same distinguished brother, on the 10th of January, 1828:-"It may be part of the happiness of your present existence to have lost all remembrance of the misery of a London life to those engaged in the daily toil of their profession, and linked by it (with some duties) to the just or fancied claims of its society. I want you to remember some part of this your past life, that you may the sooner forgive me for not immediately acquainting you with the result of my application to the council of the Royal Academy to become subscribers, on your recommendation, to the series of engravings now in progress from the finest pictures of the Spanish school. I have the pleasure to tell you, that I am now furnished with their authority for requesting you to put down the Royal Academy of England as subscribers to this work.

"How exceedingly interesting must that collection of pictures be, by so great a master, over which neglect has thrown its protecting mantle, and thus fortunately saved them from the havoc of repair! In the latter days of Titian, he appears to have been singularly bold and fearless, dashing his colours on the canvass, with little systematic preparation: delighting in novel foreshortened views of the figure, in which (as seen from a low point of sight) he and Fuseli are the highest authorities, and, in some instances, losing sight (as perhaps in the apotheosis of Charles) of that sterner dignity of sense, which accompanies the grandeur of his St. Peter Martyr, and the family of the Pesaro. You find nothing of Mengs to raise him in your estimation over what he appears in the ceilings of some of the smaller chambers of the Vatican. The mention of his ephemeral reputation recalls the objects of his adoration and study, the San Georgio, and the Notte, at Dresden. On the whole, which do you consider the higher effort of power? I was going to say the most intellectual, but the phrase has its two applica

tions: the one as expressing the highest effort of the reasoning faculties, and, therefore, strictly intellectual; the other as conveying that effusion-that emanation of genius, which the sacredness of the subject so imperiously demands. But we know the entirely different frame of mind with which the artist prepared himself for each: he came to the latter with the same awe, though not in the tones of sorrow, with which Milton invokes the sacred groves when he has to lament his Lycidas, girding up his genius to the task; and it was then he might have answered as the poet to his friend, 'You ask me what I am about what are my present thoughts? My Diodati, let me whisper it in your ear. I think, so Heaven help me, of immortality-I plume my wings, and meditate a flight.' This immortality, which when the powers that claim it are genuine and consistent is equally fame at the present moment, can be gained only by the addition of the original to the powerful and the true."

He rejoiced in the success of the clever and the enthusiastic, and wrote them long letters of counsel and encouragement. The following is addressed to that young artist whom he requested to draw the view of Rome: it is dated the 9th of March, 1829. "I need not tell you how sincerely I rejoice in your success hitherto you have won your spurs by your own valour,' however much the kindness of friendship may have cheered you in the contest. The painting of your figures last year convinced me of your increasing ability in the study of the human figure; and, unless you attempt the higher dramatic or epic style of composition, you already walk in perfect safety, and need fear no pitfall in your path. am anxious to see the picture you are now sending, of which I heard, last night, a very favourable opinion from Mr. Turner. There is a gentleman here who is desirous of having two small pictures of you, about the size of the Boy and Girl, at your own price

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and subject. He is not in the circles of fashion, but known to almost all our artists by his liberal patronage and gentlemanly conduct, His name is Vernon, Let me know that you undertake them for him. There are many competitors for your little picture of 'The youthful Italian Lovers; but having your own authority for considering it to be Mr. Bailey's, I retained it for him. Beautiful as your drawing of the same subject was, I preferred the picture. I am well acquainted with the talents and intelligence of Mr. Havell; if you now go to complete those sketches which were but slightly traced with him, and add to them the colour and effects of nature, your tour with a man of such known taste and knowledge of composition, whether beautiful or grand, will have been all gain, and the benefit lasting. I shall not fail to give your remembrances to Callcott, who will be much gratified with the report of your success, You are fortunate in having still the society of Mr. Eastlake; án advantage that cannot be too highly appreciated."

Another letter to the same artist, dated the 27th of March, 1829, is still more interesting: it is full of good counsel in professional matters, and shows the anxiety of the president for the improvement of the students. "Your drawings will, doubtless, be much admired; but I prefer your picture, which I think very beautiful. You have rendered an incident in nature, which, though it ought always to be hallowed, is, yet sometimes unpleasing in itself, and often grossly represented, with a delicacy and affection that make it deeply interesting and pathetic: you have likewise given the essential in such subjects,beauty. You have taken great pains with your principal figure; and the eyes are as well drawn as the other features of her sweet countenance; but in the two boys, the one on the ass and the other accosting him, the eyes are two dark blots, and illformed. Let this carelessness be soon impossible

to you. In that sweet little picture, too, of last year, the boy was not looking quite in the girl's face. Be at the pains often to draw that feature: I can quote high authority for it: I have a sheet of eyes, drawn by Michael Angelo for some young painter, like yourself, whose genius had excited the friendly effort. Try, too, to get something of better character in your skies and distance. Do not be content with insipid fair Roman painting (this between ourselves). Clouds, it is true, are all softness; but we have been too long accustomed to see them touched with the expression of the pencil, to be content with their tame and spiritless representation. It is the same with your distances; they are very accurate, of true and sweet hues, but you do not scumble enough, nor give that fair zest of pencilling which is so exquisite in the first works of Claude and Turner. One thing is against you, viz. the coarseness of your canvass, which no quantity of colour could well subdue."

Few of his letters go so much into the detail of art; and it is seldom that his correspondence is so free from the frivolous and the complimentary. He very rarely wrote concerning the art of composition or the use of colours. When, however, in 1827, Burnet published his clever "Practical Hints on Colour in Painting," in which he questions the assertion of Reynolds, that the masses of light in a picture should always be of a warm mellow colour, yellow, red, or a yellowish, white, and instances proofs to the contrary, both in art and nature, Lawrence thus vindicated, in his own gentle way, the opinion of Sir Joshua. Agreeing with you in so many points, I still venture to differ from you in your question with Sir Joshua. Infinitely various as nature is, there are still two or three truths that limit her variety, or rather that limit art in the imitation of her. I should instance for one the ascendency of white objects, which can never be departed from

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with impunity; and again, the union of cojour with light. Masterly as the execution of that picture is, I always feel (a never-changing impression on my eye) that the Blue Boy of Gainsborough is a difficulty boldly combated, not conquered. The light blue drapery of the Virgin in the centre of the Notte is another instance, a check to the harmony of the celestial radiance round it."

During the last ten years of his life, he supplied the Exhibition with many fine works; and with none which could not bear comparison with the best of other academicians. He prided himself much on the portraits which he painted of George IV., and preferred one in his private dress to the others; yet the king was full-bodied, inclining to be corpulent, and, when painted in his tight close-bodied dress, looked ill at ease; his clothes in the picture fit so tight, that they seem to give him pain. Lawrence was a great flatterer. He lavished his summer colours upon autumn and on winter; and gave to declining years the vigour and the life of youth.. He painted many heads which he desired not to exhibit, and some, which would have been worthy of any gallery, came hurried from his hands by the impatience of the proprietors: others, again, were forced into the Exhibition, merely by the vanity of the subjects. The following portraits were willingly exhibited by the painter:-1. Count Woronzow; 2. Duke of York (again); 3. Duke of Bedford; 4. Earl of Harewood; 5. Archbishop of York; 6. Lord Francis Conyngham; 7. Sir William Knighton; 8. Earl of Clanwilliam; 9. Duke of Devonshire; 10. Sir William Curtis; 11. Lord Bexley; 12. Lord Robert Manners; 13. Lord Francis Leveson Gower; 14. Richard Clarke, Chamberlain of London; 15. Duke of Clarence; 16. Sir Ralph James Woodford, Governor of Trinidad; 17. Archbishop of Armagh; 18. Earl of Hardwicke; 19. John Angerstein, Esq.

Sir Thomas was now nigh sixty years of age; and