heard of my intended departure from England, he wrote to me in the kindest manner upon the subject, and expressed his fears that I had not met with sufficient encouragement. He concluded his letter with these words: For my own part, I can only say, that I will gladly give a thousand guineas for a companion picture to Sancho and the Dutchess.' As this was more than double the price I had received for that picture, I replied that I should consider it a robbery to receive it for one of the same size, but that I should be most happy to paint him a picture in America, if he would allow me, on condition that the price should not exceed five hundred guineas; and this picture I am now to paint for him. I have mentioned this last circumstance, because a statement of it has appeared in some of the newspapers, in which it is erroneously, said I refused the commission. Next to Sir George Beaumont, the Earl of Egremont was the first to appreciate Mr. Allston's merit. Sir George employed Mr. Allston to paint a large picture of the Angel delivering Saint Peter from prison, which he presented to the church of Ashby de la Zouch; and Lord Egremont purchased his 'Jacob's Dream,' and a smaller picture of a female reading. Lord Egremont remarked to me that the figures in 'Jacob's Dream' reminded him more of Raphael than any thing else he had seen by any modern artist. "I omitted to mention in its proper place, that in 1817 I visited Paris, with Messrs. Allston and Collins. I spent three months there, making studies from pictures in the Louvre, and then returned to England through the Netherlands, in company with Mr. Stuart Newton, whom I met in Paris on his way to London from Italy."

He

Mr. Leslie remained but a short time in this country. had been induced to believe that the teachership of drawing at West Point would be converted into a professorship, with additional advantages corresponding with those of the other professorships, and that he would be provided with a painting-room; but the difficulties which seemed to stand in the way of the measure, caused him to resign his situation and return to London. We may lament, that such a man was allowed to depart without every effort being made to retain him.

"Leslie," says a critic, quoted by Mr. Dunlap, "is all nature, not common, but select all life, not muscular, but mental. He delights in delineating the social affections, in lending lineament and hue to the graceful duties of the fireside. No one sees with a truer eye the exact form which a subject should take, and no one surpasses him in the rare art of inspiring it with sentiment and life. He is always easy, elegant and impressive; he studies all his pictures with great care, and, perhaps, never puts a pencil to the canvass till he has painted the matter mentally, and can see it before him shaped out of air. He is full of quiet vigour; he approaches Wilkie in humour, Stothard in the delicacy of female loveliness, and has a tenderness and pathos altogether his own. His action is easy; there is no straining; his men are strong in mind without seeming to know it, and his women have sometimes an alluring naivete, and unconscious loveliness of look, such as no other painter rivals." "The pictures of Leslie are a proof of the fancy and poetry which lie hidden in ordinary things, till a man of genius finds them out. With much of a Burns-like spirit, he seeks subjects in scenes where they would never be seen by ordinary men. His judgment is equal to his genius. His colouring is lucid and harmonious; and the character which he impresses is stronger still than his colouring. He tells his story without many figures; there are no mobs in his composition; he inserts nothing for the sake of effect; all seems as natural to the scene as the leaf is to the tree. His pictures from Washington Irving are excellent. Ichabod Crane' haunts us; 'Dutch Courtship' is ever present to our fancy; Anthony Van Corlear, leaving his mistresses for the wars,' is both ludicrous and affecting; The Dutch Fireside,' with the negro telling a ghost-story, is capital; and Philip, the Indian Chief, deliberating,' is a figure worthy of Lysippus."

The same critic is inclined to look upon some of Leslie's English pictures as superior even to those which the remem

brance of his native land has awakened. "Sir Roger de Coverly going to church amid his parishioners-Uncle Toby looking into the dangerous eye of the pretty Widow Wadman-and sundry others, are all marked with the same nature and truth, and exquisite delicacy of feeling."

The Murder of Clifford," in the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts, painted soon after his first visit to London, is far from being one of Leslie's happiest efforts, and gives but little idea of his excellence. The subject indeed is not one congenial to his pencil. The most admirable specimen of his style, in this country, is perhaps his " Ann Page and Master Slender," in the collection of Philip Hone, Esq. of New York.

With regard to Mr. Newton, we cannot resist the temptation of copying a letter from one whose name alone would ensure its perusal.

My dear sir,

"New York, March 9th, 1834.

"I know nothing clear and definite about Mr. Newton's early life and his connexions. He was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where his father held a post, I think in the commissariat of the British army. I am not certain whether his father was not a native of Boston, but feel sure that his mother was, and that she was sister to Stuart the painter, after whom Newton is named. On the death of his father, which happened when Newton was a boy, his mother returned to her relations in Boston. Here Newton was reared; and being intended for commercial life, was placed with a merchant. While yet a stripling, however, he showed a talent and inclination for drawing and painting, and used to take likenesses of his friends. These were shown about and applauded, sufficiently to gratify his pride and confirm his propensity; and in a little while it became apparent that he would never become a merchant. His friends were determined to indulge him in his taste and wishes, and hoped that he might one day rise to the eminence of his distinguished uncle. One of his elder brothers, who was engaged in commerce, being about to make a voyage to Italy, took Stuart Newton with him, and placed him at Florence, to improve himself in his art. Newton was never very assiduous in his academical studies, and could not be prevailed upon to devote himself to that close and patient drawing after the living models, so necessary to make an accomplished draughtsman; but he almost immediately attracted the attention of the oldest artists by his talent for colour. They saw, in his juvenile and unskilful sketchings, beautiful effects of colour, such as are to be met with in the works of the old masters, gifted in that respect. Several of the painters would notice with attention the way in which he prepared his palette and mixed his colours; and would seek, by inquiry of him, to discover the principles upon which he proceeded. He could give none. It was his eye that governed him. An eye for colouring, in painting, is like an ear for harmony in music, and a feeling for style in writing-a natural gift, that produces its exquisite result almost without effort or design in the possessor.

"Newton remained but about a year in Italy, and then repaired to Paris, from whence he soon passed to England-arriving in London about the year 1817. Here he was fortunate enough to find his countrymen, Washington Allston and Charles R. Leslie, both sedulously devoted to the study and practice of the art, and both endowed with the highest qualifications. Allston soon returned to the United States, but Leslie remained: and from an intimate companionship for years with that exquisite artist and most estimable man, Newton derived more sound principles, ele gant ideas, and pure excitement in his art, than ever he acquired at the Academy. -Indeed the fraternal career of these two young artists, and their advancement in skill and reputation, ever counselling, cheering, and honouring each other, until they rose to their present distinguished eminence, has something in it peculiarly generous and praiseworthy. Newton has, for some years past, been one of the most VOL. XVII.

-No. 33.

22

popular painters in England, in that branch of historical painting peculiarly devoted to scenes in familiar life. His colouring is almost unrivalled, and he has a liveliness of fancy, a quickness of conception, and a facility and grace of execution, that spread a magic charm over his productions. His choice of subjects inclining chiefly to the elegant, the gay and piquant, scenes from Moliere, from Gil Blas, &c. yet he has produced some compositions of touching pathos and simplicity: among which may be mentioned, a scene from the Vicar of Wakefield, depicting the return of Olivia to her family.

"Of Newton's visit to this country, his marriage, &c. you have doubtless sufficient information. Should you desire any additional information on any one point, a written question will draw from me all that I possess. When I am well enough, however, to bustle abroad, I will call on you, and will be able, in half an hour's chat, to give you more than I can write in a day.

"I am, my dear sir,
Very truly yours,

"WASHINGTON IRVING."

Mr. Leslie also bears this testimony to the merits of his friend:

"Mr. Newton is blessed with an exquisite eye for colouring. He had also a great advantage in being from his childhood familiar with the works of his illustrious. uncle Stuart. He very soon became known in England, and with less study than is usual, arrived at and maintains a very high rank among English artists. His comic pictures possess genuine humour; and as you have, no doubt, seen the engraving. from his picture of the Vicar of Wakefield restoring Olivia to her mother, you can judge of his power in the pathetic-I know of nothing in the art more exquisitely conceived than the figure of Olivia."

The distressing malady which has recently laid its heavy hand upon Mr. Newton, will not, we trust, continue long to deprive the world of his delightful labours. It was not only by his genius as an artist, that he was so great a favourite among those with whom he was intimate. Few could surpass him in the power of rendering himself an agreeable companion when he chose. In reference to his pencil, we once heard an odd application by the celebrated wag, Hood, of a well-known line of Pope. Some person present having remarked, that there was too little shade in Newton's pictures, "Yes," replied Thomas, "God said, Let Newton be, and all was light."

The criticism, however, is not correct. The following list of Mr. Newton's works was given by him to a gentleman of Philadelphia.

"The list excludes portraits, excepting a few of remarkable persons, or where the composition removes them from the department of mere portraiture.

William E. West, also residing in London, is another artist who has done honour to our country by his productions in this department. Born in Baltimore, he studied with Mr. Sully in Philadelphia, exercised his talents for some time in the city of Natchez, and went to Europe in 1822, where he soon afterwards. made himself known by his portrait of Lord Byron, painted at Leghorn, of which Moore makes mention in his life of the poet. Having spent some years in Italy, he went to London, and there fixed his abode. Mr. Leslie, says of him," his best pictures are The Pride of the Village,' and Annette de l'Arbre,' the pathos and expression of the last of which attracted the admiration of Mr. Stothard and Mr. Rogers, two men whose good opinion is well worth having. His pictures have a merit not the most common in the art the principal figures are much the best."

We have been struck in reading these memoirs with the manner in which many of the subjects of them have absolutely fought their way, it might be said, to reputation and fortune, furnishing evidence the most conclusive of the folly of the doctrine, that the mental tree inclines according as the twig is bent. In spite of early impressions and education even repugnant to the spirit of art, did the men to whom we refer devote themselves heart and soul to its worship; and nothing but the indomitable energy of a vocation, the propensity that was breathed into their bosoms with the breath of life, could ever have given them strength to overcome the obstacles in their way. "The common mind" may be formed by the hand of instruction and habit, just as the lowly bush may be trained in its growth, but as easily might the pride of the forest be forced to creep along the earth instead of aspiring to the skies, as the intellect, vivified by the inspiration of genius, be diverted from its predestined course. The sap, in both cases, is too vigorous for repression. A mute inglorious Milton we hold to be an impossibility, notwithstanding the high authority in support of the idea. Faculties capable of producing the Paradise Lost might indeed be prevented by circumstances from such an achievement, but they could not fail to manifest in some mode their existence. The bold condensation by a recent poet, of the stanzas of Gray-"the world knows nothing of its greatest men"-might be adduced, we think, as a proof that their truth does not correspond with their beauty.

Among the memoirs alluded to, that of the distinguished portrait painter who has made Philadelphia his home, is particularly interesting. We regret that we can give but an outline little calculated to convey a just idea of the history narrated by Mr. Dunlap. Thomas Sully was born in June, 1783, in Horncastle, Lincolnshire, and was brought to this country by his parents in