utterance. Other actors are men of slow proceedings; but he was like the lightning. It is quite impossible to form an idea of the sensations he conveyed, whether he chilled you with horror, or convulsed you with laughter. Other actors may be compared to Otway or Rowe; but Garrick alone was Shakspeare." His sympathy was wide and far-reaching; nor did he think that to speak once to a man of genius in his life was notice sufficient. Jackson he ever regarded as a friend, and watched his progress in art with much solicitude. "I am rejoiced," he said to Lord Dover, "to hear of the recovery of our friend Jackson, whose life is as good as his works. I have known him from his outset ; and I verily believe no human being was ever more free from envy, hatred, malice, and every bad and unkind passion." His generosity was great. He aided largely in bringing forward Jackson: he countenanced Coleridge; and when his hour of adversity came, he stirred himself so that the poet obtained that pension from the Royal Society of Literature, which men fondly hoped would last for life. While he lived, genius never solicited him in vain.

Of his skill as a painter I have heard artists speak both in terms of censure and commendation. While writing this imperfect sketch, I applied to one whom I reckoned equally clever and candid for his opinion; and his evasion of the question I must consider as unfavourable. I have, however, seen many of Beaumont's landscapes; for, as he painted for several hours almost every morning, he produced numbers, some of which he gave to his friends, and others to public galleries; and, if I may venture to speak from my own feelings, I must say there is nothing of commonplace in their conception. He felt the poetry of the scenes which he desired to delineate; and his notions are all akin to the lofty and the grand. An acre of meadow, a tree in the middle, a

cow at its foot, and a crow on the top, was a kind of landscape which he never contemplated. He loved Claude, and imagined that he imitated him. His heart was, however, with Wilson; if he set up the former for his model, his eye wandered unconsciously to the latter. In his works, there is less of the fine fresh glow of nature than I could wish to see there are glimpses of grandeur; indications rather than realities-the dawn, but never the full day. Yet nature had bestowed on him the soul and the eye of a fine landscape painter; scenes shone on his fancy which his hand had not skill to imbody: he saw paradise, with angels walking in glory among the trees; but the vision either passed away, or was dimly outlined on the canvass. Nature had done much for him; but fortune rendered the gift unavailing. Coleorton Hall, and a good income, hindered him from ranking with the Wilsons, the Turners, and the Callcotts of his day; the duties of his station, the allurements of polished society,-in short, the want of the armed hand of poverty to thrust him into the ranks of the studious and the toiling-hindered him from acquiring that practical skill of execution without which imagination and taste are comparatively fruitless. Yet, with all these draw backs, he has left works which will continue his name for centuries among the lovers of the poetic and the beautiful.

The dignity of his household was well maintained after his death by his lady, who in look and taste so much resembled him that they seemed akin She did not long survive her bereavement. Cole orton Hall, with all its fine scenery, has passed into the hands of a kinsman, who sustains, I am glad to hear, the old estate and hospitality of the gifted family of Beaumont.

LAWRENCE..

SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE, principal painter to e king, and president of the Royal Academy, was burn on the 4th of May, 1769, in the parish of St. Philip and Jacob, Bristol, within a few doors of the birthplace of Robert Southey, the poet. He was the youngest of sixteen children, most of whom died in infancy. His father, a Thomas also,—had been educated for the law; but was either so unsteady of purpose, or so unfortunate in choice, that he became successively attorney, poetaster, spouter of odes, actor, revenue officer, farmer, and publican, and prospered in none of these callings. The artist's mother, Lucy Read, was distantly related to the house of Powis, and, therefore, of gentle blood; -an honour which Lysons, the antiquarian, would fain have established for the family of her husband also.

The early history of the painter is painfully mingled with the fortunes of his father. One who saw him when young said he was a handsome child, with large bright eyes, and a voice unusually sweet. His father, at that time landlord of the Black Bear Inn, Devizes, turned his good looks and fine voice to advantage, and taught him the art of spouting select passages from the poets, for the entertainment of customers. Before he was five years old the child had stood on a table, held out his right arm, and recited to the wondering guests some of the speeches from Milton, and sundry of the odes of Collins. He had luckily done more; he had learned to write; and moreover to draw portraits, which he did with such skill as to likeness that his father

usually introduced him to his visiters with "Gentlemen, here's my son,-will you have him recite from the poets, or take your portraits?"

The recital of odes, and the sketching of likenesses, were matters unfavourable to his education, and injurious to his simplicity of manners. His father, indeed, and it is believed his mother also, instructed him privately in grammar and spelling; he was also sent, at the age of six years, to the school of Jones, near Bristol, and afterward received lessons from Lewis, a dissenting clergyman, at Devizes: but with all these helps and snatches, his education was superficial and imperfect; he was altogether ignorant of classic lore; and his knowledge of the English poets, much as it has been praised, was really nothing uncommon. He could, however, make his little go far. "The art of repeating poetry in the happiest manner," says Williams, "continued to be one of the most pleasing traits in Sir Thomas's social, or I should say, private conversation; in mixed company he was too unostentatious to use quotations-but in small parties, or talking to his sisters, he was the most apt, succinct, and correct quoter of English verse that could be met with." His voice was sweet and musical, and he seemed to feel deeply the sentiment of the poetry. It is wonderful, in fact, that Lawrence learned so much, and suffered so little, as he did, in the natural manliness of his character, under the system pursued by his father. All the finer sympathies of the soul are apt to be strained and injured by exposure in early youth to the transient gaze of strangers. That he was not made an utter coxcomb was not the fault of his father.

Others, however, would have been to blame had this happened. Garrick, I am told, was pleased once, during his stay at the Black Bear, to listen complacently while the boy, urged by his father

recited a long passage from Shakspeare: on the great actor's return, within the space of a month, as he alighted, he called out, "Landlord, has Tommy learned any more speeches, eh?" and ordering the boy and his tea to be taken to the summer-house in the garden, said, "Come now, my man, begin ;" and when the tea and the spouting were finished. he clapped his head, and said, "Bravely done, Tommy: whether will ye be a painter or a player, eh?" The fame of the wonderful boy of Devizes reached Prince Hoare, a man of taste both in art and literature: he heard him recite Lycidas, and saw some hands and eyes of his drawing, and pronounced the latter beautiful. In the painting of the human eye Lawrence became afterward unrivalled. Fuseli, who called our best portraits "bits of fine colour," swore passionately that the eyes of Lawrence rivalled those of Titian: the painter's praise could go no higher. The consequence of all this notoriety was a portrait of the prodigy at the age of seven years, from the graver of Sherwin. Mrs. Siddons, it is said, added her praise to that of the multitude, and declared that his voice in recitation was harmonious, and his action just.

The Rev. Dr.

With admirers came advisers. Kent proposed that a boy of such natural powers should have instructers, and, to open his mind a little, lent him "Rogers's Lives of Foreign Painters." Mr. Lawrence, however, had a notion of his own: "Genius," he said, "must be its own instructer; reading will but lead my boy astray. I have, however, no objections to his studying from the old masters; and for that purpose he may go round and take a look at the neighbouring picture galleries." Corsham House, the seat of the Methuens, had some valuable paintings, and thither was he taken: he was lost during the tour of the apartments, and was found gazing upon a picture by Rubens. "Ah!" he sighed as he was taken away,