ings; and, while the trivial defects both of him and them were obvious to the many, the unusual excellencies of both could be completely known and valued only by the few.

Any observer, however contemptible, might in some of his pictures discover a neglect of proper costume in his draperies, a too strict adherence to the models from which he painted, and an inattention to the minuter parts of art; but it required the eye of a connoisseur, and the kindred feeling of an artist to distinguish and appreciate properly the simplicity of his designs, the justness of his representations, and the force of his light and shadow. In like manner any one might observe in the artist himself a negligence in dress, a disregard of the common rules of common manners, and a carelessness to please those whom he considered as trifling and uninteresting, but it required a mind of powers nearly equal to his own, or gifted with a nice perception of uncommon endowments in others, to value, and to call forth his acuteness of observation and his depth of thinking; to follow him through the wide range of his perceptions, and to profit by that just and philosophical mode of seeing and describing, on which his claims to mental superiority were so strongly built.

Those only whom he sufficiently respected to enter into argument with, or who were themselves fond of argument, are aware of the full extent of the powers of his mind :- -with others, even when he loved them as friends, and valued them as companions, he indulged, for the most part, in conversation, which, though never trifling, was often unimportant, and which at least served the useful purpose of unbending a mind, only too frequently for the good of the frame which contained it, stretched to the very utmost limit. You have said of him that in argument he had the power of eliciting light from his opponent, and Mr. Northcote has exhibited his talent for conversing in another point of view, by observing that it is difficult to say whether his conversation gave more amusement or instruction.' Certain indeed it is, that his power to amuse was equal to his power to instruct ;-but, as flame shines brightest in certain airs, he shone the most in certain societies. The fire of his mind required certain applications to elicit its brilliancy, and those were love, esteem, and respect for the companions with whom he was conversing, and a perfect confidence that they desired and valued his society,

I was induced to mention this circumstance from being fully aware that many persons, with whom Mr. Opie lived in apparent intimacy, had no suspicion of his possessing conversational talents of the highest order. But in general the few only possess a key to open in another the stores of mental excellence, especially

when the entrance is also guarded by the proud consciousness of superiority, suspicious of being undervalued.

You, my dear Sir, were one of those who possessed a key to unlock the mind of Mr. Opie, and to you were all its treasures known. You, therefore, are well aware that he excelled in aptness of quotation, that there was a peculiar playfulness of fancy in his descriptions; that he possessed the art of representing strongly the ridiculous in men and things, which he instantly and sensibly felt, and therefore the pictures drawn by his tongue lived as powerfully to the view as those from his pencil;-while his talent for repartee, for strong humour, and formidable though not malignant sarcasm, gave an ever varying attraction to his conversation; an attraction which no one I believe was ever more sensible of than yourself, as you were one of the friends whom he never failed to welcome with an artless warmth of manner which always found its way to the heart, because it bore indisputable marks of having come from it.

But as I am fully sensible that my testimony in favour of Mr. Opie's conversational superiority can add no weight to that given by you and Mr. Northcote, and that both you and he may be supposed biassed by the partiality of friendship, I beg leave to offer, in corroboration of its truth, authority of a very high description, and which has hitherto not met the public eye, that of Mr. Horne Tooke, whom even those who dislike his politics must admire as a man not only of sagacity the most acute, but of attainments the most extraordinary, and that of Sir James Mackintosh, on whose talents it is needless for me to expatiate.

Mr. Tooke, while Mr. Opie was painting him, had not only the opportunity, but the power of sounding him, from his lowest note to the top of his compass.' And he said, a short time afterwards, to one of his most distinguished friends, Mr. Opie crowds more wisdom into a few words than almost any man I ever knew ; he speaks as it were in axioms, and what he observes is worthy to be remembered.'

Sir James Mackintosh, in a letter recently received from him, laments the loss of an acquaintance to whose society he looked forward as one of the pleasures which awaited him at his return to England, and adds the following observation: had Mr. Opie turned his powers of mind to the study of philosophy, he would have been one of the first philosophers of the age. I was never more struck than with his original manner of thinking and expressing himself in conversation, and had he written on the subject, he would, perhaps, have thrown more light on the philosophy of his art than any man living.'

Nor was Mr. Opie's intellectual superiority unappreciated by the eminent amongst my own sex.

Mrs. Inchbald has given to the world her opinion of my husband in her own interesting and energetic manner; and Mrs. Siddons must pardon me, if I relate the following circumstance : where is Mr. Opie?' said Mrs. Siddons, one evening at a party in B-k-street. 'He is gone,' was the answer. I am sorry for it,' she replied, for I meant to have sought him out, as when I am with him, I am always sure to hear him say something which I cannot forget, or at least which ought never to be forgotten.'

I have been led to dwell on Mr. Opie's great talents for conversation, and to bring forward respectable evidence to prove it, in order to draw this inference; that to him who could in society 'speak in axioms,' and express original ideas in an impressive and forcible manner, it could not be a very difficult task to conquer the only obstacle to his success as an author, namely, want, of the habit of writing, and to become on the subject most dear and familiar to him, a powerful and eloquent writer.

That he was such, the following work, I trust, will sufficiently testify and I should not have thought it necessary to draw the inference mentioned above, had it not been often asserted, and by many believed, that, however the ideas contained in the lectures might be conceived by Mr. Opie, it was not by his pen that those ideas were cloathed in adequate language. But the slight texture of muslin could as easily assume the consistency of velvet, as the person supposed to have assisted Mr. Opie in the composition of his lectures, have given language to the conceptions of his mind. He who alone conceived them, was alone capable of giving them adequate expression; nor could so weak and illfounded a suspicion have ever entered into the head of any one, but for the false ideas which, as you well know, are entertained of painting and of painters in general.

There are many who set literature so much above the arts, that they would think Mr. Opie showed more ability in being able to write on painting, than in executing the finest of his pictures.

Such persons see a simple effect produced, and are wholly unconscious what compound powers are requisite to produce it. They would gaze on a portrait painted by the first masters, they would see the character, the expression, and the sort of historical effect which the picture exhibited;, but they would turn away and still consider the artist as a mere painter, and not at all suspect that he could think, or argue, or write. Here let me declare in the most solemn and unequivocal manner, that to my certain knowledge, Mr. Opie never received from any human being the slightest assistance whatever in the composition of his lectures; I believe I read to myself some parts of them as they were given at the Royal Institution before they were delivered, and afterwards I had the honour of reading them to the bishop of Dur

ham, who said when I had concluded, 'you were known before as a great painter, Mr. Opie, you will now be known as a great writer also:' but the four finished lectures, on which he employed all the powers of his mind, and which he delivered as professor of painting at the Royal Academy, I never even saw, but he read each of them to me when finished, and two of them I believe to Mr. Landseer, the engraver, and Mr. Philips, the Academician. Assistance from any one Mr. Opie would have despised, even if he had needed it ; as none but the most contemptible of human beings can endure to strut forth in borrowed plumes, and claim a reputation which they have not conscientiously deserved. Such meanness was unworthy a man like Mr. Opie, and the lectures themselves are perhaps a fatal proof not only of his eagerness to obtain reputation as a lecturer, but also of the laborious industry by which he endeavoured to satisfy that eager

ness.

To the toils of the artist during the day (and he never was idle for a moment), succeeded those of the writer every evening; and from the month of September 1806, to February 1807, he allowed his mind no rest, and scarcely indulged himself in the relaxation of a walk, or the society of his friends. To the completion therefore of the lectures in question his life perhaps fell an untimely sacrifice; and in the bitterness of regret, I wish they had never been even thought of. But they were written, were delivered, and highly were they admired. They serve to form another wreath for his brow. Let it then be suffered to bloom there, nor let the hand of ignorance, inadvertence, envy, or malignity, attempt to pluck it thence!

Mr. Northcote, in his character of Mr. Opie, has mentioned his filial piety, and I can confirm what he has asserted by the testimony of my own experience: indeed all who knew him, would readily admit, that the strength of his affections equalled that of his intellect. I have heard Mr. Opie say, that when he first came to London, he was considered as a sort of painting Chatterton. But it was not in talent only that he resembled the unfortunate Chatterton. He resembled him also in attachment to his family.

Chatterton, if we may judge by his letters, never looked forward to any worldly good without telling his mother and sister, that he hoped to share it with them; and no sooner was Mr. Opie settled in London, with a prospect of increasing employment, than some of his first earnings were transmitted by him to his mother; and his sister, whom he tenderly loved, and who well deserved his affection, was invited to the metropolis, to enjoy the popularity, and partake of the prosperity of her brother. Here, unhappily for Chatterton, the resemblance between them

ceases, for he possessed not the industry, the patience, the prudence and the self-denial of Mr. Opie. The mother and sister whom Chatterton held so dear were left by his wretched and selfish suicide in the same state of poverty they had ever known; while those of my husband were enabled by his well deserved success to know the comforts of a respectable competence. Mr. Opie's father died, I believe, at a very early period of his son's life; but he lived to witness the dawnings of his genius, and to feel his affections, as well as his pride gratified, by seeing that genius first exhibited in a likeness of himself. Perhaps the following anecdote may not be unacceptable to my readers; but I cannot expect them to experience from it the same interest which it produced in me, especially as I cannot narrate it in the simple yet impressive and dramatic manner in which my poor sister used to tell it, while, in order to beguile her grief for her brother's loss, she dwelt with never satisfied pride and delight on his talents and his worth.

One Sunday afternoon, while his mother was at church, Mr. Opie, then a boy of ten or eleven years old, fixed his materials for painting in a little kitchen, directly opposite the parlour, where his father sat reading the Bible. He went on drawing till he had finished every thing but the head, and when he came to that he frequently ran into the parlour to look up in his father's face. He repeated this extraordinary interruption so often, that the old man became quite angry, and threatened to correct him severely if he did the like again. This was exactly what the young artist wanted. He wished to paint his father's eyes when lighted up, and sparkling with indignation, and having obtained his end, he quietly resumed his task. He had completed his picture before his mother's return from church, and on entering the house, he set it before her. She knew it instantly, but, ever true to her principles, she was very angry with him for having painted on a Sunday, thereby profaning the Sabbath-day. The child, however, was so elated by his success, that he disregarded her remonstrance, and hanging fondly round her neck, he was alive only to the pleasure she had given him by owning the strength of the resemblance. At this moment his father entered the room, and recognizing his own portrait immediately, highly approved his son's amusement, during the afternoon, (parental pride conquering habitual piety awhile), and exhibited the picture, with ever new satisfaction, to all who came to the house, while the story of his anger, at interruptions so happily excused and accounted for, added interest to his narrative, and gratified still more the pride of the artist.

Mr. Opie used to speak of his mother with the most touching enthusiasm. He described her as the most perfect of human be