sition naturally somewhat ostentatious-dress out his wife and children as if they had come of nobility -live in a large house magnificently furnished, and surround an affluent table with distinguished guests. Lord Charlemont, who patronised Hogarth, Mr. Locke, of Norbury Park, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Sir William Chambers, Bartolozzi, the engraver, Cipriani, Richard Wilson, and, greatest of all, Johnson himself, were frequent visiters; nor should it be omitted that Joseph Baretti, a man distinguished by the friendship of many eminent persons, and who was skilful in the agreeable art of flattery, had a cover regularly set for him as five o'clock announced the sculptor's dinner hour. This man did not confine his flattery to the hour when the haunch of venison smoked and the wine circulated; in his guide to the Royal Academy he remembered Wilton's dinners, and talks "scholarly" of the high talents, the masterly style, and the taste and skill of his entertainer. Another attraction to Wilton's table was the beauty of his daughter, afterward married to Sir Robert Chambers; her portrait by Reynolds remains to justify the commendation lavished on her--even Johnson was not insensible to the influence of her charms.*

To his labours of public monuments and gains in copying antique statues for noblemen's galleries, Wilton had added the profits arising from a practice common in Italy-that of patching up and repairing

* "Chambers," writes Johnson to Boswell, in 1774, "is either married or almost married to Miss Wilton, a girl of sixteen, exquisitely beautiful, whom he has with his lawyer's tongue persuaded to take her chance with him in the East." Of Joseph Baretti and Richard Wilson, Smith, in his amusing work, says, that he has frequently seen them walking under the rows of large elms which then shaded a rope-walk at the end of Union Street, till Wilton's dinner hour should be announced, by Portland Chapel. "I have the figures of these men still," says the writer, "in my mind's eye. Baretti was of a middling stature, squabby, round-shouldered, and near-sighted; and the landscape painter was rather tall, square-shouldered, and well built; but with a nose which had increased to an enormous size They both wore cocked hats and walked with canes"

old fragments for the collections of those rich an travelled persons whose pleasure it was to purchase them. In this kind of jugglery the Italians excel all mankind-they gather together the crushed and mutilated members of two or three old marbles, and by means of a little skill of hand, good cement, and sleight in colouring, raise up a complete figure, on which they confer the name of some lost statue, and as such sell it to those whose pockets are better furnished than their heads-especially our English cognoscenti. It is indeed wonderful with what neatness and elegance those practised impostors make up a work for sale; all fractures and patches and joints are concealed under a coat of yellowish colouring, which seems the natural result of time-and the rejoicing virtuoso treasures up in his gallery another legitimate specimen of the wonderful genius of Greece! That Wilton dealt occasionally in this kind of manufacture there is abundance of proofthat he ever excelled in it I am inclined to doubt. He failed so miserably with a Torso which had been injured by a fire in Richmond House, that his noble employer ordered the unfortunate rifacimento at once out of his sight. It is now in the Gallery of the British Museum.

Though Wilton, as we have said, resisted successfully the interference of architects in his public monuments, he did not refuse to embellish chimneypieces for the mansions built by his intimate friend, Sir William Chambers. Of these he made many, and as the carvings were profuse and the marble weighty, his profits were not inconsiderable. Some of the chimney-pieces of that period have much of the magnificence of monuments, and contribute greatly to the splendour of the apartments in which they are placed. They are now gone out of fashion; and one cannot but regret this, for in our cold and snowy climate few internal ornaments will ever fix the eye so often as a rich fireplace. His extensive

employment led him into arrangements with the merchants of Carrara, by which he acquired a large supply of the best marble; of this he resold much to his brother artists, and if we may credit the statement of Smith, he knew how to drive a bargain with a penurious purchaser. "Nollekens," says that writer, "who always avoided the possession of too great a stock, was now and then his customer. At one of their dealings, a dispute arising between them respecting the measurement of the last delivered block, Wilton commissioned his agent to toss up with Nollekens whether it should stand at the measurement delivered with it; and though it was doubtful whether the difference would amount to a shilling, Nollekens accepted the proposal made of decision, which, unfortunately for him, was in favour of Wilton." It is incredible, however, that the difference of measurement in a rough block of marble could amount to no more than a shilling: in those days it was sold at about a guinea per cubic foot.

Wilton was one of the founders of the Royal Academy, and his polished manners and splendid table gave him no small influence among the brotherhood of art. After a career of some thirty years, during which he had maintained his station at the head of sculpture, and acquired a fine fortune, he thought of retiring. Age had come upon him; sculptors of higher talent were beginning to make their appear. ance; and he wisely resolved to abdicate the throne before some stronger spirit should thrust him from it. He disposed of his premises; sold his property by auction; and, accepting the situation of Keeper of the Academy, supported his name thenceforth by frequent intercourse with his brethren, and constant interchange of civilities with his patrons and friends. He was one of the most active movers in the impeachment and expulsion of Barry; and performed the duties of his place with the applause of his

fellow-members till his death on the 25th of November, 1803, in the eighty-first year of his age.

Joseph Wilton was tall, portly, and personable; a perfect gentleman in manners; a warm friend, and an agreeable companion. He went always dressed in the extremity of fashion, with a gold-headed cane, and a bag-wig plentifully bepowdered. His bust by Roubiliac represents him with a sculptor's hammer in his hand-it was given by Lady Chambers to the Royal Academy. Of his system of study or habits as an artist, who would inquire as a matter of either improvement or curiosity? and how little could now be ascertained were the inquiry made!

As a sculptor he has little original merit; with much of the mistempered fancy of Roubiliac he shows none of the Frenchman's poetry; he is never lofty, and but seldom natural. There is generally a coldness of sentiment in his faces, and a want of dignity in his attitudes. His groups are mobs; his statues appear reeling and intoxicated; there is no gravity, no repose; all is on the stretch, till action becomes painful. In his chief monuments we look in vain for that melancholy grace and serenity so becoming in sepulchral sculpture. The whole seems tumbling like waves of the sea. All that can be said on the other side is, that Wilton exhibits occasional grace of thought, and frequent skilfulness of execution, and that in his greater works there is a sort of picturesque splendour, which, in the opinion of the mob at least, will cover a multitude of sins.

VOL. III.-G

THOMAS BANKS.

OF BANKS, the fourth remarkable name in British sculpture, much less is known than his genius merits; he who devoted his whole life to the study of works of a poetic order-who imbodied so many of the splendid images of Grecian fable, and was admired for his true antique feeling in art by Reynolds and by Flaxman, might deserve a better record than I can well hope to put together from the already forgotten fugitive literature of his time, and the scattered recollections of a few survivors.

He was the eldest son of William Banks, and was born in Lambeth, on Thames' side, December the 22d, 1735. His mother's maiden name no one has mentioned; she survived her husband, and resided many years at Hampton Court with her second son, Mark, who was one of the officers of the Board of Works. The father, a worthy and a diligent man, was land-steward to the Duke of Beaufort-a station laborious certainly, and of honour in honourable hands, notwithstanding the jeers of Burns and the stern satire of Wilkie. The profits of his situation enabled William Banks to support his family respectably, and give his sons, of whom he had two besides our sculptor, a useful though not a brilliant education. I have heard the classical knowledge of Thomas spoken of in terms of praise; I apprehend, however, that he tasted the literature of Greece, as many are content to do, only in translations. His intimacy with Homer was, I fear, through the medium of Macpherson, whose translation appeared during the course of his studies, and of which