ON CERTAIN INCONSIDERATE CRITICISMS. 23S 



to paint cocked hats, coats, boots, and all the unpicturesque details 

 of regimental uniforms. This certainly seems more consonant with 

 Sir Joshua's fine taste and sound judgment. But, between the two 

 statements, the reader will decide according to the degree of proba- 

 bility. 



There was, also, a positive mistake in Sir Joshua's supposition 

 that West's death of General Wolfe ^^ would produce a revolution 

 in the art," which implied that it was the first battle painted in the 

 modern dress. But, so far, the revolution had been begun long be- 

 fore West was born. Excepting in the ignorant dawn of the arts, 

 artists never ran to the extreme absurdity of representing modern 

 stories in the dresses of nations extinct one or two thousand years 

 before. As to battles being an exception, it is not a fact. Without 

 losing time to refer to examples of ah early period, I shall here refer 

 to some well-known pictures. Vander Meulen, who died in 1690, 

 attended Louis XIV. in his campaigns, and painted, in the Royal 

 Chateau, at Marly, the principal battles of that monarch, with a 

 correct representation of the military dresses of the time. Bryan 

 laments, very injudiciously, that the painter was restricted to the 

 modern habiliments; but the advantage of dignified effect to be 

 gained by the Grecian or Roman costume, would be overbalanced 

 by the falsification of the dresses and military weapons. A person 

 who has to give evidence of historical facts, is not allowed to utter 

 untruths for the sake of eloquence. John Hugtenberg, who died 

 in 1702, painted, for Prince Eugene, the battles which that com- 

 mander fought, in co-operation with the great Duke of Marlborough. 

 In these pictures, he copied the dresses of the combatants. Johir 

 Wyck did the same in the battle of the Boyne, and, also, in the 

 sieges of Naarden and Namur, which he painted for king William. 

 He observed a similar attention in the battle which he painted as a 

 background to Sir Godfrey Kneller's equestrian portrait of Duke 

 Schomberg. This artist died in 1702, thirty-six years before West 

 was born. The silly story that West was the first who introduced 

 the proper costume in a modern battle is still current. In 1819, West 

 mentioned it to me, and he and his friends believed it. In The New 

 M(mthly MagazinCj June 1, 1820, p. 695, I furnished, in my me- 

 moirs of that artist, all the necessary evidence to correct it. But it 



