sweet food to the palate of the patron, regardless though it be wormwood to that of the painter. Hence arises an eulogy on the beauties and perfections of the person painted, and regrets that they are so inadequately rendered by the person painting; while frivolous objection succeeds to frivolous objection, and impossibilities are expected and required as if they were possibilities. I have too frequently witnessed this, and per and patience have often been on the point of deserting me, even when Mr. Opie's had not apparently undergone the slightest alteration—a strong proof that he possessed some of that self-command which is one of the requisites of good breeding."

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He experienced no such difficulties in his historical compositions-the heroes or the beauties of other days had no friends to be fastidious about their merry eyes or their smiling lips, and he could exchange dark ringlets for tresses of gold, and distribute glowing complexions, according to his own will and pleasure. He had, however, an equally painful battle to sustain with the men of taste and virtù, whose heads were crammed with the remembrance of the principal works of the great masters of Italy-men who had ridden posthaste through the continent, and returned with the incurable belief that every thing old was excellent -every thing new poor and degenerate. Originality was looked upon as something strange and outré — to trust to the strength of nature was weakness-to work so that the spirit and effect could be justified by reference to Rembrandt or Raphael, was to possess true taste, and to be embued with the spirit of the great masters. Opie,

it must be admitted, wanted poetic power to enable him to rise to the first eminence as an historical painter-but he had a sense of propriety of action and vigour of character which these connoisseurs wanted nerve to feel, and which have stamped no light value on many of his historical productions.

Those which have caught public fancy most are the Murder of James the First, of Scotland; the Presentation in the Temple; Jephthah's Vow; the Death of David Rizzio; Young Arthur taken Prisoner; Arthur with Hubert; Belisarius; Juliet in the Garden; and the Escape of Gil Blas and Musidora. Many others might be named, and many more praised; for he conceived without much delay, and executed with great readiness. He had no air-drawn visions of beauty before him which his pencil loved to follow; he sketched in his group, sought living nature to help him out with what was not in his mind's eye, and, bending his subject to his model rather than elevating the model to suit the subject, enslaved himself to the literal flesh and blood which he copied. "He painted what he saw,' says West," in the most masterly manner, and he varied little from it. He saw nature in one point more distinctly and forcibly than any painter that ever lived. The truth of colour, as conveyed to the eye through the atmosphere, by which the distance of every object is ascertained, was never better expressed than by him. He distinctly represented local colour in all its various tones and proportions, whether in light or in shadow, with a perfect uniformity of imitation. Other painters frequently make two separate colours of objects in light and in shade,-Õpie never. With him no colour

whether white, black, primary or compound—ever, in any situation, lost its respective hue.

His works were not the offspring of random fits of labour, after long indulgence in idleness; they were the well-considered progeny of his mind and hand—the fruit of daily toil, in which every hour had its allotted task. He sketched out a plan of weekly study, from which pleasure or persuasion seldom wiled him. He was always in his painting-room," says Amelia Opie, "by half-past eight in winter, and by eight o'clock in summer; and there he generally remained, closely engaged in painting, till half-past four in winter, and till five in summer. Nor did he ever allow himself to be idle when he had no pictures bespoken; and as he never let his execution rust for want of practice, he, in that case, either sketched out designs for historical or fancy pictures, or endeavoured, by working on an unfinished picture of me, to improve himself by incessant practice in that difficult branch of art, female portraiture. Neither did he suffer his exertions to be paralysed by neglect the most unexpected, and disappointment the most undeserved."

The world looks only at the brilliant result of an artist's labour. We see a magnificent work, filled with divine shapes and glowing with the freshest hues of heaven and earth, and the idea never darkens in our fancy that he who created this prodigy is in dread of want, and perhaps even now knows not how he is to be fed to-morrow.

Though he had a picture in the Exhibition of 1801, which was universally admired, and purchased as soon as beheld"—I quote once more the

words of his widow-" he saw himself at the end of that year and the beginning of the next almost wholly without employment; and even my sanguine temper, yielding to the trial, I began to fear that, small as our expenditure was, it must become still smaller. Not that I allowed myself to own that I desponded; on the contrary, I was forced to talk to him of hopes and to bid him look forward to brighter prospects, as his temper, naturally desponding, required all the support imaginable. But gloomy and painful indeed were those three alarming months; and I consider them as the severest trial I experienced during my married life. Even despondence did not make him indolent; he continued to paint regularly as usual, and, no doubt, by that means increased his ability to do justice to the torrent of business which soon afterwards set in towards him, and never ceased to flow till the day of his death.'

There is no doubt that Opie incurred a debt of gratitude to Wolcot for his frank and friendly encouragement, when he was a menial in his house in Cornwall, and for his anxious introduction of " the Cornish Wonder" to the novelty-gazers of London. The poet often complained that the painter was ungrateful. He probably expected that when Opie had earned fame and name, he should still consider himself under the shadow of his patronage. I know not enough of the private history of the artist to decide, with certainty and exactness, in how far he was blameable for the coldness which took place between them, and anticipated the grave. doctor was an odd and capricious man, who loved swearing better than satire, and united them both

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frequently to the injury of his best friends: it was no wonder therefore that Opie should shrink from his society, more especially if he still retained the airs of the master. Officious go-betweens carried to the artist the last satiric thing which the poet had uttered concerning him, and then returned to the satirist with the morose and surly observations of Opie. "What ails Wolcot at you?" said one of those persons once I thought he had been a friendly and kind-hearted man?” "Aye, aye," answered Opie-" in time you will know him." When the painter's works happened to be praised in Wolcot's presence, he always coupled very dexterously the present time with the past, and formed a back-ground to his fame with the humility and darkness of his early life. With him who gave the first cause of offence the odium of this estrangement must abide, and I have, I own, some fears that it appertains to Opie.

For the loss of this early friend, the infidelity of his wife, and the fickleness of popular opinion, he sought a wise remedy-a woman worthy of his affection, who could soothe him in periods of depression, and, by her good sense and clear understanding, aid him in all his undertakings. He was thirty-seven years old, and that youthful fever which all feel was past and gone; he could now choose discreetly. The merits of the lady are widely known-not through the genius of her husband, but her own; and all who have read her works must feel that she was worthy of wearing the name of Opie. To her pen we owe the little that has been publicly told concerning the private life and modes of study of her husband; and