paragon of elegance. She had a fan in ber hand; — Lord, how she held that fan! It was weak in execution, and ordinary in features, but the farthest possible removed from any thing like vulgarity. A professor might despise it; but in the mental part I have never seen any thing of Vandyke's equal to it. I should find it difficult to produce any thing of Sir Joshua's that conveys an idea of more grace and delicacy." * For the most characteristic parts of this memoir I am indebted to the kindness of Richard Ramsay Reinagle, Esq. R. A. ROMNEY. GEORGE ROMNEY, in the opinion of Flaxman, the first of all our painters, for poetic dignity of conception, was born at Beckside, near Dalton, in Lancashire, on the 15th of December, 1734. His ancestors, yeomen of good repute, lived till the stormy times of the Commonwealth near Appleby in Westmoreland; when the civil tumults compelled his grandfather, as yet a young man, to seek refuge in the county of Lancaster. He married there at the mature age of sixty; but such were his temperate habits and the excellence of his constitution, that he lived to see his children's children. John, one of his sons, was taught the united trades of carpenter, joiner, and cabinetmaker. Subdivisions in labour prevailed less then than now; and though something of a dreamer in curious projects and expensive plans, he acquired considerable wealth, and, what was better, such reputation for worth and fair dealing, that his neighbours called him "Honest John Romney." He took to wife Ann Simpson of Sladebank, in Cumberland, a clever and frugal woman, who loved to set her house in good order, and see her children brought up in piety and knowledge. Of sons they had at least four; viz. William, who died when about to depart to the West Indies; James, who rose to the rank of colonel in the service of the East India Company; Peter, who gave such proofs of genius in art as made his early death be very deeply regretted; and GEORGE, who acquired such fame in painting, as, at this day, renders his story a matter of national interest. Of all our eminent artists, Romney has perhaps been the most fortunate in his biographers. Reynolds squandered his wines, his portraits, and, finally, his fortune, on men of skill and genius; yet none of them wrote a word worthy of him when he was gone. Romney moved among persons of less literary eminence, yet his character as a man and his talents as a painter have been more cleverly as well as cordially dealt by. Cumberland the dramatist penned a short but able memoir, soon after the death of the artist; Hayley the poet next put forth an elaborate life, accompanied with engravings and epistles in verse; and lately the painter's son, the Reverend John Romney, has published an account more interesting than either. Of these works it may be safely said, that the first is imperfect and unsatisfactory; that the second, though diffuse in its details, is not very correct; and that the third, with all its merits, has too much of the tenderness of the son to be so particular as could be wished as to personal and domestic matters. If it be thought that I treat the names of the poet and the dramatist with less ceremony than their fame deserves, I answer, that I have but adopted, |