 
 in the three kingdoms, who were distinguished in litera- 
 ture, in art, at the bar, in the senate, or in the field, might 
 occasionally be found feasting at his social and well-fur- 
 nished table. The following description of one of the 
 painter's dinners is by the skilful hand of Courteney : 
 " There was something singular in the style and economy 
 of his table, that contributed to pleasantry and good- 
 humour : a coarse inelegant plenty, without any regard to 
 order or arrangement. A table prepared for seven or eight, 
 often compelled to contain fifteen or sixteen. When this 
 pressing difficulty was got over, a deficiency of knives and 
 forks, plates and glasses, succeeded. The attendance was 
 in the same style ; and it was absolutely necessary to call 
 instantly for beer, bread, or wine, that you might be sup- 
 plied before the first course was over. He was once pre- 
 vailed on to furnish the table with decanters and glasses 
 for dinners, to save time and prevent the tardy manoeuvres 
 of two or three occasional undisciplined domestics. As 
 these accelerating utensils were demolished in the course 
 of service, Sir Joshua could never be persuaded to replace 
 them. But these trifling embarrassments only served to 
 enhance the hilarity and singular pleasure of the enter- 
 tainment. The wine, cookery, and dishes were but little 
 attended to ; nor was the fish or venison ever talked of 
 or recommended. Amidst this convivial animated bustle 
 amongst his guests, our host sat perfectly composed, always 
 attentive to what was said, never minding what was eat or 
 drank, but left every one at perfect liberty to scramble for
 
 REYNOLDS. 215 
 
 himself. Temporal and spiritual peers, physicians, lawyers, 
 actors, and musicians composed the motley group, and 
 played their parts without dissonance or discord. At five 
 o'clock precisely dinner was served, whether all the invited 
 guests were arrived or not. Sir Joshua was never so 
 fashionably ill-bred as to wait an hour perhaps for two or 
 three persons of rank or title, and put the rest of the com- 
 pany out of humour by this invidious distinction." 
 
 Of the rough abundance which covered his table Courte- 
 ney says enough ; as to the character of the guests, we have 
 the testimony of Dunning, afterwards Lord Ashburton. 
 He had accepted an invitation to dinner from the President, 
 and happened to be the first guest who arrived ; a large 
 company was expected. " Well, Sir Joshua," he said, 
 " and who have you got to dine with you to-day ? The last 
 time I dined in your house, the company was of such 
 
 a sort that by I believe all the rest of the world 
 
 enjoyed peace for that afternoon." " This observation," 
 says Northcote, " was by no means ill-applied ; for as Sir 
 Joshua's companions were chiefly men of genius, they were 
 often disputatious and vehement in argument." Miss 
 Reynolds seems to have been as indifferent about the good 
 order of her domestics, and the appearance of her dishes at 
 table, as her brother was about the active distribution of 
 his wine and venison. Plenty was the splendour, and 
 freedom was the elegance, which Malone and Boswell found 
 in the entertainments of the artist. 
 
 The masculine freedom of Johnson's conversation was 
 pleasing in general to Reynolds; it was not, however, 
 always restrained by a sense of courtesy, or by the memory of 
 benefits. It is related by Mrs. Thrale that once at her table 
 Johnson lamented the perishable nature of the materials of 
 painting, and recommended copper in place of wood or can- 
 vas. Reynolds urged the difficulty of finding a plate of cop- 
 per large enough for historical subjects ; he was interrupted 
 by Johnson. " What foppish obstacles are these ? hero is 
 Thrale, who has a thousand-tun copper ; you may paint it 
 all round if you will, I suppose it will serve him to brew 
 in afterwards." When Johnson's pen was in his hand, and 
 it was seldom out of it, he spoke of painting in another
 
 216 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 mood, and of Reynolds with civility and affection. " Ge- 
 nius," he says, " is chiefly exerted in historical pictures, 
 ami ill.' art < I' tin- puintrr of portraits is often lost in tlie 
 obscurity of the subject. But it is in painting as in life ; 
 what is greatest is not always best. J should grieve to see 
 Reynolds transfer to heroes and goddesses, to empty splendour 
 and to airy fiction, that art which is now employed in diffus- 
 ing friendship, in renewing tenderness, in quickening the 
 affections of the absent, and continuing the presence of the 
 dead. Every man is always present to himself, and has, 
 therefore, little need of his own resemblance ; nor can de- 
 sire it, but for the sake of those whom he loves, and by 
 whom he hopes to be remembered. This use of the art is 
 a natural and reasonable consequence of affection : and 
 though, like all other human actions, it is often compli- 
 cated with pride, yet even such pride is more laudable than 
 that by which palaces are covered with pictures, that, how- 
 ever excellent, neither imply the owner's virtue nor excite 
 it." By an opinion so critically sagacious, and an apology 
 for portrait painting, which appeals so effectually to the 
 kindly side of human nature, Johnson repaid a hundred 
 dinners. 
 
 Reynolds now raised his price for a portrait to thirty -five 
 guineas, admitted some more pupils to the advantages of 
 his studio, and leaving them to forward draperies and make 
 copies of some of his pictures in his absence, made a visit 
 to Paris. Of the object of this journey there is no account, 
 nor has he made any note of his own emotions on observing 
 the works of the French artists. He returned, and resumed 
 his labours which were too pressing to permit him to 
 visit Bennet Langton, at his country seat though they 
 allowed him to obey the King's wish, and see the installa- 
 tion of the Knights of the Garter, in Windsor ; on which 
 occasion his curiosity paid the tax of a new hat and a gold 
 snuff-box, pilfered in the crowd. 
 
 Young Northcote acquired skill rapidly under Sir Joshua: 
 he ere long painted one of the servants so like nature that 
 a tame macaw mistook the picture for the original, against 
 whom it had a grudge, and flew to attack the canvas with 
 beak and wing. The experiment of the creature's mistake
 
 REYNOLDS. 217 
 
 was several times repeated with the same success, and 
 Reynolds compared it to the ancient painting where a bunch 
 of grapes allured the birds : " I see " (said he) " that birds 
 and beasts are as good judges of pictures as men." 
 
 TheUgolino was painted in 1773. 1 The subject is con- 
 tained in the " Commedia " of Dante, and is said by Cum- 
 berland to have been suggested to our artist by Goldsmith. 
 The merit lies in the execution ; and even this seems of 
 disputable excellence. The lofty and stern sufferer of Dante 
 appears on Reynolds' s canvas-like a famished mendicant, 
 deficient in any commanding qualities of intellect, and re- 
 gardless of his dying children, who cluster around his 
 knees. It is indeed a subject too painful to contemplate ; 
 it has a feeling too deep for art, and certainly demanded 
 a hand conversant with severer things than the lips and 
 necks of ladies, and the well-dressed gentlemen of England. 
 It is said to have affected Captain Cooke's Omiah so much, 
 that he imagined it a scene of real distress, and ran to 
 support the expiring child. The Duke of Dorset paid the 
 artist four hundred guineas, and took home the picture. 
 His next piece, the " Children in the Wood," arose from 
 an accident. A beggar's infant, who was his model for 
 some other picture, overpowered by continuing long in 
 one position, fell asleep and presented the image of one of 
 the babes, which he immediately secured. No sooner had 
 he done this than the child turned in its sleep, and pre- 
 sented the idea of the other babe, which he instantly 
 sketched, and from them afterwards made the finished 
 picture. Accident often supplies what study cannot find ; 
 for nature, when unrestrained, throws itself into positions 
 of great ease and elegance. 2 
 
 In the month of July he visited Oxford, where he was 
 received with some distinction, and admitted to the hono- 
 rary degree of Doctor of Civil Law. At that period he was 
 a member of the Royal, the Antiquarian, and Dilettanti 
 
 1 Now in the possession of Lord Buckhurst. It was exhibited in 1873 
 at the " Old Masters " at Burlington House. Reynolds undoubtedly 
 succeeded better in depicting the tragic muse than tragedy itself. En. 
 
 8 Now in tie possession of the Right Hon. W. Cowper Temple. 
 -Eo.
 
 218 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 Societies. When he presented himself to the audience, and 
 bowed, and took his seat, there was much applause : Dr. 
 Beattie accompanied him and received the same honours. 
 It seems a singular token of respect to salute a man with 
 a title to which he can neither lay claim by his learning nor 
 by his pursuits ; but in our own time we have seen Blucher 
 and Platoff dubbed Doctors of Law in the same venerable 
 place. From Oxford Reynolds went to visit a noble duke, 
 in compliance with many pressing solicitations : he hastened 
 into his presence, and was mortified with a cold reception. 
 The artist, it seems, had the incivility to appear in his 
 boots ! 
 
 On his return to London he painted the celebrated pic- 
 ture of Dr. Beattie in his Oxonian dress as Doctor of Laws, 
 with his book on the " Immutability of Truth " below his 
 arm, and the Angel of Truth beside him, overpowering 
 Scepticism, Sophistry, and Infidelity. One of these pros- 
 trate figures has a lean and profligate look, and resembles 
 Voltaire ; in another, which is plump and full-bodied, some 
 one recognized a resemblance to Hume ; nor is it unlikely 
 that the artist had Gibbon in his thoughts when he intro- 
 duced Infidelity. The vexation of Goldsmith when he saw 
 this painting overflowed all bounds. " It is unworthy " 
 (he said) " of a man of eminence like you, Sir Joshua, to 
 descend to flattery such as this. How could you think of 
 degrading so high a genius as Voltaire before so mean a 
 writer as Beattie ! Beattie and his book will be forgotten 
 in ten years ; but your allegorical picture and the fame of 
 Voltaire will live to your disgrace as a flatterer." There 
 was as much good sense as envy in this. The picture was 
 an inconsiderate compliment, and arose from the false esti- 
 mate which Reynolds had formed of the genius of Beattie. 
 The royal favour and the applause of the church are excel- 
 lent in their day, and may float a man on to fortune ; but 
 posterity is an inexorable tribunal which overthrows all 
 false estimates of character all unsound reputations, and 
 decides upon merit and genius alone. Hume, and Voltaire, 
 and Gibbon injurious as their works have been to the 
 best interests of mankind have survived the attack of 
 Beattie, and the insult of Reynolds.
 
 REYNOLDS. 219 
 
 About the close of summer of 1773 he visited his 
 native place, and was elected Mayor of Plympton a dis- 
 tinction so much to his liking that he assured the King, 
 whom he accidentally encountered on his return in one of 
 the walks at Hampton Court, that it gave him more plea- 
 sure than any other he had ever received " excepting," 
 (he added recollecting himself) " excepting that which 
 your Majesty so graciously conferred on me the honour of 
 knighthood." 
 
 The arts now met with a repulse from the church, which 
 is often mentioned with sorrow by the painters, and even 
 considered as an injury deserving annual reprobation. It 
 happened that Reynolds and West were dining with the 
 Bishop of Bristol, who was also Dean of St. Paul's, and 
 their conversation turned upon religious paintings, and upon 
 the naked appearance of the English churches in the 
 absence of such ornaments. West generously offered his 
 entertainer a painting of " Moses and the Laws " for the 
 Cathedral of St. Paul, and Reynolds tendered a " Nativity." 
 As this offer was in a manner fulfilling the original design 
 of Sir Christopher Wren, the Dean imagined it would be 
 received with rapture by all concerned. He waited on the 
 King, who gave his ready consent ; but Terrick, Bishop of 
 London, objected at once, and no persuasion could move 
 him, no arguments could change his fixed and determined 
 opposition. A little of the old spirit, which ejected the 
 whole progeny of saints and Madonnas out of the reformed 
 church, was strong in this Bishop of London. " No," (said 
 he,) " whilst I live and have power, no popish paintings 
 shall enter the doors of the metropolitan church." The 
 project was dropped and never again revived. 
 
 A portrait of Burke, which Reynolds painted at the re- 
 quest of Thrale, is the only reason that has ever been as- 
 signed for the hostility which Barry now began to show, 
 first to Burke, and afterwards to Sir Joshua. Barry was 
 a proud artist, and a suspicious man : he could not be in- 
 sensible that the President had amassed a fortune, and ob- 
 tained high fame in abiding by the lucrative branch of the 
 profession, whilst he had perched upon the unproductive 
 bough of historical composition, and had not been rewarded
 
 220 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 with bread. He followed his own ideas in the course he 
 pursued, but probably he reflected that he was also obey- 
 ing the reiterated injunctions of Sir Joshua, who constantly, 
 in his public lectures and private counsels, admonished all 
 who loved what was noble and sublime to study the great 
 masters, and labour at the grand style. This study had 
 brought Barry to a garret and a crust ; the neglect of it 
 had spread the table of Reynolds with that sluttish abun- 
 dance which Courteney describes, and put him in a coach 
 with gilded wheels and the seasons painted on its panels. 
 To all this was added the close friendship of his patron, 
 Burke, with the fortunate painter. Barry fancied in 
 short that; his own merits were overlooked, and that 
 something like a combination was formed to thwart and de- 
 press him. Nor is the mild and prudent Reynolds himself 
 altogether free from the suspicion of having felt a little 
 jealousy towards one who spoke well, and thought well, 
 and painted well, and who might rise to fame and opulence 
 rivalling his own. 
 
 Goldsmith was removed by death, in 1774, from the 
 friendship of Reynolds, who was deeply affected ; he did 
 not touch his 'pencil for a whole day afterwards. He 
 acted as executor an easy trust for there was nothing 
 left but a large debt and a confused mass of papers. He 
 directed his funeral, which was respectable and private, 
 and aided largely in the monument which stands in the 
 Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey. Nollekens cut the 
 marble : Johnson composed the epitaph. 1 
 
 To the society called the Dilettanti Club some ascribe 
 the origin of all those associations whose object is the en- 
 
 1 The friendship, or love, as it may almost be called, that existed 
 between Reynolds and Goldsmith is a pleasant trait in the life of 
 each. Reynolds never joined with Goldsmith's other friends in having a 
 laugh against " poor Goldy," but was ever ready to show him kindness, 
 both in word and act. His portrait of Goldsmith, as Leslie well remarks, 
 is " ennobled by such an expression of dignity and tenderness as few but 
 himself ever contrived to see in that oddly compounded but most touch- 
 ing face." He seems indeed to have thoroughly understood and appre- 
 ciated Goldsmith's sensitive nature, and the uncouth poet was never 
 more at home than with the courtly painter to whom he dedicated his 
 " Deserted Village." ED.
 
 REYNOLDS. 221 
 
 couragement of art. To this club, as has been duly men- 
 tioned, Sir Joshua belonged, and to his pencil many of the 
 members are indebted for the transmission of their looks 
 and names to posterity. Those portraits are contained 
 in two pictures, in the manner of Paul Veronese, and 
 amount in all to fourteen. He was more worthily employed 
 when Johnson sat to him in 1775 : the picture shows him 
 holding a manuscript near his face, and pondering as he 
 reads. The near-sighted " Cham of literature " reproved 
 the painter in these words " It is not friendly to hand 
 down to posterity the imperfections of any man." Mrs. 
 Thrale interposed, and said " You will not be known to 
 posterity for your defects, though Sir Joshua should do his 
 worst." The artist was right he gave individuality and 
 character to the head. 
 
 His practice introduced him occasionally to strange ac- 
 quaintances. A gentleman, who returned rich from the 
 East, sat for his portrait, but was called into the country 
 before it was quite finished. He apologized by letter for 
 his absence, and requested that the work might be com- 
 pleted. " My friends," said he, " tell me of the Titian tint 
 and the Guido air these you can add without my ap- 
 pearance." 
 
 Sir Joshua was chosen a member of the Academy of 
 Florence, and in consequence he painted, and presented, a 
 portrait of himself in the dress of his Oxford honours, 
 which is placed in the Gallery of Eminent Artists in that 
 city. This prudent Italian Academy requires by its laws 
 the portrait of every new member, painted by his own hand ; 
 a regulation which has accumulated a very curious collec- 
 tion. Sir Joshua's performance raised the reputation of 
 English art in Florence. 
 
 It was Sir Joshua's opinion that no man ever produced 
 more than half-a-dozen original works in his whole life- 
 time ; and when he painted the " Strawberry Girl," l he 
 said " that is one of my originals." On looking at this 
 work it is not easy to see the cause of the artist's prefe- 
 
 1 Formerly in the possession of Samuel Rogers, but now belonging to 
 Sir Richard Wallace. It came to him from the Marquis of Hertford, 
 who purchased it at Rogers'a sale. ED.
 
 222 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 rence ; but genius sometimes forms curious estimates of 
 its own productions some lucky triumph over an obsti- 
 nate difficulty some work produced with great ease in an 
 hour of enjoyment or one, the off spring of much considera- 
 tion, and the crowning of some new experiment, is apt to 
 impress an idea of excellence on the maker's mind which 
 his work fails to communicate to the cold spectator. 
 
 From secret envy he had not hitherto escaped ; he was 
 now to experience an open attack, and that from one of his 
 own profession. A painter of the name of Hone a man 
 of some experience in portrait-painting, but of very mode- 
 rate talents sent to the annual exhibition, " The Pictorial 
 Conjurer, displaying his whole art of Optical Deception." 
 This was meant as a satire upon the style of Sir Joshua, 
 and of the use which he was not unwilling to make of the 
 postures and characters of earlier artists. The indignation 
 of the friends of Reynolds was great they rejected the 
 offensive picture in the exhibition, and defended him with 
 tongue and pen. " He has been accused of plagiarism," says 
 one, " for having borrowed attitudes from ancient masters. 
 Not only candour, but criticism must deny the force of this 
 charge. When a single posture is imitated from a historic 
 picture, and applied to a portrait in a different dress, this 
 is not plagiarism, but quotation ; and a quotation from a 
 great author, with a novel application of the sense, has 
 always been allowed to be an instance of parts and taste, 
 and may have more merit than the original." The parallel 
 entirely fails. To give a new turn to the sense of a sentence, 
 or avail himself of a line or two from an early author, is 
 allowed to a modern poet. But should he bring away an 
 entire character, and employ it with the whole costume of 
 thought unaltered, then he is a plagiarist ; and such in 
 many instances seems to have been Sir Joshua. His best 
 defence is that he borrowed to improve, and stole that he 
 might show his own power of colouring. Most of the songs 
 of Burns, works unrivalled for nature and passion, are con- 
 structed on the stray verse or vagrant line of some forgotten 
 bard. But then the poet only employed those as the 
 starting-notes to his own inimitable strains, and never stole 
 the fashion and hue of any entire lyric.
 
 REYNOLDS. 223 
 
 An attack such as that of Hone seemed to affect the 
 friends of the artist more than it did himself; he said 
 nothing, and the subject passed to oblivion. One of a more 
 serious nature, and less easy to refute, was made in some 
 of the public prints concerning the instability of the colours 
 which he used in painting. He was accused of employing 
 lake and carmine colours of a nature liable to speedy 
 decay and, in short, making frequent experiments at the 
 expense of others. It was urged, that he knew those 
 glossy and gaudy colours would not endure long ; and it 
 was hinted, that though the experiments which he made 
 might be for the advancement of art, they were injurious 
 to individuals, who purchased blooming works, which were 
 destined to fade in their possession like the flowers of the 
 field. 1 
 
 Of the danger of using such colours Sir Joshua was at 
 length convinced ; but not until strong symptoms of decay 
 had appeared in many of his own works ; as yet he zeal- 
 ously defended the propriety of his experiments with his 
 pen as well as in conversation. In one of his memoran- 
 dums he says, with much complacency : " I was always 
 willing to believe that my uncertainty of proceeding in my 
 works that is, my never being sure of my hand, and my 
 frequent alterations arose from a refined taste, which 
 could not acquiesce in anything short of a high degree of 
 excellence. I had not an opportunity of being early initiated 
 in the principles of colouring ; no man indeed could teach 
 me. If I have "never settled with respect to colouring, let 
 it at the same time be remarked, that my unsteadiness in 
 this respect proceeded from an inordinate desire to possess 
 every kind of excellence that I saw in the works of others, 
 without considering that there are in colouring, as in style, 
 excellencies which are incompatible with each other. We 
 
 1 Husk in deems Reynolds one of " the seven supreme colourists of 
 the world ; " the other six being Titian, Giorgione, Correggio, Tintoret, 
 Veronese, and Turner. Ho also says of him : " Considered as a painter 
 of individuality in the human form and mind, I think him, even as it is, 
 the prince of Portrait-painters. Titian paints nobler pictures and Van- 
 dyck had nobler subjects, but neither of them entered so subtly as Sir 
 Joshua did into the minor varieties of human heart and temper." The 
 Two Paths, Lect. 2. ED.
 
 224 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 all know how often those masters who sought after colour- 
 ing changed their manner ; while others, merely from not 
 seeing various modes, acquiesced all their lives in that 
 with which they set out. On the contrary, I tried every 
 effect of colour, and, by leaving out every colour in its 
 turn, showed each colour that I could do without it. As 
 I alternately left out every colour, I tried every new 
 colour; and often, as is well-known, failed. I was in- 
 fluenced by no idle or foolish affectation. My fickleness 
 in the mode of colouring arose from an eager desire to 
 attain the highest excellence. This is the only merit I 
 can assume to myself from my conduct in that respect." l 
 It is to be regretted that he continued these experiments 
 for a long course of years, and that they infected more or 
 less many of the finest of his works. He was exceedingly 
 touchy of temper on the subject of colouring, and reproved 
 Northcote with some sharpness for insinuating that Kneller 
 used vermilion in his flesh-colour. " What signifies," said 
 he, " what a man used who could not colour ? you may 
 
 1 It is curious considering the secrecy with regard to his practice which 
 is ascribed to Reynolds, that he should have left more detailed notes con- 
 cerning it than almost any other painter. His experience is of the utmost 
 value both as example and warning. In an excellent article on his prac- 
 tice hi the " Portfolio," it is stated that he usually laid the foundation of 
 his paintings in black and white, with sometimes a little red, making in 
 fact nothing at first but a shaded drawing in oil, which he afterwards 
 coloured by means of scumbling and glazing. He worked with very few 
 colours, and was accustomed to gain his effects more by superposition 
 than by mixture. " Apelles," he used to say, " was- a good painter be- 
 cause he only used four colours." His palette at one tune was simply 
 composed of white, orpiment, yellow ochre, carmine, lake, ultramarine, 
 blue-black, and black. But his " fickleness," as he tells us, was always lead 
 ing him to make experiments, and some of these, it must be owned, were 
 very disastrous. He never seems to have taken care that the vehicles he 
 used should dry at the same rate, hence the liability of his pictures to 
 crack and peel. " His egg varnish alone," says Beechey, " would in a 
 short time tear any picture to pieces, painted with such materials as he 
 made use of." He seems to have been of opinion, as he once expressed it to 
 Sir George Beaumont, that " all good pictures would crack." All of his, 
 however, have happily not done so, and when we consider the exquisite 
 charm of colour he arrived at in so many of his works we may surely for- 
 give him for a few fatal experiments. Even his faded pictures have a 
 lingering beauty that we would scarcely exchange for the well preserved 
 tints of any other master. ED.
 
 REYNOLDS. 225 
 
 use it if you will." 1 He never allowed his pupils to make 
 experiments, and on observing one of them employing some 
 unusual compounds, exclaimed, " That boy will never do 
 good, with his gallipots of varnish and foolish mixtures." 
 The secret of Sir Joshua's own preparations was carefully 
 kept he permitted not even the most favoured of his 
 pupils to acquire the knowledge of his colours he had 
 all securely locked, and allowed no one to enter where 
 these treasures were deposited. What was the use of all 
 this secrecy ? those who stole the mystery of his colours 
 could not use it unless they stole his skill and talent also. 
 A man who, like Reynolds, chooses to take upon himself 
 the double office of public and private instructor of students 
 in painting, ought not, surely, to retain to himself a secret 
 in the art which he considers to be of real value. 
 
 He was fond of seeking into the secrets of the old 
 painters ; and dissected some of their performances with- 
 out remorse or scruple, to ascertain their mode of laying 
 on colour and finishing with effect. Titian he conceived 
 to be the great master-spirit in portraiture ; and no enthu- 
 siast in usury ever sought more incessantly for the secret 
 of the philosopher's stone, than did Reynolds to possess 
 himself of the whole theory and practice of the Venetian. 
 But this was a concealed pursuit; he disclosed his dis- 
 coveries to none ; he lectured on Michael Angelo, and 
 discoursed on Raphael; but he studied and dreamed of 
 Titian. " To possess," said the artist, " a real fine picture 
 by that great master, I would sell all my gallery I would 
 willingly ruin myself." The capital old paintings of the 
 Venetian school which Sir Joshua's experiments destroyed, 
 were not few, and it may be questioned if his discoveries 
 were a compensation for their loss. The wilful destruction 
 of a work of genius is a sort of murder, committed for the 
 sake of art ; and the propriety of the act is very question- 
 able. 2 " I considered myself," said he in a private memo- 
 
 1 Yet ho used it himself, at times, but generally only mixed with white 
 or thinly as a stain. ED. 
 
 1 This reads very much like " wilful " exaggeration. And the next 
 paragraph seems quoted in order to imply that Sir Joshua bought these 
 works for the purpose of destroying them, whereas it is evident he 
 
 Q
 
 226 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 randum preserved by Malone, " as playing a great game> 
 and, instead of beginning to save money, I laid it out as 
 fast as I got it in purchasing the best examples of art ; I 
 even borrowed money for this purpose. The possessing 
 portraits by Titian, Vandyke, Rembrandt, &c., I considered 
 as the best kind of wealth. By this kind of contemplation 
 we are taught to think in their way, and sometimes to 
 attain their excellence. If I had never seen any of the 
 works of Correggio, I should never, perhaps, have re- 
 marked in nature the expression which I find in one of 
 his pieces : or, if I had remarked it, I might have thought 
 it too difficult, or perhaps impossible, to be executed." 
 
 In the summer of 1776, Northcote informed Sir Joshua 
 of his intention of visiting Italy, to confirm his own notions 
 of excellence by studying in the Vatican. This communi- 
 cation, which deprived him of a profitable assistant, was 
 received with much complacency ; he was sensible of the 
 advantages obtained from his pupil's pencil, and said so 
 with much freedom and kindness. " Remember," said the 
 master to his departing friend, "that something more 
 must be done than that which did formerly Kneller, Lely, 
 and Hudson will not do now." He seldom omitted an 
 opportunity of insulting the memories of Kneller and Lely. 
 He might have spared them, now that the world admitted 
 him to have excelled them. 
 
 Reynolds was skilful in compliments. When he painted 
 the portrait of Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse, he wrought 
 his name on the border of her robe. The great actress, 
 conceiving it to be a piece of classic embroidery, went near 
 to examine, and seeing the words, smiled. The artist bowed 
 and said, " I could not lose this opportunity of sending 
 my name to posterity on the hem of your garment." He 
 painted his name, in the same manner, on the embroidered 
 edge of the drapery of Lady Cockburn's portrait. When 
 this picture was taken into the exhibition room, such was 
 the sweetness of the conception, and the splendour of the 
 colouring, that the painters, who were busied with their 
 own performances, acknowledged its beauty by clapping 
 
 bought them as an investment, both as regards money and knowledge. 
 ED.
 
 REYNOLDS. 227 
 
 their hands. Such eager admiration is of rare occurrence 
 amongst brothers of the trade. 
 
 The tardy praise which he wrung from artists was amply 
 compensated by that of others. The surly applause of 
 Johnson, and the implied admiration of Goldsmith, were 
 nothing compared to the open and avowed approbation of 
 Burke. That extraordinary man possessed a natural saga- 
 city, which opened the door of every mystery in art or 
 literature ; his praise is always warm, but well placed : he 
 feels wisely and thinks in the true spirit. His debt of 
 gratitude to Sir Joshua was never liquidated by affected 
 rapture. The artist had reason to be proud of the affection 
 of Burke. He sometimes asked his opinion on the merit 
 of a work it was given readily Sir Joshua would then 
 shake his head and say, " Well, it pleases you ; but it does 
 not please me ; there is a sweetness wanting in the ex- 
 pression which a little pains will bestow there ! I have 
 improved it." This, when translated into the common 
 language of life, means, " I must not let this man think 
 that he is as wise as myself ; but show him that I can reach 
 one step at least higher than his admiration." 
 
 That Reynolds was a close observer of nature, his works 
 sufficiently show ; he drew his excellence from innumerable 
 sources ; paid attention to all opinions ; from the rudest 
 minds he sometimes obtained valuable hints, and babes 
 and sucklings were among his tutors. It was one of his 
 maxims that the gestures of children, being all dictated 
 by nature, are graceful ; and that affectation and distor- 
 tion come in with the dancing-master. He watched the 
 motions of the children who came to his gallery, and was 
 pleased when he saw them forget themselves, and mimic 
 unconsciously the airs and attitudes of the portraits on the 
 wall. They were to him more than Raphael had ever been. 
 " I cannot but think," he thus expresses himself in one of 
 his memorandums, " that Apelles's method of exposing his 
 pictures for public criticism was a very good one. I do 
 not know why the judgment of the vulgar, on the mecha- 
 nical parts of painting, should not be as good as any what- 
 ever ; for instance, as to whether such or such a part be 
 natural or not. If one of these persons should ask why
 
 228 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 half the face is black, or why there is such a spot of black 
 or snuff as they will call it, under the nose, I should con- 
 clude from thence that the shadows are thick or dirtily 
 painted, or that the shadow under the nose was too much 
 resembling snuff, when, if those shadows had exactly re- 
 sembled the transparency and colour of nature, they would 
 have no more been taken notice of than the shadow in 
 nature itself." Such were the sound and sagacious opinions 
 of this eminent man when he sat down to think for himself 
 and speak from practice. 
 
 He had a decided aversion to loquacious artists; and 
 spoke little himself whilst he was busied at his easel. 
 When artists love to be admired for what they say, 
 they will have less desire to be admired for what they 
 paint. He had, in truth, formed a very humble notion of 
 the abstract meditation which art requires, and imagined 
 it to be more of a practical dexterity of hand than the off- 
 spring of intellect and skill. He assured Lord Monboddo 
 that painting scarcely deserved the name of study ; it was 
 more that sort of work (he said) which employed the mind 
 without fatiguing it, and was thereby more conducive to 
 individual happiness than the practice of any other pro- 
 fession. This Northcote pronounces to be the speech of 
 a mere portrait-manufacturer ; but genius, when conge- 
 nially employed, is seldom conscious of exertion. 
 
 Dr. Johnson, when questioned by Boswell on the merit 
 of portraits, said, " Sir, their chief excellence is being 
 like ; I would have them in the dress of their times, to pre- 
 serve the accuracy of history truth, sir, is of the greatest 
 value in these things." To give the exact form and pre- 
 sence of the man, and animate him with his natural portion 
 of intellect, and no more, requires a skilful hand, and a 
 head which the love of flattering is unable to seduce from 
 the practice of the truth. To paint a likeness is, however, 
 a very common effort of a very common mind ; but to be- 
 stow proper expression, just character, and unstudied ease, 
 is infinitely difficult. Reynolds said he could teach any boy 
 whom chance might throw in his way to paint a likeness. 
 " To paint like Velasquez is another thing. He did at once, 
 and with ease, what we cannot accomplish with time and
 
 REYNOLDS. 229 
 
 labour. Portraits, as well as written characters of men, 
 should be decidedly marked, otherwise they will be insipid, 
 and truth should be preferred before freedom of hand." 
 
 In 1777 he had delivered seven discourses on art, which 
 he collected into a volume, and, that they might want no 
 attraction to recommend them to popularity, he inscribed 
 them to the King in a dedication written with care and 
 caution, and neither deficient in self -approbation, nor un- 
 adorned by classical allusion. 
 
 He was an ardent lover of his profession, and ever as 
 ready to defend it when assailed, as to add to its honours 
 by the works of his hands. Dr. Tucker, the famous Dean 
 of Gloucester, asserted before the Society for encouraging 
 Commerce and Manufactures, that a pin-maker was a more 
 useful and valuable member of society than Raphael. 
 When Sir Joshua was informed of this he was nettled, 
 and said with some asperity " That is an observation of a 
 very narrow mind ; a mind that is confined to the mere 
 object of commerce that sees with a microscopic eye but a 
 part of the great machine of the economy of life, and thinks 
 that small part which he sees to be the whole. Commerce is 
 the means not the end of happiness or pleasure : the end is 
 a rational enjoyment by means of arts and sciences. It is 
 therefore the highest degree of folly to set the means in 
 a higher rank of esteem than the end. It is as much as to 
 say, that the brickmaker is superior to the architect." 
 
 Sir Joshua now painted another portrait of Johnson at 
 the request of Mr. Thrale. 1 2 This seems to have been ac- 
 complished without any of those bickerings which distin- 
 guished the former sittings. Reynolds observed once to 
 an acquaintance, that knowledge was not the only advan- 
 tage to be obtained in the company of such a man that the 
 importance of truth and the baseness of falsehood were in- 
 culcated more by example than by precept, and that all who 
 
 1 This picture is now in the collection of Richard Sharp, Esq., M.P., 
 in Park Lane ; as are also Reynolds's portraits of Burke and himself, 
 which originally hung with it in the worthy brewer's dining-room at 
 Streatham. 
 
 8 The picture here referred to is probably the one now in the National 
 Collection. It was purchased with the Peel pictures in 1871. ED.
 
 230 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 were of the Johnsonian school were remarkable for a love 
 of truth and accuracy. One day Boswell was speaking in high 
 commendation of the Doctor's skill and felicity in drawing 
 characters : Sir Joshua said " He is undoubtedly admirable 
 in this ; but, in order to mark the characters which he draws, 
 he overcharges them, and gives people more than they have, 
 whether of good or bad." It would be difficult to express t 
 more neatly and simply the character of our artist's style ' 
 of portraiture. He bestowed beauty and mind with no 
 sparing hand. Every captain has the capacity of a general, 
 and every lord a soul fit for wielding the energies of an 
 empire. 
 
 Reynolds was now fifty -four years old he had acquired 
 fame and amassed a fortune yet such was his unabated 
 activity, that he continued to paint with the avidity of one 
 labouring for bread ; nor is there any proof that he even 
 wished to confine himself to personages of note and talent. 
 He raised his price to fifty guineas, without lessening the 
 number of his commissions : he was in the wane of life ; 
 the wise were anxious to secure as many proofs of his genius 
 as they could before he went and the rich were glad of 
 the increased price, for it excluded the poor from indulging 
 in the luxury of vanity. 
 
 This fortunate man began now to have warnings of 
 the kind which wait plentifully on advancing years. Gold- 
 smith had gone, Garrick followed and bodily decay 
 was visibly creeping over Johnson. Reynolds himself a 
 frugal liver and a cautious man was still hale and robust ; 
 he had painted one generation, was painting a second, 
 and, in the opinion of the third, he promised to last to give 
 them the benefit of his skill. He had no thought, indeed, 
 of retiring to spend in leisure the money he had gathered : 
 painting was to him enjoyment ; and he knew that, if he 
 withdrew from the scene, much of his social distinction 
 would fall from about him. The powerful and the rich are 
 soon willing to forget men of genius when they cease to 
 minister to their vanity or their pleasures, and are no 
 longer the talk of the town. Reynolds was aware of this 
 no one had yet appeared capable of disputing with him the 
 title of first portrait-painter of the age : with this spell
 
 REYNOLDS. 231 
 
 he had opened the doors as well as the purses of the proud 
 and the far-descended, and taken his seat among the 
 eminent of the land : and here he was resolved to remain. 
 
 In the year 1780 the Royal Academy was removed to 
 Somerset House rooms were prepared for the reception of 
 the paintings and models and apartments selected for the 
 keeper and the secretary. Sir Joshua taxed his invention 
 in the embellishment of the ceiling of the library, and 
 could think of nothing better than Theory sitting on a 
 cloud a figure dark and mystical, which fails to explain 
 its own meaning nor is the meaning much to the purpose 
 when it is explained. To the exhibition of this year he 
 sent the portrait of Miss Beauclerc as Spencer's " Una "- 
 and the heads of Gibbon the historian and Lady Beaumont. 
 He also painted for the Eoyal Academy the portrait of Sir 
 William Chambers, and that likeness of himself which con- 
 tains the bust of Michael Angelo. It was one of the 
 pleasant delusions of his life that the .divinity of Michael 
 Angelo inspired him in his productions he was ever calling 
 on his name invoking him by his works and making five 
 guineas an hour in the belief that the severe majesty of 
 Buonarotti was at least dimly seen among the curls and 
 flounces, laced waistcoats, and well-powdered wigs of his 
 English nobility. 
 
 He was questioned by Northcote on the merits of two 
 French portraits by Madame Le Brun, which were then 
 exhibited in London : " Pray what do you think of them, 
 Sir Joshua ? " Reynolds : " That they are very fine." 
 Northcote : " How fine ? " Reynolds : " As fine as those of 
 any painter." Northcote : " As fine as those of any painter! 
 do you mean living or dead ? " Reynolds, sharply : 
 " Either living or dead." Northcote : " Good God ! what, 
 as fine as Vandyke ? " Reynolds : " Yes, and finer." Rey- 
 nolds had seen as men see now the wreck of high hopes 
 and lofty expectations ; he rated vulgar popularity at its 
 worth, and disdained to interfere with the brief summer of 
 Madame Le Brun. 
 
 A series of allegorical figures for the window of New 
 College Chapel at Oxford employed his pencil during the 
 year 1780, and for several succeeding years. There are
 
 232 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 seven personifications in all Faith, Hope, Charity, Tem- 
 perance, Fortitude, Justice, and Prudence. That Eeynolds 
 has conferred a healthier hue and more splendid colours 
 on those seven abstract personages than some of them 
 enjoyed before, I readily allow; but they are a cold and 
 unnatural progeny, and are regarded only as embellish- 
 ments. Without nature there can be no sentiment with- 
 out flesh and blood there can be no sympathy. In the 
 group of Charity, a critic discovers that the " fondling of 
 the infant, the importunity of the boy, and the placid 
 affection of the girl, together with the divided attention of 
 the mother, are all distinguishably and judiciously marked 
 with the knowledge of character for which the great artist 
 who gave this design is so justly celebrated." This- pas- 
 sage has surely been written to show how prettily words 
 may be grouped together without meaning. Where is the 
 charity in a mother taking charge of her own children ? 
 
 The " Nativity," a composition of thirteen figures, and 
 in dimensions twelve feet by eighteen, was designed to sur- 
 mount the seven " Allegories." This was sold to the Duke 
 of Eutland for 1,200 guineas, and was burnt at Belvoir 
 Castle, with many other noble performances. It had the 
 fault of almost all Sir Joshua's historical works ; it was 
 cold, laboured, and uninspired. He had no revelations of 
 heavenly things, such as descended on Eaphael ; the visions 
 which presented themselves were unembodied or dim, and 
 flitted before his sight like the shadowy progeny of Banquo. 
 If angels of light, ministers of grace, and souls of just men 
 made perfect, could have sat for their portraits, who could 
 have painted them so divinely as Eeynolds ? 
 
 Having painted a " Thais " with a torch in her hand, 
 a " Death of Dido," and a Boy hearkening to a marvellous 
 story, and placed them in the exhibition, he set off on a 
 tour among the galleries of the Continent. The fame of 
 these three new pictures followed him. The " Dido," by 
 the loveliness of her face and the rich colouring of her robes, 
 drew immense crowds to Somerset House. Meanwhile he 
 pursued his journey. He stopped at Mechlin, to see the 
 celebrated altar-piece by Eubens, of which he was told the 
 following story : A citizen commissioned the picture, and
 
 REYNOLDS. 233 
 
 Rubens having made his sketch, employed Van Eginont, one 
 of his scholars, to dead-colour the canvas, for the full-sized 
 painting. On this the citizen said to Rubens, " Sir, I be- 
 spoke a picture from the hand of the master, not from that 
 of the scholar." " Content you, my friend (said the artist), 
 this is but a preliminary process, which I always entrust to 
 other hands." " The citizen (said Sir Joshua) was satisfied, 
 and Eubens proceeded with the picture, which appears to 
 me to have no indications of neglect in any part : on the 
 contrary, I think it has been, for it is a little faded, one of 
 his best pictures, though those who know this circum- 
 stance pretend to see Van Egmont's inferior genius through 
 the touches of Kubens." 
 
 At Antwerp he noticed a young artist named De Gree, 
 who had been designed for the church, but loved painting 
 more, and pursued it with success. He came afterwards 
 to England. Reynolds generously gave him fifty guineas, 
 which the young man, as pious as he was enthusiastic, 
 transmitted home for the use of his aged parents. 
 
 When Reynolds returned to London he found that a new 
 candidate for fame had made his appearance, and promised 
 to become fashionable. This was Opie, who, introduced by 
 Wolcot, and remarkable alike by the humility of his birth 
 and the brightness of his talents, rose suddenly into repu- 
 tation and employment. It is true that he had then but 
 moderate skill, and that the works which the world of fashion 
 applauded were his worst ; but he was a peasant, and there- 
 fore a novelty ; he could paint, and that was a wonder. 
 So eager were the nobility and gentry to crowd into his 
 gallery, that their coaches became a nuisance ; and the 
 painter jestingly said to one of his brethren, " I must plant 
 cannon at my door to keep the multitude off." This fever 
 soon reached its cold fit. But a little while and not a 
 coroneted equipage was to be seen in his street ; and Opie 
 said to the same friend, with sarcastic bitterness, " They 
 have deserted my house as if it were infected with the 
 plague." Sir Joshua, who knew the giddy nature of 
 popular regard, and the hollowness of patronage, regarded 
 all this bustle with calmness ; nor was he at all annoyed 
 when the young peasant was employed by the chief nobility
 
 234 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 of England. He appreciated Opie's real talents, and, 
 always willing to find a foreign forerunner for native genius, 
 compared him to Carravaggio. 
 
 At the age of fifty-eight, and in the full enjoyment of 
 health and vigour, Sir Joshua was attacked by a paralytic 
 affection. His friends were more alarmed than himself, 
 and Johnson, to whom at all times the idea of death was 
 terrific, addressed him in a letter of solemn anxiety. " I 
 heard yesterday (he says) of your late disorder, and should 
 think ill of myself if I heard it without alarm. I heard 
 likewise of your recovery, which I wish to be complete and 
 permanent. Your country has been in danger of losing 
 one of its brightest ornaments, and I of losing one of my 
 oldest and kindest friends ; but I hope you will still live 
 long for the honour of the nation ; and that more enjoy- 
 ment of your elegance, .your intelligence, and your benevo- 
 lence, is still reserved for, dear sir, your most affectionate 
 SAM. JOHNSON." Reynolds soon recovered from this 
 attack. 
 
 A sense of the excellence of his works, or acquaintance 
 with his bounty, obtained for him the praise of Wolcot, 
 more widely known by the name of Peter Pindar. In the 
 dearth of good poets and manly satirists this person rose 
 into reputation. His works had a wide circulation ; and 
 he was dreaded by all who had a reputation which would 
 pay for an attack. His commendation, however, was about 
 as undesirable as his satire. In his eulogiums on Rey- 
 nolds, he calls on Rubens and Titian to awake, and see the 
 new master sailing in supreme dominion, like the eagle of 
 Jove, above the heads of all other mortals. Those two 
 great artists are in no haste to arise to behold the eleva- 
 tion of a maker of portraits, and are insulted by the poet 
 and reproached with jealousy. Simple Portrait stands 
 ready to be limned, and History sighs, anxious for his 
 pencil. Such are the thoughts and many of the words in 
 which Wolcot expressed his admiration of Reynolds. Nor 
 was he much more successful when he condescended to 
 treat of him in prose. " I lately breakfasted " (he says) 
 " with Sir Joshua, at his house in Leicester Fields. After 
 some desultory remarks on the old masters, but not one
 
 KETNOLDS. 235 
 
 word of the living artists as on that subject no one can 
 ever obtain his real opinion the conversation turned on 
 Dr. Johnson. On my asking him how the club to which 
 he belonged could so patiently suffer the tyranny of this 
 overbearing man, he replied with a smile that the mem- 
 bers often hazarded sentiments merely to try his powers 
 in contradiction. I think I in some measure wounded the 
 feelings of Reynolds by observing that I had often thought 
 that the Ramblers were Idlers, and the Idlers Ramblers, 
 except those papers which he (Reynolds) had contributed ; 
 and, further, that Johnson too frequently acted the reverse 
 of gipsies ; ' the gipsies,' said I, ' when they steal the chil- 
 dren of gentlefolks, conceal the theft by beggarly disguises ; 
 whereas Johnson often steals common thoughts, disguising 
 the theft by a pomp of language.' " 
 
 Sir Joshua, supreme head as he was of the Academy, 
 and unrivalled in fame and influence, was doomed to expe- 
 rience many crosses and vexations ; but his sagacious spirit 
 and tranquil temper brought him off triumphant. Barry, 
 a man of great natural talents, and one who flew a flight 
 even beyond Reynolds in his admiration of Michael An- 
 gelo, differed with him in everything else. Becoming Pro- 
 fessor of Painting on the resignation of Mr. Penny, he 
 had it in his power to annoy the Chair, and was not slow 
 in perceiving his advantage. Reynolds, in the performance 
 of his duty as President, could not fail to remark how very 
 backward the Professor of Painting was in the performance 
 of his undertaking he had not delivered the stipulated 
 lectures and he inquired if they were composed. Barry, 
 a little man and full of pride, rose on tiptoe it is even 
 said he clenched his fist to give stronger emphasis to his 
 words and exclaimed, " If I had only in composing my 
 lectures to produce such poor mistaken stuff as your dis- 
 courses, I should have my work done, and be ready to 
 read." To reply suited neither the dignity nor the caution 
 of Reynolds. The world praised him for his mildness and 
 moderation, and censured his fiery opponent, on whom they 
 laid the whole blame of this indecent scene. 
 
 The reformation which the Emperor Joseph wrought 
 among the monastic establishments, brought before the
 
 236 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 public many of the productions of Rubens ; and Reynolds, 
 who seldom missed an opportunity of examining all paint- 
 ings of eminence, went over to the Netherlands to see 
 them. He remarked, on his return from his first tour, 
 that his own works were deficient in force in comparison 
 with those he had seen ; and on his second tour, " He ob- 
 served to me " (said Sir George Beaumont) " that the pic- 
 tures of Rubens appeared much less brilliant than they 
 had done on the former inspection. He could not for 
 some time account for this circumstance ; but when he re- 
 collected that when he first saw them he had his note-book 
 in his hand, for the purpose of writing down short remarks, 
 he perceived what had occasioned their now making a less 
 impression than they had done formerly. By the eye pass- 
 ing immediately from the white paper to the picture, the 
 colours derived uncommon richness and warmth : for want 
 of this foil they afterwards appeared comparatively cold." 
 Mason, after having translated Du Fresnoy's " Art of 
 Painting," laid it aside, and had nearly forgotten it, when 
 it was brought into light and life by the inquiries and 
 commendations and illustrative notes of Sir Joshua. He 
 seems to have been desirous at all times of obtaining lite- 
 rary distinction for himself; or at least of obtaining the 
 regard of literary men. It is true that some of his ad- 
 mirers claim the highest honours of literature for his 
 "Discourses," which JVlalone, inspired by his friendship 
 and his legacy, calls " The Grolden Discourses." Others, 
 like Wolcot, see an excellence in his casual essays which 
 those of Johnson never attained ; nor is Northcote willing 
 to be behind, for, instead of Burke lending his aid to Rey- 
 nolds in the composition of those far-famed " Discourses," 
 he reverses the obligation, and insinuates that Burke had 
 the help of Sir Joshua in writing his admirable admoni- 
 tion to Barry. To claims such as these it would be unwise 
 to listen. Johnson and Burke were of a higher order of 
 intellect than Reynolds, and displayed a mastery in every 
 subject with which they grappled. Such men were much 
 more likely to impart than receive aid from him in literary 
 compositions ; and there is nothing in the letter of Burke 
 which required minute information, or a mechanical ac-
 
 REYNOLDS. 237 
 
 quaintance with the details of art. It discusses principles, 
 not practice ; and may justly claim the honour of being 
 the most clear, sagacious, profound, and natural view of 
 the true objects of painting which has ever been com- 
 posed. 
 
 The notes which Eeynolds added to Du Fresnoy may be 
 dismissed in a few words. They are distinguished by their 
 sagacity and knowledge by their shrewd estimates of 
 other men's merits, and by their modesty concerning his 
 own. I have said that the President was frugal in his 
 communications respecting the sources from whence he 
 drew his own practice he forgets his caution in one of 
 these notes. He is speaking of the masters of the Venetian 
 school, and says : " When I was at Venice, the method I 
 took to avail myself of their principles was this : when I 
 observed an extraordinary effect of light and shade in any 
 picture, I took a leaf out of my pocket-book, and darkened 
 every part of it in the same gradation of light and shade as 
 the picture, leaving the white paper untouched to repre- 
 sent the light, and this without any attention to the subject 
 or the drawing of the figures. A few trials of this kind 
 will be sufficient to give the method of their conduct in the 
 management of their lights. After a few experiments 1 
 found the paper blotted nearly alike : their general prac- 
 tice appeared to be, to allow not above a quarter of the 
 picture for the light, including in this portion both the 
 principal and secondary lights ; another quarter to be kept 
 as dark as possible ; and the remaining half kept in mezzo- 
 tint or half-shadow. Rubens appears to have admitted 
 rather more light than a quarter, and Rembrandt much 
 less, scarce an eighth : by this conduct Rembrandt's light is 
 extremely brilliant but it costs too much the rest of the 
 picture is sacrificed to this one object. That light will 
 certainly appear the brightest which is surrounded with 
 the greatest quantity of shade, supposing equal skill in the 
 artist." 
 
 Reynolds was commonly humane and tolerant he could 
 indeed afford, both in fame and in purse, to commend and 
 aid the timid and the needy. When Gainsborough asked 
 sixty guineas for his " Girl and Pigs," Sir Joshua gave him
 
 238 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 a hundred ; and when another English artist of celebrity, 
 on his arrival from Eome, asked him where he should set 
 up a studio, he informed him that the next house to his 
 own was vacant, and at his service. He could, however, be 
 sharp and bitter on occasion. It is one of the penalties 
 paid for eminence to be obliged, as a matter of courtesy, 
 to give opinions upon the attempts of the dull. Sir Joshua 
 had such visitations in abundance. One morning he be- 
 came wearied in contemplating a succession of specimens 
 submitted to his inspection, and, fixing his eye on a female 
 portrait by a young and trembling practitioner, he roughly 
 exclaimed : " What's this in your hand ? A portrait ! 
 you should not show such things : what's that upon her 
 head a dishclout ? " The student retired in sorrow, and 
 did not touch his pencils for a month. 
 
 Allan Ramsay, the king's painter, died in 1784, and was 
 succeeded in his office by Reynolds the emolument was 
 little, nor was the honour important. Wilkes, in his sar- 
 castic attack upon Hogarth, confounds the station with 
 that of the house-painter ; in short, the place, having been 
 filled by several inferior artists, had sunk into discredit, 
 like that of city poet. The exertions of Burke in reform- 
 ing the expenses of the royal household, had reduced the 
 salary of the king's painter from two hundred pounds to 
 fifty ; and as Reynolds had no use for the money, and as 
 the station could confer no new dignity upon him, he could 
 nave had no inducement to take it, save the desire of com- 
 plying with the wishes of his benevolent sovereign. 
 
 He distinguished himself above all his brother artists 
 in the year 1784 by his "Fortune Teller," his portrait of 
 Miss Kemble, and his Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse 
 all very noble compositions. The latter conveys a strong 
 image of the great actress, as, in the fulness of her beauty 
 and her genius, she awed and astonished her audience, 
 making Old Drury to show " a slope of wet faces from the 
 pit to the roof." 1 
 
 , ' The original of this most celebrated painting is now in the possession 
 of the Duke of Westminster, and forms one of the chief treasures of the 
 Grosrenor Gallery. It is stated in a work called " Repton's Gardening," 
 published in 1816, by a writer who says he was present at the time,
 
 REYNOLDS. 239 
 
 Amidst' the applause which these works obtained for 
 him, the President met with a loss which the world could 
 not repair Samuel Johnson died on the 13th December, 
 1784, full of years and honours. A long, warm, and 
 beneficial friendship had subsisted between them. The 
 house and the purse of Reynolds were ever open to Johnson, 
 and the word and the pen of Johnson 1 were equally ready 
 for Reynolds. It was pleasing to contemplate this affec- 
 tionate brotherhood, and it was sorrowful to see it dis- 
 severed. " I have three requests to make," said Johnson, 
 a day before his death, " and I beg that you will attend to 
 them, Sir Joshua. Forgive me thirty pounds which I 
 borrowed from you read the Scriptures and abstain 
 from using your pencil on the Sabbath-day." Reynolds 
 promised, and what is better remembered his promise. 
 
 We owe the discovery of an original picture of Milton to 
 the sagacity of Reynolds. It had belonged to Deborah, 
 the poet's daughter had passed into the family of Sir 
 William Davenant and was found in the possession of a 
 furniture-broker by a dealer in pictures, who sold it to Sir 
 Joshua for a hundred guineas. It was painted by Samuel 
 Cooper, the friend and companion of Milton, in 1653. 
 Doubts were raised, and suspicions expressed, concerning 
 the descent of this portrait; and it must be confessed that 
 all such discoveries deserve to be inquired into by men ac- 
 quainted with the frauds practised in art. The profes- 
 sional experience of Sir Joshua was the best security against 
 imposition. He was satisfied of its authenticity, and de- 
 fended it successfully in the " Gentleman's Magazine." 
 
 The works of Reynolds had long supplied daily food for 
 those critics who swarm in the land and scatter censure 
 or praise at least as blindly as Fortune. He was now to 
 be exposed to another of the same class, equally insidious 
 and subtle and coming in a graver shape a biographer. 
 With so little skill, however, did this literary undertaker 
 
 that Mrs. Siddons, on seeing her portrait, objected to the straight bands 
 of her hair, and asked Sir Joshua to make it flow in more graceful 
 ringlets, but he replied, "That without straight lines there might be 
 grace or beauty, but there could never be greatness or sublimity.'' ED. 
 1 We have noted Johnson's disclaimer as to the pen. ED.
 
 240 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 make his approaches, that he at first impressed the artist 
 with a notion, that his purpose was not to write his life 
 but to take it. Now Sir Joshua had long indulged in the 
 pleasing delusion, that Malone, or Boswell, or Beattie, or 
 Burke, on all of whom he had showered favours, would 
 perform in due time this friendly office. To them he had 
 opened up all his knowledge, and for their use he had made 
 memorandums concerning his practice, all calculated to 
 direct the pen and shorten the labour of the biographer. 
 But his chief dependence for his biography was on Burke, 
 whose talents he rated even above those of Johnson, and 
 whose services he sought to secure by a donation of four 
 thousand pounds. The best laid schemes of mice and men, 
 says the poetical moralist, are often frustrated, and so it 
 happened here. Sir Joshua refused the humble in hopes 
 of the high. When his pencil could no longer please, nor 
 his pen sign away the thousands in his purse, he was neg- 
 lected or forgotten by persons who had followed and 
 flattered him. 
 
 Two pictures, differing much in character, yet of great 
 merit, came from his pencil during the year 1785. One 
 was " Love unloosing the Zone of Beauty " a work which 
 I cannot hope to describe in the language of discretion, 1 
 and the other was the portrait of the Duke of Orleans 
 infamous under the name of Egalite of whom I cannot 
 write with temperance. 2 
 
 During the following year, he gave up his thoughts and 
 time to a picture, commissioned by Catharine of Eussia, 
 and after long choosing, selected a subject at once common- 
 
 1 This work, which seems to have shocked Allan Cunningham, is now 
 in the National Gallery, having been acquired with the Peel Collection. 
 There are several duplicates of it in private collections. ED. 
 
 2 This picture was supposed to have perished in a fire at Carlton 
 House in 1824, but a few years ago Mr. Redgrave, R.A., found it 
 together with a portrait of the younger Duke of Cumberland among 
 "some lumber" at Hampton Court. Both canvases were frightfully 
 injured and charred by the fire, but it has been found possible to restore 
 them, and they are now exhibited. Sir Joshua painted the Due de 
 Chartres, afterwards distinguished as Philippe Egalite, at the time when 
 he was in England on a visit to the Prince of Wales, in 1785, as we find 
 by an entry in one of his note-books : " 1785, Sep. 13. Duke de Charter, 
 .262." See " Academy," Dec. 19, 1874. ED.
 
 REYNOLDS. 241 
 
 place and obscure " The Infant Hercules strangling 
 the Serpents." He had imagined another and nobler 
 composition Elizabeth visiting the English Camp at Til- 
 bury, when the Armada was on the sea ; but he relinquished 
 the idea, from a wish to paint something illustrative of the 
 character and undertakings of the empress herself. Now, 
 Catharine was a woman who loved nature, and had no taste 
 for allegorical subtleties; and it is probable that her 
 Russian connoisseurs never imagined that her actions were 
 shadowed forth in a chubby boy choking two snakes. She 
 rewarded the President, however, with fifteen hundred 
 guineas and a gold box, bearing her portrait set in large 
 diamonds. Beattie calls it an unpromising subject; Barry 
 commends the light and shade ; and Reynolds himself, on 
 bidding it farewell, said, " There are ten pictures under it, 
 some better, some worse." So many trials had he made 
 such had been his anxiety to produce a masterpiece. The 
 same year he painted a more simple and more popular 
 picture a sleeping girl. So splendid were the colours in 
 which this sleeping beauty was embodied, that they 
 threw into shade all other works which were near it in the 
 exhibition. 
 
 When Boydell, a name which all lovers of art have 
 learned to reverence, projected an edition of Shakespeare, 
 embellished with engravings from the ablest painters, he 
 found Reynolds unexpectedly cold and backward. A 
 sensible friend undertook the task of persuasion, and in 
 the midst of his argument slipped a five hundred pound 
 note into the artist's hand. This mode of reasoning was 
 powerful ; three pictures were promised, imagined, sketched, 
 and painted. The first was " Puck, or Robin Goodfellow" 
 a singular and a happy production the very image of 
 that tricksy sprite with a hand ready for pleasant mis- 
 chief, and an eye shining with uncommitted roguery. This 
 poetic picture is in a poet's keeping that of Mr. Rogers. 1 
 The second was "Macbeth," with the witches and the 
 caldron. The figure of the usurper is deficient in heroic 
 
 1 Now in the possession of Earl Fitzwilliam, who purchased it at 
 Rogers's sale for 980 guineas. 
 
 B
 
 242 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 dignity ; but there is a supernatural splendour thrown over 
 the hags which cannot be contemplated without awe. The 
 vivid excellence of Shakespeare, however, prevails against 
 the painter ; the conception is below the execution. The 
 third and last was the " Death of Cardinal Beaufort," a 
 work which has received the highest praise, and the deepest 
 censure. 1 I cannot help regarding the conception as a 
 failure. To augment the horrors of a guilty conscience, the 
 artist has introduced a fiend, who posts himself at the 
 dying man's head, and excites our disgust, and carries away 
 our feelings from the departing sinner. Those who seek 
 a justification of this in the poet will seek in vain : the 
 lines quoted in its defence contain only a figure of speech ; 
 one of those bold figures in which the great dramatist 
 loved to deal. 
 
 " thou eternal mover of the heavens, 
 Look with a gentle eye upon this wretch ! 
 Oh, beat away the busy meddling fiend 
 That lays strong siege unto this wretch's soul, 
 And from his bosom purge this black despair." 
 
 Those who are unconvinced by these words may look for 
 the fiend of the artist in the dramatis personse of the poet. 
 Opie praises this hideous and shapeless supernumerary as 
 " one of the most signal examples of invention in the 
 artist." The artist received a thousand guineas for " Mac- 
 beth," and five hundred for " Cardinal Beaufort." He took 
 commissions of this kind with reluctance ; his imagination 
 was not a teeming one ; he had numerous trials to make ; 
 success was never certain ; and when he had finished his 
 work, he found that the dead were but indifferent patrons ; 
 he complained, in short, says Northcote, that those subjects 
 " cost him too dear." 
 
 Of his portrait of Eliott, Lord Heathfield, Barry says, 
 " His object appears to have been to obtain the vigour and 
 solidity of Titian, and the bustle and spirit of Vandyke, 
 without the excesses of either." It is a noble and heroic 
 head. There is a calm martial determination which corre- 
 sponds with the rough aspect. He grasps the key of Qib- 
 
 1 In the possession of Lord Leconfield. Another copy in the Dulwich 
 Gallery. ED.
 
 REYNOLDS. 243 
 
 raltar in his hand, and seems to say, amid the volleying 
 smoke and fire, " This rock shall melt and run into the 
 Mediterranean before I yield thee." l 
 
 Reynolds onee observed that it was impossible for two 
 painters, in the same line of art, to live in friendship. 
 This was probably uttered in a moment of peevishness, 
 when he had been thwarted by some brother of the calling, 
 and was not intended for a deliberate opinion. It is, 
 nevertheless, nearer the truth than the disciples of art are 
 willing to admit. What is the secret history of the Eoyal 
 Academy but a record of battles and bickerings, of petty 
 disputes and trifling animosities ? Hogarth lived before 
 it was founded, an object of mingled envy and terror. 
 Gainsborough disliked Reynolds Reynolds had no good- 
 will to Gainsborough Wilson also shared in this unami- 
 able feeling, and Barry was unwilling to forgive anyone 
 who painted better than himself. These are masters and 
 princes of the calling : their open feuds and private war- 
 rings would fill a volume; the animosities of the lesser 
 spirits are unworthy of notice. 
 
 Sir Joshua sat to Gainsborough for his portrait ; before 
 it was finished he was taken ill and went to Bath ; of his 
 recovery and return he gave intimation, but no notice was 
 taken of it, and the picture was never finished. Some un- 
 natural fit of good- will had brought them together: on 
 reflection they separated, and continued to speak of one 
 another after their own natures ; Gainsborough with open 
 scorn, Reynolds with courteous, cautious insinuation. It 
 is true, however, that they at length forgave each other 
 that Gainsborough on his death-bed made atonement for 
 his opposition, and relinquished all dislike and that of 
 Gainsborough, after he was fairly in his grave, Reynolds 
 spoke with truth and justice. 
 
 The President was persuaded about this time by Boswell 
 to attend the execution of a robber at Newgate. The unfor- 
 tunate sufferer had been a servant in the family of Thrale, 
 had often stood behind Sir Joshua's back ; and, on seeing 
 
 1 Everyone knows this fine picture in the National Gallery. It was 
 originally painted for Boydell, and came with the Angerstein collection 
 into the National Gallery. ED.
 
 244 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 him in the crowd, bowed to him with 'mournful civility. A 
 hero dying in battle, or a saint in his bed, may be worthy 
 of contemplation ; but what a Eeynolds could have looked 
 for, except disgust and sickness of heart, in witnessing the 
 mortal agony of a vulgar malefactor, I am at a loss to 
 conceive. He was sharply admonished at the time in some 
 of the journals. 
 
 Sir Joshua had now reached his sixty-sixth year ; the 
 boldness and happy freedom of his productions were un- 
 diminished; and the celerity of his execution, and the glow- 
 ing richness of his colouring, were rather on the increase 
 than the wane. His life had been uniformly virtuous and 
 temperate; and his looks, notwithstanding the paralytic 
 stroke he had lately received, promised health and long 
 life. He was happy in his fame and fortune, and in the 
 society of numerous and eminent friends ; and he saw him- 
 self in his old age without a rival. His great prudence 
 and fortunate control of temper had prevented him from 
 giving serious offence to any individual ; and the money 
 he had amassed, and the style in which he lived, unencum- 
 bered with a family, created a respect for him amongst 
 those who were incapable of understanding his merits. 
 But the hour of sorrow was at hand. One day, in the 
 month of July, 1789, while finishing the portrait of the 
 Marchioness of Hertford, he felt a sudden decay of sight 
 in his left eye.- He laid down the pencil ; sat a little 
 while in mute consideration, and never lifted it more. His 
 sight gradually darkened, and within ten weeks of the 
 first attack his left eye was wholly blind. He appeared 
 cheerful, and endeavoured to persuade himself that he was 
 resigned and happy. But he had been accustomed to the 
 society of the titled and the beautiful and from this he 
 was now cut off ; he knew the world well, and perceived 
 that, as the pencil, which brought the children of vanity 
 about him as with a charm, could no longer be used, the 
 giddy tide of approbation would soon roll another way. His 
 mental sufferings were visible to some of his friends, 
 though he sought to conceal them with all his might. 
 One read to him to charm away the time another con- 
 versed with him and the social circle, among whom he
 
 REYNOLDS. 245 
 
 had so long presided, still assembled round the well-spread 
 table. Ozias Humphreys came every morning and read a 
 newspaper to him ; his niece, afterwards Marchioness of 
 Thomond, arrived from the country, and endeavoured to 
 soothe and amuse him ; and he tried to divert himself by 
 changing the position of his pictures, and by exhibiting 
 them all in succession in his drawing-room, so that he at 
 once pleased his friends and gratified himself. 
 
 But a man cannot always live in society, nor can society 
 always spare time to amuse him ; there are many hours of 
 existence which he must gladden, as he can, for himself. 
 Cowper took to the taming of hares ; and Sir Joshua made 
 a companion of a little bird, which was so tame and docile 
 as to perch on his hand, and with this innocent favourite 
 he was often found by his friends pacing around his room, 
 and speaking to it as if it were a thing of sense and infor- 
 mation. A summer morning and an open window were 
 temptations which it could not resist ; it flew away ; and 
 Reynolds roamed for hours about the square where he re- 
 sided in hopes of reclaiming it. 
 
 His rest was invaded by other disturbers than blindness : 
 the evil spirit of politics appeared in the Literary Club, 
 and made discord amongst the brethren ; and, what was 
 worse, a fierce feud broke out between Sir Joshua and the 
 Royal Academy. Reynolds wished, through the persua- 
 sion of the Earl of Aylesford, to obtain the chair of per- 
 spective for Bonomi, an Italian architect ; but, as he did not 
 belong to the Academy, it was necessary that he should be 
 elected an associate, and then a member, before he could 
 be proposed as professor. At the election for associate the 
 numbers were equal for Bonomi and Gilpin ; the President 
 gave his casting vote for the former, and thus put him one 
 step in the way towards the professor's chair. A member 
 soon after died, and the architect was put in nomination 
 along with Fuseli. Reynolds exerted all his influence to 
 secure the election of the first as Royal Academician ; he 
 met with unexpected opposition. His zeal in behalf of 
 Bonomi had been too apparent ; he had pushed him by 
 his influence faster forwards than some thought his talents 
 entitled him to, and had transgressed a formal rule by
 
 246 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 producing some drawings made by the Italian. Fuseli 
 was elected by a majority of two to one, and Sir JosJaua 
 quitted the chair deeply offended. Nor was this all ; he 
 wrote a warm, indignant letter, resigning his station as 
 President, and bidding a final farewell to the Academy ; 
 he thought a little and burnt it and then wrote a cold 
 and courteous one to the same effect. The Academy were 
 overwhelmed with consternation, and endeavoured to soothe 
 his pride by submissions little short of prostration. Sir 
 William Chambers was the bearer, too, of a royal wish, 
 saying how happy his Majesty would be if Sir Joshua 
 would continue President. Thus assailed, he relented, and 
 resumed the seat which his good sense should have pre- 
 vented him from vacating. 
 
 He resumed it, however, only to resign it, which he 
 performed in kindness, not in anger, after an occupation 
 of twenty-one years. During all that period he had con- 
 tinued absolute in the realms of art, and maintained the 
 dignity of his profession both in the Academy and in 
 society. He had encountered, indeed, the rough hostility 
 of Barry, and the opposition of Gainsborough, but these ^ 
 were transient and ineffectual; and save these, and some 
 uncivil bickerings respecting twopenny-halfpenny plans of 
 economy, his reign had been one of prosperity and peace. 
 The other thirty-nine members, indeed, seem to have re- 
 garded him with a degree of submission amounting to 
 servile fear; and, generally speaking, in the little senate 
 of the Academy he had all his time sat sole dictator. 
 
 The last time that Reynolds made his appearance in the 
 Academy was in the year 1790 : he addressed a speech to 
 the students on the delivery of the medals, and concluded 
 by expatiating upon the genius of his favourite master, in 
 such words as a credulous Catholic may use in praise of a 
 benevolent saint. " I feel," said he, " a self-congratulation 
 in knowing myself capable of such sensations as he in- 
 tended to excite. I reflect, not without vanity, that these 
 discourses bear testimony of my admiration of that truly 
 divine man ; and I should desire that the last words which 
 I should pronounce in this Academy, and from this place, 
 might be the name of Michael Angelo."
 
 REYNOLDS. 247 
 
 His last visit to the Academy seemed once on the point 
 of ending tragically. There were present, besides members 
 and students, a number of persons of rank and importance. 
 The multitude was large, the weight great, and, just as 
 the President was commencing his discourse, a beam in 
 the floor gave way with a loud crash. The audience rushed 
 to the door, or to the sides of the room ; lord tumbled over 
 student, student over lord, and academicians over both. 
 Sir Joshua sat silent and unmoved in his chair ; and, as 
 the floor only sank a little, it was soon supported the 
 company resumed their seats and he recommenced his 
 discourse, all with perfect composure. He afterwards re- 
 marked, that, if the floor had fallen, the whole company 
 must have been killed, and the arts in Britain thrown two 
 hundred years back in consequence. He considered art as 
 an inheritance descending from father to son ; he believed 
 that each succeeding generation would grow wiser and 
 better, and that future academicians had only to add the 
 knowledge of the dead to the genius of the living, and 
 rise higher and higher ; painting history till it became 
 divine, and portraits worthy of the gods. That this wild 
 notion was fixed within him there can be no dispute. " So 
 much will painting improve," said he, " that the best we 
 can now achieve, will appear like the work of children." 
 
 That examples of excellence in art might not be want- 
 ing, Sir Joshua offered to the Royal Academy his valuable 
 collection of pictures by the great masters at a very low 
 price, on the condition that they should purchase a good 
 gallery for their reception. It was his fortune to meet 
 with many mortifications towards the close of his career, 
 and this was one : the Academy, with a parsimony which 
 is left unexplained, declined the purchase. They could 
 not want money for the President knew their circum- 
 stances when he made his proposal. Amongst forty men 
 some two or three sordid souls are sure to be mixed, whose 
 chief delight is the accumulation of money; who damp a 
 generous enthusiasm by their parsimonious calculations, 
 and delight in tying up the public gains of an institution 
 at a satisfactory per-centage. Disappointed in this, Sir 
 Joshua made an exhibition of them in the Haymarket, for
 
 248 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 the advantage of his faithful servant, Kalph Kirkley ; but 
 our painter's well-known love of gain excited public sus- 
 picion; he was considered by many as a partaker in the 
 profits, and reproached by the application of two lines 
 from " Hudibras " 
 
 " A squire he had whose name was Ralph, 
 Who in the adventure went his half." 
 
 But he was soon to be removed from the ingratitude of 
 friends, and the malevolence of enemies. He had been on 
 a visit to Mr. Burke in Buckinghamshire. On his return, 
 he alighted at the inn at Hayes, and walked five miles on 
 the road, in company with Mr. Malone, without stopping, 
 and without complaint. He had then, though sixty-eight 
 years old, the looks of a man of fifty, and seemed, said 
 Malone, as likely to live ten or fifteen years as any of his 
 younger friends. Soon after his return home his spirits 
 became much depressed ; a tumour, which baffled the skill 
 of the surgeons, began to gather over his left eye, and, 
 feeling the oppression of infirmities, he at length resigned 
 for ever the situation of President of the Eoyal Academy. 
 
 A concealed and fatal malady was invading the func- 
 tions of life, and sapping his spirits. This was an enlarge- 
 ment of the liver, which expanded to twice its natural 
 dimensions, defied human skill, and deprived him of all 
 cheerfulness. His friends were ever with him, and sought 
 to soothe him with hopes of recovery, and with visions of 
 long life ; but he felt, in the simple language of the old 
 bard, 
 
 " That death was with him dealing," 
 
 refused to be comforted, and prepared for dissolution. " I 
 have been fortunate," he said, " in long good health and 
 constant success, and I ought not to complain. I know that 
 all things on earth must have an end, and now I am come 
 to mine." Sir Joshua expired, without any visible symp- 
 toms of pain, on the 23rd of February, 1792, in the sixty- 
 ninth year of his age. 
 
 " His illness (says Burke) was long, but borne with a 
 mild and cheerful fortitude, without the least mixture of
 
 REYNOLDS. 249 
 
 anything irritable or querulous: agreeably to the placid 
 and even tenour of his whole life. He had, from the be- 
 ginning of his malady, a distinct view of his dissolution; 
 and he contemplated it with that entire composure, which 
 nothing but the innocence, integrity, and usefulness of his 
 life, and an unaffected submission to the will of Provi- 
 dence, could bestow." 
 
 He was interred in one of the crypts of St. Paul's cathe- 
 dral, and accompanied to the grave by many of the most 
 illustrious men of the land forty-two coaches conveyed 
 the mourners, and forty-nine empty carriages of the nobility 
 and gentry added their encumbrance to the procession. 
 He lies by the side of Sir Christopher Wren, architect of 
 the edifice ; and a statue to his memory by Flaxman has 
 since been placed in the body of the cathedral. 
 
 In stature Sir Joshua Eeynolds was somewhat below the 
 middle size ; his complexion was florid, his features blunt 
 and round, his aspect lively and intelligent, and his manners 
 calm, simple, and unassuming. He was an early mover 
 a man whom application could not tire, nor constant labour 
 subdue. In his economy he was close and saving ; while 
 he poured out his wines, and spread out his tables to the 
 titled or the learned, he stinted his domestics to the 
 commonest fare, and rewarded their faithfulness by very 
 moderate wages. One of his servants, who survived till, 
 lately, described him as a master who exacted obedience in 
 trifles was prudent in the matter of pins a saver of bits 
 of thread a man hard and parsimonious, who never 
 thought he had enough of labour out of his dependents, 
 and always suspected that he overpaid them. To this may 
 be added the public opinion, which pictured him close, 
 cold, cautious, and sordid ; and, on the other side, we have 
 the open testimony of Burke, Malone, Boswell, and John- 
 son, who all represent him as generous, open-hearted, and 
 humane. The servants and the friends both spoke, I doubt 
 not, according to their own experience of the man. Priva- 
 tions in early life rendered strict economy necessary ; and, 
 in spite of many acts of kindness, his mind on the whole 
 failed to expand with his fortune ; he continued the same 
 system of saving when he was master of sixty thousand
 
 250 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 pounds, as when he owned but sixpence. He loved repu- 
 tation dearly, and it would have been well for his fame, if, 
 over and above leaving legacies to such friends as Burke 
 and Malone, he had opened his heart to humbler people. 1 
 A little would have gone a long way a kindly word and 
 a guinea prudently given ! 2 3 
 
 1 This is inconsistent with the statement that Sir Joshua made an ex- 
 hibition of his pictures for the benefit of an old servant. The insinuation 
 as to his sharing profits is unworthy of notice. The fact was that wish- 
 ing to dispose of his collection, and the Royal Academy not having the 
 sense to buy it, he determined to exhibit his paintings by old masters, 
 with a view to their ultimate sale, and caused a catalogue to be prepared 
 of them with marked prices, which was sold by his servant Ralph, who 
 had been in his service for more than thirty years, and to whom he left 
 in his will a legacy of 1,000, thus again refuting the aspersions as to 
 his meanness to his domestics. ED. 
 
 2 The Author has been accused of treating Sir Joshua's personal 
 character rather unjustly. He is unconscious of having omitted any 
 inquiry likely to lead him aright ; he wrote from the information of one 
 who lived on intimate terms with the President during the last ten years 
 of his life ; and he has now again gone over the narrative very care- 
 fully, and found it impossible, without violating the truth, to make any 
 alteration of importance as to its facts. Sir Thomas Lawrence had 
 kindly undertaken to peruse this volume, and note any corrections he 
 might think advisable, before it was reprinted. But he did not live to 
 fulfil this promise and the writer feels abundantly how much he has lost ! 
 
 3 By the above note, which was added in the second edition of this 
 work, it will be seen that Allan Cunningham's strange prejudice against 
 Sir Joshua was deliberately entertained. He never misses an opportunity 
 of disparaging a man whom all the world seems to have combined to 
 praise. Perhaps it was from this very reason. He got tired of hearing 
 such universal laudation, and so was led into suspecting motives and at- 
 tributing meanness. But more probably his estimate was biassed by the 
 person he mentions as having lived on intimate terms with the painter 
 during the last ten years of his life, but whose testimony can hardly be 
 accepted against the united voice of his other friends, who one and all 
 represent him as of a singularly loveable and gentle nature, generous 
 disposition, and kind heart. Numerous stories are told of his wonderful 
 equanimity. " You might have stuck the devil on his back," says North- 
 cote, " without being able to put him in a fidget." His deafness perhaps 
 had something to do with this unusual serenity, for when the conversa- 
 tion became irritating he was always able to " shift his trumpet," and 
 console himself with snuff. Even Northcote, who was an extremely 
 touchy individual, seems to have been unable to quarrel with his master. 
 Never, indeed, was a painter so universally beloved. Testimonies to his 
 goodness of heart, charity, kindly forbearance, and courtesy are every- 
 where to be found. ED.
 
 REYNOLDS. 251 
 
 Sir Joshua has a threefold claim upon posterity f or his 
 Discourses, his historical and poetical paintings, and his 
 portraits. Of all these I have already spoken at some 
 length. The Discourses were delivered when the annual 
 distribution of medals took place among the most promis- 
 ing students of the Royal Academy. Their object was to 
 impress upon the minds of his audience a sense of the dignity, 
 and a knowledge of the character and importance of art 
 to stimulate them to study and labour to point out the 
 way to excellence ; unfold the principles of composition, 
 and disclose the charms of beauty and the whole mystery 
 of colour. He required lively diligence, continued study and 
 unlimited belief in the excellence of the chief masters of the 
 calling in reward for which he promised distinction and 
 fame. But fame could be acquired only by study, hard, and 
 above all well-directed rules were the ornaments, not the 
 fetters of genius, and hard labour was the way to eminence, 
 and the only way. The great painters, when they conceived 
 a subject, first made a variety of sketches, then a finished 
 drawing of the whole after that a more correct drawing 
 of every separate part then they painted the picture, and 
 finally retouched it from the life. The pictures, thus 
 wrought with such pains, appeared to be the effect of en- 
 chantment, and as if some mighty genius had struck them 
 off at a blow. Those Discourses were always heard with 
 respect ; and as the subject was new, the compositions full 
 of knowledge, and the illustrations numerous and happy, 
 they obtained the approbation of skilful judges, and rose 
 to such reputation, that they were attributed at one time 
 to Johnson, and at another to Burke. 
 
 They are distinguished by many beauties, and deformed 
 by one serious fault they correspond not with the cha- 
 racter of English art, and the determined taste of this 
 country. " Study," exclaimed Reynolds to his students 
 (and I could quote fifty pages to the same purpose), 
 " study the great works of the great masters for ever. 
 Study as nearly as you can in the order, in the manner, on 
 the principles on which they studied. Study nature atten- 
 tively, but always with those masters in your company : 
 consider them as models which you are to imitate, and at
 
 252 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 the same time as rivals which you are to combat." Such 
 was his theory : we all know what was his practice. He 
 could not be unaware, while he was lecturing the annual 
 academical crop of beardless youths upon the necessity of 
 studying in the character, and labouring in the style of 
 the princes of the Italian school, that he was sending them 
 forth to seek bread and fame in a pursuit where neither 
 was to be found; while he was shutting his lips, and 
 keeping silence concerning the domestic style and the 
 mystery of portraiture, in which he himself was un- 
 equalled. 
 
 It was, I apprehend too, the province of the President 
 to point out those natural qualities by which genius for 
 art might be distinguished from forwardness and pre- 
 sumption, and young men might see whether they were 
 led by the false light of vanity or by light from heaven. 
 Every dunce can labour ; but stupidity must toil like Cali- 
 ban, while genius works its ready wonders like the wand of 
 Prospero. It was not enough that he called the students 
 before him, and set them their stated tasks of smoothing 
 clay or of colouring canvas : he ought to have admo- 
 nished, nay, commanded the dull and unintellectual to 
 retire from a pursuit for which they were unfit. All men 
 indeed are capable of being artists in a certain degree, as 
 all men may be versifiers; but a decent drawing is no 
 more a proof of genius in art, than a few smooth and 
 sounding lines are a proof of the spirit of poetry. The 
 youth who is to be encouraged in the pursuit of poetry, 
 should show glimpses of original power of thought and 
 ready happiness of language ; and a student in art should 
 display some production of original and unborrowed talent 
 before admission to the Academy. A good eye, a steady 
 hand, and a little practice, may enable any young man to 
 make such a copy of an antique figure as will give him 
 admission, without genius to rise one step higher. 
 
 Sir Joshua's historical paintings have little of the heroic 
 dignity which an inspired mind breathes into compositions 
 of that class. His imagination commonly fails him, and 
 he attempts to hide his want of wings in the unrivalled 
 splendour of his colouring, and by the thick- strewn graces
 
 REYNOLDS. 253 
 
 of his execution. He is often defective even where he 
 might have expected to show the highest excellence : his 
 faces are formal and cold ; and the picture seems made up 
 of borrowed fragments, which he had been unable to work 
 up into an entire and consistent whole. 
 
 His single poetic figures are remarkable for their un- 
 affected ease, their elegant simplicity, and the splendour 
 of their colouring. Some scores of those happy things he 
 dashed off in the course of his life ; and though they are 
 chiefly portraits, they have all the charm of the most suc- 
 cessful aerial creations. The Shepherd Boy is one of his 
 happiest. Of children he seems to have been remarkably 
 fond ; nor can one forbear imagining that he has romped 
 or ridden with them on the parlour broom, sorrowed with 
 them over the loss of their favourite birds, smiled with 
 them on their being endowed with new finery, and enjoyed 
 all the mixed surprise and triumph expressed in the face 
 of Muscipula on catching a mouse in a trap. It is true 
 that they are all children of condition, with their nurses 
 wet and dry that their clothes are of the finest texture 
 and the latest fashion and that we are conscious of look- 
 ing at future lords and ladies. But nature overpowers all 
 minor feelings, and we cannot refrain from doing involun- 
 tary homage to the genius of the painter who has glad- 
 dened us with the sight of so much innocence and beauty. 
 
 To some of his poetic figures I cannot afford such praise, 
 though the grace of their composition and the singular 
 sweetness of their looks raise them far above censure. 
 By what he considered a classical refinement upon his pro- 
 fessional flattery of improved looks and glowing colours, 
 he suffered some of the fairest of his sitters to be god- 
 desses and nymphs, and painted them in character. This 
 was the common-place pedantry of painting ; it had been 
 the fashion for centuries. Lely and Kneller caused the 
 giddy madams of the courts of the Stuarts to stalk like 
 Minervas or Junos, though they had naturally the disposi- 
 tions of Venus or of Danae ; and Reynolds, who had equal 
 loveliness and infinitely more purity to portray, indulged 
 his beauties with the same kind of deification. In truth 
 it is only worthy of a smile.
 
 254 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 The portraits of Reynolds are equally numerous and ex- 
 cellent, and all who have written of their merits have 
 swelled their eulogiums by comparing them with the sim- 
 plicity of Titian, the vigour of Eembrandt, and the elegance 
 and delicacy of Vandyke. Certainly, in character and ex- 
 pression, and in manly ease, he has never been surpassed. 
 He is always equal always natural graceful unaffected. 
 His boldness of posture and his singular freedom of colour- 
 ing are so supported by all the grace of art by all the 
 sorcery of skill that they appear natural and noble. Over 
 the meanest head he sheds the halo of dignity ; his men 
 are all nobleness, his women all loveliness, and his children 
 all simplicity : yet they are all like the living originals. 
 He had the singular art of summoning the mind into the 
 face, and making sentiment mingle in the portrait. He 
 could completely dismiss all his preconceived notions of 
 academic beauty from his mind, be dead to the past and 
 living only to the present, and enter into the character of 
 the reigning beauty of the hour with a truth and a happi- 
 ness next to magical. It is not to be denied that he 
 was a mighty flatterer. Had Colonel Charteris sat to 
 Reynolds, he would, I doubt not, have given an aspect 
 worthy of a President of the Society for the Suppression 
 of Vice. 
 
 That the admirers of portrait-painting are many, the 
 annual exhibitions show us ; and it is pleasant to read the 
 social and domestic affections of the country in these in- 
 numerable productions. In the minds of some they rank 
 with historical compositions ; and there can be no doubt 
 that portraits which give the form and the soul of poets, 
 and statesmen, and warriors, and of all whose actions or 
 whose thoughts lend lustre to the land, are to be received 
 as illustrations of history. But with the mob of portraits 
 fame and history have nothing to do. The painter who 
 wishes for lasting fame must not lavish his fine colours 
 and his choice postures on the rich and the titled alone ; he 
 must seek to associate his labours with the genius of his 
 country. The face of an undistinguished person, however 
 exquisitely painted, is disregarded in the eyes of posterity. 
 The most skilful posture and the richest colouring cannot
 
 REYNOLDS. 255 
 
 create the reputation which accompanies genius, and we turn 
 coldly away from the head which we happen not to know 
 or to have heard of. The portrait of Johnson has risen to 
 the value of five hundred guineas: while the heads of 
 many of Sir Joshua's grandest lords remain at their origi- 
 nal fifty. 
 
 The influence of Reynolds on the taste and elegance of 
 the island was great, and will be lasting. The grace and 
 ease of his compositions were a lesson for the living to 
 study, while the simplicity of his dresses admonished the 
 giddy and the gay against the hideousness of fashion. 
 He sought to restore nature in the looks of his sitters, and 
 he waged a thirty years' war against the fopperies of dress. 
 His works diffused a love of elegance, and united with 
 poetry in softening the asperities of nature, in extending 
 our views, and in connecting us with the spirits of the 
 time. His cold stateliness of character, and his honour- 
 able pride of art, gave dignity to his profession : the rich 
 and the far-descended were pleased to be painted by a 
 gentleman as well as a genius. 
 
 Of historical and poetic subjects he painted upwards of 
 one hundred and thirty. They are chiefly in England, 
 and in the galleries or chambers of the titled and the 
 opulent. The names of a few of the most famous may 
 interest the reader : " Macbeth and the Witches ; " " Car- 
 dinal Beaufort ; " " Holy Family ; " " Hercules strangling 
 the Serpents;" "The Nativity;" "Count Ugolino;" 
 " Cymon and Iphigenia ; " " The Fortune Teller ; " " Gar- 
 rick between Tragedy and Comedy ; " " The Snake in the 
 Grass ; " " The Blackguard Mercury ; " " Muscipula ; " 
 " Puck ; " " Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse ; " " The 
 Shepherd Boy ; " " Venus chiding Cupid for casting ac- 
 counts." 
 
 Of men he painted the portraits of some four-and- 
 twenty whose names still occupy their station in fame or 
 history ; and of ladies he painted many remarkable for ac- 
 complishments, mental and personal. Among the former 
 are Percy, Bishop of Dromore ; Edmund Burke ; Colonel 
 Tarleton ; Dr. Charles Burney ; Dr. Hawkesworth ; Dr. 
 Eobertson ; Joseph Warton ; the Earl of Mansfield ; Ed-
 
 256 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 word Gibbon ; Oliver Goldsmith ; Samuel Johnson ; Warren 
 Hastings ; Lord Anson ; Lord Heathfield ; Lord Ligonier ; 
 Lord Rodney ; Lord Thurlow ; Lord Granby ; Thomas 
 Warton; Adam Fergusson ; Sir Joseph Banks ; Sir William 
 Chambers ; Laurence Sterne ; Dr. Beattie ; Viscount Keppel ; 
 Horace Walpole ; and Sir Joshua Reynolds. 
 
 Let me conclude with the words of Burke ; they are a 
 little loftier than necessary, and somewhat warmer. The 
 eulogy from which they are taken, appeared in the news- 
 papers the day after Sir Joshua's death, and produced a 
 very great sensation; but much less cannot be said when a 
 colder tale comes to be told. 
 
 " Sir Joshua Reynolds was, on many accounts, one of 
 the most memorable men of his time. He was the first 
 Englishman who added the praise of the elegant arts to the 
 other glories of his country. In taste in grace in facility 
 in happy invention and in the richness and harmony 
 of colouring, he was equal to the greatest masters of the 
 renowned ages. In portrait he went beyond them ; for he 
 communicated to that description of the art, in which 
 English artists are most engaged* a variety, a fancy, and a 
 dignity, derived from the higher branches, which even 
 those who professed them in a superior manner did not 
 always preserve when they delineated individual nature. 
 His portraits remind the spectator of the invention and 
 the amenity of landscape. In painting portraits he ap- 
 peared not to be raised upon that platform, but to descend 
 upon it from a higher sphere. 
 
 " In full affluence of foreign and domestic fame, admired 
 by the expert in art and by the learned in science, courted 
 by the great, caressed by sovereign powers, and celebrated 
 by distinguished poets, his native humility, modesty, and 
 candour never forsook him even on surprise or provocation : 
 nor was the least degree of arrogance or assumption visible 
 to the most scrutinizing eye in any part of his conduct or 
 discourse. 
 
 " His talents of every kind, powerful by nature and not 
 meanly cultivated by letters his social virtues in all the 
 relations and all the habitudes of life, rendered him the 
 centre of a very great and unparalleled variety of agree-
 
 REYNOLDS. 257 
 
 able societies which will be dissipated by his death. He 
 had too much merit not to excite some jealousy too much 
 innocence to provoke any enmity. The loss of no man of 
 his time can be felt with more sincere, general, and un- 
 mixed sorrow. Hail ! and Farewell."
 
 THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH. 
 
 TWO eminent men, Wilson and Gainsborough, laid the 
 foundation of our school of landscape ; their works 
 are full of the truest nature and the purest fancy, and 
 their fame is now properly felt ; yet of their personal his- 
 tory little is known save what the suspicious testimony of 
 avowed enemies and careless friends and the random 
 notice of some periodical writers may add to the vague 
 stream of tradition. 1 
 
 Thomas Gainsborough, the fourth eminent name in 
 British art, was born in the year 1727, at Sudbury, in Suf- 
 folk the day or the month no one has mentioned. Of his 
 father, whose name was John, by trade a clothier, and in 
 religion a dissenter, I can only say with common belief that 
 he was a stately and personable man, with something 
 mysterious in his history, for the pastoral and timid 
 rustics of Suffolk suspected him of carrying a dagger and 
 pistols under his clothes. Of his mother, whose maiden 
 name I have not learned, the same authority says that she 
 was kind and indulgent to her children ; and, moreover, 
 somewhat proud of her sons, of whom she had three, all 
 distinguished above their companions for talents and at- 
 tainments. The family was of old standing, well to live, 
 and of unblemished respectability. 
 
 ^Respecting Thomas, the youngest son, memory is still 
 strong in Suffolk. Near Sudbury a beautiful wood of four 
 
 1 Since Cunningham's time Gainsborough's life has been written by 
 G. W. Fulcher, but even his work, published in 1856, is scanty in its 
 information and does not give much personal detail beyond what Cunning- 
 ham had collected. Messrs. Redgrave, have, also, devoted a chapter 
 to Gainsborough in their " Century of Painters," and more recently Mr. 
 Fred. Wedmore has given a critical estimate of his art in his " Studies in 
 English Art." ED.
 
 GAINSBOROUGH. 259 
 
 miles' extent is shown, whose ancient trees, winding 
 glades, and sunny nooks inspired him, while he was but a 
 schoolboy, with the love of art. Scenes are pointed out 
 where he used to sit and fill his copy-books with pencil- 
 lings of flowers, and trees, and whatever pleased his fancy ; 
 and it is said that those early attempts of the child bore a 
 distinct resemblance to the mature works of the man. At 
 ten years old he had made some progress in sketching, and 
 at twelve he was a confirmed painter. Good scholarship 
 was under such circumstances out of the question ; yet 
 his letters which I have seen, show no want in the art of 
 expressing clear thoughts in clear words. His knowledge 
 was obtained from his intercourse with mankind, and by 
 his spirit of ready observation he supplied the deficiencies 
 of education. 
 
 The sketches which he made were concealed for a time 
 the secret, however, could no longer be kept. One day 
 he had ventured to request a holiday, which was refused, 
 and the audacious boy imposed his own penmanship on the 
 master for the usual written request of his father, of " Give 
 Tom a holiday." The trick was found out; his father 
 looked upon the simulated paper with fear, and muttered, 
 " The boy will come to be hanged ! " but when he was in- 
 formed that those stolen hours were bestowed upon the 
 pencil, and some of Tom's sketches were shown to him, his 
 brow cleared up, and he exclaimed, " The boy will be a 
 genius ! " Other stories of his early works are not wanting. 
 On one occasion he was concealed among some bushes in 
 his father's garden, making a sketch of an old fantastic 
 tree, when he observed a man looking most wistfully over 
 the wall at some pears, which were hanging ripe and 
 tempting. The slanting light of the sun happened to 
 throw the eager face into a highly picturesque mixture of 
 light and shade, and Tom immediately sketched his like- 
 ness, much to the poor man's consternation afterwards, 
 and much to the amusement of his father, when he taxed 
 the peasant with the intention of plundering his garden, 
 and showed him how he looked. Gainsborough long after- 
 wards made a finished painting of this Sudbury rustic a 
 work much admired amongst artists under the name of
 
 2GO THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 Tom Peartree's portrait. He loved to show his powers in 
 such hasty things ; and, from the unembarrassed freedom 
 of mind and hand with which he produced them, they take 
 rank with his happiest compositions. 
 
 Of his early sketches made in the woods of Sudbury, 
 few, I apprehend, now exist, though they were once nume- 
 rous. No fine clump of trees, no picturesque stream, 
 nor romantic glade no cattle grazing, nor flocks reposing, 
 nor peasants pursuing their rural or pastoral occupations 
 escaped his diligent pencil. Those hasty sketches were 
 all treasured up as materials to be used when his hand 
 should have become skilful; he showed them to his visitors, 
 and called them his riding-school. As his reputation rose 
 he became less satisfied with these early proofs of talent, 
 and scattered them with a profuse hand amongst friends 
 and visitors. To one lady he made a present of twenty ; 
 but so injudiciously were these precious things bestowed, 
 that the lady pasted them round the walls of her apart- 
 ment, and, as she soon left London, they became the 
 property of the next inhabitant. His first drawing was a 
 clump of trees he long retained it, and one of his bio- 
 graphers says it was a " wonderful thing." 
 
 Talents so vigorous were acknowledged even in the se- 
 clusion of a country- place ; and his father was very will- 
 ingly persuaded to send the youth to prosecute his 
 labours with the benefit of example and instruction to 
 London. No one has made him older than fourteen when 
 he left Sudbury for the metropolis, 1 and all agree that he 
 studied under Hayman, one of the companions of Hogarth. 
 Grignon the engraver, who knew him well, informed Ed- 
 wards, author of the "Anecdotes of Painters," that Gains- 
 borough received the first rudiments of his art from Grave- 
 lot. 2 His genius, his history, his modest deportment, and 
 
 1 Fulcher says that he was fifteen when he came to London, and that 
 he lodged at first in the house of a silversmith who introduced him to 
 Gravelot. ED. 
 
 1 Gravelot was a French engraver of great ability who came over to 
 England in 1733, where he soon got employment from artists in engraving 
 plates. He is said to have assisted Hogarth with some of his early ones, 
 and he executed the engravings in Theobald's " Shakespeare " from his
 
 GAINSBOROUGH. 261 
 
 his good looks, obtained him many friends; but he had 
 not then formed any high notion of his own powers : he, 
 at the most, considered himself as one whose skill might 
 gain him a comfortable livelihood in a provincial town. 
 He saw that historical painting was an unprofitable, and 
 he felt it to be an uncongenial pursuit; no landscapes 
 worthy of art had yet made their appearance, for Wilson 
 was seeking bread in portraiture ; he could not fail to see 
 that his own works were essentially different from those 
 which filled the easels of the artists in St. Martin's Lane 
 and mistrusted his success accordingly. He remained 
 in London four years ; and having acquired skill, and 
 mastered some of the mystic tricks of colour and com- 
 position, he returned to his father's house a confirmed 
 painter. 
 
 He was now in his eighteenth year, and the reputation 
 of his talents, the modest gaiety of his conversation, and 
 the extreme elegance of his person, rendered his company 
 universally acceptable in his native place. He could not, 
 indeed, learn modesty under Hayman ; but he acquired the 
 art of making use of his wit and his information with a 
 graceful readiness, and his handsome form, and looks beam- 
 ing with intelligence and genius, could not fail of doing him 
 a good turn if he conducted himself wisely. It happened, 
 in one of his pictorial excursions amongst the woods of 
 Suffolk, that he sat down to make a sketch of some fine 
 trees, with sheep reposing below, and wood-doves roosting 
 above, when a young woman entered unexpectedly upon 
 the scene, and was at once admitted into the landscape and 
 
 own designs. A catalogue of his works is now being prepared by a French 
 writer. At the time of Gainsborough's visit he had a drawing school of 
 great repute in the Strand, and from him Gainsborough no doubt received 
 much valuable instruction, instruction which we may well imagine had 
 more influence over his style than that which he afterwards received 
 under Hayman at the St. Martin's Lane Academy. This noted academy, 
 though much frequented by the artists of the time, was eminently a place 
 of " threadbare rules and traditional commonplaces," where Gains- 
 borough certainly would never have learnt to paint nature in her homely 
 garb. I have, however, seen some of his early sketches in which tho 
 landscape was "composed" according to the most accepted rules. These 
 might very well have been executed at the St. Martin's Lane Academy. 
 -ED.
 
 262 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 the feelings of the artist. The name of this young lady 
 was Margaret Burr ; she was of Scottish extraction, and in 
 her sixteenth year, and to the charms of good sense and 
 good looks, was added a clear annuity of two hundred 
 pounds. These are matters which no writer of romance 
 would overlook; and were accordingly felt by a young, 
 an ardent, and susceptible man ; nor must I omit to 
 tell that country rumour conferred other attractions 
 she was said to be the natural daughter of one of our 
 exiled princes; nor was she, when a wife and a mother, 
 desirous of having this circumstance forgotten. On an 
 occasion of household festivity, when her husband was 
 high in fame, she vindicated some little ostentation in her 
 dress by whispering to her niece, " I have some right to this 
 -for you know, my love, I am a prince's daughter." l 
 Prinoe's daughter or not, she was wooed and won by Grains- 
 borough, and made him a kind, a prudent, and a submis- 
 sive wife. The courtship was short. The young pair left 
 Sudbury, leased a small house at a rent of six pounds a 
 year in Ipswich, and, making themselves happy in mutual 
 love, conceived they were settled for life. 
 
 In Ipswich it was his destiny to become acquainted 
 with Philip Thicknesse, governor of Landguard Fort 
 a gentleman who befriended him at first and maligned 
 him afterwards. This person instantly threw the mantle 
 of his patronage over him. It is not unusual to see 
 a friend of this fashion marching triumphantly before 
 genius as it is struggling into distinction, and imagin- 
 ing all the while that from his notice the other's reputa- 
 tion arises. Gainsborough was as yet little known, and 
 had few friends ; his excellency lived in a lonely place, and 
 was desirous of having his solitude enlivened by a visitor 
 whose wit was abundant and his pencil ready. While the 
 artist continued humble the patron was kind : but as he 
 began to assert his own independence, the esteem of the 
 other subsided, and the vain friend became the avowed 
 
 1 This romantic extraction to say the least is very doubtful. We are 
 told by later authorities that the young lady was the daughter of his 
 father's partner. ED.
 
 GAINSBOROUGH. 263 
 
 enemy. Had this been all, it might have been regretted 
 less ; but, so soon as the artist died, Thicknesse, under 
 pretence of writing a sketch of his life, produced an un- 
 worthy pamphlet, which misrepresented him as a man 
 while it praised him as a painter. 1 It is indeed unsafe to 
 follow it for a single page ; but as honey is found in the 
 basest weed, so may truth be extracted from this malig- 
 nant narrative. 2 I shall only adopt such anecdotes as are 
 corroborated by internal evidence, and have been con- 
 firmed or corrected by the living representatives of the 
 house of Gainsborough. 
 
 The first meeting of the artist and the governor was in 
 character. The latter, whilst taking a walk in a friend's 
 garden, saw a melancholy face looking over the wall. As 
 the stranger remained long in the same position, he ad- 
 vanced to accost him, when he perceived it to be a piece of 
 wood shaped and painted like a man, and stationed as 
 a sentinel in the adjoining garden of Gainsborough. 
 This species of joke corresponded with the taste of the 
 governor he waited on the artist, and upbraided him with 
 having imposed a shadow upon him for a substance. The 
 compliment was not ill received, and he was shown into 
 the painting-room, where he found many portraits which 
 he thought but indifferently executed, and more landscapes, 
 which he at once pronounced to be works of spirit and 
 fancy. Amongst the former was the head of Admiral 
 Vernon, and the portrait of the identical Tom Peartree, 
 who longed for the ripe pears in Sudbury garden. 
 
 Of his productions in those early days Thicknesse is the 
 only man who speaks, and I must use his words. " Madam 
 Nature, not man, was then his only study, and he seemed 
 intimately acquainted with that beautiful lady." So far well. 
 " I was the first man," continues the governor, " who per- 
 ceived, through clouds of bad colouring, what an accurate 
 eye he possessed, and the truth of his drawings, and who 
 
 1 For the use of this now rare tract I am indebted to the kindness of 
 the Rev. Edward Poole. 
 
 * Jt was published in 1788 under the title " A Sketch of the Life 
 and Paintings of Thomas Gainsborough." There is a copy in the South 
 Kensington Library. ED.
 
 264 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 dragged him from the obscurity of a country-town at a time 
 when all his neighbours were as ignorant of his great talents 
 as he was himself." This is the modesty of patronage ! 
 Gainsborough had shown a strong consciousness of talents, 
 for he depended upon them for bread before he was 
 eighteen years old ; and some of his neighbours had ap- 
 preciated his genius, since they had counselled his removal 
 to the academies of London. 
 
 The governor gave him a commission to paint Land- 
 guard Fort, including the neighbouring hills and the port 
 of Harwich, price thirty guineas, and, to sum up all, he 
 lent him a fiddle ; on which he erelong made such pro- 
 ficiency, that the governor, though a skilful musician him- 
 self, declares he would as soon have tried to paint against 
 him as fiddle against him. An engraving by Major of the 
 picture of Landguard Fort spread abroad the name of 
 Gainsborough ; the vanity of Thicknesse, and the desire 
 which the artist had of distinction were gratified, and they 
 appear to have lived in great amity through the united 
 influence of painting and fiddling. Of the original paint- 
 ing of the Fort nothing now remains ; it was hung on a 
 wall built with mortar mixed with sea-water, and so 
 perished. 
 
 The increasing fame of Gainsborough demanded a wider 
 field ; he had exhausted the faces and the scenery of 
 Ipswich, and the counsel of Thicknesse agreeing with his 
 own wishes, removed to Bath in the year 1758, and took 
 lodgings in the Circus, at the rate of fifty pounds annually. 
 He was now in the thirty-first year of his age, and his fame 
 was in some degree established yet so small, in spite of 
 the boasted patronage of the governor, had his success 
 been, that his wife, come of a prudent nation, if not of a 
 prudent family, was alarmed, remonstrated against this 
 increase of expenditure, and was with some difficulty 
 appeased. 
 
 It formed part of the plan of the governor, who con- 
 ceived himself to be very popular in Bath, that his portrait, 
 painted on purpose, " should serve as a decoy duck for 
 customers." The artist himself, however, seems to have 
 given less enthusiasm to this project than his friend. He
 
 GAINSBOROUGH. 265 
 
 had begun to grow weary of offering up continual incense 
 to this vain deity ; and to wish to be relieved from this 
 overwhelming patronage of one who claimed the fame 
 arising from his works, and the privilege of directing his 
 studies. From some hints which his excellency throws 
 out, I apprehend that he attributed this independent 
 movement to the influence of Mrs. Gainsborough. But the 
 artist must, I believe, have the whole honour of this to 
 himself. Thicknesse seems never to have suspected that, 
 though Gainsborough was a pleasant companion, and one 
 who indulged in sallies of merriment and humour, he 
 concealed, under all this, a variable temper, and a spirit 
 shy, proud, intrepid, and intractable. His wife, whatever 
 the governor has insinuated to the contrary, was a re- 
 markably inild and sweet-tempered woman I repeat the 
 words of Mrs. Lane who gave her husband his own way, 
 and never sought to win him to her wishes but by gentle- 
 ness. Indeed he was one of the last that would have 
 brooked control ; and so proud, or so whimsical, that he 
 never rode up to his own door in a hackney coach, and 
 admonished his niece to avoid doing so if she loved him. 
 Those who knew both Thicknesse and Gainsborough, were 
 only surprised that they continued friends so long. The 
 tide was now on the turn ; the portrait, proposed by the 
 governor as a profitable decoy, was left untouched; the 
 heads of men of inferior mark were limned off by the 
 dozen, and landscapes, which contained other beauties 
 than those of Landguard Fort, were painted ; the patron 
 lost patience and remonstrated ; the pride of the painter 
 was hurt, and he forthwith resolved to free himself from 
 the encumbrance of a sort of patronizing nightmare, who, 
 under pretence of caressing, seemed disposed to suffocate 
 him. The dissolution of their friendship, however, was 
 the work of years. 
 
 In the meanwhile, Gainsborough gave all his time to 
 portrait, to landscape, and to music. Portrait painting, 
 like the poet with the two mistresses, had his visits, but 
 landscape and music had his heart. His price for a head 
 rose from five guineas to eight, and as his fame increased, 
 the charge augmented till he had forty guineas for a half,
 
 266 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 and a hundred for a whole, length. Eiches now flowed 
 in, for his hand was ready and diligent; his wife was 
 relieved from her fears in the matter of money ; and he 
 was enabled to indulge himself after his own fashion. 
 Books he admired little : in one of his letters he says that 
 he was well read in the volume of nature, and that was 
 learning sufficient for him ; the intercourse of literary men 
 he avoided as carefully as Keynolds courted it : but he was 
 fond of company, and passionately so of music. He con- 
 sidered a good musician as one of the first of men, and a 
 good instrument as one of the noblest works of human 
 skill. All the hours of intermission in his profession, he 
 gave to fiddles and rebecs. To this period the following 
 characteristic story has been ascribed, and though strange, 
 it seems true. 
 
 " Gainsborough's profession," says his friend Jackson, 
 " was painting, and music was his amusement ; yet there 
 were times when music seemed to be his employment and 
 painting his diversion. As his skill in music has been 
 celebrated, I shall mention what degree of merit he pos- 
 sessed as a musician. He happened on a time to see a 
 theorbo in a picture of Vandyke's, and concluded, because 
 perhaps it was finely painted, that the theorbo must be a 
 fine instrument. He recollected to have heard of a Ger- 
 man professor, and ascending to his garret found him 
 dining on roasted apples, and smoking his pipe with his 
 theorbo beside him. ' I am come to buy your lute name 
 your price, and here's your money.' ' I cannot sell my 
 lute.' ' No, not for a guinea or two but you must sell it, 
 I tell you.' ' My lute is worth much money it is worth 
 ten guineas.' ' Ay ! that it is see, here's the money.' 
 So saying, he took up the instrument, laid down the price, 
 went half-way down the stair, and Returned. ' I have done 
 but half my errand ; what is your lute worth if I have 
 not your book ? ' ' What book, Master Gainsborough ? ' 
 ' Why, the book of airs you have composed for the lute.' 
 ' Ah, sir, I can never part with my book ! ' ' Poh ! you 
 can make another at any time this is the book I mean 
 there's ten guineas for it so once more good day.' He 
 went down a few steps, and retu rned again. ' What use
 
 GAINSBOROUGH. 267 
 
 is your book to me if I don't understand it ? and your 
 lute, you may take it again if you won't teach me to play 
 on it. Come home with me, and give me the first lesson.' 
 ' I will come to-morrow.' ' You must come now.' ' I 
 must dress myself.' ' For what ? You are the best figure 
 I have seen to-day.' ' I must shave, sir.' ' I honour your 
 beard ! ' 'I must, however, put on my wig.' ' Damn your 
 wig ! your cap and beard become you ! Do you think if 
 Vandyke was to paint you, he'd let you be shaved ? ' In 
 this manner he frittered away his musical talents, and 
 though possessed of ear, taste, and genius, he never had 
 application enough to learn his notes. He seemed to take 
 the first step, the second was of course out of his reach, 
 and the summit became unattainable." 
 
 He was so passionately attached to music that he filled 
 his house with all manner of instruments, and allowed his 
 table to be infested with all sorts of professors, save bag- 
 pipers. He loved Giardini and his violin he admired 
 Abel and his viol-di-gamba he patronized Fischer and 
 his hautboy and was in raptures with a strolling harper, 
 who descended from the Welsh mountains into Bath. 
 When he dined, he talked of music ; when he painted, he 
 discoursed with his visitors and sitters on its merits, and 
 when he had leisure he practised by fits and starts on his 
 numerous instruments, and notwithstanding Jackson's 
 opinion, his performance was worthy of praise. 
 
 One of his acquaintances in Bath was Wiltshere, the 
 public carrier, a kind and worthy man, who loved Gains- 
 borough, and admired his works. In one of his landscapes, 
 he wished to introduce a horse, and as the carrier had a 
 very handsome one, he requested the loan of it for a day 
 or two, and named his purpose ; his generous neighbour 
 bridled it and saddled it, and sent it as a present. The 
 painter was not a man to be outdone in acts of generosity ; 
 he painted the waggon and horses of his friend, put his 
 whole family and himself into it, and sent it well-framed 
 to Wiltshere, with his kind respects. It is considered a 
 very capital performance. From 1761, when Gains- 
 borough began to exhibit his paintings at the Academy, 
 till his removal from Bath in 1774, Wiltshere was annually
 
 268 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 employed to carry his pictures to and from London ; he 
 took great care of them, and constantly refused to accept 
 money, saying, " No no I admire painting too much," 
 and plunged his hands in his pockets to secure them 
 against the temptation of the offered payment. Perceiving, 
 however, that this was not acceptable to the proud artist, 
 the honest carrier hit upon a scheme which pleased both. 
 " When you think " (said he) " that I have carried to the 
 value of a little painting, I beg you will let me have one, 
 sir ; and I shall be more than paid." In this coin the 
 painter paid Wiltshere ; and overpaid him. His son is 
 still in possession of several of these pictures, and appre- 
 ciates their value ; many of Gainsborough's productions 
 were not so worthily disposed of. 
 
 Of his works during his residence at Bath, I am not 
 enabled to give any particular account. They were no 
 doubt numerous, since he could live in the style of a 
 gentleman, and entertain company. His brothers were 
 made sensible of his change of fortune, and it must be 
 related to his honour that all his kindred and connections 
 speak of him as a kind and generous man, who anticipated 
 wants, and bore his fortunes meekly. Nor was the gover- 
 nor of Landguard Fort himself without a small share in 
 these showers of good fortune. The artist appears to have 
 discovered that money would not be unwelcome in the 
 household of his friend, and to have taken a singular and 
 delicate mode of lending his assistance. I must first, how- 
 ever, relate this story as Thicknesse himself has told it. 
 
 Among the instruments of music which Gainsborough 
 loved, I have named the viol-di-gamba, and Mrs. Thicknesse 
 had one, made in the year 1612, on which she played with 
 much skill and effect. He appeared one evening to be exceed- 
 ingly charmed with the instrument, and said, " I love it so 
 much that I will willingly give a hundred guineas for it." 
 She desired him to stay to supper ; she placed the viol-di- 
 gamba beside him, he took it up and played in a manner 
 so masterly, that Mrs. Thicknesse said, " You deserve an 
 instrument on which you play so well ; and I beg your ac- 
 ceptance of it, on the condition that you will give me niy 
 husband's picture to hang beside the one which you painted
 
 GAINSBOROUGH. 269 
 
 of me." The artist acquiesced ; the viol-di-gamba was 
 sent to him next morning ; he stretched a canvas, took one 
 sitting of some fifteen minutes' duration, and then laid it 
 aside" for other works. The lady was incensed, and the 
 husband remonstrated ; Gainsborough returned the viol- 
 di-gamba and never touched the picture more. 
 
 Such is the story of Thicknesse: the family version, 
 communicated to me by a lady who had it from Mrs. 
 G-ainsborough herself, is somewhat different. The painter 
 (according to this account) put a hundred guineas pri- 
 vately into the hands of Mrs. Thicknesse for the viol-di- 
 gamba; her husband, who might not be aware of what 
 passed, renewed his wish for his portrait ; and obtained 
 what he conceived to be a promise that it should be 
 painted. This double benefaction was, however, more than 
 Gainsborough had contemplated : he commenced the por- 
 trait, but there it stopped; and after a time, resenting 
 some injurious expressions from the lips of the governor, 
 the artist sent him the picture, rough and unfinished as it 
 was, and returned also the viol-di-gamba. 
 
 " This," said Thicknesse, " was a deadly blow to me ; 
 but I knew, though it seemed his act, it did not originate 
 with him : he had been told, that I said openly in the 
 public coffee-house at Bath, that when I first knew him at 
 Ipswich, his children were running about the streets there 
 without shoes or stockings ; but the rascal who told him 
 so was the villain who robbed the poor from the plate he 
 held at the church door for alms." Such words as these 
 were likely to sink deep into the proud heart of Gains- 
 borough ; and though Thicknesse denied them as well he 
 might, for they were untrue they aided him in the reso- 
 lution which he probably had long formed of making his 
 escape from such crushing patronage and ungentle com- 
 pany. Even this necessary step was precipitated by Thick- 
 nesse himself. He sent back his portrait with a note, 
 requesting him to take his brush and first rub out the 
 countenance of the truest and wannest friend he ever had ; 
 and having so done, then blot him for ever from his 
 memory. 
 
 Gainsborough now removed to London, took a house in
 
 270 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 Pall- Mall, which was built by Duke Schomberg, and re- 
 moving all his paintings and drawings, and flutes and 
 fiddles, bade farewell to Bath for ever. 1 
 
 Even to London the harassing protection of Thicknesse 
 pursued him. " I was much alarmed," said that most 
 prudent of patrons, " lest, with all his merit and genius, 
 he might be in London a long time before he was properly 
 known to that class of people who alone could essentially 
 serve him ; for of all the men I ever knew, he possessed 
 least of that worldly knowledge to enable him to make his 
 own way into the notice f the great world. I therefore 
 wrote to Lord Bateman, who knew him, and who admired 
 his talents, stating the above particulars, and urging him 
 at the same time, for both our sakes, to give him coun- 
 tenance and make him known. His lordship, for me or 
 for both our sakes, did so ; and his remove from Bath to 
 London proved as good a move as it was from Ipswich to 
 Bath." The matchless vanity of this man made him believe 
 not only that he was the sole cause of our painter's success 
 in Bath, but that from his intercession with Lord Bate- 
 man sprung all the subsequent good fortune in London of 
 the man who had already painted many noble productions, 
 and who had exhibited them for thirteen years in succes- 
 sion in the Royal Academy. 
 
 He was now freed from this incumbrance, and continued 
 his career in portraiture and landscape with fresh feeling 
 and increasing success. His house was ample, his gallery 
 was fit for the reception of the first in rank, and as the 
 fame of the heads of Lord Kilmorrey, Mr. Quin, Mr. Med- 
 licote, Mr. Mosey, Dr. Charlton, Mr. Fischer, and Mrs. 
 Thicknesse had gone before him, he soon found good em- 
 ployment. Sir Joshua Reynolds was then high in favour ; 
 but even the rapid execution of the President could not 
 satisfy the whole demand ; and there was room for another, 
 who, to just delineation of character, added a force and a 
 freedom which approached and sometimes rivalled Van- 
 
 1 This was in 1774. He had before this sent pictures to the Royal 
 Academy, of which he was one of the original members, but as that In- 
 stitution was only founded in 1769, he could not have contributed to its 
 exhibitions for thirteen years, as Cunningham says. ED.
 
 GAINSBOROUGH. 271 
 
 dyke. A conversation or family piece of the king, the 
 queen, and the three royal sisters, was much admired; 1 
 indeed, the permanent splendour of his colours, and the 
 natural and living air which he communicated to whatever 
 he touched, made him already, in the estimation of many, 
 a rival, and a dangerous one, of the President himself. 
 
 Amongst those who sat to him was the Ihichess of 
 Devonshire then in the bloom of youth, at once the love- 
 liest of the lovely, and the gayest of the gay. But her 
 dazzling beauty, and the sense which he entertained of 
 the charms of her looks, and her conversation, took away 
 that readiness of hand and hasty happiness of touch which 
 belonged to him in his ordinary moments. The portrait 
 was so little to his satisfaction, that he refused to send it 
 to Chatsworth. Drawing his wet pencil across a mouth 
 which all who saw it thought exquisitely lovely, he said, 
 " Her Grace is too hard for me." The picture was, I be- 
 lieve, destroyed. Amongst his papers were found two 
 sketches of the duchess both exquisitely graceful. 
 
 He had customers who annoyed him with other difficul- 
 ties than those of too radiant loveliness. A certain lord, 
 whom one of our biographers, out of compassion for rank, 
 calls an alderman, came for his portrait ; and that all 
 might be worthy of his station, he had put on a new suit 
 of clothes, richly-laced, with a well-powdered wig. Down 
 he sat, and put on a practised look of such importance and 
 
 1 A portrait group of the three royal princesses was sent by Gains- 
 borough to the Koyal Academy in 1784, with the request that it might 
 be hung on the line, although it was above the regulation size, in order 
 that the likenesses might be properly seen, which could not be if it were 
 hung higher than eight feet. His request, however, was not granted, 
 and he was so offended in .consequence that he took the picture away, 
 and never afterwards exhibited at the Royal Academy. I do not know 
 whether this is the work to which Cunningham alludes, as the king and 
 queen do not appear in it. This picture met with a disastrous fate, for 
 it was so large that on some occasion it was cut down by an officer of 
 the palace in order to form a supra-porte in one of the rooms of the 
 palace, and by this means the portraits were reduced to dwarfed half- 
 lengths. What remains is said by Redgrave, who gives these particu- 
 lars, to be still very beautiful. A sketch for this picture, then in the 
 possession of Mr. Wynn Ellis, was exhibited at Burlington House in 
 1871. ED.
 
 272 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 prettiness, that the artist, who was no flatterer either with 
 tongue or pencil, began to laugh, and was heard to mutter. 
 " This will never do!" The patient having composed him- 
 self in conformity with his station, said, " Now, sir, I beg 
 you will not overlook the dimple on my chin!" "Con- 
 found the dimple on your chin ! " said Gainsborough " I 
 shall neither paint the one nor the other." And he laid 
 down his brushes, and refused to resume them. Garrick, 
 too, and Foote also came for their likenesses ; he tried 
 again and again, without success, and dismissed them in 
 despair. " Rot them for a couple of rogues," he exclaimed, 
 " they have everybody's faces but their own !" l As the 
 reader has already seen, David Garrick had the address to 
 gratify Reynolds with a ludicrous account of this failure. 
 
 With others he was more fortunate. But, excellent as 
 many of his portraits are, it was a desire to excel in many 
 things which drew him from his favourite study of free 
 and unsophisticated nature. There he surpassed all living 
 men ; in portrait, he was more than equalled by Reynolds. 
 " Nature," says Thicknesse, in one of those moments when 
 love of his early friend prevailed against hatred " Nature 
 sat to him in all her attractive attitudes of beauty ; and 
 his pencil traced, with peculiar and matchless facility, her 
 finest and most delicate lineaments ; whether it was the 
 sturdy oak, the twisted eglantine, the mower whetting his 
 scythe, the whistling ploughboy, or the shepherd under 
 the hawthorn in the dale all came forth equally chaste 
 from his inimitable and fanciful pencil." 
 
 Though Gainsborough was not partial to the society of 
 literary men, he seems to have been acquainted with John- 
 son and with Burke ; and he lived on terms of great affec- 
 tion with Richard Brinsley Sheridan. He was also a 
 welcome visitor at the table of Sir George Beaumont, a 
 gentleman of graceful manners, who lived in old English 
 dignity, and was, besides, a lover of literature and a painter 
 of landscape. The latter loved to relate a curious anecdote 
 of Gainsborough, which marks the unequal spirits of the 
 
 1 With Quin the actor he was probably more successful, for Dr. 
 Doran says that Quin left a legacy of .50 to " Mr. Thomas Gains- 
 borough, limner." ED.
 
 GAINSBOROUGH. 273 
 
 man, and shows that he was the slave of wayward impulses 
 which he could neither repress nor command. Sir George 
 Beaumont, Sheridan, and Gainsborough had dined to- 
 gether, and the latter was more than usually pleasant and 
 witty. The meeting was so much to their mutual satisfac- 
 tion, that they agreed to have another day's happiness, 
 and accordingly an early day was named when they should 
 dine again together. They met, but a cloud had descended 
 upon the spirit of Gainsborough, and he sat silent, with a 
 look of fixed melancholy, which no wit could dissipate. 
 At length he took Sheridan by the hand, led him out of 
 the room, and said, " Now don't laugh, but listen. I shall 
 die soon I know it I feel it I have less time to live 
 than my looks infer but for this I care not. What op- 
 presses my mind is this I have many acquaintances and 
 few friends; and as I wish to have one worthy man to 
 accompany me to the grave, I am desirous of bespeaking 
 you will you come aye or no? " Sheridan could scarcely 
 repress a smile, as he made the required promise ; the looks 
 of Gainsborough cleared up like the sunshine of one of his 
 own landscapes ; throughout the rest of the evening his 
 wit flowed, and his humour ran over, and the minutes like 
 those of the poet winged their way with pleasure. 
 
 Between Gainsborough and Reynolds there seems to 
 have been little good- will surely the feuds of artists are 
 more numerous than those of any other community of 
 Christians. They at one time appeared desirous of making 
 something like an exchange of portraits ; and Gainsborough 
 obtained one sitting of the President but the piece, like 
 that of Thicknesse, was never completed. The cold and 
 carefully meted out courtesy of the one, little suited with 
 the curious mixture of candour and caprice in the other ; 
 and like frost and fire, which some convulsion casts into 
 momentary contact, they jostled, and then retired from each 
 other never more to meet till Gainsborough summoned 
 Reynolds to his death-bed. They had, however, a better 
 sense of natural dignity than to carry their personal ani- 
 mosities, as Barry afterwards did, into the Council ; and 
 if they differed in life, so in life they were mutually recon- 
 ciled. Peace be with their memories !
 
 274 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 The dates of Gainsborough's various productions cannot 
 now be ascertained : it was one of the peculiarities of this 
 eminent artist that he never put his name to any of his 
 compositions, and very seldom even the date. He knew 
 that his own happy character was too strongly impressed 
 on his works to be denied ; and thought, I suppose, that 
 the excellence of a painting had nothing to do with the 
 day or the year of its execution. " The Woodman and his 
 Dog in the Storm " was one of his favourite compositions. 
 There is a kind of rustic sublimity, new to English paint- 
 ing, in the heavenward look of the peasant, while the rain 
 descends and the lightning flies. The same may be said 
 of his " Shepherd's Boy in the Shower " there is some- 
 thing inexpressibly mournful in the looks of both. The 
 former unfortunately perished ; but the sketch remains, 
 and shows it to have been a work of the highest order. 1 
 He valued it at one hundred guineas, but could find no 
 purchaser while he lived ; his widow sold it for five hun- 
 dred guineas, after his death, to Lord Gainsborough, whose 
 house was subsequently burnt to the ground. Another of 
 his own chief favourite works was the " Cottage Girl with 
 her Dog and Pitcher," a happy and well-considered scene. 2 
 
 Like Reynolds, he painted standing in preference to 
 sitting ; and the pencils which he used had shafts, some- 
 times two yards long. He stood as far from his sitter as 
 he did from his picture, that the hues might be the same. 
 He generally rose early, commenced painting between nine 
 and ten o'clock, wrought for four or five hours, and then 
 gave up the rest of the day to visits, to music, and to 
 
 1 The engraving of this work by Simon is well known. Wornum 
 speaks of its also having" been copied in needlework. ED. 
 
 2 Of this work Leslie writes: " Gainsborough's barefoot child on her 
 way to the well, with her little dog under her arm, is unequalled by 
 anything of the kind in the world. I recollect it at the British Gallery 
 forming part of a very noble assembly of pictures, and I could scarcely 
 look at or think of anything else in the rooms. This inimitable work is 
 a portrait, and not of a peasant child, but of a young lady, who appears 
 also in his picture of the ' Girl and Pigs,' which Sir Joshua purchased." 
 This picture is so well known by means of engraving that it needs no 
 description. The original painting is now in the possession of Mr. Bas- 
 settofTchedy. ED.
 
 GAINSBOROUGH. 275 
 
 domestic enjoyment. He loved to sit by the side of his 
 wife during the evenings, and make sketches of whatever 
 occurred to his fancy, all of which he threw below the 
 table, save such as were more than commonly happy, and 
 those were preserved, and either finished as sketches or 
 expanded into paintings. In summer he had lodgings at 
 Hampstead, for the sake of the green fields and the luxury 
 of pure air ; and in winter he was often seen refreshing 
 his eyes with light at the window, when fatigued with 
 close employment. 
 
 He was an admirer of elegant penmanship, and looked 
 at a well- written letter with something of the same plea- 
 sure as at a fine landscape. His love of music was con- 
 stant ; and he seems to have been kept under a spell by 
 all kinds of melodious sounds. Smith relates, in his life 
 of Nollekens, that he once found Colonel Hamilton playing 
 so exquisitely to G-ainsborough on the violin, that he ex- 
 claimed, " Go on, and I will give you the picture of the 
 ' Boy at the Stile,' which you have so often wished to pur- 
 chase of me." The colonel proceeded, and the painter 
 stood in speechless admiration, with the tears of rapture 
 on his cheek. Hamilton then called a coach, and carried 
 away the picture. This gentleman was a first-rate violin- 
 player, and had the additional merit of having sparred 
 with Mendoza ! 
 
 Of the personal history of this distinguished man, 
 the penury of contemporary biography prevents me from 
 saying more. Fuseli, when editing Pilkington's " Die- 
 tionary of Painters," was, or affected to be, ignorant 
 even of his Christian name ; and so little did he feel the 
 character of his works, that, on omitting some favourable 
 notices in the supplement to the earlier editions, he says 
 with a sneer, " posterity will judge whether the name of 
 Gainsborough deserves to be ranked with those of Van- 
 dyke, Rubens, and Claude, in portrait and in landscape." 
 With wiser taste and better feeling Walpole exclaims, 
 " What frankness of nature in Gainsborough's landscapes, 
 which entitle them to rank in the noblest collections ! " 
 Fuseli seems to have entertained an unaccountable dislike 
 to our amiable and highly-gifted artist.
 
 276 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 About a year after the promise obtained from Sheridan 
 to attend his funeral, he went to hear the impeachment of 
 Warren Hastings, and, sitting with his back to an open 
 window, suddenly felt something inconceivably cold touch 
 his neck above the shirt collar. It was accompanied with 
 stiffness and pain. On returning home he mentioned what 
 he felt to his wife and his niece ; and, on looking, they 
 saw a mark, about the size of a shilling, which was harder 
 to the touch than the surrounding skin, and which he said 
 still felt cold. The application of flannel did not remove 
 it, and the artist, becoming alarmed, consulted, one after 
 the other, the most eminent surgeons of London John 
 Hunter himself the last. They all declared there was no 
 danger ; but there was that presentiment wpon Gains- 
 borough from which none perhaps escape. He laid his 
 hand repeatedly on his neck, and said to his sister, who 
 had hastened to London to see him, " If this be a cancer, 
 I am a dead man." And a cancer it proved to be. When 
 this cruel disease fairly discovered itself, it was found to 
 be inextricably interwoven with the threads of life, and he 
 prepared himself for death with cheerfulness and perfect 
 composure. He desired to be buried near his friend Kirby 
 in Kew churchyard ; and that his name only should be cut 
 on his gravestone. He sent for Reynolds, and peace was 
 made between them. Gainsborough exclaimed to Sir 
 Joshua, " We are all going to heaven, and Vandyke is of 
 the company," and immediately expired August 2nd, 
 1788, in the sixty-first year of his age. Sheridan and the 
 President attended him to the grave. 
 
 In the spring which followed the death of Gainsborough, 
 his widow, who survived him several years, made an exhi- 
 bition of his works in Pall Mall, to the amount of fifty- six 
 pictures, and one hundred and forty-eight drawings. They 
 were all marked for sale, and some of them sold ; and the 
 remainder were dispersed by auction. After experiencing 
 a variety of fortune, the far-famed " Blue Boy " (the por- 
 trait of a youth in a blue dress), and the still more cele- 
 brated " Cottage Door," found their way into the gallery 
 of Lord Grosvenor. The former has a natural elevation of 
 look, and great ease of attitude ; but the cerulean splen-
 
 GAINSBOROUGH. 277 
 
 dour of his coat is at first somewhat startling. 1 The latter 
 deserves a more particular commendation. It represents 
 a cottage matron with an infant in her arms, and several 
 older children around her, enjoying themselves at the door 
 of a little rustic cabin. This lodge in the wilderness is 
 deeply shut up in a close- wooded nook ; through the shafts 
 of the trees, glimpses of knolls and streams are obtained. 
 There is uncommon breadth and mass about it, with a 
 richness of colouring, a sort of brown and glossy golden- 
 ness, which is common in the works of the artist. The 
 matron herself is the perfect beau-ideal of a youthful cottage 
 dame rustic loveliness exalted by natural gentility of ex- 
 pression. 
 
 In person Gainsborough was eminently handsome, and 
 when he wished to please, no one had in greater perfec- 
 tion a ready grace and persuasive manner gifts that can- 
 not be acquired. It is to be regretted, that those who 
 wrote anything concerning him were careful in noting his 
 eccentricities and chronicling his absurdities forgetting 
 much that was noble and excellent in the man. Little 
 minds retain little things. His associates, such as Jack- 
 son and Thicknesse, perceived but those weaknesses which 
 reduced him to their own level ; they were slow or unwill- 
 ing to perceive those qualities which raised him above 
 them. The companions of the artist saved the chaff of 
 his conversation, and allowed the corn to escape. Their 
 sole wish seems to be to show him as the poet painted him- 
 self 
 
 " A thing unteachable in worldly skill, 
 And half an idiot too more helpless still ; " 
 
 and, but for the splendid works of the man, which exhibit 
 a mind that could think boldly and act wisely, they had 
 succeeded. 
 He never attempted literary composition ; he was more 
 
 1 This picture, which is said to have been painted, as everyone knows, 
 to refute Sir Joshua's objection to blue in mass in a painting , is not 
 quite conclusive, though it must be owned that Gainsborough has done 
 wonders with the cool tones ut his command. In his treatment of blue 
 he greatly resembled Vandyke.
 
 278 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 desirous to give than to receive instruction, and therefore 
 paid no court to the learned. His letters are nevertheless 
 such as few literary men have composed, they are distin- 
 guished by innocent gaiety and happy wit. 1 He nutters 
 from subject to subject, always easy and lively ; agreeable 
 when he trifles, and instructive even when he is extrava- 
 gant. He has been reproached with occasional licentious- 
 ness in conversation ; and something of the sort, I must 
 admit, peeps out here and there in his letters. He was 
 far, however, from being habitually gross. 
 
 He was decided in his resolutions. In the year 1784 
 he sent to the exhibition a whole-length portrait, with 
 instructions to hang it as low as the floor would allow. 
 Some bye-law interposed the council remonstrated 
 Gainsborough desired the picture to be returned, which 
 was complied with and he never sent another. 2 
 
 His drawings are numerous and masterly : no artist has 
 left behind him so many exquisite relics of this kind. " I 
 have seen," said his friend Jackson, " at least a thousand, 
 not one of which but what possesses merit, and some in a 
 transcendent degree." Many of them are equal in point 
 of character to his most finished performances. 3 They 
 have all great length and singular freedom of handling. 
 His sketches of ladies are the finest things I have ever 
 seen. The Duchess of Devonshire shows herself in side 
 view and in front ; she seems to move and breathe among 
 the groves of Chatsworth. The names of many are lost, 
 but this is not important. New light, however, has lately 
 been thrown on these perishable things by the painter's 
 grand-nephew, Richard Lane, in whom much of his spirit 
 survives. He has copied and published some two dozen of 
 these fine sketches, and he ought to publish more. 
 
 1 They are curiously like Sterne's in style. Gainsborough is said to 
 have detested reading and to have cared little for any studies beyond those 
 of painting and music, yet his letters show him to have been a well-informed 
 man, who must by gome means or other have managed to pick up a fair 
 education. ED. 
 
 3 See note upon the portraits of the three princesses, page 271. ED. 
 
 3 There are eighty-three of these drawings in the Print Room of the 
 British Museum. Many of them are, of course, very slight and hasty 
 sketches, but the Gainsborough charm is apparent in them all. ED.
 
 GAINSBOROUGH. 279 
 
 The chief works of Gainsborough are not what is usu- 
 ally called landscape, for he had no wish to create gardens 
 of paradise, and leave them to the sole enjoyment of the sun 
 and breeze. The wildest nooks of his woods have their 
 living tenants, and in all his glades and his valleys we see 
 the sons and daughters of men. A deep human sympathy 
 unites us with his pencil, and this is not lessened because 
 all its works are stamped with the image of old England. 
 His paintings have a national look. He belongs to no 
 school ; he is not reflected from the glass of man, but 
 from that of nature. He has not steeped his landscapes 
 in the atmosphere of Italy, like Wilson, nor borrowed the 
 postures of his portraits from the old masters, like Rey- 
 nolds. No academy schooled down into uniformity and 
 imitation the truly English and intrepid spirit of Gains- 
 borough. 1 
 
 It must not, however, be denied, that his productions 
 are sometimes disfigured by the impatience of his nature, 
 and the fiery haste in which he wrought. Wishing to do 
 quickly what his mind conceived strongly, he often ne- 
 glected, in the dashing vigour of his hand, many of those 
 lesser graces which lend art so much of its attractiveness. 
 He felt the whole indeed at once ; he was possessed fully 
 with the sentiment of his subject ; he struck off his fa- 
 vourite works at one continuous heat of thought, and all is 
 clear, connected, and consistent. But, like nature herself, 
 he performed some of his duties with a careless haste ; 
 and in many, both of his portraits and his landscapes, we 
 see evident marks of inattention and hurry. 2 
 
 1 Gainsborough is an artist who is very well represented, both as to 
 portrait and landscape, in the National Gallery, where there arc no 
 fewer than twelve works by his hand, including one of his finest por- 
 traits that of Orpin, parish clerk of Bradford. The simple and delight- 
 ful portrait of Mrs. Siddons, in hat and feathers, and the celebrated land- 
 scapes known as the " Market Cart " and the " Watering Place " are also 
 there. En. 
 
 * " Gainsborough," says Frederick Wedmore in his suggestive " Studies 
 in English Art," " was above all things in his best time a sketcher, an in- 
 dicator, a suggestive poet, who, using his own imagination freely, never 
 dispensed \viih yours. In the landscape about him he conceived a pic- 
 ture ; he conveyed his conception ; he did not finally realize it. Even his
 
 280 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 "It is certain," says Eeynolds, "that all those odd 
 scratches and marks which, on a close examination, are so 
 observable in Gainsborough's pictures, and which, even to 
 experienced painters, appear rather the effect of accident 
 than design this chaos, this uncouth and shapeless ap- 
 pearance by a kind of magic, at a certain distance, 
 assumes form, and all the parts seem to drop into their 
 proper places, so that we can hardly forbear acknowledg- 
 ing the full effect of diligence under the appearance of 
 chance and hasty negligence. That Gainsborough himself 
 considered this peculiarity in his manner, and the power 
 it possesses in exciting surprise, as a beauty in his works, 
 may be inferred from the eager desire which we know he 
 always expressed that his pictures at the exhibition should 
 be seen near as well as at a distance." The President, 
 however, weakens this vindication a little, when, in the 
 succeeding sentences, he says, " the imagination supplies 
 the rest, and perhaps more satisfactorily to the spectator, 
 if not more exactly than the artist with all his care could 
 have done." Sir Joshua, no doubt, felt all this : but artists 
 must not count on eyes and imaginations such as fell to 
 the lot of the President. 
 
 There is a charm about the children running wild in the 
 landscapes of Gainsborough, which is more deeply felt by 
 comparing them with those of Eeynolds. The children of 
 Sir Joshua are indeed beautiful creations, free, artless, 
 and lovely; but they seem all to have been nursed in 
 velvet laps and fed with golden spoons. There is a rustic 
 grace, an untamed wildness, about the children of the 
 other, which speak of the country and of neglected toilets. 
 They are the offspring of nature, running free among woods 
 as wild as themselves. They are not afraid of disordering 
 their satins and wetting their kid shoes. They roll on the 
 greensward, burrow like rabbits, and dabble in the running 
 streams daily. 
 
 earliest works have somewhere, in sea or sky, something of abstraction 
 and generalization ; and as the time proceeded and mind and method 
 matured, the abstraction was more marked, the generalization wider, 
 but both, of course, were more serenely ordered, were less faulty, less 
 partial and accidental." ED.
 
 GAINSBOROUGH. 281 
 
 In this the works of Reynolds and Gainsborough are 
 unlike each other but both differ more materially from 
 the great painters of Italy. The infants of Eaphael, Titian, 
 or Correggio, are not meant for mortals, but for divinities. 
 We hardly think of mothers' bosoms when we look at 
 them. We admire we can scarcely love them so much as 
 we do the healthy children of our two eminent country- 
 men.
 
 BENJAMIN WEST. 
 
 THE life of West has been written by the ingenious 
 author of "Annals of the Parish," with such minute- 
 ness of research and general accuracy of information, that 
 little may seem to be left for a new biographer, but to 
 re-model his narrative, correct some dates, and add a few 
 anecdotes. Something more, however, is necessary. He 
 who writes the biography of any living person is fettered 
 much even as to matters of fact much more in his ex- 
 pression of feelings and opinions and not only was the 
 President alive when Mr. Gait composed his memoir, but 
 they were intimate friends. 
 
 John West, the father of Benjamin, was of that family 
 settled at Long-Crendou, in Buckinghamshire, which pro- 
 duced Colonel James West, the friend and companion in 
 arms of John Hampden. Upon one occasion, in the course 
 of a conversation in Buckingham Palace, respecting his 
 picture of " The Institution of the Garter," West hap- 
 pened to make some allusion to his English descent ; when 
 the Marquis of Buckingham, to the manifest pleasure 
 of the King, declared that the Wests of Long-Crendon 
 were undoubted descendants of the Lord Delaware, re- 
 nowned in the wars of Edward the Third and the Black 
 Prince, and that the artist's likeness had therefore a right 
 to a place amongst those of the nobles and warriors in his 
 historical picture. 
 
 The warlike propensities of this branch of the race had 
 been long extinguished ; in 1667 they had embraced the 
 peaceful tenets of the Quakers, and emigrated to America 
 with some other families desirous of escaping from the 
 contests and distractions of their native isle. John West 
 remained behind only till his education was completed at 
 the Quakers' Seminary at TJxbridge : he then followed his 
 family to Philadelphia married Sarah Pearson (whose
 
 WEST. 283 
 
 grandfather was the confidential friend of William Penn, 
 and aided him in founding the State of Pennsylvania) 
 and settled at Springfield in that province. One part of 
 the marriage portion of his wife was a negro slave, an 
 affectionate and faithful creature ; but in his intercourse, 
 as a merchant, with Barbadoes, John West happened to 
 witness the cruelties to which certain unhappy Africans 
 were subjected, and touched in conscience the worthy 
 Quaker liberated his bondsman and retained him as a 
 hired servant. Others of the Society of Friends followed 
 his example the charitable feeling spread far and wide 
 it was privately taught and publicly preached, and finally 
 established as one of the tenets of that people, that no 
 person could remain a member of their community who 
 held a human creature in slavery. 
 
 When Mrs. West, already the mother of nine children, 
 was again about to be confined, she went to hear one 
 Edward Peckover preach in the fields near her residence. 
 The subject which he chose was popular with such an 
 audience the corrupt and degraded condition of the Old 
 World the pure morality and flourishing establishments 
 of the New. The language of the preacher was vehement 
 and inflammatory. He pictured the licentious manners 
 and atheistical principles of France, and the love of sordid 
 gain which stained the character of England ; and declared 
 that the day and the hour were at hand when those coun- 
 tries would be desolated with the tempest of God's ven- 
 geance the mass of the atheists and money-changers 
 swallowed up and the terrified remnant compelled to 
 seek refuge in happy America. The pains of premature 
 labour came upon Mrs. West during this terrible sermon 
 she shrieked out the women formed a circle round her, 
 and carried her from the field ; and such was her agitation 
 of mind that she had nearly expired before she reached her 
 own house. She continued dangerously ill for twelve 
 days, when, on October 10th, 1738, she was safely deli- 
 vered of her youngest son, Benjamin. 
 
 This made some impression on the mind of John West, 
 and as the presumption of man generally interprets such 
 occurrences in his own favour, he imagined that something
 
 284 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 more than common was indicated for the fortunes of the 
 child. Peckover, glad, no doubt, to find that his wild 
 sermon instead of rebuke brought praise, warmly sup- 
 ported the belief of the credulous Quaker, and desired 
 him to watch over his son with more than ordinary solici- 
 tude. " For a child," said he, " sent into the world under 
 such remarkable circumstances will assuredly prove a won- 
 derful man." One lucky prediction establishes the fame 
 of the prophet, but there are thousands on whose future 
 fame friends and parents fondly reckoned, in whose favour 
 " remarkable circumstances " too condescended to occur, 
 and who remain inglorious in spite of the stars. 
 
 From one thus ushered into life by sermon and pro- 
 phecy much was looked for. Nothing, however, happened 
 till his seventh year, when little Benjamin was placed with 
 a fly-flap in his hand to watch the sleeping infant of his 
 eldest sister while his mother gathered flowers in the 
 garden. As he sat by the cradle, the child smiled in 
 sleep ; he was struck with its beauty, and seeking some 
 paper, drew its portrait in red and black ink. His mother 
 returned, and snatching the paper, which he sought to 
 conceal, exclaimed to her daughter, " I declare he has 
 made a likeness of little Sally ! " She took him. in her 
 arms and kissed him fondly. The drawing was shown to 
 her husband, the prediction of Peckover recurred to his 
 fancy, and he expressed his belief that the boy would 
 become some day very eminent. If he meant as an artist, 
 how this was to come to pass must have seemed, however, 
 not so clear : there were neither professors, paintings, nor 
 prints, amongst the primitives of Pennsylvania. 
 
 Yet West was born amidst circumstances not unfavour- 
 able to the development of his powers. The benevolent 
 fraternity of Quakers had that simplicity of manners and 
 that serenity of look which artists love; while around 
 them the nations of Europe had scattered their children 
 as thick as the trees of the forest. The gay Frenchman, 
 the plodding Dutchman, the energetic Englishman, and 
 the laborious Scot all were there, each emblazoned with 
 the peculiarities, and speaking the peculiar language of 
 his native soil. The wilderness, too, had its picturesque
 
 WEST. 285 
 
 tribes, who presented a school of nature for the study of 
 the naked figure; and it appears that West was early 
 aware of some of these advantages. 
 
 When he was some eight years old, a party of roaming 
 Indians paid their summer visit to Springfield, and were 
 much pleased with the rude sketches which the boy had 
 made of birds, and.fruits, and flowers, for in such draw- 
 ings many of the wild Americans have both taste and skill. 
 They showed him some of their own workmanship, and 
 taught him how to prepare the red and yellow colours 
 with which they stained their weapons ; to these his 
 mother added indigo, and thus he was possessed of the 
 three primary colours. The Indians, unwilling to leave 
 such a boy in ignorance of their other acquirements, 
 taught him archery, in which he became expert enough to 
 shoot refractory birds, which refused to come on milder 
 terms for their likenesses. The future President of the 
 British Academy, taking lessons in painting and in archery 
 from a tribe of Cherokees, might be a subject worthy of 
 the pencil. 
 
 The wants of West increased with his knowledge. He 
 could draw, and he had obtained colours, but how to lay 
 those colours skilfully on he could not well conceive. A 
 neighbour informed him that this was done with brushes 
 formed of camels' hair : there were no camels in America, 
 and he had recourse to the cat, from whose back and tail 
 he supplied his wants. The cat was a favourite, and the 
 altered condition of her fur was imputed to disease, till 
 the boy's confession explained the cause, much to the 
 amusement of his father, who nevertheless rebuked him, 
 but more in affection than in anger. Better help was at 
 hand. One Pennington, a merchant, was so much pleased 
 with the sketches of his cousin Benjamin, that he sent 
 him a box of paints and pencils, with canvas prepared for 
 the easel, and six engravings by Grevling. West placed 
 the box on a chair at his bedside, and was unable to sleep. 
 He rose with the dawn, carried his canvas and colours to 
 the garret, hung up the engravings, prepared a palette, 
 and commenced copying. So completely was he under the 
 control of this species of enchantment, that he absented
 
 286 TUB BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 himself from school, laboured secretly and incessantly, and 
 without interruption for several days, when the anxious 
 inquiries of the schoolmaster introduced his mother to his 
 studio with no pleasure in her looks. But her anger sub- 
 sided as she looked upon his performance. He had avoided 
 copy ism, and made a picture composed from two of the 
 engravings, telling a new story, and coloured with a skill 
 and effect which was in her sight surprising. " She kissed 
 him," says Gait, who had the story from the artist, " with 
 transports of affection, and assured him that she would 
 not only intercede with his father to pardon him for having 
 absented himself from school, but would go herself to the 
 master and beg that he might not be punished. Sixty- 
 seven years afterwards the writer of these memoirs had 
 the gratification to see this piece in the same room with 
 the sublime painting of 'Christ Eejected,' on which 
 occasion the painter declared to him that there were in- 
 ventive touches of art in his first and juvenile essay, 
 which, with all his subsequent knowledge and experience, 
 he had not been able to surpass." A similar story is 
 related of Canova he visited his native place after having 
 risen into eminence, looked earnestly on the performances 
 of his youth, and said, sorrowfully, " I have been ^valking 
 but not climbing." 
 
 In the ninth year of his age he accompanied his relative 
 Pennington to Philadelphia, and executed a view of the 
 banks of the river, which pleased a painter, by name 
 Williams, at that time residing there. This man's works 
 the first specimens of true art that the boy had seen 
 affected West so much that he burst into tears. The 
 artist was surprised, and declared, like Peckover, that 
 Benjamin would be a remarkable man. " What books do 
 you read ? " said Williams ; " you should read the lives of 
 great men." " I read the Bible and the Testament," 
 replied West ; " and I know the history of Adam, and 
 Joseph, and Moses, and David, and Solomon, and the 
 Apostles." " Tou are a fine boy," said the other, " and 
 ought to be encouraged. I shall send you two books, 
 which you will like much." He sent him, accordingly, 
 Du Fresnoy and Richardson, with an invitation to call,
 
 WEST. 287 
 
 whenever he pleased, and see his pictures. The books and 
 the pictures made the love of art overcome all other feel- 
 ings, and he returned home, resolved to become a painter. 
 John West was struck with the growing intelligence and 
 expanding mind of his son; his sketches and drawings 
 were now openly encouraged, and that he was destined to 
 be a great artist grew more and more the opinion of the 
 family. 1 
 
 One of his schoolfellows allured him on a half-holiday 
 from trap and ball, by promising him a ride to a neigh- 
 bouring plantation. " Here is the horse, bridled and sad- 
 dled," said his friend, " so come, get up behind me." 
 " Behind you ! " said Benjamin ; " I will ride behind no- 
 body." " Oh, very well," replied the other, " I will ride 
 behind you, so mount." He mounted accordingly, and 
 away they rode. " This is the last ride I shall have," said 
 his companion, " for some time. To-morrow I am to be 
 apprenticed to a tailor." " A tailor ! " exclaimed West ; 
 "you will surely never be a tailor?" "Indeed but I 
 
 1 The various stories told of West's early life read more like romance 
 than genuine fact ; yet there seems no reason to doubt their substantial 
 truth, though probably they have got coloured a little in narration. The 
 simple circumstance of an artist arising in the midst of a settlement of 
 Quakers inPennsylvania,in the eighteenth century, is indeed in itself suffi- 
 ciently remarkable, and certainly does not tend to confirm Tame's theory 
 of the determining "milieu" in the production of the work of art. We can- 
 not conceive any " milieu" less promising than that into which West was 
 born ; yet doubtless all the portents which accompanied his birth, and 
 led his relations to imagine he would prove a prodigy, had their share 
 in determining the fact. He seems always to have believed in himself 
 and his own high destiny; and what is the more surprising, the quiet 
 Quaker lad made everybody else believe in him. No one, at the begin- 
 ning of his career, seems to have doubted his genius. Even Leslie, when 
 he first came to London, tells us that he thought West as great a painter 
 as Raphael ; and Sir Thomas Lawrence speaks of him as " unequalled 
 at any period below the schools of the Caracci." We cannot now under- 
 stand the enthusiasm that his poor, tame works once excited; for, like 
 many other painters who have sllone very brightly in their own time, 
 West's star has now set, and general criticism is indisposed to allow to 
 his paintings even the merits they really possess. The inherent failing in 
 all his works seems to be that they lack inspiration. He has no spirit, 
 no life, this rival of Michelangelo and Raphael, to breathe into them, and 
 therefore they remain, these calmly correct works of his, mere dead 
 bodies of paintings, with no power to stir our hearts. ED.
 
 288 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 shall," replied the other ; " it is a good trade. What do 
 you intend to be, Benjamin ? " " A painter." " A painter ! 
 what sort of trade is a painter? I never heard of it 
 before." " A painter," said this humble son of a Phila- 
 delphia Quaker, "is the companion of kings and emperors." 
 " You are surely mad," said the embryo tailor ; " there 
 are neither kings nor emperors in America." " Aye, but 
 there are plenty in other parts of the world." " And do 
 you really intend to be a tailor ? " " Indeed I do ; there 
 is nothing surer." " Then you may ride alone," said the 
 future companion of kings and emperors, leaping down, 
 " I will not ride with one willing to be a tailor." This 
 incident, it is said, together with his skill in drawing, 
 which now began to be talked of, drove the schoolboys of 
 Springfield to walls and boards, with chalk and ochre. 
 This was only a temporary enthusiasm, and soon subsided ; 
 yet many of their drawings, West afterwards said, were 
 worthy of the students of a regular academy. Their pro- 
 ficiency, then, had surpassed his own ; for even when at 
 Rome he was unwilling to show his drawings, considering 
 them as imperfect and incorrect. 
 
 He was often at a loss for the proper materials of his 
 art ; pencils, and colours, and panels were not then in- 
 cluded in the articles of daily demand in Pennsylvania. 
 A carpenter, whose name is forgotten, gave him three 
 broad and beautiful poplar boards, and planed them 
 smoothly ; these, when covered with groups in ink, chalk, 
 and charcoal, were purchased for a dollar each by a neigh- 
 bour of the name of Wayne ; and Dr. Morris at the same 
 time gave him money to buy panels and pencils for future 
 compositions. " These were the first public patrons of the 
 artist," says Gait, " and it is at his own request that their 
 names are thus particularly inserted." 
 
 That a boy who had some skill in painting lived at 
 Springfield began to be spoken of ; and Mr. Flower, a 
 justice of Chester, looked at his works, and obtained leave 
 from his parents to take him for a few weeks to his house. 
 A young English lady was governess to his daughters ; 
 she was well acquainted with art, and was also intimate 
 with the Greek and Latin poets, and loved to point out to
 
 WEST. 239 
 
 the young artist the most picturesque passages. He had 
 never before heard of Greece or of Rome, or of the heroes, 
 philosophers, poets, painters, and historians whom they 
 had produced, and he listened, while the lady spoke of 
 them, with an enthusiasm which, after an experience of 
 near seventy years in the world, he loved to live over 
 again. His residence here introduced him to Boss, a 
 lawyer of some note, who lived in the neighbouring town 
 of Lancaster ; and Mrs. Boss, who was eminently beautiful, 
 desired to sit to West for her portrait. The people of 
 Lancaster had taste and intelligence ; they saw him per- 
 form his task with much ability, and came in such crowds 
 to sit to the boy, that he had some trouble in meeting 
 their demands. Those citizens were kindly persons and 
 easily pleased. A gunsmith of Lancaster, who had a 
 classical turn, proposed a painting of the death of Socrates. 
 West had heard of Socrates, and forthwith made a sketch 
 which his employer called clever ; but he had now begun 
 to feel his deficiencies and see his difficulties. " I have 
 hitherto painted faces," said West, " and people clothed ; 
 what am I to do with the slave who presents the poison ? 
 he ought, I think, to be naked." Henry, the gunsmith, 
 went to his shop, and returned with one of his workmen, a 
 handsome man, and half-naked, saying, " There is your 
 model." He introduced him accordingly into the picture 
 which excited some attention. 
 
 West was now fifteen years old ; and though the school 
 has been more than once spoken of, his education up to 
 this period had been sadly neglected : indeed, at no period 
 of his life had he any claim to be called an educated man. 
 He was the first and last President of our Academy who 
 found spelling a difficulty. 
 
 Dr. Smith, a gentleman of considerable classical attain- 
 ments, perceived his deficiency, and generously undertook 
 the part of instructor ; but the Cherokee Indians seem to 
 have been the only preceptors who went wisely to work 
 with him. This new master pursued a strange enough 
 method. " He regarded him," says Gait, " as destined to 
 be a painter, and on this account did not impose upon 
 him those grammatical exercises of language which are
 
 290 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 usually required from the young student of the classics, 
 but directed his attention to those incidents which were 
 likely to interest his fancy, and furnish him, at some future 
 period, with subjects for the easel." This might have 
 done well with a fairer scholar with West, if it was 
 desired that his imagination should catch the life and 
 spirit of antiquity, he ought to have begun nearer the 
 beginning. It is needless to expect a strong crop when 
 we have only scratched the surface of the soil. 
 
 Whilst picking up these classical crumbs the youth 
 was attacked by a fever. Every fresh aspect of his early 
 life had something in it remarkable and romantic. When 
 good medicine and good nursing began to remove his com- 
 plaint, another adversary invaded his repose. This was a 
 shadowy illusion, which, like an image in a dream, was 
 ever unstable, and changing shape as well as hue. It 
 became first visible in the form of a white cow, which, 
 entering at one side of the house, walked over his bed, 
 and vanished. A sow and a litter of pigs succeeded. His 
 sister thought him delirious, and sent for a physician : but 
 his pulse had a recovering beat in it ; his skin was moist 
 and cool ; his thirst was gone, and everything betokened 
 convalescence. While the doctor stood puzzled about a 
 disease which had such healthy symptoms, he was alarmed 
 by West assuring him that he saw the figures of several 
 friends passing at that moment across the roof. Con- 
 ceiving these to be the professional visions of a raving 
 artist, he prescribed a draught which would have brought 
 sleep to all the eyes of Argus, and departed. As he went, 
 up rose West, and discovered that all those visitations 
 came through a knot hole in the shutters, which threw 
 into the darkened room whatever forms were passing along 
 the street at the time. He called in his sister, showed her 
 the apparitions, gliding along the ceiling, then laid his 
 hand on the aperture, and all vanished. On recovering he 
 made various experiments, which he communicated to 
 Williams ; who found it to be what Butler calls " a new- 
 found old invention." He produced a London camera 
 obscura ; and West contented himself with the praise due 
 to collateral ingenuity.
 
 WEST. 291 
 
 On returning to Springfield, his future career became 
 the subject of anxious deliberation. Some of his best 
 friends were in favour of his making art his profession ; 
 his mother was desirous of distinction for her youngest 
 child, and the father, influenced by the prophecy of Peck- 
 over, at length resolved on submitting the matter to the 
 wisdom of the Society to which he belonged. 
 
 The Friends met and the spirit of speech first descended 
 on one John Williamson. " To John West and Sarah 
 Pearson," said this Western luminary, " a man-child hath 
 been born, on whom God hath conferred some remarkable 
 gifts of mind ; and you have all heard that, by something 
 amounting to inspiration, the youth has been induced to 
 study the art of painting. It is true that our tenets refuse 
 to own the utility of that art to mankind, but it seemeth 
 to me that we have considered the matter too nicely. 
 God has bestowed on this youth a genius for art shall 
 we question His wisdom ? Can we believe that He gives 
 such rare gifts but for a wise and a good purpose ? I see 
 the Divine hand in this ; we shall do well to sanction the 
 art and encourage this youth." The Quakers, persuaded 
 by this sagacious enthusiast, or moved by the belief that 
 the worldly fame which accompanies genius would shed a 
 new halo on their sect, acknowledged the boy's powers 
 upon the principle of implicit faith gave their unanimous 
 consent, like the " Brethren" in the " Alchymist," to have 
 their lead turned into gold, and forthwith summoned the 
 youth, in whom so many hopes centred, before them. 
 
 He came and took his station in the middle of the room 
 his father on his right hand, his mother on his left, 
 while around him flocked the whole Quaker community. 
 It was one of the women that spake first ; but the words 
 of Williamson are alone remembered. " Painting," said 
 he, " has been hitherto employed to embellish life, to pre- 
 serve voluptuous images, and add to the sensual gratifica- 
 tions of man. For this we classed it among vain and 
 merely ornamental things, and excluded it from amongst 
 us. But this is not the principle, but the mis-employment 
 of painting. In wise and in pure hands it rises in the 
 scale of moral excellence, and displays a loftiness of senti-
 
 292 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 ment and a devout dignity worthy of the contemplation of 
 Christians. I think genius is given by God for some high 
 purpose. What the purpose is let us not inquire it will 
 be manifest in His own good time and way. He hath in 
 this remote wilderness endowed with the rich gifts of a 
 superior spirit this youth who has now our consent to 
 cultivate his talents for art may it be demonstrated in 
 his life and works that the gifts of God have not been 
 bestowed in vain, nor the motives of the beneficent inspira- 
 tion, which induces us to suspend the strict operation of 
 our tenets, prove barren of religious or moral effect!" 
 " At the conclusion of this address," says Gait, " the 
 women rose and kissed the young artist, and the men one 
 by one laid their hands on his head." 
 
 That this scene made a strong impression on the mind 
 of West, we have his own assurance ; he looked upon him- 
 self as expressly dedicated to art and considered this 
 release from the strict tenets of his religious community 
 as implying a covenant on his part to employ his powers 
 on subjects holy and pure. The grave simplicity of the 
 Quaker continued to the last in the looks and manners of 
 the artist, and the moral rectitude and internal purity of 
 the man were diffused through all his productions. 
 
 Being now left more to the freedom of his own will, 
 West deviated into a course not at all professional, but for 
 which the accommodating eloquence of a John William- 
 son might have conceived a ready apology. He became a 
 soldier. The Friends had not included this among those 
 pure and pious pursuits which they ascribed to the future 
 painter of history ; they expressed, however, neither sur- 
 prise nor sorrow for this backsliding in Benjamin, nor did 
 they either admonish or remonstrate. He took up a musket 
 inspired with his enthusiasm young Wayne, afterwards 
 a distinguished officer and joining the troops of General 
 Forbes, proceeded in search of the relics of that gallant 
 army lost in the desert by the unfortunate General Brad- 
 dock. 1 
 
 1 Allan Cunningham is mistaken here. It was not Benjamin, but 
 Samuel West, an elder brother, who accompanied Forbes's party. Ben- 
 jamin might have been inspired for a time with military ardour, but he
 
 WEST. 293 
 
 To West and his companions were added a select body 
 of Indians ; these again were accompanied by several 
 officers of the Old Highland Watch the well-known Forty- 
 second, commanded by the most anxious person of the 
 whole detachment, Major Sir Peter Halket, who had lost 
 his father and brother in that unhappy expedition. Though 
 many months had elapsed since the battle, and though 
 time, the fowls of the air, the beasts of the field, and wild 
 men more savage than they, had done their worst, Halket 
 was not without hopes of finding the remains of his father 
 and his brother, as an Indian warrior assured him that he 
 had seen an elderly officer drop dead beneath a large and 
 remarkable tree, and a young subaltern, who hastened to 
 his aid, fall mortally wounded across the body. After a 
 long march through the woods, they approached the fatal 
 valley. They were affected at seeing the bones of men, 
 who, escaping wounded from invisible enemies, had sunk 
 down and expired as they leaned against the trees, and 
 they were shocked to see in other places the relics of their 
 countrymen mingled with the ashes of savage bivouacs. 
 
 When they reached the principal scene of destruction, 
 the Indian guide looked anxiously round, darted into the 
 wood, and in a few seconds raised a shrill cry. Halket 
 and West hastened to the place the Indian pointed out 
 the tree a circle of soldiers was drawn round it, whilst 
 others removed the leaves of the forest which had fallen 
 since the fight. They found two skeletons one lying 
 across the other Halket looked at the skulls said 
 faintly " It is my father ! " and dropped senseless in the 
 arms of his companions. On recovering, he said, " I know 
 who it is by that artificial tooth." They dug a grave in 
 the desert, covered the bones with a Highland plaid, and 
 interred them reverently. This scene, at once picturesque 
 and pious, made a lasting impression on the artist's mind. 
 After he had painted the " Death of Wolfe," he proposed 
 the finding of the bones of the Halkets as an historical 
 subject; and, describing to Lord Grosvenor the gloomy 
 
 docs not seem to have gone on any campaign, and could only have re- 
 ceived a " lasting impression " of the weird scene of Halkct's burial from 
 his brother's description. ED.
 
 294 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 wood, the wild Indians, the passionate grief of the son, 
 and the sympathy of his companions, said he conceived it 
 would form a picture full of dignity and sentiment. His 
 lordship thought otherwise. ' The subject which genius 
 chooses for itself is, however, in most cases the best. The 
 sober imagination of West had here a twofold excitement 
 he had witnessed the scene, and it was American and, 
 had Lord Grosvenor encouraged him to embody his con- 
 ception, the result would, I doubt not, have been a worthy 
 companion to the " Death of Wolfe." 
 
 West was called from the first and last of his fields by 
 a messenger announcing the dangerous illness of his 
 mother. He hastened home and arrived only in time to 
 receive the welcome of her eyes and her mute blessing. 
 He loved and honoured her much and when he was old 
 and grey, recalled her looks, and dwelt on her expressions 
 of fondness and of hope, with a sadness which he wished 
 neither to subdue nor conceal. With the spirit of his 
 mother, the charm seemed to have departed from his 
 father's house ; he seldom spoke of it afterwards, and 
 soon forsook it for Philadelphia, where he established 
 himself as a portrait painter in the eighteenth year of his 
 age. 
 
 His extreme youth, the peculiar circumstances of his 
 history, and his undoubted merit, brought many sitters. 
 His prices were very low two guineas and a half for a 
 head, and five guineas for a half length ; and the money 
 thus laboriously earned was treasured prudently to secure, 
 at some future day, the means of travel and study. Young 
 as he was, he had the sagacity to see that travel influenced 
 the public opinion, and that study, and long study, was 
 necessary for him if he really wished to excel. He knew 
 that the master- works of art were in other lands, and on 
 Rome especially he had already set his heart. So little, 
 indeed, of the genius of the Old World had found its way 
 to the New, that when the accidental capture of a Spanish 
 vessel had placed a " St. Ignatius " of the Murillo school 
 in the gallery of Governor Hamilton, West copied it with- 
 out being either aware of its excellence, or even to what 
 style of art it pertained. Dr. Smith admired so much the
 
 WEST. 205 
 
 posture and sentiment of the saint, that he persuaded the 
 young artist to paint his portrait in the same position 
 a kind of appropriation which saves time and invention, 
 and can give little fame. With better taste he painted 
 the " Trial of Susanna," a work which he loved long after 
 to talk of and describe. 1 
 
 From Philadelphia, after painting the heads of all who 
 desired it, he went to New York ; with which place he was 
 not at first much delighted. Eager traffickers from all 
 quarters thronged her streets and quays, and the young 
 painter was elbowed into the shade by those 
 
 " Who darkly grub this earthly hole 
 in low pursuit." 
 
 Now and then, however, a merchant, after a successful 
 bargain, sat down in the joy of the moment for his por- 
 trait ; and the wandering mariner, who found markets on 
 the rise and gains on the increase, hung up his likeness 
 also in the Temple of Fortune. Though art was not in 
 high honour, West, nevertheless, found its pursuit profit- 
 able ; he raised his price of a half length to ten guineas ; 
 and the spirit of amassing money seemed in a fair way of 
 making him its own, when a letter from Smith recalled 
 his thoughts to Italy. 
 
 The Italian harvest having failed, a consignment of 
 wheat and flour was sent from the New World to the Old, 
 and put under the charge of one of the Aliens of Phila- 
 delphia, who offered West a passage to Leghorn. It hap- 
 pened that a New York merchant, of the name of Kelly, 
 was at that time sitting to West for his portrait, and to 
 this gentleman the artist spoke of his intended journey, 
 and represented how much he expected a year or two of 
 study in Rome would improve his skill and taste. Kelly 
 paid him for his portrait gave him a letter to his agents in 
 Philadelphia, shook him by the hand, and wished him a 
 good voyage. Ere he reached his native place, after an 
 
 1 For this work Gait says ho used a canvas of about the same size as 
 a half length portrait. He introduced into it as many as forty figures, 
 drawn principally from live models. This was certainly an ambitious 
 beginning for a young untaught artist. ED.
 
 296 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 absence of eleven mouths, all the , arrangements for his 
 departure had been completed by Smith; and when he 
 presented the letter of Kelly, he found that it contained 
 an order from that generous merchant to his agent to pay 
 him fifty guineas " a present to aid in his equipment for 
 Italy." The plodding citizens of New York rose in the 
 painter's estimation at least fifty per cent. Two merchants 
 in Leghorn, Messrs. Jackson and Rutherford, received him 
 kindly, and, with introductory letters to some leading men 
 in his pocket, he departed for Rome. 
 
 West, like most men of any imagination who visit Rome, 
 was always fond of describing his first impressions. He 
 hau walked on whilst his travelling companion was baiting 
 the horses, and had reached a rising ground which offered 
 him a view far and j\ ide. The sun was newly risen, all 
 was calm and clear, and he saw before him a spacious 
 campaign bounded by green hills, and in the midst a 
 wilderness of noble ruins, over which towered the nobler 
 dome of Saint Peter's. A broken column at his feet, 
 which served as a milestone, informed him that he was 
 within eight thousand paces of the ancient Mistress of the 
 World, and a sluggish boor, clad in rough goat skins, 
 driving his flocks to pasture amidst the ruins of a temple, 
 told him how far she had fallen. In the midst of a reverie, 
 in which he was comparing the treacherous peasants of the 
 Campagna with the painted barbarians of North America, 
 he entered Rome. This was on the 10th of July, 1760, 
 and in the twenty-second year of his age. 
 
 When it was known that a young American had come 
 to >tudy Raphael and Michael Angelo, some curiosity was 
 excite J among the Roman virtuosi. The first fortunate 
 exhibitor of this Lion from the Western wilderness was 
 Lcrd Grrantham ; he invited West to dinner, and after- 
 wards carried him to an evening party, where he found 
 almost all those persons to whom he had brought letters 
 of introduction. Amongst the rest was Cardinal Albani, 
 who, though old and blind, had such delicacy of touch 
 that he was considered supreme in all matters of judgment 
 regarding medals and intaglios. " I have the honour," 
 said Lord Grantham, " to present a young American, who
 
 WEST. 297 
 
 has a letter for your Eminence, and who has come to Italy 
 for the purpose of studying the Fine Arts." The Cardinal 
 knew so little of the New World, that he conceived an 
 American must needs be a savage. " Is he black or 
 white?" said the aged virtuoso, holding out both hands, 
 that he might have the satisfaction of touching at least 
 this new wonder. Lord Grantham smiled, and said, " He 
 is fair very fair." " What ! as fair as I am?" exclaimed 
 the prelate. Now the complexion of this churchman was 
 a deep olive that of West more than commonly fair 
 and as they stood together the company smiled. " As fair 
 as the Cardinal," became for a while proverbial. 
 
 Others, who had the use of their eyes, seemed to con- 
 sider the young American as at most a better kind of 
 savage ; and, accordingly, were curious to watch him. They 
 wished to try what effect the " Apollo," the " Venus," and 
 the works of Raphael would have upon him, and " thirty 
 of the most magnificent equipages in the capital of Chris- 
 tendom, and filled with some of the most erudite characters 
 in Europe," says Gait, " conducted the young Quaker to 
 view the masterpieces of art." It was agreed that the 
 " Apollo " should Ibe first submitted to his view : the 
 statue was enclosed in a case, and when the keeper threw 
 open the doors, West unconsciously exclaimed, " My God 
 a young Mohawk warrior ! " The Italians were surprised 
 and mortified with the comparison of their noblest statue 
 to a wild savage ; and West, perceiving the unfavourable 
 impression, proceeded to remove it. He described the 
 Mohawks the natural elegance and admirable symmetry 
 of their persons the elasticity of their limbs, and their 
 motions free and unconstrained. " I have seen them 
 often," he continued, " standing in the very attitude of 
 this Apollo, and pursuing with an intense eye the arrow 
 which they had just discharged from the bow." l The 
 Italians cleared " their moody brows, and allowed that a 
 better criticism had rarely been pronounced. West was 
 no longer a barbarian.' 
 
 Of his claim to mix with men of genius, however, he 
 
 1 AVest related this anecdote himself in a discourse delivered when ho 
 was President of the Koyal Academy. ED.
 
 298 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 had as yet submitted no proof : he had indeed shown his 
 drawings to Mengs and to Hamilton, but they were, as he 
 confessed, destitute of original merit nor, indeed, could 
 they be commended for either neatness or accuracy. He 
 waited on Lord Grantham " I cannot," said he, " pro- 
 duce a finished sketch, like the other students, because I 
 have never been instructed in drawing ; but I can paint a 
 little, and if you will do me the honour to sit for your 
 portrait that I may show it to Mengs, you will do me a 
 great kindness." His lordship consented, the portrait 
 was painted and, the name of the artist being kept secret, 
 the picture was placed in the gallery of Crespigni, where 
 amateurs and artists were invited to see it. It was known 
 that Lord Grantham was sitting to Mengs, and to him 
 some ascribed the portrait, though they thought the 
 colouring surpassed his other compositions. Dance, an 
 Englishman of sense and acuteness, looked at it closely : 
 " The colouring surpasses that of Mengs," he observed, 
 " but the drawing is neither so fine nor so good." The 
 company engaged eagerly in the discussion Crespigni 
 seized the proper moment, and said, "It is not painted by 
 Mengs." " By whom, then ?" they exclaimed, " for there 
 is no other painter in Rome capable of doing anything so 
 good." " By that young gentleman," said the other, 
 turning to West, who sat uneasy and agitated. The 
 English held out their hands the Italians ran and em- 
 braced him. 
 
 Mengs himself soon arrived he looked at the picture, 
 and spoke with great kindness. " Young man, you have 
 no occasion to come to Kome to learn to paint. What I 
 therefore recommend to you is this : Examine everything 
 here worthy of attention making drawings of some half- 
 dozen of the best statues. Go to Florence and study in 
 the galleries go to Bologna and study the works of the 
 Carracci, and then proceed to Venice and view the pro- 
 ductions of Tintoretto, Titian, and Paul Veronese. When 
 all this is accomplished, return to Eome, paint an historical 
 picture, exhibit it publicly, and then the opinion which 
 will be expressed of your talents will determine the line of 
 art which you ought to follow." A dangerous illness inter-
 
 WEST. 299 
 
 posed, and for a time prevented West from following this 
 common but sensible counsel. The change of scene, the 
 presence of works of first-rate excellence, and the anxiety 
 to distinguish himself, preyed upon him sleep deserted 
 his pillow, a fever followed, and by the advice of his phy- 
 sicians he returned to Leghorn, where, after a lingering 
 sickness of eleven months, he was completely cured. 
 
 Those who befriend genius when it is struggling for 
 distinction, befriend the Avorld ; and their names should be 
 held in remembrance. There is good sense and right 
 feeling in the reply of Mahomet to the insinuation of the 
 fair Ayesha, that his first wife Cadi j ah was old and un- 
 lovely, and that he had now a better in her place. " No, 
 by Alia ! there never was a better she believed in me 
 when men despised me ; she relieved my wants when I 
 was poor and persecuted by the world." The names of 
 Smith, Hamilton, Kelly, Allen, Jackson, Rutherford, and 
 Lord Grantham must be dear to all the admirers of West 
 they aided him in the infancy of his fame and fortune ; 
 they cheered him when he was drooping or desponding, 
 and watched over his person and his purse with the vigi- 
 lance of true friendship. The story of his success with the 
 portrait of Lord Grantham found its way to Chief -Justice 
 Allen, at Philadelphia, when he was at dinner with Gover- 
 nor Hamilton. " I regard this young man," said this 
 worthy man, " as an honour to his country ; and as he is 
 the first that America has sent out to cultivate the Fine 
 Arts, he shall not be frustrated in his studies, for I shall 
 send him whatever money he may require." " I think with 
 you, sir," said Hamilton ; " but you must not have all the 
 honour to yourself ; allow me to unite with you in the re- 
 sponsibility of the credit." Some time afterwards, when 
 West went to take up ten pounds from his agents, the last 
 of the sum with which he had commenced his studies, one 
 of the partners opened a letter, and said, " I am instructed 
 to give you unlimited credit ; you will have the goodness 
 to ask for what sum you please." It is not without cause 
 that Mr. Gait says, " The munificence of the Medici was 
 equalled by these American magistrates." 
 
 West, with recovered health and a heavier purse, was
 
 300 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 now able to follow the counsel of Mengs. He visited 
 Florence, Bologna, and Venice. The colouring of Titian 
 was a secret into which he strove in vain to penetrate, nor 
 did the examination and dissection of what Italians call 
 the " internal light" of his productions solve the mystery. 
 Reynolds acquired the profitable secret and kept it to him- 
 self, 1 and many years afterwards West imagined that he 
 had obtained it too. It is doubted by some whether either 
 ever mastered it completely. It is certain that they did 
 not succeed in using it with the good fortune of Titian, 
 whose colouring extinguishes all modern works as sunshine 
 overwhelms candlelight. The pure primary colours which 
 West afterwards harmonized with the semi-tints fall far 
 short of the lucid splendour of Titian they lost by time, 
 from which the colours of the Italian appear to gain an 
 increase of lustre. 2 
 
 Having seen all that was worth seeing, West now re- 
 turned to Rome. Romance and prophecy seemed to have 
 marked the calm and serious Quaker for their own a fresh 
 adventure was ready for him at Rome. He was conversing 
 in the British Coffee-house with Gavin Hamilton, when an 
 old man, with a guitar suspended from his shoulder, 
 offered his services as an improvisator bard. " Here is an 
 American," said the wily Scot, " come to study the Fine 
 Arts in Rome ; take him. for your theme, and it is a mag- 
 nificent one." West, who never in his life conceived what 
 a '-joke meant, sat grave and steady like one of his own 
 sitters, while the minstrel unslung his guitar, and, with a 
 glance that told Hamilton he knew what to do, burst into 
 song. At first he was something mystical, till he saw that 
 his subject had a reasonable gift of credulity, and then he 
 tried plainer words. " I behold," he sung, " in this youth 
 an instrument chosen by heaven to create in his native 
 country a taste for those arts which have elevated the 
 nature of man an assurance that his land will be the re- 
 
 1 If he discovered it why was he always experimenting, and why have 
 i;ot his pictures lasted better ? ED. 
 
 8 West had no true feeling for colour. There is no richness of tone or 
 variety of tint in his pictures, though they are often painted in bright 
 colours. ED.
 
 WEST. 301 
 
 f age of science and knowledge, when in the old age of 
 Europe they shall have forsaken her shores. All things of 
 heavenly origin move westward, and Truth and Art have 
 their periods of light and darkness. Rejoice, O Borne, for 
 thy spirit, immortal and undecayed now spreads towards a 
 new world, where, like the soul of man in Paradise, it will 
 be perfected more and more." On the raving of this wily 
 mendicant, West bestowed both money and tears; and 
 even in riper years he was willing to consider this as 
 another prophecy. 
 
 He accompanied the Abbate Grant to see high mass per- 
 formed in Saint Peter's. At the elevation of the Host, 
 when all were silent and kneeling, a voice exclaimed in the 
 accent of Scotland, " O Lord, cast not the kirk down on 
 them for this abomination !" This burst of enthusiasm, 
 in a strange tongue, was received by all, save the Scottish 
 priest, as a lively manifestation of Catholic zeal. Grant 
 was alarmed for his countryman, and advised him to be 
 quiet during the rest of the ceremony, unless he desired to 
 be torn to pieces by the religious mob. This man had 
 travelled to Rome, with a fixed resolution either to convert 
 the Pope to Calvinism or become a martyr. He yielded 
 for the moment to Grant's entreaties : but next day re- 
 appeared in the same place, demanded the conversion of 
 his Holiness, and the downfall of Popery, and to his ex- 
 ceeding great joy was seized by the Inquisition and con- 
 signed to a dungeon. The last of the princes of that un- 
 fortunate race who sat so long, and often so worthily, on 
 the thrones of Scotland and England, interposed, and sent 
 the resolute presbyterian home in safety. 
 
 West was not so far dazzled by those romantic occurrences 
 as to forget his studies. He painted a picture of "Cirnon 
 and Iphigenia," and another of " Angelica and Medora," 
 which confirmed the favourable opinions expressed by his 
 friends, and opened the way to those marks of academic 
 approbation usually bestowed on fortunate artists. Having 
 studied the great Italian masters, and acquired much 
 useful knowledge in the trick of colour and composition, 
 he had no wish to remain in Rome his heart was with his 
 native land. He, however, resolved to visit the Island of
 
 302 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 his fathers, and prepared for his journey. Of Rome he 
 has left us this brief and pithy memorandum : " Michael 
 Angelo has not succeeded in giving a probable character to 
 any of his works, the Moses perhaps excepted. The works 
 of Raphael grow daily more interesting, natural, and 
 noble." 
 
 At Parma he was elected a member of the Academy an 
 honour which Florence and Bologna had conferred before 
 and presented them with a copy of the " St. Jerome" of Cor- 
 reggio, of such excellence that the reigning prince desired 
 to see the artist. He went to court, and, to the utter 
 confusion of the attendants, appeared with his hat on. 
 The prince was no stranger to the character of the Quakers, 
 nor to the condescension of the British law in their 
 favour. He was, moreover, a lover of William Penn, He 
 received the young artist with complacency, and dismissed 
 him with many expressions of regard. On reaching one of 
 the French frontier towns he was insulted by the populace, 
 who considered their manufactures as ruined by the 
 English. Again, something like prophecy mingles with 
 the explanation of the magistrate who protected him. 
 " The ignorant people (said he) blame England, when 
 they should blame our own government. But the court of 
 France is become a band of profligates the truly great 
 and good are banished from the palace ; this cannot last 
 long. Frenchmen will one day take a terrible revenge for 
 the insults which they are doomed to suffer from those 
 who pander to the prodigality of the court." These words 
 were uttered twenty-four years before the Revolution. 
 West cannot be born, nor choose his profession, nor enjoy 
 himself in a coffee-house, nor travel through France with- 
 out the influence or the accompaniment of prediction. Of 
 French art he conceived a mean opinion. It was, said he, 
 deficient in simplicity ; an air of studied affectation was 
 breathed over it ; and the absence of the nobler spirit of 
 painting was sought to be concealed by the petty graces 
 and brilliancy of fine finishing. 
 
 On the 20th of June, 1763, West arrived in London. 
 Allen, Hamilton, and Smith, his early and steadfast friends, 
 happened to be there. They welcomed him with open
 
 WEST. 303 
 
 arms, and introduced him to many officers of note who 
 had heard of him in Pennsylvania. At this time he had 
 no intention of remaining in England, nor of practising 
 his profession for the time that he stayed. He visited the 
 collections of Hampton Court, Windsor, and Blenheim ; 
 resided some time at Beading with Thomas West, the 
 half-brother of his father, and looked at the vanities of 
 Bath in the middle of its season. By degrees he began to 
 love the land and the people. He was introduced to Rey- 
 nolds, and a letter from Mengs made him acquainted with 
 Wilson. Intercourse with artists, and an examination of 
 their works, awakened his ambition. He consulted no 
 one, but took chambers in Bedford Street, Covent Garden, 
 and set up his easel. When his determination was known, 
 his brethren in art came round him in a body, welcomed 
 him with much cordiality, and encouraged him to continue 
 his career as an historical painter. Reynolds was devoted 
 to portraits ; Hogarth on the brink of the grave ; Barry 
 engaged in controversies in Rome j 1 Wilson neglected ; 
 Gainsborough's excellence lay in landscape; and the 
 prudent American saw that he had a fair field and no 
 opponents. 2 
 
 As soon, therefore, as he had finished his " Angelica and 
 Medora," he sent it, by the advice of Reynolds, to the ex- 
 hibition, together with the " Cimon and Iphigenia," and a 
 portrait of General Monckton, second in command to 
 Wolfe in the battle of Quebec. While he was employed 
 in finishing those works, he had the good fortune to be 
 introduced to Dr. Johnson and Mr. Burke. Johnson he 
 admired much, and found civil and even kind. Burke also 
 
 1 Barry did not leave England until 1765. ED. 
 
 1 The sagacious Walpole does not seem to have been one of those 
 who believed in the gifted young American. He speaks of him in 1764 
 as a " Pensilvanian, lately arrived, whose pictures are mudi admired, but 
 are very tawdry, in the manner of Baroccio." Burke, however, writing 
 to Barry, in 1 756, says : " West has two pieces which would give you 
 great hopes of him. I confess, some time ago I kad not any that were 
 very sanguine ; but in these he has really done considerable things." 
 The works exhibited by West this year were " The Continence of 
 Scipio," " Pylades and Orestes," its companion " Cimon and Iphigenia," 
 " Diana and Endymion," and "Two Young Ladies at Play." En.
 
 304 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 was indulgent ; but our artist conceived there was an air 
 of mystery about his demeanour. West at once recognized 
 him as the brother of the chief of the Benedictine Monks 
 at Parma. 
 
 The works which West exhibited were well received ; 
 the conception was good, and the colouring clear; and his 
 love of serious and solemn subjects attracted the special 
 notice of some of the dignitaries of the church. He 
 painted, for Dr. Newton, the " Parting of Hector and An- 
 dromache," and, for the Bishop of Worcester, the " Re- 
 turn of the Prodigal Son." His reputation rose so much 
 with these productions, that Lord Rockingham tempted 
 him with the offer of a permanent engagement, and a 
 salary of seven hundred pounds a year, to embellish with 
 historical paintings his mansion in Yorkshire. West con- 
 sulted his friends concerning this alluring offer they 
 were sensible men. They advised him to confide in 
 the public, and he followed for a time their salutary 
 counsel. 
 
 This successful beginning, and the promise of full em- 
 ployment, induced him to resolve on remaining in the Old 
 Country. But he was attached to Elizabeth Shewell, a 
 young lady of his native land absence had augmented his 
 regard, and he wished to return to Philadelphia, marry 
 her, and bring her to England. He disclosed the state of 
 his affections to his friends, Smith and Allen. Those 
 gentlemen took a less romantic view of the matter ; ad- 
 vised the artist to stick to his easel, and arranged the 
 whole so prudently that the lady came to London accom- 
 panied by a relation, whose time was not so valuable as 
 West's ; and they were married on the 2nd of September, 
 1765, in the church of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. As he 
 was a man without violent passions, and something cold 
 and considerate, he made, perhaps, but an indifferent 
 figure as a lover ; his wife, however, was kind and obedient, 
 and their fireside had repose and peace. 
 
 Dr. Drummond, the Archbishop of York, a dignified 
 and liberal prelate, and an admirer of painting, invited 
 West to his table, conversed with him on the influence of 
 art, and on the honour which the patronage of genius re-
 
 WEST. 305 
 
 fleeted on the rich, and opening Tacitus, pointed out 
 that fine passage where Agrippina lands with the ashes 
 of Germanicus. He caused his son to read it again and 
 again, commented upon it with taste and feeling, and re- 
 quested West to make him a painting of that subject. 
 The artist went home ; it was then late, but before closing 
 his eyes he formed a sketch, and carried it early next 
 morning to his patron, who, glad to see that his own 
 notions were likely to be embodied in lasting colours, re- 
 quested that the full size work might be proceeded with. 
 Nor was this all that munificent prelate proposed to raise 
 three thousand pounds by subscription, to enable West to 
 relinquish likenesses and give his whole time and talent 
 to historical painting. Fifteen hundred pounds were ac- 
 cordingly subscribed by himself and his friends ; but the 
 public refused to co-operate, and the scheme was aban- 
 doned. 
 
 The Archbishop regarded the failure of this plan as a 
 stigma on the country ; his self-love too was offended. He 
 disregarded alike the coldness of the Duke of Portland 
 and the evasions of Lord Eockingham, to whom he com- 
 municated his scheme sought and obtained an audience 
 of his Majesty, then young and unacquainted with cares 
 informed him that a devout. American and Quaker had 
 painted, at his request, such a noble picture that he was 
 desirous to secure his talents for the throne and the coun- 
 try. The King was much interested with the story, and 
 said, " Let me see this young painter of your's with his 
 ' Agrippina' as soon as you please." The prelate retired to 
 communicate his success to West. 
 
 Now all this happened to be overheard by one of those 
 officious ladies who love to untie the knots of mysteries, 
 and anticipate the natural disclosure of all secrets. Away 
 flew her ladyship to the house of the artist refused to 
 disclose either her name or condition, acquainted him with 
 the application of Drummond and the kindness of the 
 King, and retired. She was not well away when a gentleman 
 came from the palace to request West's attendance with 
 the picture of " Agrippina." " His Majesty," said the mes- 
 senger, " is a young man of great simplicity and candour ;
 
 306 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 sedate in his affections, scrupulous in forming private 
 friendships, good from principle, and pure from a sense of 
 the beauty of virtue." Forty years' intercourse, we might 
 almost say friendship, confirmed to the painter the accu- 
 racy of these words. 
 
 The King received West with easy frankness, assisted 
 him to place the " Agrippina" in a favourable light, re- 
 moved the attendants, and brought in the Queen, to whom 
 hApresented our Quaker. He related to her Majesty the 
 history of the picture, and bade her notice the simplicity 
 of the design and the beauty of the colouring. " There is 
 another noble Roman subject," observed his Majesty, " the 
 departure of Regulus from Rome would it not make a fine 
 picture ? " " It is a magnificent subject," said the painter. 
 " Then," said the King, "you shall paint it for me." He 
 turned with a smile to the Queen, and said, " The Arch- 
 bishop made one of his sons read Tacitus to Mr. West, 
 and I would have read Livy to him myself but that 
 part of the history which describes the departure of Regu- 
 lus is unfortunately lost." He then repeated his command 
 that the picture should be painted. 
 
 West was too prudent not to wish to retain the Sovereign's 
 good opinion and his modesty and his merit deserved it. 
 The palace doors now seemed to open of their own accord, 
 and the domestics attended with an obedient start to the 
 wishes of him whom the King delighted to honour. There 
 are minor matters which sometimes help a man on to fame ; 
 and in these too he had a share ; West was a skilful skater, 
 and in America had formed an acquaintance on the ice with 
 Colonel afterwards too well known in the colonial war as 
 General Howe : this friendship had dissolved with the 
 thaw, and was forgotten till one day the painter having 
 tied on his skates at the Serpentine, was astonishing the 
 timid practitioners of London by the rapidity of his 
 motions, and the graceful figure which he cut. Some one 
 cried " West ! West !" it was Colonel Howe. " I am glad 
 to see you," said he, " and not the less so that you come in 
 good time to vindicate my praises of American skating." 
 He called to him Lord Spencer Hamilton and some of the 
 Cavendishes, to whom he introduced West as one of the
 
 WEST. 307 
 
 Philadelphia prodigies, and requested him to show them 
 what was called " The Salute." He performed this feat 
 so much to their satisfaction, that they went away spread- 
 ing the praises of the American skater over London. Nor 
 was the considerate Quaker insensible to the value of such 
 commendations ; he continued to frequent the Serpentine 
 and to gratify large crowds by cutting the Philadelphia 
 Salute. Many to the praise of his skating added pane- 
 gyrics on his professional skill, and not a few, to vindicate 
 their applause, followed him to his easel, and sat for their 
 portraits. 
 
 While West was painting the " Departure of Regulus," 
 the present Royal Academy was planned. The Society of 
 Incorporated Artists, of which he was a member, had 
 grown rich by yearly exhibitions, and how to lay out this 
 money became the subject of vehement debate. The 
 Architects were for a house, the Sculptors for statues, and 
 the Painters proposed a large gallery for historical works, 
 while a mean and sordid member or two voted to let it lie 
 and grow more, for it was pleasant to see riches accumulate. 
 West, who happened to be a director, approved of none of 
 these notions, and with Reynolds withdrew from the asso- 
 ciation. The newspapers of the day noticed these indecent 
 bickerings, and the King, learning the cause from the lips 
 of West, declared that he was ready to patronize any 
 association formed on principles calculated to advance the 
 interests of art. A plan was produced by some of the 
 dissenters, and submitted to his Majesty, who corrected 
 it, and drew up some additional articles, with his own 
 hand. 
 
 Meanwhile the Incorporated Artists continued their 
 debates, in total ignorance that their dissenting brethren 
 were laying the foundation of a surer structure than their 
 own. Kirby, teacher of perspective to the King, had 
 been chosen president: but so secretly was all managed, 
 that he had never heard a whisper in the palace concern- 
 ing the new academy, and in his inaugural address 
 from the chair, he assured his companions that his Majesty 
 would not countenance the Schismatics. While West 
 was one day busy with his " Regulus," the King and Queen
 
 308 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 looking on, Kirby was announced, and his Majesty having 
 consulted his consort in German, admitted him, and intro- 
 duced him to West, to whose person he was a stranger. He 
 looked at the picture, praised it warmly, and congratulated 
 the artist ; then, turning to the King, said, " Your Majesty 
 never mentioned anything of this work to me who made 
 the frame ? it is not made by one of your Majesty's work- 
 men it ought to have been made by the royal carver and 
 gilder." To this impertinence the King answered with 
 great calmness, " Kirby, whenever you are able to paint 
 me such a picture as this, your friend shall make the 
 frame." " I hope, Mr. West," said Kirby, " that you in- 
 tend to exhibit this picture?" "It is painted for the 
 palace," said West, "and its exhibition must depend upon 
 his Majesty's pleasure." "Assuredly," said the King, " I 
 shall be very happy to let the work be shown to the public." 
 " Then, Mr. West," said Kirby, " you will send it to my 
 exhibition." "No!" interrupted his Majesty, "it must 
 go to my exhibition to that of the Royal Academy." 
 The President of the Associated Artists bowed with much 
 humility and retired. He did not long survive this mor- 
 tification, and his death was imputed, by the founders of 
 the new Academy, to jealousy of their rising establishment, 
 but by those who knew him well to a more ordinary cause, 
 the decay of nature. The Koyal Academy was founded, 
 and in its first exhibition appeared the " Regulus." 1 
 A change was now to be effected in the character of 
 
 1 The Society of Incorporated Artists, formed chiefly of the artists 
 who had studied in Shipley's school, obtained their charter in 1765. 
 Their annual exhibition met with unexpected success ; but their aims 
 were as yet undefined, and hopeless mismanagement brought discredit 
 on the whole endeavour, and caused all the leading artists who refused to 
 allow themselves to be governed by a majority of incapables to withdraw 
 from the association. A pamphlet published in 1771, " On the Conduct 
 of the Royal Academicians while Members of the Incorporated Society 
 of Artists," gives the whole history of this schism, and of the circum- 
 stances which gave rise to the foundation of the present Royal Academy 
 in 1768. A long account will also be found in Redgrave's " Century of 
 Painters." Allan Cunningham's graphic relation requires to be received 
 with some modifications, though, on the whole, it is substantially cor- 
 rect. West was one of the first members of the Royal Academy, \>ut 
 was not the originator of the scheme. ED.
 
 WEST. 309 
 
 British art ; hitherto historical painting had appeared in a 
 masquing habit : the actions of Englishmen seemed all to 
 have been performed, if costume were to be believed, by 
 Greeks or by Romans. West dismissed at once this 
 pedantry, and restored nature and propriety in his noble 
 work of " The Death of Wolfe." The multitude acknow- 
 ledged its excellence at once. The lovers of old art, the 
 manufacturers of compositions called by courtesy classical, 
 complained of the barbarism of boots, and buttons, and 
 blunderbusses, and cried out for naked warriors with bows, 
 bucklers, and battering rams. Lord Grosvenor, disregard- 
 ing the frowns of the amateurs, and the cold approbation 
 of the Academy, purchased this work, which, in spite of 
 laced coats and cocked hats, is one of the best of our his- 
 torical pictures. The Indian warrior, watching the dying 
 hero to see if he equalled in fortitude the children of the 
 deserts, is a fine stroke of nature and poetry. 1 
 
 The King questioned West concerning the picture, and 
 put him on his defence of this new heresy in art. To the 
 curiosity of Gait we owe the sensible answer of West. 
 "When it was understood," said the artist, "that I intended 
 to paint the characters as they had actually appeared on 
 the scene, the Archbishop of York called on Reynolds, 
 and asked his opinion ; they both came to my house to 
 dissuade me from running so great a risk. Reynolds began 
 a very ingenious and elegant dissertation on the state of 
 the public taste in this country, and the danger which every 
 innovation incurred of contempt and ridicule, and con- 
 cluded by urging me earnestly to adopt the costume of 
 antiquity, as more becoming the greatness of my subject 
 than the modern garb of European warriors. I answered 
 that the event to be commemorated happened in the year 
 1758, in a region of the world unknown to the Greeks and 
 Romans, and at a period of time when no warriors who wore 
 such costume existed. The subject I have to represent is a 
 great battle fought and won, and the same truth which 
 gives law to the historian should rule the painter. If 
 
 1 This picture is still in the possession of the Marquis of Westminster. 
 There is a duplicate of it at Hampton Court. It is undoubtedly West's 
 most successful work. Ei>.
 
 310 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 instead of the facts of the action I introduce fictions, how 
 shall I be understood by posterity ? The classic dress is 
 certainly picturesque, but by using it I shall lose in sen- 
 timent what I gain in external grace. I want to mark the 
 place, the time and the people, and to do this I must abide 
 by truth. They went away then, and returned again 
 when I had the painting finished. Reynolds seated him- 
 self before the picture, examined it with deep and minute 
 attention for half an hour; then rising, said to Dmmmond, 
 'West has conquered he has treated his subject as it 
 ought to be treated I retract my objections. I foresee 
 that this picture will not only become one of the most 
 popular, but will occasion a revolution in art.' ' I wish,' 
 said the King, ' that I had known all this before, for the 
 objection has been the means of Lord Grrosvenor's getting 
 the picture, but you shall make a copy for me.' " 
 
 West had now obtained the personal confidence of the 
 King and the favour of the public ; his commissions were 
 numerous, but of course the works for the palace had 
 precedence. His Majesty employed him to paint the 
 " Death of Epaminondas," as a companion to that of 
 Wolfe ; the " Death of the Chevalier Bayard ;" " Cyrus 
 Liberating the Family of the King of Armenia ;" and 
 " Segestus and his Daughter brought before Germanicus." 
 The air of the palace had some influence on the mind of 
 the prudent Quaker. 1 The great Leibnitz had pointed out 
 the descendants of Segestus in our own royal line, and 
 West communicated a little of the lineaments of the living 
 to the images of the dead. The good King was much 
 pleased with the work. 
 
 It is said that Sir Joshua Reynolds now began to ob- 
 serve West's favour somewhat resentfully, thinking that a 
 ray or two of the royal sunshine might in fairness have 
 fallen upon himself. The President was not fool enough 
 to complain, but his friends did so for him ; while West, 
 
 1 Allan Cunningham always speaks of West as a Quaker ; but other 
 writers affirm that he gave up his Quaker dress and mode of speech soon 
 after his arrival in England. . In his later years Dunlop, an American 
 gentleman who knew him well, says of him that " he was as unquaker- 
 like as any man in Great Britain." ED.
 
 WEST. 311 
 
 too prudent to carry himself loftily because of his good 
 fortune, enjoyed his success in secret, and continued in the 
 outward man submissive and thankful. To Reynolds had 
 fallen the whole portrait department of church and state, 
 which lay without the gates of the palace ; while, within, 
 West reigned triumphant. Thus they divided the British 
 world of art between them, while Barry and Wilson, by 
 toiling without distinction, were earning precarious bread. 
 
 West was not a man to remain insensible to the advan- 
 tage of having a young, amiable, and patriotic sovereign 
 for his patron. The painter expressed his regret that the 
 Italians had dipped their pencils in the monkish miracles 
 and incredible legends of the church, to the almost total 
 neglect of their national history : the King instantly be- 
 thought him of the victorious reign of our third Edward, 
 and of St. George's Hall in Windsor Castle. West had a 
 ready hand. He sketched out the following subjects, 
 seven of which are from real, and one from fabulous 
 history : 
 
 1. "Edward the Third embracing the Black Prince, 
 after the Battle of Cressy." 2. " The Installation of the 
 Order of the Garter." 3. " The Black Prince receiving 
 the King of France and his son prisoners, at Poictiers." 
 4. "St. George vanquishing the Dragon." 5. "Queen 
 Phillipa defeating David of Scotland, in the Battle of 
 Neville's Cross." 6. " Queen Phillipa interceding with 
 Edward for the Burgesses of Calais." 7. " King Edward 
 forcing the Passage of the Somme." 8. " King Edward 
 crowning Sir Eustace de Ribaumont at Calais." These 
 works are very large. They were the fruit of long study 
 and much labour, and with the exception of the " Death of 
 Wolfe " and the " Battle of La Hojjue," they are the best 
 of all the numerous works of this artist. Their lustre is 
 fresh and unfaded, their colouring natural and harmonious. 
 They present a lively image of the times and the people ; 
 but they are deficient in strength and variety of character 
 they seize attention, but are unable to detain it. 
 
 West, however, had the good fortune to maintain his 
 influence at Windsor. When the Xing grew weary of 
 courts and camps and battles, the observing artist took
 
 312 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 new ground, and appealed to the religious feelings of his 
 royal patron. He suggested to the King a series of pic- 
 tures on the progress of revealed religion. 1 A splendid 
 Oratoi'y was projected for their reception, and half a dozen 
 dignitaries of the church were summoned to consider the 
 propriety of introducing paintings into a place of worship. 
 " When I reflect," said the King, " that the Eeformation 
 condemned religious paintings in churches, and that the 
 Parliament in the xmhappy days of Charles I. did the 
 same, I am fearful of introducing anything which my 
 people might think popish. Will you give me your 
 opinions on the subject?" After some deliberation Bishop 
 Hurd delivered, in the name of his brethren and himself, 
 their unanimous opinion, that the introduction of religious 
 paintings into his Majesty's Gliapel would in no respect 
 whatever violate the laws or the usages of the Church of 
 England. "We have examined too," continued Hurd, 
 " thirty-five subjects which the painter proposed for our 
 choice, and we feel that there is not one of them but may 
 be treated in a way, that even a Quaker might contemplate 
 with edification." The King conceived this to be an ironi- 
 cal allusion to West, and was a little nettled. " The 
 Quakers," he replied, " are a body of Christians for whom 
 I have a high respect. I love their peaceful tenets and 
 their benevolence to one another, and, but for the obliga- 
 tions of birth, I would be a Quaker." The Bishop bowed 
 submissively and retired. 
 
 No subtle divine ever laboured more diligently on con- 
 troversial texts than did our painter in evolving his pic- 
 tures out of the grand and awful subject of revealed 
 religion. He divided it into Four Dispensations the 
 Antediluvian, the Patriarchal, the Mosaical, and the Pro- 
 phetical. They contained in all thirty-six subjects, eighteen 
 of which belonged to the Old Testament, the rest to the 
 New. They were all sketched, and twenty-eight were 
 executed, for which West received in all twenty-one 
 thousand seven hundred and five pounds. A work so 
 
 1 According to Gait this vast project was the King's own suggestion. 
 Gait gives in detail all the conversation that took place in the palace on 
 this subject, after the manner of Livy. ED.
 
 WEST. 313 
 
 varied, so extensive, and so noble in its nature, was never 
 before undertaken by any painter. 1 But the imagination 
 of West was unable to cope with such glorious themes 
 the soft, the graceful, and the domestic, were more suited 
 to his talents. Several of the subjects too were necessarily 
 the same as those painted by the great masters the " Last 
 Supper," the " Crucifixion," and the " Annunciation " had 
 been over and over again handled by artists higher in 
 mental stature than West; and in the competition he had 
 nothing to hope and everything to fear. He was daring 
 in his undertakings riot so in his genius. 
 
 During the progress of these works he painted many 
 pictures of lesser importance. The King, the Queen, the 
 young princes and princesses sat for their portraits, some- 
 times singly and sometimes in groups forming in all nine 
 pictures, for which West received two thousand guineas 
 a royal price, when we consider the charges of Reynolds 
 and Gainsborough at this time. They are well conceived 
 and prettily drawn, but want soul and substance, and seem 
 the shadows of what is noble and lovely. There is no de- 
 ception they are flat, and the eye seems to see through 
 both colour and canvas : but time and frail materials may 
 be mainly blamable for this. 
 
 The war which broke out between Britain and her 
 colonies was a sore trial to the feelings of West ; his early 
 friends and his present patrons were involved in the 
 bloody controversy. 2 He was not, according to his own 
 account, silent ; he was too much in the palace and alone 
 with his Majesty to avoid some allusion to the strife ; the 
 King inquired anxiously respecting the resources of his 
 foes and the talents of their chiefs, and the artist gave, or 
 
 1 Allan Cunningham forgets the Sistine Chapel. West really seems 
 to have laboured under the delusion that he would prove a rival to 
 Michelangelo. ED. 
 
 2 Rush, in his " Court of London, 1819 to 1825," relates that once, on 
 the news of a victory over the Americans being brought while West was 
 at the palace, the King asked him why he was silent and did not rejoice 
 with the others. West replied : " I hope your Majesty will not take it 
 amiss if I cannot feel pleasure in hearing of misfortunes to those amongst 
 whom I was born and passed my early days." " Right, right. West," 
 said the King, " I honour 3'ou for it." ED.
 
 314 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 imagined he gave, more correct information concerning the 
 American leaders and their objects than could be acquired 
 through official channels. West had been long away from 
 his native land. His literary talents were not of an order 
 to allure correspondents, 1 and with few, if any, of the 
 influential insurgents can it be supposed that he was at all 
 acquainted. But not few were the delusions under which 
 this amiable man lived. How he contrived both to keep 
 his place in the King's opinion, and the respect of the 
 spirits who stirred in the American revolution, he has not 
 told us, but it is not difficult to guess. He was of a nature 
 cold and unimpassioned ; his religion taught him peace, 
 his situation whispered prudence, and the artist dismissed 
 civil broils from his mind, and addressed himself to more 
 profitable contemplations. He saw his reward in fortune, 
 and perhaps in fame, for those days of toil and nights of 
 study, in which he painted and pored over history, sacred 
 and profane, and he closed his eyes on all else save elabo- 
 rate outlines and the effect of light and shade. 
 
 He was now moving in the first circles, and the word of 
 West was the courtly sanction in matters of taste. His 
 various and extensive works left little leisure for the 
 acquisition of extra-professional knowledge, and he pro- 
 bably thought that excellence in art was enough. By 
 dining with divines he had learned to skim the surface of 
 religious knowledge, and his professional and general 
 society gave him hints as to what was passing in the world 
 of literature and fashion. He made the little that he did 
 know go far ; and found means to pass with men of some 
 discernment as a silent person of fair education, who did 
 not wish to throw any wisdom away. The royal favour 
 was much ; and he had besides a certain quiet air of 
 natural dignity in his manner. 
 
 The death of Keynolds vacated the President's chair, 
 and no one then living was more worthy to fill it than Mr. 
 West. The fierce temper of Barry left him no chance of 
 the honour which his genius merited. To the choice of 
 the Academy the King gave his ready sanction, and West 
 
 1 He could not write the shortest note without mistakes both in 
 grammar and spelling. ED.
 
 WEST. 315 
 
 took his place on the 24th of March, 1792, and delivered 
 his inaugural address to an audience who much applauded 
 a composition which could have cost him little thought, 
 since it dwelt but on two topics the excellence of British 
 art, and the gracious benevolence of his Majesty. 
 
 The new President delivered many discourses, all more 
 or less distinguished for plain practical sense. He pressed 
 upon the students the value of knowledge and the necessity 
 of study, and the uselessness of both without a correspond- 
 ing aptitude of mind and buoyancy of imagination in 
 other words, genius. He advised them to give heart and 
 soul wholly to art, to turn aside neither to the right nor 
 to the left, but consider that hour lost in which a line had 
 not been drawn, nor a masterpiece studied. " Observe," 
 he said, " with the same contemplative eye the landscape, 
 the appearance of trees, figures dispersed around, and 
 their aerial distance as well as lineal forms. Omit not to 
 observe the light and shade in consequence of the sun's 
 rays being intercepted by clouds or other accidents. Let 
 your mind be familiar with the characteristics of the ocean ; 
 mark its calm dignity when undisturbed by the winds, 
 and all its various states between that and its terrible 
 sublimity when agitated by the tempest. Sketch with at- 
 tention its foaming and winding coasts, and that awful 
 line which .separates it from the heavens. Replenished 
 with these stores, your imagination will then come forth 
 as a river collected from little springs spreads into might 
 and majesty. If you aspire to excellence in your profes- 
 sion, you must, like the industrious bee, survey the whole 
 face of nature and sip the sweet from every flower. When 
 thus enriched, lay up your acquisitions for future use, and 
 examine the great works of art to animate your feelings 
 and to excite your emulation. Vv'heu you are thus men- 
 tally enriched, and your hand practised to obey the powers 
 of your will, you will then find your pencils or your chisels 
 as magic wands, calling into view creations of your own to 
 adorn your name and country." l 
 
 ' Wry fine advice this, but scarcely distinguished for the " plain 
 practical sense" that Allan Cunningham commends. AnyoneofRey- 
 nolds's Discourses contains more useful observation than all West's. Eo.
 
 316 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 In this way he laboured to stimulate his youthful 
 audience ; but to awaken indifference into energy to add 
 wings to those whose imaginations were fit for night, and 
 fuel to the fire of genius, required higher powers. He had 
 no unstudied felicities of phrase, little vigour of thought, 
 or happiness of illustration he was cold, sensible, and in- 
 structive ; and the student who may learn from his pic- 
 tures the way to manage a diificult subject, and from his 
 life the art of employing his time, can hardly be expected 
 to re-read his discourses. 
 
 So regular were West's hours of labour, and so carefully 
 did he calculate his time, that to describe one day of his 
 life is to describe years. He rose early studied before 
 breakfast began to work on one of his large pictures 
 about ten painted with little intermission till four 
 washed, dressed, and saw visitors, and having dined, re- 
 commenced his studies anew. His works were chiefly 
 historical ; he dealt with the dead ; and the solitude of his 
 gallery was seldom invaded by the rich or the great, 
 clamouring for their portraits. Visitors sometimes found 
 their way to his inner study while he had the pencil in his 
 hand ; he had no wish to show off his skill to the idle, and 
 generally sat as silent and motionless on such occasions as 
 one of his own Apostles. His words were few, his manner 
 easy ; his quakerlike sobriety seemed little elevated by 
 intercourse with nobles and waiting- gentlewomen. On the 
 Windsor pictures he expended much study, and to render 
 them worthy of their place, he " trimmed," as he told the 
 King, " his midnight lamp." So closely was he imprisoned 
 by their composition, that his attendance at the burial of 
 so eminent a brother as Gainsborough was mentioned as 
 something extraordinary. 
 
 It must not be supposed that he enjoyed without envy 
 the threefold blessing of magnificent subjects, high prices, 
 and kingly favour. Barry was famishing, and his com- 
 plaints were loud and eloquent. Fuseli, with all his wit, 
 learning, and imagination, could barely live ; and Opie 
 had been taught the severe, though common lesson, that 
 nothing is so unstable as the patronage of the powerful. 
 The very calmness and moderation with which the King's
 
 WEST. 317 
 
 historical painter carried himself was something provok- 
 ing. He went from his gallery in Newman Street to 
 Windsor, and back again, with the staid looks of one of 
 the brethren going to, and returning from, chapel. Of his 
 importance at Court, however, he was willing enough to 
 speak, though in a mild and meek way ; and as to high 
 matters in general he affected somewhat of the vague diplo- 
 matic language of official men : West had probably no 
 state secrets to conceal if he had, his conversation kept 
 them a mystery. 
 
 When he succeeded to the President's chair, the King 
 wished to confer upon him the distinction of knighthood. 
 To lay the royal sword on the shoulder of a Quaker was 
 something new, and the curiosity of the courtiers was 
 excited. The Duke of Gloucester called on West from 
 the King, to inquire if this honour would be acceptable. 
 " No man," said Benjamin, " entertains a higher respect 
 for political honours and distinctions than myself, but I 
 really think I have earned greater eminence by my pencil 
 already than knighthood could confer on me. The chief 
 value of titles is to preserve in families a respect for those 
 principles by which such distinctions were originally ob- 
 tained but simple knighthood to a man who is at least 
 as well known as he could ever hope to be from that 
 honour, is not a legitimate object of ambition. To myself 
 then your Koyal Highness must perceive the title could 
 add no dignity, and as it would perish with myself, it could 
 add none to my family. But were I possessed of fortune, 
 independent of my profession, sufficient to enable my pos- 
 terity to maintain the rank, I think that, with my here- 
 ditary descent, and the station I occupy among artists, 
 a more permanent title might become a desirable ob- 
 ject. As it is, however, that cannot be ; and I have been 
 thus explicit with your Royal Highness that no miscon- 
 ception may exist on the subject." The Duke took West 
 by the hand, and said, " You have justified the opinion 
 which the King has of you ; he will be delighted with your 
 answer." 
 
 In that answer there was certainly very little of the 
 Quaker. Possibly he was not without hope that the King
 
 318 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 would confer a baronetcy, and an income to support it, on 
 one who, to descent from the Lords of Delaware, could 
 add such claims of personal importance. No farther notice, 
 however, was taken of the matter ; he went to the palace 
 as usual, and as usual his reception was warm and friendly. 
 
 From 1769 till 1801 West had uniformly received all 
 orders for pictures from his Majesty in person. They had 
 settled the subject and price between them without the 
 intervention of others, and, in addition to his one thou- 
 sand pounds a-year paid on account, he had received what- 
 ever more, and it was not much, might be due upon the 
 pictures actually painted. A great change was near. A 
 mental cloud fell upon the King, and the artist was the 
 first to be made sensible that the sceptre was departed 
 from his hand. The doors of the palace, which heretofore 
 had opened spontaneously like those of Milton's "Para- 
 dise," no longer flew wide at his approach, but turned on 
 their hinges grating and reluctantly. What this might 
 mean he was informed by Mr. Wyatt, the royal architect, 
 who called and said, he was authorized to inform him that 
 the pictures painting for the Chapel at Windsor must be 
 suspended till further orders. " This extraordinary pro- 
 ceeding " (says Gait) " rendered the studies of the best 
 part of the artist's life useless, and deprived him of that 
 honourable provision, the fruit of his talents and industry, 
 on which he had counted for the repose of his declining 
 years. For some time it affected him deeply, and he was 
 at a loss what steps to take. At last, however, on reflect- 
 ing on the marked friendship and favour which the King 
 had always shown him, he addressed to his Majesty a 
 letter, of which the following is a copy of the rough 
 draught, being the only one preserved." After mention- 
 ing the message to suspend the paintings for the Chapel, 
 it proceeds : 
 
 " Since 1797 1 have finished three pictures, begun several 
 others, and composed the remainder of the subjects for the 
 Chapel, on the progress of Revealed Religion. Those are 
 subjects so replete with dignity of character and expres- 
 sion, as demanded the historian, the commentator, and the 
 accomplished painter to bring them into view. Your
 
 WEST. 319 
 
 Majesty's gracious commands for my pencil on that ex- 
 tensive subject stimulated my humble abilities, and I 
 commenced the work with zeal and enthusiasm. Animated 
 by your commands, I burnt my midnight lamp to attain 
 that polish which marks my scriptural pictures. Your 
 Majesty's zeal for religion and love of the elegant arts are 
 known over the civilized world, and your protection of my 
 pencil had given it celebrity, and made mankind anxiously 
 look for the completion of the great work on Revealed 
 Religion. In the station which I fill in the Academy I 
 have been zealous in promoting merit; ingenious artists 
 have received my ready aid, and my galleries and my purse 
 have been opened to their studies and their distresses. The 
 breath of envy or the whisper of detraction never defiled 
 my lips, nor the want of morality my character ; and your 
 Majesty's virtues and those of her Majesty, have been the 
 theme of my admiration for many years. 
 
 " I feel with great concern the suspension of the work on 
 Eevealed Religion if it is meant to be permanent, myself 
 and the fine arts have much to lament. To me it will be 
 ruinous, and it will damp the hope of patronage in the 
 more refined departments of painting. I have this con- 
 solation, that in the thirty-five years during which my 
 pencil has been honoured with your commands, a great 
 body of historical and scriptural works have been placed 
 in the churches and palaces of the kingdom. Their pro- 
 fessional claims may be humble, but similar works have 
 not been executed before by any of your Majesty's subjects. 
 And this I will assert, that your commands and patronage 
 were not laid on a lazy or an ungrateful man, or an un- 
 dutiful subject." 
 
 To this letter, written on the 26th of September, 1801, 
 and carried to the court by Wyatt, West received no an- 
 swer. On his Majesty's recovery, he sought and obtained a 
 private audience. The King had not been made acquainted 
 with the order for suspending the works, nor had he 
 received the letter. " Go on with your work, West," said 
 the King kindly, " go on with the pictures, and I will take 
 care of you." He shook him by the hand, and dismissed 
 him. " And this," says Gait, " was the last interview he
 
 320 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 was permitted to have with his early and constant, and to 
 him truly royal, patron. But he continued to execute the 
 pictures, and in the usual quarterly payments received his 
 ,1,000 per annum till his Majesty's final superannuation ; 
 when, without any intimation whatever, on calling to re- 
 ceive it, he was told it had been stopped, and that the 
 paintings for the Chapel, of Revealed Religion, had been 
 suspended. He submitted in silence he neither remon- 
 strated nor complained." l 
 
 The story of his dismissal from court was spread abroad 
 with many aggravations ; and the malevolence of enemies 
 which his success had created there are always such rep- 
 tiles was gratified by the circulation of papers detailing 
 an account of the prices which the fortunate painter had 
 received for his works from the King. The hand which 
 had drawn up this injurious document neglected to state 
 that the sum of thirty-four thousand one hundred and 
 eighty-seven pounds was earned in the course of thirty- 
 three laborious years: and the public, looking only to the 
 sum at the bottom of the page, imagined that West must 
 have amassed a fortune. This notion was dispelled by an 
 accurate statement of work done and money received, with 
 day and date, signed with the artist's name, and accom- 
 panied by a formal declaration of its truth ; a needless 
 addition, for all who knew anything of West, knew him to 
 be one of the most honourable of men. 
 
 Whilst suffering under the neglect of the court, the peace 
 of Amiens opened the Continent, and thither West went, to 
 
 1 There does seem to have been some amount of hardship in the treat- 
 ment West received, though it could scarcely be expected that these 
 munificent commissions of an imbecile king would be continued. 
 
 It is to West's credit that just at the time of the stoppage of his pen- 
 sion from the King, when, for some reason, he seems really to have been 
 in want of money himself, he sent poor struggling Haydon 15 to keep 
 the wolf from the door for a few more days. He had been to see his 
 " Judgment of Solomon," and had been " moved to tears by it," accord- 
 ing to Haydon. West was also very kind to young Proctor, a sculptor of 
 much promise, whose history is one of the saddest among those of baffled 
 aspirants to fame. Altogether, indeed, he seems to have been a kind- 
 hearted man, though prudent in his generosity and cold in his manner. 
 Not loveable like Reynolds, of whom Dr. Johnson said, " I never knew 
 a man whom I would more willingly call my friend." ED.
 
 WEST. 321 
 
 see with his own eyes the splendid works of the pencil and 
 chisel which Buonaparte had assembled in the Louvre. 
 The President of the British Academy was not to be over- 
 looked by the wily politicians who surrounded the future 
 Emperor. Minister after minister, and artist after artist, 
 from the accomplished Talleyrand and the subtle Fouche 
 to the enthusiastic Denon and the ferocious David, gathered 
 around him, and talked, with unbounded love, of historical 
 painting and of its influence on mankind. In a series of 
 entertainments in which wine and flattery were poured out 
 abundantly, the enemies of his country succeeded in per- 
 suading the simple Benjamin that they were the most 
 philanthropic of all nations, and their master the kindest 
 and worthiest of men. 
 
 Filled with these fine notions, West one day came up to 
 Mr. Fox and Sir Francis Baring, as they were strolling 
 about the Louvre, and harangued them on the sublime and 
 benevolent views of Napoleon, who only conquered king- 
 doms out of love for liberty, and collected pictures in the 
 towns which he stormed " to furnish models of study for 
 artists of all nations." He concluded by pointing out the 
 propriety, even in a mercantile point of view, of encouraging 
 to a sevenfold extent the higher departments of art in 
 England. The prospect of commercial advantages pleased 
 Baring, and Fox said with much frankness, and with that 
 sincerity which lasts at least for the moment, " I have been 
 rocked in the cradle of politics, and never before was so 
 much struck with the advantages, even in a political bear- 
 ing, of the Fine Arts, to the prosperity as well as to the 
 renown of a kingdom ; and I do assure you, Mr. West, if 
 ever I have it in my power to influence our government to 
 promote the Arts, the conversation which we have had 
 to-day shall not be forgotten." They parted, and West 
 returned to England. 
 
 Old age was now coming on him ; but his grey hairs were 
 denied the repose which a life of virtue and labour deserved. 
 He took it into his head that he was looked upon coldly by 
 the government for his admiration of Buonaparte ; and as- 
 sailed in the Academy by an opposition strong in numbers 
 and in eloquence, in which Shee distinguished himself, he
 
 322 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 was induced to retire from the President's chair, and Wyatt 
 was elected in his stead. This distinction the court archi- 
 tect had merited by no works which could be weighed in 
 the balance with the worst of his predecessor's ; and West 
 persuaded himself that his own splendid reception in France 
 had been the root of all the evil. He certainly had a very 
 lofty notion of himself, and his account of the stir which 
 he excited in Paris, marks a mind amiably but extrava- 
 gantly vain. " Wherever I went," he said, " men looked 
 at me, and ministers and people of influence in the state 
 were constantly in my company. I was one day in the 
 Louvre all eyes were upon me ; and I could not help 
 observing to Charles Fox, who happened to be walking with 
 me, how strong was the love of art, and admiration of its 
 professors, in France." This trait of simplicity will never 
 be surpassed. 
 
 In a short time, however, the Academy became weary of 
 Wyatt, displaced him, and restored the painter, by a vote 
 which may be called unanimous ; since there was only one 
 dissenting member supposed to be Fuseli who put in 
 the name of Mrs. Moser for President. Ladies were at 
 that period permitted to be members, and the jester no 
 doubt meant to insinuate that a shrewd old woman was a 
 fit rival for West. 1 
 
 The restored President now endeavoured to form a 
 national association for the encouragement of works of 
 dignity and importance, and was cheered with the assurance 
 of ministerial if not royal patronage. But many of those 
 who countenanced the design were cautious and timid men, 
 deficient in that lofty enthusiasm necessary for success in 
 grand undertakings, and whose souls were not large enough 
 to conceive and consummate a plan worthy of the rank and 
 genius of a nation. The times, too, were unfavourable : 
 Englishmen had in those days need enough to think of 
 other matters than paintings and statues. Mr. Pitt, who 
 had really seemed disposed to lend his aid to this new asso- 
 ciation, soon died. Mr. Fox, who succeeded him, declared, 
 
 1 The story is usually told as relating to Mrs. Lloyd. Fuseli is re- 
 ported to have said, when taxed with giving the vote, " Well, suppose I 
 did. Is not one old woman as good as another ? " ED.
 
 WEST. 323 
 
 " As soon as I am firmly seated in the saddle, I shall redeem 
 the promise I made in the Louvre " but he also was soon 
 lost to his country. The pistol of an assassin prevented 
 Perceval from taking into consideration a third memorial 
 which West had drawn up, and the President at last relin- 
 quished the project in despair. 1 
 
 West was now sixty-four years old a life blameless and 
 temperate had kept his strength unimpaired, and he had 
 still the same composed and determined mind by which he 
 was distinguished in his youth. He had also unbounded 
 confidence in his own powers, and since the illness of his 
 royal friend had closed the doors of the palace against him, 
 he resolved to try once more his fortune with the public. 
 He according commenced painting a series of Scriptural 
 subjects upon a large scale : and the first which appeared 
 was that of " Christ healing the Sick." The history of this 
 picture deserves to be told. The Quakers of Philadelphia 
 requested West to aid them in erecting an hospital for the 
 sick in his native town he told them his circumstances 
 scarcely admitted of his being generous, but he would aid 
 them after his own way, and paint them a picture if they 
 would provide a place to receive it in their new building. 
 They were pleased with this, and " Christ healing the 
 Sick " was painted for Philadelphia. When exhibited in 
 London, the crush to see it was very great the praise it 
 obtained was high and the British Institution offered him 
 three thousand guineas for the work. 2 West accepted the 
 offer, for he was far from being rich, but on condition 
 that he should be allowed to make a copy, with alterations, 
 for his native place. He did so ; and when the copy went 
 to America, the profits arising from its exhibition enabled 
 the committee of the hospital to enlarge the building and 
 receive more patients. 
 
 The success of this piece impressed West with the be- 
 
 1 The British Institution was afterwards formed out of the wreck of 
 West's magnificent plan. ED. 
 
 3 Eighteen hundred guineas were likewise paid to Charles Heath for 
 engraving this admired work. It now hangs in the National Gallery, 
 having been presented by the Directors of the British Institution, in 
 1826. ED.
 
 324 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 lief that his genius appeared to most advantage in pic- 
 tures of large dimensions, and that royal commissions 
 had hitherto interposed between him and fortune. His 
 mind, from long contemplation, was familiar with subjects 
 of gigantic proportions ; and he had soon sketched out 
 several, and finished some. But the little snug and com- 
 fortable houses of England could not contain this colossal 
 progeny ; the doors of our churches are generally opened 
 to art with reluctance our palaces had already admitted 
 more of the President's works than, perhaps, were welcome ; 
 and the owners of our galleries were unwilling to make 
 room for such enormous pieces on Scripture subjects. 
 There was no market for the manufacture. Few were 
 tempted to become purchasers, though many were edified 
 with the " Descent of the Holy Ghost on Christ at the 
 Jordan," ten feet by fourteen " The Crucifixion," sixteen 
 feet by twenty-eight " The Ascension," twelve feet by 
 eighteen and " The Inspiration of St. Peter," of corre- 
 sponding extent. As old age benumbed his faculties, and 
 began to freeze up the well-spring of original thought, the 
 daring intrepidity of the man seemed but to grow and 
 augment. Immense pictures, embracing topics which 
 would have alarmed loftier spirits, came crowding thick 
 upon his fancy, and he was the only person who appeared 
 insensible that such were too weighty for his handling. 
 
 Domestic sorrow mingled with professional disappoint- 
 ment. Elizabeth Shewell for more than fifty years his 
 kind and tender companion died on the 6th of December, 
 1817, and West, seventy-nine years old, felt that he was 
 soon to follow. His wife and he had loved each other 
 some sixty years had seen their children's childi*en and 
 the world had no compensation to offer. He began to 
 sink, and though still to be found at his easel, his hand 
 had lost its early alacrity. It was evident that all this 
 was to cease soon ; that he was suffering a slow, and a 
 general, and easy decay. The venerable old man sat in 
 his study among his favourite pictures, a breathing image 
 of piety and contentment, awaiting calmly the hour of his 
 dissolution. "Without any fixed complaint, his mental 
 faculties unimpaired, his cheerfulness uneclipsed, and with
 
 WEST. 325 
 
 looks serene and benevolent, he expired llth March, 1820, 
 in the eighty- second year of his age. He was buried 
 beside Reynolds, Opie, and Barry, in St. Paul's Cathedral. 
 The pall was borne by noblemen, ambassadors, and acade- 
 micians ; his two sons and grandson were chief mourners ; 
 and sixty coaches brought up the splendid procession. 
 
 Benjamin West was in person above the middle size, of 
 a fair complexion, and firmly and compactly built. His 
 serene brow betokened command of temper, whilst his 
 eyes, sparkling and vivacious, promised lively remarks and 
 pointed sayings, in which he by no means abounded. In- 
 tercourse with courts and with the world, which changes 
 so many, made no change in his sedate sobriety of senti- 
 ment and happy propriety of manner, the results of a 
 devout domestic education. His kindness to young artists 
 was great his liberality seriously impaired his income 
 he never seemed weary of giving advice intrusion never 
 disturbed his temper nor could the tediousness of the 
 dull ever render him either impatient or peevish. He was 
 indeed friendly to all and particularly kind to two artists 
 who have since risen to high distinction Chantrey and 
 Martin. For the former he obtained the statue of Wash- 
 ington, erected at Boston ; and to the latter he willingly 
 disclosed the secrets of his profession, and cheered him by 
 his approbation. Whatever he knew in art he readily im- 
 parted he was always happy to think that art was ad- 
 vancing, and no mean jealousy of other men's good fortune 
 ever invaded his repose. His vanity was amusing and 
 amiable and his belief prominent in every page of the 
 narrative which he dictated to his friend Mr. Gait that 
 preaching and prophecy had predestined him to play a 
 great part before mankind, and be an example to all pos- 
 terity, did no one any harm, and himself some good. 
 
 As his life was long and laborious, his productions are 
 very numerous. He painted and sketched in oil upwards 
 of four hundred pictures, mostly of an historical and re- 
 ligious nature, 1 and he left more than two hundred original 
 drawings in his portfolio. His works were supposed by 
 
 1 One of these immense canvases painted by West may occasionally
 
 326 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 himself, and for a time by others, to be in the true spirit 
 of the great masters, and he composed them with the 
 serious ambition and hope of illustrating Scripture and 
 rendering Gospel truth more impressive. No subject 
 seemed to him too lofty for his pencil ; he considered him- 
 self worthy to follow the sublimest flights of the prophets, 
 and dared to limn the effulgence of God's glory and the 
 terrors of the Day of Judgment. The mere list of his 
 works makes us shudder at human presumption Moses 
 receiving the Law on Sinai the Descent of the Holy Ghost 
 on the Saviour in the Jordan the Opening of the Seventh 
 Seal in the Revelations Saint Michael and his Angels 
 casting out the Great Dragon the mighty Angel with one 
 foot on sea and the other on earth the Resurrection ! 
 and there are many others of the same class ! With such 
 magnificence and sublimity who but a Michael Angelo 
 could cope ? 
 
 In all his works the human form was exhibited in con- 
 formity to academic precepts his figures were arranged 
 with skill the colouring was varied and often harmonious 
 the eye rested pleased on the performance, and the 
 artist seemed, to the ordinary spectator, to have done his 
 task like one of the highest of the sons of genius. But 
 below all this splendour there was little of the true vitality 
 there was a monotony, too, of human character the 
 groupings were unlike the happy and careless combinations 
 of nature, and the figures frequently seemed distributed 
 over the canvas by line and measure, like trees in a plan- 
 tation. He wanted fire and imagination to be the true 
 restorer of that grand style, which bewildered Barry, and 
 was talked of by Reynolds. Some of his works cold, 
 formal, bloodless, and passionless may remind the spec- 
 tator of the sublime vision of the valley of dry bones, when 
 
 be met with in galleries or private collections, but for the most part his 
 pictures have long been assigned to the limbo where 
 
 " Lethe, the river of oblivion, rolls 
 Her watery labyrinth." 
 
 Of the four hundred Cunningham enumerates, not above twenty have 
 remained known to fame. ED,
 
 WEST. 327 
 
 the flesh and skin had come upon the skeletons, and before 
 the breath of God had informed them with life and feeling. 
 Though such is the general impression which the works 
 of West make, it cannot be denied that many are distin- 
 guished by great excellence. In his " Death on the Pale 
 Horse," and more particularly in the sketch of that picture, 
 he has more than approached the masters and princes of 
 the calling. It is, indeed, irresistibly fearful to see the 
 triumphant march of the terrific Phantom, and the disso- 
 lution of all that earth is proud of beneath his tread. War 
 and peace, sorrow and joy, youth and age, all who love and 
 all who hate, seem planet-struck. The " Death of Wolfe," 
 too, is natural and noble, and the Indian chief, like the 
 Oneyda warrior of Campbell, 
 
 "A stoic of the woods, a man without a tear," 
 
 was a happy thought. The " Battle of La Hogue " I have 
 heard praised as the best historic picture of the British 
 school, by one not likely to be mistaken, and who would 
 not say what he did not feel. Many of his single figures, 
 also, are of a high order. There is a natural grace in the 
 looks of some of his women, which few painters have ever 
 excelled. 
 
 West was injured by early success he obtained his fame 
 too easily it was not purchased by long study and many 
 trials and he rashly imagined himself capable of anything. 
 But the coldness of his imagination nipt the blossoms of 
 history. It is the province of art to elevate the subject 
 in the spirit of its nature and brooding over the whole 
 with the feeling of a poet, awaken the scene into vivid life 
 and heroic beauty ; but such mastery rarely waited upon 
 the ambition of this amiable and upright man.
 
 JAMES BARRY. 
 
 JAMES BAEEY was born in Cork, on the llth of Oc- 
 tober, 1741. His mother's maiden name was Juliana 
 Rcerden ; her ancestors had lost large estates in the county 
 Cork, through rebellions and revolutions ; "and his father, 
 whose name was John," says one of his biographers, " had 
 no occasion to blush at his pedigree, if it be true that he 
 was of a collateral branch of the family, which has been 
 honoured with the Earldom of Barrymore." Whatever his 
 remote ancestors were, we are certain that John Barry was 
 bred a builder ; that his want of success drove him. to the 
 sea ; that, for many years, he commanded a vessel which 
 traded between the Cove of Cork and England ; l and that 
 he was fortunate in none of his pursuits. 
 
 Of the early education of James Barry we have but an 
 imperfect account ; but it must have been watched over 
 with no common care, for, in after life, when learning was 
 wanted, no one found him deficient. When very young his 
 father took him to sea ; but to be pent up in a floating 
 prison, to see the same monotonous scene setting upon him 
 at night, and opening upon him every day, and to drudge 
 and become familiar with the severe duties of a mariner's 
 life, were not for one on whose mind art had already 
 dawned. In the first place he ran away, and was with diffi- 
 culty found and brought back ; and secondly, instead of 
 handling ropes and adjusting sails, it was his pleasure to 
 make sketches of the coast along which he sailed, or to 
 draw groups and single figures upon the deck, to the 
 amusement of the sailors and the vexation of his father. 
 It was idle to contend against the determined disposition 
 of this wilful boy ; his father sent him back to his mother, 
 and he resumed his books and crayons. In the happier 
 
 1 He also, it is said, kept a small public-house. ED.
 
 BARRY. 329 
 
 moments of his manhood he has been heard to allude jocu- 
 larly to his marine apprenticeship. 
 
 Painting was the natural rather than the accidental 
 direction of his mind. He sketched and drew at an earlier 
 age than his sister, who long survived him, could name. 
 When the father returned and saw his son's colossal out- 
 lines in black and red chalk, on walls, floors, and furniture, 
 the rough sailor spoke with great bitterness, and said the 
 boy had abandoned a trade which produced daily bread for 
 wild and unprofitable nonsense. He sought shelter behind 
 his mother's chair, who protected him, and encouraged him 
 in his pursuits. 
 
 On leaving the sea he was sent to school, where his 
 quickness of parts and his stubborn and solitary disposi- 
 tion attracted notice. During the hours of leisure he read 
 or drew. Whole nights, his sister said, were taken from 
 sleep ; he spent all his pocket money on pencils and 
 candles ; and when, alarmed for his health, the servants, 
 in arranging his room, secreted his candles, he would not 
 allow them to go there any more, but locked the door and 
 made the bed for himself. His bed became hard and un- 
 comfortable. His mother wished to render it softer, and 
 to introduce order into his apartment; but he resisted her 
 also. Even in these early days he exhibited a spirit in- 
 tractable and capricious, and declared his love for those 
 ascetic and self-denying habits which assume the name of 
 virtues in the legends of the Romish church. 
 
 He sometimes, however, mingled in schoolboy amuse- 
 ments ; and on one of those occasions, wishing to conceal 
 himself from his companions in the favourite game called 
 " Hide and Seek," he entered a ruinous house in an obscure 
 lane, which had neither doors nor windows, and was said 
 to be haunted. On running up the half-rotten stairs, and 
 entering an upper room, he saw two old and withered 
 figures sitting in rags and wretchedness beside a handful 
 of expiring embers, tearing each other's faces, and accom- 
 panying every tug with grimaces which demons might 
 have envied. They heeded him not, but tore away, and he 
 retired, making, he said, two reflections on what he had 
 seen " That man is malicious in proportion as he is im-
 
 330 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 potent," and " that age and want add to their inherent 
 miseries evils all their own." The moral inference which 
 he seeks to draw from this sad scene is unjust to human 
 nature. The evils, indeed, of weakness and want are not 
 little they are an ill-matched pair, though often seen to- 
 gether ; but weakness of body is frequently accompanied 
 by great benevolence of mind, and there is a philosophic 
 or devout spirit of endurance in those afflicted with poverty 
 and old age, which Barry might have discovered wherever 
 he went on the earth. But from his earliest years he in- 
 dulged in curious opinions, and affected singularity of 
 dress as those often do who are resolved to 'become 
 noticed for something. He sought the company only of the 
 old and the educated, listened to all they said, showed 
 anxiety after knowledge, and wore a garb so coarse and so 
 plain that it seemed as if he were suffering under a rule of 
 religious mortification. His school-fellows considered his 
 learning so extraordinary that, in letters yet extant, they 
 speak of him as a prodigy of knowledge, from whom they 
 were accustomed to receive opinions as from a master. 
 
 His mother, a zealoxis Catholic, and whose affection for 
 the old faith was increased by a sense of the loss of family 
 wealth and importance, exercised a strong and a lasting 
 influence over him. His father, a Protestant, committed 
 all domestic matters to his wife, and probably thought of 
 doctrinal disputes with the lightness of a sailor ; she, in 
 her turn, committed her son to the care and conversation 
 of two Catholic priests, who, to learning, added the zeal 
 which thirsts for proselytes, and that enthusiasm which, 
 directed with prudence against the youthful and the imagi- 
 native, is sure to triumph. He was artfully involved in the 
 mazes of religious controversy, and had to seek his way out 
 in the company of those who coveted his conversion. 
 Other temptations were held out, of notice and prefer- 
 ment, and he was soon hailed as a stray sheep won back 
 to the fold. A report was diligently circulated that his 
 learning and talents were to be dedicated to the service of 
 the suffering church ; but as soon as he had openly com- 
 mitted himself as a Catholic, his nomination to the priest- 
 hood was heard of no more.
 
 BARRY. 331 
 
 To the Romish church he was much attached in youth, 
 but his residence in Rome made him waver not a little. 
 There he saw more than he wished to have seen, and was 
 about to seek refuge from superstition in infidelity, when 
 he was saved, as he always acknowledged, by a book sent 
 to him by Edmund Burke. The work which did this good 
 deed was that precious one, Butler's "Analogy of Religion, 
 natural and revealed, to the constitution and course of 
 nature." In after-life he rewarded the author by placing 
 him high amongst those divines whom he admitted into 
 his painting of Elysium. But he was far too ardent and 
 unbalanced to remain steady at the wholesome point of 
 belief where Bishop Butler had left him. He became, as 
 life advanced and vexations thickened, a blind and bigoted 
 follower of the creed of Rome, and somewhat stern and un- 
 charitable towards those who differed from him in matters 
 of faith : but we are anticipating. 
 
 When he was some twelve or fifteen years old tradition 
 is no accurate observer of dates a bookseller in Cork had 
 such confidence in his powers, that he employed him to 
 make the designs some add the etchings for a small 
 volume of tales which he was publishing. Of these, if they 
 ever existed, no account is given, and the book has been 
 sought for hi vain ; nor, indeed, is there any precise infor- 
 mation to be had concerning the subjects which employed 
 his boyish pencil : he probably retained his sketches till 
 ripening judgment condemned them, and then committed 
 to the fire those witnesses of an undisciplined hand and 
 an ill-regulated fancy. Having no one to guide him in 
 art as he had to mislead him in religion, he had to grope 
 his own way to excellence, and attain it as he best might. 1 
 We know that ere he left Cork, he had painted in oil- 
 colour, " Eneas escaping from the burning of Troy,"- 
 " A dead Christ," " Susanna and the Elders," " Daniel 
 in the Lions' Den," and " Abraham's Sacrifice ; " but 
 
 1 He probably received some instruction at Cork ; but at an early age 
 he went to Dublin, where, according to a writer in the " Journal of the 
 Society of Arts," he entered the school of a painter named West, an 
 artist who had studied under Boucher and Vanloo, and was reckoned 
 an able draughtsman of the human figure. ED.
 
 332 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 whether these were copies or original compositions it is 
 not mentioned. Such subjects are frequently chosen by 
 young and presumptuous men, who imagine that it is 
 grand and daring to single out a sublime or splendid 
 scene from history or poetry they have yet to learn, and 
 they will soon discover it, that a lofty subject requires to be 
 nobly handled. Those early attempts of Barry were long 
 afterwards to be seen on the walls of his father's house. 
 
 His name had not yet been heard of beyond Cork ; it 
 was soon to be known in remote parts, and received with 
 a favour which must have fallen on Barry like a shower 
 upon a summer drought. There is a tradition in the Irish 
 Church concerning the conversion of a king of Cashel by 
 the eloquence of St. Patrick. The barbarian prince, when 
 the apostle concluded his exhortation, called loudly to be 
 baptized, and such was the hurry of the one, and the 
 fortitude of the other, that though the Saint, implanting 
 his iron-shod crosier in the ground, struck it unwittingly 
 through the royal convert's foot, he uttered not one mur- 
 mur, nor yet moved a muscle, but conceiving it to be a 
 part of the ceremony, stood and was baptized. " The 
 moment of baptism," says Dr. Fryer, " rendered so critical 
 and awful by the circumstance of the king's foot being 
 pierced with the spear, is that which Mr. Barry chose for 
 the display of his art ; and few stories, it is presumed, 
 have been selected with greater felicity, or with greater 
 scope for the skill and ingenuity of the artist. The heroic 
 patience of the king, the devotional abstraction of the 
 saint, and the mixed emotions of the spectators, form a 
 combined and comprehensive model of imitation, and con- 
 vey a suitable idea of the genius of one, who, self -instructed, 
 and at nineteen, conceived the execution of so grand a 
 design." 
 
 With this work in his hand, Barry went to Dublin, and 
 placed it among the paintings collecting for exhibition 
 by the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufac- 
 tures, and Commerce. He was at this time utterly un- 
 friended and unknown, coarsely clad, and with something of 
 the stamp of one enduring poverty upon him. The picture 
 was exhibited and admired ; but so little was such a work
 
 BARRY. 333 
 
 expected from a native artist, that when the name of the 
 painter was demanded, and he stepped modestly forward, no 
 one would believe him his brow glowed, he burst into 
 tears, and hurried out of the room. All this was observed 
 by Edmund Burke, one of the greatest and best-hearted 
 of all the sons of genius. He sought the young artist out, 
 commended and encouraged him, laid down the natural 
 rules of composition, and directed his attention to what 
 was pure and poetical. One of those incidents which 
 biographers love to relate, and the world indulgently be- 
 lieves, is said to have happened at the very first inter- 
 view between those two youthful adventurers. They had 
 plunged into controversy in the first hour of their friend- 
 ship, and Barry, in aid of his argument, quoted a passage 
 from the Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful, then pub- 
 lished without the author's name. Burke refused to bow 
 to the authority of a performance which he called slight 
 and unsubstantial, and the fiery Barry exclaimed, " Do 
 you call that a slight and unsubstantial work which is 
 conceived in the spirit of nature and truth is written with 
 such elegance, and strewn all over with the richness of 
 poetic fancy? I could not afford to buy the work, Sir, 
 and transcribed it every word with my own hand." Burke 
 smiled, and acknowledged himself the author. " Are you, 
 by God ! " exclaimed Barry, embracing him, and holding 
 out the copy which he had made of the work. Such is the 
 story. Burke was well known to be the author, and en- 
 joyed the reputation, of the Essay, before his name was 
 attached to it ; and if Barry had taken the trouble to 
 transcribe the work, it does not seem likely that he should 
 have carried the copy in his pocket. Still, we must not 
 too rashly apply to such a person the rules by which we 
 are entitled to judge in matters concerning the ordinary 
 brethren of the race. 
 
 He continued to reside for some time in Dublin. The 
 way to fame, and perhaps fortune, lay open before him. 
 Burke had praised his works, and assured him of his pro- 
 tection, and he had only to walk circumspectly, and act 
 with prudence, to become an honour to his native land. 
 Dr. Sleigh, of Cork, an early and benevolent friend, con-
 
 334 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 gratulating him on having met with that countenance in 
 Dublin which he had sought and merited in vain in his 
 native city, counselled a journey to Rome, and the study 
 of Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton. This was not lost 
 on Barry. " To Dr. Sleigh," he used to say, " I am in- 
 debted for whatever education and fortune and fame I may 
 have in the world." Sudden success unsettled him for a 
 time ; the fame of his work brought a crowd of those 
 unsafe companions who clap their hands at the sight of a 
 new favourite of fortune, and nutter about the prodigy 
 like moths round a candle. .In their company he some- 
 times forgot himself ; he was sensible of the folly, and 
 on his way home from a deep carouse determined on im- 
 mediate amendment. This fit of repentance found him at 
 the side of the Liffey ; he stood and upbraided his own 
 easiness of temper, and cursed the money in his pocket as 
 a fiend that had tempted him to the tavern. He threw 
 his purse into the river, ran home, and resumed his inter- 
 rupted studies. He afterwards related this to an out- 
 spoken friend. " Ah, Barry ! man," said he, " you threw 
 away your luck you never had either gold or good temper 
 to spare afterwards." 
 
 In his twenty-third year he went to London, on the 
 invitation of Burke, who introduced him to Athenian 
 Stuart, whose talk confirmed him in his love of the ancients, 
 and to Sir Joshua Reynolds, in whose works he studied 
 delicacy of style, propriety of character, and force of light 
 and shade. " If I should chance to have genius, or any- 
 thing else," he observes, in a letter to Dr. Sleigh, " it is 
 so much the better ; but my hopes are grounded upon an 
 unwearied intense application, of which I am not sparing. 
 At present I have little to show that I value ; my work is 
 all under ground, digging and laying foundations, which, 
 with G-od's assistance, I may hereafter find the use of. 
 I every day centre more and more upon the art ; I give 
 myself totally to it : and, except honour and conscience, 
 am determined to renounce everything else. Though this 
 may appear enthusiastic, or rather extravagant, it is really 
 the state of my mind." Nothing great can ever be accom- 
 plished without enthusiasm ; but it requires to be a little
 
 BARRY. 335 
 
 better regulated than poor Barry's. For the most part his 
 notions of other men's talents were at this early period 
 equally decided and just. " The colouring of Wilson is 
 very masterly," he observes in one of his letters, " his 
 style of design is more grand, more consistent, and more 
 poetical than any other person's amongst us." His admi- 
 ration, however, was not always so well placed ; he praised 
 the Achilles and Patroclus of Hamilton, for which he was 
 rebuked by some of the elder brethren of the brush. He 
 gave them a tasting of his spirit in two or three sarcastic 
 sentences, in which he vindicated his right to freedom of 
 opinion. They shrugged their shoulders, looked on one 
 another, were irritated, and were silenced. 
 
 Barry pursued his studies in London for a year. The 
 presence and the society of Burke awed down the natural 
 sharpness of his temper, and in his company he began to 
 practise the courtesies of polished life, and appeared in a 
 dress becoming the station to which he aspired. He had 
 already determined to be a historical painter. The true 
 nature of that style could never, in the opinion of Eeynolds, 
 be ascertained, without a visit to the Sistine Chapel ; but 
 such a -pilgrimage could not be accomplished by one so 
 poor as Barry, and he was in despair when Burke gene- 
 rously interposed, fitted him out for his journey, and settled 
 an annual pension upon him during the period of pro- 
 bationary study. 
 
 On his way through France 1 he admired and copied the 
 " Alexander drinking the Potion" by La Sueur, and visited 
 the Academy of St. Luke, on which he remarks to Burke : 
 " I don't like an academy ; it is a thing which, wherever 
 it is founded, will, I think, bring the arts into contempt, 
 and consequently, to destruction. We have two of them 
 here ; there are such mobs of blackguards go every night 
 to acquire a trade there, as is enough to shock anyone who 
 
 1 Barry went to Paris in the February of 176C, and remained there 
 until the following September. The letters he wrote home during this 
 period are very interesting. Burke says of them : " Your letters are 
 very kind in remembering us ; and surely, as to criticism of every kind, 
 admirable. Reynolds likes them exceedingly. He conceives extra- 
 ordinary hopes of you." ED.
 
 336 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 has the least regard for the art. People send their children 
 to make them painters and statuaries, without learning or 
 genius, or indeed anything else, only because it is less ex- 
 pensive than making them peruquiers or shoemakers." 
 With better sense, he continues : " Drawing and modelling 
 in the academy, with the assistance of a master, is not 
 likely to mislead any one, and must be useful to men of 
 real genius." He was so much charmed with the people 
 and the scenery of Burgundy, that he stopped at an inn and 
 wrote to Burke : " We may talk as much as we please about 
 cultivation and plenty ; but I must honestly confess I never 
 before saw anything but the faint glimmerings of it, com- 
 pared with this land, where nature seems ambitious of 
 doing everything for herself. The people, who are ex- 
 tremely numerous, are, for the most part, amply employed 
 in the gathering and storing of fruits. Methinks, without 
 any great poetic license, it is somewhat probable, when 
 Bacchus made his rounds of the earth, that his head- 
 quarters must have been in one of the valleys of Burgundy, 
 where, on every side, mountain peeps over mountain, and 
 appears clothed in the varied hues of the vine, interspersed 
 with sheep and corn. This, and the crowds of busy con- 
 tented people, who cover the whole face of the country, 
 make a strong but melancholy contrast to a miserable isle 
 which I cannot help thinking of sometimes you will not 
 be at a loss to know that I mean Ireland." 
 
 At Rome, Barry found letters awaiting him, containing 
 the agreeable assurance that his " Alexander and the 
 Potion," which he had presented to Burke, was pro- 
 nounced by Reynolds correct in drawing, and in expression 
 just and noble. In the lustre of colouring Barry never 
 excelled, and the President was silent concerning that 
 matter ; he counselled, however, the constant study of 
 Michael Angelo ; to the Sistine Chapel the young painter 
 hastened accordingly, and the following are some of his 
 observations : " The deep knowledge of the ancients in 
 anatomy, is, I think, as observable in the Apollo and the 
 Antinous, as it is in the Laocoon and the Torso, whose 
 flesh is of a more rigid texture : and the disappearing of 
 the muscles as the figure approaches the delicate, is the
 
 BARRY. 337 
 
 consequence of as certain observations and principles as 
 their introduction would be in a figure of a different cha- 
 racter. The knowledge, freedom, and greatness of style 
 in drawing, are, I think, the only part of the character of 
 Michael Angelo which has been well understood. It has 
 been, and is every day observed, that notwithstanding the 
 number of figures in " The Last Judgment," there is but 
 one character of body, placed in a vast diversity of atti- 
 tudes, the model of which is said to have been his porter. 
 It is not so literally the case, though I believe he might 
 have intended it, in conformity to a prevailing opinion that 
 at the Resurrection all bodies will be of the same age and 
 character. I do not think the expression of countenance, 
 either in him or Raphael, indicates in a very clear and par- 
 ticular manner, the intentions and state of mind of the 
 persons to whom this countenance is given." 
 
 His letters, his conversation, his skill in drawing, his 
 enthusiasm and poetic imagination, had raised high ex- 
 pectations in the minds of English friends. They thought 
 with satisfaction of the rich opportunities now before him, 
 and of the use such a man must make of them but, un- 
 fortunately, controversy was his chief delight ; and of this 
 he soon found enough to satisfy a whole academy. It 
 happened that Rome, at this period, was visited by one of 
 those gentlemen who, with a little income, a little learning, a 
 little knowledge of art, and a full capacity for speech, wander 
 from gallery to gallery, delivering opinions upon works of 
 genius with a confidence which passes with the world for the 
 offspring of refined taste and profound knowledge. Against 
 this person the Irish impetuosity of Barry precipitated 
 him at once. " As he is a man of great civility," thus he 
 writes to Burke, " I never would have thought of contra- 
 dicting him, had I not seen clearly into the drift and 
 tendency of his frequent hints of the incapacity of the 
 people at Rome, and that a nod from him would set his 
 dependents to tear up and trample on everything we hold 
 sacred. Reynolds could not draw his colouring was 
 white, was blue, was red, was everything that would damn 
 him ; he stole what he had, and mangled what he stole. 
 Gainsborough's landscapes were mere nosegays ; and West,
 
 338 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 who was so much the fashion, afforded a convincing proof 
 that drawing was not sought after, and that a true idea 
 of art was wanting." 
 
 To confute such a sweeping censure as this, Barry could 
 bring knowledge and sense ; but he was deficient in that 
 courtesy and graciousness of manner which takes the sting 
 out of contradiction. He was vehement, and he was in- 
 censed : nor did he seek to conceal his indignation ; the 
 consequences are clearly described by his own pen : " I 
 had no sooner attempted to excuse our artists from these 
 aspersions but I was immediately pointed out as a per- 
 son who, not coinciding with the designs of the dealers, 
 might be dangerous in the company of English cavaliers, 
 where it was necessary every now and then to run into 
 praises of an indifferent antique head, with a modern body 
 and legs cobbled to it, or of an old picture, which they 
 christen in the name of this or that master, and which 
 has no other merit but that as nothing is visible, nothing 
 can be objected to it. As the English have much money 
 to lay out in virtu, and as they have perhaps a greater 
 passion for the ancients than they have, generally speak- 
 ing, judgment to distinguish among them, those in whose 
 hands they fall here, and to whom their commissions are 
 sent, take care to provide heads with bodies and legs, and 
 vice versa. Fragments of all the gods are jumbled to- 
 gether, legs and heads of fairies and graces, till a monster 
 is produced. Though for the most part intrigue and 
 mercenary ways are prevalent here, truth is never without 
 a witness." 
 
 All this was honest, intrepid, and imprudent. His 
 fame was yet to make, and his character was much in 
 those men's power, and he was made to feel it. Sly old 
 antiquarians cunningly inveigled him into conversation, 
 and exhibited him to the English travellers as, heated with 
 controversy he threw his sarcasms, right and left, among 
 all who sold and all who purchased busts without heads 
 and daubings of the dark masters. This consumed his 
 time, took his attention from study, and invaded that tran- 
 quillity of mind which is so necessary for all noble pursuits. 
 In the midst of these distractions, a long and friendly
 
 BARRY. 339 
 
 letter from Sir Joshua Reynolds sought to reclaim him 
 from disputation, and bind him heartily to Michael Angelo 
 and Raphael. " If you should not relish their works at 
 first," said the President, " which may probably be the case, 
 as they have none of those qualities which are captivating 
 at first sight, never cease looking till you find something 
 like inspiration come over you, till you think every other 
 painter insipid in comparison, and to be admired only for 
 petty excellencies." 
 
 Barry failed to discover in the compositions of these 
 illustrious masters the entire proportion, and grace, and 
 simplicity, of the Grecian sculpture. He was too ardent 
 in his nature to keep this belief to himself ; he preached 
 this unheard-of heresy in Rome, with the fervour of a 
 devotee ; and thus unbosomed himself to Burke. " I see," 
 he said, " in no part of Raphael's works, any figure that 
 I may call truly and correctly beautiful, like the Antinous, 
 or the Venus of Medici or any that is truly good, like the 
 bust of Alexander or sublime, like the Apollo. As to 
 the Torso, the Laocoon, and such like characters, he ap- 
 pears not at all qualified to succeed in them. As to his 
 cartoons, and his pictures in the Vatican, they may be 
 more expressive of the passions, and may be more correct 
 in a mediocrity of character a little more than that which 
 comes into any of those works, or .even into his transfigu- 
 ration. Michael Angelo appears still less near the standard 
 than Raphael. He is infinitely above Raphael in knowledge 
 and correctness, yet his ostentation and show of this, and 
 Raphael's art of concealing with choice of subject and 
 pleasing well- wrought draperies his want of it, bring 
 them nearly to a level, at least with the bulk of mankind ; 
 yet I rather believe fewer people have attained Michael 
 Angelo's merits than Raphael's, though no one has come 
 near Raphael upon the whole." 
 
 Barry loved simple beauty of form. Reynolds admired 
 the splendid effects of light and shade. The former saw 
 and worshipped in the marbles of Greece a severe and 
 dignified grandeur, all attained without startling attitudes 
 or violent motion : the latter discovered the perfection of 
 art in the profuse draperies, imposing effects, and quiet
 
 340 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 grace of Angelo and Raphael. These two men were in 
 their natures essentially dissimilar, and looked upon the 
 works of the great masters with very different eyes. How 
 Sir Joshua received the account of Barry's heresy con- 
 cerning Michael Angelo we are not informed, but we 
 gather from a letter addressed to him soon afterwards, 
 that Barry was unwilling to be suspected of coldness or 
 indifference concerning the glories of the Sistine Chapel. 
 But poor Barry was an indifferent dissembler : his rap- 
 tures were felt to be artificial : the President shrugged 
 his shoulders, as was his custom, and never advised him 
 more. 
 
 In the third year of his residence in Rome he made an 
 excursion to Naples. " At Nitri, a miserable little town 
 in the Neapolitan territory," he says in one of his letters, 
 " are monuments which gave me heartfelt pleasure. One 
 is a piece of raw hide, a little bruder than the sole of the foot, 
 tied on in the manner of the ancient sandal. I bought a pair 
 of them, which I will put on, to show you the villany of our 
 cursed Gothic shoes, which by the line which the termina- 
 tion of the upper leather makes upon the stocking, cuts 
 off the foot from the leg, and loses that fine idea of one 
 limb which is kept up in this vestige of a sandal. Another 
 monument is the manner of tying up the hair of the 
 women. I gave one of them money made drawings of 
 it loosed it, and made drawings again so that I know 
 everything about it, and shall be of great use to the ladies 
 when I come home. Blessed be the poverty of this people, 
 and long may it continue to their posterity ! it has pre- 
 served to them, though in a state of ignorance, the elegant 
 notions of their forefathers ; it has kept it out of their 
 power to flaunt about after the deliriums and new-fangled 
 whims of fashionable people in great cities ; and you shall 
 not be able in your Londons, your Parises, and Romes, to 
 cull me out such an object as one of these women standing 
 near a fountain, with her sweet, antique-formed vase on 
 her head. At Naples also is to be seen the same way of 
 tying up the hair as in many bustos the cloth which lies 
 across it in other heads of antiquity, and the reta, net, or 
 cap, inclosing all ; and even without quitting the vulgar
 
 BARRY. 341 
 
 women of Naples, I will show you amongst them all the 
 different head-dresses of the Nine Muses. I find the love 
 of antiquity growing upon me every day." 
 
 After a brief interval, fatigued with studying from the 
 antique, with discovering resemblances between the dresses 
 of the Italian rustics and the classic costume of Attica, 
 and with gazing on Titian, whom he at this time preferred 
 to all painters of these latter days Barry once more 
 sought amusement in disputes with fellow artists, and in 
 hostile bickerings with wandering virtuosi and pedestrian 
 picture-dealers. Burke had long been sensible of this 
 grievous infirmity in his friend's temper, and in a series of 
 eloquent and affectionate letters, endeavoured to soothe 
 down his rugged spirit, and sugar over the bitterness of 
 his nature. It was all in vain. " You have given," thus 
 writes Burke, " a strong, and, I fancy, a very faithful 
 picture of the dealers in taste with you. It is very right 
 that you should know and remark their little arts : but as 
 fraud will intermeddle in every transaction of life, where 
 we cannot oppose ourselves to it with effect, it is by no 
 means our duty or our interest to make ourselves uneasy, 
 or multiply enemies on account of it. In particular, you 
 may be assured that the traffic in antiquity, and all the 
 enthusiasm, folly, or fraud, which may be in it, never did, 
 nor ever can, hurt the merit of living artists ; quite the 
 contrary, in my opinion ; for I have ever observed that 
 whatever it be that turns the minds of men to anything 
 relative to the arts, brings artists more and more into 
 credit and repute; and though now and then the mere 
 broker and dealer in such things runs away with a great 
 deal of the profit, yet in the end ingenious men will find 
 themselves gainers by the dispositions which are nourished 
 and diffused in the world by such pursuits. I praise ex- 
 ceedingly your resolution of going on well with those 
 whose practices you cannot altogether approve there is no 
 living in this world upon any oilier terms." 
 
 If Barry ever formed the resolution of living on terms 
 of peace with these men of virtu, his intractable temper 
 soon broke it. He was now, by his own account, become 
 so fastidious in his taste that even Titian could no longer
 
 342 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 please him lie looked with scorn upon all works below 
 his own air-drawn standard of excellence, and regarded, 
 and addressed with sarcastic displeasure, all, " whose gods 
 were not his gods." It was his misfortune that he uni- 
 formly fancied himself the conqueror in these uncivil 
 debates : hence a growing belief that the time must come 
 when there- would be a reaction of popular feeling in 
 favour of one who had braved martyrdom in the cause of 
 honesty in picture dealing. He acknowledged, meantime, 
 the influence of his enemies in that sensitive part, the 
 pocket, and said they had made his profession unprofitable 
 which he lamented, not on his own account, but for the 
 sake of his benevolent friend Burke. " It has been a real 
 grief to me," he writes to his patron, " that I could not 
 contribute to lighten the expenses your good-nature and 
 generosity have led you into for me. I have nothing to 
 say on my own behalf, but that I shall carry myself so, 
 both as a man and an artist, as never to bring a blush on 
 your face on my account." He imagines, however, that 
 the uncivility of his opponents had done him some service, 
 by confirming him in the resolution of playing a high 
 game in art, and he even attributes to their malice the 
 great progress he is making in his studies. " I saw from 
 the beginning that I was hated and hated for the very 
 dispositions I relied upon to recommend me. I saw every 
 avenue shut up from me by their power and industry, 
 except the glorious one of my profession, so I went seriously 
 to work and left to them the cavaliers and the wasting 
 away of their time, in dressing up phantoms and distorted 
 macaronies in my name." 
 
 It must be confessed that Barry looked upon life with 
 strange eyes. " Out of the nettle danger he loved to 
 pluck the flower safety." By living at dagger's drawing 
 with his brethren, he avoided the expense, he said, of treats 
 and taverns : and to their satiric comments upon his co- 
 louring, he owed, he declared, his knowledge of the merits 
 of Titian ! Having unconsciously done him these favours, 
 his enemies commenced an attack upon him personally. 
 " This," he says, with a smile, " was more in their power, 
 for though the body and the soul of a picture will discover
 
 BARRY. 343 
 
 themselves on the slightest glance, yet you know it could not 
 be the same with such a pock-pitted hard-featured little 
 
 fellow as I am so that I shall be surprised if you 
 
 have not been frightened with the terrible accounts given 
 of me." The answer of Mr. Burke to all this is marked 
 by his uncommon qualities of head and heart it shows 
 intimate knowledge of the world and its ways, and a per- 
 fect appreciation of the failings and excellencies of the 
 singular person to whom it is addressed. The date is 
 London, 16th September, 1769. 
 
 " As to reports, my dear Barry, concerning your con- 
 duct and behaviour, you may be very sure they would have 
 no kind of influence here ; for none of us are of such a make 
 as to trust to anyone's report for the character of a person 
 whom we ourselves know. Until very lately I have never 
 heard anything of your proceedings from others ; and 
 when I did, it was much less than I had known from my- 
 self that you had been upon ill terms with the artists 
 and virtuosi of Rome, without much mention of cause or 
 consequence. If you have improved these unfortunate 
 quarrels to your advancement in your art, you have turned 
 a very disagreeable circumstance to a very capital advan- 
 tage. However you may have succeeded in this uncom- 
 mon attempt, permit me to suggest to you, with that 
 friendly liberty which you have always had the goodness 
 to bear from me, that you cannot possibly always have the 
 same success, either with regard to your fortune or your 
 reputation. Depend upon it that you will find the same 
 competitions, the same jealousies, the same arts and cabals, 
 the emulations of interest and of fame, and the same agi- 
 tations and passions here that you have experienced in 
 Italy ; and if they have the same effect on your temper, 
 they will have just the same effects on your interest ; 
 and be your merit what it will, you will never be allowed 
 to paint a picture. It will be the same at London as at 
 Rome, and the same in Paris as in London ; for the 
 world is pretty nearly alike in all its parts ; nay, though 
 perhaps it would be a little inconvenient to me, I had a 
 thousand times rather you should fix your residence in 
 Rome than here, as I should not then have the mortifica-
 
 344 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 tion of seeing with my own eyes, a genius of the first rank, 
 lost to the world, himself and his friends, as I certainly 
 must, if you do not assume a manner of acting and think- 
 ing here totally different from what your letters from 
 Rome have described to me. That you had just subjects 
 of indignation always, and of anger often, I do noways 
 doubt ; who can live in the world without some trial of 
 his patience ? But, believe me, my dear Barry, that the 
 arms with which the ill-dispositions of the world are to 
 be combated, and the qualities by which it is to be recon- 
 ciled to us, and we reconciled to it, are moderation, gentle- 
 ness, a little indulgence to others, and a great deal of 
 distrust of ourselves ; which are not qualities of a mean 
 spirit, as some may possibly think them, but virtues of a 
 great and noble kind, and such as dignify our nature as 
 much as they contribute to our repose and fortune ; for 
 nothing can be so unworthy of a well-composed soul as to 
 pass away life in bickerings and litigations ; in snarling 
 and scuffling with everyone about us. Again and again, 
 my dear Barry, we must be at peace with our species, if 
 not for their sakes, yet very much for our own." 
 
 The conclusion of this memorable letter seems dictated 
 by a species of inspiration, which, looking mournfully and 
 prophetically forward, expressed in a few, clear, and elo- 
 quent words, the disastrous career of the object of all this 
 solicitude. 
 
 " Think what my feelings must be, from my unfeigned 
 regard for you, and from my wishes that your talents 
 might be of use, when I see what the inevitable conse- 
 quences must be of your persevering in what has hitherto 
 been your course ever since I knew you, and which you 
 will permit me to trace out to you beforehand. You will 
 come here : you will observe what the artists are doing : 
 and you will sometimes speak disapprobation in plain 
 words, and sometimes in no less expressive silence : by 
 degrees you will produce some of your own works. They 
 will be variously criticised : you will defend them : you 
 will abuse those who have attacked you : expostulations, 
 discussions, letters, possibly challenges, will go forward 
 you will shun your brethren they will shun you. In
 
 BARRY. 345 
 
 the mean time gentlemen will avoid your friendship, for 
 fear of being engaged in your quarrels : you will fall into 
 distress, which will only aggravate your disposition for 
 further quarrels ; you will be obliged, for maintenance, to 
 do anything for anybody ; your veiy talents will depart 
 for want of hope and encouragement, and you will go out 
 of the world fretted, disappointed, and ruined. Nothing 
 but my real regard for you could induce me to set these 
 considerations in this light before you. Remember, we 
 are born to serve and to adorn our country, and not to 
 contend with our fellow-citizens and that, in particular, 
 your business is to paint, and not to dispute." 
 
 It really appears that Barry imagined himself all this 
 while one of the meekest beings that ever studied the 
 antique. The fear of some, and the hatred of others, he 
 imputed to any cause save his own headlong impetuosity 
 of temper ; nay, he actually seems to have supposed that 
 his scornful sallies and sarcastic criticisms, would be re- 
 ceived with thankfulness, since they sprung from nothing 
 but zeal for the benefit of art. From the first day of his 
 appearance in Eome, he took the station of a judge, and 
 delivered opinions with the intrepidity of one grown grey 
 in study and in fame. All this in a young man of three 
 or four and twenty, who could not as yet appeal to the 
 excellence of his own works as his warrant, was not likely 
 to be received with gratitude, particularly by a prover- 
 bially thin-skinned and irritable tribe. Yet he never con- 
 ceived he was to blame, and wrote down art as largely his 
 debtor for candour and boldness. He defied the world, 
 but he defended himself to Burke. " Your friendship is, 
 I think, as visible in the warm picture you have drawn of 
 my contentious disposition, as in any other part of your 
 generous conduct towards me ; but then shall I assure you 
 that I am not that censorious inspector and publisher of 
 the defects of other artists ? No ; you know me better, 
 notwithstanding what you have said, and I know, whether 
 from my vanity or my virtue, if I have any, you will never 
 meet with an artist more warm and just to the merit of 
 h'S brethren, or more inclined to overlook their deficiencies 
 than I am."
 
 346 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 A charge of a graver nature than infirmity of temper, 
 after having long been whispered about in professional 
 coteries has lately been set forth in Mr. Smith's Life of 
 Nollekens. " Barry, the historical painter," says this 
 writer, " who was extremely intimate with Nollekens at 
 Rome, 1 took the liberty one night, when they were about 
 to teave the English Coffee-house, to exchange hats with 
 him. Barry's hat was edged with lace, and Nollekens' 
 was a very shabby plain one. Upon his returning the hat 
 next morning, he was requested by Nollekens to let him 
 know why he left him his gold-laced hat. ' Why, to tell 
 you the truth, my dear Joey,' answered Barry, ' I fully 
 expected assassination last night, and I was to have been 
 known by my gold-laced hat.' This villanous transaction, 
 which might have proved fatal to Nollekens, I have often 
 heard him relate, and he generally added, ' It's what the 
 Old Bailey people would call a true bill against Jem.' " 
 
 Such is Smith's story ; and it is well known to many 
 that Nollekens often related it but nevertheless we must 
 receive it with distrust and suspicion. Barry was fierce, 
 sullen, and sarcastic, but I cannot believe him capable of an 
 atrocity. At all events he was not a fool and that he 
 should put the life of an innocent man in jeopardy at 
 night to save his own, and in the morning acknowledge 
 his guilt so gaily to his intended victim, appears incredible. 
 The story must have originated in some practical joke 
 some betting speculation, perhaps, upon the well-known 
 weakness of Nollekens. No one who knew Barry could 
 believe him guilty of conduct at once so base and so absurd ; 
 and indeed the sculptor appears to have sufficiently re- 
 futed the serious interpretation of his own story, by pro- 
 moting the interests and defending the cause of Barry in 
 the Royal Academy, when all others had forsaken him. 
 
 Barry had now remained five years in Rome. 2 He had 
 
 1 From his. letters it would not appear that Barry was intimate with 
 Nollekens at Rome. He says, in one written in November, 1767 : "We 
 have some sculptors here, too, amongst whom is a Mr. Nollekens, an 
 Englishman, who is extremely well at copying the antique." ED. 
 
 2 Only four years. He went to Rome in the autumn of 1766, and 
 was back in London in 1770. ED.
 
 BARRY. 347 
 
 examined, and studied, and copied those works on which 
 the world had set the seal of approbation. Nor had he 
 laboured for subsistence, for the munificence of Burke 
 and his brothers had placed him above want ; he was 
 requested to draw upon them for such sums as he might 
 require beyond his stated allowance of fifty pounds a year. 
 He had, in short, laid in an ample stock of knowledge ; 
 and was now about to return to England, to carry his ac- 
 quirements into practice. Something like misgivings from 
 time to time came across his mind ; he had doubts of 
 final success, and even fears, now and then, that he might 
 have, after all, mistaken the proper course of study, and 
 bowed to unprofitable gods. " Oh, I could be happy," he 
 very movingly says, " on my going home, to find some 
 corner, where I could sit down in the middle of my studies, 
 books, and casts after the antique to paint this work and 
 others, where I might have models of nature when neces- 
 sary, bread and soup, and a coat to cover me ! I should 
 care not what became of my work when it was done ; but 
 I reflect with horror upon such a fellow as I am, and with 
 such a kind of art, in London, with house rent to pay, 
 duns to follow me, and employers to look for. Had I 
 studied art in a manner more accommodated to the nation, 
 there would be no dread of this." 
 
 On the 22nd of April, 1770, he left Rome, and proceeded 
 to examine the principal galleries which lay in his way 
 home. His memorandums are numerous, and all marked 
 by his peculiarity of character, and idolatry of the antique. 
 The Venus and Apollo had blinded him to all other excel- 
 lence. " I am arrived," said he, " at that unlucky pass, 
 that nothing will go down with me but perfection, at least 
 in some one of the grand essentials of a picture. In Turin 
 I saw the Royal Collection of Pictures ; but, except one or 
 two by Guido, which I did not like, all the rest are Flemish 
 and Dutch. Rubens, Rembrandt, Vandyke, Teniers, and 
 Schalken, are without the pales of my church ; and though 
 I will not condemn them, yet I must hold no intercourse 
 with them. God help you, Barry, said I, where is the use 
 of your hairbreadth niceties and your antiques ? Behold 
 the hand-writing upon the wall against you. In the country
 
 348 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 to which you are going, pictures of lemon-peels, oysters, 
 and tricks of colour, are in as nuich request as they are 
 here." There were moods, nevertheless, in which he felt 
 the difficulty of judging wisely of a work of genius, and 
 he spoke truly when he said, " One painter is a very im- 
 proper person to give an account of another that is out of 
 the pale of his school ; they must think of one another as 
 the Catholics and Calvinists do all without-doors is 
 damnation." 
 
 He reached Milan. He was unnoticed and unknown ; 
 his enemies were far behind ; and he seemed in a fair way 
 of returning to London in tranquillity and peace. But 
 even here controversy fell in his way, and he embraced it. 
 The Medusa's head of Leonardo da Vinci with its gloomy 
 brow, watery eyes, and looks full of agony had gained 
 that eminent painter a place in Barry's esteem, and he 
 went to pay a visit to his celebrated " Last Supper." His 
 own account of what followed is too characteristic to be 
 omitted, and too dramatic to be abridged. 
 
 " When I came into the Reffetorio I found a scaffold 
 erected, which on ascending I saw one-half of the picture 
 covered by a great cloth. On examining the other part 
 that was uncovered, I found the skin of colour which com- 
 posed the picture to be all cracked into little squares of 
 about the eighteenth of an inch over, which were for the 
 most part in their edges loosened from the wall and curl- 
 ing up : however, nothing was materially lost. I saw that 
 the picture had been formerly repaired in some few places ; 
 yet as this was not much, and as the other parts were un- 
 touched, there was nothing to complain of. The wonder- 
 ful truth and variety of the expressions, so well described 
 by Vasari and Rubens, and the admirable finesse of finish 
 and relievo taken notice of by Armineni, were still re- 
 maining. Whilst I was examining this part of the picture, 
 two gentlemen came upon the scaffold, and drew aside the 
 cloth which covered the other half, which, to my great 
 horror and astonishment, was repainted. One of those 
 men was at great pains to show the vast improvements 
 the picture was receiving by this repainting; but the 
 repainting and the discourse so kindled my indignation,
 
 BARRY. 349 
 
 that I was no longer master of myself. ' What, Sir,' said 
 I, ' is it possible you do not perceive how this painter 
 if I can call him painter has destroyed the picture in 
 every part on which he has laid his stupid hands ? Do not 
 you see that this head is distorted and out of drawing, 
 that there is no longer significance or expression in it, that 
 all his colouring is crude, and wants accord ? Do, Sir, 
 open your eyes, and compare it with the other half of the 
 picture, which he has not as yet buried under his cursed 
 colours.' He answered me, that this was only a dead 
 colour, and the painter was to go over it a second time. 
 V 0, confusion!' said I, 'so much the worse. If he has 
 thus lost his way whilst he was immediately going over 
 the lines and colours of Leonardo's work, what will become 
 of him when he has no longer any guide, and is left blind 
 and abandoned to his own ignorance ? ' And turning my- 
 self to two friars of the convent who stood by, ' Fathers,' 
 said I, ' this picture and the painter of it have suffered 
 much by the ignorance of your order. It was white- 
 washed over some years ago ; it has been again hurt in 
 washing off the white ; and now you have got a beast 
 to paint another picture upon it, who knows no more of 
 the matter than you do yourselves. There was no occasion 
 for thus covering it over with new colours : it might easily 
 be secured hi those parts that are loosening from the wall, 
 and it would stand probably as long as your order will.' 
 The friar told me that he did not understand those mat- 
 ters, and that he spoke but very little Italian that he was 
 Irish, and that it was by order of the Count de Firmian, 
 who was secretary of state, that this picture was repainted. 
 ' Indeed, then, countryman,' said I, ' the world will be very 
 little obliged to Count de Firmian : it were to be wished, 
 and it will be for the honour and interest of your convent, 
 if you can prevail upon the Count to spare at least what 
 is remaining of the picture, and take down the scaffold 
 immediately.' " 
 
 Of his five years' occupation abroad, a very general 
 account must be rendered. Much of his time was con- 
 sumed in this sort of warfare ; a little was given to a very 
 ingenious inquiry into the origin of Gothic architecture,
 
 350 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 and to the collection of those historical materials which 
 he afterwards used in his refutation of Winkelmann ; but 
 many hours, doubtless, were devoted to the proper objects 
 of his professional study. His ardent spirit enabled him 
 to master much in a little while ; and he seems to have 
 examined all that was worth examination with care and 
 attention. He observed, however, no method in his studies ; 
 his hours of attending the galleries were dictated by chance ; 
 and his mode of copying, by means of a delineator, enabled 
 him to store away the works he liked at a cheap rate ; his 
 brethren called it mechanical and unartist-like they might 
 have added that he was stealing rather than acquiring. 
 The hand of a master may trace by a mechanical process 
 that of a student must work, if it is to work to purpose, 
 by the unaided eye. Barry outlined all the fine antique 
 statues in this manner. The only copies in oil which he 
 made were some few which he sent to Burke, and the only 
 original pictures which he painted were the " Adam and 
 Eve," and the " Philoctetes." He was, at this time, as slow 
 and fastidious in his art, as he was rash and precipitate in 
 his temper. 
 
 On his arrival in England, he was warmly welcomed by 
 Burke ; and the first picture which he exhibited was not 
 unworthy of one who aspired to revive the faded lustre of 
 historic painting. He measured himself at once with the 
 most lovely of all Grecian productions, and painted " Venus 
 Rising out of the Sea." This picture is allowed, by friends 
 and foes, to be an exquisite one : but he painted it in vain ; 
 it excited no lively sympathy no fresh emotion ; the 
 subject had been exhausted by sculptors and painters 
 by loftier minds and happier hands. It was received with 
 cold approbation. 1 Having shown his skill in the graceful 
 
 1 It obtained for him, however, his election as Associate of the Royal 
 Academy, and in the following year he was made full Member. I have 
 not been able to find out where the original of this picture now is, but 
 his etching of " The Birth of Venus " gives one a sufficient idea of his 
 treatment of this classical subject. Anything more unclassical and 
 hideous it is difficult to conceive. Venus an ugly, thickset doll 
 stands stiffly in an open scallop-shell held by a god, while three mermen, 
 without the slightest expression of any kind on their faces, look on at the 
 curious phenomenon,. It is altogether a fearful and wonderful work. ED.
 
 BARRY. 351 
 
 and lovely, he desired next to grapple with what is called 
 the grand style, and painted his " Jupiter and Juno" 
 a work better conceived than executed, exhibiting much 
 majesty of outline, and no little deficiency in colour. 
 But what were Jupiter and Juno to the public of 1773 ? 
 The great artists of Greece and Italy wrought in the spirit 
 of their age and country ; they sought at home for subjects 
 of high character, yet familiarly known. But the heathen 
 gods on Barry's canvas appealed to no popular sympathy 
 to no national belief to no living superstition : the mob 
 marvelled what they meant, and the learned had little to say. 
 Some kind and clever friend perceived this public apathy, 
 and endeavoured to supply a stimulus in the " Morning 
 Post." He classed the "Jupiter and Juno" with the high his- 
 torical works, and claimed for Barry a large portion of the 
 genius necessary for elevating British art. Of the great ar- 
 tists of Italy he says justly : " Poetry warmed their imagina- 
 tion ; history informed them of facts, and philosophy taught 
 them causes ; they felt the uses derived from these studies, 
 and knew that a more thorough knowledge only enables 
 a man to think more justly. Possessed of great natural 
 powers, and having thus cultivated them, they did not 
 fearfully hesitate, and observe only through the medium 
 of another man's prejudices, but boldly and independently 
 exerted their own faculties they made use of their own 
 eyes to see their own imaginations to conceive with, and 
 were regulated by their own informed judgments and 
 fixed upon a ground so firm, their works were sublime, 
 just, and original." But those great painters did one thing 
 and Barry did another. They, like the Greeks before 
 them, set their imaginations to work upon subjects for 
 which there was a market Religion called Art to her aid, 
 and the most eloquent of Romish divines never illustrated 
 her legends with the spirit and grandeur of this auxiliary. 
 To this view of the subject, Barry obstinately shut his eyes, 
 and fared accordingly. Those who disliked his " Jupiter 
 and Juno," dwelt upon incorrect drawing and defective 
 colouring. In a work appealing more directly to the 
 public feeling, a work of half the talent would have ob- 
 tained high praise.
 
 352 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 The " Adam and Eve," which he painted in Italy and 
 finished in London could not be objected to on these 
 grounds. But the subject, simple as it seems, exacts 
 more from art than art can readily bestow. To imagine 
 two beings, new created and pure, and fresh from the hand 
 of the Almighty fashioner, requires the " faculty divine" 
 of a Milton ; and to embody in lineament and colours this 
 more than mortal vision, would ask the hand of a Eaphael. 1 
 It was the misfortune of Barry to choose subjects of sur- 
 passing beauty, where success was the most difficult, and 
 failure sure to be the most injurious. 
 
 We may guess how he felt on this somewhat cold recep- 
 tion of works which he had more, than insinuated would 
 bring back the antique art of historic painting amongst 
 us. We know what he did he left Olympus, and the 
 bowers of Eden, and painted the " Death of Wolfe in the 
 battle of Quebec." While he was busy with this picture, 
 the whisper spread that he had seen the error of his ways, 
 and, in short, forsaken classic severity of character, and 
 poetic freedom of costume, for the actual faces and dresses 
 of the day. It was at length finished and exhibited. A 
 combat of naked men astonished the multitude, who knew 
 all the regiments engaged, and the cut of their regimen- 
 tals. It was neither a poetic interpretation of the fight, nor 
 an historical illustration, but a sort of mixture of both, 
 hastily conceived and indifferently executed, and only re- 
 deemed from contempt by the sentiment of heroism which 
 triumphed in the looks of the expiring general. In sub- 
 jects of a poetic nature, fancy may clothe as she pleases 
 her own progeny ; but in historic productions, the time and 
 the people must be expressed. The soldiers of George II. 
 might as well have been represented fighting those of 
 Louis XV. on elephants' backs, as in the nakedness of 
 the Lapithse. Barry, who had shortly before been elected 
 an Associate of the Royal Academy, was so much offended 
 with the way in which this picture was hung or talked 
 
 1 This work, the property of the Society of Arts, is now at South 
 Kensington, where those who like can judge of it for themselves. I 
 refrain from offering any criticism. ED.
 
 BARRY. 353 
 
 about by his brethren that he never sent another work to 
 their exhibition. 
 
 Poverty was now a sore enemy to his peace the muni- 
 ficence of Burke maintained him at Rome, but now the 
 means of life were to be raised by his pencil, and on 
 nothing that his pencil produced had patronage as yet 
 smiled. His parents, with whom his correspondence seeni 
 to have been but casual, were not in a condition to render 
 him assistance. Dr. Sleigh, his early friend, was dead. 
 The ungainliness of his manners, the caustic sharpness of 
 his remarks, and his sudden resentments, repelled those 
 who were willing to serve him. He listened to the good 
 counsel of Burke with growing impatience nor was he 
 long in making even that friend of friends feel the fierce- 
 ness of his nature. 
 
 He had always professed a strong aversion to portrait 
 painting : some ascribed this to envy of Reynolds, others 
 to his own want of skill in that line of art ; and Dr. 
 Brocklesby, wishing to break the spell, requested Burke 
 to sit to Barry. Barry agreed ; but he had his own pecu- 
 liar notions of the etiquette to be observed in a painter's 
 studio, and moreover was in a mood approaching to ill- 
 humour with Burke for his intimacy with Reynolds. 
 Burke called repeatedly to commence the sittings for his 
 portrait, but pre-engagements were pleaded, and a day's 
 notice was demanded more as a matter of form, it would 
 seem, than of necessity. His patience failed him, and In 
 wrote the following letter : " It has been very unfortunate 
 for me that my time is so regularly occupied that I can nevi'r 
 with certainty tell exactly beforehand when I shall be disen- 
 gaged. I waited on you exactly at half an hour after clever. , 
 and had the pleasure of finding you at home ; but, as usua., 
 so employed as not to permit you to undertake this dis- 
 agreeable business. I have troubled you with this letter, 
 as I think it necessary to make an excuse for so frequent, 
 and importunate intrusion. Much as it might flatter my 
 vanity to be painted by so eminent an artist, I assure you 
 that, knowing I had no title to that honour, it was only in 
 compliance with the desire, often repeated, of our common 
 friend, that I have been so troublesome." 
 A A
 
 354 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 It is to the honour of Barry that this letter touched him 
 deeply. He disliked, indeed, its air of distant courtesy 
 and its ironical tone, but Burke had been kind when friends 
 were few and much needed, and he was unwilling to lose 
 him, as well he might. " What am I to understand from 
 all this," was his answer, " surely there must be something 
 hi your mind, what is it ? I should be glad to know in 
 its full extent, and permit me to say that I ought not to 
 be left in ignorance of any matter that is likely to make 
 a breach between us. As to Dr. Brocklesby's picture, it 
 is a miserable subject to be made the ground of a quarrel 
 with me. I will paint it, as I always was earnestly inclined 
 to do, when I can get a sitting upon the terms that are 
 granted to all other painters. I only begged the notice of 
 a day beforehand, and you well know that much more is 
 required by others, and from the very nature of the thing 
 it must be evident that business cannot be carried on 
 without it." 
 
 The reader may be curious to learn how such contro- 
 versies are carried on between a touchy artist and a fasti- 
 dious sitter. Burke again wrote to assure Barry that he 
 had no wish to offend him, nor was it from any vanity 
 that he desired to be painted, but merely to oblige Dr. 
 Brocklesby. He had sat for his portrait five times twice 
 in little, and three times in large, and had always gone to 
 the easel without giving previous notice. " A picture of 
 me," he observed, " is now painting for Mr. Thrale, by Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds, and in this manner, and in this only. I 
 will not presume to say that the condescension of some 
 men forms a rule for others. I know that extraordinary 
 civility cannot be claimed as a matter of strict justice. In 
 that view, possibly, you may be right. It is not for me to 
 dispute with you. I have ever looked up with reverence 
 to merit of all kinds, and have learned to yield submission 
 even to the caprices of men of parts. I shall certainly 
 obey your commands, and send you regular notice when- 
 ever I am able." 
 
 This idle and uncalled-for debate terminated creditably 
 for both in reconciliation and renewal of friendship. 
 Barry was ashamed of his obstinacy, and Burke relented
 
 BARRY. 355 
 
 towards one whom the world was not using according to 
 his merits. The portrait, which caused the " angry paiie," 
 was finished soon afterwards, and was considered a good 
 likeness, and a skilful work. In this lucrative line of art, 
 he might, no doubt, have obtained distinction, if he could 
 have surmounted his reluctance to commence limner of the 
 population at large. But the poetic feeling of Barry re- 
 fused all sympathy with sordid looks and vulgar costume, 
 and he was content to starve in the service of that Muse, 
 who, 
 
 " With rapt soul sitting in her eyes," 
 
 desired him to be daring, and to think only of lofty 
 themes. 
 
 His next cabinet pictures "Mercury inventing the 
 Lyre," and "Narcissus admiring himself in the Water" 
 were much admired among the imaginative. The latter 
 owed its existence to a conversation with his illustrious 
 friend, during the sittings for his portrait. " On what 
 works of fancy are you employed now ? " said Burke. " On 
 this little slight thing," said Barry, holding up the pic- 
 ture ; " it is young Mercury inventing the Lyre. The 
 god, you know, found a tortoise shell at break of day on 
 the sea-shore, and fashioned it into a fine instrument of 
 music." " I know the story," replied Burke, " such were 
 the fruits of early rising he is an industrious deity, and 
 an example to man. I will give you a companion to it 
 Narcissus wasting time looking at himself in the fountain 
 an image of idleness and vanity." The Narcissus was 
 painted, thrown aside, and lost the Mercury is a sweet 
 and classic production perhaps one of the happiest of the 
 painter's works. The god stands on the sea-shore, with 
 the shell of a tortoise in his hand, listening to the sound 
 which one of its extended fibres has emitted to the touch 
 of his finger. The future instrument dawns upon his 
 mind and Cupid, inspired with the same thought, pre- 
 sents him with an additional string, which he has plucked 
 from his bow. 
 
 The thoughts of Barry dwelt ever on magnificent under- 
 takings, and he imagined that grandeur and sublimity
 
 356 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 resided only in scenes of vast extent. He believed too that 
 the Reformed as well as the Romish Church required the 
 aid of art to illustrate its tenets, and animate its devotees 
 a dream in which the painters of the British school have 
 persisted for a century. He heard, therefore, with undis- 
 sembled joy, of the proposal to embellish the cathedral of 
 Saint Paul, with paintings of a scriptural nature, corre- 
 sponding in dimensions with its dome and its panels, and 
 he hastened to offer his services, with the hope of seeing 
 the splendour of the Sistine rivalled in London. He thus 
 writes concerning it to the Duke of Richmond : " The 
 Dean and Chapter have agreed to leave the ornamenting 
 of St. Paul's to the Academy, and it now rests with us to 
 give permission to such painters as we shall think qualified 
 to execute historical pictures of a certain size, I believe 
 from fifteen to twenty feet high. We also intend to set 
 up a monument there Pope is mentioned the sculptor 
 is to be paid by subscription, and a benefit from the play- 
 house. I proposed this matter to the Academy about a 
 year since, a little after my being admitted an associate, 
 and I had long set my heart upon it, as the only means for 
 establishing a solid manly taste for real art, in place of our 
 contemptible passion for the daubing of inconsequential 
 things, portraits of dogs, landscapes, &c. things which 
 the mind, which is the soul of art, having no concern in 
 them, have hitherto served to disgrace us all over Europe." 
 It is in his own house that the Englishman has set up the 
 images which he loves to worship. The annual multitudes 
 of paintings, all of a social and domestic character, which 
 the Academy exhibits, are to be viewed with respect, since 
 they bear witness to the general cultivation of home-bred 
 happiness ; but Barry regarded all such compositions as 
 no better than unblushing indications of insular stupidity. 
 He resolved to lend no countenance to this domestic heresy 
 in art, and determined to endure every privation in the 
 exaltation of his profession. " I have taken great pains," 
 he said, " to fashion myself for this kind of Quixotism : to 
 this end I have contracted and simplified my cravings and 
 wants, and brought them into a very narrow compass." 
 There is no doubt but he would have enjoyed all the luxury
 
 BARRY. 357 
 
 of privation, had he painted a few twenty-feet square pic- 
 tures for the cathedral of St. Paul's, since they were to be 
 done at the proper cost, not of the church, but of the 
 Academicians. The subject which Barry selected, was the 
 Jews rejecting Christ when Pilate intreated his release 
 he probably made no progress in the sketch, and allowed 
 the picture to lie embodied in his imagination till the 
 sanction of the hierarchy should let his pencil loose. 
 
 The obstinacy of the Bishop of London, to which we 
 have already alluded, made all this enthusiasm vain ; and 
 great and stormy was Barry's indignation. 
 
 While the project concerning St. Paul's was yet in sus- 
 pense, he found time to execute his " Chiron and Achilles," 
 a work of classical beauty and simplicity which was pur- 
 chased by Mr. Palmer at the singular rate of twenty 
 guineas per figure. This mechanical mode of calculation 
 seems to have been the artist's own invention, for in a 
 letter to the Duke of Eichmond, concerning a picture which 
 his grace had commissioned, there occurs the following 
 characteristic passage : " My finances are pretty low at 
 present; therefore, if your grace should think proper to send 
 me any part of the price of the picture, it would come very 
 opportunely. I count upon six figures in it, and I had 
 twenty guineas a figure for the picture I sold to Mr. Pal- 
 mer, of Chiron and Achilles." The answer of the noble- 
 man is in keeping with Barry's letter : " If I recollect 
 right," said his grace, " the picture of Stratonice has but 
 four capital figures in it, the other two being only com- 
 panions ; however, I do not mean to value the picture by 
 the number of figures. On the other side of this paper I 
 send you a draft on my banker for a hundred guineas, 
 which I should hope you will think a sufficient price for 
 the picture ; but if you do not, I will immediately send 
 yon another draft for twenty more." How this controversy 
 concluded, I can. find no account probably unfavourably 
 for the pocket of the painter. 
 
 When the Bishop of London at length rejected the offer 
 of the Royal Academy, it occurred to the Society for the 
 Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce, 
 that they might avail themselves of this spirit of liberality,
 
 358 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 and have their rooms at the Adelphi covered by the sur- 
 plus talent of the land, free of all expense. The passions 
 of the painters, like those of the poet, seemed raging like 
 so many devils to get vent in historic composition, and 
 Yalentine Green, the Secretary of the Society, was autho- 
 rized to open the doors of the great rooms of the Adelphi 
 for their accommodation : but ere this happened the Aca- 
 demy had taken another view of the matter, and they 
 refused the offer. Barry, whose hopes had been raised 
 high, was deeply grieved at this second disappointment ; 
 he imagined that he saw in it the extinction of all his 
 dreams, and that the grand historic style had bowed its 
 supremacy for ever before that domestic idol, portraiture. 
 Having failed in painting the nation into a love of the 
 historic art, he resolved to make a last effort, and, if pos- 
 sible, write them into it : and hence his " Inquiry into 
 the Real and Imaginary Obstructions to the Progress of 
 Art in England." 
 
 A work of this sort had been long in his fancy. It 
 was suggested while he was at Home by the ignorant 
 taunts of foreigners, that the genius of the British isles 
 was too cold for works of fine imagination. Talent had 
 been set down in the strange theories of Montesquieu and 
 Winkelmann as the product of latitude, and the ardent 
 fancy and delicacy of feeling which went to the composi- 
 tion of noble works, were compared to vines, which, pro- 
 ducing rich, large, and luscious clusters in the sunny vales 
 of France and Italy, yield only small, sour, and starveling 
 bunches in the cold, moist climate of England. The " In- 
 quiry " of Barry had a twofold purpose : the refutation of 
 these visionaries, and a vindication of his own theory, that 
 art, before it could be honourable to England, required to 
 devote itself fully to historic composition. 
 
 His answer to Winkelmann was triumphant, if the vic- 
 tory which common sense obtains over absurdity can be 
 called a triumph. He refused all help from scientific 
 reasoning, and proved, by the evidence of history, that 
 whatever influence the sun might have on the fruits of the 
 earth, the rise, the glory, and degradation of nations had 
 come from moral causes, in which neither climate nor
 
 BARRr. 359 
 
 season had any share. In Greece the warmth of the sun 
 was ever the same, and the recurrence of the seasons also ; 
 corn, wine, and oil, all excellent in their kinds, had been 
 produced during all periods, and are now produced, yet the 
 fine arts are extinguished, and national capacity gone. If 
 Greece had her day of glory, the same had happened to 
 modern Italy her long line of illustrious artists had come 
 to an end ; yet the land yielded as richly as ever its annual 
 crop of fruit. Having crushed the principle on which this 
 exclusive system of genius is founded, he handled with in- 
 dignant vigour the insulting inference that the capacity of 
 England was unequal to high art. He claimed superiority 
 for the British in works of mental grandeur and loftiness 
 of imagination, and pointed out Spenser, and Shakespeare, 
 and Milton, as abounding in the finest pictures, and in the 
 noblest and loveliest images of beauty. 
 
 Of a work, which may be considered as the first literary 
 production of the Royal Academy, the offspring of a mind 
 full of knowledge, and animated by more than common 
 enthusiasm, it may be proper to transcribe some specimens. 
 " It is a misfortune (says Barry) never entirely to be re- 
 trieved, that painting was not suffered to grow up amongst 
 us at the same time with poetry and the other arts and 
 sciences, whilst the genius of the nation was yet forming 
 its character in strength, beauty, and refinement : it would 
 have received a strength and a polish, and it would, in its 
 turn, have given to our poetry a greater perfection in one 
 of its master-features, in which, Milton and Spenser ex- 
 cepted, it is rather somewhat defective. But the nation is 
 now formed, and perhaps more than formed, and there is 
 cause to fear that it may be too late to expect the last 
 degree of perfection in the arts, from what we are now 
 likely to produce in an age when, perhaps, frothy affecta- 
 tions, and modish, corrupt, silly opinions of foreign as well 
 as of domestic growth, have but too generally taken place 
 of that masculine vigour and purity of taste so necessary 
 both for the artist and for his employer. Let us suppose 
 ever so many fortunate circumstances to concur in lead- 
 ing an artist into such a tract of study, among old stones 
 and old canvas, as that he may be able to assimilate the
 
 M60 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 pure, rigid, beautiful, simple taste of the Greeks and the 
 old Italians with his own substance and observations on 
 nature ; yet afterwards, if he should unfortunately hap- 
 pen to find that the era of those qualities has either not 
 arrived, or is long since passed away, amongst the people 
 who are, generally speaking, to be his employers, and that 
 they have but little of that grandeur of idea and elevation 
 of mind which will encourage him in the pursuit of extra- 
 ordinary things, what is he to do ? His great advantages 
 over meaner artists will infallibly lie by, mouldering away 
 through disease, and he must content himself with a con- 
 test of little value, mere matters of execution." 
 
 He laments, like a greater man, that he has come an 
 hour too late, and fallen on evil and ignorant times, when 
 common transcripts of nature and fine colours were 
 triumphing over historic art ; and he imputes the dis- 
 couragement of native works of genius to the admiration 
 of all that is of foreign growth to the ignorant enthu- 
 siasm of the rich, who, while pouring out their money and 
 their praise on the rubbish and offal of the easel, devoutly 
 believed they were buying and worshipping Raphael. Ti- 
 tian, and Correggio. His words are strong, and near the 
 truth : " Artful men, both at home and abroad, have not 
 failed to avail themselves of this passion for ancient art, as 
 it afforded a fine coverlet for imposition for vending in 
 the names of those great masters, the old copies, imita- 
 tions, and studies of all the obscure artists that have been 
 working in Italy, Flanders, and other places for two hun- 
 dred years past. These things are to be had in great 
 plenty, and may be, as I have often known at Rome, bap- 
 tized ' first thoughts,' ' second thoughts, with alterations,' 
 ' duplicates,' and what not. It would be endless to give an 
 account of all the various ways in which our antiquaries 
 and picture-dealers, both at home and abroad, carry on the 
 business of imposition. The Pope and the States of 
 Venice, and other Italian communities, have set their seals 
 upon all pictures worth keeping, and not one can be moved 
 by means of either persuasion or bribery. This ill-fated 
 country ef ours is, therefore, crammed with nothing but 
 rubbish from abroad, and our artists at home must neces-
 
 BARRY. 361 
 
 sarily, to avoid risking the displeasure of their patrons, 
 favour this mockery and cheat put upon them. The absurd 
 abuse of our love of art is the disgrace of our country and 
 age ; it has long lain like a dead weight upon the loins of 
 national improvement." 
 
 The audacious honesty of this eminent man conspired 
 against his success in art : he talked and wrote down the 
 impressions of his pencil. Having satirized the great dry- 
 nurses of British art, whose cold and ungenial bosoms 
 froze infant excellence to death, he thus handles the living 
 painters themselves : " There are, to be sure, but few 
 artists whose personal interests happen to be embarked in 
 the same bottom with the dignity of the art, and conse- 
 quently with the interests of the public, but there are a 
 few ; and as for the many, who have no part in this exer- 
 tion of superior art, they ought in conscience to content 
 themselves with the greater profits which in this commer- 
 cial country must ever follow the practice of the lower 
 branches, especially as they cannot expect to keep up for 
 ever the false weight and importance which they have as- 
 sumed in consequence of those greater gettings. It is, 
 therefore, to be hoped that they will no longer find it 
 practicable to play the part of the dog in the manger as 
 they have hitherto done, for, indeed, a great many of the 
 blocks and impediments thrown in the way of superior art, 
 have been owing to the secret workings and machinations 
 of those interested men." 
 
 All this added new enemies to the old ; nor am I sure 
 that Barry's limited theory of excellence in art is at all 
 just. Scenes of historic or religious grandeur ought no 
 more to retain the exclusive monopoly of the pencil than 
 of the pen. The poetry of the nation has given an echo 
 to every cord of feeling. The love of woman, and the 
 courage of man, look hardly less beautiful in the minstrel's 
 humble song than in the loftiest epic. We grow satiated 
 with the clangour of the trumpet, and long for the breath- 
 ing of the lute ; and were the whole earth planted with 
 roses of Sharon and lilies of the valley, such is the desire 
 of human nature for variety that we would grow weary of 
 w ilking amidst perfume, and sigh for the thistle and the
 
 362 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 daisy, the harebell and the heather. The monotony which 
 the artist recommends, though a monotony of excellence, 
 would tire us at last. We would long for humbler things 
 for scenes in which all could sympathize for fireside 
 looks and familiar faces. 
 
 Having disposed of all inferior painters, cunning con- 
 noisseurs, and tricky antiquarians, he turned to the religion 
 of the land with some bitterness. " Where religion," says 
 he, " is affirmative and extended, it gives a loose and an 
 enthusiasm to man's fancy, which throws a spirit into the 
 air and manners, and stamps a diversity, life-quickness, 
 sensibility, and expressive significance over everything 
 they do. In another place, religion is more negative and 
 contented : being formed in direct opposition to the first, 
 its measures are regulated accordingly ; much pains are 
 taken to root out and remove everything that gives wing 
 to the imagination, and so to regulate the outward man by 
 a torpid, inanimate composure, gravity, and indifference, 
 that it may attend to nothing but the mere acts of neces- 
 sity, everything else being reputed idle and vain. Men so 
 formed had as few words as buttons ; the tongue spoke 
 almost without moving the lips ; and the circumstances of 
 a murder were related with as little emotion as an ordinary 
 mercantile transaction. Some kinds of religion appear to 
 be the graves of art, of genius, of sensibility, and of all the 
 finer and more spiritual parts of the human faculties: 
 other religions have been the nurse and the mother of 
 them ; they have embraced all the arts ; poetry, painting, 
 music, architecture, and every effort of ingenuity were 
 employed in giving a force and a furtherance to their 
 views." 
 
 Barry looked upon the Pope as a President, and upon 
 the Romish church as the Queen of Academies. To an 
 ardent proselyte of the Catholic system, painting appeared 
 a lawful auxiliary ; and as an artist he was willing to be- 
 lieve it a most efficient one ; but he spoke like a painter, 
 though he spoke with much knowledge, for he had con- 
 sidered every subject which art either aids or adorns. 
 
 Dissertations on the fine arts were uncommon ; popular 
 affection had not been so fully awakened as to enable the
 
 BARRY. 363 
 
 multitude to understand and feel the importance of this 
 memorable work. It had the repulsive aspect of a contro- 
 versial treatise ; and was coldly received by all, save a 
 coterie of artists and antiquarians, who were stung by its 
 satiric energy. I am afraid I must impute to this produc- 
 tion, in some degree at least, the ultimate estrangement of 
 his best and greatest friend. It was no longer " My dear 
 Barry," and your " faithful friend, Edmund Burke ;" cor- 
 respondence was carried on through the frosty medium of 
 the third person, and there was now no overflowing warmth 
 either of affection or advice. A sort of diplomatic civility 
 took the place of kindness ; and Barry had to learn the 
 melancholy task of addressing an old and tried friend in 
 the language of mere acquaintance. To continue on inti- 
 mate terms with one so fierce of nature, it was necessary to 
 become his partisan : he expected those who loved him 
 should share his griefs, and resent whatever he thought 
 worthy of resentment. To become Barry's friend was like 
 being a second in a duel of old, when both principals and 
 seconds drew their swords and fought the quarrel out. 
 Into disputes with a rich and influential body of men, 
 Burke was likely to be slow in precipitating himself : he 
 felt that his friend Reynolds was a sufferer from the pen 
 and tongue of Barry, and he was glad to retire to such a 
 distance as gave him the power to remain neuter in these 
 unhappy contests. Intercourse, both personally and by 
 letter, continued between them : it never more resumed 
 the affectionate cordiality of earlier years. 
 
 A gradual change had taken place both in the person 
 and the temper of Barry. He neglected his dress, lived 
 sullenly and alone, and held intercourse with few of those 
 men who influence the fame and fortune of artists. He 
 seemed ever in a reverie, out of which he was unwilling 
 to be roused. The history of his life is the tale of splendid 
 works contemplated and seldom begun ; of theories of art, 
 exhibiting the confidence of genius and learning ; and of a 
 constant warfare, waged against a coterie of connoisseurs, 
 artists, and antiquarians, who ruled the realm of taste. 
 Tne nigh distinction which he claimed, as follower of the 
 grand style, rendered it necessary, he imagined, that he
 
 364 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 should vindicate his title. To think and to act were mat- 
 ters of the same moment with one so enthusiastic. He 
 determined to offer his pencil to the Society of Arts ; and 
 applied for permission to adorn their great room with a 
 series of historical paintings, all from his own hand, and 
 wholly at his own expense. When he made this mag- 
 nificent offer, he had but sixteen shillings in his pocket, 
 and was aware that, if it were accepted, he must have to , 
 steal time from sleep to supply him with the means of life. 
 He was willing to lie hard, live mean, and dress coarsely, 
 with the hope of being heard of hereafter : he was truly 
 one of those ardent spirits who hunger and thirst after 
 distinction, and whom the narrow and the sordid reproach, 
 as idle dreamers and fantastic enthusiasts. " I thought 
 myself bound (he says) in duty to the country, to art, and 
 to my own character, to try whether my abilities would 
 enable me to exhibit the proof as well as the argument." 
 The Society gave prompt permission : he stipulated for 
 nothing but the free exercise of his own judgment, free 
 admission at all times to his undertaking, and that the 
 necessary models should be provided for him without ex- 
 pense. 
 
 He had now " ample room and verge enough" to exhaust 
 his powers of imagination, and exhibit all his knowledge 
 and skill. The subject which he selected for illustration 
 was " Human Improvement," presenting a succession of 
 varied pictures of society. He divided the whole into six 
 compartments. " We begin," said the artist, describing 
 his own conceptions, " with man in a savage state, full of 
 inconvenience, imperfection, and misery, and we follow him 
 through several gradations of culture and happiness, which, 
 after our probationary state here, are finally attended with 
 beatitude or misery. The first is the ' Story of Orpheus ;' 
 the second, ' A Harvest Home, or Thanksgiving to Ceres 
 and Bacchus ;' the third, ' The Victors at Olympia ;' the 
 fourth, ' Navigation, or the Triumph of the Thames ;' the 
 fifth, ' The Distribution of Premiums in the Society of 
 Arts ;' and the sixth, ' Elysium, or the State of Final 
 Retribution.' Three of these subjects are poetical ; the 
 others historical." He commenced these works in 1777,
 
 BARRY. 365 
 
 and finished them in 1783.' A short description may not 
 be unacceptable. 
 
 The first picture represents Orpheus as the founder of 
 Grecian civilization, uniting in one character the legislator, 
 divine, philosopher, poet, and musician. He stands in a 
 wild and savage country, surrounded by people as unculti- 
 vated as their soil, to whom, as messenger of the gods, he 
 is pouring out his song of instruction, accompanied by the 
 music of the lyre. The hearers of this celestial delegate 
 are armed with clubs, and clad in the skins of wild beasts ; 
 they have courage and strength, by which they subdue 
 lions and tigers ; but they want wisdom for their own pro- 
 tection and for that of their offspring. In illustration of 
 this a matron is seen, at a little distance from the door 
 of her hut, milking a goat, while her children are about 
 to become the prey of a lion ; two horses are run down by 
 a tiger ; and a damsel, carrying a dead fawn, leans on the 
 shoulder of her male companion. " I wished to glance," 
 said the painter, " at a matter often observed by travellers, 
 which is, that the value and estimation of women increase 
 according to the growth and cultivation of society, and 
 that amongst savage nations they are in a condition little 
 better than the beasts of burden." In the distance, 
 Ceres descends on the world ; and by the side of Orpheus 
 lie paper, an egg, a bound lamb, and materials for sacri- 
 fice. 
 
 The second piece exhibits a dance of youths and maidens 
 round the terminal figure of Pan. On one side appears the 
 father of the harvest feast, with a white staff or rustic 
 
 1 " I began the work here exhibited in July, 1777 " he writes in his 
 pamphlet ; " and although I was without patron, fortune, or encourage- 
 ment, without wages to subsist on, and with no other assistance to carry 
 it on than what I was to derive from any other occasional works that 
 might fall in my way, with only these to rely on, and with a clear 
 foresight of the many vexatious delays and difficulties that would na- 
 turally happen, as well as of the underhand, malevolent attentions from 
 a certain quarter [he meant the .Royal Academy, with which he had 
 already quarrelled] which had continually followed me, and which I 
 well knew would not be wanting industriously to embroil and embitter 
 mutters on this occasion ; yet I have to thank God for it that, in the 
 main, the work went on pleasantly enough." ED.
 
 366 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 sceptre in his hand, accompanied by his wife ; on the other 
 is a group of peasants, carousing amid rakes and ploughs, 
 and fruits and flowers ; while behind the whole, two oxen 
 are seen drawing a load of corn to the threshing-floor. 
 Ceres, Bacchus, and Pan overlook from the clouds this 
 scene of innocent festivity. A farm-house, with all its in- 
 door and out-door economy is there. Love, too, and mar- 
 riage mingle in the scene ; children abound ; rustic games 
 are not forgotten ; and aged men repose on the ground, 
 applauding sports in which they can no longer participate. 
 
 The third picture the crowning of the victors in the 
 Olympian games shows the judges seated on a throne, 
 bearing the likenesses of Solon, Lycurgus, and other legis- 
 lators, and trophies of Salamis, Marathon, and Thermopylae. 
 Before them pass the victors crowned ; people are crowd- 
 ing to look on them. The heroes, poets, sages, and philo- 
 sophers of Greece are present. Pindar leads the chorus ; 
 Hiero, of Syracuse, follows in his chariot ; Diagoras, the 
 Ehodian, is borne round the stadium on the shoulders of 
 his victorious sons ; Pericles is seen speaking to Cimon ; 
 while Socrates, Anaxagoras, and Euripides listen, and Aris- 
 tophanes laughs and scoffs. 
 
 The fourth piece descends to modern times, and the 
 scene is laid at home. The Thames triumphs in the pre- 
 sence of Drake, Ealeigh, Cabot, and Cook. Mercury, as 
 Commerce, accompanies them ; and Nereids are carrying 
 articles of manufacture and industry. Some of these 
 demi-celestial porters are more sportive than laborious, 
 and others still more wanton than sportive. As music is 
 connected closely with all matters of joy and triumph, 
 Burney, the composer, accompanies Drake and Ealeigh, 
 and cheers them with his instrument. 
 
 The fifth picture is a meeting of the members of the 
 Society of Arts, discoursing on the manufactures, com- 
 merce, and liberal pursuits of the country, and distributing 
 the annual premiums. It is an assemblage of the chief 
 promoters of the institution, male and female, with the 
 gratuitous addition of Johnson and Burke. 1 
 
 1 This forms a marvellous anti-climax. From Orpheus singing to his 
 lyre, to George IV. distributing the prizes of the Society of Artsl
 
 BARRY. 367 
 
 The sixth picture is a view of Elysium. Mental Cul- 
 ture conducts to Piety and Virtue, and Piety and Virtue 
 are rewarded by Immortal Happiness. In a picture forty- 
 two feet long, the artist had room for the admission of 
 many of the great and the good of all nations. Greece and 
 Rome, France, Italy, and England, supplied him largely ; 
 and he has endeavoured to bring together the chief of their 
 distinguished sons in one connected group, over which a 
 splendour is shed from between the wings of angels. 1 
 
 Those who have examined these extraordinary works 
 will hardly dispute that the artist grappled with a subject 
 too varied, complicated, and profound for the pencil. The 
 moral grandeur of the undertaking, and the historical 
 
 Could there be further progression ? Even the background of this pic- 
 ture has its significance. In it Barry has introduced a view of the interior 
 of St. Paul's, decorated with his own sketch of the " Fall of Lucifer," 
 with which he had proposed to adorn that edifice. Culture might even 
 have reached so far had this work been permitted to the artist. ED. 
 
 1 Of this vast work it is difficult to speak, for one cannot help feeling 
 as though its great aim ought to silence criticism of its defective execu- 
 tion. To read the description of " this sublime picture," as given in the 
 octavo pamphlet which was sold in the room at the time of the exhi- 
 bition, one would imagine that human genius had never before attained 
 to such a height ; but when one comes to compare the description with 
 the painting the whole seems one intricate puzzle which the written key 
 only makes the more difficult. When Archimedes, Galileo, Sir Isaac 
 Newton, " regarding with awe and admiration a solar system," are jumbled 
 with Columbus, Lord Shaftesbury, Marcus Brutus, William Moly- 
 neux, Aristotle, Zeno, Harvey, Alfred the Great leaning on the shoulder 
 of Penn, Trajan and Edward the Black Prince, Charles I., Lord Arundel, 
 Moliere, Homer, Pope, Mendelssohn, Sir Christopher Wren, Rubens, 
 Hogarth, Apelles, Raphael, Dilrer, Giotto, and a hundred others, taken 
 as it seems at first in the same wild haphazard, it is difficult to under- 
 stand the "order of their going." Yet the catalogue assures us that 
 there is a method in all this seeming madness, and that from the 
 " system of systems at the top of the picture, where the fixed stars, con- 
 sidered as so many suns each with his several planets, arc revolving 
 round the Great Cause, and cherubim veiled with their wings are offer- 
 ing incense to that invisible and incomprehensible Power," to the some- 
 what grotesque and mediieval rendering of Tartarus or Hell, all has its 
 meaning and due harmony, and serves to teach that " man's present and 
 future happiness, individual as well as public, depends on the cultiva- 
 tion and proper direction of the human faculties." High doctrine, 
 but better taught, as one learns from these gigantic failures, by simpler 
 means. ED.
 
 368 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 associations which it awakened, together with the room 
 which it afforded for the display of imagination, imposed 
 upon the ardent and indiscriminating Barry, and he pro- 
 bably began 
 
 " With desperate charcoal round the darken 'd walls " 
 
 of the Adelphi, in the belief that the subject would unfold 
 and brighten upon him by degrees. But the sunrise of 
 knowledge, and the full day of art and science, involved 
 discoveries and inventions which painting could not well 
 find shape nor colour to express. The fault of the work 
 lies in the subject : he that runs cannot read, and he who 
 reads cannot always understand. The description, by 
 Barry's own pen, opens the secret somewhat : without it 
 these six pictures, instead of presenting one continual 
 story simple in conception and unembarrassed in detail 
 would appear like so many splendid riddles. The grand 
 style (which our artist thought to revive) is the simplest of 
 all, and can be comprehended without comment. 
 
 That Jonas Hanway left a guinea instead of a shilling, 
 for his admission to see the Adelphi pictures that John- 
 son beheld " a grasp of mind in them which he could find 
 nowhere else "and that Townley declared they were 
 "composed upon the true principles of the best paintings," 
 are sayings and doings sufficiently notorious, and which 
 have had and will have their weight with the world. Nay, 
 Lord Aldborough wrote to the artist such praise as I am 
 half afraid to transcribe. " When I return to town, I shall 
 again and again visit these unequalled performances ; they 
 will stand the comparison of the past and the test of future 
 ages for originality of design, instruction, colouring, energy 
 and disposition of figure, and judgment and success in the 
 invention and execution. You have taken in all the per- 
 fections, combined all the qualities of Raphael, Titian, 
 Guido, and the most celebrated artists of the Grecian and 
 Roman schools; and your literary works prove that you 
 possess all the liberal arts as well as painting ; and reflect 
 equal honour on the age we live in, as shame on this coun- 
 try for the want of due encouragement. My house and 
 fortune are at your service till your fortune equal your
 
 BARRY. 369 
 
 abilities." I know not what answer was returned to this 
 splendid offer. 
 
 On those six pictures Barry spent six years instead of 
 three, which he had originally contemplated a miscalcu- 
 lation that involved him in many diffculties, out of which 
 he strove to extricate himself by uncommon frugality, 1 self- 
 denial, and labour during the periods he should have re- 
 served for repose. He gave his day to the Adelphi, and 
 much of his night to hurried drawings and hasty engrav- 
 ings, by the profits of which he sustained life. " He has 
 recorded some of his prints," says Dr. Fryer, " as done at 
 this time such as his 'Job,' 'Birth of Venus,' 'Head of 
 Lord Chatham,' ' King Lear.' Many lighter things were 
 done at the pressure of the moment, and never owned." 
 During the progress of the work he began to perceive, and 
 perhaps to feel, the approaches of want ; and to keep this 
 adversary of genius at bay, he applied to Sir George Saville 
 a leading member of the Society of Arts to communicate 
 his situation to his brethren, and by a small subscription 
 enable him to exist till he had finished the undertaking. 
 The appeal was in vain. Nay, he experienced some diffi- 
 culty in obtaining that allowance for models and colours 
 for which he had expressly stipulated, and was subjected 
 to the official insolence of the acting secretary. The Society 
 afterwards reflected that it would be injurious to allow a 
 man to starve whom they might have to bury, and they 
 accordingly kept his soul and body together first, by two 
 donations of fifty guineas each, and the gift of a gold 
 medal, and, lastly, two hundred guineas at the conclusion 
 of the work. 
 
 That Barry was very proud of his performance may be 
 easily believed. " It will be exceedingly hard," he says, 
 in his celebrated letter to the Dilettanti Society, " if the 
 benefit of the laws should be withheld from the painter of 
 such a work as that on Human Culture ; which, for public 
 interest and ethical utility of subject for the castigated 
 purity of Grecian design for beauty, grace, vigorous effect 
 
 1 He told Blake that while he was painting these pictures he lived 
 chiefly on bread and apples. Ki>. 
 
 B B
 
 370 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 aud execution stands so successfully in the view and 
 neighbourhood of the so justly celebrated Orleans collec- 
 tion." There were many to smile at the absurdities of 
 some parts of the Six Pictures, who could not feel the 
 depth of mind which sought to unite them into one har- 
 moniotis whole. To see the River Thames carried by Tri- 
 tons, and Dr. Burney in the costume of the year 1778 
 playing a tune to Drake and Raleigh, excited laughter. 
 " 1 am by no means pleased," said a Dowager, putting her 
 fan before her face, " to see good Dr. Burney with a parcel 
 of naked girls dabbling in a horse-pond." A young lady 
 from the north, of great beauty and wit, went to take 
 a look at the painter's Elysium. She looked earnestly 
 for a while, and said to Mr. Barry, " The ladies have not 
 yet arrived in this Paradise of yours." " O, but they have, 
 madam," said the painter, with a smile ; " they reached 
 Elysium some time ago ; but I could find no place so fit 
 for creatures so bright and beautiful as behind yon very 
 luminous cloud they are there, and very happy, I assure 
 you." 
 
 As a relief from the toil of this extensive work, he took 
 up his pen, and in a long and able description and disser- 
 tation maintained the excellence both of the subject he 
 had chosen, and the way in which he had handled it. This 
 performance, amidst all its knowledge and eloquence, has 
 a strong infusion of bitter feeling ; the allusions to those 
 who grow rich and important in pursuing the more sordid 
 branches of art, are frequent and sharp. " Mr. Barry's 
 exhibition," writes Dr. Johnson, " was opened the same 
 day, and a book was published to recommend it, which, if 
 you read, you will find decorated with some satirical stric- 
 tures of Sir Joshua Reynolds and others. 1 have not 
 escaped. You must think with some esteem of Barry for 
 the comprehension of his design." These sarcasms of 
 Earry produced a letter bearing in every line the mental 
 impress of Edmund Burke ; it was universally ascribed to 
 his pen, though to this moment unacknowledged. The 
 imagination, the vigour of thought, the varied knowledge 
 and skill of hand which the six pictures displayed, are at 
 the out-sot admitted ; and then the critic quits the canvas
 
 BARRY. 371 
 
 to fall sharply upon the dissertation. Barry had bpoken 
 with levity or irreverence of the art of portrait-painting ; 
 he had drawn a distinction between the poetic and the 
 merely imitative, which separated them as far as the south 
 is from the north. Burke urges the propriety of uniting 
 both in historic composition, thus: 
 
 " Without the power of combining and abstracting, the 
 most accurate knowledge of forms and colours will produce 
 only uninteresting trifles ; but without any accurate know- 
 ledge of forms and colours, the most happy power of com- 
 bining and abstracting will be absolutely useless ; for there 
 is no faculty of the mind which can bring its energy into 
 effect unless the memory be stored with ideas for it to 
 work upon. These ideas are the materials of invention, 
 which is only a power of combining and abstracting, and 
 which, without such materials, would be in the same state 
 as a painter without canvas, boards, and colours. Experi- 
 ence is the only means of acquiring ideas of any kind, and 
 continued observation and study upon one class of objects 
 the only way of rendering them accurate. The painter 
 who wishes to make his picture what fine pictures must 
 be nature elevated and improved must first of all gain 
 a perfect knowledge of nature as it is. Before he endea- 
 vours, like Lysippus, to make men as they ought to be, 
 he must know how to render them as they are ; he must 
 acquire an accurate knowledge of all parts of their body 
 and countenance. To know anatomy will be of little use, 
 unless physiology and physiognomy are joined with it, so 
 that the artist may know what peculiar combinations and 
 proportions of feature constitute different characters, and 
 what effect the passions and affections of the mind have 
 upon those features. This is a science which all the 
 theorists in the world cannot teach, and which can only be 
 acquired by observation, practice, and attention. It is not 
 by copying antique statues, or by giving a loose to the 
 imagination in what are called poetical compositions, that 
 artists will be enabled to produce works of real merit, but 
 by a laborious and accurate investigation of nature upon 
 the principles observed by the Greeks first, to make 
 themselves thoroughly acquainted with the common forms
 
 372 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 of nature, and then, by selecting and combining, to form 
 compositions according to their own elevated conceptions. 
 This is the principle of true poetry, as well as of painting 
 and sculpture." 
 
 The ease and elegance with which these important truths 
 are expressed will be felt by many who are not perhaps 
 aware that it was the theory, as it was the practice of 
 Barry, to extract all that is noble in art from all that is 
 elevated in nature. The shafts of his satire were directed 
 against the regular manufacturers of portraits ; but he 
 nowhere insinuates that imagination may fly its own free 
 flight, or that poetic art is anything else than purified 
 nature. He endeavours to distinguish between painters 
 who can counterfeit only such faces as live before them, 
 and those of the higher order, described so well by Sir 
 Philip Sydney, " who, having no law but wit, bestow that 
 in colours upon you which is fittest for the eye to see as 
 the constant, though lamenting look of Lucretia, when she 
 punished in herself another's fault; wherein he painteth 
 not Lucretia whom he never saw but painteth the out- 
 ward beauty of such a virtue." It was the fashion of the 
 day to claim the honours of historical art for portraiture, 
 and Burke's letter could not be unacceptable to Reynolds, 
 whose practice the Dissertation of Barry was obviously 
 designed to impeach. 
 
 Penny, Professor of Painting, dying in 1782, Barry was 
 elected in his place ; and as this elevation happened during 
 the intensest period of his labour upon the Six Pictures, 
 he was unable for nearly two years to prepare a proper 
 course of Lectures the man who had to work ten hours 
 a day for fame, and four hours for bread, was not likely to 
 have much time to spare for works of advice or instruction. 
 Reynolds, as President, made some allusion to this un- 
 seemly delay on the part of the new Professor : he was 
 answered with great asperity by the imprudent Barry : 
 " If I had no more to do in the course of my Lectures than 
 produce such poor mistaken stuff as your Discourses, I 
 should soon have them ready for reading." It is reported 
 that these intemperate words were uttered with his fist 
 clenched, and in a posture of menace.
 
 BARRY. 373 
 
 At length, on the second day of March, 1784, he de- 
 livered his first lecture on painting. Much was looked for 
 from his knowledge and talents ; and the audience was 
 very numerous and very attentive. Barry's manner was 
 eager, his utterance impressive, and, on the whole, expec- 
 tation was not disappointed. 
 
 Of these Lectures he delivered six : they embrace all that 
 is included in the word Art, and discuss with abundance 
 of boldness the threefold mystery of conception, composi- 
 tion, and colour. They are the echo of his letters and of 
 his conversation : their one great object being to impress 
 on the minds of the students the utter vanity of all art 
 below the historical. As literary compositions they exhibit 
 neither strict propriety of expression, nor perfect develop- 
 ment of thought; but these defects are far more than 
 atoned for by an earnest feeling for whatever is noble in 
 art, and that readiness of illustration which can only arise 
 from extensive and matured knowledge and rapid appre- 
 hension. They are throughout deformed by sarcastic allu- 
 sions to modern works and living artists. Barry was a 
 man of severe deportment, who seldom smiled, and con- 
 ceived a jest beneath the dignity of human nature ; his 
 sarcastic remarks, therefore, were expressed and uttered 
 with a deep and cutting air of solemnity " he placed his 
 life," as the poet says, " in the wound." The turbulent, 
 uneasy, fierce temper of the man was ever and anon break- 
 ing out nor is it possible to deny that envy was occasion- 
 ally the inspiration of his periods. His Lectures spared 
 few of his more successful brethren, and could not, there- 
 fore, be expected to pass over the President himself, who 
 was observed, it is said, to avoid the pelting of the storm 
 of invective by moving the trumpet from his ear, and even 
 seeking refuge in a real or pretended nap. Of those un- 
 gracious allusions Reynolds often complained, and sarcas- 
 tically excused his freqxient nodding by saying that he 
 fell asleep only at the personalities. Nor did Barry him- 
 self in after-life look back upon them with pleasure. " Sii 
 Joshua, to say the truth," he observed (but this was when 
 Sir Joshua waa no more), "acted somewhat weakly with 
 respect to me; and, on the other side, I was much to blame
 
 374 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 with respect to him. My notions of candour and liberality 
 between artists who were friends were too juvenile and ro- 
 mantic for human frailty in the general occurrences of life. 
 Disappointed in not finding more in Sir Joshua, I was not 
 then in a humour to make a just estimate of the many 
 shining qualities I might have really found in him." 
 
 Critics were not wanting who found personalities in his 
 paintings as well as in his lectures. In the emaciated limb 
 which belongs to the garter of one whom he precipitates 
 into Tartarus in the Adelphi Paintings, some one detected 
 the noticeable leg of a nobleman who had given grievous 
 offence to the artist. He defended himself with warmth. 
 " What I particularly valued in my work," he said, " was 
 a dignity, seriousness, and gravity infinitely .removed from 
 all personality." As he had admitted his friends freely to 
 the joys of Elysium, it continued to be supposed that he 
 was very capable of pushing his enemies as unceremo- 
 niously into Tartarus. 
 
 Barry thought so well of the Adelphi Series that he re- 
 solved to engrave them, and accordingly began to etch them 
 on copper with his own hand. 1 But he was unequal to an 
 undertaking which required nice delicacy of finish; and his 
 subscribers were astonished when the rough offspring of 
 his graver were put into their hands. They had expected 
 something, probably, superior to the works of mere en- 
 gravers ; and one of them expressed surprise at the coarse- 
 ness of the workmanship. " Pray, sir," said Barry, " can 
 you tell me what you did expect?" "More finished en- 
 gravings, sir," was the answer. Nollekens recommended 
 them to his patrons, and these were not few ; but Barry 
 was not always disposed to be thankful for acts of kind- 
 ness. The sculptor, a blunt, straightforward man, without 
 any sense of delicacy, offended the painter's pride by call- 
 
 1 His engravings, of which there is a good collection in various stat.d 
 at the British Museum, are powerful and unhesitating, but careless and 
 coarse in execution. His work upon them involved sheer manual labour, 
 for they were so large that, instead of placing them on a board, he used 
 to sit in cobbler fashion, holding them on his lap and digging into the 
 metal with all his strength. His friend Dixon found him in this atti- 
 tude once, breathing like a paviour between every stroke. ED.
 
 BARRY. 375 
 
 ing out in the presence of others, "Well, Jem, I have been 
 very successful for you this week I have got you three 
 more subscribers for your prints." Barry bade him, with 
 an oath, mind his own affairs ; if the nobility wanted his 
 engravings they knew where he was to be found. The 
 six engravings were finished in 1792 ; all the impres- 
 sions were taken with his own hand from a press erected 
 on purpose. 
 
 The Society of Arts had indulged him with two exhibi- 
 tions of his paintings, which yielded in clear profit five 
 hundred pounds ; to this sum he added two hundred 
 pounds more, the produce of his engravings ; and to asto- 
 nish his friends, make his enemies stare, and show that his 
 good sense had survived every vicissitude of fortune and 
 controversy, he placed the money in the funds, and secured 
 to himself an income of sixty pounds a year. It ought not 
 to be omitted that Lord Romney gave him one hundred 
 guineas for a portrait copied into one of the Six Pictures ; 
 that Timothy Hollis left one hundred pounds to " the 
 Painter of the work upon Human Culture in the Adelphi ;'' 
 and that Lord Radnor presented him with fifty pounds, 
 made payable in a cheque to the bearer, out of respect to 
 the sensitive feelings of the artist. He always, too, remem- 
 bered the kindness of the Prince of Wales, who honoured 
 him with several sittings, and spoke to him with a courtesy 
 to which he had not been much accustomed. 
 
 Those works secured him fame, and bread at least, if not 
 entire independence ; but the professorship of painting, a, 
 place of dignity, and which none could fill more worthily, 
 became to him a source of sorrow and misfortune. His- 
 torical painting was the divinity he professed to worship, 
 but controversy was the false saint at whose shrine he 
 offered up repose of mind, social happiness, and the best 
 friendships he had formed. The period of his professor- 
 ship was one of continual bickering and personal dispute. 
 Whatever he imagined could be useful to the Academy he 
 proposed without scruple ; whatever he proposed he urged 
 with vehemence ; contradiction he regarded as insult, and 
 repaid with invective. Nor did the heat excited in the 
 council-room cool out of doors. Like the anxious wife in
 
 376 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 the " Poet's Tale," Barry " nursed his wrath to keep it 
 warm ;" and at the next meeting took his seat only to re- 
 sume his vituperation. Unwearied sarcasm and ever hot 
 invective will exhaust mortal patience in the upshot ; reve- 
 rence for genius and respect for honesty of purpose will 
 subside when they cannot be enjoyed in peace ; and the 
 man who regularly invades our repose, we will rejoice to 
 get rid of at last, though in genius he approached the 
 gods. Barry's great object was to appropriate the receipts 
 of the Academy exhibitions to the formation of a gallery 
 of the Old Masters ; Reynolds was anxious to devote them 
 to the purchase of his own fine collection of foreign paint- 
 ings for the use of the students propositions which might 
 have been reconciled, but which alarmed those who desired 
 to employ the money in defraying the studies of young 
 artists in Italy, and displeased others who watched over 
 the increasing revenue with the vigilance of dragons from 
 the mere sordid wish of seeing it accumulate. From the 
 love of gain, of art, or of contradiction, the members 
 obliged neither, and disobliged both. Of these remarkable 
 men, the Academy renounced one, and the other renounced 
 the Academy ; yet they most cordially disliked each other. 
 " If there be a man on earth," said the President to 
 Bacon, the sculptor, " whom I seriously dislike, it is that 
 Barry." 
 
 Those whom the fame of his works, and the rumours of 
 his open warfare with a man of such note as Reynolds, 
 attracted to his study, were struck with the squalid aspect 
 of his establishment, and his utter disregard of the advan- 
 tages of dress. When at Rome, we have it settled to a 
 painful certainty that he wore a gold- laced hat ; and there 
 is no reason to doubt but that the rest of his dress corre- 
 sponded but how unlike the enthusiast of the Sistine was 
 the enthusiast of the Adelphi ! His dress was coarse and 
 mean ; this arose partly from affectation, but not wholly 
 so. His income was small and uncertain, and he was too 
 proud and honest to dress fashionably at the expense of 
 others. The man who contests the matter with fortune, 
 will sometimes be worsted ; and we must pity, not blame 
 the consequences of such distress. That he was never
 
 BARRY. 377 
 
 rich, there can be no doubt; but that he was never in want 
 is also certain ; and it is very probable that he flattered 
 himself with thinking that men would say as he passed by, 
 " That is Barry, the restorer of the antique spirit in art, 
 and the painter of the Six Pictures in the Adelphi. See 
 how coarsely he is clad, and how careless he is," and that 
 he would be honoured more for the breach than the obser- 
 vance of custom in such matters. 
 
 His residence in Castle Street, though wearing a decent 
 exterior when he took possession, soon corresponded in look 
 with the outward man, of its master. 1 The worst inn's 
 worst room, in which the poet places the expiring Villiers, 
 was equalled, if not surpassed, by that in which Barry 
 slept, ate, and meditated in perfect satisfaction and se- 
 curity. His own character and whole system of indoor 
 economy, were exhibited in a dinner he gave Mr. Burke. 
 No one was better acquainted with the singular manners 
 of this very singular man than the great statesman ; he 
 wished, however, to have ocular demonstration how he 
 managed his household concerns in the absence of wife or 
 servant, and requested to be asked to dinner. " Sir," said 
 Barry, with much cheerfulness, " you know I live alone ; 
 but if you will come and help me to eat a steak, I shall 
 have it tender and hot, and from the most classic market 
 in London that of Oxford." The day and the hour came, 
 and Burke arriving at No. 36, Castle Street, found Barry 
 ready to receive him. He was conducted into the painting 
 room, which had undergone no change since it was a car- 
 penter's shop. On one of the walls hung his large picture 
 of Pandora, and round it were placed the studies of the 
 Six Pictures of the Adelphi. There were likewise old 
 straining-frames, old sketches, a printing press with which 
 he printed his plates with his own hand. The labours, too, 
 of the spider abounded, arid rivalled in extent and colour 
 pieces of old tapestry. 
 
 Burke saw all this, yet wisely seemed to see it not. He 
 
 ' Pusquin, in his " Memoirs of the Royal Academicians," says that 
 grass grew on his threshold between every stone, and " that vagrant 
 hoifcrs from Oxford Market used to come and browse upon this herbage;" 
 but this must have been an exaggeration. Ei>.
 
 378 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 observed, too, that most of the windows were broken or 
 cracked ; that the roof, which had no ceiling, admitted the 
 light through many crevices in the tiling, and that two old 
 chairs and a deal table composed the whole of the furni- 
 ture. The fire was burning brightly, the steaks were put 
 on to broil, and Barry, having spread a clean cloth on the 
 table, put a pair of tongs in the hands of Burke, saying, 
 " Be useful, my dear friend, and look to the steaks till I 
 fetch the porter." Burke did as he was desired. The 
 painter soon returned with the porter in his hand, exclaim- 
 ing, " What a misfortune ! the wind carried away the fine 
 foaming top as I crossed Titchfield Street." They sat 
 down together. The steak was tender, and done to a 
 moment ; the artist was full of anecdote ; and Burke often 
 declared that he never spent a happier evening in his life. 
 Such is the story which has been often written and often 
 repeated, and always with variations. Something like the 
 scene thus disclosed to Mr. Burke was exhibited some time 
 afterwards to another eminent person, whose friendship has 
 enabled me to enrich my narrative with the following 
 graphic account : 
 
 "I wish," says Mr. Southey, "I could tell you anything 
 which might be found useful in your succeeding volumes. 
 I knew Barry, and have been admitted into his den in his 
 worst (that is to say, his maddest) days, when he was em- 
 ployed upon the Pandora. He wore at that time an old 
 coat of green baize, but from which time had taken all the 
 green that incrustations of paint and dirt had not covered. 
 His wig was one which you might suppose he had borrowed 
 from a scarecrow; all round it there projected a fringe of 
 his own grey hair. He lived alone in a house which was 
 never cleaned ; and he slept on a bedstead with no other fur- 
 niture than a blanket nailed on the one side. 1 I wanted him 
 to visit me. No, he said ; he could not go out by day, be- 
 cause he could not spare time from his great picture ; and 
 if he went out in the evening, the Academicians would 
 
 1 Sir Martin Archer Shee, who went with a letter of introduction to 
 him in 1788, likewise bears testimony to the miserable, dirty state in 
 which he lived. He says, the scene he beheld would have furnished -A 
 subject for Hogarth. ED.
 
 BARRT. 379 
 
 waylay him, and murder him. In this solitary, sullen life 
 he continued, till he fell ill very probably from want of 
 food sufficiently nourishing ; and after lying two or three 
 days under his blanket, he had just strength enough left 
 to crawl to his own door, open it, and lay himself down, 
 with a paper in his hand, on which he had written his wish 
 to be carried to the house of Mr. Carlisle (Sir Anthony) in 
 Soho Square. There he was taken care of ; and the danger 
 from which he had thus escaped seems to have cured his 
 mental hallucinations. He cast his slough afterwards ; 
 appeared decently dressed in his own gray hair, and mixed 
 in such society as he liked. 
 
 " I should have told you, that a little before his illness, he 
 had, with much persuasion, been induced to pass a night at 
 some person's house in the country. When he came down 
 to breakfast the next morning, and one asked how he had 
 rested, he said, remarkably well : he had not slept in sheets 
 for many years, and really he thought it was a very comfor- 
 table thing. He interlarded his conversation with oaths as 
 expletives, but it was pleasant to converse with him : there 
 was a frankness and animation about him which won good- 
 will, as much as his vigorous intellect commanded respect. 
 There is a story of his having refused to paint portraits, 
 and saying, in answer to applications, that there was a man 
 in Leicester Square who did it. But this he said was false : 
 for that he would at any tiuie have painted portraits, and 
 have been glad to paint them." 
 
 It was during these periods of misgiving and despon- 
 dency that Barry thought of requesting a situation of mode~ 
 rate emolument from the government he saw places of 
 little labour and large profit filled by men of ordinary 
 ability, and he thought ministers would prefer the help 
 of the clever, if it were offered, to that of the dull. He 
 failed to perceive that service of another kind than he 
 could hope to render was the purchase-price of such situa- 
 tions. He applied for the place of painter to the ord- 
 nance department he knew so little of what he asked for, 
 that he was surprised to find that it was house-painting 
 only, and that the profits arose from the extent of the 
 contracts ; he next applied for the situation of serjeant-
 
 380 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 painter to the court, but withdrew his memorial on dis- 
 covering that the salary was only eighteen pounds a year. 
 His income at this time was necessarily very limited. 
 From the funds he had sixty pounds a year, which paid 
 his house-rent and taxes ; from the Academy he derived 
 thirty pounds a year, as professor of painting ; and it has 
 been calculated that the sale of his prints brought annually 
 ,50 more. On eighty pounds a year then this eminent 
 artist had to exist, and provide the materials of his pro- 
 fession no wonder that his dress was mean, and the appear- 
 ance of his house sordid ! Yet such was his independent 
 spirit, and such his frugal habits, that he was never known 
 either to borrow money or want it ; and it was his honest 
 pride that he preferred selling prints to strangers rather 
 than to friends, nor would he sell to either if they chanced 
 to utter a word unfavourable to his style of engraving. 
 
 He had even contrived to save something out of his 
 pittance. To all appearance he was the poorest of the 
 poor, and there was nothing about his house to tempt the 
 spoiler : but thieves are a sagacious race ; they formed their 
 own conclusions, and in an inroad on the painter's estab- 
 lishment ferretted out about <400, and carried the money 
 clear off. The public were astonished to hear of the extent 
 of his loss ; and their astonishment increased when Barry, 
 in a formal placard, exculpated common' thieves, and attri- 
 buted his loss to the thirty-nine members of the Royal 
 Academy. The nephews of Timothy Hollis John Hollis, 
 and Hollis Edwards sent him at this juncture a present 
 of 50 ; it is pleasant to see benevolence descend like an 
 inheritance. 
 
 Barry was in his fifty-first year when Sir Joshua Reynolds, 
 full of years and fame, was removed from the world. For 
 a long course of years they had lived in hostility ; but in 
 the contest the former alone had been the sufferer. Ad- 
 miration of the antique, and of Michael Angelo, had 
 brought Barry to a steak broiled with his own hands, and 
 a pot of porter drawn by a suspicious publican. The 
 theory which led him to this was not more his own than 
 the President's ; but this only made matters worse : he 
 looked upon Reynolds as a voluntary traitor to the great
 
 BARRY. 381 
 
 cause as a renegade to the principles which he advocated 
 and taught ; and he openly upbraided him with a mean 
 love of gain in following the lucrative trade of portraiture. 
 The friends of Reynolds replied, that this was the only line 
 of art in which a painter could live like a gentleman, and 
 that his performances were more than mere likenesses 
 that they partook very largely of the great historic style, 
 and exhibited, in short, an English application of the prin- 
 ciples of Michael Angelo. Barry for a long time closed 
 his eyes on this ingenious theory, and continued his re- 
 proaches ; but it is pleasing to be told, as we are by Dr. 
 Fryer, that " for several years before Sir Joshua's death, 
 this hostility had ceased ; that they had at length the good 
 sense and candour to acknowledge each other's deserts, and 
 were not a little chagrined that any misunderstanding 
 should ever have clouded their free intercourse." l 
 
 On the death of Reynolds, Barry came to the Academy 
 and pronounced a glowing eulogium upon him as a man 
 and an artist. This change astonished many, but it was 
 consistent with his character ; he was of an open and gene- 
 rous nature, easily kindled into anger, not difficult to ap- 
 pease, and liable, like most violent men, to those sudden 
 revulsions of feeling which surprise friends and perplex 
 biographers. His eloquence was rewarded ; the niece of 
 Sir Joshua, the Marchioness of Thomond, made him a 
 present of her uncle's painting-chair. It was borne home 
 in triumph to Castle Street, and a letter of thanks addressed 
 to the lady, in which he compared the gift with the celebrated 
 chair of Pindar, which was shown so many years in the 
 porch of Olympia. With better feeling he reflected that it 
 had been instrumental in perpetuating the " negligent, 
 honest exteriors of the authors of ' The Rambler ' and ' The 
 Traveller : ' " and that it had been pressed " by Mrs. Siddons 
 
 1 When Reynolds quarrelled with the Academy and resigned his 
 presidentship, Barry took his part with his usual vehemence. In a con- 
 temporary pamphlet on the state of the Koyal Academy, published 
 in 1790, it is stated that Barry, " who had formerly, with his fist 
 clenched in the very face of the President threatened him with a per- 
 sonal assault when his measures were right, now seemed disposed to 
 offer the same insult to any one who should dare to oppose them when 
 they were wrong." Eo.
 
 382 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 as the Tragic Muse ; " and concluded by declaring that 
 in him it should find a reverential conservator whilst God 
 permitted it to remain under his care. 1 
 
 Barry, having obtained what (with his notions and habits) 
 amounted to independence, employed his time much to his 
 own liking : he had long indulged the wish to paint the 
 " Progress of Theology" and his famous picture of " Pan- 
 dora" was the commencement of the series. He began 
 these designs soon after the completion of the Adelphi 
 pictures they were often set aside, and again resumed 
 disappointment by degrees laid a chilling hand upon him, 
 and he was visited too by those misgivings of spirit to 
 which the sons of genius are peculiarly heirs. The " Pro- 
 gress of the Mosaic Doctrines," however, was sketched ; 
 and something like the first conceptions for the pieces 
 designed to embody the coming of our Saviour could be 
 traced at his death among the chaos of his papers. Of a 
 great work thus imperfectly shadowed out, who can give 
 any account ? Rude sketches may indicate the main pur- 
 pose and aim, but these are liable to such changes in the 
 execution, that a finished work rarely corresponds with 
 the original design. 
 
 At intervals, while this undertaking was his regular task, 
 he sought refreshment in the pleasures of controversy, and 
 wrote and published his celebrated Letter to the Dilettanti 
 Society. In this work which is neither commendable in 
 aim nor temperate in language he embodied almost all his 
 disputes with mankind collectively and individually. After 
 describing the leading principles of national art the ob- 
 jects which the Royal Academy had been instituted to 
 accomplish, and the purposes to which their money, as well 
 as their energies, ought to be directed Barry plunged 
 into the actual conduct of the Academy's affairs de- 
 nounced private combinations and jealousies asserted that 
 the funds were dissipated by secret intrigues and, as a 
 
 1 On the death of Barry, this celebrated chair found its way, after a 
 variety of fortune, into the hands of an auctioneer, whose hammer at 
 length consigned it to the studio of Sir Thomas Lawrence. Death lias 
 again interposed, and the painting-chairs of those two eminent men must 
 seek other sanctuaries.
 
 BARRY. 383 
 
 finishing touch to this picture of weakness and corruption, 
 proposed, seriously to all appearance, that whenever the 
 judgment of the body was appealed to, the honest vote of 
 each member should be secured by oath ! 
 
 On the appearance of this bitter diatribe in 1797, the 
 whole Academy, with the exception of Joseph Nollekens, 
 declared war against the Professor of Painting. That 
 Barry should have lost his temper can surprise no one ; but 
 that a public body, composed of the assembled talent in 
 art of a great nation, should have lost temper too, must 
 remain a matter of surprise to all: yet so it happened. 
 The whole Academy was in commotion Farington read 
 aloud the Letter to the Dilettanti Society information of 
 personal irregularities was given by Messrs. Dance and 
 Daniell and Wilton, the sculptor, and at that period 
 Keeper, embodied the charges in compliance with the direc- 
 tion of the committee. They accused James Barry of 
 making digressions in his lectures, in which he abused 
 members of the Academy the dead as well as the living ; 
 of teaching the students habits of insubordination, and coun- 
 tenancing them in licentious and disorderly behaviour ; of 
 charging the Academy with voting in pensions among them- 
 selves sixteen thousand pounds, which should have been 
 laid out for the benefit of the students ; and finally, of 
 having spoken unhandsomely of the President, Benjamin 
 West. 
 
 With the haste of anger, the Academy proceeded to act 
 upon these charges. The accused was allowed no copy of 
 the indictment was permitted to say nothing in explana- 
 tion or defence was formally degraded from his station 
 of professor and expelled the Academy, nay, that nothing 
 might be wanting to prove to the world the severities which 
 public bodies can with impunity commit, the sanction of 
 the King had been obtained to all these proceedings be- 
 fore it was communicated to Barry that his name was for 
 ever removed from the roll of academicians. These mea- 
 sures, which will always be pronounced by far too precipi- 
 tate, sounded, at the time, about as strangely in ears un- 
 accustomed to the bickerings and animosities which pre- 
 vail in most corporate bodies, as poor Barry's own wild ex-
 
 384 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 travagancc, when he classed the academicians with thieves 
 and housebreakers and imagined his person and property 
 the object of professional conspiracies. 1 
 
 His friends flattered themselves that he was now done 
 with debates and would at length find time to finish those 
 great works in which he had made some progress. In order 
 that he might be secured against want, and to repair the 
 loss of the thirty pounds a year of which his brethren had 
 so ungracefully, if not unjustly, deprived him, they pro- 
 posed to gather such a sum by subscription as would pur- 
 chase a decent annuity. It was at this time of distress that 
 the Earl of Buchan, among others, stood forward in Barry's 
 behalf. This nobleman desired to be thought public di- 
 rector in all matters of poetry and painting in Scotland. 
 He spent his long life in speaking kind words, writing en- 
 couraging letters, and dispensing patronizing looks to all 
 who had visited the Vatican, or were found loitering about 
 the nether regions of Parnassus. On this occasion he stirred 
 himself more than was his wont, and astonished many by 
 publicly subscribing ten pounds ; he also interceded with 
 the Society of Arts, and applied to many who thought 
 favourably of Barry's talents. I wish he had done no 
 more. He praised the set of proof engravings which Barry 
 sent in a present to Dryburgh fell in love with others 
 which were in London longed to possess an " easel pic- 
 ture" as a memorial of friendship condescended to name 
 the picture he particularly affected, " The Interview of 
 Milton with El wood the Quaker," and, finally, requested 
 in addition a proof engraving from the " Birth of Pan- 
 dora." The painter, pleased with all this condescension, 
 sent a sketch of his Milton to the noble speculator in sub- 
 scriptions ; and the "easel picture" would have followed, but 
 that hand was soon to be laid upon Barry which has recently 
 fallen on his disinterested patron. 
 
 1 Edwards, in his " Anecdotes," asserts that his robbery was merely 
 imaginary, and that he subsequently recovered his money ; but I can 
 find no other authority for this statement. He himself, in an address 
 to the students at the Royal Academy, attributed it to the " limbs of 
 a riotly shameless combination, some of whom passed for my friends." 
 
 ED.
 
 BARRY. 385 
 
 One thousand pounds in course of time were subscribed, 
 and an annuity of corresponding value was purchased of 
 Sir Robert Peel ; but all this kindness came too late. 
 
 He was now in the sixty-fifth year of his age ; his health 
 was generally good, and his frame, naturally strong, had 
 been hardened with his ways of living, and promised to 
 endure for many years. He had softened, too, the asperi- 
 ties of his manners, and, though the ecstasy of early thought 
 was abated, many noble paintings were expected from his 
 hand, now that at length his mind was eased by what he 
 considered affluence, and he had no longer either com- 
 mittees or councils to disturb him. During the years which 
 had passed since his expulsion from the Academy, he had 
 been engaged on his great work on theology ; but a large 
 piece now grew slowly under his hand, and indeed, he never 
 appears to have possessed that dashing alacrity of compo- 
 sition which distinguished most of the great Italian mas- 
 ters. He had been employed, too, from time to time, upon 
 his engravings ; but upon the whole it maybe said that, dur- 
 ing these latter years of his life, he had mused much and 
 wrought little. Nevertheless, high hopes were still enter- 
 tained by his well-wishers. 
 
 No previous illness had given him warning when, on the 
 evening of the 6th of February, 1806, he was seized, as he 
 entered the house where he usually dined, with a cold fit 
 of a pleuritic fever, of so intense a degree that all his 
 powers were suspended, and he could neither speak nor 
 move. Cordials were administered ; he came a little to 
 himself, and was conveyed in a coach to his own house ; 
 but some idle boys had plugged the keyhole with dirt and 
 pebbles, and the door could not be opened. The night 
 was dark and cold ; he was shivering with disease, and a 
 person who accompanied him carried him to the house of 
 Mr. Bonomi. A bed was procured in the neighbourhood. 
 Barry was laid down. He desired to be left alone, and 
 bolted the door. So well were his orders obeyed, that he 
 remained for forty hours without medical aid, and when it 
 came it was too late. The disease had struck him mor- 
 tally; a hot fit had succeeded the cold one, and he com- 
 plained of a burning pain in his side and of difficulty of 
 
 c c
 
 386 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 breathing. Ill as he was, lie left his bed on the afternoon 
 of the 8th, and repaired, pale and tottering, to Dr. Fryer, 
 to make his complaint. He had a pain in his side, a short 
 itnd incessant cough, quick and feeble pulse. He related 
 that his friend Bononii had made arrangements for receiv- 
 ing him into his house, spoke with warm feeling of the 
 kindness of Mrs. Bononii, and said how happy he would 
 be there compared to under his own roof, where he had 
 neither a servant nor a comfortable bed. Dr. Fryer re- 
 quested him to go to his friend's house immediately, as he 
 was more fit for his bed than making visits. 
 
 He went accordingly to Mr. Bonomi's, and thenceforth 
 Dr. Fryer and Dr. Combe attended him constantly ; but 
 all skill was in vain. As the disease gained head he was 
 warned of his approaching dissolution, and he heard of it 
 as a thing neither to be desired nor dreaded. He conversed 
 occasionally with much cheerfulness, and having lingered 
 till the 22nd of February, expired in tranquillity and peace 
 in the sixty-fifth year of his age. The Royal Academy had 
 never proclaimed peace between themselves and their former 
 Professor, and they now allowed his dust to remain un- 
 honoured. The Society of Arts permitted his body to be 
 borne from the hall of the Adelphi, which his genius had 
 adorned, and Sir Robert Peel, who by the painter's sudden 
 death had made a profitable bargain in the matter of the 
 annuity, generously gave two hundred pounds to pay 
 for his funeral, and raise a tablet in St. Paul's to his 
 memory. 
 
 This conduct of the Academy was, no doubt, conformable 
 to etiquette ; but Barry, though he had sinned against 
 their rules, had done nothing to lower him in the general 
 estimation of mankind. He might be in their eyes a de- 
 graded Academician no one . could call him a degraded 
 artist ; and the remains, at least, of a man of genius had 
 surely a claim to some concession at their hands. But a 
 certain air of loftiness, it would seem, belongs to that 
 body collectively, which its members ever claim indivi- 
 dually. The sway of Reynolds was resented so far, that 
 numbers refused their concurrence to having his body laid 
 out in state, as it is called, in their rooms, before inter-
 
 BARRY. 387 
 
 inent. If their dignity required this seventy in the case 
 of one whose genius had in a great degree created and 
 supported them, it -required more in the case of him who 
 had satirized and reproached them as men mean in spirit 
 whose mental vision was narrow, and who could only l>e 
 credited on oath. They did accordingly what they could : 
 they allowed Barry to be borne to his grave by hands that 
 had never touched a pencil. 
 
 James Barry said seriously of himself, " I am a pock- 
 pitted, hard-featured little fellow." He was in person 
 under the middle size the vicissitudes of fortune, fre- 
 quent controversies, and bitter disappointments, had im- 
 pressed in early life the aspect of years upon his brow 
 his face was naturally grave and saturnine, which gave 
 uncommon sweetness to his smile, and great fierceness to 
 his anger. If we lament his unhappy temper, we cannot 
 refuse praise to the fortitude which baffled all manner of 
 discomfort : he resided, without a murmur, in a house the 
 perfect image of desolation the rent walls admitted the 
 wind, the shattered roof let in the rain : and there, with- 
 out a servant without even a decent bed, the companion 
 of poverty and solitude, he painted many noble works. 
 When he commenced his far-famed Six Pictures, he was 
 advised by one who loved him to take a better house, wear 
 better clothes, hire a steady servant, and set up a neat 
 establishment. Barry answered " The pride of honesty 
 protests against such a rash speculation." Many are the 
 stories which have been told concerning this singular man 
 they are chiefly ludicrous tales of privation and pride ; 
 such as are gladly remembered by those who love what- 
 ever lowers genius to their own level, and who are as in- 
 capable of honouring amidst eccentricities what is high- 
 minded and noble, as a pocket loadstone is of picking up 
 an anchor. 
 
 Barry was the greatest enthusiast in art which this coun- 
 try ever produced his passion for it almost amounted to 
 madness ; and but for his works, his words and actions 
 might have been gravely cited in proof of mental aliena- 
 tion. He hungered and lie thirsted, not figuratively, but 
 truly, for its sake ; and from boyhood to the tomb devoted
 
 388 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 all his faculties to establish a School of Painting, which, 
 avoiding common or familiar subjects, should embody only 
 what is dignified, magnificent, or sublime. To this high 
 task ho brought an imagination second only to that of 
 Fuscli, a strong love of the poetry of nature, an intimate 
 knowledge of the works of the great masters, a deep feel- 
 ing for their excellences, fine skill of hand, and unequalled 
 fortitude and perseverance. That he failed to reap the 
 harvest which such qualities and attainments promised, 
 must be imputed mainly to his infirmity of temper, but 
 partly also to what he so often complained of, the un- 
 awakened taste of the country for works of an historical 
 nature. He wanted that graceful spirit which conciliates 
 and persuades which, like the fabled cestus of the god- 
 dess, 
 
 '' Can from the wisest win their best resolves." 
 
 There were few at that time to patronize historical paint- 
 ing, save his Majesty, and West monopolized all subjects 
 for the palaces, both sacred and profane. Portrait painters 
 were the prosperous in British art ; and few, save them- 
 selves, found the way to the tables and to the confidence 
 of the great. Nor indeed, little as it was then, has the 
 love of historical painting increased among us since ; all 
 the efforts of his present Majesty, 1 of Sir George Beaumont, 
 Sir John Leycester, Sir John Swinborne, Lord Lansdowne, 
 Lord Egremont, the Duke of Bedford, and a few others, 
 have been nearly in vain. 
 
 Other reasons, however, may be assigned for Barry's 
 want of success. His first picture, " The Legend of St. 
 Patrick," was right it was one of his own island's tradi- 
 tions in it he heard the voice of Nature, and he who 
 obeys her will seldom err. But afterwards the miracles of 
 Greece and the Vatican oppressed and enthralled his fancy. 
 The artist who disdains to work in the spirit of his own 
 country will rarely work well in the spirit of any other. 
 The names of Barry's pictures will tell where his heart 
 was " Pandora, or the Heathen Eve ;" " The Conversion 
 
 1 William IV. ED.
 
 BARRY. 389 
 
 I 
 
 of Polemou in the presence of Xenocrates ; " "The Birth 
 of Venus ; " " Philoctetes in Lcinnos ; " " Jupiter and Juno" 
 and many more. Affection for such subjects had long 
 since fallen asleep, and it was not in the power of Barry to 
 awaken it. To be truly classic he should have done for 
 Britain what the artists of old did for Greece : their works 
 are classical not from being the offspring of a classic 
 laud, but becaxise they were the embodied poetry of its 
 actual beauty and sentiment. 1 
 
 He turned, when it was too late, to the pages of Milton. 
 The subjects which he sketched from the " Paradise Lost " 
 were made when he was advanced in life, and he never 
 finished them. They were as follows : " Satan rising from 
 the Fiery Gulf;" "The Temptation of Adam;" "Satan 
 meeting with Sin and Death ;" " Adam and Eve after the 
 Fall;" "The Triumph of Michael and Fall of the Eebel 
 Angels;" "Satan in Paradise;" "The Descent of the 
 Guardian Angels;" "Satan Detected bylthuriel;" and 
 " Adam's Vision of the Misery of his Posterity." On 
 several of these subjects Fuseli also tried his hand. They 
 are such as require powers of an Epic order, and some of 
 them seem to be above the grasp of our painter. But he 
 shared largely in that kind of intrepidity of spirit which 
 belonged to West and Fuseli : subjects of ordinary emotion 
 had no charms for him : he loved to contemplate what was 
 solemn and terrible ; and his mind teemed with magnifi- 
 cent undertakings, which he wanted time or talent to 
 realize. The multitude of his sketches, and the small 
 
 1 It is strange how little is known of the works of Barry by the present 
 generation. Scarcely any other of the painters whose lives are here re- 
 corded lias been so completely forgotten. No single picture represents 
 him in the national collection, and Dr. Waagen either did not find, 
 or did not deign to notice, any in private collections. If it were not, in- 
 deed, for the gigantic monument he raised for himself at the Society of 
 Arts, it would not bo possible nowadays to form any estimate of his 
 powers; and it is to be feared that, of the many who attend meetings 
 in the great room in the Adelphi, very few cast more than a casual 
 glance at this ambitious work which alone remains to tell of the high 
 aspirations of this forgotten artist, and which, as Uedgravo says, serves, 
 perhaps, n purpose " rather of warning than of stimulus" to painters of 
 the present day. Er>.
 
 390 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 
 
 numbeT of his finished works, attest his immoderate ambi- 
 tion and his deficiency in some of those high qualities 
 which, like the key-stone to an arch, are necessary to the 
 completion of whatever is vast and grand. 
 
 His treatises, like his paintings, are distinguished by 
 their vigour. Of the light and shade of language he was 
 an indifferent master ; nor was he fastidious in neatness of 
 arrangement, or nice in accuracy of reasoning ; neverthe- 
 less, his earnestness of manner renders his writings very 
 readable. His enthusiasm for pencils and chisels knows no 
 bounds ; a painting with him is the first of human works, 
 and a painter the noblest of God's creatures. Poetry, he 
 assures us, requires little knowledge, and " the most perfect 
 verse is no more than the animated account or relation of 
 the story of a picture." Poetry, too, he says (and with 
 more truth), is limited by its language to a particular 
 country ; while Painting speaks all tongues, and is read- 
 able to all nations. Northcote, in his life of Reynolds, 
 re-echoes Barry, and proposes to detect the presence of 
 true poetry by trying if it will turn into shape with 
 the pencil ! There is, however, much of our finest poetry 
 that would slip like quicksilver from the pencil of a 
 greater than Mr. Northcote. If a poem be only the ani- 
 mated account of a picture, how many thousand pictures 
 must that man paint who shall give us Shakespeare, or 
 Milton, or Spenser, or Scott, or Southey, or Wordsworth, 
 on canvas ; and if poetry be only good when it presents 
 such images as painters can copy, how many passages have 
 age after age admired in vanity and in ignorance ! No 
 one but a wild enthusiast, like Barry, would claim for any 
 artist that ever breathed an equality of mind with Homer, 
 or Shakespeare, or Dante men who have influenced the 
 world from its centre to its circumference ; and as for Mr. 
 Northcote' s test the winged rapidity of poetry gives us, no 
 doubt, in its lowest, as well as in its higher moods, many 
 pictures, which the genius of art can embody ; but at the 
 same time it presents us with images, so vivid and yet 
 elusive, so distinct and yet so shadowy, as to set all art at 
 defiance. Who shall paint Elijah's Mantle of Inspiration 
 the Still Small Voice the War -Horse, whose neck is
 
 BARRY. 391 
 
 clothed with thunder, and who snuffeth the battle afar-off 
 the Magic Girdle of the Fairy Queen or the Cestus of 
 Homer's Venus, so exquisitely rendered by Cowper 
 
 " An ambush of sweet snares, replete 
 With love, desire, soft intercourse of hearts, 
 And music of resistless whisper'd sounds."
 
 WILLIAM BLAKE. 
 
 T3AINTING, like poetry, lias followers, the body of 
 -L Avhose genius is light compared to the length of its 
 wings, and who, rising above the ordinary sympathies of 
 our nature, are, like Napoleon, betrayed by a star which no 
 eye can see save their own. To this rare class belonged 
 William Blake. 
 
 He was the second son of James Blake and Catharine 
 his wife, and born on the 28th of November, 1757, at 28, 
 Broad Street, Carnaby Market, London. 1 His father, a 
 respectable hosier, caused him to be educated for his own 
 business, but the love of art came early upon the boy ; he 
 neglected the figures of arithmetic for those of Raphael and 
 Reynolds ; and his worthy parents often wondered how a 
 child of theirs should have conceived a love for such un- 
 substantial vanities. The boy, it seems, was privately en- 
 couraged by his mother. The love of designing and sketch- 
 ing grew upon him, and he desired anxiously to be an 
 artist. His father began to be pleased with the notice 
 which his son obtained, and to fancy that a painter's study 
 might, after all, be a fitter place than a hosier's shop for one 
 who drew designs on the backs of all the shop bills, and 
 made sketches on the counter. He consulted an eminent 
 artist, who asked so large a sum for instruction that the 
 prudent shopkeeper hesitated ; and young Blake declared 
 he would prefer being an engraver a profession which 
 would bring bread at least, and through which he would 
 be connected with painting. It was, indeed, time to dis- 
 pose of him. In addition to his attachment to art he had 
 displayed poetic symptoms scraps of paper and the blank 
 leaves of books were found covered with groups and stanzas. 
 When his father saw sketches at the top of the sheet and 
 
 1 Carnaby Market, in the neighbourhood of Golden Square, is done 
 away with. The house in Broad Street, No. 28, is now occupied by a 
 German hairdresser. ED.
 
 BLAKE. 393 
 
 verses at the bottom, he took him away to James Basire, 
 the engraver, in Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, and 
 bound him apprentice for seven years. He was then four- 
 teen years old. 1 
 
 It is told of Blake that at ten years of age he became an 
 artist, and at twelve a poet. Of his boyish pencillings I 
 can find no traces ; but of his early intercourse with the 
 Muse the proof lies before me in seventy pages of verse, 
 written, he says, between his twelfth and his twentieth 
 year, and published, by the advice of friends, when he was 
 thirty. There are songs, ballads, and a dramatic poem 
 rude, sometimes, and unmelodious, but full of fine thought 
 and deep and peculiar feeling. To those who love poetry 
 for the music of its bells, these seventy pages will sound 
 harsh and dissonant ; but by others they will be more 
 kindly looked upon. John Flaxman, a judge in all things 
 of a poetic nature, was so touched with many passages that 
 he not only counselled their publication, but joined with a 
 gentleman of the name of Matthews in the expense, and 
 presented the printed sheets to the artist to dispose of for 
 his own advantage. 2 One of these productions is an ad- 
 dress to the Muses a common theme, but sung in no 
 common manner : 
 
 " Whether on Ida's shady brow, 
 
 Or in the chambers of the east, 
 The chambers of the sun, that MOW 
 
 From ancient melody have ceased; 
 
 1 Before his apprenticeship, when he was only ten years of age, he 
 attended a drawing school in the Strand, kept by a Mr. Pars, successor 
 to the better-known William Shipley. Whilst with Basire ho made 
 steady progress in engraving, and he was also at one time employed in 
 making drawings in Westminster Abbey and other churches for the 
 antiquary Cough, an employment which probably created in him that 
 feeling lor Gothic beauty of form which is manifest in many of his 
 works. One of his mystic engravings, entitled v< Joseph of Arimathea 
 among the rocks of Albion," is dated 1773, and therefore In-longs to his 
 early apprentice period. Ki. 
 
 2 These early poems were first published in 1783, in a thin octavo 
 volume, entitled " Poetical Sketches by W. R." This is now so rare, 
 that Gilchrist states that, after some years' vain attempt, he was forced 
 to give up the hope of obtaining a copy. There is not one even in the 
 British Museum. Ki>.
 
 394 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 " Whether in heaven ye wander fair, 
 
 Or the green corners of the earth, 
 Or the blue regions of the air, 
 
 Where the melodious winds have birth ; 
 
 " Whether on crystal rocks ye rove, 
 
 Beneath the bosom of the sea, 
 Wandering in many a coral grove, 
 
 Fair Nine ! forsaking poesie ; 
 
 " How have ye left the ancient love, 
 
 That Bards of old enjoy'd in you, 
 The languid strings now scarcely move, 
 
 The sound is forced the notes are few." 
 
 The little poem called " The Tiger " has been admired 
 for the force and vigour of its thoughts >by poets of high 
 name. Many could weave smoother lines few could stamp 
 such living images : 
 
 " Tiger ! Tiger ! burning bright 
 In the forests of the night, 
 What immortal hand or eye 
 Framed thy fearful symmetry? 
 
 " In what distant deeps or skies 
 Burn'd that fire within thine eyes ? 
 On what wings dared he aspire 
 What the hand dared seize the firo ? 
 
 " And what shoulder and what art 
 Could twist the sinews of thy heart ? 
 When thy heart began to beat, 
 What dread hand formed thy dread feet ? 
 
 " What the hammer ! what the chain ! 
 Knit thy strength and forged thy brain ? 
 What the anvil ? What dread grasp 
 Dared thy deadly terrors clasp ? 
 
 " W T hen the stars threw down their spears, 
 And water'd heaven with their tears, 
 Did he smile, his work to see ? 
 Did he who made the lamb make thce ? " 
 
 In the dramatic poem of " King Edward the Third" there 
 are many nervous lines, and even whole passages of high 
 merit. The structure of the verse is often defective, and 
 the arrangement inharmonious ; Imt before the ear is
 
 BLAKE. 395 
 
 thoroughly offended, it is soothed by some touch of deep 
 melody and poetic thought. The princes and earls of 
 England are conferring together on the eve of the battle 
 of Cressy. The Black Prince takes Chandos aside, and 
 says 
 
 " Now we're alone, John Chandos, I'Jl unhurthen 
 And breathe my hopes into the burning air 
 Where thousand Deaths are posting up and down, 
 Commission'd to this fatal field of Cressy : 
 Methinks I sec them arm my gallant soldiers, 
 And gird the sword upon each thigh, and fit 
 The shining helm, and string each stubborn bow, 
 And dance to the neighing of the steeds ; 
 Methinks the shout begins the battle burns ; 
 Methinks I see them perch on English crests, 
 And roar the wild flame of fierce war upon 
 The throng'd enemy." 
 
 In the same high poetic spirit Sir Walter Manny con- 
 verses with a genuine old English warrior, Sir Thomas 
 Dagworth 
 
 " O, Dagworth ! France is sick ! the very sky 
 Though sunshine light it, seems to me as pale 
 As is the fainting man on his death-bed, 
 Whose face is shown by light of sickly taper- 
 It makes me sad and sick unto the heart ; 
 Thousands must fall to-day." 
 
 Sir Thomas answers : 
 
 " Thousands of souls must leave this prison-honso 
 
 To lie exalted to those heavenly fields 
 
 Where songs of triumph, palms of victory, 
 
 Where peace, and joy, and love, and calm content, 
 
 Sit singing on the a/urc clouds, and strew 
 
 The flowers of heaven upon the banquet table. 
 
 Hind ardent hope upon your feet, like shoos, 
 
 Put on the robe of preparation. 
 
 The table, it is spread in shining heaven, 
 
 The flowers of immortality are blown ; 
 
 Let those who fight, fight in good steadfastness; 
 
 And those who fall shall rise in victory." 
 
 I might transcribe from those modest and unnoticed 
 pages many such passages. It would be unfair not to
 
 o96 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 mention that the same volume contains some wild and in- 
 coherent prose, in which we may trace more than the 
 dawning of those strange, mystical, and mysteriotis fancies 
 on which Blake subsequently misemployed his pencil. 
 There is much that is weak, and something that is strong, 
 and a great deal that is wild and mad, and all so strangely 
 mingled that little or no meaning can be assigned to it it 
 seems like a lamentation over the disasters which came on 
 England during the reign of King John. 
 
 Though Blake lost himself sometimes in the enchanted 
 region of song, he seems not to have neglected to make 
 himself master of the graver, or to have forgotten his love 
 of designs and sketches. He was a dutiful servant to 
 Basire, and he studied occasionally under Flaxmaii and 
 Fuseli ; but it was his chief delight to retire to the solitude 
 of his room, and there make drawings, and illustrate these 
 with verses, to be hung up together in his mother's 
 chamber. He was always at work he called amusement 
 idleness, sight- seeing vanity, and money-making the ruin 
 of all high aspirations. " Were I to love money," he said, 
 "I should lose all power of thought; desire of gain deadens 
 the genius of man. I might roll in wealth and ride in a 
 golden chariot, were I to listen to the voice of parsimony. 
 My business is not to gather gold, but to make glorious 
 shapes, expressing god-like sentiments." The day was 
 given to the graver, by which he earned enough to main- 
 tain himself respectably ; and he bestowed his evenings 
 upon painting and poetry, and intertwined these so closely 
 in his compositions that they cannot well be separated. 
 
 When he was six-aud-twenty years old he married 
 Katharine Boutcher, a young woman of humble connec- 
 tions the dark-eyed Kate of several of his lyric poems. 
 She lived near his father's house, and was noticed by Blake 
 for the whiteness of her hand, the brightness of her eyes, 
 and a slim and handsome shape, corresponding with his 
 own notions of sylphs and naiads. As he was an original 
 in all things, it would have been out of character to fall in 
 love like an ordinary mortal. He was describing one 
 evening in company the pains he had suffered from some 
 capricious lady or another, when Katharine Boutcher said,
 
 BLAKE. ,397 
 
 " I pity you from my heart." " Do you pity me ? " said 
 Blake, " then I love you for that." " And I love you," 
 said the frank-hearted lass, and so the courtship began. 
 He tried how well she looked in a drawing, then how her 
 charms became verse ; and finding moreover that she had 
 good domestic qualities, he married her. They lived to- 
 gether long and happily. 
 
 She seemed to have been created on purpose for Blake : 
 she believed him to be the finest genius on earth ; she be- 
 lieved in his verse; she believed in his designs; and to the 
 wildest nights of his imagination she bowed the knee, and 
 was a worshipper. She set his house in good order, pre- 
 pared his frugal meal, learned to think as he thought, and, 
 indulging him in his harmless absurdities, became, as it 
 were, bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh. She learned 
 what a young and handsome woman is seldom apt to 
 learn to despise gaudy dresses, costly meals, pleasant 
 company, and agreeable invitations ; she found out the 
 way of being happy at home, living on the simplest of 
 food, and contented in the homeliest of clothing. 1 It was 
 no ordinary mind which could do all this ; and she whom 
 Blake emphatically called his " beloved," was no ordinary 
 woman. She wrought off in the press the impressions of 
 his plates; she coloured them with a light and neat hand; 
 made drawings much in the spirit of her husband's com- 
 positions, and almost rivalled him in all things save in the 
 power which he possessed of seeing visions of any indivi- 
 dual, living or dead, whenever he chose to see them. 
 
 His marriage, I have heard, was not agreeable to his 
 father; and he then left his roof and resided with his wife 
 in Green Street, Leicester Fields. He returned to Broad 
 Street on the death of his father, a devout man, and an 
 honest shopkeeper, of fifty years' standing, took a first floor 
 and a shop, and in company with one Parker, who had 
 
 ' And, moreover, she acquired under her husband's tuition the desi- 
 rable accomplishments of reading and writing, which it would seem had 
 been omitted in her early education, for in the registry of her marriage 
 she signs simply with a cross, not then being able, we may infer, to 
 write her own name. They were married on the 28th of August, 17S2, 
 the bride being then in her twenty-tirst year. Eu.
 
 398 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 been his fellow-apprentice, commenced printseller. His 
 wife attended to the business, and Blake continued to en- 
 grave, and took Robert, his favourite brother, for a pupil. 
 This speculation did not succeed his brother, too, sickened 
 and died ; he had a dispute with Parker the shop was re- 
 linquished, and he removed to 28, Poland Street. Here 
 he commenced that series of works which give him a 
 right to be numbered among the men of genius of his 
 country. In sketching designs, engraving plates, writing 
 songs, and composing music he employed his time, with his 
 wife sitting at his side, encouraging him in all his under- 
 takings. As he drew the figure he meditated the song 
 which was to accompany it, and the music to which the 
 verse was to be sung was the offspring, too, of the same 
 moment. Of his music there are no specimens he wanted 
 the art of noting it down ; if it equalled many of his 
 drawings, and some of his songs, we have lost melodies of 
 real value. 1 
 
 The first fruits were the " Songs of Innocence and Ex- 
 perience," a work original and natural, and of high merit, 
 both in poetry and in painting. It consists of some sixty- 
 five or seventy scenes, presenting images of youth and 
 manhood; of domestic sadness and fireside joy; of the 
 gaiety, and innocence, and happiness of childhood. Every 
 scene has its poetical accompaniment, curiously interwoven 
 with the group or the landscape, and forming, from the 
 beauty of the colour and the prettiness of the pencilling, 9 
 very fair picture of itself. Those designs are in general 
 highly poetical more allied, however, to heaven than to 
 earth a kind of spiritual abstractions, and indicating a 
 better world and fuller happiness than mortals enjoy. The 
 picture of Innocence is introduced with the following sweet 
 verses : 
 
 1 J. T. Smith, in his gossiping " Book for a Rainy Day," records 
 that he had often heard Blake read and sing several of his poems at the 
 house of Mrs. Mathew, a lady of great literary celebrity in her day, 
 who used to patronize the young artist-poet, and invite him to her con- 
 versazioni. The tunes, Smith says, to which he sung his verses were 
 " most singularly beautiful," and " were often noted down by musical 
 professors." It is, indeed, a pity that none have been preserved. ED.
 
 BLAKE. 399 
 
 " Piping down the valleys wild, 
 
 Piping songs of pleasant glee, 
 On a cloud I saw a child, 
 
 And he laughing said to me 
 
 " Pipe a song about a larab ; 
 
 So I piped with merry cheer. 
 Piper, pij>e that song again 
 
 So I piped he wept to hear. 
 
 " Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe, 
 
 Sing thy songs of happy cheer 
 So I sang the same :igain, 
 
 While Lc wept with joy to hear. 
 
 " Piper, sit thee down and write 
 
 In a book that all may read 
 So he vanish'd from my sight : 
 
 And I pluck'd a hollow reed, 
 
 " And I made a rural pen, 
 
 And I staiivd the water clear, 
 And I wrote my happy songs, 
 
 Every child may joy to hear." 
 
 Another song, called " The Chimney Sweeper," is rude 
 enough truly, but yet not without pathos : 
 
 " When my mother died I was very young, 
 And my father sold me while yet my tongue 
 Could scarcely cry Weep ! weep ! weep ! 
 So your chimneys I clean and in soot I sleep. 
 
 " There's little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head, 
 That curl'd like a lamb's back, was shaved ; so I said, 
 Hush, Tom, never mind it, for when your head's bare, 
 You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair. 
 
 " And so ho was quiet and that very night, 
 As Tommy was a-slceping, he had such a sight ; 
 That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack, 
 Were all of them lock'd up in coffins of black ; 
 
 " And by came an Angel, who had a bright key, 
 He open'd the coffins and set them all free ; 
 Then down a green plain, leaping, laughing they run, 
 And wash in a river, and shine in the sun.
 
 400 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 " Then, naked and white, all their bags left behind, 
 They rise upon clouds and sport in the wind ; 
 And the Angel told Tom, if he'd be a good boy, 
 He'd have God for his father and never want joy. 
 
 '' And so Tommy awoke and we rose in the dark, 
 And got with our bags and our brushes to work ; 
 Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy and warm, 
 So, if all do their duty, they need not fear harm." ' 
 
 In a higher and better spirit he wrought with his pencil. 
 But then he imagined himself under spiritual influences ; 
 he saw the forms, and listened to the voices of the worthies 
 of other days ; the past and the future were before him, 
 and he heard, in imagination, even that awful voice which 
 called on Adam amongst the trees of the garden. In this 
 kind of dreaming abstraction he lived much of his life ; all 
 his works are stamped with it, and though they owe much 
 of their mysticism and obscurity to the circumstance, there 
 can be no doubt that they also owe to it much of their 
 singular loveliness and beauty. It was wonderful that he 
 could thus, month after month, and year after year, lay 
 down his graver after it had won him his daily wages, and 
 retire from the battle for bread, to disport his fancy amid 
 
 1 It is scarcely possible to judge of the simple beauty and grace of 
 these " Songs of Innocence " from these two or three specimens torn away 
 from their exquisite setting in fanciful design. Swinburne, in his Criti- 
 cal Essay on Blake, writes of them with impassioned admiration, thus : 
 " If elsewhere the artist's strange strength of thought and hand is more 
 visible, nowhere is there such pure sweetness and singleness of design in 
 his work. All the tremulous and tender splendour of spring is united 
 into the written word and coloured draught ; every page has the smell 
 of April. Over all things given, the sleep of flocks and the growth of 
 leaves, the laughter in divided lips of flowers and the music at the 
 moulded mouth of the flute-player, there is cast a pure fine veil of light, 
 softer than sleep and keener than sunshine. The sweetness of sky and 
 leaf, of grass and water the bright light life of bird, child, and beast 
 is, so to speak, kept fresh by some graver sense of faithful and mysterious 
 love, explained and vivified by a conscience and purpose in the artist's 
 hand and mind. Such a fiery outbreak of spring, such an insurrection 
 of fierce floral life and radiant riot of childish power and pleasure, no 
 poet or painter ever gave before ; such lustre of green leaves and Hushed 
 limbs, kindled eloud and fervent fleece, was never wrought into speech 
 or shape." ED.
 
 BLAKE. 401 
 
 scenes of more than earthly splendour, and creatures pure 
 as unfallen dew. 
 
 In this lay the weakness and the strength of Blake, and 
 those who desire to feel the character of his compositions, 
 must be familiar with his history and the peculiarities of 
 his mind. He was by nature a poet, a dreamer, and an 
 enthusiast. The eminence which it had been the first am- 
 bition of his youth to climb, was visible before him, and he 
 saw on its ascent or on its summit those who had started 
 earlier in the race of fame. He felt conscious of his own 
 merit, but was not aware of the thousand obstacles which 
 were ready to interpose. He thought that he had but to 
 sing songs and draw designs, and become great and famous. 
 The crosses which genius is heir to had been wholly un- 
 foreseen, and they befell him early. He wanted, too, the 
 skill of hand, and fine tact of fancy and taste, to impress 
 upon the offspring of his thoughts that popular shape 
 which gives such productions immediate circulation. His 
 works were, therefore, looked coldly on by the world, and 
 were only esteemed by men of poetic minds, or those who 
 were fond of things out of the common way. He earned 
 a little fame, but no money by these speculations, and had 
 to depend for bread on the labours of the graver. 
 
 All this neither crushed his spirit nor induced him to 
 work more in the way of the world ; but it had a visible 
 influence upon his mind. He became more seriously 
 thoughtful, avoided the company of men, and lived in the 
 manner of a hermit, in that vast wilderness, London. 
 Necessity made him frugal, and honesty and independence 
 prescribed plain clothes, homely fare, and a cheap habita- 
 tion. He was thus compelled more than ever to retire to 
 worlds of his own creating, and seek solace in visions of 
 paradise for the joys which the earth denied him. By fre- 
 quent indulgence in these imaginings he gradually began 
 to believe in the reality of what dreaming fancy painted 
 the pictured forms which swarmed before his eyes assumed, 
 in his apprehension, the stability of positive revelations, 
 and he mistook the vivid figures which his professional 
 imagination shaped, for the poets, and heroes, and princes 
 of old. Amongst his friends he at length ventured to in- 
 
 D D
 
 402 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 timate that the designs on which he was engaged, were not 
 froin his own mind, but copied from grand works revealed 
 to him in visions; and those who believed that would 
 readily lend an ear to the assurance that he was com- 
 manded to execute his performances by a celestial tongue ! l 
 Of these imaginary visitations he made good use, when 
 he invented his truly original and beautiful mode of en- 
 graving and tinting his plates. He had made the designs 
 of his " Days of Innocence," and was meditating, he said, 
 on the best means of multiplying their resemblance in form 
 and in hue ; he felt sorely perplexed. At last he was made 
 aware that the spirit of his favourite brother Robert was in 
 the room, and to this celestial visitor he applied for coun- 
 sel. The spirit advised him at once : " Write," he said, 
 " the poetry, and draw the designs upon the copper with a 
 certain liquid (which he named, and which Blake ever kept 
 a secret): 2 then cut the plain parts of the plate down with 
 aquafortis, and this will give the whole, both poetry and 
 figures, in the manner of a stereotype." The plan recom- 
 mended by this gracious spirit was adopted; the plates 
 
 1 From earliest childhood it would seem Blake had been wont to 
 indulge in these imaginings. He himself records that his first vision 
 came to him when he was a boy of eight or ten. Sauntering over Peck- 
 ham Rye one day, he suddenly saw a tree filled with bright angelic 
 beings. On relating this incident on his return home, however, he 
 narrowly escaped a thrashing from an unimaginative father for telling 
 a lie. ED. 
 
 2 Gilchrist considers that this revealed liquid was nothing more than 
 the ordinary stopping-out varnish of engravers. Blake's method of 
 using it, however, was entirely original. He first wrote his text, and 
 outlined his designs on the copper with this liquid, whatever it was, and 
 then used aquafortis or some other acid for eating away all the lights, 
 so that letters and design were left in relief as in stereotype ; he then 
 printed off his plates in any tint that suited his fancy, using red gene- 
 rally for the letterpress. Gilchrist relates, from Blake's own testimony, 
 that, at the time when the spirit first revealed this secret to him, he had 
 only half-a-crown in the world, but he unhesitatingly sent out his wife 
 to purchase the necessary materials, and she expended one-and-tenpence 
 out of that sum upon them. The " Songs of Innocence " were first put 
 forth (one can scarcely say published) in this way in 1787, with the 
 inscription, The Author and Printer W. Blake. He was aided somewhat 
 in the printing by his faithful wife, whom he had taught to take off im- 
 pressions with great skill and delicacy. Even the binding of this original 
 little volume was accomplished by her hands. ED.
 
 BLAKE. 403 
 
 were engraved, and the work printed off. The artist then 
 added a peculiar beauty of his own. He tinted both the 
 figures and the verse with a variety of colours, amongst 
 which, while yellow prevails, the whole has a rich and lus- 
 trous beauty, to which I know little that can be compared. 
 The size of these prints is four inches and a half high by 
 three inches wide. The original genius of Blake was always 
 confined, through poverty, to small dimensions. Sixty-five 
 plates of copper were an object to him who had little 
 money. The " Gates of Paradise," a work of sixteen de- 
 signs, and those exceedingly small, was his next under- 
 taking. The meaning of the artist is not a little obscure ; 
 it seems to have been his object to represent the innocence, 
 the happiness, and the upward aspirations of man. They 
 bespeak one intimately acquainted with the looks and the 
 feelings of children. Over them there is shed a kind of 
 mysterious halo which raises feelings of devotion. The 
 " Songs of Innocence " and the " Gates of Paradise " be- 
 came popular among the collectors of prints. 1 To the 
 sketch-book and the cabinet the works of Blake are unfor- 
 tunately confined. 
 
 If there be mystery in the meaning of the " Gates of 
 Paradise," his succeeding performance, by name " URI- 
 ZEN," has the merit or the fault of surpassing all human 
 comprehension. The spirit which dictated this strange 
 work was undoubtedly a dark one ; nor docs the strange 
 kind of prose which is intermingled with the figures serve 
 to enlighten us. There are in all twenty-seven designs, 
 representing beings human, demoniac, and divine, in situa- 
 
 1 The " Gates of Paradise," a small octavo volume, printed in the 
 manner before described, was published in 1793. However involved the 
 text may be, the designs at all events are very simple, and pregnant 
 with meaning. The frontispiece suggests an answer to the difficult 
 question, " What is man ? " by representing a chrysalis on a leaf with 
 a little baby face just emerged from it, while the lust design of the series, 
 returning to the caterpillar idea, shows a figure in a shroud, with a long 
 worm twisting round it, and the significant text underneath, il I have 
 said to the worm, thou art my mother and my sister." The " Gates of 
 Paradise" purports on the title-page to be "For children,'' but. unlike 
 the "Songs of Innocence," which have a truly childlike simplicity, it 
 deals with images too vast and sad for a child's comprehension. Ki.
 
 404 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 tions of pain and sorrow and suffering. One character 
 evidently an evil spirit appears in most of the plates ; the 
 horrors of hell, and the terrors of darkness and divine 
 wrath, seem his sole portion. He swims in gulfs of fire, 
 descends in cataracts of flame, holds combats with scaly 
 serpents, or writhes in anguish without any visible cause. 
 One of his exploits is to chase a female soul through a 
 narrow gate, and hurl her headlong down into a darksome 
 pit. The wild verses, which are scattered here and there, 
 talk of the sons and the daughters of Urizen. He seems 
 to have extracted these twenty-seven scenes out of many 
 visions ; what he meant by them even his wife declared 
 she could not tell, though she was sure they had a mean- 
 ing, and a fine one. Something like the fall of Lucifer 
 and the creation of Man is dimly visible in this extrava- 
 gant work. It is not a little fearful to look upon a power- 
 ful, dark, terrible, though xindefined and indescribable, im- 
 pression is left on the mind ; and it is in no haste to be 
 gone. 1 The size of the designs is four inches by six ; they 
 
 1 Even Swinburne, the chief apostle of the Blake faith, can make 
 very little of this mysterious Urizen, who seems a sort of " Setebos," 
 clothed in a garment of fire and smoke of Blake's weaving. Ore, also, 
 that fearful son of space and time, who " rises like a pillar of fire above 
 the Alps," is not easy to comprehend, though Gilchrist deems that he 
 ma}' be taken as a symbol of " the wild energies of nature, and more 
 especially of man ; the natural man in a state of permanent revolt and 
 protest against the tyranny of Urizen," Caliban, in fact, battling with 
 Setebos. The whole is full of vague images of horror, (lashing forth 
 occasionally from the surrounding darkne-ss with appalling distinctness. 
 Allan Cunningham makes no mention of two other of Blake's prophetic 
 books" The Boole of Thel " and " The Marriage of Heaven and Hell " 
 which are perhaps even more remarkable and mystical than the Urizen. 
 " The Marriage of Heaven and Hell," writes Swinburne, " gives us the 
 high-water mark of Blake's intellect. None of his lyrical writings show 
 the same strength and radiance of mind .... Here, for once, he 
 has written a book as perfect as his most faultless song, as great as his 
 most imperfect rhapsody. His fire of spirit fills it from end to end ; but 
 never deforms the body, never singes the surface of the work, as too 
 often in the still noble books of his later life." Less imaginative critics may 
 not perhaps be able to see quite so much in this work as Mr. Swinburne, 
 who maybe has added the " fire " of his own " spirit " to that of Blake's 
 in its interpretation, but even the dullest understandings will be likely 
 to become excited over its fervent expressions of poetical philosophy. 
 Deep wisdom too is often to be found in what Blake terms the " Pro-
 
 BLAKE. 405 
 
 bear date, " Lambeth, 1794." He had left Poland Street, 
 and was residing in Hercules Buildings. 
 
 The name of Blake began now to be known a little, 
 and Edwards, the bookseller, employed him to illustrate 
 Young's " Night Thoughts." The reward in money was 
 small, but the temptation in fame was great ; the work 
 was performed something in the manner of old books with 
 illuminated margins. Along the ample margins which the 
 poetry left on the page the artist sketched his fanciful 
 creations, contracting or expanding them according to the 
 space. Some of those designs were in keeping with the 
 poems, but there were others which alarmed fastidious 
 people : the serious and the pious were not prepared to 
 admire shapes trembling in nudity round the verses of a 
 grave divine. In the exuberance of Young there are many 
 fine figures ; but they are figures of speech only, on which 
 
 verbs of Hell," not the worldly wisdom of " Ecclesiastes " merely, though 
 that is what they seem to profess, but here and there a truer and higher 
 teaching. Some of the aphorisms, indeed, are remarkable for philosophic 
 insight as well as poetical expression. Such as 
 
 "He whose face gives no light, shall never become a star." 
 
 " What is now proved was once only imagined." 
 
 " One thought fills immensity." 
 
 " The cistern contains, the fountain overflows." 
 
 " To create a little flower is the labour of ages." 
 
 Of the more worldly sort are : 
 
 " The crow wished everything was black, the owl that everything was 
 white." 
 
 " The busy bee has no time for sorrow." 
 
 " The hours of folly arc measured by the clock, but of wisdom no 
 clock can measure.' 1 
 
 " The Book of Thel" is a milder invention, a graceful poem full of 
 sweet sadness and delicate beauty, but whose meaning is wrapped from the 
 common gaze, though the initiated find in it an " attempt to comfort life 
 through death ; to assuage by spiritual hope tho fleshly fear of man." 
 
 There were seTeral other prophetic books put forth by Blake besides 
 these, but space will not allow of more than tho mention of their names. 
 These are : "Visions of the Daughters of Albion," with the motto on 
 its title-page, " The eye sees more than the heart knows ; " the " Europe " 
 and the " America," wild and intricate allegories ; the " Song of Los," 
 or Time, resembling " Uri/en" in its passionate images and fitful bursts of 
 jwetry, though falling often into the burlesque in its extravagant expres- 
 sion ; and " The Mystical Book of Ahaina," which, as Cunningham 
 says of" Urizen," " surpasses all human comprehension." ED.
 
 406 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 art should waste none of its skill. This work was so much, 
 in many parts, to the satisfaction of Flaxman that he in- 
 troduced Blake to Hayley the poet, who, in 1800, persuaded 
 him to remove to Felpham in Sussex, to make engravings 
 for the " Life of Cowper." To that place he accordingly 
 went with his wife and sister, and was welcomed by Hay- 
 ley with much affection. Of his journey and his feelings 
 he gives the following account to Flaxman, whom he 
 usually addressed thus, " Dear Sculptor of Eternity" : 
 
 " We are arrived safe at our cottage, which is more 
 beautiful than I thought it, and more convenient. It is a 
 perfect model for cottages and, I think, for palaces of mag- 
 nificence, only enlarging and not altering its proportions, 
 and adding ornaments and not principals. Nothing can 
 be more grand than its simplicity and usefulness. Felp- 
 ham is a sweet place for study, because it is,more spiritual 
 than London. Heaven opens here on all sides her golden 
 gates ; her windows are not obstructed by vapours ; voices 
 of celestial inhabitants are more distinctly heard, and their 
 forms more distinctly seen ; and my cottage is also a 
 shadow of their houses. My wife and sister are both well, 
 and are courting Neptune for an embrace." 
 
 Thus far had he written in the language and feelings of 
 a person of upper air ; though some of the expressions are 
 tinctured with the peculiar enthusiasm of the man, they 
 might find shelter under the licence of figurative speech, 
 and pass muster as the poetic language of new-found 
 happiness. Blake thus continues : 
 
 " And now begins a new life, because another covering 
 of earth is shaken off. I am more famed in heaven for my 
 works than I could well conceive. In my brain are studies 
 and chambers filled with books and pictures of old, which 
 I wrote and painted in ages of eternity before my mortal 
 life, and those works are the delight and study of arch- 
 angels. Why, then, should I be anxious about the riches 
 or fame of mortality ? You, O dear Flaxman, are a sub- 
 lime archangel, my friend and companion from eternity. 
 Farewell, my dear friend, remember me and my wife in 
 love and friendship to Mrs. Flaxman, whom we ardently de- 
 sire to entertain beneath our thatched roof of russet gold."
 
 BLAKE. 407 
 
 This letter, written in the year 1800, gives the true two- 
 fold image of the author's mind. During the day he was 
 a man of sagacity and sense, who handled his graver 
 wisely, and conversed in a wholesome and pleasant manner ; 
 in the evening, when he had done his prescribed task, he 
 gave a loose to his imagination. While employed on those 
 engravings which accompany the works of Cowper, he saw 
 such company as the country where he resided afforded, 
 and talked with Hayley about poetry with a feeling to 
 which the author of the "Triumphs of Temper" was an 
 utter stranger; but at the close of day away went Blake to 
 the sea shore to indulge in his own thoughts and 
 
 " High converse with the dead to hold." 
 
 Here he forgot the present moment, and lived in the past. 
 He conceived, verily, that he had lived in other days, and 
 had formed friendships with Homer and Moses, with Pin- 
 dar and Virgil, with Dante and Milton. These great men, 
 he asserted, appeared to him in visions, and even entered 
 into conversation. Milton, in a moment of confidence, en- 
 trusted him with a whole poem of his, which the world had 
 never seen ; but unfortunately the communication was 
 oral, and the poetry seemed to have lost much of its 
 brightness in Blake's recitation. When asked about the 
 looks of those visions, he answered, " They are all majestic 
 shadows, grey but luminous, and superior to the common 
 height of men." It was evident that the solitude of the 
 country gave him a larger swing in imaginary matters. 
 His wife often accompanied him to these strange inter- 
 views ; she saw nothing and heard as little, but she was 
 certain that her husband both heard and saw. 
 
 Blake's mind at all times resembled that first page in 
 the magician's book of gramoury, which made 
 
 " The cobweb on the dungeon wall, 
 Seem tapestry in lordly hall." 
 
 His mind could convert the most ordinary occurrence into 
 something mystical and supernatural. He often saw less 
 majestic shapes than those of the poets of old. " Did you
 
 408 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 ever see a fairy's funeral, madam ?" he once said to a lady, 
 who happened to sit by him in company. " Never, sir!" 
 was the answer. " I have," said Blake, " but not before 
 last night. I was walking alone in my garden ; there was 
 great stillness among the branches and flowers, and more 
 than common sweetness in the air. I heard a low and 
 pleasant sound, and I knew not whence it came. At last 
 I saw the broad leaf of a flower move, and underneath I 
 saw a procession of creatures of the size and colour of 
 green and grey grasshoppers, bearing a body laid out on a 
 rose-leaf, which they buried with songs, and then disap- 
 peared. It was a faiiy funeral." It would, perhaps, have 
 been better for his fame had he connected it more with the 
 superstitious beliefs of his country amongst the elves 
 and fairies his fancy might have wandered at will their 
 popular character would perhaps have kept him within the 
 bounds of traditionary belief, and the sea of his imagina- 
 tion might have had a shore. 
 
 After a residence of three years in his cottage at Felp- 
 ham, 1 he removed to 17, South Molton Street, London, 
 where he lived seventeen years. He came back to town 
 with a, fancy not a little exalted by the solitude of the 
 country, and in this mood designed and engraved an exten- 
 sive and strange work which he entitled " Jerusalem." A 
 production so exclusively wild was not allowed to make its 
 appearance in an ordinary way : he thus announced it : 
 " After my three years' slumber on the banks of the ocean, 
 I again display my giant forms to the public." Of these 
 designs there are no less than a hundred ; what their 
 meaning is the artist has left unexplained. It seems of a 
 religious, political, and spiritual kind, and wanders from 
 
 1 One disturbing little incident occurred during his residence at Felp- 
 hain. namely, his trial for high treason, owing to some not unnatural 
 expressions of wrath that he indulged in on finding an insolent, drunken 
 soldier in his garden. The visionary poet, who was of small stature, 
 attacked the great hulking soldier, and fairly drove him out ; and he, in 
 revenge for being thus treated, swore to Blake's having made use of 
 treasonable expressions against the King ; " Damn the King and you too " 
 seems to have been the gist of the story, but at all events Blake was 
 tried, and his Radical sympathies being known, his friends had some 
 difficulty iu getting him acquitted. ED.
 
 BLAKE. 409 
 
 hell to heaven, and from heaven to earth now glancing 
 into the distractions of our own days, and then making a 
 transition to the antediluvians. The crowning defect is 
 obscurity ; meaning seems now and then about to dawn ; 
 you turn plate after plate, and read motto after motto, in 
 the hope of escaping from darkness into light. But the 
 first might as well be looked at last : the whole seems a 
 riddle which no ingenuity can solve. Yet, if the work be 
 looked at for form and effect rather than for meaning, 
 many figures may be pronounced worthy of Michael An- 
 gelo. There is wonderful freedom of ^attitude and position. 
 Men, spirits, gods, and angels move with an ease which 
 makes one lament that we know not wherefore they are 
 put in motion. Well might Hayley call him his " gentle 
 visionary Blake." He considered the " Jerusalem " to be 
 his greatest work, and for a set of the tinted engravings 
 charged twenty-five guineas. Few joined the artist in his 
 admiration. The " Jerusalem," with all its giant forms, 
 failed to force its way into circulation. 
 
 His next work was the Illustrations of Blair's " Grave," 1 
 which came to the world with the following commendation 
 by Fuseli : " The author of the moral series before us has 
 endeavoured to awaken sensibility by touching our sym- 
 pathies with nearer, less ambiguous, and less ludicrous 
 imagery, than what mythology, gothic superstition, or sym- 
 bols, as far-fetched as inadequate, could supply. His avo- 
 cation has been chiefly employed to spread a familiar and 
 domestic atmosphere round the most important of all sub- 
 jects, to connect the visible and the invisible world without 
 provoking probability, and to lead the eye from the milder 
 light of time to the radiations of eternity." For these 
 twelve " Inventions," as he called them, Blake received 
 twenty guineas from Cromek, the engraver a man of 
 skill in art and taste in literature. The price was little, 
 but nevertheless it was more than he usually received for 
 such productions. 2 He also undertook to engrave them. 
 
 1 Between the publication of the "Jerusalem" and Blair's "Grave" 
 ctimo " Milton : a 1'oem in two books/' though why called " Milton " it 
 is impossible to understand. ED. 
 
 2 Tliis is pointed out by Gilchrist as being incorrect 5 Blake, it is true,
 
 410 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 But Blake's mode of engraving was as peculiar as his 
 style of designing ; it had little of that grace of execution 
 about it which attracts customers, and the " Inventions," 
 after an experiment or two, were placed under the fashion- 
 able graver of Louis Schiavonetti. Blake was deeply in- 
 censed he complained that he was deprived of the profit 
 of engraving his own designs, and, with even less justice, 
 that Schiavonetti was unfit for the task. 
 
 Some of these twelve " Inventions " are natural and poe- 
 tic, others exhibit laborious attempts at the terrific and 
 the sublime. " The Old Man at Death's Door" is one of 
 the best ; in " The Last Day" there are fine groups and 
 admirable single figures. " The Wise Ones of the Earth 
 Pleading before the Inexorable Throne," and the "Descent 
 of the Condemned," are creations of a high order. " The 
 Death of the Strong Wicked Man" is fearfxil and extra- 
 vagant, and the flames in which the soul departs from the 
 body have no warrant in the poem or in belief. " The 
 Descent of Christ into the Grave " is formal and tame ; 
 and the hoary old soul, in the " Death of the Good Man," 
 travelling heavenward between two ordinary angels, re- 
 quired little outlay of fancy. The frontispiece a naked 
 Angel descending headlong, and rousing the dead with the 
 sound of the last trumpet alarmed the devout people of 
 the north, and made maids and matrons retire behind their 
 fans. 
 
 If the tranquillity of Blake's life was a little disturbed 
 by the dispute about the twelve " Inventions," it was com- 
 pletely shaken by the controversy which now arose*between 
 him and Cromek respecting his " Canterbury Pilgrimage," 
 and the famous one by Stothard. That two artists at one 
 and the same time should choose the same subject for the 
 pencil seems scarcely credible, especially when such sub- 
 ject was not of a temporary interest. The coincidence here 
 was so close, that Blake accused Stothard of obtaining 
 knowledge of his design through Cromek, while Stothard, 
 with equal warmth, asserted that Blake had commenced 
 
 often sold his drawings for a guinea and a half, but then he did not lose 
 his copyright as in this instance. ED.
 
 BLAKE. 411 
 
 his 'picture in rivalry of himself. Blake declared that 
 Cromek had actually commissioned him to paint the " Pil- 
 grimage" before Stothard thought of his ; to which Cromek 
 replied that the order had been given in a vision, for he 
 never gave it. Stothard, a man as little likely to be led 
 aside from truth by love of gain as by visions, added to 
 Cromek's denial the startling testimony that Blake visited 
 him during the early progress of his picture, and ex- 
 pressed his approbation of it in such terms that he pro- 
 posed to introduce Blake's portrait in the procession, as a 
 mark of esteem. It is probable that Blake obeyed some 
 imaginary revelation in this matter, and mistook it for the 
 order of an earthly employer ; but whether commissioned 
 by a vision or by mortal lips, his " Canterbury Pilgrimage " 
 made its appearance in an exhibition of his principal works 
 in the house of his brother in Broad Street, during the 
 summer of 1809. 1 
 
 Of original designs, this singular exhibition contained 
 sixteen : they were announced as chiefly " of a spiritual 
 and political nature " but then the spiritual works and 
 political feelings of Blake were unlike those of any other 
 man. One piece represented " The Spiritual Form of Nelson 
 guiding Leviathan." Another, " The Spiritual Form of 
 Pitt guiding Behemoth." 2 This probably confounded both 
 divines and politicians ; there is no doubt that plain men 
 went wondering away. The chief attraction was " The Can- 
 
 1 Croim-k evidently acted in a most unscrupulous manner in this trans- 
 action ; indeed, all his dealings show him to have been a sharp man of 
 business, always seeking to take advantage of the artists who worked for 
 him. His dealings with Stothard are scarcely more creditable than 
 those with Blake, though Stothard, in the matter of the " Pilgrimage," 
 reaped more advantage. The matter led to the most bitter feeling 
 between these two artists. See " Life of Stothard," vol. iii. ED. 
 
 2 Another picture at this exhibition was " The Ancient Britons,'' a 
 work which Mr. Seymour Kirkup characteriy.es as one of Blake's ' ; best," 
 and Southey as one of his " worst paintings." " The Spiritual Form of 
 Pitt," a very marvellous performance, utterly incomprehensible to the un- 
 instructed, was exhibited some years ago at Burlington House (Old Mas- 
 ters), as also another example of uncontrolled imagination, called " The 
 Bard, from Gray." The works were apparently executed while he was 
 in the power of the Chiaro-scuro demons, who, he says, tempted him at 
 one time. ED.
 
 412 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 terbury Pilgrimage," not indeed from its excellence, but 
 from the circumstance of its origin, which was well known 
 about town, and pointedly alluded to in the catalogue. 
 The picture is a failure. Blake was too great a visionary 
 for dealing with such literal wantons as the Wife of Bath 
 and her jolly companions. The natural flesh and blood 
 of Chaucer prevailed against him. He gives grossness of 
 body for grossness of mind tries to be merry and wicked 
 and in vain. 
 
 Those who missed instruction in his pictures, found 
 entertainment in his catalogue, a wild performance, over- 
 flowing with the oddities and dreams of the author which 
 may be considered as a kind of public declaration of his 
 faith concerning art and artists. His first anxiety is about 
 his colours. " Colouring," says this new lecturer on the 
 Chiaro-scuro, "does not depend on where the colours are put, 
 but on where the lights and darks are put, and all depends 
 on form or outline. Where that is wrong the colouring 
 never can be right, and it is always wrong in Titian and 
 Correggio, Rubens, and Rembrandt ; till we get rid of them 
 we shall never equal Raphael and Albert Durer, Michael 
 Angelo and Julio Romano. Clearness and precision have 
 been my chief objects in painting these pictures clear 
 colours and firm, determinate lineaments, unbroken by 
 shadows which ought to display, and not hide form, as is 
 the practice of the later schools of Italy and Flanders. 
 The picture of ' The Spiritual Form of Pitt ' is a proof of 
 power of colours, unsullied with oil or with any cloggy 
 vehicle. Oil has been falsely supposed to give strength 
 to colours, but a little consideration must show the fallacy 
 of this opinion. Oil will not drink or absorb colour enough 
 to stand the test of any little time, and of the air. Let the 
 works of artists since Rubens' time witness to the villany 
 of those who first brought oil-painting into general opinion 
 and practice, since which we have never had a picture 
 painted that would show itself by the side of an earlier 
 composition. This is an awful thing to say to oil-painters ; 
 they may call it madness, but it is true. All the genuine 
 old little pictures are in fresco and not in oil." 
 
 Having settled the true principles and proper materials
 
 BLAKE. 413 
 
 of colour, he proceeds to open up the mystery of his own 
 productions. Those who failed to comprehend the pictures 
 on looking at them, had only to turn to the following 
 account of the Pitt and the Nelson : " These two pictures," 
 he says, " are compositions of a mythological cast, similar 
 to those Apotheoses of Persian, Hindoo, and Egyptian anti- 
 quity, which are still preserved in rude monuments, being 
 copies from some stupendous originals now lost, or perhaps 
 buried to some happier age. The Artist, having been 
 taken, in vision, to the ancient republics, monarchies, and 
 patriarchates of Asia, has seen those wonderful originals, 
 called in the sacred Scriptures the cherubim, which were 
 painted and sculptured on the walls of temples, towns, 
 cities, palaces, and erected in the highly cultivated states 
 of Egypt, Moab, and Edom, among the rivers of Paradise, 
 being originals from which the Greeks and Hetrurians 
 copied Hercules, Venus, Apollo, and all the ground-works 
 of ancient art. They were executed in a very superior style 
 to those justly-admired copies, being with their accom- 
 paniments terrific and grand in the highest degree. The 
 artist has endeavoured to emulate the grandeur of those 
 scenes in his vision, and to apply it to modem times on a 
 smaller scale. The Greek Muses are daughters of Memory, 
 and not of Inspiration or Imagination, and therefore not 
 authors of such sublime conceptions ; some of these won- 
 derful originals were one hundred feet in height ; some 
 were painted as pictures, some were carved as basso-relievos, 
 and some as groups of statues, all containing mythological 
 and recondite meaning. The artist wishes it was now the 
 fashion to make such monuments, and then he should not 
 doubt of having a national commission to execute those 
 pictures of Nelson and Pitt on a scale suitable to the 
 grandeur of the nation who is the parent of his heroes, in 
 highly-finished fresco, where the colours would be as per- 
 manent as precious stones." 
 
 The man who could not only write down, but delibe- 
 rately correct the printer's sheets which recorded matter 
 so utterly wild and mad, was at the same time perfectly 
 sensible to the exquisite nature of Chaucer's delinea- 
 tions, and felt rightly what sort of skill his inimitable
 
 414 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 pilgrims required at the hand of an artist. He who saw 
 visions in Code-Syria and statues a hundred feet high, 
 wrote thus concerning Chaucer : " The characters of his 
 pilgrims are the characters which compose all ages an<3 
 nations ; as one age falls another rises, different to mortal 
 sight, but to immortals only the same : for we see the 
 same characters repeated again and again, in animals, in 
 vegetables and in men; nothing new occurs in identical 
 existence. Accident ever varies ; substance can never suffer 
 change nor decay. Of Chaucer's characters, some of the 
 names or titles are altered by time, but the characters 
 themselves for ever remain unaltered, and consequently 
 they are the physiognomies of universal human life, beyond 
 which nature never steps. Names alter things never alter; 
 I have known multitudes of those who would have been 
 monks in the age of monkery, who in this deistical age are 
 deists. As Linnaeus numbered the plants, so Chaucer num- 
 bered the classes of men." 
 
 His own notions, and much of his peculiar piuctice in 
 art, are scattered at random over the pages of this curious 
 production. His love of a distinct outline made him use 
 close and clinging dresses ; they are frequently very grace- 
 ful at other times they are constrained and deform the 
 figures which they so scantily cover. " The great and golden 
 rule of art," says he, "is this: that the more distinct 
 and sharp and wiry the bounding line, the more perfect the 
 work of art ; and the less keen and sharp this external 
 line, the greater is the evidence of weak imitative plagiarism 
 and bungling : Protogenes and Apelles knew each other 
 by this line. How do we distinguish the oak from the 
 beech, the horse from the ox ; but by the bounding out- 
 line ? How do we distinguish one face or countenance 
 from another, but by the bounding line and its infinite 
 inflections and movements ? Leave out this line, and you 
 leave out life itself : all is chaos again, and the line of the 
 Almighty must be drawn out upon it, before man or beast 
 can exist." 1 
 
 1 About the only instance of approval in Blake's notes to Reynolds's 
 "Discourses," a work which, as before said (see " Reynolds," p. 210), 
 kindled his ire to great extent, occurs at the passage, " A firm and deter-
 
 BLAKE. 415 
 
 These abominations, concealed outline and tricks of 
 colour now bring on one of those visionary fits to which 
 Blake was so liable, and he narrates with the most amus- 
 ing wildness sundry revelations made to him concerning 
 them. He informs us that certain painters were demons 
 let loose on earth to confound the " sharp, wiry outline," 
 and fill men's minds with fear and perturbations. He sig- 
 nifies that he himself was for some time a miserable in- 
 strument in the hands of Chiaro-scuro demons, who em- 
 ployed him in making " experiment pictures in oil." 
 " These pictures," says he, " were the result of temptations 
 and perturbations labouring to destroy imaginative power 
 by means of that infernal machine called Chiaro-scuro, in 
 the hands of Venetian and Flemish demons, who hate the 
 Roman and Florentine schools. They cause that every- 
 thing in art shall become a machine ; they cause that the 
 execution shall be all blocked up with brown shadows ; 
 they put the artist in fear and doubt of his own original 
 conception. The spirit of Titian was particularly active in 
 raising doubts concerning the possibility of executing with- 
 out a model. Rubens is a most outrageous demon, and 
 by infusing the remembrances of his pictures, and style of 
 execution, hinders all power of individual thought. Cor- 
 reggio is a soft and effeminate, consequently a most cruel 
 demon, whose whole delight is to cause endless labour to 
 whoever suffers him to enter his mind." When all this is 
 translated into the language of sublunary life, it only 
 means that Blake was haunted with the excellences of 
 other men's works, and finding himself unequal to the task 
 of rivalling the soft and glowing colours and singular effects 
 of light and shade of certain great masters, betook himself 
 to the study of others not less eminent, who happened to 
 have laid out their strength in outline. 
 
 The impression which the talents and oddities of Blake 
 made on men of taste and genius is well described by one 
 whose judgment in whatever is poetical no one will ques- 
 tion. Charles Lamb had communicated to James Mont- 
 
 iniiidl outline is one of the characteristics of the great stylo in painting." 
 against which liluke has written, " Here is a noble sentence ! a sentence 
 which overthrows all his book.'' Ki>.
 
 41 G THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 gomery's book on chimney-sweepers the little song by 
 Blake, which I have already quoted ; it touched the feel- 
 ings of Bernard Barton so deeply, that he made inquiries 
 of his friend about the author, upon which he received the 
 following letter in explanation, written some six years ago : 
 " Blake is a real name, I assure you," says Lamb ; " and a 
 most extraordinary man he is, if he be still living. He is 
 the Blake whose wild designs accompany a splendid edition 
 of Blair's Grave, which you may perhaps have seen or 
 heard of ; in one of which he pictures the parting of soul 
 and body by a solid mass of human form floating off, God 
 knows how, from a lumpish mass, fac-simile to itself left 
 behind on the death-bed. He paints in water-colours 
 marvellous strange pictures visions of his brain which he 
 asserts that he has seen. They have great merit. He has 
 seen the old Welsh bards on Snowdon. He has seen the 
 beautifulest, the strongest, and the ugliest man left alive 
 from the massacre of the Britons by the Romans, and has 
 painted them from memory (I have seen these paintings), 
 and asserts them to be as good as the figures of Raphael 
 and Angelo, but not better, as they had precisely the same 
 retro-visions and prophetic visions with himself. The 
 painters in oil (which he will have it that neither of these 
 great masters ever practised) he affirms to have been the 
 ruin of art ; and asserts that all the while he was engaged 
 on his water paintings, Titian was disturbing him Titian, 
 the evil genius of oil-painting ! His pictures, one in par- 
 ticular, the Canterbury Pilgrims, have wonderful power 
 and spirit, but hard and dry, yet with grace. He has 
 written a catalogue of them, with a most spirited criticism 
 on Chaucer, but mystical and full of vision. I have heard 
 of his poems, but never seen them. There is one to a 
 tiger, which I have heard recited, beginning 
 
 ' Tiger, tiger, burning bright, 
 Through the deserts of the night,' 
 
 which is glorious. But, alas ! I have not the book, and the 
 man is flown, whither I know not to Hades or a mad- 
 house but I must look on him as one of the most extra- 
 ordinary persons of the age."
 
 BLAKE. 41 T 
 
 To describe the conversations which Blake held in prose 
 with demons, and in verse with angels, would fill volumes, 
 and an ordinary gallery could not contain all the heads 
 which he drew of his visionary visitants. That all this 
 was real he himself most sincerely believed ; nay, so in- 
 fectious was his enthusiasm, that some acute and sensible 
 persons who heard him expatiate shook their heads, and 
 hinted that he was an extraordinary man, and that there 
 might be something in the matter. One of his brethren, 
 an artist of some note, 1 employed him frequently in draw- 
 ing the portraits of those who appeared to him in visions. 
 The most propitious time for those "angel visits" was 
 from nine at night till five in the morning ; and so docile 
 were his spiritual sitters, that they appeared at the wish of 
 his friends. Sometimes, however, the shape which he de- 
 sired to draw was long in appearing, and he sat with his 
 pencil and paper ready and his eyes idly roaming in va- 
 cancy ; all at once the vision came upon him, and he began 
 to work like one possessed. 
 
 He was requested to draw the likeness of Sir William 
 Wallace the eye of Blake sparkled, for he admired 
 heroes. " William Wallace !" he exclaimed,"! see him 
 now there, there, how noble he looks reach me my 
 things!" Having drawn for some time, with the same 
 care of hand and steadiness of eye, as if a living sitter 
 had been before him, Blake stopt suddenly, and said, " I 
 cannot finish him Edward the First has stept in between 
 him and me." " That's lucky," said his friend, " for I 
 want the portrait of Edward too." Blake took another 
 sheet of paper, and sketched the features of Plantagenet ; 
 upon which his majesty politely vanished, and the artist 
 finished the head of Wallace. " And pray, Sir," said a 
 gentleman, who heard Blake's friend tell his story, " was 
 
 1 This was John Varley, the water-colour painter, a man in many 
 respects as eccentric as Blake himself. He was a professed astrologer, 
 took horoscopes, and cast nativities. It was easy jK-rhaps to him, with 
 these proclivities, to believe in his friend's spirits, though he owned he 
 could not see them himself, and he seems to have been about the only 
 convert that Blake ever made. Those two artists, with such kindred 
 tastes, were very intimate during the last few years of Blake's life. ED. 
 
 E E
 
 418 THE BRITISH PAINTERS 
 
 Sir William Wallace an heroic- looking man? And what 
 sort of personage was Edward ? " The answer was : 
 " There they are, Sir, both framed and hanging on the 
 wall behind you, judge for yourself." " I looked (says my 
 informant) and saw two warlike heads of the size of 
 common life. That of Wallace was noble and heroic, 
 that of Edward stern and bloody. The first had the front 
 of a god, the latter the aspect of a demon." 
 
 The friend who obliged me with these anecdotes, on 
 observing the interest which I took in the subject, said, 
 " I know much about Blake I was his companion for 
 nine years. I have sat beside him from ten at night till 
 three in the morning, sometimes slumbering and some- 
 times waking, but Blake never slept ; he sat with a pencil 
 and paper drawing portraits of those whom I most desired 
 to see. I will show you, Sir, some of these works." He 
 took out a large book filled with drawings, opened it, and 
 continued, " Observe the poetic fervour of that face it is 
 Pindar as he stood a conqueror in the Olympic games. 
 And this lovely creature is Corinna, who conquered in 
 poetry in the same place. That lady is Lais, the courte- 
 san with the impudence which is part of her profession, 
 she stept in between Blake and Corinna, and he was 
 obliged to paint her to get her away ! There ! that is a 
 face of a different stamp can you conjecture who he 
 is ? " " Some scoundrel, I should think* Sir." " There 
 now that is a strong proof of the accuracy of Blake he 
 is a scoundrel indeed ! The very individual task-master 
 whom Moses slew in Egypt. And who is this now only 
 imagine who this is ? " " Other than a good one, I doubt, 
 Sir." " You are right, it is a fiend he resembles, and 
 this is remarkable, two men who shall be nameless ; one 
 is a great lawyer, and the other I wish I durst name 
 him is a suborner of false witnesses. The other head 
 now? this speaks for itself it is the head of Herod ; 
 how like an eminent officer in the army ! " 
 
 He closed the book, and taking out a small panel from 
 a private drawer, said, " This is the last which I shall show 
 you ; but it is the greatest curiosity of all. Only look at 
 the splendour of the colouring and the original character
 
 BLAKE. 419 
 
 of the thing ! " "I see," said I, " a naked figure with a 
 strong body and a short neck with burning eyes which 
 long for moisture, and a face worthy of a murderer, hold- 
 ing a bloody cup in his clawed hands, out of which it 
 seems eager to drink. I never saw any shape so strange, 
 nor did I ever see any colouring so curiously splendid a 
 kind of glistening green and dusky gold, beautifully var- 
 nished. But what in the world is it ? " " It is a ghost, Sir 
 the ghost of a flea a spiritual! zati on of the thing!" 
 " He saw this in a vision then ? " I said. " I'll tell you all 
 about it, Sir. I called on him one evening, and found 
 Blake more than usually excited. He told me he had seen 
 a wonderful thing the ghost of a flea ! ' And did you 
 make a drawing of him ? ' I inquired. ' No, indeed,' said he. 
 ' I wish I had, but I shall, if he appears again ! ' He looked 
 earnestly into a corner of the room, and then said, ' Here 
 he is reach me my things I shall keep my eye on him. 
 There he comes ! his eager tongue whisking out of his 
 mouth, a cup in his hand to hold blood, and covered with 
 a scaly skin of gold and green ; ' as he described him so 
 he drew him." ' 
 
 1 This ghost of a flea has excited a great deal of interest of late. It 
 was first engraved by Varley in his treatise, " Zodiacal Physiognomy," 
 published in 1828, but the head only of this singular " spiritualization " 
 was given in this work, and afterwards reproduced in Gilchrist's " Life," 
 though VarU-y expressly stated that, " this spirit reappeared to Blake, 
 and afforded him a view of his whole body." And, in reality, a sketch- 
 book belonging to Varley was afterwards found in which Blake had 
 drawn the whole figure of his bloodthirsty flea. This dirty little 
 sketch-book chanced to fall into the hands of Mr. W. B. Scott, who gave 
 an account of it in the " Portfolio" for July, 1871. Besides the ghost 
 of the flea it contained records of other visions seen by Blake, one of them 
 being that of Milton's first wife, who is drawn with a sweet, thoughtful 
 face, set in a close-fitting cap, against which, Blake, with minute atten- 
 tion to detail, has written the words "green vdvet," stating in the same 
 careful spirit of observation, that her eyes were brown and collar black. 
 Since then, however, Mr. Scott, by rare pood fortune, has become pos- 
 sessed of a still more remarkable work. It seems from what Cunning 
 ham states above that Blake not only drew this remarkable figure, but 
 that he was so enamoured of it that he actually painted it in his pecu- 
 liar manner, with the utmost care and elalxiration. Nothing, however, 
 has been known of this painting until a few months ago, when it was 
 purchased by Mr. Scott from the son of John Varley, in whose collec-
 
 420 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 Visions, such as arc said to arise in the sight of those 
 who indulge in opium, were frequently present to Blake, 
 nevertheless he sometimes desired to see a spirit in vain. 
 " For many years," said he, " I longed to see Satan I 
 never could believe that he was the vulgar fiend which 
 our legends represent him I imagined him a classic 
 spirit, such as he appeared to him of Uz, with some of his 
 original splendour about him. At last I saw him. I was 
 going up stairs in the dark, when siiddenly a light came 
 streaming amongst my feet ; I turned round, and there he 
 was looking fiercely at me through the iron grating of my 
 staircase window. I called for my things Katherine 
 thought the fit of song was on me, and brought me pen 
 and ink I said, hush ! never mind this will do as he 
 appeared so I drew him there he is." Upon this, Blake 
 took out a piece of paper with a grated window sketched 
 on it, while through the bars glared the most frightful 
 phantom that ever man imagined. Its eyes were large 
 and like live coals its teeth as long as those of a harrow, 
 and the claws seemed such as might appear in the dis- 
 tempered dream of a clerk in the Herald's office. " It is 
 the gothic fiend of our legends, said Blake the true 
 devil all else are apocryphal." 
 
 These stories are scarcely credible, yet there can be no 
 doubt of their accuracy. Another friend, on whose vera- 
 city I have the fullest dependence, called one evening on 
 Blake, and found him sitting with a pencil and a panel, 
 drawing a portrait with all the seeming anxiety of a man 
 who is conscious that he has got a fastidious sitter ; he 
 looked and drew, and drew and looked, yet no living soul 
 was visible. " Disturb me not," said he, in a whisper, " I 
 have one sitting to me." " Sitting to you ! " exclaimed 
 his astonished visitor, " where is he, and what is he ? I 
 see no one." " But I see him, Sir," answered Blake 
 
 tion it had remained unnoticed for many years. It is even more re- 
 markable than the drawing, for the weird effect is heightened by the 
 peculiar tone of colour employed and the thick coatings of paint laid on. 
 It is certainly a work of extraordinary power and skill, whether it be a 
 creation of the fancy, according to the usual sense in which we use these 
 words, or a "vision," as Blake imagined, of something which was not 
 a mere projection of his own brain. ED.
 
 BLAKE. 421 
 
 haughtily, " there he is, his name is Lot you may read 
 of him in the Scripture. He is sitting for his portrait." ' 
 Had he always thought so idly, and wrought on such 
 
 1 In the Cunningham manuscripts I find the following story, which, 
 it is stated, Allan Cunningham heard too late for insertion in his " Life 
 of Blake," but intended to include in a future edition. He has printed 
 it, however, in his " Cabinet Gallery of Pictures." Blake, who always 
 saw in fancy every form he drew, believed that angels descended to 
 painters of old and sat for their portraits. When he himself sat to 
 Phillips for that fine portrait so beautifully engraved by Schiavonetti, 
 the painter, in order to obtain the most unaffected attitude and the most 
 poetic expression, engaged his sitter in a conversation concerning the 
 sublime in art : " We hear much," said Phillips, " of the grandeur of 
 Michael Angelo ; from the engravings I should say he had been over- 
 rated. He could not paint an angel so well as Raphael." " He has not 
 been overrated, sir," said Blake, " and he could paint an angel better 
 than Raphael." " Well, but," said the other, " you never saw any of 
 the paintings of Michael Angelo, and perhaps speak from the opinions 
 of others. Your friends may have deceived you." " I never saw any 
 of the paintings of Michael Angelo," replied Blake ; " but I speak from 
 the opinion of a friend who could not be mistaken." " A valuable 
 friend, truly," said Phillips ; " and who may he be, pray ? " " The 
 archangel Gabriel, sir," answered Blake. " A good authority, surely ; 
 but you know evil spirits love to assume the looks of good ones, and this 
 may have been done to mislead you." " Well, now, sir, this is really 
 singular," said Blake ; " such were my own suspicions ; but they were 
 soon removed. I will tell you how. I was one day reading Young's 
 ' Night Thoughts,' when I came to the passage which asks, ' Who can 
 paint an angel?' I closed the book and cried, 'Ah! who can paint 
 an angel ? ' A voice in the room answered, ' Michael Angelo could.' 
 ' And how do you know that ? ' I said, looking round, but seeing 
 nothing save a greater light than usual. ' I know,' said the voice, ' for 
 I sat to him. 1 am the archangel Gabriel.' ' Oho !' I cried, ' you are, 
 are you ? I must have better assurance than that of a wandering voice. 
 You may be an evil spirit ; there are such in the land.' ' You shall 
 have good assurance,' said the voice. ' Can an evil spirit do this?' I 
 looked whence the voice came, and was then aware of a shining shape with 
 bright wings, who diffused much light. As I looked the shape dilated 
 more and more. He waved his hands, the roof of my study opened ; he 
 ascended into he stood in the sun, and beckoning to me, moved the 
 universe. An angel of evil could not have done that. It was the arch- 
 angel Gabriel.' " The telling of this wild story was just what Phillips 
 needed, for it brought that rapt, intense look upon Blake's face which 
 the painter has caught so well. The portrait of him painted on ivory by 
 his friend Linnell, during the last year of his life, and reproduced in 
 Gilchrist's " Life," is merely that of a serene, benevolent old man, but 
 that by Phillips, engraved as a frontispiece in Rossetti's edition of his 
 poems, represents the visionary pool. JCo.
 
 422 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 visionary matters, this memoir would have been the story 
 of a madman, instead of the life of a man of genius, some 
 of whose works are worthy of any age or nation. Even 
 while he was indulging in these laughable fancies, and 
 seeing visions at the request of his friends, he conceived, 
 and drew, and engraved, one of the noblest of all his 
 productions the Inventions for the Book of Job. He 
 accomplished this series in a small room, which served 
 him for kitchen, bedchamber, and study, where he had no 
 other companion but his f aithful Katherine, and no larger 
 income than some seventeen or eighteen shillings a week 
 Of these Inventions, as the artist loved to call them, there 
 are twenty-one, representing the Man of Uz sustaining his 
 dignity amidst the inflictions of Satan, the reproaches of 
 his friends, and the insults of his wife. It was in such 
 things that Blake shone ; the Scripture overawed his 
 imagination, and he was too devout to attempt aught 
 beyond a literal embodying of the majestic scene. He 
 goes step by step with the narrative ; always simple, and 
 often sublime never wandering from the subject nor 
 overlaying the text with the weight of his own exuberant 
 fancy. 
 
 The passages, embodied, will show with what lofty 
 themes he presumed to grapple. 1. Thus did Job con- 
 tinually. 2. The Almighty watches the good man's 
 household. 3. Satan receiving power over Job. 4. The 
 wind from the wilderness destroying Job's children. 5. 
 And I alone am escaped to tell thee. 6. Satan smiting 
 Job with sore boils. 7. Job's friends comforting him. 
 8. Let the day perish wherein I was born. 9. Then a 
 spirit passed before my face. 10. Job laughed to scorn 
 by his friends. 11. With dreams upon my bed thou 
 scarest me thou affrightest me with visions. 12. I am 
 young and ye are old, wherefore I was afraid. 13. Then 
 the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind. 14. When 
 the morning stars sang together, and the sons of God 
 shouted for joy. 15. Behold now Behemoth, which I 
 made with thee. 16. Thou hast fulfilled the judgment of 
 the wicked. 17. I have heard thee with the hearing of 
 my ear, but now my eye rejoiceth in thee. 18. Also the
 
 BLAKE. 423 
 
 Lord accepted Job. 19. Every one also gave him a piece 
 of money. 20. There were not found women fairer than 
 the daughters of Job. 21. So the Lord blessed the latter 
 end of Job more than the beginning. 1 
 
 While employed on these remarkable productions, he 
 was made sensible that the little approbation which the 
 world had ever bestowed on him was fast leaving him. 
 The waywardness of his fancy, and the peculiar execution 
 of his compositions, were alike unadapted for popularity ; 
 the demand for his works lessened yearly from the time 
 that he exhibited his Canterbury Pilgrimage ; and he 
 could hardly procure sufficient to sustain life, when old 
 age was creeping upon him. Tet, poverty-stricken as he 
 was, his cheerfulness never forsook him he uttered no 
 complaint he contracted no debt, and continued to the 
 last manly and independent. It is the fashion to praise 
 genius when it is gone to the grave the fashion is cheap 
 and convenient. Of the existence of Blake few men of 
 taste could be ignorant of his great merits multitudes 
 knew, nor was his extreme poverty any secret. Yet he 
 was reduced one of the ornaments of the age to a 
 miserable garret and a crust of bread, and would have 
 perished from want, had not some friends, neither wealthy 
 nor powerful, averted this disgrace from coming upon our 
 country. One of these gentlemen, Mr. Linnell, employed 
 Blake to engrave his " Inventions of the Book of Job ;" 
 by this he earned money enough to keep him living for 
 the good old man still laboured with all the ardour of the 
 days of his youth, and with skill equal to his enthusiasm. 
 These engravings are very rare, very beautiful, and very 
 peculiar. They are in the earlier fashion of workmanship, 
 and bear no resemblance whatever to the polished and 
 graceful style which now prevails. I have never seen a 
 tinted copy, nor am I sure that tinting would accord with 
 
 1 The original fifteen water-colour drawings for those marvellous 
 "inventions were executed by Blake in 1823-25, for Mr. Butts, his 
 chief friend and purchaser, during the latter years of his life. They 
 afterwards passed into the possession of Mr. Linnell, who lent them in 
 1876 to the Blake Exhibition at the Burlington Club. The engravings 
 executed by Blake from these in 1 828 were placed und< - r the pictures. 
 ED
 
 424 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 the extreme simplicity of the designs, and the mode in 
 which they are handled. " The Songs of Innocence," and 
 these " Inventions for Job," are the happiest of Blake's 
 works, and ought to be in the portfolios of all who are 
 lovers of nature and imagination. 
 
 Two extensive works, bearing the ominous names of 
 " Prophecies," one concerning America, the other Europe, 
 next made their appearance from his pencil and graver. 
 The first contains eighteen, and the other seventeen plates, 
 and both are plentifully seasoned with verse, without the 
 incumbrance of rhyme. It is impossible to give a satis- 
 factory description of these works ; the frontispiece of the 
 latter, representing the Ancient of Days, in an orb of 
 light, stooping into chaos, to measure out the world, has 
 been admired less for its meaning than for the grandeur 
 of its outline. A head and a tail-piece in the other have 
 been much noticed one exhibits the bottom of the sea, 
 with enormous fishes preying on a dead body the other, 
 the surface, with a dead body floating, on which an eagle 
 with outstretched wings is feeding. The two angels pour- 
 ing out the spotted plague upon Britain an angel stand- 
 ing in the sun, attended by three furies and several 
 other Inventions in these wild works, exhibit wonderful 
 strength of drawing and splendour of colouring. Of loose 
 prints but which were meant doubtless to form part of 
 some extensive work one of the most remarkable is the 
 Great Sea Serpent ; and a figure, sinking in a stormy sea 
 at sunset the glow of which, with the foam upon the 
 dark waves, produces a magical effect. 
 
 After a residence of seventeen years in South Molton 
 Street, Blake removed (not in consequence, alas ! of any 
 increase of fortune), to No. 3, Fountain Court, Strand. 
 This was in the year 1823. Here he engraved by day and 
 saw visions by night, and occasionally employed himself 
 in making Inventions for Dante ; and such was his appli- 
 cation that he designed in all one hundred and two, and 
 engraved seven. It was publicly known that he was. in a 
 declining state of health; that old age had come upon 
 him, and that he was in want. Several friends, and 
 artists among the number, aided him a little, in a delicate
 
 BLAKE. 425 
 
 way, by purchasing his works, of which he had many 
 copies. He sold many of his " Songs of Innocence," and 
 also of " Urizen," and he wrought incessantly upon what 
 he counted his masterpiece, the " Jerusalem," tinting and 
 adorning it, with the hope that his favourite would find a 
 purchaser. No one, however, was found ready to lay out 
 twenty-five guineas on a work which no one could have 
 any hope of comprehending, and this disappointment sank 
 to the old man's heart. 
 
 He had now reached his seventy-first year, and the 
 strength of nature was fast yielding. Yet he was to the 
 last cheerful and contented. " I glory," he said, " in 
 dying, and have no grief but in leaving you, Katherine ; 
 we have lived happy, and we have lived long ; we have 
 been ever together, but we shall be divided soon. Why 
 should I fear death ? Nor do I fear it. I have endeavoured 
 to live as Christ commands, and have sought to worship God 
 truly in my own house, when I was not seen of men." 
 He grew weaker and weaker he could no longer sit up- 
 right ; and was laid in his bed, with no one to watch over 
 him, save his wife, who, feeble and old herself, required 
 help in such a touching duty. 
 
 The "Ancient of Days" was such a favourite with 
 Blake, that three days before his death, he sat bolstered 
 up in bed, and tinted it with his choicest colours and in 
 his happiest style. He touched and retouched it held it 
 at arm's length, and then threw it from him, exclaiming, 
 " There ! that will do ! I cannot mend it ! " l He saw his 
 
 1 This is probably tho extraordinary water-colour sketch now in the 
 possession of Mr. W. B. Kcott. It has a most peculiar effect at a little 
 distance, for its bold curves assume the appearance; of a great yellow 
 snail with its neck outstretched. 
 
 Another drawing in Mr. Scott's collection is also remarkable as taking 
 a transcendental view of the Nativity. Mary is here represented as 
 swooning in the arms of Joseph, while the Holy Babe comes to life in a 
 glory of light before her. He turns towards Elizabeth, who stretches 
 out her arms to receive the miraculously born child, although she has 
 already the baby, St. John, on her lap, who folds his little hands in 
 prayer. 
 
 This subject does not seem ever to have been engraved by Blake, but 
 Mr. W. B. Scott has recently published it as one of a series of etchings 
 he has executed from designs by Blake. ED.
 
 426 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 wife in tears she felt this was to be the last of his 
 works " Stay, Kate ! (cried Blake) keep just as you are 
 I will draw your portrait for you have ever been an 
 angel to me " she obeyed, and the dying artist made a 
 fine likeness. 1 
 
 The very joyfulness with which this singular man wel- 
 comed the coming of death, made his dying moments in- 
 tensely mournful. He lay chanting songs, and the verses 
 and the music were both the offspring of the moment. 
 He lamented that he could no longer commit those inspi- 
 rations, as he called them, to paper. " Kate," he said, 
 " I am a changing man I always rose and wrote down 
 my thoughts, whether it rained, snowed, or shone, and 
 you arose too and sat beside me this can be no longer." 
 He died on the 12th of August, 1827, without any visible 
 pain his wife, who sat watching him, did not perceive 
 when he ceased breathing. 
 
 William Blake was of low stature and slender make, 
 with a high pallid forehead, and eyes large, dark, and ex- 
 pressive. His temper was touchy, and when moved, he 
 spoke with an indignant eloquence, which commanded 
 respect. His voice, in general, was low and musical, his 
 manners gentle and unassuming, his conversation a sin- 
 gular mixture of knowledge and enthusiasm. His whole 
 life was one of labour and privation, he had never tasted 
 the luxury of that independence which comes from pro- 
 fessional profit. This untoward fortune he endured with 
 unshaken equanimity offering himself, in imagination, 
 as a martyr in the great cause of poetic art ; pitying 
 some of his more fortunate brethren for their inordinate 
 love of gain ; and not doubting that whatever he might 
 have won in gold by adopting other methods, would have 
 been a poor compensation for the ultimate loss of fame. 
 Under this agreeable delusion he lived all his life he 
 was satisfied when his graver gained him a guinea a week 
 the greater the present denial, the surer the glory here- 
 after. 
 
 Though he was the companion of Flaxman and Fuseli, 
 
 1 It is described by Mr. Tatham, who saw it at the time it was drawn, 
 as " a frenzied sketch of some power, highly interesting, but not like."
 
 BLAKE. 427 
 
 and sometimes their pupil, he never attained that profes- 
 sional skill, without which all genius is bestowed in vain. 
 He was his own teacher chiefly ; and self -instruction, the 
 parent occasionally of great beauties, seldom fails to pro- 
 duce great deformities. He was a most splendid tiiiter, 
 but no colourist, and his works were all of small dimen- 
 sions, and therefore confined to the cabinet and the port- 
 folio. His happiest flights, as well as his wildest, are 
 thus likely to remain shut up from the world. If we look 
 at the man through his best and most intelligible works, 
 we shall find that he who could produce the " Songs of 
 Innocence" and " Experience," the "Gates of Paradise," 
 and the " Inventions for Job," was the possessor of very 
 lofty faculties, with no common skill in art, and moreover 
 that, both in thought and mode of treatment, he was a 
 decided original. But should we, shutting our eyes to 
 the merits of those works, determine to weigh his worth 
 by his " Urizen," his " Prophecies of Europe and Ame- 
 rica," and his " Jerusalem," our conclusion would be very 
 unfavourable ; we would say that, with much freedom of 
 composition and boldness of posture, he was unmeaning, 
 mystical, and extravagant, and that his original mode of 
 working out his conceptions was little better than a bril- 
 liant way of animating absurdity. An overflow of imagi- 
 nation is a failing uncommon in this age, and has generally 
 received of late little quarter from the critical portion of 
 mankind. Tet imagination is the life and spirit of all 
 great works of genius and taste ; and, indeed, without it, 
 the head thinks and the hand labours in vain. Ten 
 thousand authors and artists rise to the* proper, the grace- 
 ful, and the beautiful, for ten who ascend into " the heaven 
 of invention." A work whether from poet or painter 
 conceived in the fiery ecstasy of imagination, lives through 
 every limb ; while one elaborated out by skill and taste 
 only will look, in comparison, like a withered and sapless 
 tree beside one green and flourishing. Blake's misfortune 
 was that of possessing this precious gift in excess. His 
 fancy overmastered him until he at length confounded 
 " the mind's eye" with the corporeal organ, and dreamed 
 himself out of the sympathies of actual life.
 
 428 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 His method of colouring was a secret which he kept to 
 himself, or confided only to his wife ; he believed that it 
 was revealed in a vision, and that he was bound in honour 
 to conceal it from the world. " His modes of preparing 
 his grounds," says Smith, in his " Supplement to the Life 
 of Nollekens," " and laying them over his panels for 
 printing, mixing his colours, and manner of working, 
 were those which he considered to have been practised by 
 the early fresco painters, whose productions still remain 
 in many instances vividly and permanently fresh. His 
 ground was a mixture of whiting and carpenters' glue, 
 which he passed over several times in the coatings ; his 
 colours he ground himself, and also united with them the 
 same sort of glue, but in a much weaker state. He would, 
 in the course of painting a picture, pass a very thin 
 transparent wash of glue-water over the whole of the 
 parts he had worked upon, and then proceed with his 
 finishing. He had many secret modes of working, both 
 as a colourist and an engraver. His method of eating 
 away the plain copper, and leaving the lines of his sub- 
 jects and his words as stereotype, is, in my mind, perfectly 
 original. Mrs. Blake is in possession of the secret, and 
 she ought to receive something considerable for its com- 
 munication, as I am quite certain it may be xised to ad- 
 vantage, both to artists and literary characters in general." 
 The affection and fortitude of this woman entitle her to 
 much respect. She shared her husband's lot without a 
 murmur, set her heart solely upon his fame, and soothed 
 him in those hours of misgiving and despondency which 
 are not unknown to the strongest intellects. She still 
 lives to lament the loss of Blake and/ecZ it. 1 
 
 Of Blake's merits as a poet I have already spoken but 
 something more may be said for there is a simplicity 
 and a pathos in many of his snatches of verse worthy of 
 the olden muse. On all his works there is an impress of 
 poetic thought, and what is still better a gentle humanity 
 and charitable feeling towards the meanest work of God, 
 
 1 Mi-s. Blake died in 1831, at the age of sixty-five, and was buried be- 
 side her husband in Bunhill Fields. No stone marked the place where 
 the poet-artist was laid, and the grave cannot now be identified. ED.
 
 BLAKE. 429 
 
 sucli as few bards have indulged in. On the orphan 
 children going to church on Holy Thursday, the following 
 touching verses were composed they are inserted between 
 the procession of girls and the procession of boys in one 
 of his singular engravings. 
 
 " Twas on a Holy Thursday, 
 
 their innocent faces clean, 
 Came children walking two and two, 
 
 in red, and blue, and green ; 
 Grey-headed beadles walked before 
 
 with wands as white as snow, 
 Till into the high dome of Paul's, 
 
 they like Thames waters flow. 
 O, what a multitude they seemed, 
 
 these flower's of London town ! 
 Seated in companies they sit, 
 
 with radiance all their own. 
 The hum of multitudes was there, 
 
 but multitudes of lambs, 
 Thousands of little boys and girls 
 
 raising their innocent hands. 
 Now, like a mighty wind, they raise 
 
 to heaven the voice of song, 
 Or like harmonious thunderings, 
 
 the seats of heaven among. 
 Beneath them sit the aged men, 
 
 wise guardians of the poor, 
 Then cherish pity, lest you drive 
 
 an angel from your door." 
 
 Under the influence of gayer feelings, he wrote what ho 
 called the " Laughing Song" his pencil drew young men 
 and maidens merry round a table, and a youth, with a 
 plumed cap in one hand and a wine-cup in the other, 
 chaunts these gladsome verses. 
 
 " When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy, 
 And the dimpling stream runs laughing by; 
 When the air does laugh with our merry wit, 
 And the green hill laughs with the noise of it. 
 
 " When the meadows laugh with lively green, 
 And the grasshopper laughs in the merry scene ; 
 When Mary, and Susan, and Kinily, 
 With their sweet round mouths sing ha! ha! he!
 
 430 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 " When the painted birds laugh in the shade, 
 Where our table with cherries and nuts is spread ; 
 Come live and be merry, and join with me, 
 To sing the sweet chorus of ha ! ha ! he ! " 
 
 In the " Song of the Lamb," there is a simplicity which 
 seems easily attained till it is tried, and a religious ten- 
 derness of sentiment in perfect keeping with the poetry. 
 A naked child is pencilled standing beside a group of 
 lambs, and these verses are written underneath. 
 
 " Little lamb, who made thee ? 
 
 Do'st thou know who made thee ? 
 Gave thee life, and bade thee feed, 
 By the stream and o'er the mead ; 
 Gave thee clothing of delight, 
 Softest clothing woolly, bright ; 
 Gave thee such a tender voice, 
 Making all the vales rejoice ? 
 
 Little lamb, who made thee ? 
 
 Dost thou know who made thee ? 
 
 " Little lamb, I'll tell thee ; 
 
 Little lamb, I'll tell thee ; 
 He is called by thy name, 
 For He calls himself a lamb ; 
 He is meek, and He is mild, 
 He became a little child ; 
 I a child, and thou a lamb, 
 We are called by His name. 
 
 Little lamb, God bless thee ; 
 
 Little lamb, God bless thee." 
 
 It would be unjust to the memory of the painter and 
 poet to omit a song which he composed in honour of that 
 v/ife who repaid with such sincere affection the regard 
 which he had for her. It has other merits. 
 
 " I love the jocund dance, 
 
 The softly breathing song, 
 Where innocent eyes do glance, 
 
 And where lisps the maiden's tongue. 
 
 " I love the laughing vale, 
 
 I love the echoing hill, 
 Where mirth does never fail, 
 
 And the jolly swain laughs his fill. 
 
 " I love the pleasant cot, 
 I love the innocent bower,
 
 BLAKE. 431 
 
 Where white and brown is our lot 
 Or fruit at the mid-day hour. 
 
 " I love the oaken seat, 
 
 Beneath the oaken tree, 
 Where all the old villagers meet, 
 
 And laugh our sports to see. 
 
 " I love our neighbours all, 
 
 But, Kitty, I better love thee, 
 And love them I ever shall, 
 
 But thou art all to me." 
 
 Images of a sterner nature than those of domestic love 
 were, however, at all times, familiar to his fancy ; I have 
 shown him softened down to the mood of babes and suck- 
 lings ; I shall exhibit him in a more martial temper. In 
 a ballad, which he calls " Gwinn, King of Norway," there 
 are many vigorous verses the fierce Norwegian has in- 
 vaded England with all his eager warriors. 
 
 Like reared stones around a grave 
 They stand around their king." 
 
 But the intrepid islanders are nothing dismayed; they 
 gather to the charge : these are the words of Blake forty- 
 six years ago ; and this man's poetry obtained no notice, 
 while Darwin and Hayley were gorged with adulation. 
 
 " The husbandman now leaves his plough 
 
 To wade through fields of gore, 
 The merchant binds his brows in steel, 
 
 And leaves the trading shore. 
 
 " The shepherd leaves his mellow pipe, 
 
 And sounds the trumpet shrill, 
 The workman throws his hammer down, 
 
 To heave the bloody bill. 
 
 "Like the tall ghost of Barraton, 
 
 Who sports in stormy sky, 
 Gwinn leads his host, as black as night 
 
 When pestilence does fly. 
 
 " With horses and with chariots, 
 
 And all his spearmen bold 
 March to the sound of mournful song, 
 
 Like clouds around him rolled. 
 " The armiivs stand like balances 
 
 Held in the Almighty's hand, 
 Gwinn, thou hast filled thy measure up, 
 
 Thou'rt swept from out the land.
 
 432 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 " Kixrth smokes with blood, and groans and shakos 
 
 To drink her children's gore, 
 A sea of blood ! nor can the eye 
 
 Sec to the trembling shore. 
 
 " And on the verge of this wild sea 
 
 Famine and death do cry, 
 The shrieks of women and of babes 
 
 Over the field do fly." 
 
 As Blake united poetry and painting in all bis com- 
 positions, I have endeavoured to show that his claims to 
 the distinction of a poet were not slight. He wrought 
 much and slept little, and has left volumes of verse, 
 amounting, it is said, to nearly an hundred, prepared for 
 the press. If they are as wild and mystical as the poetry 
 of his " Urizen," they are as well in manuscript if they 
 are as natural and touching as many of his " Songs of Inno- 
 cence," a judicious selection might be safely published. 1 
 
 1 It says much for Allan Cunningham's artistic insight, that he 
 should have appreciated Blake's genius thus highly, at a time when 
 writers on art, for the most part, either mocked at him as a madman, or 
 ignored him altogether. The " Edinburgh Review," indeed, when this 
 work first appeared, smiled at the " partiality " of the author in including 
 a man " who could scarcely be considered a painter." Had he not done 
 so, however, we should have missed one of the most interesting of his 
 biographies, and one which even now has a distinct value, though since 
 his time three noteworthy works have been- written on the life and 
 genius of Blake, namely, Gilchrist's " Life," published in 1863, by which 
 this " Pictor ignotus " was first revealed to the intelligent public ; the 
 remarkable " Critical Essay " by Algernon C. Swinburne, published in 
 1868 ; and W. M. Rossetti's edition of his Poems, with a prefatory 
 memoir, in 1875. 
 
 But what has done more than anything else to make Blake known to 
 us at the present day is the exhibition of his works, which was organized 
 by the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1876. Here, for the first time, the 
 erratic productions of his art were gathered together, and it became pos- 
 sible to judge of the value of his life's work. This value is of course 
 differently estimated by different writers ; but there is decidedly a ten- 
 dency at the present day to exalt Blake's performance beyond its actual 
 merit. A sort of Blake culte has indeed been set up of late as a modern 
 development of artistic faith, which it is only given to the initiated few 
 to understand. This will probably burn itself out in a short time, and 
 more discriminative worship will recognize the weakness as well as the 
 strength of this perplexing artistic nature, in which the wisdom of the 
 sage, the simplicity of the child, and the uncontrolled imagination of the 
 madman, were so strongly allied. ED.
 
 JOHN OPIE 
 
 WAS born in the parish of St. Agnes, about seven miles 
 from the town of Truro in Cornwall, in May, 1761. 
 His father and grandfather were carpenters, and wrote 
 their names Oppy; 1 his mother was descended from the an- 
 cient family of Tonkin, in the same district, whose chief 
 claim to distinction arises from a county history, which 
 one of her relatives wrote, and which remains unfinished, 
 as well as unpublished, in the hands of Lord De Dunstan- 
 ville. Of his mother's claim to high provincial descent he 
 was either ignorant or disdainful : for his widow a name 
 of some note in literature confesses that she was made 
 acquainted with it for the first time by a brief sketch of 
 his character, published after his death by Mr. Prince 
 Hoare. 
 
 He appears to have been regarded amongst his rustic 
 companions as a kind of parochial wonder from his early 
 years. At the age of twelve he had mastered Euclid, 2 and 
 was considered so skilful in arithmetic and penmanship, 
 that he commenced an evening school for the instruction 
 of the peasants of the parish of St. Agnes. His father 
 a blunt mechanic seems to have misunderstood all these 
 indications of mental superiority, and wished him to leave 
 the pen for the plane and the saw ; and it would appear 
 that his paternal desires were for some time obeyed, for 
 John accompanied, at least, his father to his work ; but 
 this was when he was very young, and it seems probable 
 
 1 It seems certain that the name was never so written. Oppy was a 
 distinct name in the Cornish mining districts, and by no means to be con 
 founded with Opio. ED. 
 
 * His uncle, according to Hoare, used to call him " little Sir Isaac," 
 on account of his proficiency in mathematics. ED. 
 
 K *
 
 434 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 that he disliked the business, since his father had to chas- 
 tise him for making ludicrous drawings with red chalk 011 
 the deals which were planed up for use. 
 
 His love of art came upon him early. When he was ten 
 years old he saw Mark Gates an elder companion, and 
 now a Captain of Marines draw a butterfly ; he looked 
 anxiously on, and exclaimed, " I think I can draw a butter- 
 fly as well as Mark Gates." He took a pencil, tried, suc- 
 ceeded, and ran breathless home to tell his mother what 
 he had done. Soon afterwards he saw a picture of a farm- 
 yard in a house in Truro where his father was at work ; 
 he looked and looked went away returned again and 
 looked and seemed unwilling to be out of sight of this 
 prodigy. For this forwardness his father whose hand 
 seems to have been ever ready in that way^gave him a 
 sharp chastisement ; but the lady of the house interposed, 
 and indulged the boy with another look. On returning 
 home he procured cloth and colours, and made a tolerable 
 copy of the painting from memory alone. He likewise 
 attempted original delineation from life ; and, by degrees, 
 hung the hiimble dwelling round with likenesses of his 
 relatives and companions, much to the pleasure of his 
 uncle, a man with sense and knowledge above his condi- 
 tion, but greatly to the vexation of his father, who could 
 not comprehend the merit of such an idle trade. 
 
 Of the early days of 
 
 " The Cornisn Boy in tin mines bred," 
 
 as Wolcot describes him, we have various conflicting ac- 
 counts. 1 The Secretary for Foreign Correspondence in the 
 Royal Academy says, that he followed his studies in art 
 
 1 In the" Annual Biography and Obituary" for 1820, the following 
 account is given of the first acquaintance between Wolcot and Opie. It 
 purports to be taken from Peter Pindar's own lips : 
 
 " Being," he says, " on a visit to a relation in Cornwall, I saw either 
 the drawing or print of a farm-yard in the parlour, and after looking at 
 it slightly, remarked ' that it was a busy scene, but ill executed.' This 
 point was contested by a she-cousin, who observed that it was greatly 
 admired by many, and particularly by John Opie, a lad of great genius. 
 Having learned the place of the artist's abode, I instantly sallied forth, 
 and found him at the bottom of a saw-pit, cutting wood by moving the
 
 OPIE. 435 
 
 with much ardour, and that his sketches attracted the 
 notice of Wolcot (Peter Pindar), then residing as a physi- 
 cian in Truro, whose knowledge in painting and sound 
 judgment were of great advantage to the young scholar. 
 A rougher man tells a ruder story. " Dr. Wolcot," says 
 Smith, " compassionately took him as a lad to clean knives, 
 feed the dog, &c., purposely to screen him from the beat- 
 ing his father would now and then give him for chalking 
 the sawpit all over. Oppy for so we must for the present 
 call him always staid a long time when he went to the 
 slaughterhouse for paunches for the dog : at last the Doc- 
 tor was so wonderfully pleased by John's bringing him 
 home an astonishing likeness of his friend the carcass 
 butcher, that he condescended to sit to him, and the pro- 
 duction was equally surprising." Some such story as this 
 was related by Wolcot himself, in his half grave and half 
 humorous way, at the period when the subject of his 
 memoir was high in fame ; but as his purpose was to 
 rebuke the pride of the successful artist, his account 
 must be received with some caution. It is certain, 
 however, that our painter lived whilst a boy as a menial 
 in the satirist's family, and gained his goodwill by his 
 talents. 
 
 How long he remained with Wolcot has not been men- 
 lower part of an instrument which was regulated above by another per- 
 son. Having inquired in the dialect of the country if he could paint - 
 ' Con you paient ?' I was answered from below in a similar accent and 
 language that ' he could paient Queen Charlotte and Duke William and 
 Mrs. Somebody's Cot.' A specimen was then shown me, which was in- 
 correct and incomplete ; but when I learned that he was such an enthu- 
 siast in his art that he got np by three o'clock of a summer's morning to 
 draw with chalk or charcoal, I instantly conceived that he must possess 
 all that zeal necessary for obtaining eminence. A gleam of hope then 
 darted through my bosom, and I felt it possible to raise the price of his 
 labours from eightpenee or a shilling to a guinea a day. Actuated by 
 this motive, I instantly presented him with pencil, colours, and canvas, 
 to which I added a few instructions." 
 
 It will be seen that Wolcot hen; fakes the whole credit to himself of 
 having directed Opie's young talent, and it is tolerably certain that ho 
 was of great use to him at the beginning of his career; hut, as Cunning- 
 ham remarks, Wolcot's stories require to be received with caution. Ked- 
 grave throws doubt upon almost all the stories told of Opie's early life. 
 ED.
 
 43G THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 tioned. When yet very young, we find him commenced as 
 portrait- painter by profession, and wandering from town 
 to town in quest of employment. " One of these expedi- 
 tions," says Prince Hoare, " was to Padstow, whither he 
 set forward, dressed as usual in a boy's plain short jacket, 
 and carrying with him all proper apparatus for portrait- 
 painting. Here, amongst others, he painted the whole 
 household of the ancient and respectable family of Pri- 
 deaux, even to the dogs and cats of the family. He re- 
 mained so long absent from home, that some uneasiness 
 began to arise on his account, but it was dissipated by his 
 returning dressed in a handsome coat, with very long 
 skirts, laced ruffles, and silk stockings. On seeing his 
 mother he ran to her, and taking out of his pocket twenty 
 guineas which he had earned by his pencil, he desired her 
 to keep them : adding, that in future he should maintain 
 himself." 
 
 For his mother he always entertained the deepest affec- 
 tion and neither age nor the pressure of worldly business 
 diminished his enthusiasm in the least. He loved to speak 
 of the mildness of her nature and the tenderness of her 
 heart of her love of truth and her maternal circumspec- 
 tion. He delighted to recall her epithets of fondness, and 
 relate how she watched over him when a boy, and warmed 
 his gloves and great-coat in the winter mornings on his 
 departure for school. This good woman lived to the age 
 of ninety- two, enjoyed the fame of her son, and was glad- 
 dened with his bounty. 
 
 Of those early efforts good judges have spoken with 
 much approbation ; they were deficient in grace, but true 
 to nature, and remarkable for their fidelity of resemblance. 
 He painted with small pencils, and finished more highly 
 than when his hand had attained more mastery. Lord 
 Bateman was one of his earliest patrons, and employed 
 him to paint old men and travelling mendicants : sitters 
 such as those neither alarmed the rustic artist with their 
 dignity, nor annoyed him with their remarks they sat in 
 silent wonder, and beheld the second creation of their 
 persons then rose and thought him a wondrous lad. By 
 this practice his hand attained that ready and dashing
 
 OPIE. 437 
 
 freedom of manner which was so much his friend when 
 more fastidious heads came to his easel. His usual price, 
 when he was sixteen years of age, was seven shillings and 
 sixpence for a portrait. But of all the works which he 
 painted in those probationary days, that which won the 
 admiration of the good people of Truro most was a parrot 
 walking down his perch : all the living parrots that saw it 
 acknowledged the resemblance. So much was he charmed 
 with his pursuit and his prospects, that when Wolcot asked 
 him how he liked painting, " Better," he answered, " than 
 bread and meat." 
 
 In the twentieth year of his age our limner formed the 
 resolution of visiting London, and set out for the great 
 city under the protection of Wolcot. It is said that the 
 poet and the painter held a consultation upon the rustic 
 sound of Oppy, and both uniting in opinion that it was 
 vulgar and unmusical, changed it to Opie a name owned 
 by an old Cornish family. The alteration was immaterial, 
 for they are both evidently the same name : l but under all 
 the external advantages which Opie could claim over Oppy, 
 he was presented to Sir Joshua Reynolds. He had not as 
 yet determined on having himself announced, in the bla- 
 zonry of prose and verse, as the " Wonderful Cornishman," 
 on whom nature had spontaneously, without study, dropt 
 down the gifts of art : the President received him cour- 
 teously, gave him some advice, and desired to see him 
 again. He evidently did not consider this new marvel at 
 all marvellous. 
 
 To rise, by silent and slow degrees, to fame, suited ill 
 with the rustic impatience of Opie, and worse with the 
 vanity of Wolcot, who desired to amaze the town by pro- 
 claiming a prodigy. 2 Peter Pindar was right for once. 
 
 1 We have already stated that this was not the case. Ei>. 
 
 2 It appears that it was not entirely from disinterested motives that 
 Woleot became the patron and advertiser of the young Opie. He him- 
 self admits that their coming to London together was a sort of joint 
 speculation. "At length I proposed to him," Wolcot writes, " to go first 
 to Exeter, and afterwards to London, and having lost an income of 
 ..'300 or .400 by the change of scene, entered into a written agreement 
 by which it was agreed we should sliurc the profits in equal divisions. 
 We actually did so for a year ; but at the end of that time my pupil told
 
 438 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 Nothing is more capricious than public taste : its huge 
 appetite for wonders requires daily food ; and it swallows 
 all with the ravenous avidity with which the giant gulped 
 the wine of Ulysses, and cried, with his half-breathless 
 voice, " More ! Give me more ! This is divine ! " Even 
 if the candidate for its fickle approbation wants original 
 genius to carry him triumphantly onwards, he may, never- 
 theless, have address enough to secure a fortune before his 
 deficiency is discovered or the huzza rises on the appear- 
 ance of another new wonder. All this was present to the 
 mind of the sagacious satirist : he took his measures ac- 
 cordingly, and the wealthy and titled hordes, who pro- 
 fessed taste and virtu, and were absolute in art and 
 literature, came swarming out to behold " the Cornish 
 Wonder " for as such the patron announced the painter. 
 Of the success of this manoeuvre Northcote gives this 
 graphic account : " The novelty and originality of manner 
 in his pictures, added to his great abilities, drew an uni- 
 versal attention from the connoisseurs, and he was imme- 
 diately surrounded and employed by all the principal 
 nobility of England. When he ceased, and that was soon, 
 to be a novelty, the capricious public left him in disgust. 
 They now looked out for his defects alone and he became, 
 in his turn, totally neglected and forgotten ; and, instead 
 of being the sole object of public attention, and having 
 the street where he lived so crowded with coaches of the 
 nobility as to become a real nuisance to the neighbourhood, 
 ' so,' as he jestingly observed to me, ' that he thought he 
 must place cannon at the door to keep the multitude off 
 from it,' he now found himself as entirely deserted as if 
 his house had been infected with the plague. Such is the 
 
 me I might return to the country, as he could now do for himself." 
 Writers differ as to the exact date of Opie's settlement in London, but it 
 was probably in the early part of 1780. Leslie relates that Northcote, 
 on calling upon Reynolds in May, 1780, soon after his return from Italy, 
 was greeted by him with the exclamation, " Ah, my dear Sir, you may 
 go back ; there is a wondrous Cornish man who is carrying all before 
 him," "What is he like?" asked Northcote. "Like? Why, like 
 Caravaggio and Velasquez in one." This naturally disturbed North- 
 cote ; but the two painters, who were each setting up in the same line of 
 art, strange to say, soon became friends in spite of a little rivalry. ED.
 
 OPIE. 439 
 
 world ! " His popularity was not, however, so very brief 
 as this description would induce us to infer. Some time 
 elapsed before he executed his commissions. When the 
 wonder of the town began to abate, the country came 
 gaping in ; and ere he wearied both, he had augmented 
 the original thirty guineas with which he commenced the 
 adventure, to a very comfortable sum; had furnished a 
 house in Orange Court, Leicester Fields, and was every 
 way in a condition to bid immediate want defiance. 
 
 The first use which he made of his success was to spread 
 comfort around his mother ; and then he proceeded with 
 his works and his studies like one resolved to deserve the 
 distinction which he had obtained. His own strong na- 
 tural sense and powers of observation enabled him to lift 
 the veil which the ignorant admiration of the multitude 
 had thrown over his defects : he saw where he was weak, 
 and laboured most diligently to improve himself. His 
 progress was great, and visible to all save the leaders of 
 taste and fashion. When his works were crude and un- 
 studied, their applause was deafening ; when they were 
 such as really merited a place in public galleries, the world, 
 resolved not to be infatuated twice with the same object, 
 paid him a cold, or at least a very moderate attention. 
 " Keynolds," says Wilton the sculptor, " is the only emi- 
 nent painter who has been able to charm back the public 
 to himself after they were tired of him." The somewhat 
 rough and unaccommodating manners of Opie were in his 
 way to fortune : it requires delicate feet to tread the path 
 of portraiture ; and we must remember that ho was a 
 peasant, unacquainted with the elegance of learning, and 
 unpolished by intercourse with the courtesies and ameni- 
 ties of polite life. Of this he could learn little in his 
 father's cottage: and Wolcot, whose skill lay in coarse 
 satiric verse, in boisterous humour, and in profane swear- 
 ing, could be but an indifferent instructor. He was thrown 
 into the drawing-room rough and rude as he came from 
 the hills of Cornwall, and had to acquit himself as well as 
 he could. 
 
 I can hardly believe all that has been said as to that,
 
 440 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 fear of heart and fever of spirit which were upon Opie 
 when he found himself fanned for the first time with 
 duchesses' plumes, and enclosed in a glittering circle of 
 garters and stars. A weak man might have been bewil- 
 dered, and a very vain man too much elated but he was 
 neither weak nor vain ; and it is apparent that he made no 
 efforts to accommodate himself to the atmosphere which 
 he has been described as breathing with such superfluity 
 of respect. 
 
 Indeed he appears to have been a plain bold man, with 
 a moderate share of sensitiveness. " His habitual rugged- 
 ness of address," observes Mrs. Inchbald, " was stigmatized 
 by the courtly observer with the appellation of ill-breeding, 
 whilst a plainer and wiser description of persons found in 
 this contempt of affectation such a security from design 
 either upon their hearts or their understandings that 
 they willingly yielded him both ; and they made this sacri- 
 fice with a kind of joyful astonishment to observe that 
 where the Graces never appeared, the Virtues acted for 
 them." This natural blemish in the man this habitual 
 ruggedness of manner appeared to Northcote only the 
 effect of an honest indignation towards that which he con- 
 ceived to be error. It however made its appearance early 
 in life, and seems to have been inherited from his father, 
 who, according to all accounts, was coarse and unaccom- 
 modating. " One Sunday afternoon, while his mother was 
 at church, Mr. Opie, then a boy of ten or eleven years old, 
 fixed his materials for painting in a little kitchen, directly 
 opposite the parlour where his father sat reading the Bible. 
 He went on drawing till he had finished everything but 
 the head, and when he came to that, he frequently ran 
 into the parlour to look up in his father's face. He re- 
 peated this extraordinary interruption so often that the 
 old man became quite angry, and threatened to correct 
 him severely if he did the like again. This was exactly 
 what the young artist wanted. He wished to paint his 
 father's eyes when lighted up and sparkling with indigna- 
 tion ; and having obtained his end, 'he qiiietly resumed his 
 task. He had completed his picture before his mother's
 
 OPIE. 441 
 
 return from church, and on her entering the house, he set 
 it before her. She knew it instantly ; but, ever true to her 
 principles, she was very angry with him for having painted 
 on a Sunday, thereby profaning the Sabbath-day. The 
 child, however, was so elated by his success, that he dis- 
 regarded her remonstrance, and hanging fondly round her 
 neck, he was alive only to the pleasure she had given him 
 by owning the strength of the resemblance. At this mo- 
 ment his father entered the room, and recognizing his own 
 portrait, immediately highly approved of his son's amuse- 
 ment during the afternoon, and exhibited the picture with 
 ever-new satisfaction to all who came to the house ; while 
 the story of his anger at interruptions, so happily excused 
 and accounted for, added interest to his narrative, and 
 gratified still more the pride of the artist." 
 
 I would fain disbelieve this story, but it conies too well 
 authenticated to be omitted in a narrative whose object is 
 truth. To think of a child deliberately putting his father 
 in a passion that it might copy the sparkling indignation 
 of his eyes ! and a wife, and a loving one, recording the 
 trick of this sucking incendiary as a thing pleasant and 
 meritorious ! The rod must, after all, have been a neces- 
 sary piece of furniture in the household of the carpenter 
 of St. Agnes ! 
 
 Opie, having conquered the chief difficulties of his pro- 
 fession, and acquired a knowledge of French and a smat- 
 tering of Latin, now found leisure to become sensible of a 
 want which London could easily supply. Jt is reported 
 that love of money first directed his eyes to the daughter 
 of a pawnbroker who lived in his neighbourhood. Neither 
 his courtship nor his marriage have been alluded to by his 
 biographers ; the first was short, and the second unhappy. 
 His wife, a little woman with very dark eyes, and a hand- 
 some portion, had a mind of her own as well as the artist ; 
 and, loving gaiety, was not disposed to shut herself up 
 from sun and air with a man of a morose turn, whose 
 whole time was dedicated to the study of the dark masters. 
 It is said that a kind word and an affectionate shako by 
 the hand, banished from his mind in general the remem- 
 brance of any wrong committed against him ; and that
 
 442 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 such was his placability of nature, that he was willing to 
 confide again in those who unworthily betrayed him. His 
 wife, a childless and giddy woman, soon put his charity to 
 the extreme proof, and he was compelled to sue for a 
 divorce. 
 
 That domestic sorrow such as this had a serious influ- 
 ence upon his temper and his studies, who can doubt ? but 
 those who have drawn his character and delineated his life 
 avoid any allusion to his frail partner ; they had knowledge 
 and declined to use it they were over- sensitive, and have 
 not done justice to the memory of Opie by this omission. 
 The only allusion to the circumstance is contained in one 
 of the painter's own smart sayings. He was passing the 
 church of St. Giles late one evening, in the company of a 
 friend of avowed sceptical opinions. " I was married at 
 that church," observed Opie. " And I was christened there," 
 said his companion. " Indeed ! " answered the painter, " it 
 seems they make unsure work at that church, for it neither 
 holds in wedlock nor in baptism ! " l 
 
 Having freed himself from the encumbrance of an un- 
 faithful wife, and got rid of the crowds of carriages which 
 filled up the street and annoyed his neighbours, he divided 
 his time between his profession and the cultivation of his 
 mind. He was conscious of his defective education ; and, 
 like Reynolds, desired to repair it, by mingling in the 
 company of men of learning and talent, and by the careful 
 perusal of the noblest writers. " Such," says his best bio- 
 grapher, " were the powers of his memory, that he remem- 
 bered all he had read : and Milton, Shakespeare, Dryden, 
 Pope, Gray, Cowper, Butler, Burke, and Dr. Johnson, he 
 might, to use a familar expression, be said to know by 
 heart." A man of powerful understanding and ready ap- 
 prehension, who " remembered all he read," and who had 
 nine of the greatest and most voluminous of our authors 
 by heart, could never be at any loss in company, if he had 
 tolerable skill in using his stores. 
 
 1 According to the act of divorce granted by the Consistory Court to 
 Opie, he was married at St. Martin's-in-the-Fiekls, not at St. Giles's. 
 His first wife's name was Mary Bunn, and he lived with her until 1795, 
 when she eloped with a Mr. John Edwards. EL\
 
 OPIE. 443 
 
 To his intellectual vigour we have strong testimony. 
 " Mr. Opie crowds more wisdom," said Home Tooke, " into 
 a few words than almost any man I ever knew he speaks 
 as it were in axioms and what he observes is worthy to 
 be remembered." " Had Mr. Opie turned his powers of 
 mind," says Sir James Mackintosh, " to the study of philo- 
 sophy, he would have been one of the first philosophers of 
 the age. I was never more struck than with his original 
 manner of thinking and expressing himself in conversa- 
 tion ; and had he written on the subject, he would, perhaps, 
 have thrown more light on the philosophy of his art than 
 any man living." " He aimed at no competition with the 
 learned," says Amelia Opie, " while with a manly simpli- 
 city which neither feared contempt nor courted applause, 
 he has often, even in such company, made observations 
 originating in the native treasures of his own mind, which 
 learning could not teach, and which learning alone could 
 not enable its possessor to appreciate." 
 
 At the period of his first appearance there was conside- 
 rable encouragement for works of an historic nature ; West, 
 Barry, Fuseli, and, occasionally, Reynolds, produced such, 
 with more or less of success and applause. That this high 
 feeling has now greatly subsided in England, there can be 
 little doubt : even during the lifetime of Opie, commis- 
 sions, as they are called, for such pictures were becoming 
 more and more rare ; and now, alas ! it is sufficient to 
 mention two of the more striking instances the " Satan" 
 of Lawrence, and the " Fall of Nineveh" of Martin, remain 
 in their studies. Opie, anxious for fame, and yet resolved 
 to live, did well then in dividing his pencil between por- 
 traiture and history. 
 
 His chief excellence lies in the former ; there he has 
 great breadth, vigour, and natural force of character 
 touched, it must be allowed, in some instances with a cer- 
 tain air of village audacity, which conies from the artist 
 rather than from the sitter. His old men's heads half 
 fancy and half portrait are deficient in carefulness of 
 finish ; but this is more than compensated by that rough 
 and happy energy with which they are dashed out. They 
 furnish no comparisons such as critics love to make
 
 444 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 with the works of Velasquez, or Vandyke, or Beynolds ; 
 they have a better claim to distinction they are truly 
 original productions. 1 His portrait of Charles Fox has 
 been justly commended, nor does the circumstance of his 
 having completed the likeness from the bust by Nolle- 
 keus, as related by Smith, diminish his merit. When Fox, 
 who sat opposite to Opie at the Academy dinner given in 
 the exhibition room, heard the general applause which his 
 portrait obtained, he remembered that he had given him 
 less of his time than the painter had requested, and said 
 across the table, " There, Mr. Opie, you see I was right ; 
 everybody thinks it could not be better. Now if I had 
 minded you and consented to sit again, you most probably 
 would have spoiled the picture." While this far-famed 
 portrait was in progress, Opie became alarmed for his 
 success : he was distracted by a multitude of hints, which 
 friends who came in swarms dropped, regarding the ex- 
 pression, the posture, and the handling. Fox was amused 
 with the variety of opinions, and kindly whispered to Opie, 
 " Don't mind what these people say you must know better 
 than they do." 2 
 
 The ladies who sat for their portraits he found more 
 difficult to deal with than the great leader of the Whigs. 
 There was at first a want of grace and softness in his female 
 heads he felt this early, and laboured to amend it but, 
 
 1 There is an excellent portrait by him in the National Collection of 
 William Siddons, husband of the great actress, which entirely coincides 
 with this description. It is a powerful and characteristic work. ED. 
 
 3 Southey also sat to Opie for his portrait. He gives the following 
 account of the procedure in a letter to Mr. William Taylor, of Norwich, 
 for whom the picture was painted : 
 
 " London, April 23, 1806. 
 
 " Had I begun to write to you sooner I could not have told you that 
 your picture was begun this morning; that I had sat two hours in a very 
 fine velvet chair, and that there my portrait is looking, Mrs. Opie says, 
 ' quite alive.'" 
 
 " May 27, 1806. 
 
 " I sat five times in the velvet chair, and each time little less than 
 three hours, though the law is satisfied with one hour in the pillory, and 
 it the gallows. Opie will perhaps complain .... You, 1 hope, will 
 like the picture, as every person who has seen it is much pleased." 
 
 It was afterwards engraved for Southey's life. ED.
 
 OFIE. 445 
 
 it is said, that he did not wholly succeed till his second 
 marriage. " Opie," said one of his brethren, when he ex- 
 hibited some female portraits soon after that event, " we 
 never saw anything like this in you before this must be 
 owing to your wife ; " and it is likely that the compliment, 
 though paid perhaps in jest, was nevertheless just. The 
 habitual ruggedness of his personal manners yielded to 
 the winning and graceful tact of Amelia Opie, and it is 
 easy to believe that her presence might have the same in- 
 fluence upon his pencil. The words in which she vindicates 
 her husband from the charge of speaking his mind coarsely, 
 and a desire to appear a grand natural character, are well 
 worth transcribing. 
 
 " Of all employments portrait-painting is perhaps the 
 most painful and trying to a man of pride and sensibility, 
 and the most irritating to an irritable man. To hear 
 beauties and merits in a portrait often stigmatized as de- 
 formities and blemishes to have high lights taken for 
 white spots, and dark effective shadows for the dirty ap- 
 pearance of a snuff-taker: to witness discontent in the 
 by-standers, because the painting does not exhibit the 
 sweet smile of the sitter, though it is certain that a smile 
 on canvas looks like the grin of idiocy ; while a laughing 
 eye, if the artist attempts to copy it, as unavoidably as- 
 sumes the disgusting resemblance of progressive intoxica- 
 tion. Sitters themselves Mr. Opie rarely found trouble- 
 some ; but persons of worship, as he called them, that is, 
 persons of great consequence, either from talent, rank, or 
 widely spreading connections, are sometimes attended by 
 others, whose aim is to endeavour to please the great man 
 or woman by flattery wholly at the expense of the poor 
 artist ; and to minister sweet food to the palate of the 
 patron, regardless though it be wormwood to that of the 
 painter. Hence arises an eulogy on the beauties and per- 
 fections of the person painted, and regrets that they are 
 so inadequately rendered by the person painting; while 
 frivolous objection succeeds to frivolous objection, and 
 impossibilities are expected and required as if they were 
 possibilities. I have too frequently witnessed this, and 
 my temper and patience have often been on the point of
 
 440 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 deserting me, even when Mr. Opie's had not apparently 
 undergone the slightest alteration a strong proof that he 
 possessed some of that self-command which is one of the 
 requisites of good breeding." l 
 
 He experienced no such difficulties in his historical com- 
 positions the heroes or the beauties of other days had no 
 friends to be fastidious about their merry eyes or their 
 smiling lips, and he could exchange dark ringlets for 
 tresses of gold, and distribute glowing complexions accord- 
 ing to his own will and pleasure. He had, however, an 
 equally painful battle to sustain with the men of taste and 
 virtu, whose heads were crammed with the remembrance 
 of the principal works of the great masters of Italy men 
 who had ridden post-haste through the Continent, and re- 
 turned with the incurable belief that everything old was 
 excellent everything new poor and degenerate. Origi- 
 nality was looked upon as something strange and outre 
 to trust to the strength of nature was weakness to work 
 so that the spirit and effect could be justified by reference 
 to Rembrandt or Raphael, was to possess true taste, and 
 to be imbued with the spirit of the great masters. Opie, 
 it must be admitted, wanted poetic power to enable him 
 to rise to the first eminence as an historical painter but 
 he had a sense of propriety of action and vigour of cha- 
 racter which these connoisseurs wanted nerve to feel, and 
 which have stamped no light value on many of his his- 
 torical productions. 
 
 Those which have caught public fancy most are the 
 "Murder of James the First of Scotland;" 2 the " Pre- 
 
 1 That lie had not that suavity of manner that brought Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds and Sir Thomas Lawrence so many sitters, is proved by the 
 following anecdote, related by Wolcot. A lady once, who was sitting to 
 him, expressed a wish that her portrait should be made very beautiful. 
 " Then, madam, I suppose you do not want it to be like ? " replied the 
 blunt artist. He also gave offence by summoning several of his sitters 
 who had been somewhat remiss in payment. ED. 
 
 2 This was exhibited in 1786, in which year he sent two other subjects 
 and five portraits to the Royal Academy. He appears to have first ex- 
 hibited there in 1782, and in 1787, after sending his " Assassination of 
 Rizzio," one of his most admired pictures, he was elected Associate, and 
 in the following spring, full Academician. Leslie, Redgrave tells us,
 
 447 
 
 sentation in the Temple ; " " Jephthah's Vow ; " the 
 "Death of David Eizzio;" "Young Arthur taken Pri- 
 soner ; " " Arthur with Hubert ; " " Belisarius ; " " Juliet 
 in the Garden," and the "Escape of Gil Bias and Mu- 
 sidora." Many others might be named, and many more 
 praised ; for he conceived without much delay, and exe- 
 cuted with great readiness. He had no air-drawn visions 
 of beauty before him which his pencil loved to follow ; he 
 sketched in his group, sought living nature to help him 
 out with what was not in his mind's eye, and, bending his 
 subject to his model rather than elevating the model to 
 suit the subject, enslaved himself to the literal flesh and 
 blood which he copied. " He painted what he saw," 
 says West, " in the most masterly manner, and he varied 
 little from it. He saw nature in one point more distinctly 
 and forcibly than any painter that ever lived. The truth 
 of colour, as conveyed to the eye through the atmosphere, 
 by which the distance of every object is ascertained, was 
 never better expressed than by him. He distinctly repre- 
 sented local colour in all its various tones and proportions, 
 whether in light or in shadow, with a perfect uniformity 
 of imitation. Other painters frequently make two sepa- 
 rate colours of objects in light and i shade, Opie never. 
 With him no colour whether white, black, primary, or 
 compound ever, in any situation, lost its respective hue." 
 His works were not the offspring of random fits of 
 labour, after long indulgence in idleness ; they were the 
 well-considered progeny of his mind and hand the fruit 
 of daily toil, in which every hour had its allotted task. 
 He sketched out a plan of weekly study, from which 
 pleasure or persuasion seldom wiled him. " He was 
 always in his painting-room," says Amelia Opie, " by 
 half-past eight in winter, and by eight o'clock in sum- 
 thought very highly of the " Assassination of Kiz/.io,'' and at. his sugpes- 
 tion it was borrowed for the use of the students in the Itoyul Academy ; 
 but Redgrave himself docs not endorse Leslie's opinion of its merits, but 
 speaks of its " coarse and slovenly execution,'' though he admits that it 
 is a vigorous and l>old work, awl as compared with the tiime productions 
 of most of Opie's contemporaries, has a striking effect ami marked indi- 
 viduality.
 
 448 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 mer; and there he generally remained, closely engaged 
 in painting, till half-past four in winter, and till five in 
 summer. NOT did he ever allow himself to be idle when 
 he had no pictures bespoken ; and as he never let his exe- 
 cution rust for want of practice, he, in that case, either 
 sketched out designs for historical or fancy pictures, or 
 endeavoured, by working on an unfinished picture of mo, 
 to improve himself by incessant practice in that difficult 
 branch of art, female portraiture. Neither did he suffer 
 his exertions to be paralysed by neglect the most unex- 
 pected, and disappointment the most undeserved." 
 
 The world looks only at the brilliant result of an artist's 
 labour. We see a magnificent work, filled with divine- 
 shapes and glowing with the freshest hues of heaven and 
 earth, and the idea never darkens in our fancy that he 
 who created this prodigy is in dread of want, and perhaps 
 even now knows not how he is to be fed to-morrow. 
 " Though he had a picture in the Exhibition of 1801, 
 which was universally admired, and purchased as soon as 
 beheld" I quote once more the words of his widow 
 " he saw himself at the end of that year and the beginning 
 of the next almost wholly without employment ; and even 
 my sanguine temper yielding to the trial, I began to fear 
 that, small as our expenditure was, it must become still 
 smaller. Not that I allowed myself to own that I de- 
 sponded ; on the contrary, I was forced to talk to him of 
 hopes and to bid him look forward to brighter prospects, 
 as his temper, naturally desponding, required all the sup- 
 port imaginable. But gloomy and painful indeed were 
 those three alarming months, and I consider them as the 
 severest trial I experienced during my married life. Even 
 despondence did not make him indolent ; he continued to 
 paint regularly as usual, and, no doubt, by that means in- 
 creased his ability to do justice to the torrent of business 
 which soon afterwards set in .towards him, and never 
 ceased to flow till the day of his death." l 
 
 1 Among other commissions, Opie, like most of the popular artists of 
 his time, was employed by Boydell on his celebrated Shakespeare illus- 
 trations. He painted five subjects for the Boydell Gallery, from the
 
 OPIE. 449 
 
 There is no doubt that Opie incurred a debt of gratitude 
 to Wolcot for his frank and friendly encouragement, when 
 he was a menial in his house in Cornwall, and for his 
 anxious introduction of the " Cornish Wonder " to the 
 novelty- gazers of London. The poet often complained 
 that the painter was ungrateful. He probably expected 
 that when Opie had earned fame and name, he should still 
 consider himself under the shadow of his patronage. I 
 know not enough of the private history of the artist to 
 decide, with certainty and exactness, in how far he was 
 blamable for the coldness which took place between them, 
 and anticipated the grave. The doctor was an odd and 
 capricious man, who loved sweai'ing better than satire, and 
 united them both frequently to the injury of his best 
 friends : it was no wonder therefore that Opie should 
 shrink from his society, more especially if he still retained 
 the airs of the master. Officious go-betweens carried to 
 the artist the last satiric thing which the poet had uttered 
 concerning him, and then returned to the satirist with the 
 morose and surly observations of Opie. " What ails Wol- 
 cot at you ? " said one of those persons " once I thought 
 he had been a friendly and kind-hearted man?" "Aye, 
 aye," answered Opie " in time you will know him." 
 When the painter's works happened to be praised in 
 Wolcot's presence, he always coupled very dexterously the 
 present time with the past, and formed a background to 
 his fame with the humility and darkness of his early life. 
 With him who gave the first cause of offence the odium 
 of this estrangement must abide, and I have, I own, some 
 fears that it appertains to Opie. 
 
 For the loss of this early friend, the infidelity of his 
 wife, and the fickleness of popular opinion, he sought a 
 
 " Winter's Tale," " Romeo and Juliet," " Timon of Athens," and two 
 from " Henry VI." 
 
 Another Shakespeare subject by him from " Troilus and Cressida" 
 hangs on the staircase in the National Gallery. It represents Pandarus 
 in the act of unveiling Cressida " (.'ome, draw this curtain, and let's 
 see your picture " and is a gracefully conceived and well-executed 
 work. It does not, however, pive so pood nn idea of Opie's bold style of 
 art as the portrait of William Siddons before mentioned. ED. 
 
 O
 
 450 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 wise remedy a woman worthy of his affection, who could 
 soothe him in periods of depression, and, by her good 
 sense and clear understanding, aid him in all his under- 
 takings. He was thirty-seven years old, and that youth- 
 ful fever which all feel was past and gone ; he could now 
 choose discreetly. 1 The merits of the lady are widely known 
 not through the genius of her husband, but her own ; 
 and all who hava read her works must feel that she was 
 worthy of bearing the name of Opie. To her we owe the 
 little that has been publicly told concerning the private 
 life and modes of study of her husband ; and though we 
 wish to know him more familiarly, we are not insensible 
 to the delicacy of the task which she undertook. What 
 other colours, save those that are rich and bright, could a 
 wife use in drawing her husband's character? She ex- 
 pected, indeed, that an ampler memoir would be written 
 by a bolder, and perhaps colder hand ; and might desire 
 to leave to this biographer the ungentle task of adding the 
 ruder touches and the darker shades. This has not been 
 done ; from the garland which she hung over his hearse, I 
 must take a few more flowers. I shall endeavour to do 
 this with a respectful hand. 
 
 Opie was no impatient labourer for wealth, who desired 
 to snatch his gains before his colours were dry on the 
 canvas : he studied much, wrought incessantly, and was 
 ill to please. " During the nine years that I was his wife 
 (says Mrs. Opie), I never saw him. satisfied with any one 
 of his productions : and often, very often, have I seen him 
 enter my sitting-room, and, throwing himself in an agony 
 of despondence on the sofa, exclaim, ' I am the most 
 stupid of created beings, and I never, never shall be a 
 painter as long as I live.' He used to study at Somerset 
 House, when the pictures were hung up, with more perse- 
 
 1 So far from calm and discreet choice, Opie, according to his wife's 
 account, fell in love with her at first sight. It was at an evening party, 
 at Norwich, that he first met the beautiful Miss Alderson. She arrived 
 late, and Opie, who was in conversation with the host when she entered, 
 broke off suddenly, exclaiming, " Who is that ? Who is she ? Will 
 you introduce me?" "And almost from that moment," says Mrs 
 Opie," he became my avowed lover." They were married in 1798. ED.
 
 OPIE. 451 
 
 vering attention and thirst for improvement than was ever 
 exhibited perhaps by the lowest student in the schools, 
 and on his return I never heard him expatiate on his own 
 excellences, but sorrowfully dwell on his own defects; 
 while he often expressed to me his envy of certain powers 
 in art which other painters were masters of, and which he 
 feared he should never be able to obtain." 
 
 Thus quick to censure his own works, our painter was 
 slow to commend those of his brethren. There is indeed 
 a singular tardiness amongst artists in either praising or 
 blaming one another : they seem to think that the whole 
 world is waiting for their opinion, and that commendation 
 will raise a brother above his level, and censure sink him 
 below it. They deal out dark and diplomatic responses 
 respecting each other's merits, and leave you to interpret 
 their meaning. " Opie," says his wife, " was free from 
 vanity more particularly from that vanity which induces 
 a man to believe that his wisdom is great. He was so 
 slow to commend, and panegyric on the works of contem- 
 porary artists was so sparingly given by him, that it was 
 natural for some persons to suppose him actuated by the 
 feelings of professional jealousy ; but it was more gene- 
 rous, and I am fully convinced more just, to think this 
 sluggishness to praise was merely the result of such a 
 high idea of excellence in his art as made him not easily 
 satisfied with efforts to obtain it ; and surely he who was 
 never led by vanity or conceit to be contented with his 
 own works, could not be expected to show great indul- 
 gence to the works of others." I know not what standard 
 of excellence was present to the fancy of Opie ; but if a 
 man is to withhold his approbation from all works which 
 fail to equal the best of the golden days of art, he may 
 shut his mouth for ever. 
 
 He was exposed, as all men of eminence are, to the 
 attacks of the envious and the malevolent. A speculator 
 in biography having handled one man of genius with 
 sharp and vulgar severity, singled out Opie for his second 
 victim, and so little did he keep his infamous purpose a 
 secret, that it reached the ear of the artist. Opie, having 
 perused some of his adversary's compositions, saw that
 
 452 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 the man mistook the venom of the arrow for the vigour 
 of the bow : he only smiled, and said, " If this is all he 
 can do, he is welcome to say anything of me he likes. I 
 shall neither menace him nor bribe him into silence." 
 " For his fame, latterly at least," says Mrs. Opie, " he was 
 indebted to himself alone : by no puffs, no paragraphs, did 
 he endeavour to obtain public notice : and I have heard 
 him, with virtuous pride, declare that whether his reputa- 
 tion were great or small, it was self-derived, and he was 
 indebted for it to no exertions save those of his own in- 
 dustry and talents. He might, like others, mistake some- 
 times weeds for flowers, and bring them home, and carefully 
 preserve them as such ; but the weeds were gathered by 
 his own hands, and he had, at least, by his labour deserved 
 that they should be valuable acquisitions." 
 
 His heart was with his art other artists, as Northcote 
 said, painted to live, but Opie lived to paint ; and though 
 he was dilatory about praising the works which his 
 brethren produced with the brush, he was forward enough 
 in admiring their attempts with the pen. " Whatever," 
 said Mrs. Opie, " had a tendency to exalt painting and its 
 professors in the eyes of the world, was a source of 
 gratification to him. He used often to expatiate on the 
 great classical attainments of Mr. Fuseli, whose wit he 
 admired, and whose conversation he delighted in : but I 
 have often thought that one cause of the pleasure which 
 he derived from mentioning that gentleman's attain- 
 ments, was his conviction, that the learning of Mr. Fuseli 
 was an honour to his profession, and tended to exalt it in 
 the opinion of society." Nor was his pleasure less in 
 reading the " Poem on Art," by Mr. Shee a work which 
 will be valued while knowledge, feeling, and elegance are 
 in estimation. 
 
 An imaginary sum was floating incessantly before 
 Opie's eyes, which his pencil was to accumulate. That 
 golden speculation at length achieved, he intended to 
 retire from art establish a gallery of good paintings, 
 and a well- stocked library ; and with his wife by his side, 
 and all cares for a well-filled easel given to the winds, 
 enjoy life like one who knew it was short. As he was
 
 OPIE. 4-53 
 
 frugal and temperate, his expenses were small ; and as he 
 was a quick workman, his gains were large. He was too 
 proud to incur debts, and not so vain as to give expensive 
 entertainments to those who would probably have paid 
 them with sarcasms. He was one likely, therefore, to 
 achieve his wishes in gaining that desired sum, which was 
 to come with healing on its wings to the spirit of the 
 painter. But he did not, perhaps, reflect, that in retiring 
 from his profession an artist retires also from his station 
 in society. An artist is like an instrument of music, 
 which gives joy and gladness when skilfully touched, but 
 is only looked upon as an idle encumbrance and a piece of 
 wood when silent and out of tune. 
 
 Opie having written a Memoir of Reynolds for Wolcot's 
 edition of Pilkington's "Dictionary of Painters," and 
 delivered lectures on art at the British Institution, as- 
 pired to the Professorship of Painting in the Royal 
 Academy, when Barry was ejected. In the Memoir of Sir 
 Joshua, he had exhibited knowledge of his subject, a just 
 perception of character, and no small infirmity of taste ; 
 in his lectures at the Institution he had been considered 
 confused, abrupt, and unmethodical ; but now, with con- 
 firmed taste and an increase of knowledge, he offered 
 himself a candidate for the professorship. He was un- 
 expectedly opposed by Fuseli. When that eminent scholar 
 was named, he relinquished his pretensions but it is no 
 small proof of the vanity of Opie, that he declared as he 
 withdrew from the contest, he would have yielded to no 
 one save Henry Fuseli. When the Professor was made 
 Keeper he renewed his claim and was instantly elected. 
 
 Of his Four Lectures, on Design, Invention, Chiaro- 
 Scuro, and Colouring, some account must be given, and a 
 short one will suffice. Few who read them will concur in 
 the praise bestowed on his discourses, at the Institution, 
 by the late excellent Bishop of Durham, " You were known 
 before as a great painter, Mr. Opie, you will now be 
 known as a great writer also." They are clear and sen- 
 sible enough, but deficient in original grasp of mind- 
 there are few vigorous sallies, or poetical nights, or pas- 
 sages of deep discernment and delicate discrimination.
 
 454 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 He wants imagination to raise him to the height of his 
 " great argument," and his powers of illustration are 
 neither vivid nor various. Yet it cannot be denied that 
 many valuable reflections are scattered over these four 
 lectures. Let all those youths who desire to become 
 artists read the following admirable passage thrice over 
 before they wet the brush. 
 
 " Impressed as I am at the present moment with a full 
 conviction of the difficulties attendant on the practice of 
 painting, I cannot but feel it also my duty to caution 
 every one who hears me, against entering into it from 
 improper motives, and with inadequate views of the sub- 
 ject : as they will thereby only run a risk of entailing 
 misery and disgrace on themselves and their conneqtions 
 during the rest of their lives. Should any student there- 
 fore happen to be present who has taken up the art on 
 the supposition of finding it an easy and amusing em- 
 ployment any one who has been sent into the Academy 
 by his friend, in the idea that he may cheaply acquire an 
 honourable and profitable profession any one who has 
 mistaken a petty kind of imitative monkey talent for 
 genius any one who hopes by it to get rid of what he 
 thinks a more vulgar or disagreeable situation, to escape 
 confinement at the counter, or the desk any one urged 
 merely by vanity or interest or, in short, impelled by 
 any consideration but a real and unconquerable passion 
 for excellence ; let him drop it at once, and avoid these 
 walls and everything connected with them, as he would 
 the pestilence : for if he have not this unquenchable 
 liking, in addition to all the requisites above enumerated, 
 he may pine in indigence, or skulk through life as a 
 hackney likeness-taker, a copier, a drawing-master, or 
 pattern- drawer to young ladies, or he may turn picture- 
 cleaner and help time to destroy excellences which he 
 cannot rival but he must never hope to be, in the proper 
 sense of the word, a painter. Strait is the gait and narrow 
 is the way that leads to excellence, and few there be that 
 find it." 
 
 His notion of the ideal or the beautiful is natural and 
 just. " I will not undertake," he says, " the perilous task
 
 455 
 
 of defining the word beauty ; but I have no hesitation in 
 asserting that when beauty is said to be the proper end of 
 art, it must not be understood as confining the choice to 
 one set of objects, or as breaking down the boundaries and 
 destroying the natural classes, orders, and divisions of 
 things, but as meaning the perfection of each subject in 
 its kind, in regard to form, colour, and all its other asso- 
 ciated and consistent attributes. In this qualified and, I 
 will venture to say, proper acceptation of the word in re- 
 gard to art, it may be applied to nearly all things most 
 excellent in their different ways. Thus we have various 
 modes of beauty in the statues of the Venus, the Juno, 
 the Niobe, the Antinous, and the Apollo ; and thus we 
 may speak, without exciting a confusion of ideas, of a 
 beautiful peasant as well as of a beautiful princess, of a 
 beautiful child, or of a beautiful old man ; of a beautiful 
 cottage, a beautiful church, a beautiful palace, or even of 
 a beautiful ruin. The discovery or conception of this great 
 and perfect idea of things, of nature in its purest and most 
 essential form, unimpaired by disease, unmutilated by 
 accident, and unsophisticated by local habits and tempo- 
 rary fashions, and the exemplification of it in practice by 
 getting above individual imitation, rising from the species 
 to the genus, and uniting in every subject all the perfec- 
 tion of which it is capable in its kind, is the highest and 
 ultimate exertion of human genius." 
 
 In his " Lecture upon Invention " also there is much to 
 commend. " Unfortunately," he says, " this moat inesti- 
 mable quality, in which genius is thought more particularly 
 to consist, is of all human faculties the least subject to 
 reason or rule, being derived from heaven alone -according 
 to some ; attributed by others to organization ; by a third 
 class, to industry; by a fourth, to circumstances; by a 
 fifth, to the influence of the stars ; and in the general 
 opinion, the gift of nature only. But though few teach 
 us how to improve it, and still fewer how to obtain it, 
 all agree that nothing can be done without it. Desti- 
 tute of invention, a poet is but a plagiary, and a painter 
 but a copier of others. But however true it may be, that 
 invention cannot bo reduced to rule and taught by regular
 
 45G THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 process, it must necessarily, like every other effect, have 
 an adequate cause. It cannot be by chance that excellence 
 is produced with certainty and constancy ; and however 
 remote and obscure its origin, thus much is certain that 
 observation must precede invention, and a mass of mate- 
 rials must be collected before we can combine them. He, 
 therefore, who wishes to be a painter must overlook no 
 kind of knowledge. He must range deserts and mountains 
 for images, picture upon his mind every tree of the forest 
 and flower of the valley, observe the crags of the rock and 
 the pinnacles of the palace, follow the windings of the 
 rivulet, and watch the changes of the clouds ; in short, all 
 nature, savage or civilized, animate or inanimate, the 
 plants of the garden, the animals of the wood, the mine- 
 rals of the earth, and the motions of the sky, must undergo 
 his examination. Whatever is great, whatever is beautiful, 
 whatever is interesting, and whatever is dreadful, must be 
 familiar to his imagination, and concur to store his mind 
 with an inexhaustible variety of ideas ready for association 
 on every possible occasion, to embellish sentiment and 
 give effect to truth. It is, moreover, absolutely necessary 
 that then the epitome of all his principal subject and his 
 judge should become a particular object of his investiga- 
 tion : he must be acquainted with all that is characteristic 
 and beautiful, both in regard to his mental and bodily en- 
 dowments must study their analogies, and learn how far 
 moral and physical excellence are connected and dependent 
 one on the other. He must further observe the power of 
 the passions in all their combinations, and trace their 
 changes as modified by constitution, or by the accidental 
 influences'of climate or custom from the sprightliness of 
 infancy to the despondency of decrepitude : he must be 
 familiar with all the modes of life,, and, above all, en- 
 deavour to discriminate the essential from the accidental, 
 to divest himself of the prejudices of his own age and 
 country, and disregarding temporary fashions and local 
 taste, learn to see nature and beauty in the abstract, and 
 rise to general and transcendental truth, which will always 
 be the same." 
 
 Next to the contemplation of nature he urges the study
 
 OPIE. 457 
 
 of poetry, which abounds in the noblest pictures and the 
 most splendid descriptions unites the present with the 
 past, and anticipates the future. . He feels, however, that 
 many of the sublimest and most touching passages in 
 poetry cannot be embodied in painting ; and he also feels 
 that the multitude, with many men of taste among them, 
 are slow in acknowledging the merits which belong to the 
 imagination, and turn coldly away from its most magnifi- 
 cent efforts. There is, indeed, a certain coarseness of feel- 
 ing as to works of elegance and fancy which pervades this 
 country ; and it extends to the labours of the pen as well 
 as to those of the pencil and the chisel. In other nations 
 the presence of such things inspires a kind of awe ; with 
 us a statue is occasionally a mark to cast stones at, and the 
 mob at best bestow their shilling to stare at what they 
 cannot enjoy. " So habituated," says Opie, " are ihe people 
 of this country to the sight of portraiture only that they 
 can scarcely as yet consider painting in any other light : 
 they will hardly admire a landscape that is not a view of a 
 particular place, nor a history unless composed of like- 
 nesses of the persons represented, and are apt to be stag- 
 gered, confounded, and wholly unprepared to follow such 
 vigoroxis flights of imagination as would as will be felt 
 and applauded with enthusiasm in a more advanced and 
 liberal stage of criticism. In our exhibitions, which often 
 display extraordinary powers wasted on worthless subjects, 
 one's ear is pained, one's very soul is rent with hearing 
 crowd after crowd sweeping round, and instead of discuss- 
 ing the merits of the different works on view, as to con- 
 ception, composition, and execution, all reiterating the 
 same dull and tasteless questions, who is that '? and is it 
 like?" Passages such as these would reflect credit on any 
 professor the Academy ever possessed. 
 
 On the delivery of his first lecture in the Academy Opie 
 was complimented by his brethren ; he was escorted home 
 by Sir William Beechey, and appeared to his wife in a flush 
 of joy. Next morning he said he had passed a restless 
 aight, for he was so elated that he could not sleep. 
 
 When Opie had finished his course of Lectures, Mr. 
 Prince Hoare requested an article for his periodical paper 
 
 H H
 
 458 THE BRITISH PAINTERS. 
 
 called " The Artist." " I am tired " such was his answor 
 " I am tired of writing. I shall be a gentleman during 
 the spring months, keep a horse, and ride out every morn- 
 ing." This vision of happiness, such as it was, he lived 
 not to realize. He was attacked by a slow and a consuming 
 illness, which baffled the knowledge of five skilful doctors 
 Pitcairn and Baillie were of the number. They were 
 unable to cure or even to comprehend it. When it was 
 known that he was seriously ill, his friends and they were 
 numerous and respectable came round him with affec- 
 tionate solicitude. Amongst those that he loved most was 
 Henry Thomson, now a member of the Academy, and to 
 him he confided the finishing of the robes of the Duke of 
 Gloucester's portrait. On Saturday, when the pictures 
 were to be delivered for the exhibition at Somerset House, 
 the picture of the Royal Duke was placed at the foot of his 
 bed. A fit of delirium had subsided ; he lifted his head, 
 and said, " There is not colour enough on the back- 
 ground." More colour was added ; Opie looked at it with 
 great satisfaction, and said with a smile, " Thomson, it 
 will do now, it will do now : if you could not do it, nobody 
 could." The delirium returned, and took its hue from the 
 picture he had just looked at. He imagined himself em- 
 ployed in his favourite pursuit, and continued painting in 
 idea till death interposed on Thursday, the 9th of April, 
 1807. On dissection, the lower part of the spinal marrow 
 and its investing membrane were found slightly inflamed, 
 and the brain surcharged with blood. On Monday, April 
 20th, he was interred in St. Paul's Cathedral, near Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds. 
 
 In person Opie looked like an inspired peasant: even in 
 his most courtly days there was a country air about him, 
 and he was abrupt in his language and careless in his 
 dress, without being conscious of either. His looks 
 savoured of melancholy some have said of moroseness ; 
 the portrait which he has left of himself shows a noble 
 forehead and an intellectual eye. There are few who can- 
 not feel his talents, and all must admire his fortitude. 
 He came coarso and uneducated from the country into the 
 polished circles of London; was caressed, invited, praised,
 
 OPIE. 459 
 
 and patronized for one little year or so, and then the giddy 
 tide of fashion receded ; but he was not left a wreck. He 
 had that strength of mind which triumphs over despair. He 
 estimated the patronage of fickle ignorance at what it was 
 worth, and lived to invest his name with a brighter as well 
 as steadier halo than that of fashionable wonder. 
 
 His literary productions have, I think, been overrated ; 
 yet they are respectable I will even allow them to be 
 wonderful for one in his condition, who had a laborious 
 profession to follow. The great defect is what one would 
 least have expected the want of vigour and energy. 
 
 What he thus failed to work into his writings he poured 
 largely into his paintings. There is a freshness of look 
 and a rude homely strength in his pictures which belong 
 to the wide academy of nature, and came upon him in 
 Cornwall. He is not a leader perhaps but neither is he 
 the servile follower of any man or any school. His origi- 
 nal deficiency of imagination no labour could strengthen 
 and no study raise. His model mastered him; and 
 he seemed to want the power of elevating what was 
 mean, and of substituting the elegant for the vulgar. 
 Opie saw the common but not the poetic nature of his 
 subjects : he had no visions of the grand and the heroic. 
 His pencil could strike out a rough and manly Cromwell, 
 but was unfit to cope with the dark subtle spirit of a 
 Vane, or the princely eye and bearing of a Falkland or a 
 Montrose. His strength lay in boldness of effect, sim- 
 plicity of composition in artless attitudes, and in the 
 vivid portraiture of individual nature. 
 
 END OF VOL I. 
 
 C. WHITTINOHAM. TOOK* COUKT, CHANO'KV LAHK.
 
 CATALOGUE OF 
 
 BONN'S LIBRARIES.
 
 -A T .Z?. // is requested that all orders be accompanied by 
 payment. Books are sent carriage free on the receipt of the 
 published price in stamps or otherwise. 
 
 The Works to which the letters ' A". S: (denoting New 
 Style) are appended are kept in neat cloth bindings of various 
 colours, as well as in the regular Library style. All Orders 
 are executed in the New binding, unless the contrary is c.v- 
 pressly stated. 
 
 Complete Sets or Separate Volumes can be Juid at short 
 notice, luilf -bound in calf or morocco. 
 
 New Volumes of Standard Works in the various branches 
 of Literature are constantly being added to this Series, which 
 is already unsurpassed in respect to the number, variety, and 
 cheapness of the Works contained in it. The Publishers have 
 to announce the following Volumes as recently issued or now 
 in preparation : 
 
 Boswell's Life of Johnson. New Edition. 6 vols. 
 
 [Ready, seep. I. 
 
 Vasari's Lives of tlie Painters. Additional Notes by 
 J. P. Richter. Ready, seep. 8. 
 
 Roger Ascham's Scholemaster. Edited by Prof. Mayor. 
 
 Grimm's German Tales. 2 vols. With the Notes of the 
 Original. [Ready, see p. 5. 
 
 Coleridge's Table-Talk, Sec. [Ready, seep. 4. 
 
 Coleridge's Miscellaneous Works. [In the press. 
 
 Manual of Philosophy. By E. Belfort Bax. i vol. 
 . Goldsmith's Works. Vols. I. and II. [Ready,- sec p. 5. 
 
 Fairholt's History of Costume. [In the press. 
 
 Hoffmann's Stories. Translated by Major Ewing. 
 
 [In the pi-ess. 
 
 LONDON : G. BELL & SONS, 4 YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN.
 
 , 1885. 
 
 BOHN'S LIBRARIES. 
 
 STANDARD LIBRARY. 
 
 294 Vols. at 3^. 6J. tac/i, excepting those marked otherwise. (5 1/. ia>. 
 
 ADDISON S Works. Notes of Bishop 
 Hurd. Short Memoir, Portrait, and 8 
 Plates of Medals. 6 vols. N. S. 
 
 This is the most complete edition of 
 Addison's Works issued. 
 
 ALFIERI S Tragedies. In English 
 Verse. With Notes, Arguments, and In- 
 troduction, by E. A, Bowring, C.B. 2 vols. 
 N.S. 
 
 AMERICAN POETRY. See Poetry 
 of America. 
 
 ASCHAM'S Scholemaster. Edit, by 
 by Prof. J. E. B. Mayor. [/ Hie press. 
 
 BACON'S Moral and Historical 
 Works, including Essays, Apophthegms, 
 Wisdom of the Ancients, New Atlantis, 
 Henry VII., Henry VIII., Elizabeth, 
 Henry Prince of Wales, History of Great 
 Britain, Julius Caesar,and Augustus Caesar. 
 With Critical and Biographical Introduc- 
 tion and Notes by J. Devey, M.A. Por- 
 trait. >V. 5". 
 
 Sec also Philosophical Library. 
 
 BALLADS AND BONOS of the Pea- 
 santry of England, from Oral Recitation, 
 private MSS., Broadsides, &c. Edit, by 
 R. Bell. N. S. 
 
 BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 
 
 Selections. With Notes and Introduction 
 by Leigh Hunt. 
 
 BECKMANN (J.) History of Inven- 
 tions, Discoveries, and Origins. With 
 Portraits of Beckmann and James Watt. 
 2 vols. JV. S. 
 
 BELL (Robert). See Ballads, Chaucer, 
 Green. 
 
 BOSWELL'S Life of Johnson, with 
 the TOUR in the HEBRIDES and 
 JOHNSONIANA. New Edition, with 
 Notes and Appendices, by the Rev. A. 
 Napier, M.A., Trinity Cojlege, Cam- 
 bridge, Vicar of Holkham, Editor of the 
 Cambridge Edition of the ' Theological 
 Works'of Barrow.' With Frontispiece to 
 each vol. 6 vols. A"..V. 
 
 BREMER'S (Frederika) Works. 
 Trans, by M. Howitt. Portrait. 4 vols. N.S. 
 
 BRINK (B. T.) Early English Litera- 
 ture (to Wiclif). By Bernhard Ten Brink. 
 Trans, by Prof. H. M. Kennedy. .V. S. 
 
 BRITISH POETS, from Milton to Kirke 
 White. Cabinet Edition. With Frontis- 
 piece. 4 vols. ff, S. 
 
 BROWNE'S (Sir Thomas) Works. 
 Edit, by S. Wilkin, with Dr. Johnson's 
 Life of Browne. Portrait. 3 vols. 
 
 BURSE'S Works. 6 vols. .V. .?. 
 Speeches on the Impeachment 
 
 of Warren Hastings ; and Letters. 2 vols. 
 
 AT. S. 
 Life. By J. Prior. Portrait. .V. S. 
 
 BURNS (Robert). Life of. By J. G. 
 Lockhart, D.C.L. A new and enlarged 
 edition. With Notes and Appendices by 
 W. S. Douglas. Portrait. .V. S. 
 
 BUTLERS (Bp.) Analogy of Reli- 
 gion; Natural and Revealed, to the Con- 
 stitution and Course of Nature : with Two 
 Dissertations on Identity and Virtue, and 
 Fifteen Sermons. With Introductions, 
 Notes, and Memoir. Portrait. .V. .S. 
 
 CAMOEITS Lusiad, or the Discovery 
 of India. An Epic Poem. Trans, from 
 the Portuguese, with Dissertation, His- 
 torical Sketch, and Life, by W. J. Mickle. 
 5th edition. .V. S. 
 
 CARAFAS (The) of Maddaloni. 
 Naples under Spanish Dominion. Trans, 
 by Alfred de Reumont. Portrait of Mas- 
 samel lo. 
 
 CARREL. The Connter-Revolutlon 
 
 in England for the Re-establUhment of 
 Popery under Charles II. and James II., 
 by Armand Carrel ; with Fox's History of 
 James II. and Lord Lonsdale's Memoir of 
 J ames 1 1 . Portrait of Carrel . 
 
 CARRUTHERS. See Pej* t in ///** 
 tratfd Library.
 
 BOHN'S LIBRARIES. 
 
 CART'S Dante. The Vision of Hell, 
 Purgatory, and Paradise. Trans, by Rev. 
 H. P. Gary, M.A. With Life, Chronolo- 
 gical View of his Age, Notes, and Index 
 of Proper Names. Portrait. N. S. 
 
 This is the authentic edition, containing 
 Mr. Cary's last corrections, with additional 
 notes. 
 
 CELLINI (Benvenuto). Memoirs of, 
 by himself. With Notes of G. P. Carpani. 
 Trans, by T. Roscoe. Portrait. N. S. 
 
 CERVANTES' Galatea. A Pastoral 
 Romance. Traas. byG. W. J.Gyll. N.S. 
 
 Exemplary Novels. Trans, by 
 
 W. K. Kelly. N. S. 
 
 Don Quixote de la Mancha. 
 
 Motteux's Translation revised. With Lock- 
 hart's Life and Notes. 2 vols. N. S. 
 CHAUCER'S Poetical Works. With 
 Poems formerly attributed to him. With a 
 Memoir, Introduction, Notes, and a Glps- 
 saryj by R. Bell. Improved edition, with 
 Preliminary Essay by Rev. W. W. Skeat, 
 M.A. Portrait. 4 yols. N. S. 
 
 CLASSIC TALES, containing Rasselas, 
 Vicar of Wakcfield, Gulliver's Travels, and 
 The Sentimental Journey. N. .5". 
 
 COLERIDGE S (S. T.) Friend. A Series 
 of Essays on Morals, Politics, and Reli- 
 gion. Portrait. A''. S. 
 
 Confessions of an Inquiring 
 
 Spirit ; and Essays on Faith and the Com- 
 mon Prayer-book. New Edition, revised. 
 N.S. 
 
 Aids to Reflection. N.S, 
 
 Table-Talk and Omniana. By 
 
 T. Ashe, B.A. N.S. 
 
 Lectures on Shakspere and 
 
 other Poets. Edit, by T. Ashe, B.A. W.S. 
 Containing the lectures taken down in 
 1811-12 by J. P. Collier, and those de- 
 livered at Bristol in 1813. 
 
 Biographia Liter aria ; or, Bio- 
 graphical Sketches of my Literary Life 
 and Opinions ; with Two Lay Sermons. 
 N. S. 
 
 COMMINES. See Philip. 
 
 CONDE'S History of the Dominion 
 
 of the Arabs in Spain. Trans, by Mrs. 
 Foster. Portrait of Abderahmen ben 
 Moavia. 3 vols. 
 
 COWPER'S CompleteWorks, Poems, 
 
 Correspondence, and Translations. Edit. 
 with Memoir by R. Southey. 45 En- 
 gravings. 8 vols. 
 
 COXE'S Memoirs of the Duke of 
 Marlborough. With his original Corre- 
 spondence, from family records at Blen- 
 heim. Revised edition. Portraits. 3 vols. 
 *** An Atlas of the plans of Marl- 
 borough's campaigns, 410. 10$. dd. 
 
 COXE'S History of the House of Aus- 
 tria. From the Foundation of the Monarchy 
 by Rhodolph of Hapsburgh to the Death of 
 Leopold II., 1218-1792. By Archdn. Coxe. 
 With Continuation from the Accession of 
 Francis I. to the Revolution of 1848. 
 4 Portraits. 4 vols. 
 
 CUNNINGHAM'S Lives of the most 
 
 Eminent British Painters. With Notes 
 
 and 16 fresh Lives by Mrs. Heaton. 3 vois. 
 N. S. 
 
 DEFOE'S Novels and Miscellaneous 
 
 Works. With Prefaces and Notes, in- 
 ducing those attributed to Sir W. Scott. 
 Portrait. 7 vols. N. S. 
 
 DE LOLME'S Constitution of Eng- 
 land, in which it is compared both with the 
 Republican form of Government and the 
 other Monarchies of Europe. Edit., with 
 Life and Notes, by J. Macgregor, M.P. 
 
 EMERSON'S Works. 3 vols. Most 
 complete edition published. .A". .S'. 
 
 Vol. I. Essays, Lectures, and Poems. 
 
 Vol. II. English Traits, Nature, and 
 Conduct of Life. 
 
 Vol. III. Society and Solitude Letters 
 and Social Aims Miscellaneous Papers 
 (hitherto uncollected) May-Day, &c. 
 
 FOSTER'S (John) Life and Corre- 
 spondence. Edit, by J. E. Ryland. Por- 
 trait. 2 vols. JV. S. 
 
 Lectures at Broadmead Chapel. 
 
 Edit, by J. E. Ryland. 2 vols. N. S. 
 
 Critical Essays contributed to 
 
 the ' Eclectic Review.' Edit, by J. E. 
 Ryland. 2 vols. N. S. 
 
 Essays : On Decision of Charac- 
 ter; on a Man's writing Memoirs of Him- 
 self ; on the epithet Romantic ; on the 
 aversion of Men of Taste to Evangelical 
 Religion. N. S. 
 
 Essays on the Evils of Popular 
 
 Ignorance, and a Discourse on the Propa- 
 gation of Christianity in India. N. S. 
 
 Fosteriana : selected from periodical 
 
 papers, edit, by H. G. Bohn. 5^. JV. .V. 
 
 FOX (Rt. Hon. C. J.) See Carrel. 
 
 GIBBON'S Decline and Fall of the 
 
 Roman Empire. Complete and unabridged, 
 with variorum Notes : including those of 
 Guizot, Wenck, Niebuhr, Hugo, Neander, 
 and others. 7 vols. 2 Maps and Portrait. 
 JV. S. 
 
 GOETHE'S Works. Trans, into English 
 by E. A. Bowring, C.B., Anna Swanwick, 
 Sir Walter Scott, &c. &c. iz vols. N. S. 
 
 Vols. I. and_ II. Autobiography and An- 
 nals. Portrait. 
 
 Vol. III. Faust. Complete.
 
 STANDARD LIBRARY. 
 
 GOETHE'S "WatTLS. Continued. 
 
 Vol. IV. Novels and Talcs : containing 
 Elective Affinities, Sorrows of Werther, 
 The German Emigrants, The Good Wo- 
 men, and a Npuvelette. 
 
 Vol. V. Wilhelm Meister's Apprentice- 
 ship. 
 
 vol. VI. Conversations with Eckerman 
 an-1 Soret. 
 
 Vol. VII. Poems and Ballads in the ori- 
 ginal Metres, including Hermann and 
 Dorothea. 
 
 Vol. VIII.- Gotz von Berlichingen, Tor- 
 quato Tasso, Egmont, Iphigenia, Clavigo, 
 Wayward Lover, and Fellow Culprits. 
 
 Vol. IX. Wilhelm Meister's Travels. 
 Complete Edition. 
 
 Vol. X. Tour in Italy. Two Parts. 
 And Second Residence in Rome. 
 
 Vol. XI. Miscellaneous Travels, Letters 
 from Switzerland, Campaign in France, 
 Siege of Mainz, and Rhine lour. 
 
 Vol. XII. Early and Miscellaneous 
 Letters, including Letters to his Mother, 
 with Biography and Notes. Edited by 
 Edw. Bell, M.A. 
 
 Correspondence with Schiller. 
 
 2 vols. Set Schiller. 
 GOLDSMITH'S Works. 5 vols. .V..9. 
 
 Vol. I. Life, Vicar of Wakefield , Essays, 
 and letters. 
 
 Vol. II. Poems, Plays, Bee, Cock Lane 
 Ghost. 
 
 [Vols.'III. and IV. in the tress. 
 
 GREENE, MARLOW, and BEN 
 JONSON (Poems of)- With Notes and 
 
 Memoirs by R. Bell. A'. S. 
 GREGORY'S (Dr.) The Evidences, 
 
 Doctrines, and Duties of the Christian Re- 
 ligion. 
 GRIMM'S Household Tales. With the 
 
 Original Notes. Trans, by Mrs. A. Hunt. 
 
 Introduction by Andrew Lang, M.A. 2 
 
 vols. JV. S. 
 GUIZOT'S History of Representative 
 
 Government in Europe. Trans, by A. R. 
 
 -Scoble. 
 English Revolution of 1640. From 
 
 the Accession of Charles I. to his Death. 
 
 Trans, by W. Hazlitt. Portrait. 
 History of Civilisation. From the 
 
 Roman Empire to the Krenoh Revolution. 
 
 Trans, by W. Hazlitt. Portrait*, jtots, 
 HALL S (Rev. Robert) Works and 
 
 Remains. Memoir by Dr. Gregory and 
 
 K*sy by J. Foster. Portrait. 
 HAWTHORNE'S Tales. 3 vol. A*. .V. 
 Vol. I. Twice-told Tales, and the Snow 
 
 f injure. 
 Vol. II. Scarlet Letter, and the House 
 
 with Seven Gables. 
 Vol. III. Transformation, and Blitlie- 
 
 dal Romance. 
 
 HAZLITT S (W.) Works. 6 vols. A". J. 
 
 Table-Talk. 
 
 The Literature of the Age of 
 
 Elizabeth and Characters of Shakespeare's 
 
 Plays. A r . .y. 
 English Poets and English Comic 
 
 Writers. N. S. 
 
 HAZLTrrS (W.) Works. Continued. 
 The Plain Speaker. Opinions OB 
 
 Books, Men, and Things. N. S. 
 
 Round Table. Conversations _ of 
 
 James Northcote, R.A. ; Characteristics. 
 X. S. 
 
 Sketches and Essays, and Winter- 
 slow. A'. S. 
 
 HEINE'S Poems. Translated in the 
 original Metres, with Life by E. A. Bow- 
 ring, C.B. y. N.S. 
 
 HUNGARY : its History and Revo- 
 lution, with Memoir of Komsuth. Portrait. 
 
 HUTCHINSON (Colonel). Memoirs 
 of. By his Widow, with her Autobio- 
 graphy, and the Siege of Lathom House. 
 Portrait. N. S. 
 
 IRVTNG'S (Washington) Complete 
 Works. 15 vols. A 7 . 6'. 
 
 Life and Letters. By his Nephew, 
 
 Pierre E. Irving. With Index and a 
 Portrait. 2 vols. A 7 . S. 
 
 JAMES'S (G. P. R.) Life of Richard 
 Coeur de Lion. Portraits of Richard and 
 Philip Augustus. 2 vols. 
 
 Louis XIV. Portraits. 2 vols. 
 
 JAMESON (Mrs.) Shakespeare's 
 
 Heroines. Characteristics of Women. By 
 Mrs. Jameson. A'. S. 
 
 JEAN PAUL See Richler. 
 
 JONSON (Ben). Poems ot. See Greene. 
 
 JUNIUS'S Letters. With Woodfall's 
 Notes. An Essay on th Authorship. Fac- 
 similes of Handwriting. 2 vols. ff. S. 
 
 LA FONTAINE'S Fables. In English 
 Verse, with Essay on the Fabulists. I!y 
 Elizur Wright. N.S. 
 
 LAMARTTNE'S The Girondists, or 
 Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the 
 French Revolution. Trans, by H. T. 
 Ryde. Portraits of Robespierre, Madame 
 Roland, and Charlotte Corday. 3 vol*. 
 
 The Restoration of Monarchy 
 
 in France (a Scoucl to The Girondists). 
 
 5 Portraits. 4 vols. 
 
 The French Revolution of 1848. 
 
 6 Portraits. 
 
 LAMB'S (Charles) Ella and Elian*. 
 
 Complete Edition. Portrait. A'. S. 
 Specimens of English Dramatic 
 
 Poets of the time of Klwabelh. Notes, 
 
 with the Kxtracts from theGarrick Play*. 
 
 A". S.
 
 BONN'S LIBRARIES. 
 
 LAPPENBERGS England under the 
 
 Anglo-Saxon Kings. Trans, by B. Thorpe, ! 
 F.S.A. a vols. A''. 6". 
 
 LANZI'S History of Painting in 
 Italy, from the Period of the Revival of | 
 the Fine Arts to the End of the i8th : 
 Century. With Memoir of the Author. ; 
 Portraits of Raffaelle, Titian, and Cor- I 
 reggio, after the Artists themselves. Trans. I 
 by T. Roscoe. 3 vols. 
 
 LESSING'S Dramatic Works. Com- 
 plete. By E. Bell, M.A. With Memoir 
 by H. Zimmern. Portrait. 2 vols. ..V. S. 
 
 - Laokoon, Dramatic Notes, _and 
 Representation of Death by the Ancients. 
 Frontispiece. A r . S. 
 
 LOCKE'S Philosophical Works, cor*, 
 taining Human Understanding, with Bishop ' 
 of Worcester, Malebranche's Opinions, Na- 
 tural Philosophy, Reading and Study. 
 With Preliminary Discourse, Analysis, and 
 Notes, by J. A. St. John. Portrait. 2 vols. 
 -V. S. 
 
 Life and Letters, with Extracts from 
 
 his Common-place Books. By Lord King. 
 
 LOCKHART (J. G.)-See Burns. 
 
 LONSDALE (Lord). See Carrel. 
 
 LUTHER'S Table-Talk. Trans, by W. 
 Hazlitt. With Life by A. Chalmers, and 
 LI-T'HER'S CATECHISM. Portrait after 
 Cranach. JV, S. 
 
 - Autobiography. See Michelci. 
 
 MACHIAVELLTS History of Flo- 
 rence, THE PRINCE, Savonarola, Historical 
 Tracts, and Memoir. Portrait. N. S. 
 
 MARLOWE. Poems of. Sec Gi-ceite. 
 
 MARTINEAU'S (Harriet) History 
 of England (including History of the Peace) 
 from 1800-1846. 5 vols. N. S. 
 
 M EN Z EL'S History of Germany, 
 from the Earliest Period to the Crimean 
 War. 3 Portraits. 3 vols. 
 
 MICHELET'S Autobiography of 
 Luther. Trans, by W. Hazlitt. With 
 Notes. N. S. 
 
 - The French Revolution to the 
 Flight of the King in 1791. N. S. 
 
 MIGNET'S The French Revolution, 
 from 1789 to 1814. Portrait of Napoleon. 
 -V. S. 
 
 MILTON'S Prose Works. With Pre- 
 face, Preliminary Remarks by J. A. St. 
 John, and Index. 5 vols. 
 
 MITFORD'S (Miss) Our Village. 
 
 Sketches of Rural Character and Scenery. 
 - Engravings. 2 vols. N. S. 
 TiIOLIERE'S Dramatic Works. In 
 Knglish Prose, by C. H. Wall. With a 
 Life and a Portrait. 3 vols. N. S. 
 
 ' It is not too much to*say that we have 
 here ^ probably as good a translation of 
 Moliere as can be given.' Acftdetny. 
 
 MONTESQUIEU'S Spirit of Laws. 
 
 Revised Edition, with D'Alembm'* Analy- 
 sis, Notes, and Memoir. 2 vols. .V. .$". 
 
 NEANDER (Dr. A.) History of the 
 
 Christian Religion and Church. Trans. by 
 J. Torrey. With Short Memoir. 10 vols. 
 
 Life of Jesus Christ, in its His- 
 torical Connexion and Development. .V. .s'. 
 
 The Planting and Training of 
 
 the Christian Church by the Apostles. 
 With the Antignosticus, or Spirit of Ter- 
 tullian. Trans, by J. E. Rylancl. 2 vols. 
 
 Lectures on the History of 
 
 Christian Dogmas. Trans, by J. E. Ry- 
 land. 2 vols. 
 
 Memorials of Christian Life in 
 
 the Early and Middle Ages ; including 
 Light in" Dark Places. Trans, by J. E. 
 Ryland. 
 
 OCKLEY ;S.) History of the Sara- 
 cens and their Conquests in Syria, Persia, 
 and Egypt. Comprising the Lives of 
 Mohammed and his Successors to the 
 Death of Abdalmelik, the Eleventh Caliph. 
 By Simon Ockley, B.D., Prof, of Arabic 
 in Univ. of Cambridge. Portrait of Mo- 
 hammed. 
 
 PERCY'S Reliqnes of Ancient Eng- 
 lish Poetry, consisting of Ballads, Songs, 
 and other Pieces of our earlier Poets, with 
 some few of later date. With Essay on 
 Ancient Minstrels, and Glossary. 2 vols. 
 N.S. 
 
 PHILIP DE COMMINES. Memoirs 
 of. Containing the Histories of Louis XI. 
 and Charles VIII., and Charles the BoM, 
 Duke of Burgundy. With the History of 
 Louis XL, by J. de Troyes. With a Life 
 and Notes by A. R. Scoble. Portraits. 
 2 vols. 
 
 PLUTARCH'S LIVES. Newly Trans- 
 lated, with Notes and Life, by A. 
 Stewart, M.A., late Fellow of Trinity 
 College, Cambridge, and G. Long, M.A. 
 4 vols. N. S. 
 
 POETRY OF AMERICA. Selections 
 from One Hundred Poets, from 1776 to 
 1876. With Introductory Review, and 
 Specimens of Negro Melody, by W. J. 
 Linton. Portrait of W. Whitman. N. S. 
 
 RANKE (L.) History of the Popes, 
 their Church and State, and their Conflicts 
 with Protestantism in the i6th and 171)1 
 Centuries. Trans, by E. Foster. Portraits 
 of Julius II. (after Raphael), Innocent X. 
 (after Velasquez), and Clement VII. (after 
 Titian). 3 vols. N. S. 
 
 History of Servia. Trans, by Mrs. 
 
 Kerr. To which is added, The Slave Pro- 
 vinces of Turkey, by Cyprien Robert. N. S. 
 
 REUMONT (Alfred de). See Cara/as.
 
 STANDARD LIBRARY. 
 
 REYNOLDS' (Sir J.) Literary Works. 
 
 With Memoir and Remarks by H. W. 
 Beechy. 2 vols. N. S. 
 
 RICHTER (Jean Paul). Levana, a 
 
 Treatise on Education ; together with the 
 Autobiography, and a short Memoir. AUS'. 
 
 Flower, Fruit, and Thorn Pieces, 
 
 or the Wedded Life, Death, and Marriage 
 of Siebenkaes. Translated by Alex. Ewing. 
 A r . S. 
 The only complete English translation. 
 
 ROSCOE'S (W.) Life of Leo X., with 
 
 Notes, Historical Documents, and Disser- 
 tation on Lucretia Borgia. 3 Portraits. 
 2 vols. 
 
 Lorenzo de' Medici, called 'The 
 
 Magnificent,' with Copyright Notes, 
 Poems, Letters, &c. With Memoir of 
 Robcoe and Portrait of Lorenzo. 
 
 RUSSIA, History of, from the 
 
 earliest Period to the Crimean War. By 
 \V. K. Kelly. 3 Portraits. 2 vols. 
 
 SCHILLER'S Works. 6 vols. JV. 5. 
 
 Vol. I. Thirty Years' War Revolt in 
 the Netherlands. Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, 
 M.A. Portrait. 
 
 Vol. 1 1 . Revolt in the Netherlands, com- 
 pleted Wallenstein. By J. Churchill and 
 S. T. Coleridge. William Tell. Sir Theo- 
 dore Martin. Engraving (after Vandyck). 
 
 Vol. III. Don Carlos. R. D. Boylan 
 M.iry Stuart. Mellish Maid of Or- 
 leans. Anna Swanwick Bride of Mes- 
 sina. A. Lodge, M.A. Together with the 
 Use of the Chorus in Tragedy (a short 
 Essay). Engravings. 
 
 Thee Dramas are all translated in metre. 
 
 Vol. IV. Robbers Fiesco Love and 
 Intrigue Demetrius Ghost Seer Sport 
 of Divinity. 
 
 The Dramas in this volume are in prose. 
 
 Vol. V. Poems. E. A. Bowring, C.B. 
 
 Vol. VI. Essays, /Esthetical and Philo- 
 sophical, including the Dissertation on the 
 Connexion between the Animal and Spiri- 
 tual in Man. 
 
 SCHILLER and GOETHE. Corre- 
 spondence between, from A.D. 1794-1805. 
 With Short Notes by L. Dora Schmit/. 
 
 i vols. X. S. 
 
 SCHLEGEL'S (F.) Lectures on the 
 
 Philosophy of Life and the Philosophy of 
 Language. By A. J. W. Morrison. 
 
 The History of Literature, Ancient 
 and Modern. 
 
 The Philosophy of History. With 
 
 Memoir and Portrait. 
 
 SCHLEGEL'S "Works. ContimieJ. 
 
 Modern History, with the Lectures 
 
 entitled Csesar and Alexander, and The- 
 Beginning of our History. By L. Parcel, 
 and R. H. Whitelock. ' 
 
 ^Esthetic and Miscellaneous 
 
 Works, containing Letters on Christian 
 Art, Essay on Gothic Architecture, Re- 
 marks on the Romance Poetry of the Mid- 
 dle Ages, on Shakspeare, the Limits of the 
 Beautiful, and on the Language anel \Vi - 
 doin of the Indians. By E. J. Millington. 
 
 SCHLEGEL (A. W.} Dramatic Art 
 
 and Literature. By J. Black. With Me- 
 moir by A. J. W. Morrison. Portrait. 
 
 SHAKESPEARE'S Dramatic Art. 
 The History and Character of Shakspeare' s. 
 Plays. By Dr. H. Ulrici. Trans, by L. 
 Dora Schmitz. 2 vols. A*. S. 
 
 SHERIDAN'S Dramatic Works. With 
 Memoir Portrait >fter Reynolds). A". S. 
 
 SKEAT Rev. W. YT.)-Sfe Chaucer. 
 
 SISMONDI'S History of the Litera- 
 ture of the South of Europe. With Note-, 
 and Memoir by T. Roscoe. Portraits of 
 Si-minuli and Dante. 2 vols. 
 
 The specimens of early French, Italian. 
 Spanish, and Portugese Poetry, in English 
 Verse, by Gary and others. 
 
 SMITH'S (Adam) Theory of Moral 
 
 Sentiments ; with Essay on the First For- 
 mation of languages, and Critical Memoir 
 by Dugald Stewart. 
 
 SMYTH'S (Professor) Lectures on 
 
 Modern History; from the Irruption of the 
 Northern Nations to the close of the Ameri 
 can Revolution. 2 vols. 
 
 Lectures on the French Revolu- 
 tion. With Index. 2 vols. 
 
 SOUTHEY.-.9V.T Cmtftr, H'eslty, an.f 
 (Itttistrateti Library) Xelton. 
 
 STURM'S Morning Communing)* 
 
 with God, or Devotional Meditations for 
 Every Day. Trans, by W. Johnstone, M.A. 
 
 SULLY. Memoirs of the Duke of, 
 
 Prime Minister to Henry the Great. Wiil> 
 Notes and Historical Introduction. 4 Por- 
 traits. 4 vol. 
 
 TAYLOR'S (Bishop Jeremy Holy 
 I.i\ingand Dying, with Prayers, contain- 
 ing the Whole Duty of a Christian and th<: 
 parts of Devotion fitted to all Occaion>. 
 Portrait. -V. -S'. 
 
 THIERRY'S Conquest of England by 
 the Normans; its Causes, and it Conse- 
 quences in England and the Continent. 
 HyW. Ha/litt. With short Memoir. 3 Por- 
 tr.iits. 2 vols. .V. .V.
 
 BOIIN'S LIBRARIES. 
 
 TROYE'S (Jean Qtt!)*-SttPUUtd Corn- 
 mines. 
 
 ULRICI (Dr.) See Shakespeare. 
 V AS AM. Lives of the most Eminent 
 
 Painters, Sculptors, and Architects. By 
 .Mrs. J. Foster, with selected Notes. Por- 
 trait. 6 vols., Vol. VI. being an additional 
 Volume of Notes by J. P. Richter. N. S. 
 
 WESLEY, the Life of, and the Rise 
 
 and Progress of Methodism. By Robert 
 Southey. Portrait. 5*. JV. 5". 
 
 WHEATLEY. A Rational Illustra- 
 tion of the Book of Common Prayer, being 
 the Substance of everything Liturgical in 
 all former Ritualist Commentators upon the 
 subject. Frontispiece. JV. S. 
 
 HISTORICAL LIBRARY. 
 
 21 Volumes at $s. each. (5?. $s. per set.} 
 
 EVELYN'S Diary and Correspond- 
 
 dence, with the Private Correspondence of 
 Charles I. and Sir Edward Nicholas, and 
 between Sir Edward Hyde (Earl of Claren- 
 don) and Sir Richard Browne. Edited from 
 the Original MSS. by W. Bray, F.A.S. 
 4 vols. N. S. 45 Engravings (after Van- 
 dyke, Lely, Kneller, and Jamieson, &c.). 
 
 N.B. This edition contains 130 letters 
 from Evelyn and his wife, contained in no 
 other edition. 
 
 FEPYS' Diary and Correspondence. 
 
 With Life and Notes, by Lord Braybrooke. 
 4 vols. A'. .S". With Appendix containing 
 additional Letters, an Index, and 31 En- 
 gravings (after Vandyke, Sir P. Lely, 
 Holbein, Kneller, &c.). 
 
 JESSE'S Memoirs of the Court of 
 
 England under the Stuarts, including the 
 Protectorate. 3 vols. With Index and 42 
 Portraits (after Vandyke, Lely, &c.). 
 
 Memoirs of the Pretenders and 
 
 their Adherents. 7 Portraits. 
 
 NU GENT'S (Lord) Memorials of 
 
 Hampden, his Party and Times. With 
 Memoir. 12 Portraits (after Vandyke 
 and others). A'. .?. 
 
 STMCKLAND'S (Agnes) Lives of the 
 Queens of England from the Norman 
 Conquest. From authentic Documents, 
 public and private. 6 Portraits. 6 vols. 
 A-. S. 
 
 Life of Mary Queen of Scots. 
 
 2 Portraits. 2 vols. A r . S. 
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL LIBRARY. 
 
 1 5 Vols. at 5-r. each, excepting those marked otherwise. (3/. gs. oi/. per set.) 
 
 BACON'S Novum Organum and Ad- 
 vancement of Learning. With Notes by 
 J. Devey, M.A. 
 
 COMTE'8 Philosophy of the Sciences. 
 
 An Exposition of the Principles of the 
 Cottrs de Philosophic Positive. By G. H. 
 Lewes, Author of ' The Life of Goethe.' 
 
 DRAPER (Dr. J. W.) A History of 
 
 the Intellectual Development of Europe. 
 2 vols. N. S. 
 
 HEGEL'S Philosophy of History. By 
 J. Sibree, M.A. 
 
 KANT'S Critique of Pure Reason. 
 
 By J. M. D. Meiklejohn. A". S. 
 Prolegomena and Metaphysical 
 
 Foundations of Natural Science, with Bio- 
 graphy and Memoir by E. Belfort Bax. 
 Portrait. N. S. 
 
 LOGIC, or the Science of Inference. 
 A Popular Manual. By J. Devey. 
 
 MILLER (Professor). History Philo. 
 
 sophically Illustrated, from the Fall of_the 
 Roman Empire to the French Revolution. 
 With Memoir. 4 vols. 3$. 6d. each. 
 
 SPINOZA'S Chief Works. Trans, with 
 Introduction by R. H. M. Elwes. 2 vols. 
 X.S. 
 
 Vol. I. Tractatus Theologico-Politicus 
 Political Treatise. 
 
 Vol. II. Improvement of the Under- 
 standingEthics Letters. 
 
 TENNEMANN'S Manual of the His- 
 tory of Philosophy. Trans, by Rev. A. 
 Johnson, M.A.
 
 THEOLOGICAL AND ANTIQUARIAN LIBRARIES. 
 
 THEOLOGICAL LIBRARY. 
 
 15 Vols. at 5.?. tach t excepting those marked otherwise. (3/. 13^. 6d. per set.) 
 
 BLEEK. Introduction to the Old 
 
 Testament. By Friedrich Bleek. Trans, 
 under the supervision of Rev. E. Venables, 
 Residentiary Canon of Lincoln. 2 vols. 
 -V. 5. 
 
 CHILLI NGWORTH'S Religion of 
 Protestants. 35. 6d. 
 
 EUSEBIUS. Ecclesiastical History 
 
 of Eusebius Pamphilius, Bishop of Csesarea. 
 Trans, by Rev. C. F. Cruse, M.A. With 
 Notes, Life, and Chronological Tables. 
 
 ZVAGRIUS. History .of the Church. 
 
 See Thcodaret. 
 
 HARDWICK. History of the Articles 
 
 of Religion ; to which is added a Series of 
 Documents from A.D. 1536 to A.D. 1615. 
 Ed. by Rev. F. Proctor. N. S. 
 
 HENRY'S (Matthew) Exposition of 
 
 the Book of Psalms. Numerous Woodcuts. 
 
 PEARSON (John, D.D.) Exposition 
 
 of the Creed. Edit, by E. Walford, M.A. 
 With Notes, Analysis, and Indexes. N. S. 
 
 PHILO JUD.SUS, Works of. The 
 
 Contemporary of Josephus. Trans, by 
 C. D. Yonge. 4 vols. 
 
 PHILOSTORGIUS. Ecclesiastical 
 
 History of. See Sosotiicn. 
 
 SOCRATES' Ecclesiastical History. 
 
 Comprising a History of the Church from 
 Constantine, A.D. 305; to the 38th year of 
 Theodosius II. With Short Account of 
 the Author, and selected Notes. 
 
 SOZOMEN'S Ecclesiastical History. 
 A.D. 324-440. \Vith Notes, Prefatory Re- 
 marks by Valesius, and Short Memoir. 
 Together with the ECCLESIASTICAL HIS- 
 TORY OK PHlLOSTORGius.as epitomised by 
 Photius. Trans, by Rev. E. Walford, M.A. 
 With Notes and brief Life. 
 
 THEODORET and EVAGRIUS. Hi- 
 tones of the Church from A.D. 332 to the 
 Death of Theodore of Mopsuestia, A.I>. 
 427 ; and from A.D. 431 to A.D. 544. With 
 Memoirs. 
 
 WIESELER'S (Karl) Chronological 
 
 Synopsis of the Four Gospels. Trans, by 
 Rev. Canon Venables. -V. S. 
 
 ANTIQUARIAN LIBRARY. 
 
 35 Vols. at y. each. (St. \$s. per set.) 
 
 ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE. - See 
 
 Bide. 
 
 ASSER'S Life of Alfred. See Six O. E. 
 Chronicles. 
 
 BEDE'S (Venerable) Ecclesiastical 
 History of England. Together with the 
 ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE. With Notes, 
 Short Life, Analysis, and Map. Edit, by 
 J. A. Giles, D.C.L. 
 
 BOETHIUS'S Consolation of Philo- 
 sophy. King Alfred's Anglo-Saxon Ver- 
 sion of. With an English Translation on 
 opposite pages, Notes, Introduction, and 
 Glossary, by Rev. S. Fox, M.A. To 
 which is added the Anglo-Saxon Version of 
 the MKTRKS OF BOKTHITS, with a free 
 Translation by Mania F. '1 upper, D. CM- 
 BRAND'S Popular Antiquities of 
 England, Scotland, and Ireland. Illus- 
 trating the Origin of our Vulgar and Pro- 
 vincial Customs, Ceremonies, and Super- 
 stitions. By Sir Henry Ellis, K.H., F.R.S. 
 Frontispiece. 3 vols. 
 
 CHRONICLES of the CRUSADES. 
 
 Contemporary Narratives of Richard Cotur 
 de Lion, by Richard of Devizes and Geof- 
 frey de Vinsauf ; and of the Crusade at 
 Saint Louis, by Lord John de Joinville. 
 With Short Notes. Illuminated Frontis- 
 piece from an old MS. 
 
 DYER'S (T. F. T.) British Popular 
 
 Customs, Present and Past. An Account 
 of the various Games and Customs asso- 
 ciated with different Days of the Year in 
 the British Isles, arranged according to the 
 Calendar. By the Rev. T. F. Thiselton 
 Dyer, M.A. 
 
 EARLY TRAVELS IN PALESTINE. 
 
 Comprising the Narratives of Arculf, 
 WillibalOernard, Szwulf, Sigurd, Ben- 
 jamin of Tudcla, Sir John Maundeville, 
 De la lirocuuicre, and Maundrell ; all un- 
 abridged. With Introduction and Note* 
 by Thomas Wright. Map of Jerusalem.
 
 10 
 
 LMRAXIES. 
 
 ELLIS (G.) Specimens of Early En- 
 glish Metrical Romances, relating to 
 Arthur, Merlin, Guy of Warwick, Richard 
 Coeur de I, ion, Charlemagne, Roland, &c. 
 &c. With Historical Introduction by J. O. 
 Halliwell, F.R.S. Illuminated Frontis- 
 piece from an old MS. 
 
 ETHELWERD. Chronicle of. See 
 
 Si.f ('. E. Chronicles. 
 
 FLORENCE OF -WORCESTER'S 
 
 Chronicle, with the Two Continuations : 
 comprising Annals of English History 
 from the Departure of the Romans to the 
 Reign of Edward I. Trans., with Notes, 
 by Thomas Forester, M.A. 
 
 GESTA ROMANORUM, or Enter- 
 taining Moral Stories invented by the 
 Monks. Trans, with Notes by the Rev. 
 Charles Swan. Edit, by W. Hooper, M.A. 
 
 GIRALDUS CAMBRENSIS' Histori- 
 cal Works. Containing 'Topography of 
 Ireland, and History of the Conquest of 
 Ireland, by Th. Forester, MA. Itinerary 
 through Wales, and Description of Wales, 
 by Sir R. Colt Hoare. 
 
 GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH. 
 
 Chronicle of. Sec Six O. E. Chronicles. 
 
 GILD AS. Chronicle of. See Six O. E. 
 
 Chronicles. 
 
 HENRY OF HUNTINGDON'S His 
 
 tor],- of the English, from the Roman In- 
 vasion to the Accession of Henry II. ; 
 with the Acts of King Stephen, and the 
 Letter to Walter. By T. Forester, M.A. 
 Frontispiece from au old MS. 
 
 INGULPH'S Chronicles of the Abbey 
 
 of Croyland, with the CONTINUATION by 
 Peter of Blois and others. Trans, with 
 Notes by H. T. Riley, B.A. 
 
 KEIGHTLEY'S (Thomas) Fairy My 
 
 thology, illustrative of the Romance and 
 Superstition of Various Countries. Frontis- 
 piece by Cruikshank. N. S. 
 
 LEPSIUS'S Letters from Egypt, 
 Ethiopia, and the Peninsula of Sinai ; to 
 which are added, Extracts from his 
 Chronology of the Egyptians, with refer- 
 ence to the Exodus of the Israelites. By 
 L. and J. B. Horner. Maps and Coloured 
 View of Mount Barkal. 
 
 MALLET'S Northern Antiquities, or 
 
 an Historical Account of the Manners, 
 Customs, Religions, and Literature of the 
 Ancient Scandinavians. Trans, by Bishop 
 Percy. With Translation of the PROSE 
 EDDA, and Notes by J. A. Blackwell. 
 Also an Abstract of the ' Eyrbyggia Saga ' 
 by Sir Walter Scott. With Glossary 
 and Coloured Frontispiece. 
 
 MARCO POLO'S Travels ; with Notes, 
 and Introduction. Edit, by T. Wright. 
 
 MATTHEW PARIS'S English His- 
 tory, from :235 to 1273. By Rev. J. A. 
 Giles, D.C.L. With Frontispiece. 3 vols. 
 See also Roger of H'endover. 
 
 MATTHEW OF WESTMINSTER'S 
 
 Flowers of History, especially such as re- 
 late to the affairs of Britain, from the be- 
 ginning of the World to A.D. 1307. By 
 C. D. Yonge. 2 vols. 
 
 NENNIUS. Chronicle of. See Six 
 
 O. E. Chronicles. 
 
 ORDERICUS VITALIS' Ecclesiastical 
 
 History of England and Normandy. With 
 Notes, Introduction of Guizot, and the- 
 Critical Notice of M. Delille, by T. 
 Forester, M.A. To which is added the 
 CHRONICLE OF St. EVROULT. With Gene- 
 ral and Chronological Indexes. 4 vols. 
 
 FAULTS (Dr. R.) Life of Alfred the 
 Great. To which is appsnded Alfred's- 
 ANGLO-SAXON YERSION OF OKOSIUS. With, 
 literal Translation interpaged, Notes, and 
 an ANGLO-SAXON GRAMMAR and Glossary, 
 by B. Thorpe, Esq. Frontispiece. 
 
 RICHARD OF CIRENCESTER. 
 
 Chronicle of. See Six O. E. Chronicles. 
 
 ROGER DE HOVEDEN'S Annals of 
 
 English History, comprising the History 
 of England and of other Countries of Eu- 
 rope from A.D. 732 to A.D. 1201. With 
 Notes by H. T. Riley, B.A. 2 vols. 
 
 ROGER OF WENDOVER'S Flowers. 
 
 of History, comprising the History or 
 England from the Descent of the Saxons to 
 A.D. 1235, formerly ascribed to Matthew 
 Paris. With Notes and Index by J. A. 
 j Giles, D.C.L. 2 vols. 
 
 SIX OLD ENGLISH CHRONICLES : 
 
 viz., Asser's Life of Alfred and the Chroni- 
 cles of Ethelwerd, Gildas, Nennius, Geof- 
 frey of Monmouth, and Richard of Ciren- 
 cester. Edit., with Notes, by J. A. Giles, 
 D.C.L. Portrait of Alfred. 
 
 WILLIAM OF MALMESBURY'S 
 
 Chronicle of the Kings of England, from 
 the Earliest Period to King Stephen. By 
 Rev. J. Sharpe. With Notes by J. A. 
 Giles, D.C.L. Frontispiece. 
 
 YULE-TIDE STORIES. A Collection, 
 of Scandinavian and North-German Popu- 
 lar Tales and Traditions, from the Swedish, 
 Danish, and German. Edit, by B. Thorpe.
 
 ILL USTRA TED LIBRA K \ '. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED LIBRARY. 
 
 85 Vols. at 5-r. each, excepting those marked othenvise. (23^. 2s. fxf. per set.) 
 
 ALLEN'S (Joseph, R.N.) Battles of DYER (Dr. T. H.; Pompeii : its Bnild- 
 
 the British Navy. Revised edition, with : ings and Antiquities. An Account of the 
 
 Indexes of Names and Events, and 57 For- ' City, with full Description of the Remains 
 traits and Plans, x vols. 
 
 ANDERSEN'S Danish Fairy Tales. 
 
 Ky Caroline Peachey. With Short Life 
 and 120 Wood Engravings. 
 
 ARIOSTO'S Orlando Furioso. In 
 
 English Verse by W. S. Rose. With Notes 
 and Short Memoir. Portrait after Titian, 
 
 and 24 Steel Engravings. 2 vols. 
 
 BECHSTEDTS Cage and Chamber 
 
 Birds : their Natural History, Habits, &c. 
 Together with SWEET'S BRITISH WAR- 
 BI.ERS. 43 Plates and Woodcuts. N. S. 
 or with the Plates Coloured, js. M. 
 
 BONOMI'S Nineveh and its Palaces. 
 
 The Discoveries of Bptta and Layard 
 applied to the Elucidation of Holy Writ. 
 7 Plates and 294 Woodcuts. A r . .S 1 . 
 
 BUTLER'S Hudibras, with Variorum 
 Nots and Biography. Portrait and 28 
 I Hustrations. 
 
 CATTERMOLE'S Evenings at Had- 
 
 don Hall. Romantic Tales of the Olden 
 Times. With 24 Steel Engravings after 
 Cattermole. 
 
 CHINA, Pictorial, Descriptive, and 
 
 Historical, with some account of Ava and 
 the Burmese, Siam, and Anam. Map, and 
 nearly 100 Illustrations. 
 
 CRAIK'S (G. L.) Pursuit of Know- 
 ledge under Difficulties. Illustrated by 
 Anecdotes and Memoirs. Numerous Wood- 
 cut Portraits. A". 6'. 
 
 CRUIKSHANK'S Three Courses and 
 
 a Dessert ; comprising three Sets of Tales, 
 
 West Country, Irish, and Legal ; and a 
 Melange. With 30 Illustrations by Cruik- 
 >l.ank. .V. .V. 
 
 Punch and Judy. The Dialogue of 
 
 the Puppet Show ; an Account of its Origin, 
 itc. 24 Illustrations by Cruikshank. A. S. 
 
 With Coloured Plates, js. M. 
 
 DANTE, in English Verse, by I. C. Wright, 
 M.A. With Introduction and Memoir. 
 Portrait and 34 Steel Engravings after 
 Klaxman. N. S. 
 
 DIDRON'S Christian Iconography; 
 
 a History of Christian Art in the Middle 
 Age<. 'I rans. by E. J. Mlllinglon. 150 
 Outline Engravings. 
 
 Rome: History of the City, with 
 
 Introduction on recent Excavations. 8 
 Engravings, Frontispiece, and a Maps. 
 
 OIL BLAS. The Adventures of. 
 
 From the French of Lesage by Smollett. 
 24 Engravings after Smirke, and 10 Etch- 
 ings by Cruikshank. 612 pages. 6s. 
 
 GRIMM'S Gammer Grethel; or, Ger- 
 man Fairy Tales and Popular Stories, 
 containing 42 Fairy Tales. By Edgar 
 Taylor. Numerous Woodcuts after Cruik- 
 shank and Ludwig Grimm. 31. 6d. 
 
 HOLBEIN'S Dance of Death and 
 
 Bible Cuts. Upwards of 150 Subjects, en 
 graved in facsimile, with Introduction and 
 De-icriptions by the late Francis Douce 
 and Dr. Dibdin. 7*. dd. 
 
 HO WITTS (Mary) Pictorial Calen 
 dar of the Seasons ; embodying AIKIN'S 
 CALENDAR OF NATURE. Upwards of too 
 Woodcuts. 
 
 INDIA, Pictorial, Descriptive, and 
 
 Historical, from the Earliest Times. 100 
 Engravings on Wood and Map. 
 
 JESSE'S Anecdotes of Dogs. With 
 40 Woodcuts after Harvey, Bewick, and 
 others. .V. .?. 
 
 With 34 additional Steel Engravings 
 
 after Cooper, Landsecr, &c. js. 6a. A'. J)'. 
 
 KING'S (C. W.) Natural History of 
 Gems or Decorative Stones. Illustra- 
 tions. 6s. 
 Natural History of Precious 
 
 Stones and Metals. Illustrations. 61. 
 
 - Handbook of Engraved Goms. 
 Numerous Illustrations. 6s. 
 
 KITTO'S Scripture Lands. Described 
 in a series of Historical, Geographical, and 
 Topographical Sketches. 43 Maps. 
 
 With the Maps coloured, jt. 6tf. 
 
 KRUMMACHER'S Parable*. 4olllu*. 
 
 t rat ions. 
 LINDSAY'S (Lord) Letters on Egypt. 
 
 Edom, and the Holy Land. 36 Wood 
 
 Knjfravings and 2 M:i|s
 
 12 
 
 BOHN'S LIBRARIES. 
 
 LODGE'S Portraits of Illustrious 
 Personages of Great Britain, with Bio- 
 graphical and Historical Memoirs. 240 
 Portraits engraved on Steel, with the 
 respective Biographies unabridged. Com- 
 plete in 8 vols. 
 
 LONGFELLOW'S Poetical Works, 
 
 including his Translations and Notes. 24 
 full-page Woodcuts by Birket Foster and 
 others, and a Portrait. N. S. 
 ^ Without the Illustrations, 3$. 6d. N. S. 
 
 Prose Works. With 16 full-page 
 
 Woodcuts by Birket Foster and others. 
 
 LOUDON'S (Mrs.) Entertaining Na- 
 turalist. Popular Descriptions, Tales, and 
 Anecdotes, of more than 500 Animals. 
 Numerous Woodcuts. N. S. 
 
 MARRYATS (Capt., R.N.) Master. 
 
 man Ready ; or, the Wreck of the Pacific. 
 
 (Written for Young People.) With 93 
 
 Woodcuts, y &d- & S. 
 Mission ; or, Scenes in Africa. 
 
 (Written for Young People.) Illustrated 
 
 by Gilbert and Dalziel. y. fxl. N. S. 
 
 Pirate and Three Cutters. (Writ- 
 ten for Young People.) With a Memoir. 
 8 Steel Engravings after Clarkson Stan- 
 field, R.A. y $<* M ^- 
 
 Privateersman. Adventures by Sea 
 
 and Land One Hundred Years Ago. 
 (Written for Young People.) 8 Steel En- 
 gravings. 3S. dd. N. S. 
 
 Settlers in Canada. (Written for 
 Young People.) 10 Engravings by Gilbert 
 and Dalziel. 3*. fxt. N. S. 
 
 Poor Jack. (Written for Young 
 
 People.) With 16 Illustrations after Clark- 
 son Stanfield, R.A. 3*. 6d. N. S. 
 
 MAXWELL'S Victories of Welling- 
 ton and the British Armies. Frontispiece 
 and 4 Portraits. 
 
 MICHAEL ANGELO and RAPHAEL, 
 
 Their Lives and Works. By Duppa and 
 
 guatremere de Quincy. Portraits and 
 ngravings, including the Last Judgment, 
 and Cartoons. N. S. 
 
 MILLER'S History of the Anglo- 
 Saxons, from the Earliest Period to the 
 Norman Conquest. Portrait of Alfred, Map 
 of Saxon Britain, and 12 Steel Engravings. 
 
 MILTON'S Poetical Works, with a 
 Memoir and Notes by J. Montgomery, an 
 Index to Paradise Lost, Todd's Verbal 
 Index to all the Poems, and Notes. 120 
 Wood Engravings. 2 vols. N. S. 
 
 MtTDIE'S History of British Birds. 
 Revised by W. C. L. Martin. 52 Figures of 
 Birds and 7 Plates of Eggs. 2 vols. A r .S. 
 
 With the Plates coloured, 7$. &/. per vol. 
 
 NAVAL and MILITARY HEROES 
 
 of Great Britain ; a Record of British 
 Valour on every Day in the year, from 
 William the Conqueror to the Battle of 
 Inkermann. By Major Johns, R.M., and 
 Lieut. P. H. Nicolas, R.M. Indexes. 24 
 Portraits after Holbein, Reynolds, &c. 6i. 
 
 NICpLINI'S History of the Jesuits : 
 
 their Origin, Progress, Doctrines, and De- 
 signs. 8 Portraits. 
 
 PETRARCH'S Sonnets, Triumphs, 
 
 and other Poems, in English Verse. With 
 Life by Thomas Campbell. Portrait and 
 15 Steel Engravings. 
 
 PICKERING'S History of the Races 
 
 of Man, and their Geographical Distribu- 
 tion ; with AN ANALYTICAL SYNOPSIS OF 
 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MAN. By Dr. 
 Hall. Map of the World and 12 Plates. 
 
 With the Plates coloured, 7*. 6J. 
 
 PICTORIAL HANDBOOK OF 
 
 Modern Geography on a Popular Plan. 
 Compiled from the best Authorities, English 
 and Foreign, by H. G. Bohn. 150 Wood- 
 cuts and 51 Maps. 6;. 
 
 With the Maps coloured, js. 6<f. 
 
 Without the Maps, 3*. 6d. 
 
 POPE'S Poetical Works, including 
 Translations. Edit., with Notes, by R. 
 Carruthers. 2 vols. 
 
 Homer's Iliad, with Introduction 
 
 and Notes by Rev. J. S. Watson, M.A. 
 With Flaxman's Designs. A r . .. 
 
 Homer's Odyssey, with the BATTLE 
 
 OF FROGS AND MICE, Hymns, &c., by 
 other translators, including Chapman. In- 
 troduction and Notes by J. S. Watson, 
 M.A. With Flaxman's Designs. .V. S. 
 
 Life, including many of his Letters. 
 
 By R. Carruthers. Numerous Illustrations. 
 
 POTTERY AND PORCELAIN, ar.d 
 other objects of Vertu. Comprising an 
 Illustrated Catalogue of the Bernal Col- 
 lection, with the prices and names of the 
 Possessors. Also an Introductory Lecture 
 on Pottery and Porcelain, and an Engraved 
 List of all Marks and Monograms. By 
 H. G. Bohn. Numerous Woodcuts. 
 
 With coloured Illustrations, los. 6it. 
 
 PROUTS (Father) Reliques. Edited 
 by Rev. F. Mahony. Copyright edition, 
 with the Author's last corrections and 
 additions. 21 Etchings by D. Maclise, 
 R.A. Nearly 600 pages. 5$. A r . S. 
 
 RECREATIONS IN SHOOTING. With 
 some Account of the Game found in the 
 British Isles, and Directions for the Manage- 
 ment of Dog and Gun. By ' Craven.' 62 
 Woodcuts and 9 Steel Engravings after 
 A. Cooper, R.A.
 
 CLASSICAL LIBRARY. 
 
 REDDING'S History and Descrip- 
 tions of Wines, Ancient and Modern. 20 
 Woodcuts. 
 
 RENNIE. Insect Architecture. Re- 
 vised by Rev. J. G. Wood, M.A. 186 
 Woodcuts. N. S. 
 
 ROBINSON CRUSOE. With Memoir of 
 Defoe, 12 Steel Engravings and 74 Wood- 
 cuts after Stothard and Harvey. 
 
 Without the Engravings, v- 6J- 
 
 ROME IN THE NINETEENTH CEN- 
 tury. An Account in 1817 of the Ruins of 
 the Ancient City, and Monuments of Modern 
 Times. By C. A. Eaton. 34 Steel En- 
 gravings. 2 Vols. 
 
 SHARPE (S.) The History of Egypt, 
 
 from the Earliest Times till the Conquest 
 by the Arabs, A.D. 640. 2 Maps and up- 
 wards of 400 Woodcuts. 2 vols. A*". S. 
 
 SCUT-BEY'S Life of Nelson. With 
 Additional Notes, Facsimiles of Nelson's 
 Writing, Portraits, Plans, and 50 Engrav- 
 ings, after Birket Foster, &c. .V. S. 
 
 STARLING'S (Miss) Noble Deeds of 
 Women; or, Examples of Female Courage, 
 Fortitude, and Virtue. With 14 Steel Por- 
 traits. AT. S. 
 
 STTJART and REVETTS Antiquities 
 of Athens, and other Monuments of Greece ; 
 with Glossary of Terms used in Grecian 
 Architecture. 71 Steel Plates and numerous 
 Woodcuts. 
 
 SWEET'S British^ Warblers. 5*. See 
 Bichstein. 
 
 TALES OF THE GENII ; or, the 
 Delightful Lessons of Horam, the Son of 
 Asmar. Trans, by Sir C. Morrell. Numer- 
 ous Woodcuts. 
 
 TASSO'S Jerusalem Delivered. In 
 English Spenserian Verse, with Life, by 
 I. H. Wiffen. With 8 Engravings and 24 
 Woodcuts. -V. S. 
 
 WALKER'S Manly Exercises; con- 
 taining Skating, Riding, Driving, Hunting, 
 Shooting, Sailing, Rowing, Swimming, &c. 
 44 Engravings and numerous Woodcuts. 
 
 WALTON'S Complete Angler, or the 
 Contemplative Man's Recreation, by Izaalc 
 Walton and Charles Cotton. With Me- 
 moirs and Notes by E. Jesse. Also an 
 Account of Fishing Stations, Tackle, &c., 
 by H. G. Bohn. Portrait and 203 Wood- 
 cuts. .V. S. 
 
 With 26 additional Engravings on Steel, 
 
 7.1 . 6tf. 
 
 Lives of Donne, Wotton, Hooker, 
 
 &c., with Notes. A New Edition, re- 
 revised by A. H. Bullen, with a Memoir 
 of Izaak Walton by William Dowling. 6 
 Portraits. 6 Autograph Signatures. &c. 
 .V.S. 
 
 WELLINGTON, Life of. From the 
 Materials of Maxwell. 18 Steel En- 
 . gravings. 
 
 Victories of. See Ma.xv.tlt. 
 
 WESTROPP (H. M.) A Handbook of 
 
 Archaeology, Egyptian, Greek, Etruscan, 
 Roman. By H. M. Westropp. Numerous 
 Illustrations. 7*. dd. N. S. 
 
 WHITE'S Natural History of Sel- 
 
 borne, with Observations en various Parts 
 of Nature, and the Naturalists' Calendar. 
 Sir W. Jardine. Edit., with Notes and 
 Memoir, by E. Jesse. 40 Portraits, if. S. 
 
 With the Plates coloured, jt. M. A*. S. 
 
 YOUNG LADY'S BOOK, The. A 
 
 Manual of Recreations, Arts, Science*, and 
 Accomplishments. 1200 Woodcut Illustra- 
 tions. 7*. (nt. 
 
 cloth gilt, gilt edges, of. 
 
 CLASSICAL LIBRARY. 
 
 TRANSLATIONS FROM TIIK GRF.EK AND LATIN. 
 95 Vols. at 5-r. each, excepting those marked otherwise. (2J/. 7*. per set. ) 
 
 JEBCHYLUS, The Dramas of. In 
 
 English Verse by Anna Swanwick. yd 
 
 edition. -V. S. 
 The Tragedies of. In Prose, with 
 
 Notes and Introduction, by T. A. Buckley, 
 
 B.A. Portrait. 3*. 6<f. 
 
 AMMIANU8 MARCELLINUS. His- 
 
 tory of Rome during the Reign* of Con- 
 stantius, Julian, Jovianus,V"alcntmian, and 
 Valens, by C. D. Vonge, 1!.A. Double 
 volume, ^t. dd. 
 
 ANTONINUS (M. Aurelins), The 
 'ITioughts of. Translated literally, with 
 Notes. Biographical Sketch, and Euav on 
 the Philosophy, by George Long, M.A. 
 3*. txl. N.S. 
 
 APULEIU8, The Works of. Com- 
 prising the Golden Avs, God of Socratrs 
 Florida, and l>i*coure of Magic. With 
 a Metrical Version of Cupid and Pyche, 
 and Mr*. Tighe Piyche. Front!.- 
 piece.
 
 BOffN*S LIBRARIES. 
 
 ARISTOPHANES' Comedies. Trans., 
 with Notes and Extracts from Frere's and ; 
 other Metrical Versions, by W. J. Hickie. | 
 Portrait. 2 vols. 
 
 ARISTOTLE'S Nicomachean Ethics. \ 
 Trans., with Notes, Analytical Introduc- j 
 tion, and Questions for Students, by Yen. 
 Archdn. Browne. 
 
 Politics and Economics. Trans., 
 
 with Notes, Analyses, and Index, by E. 
 Walford, M.A., and an Essay and Life by 
 Dr. Gillies. 
 
 Metaphysics. Trans., with Notes, 
 
 Analysis, and Examination Questions, by 
 
 Rev. John H. M'Mahon, M.A. 
 History of Animals. In Ten Bootes. 
 
 Trans., with Notes and Index, by R. 
 
 Cresswell, M.A. 
 
 Organ on ; O r, Logical Treatises, and 
 
 the Introduction of Porphyry. With Notes, 
 Analysis, and Introduction, by Rev. O. 
 F. Owen, M.A. 2 vols. 3.5. dd. each. 
 
 Rhetoric and Poetics. Trans., with 
 
 Hobbes" Analysis, Exam. Questions, and 
 Notes, by T. Buckley, B.A. Portrait. 
 
 ATHENEUS. The Deipnosophists ; 
 
 or, the Banquet of the Learned. By C. D. 
 Yonge, B.A. With an Appendix of Poeti- 
 cal Fragments. 3 vols. 
 
 ATLAS of Classical Geography. 22 
 
 large Coloured Maps. With a complete 
 Index. Imp. 8vo. js. 6i/. 
 
 BION. See Theocritus. 
 
 CJESAR. Commentaries on the 
 
 Gallic and Civil Wars, with the Supple- 
 mentary Books attributed to Hirtius, in- ' 
 eluding the complete Alexandrian, African, 
 and Spanish Wars. Trans, with Notes. 
 Portrait. 
 
 CATULLUS, Tibullus, and the Vigil 
 
 of Venus. Trans, with Notes and Bio- 
 graphical Introduction. To which are 
 added, Metrical Versions by Lamb, 
 Grainger, and others. Frontispiece. 
 
 CICERO'S Orations. Trans, by C. D. 
 Yonge, B.A. 4 vols. 
 
 On Oratory and Orators. With 
 
 Letters to Quintus and Brutus. Trans., 
 with Notes, by Rev. J. S. Watson, M.A. 
 
 On the Nature of the Gods, Divi- 
 nation, Fate, Laws, a Republic, Consul- 
 ship. Trans., with Notes, by C. D. Yonge, 
 B.A. 
 
 Academics, De Finibus, and Tuscu- 
 
 lan Questions. By C. D. Yonge, B.A. 
 With Sketch of the Greek Philosophers 
 mentioned by Cicero. 
 
 CICERO'S Orations. Continued. 
 
 Offices; or, Moral Duties. Cato 
 
 Major, an Essay on Old Age ; Lzliu.s, an 
 Essay on Friendship ; Scipio's Dream ; 
 Paradoxes ; Letter to Quintus on Magis- 
 trates. Trans., with Notes, by C. R. Ed- 
 monds. Portrait. 3$. 6d. 
 
 DEMOSTHENES' Orations. Trans., 
 with Notes, Arguments, a Chronological 
 Abstract, and Appendices, by C. Ranu 
 Kennedy. 5 vols. 
 
 DICTIONARY of LATIN and GREEK 
 
 Quotations ; including Proverbs, Maxims, 
 Mottoes, Law Terms and Phrases. With 
 the Quantities marked, and English Trans- 
 lations. 
 
 With Index Verborum (622 pages). 6s. 
 
 Index Verborum to the above, with the 
 
 Quantifies and Accents marked (56 pages), 
 limp cloth, is. 
 
 DIOGENES LAERTIUS. Lives and 
 
 Opinions of the Ancient Philosophers. 
 Trans., with Notes, by C. D. Yonge, B.A. 
 
 EPICTETUS. The Discourses of. 
 
 With the Encheiridion and Fragments. 
 With Notes, Life, and View of his Philo- 
 sophy, by George Long, M.A. A'. S. 
 
 EURIPIDES. Trans., with Notes and In- 
 troduction, by T. A. Buckley, B.A. Por- 
 trait. 2 vols. 
 
 GREEK ANTHOLOGY. In English 
 Prose by G. Burges, M.A. With Metrical 
 Versions by Bland, Merivale, Lord Den- 
 man, &c. 
 
 GREEK ROMANCES of Heliodorus, 
 
 Longus, and Achilles Tatius ; viz., The 
 Adventures of Theagenes and Chariclea ; 
 Amours of Daphnis and Chloe ; and Loves 
 of Clitopho and Leucippe. Trans., with 
 Notes, by Rev. R. Smith, M.A. 
 
 HERODOTUS. Literally trans, by Rev. 
 Henry Cary, M.A. Portrait. 
 
 HESIOD, CALLIMACHUS, and 
 
 Theognis. In Prose, with Notes and 
 Biographical Notices by Rev. J. Banks, 
 M.A. Together with the Metrical Ver- 
 sions of Hesiod, by Elton ; Callimachus, 
 by Tytler ; and Theognis, by Frere. 
 
 HOMER'S niad. In English Prose, with 
 Notes by T. A. Buckley, B.A. Portrait. 
 
 Odyssey, Hymns, Epigrams, and 
 
 Battle of the Frogs and Mice. In English 
 Prose, with Notes and Memoir by T. A. 
 Buckley, B.A. 
 
 HORACE. In Prose by Smart, with Notes 
 selected by T. A. Buckley, B.A. Por- 
 trait. 34-. 6it.
 
 CLASSICAL LIBRARY. 
 
 JUSTIN, CORNELIUS NEPOS. and 
 Eutropius. Trans., with Notes, by Rev. ' 
 J. S. Watson, M.A. 
 
 JUVENAL, PERSIUS. SULPICIA. 
 and Lucilius. In Prose, with Notes, 
 Chronological Tables, Arguments, by L. 
 Evans, M.A. To which is added the Me- i 
 trical Version of Juvenal ami Persius by 
 Gilford. Frontispiece. 
 
 LIVY . The History of Rome. Trans, i 
 by Dr. Spillan and others. 4 vols. Por- 
 trait. 
 
 LUCA1TS Pharsalia. In Prose, with 
 Notes by H.T. Riley. 
 
 LUCRETIUS. In Prose, with Notes and 
 Biographical Introduction by Rev. J. S. 
 Watson, M.A. To which is added the 
 Metrical Version by J. M. Good. 
 
 MARTIAL'S Epigrams, complete. In 
 Prose, with Verse Translations selected 
 from English Poets, and other sources. 
 Dble. vol. (670 pages), js. M. 
 
 MOSCHUS. See Theocritus. 
 
 OVID'S Works, complete. In Prose, 
 with Notes and Introduction. 3 vols. 
 
 PHALARIS. Bentley's Dissertations 
 
 upon the Epistles of Phalaris, Themisto- 
 cles, Socrates, Euripides, and the Fables 
 of JEsop. With Introduction and Notes 
 by Prof. W. Wagner, Ph.L). 
 
 PINDAR. In Prose, with Introduction 
 and Notes by Dawspn W. Turner. To- 
 gether with the Metrical Version by Abra- 
 ham Moore. Portrait. 
 
 PLATO'S Works. Trans., with Intro- 
 duction and Notes. 6 vols. 
 
 Dialogues. A Summary and Analysis 
 
 of. With Analytical Index to the Greek 
 text of modern editions and to the above 
 translations, by A. Day, LL.U. 
 
 PLAUTUS'S Comedies. In Pro^e, with 
 Notes and Index by H. T. Riley, 15. A. 
 
 2 Vols. 
 
 PLINY'S Natural History. Trans., 
 with Notes, by J. Bostock, M.D., F.R.X, 
 and H. T. Riley, B.A. 6 vols. 
 
 PUNY. The Letters of Pliny the 
 
 Younger. Melmoth's Translation. re\ i*ed, 
 with Notes and short Life, by R ,-v. F. C . 
 T. Bosanquet, M.A. 
 
 PLUTARCH'S Morals. Theosophical 
 Essays. Trans, by C. W. King, M.A. \.S. 
 
 Lives. See page f.. 
 
 PROPERTIUS, The Elegies of. With 
 Notes, Literally translated by the Rev. P. 
 J. F. Gantillon, M.A., with metrical ver- 
 sions of Select Elegies by Nott and Elton. 
 
 Q U IN TILIAN'S Institutes of Oratory. 
 Trans., with Notes and Biographical 
 Notice, by Rev. J. S. Watson, M.A. 
 2 vols. 
 
 SALLUST, FLORUS, and VELLEIUS 
 
 Paterculus. Trans., with Notes and Bio- 
 graphical Notices, by J. S. Watson, M.A. 
 
 SENECA. [Preparing. 
 
 SOPHOCLES. The Tragedies of. In 
 
 Prose, with Notes, Argument*, and Intro- 
 daction. Portrait. 
 
 STR ABO'S Geography. Trans., with 
 Notes, by W. Falconer, M.A., and H. C. 
 Hamilton. Copious Index, giving Ancient 
 and Modern Names. 3 vols. 
 
 SUETONIUS' Lives of the Twelve 
 
 Csesars and Lives of the Grammarians. 
 1'he Translation of Thomson, revised, with 
 Notes, by T. Forester. 
 
 TACITUS. The Works of. Trans., 
 with Notes. 2 vols. 
 
 TERENCE and PHJEDRU8. In Eng- 
 lish Prose, with Notes and Arguments, by 
 H. T. Riley, B.A. To which is added 
 Smart's Metrical Version of Phidrus. 
 With Frontispiece. 
 
 THEOCRITUS, BION, MOSCHUS, 
 
 and Tyrtanis. In Prose, with Notes and 
 Arguments, by Rev. J. Banks, M.A. To 
 which are appended the METRICAL VER- 
 SIONS of Chapman. Portrait of Theocritus. 
 
 THUCYDEDES. The Poloponnesian 
 
 War. Trans., with Notes, by Rev. H. 
 
 Dale. Portrait. 2 vols. y. &/. each. 
 TYRT2EUS. See Theocritus. 
 VIRGIL. The Works of. In Prose, 
 
 with Notes by Davidson. Revised, with 
 
 additional Notes and Biographical Notice, 
 
 by T. A. Buckley, B.A. Portrait, y. 6<f. 
 XENOPHON'S Works. Trans., with 
 
 Notes, by I. S. Watson, M.A., and other*. 
 
 Portrait. In 3 voU.
 
 i6 
 
 JSOI/WS LIBRARIES. 
 
 COLLEGIATE SERIES. 
 
 10 Vols. at $s. each. (2!. los. fer set.) 
 
 DANTE. The Inferno. Prose Trans., 
 with the Text of the Original on the same 
 page, and Explanatory Notes, by John 
 A. Carlyle, M.D. Portrait. N. S. 
 
 The Purgatorio. Prose Trans., with 
 
 the Original on the same page, and Ex- 
 planatory Notes, by W. S. Dugdale. ^V. S. 
 
 NEW TESTAMENT (The) in Greek. 
 Griesbach's Text, with the Readings of 
 Mill and Scholz at the foot of the page, and 
 Parallel References in the margin. Also a 
 Critical Introduction and Chronological 
 Tables. Two Fac -similes of Greek Manu- 
 scripts. 650 pages, y. 6d. 
 
 or bound up with a Greek and English 
 
 Lexicon to the New Testament (250 pages 
 additional, making in all goo). =,s. 
 
 The Lexicon may be had separately, 
 price 2S. 
 
 DOBREE'S Adversaria. (Notes on the 
 Greek and Latin Classics.) Edited by the 
 late Prof. Wagner. 2 vois. 
 
 DONALDSON (Dr.) The Theatre of 
 
 the Greeks. With Supplementary Treatise 
 on the Language, Metres, and Prosody of 
 the Greek Dramatists. Numerous Illus- 
 trations and 3 Plans. By J. W. Donald- 
 son, D.D. N.S. 
 
 KEIGHTLEY'S (Thomas) Mythology 
 of Ancient Greece and Italy. Revised by 
 Leonhard Schmitz, Ph.D.. LL.D. 12 
 Plates. N. S. 
 
 HERODOTUS, Notes on. Original 
 
 and Selected from the best Commentators. 
 By D. W. Turner, M.A. Coloured Map. 
 
 Analysis and Summary of, with 
 
 a Synchronistical Table of Events Tables 
 of Weights, Measures, Money, and Dis- 
 tances an Outline of the History and 
 Geography and the Dates completed from 
 Gaisford, Baehr, &c. By J. T. Wheeler. 
 
 THUCYDIDES. An Analysis and 
 
 Summary of. With Chronological Table 
 of Events, &c., by J. T. Wheeler. 
 
 SCIENTIFIC LIBRARY. 
 
 57 Vols. at 5-r. each, excepting those marked otherwise. (i5/- 2s. per set.) 
 
 AGASSIZ and GOULD. Outline of 
 Comparative Physiology touching the 
 Structure and Development of the Races 
 of Animals living and extinct. For Schools 
 and Colleges. Enlarged by Dr. Wright. 
 With Index and 300 Illustrative Woodcuts. 
 
 BO I. LET'S Manual of Technical 
 
 Analysis ; a Guide for the Testing and 
 Valuation of the various Natural and 
 Artificial Substances employed in the Arts 
 and Domestic Economy, founded on the 
 work of Dr. Bolley. Edit, by Dr. Paul. 
 100 Woodcuts. 
 
 BRIDGEWATER TREATISES. 
 
 Bell (Sir Charles) on the Hand ; 
 its Mechanism and Vital Endowments, as 
 evincing Design. Preceded by an Account 
 of the Author s Discoveries in the Nervous 
 System by A. Shaw. Numerous Woodcuts. 
 
 Kirby on the History, Habits, 
 
 and Instincts of Animals. With Notes by 
 T. Rymer Jones. 100 Woodcuts. 2 vols. 
 
 Kidd on the Adaptation of Ex- 
 ternal Nature to the Physical Condition of 
 Man, principally with reference to the 
 Supply of his Wants and the Exercises of 
 his Intellectual Faculties, j.v. 6d. 
 
 BRIDGEWATER TREATISES. 
 
 Continued. 
 Whewell's Astronomy and 
 
 General Physics, considered with reference 
 to Natural Theology. Portrait of the Earl 
 of Bridgewater. 3$. 6d. 
 
 Chalmers on the Adaptation of 
 
 External Nature to the Moral and Intel- 
 lectual Constitution of Man. With Memoir 
 by Rev. Dr. Gumming. Portrait. 
 
 Front's Treatise on Chemistry, 
 
 Meteorology, and the Function of Diges- 
 tion, with reference to Natural Theology. 
 Edit, by Dr. J. W. Griffith. 2 Maps. 
 
 Buckland's Geology and Miner- 
 alogy. With Additions by Prof. Owen, 
 Prof. Phillips, and R. Brown. Memoir of 
 Auckland. Portrait. 2 vols. 15.5. Vol. I. 
 Text. Vol. II. 90 large plates with letter- 
 press. 
 
 Roget's Animal and Vegetable 
 
 Physiology. 463 Woodcuts. 2 vols. 6s. 
 each. 
 
 BROWNE. Manual of Geology. By 
 A. J. Jukes Browne. With numerous 
 Diagrams and Illustrations, 6s.
 
 SCIENTIFIC LIBRARY. 
 
 CARPENTER'S (Dr. W. B.) Zoology. 
 
 A Systematic View of the Structure, Ha- 
 bits, Instincts, and Uses of the principal 
 Families of the Animal Kingdom, and of 
 the chief Forms of Fossil Remains. Re- 
 vised by W. S. Dallas, F.L.S. Numerous 
 Woodcuts. 2 vols. 6s. each. 
 
 Mechanical Philosophy, Astro- 
 nomy, and Horology. A Popular Expo- 
 sition. 181 Woodcuts. 
 
 Vegetable Physiology and Sys- 
 tematic Botany. A complete Introduction 
 to the Knowledge of Plants. Revised by 
 E. Lankester, M.D., &c. Numerous 
 Woodcuts. 6s. 
 
 Animal Physiology. Revised Edi- 
 tion. 300 Woodcuts. 6s. 
 
 CHEVREUL on Colour. Containing 
 the Principles of Harmony and Contrast 
 of Colours, and their Application to _the 
 Arts ; including Painting, Decoration, 
 Tapestries, Carpets, Mosaics, Glazing, 
 Staining, Calico Printing, Letterpress 
 Printing, Map Colouring, Dress, Land- 
 scape and Flower Gardening, &c. Trans, 
 by C. Martel. Several Plates. 
 
 With an additional series of 16 Plates 
 
 in Colours, 7.5. 6d, 
 
 ENNEMOSER'S History of Magic. 
 Trans, by W. Howitt. With an Appendix 
 of the most remarkable and best authenti- 
 cated Stories of Apparitions, Dreams, 
 Second Sight, Table-! uming, and Spirit- 
 Rapping, &c. 2 vols. 
 
 HIND'S Introduction to Astronomy. 
 
 With Vocabulary of the Terms in present, 
 use. Numerous Woodcuts, y. dd. Jf*S. 
 
 HOGG'S ( Jabcz) Elements of Experi- 
 mental and Natural Philosophy. Being 
 an Easy Introduction to the Study of 
 Mechanics, Pneumatics, Hydrostatics, 
 Hydraulics, Acoustics, Optics, Caloric, 
 Electricity, Voltaism, and Magnetism. 
 400 Woodcuts. 
 
 HTTMBOLDT'S Cosmos ; or, Sketch 
 
 of a Physical Description of the Universe. 
 Trans, by E. C. Otte, B. H. Paul, and 
 W. S. Dallas, F.L.S. Portrait. 5 vols. 
 y. 6d. each, excepting vol. v., 5*. 
 
 Personal Narrative of his Travels 
 
 in America during the years 1799-1804. 
 Trans., with Notes, by T. Rss. 3 vol*. 
 
 Views of Nature ; or, Contem- 
 plations of the Sublime Phenomena of 
 Creation, with Scientific Illustrations. 
 Trans, by E. C. Ott<. 
 
 HUNTS (Robert) Poetry of Science ; 
 
 or, Studies of the Physical Phenomena of 
 Nature. By Robert Hunt, Professor at 
 the School of Mines. 
 
 JOYCE'S Scientific Dialogues. A 
 
 Familiar Introduction to the Arts and 
 Sciences. For Schools and Young People. 
 Numerous Woodcuts. 
 
 Introduction to the Arts and 
 
 Sciences, for Schools and Young People. 
 Divided into Lessons with Examination 
 Questions. Woodcuts, y. (xi. 
 
 JUKES-BROWNE'S Student's Hand- 
 book of Physical Geology. By A. J. 
 Jukes-Browne, of the Geological Survey of 
 England. With numerous Diagrams and 
 Illustrations, 6s. JT.S. 
 
 KNIGHT'S (Charles) Knowledge is 
 
 Power. A Popular Manual of Political 
 Economy. 
 LECTURES ON PAINTING by the 
 
 Royal Academicians, Barry, Opie, Kuseli. 
 With Introductory Essay and Notes by 
 R. Wornum. Portrait of Fuseli. 
 
 LILLY. Introduction to Astrology. 
 
 With a Grammar of Astrology and Tables 
 for calculating Nativities, by Zadkiel. 
 
 MANTELL'S (Dr.) Geological Ex- 
 cursions through the Isle of Wight and 
 along the Dorset Coast. Numerous Wood- 
 cuts and Geological Map. 
 
 Medals of Creation ; or, First 
 
 Lessons in Geology : including Geological 
 Excursions. Coloured Plates and several 
 hundred Woodcuts. 2 vols. 7*. 6tt. each. 
 
 Petrifactions and their Teach- 
 ings. Handbook to the Organic Remains 
 in the British Museum. Numerous Wood- 
 cuts. 6s. 
 
 Wonders of Geology ; or, a 
 
 Familiar Exposition of Geological Pheno- 
 mena. A coloured Geological Map of 
 England, Plates, and zoo Wodcuts. 2 
 vols. }!. (xi. each. 
 
 MORPHY'S Games of Chess, being 
 the Matches and best Games played by the 
 American Champion, with explanatory and 
 analytical Notes by J. LCwenlhal. With 
 short Memoir and Portrait of Morphy. 
 
 SCHOUW'S Earth, Plants, and Man. 
 Popular Pictures of Nature. And Ko- 
 bell's Sketches from the Mineral Kingdom. 
 Trans, by A. Henfrey, F.R.S. Coloured 
 Map of the Geography of Plants. 
 
 SMITH'S (Pye) Geology and Scrip- 
 ture ; or, the Relation between the Scriptures 
 and Geological Science. With Memoir. 
 
 STANLEY'S Classified Synopsis of 
 the Principal Painters of the Dutch and 
 Flemish School?, including an Account of 
 some of thr early German Masters. By 
 George Stanley. 
 
 STAUNTON'S Chess-Player's Hand- 
 book. A Popular and Scientific Intro- 
 duction to the Game, with numerous Dia- 
 grams and Coloured Frontispiece. .V.S.
 
 iS 
 
 BONN'S LIBRARIES. 
 
 STAUNTON. Continued. 
 
 Chess Praxis. A Supplement to the 
 
 Chess-player's Handbook. Containing the 
 most important modern Improvements in 
 the Openings ; Code of Chess Laws ; and 
 a Selection of Morphy's Games. Annotated. 
 636 pages. Diagrams. 6s. 
 
 Chess-Player's Companion. 
 
 Comprising a Treatise on Odds, Collection 
 of Match Games, including the French 
 Match with M. St. Amant, and a Selection 
 of Original Problems. Diagrams and Co- 
 loured Frontispiece. 
 
 Chess Tournament of 1851, 
 
 A Collection of Games played at this cele- 
 brated assemblage. With Introduction 
 and Notes. Numerous Diagrams. 
 
 STOCKHARDT'S Experimental 
 
 Chemistry. A Handbook for the Study 
 of the Science by simple Experiment-. 
 Edit, by C. W. Heaton, F.C.S. Nu- 
 merous Woodcuts. N. S. 
 
 URE'S (Dr. A.) Cotton Manufacture- 
 
 of Great Britain, systematically invest! 
 gated ; with an Introductory View of its- 
 Comparative State in Foreign Countries. 
 Revised by P. L. Simmonds. 150 Illus- 
 trations. 2 vols. 
 
 Philosophy of Manufactures,. 
 
 or an Exposition of the Scientific, Moral, 
 and Commercial Economy of the Factory 
 System of Great Britain. Revised by 
 P. L. Simmonds. Numerous Figures. 
 800 pages, ys. 6cf. 
 
 ECONOMICS AND FINANCE. 
 
 GILBART'S History, Principles, and Practice of Banking. Revised to 1881 by 
 A. S. Michie, of the Royal Bank of Scotland. Portrait of Gilbart. 2 vols. los. A". S. 
 
 REFERENCE LIBRARY. 
 
 27 Volumes at Various Pnces. (87. $s. per set. ) 
 
 BOHN'S Dictionary of Poetical 
 
 Quotations. Fourth Edition. 6s. 
 
 BUCHANAN'S Dictionary of Science 
 
 and Technical Terms used in Philosophy, 
 Literature, Professions, Commerce, Arts, 
 and Trades. By W. H. Buchanan, with 
 Supplement. Edited by Jas. A. Smith. 6s. 
 
 BLAIR'S Chronological Tables. 
 
 Comprehending the Chronology and His- 
 tory of the World, from the Earliest Times 
 to the Russian Treaty of Peace, April 1856. 
 By J . W. Rosse. 800 pages. IDS. 
 
 Index of Dates. Comprehending 
 
 the principal Facts in the Chronology and 
 History of the World, from the Earliest to 
 the Present, alphabetically arranged ; being 
 a complete Index to the foregoing. By 
 J. W. Rosse. 2 vols. 5^. each. 
 
 BOHN'S Dictionary of Quotations 
 
 from the English Poets. 4th and cheaper 
 Edition. 6s. 
 
 BUCHANAN'S Dictionary of Science 
 
 and Technical Terms. With Supplement. 
 820 pp. 6s. 
 
 CLARK'S (Hugh) Introduction to 
 
 Heraldry. Revised by J. R. Planche. 5$. 
 950 Illustrations. 
 
 With tlie Illustrations coloured, iy. 
 
 N. S. 
 
 CHRONICLES OF THE TOMBS. A 
 
 Select Collection of Epitaphs, with Essay 
 on Epitaphs and Observations on Sepul- 
 chral Antiquities. By T. J. Pettigreu, 
 F.R.S., F.S.A. $s. 
 
 COINS, Manual of.Ste Humphreys. 
 
 DATES, Index of. See Blair: 
 
 DICTIONARY of Obsolete and Pro- 
 vincial English. Containing Words from 
 English Writers previous to the iptli 
 Century. By Thomas Wright, M.A. , 
 F.S.A., &c. 2 vols. si. each. 
 
 EPIGRAMMATISTS (The). A Selec- 
 tion from the Epigrammatic Literature of 
 Ancient, Mediaeval, and Modern Times. 
 With Introduction, Notes, Observations, 
 Illustrations, an Appendix on Works con- 
 nected with Epigrammatic Literature, 
 by Rev. H. Dodd, M.A. 6s. N. S. 
 
 GAMES, Handbook of. Comprising 
 Treatises on above 40 Games of Chance, 
 Skill, and Manual Dexterity, including 
 Whist, Billiards, &c. Edit, by Henry G. 
 Bohn. Numerous Diagrams. 5$. A'. 6". 
 
 HUMPHREYS' Coin Collectors' 
 
 Manual. An Historical Account of the 
 Progress of Coinage from the Earliest 
 Time, by H. N. Humphreys. 140 Illus- 
 trations. 2 vols. 5*. each. N. S.
 
 NO VELISTS' LIBRA R \ '. 
 
 .LOWNDES' Bibliographer's Manual 
 
 of English Literature. Containing an Ac- 
 count of Rare and Curious BOOKS pub- 
 lished in or relating to Great Britain and 
 Ireland, from the Invention of Printing, 
 with Biographical Notices and Prices, 
 by W. T. Lowndes. Parts I.-X. (A to Z), 
 3*. &/. each. Part XI. (Appendix Vol.), 
 5*. Or the n parts in 4 vols., half 
 morocco, 2/. zs. 
 
 MEDICINE, Handbook of Domestic, 
 
 Popularly Arranged. By Dr. H. Davies. 
 700 pages. 5^. 
 
 NOTED NAMES OF FICTION. 
 
 Dictionary of. Including also Familiar 
 Pseudonyms, Surnames bestowed on Emi- 
 nent Men, &c. By W. A. Wheeler, M.A. 
 55. -V..V. 
 
 POLITICAL CYCLOPAEDIA. A 
 Dictionary of Political, Constitutional, 
 Statistical, and Forensic Knowledge ; 
 forming a Work of Reference on subjects 
 of CivilAdministration, Political Economy, 
 Finance, Commerce, Laws, and Social 
 Relations. 4 vols. 3*. 6tf. each. 
 
 Languages and Sayings, Sentence^, 
 Maxims, and Phrases, collected by H. G. 
 Bohn. 5*. 
 
 A Polyglot of Foreign. Com- 
 prising French, Italian, German, Dutch, 
 Spanish, Portuguese, and Danish. With 
 English Translations. 5*. 
 
 SYNONYMS and ANTONYMS; or, 
 
 Kindred Words and their Opposites, Col- 
 lected and Contrasted by Ven. C. J. 
 Smith, M.A. 5*. N. S. 
 WRIGHT (Th.) Sec Dictionary. 
 
 NOVELISTS' LIBRARY. 
 
 IO Volumes at $s. fxi. each, excepting those marked otherwise, (ll. l8/. per stf.) 
 
 BURNEY'S Evelina ; or, a Young 
 Lady's Entrance into the World. By F. 
 Burney (Mme. D'Arblay). With Intro- 
 duction and Notes by A. R. Ellis, Author 
 of ' Sylvestra,' &c. JV. S. 
 
 Cecilia. With Introduction and 
 
 Notes by A. R. Ellis. 2 vols. .V. S. 
 
 FIELDING'S Joseph Andrews and 
 his Friend Mr. Abraham Adams. With 
 Roscoe's Biography. CruiksJiank's Illus- 
 trations. JV. S. 
 
 History of Tom Jones, a Found- 
 ling. Roscoe's Edition. Cruikshank's 
 lllustratins. 2 vols. .V. S. 
 
 tinued. 
 
 Amelia. Roscoe's Edition, revised. 
 
 Cruikskank's Illustrations. 5*. !t. S. 
 
 GROSSrS Marco Visconti. Trans. 
 by A. F. D. M S. 
 
 MANZONI. The Betrothed: being 
 a Translation of ' I Promcssi Sposi. 
 Numerous Woodcuts, i vol. (732 page--), 
 5*. .V.J. 
 
 STOWE (Mrs. H. B.) Uncle Tom's 
 
 Cabin : or, Life among the Lowly. 8 full- 
 page Illustrations. V. ' . 
 
 ARTISTS' LIBRARY. 
 
 5 Volumes at Various Prices, (i/. &r. &/. per set.) 
 
 R. Westmacott, R.A., and Memoir <-f 
 Flaxman. Portrait and 53 Platri, 6t. ..V..S. 
 
 LEONARDO DA VINCrS Treatise 
 
 on Painting. Trans, by J. F. RigalMl, R. \. 
 With a Life and an Account ofni Work . 
 l.y J. W. Brown. Numerous PUles. i . 
 
 BELL (Sir Charles). The Anatomy 
 and Philosophy of Expression, as Con- 
 nected with the Fine Arts. 5^. .V. S. 
 
 UEMMIN. History of Arms and 
 Armour from the Earliest Period. By 
 Auguste Demmin. Trans, by C. C. 
 Black, M.A., Assistant Keeper, S. K. 
 Museum. 1900 Illustrations. 71. 6tf. .V. .V. 
 
 FLAXMAN. Lectures on Sculpture. 
 With Three Addresses to the R.A. by Sir 
 
 PLANCRE'S History of British 
 
 Costume, from the F.arlie*t Time to the 
 loth Ccntur>-. By J. R. PUuichl. .<.> 
 
 III .:,.. t v C 
 
 i iu<) t rn lions. i. ** ->
 
 ( 20 ) 
 
 BQHN'S CHEAP SERIES. 
 
 PRICE ONE SHILLING EACH. 
 
 A Series of Complete Stories or Essays, mostly reprinted from Vols, 
 
 in Bohris Libraries, and neatly bound in stiff paper ewer, 
 
 with cut edges, suitable for Railway Reading. 
 
 ASCHAM (ROGER). 
 
 SCHOLEMASTER. By PROFESSOR MAYOR. 
 
 CARPENTER (DR. jr. B.).-~ 
 
 PHYSIOLOGY OF TEMPERANCE AND TOTAL AB- 
 STINENCE. 
 
 EMERSON. 
 
 ENGLAND AND ENGLISH CHARACTERISTICS. Lectures 
 
 on the Race, Ability, Manners, Truth, Character, Wealth, Religion, &c. &c. 
 
 NATURE : An Essay. To which are added Orations, Lectures, 
 and Addresses. 
 
 REPRESENTATIVE MEN : Seven Lectures on PLATO, SWE- 
 DENBORG, MONTAIGNE, SHAKESPEARE, NAPOLEON, and GOETHE. 
 
 TWENTY ESSAYS on Various Subjects. 
 THE CONDUCT OF LIFE. 
 
 FRANKLIN (BENJAMIN). 
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. Edited by J. SPARKS. 
 
 HAWTHORN.E (NATHANIEL}. 
 
 TWICE-TOLD TALES. Two Vols. in One. 
 
 SNOW IMAGE, and other Tales. 
 
 SCARLET LETTER. 
 
 HOUSE WITH THE SEVEN GABLES. 
 
 TRANSFORMATION ; or the Marble Fawn. Two Parts. 
 
 HAZLITT (IV.). 
 
 TABLE-TALK : Essays on Men and Manners. Three Parts. 
 
 PLAIN SPEAKER : Opinions on Books, Men, and Things. 
 Three Parts. 
 
 LECTURES ON THE ENGLISH COMIC WRITERS. 
 LECTURES ON THE ENGLISH POETS.
 
 BOHN'S CHEAP SERIES. 21 
 
 HAZLITT (W.). Continued. 
 
 LECTURES ON THE CHARACTERS OF SHAKE- 
 SPEARE'S PLAYS. 
 
 LECTURES ON THE LITERATURE OF THE AGE OF 
 ELIZABETH, chiefly Dramatic. 
 
 IRVING (WASHINGTON}. 
 
 LIFE OF MOHAMMED. With Portrait. 
 
 LIVES OF SUCCESSORS OF MOHAMMED. 
 
 LIFE OF GOLDSMITH. 
 
 SKETCH-BOOK. 
 
 TALES OF A TRAVELLER. 
 
 TOUR ON THE PRAIRIES. 
 
 CONQUESTS OF GRANADA AND SPAIN. Two Parts. 
 
 LIFE AND VOYAGES OF COLUMBUS. Two Parts. 
 
 COMPANIONS OF COLUMBUS : Their Voyages and Dis- 
 coveries. 
 
 ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN BONNEVILLE in the Rocky 
 
 Mountains and the Far West. 
 KNICKERBOCKER'S HISTORY OF NEW YORK, from the 
 
 Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty. 
 TALES OF THE ALHAMBRA. 
 CONQUEST OF FLORIDA UNDER HERNANDO DE 
 
 SOTO. 
 
 ABBOTSFORD AND NEWSTEAD ABBEY. 
 SALMAGUNDI ; or, The Whim -Whams and Opinions of 
 
 LAUNCKLOT LANGSTAFF, Esq. 
 
 BRACEBRIDGE HALL ; or, The Humourists. 
 
 ASTORIA. ; or, Anecdotes of an Enterprise beyond the Rocky 
 Mountains. 
 
 WOLFERT'S ROOST, and Other Tsles. 
 
 LAMB (CHARLES]. 
 
 ESSAYS OF ELIA. With a Portrait. 
 LAST ESSAYS OF ELIA. 
 ELIANA. With Biographical Sketch. 
 
 MARRYAT (CAPTAIN). 
 
 PIRATE AND THE THREE CUTTERS. With a Memoir of 
 
 the Author.
 
 ( 22 ) 
 
 The only authorised Edition j no others publislicd in England contain 
 
 the Derivations and Etymological Notes of Dr. Mahn, who 
 
 devoted several years to this portion of the Work. 
 
 "WEBSTER'S DICTIONARY 
 
 OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 Thoroughly revised and improved byCiiAUNCEY A. GOODRICH, D.D., LL.D., 
 and NOAH PORTER, D.D., of Yale College. 
 
 THE GUINEA DICTIONARY. 
 
 New Edition [1880], with a Supplement of upwards of 4600 New Words and 
 
 Meanings. 
 
 1628 Pages. 3000 Illustrations. 
 
 The features of this volume, which render it perhaps the most useful 
 Dictionary for general reference extant, as it is undoubtedly one of the cheapest 
 books ever published, are as follows : 
 
 1. COMPLETENESS. It contains 114,000 words more by 10,000 than any 
 
 other Dictionary ; and these are, for the most part, unusual or technical 
 terms, for the explanation of which a Dictionary is most wanted. 
 
 2. ACCURACY OF DEFINITION. In the present edition all the definitions have 
 
 been carefully and methodically analysed by W. G. Webster, the Rev. C. 
 Goodrich. Prof. Lyman, Prof. Whitney, and Prof, Gilman, under the 
 superintendence of Prof. Goodrich. 
 
 3. SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL TERMS. In order to secure the utmost 
 
 completeness and accuracy of definition, this department has been sub- 
 divided among eminent scholars and experts, including Prof. Dana, Prof. 
 Lyman, &c. 
 
 4. ETYMOLOGY. The eminent philologist, Dr. C. F. Malm, has devoted five 
 
 years to completing this department. 
 
 5. THE ORTHOGRAPHY is based, as far as possible, on Fixed Principles. In 
 
 all cases of doubt an alternative spelling is given. 
 
 6. PRONUNCIATION. This has been entrusted to Mr. W. G. Yv T ebster and Mr. 
 
 Wheeler, assisted by other scholars. The pronunciation of each word is 
 indicated by typographical signs printed at the bottom of each page. 
 
 7. THE ILLUSTRATIVE CITATIONS. No labour has been spared to embody 
 
 such quotations from standard authors as may throw light on the defini- 
 tions, or possess any special interest of thought or language. 
 
 8. THE SYNONYMS. These are subjoined to the words to which they belong, 
 
 and are very complete. 
 
 9. THE ILLUSTRATIONS, which exceed 3000, are inserted, Hot for the sake of 
 
 ornament, but to elucidate the meaning of words. 
 
 Cloth, 2ls. ; half-bound in calf, 30^. ; calf or half russia, 3U. 6</. ; russia, 2/. 
 
 To be obtained through all Booksellers.
 
 WEBSTER'S DICTIONARY. 
 
 ' SEVENTY years passed before Johnson was followed by Webster, an 
 American writer, who faced the task of the English Dictionary with a 
 full appreciation of its requirements, leading to better practical 
 results.' . . . 
 
 ' His laborious comparison of twenty languages, though never pub- 
 lished, bore fruit in his own mind, and his training placed him both in 
 knowledge and judgment far in advance of Johnson as a philologist. 
 Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language was pub- 
 lished in 1828, and of course appeared at once in England, where 
 successive re-editing has yet kept it in the highest place as a practical 
 Dictionary? 
 
 ' The acceptance of an American Dictionary in England has itself 
 had immense effect in keeping up the community of speech, to break 
 which would be a grievous harm, not to English-speaking nations 
 alone, but to mankind. The result of this has been that the common 
 Dictionary must suit both sides of the Atlantic.' . . . 
 
 ' The good average business-like character of Webster's Dictionary, 
 both in style and matter, made it as distinctly suited as Johnson's was 
 distinctly unsuited to be expanded and re-edited by other hands. 
 Professor Goodrich's edition of 1847 is not much more than enlarged 
 and amended ; but other revisions since have so much novelty of plan 
 as to be described as distinct works.' . . . 
 
 ' The American revised Webster's Dictionary of 1864, published in 
 America and England, is of an altogether higher order than these last 
 [The London Imperial and Student's]. It bears on its title-page the 
 names of Drs. Goodrich and Porter, but inasmuch as its especial im- 
 provement is in the etymological department, the care of which was 
 committed to Dr. Mahn of Berlin, we prefer to describe it in short as 
 the Webster-Mahn Dictionary. Many other literary men, among them 
 Professors Whitney and Dana, aided in the task of compilation and 
 revision. On consideration it seems that the editors and contributors 
 have gone far toward improving Webster to the utmost that he will 
 bear improvement. The vocabulary tuts become almost complete us 
 regards usual words, while the definitions keep throughout to Webster's 
 simple careful style, and the derivations are assigned with the aid of 
 good modern authorities? 
 
 ' On the whole, the Webster-Mahn Dictionary as it stands is most 
 respectable, and certainly the best Practical English Die- 
 tionary extant.' From the Quarterly Review, Oct. 1 873. 
 
 LONDON : G. BELL & SONS, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN.
 
 ( 24 ) 
 New Edition, with a New Biographical Supplement of upwards of 900 Names. 
 
 WEBSTER'S COMPLETE DICTIONARY 
 
 AND BOOK OF LITERARY REFERENCE. 
 1919 Pages. 3000 Illustrations. 
 
 Besides the matter comprised in the WEBSTER'S GUINEA DICTIONARY, this 
 volume contains the following Appendices, which will show that no pains have 
 been spared to make it a complete Literary Reference-book : 
 
 A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. By Prof. James Hadley. 
 
 PRINCIPLES OF PRONUNCIATION. By Prof. Goodrich and W. A. Wheeler, M.A, 
 Including a Synopsis of Words differently pronounced by different authorities. 
 
 A SHORT TREATISE ON ORTHOGRAPHY. By A. W. Wright. Including a com- 
 plete List of Words that are spelt in two or more ways. 
 
 VOCABULARY OF NOTED NAMES OF FICTION. By W. A. Wheeler, M.A. This 
 work includes Mythical Names ; including also Pseudonyms, Nick-names of 
 eminent persons and parties, &c. &c. 
 
 This work may also be had separately, post 8vo. pi-ice 5*. 
 
 A PRONOUNCING VOCABULARY OF SCRIPTURE PROPER NAMES. By W. A. 
 Wheeler. M.A. 
 
 A PRONOUNCING VOCABULARY OF GREEK AND LATIN PROPER NAMES. By 
 Prof. Thacher. 
 
 AN ETYMOLOGICAL VOCABULARY OF MODERN GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES. By the 
 Rev. C. H. Wheeler. 
 
 PRONOUNCING VOCABULARIES OF MODERN GEOGRAPHICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL 
 NAMES. ByJ. Thomas, M.D. 
 
 A PRONOUNCING VOCABULARY OF COMMON ENGLISH CHRISTIAN NAMES, with 
 their derivations, signification, &c. 
 
 A DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS. Containing all Words, Phrases, Proverbs, and 
 Colloquial Expressions from the Greek, Latin, and Modern Languages met 
 with in literature. 
 
 A NEW BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF UPWARDS OF 9700 NAMES OF NOTED 
 PERSONS, ANCIENT AND MODERN. 
 
 A LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS, CONTRACTIONS, AND ARBITRARY SIGNS USED IN 
 WRITING AND PRINTING. 
 
 A CLASSIFIED SELECTION OF PICTORIAL ILLUSTRATIONS (70 pages). With 
 references to the text. 
 
 'The cheapest Dictionary ever published, as it is confessedly one of the best. The intro- 
 duction of small woodcut illustrations of technical and scientific terms adds greatly to the 
 utility of the Dictionary.' Churchman. 
 
 I/. 1 1 s. 6d. ; half-calf, 2/. ; calf or half-russia, zl. 2s. ; russia, 2/. los. 
 
 LONDON : 
 Printed by STSANGEWAVS AND SONS, Tower Street, Upper St. Martin's Lane. 
 
 <*Jj 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 LIBRARY
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 THE UN 
 
 IFORNIA AT LOS ANGEI.ES 
 'TY LIBRARY 
 
 University of California 
 
 SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, C A 90024-1388 
 
 Return this material to the library 
 
 from which it was borrowed. 
 
 :QL OCT161995 
 
 D 
 
 A RTS UBK*rt* 
 
 ^0$ WWJ 
 
 W i 3 " 
 
 Q UAR TEB 
 
 LO 
 
 A^
 
 UCLA-Art Library 
 
 ND 461 C91I v.1 
 
 L 006 229 378 2 
 
 JSBa2S"SwfittJi 
 
 001 230 4 7