house in Eyre-street-hill, Cold Bath Fields, where death struck him in the fortieth year of his age. Morland was buried in the cemetery of St. James's Chapel, in the Hampstead Road, November, 1804. In the same month of the same year his unhappy wife was laid beside him. There is no mark over the grave, but its position is noted in the life of the painter Collins: "he was buried in the middle of the small square plat, as you enter the gates on the left hand." The Rev. Henry Stebbing (a name as honourably connected with literature as with the Church) assisted me in clearly defining the spot. He told me that the portion of ground nearest the chapel, and parted by a line of bushes from the lower portion, is the most expensive part of the ground, consequently Morland's friends desired to testify a respect for his genius. The registers enabled us to define the spot. It is shown in the engraving, where the figure introduced points toward it. It is in an open space, a little in advance of the tomb of the Corbould family (the third and highest to the spectator's right); and not far from the spot is buried (also in an unmarked grave) the once-celebrated Lord George Gordon, the instigator of the "No-Popery" riots of 1780, who died in Newgate, 1793. Of other artists buried here some lie in unmarked repose; but two Royal Academicians, Charles Rossi, the sculptor, and John Hoppner, the portrait painter, have inscribed tombs. The altartomb of Rossi is lying in broken confusion; he died only in 1839. Thirty short years have brought an apparently enduring record to ruin and who is to restore? Morland never had a memorial; perhaps the spot should be marked by his name; but is there not a silent teaching in the obscure grave, an epitaph more eloquent than any written one? His fame is engraven on his works; with them let it remain. Save as an example to others, it is well not to lay open the sad history of the painter's life, nor "Draw his frailties from their dread abode." HE late President of the Royal Academy, Sir Martin Wilson as "a reproach to the age in which he lived. With powers which ought to have raised him to the highest fame, and recommended him to the most prosperous fortune, Wilson was suffered to live embarrassed and to die poor;" and this was at a time when £2,000 a year could be realised by an inferior artist, Barret, although "Wilson's landscapes," to use Barry's words, "afford the happiest illustration of whatever K there is fascinating, rich, precious, and harmonious in the Venetian colouring,"-a testimony which nothing but genuine merit could have extorted from such a critic. A more caustic writer and artist, equally able to decide on true merit, Dr. Wolcot, despite of the neglect of would-be cognoscenti, exclaimed, in his "Peter Pindaric Odes to the Royal Academicians : " "6 $ Old red-nosed Wilson's art By Britain left in poverty to pine. Thou start'st at my prophetic rhymes! Don't be impatient for these times- Wait till thou hast been dead a hundred year!" The justness of Wolcot's judgment has been abundantly testified since he wrote these lines; the pictures that Wilson could only sell for a few pounds each, and then only to charitable pawnbrokers, have since fetched as many hundreds. Indeed, small pictures, which he used to place along the wash or skirting boards of his studio, and which in these days will bring from one hundred to two hundred guineas each, were bought from the artist by a well-known picture dealer (who told me the anecdote himself) for sums of one, two, and sometimes three guineas. At one time the "English Claude" was so far reduced in circumstances as to be unable to execute a small commission when he was in great want of it, because he had not money enough to purchase canvas and colours. This great landscape painter was born in one of the finest He was districts of Wales, that most picturesque haunt of landscape. painters. He was the third son of the Rev. John Wilson, Rector of Penegoes, in Montgomeryshire, where he was born in 1713. His mother was of the family of Wynne, of Leeswood, near Mold, Flintshire. He received a good classical education, and early showed a marked predilection for drawing. taken to London, at the age of fifteen, by his relative, Sir George Wynne, and placed under Wright, a portrait painter. He soon, however, commenced on his own account, and painted, among other notables, the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York. After some time he set off for Italy, where, unconscious of the bent of his genius, he continued to paint portraits. There he frequented good society, and was much respected. Zuccherelli and Vernet, having seen his sketches, prevailed upon him to relinquish portrait and apply himself to landscape painting. Raphael Mengs painted his portrait in exchange for a landscape. In 1755, after six years' residence in Italy, he returned, and took up his abode in London. He continued to paint fine pictures, but his art was too intellectual for the public taste of his day. His style was too broad, suggestive, and masterly; it savoured too much of mind and artistic feeling to meet with a just echo in the breath of the uninitiated. Still he persevered, without catering to the bad taste that was, and always is, fashionable. The style of this distinguished artist formed an epoch in English landscape painting. His claims to praise are grandeur in the choice or invention of his scenes, felicity in the distribution of his lights |