The ftatuary is of excellent workmanship, from the chifel of ARTUS QUELLINUS, of Antwerp.

Behind the tribunál is a double ftaircafe, leading to the magnificent and celebrated hall, called by the Dutch,

THE BURGHERS' HALL. The base of it measures 120 feet by 57, on three large circles 22 feet in diameter. Travellers fay, the celestial and terreftrial globes are projected; it is true, that there are three circles of that magnitude, projected on the floor of this hall, but with respect to what is depicted on them, we cannot agree with our predeceffors. The central one contains a projection of the northern hemisphere (celestial), the places of the ftars are diftinguithed by pieces of brafs inlaid in the marble, and on a brafs circle is marked the figns of the Zodiac.

On the other two circles, which are faid to contain a geographical chart of the world, we will venture to say, that that there never was depicted on them any thing of the kind, the idea of the different countries being delineated by

the veins of the marble artificially dif pofed, is too preposterous, to merit any ferious refutation. It is very probable that the original intention was, to project the two hemifpheres in those circles, but the defign has never been carried into execution; thus much it is neceffary to fay even on fo trivial a fubject; truths, however small in the fcale of importance, are always worthy of being known.

Directly facing the entrance into the hall, over the door of Schepens chamber, are fome appropriate and well executed reliefs. Juftice is feated on a throne, with the fword and balance in her hands, and trampling under her feet the afs-eared Midas, who wears a garland of poppies upon his head, and holds in his hand pale Difcord; on the right of Justice, Death is feated in mourning, his right hand under his head, his fcythe and empty hour-glass are befide him; on the left, Punishment is reprefented by a form "of afpect horrible", with a wooden leg; her face is turned from Juftice; he holds in her hands the various inftruments of torture, which "tear the body from the foul;" above the head of Death, two little winged boys are hovering, one holds flathes of lightning, and the other rods; over Punishment a groupe of harpies are waiting for the execrated corpfe.

The Corinthian pillars which fupport the ceiling, &c. are all marble; the lower row are furmounted with a cornice of fine marble; the upper ones extend to the ceiling, which is upwards of 100 feet from the floor. As a proof that the Dutch are not entirely indifferent to the fine arts, the ceiling of this hall may be mentioned; having. been lately painted at a very great expence from original defigns by John Goeree, by G. Rodemaker, and J. Hoogfaat; the mouldings and architectural part by the former, and the figures by the latter: to enumerate each particular touch would be abfurd; what we fhall felect are confpicuous for their fuperiority over the others, if not for their own intrinfic worth.

(To be continued.)

J. B.

PIND.

ALTHOUGH the works of Mr. George Romney will continue to bear teftimony to his excellence in Art as long as their canvaffes and colours fhall endure, yet it does not feem right that he fhould defcend to the grave with no other memorials of his fame, whilst there are friends ftill furviving, who have fomething to relate of him in a language which thofe exifting famples of his genius cannot speak.

He was a man too great to be configned to oblivion; but the talk of doing juftice to his abilities is not a light one. Some, who were numbered amongst his intimates, are fully able to perform it; and no one, who was happy in his friendship, more truly laments their indolence than the writer of thefe memoirs, who, without their powers, and poffibly without their leifure, fubmits to the call of thofe who have preffed the undertaking upon him, and will too probably, in the refult, difcover, that they have been the projectors of their own difappointment. It is not the annals of the man, but the difcuffion of his art, that conftitutes the difficulty: the events of his life are foon told; but the emanations of his genius fhould be traced with precifion, and that demands both knowledge of his works, and acquaintance with his

art.

Many eminent painters have started into celebrity by the energy of their natural genits: none have been less indebted to inftruction than the object of these Memoirs. It is eafy to underftand how the faculties of a youth, who has been trained to the ftudy, or exercifed in the practice, of any particular art or fcience, may expand themfelves, and digrefs into new and captivating purfuits, when prefented to his view; that the fight of beautiful paintings, or the hearing of fine mufic, fhould infpire him with a paffion for thofe charming arts, is not at all extraordinary; but that the obfcure, untutored child of nature, who had never feen or heard any thing that could elicit his genius, or urge him to emulation, should at

VOL. XLIII. JUNE 1823.

once become a painter without a prototype, feems, in the inftance of Mr. Romney, a creation of his own.

GEORGE, the fecond fon of John Romney, was born at Dalton in Furnefs, in the county of Lancaster, on the 15th day of December 1734, O.S. His father was a man of great worth and exemplary piety. He followed the occupation of a cabinet-maker; but having a genius far above traders of that defcription, and being full of projects in mechanics, engineering, architecture, and, amongst the reft, in agriculture, he worked not only in wood but in iron, erected steam-engines, defigned plans for houfes, built and furnished them, and was the first that introduced the method of manuring land with fea-fhells, &c. He refided on a fmall patrimonial freehold, called Cockan, near Furness Abbey, in the aforefaid parish of Dalton, and farmed his lands. He had ten fons and one daughter by his wife; and as school education in thofe parts, and at that time, was cheap, he fent George, of whom we are fpeaking, to Dendron, a village diftant about four miles from his house, to a school kept by the Rev. Mr. Fell, who educated fcholars at the moderate rate of five fhillings a quarter, and boarded him with Mr. Gardner, of the fame place, at 41. 10s. a year.

It appears that the worthy father of our Painter had more irons in the fire than always turned to profit, his excurve genius drew him into various undertakings; and, though he continued to live in credit and efteem with his neighbours, he was an eafy creditor, a careless accomptant, and did not take his measures to accumulate. In the year 1745, when George was in his eleventh year, his father, upon the difcouraging afpect, we may prefume, of bulinefs in that melancholy period, when the Rebellion was raging, took him from school, and bound him to his own trade. There is reason to believe he had made very little progrefs in fchool-learning when he laid afide his copy-book, and took up the

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cabinet

cabinet-maker's tools in the humble profecution of his father's craft. Yet even then the hand that was defined to illuminate the Painter's canvass was not idle, for his fancy was at work, and his genius ftruggled for emancipa tion. In this occupation he perfifted for the space of ten years; for in 1755 we find him fill in the work-fhop. He now began to employ his invention upon defigns for carvings and embellishments from models that exifted only in his own imagination, the conftruction of all which did not add one corner-cupboard to his father's ftock, and brought in only vifionary cuftom and employ for palaces and caftles in the air. Smitten alfo with an embryo paffion for the concord of sweet founds, which he had probably never heard but in his dreams, he conceived the idea of tranfplanting the arts of Cremona to his native town of Dalton, and began a manufactory of violins, which he difpofed of to the rural amateurs, who werc, perhaps, as little inftructed in the ufe of thofe inftruments as he had been in the formation of them. The worlt amongst them, however, made a noife that we may fuppofe amused the children, and founded forth the fame of the operator through the neighbouring cottages; they ferved, likewife, the further and better purpofe of putting a little money into the pocket of the needy and ingenious projector. He did not, however, whilft thus providing inftruments of melody for others, forget himself; for whilst he was practing the art of making fiddles, he was ftudying that of perform. ing on them; and having finished one of fuperior workmanship, he kept it by him as a chef d'euvre to the day of his death. Upon this violin the writer of thefe memoirs has heard the maker of it perform in a room hung round with pictures of his own painting; which is rather a fingular coincidence of arts in the perfon of one man. The tones of this inftrument feemed to be extremely good, and there was fome light carved work that fpread from the fetting in of the neck over part of the back, very curiously executed.

There is a circumftance fo happily interwoven with the life and fortunes of George Romney, which meets us in this early period, that it must not be paffed over in filence, though the delicacy of a modeft and most amiable friend may, in fome degree, be alarmed

by the recital of it. This it is-In the latter end of the year 1745, on the approach of the rebels, the father of Thomas Greene, Efq. (now living in Bedford-fquare) removed his family into Furnefs, out of the line of march, and on his return home left his fon (the Gentleman above-mentioned), then a boy, at the school in Dendron, from which George Romney had been just withdrawn. His younger brother, however, ftill boarded in the house of Mr. Fell, the schoolmaster, with the fon of Mr. Greene, and was frequently accompanied by him to Cockan on a Saturday evening, where George, then working at his father's trade, endeared himfelf to his young vifitor by a variety of kind offices and attentions, calculated to win the open heart of a boy in whom all the principles of gratitude and affection were innate. Thus by the recommendation of a few childith toys, wrought by his own hand, the young mechanic laid the first foundation of a friendship in the heart of one of the beft men living, who never failed to feel for him, and to ferve him, through all the changes and chances of his various life; and now, after his deceafe, continues faithful and affectionate to his memory; ftudious, by every means, to deliver down his name with credit to pofterity, and fuccefsful in all his exertions for the fame and honour of his departed friend, that alone excepted by which he has prevailed upon the writer of these pages to undertake what others might have executed with infinitely more ability. Thus let the names of Romney and Greene defcend together to fucceeding ages; and fo long as thefe memoirs fhall furvive, whilft they record the genius of the one, let them bear this testimony to the benevolence of the other.

When Mr. Romney has been afked how he firft conceived the ambition of becoming a painter, when he had never had the opportunity of contemplating the picture of any thing in creation beyond that of the Red Lion at Dalton (a fpecimen not very much to the honour either of the artift or the animal), he explained himself by afcribing his impulies to the opportunities that were thrown in his way by the favour of one Sam Knight, a working-man, who boarded with his father. This unconfcious patron of the arts, and founder, as he may be called, of the

fortunes