THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 Camelot Classics. 
 
 EDITED BY ERNEST RHYS. 
 
 GREAT ENGLISH PAINTERS.
 
 GREAT 
 
 ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 Selected Biographies from Allan Cunningham's " Lives of 
 Eminent British Painters" 
 
 ARRANGED AND EDITED, WITH AN INTRODUCTION, 
 
 BY WILLIAM SHARP. 
 
 LONDON: 
 WALTER SCOTT, 24 WARWICK LANE, 
 
 PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 1886.
 
 Art 
 
 Library 
 
 tvp 
 
 496 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 INTRODUCTORY NOTE ... vii 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Art and Artists in England up to the time of Holbein 
 Holbein Sir A. Moro Oliver Vandyke George 
 Jamesone Sir Peter Lely Sir Godfrey Kneller Sir 
 James Thornhill ..... i 
 
 WILLIAM HOGARTH . . . . .42 
 
 RICHARD WILSON . , . . . .151 
 
 . . . . . l66 
 
 ..... 253 
 ... .275 
 
 860188
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 EW biographical works have deserved so well 
 of the public as Allan Cunningham's cele- 
 brated Lives of the most Eminent British 
 Painters. The secret of the success of the 
 "Lives" lies in the fact that they are 
 biographical records, narrated with sprightly 
 vigour and discriminating intelligence ; not mere critical 
 dissertations, uninteresting to the uninitiated, subject to 
 the indifference born of maturer judgment. Comparisons 
 seldom really fit, whether made of a man or of a place 
 whether Reynolds be called the English Michael Angelo, 
 or Edinburgh the modern Athens : but there is at anyrate 
 some justice in the application to Cunningham of the 
 designation, " The Scottish Vasari." In common with much 
 of the famous record of the Italian chronicler, the main 
 interest of the " Lives of British Painters " is concentrated 
 upon personal details : the man is the dominant theme, the 
 work merely incidental. This is as it should be, in a book 
 intended for the general reader. The severity of criticism 
 has condemned much in Vasari's chronicle that the gossip- 
 loving Giorgio probably considered irrefutable, but even in
 
 viii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 this day of jealous supervision of fact, his biographical 
 records retain much of their old value in matters of detail, 
 while in point of interest they have suffered no material 
 diminution whatever. As yet, and probably for a long 
 time to come, the same may be written of Allan Cunning- 
 ham. We now know that in some of his judgments he 
 was mistaken, that portions of his chronicle arc faulty 
 and, again, as was inevitable, that circumstances of time 
 and change have modified the accuracy of what were, in 
 his day, reliable statementa But in the main we have 
 no pleasanter and more trustworthy " gossip " than the 
 worthy sculptor's assistant, accustomed to " toiling in 
 marble and bronze all day, and at night dipping the pen 
 in biographical ink to earn an honest penny for the bairns' 
 bread." Even at this date as Mrs. Heaton has pointed 
 out in what is much the best edition of the " Eminent 
 Painters"* "it is curious to find how little our real 
 knowledge has been widened " since Cunningham's death. 
 
 It would, of course, have been quite impracticable to have 
 given the whole, or anything like the whole, of the "Lives" 
 in a single volume of The Camelol Classics; so I have 
 selected therefrom (besides the Introductory Chapter on 
 Art and Artists in England up to the Restoration period) 
 the biographies of Hogarth, Richard Wilson, Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds, Thomas Gainsborough, and William Blake. 
 These five celebrated artists are not only men whose 
 biographies are of necessity full of permanent interest, but 
 are the best representatives of the splendid sunrise of 
 English Art of the Art of Painting in England. Hogarth, 
 the caricaturist or rather the pictorial satirist ; Wilson, 
 
 * Lives of the most Eminent British Painters. By Allan Cunningham. 
 Annotated and continued to the present time by Mrs. Charles Heaton. 
 In 3 vols. (George Bell & Sons.)
 
 INTRODUCTION. ix 
 
 the father, or at anyrate one of the chief progenitors of 
 landscape-painting in this country ; the courtly Reynolds, 
 first of our great colourists; Gainsborough, taking, with 
 Sir Joshua, place among the highest in rank of the portrait- 
 painters of modern times, and the initiator in " landscape " 
 of unconventional and natural methods versus pseudo- 
 classicism and sterile formality ; and William Blake, the 
 visionary poet-painter equally at home in describing in 
 verse the woes of the little chimney-sweeper, and in 
 delineating with inspired touch " The Ancient of Days " 
 whom a swiftly-discerning critic of Blake's own time, 
 Charles Lamb, declared to be "one of the most extra- 
 ordinary persons of the age." 
 
 The lives and works of many other deservedly famous 
 men, besides these, were duly set forth by Cunningham. 
 Perhaps, at a future date, the more important of the 
 biographies of those men who have worthily sustained the 
 tradition of English art may be given in this series; but 
 meanwhile the present volume will serve the end in 
 immediate view. 
 
 Allan Cunningham himself should have a few words 
 devoted to him. His father and mother were respectable 
 people of the small-farming class: latterly, John Cunningham 
 acted as a factor for some Dumfriesshire lairds, and it was 
 in Nithsdale that Allan, his fourth son, was born, in Decem- 
 ber 1784. It was in the village of Dalswinton that Allan 
 passed his youth a period, by his own and other accounts, 
 very happily spent. Common-sense was one of the most 
 marked characteristics of the young stone-mason; and 
 it was this often foolishly abused mental quality that 
 kept him from scorning the trade to which he had 
 been apprenticed, or from brooding over purely fanciful
 
 x INTRODUCTION. 
 
 wrongs, when as a lad he found his intelligence constantly 
 expanding and his interests reaching a higher level 
 than did those of his companions. For it was as a 
 stone-mason that Allan Cunningham first began the battle 
 of life, and it is satisfactory to know that if his intel- 
 lectual powers had not lifted him into another sphere, 
 he would have made his way in his quondam calling. 
 From his boyhood the ballad-poetry and traditional lore of 
 Nithsdale and Annandale, of the Scottish lowlands 
 generally, always had a peculiar fascination for him. 
 Besides fostering his own poetic powers, this mental 
 pabulum enlarged his sympathies and widened his intel- 
 lectual horizon : he began to have more and more realisable 
 dreams of " doing something " himself. He indulged in 
 the joys of versifying, as have done many scores of 
 Scottish lads of his own class before and since, but his 
 " effusions " had enough in them of native inspiration 
 to distinguish them from the experimental voicings 
 which come into ephemeral existence in almost every north- 
 country village. He was naturally proud when verses 
 by him under the pseudonymous signature " Hidallan " 
 appeared in one of the minor London magazines ; 
 but it was not till after the visit to Nithsdale of Robert 
 Cromek, a well-known engraver and a man of some 
 reading and discrimination, that he became enamoured of 
 and acted upon the idea, first suggested by Mr. Cromek, 
 of entering into the same field of collection and research 
 which had in part occupied the labours of Scott and Bishop 
 Percy. When ultimately, however, " Nithsdale and 
 Galloway Song" saw the light, acute judges were not 
 long in finding out that many of the so-called legendary 
 verses were not survivals at all, but the production of a 
 living poet; and it was not till Professor Wilson, in a
 
 INTRODUCTION. xi 
 
 contribution to Blackwood's Magazine, made it clear that 
 to Allan Cunningham was mainly due the credit of this 
 collection, that the true authorship became publicly known- 
 It was on the recommendation of this same Mr. Oromek 
 (who, it may be added, reaped all the profit and most 
 of the initial reputation gained by the publication of the 
 volume which Cunningham had forwarded to him for 
 his consideration, unfortunately without stipulations) that 
 the young stone-mason was induced to burn his ships behind 
 him by adventuring to London and there seeking congenial 
 employment. More fortunate than many who before and 
 since have been sucked into the metropolitan vortex, Allan 
 after a time found employment hard work and little pay, 
 in the work-room of a minor sculptor called Bubb. Though 
 his wages were small, he was now able to eke out his means 
 by journalistic and magazine work; and on the head of his 
 slow-growing success he married " the lass he'd left behind 
 him," who at the opportune moment had deserted the 
 romantic loneliness of "Preston Mill" for the domestic 
 bliss which she felt sure awaited her in " Lunnon." Time 
 passed, and just as the necessity of employment that would 
 be at once remunerative and stable urged itself upon 
 Cunningham's mind, he was engaged as assistant by the 
 sculptor Chantrey, then just entering into the flood-tide of 
 reputation and prosperity. From being an employe he 
 rose to be a co-worker with, and a friend of, Ohantrey: 
 and this friendship between the two men lasted till the 
 death of the more famous, which preceded Cunningham's 
 only by a few months. 
 
 The success of Cunningham in the writing of Scottish 
 lyrics emboldened him to attempt a tragedy ; but "Sir Mar- 
 maduke Maxwell " had even less good fortune than his three 
 or four prose romances, of which the best is Sir Michael
 
 xii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Scott. As a story-teller he was much more in his element, 
 and his Cameronian Tales and Traditional Tales of the 
 English and Scottish Peasantry are still widely enough read. 
 It was in 1829 that were published the first two volumes of 
 the work upon which his enduring reputation must be based. 
 It was, according to his own account, Johnson's Lives of the 
 Poets that first suggested to him the idea of writing the 
 Lives of Eminent British Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, 
 to give that work its full titla The two volumes of the new 
 biographical work met with immediate success, and the author 
 lost no time in following them up with equally readable and, 
 as it proved, equally popular biographies ultimately com- 
 pleted with the issue of the sixth volume. An important 
 edition, in eight volumes, of the Life and Works of Robert 
 Burns, and a Life of Sir David Wilkie, are the two remain- 
 ing productions of notice of the indefatigable Allan. After 
 a life of considerable happiness, incessant hard work, and 
 no slight measure of prosperity, Allan Cunningham ceased 
 from his labours at the age of fifty-seven. 
 
 I need not write further of the " Lives." Those which I 
 have selected for this volume will afford to the reader not 
 only much entertainment and possibly instruction, but also 
 an index to the fund of interest that awaits him if he care 
 to make further acquaintance with the writings of Allan 
 Cunningham. Those who agree with me will be well 
 satisfied to endorse the opinion of " Christopher North : " 
 these biographies " 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." 
 
 Since the publication of the " Lives," there has naturally
 
 INTRODUCTION. xiii 
 
 been considerable accumulation of material for would-be 
 successors to Allan Cunningham. Individual artists have 
 been much " biographied," as some one has worded it; 
 but it can hardly be said that a worthy successor has as yet 
 continued the task begun by the Scots mason-body, as 
 Cunningham sometimes jocosely called himself. 
 
 It would be impracticable to review here in detail those 
 artists with whom Cunningham was perforce unable to 
 deal : still less could any adequate idea be conveyed to the 
 reader of the various phases through which Art has passed 
 during the last four or five decades, of the several vital 
 influences now at work. But some words may be written 
 of the most important of those artistic phases, the often 
 discussed, and still much misunderstood, Preraphaelite 
 movement: with some remarks on the limits of Photography, 
 a subject germane to any discussion concerning Realism in 
 Art. 
 
 Of the individual it has been said that there is no such 
 thing as an absolute independency of antecedents ; and 
 what is true of the individual is true of any movement in 
 the intellectual or social evolution of man. By the way in 
 which the movement known as The Preraphaelite has been 
 and is even yet spoken of, it would seem to be regarded by 
 many as a mere eccentric aberration from orthodox methods, 
 sprouting up irresponsibly and unexpectedly, and with the 
 sudden sterile growth of the proverbial mushroom. But 
 that this is far from being the case any one having real 
 knowledge of our antecedent art and literature will know 
 well : that it could not be the case will at once be recognised 
 by any student of historic evolution. 
 
 The latter half of the nineteenth century has been fitly
 
 xiv INTRODUCTION. 
 
 called the English Renaissance.* But this term would be 
 quite out of place if applied only to the outcome of 
 Preraphaelite principles ; for the spirit of change has been 
 at work not only in one or two arts, and among a 
 small band of enthusiasts, but in all the arts, in social life 
 and thought, in science, and in political development, and 
 among all the foremost men of the day scientists, poets, 
 artists, philosophers, religionists, and politicians. Indeed, 
 to say that the breath of change has passed over our time is 
 not sufficiently adequate, for if we contrast the present with 
 so late a period as thirty years ago we will perceive that 
 there has been nothing short of a national awakening. The 
 national mind, as represented by the great mass of intelligent 
 fairly cultivated people, may be likened to the very sun- 
 flower the ultra-aestheticists have brought into such dis- 
 repute, turning towards a light of which the need is felt 
 the same light, whether it is the Beautiful of the artist and 
 poet, the Truth of the philosopher, or the Higher Morality 
 of the teacher and the priest. In religion, and in what is 
 now called sociology, as well as in literature, the first 
 stirrings of this awakening spirit appear unmistakably, if 
 faintly, towards the close of the last century. Before 
 Byron and Keats and Shelley and Coleridge and Words- 
 worth there was " something in the air," the first indefinite 
 revulsion from the bugbear of an effete pseudo-classicism 
 such a pseudo-classicism as received in France its death- 
 blow, on a certain evening in February 1830, when 
 Hernani was the victorious standard of the Romanticists. 
 But as these stirrings grew and grew the hearts of men of 
 
 * The following pages mainly consist of a revised and considerably 
 condensed version of remarks by the present editor in his chapter on 
 the Preraphaelite Idea in Dante Gabriel Bossetti: A Record and a 
 Study (Macmillan & Co.).
 
 INTRODUCTION. xv 
 
 true genius took fire with a new enthusiasm, and in poetic 
 literature there came that splendid outburst of Romanticism 
 of which Coleridge was the first and most potent exponent. 
 Human thought flows onward like a sea, where flow and ebb 
 alternate ; hence after the deaths of Shelley and Keats and 
 Byron and Coleridge there came the lapse that preludes the 
 new wave. At last a time came when a thrill of expecta- 
 tion, of new desire, -of hope, passed through the higher lives 
 of the nation ; and what followed hereafter were the Oxford 
 movement in the Church of England, the Preraphaelite 
 movement in art, and the far-reaching Gothic Revival. 
 Different as these movements were in their primary aims, 
 and still more differing in the individual representations of 
 interpreters, they were in reality closely interwoven, one 
 being the outcome of the other. The study of mediaeval 
 art, which was fraught with such important results, was the 
 result of the widespread ecclesiastical revival, which in 
 its turn was the offspring of the Tractarian movement in 
 Oxford. The influence of Pugin was potent in strengthen- 
 ing the new impulse, and to him succeeded Ruskin with 
 Modern Painters and Newman with the Tracts Jor the 
 Times. Primarily, the Preraphaelite movement had its 
 impulse in the Oxford religious revival ; and however 
 strange it may seem to say that such men as Holman Hunt 
 and Rossetti and, later, Frederick Shields followed directly 
 in the footsteps of Newman and Pusey and Keble, it is 
 indubitably so. Theoretical divergence on minor points 
 does not militate against the classing together of certain 
 men, whether writers or artists, so long as in the main the 
 results of their endeavours assimilate. Between two such 
 artists as Dante Rossetti and Mr. Frederick Shields there 
 is, of necessity, much in common, and in their work in art 
 there is an unmistakable affinity ; yet to the older the
 
 xvi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 " Gothic " spirit powerfully appealed, and to the younger, 
 I think I am not mistaken in saying, it seems fitter for a 
 crude age than for one which would cultivate the highest 
 art. 
 
 Earnestness was at the period of which I am speaking the 
 watchword of all those who were in revolt against whatever 
 was effete, commonplace, or unsatisfactory. Religion and 
 art were closelier drawn to one another than had yet been 
 the case in England, and it seemed as if at last the two 
 were going to walk hand in hand ; and even when the twain 
 were not directly united in spirit, there was a determination 
 to get at the truth of things, to work in the most absolute 
 sincerity, that made the pursuit of art a very different thing 
 from what it too generally was. It could not have been 
 otherwise but that such a man as John Ruskin was at once 
 and strongly attracted to the programme and initiatory 
 works of the young artists known as the Preraphaelites, for 
 in them he recognised men of undoubted talent and possessed 
 with a new purpose talents such as had not been exercised 
 in art since Albert Diirer, and a purpose vital with truth 
 and throbbing with the pulse of ardent and lofty endeavour. 
 Their choice of designation could not be said to be fortun- 
 ate ; for, apart from anything else, the mere selection of an 
 epithet like Preraphaelite was a mistake, playing as it did 
 into the hands of those whose chief weapon was ridicule. 
 The term, as a definitive title, was quite a misnomer ; for 
 between the works of the band of artists who preceded 
 Raphael, and the productions of those who were called 
 after them in the nineteenth century, there was no real 
 resemblance ; the only bond that united them was the 
 principle of going direct to nature for inspiration and 
 guidance, for, as Mr. Ruskin points out, the young brother- 
 hood of contemporary artists were altogether superior to
 
 INTRODUCTION. xvii 
 
 the Italian Preraphaelites in skill of manipulation, power 
 of drawing, and knowledge of effect ; as superior in these 
 as they were inferior in grace of design. To the title 
 must certainly be imputed at least part of the widespread 
 misunderstanding that beset the early efforts of Millais, 
 Holman Hunt, Rossetti, and others, the idea that they 
 imitated, perhaps intentionally and perhaps not, the errors 
 of the early Italian painters. And certainly the " Brother- 
 hood " got their fair share of scornful contempt, too 
 frequently, unfortunately, undergoing also the mortifi- 
 cation of having imputed to them falsity to art, and 
 not infrequently suffering from the stings of personal spite. 
 But if the public, or at least the critical public, was to them 
 a huge and threatening Goliath, their spirits were soon to 
 take new courage, for suddenly a very David came forth 
 as their champion, and Ruskin in the Times, in Modern 
 Painters, and elsewhere, spoke of their efforts with charac- 
 teristic dogmatic conviction, insisting on the young painters' 
 rectitude of aim and frequent beauty of accomplishment, 
 and scornfully dismissing, amongst others, such antagonistic 
 assertions as were constantly repeated regarding the 
 absence of perspective in Preraphaelite work, by such 
 counter-blasts as : " There was not a single error in 
 perspective in three out of the four pictures in question. 
 I doubt if, with the exception of the pictures of David 
 Roberts, there was one architectural drawing in perspective 
 on the walls of the Academy. I never met with but two 
 men in my life who knew enough of perspective to draw a 
 Gothic arch in a retiring plane so that its lateral dimen- 
 sions and curvatures might be calculated to scale from the 
 drawing. Our architects certainly do not, and it was but 
 the other day that, talking to one of the most distinguished 
 amongst them, the author of several valuable works, I 
 
 B
 
 xviii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 found he did not know how to draw a circle in 
 perspective."* 
 
 It is no wonder that Mr. Ruskin, and for that matter 
 many of the public as well, welcomed the conscientious 
 endeavours of the Preraphaelites, when, in the famous 
 art-critic's own words, we are asked to look around at our 
 exhibitions "and behold the 'cattle-pieces,' and 'sea- 
 pieces,' and ' fruit-pieces,' and ' family-pieces,' the eternal 
 brown cows in ditches, and white sails in squalls, and 
 sliced lemons in saucers, and foolish faces in simpers, and 
 try to feel what we are, and what we might have been." 
 
 If a painter like Fra Angelico on the one hand, like 
 Millais or Holman Hunt on the other, were to paint the 
 same scene say " Christ healing the sick " the produc- 
 tions would be very opposite ; but because the work of 
 the Fra Angelesque painter would be utterly unreal to fact, 
 however true to the inner truth, to the " eternal verities," 
 surely this is no reason why the work of the later artist, 
 true to the facts of costume, country, and time, and at the 
 same time equally true in inspiration, should be inferior ? 
 But there are many who would ignore the possibility of an 
 artist combining realism and idealism in his work or 
 rather, they would say the true idealism includes whatever 
 of realism is necessary. And it must be admitted that, 
 at the best, historic painting or religious painting based on 
 historic fact, can only be approximately true ; and it may 
 have been the recognition of this that made such men 
 as Raffaelle paint poor Galilean fishermen in flowing 
 robes, preferring typical representations to historic 
 accuracy. But these are not the times of Baffaelle ; 
 
 * Preraphaeliiism, 1851. See also the somewhat too insisted on 
 opinions regarding the value of correct perspective expressed in the 
 Preface to The Elements of Drawing.
 
 INTRODUCTION. xix 
 
 and owing to the enormous extension of knowledge, not 
 only in regard to our immediate surroundings but also 
 in regard to man's environment in the past, the necessity 
 for truth, or the closest possible approx imation to truth, is 
 expected of the latter-day artist. And surely this natural 
 evolution does not militate against an equally natural 
 evolution of imagination? An imaginative idea, a lofty 
 conception, may be not the less great because it be married 
 to relative as well as absolute truth ; nor does the 
 imagination that ignores fact necessarily in that very 
 ignoring attain the loftiest height. Is the symbolism of 
 Hunt's Scapegoat less effective because the landscape of 
 the picture is true both to nature and to the part of the 
 country wherein happened the historic fact upon which the 
 idea of the picture is based 1 Would it have been more 
 impressive if the goat had been more ideal in portraiture, 
 and the landscape an English common or Italian plain? 
 Granted equality of imaginative insight, surely it is to be 
 desired that in a picture truth should satisfy the mind as 
 well as the idea affect the spirit ; and this even if the 
 truth be only approximate. In painting Caesar, even if 
 we cannot represent the great statesman- warrior as he 
 seemed to his contemporaries, we would not make an ideal 
 Englishman of him, but would make his representation Italian, 
 Roman, in the first place, and then from the record of his- 
 torian, carved gem, or impressed coin, complete in detail 
 what would be necessary to realise the mental conception. It 
 is true that a Nemesis pursues the Realist, showing him that 
 after all his ideal of realisation of things past is frequently 
 futile. Yet this is no reason why realism in high art is 
 false : for in what is there no Nemesis ? The Idealist 
 will not deny the dreaded following footsteps. A marked 
 instance of this frequent futility in realistic work is
 
 xx INTRODUCTION. 
 
 afforded in Holman Hunt's Christ among the Doctors, 
 of which Mons. Milsand narrates* " Apres avoir examine 
 le tableau une dame juive dit gravement : ' Cela est jort 
 beau, seulement on voit que Vauteur ne connaissait pas le 
 trait distinctif de la race de Juda ; il a donne a ses 
 docteurs les pieds plats qui sont de la tribu de Ruben, 
 tandis que les hommes de Juda avaient le cou-de-pied 
 fortment cambre /'" As M. Milsand remarks, here Mr. 
 Hunt's Preraphaelite accuracy has been his Nemesis ; for 
 in endeavouring to be literally true to nature he has only 
 succeeded in obtaining a general Jewish type, and not those 
 differences at once palpable to a people acquainted with 
 their own characteristics. 
 
 However, if one must err, it is well to err on the safe 
 side. There are many even now who would echo the Prior 
 and his art-friends in Browning's poem, who rated the 
 young painter-brother for painting from nature, from life, 
 instead of " idealising " : 
 
 " How ? what's here t 
 
 Quite from the mark of painting, bless us all I 
 Faces, arms, legs, and bodies like the true 
 As much as pea and pea ! It's devil's game ! 
 Your business is not to catch men with show, 
 With homage to the perishable clay, 
 But lift them over it, ignore it all, 
 Make them forget there's such a thing as flesh. 
 
 Paint the soul, never mind the legs and arms." 
 
 To all such no better reply could be given than Fra 
 Lippo Lippi's own words : 
 
 ' ' Now, is this sense, I ask ? 
 A fine way to paint soul, by painting body 
 So ill, the eye can't stop there, must go further 
 
 * L ' Estlietique Anglaise, par. J. Milsand. 1864.
 
 INTRODUCTION. xxi 
 
 And can't fare worse. . . . 
 
 Why can't a painter . . . 
 
 Make his flesh liker and his soul more like, 
 
 Both in their order ? " 
 
 Preraphaelitism is not simply another name for Photo- 
 graphy, not what a critic once called it, " a mere heartless 
 reiteration of the model." The absurd accusation was 
 made against the Preraphaelites that their paintings were 
 in reality copied photographs a charge that Mr. Ruskin 
 effectually dissipated, by challenging any one to produce a 
 Preraphaelite picture by that process. It is strange, now 
 that Preraphaelitism has become a phrase of the past, that 
 the tradition of its synonymity with photography should 
 still exist, for only the slightest knowledge of the processes of 
 the latter is required to show the wide difference there is 
 between it and art. I was recently looking at the picture 
 of one of our most eminent sea-painters, and more than 
 once I heard the remark, " that it was too photographic : " 
 well, this painter's method of delineation may or may not 
 be the true way to represent the ever-changing and multi- 
 form beauty of the sea, but one thing is certain, that it is 
 beyond any photograph. No painter worthy of the name 
 could paint a picture of the sea or marine coast that would 
 not contain many more facts than any photograph could 
 possibly do, for the limitations of the scientific method are 
 such as to preclude more than perhaps but one truth being 
 given at a time. If mere accumulation of facts were all 
 that were wanted, then doubtless a series of positives would 
 be more valuable than the picture of an artist. Suppose 
 what is desired is a representation of the Dover Cliffs as 
 viewed midway in the Channel, with a fresh south-west 
 breeze blowing through the summer day, what would the 
 painter give us 1 There would be overhead the deep blue
 
 xxii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 of mid-heaven, gradated into paler intensity as the eye 
 ranged from the zenith \ here and there would move north- 
 wards and eastwards (granting the wind-current to be the 
 same at their elevation) fringed drifts of cloud whiter than 
 snow, while down in the south-west great masses of rounded 
 cumuli would rise above the horizon, compact, like moving 
 alps ; the sea between the painter and the cliffs would be 
 dazzling with the sun-glare, and the foam of the breaking 
 waves constantly flashing along the glitter of the sparkling 
 blue : here the sea would rival the sky, there it would seem 
 as though dyed with melted amethysts, and farther on 
 where dangerous shallows lurked pale green spaces would 
 stretch along ; outward-bound, some huge ocean steamer 
 would pass in the distance, with a thin film of blue smoke 
 issuing from her funnel, and, leaning over with her magni- 
 ficent cloud of canvas, a great ship from Austral or Pacific 
 ports would overtake a French lugger making for Calais, 
 or a heavily-built coaster bound for London ; dotted here 
 and there would be the red sails of the fishing-boats, quite 
 a cloud of them far away on the right, and beyond the red 
 sails the white cliffs, surge-washed at their bases, and at 
 their summits green with young grass. Words can give no 
 idea of these cliffs, however, as they would really seem to 
 the painter the marvellous blending of colours, the shades 
 of delicate grey deepening to purple, the glow of minute 
 vegetation seeming like patches of orange light, the whitest 
 portions appearing dusky in contrast with the snowy cloud 
 and the glitter of the sea. No painter could transfer this 
 scene to canvas as it appeared to him in its entirety ; for 
 in cloud and sea there is an incessant and intricate change- 
 fulness defiant alike of painter and poet ; but he could give 
 a representation of it which, though not literally true, 
 would yet in another sense be true, for nothing that appeared
 
 INTRODUCTION. xxiii 
 
 in his picture would be out of harmony with natural truth 
 so long as it was in itself guiltless of disrelation in its 
 parts. 
 
 And now what would the photographer give us of the 
 same scene? In far less time than an artist's briefest 
 sketch would occupy, we would have a representation of the 
 sea, of the clouds, of the ships and fishing craft, of the cliffs 
 and the cliff-formations. But in what condition 1 We see 
 the cliffs clearly portrayed even the gorges are recognis- 
 able ; but to make up for this one truth the rest of the 
 representation is falsehood. The sea is a white blank, 
 waveless, glitterless, unbuoyant ; the sky is pale and hueless, 
 with dull, slate-coloured clouds, the whole seeming more as 
 if permeated with wan moonlight than the glory of noon- 
 day ; the blue film of the steamer's smoke is a dingy grey, 
 and the vessel itself a black smudge, while the red sails of 
 the fishing boats are dark and shadowless. This is what 
 the photograph would be if a representation of the cliffs 
 were specially desired ; and the result as a whole would be 
 equally unsatisfactory if only the sea and cloud effects had 
 been wished. In this case the photographic copy would be 
 more accurate than the sketch in retaining the actual 
 formation of the clouds, and would also give the delicate 
 shading beautifully, and would moreover represent well the 
 glitter of the sea ; but this would be at the sacrifice of the 
 other constituent parts of the picture, for the vessels would 
 be mere blotches and the cliffs irrecognisable as chalk steeps 
 or anything else under the sun. In the first instance, in 
 order to obtain the transference of the solid objects in the 
 distance, the negative would have to be so long exposed to 
 the actinic rays that decomposition would affect the more 
 delicate sea and cloud impressions, resulting in non-grada- 
 tion, and finally in a mere uniform flatness : and in the
 
 xxiv INTRODUCTION. 
 
 second, so very short a time would the negative have to be 
 exposed in order to obtain true portraitures of passing 
 cloud and sea-glitter that the cliffs and farther vessels would 
 be left quite or almost blank. Of course, a series of 
 photographed facts taken simultaneously, some with the 
 negative exposed but for a very brief space, some for a 
 sufficient time to obtain medium effects, and some so as to 
 adequately represent the most solid objects, would produce 
 a great many truths in the main, might produce as many 
 truths with more literal accuracy than any painting. But, 
 apart from the impracticableness of this method of obtain- 
 ing truth from nature, the series of photographs could never 
 really bring before the mental vision of the spectator the 
 scene with anything like the, in one sense, inaccurate and 
 exaggerated delineation of the painter ; for though an artist 
 might be able to paint a true and beautiful painting from 
 these photographic facts, it would entail too great an 
 intellectual effort on the part of any one not an artist, 
 unless indeed his or her observant powers were highly 
 developed, both naturally and by ceaseless usage, to com- 
 prehend the scene in its fitness of detail ; and certainly the 
 work of the landscapist is to convey to the onlooker a 
 speedy impression of some beautiful or truthful natural 
 scene, not to set before him what would involve a 
 certain labour of comprehension. Fifty artists sketching 
 simultaneously from the same scene, each devoting the few 
 minutes available to its ever-changing aspects, would doubt- 
 less give us an invaluable series of truthful effects ; never, 
 theless we would get a far better idea of the scene through 
 the literally inaccurate but harmonious rendering in the 
 complete picture of one artist. However commonly we see 
 people purchasing and even preferring photographs of 
 scenery to paintings or water-colours or sketches, the
 
 INTRODUCTION. xxv 
 
 enormous disadvantages of the artificial compared with the 
 artistic method in rendering recognisable aspects are easily 
 proved. Show a photograph of Snowdon, or Ben Lomond, 
 or Hartfell, without mentioning the mountain in question, 
 and it is doubtful if more than one in half a dozen 
 would really recognise it even if well acquainted with 
 the neighbourhood; but show a sketch in water-colour, 
 or painting in oil, and though the mountain's features may 
 be exaggerated, the foreground of moor or woodland filled 
 in in the studio, and an unusual effect of sunrise, noon- 
 glow, or sunset be over all, yet few who have once seen 
 them would fail at once to recognise Hartfell, Snowdon, 
 or Ben Lomond. And this fact arises from an apparent 
 contradiction, namely, that nature as accurately delineated 
 by photography is less truthful in the effect it produces 
 than any good artistic representation because any given 
 natural aspect appeals not only to the sense of sight, 
 to the mere faculties of recognition, but also, and most 
 potently, to the imagination. The imagination does not 
 want mere imitation, it can reduplicate sufficiently itself ; 
 what it craves is a powerful impression upon which to 
 employ itself. But there are many who do not realise this 
 hence, for example, the common dislike to much of our most 
 powerful modern etching. Mr. Hamerton stated the matter 
 concisely in The Portfolio (September 1878) in criticising the 
 remarks of an American critic who condemned Turner's 
 Venetian pictures on the ground of their not being imitations 
 of nature : " The question is not whether they are close imita- 
 tions of nature, but whether they have the art power of 
 conveying a profound impression, and that they unquestion- 
 ably have." Mr. Hamerton has also ably touched upon 
 this necessity of exaggeration in land or sea-scape art in his 
 interesting volume Thoughts about Art, wherein also he
 
 xxvi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 points out what is doubtless as indubitable a fact, an equal 
 necessity in literature dealing, as in fiction and dramatic 
 poetry, with character. And concerning this irrecog- 
 nisable photographic as compared with artistic repre- 
 sentation, let the reader look at any photograph of some 
 mountain with which he is familiar, and observe how 
 dwarfed it seems to him, how devoid of all glory and 
 majesty, how different from the sympathetic and im- 
 aginative work (i.e. poetic insight, artistic grasp) of the 
 artist. This, of course, is very much more noticeable 
 in the case of photographs of English and Scotch hills than 
 of the Alps, where height alone is sufficient to captivate the 
 imagination in portraiture ; but, as Wordsworth has pointed 
 out, and as any observant lover of mountain scenery fully 
 realises, mere height in itself is not only what gives rise to 
 emotions of grandeur and majesty, but the shadows of 
 clouds passing overhead, the drifting of mists from crag to 
 crag, the " mountain gloom " and " mountain glory; " there- 
 fore when these natural garments of the hills are not 
 represented, or are represented poorly and falsely, the results 
 are unsatisfactory in the extreme, and the hill-range we 
 love is metamorphosed into a dull brown band, the moss- 
 cragged, fir-sloped, ravined, and bouldered majesty of 
 Helvellyn or Schehallion changed to a dark and dreary mass. 
 The processes of photography being then so different from 
 the method of painters, it can be seen how absurd was the 
 charge made against the Preraphaelites which Mr Ruskin 
 dissipated by his challenge, and how inaccurate is the 
 frequent remark that such and such a painting is merely a 
 coloured photograph. So foreign is both process and result 
 of one from the other that the accusation brought then and 
 etill brought against certain artists of painting much of the 
 detail of their pictures/ram photographs instead of directly
 
 INTRODUCTION. xxvii 
 
 from nature (a subsequent modification of the original 
 charge) is quite untenable in the sense of detraction ; for 
 supposing an artist desirous of painting an old dismantled 
 castle wall, half covered with ivy, with wall-flowers peep- 
 ing out of the chinks and crannies, and long grasses 
 waving over ruined buttresses, and only having time or 
 opportunity to make a brief sketch, he would doubtless 
 obtain considerable help from a photograph faithfully 
 reproducing the old ruin with all its wall-flowered inter- 
 stices and waving grasses, and with the exact configurations 
 of the ivy tendrils; on these data he could regulate his 
 drawing, but what would they give him of what is most 
 essential to a painter colour 1 He would have to paint 
 the various shades of grey of the castle wall, here green 
 with one kind of moss, here brown with another the wall- 
 flowers in their brown, rusty, and golden-yellow hues, the 
 grey-green of the grasses, some seeded and almost purple 
 the light and shade of passing clouds and the over-arching 
 azure sky. This he would have to do himself ' ; in what 
 sense, then, could it be said that he was not a true painter 
 but only a photograph-copyist 1 ? "All good painting, how- 
 ever literal, however Preraphaelite or topographic, is full of 
 human feeling and emotion. If it has no other feeling in it 
 than love or admiration for the place depicted, that is much 
 already, quite enough to carry the picture out of the range 
 of photography into the regions of art."* 
 
 Both Preraphaelite and synthetic painters can agree on 
 one point viz., that the fountain-head of nature is the only 
 legitimate spring wherefrom to draw inspiration ; but this 
 agreement means little when both differ as to methods of 
 interpretation. The analytic, the Preraphaelite artist would 
 
 * Thoughts about Art, page 63. The essential differences are fully 
 gone into in this instructive volume.
 
 xxviii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 consider fidelity to fact essential to the highest and truest 
 art ; the synthetic would consider the individual interpreta- 
 tion and representation of fact superior to mere literalness. 
 There can be no doubt that truth absolute dwells with 
 neither side in extremis ; the enthusiastic analytic painter 
 is as one who triumphs in the flesh but sins in the spirit 
 the not less ardent synthetic artist as one who succeeds in 
 the spirit but misses unity because of being insensible to 
 "the value and significance of flesh." Undoubtedly the 
 ideal painter is he who accepts the broad view of things in 
 their relation to surroundings, who sees synthetically, but 
 who at the same time can value and practise detail and 
 elaborate finish when advisable, who can be true to the facts 
 of nature, and at the same time true to the vision of these 
 facts as seen through the veil of individual impression. 
 Now, while it is true the Preraphaelite painters had a 
 tendency to be analytic before all things, all had not this 
 tendency in like degree ; and, moreover, if Preraphaelitism 
 is to be judged by its chief exponents it will be seen to be 
 primarily a protest, and not in itself a fixed creed. That 
 Rossetti was a Preraphaelite leader is well known, but to 
 say he was a painter who adhered to literality above all 
 things would be absurd for there has been no artist of our 
 time who had a more marked and wonderful gift of infusing 
 his work with a poetic idea. Even the Quarterly Review, 
 in its bitter disparagement of Preraphaelitism, speaks more 
 respectfully of Rossetti. " With him," it says, " however, 
 it was realism no longer, and though it perhaps retained a 
 more archaic treatment and distribution than was usual 
 with other painters, it was never the slave of material, 
 but appealed by mental images rather than by the rigid 
 imitation of facts. . . . The poetic idea, rather than the 
 mechanical execution, is the leading object of the work."
 
 INTRODUCTION. xxix 
 
 There is a manifest difficulty in avoiding misunderstand- 
 ing when speaking of Preraphaelitism at this late date, in 
 the fact that in the first place there is now no artistic body 
 of painters who can be separately classed under the term ; 
 and, in the second, that the word " Preraphaelite " in public 
 usage has come to signify something derogatory. When at 
 exhibitions visitors see a picture which is simply an 
 absolutely unindividual soulless imitation of nature, or a 
 figure-painting remarkable only for total absence of grace 
 of outline and of harmonic gradation in colour, or an 
 allegoric subject represented in quaint gestures and 
 archaic habiliments, it is at once half-amusedly, half- 
 scornfully passed by as "Preraphaelite." Without any 
 doubt, the amusement is in nine such cases out of 
 ten deserved, but the calling such a picture Pre- 
 raphaelite is quite a mistake. It is true that travesty often 
 flaunts itself under the guise of its original, but, like the 
 ass who donned the lion's skin, it does not succeed in 
 deceiving any but the ignorant. When Mr. Horatio Grub 
 writes an epic in twelve books on The Deluge, and is 
 praised by the Eallyrashoon Reporter or the Straw-cum- 
 Muddle Weekly Post as the producer of a poem Miltonic 
 in diction and Dantesque in force, no one but -of the same 
 intellectual vigour as Mr. Grub and the Reporter and Post 
 reviewers is deceived ; the professional critic and the lover 
 of poetry equally recognise how utterly out of place such 
 terms of comparison are. It is the same with Preraphael- 
 itism. Those who know what the characteristics of the 
 " Brotherhood " were, both in aim and accomplishment, 
 would not make such a mistake as the visitors just 
 referred to. It is true that amongst these characteristics 
 one of our leading art writers, Mr. Hamerton, specifies an 
 "absolute indifference to grace, and size, and majesty," a
 
 xxx INTRODUCTION. 
 
 statement which I think would have more truth in it if the 
 word "absolute" were omitted. It was not so much of 
 conscious and voluntary indifference that the " P.R.B." were 
 guilty, as a ruthless naturalness that at times blinded 
 their artistic vision. 
 
 One of the most brilliant of the French critics who 
 noticed the Preraphaelite movement in England was M. 
 Prosper Me'rime'e, who, however, begins with a mistake in 
 his essay on Les Beaux-Arts en Angleterre, by attributing 
 the rise of Preraphaelitism to Ruskin " A la faveur d'un 
 style bizarre parfois jusqu'a l'e"xtravagance mais toujours 
 spirituel, il a mis en circulation quelques idees saines et 
 mSine pratiques " forgetting that Ruskin was a champion, 
 not an originator. M. Merimee considers that all the 
 defects of the young school, thoroughly analysed, reduce 
 themselves to one inexperience : moreover, M. Merimee 
 fully recognises the benefits almost certain to be the 
 outcome of the protest made by its adherents stating 
 that one thing remains from the Preraphaelite movement 
 which is probably of greater value than any pictorial 
 achievements it can show namely, the remodelling of the 
 system of study in England ; for at last design is given an 
 important place, which henceforth will give a solid base to 
 artistic education. 
 
 Another well-known French critic, M. Eugene Forgues, 
 speaking of the Preraphaelites, ces fiers revendicateurs de 
 I' independence individuelle, having found un evangile dans 
 I'ceuvre singuliere du paysagiste de Turner, et un prophete 
 dans la personne de M. J. Ruskin, styles them ces mormons 
 de la peinture. Perhaps the best way to state the most 
 evident fault of the P.R.B. at the early stage of the move- 
 ment would be to say that they, individually more or less, 
 lacked the faculty of selection in details. This want of fit
 
 INTRODUCTION. xxxi 
 
 selection does not, however, necessarily postulate want of 
 poetic feeling, for a strong poetic bias is manifest in most of 
 the early Preraphaelite work ; it is simply the unfortunate 
 predominance of a mistaken idea of truth. A lately 
 deceased eminent painter Mr. Samuel Palmer made the 
 best definition of natural truth in art when he said 
 " Truth in art seems to me to stand at a fixed centre, midway 
 between its two antagonists Fact and Phantasm. 1 ' 
 
 On the other hand, the " Brotherhood " were remarkable 
 for strength of purpose, for intellectual power, high moral 
 fervour, and quite unexampled manipulative skill. Their 
 primary aims were to choose in the first instance high 
 subjects fit for art, and in the next to treat these subjects 
 with the utmost analytic detail and absolute faithfulness to 
 truth ; to accept nature as the only reliable guide, and have 
 nothing to do with tradition. What such an ideal means, 
 any artist can realise the high mental powers requisite, 
 the enormous labour of hand, the keenly observant eye, 
 faculties for the most laborious analysis, intense conviction 
 and marvellous patience. That the Preraphaelites were 
 thus gifted there can now be surely no dispute, and that 
 they fulfilled a purpose and influenced the artistic spirit at 
 large there can equally be little doubt. 
 
 The Preraphaelite movement, though in itself mainly 
 devotional or appertaining to what is called high art, was 
 in reality the outcome of the spirit working in art that was 
 already working in the world of thought it was essentially 
 a sceptical revolt. The investigations of scientists had led 
 to conclusions antagonistic to accepted dogmas, even 
 to Biblical declarations, and tho scientific mind was in 
 revolt against the clerical conception of the creation, the 
 flood, the lapse of geologic periods, and so forth ; the 
 labours of the literary philosopher had resulted in specula-
 
 xxxii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 tive theories, more or less convincingly backed-up, in 
 direct opposition to orthodox creeds, and these theories, 
 whether religious or social, having first joined hands 
 with the scientific deductions, had permeated all classes ; 
 and at last the artistic minds of a select few, catching tire 
 from the sceptical (that is, " examining ") spirit abroad, 
 banded together for the purpose of animating what they 
 considered a dying English art by revolting against tradi- 
 tion and bringing all the powers of intellect and laborious 
 manual analysis, as opposed to a slovenly uninspired 
 synthesis, to bear upon whatever they undertook. Looking 
 back, these artist-sceptics saw that the band of earnest 
 truth-loving workers who preceded Raphael resembled 
 them in this, an absolute reliance on nature ; and hence 
 they likened themselves to, and called themselves, the 
 Preraphaelite Brotherhood. 
 
 Their convictions were assured, their energy unique, 
 their enthusiasm intense therefore it is not to be won- 
 dered at that, intellectually dowered as they were, they in 
 several instances turned also to literature not only as 
 to another means of advancing their doctrines, but as itself 
 a somewhat fouled stream they would fain refresh with 
 pure and original springs. And amongst them the intel- 
 lectual bias was as strongly marked as the artistic, the 
 public proof being that out of the original seven promoters 
 of the movement three have subsequently made their names 
 conspicuous in literature. 
 
 A Protestant, a protester, belonging nearly always to an 
 extreme minority, is inevitably disliked sometimes feared, 
 but always disliked ; and though nearly every good law we 
 possess, our individual, our social, our religious, our moral 
 freedom, is owing to protest after protest, the theory of the 
 beneficent action of protestation is only admitted in theory,
 
 INTRODUCTION. xxxiii 
 
 as only praiseworthy in the past. Yet let the protest- 
 ing spirit die out of our midst, and the result will be first 
 stagnation, and then retrogression. The craving human 
 spirit, whether manifested in religion, or politics, or the 
 life social, whether in the peasant who craves for his 
 small right to the soil of his fatherland or the artisan 
 who demands manhood suffrage, in the merchant who 
 would fain extend commercial enterprise still further, 
 or in the politician who labours for a republic or a 
 constitution, in the poet, the musician, and the artist 
 everywhere and with ever-recurring insistence this craving 
 human spirit must ask, ask, ask. It is therefore that Pre- 
 raphaelitism, even if it possessed no other virtue than that 
 of protestation, served a good purpose in art ; and if it be 
 true, as it is, that the term no longer embraces a specific 
 body of artists, none the less the influence of the protest 
 was not impotent, but has borne good and lasting fruit. 
 That, practically, the spirit ich animated the Brother- 
 hood had for its main aim to protest is apparent in the fact 
 that after the coherent energy necessary for protestation 
 had been expended, the individualism of each artist 
 showed itself by gliding into separate if parallel grooves, 
 and ultimately, as in the case of Millais, into grooves 
 widely apart.* 
 
 * " Of the whilome leaders of Preraphaelitism, Mr. Dante Rossetti 
 is perhaps the only one who combines in just balance the passion for 
 beauty with intellectual subtlety and executive mastery. And the 
 name of this painter brings us from the realistic, didactic part of the 
 sequel of Preraphaelitism ... to the art whose aim is beauty. . . , 
 Of the original Preraphaelite brethren, Mr. Rossetti, perhaps the chief 
 intellectual force in the movement, is the only one who seems 
 thoroughly to have combined beauty with passion and intellect. An 
 amazing power of realization and extreme splendour of colour are used 
 to embody subjects symbolically suggestive, and pregnant of fanciful 
 allegory.' Professor Sidney Colvin, English Painters and Painting 
 in 1867. 
 
 C
 
 xxxlv INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The whole subject of Preraphaelitism has been greatly 
 misunderstood, sometimes ludicrously so, as in the case of a 
 "critic" in the North American Review (for October 1870), 
 who, referring to the absurd story of the affectation of the 
 P.R.B. in pronouncing the name of their magazine, The 
 Germ, with a hard g t adds, " there is nothing in this pro- 
 cedure which is essentially inconsistent with the character- 
 istics of the works which Preraphaelitic art has produced ! " 
 Preraphaelitisrn, as the principle of a sect, is now a thing 
 of the past : but let it be remembered for its beneficent 
 influence and deeds, as well as for its faults and later back- 
 slidings in the hands of disciples who never attained the 
 artistic level of the original Brotherhood. For when the 
 protest was accomplished and had borne fruit, each indi- 
 vidual member pursued his own independent impulse ; and 
 it was only amongst the so-called disciples that a unanimity 
 of style and choice of subject was perpetuated. Nor should 
 the impression, arising out of so much adverse criticism, be 
 allowed to crystallise, the impression that adherence to 
 Preraphaelite principles almost of necessity postulates 
 sterility of imagination and absence of insight, however 
 great may be the manifestation of mechanical skill for it 
 is not so. There is nothing in the Preraphaelite principle 
 of "absolute, uncompromising truth to nature, and to 
 nature only " to prevent any artist from accepting in 
 spirit and following up in action the principle set forth 
 in Bacon's beautiful sentence in On the Advancement 
 of Learning (Bk. ii.) " The world being inferior to the 
 soul ; by reason whereof, there is agreeable to the spirit of 
 man a more ample greatness, a more exact goodness, and a 
 more absolute variety than can be found in the nature of 
 things." For the animating spirit is nature as much as the 
 permeated matter.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 XXXV 
 
 Orome, Constable, Turner; Mulready and Etty ; Olarkson 
 Stanfield, Oopley Fielding, David Roberts ; John Philip, Sir 
 Edwin Landseer and many other famous artists, have 
 done their best to add to the fame of English art since the 
 date of Allan Cunningham's chronicle. English art itself 
 as has already been stated has passed through several 
 phases, has experienced the ebb and flow of taste, the 
 growth and culmination of revolution; nor is there any 
 real cause to doubt that it has a future before it that will 
 not be unworthy of its past. There has been too much 
 variety of genius, there have been too vigorous and 
 independent native energies expended already, not to 
 warrant the belief that an artistic history opening 
 with the great names of Hogarth, Reynolds, and Gains- 
 borough, will still have much to record when the not less 
 great names of Rossetti and Millais belong also to an age 
 that is gone. 
 
 WILLIAM SHARP.
 
 GREAT ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Art and Artists in England up to the time of Holbein Holbein 
 Sir A. Moro Oliver Vandyke George Jameson Sir 
 Peter Lely Sir Godfrey Kneller Sir James Thornhill. 
 
 T was not without diffidence that I undertook 
 this work ; nor have I forgotten the satiric 
 complaint of my countryman " Will no 
 one write a book on what he understands ? " 
 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 prudent 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 indiscrim- 
 
 153
 
 2 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 inating diligence of Yertue, 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 
 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 
 concise and barren, others overflowing and diffuse, and all 
 are more or less liable to be charged with inaccuracy of 
 criticism, with describing what ought to be, rather than 
 delineating 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 
 candour. Of their works I shall express my own senti- 
 ments, 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 
 authorities. 
 
 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
 
 EARLY ART IN ENGLAND. 3 
 
 genius has charmed us to sympathise 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 civilised ; 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, 
 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 painting 
 uncouth; yet even in these we may recognise the fore- 
 shadowings 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 indicated 
 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 Ceesar 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
 
 4 GREAT ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 figm-es 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 
 conceptions of genius. 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 benefit 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 in 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 confounding 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 Flaxman. 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 pro- 
 fessors. In Italy, indeed, as well as in England, an artist 
 was then, and long after, considered as a mere mechanic. 
 He was commonly at once a carver of wood, a maker of 
 figures, a house and heraldry painter, a carpenter, an
 
 EARL Y ART IN ENGLAND HENR Y III. 5 
 
 upholsterer, and a mason ; and sometimes, over and 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. 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 snfficient 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 prob- 
 ability, 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 
 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
 
 6 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 works of art in this island were from the hands of for- 
 eigners. It was the interest of Rome to supply us with 
 painters as well as priests, whose mutual talents and 
 mutual zeal might maintain, and extend, and embellish 
 religion. There is no honour surrendered in relinquishing 
 our claims to such productions ; the best of them displayed 
 no genius, and exhibited little skill. 
 
 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 
 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 feeling such 
 as these ushered in chivalry ; to the influence of which we
 
 EARL Y ART IN ENGLAND ED WARD HI. ^ 
 
 owe so inuch, 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 
 warlike 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. 
 
 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 historical 
 portraiture which can be authenticated. It is a painting on 
 wood ; the figures are less than life, and represent 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 pro- 
 ceeding 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
 
 8 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 dragon, while Cleodelinda kneels in prayer beside a lamb. Ifc 
 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 having been 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 
 princesses of the blood-royal, could animate the conception, 
 or raise the artist above the usual cold level of barbarism. 
 
 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 mod- 
 erately 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 con- 
 tract between the Earl of Warwick and John Ray, citizen 
 and tailor, London, in which the latter undertakes to 
 execute the emblazonry of the earl's pageant in his situation 
 of ambassador to France. In the tailor's bill, gilded 
 griffins mingle with Virgin Marys ; painted streamers for 
 battle or procession with the twelve apostles ; and " one 
 coat for his grace's body, lute with fine gold," takes 
 precedence of St. George and the Dragon.
 
 EARLY ART IN ENGLAND ILLUMINATIONS, 9 
 
 The superstition of the church formed a grotesque union 
 with the frivolities of heraldry and the follies of courtiers 
 and kings. The baron who patronised 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 
 rapacious church, by benefactions to abbeys of painted 
 saints and profitable manors. This was the true age of 
 barbaric splendour; 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 Greeks 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 
 pursuit, 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 bequest, 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 employment to artists. Illustrations on this scale 
 required a delicate hand which excelled in miniature 
 resemblances, and a fancy in keeping with the genius of the
 
 10 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 valu- 
 able also for their evidence of the state of art for the light 
 which they throw on the general love of mankind for 
 literature ; and for the information which they indirectly 
 convey concerning the condition of our courts and nobles. 
 
 The subjects of those illustrations are very various. 
 They represent the dresses, ceremonies, and portraits of 
 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 occasions, 
 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 possessors. 
 The art of printing, and the Reformation, 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
 
 TAPESTRY HENRY VII. it 
 
 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, 
 chamber 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 has deserted some of our modern 
 mansions. 
 
 At first the figures 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 martial 
 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 worthily 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, something very splendid. 
 As painting rose in fame, tapestry sunk in estimation. The 
 introduction of a lighter and less massive mode of archi- 
 tecture abridged the space for its accommodation, and by 
 degrees the stiff and fanciful creations 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 rendered 
 Italy the most renowned nation of the earth ; but till near 
 his death our island continued, as of old, in gross ignorance
 
 1 2 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 pageants were 
 stitched aud 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. 
 It would neither be instructive nor amusing to give an 
 account of these lampoons upon human nature which our 
 painters at this period perpetrated under the name of 
 portraits. 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 realise. The Jane Shore of the artists has no 
 charms such as could have proved fatal to her peace. She 
 possesses 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 grey : delicate harmony being 
 betwixt each part's proportion and each proportion's colour ; 
 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 Countess of Cardigan, 
 and is marvellously beautiful, seeming to be powdered with 
 golden dust, without prejudice to its silken delicacy."
 
 EARLY A R THENR Y VII 7. 1 3 
 
 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 Yerrio, 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 scattered 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-painting 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 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 
 virtues, and employing heathen gods to do the duty of 
 sound divines. Minerva and Yenus, and Juno and Jupiter, 
 with all the exploded progeny of Olympus, were seen follow- 
 ing in the train of Christian monarchs with high-heeled 
 boots, laced cravats, and three-storied wigs. This bastard 
 offspring of learning swarmed in our palaces and churchos.
 
 14 ORE A T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 The pedantry of poets, the mysteries of the church, and 
 the grotesque combinations of heraldry, all united in 
 encouraging this absurd deviation from truth and nature. 
 
 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. Their works, too, 
 were worthy of their condition. I transcribe the following 
 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 composed 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 Radcliffe, Moses Couteryn, Philip 
 Bartholomew, and John Brown, Procurators of Radcliffe, 
 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 
 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 RE FORM A TION. 1 5 
 
 " 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 God the Father, holding the king's 
 soul in his left hand, and his right hand extended 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 reformers were purifiers of religion, not 
 patrons of art ; nor could they perceive any sort of con- 
 nection 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 charters in the stalls of the cathedrals.
 
 1 6 GREA T ENGLISH PA INTERS. 
 
 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. Vanity and ostentation, rather than true love of 
 art, induced him to patronise 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 
 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. 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 
 preceding works of the pencil, with a taste improved and a 
 mind enlarged, and great wealth whoever appeared willing 
 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 imagination 
 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,
 
 HENRY VI IL HOLBEIN. 17 
 
 which attest the sincerity of the resemblance ; his Anne 
 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, 
 regarded 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 
 Holbein 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 1 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 
 Holbein 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 Verraander. 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 some- 
 what touchy of temper, threw the intruder downstairs, 
 bolted the door, ran to the king by a private passage, fell 
 011 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." 
 
 154
 
 1 8 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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, 
 and many perished when the great palace of Whitehall 
 was burned. The original drawings, eighty-nine in number, 
 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 Raphael ; 
 Pembroke 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 Royal Gallery. "A great part of these 
 drawings," observes Walpole, " are exceedingly fine, and 
 in one respect preferable 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 fresh 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. 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, 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 
 Museum. Inigo Jones had another book of his designs
 
 ANTONIO MORO. 19 
 
 for weapons, hilts, ornaments, scabbards, sword-belts, but- 
 tons, 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 storey 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 Sapphira 
 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
 
 20 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 pension of four hundred a-year as painter to the king. 
 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's 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 wherewith 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 FJanders, 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 apostles, 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 nattered 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
 
 QUEEN ELIZABETH DE HE ERE. 21 
 
 powdered with diamonds, a vast ruff, a vaster fardingale, 
 and a bushel of pearls, are the features by which everybody 
 knows at once the pictures of Queen Elizabeth." 
 
 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, anil now I will wear that, 
 And now will I wear I cannot well tell what." 
 
 De Heere, proceeding more warily with the queen than
 
 2 2 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 
 his arrows. The poverty of the invention is as remarkable 
 as the intolerable grossness of the flattery. 
 
 The great Earl of Nottingham, whose defeat of the 
 Armada 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 Speiring. 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 
 Commons as a committee-room. 
 
 Towards the close of Elizabeth's reign, Hilliard and 
 Oliver began to distinguish themselves, and they are prob- 
 ably 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 ; Oliver obtained the patronage of the 
 nation, and merited all which it bestowed. The chief 
 merit, indeed, of Hilliard is, that he helped to form the
 
 OLIVER MYTEKS. 23 
 
 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, 
 leaving 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 ungainly 
 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 afterwards 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. The 
 younger Oliver, too, made himself known about this period 
 by numerous miniature portraits 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-born. This harmless vanity, while it 
 encouraged art, exposed its works to the risk of continual 
 accidents. 
 
 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
 
 24 GREAT ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 perdition. 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 introduced 
 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 encouraged 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 
 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 patronising 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 ; while the gallery 
 of the king was rich in paintings from the best masters. 
 The merit, however, of commencing the royal collection is
 
 KING CHARLES 7. 25 
 
 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 Rome, 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 Royal 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 ingenious pattern known to school-boys 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 obtained the Cartoons of Raphael, and by 
 the negotiation of Buckingham, the collection of the Duke 
 of Mantua, containing 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 of tener 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,
 
 26 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 Buck- 
 ingham 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 Tintoret, 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 
 enthusiasm. By a letter, written with his own hand, he 
 invited, though in vain, Albano into England. Buckingham 
 exhausted all his arts of persuasion to entice over Carlo 
 Marratti ; and Venet, a French painter of eminence, was 
 solicited with the same bad success. 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 welcomed 
 with great honour, and during the remission of public duty 
 was prevailed upon to embellish the Banqueting 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 na- 
 tion ; and the universal eulogy need not be repeated
 
 VANDYKE. 27 
 
 here.* Rubens 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 the 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, 
 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 Rubens "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 
 Rubens 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 
 
 * 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."
 
 28 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 not demanded in historic compositions ; besides, his inven- 
 tion was cold and tame ; nor does he anywhere 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 Reynolds, 
 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 cloud 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 love- 
 liness of nature. He remained 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 
 Susanna by the 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 Vandyke's 
 first manner, when he imitated Rubens and Titian, which
 
 JAMESONE. 29 
 
 supposes the sun in the room ; in his pictures afterwards 
 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 Rubens 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 
 relinquished them for portraiture a branch of the art which 
 this island has never failed to patronise. He acquired 
 much fame in his day, and was considered after Vandyke 
 the ablest of the scholars of Rubens. 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 must not omit to men- 
 tion that some of his pictures are in the college of his 
 native place, and that " The Sybils," a work of merit, was 
 copied, according to tradition, from two of the beauties of 
 Aberdeen.
 
 3o GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 The prices which he received for his pictures seem small, 
 even in the swelling numbers of the Scottish currency. 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 (now Taymouth), the sum of two hundred 
 and threescore pounds. Moreover the said Sir Colin gave 
 to the said George Jamesone for the knight of Lochore'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. 
 
 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, "Some- 
 thing evil will befall this man ; he carries misfortune 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 govern- 
 ments of James and Charles to learn how many windows
 
 THE COMMONWEALTH. 31 
 
 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 Elizabeth. 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 stigmatised -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 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-
 
 32 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 tion of the Virgin Mary upon them, shall be forthwith 
 burnt. Ordered, that all such pictures there, as have the 
 representation of the second person in the Trinity upon 
 them, shall be forthwith burnt." " This was a worthy con- 
 trast," 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 Presbyterians 
 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 objects 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 repre- 
 senting the Virgin and the Saviour was very imperfectly 
 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 disoblige. 
 
 They stigmatised 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 opportunity. 
 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
 
 THE WHITEHALL GALLERIES. 33 
 
 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. 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 picture-dealers, and some to the more sensible and 
 spirited of the Puritans. The celebrated Colonel Hutchin- 
 son 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 these 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 
 republicans thirty-eight thousand pounds. Another fate 
 befell the gallery of the Duke of Buckingham. The pictures 
 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 
 repossessed of many of its ancient paintings. But the un- 
 fortunate 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. Painting and sculpture are of slow 
 growth, and seldom thrive amidst wars and convulsions. 
 Men have not peace of mind nor leisure during rebellions and 
 
 155
 
 34 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 artist 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 parlia- 
 ment. 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 idolatry ; 
 monuments were deemed carnal pride, and a venerable 
 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. Ruin was their harvest, 
 and they gleaned after the Reformers. Had they coun- 
 tenanced any of the softer arts, what would those arts have 
 represented ? How picturesque was the figure of an Ana- 
 baptist? But sectaries have no ostensible enjoyments: 
 their pleasures are private, comfortable, and gross. The 
 arts that civilise 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
 
 THE RESTORATION SIR PETER LELY. 35 
 
 answer to the exclusive claim, which Walpole sets up for 
 the episcopal 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 enchantment 
 the people leapt from dreary prayers and interminable 
 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 profli- 
 gates, 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 the court infected literature : it took 
 away the natural grace of innocence and simplicity from 
 our youth ; and art also was renewed in a spirit correspond- 
 ing 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 cus- 
 tomers of Charles's palace sat to the same painter, they laid 
 his talents under no such restrictions. He seemed to con- 
 sider 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,
 
 36 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 Cleveland 
 " sitting in a chair, dressed in white satin ; " also Lady 
 Castlemaine, " a most blessed picture, of which he was 
 resolved to have a copy." The lapse of a century and 
 a-half has purified the air round those gay and merry 
 madams, and we can look on Lady Castlemaine 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 preserved 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 
 nothing of that high order about him which could be 
 supposed 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 produced 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
 
 //? GODFREY KNELLER. 37 
 
 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 
 epistle containing encomiums such as few painters 
 deserve : 
 
 " 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 Dryden 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, however, 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 Marlborough, 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
 
 38 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 not begin to live themselves till they are dead. I paint the 
 living, and they make me live ! " In a conversation con- 
 cerning 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, you 
 may be out in your letters, but I cannot be out in my 
 lines." 
 
 To four distinguished foreign artists, then, we are indebted 
 for portraits of the most eminent persons who appeared 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 exhibits much sameness and very 
 little imagination ; yet, with all these drawbacks, each has 
 left works which will never be neglected. The Olivers,* 
 
 * 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 Eogers, 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
 
 ARCHITECTURAL PAINTING. 39 
 
 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. 
 
 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 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 divinities 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 conceived them. 
 
 The chief apostles of this dark faith were two foreigners 
 and one Englishman Yerrio, La Guerre, 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 
 shepherdesses 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 
 
 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."
 
 4o GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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. 
 
 Thornhill enjoys all the advantage of the praise of Pilk- 
 ington, and the approbation of Lord Orford. " His genius," 
 says the former, "was well adapted to historical and allegori- 
 cal compositions. He possessed a fertile and fine invention, 
 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 Wai pole, "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 
 Hampton 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 2000 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
 
 DA WN OF NA TIVE ART. 41 
 
 artist had arisen capable of leading the way in painting 
 no one who possessed at once talent for original composition, 
 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-established 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.
 
 WILLIAM HOGARTH. 
 
 WILLIAM HOGARTH was born in the parish of St. Bartholo- 
 mew the Great, London, on the 10th of December 1697. That 
 he was baptised on the 28th of the same month we have 
 the authority of his own manuscripts the parish registers 
 have been examined for confirmation with fruitless solici- 
 tude. He was a descendant of the family of Hogard, 
 Hogart, or Hogarth, of Kirkby-Thore, in the county of 
 Westmoreland * his father being the youngest of three 
 brothers the eldest of whom lived and died in the con- 
 dition of yeoman, on a small hereditary freehold in the vale 
 
 * 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 graceful. That the name, in London pronunciation, would have 
 the concluding th hardened into t, there can be little doubt ; such ia 
 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, humorous Hogart ! 
 Thou, I hear, a pleasant rogue art 1 
 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. 43 
 
 of Bampton. The second held the plough at Troutbeck, in 
 the same district ; and Richard, the youngest, having been 
 educated at the school of St. Bees, carried thence his 
 learning and his health to the market of the great 
 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 ;* 
 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 rendered 
 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 
 
 * 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.
 
 44 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 laid out into one by the great Author of Nature, for they 
 were the green slope of a fine hill." When Nichols col- 
 lected his anecdotes of Hogarth,* he was desirous of 
 tasting the spirit of the rustic dramatist of Westmoreland ; 
 and 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 character- 
 istics." But a critic who recognised only humour and 
 burlesque in the works of the immortal nephew, might see 
 nothing but the defects of the Bard of Troutbeck ; the man 
 who wrote to excite the laughter of a rustic 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 
 
 * 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 
 contributions 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 
 reparation I can for such a very natural mistake.
 
 HOGARTH. 45 
 
 good experience." These are his own words ; the book 
 was printed in 1712 of his success let his son speak. " I 
 saw the difficulties," says William, " under which my father 
 laboured; the many inconveniences he endured from his 
 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 classical 
 education ; it was, therefore, conformable to my own wishes 
 that I was taken from school, and served a long apprentice- 
 ship 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, w.e 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 ; 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 
 business which brought daily bread, in preference to the 
 precarious 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 drawing, 
 shows of all sorts gave me uncommon pleasure when young, 
 and mimickry, common to all children, was remarkable 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
 
 46 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 great correctness. My exercises when at school were more 
 remarkable for the ornaments which 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. 
 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 excellence, 
 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 pleasure 
 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 
 in 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 occurred
 
 HOGARTH. 47 
 
 to me that there were many disadvantages attending this 
 method of study, as having faulty originals, etc. ; 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 master'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 
 engraver, 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 
 assistance " to Ellis Gamble. He served his time without 
 any complaint nor have I heard of any commendation.* 
 
 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 
 with his master's sickly child hanging its head over his 
 shoulder." It is more amusing to read such a book than 
 
 * A magnificent melon-shaped tea-kettle, engraved with heads in 
 medallion and scrolls by Hogarth, on a circular stand, finely chased 
 with masks, scrolls, and medallions, and dated 1722, was sold at 
 Lord Willoughby de Eresby's sale in 1869. It was from Lord 
 Tenterden's collection.
 
 48 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 shorthand way of acquiring knowledge we have 
 some account from himself. His dislike of academic 
 instruction, 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 
 resemble 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 aspirations 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 
 purpose 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 subjects 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 
 combinations." 
 
 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 
 pictorial 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. 49 
 
 efforts by slow and repeated touches by studying a 
 posture 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 the 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 
 defective as a whole. 
 
 Possessing this vividness of imagination, Hogarth was 
 ready at a moment to embody his subjects ; and by a 
 sagacity 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 
 carried 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 con- 
 sidered, 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 
 combined, 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 
 
 156
 
 Jo GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 and original. Of his first attempt at satire, the following 
 story is related by Nichols, who had it from one of 
 Hogarth'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 mouth." This virago figures in " Modern 
 Midnight 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 surprise 
 that a Horace Walpole should conclude the conversation of 
 a Hogarth to have been gross, and his mind uninformed 
 Lord Orford considered all men as uninformed who had 
 not received an university education ; and all human beings 
 as gross in conversation who were unacquainted 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 
 towards what has obtained the name of learning." 
 
 If Hogarth showed little bias towards learning, it was
 
 HOGARTH. 51 
 
 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 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 learn- 
 ing 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 
 towards 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 under 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 main- 
 tain 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
 
 52 GREAT ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 drew her as ugly as possible, and in that single portrait 
 gave marks of the dawn of superior genius. Other 
 authorities intimate, that had such an accident ever 
 happened to Hogarth, he would hardly have failed to 
 talk of it afterwards, as he was always fond of contrasting 
 the necessities 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 diffi- 
 culties, his vanity and who would not be vain in such 
 circumstances? 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 him- 
 self 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 destitute 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 ailigence 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
 
 HOGARTH. 53 
 
 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 four- 
 teen; 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. 
 
 The first work of any merit which appeared from the 
 hand of Hogarth was called " The Taste of the Town," 
 engraven in 1724. 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 satirised 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 satirical glance at majesty ; the 
 kneeling figure, pouring eight thousand pounds at the feet 
 of Cuzzoni, the Italian singer, has been said to resemble 
 Lord Peterborough. Opera, masque, and pantomime are in 
 jflory, while the works of our great dramatists are trundled 
 to oblivion on a wheel-barrow. On the summit of Burlington 
 Gate he placed the fashionable artist, William Kent, 
 brandishing his palette and pencils, with Michael Angelo 
 and Raphael for supporters." 
 
 At this time it appears that he did not apply himself 
 wholly to original compositions; he had a mother and 
 sisters to assist, and success in his new and original path 
 being uncertain continued to make sure of bread by 
 engraving 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
 
 54 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 subsistence ; 
 and even the most fortunate often execute commissions 
 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. Illustrations 
 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 " Golden 
 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. 
 The date of the latter is uncertain ; nor have I found that 
 they incurred censure or received praise, unless they are 
 included in the following sweeping condemnation of 
 Walpole : "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 ffudibras, 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
 
 HOGARTH. 55 
 
 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 inspira- 
 tion 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 book- 
 seller 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 Ramsay of Edinburgh." A little praise 
 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.
 
 56 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 performance, 
 and said, as improvement was Mr. Major's object, 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 
 arid 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 
 Hogarth 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,
 
 HOGARTH. 57 
 
 "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 Wai pole : 
 
 " The scene is a committee of the Commons ; on the 
 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 Salvator Rosa would have drawn for lago in the 
 moment of detection. Villainy, 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,
 
 58 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 button-holes. 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 
 inferior 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, 7th September 
 1725, on which a parishioner wrote and printed a con- 
 gratulatory letter, with a motto from Exodus: "And he 
 took the calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire, 
 and burnt 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
 
 HOGARTH. 59 
 
 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 furniture, as frames of pictures, 
 glasses, tables, chairs, etc., 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 birthday 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 disputation he learned to 
 despise the former too much ; and declaimed vigorously 
 against borrowed postures and academic 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 is not to draw at all ; and I suppose if 
 you wrote on the art of swimming, you would not 
 permit your scholars to go into the water till they had 
 learned to swim."
 
 60 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 He had, however, other motives than an artist's for 
 courting the notice of Thornhill and frequenting his 
 academy. 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. 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 acknowledged 
 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 
 different 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. 
 
 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
 
 HOGARTH. 61 
 
 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 apprehending 
 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 manufactory to be carried on by the help of backgrounds
 
 62 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 and drapery painters, it was not sufficiently profitable to 
 pay the expenses my family required." This is a very 
 imperfect 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 ; 
 for, in truth, some of his portraits are very vigorous 
 performances. 
 
 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 
 portrait-painter to come frequently in contact ; disputes 
 ensued; 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, 
 with his pencil ready, and his eye fixed and intent on a
 
 HOGARTH. 63 
 
 figure which he is sketching on the canvas. He has a short, 
 good-humoured face, full of health, observation, and sagacity. 
 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 afterwards 
 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 Roscius 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 
 Garrick 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, aud
 
 64 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 made a capital likeness. The world is seldom satisfied 
 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. 
 
 Captain Coram, the projector of the Foundling Hospital, 
 sat for his portrait to Hogarth, and it is one of the best lie 
 ever painted. There is a natural dignity and great benev- 
 olence 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 expense, 
 and am not ashamed to know 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 
 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
 
 HOGARTH. 65 
 
 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 
 discrimination 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. 
 
 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 1st January 1731 of 
 all the pictures that remain unfinished half-payment 
 received." 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' 
 Opera, for ditto. A single figure, for Mr. Kirkman, April 
 18, 1730. A family of nine, for Mr. Vernon, Feb. 27, 
 1730. Another 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 bespoke for the present year." Here the memo- 
 randum concludes. There is nothing said of the amount of 
 
 157
 
 66 GREAT ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 price, and it has been observed that Hogarth has nowhere 
 acknowledged what money he received for his family-pieces 
 and portraits. For his Garrick as Richard the Third he 
 had 200 ; but that was later in life, when his fame justi- 
 fied 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 Richard 
 (says he) I received more than any English artist ever 
 before received for a single portrait, and that too by the 
 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 clone 
 away is a doubtful question ; none of those who have 
 attempted to reform it have yet succeeded; nor, unless 
 portrait-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 flourish luxuriantly ; but of
 
 HOGARTH. 67 
 
 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 himself with 
 the alacrity of one stung by disappointment, and who is 
 determined to vindicate his confidence in nature 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 subjects 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-
 
 63 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 inter- 
 mediate species of subjects which may be placed between 
 the 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 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 
 entertain 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 
 tirst 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
 
 HOGARTH. 69 
 
 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 Hogarth's 
 notions by his prints and his pictures have little chance of 
 being overcome by the force of his written arguments. 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 more 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 
 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 sto.y exhibiting, in truth, a 
 regular drama, neither wholly serious nor wholly comic, in
 
 70 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 
 darkness, 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 
 the intrepid spirit of the artist; for some whom he 
 ridiculed were powerful enough to make their resentment 
 be felt. For their resentment he ajppoars 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 popularity of the work than the portraits
 
 HOGARTH. 71 
 
 of Colonel Charteris, Kate Hackabout, Mother Needham, 
 Parson Ford, and one who should not be confounded with 
 publicans and sinners Mr. Justice Gonson.* 
 
 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 tho 
 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. The 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 
 approbation 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 circulation of an official document. What 
 signified genius, life, humour, and moral reprehension, until 
 two or three 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 o attack a more dangerous antagonist than 
 either Kent, Ford, or Charteris. He had the audacity to 
 satirise 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 
 
 * Justice Gonson was distinguished for the extravagance of his 
 addresses 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 
 incomparable, learned, and fine charge to the Grand Jury."
 
 72 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 and little taste. By Timon he was universally supposed, 
 and by the Earl of Burlington, to whom the poem is 
 addressed, 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 con- 
 sequently 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 
 Angelo 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.* 
 
 Of all this Pope took no notice, though he resented the 
 "Pictured Shape" from the hand of a very inferior satirist. 
 
 * This, though the description reads somewhat alike, is not the 
 same plate as that described at page 53. This is sometimes called 
 "The Man of Taste."
 
 HOGARTH. 73 
 
 " Either Hogarth's obscurity," says Nichols, " was his 
 protection 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 pro- 
 long 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 realised 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 certainly 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. 
 
 Hogarth, whose poverty had hitherto detained him in 
 town, was now rich enough to take summer lodgings at 
 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
 
 74 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 Vauxhall Gardens, and embellished them with designs. 
 He drew the "Four Parts of the Day," which Haymau 
 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 
 proprietors 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 
 difficulty 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 painted two 
 Scripture stories 'The Pool of Bethesda' and 'The 
 Good Samaritan ' with figures seven feet high. These I 
 presented 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 generally 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 expectations of advantage from that 
 source, and returned to the pursuit of my former dealings 
 with the public at large."
 
 HOGARTH. 75 
 
 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 char- 
 acter, 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 ennobling 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 
 Agamemnon. He could hold the mirror up to folly, show 
 vice her visage till she writhed with anguish, and paint 
 lasciviousness as dfsgusting 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 ' Danae,' 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 emedy Both 
 circumstances are justly thought but rather too ludicrous. 
 It is a much more capital fault that { Danae 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,
 
 76 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 and was not unwilling to mingle a little of a gayer feeling 
 with the sincerity of the old strain. The story of "Danae" 
 cannot 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, therefore, 
 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 recognise, in any of 
 his works, a higher aim than that of raising a laugh. 
 Somerville, the poet, inscribed the " Rural 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
 
 HOGARTH. 77 
 
 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. 
 
 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. 
 
 The " Harlot's Progress " was followed by the " Rake's 
 Progress," in a series of eight scenes, each complete in itself, 
 and all uniting in relating a domestic history in a way at
 
 78 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 
 entirely 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 approba- 
 tion ; it had leisure to be captious and seek for faults nor 
 was it slow in finding them. " The ' Rake's Progress,' " 
 says "VValpole, " though perhaps superior to the ' Harlot's 
 Progress,' had not so much success as the other, from want 
 of novelty ; nor 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 converted 
 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 like- 
 wise 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 " Rake's Progress " the success is less distinctly 
 stated, but it must have been great ; for it was satisfactory 
 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
 
 HOGARTH. 79 
 
 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 deserts 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 represented ; 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 expunged 
 faces etched by his assistants when they had not done 
 justice to his ideas." 
 
 The fame of Hogarth was now so well established that
 
 8o GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 satirised 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, sug- 
 gested the circumstance of beating hemp in the House of 
 Correction in a gown richly laced with silver The patched 
 and sanctified-looking procuress was a certain Mother 
 Needham, of whose history the catastrophe may be suffi- 
 cient. 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 co uldbe 
 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 rummaging 
 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 ; 
 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. 8 1 
 
 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 poisoned and slew in their day with more success than 
 attends the most practised quacks of the present generation. 
 The meagre son of j9Ssculapius 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 
 satirise ; 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 marries 
 to support his extravagance, we see a satiric touch at that 
 spiritual school of painting to whicji Hogarth never bore 
 any love. The two sedate personages in the scene of the 
 gaming-table are one Manners (of the family of Rutland), 
 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, follow and 
 seize the whole. " Old Manners," says Ireland, " was the 
 only person of his time who amassed a considerable fortune 
 by the profession of a gamester." Hogarth has shown him 
 
 158
 
 82 ORE A T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 exercising his twofold avocation of miser and gamester, dis- 
 counting a note-of-hand to a nobleman with a greedy hand 
 and a rapacious eye. 
 
 In another scene the 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, realised 
 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 Walpole, 
 " the ' Nobleman's Dining- Room,' the ' Apartments of the 
 Husband and Wife ' in ' Marriage a-la-Mode,' the ' Alder- 
 man's Parlour/ the 'Bed-Chamber,' 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
 
 HOGARTH. 83 
 
 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 generally 
 a fair profit in their own compositions, he applied to Par- 
 liament, and obtained an Act in 1735 for recognising a 
 legal copyright in designs and engravings, and restraining 
 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 peason 
 claiming 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 han 
 employed 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 hoje (adds Hawkins) which seems pretty nearly 
 gratified." 
 
 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
 
 84 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 import- 
 ance which materially increased their value. Few painters 
 of eminence have engraved their own pictures. Hogarth 
 and Martin the latter as eminent for splendid imagination 
 in historical landscape as the former for his human nature 
 have secured to^ themselves the value of their works, 
 and gratified purchasers with the certainty of possessing 
 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 acknowledgment of the 
 grace and goodness of the legislature, manifested in the 
 act of parliament for the encouraging of the arts of design- 
 ing, engraving, etc., 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 
 monopolising 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."
 
 HOGARTH. 85 
 
 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 
 importance 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 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 h,eavy 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
 
 86 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 rnilkwoman, who exhibits an unliquidated tally. 
 
 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 
 almost every possessor of his works will wish they had been 
 withheld from the public." 
 
 " Southwark Fair " another early work, but for which 
 there is no certain date,* 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 subordination. With this 
 less graphic portion of the show Hogarth 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 
 
 * An advertisement which appeared in the " Craftsman " fixes the 
 date of " Southwark Fair " as 1733.
 
 HOGARTH. 87 
 
 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, 
 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 
 presides 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,* a near relative of Dr. Johnson, 
 and famous in his day for profligacy. 
 
 * 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 Hutnmums, 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. He 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
 
 88 GREA T ENGLISH 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 Musician." 
 This sensitive mortal, by the frogs on his coat, appears 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 
 
 supplying the tippling parson to Hogarth's design, the following 
 characteristic 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 last 
 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 " Yon have much to be thankful for."
 
 HOGARTH. 89 
 
 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 
 
 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 
 playing 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, 
 "Flounders!" a milkmaid crying, "Milk above! milk 
 below ! " a female ballad -singer, chanting the doleful 
 story of the " Lady's Fall " her child and a neigh- 
 bouring 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 howling 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 postman with his horn, a stroller
 
 90 GREAT ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 
 representing a 'Distrest Poet,' published some time since. 
 To which will be added a third, on Painting, which will 
 complete 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 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. " In the ' Progress of 
 the Harlot' and the 'Adventures of the Rake,' Hogarth 
 displayed," 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 walking to church, with a starved and shivering footboy 
 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 warming 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
 
 HOGARTH. 91 
 
 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 prospect ; 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 medicine, 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 fortune of the artist. Churchill, the 
 poet, deprived himself of a legacy in a similar way, by 
 singing of 
 
 " 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 dissipation. 
 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 
 coming 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
 
 92 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 in misery, his eyes are shut, yet running over with tears, 
 and he is scratching his head in a ludicrous agony which 
 surpasses description. 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 former 
 should be taken for may be guessed by the relative 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 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 tho
 
 HOGARTH. 93 
 
 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, Hogarth is 
 supposed to have satirised 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 accustomed 
 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 
 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 
 remaining pair were sold to Sir William Heathcote for 
 forty-six.* 
 
 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 company of 
 
 * 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 recom- 
 mend 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 p 
 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."
 
 94 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 pre- 
 paring 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 calculated 
 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 mending 
 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 in her 
 mantle by way of skewer, represents the Tragic Muse ; she 
 is cutting a cat's tail to obtain blood for some solemn pur- 
 pose, 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 drink- 
 ing 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 bad 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
 
 HOGARTH. 95 
 
 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 helmet 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 remonstrance, 
 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. 
 
 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 ;
 
 96 GREA T ENGLISH PA INTER?. 
 
 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. 
 
 Hogarth was now in his forty-eighth year : his fame was 
 established ; he was rich enough to maintain a carriage ; 
 and though his brother artists conceded to him the name 
 of painter with whimsical reluctance, he was everywhere 
 received 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 
 Hogarth. When a poor student he displayed the same 
 firmness of purpose in his pursuits, and defended his adher- 
 ence to the dramatic species of painting (which he invented) 
 with the same warmth, decision, and enthusiasm which 
 characterised 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
 
 HOGARTH. 97 
 
 paintings of the " Harlot's Progress," the eight paintings of 
 the " Rake's Progress," the " Four Times of the Day," and 
 the " Strolling Actresses," on the following conditions : 
 
 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 
 genius. "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 con- 
 sider that he did the world a favour in suffering 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 Rake's, yet the paintings of the former produced only 
 fourteen guineas each, while those of the latter were sold 
 
 159
 
 98 GREAT ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 for twenty-two. That admirable picture, ' Morning,' brought 
 twenty guineas, and 'Night,' in every respect inferior 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 
 hundreds of each, to denote the system of copyism and 
 imposture 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 
 Hogarth, and against them, as if moved by some miracu- 
 lous wind, the pictures of the old school are driven into 
 direct collision. The foreign works seem the aggressors
 
 HOGARTH. 99 
 
 the havoc is mutual and equal. A " Saint Francis " has 
 penetrated, in a very ludicrous "way, into Hogarth's 
 " Morning " a " Mary Magdalen " has successfully in- 
 truded 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 termina- 
 tion ; 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 Pictures," 
 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 characterise his best productions. 
 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 
 " 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,
 
 roo GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 
 ancient 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 contrary to 
 their inclinations, and pulling different ways symbolical of 
 the happiness to be expected from the approaching 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 
 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 
 extravagance and dissipation, neglects his wife, and asso- 
 ciates 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
 
 HOGARTH. 101 
 
 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 
 appears 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 
 emblazoned this domestic tragedy. The world rewarded 
 these works with immediate approbation; many sets of the 
 engravings 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 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 
 characteristic passage occurs: "As, according to the
 
 102 ORE A T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 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 putt', 
 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 
 rendered them fit for those more sacred repositories where 
 schools, names, heads, masters, etc., attain their last stage 
 of preferment, may from hence be convinced that multi- 
 plicity at least of his, Mr. Hogarth's, pieces, will be no 
 diminution of their value." 
 
 This is petulant enough, and in very indifferent taste. 
 His strange advertisements, and still stranger plans of sale, 
 stirred up the spirit of the town against him, and the result 
 is thus related by Mr. Lane, who unexpectedly became the 
 public purchaser of the " Marriage-a-la-Mocle." " 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 
 proceeding pro! ably 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,
 
 HOGARTH. 103 
 
 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 6fch 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 Royal 
 Society.* I had bid 110; 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, 'Perhaps it may be so.' I co-ncurred in the 
 same opinion, said he was poorly rewarded for his labour, 
 and, if he chose, he might have till throe o'clock to find 
 a better bidder. Hogarth 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 trepass 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 pretence of cleaning them, as he always desired to do 
 that himself." 
 
 The excellence of these six noble pictures was acknow- 
 ledged by the whole nation, and they were in frames worth 
 
 * The artist, some one informed Nichols, on the morning of this 
 mortifying 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.
 
 104 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 four guineas each ; yet no one felt them to be worth more 
 than ninety pounds, six shillings. 
 
 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, 
 etc., 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 
 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
 
 tfOGARTff. 105 
 
 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 ssriousness, 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 picturesque 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 im- 
 proved their time. He was aware of the allurements which 
 tempt boys to idleness, and knew from experience how 
 necessary industry 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 Idleness," 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,
 
 lo6 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 he made the size of his prints moderate and the price low. 
 Hogarth thus modestly announces his object and his work 
 " ' Industry and Idleness' 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 idleness, naturally falls into poverty, and 
 ends fatally, as expressed 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 dependants. 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 
 Fraser was relating on his fingers the numbers of the 
 rebel forces such a chieftain had so many men, etc. He 
 received me with much cordiality embraced me as I 
 entered, and kissed me, though he was under the hands 
 of a barber. The muscles of his neck appeared of unusual 
 strength more so than I have 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 inter- 
 mission. 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 
 journey was short, and his stay brief. He imagined 
 himself in a land as free as England ; began to sketch 
 one of the gates of 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,
 
 HOGARTH. 107 
 
 and this seems to have been performed in a manner 
 calculated to embitter his feelings. Two guards accom- 
 panied him on board, and, after having insolently twirled 
 him round and round on the deck, told him he might 
 proceed on his voyage 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 sarcastic and bitter was expected from 
 his pencil. 
 
 Those persons who went with Hogarth to France, 
 Hayman 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 stockings with holes in them, 
 he burst out into very imprudent language. 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 concealed 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-fed monk stays him to gaze on it, and seems anxious 
 to bless and cut ; and a half-starved, meagre community of
 
 Io8 GREAT ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 soldiers surround the reeking wonder with looks ridiculously 
 wistful. Hogarth is seated busily sketching the scene, and 
 the hand of a Frenchman is laid on his shoulder, denoting 
 his arrest. There is not much venom in this ; such a satire 
 could be invented without much outlay of invention. A 
 man is not necessarily famishing because he eats little roast 
 beef ; nor are abstemiousness and cheerfulness under priva- 
 tion very happy subjects of ridicule.* 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 memoran- 
 dum 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 busi- 
 ness. 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 bois- 
 terous humour and moral reproof of his other performances. 
 The original was presented to the Foundling Hospital. The 
 
 * The figure of his half-starved French sentinel 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.
 
 HOGARTH. 109 
 
 receipt for the print of his work was nearly as valuable as 
 the print itself. It is a " St. Paul before Felix," designed 
 in the Dutch style ; nothing can surpass it for broad humour. 
 The saint stands and harangues on a three-footed stool ; and 
 such is the power of his eloquence, that the Roman more 
 than trembles witness the compressed nostrils of his com- 
 panions ; a Jew, with flashing 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. Sir Robert Strange, in his " In- 
 quiry into the Rise and Establishment of the Royal 
 Academy," says, that the donations made by painters of 
 their works to the Foundling Hospital led to the idea of 
 those exhibitions which now prove so lucrative at Somerset 
 Housa 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 perform- 
 ance of a different character ; it is steeped in humour and 
 strewn over with delightful absurdities. The approach 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
 
 Iio GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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, inflamed 
 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 natu- 
 rally 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 question," 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 burlesque.' ' What, a 
 painter burlesque a soldier ! he deserves to be picketed for 
 his insolence. Take his trumpery 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. 
 
 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 satirised and lampoonod. 
 No one can walk along our streets without observing, in 
 almost every printseller's window, the most audacious
 
 HOGARTH. in 
 
 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 offen- 
 sive 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 Rome, or in any of the Grecian 
 states, he would have been punished as a profligate 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 Oulloden, 
 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- 
 men, who, after rotting four years on the moor of Drum- 
 mossie, were ready 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 
 Temple Bar three years before this horrid print made its
 
 112 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 
 treason 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 purchaser 
 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 Hospital. One 
 of the Hospital's tickets drew the desired prize ; and on the 
 same night Hogarth delivered the painting 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 painting ; it could not, of course, be 
 accepted. 
 
 His next pictures were those of " Beer Street " and 
 "Grin 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 corporeal 
 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 
 brain, sap the strength, and become a burden to themselves, 
 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
 
 HOGARTH. 113 
 
 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 
 recruit 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 
 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 enthusiastically 
 
 1 60
 
 1 14 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 illustrative 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 those two 
 scenes that words cannot paint, and of which no countryman 
 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 interesting 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 rendered his lordship's 
 passion for amusements of this description 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 blind- 
 ness and negligence, endeavours to convey away a bank-note, 
 deposited in our dignified 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
 
 HOGARTH. 115 
 
 pronunciation of these important words, ' Done ! done ! 
 done ! ' that he cannot attend to their hints, and it seems 
 more than probable that the stock will be transferred, and 
 the note negotiable in a few seconds." A French marquis 
 looks contemptuously 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 knowledge 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 Voltaire 
 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 pub- 
 lic 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, 
 unembarrassed 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 
 voter, with all the easy familiarity which the times warrant,
 
 1 1 6 GREA T ENGLISH PAIN TERS. 
 
 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 pay- 
 master. 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
 
 HOGARTH. 117 
 
 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 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 supports 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 Yandeput ; 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.
 
 1 1 8 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 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 opposition 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, goes grunting in despera- 
 tion through the thickest of the mob ; 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 in dependent representative of 
 Guzzledown. David Garrick gave the painter some two 
 hundred pounds for those truly national productions. 
 
 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. Shebbeare, 
 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 merits 
 of original fancy, natural action, careless 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 hustings will 
 perceive and feel the accuracy of these designs. There 
 is always some noisy patriot of the hour to mislead and
 
 HOGARTH. 119 
 
 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 have remarked elsewhere that when Hogarth painted 
 his own portrait he etched upon the palette a winding line, 
 with this motto, " Line of Beauty and Grace." The mystery 
 of the winding line and these words remained unexplained 
 till 1 753, when he published the " Analysis of Beauty," a 
 work very clearly and cleverly written, containing 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 productions 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 of 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 beautiful 
 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 accomplished, 
 he supposes, by imitating with great exactness the beauties
 
 120 GREAT ENGLISH PAINTERS, 
 
 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 pyramidical, 
 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." 
 
 A book of so much pretension coming from a self- 
 educated man, accompanied with numerous etchings illus- 
 trating the author's principles of excellence in art, and 
 containing, 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 gained 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 
 academies which instructed students in making new 
 pictures from old ones were injurious to art, and that 
 portrait-painting 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 
 questioned and severely ridiculed ; and the authorship 
 of the volume was itself 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, unac- 
 quainted with literary composition, and of very humble 
 scholarship, was unlikely to be the author of a work which,
 
 HOGARTH. 121 
 
 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 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 
 1 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 pursued, for he found 
 them congenial, with the most unabating 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 " Gentle Shepherd." Time 
 has disposed of all these objections, and allowed, in spite 
 pf the malice of Wilkes, that the " Analysis of Beauty " is
 
 122 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 
 bitterest 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 
 believed 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 groundwork 
 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 contemporaries with scorn, they triumphed 
 over him in turn, and imitated 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 strikingly stiff and 
 affected : they are a Bath beau and a country beauty." 
 So writes Walpole : the principle of beauty, however, 
 was not necessarily unfounded because the painter failed. 
 in creating two figures excelling in beauty and grace, any 
 more than his heart was corrupt and envious because 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 char- 
 acteristic 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
 
 HOGARTH. 123 
 
 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 
 admitted, 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 
 this merit to those leaden-headed imitators, who, having 
 no consciousness of either symmetry or propriety, have 
 attempted to mend nature, and, in their truly ideal jtgures, 
 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 appearances 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, 
 notwithstanding 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 taken 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
 
 124 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 brocade 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 language 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 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 the 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 pro- 
 mulgates 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 undulating line of beauty and 
 grace. Men, whose feelings were imbued with nature, 
 wrought by a kind of instinctive inspiration in the right 
 way, when they executed those statues and paintings which 
 continue to astonish the earth. Walpole was amazed to find 
 that an old ballad-maker had obeyed, in " Gill Morrice," 
 all the precepts of Horace without having heard of the 
 poet. In truth, nature dictates what is right to those
 
 HOGARTH. 125 
 
 whose minds are lofty, and who passionately 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 vertii 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 unfair 
 to withhold the praise of Benjamin West a painter prudent 
 in speech and frugal in commendation. " I remember, 
 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," im- 
 puted to Correggio, for the sum of 400. The effect which 
 this circumstance had upon the mind of Hogarth is de- 
 scribed 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
 
 126 GREAT ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 England as 
 the subject of his competition. This was the celebrated 
 * Sigisrnunda ' 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 Dryden's 
 inimitable tale, and not feel that the same soul animated 
 both. After many essays, Hogarth produced his ' Sigis- 
 munda,' but no more like Sigismunda than I to Hercules. 
 Not to mention the wretchedness of the colouring, it was 
 the representation of a maudlin strumpet just turned out 
 of keeping ; and, with eyes red with rage and usquebaugh, 
 tearing off the ornaments her keeper had given her. To 
 add to the disgust raised by such vulgar expression, 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
 
 HOGARTH. 127 
 
 " 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 Richard Grosvenor, for whom the "Sigismunda" 
 was painted, thought as unfavourably of it as Walpole 
 himself. In Hogarth's memorandum-book the following 
 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 
 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 nattering 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 picture, but 
 proportioned to the value of the time it took in painting." 
 
 The statement is further confirmed by the following
 
 i28 GREA r ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 letter, which the artist addressed to Sir Richard Grosvenor 
 " I have done all I can to the picture of ' Sigismunda ; ' 
 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 request that 
 you would use no ceremony in refusing the picture when 
 done, if you should not be thoroughly satisfied with it. 
 This you promised should be as I pleased, which I now 
 entreat you would comply with, without the least hesita- 
 tion, 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 
 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 dimmish 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."
 
 HOGARTH. 129 
 
 " 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 
 till 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 dispute. 
 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 
 his health : " However mean the vendor 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 
 
 161
 
 T30 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 alight 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 
 friendship 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, satirising 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.' " 
 
 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 inter- 
 course, resembling an armed neutrality. Wilkes, with un- 
 conscious 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. Precious
 
 HOGARTH. 131 
 
 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, satirised 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 relinquish 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" 
 appeared, 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 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 compliment, 
 and turn it to some advantage. This renowned patriot's
 
 132 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 toad-eater, 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 spotless : 
 he had first disgraced the clerical character by his libertinism, 
 and afterwards flung it aside in scorn and contempt of all 
 decorum ; he then commenced satirist by profession, 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 of versification, 
 recalling a shadow at least of the charm of Dryden. Licen- 
 tious 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
 
 HOGARTH. 133 
 
 private life, and set that example of illiberality which I 
 wanted. I intend an elegy on him, supposing him dead ; 
 
 but (naming a courtesan) 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 reward 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 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 invec-
 
 1 34 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 lives, verses, and caricatures, is a performance exclusively 
 political, and therefore of local and temporary interest. 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 unac- 
 quainted with the bickerings, and heartburnings, and 
 political manceuvrings of those shifting and slippery times, 
 the print will appear as a ridiculous mystery, or an un- 
 intelligible 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, 
 Superstition, and Fanaticism." It was the intention of the 
 artist to give a literal representation of the strange effects 
 resulting 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 
 " religion 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 reserve in his left, to intimate that should the former 
 fail to draw them to godliness, with the latter will be their 
 portion. He thinks, with Burns, that, 
 
 ' ' The fear o' hell's a hangman's whip, 
 To hold the wretch in order." 
 
 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
 
 tfOGARTtf. 135 
 
 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 company 
 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 began 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. 
 horseback, had for a while a favourable influence on. 
 Hogarth's 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
 
 136 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 artist observed, 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 
 essentially benefited by me. What may follow, God 
 knows." This was written nigh the close of his life, and 
 seems entitled to the respect of a rigid self-examination ; a 
 confession 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. What- 
 ever merit there may be in disturbing the latter days of a 
 man of genius, and in pouring additional bitterness into the 
 parting cup, must be conceded to the former : " One, till 
 now," thus Hogarth writes, " rather my friend and flatterer, 
 attacked me in so infamous and malign a style, that he 
 himself, 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 Hogarth. 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 malicious 
 spirit anticipating the grave, and exulting over a dying 
 man ; but it is still more sorrowful to think that the
 
 HOGARTH. 137 
 
 profligate Churchill has been commended for the cowardly 
 rancour with which he thus insulted one so far superior to 
 himself in worth as well as in genius. 
 
 Hogarth left Chiswick on the 25th of October 1764, 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 thee, reader, stay, 
 
 If nature touch thee, drop a tear, 
 If neither move thee turn away 
 
 For Hogarth's honour'd dust lies here. :
 
 I3& GREAT ENGLISH 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. 
 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-fel- 
 lowship, desirous of saying strong and pointed things ; 
 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 
 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 license 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.
 
 HOGARTH. 139 
 
 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 dis- 
 courteous 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 
 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,
 
 140 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 Richard 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 
 embellished 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 carriage 
 and his very love of speaking of early hardships in con- 
 trast 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 
 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 own 
 follies." This sensible and accurate estimate displeased 
 Steevens, who proceeded to examine into the grossnesses
 
 HOGARTH. 141 
 
 and indelicacies, real and imaginary, of a man whom he 
 sought to dissect rather than criticise ; 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 proposed to 
 satirise ; 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 exhibited 
 indecency for our amusement 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. 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 j Sir Joshua Reynolds gave his servant 6 
 annually of wages, and offered him 100 a-year for the 
 door I
 
 142 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 
 observed 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. 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 Read, sound asleep, and presenting 
 a most ridiculous physiognomy : Hogarth eyed him for 
 a moment, and saying softly, " Heavens, what a char- 
 acter ! " called for pen and ink, and drew his portrait 
 without sitting down a curious and clever likeness, and 
 still existing. 
 
 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 
 " 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 license ; 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 according to 
 the receipt of Oliver Cromwell ; the peer was offended with
 
 HOGARTH. 143 
 
 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 dispose 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. Belchoir, 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. 
 " Hogarth, 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 ; c and so I am, give me but my 
 time and let me choose my subject.' " 
 
 With Dr. Hoadley, who corrected the manuscript of the 
 " 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 
 appointed to perform, along with Garrick and his enter- 
 tainer, a parody on that scene in Julius Csesar where the 
 ghost appears to Brutus. Hogarth personated the spectre ; 
 but so unretentive (we are told) 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
 
 144 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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." 
 According to this writer, soon after our artist set up his 
 carriage, he went to visit Beckford, who was then Lord 
 Mayor ; 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 
 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 caricature : his portrait by Hogarth
 
 HOGARTH. 145 
 
 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 
 ingenuity " 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 
 exclaimed, " 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, 
 when I turned the corner into Castle Street he was patting 
 one of two quarrelling boys on the back, and looking stead- 
 fastly at the expression in the coward's face, cried, ' Damn 
 him, if I would take it of him at him again ! '"* 
 
 * 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 " Nollekens," which we have already seen is an untrustworthy 
 authority. 
 
 162
 
 146 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 sentiment 
 for all time. 
 
 The morality of Hogarth has been questioned ; and 
 iudeed the like has befallen Crabbe. We may smile as we 
 look at his works, and we may laugh all this is true : 
 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. 
 His object was to insinuate the excellence of virtue by 
 proving the hideousness of vice ; and, if he has failed, 
 who has succeeded 1 As to other charges, preferred by the 
 malice of his contemporaries, time and fame have united in
 
 HOGARTH. 147 
 
 disproving them. He has been accused of want of know- 
 ledge 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 Madonna-like love- 
 liness 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 imitation, 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 1 He was of no college but not 
 therefore unlearned ; he was of no academy yet who will 
 question his excellence in art 1 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 uni- 
 verse. He drank at the great fountain of information, and 
 went by the ancient road ; and till it is shown that his 
 works are without knowledge, I shall look on him as a 
 well-informed 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 institution 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
 
 148 ORE A T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 the thirst of distinction 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 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.* 
 
 It is seldom that envy urges such sensible reasons for 
 its opposition. Hogarth disliked a formal school, because 
 
 * 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 I
 
 HOGARTH. 149 
 
 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 satirised 
 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 lampooned 
 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 re- 
 presenting these works as the only patterns of all that 
 is noble in art and worthy of imitation. Hogarth 
 perceived 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 Hogarth 
 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 1 If it be to 
 represent 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 
 grouping, 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
 
 150 GREAT ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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.
 
 RICHARD WILSON. 
 
 OF the life of RJCHABD WILSON little more is known than 
 what is related by Wright ; whose account, imperfect 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 estima- 
 tion. Then, and not till then, the lovers of art perceived 
 that the productions of an Englishman, 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 companions. 
 
 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 
 antiquity, and enriched with the blood of the kings of the 
 principality. He was born in the year 1713. 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 
 encourage, 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
 
 1 52 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 to London, and placed him under the care of one Wright, 
 a painter of portraits, too obscure even for the notice of 
 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 " Anecdotes 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 colouring in 
 the style of Rembrandt ; but Edwards is alone as to this 
 matter.* 
 
 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 beguile 
 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," 
 
 * 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 tho 
 paintings and merits of Wilson in general.
 
 WILSON. 153 
 
 (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 very 
 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 portrait- 
 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 recommended, 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 arc 
 fanned with the pure air, warmed with the glowing suns, 
 filled with the ruined temples, and sparkling with the 
 wooded streams and tranquil lakes of that classic region. 
 His reputation rose so fast that he obtained 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
 
 1 54 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 the commencement was promising. On his arrival in 
 London, he took apartments on the north side of Covent 
 Garden, 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 
 Cumberland bought the first and the Marquis of Tavistock 
 the second of these pieces : the prices have not been recorded, 
 but they were probably low. He assisted in instituting the 
 Royal Academy ; and on the death of Hayman 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 
 mortification 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 feeling and a poet's eye, selected his 
 scenes with judgment, and spread them out in beauty and
 
 WILSON. 155 
 
 in all the fresh luxury of nature. He did for landscape 
 what Reynolds 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 
 disregarded, 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 ! * His chief resource for 
 subsistence was in the sordid liberality of pawnbrokers, to 
 whose hands many of his finest works were consigned wet 
 
 * 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 exceptiops I can only say that I am pot one." A.C,
 
 1 56 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 
 disappointments 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 some- 
 what 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 
 corresponds with his means and condition he must be 
 content 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 unskil- 
 ful vehemence of poor Richard was no match for the 
 cautious malignity of the president, who enjoyed the double
 
 WILSON. is? 
 
 advantage of lowering his adversary's talents in social 
 conversation, and ex cathedrd in his discourses. Reynolds 
 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 110 
 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. Niobe and her offspring are on earth their 
 destroyer is in heaven ; and, as the scene is very grand and
 
 158 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 magnificent, I cannot conceive that anything is out of place 
 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 introducing 
 gods and goddesses, Sir Joshua forgot that he himself 
 was in the practice of baptising the living ladies of England 
 after heathen goddesses, and that he was a dealer in the 
 commonplace 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 disappoint- 
 ment ; 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 there- 
 fore 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
 
 WILSON. 159 
 
 academician, whom Barry worshipped as one of the chief 
 painters on earth, to remonstrate with the artist, and 
 inform him that, if he hoped for fame or their good 
 opinion, he 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 pro- 
 ceeded 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 
 accorded 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 
 contrast; 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 
 become 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 
 occasion 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 1 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,
 
 160 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 and at his Louse he frequently reposed from the cares of 
 the world and the persecution of fortune. He was 
 abstemious 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 
 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. He prepared 
 his palette, made a few touches, then retired to the window 
 to refresh his eye with natural light, and returned 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 remotest 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,
 
 WILSON. 161 
 
 but, when he did speak of it, he used expressions which the 
 world has since sanctioned. " 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 starvation ; 
 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 
 neglectful of his person as fortune forsook him he left a 
 fine house for one inferior ; 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 
 accompanying 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 
 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, " Your 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 
 
 163
 
 162 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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, obtained 
 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 repeated injuries of 
 fortune. London was relieved from witnessing the melan- 
 choly 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 mankind, 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 settle- 
 ments 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 com- 
 modious, and the situation of that kind which Wilson 
 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 \vas 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
 
 WILSON. 163 
 
 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 overcome 
 by some sudden pain Wilson sank down, and found him- 
 self 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 as made only to 
 form groups for his pictures, and on men as they composed 
 harmoniously. One day, looking on the fine scene from 
 Richmond Terrace, and wishing to point out a spot of par- 
 ticular beauty to the friend who accompanied 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 speechless 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 exchange works with him, he
 
 164 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 answered, " With all my heart. I'll give you air, and you 
 will give me fire." 
 
 "Wilson," says Fuseli, discoursing on art in 1801, 
 " observed nature in all her appearances, and had a 
 characteristic 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, 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. 
 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 expatiate on 
 ruined temples and walk over fields where great 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 loveliness of his com- 
 positions 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," "Morning,"
 
 WILSON. 165 
 
 " View of Rome," " Villa of Mecaanas at Tivoli," " Celadon 
 and Amelia," " View on the River Po," " Apollo and 
 the Seasons," " Meleager and Atalanta," " Cicero at his 
 Villa," " Lake of Narni," " View on the Coast of Baite," 
 " 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 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 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 repul- 
 sive, gradually smoothed down as he grew animated. 
 Those who enjoyed the pleasure of his friendship agree in 
 pronouncing him a man of strong sense, intelligence, and 
 refinement, and every way worthy of those works which 
 preserve the name of Richard Wilson.
 
 SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 JOSHUA, the son of the Reverend Samuel Reynolds and 
 Theophila Potter, his wife, was the tenth of eleven children, 
 five of whom died in infancy. He was born at Plympton, 
 in Devonshire, on Thursday, 16th July 1723, three months 
 before the death of Sir Godfrey Kneller, "thus per- 
 petuating," 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 dis- 
 tinguished himself. The admirers and disciples of Sir 
 Joshua imagined that the mantle of art remained suspended 
 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 imperial robe 
 of Michael Angelo, would have scorned the meaner mantle 
 of Godfrey Kneller. 
 
 Few men of genius are allowed to be born or baptised in 
 an ordinary way ; some commotion in nature must mark 
 the hour of their birth, some strange interposition must 
 determine their name the like happened to young Rey- 
 nolds. 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 
 Northcote, had more of the shrewdness of calculation in
 
 REYNOLDS. 167 
 
 them. An uncle, from whom something might be expected, 
 lived in the neighbourhood, and he was a Joshua. Owing to 
 the haste or carelessness of the clergyman, the church may 
 claim some share in the marvels which accompanied his 
 birth ; he was baptised 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 Reverend 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. 
 It is true that the boy, inspired (as Johnson intimates in 
 his life of Cowley) with Richardson's " Treatise on Paint- 
 ing," appeared, like Hogarth before him, to be more 
 inclined 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 Reynolds, 
 reluctantly admits his master's deficiency in classical attain- 
 ments. But his incessant study of nature, and practice in 
 art, his intercourse with the world at large, and familiarity 
 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 distinguished," 
 says Northcote, " was the result of much studious applica- 
 tion in his riper years." " I know no man," observed 
 Johnson to Boswell, " who has passed through life with 
 more observation than Sir Joshua Reynolds." 
 
 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
 
 1 68 ORE A T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 inspiration 
 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 : partic- 
 ularly those which were given in the translation of 
 4 Plutarch's Lives,' published by Dryden. But his 
 principal fund of imitation was Jacob Catt's ' Book of 
 Emblems,' which his great grandmother by the father's 
 side, a Dutchwoman, had brought with her from Holland." 
 The prints in " Plutarch " are rude and uncouth ; those in 
 the " Book of Emblems " are more to the purpose, and 
 probably impressed upon him, by the comparison, that ad- 
 miration 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 ' Perspec- 
 tive ' asserts in his preface, that by observing the rules 
 laid down in this book, a man may do wonders for this is 
 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 like-
 
 REYNOLDS. 169 
 
 nesses of his sisters and of various friends of the family ; 
 his proficiency increased with practice ; and his ardour kept 
 pace with his growing skill. Richardson's treatise on 
 Painting was now put into his hands, " the perusal of 
 which," says Malone, " so delighted and inflamed his mind, 
 that Raphael appeared to him superior to the most illus 
 trious 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 collect, 
 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 ; 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, advised that Joshua should be sent to 
 study and improve himself in London. To London he was 
 accordingly sent, on the 14th of October 1741, and on the 
 eighteenth 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 bio- 
 graphers 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 Provi- 
 dence and commenced his studies in London on the 
 day of Saint Luke. Fortune having done her best, 
 young Reynolds had nothing more to do but stand in
 
 1 70 GREA T ENGLISH PAIN TERS. 
 
 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 employment 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 
 incessantly 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 numbered among those happy 
 persons patronised 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 admiration of a 
 certain class of works admit few into the ranks of 
 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
 
 REYNOLDS. 171 
 
 great masters. The painters of those days were worshippers 
 of the " grand style " a term which would seem to mean 
 something 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. 
 
 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-
 
 i?2 GREA T ENGLISH PAIN TERS. 
 
 woman of Hudson's, in which, says Northcote, he dis- 
 covered 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 accidently 
 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 
 Reynolds returned into Devonshire. 
 
 Had his talents been known, and had his works at that 
 period been publicly exhibited, Reynolds would have 
 remained in London ; for patronage is ever ready to 
 encourage 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, 
 however, 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 
 tameness 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 com- 
 petent judge ; yet weight must be allowed to the opinion of 
 Northcote, who says, that during this period he produced 
 many portraits, particularly one of a Loy 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, he lamented that in so great a length of time 
 he had made so little progress in his art. 
 
 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 paint- 
 ings 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
 
 REYNOLDS. 173 
 
 purposes 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 fanqy 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. 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 : 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 
 expression which have made his name famous. His old 
 master, Hudson, 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 
 qud non is to keep his features stiff and composed. One 
 gentlemen 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 discovered 
 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 permitted 
 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,
 
 174 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 represents 
 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. 
 
 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 Reynolds 
 less than another sitter, whom he obtained at the same 
 time, for he could not forsee 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 
 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 forget- 
 fulness it is said that, in performing a journey on horseback, 
 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
 
 REYNOLDS. 175 
 
 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 unpre- 
 suming 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 Mediter- 
 ranean 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 profession, and, 
 touching at Lisbon, went ashore and witnessed several 
 religious processions. He next visited Gibraltar ; and on 
 the 20th of July landed at Algiers, where he was intro- 
 duced to the Dey, who behaved with civility, and dismissed 
 Keppel and his companion with assurances of amity and 
 good-will, which he afterwards seemed disinclined 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 fortune 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;
 
 176 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 
 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, 
 appeared 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 
 Raphael, 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 painting 
 which I had brought with me from England, where the
 
 REYNOLDS. 177 
 
 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 
 expressed on a very solemn occasion, that I should become 
 as a little child. Notwithstanding my disappointment, I 
 proceeded 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 con- 
 tained 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 differently 
 from Raphael. He had been accustomed to admire stiff 
 or extravagant attitudes, and to put faith in works 
 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 
 conclusion which Reynolds draws viz., that none but an 
 imbecile 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 
 revolved 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 
 cultivation 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 
 
 164
 
 178 GREAT ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 from the divine spark of Raphael's genius. I natter myself 
 that now it would be so, and that I have a just and lively 
 perception of his great powers ; but let it always be 
 remembered, that the excellence 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, without 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 brilliancy 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 crea- 
 tures, 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 
 enable men to comprehend and relish the nobler pro- 
 ductions 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 Reynolds 
 much time and study to understand and admire them is 
 nothing : he had to banish preconceived false notions, to 
 dismiss idolised and merely conventional beauties, and strip 
 himself of laboured absurdities, with which he had been 
 bedecking 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
 
 REYNOLDS. 179 
 
 of time with some, but they are as certainly a kind of 
 inspiration 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 
 spending all his hours, as many artists do while they are 
 at Rome, 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 
 appearance of doing something ; he falls into the dangerous 
 habit of imitating without selecting, and of labouring with- 
 out 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 
 testimony of a friend, who often conversed with him upon 
 the glories of Rome : " When arrived in that garden of the 
 world," says Northcote, " 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 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 contemplated the best works of the best masters, 
 that grace of thinking, to which he was principally 
 indebted for his subsequent reputation as a portrait- 
 painter." 
 
 Much, however, as Reynolds in his lectures inculcates
 
 iSo GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 
 Archangel Slaying the Dragon,' after Guido, and 'The 
 School of Athens,' from Raphael both masterly per- 
 formances." Rome at that period swarmed with those 
 English connoisseurs and travellers of taste whom Hogarth 
 
 O O 
 
 so sharply satirised 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 multi- 
 plying pictures, 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." 
 
 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 language 
 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 
 proceeded to examine into the mechanical sorcery of their 
 execution, 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 mortuum. 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 harmonise, and are lost in the ground. 
 
 " ' 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
 
 REYNOLDS. 181 
 
 under, and the colour scumbled over them. I copied the 
 Titian with white, umber, minio, cinnabar, black ; the 
 shadows thin of colour. 
 
 "Poussin's landscapes in the Yerospi 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 
 believe 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." 
 
 Through all his letters 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 
 stratagems of position and light and shade, he could 
 dispense with the practice of making sketches of portraits, 
 and depend 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 
 mezzotinto, 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 reflecting deeply on what they have seen, or making 
 observations 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
 
 182 GREAT ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 to do them benefit through digestion. A painter should 
 form his rules from pictures rather than from books or 
 precepts. Rules 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 
 studying vertu, is that, instead of examining the beauties of 
 these works of fame, and why they are esteemed, they only 
 inquire 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 dis- 
 cover in the remaining statues, how far the paintings of 
 ancient Greece resembled those of modern Rome. His 
 conclusions can only be considered as expressions of belief, 
 on a subject with regard to which we have not the materials 
 of certain knowledge. He stayed in Rome till his judg- 
 ment ripened, and gazed on the productions 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 paint- 
 ings of antiquity must have been in character the same in 
 short, that the "grand style" had descended direct from
 
 REYNOLDS. 183 
 
 Apelles to Raphael. From an anecdote in Pliny, of the 
 painter and the partridge, he conceived 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, how- 
 ever, 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 and godlike as a sub- 
 ject 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 com- 
 positions to the incessant cry of all academies about the 
 study of the "grand style." Hear how Reynolds commends 
 the absence of nature 
 
 " 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 Innocents ' 
 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 1 " 
 
 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 char- 
 acter of the figure will dictate the drapery, and when these 
 are strong, and true, and natural, they will always pre- 
 dominate over the accessories. Had he advised to clothe 
 a figure gaily or gravely, according to the style of the
 
 184 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 countenance and gesture, Reynolds would have spoken 
 more in keeping with his own practice. 
 
 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 
 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," 
 remarks 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
 
 REYNOLDS. 185 
 
 nearly destitute ; yet he had a proud heart, and strove to 
 conceal his embarrassments. One summer day, when the 
 day was hot, and he, Reynolds, and a few others, were 
 indulging 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 dis- 
 played 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 resolved 
 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 proceeded to 
 Parma, and this is his memorandum respecting the painting 
 in the cupola of the cathedral : 
 
 " Relieve 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 different tints ; 
 at least it should be so when the background is dark in the 
 picture." 
 
 From Parma Reynolds 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
 
 1 86 GREAT ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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. It has been 
 observed that Reynolds admired one style and painted 
 another ; that with Raphael and Michael Angelo, and " the 
 great masters " and " 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 fortune 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 
 revisiting 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. Happen- 
 ing 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 endear- 
 ing circumstances, it immediately brought tears into 
 Reynolds's eyes, as well as into those of his countrymen 
 who were present." "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 afterwards aided him in founding the Royal
 
 REYNOLDS. 187 
 
 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 expectations. 
 
 He arrived in England in October 1752, and after 
 visiting Devonshire for a few weeks, obeyed the solicitations 
 of Lord Edgcumbe and his own wishes, and established 
 himself as a professional man in Saint Martin's Lane, 
 London. 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 Rome, 
 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 ! Reynolds, 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 
 contend in the commencement of his career. " They have 
 got a set of postures, which they apply to all persons 
 indiscriminately ; the consequence of which is, that all their 
 pictures 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 commonplace-book, containing
 
 188 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 reproach 
 of dealing in long-established attitudes, Eeynolds 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 a short 
 continuance. The works which had gained him celebrity 
 were not the fortunate offspring of some happy moment, 
 but of one 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 pro- 
 duced a work of such truth and nobleness that it fixed 
 universal attention. 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 performance, yet the likeness was reckoned 
 perfect. 
 
 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 patronised 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.
 
 REYNOLDS. 189 
 
 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 portraits of his rival were 
 facsimiles of life they had no vigour, no elegance, no intel- 
 lect they were minute without grace, and laboured with- 
 out 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, 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 St. 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 felicity 
 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 eminent and 
 distinguished men of learning then living." It is not a 
 little amusing to read Reynolds's lofty commendations of 
 Raphael and Angelo to observe how warmly he poured 
 out his admiration over the severe dignity of their pro- 
 ductions, and how enthusiastically he laboured to establish 
 the serene majesty of the " grand style " in opposition to 
 all other works ; and then to look at him in his own person
 
 igo GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 commencing the regular manufacture of faces as soon as ho 
 has leisure to establish himself. I sincerely believe, how- 
 ever, 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 defi- 
 ciency 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 ; 
 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 acquaint- 
 ance, 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
 
 REYNOLDS. 191 
 
 accident or design he met him at the Miss Cotterals in 
 Newport Street. It was Reynolds'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, accompanied Reynolds 
 home. Thus commenced a friendship which was continued 
 to old age without much interruption. 
 
 The rough and saturnine Johnson was very unlike the 
 soft, the graceful, and flexible Reynolds. The former, the 
 most distinguished man of his time for wit, wisdom, various 
 knowledge, and original vigour of genius, had lived 
 neglected nay, spurned by the opulent and the titled 
 till 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. Hi3 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 
 injured his practice in portraiture ; the lesson had been 
 recently read, and the prudent and sagacious Reynolds 
 resolved 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
 
 192 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 must also by conversation move him into a suitable mood 
 of mind, and that natural and unembarrassed ease of 
 expression 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 difficulties 
 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. Disappointment and unmerited 
 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 discourtesy 
 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 1 " 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 wisdom 
 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 
 'Discourses' if I could say it with truth, that he contributed 
 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 communica- 
 tive. His great pleasure was to talk to those who looked up 
 to him. It was here he exhibited his wonderful powers.
 
 REYNOLDS. 193 
 
 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 imme- 
 diately 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 admission. 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 of Raphael and 
 Angelo, " those idle people do not consider 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. 
 
 165
 
 194 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 His acquaintance with Johnson induced him, about this 
 time, to write for the " Idler " some papers on exact 
 imitations of nature and the true conception of beauty. 
 These essays are not remarkable either for vigour or for 
 elegance ; 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. Concerning our conceptions of the beautiful, he 
 says that the productions of nature are all of themselves 
 beautiful ; and that custom, rather than the surpassing 
 loveliness of particular 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 contemplating 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 
 iu 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 he 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 
 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 Rosa saw
 
 REYNOLDS. 195 
 
 and supplied this deficiency. He struck into a new and 
 savage sort of composition, which was very striking. 
 Sannazarius, 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 conception 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 painters 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 picture, which strikes every one with 
 awe and reverence." No artist ever had a finer sense of 
 excellence could distinguish 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 without thinking of Michael 
 Angelo, Raphael, or Oorreggio ; he certainly never wrote a 
 professional memorandum without introducing their works 
 or their names : a circumstance which blunts the sting of 
 those lines in Retaliation 
 
 ' ' When they talk'd of their Raphaels, Correggios, and stuff, 
 He shifted his trumpet, and only took snuff." 
 
 The influence of an artist of commanding skill now began 
 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 
 his hand. Commissions continued to pour in the artist
 
 196 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 
 memorandums ; 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. Con'cerning 
 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 
 retaining 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 timr ^nich never can return."
 
 REYNOLDS. 197 
 
 One of the biographers of Reynolds imputes the reflec- 
 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 
 fortunate 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 produc- 
 tions with which the walls of the exhibition room were 
 covered. Artists are very willing to claim for their pro- 
 fession 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 John- 
 son'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 Virgil, a Milton, or a Shakespeare 
 immeasurably above all the artists that ever painted or 
 carved. Johnson, in a conversation 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 to 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 is 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
 
 198 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 names and their works only that they may furnish an 
 opportunity 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 flattered with preference, nor the obscure insulted with 
 contempt ; whoever hopes to deserve public favour, is here 
 invited 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 con- 
 tributing 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 Reynolds'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 some- 
 times 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
 
 REYNOLDS. 199 
 
 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. 
 
 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 occasionally 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 Garrick 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. Reynolds 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 knowledge to impart. They 
 have rewarded him with their approbation ; 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. The author of 
 "Tristram Shandy," speaking of his hero's father, says, 
 " Then his whole attitude had been easy, natural, unforced, 
 Reynolds himself, great and graceful as he paints, might
 
 2oo GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 
 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* 
 
 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 
 his 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 
 unnatural ; 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. 
 
 * 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, and was recognised on the dissecting-table by one who had 
 caroused with him, and enjoyed his witty and licentious conversation.
 
 REYNOLDS. 201 
 
 Garrick, however, 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 
 by altering the expression of his face. Every time the 
 artist turned his back the actor put on a change of 
 countenance, 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 Reynolds for different portraits : and on one of these 
 occasions complained 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 1762 the health of Reynolds having been 
 impaired by constant labour, he went into Devonshire, 
 accompanied by Johnson. He was welcomed with some- 
 thing 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 philo- 
 sophic calmness 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. Reynolds was pointed out to me 
 (says Northcote) at a public meeting, where a great crowd 
 was assembled. I got as near him as I could, from the
 
 202 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 prudent 
 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 
 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 num- 
 bered 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 
 been less eminent in his art, the sense, information, and 
 manners of Reynolds 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
 
 REYNOLDS. 203 
 
 " 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 consideration 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. 
 If the amusement of my company can exhilarate the 
 languor 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 Reynolds'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
 
 204 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 of. But the ascendancy of Reynolds 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 
 excellence 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 
 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 Ramsay, 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."
 
 REYNOLDS. 205 
 
 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 assisting. 
 A list of thirty members was made out ; and West, a 
 prudent and amiable man, called on Reynolds, and, in a 
 conference of two hours' continuance, succeeded in persuad- 
 ing 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 compli- 
 ment, but declined the honour until he had talked with 
 Johnson and Burke ; he went, consulted his friends, 
 and having considered 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 not patronise nor even acknowledge them, as his 
 majesty was well-known to be the friend of another body 
 the Incorporated Society of Artists. 
 
 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 
 purpose 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 
 encouragement of rising genius ; and at a future period to 
 bestow annuities on the most promising students, to defray
 
 2o6 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 their expenses during their limited residence at Rome. 
 Johnson was made professor of ancient literature, a station 
 merely honorary ; and Goldsmith professor of ancient 
 history, another office without labour and without emolu- 
 ment 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 institu- 
 tion 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 
 knighthood on the president ; and seldom has any such 
 distinction been bestowed amidst more universal approba- 
 tion. 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 
 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 canno 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. 
 
 He voluntarily imposed on himself the task of composing
 
 REYNOLDS. 207 
 
 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. 
 
 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 sen- 
 sitive spinster, unfit for the gross wear and tear of the stage 
 who fainted in the representation of Juliet, and died 
 soon after. Of Lady Blake's title to represent Juno, I 
 have nothing to say a modern lord would make an indiff- 
 erent 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 painting, 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
 
 208 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 open to instruction. This general attention, with other 
 studies, connected 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 Rome, 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 considering 
 by what principles that stupendous greatness of style is 
 produced ; and endeavouring to produce something of your 
 own on those principles, will be a more advantageous 
 method of study than copying the St. Cecilia in the 
 Borghese, 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 Rome 
 can give above all other cities in the world. 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, received 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,"
 
 REYNOLDS. 209 
 
 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 a 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 conversation. 
 
 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 
 of Cephalus and Procris, with the motto " Auri 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 Retaliation," in which he exhibits the characters of 
 
 166
 
 210 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 his companions with great liveliness and talent. The 
 character of Sir Joshua Reynolds is drawn with discrim- 
 ination 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 
 affection 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 
 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 Reynolds 
 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 establishment, 
 and the extent of his fame that almost all the men in the 
 three kingdoms, who were distinguished in literature, in 
 art, at the bar, in the senate, or in the field, might 
 occasionally be found feasting at his social and well- 
 furnished 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
 
 REYNOLDS. 21 1 
 
 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 
 supplied before the first course was over. He was once 
 prevailed 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 
 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 company out of humour by this invidious 
 distinction." 
 
 Of the rough abundance which covered his table Cour- 
 teney 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
 
 212 GREA T ENGLISH PAIN TERS. 
 
 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 canvas. Reynolds urged the difficulty of 
 finding a plate of copper large enough for historical 
 subjects ; he was interrupted by Johnson. " What 
 foppish obstacles are these? here 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 mood, and of 
 Reynolds with civility and affection. " Genius," he says, 
 " is chiefly exerted in historical pictures, and the art of the 
 painter of portraits is often lost in the obscurity of the 
 subject. But it is in painting as in life ; what is greatest 
 is not always best. / should grieve to see Reynolds transfer 
 to heroes and goddesses, to empty splendour and to airy 
 fiction, that art which is now employed in diffusing friend- 
 ship^ 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 desire 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 reason- 
 able consequence of affection : and though, like all other 
 human actions, it is often complicated with pride, yet even 
 such pride is more laudable than that by which palaces are
 
 REYNOLDS. 213 
 
 covered with pictures, that, however 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 
 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." 
 
 The "TJgolino" was painted in 1773. The subject is 
 contained in the " Commedia " of Dante, and is said by 
 Cumberland 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 regardless 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
 
 214 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 lips and necks of ladies, and the well-dressed gentlemen of 
 England. It is said to have affected Captain Oooke'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 
 presented 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. 
 
 In the month of July he visited Oxford, where he was 
 received with some distinction, and admitted to the 
 honorary degree of Doctor of Civil Law. At that period 
 he was a member of the Royal, the Antiquarian, and 
 Dilettanti 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 press- 
 ing 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 
 picture 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 prostrate 
 figures has a lean and profligate look, and resembles
 
 REYNOLDS. 215 
 
 Voltaire ; in another, which is plump and full-bodied, some 
 one recognised 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 
 estimate which Reynolds had formed of the genius of 
 Beattie. The royal favour and the applause of the church 
 are excellent 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. 
 
 About the close of summer of 1773 he visited his native 
 place, and was elected Mayor of Plympton a distinction 
 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 pleasure 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
 
 ai6 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 
 request of Thrale, is the only reason that has ever been 
 assigned 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 
 insensible that the President had amassed a fortune, and 
 obtained 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 
 with bread. He followed his own ideas in the course he 
 pursued, but probably he reflected that he was also obeying 
 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 abund- 
 ance 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 some- 
 thing like a combination was formed to thwart and depress 
 him. Nor is the mild and prudent Reynolds himself
 
 REYNOLDS. 217 
 
 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 Poets' Corner 
 of Westminster Abbey. Nollekens cut the marble : Johnson 
 composed the epitaph. 
 
 To the society called the Dilettanti Club some ascribe 
 the origin of all those associations whose object is the 
 encouragement of art. To this club, as has been duly 
 mentioned, 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 con- 
 tained 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 ponder- 
 ing 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 
 acquaintances. A gentleman, who returned rich from the 
 East, sat for his portrait, but was called into the country 
 before it was quite finished. He apologised 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 
 appearance."
 
 2i8 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 
 collection. 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 lifetime ; 
 and when he painted the " Strawberry Girl," 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 preference ; but genius 
 sometimes forms curious estimates of its own productions : 
 some lucky triumph over an obstinate difficulty some work 
 produced with great ease in an hour of enjoyment or one, 
 the offspring of much consideration, 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 mod- 
 erate 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 an historic 
 picture, and applied to a portrait in a different dress, this 
 is not plagiarism, but quotation ; and a quotation from a
 
 REYNOLDS. 219 
 
 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 
 constructed 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. 
 
 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. 
 
 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 zealously 
 defended the propriety of his experiments with his pen 
 as well as in conversation. In one of his memorandums 
 he says, with much complacency : " I was always willing 
 to believe that my uncertainty of proceeding in my works
 
 220 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 ini- 
 tiated 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 unsteadi- 
 ness 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 all know how often those masters who sought 
 after colouring 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 
 influenced 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." 
 
 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 exceed- 
 ingly 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 use it if you will." 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
 
 REYNOLDS. 221 
 
 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 without 
 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 enthusiast 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 discoveries 
 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 com- 
 pensation 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 questionable. " I 
 considered myself," said he, in a private memorandum 
 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, etc., 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 
 Oorreggio, I should never, perhaps, have remarked in 
 nature the expression which I find in one of his pieces : or,
 
 222 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 if I had remarked it, I might have thought it too difficult, 
 or perhaps impossible, to be executed." 
 
 la 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 oppor- 
 tunity 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 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 
 sagacity, which opened the door of every mystery in art or 
 literature ; his praise is always warm, but well placed : ho 
 feels wisely and thinks in the true spirit. His debt of
 
 REYNOLDS, 223 
 
 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 
 expression 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 distortion 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 mechanical parts of painting, 
 should not be as good as any whatever ; for instance, as to 
 whether such or such a part be natural or not. If one of 
 these persons should ask why 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 conclude 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 resembled 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
 
 224 GREA T ENGLISH PAI-NTERS. 
 
 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 offspring 
 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 congenially 
 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 
 preserve the accuracy of history truth, sir, is of the 
 greatest value in these things." To give the exact form 
 and presence 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 bestow proper expression, just character, and un- 
 studied 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 Yelasquez is another 
 thing. He did at once, and with ease, what we cannot 
 accomplish with time and 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
 
 REYNOLDS. 225 
 
 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 
 unadorned 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. This seems to have been 
 accomplished without any of those bickerings which dis- 
 tinguished the former sittings. Reynolds observed once to 
 an acquaintance, that knowledge was not the only 
 advantage to be obtained in the company of such a man 
 that the importance of truth and the baseness of falsehood 
 were inculcated more by example than by precept, and that 
 all who were of the Johnsonian school were remarkable for 
 a love of truth and accuracy. One day Boswell was speak- 
 ing in high commendation of the Doctor's skill and felicity 
 in drawing characters : Sir Joshua said " He is un- 
 doubtedly 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 more neatly and simply the 
 character of our artist's style of portraiture. He bestowed 
 
 167
 
 226 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 
 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 inveutioii
 
 REYNOLDS. 227 
 
 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 Spenser's " Una." 
 and the heads of Gibbon the historian and Lady Beaumont. 
 He also painted for the Royal Academy the portrait of Sir 
 William Chambers, and that likeness of himself which 
 contains 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 1 ?" 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 1 ?" Reynolds: "Yes, and finer." 
 Reynolds 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 
 seven personifications in all Faith, Hope, Charity, Tem- 
 perance, Fortitude, Justice, and Prudence. That Reynolds 
 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
 
 228 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 progeny, and are regarded only as embellishments. Without 
 nature there can be no sentiment without 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 passage 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 1 
 
 The " Nativity," a composition of thirteen figures, and 
 in dimensions twelve feet by eighteen, was designed to 
 surmount the seven "Allegories." This was sold to the 
 Duke of Rutland for 1200 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 Raphael ; 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 Reynolds ? 
 
 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. Mean- 
 while he pursued his journey. He stopped at Mechlin, to 
 see the celebrated altar-piece by Rubens, of which he was 
 told the following story : A citizen commissioned the 
 picture, and Rubens having made his sketch, employed Van 
 Egmont, one of his scholars, to dead-colour the canvas, for 
 the full-sLsed painting. On this the citizen said to
 
 REYNOLDS. 229 
 
 Rubens, " Sir, I bespoke 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 Rubens proceeded 
 with the picture, which appears to me to have no indica- 
 tions 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 circumstance pretend to 
 see Van Egmont's inferior genius through the touches of 
 Rubens." 
 
 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 
 reputation 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 therefore 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
 
 230 GREA T ENGLISH 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 
 enjoyment of your elegance, your intelligence, and your 
 benevolence 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 Reynolds, 
 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 elevation 
 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,
 
 RE YNOLDS. 231 
 
 " with Sir Joshua, at his house in Leicester Fields. After 
 some desultory remarks on the old masters, but not one 
 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 
 members 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 children 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 experience 
 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 Angelo, 
 differed with him in everything else. Becoming Professor 
 of Painting on the resignation of Mr. Penny, he had it in. 
 his power to annoy the Chair, and was not slow in perceiv- 
 ing his advantage. Reynolds, in the performance of his 
 duty as President, could not fail to remark how very back- 
 ward 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 tip-toe 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
 
 232 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 
 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 observed to 
 me" (said Sir George Beaumont) "that the pictures 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 recollected 
 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 
 passing 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 
 literary distinction for himself; or at least of obtaining 
 the regard of literary men. It is true that some of his 
 admirers claim the highest honours of literature for his 
 " Discourses," which Malone, inspired by his friendship 
 and his legacy, calls " The Golden 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 
 Reynolds 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 admonition
 
 REYNOLDS. 233 
 
 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 
 acquaintance 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 composed. 
 
 The notes which Reynolds 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 repecting 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 represent 
 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 I 
 found the paper blotted nearly alike : their general practice 
 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 mezzotint 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
 
 234 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 
 a hundred ; and when another English artist of celebrity, 
 on his arrival from Rome, 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 became 
 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 1 A portrait ! you should not 
 show such things : what's that upon her head a dish-clout 1 " 
 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 Eurke, in reforming 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 have had 
 no inducement to take it, save the desire of complying 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
 
 REYNOLDS. 235 
 
 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." 
 
 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 John- 
 son, and the word and the pen of Johnson were equally 
 ready for Reynolds. It was pleasing to contemplate this 
 affectionate brotherhood, and it was sorrowful to see it 
 dissevered. " 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 
 acquainted 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 defended 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
 
 236 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 and subtle and coming in a graver shape a biographer. 
 With so little skill, however, did this literary undertaker 
 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 Maloue, 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 
 neglected 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, 
 and the other was the portrait of the Duke of Orleans 
 infamous under the name of Egalite of whom I cannot 
 write with temperance. 
 
 During the following year he gave up his thoughts and 
 time to a picture commissioned by Catharine of Russia, 
 and after long choosing, selected a subject at once common- 
 place and obscure " The Infant Hercules strangling the 
 Serpents." He had imagined another and nobler composi- 
 tion Elizabeth visiting the English Camp at Tilbury, 
 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
 
 REYNOLDS. 237 
 
 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 mischief, 
 and an eye shining with uncommitted roguery. This 
 poetic picture is in a poet's keeping that of Mr. Rogers.* 
 The second was " Macbeth," with the witches and the 
 caldron. The figure of the usurper is deficient in heroic 
 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 
 
 * Now in the possession of Earl Fitzwilliam, whe purchased it at 
 Rogers's sale for 980 guineas.
 
 238 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 censure. 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 I 
 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 
 " Macbeth," 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 corres- 
 ponds with the rough aspect. He grasps the key of 
 Gibraltar 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." 
 
 Reynolds once 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,
 
 REYNOLDS. 239 
 
 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 Royal 
 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. Gains- 
 borough disliked Reynolds Reynolds had no good-will to 
 Gainsborough Wilson also shared in this unamiable 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 warrings 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 
 unnatural 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 
 unfortunate sufferer had been a servant in the family of 
 Thrale, had often stood behind Sir Joshua's back ; and, on 
 seeing 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 Reynolds 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.
 
 240 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 Sir Joshua had now reached his sixty-sixth year ; the 
 boldness and happy freedom of his productions were un- 
 dirainished ; and the celerity of his execution, and the 
 glowing 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 himself 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, 
 unencumbered 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 conversed with him 
 and the social circle, among whom he had so long pre- 
 sided, 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
 
 REYNOLDS. 241 
 
 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 informa- 
 tion. 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 
 resided 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 persuasion 
 of the Earl of Aylesford, to obtain the chair of perspective 
 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 
 producing some drawings made by the Italian. Fuseli 
 was elected by a majority of two to one, and Sir Joshua 
 quitted the chair deeply offended. Nor was this all ; he 
 
 168
 
 242 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 
 prevented 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 
 regarded him with a degree of submission amounting to 
 eervile 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 intended 
 to excite. I reflect, not without vanity, that these dis- 
 courses 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." 
 
 His last visit to the Academy seemed once on the point
 
 REYNOLDS. 243 
 
 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 
 remarked, 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 wanting, 
 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 circumstances 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 satis- 
 factory per-centage. Disappointed in this, Sir Joshua
 
 244 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 made an exhibition of them in the Hay market, for the 
 advantage of his faithful servant, Ralph Kirkley ; but our 
 painter's well-known love of gain excited public suspicion ; 
 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 Royal Academy. 
 
 A concealed and fatal malady was invading the functions 
 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 
 symptoms of pain, on the 23rd of February 1792, in the 
 sixty-ninth year of his age.
 
 REYNOLDS. *45 
 
 " His illness (says Burke) was long, but borne with a 
 mild and cheerful fortitude, without the least mixture of 
 anything irritable or querulous : agreeably to the placid 
 and even tenour of his whole life. He had, from the 
 beginning 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 Providence, 
 could bestow." 
 
 He was interred in one of the crypts of St. Paul's 
 Cathedral, and accompanied to the grave by many of the 
 most illustrious men of the land forty-two coaches con- 
 veyed the mourners, and forty-nine empty carriages of the 
 nobility and gentry added their encumbrance to the pro- 
 cession. 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 Reynolds 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 dependants, 
 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 Johnson, 
 who all represent him as generous, open-hearted, and hu- 
 mane. The servants and the friends both spoke, I doubt not, 
 according to their own experience of the man. Privations
 
 246 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 
 pounds as when he owned but sixpence. He loved reputa- 
 tion 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. 
 A little would have gone a long way a kindly word and a 
 guinea prudently given ! 
 
 Sir Joshua has a threefold claim upon posterity for 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 promising 
 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 com- 
 position, 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 enchantment, 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
 
 REYNOLDS. 24? 
 
 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 
 character 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 attentively, but always with those masters in your 
 company : consider them as models which you are to 
 imitate, and at 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 
 unequalled. 
 
 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 
 Caliban, 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 
 admonished, 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
 
 248 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 
 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 
 successful ae'rial creations. The " Shepherd Boy " is one of 
 his happiest. Of children he seems to have been remark- 
 ably 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
 
 REYNOLDS. 249 
 
 involuntary homage to the genius of the painter who has 
 gladdened 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 
 professional 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 commonplace 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. 
 
 The portraits of Reynolds are equally numerous and 
 excellent, and all who have written of their merits have 
 swelled their eulogiums by comparing them with the 
 simplicity of Titian, the vigour of Rembrandt, and the 
 elegance and delicacy of Vandyke. Certainly, in character 
 and expression, 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 colouring 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 happiness next to magical. It is not to be denied
 
 250 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 
 innumerable 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 
 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 
 original 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 honourable pride 
 of art, gave dignity to his profession: the rich and the
 
 REYNOLDS. 251 
 
 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 ; " " Cardinal 
 Beaufort ; " " Holy Family ; " " Hercules strangling the 
 Serpents ; " " The Nativity ; " " Count Ugolino ; " " Cymon 
 and Iphigenia;" "The Fortune-Teller ;" " Garrick 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 accounts." 
 
 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 accomplish- 
 ments, mental and personal. Among the former are Percy, 
 Bishop of Dromore ; Edmund Burke ; Colonel Tarleton ; 
 Dr. Charles Burney ; Dr. Hawkesworth ; Dr. Robertson ; 
 Joseph Warton ; the Earl of Mansfield ; Edward 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
 
 252 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 harmony of colouring, he was equal to the greatest masters 
 of the renowned agea 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 
 appeared 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 scrutinising 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 agreeable 
 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 unmixed 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 history 
 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. 
 
 Thomas Gainsborough, the fourth eminent name in 
 British art, was born in the year 1727, at Sudbury, in 
 Suffolk 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 attainments. 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 
 miles' extent is shown, whose ancient trees, winding glades, 
 and sunny nooks inspired him, while he was but a school- 
 boy, with the love of art. Scenes are pointed out where he
 
 254 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 used to sit and fill his copy-books with pencillings of flowers, 
 aud 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 
 informed 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 likeness, 
 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 afterwards made a 
 finished painting of this Sudbury rustic a work much 
 admired amongst artists under the name of Tom Peartree's 
 portrait. He loved to show his powers in such hasty
 
 GAINSBOROUGH. 255 
 
 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 
 numerous. 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 apartment, 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 biographers says it was 
 a " wonderful thing." 
 
 Talents so vigorous were acknowledged even in the 
 seclusion of a country-place; and his father was very 
 willingly 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, and all agree that he 
 studied under Hayman, one of the companions of Hogarth. 
 Grignon, the engraver, who knew him well, informed 
 Edwards, author of the " Anecdotes of Painters," that 
 Gainsborough received the first rudiments of his art from 
 Gravelot. His genius, his history, his modest deportment, 
 and 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
 
 256 GREAT ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 composition, 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 
 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 vindi- 
 cated 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." Prince's daughter or not, 
 she was wooed and won by Gainsborough, and made him a
 
 GAINSBOROUGH. 257 
 
 kind, a prudent, and a submissive 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 imagining all the while 
 that from his notice the other's reputation arises. Gains- 
 borough 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 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 unworthy pamphlet, which misrep- 
 resented him as a man while it praised him as a painter. 
 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 malignant narrative. I shall only adopt such 
 anecdotes as are corroborated by internal evidence, and have 
 been confirmed 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 
 advanced 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 
 
 169
 
 258 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 
 perceived, through clouds of bad colouring, what an accurate 
 eye he possessed, and the truth of his drawings, and who 
 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 appreciated 
 his genius, since they had counselled his removal to the 
 academies of London. 
 
 The governor gave him a commission to paint Landguard 
 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 proficiency, 
 that the governor, though a skilful musician himself, 
 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 painting 
 of the Fort nothing now remains ; it was hung on a wall 
 built with mortar mixed with sea-water, and so perished.
 
 GAINSBOROUGH, 259 
 
 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 conceived 
 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 
 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 
 remarkably mild and sweet-tempered woman I repeat the 
 words of Mrs. Eane 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.
 
 260 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 patronising 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, 
 and a hundred for a whole length. "Riches 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 Reynolds 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
 
 GAINSBOROUGH. 261 
 
 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 German 
 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 1 ' ' 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 
 clown a few steps, and returned again. ' What use is your 
 book to me if I don't understand it 1 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, tha 
 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
 
 263 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 bagpipers. He loved Giardini and his violin he admired 
 Abel and his viol-di-gamba he patronised 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 Gainsborough, 
 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 Gainsborough began to exhibit his paint- 
 ings at the Academy, till his removal from Bath in 1774, 
 Wiltshere was annually employed to carry his pictures to 
 and from London ; he took great care of them, and con- 
 stantly 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 
 appreciates 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
 
 GAINSBOROUGH. 263 
 
 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 governor 
 of Landguard Fort himself without a small share in these 
 showers of good fortune. The artist appears to have dis- 
 covered 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, however, 
 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 
 exceedingly 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 acceptance of it, on the condition that you will 
 give me my husband's picture to hang beside the one which 
 you painted 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. 
 Gainsborough herself, is somewhat different. The painter 
 (according to this account) put a hundred guineas privately 
 into the hands of Mrs. Thicknesse for the viol-di-garnba ; 
 her husband, who might not be aware of what passed, 
 renewed his wish for his portrait ; and obtained what he
 
 264 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 conceived to be a promise that it should be painted. This 
 double benefaction was,- however, more than Gainsborough 
 had contemplated : he commenced the portrait, but there it 
 stopped; and after a time, resenting some injurious expres- 
 sions 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 Gainsborough ; 
 and though Thicknesse denied them as well he might, 
 for they were untrue they aided him in the resolution 
 which he probably had long formed of making his escape 
 from such crushing patronage and ungentle company. 
 Even this necessary step was precipitated by Thicknesse 
 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 warmest 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 
 Pall-Mali, which was built by Duke Schomberg, and remov- 
 ing all his paintings and drawings, and flutes and fiddles, 
 bade farewell to Bath for ever. 
 
 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 of the great world. I therefore 
 wrote to Lord Bateman, who knew him, and who admired
 
 GAINSBOROUGH. 265 
 
 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 
 Bateman sprung all the subsequent good fortune in London 
 of the man who had already painted many noble produc- 
 tions, and who had exhibited them for thirteen years in 
 succession 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. 
 Medlicote, Mr. Mosey, Dr. Charlton, Mr. Fischer, and Mrs. 
 Thicknesse had gone before him, he soon found good 
 employment. Sir Joshua Reynolds was then in high 
 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 Yandyke. A conversation or family piece of the 
 king, the queen, and the three royal sisters, was much 
 admired ; 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 Duchess 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
 
 266 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 was so little to his satisfaction, that he refused to send it 
 to Ohatsworth. 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 
 believe, destroyed. Amongst his papers were found two 
 sketches of the duchess both exquisitely graceful. 
 
 He had customers who annoyed him with other difficulties 
 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 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 himself in 
 conformity with his station, said, " Now, sir, I beg you will 
 not overlook the dimple on my chin ! " " Confound 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 ! " 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,
 
 GAINSBOROUGH. 267 
 
 the whistling ploughboy, or the shepherd under the haw- 
 thorn 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 
 Johnson and with Burke ; and he lived on terms of great 
 affection 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 
 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 together, 
 and the latter was more than usually pleasant and witty. 
 The meeting was so much to their mutual satisfaction, that 
 they agreed to have another day's happiness, and accord- 
 ingly 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 oppresses 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
 
 268 GREAT ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 
 animosities, as Barry afterwards did, into the Council ; 
 and if they differed in life, so in life they were mutually 
 reconciled. Peace be with their memories ! 
 
 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 painting, 
 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. 
 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. 
 
 Like Reynolds, he painted standing in preference to 
 sitting; and the pencils which he used had shafts, some
 
 GAINSBOROUGH. 269 
 
 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 
 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 pleasure 
 as at a fine landscape. His love of music was constant ; 
 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 Gainsborough on the violin, that he exclaimed, " Go on, 
 and I will give you the picture of the ' Boy at the Stile,' 
 which you have so often wished to purchase 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 " Dictionary 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 Vandyke, Rubens, and
 
 270 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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. 
 
 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 upon 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 
 exhibition of his works in Pall Mall, to the amount of
 
 GAINSBOROUGH. 271 
 
 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 experi- 
 encing a variety of fortune, the far-famed " Blue Boy " (the 
 portrait of a youth in a blue dress), and the still more 
 celebrated "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 splendour of his coat is at first somewhat start- 
 ling.* 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 goldenness, 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 expression. 
 
 In person Gainsborough was eminently handsome, and 
 when he wished to please, no one had in greater perfection 
 a ready grace and persuasive manner gifts that cannot be 
 acquired. It is to be regretted that those who wrote any- 
 thing 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 Jackson and Thicknesse, 
 perceived but those weaknesses which reduced him to their 
 own level ; they were slow or unwilling to perceive those 
 qualities which raised him above them. The companions of 
 the artist saved the chaff of his conversation and allowed the 
 
 * 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 at his command. In his 
 treatment of blue he greatly resembled Vandyke,
 
 272 ORE A T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 corn to escape. Their sole wish seems to be to show him as 
 the poet painted himself 
 
 " 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 
 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. He flutters 
 from subject to subject, always easy and lively ; agreeable 
 when he trifles, and instructive even when he is extravagant. 
 He has been reproached with occasional licentiousness 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 instruc- 
 tions 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. 
 
 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 merits, and some in a 
 transcendent degree." Many of them are equal in point of 
 character to his most finished performances. 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 Ohatsworth. 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,
 
 GAINSBOROUGH. 273 
 
 Richard Lane, in whom much of his spirit survives. He 
 has copied and published some two dozen of those fine 
 sketches, and he ought to publish more. 
 
 The chief works of Gainsborough are not what is usually 
 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 Reynolds. 
 No academy schooled down into uniformity and imitation 
 the truly English and intrepid spirit of Gainsborough. 
 
 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 
 neglected, 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 
 favourite 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. 
 
 " It is certain," says Reynolds, " 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 
 appearance by a kind of magic, at a certain distance, 
 assumes form, and all the parts seem to drop into their 
 
 170
 
 274 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 Reynolds. 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. 
 
 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 Raphael, 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 as much as we do 
 the healthy children of our two eminent countrymen.
 
 WILLIAM BLAKE. 
 
 PAINTING, like poetry, has followers, the body of whose 
 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. 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 
 encouraged by his mother. The love of designing and 
 sketching 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 
 dispose of him. In addition to his attachment to art he
 
 276 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 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 
 fourteen years old. 
 
 It is told of Blake that at ten years of age be 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. One of these productions is an address 
 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 now 
 From ancient melody have ceased ; 
 
 " 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 ; 
 
 11 Whether on crystal rocks ye rove, 
 
 Beneath the bosom of the sea, 
 
 Wandering in many a coral grove, 
 
 Fair Nine ! forsaking poesie ;
 
 BLAKE. 277 
 
 " 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 poein 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 I 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 fire ? 
 
 " 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 ? 
 
 " When 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 thee ? " 
 
 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 ; but before the ear is 
 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
 
 278 GREAT ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 " Now we're alone, John Chandos, I'll unburthen 
 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 see 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 
 
 " 0, 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-house 
 To be 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 azure clouds, and strew 
 The flowers of heaven upon the banquet table, 
 Bind ardent hope upon your feet, like shoes, 
 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 these modest and unnoticed 
 pages many such passages. It would be unfair not to 
 mention that the same volume contains some wild and 
 incoherent prose, in which we may trace more than the 
 dawning of those strange, mystical, and mysterious fancies 
 on which Blake subsequently misemployed his pencil. 
 There is much that is weak, and something that is strong,
 
 LLAKE. 279 
 
 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 him- 
 self 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 Flaxman 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-and-twenty years old he married 
 Katherine 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 Katherine Boutcher said, 
 " 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.
 
 28o GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 
 together long and happily. 
 
 She seemed to have been created on purpose for Blake : 
 she believed him to be the finest genius on earth ; she 
 believed in his verse ; she believed in his designs ; and to 
 the wildest flight of his imagination she bowed the knee, 
 and was a worshipper. She set his house in good order, 
 prepared 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. 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 
 compositions, and almost rivalled him in all things save 
 in the power which he possessed in seeing visions of any 
 individual, 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 tirst floor 
 and a shop, and in company with one Parker, who had 
 been his fellow-apprentice, commenced printseller. His 
 wife attended to the business, and Blake continued to 
 engrave, 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 
 relinquished, and he removed to 28 Poland Street. Here 
 he commenced that series of works which gave him a right
 
 BLAKE. 281 
 
 to bo 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. 
 
 The first fruits were the " Songs of Innocence and 
 Experience," 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, a 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.: 
 
 " 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 lamb ; 
 
 So I piped with merry cheer. 
 Piper, pipe 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 again, 
 
 While he wept with joy to hear.
 
 282 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 Piper, sit thee down and write 
 
 In a book that all may read 
 So he vanish'd from my sight : 
 
 And I plack'd a hollow reed, 
 
 And I made a rural pen, 
 
 And I stain'd 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 I 
 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 he was quiet and that very night, 
 As Tommy was a-sleeping, 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. 
 
 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."* 
 
 * Mr. Swinburne, in his Critical Essay on Blake, writes of these 
 "Songs of Innocence" : " 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 work and
 
 BLAKE. 283 
 
 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 
 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 
 ambition 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. 
 
 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 
 flushed limbs, kindled cloud and fervent fleece, was never wrought 
 into speech or shape."
 
 284 GREAT ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 The crosses which genius is heir to had been wholly unfore- 
 seen, 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 
 frequent 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 
 intimate that the designs on which he was engaged were not 
 from 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 commanded 
 to execute his performances by a celestial tongue ! 
 
 Of these imaginary visitations he made good use, when 
 he invented his truly original and beautiful mode of 
 engraving 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
 
 BLAKE. 285 
 
 aware that the spirit of his favourite brother Robert was in 
 the room, and to this celestial visitor he applied for counsel. 
 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) : 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 
 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 
 designs, 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 " became 
 popular among the collectors of prints. To the sketch- 
 book and the cabinet the works of Blake are unfortunately 
 confined. 
 
 If there be mystery in the meaning of the " Gates of 
 Paradise," his succeeding performance, by name " URIZEN," 
 has the merit or the fault of surpassing all human compre- 
 hension. The spirit which dictated this strange work was 
 undoubtedly a dark one ; nor does the strange kind of 
 prose which is intermingled with the figures serve to 
 enlighten us. There are in all twenty-seven designs, repre- 
 senting beings human, demoniac, and divine, in situations
 
 286 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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. His 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 meaning, and a 
 fine one. Something like the fall of Lucifer and the 
 creation of Man is dimly visible in this extravagant work. 
 It is not a little fearful to look upon a powerful, dark, 
 terrible, though undefined and indescribable, impression is 
 left on tue mind ; and it is in no haste to be gone. The 
 size of the designs is four inches by six ; they 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, con- 
 tracting 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 art should waste none 
 of its skill This work was so much, in many parts, to the 
 satisfaction of Flaxman that he introduced Blake to 
 Hayley, the poet, who, in 1800, persuaded him to remove
 
 BLAKE. 287 
 
 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 Hayley 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. Felpham 
 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 license 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, dear Flaxman, are a sublime 
 archangel, my friend and companion from eternity. Fare- 
 well, my dear friend, remember me and my wife in love 
 and friendship to Mrs. Flaxman, whom we ardently desire 
 to entertain beneath our thatched roof of russet gold." 
 
 This letter, written in the year 1800, gives the true
 
 288 ORE A T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 twofold 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 Cosvper, 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 
 Pindar 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 con- 
 fidence, entrusted him with a whole poem of his, which the 
 world had never seen ; but unfortunately the communica- 
 tion 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
 
 BLAKE. 289 
 
 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 disappeared. 
 It was a fairy 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 imagination might 
 have had a shore. 
 
 After a residence of three years in his cottage at 
 Felpham, 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 
 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 
 
 171
 
 290 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 Angelo. 
 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," 
 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 
 avocation 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. He also undertook to engrave them. 
 
 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 
 incensed 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
 
 BLAKE. 291 
 
 poetic, 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 fearful 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, 
 required 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 Cromck 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 
 his picture in rivalry of himself. Blake declared that 
 Cromek had actually commissioned him to paint the 
 "Pilgrimage" 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 expressed 
 his approbation of it in such terms that he proposed to 
 introduce Blake's portrait in the procession, as a mark of
 
 292 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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. 
 
 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." This probably con- 
 founded both divines and politicians ; there is no doubt 
 that plain men went wondering away. The chief attraction 
 was " The Canterbury 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 n^w 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
 
 BLAKE. 293 
 
 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 villainy of those who first brought oil-paint- 
 ing 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 
 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 
 antiquity, 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
 
 294 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 with their accompaniments 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 modern 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 wonderful 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 mean- 
 ing. 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 permanent as precious stones." 
 The man who could not only write down, but deliberately 
 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 delineations, and felt rightly 
 what sort of skill his inimitable pilgrims required at the 
 hand of an artist. He who saw visions in Cffile-Syria, and 
 statues a hundred feet high, wrote thus concerning Chaucer 
 " The characters of his pilgrims are the characters which 
 compose all ages and 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 numbered the classes of men."
 
 BLAKE. 295 
 
 His own notions, and much of his peculiar practice 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 gi-acef ul 
 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 outline ? How do we distinguish one face or 
 countenance from another, but by the bounding line and its 
 infinite inflections and movements 1 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." 
 
 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 amusing 
 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 
 signifies that he himself was for some time a miserable 
 instrument in the hands of Chiaro-scuro demons, who 
 employed 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 th e 
 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
 
 296 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 active in raising doubts concerning the possibility of 
 executing without 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. Correggio 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 
 question. Charles Lamb had communicated to James 
 Montgomery's book on chimney-sweepers the little song by 
 Blake, which I have already quoted; it touched the feelings 
 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), 
 ajid asserts them to be as good as the figures of Raphael
 
 BLAKE. 297 
 
 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 
 particular, 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, 1 " 
 
 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 
 extraordinary persons of the age." 
 
 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 
 infectious 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, employed him frequently in drawing 
 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 desired 
 to draw was long in appearing, and he sat with his pencil 
 and paper ready and his eyes idly roaming in vacancy ; all
 
 298 GREAT ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 ; " I see him 
 now there, there ; how noble he looks reach me my 
 things ! " Having drawn for gome 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 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 sometimes 
 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 conr 
 quered in poetry in the same place. That lady is Lais, 
 the courtesan with the impudence which is part of her
 
 BLAKE. 299 
 
 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 could 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 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, holding 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 varnished. But what in the world is it?" 
 " It is a ghost, sir the ghost of a flea a spiritualisation 
 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 iu his
 
 300 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 hand to hold blood, and covered with a scaly skin of gold 
 and green ; ' as he described him so he drew him." 
 
 Visions, such as are 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 
 upstairs in the dark, when suddenly 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 distempered 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 veracity 
 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, 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
 
 BLAKE. 361 
 
 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, bed-chamber, and study, where he had no other 
 companion but his faithful 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 contin- 
 ually. 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 ful- 
 filled the judgment of the wicked. 17. I have heard thee 
 with the hearing of my ear, but now my eye rejoiceth in
 
 302 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 thee. 18. Also the 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. 
 
 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. Yet, 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 exist- 
 ence 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 work- 
 manship, 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 
 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.
 
 BLAKE. 303 
 
 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 in- 
 cumbrance of rhyme. It is impossible to give a satisfactory 
 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 pouring out 
 the spotted plague upon Britain an angel standing 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 application 
 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 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,
 
 304 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 
 upright ; 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 ! " He saw his 
 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.* 
 
 The very joyfulness with which this singular man 
 welcomed the coming of death made his dying moments 
 intensely 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 inspira- 
 tions, as he called them, to paper. " Kate," he said, " I am 
 
 * 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. 305 
 
 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 
 expressive. 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 singular 
 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 hereafter. 
 
 Though he was the companion of Flaxman and Fuseli, 
 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 tinter, 
 but no colourist, and his works were all of small dimensions, 
 and therefore confined to the cabinet and the portfolio. 
 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 
 
 172
 
 306 GREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 " Inventions for Job," was the possessor of very lofty facul- 
 ties, 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 America," and his "Jerusalem," 
 our conclusion would be very unfavourable ; we would say 
 that, witrf-^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 brilliant way of animating absurdity. 
 An overflow of imagination is a failing uncommon in this 
 age, and has generally received of late little quarter from 
 the critical portion of mankind. Yet 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 graceful, 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 mis- 
 fortune 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. 
 
 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
 
 BLAKE. 307 
 
 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 subjects and his words as stereo- 
 type, is, in my mind, perfectly original. Mrs. Blake is in 
 possession of the secret, and she ought to receive something 
 considerable for its communication, as I am quite certain 
 it may be used to advantage, both to artists and literary 
 characters in general." The affection and fortitude of this 
 woman entitle her to much respect. She shared her hus- 
 band'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. feel it. 
 
 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, 
 such 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.
 
 3 o8 GREAT ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 0, what a multitude they seemed, 
 
 these flowers 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 he 
 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 Emily, 
 With their sweet round mouths sing ha ! ha ! he ! 
 
 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 1 " 
 
 In the " Song of the Lamb " there is a simplicity which 
 seems easily attained till it is tried, and a religious tender- 
 ness 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 :
 
 BLAKE. 309 
 
 " Little lamb, who made thee ? 
 
 Dost thou know who made thee I 
 Gave thee life, and bade thee feed, 
 By the stream and o'er the mead ; 
 Gave the 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 
 wife 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, 
 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.
 
 3io CREA T ENGLISH PAINTERS. 
 
 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 lov 
 were, however, at all times, familiar to his fancy : I hav 
 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 
 invaded 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 armies stand like balances 
 
 Held in the Almighty's hand, 
 Gwinn, thou hast filled thy measure up, 
 
 Thou'rt swept from out the land.
 
 BLAKE. 311 
 
 Earth smokes with blood, and groans and shakes 
 
 To drink her children's gore, 
 A sea of blood ! nor can the eye 
 
 See 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 his 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 Innocence," a judicious selection might be safely 
 published.* 
 
 * Vide " The Poems of William Blake." With selections from his 
 Prose Writings. Edited, with a biographical and critical introduction, 
 oy Joseph Skipsey. (London : Walter Scott. Canterbury Poets Series.) 
 
 Printed by WALTER SCOTT, Felling, Newcastle-on-Tyne.
 
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