also very soon removed from Leicester square to less splendid lodgings in Tavistock street, Covent Garden.

Such was the early history of Sir Thomas Lawrence.* His subsequent career, as all know, was one of great brilliancy. He was elected a Royal Associate in 1791. On the death of Sir Joshua Reynolds, the following year, he was appointed his successor in the offices of painter to his Majesty and to the Dilettanti Society. From this time his reputation grew steadily, till he came to be generally acknowledged the first portrait-painter of the age. In 1815, the honour of knighthood was bestowed upon him by the Prince Regent. The preceding year, on the visit of the foreign Sovereigns to this country, he had received his Royal Highness's commands to take the likenesses of these personages, and some of the more distinguished individuals in their suite; and, during their stay, he finished the portraits of the King of Prussia, Field-marshal Blucher, and the Hetman Platoff. Four years afterwards, on occasion of the Congress at Aix-la-Chapelle, he repaired to that city, where he painted the Emperor Alexander; and, proceeding from thence to Vienna, he there completed portraits of the Emperor of Austria, the Archdukes, Prince Metternich, and other distinguished persons belonging to that court. From Vienna he went to Rome, where he arrived in May 1819. Here he painted the Pope, Pius VII, and Cardinal Gonsalvi. He remained in Rome for several months, during which he received the most gratifying testimonies of respect and admiration from his brother artists there, and it was the month of April 1820

* For a more detailed account of the youth and subsequent progress of this eminent painter, we must refer the reader to the first volume of the Juvenile Library, which contains the

before he returned to England. The very day before he arrived in town he had been unanimously elected to the Presidency of the Royal Academy, as successor to Mr West. This distinguished office he continued to hold till his sudden and lamented death, on the 7th of January, 1830. Only the day before this event happened, he had worked for some time in his study, as usual; and even a few minutes before he expired, he had been conversing cheerfully with some friends who had spent the evening with him, on the art which he loved, and which it was then little thought by any of them he would so soon cease to adorn.

Gifted as he was with such an extraordinary natural capacity for his art as to have been in reality a miracle of precocity, Sir Thomas Lawrence does not furnish us with an example so valuable as many others we have quoted, with reference to the peculiar object of the present work. His first acquisitions in the line in which he afterwards so greatly distinguished himself, were not made either through laborious application, or in the face of any uncommon difficulties; but rather by a happy innate skill and facility, which enabled him to paint and draw likenesses almost as soon as his hand could hold a pencil, and with something approaching to the same unconsciousness and absence of effort, with which in other men the limbs obey the impulse of volition in their most ordinary movements. But still his history is not altogether uninstructive, even as a lesson on the subject of the pursuit of knowledge. Although in his earliest efforts he met with no opposition, but on the contrary, with abundance of encouragement and applause, from his father, we have seen the resistance which that person afterwards offered to every plan which was proposed for his son's improvement; and it is to be taken, therefore, as an evidence both

of great good sense and no ordinary firmness on the part of the son, that, not intoxicated either by the flatteries which had been lavished upon him, or by the decided success which had crowned even his yet imperfect performances, he felt, what his parent did not, how useful study and instruction might be to him, and, as soon as it was in his power, took measures of his own accord to secure both. Had this eminent artist, indeed, not possessed many other superior qualities beside his talent as a painter, the education which he received in his boyhood, suited as it was to force out his genius into brilliant but premature display, would, in other respects, havebeen productive of very unfortunate effects on both his professional and his general character. He must have been very active in availing himself of such opportunities as his after life presented for repairing the injuries of his early training. He is one of a very few of our great English painters (Gainsborough was another) who have attained to eminence in their art, without having enjoyed the advantage of an early residence in the country which contains the principal works of the great masters. Sir Thomas Lawrence never visited Italy till he went there, as we have mentioned, on his return from Vienna, in 1819, when he was fifty years of age. This was one misfortune which he owed entirely to the obstinacy of his father. Considering the very scanty education, too, which he received in the ordinary branches of learning, the respectable measure of literary information of which he afterwards made himself master deserves to be mentioned to his credit. Although not what is commonly called a scholar, he was well acquainted, we are told, with the best English authors; and had taken great pains to obtain a knowledge of classical and foreign works, in so far as they were

sober and rational equability of temper and conduct, so opposite both to the low excesses of Morland and the morbid cynicism of Barry, which this distinguished artist preserved throughout his life, notwithstanding his early exposure to so many influences well calculated to corrupt both his understanding and his heart, forms another ground on account of which his example is exceedingly worthy of being held up to the imitation of all, and especially of such as may have to tread a path so perilous as his, in the commencement of life.

CHAPTER VIII.

Foreign Painters-Giotto; Greuze; Ehret; Solario. Other cultivators of the Fine Arts - Canova; Bewick.

If we were to go over the long catalogue of foreign painters, we should find many names to add to those we have already enumerated of individuals who have attained the highest distinction after acquiring their art originally without a teacher, or practising it for a considerable time in unnoticed obscurity. GIOTTo, for instance, one of the great revivers of the art in the beginning of the fourteenth century, was the son of a peasant in the village of Vespignano, near Florence, and was employed, when a boy, in tending sheep. While in this condition, he was one day found by Cimabue drawing the figure of one of his flock on a large stone which lay on the ground; and that master (the first who practised anything deserving to be called painting in modern Europe) was so much pleased with this attempt, that he took the boy with him to Florence, and carefully instructed him in his art, in as far as he knew it himself. Giotto afterwards greatly surpassed his master, and, indeed, had no equal in his own age, either as a painter or a sculptor. Or to descend to much later times, BATONI, the principal artist whom Italy produced in the last century, taught himself painting while working with his father as a goldsmith; and, although he afterwards went to study at Rome (being sent there by some admirers of his genius, who subscribed to defray the expense of his residence) he merely availed himself of this opportunity to copy some of the works of the