I think his sudden reputation injured the native simplicity of his mind. I think the treachery and cruelty of his treatment, from the base envy of his associates, destroyed the confidence in human nature he felt before. I think the distinctions of a Court roused a desire for shining, where he was not qualified to do so; but who among us can answer for ourselves in similar temptations? who can say he would have left a character so untainted, so eminent, and so honourable? Let us therefore only remember his virtues; for, be assured, his virtues are worthy imitation, whilst what may be considered his vices were but comparative weaknesses after all. As his death was touching, so was his burial romantic; for what Briton, "whose march is o'er the mountain wave, and home is on the deep," would not glory in anticipation at the poetry of such an entombment as Trafalgar Bay! As a Christian, he could not have been taken from us at a better time. His piety had been increased, his belief strengthened, and his hopes exalted, by his visit to the Holy Land; and if ever human being left this world fit for a better, or ready for judgment-it was David Wilkie. Note. The strong language with regard to the Royal Academy which I have used in this Lecture, is perfectly just as applied to that period. The clique which caused all the mischief then, and twenty years before, have died off, and the latter elections shew a healthier and better spirit.-B. R. H. LECTURE X. ON THE EFFECT OF THE DIFFERENT SOCIETIES IN LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART, ON THE TASTE OF THE BRITISH NOBILITY AND PEOPLE. First delivered December 23, 1836, AT THE LONDON MECHANICS' INSTITUTION. : LECTURE X. GENTLEMEN, In my previous Lectures I led your mind gradually and progressively from the first dawn of a principle in Drawing and Composition to the last component parts of imitation, viz.-colour, light and shadow, light and dark, execution and surface (or impasto), as the vehicles of thought and expression. I laid it down to you, and I hope I proved it to you, that thought and expression suffered in power of effect on the spectator, if colour and the other elements of imitation were deficient. That it was accident, and not intention, when the Venetians neglected form,—and accident, and not intention, when the Romans neglected colour; because, when each school discovered its error, each school set about correcting its imperfections, and each school left isolated works* nearly perfect. Yet Reynolds, taking the weaknesses of separate schools as the result of system, instead of accident, laid down their omissions as abstract principles, and formed a code of laws to guide the English student founded on the very weaknesses of these separate schools, * Transfiguration, Pietro Martyre, and Lazarus.-B. R. H. |