Chapter IX: Part II (4)

One of Lawrence’s most remarkable male portraits is that of Curran: under mean and harsh features, a genius of the highest order lay concealed, like a sweet kernel in a rough husk; and so little of the true man did Lawrence perceive in his first sittings, that he almost laid down his palette in despair, in the belief that he could make nothing but a common or vulgar work. The parting hour came, and with it the great Irishman burst out in all his strength. He discoursed on art, on poetry, on Ireland; his eyes flashed, and his colour heightened; and his rough and swarthy visage seemed, in the sight of the astonished painter, to come fully within his own notions of manly beauty. “I never saw you till now,” said the artist, in his softest tone of voice; “you have sat to me in a mask; do give me a sitting of Curran, the orator.” Curran complied, and a fine portrait, with genius on its brow, was the consequence.

Allan Cunningham, whose Memoir of Lawrence we quote, states how he gradually raised his prices for portraits as he advanced to fame. In 1802, his charge for a three-quarter size was thirty guineas; for a half-length, sixty guineas; and for a whole-length, one hundred and twenty guineas. In 1806, the three-quarters rose to fifty guineas; and the whole length to two hundred. In 1808, he rose the smallest size to eighty guineas, and the largest to three hundred and twenty guineas; and in 1810, when the death of Hoppner swept all rivalry out of the way, he increased the price of the heads to one hundred, and the full-lengths to four hundred guineas. He knew--none better--that the opulent loved to possess what was rare, and beyond the means of poorer men to purchase; and the growing crowds of his sitters told him that his advance in price had not been ill received.

OPIE AND NORTHCOTE.

It was the lot of Northcote to live long in something like a state of opposition to Opie. They were both engaged in historical pictures, by the same adventurous alderman, (Boydell,) and acquitted themselves in a way which, with many, left themselves in a balance. In after life, when Opie had ceased to be in any one’s way, Northcote would recal, without any bitterness, their days of rivalry. “Opie,” said he to Hazlitt, “was a man of sense and observation: he paid me the compliment of saying, that we should have been the best of friends in the world if we had not been rivals. I think he had more 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 dinner-time with a ridiculous controversy about Milton and Shakspeare. I am sure neither of us had the least notion which was right; and when I was heartily ashamed of it, a foolish citizen added to my confusion by saying, ‘Lor! what I would give to hear two such men as you talk every day!’ On another occasion, when on his way to Devonport, Opie parted with him where the road branches off for Cornwall. He said to those who were on the coach with him, ‘That’s Opie, the painter.’ ‘Is it, indeed!’ they all cried, and upbraiding Northcote for not informing them sooner. Upon this, he contrived, by way of experiment, to try the influence of his own name; but his fame had not reached the enlightened ‘outsides;’ and the painter confessed he felt mortified.”--_Cunningham._

ORIGIN OF KIT-KAT PICTURES.

In Shire-lane, Temple Bar, is said to have originated the famous Kit-Kat Club, which consisted of thirty-nine distinguished noblemen and gentlemen zealously attached to the protestant succession of the house of Hanover. The club is supposed to have been named from Christopher Kat, a pastry-cook, who kept the house where the members dined; and who excelled in making mutton-pies, which were always in the bill of fare, these pies being called kit-kats. Jacob Tonson, the bookseller, was secretary to the club. “You have heard of the Kit-Kat Club,” says Pope to Spencer. Sir Richard Steele, Addison, Congreve, Garth, Vanburgh, Manwaring, Stepney, and Walpole, belonged to it.

Tonson, whilst secretary, caused the club meetings to be transferred to a house belonging to himself at Barn Elms, and built a handsome room for the accommodation of the members. The portrait of each member was painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller; but, the apartment not being sufficiently large to receive half-length pictures, a shorter canvas was adopted; and hence the technical term of kit-kat size. Garth wrote the verses for the toasting-glass of this club, which, as they are preserved in his works, have immortalized four of the reigning beauties at the commencement of the last century--Lady Carlisle, Lady Essex, Lady Hyde, and Lady Wharton.

In 1817, the club-room was standing, and was the property of Mr. Hoare, the London banker. Sir Richard Phillips visited it at this date, when it was sadly in decay. It was 18 feet high, and 40 feet long, by 20 wide. The mouldings and ornaments were in the most superb fashion of the last century; but the whole was falling to pieces from the effects of dry-rot. There was the faded cloth-hanging of the walls, whose red colour once set off the famous portraits of the club that hung around it. Their marks and sizes were still visible, and the numbers and names remained as written in chalk for the guidance of the hanger! “Thus,” says Sir Richard, “was I, as it were, by these still legible names, brought into personal contact with Addison, and Steele, and Congreve, and Garth, and Dryden, and with many _hereditary_ nobles, remembered only because they were patrons of those _natural_ nobles!--I read their names aloud!--I invoked their departed spirits!--I was appalled by the echo of my own voice! The holes in the floor, the forests of cobwebs in the windows, and a swallow’s nest in the corner of the ceiling, proclaimed that I was viewing a vision of the dreamers of a past age--that I saw realized before me the speaking vanities of the anxious career of man! The blood of the reader of sensibility will thrill as mine thrilled! It was feeling without volition, and therefore incapable of analysis!”

Not long after this the club-room was united to a barn, to form a riding-house. The kit-kat pictures were painted early in the eighteenth century, and about the year 1710, were brought to this spot; but the club-room was not built till ten or fifteen years afterwards. The paintings were forty-two in number, and were presented by the members to the elder Tonson, who died in 1736. He left them to his great nephew, also an eminent bookseller, who died in 1767. They were then removed from the building at Barn-Elms, to the house of his brother, at Water-Oakley, near Windsor; and on his death, to the house of Mr. Baker, of Hertingfordbury, where they were splendidly lodged, and in fine preservation. We are not aware if the collection has been dispersed.

COPLEY’S LARGE PICTURE.

Copley, the father of Lord Lyndhurst, painted a vast picture of the Relief afforded to the Crew of the Enemy’s Gun-boats on their taking fire at the Siege of Gibraltar. The painting was immense, and it was managed by means of a roller, so that any portion of it, at any time, might be easily seen or executed. The artist himself was raised on a platform. The picture was at length completed, and a most signal mark of royal favour was granted the painter, by his receiving permission to erect a tent in the Green Park for its exhibition. It attracted thousands. Beneath the principal subjects, in small, was painted Lord Howe’s relief of the garrison of Gibraltar; and the portraits of Lords Heathfield and Howe, (heads only,) occupied each one side of this smaller subject.

When Copley’s magnificent picture, afterwards hung up in the Egyptian darkness of the Council-room in Guildhall, was first exhibited, Dr. Dibdin one day placed himself in front of it, and was sketching the portrait of Lord Heathfield with a pencil on the last blank page of the catalogue, when some one to his right exclaimed, “Pretty well, but you give too much nose.” The Doctor turned round--it was the artist himself, who smiled, and commended his efforts.

SIR ROBERT KERR PORTER’S PANORAMA.

Mr. (subsequently Sir) Robert Kerr Porter, at the age of nineteen produced a performance at once inconceivable and unparalleled--the panorama of _the Storming and Capture of Seringapatam_. It was not the very first thing of its kind, because there had been a panorama of London exhibited in Leicester Fields by Mr. Barker; but it was the very first thing of its kind, if artist-like attainments be considered. The learned, (says Dr. Dibdin,) were amazed, and the unlearned were enraptured. I can never forget its impression upon my own mind. It was a thing dropt from the clouds--all fire, energy, intelligence, and animation. You looked a second time; the figures moved, and were commingled in hot and bloody fight. You saw the flash of the cannon, the glitter of the bayonet, the gleam of the falchion. You longed to be leaping from crag to crag with Sir David Baird, who is hallooing the men on to victory! Then again, you seemed to be listening to the groans of the wounded and the dying--and more than one female was carried out swooning. The oriental dress, the jewelled turban, the curved and ponderous scimitar--these were among the prime objects of favouritism with Sir Robert’s pencil: and he touched and treated them to the very spirit and letter of the truth. The colouring, too, was good and sound throughout. The accessories were strikingly characteristic--rock, earth, and water, had its peculiar and happy touch; and the accompaniments about the sally-port, half choked up with the bodies of the dead, made you look on with a shuddering awe, and retreat as you shuddered. The public poured in by hundreds and by thousands for even a transient gaze--for such a sight was altogether as marvellous as it was novel. You carried it home, and did nothing but think of it, talk of it, and dream of it. And all this by a young man of nineteen.

Miss Jane Porter, Sir Robert’s sister, wrote for Dr. Dibdin a very interesting narrative of this extraordinary work.

“It was two hundred and odd feet long,” says Miss Porter; “the
proportioned height I have now forgotten. But I remember, when I
first saw the vast expense of vacant canvas stretched along, or
rather in a semicircle, against the wall of the great room in the
Lyceum, where he painted it, I was terrified at the daring of his
undertaking. I could not conceive that he could cover that immense
space with the subject he intended, under a year’s time at least,
but--and it is indeed marvellous!--he did it in SIX WEEKS! But he
worked on it every day (except Sundays) during those weeks, from
sunrise until dark. It was finished during the time the committees
of the Royal Academy were sitting at Somerset House, respecting
the hanging of the pictures there for that year’s exhibition;
therefore it must have been towards the latter end of April. No
artist had seen the painting of Seringapatam during its progress;
but when it was completed, my brother invited his revered old
friend, Mr. West, (the then President of the Royal Academy,) to
come and look at the picture, and give him his opinion of it, ere
it should be opened to the public view. * * * Mr. West went over
from the Lyceum, on the morning on which he had called to see my
brother and his finished painting, to Somerset House, where the
Committee had been awaiting his presence above an hour. ‘What has
detained our President so long?’ inquired Sir Thomas Lawrence of
him, on his entrance. ‘A wonder!’ returned he, ‘a wonder of the
world!--I never saw anything like it!--a picture of two hundred
feet dimensions, painted by that boy KERR PORTER, in six weeks! and
as admirably done as it could have been by the best historical
painter amongst us in as many months!’ You, my dear Sir, need no
description of this picture; you saw it; and at the time of its
exhibition you also must have heard of, and probably also saw, some
of the affecting effects the truth of its pictorial war-tale had on
many of the female spectators.

“After its exhibition closed, it was deposited, packed upon a
roller, in a friend’s warehouse. Thence, some circumstances caused
it to be removed successively to other places of supposed similar
security, but in one of which I believe it finally perished by the
accidental burning down of the premises. The original sketches of
this ‘noble and stupendous effort of art,’ as you so truly call it,
are now in my own possession; and you may believe I value them as
the apple of my eye. I must not forget to mention, with regard to
Seringapatam, that had our British government, at the time of my
brother’s ardour for these paintings, possessed a building large
enough for the purpose, he would have presented his country with
that picture, and three others on British historical subjects, to
form a perpetual exhibition for the benefit of its military and
naval hospitals. Mr. Pitt lamented to him the impossibility then,
of commanding such a building; so the project fell to the ground.
The last of these intended four pictures was that of ‘_The Battle
of Agincourt_,’ which my brother afterwards presented to the city
of London, where it was hung up in the Egyptian Hall of the Mansion
House. Some alterations in the room occasioned its being taken down
for a temporary purpose; but it never saw the light again until
_last year_, when (after above a dozen years oblivion in--nobody
knew where), it was accidentally found in one of the vaulted
chambers under Guildhall. When disentombed, it was hastily spread
out against one of the walls of the great hall itself, and
announced, in the newspapers, as a picture of _unknown antiquity_,
of some also unknown but evidently distinguished artist; and most
probably it had been deposited in those vaults for security, at the
_great fire of London_, and had remained there, unsuspected, ever
since! The hall was thronged, day after day, to see it; and Sir
Martin Shee told me, that so great was the mysterious valuation the
discovery had put on it, that he heard he had been quoted as having
passed his opinion on it, that ‘it was a picture worth £15,000!’
Without proper safeguards behind the canvas, a long exposure on the
wall would have injured the picture; and it was taken down again
before I came to London, after having heard of the discovery of the
‘_Agincourt_’--for I immediately recognised what, and whose, the
picture was--and hastened to inform the present gentlemen of the
city corporation accordingly.”

Such is the affectionate narrative from the pen of the youthful painter’s sister.

ZOFFANI AND GEORGE III.

Zoffani was employed by George III. to paint a scene from Reynolds’s _Speculation_, in which Quick, Munden, and Miss Wallis were introduced. The King called at the artist’s to see the work in progress; and at last it was done, “all but the _coat_.” The picture, however, was not sent to the palace, and the King repeated his visit. Zoffani, with some embarrassment, said, “It is all done but the goat.” “Don’t tell me,” said the impatient monarch; “this is always the way. You said it was done all but the coat the last time I was here.” “I said the goat, and please your Majesty,” replied the artist. “Ay!” rejoined the King; “the goat or the coat, I care not which you call it; I say I will not have the picture,” and was about to leave the room, when Zoffani, in agony, repeated, “It is the _goat_ that is not finished,” pointing to a picture of a goat that hung up in a frame, as an ornament to the scene at the theatre. The King laughed heartily at the blunder, and waited patiently till “the goat” was finished.

THE TRUE FORNARINA.

In the year 1644, Cosmo, the son of Ferdinand II. de Medici, undertook a journey, an account of which was written at the time by Philipe Pizzichi, his travelling chaplain. This work was published at Florence, in 1829. It contains some curious notices of persons and things, and, among others, what will interest every lover of the fine arts. Speaking of Verona, the diarist mentions the Curtoni Gallery of Paintings, in which “the picture most worthy of attention is the Lady of Raffaello, so carefully finished by himself, and so well preserved, that it surpasses every other.” The editor of these travels has satisfactorily shown that Raffaello’s lady here described is the true Fornarina; so that of the three likenesses of her said to be executed by this eminent artist, the genuine one is the Veronese, belonging to the Curtoni Gallery, then the property of a Lady Cavalini Brenzoni, who obtained it by inheritance.

HOGARTH AND BISHOP HOADLY.

Upon pulling down the Bishop’s palace at Chelsea, many years ago, a singular discovery was made. In a small room near the north front were found, on the plaster of the walls, nine figures as large as life, three men and six women, drawn in outline, with black chalk, in a bold and animated style. Of these correct copies have been published. They display much of the manner of Hogarth, who, it is well known, lived on intimate terms with Bishop Hoadly, and frequently visited his lordship at this palace; and it is supposed that these figures apply to some incident in the Bishop’s family, or to some scene in a play. His lordship’s partiality for the drama is well known. His brother, who resided in Chelsea, at Cremorne House, wrote one of the best comedies in the English language--_The Provoked Husband_.

SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS’S PALETTE.

Mr. Cribb, of King-street, Covent Garden, has (1848), in his collection of memorials of men of genius, a palette which belonged to Sir Joshua Reynolds. It descended to Mr. Cribb from his father, who received it from Sir Joshua’s niece, the Marchioness of Thomond. It is of plain mahogany, and measures 11 inches by 7 inches, oblong in form, with a sort of loop handle.

Cunningham tells us that Sir Joshua’s sitters’ chair moved on castors, and stood above the floor a foot and a half. He _held his palettes by a handle_, and the sticks of his brushes were 18 inches long. The following memoranda are dated 1755:--“For painting the flesh, black, blue-black, white, lake, carmine, orpiment, yellow ochre, ultramarine, and varnish. To lay the palette: first lay, carmine and white in different degrees; second lay, orpiment and white ditto; third lay, blue-black and white ditto. The first sitting, for expedition, make a mixture as like the sitter’s complexion as you can.”

SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS’ BENEVOLENCE.

Sir Joshua once hearing of a young artist who had become embarrassed by an injudicious marriage, and was on the point of being arrested, immediately hurried to his residence, to inquire into the case. The unfortunate artist told the melancholy particulars of his situation; adding, that £40 would enable him to compound with his creditors. After some further conversation, Sir Joshua took his leave, telling the distressed painter he would do something for him. When bidding him adieu at the door, Sir Joshua took him by the hand, and, after squeezing it cordially, hurried off with a benevolent triumph in his heart--while the astonished and relieved artist found in his hand a banknote for £100!

A TRIUMPH OF PAINTING.

The anecdotes of the dog which menaced a goat depicted by the faithful pencil of Glover, and of the macaw, which, with beak and wings, attacked the portrait of a female servant painted by Northcote, are well known. Two family portraits, painted by Mr. J. P. Knight, were one day sent home, when they were instantly recognised with great joy by a spaniel which had been a favourite with the originals. On being taken into the room, and perceiving the canvas thus stamped with identity even to illusion, the faithful dog endeavoured, by every demonstration of affection, to attract the notice of her former friends; and was with difficulty withheld by one of the bystanders from leaping upon them, and overwhelming them with her caresses. This interesting recognition continued for many minutes, and was repeated on the next and following days; until finding, doubtless, that the scent was wanting, poor “Flossy” slunk away abashed, in evident mortification that her well-known playfellows were so regardless of her proffered kindness. Yet, turning upon them both alternately many a wistful look, she seemed unwilling to be convinced, even by experience, that she had thus mistaken the shadow for the substance.

MORLAND AT KENSAL-GREEN.

The Plough public-house at Kensal-green, on the road to Harrow, was a favourite resort of George Morland. Here this errant son of genius was wont to indulge in deep potations. He lodged hard by, and was frequently in company with Ward, the painter, whose example of moral steadiness was exhibited to him in vain. While at Kensal-green, Morland fell in love with Miss Ward, a young lady of beauty and modesty, and soon afterwards married her; she was the sister of his friend, the painter; and to make the family union stronger, Ward sued for the hand of Maria Morland, and in about a month after his sister’s marriage, obtained it.

Morland’s courtship and honeymoon drew him from the orgies at the Plough, but on returning to the metropolis, he betook himself to his former habits. Yet, with all his dissipation, Morland was not indolent; as is attested by four thousand pictures, most of them of great merit, which he painted during a life of forty years.

Among Morland’s portraits is one which has become of peculiar historical interest: it is a small whole-length of William the Fourth when a midshipman. The sailor-prince is looking wistfully upon the sea, which he loved far dearer than the cumbrous splendour of a crown.

ORIGIN OF THE TAPESTRY IN THE OLD HOUSE OF LORDS.

Henry Cornelius Vroom, the Dutchman, having painted a number of devout subjects, started for Spain to sell them; but was cast away upon a small island near the coast of Portugal. The painter and some of the crew were relieved by monks, who lived among the rocks, and they conducted them to Lisbon, where Vroom was engaged by a picture-dealer to paint the storm he had just escaped. In this picture he succeeded so well, that the Portuguese dealer continued to employ him. He improved so much in sea-pieces that he saved money, returned home, and applied himself exclusively to that class of painting. He then lived at Haerlem, where he was employed to design the suite of tapestry representing the Defeat of the Spanish Armada, which hung for many years upon the walls of the House of Lords, at Westminster. It had been bespoken by Lord Howard of Effingham, the Lord High Admiral of the English Fleet, which engaged the Armada; it was sold by him to James the First. It consisted originally of ten compartments, forming separate pictures, each of which was surrounded by a wrought border, including the portraits of the officers who held command in the English fleet. This tapestry was woven, according to Sandrart, by Francis Spiering: it was destroyed in the fire which consumed the two Houses of Parliament, in 1834. Fortunately, engravings from these hangings were executed by Mr. John Pine, and published in 1739, with illustrations from charters, medals, &c.

MELANCHOLY OF PAINTERS.

The following summary of the fortunes of painters is at once curious and interesting:--

“One must confess that if the poets were an order of beings of too great sensibility for this world, the painters laboured still more under this malady of genius. Zoppo, a sculptor, having accidentally broken the _chef d’œuvre_ of his efforts, destroyed himself. Chendi poisoned himself, because he was only moderately applauded for the decorations of a tournament. Louis Caracci died of mortification because he could not set right a foot in a fresco, the wrong position of which he did not perceive till the scaffolding was taken away. Cavedone lost his talent from grief at his son’s death, and begged his bread from want of commissions. Schidone, inspired with the passion of play, died of despair to have lost all in one night. There was one who languished, and was no more from seeing the perfection of Raphael. Torrigini, to avoid death at the hands of the Spanish Inquisition, put an end to himself, having broken to pieces his own statue of the Virgin, an avaricious hidalgo, who had ordered it, higgling at the price. Bandinelli died, losing a commission for a statue; Daniel de Volterra, from anxiety to finish a monument to Henry IV. of France. Cellini frequently became unwell in the course of his studies, from the excitement of his feelings. When one sums up the history of painters with the furious and bloody passions of a Spagnoletto, and Caravaggio, Tempeste, and Calabrese, one must suppose all their sensibilities much stronger than those of the rest of mankind.”

THE CHANDOS PORTRAIT OF SHAKSPEARE.

This far-famed picture, believed to be the only genuine portrait of the poet, was bought at the sale at Stowe, in the autumn of 1848, by the Earl of Ellesmere, for 355 guineas. Its history, as stated in the _Athenæum_ shortly after the period of the sale, is as follows:--“The Duke of Chandos obtained it by marriage with the daughter and heiress of a Mr. Nicholl, of Minchenden House, Southgate; Mr. Nicholl obtained it from a Mr. Robert Keck, of the Inner Temple, who gave (the first and best) Mrs. Barry, the actress, as Oldys tells us, forty guineas for it. Mrs. Barry had it from Betterton, and Betterton had it from Sir William Davenant, who was a professed admirer of Shakspeare, and not unwilling to be thought his son. Davenant was born in 1605, and died in 1668; and Betterton, (as every reader of Pepys will recollect,) was the great actor, belonging to the Duke’s Theatre, of which Davenant was the patentee. The elder brother of Davenant, (Parson Robert,) had been heard to relate, as Aubrey informs us, that Shakspeare had often kissed Sir William when a boy.

“Davenant lived quite near enough to Shakspeare’s time to have obtained a genuine portrait of the poet whom he admired--in an age, too, when the Shakspeare mania was not so strong as it is now. There is no doubt that this was the portrait which Davenant believed to be like Shakspeare, and which Kneller, before 1692, copied and presented to glorious John Dryden, who repaid the painter with one of the best of his admirable epistles.

“The Chandos Shakspeare is a small portrait on canvas, 22 inches long by 18 broad. The face is thoughtful, the eyes are expressive, and the hair is of a brown black. The dress is black, with a white turnover collar, the strings of which are loose. There is a small gold ring in the left ear. We have had an opportunity of inspecting it both before and after the sale, and in the very best light, and have no hesitation in saying that the copies we have seen of it are very far from like. It agrees in many respects--the short nose especially--with the Stratford bust, and is not more unlike the engraving before the first folio--or the Gerard Johnson bust on the Stratford monument--than Raeburn’s Sir Walter Scott is unlike Sir Thomas Lawrence’s--or West’s Lord Byron unlike the better known portrait by Phillips. It has evidently been touched upon; the yellow oval that surrounds it has a look of Kneller’s age.”

The opinion of the writer in the _Athenæum_ is, that the Chandos picture is not the original for which Shakspeare sat, but a copy made for Sir William Davenant from some known and acknowledged portrait of the poet.

COSTUME OF REYNOLDS’S PORTRAITS.

Sir Joshua Reynolds has done more than any one else to vindicate the art of portrait-painting as indigenous to our country--he has started it afresh from its lethargy and recovered it from its errors--placed himself at once above all his countrymen who had preceded him, and has remained above all who have followed. Like Holbein and Vandyke, Sir Joshua put his stamp upon the times; or rather, like a true artist and philosopher, he took that aggregate impression which the times gave. Each has doubtless given his sitters a character of his own; but this is not our argument. Each has also made his sitters what the costume of the time contributed to make them. If Vandyke’s women are dignified and lofty, it is his doing, for he was dignified and lofty in all his compositions; if they are also childish and trivial, it is the accident of the costume; for he was never either in his other pictures. If Reynolds’s sitters are all simple, earnest, and sober, it is because he was the artist, for he was so in all he touched; if they are also stately, refined, and intellectual, it was the effect of the costume, for he was not so in his other conceptions. For instance, Lady St. Asaph, with her infant, lolling on a couch, in a loose tumbled dress, with her feet doubled under her, is sober and respectable looking--in spite of dress and position. Mrs. Hope, in an enormous cabbage of a cap, with her hair over her eyes, is blowsy and vulgar in spite of Reynolds.

To our view, the average costume of Sir Joshua was excessively beautiful. We go through a gallery of his portraits with feelings of intense satisfaction, that there should have been a race of women who could dress so decorously, so intellectually, and withal so becomingly. Not a bit of the costume appeals to any of the baser instincts. There is nothing to catch the vulgar, or fix the vicious. All is pure, noble, serene, benevolent. They seem as if they would care for nothing we could offer them, if our deepest reverence were not with it. We stand before them like Satan before Eve, “stupidly good,” ready to abjure all the fallacies of the Fathers, all the maxims of the moderns--ready to eat our own words if they disapproved them--careless what may have been the name or fame, family or fortune, of such lofty and lovely creatures--yea, careless of their very beauty, for the _soul_ that shines through it. And then to think that they are all dead!--_Quarterly Review._

SIGN PAINTERS IN THEIR PRIME.

Before the change that took place in the general appearance of London, soon after the accession of George III., the universal use of signs, not only for taverns and ale-houses, but also for tradesmen, furnished no small employment for the inferior rank of painters, and sometimes even for the superior professors. Cotton painted several good ones; but among the most celebrated practitioners in this branch, was a person of the name of Lamb, who possessed a considerable degree of ability. His pencil was bold and masterly, well adapted to the subjects on which it was generally employed. Mr. Wale, who was one of the founders of the Royal Academy, and appointed the first Professor of Perspective in that institution, also painted some signs; the principal one was a full-length of Shakspeare, about five feet high, which was executed for and displayed before the door of a public-house at the corner of Little Russel Street, Drury Lane. It was enclosed in a sumptuously carved gilt frame, and suspended by rich iron-work. But this splendid object of popular attraction did not stand long before it was taken down, in consequence of an Act of Parliament that was passed for paving, and removing the signs and other obstructions from, the streets of London. Such was the total change of fashion, and the consequent disuse of signs, that this representation of the immortal bard was sold for a trifle to a broker, at whose door it stood for several years, until it was totally destroyed by the weather and other accidents.

A BRIBE REPENTED.

The Duchess of Kingston was very anxious to be received by some crowned head, as the only means of relief from the disgrace fixed upon her by her trial and conviction for bigamy. The Court of Russia was chosen, where pictures were sent as presents, not only to the Sovereign, but to the most powerful of the nobles. Count Tchernicheff was represented to the Duchess as an exalted character, to whom she ought, in policy, to pay her especial _devoirs_. Feeling the force of the observation, she sent him two paintings. The Duchess was no judge of pictures, and a total stranger to the value of these pieces, which were originals by Raphael and Claude Lorraine. The Count was soon apprised of this, and, on the arrival of the Duchess at St. Petersburg, he waited on her Grace, and professed his gratitude for the present, at the same time assuring the Duchess that the pictures were estimated at a value in Russian money equal to ten thousand pounds sterling. The Duchess could with the utmost difficulty conceal her chagrin. She told the Count “that she had other pictures, which she should consider it an honour if he would accept; that the two paintings in his possession were particularly the favourites of her departed lord; but that the Count was extremely kind in permitting them to occupy a place in his palace, until her mansion was properly prepared.” This palpable hint was not taken.

PRACTICAL JOKES OF SWARTZ.

J. Swartz, a distinguished German painter, having engaged to execute a roof-piece in a public townhall, and to paint by the day, grew exceedingly negligent; so that the magistrates and overseers of the work were frequently obliged to hunt him out of the tavern. Seeing he could not drink in quiet, he one morning stuffed a pair of stockings and shoes corresponding with those that he wore, hung them down betwixt his staging where he sat to work, removed them a little once or twice a-day, and took them down at noon and night; and by means of this deception he drank without the least disturbance a whole fortnight together, the innkeeper being in the plot. The officers came in twice a-day to look at him; and, seeing a pair of legs hanging down, suspected nothing, but greatly extolled their convert Swartz as the most laborious and conscientious painter in the world.

Swartz had once finished an admirable picture of our Saviour’s Passion, on a large scale, and in oil colours. A certain Cardinal was so well pleased with it, that he resolved to bring the Pope to see it. Swartz knew the day, and, determined to put a trick on the Pope and the Cardinal, painted over the oil, in fine water-colours, the twelve disciples at supper, but all together by the ears, like the Lapithæ and the Centaurs. At the time appointed, the Pope and Cardinal came to see the picture. Swartz conducted them to the room where it hung. They stood amazed, and thought the painter mad. At length the Cardinal said, “Idiot, dost thou call this a Passion?” “Certainly I do,” said Swartz. “But,” replied the Cardinal, “show me the picture I saw when here last.” “This is it,” said Swartz, “for I have no other finished in the house.” The Cardinal angrily denied that it was the same. Swartz, unwilling or afraid to carry the joke further, requested that they would retire a few minutes out of his room. No sooner had they done so, than Swartz, with a sponge and warm water, obliterated the whole of the water-colour coating; then, re-introducing the Pope and the Cardinal, he presented them with a most beautiful picture of the Passion. They stood astonished, and thought Swartz a necromancer. At last the painter explained the mystery; and then, as the old chroniclers say, “they knew not which most to admire, his work or his wit.”

AN ENCOURAGEMENT TO FRANKNESS.

Richardson, in his anecdotes of painting, tells the following:--“Some years ago, a gentleman came to me to invite me to his house. ‘I have,’ said he, ‘a picture of Rubens, and it is a rare good one. Little H----the other day came to see it, and says it is a copy. If any one says so again, _I’ll break his head_. Pray, Mr. Richardson, will you do me the favour to come and _give me your real opinion of it_?’ ”

THE END.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Southey’s Life of John Bunyan.

[2] In his Comic Miscellanies.

[3] Supported by the following note, written by Dr. Parr, in his copy of “The Letters of Junius:”--“The writer of ‘Junius’ was Mr. Lloyd, secretary to George Grenville, and brother to Philip Lloyd, Dean of Norwich. This will one day or other be generally acknowledged.--S. P.”

[4] Personal Recollections of the late Daniel O’Connell, M.P. By William J. O’N. Daunt.

[5] See, also, an ensuing page, 120.

[6] Johnson, by the way, had a strange nervous feeling, which made him uneasy if he had not touched every post between the Mitre Tavern and his own lodgings.

[7] The house has been destroyed many years.

[8] “The Dyotts,” notes Croker, “are a respectable and wealthy family, still residing near Lichfield. The royalist who shot Lord Brooke when assaulting St. Chad’s Cathedral, in Lichfield, on St. Chad’s Day, was a Mr. Dyott.”

[9] “I have seen,” says a Correspondent of the _Inverness Courier_, “a copy of the second edition of Burns’s ‘Poems,’ with the blanks filled up, and numerous alterations made in the poet’s handwriting: one instance, not the most delicate, but perhaps the most amusing and characteristic will suffice. After describing the gambols of his ‘Twa Dogs,’ their historian refers to their sitting down in coarse and rustic terms. This, of course, did not suit the poet’s Edinburgh patrons, and he altered it to the following:--

’Till tired at last, and doucer grown,
Upon a knowe they sat them down.’

Still this did not please his fancy; he tried again, and hit it off in the simple, perfect form in which it now stands:--

‘Until wi’ daffin weary grown,
Upon a knowe they sat them down.’ ”

[10] Campbell’s alterations were, generally, decided improvements; but in one instance he failed lamentably. The noble peroration of Lochiel is familiar to most readers:--

“Shall victor exult, or in death be laid low,
With his back to the field and his feet to the foe;
And leaving in battle no blot on his name,
Look proudly to heaven from the death-bed of fame.”

In the quarto edition of _Gertrude of Wyoming_, when the poet collected and reprinted his minor pieces, this lofty sentiment was thus stultified:--

“Shall victor exult in the battle’s acclaim,
Or look to yon heaven from the death-bed of fame.”

The original passage, however, was wisely restored in the subsequent editions.

[11] Abridged from “Practical Essays on the Fine Arts,” by John Burnet, F.R.S., an acute and amusing work.

[12] See Haydon’s graphic letter in Brownlow’s “Memoranda; or, Chronicles of the Foundling Hospital.”

[13] Peg Woffington was for some time President of the Club; and often, after she had been portraying on the stage

“The fair resemblance of a martyr queen,”

she was to be seen in the Club-room, with a pot of porter in her hand, and crying out, “Confusion to all order! let liberty thrive!”

[14] The Germans are great admirers of English art, and a picture by Wilkie has long graced the Gallery of Munich.

[15] There hangs in the Long or Zoological Gallery of the British Museum a portrait of Charles I., when Prince of Wales. The artist by whom this picture was executed is unknown. Neither in the features, nor in the thoughtful expression of countenance, does it resemble the portraits taken in his maturer age: the melancholy which Vandyke has thrown into the celebrated picture of the King, at Windsor Castle, is here wanting; yet this portrait is known to have been amongst those that were sold by order of the Commissioners of the Commonwealth, from the collection at Whitehall.

* * * * *

Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:

just by by chance=> just by chance {pg I,98}

snm of four hundred=> sum of four hundred {pg I,110}

had a great gout=> had a great goût {pg I,124}

proved his downfal=> proved his downfall {pg II,88}

have no hesitatation=> have no hesitation {pg II,126}

End of Project Gutenberg's Anecdotes about Authors and Artists, by John Timbs