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CONVERSATIONS 
 
 JAMES NORTHCOTE, ESQ., R.A. 
 
** 
 
 /.//a-;/ . 
 
 
 /,, 
 
 
CONVERSATIONS 
 
 OP 
 
 JAMES NORTHCOTE, ESQ., R.A. 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM HAZLITT. 
 
 The precepts here of a divine old roan 
 I could recite. 
 
 Armstrong. 
 
 LONDON: 
 HENRY COLBURN AND RICHARD BENTLEY, 
 
 NEW BURLINGTON STREET. 
 
 1830. 
 
C. Whiting, 
 Beaufort House, Strand. 
 
^40 
 A/173 
 
 CONVERSATION THE FIRST. 
 
 Called on Mr. Northcote ; had, as usual, an 
 interesting conversation. Spoke of some account 
 of Lord Byron in a newspaper, which he thought 
 must be like. " The writer says, he did not 
 wish to be thought merely a great poet. My 
 sister asked, ' What then did he wish to be 
 thought P 1 Why, I'll tell you ; he wished to be 
 something different from every body else. As to 
 nobility, there were many others before him, so 
 that he could not rely upon that ; and then, as 
 to poetry, there are so many wretched creatures 
 that pretend to the name, that he looked at it 
 with disgust : he thought himself as distinct from 
 
 M63C903 
 
4 MR. NOETHCOTE S 
 
 them as the stars in the firmament. It comes to 
 what Sir Joshua used to say, that a man who is 
 at the head of his profession is above it. I re- 
 member being at Cosway's, where they were re- 
 commending some charitable institution for the 
 relief of decayed artists ; and I said I would not 
 be of it, for it was holding out a temptation to 
 idleness, and bringing those into the profession 
 who were not fit for it. Some one who wanted to 
 flatter me observed, c I wonder you should talk 
 in this manner, who are under such obligations 
 to the art P I answered immediately, ' If I 
 am to take your compliment as I believe it is 
 meant, I might answer, that it is the art that is 
 under obligations to me, not I to it. Do you 
 suppose that Rubens, Titian, and others were 
 under obligations to the art — they who raised it 
 from obscurity and made it all that it is ? What 
 would the art be without these T The world in 
 general, as Miss Reynolds used to say, with re- 
 ference to her brother, think no more of a painter 
 than they do of a fiddler or a dancing-master or 
 a piano-forte-maker. And so of a poet. I have 
 always said of that dispute alxnit burying Lord 
 Byron in Poets' Comer, that he would have re- 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 3 
 
 sisted it violently if he could have known of it. 
 Not but there were many very eminent names 
 there, with whom he would like to be associated ; 
 but then there were others that he would look 
 down upon. If they had laid him there, he 
 would have got up again. No ; I'll tell you 
 where they should have laid him — if they had 
 buried him with the kings in Henry VII.'s 
 Chapel^ he would have had no objection to that ! 
 One cannot alter the names of things, or the 
 prejudices of the world respecting them, to suit 
 one's convenience. I once went with Hoppner 
 to the hustings to vote for Home Tooke ; and 
 when they asked me what I was, I said, a painter. 
 At this Hoppner was very mad all the way 
 home, and said I should have called myself a 
 portrait-painter. I replied, the world had no time 
 to trouble their heads about such distinctions. I 
 afterwards asked Kemble, who agreed I was right, 
 that he always called himself a player," £cc. 
 
 I then observed, I had been to the play with G. 
 and his daughter, from the last of whom I had 
 learnt something about Lord Byron's conversa- 
 tion. " What P he said, " the beauty-daugh- 
 ter ?" I said, " Do you think her a beauty, 
 b 2 
 
4 MR. noiithcote's 
 
 then ?" — " Why no, she rather thinks herself 
 one, and yet there is something about her that 
 would pass for such. Girls generally find out 
 where to place themselves. She's clever too ; 
 isn't she ?"— " Oh ! yes."— "What did she tell 
 you about Lord Byron ? because I am curious to 
 know all about him." — " I asked her if it was 
 true that Lord Byron was so poor a creature 
 as H represented him ? She at first mis- 
 understood me, and said, nothing could be 
 meaner than he was, and gave some instances 
 of it. I said, that was not what I meant ; that 
 I could believe any thing of that kind of him ; 
 that whatever he took in his head he would carry 
 to extremes, regardless of every thing but the 
 feeling of the moment ; but that I could not 
 conceive him to be in conversation, or in any 
 other way, a flat and common-place person.* 
 
 6 Oh ! no,"' she said, * he was not. H was 
 
 hardly a fair judge. The other had not behaved 
 well to him, and whenever they met, H al- 
 ways began some kind of argument, and as Lord 
 Byron could not argue, they made but a bad 
 
 * Mr. Moore has just written a book to prove the truth 
 of the contrary opinion. 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 5 
 
 piece of business of it, and it ended unsatisfac- 
 torily for all parties. I said, H was too apt 
 
 to put people to their trumps, or to force them 
 upon doing not what they could do, but what he 
 thought he could do. He, however, not only 
 
 gave his own opinion, but said, Mr. S could 
 
 only just endure Lord Byron's company. This 
 seemed to me odd ; for though he might be nei- 
 ther orator norphilosopher,yet any thing he might 
 say or only stammer out in broken sentences, 
 must be interesting : a glance, a gesture would 
 be full of meaning ; or he would make one look 
 about one like the tree in Virgil, that expressed 
 itself by groans. To this she assented, and ob- 
 served — ' At least S and myself found it so ; 
 
 for we generally sat with him till morning. He 
 was perhaps a little moody and reserved at first ; 
 but by touching on certain strings, he began to 
 unbend, and gave the most extraordinary accounts 
 of his own feelings and adventures that could be 
 imagined. Besides, he was very handsome, and 
 it was some satisfaction to look at a head at once 
 so beautiful and expressive P I repeated what 
 
 H- told me, that when he and Lord Byron 
 
 met in Italy, they did not know one another ; he 
 
6 MR. XORTHCOTe's 
 
 himself from having grown so thin, and Byron 
 from having grown so fat, like a great chubby 
 school-boy — a circumstance which shocked his 
 lordship so much, that he took to drinking vine- 
 gar at a great rate, that he might recover the 
 figure of the stripling God. I mentioned some 
 
 things that II had reported of Lord Byron ; 
 
 such as his saying, i He never cared for any 
 thing above a day, 1 — which might be merely in 
 a fit of spleen, or from the spirit of contradiction, 
 or to avoid an imputation of sentimentality ;" 
 — " Oh I* 1 said Northcote, " that will never do, 
 to take things literally that are uttered in a mo- 
 ment of irritation. You do not express your 
 own opinion, but one as opposite as possible to 
 that of the person that has provoked you. You 
 get as far from a person you have taken a pique 
 against as you can, just as you turn off the pave- 
 ment to get out of the way of a chimney-sweeper; 
 but it is not to be supposed you prefer walking 
 in the mud, for all that ! I have often been 
 ashamed myself of speeches I have made in that 
 way, which have been repeated to me as good 
 things, when all I meant was that I would 
 say any thing sooner than agree to the nonsense 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 7 
 
 or affectation I heard. You then set yourself 
 against what you think a wrong bias in another, 
 and are not like a wall but a buttress — as far from 
 the right line as your antagonist ; and the more 
 absurd he is, the more so do you become. Be- 
 fore you attend to what any one says, you should 
 ask, Was he talking to a fool or a wise man ? 
 
 No ; H would make Lord Byron tributary 
 
 to him, or would make him out to be nothing. 
 I wonder you admire him as you do, and com- 
 pare him to the wits of Charles II. It isn't writ- 
 ing verses or painting a picture — that, as Sir 
 Joshua used to say, is what every body can do : 
 but it is the doing something more than any body 
 else can do that entitles the poet or the artist to 
 distinction, or makes the work live. But these 
 people shut themselves up in a little circle of 
 their own, and fancy all the world are looking 
 
 at them." I said, H had been spoiled by 
 
 flattery when he was young. " Oh ! no," he 
 said, u it was not that. Sir Joshua was not 
 spoiled by flattery, and yet he had as much of 
 it as any body need have ; but he was looking 
 out to see what the world said of him, or think- 
 ing what figure he should make by the side of 
 
8 MR. NORTH COTE'S 
 
 Correggio or Vandyke, not pluming himself on 
 being a better painter than some one in the next 
 street, or being surprised that the people at his 
 own table spoke in praise of his pictures. It is 
 a little mind that is taken up with the nearest 
 object, or puffed up with immediate notice : to 
 do any thing great, we must look out of ourselves 
 and see things upon a broader scale. 11 
 
 I told Northcote I had promised H • I 
 
 would bring him to see him ; and then, said I, 
 you would think as favourably of him as I do, 
 and every body else that knows him. " But you 
 didn't say any thing in my praise to induce him 
 to come P 11 — " Oh ! yes ; I exerted all my elo- 
 quence. 11 — " That wasn't the way. You should 
 have said I was a poor creature, perhaps amusing 
 for half an hour or so, or curious to see like a 
 little dried mummy in a museum : but he would 
 not hear of your having two idols ! Depend 
 upon it, he'll not come. Such characters only 
 want to be surrounded with satellites or echoes : 
 and that is one reason they never improve. True 
 genius, as well as wisdom, is ever docile, humble, 
 vigilant, and ready to acknowledge the merit it 
 seeks to appropriate from every quarter. That 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 9 
 
 was Fuseli's mistake. Nothing was good enough 
 for him, that was not a repetition of himself. So 
 once when I told him of a very fine Vandyke, 
 he made answer — c And what is it ? A little bit 
 of colour. I wouldn't go across the way to see 
 it." On my telling this to Sir Joshua, he said — 
 
 « Ay, he'll repent it, he'll repent it V W 
 
 is another of those who would narrow the uni- 
 verse to their own standard. It is droll to 
 see how hard you labour to prop him up too, and 
 seem to fancy he'll live." — " I think he stands a 
 better chance than Lord Byron. He has added 
 one original feature to our poetry, which the other 
 has not ; and this, you know, Sir, by your own. 
 rule, gives him the best title." — " Yes ; but the 
 little bit that he has added is not enough. None 
 but great objects can be seen at a distance. If 
 posterity looked at it with your eyes, they might 
 think his poetry curious and pretty. But consider 
 how many Sir Walter Scotts, how many Lord 
 Byrons, how many Dr. Johnsons there will be 
 in the next hundred years ; how many reputa- 
 tions will rise and sink in that time ; and do you 
 imagine, amid these conflicting and important 
 claims, such trifles as descriptions of daisies and 
 
 B 3 
 
10 MR. NORTHCOTE'S 
 
 idiot-boys (however well they may be done) will 
 not be swept away in the tide of time, like straws 
 and weeds by the torrent? No; the world can 
 only keep in view the principal and most perfect 
 productions of human ingenuity ; such works as 
 Dryden's, PopeX and a few others, that from 
 their unity, their completeness, their polish have 
 the stamp of immortality upon them, and seem 
 indestructible like an element of nature. There 
 
 are few of these : I fear your friend W is 
 
 not one." 
 
 I said, I thought one circumstance against 
 him was the want of popularity in his life-time. 
 Few people made much noise after their deaths 
 who did not do so while they were living. Pos- 
 terity could not be supposed to rake into the re- 
 cords of past times for the Illustrious Obscure ; 
 and only ratified or annulled the lists of great 
 names handed down to them by the voice of 
 common fame. Few people recovered from the 
 neglect or obloquy of their contemporaries. The 
 public would hardly be at the pains to try the 
 same cause twice over, or did not like to reverse 
 its own sentence, at least when on the unfavour- 
 able side. There was Hobbes, for instance : he 
 
CONVERSATIONS. ] 1 
 
 had a bad name while living, and it was of no 
 use to think at this time of day of doing him 
 justice. While the priests and politicians were 
 tearing him in pieces for his atheism and arbi- 
 trary principles, Mr. Locke stole his philosophy 
 from him ; and I would fain see any one restore 
 it to the right owner. Quote the passages one 
 by one, show that every principle of the modern 
 metaphysical system was contained in Hobbes, 
 and that all that succeeding writers have done 
 was to deduce from Mr. Lockers imperfect con- 
 cessions the very consequences, " armed all in 
 proof," that already existed hi an entire and un- 
 mutilated state in his predecessor ; and you shall 
 the next day hear Mr. Locke spoken of as the 
 father of English philosophy as currently and 
 confidently as if not the shadow of a doubt had 
 ever been started on the subject. Mr. Hobbes, 
 by the boldness and comprehensiveness of his 
 views, had shocked the prejudices and drawn down 
 upon his head the enmity of his contemporaries : 
 Mr. Locke, by going more cautiously to work, 
 and only admitting as much at a time as the 
 public mind would bear, prepared the way for 
 the rest of Mr. Hobbes's philosophy, and for a 
 
12. MR. NORTHCOTE , S 
 
 vast reputation for himself, which nothing can 
 impugn. Stat nomxnis umbra. The world are 
 too far off to distinguish names from things ; and 
 call Mr. Locke the first of English philosophers, 
 as they call a star by a particular name, because 
 others call it so. They also dislike to have their 
 confidence in a great name destroyed, and fear, 
 that by displacing one of their favoured idols 
 from its niche in the Temple of Fame, they may 
 endanger the whole building. 
 
 Nouthcote — " Why, I thought Hobbes stood 
 as high as any body. I have always heard him 
 spoken of in that light. It is not his capacity that 
 people dispute, but they object to his character. 
 The world will not encourage vice, for their own 
 sakes ; and they give a casting-vote in favour of 
 virtue. Mr. Locke was a modest, conscientious 
 enquirer after truth, and the world had the saga- 
 city to see this and to be willing to give him a 
 hearing ; the other, I conceive, was a bully, and 
 'a bad man into the bargain, and they did not want 
 to be bullied into truth or to sanction licentious- 
 ness. This is unavoidable ; for the desire of 
 knowledge is but one principle of the mind. It 
 was the same with Tom Paine. Nobody can 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 13 
 
 deny that he was a very fine writer and a very 
 sensible man ; but he flew in the face of a whole 
 generation, and no wonder that they were too 
 much for him, and that his name is become a bye- 
 word with such multitudes, for no other reason 
 than that he did not care what offence he gave 
 them by contradicting all their most inveterate 
 prejudices. If you insult a room-full of people, 
 you will be kicked out of it. So neither will 
 the world at large be insulted with impunity. If 
 you tell a whole country that they are fools and 
 knaves, they will not return the compliment by 
 crying you up as the pink of wisdom and honesty. 
 Nor will those who come after be very apt to 
 take up your quarrel. It was not so much 
 Pained being a republican or an unbeliever, as 
 the manner in which he brought his opinions 
 forward (which showed self-conceit and want of 
 feeling) that subjected him to obloquy. People 
 did not like the temper of the man : it falls under 
 the article of moral virtue. There are some re- 
 putations that are great, merely because they are 
 amiable. There is Dr. Watts : look at the en- 
 comiums passed on him by Dr. Johnson ; and 
 yet to what, according to his statement, does his 
 
14 mr. northcote's 
 
 merit amount ? Why only to this, that he did 
 that best which none can do well, and employed 
 his talents uniformly for the welfare of mankind. 
 He was a good man, and the voice of the public 
 has given him credit for being a great one. The 
 world may be forced to do homage to great ta- 
 lents, but they only bow willingly .to these when 
 they are joined with benevolence and modesty; 
 nor will they put weapons into the hands of the 
 bold and unprincipled sophist to be turned against 
 their own interests and wishes." I said, there 
 was a great deal in the manner of bringing truth 
 forward to influence its reception with the reader; 
 for not only did we resent unwelcome novelties 
 advanced with an insolent and dogmatical air; 
 but we were even ready to give up our favourite 
 notions, when we saw them advocated in a harsh 
 and intolerant manner by those of our own party, 
 sooner than submit to the pretensions of blind- 
 fold presumption. If any thing could make me 
 a bigot, it would be the arrogance of the free- 
 thinker ; if any thing could make me a slave, it 
 would be the sordid sneering fopperies and sweep- 
 ing clauses of the liberal party. Renegadoes are 
 generally made so, not by the overtures of their 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 15 
 
 adversaries, but by disgust at the want of candour 
 and moderation in their friends. Northcote re- 
 plied — " To be sure, there was nothing more 
 painful than to have one's own opinions disfigured 
 or thrust down one's throat by impertinence and 
 folly ; and that once when a pedantic coxcomb 
 was crying up Raphael to the skies, he could not 
 help saying — i If there was nothing in Raphael 
 but what you can see in him, we should not now 
 have been talking of him V " 
 
16 mr. northcote's 
 
 CONVERSATION THE SECOND. 
 
 When I called, I found Mr. Northcote paint- 
 ing a portrait of himself. Another stood on an 
 easel. He asked me, which I thought most like ? 
 I said, the one he was about was the best, but not 
 good enough. It looks like a physician or a 
 member of parliament, but it ought to look like 
 something more— a Cardinal or a Spanish Inqui- 
 sitor ! I do not think you ought to proceed in 
 painting your own face as you do with some 
 others— that is, by trying to improve upon it : 
 you have only to make it like ; for the more 
 like it is, the better it will be as a picture. 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 17 
 
 " Oh ! he tried to make it like." I found I 
 had got upon a wrong scent. Mr. Northcote, 
 as an artist, was not bound to have a fine 
 head, but he was bound to paint one. I am al- 
 ways a very bad courtier; and think of what 
 strikes me, and not of the effect upon others. So 
 I once tried to compliment a very handsome bru- 
 nette, by telling her how much I admired dark 
 beauties. " Oh P said Northcote, M you should 
 have told her she was fair. She did not like 
 black, though you did !" After all, there is a 
 kind of selfishness in this plain-speaking. In the 
 present case, it set us wrong the whole morning, 
 and I had to stay longer than usual to recover the 
 old track. I was continually in danger of over- 
 setting a stand with a small looking-glass, which 
 Northcote particularly cautioned me not to touch; 
 and every now and then he was prying into the 
 glass by stealth, to see if the portrait was like. 
 He had on a green velvet-cap, and looked very 
 like Titian. 
 
 Northcote then turning round, said, " I wanted 
 to ask you about a speech you made the other 
 day : you said you thought you could have made 
 something of portrait, but that you never could 
 
18 MR. nortiicote's 
 
 have painted history. What did you mean by 
 that ?* — " Oh ! all I meant was, that sometimes 
 when I see a fine Titian or Rembrandt, I feel as 
 if I could have done something of the same kind 
 with the proper pains, but I have never the same 
 feeling with respect to Raphael. My admiration 
 is there utterly unmixed with emulation or regret. 
 In fact, I see what is before me, but I have no 
 invention." 
 
 Northcote — " You do not know till you try. 
 There is not so much difference as you imagine. 
 Portrait often runs into history, and history into 
 portrait, without our knowing it. Expression is 
 common to both, and that is the chief difficulty. 
 The greatest history-painters have always been 
 able portrait-painters. How should a man paint 
 a thing in motion, if he cannot paint it still ? 
 But the great point is to catch the prevailing look 
 and character : if you are master of this, you can 
 make almost what use of it you please. If a por- 
 trait has force, it will do for history ; and if his- 
 tory is well painted, it will do for portrait. This 
 is what gave dignity to Sir Joshua : his portraits 
 had always that determined air and character that 
 you know what to think of them as if you had seen 
 
I 
 
 CONVERSATIONS. 19 
 
 them engaged in the most decided action. So 
 Fuseli said of Titian's picture of Paul III. and 
 his two nephews, * That is true history V Many 
 of the groups in the Vatican, by Raphael, are 
 only collections of fine portraits. That is why 
 West, Barry, and others pretended to despise 
 portrait, because they could not do it, and it 
 would only expose their want of truth and nature. 
 No ! if you can give the look, you need not fear 
 painting history. Yet how difficult that is, and 
 on what slight causes it depends ! It is not 
 enough that it is seen, unless it is at the same 
 time felt. How odd it seems, that often while you 
 are looking at a face, and though you perceive no 
 difference in the features, yet you find they have 
 undergone a total alteration of expression ! What 
 a fine hand then is required to trace what the eye 
 can scarcely be said to distinguish ! So I used 
 to contend against Sir Joshua, that Raphael had 
 triumphed over this difficulty in the Miracle of 
 Bolsena, where he has given the internal blush of 
 the unbelieving priest at seeing the wafer turned 
 into blood — the colour to be sure assists, but the 
 look of stupefaction and shame is also there in the 
 most marked degree. Sir Joshua said it was my 
 
20 MR. northcote's 
 
 fancy, but I am as convinced of it as I am of my 
 existence ; and the proof is that otherwise he has 
 done nothing. There is no story without it ; but 
 he has trusted to the expression to tell the story, 
 instead of leaving the expression to be made out 
 from the story. I have often observed the same 
 thing in myself, when I have blamed any one as 
 mildly as I could, not using any violence of lan- 
 guage, nor indeed intending to hurt ; and I have 
 afterwards wondered at the effect ; my sister has 
 said, ' You should have seen your look, 1 but I 
 did not know of it myself.' 1 — I said, " If you 
 had, it would have been less felt by others. An 
 instance of this made me laugh not long ago. I 
 was offended at a waiter for very ill behaviour at 
 an inn at Calais ; and while he was out of the 
 room, I was putting on as angry a look as I 
 could, but I found this sort of previous rehearsal 
 to no purpose. The instant he returned into the 
 room, I gave him a look that I felt made it unne- 
 cessary to tell him what I thought.'" — " To be 
 sure, he would see it immediately ." — " And 
 don't you think, Sir," I said, " that this explains 
 the difficulty of fine acting, and the difference be- 
 tween good acting and bad — that is, between face- 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 21 
 
 making or mouthing and genuine passion ? To 
 give the last, an actor must possess the highest 
 truth of imagination, and must undergo an en- 
 tire revolution of feeling. Is it wonderful that so 
 many prefer an artificial to a natural actor, the 
 mask to the man, the pompous pretension to the 
 simple expression ? Not at all ; the wonder 
 rather is that people in general judge so right as 
 they do, when they have such doubtful grounds 
 to go upon ; and they would not, but they trust 
 less to rules or reasoning than to their feelings."" 
 Northcote — " You must come to that at last. 
 The common sense of mankind (whether a good 
 or a bad one) is the best criterion you have to ap- 
 peal to. You necessarily impose upon yourself 
 in judging of your own works. Whenever I am 
 trying at an expression, I hang up the picture in 
 the room and ask people what it means, and if 
 they guess right, I think I have succeeded. 
 You yourself see the thing as you wish it, or ac- 
 cording to what you have been endeavouring to 
 make it. When I was doing the figures of 
 Argyll in prison and of his enemy who 
 comes and finds him asleep, I had a great diffi- 
 culty to encounter in conveying the expression of 
 
22 MR. XORTHCOTE , S 
 
 the last — indeed I did it from myself — I wanted 
 to give a look of mingled remorse and admiration ; 
 and when I found that others saw this look in the 
 sketch I had made, I left off'. By going on, I 
 might lose it again. There is a point of felicity 
 which, whether you fall short of or have gone 
 beyond it, can only be determined by the effect on 
 the unprejudiced observer. You cannot be al- 
 ways with your picture to explain it to others : 
 it must be left to speak for itself. Those who 
 stand before their pictures and make fine speeches 
 about them, do themselves a world of harm : a 
 painter should cut out his tongue, if he wishes to 
 succeed. His language addresses itself not to the 
 ear, but the eye. He should stick to that as much 
 aspossible. Sometimes you hit off an effect without 
 knowing it. Indeed the happiest results are fre- 
 quently the most unconscious. Boaden was here 
 the other day. You don't remember Henderson, 
 I suppose ?" — " No." — " He says his reading 
 was the most perfect he ever knew. He thought 
 himself a pretty good reader and a tolerable 
 mimic ; that he succeeded tolerably well in imi- 
 tating Kemblc, Mrs. Siddons, and others, but 
 that there was something in Henderson's reading 
 

 CONVERSATIONS. 23 
 
 so superior to all the rest, that he never could come 
 any thing near it. I told him, You don^t know 
 that : if you were to hear him now, you might 
 think him even worse than your own imitation of 
 him. We deceive ourselves as much with re- 
 spect to the excellences of others as we do with 
 respect to our own, by dwelling on a favourite 
 idea. In order to judge, you should ask some one 
 else who remembered him. I spoke to him about 
 Kemble, whose life he has been lately writing. 
 I said, when he sat to me for the Richard III. 
 meeting the children, he lent me no assistance 
 whatever in the expression I wished to give, but 
 remained quite immoveable, as if he were sitting 
 for an ordinary portrait. Boaden said, This was 
 his way : he never put himself to any exertion, 
 except in his professional character. If any one 
 wanted to know his idea of a part or of a par- 
 ticular passage, his reply always was, ' You must 
 come and see me do it. 1 " 
 
 Northcote then spoke of the boy, as he always 
 calls him (Master Betty). He asked if I had 
 ever seen him act, and I said, Yes, and was one 
 of his admirers. He answered, " Oh ! yes, it 
 was such a beautiful effusion of natural sensibi- 
 
24) mr. northcote 1 s 
 
 lity ; and then that graceful play of the limbs 
 in youth gave such an advantage over every one 
 about him. Humphreys (the artist) said, * He 
 had never seen the little Apollo off the pedestal 
 before. 1 You see the same thing in the boys at 
 Westminster-School. But no one was equal to 
 him. 11 Mr. North cote alluded with pleasure to 
 his unaffected manners when a boy, and men- 
 tioned as an instance of his simplicity, his saying 
 one day, " If they admire me so much, what 
 would they say to Mr. Harley P 11 (a tragedian in 
 the same strolling company with himself.) We 
 then spoke of his acting since he was grown up. 
 Northcote said, U He went to see him one night 
 with Fuseli, in Alexander the Great, and that 
 he observed coming out, they could get nobody 
 to do it better ." — " Nor so well, 11 said Fuseli. 
 A question being put, " Why then could he not 
 succeed at present P* 1 — " Because, 11 said North- 
 cote, " the world will never admire twice. The 
 first surprise was excited by his being a boy ; and 
 when that was over, nothing could bring them 
 back again to the same point, not though he had 
 turned out a second Roscius. They had taken a 
 surfeit of their idol, and wanted something new. 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 25 
 
 Nothing he could do could astonish them so much 
 the second time, as the youthful prodigy had 
 done the first time ; and therefore he must always 
 appear as a foil to himself, and seem compara- 
 tively flat and insipid. Garrick kept up the fever 
 of public admiration as long as any body ; but 
 when he returned to the stage after a short ab- 
 sence, no one went to see him. It was the same 
 with Sir Joshua : latterly Romney drew all his 
 sitters from him. So they say the Exhibition i.<» 
 worse every year, though it is just the same: 
 there are the same subjects and the same painters. 
 Admiration is a forced tribute, and to extort it 
 from mankind (envious and ignorant as they are) 
 they must be taken unawares. 11 I remarked — ■ 
 " It was the same in books ; if an author was 
 only equal to himself, he was always said to fall 
 off. The blow to make the same impression 
 must be doubled, because we are prepared for 
 it. We give him the whole credit of his first 
 successful production, because it was altogether 
 unexpected ; but if he does not rise as much 
 above himself in the second instance, as the first 
 was above nothing, we are disappointed and say 
 he has fallen off, for our feelings are not equally 
 
26 mr. nortiicote's 
 
 excited."— " Just," said Northcote, " as in 
 painting a portrait : people are surprised at the 
 first sitting, and wonder to see how you have got 
 on : but I tell them they will never see so much 
 done again ; for at first there was nothing but a 
 blank canvas to work upon, but afterwards you 
 have to improve upon your own design, and this 
 at every step becomes more and more difficult. 
 It puts me in mind of an observation of Opie's, 
 that it was wrong to suppose that people went on 
 improving to the last in any art or profession : on 
 the contrary, they put their best ideas into their 
 first works (which they have been qualifying 
 themselves to undertake all their lives before) ; 
 and what they gain afterwards in correctness and 
 refinement, they lose in originality and vigour.™ 
 I assented to this as a very striking and (as I 
 thought) sound remark. He said, " I wisli you 
 had known Opie : he was a very original-minded 
 man. Mrs. Siddons used to say — c I like to 
 meet Mr. Opie ; for then I always hear some- 
 thing I did not know before. 1 1 do not say that 
 he was always right ; but he always put your 
 thoughts into a new track, that was worth follow- 
 ing. I was very fond of Opie's conversation; and I 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 27 
 
 remember once when I was expressing my surprise 
 at his having so little of the Cornish dialect ; 
 6 Why, 1 he said, c the reason is, I never spoke 
 at all till I knew you and Wolcott/ He was a 
 
 true genius. Mr. is a person of great 
 
 judgment ; but I do not learn so much from 
 him. I think this is the difference between sense 
 and genius ; — a man of genius judges for him- 
 self, and you hear nothing but what is original 
 from him : but a man of sense or with a know- 
 ledge of the world, judges as others do ; and he 
 is on this account the safest guide to follow, 
 though not, perhaps, the most instructive com- 
 panion. I recollect Miss Reynolds making 
 nearly the same observation. She said — ' I don't 
 
 know how it is ; I don't think Miss C a 
 
 very clever woman, and yet, whenever I am at 
 a loss about any thing, I always go to consult 
 her, and her advice is almost sure to be right.' 
 The reason was, that this lady, instead of tak- 
 ing her own view of the subject (as a person of 
 superior capacity might have been tempted to do) 
 considered only what light others would view it 
 in, and pronounced her decision according to the 
 prevailing rules and maxims of the world. When 
 
 C2 
 
28 MR. northcote's 
 
 old Dr. married his housemaid, Sterne, on 
 
 hearing of it, exclaimed, c Ay, I always thought 
 him a genius, and now I'm sure of it V The 
 truth was (and this was what Sterne meant), that 
 
 Dr. saw a thousand virtues in this woman 
 
 which nobody else did, and could give a thou- 
 sand reasons for his choice, that no one about 
 him had the wit to answer : but nature took its 
 usual course, and the event turned out as he had 
 been forewarned, according to the former expe- 
 rience of the world in such matters. His being 
 in the wrong did not prove him to be less a ge- 
 nius, though it might impeach his judgment or 
 prudence. He was, in fact, wiser, and saw more 
 of the matter than any one of his neighbours, 
 who might advise him to the contrary ; but he 
 was not so wise as the collective experience or 
 common sense of mankind on the subject, which 
 his more cautious friends merely echoed. It is 
 only the man of genius who has any right or 
 temptation to make a fool of himself, by setting 
 up his own unsupported decision against that of 
 the majority. He feels himself superior to any 
 individual in the crowd, and therefore rashly 
 undertakes to act in defiance of the whole mass 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 
 
 29 
 
 of prejudice and opinion opposed to him. It is 
 safe and easy to travel in a stage-coach from 
 London to Salisbury : but it would require great 
 strength, boldness, and sagacity to go in a 
 straight line across the country." 
 
30 MR. northcote's 
 
 CONVERSATION THE THIRD. 
 
 Northcote began by saying, " You don't 
 much like Sir Joshua, I know ; but I think that 
 is one of your prejudices. If I was to compare 
 him with Vandyke and Titian, I should say that 
 Vandyke's portraits are like pictures (very per- 
 fect ones, no doubt), Sir Joshua's like the re- 
 flection in a looking-glass, and Titian's like the 
 real people. There is an atmosphere of light 
 and shade about Sir Joshua's, which neither of 
 the others have in the same degree, together with 
 a vagueness that gives them a visionary and 
 romantic character, and makes them seem like 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 31 
 
 dreams or vivid recollections of persons we have 
 seen. I never could mistake Vandyke"^ for any 
 thing but pictures, and I go up to them to exa- 
 mine them as such : when I see a fine Sir Jo- 
 shua, I can neither suppose it to be a mere 
 picture nor a man ; and I almost involuntarily 
 turn back to ascertain if it is not some one behind 
 me reflected in the glass : when I see a Titian, 
 I am riveted to it, and I can no more take my 
 eye off from it, than if it were the very indivi- 
 dual in the room. That," he said, " is, I 
 think, peculiar to Titian, that you feel on your 
 good behaviour in the presence of his keen-look- 
 ing heads, as if you were before company." I 
 mentioned that I thought Sir Joshua more like 
 Rembrandt than like either Titian or Vandyke : 
 he enveloped objects in the same brilliant haze 
 of a previous mental conception. — " Yes,' 1 he 
 said ; " but though Sir Joshua borrowed a great 
 deal, he drew largely from himself: or rather, it 
 was a strong and peculiar feeling of nature work- 
 ing in him and forcing its way out in spite of 
 all impediments, and that made whatever he 
 touched his own. In spite of his deficiency in 
 drawing, and his want of academic rules and a 
 
32 MR. northcote's 
 
 proper education, you see this breaking out like 
 a devil in all his works. It is this that has 
 stamped him. There is a charm in his portraits, 
 a mingled softness and force, a grasping at the 
 end with nothing harsh or unpleasant in the 
 means, that you will find nowhere else. He 
 may go out of fashion for a time : but you must 
 come back to him again, while a thousand imita- 
 tors and academic triflers are forgotten. This 
 proves him to have been a real genius. The same 
 thing, however, made him a very bad master. 
 He knew nothing of rules which are alone to be 
 taught ; and he could not communicate his in- 
 stinctive feeling of beauty or character to others. 
 I learnt nothing from him while I was with 
 him : and none of his scholars (if I may except 
 myself) ever made any figure at all. He only 
 gave us his pictures to copy. Sir Joshua un- 
 doubtedly got his first ideas of the art from 
 Gandy, though he lost them under Hudson ; 
 but he easily recovered them afterwards. That 
 is a picture of Gandy 'a there (pointing to a por- 
 trait of a little girl). If you look into it, you 
 will find the same broken surface and varying 
 outline, that was so marked a characteristic of 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 33 
 
 Sir Joshua. There was nothing he hated so 
 much as a distinct outline, as you see it in Mengs 
 and the French school. Indeed, he ran into the 
 opposite extreme ; but it is one of the great beau- 
 ties of art to show it waving and retiring, now 
 losing and then recovering itself again, as it al- 
 ways does in nature, without any of that stiff, 
 edgy appearance, which only pedants affect or 
 admire. Gandy was never out of Devonshire : 
 but his portraits are common there. His father 
 was patronized by the Duke of Ormond, and one 
 reason why the son never came out of his native 
 county was, that when the Duke of Ormond was 
 implicated in the rebellion to restore the Pre- 
 tender in 1715, he affected to be thought too 
 deep in his Graced confidence and a person of 
 too much consequence to venture up to London, 
 so that he chose to remain in a voluntary exile." 
 I asked Northcote if he remembered the name of 
 Stringer at the Academy, when he first came up 
 to town. He said he did, and that he drew very 
 well, and once put the figure for him in a better 
 position to catch the fore-shortening. He in- 
 quired if I knew any thing about him, and I 
 said I had once vainly tried to copy a head of a 
 c 3 
 
34 MB. xokthcote's 
 
 youth by him admirably drawn and coloured, and 
 in which he had attempted to give the effect of 
 double vision by a second outline accompanying 
 the contour of the face and features. Though 
 the design might not be in good taste, it was exe- 
 cuted in a way that made it next to impossible to 
 imitate. I called on him afterwards at his house 
 at Knutsford, where I saw some spirited comic 
 sketches in an unfinished state,* and a capital 
 female figure by Cignani. All his skill and love 
 of art had, I found, been sacrificed to his de- 
 light in Cheshire ale and the company of coun- 
 try-squires. Tom Kershaw, of Manchester, used 
 to say, that he would rather have been Dan 
 Stringer than Sir Joshua Reynolds at twenty 
 years of age. Kershaw, like other North-country 
 critics, thought more of the executive power than 
 of the cesthetical faculty ; forgetting that it sig- 
 nifies comparatively little how well you execute a 
 thing, if it is not worth executing. — In conse- 
 quence of something that was said of the egotism 
 of artists, he observed, " I am sometimes thought 
 cold and cynical myself; but I hope it is not from 
 
 * One of " the blacksmith swallowing the tailor's 
 news/' from Shakspcare. 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 35 
 
 any such overweening opinionof myself. I remem- 
 ber once going with Wilkie to Angerstein's, and 
 because I stood looking and said nothing, he 
 seemed dissatisfied, and said, c I suppose you are 
 too much occupied with admiring, to give me your 
 opinion P 1 And I answered hastily, ' No, in- 
 deed ! I was saying to myself, * And is this all 
 that the art can do P 3 ' But this was not, I am 
 sure, an expression of triumph, but of mortifica- 
 tion at the defects which I could not help ob- 
 serving even in the most accomplished works. I 
 knew they were the best, but I could have 
 wished them to be a hundred times better than 
 they were." 
 
 Northcote mentioned a conceited painter of the 
 name of Edwards, who went with Romney to 
 Rome ; and when they got into the Sistine Cha- 
 pel, turning round to him, said, ' ""Egad ! George, 
 we're-bit f — He then spoke of his own journey to 
 Rome, of the beauty of the climate, of the 
 manners of the people, of the imposing effect of 
 the Roman Catholic religion, of its favourable- 
 ness to the fine arts, of the churches full of pic- 
 tures, of the manner in which he passed his time, 
 studying and looking into all the rooms in the 
 
36 MR. xorthcote's 
 
 Vatican : he had no fault to find with Italy, and 
 no wish to leave it. " Gracious and sweet was 
 all he saw in her !" As he talked, he looked as 
 if he saw the different objects pass before him, 
 and his eye glittered with familiar recollections. 
 He said, Raphael did not scorn to look out of 
 himself or to be beholden to others. He took 
 whole figures from Masaccio to enrich his designs, 
 because all he wanted was to advance the art and 
 ennoble human nature. After he saw Michael 
 Angelo, he improved in freedom and breadth ; 
 and if he had lived to see Titian, he would have 
 done all he could to avail himself of his colour- 
 ing. All his works are an effusion of the sweet- 
 ness and dignity of his own character. He did 
 not know how to make a picture ; but for the 
 conduct of the fable and the development of 
 passion and'feeling (noble but full of tenderness) 
 there is nobody like him. This is why Hogarth 
 can never come into the lists. He does not lift 
 us above ourselves : our curiosity may be grati- 
 fiedjby seeing what men are, but our pride must 
 be soothed by seeing them made better. Why else 
 is Milton preferred to Hudibras, but because the 
 one aggrandises our notions of human nature, and 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 37 
 
 the other degrades it ? Who will make any com- 
 parison between a Madona of Raphael and a 
 drunken prostitute by Hogarth ? Do we not feel 
 more respect for an inspired Apostle than for a 
 blackguard in the streets ? Raphael points out 
 the highest perfection of which the human form 
 and faculties are capable, and Hogarth their 
 lowest degradation or most wretched perversion. 
 Look at his attempts to paint the good or beau- 
 tiful, and you see how faint the impressions of 
 these were in his mind. Yet these are what every 
 one must wish to cherish in his own bosom, and 
 must feel most thankful for to those who lend him 
 the powerful assistance of their unrivalled con- 
 ceptions of true grandeur and beauty. Sir Jo- 
 shua strove to do this in his portraits, and this it 
 was that raised him in public estimation ; for we 
 all wish to get rid of defects and peculiarities as 
 much as we can. He then said of Michael An- 
 gelo, he did not wonder at the fame he had ac- 
 quired. You are to consider the state of the art 
 before his time, and that he burst through the 
 mean and little manner even of such men as Leo- 
 nardo da Vinci and Pietro Perugino and through 
 the trammels that confined them, and gave all at 
 
38 mr. northcote's 
 
 once a gigantic breadth and expansion that had 
 never been seen before, so that the world were 
 struck with it as with a display of almost super- 
 natural power, and have never ceased to admire 
 since. We are not to compare it with the ex- 
 amples of art that have followed since, and that 
 would never have existed but for him, but with 
 those that preceded it. He found faidt with the 
 figure of the flying monk in the St. Peter Martyr, 
 as fluttering and theatrical, but agreed with me 
 in admiring this picture and in my fondness for 
 Titian in general. He mentioned his going with 
 Prince Hoare and Day to take leave of some fine 
 portraits of Titian's that hung in a dark corner of 
 a Gallery at Naples; and as Day looked at them 
 for the last time with tears in his eyes, he said 
 " Ah! he was a fine old niouser /" — I said, I 
 had repeated this expression (which I had heard 
 him allude to before) somewhere in writing, and 
 was surprised that people did not know what to 
 make of it. Northcote said, " "Why, that is 
 exactly what I should have thought. There is 
 the difference between writing and speaking. In 
 writing, you address the average quantity of sense 
 or information in the world; in speaking, you 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 39 
 
 pick your audience, or at least know what they 
 are prepared for, or else previously explain what 
 you think necessary. You understand the epi- 
 thet because you have seen a great number of 
 Titian's pictures, and know that cat-like, watch- 
 ful, penetrating look he gives to all his faces, 
 which nothing else expresses, perhaps, so well as 
 the phrase Day made use of: but the world in 
 general know nothing of this ; all they know or 
 believe is, that Titian is a great painter like 
 Raphael or any other famous person. Suppose 
 any one was to tell you, Raphael was a fine old 
 mouser : would you not laugh at this as absurd ? 
 And yet the other is equally nonsense or incom- 
 prehensible to them. No, there is a limit, a 
 conversational licence which you cannot carry 
 into writing. This is one difficulty I have in 
 writing : I do not know the point of familiarity 
 at which I am to stop ; and yet I believe I have 
 ideas, and you say I know how to express my- 
 self in talking." 
 
 I inquired if he remembered much of Johnson, 
 Burke, and that set of persons ? He said, Yes, 
 a good deal, as he had often seen them. Burke 
 came into Sir Joshua's painting-room one day, 
 
40 MR. xorthcote's 
 
 when Northcote, who was then a young man, was 
 sitting for one of the children in Count Ugolino. 
 (It is the one in profile with tlie hand to the 
 face.) He was introduced as a pupil of Sir 
 Joshua's, and, on his looking up, Mr. Burke said, 
 " Then I see that Mr. Northcote is not only an 
 artist, but has a head that would do for Titian 
 to paint/ 1 — Goldsmith and Burke had often vio- 
 lent disputes about politics; the one being a 
 staunch Tory, and the other at that time a Whig 
 and outrageous anti-courtier. One day he came 
 into the room, when Goldsmith was there, full 
 of ire and abuse against the late king, and went on 
 in such a torrent of the most unqualified invective 
 that Goldsmith threatened to leave the room. 
 The other, however, persisted; andGoldsmith went 
 out, unable to bear it any longer. So much for 
 Mr. Burke's pretended consistency and uniform 
 loyalty ! When Northcote first came to Sir 
 Joshua, he wished very much to see Goldsmith ; 
 and one day Sir Joshua, on introducing him, 
 asked why he had been so anxious to see him ? 
 " Because, 11 said Northcote, " he is a notable* 
 man. 11 This expression, notable, in its ordinary 
 * That is, a remarkable man. 
 
I 
 
 CONVERSATIONS. 41 
 
 sense, was so contrary to Goldsmith's character, 
 
 that they both burst out a-laughing very heartily. 
 
 Goldsmith was two thousand pounds in debt at 
 
 the time of his death, which was hastened by his 
 
 chagrin and distressed circumstances : and when 
 
 " She Stoops to Conquer" was performed, he 
 
 was so choked all dinner-time that he could not 
 
 swallow a mouthful. A party went from Sir 
 
 Joshua's to support it. The present title was 
 
 not fixed upon till that morning. Northcote 
 
 went with Ralph, Sir Joshua's man, into the 
 
 gallery, to see how it went off; and after the 
 
 second act, there was no doubt of its success. 
 
 Northcote says, people had a great notion of the 
 
 literary parties at Sir Joshua's. He once asked 
 
 Lord B to dine with Dr. Johnson and the 
 
 rest ; but though a man of rank and also of 
 good information, he seemed as much alarmed at 
 the idea as if you had tried to force him into one 
 of the cages at Exeter-'Change. Northcote re- 
 marked that he thought people of talents had 
 their full share of admiration. He had seen 
 young ladies of quality, Lady Marys and Lady 
 Dorothys, peeping into a room where Mrs. Sid- 
 dons was sitting, with all the same timidity and 
 
42 mr. nortiicote's 
 
 curiosity as if it were some preternatural being— 
 he was sure more than if it had been the Queen. 
 He then made some observations on the respect 
 paid to rank, and said, " However ridiculous it 
 might seem, it was no more than the natural ex- 
 pression of the highest respect in other cases. 
 For instance, as to that of bowing out of the 
 King's presence backwards, would you not do the 
 same if you were introduced to Dr. Johnson for 
 the first time ? You would contrive not to turn 
 your back upon him, till you were out of the 
 room." He said, " You violent politicians make 
 more rout about royalty than it is worth : it is 
 only the highest place, and somebody must fill 
 it, no matter who : neither do the persons them- 
 selves think so much of it as you imagine. They 
 are glad to get into privacy as much as they can. 
 Nor is it a sinecure. The late King (I have 
 been told) used often to have to sign his name to 
 papers, and do nothing else for three hours to- 
 gether, till his fingers fairly ached, and then he 
 would take a walk in the garden, and come back 
 to repeat the same drudgery for three hours more. 
 So, when they told Louis XV. that if he went 
 on with his extravagance, he would bring about a 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 43 
 
 He volution and be sent over to England with a 
 pension, he merely asked, ' Do you think the 
 pension would be a pretty good one ? ' " He no- 
 ticed the Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, and 
 praised them for their extreme vivacity and great 
 insight into human nature. Once when the mob 
 had beseiged the palace, and the Cardinal was 
 obliged to go and appease them, a brick-bat was 
 flung at him and knocked him down, and one of 
 the assailants presenting a bayonet at his throat, 
 he suddenly called out, "Oh, you wretch ! if your 
 father could have seen you in this barbarous 
 action, what would he have said ? " The man 
 immediately withdrew, though, says the Cardi- 
 nal, "I knew no more of his father than the babe 
 unborn." Northcote then adverted to the talent 
 of players for drollery and sudden shifts and ex- 
 pedients, and said that by living in an element of 
 comic invention, they imbibed a portion of it. He 
 repeated that jest of F. Reynolds, who filled lip 
 the blank in a militia paper that was sent him with 
 the description, " Old, lame, and a coward ; " 
 and another story told of Matthews, the come- 
 dian, who being left in a room with an old gen- 
 tleman and a little child, and the former putting 
 
44 
 
 the question to it, " Well, my dear, which do 
 you like best, the dogur the cat ?" by exercising 
 his powers of ventriloquism, made the child seem 
 to answer, " I don't care a d — ran for either," — 
 to the utter confusion of the old gentleman, who 
 immediately took the father to task for bringing 
 up his son in such profaneness and total want of 
 common humanity. 
 
 He then returned to the question of the incon- 
 sistent and unreasonable expectations of mankind 
 as to their success in different pursuits, and an- 
 swered the common complaint, " What a shame 
 it was that Milton only got thirteen pounds nine 
 shillings and sixpence for < Paradise Lost.' " He 
 said, " Not at all ; he did not write it to get 
 money, he had gained what he had proposed by 
 writing it, not thirteen .pounds nine shillings and 
 sixpence, but an immortal reputation. When 
 Dr. Johnson was asked why he was not invited 
 out to dine as Garrick was, he answered, as if it 
 was a triumph to him, « Because great lords and 
 ladies don't like to have their mouths stopped ! ' 
 But who does like to have their mouths stopped ? 
 Did he, more than others ? People like to be 
 amused in general ; but they did not give him 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 45 
 
 the less credit for wisdom and a capacity to in- 
 struct them by his writings. In like manner, it 
 has been said, that the King only sought one 
 interview with Dr. Johnson ; whereas, if he had 
 been a buffoon or a sycophant, he would have 
 asked for more. No, there was nothing to com- 
 plain of: it was a compliment paid by rank to 
 letters, and once was enough. The King was 
 more afraid of this interview than Dr. Johnson 
 was ; and went to it as a schoolboy to his task. 
 But he did not want to have this trial repeated 
 every day, nor was it necessary. The very jea- 
 lousy of his self-love marked his respect : and if 
 he had thought less of Dr. Johnson, he would 
 have been more willing to risk the encounter. 
 They had each their place to fill, and would best 
 preserve their self-respect, and perhaps their 
 respect for each other, by remaining in their 
 proper sphere. So they make an outcry about 
 the Prince leaving Sheridan to die in absolute 
 want. He had left him long before : was he to 
 nd every day to know if he was dying ? These 
 things cannot be helped, without exacting too 
 much of human nature." I agreed to this view 
 of the subject, and said, — I did not see why li- 
 
 i 
 
46 MR. northcote's 
 
 terary people should repine if they met with their 
 deserts in their own way, without expecting to 
 get rich ; but that they often got nothing for 
 their pains but unmerited abuse and party 
 obloquy. — " Oh, it is not party-spite," said he, 
 " but the envy of human nature. Do you think 
 to distinguish yourself with impunity ? Do you 
 imagine that your superiority will be delightful 
 to others ? Or that they will not strive all they 
 can, and to the last moment, to pull you down ? 
 I remember myself once saying to Opie, how 
 hard it was upon the poor author or player to be 
 hunted down for not succeeding in an innocent 
 and laudable attempt, just as if they had com- 
 mitted some heinous crime ! And he answered, 
 1 They have committed the greatest crime in the 
 eyes of mankind, that of pretending to a supe- 
 riority over them ! ' Do you think that party 
 abuse, and the running down particular authors 
 is any thing new ? Look at the manner in which 
 Pope and Dryden were assailed by a set of 
 reptiles. Do you believe the modern periodicals 
 had not their prototypes in the party-pub- 
 lications of that day ? Depend upon it, what 
 you take for political cabal and hostility is (nine 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 4tJ 
 
 parts in ten) private pique and malice oozing 
 out through those authorized channels. 11 
 
 We now got into a dispute about nicknames ; 
 and H — me coming in and sitting down at my 
 elbow, my old pugnacious habit seemed to return 
 upon me. Northcote contended, that they had 
 always an appropriate meaning : and I said, — 
 " Their whole force consisted in their having 
 absolutely none but the most vague and gene- 
 ral. 1 ' — " Why," said Northcote, " did my father 
 give me the name of < Fat Jack," but because I 
 was lean? 11 He gave an instance which I thought 
 made against himself, of a man at Plymouth, a 
 baker by profession, who had got the name of Tid- 
 dydoll — he could not tell how. u Then, 11 said I, 
 " it was a name without any sense or meaning." 
 — " Be that as it may, 11 said Northcote, " it 
 almost drove him mad. The boys called after 
 him in the street, besieged his shop-windows ; 
 even the soldiers took it up, and marched to 
 parade, beating time with their feet, and repeat- 
 ing, Tiddydoll, Tiddydolh as they passed by 
 his door. He flew out upon them at the sound 
 with inextinguishable fury, and was knocked 
 down and rolled in the kennel, and got up in an 
 
48 MR. N0RTHC0TE\5 
 
 agony of rage and shame, his white clothes 
 covered all over with mud. A gentleman, a 
 physician in the neighbourhood, one day called 
 him in and remonstrated with him on the sub- 
 ject. He advised him to take no notice of his 
 persecutors. * What,' he said, ' does it signify ? 
 Suppose they were to call me TiddydollV — 
 6 There,' said the man, c you called me so your- 
 self; you only sent for me in to insult me i 1 and, 
 after heaping every epithet of abuse upon him, 
 flew out of the house in a most ungovernable 
 passion." I told Northcote this was just the 
 thing I meant. Even if a name had confessedly 
 no meaning, by applying it constantly and by 
 way of excellence to another, it seemed as if he 
 must be an abstraction of insignificance : where- 
 as, if it pointed to any positive defect or specific 
 charge, it was at least limited to the one, and 
 you stood a chance of repelling the other. The 
 virtue of a nickname consisted in its being inde- 
 finable and baffling all proof or reply. When 
 II — me was gone, Northcote extolled his pro- 
 ficiency in Hebrew, which astonished me not a 
 little, as I had never heard of it. I said, he was 
 a very excellent man, and a good specimen of the 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 
 
 49 
 
 character of the old Presbyterians, who had more 
 of the idea of an attachment to principle, and 
 less of an obedience to fashion or convenience, 
 from their education and tenets, than any other 
 class of people. Northcote assented to this 
 statement, and concluded by saying, that H — me 
 was certainly a very good man, and had no fault 
 but that of not being fat. 
 
50 MB. ^ T ORTIICOTE , 
 
 CONVERSATION THE FOURTH. 
 
 Northcote said, he had been reading Kelly's 
 " Reminiscences.' 1 I asked what he thought of 
 them ? He said, they were the work of a well 
 meaning man, who fancied all those about him 
 good people, and every thing they uttered clever. 
 I said, I recollected his singing formerly with 
 Mrs. Crouch, and that he used to give great 
 effect to some things of sentiment, such as "Oh! 
 had I been by fate decreed,"" &c. in Love in 
 a Village. Northcote said, he did not much 
 like him : there was a jerk, a kind of brogue in 
 his singing ; though he had, no doubt, consider- 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 51 
 
 able advantages in being brought up with all the 
 great singers and having performed on all the first 
 stages in Italy. I said, there was no echo of all 
 that now. u No," said North cote, " nor in my 
 time, though I was there just after him. He 
 asked me once, many years ago, if I had heard 
 of him in Italy, and I said no, though I excused 
 myself by stating that I had only been at Rome, 
 where the stage was less an object, the Pope 
 there performing the chief part himself. 11 I an- 
 swered, that I meant there was no echo of the 
 fine singing at present in Italy, music being there 
 dead as well as painting, or reduced to mere 
 screaming, noise and rant. "It is odd, 11 he said, 
 " how their genius seems to have left them. 
 Every thing of that sort appears to be at present 
 no better than it is with us in a country-town : or 
 rather it wants the simplicity and rustic inno- 
 cence, and is more like the draggled-tailed finery 
 of a lady^ waiting-maid. They have nothing of 
 their own : all is at second-hand. Did you see 
 Thorwaldsen , s things while you were there ? A 
 young artist brought me all his designs the other 
 day, as miracles that I was to wonder at and be 
 delighted with. But I could find nothing in 
 
 D 2 
 
52 MR. NORTHCOTE , S 
 
 them but repetitions of the Antique, over and 
 over, till I was surfeited." " He would be 
 pleased at this." "Why, no! that is not enough: 
 it is easy to imitate the Antique: — if you want 
 to last, you must invent something. The other 
 is only pouring liquors from one vessel into 
 another, that become staler and staler every time. 
 We are tired of the Antique ; yet, at any rate, it 
 is better than the vapid imitation of it. The 
 world wants something new, and will have it. 
 No matter whether it is better or worse, if there 
 is but an infusion of new life and spirit, it will 
 go down to posterity ; otherwise, you are soon 
 forgotten. Canova, too, is nothing for the same 
 reason — he is only a feeble copy of the Antique ; 
 or a mixture of two things the most incompatible, 
 that and opera-dancing. But there is Bernini ; 
 he is full of faults; he has too much of that 
 florid, redundant, fluttering style, that was ob- 
 jected to Rubens ; but then he has given an 
 appearance of flesh that was never given before. 
 The Antique always looks like marble, you never 
 for a moment can divest yourself of the idea ; 
 but go up to a statue of Bernini's, and it seems 
 as if it must yield to your touch. This excel- 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 53 
 
 lence he was the first to give, and therefore it 
 must always remain with him. It is true, it is 
 also in the Elgin marbles ; but they were not 
 known in his time ; so that he indisputably was 
 a genius. Then there is Michael Angelo ; how 
 utterly different from the Antique, and in some 
 things how superior ! For instance, there is his 
 statue of Cosmo de Medici, leaning on his hand, 
 in the chapel of St. Lorenzo at Florence ; I de- 
 clare it has that look of reality in it, that it almost 
 terrifies you to be near it. It has something of the 
 same effect as the mixture of life and death that 
 is perceivable in wax-work ; though that is a bad 
 illustration, as this last is disagreeable and me- 
 chanical, and the other is produced by a powerful 
 and masterly conception. It was the same with 
 Handel too : he made music speak a new lan- 
 guage, with a pathos and a power that had never 
 been dreamt of till his time. Is it not the same 
 with Titian, Correggio, Raphael ? These paint- 
 ers did not imitate one another, but were as 
 unlike as possible, and yet were all excellent. If 
 excellence were one thing, they must have been 
 all wrong. Still, originality is not caprice or 
 affectation ; it is an excellence that is always to 
 
54 MR. northcote's 
 
 be found in nature, but lias never had a place in 
 art before. So Romney said of Sir Joshua, that 
 there was that in his pictures which we had not 
 been used to see in other painters, but we had 
 seen it often enough in nature. Give this in 
 your works, and nothing can ever rob you of the 
 credit of it. 
 
 " I was looking into Mandeville since I saw 
 you (I thought I had lost it, but I found it among 
 a parcel of old books) . You may judge by that of 
 the hold that any thing like originality takes of 
 the world : for though there is a great deal that 
 is questionable and liable to very strong objec- 
 tion, yet they will not give it up, because it is 
 the very reverse of common-place ; and they 
 must go to that source to learn what can be said 
 on that side of the question. Even if you re- 
 ceive a shock, you feel your faculties roused by 
 it and set on the alert. Mankind do not choose 
 to go to sleep." — I replied, that I thought this 
 was true, yet at the same time the world seemed 
 to have a wonderful propensity to admire the 
 trite and traditional. I could only account 
 for this from a reflection of our self-love. We 
 could few of us invent, but most of us could 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 55 
 
 imitate and repeat by rote ; and as we thought 
 we could get up and ride in the same jog-trot 
 machine of learning, we affected to look up to 
 this elevation as the post of honour. Northcote 
 said, "You are to consider that learning is of 
 great use to society ; and though it may not add 
 to the stock ; is a necessary vehicle to transmit it 
 to others. Learned men are the cisterns of know- 
 ledge, not the fountain-heads. They are only 
 wrong in often claiming respect on a false ground, 
 and mistaking their own province. They are so 
 accustomed to ring the changes on words and 
 received notions, that they lose their perception 
 of things. I remember being struck with this at 
 the time of the Ireland controversy : — only to 
 think of a man like Dr. Parr going down on his 
 knees and kissing the pretended Manuscript ! It 
 was not that he knew or cared any thing about 
 Shakspeare (or he would not have been so im- 
 posed upon) ; he merely worshipped a name, as 
 a Catholic priest worships the shrine that contains 
 some favourite relic. 1 "' I said, the passages in 
 Ireland's play that were brought forward to prove 
 the identity, were the very thing that proved the 
 contrary ; for they were obvious parodies of cele- 
 
56 
 
 MR. NORTHCOTE S 
 
 brated passages in Shakspeare, such as that on 
 death in Richard II. — "And there the antic sits," 
 &c. Now, Shakspeare never parodied himself; 
 but these learned critics were only struck with 
 the verbal coincidence, and never thought of the 
 general character or spirit of the writer. "Or 
 without that,"' 1 said North cote, " who that at- 
 tended to the common sense of the question 
 would not perceive that Shakspeare was a person 
 who would be glad to dispose of his plays as soon 
 as he wrote them ? If it had been such a man 
 as Sir Philip Sidney, indeed, he might have 
 written a play at his leisure, and locked it up in 
 some private drawer at Penshurst, where it might 
 have been found two hundred years after : but 
 Shakspeare had no opportunity to leave such 
 precious hoards behind him, nor place to deposit 
 them in. Tresham made me very mad one day 
 at Cosway's, by saying they had found a lock of 
 his hair and a picture ; and Caleb Whitefoord, 
 who ought to have known better, asked me if I 
 did not think Sheridan a judge, and that he 
 believed in the authenticity of the Ireland 
 papers? I said, ' Do you bring him as a 
 fair witness ? He wants to fill his theatre, and 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 5*] 
 
 would write a play himself, and swear it was 
 Shakspeare's. He knows better than to cry 
 stale Jish: 7 
 
 I observed, this was what made me dislike the 
 conversation of learned or literary men. I got 
 nothing from them but what I already knew, 
 and hardly that : they poured the same ideas 
 and phrases and cant of knowledge out of books 
 into my ears, as apothecaries 1 apprentices made 
 prescriptions out of the same bottles ; but there 
 were no new drugs or simples in their materia 
 medica. Go to a Scotch professor, and he bores 
 you to death by an eternal rhapsody about rent 
 and taxes, gold and paper-currency, population 
 and capital, and the Teutonic Races — all which 
 you have heard a thousand times before : go to a 
 linen-draper in the city, without education but 
 with common sense and shrewdness, and you 
 pick up something new, because nature is inex- 
 haustible, and he sees it from his own point of 
 view, when not cramped and hood-winked by 
 pedantic prejudices. A person of this character 
 said to me the other day, in speaking of the 
 morals of foreign nations — " It's all a mistake to 
 suppose there can be such a difference, Sir : the 
 r> 3 
 
58 
 
 world are, and must be moral ; for when people 
 grow up and get married, they teach their children 
 to be moral. No man wishes to have them turn 
 out profligate/ 1 I said I had never heard this 
 before, and it seemed to me to be putting society 
 on new rollers. Northcote agreed, it was an ex- 
 cellent observation. I added, this self-taught 
 shrewdness had its weak sides too. The same 
 person was arguing that mankind remained much 
 the same, and always would do so. Cows and 
 horses did not change : and why then should 
 men ? He had forgot that cows and horses do 
 not learn to read and write. — " Ay, that was 
 very well too," said Northcote ; " I don't know 
 but I agree with him rather than with you. I 
 was thinking of the same thing the other day in 
 looking over an old Magazine, in which there 
 was a long debate on an Act of Parliament to 
 license gin-drinking. The effect was quite droll. 
 There was one person who made a most eloquent 
 speech to point out all the dreadful consequences 
 of allowing this practice. It would debauch the 
 morals, ruin the health, and dissolve all the 
 bonds of society, and leave a poor, puny, miser- 
 able, Lilliputian race, equally unfit for peace or 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 59 
 
 -war. You would suppose that the world was 
 going to be at an end. Why, no ! the answer would 
 have been, the world will go on much the same 
 as before. You attribute too much power to an 
 Act of Parliament. Providence has not taken 
 its measures so ill as to leave it to an Act of 
 Parliament to continue or discontinue the spe- 
 cies. If it depended on our wisdom and con- 
 trivances whether it should last or not, it would 
 be at an end before twenty years ! People are 
 wrong about this ; some say the world is getting 
 better, others complain it is getting worse, when, 
 in fact, it is just the same, and neither better nor 
 worse.' 1 — What a lesson, I said to myself, for 
 our pragmatical legislators and idle projectors ! 
 
 I said, I had lately been led to think of the 
 little real progress that was made by the human 
 mind, and how the same errors and vices revived 
 under a different shape at different periods, from 
 observing just the same humour in our Ultra- 
 reformers at present, and in their predecessors in 
 the time of John Knox. Our modern wiseacres 
 were for banishing all the fine arts and finer 
 affections, whatever was pleasurable and orna- 
 mental, from the Commonwealth, on the score of 
 
60 MR. northcote's 
 
 utility, exactly as the others did on the score of 
 religion. The real motive in either case was 
 nothing but a sour, envious, malignant dispo- 
 sition, incapable of enjoyment in itself, and 
 averse to every appearance or tendency to it in 
 others. Our peccant humours broke out and 
 formed into what Milton called f a crust of for- 
 mality ' on the surface ; and while we fancied 
 we were doing God or man good service, we were 
 only indulging our spleen, self-opinion, and self- 
 will, according to the fashion of the day. The 
 existing race of free-thinkers and sophists would 
 be mortified to find themselves the counterpart 
 of the monks and ascetics of old ; but so it was. 
 The dislike of the Westminster Reviewers to po- 
 lite literature was only the old exploded Puritanic 
 objection to human learning. Names and modes 
 of opinion changed, but human nature was much 
 the same. — " I know nothing of the persons you 
 speak of," said Northcote; "but they must be 
 fools if they expect to get rid of the showy and 
 superficial, and let only the solid and useful re- 
 main. The surface is a part of nature, and will 
 always continue so. Besides, how many useful 
 inventions owe their existence to ornamental 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 61 
 
 contrivances ! If the ingenuity and industry of 
 man were not tasked to produce luxuries, we 
 should soon be without necessaries. We must 
 go back to the savage state. I myself am as 
 little prejudiced in favour of poetry as almost 
 any one can be ; but surely there are things in 
 poetry that the world cannot afford to do without. 
 What is of absolute necessity is only a part ; and 
 the next question is, how to occupy the remainder 
 of our time and thoughts (not so employed) 
 agreeably and innocently. Works of fiction and 
 poetry are of incalculable use in this respect. If 
 people did not read the Scotch novels, they 
 would not read Mr. BenthanTs philosophy. 
 There is nothing to me more disagreeable than 
 the abstract idea of a Quaker, which falls under 
 the same article. They object to colours; and 
 why do they object to colours ? Do we not see 
 that Nature delights in them ? Do we not see 
 the same purpose of prodigal and ostentatious 
 display run through all her works ? Do we not 
 find the most beautiful and dazzling colours be- 
 stowed on plants and flowers, on the plumage of 
 birds, on fishes and shells, even to the very bot- 
 tom of the sea ? All this profusion of ornament, 
 
62 mr. northcote's 
 
 we may be sure, is not in vain. To judge other- 
 wise is to fly in the face of Nature, and substi- 
 tute an exclusive and intolerant spirit in the place 
 of philosophy, which includes the greatest variety 
 of man's wants and tastes, and makes all the 
 favourable allowances it can. The Quaker will 
 not wear coloured clothes ; though he would not 
 have a coat to his back if men had never studied 
 any thing but the mortification of their appetites 
 and desires. But he takes care of his personal 
 convenience by wearing a piece of good broad- 
 cloth, and gratifies his vanity, not by finery, but 
 by having it of a different cut from every body 
 else, so that he may seem better and wiser than 
 they. Yet this humour, too, is not without its 
 advantages : it serves to correct the contrary 
 absurdity. I look upon the Quaker and the fop 
 as two sentinels placed by Nature at the two ex- 
 tremes of vanity and selfishness, and to guard, 
 as it were, all the common-sense and virtue that 
 lie between. 1 ' I observed that these contemptible 
 narrow-minded prejudices made me feel irritable 
 and impatient. " You should not suffer that," 
 said Northcote ; " for then you will run into the 
 contrary mistake, and lay yourself open to your 
 
CONVEESATIOXS. 63 
 
 antagonist. The monks, for instance, have been 
 too hardly dealt with — not that I would defend 
 many abuses and instances of oppression in them — 
 but is it not as well to have bodies of men shut up 
 in cells and monasteries, as to let them loose to 
 make soldiers of them and to cut one another's 
 throats ? And out of that lazy ignorance and 
 leisure, what benefits have not sprung ? It is to 
 them we owe those beautiful specimen!? of Gothic 
 architecture which can never be surpassed ; many 
 of the discoveries in medicine and in mechanics 
 are also theirs ; and, I believe, the restoration of 
 classical learning is owing to them. Not that I 
 would be understood to say that all or a great 
 deal of this could not have been done without 
 them ; but their leisure, their independence, and 
 the want of some employment to exercise their 
 minds were the actual cause of many advantages 
 we now enjoy ; and what I mean is, that Nature 
 is satisfied with imperfect instruments. Instead 
 of snarling at every thing that differs from us 
 we had better take Shakspeare's advice, and try 
 to find x 
 
 e Tongues in the trees, books in the running brooks, 
 Sermons in stones, and good in every thing/ " 
 
64} mr. xouthcote's 
 
 It was at this time that Mr. Northcote read to 
 me the following letter, addressed by him to a 
 very young lady, who earnestly desired him to 
 write a letter to her : — 
 
 ci MY DEAR MISS K , 
 
 " What in the world can make you desire a 
 letter from me ? Indeed, if I was a fine Dandy 
 of one-and-twenty, with a pair of stays properly 
 padded and also an iron busk, and whiskers under 
 my nose, with my hair standing upright on my 
 head, all in the present fashion, then it might be 
 accounted for, as I might write you a fine answer 
 in poetry about Cupids and burning hearts, and 
 sighs and angels and darts, such a letter as Mr. 
 
 , the poet, might write. But it is long past 
 
 the time for me to sing love-songs under your 
 window, with a guitar, and catch my death in 
 some cold night, and so die in your service. - 
 
 " But what has a poor gray-headed old man 
 of eighty got to say to a blooming young lady of 
 eighteen, but to relate to her his illness and pains, 
 and tell her that past life is little better than a 
 dream, and that he finds that all he has been do- 
 ing is only vanity. Indeed, I may console my- 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 65 
 
 self with the pleasure of heaving gained the flat- 
 tering attention of a young lady of such amiable 
 qualities as yourself, and have the honour to as- 
 sure you, that I am your grateful friend and most 
 obliged humble servant, 
 
 " James Northcote." 
 "Argyll Place, 1826." 
 
 I said, the hardest lesson seemed to be to look 
 beyond ourselves. " Yes," said Northcote, " I 
 remember when we were young and were making 
 remarks upon the neighbours, an old maiden 
 aunt of ours used to say, ' I wish to God you 
 could see yourselves V And yet, perhaps, after 
 all, this was not very desirable. Many people 
 pass their whole lives in a very comfortable 
 dream, who, if they could see themselves in the 
 glass, would start back with affright. I remem< 
 ber once being at the Academy, when Sir Joshua 
 wished to propose a momument to Dr. Johnson in 
 St. Paul's, and West got up and said, that the 
 King, he knew, was averse to any thing of the 
 kind, for he had been proposing a similar monu- 
 ment in Westminster Abbey for a man of the 
 greatest genius and celebrity — one whose works 
 
 D 
 
66 MR. northcote's 
 
 were in all the cabinets of the curious through- 
 out Europe — one whose name they would all hear 
 with the greatest respect — and then it came out, 
 after a long preamble, that he meant AVoollett, 
 who had engraved his Death of Wolfe. I was 
 provoked, and I could not' help exclaiming — 
 * My God ! what do you put him upon a footing 
 with such a man as Dr. Johnson — one of the 
 greatest philosophers and moralists that ever 
 lived ? We have thousands of engravers at any 
 time P — and there was such a burst of laughter 
 at this — Dance, who was a grave gentlemanly 
 man, laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks ; 
 and Farington used afterwards to say to me, 
 6 Why don't you speak in the Academy, and 
 begin with 6 My God ! as you do sometimes ?' 
 I said, I had seen in a certain painter some- 
 thing of this humour, who once very goodna- 
 turedly showed me a Rubens he had, and ob- 
 served with great nonchalance, " What a pity 
 that this man wanted expression !" I imagined 
 Rubens to have looked round his gallery. " Yet," 
 he continued, " it is the consciousness of defect, 
 too, that often stimulates the utmost 'exertions. 
 If Pope had been a fine, handsome man, would 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 67 
 
 e have left those masterpieces that he has ? But 
 e knew and felt his own deformity, and there- 
 >re was determined to leave nothing undone to 
 extend that corner of power that he possessed. 
 He said to himself, They shall have no fault to 
 find there. I have often thought when very good- 
 looking young men have come here intending to 
 draw, * What ! are you going to bury yourselves 
 in a garret ?' And it has generally happened that 
 they have given up the art before long, and mar- 
 ried or otherwise disposed of themselves. 1 ' I had 
 heard an anecdote of Nelson, that, when ap- 
 pointed post-captain, and on going to take pos- 
 session of his ship at Yarmouth, the crowd on the 
 quay almost jostled him, and exclaimed — * What! 
 have they made that little insignificant fellow a 
 
 I captain ? He will do much, to be sure I 11 I 
 thought this might have urged him to dare as he 
 did, in order to get the better of their prejudices 
 and his own sense of mortification. " No doubt, 1 ' 
 said Northcote, " personal defects or disgrace 
 operate in this way. I knew an admiral who had 
 got the nickname of ' Dirty Dick' among the 
 sailors, and, on his being congratulated on ob- 
 
 Itaining some desperate victory, all he said was, 
 
68 
 
 < I hope they'll call me Dirty Dick no more V — 
 There was a Sir John Grenville or Greenfield 
 formerly, who was appointed to convoy a fleet 
 of merchant-ships, and had to defend them 
 against a Spanish man-of-war, and did so with 
 the utmost bravery and resolution, so that the 
 convoy got safe off; but after that, he would not 
 yield till he was struck senseless by a ball, and 
 then the crew delivered up the vessel to the 
 enemy, who, on coming on board and entering 
 the cabin where he lay, were astonished to find a 
 mere puny shrivelled spider of a man, instead of 
 the Devil they had expected to see. He was 
 taken on shore in Spain, and died of his wounds 
 there ; and the Spanish women afterwards used 
 to frighten their children, by telling them ■ Don 
 John of the Greenfield was coming ! ' " 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 69 
 
 CONVERSATION THE FIFTH. 
 
 Northcote mentioned the death of poor , 
 
 who had been with him a few days before, laughing 
 and in great spirits ; and the next thing he heard 
 was that he had put an end to himself. I asked if 
 there was any particular reason ? He said " No ; 
 that he had left a note upon the table, saying 
 that his friends had forsaken him, that he knew 
 no cause, and that he was tired of life. His 
 
 patron, C , of the Admiralty, had, it seems, 
 
 set him to paint a picture of Louis the Eighteenth 
 receiving the Order of the Garter. He had pro- 
 bably been teazed about that. These insipid 
 
70 MR. NOIITHCOTE'S 
 
 court-subjects were destined to be fatal to artists. 
 Poor Bird had been employed to paint a picture 
 of Louis the Eighteenth landing at Calais, and 
 had died of chagrin and disappointment at his 
 failure. Who could make any thing of such a 
 figure and such a subject ? There was nothing 
 to be done ; and yet if the artist added any thing 
 of his own, he was called to order by his would- 
 be patrons, as falsifying what appeared to them 
 an important event in history. It was only a 
 person like Rubens who could succeed in such 
 subjects by taking what licences he thought pro- 
 per, and having authority enough to dictate to 
 his advisers." A gentleman came in, who asked 
 
 if was likely to have succeeded in his art ? 
 
 Northcote answered, " There were several things 
 against it. He was good-looking, good-natured, 
 and a wit. He was accordingly asked out to 
 dine r and caressed by those who knew him ; and 
 a young man after receiving these flattering marks 
 of attention and enjoying the height of luxury 
 and splendour, was not inclined to return to his 
 painting-room, to brood over a design that would 
 cost him infinite trouble, and the success of 
 which was at last doubtful. Few young men of 
 
ta 
 
 CONVERSATIONS. 7^ 
 
 agreeable persons or conversation turned out great 
 artists. It was easier to look in the glass than 
 to make a dull canvas shine like a lucid mirror ; 
 and, as to talking, Sir Joshua used to say, a 
 painter should sew up his mouth. It was only 
 the love of distinction that produced eminence ; 
 and if a man was admired for one thing, that 
 was enough. We only work out our way to ex- 
 cellence by being imprisoned in defects. It re- 
 quires a long apprenticeship, great pains, and 
 prodigious self-denial, which no man will submit 
 to, except from necessity, or as the only chance 
 he has of escaping from obscurity. I remember 
 when Mr. Locke (of Norbury-Park) first came 
 over from Italy ; and old Dr. Moore, who had 
 a high opinion of him, was crying up his draw- 
 ings and asked me, if I did not think he would 
 make a great painter ? I said, ' No, never V — 
 ' Why not P 1 — ■ Because he has six thousand a 
 ear.'' No one would throw away all the advan- 
 ges and indulgences this ensured him, to shut 
 himself up in a garret to pore over that which 
 after all may expose him to contempt and ridicule. 
 Artists, to be sure, have gone on painting after 
 they have got rich, such as Rubens and Titian, 
 
72 mr. northcote's 
 
 and indeed Sir Joshua ; but then it had by this time 
 become a habit and a source of pleasure instead 
 of a toil to them, and the honours and distinc- 
 tion they had acquired by it counterbalanced 
 every other consideration. Their love of the 
 art had become greater than their love of riches 
 or of idleness : but at first this is not the case, 
 and the repugnance to labour is only mastered by 
 the absolute necessity for it. People apply to 
 study only when they cannot help it. No one 
 was ever known to succeed without this stimu- 
 lus." I ventured to say that, generally speak- 
 ing, no one, I believed, ever succeeded in a 
 profession without great application; but that 
 where there was a strong turn for any thing, a 
 man in this sense could not help himself, and the 
 application followed of course, and was, in fact, 
 comparatively easy. Northcote turned short 
 round upon me, and said, " Then you admit 
 original genius ? I cannot agree with you there. ' , 
 I said, " Waiving that, and not inquiring how 
 the inclination comes, but early in life a fond- 
 ness, a passion for a certain pursuit is imbibed ; 
 the mind is haunted by this object, it cannot rest 
 without it (anymore than the body without food), 
 
CONVERSATIONS. *J3 
 
 it becomes the strongest feeling we have, and then, 
 I think, the most intense application follows na- 
 turally, just as in the case of a love of money 
 or any other passion — the most unremitting ap- 
 plication without this is forced and of no use; 
 and where this original bias exists, no other mo- 
 tive is required."" — " Oh ! but,' 1 said Northcote, 
 " if you had to labour on by yourself without 
 competitors or admirers, you would soon lay 
 down your pencil or your pen in disgust. It is 
 the hope of shining, or the fear of being eclipsed, 
 that urges you on. Do you think if nobody took 
 any notice of what you did, this would not damp 
 your ardour ?" — " Yes ; after I had done any 
 thing that I thought worth notice, it might con- 
 siderably : but how many minds (almost all the 
 great ones) were formed in secresy and solitude, 
 without knowing whether they should ever make 
 a figure or not ! All they knew was, that they 
 liked what they were about, and gave their whole 
 souls to it. There was Hogarth, there was 
 Correggio: what enabled these artists to arrive at 
 the perfection in their several ways, which after- 
 wards gained them the attention of the world ? 
 Not the premature applause of the by-standers, 
 
 
74 MR. NORTHCOTE\s 
 
 but the vivid tingling delight with which the one 
 seized upon a grotesque incident or expression — 
 1 the wrapt soul sitting in the eyes'* of the other, 
 as he drew a saint or angel from the skies. If 
 they had been brought forward very early, before 
 they had served this thorough apprenticeship to 
 their own minds (the opinion of the world apart), 
 it might have damped or made coxcombs of them. 
 It was the love and perception of excellence (or 
 the favouring smile of the Muse) that in my view 
 produced excellence and formed the man of ge- 
 nius. Some, like Milton, had gone on with a 
 great work all their lives with little encourage- 
 ment but the hope of posthumous fame. 1 ' — " It 
 is not that," said Northcote ; " you cannot see 
 so far. It is not those who have gone before 
 you or those who are to come after you, but 
 those who are by your side, running the same 
 race, that make you look about you. What 
 made Titian jealous of Tintoret? Because he 
 stood immediately in his way, and their works 
 were compared together. If there had been 
 a hundred Tintorets a thousand miles off, 
 he would not have cared about them. That 
 is what takes off the edge and stimulus of exer- 
 
 
CONVERSATIONS. *]5 
 
 tion in old age : those who were our competitors 
 in early life, whom we wished to excel or whose 
 good opinion we were most anxious about, are 
 gone, and have left us in a manner by ourselves, 
 in a sort of new world, where we know and are 
 as little known as on entering a strange country. 
 Our ambition is cold with the ashes of those 
 whom we feared or loved. I remember old Al- 
 derman Boy dell using an expression which ex- 
 plained this. Once when I was in the coach 
 with him, in reply to some compliment of mine 
 on his success in life, he said, ■ Ah ! there 
 was one who would have been pleased at it ; but 
 her I have lost P The fine coach and all the 
 city- trappings were nothing to him without his 
 wife, who remembered what he was and the 
 gradations and anxious cares by which he rose 
 to his present affluence, and was a kind of moni- 
 tor to remind him of his former self and of the 
 different vicissitudes of his fortune." 
 
 Northcote then spoke of old Alderman I3ov- 
 dell with great regret, and said, " He was a man 
 of sense and liberality, aud a true patron of the 
 art. His nephew, who came after him, had not the 
 same capacity, and wanted to dictate to the ar- 
 e 2 
 
76 
 
 tists what they were to do. N. mentioned some 
 instance of his wanting him to paint a picture on 
 a subject for which he was totally unfit, and figures 
 of a size which he had never been accustomed to, 
 and he told him * he must get somebody else to 
 do it."' I said, " Booksellers and editors had the 
 same infirmity, and always wanted you to express 
 
 their ideas, not your own. Sir R. P had 
 
 once gone up to Coleridge, after hearing him 
 talk in a large party, and offered him 'nine 
 guineas a sheet for his conversation !' He cal- 
 culated that the < nine guineas a sheet 1 would be 
 at least as strong a stimulus to his imagination 
 as the wasting his words in a room full of com- 
 pany ." Northcote: "Ay, he came to me once, 
 and wished me to do a work which was to contain 
 a history of art in all countries and from the 
 beginning of the world. I said it would be an 
 invaluable work if it could be done ; but that 
 there was no one alive who could do it. 11 
 
 Northcote afterwards, by some transition, spoke 
 of the characters of women, and asked my opinion. 
 I said, "All my metaphysics leaned to the vulgar 
 side of these questions : I thought there was a 
 difference of original genius, a difference in the 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 77 
 
 character of the sexes, &c. Women appeared to 
 me to do some things better than men; and 
 therefore I concluded they must do other things 
 worse." Northcote mentioned Annibal Caracci, 
 and said, " How odd it was, that in looking at 
 any work of his, you could swear it was done by a 
 man ! Ludovico Caracci had a finer and more 
 intellectual expression, but not the same bold and 
 workmanlike character. There was Michael 
 Angelo again — what woman would ever have 
 thought of painting the figures in the Sistine 
 chapel? There was Dry den too, what a thorough 
 manly character there was in his style ! And 
 Pope" — [I interrupted, " seemed to me between 
 a man and a woman.' 1 ] — " It was not," he con- 
 tinued, " that women were not often very clever 
 (cleverer than many men), but there was a point 
 of excellence which they never reached. Yet 
 the greatest pains had been taken with several. 
 Angelica Kauffman had been brought up from a 
 child to the art, and had been taken by her 
 father (in boy's clothes) to the Academy to learn 
 to draw ; but there was an effeminate and feeble 
 look in all her works, though not without merit. 
 There was not the man's hand, or what Fuseli 
 
78 mr. northcote's 
 
 used to call a ' fist ' in them ; that is, something 
 coarse and clumsy enough, perhaps, but still with 
 strength and muscle. Even in common things, 
 you would see a carpenter drive a nail in a way 
 that a woman never would ; or if you had a suit 
 of clothes made by a woman, they would hang 
 quite loose about you and seem ready to fall off. 
 Yet it is extraordinary too, said Northcote, that 
 in what has sometimes been thought the peculiar 
 province of men, courage and heroism, there 
 have been women fully upon a par with any men, 
 such as Joan of Arc and many others, who have 
 never been surpassed as leaders in battle." I 
 observed that of all the women I had ever seen or 
 known any thing of, Mrs. Siddons struck me as the 
 grandest. He said, — " Oh ! it is her outward 
 form, which stamps her so completely for tragedy, 
 no less than the mental part. Both she and 
 her brother were cut out by Nature for a tragedy- 
 king and queen. It is what Mrs. Hannah 
 More has said of her, " Hers is the afflicted!"*" 
 I replied, that she seemed to me equally great in 
 anger or in contempt or in any stately part as 
 she was in grief, witness her Lady Macbeth. 
 " Y et," he said, " that, to be sure, was a master- 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 79 
 
 piece." I asked what he thought of Mrs. Inch- 
 bald ? He said, " Oh ! very highly : there was 
 no affectation in her. I once took up her Simjrfe 
 Story (which my sister had borrowed from the 
 circulating library) and looking into it, I said, 
 1 My God ! what have you got here ? ' and I 
 never moved from the chair till I had finished 
 it. Her Nature and Art is equally fine — the 
 very marrow of genius." She seems to me, I 
 added, like Venus writing books. " Yes, women 
 have certainly been successful in writing novels ; 
 and in plays too. I think Mrs. Centlivre's are 
 better than Congreve's. Their letters, too, are 
 admirable : it is only when they put on the 
 breeches and try to write like men, that they 
 become pedantic and tiresome. In giving ad- 
 vice, too, I have often found that they excelled ; 
 and when I have been irritated by any trifling 
 circumstance and have laid more stress upon it 
 than it was worth, they have seen the thing in a 
 right point of view and tamed down my aspe- 
 rities." On this I remarked, that I thought, in 
 general, it might be said that the faculties of 
 women were of a passive character. They judged 
 by the simple effect upon their feelings, without 
 
80 MR. NORTHCOTE , S 
 
 inquiring into causes. Men had to act ; women 
 had the coolness and the advantages of by- 
 standers, and were neither implicated in the 
 theories nor passions of men. While we were 
 proving a thing to be wrong, they would feel it 
 to be ridiculous. I said, I thought they had 
 more of common sense, though less of acquired 
 capacity than men. They were freer from the 
 absurdities of creeds and dogmas, from the viru- 
 lence of party in religion and politics (by which 
 we strove to show our sense and superiority), nor 
 were their heads so much filled with the lumber 
 of learned folios. I mentioned as an illustration, 
 that when old Baxter (the celebrated casuist and 
 non- conformist divine) first went to Kiddermin- 
 ster to preach, he was almost pelted by the 
 women for maintaining from the pulpit the then 
 fashionable and orthodox doctrine, that * Hell 
 was paved with infants' skulls.'' The theory, 
 which the learned divine had piled up on argu- 
 ments and authorities, is now exploded : the 
 common-sense feeling on the subject, which the 
 women of that day took up in opposition to it as 
 a dictate of humanity, would be now thought the 
 philosophical one. " Yes," said Northcote, " but 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 81 
 
 this exploded doctrine was knocked down by some 
 man, as it had been set up by one : the women 
 would let things remain as they are, without 
 making any progress in error or wisdom. We 
 do best together : our strength and our weakness 
 mutually correct each other." Northcote then 
 read me from a manuscript volume lying by him, a 
 character drawn of his deceased wife by a Dis- 
 senting Minister (a Mr. Fox, of Plymouth) which 
 is so beautiful that I shall transcribe it here. 
 
 " Written by Mr. John Fox, on the death of 
 his wife, who was the daughter of the Rev. Mr. 
 Isaac Gelling. 
 
 " My dear wife died to my unspeakable grief, 
 Dec. 19th, 1762. With the loss of my dear 
 companion died all the pleasure of my life ; and 
 no wonder : I had lived with her forty years, in 
 which time nothing happened to abate the strict- 
 ness of our Friendship, or to create a coolness or 
 indifference so common and even unregarded by 
 many in the world. I thank God I enjoyed my 
 full liberty, my health, such pleasures and di- 
 versions as I liked, perfect peace and competence 
 during the time ; which were all seasoned and 
 heightened every day more or less by constant 
 
 E 3 
 
82 mr. northcote's 
 
 marks of friendship, most inviolable affection, and 
 a most cheerful endeavour to make my life agree- 
 able. Nothing disturbed me but her many and 
 constant disorders ; under all which I could see 
 how her faithful heart was strongly attached to 
 me. And who could stand the shock of seeing 
 the attacks of Death upon and then her final 
 dissolution ? The consequences to me were 
 fatal. Old age rushed upon me like an armed 
 man : my appetite failed, my strength was gone, 
 every amusement became flat and dull ; my coun- 
 tenance fell, and I have nothing to do but to 
 drag on a heavy chain for the rest of my life ; 
 which I hope a good God will enable me to do 
 without murmuring, and in conclusion, to say 
 with all my soul — 
 
 Te Deum Laudamus. 
 
 " This was written on a paper blotted by tears, 
 and stuck with wafers into the first page of the 
 family Bible. 
 
 " Mr. John Fox died 22d of October, 1763. 
 He was bom May 10th, 1693." 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 83 
 
 CONVERSATION THE SIXTH. 
 
 Northcote alluded to a printed story of his 
 
 having hung an early picture of H 's out of 
 
 sight, and of FuselTs observing on the occasion — 
 " By G — d, you are sending him to heaven be- 
 fore his time ! " He said there was not the least 
 foundation for this story; nor could there be, 
 he not having been hanger that year. He read 
 out of the same publication a letter from Burke 
 to a young artist of the name of Barrow, full of 
 excellent sense, advising him by no means to give 
 up his profession as an engraver till he was sure 
 he could succeed as a painter, out of idle ambi- 
 
84 MR. northcote's 
 
 tion and an unfounded contempt for the humbler 
 and more laborious walks of life. " I could not 
 have thought it of him," said Northcote ; "I 
 confess he never appeared to me so great a man." 
 I asked what kind of looking man he was? 
 Northcote answered, " You have seen the pic- 
 ture ? There was something I did not like ; a 
 thinness in the features, and an expression of 
 hauteur, though mixed with condescension and 
 the manners of a gentleman. I can't help think- 
 ing he had a hand in the Discourses ; that he 
 gave some of the fine, graceful turns ; for Sir 
 Joshua paid a greater deference to him than to 
 any body else, and put up with freedoms that he 
 would only have submitted to from some peculiar 
 obligation. Indeed, Miss Reynolds used to com- 
 plain that whenever any of Burke's poor Irish 
 relations came over, they were all poured in upon 
 them to dinner ; but Sir Joshua never took any 
 notice, but bore it all with the greatest patience 
 and tranquillity. To be sure, there was another 
 reason : he expected Burke to write his Life, and 
 for this he would have paid almost any price. 
 This was what made him submit to the intrusions 
 of Boswell, to the insipidity of Malone, and to 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 85 
 
 the magisterial dictation of Burke : he made 
 sure that out of these three one would cer- 
 tainly write his Life, and ensure him immor- 
 tality that way. He thought no more of the 
 person who actually did write it afterwards than 
 he would have suspected his dog of writing it. 
 Indeed, I wish he could have known; for it 
 would have been of some advantage to me, and 
 he might have left me something not to dwell 
 on his defects; though he was as free from 
 them as any man ; but you can make any one 
 ridiculous with whom you live on terms of in- 
 timacy. 
 
 " I remember an instance of this that hap- 
 pened with respect to old Mr. M whom you 
 
 must have heard me speak of, and who was 
 esteemed an idol by Burke, Dr. Johnson, and 
 many others. Sir Joshua wanted to reprint 
 his Sermons and prefix a Life to them, and 
 asked me to get together any particulars I 
 could learn of him. So I gave him a manuscript 
 account of Mr. M , written by an old school- 
 fellow of his (Mr. Fox, a dissenting minister in 
 the West of England) ; after which I heard no 
 more of the Life. Mr. M was in fact a man of 
 
86 MB. northcote's 
 
 extraordinary talents and great eloquence; and 
 by representing in a manner the High-Church 
 notions both of Dr. Johnson and Sir Joshua 
 (for both were inclined the same way) they 
 came to consider him as a sort of miracle of 
 virtue and wisdom. There was, however, some- 
 thing in Mr. Fox's plain account that would 
 strike Sir Joshua, for he had an eye fo; nature ; 
 and he would at once perceive it was nearer the 
 truth than Dr. Johnson's pompous character of 
 him, which was proper only for a tomb-stone — it 
 was like one of Kneller's portraits, — it would do for 
 any body! That," said Northcote, " is old Mr. 
 
 M 's definition of beauty, which Sir Joshua 
 
 has adopted in the Discourses — that it is the me- 
 dium of form. For what is a handsome nose? 
 A long nose is net a handsome nose ; neither is 
 a short nose a handsome one : it must then be 
 one that is neither long nor short, but in the 
 middle between both. Even Burke bowed to his 
 authority ; and Sir Joshua thought him the 
 wisest man he ever knew. Once when Sir Joshua 
 was expressing his impatience of some innovation, 
 and I said, c At that rate, the Christian Reli- 
 gion could never have been established: 1 'Ohf 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 87 
 
 he said, ' Mr. M has answered that ! ' which 
 
 seemed to satisfy him. 1 ' 
 
 I made some remark that I wondered he did 
 not come up to London, though the same feeling 
 seemed to belong to other clever men born in 
 Devonshire (as Gandy) whose ambition was con- 
 fined to their native county, so that there must 
 be some charm in the place. " You are to con- 
 sider," he replied, "it is almost a peninsula, so 
 that there is no thorough-fare, and people are 
 therefore more stationary in one spot. It is for 
 this reason they necessarily intermarry among 
 themselves, and you can trace the genealogies of 
 families for centuries back ; whereas in other 
 places, and particularly here in London, where 
 every thing of that kind is jumbled together, you 
 never know who any man^s grand-father was. 
 There are country-squires and plain gentry down 
 in that part of the world, who have occupied the 
 same estates long before the Conquest (as the 
 Suckbitches in particular, — not a very sounding 
 name) and who look down upon the Courtney s 
 and others as upstarts. Certainly, Devonshire 
 for its extent has produced a number of eminent 
 men, Sir Joshua, the Mudges, Dunning, Gay, 
 
88 mr. northcote's 
 
 Lord Chancellor King, Raleigh, Drake, and Sir 
 Richard Granville in Queen Elizabeth's time, 
 who made that gallant defence in an engagement 
 with the Spanish fleet, and was the ancestor of 
 Pope's Lord Lansdowne, ( What Muse for Gran- 
 ville will refuse to sing, &C.' Foster, the cele- 
 brated preacher, was also, I believe, from the 
 West of England. He first became popular 
 from the Lord Chancellor Hardwicke stopping 
 in the porch of his chapel in the Old Jewry, out 
 of a shower of rain ; and thinking he might as 
 well hear what was going on, he went in, and was 
 so well pleased that he sent all the great folks to 
 hear him, and he was run after as much as 
 Irving has been in our time. An old fellow- 
 student from the country, going to wait on him 
 at his house in London, found a Shakspeare on 
 the window-seat ; and remarking the circumstance 
 with some surprise as out of the usual course of 
 clerical studies, the other apologised by saying 
 that he wished to know something of the world, 
 that his situation and habits precluded him from 
 the common opportunities, and that he found no 
 way of supplying the deficiency 'so agreeable or 
 effectual as looking into a volume of Shakspeare. 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 89 
 
 p 
 
 I 
 
 ope has immortalised him in the well-known 
 
 lines : — 
 
 " Let modest Foster, if he will, excel 
 Ten Metropolitans in preaching well ! " 
 
 Dr. Mudge, the son of Mr. Zachary Mudge, 
 who was a physician, was an intimate friend of 
 my father's, and I remember him perfectly well. 
 He was one of the most delightful persons I ever 
 knew. Every one was enchanted with his society. 
 It was not wit that he possessed, but such perfect 
 cheerfulness and good-humour, that it was like 
 health coming into the room. He was a most 
 agreeable companion, quite natural and un- 
 
 affected. His reading was the most beautiful 
 
 mi 
 su 
 de 
 
 I have ever heard. I remember his once read- 
 ng Moore's fable of the Female Seducers with 
 ch feeling and sweetness that every one was 
 delighted, and Dr. Mudge himself was so much 
 affected that he burst into tears in the middle 
 of it. The family are still respectable, but 
 derive their chief lustre from the first two 
 founders, like clouds that reflect the sun's rays, 
 after he has sunk below the horizon, but in time 
 turn grey and are lost in obscurity \V 
 
 I asked Northcote if he had ever happened to 
 
90 mr. northcote's 
 
 meet with a letter of Warburton's in answer to 
 one of Dr. Doddridge's, complimenting the author 
 of the Divine Legation of Moses on the evident 
 zeal and earnestness with which he wrote — to 
 which the latter candidly replied, that he wrote 
 with great haste and unwillingness ; that he never 
 sat down to compose till the printer's hoy was 
 waiting at the door for the manuscript, and that 
 he should never write at all but as a relief to a 
 morbid lowness of spirits, and to drive away un- 
 easy thoughts that often assailed him.* " That 
 indeed/ 1 observed North cote, "gives a dhferent 
 turn to the statement ; I thought at first it was 
 only the common coquetry both of authors and 
 artists, to be supposed to do what excites the ad- 
 miration of others with the greatest ease and in- 
 difference, and almost without knowing what they 
 are about. If what surprises you costs them 
 nothing, the wonder is so much increased. "When 
 Michael Angelo proposed to fortify his native 
 city, Florence, and he was desired to keep to his 
 painting and sculpture, he answered, that those 
 were his recreations, but what he really under- 
 
 * This very interesting letter will be found in the 
 Elegant Epistles. 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 91 
 
 stood was architecture. That is what Sir Joshua 
 considers as the praise of Rubens, that he seemed to 
 make a play-thing of the art. In fact, the work is 
 never complete unless it has this appearance: and 
 therefore Sir Joshua has laid himself open to 
 criticism, in saying that c a picture must not only 
 be done well, it must seem to have been done 
 easily.' It cannot be said to be done well, unless 
 it has this look. That is the fault of those la- 
 boured and timid productions of the modern 
 French and Italian schools ; they are the result 
 of such a tedious, petty, mechanical process, that 
 it is as difficult for you to admire as it has been 
 for the artist to execute them. Whereas, when a 
 work seems stamped on the canvas by a blow, 
 you are taken by surprise; and your admiration is 
 as instantaneous and electrical as the impulse of 
 genius which has caused it. I have seen a whole- 
 length portrait by Velasquez, that seemed done 
 while the colours were yet wet ; every thing was 
 touched in, as it were, by a wish ; there was such 
 a power that it thrilled through your whole frame, 
 and you felt as if you could take up the brush 
 and do any thing. It is this sense of power and 
 freedom which delights and communicates its 
 
92 mr. northcote's 
 
 own inspiration, just as the opposite drudgery 
 and attention to details is painful and disheart- 
 ening. There was a little picture of one of the 
 Infants of Spain on horseback, also by Velasquez, 
 which Mr. Agar had,* and with which Gains- 
 borough was so transported, that he said in a fit 
 of bravado to the servant who showed it, ( Tell 
 your master I will give him a thousand pounds 
 for that picture.'' Mr. Agar began to consider 
 what pictures he could purchase with the money 
 if he parted with this, and at last, having made 
 up his mind, sent Gainsborough word he might 
 have the picture ; who not at all expecting this 
 result, was a good deal confused, and declared, 
 however he might admire it, he could not afford 
 to give so large a sum for it." 
 
 • Now at the Dulwich Gallery. 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 
 
 93 
 
 CONVERSATION THE SEVENTH. 
 
 Northcote complained of being unwell, though 
 he said he could hardly expect it to be otherwise at 
 his age. He must think of making up the accounts 
 of his life, such as it had been, though he added 
 (checking himself) that he ought not to say that, 
 for he had had his share of good as well as others. 
 He had been reading in Boccaccio, where it was 
 frequently observed, that " such a one departed 
 this wretched life at such a time;" — so that in 
 Boccaccio's time they complained of the wretched- 
 ness of life as much as we do. He alluded to an 
 I expression of Coleridge's, which he had seen quoted 
 
94 mk. koiithcote's 
 
 in a newspaper, and which he thought very fine, 
 " That an old Gothic cathedral always seemed to 
 him like a petrified religion V Some one asked, 
 Why does he not go and turn Black Monk ? Be- 
 cause, I said, he never does any thing that he 
 should do. " There are some things," said N., 
 " with respect to which I am in the same state that 
 a blind man is as to colours. Homer is one of these. 
 I am utterly in the dark about it. I can make 
 nothing of his heroes or his Gods. Whether this 
 is owing to my not knowing the language or to a 
 change of manners, I cannot say." He was here 
 interrupted by the entrance of the beautiful Mrs. 
 
 G , beautiful even in years. She said she 
 
 had brought him a book to look at. She could not 
 stop, for she had a lady waiting for her below, but 
 she would call in some morning and have a long 
 chat. After she was gone, I remarked how hand- 
 some she still was ; and he said, " I don't know why 
 she is so kind as to come, except that I am the last 
 link in the chain that connects her with all those 
 she most esteemed when she was young, John- 
 son, lieynolds, Goldsmith — and remind her of 
 the most delightful period of her life." I said, 
 Not only so, but you remember what she was 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 95 
 
 at twenty ; and you thus bring back to her the 
 triumphs of her youth — that pride of beauty 
 which must be the more fondly cherished as it 
 has no external vouchers, and lives chiefly in the 
 bosom of its once lovely possessor. In her, how- 
 ever, the Graces had triumphed over time ; she was 
 one of Ninon de FEnclos 1 people, of the list of the 
 Immortals. I could almost fancy the shade of 
 Goldsmith in the room, looking round with com- 
 placency. M Yes, 11 said North cote, " that is what 
 Sir Joshua used to mention as the severest test of 
 beauty — it was not then skin-deep only. She had 
 gone through all the stages, and had lent a grace 
 to each. There are beauties that are old in a year. 
 Take away the bloom and freshness of youth, and 
 there is no trace of what they were. Their beauty 
 is not grounded in first principles. Good temper 
 is one of the great preservers of the features. 11 I 
 observed, it was the same in the mind as in the 
 body. There were persons of premature ability 
 who soon ran to seed, and others who made no 
 figure till they were advanced in life. I had known 
 several who were very clever at seventeen or 
 eighteen, but who had turned out nothing after- 
 wards. " That is what my father used to say, that 
 
96 mr. northcote's 
 
 at that time of life the effervescence and intoxication 
 of youth did a great deal, but that we must wait 
 till the gaiety and dance of the animal spirits had 
 subsided to see what people really were. It is 
 wonderful " (said Northcote, reverting to the former 
 subject) " what a charm there is in those early 
 associations, in whatever recals that first dawn and 
 outset of life. Jack-the-Giant- Killer is the first 
 book I ever read, and I cannot describe the plea- 
 sure it gives me even now. I cannot look into it 
 without my eyes filling with tears. I do not 
 know what it is (whether good or bad), but it is to 
 me, from early impressions, the most heroic of per- 
 formances. I remember once not having money 
 to buy it, and I transcribed it all out with my own 
 hand. This is what I was going to say about 
 Homer. I cannot help thinking that one cause of 
 the high admiration in which it is held is its being 
 the first book that is put into the hands of young 
 people at school : it is the first spell which opens to 
 them the enchantments of the unreal world. Had 
 I been bred a scholar, I dare say Homer would 
 have been my Jack-the-Giant-Killer ! — There is 
 an innocence and simplicity in that early age which 
 makes every thing relating to it delightful. It 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 97 
 
 seems to me that it is the absence of all affectation 
 or even of consciousness, that constitutes the per- 
 fection of nature or art. That is what makes it 'so 
 interesting to see girls and boys dancing at school — 
 there is such natural gaiety and freedom, such 
 unaffected, unpretending, unknown grace. That 
 is the true dancing, and not what you see at the 
 Opera. And again, in the most ordinary actions of 
 children, what an ease, what a playfulness, what 
 flames of beauty do they throw out without being 
 in the smallest degree aware of it ! I have some- 
 times thought it a pity there should be such a pre- 
 cious essence, and that those who possess it should 
 be quite ignorant of it : yet if they knew it, that 
 alone would kill it ! The whole depends on the 
 utter absence of all egotism, of the remotest reflec- 
 tion upon self. It is the same in works of art — 
 the simplest are the best. That is what makes me 
 hate those stiiffed characters that are so full of 
 themselves that I think they cannot have much 
 else in them. A man who admires himself prevents 
 me from admiring him, just as by praising himself 
 he stops my mouth ; though the vulgar take their 
 cue from a man's opinion of himself, and admire 
 none but coxcombs and pedants. This is the 
 p 
 
98 me. northcote's 
 
 best excuse for impudence and quackery, that the 
 world will not be gained without it. The true 
 favourites of Nature, however, have their eyes 
 turned towards the Goddess, instead of looking at 
 themselves in the glass. There is no pretence or 
 assumption about them. It seems difficult indeed 
 for any one who is the object of attention to others 
 not to be thinking of himself : but the greatest men 
 have always been the most free from this bias, the 
 weakest have been the soonest puffed up by self- 
 conceit. If you had asked Correggio why he 
 painted as he did, he would have answered, ' Be- 
 cause he could not help it.' Look at Dryden^s 
 verses, which he wrote just like a school-boy who 
 brings up his task without knowing whether he shall 
 be rewarded or flogged for it. Do you suppose he 
 wrote the description of Cymon for any other reason 
 than because he could not help it, or that he had 
 any more power to stop himself in his headlong 
 career than the mountain-torrent ? Or turn to 
 Shakspeare, who evidently does not know the value, 
 the dreadful value (as I may say) of the expressions 
 he uses. Genius gathers up its beauties, like the 
 child, without knowing whether they are weeds or 
 flowers : those productions that are destined to give 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 99 
 
 forth an everlasting odour, grow up without labour 
 or design.-' 
 
 Mr. P — ■ — came in, and complimenting North- 
 cote on a large picture he was about, the latter 
 said, It was his last great work : he was getting 
 too old for such extensive undertakings. His friend 
 replied, that Titian went on painting till near a 
 hundred. "Aye," said Northcote, " but he had the 
 Devil to help him, and I have never been able 
 to retain him in my service. It is a dreadful thing 
 to see an immense blank canvas spread out before 
 you to commit sins upon." Something was said of 
 
 the Academy, and P made answer, " I know 
 
 your admiration of corporate bodies." N. said, 
 " They were no worse than others ; they all began 
 well and ended ill. When the Academy first began, 
 one would suppose that the Members were so many 
 angels sent from heaven to fill the different situa- 
 tions, and that was the reason why it began : now 
 the difficulty was to find any body fit for them, 
 and the deficiency was supplied by interest, in- 
 trigue, and cabal. Not that I object to the indi- 
 viduals neither. As Swift said, I like Jack, Tom, 
 and Harry very well by themselves ; but all toge- 
 ther, they are not to be endured. We see the 
 F 2 
 
100 
 
 effect of people acting in concert in animals (for 
 men are only a more vicious sort of animals) : a 
 single dog will let you kick and cuff* him as you 
 please, and will submit to any treatment ; but if 
 you meet a pack of hounds, they will set unon you 
 and tear you to pieces with the greatest impudence " 
 P. : " The same complaint was made of the Academy 
 in Barry's time, which is now thirty or forty years 
 ago."* Northcote: "Oh! yes, they very soon de- 
 generated. It is the same in all human institutions. 
 The thing is, there has been no way found yet to 
 keep the Devil out. It will be a curious thing to see 
 whether that experiment of the American Govern- 
 ment will last. If it does, it will be the first in- 
 stance of the kind." P. : "I should think not. 
 There is something very complicated and mys- 
 terious in the mode of their Elections, which I am 
 given to understand are managed in an under-hand 
 manner by the leaders of parties ; and besides, in 
 all governments the great desideratum is to com- 
 bine activity with a freedom from selfish passions. 
 But it unfortunately happens that in human life, 
 the selfish passions are the strongest and most 
 
 * Barry's Letter to the Dilettanti Society, enumerating 
 his grievances, was published in 1798. 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 101 
 
 active ; and on this rock society seems to split. 
 There is a certain period in a man's life when he is 
 at his best (when he combines the activity of youth 
 with the experience of manhood), after which he 
 declines ; and perhaps it may be the same with 
 states. Things are not best in the beginning or 
 at the end, but in the middle, which is but a point." 
 Northcote: "Nothing stands still; it therefore 
 either grows better or worse. When a thing has 
 reached its utmost perfection, it then borders on 
 excess ; and excess leads to ruin and decay ." 
 
 Lord G. had bought a picture of Northcote's : 
 an allusion was made to his enormous and increasing 
 wealth. Northcote said he could be little the better 
 for it. After a certain point, it became a mere 
 nominal distinction. He only thought of that which 
 passed through his hands and fell under his imme- 
 diate notice. He knew no more of the rest than 
 you or I did : he was merely perplexed by it. 
 This was what often made persons in his situation 
 tenacious of the most trifling sums, for this was the 
 only positive or tangible wealth they had : the 
 remote contingency was like a thing in the clouds, 
 or mountains of silver and gold seen in the distant 
 horizon. It was the same with Nollekens : he died 
 
102 mr. xorthcote's 
 
 worth £200,000 : but the money he had accumu- 
 lated at his banker's was out of his reach and con- 
 templation — out of sight, out of mind — he was only 
 muddling about with what he had in his hands, and 
 lived like a beggar in actual fear of want. P. said, 
 he was an odd little man, but he believed clever 
 in his profession. Northcote assented, and observed 
 f* he was an instance of what might be done by con- 
 centrating the attention on a single object. If you 
 collect the rays of the sun in a focus, you could 
 set any object on fire. Great talents were often 
 dissipated to no purpose : but time and patience 
 conquered every thing. Without them, you could 
 do nothing. So Giardini, when asked how long it 
 would take to learn to play on the fiddle, answered — 
 * Twelve hours a-day for twenty years together. 1 
 A few great geniuses may trifle with the arts, like 
 Rubens ; but in general nothing can be more fatal 
 than to suppose oneVself a great genius." P. ob- 
 served, that in common business those who gave 
 up their whole time and thoughts to any pursuit 
 generally succeeded in it, though far from bright 
 men : and we often found those who had acquired 
 a name for some one excellence, people of moderate 
 capacity in other respects. After Mr. P. was gone, 
 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 103 
 
 Northcote said he was one of the persons of the 
 soundest judgment he had ever known, and like 
 Mr. P. H. the least liable to be imposed upon. by- 
 appearances. Northcote made the remark that he 
 thought it improper in any one to refuse lending a 
 favourite picture for public exhibition, as it seemed 
 not exclusively to belong to one person. A jewel 
 of this value belongs rather to the public than 
 to the individual. Consider the multitudes you 
 deprive of an advantage they cannot receive again : 
 the idle of amusement, the studious of instruction 
 and improvement. 11 I said, this kind of indiffer- 
 ence to the wishes of the public was sending the 
 world to Coventry ! We then spoke of a cele- 
 brated courtier, of whom I said I was willing to 
 believe every thing that was amiable, though I had 
 some difficulty, while thinking of him, to keep the 
 valet out of my head. Northcote : "He has cer- 
 tainly endeavoured to behave well ; but there is no al- 
 tering character. I myself might have been a courtier 
 if I could have cringed and held my tongue ; but I 
 could no more exist in that element than a fish out 
 of water. At one time I knew Lord R. and Lord 
 
 H. S , who were intimate with the Prince, 
 
 and recommended my pictures to him. Sir Joshua 
 
104 MR. xorthcote's 
 
 once asked me, e What do you know of the Prince 
 
 of , that he so often speaks to me about 
 
 you? 1 I remember I made him laugh by my 
 answer, for I said, ' Oh ! he knows nothing of me, 
 nor I of him — it's only his bragging f — ' Well, 1 
 said he, 'that is spoken like a King ! ir> .... It was to- 
 day I asked leave to write down one or two of these 
 Conversations : he said " I might, if I thought it 
 worth while ; but I do assure you that you over- 
 rate them. You have not lived enough in society 
 to be a judge. What is new to you, you think 
 will seem so to others. To be sure, there is one 
 thing, I have had the advantage of having lived in 
 good society myself. I not only passed a great deal 
 of my younger days in the company of Reynolds, 
 Johnson, and that circle, but I was brought up 
 among the Mudges, of whom Sir Joshua (who was 
 certainly used to the most brilliant society of the 
 metropolis) thought so highly, that he had them 
 at his house for weeks, and even sometimes gave up 
 his own bed-room to receive them. Yet they were 
 not thought superior to several other persons at 
 Plymouth, who were distinguished, some for their 
 satirical wit, others for their delightful fancy, others 
 for their information or sound sense, and with all of 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 105 
 
 whom my father was familiar when I was a boy. 
 Really after what I recollect of these, some of the 
 present people appear to me mere wretched pre- 
 tenders, muttering out their own emptiness.'" I said, 
 We had a specimen of Lord Byron^s Conversations. 
 Northcote. — " Yes ; but he was a tyrant, and a 
 person of that disposition never learns any thing, be- 
 cause he will only associate with inferiors. If, how- 
 ever, you think you can make any thing of it and 
 can keep clear of personalities, I have no objection 
 to your trying ; only I think after the first attempt, 
 you will give it up as turning out quite differently 
 from what you expected." 
 
 F3 
 
106 MR. northcote's 
 
 CONVERSATION THE EIGHTH. 
 
 Northcote spoke again of Sir Joshua, and said, 
 he was in some degree ignorant of what might be 
 called the grammatical part of the art, or scholarship 
 of academic skill ; but he made up for it by an 
 eye for nature, or rather by a feeling of harmony 
 and beauty. Dance (he that was afterwards Sir 
 Nathaniel Holland) drew the figure well, gave a 
 strong likeness and a certain studied air to his por- 
 traits ; yet they were so stiff and forced that they 
 seemed as if put into a vice. Sir Joshua, with the 
 defect of proportion and drawing, threw his figures into 
 such natural and graceful attitudes, that they might 
 
 
I 
 
 CONVERSATIONS. 107 
 
 be taken for the very people sitting or standing there. 
 An arm might be too long or too short, but from 
 the apparent ease of the position he had chosen, it 
 looked like a real arm and neither too long nor too 
 short. The mechanical measurements might be 
 wrong: the general conception of nature and character 
 was right ; and this, which he felt most strongly him- 
 self, he conveyed in a corresponding degree to the 
 spectator. Nature is not one thhig, but a variety 
 of things, considered under different points of view ; 
 and he who seizes forcibly and happily on any one 
 of these, does enough for fame. He will be the 
 most popular artist, who gives that view with which 
 the world in general sympathise. A merely pro- 
 fessional reputation is not very extensive, nor will 
 it last long. W — , who prided himself on his 
 drawing, had no idea of any thing but a certain 
 rigid outline, never considering the use of the 
 limbs in moving, the effects of light and shade, 
 &c. so that his figures, even the best of them, 
 look as if cut out of wood. Therefore no one 
 now goes to see them : while Sir Joshua^s are as 
 much sought after as ever, from their answering to 
 a feeling in the mind, though deficient as literal 
 representations of external nature. Speaking of 
 
108 mh. northcote's 
 
 artists who were said, in the cant of connoisseur- 
 ship, to be jealous of their outline, he said, " Rem- 
 brandt was not one of these. He took good care to 
 lose it as fast as he could. 1 '' Northcote then spoke 
 of the breadth of Titian, and observed, that though 
 particularly in his early pictures, he had finished 
 highly and copied every thing from nature, this 
 never interfered with the general effect, there was 
 no confusion or littleness : he threw such a broad 
 light on the objects, that every thing was seen in 
 connection with the masses and in its place. He 
 then mentioned some pictures of his own, some of 
 them painted forty years ago, that had lately sold 
 very well at a sale at Plymouth: he was much 
 gratified at this, and said it was almost like look- 
 ing out of the grave to see how one's reputation 
 got on. 
 
 Northcote told an anecdote of Sir George B , 
 
 to show the credulity of mankind. When a young 
 man, he put an advertisement in the papers to say 
 that a Mynheer , just come over from Ger- 
 many, had found out a method of taking a likeness 
 much superior to any other by the person's looking 
 into a mirror and having the glass heated so as to bake 
 the impression He stated this wonderful artist to 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 109 
 
 live at a perfumer's shop in Bond-street, opposite 
 to an hotel where he lodged, and amused himself 
 the next day to see the numbers of people who 
 flocked to have their likenesses taken in this sur- 
 prising manner. At last, he went over himself to 
 
 ask for Monsieur , and was driven out of the 
 
 shop by the perfumer in a rage, who said there was 
 
 no Monsieur nor Monsieur Devil lived there. 
 
 At another time Sir G. was going in a coach to a 
 tavern with a party of gay young men. The waiter 
 came to the coach-door with a light, and as he was 
 holding this up to the others, those who had already 
 got out went round, and getting in at the opposite 
 coach-door came out again, so that there seemed to 
 be no end of the procession, and the waiter ran into 
 the house, frightened out of his wits. The same 
 story is told of Swift and four clergymen dressed in 
 canonicals. 
 
 Speaking of titles, Northcote said, "It was strange 
 what blunders were often made in this way. R — i — , 
 (the engraver) had stuck Lord John Boringdon 
 under his print after Sir Joshua — it should be John 
 Lord Boringdon — and he calls the Earl of Carlisle 
 Lord Carlisle — Lord Carlisle denotes only a Baron. 
 I was once dining at Sir John Leicester's, and a 
 
110 MR. NOHTHCOTE , S 
 
 gentleman who was there was expressing his wonder 
 what connection a Prince of Denmark and a Duke 
 of Gloucester could have with Queen Anne, that 
 prints of them should be inserted hi a history that 
 he had just purchased of her reign. No other, I 
 said, than that one of them was her son, and the 
 other her husband. The boy died when he was 
 eleven years old of a fever caught at a ball dancing, 
 or he would have succeeded to the throne. Pie was 
 a very promising youth, though that indeed is what 
 is said of all princes. Queen Anne took his death 
 greatly to heart, and that was the reason why she 
 never would appoint a successor. She wished 
 her brother to come in, rather than the present 
 family. That makes me wonder, after thrones 
 have been overturned and kingdoms torn asunder 
 to keep the Catholics out, to see the pains that are 
 now taken to bring them in. It was this that made 
 the late King say it was inconsistent with his Coro- 
 nation-oath. Not that I object to tolerate any re- 
 ligion (even the Jewish), but they are the only one 
 that will not tolerate any other. They are such 
 devils (what with their cunning, their numbers, 
 and their zeal), that if they once get a footing, 
 fhey will never rest till they get the whole power 
 
CONVERSATIONS. Ill 
 
 into their hands. It was but the other day that 
 the Jesuits nearly overturned the empire of China ; 
 and if they were obliged to make laws and take the 
 utmost precautions against their crafty encroach- 
 ments, shall we open a door to them, who have 
 only just escaped out of their hands ?" I said, I 
 had thrown a radical reformer into a violent pas- 
 sion lately by maintaining that the Pope and Car- 
 dinals of Rome were a set of as good-looking 
 men as so many Protestant Bishops or Me- 
 thodist parsons, and that the Italians were the 
 only people who seemed to me to have any faith in 
 their religion as an object of imagination or feeling. 
 My opponent grew almost black in the face, while 
 inveighing against the enormous absurdity of tran- 
 substantiation ; it was in vain I pleaded the beauty, 
 innocence, and cheerfulness of the peasant-girls 
 near Rome, who believed in this dreadful supersti- 
 tion, and who thought me damned and would 
 probably have been glad to see me burnt at a stake 
 as a heretic. At length I said, that I thought 
 reason and truth very excellent things in them- 
 selves ; and that when I saw the rest of the world 
 grow as fond of them as they were of absurdity and 
 superstition, I should be entirely of his way of 
 
112 MR. NORTHCOTE's 
 
 thinking ; but I liked an interest in something (a 
 wafer or a crucifix) better than an interest in 
 nothing. What have philosophers gained by un- 
 loosing their hold of the ideal world, but to be 
 hooted at and pelted by the rabble, and envied and 
 vilified by one another for want of a common bond 
 of union and interest between them ? I just now 
 met the son of an old literary friend in the street, 
 who seemed disposed to cut me for some hereditary 
 pique, jealousy, or mistrust. Suppose his father 
 and I had been Catholic priests (saving the bar* 
 si?iister)how different would have been my reception ! 
 He is short-sighted indeed; but had I been a 
 Cardinal, he would have seen me fast enough : the 
 costume alone would have assisted him. Where 
 there is no frame-work of respectability founded on 
 the esprit de corps and on public opinion cemented 
 into a prejudice, the jarring pretensions of indivi- 
 duals fall into a chaos of elementary particles, neu- 
 tralising each other by mutual antipathy, and soon 
 become the sport and laughter of the multitude. 
 Where the whole is referred to intrinsic, real 
 merit, this creates a standard of conceit, egotism, 
 and envy in every one's own mind, lowering the 
 class, not raising the individual. A Catholic 
 
I 
 
 'CONVERSATIONS. 113 
 
 priest walking along the street is looked up to as 
 a link in the chain let down from heaven : a poet 
 or philosopher is looked down upon as a poor 
 creature, deprived of certain advantages, and with 
 very questionable pretensions in other respects. 
 Abstract intellect requires the weight of the other 
 world to be thrown into the scale, to make it a 
 match for the prejudices, vulgarity, ignorance, and 
 selfishness of this ! " You are right," said North- 
 cote. "It was Archimedes who said he could move 
 the earth if he had a place to fix his levers on : 
 the priests have always found this purchase in the 
 skies. After all, we have not much reason to 
 complain, if they give us so splendid a reversion 
 
 to look forward to. That is what I said to G 
 
 when he had been trying to unsettle the opinions 
 of a young artist whom I knew. Why should 
 you wish to turn him out of one house, till you 
 have provided another for him ? Besides, what 
 o you know of the matter more than he does ? 
 is nonsense is as good as your nonsense, when 
 both are equally in the dark. As to what your 
 friend said of the follies of the Catholics, I do not 
 think that the Protestants can pretend to be quite 
 free from them. So when a chaplain of Lord 
 
114 MR. northcote's 
 
 Bath's was teazing a Popish clergyman to know how 
 he could make up his mind to admit that absurdity 
 of Transubstantiation, the other made answer, 
 < Why, Til tell you : when I was young, I was 
 taught to swallow Adam's Apple; and since 
 that, I have found no difficulty with any thing 
 else ! ' We may say what we will of the Catholic 
 religion ; but it is more easy to abuse than to over- 
 turn it. I have for myself no objection to it but its 
 insatiable ambition, and its being such a dreadful 
 engine of power. It is its very perfection as a sys- 
 tem of profound policy and moral influence, that 
 renders it so formidable. Indeed, I have been 
 sometimes suspected of a leaning to it myself; and 
 when Godwin wrote his Life of Chaucer, he was 
 said to have turned Papist from his making use of 
 something I had said to him about confession. I 
 don't know but unfair advantages may be taken of 
 it for state-purposes ; but I cannot help thinking it 
 is of signal benefit in the regulation of private life. 
 If servants have cheated or lied or done any thing 
 wrong, they are obliged to tell it to the priest, which 
 makes them bear it in mind, and then a certain pe- 
 nance is assigned which they must go through, 
 though they do not like it. All this acts as a timely 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 115 
 
 check, which is better than letting them go on till 
 their vices get head, and then hanging them ! The 
 Great indeed may buy themselves off (as where are 
 they not privileged?) but this certainly does not apply 
 to the community at large. I remember our saying to 
 that old man (a Dominican friar) whose picture you 
 see there, that we wished he could be made a Royal 
 Confessor ; to which he replied, that he would not 
 for the world be Confessor to a King, because it 
 would prevent him from the conscientious discharge 
 of his duty. In former times, in truth, the traffic 
 in indulgences was carried to great lengths ; and 
 this it was that broke up the system and gave a 
 handle to the Protestants. The excellence of the 
 scheme produced the power, and then the power led 
 to the abuse of it. Infidel Popes went the farthest 
 in extending the privileges of the Church ; and 
 being held back by no scruples of faith or con- 
 science, nearly ruined it. When some pious eccle- 
 siastic was insisting to Leo X. on the necessity of 
 reforming certain scandalous abuses, he pointed to 
 a crucifix and said, * Behold the fate of a re- 
 former ! The system, as it is, is good enough for 
 us f They have taken the morality of the Gospel 
 and engrafted upon it a system of superstition and 
 
116 
 
 MR. XORTHCOTE S 
 
 priest-craft ; but still perhaps the former prevails 
 over the latter. Even that duty of humanity to 
 animals is beautifully provided for ; for on St. An- 
 tony's day, the patron of animals, the horses, &c. 
 pass under a certain arch, and the priest sprinkles 
 the Holy Water over them, so that they are vir- 
 tually taken under the protection of the church. 
 We think we have a right to treat them any how, 
 because they have no souls. The Roman Catholic 
 is not a barbarous religion ; and it is also much 
 milder than it was. This is a necessary consequence 
 of the state of things. When three Englishmen 
 were presented to Benedict XIV. (Lambertini) who 
 was a man of wit and letters, he observed to them 
 smiling, « I know that you must look upon our re- 
 ligion as false and spurious, but I suppose you will 
 have no objection to receive the blessing of an old 
 man V When Fuseli and I were there, an En- 
 glishman of the name of Brown had taken the pains 
 to convert a Roman artist: the Englishman was 
 sent from Rome, and the student was taken to the 
 Inquisition, where he was shown the hooks in the 
 wall and the instruments of torture used in for- 
 mer times, reprimanded, and soon after dismissed." 
 I asked Northcote whereabouts the Inquisition was? 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 117 
 
 He said, " In a street behind the Vatican." He 
 and Mr. Prince Hoare once took shelter in the por- 
 tico out of a violent shower of rain, and considered 
 it a great piece of inhumanity to be turned out into 
 the street. He then noticed a curious mistake in 
 Mrs. RadclinVs Italian, where some one is brought 
 from Naples to the Inquisition, and made to enter 
 Rome through the Porta di Popolo, and then the 
 other streets on the English side of Rome are de- 
 scribed with great formality, which is as if any one 
 was described as coming by the coach from Exeter, 
 and after entering at Whitechapel, proceeding 
 through Cheapside and the Strand to Charing- 
 Cross. Northcote related a story told him by Xol- 
 lekens of a singular instance of the effects of pas- 
 sion that he saw in the Trastevere, the oldest and 
 most disorderly part of Rome.* Two women were 
 quarrelling, when having used the most opprobrious 
 language, one of them drew a knife from her bosom, 
 and tried to plunge it into her rival's breast, but 
 missing her blow and the other retiring to a short 
 distance and laughing at her, in a fit of impotent 
 rage she struck it into her own bosom. Her passion 
 
 * These people are said to be the real descendants of the 
 ancient Romans. 
 
118 mr. northcote's 
 
 had been worked up to an uncontrolable pitch, and 
 being disappointed of its first object, must find vent 
 somewhere. I remarked it was what we did every- 
 day of our lives in a less degree, according to the 
 vulgar proverb of catting off one's nose to spite 
 one^s face! 
 
 Northcote then returned to the subject of the 
 sale of his pictures. He said it was a satisfaction, 
 though a melancholy one, to think that one's works 
 might fetch more after one's death than during one's 
 life-time. He had once shewn Farington a land- 
 scape of Wilson's, for which a gentleman had given 
 three hundred guineas at the first word ; and Fa- 
 rington said he remembered Wilson's painting it, 
 and how delighted he was when he got thirty pounds 
 for it. Barrett rode in his coach, while Wilson 
 nearly starved and was obliged to borrow ten pounds 
 to go and die in Wales : yet he used to say that his 
 pictures would be admired, when the name of Barrett 
 was forgotten. Northcote said he also thought 
 it a great hardship upon authors, that copy-right 
 should be restricted to a few years, instead of being 
 continued for the benefit of the family, as in the 
 case of Hudibras, Paradise Lost, and other works, 
 by which booksellers made fortunes every year, 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 
 
 119 
 
 though the descendants of the authors were still 
 living in obscurity and distress. I said that in 
 France a successful drama brought something to the 
 author or his heirs every time it was acted. North- 
 cote seemed to approve of this, and remarked that 
 he always thought it very hard upon Richardson, 
 just at the time he had brought out his Pamela 
 or Clarissa, to have it pirated by an Irish bookseller 
 through a treacherous servant whom he kept in his 
 shop, and thus to lose all the profits of his immortal 
 labours. 
 
120 
 
 CONVERSATION THE NINTH. 
 
 Northcote remarked to-day that artists were 
 more particular than authors as to character — the 
 latter did not seem to care whom they associated 
 with. He, N — , was disposed to attribute this to 
 greater refinement of moral perception in his own 
 profession. I said I thought it was owing to 
 authors being more upon the town than painters, 
 who were dependent upon particular individuals 
 and in a manner accountable to them for the per- 
 sons they might be seen in company with or might 
 occasionally bring into contact with them. For in- 
 stance, I said I thought II — was wrong in asking 
 
I 
 
 CONVERSATIONS. 121 
 
 me to his Private Day, where I might meet with Lord 
 M — , who was so loyal a man that he affected not 
 to know that such a person as Admiral Blake had 
 ever existed. On the same principle this Noble 
 Critic was blind to the merit of Milton, in whom 
 he could see nothing, though Mr. Pitt had been 
 at the pains to repeat several fine passages to him. 
 N — said, " It's extraordinary how particular the 
 world sometimes are, and what prejudices they take 
 up against people, even where there is no objection 
 to character, merely on the score of opinion. There 
 is G — , who is a very good man ; yet when 
 Mr. H— - and myself wished to introduce him at 
 the house of a lady who lives in a round of society, 
 and has a strong tinge of the blue-stocking, she 
 would not hear of it. The sound of the name 
 seemed to terrify her. It was his writings she was 
 afraid of. Even Cosway made a difficulty too." 
 
 I replied — " I should not have expected this of 
 him, who was as great a visionary and as violent a 
 politician as any body could be." 
 
 Northcote — "It passed off in Cosway as whim. 
 He was one of those butterfly characters that nobody 
 minded : so that his opinion went for nothing : but 
 it would not do to bring any one else there, whose 
 
 G 
 
122 MR. northcote\s 
 
 opinion might be more regarded and equally un- 
 palatable. G — 's case is particularly hard in this 
 respect : he is a profligate in theory, and a bigot in 
 conduct. He does not seem at all to practise what 
 he preaches, though this does not appear to avail 
 him any thing." — " Yes," I said, " he writes, 
 against himself. He has written against matri- 
 mony, and has been twice married. He has scouted 
 all the common-place duties, and yet is a good 
 husband and a kind father. He is a strange com- 
 position of contrary qualities. He is a cold for- 
 malist, and full of ardour and enthusiasm of mind ; 
 dealing in magnificent projects and petty cavils ; 
 naturally dull, and brilliant by dint of study ; 
 pedantic and playful ; a dry logician and a writer 
 of romances/ 1 
 
 " You describe him," said N — , " as I remem- 
 ber Baretti once did Sir Joshua Reynolds at his 
 own table, saying to him, ' You are extravagant 
 and mean, generous and selfish, envious and candid, 
 proud and humble, a genius and a mere ordinary 
 mortal at the same time.'' I may not remember his 
 exact words, but that was their effect. The fact was, 
 Sir Joshua was a mixed character, like the rest of 
 mankind in that respect ; but knew his own fail- 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 123 
 
 ings, and was on his guard to keep them back as 
 much as possible, though the defects would break 
 out sometimes." "G — , on the contrary,'" I said, "is 
 aiming to let his out and to magnify them into vir- 
 tues in a kind of hot-bed of speculation. He is 
 shocking on paper and tame in reality." 
 
 " How is that?" said Northcote. 
 
 " Why, I think it is easy enough to be accounted 
 for ; he is naturally a cold speculative character, 
 and indulges in certain metaphysical extravagances 
 as an agreeable exercise for the imagination, which 
 alarm persons of a grosser temperament, but to which 
 he attaches no practical consequences whatever. 
 So it has been asked how some very immoral or 
 irreligious writers, such as Helveticus and others, 
 have been remarked to be men of good moral cha- 
 racter ? and I think the answer is the same. Per- 
 sons of a studious, phlegmatic disposition can witli 
 impunity give a license to their thoughts, which 
 they are under no temptation to reduce into prac- 
 tice. The sting is taken out of evil by their con- 
 stitutional indifference, and they look on virtue and 
 vice as little more than words without meaning or 
 the black and white pieces of the chess-board, in 
 combining which the same skill and ingenuity may 
 
 G 2 
 
124 MR. NORTHCOTE's 
 
 be shewn. More depraved and combustible tem- 
 peraments are warned of the danger of any lati- 
 tude of opinion by their very proneness to mischief, 
 and are forced by a secret consciousness to impose 
 the utmost restraint both upon themselves and others. 
 The greatest prudes are not always supposed to 
 be the greatest enemies to pleasure. Besides, au- 
 thors are very much confined by habit to a life of 
 study and speculation, sow their wild oats in their 
 books, and unless where their passions are very 
 strong indeed, take their swing in theory and con- 
 form in practice to the ordinary rules and examples 
 of the world. 11 
 
 Northcote said, " Certainly people are tenacious of 
 appearances in proportion to the depravity of man- 
 ners, as we may see in the simplicity of country- 
 places. To be sure, a rake like Hodge in Love in 
 a Village gets amongst them now and then ; but in 
 general they do many gross things without the least 
 notion of impropriety, as if vice were a thing they 
 had no more to do with than children." 1 He then 
 mentioned an instance of some young country- 
 people who had to sleep on the floor in the same 
 room and they parted the men from the women by 
 some sacks of corn, which served for a line of 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 125 
 
 demarcation and an inviolable partition between 
 them. I told N — a story of a countrywoman who 
 coming to an inn in the West of England wanted 
 a bed ; and being told they had none to spare, still 
 persisted till the landlady said in a joke, " I tell 
 you, good woman, I have none, unless you can 
 prevail with the ostler to give you half of his." — 
 " Well," said she, " if he is a sober, prudent man, 
 I should not mind ! " 
 
 Something was then said of the manners of people 
 abroad, who sometimes managed to unite an absence 
 of mauvaise honte with what could hardly be con- 
 strued into an ignorance of vice. The Princess 
 Borghese (Buonaparte^s sister) who was no saint, 
 sat to Canova for a model, and being asked, " If 
 she did not feel a little uncomfortable," answered, 
 " No, there was a fire in the room." 
 
 " Custom," said N — , " makes a wonderful 
 difference in taking off the sharpness of the first 
 inflammable impression. People for instance were 
 mightily shocked when they first heard that the boys 
 at the Academy drew from a living model. But the 
 effect almost immediately wears off with them. It is 
 exactly like copying from a statue. The stillness, 
 the artificial light, the attention to what they are 
 
126 me. xorthcote's 
 
 about, the publicity even, draws off any idle thoughts, 
 and they regard the figure and point out its defects 
 or beauties, precisely as if it were of clay or mar- 
 ble." I said I had perceived this effect myself, that 
 the anxiety to copy the object before one deadened 
 every other feeling ; but as this drew to a close, the 
 figure seemed almost like something coming to life 
 again, and that this was a very critical minute. 
 He said, he found the students sometimes watched 
 the women out, though they were not of a very 
 attractive appearance, as none but those who were 
 past their prime would sit in this way : they looked 
 upon it as an additional disgrace to what their pro- 
 fession imposed upon them, and as something unna- 
 tural. One in particular (he remembered) always 
 came in a mask. Several of the young men in his 
 time had however been lured into a course of dissi- 
 pation and ruined by such connexions ; one in parti- 
 cular, a young fellow of great promise but affected, 
 and who thought that profligacy was a part of 
 genius. I said, It was the easiest part. This was 
 an advantage foreign art had over ours. A battered 
 courtesan sat for Sir Joshua's Iphigene ; innocent 
 girls sat for Canova's Graces, as I had been in- 
 formed. 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 127 
 
 Northcote asked, if I had sent my son to school ? 
 I said, I thought of the Charter-House, if I could 
 compass it. I liked those old established places 
 where learning grew for hundreds of years, better 
 than any new-fangled experiments or modern semi- 
 naries. He inquired if I had ever thought of putting 
 him to school on the Continent; to which I an- 
 swered, No, for I wished him to have an idea of 
 home, before I took him abroad ; by beginning in 
 the contrary method, I thought I deprived him 
 both of the habitual attachment to the one and of 
 the romantic pleasure in the other. N — observed 
 there were very fine schools at Rome in his time, 
 one was an Italian, and another a Spanish College, 
 at the last of which they acted plays of Voltaire's, 
 such as Zara, Mahomet, &c. at some of which he 
 had been present. The hall that served for the 
 theatre was beautifully decorated ; and just as the 
 curtain was about to draw up, a hatch-way was 
 opened and showered down play-bills on their heads 
 with the names of the actors ; such a part being by 
 a Spanish Grandee of the first class, another by a 
 Spanish Grandee of the second class, and they were 
 covered with jewels of the highest value. Several 
 Cardinals were also present (who did not attend the 
 
128 MR. northcote's 
 
 public theatres) and it was easy to gain admittance 
 from the attention always shewn to strangers. N — 
 then spoke of the courtesy and decorum of the 
 Roman clergy in terms of warm praise, and said he 
 thought it in a great measure owing to the conclave 
 being composed of dignitaries of all nations, Spa- 
 nish, German, Italian, which merged individual 
 asperities and national prejudices in a spirit of 
 general philanthropy and mutual forbearance. I 
 said I had never met with a look from a Catholic 
 priest (from the highest to the lowest) that seemed 
 to reproach me with being a tramontane. This 
 absence of all impertinence was to me the first of 
 virtues. He repeated, I have no fault to find with 
 Italy. There may be vice in Rome, as in all great 
 capitals (though I did not see it) — but in Parma and 
 the remoter towns, they seem all like one great and 
 exemplary family. Then kindness to strangers was 
 remarkable. He said he had himself travelled all 
 the way from Lyons to Genoa, and from Genoa to 
 Rome without speaking a word of the language and 
 in the power of a single person without meeting 
 with the smallest indignity ; and everywhere, both at 
 the inns and on the road, every attention was paid 
 to his feelings and pains taken to alleviate the un- 
 
I 
 
 CONVERSATIONS. 129 
 
 comfortableness of his situation. Set a Frenchman 
 down in England to go from London to York in 
 the same circumstances, and see what treatment he 
 will be exposed to. He recollected a person of 
 the name of Gogain who had been educated in 
 France and could not speak English — on landing, 
 he held out half-a-guinea to pay the boatman who 
 had rowed him only about twenty yards from the 
 vessel, which the fellow put in his pocket and left 
 him without a single farthing. Abroad, he would 
 have been had before the magistrate for such a 
 thing, and probably sent to the galleys. There is 
 a qualifying property in nature that makes most 
 things equal. In England they cannot drag you 
 out of your bed to a scaffold, or take an estate from 
 you without some reason assigned : but as the law 
 prevents any flagrant acts of injustice, so it makes it 
 more difficult to obtain redress. " We pay " con- 
 tinued Northcote "for every advantage we pos- 
 sess by the loss of some other. Poor Goblet, the 
 other day, after making himself a drudge to Nolle- 
 kens all his life, with difficulty recovered eight hun- 
 dred pounds compensation ; and though he was 
 clearly entitled, by the will, to the models which 
 the sculptor left behind him, he was afraid to risk 
 
 G 3 
 
130 MR. northcote's 
 
 the law expenses, and gave it up." Some person 
 had been remarking, that every one had a right 
 to leave his property to whom he pleased. " Not, 11 
 said N — , " when he has promised it to another." 
 I asked if Mr. ■ ■ ■ was not the same person I had 
 once seen come into his painting-room, in a rusty 
 black coat and brown worsted stockings, very much 
 with the air of a man who carries a pistol in an in- 
 side pocket ? He said, " It might be : he was a 
 dull man, but a great scholar — one of those de- 
 scribed in the epigram :— * 
 
 Oh ! ho, quoth Time to Thomas Hearne, 
 Whatever 1 forget, you learn." 
 
 We then alluded to an attack of Cobbett's on 
 some spruce legacy-hunter, quoted in the last Sun- 
 day's Examiner ; and N — spoke in raptures of the 
 power in Cobbetfs writings, and asked me if I had 
 ever seen him. I said, I had for a short time ; that 
 he called rogue and scoundrel at every second word 
 in the coolest way imaginable, and went on just 
 the same in a room as on paper. 
 
 I returned to what N — lately said of his travels 
 in Italy, and asked if there were fine Titians at 
 Genoa or Naples. " Oh, yes T he said, " heaps at 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 131 
 
 the latter place. Titian had painted them for one 
 of the Farnese family ; and when the second son 
 succeeded the eldest as King of Spain, the youngest, 
 who was Prmce of Parma, went to Naples, and took 
 them with him. There is that fine one (which you 
 have heard me speak of) of Paul III. and his two 
 natural sons or nephews, as they were called. My 
 God ! what a look it has ! -The old man is sitting in 
 his chair, and looking up to one of the sons, with his 
 hands grasping the arm-chair, and his long spider 
 fingers, and seems to say (as plain as words can 
 speak), < You wretch! what do you want now P 1 — 
 while the young fellow is advancing with an humble 
 hypocritical air. It is true history, as Fuseli said, 
 and indeed it turned out so ; for the son (or nephew) 
 was afterwards thrown out of the palace-windows by 
 the mob, and torn to pieces by them." In speak- 
 ing of the different degrees of information abroad, 
 he remarked, " One of the persons where I lodged 
 at Rome did not even know the family name of 
 the reigning Pope, and only spoke of him as the 
 Papa ; another person, who was also my landlady, 
 knew all their history, and could tell me the names 
 of the Cardinals from my describing their coats of 
 arms to her." 
 
132 MR. northcote's 
 
 N — related an anecdote of Mr. Moore (brother 
 of the General), who was on board an English 
 frigate in the American war, and coming in sight of 
 another vessel which did not answer their signals, 
 they expected an action, when the Captain called 
 his men together, and addressed them in the follow- 
 ing manner : — " You dirty, ill-looking blackguards! 
 do you suppose I can agree to deliver up such a set 
 of scarecrows as you as prisoners to that smart, frip- 
 pery Frenchman ? I can t think of such a thing. 
 No ! by G — d, you must fight till not a man of you 
 is left, for I should be ashamed of owning such a 
 ragamuffin crew !" This was received with loud 
 shouts and assurances of victory, but the vessel 
 turned out to be an English one. 
 
 I asked if he had seen the American novels, in 
 one of which (the Pilot) there was an excellent de- 
 scription of an American privateer expecting the 
 approach of an English man-of-war in a thick fog, 
 when some one saw what appeared to be a bright 
 cloud rising over the fog, but it proved to be the 
 topsail of a seventy-four. N — thought this was 
 striking, but had not seen the book. " Was it 
 
 one of I •» ?" Oh ! no, he is a mere trifler — a 
 
 jilligree man — an English litterateur at second- 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 133 
 
 hand ; but the Pilot gave a true and unvarnished 
 picture of American character and manners. The 
 storm, the fight? the whole account of the ship's 
 crew, and in particular of an old boatswain, were 
 done to the life — every thing 
 
 Suffered a sea- change 
 
 Into something new and strange. 
 
 On land he did not do so well. The fault of 
 American literature (when not a mere vapid imitation 
 of ours) was, that it ran too much into dry, minute, 
 literal description ; or if it made an effort to rise 
 above this ground of matter-of-fact, it was forced and 
 exaggerated, " horrors accumulating on horror's 
 head." They had no natural imagination. This 
 was likely to be the case in a new country like 
 America, where there were no dim traces of the past 
 — no venerable monuments — no romantic associa- 
 tions ; where all (except the physical) remained to 
 be created, and where fiction, if they attempted it, 
 would take as preposterous and extravagant a shape 
 s their local descriptions were jejune and servile. 
 Cooper's novels and Brown's romances (something 
 on the model of Godwin's) were the two extremes. 
 Some remark was made on the failure of a great 
 
134* wr. northcote's 
 
 bookseller, and on the supposition that now we should 
 find out the author of the Scotch novels. " Aye," said 
 N — 3 "we shall find more than one." I said, I thought 
 not ; to say nothing of the beauties, the peculiarities 
 of style and grammar in every page proved them to 
 be by the same hand. Nobody else could write so 
 well — or so ill, in point of mere negligence. N — 
 said, " It was a pity he should fling away a fortune 
 twice. There were some people who could not keep 
 money when they had got it. It was a kind of in- 
 continence of the purse. Zoffani did the same thing. 
 He made a fortune in England by his pictures, 
 which he soon got rid of, and another in India, 
 which went the same way." 
 
 We somehow got from Sir Walter to the Queen's 
 trial, and the scenes at Brandenburg-House. I 
 said they were a strong illustration of that instinct 
 of servility — that hankering after rank and power, 
 which appeared to me to be the base part of human 
 nature. Here were all the patriots and Jacobins 
 of London and Westminster, who scorned and 
 hated the King, going to pay their homage to the 
 Queen, and ready to worship the very rags of 
 royalty. The wives and daughters of popular cari- 
 caturists and of forgotten demagogues were ready to 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 135 
 
 pull caps in the presence-chamber for precedence, 
 till they were parted by Mr. Alderman Wood. 
 Every fool must go to kiss hands ; "our maid's 
 aunt of Brentford" must sip loyalty from the 
 Queen's hand ! That was the true court to which 
 they were admitted : the instant there was the 
 smallest opening, all must rush in, tag-rag and 
 bobtail. All the fierceness of independence and 
 all the bristling prejudices of popular jealousy were 
 smoothed down in a moment by the velvet touch of 
 the Queen's hand ! No matter what else she was 
 (whether her cause were right or wrong) — it was 
 the mock-equality with sovereign rank, the acting 
 in a farce of state, that was the secret charm. That 
 was what drove them mad. The world must have 
 something to admire ; and the more worthless and 
 stupid their idol is, the better, provided it is fine : 
 for it equally flatters their appetite for wonder, and 
 hurts their self-love less. This is the reason why 
 people formerly were so fond of idols : they fell 
 
 Kown and worshipped them, and made others do the 
 ame, for theatrical effect ; while, all the while, they 
 :new they were but wood and stone painted over. 
 We in modern times have got from the dead to the 
 living idol, and bow to hereditary imbecility. The 
 
136 MR. northcote's 
 
 less of genius and virtue, the greater our self-com- 
 placency. We do not care how high the elevation, 
 so that it is wholly undeserved. True greatness 
 excites our envy ; mere rank, our unqualified re- 
 spect. That is the reason of our antipathy to 
 new-made dynasties, and of our acquiescence in 
 old-established despotism. We think we could sit 
 upon a throne, if we had had the good luck to be 
 born to one ; but we feel that we have neither 
 talent nor courage to raise ourselves to one. If any 
 one does, he seems to have got the start of us ; and 
 we are glad to pull him back again. I remember 
 Mr. II — , of Liverpool (a very excellent man, 
 and a good patriot,) saying, many years ago, in 
 reference to Buonaparte and George III., that 
 " the superiority of rank was quite enough for him, 
 without the intellectual superiority ." That is what 
 has made so many renegadoes and furious Anti-Buo- 
 napartists among our poets and politicians, because 
 he got before them in the race of power. N — " And 
 the same thing made you stick to him, because you 
 thought he was your fellow ! It is wonderful how 
 much of our virtues, as well as of our vices, is refer- 
 able to self. Did you ever read Ilochcfoucault P" — 
 Yes. " And don't you think he is right ?" In a 
 
I 
 
 CONVERSATIONS. 137 
 
 great measure : but I like Mandeville better. He 
 goes more into his subject. " Oh ! he is a devil. 
 There is a description of a clergyman's hand he has 
 given, which I have always had in my eye whenever 
 I have had to paint a fine gentleman's hand. I 
 thought him too metaphysical, but it is long since 
 I read him. His book was burnt by the common 
 hangman ; was it not ? " Yes ; but he did not at 
 all like this circumstance, and is always recurring 
 to it. — " No one can like this kind of condemna- 
 tion, because every sensible man knows he is not a 
 judge in his own cause ; and besides, is conscious, 
 if the verdict were on the other side, how ready he 
 would be to catch at it as decisive in his favour." 
 I said, it was amusing to see the way in which he 
 fell upon Steele, Shaftesbury, and other amiable 
 writers, and the terror you were in for your favour- 
 ites, just as when a hawk is hovering over and 
 going to pounce upon some of the more harmless 
 feathered tribe. He added, " It was surprising 
 how Swift had escaped with so little censure ; but 
 the Gullivers Travels passed off as a story-book, 
 and you might say in verse what you would be 
 pelted for in plain prose. — The same thing you 
 have observed in politics may be observed in 
 
138 MR. XOItTHCOTE 1 S 
 
 religion too. You see the anxiety to divide and 
 bring nearer to our own level. The Creator of the 
 universe is too high an object for us to approach ; 
 the Catholics therefore have introduced the Virgin 
 Mary and a host of saints, with whom their vota- 
 ries feel more at their ease and on a par. The 
 real object of worship is kept almost out of sight. 
 Dignum the singer (who is a Catholic) was arguing 
 on this subject with some one, who wanted to con- 
 vert him, and he replied in his own defence — ' If 
 you had a favour to ask of some great person, would 
 you not first apply to a common friend to intercede 
 for you i- ™ In some part of the foregoing conversa- 
 tion, N — remarked that " West used to say, you 
 could always tell the highest nobility at court, from 
 their profound humility to the King : the others 
 kept at a distance, and did not seem to care about it. 
 The more the former raised the highest person, the 
 more they raised themselves who were next in point 
 of rank. They had a greater interest in the Ques- 
 tion ; and the King would have a greater jealousy 
 of them than of others. A V lien B — was painting 
 the Queen, with whom he used to be quite familiar, 
 lie was one day surprised, when the Prince-Regent 
 came into the room, to see the profound homage 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 
 
 139 
 
 and dignified respect with which he approached her. . 
 ' Good God ! ' said he to himself, * here is the 
 second person in the kingdom comes into the room 
 in this manner, while I have been using the great- 
 est freedoms ! ' To be sure ! that was the very 
 reason : the second person in the kingdom wished 
 to invest the first with all possible respect, so much 
 of which was naturally reflected back upon himself. 
 B — had nothing to' lose or gain in this game of 
 royal ceremony, and was accordingly treated as a 
 cypher. 1 '' 
 
140 
 
 CONVERSATION THE TENTH. 
 
 Northcote shewed me a printed circular from 
 the Academy, with blanks to be filled up by Aca- 
 demicians, recommending young students to draw. 
 One of these related to an assurance as to the moral 
 character of the candidate ; Northcote said, " What 
 can I know about that? This zeal for morality 
 begins with inviting me to tell a lie. I know 
 whether he can draw or not, because he brings me 
 specimens of his drawings ; but what am I to know 
 of the moral character of a person I have never seen 
 before ? Or what business have the Academy to in- 
 quire into it ? I suppose they are not afraid he will 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 141 
 
 steal the Farnese Hercules ; and as to idleness and 
 debauchery, he will not be cured of these by cutting 
 him off from the pursuit of a study on which he has 
 set his mind, and in which he has a fair chance to 
 succeed. I told one of them, with as grave a face 
 as I could, that, as to his moral character, he must 
 go to his god-fathers and god-mothers for that. He 
 answered very simply, that they were a great way 
 off, and that he had nobody to appeal to but his 
 apothecary ! The Academy is not an institution 
 for the suppression of vice, but for the encourage- 
 ment of the Fine Arts. Why then go out of their 
 way to meddle with what was provided for by other 
 means — the law and the pulpit ? It would not have 
 happened in Sir Joshua's time," continued North- 
 cote, " nor even in Fuselfs : but the present men 
 are < dressed in a little brief authority,' and they 
 wish to make the most of it, without perceiving the 
 limits. No good can possibly come of this busy- 
 body spirit. The dragging morality into every 
 thing, in season and out of season, is only giving a 
 handle to hypocrisy, and turning virtue into a bye- 
 word for impertinence ! " 
 
 Here Northcote stopped suddenly, to ask if there 
 was not such a word as rivulet in the language ? I 
 
 
142 mb. northcote's 
 
 said it was as much a word in the language as it 
 was a thing in itself. He replied, it was not to be 
 found in Johnson ; the word was riveret there. I 
 thought this must be in some of the new editions ; 
 Dr. Johnson would have knocked any body down, 
 who had used the word riveret. It put me in 
 
 mind of a story of Y the actor, who being 
 
 asked how he was, made answer that he had been 
 indisposed for some days with afeveret. The same 
 person, speaking of the impossibility of escaping from 
 too great publicity, related an anecdote of his being 
 once in a remote part of the Highlands, and seeing 
 an old gentleman fishing, he went up to inquire 
 some particulars as to the mode of catching the 
 salmon at what are called " salmon-leaps.'" — The 
 old gentleman began his reply — " Why, Mr. 
 
 Y ," at which the actor started back in great 
 
 surprise. " Good God !" said Northcote, " did he 
 consider this as a matter of wonder, that, after 
 shewing himself on a stage for a number of yeaTs, 
 people should know his face ? If an artist or an 
 author were recognised in that manner, it might be 
 a proof of celebrity, because it would shew that they 
 had been sought for ; but an actor is so mucli 
 seen in public, that it is no wonder he is known 
 
. 
 
 CONVERSATIONS. 143 
 
 y all the world. I once went with Opie in the 
 stage-coach to Exeter; and when we parted; he to 
 go on to Cornwall and I to Plymouth, there was a 
 young gentleman in the coach who asked me, ■ Who 
 it was that I had been conversing with ? ' I said 
 it was Mr. Opie, the painter ; at which he expressed 
 the greatest surprise, and was exceedingly con- 
 cerned to think he had not known it before. I did 
 not tell him who I was, to see if my name would 
 electrify him in the same manner. That brings to 
 my mind the story I perhaps may have told you 
 
 before, of a Mr. A and Dr. Pennick of the 
 
 Museum. They got into some quarrel at the 
 theatre; and the former presenting his card, said 
 
 with great pomposity, ■ My name is A , Sir ; ' 
 
 which the other answered, ■ I hear it, Sir, and 
 
 m not terrified ! ' " I asked if this was the A who 
 
 ought the duel with F . He said he could not 
 
 11, but he was our ambassador to some of the petty 
 
 erman States. 
 
 A country-gentleman came in, who complimented 
 
 »'orthcote on his pictures of animals and birds, 
 
 hich I knew he would not like. He muttered 
 something when he was gone, in allusion to the 
 proverb of giving snuff to a cat. Afterwards, a 
 
 
144 MR. NORTH COTE'S 
 
 miniature-painter brought some copies he had made 
 of a portrait of a young lady by Northcote. They 
 were really very well, and we learned he was to have 
 five guineas for the larger size, and two for the 
 smaller ones. I could now account for the humility 
 and shabby appearance of the artist. He paid his 
 covirt better than his rustic predecessor ; for being 
 asked by Northcote if the portrait of the young lady 
 was approved ? he said the mother had told him, 
 before she engaged him to copy it, that " it was one 
 of the loveliest pictures (that was her expression) 
 that had ever been seen ! w This praise was better 
 relished than that of his dogs and parrots. 
 
 I took notice to Northcote that the man had a 
 very good head ; but that he put me in mind of the 
 state and pretensions of the art before artists wrote 
 Esquire after their names. He said, Yes, he was 
 like Andrew Taffi, or some of those in Yasari. 
 I observed how little he was paid for what he really 
 did so well; to which Northcote merely replied, 
 " In all things that are not necessary, those in the 
 second class must always be miserably paid. Copy- 
 ing pictures is like plain-work among women, it is 
 what any body can do, and, therefore, nothing but 
 a bare living is to be got by it."' He added, that 
 

 CONVERSATIONS. 145 
 
 the young lady, whose portrait her family was so 
 anxious to have copied, was dead, and this was a 
 kind of diversion to their grief. It was a very 
 natural mode of softening it down ; it was still re- 
 curring to the object of their regret, and yet dwelling 
 on it in an agreeable point of view. The wife of 
 
 General H , (he continued) many years ago, 
 
 came to me to do a picture of her son, a lieutenant 
 in the navy, who was killed in battle, but whom I 
 had never seen. There was no picture of him to go 
 by, but she insisted on my doing one under her di- 
 rection. I attempted a profile as the easiest ; and 
 she sat behind me and sang in a soft manner to her- 
 self, and told me what I was to do. It was a 
 wretched business, as you may suppose, being made 
 
 tout from description ; but she would have it to be a 
 great likeness, and brought all the family and even 
 the servants to see it, who probably did not dare to 
 be of a different opinion. I said to her, ' What a 
 pity it was Sir Joshua had not done a portrait of him 
 
 I in his life-time ! ' At this she expressed great con- 
 tempt, and declared she would not give two-pence for 
 all Sir Joshua's pictures ; indeed, she had one which 
 I was very welcome to have if I chose to come for 
 it. I lost no time in going to her house, and when I 
 
 H 
 
46 mr. nortiicote's 
 
 came there, she led me up into an old garret which 
 was used as a lumber-room, and taking it carefully out 
 of a shabby frame not worth a groat, said ' There, 
 take it, I am not sorry to get it out of the house.'' 
 I asked what it was that made her so indifferent 
 about this picture ? and she answered, ' It was a 
 likeness of a young gentleman who had been kind 
 enough to die, by which means the estate came to 
 the General.' She spoke in this unfeeling manner, 
 though her own son had just died in the same cir- 
 cumstances ; and she had had a monument made 
 for him, and strewed flowers upon it, and made such 
 a fuss about his death, that she would hardly have 
 known what to do if he had come to life again !" I 
 asked what was her reason for disliking Reynolds's 
 pictures ? "Oh! that was her ignorance, she did 
 not know why V* 
 
 Northcote said, " G called here with his 
 
 daughter. I asked her about Lord Byron ; she 
 said his temper was so bad that nobody could live 
 with him. The only way to pass the day tolerably 
 well with him was to contradict him the first thing 
 in the morning. I have known tempers of that 
 kind myself; you must quarrel with them in order 
 to be friends. If you did not conquer them, they 
 
I 
 
 CONVERSATIONS. 147 
 
 would conquer you." Something was observed about 
 Byron and Tom Paine, as to their attacks upon 
 religion ; and I said that sceptics and philosophical 
 unbelievers appeared to me to have just as little 
 liberality or enlargement of view as the most bigoted 
 fanatic. They could not bear to make the least 
 concession to the opposite side. They denied the 
 argument that because the Scriptures were fine they 
 were therefore of divine origin, and yet they vir- 
 tually admitted it ; for, not believing their truth, 
 they thought themselves bound to maintain that 
 they were good for nothing. I had once, I said, 
 given great offence to a knot of persons of this de- 
 scription, by contending that Jacob's Dream was 
 finer than any thing in Shakspeare ; and that Hamlet 
 would bear no comparison with, at least, one cha- 
 racter in the New Testament. A young poet had 
 said on this occasion, he did not like the Bible, 
 because there was nothing about flowers in it ; and 
 I asked him if he had forgot that passage, 
 * Behold the lilies of the field,' 1 te ? " Yes," 
 said Northcote, " and in the Psalms and in 
 the book of Job, there are passages of unrivalled 
 beauty. In the latter there is the description 
 of the war-horse, that has been so often referred 
 
 H 2 
 
148 mr. xorthcote's 
 
 to, and of the days of Job's prosperity ; and in 
 the Psalms, I think there is that passage, ' He 
 openeth his hands, and the earth is filled with plen- 
 teousness ; he turneth away his face, and we are 
 troubled; he hideth himself, and we are left in 
 darkness ; ' or, again, how fine is that expression, 
 ' All the beasts of the forests are mine, and so are 
 the cattle upon a thousand hills ! ' What an ex- 
 panse, and what a grasp of the subject ! Every thing 
 is done upon so large a scale, and yet with such 
 ease, as if seen from the highest point of view. It 
 has mightily a look of inspiration or of being dic- 
 tated by a superior intelligence. They say mere 
 English readers cannot understand Homer, because 
 it is a translation ; but why will it not bear a trans- 
 lation as well as the book of Job, if it is as fine ? 
 In Shakspeare, undoubtedly, there is a prodigious 
 variety and force of human character and passion, 
 but he docs not take us out of ourselves ; he has a 
 wonderful, almost a miraculous fellow-feeling with 
 human nature in every possible way, but that is all. 
 Macbeth is full of sublimity, but the sublimity is 
 that of the earth, it does not reach to heaven. It is a 
 still stronger objection that is made to Hogarth ; he, 
 too, gave the incidents and characters of human life 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 149 
 
 with infinite truth and ability ; but then it was in 
 the lowest forms of all, and he could not rise even 
 to common dignity or beauty. There is a faculty 
 that enlarges and beautifies objects, even beyond 
 nature. It is for this reason that we must, reluc- 
 tantly perhaps, give the preference to Milton over 
 Shakspeare; for his Paradise (to go no further) is 
 certainly a scene of greater beauty and happiness, 
 than was ever found on earth, though so vividly 
 described that we easily make the transition, and 
 transport ourselves there. It is the same difference 
 that there is between Raphael and Michael Angelo, 
 though Raphael, too, in many of his works merited 
 the epithet of divine" — I mentioned some lines from 
 Shakspeare I had seen quoted in a translation of a 
 French work, and applied to those who adhered to 
 Buonaparte in his misfortunes : 
 
 ■He that can endure 
 
 To follow with allegiance a fallen lord, 
 Does conquer him that did his master conquer, 
 And earns a place i' the story. 
 
 I said I was struck to see how finely they came 
 in. "Oh!" replied Northcote, " if they were 
 Shakspeare's, they were sure to be fine. What a 
 power there always is in any bit brought in from 
 
15Q MR, NORTIICOTE , S 
 
 him or Milton among other things ! How it shines 
 like a jewel ! I think Milton reads best in this way ; 
 he is too fine for a continuance. Don't you think 
 Shakspeare and the writers of that day had a pro- 
 digious advantage in using phrases and combinations 
 of style, which could not be admitted now that the 
 language is reduced to a more precise and uniform 
 standard, but which yet have a peculiar force and 
 felicity when they can be justified by the privilege 
 of age ?" He said, he had been struck with this 
 idea lately, in reading an old translation of Boecacio 
 (about the time of Queen Elizabeth) in which the 
 language, though quaint, had often a beauty that 
 could not well be conveyed in any modern trans- 
 lation. 
 
 He spoke of Lord Byron's notions about Shaks- 
 peare. I said I did not care much about his opi- 
 nions. Northcote replied, they were evidently ca- 
 pricious, and taken up in the spirit of contradiction. 
 I said, not only so (as far as I can judge), but 
 without any better founded ones in his own mind. 
 They appear to me conclusions without premises 
 or any previous process of thought or inquiry. I 
 like old opinions with new reasons, not new opinions 
 without any — not mere ipse dibits. He was too 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 151 
 
 arrogant to assign a reason to others or to need one 
 for himself. It was quite enough that he subscribed 
 to any assertion, to make it clear to the world, as 
 well as binding on his valet ! 
 
 Northcote said, there were people who could not 
 argue. Fuseli was one of these. He could throw 
 out very brilliant and striking things ; but if you at 
 all questioned him, he could no more give an an- 
 swer than a child of three years old. He had no re- 
 sources, nor any corps de reserve of argument be- 
 yond his first line of battle. That was imposing 
 and glittering enough. Neither was Lord Byron a 
 philosopher, with all his sententiousness and force of 
 expression. Probably one ought not to expect the 
 two things together ; for to produce a startling and 
 immediate effect, one must keep pretty much upon 
 the surface ; and the search after truth is a very slow 
 and obscure process. 
 
152 
 
 CONVERSATION THE ELEVENTH. 
 
 As soon as I went in to-day, Northcote asked me 
 if that was my character of Shakspeare, which had 
 been quoted in a newspaper the day before ? It 
 was so like what he had thought a thousand times 
 that he could almost swear he had written it himself. 
 I said no ; it was from Kendall's Letters on Ireland ; 
 though I believed I had expressed nearly the same 
 idea in print. I had seen the passage myself, and 
 hardly knew at first whether to be pleased or vexed 
 at it. It was provoking to have one's words taken 
 out of one's mouth as it were by another ; and yet it 
 seemed also an encouragement to reflect, that if one 
 
I 
 
 CONVERSATIONS. 1-53 
 
 only threw one's bread upon the waters, one was 
 sure to find it again after many days. The world, 
 if they do not listen to an observation the first time, 
 will listen to it at second-hand from those who have 
 a more agreeable method of insinuating it, or who 
 
 do not tell them too many truths at once. N 
 
 said, he thought the account undoubtedly just, to 
 whomever it belonged.* The greatest genius (such 
 
 * ' ' Shakspeare's verses are not exactly ( wood-notes wild/ 
 He was indebted to a most extensive reading at the same time 
 as to a most transcendant genius. He did not pique himself 
 upon originality, but sat down to write his plays for the 
 simple purpose of the moment, and without a glimpse or an 
 ambition of the immortality which they were to acquire. He 
 made use of whatever he recollected and thought desirable, 
 withthe contrivance of an ordinary play- writer, and only grew 
 original and vast and exquisite, in spite of himself. If it 
 be true that ( he wrote not for an age, but for all time,' still 
 there was no one who knew less of that fact than he ! He 
 imagined himself writing only for the day before him ; and 
 it is to this very circumstance that we owe the ease, the 
 flashes, and the soarings of his spirit. He was never over- 
 powered by the intended loftiness of the occasion. He mada 
 no efforts that were laborious, because his mind was always 
 superior to his object, and never bowed down to it. He pos- 
 sessed, too, that affluence of genius, which rendered him 
 not only prodigal in its use, but almost unacquainted with 
 its existence. He never stood upon its dignity; he was- 
 never fearful of its loss nor of its denial. The swan of 
 Avon, like the swans from which poets derive their title, 
 H3 
 
154 MR. KOKTHCOTE , S 
 
 as that of Shakspeare) implied the greatest power, 
 and this implied the greatest ease and unconscious- 
 ness of effort, or of any thing extraordinary effected. 
 As this writer stated — " lie would as soon think of 
 being vain of putting one foot before another, as of 
 writing Macbeth or Hamlet" Or as Hudibras has 
 expressed it, poetry was to him 
 
 — a thing no more difficile 
 
 Than to a blackbird 'tis to whistle. 
 
 " This (said he) is what I have always said of 
 Correggio 1 s style, that he could not help it : it was his 
 
 was all strength and grace and beauty, without a con- 
 sciousness of either. And this character of his genius ac- 
 cords witli that character of facility, of gentleness, and of 
 uncstentation, which his biographer ascribes to the man. 
 He knew of nothing within himself, of which he felt it 
 worth while to be vain. He would as soon have been vain 
 of his power to put one foot before another, as of his power 
 to write the Tempest or Macbeth. It belongs, in the midst 
 of abundance, to Genius as Beauty, to be thoughtless of 
 itself. It is only for the dull and the ugly — or at least for 
 those in whom the claims to beauty or to genius are equivo- 
 cal—to be forever contemplating cither in themselves, or 
 for ever demanding the acknowledgments of others With 
 the plenary possessors, the luxury is too common, too much 
 of every-day wear, to fix their attention. The restlessness 
 of the remainder is the restlessness of poverty, and contrasts 
 itself with the carelessness of riches." — Kendall's Letters on 
 Ireland. 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 155 
 
 nature. Besides, use familiarizes us to every thing. 
 How could Shakspeare be expected to Be astonished 
 at what he did every day ? No ; he was thinking 
 either merely of the subject before him, or of gain- 
 ing his bread. It is only upstarts or pretenders, 
 who do not know what to make of their good for- 
 tune or undeserved reputation. It comes to the same 
 thing that I have heard my brother remark with re- 
 spect to my father and old Mr. Tolcher, whose pic- 
 ture you see there. He had a great friendship for 
 my father and a great opinion of his integrity ; and 
 whenever he came to see him, always began with 
 saying, 6 Well, honest Mr. Samuel Northcote, how 
 do you? 1 This he repeated so often, and they 
 were so used to it, that my brother said they became 
 like words of course, and conveyed no more im- 
 pression of any thing peculiar than if he had merely 
 said, ' Well, good Mr. Northcote, et cetera,'' or 
 used any common expression. So Shakspeare was 
 accustomed to write his fine speeches till he ceased 
 to wonder at them himself, and would have been 
 surprised to find that you did." 
 
 The conversation now turned on an answer in 
 a newspaper to Canning^ assertion, that " Slavery 
 was not inconsistent with the spirit of Christianity, 
 
156 mr. xorthcote's 
 
 inasmuch as it was the beauty of Christianity to 
 accommodate itself to all conditions and circum- 
 stances." Did Canning mean to say, because Chris- 
 tianity accommodated itself to, or made the best of 
 all situations, it did not therefore give the prefe- 
 rence to any ? Because it recommended mildness 
 and fortitude under sufferings, did it not therefore 
 condemn the infliction of them ? Or did it not for- 
 bid injustice and cruelty in the strongest terms ? 
 This were indeed a daring calumny on its founder : 
 it were an insolent irony. Don Quixote would not 
 have said so. It was like the Italian banditti, who 
 when they have cut off the ears of their victims, 
 make them go down on their knees, and return 
 thanks to an image of the Virgin Mary for the 
 favour they have done them. It was because such 
 things do exist, that Christ came to set his face 
 against them, and to establish the maxim, " Do 
 unto others as you would that they should do unto 
 you." If Mr. Canning will say that the masters 
 would like to be treated as they treat their slaves, 
 then he may say that slavery is consistent witli the 
 spirit of Christianity. No ; the meaning of those 
 maxims of forbearance and submission, which the 
 Quakers have taken too literally, is, that you are 
 
I 
 
 CONVERSATIONS. 157 
 
 not to drive out one devil by another ; it aims at 
 discouraging a resort to violence and anger, for if the 
 temper it inculcates could become universal, there 
 would be no injuries to resent. It objects against 
 the power of the sword, but it is to substitute a 
 power ten thousand times stronger than the sword — 
 that which subdues and conquers the affections, and 
 strikes at the very root and thought of evil. All 
 that is meant by such sayings, as that if a person 
 " smites us on one cheek, we are to turn to him the 
 other, 11 is, that we are to keep as clear as possible 
 of a disposition to retaliate and exasperate injuries ; 
 or there is a Spanish proverb which explains this, 
 that says, u It is he who gives the second blow that 
 begins the quarrel" 
 
 On my referring to what had been sometimes 
 asserted of the inefficacy of pictures in Protes- 
 tant churches, Northcote said he might be allowed 
 to observe in favour of his own art, that though 
 they might not strike at first from a difference in 
 our own belief, yet they would gain upon the spec- 
 tator by the force of habit. The practice of image- 
 worship was probably an after-thought of the Papists 
 themselves, from seeing the effects produced on the 
 minds of the rude and ignorant by visible repre- 
 
158 MR. xorthcote's 
 
 sentations of saints and martyrs. The rulers of the 
 church at first only thought to amuse and attract 
 the people by pictures and statues (as they did by 
 music and rich dresses, from which no inference 
 was to be drawn) ; but when these representations 
 of sacred subjects were once placed before the senses 
 of an uninstructed but imaginative people, they 
 looked at them with wonder and eagerness, till they 
 began to think they saw them move ; and then 
 miracles were worked ; and as this became a source 
 of wealth and great resort to the several shrines and 
 churches, every means were used to encourage the 
 superstition and a belief in the supernatural virtues 
 of the objects by the clergy and government. So 
 he thought that if pictures were set up in our 
 churches, they would by degrees inspire the mind 
 with all the feelings of awe or interest that were 
 necessary or proper. It was less difficult to excite 
 enthusiasm than to keep it under due restraint. So 
 in Italy, the higher powers did not much relish 
 those processions of naked figures, taken from scrip- 
 tural stories (such as Adam and Eve) on particular 
 holidays, for they led to scandal and abuse ; but 
 they fell in with the humour of the rabble, and were 
 lucrative to the lower orders of priests and friars, 
 

 CONVERSATIONS. 159 
 
 and the Pope could not expressly discountenance 
 them. He said we were in little danger (either 
 from our religion or temperament) of running into 
 those disgraceful and fanciful extremes ; but should 
 rather do every thing in our power to avoid the op- 
 posite error of a dry and repulsive asceticism. We 
 could not give too much encouragement to the fine 
 arts. 
 
 Our talk of to-day concluded by his saying, that 
 he often blamed himself for uttering what might be 
 thought harsh things ; and that on mentioning this 
 once to Kemble, and saying it sometimes kept him 
 from sleep after he had been out in company, Kemble 
 had replied, " Oh ! you need not trouble yourself 
 so much about them : others never think of them 
 afterwards !* 
 
160 MR. northcote's 
 
 CONVERSATION THE TWELFTH. 
 
 Northcote was painting from a little girl when 
 I went in. B — was there. Something was said of 
 a portrait of Dunning by Sir Joshua (an unfinished 
 head), and B — observed, " Ah ! my good friend, 
 if you and I had known at that time what those 
 things would fetch, we might have made our for- 
 tunes now. By laying out a few pounds on the 
 loose sketches and sweepings of the lumber-room, 
 we might have made as many hundreds.' 1 " Yes," 
 said Northcote, " it was thought they would soon 
 be forgot, and they went for nothing on that ac- 
 count : but they are more sought after than ever, 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 161 
 
 because those imperfect hints and studies seem to 
 bring one more in contact with the artist, and explain 
 the process of his mind in the several stages. A 
 finished work is, in a manner, detached from and 
 independent of its author, like a child that can go 
 alone : in the other case, it seems to be still in pro- 
 gress, and to await his hand to finish it; or we sup- 
 ply the absence of well-known excellences out of 
 our own imagination, so that we have a two-fold 
 property in it." 
 
 Northcote read something out of a newspaper 
 about the Suffolk- street Exhibition, in which his 
 own name was mentioned, and M '«, the land- 
 scape-painter. B — said, his pictures were a trick — 
 a streak of red, and then a streak of blue. But, 
 said Northcote, there is some merit in finding out 
 a new trick. I ventured to hint, that the receipt 
 for his was, clouds upon mountains, and mountains 
 upon clouds — that there was number and quantity, 
 but neither form nor colour. He appeared to me 
 an instance of a total want of imagination ; he mis- 
 took the character of the feelings associated with 
 every thing, and I mentioned as an instance his 
 Adam and Eve, which had been much admired, but 
 which was . a panoramic view of the map of Asia, 
 
162 MR. NORTHCOTE^S 
 
 instead of a representation of our first parents in 
 Paradise. 
 
 After B — was gone, we spoke of X — . I re- 
 gretted his want of delicacy towards the public as well 
 as towards his private friends. I did not think he had 
 failed so much from want of capacity, as from attempt- 
 ing to bully the public into a premature or over- 
 strained admiration of him, instead of gaining ground 
 upon them by improving on himself; and he now 
 felt the ill effects of the re-action of this injudicious 
 proceeding. He had no real love of his art, and 
 therefore did not apply or give his whole mind 
 sedulously to it ; and was more bent on bespeaking 
 notoriety beforehand by puffs and announcements 
 of his works, than on giving them that degree of 
 perfection which would ensure lasting reputation. 
 No one would ever attain the highest excellence, 
 who had so little nervous sensibility as to take 
 credit for it (either with himself or others) without 
 behig at the trouble of producing it. It was se- 
 curing the reward in the first instance ; and after- 
 wards, it would be too much to expect the neces- 
 sary exertion or sacrifices. Unlimited credit was 
 as dangerous to success in art as in business. " And 
 yet he still finds dupes," said Northcote ; to which 
 
E 
 
 CONVERSATIONS. 163 
 
 I replied;, it was impossible to resist him, as long as 
 you kept on terms with him : any difference of 
 opinion or reluctance on your part made no im- 
 pression on him, and unless you quarrelled with 
 him downright, you must do as he wished you. — 
 <{ And how then," said North cote, " do you think it 
 possible for a person of this hard unyielding dis- 
 position to be a painter, where every thing depends 
 on seizing the nicest inflections of feeling and the 
 most evanescent shades of beauty ? 
 
 " No, I'll tell you why he cannot be a painter. 
 He has not virtue enough. No one can give out 
 to others what he has not in himself, and there is 
 nothing in his mind to delight or captivate the 
 world. I will not deny the mechanical dexterity, 
 but he fails in the mental part. There was Sir 
 
 ('eter Lely : he is full of defects ; but he was the 
 ne gentleman of his age, and you see this character 
 stamped on every one of his works; — even his 
 errors prove it; and this is one of those things 
 that the world receive with gratitude. Sir Joshua 
 again was not without his faults : he had not gran- 
 eur, but he was a man of a mild, bland, amiable 
 character ; and this predominant feeling appears so 
 strongly in his works, that you cannot mistake it ; 
 
164 MR. koiitiicote's 
 
 and this is what makes them so delightful to look 
 at, and constitutes their charm to others, even with- 
 out their being conscious of it. There was such a 
 look of nature too. I remember once going through 
 a suite of rooms where they were shewing me several 
 fine Vandykes ; and we came to one where there 
 were some children, by Sir Joshua, seen through a 
 door — it was like looking at the reality, they were 
 so full of life — the branches of the trees waved over 
 their heads, and the fresh air seemed to play on their 
 cheeks — I soon forgot Vandvke ! 
 
 "So, in the famous St. Jerome of Correggio, Gar- 
 rick used to say, that the Saint resembled a Satyr, 
 and that the child was like a monkey ; but then 
 there is such a look of life in the last, it dazzles you 
 with spirit and vivacity ; you can hardly believe but 
 it will move or fly ; — indeed, Sir Joshua took his 
 Puck from it, only a little varied in the attitude." 
 I said I had seen it not long ago, and that it had 
 remarkably the look of a spirit or a fiery or preter- 
 natural being, though neither beautiful nor dignified. 
 I remarked to Northcotc, that I had never sufficient- 
 ly relished Correggio ; that I had tried several times 
 to work myself up to the proper degree of admira- 
 tion, but that I always fell back again into my 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 165 
 
 former state of lukewarmness and scepticism ; though 
 I could not help allowing, that what he did, he ap- 
 peared to me to do with more feeling than any body 
 else ; that I could conceive Raphael or even Titian 
 to have represented objects from mere natural capa- 
 city (as we see them in a looking-glass) without 
 being absolutely wound up in them, but that I could 
 fancy Correggio's pencil to thrill with sensibility ; 
 he brooded over the idea of grace or beauty in his 
 mind till the sense grew faint with it ; and like a 
 lover or a devotee, he carried his enthusiasm to the 
 brink of extravagance and affectation, so enamoured 
 was he of his art ! Northcote assented to this as a 
 just criticism, and said, " That is why his works 
 must live : but X — is a hardened egotist, devoted to 
 nothing but himself ! " Northcote then asked about 
 
 , and if she was handsome ? I said she might 
 
 sit for the portrait of llebecca in Ivanhoe ! 
 
 He then turned the conversation to Brambletye- 
 House. He thought the writer had failed in 
 Charles II. and Rochester. Indeed, it was a daring 
 ttempt to make bom mots for two such characters. 
 The wit must be sharp and fine indeed, that would 
 do to put into their mouths : even Sir Walter might 
 tremble to undertake it ! He had made Milton 
 
166 mr. xorthcote's 
 
 speak too : this was almost as dangerous an attempt 
 as for Milton to put words into the mouth of the 
 Deity. The great difficulty was to know where to 
 stop, and not to trespass on forbidden ground. 
 Cervantes was one of the boldest and most original 
 inventors ; yet he had never ventured beyond his 
 depth. He had in the person of his hero really 
 represented the maxims of benevolence and genero- 
 sity inculcated by the Christian religion : that was 
 a law to him ; and by his fine conception of the 
 subject, he had miraculously succeeded. Shak- 
 speare alone could be said in his grotesque creations 
 to be above all law. Richardson had succeeded 
 admirably in Clarissa, because he had a certain rule 
 to go by or certain things to avoid, for a perfect 
 woman was a negative character ; but he had failed 
 in Sir Charles Grandison, and made him a lump of 
 odious affectation, because a perfect man is not a 
 negative, but a positive character; and in aiming 
 at faultlessness, he had produced only the mos 
 vapid effeminacy. After all, Brambletye-House was 
 about as good as the Rejected Addresses. There 
 was very little difference between a parody and an 
 imitation. The defects and peculiarities are equally 
 seized upon in cither case. 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 167 
 
 He did not know how Sir Walter would take it. 
 To have imitators seemed at first a compliment, yet 
 no one liked it. You could not put Fuseli in a 
 greater passion than by calling Maria Cos way an 
 imitator of his. Nothing made Sir Joshua so mad, 
 as Miss Reynolds's portraits, which were an exact 
 imitation of all his defects. Indeed, she was obliged 
 to keep them out of his way. He said, H They 
 made every body else laugh, and himself cry." It 
 is that which makes every one dread a mimic. Your 
 self-love is alarmed, without being so easily re- 
 assured. You know there is a difference, but it is 
 not great enough to make you feel quite at ease. 
 The line of demarcation between the true and the 
 spurious is not sufficiently broad and palpable. The 
 copy you see is vile or indifferent ; and the original, 
 r ou suspect (but for your partiality to yourself) is 
 not perhaps much better. 
 
 This is what I have often felt in looking at the 
 drawings of the students at the Academy, or when 
 young artists have brought their first crude attempts 
 for my opinion. The glaring defects, the abortive 
 efforts have almost disgusted me with the profession. 
 Good G — d ! I have said, is this what the art is made 
 up of? How do I know that my own productions 
 
1G8 MK. NORTIICOTE , S 
 
 may not appear in the same light to others ? Where- 
 as the seeing the finest specimens of art, instead of 
 disheartening, gives me courage to proceed: one 
 cannot be wrong in treading in the same footsteps, and 
 to fall short of them is no disgrace, while the faint- 
 est reflection of their excellence is glorious. It was 
 this that made Correggio cry out on seeing lla- 
 phael's works, " I also am a painter " : lie felt a 
 kindred spirit in his own breast. — I said, I recol- 
 lected when I was formerly trying to paint, nothing 
 gave me the horrors so much as passing the old 
 battered portraits at the doors of brokers' shops, 
 with the morning-sun flaring full upon them. I 
 was generally inclined to prolong my walk, and put 
 off painting for that day ; but the sight of a fine 
 picture had a contrary effect, and I went back and 
 set to work with redoubled ardour. 
 
 Northcote happened to speak of a gentleman 
 
 married to one of the , of whom a friend had 
 
 said, laughing, " There's a man that's in love with 
 his own wife ! " He mentioned the beautiful Lady 
 F — P — , and said her hair, which was in great 
 quantities and very fine, was remarkable for having 
 a single lock different from all the rest, which he 
 supposed she cherished as a beauty. I told him I 
 
 
SE 
 
 CONVERSATIONS. 169 
 
 had not long ago seen the hair of Lucretia Borgia, 
 of Milton, Buonaparte, and Dr. Johnson, all folded 
 up in the same paper. It had belonged to Lord 
 Byron. Northcote replied, one could not be sure 
 of that ; it was easy to get a lock of hair, and call 
 it by any name one pleased. In some cases, how- 
 ever, one might rely on its being the same. Mrs. 
 G — i had certainly a lock of Goldsmith's hair, for 
 she and her sister (Miss Horneck) had wished to 
 have some remembrance of him after his death ; and 
 though the coffin was nailed up, it was opened again 
 at their request (such was the regard Goldsmith 
 was known to have for them !), and a lock of his 
 hair was cut off, which Mrs. G — still has. Northcote 
 said, Goldsmith's death was the severest blow Sir 
 
 oshua ever received — he did not paint all that day ! 
 
 t was proposed to make a grand funeral for him, 
 but Reynolds objected to this, as it would be over 
 in a day, and said it would be better to lay by the 
 money to erect a monument to him in Westminster 
 Abbey; and he went himself and chose the spot. 
 Goldsmith had begun another novel, of which he 
 read the first chapter to the Miss Hornecks a little 
 before his death. Northcote asked, what I thought 
 of the Vicar of Wakefield? And I answered, What 
 
 i 
 
170 MR. NORTHCOTe's 
 
 every body else did. He said there was that mix- 
 ture of the ludicrous and the pathetic running 
 through it, which particularly delighted him : it 
 gave a stronger resemblance to nature. He thought 
 this justified Shakspeare in mingling up farce and 
 tragedy together : life itself was a tragi-comedy. 
 Instead of being pure, every thing was chequered. 
 If you went to an execution, you would perhaps see 
 an apple-woman in the greatest distress, because her 
 stall was overturned, at which you could not help 
 smiling. We then spoke of " Retaliation/ 1 and 
 praised the character of Burke in particular as a 
 master-piece. Nothing that he had ever said or 
 done but what was foretold in it ; nor was he 
 painted as the principal figure in the foreground 
 with the partiality of a friend, or as the great man 
 of the day, but with a back-ground of history, show- 
 ing both what he was and what he might have been. 
 Northcote repeated some lines from the "Traveller,* 
 which were distinguished by a beautiful transpa- 
 rency, by simplicity and originality. He confirmed 
 BoswelTs account of Goldsmith, as being about the 
 middle height, rather clumsy, and tawdry in his 
 dress. 
 
 A gentleman came in who had just shown his 
 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 171 
 
 good taste in purchasing three pictures of North- 
 cote, one a head of Sir Joshua by himself, and the 
 other two by Xorthcote, a whole-length portrait of 
 an Italian girl, and a copy of Omai, the South-Sea 
 Chief. I could hear the artist in the outer room 
 expressing some scruples as to the consistency of 
 his parting with one of them which he had brought 
 from abroad, according to the strict letter of his 
 Custom-House oath — an objection which the pur- 
 chaser, a [Member of Parliament, over-ruled by 
 assuring him that " the peculiar case could not be 
 contemplated by the spirit of the act." Xorthcote 
 also expressed some regret at the separation from 
 pictures that had become old friends. He however 
 comforted himself that they would now find a re- 
 spectable asylum, which was better than being 
 knocked about in garrets and auction-rooms, as they 
 would inevitably be at his death. u You may at 
 
 least depend upon it," said Mr. " that they 
 
 will not be sold again for many generations ! " This 
 view into futurity brought back to my mind the 
 time when I had first known these pictures : since 
 then, my life was flown, and with it the hope of 
 fame as an artist (with which I had once regarded 
 them), and I felt a momentary pang. Northcote took 
 I 2 
 
172 MR. NORTHCOTE's 
 
 me out into the other room, when his friend was 
 gone, to look at them; and on my expressing my ad- 
 miration of the portrait of the Italian lady, he said she 
 was the mother of Madame Bellochi, and was still 
 living ; that he had painted it at Rome about the 
 year I78O ; that her family was originally Greek, 
 and that he had known her, her daughter, her 
 mother, and grand-mother. She and a sister who 
 was with her, were at that time full of the most 
 charming gaiety and innocence. The old woman 
 used to sit upon the ground without moving or 
 speaking, with her arm over her head, and exactly 
 like a bundle of old clothes. Alas ! thought I, 
 what are we but a heap of clay resting upon the 
 earth, and ready to crumble again into dust and 
 ashes ! 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 173 
 
 I 
 
 CONVERSATION THE THIRTEENTH. 
 
 Northcote spoke about the failure of some print- 
 sellers. He said, " He did not wonder at it ; it was 
 a just punishment of their presumption and igno- 
 rance. They went into an Exhibition, looked round 
 them, fixed upon some contemptible performance, 
 and without knowing any thing about the matter or 
 consulting any body, ordered two or three thousand 
 pounds' worth of prints from it, merely out of purse- 
 proud insolence, and because the money burnt in 
 their pockets. Such people fancied that the more 
 money they laid out, the more they must get ; so 
 that extravagance became (by the turn their vanity 
 
174 MR. NORTHCOTe's 
 
 gave to it) another name for thrift." Having spoken 
 of a living artist's pictures as mere portraits that 
 were interesting to no one except the people 
 who sat for them, he remarked, " There was 
 always something in the meanest face that a great 
 artist could take advantage of. That was the 
 merit of Sir Joshua, who contrived to throw a cer- 
 tain air and character even over ugliness and folly, 
 that disarmed criticism and made you wonder how 
 he did it. This, at least, is the case with his por- 
 traits ; for though he made his beggars look like 
 heroes, he sometimes, in attempting history, made 
 his heroes look like beggars. Grandi, the Italian 
 colour-grinder, sat to him for King Henry VI. in 
 the Death of Cardinal Beaufort, and he looks not 
 much better than a train-bearer or one in a low and 
 mean station: if he had sat to him for his portrait, he 
 would have made him look like a king ! That was 
 what made Fuseli observe in joke that 'Grandi never 
 held up his head after Sir Joshua painted him in 
 his Cardinal Beaufort!'' But the pictures I speak of 
 are poor dry facsimiles (in a little timid manner and 
 with an attempt at drapery) of imbecile creatures, 
 whose appearance is a satire on themselves and 
 mankind. Neither can I conceive why L — should 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 1J5 
 
 be sent over to paint Charles X. A French artist 
 said to me on that occasion, ' We have very fine 
 portrait-painters in Paris, Sir ! ' The poor engra- 
 ver would be the greatest sufferer by these expensive 
 prints. Tradespeople now-a-days did not look at 
 the thing with an eye to business, but ruined them- 
 selves and others by setting up for ivould-be patrons 
 and judges of the art. 
 
 Some demon whisper'd, Visto, have a taste ! " 
 
 I said I thought L — ""s pictures might do very well 
 as mirrors for personal vanity to contemplate itself 
 in (as you looked in the glass to see how you were 
 dressed), but that it was a mistake to suppose they 
 would interest any one else or were addressed to 
 the world at large. They were private, not public 
 property. They never caught the eye in a shop- 
 window ; but were (as it appeared to me) a kind of 
 lithographic painting, or thin, meagre outlines 
 without the depth and richness of the art. I men- 
 tioned to Northcote the plea'sure I had formerly 
 taken in a little print of Gadshill from a sketch 
 of his own, which I used at one time to pass a 
 certain shop-window on purpose to look at. He 
 said, "It was impossible to tell before-hand what 
 
176 MR. NORTIICOTE's 
 
 would hit the public. You might as well pretend to 
 say what ticket would turn up a prize in the lottery. 
 It was not chance neither, but some unforeseen 
 coincidence between the subject and the prevailing 
 taste, that you could not possibly be a judge of. I 
 had once painted two pictures ; one of a Fortune- 
 teller (a boy with a monkey), and another called 
 ' The Visit to the Grandmother ; , and Raphael 
 Smith came to me and wanted to engrave them, 
 being willing to give a handsome sum for the first, 
 but only to do the last as an experiment. He sold 
 ten times as many of the last as of the first, and told 
 me that there were not less than five different im- 
 pressions done of it in Paris ; and once when I 
 went to his house to get one to complete a set of 
 engravings after my designs, they asked me six 
 guineas for a proof-impression ! This was too 
 much, but I was delighted that I could not afford 
 to pay for my own work, from the value that was 
 set upon it ! w — I said, people were much alarmed 
 at the late failures, and thought there would be a 
 " blow-up, 1 ' in the vulgar phrase. — " Surely you 
 can't suppose so ? A blow-up ! Yes, of adventurers 
 and upstarts, but not of the country, if they mean 
 that. This is like the man who thought that gin- 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 177 
 
 drinking would put an end to the world. Oh ! no — 
 the country will go on just as before, bating the 
 distress to individuals. You may form an idea on 
 the subject if you ever go to look at the effects of a 
 fire the day after : you see nothing but smoke and 
 ruins and bare walls, and think the damage can never 
 be repaired ; but if you pass by the same way a 
 week after, you will find the houses all built up just 
 as they were before or even better than ever ! No, 
 there is the same wealth, the same industry and in- 
 genuity in the country as there was before ; and till 
 you destroy that, you cannot destroy the country. 
 These temporary distresses are only like disorders 
 in the body, that carry off its bad and superfluous 
 humours. 
 
 " My neighbour Mr. Rowe, the bookseller, in- 
 formed me the other day that Signora Cecilia Davies 
 frequently came to his shop, and always inquired after 
 me. Did you ever hear of her ? " No, never ! 
 " She must be very old now. Fifty years ago, in 
 the time of Garrick, she made a vast sensation. All 
 England rang with her name. I do assure you, that 
 in this respect Madame Catalani was not more 
 talked of. Afterwards she had retired to Florence, 
 and was the Prima Donna there, when Storace first 
 i 3 
 
178 MR. northcote's 
 
 came out. This was at the time when Mr. Hoare 
 and myself were in Italy ; and I remember we went 
 to call upon her. She had then in a great measure 
 fallen off, but she was still very much admired. 
 What a strange thing a reputation of this kind is, 
 that the person herself survives, and sees the me- 
 teors of fashion rise and fall one after another, while 
 she remains totally disregarded as if there had been 
 no such person, yet thinking all the while that she 
 was better than any of them I I have hardly heard 
 her name mentioned in the last thirty years, though 
 in her time she was quite as famous as any one 
 since." I said, an Opera-reputation was after all 
 but a kind of Private Theatricals and confined to 
 a small circle, compared with that of the regular 
 stage, which all the world were judges of and took 
 an interest in. It was but the echo of a sound, or 
 like the blaze of phosphorus that did not commu- 
 nicate to the surrounding objects. It belonged to a 
 fashionable coterie, rather than to the public, and 
 might easily die away at the end of the season. I 
 then observed I was more affected by the fate of 
 players than by that of any other class of people. 
 They seemed to me more to be pitied than any 
 body — the contrast was so great between the glare, 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 179 
 
 the noise, and intoxication of their first success, and 
 the mortifications and neglect of their declining years. 
 They were made drunk with popular applause; 
 and when this stimulus was withdrawn, must feel 
 the insignificance of ordinary life particularly vapid 
 and distressing. There were no sots like the sots of 
 vanity. There were no traces left of what they had 
 been, any more than of a forgotten dream ; and they 
 had no consolation but in their own conceit, which, 
 when it was without other vouchers, was a very 
 uneasy comforter. I had seen some actors who had 
 been favourites in my youth and " cried up in the 
 top of the compass," treated, from having grown old 
 and infirm, with the utmost indignity and almost 
 
 hooted from the stage. I had seen poor come 
 
 forward under these circumstances to stammer out 
 an apology with the tears in his eyes (which almost 
 brought them into mine) to a set of apprentice-boys 
 and box-lobby loungers, who neither knew nor cared 
 what a fine performer and a fine gentleman he was 
 thought twenty years ago. Players were so far par- 
 ticularly unfortunate. The theatrical public have a 
 very short memory. Every four or five years there 
 is a new audience, who know nothing but of what 
 they have before their eyes, and who pronounce 
 
180 
 
 MR. NORTHCOTE S 
 
 summarily upon this, without any regard to past 
 obligations or past services, and with whom the 
 veterans of the stage stand a bad chance indeed, as 
 their former triumphs are entirely forgotten, while 
 they appear as living vouchers against themselves 
 " Do you remember, 11 said Northcote, " Sheridan^ 
 beautiful lines on the subject in his Monody on 
 Garrick f" I said, I did ; and that it was probably 
 the reading them early that had impressed this feel- 
 ing so strongly on my mind. Northcote then re- 
 marked, " I think a great beauty is most to be 
 pitied. She completely outlives herself. She has 
 been used to the most bewitching homage, to have 
 the highest court paid and the most flattering things 
 said to her by all those who approach her, and to 
 be received *with looks of delight and surprise wherev- 
 er she comes ; and she afterwards not only finds 
 herself deprived of all this and reduced to a cypher, 
 but she sees it all transferred to another, who has 
 become the reigning toast and beauty of the day in 
 her stead. It must be a most violent shock. It is 
 like a king who is dethroned and reduced to serve 
 as a page in his own palace. I remember once being 
 
 struck with seeing the Duchess of , the same 
 
 that Sir Joshua painted, and who was a miracle of 
 

 CONVERSATIONS. 181 
 
 beauty when she was young, and followed by crowds 
 wherever she went — I was coming out of Mrs. 
 W — 's ; and on the landing-place, there was she 
 standing by herself, and calling over the bannister 
 for her servant to come to her. If she had been as 
 she once was, a thousand admirers would have flown 
 to her assistance ; but her face was painted over like 
 a mask, and there was hardly any appearance of life 
 left but the restless motion of her eyes. I was 
 really hurt." I answered, the late Queen had much 
 the same painful look that he described — her face 
 highly rouged, and her eyes rolling in her head like 
 an automaton, but she had not the mortification of 
 having ever been a great beauty. " There was a 
 
 Miss , too," Northcote added, " who was a 
 
 celebrated beauty when she was a girl, and who also 
 sat to Sir Joshua. I saw her not long ago and she 
 was grown as coarse and vulgar as possible ; she 
 was like an apple-woman or would do to keep the 
 Three Tuns. The change must be very mortify- 
 ing. To be sure, there is one thing, it comes on 
 by degrees. The ravages of the small-pox must 
 formerly have been a dreadful blow !" He said, 
 literary men or men of talent in general were the 
 best off in this respect. The reputation they ac- 
 
182 
 
 quired was not only lasting, but gradually grew 
 stronger, if it was deserved. I agreed they were 
 seldom spoiled by flattery, and had no reason to 
 complain after they were dead. " Nor while they 
 are living," said N — , "if it is not their own 
 fault." He mentioned an instance of a trial about 
 an engraving where he, West, and others had to 
 appear, and of the respect that was shown them. 
 Erskine after flourishing away, made an attempt to 
 puzzle Stothard by drawing two angles on a piece of 
 paper, an acute and an obtuse one, and asking, 
 " Do you mean to say these two are alike ?" " Yes, 
 I do," was the answer. " I see," said Erskine, 
 turning round, " there is nothing to be got by 
 angling here !" West was then called upon to 
 give his evidence, and there was immediately a lane 
 made for him to come forward, and a stillness that 
 you could hear a pin drop. The Judge (Lord 
 Kenyon) then addressed him, " Sir Benjamin, we 
 shall be glad to hear your opinion !" Mr. West 
 answered, " He had never received the honour of 
 a title from his Majesty ;" and proceeded to ex- 
 plain the difference between the two engravings 
 which were charged with being copies the one of the 
 other, with such clearness and knowledge of the 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 183 
 
 art, though in general he was a bad speaker, that 
 Lord Kenyon said when he had done, " I suppose, 
 gentlemen, you are perfectly satisfied — I perceive 
 there is much more in this than I had any idea of, 
 and am sorry I did not make it more my study when 
 I was young P 1 I remarked that I believed corpo- 
 rations of art or letters might meet with a certain 
 attention ; but it was the stragglers and candidates 
 that were knocked about with very little ceremony. 
 Talent or merit only wanted a frame of some sort 
 or other to set it off to advantage. Those of my way 
 of thinking were "bitter bad judges" on this point. 
 A Tory scribe who treated mankind as rabble and 
 canaille, was regarded by them in return as a fine 
 gentleman : a reformer like myself, who stood up 
 for liberty and equality, was taken at his word by the 
 very journeymen that set up his paragraphs, and 
 could not get a civil answer from the meanest shop- 
 boy in the employ of those on his own side of the 
 question. N — laughed and said, I irritated my- 
 self too much about such things. He said it was 
 one of Sir Joshua^ maxims that the art of life con- 
 sisted in not being overset by trifles. We should 
 look at the bottom of the account, not at each indi- 
 vidual item in it, and see how the balance stands at 
 
184 MR. nortiicote's 
 
 the end of the year. We should be satisfied if the 
 path of life is clear before us, and not fret at the 
 straws or pebbles that lie in our way. What you 
 have to look to is whether you can get what you 
 write printed, and whether the public will read it, 
 and not to busy yourself with the remarks of shop- 
 boys or printers'* devils. They can do you neither 
 harm nor good. The impertinence of mankind is a 
 thing that no one can guard against. 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 
 
 185 
 
 CONVERSATION THE FOURTEENTH. 
 
 Nortiicote shewed me a poem with engravings 
 of Dartmoor, which were too fine by half. I said I 
 supposed Dartmoor would look more gay and smiling 
 after having been thus illustrated, like a dull author 
 who has been praised by a Reviewer. I had once 
 been nearly benighted there and was delighted to 
 get to the inn at Ashburton. " That," said N — , 
 " is the only good of such places that you are glad 
 to escape from them, and look back to them with a 
 pleasing horror ever after. Commend me to the 
 Valdarno or Vallambrosa, where you are never weary 
 
186 mr. xortiicote's 
 
 of new charms, and which you quit with a sigh of 
 regret. I have, however, told my young friend 
 who sent me the poem, that he has shown his 
 genius in creating beauties where there were none, 
 and extracting enthusiasm from rocks and quag- 
 mires. After that, he may write a very interesting 
 poem on Kamschatka ! " He then spoke of the 
 Panorama of the North-Pole which had been lately 
 exhibited, of the ice-bergs, the seals lying asleep 
 on the shore, and the strange twilight as well worth 
 seeing. He said, it would be curious to know the 
 effect, if they could get to the Pole itself, though 
 it must be impossible : the veins, he should suppose, 
 would burst, and the vessel itself go to pieces from 
 the extreme cold. I asked if he had ever read an 
 account of twelve men who had been left all the 
 winter in Greenland, and of the dreadful shifts to 
 which they were reduced ? He said, he had not. — 
 They were obliged to build two booths of wood 
 one within the other ; and if they had to go into the 
 outer one during the severity of the weather, unless 
 they used great precaution, their hands were blistered 
 by whatever they took hold of as if it had been red- 
 hot iron. The most interesting part was the account 
 of their waiting for the return of light at the approach 
 
I 
 
 CONVERSATIONS. 187 
 
 of spring, and the delight with which they first saw 
 the sun shining on the tops of the frozen mountains. 
 N — said, " This is the great advantage of descrip- 
 tions of extraordinary situations by uninformed men : 
 Nature as it were holds the pen for them ; they give 
 you what is most striking in the circumstances, and 
 there is nothing to draw off the attention from the 
 strong and actual impression, so that it is the next 
 thing to the reality. G — was here the other day, 
 and I showed him the note from my bookseller 
 about the Fables, with which you were so much 
 pleased, but he saw nothing in it. I then said G — is 
 not one of those who look attentively at nature or 
 draw much from that source. Yet the rest is but like 
 building castles in the air, if it is not founded in 
 observation and experience. Or it is like the en- 
 chanted money in the Arabian Nights, which turned 
 to dry leaves when you came to make use of it. It 
 is ingenious and amusing, and so far it is well to be 
 amused when you can ; but you learn nothing from 
 the fine hypothesis you have been reading, which is 
 only a better sort of dream, bright and vague and 
 utterly inapplicable to the purposes of common life. 
 G — does not appeal to nature, but to art and execu- 
 tion. There is another thing (which it seems harsh 
 
188 MR. northcote's 
 
 and presumptuous to say, but) he appears to me not 
 always to perceive the difference between right and 
 wrong. There are many others in the same predi- 
 cament, though not such splendid examples of it. 
 He is satisfied to make out a plausible case, to give 
 the pros and cons like a lawyer ; but he has no 
 instinctive bias or feeling one way or other, except 
 as he can give a studied reason for it. Common 
 sense is out of the question: such people despise 
 common sense, and the quarrel between them is a 
 mutual one. Caleb Williams, notwithstanding, is a 
 decidedly original work : the rest are the sweepings of 
 his study. That is but one thing, to be sure ; but no 
 one does more than one thing. Northcote said that 
 Sir Joshua used to say that no one produced more 
 than six original things. I always said it was wrong 
 to fix upon this number — five out of the six would 
 be found upon examination to be repetitions of the 
 first. A man can no more produce six original 
 works than he can be six individuals at once. 
 Whatever is the strong and prevailing bent of his 
 genius, he will stamp upon some master-work ; and 
 what he does else, will be only the same thing over 
 again, a little better or a little worse ; or if he goes 
 out of his way in search of variety and to avoid 
 
■ hi 
 
 CONVERSATIONS. 189 
 
 imself, he will merely become a common-place man 
 or an imitator of others. You see this plainly enough 
 in Cervantes — that he has exhausted himself in the 
 Don Quixote. He has put his whole strength into 
 it : his other works are no better than what other 
 people could write. If there is any exception, it is 
 Shakspeare : he seems to have had the faculty of 
 dividing himself into a number of persons. His 
 writings stand out from every thing else, and from 
 one another. Othello, Lear, Macbeth, Falstaff are 
 striking and original characters; but they die a 
 natural death at the end of the fifth act, and no 
 more come to life again than the people themselves 
 would. He is not reduced to repeat himself or 
 revive former inventions under feigned names. This 
 is peculiar to him : still it is to be considered that 
 plays are short works and only allow room for the 
 expression of a part. But in a work of the extent 
 of Don Quixote, the writer had scope to bring in 
 all he wanted ; and indeed there is no point of 
 excellence which he has not touched from the high- 
 est courtly grace and most romantic enthusiasm 
 down to the lowest ribaldry and rustic ignorance, 
 yet carried off with such an air that you wish 
 
 nothing away, and do not see what can be added 
 
190 mr. xorthcote's 
 
 to it. Every bit is perfect; and the author has 
 evidently given his whole mind to it. That is 
 why I believe that the Scotch Novels are the 
 production of several hands. Some parts are care- 
 less, others straggling: it is only where there is 
 an opening for effect that the master-hand comes in, 
 and in general he leaves his work for others to get 
 on with it. But in Don Quixote there is not a 
 single line that you may not swear belongs to Cer- 
 vantes." — I inquired if he had read Woodstock ? 
 He answered, No, he had not been able to get it. 
 I said, I had been obliged to pay five shillings for 
 the loan of it at a regular bookseller's shop (I could 
 not procure it at the circulating libraries), and that 
 from the understood feeling about Sir Walter no 
 objection was made to this proposal, which would 
 in ordinary cases have been construed into an affront. 
 I had well nigh repented my bargain, but there 
 were one or two scenes that repaid me (though none 
 equal to his best,) and in general it was very indiffer- 
 ent. The plot turned chiefly on English Ghost- 
 scenes, a very mechanical sort of phantoms who 
 dealt in practical jokes and personal annoyances, 
 turning beds up-side down and sousing you all ov( 
 with water, instead of supernatural and visionary 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 191 
 
 horrors. It was very bad indeed, but might be 
 intended to contrast the literal, matter-of-fact ima- 
 gination of the Southron with the loftier impulses 
 of Highland superstition. Charles II. was not 
 spared, and was brought in admirably (when in 
 disguise) as a raw, awkward Scotch lad, Master 
 Kerneguy. Cromwell was made a fine, bluff, over- 
 bearing blackguard, who exercised a personal supe- 
 riority wherever he came, but was put in situations 
 which I thought wholly out of character, and for 
 which I apprehended there was no warrant in the 
 [story of the times. They were therefore so 
 far improper. A romance-writer might take an 
 incident and work it out according to his fancy 
 or might build an imaginary superstructure on 
 the ground of history, but he had no right to 
 transpose the facts. For instance, he had made 
 Cromwell act as his own tip-staff and go to 
 Woodstock to take Charles II. in person. To 
 be sure, he had made him display considerable firm- 
 ness and courage in the execution of this errand 
 (as Lavender might in being the first to enter a 
 window to secure a desperate robber) — but the plan 
 itself, to say nothing of the immediate danger, was 
 contrary to Cromwell's dignity as well as policy. 
 
192 MR. northcote's 
 
 Instead of wishing to seize Charles with his own 
 hand, he would naturally keep as far aloof from 
 such a scene as he could, and be desirous to have 
 it understood that he was anxious to shed as little 
 more blood as possible. Besides, he had higher 
 objects in view, and would, I should think, care not 
 much more about Charles than about Master Kerne- 
 guy. He would be glad to let him get away. In 
 another place, he had made Cromwell start back in 
 the utmost terror at seeing a picture of Charles I. 
 and act all the phrenzy of Macbeth over again at 
 the sight of Banquo's ghost. This I should also 
 suppose to be quite out of character in a person of 
 Crom well's prosaic, determined habits to fear a 
 painted devil. u No," said N — , "that is not the 
 way he would look at it ; it is seeing only a part : 
 but Cromwell was a greater philosopher than to 
 act so. The other story is more probable of his 
 visiting the dead body of Charles in a mask, and 
 exclaiming in great agitation as he left the room, 
 Cruel necessity t" Yet even this is not sufficiently 
 authenticated. No ; he knew that it was come to 
 this, that it was gone too far for either party to 
 turn back, and that it must be final with one of 
 them. The only question was whether he should 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 193 
 
 give himself up as the victim, and so render all that 
 had been done useless, or exact the penalty from 
 what he thought the offending party. It was like^ 
 a battle which must end fatally either way, and no 
 one thought of lamenting, because he was not on 
 the losing side. In a great public quarrel there 
 was no room for these domestic and personal re- 
 gards : all you had to do was to consider well the 
 justice of the cause, before you appealed to the 
 sword. Would Charles I. if he had been victo- 
 ous, have started at the sight of a picture of 
 romwell ? Yet Cromwell was as much of a man 
 as he, and as firm as the other was obstinate." 
 
 INorthcote said, he wished he could remember the 
 subject ofa dispute he had with G — to see if I did 
 not think he had the best of it. I replied, I should 
 be more curious to hear something in which G — was 
 right, for he generally made it a rule to be in the 
 wrong in speaking of any thing. I mentioned 
 
 Kiaving once had a very smart debate with him 
 bout a young lady, of whom I had been speaking 
 s very much like her aunt, a celebrated authoress, 
 and as what the latter, I conceived, might have been 
 
 at her time of life. G — said, when Miss 
 
 did any thing like Evelina or Cecilia, he should 
 
 STV 
 
 : 
 
194 MR. N'ORTHCOTE^S 
 
 then believe she was as clever as Madame cTArblay. 
 I asked him whether he did not think Miss Burney 
 was as clever before she wrote those novels as she 
 was after ; or whether in general an author wrote a 
 successful work for being clever, or was clever be- 
 cause he had written a successful work ? Northcote 
 laughed and said, " That was so like G — ." I ob- 
 served that it arose out of his bigoted admiration of 
 literature, so that he could see no merit in any 
 thing else ; nor trust to any evidence of talent but 
 what was printed. It was much the same fallacy 
 that had sometimes struck me in the divines, who 
 deduced original sin from Adam's eating the apple, 
 and not his eating the apple from original sin or a 
 previous inclination to do something, that he should 
 not. Northcote remarked, that speaking of Evelina 
 put him in mind of what Opie had once told him, 
 that when Dr. Johnson sat to him for his picture, 
 on his first coming to town, he asked him if it was 
 true that he had sat up all night to read Miss 
 Burney's new novel, as it had been reported ? And 
 he made answer, " I never read it through at all, 
 though I don't wish this to be known." Sir Joshua 
 also pretended to have read it through at a sitting, 
 though it appeared to him (Northcote) affectation 
 

 COXVEltSATIONS. 195 
 
 in them both, who were thorough-paced men of the 
 world, and hackneyed in literature, to pretend to be 
 so delighted with the performance of a girl, in which 
 they could find neither instruction nor any great 
 amusement, except from the partiality of friendship. 
 So Johnson cried up Savage, because they had 
 slept on bulks when they were young ; and lest he 
 should be degraded into a vagabond by the asso- 
 ciation, had elevated the other into a genius. Such 
 prevarication or tampering with his own convic- 
 tions was not consistent with the strict and formal 
 tone of morality which he assumed on other and 
 sometimes very trifling occasions, such as correcting 
 Mrs. Thrale for saying that a bird flew in at the 
 door, instead of the window. I said, Savage, in my 
 mind, was one of those writers (like Chattertcn) 
 whose vices and misfortunes the world made a set- 
 off to their genius, because glad to connect these 
 ideas together. They were only severe upon those 
 who attacked their prejudices or their consequence. 
 Nor thcote replied, " Savage the architect was here 
 the other day, and asked me why I had abused his 
 name-sake, and called him an impostor. I answered, 
 I had heard that character of him from a person in an 
 obscure rank of life, who had known him a little be- 
 K 2 
 
196 mr. northcote's 
 
 fore his death." Northcote proceeded :" People in that 
 class are better judges than poets and moralists, who 
 explain away every thing by fine words and doubtful 
 theories. The mob are generally right in their sum- 
 mary judgments upon offenders. A man is seldom 
 ducked or pumped upon or roughly handled by 
 them, unless he has deserved it. You see that in 
 the galleries at the play-house. They never let any 
 thing pass that is immoral ; and they are even fasti- 
 dious judges of wit. I remember there was some 
 gross expression in Goldsmith's comedy the first 
 night it came out ; and there was a great uproar in 
 the gallery, and it was obliged to be suppressed. 
 Though rude and vulgar themselves, they do not 
 like vulgarity on the stage ; they come there to be 
 taught manners. m I said, they paid more attention 
 than any body else ; and after the curtain drew up 
 (though somewhat noisy before) were the best-be- 
 haved part of the audience, unless something went 
 wrong. As the common people sought for refine- 
 ment as a treat, people in high life were fond of 
 grossness and ribaldry as a relief to their over-strained 
 affectation of gentility. I could account in no other 
 way for their being amused with the wretched sla?ig 
 in certain magazines and newspapers. I asked 
 
I 
 
 CONVERSATIONS. 197 
 
 Northcote if he had seen the third series of ? 
 
 He had not. I said they were like the composition of 
 a footman, and I believed greatly admired in the upper 
 circles, who were glad to see an author arrange a 
 side-board for them over again with servile alacrity. 
 He said, " They delight in low, coarse buffoonery, 
 because it sets off their own superiority : whereas 
 the rabble resent it when obtruded upon them, be- 
 cause they think it is meant against themselves. 
 They require the utmost elegance and propriety for 
 their money : as the showman says in Goldsmith's 
 comedy — ' My bear dances to none but the gen- 
 teelest of tunes, Water parted from the Sea, or the 
 minuet in Ariadne f " 
 
 Northcote then alluded to a new novel he had 
 been reading. He said he never read a book so full 
 of words ; which seemed ridiculous enough to say, for 
 a book was necessarily composed of words, but here 
 there was nothing else but words, to a degree tha 
 was surprising. Yet he believed it was sought after, 
 and indeed he could not get it at the common li- 
 brary. " You are to consider, there must be books 
 for all tastes and all ages. You may despise it, but 
 the world do not. There are books for children till 
 the time they are six years of age, such as Jack- 
 
198 mr. nohtiicote's 
 
 the-Giant-killer, the Seven Champions of Christen- 
 dom, Guy of Warwick and others.* From that to 
 twelve they like to read the Pilgrim's Progress and 
 Robinson Crusoe, and then Fielding's Novels and 
 Don Quixote : from twenty to thirty books of poetry, 
 Milton, Pope, Shakspeare : and from thirty history 
 and philosophy — what suits us then will serve us for 
 the rest of our lives. For boarding-school girls 
 Thomsons $easo7is has an immense attraction, 
 though I never could read it. Some people cannot 
 get beyond a newspaper or a geographical dictionary. 
 What I mean to infer is that we ought not to con- 
 demn too hastily, for a work may be approved by 
 the public, though it does not exactly hit our taste ; 
 nay, those may seem beauties to others which seem 
 faults to us. Why else do we pride ourselves on the 
 superiority of our judgment, if we are not more 
 advanced in this respect than the majority of readers? 
 But our very fastidiousness should teach us tolera- 
 tion. You have said very well of this novel, that 
 it is a mixture of genteel and romantic affectation. 
 One objection to the excessive rhodomontade which 
 abounds in it is that you can learn nothing from 
 such extravagant fictions: — they arc like nothing 
 
 * See a paper on this subject in the Tatleb. 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 199 
 
 in the known world. I remember once speaking to 
 Richardson (Sheridan's friend) about Shakspeare's 
 want of morality, and he replied — ' What ! Shaks- 
 pcare not moral? He is the most moral of all 
 writers, because he is the most natural !' x\nd in 
 this he was right : for though Shakspeare did not 
 intend to be moral, yet he could not be otherwise as 
 long as he adhered to the path of nature. Morality 
 only teaches us our duty by shewing us the natural 
 consequences of our actions ; and the poet does the- 
 same while he continues to give us faithful and af- 
 fecting pictures of human life — rewarding the good 
 and punishing the bad. So far truth and virtue are 
 one. But that kind of poetry which has not its 
 foundation in nature, and is only calculated to shock 
 and surprise, tends to unhinge our notions of mo- 
 rality and of every thing else in the ordinary course 
 of Pro videlicet' 
 
 Something being said of an artist who had at- 
 tempted to revive the great style in our times, and 
 the question being put, whether Michael Angelo 
 and Raphael, had they lived now, would not have 
 accommodated themselves to the modern practice, 
 I said, it appeared to me that (whether this was the 
 case or not) they could not have done what they 
 
200 
 
 MR. NOItTHCOTE's 
 
 did without the aid of circumstances ; that for an 
 artist to raise himself above all surrounding opi- 
 nions, customs, and institutions by a mere effort of 
 the will, was affectation and folly, like attempting 
 to fly in the air ; and that, though great genius 
 might exist without the opportunities favourable to 
 its development, yet it must draw its nourishment 
 from circumstances, and suck in inspiration from its 
 native air. There was Hogarth — he was surely a 
 genius ; still the manners of his age were necessary 
 to him : teeming as his works were with life, cha- 
 racter, and spirit, they would have been poor and 
 vapid without the night-cellars of St. Giles's, the 
 drawing-rooms of St. James's ! Would he in any 
 circumstances have been a Raphael or a Phidias ? 
 I think not. But had he been twenty times a Ra- 
 phael or a Phidias, I am quite sure it would never 
 have appeared in the circumstances in which he was 
 placed. Two things are necessary to all great 
 works and great excellence, the mind of the indivi- 
 dual and the mind of the age or country co-operat- 
 ing with his own genius. The last brings out the 
 first, but the first does not imply or supersede the 
 last. Pictures for Protestant churches are a contra- 
 diction in terms, where they are not objects of wor- 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 201 
 
 iip but of idle curiosity : — where there is not the 
 adoration, the enthusiasm in the spectator, how can 
 it exist in the artist ? The spark of genius is only 
 kindled into a flame by sympathy. — Northcote 
 spoke highly of Vanbrugh and of the calm superio- 
 rity with which he bore the attacks of Swift, Pope, 
 and that set who made a point of decrying all who 
 did not belong to their party. He said Burke and 
 Sir Joshua thought his architecture far from con- 
 temptible ; and his comedies were certainly first-rate. 
 Richards (the scene-painter) had told him, the play- 
 ers thought the Provoked Husband the best acting 
 play on the stage ; and Godwin said the City- Wives' 
 Confederacy (taken from an indifferent French play) 
 was the best written one. I ventured to add, that the 
 Trip to Scarborough (altered but not improved by 
 Sheridan) was not inferior to either of the others. 
 I should doubt whether the direction given at Sir 
 Tunbelly's castle on the arrival of Young Fashion 
 — " Let loose the grey-hound, and lock up Miss 
 Hoyden !" — would be in Sheridan's version, who, 
 like most of his countrymen, had a prodigious am- 
 bition of elegance. Northcote observed, that talk- 
 ing of this put him in mind of a droll speech that 
 was made when the officers got up a play on board 
 k3 
 
202 mil xouthcote's 
 
 the vessel that went lately to find out the North- 
 West passage: — one of the sailors, who was ad- 
 miring the performance, and saying how clever it 
 was, was interrupted by the boatswain, who ex- 
 claimed — " Clever ! did you say ? I call it philo- 
 sophy, by G — d!" He asked, if he had ever men- 
 tioned to me that anecdote of Lord Mansfield, 
 who, when an old woman was brought before 
 him as a witch, and was charged, among other 
 improbable things, with walking through the 
 air, attended coolly to the evidence, and then 
 dismissed the complaint by saying, " My opinion 
 is that this good woman be suffered to return 
 home, and whether she shall do this, walking on 
 the ground or riding through the air, must be 
 left entirely to her own pleasure, for there is 
 nothing contrary to the laws of England in 
 either ! " I mentioned a very fine dancer at 
 the Opera (Mademoiselle Brocard) with whom 
 I was much delighted; and Northcote observed 
 that where there was grace and beauty accom- 
 panying the bodily movements, it was very hard to 
 deny the mental refinement or the merit of this art. 
 He could not see why that which was so difficult 
 to do, and which gave so much pleasure to others, 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 203 
 
 was to be despised. He remembered seeing some 
 young people at Parma (though merely in a 
 country-dance) exhibit a degree of perfection in 
 their movements that seemed to be inspired by the 
 very genius of grace and gaiety. Miss Reynolds 
 used to say that perfection was much the same in 
 every thing — nobody could assign the limits. I 
 said authors alone were privileged to suppose that 
 all excellence was confined to words. Till I was 
 twenty I thought there was nothing in the world 
 but books : when I began to paint I found there 
 were two things, both difficult to do and worth 
 doing ; and I concluded from that time there might 
 be fifty. At least I was willing to allow every one 
 his own choice. I recollect a certain poet saying 
 " he should like to ham-string those fellows at the 
 Opera " — I suppose because the Great would rather 
 see them dance than read Keliama. Whatever can 
 be done in such a manner that you can fancy a 
 God to do it, must have something in its nature 
 divine. The ancients had assigned Gods to danc- 
 ing as well as to music and poetry, to the different 
 attributes and perfections both of body and mind ; 
 and perhaps the plurality of the heathen deities 
 
204 
 
 was favourable to a liberality of taste and opinion. 
 Northcote : " The most wretched scribbler looks 
 down upon the greatest painter as a mere me- 
 chanic : but who would compare Lord Byron with 
 Titian ?" 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 205 
 
 CONVERSATION THE FIFTEENTH. 
 
 I went to Northcote in the evening to consult 
 about his Fables. He was downstairs in the par- 
 lour, and talked much as usual : but the difference 
 of the accompaniments, the sitting down, the prepa- 
 rations for tea, the carpet and furniture, and a little 
 fat lap-dog interfered with old associations and took 
 something from the charm of his conversation. He 
 spoke of a Mr. Laird who had been employed to see 
 his Life of Sir Joshua through the press, and whom 
 he went to call upon in an upper story in Peterbo- 
 rough-court, Fleet-street, where he was surrounded by 
 his books, his implements of writing, a hand-organ, 
 and his coffee-pots ; and he said he envied him this 
 retreat more than any palace he had ever happened 
 to enter. Northcote was not very well, and repeated 
 his complaints. I said I thought the air (now 
 
206 
 
 summer was coming on) would do him more good 
 than physic. His apothecary had been describing 
 the dissection of the elephant, which had just been 
 killed at Exeter 'Change. It appeared that instead 
 of the oil which usually is found in the joints of 
 animals, the interstices were in this case filled up 
 with a substance resembling a kind of white paint. 
 This Northcote considered as a curious instance of 
 the wise contrivance of nature in the adaptation of 
 means to ends ; for even in pieces of artificial me- 
 chanism, though they use oil to lubricate the springs 
 and wheels of clocks and other common-sized 
 instruments, yet in very large 'and heavy ones, such 
 as steam-engines, &c. they are obliged to use grease, 
 pitch, and other more solid substances, to prevent 
 the friction. If they could dissect a flea, what a 
 fine, evanescent fluid would be found to lubricate 
 its slender joints and assist its light movements ! 
 Northcote said the bookseller wished to keep the 
 original copy of the Fables to bind up as a literary 
 curiosity. I objected to this proceeding as unfair. 
 There were several slips of the pen and slovenlinesses 
 of style (for which I did not think him at all account- 
 able, since an artist wrote with his left hand, and 
 painted with his right) and I did not see why these 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 207 
 
 accidental inadvertences, arising from diffidence 
 and want of practice, should be as it were en- 
 shrined and brought against him. He said, " Mr. 
 
 P H tasked me the hardest in what I wrote 
 
 in the Artist. He pointed out where I was wrong, 
 and sent it back to me to correct it. After all, what I 
 did there was thought the best ! " I said Mr. H — 
 was too fastidious, and spoiled what he did from a wish 
 to have it perfect. He dreaded that a shadow of ob- 
 jection should be brought against any thing he 
 advanced, so that his opinions at last amounted to a 
 kind of genteel truisms. One must risk something 
 in order to do any thing. I observed that this was 
 remarkable in so clever a man ; but it seemed as if 
 there were some fatality by which the most lively 
 and whimsical writers, if they went out of their own 
 eccentric path and attempted to be serious, became 
 
 I exceedingly grave and even insipid. His farces 
 vere certainly very spirited and original : No Song 
 ?o Supper was the first play I had ever seen, and 
 [ felt grateful to him for this. Northcote agreed 
 hat it was very delightful ; and said there was a 
 volume of it when he first read it to them one night 
 at Mrs. Rundle's, and that the players cut it down 
 a good deal and supplied a number of things. There 
 
2C8 mr. northcote's 
 
 was a great piece of work to alter the songs for 
 
 Madame Storace, who played in it and who could 
 
 not pronounce half the English terminations. My 
 
 Grandmother, too, was a laughable idea, very 
 
 ingeniously executed ; and some of the songs in this 
 
 had an equal portion of elegance and drollery, such 
 
 as that in particular — 
 
 For alas ! long before I was born, 
 My fair one had died of old age ! 
 
 Still some of his warmest admirers were hurt at their 
 being farces — if they had been comedies, they would 
 have been satisfied, for nothing could be greater 
 than their success. They were the next to CTKeefe's, 
 who in that line was the English Moliere. 
 
 Northcote asked if I remembered the bringing out 
 of any of CTKeefe's ? I answered, No. He said 
 11 It had the o.ddest effect imaginable — at one mo- 
 ment they seemed on the point of being damned, and 
 the next moment you were convulsed with laughter. 
 Edwin was inimitable in some of them. He was 
 one of those actors, it is true, who carried a great 
 deal off the stage with him, that he would willingly 
 have left behind, and so far could not help himself. 
 But his awkward, shambling figure in Bowkitt the 
 dancing-master, was enough to make one die with 
 
I 
 
 
 CONVERSATIONS. 209 
 
 laughing. He was also unrivalled in Lingo, where 
 he was admirably supported by Mrs. Wells in 
 Cowslip, when she prefers c a roast duck ' to all the 
 birds in the Heathen Mythology — and in Peeping 
 Tom, where he merely puts his head out, the faces 
 that he made threw the audience into a roar." I 
 
 said, I remembered no further back than B , .vn-yxt 
 
 who used so delight me excessively in Lenitive in 
 the Prize, when I was a boy. Northcote said, he 
 was an imitator of Edwin, but at a considerable 
 distance. He was a good-natured, agreeable man ; 
 and the audience were delighted with him, because 
 he was evidently delighted with them. In some 
 respects he was a caricaturist : for instance, in 
 Lenitive he stuck his pigtail on end, which he 
 had no right to do, for no one had ever done it but 
 himself. I said Liston appeared to me to have more 
 comic humour than any one in my time, though 
 he was not properly an actor. Northcote asked 
 if he was not low-spirited ; and told the story (I 
 suspect an old one) of his consulting a physician on 
 the state of his health, who recommended him to go 
 and see Liston. I said he was grave and prosing, 
 but I did not know there was any thing the matter 
 with him, though I had seen him walking along the 
 
210 MB. xorthcote's 
 
 street the other day with his face as fixed as if he 
 had a lock-jaw, a book in his hand, looking neither 
 to the right nor the left, and very much like his 
 own Lord Duberly. I did not see why he and 
 Matthews should both of them be so hipped, except 
 from their having the player's melancholy, arising 
 from their not seeing six hundred faces on the broad 
 grin before them at all other times as well as when 
 they were acting. He was, however, exceedingly 
 unaffected, and remarkably candid in judging of 
 other actors. He always spoke in the highest terms 
 of Munden, whom I considered as overdoing his 
 parts.* Northcote said, " Munden was excellent but 
 an artificial actor. You should have seen Weston ," 
 he continued. " It was impossible, from looking 
 at him, for any one to say that he was acting. You 
 would suppose they had gone out and found the 
 actual character they wanted, and brought him upon 
 the stage without his knowing it. Even when they 
 interrupted him with peals of laughter and ap- 
 plause, he looked about him as if he was not at all 
 conscious of having any thing to do with it, and then 
 
 * The same praise may be extended to Matthews. Those 
 who have seen this ingenious and lively actor only on the 
 stage, do not know half his merits. 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 211 
 
 went on as before. In Scrub, Dr. Last, and other 
 parts of that kind, he was perfection itself. Garrick 
 would never attempt Abel Drugger after him. 
 There was something peculiar in his face ; for I 
 knew an old school-fellow of his who told me he 
 used to produce the same effect when a boy, and 
 when the master asked what was the matter, his 
 companions would make answer — " Weston looked 
 at me, Sir !" Yet he came out in tragedy, as indeed 
 they all did ! Northcote inquired if I had seen 
 Garrick? I answered, "No — I could not very 
 well, as he died the same year I was born !" I 
 mentioned having lately met with a striking in- 
 stance of genealogical taste in a family, the grand- 
 father of which thought nothing of Garrick, the 
 father thought nothing of Mrs. Siddons, and the 
 daughter could make nothing of the Scotch Novels, 
 but admired Mr. Theodore Hook^ " Sayings and 
 Doings ! " 
 
 Northcote then returned to the subject of his 
 book and said, " Sir Richard Phillips once wished 
 me to do a very magnificent work indeed on the 
 subject of art. He was like Curll, who had a 
 number of fine title-pages, if any one could have 
 written books to answer to them. He came here 
 
212 mr. northcote's 
 
 once with Godwin to shew me a picture which they 
 had just discovered of Chaucer, and which was to 
 embellish Godwin's Life of him. I told them it 
 was certainly no picture of Chaucer, nor was any 
 such picture painted at that time." I said, Godwin 
 had got a portrait about a year ago which he wished 
 me to suppose was a likeness of President Brad- 
 shaw : I saw no reason for his thinking so, but that 
 in that case it would be worth a hundred pounds to 
 him ! Northcote expressed a curiosity to have seen 
 it, as he knew the descendants of the family at Ply- 
 mouth. He remembered one of them, an old lady 
 of the name of Wilcox, who used to walk about in 
 GibsonVField near the town, so prim and starched, 
 holding up her fan spread out like a peacock's tail 
 with such an air, on account of her supposed rela- 
 tionship to one of the Regicides ! They paid, how- 
 ever (in the vulgar opinion) for this distinction ; 
 for others of them bled to death at the nose, or died 
 of the bursting of a blood-vessel, which their wise 
 neighbours did not fail to consider as a judgme nt 
 upon them. 
 
 Speaking of Dr. M , lie said, he had such a 
 
 feeling of beauty in his heart, that it made angels 
 of every one around him. To check a person 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 213 
 
 who was running on against another, he once said, 
 " You should not speak in that manner, for you 
 lead me to suppose you have the bad qualities you 
 are so prone to dwell upon in others. 11 — A transition 
 was here made to Lord Byron, who used to tell a story 
 of a little red-haired girl, who, when countesses and 
 ladies of fashion were leaving the room where he was 
 in crowds (to cut him after his quarrel with his wife) 
 stopped short near a table against which he was 
 leaning, gave him a familiar nod, and said, " You 
 should have married me, and then this would not 
 have happened to you P A question being started 
 whether Dr. M was handsome, Northcote an- 
 swered, " I could see no beauty in him as to his 
 outward person, but there was an angelic sweetness 
 of disposition that spread its influence over his 
 whole conversation and manner. He had not wit, 
 but a fine romantic enthusiasm which deceived him- 
 self, and enchanted others. I remember once his 
 describing a picture by Rosa de Tivoli (at Saltram) 
 of Two Bulls Jighti?ig, and he gave such an ac- 
 >unt of their rage and manner of tearing up the 
 ground that I could not rest till we went over to 
 see it — when we came there, it was nothing but a 
 coarse daub like what might be expected from the 
 
214 mr. northcote's 
 
 painter : but he had made the rest out of a vivid 
 imagination. So my father told him a story of a 
 bull-bait he had seen in which the bull had run so 
 furiously at the dog that he broke the chain and 
 pitched upon his head and was killed. Soon after, 
 he came and told us the same story as an incident 
 he himself had witnessed. He did not mean to 
 deceive, but the image had made such an impres- 
 sion on his fancy, that he believed it to be one that 
 he had himself been an eye-witness of. 11 I was 
 much amused with this account and I offered to get 
 him a copy of a whimsical production, of which a new 
 edition had been printed. I also recommended to 
 him the Spanish Rogue, as a fine mixture of drol- 
 lery and grave moralizing. He spoke of Lazarillo 
 de Tormes and of the Cheats of Scapin, the last 
 of which he rated rather low. The work was written 
 by Scarron, whose widow, the famous Madame de 
 Maintenon, afterwards became mistress to Louis 
 XIV. 
 
PART THE SECOND. 
 
CONVERSATION THE SIXTEENTH. 
 
 N. — That is your diffidence, which I can't 
 help thinking you carry too far. For any one of 
 real strength, you are the humblest person I ever 
 knew. 
 
 IH. — It is owing to pride. 
 N. — You deny you have invention too. But 
 t is want of practice. Your ideas run on before 
 rour executive power. It is a common case. There 
 \ r as Ramsay, of whom Sir Joshua used to say that 
 le was the most sensible among all the painters of 
 his time ; but he has left little to show it. His 
 manner was dry and timid. He stopped short in 
 
 L 
 
218 mr. northcote's 
 
 the middle of his work, because he knew exacth 
 how much it wanted. Now and then we find hints 
 and sketches which show what he might have been, 
 if his hand had been equal to his conceptions. I 
 have seen a picture of his of the Queen, soon after 
 she was married — a profile, and slightly done ; but 
 it was a paragon of elegance. She had a fan in her 
 hand : Lord ! how she held that fan ! It was weak 
 in execution and ordinary in features — all I can say 
 of it is, that it was the farthest possible removed from 
 every thing like vulgarity. A professor might de- 
 spise it ; but in the mental part, I have never seen 
 any thing of Vandyke's equal to it. I could have 
 
 looked at it forever. I showed it to J n; 
 
 and he, I believe, came into my opinion of it. I 
 don't know where it is now ; but I saw in it enough 
 to convince me that Sir Joshua was right in what 
 he said of Ramsay's great superiority. His own 
 picture of the King, which is at the Academy, is a 
 finer composition and shows greater boldness and 
 mastery of hand ; but I should find it difficult to 
 produce any thing of Sir Joshua's that conveys an 
 idea of more grace and delicacy than the one I have 
 mentioned. Reynolds would have iinished it bettei 
 the other was afraid of spoiling what he had done 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 219 
 
 and so left it a mere outline. He was frightened 
 before he was hurt. 
 
 H. — Taste and even genius is but a misfortune, 
 without a correspondent degree of manual dexterity 
 or power of language to make it manifest. 
 
 N. — W was here the other day. I believe 
 
 you met him going out. He came, he said, to ask 
 me about the famous people of the last age, John- 
 son, Burke, &c. (as I was almost the only person 
 left who remembered them), and was curious to know 
 what figure Sir Walter Scott would have made 
 among them. 
 
 H. — That is so like a North-Briton — " to make 
 assurance doubly sure,"' and to procure a signature 
 to an acknowledged reputation as if it were a receipt 
 for the delivery of a bale of goods. 
 
 N. — I told him it was not for me to pronounce 
 upon such men as Sir Walter Scott : they came be- 
 fore another tribunal. They were of that height that 
 they were seen by all the world, and must stand or 
 fall by the verdict of posterity. It signified little 
 what any individual thought in such cases, it being 
 equally an impertinence to set one's self against or 
 to add one's testimony to the public voice ; but as 
 far as I could judge, I told him, that Sir Walter 
 l 2 
 
220 MR. noiithcote's 
 
 would have stood his ground in any company : nei- 
 ther Burke nor Johnson nor any of their admirers 
 would have been disposed or able to set aside his pre- 
 tensions. These men were not looked upon in their 
 day as they are at present: Johnson had his Lexi- 
 pJianes, and Goldsmith was laughed at — their 
 merits were to the full as much called in question, 
 nay, more so, than those of the Author of Waverley 
 have ever been, who has been singularly fortunate 
 in himself or in lighting upon a barren age : but 
 because their names have since become established, 
 and as it were sacred, we think they were always so ; 
 and W — wanted me, as a competent witness and 
 as having seen both parties, to affix the same seal 
 to his countryman's reputation, which it is not in 
 the power of the whole of the present generation to 
 do, much less of any single person in it. No, we 
 must wait for this ! Time alone can give the final 
 stamp : no living reputation can ever be of the same 
 value or quality as posthumous fame. We must 
 throw lofty objects to a distance in order to judge of 
 them : if we are standing close under the Monu- 
 ment, it looks higher than St. Faul^. Posterity 
 has this advantage over us — not that they are realb 
 wiser, but they sec the proportions better from 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 221 
 
 being placed further off. For instance, I liked Sir 
 Walter, because he had an easy, unaffected manner, 
 and was ready to converse on all subjects alike. He 
 
 was not like your friends, the L poets, who 
 
 talk about nothing but their own poetry. If, on the 
 contrary, he had been stiff and pedantic, I should, 
 perhaps, have been inclined to think less highly of 
 the author from not liking the man ; so that we can 
 never judge fairly of men's abilities till we are no 
 longer liable to come in contact with their persons. 
 Friends are as little to be trusted as enemies : favour 
 or prejudice makes the votes in either case more or 
 less suspected ; though " the vital signs that a name 
 shall live" are in some instances so strong, that we 
 can hardly refuse to put faith in them, and I think 
 this is one. I was much pleased with Sir Walter, 
 and I believe he expressed a favourable opinion of 
 me. I said to him, " I admire the way in which 
 ou begin your novels. You set out so abruptly, 
 hat you quite surprise me. I can't at all tell what's 
 coming." — " No P says Sir Walter, " nor I nei- 
 
 Ither." I then told him, that when I first read 
 Waverley, I said it was no novel : nobody could in- 
 vent like that. Either he had heard the story related 
 by one of the surviving parties, or he had found 
 
222 mr. nortjicote's 
 
 the materials in a manuscript concealed in some old 
 chest : to which he replied, " You're not so far out 
 of the way in thinking so." You don't know 
 him, do you ? He'd be a pattern to you. Oh ! 
 he has a very fine manner. You would learn to 
 rub off some of your asperities. But you admire 
 him, I believe. 
 
 II. — Yes; on this side of idolatry and Toryism. 
 N. — That is your prejudice. 
 H. — Nay, it rather shows my liberality, if I am a 
 devoted enthusiast, notwithstanding. There are two 
 things I admire in Sir Walter, his capacity and his 
 simplicity ; which indeed I am apt to think are much 
 the same. The more ideas a man has of other things, 
 the less he is taken up with the idea of himself. 
 Every one gives the same account of the author of 
 Waverley in this respect. When he was in Paris, 
 and went to Galignani's, he sat down in an outer 
 room to look at some book he wanted to see : none 
 of the clerks had the least suspicion who it was : 
 when it was found out, the place was in a commotion. 
 Cooper, the American, was in Paris at the same 
 time : his looks and manner seemed to announce a 
 much greater man. He strutted through the streets 
 with a very consequential air ; and in company held 
 

 CONVERSATIONS. 223 
 
 up his head, screwed up his features, and placed 
 himself on a sort of pedestal to be observed and ad- 
 mired, as if he never relaxed in the assumption nor 
 •wished it to be forgotten by others, that he was the 
 American Sir Walter Scott. The real one never 
 troubled himself about the matter. Why should 
 he ? He might safely leave that question to others. 
 Indeed, by what I am told, he carries his indif- 
 ference too far : it amounts to an implied contempt 
 for the public, and misprision of treason against 
 the common-wealth of letters. He thinks nothing 
 of his works, although " all Europe rings with them 
 from side to side. 11 — If so, he has been severely 
 punished for his infirmity. 
 
 N. — Though you do not know Sir Walter 
 Scott, I think I have heard you say you have 
 seen him. 
 
 H. — Yes, he put me in mind of Cobbett, with 
 his florid face and scarlet gown, which were just like 
 the other's red face and scarlet waistcoat. The one 
 is like an English farmer, the other like a Scotch 
 laird. Both are large, robust men, with great 
 strength and composure of features ; but I saw 
 nothing of the ideal character in the romance- 
 
224 mr. noethcote's 
 
 writer, any more than I looked for it in the poli- 
 tician. 
 
 N. — Indeed ! But you have a vast opinion 
 of Cobbett too, haven't you ? Oh ! he's a giant ! 
 He has such prodigious strength; he tears up a 
 subject by the roots. Did you ever read his 
 
 Grammar ? Or see his attack on Mrs. ? 
 
 It was like a hawk pouncing on a wren. I should 
 be terribly afraid to get into his hands. And then 
 his homely, familiar way of writing — it is not 
 from necessity or vulgarity, but to show his con- 
 tempt for aristocratic pride and arrogance. He 
 only has a kitchen-garden ; he could have a flower- 
 garden too if he chose. Peter Pindar said his style 
 was like the Horse-Guards, only one story above 
 the ground, while Junius's had all the airy elegance 
 of Whitehall : but he could raise his style just as 
 high as he pleased ; though he does not want to 
 sacrifice strength to elegance. He knows better 
 what he is about. 
 
 H. — I don't think he'll set up for a fine gentle- 
 man in a hurry, though he has for a Member of 
 Parliament ; and I fancy he would make no better 
 figure in the one than the other. Me appeared to 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 225 
 
 me, when I once saw him, exactly what I expected: 
 in Sir Walter I looked in vain for a million of fine 
 things ! I could only explain it to myself in this way, 
 that there was a degree of capacity in that huge double 
 forehead of his, that superseded all effort, made every 
 thing come intuitively and almost mechanically, as if 
 it were merely transcribing what was already written, 
 and by the very facility with which the highest beauty 
 and excellence was produced, left few traces of it in 
 the expression of the countenance, and hardly any 
 sense of it in the mind of the author. Expression 
 only comes into the face as we are at a loss for 
 words, or have a difficulty in bringing forward our 
 ideas ; but we may repeat the finest things by rote 
 without any change of look or manner. It is only 
 when the powers are tasked, when the moulds of 
 thought are full, that the effect or the icear-and- 
 tear of the mind appears on the surface. So, in 
 general, writers of the greatest imagination and 
 range of ideas, and who might be said to have all 
 
 I nature obedient to their call, seem to have been 
 most careless of their fame and regardless of their 
 works. They treat their productions not as chil- 
 dren, but as " bastards of their art ;" whereas those 
 L3 
 
226 mr. nortiicote's 
 
 who are more confined in their scope of intellect and 
 wedded to some one theory or predominant fancy, 
 have been found to feel a proportionable fondness 
 for the offspring of their brain, and have thus ex- 
 cited a deeper interest in it in the minds of others. 
 We set a value on things as they have cost us 
 dear : the very limitation of our faculties or ex- 
 clusiveness of our feelings compels us to concentrate 
 all our enthusiasm on a favourite subject ; and 
 strange as it may sound, in order to inspire a per- 
 fect sympathy in others or to form a school, men 
 must themselves be egotists ! Milton has had 
 fewer readers and admirers, but I suspect more de- 
 voted and bigotted ones, than ever Shakspeare had: 
 Sir Walter Scott has attracted more universal atten- 
 tion than any writer of our time, but you may speak 
 against him with less danger of making personal 
 enemies than if you attack Lord Byron. Even 
 Wordsworth has half a dozen followers, who set him 
 up above every body else from a common idiosyn- 
 crasy of feeling and the singleness of the elements 
 of which his excellence is composed. Before we 
 can take an author entirely to our bosoms, he must 
 be another self; and he cannot be this, if he is 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 227 
 
 " not one, but all mankind's epitome." It was this 
 which gave such an effect to Rousseau's writings, 
 that he stamped his own character and the image of 
 his self-love on the public mind — there it is, and 
 there it will remain in spite of every thing. Had 
 he possessed more comprehension of thought or 
 feeling, it would only have diverted him from his 
 object. But it was the excess of his egotism and 
 his utter blindness to every thing else, that found a 
 corresponding sympathy in the conscious feelings of 
 every human breast, and shattered to pieces the 
 pride of rank and circumstance by the pride of in- 
 ternal worth or upstart pretension. When Rousseau 
 stood behind the chair of the master of the chateau 
 
 of , and smiled to hear the company dispute 
 
 about the meaning of the motto of the arms of the 
 family, which he alone knew, and stumbled as he 
 handed the glass of wine to his young mistress, 
 and fancied she coloured at being waited upon by 
 so learned a young footman — then was first kindled 
 that spark which can never be quenched, then was 
 formed the germ of that strong conviction of the 
 disparity between the badge on his shoulder and 
 the aspirations of his soul — the determination, in 
 
228 
 
 short, that external situation and advantages are 
 but the mask, and that the mind is the man — armed 
 with which, impenetrable, incorrigible, he went forth 
 conquering and to conquer, and overthrew the mo- 
 narchy of France and the hierarchies of the earth. 
 Till then, birth and wealth and power were all in 
 all, though but the frame-work or crust that en- 
 velopes the man ; and what there was in the man 
 himself was never asked, or was scorned and forgot. 
 And while all was dark and grovelling within, while 
 knowledge either did not exist or was confined to a 
 few, while material power and advantages were every 
 thing, this was naturally to be expected. But with 
 the increase and diffusion of knowledge, this state of 
 things must sooner or later cease ; and Rousseau 
 was the first who held the torch (lighted at the 
 never-dying fire in his own bosom) to the hidden 
 chambers of the mind of man — like another Pro- 
 metheus, breathed into his nostrils the breatli of a 
 new and intellectual life, enraging the Gods of the 
 earth, and made him feel what is due to himself and 
 his fellows. Before, physical force was every thing : 
 henceforward, mind, thought, feeling was a new 
 element — a fourth estate in society. What ! shall 
 

 CONVERSATIONS. 229 
 
 a man have read Dante and Ariosto, and be none 
 the better for it ? Shall he be still judged of only 
 by his coat, the number of his servants in livery, 
 the house over his head ? While poverty meant 
 ignorance, that was necessarily the case; but the 
 world of books overturns the world of things, and 
 establishes a new balance of power and scale of 
 estimation. Shall we think only rank and pedigree 
 divine, when we have music, poetry, and painting 
 within us? Tut! we have read Old Mortality; 
 and shall it be asked whether we have done so in a 
 garret or a palace, in a carriage or on foot ? Or 
 knowing them, shall we not revere the mighty heirs 
 of fame, and respect ourselves for knowing and 
 honouring them ? This is the true march of in- 
 tellect, and not the erection of Mechanics' Insti- 
 tutions, or the printing of twopenny trash, accord- 
 ing to my notion of the matter, though I have 
 nothing to say against them neither. 
 . N. — I thought you never would have done ; 
 however, you have come to the ground at last. 
 After this rhapsody, I must inform you that 
 Rousseau is a character more detestable to me than 
 I have power of language to express : — an aristocrat 
 
230 MR. northcote's 
 
 filled with all their worst vices, pride, ambition, 
 conceit and gross affectation : and though endowed 
 with some ability, yet not sufficient ever to make 
 him know right from wrong : witness his novel of 
 Eloisa. His name brings to my mind all the 
 gloomy horrors of a mob-government, which at- 
 tempted from their ignorance to banish truth and 
 justice from the world. I see you place Sir Walter 
 above Lord Byron. The question is not which 
 keeps longest on the wing, but which soars highest : 
 and I cannot help thinking there are essences in 
 Lord Byron that are not to be surpassed. He is 
 on a par with Dryden. All the other modern 
 poets appear to me vulgar in the comparison. As 
 a lady who comes here said, there is such an air of 
 nobility in what he writes. Then there is such a 
 power in the style, expressions almost like Shak- 
 speare — " And looked round on them with their 
 wolfish eyes." 
 
 H. — The expression is in Shakspeare, somewhere 
 in Lear. 
 
 N. — The line I repeated is in Don Juan. I do 
 not mean to vindicate the immorality or misan- 
 thropy in that poem — perhaps his lameness was to 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 231 
 
 blame for this defect — but surely no one can deny 
 the force, the spirit of it ; and there is such a fund 
 of drollery mixed up with the serious part. Nobody 
 understood the tragi-comedy of poetry so well. 
 People find fault with this mixture in general, be- 
 cause it is not well managed ; there is a comic story 
 and a tragic story going on at the same time, without 
 their having any thing to do with one another. But 
 in Lord Byron they are brought together, just as 
 they are in nature. In like manner, if you go 
 to an execution at the very moment when the crimi- 
 nal is going to be turned off, and all eyes are fixed 
 upon him, an old apple-woman and her stall are 
 overturned, and all the spectators fall a-laughing. 
 In real life the most ludicrous incidents border on 
 the most affecting and shocking. How fine that is 
 of the cask of butter in the storm ! Some critics 
 have objected to it as turning the whole into bur- 
 lesque ; on the contrary, it is that which stamps the 
 character of the scene more than any thing else. 
 What did the people in the boat care about the 
 rainbow, which he has described in such vivid co- 
 lours; or even about their fellow-passengers who were 
 thrown overboard, when they only wanted to eat 
 
232 Mil. NORTIICOTE , S 
 
 them ? No, it was the loss of the firkin of butter 
 that affected them more than all the rest ; and it is 
 the mention of this circumstance that adds a har- 
 dened levity and a sort of ghastly horror to the 
 scene. It shows the master-hand — there is such a 
 boldness and sagacity and superiority to ordinary 
 rules in it ! I agree, however, in your admiration 
 of the Waverley Novels : they are very fine. As I 
 told the author, he and Cervantes have raised the 
 idea of human nature, not as Richardson has at- 
 tempted, by affectation and a false varnish, but by 
 bringing out what there is really fine in it under a 
 cloud of disadvantages. Have you seen the last ? 
 H.— No. 
 
 N. — There is a character of a common smith or ar- 
 mourer in it, which, in spite of a number of weak- 
 nesses and in the mostludicrous situations, is made 
 quite heroical by the tenderness and humanity it 
 displays. It is his best, but I had not read it when 
 I saw him. No; all that can be said against Sir Walter 
 is, that he has never made a whole. There is an 
 infinite number of delightful incidents and cha- 
 racters, but they are disjointed and scattered. This 
 is one of Fielding's merits : his novels are regular 
 

 CONVERSATIONS. 233 
 
 compositions, with what the ancients called a be- 
 ginning, a middle, and an end: every circum- 
 stance is foreseen and provided for, and the con- 
 clusion of the story turns round as it were to meet 
 the beginning. Gil Bias is very clever, but it is 
 only a succession of chapters. Tom Jones is a 
 masterpiece, as far as regards the conduct of the 
 fable. 
 
 H. — Do you know the reason ? Fielding had a 
 hooked nose, the long chin. It is that introverted 
 physiognomy that binds and concentrates. 
 
 N. — But Sir Walter has not a hooked nose, but 
 one that denotes kindness and ingenuity. Mrs. 
 Abington had the pug-nose, who was the perfection 
 of comic archness and vivacity : a hooked nose is 
 my aversion. 
 
234 MR. NORTHCOTF. s 
 
 CONVERSATION THE SEVENTEENTH. 
 
 N. — I sometimes get into scrapes that way by 
 contradicting people before I have well considered 
 the subject, and I often wonder how I get out of 
 them so well as I do. I remember once meeting 
 
 with Sir , who was talking about Milton; 
 
 and as I have a natural aversion to a coxcomb, I 
 differed from what he said, without being at all 
 prepared with any arguments in support of my 
 opinion. 
 
 II. — But you had time enough to think of them 
 afterwards. 
 
 N. — I got through with it somehow or other. It 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 235 
 
 is the very risk you run in such cases that puts you 
 on the alert and gives you spirit to extricate your- 
 self from it. If you had full leisure to deliberate 
 and to make out your defence beforehand, you 
 perhaps could not do it so well as on the spur of the 
 occasion. The surprise and flutter of the animal 
 spirits gives the alarm to any little wit we possess, 
 and puts it into a state of immediate requisition. 
 
 H. — Besides, it is always easiest to defend a para- 
 dox or an opinion you don't care seriously about. 
 I would sooner (as a matter of choice) take the 
 wrong side than the right in any argument. If you 
 have a thorough conviction on any point and good 
 grounds for it, you have studied it long, and the 
 real reasons have sunk into the mind; so that what you 
 can recal of them at a sudden pinch, seems unsatis- 
 factory and disproportionate to the confidence of 
 your belief and to the magisterial tone you are dis- 
 posed to assume. Even truth is a matter of habit 
 and professorship. Reason and knowledge, when at 
 their height, return into a kind of instinct. We 
 understand the grammar of a foreign language best, 
 though we do not speak it so well. But if you take up 
 an opinion at a venture, then you lay hold of what- 
 ever excuse comes within your reach, instead of search- 
 
236 MR. NOItTHCOTE , S 
 
 ing about for and bewildering yourself with the true 
 reasons ; and the odds are that the arguments thus 
 got up are as good as those opposed to them. In 
 fact, the more sophistical and superficial an objec- 
 tion to a received or well-considered opinion is, the 
 more we are staggered and teazed by it ; and the 
 next thing is to lose our temper, when we become 
 an easy prey to a cool and disingenuous adversary. 
 I would much rather (as the safest side) insist on 
 Milton's pedantry than on his sublimity, supposing 
 I were not in the company of very good judges. A 
 single stiff' or obscure line would outweigh a whole 
 book of solemn grandeur in the mere flippant en- 
 counter of the wits, and, in general, the truth and 
 justice of the cause you espouse is rather an incum- 
 brance than an assistance ; or it is like heavy armour 
 which few have strength to wield. Any thing short 
 of complete triumph on the right side is defeat : 
 any hole picked or flaw detected in an argument 
 which we are holding earnestly and conscientiously, 
 is sufficient to raise the laugh against us. This is 
 the greatest advantage which folly and knavery 
 have. We are not satisfied to be right, unless we 
 can prove others to be quite wrong ; and as all the 
 world would be thought to have some reason on 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 237 
 
 their side, they are glad of any loop-hole or pretext 
 to escape from the dogmatism and tyranny we would 
 set up over them. Absolute submission requires 
 absolute proofs. Without some such drawback, the 
 world might become too wise and too good, at least 
 according to every man's private prescription. In 
 this sense ridicule is the test of truth ; that is, the 
 levity and indifference on one side balances the for- 
 mality and presumption on the other. 
 
 N. — Home Tooke used to play with his anta- 
 gonists in the way you speak of. He constantly 
 threw Fuseli into a rage and made him a laughing- 
 stock, by asking him to explain the commonest 
 things, and often what Fuseli understood much 
 better than he did. But in general, I think it is 
 less an indifference to truth than the fear of findino; 
 yourself in the wrong, that carries you through 
 when you take up any opinion from caprice or the 
 spirit of contradiction. Danger almost always pro- 
 duces courage and presence of mind. The faculties 
 are called forth with the occasion. You see men 
 of very ordinary characters, placed in extraordinary 
 circumstances, act like men of capacity. The late 
 King of France was thought weak and imbecile, till 
 he was thrown into the most trying situations ; and 
 
238 MR. northcote's 
 
 then he shewed sense and even eloquence which 
 no one had ever suspected. Events supplied the 
 want of genius and energy ; the external impressions 
 were so strong, that the dullest or most indolent 
 must have been roused by them. Indeed the wise 
 man is perhaps more liable to err in such extreme 
 cases by setting up his own preconceptions and self- 
 will against circumstances, than the c ommon p lac e 
 character who yields to necessity and is passive 
 under existing exigencies. It is this which makes 
 kings and ministers equal to their situations. They 
 may be very poor creatures in themselves ; but the 
 importance of the part they have to act and the 
 magnitude of their responsibility inspire them with 
 a factitious and official elevation of view. Few 
 people are found totally unfit for high station, and 
 it is lucky that it is so. Perhaps men of genius and 
 imagination are the least adapted to get into the 
 state go-cart; Buonaparte, we see, with all his 
 talent, only drove to the devil. When Hichard II. 
 was quite a youth, and he went to suppress the 
 rebellion of Wat Tyler in Smithfield, and the latter 
 was killed, his followers drew their bows and were 
 about to take vengeance on the young king, when he 
 stepped forward and said that " now as their leader 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 239 
 
 was dead, he would be their leader." This instantly 
 disarmed their rage, and they received him with 
 acclamations. He had no other course left ; the 
 peril he was in made him see his place of safety. 
 Courage has a wonderful effect : this makes mad 
 people so terrible, that they have no fear. Even 
 wild beasts or a mob (which is much the same thing) 
 will hardly dare to attack you if you show no fear of 
 them. T have heard Lord Exmouth (Sir Edward 
 Pellew) say that once when he was out with his 
 ship at sea and there was a mutiny on board and no 
 chance of escape, he learned (from a spy he had 
 among them) the moment when the ring-leaders were 
 assembled and about to execute their design of 
 putting the captain and all the officers to death, 
 when taking a pistol in each hand, he went down 
 into the cock-pit into the midst of them ; and threat- 
 ening to shoot the first man that stirred, took them 
 every one prisoners. If hehad betrayed the least fear 
 or any of them had raised a hand, he must have been 
 instantly sacrificed. But he was bolder than any 
 individual in the group, and by this circumstance 
 had the ascendancy over the whole put together. A 
 similar act of courage is related of Peter the Great, 
 who singly entered the haunt of some conspirators, 
 
240 MR. xorthcote's 
 
 and striking down the leader with a blow on the 
 face, spread consternation amongst the assassins, 
 who were terrified by his fearlessness. 
 
 {A book of prints ivas brought in, containing 
 Views of Edinburgh.') 
 
 N. — It is curious to what perfection these things 
 are brought, and how cheap they are. It is that 
 which makes them sell and ensures the fortune of 
 those who publish them. Great fortunes are made 
 out of small profits, which allow all the world to 
 become purchasers. That is the reason the Col- 
 losseum will hardly answer. There never was an 
 example of an exhibition in England answering at 
 a crown a-piece. People look twice at their money 
 before they will part with it, if it be more than they 
 are accustomed to pay. It becomes a question, and 
 perhaps a few stragglers go ; whereas they ought to 
 go in a stream and as a matter of course. If 
 people have to pay a little more than usual, though 
 a mere trifle, they consider it in the light of an 
 imposition, and resent it as such ; if the price be a 
 little under the mark, they think they have saved 
 so much money, and snap at it as a bargain. The 
 publishers of the work on Edinburgh arc the same 
 
CONVERSATIONS- 241 
 
 who brought out the Views of London ; and it is 
 said, the success of that undertaking enabled them 
 to buy up Lackington's business. E — — - the 
 architect, I am told, suggested the plan, but de- 
 clined a share that was offered him in it, because 
 he said nothing that he had been engaged in had 
 ever succeeded. The event would not belie the 
 notion of his own ill-luck. It is singular on what 
 slight turns good or ill fortune depends. Lack- 
 ington (I understood from the person who 
 brought the Edinburgh Views here) died worth 
 near half a million : nobody could tell how he 
 had made it. At thirty he was not worth a shil- 
 ling. The great difficulty is in the first hundred 
 pounds. 
 
 H. — It is sympathy with the mass of mankind, 
 and finding out from yourself what it is they want 
 and must have. 
 
 N. — It seems a good deal owing to the most 
 minute circumstances. A difference of sixpence in 
 the price will make all the difference in the sale of 
 a book. Sometimes a work lies on the shelf for a 
 time, and then runs like wild-fire. There was 
 Drelincourt on Death, which is a fortune in itself: 
 it hung on hand ; nobody read it, till Defoe put 
 M 
 
242 mr. northcote's 
 
 a ghost-story into it, and it has been a stock-book 
 ever since. It is the same in prints. A catching 
 subject or name will make one thing an universal 
 favourite, while another of ten times the merit is 
 never noticed. I have known this happen to myself 
 in more than one instance. This is the provoking 
 
 part in W 1 and some other painters, who, 
 
 taking advantage of the externals and accidents of 
 their ait, have run away with nearly all the popu- 
 larity of their time. Jack T was here the 
 
 other day to say that W and his friends com- 
 plained bitterly of the things I said about him. I 
 replied that I had only spoken of him as an artist, 
 which I was at liberty to do ; and that if he were 
 offended, I would recommend to him to read the 
 story of Charles II. and the Duchess of Cleve- 
 land, who came to the king with a complaint, that 
 whenever she met Nell Gwyn in the street, the 
 latter put her head out of the coach and made 
 mouths at her. " Well then," says Charles II. 
 u the next time you meet Nelly and she repeats 
 the offence, do you make mouths at her again ! V 
 
 So if Mr.W 1 is hurt at my saying things of him, 
 
 all he has to do is to say things of me in return. 
 H. — I confess, I never liked W 1. It was 
 

 CONVERSATIONS. 243 
 
 one of the errors of my youth that I did not think 
 him equal to Raphael and Rubens united, as Payne 
 Knight contended; and I have fought many a 
 battle with numbers (if not odds) against me on 
 that point. 
 
 N. — Then you must have the satisfaction of 
 seeing a change of opinion at present. 
 
 H. — Pardon me, I have not that satisfaction ; I 
 have only a double annoyance from it. It is no 
 consolation to me that an individual was over-rated 
 by the folly of the public formerly, and that he 
 suffers from their injustice and fickleness at present. 
 It is no satisfaction to me that poor I g is re- 
 duced to his primitive congregation, and that the 
 stream of coronet-coaches no longer rolls down 
 Holborn or Oxford-street to his chapel. They 
 ought never to have done so, or they ought to 
 continue to do so. The world (whatever in their 
 petulance and profligacy they may think) have no 
 right to intoxicate poor human nature with the full 
 tide of popular applause, and then to drive it to 
 despair for the want of it. There are no words to 
 express the cruelty, the weakness, the shameless- 
 ness of such conduct, which resembles that of the 
 little girl who dresses up her doll in the most extra- 
 
244 
 
 vagant finery, and then in mere wantonness strips 
 it naked to its wool and bits of wood again — with 
 this difference that the doll has no feeling, whereas 
 the world's idols are wholly sensitive. 
 
 {Of some one who preferred appearances to 
 realities.) 
 
 N. — I can understand the character, because it 
 is exactly the reverse of what I should do and feel. 
 It is like dressing out of one's sphere, or any other 
 species of affectation and imposture. I cannot 
 bear to be taken for any thing but what I am. It 
 is like what the country-people call " having a 
 halfpenny head and a farthing tail" That is what 
 makes me mad when people sometimes come and 
 pay their court to me by saying — " Bless me ! 
 how sagacious you look ! What a penetrating 
 countenance !" No, I say, that is but the title- 
 page — what is there in the book ? Your dwelling 
 so much on the exterior seems to imply that the 
 inside does not correspond to it. Don't let me look 
 wise and be foolish, but let me be wise though I am 
 taken for a fool ! Any thing else is quackery : it 
 is as if there was no real excellence in the world, 
 but in opinion. I used to blame Sir Joshua for 
 

 CONVERSATIONS. 245 
 
 this : he sometimes wanted to get Collinses earth, 
 but did not like to have it known. Then there 
 were certain oils that he made a great fuss * and 
 mystery about. I have said to myself, surely there 
 is something deeper and nobler in the art that does 
 not depend on all this trick and handicraft. Give 
 Titian and a common painter the same materials 
 and tools to work with, and then see the difference 
 between them. This is all that is worth contending 
 for. If Sir Joshua had had no other advantage 
 than the using Collinses earth and some particular 
 sort of megilp,yre should not now have been talking 
 
 about him. When W was here the other day, 
 
 he asked about Mengs and his school ; and when 
 I told him what I thought, he said, " Is that your 
 own opinion, or did you take it from Sir Joshua ? * 
 I answered, that if I admired Sir Joshua, it was 
 because there was something congenial in our 
 tastes, and not because I was his pupil. I saw 
 his faults, and differed with him often enough. If 
 I have any bias, it is the other way, to take fancies 
 into my head and run into singularity and cavils. 
 In what I said to you about Ramsay's picture o* 
 the Queen, for instance, I don't know that any one 
 ever thought so before, or that any one else would 
 
246 mr. noiithcote's 
 
 agree with me. It might be set down as mere 
 whim and caprice ; but I can't help it, if it is so. 
 All I know is, that such is my feeling about it, 
 which I can no more part with than I can part with 
 my own existence. It is the same in other things, 
 as in music. There was an awkward composer at 
 the Opera many years ago, of the name of Bocca- 
 relli ; what he did was stupid enough in general, 
 but I remember he sung an air one day at Cosway's, 
 which they said Shield had transferred into the 
 Flitch of Bacon. I cannot describe the effect it 
 had upon me — it seemed as if it wound into my 
 very soul — I would give any thing to hear it sung 
 again. So I could have listened to Digrmm's sing- 
 ing the lines out of Shakspeare — " Come unto 
 these yellow sands, and then take hands 11 — a hun- 
 dred times over. But I am not sure that others 
 would be affected in the same manner by it : there 
 may be some quaint association of ideas in the 
 case. But at least, if I am wrong, the folly is my 
 own. 
 
 H. — There is no danger of the sort, except from 
 affectation, which I am sure is not your case. All 
 the real taste and feeling in the world is made up 
 of what people take in their heads in this manner. 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 247 
 
 Even if you were right only once in five times in 
 these hazardous experiments and shrewd guesses, 
 that would be a fifth part of the truth ; whereas, if 
 you merely repeated after others by rote or waited 
 to have all the world on your side, there could be 
 absolutely nothing gained at all. If any one had 
 come in and had expressed the same idea of Ram- 
 say's portrait of the Queen, this would doubtless be 
 a confirmation of your opinion, like two persons 
 
 finding out a likeness; but suppose W had 
 
 gone away with your opinion in his pocket, and had 
 spread it about everywhere what a fine painter 
 Ramsay was, I do not see how this would have 
 strengthened your conclusion; nay, perhaps the 
 people whom he got as converts would entirely mis- 
 take the meaning, and come to you with the very 
 reverse of what you had said as a prodigious dis- 
 covery. This is the way in which these unanimous 
 verdicts are commonly obtained. You might say 
 that Ramsay was not a fine painter, but a man of 
 real genius. The world, not comprehending the 
 distinction, would merely come to the gross con- 
 clusion, that he was both one and the other. Thus 
 even truth is vulgarly debased into common-place 
 and nonsense. So that it is not simply as Mr. 
 
248 MR. NORTHCOTE^S 
 
 Locke observed — " That there are not so many 
 wrong o/pinions in the world as is generally ima- 
 gined, for most people have no opinion at all, but 
 take up with those of others or with mere hearsay 
 and echoes ;" but these echoes are often false ones and 
 no more like the original idea than the rhyming echoes 
 in Hudibras or than Slender's Mum and Budget. 
 
 N. — But don't you think the contrary extreme 
 would be just as bad, if every one set up to judge 
 for himself and every question was split into an 
 endless variety of opinions ? 
 
 H. — I do not see that this would follow. If 
 persons who are sincere and free to inquire differ 
 widely on any subject, it is because it is beyond 
 their reach, and there is no satisfactory evidence 
 one way or the other. Supposing a thing to be 
 doubtful, why should it not be left so ? But men's 
 passions and interests, when brought into play, are 
 most tenacious on those points where their under- 
 standings afford them least light. Those doctrines 
 are established which need propping up, as men 
 place beams against falling houses. It does not 
 require an act of parliament to persuade mathema- 
 ticians to agree with Euclid, or painters to admire 
 Raphael. 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 
 
 249 
 
 N. — And don't you think this the best rule for 
 the rest of the world to go by ? 
 
 H. — Yes ; but not if the doctors themselves 
 differed : then it would be necessary to clench the 
 nail with a few smart strokes of bigotry and 
 intolerance. What admits of proof, men agree in, 
 if they have no interest to the contrary ; what 
 they differ about in spite of all that can be said, is 
 matter of taste or conjecture. 
 
 u 
 
250 mr. xorthcote's 
 
 CONVERSATION THE EIGHTEENTH. 
 
 N. — Opie, I remember, used to argue, that 
 there were as many different sorts of taste as genius. 
 He said, "If I am engaged in a picture, and en- 
 deavour to do it according to the suggestions of my 
 employers, I do not understand exactly what they 
 want, nor they what I can do, and I please no 
 one : but if I do it according to my own notions, I 
 belong to a class, and if I am able to satisfy my- 
 self, I please that class." You did not know Opie? 
 You would have admired him greatly. I do not 
 speak of him as an artist, but as a man of sense and 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 251 
 
 observation. He paid me the compliment of saying, 
 " that we should have been the best friends in the 
 world, if we had not been rivals." I think he had 
 more of this feeling than I had ; perhaps, because I 
 had most vanity. We sometimes got into foolish 
 altercations. I recollect once in particular, at a 
 banker's in the city, we took up the whole of din- , 
 ner-time with a ridiculous controversy about Milton 
 and Shakspeare ; I am sure we neither of us had 
 the least notion which was right — and when I was 
 heartily ashamed of it, a foolish citizen who was 
 present, added to my confusion by saying — " Lord ! 
 What would I give to hear two such men as you 
 talk every day !" This quite humbled me : I was 
 ready to sink with vexation : I could have resolved 
 never to open my mouth again. But I can't help 
 
 thinking W was wrong in supposing I borrow 
 
 every thing from others. It is not my character. I 
 never could learn my lesson at school. My copy 
 was hardly legible ; but if there was a prize to be 
 obtained or my father was to see it, then I could 
 write a very fine hand with all the usual flourishes. 
 What I know of history (and something about he- 
 raldry) has been gathered up when I had to enquire 
 into the subject for a picture : if it had been set 
 
252 
 
 me as a task, I should have forgotten it immediately. 
 In the same way, when Boydell came and proposed 
 a subject for a picture to me, and pointed out the 
 capabilities, I always said I could make nothing of 
 it : but as soon as he was gone and I was left to 
 myself, the whole then seemed to unfold itself na- 
 turally. I never could study the rules of composi- 
 tion or make sketches and drawings beforehand; 
 in this, probably running into the opposite error to 
 that of the modern Italian painters, whom Fuseli 
 reproaches with spending their whole lives in prepa- 
 ration. I must begin at once or I can do nothing. 
 When I set about the "Wat Tyler," I was 
 frightened at it : it was the largest work I had ever 
 underljaken: there were to be horses and armour 
 and buildings and several groups in it : when I 
 looked at it, the canvas seemed ready to fall upon 
 me. But I had committed myself and could not 
 escape J disgrace was behind me — and every step I 
 made in advance, was so much positively gained. 
 If I had staid to make a number of designs and 
 try different experiments, I never should have had 
 the courage to go on. Half the things that people 
 do not succeed in, are through fear of making the 
 attempt. Like the recruit in Farquhars comedy, 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 253 
 
 you grow wondrous bold, when you have once taken 
 " list-money." When you must do a thing, you 
 feel in some measure that you can do it. You 
 have only to commit yourself beyond retreat. It 
 is like the soldier going into battle or a player first 
 appearing on the stage — the worst is over when 
 they arrive upon the scene of action. 
 
 H. — I found nearly the same thing that you de- 
 scribe when I first began to write for the news- 
 papers. I had not till then been in the habit of 
 writing at all, or had been a long time about it ; but 
 I perceived that with the necessity, the fluency 
 came. Something I did, took; and I was called 
 upon to do a number of things all at once. I was 
 in the middle of the stream, and must sink or swim. 
 I had, for instance, often a theatrical criticism to 
 write after midnight, which appeared the next morn- 
 ing. There was no fault found with it — at least, it 
 was as good as if I had had to do it for a weekly 
 paper. I only did it at once, and recollected all I 
 had to say on the spot, because I could not put it off 
 for three days, when perhaps I should have for- 
 gotten the best part of it. Besides, when one is 
 pressed for time, one saves it. I might set down 
 nearly all I had to say in my mind, while the play 
 
254 MR. xorthcote\s 
 
 was going on. I know I did not feel at a 
 loss for matter — the difficulty was to compress 
 and write it out fast enough. When you are 
 tied to time, you can come to time. I conceive in 
 like manner more wonder is expressed at extempore 
 speaking, than it is entitled to. Not to mention 
 that the same well-known topics continually recur, 
 and that the speakers may con their extem- 
 pore speeches over before-hand and merely watch 
 their opportunity to slide them in dexterously into 
 the grand procession of the debate : a man when 
 once on his legs must say something, and this is the 
 utmost that a public speaker generally says. If he 
 has any thing good to say, he can recollect it just 
 as well at once as in a week's literary leisure, as well 
 standing up as sitting down, except from habit. We 
 are not surprised at a man's telling us his thoughts 
 across a table : why should we be so at his doing 
 the same thing, when mounted on one ? But he 
 excites more attention : that gives him a double 
 motive. A man's getting up to make a speech in 
 public will not give him a command of words or 
 thoughts if he is without them ; but he may be 
 delivered of all the brilliancy or wisdom he actually 
 possesses, in a longer or a shorter space, according 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 255 
 
 to the occasion. The circumstance of the time is 
 optional ; necessity, if it be not the mother of in- 
 vention, supplies us with the memory of all we 
 know. 
 
 N. — {after a pause) — There is no end of the bi- 
 gotry and prejudice in the world ; one can only shrug 
 one's shoulders and submit to it. Have you seen 
 the copies they have got down at the club-house 
 in Pall-mall of the groups of horses from the Elgin 
 marbles ? Lord ! how inferior they are to Rubens's ! 
 So stiff, and poor, and dry, compared to his mag- 
 nificent spirit and bold luxuriance ! I should not 
 know them to be horses ; they are as much like 
 any thing else. I was at Somerset-house the other 
 day. They talk of the Dutch painters ; why, 
 there are pictures there of interiors and other sub- 
 jects of familiar life, that throw all the boasted 
 chef-d'oeuvres of the Dutch school to an immea- 
 surable distance. I do not speak of history, which 
 has not been fairly tried ; but in all for which there 
 has been encouragement, no nation can go beyond 
 us. We have resources and a richness of capacity 
 equal to any undertaking. 
 
 H. — Do you recollect any in particular that you 
 admired at the Exhibition ? 
 
256 me. xorthcote's 
 
 N. — No, I do not remember the names ; but jut 
 was a general sense of excellence and truth df 
 imitation of natural objects. As to lofty history, 
 our religion scarcely allows it. The Italians had 
 no more genius for painting nor a greater love of 
 pictures than we ; but the church was the foster- 
 mother of the fine arts ; being the most politic and 
 powerful establishment in the world, they laid 
 their hands on all that could allure and impress 
 the minds of the people — music, painting, archi- 
 tecture, ceremonies ; and this produced a succession 
 of great artists and noble works, till the churches 
 were filled, and then they ceased. The genius of 
 Italian art was nothing but the genius of Popery. 
 God forbid we should purchase success at the same 
 price ! Every thing at Rome is like a picture — is 
 calculated for show. I remember walking through 
 one of the bye-streets near the Vatican, where I 
 met some procession in which the Pope was ; and 
 all at once I saw a number of the most beautiful 
 Arabian horses curvetting and throwing out their 
 long tails, like a vision or a part of a romance. 
 We should here get one or two at most. All our 
 holiday pageants, even the Coronation, are low Bar- 
 tlemy-fair exhibitions compared with what you see 
 

 CONVERSATIONS. 257 
 
 at Rome. And then to see the Pope give the 
 benediction at St. Peter's, raising himself up and 
 spreading out his hands in the form of a cross, with 
 an energy and dignity as if he was giving a blessing 
 to the whole world ! No, it is not enough to see 
 Popery in order to hate it — it must be felt too. A 
 poor man going through one of the narrow streets 
 where a similar procession was passing, was fiercely 
 attacked by a soldier of the Swiss Guards, and or- 
 dered to stand back. The man said he could re- 
 tire no further, for he was close against the wall. 
 " Get back, you and the wall too !" was the answer 
 of haughty servility and mild despotism. It is 
 this spirit peeping out that makes one dread the 
 fairest outside appearances ; and with this spirit, 
 and the power and determination it implies to 
 delude and lead the multitude blindfold with every 
 lure to their imagination and their senses, I will 
 answer for the production of finer historical and 
 scripture-pieces in this country (let us be as far 
 north as we will) than we have yet seen. 
 
 H. — You do not think, then, that we are natu- 
 rally a dry, sour, Protestant set ? Is not the air 
 of Ireland Popish, and that of Scotland Presby- 
 terian ? 
 
258 MR. tfORTHCOTE , S 
 
 N. — No : though you may have it so if you 
 please. K — has been wanting my two copies of 
 
 , though I do not think he will bid high 
 
 enough to induce me to part with them. I am in 
 this respect like Opie, who had an original by Sir 
 Joshua that he much valued, and he used to say, 
 " I don't know what I should do in that case, but 
 I hope to G — d nobody will offer me 500/. for it ! " 
 It is curious, this very picture sold for 500/. the 
 other day. So it is that real merit creeps on, and 
 is sure to find its level. The " Holy Family" sold 
 among Lord Gwydir's pictures for 1,900/. 
 
 H.— Is that fine ? 
 
 N. — Oh yes ! it's certainly fine. It wants the air 
 of history, but it has a rich colour and great sim- 
 plicity and innocence. It is not equal to the 
 " Snake in the Grass," which Mr. Peel gave 1,600 
 guineas for. That was his forte : nothing is want- 
 ing there- 
 
 A Stranger. — I thought Sir Joshua's colours 
 did not stand ? 
 
 N.— That is true of some of them : he tried ex- 
 periments, and had no knowledge of chemistry, and 
 bought colours of Jews : but I speak of them as 
 they came from the easel. As he left them and in- 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 259 
 
 tended them to be, no pictures in the world would 
 stand by the side of them. Colour seemed to exist 
 substantively in his mind. You see this still in 
 those that have not faded — in his latter works 
 especially, which were also his best ; and this, with 
 character and a certain sweetness, must always make 
 his works invaluable. You come to this at last — 
 what you find in any one that you can get nowhere 
 else. If you have this about you, you need not be 
 afraid of time. Gainsborough had the saving grace 
 of originality ; and you cannot put him down for 
 that reason. With all their faults, and the evident 
 want of an early study and knowledge of the art, 
 his pictures fetch more every time they are brought 
 to the hammer. I don't know what it was that his 
 " View of the Mall in St. James's Park" sold for 
 not long ago. I remember Mr. P. H. coming to me, 
 and saying what an exquisite picture Gainsborough 
 had painted of the Park. You would suppose it 
 would be stiff and formal with tHe straight rows of 
 trees and people sitting on benches — it is all in 
 motion, and in a flutter like a lady's fan. Watteau 
 
 is not half so airy. His picture of young lord 
 
 was a masterpiece — there was such a look of natural 
 gentility. You must recollect his " Girl feeding 
 
260 ME. NORTHCOTE , S 
 
 pigs : " the expression and truth of nature were 
 never surpassed. Sir Joshua was struck with it, 
 though he said he ought to have made her a 
 beauty. 
 
 H. — Perhaps it was as well to make sure of one 
 thing at a time. I remember being once driven by 
 a shower of rain for shelter into a picture dealer's 
 shop in Oxford-street, where there stood on the 
 floor a copy of Gainsborough's " Shepherd-boy " 
 with the thunder-storm coming on. What a truth 
 and beauty was there ! He stands with his hands 
 clasped, looking up with a mixture of timidity and 
 resignation, eying a magpie chattering over his 
 head, while the wind is rustling in the branches. 
 It was like a vision breathed on the canvas. I 
 have been fond of Gainsborough ever since. 
 
 N. — Oh ! that was an essence : but it was only a 
 copy you saw? The picture was finer than his 
 " Woodman," which has a little false glitter and 
 attempt at theatrical effect ; but the other is inno- 
 cence itself. Gainsborough was a natural gentle- 
 man ; and with all his simplicity he had wit too. 
 An eminent counsellor once attempted to puzzle 
 him on some trial about the originality of a pic- 
 ture by saying, " I observe you lay great stress 
 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 261 
 
 on the phrase, the painter *s eye; what do you mean 
 by that ?" " The painter's eye," answered Gains- 
 borough, "is to him what the lawyer's tongue is to 
 you." Sir Joshua was not fond of Wilson, and 
 said at one of the Academy dinners, " Yes, Gains- 
 borough is certainly the best landscape-painter of the 
 day." " No," replied Wilson, who overheard him, 
 " but he is the best portrait-painter." This was a 
 sufficient testimony in Gainsborough's favour. 
 
 H.— He did not make himself agreeable at Buck- 
 ingham-house, any more than Sir Joshua, who kept 
 a certain distance and wished to appear as a gentle- 
 man ; they wanted a buffoon whom they might be 
 familiar with at first, and insult the moment he 
 overstepped the mark, or as soon as they grew tired 
 of him. Their favourites must be like pet lap- 
 dogs or monkeys. 
 
 N. — C went to court the other day after a 
 
 long absence. He was very graciously received, 
 notwithstanding. The K — held out his hand for 
 him to kiss ; he recollected himself in time to per- 
 ceive the object. He was struek with the manner 
 in which the great people looked towards the King, 
 and the utter insignificance of every thing else ; 
 " and then," said O , " as soon as they are 
 
262 MR. northcote's 
 
 out of the palace, they get into their carriages, and 
 ride over you with all the fierceness and insolence 
 imaginable. 11 West used to say you could tell the 
 highest nobility at court by their being the most 
 abject. This was policy, for the most powerful 
 would be most apt to excite jealousy in the sove- 
 reign; and by showing an extreme respect, they 
 thought to prevent the possibility of encroachment 
 or insult. Garrick complained that when he went 
 to read before the court, not a look or a murmur 
 testified approbation ; there was a profound stillness 
 — every one only watched to see what the King 
 thought. It was like reading to a set of wax-work 
 figures : he who had been accustomed to the ap- 
 plause of thousands, could not bear this assembly 
 of mutes. Marchant went to the late King about a 
 cameo, who was offended at his saying the face 
 must be done in full and not as a profile ; " then,", 
 said the patron, " I'll get somebody else to do it." 
 Coming out at the door, one of the pages asked the 
 artist, " Why do you contradict the K — ? He is 
 not used to be contradicted ! " This is intelligible 
 in an absolute despotism, where the will of the 
 sovereign is law, and where he can cut off your head 
 if he pleases; but is it not strange in a free country? 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 
 
 263 
 
 H. — It is placing an ordinary mortal on the 
 top of a pyramid, and kneeling at the bottom of 
 it to the " highest and mightiest/ 1 It is a trick 
 of human reason surpassing the grossness of the 
 brute. 
 
264 mr. northcote's 
 
 CONVERSATION THE NINETEENTH. 
 
 H. — Fashion is gentility running away from 
 vulgarity, and afraid of being overtaken by it. It 
 is a sign the two things are not very far asunder. 
 
 N. — Yes ; Mr. used to say, that just be- 
 fore the women in his time left off hoops, they 
 looked like bats. Going on from one affectation to 
 another, they at last wore them close under their 
 arms, so that they resembled wings growing out 
 from their shoulders ; and having reached the top 
 of the absurdity, they then threw them aside all 
 at once. If long waists are the fashion one season, 
 they are exploded the next ; as soon as the court 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 265 
 
 adopts any particular mode, the city follows the ex- 
 ample, and as soon as the city takes it up, the 
 court lays it down. The whole is caricature and 
 masquerade. Nature only is left out ; for that is 
 either common, or what is fine in it would not al- 
 ways be found on the fashionable side of the ques- 
 tion. It may be the fashion to paint or not to paint ; 
 but if it were the fashion to have a fine complexion, 
 many fashionable people must go without one, and 
 many unfashionable ones would be at the height of 
 it. Deformity is as often the fashion as beauty 
 yet the world in general see no other beauty than 
 fashion, and their vanity or interest or complai- 
 sance bribes their understanding to disbelieve even 
 their senses. If cleanliness is the fashion, then 
 cleanliness is admired; if dirt, hair-powder, and 
 pomatum are the fashion, then dirt, hair-powder, 
 and pomatum are admired just as much, if not 
 more, from their being disagreeable. 
 
 H. — The secret is, that fashion is imitating in 
 certain things that are in our power and that are 
 nearly indifferent in themselves, those who possess 
 certain other advantages that are not in our power, 
 and which the, possessors are as little disposed to 
 part with as they are eager to obtrude them upon the 
 
 N 
 
26G MR. NORTHC0TE , S 
 
 notice of others by every external symbol at their 
 immediate controul. We think the cut of a coat 
 fine, because it is worn by a man with ten thousand 
 a-year, with a fine house, and a fine carriage : as we 
 cannot get the ten thousand a-year, the house, or 
 the carriage, we get what we can — the cut of the 
 fine gentleman's coat, and thus are in the fashion. 
 But as we get it, he gets rid of it, which shows 
 that he cares nothing about it ; but he keeps his 
 ten thousand a-year, his fine house, and his fine 
 carriage. A rich man wears gold-buckles to show 
 that he is rich : a coxcomb gets gilt ones to look 
 like the rich man, and as soon as the gold ones prove 
 nothing, the rich man leaves them off. So it is 
 with all the real advantages that fashionable people 
 possess. Say that they have more grace, good 
 manners, and refinement than the rabble ; but these 
 do not change every moment at the nod of fashion. 
 Speaking correctly is not proper to one class more 
 than another : if the fashionable, to distinguish 
 themselves from the vulgar, affect a peculiar tone 
 or set of phrases, this is mere slang. The differ- 
 ence between grace and awkwardness is the same 
 one year after another. This is the meaning of 
 natural politeness. It is a perception of and 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 267 
 
 attention to the feelings of others, which is the 
 same thing, whether it is neglected by the Great or 
 practised by the vulgar. The barrier between re- 
 finement and grossness cannot be arbitrarily effaced. 
 Nothing changes but what depends on the shallow 
 affectation and assumption of superiority : real ex- 
 cellence can never become vulgar. So Pope says 
 in his elegant way — 
 
 Virtue may choose the high or low degree, 
 'Tis just the same to virtue and to me; 
 Dwell in a monk or light upon a king, 
 She's still the same belov'd, contented thing. 
 Vice is undone if she forgets her birth, 
 And stoops from angels to the dregs of earth. 
 
 Pope's verse is not admired, because it was once 
 the fashion : it will be admired, let the fashion 
 change how it will. 
 
 N. — When Sir Joshua Reynolds wanted to learn 
 what real grace was, he studied it in the attitudes 
 of children, not in the school of the dancing- 
 master, or in the empty strut or mawkish langour 
 of fashion. A young painter asked me the other 
 day whether I thought that Guido was not charge- 
 able with affectation ? I told him that I thought 
 not, or in a very trifling degree. I could not deny 
 K2 
 
268 MR. northcote's 
 
 that Guido sometimes bordered on and reminded 
 me of it ; or that there was that which in any body 
 else might be really so, but that in him it seemed 
 only an extreme natural gentility. He puts his 
 figures into attitudes that are a little too courtly and 
 studied, but he probably could not help it. 
 
 H. — It was rather the excess of a quality or feel- 
 ing in his mind, than the aiming to supply the de- 
 fect of one. 
 
 N. — Yes; there is no suspicion of what he 
 is doing. The odious part of affectation is when 
 there is an evident design to impose on you with 
 counterfeit pretensions. So in another point that 
 might be objected to him, the impropriety of his 
 naked figures, no mortal can steer clearer of it than 
 he does. They may be strictly said to be clothed 
 with their own delicacy and beauty. There is the 
 " Venus attired by the Graces :" what other painter 
 durst attempt it ?They are to be all beauties, all naked; 
 yet he has escaped as if by miracle — none but the 
 most vicious can find fault with it — the very beauty, 
 elegance, and grace keep down instead of exciting 
 improper ideas. And then again, the " Andromeda 
 chained to the rock" — both arc, I believe, in the 
 drawing-room at Windsor : but there is no possible 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 269 
 
 offence to be taken at them, nothing to shock the 
 most timid or innocent, because there was no particle 
 of grossness in the painter's mind. I have seen 
 pictures by others muffled up to the chin, that 
 had twenty times as much vice in them. It is won- 
 derful how the cause is seen in the effect. So we 
 find it in Richardson. Clarissa is a story in the 
 midst of temptation ; but he comes clear and tri- 
 umphant out of that ordeal, because his own ima- 
 gination is not contaminated by it. If there had 
 been the least hint of an immoral tendency, the 
 slightest indication of a wish to inflame the passions, 
 it would have been all over with him. The inten- 
 tion always will peep out — you do not communicate 
 a disease if you are not infected with it yourself. 
 Albano's nymphs and goddesses seem waiting for 
 admirers : Guido's are protected with a veil of in- 
 nocence and modesty. Titian would have given 
 them an air of Venetian courtesans : Raphael would 
 have made them look something more than mortal : 
 neither would have done what Guido has effected, 
 who has conquered the difficulty by the pure force 
 of feminine softness and delicacy. 
 
 H. — I am glad to hear you speak so of Guido. 
 I was beginning, before I went abroad, to have a 
 
270 MR. NORTHCOTE's 
 
 u sneaking contempt" for him as insipid and mono- 
 tonous, from seeing the same everlasting repetitions 
 of Cleopatras and Madonnas : but I returned a con- 
 vert to his merits. I saw many indifferent pictures 
 attributed to great masters ; but wherever I saw a 
 Guido, I found elegance and beauty that answered 
 to the " silver 1 ' sound of his name. The mind 
 lives on a round of names ; and it is a great point 
 gained not to have one of these snatchedfrom us 
 by a sight of their works. As to the display of the 
 naked figure in works of art, the case to me seems 
 clear : it is only when there is nothing but the naked 
 figure that it is offensive. In proportion as the 
 beauty or perfection of the imitation rises, the in- 
 decency vanishes. You look at it then with an eye 
 to art, just as the anatomist examines the human 
 figure with a view to science. Other ideas are in- 
 troduced. J. , of Edinburgh, had a large, 
 
 sprawling Danae hanging over the chimney-piece of 
 his office, where he received Scotch parsons and 
 their wives on law-business : he thought it a triumph 
 over Presbyterian prudery and prejudice, and a 
 sort of chivalrous answer to the imputed barbarism 
 of the North. It was certainly a paradox in taste, 
 a breach of manners. He asked me if I objected 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 271 
 
 to it because it was naked? " No, 1 ' I said, " but 
 because it is ugly : you can only have put it there 
 because it is naked, and that alone shows a felonious 
 intent. Had there been either beauty or expression, 
 it would have conducted off the objectionable part. 
 As it is, I don't see how you can answer it to the 
 kirk-sessions. 1 '' 
 
 N. — I remember Sir W. W employed Sir 
 
 Joshua and Dance, who was a very eminent de- 
 signer, to ornament a music-room which he had 
 built. Sir Joshua on this occasion painted his St. 
 Cecilia, which he made very fine at first, but after- 
 wards spoiled it ; and Dance chose the subject of 
 Orpheus. When I asked Miss Reynolds what she 
 thought of it, she said she had no doubt of its be- 
 ing clever and well done, but that it looked " like 
 a naked man. 11 This answer was conclusive against 
 it ; for if the inspiration of the character had been 
 given, you would have overlooked the want of 
 clothes. The nakedness only strikes and offends 
 the eye in the barrenness of other matter. It is the 
 same in the drama. Mere grossness or ribaldry is 
 intolerable ; but you often find in the old comedy 
 that the wit and ingenuity (as well as custom) car- 
 ry off what otherwise could not be borne. The 
 
272 MR. NORTHCOTE's 
 
 laughter prevents the blush. So an expression seems 
 gross in one person's mouth, which in another passes 
 off with perfect innocence. The reason is, there is 
 something in the manner that gives a quite different 
 construction to what is said. Have you seen the 
 Ale ides, the two foreigners who perform such pro- 
 digious feats of strength at the theatre, but with 
 very little clothing on ? They say the people hardly 
 know what to make of it. They should not be too 
 sure that this is any proof of their taste or virtue. 
 
 H. — I recollect a remark of Coleridge's on the 
 conclusion of the story of Paul and Virginia by 
 Bernardin St. Pierre. Just before the shipwreck, and 
 when nothing else can save the heroine from perish- 
 ing, an athletic figure comes forward stripped, but 
 with perfect respect, and offers to swim with her to 
 the shore ; but instead of accepting his proposal, she 
 turns away with affected alarm. This, Coleridge 
 said, was a proof of the prevailing tone of French 
 depravity, and not of virgin innocence. A really 
 modest girl in such circumstances would not have 
 thought of any scruple. 
 
 N. — It is the want of imagination or of an insight 
 into nature in ordinary writers ; they do not know 
 how to place themselves in the situations they de- 
 

 CONVERSATIONS. 2J3 
 
 scribe. Whatever feeling or passion is uppermost, 
 fills the mind and drives out every other. If you 
 were confined in a vault, and thought you saw a 
 ghost, you would rush out, though a lion was at the 
 entrance. On the other hand, if you were pursued 
 by a Hon, you would take refuge in a charnel-house, 
 though it was full of spirits, and would disregard the 
 dead bones and putrid relics about you. Both pas- 
 sions may be equally strong ; the question is, which 
 is roused first. But it is few who can get to the 
 fountain-head, the secret springs of Nature. Shak- 
 speare did it always ; and Sir Walter Scott fre- 
 quently. G — says he always was pleased with my 
 conversation, before you broached that opinion ; but 
 I do not see how that can be, for he always contra- 
 dicts and thwarts me. When two people are con- 
 stantly crossing one another on the road, they cannot 
 be very good company. You agree to what I say, 
 and often explain or add to it, which encourages me 
 to go on. 
 
 H. — I believe G — is sincere in what he says, 
 for he has frequently expressed the same opinion to 
 me. 
 
 N. — That might be so, though he took great 
 care not to let me know it. People would often 
 M 3 
 
274 MR. NORTHCOTE's 
 
 more willingly speak well of you behind your back 
 than to your face ; they are afraid either of shock- 
 ing your modesty or gratifying your vanity. That 
 
 was the case with . If he ever was struck 
 
 with any thing I did, he made a point not to let 
 me see it : he treated it lightly, and said it was 
 very well. 
 
 H. — I do not think G — "s differing with you was 
 any proof of his opinion. Like most authors, he 
 has something of the schoolmaster about him, and 
 wishes to keep up an air of authority. What you 
 say may be very well for a learner ; but he is the 
 oracle. You must not set up for yourself; and to 
 keep you in due subordination, he catechises and 
 contradicts from mere habit. 
 
 .N. — Human nature is always the same. It was 
 so with Johnson and Goldsmith. They would allow 
 no one to have any merit but themselves. The 
 very attempt was a piece of presumption, and a 
 trespass upon their privileged rights. I remember 
 a poem that came out, and that was sent to Sir 
 Joshua : his servant, Ralph, had instructions to 
 bring it in just after dinner. Goldsmith presently 
 got hold of it, and seemed thrown into a rage be- 
 fore he had read a line of it. He then said, "What 
 

 CONVERSATIONS. 2J5 
 
 wretched stuff is here ! what c — rsed nonsense that 
 is ! " and kept all -the while marking the passages 
 with his thumb-nail, as if he would cut them in 
 pieces. At last, Sir Joshua, who was provoked, 
 interfered, and said, " Nay, don't spoil my book, 
 however. 1 ' Dr. Johnson looked down on the rest 
 of the world as pigmies ; he smiled at the very 
 idea that any one should set up for a fine writer but 
 
 himself. They never admitted C as one 
 
 of the set ; Sir Joshua did not invite him to dinner. 
 If he had been in the room, Goldsmith would have 
 flown out of it as if a dragon had been there. I 
 remember Garrick once saying, " D — n his dish- 
 clout face ; his plays would never do if it were not 
 for my patching them up and acting in them. 1 ' 
 
 Another time, he took a poem of C 's, 
 
 and read it backwards to turn it into ridicule. Yet 
 some of his pieces keep possession of the stage, so 
 that there must be something in them. 
 
 H. — Perhaps he was later than they, and 
 they considered him as an interloper on that ac- 
 count. 
 
 N. — No ; there was a prejudice against him : he 
 did not somehow fall into the train. It was the 
 same with Vanbrugh in Pope's time. They 
 
276 MR. xorthcote's 
 
 made a jest of him, and endeavoured to annoy him 
 in every possible way ; he was a black sheep for no 
 reason in the world, except that he was cleverer 
 than they ; that is, could build houses and write 
 verses at the same time. They laughed at his ar- 
 chitecture ; yet it is certain that it is quite original, 
 and at least a question whether it is not beautiful 
 as well as new. He was the first who sunk the 
 window-frames within the walls of houses — they 
 projected before : he did it as a beauty, but it has 
 been since adopted by act of parliament to prevent 
 fire. Some gentleman was asking me about the 
 imposing style of architecture with which Vanbrngh 
 had decorated the top of Blenheim-house ; he had 
 mistaken the chimneys for an order of architecture, 
 so that what is an eye-sore in all other buildings, 
 Vanbrugh has had the art to convert into an orna- 
 ment. And then his wit ! Think what a comedy 
 is the Provoked Husband ! What a scope and 
 comprehension in the display of manners from the 
 highest to the lowest ! It was easier to write an 
 epigram on Brother Van than such a play as this. 
 I once asked Richards, the scene-painter, who was 
 perfectly used to the stage, and acquainted with all 
 the actors, what he considered as the best play in 
 

 CONVERSATIONS. 277 
 
 the language? And he answered, without hesi- 
 tation, The Journey to London* 
 
 H.^—Lord Foppington is also his, if he wanted 
 supporters. He was in the same situation as 
 Rousseau with respect to the wits of his time, who 
 traces all his misfortunes and the jealousy that 
 pursued him through life to the success of the 
 Devin du Village. He said Diderot and the rest 
 could have forgiven his popularity as an author, 
 but they could not bear his writing an opera. 
 
 N. — If you belong to a set, you must either lead 
 or follow ; you cannot maintain your independence. 
 Beattie did very well with the great folks in my 
 time, because he looked up to them, and he excited 
 no uneasy sense of competition. Indeed, he ma- 
 naged so well that Sir Joshua flattered him 
 and his book in return in the most effectual 
 manner. In his allegorical portrait of the doctor, he 
 introduced the angel of truth chasing away the 
 demons of falsehood and impiety, who bore an 
 obvious resemblance to Hume and Voltaire. This 
 brought out Goldsmith's fine reproof of his friend, 
 who said that " Sir Joshua might be ashamed of 
 debasing a genius like Voltaire before a man like 
 Beattie, whose works would be forgotten in a few 
 
278 
 
 years, while Voltaire's fame would last for ever P 
 Sir J. R. took the design of this picture from one 
 of a similar subject by Tintoret, now in the Royal 
 Collection in Kensington Palace. H e said he had no in- 
 tention of the sort : Hume was a broad-backed clumsy 
 figure, not very like ; but I know he meant Voltaire, 
 for I saw a French medal of him lying about in the 
 room. Mrs. Beattie also came up with her husband to 
 London. I recollect her asking for " a little paltrier" 
 in her broad Scotch way. It is like Gibber's seeing 
 Queen Anne at Nottingham when he was a boy, 
 and all he could remember about her was her 
 asking him to give her " a glass of wine and 
 water." She was an ordinary character, and be- 
 longed to the class of good sort of people. So 
 the Margravine of Bareuth describes the Duchess 
 of Kendal, who was mistress to George I. to 
 be a quiet inoffensive character, who would do 
 neither good nor harm to any body. Did you ever 
 read her Memoirs ? Lord ! what an account she 
 gives of the state of manners at the old court of 
 Prussia, and of the brutal despotism and cruelty of 
 the king ! She was his. daughter, and he used to 
 strike her, and drag her by the hair of her head, 
 and leave her with her face bleeding, and often 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 279 
 
 senseless, on the floor for the smallest trifles ; and 
 he treated her brother, afterwards Frederic II. 
 (and to whom she was much attached) no better. 
 That might in part account for the hardness of 
 his character at a later period. 
 
 H. — I suppose Prussia was at that time a mere 
 petty state or sort of bye-court, so that what they 
 did was pretty much done in a corner, and they 
 were not afraid of being talked of by the rest of 
 Europe. 
 
 N. — No; it was quite an absolute monarchy 
 with all the pomp and pretensions of sovereignty. 
 Frederick (the father) was going, on some occasion 
 when he was displeased with him, to strike our am- 
 bassador ; but this conduct was resented and put a 
 stop to. The queen (sister to George II. and who 
 was imprisoned so long on a suspicion of conjugal 
 infidelity) appears to have been a violent-spirited 
 woman, and also weak. George I. could never 
 learn to speak English, and his successor, George 
 II., spoke it badly, and neither ever felt themselves 
 at home in this country ; and they were always 
 going over to Hanover, where they found them- 
 selves lords and masters, while here, though they 
 had been raised so much higher, their dignity never 
 
280 MR. XOItTIICOTE S 
 
 sat easy upon them. They did not know what to 
 make of their new situation. 
 
 [Northcote here read me a letter I had heard 
 him speak of relative to a distinguished character 
 mentioned in a former Conversation.] 
 
 " A Letter- to Mr. Northcote in London from his 
 Brother at Plymouth, giving an account of a 
 Shipwreck. 
 
 " Plymouth, Jan. 28, 1796. 
 " We have had a terrible succession of stormy 
 weather of late. Tuesday, immediately after din- 
 ner, I went to the Hoe to see the Dutton East 
 Indiaman, full of troops, upon the rocks, directly 
 under the flag-staff of the citadel. She had been 
 out seven weeks on her passage to the West Indies 
 as a transport, with 400 troops on board, besides 
 women and the shipVcrew; and had been just 
 driven back by distress of weather, with a great 
 number of sick on board. You cannot conceive 
 any thing so horrible as the appearance of things 
 altogether, which I beheld when I first arrived on 
 the spot. The ship was stuck on sunken rocks, 
 somewhat inclining to one side, and without a mast 
 or the bowsprit standing ; and her decks covered 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 281 
 
 with the soldiers as thick as they could possibly 
 stand by one another, with the sea breaking in a 
 most horrible manner all around them ; and what 
 still added to the melancholy grandeur of the 
 scene was the distress-guns which were fired now 
 and then directly over our head from the Citadel. 
 
 " When I first came to the spot, I found that 
 they had by some means got a rope with one end 
 of it fixed to the ship, and the other was held by 
 the people on shore, by which means they could 
 yield as the ship swung. Upon this rope they had 
 got a ring, which they could by means of two smaller 
 ropes draw forwards and backwards from the ship 
 to the shore : to this ring they had fixed a loop, 
 which each man put under his arms ; and by this 
 means, and holding by the ring with his hands, 
 he supported himself, hanging to the ring, while 
 he was drawn to the shore by the people there ; 
 and in this manner I saw a great many drawn on 
 shore. But this proved a tedious work ; and 
 though I looked at them for a long time, yet the 
 numbers on the deck were not apparently diminished; 
 besides, from the motion which the ship had by 
 rolling on the rocks, it was not possible to keep the 
 rope equally stretched, and from this cause, as 
 
282 
 
 well as from the sudden rising of the waves, you 
 would at one moment see a poor wretch hanging 
 ten or twenty feet above the water, and the next 
 you would lose sight of him in the foam of a wave, 
 though some escaped better. 
 
 " But this was not a scheme which the women 
 and many of the sick could avail themselves of. 
 
 " I observed with some admiration the behaviour 
 of a Captain of a man-of-war, who seemed in- 
 terested in the highest degree for the safety of these 
 poor wretches. He exerted himself uncommonly, 
 and directed others what to do on shore, and endea- 
 voured in vain with a large speaking-trumpet to make 
 himself heard by those on board: but finding that 
 nothing could be heard but the roaring of the wind 
 and sea, he offered any body five guineas instantly 
 who would suffer himself to be drawn on board with 
 instructions to them what to do. And when he found 
 that nobody would accept his offer, he gave an in- 
 tance of the highest heroism : for he fixed the rope 
 about himself and gave the signal to be drawn on 
 board. He had his uniform coat on and his sword 
 hanging at his side. I have not room to describe 
 the particulars ; but there was something grand and 
 interesting in the thing : for as soon as they had 
 
I 
 
 CONVERSATIONS. 283 
 
 pulled him into the wreck, he was received with three 
 vast shouts by the people on board ; and these 
 were immediately echoed by those who lined the 
 shore, the garrison-walls and lower batteries. The 
 first thing he did was to rig out two other ropes like 
 the first : which I saw him most active in doing with 
 his own hands. This quickened the matter a good 
 deal, and by this time two large open row-boats 
 were arrived from the Dock-yard, and a sloop 
 had with difficulty worked out from Plymouth- 
 pool. He then became active in getting out the 
 women and the sick, who were with difficulty got 
 into the open boats, and by them carried off to the 
 sloop, which kept off for fear of being stove against 
 the ship or thrown upon the rocks. He suffered 
 but one boat to approach the ship at a time, and 
 stood with his drawn sword to prevent too many 
 rushing into the boat. After he had seen all the 
 people out of the ship to about ten or fifteen, he 
 fixed himself to the rope as before and was drawn 
 ashore, where he was again received with shouts. 
 Upon my enquiry who this gallant officer was, I 
 was informed that it was Sir Edward Pellew, whom 
 I had heard the highest character of before, both 
 for bravery and mercy. 
 
284 MR. xorthcote's 
 
 " The soldiers were falling into disorder when 
 Sir Edward went on board. Many of them were 
 drunk, having broke into the cabin and got at the 
 liquor. I saw him beating one with the flat of his 
 broad-sword, in order to make him give up a 
 bundle he had made up of plunder. They had 
 but just time to save the men, before the ship was 
 nearly under water. I observed a poor goat and a dog 
 amongst the crowd, when the people were some- 
 what thinned away. I saw the goat marching about 
 with much unconcern; but the dog showed evident 
 anxiety, for I saw him stretching himself out at 
 one of the port-holes, standing partly upon the 
 port and partly upon a gun, and looking earnestly 
 towards the shore, where I suppose he knew his 
 master was. All these perished soon after, as the 
 ship was washed all over as the sea rose — she is 
 now in pieces." 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 285 
 
 CONVERSATION THE TWENTIETH. 
 
 N. — Have you seen the Life of Sir Joshua 
 just published ? 
 H.— No, 
 
 N. — It is all, or nearly all, taken from my ac- 
 count, and yet the author misrepresents or contra- 
 dicts every thing I say, I suppose to show that he 
 is under no obligation to me. I cannot understand 
 the drift of his work ; nor who it is he means to 
 please. He finds fault with Sir Joshua, among a 
 number of other things, for not noticing Hogarth. 
 Why, it was not his business to notice Hogarth any 
 
286 mr. nohthcote's 
 
 more than it was to notice Fielding. Both of them 
 were great wits and describers of manners in com- 
 mon life, but neither of them came under the article 
 of painting. What Hogarth had was his own, and 
 nobody will ever have it again in the same degree. 
 But all that did not depend on his own genius was 
 detestable, both as to his subjects and his execution. 
 Was Sir Joshua to recommend these as models to 
 the stvident ? No, we are to imitate only what is 
 best, and that in which even failure is honourable ; 
 not that where only originality and the highest 
 point of success can at all excuse the attempt. Cun- 
 ningham (the writer of the Life), pretends to cry 
 up Hogarth as a painter ; but this is not true. He 
 moulded little figures and placed them to see how 
 the lights fell and how the drapery came in, which 
 gave a certain look of reality and relief; but this 
 was not enough to give breadth or grace, and his 
 figures look like puppets after all, or like dolls 
 dressed up. Who would compare any of these 
 little, miserable, deformed caricatures of men and 
 women, to the figure of St. Paul preaching at 
 Athens? What we justly admire and emulate is 
 that which raises human nature, not that which 
 degrades and holds it up to scorn. We may laugh 
 
I 
 
 CONVERSATIONS. 287 
 
 to see a person rolled in the kennel, but we are 
 ashamed of ourselves for doing so. We are amused 
 with Tom Jones ; but we rise from the perusal of 
 Clarissa with higher feelings and better resolutions 
 than we had before. St. Giles's is not the only- 
 school of art. It is nature, to be sure ; but we must 
 select nature. Ask the meanest person in the gal- 
 lery at a play-house which he likes best, the tragedy 
 or the farce ? And he will tell you, without hesi- 
 tation, the tragedy — and will prefer Mrs. Siddons 
 to the most exquisite buffoon, He feels an am- 
 bition to be placed in the situations, and to be 
 associated with the characters, described in tragedy, 
 and none to be connected with those in a farce ; 
 because he feels a greater sense of power and dig- 
 nity in contemplating the one, and only sees his 
 own weakness and littleness reflected and ridiculed 
 in the other. Even the poetry, the blank verse, 
 pleases the most illiterate, which it would not do if 
 it were not natural. The world do not receive 
 monsters. This was what I used to contest 
 with Sir Joshua. He insisted that the blank verse 
 in tragedy was purely artificial — a thing got up for 
 the occasion. But surely every one must feel that 
 he delivers an important piece of information, or asks 
 
288 MR. NORTHCOTE^S 
 
 a common question in a different tone of voice. If it 
 were not for this, the audience would laugh at the 
 measured speech or step of a tragic actor as bur- 
 lesque, just as they are inclined to do at an Opera. 
 Old Mr. Tolcher used to say of the famous Pul- 
 teney — " My Lord Bath always speaks in blank 
 verse ! " The stately march of his ideas, no doubt, 
 made it natural to him. Mr. Cunningham will 
 never persuade the world that Hogarth is superior 
 to Raphael or Reynolds. Common sense is against 
 it. I don't know where he picked up the notion. 
 
 H. — Probably from Mr. Lamb, who endeavours 
 to set up Hogarth as a great tragic as well as comic 
 genius, not inferior in either respect to Shakspeare. 
 
 N. — I can't tell where he got such an opinion ; 
 but I know it is great nonsense. Cunningham gives 
 a wrong account of an anecdote which he has taken 
 from me. Dr. Tucker, Dean of Gloucester, had 
 said at a meeting of the Society of Arts, that " a 
 pin-maker was a more important member of society 
 than Raphael. 1 '' Sir Joshua had written some re- 
 mark on this assertion in an old copy-book which 
 fell into my hands, and which nobody probably 
 ever saw but myself. Cunningham states that Sir 
 Joshua was present when Dean Tucker made the 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 289 
 
 speech at the Society, and that he immediately rose 
 up, and with great irritation answered him on the 
 spot, which is contrary both to the fact and to Sir 
 Joshua's character. He would never have thought 
 of rising to contradict any one in a public assembly 
 for not agreeing with him on the importance of his 
 own profession. In one part of the new Life, it is 
 said that Sir Joshua, seeing the ill-effects that Ho- 
 garth's honesty and bluntness had had upon his 
 prospects as a portrait-painter, had learnt the art to 
 make himself agreeable to his sitters, and to mix up 
 the oil of flattery with his discourse as assiduously 
 as with his colours. This is far from the truth. Sir 
 Joshua's manners were indeed affable and obliging, 
 but he flattered nobody ; and instead of gossiping 
 or making it his study to amuse his sitters, minded 
 only his own business. I remember being in the 
 next room the first time the Duchess of Cumberland 
 came to sit, and I can vouch that scarce a word was 
 spoken for near two hours. Another thing remark- 
 able to show how little Sir Joshua crouched to the 
 Great is, that he never even gave them their proper 
 titles. I never heard the words " your lordship or 
 your ladyship" come from his mouth ; nor did he 
 ever say Sir in speaking to any one but Dr. John- 
 o 
 
290 
 
 MR. NOIITHCOTE S 
 
 son ; and when he did not hear distinctly what the 
 latter said (which often happened) he would then 
 say " Sir?' 1 that he might repeat it. He was in 
 this respect like a Quaker, not from any scruples or 
 affectation of independence, but possibly from some 
 awkwardness and confusion in addressing the variety 
 of characters he met with, or at his first entrance 
 on his profession. His biographer is also unjust to 
 Sir Joshua in stating that his table was scantily 
 supplied out of penuriousness. The truth is, Sir 
 Joshua would ask a certain number and order a 
 dinner to be provided ; and then in the course of 
 the morning, two or three other persons would drop 
 in, and he would say, " I have got so and so to 
 dinner, will you join us ?" which they being always 
 ready to do, there were sometimes more guests than 
 seats, but nobody complained of this or was un- 
 willing to come again. If Sir Joshua had really 
 grudged his guests, they would not have repeated 
 their visits twice, and there would have been plenty 
 of room and of provisions the next time. Sir Jo- 
 shua never gave the smallest attention to such 
 matters ; all he cared about was his painting in the 
 morning, and the conversation at his table, to which 
 last he sacrificed his interest ; for his associating 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 
 
 291 
 
 with men like Burke, who was at that time a great 
 oppositionist, did him no good at court. Sir Joshua 
 was equally free from meanness or ostentation and 
 encroachment on others ; no one knew himself better 
 or more uniformly kept his place in society. 
 
 H. — It is a pity to mar the idea of Sir Joshua's 
 dinner-parties, which are one of the pleasantest in- 
 stances on record of a cordial intercourse between 
 persons of distinguished pretensions of all sorts. 
 But some people do not care what they spoil, so that 
 they can tell disagreeable truth. 
 
 N. — In the present case there is not even that 
 excuse. The statement answers no good end, 
 while it throws a very unfounded slur on Sir Jo- 
 shua's hospitality and love of good cheer. It is 
 I insinuated that he was sparing of his wine, 
 which is not true. Again, I am blamed for 
 not approving of Dr. Johnson's speech to Sir 
 Joshua at the Miss CottreUV, when the Duchess 
 of Argyll came in, and he thought himself neglected 
 — " How much do you think you and I could earn 
 in a week, if we were to work as hard as we could ?" 
 This was a rude and unmerited insult. The Miss 
 Cottrells were the daughters of an Admiral and 
 people of fashion, as well as the Duchess of Argyll ; 
 
 02 
 
292 
 
 MR. NOItTHCOTE S 
 
 and they naturally enough fell into conversation 
 about persons and things that they knew, though 
 Dr. Johnson had not been used to hear of them. 
 He therefore thought it affectation and insolence, 
 whereas the vulgarity and insolence were on his own 
 side. If I had any fault to find with Sir Joshua, it 
 would be that he was a very bad master in the art. 
 Of all his pupils, I am the only one who ever did 
 any thing at all. He was like the boy teaching the 
 other to swim. " How do you do when you want 
 to turn ? " — " How must you do when you turn ? 
 Why, you must look that way ! " Sir Joshua's 
 instructions amounted to little more. People talk 
 of the instinct of animals as if a blind reason were 
 an absurdity : whereas whatever men can do best, 
 they understand and can explain least. Your 
 son was looking at that picture of the lap-dog the 
 other evening. There is a curious story about that. 
 The dog was walking out with me one day, and 
 was set upon and bit by a strange dog, for all dogs 
 know and hate a favourite. He was a long time in 
 recovering from the wound ; and one day when Mr. 
 P.H. called, he ran up to him, leaped up quite over- 
 joyed, then lay down, began to whine, patted the 
 place where he had been hurt with his paws, and 
 

 CONVERSATIONS. 293- 
 
 went through the whole history of his misfortune. 
 It was a perfect pantomime. I will not tell the 
 story to G — , for the philosopher would be jealous 
 of the sagacity of the cur. 
 
 H. — There was Jack Spines, the racket-player : 
 he excelled in what is called the half-volley. Some 
 amateurs of the game were one day disputing what 
 this term of art meant. Spines was appealed tc» 
 " Why, gentlemen,"" says he, "I really can't say 
 exactly ; but I should think, the half- volley is 
 something between the volley and the half- volley. 11 
 This definition was not quite the thing. The cele- 
 brated John Davies, the finest player in the world, 
 could give no account of his proficiency that way. 
 It is a game which no one thinks of playing without 
 putting on a flannel jacket ; and after you have 
 been engaged in it for ten minutes, you are just 
 as if you had been dipped in a mill-pond. John. 
 Davies never pulled off his coat ; and merely but- 
 toning it that it might not be in his way, would go 
 down into the Fives-court and play two of the best 
 players of the day, and at the end of the match 
 you could not perceive that a hair of his head was 
 wet. Powell, the keeper of the court (why does 
 not Sir B. Nash, among so many innovations, re- 
 
294? MR. NORTHCOTF^S 
 
 build it ?) said he never seemed to follow the ball, 
 but that it came to him — he did every thing with 
 such ease. 
 
 N. — Then every motion of that man was perfect 
 grace : there was not a muscle in his body that 
 did not contribute its share to the game. So, 
 when they begin to learn the piano-forte, at first 
 they use only the fingers, and are soon tired to 
 death : then the muscles of the arm come into 
 play, which relieves them a little ; and at last the 
 whole frame is called into action, so as to produce 
 the effect with entire ease and gracefulness. It is 
 the same in every thing : and he is indeed a poor 
 creature who cannot do more, from habit or natural 
 genius, than he can give any rational account of. 
 
 (Some remarks having been made on the fore- 
 going conversation, Mr. Northcote, the next time 
 I saw him, took up the subject nearly as follows.) 
 
 N. — The newspaper critic asks with an air of 
 triumph as if he had found a mare^s nest — ." What ! 
 are Sophia Western and Allworthy, St. Giles's P" 
 Why, they are the very ones : they are Tower- 
 stamp! Bit fit, and Black GfOrg*, and Square are 
 not — they have some sense and spirit in them and 
 are so far redeemed, for Fielding put his own clever- 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 295 
 
 ness and ingenuity into them ; but as to his refined 
 characters, they are an essence of vulgarity and in- 
 sipidity. Sophia is a poor doll ; and as to Alhvorthy 
 he has not the soul of a goose : and how does he 
 behave to the young man that he has brought up and 
 pampered with the expectations of a fortune and of 
 being a fine gentleman? Does he not turn him 
 out to starve or rob on the highway without the 
 shadow of an excuse, on a mere maudlin ser- 
 monizing pretext of morality, and with as little 
 generosity as principle ? No, Fielding did not 
 know what virtue or refinement meant. As Richard- 
 son said, he should have thought his books were 
 written by an ostler ; or Sir John Hawkins has ex- 
 pressed it still better, that the virtues of his heroes 
 are the virtues of dogs and horses — he does not go 
 beyond that — nor indeed so far, for his Tom Jones 
 is not so good as Lord Byron^s Newfoundland dog. 
 I have known Newfoundland dogs with twenty 
 times his understanding and good-nature. That is 
 where Richardson has the advantage over Fielding 
 — the virtues of his characters are not the virtues of 
 animals — Clarissa holds her head in the skies, a 
 "bright particular star;" for whatever may be 
 said, we have such ideas — and thanks to those who 
 
296 
 
 sustain and nourish them, and woe to those critics 
 who would confound them with the dirt under our 
 feet and Grub-street jargon ! No, that is what we 
 want — to have the line made as black and as broad 
 as possible that separates what we have in common 
 with the animals from what we pretend (at least) to 
 have above them. That is where the newspaper 
 critic is wrong in saying that the blackguard in the 
 play is equal to Mrs. Siddons. No, he is not equal 
 to Mrs. Siddons, any more than a baited bull or an 
 over-drove ox is equal to Mrs. Siddons. There is 
 the same animal fury in Tyke that there is in the 
 maddened brute, with the same want of any ideas 
 beyond himself and his own mechanical and coarse 
 impulses — it is the lowest stage of human capacity 
 and feeling violently acted upon by circumstances. 
 Lady Macbeth, if she is the demon, is not the 
 brute ; she has the intellectual part, and is hurried 
 away no less by the violence of her will than by a 
 wide scope of imagination and a lofty ambition. 
 Take away all dignity and grandeur from poetry 
 and art, and you make Emery equal to Mrs. Sid- 
 dons, and Hogarth to Raphael, but not else. 
 Emery^s Tyke, in his extremity, calls for brandy — 
 Mrs. Siddons does not, like Queen Dolla/ol/a, call 
 

 CONVERSATIONS. 297 
 
 for a glass of gin. Why not ? Gin is as natural a 
 drink as poison ; but if Capella Bianca, instead of 
 swallowing the poison herself, when she found it 
 was not given to her enemy, had merely got drunk 
 for spite^ in the manner of Hogarth's heroines, she 
 would not have been recorded in history. There is 
 then a foundation for the distinction between the 
 heroic and the natural, which I am not bound to 
 explain any more than I am to account why black 
 is not white. 
 
 H.— If Emery is equal to Mrs. Siddons, Morton 
 is equal to Shakspeare ; though it would be difficult 
 to bring such persons to that conclusion. 
 
 N. — 111 tell you why Emery is not equal to 
 Mrs. Siddons ; there are a thousand Emerys to 
 one Mrs. Siddons ; the stage is always full of 
 six or seven comic actors at a time, so that you 
 cannot tell which is best, Emery, Fawcett, Munden, 
 Lewis — but in my time I have seen but Garrick 
 and Mrs. Siddons, who have left a gap behind them 
 that I shall not live to see filled up. Emery J 
 the first blackguard or stage-coach driver you see iit 
 a row in the street ; but if you had not seen ■Mrs. 
 Siddons, you could have no idea of her ; nor can 
 you convey it to any one who has not. She was 
 
 03 
 
298 nir. xorthcote's 
 
 like a preternatural being descended to the earth. 
 I cannot say Sir Joshua has done her justice. I 
 regret Mrs. Abington too — she was the Grosvenor- 
 Square of comedy, if you please. I am glad that 
 Hogarth did not paint her ; it would have been a 
 thing to spit upon. If the correspondent of the 
 newspaper wants to know where my Grosvenor- 
 Square of art is, hell find it in the Provoked Hus- 
 band, in Lord and Lady Toivnly, not in the 
 History of a Foundling, or in the pompous, swag- 
 bellied peer, with his dangling pedigree, or his 
 gawky son-in-law, or his dawdling malkin of a wife 
 from the city, playing with the "ring like an idiot, in 
 the Marriage a la Mode ! There may be vice and 
 folly enough in Vanbrugh's scenes ; but it is not 
 the vice of St. Giles's, it does not savour of the 
 kennel. Not that I would have my interrogator 
 suppose that I think all is vice in St. Giles's. On 
 the contrary, I could find at this moment instances 
 of more virtue, refinement, sense, and beauty there, 
 than there are in his Sophy. No, nature is the 
 same everywhere; there are as many handsome 
 children born in St. Giles's as in Grosvenor- Square; 
 but the same care is not taken of them ; and in 
 general they grow up greater beauties in the one 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 299 
 
 than the other. A child in St. Giles's is left to run 
 wild ; it thrusts its fingers into its mouth or pulls its 
 nose about ; but if a child of people of fashion play 
 any tricks of this kind, it is told immediately, " You 
 must not do this, unless you would have your mouth 
 reach from ear to ear ; you must not say that ; you 
 must not sit in such a manner, or youll grow 
 double." This seems like art ; but it is only giving 
 nature fair play. No one was allowed to touch the 
 Princess Charlotte when a child. She was taken 
 care of like something precious. The sister of the 
 
 Duke of had her nose broke when a child 
 
 in a quarrel with her sister, who flung a tea- 
 basin at her ; but all the doctors were immediately 
 called in, and every remedy was applied, so that 
 when she grew up, there was no appearance of the 
 accident left. If the same thing had happened to a 
 poor child, she would have carried the marks of it to 
 her grave. So you see a number of crooked people 
 and twisted legs among the lower classes. This 
 was what made Lord Byron so mad — that he had 
 mis-shapen feet. Don't you think so ? 
 
 H. — Yes ; T. M. told a person I know that that 
 was the cause of all his misanthropy — he wanted 
 to be an Adonis, and could not. 
 
300 MR. xorthcote's 
 
 N. — Aye, and of his genius too ; it made him 
 write verses in revenge. There is no knowing the 
 effect of such sort of things, of defects we wish to 
 balance. Do you suppose we owe nothing to Pope's 
 deformity ? He said to himself, " If my person be 
 crooked, my verses shall be strait ." I myself have 
 felt this in passing along the street, when I have 
 heard rude remarks made on my personal appear- 
 ance. I then go home and paint : but I should 
 not do this, if I thought all that there is in art was 
 contained in Hogarth — I should then feel neither 
 pride nor consolation in it. But if I thought, in- 
 stead of his doll-like figures cut in two with their 
 insipid, dough-baked faces, I should do something 
 like Sir Joshua's Iphigene, with all that delights 
 the sense in richness of colour and luxuriance of 
 form ; or instead of the women spouting the liquor 
 in one another's faces, in the Rake's Progress, I 
 could give the purity, and grace, and real elegance 
 (appearing under all the incumbrance of the fashion- 
 able dresses of the day) of Lady Sarah Bunbury or 
 of the Miss Hornecks, sacrificing to the Graces, or 
 of Lady Essex, with her long waist and ruffles, 
 but looking a pattern of the female character in 
 all its relations, and breathing dignity and virtue, 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 301 
 
 then I should think this an object worth living for ; 
 or (as you have expressed it very properly) should 
 even be proud of having failed. This is the opinion 
 the world have always entertained of the matter. 
 Sir Joshua's name is repeated with more respect 
 than Hogarth's. It is not for his talents, but for 
 his taste and the direction of them. In meeting- 
 Sir Joshua (merely from a knowledge of his works) 
 you would expect to meet a gentleman — not so of 
 Hogarth. And yet Sir Joshua's claims and pos- 
 sessions in art were not of the highest order. 
 
 H. — But he was decent, and did not profess the 
 arts and accomplishments of a Merry- Andrew. 
 
 N. — I assure you, it was not for want for ability 
 either. When he was young, he did a number of 
 caricatures of different persons, and could have got 
 any price for them. But he found it necessary to 
 give up the practice. Leonardo da Vinci, a mighty 
 man, and who had titles manifold, had a great turn 
 for drawing laughable and grotesque likenesses of 
 his acquaintances ; but he threw them all in the 
 fire. It was to him a kind of .profanation of the art. 
 Sir Joshua would almost as soon have forged as he 
 would have set his name to a caricature. Gilray 
 (whom you speak of) was eminent in this way ; but 
 
302 MR. northcote's 
 
 he had other talents as well. In the Embassy to 
 China, he has drawn the Emperor of China a com- 
 plete Eastern voluptuary, fat and supine, with all 
 the effects of climate and situation evident upon his 
 person, and Lord Macartney is an elegant youth, a 
 real Apollo; then, indeed, come Punch and the 
 puppet-show after him, to throw the whole into 
 ridicule. In the Revolutionists'' Jolly-boat, after 
 the Opposition were defeated, he has placed Fox, 
 and Sheridan, and the rest escaping from the wreck : 
 Dante could not have described them as looking more 
 sullen and gloomy. He was a great man in his 
 way. Why does not Mr. Lamb write an essay on 
 the Two-penny Whist? Yet it was against his 
 conscience, for he had been on the other side, and 
 was bought over. The minister sent to ask him to 
 do them half a dozen at a certain price, which he 
 agreed to, and took them to the treasury ; but there 
 being some demur about the payment, he took them 
 back with some saucy reply. He had not been 
 long at home, before a messenger was sent after him 
 with the money. 
 
CONVERSATIONS* 303 
 
 CONVERSATION THE TWENTY-FIRST. 
 
 N. — G. and I had a dispute lately about the 
 capacity of animals. He appeared to consider them 
 as little better than machines. He made it the 
 distinguishing mark of superiority in man that he 
 is the only animal that can transmit his thoughts to 
 future generations. " Yes, 1 ' I said, " for future 
 generations to take no sort of notice of them." I 
 allowed that there were a few extraordinary geniuses 
 that every one must look up to — and I mentioned 
 the names of Shakspeare and Dryden. But he 
 would not hear of Dryden, and began to pull him 
 in pieces immediately. " Why then," I answered, 
 
304? MR. xorthcote's 
 
 "if you cannot agree among yourselves even with re- 
 spect to four or five of the most eminent, how can 
 there be the vast and overwhelming superiority you 
 pretend to?" I observed that instinct in animals 
 answered very much to what we call genius. I 
 spoke of the wonderful powers of smell, and the 
 sagacity of dogs, and the memory shown by horses 
 in finding a road that they have once travelled ; but 
 
 I made no way with G ; he still went back to 
 
 Lear and Othello. 
 
 H. — I think he was so far right ; for as this is 
 what he understands best and has to imitate, it is 
 fit he should admire and dwell upon it most. He 
 cannot acquire the smell of the dog or the sagacity 
 of the horse, and therefore it is of no use to think 
 about them ; but he may, by dint of study and 
 emulation, become a better poet or philosopher. 
 The question is not merely what is best in itself 
 (of that we are hardly judges) but what sort of 
 excellence we understand best and can make our 
 own ; for otherwise, in affecting to admire we know 
 not what, we may admire a nonentity or a deformity. 
 Abraham Tucker has remarked very well on this 
 subject, that a swine wallowing in the mire may, for 
 what he can tell, be as happy as a philosopher in 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 305 
 
 writing an essay, but that is no reason why he (the 
 philosopher) should exchange occupations or tastes 
 with the brute, unless he could first exchange na- 
 tures. We may suspend our judgments in such 
 cases as a matter of speculation or conjecture, but 
 that is different from the habitual or practical feel- 
 ing. So I remember W being nettled at D — 
 
 (who affected a fashionable taste) for saying, on 
 coming out of the Marquis of Stafford's gallery, 
 " A very noble art, very superior to poetry !" If 
 
 it were so, W observed, he could know nothing 
 
 about it, who had never seen any fine pictures be- 
 fore. It was like an European adventurer saying 
 to an African chieftain, " A very fine boy, Sir, your 
 black son — very superior to my white one V This 
 is mere affectation ; we might as well pretend to be 
 thrown into rapture by a poem written in a language 
 we are not acquainted with. We may notwithstand- 
 ing believe that it is very fine, and have no wish to 
 hang up the writer, because he is not an English- 
 man. A spider may be a greater mechanic than 
 Watt or Arkwright ; but the effects are not brought 
 home to us in the same manner, and we cannot help 
 estimating the cause by the effect. A friend of 
 mine teazes me with questions, " Which was the 
 
306 mr. northcote's 
 
 greatest man, Sir Isaac Newton or a first-rate 
 chess-player ?" It refers itself to the head of 
 the Illustrious Obscure. A club of chess-players 
 might give it in favour of the Great Unknown ; 
 but all the rest of the world, who have heard of the 
 one and not of the other, will give it against him. 
 We cannot set aside those prejudices which are 
 founded on the limitation of our faculties or the 
 constitution of society ; only that we need not lay 
 them down as abstract or demonstrable truths. It 
 is there the bigotry and error begin. The language 
 of taste and moderation is, I prefer this, because it 
 is best to me ; the language of dogmatism and in- 
 tolerance is, Because I prefer it, it is best in itself, 
 and I will allow no one else to be of a different 
 opinion. 
 
 N. — I find in the last conversation I saw, you 
 make me an admirer of Fielding, and so I am ; but 
 I find great fault with him too. I grant he is one of 
 those writers that I remember ; he stamps his cha- 
 racters, whether good or bad, on the reader's mind. 
 This is more than I can say of every one. For in- 
 stance, when G plagues me about my not having 
 
 sufficient admiration of W— — 's poetry, the answer I 
 give is, that it is not my fault, for I have utterly for- 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 307 
 
 gotten it ; it seemed to me like the ravelings of 
 poetry. But to say nothing of Fielding's immo- 
 rality, and his fancying himself a fine gentleman in 
 the midst of all his coarseness, he has oftener de- 
 scribed habits than character. For example, Wes- 
 tern is no character ; it is merely the language, man- 
 ners, and pursuits of the country-squire of that day ; 
 and the proof of this is, that there is no 'Squire 
 Western now. Manners and customs wear out, but 
 characters last forever. I remember making this 
 remark to Holcroft, and he asked me, What was 
 the difference ? Are you not surprised at that ? 
 
 H. — Not in him. If you mentioned the word 
 character, he stopped you short by saying, that it 
 was merely the difference of circumstances; or if you 
 hinted at the difference of natural capacity, he said, 
 " Then, Sir, you must believe in innate ideas? 
 He surrendered his own feelings and better judg- 
 ment to a set of cant-phrases, called the modem 
 philosophy. 
 
 N I need not explain the difference to you. 
 
 Character is the ground-work, the natural stamina 
 of the mind, on which circumstances only act. 
 You see it in St. Giles's — there are characters there 
 that in the midst of filth, and vice, and ignorance, 
 
308 - MR. NORTHCOTE's 
 
 retain some traces of their original goodness, and 
 struggle with their situation to the last : as in St. 
 James's, you will find wretches that would disgrace 
 a halter. Gil Bias has character. 
 
 H — I thought he only gave professions and 
 classes, players, footmen, sharpers, courtesans, 
 but not the individual, as Fielding often does, 
 though we should strip Western of his scarlet hunt- 
 ing-dress and jockey phrases. There is Square, 
 Blifil, Black George, Mrs. Fitzpatrick, Parson 
 Adams ; and a still greater cluster of them in the 
 one that is least read, the noble peer, the lodging- 
 house-keeper, Mrs. Bennet, and Colonel Bath. 
 
 N. — You mean Amelia. I have not read that, 
 but will get it. I allow in part what you say ; but 
 in the best there is something too local and belong- 
 ing to the time. But what I chiefly object to in 
 Fielding is his conceit, his consciousness of what iie 
 is doing, his everlasting recommendation and puf- 
 fing of his own wit and sagacity. His introductory 
 chapters make me sick. 
 
 H — Why, perhaps, Fielding is to be excused 
 as a disappointed man. All his success was late in 
 life, for he died in 1754; and Joseph Andrews (the 
 first work of his that was popular) was published in 
 
I 
 
 
 CONVERSATIONS. 309 
 
 1748. All the rest of his life he had been drudging 
 for the booksellers, or bringing out unsuccessful 
 comedies. He probably anticipated the same result 
 in his novels, and wished to bespeak the favour of 
 the reader by putting himself too much forward. 
 His prefaces are like Ben Jonson's prologues, and 
 from the same cause, mortified vanity ; though it 
 seems odd to say so at present, after the run his 
 writings have had ; but he could not foresee that, 
 and only lived a short time to witness it. 
 
 N. — I can bear any thing but that conscious 
 look — it is to me like the lump of soot in the broth, 
 that spoils the whole mess. Fielding was one of the 
 swaggerers. 
 
 H. — But he had much to boast of. 
 
 N Tie certainly was not idle in his time. Idle- 
 ness would have ruined a greater man. 
 
 H.— Then you do not agree to a maxim I have 
 sometimes thought might be laid down, that no one 
 is idle who can do any thing. 
 
 N. — No, certainly. 
 
 H. — I conceive it may be illustrated from Wilson, 
 who was charged with idleness, and who, after 
 painting a little, used to say, as soon as any friend 
 dropped in, u Now let us go somewhere,"— mean- 
 
310 me. northcote's 
 
 ing to the alehouse. All that Wilson could do, he 
 did, and that finely too, with a few well-disposed 
 masses and strokes of the pencil ; but he could not 
 finish, or he would have staid within all the morn- 
 ing to work up his pictures to the perfection of 
 Claude's. He thought it better to go to the ale- 
 house than to spoil what he had already done. I 
 
 have in my own mind made this excuse for , 
 
 that he could only make a first sketch, and was 
 obliged to lose the greatest part of his time in wait- 
 ing for windfalls of heads and studies. I have 
 sat to him twice, and each time I offered to come 
 again, and he said he would let me know, but I heard 
 no more of it. The sketch went as it was — of course 
 in a very unfinished state. 
 
 N. — But he might have remedied this by diligence 
 and practice. 
 
 H. — I do not know that he could : one might say 
 that there is the same abruptness and crudity in 
 his character throughout, in his conversation, his 
 walk, and look — great force and spirit, but neither 
 softness nor refinement. 
 
 N. — If he had more humility, he might have 
 seen all that in the works of others, and have strove 
 to imitate it. 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 311 
 
 H. — What I mean is, that it was his not having 
 the sense of these refinements in himself that pre- 
 vented his perceiving them in others, or taking 
 pains to supply a defect to which he was blind. 
 
 N. — I do not think that under any circumstances 
 he would have made a Raphael. But your rea- 
 soning goes too much to what Dr. Johnson ridiculed 
 in poetry — fits of inspiration, and a greater flow of 
 ideas in the autumn than the spring. Sir Joshua 
 used to work at all times, whether he was in the 
 humour or not. 
 
 H. — And so would every one else with his motives 
 and ability to excel. Lawyers without fees are ac- 
 cused of idleness, but this goes off when the briefs 
 pour in. 
 
 N. — Did you see the newspaper accounts of the elec- 
 tion of the new Pope? It appears that nothing could 
 exceed his repugnance to be chosen. He begged 
 
 (and even wept to be let off. You are to consider, 
 he is an old man labouring under a mortal disease 
 (which is one circumstance that led to his elevation) 
 — to be taken from the situation of Cardinal (in it- 
 self a very enviable one) and thrust violently into 
 a mass of business, of questions and cabals which 
 will distract him, and where he can get no thanks 
 
312 mr. northcote's 
 
 and may incur every kind of odium. It is true, he 
 has an opportunity of making the fortunes of his 
 family ; and if he prefers them to himself, it is all 
 very well, but not else. To persons of a restless 
 and aspiring turn of mind, ambition and grandeur 
 are very fine things, but to others they are the most 
 intolerable tax. There is our own King — there is 
 no conceiving the punishment that those processions 
 and public show-days are to him — and then as to 
 all the pomp and glitter that we so much admire, 
 it is to those who are accustomed to it and who see 
 behind the curtain, like so much cast-off rags and 
 tinsel or Monmouth-street finery. They hold it 
 in inconceivable scorn, and yet they can hardly do 
 without it, from the slavery of habit. Then the 
 time of such people is never their own — they are 
 always performing a part (and generally a forced and 
 irksome one) in what no way interests or concerns 
 them. The late King, to whom rank was a real 
 drudgery, used to stand buried in a pile of papers, 
 so that you could not see those on the other side of 
 the table, which he had merely to sign. It is no 
 wonder kings are sometimes seen to retire to a mo- 
 nastery where religion leaves this asylum open to 
 them, or are glad to return to their shepherd's crook 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 313 
 
 again. No situation can boast of complete ease or 
 freedom ; and even that would have its disadvantages. 
 And then again, look at those labourers at the top of 
 the house yonder, working from morning till night, 
 and exposed to all weathers for a bare pittance, without 
 hope to sweeten their toil, and driven on by hunger 
 and necessity! When we turn to others, whether 
 those above or below us, we have little reason to be 
 dissatisfied with our own situation in life. But, in 
 all cases it is necessary to employ means to ends, be 
 the object what it may ; and where the first have not 
 been taken, it is both unjust and foolish to repine at 
 the want of success. The common expression, 
 " Fortuned Fools," may seem to convey a slur on 
 the order of Providence ; but it rather shows the 
 equality of its distributions. Are the men of capa- 
 city to have all the good things to themselves ? They 
 are proud of their supposed superiority : why are 
 they not contented with it ? If a fool is not to grow 
 rich, the next thing would be, that none but men 
 of genius should have a coat to their backs, or be 
 thought fit to live. If it were left to them to pro- 
 vide food or clothes, they would have none for them- 
 selves. It is urged as a striking inequality that en- 
 terprising manufacturers, for instance, should rise to 
 
 p 
 
314 
 
 great wealth and honours, while thousands of 
 their dependants are labouring hard at one or two 
 shillings a-day : but we are to recollect, that if it 
 had not been for men like these, the working 
 classes would have been perishing for want: they 
 collect the others together, give a direction and find 
 a vent for their industry, and may be said to exer- 
 cise a part of sovereign capacity. Every thing has 
 its place and due subordination. If authors had the 
 direction of the world, nothing would be left stand- 
 ing but printing-presses. 
 
 N. — What do you think of that portrait? 
 
 H. — It is very lady-like, and, I should imagine, 
 a good likeness. 
 
 N. — J said I might go on painting yet — 
 
 he saw no falling-off. They are pleased with it. I 
 have painted almost the whole family, and the girls 
 would let their mother sit to nobody else. But 
 Lord ! every thing one can do seems to fall so short 
 of nature : whether it is the want of skill or the 
 imperfection of the art that cannot give the suc- 
 cessive movements of expression and changes of 
 countenance, I am always ready to beg pardon of 
 my sitters after I have done, and to say I hope 
 they'll excuse it. The more one knows of the art, 
 
I 
 
 
 CONVERSATIONS. 315 
 
 and indeed the better one can do, the less one is 
 satisfied. This made Titian write under his pic- 
 tures faciebat, signifying that they were only in 
 progress. I remember, Burke came in one day 
 when Sir Joshua had been painting one of the Len- 
 noxes ; he was quite struck with the beauty of the 
 performance, and said he hoped Sir Joshua would 
 not touch it again : to which the latter replied, that 
 if he had seen the original, he would have thought 
 little of the picture, and that there was a look which 
 it was hardly in the power of art to give. No ! all 
 we can do is to produce something that makes a 
 distant approach to nature, and that serves as a 
 faint relic of the individual. A portrait is only a 
 little better memorial than the parings of the nails 
 or a lock of the hair. 
 
 H.— Who is it ? 
 
 N. — It is a Lady W : you have heard me 
 
 speak of her before. She is a person of great sense 
 and spirit, and combines very opposite qualities 
 from a sort of natural strength of character. She 
 has shown the greatest feeling and firmness united : 
 no one can have more tenderness in her domestic 
 connexions, and yet she has borne the loss of some 
 of them with exemplary fortitude. Perhaps, the one 
 
 P 2 
 
316 MR. XORTHCOTE^S 
 
 is a consequence of the other ; for where the attach- 
 ment or even the regret is left, all is not lost. 
 The mind has still a link to connect it with the 
 beloved object. She has no affectation; and there- 
 fore yields to unavoidable circumstances as they 
 arise. Inconsolable grief is often mere cant, and 
 a trick to impose on ourselves and others. People 
 of any real strength of character are seldom affected: 
 those who have not the clue of their own feelings to 
 guide them, do not know what to do, and study 
 only how to produce an effect. I recollect one of 
 the Miss B — s, Lord Orford's favourites, whom I 
 met with at a party formerly, using the expression — 
 u That seal of mediocrity, affectation ! " Don't you 
 think this striking ? 
 
 H. — Yes ; but not quite free from the vice it 
 describes. 
 
 N. — Oh ! they had plenty of that : they were 
 regular bluestockings, I assure you ; or they would 
 not have been so entirely to his lordship's taste, 
 who was a mighty coxcomb. But there is none of 
 that in the person I have been speaking of: she 
 has very delightful, genteel, easy manners. 
 
 H. — That is the only thing I envy in people in 
 that class. 
 
I 
 
 CONVERSATIONS. 317 
 
 N. — But you are not to suppose they all have it : 
 it is only those who are born with it, and who would 
 have had it in a less degree in every situation of 
 life. Vulgarity is the growth of courts as well as 
 of the hovel. We may be deceived by a certain 
 artificial or conventional manner in persons of rank 
 and fashion ; but they themselves see plainly enough 
 
 into the natural character. I remember Lady W 
 
 told me, as an instance to this purpose, that when 
 she was a girl, she and her sister were introduced at 
 court ; and it was then the fashion to stand in a 
 circle, and the Queen came round and spoke to 
 the different persons in turn. There was some 
 high lady who came in after them, and pushed 
 rudely into the circle so as to get before them. 
 But the Queen, who saw the circumstance, went 
 up and spoke to them first, and then passed on (as 
 a just punishment) without taking any notice 
 whatever of the forward intruder. I forget how it 
 arose the other day, but she asked me — " Pray, 
 Mr. Northcote, is Discretion reckoned one of the 
 cardinal virtues ? " " No," I said, " it is not one 
 of them, for it is all ! " If we had discretion at all 
 times, we should never do wrong : but we are taken 
 off our guard by being thrown into new and diffi- 
 
318 
 
 cult situations, and have not time to weigh the con- 
 sequences or to summon resolution to our aid. That 
 is what Opie used to say when he had been en- 
 gaged in an argument overnight, what excellent 
 answers he could give the next day — and was vexed 
 with himself for not having thought" of them. No ! 
 if we had sufficient presence of mind to foresee the 
 consequences of our actions on the spot, we should 
 very rarely have occasion to repent of them after- 
 wards. 
 
 H. — You put me in mind of Cicero's account 
 of the cardinal virtues, in his Offices, who makes 
 them out to be four; and then says they are all 
 referable to the first, which is Prudence. 
 
 N. — Ay; do you recollect what they are ? 
 
 H. — Prudence, Temperance, Justice, and For- 
 titude. 
 
 N. — They are too much alike. The most dis- 
 tinct is Fortitude. 
 
 H. — I never could make much of Cicero, except 
 his two treatises on Friendship and Old Age, which 
 are most amiable gossiping. I see that Canning 
 borrowed his tautology from Cicero, who runs on 
 with such expressions as "I will bear, I will suffer, 
 I will endure any extremity.'" This is bad enough 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 
 
 319 
 
 in the original : it is inexcusable in the copy. 
 Cicero's style, however, answered to the elegance of 
 his finely-turned features ; and in his long, graceful 
 neck you may trace his winding and involuted 
 periods. 
 
 N. — Do you believe in that sort of stuff? 
 
 H. — Not more than I can help. 
 
320 
 
 CONVERSATION TWENTY-SECOND. 
 
 N. — I ought to cross myself like the Catholics, 
 when I see you. You terrify me by repeating what 
 I say. But I see you have regulated yourself. 
 There is nothing personally offensive, except what 
 relates to Sir Walter. You make him swear too, 
 which he did not do. He would never use the ex- 
 pression Egad. These little things mark the gen- 
 tleman. I am afraid, if he sees it, he'll say I am a 
 babbler. That is what they dread so at court, that 
 the least word should transpire. 
 
 H. — They may have their reasons for caution. 
 At least, they can gain nothing, and might possibly 
 lose equally by truth or falsehood, as it must be 
 difficult to convey an adequate idea of royalty. But 
 authors arc glad to be talked about. If Sir W. 
 Scott has an objection to having his name men- 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 65 
 
 self with the pleasure of having gamed the flat- 
 tering attention of a young lady of such amiable 
 qualities as yourself, and have the honour to as- 
 sure you, that I am your grateful friend and most 
 obliged humble servant, 
 
 " James Northcote." 
 " Argyll Place, 1826." 
 
 said, the hardest lesson seemed to be to look 
 beyond ourselves. " Yes," said Northcote, " I 
 remember when we were young and were making 
 remarks upon the neighbours, an old maiden 
 aunt of ours used to say, ' I wish to God you 
 could see yourselves V And yet, perhaps, after 
 all, this was not very desirable. Many people 
 pass their whole lives in a very comfortable 
 dream, who, if they could see themselves in the 
 glass, would start back with affright. I remem* 
 ber once being at the Academy, when Sir Joshua 
 wished to propose a momument to Dr. Johnson in 
 St. Paul's, and West got up and said, that the 
 King, he knew, was averse to any thing of the 
 kind, for he had been proposing a similar monu- 
 ment in Westminster Abbey for a man of the 
 greatest genius and celebrity — one whose works 
 
 D 
 
were in all the cabinets of the curious through- 
 out Europe — one whose name they would all hear 
 with the greatest respect — and then it came out, 
 after a long preamble, that he meant Woollett, 
 who had engraved his Death of Wolfe. I was 
 provoked, and I could not help exclaiming — 
 * My God ! what do you put him upon a footing 
 with such a man as Dr. Johnson — one of the 
 greatest philosophers and moralists that ever 
 lived ? We have thousands of engravers at any 
 time V — and there was such a burst of laughter 
 at this — Dance, who was a grave gentlemanly 
 man, laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks ; 
 and Farington used afterwards to say to me, 
 « Why don't you speak in the Academy, and 
 begin with < My God ! as you do sometimes V 
 I said, I had seen in a certain painter some- 
 thing of this humour, who once very goodna- 
 turedly showed me a Rubens he had, and ob- 
 served with great nonchalance, " What a pity 
 that this man wanted expression !" I imagined 
 Rubens to have looked round his gallery. " Yet," 
 he continued, " it is the consciousness of defect, 
 too, that often stimulates the utmost "exertions. 
 If Pope had been a fine, handsome man, would 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 63 
 
 antagonist. The monks, for instance, have been 
 too hardly dealt with — not that I would defend 
 many abuses and instances of oppression in them — 
 but is it not as well to have bodies of men shut up 
 in cells and monasteries, as to let them loose to 
 make soldiers of them and to cut one another's 
 throats ? And out of that lazy ignorance and 
 leisure, what benefits have not sprung ? It is to 
 them we owe those beautiful specimens of Gothic 
 architecture which can never be surpassed ; many 
 of the discoveries in medicine and in mechanics 
 are also theirs ; and, I believe, the restoration of 
 classical learning is owing to them. Not that I 
 would be understood to say that all or a great 
 deal of this could not have been done without 
 them ; but their leisure, their independence, and 
 the want of some employment to exercise their 
 minds were the actual cause of many advantages 
 we now enjoy ; and what I mean is, that Nature 
 is satisfied with imperfect instruments. Instead 
 of snarling at every thing that differs from us 
 we had better take Shakspeare's advice, and try 
 to find 
 
 ' Tongues in the trees, books in the running brooks, 
 Sermons in stones, and good in every thing/ " 
 
64 
 
 It was at this time that Mr. Northcote read to 
 me the following letter, addressed by him to a 
 very young lady, who earnestly desired him to 
 write a letter to her : — 
 
 ci MY DEAR MISS K , 
 
 " What in the world can make you desire a 
 letter from me ? Indeed, if I was a fine Dandy 
 of one-and-twenty, with a pair of stays properly 
 padded and also an iron busk, and whiskers under 
 my nose, with my hair standing upright on my 
 head, all in the present fashion, then it might be 
 accounted for, as I might write you a fine answer 
 in poetry about Cupids and burning hearts, and 
 sighs and angels and darts, such a letter as Mr. 
 
 , the poet, might write. But it is long past 
 
 the time for me to sing love-songs under your 
 window, with a guitar, and catch my death in 
 some cold night, and so die in your service. 
 
 " But what has a poor gray-headed old man 
 of eighty got to say to a blooming young lady of 
 eighteen, but to relate to her his illness and pains, 
 and tell her that past life is little better than a 
 dream, and that he finds that all he has been do- 
 ing is only vanity. Indeed, I may console my- 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 67 
 
 he have left those masterpieces that he has ? But 
 he knew and felt his own deformity, and there- 
 fore was determined to leave nothing undone to 
 extend that corner of power that he possessed. 
 He said to himself, They shall have no fault to 
 find there. I have often thought when very good- 
 looking young men -have come here intending to 
 draw, ' What ! are you going to bury yourselves 
 in a garret ?"* And it has generally happened that 
 they have given up the art before long, and mar- 
 ried or otherwise disposed of themselves." I had 
 heard an anecdote of Nelson, that, when ap- 
 pointed post-captain, and on going to take pos- 
 session of his ship at Yarmouth, the crowd on the 
 quay almost jostled him, and exclaimed — c What! 
 have they made that little insignificant fellow a 
 captain ? He will do much, to be sure f" I 
 thought this might have urged him to dare as he 
 did, in order to get the better of their prejudices 
 and his own sense of mortification. " No doubt,'" 
 said Northcote, " personal defects or disgrace 
 operate in this way. I knew an admiral who had 
 got the nickname of ' Dirty Dick' among the 
 sailors, and, on his being congratulated on ob- 
 taining some desperate victory, all he said was, 
 
6$ me. northcote's 
 
 < I hope they'll call me Dirty Dick no more !' — 
 There was a Sir John Grenville or Greenfield 
 formerly, who was appointed to convoy a fleet 
 of merchant-ships, and had to defend them 
 against a Spanish man-of-war, and did so with 
 the utmost bravery and resolution, so that the 
 convoy got safe off; but after that, he would not 
 yield till he was struck senseless by a ball, and 
 then the crew delivered up the vessel to the 
 enemy, who, on coming on board and entering 
 the cabin where he lay, were astonished to find a 
 mere puny shrivelled spider of a man, instead of 
 the Devil they had expected to see. He was 
 taken on shore in Spain, and died of his wounds 
 there ; and the Spanish women afterwards used 
 to frighten their children, by telling them < Don 
 John of the Greenfield was coming !'" 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 93 
 
 CONVERSATION THE SEVENTH. 
 
 Northcote complained of being unwell, though 
 he said he could hardly expect it to be otherwise at 
 his age. He must think of making up the accounts 
 of his life, such as it had been, though he added 
 
 ((checking himself) that he ought not to say that, 
 for he had had his share of good as well as others. 
 He had been reading in Boccaccio, where it was 
 frequently observed, that " such a one departed 
 this wretched life at such a time ;" — so that in 
 Boccaccio's time they complained of the wretched- 
 ness of life as much as we do. He alluded to an 
 expression of Coleridge's, which he had seen quoted 
 
 1 
 
9i MR. K01tTHC0TE* , S 
 
 in a newspaper, and which he thought very fine, 
 " That an old Gothic cathedral always seemed to 
 him like a petrified religion !" Some one asked, 
 Why does he not go and turn Black Monk ? Be- 
 cause, I said, he never does any thing that he 
 should do. " There are some things," said N., 
 " with respect to which I am in the same state that 
 a blind man is as to colours. Homer is one of these. 
 I am utterly in the dark about it. I can make 
 nothing of his heroes or his Gods. Whether this 
 is owing to my not knowing the language or to a 
 change of manners, I cannot say." He was here 
 interrupted by the entrance of the beautiful Mrs. 
 
 G , beautiful even in years. She said she 
 
 had brought him a book to look at. She could not 
 stop, for she had a lady waiting for her below, but 
 she would call in some morning and have a long 
 chat. After she was gone, I remarked how hand- 
 some she still was ; and he said, " I don't know why 
 she is so kind as to come, except that I am the last 
 link in the chain that connects her with all those 
 she most esteemed when she was young, John- 
 son, Hcynolds, Goldsmith— and remind her of 
 the most delightful period of her life." I said, 
 Not only so, but you remember what she was 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 321 
 
 tioned, he is singularly unlucky. Enough was said 
 in his praise ; and I do not believe he is captious. 
 I fancy he takes the rough with the smooth. I did 
 not well know what to do. You seemed to.express 
 a wish that the conversations should proceed, and 
 yet you are startled at particular phrases, or I would 
 have brought you what I had done to show you. 
 I thought it best to take my chance of the general 
 impression. 
 
 N. — Why, if kept to be published as a diary 
 after my death, they might do : nobody could then 
 come to ask me questions about them. But I can- 
 not say they appear very striking to me. One 
 reason may be, what I observe myself cannot be 
 very new to me. If others are pleased, they are 
 the best judges. It seems very odd that you who 
 are acquainted with some of the greatest authors of 
 the day cannot find any thing of theirs worth set- 
 ting down. 
 
 H. — That by no means pleases them. I under- 
 stand G — is angry at the liberty I take with you. 
 He is quite safe in this respect. I might answer him 
 much in the manner of the fellow in the Country 
 Girl when his friend introduces his mistress and he 
 salutes her — " Why, I suppose if I were to intro- 
 
322 MR. northcote's 
 
 duce my grandmother to you" — " Sir," replies the 
 other, " I should treat her with the utmost respect." 
 So I shall never think of repeating any of G — .*% 
 conversations. My indifference may arise in part, 
 as you say, from their not being very new to 
 me. G — might, I dare say, argue very well on 
 the doctrine of philosophical necessity or many 
 other questions ; but then I have read all this be- 
 fore in Hume or other writers, and I am very little 
 edified, because I have myself had access to the 
 same sources that he has drawn from. But you, as 
 an artist, have been pushed into an intercourse with 
 the world as well as an observation of nature ; and 
 combine a sufficient knowledge of general subjects 
 with living illustrations of them. I do not like the 
 conversation of mere men of the world or anecdote - 
 mongers, for there is nothing to bind it together, and 
 the other sort is pedantic and tiresome from repetition, 
 so that there is nobody but you I can come to. 
 
 N. — You do not go enough into society, or you 
 would be cured of what I cannot help regarding as 
 a whim. You would there find many people of 
 sense and information whose names you never heard 
 of. It is not those who have made most noise in 
 the world who are persons of the greatest general 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 323 
 
 capacity. It is the making the most of a little, or 
 the being determined to get before others in some one 
 thing (perhaps for want of other recommendations) 
 that brings men into notice. Individuals gain a 
 reputation as they make a fortune, by application 
 and by having set their minds upon it. But you 
 have set out (like other people brought up among 
 books) with such exclusive notions of authors and 
 literary fame, that if you find the least glimmering 
 of common sense out of this pale, you think it a 
 prodigy, and run into the opposite extreme. I do 
 not say that you have not a perception of character, 
 or have not thought as far as you have observed ; 
 but you have not had the opportunities. You turn 
 your back on the world, and fancy that they turn 
 their backs on you. This is a very dangerous 
 principle. You become reckless of consequences. 
 It leads to an abandonment of character. By set- 
 ting the opinion of others at defiance, you lose your 
 self-respect. It is of no use that you still say, you 
 will do what is right ; your passions usurp the place 
 of reason, and whisper you, that whatever you are 
 bent upon doing is right. You cannot put this de- 
 ception on the public, however false or prejudiced 
 their standard may be ; and the opinion of the 
 
324 
 
 world, therefore, acts as a seasonable check upon 
 wilfulness and eccentricity. 
 
 H. — What you have stated is the best excuse I 
 could make for my own faults or blunders. When 
 one is found fault with for nothing, or for doing one's 
 best, one is apt to give the world their revenge. 
 All the former part of my life I was treated as a 
 cipher; and since I have got into notice, I have 
 been set upon as a wild beast. When this is the 
 case, and you can expect as little justice as candour, 
 you naturally in self-defence take refuge in a sort of 
 misanthropy and cynical contempt for mankind. 
 One is disposed to humour them, and to furnish them 
 with some ground for their idle and malevolent cen- 
 sures. 
 
 N. — But you should not. If you do nothing to 
 confirm them in their first prejudices, they will come 
 round in time. They are slow to admit claims, 
 because they are not sure of their validity ; and 
 they thwart and cross-examine you to try what tem- 
 per you are made of. Without some such ordeal 
 or difficulty thrown in the way, every upstart and 
 pretender must be swallowed whole. That would 
 never do. But if you have patience to stand the 
 test, justice is rendered at last, and you are stamped 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 325 
 
 as much as you are worth. You certainly have 
 not spared others : why should you expect nothing 
 but " the milk of human kindness ?" Look to those 
 men behind you (a collection of portraits on 
 the same frame) — there is Pope and Dryden — 
 did they fare better than living authors ? Had 
 not Dryden his Shadwell, and Pope his Dennis, 
 who fretted him to a shadow, and galled him almost 
 to death ? There was Dr. Johnson, who in his 
 writings was a pattern of wisdom and morality — he 
 declared that he had been hunted down as if he 
 had been the great enemy of mankind. But he had 
 strength of mind to look down upon it. Not to do 
 this, is either infirmity of temper, or shows a con- 
 scious want of any claims that are worth carrying 
 up to a higher tribunal than the cabal and clamour 
 of the moment. Sir Joshua always despised ma- 
 licious reports ; he knew they would blow over : at 
 the same time, he as little regarded exaggerated 
 praise. Nothing you could say had any effect, if he 
 was not satisfied with himself. He had a great 
 game to play, and only looked to the result. He 
 had studied himself thoroughly ; and, besides, had 
 great equanimity of temper, which, to be sure, it is 
 difficult to acquire, if it is not natural. You have 
 
326 mr. northcote's 
 
 two faults : one is a feud or quarrel with the world, 
 which makes you despair, and prevents you taking 
 all the pains you might : the other is a carelessness 
 and mismanagement, which makes you throw away 
 the little you actually do, and brings you into diffi- 
 culties that way. Sir Joshua used to say it was as 
 wrong for a man to think too little as too much of 
 himself: if the one ran him into extravagance and 
 presumption, the other sank him in sloth and insig- 
 nificance. You see the same thing in horses : if 
 they cannot stir a load at the first effort, they give 
 it'up as a hopeless task ; and nothing can rouse them 
 from their sluggish obstinacy but blows and ill- 
 treatment. 
 
 H. — I confess all this, but I hardly know how to 
 remedy it ; nor do I feel any strong inducement. 
 Taking one thing with another, I have no great 
 cause to complain. If I had been a merchant, a 
 bookseller, or the proprietor of a newspaper, instead 
 of what I am, I might have had more money or 
 possessed a town and country-house, instead of 
 lodging in a first or second floor, as it may happen. 
 But what then ? I see how the man of business 
 and fortune passes his time. He is up and in the 
 city by eight, swallows his breakfast in haste, at- 
 
CONVERSATIONS. 327 
 
 tends a meeting of creditors, must read Lloyd's lists, 
 consult the price of consols, study the markets, look 
 into his accounts, pay his workmen, and superintend 
 his clerks : he has hardly a minute in the day to 
 himself, and perhaps in the four-and-twenty hours 
 does not do a single thing that he would do if he 
 could help it. Surely, this sacrifice of time and 
 inclination .requires some compensation, which it 
 meets with. But how am I entitled to make my 
 fortune (which cannot be done without all this 
 anxiety and drudgery) who do hardly any thing at 
 all, and never any thing but what I like to do ? I 
 rise when I please, breakfast at length, write what 
 comes into my head, and after taking a mutton-chop 
 and a dish of strong tea, go to the play, and thus my 
 
 time passes. Mr. has no time to go to the 
 
 play. It was but the other day that I had to get 
 up a little earlier than usual to go into the city about 
 some money transaction, which appeared to me a pro- 
 digious hardship : if so, it was plain that I must lead 
 a tolerably easy life : nor should I object to passing 
 mine over again. Till I was twenty, I had no idea 
 of any thing but books, and thought every thing else 
 was worthless and mechanical. The having to study 
 painting about this time, and finding the difficulties 
 
328 MR. northcote's 
 
 and beauties it unfolded, opened a new field to me, 
 and I began to conclude that there might be a 
 number of u other things between heaven and earth 
 that were never dreamt of in my philosophy." Ask 
 G — , or any other literary man who has never been 
 taken out of the leading-strings of learning, and you 
 will perceive that they hold for a settled truth that 
 the universe is built of words. G — has no interest 
 but in literary fame, of which he is a worshipper : 
 he cannot believe that any one is clever, or has even 
 common sense, who has not written a book. If you 
 talk to him of Italian cities, where great poets and 
 patriots lived, he heaves a sigh ; and if I were pos- 
 sessed of a fortune, he should go and visit the house 
 where Galileo lived or the tower where Ugolino was 
 imprisoned. He can see with the eyes of his mind. 
 To all else he is marble. It is like speaking to him 
 of the objects of a sixth sense ; every other language 
 seems dumb and inarticulate. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 WHITING, BEAUFORT HOUSE, STRAND. 
 

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