f< THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES I MEMORIALS OF AN EIGHTEENTH CENTURT PAINTER (JAMES NOR THCOTE) * * * UNIFORM IN STYLE AND PRICE WITH THIS VOLUME. THE YEAR AFTER THE ARMADA, AND OTHER HISTORICAL STUDIES. By MARTIN A. S. HUME. Illus- trated. Second Edition. LIFE IN THE TUILERIES UNDER THE SECOND EMPIRE, BY AN INMATE OF THE PALACE. By ANNA L. BICXXELL. Illustrated. PRIVATE PAPERS OF WILLIAM WILBERFORCE. Collected and Edited, with a Preface, by A. M. WILBERFORCE. With Portraits. TALKS ABOUT AUTOGRAPHS. By GEORGE BIRKBECK HILL, D.C.L., LL.D. Frontispiece, portrait, and many facsimiles. LETTERS OF DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI TO WIL LIAM ALLINGHAM, 1854 1870. Edited by G. B. HILL. D.C.L., LL.D. Illustrated. LIFE AND LETTERS OF MR. ENDYMION PORTER : Sometime Gentleman of the Bedchamber to King Charles the First. By DOROTHEA TOWXSHEXD. With Portraits. THE STORY OF MARIE ANTOINETTE. By ANNA L. BICKNELL. Illustrated. LONDON: T. FISHER UXWIX. MEMORIALS OF AN EIGHTEENTH I CENTURY PAINTER (James Northcote) By Stephen Gwynn Illustrated London T. FISHER UNWIN UXWIX BROTHERS, WOKIXG AXD LOXDOX. [All rights reserved.] CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE INTRODUCTION .... I i. NORTHCOTE'S BOYHOOD ; OBSTACLES TO HIS BECOMING AN ARTIST. HE RUNS AWAY TO LONDON. .ETATIS 1-25 2 9 II. NORTHCOTE BECOMES A PUPIL OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS . . . . .55 III. ANECDOTES OF SIR JOSHUA'S CIRCLE . 80 IV. NORTHCOTE LEAVES SIR JOSHUA'S HOUSE, AND SETS UP FOR HIMSELF. . HIS JOUR- NEY TO ITALY . . . .IO9 v. OUR PAINTER'S RECEPTION AT ROME; AC- COUNT OF THOSE PERSONS HE KNEW THERE . . . . .136 VI. NORTHCOTE LEAVES ROME; ACCOUNT OF HIS JOURNEY TO SEVERAL CITIES OF ITALY ; AND RETURN TO ENGLAND THROUGH GERMANY . 1 66 1221462 vi CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE VII. OUR ARTIST ARRIVES IN LONDON ; DIFFI- CULTIES HE HAD TO ENCOUNTER. HE IS ELECTED TO THE ACADEMY . 1 90 VIII. COMMOTIONS IN THE ROYAL ACADEMY ; THE PRESIDENT RESIGNS, ETC. CHARACTER OF REYNOLDS . . . . 2IO IX. MISCELLANEOUS GOSSIP . . . 243 APPENDIX List of Northcote's Paintings . . 265 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PORTRAIT OF JAMES NORTHCOTE . Frontispiece (From an Oil Painting by J. H. Harlow, in the posses- sion of E. W. Hennell, Esq.] REDUCED TITLE-PAGE ..... Designed and drawn by James Northcote for his MS. Life. Title-page JAMES NORTHCOTE . . . To face page 120 (From a Pencil Drawing by J. Northcote in his Italian Sketch Book, 1778.) MRS. COSWAY .... To face page 149 (From an Engraving by L. Schiavonctti, after a Minia- ture by Cosway.) SIR J. REYNOLDS . . . To face page 2\Q (From a Pencil Drawing by J. Northcote in his Italian Sketch Book, 1778.) MASTER BETTY .... To face page 249 (From an Engraving by J. Ward, after a Picture by James Northcote.} vii INTRODUCTION JAMES NORTHCOTE is one of the most notable links between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Born early in the reign of George II., he lived to paint the portrait of John Ruskin ; he exhibited with Reynolds and he exhibited with Turner ; he heard Johnson talk to Goldsmith and Garrick speak his mind of Coleman ; and many of these recollections of his youth, recited fifty years later by the veteran, whose mind had lost nothing of its freshness and whose tongue nothing of its Devon twang, were set down from his lips by Hazlitt, no inconspicuous member of a circle not less distinguished than Sir Joshua's. Northcote is remembered more for the sake of others than for himself ; yet it will, I hope, be possible to show that he was at the very least an interesting figure. His merits as an artist, though not remarkable, have probably been under- rated ; and his almost pathetic devotion to the art, which he followed like a desperate lover, deserved 2 INTRODUCTION a better recompense. But his excellence as a gossip was never disputed ; and the object of this book is to gather up and complete the record of his personal recollections. The basis of the volume is a hitherto unpublished autobiography of Northcote's, which has been edited with retrenchments and addi- tions ; but before explaining the circumstances rela- tive to this memoir it is necessary to outline his career. James Northcote was born at Plymouth on October 22, 1746, the son of a watchmaker; re- ceived a very scanty education, and was kept at his father's trade till, at the age of twenty-five, he managed to break away to London, and there, after a brief period, was admitted into the household of Sir Joshua Reynolds as an apprentice and drapery painter. He lived with Reynolds for five years, then set up for himself as a portrait painter, and in a couple of years amassed enough money to allow himself two years in Italy, whence he re- turned in 1780 and established himself in London. The difficulty in obtaining commissions made him take to history painting, and he established his reputation in that branch of the art. His life was prolonged to an exceptional limit with unimpaired faculties. He died on July 13, 1831, at the age of eighty-five, having lived for half a century almost exclusively in his painting-room. His active mind sought an outlet in literature as INTRODUCTION 3 well as on canvas. In 1807 he began to contribute occasionally to periodicals, and in 1809 he wrote a short memoir of Sir Joshua for Britton's " Fine Arts of the British School." In 1813 appeared the Life of his old master, which, with all its defects, remains admittedly the prime source of our know- ledge about Reynolds. The quarto was entitled " Memoirs of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Knt. . . . com- prising Original Anecdotes of many distinguished persons ; his contemporaries, and a brief Analysis of his Discourses. To which are added Varieties on Art." The "Varieties on Art," omitted in the second edition, were simply reprints of Northcote's contributions to the Artist: "The Dream of a Painter," " Letters of a Disappointed Genius," "The Slighted Beauty" (an allegorical satire on the progress of art), and so forth. The volume was, in short, not merely a Life of Reynolds, but a hotchpotch of Northcote's views and reminiscences; and though it shows abundant marks of that shrewd, critical judgment which always distinguished him and charmed so fastidious a listener as Hazlitt, yet there is apparent everywhere the incompetence of an amateur in letters. It is just such a book as one would have expected from such a man ; but rumours have been frequent the assertion is made positively in Prior's Life of Goldsmith that Northcote signed a volume which some one else 4 INTRODUCTION wrote. That is absolutely untrue ; a certain Mr. Laird was employed as Northcote told Hazlitt, and as Hazlitt reported in print to see the book through the press ; but a considerable part of the whole exists in Northcote's own handwriting, though not as a Life of Sir Joshua. It is this manuscript which, by the kindness of its present owner, I have edited in this book. Northcote, as I take it, found the itch of writing increase upon him, and, being fully aware that the period of his early manhood, in which the Royal Academy was founded and organised, had been an epoch of great importance in the history of British art, he determined, in the first place, to preserve an accurate record of it. Secondly, as the sole surviving member of Sir Joshua's personal circle, he found himself the repository of much anecdote which was sought after with increasing eagerness, and this also he proposed to set down in permanent form. Thirdly, he experienced the natural and almost universal desire to perpetrate an auto- biography, and this seemed to him at .first the obvious method of utilising the stores of his memory. He set to work, therefore, about 1810 in all probability, to write a memoir of himself ; but he did so in a curiously shamefaced way. In the fore- front of the book he put an expression of his abstract zeal as a historian of art for the cause of truth. INTRODUCTION 5 " The strong probability that another age may require a history of the Royal Academy of Arts in London and its earliest members has been my chief inducement towards collecting the following circumstances, thus to prevent some future busy compiler of such a work from going wrong in this instance at least, who perhaps might, in want of proper information, choose to invent when his materials were insufficient, or, prompted by mis- informed, officious persons, give a fabricated story, to the injury of truth and the prejudice of good fame ; and when the honour and interest of truth are concerned it certainly behoves us to employ all lawful means in its defence and support. It is therefore desirable that every memoir of this species should have been collected during the life- time of the person recorded, and in some degree under his own inspection, if possible." Further, in addition to this profession of an im- personal object, he adopted a method of narration in the third person. The memoir begins, " James Northcote, whose life I am to write;" and all through it is "James" did this, "James," or very often, "Poor James," suffered that, with occasional lapses into "I" and "my." At some later period he went through the manuscript with a pencil and altered for part of the way to the first person a procedure which in editing him I have followed out. The 6 INTRODUCTION memoir was written in a small quarto notebook, which he illustrated by pasting in sketches of his own or prints of the persons to whom he referred. The narrative describes very fully the circumstances of his leaving home ; then follows a sketch of his life at Sir Joshua's, and a long collection of anec- dotes of the famous circle. From that he passes to his Italian tour, which is very fully given ; then comes a very complete account of his difficulties when he returned home and set up for himself ; and at this point, no doubt for want of definite incidents, the narrative ceases to be continuous. The last thing in the memoir written with any elaboration is the notice of Sir Joshua's death .and a complete estimate of his work and character. Here, if I mistake not, a new idea suggested itself to the author. All the material, except that relating directly to himself, might be used with greater fitness in a Life of Reynolds ; and there could be no doubt that a memoir of the great man was likely to attract incomparably more notice than a volume of personal reminiscences by a not too well- known painter. Accordingly Northcote turned his pen, and set to work on the new undertaking, in- corporating into it all the anecdotes which he had already put into shape, and extending and modi- fying a good deal his criticism of Reynolds. The early life of Sir Joshua is, of course, not related in INTRODUCTION 7 the manuscript, nor are the details as to the founda- tion of the Academy. But from 1770 onwards there is very little in Northcote's published work which he had not already treated in the auto- biography. The history of the little notebook which I have edited can be completely written. Northcote, after abandoning his scheme of publishing its contents, preserved it, and used it as a sort of commonplace book in which he jotted down stray notes of anything which seemed to him exceptionally interesting ; such as his passage of arms with the Duke of Clarence (given at p. 248), or the episode of his encounter with a highway robber. He preserved in it also several lengthy and admirable letters from his brother Samuel, detailing events of note mostly nautical from Plymouth ; and in his old age he stored up in it the fine flower of his press notices (which it would have been too cruel an irony to reproduce after this lapse of time). Finally he wrote down in it the long catalogue of his multi- farious pictures which I print at the end of this book, as likely to have a value for connoisseurs in quest of information. This treasured volume was confided by the old man in the last year of his life to Sir William Knighton, whom he asked to edit it. This, how- ever, was not done ; but Knighton lent the volume 8 INTRODUCTION to Leslie when the latter was engaged upon his Life of Sir Joshua, as Tom Taylor, who published the work, records in his preface. At the sale of Sir William Knighton's library it was bought by a dealer, and found in his shop by my friend Mr. E. W. Hennell, whose good fortune in collecting things of beauty and interest is equal to his judgment and taste. It is by his permission that I have edited it for publication. The early part of Northcote's life and the circum- stances of his joining Reynolds were stated with considerable fulness in a memoir prefixed to the posthumous series of his " Fables " by Edward Southey Rogers (their editor), who had access to a considerable number of Northcote's letters to his relations in Plymouth. Taylor and Leslie gave an account of the same period, condensed from North- cote's own manuscript memoir. The episode of his Italian tour, related at such length by him in this autobiography, is entirely new, and gives a vivid picture of what was then an almost indispensable stage in the training of every artist. But except this section of the book there is nothing absolutely fresh in what is now published, though nothing is given which seems to me likely to be widely familiar. Few artists have been so much written about, and a mere summary of the literature which clusters round Northcote's name will show that INTRODUCTION 9 most of the ground must be well worn. To begin with, a great part of his material had been utilised in the Life of Reynolds, including even one or two anecdotes of himself. After his death there was published an extensive notice in the Gentle-mans Magazine for August, 1831. Allen Cunningham, then at work on the Lives of the British Painters, gave him an intelligent and well-informed biography. E. S. Rogers wrote in 1833 the memoir prefixed to the second series of " Fables," which was not pub- lished till 1845 ; and the writings of contemporary artists abound with references to the odd old figure. But the circumstance to which Northcote owed his sort of secondhand immortality was his intimacy with William Hazlitt. The pair met in 1802 ; North- cote, then close on sixty, was nearly forty years Hazlitt's senior, but the friendship or acquaintance lasted till Hazlitt's death in 1830. Hazlitt had sketched Northcote more than once in print before 1826, when he began to issue in the New Monthly Magazine signing himself " Bos well Redivivus " those conversations with Northcote which were published as a book in 1830, and reissued in 1894 under the editorship of Mr. Edmund Gosse. It will be seen that Northcote's reminiscences are not precisely virgin soil. There are stories in this book which figured first in the Life of Sir Joshua, and afterwards in a more brilliant form among Hazlitt's io INTRODUCTION pages. But I have preferred to include them, even so ; my object being to publish Northcote's memoir of himself with such explanations and additions as the lapse of time has rendered desirable for the average reader, and with such retrenchments as human intolerance of moralising and other con- siderations dictated. The memoir, however, requires to be supple- mented. It gives 'us an excellent picture of the enthusiastic Devonshire lad who accounted it paradise to be let copy at Sir Joshua's ; and of the raw Englishman sent packing, like a portmanteau, through foreign countries. All Northcote's aspira- tions and many of his grievances are there ; but the old man to whom Scott sat in 1828, "the old wizard Northcote, really like an animated mummy," has to be sketched from outside. And here first is the biting picture done by a man who did not like him. It was in 1804 tnat Haydon came to London. Northcote, as being a Plymouth man like himself, was the first artist whom he sought out, having an introduction to him from Prince Hoare. " I went. He lived at 39, Argyll Street. I was shown first into a dirty gallery, then upstairs into a dirtier painting-room, and there, under a high window with the light shining full on his bald, grey head, stood a diminutive, wizened figure in an old INTRODUCTION 11 blue striped dressing-gown, his spectacles pushed up on his forehead. Looking keenly at me with his little shining eyes, he opened the letter, read it, and in the broadest Devon dialect said, ' Zo, you mayne tu bee a peinter, doo'ee ? What zort of peinter?' ' Historical painter, sir.' ' Heestoricaul peinter ! Why, ye'll starve with a bundle of straw under yeer head.' "He then put his spectacles down and read the note again ; put them up, looked maliciously at me and said, ' I remember yeer vather, and yeer grandvather tu ; he used to peint.' ' So I have heard, sir.' ' Ees ; he peinted an elephant once for a tiger, and he asked my vather what colour the indzide of's ears was, and my vather told un reddish, and yeer grandvather went home and peinted un a vine vermilion.' He then chuckled, inwardly enjoying my confusion at this incompre- hensible anecdote. " ' I zee,' he added, ' Mr. Hoare zays you're studying anatomy ; that's no use Sir Joshua didn't know it ; why should you want to know what he didn't ? ' ' But Michael Angelo did, sir.' ' Michael Angelo ! What's he tu du here ? You must peint portraits here.' This roused me and I said, clinch- ing my mouth, ' I won't ! ' ' Won't ! ' screamed the little man, ' but you must ! Your vather isn't a monied man, is he ? ' ' No, sir ; but he has a good 12 INTRODUCTION income and will maintain me for three years.' 'Will he? hee'd better mak'ee mentein yerzelf." So Haydon went away, not for the last time ex- asperated, from the company of "little Aqua-fortis." Fuseli, not a more kindly critic, once described Northcote by saying, "He looks like a rat that has seen a cat." And there is another remark of his which has reference to the extraordinary frugality that in early youth enabled Northcote to become an artist and in old age gained him the reputation of a miser. When the picture of Wat Tyler's death made a great success at the Exhibition of 1787, " Now," said Fuseli, " Northcote will go home, put an extra piece of coal on his fire, and be almost tempted to draw the cork of his one pint of wine when he hears such praise." His old sister, who lived with him and kept his house in Argyll Street, regulated her life on the same principles. North- cote never stirred abroad to pay visits, but delighted to receive them, and talked as he worked. How he talked, let Hazlitt describe. " The best converser I know is the best listener. I mean Mr. Northcote the painter. Painters by their profession are not bound to shine in conversa- tion, and they shine the more. He pricks up his ears to an observation, as if you had brought him a piece of news, and enters into it with the same avidity and earnestness as if it interested himself INTRODUCTION 13 personally. If he repeat an old remark or story, it is with the same freshness and point as for the first time. It always arises out of the occasion, and has the stamp of originality. There is no parroting of himself. His look is a continual, ever varying history piece of what passes in his mind. His face is as a book. There need no marks of interjection or interrogation to what he says. His conversation is quite picturesque. There is an excess of character and nctiveU that never tires. His thoughts bubble up and sparkle like beads on old wine. The fund of anecdote, the collection of curious particulars, is enough to set up any common retailer of jests that dines out every day ; but these are not strung together like a row of galley-slaves, but are always introduced to illustrate some argument, or bring out some fine distinction of character. The mixture of spleen adds to the sharpness of the point, like poisoned arrows. Mr. Northcote enlarges with enthusiasm on the old painters, and tells good things of the new. The only thing he ever vexed me in was his liking the Catalogue Raisonnee. I had almost as soon hear him talk of Titian's pictures (which he does with tears in his eyes, and looking just like them) as see the originals, and I had rather hear him talk of Sir Joshua's than see them. He is the last of that school who knew Goldsmith and Johnson. How finely he described 14 INTRODUCTION Pope ! His elegance of mind, his figure, his character, were not much unlike his own. He does not resemble a modern Englishman, but puts one in mind of a Roman Cardinal or Spanish Inquisitor. I never ate or drank with Mr. Northcote ; but I have lived on his conversation with undiminished relish ever since I can remember, and when I leave it I come out into the street with feelings lighter and more ethereal than I have at any other time. One of his tete-a-tetes would at any time make an essay ; but he cannot write himself, because he loses himself in the connecting passages, is fearful of the effect, and wants the habit of bringing his ideas into one focus or point of view. A lens is necessary to collect the diverging rays, the refracted and broken angular lights of conversation on paper. Contradiction is half the battle in talking the being startled by what others say, and having to answer on the spot. You have to defend yourself, para- graph by paragraph, parenthesis within parenthesis. Perhaps it might be supposed that a person who excels in conversation and cannot write would suc- ceed better in dialogue. But the stimulus, the immediate irritation, would be wanting ; and the work would read flatter than ever, from not having the very thing it pretended to have." l It has been questioned how much in the published ' From " Table Talk," in Baldwin's London Magazine. INTRODUCTION 15 Conversations was Hazlitt's, and how much belonged to Northcote. I think nobody who reads this memoir can doubt that Hazlitt was not exaggerating Northcote's ability. The narrative of Italian travel is excellent, and in many places the painter expresses his sensations or ideas with a singular freshness. It is, as Hazlitt observes, in the art of putting his thoughts together, not in power of expression, that he is deficient. But the express testimony of a competent eyewitness is worth quoting ; the more so for the light that is thrown on the relations between this odd pair. P. G. Patmore, in " My Friends and Acquaintances," writes as follows : " To Mr. Northcote's Hazlitt went frequently and stayed long ; at one time more frequently than to any other place. But his visits to Northcote were in some sort professional, and whatever he did with a view to business, or to any after consideration whatever anything which did not immediately arise out of the impulse directing it he did reluctantly and with an ill grace. I have several times been present when Hazlitt has been at Northcote's, and has taken part in these admirable conversations with the venerable artist in which he (Hazlitt) professed that he used to take such delight. But I never saw him for a moment at ease there or anything like himself that self which he was when sitting in his favourite 16 INTRODUCTION corner at the Southampton, or by Lamb's, or my fireside, or, above all, his own. There were points in Northcote's character for which Hazlitt felt the greatest dislike. But, what was of much more consequence to the mutual comfort of their inter- course, he knew perfectly well that Northcote often dreaded and therefore hated him ; and when this feeling was acting only tolerated his presence and tattled to him the more entertainingly on that very account. I speak of the period subsequent to Hazlitt's occasional publication of his ' Conversa- tions.' Further on he accounts for Hazlitt's 'over- strained admiration ' for Northcote's talk. " Northcote, by having preserved his intellectual faculties in all their freshness up to the very great age at which Hazlitt first became acquainted with him" (this is a misstatement), "and those faculties having always included an unusual justness of tact in observing the ordinary circumstances to which the daily occurrences of life directed them, had acquired a vast superiority over Hazlitt in his actual personal knowledge of society, and its visible and superficial results on individual men. About Dr. Johnson, Sir Joshua, Burke, Goldsmith, and the whole of that coterie of distinguished men of the last age Northcote had things to tell that would have furnished forth half a dozen ' Boswells Redivivus ' ; and he told them with a degree of INTRODUCTION 17 tact, spirit, and dramatic effect that has never been surpassed, if equalled, in any published detail of these true gems of literary and personal history." The most delightful among all Hazlitt's pictures of his friend is to be found in his essay on the Old Age of Artists, when he contrasts Northcote with an even greater oddity, Nollekens the sculptor. It may be noted that this essay appeared in 1823, three years before the "Conversations" had given Northcote occasion to fear " Boswell Redivivus." " I saw this eminent and singular person (Nolle- kens) one morning in Mr. Northcote's painting- room. He had then been for some time blind, and had been obliged to lay aside the exercise of his profession ; but he still took a pleasure in designing groups, and in giving directions to others for executing them. He and Northcote made a remarkable pair. He sat down on a low stool (from being rather fatigued), rested with both hands on a stick, as if he clung to the solid and tangible, had an habitual twitch in his limbs and motions, as if catching himself in the act of going too far in chiselling a lip or a dimple in a chin ; was bolt- upright, with features hard and square, but finely cut, a hooked nose, thin lips, an indented forehead ; and the defect in his sight completed his resemblance to one of his own masterly busts. He seemed, by 3 18 INTRODUCTION time and labour, to ' have wrought himself to stone.' Northcote stood by his side all air and spirit, stooping down to speak to him. The painter was in a loose morning-gown, with his back to the light; his face was like a pale fine piece of .colour- ing, and his eye came out and glanced through the twilight of the past, like an old eagle looking from its eyrie in the clouds. In a moment they had lighted from the top of Mount Cenis in the Vatican " ' As when a vulture on Imaus bred Flies tow'rds the springs Of Ganges and Hydaspes, Indian streams.' These two fine old men lighted with winged thoughts on the banks of the Tiber, and there bathed and drank of the spirit of their youth. They talked of Titian and Bernini ; and Northcote mentioned that when Roubilliac came back from Rome, after seeing the works of the latter, and went to look at his own in Westminster Abbey, he said, ' By G d ! they looked like tobacco-pipes ! ' "They: then recalled a number of anecdotes of Day (a fellow-student of theirs), of Barry and Fuseli. Sir Joshua, and Burke, and Johnson were talked of. The names of these great sons of memory were in the room, and they almost seemed INTRODUCTION 19 to answer to them Genius and Fame flung a spell into the air. " ' And by the force of blear illusion Had drawn me on to my confusion,' had I not been long ere this siren-proof! It is delightful, though painful, to hear two veterans in art thus talking over the adventures and studies of their youth, when one feels that they are not quite mortal, that they have one imperishable part about them, and that they are conscious, as they approach the farthest verge of humanity in friendly intercourse and tranquil decay, that they have done something that will live after them. The consolations of religion apart, this is perhaps the only salve that takes out the sting of that sore evil, Death ; and, by lessening the impatience and alarm at his approach, often tempts him to prolong the term of his delay. "It has been remarked that artists, or at least academicians, 1 live long. It is but a short while ago that Northcote, Nollekens, West, Flaxman, Cosway, and Fuseli were all living at the same time, in good health and spirits, without any diminution of faculties, all of them having long passed their grand climacteric, and attained to the 1 Mr. Whistler would approve this distinction, though Hazlitt does not make it quite in his sense. 20 INTRODUCTION highest reputation in their several departments. From these striking examples the diploma of a Royal Academician seems to be a grant of a longer lease of life, among its other advantages. In fact it is tantamount to the conferring a certain repu- tation in his profession and a competence on any man ; and thus supplies the wants of the body and set his mind at ease. Artists in general (poor devils !), I am afraid, are not a long-lived race. " Of all the academicians, the painters or persons I have ever known, Mr. Northcote is the most to my taste. It may be said of him truly " ' Age cannot wither him, nor custom stale His infinite variety.' Indeed, it is not possible he should become tedious, since, even if he repeats the same thing, it appears quite new from his manner, that breathes new life into it, and from his eye, that is as fresh as the morning. How you hate any one who tells the same story or anticipates a remark of his it seems so coarse and vulgar, so dry and inanimate ! There is something like injustice in this preference but no ! it is a tribute to the spirit that is in the man. Mr. Northcote's manner is completely extempore. It is just the reverse of Mr. Canning's oratory. All his thoughts come upon him unawares, and for this INTRODUCTION 21 reason they surprise and delight you, because they have evidently the same effect upon his mind. There is the same unconsciousness in his conversation that has been pointed out in Shakespeare's dialogues ; or you are startled with one observation after another, as when the mist gradually withdraws from a land- scape and unfolds objects one by one. His figure is small, shadowy, emaciated ; but you think only of his face, which is fine and expressive. His body is out of the question. It is impossible to convey an adequate idea of the nawete and unaffected but delightful ease of the way in which he goes on now touching upon a picture, now looking for his snuff-box, now alluding to some book he has been reading, now returning to his favourite art. He seems just as if he was by himself or in the company of his own thoughts, and makes you feel quite at home. If it is a member of Parliament, or a beautiful woman, or a child, or a young artist that drops in, it makes no difference : he enters into conversation with them in the same unconstrained manner, as if they were inmates in his family. Sometimes you find him sitting on the floor, like a schoolboy at play, turning over a set of old prints ; and I was pleased to hear him say the other day, coming to one of some men putting off in a boat from a shipwreck, ' That is the grandest and most original thing I ever did ! ' This was not 22 INTRODUCTION egotism, but had all the beauty of truth and sincerity. Thus, whatever is the subject of discourse, the scene is revived in his mind, and every circumstance brought before you without affectation or effort, just as it happened. It might be called picture- talking. He has always pat allusion or anecdote. A young engraver came into his room the other day with a print which he had put into the crown of his hat, in order not to crumple it, and he said it had nearly blown away several times in passing along the street. ' You put me in mind,' said Northcote, ' of a bird-catcher at Plymouth who used to put the birds he had caught into his hat to bring them home, and one day, meeting my father in the road, he pulled off his hat to make him a low bow, and all the birds flew away!' Sometimes Mr. Northcote gets to the top of a ladder to paint a palm-tree or to finish . a sky in one of his pictures ; and in this situation he listens very attentively to anything you tell him. I was once mentioning some strange inconsistencies of our modern poets, and on coming to one that exceeded the rest he descended the steps of the ladder one by one, laid his pallet and brushes deliberately on the ground, and coming up to me he said, ' You don't say so ; it's the very thing I should have supposed of them ; yet these are the men that speak against Pope and Dryden.' Never any sarcasms were so fine, so cutting, so careless as INTRODUCTION 23 his. The grossest things from his lips seem an essence of refinement ; the most refined become more so than ever. Hear him talk of Pope's ' Epistle to Jervas,' and repeat the lines " ' Yet should the Graces all thy figures place, And breathe an air divine on every face ; Yet should the Muses bid my numbers roll Strong as their charms, and gentle as their soul> With Zeuxis' Helen thy Bridgwater vie, And these be sung till Granville's Myra die. Alas ! how little from the grave we claim, Thou but preserv'st a face, and I a name.' Or let him speak of Boccacio and his story of Isabella and her pot of basil, in which she kept her lover's head and watered it with her tears, 'and how it grew, and it grew, and it grew,' and you see his own eyes glisten and the leaves of the basil-tree tremble to his faltering accents." I do not propose to go here into the quarrel over the "Conversations" between Northcote and Hazlitt. It arose from the fact that the old painter expressed himself with some freedom to Hazlitt about the family of the Mudges (see p. 40), to whom he was under a heavy obligation for his first introduction to Reynolds, and for much patronage. Hazlitt reported the remarks, a Mr. RosdeW, on behalf of the Mudges, protested, and Northcote came to Campbell, then editor of the New Monthly, professing a furious but 2 4 perhaps not wholly ingenuous rage. At all events the interviews and the records of them went on. But it is probable that Patmore was right as to the mutual distrust between the two suspicious natures ; the acquaintance continued because each was useful to the other. Northcote provided Hazlitt with excellent material for articles ; Hazlitt gave to Northcote a foretaste of posthumous fame and the power of expressing opinions in a language which no one but Hazlitt could command. For instance I quote a passage upon the one great painter of his period whom Northcote does not elsewhere mention who doubts that here the thought is Northcote's but the beautiful expression Hazlitt's ? " 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. Prince Hoare 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 was not half so airy." INTRODUCTION 25 Besides, Northcote desired Hazlitt's positive assistance in the literary efforts from which he was not yet dissuaded. The two collaborated in a Life of Titian, which I trust that even an editor of Northcote's biography may be excused for not having read. The " Fables" also, which were the old man's last and most cherished venture, had the advantage of Hazlitt's revision, though neither Hazlitt nor any one else could have redeemed them from dulness. The first series of a hundred, alternately in prose and heroic couplets, appeared in 1828; the second was posthumous. They were illustrated by admirable woodcuts made from designs which Northcote produced after a singular fashion. He took backgrounds from old prints, cut out spaces and pasted in figures from other prints so as to form a composition according to his judgment. Abundance of press-cuttings preserved in his notebook testify to his interest in this queer venture. The first series was brought out by Law- ford, who paid ^80, and produced it at his own risk, but for the production of the second Northcote left ample provision in his very odd will. A sum of ,1,000, or not exceeding ^"1,400, was to be assigned by his executors to this purpose. Mr. Edward Southey Rogers was designated as the editor. Northcote's personal estate was proved much to the surprise of his contemporaries at something 26 INTRODUCTION under ,25,000. The surprising thing is that he should have left so much. His prices for portraits were : five guineas a head previous to his Italian tour; eight guineas up to 1784, when he raised the price to ten ; it rose to fifteen in 1788, and in 1794 to twenty guineas. His figure composi- tions, especially after the failure of his chief patron, Boydell, can hardly have fetched much money in proportion to the time spent upon them. Besides, frugal as the old man had been in personal habits, he had not grudged money to his fancies. One of his favourite beliefs was that there existed a connection between himself and the Stafford North- cote family a belief which the late Lord Iddesleigh did not discountenance. Several of the opening- pages of the memoir (omitted by me) are devoted to proving or rather to asserting this connection. The old painter collected everything he could buy relating to the Northcotes, and at his death left to the then Sir Stafford all his pictures of various Northcotes, the bust of himself by Bonomi, and his manuscript account (in two volumes) of the North- cote family. Of Northcote as an artist perhaps the less said the better. Four works by him are in the National Portrait Gallery, including a likeness of himself. His work is seen to best advantage in black and white, and it would seem that his chief vogue was in INTRODUCTION 27 this kind. The obituary in the Gentleman s Maga- zine remarks that " Prints from the designs of Mr. Northcote were seen on the walls of the higher order of dwellings in every part of the kingdom. One of the most admired, entitled 'The Village Doctress,' had for several years a considerable sale." He was, as will be seen in this memoir, a chief pillar of Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery, and claims to have originated the idea of it (see p. 205). But we are concerned with him here as a source of information, not as an original worker. It may, however be well, for a last word, to discuss the originality of his published works. Nobody, I believe, challenges the authenticity of his contributions to the Artist. They are at least as good as most of the Life of Reynolds, which is the work in dispute; Hazlitt's hand in the "Life of Titian" is admitted. I can say from personal inspec- tion that great masses of the Reynolds Memoirs are transferred bodily from Northcote's original manu- script ; but the need for a Mr. Laird of some sort is obvious, to prepare the book for the press. The spelling is of the most fantastic order, the grammar frequently amorphous. If Mr. Laird had confined himself to correcting their irregularities it had been well ; unhappily he seems to have been a purist in style, and struck out a good many of Northcote's expressions which were racy of the old man's rough 28 INTRODUCTION personality. For instance, at p. 95 there is a story of Goldsmith's bad taste in wearing only half mourn- ing for his mother. " This appears in him," says Northcote, " a kind of Irish bull in wearing such a dress, as to all those who did not know his mother or of her death it was totally unnecessary to wear mourning at all, and to all such as knew of his mother's death, it would appear to be not the proper dress, so that he satisfied nobody and displeased some. Miss Reynolds thought it very brutish in him to call his mother a distant relation." Mr. Laird corrects " a kind of Irish bull " to "an unaccountable blunder " (which destroys the whole point); and for " very brutish " writes " unfeeling." It does not seem likely that such a reviser is likely to have conferred much upon the book by his attentions. CHAPTER I NORTHCOTE'S BOYHOOD ; OBSTACLES TO HIS BECOM- ING AN ARTIST. HE RUNS AWAY TO LONDON. ^ETATIS 1-25. "XT ORTH COTE'S manuscript begins with a L * variety of preambles ; a curious cento of misquotations from Shakespeare ; a history of the Northcote family ; and an explanation of his purpose in writing. Such points in this as seemed of any interest have been dealt with in the Intro- duction. I take up the thread of his argument where it becomes personal. " I was born at Plymouth, in the county of Devon, on the 22nd of October, 1746, old style. My family, although ancient and highly respec- table were at this time not rich, and that branch of it from whence I sprung was much reduced by a most severe persecution from the Parliament of England in the year 1658, inflicted on Samuel 30 MEMORIALS OF Northcote, my ancestor, who was mayor of Ply- mouth borough in that year. Samuel Northcote suffered greatly by fine and imprisonment, though only suspected of disaffection to the jealous Govern- ment of that period, because he refused to sign a warrant consistent with his office as a magistrate ; which thing he refused to do from motives of scrupulous piety, it being demanded of him on a Sunday, and when he was at his prayers in the church. My father, whose name was Samuel, was by trade a watchmaker, valued by all who knew him for his great integrity, abilities and general know- ledge. He also was born and dwelt in the town of Plymouth, and was a pious, studious, humble and ingenious man, one better calculated to make a good use of money when got than to get it ; and, although an admirer of the art of painting, he could never be persuaded to give his consent to his son's choice of it as a profession. One reason for this disapprobation was that his own father had been an unsuccessful painter, which had been taught him to consider it as an art difficult of attainment and un- certain of success, therefore not proper to be the profession of one whose sole dependence was to rest on his own industry. For, as I before observed, being more honest than wealthy, it was not in his power to give anything but his good example to his children (three of whom, out of seven, arrived to AN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY PAINTER 31 years of maturity). Therefore my propensity to the art was by every possible means suppressed instead of being encouraged, nor were any opportunities ever given me of practising it, but such as I stole without my father's knowledge. Another great disadvantage I also laboured under was that my education had been shamefully neglected, for my father, with a philosophical carelessness to domestic affairs, paid no attention to the improvement of his children, and, but for the prudence of my mother, I would never have been taught to read. Reading, writing, and arithmetic was all the school learning I ever got, and this small portion was not acquired till I myself was sensible of the want of it, being then near thirteen years of age. My father had always intended me for his own employment, sorely to my dissatisfaction, for during the entire period, from my earliest infancy to the year 1771, I had never been the distance of twenty miles from the place of my birth. This state of confinement grew more and more insupportable to me in pro- portion as my mind began to open. This impatience was not a little increased also by the interposition of an old friend of my father's, with whom I was a great favourite, hearing him fre- quently tease my father to indulge this propensity, which he saw had taken such deep root in his child. This friend was Mr. Henry Tolcher, one of the 32 MEMORIALS OF senior aldermen of the borough of Plymouth. Mr. Tolcher was a man in years at the time I was born, but had always a great friendship for me, as he thought me a child of much ingenuity, and was therefore frequently persuading my father to send his son to London to study some branch of the art, being firmly of opinion that success would follow the experiment. But my father would never listen to him, and always became angry when the subject was mentioned. Yet all this could not deter the good old friend from speaking, thinking, and some- times acting for the good, as he conceived it, of his young favourite, and whenever he took a journey to London he always considered it as a part of his business to make inquiries to that purpose, as may be seen by some of his letters, from which I shall give extracts : " Extract of a Letter from Mr. Tolcher to Mr. Samuel Northcote, of Plymouth, Devon. "... I have a thousand things to tell you, but as I now shall lose hearing some debates in the House of Lords, I must break off abruptly, and only add that I have got little James a master ; tell him so, and that he must send up his drawing signed " This was done when I was but ten years old." Do enclose it to me, and I will bring it down again. My com- AN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY PAINTER 33 pliments to Mrs. Northcote, and I am ever most sincerely " Your humble servant, " HEN. TOLCHER. "From Waghorris Coffee-house adjoining the House of Lords, February 13, 1759. " To Mr. Samuel Northcote at Plymouth, Devon. "LONDON, March 24, 1759. " DEAR SIR, I had yesterday the favour of your letter with Jemmy's drawing enclosed, which hath been much liked by all to whom I have showed it, and they have not been a few, and all say he ought by all means to be encouraged to go on (as his natural genius leads him), and that he should be put to copy from drawings of the best hands. I assure you my Lord Bath was much pleased with it, as he was also with your letter and the explication you was pleased to add after making a brazen head for me. Mr. Reynolds also liked it I mean the drawing and Mr. MacArdel, for whose sight I principally sent for it, said by all means let him practice drawing, and if his father can get him some of the large heads now much in vogue, which are come over in abundance from France, drawn in red chalk, they will be best for him to copy after ; and he should also be taught the rudi- ments of perspective, which will be of use to him 4 34 MEMORIALS OF whatever his profession may be ; for that, said he, is of service even from a lord to the meanest artificer. " I am, dear sir, " Your faithful and most obedient, humble servant, " HENRY TOLCHER. " My compliments attend Mrs. Northcote, and I had not forgot Sam's crossbow before I left Plymouth." McArdell, or, as Mr. Tolcher spells him, MacArdel, the famous mezzotint engraver, was born in Dublin in 1710, but came to London at the age of seventeen, and worked there till his death in 1765. Most of his plates were done from portraits by the painters of his own time Hudson, Hogarth, Reynolds, and others ; some of the finest, however, are after Vandyck. For the moment nothing came of Mr. Tolcher's assiduity. In 1762 Northcote saw Reynolds for the first time, when the painter, accompanied by Johnson, paid a visit to his native county. Oddly enough, the circumstance is not recorded in the autobiography, but it is related with curious naivete in the Life of Sir Joshua. " It was about this time I first saw Reynolds, but I had seen several of his works which were in Plymouth (for at that time I had never been out of the county), and those pictures filled me AN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY PAINTER 35 with wonder and delight, although I was then very young ; insomuch that I remember when Mr. Reynolds was pointed out to me at a public meeting, where a great crowd was assembled, I got as near to him as I could from the pres- sure of the people, to touch the skirt of his coat, which I did with great satisfaction to my mind." A letter written in the end of this year shows how continually the kind Mr. Tolcher bore his young friend in mind when he was in London. " LONDON, December 29, 1762. " MY DEAR FRIEND MR. NoRTHcoxE, I write you this at Mr. Reynolds's, and shall carry it Jiome to have it franked. The business of it is to tell you that here is now present Mr. Fisher, 1 an engraver of mezzotinto copper plates, who did the fine print of ' Garrick between Comedy and Tragedy' (which I believe you have seen, or may see, at Mr. Mudge's, jun.). On finding him a master in his way, I could not help asking him, as your son James is often uppermost in my thoughts, and as 1 Edward Fisher was one of the many Irish mezzotint engravers who flourished last century. He was born in Dublin in 1730, and died in London about 1785. Most of his engravings were from portraits by Reynolds. The picture referred to is, of course, one of Sir Joshua's masterpieces. 36 MEMORIALS OF I have a love for him, what he would have to teach a lad who had a genius in that way. To which he answered fifty pounds, but then he said if the youth was ingenious and industrious he should not fail, by way of encouragement, to let him gain by his gratuity not less than that sum, as he should not grudge to give him, if he found he merited it, five shillings weekly by way of en- couragement ; and he said with him he would learn the whole ground of that science, viz., the ground of preparing and the knowledge of every other part belonging thereto, which is not always taught ; wherefore, as I love little Jim, I cannot help giving you this account, and you will after mature consideration, and perhaps consulting the child, judge for yourself if convenient for you and him ; which at present is all I have to say, save only that my respects attend Mrs. Northcote and Master Sam, and that if you have any com- mands you may have here I shall be glad to obey them, being very faithfully and affectionately your sincere friend and humble servant, "HEN. TOLCHER. " Any letter from you under cover to the Earl of Bath will come safe and free. If you have any commands the sooner the better, as I hope to set out soon. Adieu, adieu." AN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY PAINTER 37 " However, all this friendly interference of the old alderman had no other effect, as I have observed, than to make my father angry, fearing it would (as it did) increase the impatience of his son, who was compelled still to remain at Plymouth, lamenting every hour as lost till he could pursue some branch of the art he loved, for I would have caught at the lowest rather than none." o \ So far Northcote's narrative has been reproduced almost literally in its quaint verbiage ; a few "long constructions strange and plus-quam-Thucydidean " have been reduced to more moderate dimensions. It should be added that in the MS. notebook Northcote, who never failed to take himself seriously, has preserved the drawing " done when I was ten years old," which had the advantage of being liked by Sir Joshua. Infantile accomplishments have advanced since those days ; and probably in any large preparatory school one would find a boy who could better it. Nevertheless Mr. Tolcher's zeal in the cause of art and of his "little favourite " is touching ; and a very touching circumstance is to be noted that in the list of Northcote's paintings the very last of all is "Alderman Henry Tolcher, half-length, unfinished." In 1829 the artist, then himself turned of eighty, fell to painting a likeness of his old benefactor to whose help and encourage- 38 MEMORIALS OF ment he owed it that he ever became an artist. The world perhaps does not owe much to Mr. Henry Tolcher on this account, but Northcote had to thank him that, instead of ingloriously making watches at Plymouth, he spent the creditable, distinguished, and, above all, the interesting life of a fairly successful painter. It was in 1771 that the vounp" Devonshire lad f f O first tried his wings in the world. He writes :- " I was then arrived to near the twenty-fifth year of my age, and fully determined to gratify that ardent desire which had so long possessed me of seeing the metropolis of the kingdom. The year preceding I had made a drawing in Indian ink of a new-erected assembly room and bathing-place near Plymouth ; from this drawing I got a print engraved, and although but a very indifferent per- formance, yet it sold among my friends and helped to make up a few pounds. This prompted and enabled me to take my flight, otherwise it would have been impossible, as my father never would have given me the opportunity in a supply of money for such a journey. But, tired of my present mode of life, I rather chose to throw myself on the wide world, although with only ten guineas in my pocket (for literally it was no more). Five of them I had been long in saving ; and that, added AN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY PAINTER 39 to the five got by my print, constituted all my fortune. " Having had a consultation with my elder and only brother, we came to a resolution of going together to London. Our father when informed of this scheme was not heartily consenting to the journey, though I told him that I would return again in the space of a fortnight, which at the time I fully expected would have been the case from necessity, not having any one friend in London or knowledge of what method to pursue, or how to get a livelihood ; for having been a kind of prisoner my whole life to one spot, I was in the state of those birds which have always been kept in a cage. If by chance they do obtain their liberty, they perish from the want of those habits which are necessary to procure them their food. But I felt no fear ; although without money, as I may say, and absolutely ignorant of the practice of the art I intended to pursue for my livelihood, yet so very desirous was I of remaining in London, that I determined so to do, whatever difficulties I under- went, knowing it to be the only means by which I could procure any information in the art I was so fond of. Accordingly, before my departure from home, I requested a letter of introduction from Dr. John Mudge, an eminent physician of Plymouth, to his friend Sir Joshua Reynolds, and 40 MEMORIALS OF also another from my friend Mr. Tolcher to Sir Joshua. These letters I took care to conceal from the knowledge of both my father and brother, fearing they would have prevented my journey to London had they suspected me of any thoughts of tarrying there or following the profession of painting. " As London was the great object of desire both of myself and my brother also, we thought the best way to increase our means of pleasure there (as we were circumscribed in purse) would be to spend as little as possible on the road, and, consistently with this idea, we determined to set out on our journey on foot as the season was fine." Some account should here be given of the Mudge family, to whose introduction Northcote owed so much. They were people singularly dis- tinguished in their friendships, and not themselves without distinction. The founder, Zachariah Mudge, was born at Exeter in 1694, of poor parentage, but with an indomitable ambition for learning. He became second master in a school at Exeter whose principal was John Reynolds, grandfather of the painter ; and thus originated the hereditary friend- ship by which Northcote was ultimately to profit. Mudge took orders, obtained valuable preferment in the Church, and became famous as a preacher. AN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY PAINTER 41 He was the close friend of Smeaton, the engineer who succeeded in erecting the Eddystone Light- house, which in those days was among the world's wonders, and it was Mudge who accompanied Smeaton to the top of the lighthouse after " Laus Deo " had been cut into the last stone set, and there, in the lantern itself, joined the engineer in chanting the Old Hundred, "as a thanksgiving for the successful completion of this arduous undertak- ing." Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was not born till ten years after Mudge became his grandfather's assis- tant, painted the old man three times ; he intro- duced Burke to him at his own table, and took Johnson to call on the old gentleman and his w r iie. This lady is perhaps the best remembered of all the Mudges, for it was she who remonstrated at Dr. Johnson's eighteenth cup of tea. " Madam, you are rude," replied Johnson, and proceeded to a twenty-fifth libation. Mudge left four sons, two of whom were distinguished. Thomas Mudge, the second, was a notable discoverer in the mechanism of watches and chronometers. It is not rash to conclude that through him the elder Northcote, himself a painstaking mechanic in this art, became acquainted with the family. Dr. John Mudge, the fourth son, whom Northcote names as his intro- ducer, was, undoubtedly, the most popular of the family. He was not only a skilful physician, but a 42 MEMORIALS OF considerable authority upon optical instruments ; he is remembered, however, as the friend of Sir Joshua, who, with Dr. Johnson, stayed at his house in Plymouth on their tour in 1762. As a physician he had, it would seem, the healing manner. North- cote told Hazlitt that " Every one was enchanted with his society. It was not wit that he possessed, but such a perfect cheerfulness and good-humour that it was like health coming into the room." Reynolds painted numerous portraits of the family ; about one there is a pleasant circumstance related. Dr. Mudge's son, a boy of sixteen, was in the War Office in London, and by illness was prevented from coming home for his birthday. Reynolds painted and sent to the father at Ply- mouth, timing it to arrive for a surprise on the birthday, a picture which represented the lad suddenly drawing a curtain and appearing from behind it as an unexpected visitor. Northcote was censured because Hazlitt, in the published is undoubtedly Northcote's. AN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY PAINTER 227 to the City, either to adorn the Mansion House or else the Hall of that particular company to which he might belong. 'Then,' said the liberal old Boydell, ' you would be fully employed and the arts advanced in this kingdom.' I praised his noble intentions and the friendship shown towards me in particular, and added that I was very sensible how great a friend he had always shown himself to the art and artists. ' Yet,' said Boydell, ' when I told this my intention to Sir Joshua Reynolds he did not accord with me, but said it was a foolish scheme, because aldermen do not understand history painting; they can only judge of a likeness, " therefore," said Sir Joshua, " it should be portraits only for them, and you should begin yourself by giving your own portrait, painted by Lawrence, and make an agreement with him to paint them always at the same price he now has, because his terms will in future be much higher." " These sentiments from Sir Joshua were to me a great surprise and mortification, as it proved Sir Joshua's want of friendship to myself particularly, and that it militated much against the mass of art at large thus to have history painting thrown aside for portrait. " A very few days after this conversation had passed I met with Mr. Desanfans, who was then speaking of the very high regard which Sir Joshua always expressed to have for me, and this opinion 228 MEMORIALS OF being warmly urged induced me to relate the fore- going conversation. Mr. Desanfans a few days after related it to Sir Joshua when he met him at a dinner. This produced the following billet, which was brought by Sir Joshua's footman at breakfast time : " To James Northcote, Esqr. "ARGYLL STREET, March 26, 1791. " DEAR SIR, Mr. Desanfans told me yesterday a most extraordinary story, that the Lord Mayor should say to me that he had an intention of introducing whole-length portraits of Lord Mayors into the Mansion House, and that he added he intended to employ Northcote and Opie, and that I advised him not to employ them but Mr. Lawrence. "The reason of my mentioning this to you is in hopes that you will help me in endeavouring to trace this story to its fountain-head. '"If my opinion is considered as of any value, it is certainly your interests to detect this mischief-maker ; I am far from thinking that the Lord Mayor is the author. " I am, &c., " Yours sincerely, " J. REYNOLDS." AN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY PAINTER 229 " This cavalier note I read with surprise, and gave the servant a verbal answer that I would wait on Sir Joshua immediately. I felt myself in a very great dilemma, for though I fLmly believed that what Boydell had told me was a truth, yet I knew that Sir Joshua would be mortified to have it publicly known, and might perhaps deny his having said it, and on an appeal to Boydell I feared that he, to pay homage to Sir Joshua as the greatest man, and knowing that it would please him, might deny having said any such thing, and so, according to the old proverb, the weakest must go to the wall. I resolved within myself, if such was the case to have taken my oath to the truth of my having heard from Boydell words to that effect, and I would have insisted on taking this oath to Boydell himself as a magistrate.- " But no such awful encounter was to happen, for when I entered Sir Joshua's breakfast-room he received me with all the mildness possible, when I, impatient to clear myself, related the fact as before seen. Sir Joshua seemed to shrink from it, and only could vindicate himself by asking if it was not very extraordinary that he, who had in all his discourses and writings so much insisted on the dignity of history painting, should be accused of acting so much the reverse to all he had said. All this I allowed, but still insisted on the truth of my 230 MEMORIALS OF having heard this from Boydell but Sir Joshua never denied his having said it nor offered to appeal to Boydell for truth of the matter and soon dropped it and talked of indifferent things ; but that which gave me most concern was that as Sir Joshua knew it to be truth he was not able to forgive himself, and that he would have ill-will against me for knowing it ; for as the old proverb says " ' Forgiveness to the injured does belong For they ne'er pardon who have done the wrong.' And thus .was for ever destroyed a pleasure which I always had from the conversation of a man of Sir Joshua's high abilities, and who till this moment perhaps never knew that I had discovered the least fault in his character or conduct, for we always hate those who we think have any reason to despise us." The story bears all the marks of truth, especially in the extreme good sense of the remark attributed to Reynolds upon Boydell's appalling scheme ; also, one must admit, in the frank account given by Northcote of his own timidity and readiness to impute low motives. Mr. Desanfans who is mentioned was a French- man who came to England to teach French, but made a lucky investment in one of Claude's pictures, became a dealer and got a commission from AN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY PAINTER 231 Stanislaus of Poland to buy up works of art from the French nobles in distress during the Revolution. Unluckily the partition of Poland supervened and Desanfans was left with his purchases on his hands. He held a public exhibition of them and issued a descriptive catalogue, which is his claim to be remembered. His pictures he left to a friend, who subsequently transmitted them to Dulwich School, and they became the basis of the Dulwich Gallery. "The acuteness of the ready wit of Sir Joshua may be seen in the following anecdote : "When he drew the portrait of Fox, first Lord Holland, the picture being finished, Lord Holland asked him what his price was for it, and being informed the astonished Lord exclaimed with much surprise at its greatness, at the same time saying, 1 You get your money very quick, for it did not take you much time. How long was you about this picture?' when Sir Joshua quickly answered, 'All i * c > " my lite. (This saying recalls an epigram uttered by Mr. Whistler on one of his numerous appearances in the witness-box.) "The following maxim of La Rochefoucauld may with the strictest justice be applied to Sir Joshua Reynolds : " The height of ability consists in a thorough 232 MEMORIALS OF knowledge of the real value of things, and of the genius of tjie age we live in. "The famous Charles James Fox, in discoursing once with Sir Joshua Reynolds on the merits and demerits of Shakespere, said that it was his opinion that Shakespere's credit would have been higher if he had never written the play of ' Hamlet,' saying it was a pity he ever did it. This anecdote was told to me by Sir Joshua himself. My own opinion of this matter is that if there is one play of Shakespere's which denotes genius above the rest it is that of ' Hamlet,' in which is displayed such an infinite nice discrimination of character, such feeling, and rendered so exquisitely interesting, yet without the help of a regular plot, almost without a plan, and so like nature itself, that it becomes an entire effusion of genius alone. "Count d'Adhdmar, the French ambassador, at his house in London had two portraits : one of the late unfortunate Queen of France, the other of Madame Polignac, her favourite. These were by the hand of Madame le Brun, a favourite paintress of the Court of France. When d'Adhe'mar quitted England and his house was shown publicly, the nobility flocked to see those two portraits, and it was the fashion to admire them with the most extravagant praise, although they were but of a very common degree in art. These Sir Joshua AN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY PAINTER 233 also went to see, and one day soon after, as he was speaking of them' to a gentleman in my presence, I took the opportunity of asking his opinion of them, saying, ' I am glad to find you have seen them, as I shall now be able to have your opinion of them. Pray, what do you think of them ? ' " 'Why, that they are very fine,' said Sir Joshua. "' Very fine, do you think?' I returned. 'How fine ? ' " ' As fine as any painter.' " ' As fine as any painter, do you say ? What do you mean ? Living or dead ? ' " ' Living or dead.' " ' Good God ! What, as fine as Vandyke ? ' '" Yes, and finer.' "At this time Sir Joshua had some hopes given him of being sent for from the Court of France to paint the Queen's portrait, but it never came to maturity." Marie Louise Vigee, afterwards Madame le Brun, was born in 1755, the daughter of a painter. She was obliged to paint for her living, and at an early age was fortunate enough to attract the notice of Marie Antoinette, whose portrait she painted first in 1779 and twenty-four times afterwards. Her hus- band, Jean Baptiste le Brun, was a painter and picture-dealer ; he was grand-nephew to Charles le 234 MEMORIALS OF Brim, acknowledged head of the French school of painting in the days of Mazarin and Colbert. Madame le Brim left France in 1789 more fortu- nate than her royal patroness and lived to return there in 1815, when she became a popular figure in Parisian society. " The old Duchess of Bedford came to Sir Joshua to see the portrait of her daughter, the Duchess of Marlborough, whom Sir Joshua had painted. When it was shown to the old Duchess she said to Sir Joshua that it was not a likeness of her daughter. Sir Joshua bowed, and, pretending not to hear her distinctly, answered that he was very happy that the picture met with her Grace's approbation. ' No, Sir Joshua, I do not think it has the least likeness.' Still he would not hear her justly, but again returned an answer as if he had properly received a compliment on the picture. The Duchess at last left him without taking the trouble to come to an explanation, in despair of making herself to be understood. " It has often been conjectured that Sir Joshua was not the author of the discourses which he delivered at the Royal Academy, but these notions I reject. I have heard him frequently walking in his room, as if in meditation, till one and two in the morning ; on the following morning, before AN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY PAINTER 235 Sir Joshua has been stirring, I have seen the papers which he had been composing the night before ; I have had the manuscript from Sir Joshua in his handwriting to copy out fair for him to read from in public., I have seen the manuscript also after it had been revised by Dr. Johnson, and remember to have seen where Johnson has made nonsense of it from his total ignorance of the art on which it was written, but I never saw, to my knowledge, the mark of Burke's pen on any of the manuscripts, and it was Burke's assistance which is principally suspected. " I remember one morning in particular, after Sir Joshua had been studying till very late the preceding night, that Burke paid him a morning visit ; I was in the adjoining room, and could easily overhear their conversation. Sir Joshua read aloud to Burke the following paragraph of his discourse of December 10, 1774: 'Like a sovereign judge and arbiter of art, he is possessed of that presiding power which separates and attracts every excellence from every school, selects both from what is great and what is little ; brings knowledge from the east and from the west, making the universe tributary towards furnishing his mind and enriching his works with originality and variety of inventions.' Burke commended it in the highest terms, saying, ' This is indeed excellent ; nobody can mend it, no man could say it better.' 236 MEMORIALS OF " Yet I cannot but contemplate with wonder that a man whose time was almost wholly taken up in the practical acquirement of one art alone, and who, from education, was by no means to be ranked as a man of literature, should cornpose such prose as some good judges have pronounced to be among the highest examples in the English language. "It is also certain that Sir Joshua was a man who at all times would assist himself by every laud- able expedient. It is also very certain that Burke could, if required, have given him the greatest assistance in strength and elegance of language, together with a literary and professional appearance to his writings, although the thoughts might be wholly his own. "It is also very certain that Burke had the greatest obligations to Sir Joshua, who had at different times lent him large sums of money, which were never paid, and given to him at his death. And certain it is that Burke, from sense of obliga- tion, had procured him connections with the highest persons of the kingdom, from whom he also got employment. " Yet if Burke did assist him in his writings, it must have been managed with consummate art and secrecy on both sides. " Miss Reynolds says she knows the discourses were always shown in the manuscript to Burke. AN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY PAINTER 237 " That Sir Joshua's genius was fully equal to have produced the intellectual part of his writings there can be no question ; his pictures prove it, as also his conversation to those who had the happi- ness to personally know him ; but the air of litera- ture which they are said to possess is surprising." To this elaborate pronouncement on Sir Joshua's character should be added a passage in the "Con- versations " : " I (Hazlitt) said Hunt had been spoiled by flattery when he was young. ' Oh ! no,' he said, ' it was not that. Sir Joshua was not spoiled by flattery, and yet he had as much of it as anybody need have ; but he was looking to see what the world said of him, or thinking what figure he should make by the side of 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 anything great we must look out of ourselves and see things upon a broader scale.' ' There is also an admirable commendation of the artist. " If I was to compare him (Reynolds) with Vandyke and Titian, I should say that Vandyke's 238 MEMORIALS OF portraits are like pictures (very perfect ones, no doubt), Sir Joshua's like the reflection 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 make them seem to be dreams or vivid recollections of persons we have seen. I never could mistake Vandyke's for anything but pictures, and I go up to them to examine them as such ; when I see a fine Sir Joshua 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 individual in the" room." One may sum up Northcote's testimony by saying that he felt for the genius of Reynolds an unqualified admiration and for his character a qualified esteem. But there was no doubt in his mind that among artists of that period Reynolds stood alone. Is it in charity or contempt that he abstains from putting his successor into any com- parison with him ? " On the death of Sir Joshua Mr. West was thought to be the most fit person to succeed to the AN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY PAINTER 239 chair of the Royal Academy, and with great pro- priety on many accounts. First, the rank he held in the arts ; his station as an historical painter to the King, with the partial favour of his sovereign which he was known to possess ; and, above all, his superior knowledge of design all these claims rendered his election unanimous. However, I think it but right that I should in this place give what I take to be his just character as a painter. " The invention of Mr. West, if I may use the expression, has no other object but mere compo- sition. Justness of character, fine sentiment, and the variety of expression necessary to represent the human passions, all of which are so essential to make a picture interesting, are either totally neg- lected or not understood by him. Sir Joshua Reynolds contended that there was no such thing as genius. Mr. West may therefore avail himself of that opinion, on the principle that we can have no occasion for a thing that does not exist. He is perfectly satisfied when he perceives that his composition is according to the rules of art, which no one understands better than himself. If his light makes a pleasant shape, and the whole has a strikingly pretty effect on the eye, at the first coup (fceil his object is attained. "In design he is superior to every modern artist ; no one can draw with more accuracy from 240 MEMORIALS OF his model ; but unfortunately that model is always common nature, even for the most exalted subjects. He does not attempt at style, properly so called ; neither does he select, combine, or diversify ; and, so far from approaching with awful step the Grecian school; he has never produced a single picture which could induce any one to imagine that he understood its principles. "His colouring is crude and unharmonious, his shadows are black and earthy, and his outline hard and dry. His colours, however, are always weighed out, and distributed about his picutre in the nicest proportions. In short, it may be said of Mr. West, as Sir Joshua Reynolds has observed of Carlo Maratti, ' that he has no great defects nor any striking beauties.' ***** " I cannot consider this long digression, together with many more in this memoir, as wholly im- pertinent ; it is surely necessary in the life of any man to give the reader an idea of those characters of eminence with whom he had to contend for the claim of excellence." It will not be amiss to quote from Hazlitt's "Table Talk" an amusing sketch of Sir Joshua's successor. " Compared to either of these artists (Northcote AN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY PAINTER 241 or Fuseli) West, the late President of the Royal Academy, was a thoroughly mechanical and com- monplace person a man ' of no mark or likeli- hood.' He too was small, thin, but with regular, well-formed features, and a precise, sedate, self- satisfied air. This, in part, arose from the convic- tion in his own mind that he was the greatest painter, and consequently the greatest man, in the world ; kings and nobles were common, everyday folks, but there was but one West in the many- peopled globe. If there was any one individual with whom he was inclined to share the palm of undivided superiority, it was with Bonaparte. When Mr. West had painted a picture he thought it was perfect. He had no idea of anything in the art but rules, and these he exactly conformed to ; so that, according to his theory, what he did was quite right. He conceived of painting as a mechanical or scientific process, and had no more doubt of a face or a group in one of his high ideal compositions being what it ought to be, than a carpenter has that he has drawn a line straight with a ruler and a piece of chalk, or than a mathemati- cian has that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right ones. " When Mr. West walked through his gallery, the result of fifty years' labour, he saw nothing, either on the right or the left, to be acjded. or taken 17 242 AN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY PAINTER away. The account he gave of his own pictures, which might seem like ostentation or rhodomon- tade, had a sincere and infantine simplicity in it. When some one spoke of his ' St. Paul ' shaking off the serpent from his arm (at Greenwich Hospital, I believe) he said, ' A little burst of genius, sir ! ' West was one of those happy mortals who had not an idea of anything beyond himself or his own actual powers and knowledge. I once heard him say in a public room that he thought he had quite as good an idea of Athens, from reading the travelling catalogues of the place, as if he had lived there for years. I believe this was strictly true, and that he would have come away with the same slender, literal, unenriched idea of it as he went. Looking at a picture of Rubens, which he had in his possession, he said with great indifference, ' What a pity that this man wanted expression ! ' This natural self-complacency might be strengthened by collateral circumstances of birth and religion. W T est, as a native of America, might be supposed to own no superior in the common- wealth of art ; as a Quaker, he smiled with sectarian self-complacency at the objections that were made to his theory or practice in painting. He lived long in the firm persuasion of being one of the elect among the sons of fame, and went to his final rest in the arms of immortality. Happy error ! Enviable old man ! " MISCELLANEOUS GOSSIP. THIS chapter must begin with Northcote's estimate of himself; and to preserve the air of judicial solemnity with which it is written, it is left in the third person. "Although the works of Northcote were gene- rally approved of by the judicious, yet he never had much employment in historical painting, as it was not to the ta'ste of the English nation, who are best pleased with more gay and trivial subjects than those which it was his pleasure to paint, and he disdained to gain patronage by the arts of servility or fawning. * The honest heart, like the strong mind, scorns to assist itself by mean or feeble props ; for it may be observed that the idle, the ignorant, and the vain, of whom the bulk of mankind are composed, most commonly bestow their hasty patronage on something which appears 243 244 MEMORIALS OF to them to be an object of wonder, and by their hasty applause they are often imposed upon by the artful, whose fortunes they frequently make before the trick is discovered ; and even when by chance they have bestowed their favour on a just claimant, still they have seldom done it from either a wise or a just motive, but have been led to it by some phantom of fashion, some accidental accompani- ment of that real merit which it possessed, which real merit most probably would have been over- looked had it not been commended by its trivial attendant. " This knowledge and opinion of mankind it was which prompted even Sir Joshua Reynolds, great as his abilities were, to stoop to little arts to gain popularity, wisely foreseeing that even the greatest genius may be disregarded and neglected without such helps as are necessary to gain over the vulgar world; and that, however mortifying this truth may be to great minds, yet they must re- member that even the highest genius must submit to court those from whom and by whose power his maintenance is to be procured, for persons of real judgment are too few in number, and too slow in their influence to be of essential service. " The following anecdote will serve to illustrate what is now advanced. "Soon after Sir Joshua Reynolds set out in his AN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY PAINTER 245 career in London, he set up a most superb. J carriage a chariot on the panels of which were curiously painted the four seasons of the year, in allegorical figures ; the wheels were ornamented with carved foliage and gilding ; the liveries also of the servants were laced with silver ; but having no spare time himself to make a display of this splen- dour, he insisted on it that his sister Frances, who then lived with him, should go out with it as much as possible and let it be seen in the public streets to make a show, which she was much averse to, being a person of great shyness of disposition, as it always attracted the gaze of the populace, and made her quite ashamed to be seen in it. " This anecdote, heard from this very sister's own mouth, serves to show that Sir J. R. knew the use of quackery on the world. He knew that it would be inquired whose grand chariot this was, and that when it was told it would give a strong indication of his great success, and by that means tend to increase it. But the disposition and the fate of Northcote was such that he never was able to strike the public as a wonder of his time. He could draw no attention from them as a prodigy of his years, as the time of life when he began to study the art was such, being at the age of maturity, that 1 I have been told that it was an old chariot of a Sheriff of London newly done up. NORTHCOTE. 246 MEMORIALS OF mature works were to be expected from him. And as to his manners and habits, they were such as were not calculated to win the attention of a gay and careless public. For they were plain and simple, totally void of all quackery to impose by any kind of deceit or vain pretence, nor had he impudence or arrogance to demand notice. His mind was wholly occupied in the intention of doing his work as well as it was in his power to do it, and trusting his fate to that alone, he perhaps too much neglected the common appearances which would have drawn the vain, the wealthy, and the idle on his side ; but, scorning to succeed by any arts, he rather wished that justice might prevail, whither by it he might rise or fall. " That he never was assisted by private patronage may be attributed to the above cause also." Northcote may now be permitted to relapse into the first person ; especially as he proceeds to tell a very characteristic anecdote of his own unwarlike nature. " One morning it was on the 6th of October, 1802 I was taking my usual walk from nine to ten o'clock ; I was out on Primrose Hill, near Hamp- stead, when a stout man came across the field and came on in the pathway to meet me. I saw some- AN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY PAINTER 247 thing much to be suspected in the appearance and manner of this fellow, and then looked round for help, but saw none ; as it was on the hill the prospect was extensive, but no mortal was nigh ; I might have taken another path to have avoided the man, but yet I thought it would be foolishly timorous to cry out before I was hurt, so kept on to meet this fellow ; but when he came abreast of me, with a sudden dart he seized me by the collar, and then told me he would immediately blow my brains out if I did not instantly deliver my money and my watch, which was quickly obeyed. The money amounted to about two guineas and a half, which was not of much importance, but the watch was of great value, being a large double-cased repeater which had been my father's. " The fellow then walked slowly towards Hamp- stead, and I continued my usual pace towards home, and never heard more of the robber or of my property. "My friend, Mr. P. Hoare, who was then at Brighton, saw an account of the affair on the public papers and sent me these lines : " ' Time's index lost, let others weep ; Vain were for thee its pow'rs ; Since, Northcote, a whole world shall keep The record of thine hours. '"P. H.' 248 MEMORIALS OF " I dined at the Royal Academy great dinner, 1804, and had the satisfaction to sit at table exactly opposite to the famous Admiral Lord Nelson. ' He was on the first sight what would strike one as rather a mean-looking person, but when you surveyed him with attention you saw in the character and expres- sion of his countenance the strongest marks of intrepidity and heroism in a degree infinitely beyond what is given in any portrait of him now in exis- tence. The portraits of him are all likenesses so as to be known, but insipidly like. "In the year 1804 I was employed by T. L. Parker, of Brouxholme, to paint the portrait of Master West Betty**' the famous young player commonly called the young Roscius, who at that time set all London in an uproar. He was brought to sit the first morning after his arrival in London, and before he had appeared on that stage ; every mark of possible respect was paid him by all ranks of people indeed, as if he had been a prince of the Blood Royal. One morning, when he came to sit, he was attended by his Royal Highness the Duke of Clarence, who seemed proud in being a patron of so great a genius. But the whole time of the sitting the Duke amused himself by making a thousand vulgar jokes on the painter, on his room, the furniture, on his person also, and on the whole Royal Academy. This at last much displeased the MASTER BETTY. AN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY PAINTER 249 painter, and after the young Roscius and his mother, who accompanied him, were gone, and the Duke and I left alone, I talked seriously to him to let him know how improperly he had behaved him- self, at the same time carefully avoiding the giving him any kind of title, saying, ' You said so, and you did this,' when the Duke looked rather shagreened, and when he went away he was left to find his way out of the house without any attention being paid him. "But when the Duke came down into the hall at the bottom of the stairs he found that it rained hard, and desired to have an umbrella lent him, which was accordingly granted. Afterwards, when I came down at my dinner hour and was informed that the Duke had borrowed the umbrella, I said, ' Then we shall never see that or the Duke again, because I think I have affronted him for his dis- agreeable behaviour to me.' Hpwever, I was much mistaken, for the Duke came the next morning with the ragged umbrella under his arm, although the sun shone, and the Duke, when he came into the room, with much mildness made an apology, saying he did not mean to offend by anything he had said the preceding day, and that he did it merely to make the young Roscius look cheerful. This was perfectly satisfactory to me, and the Duke sat down and entered into familiar and very sensible conversation 250 MEMORIALS OF for more than two hours, and showed great know- ledge of the world and the most polite manners. During this time we remained uninterrupted, as young Betty did not come to sit as he had intended, being prevented by a slight cold. Doctor Pearson, who had promised to bring him in his carriage, thought it improper for him to venture coming out that morning." The same story is told with rather more detail by Alan Cunningham. " At the time when the young Roscius passed for a Garrick and a Kemble in one, and nightly witnessed ' the slope of wet faces from. the pit to the roof,' he sat to our painter. That no honour might be want- ing he was conveyed by the Duke of Clarence (afterwards William IV.) to Argyll Place in his own carriage, where lords and ladies not a few usually assembled to see the progress of the work. The painter himself was probably to his Royal High- ness not the least object of curiosity. ' The loose gown,' says one of his biographers, ' in which he painted was principally composed of shreds and patches, and might perchance be half a century old ; his white hair was sparingly bestowed on each side, and his cranium was entirely bald.' The royal visitor, standing behind him whilst he painted, first gently lifted, or rather twitched, the collar of the gown ; which Northcote resented by suddenly turning and expressing his displeasure by a frown ; on which his Royal Highness, touching the pro- fessor's grey locks, said, ' You don't devote much time to the toilette, I perceive.' The painter instantly replied, ' Sir, I never allow any one to take personal liberties with me ; you are the first who ever presumed to do so ; and I beg your Royal Highness to recollect that I am in my own house.' The artist resumed his painting ; the prince stood silent for a minute or so, then opened the door and went away. The royal carriage, however, had not arrived, and rain was falling ; the prince returned, borrowed an umbrella, and departed. ' Dear Mr. Northcote,' said one of the ladies, ' I fear you have offended his Royal Highness.' ' Madam,' said the painter, ' I am the offended party.' The next day about noon Mr. Northcote * was alone when a gentle tap was heard, the studio door opened and in walked the prince. ' Mr. Northcote,' he said, ' I am come to return your sister's umbrella ; I brought it myself that I might have an opportunity of saying that yesterday I thoughtlessly took an unbecoming liberty with you, which you properly resented. I really am angry with myself, and hope you will forgive me and think no more of it.' 'And what did you say?' inquired a friend to whom the painter told the story. ' Say Good God ! what could I say ? I 252 MEMORIALS OF only bowed he might see what I felt. I could at that moment have sacrificed my life for him ; such a prince is worthy to be a king.' The prince after- wards in his maritime way said, 'He's a damned honest, independent, little old fellow ! ' "In respect to the young Roscius," says North- cote, " so great was the curiosity of the public to see him at that time, that a lady of quality desired that, if she could not be permitted to be in the room when he sat for his picture, she might be suffered to stand on the stairs to see him as he passed. His dressing- room at the theatre was crowded as full as it could contain of all the Court of England, and happy were those who could get in at the time his father was rubbing down his naked body from the perspiration after the exertion in performing his part on the stage. And it was observed that a greater mob assembled in the street to see him when he came on the evenings to the theatre to perform than were assembled there to see the King and Queen. When he went to see the Tower of London he was received with all the respect that is paid to any of the Royal Family. This I saw who, with Mr. T. L. Parker accompanied him, together with Sir George and Lady Beaumont, in their carriage. Everything was shown to this wonderful youth with the utmost promptitude and convenience, AN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY PAINTER 253 and cannon were proved before him for his satisfac- tion. And it must be confessed that his behaviour was remarkably simple, modest, and unassuming, and without the least of conceit or affectation." William Henry West Betty was born in 1791, of Irish parentage. At the age of ten he was taken to see a play, and declared he would die or be an actor. In 1803 he made his dtbut at Belfast as Osman in " Zara" (the English version of Voltaire's "Zaire"). His first appearance in London was at Covent Garden in 1804; the military had to be called in to restrain the crush. He appeared for the last time as a boy in 1 808 ; returned to the stage in 1812, but retired at the age of thirty-three to live quietly on the large fortune he had earned before he was seventeen ; and only died so recently as 1874. There is. another allusion to this "comet of a season " in the " Conversations." " 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 sensibility ; and then that graceful play of the limbs in youth gave such an advantage over every one about him.' Hum- phreys (the artist) said ' he had never seen the 254 MEMORIALS OF little Apollo off the pedestal before. You see the same thing in the boys at Westminster School. But none was equal to him.' Mr. Northcote alluded with pleasure to his unaffected manners when a boy, and mentioned, as an instance of his simplicity, his saying one day, ' If they admire me so much, what would they say to Mr. Harley ? ' (a tragedian in the same strolling company with himself.) " We then spoke of his acting since he was grown up. Northcote said he went to see him one night with Fuseli in 'Alexander the Great,' and that he observed coming out they could get no one to do it better. ' Nor so well,' said Fuseli. A question being put, Why, then, could he not succeed at present? 'Because,' said Northcote, ' 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.' ' Northcote's portrait of him is now at Petworth House, Sussex. Concerning the Duke of Clarence there is another incidental mention in the memoir. A letter of Samuel Northcote's from Plymouth, dated March 12, 1786, says : "The Prince is come to this part again, and one AN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY PAINTER 255 night, after running about with some buckish officers, he got into the garrison in the dead of the night and serenaded the Governor with a band of music under his window, to the great astonishment and mortifi- cation of the Governor." Northcote was at one time favourably considered at the Prince Regent's Court, where some of his utterances on politics had been quoted. " I myself might have been a courtier," he said to Hazlitt, " if I could have cringed and held my tongue, but I could no more exist in that element than a fish out of water. Sir Joshua once asked me, 'What do you know of the Prince of Wales that he so often speaks to me about you ? ' I remember I made him laugh by my answer, for I said, ' Oh, he knows nothing of me, nor I of him it's onlv his O s bragging!' 'Well,' said he, 'that is spoken like a king ! ' "In June, 1804, I painted a very good portrait of Sir Edward Pellew, who was made a baronet from his having performed one of the most gallant of actions in being the chief instrument in saving the crew of the Dtitton East Indiaman when a wreck on the rocks under the citadel at Plymouth ; and as the whole event is excellently described in a letter written at the time by my elder brother, who was an eye-witness of the distress, I shall without any 256 MEMORIALS OF more apology give it verbatim. Sir Edward for this action had also an augmentation to his arms and crest. The wreck makes also the background of the portrait, but Sir Edward would never suffer a print to be taken from the picture. " PLYMOUTH, January 28, 1796. " We have had a terrible succession of stormy weather alate. Tuesday, immediately after dinner, I went to the Hoe to see the Dutton East India- man, full of troops, upon the rocks directly under the flagstaff of the citadel. She had been out seven weeks on her passage to the West Indies, as a transport with four hundred troops on board, besides women and the ship's crew, and had been just driven back by the stress of weather, with a great number of sick on board. You cannot conceive anything so horrible as the appearance of things altogether which I beheld when I first arrived on the spot. The ship was struck on sunken rocks somewhat inclining to one side, and without a mast or the boltsprit standing, and her decks were covered 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 this scene was the distress- guns which were fired now and then, directly over our heads, from the citadel. When I first came to AN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY PAINTER 257 the spot I found that they had by some means got a rope, with one end on't fixt to the ship and the other was held by the people on shore, by which means they could yield as the ship swang. Upon this rope they had got a ring, which they could by means of two smaller ropes draw forth and back from the ship to the shore ; to this ring they had fixt 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 w r ork, and though I looked at them for a long time, yet the numbers on the deck were not apparently diminishing ; besides, from the motion which the ship had by rolling on the rocks it was not possible to keep the rope equally strech'd, and from this cause, as 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 interested in the highest degree for the safety of those poor wretches. He exerted himself uncommonly and 18 258 MEMORIALS OF directed others what to do on the shore, and en- deavoured 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 anybody 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 instance 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 and his sword hanging at his side. I have not room to describe the par- ticulars, for there was something grand and in- teresting in the thing ; for as soon as they had 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 shores, 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, which quickened the matter a good deal, and by this time two large open row-boats were arrived from the Dockyard, and a sloop 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 AN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY PAINTER 259 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 in the rope as before and was drawn ashore, where he was again received with shouts. Upon my inquiry who this gallant hero was, I was informed that it was Sir Edward Pellew, who I had heard the highest character of before both for bravery and mercy. " The soldiers were falling into disorder, for when Sir Edward went on board there was no officer amongst them. I suppose they were some of the first who took care of themselves when the rope was first fixed. Many of the soldiers were very drunk, having broke into the cabin and got at the liquor. I saw him beating one with the flat of his broadsword 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 somewhat 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 260 MEMORIALS OF ports, 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 those perished soon after, as the ship was washed all over as the sea rose. She is now in pieces." This letter was shown to Hazlitt, who has printed it in the " Conversations." " I may here add another act of bravery and heroic conduct of this truly great man, which he related to me at the time he was sitting to me for his portrait. It happened at the time when he was off at sea and could receive no help from any power but from his own courage. He was then the commander of a man-of-war. He was informed by one of his crew that a secret plot was formed to seize the ship and to murder all the officers and make a prize of the vessel and become pirates. At last information was given him that the moment was now arrived and that the ringleaders were in full council at that time in the cockpit, and not a moment to be lost. This was at midnight, when he armed himself with a loaded pistol in each hand and descended boldly down to this awful assembly, and entering he swore that the first man who offered to make any resistance he would immediately shoot dead. When instantly the courage of those wretches forsook them and they all quietly gave themselves up prisoners to this one intrepid hero. AN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY PAINTER 261 "Wonderful is the cowardice of vice, for had those plotters at that moment seized this brave man their plot would have been completed." "In the year 1806 died James Barry the painter, the only man I had ever heard Sir Joshua Reynolds speak of with any bitterness, and of him he said, ' That man I think I may say I hate, though it is a bad thing to say that of any man.' It is therefore a curious circumstance to know that this very James Barry and Sir Joshua Reynolds are buried side by side in the Cathedral of St. Paul. It is indeed of small importance who lies nearest to us in the grave. "In the year 1820 I painted the subject of a very humane action of Alexander, Emperor of Russia, which is thus related of him. " The Emperor, in one of his journeys through Poland, being considerably in advance of his attendants, saw several persons assembled on the banks of the little river Wilia, and approaching the spot found that they had just dragged out of the water a peasant who appeared to be lifeless. He instantly alighted, had the man laid on the side of the bank, and immediately proceeded to strip him and to rub his temples, wrists, &c. The Emperor was thus employed when his suite joined 262 MEMORIALS OF him, whose exertions were immediately added to those of the Emperor. Dr. Wylly, his Majesty's physician, attempted to bleed the patient, but in vain ; and after three hours' fruitless attempt to recover him the doctor declared that it was useless to proceed any further. The Emperor, much chagrined and fatigued with continued exertions, entreated Dr. Wylly to persevere, and to make a fresh attempt to bleed him. The doctor, though he had not the slightest hope of being successful, proceeded to obey the positive injunctions of his Imperial Majesty, who, with Prince Wolkousky and Count Lieven (now ambassador at the British Court), made a last effort at rubbing, &c. At length the Emperor had the inexpressible satisfac- tion of seeing the blood make its appearance, while the poor peasant uttered a feeble groan. The emotions of his Imperial Majesty at this moment could not be described ; and, in the plenitude of his joy, he exclaimed, ' Good God ! this is the brightest day of my life ! ' while tears involuntarily rolled down his cheek. Their exertions were now redoubled ; the Emperor tore his handkerchief and bound the arm of the patient, nor did he leave him until he was quite recovered. He then had him conveyed to a place where proper care could be taken of him, ordered a considerable present, and afterwards provided for him and his family. AN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY PAINTER 263 " As to my works, they are scattered about in various private collections, except a large one whose subject is the death of Wat Tyler, painted for Alderman Boydell and given by him to the City of London, and placed in the council room at Guildhall. This is one of my best pictures. Another large picture, the subject being Shake- spere's description of the entry into London of Richard the Second and Bolingbroke, is in the Hall of the Armourers Company." Concerning the Wat Tyler picture Northcote has a detached note. "On Sunday, November 26, 1815, Canova, the famous Italian sculptor, paid me a visit, totally unexpected, as I had never seen him, neither did I know any one who would have brought him to me. He then told me that he had come from having seen the picture painted by me of the death of Wat Tyler, which he thought extraordinary fine, and therefore expressed an earnest wish to be introduced to the author of it. That Canova saw this picture of the death of Wat Tyler was by accident, as he was taken to the place by Chantry only to see his statue of the late King, which is placed at the head of a room. When Canova came to me he was conducted by Pellegrini, the Venetian 264 AN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY PAINTER painter. Haydon also accompanied them, who closely attached himself to Canova wherever he could." Domenico Pellegrini was born in Venice, and came to England in 1792, where he acquired con- siderable repute as a portrait painter. He ultimately returned to his own country. Northcote died on July 13, 1831, in his eighty- fifth year. He left ,1,000 to be paid to Chantry for a monument to himself (w r hich stands in the church of St. Marylebone), and ^200 for a similar memorial to his brother Samuel. APPENDIX LIST OF NORTHCOTE'S PAINTINGS 1 PORTRAITS PAINTED AT PORTSMOUTH IN THE YEAR 1776. 1. John Hunt and Anthony Hunt (in one picture). 2. Edward Hunt. 3. Miss Fitzherbert. 4. Miss Jane Fitzherbert. 5. Mr. Fitzherbert. 6. Master Eyres. 7. Miss Eyres. 8. Miss Prosser and Miss L. Prosser (in one picture). 9. Mrs. Prosser. 10. Master Josh Hunt. 11. Mrs. Hunt. 12. Mr. Parlby. 13. Ditto. 14. Mrs. Parlby. 15. Mr. W. Templar. 1 6. Ditto. 17. James Ferguson (the print by Hayward). 1 8. Miss Moore. 19. Lord Holmes. 20. Lady Holmes. 21. Lady Christian (small). 22. Captain Inglefield. 1 Northcote is responsible for the spelling of names. S.G. 265 266 APPENDIX 23. Captain C. Hamilton. 24. Ditto. 25. Captain Chic. Fortescue. 26. Captain Piere Williams. 27. Miss Williams. 28. Mr. Hawker, Organist at Portsmouth. 29. Rev. Mr. Ramsay. PORTRAITS PAINTED AT PLYMOUTH IN THE YEAR 1776. 30. Mrs. Earth, Dunsterville. 31. Miss Mary Brent. 32. Master John Squire and his Brother (in one picture). 33. Miss Squire. 34. Mrs. Gandy. 35. Mrs. Collins. 36. Mr. Wills. 37. Mr. Wm. Fillis. 38. Mrs. Northcote, of Honiton. 39. Mr. Northcote, of Honiton. 40. Mrs. A. Saunders. 41. Mrs. Yonge. 42. Rev. Mr. Gandy. 43. Mrs. Coryton. 44. Miss Gandy. 45. Mr. Omany. 46. Mr. G. Leach. 47. Rev. James Yonge. 48. Miss Crawley. 49. Mrs. Yonge, of Puslinch. 50. Mr. Charles Yonge. 51. Miss Harrison (half-length). 52. Miss MacBride (half-length). 53. Mrs. Rogers, afterwards Lady Rogers. 54. Admiral MacBride (half-length a print from this by Filler). 55. Admiral Vinson. 56. Mrs. Mudge. APPENDIX 267 57. Mrs. Dunsterville. 58. Sir Frederick Rogers. 59. Lady Rogers. 60. Miss Yonge, afterwards Mrs. Morshead. 61. A White Greyhound (for the Rev. J. Yonge). 62. Mrs. C. Harris. 63. Miss Harris. 64. Mr. C. Harris. 65. Mrs. Chaille. 66. Mrs. J. Harris. 67. Miss A. Harris. 68. Mr. John Harris. 69. Mrs. Squire. 70. Captain Lane. 71. Mrs. Lane. PORTRAITS PAINTED IN PLYMOUTH IN THE YEAR 1780. 72. Mrs. Leach. 73. Mr. Henry Tolcher. 74. Mr. Putt. 75. Miss Mudge, afterwards Mrs. Yonge. 76. Mr. Tom Putt. 77. Lady Elford and her Son (in one picture). 78. Sir William Elford (half-length). 79. Dr. Geach. 80. Mr. Crawley. 8 1. Rev. L. Elford. 82. Mr. Dodge. 83. J. Northcote (for Mr. Dodge). 84. Mrs. Shepherd. 85. Miss Ann Shepherd. 86. Master Saville Shepherd. 87. Mr. Tom Shepherd. PORTRAITS PAINTED IN 1781. 88. Mr. Shepherd. 89. Mr. Luxmore. 268 APPENDIX 90. Mr. Edward Stevens Trelawney. 91. Mrs. Wills. 92. Rev. Mr. Grossman. 93. Rev. Mr. Ferneaux. 94. Captain Ferneaux. 95. Rev. Duke Yonge. 96. Mr. Thomas. 97. Mr. Morshead. 98. Lieutenant Mason, of Okehampton. 99. Rev. Mr. Hughes. 100. Rev. Mr. Worth. 101. Rev. Mr. Hawkin. 102. Mrs. Hughes. 103. Miss Sally Lewis. 104. Miss Maria Lewis, afterwards Mrs. Manley. 105. Mrs. Jonathan Elford. 106. Mr. Culme. 107. Colonel Dyer of the Marines. 1 08. Mrs. Culme. 109. Admiral Hide Parker, no. Mr. Ferneaux. in. Master Parker, afterwards Lord Borindon. 112. Miss Vincent. 113. Mr. Paul Onrey Treby. 114. Mrs. Arscott, of Tetcott. 115. Sir Thomas Page. PAINTED IN LONDON, IN BOND STREET. 1 1 6. Sir Frederick Rogers. 117. Lord Radstock. 1 1 8. Lord Hugh Seymour. 119. Captain John Manlay (half-length). 1 20. Mr. T. Brett, Commissioner. 121. Mr. Marsh, Commissioner (half-length). 122. Sir Thomas Page (half-length). 123. Mrs. Colingwood. APPENDIX 269 124. Sir Andrew Snape Hammond. 125. Lady Dowager Poulett. 126. Sir Richard Pearson (half-length). 127. Mrs. Bell. 128. Mr. Mervyn (a copy from Sir Joshua Reynolds). 129. Ditto ditto. 130. Captain Ferneaux (a copy). 131. Mr. John Bastard and his Brother (in one picture, from which there is a print by Reynolds). 132. Mr. Tom Brent. 133. Lord Radstock. PORTRAITS PAINTED IN LONDON IN 1782. 134. Lord Radstock (third picture). 135. Master John MacBride and his Sister (in one picture). 136. Prince William of Gloucester. 137. General Arnold. 138. Mr. Thos. Mudge, jun. (for Mr. Rosden). 139. Mr. Honey wood i. 140. Ditto 2. 141. Ditto. 3. 142. Mr. Bayley, of Plymouth. 143. Mrs. Bayley. 144. Master Harry Bayley. 145. Mrs. Frederick. 146. Miss Sarah Foster. 147. Mrs. Honeywood. 148. Mr. Hawkins. 149. Mrs. Honeywood (a copy). 150. Mrs. Russell, of Basingstoke. 1 5 1 Ditto ditto. PICTURES PAINTED IN THE YEAR 1783. 152. The Village Doctress (the print by Walker; also a small print). 153 The Dancing Dogs. 270 APPENDIX 154. The Spell (from Gay's poems the print by Walker). 155. Mr. Fitzherbert. 156. Mrs. Shergold. 157. Mr. Fisher. 158. Major Fairfax. 159. Mr. Strachey. 1 60. Mrs. A. Smith and her Daughter (in one picture, from which there is a print by Kingsbury). 1 6 1. Captain Fitzherbert. 162. Rev. Mr. Fitzherbert. 163. Lord Hood (half-length print by Kingsbury). 164. Sir Hugh Christian. 165. Mr. Simson. 1 66. Mr. Lamp (Kit Cat). 167. Lord Hood (print by Fisinger). 1 68. Captain Chichester Fortescue. 169. Captain Sherley. 170. Mr. Lance (half-length). 'PICTURES PAINTED IN THE YEAR 1784. 171. Captain Allen. 172. Mr. Uppleby. 173. Mr. Lane. 174. Sir Charles Frederick. 175. Captain Spry Davy. 176. Master John Rayner. 177. Master John Millbank (Kit Cat). 178. Mrs. Millbank (half-length). 179. Mr. Arscott, of Tetcott. 1 80. Lady Mansfield (a copy). Raised the Price from Eight Guineas to Ten for a Head. 181. Lord Bridport. 182. Mr. Molesworth. 183. Sir Ralph Millbank (half-length). 184. Mrs. Molesworth and Child. APPENDIX 271 185. Beggar Boy and Monkey, &c. (a print from this by Ward). 1 86. Stern and Maria (small the print by Parker). 187. The Fruit Girl (half-length the print by Gaugain). 1 88. The Visit to the Grandmother (the print by J. R. Smith). 189. Connubial Happiness. 190. Last Interview of Charlotte and Werter (the print by Parker). 191. Charlotte and Werter (by moonlight; small the print by Parker). 192. Stern in the Glove Shop (small the print by Parker). 193. S. Northcote (for Elford). 194. S. Northcote (for Leach the print by Reynolds). PICTURES PAINTED IN THE YEAR 1785. 195. Sir William Molesworth (for Mr. Bastard). 196. Lord Ancram. 197. Earl Harcourt. 198. Jonas Hanaway (for Sir William Molesworth half- length). 199. From Marmontel (a small picture the print by Gaugain). 200. From Ditto (its companion Ditto). 201. Captain Inglefield with Eleven Men saved at Sea (the print by Gaugain). 202. Lord Hood (print by Ridley). 203. Altered a picture of his Family (for Sir H. Bridgman). 204. Copy of General Johnson (for Lady Bourgoine). 205. Death of Prince Leopold of Brunswick (print by Gaugain). 206. Mrs. Fane (half-length). 207. Sir William Molesworth (for Elford). 208. Edward V. and His Brother Murdered (print by Legate Boydell's Shakespere). PICTURES PAINTED IN THE YEAR 1786. 209. Loss of the Hahwcll East Indiaman (print by Gildrey). 210. The Milk Girl (small print by Gaugain). 211. Sir John Henslow. 272 APPENDIX 212. Lady Henslow. 213. Subject from Haley's Poems (print by Parker). 214. Ditto (its companion print by Parker). 215. Meeting of Edward V. and His Brother (the print by Reynolds). 216. Mrs. Graves. 217. Mrs. Frederick. 218. Sir Corbett Corbett. 219. Rev. H. Whitfield. 220. Sir Stafford Northcote (half-length). 221. Captain Frederick. 222. The Death of Wat Tyler (for Boydell print by Anchor Smith). 223. Mr. Samuel Northcote, Senr. (print by Reynolds). 224. Rev. Mr. Chatfield. 225. The Bill of Rights (for Mr. Harris print by Parker). 226. Doctor John Mudge (for Rev. J. Yonge print by Reynolds). 227. Lord Radstock. 228. Lady Caroline Waldegrave. 229. Lord Radstock (copy). 230. Lady Radstock and Child. 231. Lady Radstock and Child (copy). PICTURES PAINTED IN THE YEAR 1787. 232. Mrs. Thornhill. 233. Elijah raises the Widow's Son (print by Murphy). 234. Jael and Sisera in the Royal Academy (print by Murphy). 235. Large picture of the Meeting of Edward V. and his Brother (for Boydell's Shakespere print by Thew). PICTURES PAINTED IN THE YEAR 1788. 236. Mrs. Whitfield. 237. The Flower Girl (half-length). 238. Lord Hinton (Kit Cat). 239. Mr. Forbes. APPENDIX 273 240. Hon. Mr. Bouvere. 241. Lady Bridget Bouvere. Price Raised to Fifteen Guineas a Head. 242. The Tigress (for Boydell print by Murphy). 243. Last Scene in the Third Part of Shakespere's "Henry VI." (for Boydell print by Michell). PICTURES PAINTED IN THE YEAR 1789. 244. Hubert and Arthur (Shakespere for Boydell print by Thew). 245. Earl of Radnor (copy from Gainsborough). 246. Sir George Osborne. 247. Lady Hennage Osborne. 248. Miss Dolignon. 249. Death of the Young Earl of Rutland (Shakespere for Boydell print by Ryder). 250. Mrs. Mac. Connor. 251. Mr. Mac. Connor. 252. Mrs. King. 253. Destruction of the Bastille (print by Gildrey). 254. Last Scene in "Romeo and Juliet" (Shakespere for Boydell print by Simon). 255. S. Northcote with a Hawk (for the Duke of Dorset). 256. The Landing of King William III. (print by Parker). PICTURES PAINTED IN THE YEAR 1790. 257. Mrs. Mason. 258. Dowager Countess of Morton. 259. Mr. Cotton. 260. Captain Mason. 261. Mrs. Gordon (a copy). PICTURES PAINTED IN THE YEAR 1791. 262. Death of Mortimer in Prison (Shakespere for Boydell print by Thew). 19 274 APPENDIX 263. Dr. Finch (half-length). 264. Mrs. Barnard. 265. Mrs. Moreland. 266. Mr. Moreland. 267. The Burial of the Two Princes in the Tower (Shake- spere for Boydell print by Skelton). PICTURES PAINTED IN THE YEAR 1792. 268. Lady Jane Grey in Prison, &c. (print by Bromley). 269. Miss Putt. 270. Mr. Banks (sculptor). 271. Mrs. Banks. 272. Miss Banks. 273. Lioness and Whelps (for Boydell print by Earlom). 274. "Timon of Athens " (Shakespere for Woodmason). 275. The Two Sons of Sultan Tippo Saib (print by Gildrey). 276. Mr. Saxton, Commissioner (half-length print by Rey- nolds). 277. Orlando and Oliver (Shakespere for Woodmason print by Rodes). PICTURES PAINTED IN THE YEAR 1793- 278. The Fables of the Lion in Love. 279. Death of John of Gaunt (Shakespere for Woodmason). 280. Public Entry of King Richard and Bolingbroke into London (Shakespere for Boydell print by Thew). PICTURES PAINTED IN THE YEAR 1794. Ten Kit Cat Pictures, being a set containing the Progress of an Industrious and an Idle Girl (prints by Gaugain). Price Raised to Twenty Guineas a Head. 291. Rev. Cory Luxmore. 292. Admiral Lord Graves (half-length print by Bartolozzi). APPENDIX 275 PICTURES PAINTED IN THE YEAR 1795. 293. Miss Eliza Forbes (half-length). 294. Mr. Maclaure. 295. Miss Steeley (half-length print by Reynolds). 296. Mr. Combe. 297. Balaam and the Angel (for Maclin's Bible print by Fitler). 298. Mr. Staley (half-length). 299. Mrs. Staley (half-length). 300. Master Woodmason. 301. Sir Francis Bourgeois (print by Reynolds). PICTURES PAINTED IN THE YEAR 1796. 302. Count Bruhl (half-length print by Reynolds). 303. Hon. George Powlett (half-length). 304. Master Semon (half-length). 305. Mr. Desanfans. 306. Girl at Prayer (print by Reynolds). 307. Jacob Blessing the Sons of Joseph (for Miss Linwood). PICTURES PAINTED IN THE YEAR 1797. 308: Hermit in Contemplation. 309. Two Leopards (print by Reynolds). 310. The Marquis De Le Fazelli, &c., in the Prison (print by Reynolds). 311. Dr. Remmett. 312. Captain A. Hunt (print by Reynolds). 313. Mrs. Hawkins Whitshed, and Child (half-length). 314. Captain Bentinck. 315. Miss Bentinck. 316. Dog and Hawk (for Mr. P. Powlett). 317. Two Monkeys (print by Reynolds). 318. Miss Bayley (half-length print by Reynolds). 319. Inside of Goring Church. 320. Lioness and Whelps (print by Reynolds). 276 APPENDIX PICTURES PAINTED IN THE YEAR 1798. 321. Mrs. Huntley (half-length). 322. Mr. Cranstown. 323. Mr. Jonathan Elford. 324. Death of Captain Hood (print by Reynolds). 325. Edward V. and his Brother Murdered in the Tower. 326. Mr. Jacob Salvadore. 327. Inside of Goring Church (for Miss Linwood). PICTURES PAINTED IN THE YEAR 1799. 328. Meeting of Edward V. and his Brother. 329. Captain Durham (half-length print by Reynolds). 330. Admiral Sir Charles Poole (half-length). 331. Vulture and Snake (print by Reynolds). 332. Lion (small). 333. Sir John Leicester (print by Reynolds). 334. Vulture and Lamb (print by Reynolds). 335. Tiger and Crocodile (print by Turner). 336. Eagle, Fox, and Pheasant (print by Murphy). 337. Lion and Snake (print by Reynolds). 338. Mr. Hawkens Whitshed. 339. Admiral Hawkens Whitshed (half-length print by Rey- nolds) . 340. A Spaniel Dog for Mr. Linwood (print by Reynolds). PICTURES PAINTED IN THE YEAR 1800. 341. The Cradle Hymn (print by Facius). 342. Vulture in a Storm. 343. Counsellor Graves (half-length.) 344. Mr. Parker. 345. Miss St. Clair with a Hawk. 346. Girl in a Shop of Animals. 347. Earl of Rosslyn (print by Bartolozzi). 348. Girl going to Market with an Ass. 349. Colonel Brown and the Pope,. &c 350. Two Miss Elfords. APPENDIX 277 351. Miss St. Clare as Meranda (whole-length). 352. Mirza Aboo Taleb Khan. 353. Lord Radstock (print by Ridley). 354. Bonaparte on a White Horse (print by Reynolds). PICTURES PAINTED IN THE YEAR 1801. 355. Sir Thomas Graves (half-length two prints, one by Reynolds, one by Ridley). 356. Rev. Mr. Bayley (half-length). 357. Mr. Parker (half-length). 358. Miss St. Clare as a Bacchante. 359. Miss St. Clare, the Dumb Alphabet (print by Annis). 360. Miss St. Clare (whole length on a mule print by William Ward). 361. Miss Brown (print by Kingsbury). 362. Death of Abercrombie (large print by Michell). 363. Miss Cotton (print by Annis). 364. Miss St. Clare with a Hawk (head size). PICTURES PAINTED IN THE YEAR 1802. 365. Mr. King. 366. Mr. Rogers, jun. (half-length). 367. Mr. F. Bayley. 368. Mr. Ralph Leycester (half-length). 369. Mr. Ashton and Mr. Hoste in one picture (print by Dawe). 370. Speaker of the House of Commons (half-length print by Picart). 371. Doctor Ford. 372. James Northcote (for Sir J. Leicester). 373. Dr. Jenner (Kit Cat print by Say). 374. Mr. Henchman (print by Reynolds). 375. Mr. Rogers, jun. (print by Miss Green). 376. Christ the Good Shepherd (half-length print by Rey- nolds). 377. Christ the Good Shepherd. 378. Mr. Godwin (print by Dawe). 278 APPENDIX PICTURES PAINTED IN THE YEAR 1803. 379. Mr. Inigo Jones (half-length). 380. Subject from the " Taller." 381. Captain S. Brooking (print by Ridley). 382. Captain S. Brooking. 383. Mr. R. Brent. 384. Mr. Cotterill (Kit Cat). 385. Mr. C. Leycester (half-length print by Reynolds). 386. Miss St. Clare (whole-length, with a hawk). 387. Mrs. Smith. 388. Mrs. Rogers, sen. (half-length). 389. Mr. Parker. 390. Mr. Parker (half-length). 391. Mr. Brooke (half-length). 392. Mr. Harry Leicester (half-length). 393. Mr. Roundell (half-length). 394. Mr. Brooke. 395. Mr. Barton (a copy). 396. Speaker of the House of Commons, Abbott. 397. Mr. Nathanson. 398. Village Uoctress (print by Reynolds). 399. Market Girl and Ass. 400. James Northcote (print by Reynolds). 401. James Northcote (for Mr. Hoare). 402. James Northcote (for Elford). 403. James Northcote (for Mr. Parker print by Dawe). 404. Two Miss Willans (in one picture, half-lengths). PICTURES PAINTED IN THE YEAR 1804. 405. Tiger Hunt (for T. L. Parker). 406. Mr. Hatsell (full-length). 407. Mr. Gardener (Kit Cat). 408. Coleridge the Poet. 409. Master Howard of Corbey and his Sister. 410. Honourable Augustus Phipps. 411. Mr. Parker (for Mr. Townley). APPENDIX 279 412. Miss Smith, of Gloucester. 413. Sir Edward Pellew, Bart. 414. Portrait of a Dog (for Mr. Parker). 415. Mr. Saville Shepherd (half-length). 416. Mrs. Mason (a copy). 417. Colonel William Mudge. 418. Master William Henry West Betty (whole-length). PICTURES PAINTED IN THE YEAR 1805. 419. A little Dog for Mrs. Boyer. 420. Mr. Currer Roundell. 421. Sir Boucher Wray (half-length). 422. Lady Wray (half-length). 423. Admiral Mason (a copy). 424. Lady Carson (small whole length). 425. Miss Leicester (a child), 426. Miss Clark, Granddaughter of Langmead. 427. Miss Langmead. 428. Edward V. and his Brother Murdered. 429. Sir Philip Moneaux, Bart, (half-length). 430. A Dog of Master Betty's. 431. A Head of Master Betty as Douglas. 432. Daniel in the Lions' Den (Earl Grey). 433- Colonel Gardener (a copy from Stuart). PICTURES PAINTED IN THE YEAR 1806. 434. Buck-hunting in Bolland Forest. 435. Sir James Gardener, Bart, (half-length). 436. Mr. Plowdens Playing at Chess. 437. Mr. Edward Parker (large half-length). 438. Mr. Coldthurst (half-length). 439. Mrs. Coldthurst (half-length). 440. Mr. Rogers's Grandfather. 441. A Water Spaniel for Sir T. Leicester. 442. Girl Leading an Ass. 443. King George III. on Horseback. 280 APPENDIX 444. Vulture and Snake. 445. Mr. Henry Roundell (half-length). 446. The Marriage of James IV. of Scotland with Margaret of England. * 447. Captain Morgan (half-length). PICTURES PAINTED IN THE YEAR 1807. 448. R. Rickards (a head). 449. Lady Knighton and Child. 450. Mr. William Harding, of Baraset. 451. Mr. R. Rickards (a copy). 452. Miss Pollinger (half-length). 453. Rev. Mr. Blackall (for Mr. Rogers). 454. James Northcote (given to Lady Northcote). 455. Dr. Walshman (a head). 456. Dr. Walshman again. 457. Romulus and Remus. PICTURES PAINTED IN THE YEAR 1808. 458. Mr. Moses Hawker. 459. Sir George Howard (a copy). 460. The Angels appearing to the Shepherds. 461. Goring Church. 462. Rev. Mr. Thomasin. 463. Mr. Thompson, Governor of Sierra Leone. 464. Rev. Charles Simeon. 465. Earl Cowper. 466. The Bishop of Salisbury. 467. Sir Charles Brisbane (full-length). 468. Mrs. Walshman. 469. A Dog for the Countess of Dysart. 470. A Pointer Dog for S. P. Moneaux. 471. Mrs. Elliott. 472. Sir William Pole (full-length). 473. Mrs. Jones. 474. Mr. Fawcett, of Portland Place. 475. Mrs. Fawcett. 476. Dr. Mudge (a copy for Rosden). APPENDIX 281 PICTURES PAINTED IN THE YEAR 1809. 477. Captain Witingham (dress of Oliver Cromwell). 478. Sir J. Gardiner's Uncle (a copy). 479. Bishop of Carlisle (half-length). 480. Earl Grey (a head). 481. Countess Grey (a head). 482. Mr. Richard Mudge (for Rosden), 483. Hon. Miss Fox. 484. Mr. Calcraft. 485. Captain Newport (full-length). 486. Captain Brown. 487. Lord Kinnard (full-length). 488. Lady Grey (third picture). 489. Pope Pius the Sixth (a head). 490. Lady Elizabeth Whitbread (a head). 491. Samuel Whitbread, Esq. 492. Dowager Countess Grey. 493. Mr. Sangster (for S. Whitbread). 494. Mr. Warrington. 495. Mr. Sangster (for himself). 496. Portrait of Mrs. Bertie. 497. Mrs. Dunsford. 498. Rev. Charles Simeon (second picture). 499. Boy and Tiger's Den. 500. Colonel Colstone. 501. Mrs. Colstone. 502. Death of Argyll. PICTURES PAINTED IN THE YEAR 1810. 503. Mr. Palmer, of Nazing Park. 504. Old Mr. Roundell (half-length). 505. Earl of Jersey (half-length). 506. Earl of Thanet. 507. Captain Cowper (half-length). 508. George Ponsonby, Esq. 509. Mr. Bernales (a Spaniard). 510. Sir Francis Burdett, Bart, (half-length). 282 APPENDIX 511. Mrs. Windham (a head). 512. Lady Charles Bentinck. 513. King George III. in Garter Robes. 514. Earl of Thanet. 515. S. Prado, Esq. (a head). 516. Captain Williams. 517. Lord Charles Bentinck. 518. Colonel Hawker, of Long Parish House. 519. Lady Johnstone, of Hackness (full-length). PICTURES PAINTED IN THE YEAR 1811. 520. Lady Kinneard (full-length). 521. The Duke of Leinster (a head). 522. Dean Parker (for T. L. Parker). 523. Colonel Buckworth (half-length). 524. Lion Hunting (for Mr. Shakerly). 525. The Duke of Leinster. 526. A Door Piece (for Earl Cowper). 527. The Prophet slain by a Lion. 528. Captain Finucane. 529. Rev. Mr. Bailay's Grandmother. 530. Mr. Charles Yonge (from William). 531. The Bishop of Ely (half-length). 532. Mrs. Brent (a head). PICTURES PAINTED IN THE YEAR 1812. 533. King George III. on Horseback. 534. Joseph and His Brethren. 535. Young Mr. Roundell. 536. Daniel in the Lions' Den. 537. Mr. Moseley. 538. Mr. Brunell. 539. Currer, Esq. (a copy from Romney). 540. Second head of Mr. Moseley. 541. J. Northcote, Liverpool. 542. Head of a Philosopher, Liverpool. 543. Sir William Pole, Bart, (a head). APPENDIX 283 544. Mr. Toddrell (a head). 545. Miss 'Dalrymple (a head). 546. Bishop of Ely (a copy). PICTURES PAINTED IN THE YEAR 1813. 547. Miss Anna Plumptre. 548. Mr. Charles Short. 549. Lady Pole and Child. 550. Old Mrs. Roundell (a copy). 551. Miss Tippit (a head). 552. Mrs. Radcliff (a head). 553. Christ blessing the Bread. PICTURES PAINTED IN THE YEAR 1814. 554. Mr. Jones (Vestry Clerk). 555. Young Mr. Northmore. 556. Young Mr. Plowden. 557. Mrs. Hawker and Child. 558. R. Leach, Esq. (for Colonel Hawker). 559. Christ in the Garden (full-length). 560. Bishop of Waterford (half-length). 561. Hamilton Hamilton, Esq. (a head). 562. Rev. Mr. Kelly (a head). 563. Master Hawkins Whitshed (half-length). 564. Captain Edward Brace. 565. Miss King (for Mr. Joddrell). 566. The Madonna. 567. Mr. Whitshed Keene. 568. James Northcote. 569. Ditto PICTURES PAINTED IN THE YEAR 1815. 570. Whitshed Keene, Esq. 571. Whitshed Keene, Esq. (third head). 572. Mr. De Leon. 573. Mr. De Leon, jun. 574. Mr. Whitcken (a head). 575. Mr. Salvadore, sen. (a head). 284 APPENDIX 576. Stafford Henry Northcote, Esq. 577. Mr. Ball (related to the Whitsheds). 578. Mr. Whitbread (full-length, Bedford). 579. Young Mr. Z. Mudge. PICTURES PAINTED IN THE YEAR 1816. 580. Mrs. Cathrow (a head). 581. Mr. Cathrow (a head). 582. Mr. Whitbread (full-length, City). 583. Master H. Fellows (a head). 584. Miss Whitshed (a head). 585. Miss Renira Whitshed. 586. Miss Charlotte Whitshed. 587. Rev. Lewis Way (a head). 588. Mr. Whitbread (full length), Scotland. 589. Augustus Hamilton, Esq. (head). 590. The Children and Tigers' Den. 591. Whitshed Keene, Esq. (in a cap). 592. Children and Tigers' Den (second). PICTURES PAINTED IN THE YEAR 1817. 593. Captain W T ayland (a head). 594. Mr. Wayland (a head). 595. Sir Robert Peel, Bart, (half-length). 596. Mrs Copeland (a head). 597. Mrs. Boothe (half-length). 598. Count Bentinck (a copy). PICTURES PAINTED IN THE YEAR 1818. 599. Sheriff Alderson (half-length). 600. Prisoner taken at Sedgemoor. 60 1. Daniel and the Angel in the Lions' Den. 602. John Adare Hawkins, Esq. (half-length). 603. Ditto (a head, for Mrs. Copeland). 604. Bishop of Chichester (half-length). 605. Daniel and the Angel in the Lions' Den. 606. Mr. Septimus Roundell (half-length). APPENDIX 285 607. Young David Keeping the Flock. 608. Rev. Mr. Parsons (a head). 609. Christ the Good Shepherd. 610. Miss Lydia Hobson. 6 1 1. Dr. Blegborough (a head). 612. Mr. Archibald Constable (half-length). 613. S. Prado, Esq. (a head). PICTURES PAINTED IN THE YEAR 1819. 614. Mr. Kean, as Brutus (full length). 615. Mr. Warburton. 6 1 6. Sir Charles Wale. 617. General Moore (full length) . 6 1 8. Master Whitshed (a head). 619. Miss Roberts (Kit Cat). 620. Mrs. Dauncey (a head, copy). 621. Lion Hunting (9 by 7^). 622. Young St John. PICTURES PAINTED IN THE YEAR 1820. 623. A Father Playing on the Flute to his Child. 624. Mr. Snow, the Banker. 625. A Child (for Sir John Miller). 626. Alexander, Emperor of Russia, saves the Man from Drowning. 627. The Marriage of Richard, Duke of York, to Lady Ann Mowbury (bought by Sir William Knighton). 628. Thomas Northmore, Esq. 629. Burial of Edward V. and his Brother in the Tower. 630. A Dog (Lister Parker, Esq.). 1821. 631. Copy of Mr. Rogers, sen. 632. Portrait of Mr. Prado. 633. Master Albert Way. 634. Second picture of the marriage of the Duke of York and Lady Ann Mowbury. 635. Burial of Christ (full-length). 286 APPENDIX 636. Princess Bridget Plantagenet made a Nun. 637. T. C. De Bernales (full-length). 638. Mrs. De Bernales (a head). 639. Miraculous Draught of Fishes. 1822. 640. Sir Edward Baker. 641. Mrs. Albo and her Brother. 642. George Finch Hatton, Esq. 643. A second picture of the Princess Bridget made a Nun. 644. J. J. Ruskin (his child). 645. Sir William Cooper (a head). 646. Mr. Cooper (his son). 647. Young Mr. Ashton (a head). 648. Mrs. Ashton (a head). 649. Burial of Christ (the repetition). 650. Wolf, Dog, and Lambs. 651. Mrs. Northcote and child. 652. Lord Grey (omitted in 1809). 653. Lord Grey, 1809. 654. Lord Grey, 1809. PICTURES PAINTED IN THE YEAR 1823. My own Portrait with a Hawk. A second ditto. My own Portrait (a head). A second ditto (for Lady Exeter). Mr. Mudge Compared to the Setting Sun. Netherton and his Dog. Mr. Dodge's Story of the Ghost. Sir Edward Pellew and the Shipwreck. Comical Letter (Betty Gultet, &c.). Dick Hunn. Old Mr. Brooking. D'Alembert. Oliver Cromwell. Dick the Gravedigger. APPENDIX 287 Dr. Crouch. Tom Rennel (painter). Dr. Mudge. Fuseli and Westall, &c. Fuseli. The Old Woman's Sale. Mrs. Cosway. PORTRAITS PAINTED IN THE YEAR 1824. King George IV. (for Mr. Sams an equestrian portrait). Ditto (a Kit Cat for Mr. Sams). Saint Cecilia (half-length sold at Carlisle). Portrait of Taddy O'Connallan (half-length for Sir William Knighton). The Gallery of the Worthys of Devonshire (bought by Henry Wollcombe, Esq.). The picture of the Marriage of the young Duke of York with the Lady Ann Mowbury (bought by his Majesty George IV.). Portrait of His Majesty George IV. on a white horse (sold to the Goldsmith Company). A repetition of the same picture PICTURES PAINTED IN THE YEAR 1825. For S. Prado, Esq., made a copy of his brother's portrait Mr. Salvadore. For Lady Whitshed (the portrait of her son, a head size). For Cockburn, Esq. (made a copy of a portrait of Mr. Maw- bury half-length). Christ falling under the burden of His Cross (sold to Lord Grosvenor for a chapel). The Princess Bridget Plantagenet a Nun, contemplating on the death of her brothers Edward V. and the Duke of York (half-length). Portrait of Mrs. Ruskin (a head). Portrait of John Ruskin, Esq. (a head). 288 APPENDIX PICTURES PAINTED IN THE YEAR 1826. Portrait of myself sitting in a chair (for Mr. Hillman). A large picture for an Altar of the Nativity. Portrait of Miss Hariot Jane Catherine Hawkins Whitshed (a head size). Portrait of Charles Anthony Ferdinand Bentinck. Portrait of John William Bentinck (a head). Portrait of the Honourable Mrs. Cornwall (a head) Historical picture of Christ's Agony in the Garden (now in the New Church in Regent Street). Head of a Negro in the character of Othello. PICTURES PAINTED IN THE YEAR 1827. The portrait of William Knighton, Esq., and Michael Seymour, Esq., Playing at Chess. Christ's Agony in the Garden (on the 6ft. canvas). Portrait of Miss Charlotte Whitshed (a head). PICTURES PAINTED IN THE YEAR 1828. Picture of a Gallery of the Worthies of Great Britain. Portrait of King George IV. on a white horse. Portrait of Sir Walter Scott, Bart., and J, Northcote, painting his portrait (in one picture). Also a repetition of the same picture, only with a dog in the picture. A Fruit Girl (sent to Birmingham Exhibition). The Fable of the Boar and the Ass (copied from Snyder). PICTURES PAINTED IN THE YEAR 1829. Portrait of King George IV. on a white horse (second picture). Portrait of Lady Whitshed (a head). Portrait of Joseph S. Graves Sawle (a head). Portrait of the Duke of Wellington on a White Horse. Portrait of the Duke of Wellington. An Italian Peasant Girl on an Ass. Alderman Henry Tolcher (half-length, unfinished). BOOKS FOR RECREATION AND STUDY PUBLISHED BY T. FISHER UNWIN, II, PATERNOSTER BUILDINGS, LON- DON, E.G..... T. FISHER UNW1N, Publisher, SIX- SHILLING NOVELS In uniform green cloth, large crown 8vo., gilt tops, 6s, Effie Hetherington. By ROBERT BUCHANAN. Second Edition. An Outcast of the Islands. By JOSEPH CONRAD. Second Edition. Al mayor's Folly. By JOSEPH CONRAD. Second Edition. The Ebbing of the Tide. By Louis BECKE. Second Edition. A First Fleet Family. By Louis BECKE and WALTER JEFFERY Paddy's Woman, and Other Stories. By HUMPHREY JAMES. Clara Hopgood. By MARK RUTHERFORD. Second Edition. The Tales of John Oliver Mobbes. Portrait of the Author. Second Edition. The Stickit Minister. By S. R. CROCKETT. Eleventh Edition. The Lilac Sunbonnet. By S. R. CROCKETT. Sixth Edition. The Raiders. By S. R. CROCKETT. Eighth Edition. The Grey Man. By S. R. CROCKETT. In a Man's Mind. By J. R. WATSON. A Daughter of the Fen. By J. T. BKALBY. Second Edition. The Herb-Moon. By JOHN OLIVER HOBBES. Third Edition. Nancy Noon. By BENJAMIN SWIFT. Second Edition. With New Preface. Mr. Magnus. By F. REGINALD STATHAM. Second Edition. Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland. By OLIVE SCHREINER Frontispiece. Pacific Tales. By Louis BECKE. With Frontispiece Portrait of the Author. Second Edition. Mrs. Keith's Crime. By Mrs. W. K. CLIFFORD. Sixth Edition. With Portrait of Mrs. Keith by the Hon. JOHN COLLIER, and a New Preface by the Author. Hugh Wynne. By Dr. S. WEIR MITCHELL. With Frontispiece Illustration. The Tormentor. By BENJAMIN SWIFT, Author of " Nancy Noon." Prisoners of Conscience. By AMELIA E. BARR, Author of "Jan Vedder's Wife." With 12 Illustrations. The Oods, some Mortals and Lord Wickenham. New Edition. By JOHN OLIVER HOBBES. The Outlaws of the Marches. By Lord ERNEST HAMILTON. Fully illustrated. The School for Saints : Part of the History of the Right Honourable Robert Orange, M.P. By JOHN OLIVKR HOBBES, Author of " Sinner's Comedy,' "Some Emotions and a Moral," "The Herb Moon," &c. The People of Clopton. By GEORGE BARTRAM. 11, Paternoster Buildings, London. E.G. T. FISHER UNWIN, Publisher, WORKS BY JOSEPH CONRAD i. AN OUTCAST OF THE ISLANDS Crown 8vo., doth, 6s. " Subject to the qualifications thus disposed of (vide first part of notice), ' An Outcast of the Islands ' is perhaps the finest piece of fiction that has been published this year, as ' Almayer's Folly ' was one of the finest that was pub- lished in 1895 . . . Surely this is real romance the romance that is real. Space forbids anything but the merest recapitulation of the other living realities of Mr. Conrad's invention of Lingard, of the inimitable Almayer, the one-eyed Babalatchi, the Naturalist, of the pious Abdulla all novel, all authentic. Enough has been written to show Mr. Conrad's quality. He imagines his scenes and their sequence like a master ; he knows his individu- alities and their hearts ; he has a new and wonderful field in this East Indian Novel of his. . . . Greatness is deliberately written ; the present writer has read and re-read his two books, and after putting this review aside for some days to consider the discretion of it, the word still stands." Saturday Rtvifw. II. ALMAYER'S FOLLY Second Edition. Crown 8vo., cloth, 6s. "This startling, unique, splendid book." Mr. T. P. O'CONNOR, M.P. " This is a decidely powerful story of an uncommon type, and breaks fresh ground in fiction. ... All the leading characters in the book Almayer, his wife, his daughter, and Dain, the daughter's native lover are well drawn, and the parting between father and daughter has a pathetic naturalness about it, unspoiled by straining after effect. There are, too, some admirably graphic passages in the book. The approach of a monsoon is most effectively described. . . . The name of Mr. Joseph Conrad is new to us, but it appears to us as if he might become the Kipling of the Malay Archipelago." Spectator 11, Paternoster Buildings, London, E.G. < T. FISHER UNWIN, Publisher, THE EBBING OF THE TT F)F m LOUIS BECKE Author of " By Reef and Palm " Second Edition. Crown 8vo., cloth, 6s. " Mr. Louis Becke wields a powerful pen, with the additional advantage that he waves it in unfrequented places, and summons up with it the elemental passions of human nature. ... It will be seen that Mr. Becke is somewhat of the fleshly school, but with a pathos and power not given to the ordinary professors of that school. . . . Altogether for those who like stirring stories cast in strange scenes, this is a book to be read." National Observer, PACIFIC TALES BY LOUIS BECKE With a Portrait of the Author Second Edition. Crown Svo., cloth, Ss. 14 The appearance of a new book by Mr. Becke has become an event of note and very justly. No living author, if we except Mr. Kipling, has so amazing a command of that unhackneyed vitality of phrase that most people call by the name of realism. Whether it is scenery or character or incident that he wishes to depict, the touch is ever so dramatic and vivid that the reader is conscious of a picture and impression that has no parallel save in the records of actual sight and memory." Westminster Gazette. " Another series of sketches of island life in the South Seas, not inferior to those contained in ' By Reef and Palm.' " Speaker. " The book is well worth reading. The author knows what he is talking about and has a keen eye for the picturesque." G. B. BURGIN in To-day. " A notable contribution to the romance of the South Seas." } T. P. O'CONNOR, M.P., in The Graphic. 11. Paternoster Buildings, London, E.G. j T. FISHER UNWIN, Publisher, A -FIRST FLEET FAMILY: BEING A HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED NARRA- TIVE OF CERTAIN RE- MARKABLE ADVEN- TURES COMPILED FROM THE PAPERS OF SERGEANT WILLIAM DEW, OF THE MARINES BY LOUIS BECKE and WALTER JEFFERY Second Edition. Crown Svo., cloth, 6s. "As convincingly real and vivid as a narrative can be." Sketch. " No maker of plots could work out a better story of its kind, nor balance it more neatly." Daily Chronicle. " A book which describes a set of characters varied and so attractive as the more prominent figures in this romance, and a book so full of life, vicissitude, and peril, should be welcomed by every discreet novel reader." Yorkshire Post. " A very interesting tale, written in clear and vigorous English." Globe. " The novel is a happy blend of truth and fiction, with a purpose that will be appreciated by many readers ; it has also the most exciting elements of the tale of adventure." Morning Post. 11, Paternoster Buildings, London, E.G. g T. FISHER UNWIN, Publisher, THE TALES OF JOHN OLIVER HOBBES With a Frontispiece PortraC of the Author Second Edition. Crown Sio., cloth, Gs. " The cleverness of them all is extraordinary." Guardian. " The volume proves how little and how great a thing it is to write a ' Pseudonym.' Four whole ' Pseudonyms "... are easily contained within its not extravagant limits, and these four little books have given John Oliver Hobbes a recognized position as a master of epigram and narrative comedy." St. James's Gazette. " As her star has been sudden in its rise so may it stay long with us i Some day she may give us something better than these tingling, pulsing, mocking, epigrammatic morsels." Times. " There are several literary ladies, of recent origin, who have tried to come up to the society ideal ; but John Oliver Hobbes is by far the best writer of them al by far the most capable artist in fiction. . . . She is clever enough for anything." Saturday Review. THE HERB MOON JOHN OLIVER HOBBES Third Edition, Croicn Svo., cloth, 6s. " The jaded reader who needs sauce for his literary appetite cannot do better than buy ' The Herb Moon.' " Literary World. " A book to hail with more than common pleasure. The epigram- matic quality, the power of rapid analysis and brilliant presentation are there, and added to these a less definable quality, only to be described as charm. . . . ' The Herb Moon ' is as clever as most of its predecessors, and far less artificial." Athena-urn. 11, Paternoster Buildings, London, E.G. k T. FISHER UNWIN, Publisher, THE STICKIT MINISTER AND SOME COMMON MEN S. R. CROCKETT Eleventh Edition. Crown &vo., clotlt, 6s. " Here is one of the books which are at present coming singly and at long intervals, like early swallows, to herald, it is to be hoped, a larger flight. When the larger flight appears, the winter of our discontent will have passed, and we shall be able to boast that the short story can make a home east as well as west of the Atlantic. There is plenty of human nature of the Scottish variety, which is a very good variety in ' The Stickit Minister ' and its com- panion stories ; plenty of humour, too, of that dry, pawky kind which is a monopoly of ' Caledonia, stern and wild ' ; and, most plentiful of all, a quiet perception and reticent rendering of that underlying pathos of life which is to be discovered, not in Scotland alone, but everywhere that a man is found who can see with the heart and the imagination as well as the brain. Mr. Crockett has given us a book that is not merely good, it is what his countrymen would call 'by-ordinar' good,' which, being interpreted into a tongue understnnded of the southern herd, means that it is excellent, with a somewhat exceptional kind of excellence." Daily Chronicle. THE LILAC SUN- BONNET S. R. CROCKETT Sixth Edition. Cream 8m, cloth, 6s. " Mr. Crockett's ' Lilac Sun-Bonnet ' ' r.eecis no bush.' Here is a pretty love tale, and the landscape and rural descriptions carry the exile b:ick into the Kingdom of Galloway. Here, indeed, is the scent of bog-myrtle and peat. After inquiries among the fair, I learn that of all romances, they best love, not ' sociology,' not ' theology,' still less, open manslaughter, for a motive, but just love's young dream, chapter after chapter. From Mr. Crockett they get what they want, ' hot with,' as Thackeray admits that he liked it." Mr. ANDREW LAXG in Longman's Magazine. 11, Paternoster Buildings, London, E.G. i T. FISHER UNWIN, Publisher, MR. MAGNUS BY F. REGINALD STATHAM Second Edition. Crown 8vo., cloth, 6s. Some Press Opinions on the First Edition. " One of the most powerful and vividly written novels of the day." Nottingham Guardian. " A grim, terrible, and convincing picture." New Age. " Very impressive." Saturday Review. " Distinctly readable." Speaker. " A remarkable book." " Full of incident." Liverpool Mercury. [Standard. " One of the most important and timely books ever written." Newcastle Daily Mercury. " A vivid and stirring narrative." Globe. "An exceedingly clever and remarkable production." World. "A book to be read." Newsagent. "A terrible picture." Sheffield Independent. " One of the best stories lately published." Echo. " Worth reading." Guardian. " A sprightly book." Punch. " The story is very much brought up to date." Times. " Vivid and convincing." Daily Chronicle. " The story is good and well told." Pall Mall Gazette. "Ought to be immensely popular." Reynolds' Weekly Newspaper. " A most readable story." Glasgow Herald. " A brilliant piece of work." Daily Telegraph. " The story should make its mark." Bookseller. " Admirably written." Sheffield Daily Telegraph. "The more widely it is read the better." Manchester Guardian. " Will find many appreciative readers." Aberdeen Free Press. " Exciting reading." Daily Mail. "Can be heartily recommended." Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper. " A well-written and capable story." People. " Well written." Literary World. 11, Paternoster Buildings, London, E.G. o UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY, LOS ANGELES COLLEGE LIBRARY This book is due on the last date stamped below. INTER! JBKARY LOANS APR 1 2 19( THREE WEEKS FROM DATE c 196& APR 30 OF RECEIPT Book Slip-35m-9,' '^031884)4280 A 001 059 234 3 UCLA-College Library NO 497 N8G9 L 005 698 799 3 Librar ND ^97 N8G9