already crowded with transcripts from nature, that now fetch more pounds than they were then valued at in farthings. He made sketches for-half-acrown a-piece! and expressed his gratitude to Paul Selby for giving him a shilling or two more. An easel, a brush, and a few articles of furniture, not as many as a mechanic would need, were all he could afford, while producing what are now the richest ornaments of our most costly mansions-chiefest of our national glories in Art. Ah! who can read without sympathy the story that in such a dwelling he was found by a youth—a student—whose name, although forgotten on earth, is recorded in heaven. The lad was asked by a lady to conduct her to the greatest landscape painter, to whom she wished to give a commission. He took her to Wilson's studio-she commissioned two pictures, and drove off. Wilson detained his young friend, and, looking him mournfully in the face, murmured, 'Your kindness is vain; I am wholly destitute; I cannot even purchase proper colours and canvas for these works.' The young man lent the great artist twenty pounds; and drew a salutary lesson from the distress it was his privilege to relieve. Could he expect to prosper where Wilson, with all his genius, was starving? He laid aside his palette and brushes, entered college, and became a clergyman -a calling of which he must have been very worthy. Wilson was inexpensive in his habits; his luxury was a pot of porter and a toast -sufficiently unrefined to cause his enemies to sneer, and his admirers to regret that he could afford no better. In those days artists and authors were frequent friends, aiding each other by an interchange of mind that must have been vastly beneficial to both. There were no clubs then; and those who had no homes wherein to meet their friends, would meet them at a tavern: it was at the Turk's Head, in Gerrard Street, Soho-in really good society-the great landscape painter of England forgot that he was poor.

6

We have often thought how humbled the English-to whom it was addressed—must have felt at the reproof of the French artist, Vernet, who hung one of Wilson's pictures in his own studio, and, when his productions were praised or purchased, would say, 'Do not talk only of my landscapes, when your own countryman Wilson paints so beautifully.' But his generous praise fell on deaf ears. The English painter was as much neglected in his native land as he had been before his six years residence abroad,

and as his age increased his hopes decayed; the distinguishing letters R.A. after his name did him little service-brought him at least but little profit, although upon his small stipend as Librarian of the Royal Academy, he was compelled to count for daily bread.

Talk of his being morose in his manners! Alas! alas! neglect and injustice corrode the finest polish; the storm and the frost will not ripen our fruits, nor can we expect to gather wheat where we sow tares. The only wonder is, that such bitter neglect did not produce a more splenetic and ill-conditioned mind and conduct. It is most unjust and unnatural to require the silken manners of a court from a storm-beaten man, who, instead of studying points of etiquette, has been buffeting with starvationdrawing a small coin from its concealment and replacing it again, despite the cravings of hunger, lest when it was gone, he should be absolutely and entirely penniless in a cold world.

It requires a strong heart to bear up against the misrepresentations and misconceptions that await the man of genius, even under the most propitious circumstances; but, when neglect is the herald of want, then indeed, the heart must be of iron that remains steadfast in its lonelinesssustained by what? By the certain, the almost instinctive assurance, that a time must come when a name will be heard among the nations, though, in its narrow home, the framework of the mighty mind has mouldered to dust.

But Wilson had faith in himself; his cup of misery would otherwise, perhaps, have overflowed long before the death of an elder brother placed him beyond the reach of want.

The landmarks of his London pilgrimage can hardly now be traced. Time, who ought to have guarded them all with jealous care, has erased them; and although his final resting-place is known and honoured, the place of his birth is-strange to say-a subject for conjecture. His only biographer, Wright, informs us that he was the third son of a clergyman in Montgomeryshire, who, 'soon after the birth of our artist' was collated to the living of Mold, in Flintshire-a Welsh living, the income of which may have been forty pounds a-year. From the slender details connected with his early life, we learn that his parents had six sons and one daughter, who all died unwed; and that the future landscape

painter first drew figures with burnt stick on the walls, and for a long time fancied his vocation was to paint faces, not landscape. To his studies in portrait-painting may be traced the admirable character of the figures in many of his landscapes. These few facts comprise nearly all we know of his early days ;-tradition gives us no more. Passing over the intermediate time-the space between boyhood and old age, the village of

Llanverris supplies a proof how completely genius can make a small thing its own-how entirely it may immortalize that upon which its finger has been placed. In his youth, Wilson painted a sign for the rural inn-two grinning heads-with the motto, We three loggerheads be;' the village hence received the name of Loggerheads,' it has since been known by no other. Close to it is the house of Colomondie, where,

after his accession to the property, which removed the painter from the necessity of labour, and the pains and anxieties of a residence in London, to the corn-fields and varied beauties of his boyhood's home, it is pleasant to think the pure breeze of his native mountains revived and cheered him,

during the last few months of his lingering existence. He loved to wanderaccompanied by a faithful dog-through this charming valley; and the peasant will point out Wilson's stone, and Wilson's trees; in the house is the bed on which he died, and in the church

yard of Mold,-close

by the north door of

the church-the bed wherein he was laid to rest. There are not many

words upon his tomb, but they suffice :

THE REMAINS OF RICHARD WILSON, Esq.,
MEMBER OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY OF ARTISTS.
Interred May 15th 1782, aged 69.

THE HOUSE OF ANDREW MARVEL.

FEW months ago we had been strolling about Palace-yard, and instinctively paused at No. 19, York-street, Westminster. It was evening; the lamplighters were running from post to post, but we could still see that the house was a plain house

to look at, differing little from its associate dwellings; a common house, a house you would pass without a thought, unless the remembrance of thoughts that had been given to you from within the shelter of those plain, ordinary, walls, caused you to reflect; aye, and to thank God, who has left with you the memories and sympathies which elevate human nature. Here, while Latin secretary to the Protector, was JOHN MILTON to be found when at home;' and in his society, at times, were met, all the men who with their great originator, Cromwell, astonished Europe. Just think of those who entered that portal; think of them all if you can-statesmen and warriors; or, if you are really of a gentle spirit, think of two-but two; either of whom has left enough to engross your thoughts and fill your hearts. Think of JOHN MILTON and ANDREW MARVEL! think of the Protector of England, with two such secretaries!

Evening had deepened into night; busy hands were closing shutters, and drawing curtains, to exclude the dense fog that crept slowly and