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, |