graved after the death of Lawrence. Some time previously, one day, when he was shown his fine drawing of this boy, he was much affected, and observed, “How very little I have improved since that."

KINDNESS AND GENEROSITY TO ARTISTS.

Among Lawrence's amiable traits was his rejoicing at the success of the clever and the enthusiastic. He writes these lines of fair encouragement dated March, 1829, to a young artist whom he had requested to draw a view of Rome :— "I need not tell you how sincerely I rejoice in your success: hitherto you have 'won your spurs by your own valour,' however much the kindness of friendship may have cheered you in the contest. The painting of your figures last year convinced me of your increasing ability in the study of the human figure; and, unless you attempt the higher dramatic or epic style of composition, you already walk in perfect safety, and need fear no pit-fall in your path. I am anxious to see the picture you are now sending, of which I heard, last night, a very favourable opinion from Mr. Turner. There is a gentleman here who is desirous of having two small pictures of you, about the size of the Boy and Girl, at your own price and subject. He is not in the circles of fashion, but known to almost all our artists by his liberal patronage and gentlemanly conduct. His name is Vernon. Let me know that you undertake them for him. There are many competitors for your little picture of 'The Youthful Italian Lovers ;' but having your own authority for considering it to be Mr. Bailey's, I retained it for him. Beautiful as your drawing of the same subject was, I preferred the picture. I am well acquainted with the talents and intelligence of Mr. Havell; if you now go to complete those sketches which were but slightly traced with him, and add to them the colour and effects of nature, your tour with a man of such known taste and knowledge of composition, whether beautiful or grand, will have been all gain, and the benefit lasting. I shall not fail to give your remembrances to Callcott, who will be much gratified with the report of your success. You are fortunate in having still the society of Mr. Eastlake; an advantage that cannot be too highly appreciated.”

Cunningham has preserved this interesting record of Sir Thomas Lawrence's liberality.

"I may say with safety," writes a now well-known painter,

"that Sir Thomas Lawrence was one of the best friends I ever had. I found him at all times most ready and liberal in his advice and visits; and when the oppressive number of his engagements would not allow him to go out of the house, he would always see the humblest student at home. I had the pleasure of making him a great number of drawings in water-colours-always sketches done on the spot; and I know he frequently conferred this honour upon me, more to assist and encourage my exertions than from any wish to possess the drawings themselves and for all I did for him in this way he paid me at the moment, and always handsomely; generally more than any one else who encouraged me. He never lost an opportunity of recommending my drawings and paintings among his distinguished friends; and I am even now feeling the effects of this generosity."

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A painter, of considerable merit, but without patronage, left at the house in Russell-square three of his pictures for Sir Thomas's inspection. He called one evening to learn the President's opinion, and to take away the pictures he sent up his name, when Lawrence followed the servant down stairs, and put a folded paper into the hand of the artist, saying: "I had left this should you have called whilst I was from home. I much admire your productions, and wish you every success. The painter had only patience to get to the first lamp, when, unfolding the paper, he found within it a 301. bank-note, which saved him from despair.

We are gratified in the Memoirs of Mr. Uwins, R.A. with this frank testimony to Lawrence's sincerity and service to his brother artists: it occurs in a letter to the writer's brother, Mr. David Uwins:

"You must not suppose the President, though so very polite, is on that account insincere. It will always be recorded to his glory, that he has ever shown himself the kind friend and protector of aspiring talent. I have received from him much kind instruction and advice, and with many it does not stop there: his connexion and even his purse have been ready to back his counsels. There are many who owe their reputation to his fostering aid, and others who without him could never have been able to make their first step in life with courage and stability. His manner is most courtier-like, but his purpose is firm, and his opinion sincere. Poor West used to overwhelm young men with flattery, and often spoil them; Lawrence befriends them without spoiling

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them. He puts them firm on their legs, but never lifts them into stilts. This is the voice not only of my own experience, but the experience of hundreds, and my conscience would never allow me to pass in silence any opportunity of defending him from the censure which his extreme politeness often brings upon him."

LAWRENCE'S SENSITIVENESS.

In 1823, while John Thurtell lay in prison, committed for trial for the murder of Mr. Weare, Sir Thomas Lawrence expressed a wish to be allowed, without observation, to take a glance at Thurtell, as he took his exercise in the prison-yard. This request was not only refused, but misrepresented as an application to take a cast of the prisoner's face, and this cruel misstatement found its way into the newspapers. Sir Thomas read this gross impeachment of his humanity with much pain one morning, when he had to wait upon George the Fourth at the palace to take a sitting for the celebrated "sofa portrait." The Painter was so affected, and depressed in spirits that he could hardly proceed with his work. The King observed his distress, inquired the cause, and upon its being explained, expressed his sympathy with Lawrence's susceptibility.

But this sensitiveness conduced to the perfection of his art. “That fineness of feeling," said one of his most gifted friends, "which made him so sensible to the slights and caresses of the world, probably gave him in his art a delicacy of thought and of touch scarce ever surpassed: making him alike sensible to the utmost refinements of nature in his own labours, as well as powerfully alive to any deficiency in them, in the works of others. This, however, which made so much of the charm of his art, with which he could seize, and give an interest to the scarcely visible irregularities of beauty, and touch the feathers, or the silver tissue, with a lightness which seemed to suspend them in the air itself, was in him, as it always must be with genius, accompanied by a strength where strength was wanted, which gave to all that was fine and delicate its true value. When once asked what he was doing, he said, 'All uncertainty-taking refuge in difficulties.'

His forgiveness of slight or injury has been shown in many instances in his conduct to Harlow, this was strikingly evident. His goodnature was exhaustless. He had not the

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power to say nay, either for his purse or his pencil. A lady, who had been liberal in her invectives against him, requested him to make some change in the portrait of her mother after her death. A friend, on reading the request, said, Why should you waste your time on her; she who heaps many a scandal on you with witty and persevering malice?" He replied, with a smile,-"Oh, never mind: I know she does as you say but nobody else can do what she wants, and I must do it for her;" and he did.

ON THE GENIUS OF FLAXMAN, BY LAWRENCE.

In Sir Thomas's Address to the Royal Academy, upon delivering the Medals to the successful candidates, on December 11, 1826, he thus descanted upon our greatest sculptor.

*

"Mr. Flaxman's genius, in the strictest sense of the word, was original and inventive. His purity of taste led him, in early life, to the study of the noblest relics of antiquity; and a mind, though not then of classical education, of classic basis, urged him to the perusal of the best translations of the Greek philosophers and poets; till it became deeply imbued with those simple and grand sentiments, which distinguish the productions of that favoured people. When engaged in these mingling studies, the patronage of a lady of high rank, whose taste will now be remembered with her own goodness, gave birth to that series of compositions from Homer and the Greek tragedians, which continues to be the admiration of Europe. These, perhaps, from their accuracy in costume, and even from the felicitous union between their characters and subjects, to minds unaccustomed to prompt discrimination, may have conveyed the idea of too close an imitation of Grecian art. Undoubtedly, the elements of his style were founded on it; but only on its noblest principles on its deeper intellectual power, and not on the mere surface of its skill. He was more the sculptor of sentiment than of form; and while the philosopher, the statesman, and the hero, were treated by him with appropriate dignity, not even in Raphael have the gentler feelings and sorrows of human nature been traced with more touching pathos, than in the various designs and models of this estimable man. The rest of Europe know only the productions of his genius when it bent to the grandeur *The late Dowager Countess Spenser.

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of the antique; but these, which form its highest efforts, had their origin in nature only; and in the sensibility and virtues of his mind. Like the greatest of modern painters, he delighted to trace from the actions of familiar life, the lines of sentiment and passion; and from the populous haunts and momentary peacefulness of poverty and want, to form his inimitable groups of childhood, and maternal tenderness, with those nobler compositions from holy writ-as beneficent in their motive, as they were novel in design-which open new sources of invention from its simplest texts, and inculcate the duties of our faith.

"In piety, the minds of Michael Angelo and Flaxman were congenial. I dare not assert their equality in art—the group of Michael and the Fallen Angel' is a near approach to the greatness of the former; and, sanctified as his memory is by time and glory, it gained no trivial homage in the admiration of the English sculptor; whose Shield of Achilles—that divine work! unequalled in its combination of beauty, variety, and grandeur-his genius could not have surpassed.

"But I trespass too long on the various business of this evening. To be wholly silent on an event so affecting to us all, was quite impossible.*

"I know the great and comprehensive talents that are around me; I know the strength remaining to the Academy: but with long experience of the candour which accompanies it, I feel that I may safely appeal to this assembly, for their acknowledgment with mine, that the loss of Mr. Flaxman is not merely a loss of power, but a loss of dignity to the Institution-deep and irreparable loss to art-to his country and to Europe !-not to posterity-to whom his works, as they are to us, will be inestimable treasures; but who, knowing how short and limited the span that Providence has assigned to the efforts of the longest life, and the finest intellect; and learning that his genius, though its career was peaceful, had inadequate reward,-will feel it to be their happier destiny, to admire, and not to mourn him-to be thankful that he had existed, and, not like us, to be depressed that he is gone, to revere and follow him as their master, and not, as is our misfortune, to lament him as their friend!

'He died in his own small circle of affection;-enduring

* Mr. Flaxman died on the 7th of December, 1826, aged 72; and on the 15th Sir Thomas Lawrence attended his funeral to the churchyard of St. Giles's-in-the Fields.