the President has thought worth recording in his fourteenth Discourse. Gainsborough was so enamoured of his art that he had many of the pictures he was then working upon brought to his bedside to show them to Reynolds, and flattered himself that he should live to finish them. Gainsborough was a very dissolute, capricious man, was inordinately fond of women, and not very delicate in his sentiments of honour. He was first put forward in the world, I think, by a Mr. Fonnereaux, who lent him 300l. Gainsborough, having a vote for an election in which his benefactor had some concern, voted against him. His conscience, however, remonstrating against such conduct, he kept himself in a state of intoxication from the time he set out to vote till his return to town, that he might not relent of his ingratitude. This anecdote Mr. Malone received from Mr. Windham.

PATIENCE OF WOOLLETT THE ENGRAVER.

Woollett evinced throughout his career at the head of the English school of engraving, an extraordinary degree of patience and perseverance. When he had finished his plate of "The Battle of the Hogue," he took a proof to its painter, West, for inspection: at first the President expressed himself perfectly satisfied with the plate; but, upon re-examination, he observed that in some parts alterations might be made, and in others additional colour might be given, which would, in his opinion, improve the effect of the whole; and, taking a port-crayon with black and white chalk in it, West showed in a few minutes, the effect he wished to be produced, remarking at the same time, that it was of no great consequence, but it might improve the appearance of the plate. Woollett immediately consented to make the alterations and additions pointed out. But, how long will it take you, Mr. Woollett?" said the President. "Oh! about three or four months," replied the engraver. "And the patient creature," said West, when relating the circumstance, "actually went through the additional labour without a murmur."

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Woollett was a little man, and lived for some time in Greenstreet, Leicester-fields: whenever he finished a plate, he commemorated its completion by firing a cannon from the leads of the house.

PATRONAGE WELL BESTOWED.

"I never pass Whitehall," says Nollekens, "without recollecting the following anecdote, related to me by my father in nearly these words:

"A thin, sickly little boy, a chimney-sweeper, was amusing himself one morning by drawing with a piece of chalk the street front of Whitehall upon the basement stones of the building itself, carrying his delineation as high as his little arms could possibly reach; and this he was accomplishing by occasionally running into the middle of the street to look up at the noble edifice, and then returning to the base of the building to proceed with his elevation. It happened that his operations caught the eye of a gentleman of considerable taste and fortune, as he was riding by. He checked the carriage, and, after a few minutes' observation, called to the boy to come to him; who, upon being asked as to where he lived, burst into tears, and begged of the gentleman not to tell his master, assuring him that he would wipe it all of.

6

"Don't be alarmed,' said the gentleman, at the same time throwing him a shilling, to convince him that he intended him no harm.

"His benefactor then went to his master, in Charles-court, in the Strand, who gave him a good character, but declared he was of little use to him, on account of his being so bodily weak. He said he was fully aware of the boy's fondness for chalking; and showed his visitor what a state his walls were in, from the young artist having drawn the portico of St. Martin's Church in various places.

"The gentleman purchased the remainder of the boy's time; gave him an excellent education; then sent him to Italy; and, upon his return, employed him, and introduced him to his friends as an architect."

This narrative the architect himself related while sitting to Roubiliac for his bust. He became possessed of considerable property, and built himself a country mansion at Westbourn, north of Bayswater. His town residence at that time was in Bloomsbury-square, in which Mr. Disraeli once resided. When he was at the height of his celebrity he compiled a "Palladio," in folio, prefixed to which the reader will find his name

Isaac Ware. He built Chesterfield House, in South Audleystreet, one of the handsomest mansions in the metropolis.

Ware died in 1766: and it is said, retained the stain of soot in his face to the day of his death.

SIR MARTIN ARCHER SHEE AND HIS EARLY FRIENDS.

Shee has thus described his first impression of Barry, whom he found in filthy room in Sherrard-street, among casts, and canvases, and frames, and every possible litter of artistic lumber. "Conceive a little ordinary man, not in the most graceful deshabille—a dirty shirt, without any cravat, his neck open, and a tolerable length of beard, his stockings, not of the purest white in the world, hanging about his heels -sitting at a small table in the midst of this chaos of artificial confusion, etching a plate from one of his own designs." Barry never rose from his seat, nor welcomed his visitor, nor asked him to call again, though he offered to introduce him as a student to the Academy schools.

"I have been introduced," Shee writes, in 1789, "to Mr. Opie, who is in manners and appearance as great a clown and as stupid a looking fellow as ever I set my eyes on. Nothing but incontrovertible proof of the fact could force me to think him capable of anything above the sphere of a journeyman carpenter-so little, in this instance, has nature proportioned exterior grace to interior worth."

A cousin, Sir George Shee, returning from India, the "Nabob," as he was called, took him in person to Edmund Burke, who had been not at home when the young painter, shortly after his first arrival in London, had called at his door with an Irish letter of introduction. Sir Martin used thus to describe the interview :-"Never shall I forget the flood of eloquence which poured from his lips, as, while holding my hand, and pressing it with affectionate cordiality, he expatiated in glowing terms on the claims and glories of the art to which I was about to devote myself, and sought to kindle my ardour by the prospects of fame and distinction that might be the reward of my exertions in the honourable career which lay before me." Not content with fine words, Burke took the young man to Sir Joshua, who, it seems, had quite forgotten his former call, a year before. The President received him with more than usual urbanity, and asked him

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PLAYERS AND PAINTERS.

to breakfast, begging him to bring a specimen of his art: the work met with measured but favourable criticism.

Sir Martin used to relate, what struck him as a singular fact in reference to the President's deafness-an infirmity which, as is well known, compelled, or suggested, in his case, the constant use of an ear-trumpet-while at breakfast, and during the long-protracted interview which accompanied and followed that meal, the conversation with his visitor was carried on in the ordinary tone, without any assistance from the acoustic tube, or any indication of imperfect hearing on the part of Sir Joshua. During the morning, however, they were not unfrequently interrupted by the entrance of a servant, with a message or some communication that required his master's attention and oral reply; and on each of such occasions, the appearance of a third person was the signal for the President to snatch up his trumpet, and resume a look of anxious inquiry and uncertain comprehension, befitting the real or supposed defect of his auricular powers.*

HARLOW'S SIGN-PAINTING.

G. H. Harlow, having quarrelled with his master, Lawrence, annoyed him in an odd way. He made an excursion into the country, and took up his quarters at the Queen's Head, a small roadside inn, on the left hand as you leave the town of Epsom for Ashtead. Here the young painter stayed some time; when, burning to be revenged upon Lawrence, he painted for the landlord a sign-board, in a bold caricatura style, of the head of a queen, and in one corner of the board he wrote "T. L., Greek-street, Soho." Lawrence, it is well known, became apprised of such a liberty with his name and reputation; but the caricatura sign-board did service and remained at Epsom many years. We remember to have seen it as early as 1815. Upon the obverse was painted a queenly portrait (the face and bust), and upon the reverse the back of the head and bust. Some twenty years after, missing the signboard from its suspensory iron (where a written sign-board had been substituted), we made inquiry at the inn as to the fate of Harlow's Queen's Head, but could not learn anything from the landlord of its disappearance.

* Life of Sir Martin Archer Shee. By his Son.

INDEX TO VOL. II.