rivalry gives was wanting; and on works which were only to be seen by a few, she wrought with less feeling and care than what artists bestow on paintings which challenge public examination. This was, I have heard, not much to the liking of Mrs. Cosway: she had a desire after excellence in art, and made sketches from Spenser and Shakspeare, Virgil and Homer, and longed to imbody them in fine drawing and imperishable colours. When her portrait of the fair Duchess of Devonshire, which by a refinement in flattery, was painted in the character of the Cynthia of Spencer, made its appearance, there was no little stir. The likeness was excellent, and the poetic feeling not unworthy of the poet. Cosway, however inexorable in regard to painting, was more gentle in the matter of music, of which Maria was passionately fond; and, as he had a handsome house, and a good income, he allowed her to indulge in those splendid nuisances called evening parties. The guests were numerous, and of all ranks and callings who had any pretensions to the elegant;the writer of the last new poem; the speaker of the last best speech in the Commons; some rising star, real or imaginary in art; the man who made the last miraculous escape from shipwreck, or who had walked into the remotest latitude: in short, all the lions of London were there, to see and be seen. Lady Lyttleton, the Hon. Mrs. Damer, the Countess of Aylesbury, Lady Cecilia Johnston, and the Marchioness of Townshend were her intimate friends; General Paoli, Lord Sandys, Lord Erskine, and the Prince of Wales were not unfrequent visiters: and when she desired to have something worthy of public notice, the foreign ambassadors were ready to swell the number of those who listened to the music of "the charming Mrs. Cosway." Cosway found the house in Pall Mall was unsuitable for the display of his works and his finery and removed to one more roomy at the entrance Stratford Place, Oxford-Street. Now it happene that the figure of a lion was attached to this ne residence; and as the painter was a little man, an Smith asserts, "not much unlike a monkey in to face," some wag, whom he had offended, stuck these lines on his door : "When a man to a fair for a show brings a lion, For the lion's without and the monkey's within." To take the sting from this dull conceit, the artis removed to No. 20 in the same street, and proceeded to fit it up in a style of uncommon elegance. "His new house," says Smith, "he fitted up in so picturesque, and, indeed, so princely a style, that I regret drawings were not made of the general appearance of each department; for many of the rooms were more like scenes of enchantment pencilled by a poet's fancy, than any thing perhaps before displayed in a domestic habitation. His furniture consisted of ancient chairs, couches, and conversation stools, elaborately carved and gilt, and covered with the most costly Genoa velvets; escritoires of ebony, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and rich caskets for antique gems, exquisitely enamelled and adorned with onyxes, opals, rubies, and emeralds. There were also cabinets of ivory curiously wrought; mosaic tables set with jasper, bloodstone, and lapis-lazuli, having their feet carved into the claws of lions and eagles; screens of old raised oriental Japan; massive musical clocks, richly chased with or-molu and tortoise-shell; ottomans superbly damasked; Persian and other carpets, with corresponding hearth-rugs, bordered with ancient family crests and armorial ensigns in the centre, and rich hangings of English tapestry. The chimneypieces were carved by Banks, and were further adorned with the choicest bronzes, models in wax, and terracotta; the tables covered with old score, ue, Mandarin, Nankin, and Dresden china; and the tabinets were surmounted with crystal cups, adorned with the York and Lancaster roses, which might pro ably have graced the splendid banquets of the proud Volsey. His specimens of armour were truly rich." To give life to this elaborate picture of elaborate hings, I may add, that Smith once saw the painter n his princely mansion standing" at the fireside upon ne of Madame Pompadour's rugs, leaning against a chimney-piece dedicated to the Sun, the ornaments of which were sculptured by Banks, giving instructions to a picture-dealer to bid for some of the Merly drawings at the memorable sale of Ralph Willett, Esq." Amid all this splendour, Cosway could not be called happy. His skill was still improving, his prices high, and his sitters numerous; nor had any one appeared to excel him in his own peculiar line. The prince, too, continued his visits; nor had any one forsaken him in whose friendship he put trust. But he had begun to detect, it is said, among those who seemed most charmed with his music and cheered with his wines, a disposition to ridicule his taste, and laugh at his pretensions. This, to a man who set his heart on the smiles of the world, could not be otherwise than painful. He heard, besides, that sundry of his brethren rated his talents humbly, and considered him as living by the vanity of mankind rather than by his own powers of imagination; but what affected him most was the failing health of his wife; the climate of England was more churlish than that of her native Arno; and amid the smoke and bustle of London she sighed for the pure air and sunny scenes of Italy. He carried her to Flanders and to Paris. One day as he walked with her in the gallery of the Louvre, he was surprised at the extent of naked wall, and said, " Maria, my cartoons would look well here,-and, to say the truth, they seem much wanted." These were the works of Julio Romano. Cosway prized them highly, and had refused a large price from Russia, saying, he would not sell works of elegance to barbarians. He now offered them as a gift to the French king; they were accepted and hung up in the Louvre; and four splendid pieces of the Gobelins tapestry were bestowed on the painter in token of royal gratitude: these he presented to the Prince of Wales. During this visit to Paris he painted the Duchess of Orleans and family, and the Duchess of Polignac, for the Duchess of Devonshire; yet he appears to have refused to paint either the king or queen; saying he was there for the health of his wife and his own amusement, and not to study and toil. The health of Mrs. Cosway seemed improved by the air of France; and on returning to London, his sitters and her evening parties once more cheered them for a season. But she soon felt that sinking of the spirits coming on which no music could raise or society relieve; and, accompanied by her brother, who had gained as a student in painting the Academy's gold medal, she departed for Rome. Rome, however, she was too much indisposed to reach; and, halting by the way, regained, in a month or two, much of the health she had lost. She remained in Italy nearly three years, expecting every spring and autumn the coming of her husband; at length she commenced her journey home. But she neither found health nor happiness in London: the illness and death of an only daughter threw her upon art once more. To mitigate her grief, she painted several large pictures for chapels, and afterward went to France without regard of the war which had commenced between that country and England, and executed, what she considered her master-piece, a work containing all the pictures in the gallery of the Louvre. The turn which the war took interfered with her stay at Paris: and she was persuaded by Cardinal Fesch to establish a college for the education of voung ladies at Lyons: this plan was interrupted; and with her husband's approbation, she #passed into Italy, and formed a college at Lodi similar to that which she planned at Lyons. On the establishment of peace she returned to England. Changes too had taken place in that land; but none which affected her own peace, though they disturbed the equanimity of her husband. Cosway, it appears, was one of those sanguine men who perceived in the French Revolution the dawn of an empire of reason and taste, in which genius and virtue alone would be worshipped: many of his friends indulged in the same pleasing fancies, nay, the feeling infected men of rank as well as talent.* It was not to be expected that the Prince tof Wales would join in sentiments which affected the crown to which he was heir; though like the Prince Hal of Shakspeare, he had been wild and extravagant, he now looked forward to "doucely fill a throne," as a northern poet had foretold he would live to do, and had begun to grow more select in his company. The increasing infirmities of his father rendered this necessary; and when he became regent, Cosway, like many others, looked in vain for the man of other years. The friends of the painter however, imputed, in part at least, his loss of princely favour to his deficiency in the arts of a courtier, and the native pride of his heart. "He thought himself overlooked and neglected: conscious of his abilities he disdained to stoop, or entreat, or flatter; and imagining that his enemies had got the better of him, he neglected his profession, by which he had risen, and looked with suspicion even on his firmest friends. As his own character was open and generous, his disappointment was the bitterer; he made no attempt to retrieve his influence with the prince, and he never retrieved it." These are the words of one who knew Cosway well, and who thinks he had * I have seen a curious letter by an English nobleman signed “Citizen." |