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GAINSBOROUGH AND GARRICK.

After his removal from Ipswich to Bath, Gainsborough's success as a portrait-painter was very great. Here he painted Garrick, as Mrs. Garrick said, "the best portrait ever painted of her Davy," which he presented to the corporation of Stratford-on-Avon, where it hangs in the Town-hall. He is leaning against a pedestal, surmounted by a bust of Shakspeare, which he encircles with one arm: the background is a favourite haunt in Garrick's retreat at Hampton.

Hazlitt wrote in the Morning Chronicle, of another portrait of Garrick (in the possession of General Wallis), this picture "is as interesting as a piece of biography. He looks much more like a gentleman than in Reynolds's tragi-comic representation of him. There is a considerable lightness and intelligence in the expression of the face, and a piercing vivacity about the eyes, to which the attention is immediately directed."

Gainsborough told the writer of Garrick's memoir, in the obituary of the Gentleman's Magazine, that he never found any portrait so difficult to hit as that of Mr. Garrick; for, when he was sketching the eyebrows, and thought he had hit upon the precise situation, and looked a second time at his sitter, he found the eyebrows lifted up to the middle of his forehead; and when he looked a third time, they were dropped, like a curtain, close over the eye,-so flexible was the countenance of the great actor.

GAINSBOROUGH A MUSICIAN.

Our painter gave all the hours of intermission in his profession to fiddles and rebecs. His musical taste was very great; and he himself thought he was not intended by Nature for a painter, but for a musician. Happening to see a theorbo in a picture of Vandyke's, he concluded it must be a fine instrument. He recollected to have heard of a German professor; and, ascending to his garret, found him dining on roasted apples, and smoking his pipe, with his theorbo beside him. "I am come to buy your lute-name your price, and here's your money." "I cannot sell my lute." "No, not for a guinea or two ;-but you must sell it, I tell you.' My lute is worth much money-it is worth ten guineas." "Aye, that it is-see, here's the money." So saying, he took up

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the instrument, laid down the price, went half-way down stairs, and returned. "I have done but half my errand; what is your lute worth, if I have not your book?" "What book, Master Gainsborough?" "Why, the book of airs you have composed for the lute." Ah, sir, I can never part with my book!" "Poh! you can make another at any time -this is the book I mean-there's ten guineas for it-so, once more, good day." He went down a few steps, and returned again. "What use is your book to me if I don't understand it?—and your lute, you may take it again, if you won't teach me to play on it. Come home with me, and give me the first lesson." "I will come to-morrow." "You must come now." "I must dress myself." "For what? You are the best figure I have seen to-day." "I must shave, sir." "I honour your beard." "I must, however, put on my wig." "D-n your wig! your cap and beard become you! Do you think if Vandyke was to paint you, he'd let you be shaved?" In this manner Gainsborough frittered away his musical talents; and though possessed of ear, taste, and genius, he never had application enough to learn his notes. He scorned to take the first step-the second was of course out of his reach the summit became unattainable.

"THE PAINTER'S EYE."

Gainsborough was very successful in repartee. He was once examined as a witness on a trial respecting the originality of a picture, when a counsel endeavoured to puzzle him by saying, "I observe you lay great stress on a painter's eye-what do you mean by that expression?" "A painter's eye," answered Gainsborough, "is to him what a lawyer's tongue is to you."

GAINSBOROUGH AND HIS FRIEND THICKNESSE.

Although the painter's Bath friend was governor of Landguard Fort, and a man of proud pretension, Gainsborough found that money would not be unwelcome in his friend's household, and he appears to have taken a singular and delicate mode of lending his assistance. Thicknesse relates that among the instruments of music which Gainsborough loved was the viol-di-gamba, and Mrs. Thicknesse had one, made in the year 1612, on which she played with much skill and effect. He appeared one evening to be exceedingly charmed with the instrument, and said: "I love it so much, that I

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would willingly give an hundred guineas for it." She desired him to stay to supper: she placed the viol-di-gamba beside him; he took it up, and played in a manner so masterly, that Mrs. Thicknesse said: "You deserve an instrument on which you play so well; and I beg your acceptance of it, on the condition that you will give me my husband's picture to hang beside the one which you painted of me." The artist acquiesced the viol-di-gamba was sent to him next morning; he stretched a canvas, took one sitting of some fifteen minutes' duration, and then laid it aside for other works. The lady was incensed, and the husband remonstrated; Gainsborough returned the viol-di-gamba, and never touched the picture more. Such is the story of Thicknesse: the family version communicated to Allan Cunningham* by a lady, who had it from Mrs. Gainsborough herself, is somewhat different. The painter (according to this account,) put one hundred guineas privately into the hands of Mrs. Thicknesse for the viol-digamba; her husband, who might not be aware of what passed, expressed his wish for the portrait, and obtained what he conceived to be a promise that it should be painted. This double benefaction, however, was more than Gainsborough had contemplated he commenced the portrait, but there it stopped; and, after a time, resenting some injurious expressions from the lips of the Governor, the artist sent him the picture, rough and unfinished, and returned also the viol-di-gamba.

Thicknesse sent back the portrait, with a note, requesting Gainsborough to take his brush, and first rub out the countenance of the truest and warmest friend he ever had; and having so done, then blot him for ever from his memory.

However, when Gainsborough removed from Bath to London, Thicknesse followed him, and affected to fear his chance in the great world. It was the old story of the spangle on the lion's tail. Thicknesse urged Lord Bateman to patronise the painter, to which the Governor had the vanity to ascribe much of Gainsborough's success-although he had already painted many noble pictures, and had exhibited them for thirteen years in succession in the Royal Academy.

GAINSBOROUGH AND HOUBRAKEN'S HEADS.

When Gainsborough became a pupil of Mr. Gravelot, under his instructions, he drew most of the ornaments which decorate the illustrious Heads admirably engraved by Houbraken. * Lives of British Painters, vol. i. p. 343.

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ADVANTAGE OF A HANDSOME SITTER.

Soon after Gainsborough came to London, he applied to Major James Johnston, of the 1st or Royal Dragoons, requesting him, as a great favour, to sit for his portrait, in order to bring himself into vogue-which he did; and he being a great favourite with the fair sex, and so handsome and fashionable at the time, the picture had the desired effect: after it had been exhibited the usual time, Gainsborough made Major Johnston a present of it, and it is now in the possession of Sir Alexander Johnston.-Note to Walpole, by Cunningham.

GAINSBOROUGH AND THE CARRIER.

One of the painter's acquaintances in Bath was Wiltshere, the public carrier, a kind and worthy man, who loved Gainsborough, and admired his works. In one of his landscapes, he wished to introduce a horse, and as the carrier had a very handsome one, he requested the loan of it for a day or two, and named his purpose; his generous neighbour bridled it and saddled it, and sent it as a present. The painter was not a man to be outdone in acts of generosity: he painted the waggon and horses of his friend, put his whole family and himself into it, and sent it, well-framed, to Wiltshere, with his kind respects. It is considered a very capital performance. From 1761, when Gainsborough began to exhibit his paintings at the Royal Academy, till his removal from Bath in 1774, Wiltshere was annually employed to carry his pictures to and from London:* he took great care of them, and constantly refused to accept money, saying: "No, no! I admire painting too much;" and plunged his hands in his pockets to secure them against the temptation of the offered payment. Perceiving, however, that this was not acceptable to the proud artist, the honest carrier hit upon a scheme which pleased both. "When you think," said he, "I have carried to the value of a little painting, I beg you will let me have one, sir; and I shall be more than paid." In this coin the painter paid Wiltshere, and overpaid him. When Allan Cunningham wrote the above, Wiltshere's son was still in possession of several of these pictures, among which was a portrait of the Parish Clerk of Bradford, very Rembrandtish.

* John Britton, in 1801, saw, in a house in the Circus, more than Efty of Gainsborough's paintings and sketches.

GAINSBOROUGH'S MODELLING.

Gainsborough modelled very rapidly, and with great fidelity. Thicknesse relates, that after returning home from a concert at Bath, where he had been charmed by Miss Linley's voice, he sent his servant for a bit of clay from the small-beer barrel, with which he modelled and then coloured Miss Linley's head, and that in a quarter of an hour, in such a manner that it seemed superior to his paintings. Mr. Leslie had in his possession, some years ago, an exquisite plaster cast of a head of Miss Linley, from a clay model by Gainsborough, probably the above. He would now and then mould the face of his friends in miniature, finding the material in the wax candles burning before him: and the models were as perfect in their resemblance as his portraits.

RETURN OF GAINSBOROUGH TO LONDON.-SCHOMBERG HOUSE, PALL MALL.

In the summer of 1774, Gainsborough returned to the metropolis, nearly thirty years having elapsed since he left the studio of Hayman. An old race of artists had passed away, and a new race had succeeded; and West, Barry, and Fuseli were following in the track already struck out by Hogarth, by Wilson, and by Reynolds.

Gainsborough was now in possession of a splendid income, high in fame. He rented at 300l. a-year part of Schomberg House, in Pall Mall,-another portion being occupied by John Astley, "the Beau," a portrait-painter of little merit. Before Gainsborough had been many months in London, George III. and Queen Charlotte sat to him for their portraits. Peers and commoners followed so rapidly that he could not satisfy his sitters. One disappointed gentleman inquired of the Painter's porter, in a voice loud enough to be overheard, "Has that fellow Gainsborough finished my portrait?" Ushered into the painting-room, he beheld his picture, approved of it, and desired it might be sent home at once, adding, "I may as well give you a cheque for the other fifty guineas." "Stay a minute," said Gainsborough, "it just wants a finishing stroke;" and snatching up a background brush, he dashed it across the smiling features, indignantly exclaiming, "Sir, where is my fellow now ?"

In 1777, Gainsborough contributed several Portraits to the

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