bufinefs for the Count, though not to the amount of any confiderable fum, the debt was cancelled, and the indentures given up,

Mr. Romney had married during his apprenticeship, and left his wife at Kendal. Being now at liberty, he returned to her, and continued at Kendal till the year 1761, purfuing his ftudies with the mot unremitted affiduity, but with out any further aid or inftruction from mafters, and without any opportunity of reforting to pictures, models, or ftatues, for none fuch were within his reach, but purely ex proprio fuo marte; and yet here he laid the foundation of his future eminence, and conceived and executed a compofition on an extended fcale, taking for his tubjet the Death of David Rizzio. This picture has not been feen by the writer of thefe Memoirs, but it is reported to him as a molt extraordinary perform ance; and he remembers to have heard Mr. Romney refer to it in warmer terms of felf-approbation than he was apt to employ when fpeaking of his own productions. The attitude of the Queen in the act of protecting Rizzio from his affains, and the expreffion of her countenance in that diftrefsful and alarming moment, are faid to have been most happily conceived. Whether this picture till exifts, and where, no account has been obtained.

Here, alfo, Mr. Romney, not forgetting his friend and protector at York, painted feveral fcenes from the Trittram Shandy of Sterne, and fold them by raffle fometimes, and fometimes by auction, as he found occasion. Thefe paintings alfo are faid to have been very characteristic, and confiderably added to his fame. There is one of thefe still in the poffeffion of Sir Alan Chamb, where Doctor Slop is introduced, befpattered with dirt, to the father of Triram and Uncle Toby. This pe the writer of thefe Memoirs has feen. The feveral characters are fo admirably conceived, and executed with fuch comic force and spirit, that it is well worthy an engraving; and without confidering it as the work of a man who had feen fo little, it is in itself a compofition that would do honour to the

genius an established artist. There is alfo a comic compofition of a County Apothecary, with Affiftants, in the act of drawing a Tooth; a toping Party over a Jug of Ale; and, in the ferious

ftile, a King Lear with Cordelia, now in the poffeffion of Mr. Walker, the Philofopher; and again, King Lear in the Storm, with three or four figures; all painted at Kendal. The object of his most anxious wishes was, to get up to London; and for this purpose he laboured inceffantly, not fparing himfelf time for any amufement, except that of practifing now and then on his violin, together with his intimate friend Mr. Walker, now of Conduit-street. He continued to paint at Kendal, and occafionally at Lancafter, not only fancy pieces from Sterne, as above defcribed, but portraits, charging two guineas for a three quarters, and fix for whole lengths of a reduced fize.

By thefe means having got a little money together, he put his muchwifhed-for project to the trial, and in the year 1762 arrived in London, without introduction to, or acquaintance with, any perfon, except his friend Mr. Greene, and Mr. Braithwaite, of the Polt Office, who, with that benignity which is peculiar to him, received him into his protection, and procured him lodgings in Bear. binder-lane; where he firit began to paint after his arrival in the capital.

The Society for the Encouragement of Arts and Sciences at that time offering premiums to the first and fecond artist whofe hiftorical compofitions fhould be adjudged the best, Mr. Romney, then totally unknown to the painters in London, exhibited his picture of the Death of General Wolfe. To this picture the Committee decreed the fecond premium, but not without fome diffenfion, as it was apprehended to be the production of an old artist, for fome years retired into the country, and who was accordingly cenfured for what was confidered as an attempt to impofe on the Society. A fhort time, however, cleared up this mistake; and the Committee being fummoned to a fecond fitting, the judges, who had decreed the fecond prize to the painter of the Death of Wolfe, found their adjudication in danger of being reverfed by the objections which were ftarted by the friends of the rival candidate, not to the merit of the picture, but to the propriety of its being confidered as an hiftorical compofition, when, in fact, no historian had then recorded the event on which it was founded. Other criticifins, even more ridiculously minute and frivolous than

the

the above, were offered against it; as, that the Officers and Soldiers were not all in their proper regimentals, that Wolfe himself had on a handfome pair of filk stockings, against the coftume of a General on the field of battle, and fome objected to the deadly palenefs of his countenance, Upon thefe grounds the decree was reverfed, and poor Romney, friendless and unknown, was fet afide in favour of a rival better fupported; a hardship so obvious, and a partiality fo glaring, that the Committee could not face the tranfaction, but voted him a premium extraordinary, nearly, if not quite, to the amount of the prize he had been deprived of. This picture was pur. chafed, and exported to the Eaft Indies, where it now is preferved in the Council Chamber at Calcutta.

The exhibition of this picture, and the difcuffion it gave rife to, brought our Painter's name before the Public; and, as his friends Greene and Braithwaite were unwearied in their exertions to ferve him, they procured him chambers in Gray's Inn, and a Judge to fit to him. Here he drew the portraits of Sir Jofeph Yates in his robes, as one of the Judges of the King's Bench, of Mr. Secondary Barnes, and various other eminent Lawyers, whofe likeneffes were fo happily taken, that he became particularly fuccefsful amongst the Gentlemen of that learned profeffion.

After continuing about two years in Gray's Inn, he removed to lodgings in Newport street. Here he painted on a more extended fcale, and encreased his bufinels very confiderably. He was not, however, fo much occupied upon portraits, as not to indulge his paffion for the higher order of historical compofition. He exhibited, in the fpring of 1765, a painting on the Death of King Edmund, and gained the fecond prize. He painted a Madona and Child for the Jate Major Pearfon, then in the fervice of the East India Company; and also that Officer in Converfation with a Bramin, a very brilliant compofition, and finely coloured. L'Allegra and La Penferofa, full lengths, the fize of life, both in the poffeffion of Lord Bolton, and both exhibited very highly to his credit. Here alfo he drew the great actress Mrs. Yates, in the character of the Tragic Mufe: this picture is well known, being in the collection of that dif. tinguished patron of the arts, the

worthy and venerable Alderman Boy

dell.

In September 1764 he went to Paris, in company with his friend Mr.Greenes he took his paffage to Dunkirk, and from thence proceeded to Lifle, and in a day or two afterwards to Paris, Verfailles, and other palaces; he obtained: an introduction to Vernet, at his apart ments in the Louvre, and was very kindly received; through his means he had free accefs to the Orleans gallery, where he paffed much of his time, being greatly pleafed with the pictures of Le Sueur. He attended fonie exhibitions, vifited the Luxemburgh, Verfailles, Marly, St. Cloud, and the churches, wherever the works of the great masters were to be seen; and having paffed fix weeks in this man ner, returned to London.

In 1767 he revisited Kendal for a few months, and there and at Lancaster painted several portraits. Upon his return to London, he concerted with his friend Mr. Ozias Humphrey (a name well known), a journey to Rome; for which capital of the arts thofe ingenious companions accordingly fet out, and there our Painter profecuted his ftudies with an ardour and diligence that knew no intermiffion. Romney through life was in the habits of fru gality, and he had now every call upon him fo to manage his limited finances as not to curtail his enjoyment of the great opportunity before him. He pro tracted his ftay for a confiderable time, and upon his return was, after much perfuafion, prevailed upon by his friends to take the houfe and painting rooms of Mr. Coates, then lately deceafed, in Cavendish fquare, where he finally established himself; and from that time his gallery began to amals and exhibit a collection of portraits and compofitions, to an amount that never was exceeded, probably never equalled, by any Painter whom this country ever knew.

Of his portraits it would be an endlefs talk to fpeak. They are every? where to be found. They fpeak fuffi ciently to his fame, and would have fubfcribed much more effectually to his fortune, had he not fuffered his unfinished pictures to accumulate and lie upon his hands to a moit unparalleled extent. Many thousand pounds were thus loft in the course of his bufinefs from want of method, which all the remonttrances of his friends

could

could never induce him to adopt. There is, probably, no inftance in the art of fo much canvafs covered, and fo much labour wafted, as his magazine of unfinithed paintings constantly and painfully exhibited; whilst all the while no artift living had fewer avocations, or more unwearied indultry; and though he worked with wonderful facility, yet he would fuffer many of his belt pictures to remain wanting only a few touches to their draperies or back-grounds, too indolent to put his own hand to what he felt as the drudgery of his art, and too confcientious to fuffer other hands to finish for him.

His hiftorical and fancied pictures are extremely numerous: thofe that were finished, and fent into the world, bear a small proportion to his sketches and unfinished defigns, of which a great and valuable collection now remain in the poffeffion of his fon the Reverend John Romney, of St. John's College, in Cambridge. Though he affociated very little with Gentlemen of his own profeffion, and declined exhibiting at the Royal Academy, he had a felect fet of acquaintance with men of talents, who refpected his genius and delighted in his company. Amongst thele was Mr. Hayley; and from his ingenious poem entitled Triumphs of Temper, Mr. Romney made four feveral compofi. tions, in which Serena the heroine is moft engagingly pourtrayed: one of thefe he difpoled of to the Marchioness of Stafford; another to Lord Thurlow, who honoured him with his particular notice; and two to John Chriftian Curwen, Efq. who had tatte to appreciate his merit, and liberality to encourage and reward it.

The Wood Nymph, which he painted at Rome, is, probably, in the poffeffion of Mr. Keate, the Surgeon. Sensibility, from Mr. Hayley's poem, is where it fhould be, with the author of that elegant work. A Saint Cecilia was purchased by Mr. Montagu Burgoyne. Sir William Hamilton carried to Naples with him a beautiful Bacchante, defigned and coloured to a charm. The Sempfirefs, and the Cercyone, were painted for Admiral Vernon. The Spinning Woman, and a Bacchant Dancing, are in the collection of Mr. Curwen. Henderfon in Macbeth, addreffing the Witches, a capital compofition in his very best ftile, and a ftriking likeness of that excellent actor, are worthily poffeffed

by his friend Mr. Long, of Lincoln'sinn-fields; who has alfo a Cupid and Pfyche of the lame master. Mr. Newbery, of Heathfield Park, has a compofition, in which the infant Shakspeare is reprefented nursed by Tragedy and Comedy. He painted for the Shakspeare Gallery, The Tempel Scene, The Birth of the Poet, attended by the Pailons perfonified, and Caffandra in the aft of ftriking the Trojan Horfe, pictures that are fairly in the judgment of the Public. Sir John Leicester has a Be chante, the head only; and Mr. Beckford, of Fonthill, has The Indian Woman contemplating a Ship at Sea, and intating the Action of the Sails, as dif tended by the Wind: the image is caught from Shakipeare, and the character, fcenery, and execution, ae beautiful. Mr. Whitbread poistes his admirable and fublime compofition of Milton dictating to Eis Daughters. A Calypfo modelled after Lady Hamilton before her marriage, and a Magdalene from the fame, are in the collection of his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, Among this larger portraits, hiftorically grouped, is that of flaxman modelling the But of Hayley, and another, in which be has introduced himself, thrown into the back-ground, and in shade, an interetting groupe; the Duke of Marlborough's Family Piece; the Daughters of the Marquis of Stafford; Colonel Johnes's Family; Mrs. Bofanquet and Children; the Countess of Warwick and Children a whole length of Lord Thurlow, painted for the late Lord Kenyon; a Head, in his Way from Rome, of the celebrated Wortley Montague in his Turkish Habit; the Beaumont Family; and many others, which it would be tou tedious to enumerate.

Amongst the unpurchafed works that have devolved to his fon, the Rev. Mr. Komney above mentioned, there is his famous compofition of Sir Ifaac Newton making Experiments en the Prifm, with two attendant female figures, of the fize of life; the features of the Philofopher copied from the original mask taken from his face, from which Roubillac modelled his inimitable ftatue now in the anti-chapel of Trinity College, in Cambridge. There are alfo the Mifs Wallace in the Characters of Mirth and Melancholy; Mifs Cumberlands as Celia and Rojalind, Ophelia in the act of dropping from the Willow into the Stream beneath; King Lear in the Storm, with Edgar, Gloucester, and

others,

others, a large Bolognef half-length; feveral exquite compotitions for the difplay of female beauty in melancholy and fetting attitudes and fituations, with a great mafs of unfinished defigns and sketches for compofitions, which, to a profeffor and a lover of the art, would be invaluable.

In the year 1799 this eminent Painter, then in a declining itate of health, returned to Kendal, and refigned himfelf to folitude, under the tender care of an indulgent and attentive wife, where he languifhed til the 15th of November 1802, on which day he departed this life, and on the 19th was interred at Dalton, the place of his nativity, leaving one fon, the Rev. John Romney, and one brother, James, now a Lieutenant Colonel in the fervice of the Honourable the East India Company.

Mr. Romney was the maker of his own fortune; and inafmuch as he allowed himself not fufficient leifure to execute many great defigns, which the fertility of his genius conceived, may be faid fo far to have been more attentive to that than to his fame. Whilft his mind was pregnant with magnificent ideas, and his rooms and paffages loaded with unfinished portraits, he had not refolution to turn away a new comer, though he might come with a countenance that would have chilled the genius of a Michael Angelo. If, therefore, it was the love of gain that operated on him upon thefe occafions, it was a principle that counteracted its own object; but there was alfo a weakness in his nature that could never make a ftand again't importunity of any fort; he was a man of a moit gentle temper, with mott irritable nerves. He was conftantly projecting great undertakings for the honour of his art, and at the fame time involving himself in new engagements to render them impracticable. When in company with his intimates (and indeed few others were admitted to his privacy), he would fit for a length of time abforbed in thought, and abfent from the matter in difcourfe, till on a fudden starting from his feat, he would give vent to the etfufions of his fancy, and harangue in the mot animated manner upon the fabject of his art, with a fublimity of idea, and a pecuFarity of expresive language, that was entirely his own, and in which educa tion or reading had no fhare. Thefe

5

fallies of natural genius, clothed in natural eloquence, were perfectly ori ginal, very highly edifying, and entertaining in the extreme. They were uttered in a hurried accent, an elevated tone, and very commonly accompanied with tears, to which he was by conftiturion prone. A noble fentiment, either recited from book by the reader, or fpringing from the heart of the fpeaker, never failed to make his eyes overflow, and his voice tremble, whit he applauded it. He was on thefe occations like a man poffeffed, and his friends became ftudious not to agitate him too often, or too much, with topics of this fort. He was a rapturous advocate for nature, and a clofe copyift, abhorring from his heart every diftortion, or unfeemly violation, of her pure and legitimate forms and proportions. An enflamed and meretricious ftile of colouring he could never endure; and the contemplation of bad painting fenfibly affected his fpirits and fhook his nerves. Though he declined the fociety of his brother artilts, he was not faftidious, nor was he flow to admire where admiration was due; and where it was not, he was uniformly filent. To the diftinguished merits of his great contemporary Sir Joshua Reynolds he gave most unequivocal teftimony; but he declined to visit him, from the hynefs of his nature, and because it was a houfe of great refort.

He could not be at his eafe, and he was never in the habit of vifiting, or being vifited but by his intimates; and they certainly did not refort to him for the delicacies of his table, as nothing could be worse administered; for of those things he had no care, and for bimfelf a little broth or tea would fuffice, though he worked at his eazil from early morning till the fun went down. Abitemious by habit, and confcious of his deficiency in point of education, he was never feen at any of the tables of the Great, Lord Thur. low's excepted, who, being truly great, knew his merits well, and appreciated them worthily. Of his generolity very many inttances might be adduced; but we are not concerned to fearch into the records of his family, and fhall commit our felves to nothing but the bare affer tion. In fine, he had his failings; but the good qualities of his character were decidedly predominant.

RICHARD CUMBERLAND.

SIR,

'N the anecdotes of that truly ingenious poet William Falconer, publifhed in your laft Magazine*, your Correfpondent, from the circumftance of the advertisement to the last edition of his poem (the Shipwreck) being dated from Somerset House, fuggefts, that he probably had a place in the Navy Pay Office there. But this is by no means the cafe, as will appear obvious to that Gentleman if he reflects one moment, for it will neceflarily recur to him, that the Navy Pay-Office was not removed to Someriet Houle until the new buildings were erected, more than twelve years after the death of the Bard.

The fact is, that Mr. Falconer had apartments in the lower court of the Old Buildings, under thole of the Rev. Mr. Darrell, which he rented either of the housekeeper, or, as was the custom in many other inftances, of fome perfon to whofe place they were annexed. Here his widow refided many years; indeed I think, until the was driven out by the dilapidation of the ancient

buildings; but the feemed in a ftaté far removed from indigence. She was a woman of a cultivated mind, elegant in her perfon, fenfible and agreeable in converfation. I can well remember, that as I was once walking with her in the adjacent garden, I mentioned the name of Falconer, and, without knowing her near relation to the Author, faid a few words expreffive of my admiration of the Shipwreck. was inftantly in tears. She presented me with a copy of the poem, and feemed much affected by my commife. ration of the misfortunes of a man whole work appears in its catastrophe prophetic.

She

Thefe things, Sir, are trivial; but, as they rectify an erroneous fuppofition refpecting a highly-efteemed literary character, are not, perhaps, entirely ufeiefs.

I am, SIR,

Your obedient humble fervant,
JOSEPH MOSER.

Princes-freet, Spital-fields,
3d June, 1803.

THE CURTAIN THEATRE.

THERE can be no doubt but that the long avenue leading from Worfhip street to the London 'Prentice Gate, as it is termed, in Old-ftreet Road, acquired its appellation from the fame fource as this Theatre, which, tradition fays, once ftood about the centre of it, and terminated the carriage-way. Behind it there was a very large fpace, which, till within thefe laft forty years, was occupied entirely by gardeners' grounds. On one fide

Page 343.

Formerly Hog-lane, Shoreditch.

of the road, for its whole extent, and through the grounds, ran a rivulet, over which, at its termination, was a bridge, whence a path led through the fields to St. Agnes le Cleer. On the fide towards Shoreditch extended, for a confiderable length, the Curtain Tenter-ground, of which fome remains are still to be feen, and oppofite was a very confiderable tumulus, called Holywell-mount, which, probably, had the fame original as the mount at White. chapel 1, and was, like that, the receptacle

cafe