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which he assigned to Brughel, but which, instead of the warm colouring of that master, was as tame and cold as a sign-post. My companion suggested that there were two Brughels, who painted in very different styles, the one called Brughel de Velours, the other by the less soft and winning designation of "Hell-fire Brughel"; you may enquire to which of them it belongs.-I did so, but on mention of the latter of these sobriquets, he started, and looked as if he smelt gunpowder, or feared singing, all the while sidling off towards the door which led to the Cartoon gallery, as if his protection could only be complete among the Apostles, and adding, in a hesitating tone,Some say it is the one, and some say it is the other." It is no part of my purpose to criticise these wonderful sketches, for as such, properly speaking, they must be estimated; their power can best be appreciated by their effect on visitors, for here attention is no longer distracted, nor desultory, but fixed and solemn, as the gloomy aspect of the apartment in which they are contained.

Generally speaking, a picture gallery, to most people, affords but little gratification; they do not chuse to acknowledge this, but it cannot be concealed, in the rambling, abstracted, un-purpose-like way in which they run over them. Each one is anxious to point out something to his neighbour, which he admires, which springs less from his own enthusiasm, than from his anxiety to ascertain if he is right in his estimate of particular beauties, by learning their effect on the judgments of others.

If Gates, which to access should still give way,
Ope but, like Peter's paradise, to pay;
If perquisited varlets frequent stand,

And each new Walk must a new Tax demand,
What foreign eye, but with contempt surveys?
What Muse shall from Oblivion snatch their praise?”
L.

• Byron.

ARTISTICAL SCRAPS.

To the Editor of the Somerset House Gazette.
SIR,

HAVING no inventive faculty, nor but little of any other
valuable commodity at your service, saving and excepting
time, which I am grieved to say is not of much value to me,
I sit down to fulfil a sort of conscientious obligation which I
seem to owe to the Somerset House Gazette," for the plea-
surable hours it has filled up in in rousing me out of occa-
sional fits of ennui. I would willingly repay the debt in
kind, by sending now and then a contribution, but the
deuce of it is, that you seem to have read all that is readable
on art, and can invent so much better than all your reading
can afford, that I am at a loss to know how to set about it.
What I offer you now, Mr. Hardcastle, you must attri-
"this is a
bute to the Thunder. I think I hear you say
contribution indeed! by Jupiter!" No Sir, it is without
fire, and cannot be from Heaven-I mean the Heathen
Heaven of course. I will tell you, to be brief then, good
Mr. Editor, I was engaged the last evening, to an evening
party, to meet a little conversation on the arts, when look-
ing towards my looking-glass, I saw a coruscation reflected,
and at the same moment heard my landlady scream-
"Betty we are going to have a tornaquo, take in the parrot.
Mercy! I feel all over in a nervous fantasy." This ac-
counted at once for the peace of the chattering bird, and
that of the no less loquacious mistress, for I had sat in lux-
urious tranquillity for two hours at least, in my dressing-
gown,-you know, I take it for granted, that the thermometer
was at seventy-eight. "But we often see," as Shakspeare
says, "against some storm a silence in the Heavens." Faith
it came pouring down, I looked abroad, and O! what Wil-
"Small showers last long, but sudden
sonic lightning.

This holds true even with the finest pictures, and often even with the highest triumphs of wit, as being least accessible to what Ben Jonson calls their "grounded capacities." But to these pictures, little connoisseurship is required; no display of petty dilletantiship is here even tolerable, for every one feels himself at home, and that he can speak the language of admiration correctly, without being taught, or obliged to borrow it from any other source than one which cannot deceive himself, namely, his own feelings. If we can but understand the situation, we are familiar with the picture which has embodied the subject; if we can sympathise with the reality of it in nature, we yield our full tribute to the triumph of the painter. They are not pictures but things; not representations, but existences; we forget the painter in the creations of his fancy, and give our sympathy to the supposed realities of it, rather than our wonder at the means by which they were achieved. The fact is, whatever critics may say to the contrary, the illusions of the pencil as well as of the drama must constitute its highest efforts; any other excellence must be technical. Look at Elymas the Sorcerer; we do not require to be told that he is blind, nor to see his sight-storms are short," says the same bard, who has a saying for less orbs, in order to learn his misfortune and his punish-every thing, so I consoled myself by looking at the case of ment; we learn it from the physical appearance of helpless- my boots, I shall not go in shoes to-night, that is settled ness about him; his hands stretched out, with strong thought I. No, nor in boots neither, as it happened; and despairing muscular tension, to ascertain the objects he no so I made up my mind to stay at home. longer sees; and his body bent forward, to explore his way, like the out-posts of an army, or the feelers of a fly, reconnoitring with a part, before the rest is put in peril by a further advance. I have seen with great pleasure an admirable copy of this particular subject, made by a very accomplished sculptor, as one of his Studies for the Royal Academy, and who received great and well-deserved praise for his head of the late Mr. West, at the last Exhibition in Somerset House.

But I forget that I only proposed Sketches, while I am elaborating a Dissertation. The good English custom of exacting money for every thing that is shewn, exists in full force at Hampton Court. Savage, in his poem on Public Walks, alludes to this disgraceful license, with the more bitterness of effect that its truth cannot be disputed:

"But what the flow'ring pride of Gardens rare, However Royal or however fair,

"I took my flute, that would not do. I took up my fiddle, the first string went crack, and gave me a switcher across the eye. I am not fiddle-gone so far as to send a maid servant out in such a pelting pitiless storm for a bare yard of cat-gut, and so I took up a book. That would not do; and I tried another and another. It then came into my head that I had no head at all, and throwing myself on the sofa, I began to cogitate upon what might be passing among my Artistical friends from whom I was separated by this commotion over head. "Let it thunder to the tune of green sleeves," said I (Shakspeare again you see), I will sit me down and make out a paper for my worthy old editor of the "Somerset House.'

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How the deuce you writers on the Arts can contrive to ring the changes upon light and shadow, chiaro scuro, intensity, breadth, sentiment, and not flag, is past my shallow comprehension-yea "past the good conceit I hold of thee." This query_floated uppermost, and so I went straight to the purpose. I will write, said I, a few scraps, from which Mr.

Somerset House may, if he ever be listless like myself, and confined by a storm, pick up a hint. First then of

BORGOGNONI,

Richard Payne Knight, which has very sensibly been copied into several of the public journals. Query.-Fine as these drawings are said really to be, and I take your worship's word for it, with submission, how much do you The famous painter of battles. Lanzi says, " In beholding suppose that late distinguished connoisseur and "sworn aphis pictures, we seem to hear the shouts of war, the neigh-praiser," of the Elgin Marbles, would have given for the ing of the horses, and the cries of the wounded!" lot, supposing that Sir T. Lawrence, and some other disWhat think you of this, Mr. Hardcastle? I have seen tinguished artists, had not first raised their value by proTurner's grand picture of Trafalgar, lately put up in St.nouncing them to be his-the identical Claude's? I ask this James's Palace, and Jones's Waterloo and Vittoria, all three as you know painted for our gracious King, God bless him!-but if I heard the shouts of war, the neighing of the horses, or the cries of the wounded, may I be hanged on a gibbet ten times higher than Haman's. This might have done for the Greeks, Master Ephraim, for their pictures are not visible, but as for Borgognoni!-Lanzi however might have been blessed with a finer sense of seeing for hearing than I; I know, compared with some, that I am but as a block.

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CORREGGIO.

We cannot close our observations on his powers of expression, without adverting to a beauty which he possessed exclusively, or at least shared only with Leonardo da Vinci; namely, the lovely and exquisite smile which plays on his female countenances, and which has been distinguished by the epithet of Correggiesque, or grace of Correggio. This trait, as difficult to describe as to imitate, has been happily indicated by Dante,

"Della bocca il discato riso."

THE MULE AND MULETEER, BY CORREGGIO, In the gallery of the Marquis of Stafford, is said to have been once used as a sign for an Inn. Mr. Walpole says, that in a gallery on the Continent, (I think at Strasbourg), is a picture on a panel of a school, which was painted for a schoolmaster's sign-board, by Hans Holbein. Who would not trudge on foot, Mr. Hardcastle, an hundred miles to see such a sign!

RAFFAELLO DA URBANO.

Bernardo Divizio, Cardinal di Bibbiena, offered his niece in marriage to Raffaelle, but it appears the painter refused the honour. He would have married her, perhaps, had she been a good model for a Madonna. One might swear, that she was no beauty.-Or hold, he might have been pre-engaged. What sort of divinity be might have chosen to wed who can tell. Reubens has left a record of his taste for human carnation. What spacious examples of fair, luxurious female Flanderkins-what glorious living studies for breath!

CLAUDE GELEE LORAINE.

England has long possessed many of his most perfect works; and since the acquisition of his celebrated pictures, formerly in the Altieri Palace, at Rome, and in the collec tion of the Duke de Bouillon, at Paris, it may be confidently asserted, that we possess more of his capital works than the rest of Europe.

Claude, with a just regard to his fame, determined on a plan, which should make his drawings so many authentic warrants of his genuine pictures. Upon the back of his several designs, he notes their true history, as to the persons and places they were painted for. He is said to have composed no less than six of these books: "Libri di Verita." One, "Liber Veritatis," was procured by William the first Duke of Devonshire, who died in 1707. Two volumes containing two hundred fac-similes, engraved by Earlom, were published in 1777.

You have given us, in your Somerset House Gazette, a faithful account of the last collection, purchased by Mr.

in pure simplicity, Mr. Hardcastle.

With regard to aerial landscape, Claude excelled all masters. We are at a loss whether most to admire the simplicity, or the effect of his distances.

SALVATOR ROSA.

Claude and Salvator received, or might have received their ideas from the same archetypes; they were both Italian painters, but Claude studied in the campagna of Rome, Salvator among the mountains in Calabria.--Vide Gilpin. I should suppose that the other Gilpin, of horseback celebrity, (you cannot suppose I mean Gilpin the horse-painter) honest John, for a short season of Edmonton, might have said almost as much to the purpose.

Mr. Gilpin adds, "The chesnut-tree of Calabria is consecrated by adorning the foregrounds of Salvator Rosa." So indeed should be the birchen-tree, consecrated alike for whipping learning into idle school boys, at the background of their capacities.

NICHOLAS POUSSIN.

Is allowed to have been an admirable artist; and the immense price which his pictures produce in every part of Europe, is an incontestible proof of his established merit.

No works of any modern artist have so much of the air of antique painting as those of N. Poussin. His best performances have a remarkable dryness of manner, which though by no means to be recommended for imitation, yet seems perfectly correspondent with that ancient simplicity that distinguishes his style. Poussin in the latter part of his life, changed from his dry manner to one much softer and richer, where there is a greater union between the figures and the ground, as in the Seven Sacraments.

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during the whole course of his life. His genuine pictures Rembrandt pursued his art with incredible industry are very numerous. His etchings are no less esteemed. The best collection of them ever made in England, was that by Arthur Pond, (the engraver,) which was sold after his death in 1760, for £554 7s. 6d.; but the largest was that of Monsieur Amadee de Burgy, at the Hague, which was publicly sold in 1755, and contained 257 portraits, 161 histories, 155 figures, 85 landscapes, consisting on the whole of 665 prints, with their variations.

REMBRANDT'S WIFE.

She was a pretty peasant girl, whom he married for love in early life. He delighted to paint her portrait; and she was his only model whenever he attempted to give the idea of female beauty. Chacun a son gout, Mr. Editor; but Lord help Mynheer Rembrandt Van Rhyn's taste!

Z..

BRITISH INSTITUTION, PALL-MALL.

In a few days, in post 8vo.

THE GALLERY with a SELECTION of the WORKS BRITISH GALLERIES OF ART; being a series of

of the Italian, Spanish, Flemish, Dutch, and English Schools, is OPEN to the Public from Ten in the Morning until Six in the Evening.

Admission, Is. Catalogue Is.

(By Order) JOHN YOUNG, Keeper. The Subscribers to the print from Mr. West's Picture of" Christ Healing the Sick in the Temple," who have not already received their impressions, may receive them upon payment of the remainder of their Subscriptions at the British Gallery, Daily.

descriptive and critical notices of the principal Works of Art in Painting and Sculpture, now existing in England: arranged under the heads of the different public and private Galleries in which they

are to be found.

The First Part will comprise the following Galleries:-The National (late the Angerstein) Gallery-The Royal Gallery at Windsor Castle The Royal Gallery at Hampton Court-The Gallery at Cleveland House-Lord Egremont's Gallery at Petworth-The late Fonthill Gallery-The Titian Gallery at Blenheim-The Gallery at Knole Park - The Dulwich Gallery-Mr. Mathews's Theatrical

EXHIBITION OF SPLENDID DRAWINGS, No. 9, Gallery

Soho-square, WILL SHORTLY CLOSE, containing a most brilliant collection by Sir Thomas Lawrence, P. R. A., and the fol lowing Academicians and Members of the Royal Academy.-By Messrs. Turner, Stothard, Wilkie, Westall, Owen, Collins, Cooper. Daniell, Jones :-by the late Messis. Gainsborough, Wilson, Cipri ani, Hamilton, and Bartolozzi:-by Messrs. C. R. Leslie, A. R. A., H. Edridge, A. R. A.: and by Messrs. Girtin, Dewint, Havell, Cristall, Dighton, G. R. Ward, Kirk, Martin Ward, Moreland, &c. &c. with choice specimens by the following Old Masters, from the finest collections: Michael Angelo, Raphael, Parmegiano, Correggio, Annibal Carracci, Paul Veronese, Rubens, Rembrandt, Vandyke, Ostade, Snyders, Rysdael, &c. &c.-The Exhibition is also enriched with the "Two Moonlights," and "A Morning Scene," by Gainsborough, exhibited by artificial light. Open from ten till six. Admittance, 18.-Catalogues, 18.

This day is published, 8vo. price 4s.

THE CZAR; an Historical Tragedy.

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By JOSEPH CRADOCK, Esq. M. A. F. S. A. This Tragedy forms the commencement of a Publication that may extend to four octavo volumes. All Original Papers and Letters are consigned to Executors, as the Author is at a very advanced age, and it is his chief wish that nothing unauthenticated may be given to the Public after his decease.

London printed for the Author, by John Nichols and Son, 25, Parliament Street; Sold by Payne and Tass; Cadell; Ridgway; Rudd and Calkin, and all other Booksellers.

This day is published, in post 8vo. price 88. boards.

CASTLE BAYNARD; or The Days of John, an His

torical Romance.-By HAL WILLIS, Student at Law. Printed for G. and W. B. Whittaker, Ave Maria-lane.

NEW GUIDE TO PARIS.

This day was published, embellished with a Map of Paris, and
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New Edition of

GALIGNANI'S PARIS GUIDE; or, STRANGER'S

COMPANION through the FRENCH METROPOLIS: containing a full and accurate Description of every Object of Interest in the Capital, &c. To which is pertixed, a Plan for viewing Paris in a Week: also a Comparative Scale of Weights and Measures, and Value of Coins; a Directory of Parisian Tradesmen, &c. Tenth Edition.

Published by G. and W. B. Whittaker, Ave Maria-lane, London.
Also, lately published,

NOUVEAU MANUEL du VOYAGEUR; or, the Traveller's Pocket
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Published by WETTON, 21, Fleet-street 4to. price 10s. 6d.

THE LAWYER'S COMMON PLACE BOOK; ar

ranged on a new Plan. With an Alphabetical Index of upwards of Six Hundred and Ffty Heads which occur in general reading and practice. 4to. 10s. 6d.

"To point out the utility of the present work, scarcely a single word is requisite. Every man who desires to read with advantage, must be aware of the necessity of observing upon what he reads. The only merit to which this publication lay claim, is that of having arranged under its proper title, nearly every subject to which referance is necessary, and by this means of relieving the reader from no small portion of very tedious and very unprofitable labour."

The Second Part, which will be published speedily, will complete the Work.

N. B. For the convenience of visitors to the National Gallery (just opened to the Public), the Description of that Collection, which notices all the Pictures, is published separately, price 18.

Printed for G. and W. B. Whittaker, Ave Maria-lane.

Just published, in 2 vols. 8vo. with Eight Plates, of Scenery and
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NARRATIVE of a PEDESTRIAN JOURNEY through

RUSSIA and SIBERIAN TARTARY, from the Territories of China to the Frozen Sea and Kamschatka, performed during the Years 1820, 21, 22, and 23, by Captain John Dundas Cochrane, of the Royal Navy. The Second Edition, with large Additions.

London: printed for Charles Knight, Pall-Mall East.

In a few days will be published, 2 vols. post 8vo. price 168. ITALY and the ITALIANS in the NINETEENTH CEN

TURY; a View of the Civil, Political, and Moral State of that Country, with a Treatise on Modern Italian Literature. By A. Vieusseux.

"After the last peace I returned to the land of my childhood: I found every thing altered, and myself almost a stranger in my own country. I wandered then about Italy, adding fresh information to old recollections; and from both I now exhibit a sketch I hope not altogether uninteresting."-Author's Preface.

London: printed for Charles Knight, Pall-Mall East.

NEW WORKS.

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THE SOUHTH SEA ISLANDS; being a Description of

the Manners, Customs, &c. of their Inhabitants, and containing among the rest, an interesting account of the SANDWICH ISLANDERS, 2 vols, with 26 coloured engravings, price 128.

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SPANISH PUBLICATIONS.

VARIEDADES O MENSAGERO DE LONDRES, Periodico Trimestre, No. III. This quarterly Magazine will in future regularly appear on the 1st of April, July, October, and January. Each Number will contain 11 coloured plates and a portrait of an eminent character. Royal 8vo. price 108. 6d.

NO ME OLVIDES (a Spanish FORGET ME NOT), partly translated from the English, pp. 400. Illustrated with 13 very beautiful engravings; bound and gilt, in a case, 128.

MEMORIAS DE LA REVOLUTION DE MEGICO, Y DE LA ESPEDICION DEL GENERAL MINA. 1 vol. 8vo. above 400 pages, with a portrait of MINA, and map, price 158.

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And Literary Museum:

OR, WEEKLY MISCELLANY OF FINE ARTS, ANTIQUITIES, AND LITERARY CHIT CHAT.

No. XLII.]

By Ephraim Hardcastle.

A stamned Edition for Country Circulation, postage free, Price Tenpence.
WORKS ON THE FINE ARTS.

Some Account of the Life of Richard Wilson, Esq. R.A.
with Testimonies to his Genius and Memory, and Remarks
on his Landscapes, &c. &c. Collected and Arranged by
T. WRIGHT, Esq. London: Messrs. Longman and Co.
"O! attend,

Whoe'er thou art; whom these delights can touch,
Whose candid bosom the refining love

Of nature warms,

And I will guide thee to her favourite walks, -And teach thy solitude her voice to hear,

And point her loveliest features to thy view."

Akenside.

[SIXPENCE.

be overlooked. The author of this volume, however, is known to have contributed his share of encouragement to the existing school. The reflections of the pen, then, that here celebrates the genius of Wilson, and the pen itself may be said to be sanctified to the

cause.

The first chapter of this account comprises the birth and family of Wilson, his coming to the metropolis, and practising as a portrait painter, his visit to Italy, his taking up of landscape, &c. with some reflections upon the pleasure to be derived from the contemplation of nature, &c.

"This great landscape painter, the distinguished ornament of the British school, was the third son of a clergyman UNCONSCIOUS indeed were we whilst adverting to in Montgomeryshire; his father was of a very respectable this promised publication, and throwing out, on hear-family in that county, in which he possessed a small benefice, but was, soon after the birth of our artist, collated to say evidence, our good report of its author, a gentle-the living of Mould, in Flintshire; his mother was of the man with whom we have not the honor of aquaint-family of Wynne of Leeswold. They had six sons and a ance, that we should have to thank Mr. Wright, for so many kind notices of our humble efforts in the service of that cause, for which it is evident he maintains congenial opinions: such circumstances, however, are too grateful, not to be felt when they occur thus mutually well intended-they help to sweeten the cup of humanity.

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The fate of Wilson, early in life with us, became an interesting theme-it so continued as we attained to manhood, and it has encreased with the number of our grey hairs. If a knowledge of the just honors allotted to the dead, should reach the regions of purer spirits, that of Wilson would be appeased, in the veneration now offering to his fame, at the shrine of his neglected genius.

daughter, all of whom died unmarried. The eldest son obtained a situation in Mould, as collector of customs, and died two years after the painter. The second was a clergyman, who had good preferment in Ireland. Richard, born in 1713, was the third. The fourth was a tobacconist, at Holywell; he afterwards went to Pennsylvania, where he died. The youngest, when a little boy, was killed by part of the Barley-hill, at Mould, falling upon him, whilst playing under it. Miss Wilson was an attendant on Lady Sandown, a lady of the bed-chamber to Queen Caroline, through whose means Richard Wilson was introduced to the Royal family,

"It is not known that any of the family of Wilson had a taste for painting except Richard, whose marked predilection for drawing discovered itself when he was quite a child. At that early period, he might be frequently seen tracing with a burnt stick, figures upon the wall. His relation, Sir George Wynne, took him to London, where he was placed under the tuition of one Wright, an obscure painter of Our interest was excited for the appearance of this portraits. Wilson however acquired so much knowledge volume immediately on hearing that it was in the from his master, as to become equal to most of his contempress, from our respect for the subject of the memoir, poraries, in that line of art. He must also have acquired a and our esteem for its author, on finding that the pro-painted a large picture of His late Majesty, when Prince of degree of rank in his profession, as about the year 1748, he ceeds of the publication were to be bestowed on the Wales, with his brother, the late Duke of York, which was Artist's Benevolent Fund. We love fitness in morals done for Dr. Hayter, Bishop of Norwich, at that time as well as in arts, and what could be more fitting in tutor to the princes. He also painted another portrait of an encourager of arts, whose theme was to be neglected tinto print by Faber. The original picture is announced as the same august personage, from which there is a mezzotalent, to illustrate the sentiment by pouring his bene- in the collection of the Rev. Dr. Ascough, and is dated volence into this channel. 1751. There is also a half-length portrait of the late Marquis of Rockingham, painted by Wilson, in Italy. It is in who brought it from his seat of Wentworth House, to his the style of Rembrandt, and belongs to Lord Fitzwilliam, residence in Grosvenor Square, where it was at the time

We have not been sparing of our animadversions on those, his coevals, connoisseurs and amateurs of art, who looked on, and saw the great Wilson pine neglected, his talent disregarded-a dead letter in the very school founded by the energies of his mighty hand. We have reiterated our observations for the benefit of the living, that they might not be alike amenable to censure, and that contemporary talent might not again

VOL. II.

"Thomas Wright, an artist of whom Mr. Walpole takes not the least notice, nor does any mention appear to be made of him, except what can be found in the inscriptions under three prints by Gerard Vander Gutch, engraved after cartoons of Guido, In the collection of T. Wright, Painter, Covent Garden.'"

LONDON, JULY 24, 1824.

that Mr. Edwards wrote his Anecdotes of Painters, who remarks, that in this picture Wilson made great use of asphaltum, throughout, to produce the deep transparent tones of Rembrandt.'

"As a portrait painter,' continues this writer, Wilson is not sufficiently known, nor are his works marked by any traits which distinguish them from the general manner which then prevailed among his contemporaries. No decided character can therefore be affixed to them. It may, however, be asserted, that in drawing a head he was not excelled by any of the portrait painters of his time. A proof of this was formerly in the possession of J. Richards, Esq. one of the founders, and Secretary to the Royal Academy; it is the portrait of Admiral Smith, drawn before Wilson went abroad. It is executed in black-and-white chalk, as large as life, upon brown French paper, and is treated in a bold masterly manner: but this is not a work which can authorise the critic to consider him as superior to the other portrait painters of his day." 10

"After having practised some time in London, he was enabled, by the assistance of his relations, to travel into Italy, where he continued the study of portrait painting, being still unacquainted with the bias of his genius. He frequented good society, and was much respected by his countrymen abroad.

studies in landscape must have been attended with rapid success, for it is well known that he had pupils in that line while at Rome, and his works were so much esteemed, that Mengs painted his portrait, for which Wilson in return painted a landscape.

"He remained abroad six years, having left England in 1749, whither he returned in 1755. His residence in London, after his return, was over the north arcade of the Piazza, Covent Garden. He afterwards lived in Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square, and also in Great Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, in apartments which have been since occupied by Mr. Theed, the sculptor. Besides the above-mentioned, he is said to have had several other places of abode, following his great instructress, Nature, into the fields, in Mary-la-Bonne, and changing his quarters as often as his view was intercepted by the erection of a landscape, than to his pecuniary circumstances. At one new building, with more regard, perhaps, to his love of period he resided at the corner of Foley Place, Great Portland Street. His last abode in London was at a mean house in Tottenham Street, Tottenham Court Road, in which he occupied the first and second floors, almost with

out furniture.

"To the first exhibition of 1760, in the Great Room at Spring Gardens, be sent his picture of Niobe, which confirmed the reputation he had previously gained as a landscape painter. It was bought by William Duke of Cumberland, and it came afterwards into the possession of His Royal Highness the Duke of Gloucester. In 1765, he exhibited, with other pictures, a View of Rome, from the villa Madama,' or rather, perhaps, from the neighbourhood of the Monte Mario; a capital performance, which was purchased

"Wilson, probably, might have remained ignorant of the peculiar bent of his talents, but for the following circumstance: One day, while waiting for the coming home of Zucarelli, upon whom he had called at Venice, he made a sketch in oil from the window of the apartment, with which that artist was so highly pleased, that he strongly recommended him to apply himself to landscape painting. Another occurrence, which happened not long afterwards, tended to confirm him in his inclination to follow that pur-by the late Marquis of Tavistock. suit. The celebrated French painter, Vernet, whose works, "At the institution of the Royal Academy, Wilson was at that period, were held in the highest estimation, hap-|| chosen one of the founders; and after the death of Hayman pening one day, while both these artists were studying at he solicited the situation of librarian, which he retained Rome, to visit Wilson's painting room, was so struck with until he retired into Wales. He appears to have possessed a landscape he had painted, that he requested to become the powers of his mind when every thing else almost the possessor of it, offering in exchange one of his best seemed to have failed him; and during the last two years pictures; the proposal was readily accepte d, and the pic-of his life,' as Sir George Beaumont, who was well acture delivered to Vernet, who, with a liberality as com- quainted with Wilson, very obligingly informs me, 'a feeble mendable as it is rare, placed it in his exhibition room, and flash of what he once was would occasionally burst out, and recommended the painter of it to the particular attention his sound and unerring principles produced a considerable of the cognoscenti, as well as to the English nobility and effect. I have, continues this gentleman, a small picture gentry, who happened to be visiting the city. Don't talk done by him in this last stage; and although it is nearly of my landscapes, when you have so clever a fellow in your void of form, and the trembling hand, and failing eye, countryman Wilson,' was the observation of this liberal visible in every touch, yet still there is a general effect, French artist. supported by breadth and hue, which a judicious imitator might transform into a Wilson.'

·

brother, in Mould, and with his relation, the late Mrs. "The last years of Wilson's life were passed with his Catherine Jones, of Colomondie, near the village of Llanverris, now called Loggerheads, a few miles from Mould. At the time of his residence in that neighbourhood, he had nearly lost his memory, and was reduced to a state of childishness. Richard Lloyd, a servant, living not many years ago at Colomondie, attended him in his last moments: he at first only complained of a cold, but upon retiring to bed, almost immediately expired. His remains are interred in the churchyard at Mould, near the north door of the church: a gravestone has been erected within these few

"Though there is reason to believe that Wilson had painted some landscapest before he went abroad, yet it is certain that he did not commence a regular course in that study until after he had been sometime in Italy. When he began, however, he did not waste his time, nor subjugate his powers to the unimproving drudgery of copying pictures of the old masters, but contented himself with making his observations upon their works, and afterwards confirming those observations by his studies from nature. In consequence of this prudent method of cultivating his talents, he wisely avoided any decided imitation of the pictures of the Italian masters who preceded him, and at once struck out a manner, both of execution and design, which was classical, grand, and original. "Of the originality of his style we are convinced, by in-years by Mrs. Garnons, upon which is the following inscription: viz. The Remains of Richard Wilson, Esq. specting his works, and in most of them he has represented Member of the Royal Academy of Artists, interred May the general character of Italy, with more decided precision than can be found in the works of his predecessors. His 15th, 1782, Aged 69.

Edwards's Anecdotes of Painters."

"There is a print, engraved by J. S. Miller, from a picture painted by R. Wilson, a View of Dover, without date, but generally supposed to have been executed before he went abroad."

"For the foregoing particulars I am chiefly indebted to Miss Garnons, a lady residing at a short distance from Colomondie, by whose polite attention they were furnished at my particular request.

count of this celebrated artist, of whom so little appears to "With a view, however, of obtaining some further ac

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