By Frederick Shum, F.S.A. 65 



that city, was taken by her mother, the Duchess of Kent, to view 

 the pictures at Shockerwick. Here it was Her Majesty first saw 

 the picture now in lier possession. In recording this fact 1 am only 

 paying a just tribute to the Queen's good taste and discrimination, 

 in selecting for purchase a work of so much excellence, seen by her 

 when only a girl many years before. 



Necessarily imperfect and fragmentary as these notes have proved, 

 for the reasons, first, that the information sought has been difficult 

 to obtain ; secondly, because I considered it undesirable to reproduce 

 — however interesting — incidents concerning Gainsborough, which 

 it is presumed you are familiar with, especially, those details of his 

 later life — of his successful career at Schomberg House, Pall Mall, 

 whither he removed from Bath in 1774, of the singular and melan- 

 choly premonition of his decease, and of that last touching scene, 

 when, anxious to die at peace with all, he sent for Reynolds, with 

 whom he had quarrelled, and who generously came, and bending 

 over him listened to his last whispers, " We are all going to Heavea 

 and Vandyck is one of the party " ; nevertheless, it has also been 

 my aim to gather a few local remembrances of a notable man in 

 humble life, the subject of one of our finest national portraits, as 

 well as to claim for the painter the position of an English artist, 

 second to none of his predecessors or contemporaries, either in 

 portrait or landscape painting, while in the practice of both he was 

 unequalled. In support of this view let me cite two or three sen- 

 tences from the writings of the greatest art-critic of ancient or 

 modern times : — " Gainsborough^s power of colour is capable of 

 taking rank beside that of Rubens, he is the purest colourist. Sir 

 Joshua Reynolds not excepted, of the whole English school ; with 

 him, in fact, the art of painting did in great part die, and exists not 

 now in Europe. ... I hesitate not to say that in the management 

 and quality of single and particular tints, in the purely technical 

 part of painting. Turner is a child to Gainsborough. Gainsborough's 

 hand is light as the sweep of a cloud — as swift as the flash of a 

 sunbeam. Gainsborough's masses are as broad as the first division in 

 heaven of light from darkness. Gainsborough's forms are grand, 

 simple, and ideal. In a word Gainsborough is an immortal painter.'' 



VOL. XX. — NO. LYIII. B 



