1903.] on George Bomney and his Works. 245 



were not sold in patent collapsible tubes as we have them now ; 

 artists employed their apprentices to grind and mix them for their 

 daily use. 



The Count also found less legitimate employment for his appren- 

 tice. A young lady, who happened to be taking drawing lessons 

 from him, possessed a small fortune, which exercised a powerful 

 charm upon the impecunious Count, who paid his addresses secretly 

 to her, and employed George as a go-between. Finally, he persuaded 

 the heiress to elope with him to Gretna Green ; and George, thus 

 left in the lurch, presently fell into a fever. His landlady was a 

 widow of very humble means, one Mrs. Abbot, whose daughter Mary 

 nursed the young fellow through his illness, who out of gratitude 

 gave her his heart. During his convalescence they became betrothed 

 — the first step in the long tragedy of their lives. 



Next came a summons from the Count to his apprentice bidding 

 him join him at York, where he had set up his studio. George would 

 not leave without fulfilling his plighted troth, and on 14th October, 

 1756, being of the matui-e age of one-and-twenty, he married Mary 

 Abbot and hurried off to resume his duties with Steele, leaving his bride 

 in Kendal. Of course he had, as yet, no means of keeping a wife ; on 

 the contrary, while working in York, Mary used to send him from 

 time to time half-a-guinea hidden in the seal of a letter. Still he 

 worked both ardently and steadily, so that when the Count decamped 

 hurriedly from York, in 1757, and the apprenticeship was prematurely 

 broken, Eomney on returning to Kendal was able to earn something 

 on his own account. Kind and helpful encouragement came from 

 country gentlemen in the neighbourhood, and portraits painted by 

 Romuey at this period may still be seen in their houses and in the 

 Town Hall of Kendal. Of course, you will not expect to behold 

 in these juvenile works much of that ease and grace which are 

 apparently distinguished in his later ones. They are more like 

 the handiwork of Hogarth than the painter we know as George 

 Komney. 



In Kendal, George Eomney remained working steadily for five 

 years. Steadily, but not hopefully. He was eight-and-twenty by 

 this time, and, although conscious of the scope of his natural powers, 

 the very insight which he had obtained into the requirements of his 

 art showed him that those powers could not be bronght to perfection 

 without wider acquaintance with the work of other painters. 



To raise funds for his journey to London, in 1762, the young 

 painter disposed of the pictures he had by him, about twenty in all, 

 by lottery. This brought in about 100/., half of which he left with 

 his wife, the other half he took with him, riding on horseback to 

 London. Arriving there on the eighth day after his departure, he 

 was kindly treated by his old schoolfellow, Thomas Greene, who was 

 in good practice as an attorney of Gray's Inn, and by another old 

 Westmorland friend, Daniel Braithwaite of the Post Ofiice. Mr. 

 Pennington of Muncaster also was of service to him, and Romney 



