Gents Mag 1809 p.1142

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	Gentleman's Magazine 1809 p.1142 the moderate sum of five guineas, and became a candidate for the prizes distributed by the Society for the Encouragement of Arts and Sciences. For his Death of Wolfe he would have obtained the second prize in 1763; but, after a decision in his favour (if we rightly understand this part of his history), it was reversed in favour of Mortimer, and the Society voted Romney a present of 25 guineas, which "he accepted with lively gratitude - not as a compensation for an injury received, but as a free and liberal encouragement to his promising talents." In 1764 he visited the Continent, less on a settled plan of travel and study than as a short excursion of pleasure. At Paris he was introduced to Vernet, the celebrated landscape and marine painter, and visited all the galleries and repositories of art in that city. On his return, after an absence of only six weeks, he resumed his labours in Gray's Inn; and in 1765 obtained from the Society of Arts the second prize of fifty guineas for his Death of King Edmund; and continued to exhibit pictures for most of the London Exhibitions for some years. Of his skill Mr. Hayley remarks, that, "though he was continually improving, and his resemblances were eminently strong, yet it must be owned, before he visited Italy, his pictures discover the defects arising from a want of studious familiarity with the great models of his art: his portraits were often hard, cold, and heavy." Such was his success, however, that when he left England, for the sole purpose of improvement, he had raised his professional income to no less a sum than twelve hundred a year. He travelled to Rome with a brother artist, Mr. Humphry, leaving London March 20, 1773; they arrived at Rome in June, where Romney devoted himself to intense and sequestered study. "Such was the cautious reserve which his singular mental infirmity, a perpetual dread of enemies, inspired, that he avoided all further intercourse with his fellow-traveller, and with all the other artists of his country who were then studying at Rome." Of his pictures while in this place Mr. Hayley has recovered very few notices; but the details of his excursion are abundantly interesting, and accompanied by reflections of great importance to young artists. In the beginning of July 1775 he returned to London, and, after residing a few months in Gray's Inn, hired a house in Cavendish Square, vacant by the death of Coates, the eminent crayon-painter, and now inhabited by the very ingenious poet and artists, Mr. Shee. "It was at Christmas in 1775 that Romney took possession of this memorable residence. He was then in the very prime of his life; his health had been improved, and his mind enriched, by two years of foreign study: and he had the active good wishes of several friends in his favour. Yet in his singular constitution there was so much nervous timidity, united to a great bodily strength, and to enterprising and indefatigable ambition, that he used to tremble, when he waked every morning in his new habitation, with a painful apprehension of not finding business sufficient to support him. These fears were not only early flutterings of that incipient hypochondriacal disorder which preyed in secret on his comfort during many years; and which, though apparently subdued by the cheering exhortations of friendship and great professional prosperity, failed not to shew itself more formidably, when he was exhausted by labour, in the decline of his life." Romney, however, resumed his labours with abundant success; and in 1776 acquired the friendship of his Biographer; a circumstance which powerfully increases the interest arising from this narrative, as Mr. Hayley now speaks from personal knowledge, frequent visits to and from the Artist, and an unreserved correspondence by letter. In 1777 Mr. Hayley's admiration of his friend produced the "Epistles to Romney," which have been long before the Publick, and are here reprinted as a suitable accompaniment to the Memoirs. Mr. Hayley, likewise, while endeavouring to account for the fewness of Romney's capital pictures, considering his time and fame, occasionally digresses into remarks and anecdotes which are highly entertaining, but for which we must refer to the work itself. Let it suffice to notice, in a sketch like the present, that in 1785 Romney painted portraits to the value of 3635l. His prices now were, for a whole-length,
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