not annihilate, that envious malevolence which genius and prosperity are so apt to excite. Dr. Johnson very truly said of Reynolds, that he was the most invulnerable of men; but of Romney it might be said, with equal truth, that a man could hardly exist whom it was more easy to wound.

"His imagination was so tremblingly alive, that even a slight appearance of coldness in a friend, or of hostility in a critic, was sometimes sufficient to suspend or obstruct the exertion of his finer faculties.

"Had it been possible for Romney to have united a dauntless and invariable serenity of mind to such feelings and powers as he possessed, when his nerves were happily free from all vexatious irritation, I am persuaded he would have risen to a degree of excellence in art superior to what has hitherto been displayed: for Painting, though we justly celebrate some very glorious characters among the many who have professed and ennobled it, have never been so honoured and so cultivated as to reach those points of perfection which it is capable of attaining, but which, we have reason to fear, it will never attain, because they can hardly be reached without a favourable coincidence of many most improbable circumstances in the fortune of nations, and in the destiny of individuals.

"Both Reynolds and Romney had the misfortune to begin their career under the heavy disadvantage of very imperfect professional education. Several works of both may be thought to verify the latter part of a penetrating remark, by Mr. Shee, in contrasting the Painters of France and of England. Of the first he says, 'They are timourous combatants, who exhaust their powers in preparation, and chill the ardour of enterprize by their coldness of precaution. We, on the other hand, are often rash adventurers, who plunge into dangers against which we have not provided, and rush into the field before we are sufficiently armed for the fight.'

"Yet, considering the various impediments that both Reynolds and Romney had to surmount, the degree of excellence that each attained in their happiest productions is highly honourable to the genius of our country, and ought to endear the memories of both to every lover of art. In estimating the merits of Reynolds we ought never to forget the deplorably abject condition of the Arts in our country when he began his career. In the early part of the last century it was acknowledged that nothing could be found which seemed to deserve the title of English Art. There is a letter concerning Design, written at Naples in the year 1712, by the philosophical Lord Shaftesbury, who was extremely fond of pictures, in which he says, 'As to Painting, we have as yet nothing of our own native growth, in this kind, worthy of being mentioned.' Yet at that time the penetration and the patriotic spirit of this contemplative Nobleman led him to predict that his Country would gradually form for herself a taste in all the Fine Arts superior to that of the great rival Nation, in which a despotic and ostentatious Monarch had recently affected every kind of pre-eminence'

"It was the opinion of this noble Author, and it seems to be an opinion in which his active fancy did not overpower his judgment, that to the Arts the voice of the people is the breath of life. 'There can be no Publick (he says) where the people are not included; and without a public voice, knowingly guided and directed, there is nothing which can raise a true ambition in the artist; nothing which can exalt the genius of the workman, or make him emulous of after-fame, of the approbation of his country, and of posterity.' He therefore thought it an advantage to England that she had settled her government on the noble principles of freedom before she began to cultivate her native talents for the pencil. Such a public voice, as this celebrated Writer justly considered of so much importance, has been gradually formed in our country, in the course of the last century; and of all individuals Reynolds may be regarded as having contributed the most, by the united influence of his pictures and his writings, to its formation and to its guidance.'

"The decease of Reynolds, as I have intimated in noticing that event, rather quickened than relaxed the ambition of Romney. He felt all the merits of his great departed predecessor, and was anxious so to employ the precarious residue of his own impaired health that he also might hope for a considerable portion of posthumous regard."