those instances in which a reality can so far exceed what can be contrived or imagined.

D. W.

TO MISS WILKIE.

Clifton, September, 1836.

Our journey has been most agreeable. While at Bath I called on Mrs. Gunning, who urged me to call on a friend of Mr. Gunning's, near Bath, who possessed some of Gainsborough's fine pictures. Accordingly, I gave up a day to see them, and also to see Corsham, the seat of Paul Methuen, Esq., where, out of a multitude of pictures, collected when fine pictures were rare, I found but one or two worthy of the place and the reputation which it bears. Gainsborough's pictures I saw on my way back; they belong to a Mr. Wilshire, who seemed much pleased to see me at his beautiful house.

D. W.

TO MISS WILKIE.

Kensington, 14th Oct. 1836.

My dear and esteemed friend, Sir William Knighton, died on Tuesday last; and his death was announced to me on that day by a most affectionate note from his son. This is heavy news. I have not heard from the family since. For myself, I may truly say I have never before had such a friend.

D. W.

That a good and active friend was lost to Wilkie when Sir William Knighton died, the artist both felt and said. Sir William was active in his cause, from admiration of his genius and love of the man: he smoothed the court-road in his behalf, and strove to open the royal purse-strings in his favour, when ill health and nervous despondency took him abroad. While he lived Wilkie never lacked a prudent adviser, and when he died he was sensible that he had lost such a friend as neither time or chance was likely to replace.

TO THE RIGHT HON. SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART., M. P.

tied

Dear Sir Robert,

Kensington, 28th Oct. 1836.

The John Knox frame is with me, carefully up in paper, above stairs. The picture is with Mr. Doo, at Camden Town, where I saw him with it some weeks ago proceeding with much zeal and success. By his engagement, he has undertaken to complete his work by a period which will be about fifteen months hence; and he then assured me of his confidence in being able to do so, which his present advance seems to justify.

Mr. Moon, who is the publisher of it, has excited much interest in favour of the subject in all parts of the country.

Be assured I feel much gratified by your thinking of it, in reference to the place it is to occupy in your magnificent mansion, of the completion of which I hear high accounts from all quarters.

D. W.

TO WILLIAM COLLINS, ESQ., R.A., NICE.

Dear Collins,

Kensington, 14th Nov. 1836.

The announcement of your arrival, with Mrs. Collins and the two young gentlemen, at Nice, was received by us all with the greatest satisfaction giving us something to talk about at home, and to write about to those who are at a distance. Interested as we all are in what you see, I am glad, though not in Italy, that you have its climate, its buildings, and, above all to you, its ancient classical Mediterranean before you-sure that, to your eye and in your hands, such objects will turn to the best account.

You mention the loss we have met with, since you left, in the death of our most esteemed friend, Sir William Knighton, regretted much by many in his his own profession, and by many in ours, for acts of kindness and friendship. He used to look to your journey as a happy coincidence with that intended by his son the route and the time of which he hoped would be the same. Many will miss him, but no one more than myself. He honoured me with much attention: his friendly advice was most useful, and even in affairs of art of high value; for he did not judge so much like the artist or the connoisseur, but with the eye of a purchaser and of the public, and what could best influence these, consistent with the noblest purposes of art.

The first Monday in November election has taken place, when Knight was elected an associate in the

room of Clint, and Graves an associate engraver in the room of Fittler, - both by great majorities. The

meeting was thin.

Turner was there, fresh from

they

the north of Italy. Callcott has been unwell, and was not at the meeting. Landseer was absent say at Lord Tankerville's, in Northumberland: the wound in his leg, I am told, does not heal well. I scarcely hear what members are doing. Wyatville and Jones were inquiring about your movements.

Mr. Rice interested me much with your proceedings when in Paris. Travelling is always enlivening. You say you are now comfortably accommodated at Nice; if so, do not leave: pick up what you can in figures, in buildings for middle distances, and, if possible, Italian skies, which, with the green sea and shipping, are the same as Claude and Salvator had to paint, and since whose time no one is better qualified to render with true airy brilliancy than yourself.

D. W.

CHAPTER V.

REMARKS ON PAINTING, BY SIR DAVID WILKIE.

WILKIE now proceeded to execute a work which, since the death of Lawrence, he had steadily revolved in his mind. This was a series of Remarks on Art, in which he was to embody all his own notions, speculations, and experiences: he did not live to execute them to his wish; but unfinished as they are in some parts, and unconnected in others, they exhibit a mind which thought as truly as his hand painted,-which founded all its speculations on observation and practice, and told artists how to work in the spirit of society. These Remarks have no resemblance to lectures wrought to classic pattern: they are the offspring of a mind meditating on peculiar national taste. He insists not that sculpture should deal in allegorical gods, or painting record doubtful miracles or apocryphal saints. He sees that the taste for true art diffused and still diffusing over our island no longer requires painting to preach religion, nor relate history, or meddle with mysteries which it may confound but cannot explain. Nor is he insensible to the sad truth, that in all other nations save his own the fine arts are patronised, and their professors protected by governments who seem aware