476 



Monthly Review of Literature. 



[OCT. 



a sensitive temperament and retired 

 habits was misunderstood, and made 

 enemies. Hayley had a good deal of 

 levity in him, and was as likely, with 

 not half the smartness, to say things for 

 mere effect as Cumberland, and, which 

 was not Cumberland's case, for want of 

 thought. According to the present 

 biographer, Hayley gave unfavour - 

 able turns to matters that would well 

 bear a better construction. " His friend- 

 ship," the author says, " was ground- 

 ed on selfishness, and the means by 

 which he maintained it was flattery. 

 By this art he obtained a great ascen- 

 dancy over the mind of Romney, and 

 knew well how to avail himself of 

 it for selfish purposes. He was able, 

 also, by a canting kind of hypocrisy, 

 to confound the distinctions between 

 vice and virtue, and to give a colour- 

 ing to conduct that might, and pro- 

 bably did, mislead llomney on some 

 occasions. He drew him, likewise, too 

 much from general society, and almost 

 monopolized him, and thus narrow- 

 ed the circle of his acquaintance and 

 friends. By having intimated an inten- 

 tion of writing Romney's life, he made 

 him afraid of doing anything that might 

 give offence. There was a wrong-head- 

 edness in the general conduct of Hay- 

 ley, arising from the influence of pow- 

 erful passions, that disqualified him 

 for being a judicious and prudent ad- 

 viser ; yet he was always interfering in 

 Romney's affairs and volunteering his 

 advice, and I have too much reason to 

 believe, that whatever errors Mr Rom- 

 ney may have committed, they were 

 mainly owing to the counsel or instiga- 

 tion of Hayley." This may be just, 

 but is severe, and the same tone per- 

 vades the whole book. The biographer 

 will not suffer any one to utter a word 

 unfavourably of his father. Fuseli said, 

 pithily, llomney was made for the times, 

 and the times for him, by which he 

 meant, that the public wanted nothing 

 but portraits, and llomney could paint 

 nothing else. The biographer says, 

 " Fuseli would have painted portraits 

 too, if he could have done them as well 

 as llomney." Cumberland ventured to 

 > say llomney had no dislike for money 

 for which the biographer twits him with 

 his own poverty, and a loan which he 

 received from Romney. Garrick once 

 quizzed a stiff family picture he saw in 

 Romney's studio " but how," observes 

 the biographer, " could candour be ex- 

 pected from the intimate friend of Rey- 

 nolds ?" Reynolds's jealousy of Rom- 

 ney, indeed, perfectly haunts the bio- 

 grapher he detects it at every turn, 

 and on occasions where surely nobody 

 else could discern it. 



Romney was born near Dalton, in 

 Lancashire, the son of a carpenter and 



joiner, and employed with his father till 

 twenty-one, wnen his bent for painting 

 becoming more decided, he bound him- 

 self to an itinerant portrait-painter for 

 five years, but before the period expired 

 he released himself, and set up on his 

 own account, in the neighbourhood of 

 his native place. After a year or two's 

 residence having probably exhausted 

 the sitters among the natives he re- 

 paired to London in 17C2, where he 

 worked hard till 1773, advancing his 

 prices from time to time to twelve gui- 

 neas. He then visited Rome ; ana on 

 his return, in 1776, on the strength of 

 his foreign studies, took a house in Ca- 

 vendish-square, raised his prices, got 

 quickly into repute, pushed Reynolds 

 from his stool, and for the next twenty 

 years was unrivalled as the fashionable 

 portrait-painter of the day. In 1796, he 

 had attacks of paralysis, and in his last 

 days sunk into absolute idiocy, dying 

 in 1802, at the age of 68. He had mar- 

 ried early. When he went to London 

 he left his wife behind, and never saw 

 her but twice afterwards. The son calls 

 this a resolution to forego the endear- 

 ments of domestic life for the noble pur- 

 pose of providing for the future welfare 

 of his family while Hayley ascribes it 

 to a settled design of abandoning her 

 from the first. An elaborate apology 

 follows much of it quite unintelligible 

 but finally, the estrangement is laid 

 upon the shoulders of the calumniating 

 Hayley. 



The chief point of interest for the 

 world is the artist's works. These, ex- 

 clusive of his endless portraits, though 

 numerous, are little known. They were 

 never, save a very few of them, exhi- 

 bited ; and many of them the biographer 

 is apprehensive will be confounded with 

 Reynolds's, and he have the credit of 

 them though the two styles, we be- 

 lieve, are sufficiently distinguishable. 

 The anecdotes connected with some of 

 them are interesting. Lady Hamilton, 

 while under Charles Greville's protec- 

 tion, sat habitually to Romney. Twenty- 

 three pictures are enumerated for which 

 she assumed different characters ; and, 

 according to the author, it was in Rom- 

 ney's studio she practised the attitudes 

 for which she was afterwards so cele- 

 brated. 



Tales of Other Days, by J. Y. A., with 

 Illustrations by Georyc Cruikshank . We i 

 mean to throw no reflection upon Mr. 

 Cruikshank's morals, when we say that 

 he seems to be, beyond all comparison, 

 better acquainted with the Devil than any 

 artist that ever lived. He is not like 

 one who has obtained an occasional and 

 unsatisfactory glimpse of him in a 

 dream, a grotesque vision of the night, 

 after having supped full of horrors, ac- 



