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 SIR DAVID WILKIE 
 
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 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031243284 
 
ILLUSTRATED BIOGRAPHIES OF 
 THE GREAT ARTISTS. 
 
 SIR DAVID WILKIE, R.A. 
 
ILLUSTRATED BIOGRAPHIES OF THE 
 GREAT ARTISTS. 
 
 The follaiwing volumes, each illustrated with from 14 to 20 Engravings, are nou 
 ready, price 3* , td. Those marked with an asterisk are 2s. 6d. 
 
 SIR JOSHUA REYNOLpS. By F. S. Pulling, M.A. 
 
 WILLIAM HOGARTH. " By Austin Dobson. 
 
 GAINSBOROUGH and CONSTABLE. By G. Brock-Arnold, P.T.A. 
 
 LAWRENCE and ROMNEY.* By Lord Ronald Gower, F.S.A. 
 
 TURNER. By Cosmo Monkhouse 
 
 SIR DAVID WILKIE. By J. W. Mollett, B.A. 
 
 SIR EDWIN LANDSEER. By F. G. Stephens. 
 
 Giotto. By harrv quilter, m.a. 
 
 FRA ANGELICO and BOTTICELLI. By C. M. Phillimore. 
 
 FRA BARTOLOMMEO and ANDREA DEL SARTO. liy Leader Scor; 
 
 MANTEGNA and FRANCIA. By JuLlA Cartwright. 
 
 GHIBERTI and DONATELLO.* By Leader Scott. 
 
 LUCA, DELLA ROBBIA and CELLINI.* By Leader Scott. 
 
 LEONARDO DA VINCL By Dr. J. Paul Richter. 
 
 MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI By Charles CliS.ment. 
 
 RAPHAEL. By N. D'Anvers. 
 
 TITIAN. By R. F. Heath, M.A. 
 
 TINTORETTO. By W. R. Osler. 
 
 CORREGGIO.* By M. Compton Heaton. 
 
 VELAZQUEZ. By E. Stowe, M.A. 
 MURILLO.* By Ellen E. Minor. 
 
 ALBRECHT DURER. By R. F. Heath, M.A. 
 THE LITTLE MASTERS OP GERMANY. By W. B. SccTf 
 HANS HOLBEIN. By Joseph Cundall. / 
 
 OVERBECK. By J. Beavington Atkinson. 
 
 REMBRANDT. By J. W. Mollett, B.A. 
 RUBENS. By C. W. Kett, M.A. 
 -VAN DYCK AND HALS. By P. R. Head, B.A. 
 FIGURE PAINTERS of HOLLAND. By Lord Ronald Gowee, F.S.A. 
 
 CLAUDE LORRAIN. By Owen J. Dullea^ 
 WATTEAU. By J. W. Mollett, B.A. 
 VERNET and DELAROCHE. By J. Ruutz Rees. 
 MEISSONIER.* By J. AV. Mollett, B.A. 
 
PORTRAIT OF SIR DAVID WILKIE, R.A. 
 
" The whole world without Art would be one great wilderness" 
 
 SIR DAVID WILKIE 
 
 BY JOHN W. MOLLETT, B.A. 
 
 OFFICIER DE l'INSTRUCTION PUBLIQIIE 
 (FRANCE) 
 
 LONDON 
 
 .SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON, Ltd, 
 
 Si. gunstan's Poust 
 
 Feiter Lane, Fleet Street, E.G. 
 
 1892 
 
{AU rights reserved.) 
 
 Hichard Clay d: Sons, Limited, London tfe Bungay, 
 

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 .PREFACE. 
 
 ' I ""HE large work of Allan Cunnmgliam contains almost 
 ■*■ all that need be said upon the Life of Wilkie, and has 
 no doubt been the fountain-head from which the numerous 
 compendious biographies of the great English painter, in 
 ■ dictionaries, albums, and books of engravings, &c., have been 
 derived. Besides this work, other very interesting details of 
 Wilkie's life are found in the autobiographies of his friends. 
 He lived in an autobiographical age, and I have extracted 
 from the lives of Haydon, Collins, Irving, Sir Walter Scott, 
 Leslie, Eaimbach, Thomas Moore, and others, many incidents 
 for my purpose, and from the writings of Burnet, Redgrave, 
 Waagen, Bulwer, Westmacott, Prince Hoare, and others, 
 critical observations. 
 
 Wilkie's own critical remarks upon Art deserve a separate 
 publication. To the untechnical reader they bring much com- 
 fort, not treating him as an outer barbarian, but recognising 
 in his uninstructed sympathies a glimmering of an instinct 
 deserving of respect. On the whole, Wilkie is the plain 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 man's friend; the emphasis that he always lays upon the 
 pursuit of sentiment and expression is as congenial to the 
 uninitiated layman as the kindly sympathies that his earlier 
 works awaken; and his remarks upon the vagaries of certain 
 schools of an art absorbed in its own intricacies are written 
 in a language "understanded of the people," to whom, 
 rightly or wrongly, he seemed to think that it was the 
 first excellence of a painter to appeal. 
 
 J. W. M. 
 
 November, 1880. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGK 
 
 BIRTH — BDtrcATION — PITLESSIE FAIR. 1785 — 1804 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ARRIVAL IN lONDON — STUDENT LIFE — FIRST SUCCESS — "THE 
 
 VILLAGE POLITICIANS." 1805 14 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 "THE BLIND FIDDLER" — "ALFRED IN THE NBATEERD's COTTAGE " 
 ^"THE RENT day"— "TlIK SICK LADT "— "THE JEW's HARP " 
 
 — "the cut finger." 1806—1809 25 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 "elindman's buff" — "the pedlar" — "letter of introduc- 
 tion" — "DUNCAN gray" — JOUKNET.S TO PARIS, THE NETHER- 
 LANDS, AND SCOTLAND. 1812 — 1815 . 45 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 "THE CHELSEA PENSIONERS " — "THE KIHg's VISIT TO EDINBURGH" 
 — HATDON IN" PRISON — HUMOROUS CATALOGUE — MISFORTUNES 
 AND FAILURE OF HEALTH — FOREIGN TRAVEL. 1818 — 1827 60 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 VISIT TO SPAIN — RETURN HOME — "THE KING'S ENTRY INTO HOLY- 
 ROOD " — " JOHN KNOX PREACHING " — ACADEMY PICTURES. 
 1827—1841 80 
 
 CHAPTER VII. , 
 
 LAST JOURNEY AND DEATH 97 
 
 THE PRINCIPAL WORKS OF WILKIE IN PUBLIC GALLERIES IN 
 
 ENGLAND . . ... 106 
 
 INDEX . . 107 
 
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 LIST OF ILLUSTEATIONS. 
 
 PoETEAlT OF SiR David WlLKiE Frontispiece 
 
 The Pedlae 10 
 
 The Village Politicians . , . . 24 
 
 Group from "The Rent Day." From the F^ngromng by Saim- 
 
 bach 29 
 
 The Cut Finger . . . . . 32 
 
 The Jews' Harp ... 36 
 
 Group from " Blind Man's Buff." From, the Engrweing by 
 Baimbach 46 
 
 Group, from "The Penny Wedding." From, the Engranmu) by 
 Jwmes Stewart 60 
 
 Duncan Gray. Frmn the Engrammg by F. Bngleheart .... 84 
 
 The Rabbit on the Wall 98 
 
W I L K I E. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 1785 TO 1804. 
 BIRTH — EDUCATION — PITLESSIE FAIE. 
 
 DAVID WILKIE was born at the manse of the parish 
 of Cults, on the banks of Eden water, in the county of 
 Fife, on the 18th of November, 1785. In his own memoirs 
 (quoted by Allan Cunningham) he says : — ■ 
 
 ' " I am the third son of the Pev. David "Wilkie and of Isabella Lister, 
 his wife, a native of the district. My father came from the county of 
 Midlothian, and from a neighbourhood often mentioned, which, like the 
 ancient Hebron, had a halo and an interest about it which no other place 
 could possess. He was a native of Rathb-Byres, a small property which 
 had been in possession of our family for 400 years, until,, as he used to 
 tell us, by the imprudence of his ancestors, it had passed to a younger 
 branch of the same family and name, and was held by his father, John 
 Wilkie, only as its tenant and cultivator. Of the singular worth and 
 good qualities of that excellent person, my grandfather, I have heard 
 much, and from many persons. After his death the family mansion, an 
 humble structure, was allowed, to sink to decay ; but from a feeling of 
 respect to his own ancestry, the proprietor, James Wilkie of Gilchristown, ' 
 permitted a gable-end, containing the chimney-corner where my grand, 
 father loved to entertain his friends, to remain, which I remember a grey 
 ruin, a venerable landmark of other years." 
 
 W B 
 
A WILKIE. 
 
 "In the neighbourhood of Eatho," continues Sir Dayid, "resid* 
 other families of my name : Matthew Wilkie of Bonnington, and William 
 "WUkie of Ormiston Hill, extensive proprietors of land, are counted our 
 relations, and claim descent from the same stock. "With the Eev. 
 John WOkie of Uphall I wish I could count kindred as surely, for he 
 had a mind superior to his time. It happened, in 1720, that a young 
 man of a good family, in the parish of Mid-Calder, fell sick, and, 
 as the wisest of the land differed about the nature of his complaint, 
 he was believed, in the superstitious spirit of those times, to be 
 witched. A poor old woman of the neighbourhood acknowledged that 
 she had uttered a rash wish respecting him, and, as .his disorder corre- 
 sponded with her words, she in consequence acknowledged herself a witch. 
 The family complained to the Presbytery, and the Presbytery desired John 
 Wilkie to preach a sermon on the heinousness of witchcraft. His text 
 was ' Submit yourselves therefore to God ; resist the devil, and he will flee 
 from you ! ' The sermon, the fame of which still exists in the district, 
 directed against superstitious beliefs arid .influences, removed the veil from 
 many eyes. People wondered at their ignorance ; and the old women of 
 Mid-Calder were no longer believed, even on their word, to be witches. 
 
 "Of an e(iually enlightened and perhaps a finer spirit was the Eeverend 
 William Wilkie, minister of Eatho, author of The Epigoniad, a poem on 
 the Theban war, which, in language though reminding us too much of 
 Pope, almost his contemporary, exhibits such facility of composition, such 
 readiness of imagery, and such power of expression, as induced Hume, the 
 historian, to call Mm the Scottish Homer. Nor should his fables be for- 
 gotten by those who speak of his poetry, nor his love for the pursuits of 
 agriculture, in which he excelled." 
 
 Here the meiaoir abruptly closes. His father's methodical 
 record of his birth is the following : — 
 
 "1781. October i. — Was this day married to Miss Isabella Lister, 
 daughter to Mr. James Lister, farmer of Pitlessie Mill. 
 
 " 1782. August 13. — This day, at half an hour before twelve o'clock, 
 my dear wife was delivered of a son, who was baptized on the 25th and 
 received the name of John, after my father. 
 
 " 1784. July 3. — This day, about four o'clock in the morning, Bell was 
 delivered of a son, who on the eleventh was baptized by the name of 
 James, after her father." 
 
 The fourth entry introduces us to the great artist : 
 
 "1785. November 18. — This day, about five in the evening, BeU was 
 delivered of a son who, on December 4th, was baptized by the name of 
 David after myself." 
 
ANCESTKY AND BIKTH. 3 
 
 The most remarkable characteristic of David Wilkie's life 
 is the completeness of its dedication to art. Literally from 
 the cradle to the grave he seems to have cared for nothing 
 else, and to have been born with the conviction that the 
 whole duty of man was the production of pictures. 
 
 He says of himself that he could " draw before he could 
 read, and paint before he could spell; " and it is at a surprisingly 
 early period of his life that he began scratching portraits of 
 his friends on the floor and the walls of his nursery, the 
 earliest of which is remembered as Bonnie Lady Gonie ; and 
 Professor Gillespie, who succeeded David's father in the in- 
 cumbency of Cults, speaks of the regret with which he found 
 that his whitewashers had smeared over a number of outlines 
 and heads on the walls of the manse, the production of David 
 in his infancy. Enough of these remained for him to describe 
 theni as portraits, " touched into the humorous," of persons 
 who were visitors at the manse or who frequented the kirk, 
 and they were drawn in chalk, charcoal, pencil, " keel," or 
 ink. " His love of character," says the professor, " was with 
 him a very early passion. A grey-headed beggar-man, a 
 maimed soldier, a limping sailor, or a mendicant fiddler were 
 quickly transferred into a little book which he carried 
 continually in his pocket." 
 
 David was about six years old when he was sent to the 
 village school at Pitlessie, about a mile from Cults. , Of this 
 period of his life Allan Cunningham says : — 
 
 "David was a silent though stirring child, and loved, when scarce 
 escaped from his mother's hosom, to draw such figures as struck his young 
 fancy, on the sand, by the stream side, on the smooth stones of the field, 
 on the floors of the Manse : nor was it unobserved that most of these 
 early scratchings had a leaning towards the hv/moroibs cmd the absurd. 
 
 '"I mind him well,' said, many years afterwards, one of his school- 
 fellows at Pitlessie, ' and I mind his brothers too ; but he was a quieter 
 and kiudlier lad than his elder brothers, and liked better to stand and 
 look at his companions in their games than join in their play. I think I 
 
4 WILKIE. 
 
 see him now standing smiling, with his hands in his pouches ; ay ! but 
 he liked best to lie 'a groufe on the ground, wi' his slate and pencil, 
 making queer drawings.' " 
 
 Indeed his principal occupation at school was tlie making 
 of portraits of his school companions, which they bought 
 from him for marbles or pencUs, or such small barter. 
 
 Early in 1797 he left Pitlessie and went to Kettle school, 
 about two miles further up the stream of the Eden. The 
 master, Dr. Strachan (afterwards Bishop of Toronto), said that 
 " Wilkie was the most singular scholar he ever attempted to 
 teach, and although quiet and demure, he had an ear and an 
 eye for all the idle mischief that was at hand.'' He was 
 not more than fifteen or eighteen months at Kettle school. 
 But here he developed a faculty for mechanical work, and 
 with the help of a knife and chisel made models of mills and 
 carriages J he learned something of shoemaking, and of 
 weaving, and showed an artist's appreciation of the peculiar 
 position of a shoemaker, sitting knock-kneed while he jerks his 
 thread, and the swinging movement of the weaver at his loom. 
 In fact he exemplified at this early age the natural histrionic 
 talent of the bom painter. 
 
 During the years 1797 and 1798 when he was at Kettle 
 school, he had a folio book into which he used to make such 
 drawings as were favourites. Allan Cunningham says of this 
 collection that, except in the choice of subject, these early 
 sketches show but in a few instances much of the original 
 genius of Wilkie. There is little of the ideal in them ; they 
 are very various however, and are mostly from scenes and 
 sights which had struck his youthful fancy in the land 
 wherein he lived. 
 
 Among the pictures in this book, of which Cunningham 
 gives a most interesting description are — a. Portrait of Himself > 
 " round-faced and somewhat chubby " ; a singular scene of a 
 " wild wood and, amid rocks savage and splintery, a fire and 
 
SKETCHES JIADK IN CHILDHOOD. 3 
 
 p. pot hung over it ; and beside it on a stone sits a man, the 
 sole tenant of the wilderness, who watches the flame clim.bing 
 up the sides of the pot, and the smoke curling high in the 
 air. He is unshorn and unshaven, and in faint letters may 
 still be read, T/ie Hermit, at the bottom of the page." 
 
 Others are landscapes representing the seasons, and the 
 field-work and sports incidental to them, which are supposed 
 to be copies from prints. Eighteen in all are described, of which 
 the last is an interesting winter landscape — a flock of sheep 
 reposing in a meadow under the shelter of a wood ; the sun is 
 yet unrisen, snow has fallen during the tiight, and is yet un- 
 shaken from their backs ; in the neighbouring cottages the 
 morning fires are kindled, and the smoke mounts curling into' 
 the air. "This," says Cunningham, "is a fine subject, and 
 was to the last a favourite with Wilkie : it was taken from 
 nature. He reckoned the snow on the backs of the sheep, 
 which, compared with their fleeces, has a whiteness of his 
 own, an original touch." 
 
 It was in the year 1799 that his father very reluctantly 
 consented to the lad's final choice of a profession, and, like the 
 prudent Scotchman that he was, at once set about the best 
 means of promoting his success in it. Accordingly, at the 
 age of fourteen, little David, armed with some feeble speci- 
 mens of his skill, and an introductory letter in his pocket 
 from the Earl of Leven to Mr. George Thomson, the secre- 
 taryj presented himself a candidate for admission to the 
 Trustees' Academy at Edinburgh. The drawings that he 
 submitted to the secretary were npt considered .good enough 
 to secure his admission, and it required the intervention of 
 his powerful patron to overcome this difficulty. It is charac- 
 teristic of Wilkie that his grateful recollection! of this cir- 
 cumstance in later life is on record. 
 
 The Hon. William Leslie Melville, the son of Lord 
 Leven, wrote of him : — 
 
6 ■WILKIE. 
 
 " I remem'beT that my father, touched by the modest spirit of the boy, 
 recommended him as a student to the Board of Trustees for the improve- 
 ment of manufactures in Scotland, of which he was a member ; but the 
 drawings — a house and a tree — which young Wilkie submitted to George 
 Thomson, the secretary, seemed to him so defective both in perspective 
 and colouring, that he hesitated to admit him, and told my father that 
 the hoy had entirely mistcjcen his talents. One of my brothers writes me as 
 follows : — When Sir David was in Scotland in 1839, he came to Melville 
 House ; we have three little pictures from his hand of dogs and sheep ; 
 on showing them to him he said, ' That dog I copied from a print, the 
 sheep I drew from nature. Some people at Cults had praised my draw- 
 ings, and I remember quite well bringing them to the great house, and 
 wonderiug as I came how I would be received. Your father was very 
 kind ; he praised my drawings, and afterwards helped me ! ' — I happened 
 to be at home when he called with the drawings — it was after his admis- 
 sion to the Trustees Academy — and walking with him through the house, 
 showed him what pictures there were, chiefly family portraits. I called 
 afterwards on him at Cults manse and saw with other drawings some heads 
 in a psalm book with - good deal of expression made, I fear, at church, 
 from some of the congregation ; these I think were introduced into his 
 picture of Fitlessie Fair. " 
 
 Of this part of his life a most satisfactory description is 
 bequeathed to posterity by his enthusiastic admirer and 
 fellow-student, John Burnet, the engraver, whose criticisms 
 of Wilkie's method and genius are extremely valuable. 
 
 Wilkie was very fortunate in the period of his matricula- 
 tion into this school, which before his time had been almost 
 entirely devoted to industrial decoration ; but John Graham, 
 who presided in WUkie's time, directed it to the fine arts, 
 introduced painting in oil from the antique, and premiums 
 for the best original pictures from history, 
 
 "When Wilkie came to our class," says Burnet, "he had much enthu- 
 siasm of a queer and silent kind, and very little knowledge of drawing ; 
 he had made drawings, it is true, from living nature in that wide academy 
 the world, and chiefly from men or boys or sUch groups as chance threw 
 in his way ; but in that sort of drawing in which taste and knowledge are 
 united, he was far behind others who without a tithe of his talent, stcod 
 in the same class. Though behind in skill, he however surpassed, and 
 that from the first, all his companions in comprehending the character of 
 
TRUSTEES ACADEMY.— STUDENT LIFE. 7 
 
 whatever h& was set to draw. It was not enough for him, to say ' Draw 
 that antique foot, or draw this antique hand ; ' no, he required to know to 
 what statue the foot or hand belonged, what was the action, and what the 
 sentiment ! He soon felt that in the true antique the action and senti- 
 ment pervaded it from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot, and 
 tha,t unless this was known, the fragment was not understood, and no 
 right drawing of it could be made. When he knew the meaning, he then 
 began, and not till then, to outline it in, studiously and slowly ; telling 
 those who reproached him with being tardy, that the meanest figure in 
 the humblest group in. the works of every great artist had a meaning and a 
 character. 
 
 " One of his earliest copies from the antique was a Nioie's Mead in red 
 chalk ; but before this he had drawn a series of noses, eyes, and ears, and 
 also a foot, which his father, now proud of his son's progress, showed to 
 some of the good people of Cults as the first of his studies. ' And what 
 is it, sir ? ' inquired the man of Fife ; tradition says he was one of the 
 elders of Cults. 'It is a foot,' replied the minister. 'A foot,' ex- 
 claimed the elder in surprise, and taking a second look, • a foot ! it's mair 
 like a fluke (i.e. a flounder) than a foot ! ' Perhaps it is of this drawing 
 that Haydon says, ' The foot is a good foot, awkwardly shaded, but correctly 
 drawn ; and is now in my possession, the gift of Wilkie.' " 
 
 Another of his fellow students, Sir W. Allan, says that 
 the progress Wilkie made at Edinburgh was marvellous. 
 " Everything he attempted indicated a knowledge beyond his 
 years; and he soon took up that position in Art which he 
 maintained to the last. He was always on the look-out for 
 character : he frequented trystes, fairs, and market places." 
 
 " He was always first on the stairs leading up to the Academy (which 
 was then held in St. James's Square), anxious not to lose a moment of 
 the hours of drawing. ... 
 
 "In the Academy his intenseness attracted the notice of the more 
 volatile students, who used to pelt him with pills of soft bread. As he 
 was one of the first to be present, so he was one of the last to depart. 
 After Academy hours, which were from ten to twelve in the forenoon, 
 those who were apprentices returned to their several professions ; but 
 Wilkie invariably went back to his lodging, there to follow out what was 
 begun in the Academy, by copying from his own hands and face in a 
 mirror ; thus, as it were, engrafting the great principles of the antique on 
 the basis of nature. 
 
 "Wilkie's drawings (studies of his own hands) are innumerable, and 
 
8 "VVILKIE. 
 
 many of them possess the character and grace of Eaffaelle and Correggio. 
 He generally made these studies in black and red chalk, heightened some- 
 times with white, such as we see in those of Watteau. I may observe 
 (adds Burnet) that he could sketch with the left when drawing the 
 right hand ; and I have often observed, when using the same method, 
 that the left-hand sketches possessed greater character, being less 
 mannered in the handling. 
 
 "We were always lectured on the necessity of paying the greatest 
 attention to the drawing of hands. Graham used to remind us that 
 Michelangelo was great in defining the extremities. Wilkie's first essays 
 in the antique school were from the Niobe daughters, the size of the 
 originals in black and white, and his first pictares were Diana and Calista 
 and A Scene from Macbeth ; in both of which his clever observation of 
 nature was apparent, however inappropriate to the higher walks of art ; 
 in the one the Calista was made to blush with so deep a colour in the ear 
 and the upper part of the neck as gave Graham an opportunity (in deciding 
 upon the merits of the several performances) for descanting on the diffi- 
 culty of introducing the peculiarities of familiar life into the higher 
 ■branches of the art. 
 
 " The Scene from Macbeth was that where the murderer sent by Macbeth 
 to the house of Macdufi" meets with his wife and child — the wife, and 
 indeed every other part was common-place, except the expression of the 
 boy, who boldly answers their questions — this was excellent, and Graham 
 predicted that he would one day aiTive at eminence, from his strong 
 delineation of nature, a prediction which he found verified, when a print 
 from his picture of The Jew's ffarpyfaa sent him, which he carried into 
 the academy to show the students, and to say how proud he felt in 
 educating such a pupil." 
 
 With reference to the Macbeth subject we find in the 
 biography of Allan Cunningham the following interesting 
 particulars : — , . : 
 
 " When Allan left the Trustees Academy Burnet, Thomson, and, Wilkie 
 were regarded as the ablest of the scholars of Graham ; the first for quick, 
 fless of perception and dexterity of hand ; the second for what was called 
 historical loftiness ; and the third and last for original observation. 
 
 " When the master announced that he had prevailed on the Trustees 
 not only, to allow studies in oil to be painted from historic or poetic subjects 
 but to grant small premiums for the best paintings — the subject was left 
 to be found by each competitor in the tragedy of Macbeth, Bumet chose 
 the witch scene. With the sinking of the caldron. Thomson the murder 
 
BURNET ON .WILKIE'S METHOD. 9 
 
 of Banquo in the forest, and Wilkie the murder of the children of 
 Macduff. 
 
 "The prize was awarded to Thomson, who was the brother of the 
 secretary, but Wilkie never imputed injustice to George Thomson, but 
 spoke of him with kindness and evHn affection in the days of his fame. 
 
 " It is not known wliat other subjects were set for competition during 
 Wilkie's stay at the academy, but it is reasonable to assume' that they 
 were severely clas.sieal in the taste of the times. It was left for the boy 
 who was studying as earnestly in the Grassmarket or the High Street as 
 m the academy, to open the eyeS of his countrymen to the picturesque 
 poetry at their doors. 'The master,' says Cunningham, 'with whom the 
 choice of a subject remained, never imagined that in the domestic or lyiic 
 poetry of Scotland the painter would find matter sufficiently lofty for his 
 pencil ; and overlooking a series of songs which for graphic truth, ease, 
 and life, pastoral sweetness and rural glee, have no parallel in modern 
 composition, travelled into classic times, and sought among the exhausted 
 masters of heathen song and fable for themes for his scholars.' 
 
 " Wilkie seems now and then, even in his probation days, 
 I o ha 76 been about to lift the veil from that series of beautiful 
 pictures which visited his thoughts and appeared as it were 
 in vision before him." 
 
 "He had no other pursuit of either pleasure or subsistence' 
 to di yide his thoughts.. He was watchful in his expenditure 
 and careful in his choice of companions. He loved to wander 
 in his leisure hours about the streets and squares, observing 
 the rnasonb at their daily toU, carmen with their teams, and 
 the groups which crowded the Grassmarket or the High 
 Stieet bringing with them that air of the country by which 
 the people of the vale and hill are distinguished from those 
 of the city. He made Nature his Ostade and his Tehiers ; 
 and Carse, with his fine tone of colour his Rembrandt and 
 Jan Steen." 
 
 Whilst studying at the Trustees Academy he made progress 
 in portrait-painting, beginning with small, and gradually 
 expanding them as confidence and skill increased, till he 
 reached the size of life. Of the miniature size many portraits 
 still exist, some in pencil, others in oil, and some in water 
 
10 WILKIE. 
 
 •colours ; the smallest are the best, especially a miniature of 
 his brother Thomas (then in a merchant's office at Leith), 
 whicTi he painted at Nicolson Street in 1803. 
 
 In his seventeenth year he painted a small picture from 
 The Gentle Slteplierd, illustrating the scene where Sir William 
 returning from exile in the disguise of a seer or spaeman finds 
 his only son, who had been for gafety educated in ignorance 
 of his birth, dancing in a group of rustics, and offers to tell 
 his fortune. Patie's incredulous look, the wonder of Elsa, 
 the tranquil sagacity of Symon, and the half -believing glance 
 of Claud, and the " plump ripe " lasses, are all depicted in 
 truth of character and glowing colours. 
 
 Another picture of student days is Douglas and the Hermit, 
 from the tragedy of Home ; young Douglas telling his mother 
 how he learned the art of war. " The melancholy hermit, the 
 shaggy cave, and the enthusiastic listener are well delineated." ' 
 
 Wilkie left the Academy in 1804, and returned to Cults, 
 On this occasion his master wrote to the Rev. David Wilkie 
 of his son's studies : — 
 
 "I have seen some doubts expressed by the critics whether his talents 
 were equal to the higher line of art. They know him not. He is capable 
 of carrying through the most elevated and elegant part of his art, perhaps 
 with as much success as those subjects from which he has merited so much 
 praise. The more delicacy required in the execution of a subject, the 
 more successful he will be. 
 
 ' Dmoglas : — 
 
 " Pleased with my admiration, and the fire 
 His speech struck from me, the old man would shake 
 His years away, and act his young encounters ; 
 Then, having showed his wounds, he'd sit him down. 
 And all the livelong day discourse of war. 
 To help my fancy — on the smooth green turf 
 He'd cut the figures of the marshalled hosts. 
 Describe the motions and explain the use 
 Of the deep column and the lengthened line. 
 The square, the crescent, and the phalanx firm." 
 
■■3 
 
THE COUNTRY FAIR. ll 
 
 "In some of his first essays in painting when with me, he then erinced 
 a degree of taste which bore a great resemblance to the manner of 
 Gorreggio, who ranks amongst the highest masters of the art." 
 
 When David returned to tte manse upon the termination 
 of his studies at the Trustees School, he set up a chest of 
 drawers for an easel, and upon them a canvas of twenty-five 
 inches high and forty-four wide, being the largest he had 
 ever used, and collected all portraits and sketches, that he 
 had for the composition of his first large picture. 
 
 It was after considerable hesitation that he selected his 
 subject, being divided in his choice between The Country Fair 
 and A Field Preaching. Ultimately a feeling for the reverence 
 with which religious gatherings were regarded by his people 
 determined him upon the choice of I'itlessie Fair. 
 
 In August 1804, he writes, " I have now fairly begun The 
 Country Fair. I have the advantage of our herd boy and 
 some children who live about the place, as standers, and I now 
 see how superior painting from nature is to anything that our 
 imagination, assisted by our memory, can conceive." 
 . He writes again in December 1804, " I have not got the 
 Fair finished yet, but it is pretty well on, and people of all 
 ranks are coming to see it.'' 
 
 He did not call it Fitlessie Fair at first, for fear of 
 offending his models. His father too was scandalised at 
 being introduced talking to a publican, but it was sugge.sted 
 that he was warning the man of the sinful character of his 
 calling. 
 
 • Among the sketches fol* this picture were a remarkable 
 series representing all the different stages of drowsiness and 
 sleep, but as Cunningham says, "the artist avoided (in the 
 picture) the allurements of humour such as this ; nor did he, 
 save in pne or two groups, stumble into the dirty Dutch 
 path to reputation, and walloW in a mire unworthy of being 
 painted." Of the incidents represented in it, many were 
 
12 WILKIE. 
 
 afterwards worked up into separate works such as his Blind 
 Fiddler, Jew's Harp, and others. 
 
 Ainong the portraits are the father and grandfather of 
 Wilkie, and his sister, his sister-in-law and himself. "While 
 painting this picture he received, as a present from the 
 Rev. Dr. Martin, of Monimail, two lay figures, the first 
 he had ever seen, and he writes a naive letter describing the 
 uses of them. He says, " I am coming much quicker on with 
 the Fair, since I got these figures, for which I cannot enough 
 thank the generosity of Dr. Martin." 
 
 The same letter contains an order for a supply of ivory for 
 his other work of miniature painting. Cunningham gives a 
 list of four or five miniatures which he produced at this 
 time, and of a half-dozen of life-sized portraits, besides a 
 number of so-called conversation pieces, of which the, most 
 interesting he describes represents the father and mother of 
 Wilkie seated with serene and devout looks, meditating on 
 the Sacrament of which they are to be partakers on the 
 morrow. 
 
 To this period belongs also the picture (formerly in the 
 collection of the late Mr. Wynn Ellis) called the Bounty 
 Money ; or. The Village Recruit, which Wilkie took up with 
 him to London, and sold there. Cunningham enumerates 
 a number of other drawings and sketches of earlier times, in 
 Fife, but says that many were destroyed by the artist's orders 
 when the family removed to London after the death of his 
 father. 
 
 In 1812, Wilkie wrote, "The picture of the Country Fair 
 I saw when I was last in Scotland, and although it is no 
 doubt very badly painted, it has more subject and more 
 entertainment than any other three pictures I have since 
 produced." 
 
 In the meantime the whole country-side rang with the 
 fame of this wonderful picture, and an old woman spded^ 
 
BEGINNING LIFE. 13 
 
 that as there had been a Sir David Lindsay in poetry, there 
 would be a Sir David Wilkie in painting, and -that she should 
 live to see it. And so it happened. Haydon says of this 
 picture, " He showed me his wonderful picture of the Fair, 
 painted at nineteen, before he had ever seen a Teniers. The 
 colour was bad, but the grouping beautiful,' and the figures 
 full of expression." " But at the time," says Haydon, " I 
 was too big with high art to feel its perfections, and perhaps 
 had a feeling akin to contempt for a young man with any 
 talent who stooped to such things." 
 
 When he had finished' Pitlsssie Fair, and had exhausted all 
 the sitters of Cults and Cupar, Wilkie went on, a tour and 
 stayed a time, first- in Kinghorn, and next in St. Andrews. 
 He even went as far as Aberdeen, but found very few sitters, 
 and could get neither colours nor brushes, nor canvas nor 
 ivory. He returned home with the resolution of going to 
 London, to study at the Royal Academy, and in spite of some 
 dissuasion from his parents, having sold Pitlessie Fair for 25^. 
 — he sailed in a Leith packet-boat for London, on the 20th 
 May, 1805, when nineteen years and six months of age. 
 
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 CHAPTER II, 
 
 1805— iET. 19. 
 
 AEEIVAL IN LONDON — STUDENT LIFE — FIRST SUCCESS- 
 VILLAGE POLITICIANS." 
 
 'THE 
 
 ON "Wilkie's arrival in town lie found lodgings in the 
 front parlour of a coal merchant's house, at No. 8 
 Norton Street, Portland Road. 
 
 The Academy classes at Somerset House were at this time 
 closed for the annual exhibition, so that David was unable to 
 begin his studies as a probationer until the exhibition closed 
 in July. His first business was to have the picture he had 
 brought with him exposed for sale, which was done at a shop 
 near Charing Cross. The picture in question, The Village 
 Recruit, was ultimately sold for six pounds. 
 
 His next impulse was to the Exhibition, and an interesting 
 account of his visit and his verdict on some of the exhibitors 
 in the Academy is contained in a letter to his fellow student, 
 MacDonald, written on the 15th July, 1805 : — 
 
 "Amongst the first things that I did after landing here, I went to see 
 the exhibition at Somerset House, with which I was very much amused ; 
 there were pictures of all descriptions, some good and some bad j but I 
 understand this year's exhibition comparatively was a very poor one, which 
 always wiU be considered so when the principal pictures are portraits. 
 Opie, Hoppner, and Lawrence, seem to be the principal painters in that 
 line : though Opie gives great force, yet he is surely a dirty painter. The 
 
WILKIE'S early CEITICISMS. 15 
 
 only great historical picture in it, and the one that attracted most notice, 
 was a picture by West of Thetis bringing armour to Achilles, which was 
 certainly a very grand design ; but I did not like it as well as some of Mr, 
 "West's that I have since seen." 
 
 The remainder of tte same letter is interesting, and 
 
 introduces us to some eminent contemporaries : — 
 
 "Since I came to town," he says, "I have conversed with some of the 
 iirst artists in the kingdom. I have been introduced to Flaxman, 
 Nollekens, Fuseli, and West. Mr. Flaxman- is the best modeller we have. 
 I was introduced to him by a letter that I brought from Scotland, and he 
 introduced me to Mr. Fuseli,' who is the professor of painting in the 
 Academy, and a very kind good sort of man he is. He questioned me 
 about our artists in Edinburgh — inquired if Graham painted any. He 
 had heard of the fame of Raeburn ; he admired the works of the cele- 
 brated Eunciman, and asked if I had ever seen his Ossian's Hall at Penny- 
 cuick ; he also inquired about David Allan, and, for all his bad drawing, 
 allowed him a very considerable degree of merit. 
 
 "A friend of mine, who is a very great connoisseur, took me to Mr. 
 West's house, where we found that celebrated artist engaged in painting a 
 picture ; but how much was I astonished at his wonderful works, which, 
 for grandeur of design, clearness of colouring, and correct outline, sur- 
 pass any modern pictures I have yet seen ; his figures have no doubt a 
 flatness about them ; but, with all his faults, we have not a painter that 
 can draw like him. 
 
 " I have been seeing a gallery of pictures by Morland which please me 
 very much indeed. He seems to have copied nature in everything, and in 
 a manner peculiar to himself. When you look at his pictures you see in 
 them the very same figures that we see here every day in the streets, 
 which, from the variety and looseness in their dress, form an appearance 
 that is truly' picturesque, and much superior to our peasantry in 
 Scotland. 
 
 " I have also seen some pictures by Teniers, which, for clear touching, 
 certainly go to the lieight of human perfection in art ; they make all other 
 pictures look misty beside them. 
 
 " As for Turner, I do not at all understand his method of painting ; his 
 designs are grand, the effect and colouring natural, but his manner of 
 handling is not to my taste, and although his pictures are not large, you 
 must see them from the other end of the room before they can satisfy 
 the eye." 
 
 ' Fiiseli took his place as keeper of the Eoyal Academy in 1805, after 
 ^}ie Christmas vacation. 
 
16 WILKIE. 
 
 In the above interesting extract we have a certain measure 
 of Wilkie's appreciation and tendency at the age of nineteen, 
 which may be called his first, or Edinburgh period — the 
 period of the Piilessie Fair, and The Eeoruit, 
 
 When the Academy opened, Wilkie, who had gained ad- 
 mission as a probationer by means of a drawing from the 
 Niobe, took his seat with his class. 
 
 Jackson wrote to Haydon — " There is a raw, tall, pale, queer 
 Scotchman come, an odd fellow, but there is something in hini." 
 
 "The next day," says Haydon, "I went to draw, but Wilkie was not 
 there. An hour after, in he came. He was tall, pale, quiet, with a fine eye, 
 short nose, vulgar, humorous mouth, but with great energy of expression. 
 
 "After drawing a little he rose up, looked over me, and sat down. I 
 rose up, looked over him, and sat down. Nothing further passed this 
 day, our first together. "Wilkie was very talkative to those near him, but 
 in a whisper. The next day I brought the book of anatomical studies 
 which I had done in Devonshu-e. The students crowded round me, but 
 Wilkie was not there. The next day, however, he came, asked me a 
 question, which I answered, and then we began to talk, to argue, to 
 disagree, and went away and dined togethep;. " 
 
 It is about this time that Wilkie writes to a Scotch 
 friend : — 
 
 " I have got acquainted with some of the students, who seem to know 
 a good deal of the cant of criticism, and are very seldom disposed to allow 
 anything merit that is not two hundred years old. " 
 
 With reference to the instruction during Wilkie's days of 
 probation and studep.tship Leslie says : — 
 
 " Under FuseU's wise neglect, Wilkie, Mulready, Etty, Landseer, and 
 Haydon distinguished themselves, and were the better for not beiag made 
 all alike by teaching. " 
 
 Haydon, however, had a horror of Fuseli, mixed with a 
 strange admiration. " Beware of Fuseli " was in everybody'si 
 mouth. He says : — 
 
 " I adored Fuseli's inventive imagination and saw his mannered style. In 
 conveying his conception he had all the ethereal part of a genius, but not 
 enough of the earthy, to express his ideas in a natural way. Evil was iii 
 
FUSELI. — HAYDOy. 17 
 
 him ; he knew full well that he was wrong as to truth of imitation, and he 
 kept palliating it under the excuse of the grand style.' ' He had a strong 
 Swiss accent and a guttural, energetic diction. He swore roundly. He 
 was about five feet five inches high, had a compact little form, stood firmly 
 at his easel, painted with his left hand, &o. Sometimes in his hlindness 
 he would put a hideous smeer of prussian blue in his flesh, and then 
 perhaps, discovering his mistake, take a bit of red to deaden it, and then, 
 prying close in, turn round to me and say " By Gode, dat's a fine purple 
 It's vary like Correggio, by Gode ! " And then, all of a sudden, he would 
 burst out with a quotation from Homer, Tasso, Dante, Ovid, Vii'gil, 
 or perhaps the Nihelungen, and thunder round to me with " Paint dat ! " 
 I found him the most grotesque mixture of literature, art, scepticism, 
 indelicacy, profanity, and kindness 1 ' " 
 
 Wilkie's opinion of tis teacher is not upon record. 
 
 Fuseli's opinion of Wilkie, recorded in his biography by 
 J. Knowles, was " that he had most of the qualities of the 
 best painters of the Dutch school." An anecdote in the same 
 page has nothing to do with our subject, but is too good to 
 lose as an illustration of Fuseli's manner. When Northcote's 
 picture of Balaam a/nd the Ass was exhibited at the Macklin 
 Gallery, Northcote asked Fuseli's opinion of its merits, who 
 instantly said, " My dear friend, you are an angel at an ass, 
 but an ass at an angel." 
 
 " Wilkie's peculiar genius showed itself one day," says 
 Haydon, " when I was eagerly drawing the skeleton. The odd- 
 ity of the skeleton with its eyeless eyes and bare bones, and 
 my earnest expression formed such a contrast that WHkie, 
 instead of making his study at the same time, struck with 
 the humour of my position and look, sketched it into his ana- 
 tomical book, and laughed long and loudly over his successful 
 caricature." 
 
 It was about Christmas, 1805, that "a Scotchman, Charles 
 Bell," came to town, and got up a course of lectures on 
 anatomy, "which I am convinced," says Wilkie, "will be of 
 great service to me," "for which," says Haydon, "we beat 
 up sixteen pupils at two guineas each." " Bell had great 
 
 w c 
 
18 . WILKfE. 
 
 delight in the subject and was as eager as ourselves. Poor 
 and anxious for reputation, he was industrious and did his 
 best. He had studied and fully understood the application of 
 anatomy to the purposes we wanted. His lectures were, in 
 fact, his subsequent book, Tlie Aiiatomy of Expression, for 
 which WUkie made several of the drawings. A miniature 
 painter, Saunders, drew the Laughing Head. Wilkie's best 
 was, I think. Terror with the Ha/nds up." ^ 
 
 Though Wilkie drew at the Academy with spirit, it was in 
 a style of smartness, says Haydon, so full of what are called 
 s'pirited touches, that it could not be recommended for 
 imitation to students. This style belonged to him and 
 originated with him. It was like the painting of Teniers. 
 
 All Wilkie's letters home of this date are full of interest, 
 describing in a simple graphic style the details of his life and 
 work. He used to dine with Haydon and Jackson, at an 
 ordinary in Poland Street, for thirteen pence a head, which, 
 he says, " I am sure is as cheap as any person can have such 
 a dinner in any part of Great Britain. Besides, we have the 
 advantage of hearing all the languages of Europe talked with 
 the greatest fluency, the place being mostly frequented by 
 foreigners ; indeed it is a very rare thing to see an English- 
 man ; while there are Corsicans, Italians, French, Germans, 
 Welsh and Scotch." His restless eye found character in this 
 
 • There is no acknowledgment whatever of this in the preface to the edition 
 of 1806, in which Sir Charles only says, " He often found it necessary to 
 take the aid of the pencil in slight marginal illustrations, in order to express 
 what he despaired of making intelligible by the use of language merely ; as 
 in speaking for example of the forma of the head, or the operation of the 
 muscles." In a footnote he says, " In the sketch of Astonishment and 
 Fewr, the author thought that he was successful in the expression, but 
 they have lost much of their original character. It would be' ungrateful 
 not to acknowledge that he is indebted for some of the happier imitations 
 of his drawing to Mr. Freeman's unremitting attention and solicitude." 
 
 But not a word of Wilkie or the miniature painter, Saunders, mentioned 
 in Haydon's account. 
 
LIFE IN LONDON. 19 
 
 rcixcd group of nationalities, and one old gentleman, who, 
 when dinner was done, buried his face in the newspaper 
 oblivious of aU the company, figures in the Village Politicians. 
 But news of the battle of Trafalgar and the death of Nelson 
 might justify excitement. 
 
 It was in September, 1805, that Wilkie called upon 
 Mr. Stbdart, the " grand pianoforte maker to the Royal 
 Family," to make preliminary inquiries for the purchase of 
 an instrument for his sister Helen. He writes an account 
 of it home : — 
 
 "I inr[uired of him if lie had any small pianofortes by him, which he 
 said he sometimes had, and that he could get second-hand ones as low 
 as eight or ten pounds, but these he could not recommend ; however, 
 if I chose to go the length of twenty pounds, I might get a yery good 
 second-hand one, with additional keys. But he thought we should rather 
 go the length of a new one, which he could get for twenty-three pounds, 
 which would cost us in a shop thirty pounds ; but if it was known that 
 Helen was to have an instrument of that value, it might excite envy 
 through the whole country side." 
 
 Stodart was married to " a Wilkie," and introduced David 
 to the Earl of Mansfield. He also sat for his own portrait, 
 which, said David, afterwards, " I have finished with some 
 degree of success, and he has promised to use his influence 
 among his friends, who T hope will follow his example ; for 
 I have experienced hefore that siich a thing as that needs hut 
 a beginning." 
 
 This letter is full of hope ; Mr. Stodart, besides having 
 his portrait made, had taken a fancy to " two pictures I 
 am doing at present, which he says he will purchase upon 
 certain terms; so that you may tell Helen there are some 
 hopes of her getting a pianoforte still." 
 
 At the same time the father in Scotland is suggesting to 
 his son — 
 
 "As you mention your wish to continue in London during the most part 
 01 the winter, and have some hopes of success in your line, I have had it in 
 
 c 2 
 
20 WILKIE. 
 
 my mind for some time of app'yiug to Lord Crawford for the loan of a few 
 pounds — fifteen or twenty — which, if he lends, I would transmit to you in' 
 case you found that such assistance was necessary to continue you in 
 London for a certain time," &o. ; but David writes bacls, "I would not 
 like tliat so well, if I can avoid it ; although he might he a better man to 
 be indebted to than any other, yet I would have recourse to that remedy 
 only in the last extreme, for I think I have spent enough of my own 
 country's money here already. However, in case it should be necesoary, I 
 will let you know ; in the meantime, I have still eight pounds rem aining, 
 which will allow me time to think about it. . . . Among the many ways 
 by which we try here to save expense, is that of cleaning our own boots and 
 shoes ; for you must know that the people of the house will not clean 
 them, and when they send them out to the shoeblacks in the sti-eet they 
 become expensive. To remedy this," says David, '■ I have got both blacking 
 and brushes, and clean them every morning myself. " 
 
 In December of tkis year, 1805, Wilkie passed from the 
 condition of a probationer at the Academy to that of a 
 student. He had, as a probationer, attended the lectures 
 on perspective and anatomy, and prepared in the meantime 
 the drawings requisite to admit him to the privileges of 
 the "Life School." 
 
 His work must have been continuous all this time with his 
 studies at the Academy, his portrait-painting for Mr. Stodart 
 and others, and his preliminary work towards the great 
 pictures that he had in his mind. In addition to all this, 
 Haydon says that during the autumn, Wilkie, " glad of any 
 employment," had entered into an engagement with an 
 engraver to copy Barry's pictures at the Adelphi. These 
 were the twelve allegorical subjects in the great room of the 
 Society of Arts. 
 
 Barry is described as " defective both in colouring and 
 drawing," yet he estimated his own powers so highly that 
 he discontinued portrait-painting, and when applied to for 
 that purpose, he usually told the applicant to "go to the 
 fellow in Leicester Square " (meaning Sir Joshua Reynolds). 
 Wilkie, however, seems to have conceived a high opinion of 
 
VILLAGE POLITICIANS. 21 
 
 Barry's works, even before he had had an opportunity of 
 seeing them. He says in an early letter from London, 
 " I have not seen any of Barry's pictures yet, though by 
 all accounts he must be a wonderful man. Peter Pindar 
 says he is the first painter of the English School ! " 
 
 It is on the occasion of Barry's death in 1806 when 
 Wilkie got tickets for the cei-emonial of his lying in state, 
 that he borrowed from Haydon a black coat which fitted 
 him ridiculously — and says Haydon "in May, 1840, after the 
 lapse of thirty-four years we remembered it again and laughed 
 our laugh as of old, though I fear Sir David did not relish 
 the recollection so much as formerly." 
 
 At this time, Wilkie was busy with his picture of the 
 Village Politicians. Burnet remembers his bringing to the 
 Academy in Edinburgh, \a.s first study, which " caused a great 
 sensation among the students, and called forth the commenda- 
 tion of Mr. Graham." It differs very materially from the 
 work which established his fame in London. Burnet recog- 
 nised in it many characters to be met with in the vicinity of 
 Edinburgh, " which," he says, " struck me as a peculiarity in 
 him, that while we were imitating the characters and mode of 
 drawing to be seen in the works of Westall, Morland, and 
 Julius Ibbetson, he was dodging and watching the natural 
 incidents of the peasantry." 
 
 When the Village Politicians was all but finished, about 
 March, 1806, Jackson, who considered it "quite equal to 
 Teniers in handling, and superior in the telling of the story," 
 was present with Sir George Beaumont and Lord Mulgrave 
 when they were praising the Dutch School, and said " he 
 would find them a young Scotsman who was second to no 
 Dutchman that ever bore a palette on his thumb." 
 
 " They sent Jackson away to bring the picture down to Harley Street," 
 says Haydon, "but "Wilkie was out, and so Lord Mulgrave and Sir Georite 
 called the next day, saw the picture, and were so electrified with, it that 
 
22 WILKIE. 
 
 they each gave him a commission, one for the Blind Fiddler, the other for 
 the Rent Day. Wilkie was now up , in high life, and if a young man 
 wanted to he puffed at dinners until Academicians were hlaok in the 
 face, Lord Mulgrave and Sir George were the men. Sir George described 
 Wilkie as ' a young man who came to London, saw a picture of Teniers, 
 and at ouce painted the Village Politicians I At once ! my dear Lady 
 Mulgrave. At once ! ' and oif they all crowded to the little parlour of 
 ISo. 8, Norton Street, to see the picture painted by the young Scotchman, 
 who never painted a picture or saw one until the morning when he saw 
 the Teniers, and then rushed home and produced the Politicians ! " 
 
 In spite of all flattery tte picture was sent in to the 
 Academy ■with reluctance, for such was Wilkie's timidity and 
 modesty that he really did not seem to believe in its merit. 
 Jackson reported that he had remained late at night en- 
 deavouring to persuade Wilkie to send his picture in, and he 
 had not fully consented when Jackson took his leave. So late 
 as the 15th of April there is a letter to his father which 
 shows that he was encouraged, but not yet overmuch elated 
 by his success. He had now found out that at Edinburgh he 
 had spent much of his time in a manner doing nothing ! and 
 he tells his father that he has been for a long time very 
 undecided whether to return to Scotland or not. 
 
 " I have painted a good many portraits since I came here ; but in that 
 i have been very unsuccessful for I have not been able to keep myself, and 
 am at present twenty pounds in debt !" (In a previous letter he lamented 
 " since I came to London, which is not near a twelvemonth I have spent 
 near lOQl ! ") " I would (the letter contiaues) from this circumstance, not 
 have hesitated a moment in returning to Scotland ! but I have at present 
 such golden prospects spread before me that I cannot resist the temptation 
 of remaining still in Loudon. I have been of late painting a picture! for 
 the Earl of Mansfield, to be exhibited in the Eoyal Academy, which has 
 attracted considerable attention among my friends and acquaintances, and 
 even drawn noblemen to my lodgings ; one of whom is a gentleman that 
 acted a considerable part in the late administration, viz. Lord Mulgrave, 
 who seemed so much pleased with it, that not only he but a friend of 
 his. Sir George Beaumont, have engaged me to paint two such pictures 
 for them." ."■ 
 
 Lord Mansfield had at one time seen in Wilkie's studio the 
 

 ^■''Otiilih 
 
 o 
 
 H 
 
 o 
 
 O 
 
■wilkie's geeat , success. 23 
 
 studies for tlie Village Politicians, and asked Wilkie to name 
 the price of the picture, and lie had answered (" timid and 
 trembling," says Haydon) fifteen guineas. The Earl only 
 advised Wilkie to consult his friends, and so the question of price 
 was left in abeyance. But when the success of the picture had 
 become notorious, and everybody was praising it, Lord Mans- 
 field claimed his bargain, and offered to pay the fifteen guineas 
 for the picture. But Wilkie had in the meantime had much 
 larger offers, and had consulted his friends. Haydon's advice, 
 for one, was plain, " Fifteen guineas ! I said when I heard 
 it ; a hundred and fifty guinsas is not too much. Don't you 
 let him have it, my dear Wilkie." 
 
 After some unpleasant correspondence the price was fixed 
 at thirty guineas — ^Wilkie in the meantime had been twice 
 offered a hundred. 
 
 The question was, however, still unsettled when the picture 
 was, sent in to the Academy. The Academicians were so 
 delighted, says Haydon, that they hung it on the chimney, 
 the best place for a fine picture. On the private day there 
 was a crowd about it, and at the dinner Angerstein took the 
 Prince up to see it. Then came the reviews of the critics in 
 the newspapers. On the Sunday, the next day, Haydon read 
 in the News, " a young man by the name of Wilkie, a Scotch- 
 man, has a very extraordinary work." " I was in the clouds," 
 he cries, " hurried over my breakfast, rushed away, met 
 Jackson, who joined me, and we both bolted into Wilkie's 
 room. I roared out, ' Wilkie, my boy, your name's in the 
 paper 1 ' ' Is it rea-al-ly,' said David. I read the puff — we 
 huzzaed,, and taking hands all three danced round the table 
 until we were tired." Next day the friends went arm-in-arm 
 to the Gallery. There was no getting near the picture, " side- 
 ways or edgeways.'' Wilkie, pale as death, kept saying : 
 " Dear, dear, it's jest wonderful ! " 
 
 His father writes to him of the accounts in the Scotch 
 
24 WILKIE. 
 
 prints, and tke congratulations lie had received from friends ; 
 " in particular tlie gentlemen for whom you painted pictures 
 last year, affirm that each of them is worth an hundred 
 guineas." 
 
 The Gentlema/rus Magazine for May, 1806, contains the 
 following : — 
 
 "It will be observed with pleasure that the young artists hare miie a 
 most sensible progress in the present ezhibition, and that we have beams 
 of genius that promise a bright day for the arts in England. Sir George 
 Beaumont has contributed some beautiful landscapes, particularly the 
 Thorn from Lyrical Ballads. Mr. Wilkie a young artist has astonished 
 the academy -with a beautiful little subject entitled Village Politicians 
 in the style of Teniers, and most highly finished. Mr. Dubost, another 
 new artist, a Frenchman, has peculiar merit, and rises above every one of 
 his counti-ymen whom we have seen here." 
 
 The above being the whole of the annual critique upon the 
 exhibition is sufficient to show how completely Wilkie's work 
 was the great incident of the year. 
 
 Another contemporary critique on the Village Politicians, 
 says : — 
 
 "The interior of a country ale-house, and the genei-al effect of the 
 whole, are in the finest style ; arid lead us to rejoice at the appearance 
 of so promising an artist, said to be not more than eighteen or nineteen, 
 years of age. We do not know him, but we sincerely congratulate him 
 on his first essay, which gives every promise of the painter being destined 
 10 rank very highin his profession, and that in a very short time." 
 
CHAPTEE III. 
 
 1806 TO 1809. ^T. 19 TO 22. 
 
 "THE BLIND FIDDLER " "ALFRED IN THE NEATHEED's COT- 
 TAGE" "the EENT DAY'' "the SICK LADY " "THE 
 
 Jew's harp" — " the cut finger." 
 
 ' ' I am now redoubling my application with the sure hope of success. 
 My ambition is got beyond all bounds, and I have the vanity to hope that 
 Scotland will one day be proud to boast of your aflectiopate son, 
 
 "D. "VV." 
 
 SO in the following month he laid open his heart to his 
 father. His want of success in portrait-painting, he 
 tells his brother, made him apply to another branch, " in which 
 I have established a reputa,tion that will live for ages.'' 
 
 In the meantime his picture made a deep impression upon 
 public opinion, and it is obvious that, apart from its merits 
 as a work of art, the subject of it was calculated to do this, at 
 a time when the doctrines of the French Revolution were dis- 
 turbing all classes of society, and raising up bands of eager 
 politicians in every country village, and the scene represented 
 in the picture was nightly enacted by " the village politicians " 
 of a thousand ale-houses throughout the country. 
 
 " The season has now ended," writes Haydon in September, 
 "and among the other fashionable departures Wilkie and 
 
26 WILKIE. 
 
 Jackson went to Mulgrave Castle to meet Sir George and a 
 party, to paint and spend tteir time delightfully." 
 
 The subject of the Blind Fiddler was already one of the 
 incidents in Fitlessie Fair, the hands of all the figures in 
 action are said by John Burnet to be from Wilkie's own, as 
 is also the expression of the heads : in fact he says the girl 
 leaning over the back of the chair is very like what Wilkie 
 himself was at that time. The other heads, says Burnet, 
 were painted at once from the model, and exhibit more of 
 Teniers's sharpness of touch (the master he had in his eye at 
 this time). Sir George Beaumont had given him a very fine 
 specimen of Teniers, which used to be on his easel during the 
 progress of this picture. The Blind Fiddler is regarded by 
 Burnet as the representative of WUkie's first method, which 
 resembled most closely that of Teniers, the characteristics of 
 which are " sharpness and form, purity and cleanness of tint, 
 and dexterity in handling." This manner is distinguished 
 from that of Van Ostade's works, in which, says Burnet, we 
 observe a richness of tone, acquired by repeated glazings, and 
 a roundness and melting of the outline, producing a luminous 
 richness and fulness of effect. 
 
 Into these qualities of Van Ostade we shall see that "Wilkie 
 grew at a later period. The Blind Fiddler is, however, 
 regarded as the representative picture of his manner when 
 he worked most nearly in the style of Teniers. It is not 
 necessary to be skilled in art criticism in order to feel the 
 action of this composition, the broad-shouldered man making 
 uncouth love to the infant, and the whole life of the group 
 marking time with the fiddler's foot. Wilkie's inevitable 
 dog is in this picture, and will be seen in many others 
 to come. 
 
 The Blind Fiddler was exhibited in 1807. Wilkie's friends 
 used to say that this picture, which is considered by some 
 
THE ENGLISH SCHOOL. 27 
 
 critics deficient in colour, was purposely placed between two 
 brilliantly coloured paintings, as if "to throw the poor 
 Fiddler into stiU deeper shade." But as Mrs. Heaton 
 
 "If sueh were tlie design, it certainly missed its aim. Jupiter pre- 
 sented to Diana her how and arrows, without any witnesses to his 
 politeness, and Flora miveiled by the Zephyrs was admired by them alone, 
 whilst the Blind Fiddler, on the contrary, attracted large crowds of 
 gazers. " 
 
 The picture, now in the National Gallery, was engraved 
 by John Burnet. Dr. Waagen says of it : — "This admirable 
 composition is known by the masterly engraving by Burnet. 
 The effect of the colouring is by no means brilliant, yet the 
 tone of the flesh is warm and clear. The colours which, as in 
 Hogarth are much broken, have a very harmonious effect, 
 from the skilful distribution of the light. From the pre- 
 dominance of opaque colours the whole has much the 
 appearance of a tempera picture. In the naivete and 
 delicate observation of nature, and the honest humour of the 
 subject this picture is a real masterpiece, which deserves the 
 more admiration since we find, by the date affixed that it was 
 painted in 1806, when Wilkie was not more than twenty-one 
 years old. It is on canvas one foot ten inches high, by two 
 feet seven inches wide." 
 
 In all the interesting contemporary notices of the annual 
 Exhibition at Somerset House for 1807, the feeling is general 
 that a new era was then dawning for the English school. 
 "Sir John Leicester," says the Artist (30 May, 1807), "is 
 the first patron who, in a country abounding in artists and 
 teeming with excellence has dared to set the example of an 
 English gallery formed on a costly and extensive plan hitherto 
 considered due to the works of foreign schools only. (Reynolds, 
 Gainsborough, Wilson, Opie, Northcote, Hoppner, Shee, 
 Thompson, Owen, De Loutherbourg, Turner, Callcott, Sir F. 
 
28 WILKIE. 
 
 Bourgeois, and Ward, are mentioned among the painters , 
 represented in this gallery.) Sir Francis Baring, Lord . 
 Mulgrave, and Sir George Beaumont, were also forming 
 English galleries, at the same time. 
 
 Other English collections are subsequently mentioned ™ 
 especially those of Thomas Bernard and Alexander Davisor 
 (the owner of Wilkie's Alfred)., the latter consisting entirely 
 of a series of pictures of historical subjects taken from the 
 annals of our own country. Besides Wilkie, the painters 
 represented in it were Tresham, Smirke, Northcote, Copley, 
 Westall, "West, and Devis. 
 
 The choice of subjects was left to each painter, and Wilkie 
 selected that of Alfred in the Neatherd's Cottage. Wilkie 
 was "very sensible of the honour" of this historical com- 
 mission, but doubtful of success upon a subject "where 
 the sj'mbols of greatness were wanting." The pupil of 
 Fuseli, and the friend of Haydon, must have had a strong 
 natural love for the truth , of things, when he selected for 
 his historical subject a scene with humble accessories ■ that 
 had come within the range of his own observation. " Wilkie 
 was an historical painter," says Buskin, " and Chantrey an 
 historical sculptor, because they painted or carved the veritable 
 men and things they saw, not men and things as they believed 
 they might have been or should have been." The Alfred is 
 now in the gallery of Lord ISTorthbrook. 
 
 Wilkie had gone home to Cults soon after the opening of 
 the Exhibition of 1807 and there he fell ill of a fever. It 
 was during his illness at the manse (which he describes as 
 the happiest time of his life), that he composed in his mind 
 the great picture of the Kent Day — in fulfilment of Lord 
 Mulj^rave's commission. 
 
 This picture is classified by Burnet wjth the Blind Fiddler, 
 as a specimen of Wilkie's fwst manner "where he imitates 
 
GROUP FROM "THE RENT DAY.' 
 
■wilkik's low valuation of his work. '29 
 
 the precision and sharpness of Teniers and Metsu." Burnet 
 tells us that at this time Wilkie had a small box made in the 
 shape of any interior that he intended to paint, and that he 
 placed in it the pntire group, modelled in clay, and dried 
 and painted in a rough manner. This, when subjected to 
 the light introduced through a small opeiung in the side, in 
 imitation of a window, gave many hints for the arrangement 
 of the light and shade, and suggested those varieties of 
 reflections and half-shadows existing in nature. The per- 
 spective of the whole was also more correct, as the point 
 of distance was chosen sufficiently removed, so as to embrace 
 the entire composition at once. 
 
 Passing over the innumerable more obvious details in the 
 Eent Day, a French critic dwells on the charming group near 
 the table, of the young widow with her two children ; like a 
 good housewife, she has brought the key of her cottage with 
 her, and the baby in her lap is biting it eagerly ; because the 
 child is cutting its teeth, and the family, in spite of their 
 decent dress and bearing, is not rich enough for the purchase 
 of a piecfe of coral. Eainbach informs us that a sister of Lady 
 Mulgrave, Mrs. Welsh, and her daughter sat as models for the 
 widow and the little girl. Burnet says of this picture, " The 
 invention and composition of the Rent Day, with the admirable 
 mode in which the whole story is told from beginning to end, 
 is sufficient of itself to form a school of subjects in familiar 
 life. Lord Mulgrave sent Wilkie a cheque for 150L, being 
 three times the price originally agreed upon for it, with a 
 note reproaching Wilkie for the low valuation he used to set 
 upon his work, and saying, " I intend this as an admonition 
 to you to avoid such disinterestedness for the future." 
 
 Public attention was already directed to Wilkie's great 
 mode.sty in valuing his works, and the transaction of the 
 preceding year with Lord Mansfield (for the Village Poli- 
 ticians), is alluded to in the following extract from an article 
 
30 WILKJE. 
 
 signed by " Richard Cumberland," from Tha Artist for 
 Saturday, 16th May, 1807 :— 
 
 "Our artists in general are not shy in exhibiting their performances, 
 for you may visit them for a shilliag ; neither are they apt to he offended 
 with you if you praise them, for they seem to insinuate, that they are 
 not over-flatter ed, but rather over ^y-^^pcd. Some, whom it is not easy to 
 overpay, are nevertheless well paid ; of which number I conceive Mr. 
 "Wilkie, who has merited the title of the British Teniers, is not one ; 
 which, if the rich and noble purchaser of his tirst picture is not clearly 
 satisfied of, he may re-sell his purchase, and gain a thousand pounds by 
 his conviction ; but perhaps artists ought to be lean, and Csesar was 
 wrong when he wished to have men about him that were fat." 
 
 The Henf Day was exhibited in 1809 along with the Cut 
 Finger., After the death of the Earl of Mulgrave it was 
 offered for sale at Christie and Hanson's, but was bought in 
 by the Earl's family at the price of 750 guineas. 
 
 Waagen says that for refinement of motive, individuality 
 of expression, clearness and power of colouring, and solid 
 2xecution and rendering of forms, this picture is the finest he 
 knows by the master. He saw it in the collection of Mr. 
 John Chapman, who paid about 2000Z. for it. 
 
 Whilst Wilkie was taking time over the composition of 
 the Rent Day, he painted for Lord Mulgrave, who was anxious 
 to get a specimen of his work in his gallery without delay, 
 a remarkable picture of Sunday Morning, of which Allan 
 Cunningham remarks, " There is peace in the air and in the 
 house, and old and young are purifying their persons to go 
 to church." The scene is an English cottage. 
 
 It was about this time that a correspondence, for which 
 posterity should be grateful, passed between Wilkie and Sir 
 George Beaumont on the subject of the engraving of his 
 pictures, and Wilkie laid to heart and never forgot the 
 counsel that " there cannot be a more pernicious libel on 
 a good picture than a bad print." No painter, says Dr. 
 Waagen, has hitherto had the good fortune to see his works 
 
CAUTION OF THE "PATRONS OF ART." 31 
 
 engraved witli so much delicacy and fidelity as Wilkie. 
 The Rent Day was followed by a portrait of Lady Ma/ry 
 Fitzgerald, painted for the Earl of Mulgrave. 
 
 At this time Wilkie and Haydon were in the habit of ex- 
 changing their experiences, and we find a note in Haydon's 
 diary with reference to portrait-painting, for condescending 
 to which some of Wilkie's friends blamed him. 
 
 "'This practice,' says Haydon, 'I ■would always advise a young 
 historical painter to pursue — after having gone through his preparatory 
 studies, let him paint portraits diligently: he will find it of the very 
 first importance. This was Wilkie s advice to me, and I followed it to 
 my advantage. ' " 
 
 Haydon was in perplexity at this time with his Dentatus. 
 " If I copied from what I saw in life, Fuseli said, this is 
 too much lite life. If I copied the marble, Wilkie said, 
 that looks as if you had painted from stone." 
 
 It was soon after the appearance of the Blind Fiddler that 
 Wilkie, upon the recommendation of Sir Francis Bourgeois, 
 received a commission from the Duke of Gloucester for the 
 Card Flayers. A conversation is reported on this occasion 
 by Mr. Andrew Wilson, on the subject of the best means 
 to be adopted for the encouragement of "a painter of such 
 wonderful promise," in the course of which one prudent 
 gentleman urges his hearers " not to give Wilkie too many 
 commissions at once, as he would probably exert himself 
 beyond his strength ; besides, a young man wrought better 
 from hope, sometimes, than certainty." 
 
 Sir George Beaumont at the same time was writing to 
 Wilkie in the following style : — 
 
 " One thing more I shall take the liberty of recommending, and that 
 is, the price it wiU be prudent for you to fix upon your pictures. I have 
 no doubt that at present you might have any price you might think it 
 reasonable to ask ; but the question is, whether those people who are 
 willing and able to give high prices are sufficiently numerous. I have 
 seen so many instances of young men overrating the patronage of the 
 
32 WILKIE. 
 
 public, and in consequence remaining surroiinded by their own works, 
 that po.-sessiiig and feeling the regard I do for you I could not refraiu 
 from this hint, and on this ground I know you wUl excuse me." 
 
 The upshot of which was that Wilkie toiled for a bare 
 subsistence, while the buyers, so prudent on his behalf, got his 
 pictures at a nominal *fraction of their value, and sold them 
 afterwards at an enormous profit. 
 
 A letter of this date from his lodgings in Sol's Row, 
 Hampstead Road, to his brother John, makes this very 
 plain : — ■ 
 
 "You will very naturally conclude from the accounts you have most 
 likely heard of the fame that I have acquired, that I must be rapidly 
 accumulating a fortune. It is, however, I am sorry to say; very far from 
 being the case. What I have received since I commenced my career has 
 been but barely sufiScient to support me ; and I do not live extravagantly 
 either. Indeed, my present situation is the inost singular that can well be 
 imagined. I believe I do not exaggerate when I say that I have at least 
 forty pictures bespoke, and some by the highest people in the kingdom ; 
 yet, after all, / have but seldom got anything for any picture I have yet 
 
 The Card Flayers was the only picture exhibited by Wilkie 
 in 1808. It was painted for fifty guineas, which, says Wilkie, 
 "when the picture was finished, His Royal Highness con- 
 ceiving to be a great deal too little, most generously asked me 
 to accept of a hundred guineas in addition to the stipulated 
 sum." (The picture was subsequently sold by the Duchess of 
 Gloucester, to Mr. Bredel, for 500 guineas.) 
 
 "I have now," adds Wilkie, " advanced another picture 
 a great way towards completion, the subject of which is 
 A Sick Lady visited by her Physician ; but as I have felt 
 the inconvenience of painting a picture for a particular 
 person, or for a stated price, I intend to keep this one com- 
 pletely disengaged tUl it is finished, when I wUl dispose of it 
 in the way that shall be most > to my advantage." The 
 picture is not considered equal to Wilkie's previous efEorts, 
 
,-jfn 
 
 V-M 
 
 
 wa 
 
 mh 
 
 m\ 
 
 
 ^^^^^s 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^ ^"■^ is\ 
 
 V" 
 
 J 
 
 ^^ 
 
 S ^^ 
 
"PULL DEVIL, PULL BAKER." 33 
 
 although we are told " it was the offspring of long study 
 and of frequent retouching and amendment." The " fierce 
 anxiety " expressed on the face of the mother is noticed. The 
 picture was finished in 1809, and was bought by the Marquis 
 of Lansdowne for 150^. 
 
 Haydon gives an irresistible sketch of the friends' mode 
 of life at this time ; alternate work and play : — 
 
 " This period of our lives was one of great happiness. Painting all day ; 
 then dining at the Old Slaughter chop-house ; then going to the Academy 
 until eight to fill up the evening ; then going home to tea. Sometimes 
 lazily inclined after a good dinner, we have lounged ahout near Drury Lane 
 or Covent Garden, hesitating whether to go in, and often have I (knowing 
 first that there was nothing I wished to see) assumed a virtue I did not 
 possess, and pretending moral superiority preached to Wilkie on the weak- 
 ness of not resisting such temptations for the sake of our art and our duty, 
 and marched him off to his studies, when he was longing to see Mother 
 Goose. One night when I was dying to go in, he dragged me away to the 
 Academy, and insisted on my working, to which I agreed, on the promise 
 of a stroll afterwards. As soon as we had finished, out we went, and, in 
 passing a PENNY show in the Piazza, we fired up and determined to go in. 
 We entered and slunk away in a corner ; while waiting for the commence- 
 ment of the show, in came aU our student friends, one after the other. "We 
 shouted out at each one as he arrived, and then popped our heads down in 
 our corner again, much to the indignation of the chimney-sweeps and 
 yegetable boys who composed the audience, bat at last we were discovered, 
 and then we all joined in applauding the entertainment of Pull Demi, 
 pull Baker, and at the end raised such a storm of applause, clapping our 
 hands, stamping our feet, and shouting with all tlje power of a dozen pair 
 of lungs, that, to save our heads from the fury of the sweeps, we had to 
 run down stairs as if the devil was trying to catch us." 
 
 After which boisterous recreation the whole party ad- 
 journed to Haydon's rooms for tea and technicalities ; until 
 the small hours introduced the routine of another day of rest, 
 study, and amusement. Haydon says he looks back on these 
 days as " the most uninterrupted by envy, the least harassed 
 by anxiety, and the fullest of unalloyed pleasure," of all he 
 has known in his life. 
 
 On the 1st May, 1808, Wilkie began to keep a consecutive 
 w » 
 
34 WILKIE. 
 
 joui'nal, and account of his proceedings — ^whicli is exceedingly 
 interesting, and is transcribed by Allan Cunningham at 
 length. It is remarkably occupied with records of the visits 
 that he had from great or eminent men, and it introduces the 
 reader to the principal painters of the time. It is also 
 evidence that Wilkiei must have been highly appreciated for 
 his social and personal qualities apart from his art fame, and 
 there are a number of entries that show his health and 
 welfare to have been objects of solicitude to the friends he 
 had acquired in the first place by his genius, and then 
 attracted by his personal merit and by ties of sympathy. 
 
 Haydon is inseparable from his hours of leisure, and the 
 two friends go together with great regularity on Sundays to 
 hear sermons from the Rev. Sydney Smith. Among the friends 
 he visits or is visited by at this time, who are mentioned most 
 frequently in his diary are, of course. Lord and Lady Mulgrave 
 and Sir George Beaumont, then Sir Francis Bourgeois, the 
 founder of the Dulwich Gallery, Rogers the poet, Mr. Samuel 
 Dobree of Walthamstowe, Lord and Lady Lansdowne, Mr. 
 Angerstein (whose collection of paintings subsequently formed 
 the niicleus of the National Gallery), Mr. Wells, who had lent 
 him a Van Ostade — he borrowed works of Van Ostade and 
 Teniers frequently and studied them at home. 
 
 He was working at this time upon The Jew's Harp, and 
 The Sick Lady. As the journal goes on, it is seen that his 
 acquaintance ramifies and increases in degree of intimacy 
 with the leaders of the day in art, literature and social rank, 
 and it looks as if the whole of the world were passing in 
 succession through his studio. He was fond of the theatre, 
 and (on the 25th of June) saw Mathews act Sir Fretful 
 Plagiary, " with which," he says, "I was highly delighted." 
 
 He was fond of the society of ladies; on the 29th of June, 
 
 " Dr. Thomson was so kind as to take me to Lord Damley's, at Cobham 
 Hall, where I admired the splendour of the house and the richness of the 
 
OEIGIN OF "THE ALEHOUSE DOOR." 35 
 
 picture gallery ; saw a picture of Titian, by himself — very fine, a large 
 picture by Kubens, with many figures, and the Samifel of Sir Joshua Rey- 
 nolds, which certainly kept its place notwithstanding the fame of its com- 
 petitors. Saw Lord and Lady Damley, to whom I had been formerly 
 introduced ; dined and took a walk in the evening with the young ladies. 
 On the next day accompanied Miss Thomson to the top of a neighbouring 
 hill, returned and dined ; had a game at trap and ball, and shot at a mark 
 with bows and arrows ; Miss Thomson brought me the present of a box 
 full of colours from Mrs. Muskett, a great amateur in the art of painting. 
 On the following Sunday went to church, and had the pleasure of hearing 
 performed, in the middle of the service, Handel's Te Deum, whiclj had a 
 very grand effect ; had an excellent sermon from Dr. Thomson. " 
 
 The journal is, of course, too long to transcribe in extenso, 
 but it is delightful reading. There is an absence at the same 
 time of excitement and monotony in Wilkie's harmless life, 
 which contrasts strongly with the hot alternations of enjoy- 
 ment and despair that characterise the autobiography of his 
 friend Haydon. 
 
 "When he returned home he found Haydon recovering from 
 a fever of which he had fallen iU during his absence. On the 
 same day he went to Sadler's Wells, and saw a new panto- 
 mime. " Stopped on our way back," he says, " at Bagnigge 
 Wells, where we saw Jews and Jewesses dancing to the tune of 
 the Fairy Dance." In the same month " had a call from a 
 Mr. L., who disgusted me by his fulsome flattery." On the 
 3rd of August, " to amuse myself began to mak-e a blot of 
 the Public House Ddor, the subject I intend to paint next." It 
 is astonishing, all this time, what an amount of labour he is 
 expending upon the Jew's Ha/rp, not a day is without its line 
 in this respect. On the 18th he went again into Kent to Dr. 
 Pitcairns, where he visited the seat of Lord Audley on the 
 banks of the Thames — -" the house had many pictures ; those by 
 Kubens, Teniers, Paul Veronese, and Murillo, really surprised 
 me ; we stayed more than an hour, during which I made some 
 slight sketches as memorandums for the picture " (the Alehouse 
 Door). 
 
 D 2 
 
36 WILKIE. 
 
 It is not possible to make use of the copious materials 
 which exist for a record day by day of all the incidents of 
 Wilkie's life ; the tenor of it is always the same. Absorbed 
 in his art, and receptive of enjoyment, fond of refined sur- 
 roundings and society, without arriere pensie, full of simplicity 
 as of power, his life Is that of any other happy man of genius 
 whose mind is clear and healthy as his own. When we shall 
 see hinfi at Abbotsf ord in. contact with Washington Irving and 
 Sir Walter Scott, their identity of character in this respect 
 will be obvious. 
 
 The pictures that were completed at this time are the Sick 
 Lady, the Jew's Harp, and the Cut Finger, The first is full 
 of pathos, and so o'bvious in the expression thereof, that it is 
 only upon a second thought that we remember to look for the 
 details of the art that have made of the picture such a natural 
 and real incident as excludes the idea of " inventive " genius. 
 It is a picture that forces sympathy to a degree where the 
 enjoyment of its art is lost in the pain caused by the realisa- 
 tion of its subject. The Jew's Harp is a pretty picture of an 
 equally sympathetic domestic incident, but this time of a 
 pleasurable character. And the Cut Finger is another house- 
 hold subject of still more simple domesticity. It was good in 
 the days of the " grand school " of Fuseli to see the whole 
 world of critics led captive by these three nursery subjects, 
 as they had been two years before by what Northcote had 
 called the " beggarly " style. Wilkie came forward, in this 
 respect, as Eembrandt and others in similar times have done 
 before him, as the vindicator of nature against art. 
 
 Wilkie's journal for 1809 opens with the record, "Went to 
 church with Jackson, who expressed no dissatis/action, 
 although Sydney Smith was not particularly brilliant." On 
 the 6th, being Twelfth Night, he went by appointment to Sir 
 William Beechey's, where, he says — 
 
THE JEWS HARP. BY DAVID "WILKIE. 
 
 Pain fed in iSo8. 
 
LADY HAMILTON IN SOCIETY. 37 
 
 " We had a very splendid entertainment. I there met for the first time 
 the too celebrated Lady Hamilton. She had with her a girl, supposed to 
 be the daughter of Lord Nelson — a creature of great sweetness. Lady 
 Hamilton knowing me by name, called me, and said that her daughter 
 had the finest taste imaginable, and that she excelled in graceful attitudes. 
 She then made her stand in the middle of the room with a, piece of 
 drapery, and throw herself into a, number of those elegant postures for 
 which her ladyship in her prime was so distinguished. She afterwards 
 told me of all else her daughter could do, and concluded by asking me if 
 I did not think her very like her father. I said I had never ^een that 
 eminent person. Lady Hamilton is lusty and tall, and of fascinating 
 manners, but her features are bold and masculine. Her daughter's name 
 is Horatia Hamilton. After supper we were entertained by some songs 
 from Lady Hamilton, and with a fine specimen of mimicry from Mr. Twiss, 
 who gave us a speech in the manner of Pitt, which many pronounced 
 excellent. " 
 
 Sir William Beeohey, in whose house this scene occurs was 
 at this time engaged upon a portrait of Wilkie. Wilkie 
 and Haydon were always taking people to church to hear 
 Sydney Smith preach ; on the 29th, we are told, they took 
 Sir William Beechey with them, and heard " a very good 
 sermon on the use and abuse of time.'' 
 
 Wilkie was certainly making a good use of his own ; besides 
 his social "engagements, which, to judge from the visiting 
 recorded in his diary, must have been considerable, he was 
 iust finishing his portraits of the Marchioness of Lansdowne 
 and that of the Neave family ; he was putting the finishing 
 touches to the Cut Finger and the Sick Lady, and he never 
 missed an opportunity of attending lectures and the Life 
 School at the Academy. The entry of the 23rd of January 
 sayg — " Mr. Neave came to me with the sad news of the 
 death of Sir John Moore and the re-embarkation of our 
 troops : weiit and heard a very sensible lecture from Anthony 
 Carlisle, introductory to his course of anatomy." 
 
 On the 15th of February Wilkie received a " very hand- 
 some valentine with verses, signed Helen ; but from whom 
 I cannot conjecture.'' On the 24th he receives a poem from 
 
38 WILKIE. 
 
 the author of "Will and Jean," which, he says "I regard as 
 a handsome compliment, coming from a man of his reputa- 
 tion." He had been on that day to see the Baillies at 
 Hampstead, and on his return found the sky all red with 
 the burning of Drury Lane theatre. He was again at 
 Hampstead on the 5th of March to dine with Miss Baillie. 
 " Joanna told me during the evening that she had two 
 volume^ of plays, which were said to contain the plots of 
 Shakespeare's Lewr, King John, Comedy of Errors, and Henry 
 the Fowrth, which she would be glad to show me at some 
 future time." On the 17th of April he dined with Mr. 
 Murray in Fleet Street, where he met Mr. Westall, Mr. 
 BaUantyne, and " for the first time," Walter Scott, 
 
 "Whom I found most entertaining in conversation. He seems to possess 
 a Tery rich mind, is very communicative of the all but universal know- 
 ledge he has acquired. He talked principally about the ancient Highlanders 
 under the feudal system, and enriched his observations with interesting 
 anecdotes. He repeated one of Campbell's poems (' Lochiel's Warning ')." 
 
 Oil the 23rd April he is introduced by Fuseli to the 
 celebrated General Miranda, and met and conversed for 
 a considerable time with Callcott the painter. The Academy 
 opened on the first Monday in May, and Wilkie exhibited 
 the Cut Finger, and the Rent Day. 
 
 His success embittered the failure of poor Haydon, whose 
 Dentatus was relegated to an anteroom. Wilkie does not 
 mention it in his diary, but Haydon does in his. Sir George 
 Beaumont, he says, 
 
 "fiedoubled his kind attentions, told me not to be discouraged, and 
 said out boldly that not one of them could produce such a work. But 
 Wilkie, Wilkie whom I loved so dearly, the friend and companion of all 
 my early days and thoughts, he shrank from my defence ! How my heart 
 ached at his coldness ! but it was the timid man. " 
 
 The reconciliation, however, was not long in arriving and 
 was complete, and the friends joined hands for an excursion 
 
TRIP TO POUTSMOUTH. 39 
 
 b}' sea. Haydon had received from Lord Mulgrave a letter 
 to Sir Roger Curtis, tlie Port Admiral at Portsmouth, asking 
 for a sea-trip in a man-of-war bound to Plymouth. Wilkie 
 joined and the two left town on the 22nd June, and were 
 well received by Sir Roger, who promised to put them on 
 board of a cutter, which was the only vessel that was going 
 to Plymouth. After waiting three days they set out, and 
 the description of the voyage is given in Haydon' s most 
 graphic style. He seems to have enjoyed everything, while 
 poor Wilkie was sick from the first and went from bad to 
 worse. 
 
 " I relished their salt beef and biscuit, but poor Wilkie continued 
 almost insensible. He lay in bed with his nose close to the deck, and the 
 scrubbing, scraping and cleaning in the morning was enough to split the 
 brain of even a healthy head. I felt for him. In the middle of the day, 
 when we were regaling at lunch, who should heave up his awful figure, 
 with head enveloped in red nightcap, but Wilkie, pale, hollow-cheeked, 
 his quivering lips blue and parched, and his chin unshaven. We received 
 him with a hearty shout, but the sight of the meat and porter, and our 
 jolly uproarious air, so shook his nerves that he dropped down again in 
 despair. At daybreak next morning we passed the Mew Stone, and by 
 3 P.M. were safe at anchor in the Sound. Wilkie quickly recovered his 
 spirits, and the next day We were invited to dine with a large party." 
 
 The friends passed their time pleasantly at Pljrmouth ; they 
 made a pilgrimage to the birthplace of Sir Joshua Reynolds, 
 where they saw, in his bedroom,, an early attempt at a 
 portrait which he had drawn with his finger dipped in ink, 
 which must have reminded David, of the mural ornaments 
 of his own nursery in the Manse at Cults; they bathed fre- 
 quently at a place called the Two Coves, and Wilkie stretched 
 himself on the dining-table to be taught the art of striking 
 out. From Plymouth they went together to visit Sir George 
 Beaumont at Coleort'on, where they passed a fortnight " as 
 delightfully as painters could." Sir George's practice of read- 
 ing aloud every evening must have tried their patience, but 
 Wilkie gravely records day by day, the subjects he selected. 
 
40 WILKIE. 
 
 In the daytime the friends rambled at liberty, and Wilkie 
 sketched cottages and landscapes, and took his sketches into 
 the house and compared them with Sir George's Rubens, " and 
 made such alterations as the study of the great master 
 suggested." Haydon says, " We dined with the Claude and 
 Eembrandt before us, breakfasted with the Eubens landscape, 
 and did nothing, morning, noon, or night, but think of paint- 
 ing, talk of painting, dream of painting, and wake to paint 
 again." Haydon came back to visit Coleorton, m 1837, and he 
 says he was touched to see it again after so many years. 
 , " Jackson, Lord Mulgrave, Sir George and Lady Beaumont, 
 were all dead, and I walked through the house in a melan- 
 choly stupor, angry to see the rooms, where Once hung the 
 elite of our now national pictures, filled with modern works, 
 and the two superb heads (by Sir Joshua) of Sir George and 
 Lady Beaumont pushed high up to make way for some 
 commonplace trash." 
 
 On the 6th of November of this year (1809) Wilkie was 
 elected Associate of the Royal Academy, after a personal 
 canvass of the Academicians. Sir William Beechey, we are 
 told, advised him to take this step, and on the 3rd of Novem- 
 ber, he tells us he called on Parrington, Woodford, and 
 Northcote— next morning on Flaxman, Sir Francis Bourgeois, 
 and Sir William Beechey. At Turner's and Wyatt's he left 
 his card ; Westall, Stothard and NoUekens received him, he 
 said, with great kindness. West, Thomson, Howard, Shee 
 and Phillips, were either unwell, engaged, or out of town. 
 With Copley, Tresham, Fuseli, Gandy, Richards, Cosway, and 
 Smirke, he was more fortunate. " I concluded my day's 
 labours," he adds, "by calling on Lawrence, Hoppner, and 
 Dance, none of whom I saw. All these calls I accomplished 
 between nine and four. Hoppner, I was sorry to learn, was 
 ill, and growing daily worse." (He died a few months after.) 
 Wilkie was working at this time upon the Ale/wuse Door, and 
 
ELECTED R.A. 1811. 41 
 
 the Portrait of the Neave family. His journal records his 
 steady perseverance and slow progress from day to day, and 
 the conscientious resolution with which he rubbed out and 
 recommenced the many details that failed to content him. 
 
 The Man with the Girl's Cap, also in progress at the same 
 time, was finished in time for the next Exhibition, but WUkie 
 withdrew it, after sending it in, in deference to the suggestion 
 of the Academicians, by whom it was unfavourably compared 
 with the works of Edward Bird, whose pictures, of the same 
 domestic and familiar subjects as those of Wilkie, had at- 
 tracted attention. Allan Cunningham says that when Cromek 
 introduced Bird to Wilkie, the latter liked his compositions 
 much ; but that on a second examination he abated his 
 admiration a little ; and that Cromek spoke of Bird as a 
 genius who had already conquered Wilkie with his own 
 weapons, saying, " Gad ! Sir, he's predestined to humble 
 your tall thin countryman, who is as silent as the grave, and 
 as proud as Lucifer." 
 
 The incident of his retirement before Bird, affected Wilkie 
 very deeply, and was possibly the original motive of his plan, 
 which he carried into effect in 1811, of a separate exhibition 
 of his own works. The Prince of Wales bought Bird's 
 picture, and then asked Wilkie to paint a companion picture 
 to it. At the private view Wilkie told Haydon that if he had 
 seen Bird's picture, he would never have withdrawn his own. 
 
 On the 14th, he had a call from his rival. Bird, " who 
 came to town two days ago, — I did not sliow him any of my 
 fictures" says David. 
 
 In February 1811, Wilkie was elected to the vacancy 
 among the full members of the Royal Academy, caused by 
 the death of Sir Francis Bourgeois. 
 
 "Wilkie,"' says Ounningham, "who had looked up to the Eoyal 
 Academy with something of the reverence of a son, obeyed all its rules, 
 listened to all its maxims, treasured up its couusels in his heart, practised ' 
 
42 WILKIE. 
 
 them in his life, helieved that its members rivalled tha prime ones of the 
 earth, and that the chair of the President outshone the thrones cf Ormuz 
 or of Ind, received this intimation with a sober joy peculiar to himself. 
 
 "Not so the lovers of art. They rejoiced aloud to see this admission of 
 fresh life-blood into the Academy, and that so great a favourite, and one 
 so worthy, had been elected while he was yet vigorous and young." 
 
 Wilkie's two pictures in the Academy Exhibition of 1811 
 were A Humorous Scene and A Gamekeeper. He was working 
 hard always at the Alehouse Door, but had not yet advanced 
 it to a condition for exhibiting. Hay don and he, it appears 
 began two grand pictures, Haydon his Macbeth, and Wilkie 
 the Alehouse Boor after their return frora their tour in Devon- 
 shire. "What a history," cries Haydon, "would the events 
 during their progress furnish to the inexperienced student ! 
 How gaily we began them, how soon we were checked ! " 
 
 The VUlage Festival (or the Alehouss Boor, as it was 
 originally called) occupies a principal part of Wilkie's diary, 
 as it did of his attention, during the time of its production, 
 from 1808 to 1811. It is not such a general favourite as most 
 of his other early works. Leslie considers it " the most 
 artificial of his earlier productions, although the exquisite 
 delicacy of touch which marks more or less every period of 
 his art, is here seen in the greatest perfection." Hazlitt, in 
 his criticisms of the " Angerstein collection," says : — 
 
 "It is here, and deserves to bo here. Still it is not his best ; though 
 there are some very pleasing rustic figures and some touching passages in , 
 it. As in his Blind Man's Buff, the groups are too straggling and spread 
 over too large a surface of bare foreground, which Mr. Wilkie does not 
 paint well. It looks more like putty than earth or clay. The artist has 
 a better eye for individual details than for the general tone of objects. 
 Mr. Listen's face in this fiock of drunkards is a smiling failure. " 
 
 "The Village Festival," says Dr. Waagen, "where a countryman who 
 has indulged too freely is led home by his family, is indeed highly humor- 
 ous in the expression of the heads and masterly in the keeping and 
 chiaroscuro, but the figures appear too small for the size of the picture 
 and too scattered ; while the house and other accessories are too slightly 
 treated to make up for this defect. The faces, too, in the rather indefinite 
 
HIS PRIVATE EXHIBITION. 43 
 
 forms, and tbe cold reddish tone of the flesh, bear no comparison with 
 the Blind Fiddler. It is inscribed with the date 1811. [On canvas, 
 three feet one inch high, four feet two inches wide.] Painted for AV. 
 Angerstein, Esq. The price of this picture was 800 guineas. It is now 
 in the National Galleiy." 
 
 Wilkie now engaged a very handsome room in Pall Mall, 
 nearly opposite the British Gallery, which, he considered, 
 from its size and entrance, as particularly adapted to his 
 purpose, and from its situation, " as highly respectable as 
 any in London," and opened his exhibition on the 1st of 
 May. He appointed Thomas MacDonald, a Scotchman and 
 an acquaintance of the old Edinburgh Academy days, to be the 
 keeper of the exhibition, at a salary of four guineas a week. 
 
 We give a copy of the catalogue, which, says Cunningham, 
 is now as rare as it is curious. 
 
 A catalogue of the Pictures painted by D. WUkie,. R,A. now exhibiting at 
 No 87 Pall Mall. Admittance, one shilling. Catalogues gratis. Lohdon : 
 printed by C. H. EeyneU, 21 PiccadiUy. 1812. 
 
 The PubKc are respectfully informed, that (permission having been granted 
 by the proprietor to Mr. Wilkie) : an engi'aving will he made by Mr. 
 Raimbach, from the original picture of Village Politicians. The size 
 of the engraving will be twenty-two by sixteen inches, being the same as 
 that of the print of the Blind Fiddler. The price to subscribers will be 
 two guineas — proofs, four guineas ; half to be paid at the time of sub- 
 scribing, and the remainder on the delivery of the print. The best 
 impressions wiU be strictly appropriated to the earliest subscribers. 
 
 Subscriptions will be received at the Exhibition Foom, No 87 Pall Mall ; 
 aiMr. WUkie's, KtnHngton ; and at Mr. Raimbach's, No 10 Warren 
 Street, Fitzroy Square. 
 
 CATALOGUE. 
 
 Those that have been exhibited at the Royal Academy are marked thus " 
 No. 1. The New Coat, from the tale 
 of Jeannot and Collin — Vol- 
 
 trrire 1807 
 
 2.*Village Politicians . 1806 
 
 3 *A Gamekeeper. . . 1811 9. The Village Holiday 1811 
 
 4. Blindman'sBuff(imfinished) 
 
 5. Jew's Harp . . 
 
 . 1808 
 
 6. 'Blind Fiddler . 
 
 . 1806 
 
 7.*The Cut Finger . 
 
 . 1809 
 
 8. The Sick Lady . 
 
 . 1808 
 
44 
 
 WILKIE. 
 
 In the principal group of this pic- 
 ture, a man is represented hesitating 
 whether to go home with his wife 
 or remain with his companions at 
 the public house. 
 
 " On ae hand, drink 's deadly poison 
 ■ Bare ilk iirm resolve i»wa' 
 On the ither, Jean's condition. 
 Rave his very heart in twa." 
 Macneil. 
 
 10. A Family Picture . 1810 
 
 1 1 . Portraits of a Clergyman and 
 
 his Wife .... 1807 
 12.''The Bent Day . . 1807 
 
 13. Portrait of a Lady of 
 Quality .... 1807 
 
 14. Alfred reprimanded by the 
 Neatherd's Wife for his Inat- 
 tention to the Toasting of her 
 Cakes t 1806 
 
 15.*The Wardrobe Ransacked. 
 
 1810 
 
 16.*The Card Players . 1808 
 
 17. The Sunday Morning 1805 
 
 18. Sketch of The Blind Fiddler 
 
 19. of the Village Politi- 
 
 20. 
 
 of the Wardrobe 
 
 Ransacked 
 
 21. ■ — of the Sick Lady 
 
 22. The Country Fair (1) 1804 
 
 23. Sketch of the Jew's Harp 
 
 24. of the RentD.ny 
 
 25. of Boys digging for 
 
 Rats (2) .... 1811 
 
 26. of Alfred in the 
 
 Neatherd's Cottage 
 
 27. of the Card Players 
 
 28. of the Cut Finger 
 
 29. Study from Nature of a Gipsy 
 Woman and Child. . 1810 
 
 + History of England. 
 
 1. This is one of the artist's earliest pictures ; most of the figures in it 
 
 are portraits of the inhabitants of a small village in Scotland, 
 where the fair is annually held, and near to which the picture was 
 painted. 
 
 2. The picture of which this is a sketch was painted last year, and is 
 
 placed in the Council-room of the Royal Academy, as a diploma 
 picture. 
 
 FINIS. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 1812 TO 1815. 
 
 " blindman's buff" — "the pedlar" — -"letter op introduc- 
 tion " — " DUNCAN GRAY " — JOURNEYS TO PARIS, THE NETHER- 
 LANDS, AND SCOTLAND. 
 
 THE exhibition, although it greatly advanced his reputa-- 
 tion, was not a financial success. It eostWilkie 414?. 
 but, we are told, there is no account of the receipts ; only, " the 
 artist used to shake his head when any one inquired about the 
 success of his exhibition." On the 20th May, he enters in 
 his memoranda that he had to pay 321., due from Thomas 
 WUson to Ant. Harding, to release the picture of the Village 
 Holiday, distrained for rent, and it is suggested that this 
 incident gave Wilkie the first idea of his celebrated picture 
 of Distraining for Rent. 
 
 It was in the autumn of this year that his father, after a 
 long illness, died " full of years, and with the tranquillity of 
 a Christian, on the 1st day of December, 1812." Upon this 
 event "Wilkie arranged for his mother and sister to come and 
 join him in London, and for their joint accommodation he 
 took a new house in Phillimore Place, which he describes in 
 a letter to his sister as " elegant, commodious, and very well 
 built." He spoke afterwards of their arrival (in August) as 
 the happiest hour of his life. 
 
46 WILKIE. 
 
 He was engaged in 1813 in the hanging of the pictures 
 at the Royal Academy ; and at the public dinner which fol- 
 lowed the opening of the Exhibition was treated with a 
 degree of distinction which was very flattering. The Prince 
 Regent, who was present, came up to him and told him that 
 he was delighted with the picture {Blindman's Buff) which he 
 had painted for him, and that he wished to have a companion 
 picture of the same size. This commission was filled by the 
 Pev/ny Wedding, finished in 1819, when George IV. was 
 already on the throne. The Marquis of StafEord also re- 
 minded Wilkie of his promise of a picture for him, out- 
 standing several years. It was, however, not until 1817 
 that the Breakfast was finished for the Marquis. The Pedla/r, 
 purchased by Dr. Baillie, Wilkie's physician, for 320 guineas, 
 was Wilkie's second picture in the Exhibition. 
 
 He was occupied at this time upon the Bagpiper for Sir 
 Francis Freeling — a small picture, for which he received only 
 forty guineas. 
 
 All this time poor Haydon had been suffering great 
 hardship. "Wilkie had plainly refused to allow himself to 
 be committed to Haydon's wild warfare with the Academy, 
 and wrote him a calm, sensible letter of remonstrance, which 
 produced no effect. Haydon looked at the position with 
 considerable justice. 
 
 " "Wilkie and Ij" he says, " were different beings, yet sincerely attached 
 to each other in proportion to the opposition of our natures, though 
 neither approTed the excesses in the character of each. I gloried in pro- 
 portion as the world left me — Wilkie only flourished as society nourished 
 him ; I defied the present time for the sake of the future — Wilkie looked 
 to the future through the affections of the time heing. " 
 
 The pictures that "Wilkie sent to the Exhibition in 1814, 
 were the Letter of Introduction and Duncan Gray, then called 
 the Refusal. 
 
 Haydon's troubles came to a temporary lull in the spring of 
 this year, in consequence of the success of his great picture of 
 

 i 
 
 •<>. 
 
 .*■■•: 4i-J# 
 
 .y^J 
 
 ^'J 
 
 _-- __ -^ . *.^ 
 
 -,j»- 
 
 — -*— 
 
 GROUP FROM "BLIND MAN'S BUFF." 
 
VISIT TO PAEIS. 47 
 
 tlie Judgment of Solomon, whicli he sold for 600 guineas ; and 
 Wilkie must have warmly participated in his joy. He invited 
 Haydon to let his sister stay at his house while they went 
 together to Paris. 
 
 "Paris," says Haydon, "was now the most interesting place on earth. 
 Napoleon was overthrown and going to Elba. All the nations on earth 
 were there. The Louvre was in its glory. Such wonders can be only 
 conceived. No human being hereafter can ever enter into the feel- 
 ings of Europe when we heard Napoleon was in retreat : it cannot be 
 comprehended." 
 
 On the 25th of May, according to Wilkie's journal, on the 
 26th according to Haydon's, they set out by way of Brighton, 
 where they met with a packet on the point of sailing ' for 
 Dieppe. Haydon's diary is infinitely miore interesting than 
 that of Wilkie, but it is very long. 
 
 "Wilkie's object in the journey," he says, "was to open a connexion for 
 the sale of his prints, and mine to see France and the Louvre. Kaimbaoh 
 gave me a letter to Bervic, the celebrated line engraver. Wilkie had taken 
 some lessons in French of an emigrant of good connexions, who gave us 
 another to Monsieur de Launay, who lived in the Place VendSme." 
 
 At Rouen they went to the Cathedral, where they heard 
 grand mass. "A scene," says Wilkie, "that I shall never 
 forget, and which, I think, no person could see without being 
 inspired with veneration for the Roman Catholic religion." 
 The awe, that was inspired in him by the solemnity of the 
 worship in another church, was, he says, "considerably 
 removed by seeing a number of young men playing at some 
 game, like cricket, immediately before the church " (on the 
 Sabbath). 
 
 Their drive was, of course, the more interesting for the 
 crisis in European affairs that had its centre at Paris at the 
 time of their arrival, and the groups that they encountered on 
 the road, offered them a great variety of picturesque and 
 novel studies. 
 
 " I do not know," says Wilkie, in his first letter from Paris 
 
48 WILKIE. 
 
 to Ms sister, " that I ever made a iourney that has given me 
 more satisfaction, or from which . I have derived more new 
 ideas." "The journey," he adds, "has been a perpetual roar 
 of laughter." They were no sooner settled at their lodging 
 in the Rue St. Benoit, than Wilkie fell ill ; but a dose of 
 lemonade, and rest, quickly cured him, and on Haydon's 
 return from a walk he found him quite refreshed and up, and 
 had been trying to teach Madame English. 
 
 " He was laughing ready to die, and made signs to me. Madame said, 
 'Monsieur Haydon, votre ami se moque de moi.' 'Comment, Madame?' 
 ' Via des mots qn'il me dit Stre Anglais ! ' and she held up a paper with 
 the well-known lines which he had been trying to make her pronounce, 
 ' Peter Piper picked a peck of pepper off a pewter plate,' &c." 
 
 It is impossible, however great the temptation, to follow the 
 friends through the interesting account that each has left in 
 his own style, of their enjoyments at Paris. 
 
 Wilkie, taking pleasure as an accessory, finds, an object in 
 his movements, and steadily keeps up his visits to his friends 
 and acquaintances, and the delivery of his letters of introduc- 
 tion. When he visits the Galleries, or the public monuments, 
 his remarks are practical and valuable ; and even his record 
 of the pieces he saw in their almost daily visits to the 
 theatres are very interesting. 
 
 Haydon on the contrary is nothing if not subjective, and 
 the principal interest attaching to his rhapsodical diary is the 
 light that it throws on his character, and on the impressions 
 that he received from the novel scenes around him. His 
 narrative is full of suspicious stories that bear internal 
 evidence of their exaggeration or total invention. Wilkie's 
 criticisms on the modern pictures are very unfavourable, and 
 he speaks especially of David with unmitigated censure. As 
 he grows familiar with the Dutch masters, he notices that 
 the Ostades and the Kembrandts improve greatly in his 
 appreciation, the works of Teniers and others in that style 
 rather lose. 
 
VISIT TO FEA-NCE. 49 
 
 Haydon's description of the impression made upon Mm and 
 WUkie by tlie portrait of Bonaparte that Gerard had done in 
 1804 is worth repeating : — 
 
 "Bonaparte ten years ago. — A horrid yellow for complexion ; the tip of 
 his nose tinged with red ; his eyes fixed and stern, with a liquorish wateri- 
 ness ; his lips red dirt ; his mouth cool, collected, and resolute. ' All the 
 other heads in the room looked like children beside him,' Wilkie said, and 
 so they did. I never was so horridly touched by a human expression." 
 
 Wilkie returned on July 3rd, leaving Haydon stUl in Paris, 
 who tells us he felt low at his departure. 
 
 , "There is a' simplicity iu his manners, .a soundness and originality in his 
 thinking, which make him an instructive companion. His remarks on the 
 French school were capital. He said they were the consequences, and not 
 the causes, of encouragement. There was hardly a day but we had a 
 dispute, and yet we were always better pleased with each other's society 
 than with the society of others. One great point of dispute was how much 
 to give to the postilions. He said I always gave them more than they 
 deserved, and I said he always gave tliem less. 
 
 " Notwithstanding Paris was filled with all the nations of the earth, the 
 greatest oddity in it was unquestionably David Wilkie. His horrible 
 French, his strange, tottering, feeble, pale look, his carrying about his 
 prints to make bargains with printsellers, his resolute determination never 
 to leave the restaurants till he got all his change right to a centime ; his 
 long disputes about sous and demi-sous with the dame du comptoir, 
 whilst Madame tried to cheat him, and as she pressed her pretty ringed 
 fingers on his arm without making the least impression ; her ' Mais, 
 Monsieur ! ' and his Scotch ' Mais, Madame ! ' were worthy of Moliere. " 
 
 Wilkie reached home in safety on the 6th of July. The last 
 record in his journal of his excursion says : " Whatever 
 delight or satisfaction I have derived from my journey to 
 Paris, it has not made me think the less of my own country." 
 
 He found on his return that his picture of the Letter of 
 Introduction had acquired great popularity, and one of his 
 first cares, the Exhibition being then recently closed, was to 
 fetch it away and deliver it to the buyer, Mr. Samuel Dobree. 
 
 The story told by Cunningham of the origin of this picture is that it 
 arose out of WUkie's personal experience upon his first arrival in town. 
 
50 WILKIE. 
 
 when some kind friend had furnished him with a letter of introduction to 
 a person of the name of Caleb Whiteford, the discoverer of " the cross 
 readings " in newspapers. Caleb asl<ed the young painter how old he was. 
 " Really now," said Wilkie, hesitating. " Ha ! " exclaimed Caleb, " intro- 
 duce a man to me who knows not how old he is ! " and regarded him with 
 that dubious look which is the chief charm of the picture. 
 The picture was bought by Mr. Samuel Dobree for 250 guineas. 
 
 Wilkie soon settled down steadily to work upon his next 
 great picture, Distraining for Eent, which he had had in his 
 mind since the seizure of one of his pictures at his private 
 exhibition in Pall Mall, in 1811. He had this picture ready 
 for the Academy in 1815. The Directors of the British 
 Institution bought it for 600 guineas. 
 
 Soon afterwards Haydon went down to Brighton for his 
 health, and Wilkie joined him, and made the acquaintance of 
 Prince Hoare, and the Rev. Mr. Douglas, a wiirm antiquarian 
 and the author of the Ncmia Britamnica. Under his guidance 
 they all went and opened a barrow, " on the hill close to the 
 church," together, and were rewarded by finding an urn of 
 unbaked clay, from which there fell out the burnt bones of a 
 human skeleton. 
 
 Whilst they were at Brighton they received a letter from 
 John Scott (the Editor of the Morning Chronicle), who was in 
 Paris, in which he said : — 
 
 "I must tell you that on Friday last I made a catalogue of the works 
 in the Louvre — a gigantic job ; two hundred and seventy form the whole 
 collection. In the Italian division sixteen remain. The Transfiguration 
 is not one of them. I saw the Venetian horses go. I was most lucky 
 in getting to the top of the arch. I sat in the car. I stood in the car. 
 I plundered the car. I have brought with me a ram's horn from it, 
 to blow down the walls of the first Jericho I have a chance of being 
 despatched to by you when I bother you in busy hours. " 
 
 Haydon says that Wilkie was not sorry for the dispersion 
 of the Louvre. He said " The works would be seen by fewer 
 who have no relish, and would be less liable to absurd 
 comment." 
 
VISIT TO THE CONTINENT. 51 
 
 It was in November of this year that the friends met 
 Canova, who visited Hay don's painting room and said much 
 to encourage him. Haydon says, " One had a feeling about 
 Canova as if he were a descendant from the great." , 
 
 Wilkie speaks of him in a letter to John Anderson, Esq., 
 Edinburgh, of 10th December : — 
 
 "We have lately had Canova, the celebrated sculptor from Eome 
 among us. He was sent to Paris hy the Pope to arrange the carrying 
 back of the works of art that belong to the Italian state ; and when his 
 business there was over, he came to see the state of the arts in this 
 country. I had the good fortune to be introduced to him soon after 
 his arrival, by Lord Hamilton, and had the honour of a call from him 
 at my house, which has given me the means of forming an acquaintance 
 with him that may be of importance to me at a future time. ... He 
 saw the works of a great number of our painters and sculptors during his 
 stay ; and among the rest was once or twice at Haydon's, with whose 
 pictui'e hfe expressed himself very much pleased. . . His appearance 
 has made a stir among us." 
 
 In the autumn of this year, Wilkie in company with 
 Eaimbach, the engraver, went for a tour in the Netherlands. 
 Haydon says, " he received from him letters full of fresh and 
 close observation.'' Besides his visits to the galleries, Wilkie 
 carried his prints about with him, and obtained subscriptions 
 to them wherever he went. At Antwerp Kaimbach left him, 
 and missed seeing at the Museum the three great Rubens, 
 which had then just arrived from Paris to be restored to the 
 cathedral. "They appeared to me," Wilkie writes, "among 
 the finest works of Kubens ; and as they were not hung up 
 I saw them to great advantage." 
 
 He describes an adventure that he had met with at 
 Calais, when stopping to sketch " Hogarth's Gate ; " he was 
 arrested and taken before the mayor, who, however, after 
 explanation, dismissed him politely. Wilkie's letter to Sir 
 George Beaumont at this time is very interesting. The 
 people, the houses, the trees, and whole tracts of country, 
 about Oslend, remind him of the landscapes of Teniers 
 
 E 2 
 
52 WILKIE. 
 
 and as he penetrates further into the country the pictures 
 of Rubens, Wouwerman, and others take his place. He 
 traces to himself the particular districts in Holland where 
 Ostade, Jan Steen, Cuyp and Rembrandt should have studied. 
 He finds himself familiar with every aspect of the country 
 from the recollection he has of the faithful interpretations 
 of it that he has seen in pictures. In a letter to Haydon he 
 dwells upon the treatment that the pictures from Paris had 
 received at the cleaner's hands — with which he is naturally 
 very indignant. 
 
 On the 12th of December we find him settled at Kensington 
 again, working at three pictures for the Academy: 
 
 "The one,'' lie says, "is Dr. Baillie's." {This must he Duncan Gray, 
 or the Sefusal). "The other A Scene of Sheep-washing, from a sketch I 
 made in Wiltshire. The Breakfast-party I am now at work upon, and have 
 got far advanced with it. "With regard to the Sheep-washing, it is of 
 course, being a landscape, entirely new to me. I certainly wish to get 
 practice and to obtain some kind of proficiency in this way ; but my ambi- 
 tion is not more than that of enabling myself to paint an out-door scene 
 with facility, and in no respect whatever to depart from my own line." 
 
 Sir George Beaumont, in reply, quite approves of Wilkie's 
 giving some of his attention to landscape. 
 
 In 1817, he finished his picture of the Breakfast, for 
 the Marquis of Stafford, who paid him 400 guineas for it, 
 that is 50 guineas in excess of the price agreed upon. Wilkie 
 himself was pleased with the result in this picture, which he 
 thought would " make an impression, but I almost grudge the 
 long time it has taken me." He adds, that the print from 
 the Ment Bay had just been published, and had a large sale. 
 He was now busy preparing studies for the great picture 
 of the Chelsea Pensioners, and also for the Pemny Wedding, 
 and in August he took a tour in Scotland, and sought 
 inspiration in the scenes of his student days. His letters 
 to his sister are always long and interesting and full of 
 admirably graphic description of the scenes and adventures 
 
VISIT XO SCOTLAND. 53 
 
 of his j^ourney. In Edinburgli he ssiw Holytood House and 
 the apartments of Queen Mary — at Borrowstounness Dugald 
 Stewart of Eanneill House found out for him " an old farm- 
 house with a cradle chimney," of the fashion of two hundred 
 years ago. KinneUl House itself 
 
 " Had a number of haunted rooms, where the country people have a 
 tradition about a Lady Lilburn, who once lived in them, and from some-, 
 thing strange in her history is supposed to visit them still, and has been 
 seen, it is said, sailing through the clouds at no very distant date." 
 
 Wilkie says he felt as if he had the imagination of 
 Mrs. KadclifEe, but he stopped there two nights, and met 
 with no supernatural experiences. He visited from this 
 place the palace and church of ' Linlithgow, about three 
 miles off, both of which, he says, conspire with Holyrood 
 House to show the magnificence of the Scottish kings. H's 
 genuine interest in the historical monuments of his country 
 is commented on by Cunningham, who remarks, that he made 
 good use of these remembrances when he painted the Visit of 
 George tlie Fov/rth to Holyrood, and the Escape of Queen Mary 
 from LocMeven Castle, from the scenery that had been familiar 
 to him from the cradle. 
 
 His letters from Bute are full of vivid descriptions of the 
 quasi-patriarchal system of life that he found established on 
 the island, where he found models admirably suited to his pur- 
 pose among the herring fishers and their families. He is sure 
 that he has found there the original of old Edie Ochiltree. 
 
 His host and he made tempestuous passages across to the 
 mainland of Argyllshire and got in returning " a pretty good 
 ducking, which, however, has done neither of us any harm," 
 and finally, among other invitations, one of which was from 
 the Duke of Athol, he received a very cordial letter from 
 Sir "Walter Scott describing the inducements of scenery and 
 " old jockies with one foot in the grave " that Abbotsford 
 might offer to his pencil. 
 
54 WILKIE. 
 
 Wilkie continued his tour to Inverary where he says 
 " there is very genteel society." And from there, in a boat 
 crowded with " a motley crew of Highland shearers come 
 from the Hebrides, to the amount of two hundred persons, on 
 their way to the Low Country harvest," who played bagpipes,, 
 and sang Gaelic coronachs, or danced, all the way, to Loch- 
 gilphead on Loch Fyne, where he was met by Mr. Macneill 
 of Oakfield at whose house he made another stay. Here he 
 got a whisky-still to study from, which was the original of 
 that in the picture finished in 1819 for Sir Willoughby 
 Gordon.. " The men who kept the still," says Wilkie, " could 
 not speak English, and the only interpreter I had was a 
 breekless halflin, who attended me to carry colours.'' 
 
 On the 31st August he writes to his sister : — 
 
 " I started again with my gig, and passed along t&e banks of Loch 
 Lomond to Luss. I oould not see much of the scenery as it was getting 
 dark ihnt there was something delightful to me in this twilight travelling.. 
 The continued murmuring of the lake with its wooded islands, the dark 
 purple mountains, and a, straw cottage with an occasional light beaming 
 through its window, give a degree of beauty and cheerfulness to a scene of 
 a commonplace kind by the light of day. With respect to Loch Lomond,, 
 however, it can disappoint no one. Everything about it is magnificent. 
 The hills are large — Ben Lomond tremendous. He fills with his base an 
 immense territory, and is opposed on the other side by Ben Voirlich and 
 the Gobbler mountain, all of them crowding so much upon one another 
 that they seem to leave no space for the lake to intercept them." 
 
 ' Wilkie seldom indulges in descriptions of mere natural 
 scenery apart from the works of man — as Cunningham 
 
 , " The social aspect of man "Wilkie loved more than the savage aspect of 
 nature, and he made much of this tour rather in obedience to the counsels 
 of Scott than from a desire of his own to see heathery mountains and 
 rocky glens." 
 
 After a stay of three days with General Graham at Stirling, 
 he continued his tour to Blair Athol, through Killieorankie 
 pass, " where Claverhouse lost his life in the moment of 
 
TOUR IN THE HIGHLANDS. 55 
 
 victory," to the Bridge of Tilt, and next day to visit the Duke 
 of Athol at Blair. He found the Duke busy deer-stalking, 
 and sketched a dead deer with some of the game-keepers 
 about it, " who have all got kilts, and are very picturesque 
 characters." 
 
 Hence, after a visit to his home at Cupar, he sets out 
 in October to Melrose " to visit Mr. Walter Scott, with whom 
 I expect to be much pleased." 
 
 He arrived at Abbotsf ord in the middle of October, in time 
 for a grand cattle show, and a feast of tenants at Bowhill, 
 at the Duke of Buccleuch's, and a fox hunt " after Dandie 
 Dinmont's fashion," among the rocks of the Yarrow. The 
 Sheriff attended with his tail m% ; and Wilkie too went with 
 him. It was on this occasion that the meeting took place 
 between "Wilkie and the Ettrick Shepherd, described by Mr. 
 Laidlaw, who accompanied Wilkie on the visit one fine harvest 
 morning. 
 
 " The cottage which Hogg at that time inhabited had been the Jui and 
 iem of the former tenant, and he dwelt in the kitchen, for it was the pre- 
 ferable pai't ; but the kitchen was large and roomy, and better lighted 
 than such abodes used to be then, and was moreover wonderfully clean. 
 The kettle was hanging over a cheerful peat fire, and soon began to 
 simmer ; and James, then a bachelor, despatched a shepherdess to borrow 
 some loaf-bread to which she added some kneaded cake. 
 
 " I had not introduced Wilkie as an artist, and it is probable Hogg had 
 taken- him (as he did a great poet) for a horse-couper ; he, however,, 
 turned suddenly to me, exclaiming ' Laidlaw ! this is no the great Mr. 
 Wilkie ? ' ' It's just the great Mr. Wilkie, Hogg,' I replied. ' Mr. 
 Wilkie," exclaimed the shepherd, seizing him by the hand, 'I cannot tell 
 how proud I am to see you in my house, and how glad I am to see you 
 are so young a man." 
 
 Washington Irving describes a visit that he paid with 
 Scott to a quarry, where they met st "tall straight old fellow 
 with a healthful complexion and silver hair, and a smaU round 
 crowned white hat," who paused from his labour, like his 
 companions, to have a " crack wi' the laird." Scott asked 
 
56 WILKIE. 
 
 him for a pinch of snuff, and the old man "drew forth a horn 
 snuff-box. "Hoot, man," said Scott, "not that old mull; 
 where's the bonnie French one that I brought you from 
 Paris 1 " " Troth, your honour," replied the old fellow, " sic 
 a mull as that is nae for week-days." This old man was a 
 great favourite with Scott, and his " straight, erect person, 
 his ruddy yet rugged countenance, his grey hair, and an arch 
 gleam in his blue eyes " reminded Irving of the description 
 of Edie Ochiltree. His portrait is introduced by Wilkie in 
 his picture of the Scott family. 
 Wilkie writes at this time : — 
 
 " I have been making a little group while here of Mr. Scott, Mrs. Scott, 
 and all the family, with Captain Ferguson and some other characters. They 
 are so pleased with it that it has been taken to the Duke of Buccleuch's 
 when a request was made that I would paint a picture of the same kind 
 of the Duke ; but as this was going out of my line entirely, I felt it 
 necessary to decline." He adds, "I have never been in any place where 
 there is so much real good humour aiid merriment. There is nothing but 
 amusement from morning till night ; and if Mr. Soott is really writing 
 Rob Hoy it must be, while we are sleeping. He is either out planting 
 trees, superintending the masons, or erecting fences the whole of the day. 
 He goes frequently out hunting, and this morning there was » whole 
 cavalcade of us out with Mr. and Miss Scott hunting hares.' 
 
 It would be surely excusable to stray from our subject for 
 a time, under the charm of Wilkie's present surroundings, and 
 especially of the inimitable easy flow of Irving's gossiping 
 relation, but the matter relates rather to the biography of 
 Scott than to his visitors, though the companionship, the 
 scenery, the legends and associations of Abbotsford, must 
 have borne fruit in a mind like Wilkie's, and left their im- 
 pression upon his subsequent work. 
 
 "Not long after my departure from Abbotsford," says Irving, "my 
 friend Wilkie arrived there to paint a picture of the Scott family. He 
 found the house full of guests. Scott's whole time was taken up in 
 riding and driving about the country, or in social conversation at home. 
 
ABBOTSFOKD IN 1815. 57 
 
 'All this time,' said Wilkie tome, ' I did not presume to ask Mr. Scott 
 to sit for his portrait, for 1 saw he had not a moment to spare ; I, waited 
 for the guests to go away, but as fast as one went another arrived, and so 
 it continued far several days, and with each set he was completely occu- 
 pied. At length all went off and we were quiet. I thought, however. 
 Mr. Scott will now shut himself up among his books and papers, for he 
 has to make up for lost time ; it won't do for me to ask him now to sit 
 for his picture. Laidlaw, who managed his estate came in, and Scott 
 turned on him, as I supposed, to consult about business. " Laidlaw," said 
 he, " to-morrow morning we'll go across the water, and take the dogs with 
 us — there's a place where I think we shall be able to find a hare ! " ' In 
 short,' added Wilkie 'I found that instead of business he was thinking 
 only of amusement, as if he had nothing in the world' to occupy him ; so 
 I no longer feared to intrude upon him.' " 
 
 Lockhart says ; " I am sorry to say that I cannot express much appro- 
 bation of the representation of Sir Walter, nor indeed are any of the 
 likenesses in that beautiful piece at all satisfactory to me, except only that 
 of Sir Adam Ferguson, which is perfect." 
 
 But there is nothing to bp added to the following description 
 which Sir Walter himself gives of the picture : — 
 
 " This picture has something in it of a domestic character. The idea 
 which our inimitable Wilkie adopted was to represent our family group in 
 the garb of south-country peasants, supposed to be concerting a merry- 
 making, for which some of the preparations are seen. The place is tbe 
 terrace near Hayside, commanding an extensive view towards the 
 Eildon hills. 
 
 " 1. The sitting figure, in the dress of a miller, I believe, represents Sir 
 Walter Scott, author of a few score of volumes, and proprietor of Abbots- 
 ford in the county of Eoxburghe. 2. In front and presenting, we may 
 suppose, a country wag somewhat addicted to poaching, stands Sir Adam 
 Ferguson, Knight, keeper of the Eegalia of Scotland. 3. In the back- 
 ground is a very handsome old man, upwards of eighty-four years old at 
 the time, painted in his own character of shepherd. He also belonged to 
 the numerous clan of Scott. He used to claim credit for three things unusual 
 among the Southland shepherds, first, that he had never been ' fou ' in 
 the course of his life ; secondly, he never had struck =•• man in anger ; 
 thirdly, that though entrusted by his master with the management of Jarge 
 sales of stock, he had never lost a penny for his master by a bad debt. 
 He died soon afterwards at Abbotsford. i, 5, 6. Of the three female 
 figures, the elder is the late regretted mother of the family represented. 
 
•58 WILKIE. 
 
 5. The young person most forward ii the group is Miss Sophia Charlotte' 
 Scott, now Mrs. John Giljson Loekhart ; and 6, her younger sister, Miss 
 Ann Scott. Both are represented as ewe-milkers with their leylins, or 
 milk-pails. 7. On the left hand of the shepherd, the young man holding 
 a fowling-piece is the eldest son of Sir AValter, now captain of the King's 
 Hussars. 8. The boy is the youngest of the family, Charles Scott, now 
 of Brazen-nose College, Oxford. 
 
 " The dogs were distinguished favourites of the family ; the large one 
 was a staghound of the old Highland breed, called Maida, and one of the 
 handsomest dogs that could be found ; it was a present from the Chief of 
 Glengary to Sir Walter, and was highly valued, both on account of his 
 beauty, his fidelity, and the' gi-eat rarity of breed.' The other is a little- 
 Highland terrier called Cruishe (goblin), of a particular kind bred in' 
 KintaU. It was a present from the Honourable Mrs. Stewart Mackenzie, 
 and is a valuable specimen of a race which is now also scarce." 
 
 I have before me a satirical piece of this date (1815) called 
 " The Eejected Pictures, iSic, witli Descriptive Sketches of 
 the Several Compositions by some Ci-devant and other Cogno- 
 scenti : {Being a Supplement to tlis Royal Academy Catalogue, 
 of 1815.) To ■which are added a Few of the Secret Reasons 
 for their Rejection. By a distinguished Member of the 
 Hanging Committee. Motto : ' The Devil finds some mischief 
 still for idle hands to do ! ' — Db. Watts." 
 
 In this sq-uib a picture is described of A Scene at Epsom 
 Races — after iJie manner of Wilkie, on -which th& criticism 
 is : — 
 
 " This artist, like many others, believes he completely imitates Mr. 'Wilkie' 
 when he puts low characters into ludicrous situations. He forgets that 
 looking into the recesses of the human heart, that accurate delineation of 
 simple humour and powerful feeling, -which has placed Mr. W. among the 
 most thinking artists of our nation. We have no desire to compare this 
 gentleman with Hogarth, they do not move in parallel lines : the one is 
 the historian of artificial society, with all its evil passions and habits, 
 disgraces and miseries ; the other devotes his pencil to the unconstrained 
 and artless expressions of joy, grief, love, affection, modesty, and pre- 
 sumption which burst out through the light drapery of rustic life. Mr. 
 Wilkie always produces some pleasing and improving sympathy, and 
 y^t he has been compared to Teuiers, that eternal painter of drunken- 
 
THE EEJECTED PICTURES. 59 
 
 boora. Most heartily do we wish that he had the colouring of the Dutch 
 school ; but in all that regards the choice of subject and the interest of 
 omposition, we should as soon think of preferring Skelton to Crabbe in 
 poetry, as of degrading Mr. Wilkie by such a comparison." 
 
 The learned in bibliology may be able to name the writer 
 of the above, which looks like a fountain head of many more 
 modern rills of criticism ; it is signed Opifer. 
 
1 
 
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 mg 
 
 ^«i\ '/v''/; _3^ 
 
 ^H 
 
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 "^ ^Jl\>:3s^-^\ u\r' 
 
 Jjgt/-' ---.aiiasa*-^ «— »^ 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 1818 to 1827. 
 
 THE " CHELSEA PENSIONERS THE KING S VISIT TO EDINBUKGH 
 
 — HAYDON IN PRISON HUMOKOTJS CATALOGUE — MISFOR- 
 TUNES AND FAILURE OF HEALTH FOREIGN TRAVEL. 
 
 WILKIE'S pictures in the Academy for 1818 were the 
 Scott Family and the Errand Boy (painted for Sir 
 John Swinburne, Bart). In October of the same year he 
 finished the Penny Wedding for the Prince Eegent, and took 
 it to Kensington Palace. 
 
 Por Mr. Samuel Dobree, who was composing a gloomy 
 work entitled the " Book of Death," descriptive of the dying 
 moments of distinguished men, he painted a small picture of 
 the last act of the life of Sir Philip Sidney, when he orders 
 the water which his friends offered him to be given to a 
 wounded soldier, saying, "His necessity is greater than 
 mine ; " this work Eaimbach, at his own request, engraved. 
 In January, 1819, he sent two pictures to the British 
 Gallery — the China Menders (which he sold for 100 guineas, 
 after asking 130), and a little picture of Nymplis gathering 
 Grapes, which was left unsold. The Whisky Still, a remini- 
 scence of his Scotch excursion, was finished in March, and 
 bought by Sir Willoughby Gordon for 120 guineas. He 
 was frequently at Ditton making portraits of the Duke of 
 Buccleuch, and of the Dowager Duchess, " a very tine old 
 
1^ 
 
 
 *1-\ 
 
 I>^ 
 
 'J * ■ 
 
 GROUP FROM "THE PENNY WEDDING/ 
 
THE " CHELSEA PENSIOKEES." 61 
 
 lady." And the Duke of "Wellington began to exhibit a very- 
 active interest in the Chelsea I'ensioners, suggesting altera- 
 tions, mentioning what he liked and disliked ; " he wished to 
 have in the picture more of the soldiers of the present day, 
 instead of those I had put of half a century ago." 
 
 The Clielsea Pensioners reading the Gazette of the Batt'e 
 of Waterloo commenced in 1817, was completed in 1821, 
 and appeared in the Academy exhibition of the following 
 year. The excitement that it created is said to have been 
 indescribable. Like the Village Politicians, it touched the 
 chord to which the heart of the nation was vibrating, and 
 all classes of society, "young and old, rich and poor, crowded 
 to see it ; soldiers hurried from drill, and pensioners hobbled' 
 on their crutches, whilst the heroes who are represented in it 
 were recognised and proclaimed with a shout of delight." 
 
 It is the opinion of John Burnet that in the Chelsea 
 Pensioners we have an example of Wilkie's second manner, in 
 virhich he has attained the excellences of Teniers and Ostade 
 in combination. 
 
 " In producing this combination, lie always (in repeated glazings and 
 repaintings, to get the richness of the flesh and the expression of the 
 character) revived the pearly tints and reserved his sharp touching to the 
 Inst." 
 
 " This combination of styles must be carried on, however, from the be- 
 ginning of the work, otherwise they -will not unite ; and a picture of 
 Teniers, though glazed by Ostade himself, would not exhibit the excel- 
 lences of either. Some of Wilkie's own works are samples of this : as in 
 after life, when his eye required a richness and fulness of effect, he 
 seldom got an early picture into his possession without going over it, and 
 as this enriching was not anticipated in the first instance, they were not 
 capable of undergoing the treatment. I remember seeing one lately, the 
 small picture of the Jew's ffarp, now in the possession of Colonel Wells, 
 of Eedleaf. Wilkie and the late William Collins being on a visit at 
 ]?edleaf, Wilkie got this small work on his easel, and went entirely over 
 it with rich vehicle and glazing; the consequence was 1 hat the delicate 
 touching, sharpness, and silvery tones were entirely swallowed up in a 
 flood of meguylp." 
 
62 WILKIE. 
 
 "As in his first manner he imitated Teniers, so in liis second his eye led 
 him into the richer tones of Adrian Ostade, whose colouring was entirely in 
 another key." {Burnet.) 
 
 Early in July, 1822, Wilkie set out with his friend, 
 William Collins, for Edinburgh, where Collins went to get 
 married and Wilki^ to work at his great picture of John 
 Knox, then in hand for the Earl of Liverpool. The relations 
 between Collins and Wilkie dated from their common student 
 days and were of the most affectionate character. Collins, 
 like Haydon and others, had his own very subjective d^ily 
 journal, and his record of Wilkie is full of interest. It is 
 from his memoirs, compiled by Wilkie's eminent godson, 
 that I venture to extract the following : — 
 
 " I recollect Wirkie taking a cumhrous sketch in oil, for the picture of 
 John Knox (now Sir Robert Peel's) all the way to Edinburgh, for Sir 
 Walter Scott's opinion. I was present when he showed it to him ; Sir 
 Walter was much struck with it, as a work of vast and rare power. 
 
 " Those who are exclusive admirers of his early style ought not to forget 
 this picture, and Lord Lansdowne's Monks at Confession, Columbus, painted 
 for Mr. Holford, Mr. Rice's picture of Benvenuto Cellini, Mr. Marshall's 
 Pope and Bonaparte, The Peep-o'-day Boy's Cadin at Mr. Vernon's, and 
 many others, upon which his claims to the character of an historical 
 painter may weU be founded. I should scrupje not to maintain that such 
 pictures as the Distraining for Rent at Redleaf with all the pathos of a 
 Raphael ; and such exquisite touches of the deepest sentiment as are to be 
 found in the woman squeezing her way to look at the list of the dead and 
 wounded, in the Waterloo picture belonging to the Duke of Wellington, 
 are standing evidences of his fitness for the highest departments of Art ; 
 although the figures are not dressed in the toga so lavishly bestowed 
 upon the wooden perpetrations of many a Carlo Maratti and a 
 Vanderwerf." 
 
 Sir Walter Scott was at this time staying at Edinburgh, in 
 the hot bustle of preparation for the reception of King George 
 the Fourth, of which Wilkie made the celebrated picture so 
 tardily finished (in 1830). Great political consequence at- 
 tached to this visit of the king, who was the first prince of 
 his house to " touch the soil of Scotland," says Lockhart ; 
 
MEMOIliS OF COLUNS. '63 
 
 " except one whose name had ever been held there in uni- 
 versal detestation — the cruel conqueror of Culloden — the 
 butcher Cumberland." 
 
 The journey of the friends towards this scene of festivity 
 was "all hilarity," and Wilkie wrote to his sister ; — 
 
 " The only subject of regi-et was that Geddes' snuff was done by the 
 time we got to Berwick. I was not asked to join ; but the box passed 
 between Geddes and Collins, and from Collins to Geddes, incessantly, 
 
 " I sallied out with Collins at once to deliver our letters. The Lord 
 Chief Commissioner has been most kind, and with him we went to see the 
 preparations at Holyrood House, which are very fine, and the preparations 
 at Leith for the landing which Collins is much interested about. 
 
 " J saw Captain Ferguson at the palace who was in great glee. He told 
 me ' the laird ' (Sir W. Scott) expected me, and that he will do everything 
 he can for me. 
 
 " Collins has got a new onat, which he has been sporting to-day ; but I 
 tell him to wait till my sky-blue comes to hand, and I shall then be a 
 match for him. 
 
 "D. W." 
 
 Wilkie himself neither smoked nor took snufi ; or, as Mr. 
 Collins says, " It was never his to woo the balmy influence 
 of companionable snufE, or to rejoice with the world-wide 
 brotherhood of the contemplative and peace-compelling- pipe !" 
 
 Sir Walter Scott, to whose personal influence and zeal 
 Lockhart attributes the King's flnal decision to visit Scot- 
 land, and the success of the programme of the reception, did 
 not forget Wilkie in the bustle, although he had as many 
 parts to play as ever tasked the Protean genius of his friend 
 Matthews, of which " the severest," says his biographer, " was 
 that of stage manager." 
 
 The local magistrates, bewildered and perplexed with the 
 rush of novelty, threw themselves on him for advice and 
 direction about the merest trifles ; and he had to arrange 
 everything, from the ordering of a procession to the cut of a 
 button and the embroidering of a cross. 
 
 In the composition of the picture of the King's Reception at 
 
'64 "WILKIE. 
 
 Holyrood, which Wilkie describes in a letter to his sister 
 as happening on a very fine day, while Collins speaks of the 
 heavy rain in which the King stood bowing "in the most 
 graceful manner ' for upwards of ten minutes, exceptional 
 difficulties arose : — 
 
 " His Majesty, whem the first sketch of the picture was laid before him, 
 and he was asked how he stood when the keeper of the palace presented the 
 key : ' Stood ! ' said his Majesty, ' not as I stand there, but thus : ' and he set 
 his foot forward, threw his body back, put on ' a martial and swashing 
 outside,' and said, ' There ! ' ' The painter,' says Cunningham, ' who had 
 made the King receive the royal key with a simple and easy grace, was 
 obliged, in courtesy, to abandon the monarch of his own fancy, for the 
 more aifected attitude which royalty did really assume on this occasion.' " 
 
 Of the rest of the festivities, amidst which Wilkie (says 
 Collins) forgot his discretion in his " new sky-blue coat," 
 there is an excellent account in Lockhart's life of Sir Walter 
 Scott — and in the journal of the poet Crabbe, who was pre- 
 sent "dressed in the highest style of professional neatness 
 and decorum, with buckles in his shoes, and whatever was 
 then considered as befitting an English clergyman of his 
 years and station," and who records his sense of the honour 
 that he thought it : — 
 
 "That Glengarry even took notice of me, for there were those, and 
 gentlemen too, who considered themselves honoured by following his 
 train. There were also Lord Errol, and the Maoleod, and the Fraser, and 
 the Gordon, and the Fergusson ; and I conversed with Lady Glengarry, 
 and did almost believe myself a harper, or bard rather — for harp I cannot 
 strike ; and Sir Walter was the life and soul of the whole. It was a 
 splendid festivity, and I felt I know not how much younger." 
 
 This is written of the dinner of the 15th of August 
 in Castle Street. On the Sabbath the excited city sunk 
 to decorum and silence, and, says Crabbe, " The silence of 
 Edinburgh on the Sunday is in itself devout." At another 
 party at Sir Walter Scott's, says Mr. Collins : — 
 
 " Wilkie and Collins beheld the appearance of the author of Waverley 
 
HAYDON IN THE KING'S BENCH. G6 
 
 in a new character. When the tahle was cleared after dinner, Sir Walter, 
 in the exuberance of his loyalty and hospitality, volunteered to sing his own 
 song — 'Carle, now the King's come.' The whole company gave the 
 chorus, and their host, regardless alike of his lameness and his dignity, 
 sprang up, and calling upon everybody to join hands, made his guests 
 dance with him round the table to the measure of the tune." 
 
 Desipere in loco, in those days required care and discretion 
 wken so universal a practice of writing up recording journals 
 prevailed amongst the autobiographers present ! 
 
 Wilkie brought home with him the materials ,f or the royal 
 picture and the John Knox; for the latter a drawing of 
 the old pulpit in which the reformer preached, which was 
 discovered for him in a cellar. 
 
 It was in 1822 that Edward Irving first came to London 
 from Glasgow, under the auspices of Dr. Chalmers. His 
 preachings created a furore, and Wilkie went to hear him : 
 " tall, athletic, and sallow, arrayed in the scanty robe of the 
 Scotch divines, displaying a profusion of jet-black glossy 
 hair reaching to his shoulders, which were ample," Irving 
 unconsciously sat to Wilkie for the study of John Knox. 
 " He had a singular obliquity," we are told, " in one of his 
 eyes " (squinted, in fact), " and a stern, calm solemnity of 
 aspect, somewhat debased by an expression of austere pride 
 and conscious sanctity." At Irving's chapel of the Caledo- 
 nian Asylum, Wilkie also, with a party of friends including 
 Sir Thomas Lawrence, went to hear Dr. Chalmers, and says 
 of him that " with all disadvaaitages of voice, manner, figure, 
 and action, he seemed to get hold of the attention, and carry 
 it along with him from first to last ; and, with qualities that 
 seem calculated for anything but eloquence, he produced the 
 effect of eloquence the most striking.'' 
 
 At this time poor Haydon, whose affairs had been all- the 
 j'ear going from bad to worse, was landed in the King's 
 Bench Prison ; and although the friends say little of each 
 other in their diaries, it is proved that Wilkie, in the 
 
 F 
 
66 WILKIE. 
 
 measure of Hs means, had been continually assisting him by 
 bills and other resources. 
 
 " It is pleasant," says his biographer, " to find so many proofs of substan- 
 tial sympathy in the letters Haydon received daring his confinement. 
 Lord Mulgrave, Sir Edward Codrington, Mr. Brougham, Sir Walter Scott, 
 JBarnes (of TJie Times), and his fast friend Miss Mitford were all prompt 
 "and helpful. His active friend and physician Dr. Darling, with Sir George 
 Beaumont, Wilkie, and others as practically benevolent, bought at the -sale 
 many of his casts, prints, and painting materials, that he might have a 
 nucleus for beginning work upon on coming out of prison." 
 
 But his necessities were a bottomless gulf, and the more 
 friends spontaneously gathered round him in misfortune, the 
 more he loved to create . fresh enemies, and provoke for him- 
 self new misfortunes. His intimacy with Wilkie, however, 
 was never interrupted, and we find records of it to the end 
 ■ of Wilkie's life. 
 
 Wilkie's works in the Exhibition of 1823 were the Pa/rish 
 Beadle, a Portrait of the Duh6 of York, and an unimportant 
 drawing in chalk. 
 
 The Parish Beadle, bequeathed by Lord Colborne to the 
 National Gallery, was seen by Sir Robert Peel on the easel, 
 and he said he would like a subject as near that as possible, 
 Wilkie's dog is on this occasion dressed up as a lady for his 
 part in the performance of the unhappy company of travelling 
 performers under the beadle's hands, and is not the least 
 pathetic figure in the composition. Waagen says that here 
 " we have an astonishing force of colour, a brilliant lighting, 
 and a thoroughly careful and solid execution. Inscribed and 
 dated 1823, which shows that it belongs to the earlier period 
 of the master." 
 
 Besides the two great pictures of John, Knox and the 
 Holyrood Reception, which were destined to occupy their 
 share of his time for several years still, Wilkie, in the 
 autumn of 1823, painted the Portrait of Lord ITellie for the 
 town-hall of Cupar, drew an old Greenwich pensioner, under 
 
CONTEMPOEAEY CRITICISM. 67 
 
 the character of Smollett's Commodore Trunnion, and a scene 
 from Ramsay's Gentle Shepherd, which he called the Cottage 
 Toilet. He also painted the Smugglers offering Run Goods 
 for Sale for Sir Eobert Peel, and the Highland FamMy for 
 Sir George Beaumont. The subject of the Smugglers Alarmed, 
 as it was at first called, was suggested, Raimbach says, by 
 the recent occurrence of the capture and trial of a band of 
 notorious freebooters. Sir Eobert introduced and accom- 
 panied the artist to Newgate, in furtherance of his study from 
 nature and truth ; the basis of his art, and his invariable 
 practice. 
 
 The last picture he exhibited before he left England (1825) 
 was an exquisite specimen of his talent, a Highland Family, 
 painted for the Earl of Essex ; and he had made some admir- 
 able studies and sketches for pictures which have never been 
 completed ; particularly one of a School, and one of the 
 Arrival of a Rich Relation. 
 
 A humorous critical catalogue to the Royal Academy Ex- 
 hibition of 1824, in which each Academician is greeted with 
 an appropriate epigram, illustrates the public criticism on 
 Wilkie's progress at this time. He is the flirst mentioned 
 R.A. who advances to receive the greeting of the Muse ! — 
 
 " Thus spoke the dame, then took her seat, 
 Each R.A. with a smilo to greet. 
 WiLKiB with Scotia's caution came, 
 And luet a lecture from the dame : — 
 ' Be all thyself — nor copy ought — 
 Original in style and thottght ; 
 Nor turn aside, from whims and fears 
 To foUow Eembrandt or Teniers.' " 
 
 A foot-note explains. " In last year's Exhibition it will 
 be remembered that "Wilkie lost much of his popularity by 
 an attempt to follow in the style of Eembrandt." 
 
 Wilkie's pictures in the catalogue of this year are — No. 110, 
 Smugglers offering Run Goods for Sale ; or, Concealment: and 
 
 F 2 
 
6& 
 
 WILKIE. 
 
 115, Cottage Toilelte, from Allan Ramsay's Gentle Shepherd, 
 with the lines quoted— 
 
 " While Peggy laces up her bosom fair, 
 With a blue snood Jenny binds up her hair ; 
 Glaud by his morning ingle, tak? a beek, 
 The rising suu shines motty through the reek ; 
 A pipe his mouth, the lasses please his een. 
 And now and then his joke maun intervene." 
 
 Ad V. Seem 2. 
 
 The critic says, " It is with extreme regret that we have 
 heard that ill-health has prevented this esteemed artist from 
 presenting the public with other important works. His 
 illness is, we are happy to hear, now so far averted as to 
 afEord a hope of his speedily resuming his pallet." 
 
 In the Antique Academy, Wilkie exhibited A Study for 
 Commodore Trwnnion, which the critic considered " certainly 
 Mr. Wilkie's best work in the Exhibition, but, after all, a 
 little too much d, la Hembrandt. " A word at parting with 
 this favourite artist. His affection for the school of Rem- 
 brandt is too conspicuous in his recent works." Mulready's 
 Widow, he adds, is an example for the painters of domestic 
 scenes, both in drawing and colouring. 
 
 Mr. Collins gives, in his Memoirs, a delightful letter that 
 he received from Wilkie in August, 1823, in which Wilkie 
 congratulates his friend upon his marriage, and deploring his 
 own state of singleness, yet announces in it that his court- 
 dress and his appearance in it at Holyrood had, "though 
 unavailing with the ladies, not been an idle speculation," 
 having resulted in his appointment to be "limner for the 
 king in Scotland." The letter continues — 
 
 " It will be evident to you now, that we have both made something of 
 our Scottish visit. However I will not put what I have gained in com- 
 parison with what you have gained by it. Mrs. Collins will agree with 
 me in this : for, in respect to the improvement in your condition, I am 
 as much behind you as ever. No lady has yet taken compassion upon me — 
 court dress and all together ; and as the time (that is the protracted time)' 
 
MISFORTUNES. 69 
 
 of twelve months is now at hand, when Mrs. Collins and you are to make 
 out a certificate to warrant the married as an improved state of existence, 
 1 must request — as I have no doubt of the certificate being most satisfac- 
 tory — that you and Mrs. Collins would give me the best advice, not only 
 upon the sort of person to be chosen, but also to inform me by what 
 means such a person as I am may induce a weEohpsen lady to hearken 
 unto reason. " 
 
 But the happiness and prosperity of Wilkie's career appear 
 to have culminated at this date, and from the close of the 
 year 1824, there is a great change in the character of his 
 history, himself, and his work. The first blow that struck him 
 was the death of his mother, on the day before his return 
 from a tour in the north, where he had been received with 
 unusual warmth and honour. Other family misfortunes 
 followed closely, and, under the combined influence of mental 
 trouble and anxiety and excessive application to his work, he 
 fell into an illness, for the relief of which his physicians 
 ordered him to Cheltenham. 
 
 " The year 1824," says Cunningham, " closed darkly on the social pros- 
 pects of Wilkie. The health of his brothej- James had received a shock 
 which soon brought him to the grave : his mother, who, in the language 
 of his native land loved him like her ' tae ee,' was removed, after a long 
 illness, from the circle which she brightened with her cheerful temper ; 
 his sister was doomed to see the man of her choice, whose bride she was to 
 be on the morrow, drop down and die at her side, after a few short 
 weeks of severe suffering ; the commercial embarrassments of the times, 
 which threatened to extinguish all national enteiprise, had wound their 
 toils round the fortunes of his younger brother ; while, closing the rear of 
 this melancholy file came the artist himself : his health shaken, and his 
 hopes of independence darkened, if hot blighted." 
 
 Mrs. "Wilkie was buried at Kensington. Her funeral was 
 attended by her two sons, David and Thomas, Sir James 
 McGrigor, Dr. Darling, Mr. Mushet, Mr. Stodart, Mr. Young, 
 Mr. Eaimbach, and others. " The shock of his mother's death 
 under such painful circumstances," says Raimbach, "had a most 
 distressing effect upon Wilkie's health. A slow, consuming 
 malady fell upon his nerves, and after a time rendered him. 
 
70 WILKIK 
 
 quite incapable of practising his art. The highest surgical and 
 medical skill was of course available to him, but," &c. It is 
 painful, in reading the accounts of the last illnesses of David's 
 father and mother and of his own treatment, to observe the 
 extent to which they were each of them subjected to bleeding, 
 blistering, and leeches. 
 
 He went to Paris in July, and there fell into the hands of 
 a Dr, Benet, who ordered, in the words of his cousin, Mr. 
 Lister, "leeches to each of his feet : thty bled well." Then 
 next day, " Mr. Wilkie complains of weakness, and of the 
 same results of bleediilg as formerly, when it was done at 
 Cheltenham, depriving him of the power of directing his 
 attention to one object for any length of time." "Rather in 
 low spirits," says poor Wilkie's friend, " and much inclined 
 to contravene the orders of Benet." " Not the slightest 
 benefit has been derived from the vegetable diet, and it has 
 now been tried for ten days f" Wilkie remained in the dan- 
 gerous society of the Paris doctors for more than a month, 
 and went off at last in spite of their objection. His letters 
 soon recover their tone of lively observation, and, he says, 
 " My health has not suffered in the least " (from the journey). 
 He rightly argues, that if he were not better he " could not 
 have written so long a letter ; " and it is very noticeable how 
 steadily his powers of observation and appreciation awaken 
 as he travels away from the doctors, and through the pure 
 mountain air and wonderful scenery of the Alps. The route 
 taken by the travellers was across the Simplon (then a recent 
 work, which Wilkie rightly valued as one " which for obstacles 
 overcome seems to exceed all that human industry has yet 
 accomplished, and perhaps, as an evidence of power, is greater 
 than anything else that Napoleon has left behind ") through 
 Milan, which "does not present much for the artist,'' to 
 Genoa, Pisa, where he describes the eccentric Giotto's works 
 in the Campo Santo as " most curious, resembling in rudeness 
 
POPULAR. AIM OF AET. 71 
 
 of colour, of drawing, of perspective, and even of composition, 
 the drawings of the Chinese and the Hindoos ; " but, " as they 
 advance, greater elegance and freedom are observed. In 
 some even the most extravagant freaks of the imagination 
 discovering a kindred resemblance to the great works that 
 followed, and in some instances thoughts and fancies that 
 may have prompted the happiest efiorts of Raphael and 
 Michael Angelo." 
 
 In another letter to his friend W. Collins, from Rome, he 
 says : — ■ 
 
 "The only art pure and unsopMstioated and that is worth study and 
 consideration by an artist, or that has the true object of art in view, is to 
 be found in the works of those masters who remved and improved the art, 
 and those who ultimately brought it to perfection. These seem alone, 
 whatever their talent was, to have addressed themselves to the common 
 sense of mankind. From Giotto to Michelangelo, expression and 
 sentiment seem the first thing thought of; while those that followed, 
 seem to have allowed technicalities to get the better of them, until, 
 simplicity giving way to intricacy, they appear to have painted more for 
 the artist and the connoisseur than for the untutored apprehensions of 
 ordinaiy men." 
 
 The whole of the rest of this letter is taken up with 
 similar admirable expressions of his judgment of the great 
 masters. Of the Raphaels in Rome he says, " They have 
 more excellences addressed to tlie unlearned observers than any 
 works I know of. When in the freshness of their first exist- 
 ence they must have been most attractive to tJte common people, 
 which, I doubt, is more than could have been said for Titian 
 or Rubens." The works of Michelangelo "grew upon him 
 with overpowering influence," and he differs from those who 
 " apologise for his colouring," and finds between him and Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds an affinity, " not only in the high aim, the 
 something unattainable, and the profound feeling for the 
 indescribable thoughts of the inward man, but even in the 
 more obvious qualities of light and shadow and colour." 
 
 Of all that Wilkie saw in Rome it was evident that the 
 
72 WILKIE. 
 
 Last Judgment, of tlie Sistine Chapel, was the work that 
 astonished and delighted him the most. His journal speaks 
 with greater enthusiasm of this than even of Raphael's 
 works : — 
 
 " The first impression of the ceiling was an effect of greyness ; but this 
 gradually wore off, and t^e Last Judgnieni itself, from the deep blue back- 
 ground, the rich tone of the flesh, and the brown shadows, giving to the 
 figures great rotundity and relief, produced upon my eye an eflect of great 
 grandeur. We proceeded to. examine the groups in detail with the 
 anxiety of those who are sure of a high treat. "We got upon a high 
 scaffolding, half way up the picture ; here Phillips, Hilton, Cook, and I 
 stood, holding by each other's shoulders, for an hour. The group opposite 
 was a number of men driven down by the angels on the right-hand side 
 of the picture. They looked as if they were all alive, writhing with 
 mental and bodily pain, like the work of a demon who exulted in human 
 misery. As an instance of Michelangelo's power, the coiubination of 
 mind and science seemed here greater than anything I had ever witnessed, 
 .... It is painted with more body and finish, and perhaps even with 
 more delicacy than the Stanze of Raphael, and with more dexterity than 
 any other artist could do that ever lived." 
 
 The colouring he describes as " of first-rate quality, remote 
 from all that is gaudy, flimsy, white, or meretricious ; lurid 
 and terrific, if you will, but never disagreeable." 
 
 Finally, the companions point out the heads and figures, 
 groups and hues of colour, in this great work, which the 
 works of Reynolds resemble ; and agree that Sir Joshua was 
 sincere when he wished that "the name of Michelangelo 
 might be among the last words that he uttered from the chair 
 of the Academy." 
 
 Nothing can exceed the importance that is attributed by 
 John Burnet to the impressions received by Wilkie at Rome. 
 They influenced all his subsequent work. Titian and Oorreggio 
 were his great authorities for colour ; and, writing from Parma 
 of the Ascension of the Virgin by Oorreggio, he calls it the 
 most original of all the works he had seen of this great 
 Blaster, and says : — 
 
CANOVA AND THOEWALDSEN. 73 
 
 " The public gallery here has five pictures by Correggio, of which three 
 are of quality sufficient to form each the attraction of any collection ; but 
 the famous St. Jerome (or The Day) takes the lead ; this, for force, rich- 
 ness, beauty and expression makes everything give way. Hundreds of 
 copies have been made — but all poor, compared with the fearless glazings, 
 the impasted bituminous shadows of this picture. Yet who that could 
 paint like this would venture to exhibit at Soynerset House I " 
 
 But of Titian he says, that he " seems here lost and alone 
 in addressing himself to the thinking part of our natwre." 
 
 During his residence in Rome "Wilkie painted several 
 pictures possessing the qualities observable in the works 
 around him, of which the Confessional, and the Pifferarl 
 playing hymns to the Madonna, are the most important. " In 
 these works,'' says Burnet, " he seems to have endeavoured 
 to combine the softness and rotundity of Correggio with the 
 strength and severity of Eaffaelle." 
 
 Nothing in Rome surprised Wilkie more than the pro- 
 fusion of sculptors. Of Canova he wrote with enthusiasm. 
 His pre-eminence, he said, was due, not to his purity 
 of form, not to his dexterity in working marble, nor to his 
 skill and experience in composition, but to the perfect expres- 
 sion of thought and sentiment which gave intelligence to 
 every head, and life and grace to every limb. Of the works 
 of Thorwaldsen he said, that he neglected that in which 
 Canova excelled — human character and expression. The 
 faces attract less than the flesh, and the flesh and limbs 
 less than the draperies. 
 
 " Thomas Moore's Diary tells of an anecdote by Eastlake of a dinner 
 given to Thorwaldsen the sculptor, at Rome, 'Wilkie presiding in the chair 
 and making a very eloquent speech upon the occasion, which it seems, 
 says Moore, he is very capable of, though so tiresomely slow of words in 
 society. In speaking of Thorwaldsen, he described him as ' coming from 
 the North to warm the marbles of the South with his genius ; ' and the 
 poetical flight being very much applauded, Thorwaldsen, who sat next to 
 Kastlake, begged that he would interpret it to him. ' He speaks of you,' 
 said Eastlake, 'as a great artist, chi e venuto dal settentrione per riscaldat 
 
74 WILKIB. 
 
 i marmi ' ' Eiscaldar i mami I ' exclaimed Thorwaldsen, puzzled at the 
 metaphor, ' ehe vuol dire?' ' Col suo genio,' continued Eastlake, which 
 at once solved the difficulty, and very much to the great sculptor's 
 satisfaction." 
 
 Wilkie's cort'espondence and journal at this time indicate 
 that the ailment which baffled his doctors was accompanied, 
 if not caused, by a condition of nervous exaltation, in which 
 he was receiving deep impressions from his visit to the cradle 
 of the arts. The attention of his biographers must be irre- 
 sistibly diverted, at this crisis of his life, away from the 
 accidents of his history to the wonderful phenomena of his 
 art-education. Balls, dinners, and other festivities occupied 
 his evenings, and he was surrounded by flattery and kindness. 
 His health continued to give him increasing anxiety, and he 
 described himself as unfit for work ; but the vigour of his 
 intellect, and the absorption of his energies in art, are 
 betrayed in every letter that he writes. In one to Sir Robert 
 Peel, of the 13th February, 1826, he resumes, in brief, the 
 substance of his observation of Italian art, " that, from 
 Cimabue to Michelangelo, one common quality distinguishes 
 it, which is 'the desire of making all other excellences 
 tributary to the expression of thought and senthnent — an aim 
 alike redeeming to the mean forms of Ostade and Eembrandt, 
 as it is ennobling to the style and beauty of the Apollo, the 
 Madonna della Sedia, or the Chapeau de Faille, but which, as 
 Italian art began to decline, seems to have been the last 
 thing thought of." 
 
 On the 25th of February, 1826, the travellers left Rome 
 in a vetfura, passing through scenes that realised " all that 
 Salvator Rosa conceived or Poussin drew ;" and, further on, 
 "the beautiful banks, woody eminences, and blue distant 
 hills of Claude," and arrived at Naples on the 28th. Here 
 he describes the museum pictures, "a great rubbishy col- 
 lection," with a few gems — the Titian Venus, inferior to 
 
ITALIAN NOTES. 75 
 
 that of Florence ; and is most attracted by the Correggibs, 
 particularly the Virgin and Child with the Rabhis, which he 
 compares to Rembrandt. 
 
 He describes fully the impressions that he found in a 
 journey beyond Salerno " to the country in which Salvator 
 studied ; " at Psestum, in whose immense stones he found no 
 impression of extent or magnificence ; at Pompeii, which im- 
 pressed him far more deeply, and where he studied minutely 
 the ornamentation of the walls and the colours used upon it. 
 On the crater of Mount Vesuvius he dated some letters home, 
 and on his return to Rome summed up the result of his 
 observations of ancient art at Herculaneum and Pompeii, 
 "that if Greek sculpture remains paramount, yet that Greek 
 painting, as an art, has been decidedly improved upon by the 
 ingenuity of modern times." 
 
 Soon after his return to Rome he learned that his worst 
 fears were realised as to the failure of the publishing firm of 
 Hurst and Robinson, and the consequent disastrous losses to 
 himself and Sir Walter Scott especially ; and mentions on 
 this occasion that his own expenses for the eight months 
 that he had passed abroad had hot exceeded 160Z. Of Sir 
 "Walter Scott he heard, from his friend Lady Compton, that 
 "he has frequently felt more annoyance on losing his hat 
 on a windy day, than he now does on losing the greater part 
 of his fortune." 
 
 During his journey from Rome to Venice, he wrote to his 
 friend Andrew Geddes a daily account of his proceedings, and 
 valuable notices upon the art treasures that he looked at ere 
 route. The letter is given at length in an interesting volume, 
 published by the Bannatyne Club, of etchings by Wilkie and 
 Geddes, of which only a hundred copies were printed. Ho 
 repeats in it the important observation — " From Giotto to 
 Raphael, while art was looking upwards, it seems only usod 
 as a vehicle for story and expression ; but in its decline, from 
 
76 WILKIE. 
 
 the Carracci to Mengs, the display of art in all its intricacies 
 seems to take the lead of every other sentiment." With the 
 gallery at Bologna, "more admired than any in Italy," he 
 was disappointed. " It is not the gallery for an artist ! " In 
 Parma he remained one morning perched up in a pigeon-hole 
 on the cupola of Correggio, "perhaps," he says, "the most 
 beautiful work I have ever witnessed." In Venice, he was 
 disappointed with the Assumption of the Virgin by Titian, " a 
 severely damaged picture, having on the face of it evidence of 
 a complete scouring " ; " tremendously powerful," but '*with 
 a coarseness unlike other works of this great master." Of 
 Titian's Peter Ma/rtyr, however, he speaks with reverence, as 
 an example of "all that it is the object of an artist to avoid 
 when painting for the Royal Academy at home." He was 
 much fascinated by this work, and visited it repeatedly — in 
 a dull light, when the impression produced was of " awe and 
 terror" — with the sun shining on it, when he detected the 
 traces of the extent to which the picture, when in Paris, was 
 restored and painted on, and finally by twilight, when he 
 failed to determine which is the principal light in the picture. 
 In a letter written on his road to Innspruck, he admits 
 that he " passed a very pleasant time " at Venice ; and " were 
 it not for the disastrous accounts from home and my own 
 state of health, should have regarded my visit to Venice as a 
 happy conclusion to my Italian journey." Of the Tyrol — the 
 country, the people, and the language, and the new face of 
 things — he speaks with enthusiasm. He is delighted with 
 Innspruck, and especially with the people. At Munich he 
 found the Reading of the Will in the place of honour in the 
 royal palace, in a frame designed by the late king : — 
 
 " In the room where the jewels, swords, and other articles of value were 
 placed, and where were also the most choice works of art he had acquired, 
 and in a choice situation was placed MY piotuke, the whole scene and 
 story of which was remarkably in accordance with that which we were 
 now witnessing. Its look and hue gratified me extremely. It is sur- 
 
SAXONY AND AUSTRIA. 77 
 
 rounded ty a Tenters, a Woiirermans, a Ruysdael, and vaiious other 
 specimens of the Dutch masters ; is remarkably in harmony with them, 
 loolts rich and powerful, stands its ground well, and, if sold with them, 
 looks as if it would bear as good a price." 
 
 The proof engraving of tlie Reading of the Will was received 
 by the late king two days before his death. He appeared to 
 approve of it, and requested that Von Dillis, the Director 
 of the royal gallery at Munich, would get it framed and carry 
 it as a present to the queen. Some days after the death of 
 the king, when the frame was ready, A'"on Dillis waited upon 
 the queen with the framed engraving, and said, " Madam, the 
 king commanded me to present this to your majesty." The 
 expression of her countenance, Von Dillis said, on seeing tlie 
 subject of the print is not to be described. 
 
 In Saxony Wilkie was struck with the English faces he 
 met. " This is so remarkable that there is scarcely a face — 
 and we meet with many a pretty face — but recalls some one I 
 have seen or known at home." In Dresden he met with 
 great hospitality, learned to smoke, saw tableaux vivants for 
 the first time, and discussed the recent death of Weber, who, 
 the Saxons said, was killed by the neglect of the English. 
 
 At Toeplitz Wilkie took twenty-four baths, which appear 
 to have done him neither good nor harm. He is all the time 
 longing for what he calls active remedies, such as mercury, 
 cupping, or similar strong agencies. From Toeplitz to Carls- 
 bad, where he found a colony of Poles ; and thence to Prague, 
 which he calls the capital of the musical world, and where 
 the churches and spires reminded him of Eome and the 
 Vatican, and the bridge is the original of our Waterloo 
 Bridge. He travelled from Prague to Vienna in five days, 
 for the sum of 11. 12s. 6d., or about 6s. 6d. a day. At Vienna 
 he dined with Prince Metternich, whose appearance he de- 
 scribed as a mixture of the late Lord Oastlereagh and the 
 Duke of Wellington, In the Belvedere collection he was 
 
78 
 
 WILKIE. 
 
 chiefly struck witli the Dtirers, Holbeins, and other early 
 masters, "so perfect in preservation as to teach strongly 
 what style of painting wiU endure the longest." He found 
 the ten days' mountain journey to Trieste very tedious, and 
 was glad to exchange it for the smooth passage of the 
 Adriatic, by moonlight, to Venice. From Venice, by Padua, 
 Ferrara, and Bologna, across the flinty Apennines to Florence 
 without ad^renture. From Padua he had for companion an 
 Italian priest, whom he describes as a jolly fellow. " He asked 
 about the Catholics of Ireland, the tunnel under the Thames, 
 the Stuart famUy, and Flora Macdonald ! " 
 
 In a letter to Dr. Gillespie, his father's successor at Cults, 
 occurs the following remarkable sentiment : — 
 
 " The Church of Eome has heen the nurse of the arts, but painting has 
 heen its favourite child. The pagans have been better sculptors than the 
 Christians ; theirs was a corporeal system, but it was left for painting, with 
 all its undefinable powers over colour and form, over light and darkness, 
 to represent the mysteries of a spiritual revelation. The art of painting 
 seems made for the service of Christianity ; would thai the Catholics were 
 not the only sect who have seen its actmamia^es I " 
 
 From Florence WUkie returned to Eome. There he 
 received, in a quaint and ill-spelt letter, the news that his 
 Beading of the Will had been bought for 12,000 florins for the 
 Royal Gallery at Munich, "with a great applause," says 
 Von Dillis, " of the Spectators and Bavarian nation, in the 
 highest degree interesting, and so very flattering, not only 
 for the Artist, but for the Eoyale munificence and the Wiole 
 nation." 
 
 The student of Wilkie's life and character should read 
 without abridgment the account of the public dinner that 
 was given to biTn at Rome by the artists and amateurs of 
 Scotland, at which the Duke of Hamilton presided ; and 
 especially the long speech that "Wilkie made i in returning 
 thanks for the toast of the day. Of equal interest is his 
 
GENEVA. 79 
 
 letter to Lady Beaumont upon the occasion of the death of 
 his kind friend and patron; and his letters from Geneva, 
 particularly those to Sir Eobert Peel and to William CoUins,- 
 are full of valuable observations upon art subjects, especially 
 colour. At Geneva he completed the picture of The Romam, 
 Princess washing FUgrims' Feet, -which was bought by King 
 George for 250 guineas, which created a great sensation at 
 Geneva, and encouraged Wilkie to lay plans for " three other 
 superb subjects admitting of the same treatment." 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 1827 to 1841. 
 
 VISIT TO SPAIN — EETUEN HOME "THE KING's ENTET INTO 
 
 HOLYEOOD" "JOHN KNOX PEEACHIN6 " — ACADEMY PICTUEES. 
 
 IN Noyember of this year we find Wilkie at Madrid, 
 studying especially the works of Velasquez and Murillo, 
 of whom, with the other painters of the Spanish school— 
 Juan Battista Juannes, Morales, Ribera, and Alonso Cano — 
 he wrote at considerable length to Sir Thomas Lawrence, who 
 replied with his own critical remarks and the following 
 compliment to Wilkie : — 
 
 " In subjects of sentiment and feeling, of dramatic variety and passion, 
 no other but your own unequalled union of truth, delicacy, and force can 
 render the subtleties of expression and character, and subdue the mere 
 handicraft of art by the intensity of its nobler aim." 
 
 Wilkie's malady of inaction may have been in great part 
 but the brooding over the change of style that he now 
 adopted, and worked upon with much of his old industry 
 recovered. The pictures that he painted during his resi- 
 dence in Madrid were the Portrait of a Spanish Senhorita, 
 the Spanish Posada, or, Guerilla Council of War, the Guerilla 
 taking leave of his Confessor, and the Maid of Saragossa. The 
 last three pictures were acquired for the king, at an aggregate 
 
EETUUN TO LONDON. 1828. 81 
 
 price of 2,000 guineas. In the last picture the likeness of 
 one of the chief figures was that of General Palaf ox himself,' 
 the gallant defender of the place. 
 
 " Of the Academy pictures, 1829, the Befmce of Saragassa was, for 
 its popular subject, the favourite. No event in the course of the Spanish 
 war created such an intense anxiety over the whole of Europe as the 
 gallant defence, inch by inch, of the town of Saragossa ; and the brave, the 
 heroic, the calumniated Palafox has earned an immortality which can 
 never be wrested from him. The figure of this brave man in Wilkie's 
 pichire admirably exhibits his lofty daring and indefatigability ; and the 
 devotion of Augustina, who holds the lighted match to fire the weapon that 
 is to sacrifice to her husband's manes is a specimen of dignified sentiment 
 and defiance as powerful as ever was painted by a British artist." [Gentle- 
 man's Magazine.] 
 
 Another critic, in the midst of much praise, finds fault with a want 
 of variety in the heads : the features, with the exception of the boy, seem 
 to be all taken from one model : — the noses are absolutely the same. 
 Hay don thought " the woman in the Saragossa is not beautiful." 
 
 "Washington Irving wrote, in a note to Wilkie, " Whatever 
 you may think, I am persuaded you have gained in health 
 since your residence in Spain : the quantity of work you have 
 done, and the force and high merit of your productions, are 
 proofs of it." Irving and Wilkie were much attached to 
 each other's society; they had been a great deal together in 
 Madrid, and appointed to meet again in Seville. " We are 
 much together," Wilkie says ; "we can sympathise with each 
 other's pursuits, and discourse in the same tongue about art 
 and literature." 
 
 In June, 1828, Wilkie arrived in London, and described 
 the pictures around him. " What I see around me here is 
 dryness, littleness of objects, and multitudes of detail ; the 
 white and the flat light, the poor and the laboured shadow ! " 
 This is much what Collins had written to him of the previous 
 year, — " Your absence and poor Sir George Beaumont's death 
 have been taken advantage of, and an unusual supply of 
 chalky pictures adorn the walls of the Academy, to the dis- 
 
 o 
 
82 WILKIE, 
 
 comfort of the old scliool." Hilton, Etty, Lawrence, Mulready, 
 and some others were excepted. In another very pleasant 
 letter from Collins to Wilki^, he alludes to the value of the 
 observations recorded in Wilkie's letters to him, and says 
 that he has taken every opportunity of using them to effect 
 a reformation among the English painters on the subjects ; 
 and he adds, " It gratifies me exceedingly to assure you that 
 Lawrence, Mulready, Callcott, Phillips, and others — more 
 especially the three first— declared it to be their united con- 
 viction that, ' highly as they had already estimated your 
 powers as an artist and a man of intellect, they were bound 
 to acknowledge thlit you had surpassed, in the clear and 
 philosophical views of art expressed in that letter, their 
 highest hopes ! '" The AtJienceum criticism upon the painting 
 of Severn's pictures, done under the influence of Wilkie in 
 Rome, was that it was " glowing and mellow ; but the flesh 
 is too unvaried a brown, and suggests a caution to our Anglo- 
 Roman artists, while they abandon the crudeness and white- 
 ness so prevalent in England, to be careful to adopt the true 
 style of the models," &c. 
 
 Wilkie's meeting with Collins is described by his godson as 
 an opportunity when t£e topics that had been touched upon 
 in their letters were fully discussed by the two painters ; and, 
 above all, Wilkie's uppermost anxiety was to send his friend 
 to Italy, to "attempt fresh successes in the land from which 
 Claude and Wilson had drawn their inspirations before him." 
 
 Haydon also describes his first meeting with Wilkie at the 
 house of Lord Grosvenor : — 
 
 " He was thinner and seemed more nervous than ever ; his keen and 
 bushy brow looked irritable, eager, nervous, and full of genius. How 
 interesting it was to meet him at Lord Gro.svenor's, where we have all 
 assembled these twenty years under every variety of fortune ! Poor Sir 
 George is gone, who used to form one of the group. Wilkie, Seguier, 
 Jackson, and I are left. LordMulgrave is ill." 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 83 
 
 Next month Haydon says — 
 
 " Every feeling and theory of Wilkie centres in self. His theory now 
 IS no detail, because he finds detail too great an effort for his health. 
 He said he always stopped when he found a difficulty, and never painted 
 anything but what was perfectly easy. This was entirely on account of 
 his health : and because his health was weak, he laid it down as an 
 axiom in art that when you come to a difficulty you should stop ! A 
 pretty doctrine to teach a pupU! He said (rightly), 'that behind any 
 object of interest there should be repose and a flat shadow.' He looked 
 gaunt and feeble. God knows what to make of Wilkie's health." 
 
 Wilkie liad reason to be contented with the reception that 
 his new manner of painting found from the critics, but his 
 personal conviction of the truth of his aim was enough to 
 have made him indifferent to their opinion. With recovered 
 health and energies, he began working very zealously upon 
 his great pictures of the Entry into Holyrood and John Knox, 
 of the first of which Haydon wrote : — 
 
 "This will be a very curious picture. He began it before he went 
 to Italy, when detail and finish were all in all to him. He is finishing 
 it now when he has entirely altered his style. The Duke of Argyle, 
 the king's head, the man on horseback with the crown, are in his first 
 style ; the trumpeters, the dress of the Duke of Hamilton, the woman 
 etc., are in his last ; and the mixture is like oil and water." 
 
 Among the friends who welcomed his return with all their 
 old warmth was Sir Walter Scott, who invited him to " take 
 a bracer in his own climate," which Wilkie accepted. Scott 
 mentioned in his letter that he also " did sometimes feel the 
 same sinking of the heart, or failure of the hand, which 
 afflicted Wilkie.'' He believed it to be " the penance 
 annexed to the cultivation of those arts which depend on 
 imagination, and which make both painter and poet pay for 
 their ecstatic visions by the sad reality of a disordered pulse 
 and stricken nerves." "In general," said Scott, " I contrive 
 to get rid of it, though the fits must be longer and the gloom 
 deeper as life loses its sources of enjojrment and age clatvs us 
 
 G 2 
 
S4 WILKIE. 
 
 in its clutch. So, acviording to our old wives' proverb : ' We 
 must just e'en do as we dow ! ' " 
 
 The sudden death of Sir Thomas Lawrence, in the new 
 year, deprived Wilkie of another of his best and most 
 sympathising friends. Wilkie was now appointed " Principal 
 Painter in Ordinary to the King," being already " Limner 
 to the King for Scotland." Raimbach describes the functions 
 of the new office to be the "painting and superintending 
 the sovereign's portraits for state presents to foreign 
 countries, embassies, &c. ; for all which the artist is duly 
 paid in addition to the annual stipend of 2001." It was 
 confidently anticipated that Wilkie would be elected to the 
 Presidency of the Academy. Sir Walter Scott, indeed, 
 wrote a letter, before he heard the result of the election, 
 congratulating Wilkie in advance upon his promotion. 
 Haydon describes the election of Sir Martin Shee to have 
 been done in a jealous passion and in the greatest haste. 
 The Academicians, hearing that the king had named Wilkie 
 his Sergeant Painter, feared a, royal message to urge them 
 to elect him. The general feeling of surprise is expressed 
 in a once-popular epigram on the subject — 
 
 " See Painting crowns her sister Poesy ! 
 The "World is all astonished ! — so is Shee.'' 
 
 The new President had qualifications for his office in which 
 Wilkie was deficient. 
 
 " To steer the academic vessel through tho breakers that were visible 
 at more than one point of her course, the future President could not 
 well have been selected on grounds wholly distinct from considerations 
 of personal fitness in reference to the peculiar and, to some extent, 
 abnormal duties which would probably devolve upon him" {Life of Sir 
 Martin Archer Shee). 
 
 Wilkie cared for none of these things. He was occupied 
 entirely with his work. He writes in great enthusiasm of 
 a CcJrreggio that he brought home with him, in which he 
 
~~^- 
 
 v« 
 
 tS^§: 
 
 10:1 )W 
 
 
 DUNCAN GREY. 
 
DEATH OP GEOKGE IV. 85 
 
 discovers new minute beauties every day. He sS,ys of his 
 Correggio, " It is my school, and I study it as a guide in 
 my own manner of painting." 
 
 Extract from the Royal Academy Catalogue for 1830 : — 
 
 125. His Majesty King George the Fourth, received by the nobles and 
 people of Scotland, upon his entrance to the Palace of Holjrood House on 
 the 15th August, 1822. 
 
 D. WiLKIE, R.A. 
 
 " We'll show him wit, we'll show him lair, 
 With gallant lads and lasses fair ; 
 And what wad kind heart wish for mair, 
 Carle, now the king's come ? " 
 
 Song by Sir Walter Scott. 
 
 " In the principal station of the picture is represented the King accom- 
 panied by a page and the exon of the yeomen of the guard, with horsemen 
 bi-hind, announcing by sound of trumpet to all ranks of his expecting 
 subjects, the arrival of the Eoyal Visitor to the palace of his ancestors. 
 
 " In front of His Majesty, the Duke of Hamilton, first peer of Scotland, 
 in the plaid of the Earls of Arran, is presenting the keys of the palace, of 
 which he is hereditary keeper. On the right of the king is the Duke of 
 Montrose, Lord Chamberlain, pointing towards the entrance of the palace, 
 where is stationed the Duke of Argyll, in his family tartan, as hereditary 
 keeper of the household. Behind him is the crown of Kobert the Bruce, 
 supported by Sir Alexander Keith, hereditary knight-marshal attended by 
 his esquires with the sceptre and sword of state. Near him is carried the 
 mace of the Exchequer, anciently the Chancellor's mace, when Scotland 
 was a separate kingdom. On the left of the picture, in the dress of the 
 royal archers who served as the King's body-guard, is the late Earl of 
 Hopetoun ; and close to him, in the character of historian or bard, is Sir 
 Walter Scott. These are accompanied by a varied crowd, among whom are 
 some females and children, pressing forward with eagerness to see and 
 to welcome their Sovereign upon this joyous and memorable occasion." 
 
 Wilkie's royal patron was the next to be summoned by 
 death. " The marked personal notice he received from 
 George IV., together with the truly princely remuneration 
 of His Majesty's various commissions," said Eaimbach, " fol- 
 lowed as these were by others from the greatest and noblest 
 in the land, had opened a career to our painter enuallv 
 
86 
 
 WILKIE. 
 
 splendid, lucrative, and flattering." On the accession to the 
 throne of William IV., Wilkie was continued in the office of 
 principal painter to his Majesty, and executed as part of its 
 duties some whole-length portraits of the King, and also of 
 the Queen Adelaide. He subsequently painted several of the 
 Duke of Wellington, the Earls of Melville, Montague, &c. 
 
 It was not until 1832 that Wilkie completed his picture of 
 John Knox Preaching, and sent it to the Academy along 
 with a portrait of the King. The description in the 
 annual catalogue is : — 
 
 134. The Preachiiig of Knox lefore the Lords of the Congregation, 
 10th of June, 1659. D. Wilkie, E.A. 
 
 " In Dr. M'Crie's life of this extraordinary person is described the event 
 this picture is intended to represent, which took place during the regency 
 of Mary of Guise, in the parish church of St. Andrews in Fifeshire, where 
 John Knox, having just arrived from Geneva after an exile of thirteen 
 years, in defiance of a threat of assassination, and while an army in the 
 field was watching the proceedings of his party, appeared in the pulpit 
 and discoursed to a numerous assembly, including many of the clergy, 
 when, ' such was the influence of his doctrine, that the provost, baillies, 
 and inhabitants harmoniously agreed to set up the refoi-med worship in 
 the town. The church was stripped of all images and pictures, and the 
 monasteries were pulled down.' 
 
 " Close to the pulpit, on the right of Knox, are Richard Ballenden, his 
 amanuensis, with Christopher Goodman, his colleague ; and in black the 
 Knight Templar, Sir James Sandilands, in whose house at Calder the first 
 Protestant sacrament was received. 
 
 " Beyond the latter, in the scholar's cap and gown, is that accomplished 
 student of St. Andrew.s, the Admirable Crichton. Under the pulpit is 
 Thomas "Wood, the precentor with his hour-glass ; the school boy below is 
 John Napier, Baron of Merchiston, inventor of the logarithms ; and 
 further to the light is a child which lias been brought to be baptised when 
 the discourse is over. 
 
 " On the other side of the picture, in red, is the Lord James Stuart, 
 afterwards Kegent Murray ; beyond is the Earl of Glencaime ; and in 
 front, resting on his sword, is the Earl of Morton ; behind whom is the 
 Earl of Argyll, whose countess, the half-sister of Queen Mary, and the 
 lady in attendance upon her, make up the chief light of the picture. 
 
 " Above this group is John Hamilton, Archbishop of St. Andrews, 
 
DEATH OF SIK WALTER SCOTT. 87. 
 
 supported by Bishop Beatoun, of Glasgow, with Quinton Kennedy, 
 the Abbot of Cross Kaguel, who maintained against Knox a, public 
 disputation. 
 
 " In the gallery is Sir Patrick Learmontb, Provost of S. Andrews and 
 Laird of Dairsie, and with him two of the baillies. The boy on their left 
 is Andrew Melville, successor of Knox ; and beyond him, with other 
 Professors oi the TTniversitj' of St. Andrews, is the learned Buchanan ; at 
 the back of the gallery is a crucifix, attracting the regard of Catholic 
 penitents ; and in the obscurity above is an escutcheon to the memory 
 of Cardinal Beaton." 
 
 Cunningham adds to the description of the Romish 
 hierarchy — 
 
 " Kennedy is whispering to Hamilton, while a Jackman, a retainer of the 
 cathedral, stands ready with his harquebuss, waiting the signal of the 
 archbishop to fire upon the preacher. The Admirable Crichton, however 
 has his eye upon the Jackman, and his hand on his sword, though his 
 mind seems with Knox. ... It is a moment of intense anxiety ; the sun- 
 shine, which finds its way through the deep and sculptured windows of 
 the cathedral shows the calm but anxious countenances of the opposing 
 parties, and the spectator feels that they are waiting but for the conclusion 
 of the haraug'ie to burst into action." 
 
 "In this picture," says Dr. "Waagen, " which for size and richness of com- 
 position is one of Wilkie's greatest works, I fancied that I actually saw 
 before me those fanatical puritans whom Walter Scott so admirably de- 
 scribes, and was again convinced of the congeniality between him and 
 Wilkie. It is not only the vials of divine wrath which the preacher is 
 pouring forth in full measure — the enthusiasm of the scholars— the re- 
 signed devotion of the women — and the suppressed rage of the Catholic 
 clergy, especially of an opponent who lays his hand on his sword, that 
 attract us to this picture, but also the accuracy with which the whole 
 transaction, even to the details of the costume of that remote period, is 
 placed before our eyes. The keeping too is admirable, and the effect, by 
 the contrast of great masses of light and shade, striking. The engraving 
 from this picture by Doo is very successful. It seems to me that no 
 painter has hitherto had the good fortune to see his works engraved with 
 so much delicacy and fidelity as 'Wilkie, for even Marcantonio does not so 
 nearly approach Eaphael, nor Vostermann and Bolswaert, Rubens. " 
 
 In November, 1832, says Cunningham, "I attended a 
 meeting at the Thatched House Tavern respecting a monu- 
 ment to the memory of Sir Walter Scott. Wilkie was 
 
88 WILKIE. 
 
 there, and was much affected. Nine years afterwards I was 
 present at a meeting in the same place to vote a statue to 
 Wilkie himself ! " The few remaining years that we have 
 to consider before the summons, which had already thinned 
 the ranks of Wilkie's early friends and patrons, came to 
 himself, passed prosperously and uneventfully away, and 
 their interest is centred in the pictures that he produced. 
 From 1832 to 1834 he was principally engaged upon por- 
 traiture, and for the accommodation of his sitters he rented 
 a handsome and spacious mansion in Kensington — the 
 Vicarage House, which, as Raimbach says, was a fitting 
 home for the " foremost man of all the world " in his depart- 
 ment of art, a proper place of reception for his numerous 
 distinguished visitors, and situated in a locality to which he 
 had acquired, during a residence of twenty-five years, an 
 habitual attachment. 
 
 His pictures in the Exhibition of 1833 were three — Spanish 
 Monks, a Scene witnessed in a Capuchin Convent at Toledo; 
 a Portrait of His Majesty King William IV. in the uniform of 
 tlie Royal Grenadier Gua/rds ; and the Portrait of H.R.H. the 
 Duke of Sussex, Earl of Inverness, in the costwne of a Highland 
 Chieftain, described as the first of all modern portraits for 
 truth of character and harmonious brightness of colour. No 
 picture in the Exhibition could stand against it ; it seemed 
 to. lighten all around. 
 
 In 1834 he exhibited six pictures. These were — ■ 
 
 1. The Portrait of the Duke of Wellington, in the v/niform of 
 Constable of the Tower, with his charger, painted for the Mer- 
 chant Taylors' Company, to he placed in their Hall in the City 
 of London. This portrait was painted at Strathfieldsaye, 
 where the horse, as well as his rider, were accesssible to 
 the painter, 
 
 2. Not at Home. A humorous picture of a debtor refusing 
 entrance to a dun 
 
ACADEMY CATALOGUES. 89 
 
 3. Portrait of the Qiteen, in t/ie dress worn hy Her Majesty at 
 her Coronation. 
 
 4. The Spanish Mother. 
 
 5. Portrait uf tlie late Sir John Leslie, Professor of Natural 
 Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh. 
 
 6. Portrait of a Lady. 
 
 Of this group it was the Spanish Mother which pleased 
 Wilkie, as well as the critics, the most. "The king," he 
 says in a letter to Sir W. Knighton, " called me to him when 
 he came before it, and spoLe quite loud out as approving the 
 expression of the child. When the company came afterwards 
 I found all, particularly ladies, approving of this picture," &c. 
 The Portrait of the Queen had a tone of gentleness and re- 
 finement, in harmony with the character of its subject. 
 
 Wilkie spent the summer of this year, as usual, in a round 
 of visits, and on his return set to work with extraordinary 
 energy. His pictures in the Exhibition of 1835 were very 
 important, and are described in the catalogue as follows :— ■ 
 
 64. Christopher Columbus explaining the project of his 
 intended voyage for the discovery of the New World, in the 
 Convent of La Rabida. 
 
 "This picture," says Dr. Waagen, "in whicli the figures are of an un- 
 usually large scale, is the chief specimen of the influence of Velasquez and 
 Murillo on this great painter. In truth, with the masses of deep chiar- 
 oscuro, the warm, full tones, and the broad treatment, it giTes the impres- 
 sion of an old picture. The heads, however, are wanting in that truth and 
 character which belong to his early works." 
 
 88. Tlie First Ear-ring. A beautiful figure of a child, 
 divided between vanity and the fear of pain, standing by 
 the knees of her mother to have. the lobe of her ears pierced. 
 
 113. Portrait of Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington, in 
 the dress worn' by his Grace in active service. 
 
 127. Sa/ncho Panza in the days of his youth. — " Agua limpia 
 a la Oveja, y Vino rubio pora el Rey, rispondio Sancho." — Don 
 Quixote. 
 
90 WILKIE, 
 
 137. Portrait of Sir James McGrigor, Bart., Director-General 
 of the Army Medical Depwrtment. Painted for the Society of 
 the Medical Officers of the Army. 
 
 299. Portrait of the late Eev. Edviwrd Irmng. Irving died 
 on the 8th December, 1834. The portrait was for Sir "W. 
 Knighton. 
 
 In August of this year Wilkie for the iirst time turned 
 his attention to Irish subjects, and visited Dublin, where he 
 made a collection of sketches in pencil, of two of which the 
 artist formed pictures, called the Still at Work and the Peep 
 o' day Boy. 
 
 Wilkie Wrote home to Sir W. Knighton a most interesting 
 description of his tour, from the arrival in Dublin, where, he ■ 
 said, " Velasquez, Murillo, and Salvator Bosa would have 
 found fit objects for their study,'' to Killarney, where he 
 was delighted by the piper, who played Irish and Scottish 
 song and pibroch, and especially the old song — 
 
 " On the lakes of Killarney I first saw the lad 
 That with song and with hagpipe could make niy heart glad. " 
 
 To William Collins he wrote from Edgworthtown, pro- 
 phetically, of the interest that Irish scenery must excite in 
 tiuae, and of the Spanish character of the people, which he ' 
 particularly remarked in Mayo and Galway. 
 
 "The prevailing red of the women's dress, a petticoat and jacket dyed 
 with madder, lights np the landscape and the cabin ; the pioturesqiie con- 
 fusion of the household is also marked out as an object for art, and the 
 unreserved domicile of the human species, with the brute creation basking 
 round the door with the children, who are in a state of primitive 
 innocence, sans chemise, sans culotte, sans everything, classes them 
 higher far than subjects of common life." 
 
 Wilkie's pictures in the catalogue of the 1836 Exhibition 
 are— 
 
 60. The Peep o'day Boy's Cabin, in the West of Ireland. 
 116. Portrait of the Duke of Wellington, representing his 
 
IKELAXD AND ENGLAND. 91 
 
 Grace writing to the King of France on the night before the 
 Battle of Waterloo. 
 
 123. The First Ear-ring. — "II faut soufErir pour etre belle." 
 
 124. The Emperor Napoleon with Fope Fius the Seventh at 
 Fontainebleau in the month of January, 1813. — See Sir Walter 
 Scott's Lije of Napoleon. 
 
 320. Fortrait of the Right Hon. Lord Montagu. 
 423. Fortrait of J. Esdaile, Esq. 
 
 The appearance of The First Ewr-ring in the catalogues of 
 two successive years is unexplained. 
 
 " The picture of Napoleon amd Pius VII. was seen by Waagen on the 
 painter's easel in 1835. He describes it as by far the most important of 
 the few historical pictures that Wilkie painted. He saw it again in the 
 collection of W. Marshall, Esq. , of 85, Eaton Square, and says, ' I was 
 glad to find that the colours had not changed, which is a result seldom 
 found in a modem picture.' " 
 
 " Leslie described this ' as a, noble, historical picture. The two un- 
 yielding men are admirably contrasted, and the disappointment of the 
 Emperor at finding an obstacle to his wishes, in the mind of the Pope 
 (which seldom was an obstacle in his own mind to anything he wished), 
 namely conscience — as well as the determination of his character, is 
 expressed not only in his face, but in his figure from head to foot.' " 
 
 The Peep o'day Boy is well described in the Athenceum of 
 7th May, 1836 :— " The rebel, a fine athletic young fellow- 
 rude, not brutal — has thrown himself down upon the mud 
 floor and fallen into a deep slumber, with the hand of his 
 naked infant clasped in his own. By his side kneels his wife, 
 and listens with a countenance of intense anxiety to another 
 female, who whispers in her ear — most probably the news of 
 the approach of a party of military. The expression of these 
 figures is admirable, though saddening : the picture has a 
 moral as well as a meaning." 
 
 This picture was hung in the close neighbourhood of a 
 peaceful scene of village happiness, called Sunday Morning, 
 Dy Collins, and a contempor.iry critic called attention to the 
 
92 WILKIE. 
 
 contrast they formed: — "Let the lovers of agitation 'look 
 on this picture and on this.' . . . Such as Mr. Wilkie has 
 depicted, is the Irish cabin ; such as Mr. Collins, with as true 
 a pencil, has depicted, is the English cottage. Such, also, are 
 the inhabitants of the one ; and such, also, are the inhabitants 
 of the other. Agitation, treason, murder, crowd the one ; 
 qniet, peace, content — yea, even in poverty — encompass the 
 other," &c. 
 
 It was in June, 1836, and during the Whig administration, 
 says Raimbach, that Wilkie received the distinction of knight- 
 hood from the hands of William IV. : — 
 
 " It was more especially the affair of Lord John Russell, and it has been 
 a matter of some wonder that the Tories should have thiis suffered their 
 political opponents to gather this honour for their party of performing an 
 act of obvious justice ;■ particularly as Sir Robert Peel was the artist's 
 personal friend, as well as oije of his greatest admirers, and a most liberal 
 purchaser of his pictures'. The ceremony took place at a le;fee in the 
 ordinaiy way, and was attended, also in the ordinary way, by some good- 
 humoured jests of his Majesty on the Christian name of David (fov the 
 ' gentle monarch ever loved a joke'), and as to the certainty of its not 
 being Saul ! On retiring back to the crowded circle Wilkie felt the eager 
 pressure of a friendly'hand on his, and, turning his head, found it pro- 
 ceeded from Lord John Russell, who warmly congratulated him on his 
 newly-won dignity, so well merited and so judiciously cdnferred." 
 
 Among the interesting incidents recorded in Sir David's 
 correspondence of this year, he mentions a visit to Admiral 
 Hardy at Greenwich Hospital, where he found that " the 
 only books the old sailors can be brought to- read are the 
 novels of Sir Walter Scott." Sir Thomas Hardy was the 
 captain and intimate friend of Nelson, " of whom he delights 
 to talk." At Chepstow he attended a meeting of Irvingites, 
 with which he was much impressed ; and the more interested 
 because, when Edward Irving first came to London, it was to 
 himself that he was recommended by Dr. Chalmers. All 
 these incidents are related in letters to Sir William Knighton ; 
 but on the 14th October, Wilkie has to write to his sister :-^ 
 
DEA.TH OF SIR WILLIAM KNIGHTON AND OF WILLIAM IV. 93 
 
 " My dear and esteemed friend, Sir WUliam Knighton, 
 died on Tuesday last. . . . This is heavy news. For myself, 
 I may truly say I have never before had such a friend." 
 
 About this time Wilkie began to occupy his moments of 
 leisure La the preparation of his " Remarks upon Painting," 
 which are published at length in Cunningham's Biography. 
 
 Wilkie had in all seven pictures in the Academy of 1837. 
 This was the first Exhibition held in the new rooms at 
 Trafalgar Square. ' 
 
 No. 67 was a Portrait of the King ; No. 119, the Escape of 
 Mary Queen of Scots from Locldeven Castle ; No. 144, the 
 Empress Josephine and tlie Fortune-teller.' The quotations to 
 this are : — 
 
 " When fortune placed a crown on Josephine's head she told me that 
 the event, extraordinary as it was, had been predicted. It is certain bhe 
 put faith in fortune-tellers." — Burien. 
 
 " The event this picture is intended to represent took place in the island 
 of Martinique in the West Indies, of which Josephine was a native ; when 
 a negress whe offered to tell the fortunes of the party, on looking at her 
 LaLd, expressed unwonted surprise at the destiny it indicated, which sha 
 said was that Josephine should have a crowu put on her head, and be 
 greater than a queen. This prediction, naturally treasmed by herself, is 
 known to have been currently reported and believed in France long before 
 its remarkable accomplishment took place in her coronation as Empress. " 
 
 180. The Portrait of the Ea/rl of Tanhermlle. 
 
 358. The Cotter's Saturday Night (with the quotation from 
 the poem of Burns). 
 
 437. Portrait of a Gentleman Beading. (The gentleman 
 reading is the artist's brother, Thomas.) 
 
 719. Portrait of the late Sir William Knighton. 
 
 On the death of WUliam IV., in June, 1837, the Queen 
 renewed to Sir David his appointment of " Painter in Ordi- 
 nary," and in October began to sit with great regularity for 
 her portrait in the picture of the Queen's First Gouncili 
 
94 WILKIE. 
 
 " Having been accustomed to see the Queen from a child," 
 "Wilkie wrote to Collins, " my reception had a little the 
 air of that of an early acquaintance. She is eminently 
 beautiful, her features nicely- formed, her skin smooth, her 
 hair worn close to her face, in a most simple way, glossy 
 and clean-looking. ^ Her manner, though trained to act the 
 sovereign, is yet simple and natural. She has all the 
 decision, thought, and self-possession of a queen of older 
 years j has all the buoyancy of youth, and from the smUe to 
 the unrestrained laugh is a perfect child." This is extracted 
 from a letter of October, 1837. 
 
 Wilkie worked with great energy, but under great diffi- 
 culties towards the completion of this picture, and was able 
 to send it to the Exhibition of the following May. It is 
 described in the official catalogue as follows : — 
 
 60. Ov/r Sovereign the Queen Victoria, presiding at the 
 C'oimcil upon Her Majesty's Accession to the Throne, on t/ie 
 20th o/ June, 1837. 
 
 " The Queen is represented seated at the head of the council-table, and 
 holds in her hand the most gracious declaration then addressed by Her 
 Majesty to the Lords and other of the council then assembled, of whom 
 the following portraits, in the order in which they are placed on the canvas, 
 are introduced. 
 
 " Behind Her Majesty's chair are the Duke of Argyll, the Eai'l of 
 Albemarle, the Eight Hon. George Byng, and C. C. GrevOle, Esq. In 
 front of the royal chair and beginning," at the left hand of the Queen, 
 are tha Marquess of Lansdowne, Lord President of the Council, the 
 Marquess of Anglesea, the Lord Chancellor, Lord Howick, Lord John 
 Russell, the Kight Hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord Mel- 
 bourne, Lord Palmerston, the Eight Hon. the Speaker of the House of 
 Commons, Earl Grey, the Earl of Carlisle, Lord Denman, the Eight Hon. 
 Thomas Erskine, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Morpeth, Lord 
 Aberdeen, Lord Lyndhurst, His Majesty the King of Hanover, the Duke 
 of Wellington, the Earl of Jersey, the Eight Hon. J. "W. Croker, the Eight 
 Hon. Sir Eobert Peel, Bart., His Eoyal Highness the Duke of Sussex, 
 Lord Holland, the Attorney-General, the Marquess of Salisbury, Lord 
 Burghersh, and the Lord Mayor of the City of London. " 
 
ACADEMY CATALOGUES. 95' 
 
 No. 200. Portrait of Daniel O'Connell, M.P. 
 
 No. 201. The Bride at her Toilet on the Day of her Wedding 
 (and three portraits). 
 
 " The pictures are all in the Academy," he wrote to Collins. " I have 
 sent the Queen's First Council : it contains about thirty portraits, which 
 form the interest of the picture. The B^ide Dressing at her Toilet, and a 
 full-length portrait of that most staunch supporter of her Majesty's 
 ministers, Mr. Daniel ffOonnell. This last was offered to me to paint, 
 and it was difficult to refuse, for he had sat to no other artist. My Whig 
 friends are much pleased with it — some say it is the best portrait I have 
 painted. Mr. O'Connell himself is pleased." 
 
 The Catalogue of the Exhibition for 1839 contained the 
 record of five pictures from Sir David Wilkie : — 
 
 No. 65. Sir David Baird discovering the hody of tlie Sultaun 
 Tippoo Saib, after having captured Seringapatam, on the 4:th 
 of May, 1799. 
 
 "General Baird, who is standing in the gateway under which Tippoo 
 received his death-wound, is supposed to be giving orders that the body 
 should be carried to the palace ; and below his feet in the parapet wall is 
 a grating here introduced as giving light to the dungeon in which he had 
 been for nearly four years immured by Hyder Ali and his son, the same 
 Tippoo Sultaun, who, by a remarkable dispensation of Providence, he 
 now linds prostrate at his feet, bereft of his crown, his kingdom, and his 
 life." 
 
 154. Grace before Meat. 
 
 " A lowljr cot whose simple board is spread,. 
 The simple owner seated at its head ; 
 His bonnet lifts and doth to Heaven appeal, 
 To grant a blessing on the humble meal. 
 The faithful partner of his toil and care 
 Mingles with his her low but fervent prayer ; 
 And e'en the baby taught by pious lore, 
 Raises his little arms to Him above. 
 While round the growing progeny are seen 
 With health's own roses, and with artless mien ; 
 •Blessings that to the rich are oft denied, 
 But which are of the poor the joy and pride." 
 
 MS., The Countess of Blessington, 
 
96 WILKIE. 
 
 242. Portrait of Matthew Prime Luoas, Esq., Alderman; 
 President of St. Bartholomew's Hospital. (Painted by order 
 of tte Governors.) 
 
 263. The Grandfather. (Being portraits of Joseph' Wilson, 
 Esq., and his grandson, Joseph Loyd Brereton.) 
 
 " So let Tis welcome peaceful evening in." 
 
 503. Portrait of Master Robert James Donne. 
 
 In 1840, there were no less than eight of Wilkie's pictures 
 in the Exhibition : — ■ 
 
 48. Benvenuto Cellini, presenting, for the approval of Pope 
 Paul III., a silver censer of his own workmanship. 
 
 62. Portrait of the Queen Victoria, in the robes of state in 
 whieh Her Majesty meets the Parliament. 
 
 WO. Portrait of Viscount Arbuthhot, Lord Lieutenant of 
 Kinca/rdineshire. (Painted, by order, for the county, to be, 
 placed in the County Hall in Stonehaven.) 
 
 112. A Sketch for a picture from tJie Gentle Slmplwrd of 
 Allan Ramsay. 
 
 " My Peggy sings so saftly, 
 When on my pipe 1 play, 
 By a' the rest, it is confest, 
 By a' the rest, that she sings best, 
 My Peggy sings so saftly ; 
 And in her sangs are tauld . ' 
 Wi' innocence, the wale o' sense, — 
 At wawking o' the fauld." 
 
 132. Portrait of Mrs. Hamilton Nisbett Ferguson, of Raith. 
 252. The Irish Whisky-still. 276. The Hoolmbadwr. 584. The 
 Disabled Commodore, in his Retiremtnt at Greenvnch, 1800. 
 
 Sir David Wilkie's pictures in the Exhibition of 1841 : — 
 
 67. The Student. 
 
 116. Portrait of Sir Peter Laurie. 
 
1^ 
 
 ►4 
 
 X 
 h 
 
 O 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 WILKIE S LAST JOUENEY AND DEATH. 
 
 ON the 15tli of August, 1841, Wilkie set out upon his 
 final journey in the company of his friend, Mr. W. 
 Woodburn, by the steamer Batavier, to Rotterdam. His 
 journal at once assumes the lively and vigorous tone of other 
 days, and describes how every hour was utilised in visiting 
 the picture galleries and private collections of the cities they 
 stopped at. At the Hague, the collection of M. Verstolk van 
 Soelen offered specimens of Hobbima, Cuyp, Ruysdael, and 
 Vandervelde, and Rembrandt's School of Anatomy ; but what 
 pleased him above all, he writes, was an old woman's head by 
 Rembrandt. At Amsterdam his first visit was to Rembrandt's 
 house, in the Jews' quarter, which struck him as "a most 
 unsuitable residence for this great master," and, "like the 
 shell which incloses the caterpillar, was only a temporary 
 abode for the winged genius to whom art owes so much of its 
 brilliancy." Here also he saw the Night Watch or Bawning 
 Cock Compamy, " which," he thought, " if it had been a fine 
 subject, like the Christ before Pontius Pilate, which Rem- 
 brandt has etched, would be one of the finest pictures he ever 
 produced." He was greatly struck also with the " gusto and 
 freedom " of the Syndics. In the same evening " saw two 
 
98 WILKIE. 
 
 whole lengths of Rembrandt — most superb ; — and was taken 
 to the house of the family of Six," where he saw the portrait 
 of the Bwrgomaster "painted with great power and effect, 
 but which I think was unfinished. Saw also, at the same 
 house, pictures by Ostade, Metsu, Euysdael, and Maes, in 
 black frames, that had hung in these frames, and on the same 
 walls, ever since they were painted." 
 
 The town of Nymegen, and all the circumstances of trees, 
 houses, and cattle, of the surrounding country, reminded , him 
 of Cuyp, and thus, finding something lively and new to 
 record of all the objects around them, even in the journey up 
 the Rhine by steamer to Cologne — the dreariest scene of flat 
 monotony to the ordinary traveller — he finds its own peculiar 
 beauty, if not on the earth, in the sky. From Cologne, the 
 friends proceeded up the Rhine to Mayence, and thence by 
 rail to Frankfort, where they saw a piece on the stage called 
 Correggio, in which that great master, being in obscurity and 
 poverty, was visited and relieved by 6. Romano and Michel- 
 angelo. "We all agreed," he wrote, "that there was no sort 
 of play could so engross and interest us under all circum- 
 stances." 
 
 At Munich WUkie met his old friend Herr von Dillis : 
 " Our meeting most joyous and hearty ; eighty-one years of 
 age and in good health I'' From Munich they drove to 
 Salzburg, the birthplace of Mozart, romantic among the 
 mountains, and reminding Sir David of Edinburgh; then 
 from Linz to Yienna, by the Danube, " an interesting day's 
 voyage, the steamer darting like an arrow past the hills, and 
 dales, and towers, of this romantic river." From Vienna, 
 by the Danube steamer to Pesth, and thence in a great 
 crowd of Hungarian passengers romantically clothed, to 
 Tracova, where they left the steamer, and embarked in small 
 boats to proceed to another that was waiting to continue 
 the journey to Constantinople. 
 
CONSTANTINOPLE. 99 
 
 Arriving at the Turkish capital in October, Wilkie says 
 that he exclaimed, like Dandie Dinmont when he saw Pleydel 
 in the chair at High Jinks, " De'il the like o' this I ever 
 saw ! " The costumes of the inhabitants, to him, were 
 " splendid even when in dirt and rags," and the place 
 " exceeded in wonder all he had ever yet seen ; but it was 
 the wonder of disappointment that the domicile of the Turk 
 should be so inferior to the splendour of his attire ! " The 
 first subject for a picture that he found was " a scribe of most 
 venerable appearance, writing for two Turkish women, one 
 very handsome," of whom he made the study, never finished, 
 called The Writer, which " as a piece of colour," says Cunning- 
 ham, " is as rich as Eembrandt or Correggio." 
 
 It was not until the middle of December that the Sultan 
 was able to give sittings for his portrait, and the friends led 
 a life of incessant activity in the meantime, in the European 
 society of the place. Among other remarkable incidents they 
 met there Sir Moses Montefiore upon his mission of inter- 
 cession on behalf of the Jews in Syria, and he received the 
 artists very hospitably, and became their introducer to a 
 great deal of picturesque society among Jewish and Armenian 
 families, all of which is very graphically described in WUkie's 
 letters and journals. The admiral and officers of the fleet were 
 also hospitably disposed, and the news of the taking of St. 
 Jean d'Acre by the Allies was celebrated in grand festivities. 
 Upon this subject Wilkie seized for his picture of A Tartar 
 Nwrrating the Victory in a Twrkish Cafe, which was sub- 
 sequently engraved among the Oriental sketches. The studies 
 for the Sultan's portrait were finished towards Christmas. 
 Wilkie wrote, " The Sultan has good eyes and mouth, about 
 eighteen years old, and marked with the small pox." All who 
 saw the portrait, he says " think it very like, and very agree- 
 ably so." SaUing on the 12th of January, and looking back 
 at parting upon " a most splendid view of Constantinople, 
 
 H 2 
 
100 WILKIE. 
 
 with all her mosques, minarets, palaces, and towers, illumin- 
 ated by the setting sun," they lingered at Smyrna and at 
 Rhodes, where they admired the relics of chivalry, " the triple 
 walls and fosses, the clean, well-paved streets, and the strong 
 stone-built houses with Knights' coats of arms in the walls ; " 
 finally, on the 8th of February, in company with a crowd of 
 Jewish pilgrims, they came in. sight of the Holy Land, 
 
 " Extended right and left, far and wide, with Mount Lebanon and its 
 extended range right ahead, with the sun beginning to dart his rays, and 
 mount his glorious orb over the southern summit of the hallowed moun- 
 tain. On deck all was stir and preparation ; the various aged persons of 
 the chosen people were decorating themselves with the sacerdotal robes of 
 the sacred office, and though tranquil, were yet apparently deeply moved. 
 Some with the Bible in hand, with a black strap twisted round their 
 naked left arm, and with a small ark or tabernacle tied round their brow, 
 were with an oscillating movement of the head repeating some appropriate 
 prayer^ or thanksgiving upon the near accomplishment of their voyage." 
 
 Wilki« himself, whatever were the motives of his pilgrimage, 
 approached the holy places with deeper feelings than an 
 artist's curiosity. 
 
 The whole of his life had been tempered with the religious 
 habits of thought and observance that he acquired at his 
 home, and his familiar friends were chosen among those who 
 went with him in this respect, although his journal has in it 
 none of the ejaculatory prayers of Haydon, nor even the 
 calmer expressions of religious thought that are found in 
 that of W. Collins, yet he finds it only natural that Jerusalem 
 should be approached with the excitement of awe. To him 
 it is 
 
 " Unlike all other cities, recalling the imaginations of Nicolas Poussin, 
 a city not for every day — ^not for the present — but for all time ; as if 
 built for an eternal Sabbath ; the buildings, the walls, the gates so strong 
 and so solid, as if made to survive aU other cities. And (though we saw 
 it from the least imposing side) its stupendous walls, its elevated site, its 
 domes and minarets, still rising in their greatness after all the city has 
 suffered," etc. 
 
JERUSALEM. 101 
 
 We are drawing very near the end of Wilkie's correspond- 
 ence. There is something strikingly dramatic in the manner 
 of his disappearance from the world. After all that he had 
 accomplished at home towards wedding the art of his time 
 with the close observance of nature, he appears in this last 
 act of his life as a pioneer of those who have since studied 
 in the Holy Land the interpretation of Scriptural and 
 Oriental subjects. This is expressed in his own letter to Sir 
 Robert Peel, in which he attempts to explain the motives 
 that he had in his mind when he undertook this journey : — 
 
 "It is a fancy or belief that the art of our time and of our British 
 people may reap some benefit that has induced me to undertake this 
 journey. It is to see, to inquire, and to judge, not whether I can, but 
 whether those who are younger, or with far higher attainments and powers, 
 may not in future be required in the advance and spread of our know- 
 ledge, to refer at once to the localities of Scripture events, when the gi'eat 
 work is to be essayed of representing Scripture history. Great as the 
 assistance, I might say the inspiration, which the art of painting has 
 derived from the illustration of Christianity, and great as the talent and 
 genius have been this high walk of art has called into being, yet it is 
 remarkable that none of the great painters to whom the world has hitherto 
 looked for the visible appearance of Scripture scenes and feelings have 
 ever visited the Holy Land." 
 
 In a previous letter to W. Collins, he had said on this 
 subject that "the painter who has most truly given us an 
 Eastern people is Rembrandt. The Scripture subjects of 
 Rembrandt are recalled to us at every turn by what we see 
 before us ; and this anticipating power of rendering what he 
 never could have seen, raises the great painter of Amsterdam 
 even higher than we had thought him." 
 
 Wilkie wrote a great many long letters from Jerusalem, all 
 of which, published in Cunningham's Biography, are worth 
 reading, and show the same lively faculty of observation and 
 description that is remarkable in the whole of his correspond- 
 ence from the beginning to the end. Amongst these, the 
 
102 WILKIE. 
 
 latest are addressed to W. Collins, the Earl of I«ven, Pro- 
 fessor Buckland, and Thomas Phillips, R.A. On the 7th of 
 April the return journey was begun, under circumstances of 
 some danger from the plague, which was raging all round the 
 country at the time, to escape from which they embarked at 
 Jaffa in the first vessel that they could obtain, which was a 
 small bark bound for Damietta. Prom Damietta, after a long 
 detention by stress of weather, they reached Alexandria, 
 where Wilkie required medical attendance for a bowel com- 
 plaint, which weakened him excessively. He recovered, how- 
 ever, under the care of Dr. Laidlaw, and here he painted the 
 portrait of the great founder of the Egyptian dynasty, who 
 objected to the study that was shown to him, that the deep 
 lines and furrows which time and care had marked him with 
 were not to be seen in the picture. Wilkie describes Mehemet 
 Ali as an interesting character, " has a fine head and beard, 
 and, I think, makes the best portrait I have met with in my 
 travels." 
 
 Wilkie's next letter home is dated from Malta, on board 
 the Oriental steamer, and has the interest of being the last 
 that he lived to write^ It is full of the description of a 
 dinner which, at his suggestion, had been given to Mr. 
 Waghom at Alexandria, on the 20th, the day before the 
 Oriental sailed. It was a " jolly party of a dozen." They 
 had toasts and speeches, and everything that could create 
 merriment. It concludes : — 
 
 " In the hope that we shall with the Oriental reach England in a day 
 or two after this letter, I shall add nothing farther, and only venture to 
 hint that the house may be got into condition for my arrival. With best 
 regards to Thomas and Margaret, and with assurance to Sir Peter and 
 Lady Laurie, Mr. Collins and all other friends how glad I shall be to see 
 them, I am, my dear sister, 
 
 "Most faithfully and truly yours. 
 
 " D. "W." 
 
FUNERAL AT SEA. 103 
 
 The last entry in Wilkie's journal, made on tne eve of his 
 death, is a suggestion for the establishment of some institu- 
 tion for the diffusion of knowledge on Scriptural subjects. 
 
 He died suddenly, on the morning of Tuesday, the 1st of, 
 June, 1841, immediately after the steamer had sailed from 
 Gibraltar. The vessel was put back, and a request sent 
 ashore for permission to land the body ; but this being 
 refused, his body was committed to the deep on the evening 
 of the day of his death. 
 
 To those who have assisted at such a funeral at sea, and 
 felt the solemn influence of the silence Jihat is produced by 
 the temporary stoppage of the machinery, whilst the service 
 is read, and witnessed the tender but manly reverence of 
 sailors for the remains, beneath the national flag, when they 
 entrust them to the sea which is their own familiar home, 
 there would be no added regret for the accident that pro- 
 cured a friend his burial at sea. Turner's almost mystical 
 picture on the subject, The Burial of Sir David WilMe, in 
 which a great flood of crimson light seems to consecrate the 
 temporary chapel of the waist of the ship and the coffin's 
 plunge into the illuminated wave, is an eloquent rendering 
 of the solemnity of such a scene, which, to those who knew 
 the value of the trained skill and active intellect that the 
 world lost in Wilkie, must have been even more than 
 usually impressive. 
 
 The appreciation of this loss was not peculiar to the world 
 of art. Bulwer, when touching on the popular department 
 of art, says : — 
 
 "Who does not feel the name of "Wilkie rash to his most familiar 
 thoughts ? Who does not feel that the pathos and the humour of that 
 most remarkable painter have left on him recollections as strong and 
 enduring as the chefs-cTosuvre of literature itself? and that every new 
 picture of Wilkie — in Wilkie's own vein — constitutes an era in enjoyment? - 
 
104 WILKIE. 
 
 More various, more extensive in his grasp than even Hogarth, his genius 
 sweeps from the dignity of history to the verge of caricature itself. 
 
 " Humour is the prevalent trait of all minds capable of variety in 
 character ; from Shakespeare and Cervantes, to Goldsmith and SmoUett. 
 But of what shades and differences is not humour capable ? Now it loses 
 itself in terror, now it broadens into laughter. What a distance from the 
 Mephistopheles of Goethe to the Sir Eoger de Coverley of Addison, or from 
 Sir Eoger de Coverley to Humphrey Clinker ! What an illimitable space 
 from the dark power of Hogarth to the graceful tenderness of Wilkie ! And 
 which can we say with certainty is the higher of the two ? Can we place 
 e-fren the Harloffs Progress beyond the Distraining for Rent or the exqiusito 
 beauty of Duncan Gray ? "Wilkie is the Goldsmith of painters, in the 
 amiable and pathetic humour, in the combination of smiles and tears, of 
 the famihar and the beautiful ; but he has a stronger hold both over the 
 more secret sympathies and the springs of a broader laughter than Gold- 
 smith himself. If the drama could obtain a Wilkie we should hear no 
 more of its decline. He is the exact illustration of the doctrine I have 
 advanced above — of the power and dignity of the popular school in the 
 hands of a master ; dignified, for truth never loses a certain majesty, even 
 in her most familiar shapes." 
 
 But Bulwer felt still more deeply the sympathetic power 
 ot Wilkie. . In the same treatise from which the above is 
 extracted he calls Edwin Landseer 
 
 "A sort of link to the genius of Wilkie, carrying down the sentiment 
 of humane humour from man, to man's great dependent family, and 
 binding all creation together in one common sentiment of that affection 
 whose wisdom comprehends aU things. Wilkie and Landseei are the 
 great benevolists of painting ; as in the quaint sublimity of the Lexicon 
 of Suidas, Aristotle is termed ' the secretary of nature, who dipped his 
 pen in intellect' so each of these' artists may be called, in his several 
 line, the secretary also of nature who dips his pencil in sympathy ; for 
 both have more in their genius of the heart's philosophy than the 
 mind's." [England and the English, publisTied in 1833.] 
 
 Leslie, speaking of him in his personal and social relations, 
 says : — ■ 
 
 " The recollections of all my intercourse with Wilkie, and I knew 
 him for about twenty years, are altogether delightful. I had no 
 
THE END. 105 
 
 resson ever to alter the opinion I first formed of him, that he was 
 a truly great artist and a truly good man. The little peculiarities 
 of his character, as they all arose from the best intentions, rather 
 endeared him to his friends than otherwise. He was a modest 
 man, and had no wish to attract attention by eccentricity ; and indeed 
 all his oddity, and he was in many things very odd, arose from an 
 extreme desire to be exactly like other people. Naturally shy and 
 reserved, he forced himself to talk. I can easily conceive, from what I 
 knew of hi o, that he had a great repugnance to making speeches at 
 dinners or public meetings ; yet knowing that from the station he had 
 acquired he must do such things, he made public speaking a study. He 
 carried the same desire of being correct into lesser things, not from vanity, 
 but from a respect for society, for he considered that genius did not give a 
 man a right to be negligent in his manners even in trifles. When 
 quadrilles were introduced Wilkie set himself diligently to. study them, 
 and drew ground plans and elevations of the new dances to aid him in 
 remembering the figures. He was always ceremonious, but as I have said, 
 from modesty, and not from pride or affectation, for no man had less of 
 either." 
 
 The excitement produced at home by the news of Sir David 
 Wilkie's death, will be in the memory of many still living. 
 He was a man who had ever many friends and no enemies ; 
 his great success and his honours were borne so modestly that 
 he excited no envy, and the simplicity of his method of 
 indefatigable industry in study would have disarmed jealousy 
 itself. 
 
 The Academy met and framed an address of condolence to 
 Miss Wilkie, which was numerously signed, though Haydon 
 refused, even in this, to be led by the " thirty-nine," who he 
 wished had been thrown into the sea after poor Wilkie — to 
 his eyes the only man of merit among them. Sincerely as 
 Haydon mourned, in his own wild way for his friend, there 
 is little in his egotistical ravings on the subject that is worth 
 quoting, until he cries at last " Peace to his spirit ! May we 
 meet hereafter, cleansed of our earthly frailties, never to 
 separate more ! " 
 
THE PRINCIPAL WORKS OF WILKIE IN PUBLIC 
 GALLERIES IN ENGLAND. 
 
 LONDON. National Gallery. 
 
 The Blind Fiddler. Painted in 1807 /or Sir Gfeorge Beaumont, Bart. 
 Tlie Village Festival. Painted in 1811 for Mr Angerstein. , 
 Portrait of Thomas Daniel], R.A. 
 The Parish Beadle. Painted in 1822 for Zord Colborne. 
 The First Eai-rlng. Exhibited at the Boyal Academy vn 1835. 
 The Bagpiper. 'Painted for Mr. Francis Freelimg in 1813. 
 A Woody Landscape. Painted in 1822. . 
 
 Newsmongers. Fainted for General PMpps. Fxhibited in 1821. 
 Peep-o' Day Boy's Cabin, West of Ireland. Exhibited in 1836. 
 The Preaching of John Knox before the Lords of the Congregation, 
 10th June, 1659. Commenced for the Earl of Liverpool, cmd com- 
 pletedfor the late Sir Robert Peel. Exhibited in 1832. 
 Sketch of Blind Man's Buff. Signed D. Wilkie, 1811. 
 
 South Kejtsington Museum. 
 The Broken Jar. Exhibited-in 1816. 
 The Refusal (Duncan Gray). Exhibited in 1814. 
 Studies for The Peep-o' -Day Boy, in chalk and sepia. 
 Studies for The Refusal. Pencil, chalk, and ink. 
 
 National Pobtraf^ Gallery. 
 Portrait of Himself (miniature). 
 
 EDINBURGH. National Gallery. 
 
 John Knox Dispensing the Sacrament at Calder House. Left 
 
 vmfinished. 
 Sketch of Kilmartin Sacrament. ' 
 
 Sketch of a Confessional. 
 
 Pitlessie Fair. The property of Mr. J. Boyd Kinnear of Kinloeh. 
 Portrait of Mrs. Hunter (sister of Sir D. Wilkie). 
 Pen and sepia drawing of Blind Man's Buff. 
 
 " Reading the Will " is in the New Pinakothek at Munich. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 A List of Wilkie's principal works will le found indexed under " Ficturea.' 
 
 Abbotsfoed, .53, 55, 56. 
 
 Aberdeen, 13. 
 
 Acre, St. Jean d', Siege of, 99. 
 
 Adelaide, Queen, 89. 
 
 Adriatic, The, 78. 
 
 Alexandria, 102. 
 
 Allan, David, 15. 
 
 Allan, Sir W., 7. 
 
 Alps, The, 70. 
 
 Amsterdam, 97. 
 
 Anatomy of Expression, 18. 
 
 Anderson, John, 51. 
 
 Angerstbin Collection, The, 42. 
 
 Angerstein, Mr., 23, 34, 43. 
 
 Antwerp, 51. 
 
 Apennines, The, 78. 
 
 Artist, 27ie, 27, 29. 
 
 Ascension of the Virgin (Correggio), 
 
 72. 
 Assumption of the Virgin (Titian), 76. 
 Athevmim, 82, 91. 
 Athol, Duke of, 53, 55. 
 Audley, Lord, 35. 
 
 Baiixib,Dk., 38,46,52. 
 
 BaUlie, Joanna, 38. 
 
 Baird, General Sir David, 95. 
 
 Ballantyne, Mr., 38. 
 
 Bannatyne Club, 75. 
 
 Banning Cock Company (Eembrandt), 
 
 97. 
 Baring, Sir Francis, 28. 
 Barnes (of the Times), 66. 
 Barry, K.A., James, 20, 21. 
 Beaumont, Sir George, 21, 22, 23, 24, 
 
 26, 28, 30, 31, 34, 38, 39, 40, 51, 52, 
 
 66, 67, 79, 81. 
 Bsanmont, Lady, 79. 
 B>,echey, Sir William, 36, 37, 40. 
 Bell, Sir Charles, 17, 18. 
 Belvedere Gallery (Vienna), 77. 
 
 Benet, Dr., 70. 
 
 Bernard, Thomas, 28. 
 
 Bird, Edward, 41. 
 
 Blair Athol, 54, 55. 
 
 Blessington, Countess of, 95. 
 
 Bologna, 76. 
 
 Book of Death, 60. 
 
 Bonaparte, 47, 49, 70, 91. 
 
 Borrowstoness, 53. 
 
 Boin:geois, E.A., Sir Francis, 28, 31, 
 
 34, 40, 41. 
 Bredel, Mr., 32. 
 Brighton, 50. 
 British Institution, 50. 
 British Gallery, 60. 
 Brougham, Lord, 66. 
 Buccleuch, Duke of, 55, 56. 
 Buckland, Professor, 101. 
 Bulwer, 56, 103. 
 
 Burgomaster Six (Eembrandt), 97. 
 Burial of Wilkie (Turner) 103. 
 Burnet, John, 6, 8, 21, 26, 27, 28, 29, 
 
 61, 68, 72, 73. 
 Bute (Scotland), 53. 
 
 Cat.ats, 51. 
 
 Callcott, K.A., 27, 82. 
 
 Campo Santo, 70. 
 
 Cano, AJonso, 80. 
 
 Canova, 51, 73. 
 
 Carlisle, Anthony, 37. 
 
 Carlsbad, 77. 
 
 Carracci, The, 76. 
 
 Carse, 9. 
 
 Chahners, Dr., 65, 92. 
 
 Chantrey, 28. 
 
 Chapman, Mr. John, 30. 
 
 Cheltenham, 69, 
 
 Chepstow, 92. 
 
 Christ before Pilate (Eembrandt), 07. 
 
 Cimabue, 74. 
 
108 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Claude Lorrain, 40. 74, 82. 
 
 Cobham Hall, 34, 35. 
 
 Codrington, Sir Edward, 68. 
 
 Oolbome, Lord, 66. 
 
 Coleorton, 39, 40. 
 
 Collins, William, 61, 62, 63, 68, 79, 81, 
 
 82, 91, 94, 95, 100, 101. 
 Cologne, 98. 
 Compton, Lady, 75. 
 Constantinople, 98, 99. •-' 
 Copley, R.A., John Singleton, 28, 40. 
 Correggio, 8, 72, 73, 75, 76, 84, 85, 98, 
 
 99. 
 Cosway, E.A., Richard, 40. 
 Crabbe, The poet, 64. 
 Crawford, Lord, 20. 
 Cromek, R. H., engraver, 41. 
 Cults, 1, 3, 6, 7, 10, 13, 28, 39, 55. 
 Cumberland, Duke of, 63. 
 Cumberland, Bicbard, 29. 
 Cupar, 13, 55. 
 Curtis, Sir Roger, 39. 
 Cuyp, 52, 97, 98. ' 
 
 Damietta, 102. 
 
 Dance, R.A., 40. 
 
 Danube, The, 98. 
 
 Darling, Dr., 66, 69. 
 
 Darnley, Lord, 34, 35. 
 
 Davison, Alexander, 28. 
 
 Death, Book of, 60. 
 
 Dentatvs (Haydon's), 31, 38. 
 
 Devis, 28. 
 
 Dillis, Herr von, 77, 78, 98. 
 
 Diploma Picture, 44. 
 
 Dobree, Samuel, 34, 49, 60. 
 
 Doo (engraver), 87. 
 
 Douglas, Eev. Mr., 50. 
 
 Dresden, 77. 
 
 Drury Lane Theatre burnt, 38. 
 
 Dublin, 90. 
 
 Dubost, Mr. (French artist), 24. 
 
 Dttrer, Albrecht, 78. 
 
 Bastlaice, E.A., Sir Charles, 73. ' 
 Edgworthtown (Ireland), 90. 
 Edinburgh, 53. 
 Ellis, Wynn, 12. 
 Epigoniad, Author of the, 2. 
 Essex, Earl of, 67. 
 Ettrick Shepherd, The, 55. 
 Btty, E.A., William, 16, 82. 
 
 Faeinqtox, E.A., 40. 
 Ferguson, Sir Adam, 56, 57, 63. 
 
 Flaxman, R.A,, John, 15, 40 
 Frankfort, 98. 
 Florence, 78. 
 Freeling, Sir Francis, 46. 
 Freeman, 18. 
 
 Fuseli, E.A., Henry, 15, 16, 17, 31, 
 40. 
 
 Gainsborough, 27. 
 
 Galway, 90. 
 
 Gaudy, E.A., William, 40. 
 
 Geddes, Andrew, 63, 75. 
 
 Geneva, 79. 
 
 Genoa, 70. 
 
 Gentle Shepherd, The, 10, 67, 68, 96 
 
 Gentleman^s Magazine, £4, 81. 
 
 George IV., 46, 62, 64, 79, 80, 84, 85. 
 
 Gerard, 49. 
 
 Gibraltar, 103. 
 
 Gillespie, Dr., 3, 78. 
 
 Giotto, 70, 75. 
 
 Gloucester, Duke of, 31, 32. 
 
 Gordon, Sir Willoughby, 54, 60. 
 
 Graham, General, 54. 
 
 Graham, John, 6, 8, 15. 
 
 Greenwich Hospital, 92. 
 
 Grosvenor, Lord, 82. 
 
 Hague, The, 97. 
 Hamilton, Duke of, 78. 
 Hamilton, Horatia, 37. 
 Hamilton, Lady, 37, 
 Hamilton, Lord, 51. 
 Hardy, Admiral Sir Thomas, 92. 
 Haydou in prison, 65. 
 Haydm's Journal, 13, 16, 17, 21, 23, 
 25, 31, 33, 35, 38, 39, 40, 42, 46, 49, 
 . 50, 51, 82, 83, 100, 105. 
 Hazlitt, Thomas, 42. 
 Heaton, Mrs. C, 27. 
 Herculaneum, 75. 
 Hilton, R.A., 82. 
 Hoare, Prince, 50. 
 Hobbema, 97. 
 Hogarth, William, 27, 104. 
 Hogg, James, 55. 
 Holbein, 78. 
 Holford, Mr., 62. 
 Holland, 52, 97. 
 Holyrood Sovse, 53. (See Entry of 
 
 George IV.) 
 Hoppner, E.A., 14, 27, 40. 
 Howard, E.A., ' 40. 
 Humorous Catalogue, 67. 
 Hurst and Eobinson, 75. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 109 
 
 Ibbetson, Jdijus, 21. 
 
 Innspruck, 76. 
 
 Inverary, 54. 
 
 Ireland, 90, 91. 
 
 Irving, Edward, 65, 90, 92. 
 
 Irving, Washington, 36, 55, 56, 81. 
 
 Jackson, Thomas, 16, 21, 22, 23, 26, 
 
 36, 40, 82. 
 Jaffa, 102 
 
 Jerusalem, 100, 101. 
 Josephine, Empress, 93. 
 Juannes, Juan Battista, 80. 
 
 Kettle School, 4. 
 
 Killarney (Ireland) 90. 
 
 Eilliecrankie Pass, 54. 
 
 Kinghorn, 13. 
 
 Eliaueill House, 53. 
 
 Knighton, Sir William, 89, 90, 92, 
 
 93. 
 Knowles, J., 17. 
 
 Laidlaw, De., 102. 
 
 Laidlaw, W., 55, 57. 
 
 Landseer, K.A., Sir Edwin, 16, 104. 
 
 Lansdowne, Marquis of, 33, 34, 62. 
 
 Last Judgment, The (Michelangelo) 
 
 72. 
 Laurie, Sir Peter, 102. 
 Lawrence, E.A., Sir Thomas, 14, 40, 
 
 65, 80, 82, 84. 
 Leicester, Sir John, 27. 
 Leslie, K.A., Charles Eobert, 16, 42, 
 
 91, 104. 
 Leven,Barlo[, 5, 101. 
 Lilburn, Ghost of Lady, 53. 
 Lindsay, Sir David, 13. 
 Linlithgow, 53. 
 Linz, 98. 
 
 Lister, David, 70. 
 Lister, Isabella (Wilkie's Mother), 1, 
 
 2, 45, 69. 
 Lister, James, 2. 
 Liston (actor). 42. 
 Lockhart, 57, 62, 63. 
 Lomond, Loch, 54. 
 London, First arrival in, 14. 
 Loutherbourg, De, 27. 
 Louvre, 47, 50. 
 
 MacDonald, Thomas, 14, 43. 
 MacGrigor, Sir James, 69. 
 Maoneill of Oakfield, 54. 
 Macneill (poet) 38. 
 
 Madrid, 80. 
 Maes, 97. 
 Malta, 102. 
 
 Mansfield, Earl of, 19, 22, 23, 29. 
 Maratti, Carlo, 62, 
 Marshall, Mr., 62, 91. 
 Martin, Eev. Dr (of Monimail), 12. 
 Mathews (actor), 34. 
 Mayence, 98. 
 Mayo (Ireland), 90. 
 Mehemet Ali, 102. 
 Melrose, 55. 
 Melville, Earl of, 86. 
 Melville, Hon. W. Leslie, 5 
 Mengs, Rapliael, 76. 
 Metsu, 29. 
 Metternich, 77. 
 Michelangelo, 8, 71, 72, 74, 98. 
 Milan, 70. 
 
 Miranda, General, 38. 
 Mitford, Miss, 66. 
 Montague, Earl of, 86. 
 Montefiore, Sir Moses, 99. 
 Moore, Sir John, Death of, 37. 
 Moore, Thomas, 73. 
 Morales, 80. 
 Morland, G., 15, 21. 
 ■ Mother, Death of Wilkie's, 69. 
 Mulgrave, Lord, 21. 22, 26, 28, 29, 
 
 30, 31, 34, 39, 40, 66, 82. 
 Mulready, E.A., WUliam, 16, 82. 
 Munich, 76, 98. 
 Murillo, 35, 80, 90. 
 Murray, Jolm (publisher) 38 
 Mushet, Mr., 69. 
 Muskett, Mrs., 35. 
 
 Naples, 74. 
 
 National Gallery, 27, 34, 43, 66. 
 
 Nelson, Lord, 19, 37, 92. 
 
 Netherlands, 51. 
 
 NoUekens, E.A., 15, 40. 
 
 Northbrook, Lord, 28. 
 
 Northcote, E.A., James, 17, 27, 28, 
 
 36,40. 
 Nymegen (Holland), 97. 
 
 Ochiltree, Edie, 53, 56. 
 O'Connell, Daniel, 95. 
 Opie, E.A., John, 14, 27. 
 "Opiter" (critic), 59. 
 Oriental Sketches, 99. 
 Ostade, 9, 26, 34, 48, 52, 61, 97. 
 Ostend, 51. 
 Owen, E.A., William, 27. 
 
110 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 PCESTUM, 75. 
 
 Falafox, General, 81. 
 
 Palestine, 100, 101. 
 
 Paris, 47, 70. 
 
 Peel, Sir Robert, 66, 67, 74, 79, 92, 
 
 101. 
 Pesth, 98. 
 
 Feter Martyr (Titian), 76. 
 Phaiips, K.A., Thomas, 40, 82, 101. 
 
 PlCimtES BY WlLKIB : — 
 
 Alehouse Door. See Village Fes- 
 tival. 
 
 Alfred in the Neatherd's Cottage, 
 28, 44. 
 
 „ „ „ Sketch, 44. 
 
 Bagpipe, The, 46. 
 
 Baiid, General, Discovering the 
 Body of Tippoo Saib, 95. 
 
 Benvenuto Cellini, 62, 96. 
 
 Blind Fiddler, 12, 22, 26, 27, 43. 
 „ „ Sketch for, 44. 
 
 Blindman's Buff, 42, 43, 46. 
 
 Bonnie Lady Gonie, 3. 
 
 Boys Digging for Eats,Sketch of ,44. 
 
 Bounty Money. See Village Recruit. 
 
 Breakfast Pajrty, 46, 52. 
 
 Bride at her Toilet, 95. 
 
 Buonaparte and the Pope, 13. See 
 Pope and. 
 
 Card Players, The, 31, 32, 44. 
 „ „ Sketch for, 44. 
 
 Chelsea Pensioners, 52, 61. 
 
 China Menders, The, 60. 
 
 Columbus, 62, 89. 
 
 Commodore Trunnion, 67. 
 
 Confessional, The, 73. 
 
 Cottage Toilet, The, 67, 63. 
 
 Cotter's Saturday Night, 93. 
 
 Country Fab, 11, 12, 44. See 
 Pitlessie Fair. 
 
 Cut Finger, The, 30, 36, 37, 43. 
 „ „ Sketch for, 44. 
 
 Diana and Calista, 8. 
 
 Diploma Picture, R.A., 44 
 
 Disabled Commodore, The, 96. 
 
 Distraining for Rent, 45, 50, 62, 
 104, 
 
 Douglas and the Hermit, 10, 104. 
 
 Duncan Gray, 46, 52 
 
 Entry of George IV. into Holy- 
 rood, 63, 66, 83, 85. 
 
 Errand Boy, The, 60. 
 
 £!scape of Queen Mary from Loch- 
 leven Castle, 53, 93. 
 
 Gamekeeper,, A., 42, 43. 
 
 Gentle Shepherd, Sketch foii,.96. 
 
 Gipsy Woman and Child, 44. 
 
 Grandfather, The, 96. 
 
 Grace Before Meat, 95. ' 
 
 GueriUa Council of War, TherSO. 
 
 Guerilla Taking Leave of his Con- 
 fessor, 80. 
 
 Family Picture, A, 44. 
 
 First Earring, The, 895>91. 
 
 Hermit, The, 5. 
 
 Highland Family, 67. 
 
 Holyrood. See Entry, etc. 
 
 Hookabadar, The, 96. 
 
 Humorous Scene, A, 42. 
 
 Jew's Harp, 8, 12, 34, 35, 36, 43, 
 61. 
 „ „ Sketch of; 44. 
 
 John Knox Preaching, etc., 62, 65, 
 66, 83, 86. 
 
 Josephine, Empress, and the For- 
 tune-teller, 93. 
 
 Knox.' See John EJaox. 
 
 Letter of Introduction, 46, 49. 
 
 Macbeth, Scene from, 8. 
 
 Maid of Saragossa, The, 80, 81. 
 
 Man with the Girl's Cap on, 41, 44. 
 „ „ „ „ Sketch of, 
 44. 
 
 Monks at Confession, 62. 
 
 New Coat, The, 43. 
 
 Niobe Daughters, 8. 
 
 Niobe's Head, 7. 
 
 Not at Home, 88. 
 
 Nymphs Gathering Grapes, 66. 
 
 Parish Beadle, The, 66. 
 
 Peep o'Day Boy's Cabin, 62, 90, 91. 
 
 Pedlar, The, 46. 
 
 Penny Wedding, The, 46, 52, 60. 
 
 Pifferari Playing Hymns to the 
 Madonna, 76. 
 
 Pitlessie Fair, 6, 11, 13 26, ^i. 
 
 Pope and Bonaparte, The, 62, 91. 
 
 PoETBAiTS : — 
 Adelaide, Queen, 89. 
 Arbuthnot, Viscount, 96. 
 Buccleuch, Duchess of, 37. 
 
 „ „ Duke of; 37. 
 Clergyman and his wife, 44. 
 Donne, Robert James, 96. 
 Edward Irving, Rev., 90. 
 Esdaile, J., 91. 
 
 Ferguson, Mrs. Hamilton, 06. 
 F'tzgerald, Lady Mary, 31 
 
INDKX. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Gentleman Beading, 93. 
 Himself, 4. 
 Kellie, Lord, 66. 
 Knighton, Sir WiUiam, 93. 
 Lady, A, 89. 
 Lady of Quality, 44. 
 Lansdowne, Marchioness of, 37. 
 Laurie, Sir Peter, 96. 
 Leslie, Sir John, 89. 
 Lucas, Mathew Prime, 96. 
 Macgrigor, Bart., Sir James, 90. 
 Montagu, Lord, 91. 
 Neave Family, 37, 41. 
 O'Connell, M.P., Daniel, 95. 
 Spanish Senhorita, 80. 
 Sussex, Duke of, 88. 
 Tankerville, Earl of, 93. 
 Victoria, Queen, 96. 
 Wellington, Duke of, 88, 89, 90. 
 WUliam IT., 88, 93. 
 York, Duke of, 66. 
 
 Public House Door. See Village 
 
 Festival. 
 Queen's First Council, 93, 94, 95. 
 Beading of the Will, 76, 77, 78. 
 Befusal, The. See Duncan Gray. 
 Bent Day, The, 22, 23, 29, 30, 52. 
 
 „ „ Sketch of, 44. 
 Boman Princess, &c., 79. 
 Sancho Panza, &o., 89. 
 School, The, 67. 
 Scott Family, The, 56, 57, 60. 
 Sheepwashing, 52. 
 Sick Lady, &c., 32, 34, 36, 37, 43. 
 „ „ ■ sketch, 44. 
 Smugglers, &c., 67. 
 Spanish Monks, 88. 
 Spanish Mother, The, 89. 
 Spanish Posada, The, 80. 
 Spanish Senhorita, 80. 
 Still at Work, The, 90. 
 Student, The,, 96. 
 Sunday Morning, 30, 44. 
 Tartar in a Turkish Caf^, &c., 99. 
 Village Festival, The, 35, 40, 42. 
 Village Holiday, The, 43, 45. 
 Village Becruit, The, 12, 14. 
 Village Politicians, The, 21, 23, 24, 
 43. 
 
 „ Sketch of, 44. 
 Wardrobe Bansacked. See Man 
 
 with the Girl's Cap. 
 Whisky StiU, The, 54, 60, 96. 
 Writer, The, 99. 
 
 Pisa, 70. 
 
 Pitcairus, Dr., 35. 
 Pitlessie School, 3. 
 Pius VIL, Pope, 91. 
 Plymouth, 39. 
 Pompeii, 75. 
 Portsmouth, 39. 
 Poussin, N., 74. . 
 Prague, 77. 
 
 Prince Begent, The, 46, 60. 
 Prince of Wales, 41. 
 Private Exhibition, 43, 45. 
 
 Baebuen, 15. 
 
 Baimbach, 43, 51, 60, 67, 69, 84, 85, 
 88, 92. 
 
 Eaphael, 8, 71, 75. 
 
 Batho-Byres, 1. 
 
 Bejected Pictures, The, 58. 
 
 Eembrandt, 9, 36, 40, 48, 52, 74, 97, 
 99, 101. 
 
 Beyuolds, Sir Joshua, 20, 27, 35, 39, 
 40, 72. 
 
 Rhine, The, 98. 
 
 Rhodes, 100. 
 
 Ribera. 80. 
 
 Bice, Mr., 62. 
 
 Richards, B.A., 40. 
 
 Bogers, Samuel, 34. 
 
 Romano, Giulio, 98. 
 
 Rome, 71, 72, 73, 78. 
 
 Rotterdam, 97. 
 
 Bouen, 47. 
 
 Boyal Academy, 13, 14, 20, 40, 41, 
 42, 46, 84, 93. 
 
 Boyal Academy, Exhibition of (1805) 
 14, (1806) 23, (1807) 26, 27, (1808) 
 32, (1809) 30, 38, (1810) 41, (1811) 
 42, (1813) 46, (1814) 46, (1815) 50, 
 58, (1818) 60, (1822) 61, (1823) 66, 
 (1824) 67, (1825) 67, (1830) 85, 
 (1832) 86, (1833) 88, (1834) 88, 
 (1835) 89, (1836) 90, (1837) 93, 
 (1838) 94, (1839) 95, (1840) 96, 
 (1841) 96. 
 
 Eubens, 35, 40, 51, 52, 71. 
 
 Bunciman, 15. 
 
 Buskin, John, 28. 
 
 Russell, Lord John, 92. 
 
 Buysdael, 97. 
 
 Saint Amdbew's, 13. 
 Saint Jerome (Correggio), 73. 
 Salerno, 75. 
 Salvator Bosa, 74, 90. 
 
112 
 
 INDKX. 
 
 Salzburg, 98. 
 
 Saunders (lumiature painter), 18. 
 
 Saxony, 77. 
 
 Schleisheim, 98. - 
 
 School of Anatomy (Eembrandt), 97. 
 
 Scott, John (editor of the Morning 
 
 Chronicle)^ 50. 
 Scott, Sir AValter, 36, 38, 53, 55, 56, 
 
 62, 6(4, 66, 75, 83, 84, 87, 92. 
 Seguier, 82. •> 
 
 Severn, E.A., 82. 
 Shee, E.A., Sir Martin, 27, 40, 84. 
 Sidney, Death of Sir Philip, 60. 
 Simplon, The, 70. 
 SLstine Chapel, 72. 
 Smirkc, K.A., Sydney, 28, 40. 
 Smith, Rev. Sydney, 34, 36, 37. 
 Smyrna, 99. 
 Society of Arts, 20. 
 Soelen, M. Verstolk yan, 97. 
 Spain, 80, 81. 
 
 Stafford, Marquis of, 46, 52. 
 Steen, Jan, 9, 52. 
 Stewart, Dugald, 53. 
 Stirling, 54. 
 -Stodart, Mr. (pianoforte maker), 19, 
 
 69. 
 Stonehaven, County Hall, 96. 
 Stothard, E.A., Thomas, 40. 
 Straohan, Dr., 4. 
 Strathfieldsaye, 88. 
 Sultan, The, 99. 
 
 Sunday Morning (Collins), 91, 92. 
 Swinbourne, Bart., Sir John, 60. 
 Syndics, The (Eembrandt), 97. 
 
 Teniebs, 9, 15, 18, 22, 24, 26, 29, 30, 
 
 34, 35, 48, 51, 61. 
 Thoinpson, 27. 
 Thomson.Dr., 34, 35. 
 Thomson, Miss, 35. 
 Thomson, George, 5. 
 Thomson (JEdinburgh), 8, 9. 
 Thomson, E.A., H., 40. 
 Thorwaldsen, 73. 
 Titian, 35, 71, 72, 73, 74, 76. 
 Toeplitz, 77. 
 Tracova, 98. 
 Trafalgar, Battle of, 19. 
 Tresham, B.A., 28, 40. 
 Trieste, 78. 
 Trustees' Academy, 5 — 10. 
 
 Turner, E.A., J. M. W., 15, 27, 40, 103. 
 Twiss, Mr., 37. 
 Tyrol, The, 76. 
 
 Vandehvelde, 97. 
 
 Vanderwerf , 62. 
 
 Velasquez, 80, 90. 
 
 Venice, 76, 78. 
 
 Venus (Titian), 74. 
 
 Vernon, Mr., 62. 
 
 Veronese, Paul, 35. 
 
 Vesuvius, 75. • 
 
 Victoria, Queen, 93, 94. 
 
 Vienna, 77, 98. 
 
 Virgin and Child (Correggio), 75. 
 
 Waagen, De., 27, 30, 42, 66, 87, 89, 
 
 91. 
 "Waghom, Mr., 102. 
 "Ward, E.A., 28. 
 Watteau, 8. 
 
 Wellington, Duke of, 61, 86, 88. 
 Wells, Mr., 34. 
 Wells, Colonel, 61. 
 West, E.A., Benjamin, 15, 28, 40. 
 WestaU, E.A., 21, 28, 38, 40. 
 Whiteford, Caleb, 50. 
 Wilkie, Eev. David (Father of Sir D. 
 
 W.), 1, 10, 19, 23, 25, 45. 
 Wilkie, James (Brother of Sir D. W.), 
 
 2. 
 Wilkie, James (of Gilchristown), 1. 
 Wilkie, John (Brother of Sir D. W.), 
 
 2, 32. 
 Wilkie, John (Grandfather of Sir D. 
 
 W.), 1. 
 Wilkie, Eev. John (of Uphall), 2. 
 Wilkie, Matthew (of Bonnington), 2. 
 Wilkie, Thomas (Brother of Sir D. 
 
 W.), 10, 102. 
 Wilkie, William (of Ormiston Hill) , 2. 
 Wilkie, Eev. William (of Eatho), 2. 
 Will and Jean, 38, 44. 
 William IV., 86, 88,- 89, 92, 93. 
 Wilson, Andrew, 31. 
 Wilson, Eichard, 27, 82. 
 Woodbum, W., 97. 
 Woodford, E.A., 40. 
 Wouwerman, 52. 
 Wyatt, E.A., 40. 
 
 YouNO, Me., 69. 
 
 EiclmrJ, Clay I; Sons, Lhr.ilel, London, ^ BunQay.