His love of art came upon him early. When he was ten years old he saw Mark Oates--an elder companion, and now a Captain of Marines-draw a butterfly; he looked anxiously on, and exclaimed, "I think I can draw butterfly as well as Mark Oates :" he took a pencil, tried, succeeded, and ran breathless home to tell his mother what he had done. Soon afterward he saw a picture of a farmyard in a house in Truro where his father was at work; he looked and looked-went away-returned again and looked-and seemed unwilling to be out of sight of this prodigy. For this forwardness his fatherwhose hand seems to have been ever ready in that way-gave him a sharp chastisement; but the lady of the house interposed, and indulged the boy with another look. On returning home he procured cloth and colours, and made a tolerable copy of the painting from memory alone. He likewise attempted original delineation from life; and, by degrees, hung the humble dwelling round with likenesses of his relatives and companions, much to the pleasure of his uncle, a man with sense and knowledge above his condition, but greatly to the vexation of his father, who could not comprehend the merit of such an idle trade.

Of the early days of

"The Cornish Boy in tin mines bred,

as Wolcot describes him, we have various and con flicting accounts. The Professor of Ancient History in the Royal Academy says that he followed his studies in art with much ardour, and that his sketches attracted the notice of Wolcot (Peter Pindar), then residing as a physician in Truro, whose knowledge in painting and sound judgment were of great advantage to the young scholar. A rougher man tells a ruder story. "Dr. Wolcot," says Smith. "compassionately took him as a lad to clean

knives, feed the dog, &c., purposely to screen hum from the beating his father would now and then give him for chalking the sawpit all over. Oppy-for so we must for the present call him-always staid a long time when he went to the slaughter-house for paunches for the dog: at last the Doctor was so wonderfully pleased by John's bringing him home an astonishing likeness of his friend the carcass butcher, that he condescended to sit to him, and the production was equally surprising." Some such story as this was related by Wolcot himself, in his half-grave and half-humorous way, at the period when the subject of this memoir was high in fame; but as his purpose was to rebuke the pride of the successful artist, his account must be received with some caution. It is certain, however, that our painter lived while a boy as a menial in the satirist's family, and gained his good-will by his talents.

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How long he remained with Wolcot has not been mentioned. When yet very young, we find him commenced portrait painter by profession, and wandering from town to town in quest of employment. "One of these expeditions," says Prince Hoare, was to Padstow, whither he set forward, dressed as usual in a boy's plain short jacket, and carrying with him all proper apparatus for portraitpainting. Here, among others, he painted the whole household of the ancient and respectable family of Prideaux, even to the dogs and cats of the family. He remained so long absent from home, that some uneasiness began to arise on his account, but it was dissipated by his returning dressed in a handsome coat, with very long skirts, laced ruffles, and silk stockings. On seeing his mother he ran to her, and taking out of his pocket twenty guineas which he had earned by his pencil, he desired her to keep them adding, that in future he should maintain himself."

:

For his mother he always entertained the deepest

affection-and neither age nor the pressure of worldly business diminished his enthusiasm in the least. He loved to speak of the mildness of her nature and the tenderness of her heart-of her love of truth and her maternal circumspection. He delighted to recall her epithets of fondness, and relate how she watched over him when a boy, and warmed his gloves and great coat in the winter mornings on his departure for school. This good woman lived to the age of ninety-two, enjoyed the fame of her son, and was gladdened with his bounty.

Of those early efforts good judges have spoken with much approbation;-they were deficient in grace, but true to nature, and remarkable for their fidelity of resemblance. He painted with small pencils, and finished more highly than when his hand had attained more mastery. Lord Bateman was one of his earliest patrons, and employed him to paint old men and travelling mendicants: sitters such as those neither alarmed the rustic artist with their dignity, nor annoyed him with their remarks-they sat in silent wonder, and beheld the second creation of their persons-then rose, and thought him a wondrous lad. By this practice his hand attained that ready and dashing freedom of manner, which was so much his friend when more fastidious heads came to his easel. His usual price, when he was sixteen years of age, was seven shillings and sixpence for a portrait. But of all the works which he painted in those probationary days, that which won the admiration of the good people of Truro most was a parrot walking down his perch: all the living parrots that saw it acknowledged the resemblance. So much was he charmed with his pursuit and his prospects, that when Wolcot asked him how he liked painting, "Better," he answered, "than bread and

meat."

In the twentieth year of his age our limner formed the resolution of visiting London, and set out for

the great city under the protection of Wolcot. It is said, that the poet and the painter held a consultation upon the rustic sound of Oppy, and both uniting in opinion that it was vulgar and unmusical, changed it to Opie-a name owned by an old Cornish family. The alteration was immaterial, for they are both evidently the same name: but under all the external advantages which Opie could claim over Oppy, he was presented to Sir Joshua Reynolds. He had not as yet determined on having himself announced, in the blazonry of prose and verse, as the "Wonderful Cornishman," on whom nature had spontaneously, without study, dropped down the gifts of art: the President received him courteously, gave him some advice, and desired to see him again. He evidently did not consider this new marvel at all marvellous.

To rise by silent and slow degrees to fame suited ill with the rustic impatience of Opie, and worse with the vanity of Wolcot, who desired to amaze the town by proclaiming a prodigy. Peter Pindar was right for once. Nothing is more capricious than public taste: its huge appetite for wonders requires daily food; and it swallows all with the ravenous avidity with which the giant gulped the wine of Ulysses, and cried, with his half-breathless voice, "More!-Give me more!-This is divine!" Even if the candidate for its fickle approbation wants original genius to carry him triumphantly onwards, he may, nevertheless, have address enough to secure a fortune before his deficiency is discovered-or the huzza rises on the appearance of another new wonder. All this was present to the mind of the sagacious satirist : he took his measures accordingly, and the wealthy and titled hordes, who professed taste and virtù, and were absolute in art and literature, came swarming out to behold "the Cornish Wonder"-for as such the patron announced the painter.

Of the success of this manœuvre Northcote gives

this graphic account :-" The novelty and originality of manner in his pictures, added to his great abilities, drew a universal attention from the connoisseurs, and he was immediately surrounded and employed by all the principal nobility of England. When he ceased, and that was soon, to be a novelty, the capricious public left him in disgust. They now looked out for his defects alone-and he became, in his turn, totally neglected and forgotten; and, instead of being the sole object of public attention, and having the street where he lived so crowded with coaches of the nobility as to become a real nuisance to the neighbourhood, 'so,' as he jestingly observed to me, that he thought he must place cannon at the door to keep the multitude off from it,' he now found himself as entirely deserted as if his house had been infected with the plague. Such is the world!" His popularity was not, however, so very brief as this description would induce us to infer. Some time elapsed before he executed his commissions. When the wonder of the town began to abate, the country came gaping in; and ere he wearied both, he had augmented the original thirty guineas with which he commenced the adventure, to a very comfortable sum; had furnished a house in Orange Court, Leicester Fields; and was every way in a condition to bid immediate want defiance.

The first use which he made of his success was to spread comfort around his mother; and then he proceeded with his works and his studies like one resolved to deserve the distinction which he had obtained. His own strong natural sense, and powers of observation, enabled him to lift the veil which the ignorant admiration of the multitude had thrown over his defects: he saw where he was weak-and laboured most diligently to improve himself. His progress was great-and visible to all, save the leaders of taste and fashion. When his works were Prude and unstudied, their applause was deafening;