Читать книгу The Autobiographical Works of Wilkie Collins - Уилки Коллинз - Страница 14

Table of Contents

1820-1822.

Remarks — Pictures of 1820 — Notice of John Constable, R. A. — Pictures of 1821 — Tribulations of a new Academician — Curious address to the Academy — Hanging Committee — Election at the Dulwich Picture Gallery — Letter to Mrs. Collins — Reflections — Letter to Mr. Joseph — Projected marriage and visit to Scotland — Pictures of 1822 — Notice, illustrated by Mr. Collins’s anecdotes, of Sir David Wilkie — Journey to Edinburgh, during the visit of George the Fourth — Anecdotes of Sir Walter Scott and Sir Adam Ferguson — Design of painting the King’s landing at Leith — Letters to Mrs. Collins — Visit to Blair Adam — Joint production of a sketch by Wilkie and Collins — Progress of the painter’s marriage engagement — Letters to Miss Geddes and Mrs. Collins — Marriage — Anecdote of the Rev. Doctor Alison.

Having traced the progress of Mr. Collins in the preceding chapter up to the attainment of one of the great objects of his professional life, his election as a Royal Academician, it may not be irrelevant or uninstructive, to revert for a moment to the contemplation of some of the causes by which his success as a painter was produced.

It has, I trust, been already demonstrated by his Letters and Journals, and by the remarks that have accompanied them, that ardent as was his devotion to his pursuit, it did not so wholly engross his mind, as to leave it unfitted for watchfulness over his moral, as well as his intellectual advancement. From his earliest days of apprenticeship to the Art, his ambition to acquire renown as a painter was never stronger than his desire to preserve uprightness as a man. This guiding principle of his character cannot be too strongly impressed upon those, who are as yet but setting out on the toilsome journey from the porch to the penetralia of Art; for it offers to them, not a circumstance of biographical interest only, but a practical example and encouragement as well. If the circumstances attending the progress of the subject of these pages through the difficulties of his early career be generally reviewed, it will be found that he triumphed over none of the obstacles that beset him by the aid of his genius alone, but by the additional strength and elevation acquired by those higher qualities of personal character which it was his life’s aim to form, and which shielded his intellectual powers against the bitterest enemies that could assail them, — poverty and neglect. His religious dependence on the saving influence of a right performance of his practical duties, as aiding to produce a happy result from his intellectual exertions, never abandoned, because it never deceived him. It nerved his mind to labour on, when distress sank heavy on his household, and his experience of his neglected efforts might well have bid him despair; its effect on his outward bearing and character raised up for him a friend in his extremity, in the person of Sir Thomas Heathcote: its influence preserved his genius, which it had sustained to success, from over-confidence; and strengthening it in its humility, matured it safely in the final completeness to which it was its privilege to attain: and, lastly, as inclining him to receive cordially the opinions of others, it raised him in the esteem of his professional brethren; and, as constantly presiding over the production of his works, in the honest elabouration of their design and execution, and in the conscientious equality of attention given to their slightest as to their most important divisions, it preserved his faculties throughout his career from the danger of being weakened by carelessness, or misdirected by caprice.

These remarks may appear to delay unnecessarily the progress of this Memoir, but they are suggested by the great truth which the career of Mr. Collins illustrates, — that the powers of the mind, however brilliant, are never too elevated to be aided by the moral virtues of the character; and that between the aims of the intellect and the discipline of the disposition, it is intended that there should exist an all-important connexion, which the pride of genius may easily sever, but which the necessities of genius are never enabled to spare.

On now returning to the regular course of the narrative, my father’s pictures contributed to the Academy Exhibition of 1820 first claim attention. They were; “Portraits of Master Cecil and Miss Fanny Boothby,” painted for the Earl of Liverpool; “A Capstern at work, drawing up Fishing Boats;” and “A River Scene — Cottage Girl buying Fish.” In compliance with the rule of the Academy, that each Academician shall, on his election, present the institution with a specimen of his talents, he also painted this year what is called the “diploma picture.” This work displays an extraordinary combination of deep tone and agreeable breadth, with minuteness, incident, and detail. It simply represents two boys fishing; but the water and foliage in the foreground, and the expression and position of the figures, with the village and trees in the distance, are all painted with that skill, industry, and nature, which give to subjects of this description a peculiar importance and charm. This picture was one of those exhibited after the painter’s death at the British Institution, among the works of the old masters. In reference to his other productions this year publicly displayed on the Academy walls, it may not be uninteresting to observe, that the “River Scene,” for which he received a hundred and fifty guineas, produced at the sale of its possessor’s property, (the late Mrs. Hand,) two hundred and thirty guineas. It was a tranquil inland scene, the first fruit of his journey to Devonshire, delicately treated, and wrought to a high degree of finish. The “Cottage Girl” stands with a child, bargaining with a fisherman, on a wooden jetty at the left hand side of the picture. At the right, fishing boats are moored in the river, which winds onward past hill, village, and wood, until it is lost in the distance. Of the sea-piece, (“Capstern at work, etc.,) painted for Sir Thomas Heathcote, and much admired at the time as a new success for the painter in his most popular style, I am not enabled to furnish a particular description. These pictures are thus noticed in my father’s Journals:

“14th Dec., 1819. — I began a coast scene, with fishermen hauling up boats, etc., for Sir Thomas Heathcote. Painted upon this picture until the first of January, when I went to Lord Liverpool’s at Coombe Wood, for a few days. Returned on the 5th, and, from the 6th to the 28th, again employed on it, when I began a picture of the same size for Mrs. Hand. Sir Thomas Heathcote’s picture is painted in linseed oil and turpentine, and macguilph made of the shook-up drying oil and mastic varnish, with gold size, in the slow dryers. Chrome yellow and orange, (Field’s,) and cobalt, (French,) used occasionally. * Painted upon Sir Thomas Heathcote’s picture until the 8th February, when I took up Mrs. Hand’s, upon which and the sketch I had occasionally spent a few days, both during the progress of Sir Thomas’s commission, and frequently before I began it. Mrs. Hand’s picture was finished on the 3rd of April; upon this I worked more diligently than usual, though by no means so industriously as I ought to have done. This picture is painted, in all respects, with the same material as Sir Thomas Heathcote’s, excepting the use of chromes; of the yellow chrome I believe hardly a touch, and very little indeed of the orange chrome, (Field’s,) and that mixed with other colours.

“Without pretending to be quite correct, and without reference to my habit of occasionally devoting a few days, at sundry times, to arranging my composition on the large canvass, and of course excepting the time, whether long or short, devoted to the original sketch or sketches, I purpose setting down, (when I can do so,) the actual time consumed upon each of my pictures.

“Sir Thomas Heathcote’s picture of a ‘Capstern at work,’ began 14th December, finished 8th February; deducting five days for absence from home, was painted in about seven weeks.

“Mrs. Hand’s picture of ‘A River Scene — Cottage Girl buying Fish,’ begun 8th February, finished 3rd April; was painted in about the same time, — or rather, the days having much increased in length, this picture has had more time bestowed on it. *

1820. May 1st. — Went to Bayham Abbey, for the purpose of sketching at the fˆete given in honour of the coming of age of Lord Brecknock, (May 2nd.) 3rd. Returned with Mr. Watson Taylor and Sir Henry Hardinge.”

The result of the visit above mentioned to the seat of Lord Camden, was a picture, exhibited in 1822, of the birthday fˆete. Later in the autumn of this year, (1820,) I find the painter, by the following letter, visiting Lord Liverpool at Walmer Castle; and afterwards extending his visit to Chichester and the southern coast.

“To MRS. COLLINS.

“Walmer Castle, 1820.

“My dear Mother, — As I shall stay here until Monday evening, or, it is possible, till Tuesday, and consequently not arrive in London as soon as I had purposed, I write to beg you will send me a few lines by return of post, telling me whether by this latter plan, I shall be too late for any engagements you may have made for me in the way of business. I write this in great haste, as I am very busy sketching. I am, thank God, quite well and happy. Lord Liverpool will leave us on Sunday evening. His lordship will probably take some of my sketches to town with him. He will send them, if he does so, to you; but I am not quite certain whether I shall have them dry enough by Sunday.” *

“Rye, Aug. 14th, 1820.

“Lord Camden will bring the sketch I made of the Abbey to town, as it was not sufficiently dry to be removed when I left him. Should my presence in any way be useful at home, I can return immediately. I find little here, or at Winchelsea, to sketch. I am, however, not quite idle; and, consequently, not quite miserable.” *

“Little Hampton, Sept. 14th, 1820.

“I trust I shall escape the beauties, so ‘flat, stale, and unprofitable,’ of this neighbourhood in a few hours, when I shall have reached Arundel, from whence I propose proceeding to Bognor, Chichester, and home. Unless Bognor affords more substantial matter for the pencil I shall soon leave it; and, in that case, probably reach London on Saturday evening. Frank has lost nothing by not joining me, and if I find any place worth his visiting, I will write again. *

“Yours affectionately,

“WILLIAM COLLINS.”

In this year the painter suffered the sudden loss of two relatives, an uncle and. a cousin. His father’s brother, the Rev. James Collins, accompanied by his son, had, more than a year previously, departed for Sierra Leone; the former as chaplain to the British factory, the latter in some other official situation. Both, after a sojourn of short duration on the scene of their new duties, sunk under the pestilential climate of the place the son receiving the first intimation of the father’s death by hearing the digging of his grave under the bedroom-window where he then lay, sick and exhausted himself.

Among Mr. Collins’s professional friends, at this period, the name of John Constable, R.A., the landscape painter, must not be omitted. As original as a man as he was as an artist, his innocent and simple life contrasting strangely with his marked and eccentric character, Constable possessed unusual claims to the friendship of one, who, like my father, was connected with the same branch of Art as himself. An intimacy soon established itself between them; and, to a student of character, few more welcome companions than Constable could have been selected. He possessed a capacity for dry, sarcastic humour, which incessantly showed itself in his conversation; and which, though sometimes perhaps too personal in its application, was never false in its essence, and rarely erroneous in its design. Although occasionally a little tinctured by that tendency to paradox, which appears an inherent quality in the mental composition of men of strong individual genius, his opinions on Art were searching, comprehensive, and direct, and were often as felicitously illustrated as they were boldly advanced. I am here, however, trenching upon ground already well occupied: the character and genius of this admirable and original painter have become a public possession, through the medium of Mr. Leslie’s interesting narrative of his life and labours. During the progress of that work, my father thus wrote to the author upon the subject of Constable; noticing, it will be observed, those sportive sallies, remembered with delight by his friends, but too private in their nature and too personal in their interest to be confided with advantage to the world:

“I have been cudgelling my brains on the subject of the Constable anecdotes, and the result is the recollection of a number of good things, calculated, alas! only for table-talk among friends. This, as I told you, I feared would be the case. The great charm of our lamented friend’s conversation upon Art, was not only its originality but its real worth, and the evidence it afforded of his heartfelt love of his pursuit, independent of any worldly advantages to be obtained from it. I mentioned to you his admirable remarks upon the composition of a picture, namely, that its parts were all so necessary to it as a whole, that it resembled a sum in arithmetic, take away or add the smallest item, and it must be wrong. His observations, too, on chiaroscuro were all that could be made on that deep subject. How rejoiced I am to find that so many of the great things he did will at last be got together, for the benefit of future students!”

In the Royal Academy Exhibition of 1821, my father’s pictures were, — ”A Scene in Borrowdale, Cumberland,” “Dartmouth, Devon,” and “Morning on the Coast of Kent.” He also sent to the British Institution, in the same year, one small contribution, entitled “The Bird Trap.” The first of these pictures was a beautiful combination of mountain landscape and figures, fresh and graceful in colour and treatment; it was painted for Mr. William Marshall. The second, a clear, varied scene, finely diversified in its different parts, was painted for Mr. Phillimore Hicks. The third, a bright, delicate sea-piece, the largest of the artist’s pictures of the year, was painted for Mr. Jesse Watts Russell, M. P. “The Bird Trap,” a rustic scene, representing two cottage boys setting their trap, was made the subject of a mezzotinto engraving, on a small scale; which preserves much of the softness and delicacy of the original work.

Of all the Exhibitions at the Royal Academy with which the painter had been connected, that of 1821 was attended with the greatest anxiety and doubt that had ever tried his patience or perplexed his fancy; for in this year he incurred, as the new Academician, the ungracious duty of making one of the Committee appointed to hang the pictures at the annual Exhibition. It may not be uninteresting to the general reader to describe some of the tribulations attached to this difficult office; tribulations which are doubly felt by those who find themselves exposed to their share of them for the first time. From this moment they discover that one of the privileges attaching to their new dignity, is that of encountering the enmity of no inconsiderable portion of their profession at large. For, when it is considered that the average number of pictures which the Royal Academy has space enough to exhibit seldom amounts to more than two-thirds of the number of pictures sent to it for exhibition, — that out of those exhibited works certainly not more than one-third, from the natural construction of rooms, can be honoured with convenient and conspicuous places, and that, of these two classes of the unfortunate, the discarded and the indifferently hung, there are probably not a dozen individuals who do not labour under the most insurmountable conviction that their maltreated production is the finest work of its class that can be produced, — the amount of anger, disappointment and despair inherited by the “Hanging Committee” will not be easily calculated. None but those personally acquainted with the perilous process of publishing to the world the yearly achievements of contemporary Art, can rightly estimate the difficulties and fatigues of the task. The preliminary processes of accepting and rejecting are but “ prologues to the swelling act.” To give each picture its due position as regards place and light, to hang no pictures near each other but such as in tone and colour harmonize with, or agreeably contrast each other; to attend to the just claims of the members, while exercising strict impartiality towards the merits of the general exhibitors, to make such an arrangement as shall please the critics in its component and combined parts, and attract the public by the variety of its materials and the universality of its interest; are some of the labours attempted each year by the Committee, — labours involving doubts, which a synod of ancient philosophers might vainly endeavour to solve, and producing difficulties, in comparison with which the cleansing of the Augean stable must be viewed as the morning’s amusement of a crossing-sweeper or a groom!

The length of time occupied by this more than Herculean task is three weeks; after which, the new Academician is not unfrequently startled by the following collateral phenomena, informing him as eloquently as a visit to the Institution itself, that the Exhibition has at last opened to the public:- He goes into the street, meets an artist whom he knows intimately, stretches out to him the hand of unconscious friendship, and is welcomed by a lofty look and a passing bow. This artist is disgusted with the position of his picture. Sad and sorry, he passes on, — ventures, perhaps, within the walls of the Academy itself, — pauses opposite a picture of some merit placed in an admirable situation, and is joined by a friend, (not a professional friend this time.) “Ah,” says the latter, “grand work that; painted by a relation of mine, but it has been shockingly treated. Look at that picture by the side of it, — it absolutely kills it! He says it is all your doing, that you are jealous of his talent, and have done it on purpose, and so forth. Of course I tried to pacify him, but it was of no use: he is talking about it everywhere. Great acquaintance, you know — quite thick with the aristocracy may do you some harm, I’m afraid. — Sorry very sorry — wish you had taken more pains about him. Good morning.” Irritated and disappointed, our new Academician goes off sulkily to dine at his club; and, taking up the paper, finds in it a critique upon the Exhibition. All is praise and congratulation until his own works fall under review, and on these sarcasm and abuse descend with crushing severity. He looks round indignantly, and becomes aware of the presence of a literary friend at the next table, who has been lazily watching him over his pint of Marsala for the last half-hour. Greetings, propinquity, explanations ensue. The literary friend’s attention is directed to the criticism. He reads it coolly all through, from beginning to end; and then observes, that it was only yesterday that he saw a friend of his, an artist, who had heard that his watercolour portrait of an officer had been placed in the wrong light in the miniature-room, who had ascribed this indignity to the meddling spirit and utter incapacity of the new Academician, and who had gone off to his brother, who was a great critic, “in fact, altogether a very talented fellow — quite enthusiastic about all his relations,” and had prompted him to forget his usual impartiality, and write down the new Academician’s pictures in revenge. The junior member of the “Hanging Committee” stays not to hear more, but goes home in despair. On his table he finds several letters, — most of them in unknown handwritings. These he opens first; they are anonymous epistles, varying in style, from the abruptly insolent to the elabourately sarcastic. This last visitation of injury proceeds from a cause more deplorable than any hitherto enumerated; the authorship of the anonymous letters being attributable to those modern Raphaels and Michael Angelos whose pictures have been utterly turned out!

Such are some of the tribulations which Academic “flesh is heir to.” For Mr. Collins, the task of assisting in the arrangement of the pictures was one which his extreme delicacy of feeling and great anxiety to be at once merciful and just, rendered of no ordinary difficulty and fatigue. Notwithstanding his solicitude at all times to fulfil his duties in the gentlest possible manner, the most satisfactory evidence that he inherited his due share of the persecutions above enumerated appears among his papers in the shape of letters and petitions, — some anonymous and some signed; some exceedingly insolent and some deplorably lachrymose. In addition to these, a few memorials have been found, addressed to the Hanging Committee of the Academy generally, one of which, emanating from an amateur artist, dated 1821, and consequently inferentially including Mr. Collins in its animadversions, is so unique a specimen of mock humility and disappointed self-conceit; and is, moreover, expressed with such a wonderfully romantic fervour of language, that I cannot resist the temptation of extracting it for the reader’s amusement; merely premising that the different names appearing in it will be concealed, in order to avoid the remotest possibility of giving personal offence to any one.

The remonstrance, or memorial, begins as follows:

“To THE HANGING COMMITTEE OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY.

“1821.

“Gentlemen, — If, in the following lines, any expression which may in the slightest, degree be construed into a want of respect to the Academy shall escape me, I must beg of you to lay it to the score of inadvertence only, and not to an intentional wish to offend, as everything of the kind is, I assure you, furthest from my thoughts. I declare, upon my honour, that I do not know the name of any one single person, out of the eight who compose the Hanging Committee (as I understand it to be called) for the year. Nothing, therefore, of a personal nature towards any individual among you, can possibly be laid to my charge.

“I have been in the habit, for the last fourteen years successively, of sending some specimens of my humble performance to your annual Exhibition, and I know, from various members of the Academy, that my pictures have been willingly received. Mr. — , Mr. — , Mr. — , Mr. — , etc., have all of them, in the strongest terms, been pleased to express to me their approbation, nay, even their praise, and these are not men to natter. Perhaps, however, a still greater proof, (or, what at least ought to be so considered,) of the favourable reception which my pictures have obtained, is, that they have on various occasions been placed in the ‘Great Room,’ — yes, in the very best situations in that room!

“This year I sent up two small pictures, (they are little, very little ones,) in the hope that one of them, at least, might get a moderately good place. As I did not think them inferior to my former attempts, (such is my own opinion,) there seemed nothing unreasonable in my indulging an expectation at once so pleasing to myself and so gratifying to my friends.

“In consequence of a severe illness, I have been hitherto disappointed in my annual visit to Somerset-house; but what think you, gentlemen, must be my disappointment, at being informed by my friends that my pictures are ‘shaved down to the ground,’ in the inner room, and consequently seen to the greatest possible disadvantage. To judge indeed from their report, a much worse situation, I conceive, could not easily have been assigned to them.

“Now, Gentlemen, I appeal to yourselves, is this handsome? Is this considerate? Is this just? I will answer for you; such a proceeding is no less unbecoming to yourselves, than it is injurious to the Art — an Art, for the advancement of which no one is more zealous, more anxious, than myself.

“How often have the very Academicians whom I have named declared to me, that the works of amateurs, of Gentlemen Artists, were most thankfully received by the Academy. ‘Such little flowers, interspersed here and there,’ have they said, ‘make our Exhibition smell less of the shop — they prove to us, too, that the love of Art is disseminating through the country — they do more, they contribute themselves, very essentially, to that most desirable end: besides, they bring grist to the mill, by attracting, as they never fail to do, a host of visitors, whose contributions add to the general fund; that fund (observed they) which is our only support, and without which we should be no Academy at all.’*

* I cannot avoid hinting my suspicions, in this place, that the feelings of the Academy towards their amateur brethren, (although undoubtedly and properly those of friendship and respect) are coloured, here, a little too highly, by the fervid fancy of the author of the memorial.

“To what cause I may attribute the humiliation in my present case, I am at a loss to conceive. An enemy among you I cannot possibly have, I believe: on the contrary, I know full well that I may count many friends in the society to which you belong; and though I say it myself, (indeed it hurts me extremely to be thus compelled to recount favours conferred,) I feel that I have some claim to its acknowledgment and regard.

“Ask, I pray you, Mr. — -, whether he has not received payments from me for four different pictures — commissions — the produce of his masterly pencil? Mr. — -, can tell you who it was that, only last year, gave him the commission for his unrivalled picture of; — and who, he can inform you, in addition thereto, hath been mainly instrumental in obtaining this very year for that artist, no less than for Mr. — -, commissions for their respective pictures, (painted for my son-in-law) now hanging on your walls. Mr. — -, if I mistake not, will not be found backward in making you acquainted, if required, with the terms on which, some years ago, I gave him a commission, at a time when, as I was informed, his finances were low — his spirits depressed, and family afflictions pressed heavily on his mind. Mr. — -, too, has shared of my purse.*

* The gentlemen thus gracefully and opportunely twitted with their obligations to the memorialist were all Royal Academicians of “name and note.” Of their number not one now remains to be the recipient of future remonstrances, and the scapegoat of artistic indignation that is yet to come.

“But I forbear, ashamed as I am at being driven to confessions like these!

“The inference which I wish to be drawn from all this, cannot be mistaken; and I leave you, Gentlemen, to decide whether the part you have acted in regard to me, can be considered such as I have deserved — in fine, whether that part is creditable either to yourselves, or advantageous to the Arts?

“For supposition’s sake, let us for a moment contemplate your Exhibition (be the walls covered as they may) without the appearance of one single specimen from the pencils of Sir — , (that giant of an amateur;) of Sir — ; of Mr. — ; of Mr. — ; of Mr. — ;* and last of all, though perhaps not least, (for so I have been most kindly and encouragingly assured by good and candid judges, among whom was your late worthy President himself,) your humble servant.

* Here occur the names of gentlemen of deserved reputation as amateur artists.

“Would no sentiment of regret no feeling of disappointment, in such a case, allow me, with all due deference, to ask, pervade the bosoms of the more liberal — the high-minded Academicians, (of such there are to my knowledge many to be found) at a sight so alarming, at the appearance of such an hiatus in the show?

“Fully sensible how little there is of real value in my feeble attempts, I have never wished or even thought that they should interfere with the productions of Professors, to whom I am well aware a good place is everything. My claims have ever been of the moderate kind. (Mr. — -, and Mr. — -, will bear testimony, I am sure, to the truth of what I now say,) nor have I ever, even when an acquaintance has been of your number, sought by undue means an interference in my behalf, being firmly persuaded that integrity, that impartiality, that a strict attention to the fair and legitimate demands of real merit ought to be in the breast of the Committee the sole basis whereon its decisions should be formed. Such, I have no doubt, was the wise and ever-to-be-revered intention of the august founder of the Royal Academy.

“But I hasten to conclude, requesting your excuses for this long, and, doubtless to you all, most tiresome tirade.

“I have the honour to be, Gentlemen,

“Your very obedient servant,

“ *”

Such is this ingenious protest. It is presented to the reader, (although he might well doubt it, from the perusal of some of its paragraphs,) exactly as it is written, down to the very italics. Long as it assuredly is, I cannot imagine that its introduction will be considered as wearisome, or that it will be read with any other feelings than those of the amusement which it is so admirably adapted to excite. Little, indeed, do the gay visitors to the Academy Exhibition imagine what an atmosphere of disappointment and jealousy, of petty malice and fruitless wrath, invisibly encircles no inconsiderable number of the failures they ridicule, and even of the successes they applaud.

The office of keeper of the valuable Gallery of pictures at Dulwich having become vacant in this year, Mr. Collins’ brother, Francis, started as one of the candidates for the situation. With the deep affection for his brother and the ardent enthusiasm for his brother’s interests, which ever characterized him, the painter exerted his utmost influence in all directions to ensure the election of Mr. Francis Collins: whose fitness for the honourable and responsible situation that .he desired to fill, involving as it did the whole care and cleaning of one of the most valuable collections of pictures in England, will be found well noticed in the following extract from Sir Francis Chantrey’s testimonial in his favour:

“Through my act, Mr. Collins,” (Francis,) “was employed two years ago to clean a valuable collection of pictures, amounting to nearly an hundred; and it was a trust for which I was responsible. I knew him to be perfectly competent; for he had been educated to this business under his father, himself a picture cleaner much esteemed by artists; and I also knew that he was living at the elbow of his brother, the Royal Academician, and was acquainted with the whole process of a picture, even from the bare canvass. On the whole, I know of no one more competent for the preservation of a collection like yours, and I know no one in whose abilities I would more readily confide. He is an unpresuming, good-tempered, and sensible man, with a love and knowledge of Art, and possessed of much curious information respecting its productions.”

In spite, however, of this and many other valuable recommendations, Mr. Francis Collins was not so fortunate as to gain the keepership of the Dulwich Gallery, — Mr. Denning being the candidate ultimately elected to that office.

Some description of a second tour to Devonshire, undertaken by the painter in the autumn of this year, will be found in the following letter to his mother:

“To MRS. COLLINS.

“Bideford, Oct. 7th, 1821.

“My dear Mother, — My last letter contained, if I recollect with accuracy, an account of your dutiful son, up to his visit to Sharpham. We left that place for Ashburton, taking in our way the parsonage of Mr. Frewde, who, I am truly sorry to say, since I last visited this county has lost the mother of a numerous family. I am sure you must have heard me speak of a most elegant and amiable lady, his wife.

“We slept at Ashburton two nights; and during our stay there visited some of the finest, I think I may say all the finest scenes this beautiful part of Devonshire can show; all the property of my very excellent friend, Mr. Bastard. From thence we returned to Kitley, which I left the following day for Plymouth and Birham, Sir W. Elford’s seat. I then paid a visit to the Leaches, at Spitchwick, where I made sketches of the scenes which Mr. Bastard and myself had pronounced picturesque; viz., fit for pictures. From Spitchwick I returned to Kitley, where I spent nearly a week; after which 1 made the necessary preparations for my northern tour. I have commenced it under the most melancholy circumstances. Upon our entrance into Torrington, we heard the most afflicting account of the loss of upwards of forty fishermen, who have perished in the gale of Thursday evening last, (all inhabitants of Clovelly and its neighbourhood.) With feelings of the deepest melancholy shall I tomorrow set out, please God, for this spot, the scene of so much affliction. The body of one of the sufferers has been found this morning, (a native of this place,) whose son perished at Clovelly on the same night. I shall not send this letter to the postoffice until after I reach Clovelly, only eleven miles distant from this; when I trust I shall be enabled to give you some account of my future plans.”

“Clovelly, Monday evening. — The above account is but too true, and the misery the accident has caused here can never be forgotten. I have this day seen some of the remains of the boats, torn to pieces in a way one would hardly have supposed possible. Going down the village, I saw a crowd assembled before a door; they were singing a psalm over the body of one of their comrades. Not above one half of the corpses have been found. I refrain from any further account of this most awful affair, as I am satisfied it would be too much for you.

“Clovelly certainly presents the finest scenery I ever beheld; but, as the days are now so short and cold, I must use despatch, particularly as I have yet many other places to visit. * It is possible you may receive a basket of stones, and old boughs, and roots of trees from Mr. Bastard, for me to paint from. I mention this, that you may not think you have been hoaxed when you open the parcel.

“Your affectionate son,

“WILLIAM COLLINS”

With the exception of the tour to Devonshire thus recorded, nothing occurred in this year to vary the easy regularity of the painter’s life, — a life which, looked on under its brighter influences, (and to such Mr. Collins had now attained,) is perhaps the most delightful that the varieties of human existence can present. It is refreshing after having enumerated, some pages back, the petty tribulations and small worldly crosses attaching even to the most successful study of Art, to turn to the contemplation of the abstract and intellectual charms, as well as of the real, practical advantages of this noble pursuit. Viewed in his relation to the other branches of Art, — to literature and music alone — the painter enjoys many higher privileges, and suffers fewer anxieties, than either the poet or the composer. He is enabled, with comparatively little delay, to view his composition, at its earliest stages, displayed before him at once, in all its bearings, as one coherent though yet uncompleted whole. When dismissed as finished, it passes fresh from the care of his hand and the contact of his mind to a position where its merits can be easily judged, without taxing the time or risking the impatience of the public. It is then confided to the possession of but one — the individual who prizes it the most — not to be flung aside by the superficial, like a book, or to be marred by the ignorant, like a melody, but to be viewed by the most careless and uncultivated as a relic which they dare not molest, and as a treasure which cannot become common by direct propagation. Then, turning from the work to the workman, we find Nature presenting herself to his attention at every turn, self-moulded to all his purposes. His library is exposed freely before him, under the bright sky and on the open ground. His college is not pent within walls and streets, but spreads, ever boundless and ever varying, wherever wood and valley are stretched, or cliff and mountain reared. Poverty has a beauty in its rags, and ruin an eloquence in its degradation for him. His hand holds back from the beloved form that oblivion of the tomb which memory and description are feeble alike to avert. He stands like the patriarch, “between the dead and the living,” to recall the one and to propagate the other, — at once the interpreter of animating Nature, and the antagonist of annihilating death.

Upon this subject, it was the often-expressed conviction of my father, drawn from his own experience of the good and evil of his pursuit, that “the study of the Art was in itself so delightful, that it balanced almost all the evils of life that could be conceived; and that an artist with tolerable success had no right to complain of anything.”

In the following letter, addressed by Mr. Collins at the beginning of the next year, to a valued and intimate friend, Mr. Joseph, the sculptor, whose merits are well known to the public by his statues of Wilberforce and Wilkie, with many other admirable works, the painter’s own reflections upon the attractions of his profession will be perused in this place with some interest:

To SAMUEL JOSEPH, ESQ.

“London, January 28th, 1822.

“Dear Joseph, — Hoping I should long ere this have seen you in London, I trusted I could have satisfied you that neither neglect nor any abatement of a most sincere regard for you, but an incurable habit of procrastination, has been the sole reason why your letter has remained so long unanswered. My anxiety however to hear from you, since I cannot see you, impels me to send you such London news as my scanty means of information will enable me to collect. In the Arts we are going on much as usual, and much as I fear will always be the case in this country, namely, — cramming the public with that which they have not power to digest. I think, upon the whole, there is more said and less done in the Arts than heretofore, the alarming increase of exhibitions having a tendency to produce derangements of the pictorial system which a little wholesome and legitimate nourishment might have altogether prevented. A lamentable demand for novelty is producing in the Arts, as well as in literature, exactly what might have been expected; and, although the last Exhibition at Somerset-house has been more crowded than upon any former occasion, and readers were never so numerous, the result has been a satiety truly alarming. Every one talks of painting and literature, and what is still worse, all conceive it to be their duty to have opinions; and instead of an ingenuous expression of their feelings, — by which painting and poetry might gather considerable improvement — their only aim seems to be, that of persuading those who are not to be deceived, that they understand both Arts.

“But, enough of the dark side. Notwithstanding the many disagreeable circumstances attending the prosecution of our arduous profession, the real charms of the pursuit are so great, that were the difficulties an hundred times greater, we ought to thank Heaven we are permitted to pursue an employment so replete with abstractions, in their nature scarcely belonging to what is earthly.

“Although I have not made inquiries of you, still your brother has been kind enough to give me information, which, together with your own letter, is upon the whole gratifying. I long to see some of your recent productions. Chan trey has just finished a bust of the King, which entirely surpasses any work he has done in this way. He tells me he has written to you; and I know he has a personal regard for you, and thinks highly of your works. Are we to expect you in the spring? Is it prudent entirely to leave London? Should you determine to take up your quarters in Edinburgh, why not occasionally pay us a visit? In my humble opinion, however, reversing this would be a better thing. Perhaps you could settle the matter more advantageously in London than by any information your friends at so great a distance could give you. I lament exceedingly that I had not the pleasure of seeing Mrs. Joseph, during her stay in London.

“I shall tell you nothing about the fish I am frying, — come and see. Write to me as soon as convenient; I hereby promise to answer any letter you may in future send to me directly. Other matters when we meet, and I most sincerely wish it may be soon. With kind regards to Mrs. Joseph, in which I am joined by my mother and Frank, I am, dear Joseph, with great esteem,

“Faithfully yours,

“WILLIAM COLLINS.”

“P.S. — Best regards to our friend Allan, and such others as care whether I am alive or not. Wilkie has nearly completed his picture; I saw it yesterday. It is one of the most stupendous things ever produced.”

The year 1822 was marked by some variety of incidents in the painter’s life; among which may be noticed his entry on a new sphere of domestic duties as a married man, and his excursion to Edinburgh with Sir David Wilkie, on the occasion of the visit of George the Fourth, — the period at which he first became acquainted with Sir Walter Scott.

His pictures contributed to the Exhibition of 1822, occupying however priority of date in the year, claim priority of notice. They were entitled, — ”A Scene near Chichester,” painted for Mr. Isaac Currie; “Clovelly, North Devon,” painted for Mr. Philips, M.P.; “Woodcutters, — Buckland on the Moor, Devon,” painted for Mr. Lamb ton, M.P.; and “Bayham Abbey, during the celebration of a Fˆete given in honour of the coming of age of Lord Brecknock,” painted for the Marquis Camden. “Chichester” and the “Woodcutters” were two of the painter’s most successful landscapes. In the first the atmosphere is cool, gray, and serene; the highroad with trees at the right, and the open common with figures talking near an old white horse, occupy the foreground; while in the distance rises the spire of Chichester Cathedral, surrounded by the level, open scenery, presented in Nature by the view. The second picture, “Woodcutters,” exhibits a background of soft, dusky, woodland foliage, sunk in quiet shadow. In front, a gleam of sunshine falls over a patch of open ground, encumbered with a felled tree, round which the woodcutters are occupied in their tranquil mid-day meal. “Clovelly,” was the sea-piece of the year. The sketch from which it was produced was made after the storm mentioned in the painter’s last letter to his mother, in which forty fishermen were lost. In the picture, the ocean is yet vexed with the subsiding of the tempest, which caused this terrific calamity; the waves dash brightly and briskly in upon the beach and the fishing-boats in the foreground. To the left of the scene rises the rocky and precipitous shore, studded with cottages, built picturesquely one above the other, and relieved against the sky, whose wild fitful clouds, and fresh vivid atmosphere, remind the spectator of the storm that has lately raged. This picture is, in every respect, a remarkable and original work. The view of Bayham Abbey was a smaller production. A river occupies the foreground, the fˆete is proceeding in the middle distance, and the foliage that clusters round the old abbey, is finely varied by the influence of the richest autumnal tints.

The tour to Scotland with Wilkie, which preceded the painter’s marriage, and to which it is now necessary to revert, will, it is presumed, be not inaptly introduced by a more extended notice than has yet been attempted in these Memoirs, of the distinguished man who was my father’s companion in his journey, and whose brotherly connection with him began with their first acquaintance to terminate only with his death.

It is of Sir David Wilkie, in the capacity in which perhaps he is least familiar to the world, as a companion and a friend, that I would here endeavour to speak. In what is called “general society,” there was a certain unconscious formality and restraint about the manner of this gifted and amiable man, which wrongly impressed those who were but slightly acquainted with him with an idea that he was naturally haughty and reserved. He was never one of those who mix freely and carelessly with the world, whose movements, manners, and conversation flow from them as it were impromptu. With Wilkie, an excessive anxiety to contribute his just quota of information and amusement to a new company weakened, as in such cases it almost invariably does, his social efforts. It was only in the society of his intimate friends, of fellow-painters and fellow-countrymen whom he admired and loved, that the great artist’s real kindness and gaiety of disposition appeared. Then his manners became playful and winning, his voice animated and cheerful, his laugh ready and contagious, as if by magic. Then the jests and witticisms with which his friend Collins loved to perplex him awoke his fund of anecdote, his peculiar vein of humour, his relations — exquisitely amusing in their sedate circumstantiality — of good jokes and clever retorts. No egotism or self-assumption ever tinged his thoughts, or deteriorated his conversation. He appeared, in these social hours, to be absolutely unaware of the illustrious position that he occupied. Although not gifted with that peculiar flexibility of mind which, to use the nursery phrase, enables “grown people to talk to children,” his kindness and patience with them was one of the finest ingredients in his simple, affectionate character. The writer of this biography remembers being often taken, when a child, upon his knee, giving him pencil and paper, and watching him, while he drew at his request, cats, dogs, and horses with a readiness and zeal which spoke eloquently for his warmth of heart and gentleness of disposition. Although full of humour of a particular kind, and of a capacity to relish it frequently in others, he was by no means susceptible of all varieties of jests. Scotch stories and “Irish bulls,” he heartily enjoyed; but to a play upon words of any other description, or to a joke by inference, the “portals of his understanding” seemed to be almost invariably closed. Any attempts to make him understand a “pun” were generally abortive. Two amusing instances of this are given, as follows, in a short collection of manuscript anecdotes of his friend, written by Mr. Collins, which have never before been published, and from which several extracts will be presented to the reader in this place:

“Wilkie was not quick in perceiving a joke, although he was always anxious to do so, and to recollect humorous stories, of which he was exceedingly fond. As instances, I recollect, once, when we were staying at Mr. Wells’, at Redleaf, one morning at breakfast a very small puppy was running about under the table. ‘Dear me,’ said a lady, ‘how this creature teases me!’ I took it up, and put it into my breastpocket. Mr. Wells said, ‘That is a pretty nosegay.’ ‘Yes,’ said I, ‘it is a dog-rose.’ Wilkie’s attention, sitting opposite, was called to his friend’s pun: but all in vain, — he could not be persuaded to see anything in it. I recollect trying once to explain to him, with the same want of success, Hogarth’s joke in putting the sign of the woman without a head, (‘The Good Woman,’) under the window from whence the quarrelsome wife is throwing the dinner into the street.”

As a balance against the above anecdotes, it should be mentioned that, on another occasion, Wilkie succeeded better in the mysteries of punning. On the day when he was knighted, he called on his friend Collins, and, not finding him at home, left his card thus inscribed: “Mr. David Wilkie, — a be-knighted traveller.”

A more amusing instance of the simplicity of his character is thus described in my father’s MS.:

“Chantrey and Wilkie were dining alone with me, when the former, in his great kindness for Wilkie, ventured, as he said, to take him to task for his constant use of the word ‘relly,’ (really,) when listening to any conversation in which he was much interested. ‘Now, for instance,’ said Chantrey, ‘suppose I was giving you an account of any interesting matter, you would constantly say, “Relly!”‘ ‘Relly!’ exclaimed Wilkie immediately, with a look of the most perfect astonishment.”

Another dinner scene of a different description, at Wilkie’s house, is worthy of insertion. Mr. Collins’s brother Francis possessed a remarkably retentive memory, which he was accustomed to use for the amusement of himself and others in the following way. He learnt by heart a whole number of one of Dr. Johnson’s “Ramblers,” and used to cause considerable diversion to those in the secret, by repeating it all through to a new company, in a conversational tone, as if it was the accidental product of his own fancy, — now addressing his flow of moral eloquence to one astonished auditor, and now to another. One day, when the two brothers were dining at Wilkie’s, it was determined to try the experiment upon their host. After dinner, accordingly, Mr. Collins paved the way for the coming speech, by leading the conversation imperceptibly to the subject of the paper in the “Rambler.” At the right moment, Francis Collins began. As the first grand Johnsonian sentences struck upon his ear, (uttered, it should be remembered, in the most elabourately careless and conversational manner,) Wilkie started at the high tone that the conversation had suddenly assumed, and looked vainly for explanation to his friend Collins, who, on his part, sat with his eyes respectfully fixed on his brother, all rapt attention to the eloquence that was dropping from his lips. Once or twice, with perfect mimicry of the conversational character he had assumed, Francis Collins hesitated, stammered, and paused, as if collecting his thronging ideas. At one or two of these intervals Wilkie endeavoured to speak, to ask a moment for consideration; but the torrent of his guest’s eloquence was not to be delayed — ”it was too rapid to stay for any man — away it went,” like Mr. Shandy’s oratory before “My Uncle Toby” — until at last it reached its destined close; and then Wilkie, who, as host, thought it his duty to break silence by the first compliment, exclaimed with the most perfect unconsciousness of the trick that had been played him, “Aye, aye, Mr. Francis; verra clever — (though I did not understand it all) verra clever!”

Further extracts from my father’s notes on the subject of his friend, will be found to assist interestingly in the delineation of Wilkie’s character. They are to the following effect:

“His friends relate of him, that he could draw before he could write. He recollected this himself, and spoke to me of an old woman, who had in her cottage near his father’s manse a clean-scoured wooden stool, on which she used to allow him to draw with a coarse carpenter’s pencil, and then scrub it out to be ready for another day. Showing so decided a fondness for drawing, he was sent to Edinburgh to study at a drawing academy there, and great was his despondency at what appeared to him the wonderful dexterity among the students. From the specimens that he sent home to his friends, their fears were so great that he would not succeed as an artist, that they seriously proposed making him a writer to the signet. However, it was finally determined that he should try his fortune in London. Some years afterwards, the change of life, anxious study, and confinement, produced a long and severe illness, about the period when he painted ‘The Village Festival.’ He went, during this illness, to Sir George Beaumont’s; who, to the time of his death, continued to show the most strong interest and attachment to him. Sir George and Lady Beaumont used, by turns, to read to him. Upon one occasion, during the reading of Fielding’s ‘Amelia,’ the wickedness of one of the characters so affected him, that he begged no more might be read. Sir George used to say that he often watched him while he was painting, when so intense was his labour that he did not appear to breathe.”

“The theme on which he most delighted to talk with his friends, was painting. One day, at his house, we had been some time conversing on this fruitful subject — the mysteries of the Art — before the uninitiated, when his excellent mother thought she ought to apologize to a certain Captain present; which she did in these terms:- ‘You must e’en excuse them, puir bodies — they canna help it!’ The delicacy with which he always abstained from boasting of the notice shown him by the nobility, was very remarkable. He was especially careful never to mention any engagement he might have to dine with great people — but, if his engagement was with an humble friend, the name was always ready; unless, indeed, he had reason to think you were not of the party. The way in which he spoke of the works of contemporaries, without compromising that sincerity which was part and parcel of the man, was truly Christian; and the extreme pains he took in giving his most invaluable advice, showed an entire absence of rivalry. He never had any secrets — his own practice was told at once. His fears, when his pictures were well placed at the Exhibition, that others not so well off might feel uncomfortable, gave him real and unaffected pain. His own low estimate of his works was, to a student in human nature, marvellous. The very small sums he required for his pictures are an evidence of his innate modesty. Four hundred guineas for ‘Reading the Will,’ which occupied seven months of the year in which it was produced, and was afterwards sold for twelve hundred, in a country where that sum will go as far as double that amount in England, is a proof. Many others might be mentioned — as ‘The Rent Day,’ painted for two hundred guineas: sold for seven hundred and fifty — ’Card-Players,’ a hundred guineas: sold for six hundred. It must be recollected that these sales took place during the lifetime of the painter — a most unusual circumstance. When Lord Mulgrave’s pictures were sold at Christie’s, Wilkie waited in the neighbourhood, whilst I attended the sale. It was quite refreshing to see his joy when I returned with a list of the prices. The sketches produced more than five hundred per cent the pictures three hundred. I recollect one — a small, early picture, called ‘Sunday Morning’ — I asked Wilkie what he thought of its fetching, as it did, a hundred and ten pounds, and whether Lord Mulgrave had not got it cheap enough? — ’Why, he gave me fifteen pounds for it!’ — When I expressed my surprise that he should have given so small a sum, for so clever a work; Wilkie, defending him, said: ‘Ah, but consider, as I was not known at that time, it was a great risk!’“

“In going over the pictures at Kensington with George the Fourth, he was much struck with the great knowledge His Majesty displayed, and the usefulness of his remarks to a painter. He was always most anxious to get the opinions of men of the world upon his pictures. I recollect his taking rather a cumbrous sketch in oil, for the picture of John Knox, (now Sir Robert Peel’s) all the way to Edinburgh, for Sir Walter Scott’s opinion. I was present when he showed it to him: Sir Walter was much struck with it, as a work of vast and rare power. Those who are exclusive admirers of his early style, ought not to forget this picture, and Lord Lansdowne’s ‘Monks at Confession’ — ’Columbus,’ painted for Mr. Holford — Mr. Rice’s picture of ‘Benvenuto Cellini’ — Mr. Marshall’s ‘Pope and Buonaparte’ — ’The Peep o’day Boy’s Cabin,’ at Mr. Vernon’s, and many others, upon which his claims to the character of an historical painter may well be founded. I should scruple not to maintain, that such pictures as the ‘Distraining for Rent,’ at Redleaf, with all the pathos of a Raphael; and such exquisite touches of the deepest sentiment, as are to be found in the woman squeezing her way to look at the list of the dead and wounded, in the Waterloo picture, belonging to the Duke of Wellington, are standing evidences of his fitness for the highest departments of Art; although the figures are not dressed in the toga so lavishly bestowed upon the wooden perpetrations of many a Carlo Maratti and a Vanderwerf.”

Such, briefly examined, were some of the peculiarities, moral and social, in the character of Mr. Collius’s remarkable companion, during his Scotch tour: peculiarities, which, though apparently trivial in themselves, are yet, it is hoped, not useless to aid in the elucidation of his general disposition, and to conduct to some of the more secret sources of his genius. With Sir David Wilkie then, and another accomplished brother painter — the late Mr. Geddes, A.R.A. — Mr. Collins now set forth for Edinburgh. The journey, as may be imagined, was all hilarity — Wilkie’s notice of it, in a letter to his sister is characteristic:

“We got through our journey famously, and were less fatigued than we expected. The only subject of regret was, that Geddes’s snuffbox was done, by the time we got to Berwick. I was not asked to join, but the box passed between Geddes and Collins, and from Collins to Geddes, incessantly. You will readily imagine I did not feel much for their misfortune.”

In this one particular, Wilkie remained excluded from the sympathies of his travelling-companions during all his after-intercourse with them. The tobacco-plant never put forth its kindly leaf for him. It was never his, to woo the balmy influence of companionable snuff, or to rejoice with the world-wide brotherhood of the contemplative and peace-compelling pipe!

With the advantages of reputation and excellent letters of introduction, the painters soon became involved in all the choicest dissipations of the Northern Metropolis, at that mirthful period when court gaiety and conviviality outmanoeuvred Scotch prudence, and half divested even an Edinburgh “sabbath” of its hereditary grimness and pious desolation. Wilkie forgot his discretion in a “new sky-blue coat,” and caroused innocently with the rest, when the mirthful dinner closed, in gastronomic triumph, the bustling day. At one of these parties, at Sir Walter Scott’s, Wilkie and Collins beheld the appearance of the author of Waverley in a new character. When the table was cleared after dinner, Sir Walter, in the exuberance of his loyalty and hospitality, volunteered to sing his own song — ”Carle now the King’s come.” The whole company gave the chorus, and their host, regardless alike of his lameness and his dignity, sprang up, and, calling upon everybody to join hands, made his guests dance with him round the table to the measure of the tune. The effect of this latter exercise, indulged in by a set of performers, all more or less illustrious in the world’s eye — and all, with few exceptions, of intensely anti-saltatory habits — would defy the pen of a Rabelais or the pencil of a Hogarth. It was enough, considering the nature and locality of the ceremony, to have brought back to earth the apparition of John Knox himself!

Among other favours conferred by George the Fourth upon his Scotch subjects, was the knighting of Captain Adam Ferguson and Henry Raeburn, the portrait-painter. A dinner-party was given, at the house of Chief Commissioner Adam, to celebrate the event. The company soon crowded about the new knights, to hear their description of the ceremony they had just passed through. Sir Adam Ferguson’s narrative was quite Shandean in its quaint originality and innocent Uncle-Toby-like sarcasm. “Oh!” cried the new recipient of the baptism of chivalry, “His Majesty just gave me a smart slap o’ the shouther with the back of his sword, and said, ‘Rise, Sir Adam Ferguson.’ The shouther was a wee bit bruised, but I just rubbed it wi’ a little ‘yellow basilicon,’ and its aw’ weel eneugh now!”

Turning from dignities and dinner-parties — preachings before the King and processions to the Castle, bonfires in the streets and balls in the houses to professional and biographical matters, it may not be uninteresting to mention, that Mr. Collins cherished the same intention as Sir David Wilkie — of painting a picture commemorative of the King’s visit to Edinburgh; but, unlike the latter, did not carry his purpose into execution. The point of time he had fixed on was the moment of the Royal landing at Leith. But although he was enabled, by the intervention of his friends in authority, to obtain an excellent view of this and all the other ceremonies and proceedings that he desired to witness, and although he carried his investigations so far as to accompany the King’s yacht on its homeward way down the Forth, (on which occasion, according to his friend’s account, he narrowly escaped being taken all the way to London by mistake,) the contemplated picture never proceeded beyond the first sketches. Nor was this to be wondered at, in the instance of Mr. Collins. After the first excitement of the Royal visit had worn off, there was little really attractive, to a mind whose accustomed employment was the study of simple Nature, in the conventional pomps of a Royal progress, or the gorgeous vanities of a Civic welcome.

Some reference to the gaieties of Edinburgh will be found in the following letters from the painter to his mother:

“To MRS. COLLINS.

“Edinburgh, August 17th, 1822.

“My dear Mother, — As you have, I trust, received from Miss Wilkie an account of our safe arrival, I have now to give you some idea of our employment since that time.

“For some days we were uncertain when the King would arrive; and, on the day when we had great reason to expect him, the weather was so rough that it was apprehended he would land at Dunbar, and perform the rest of the journey by land. On Wednesday he was in sight, and anchored in my presence, opposite Leith, about a mile and a half from the shore, but resolved not to go on shore till the following day. The sight, of course, I took care to attend, and, as I had the advantage of a boat with six men under my command, as well as a pass-ticket from the Bailies of Leith — giving me the privilege of going into any seat on shore — the conveniences were considerable.

“I am at present quite uncertain with respect to the time of my return to London, but I think it is possible I may go to Stirling, and one or two of the Lakes; and, as I may move either in that direction or towards home, about the end of next week, I am very anxious to have a letter. I conclude you have received some communication from Mr. Lambton.

“ * The letters we took with us have introduced us to some very agreeable society. With Sir Walter Scott we dined a few days, since, at his house here, and a most delightful evening we had. I am writing this just after dinner — we (that is, Joseph, his excellent wife, and your dutiful son,) most sincerely, and with the best wishes for your happiness, drink your health.

“I am most comfortably accommodated in Joseph’s house, and want nothing but a letter from home; write, therefore, by return of post. The illuminations last night presented an appearance altogether unique. The effect from the Castle, looking down upon the old and new town, was magnificent: the Castle itself was lighted with crates on its walls, filled with burning coal. It is now so near post-time that I can only say, heaven bless you, and Frank, and all enemies and friends.

“Your affectionate Son,

“WILLIAM COLLINS.”

To THE SAME.

“Edinburgh, August 28th, 1822.

“My dear Mother, I should have written before this, could I have given you any correct views of my intended movements. As far as I am at present able to see on the subject, I may be from home some two or three weeks longer. Wilkie and your ungracious son leave this place on Saturday next for Blair Adam, a seat of the Lord Chief Commissioner’s; where we stay a few days, and then proceed to Stirling, Callander, some of the Lakes, and possibly Glasgow; and, whether we afterwards return to London by Liverpool, or return to this place, — and, should that be done, how long we stay here, — is a matter upon which I cannot, in this letter, give you any further information. Of one thing I am pretty certain — that, unless we find better weather, we shall not make many sketches.

“The sketches I have already made are few and slight. I have had so much to see, that I have not yet made those more finished drawings at Leith, which, should I paint the King’s landing, will be quite essential. I have been on board the Royal George, the ship in which His Majesty reached this port, and I have, from thence, made a drawing of Leith Harbour, backed by Arthur’s Seat and Salisbury Crags; which I mean to paint, when I return, for “Mamma.” What I at present purpose painting, upon a large scale, is the approach of the King to the Pier — the above sketch to form the background; but I am vastly secret and mysterious upon what I mean to paint of the King’s history here, and I have seen so much of his doings that I could paint a series of pictures, — but not one will I do (further than making sketches when I return) without commissions. I think, however, that striking things might be produced.

“The country and city are so replete with subjects in the view way, that, should the weather be fine, I might, I think, make my stay here pay me well — for my picture of ‘Chichester’ has satisfied me that people like a name to be given to a landscape.

“Tomorrow we hope to be present at the embarkation of His Majesty from Hopetown-house. The Chief Commissioner, who is the commander-in-chief, and who was the first person from this place who shook hands with the King — and is to be the last — takes Wilkie and myself to breakfast on board the Royal George; after which, I shall be upon the watch for a picture. The Embarkation may possibly afford a companion to the Landing. From the present state of the weather, however, I fear it may be a dull scene.

“The plan at Hopetown-house is this: The grounds are to be filled with visitors, who are to partake of a cold collation, and at twelve His Majesty is expected, when, after probably remaining some time among us, he will signify his intention to embark; and, after the great kindness and loyal attention he has received from his Scotch subjects, I think he must leave them with a heart overflowing with gratitude. The delight he has expressed himself as having felt, is great. I wish I could give you a connected and progressive account of his proceedings. You cannot possibly conceive the distinguished manner in which the Scotch people — from the lord to the meanest peasant — have behaved. The regularity and dignity of a Scotch mob is really surprising.

“Of His Majesty’s landing I gave you an account in my last. The day following this was a quiet one, but in the evening there was an illumination of the finest kind. The old and new town had the windows of almost every house filled with candles, (generally one in each pane of glass,) the others illuminated with lamps — and, above all, the Castle, with crates of burning coal on its summit, as of old: and, at intervals, cannon firing salutes — answering each other from the Castle, the Calton, Salisbury Crags, etc. But the finest sight of all, notwithstanding the bad weather, was that of Thursday last, when the King went in procession to the Castle from Holyrood-house, through the High street. Upon his arrival at the Castle gate, — where Sir Alexander Hope, Governor of the Castle, presented him with the keys, — the show was most superb. His Majesty then entered the Castle gate, and, in about ten minutes, was seen standing on a platform, in the half-moon battery at the top of the building — when, notwithstanding the heavy rain, he took off his hat, and remained there, bowing in the most graceful manner, for upwards of ten minutes. As he had no umbrella, he must have been much wetted; but he seemed determined to show the people of Edinburgh that he was only anxious to return their acknowledgments of kindness.

“When we have the pleasure of meeting, I trust I can afford you some entertainment upon this and other Scotch subjects. I must not omit, although I have so little room left, to tell you a good joke I heard from a good and great man here: I fear, however, it may encourage Frank in punning — I mean the authority, not the nature of it, for it beats all his. Doctor Chalmers was asked by Wilkie, whether Principal Baird would preach before the King. (Now, Principal Baird has a sad habit of crying in the pulpit.) “Why,” says Chalmers, “if he does, it will be George Baird to George Rex, greeting!” *

* To those unacquainted with the Scotch dialect, it may be necessary to observe, that “greeting” signifies, in the north, weeping as well as welcome.

“ * I would give a trifle to have you here; and, please Heaven, some day or other this may be accomplished. I cannot tell you how kindly Joseph and his wife have treated me, and how happy I feel in their society. Joseph has done a bust of the King, merely from seeing him at the shows here, with which His Majesty has been so much pleased, that he has given him a sitting. * Heaven bless you, dear mother and Frank,

“W. COLLINS.”

The expedition of the painters to Blair Adam — mentioned at the commencement of the foregoing letter — produced a sketch on the estate, (finished some years after their visit,) which was the joint production of both: Sir David Wilkie painting the figures, and Mr. Collins the landscape. This work — interesting, as being the only instance in which these two thoroughly national painters ever laboured, together, upon the same canvas — was presented to the hospitable owner of Blair Adam; an estate, which it may not be irrelevant to mention, was adorned with delightful park and garden scenery, on a soil naturally the most desert in Scotland, through the skill and enterprize of its possessor the Lord Chief Commissioner, who perfected and concluded the work that his father and grandfather had begun before him.

Shortly after this, the painters returned by way of Stirling to Edinburgh. Sir David Wilkie then departed for London, leaving his friend behind; and little suspecting, at that time, that Mr. Collins’s delay in the northern metropolis, was occasioned by his venturing on the most momentous risk in which any man can engage — the speculation of marriage.

The lady to whom the painter was now to be united, was Miss Geddes, related to the family of Dr. Geddes of theological and critical celebrity and sister of Mrs. Carpenter, the portrait-painter. Their attachment had begun with their first meeting, at a ball given by a few artists to their lady friends, in 1814; but remained undeclared until many years afterwards. At that time, Mr. Collins felt that his straightened circumstances presented an insuperable obstacle to any project of immediate marriage with a portionless bride; and, with all the uncertainties that then attended his future prospects, he honourably shrunk from the responsibility of fettering a young girl with the anxieties and disappointments of that most weary of all social ordeals, “a long engagement.” In 1816 and 1818, Mr. Collins and Miss Geddes met occasionally in society, but, it was not until 1821, when they accidentally met in London and found that each had still remained single, that the painter’s attachment was actually avowed. The engagement which, in his now improved circumstances, he felt justified in contracting, received the unqualified approbation of his family: but, although she fully recognised the propriety of her son’s choice, Mrs. Collins, with the prudence of her age and nation, desired to delay his marriage, until the pictorial successes of a few more years had made a few more solid additions to his still fluctuating income. She remembered the embarrassments under which he had suffered, but a few years since; and, dreading the possibility of their recurrence, if he married before his prospects definitely changed from the encouraging to the secure, withheld her consent from the union which he desired should be solemnized in this year (1822), inculcating the excellence of patience, proving the duty of making fit provision for all future emergencies, and addressing much advice of the same excellent, but unpalatable nature, to ears, which, as usual in such cases, heard but profited not. From Edinburgh Mr. Collins wrote, as follows, to his future bride — a vexatious Marriage Act, requiring various oaths and attestations from parents and guardians, having lately come into operation in England, and rendering it expedient, considering the deference due to Mrs. Collins’s temporary objections to the match, that the young couple should be married in Scotland, if they were then to be married at all:

“To Miss GEDDES.

“Edinburgh, August 24, 1822.

“My dear Harriet. * As my former letter contained such accounts of my proceedings as were worthy your regard, I have now to give you some details, which I am sorry must be done briefly, as the bustle and confusion under which every one here labours, is truly harassing. I find that the King does not leave us till Thursday next; and on Saturday I must go northward, on a visit to the Chief Commissioner’s. The country in the neighbourhood of his house will probably occupy my attention for about a week: at the expiration of that time, I really know not whether to return to London, or to Edinburgh.

“I think you had better either go to Alderbury, to Mrs. Bryan, or come down here (if you could get a companion to protect you.) And yet, I feel so nervous at the idea of your journey in your present state of health, and without me, that I am quite miserable. Write to me by return of post, and do help me to decide.

“Mrs. Joseph, to whom I have told my distress, will be most happy (and she is one of the best creatures in the world) to give you a bed here, and we might spend a short time in Scotland, and return to London, cemented by that tie, which, please God, may brighten our present prospects. * Believe me, my dear Harriet,

“Ever and only yours,

“WILLIAM COLLINS.”

Shortly after this, Miss Geddes accepted an invitation from her friend Mrs. Joseph, to meet Mr. Collins in Edinburgh. While the simple preliminaries of his marriage were in course of arrangement, the painter wrote a letter to his mother, which, as displaying the filial affection and respect that he always accorded to the expression of her sentiments, however distasteful to himself, deserves to be subjoined.

“To MRS. COLLINS.

“Edinburgh, September 15th, 1822.

“My dear Mother, — As I much fear that I cannot reach London in time to dine with the Lord Mayor, I have to beg that you will send him a note, stating that you have received a letter from me, lamenting the loss of the pleasure I had promised myself in dining with his lordship, as I shall be unavoidably detained in Scotland until after the 24th.

“Since I wrote to you last, and indeed very frequently since I have been here, I have been sorely vexed with the toothache and to such a degree at last, that I have discarded my enemy, and am now quite easy. Upon another subject, I am not so gifted with the art of hoping, as at once to expect relief — although the only person on earth who can make me quite happy, is my own dear mother. I need not again tell you, that the only cause of my wretchedness of mind is our unhappy difference upon the most vital of all subjects, connected as it is with happiness here, and the hope of it in a better world. Your opposition to my union with Harriet, we are both aware has arisen from an affection for me, which has never ceased to show itself upon all occasions; and this affection has been met, I am ready to confess, on too many occasions, by an apparently heartless neglect of your kindness. Upon the matter nearest my heart at this moment, however, God knows I have never thought otherwise of you than as you deserve; but there are feelings which you cannot enter into, and which I shall not attempt to describe, and these tell me that, in the person I hope soon to call mine, I shall find all I can desire in a companion for the journey of this life, and through Almighty God’s assistance, we feel determined to devote the best efforts of our existence to your comfort. *

“I have been in great uneasiness for some time upon the subject of writing to you the determination, however, to pay you that respect which is so entirely your due, precludes the possibility of my letting any one hear of my marriage before you.

“Miss Geddes is now on a visit to my kind friend Mrs. Joseph. She has many friends here, as well as relations, with one family of whom she spends some of her time; (the Smiths — bankers here) to whom I have been introduced, and a delightful and elegant addition to my catalogue of Scotch friends they are.

“I cannot tell you how much I shall long for a letter from you — and whether it breathes forgiveness or not, still, my dear mother, shall I always be,

“Your affectionate Son,

“WILLIAM COLLINS.”

“P.S. I am getting sketches daily, which will, I doubt not, turn to account when I reach London; which I think may be in about a fortnight or three weeks. Love to Frank — please God we shall spend a pleasant winter all together. * “

Soon after this Mr. Collins was united to Miss Geddes, in the English Episcopal Church, in Yorkplace, Edinburgh, by the Rev. Dr. Alison — author of the celebrated work on Taste; who, on this occasion, exhibited his literary enthusiasm in a graceful and pleasing light, by declining to take any fees on the conclusion of the ceremony — ”You bear the name of a great poet,” said he to the painter, “and you are yourself increasing the honours of that name, by your progress in one of the intellectual Arts I could receive no fees from any ‘William Collins;’ and still less could I take them from you.”