FROM A PICTURE IN THE POSSESSION OF THE RIGHT HONALE JOHN WILSON CROKER Published by John Murray, lbanarle Street, 1833. OF THE MOST EMINENT BRITISH PAINTERS, SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS. BY ALLAN CUNNINGHAM. VOL. VI. LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. MDCCCXXXIII. PREFACE. My undertaking is now concluded, and I have the agreeable duty of thanking my friends for their aid, the public for its kindness, and critics for much mildness and forbearance. I at first imagined that three volumes, or at most four, would hold all I had to say; but as the work advanced, new sources of intelligence were opened. What was intended for a sketch took a more important form, and I soon perceived that I required more room, and greater fulness, both of narration and remark. The deaths, too, of such men as Lawrence and Jackson obliged me to extend my plan; nor am I sure that I have yet admitted all artists of merit and genius into my volumes. In tracing the lives and delineating the characters of the chief men of our native school of art, I have endeavoured to be scrupulously impartial: it was my wish to speak warmly of merits and candidly of faults, and in no way to sacrifice my own opinion in matters either of taste or conduct. Yet, |