94 



Motithly Review of Literature, 



[JuLV, 



and one make two, though the Chancel- 

 lor of the Exchequer, oecasionally it 

 may be, finds a different result. This 

 is the whole secret of our two volume 

 lives — in most of the cases which we re- 

 collect any thing about in modern times, 

 one volume would have been more than 

 enough. In Sir Thomas Lawrence's 

 certainly, instead of 1200 pages, 200 

 would have afforded ample scope for 

 telling all which the world could de- 

 sire to know of him, and have em- 

 braced, besides, every item of his cor- 

 respondence which it could have done 

 him any credit to publish. 



Campbell, the poet, was announced as 

 the biogi'apher before poor Sir Thomas 

 was fairly in his grave, to the surprise, 

 we believe, of all who knew him ; for 

 certainly he was not the man to biogra- 

 phize at the rate of two volumes in a 

 few months — implying, as such a feat 

 does, a contempt of all selection — a dis- 

 regard for all weighing and balancing — 

 a mere heaping and piling whatever 

 can be scratched together, or can by 

 possibility be linked with the subject. 

 Mr. Campbell, however, (jidckly relin- 

 quished the ungrateful task, under the 

 pretence of want of health and leisure, 

 and consigned the whole affair, with all 

 the accumulations, into the hands of the 

 publisher's nominee — a man after their 

 own hearts — one who obviously could 

 work to pattern, and play the part of exe- 

 cutioner to Procrustes. 



Lawrence was born in 17C9, at Bristol. 

 A prodigious effort is made to connect 

 liim with the baronetage on both sides. 

 The failure is complete as to the father, 

 who was, if it be of any importance, the 

 son of a dissenting teacher. The mother 

 was the daughter of a clergyman of the 

 establishment, and certainly allied to a 

 Warwickshire baronet. For some time 

 they kept an inn at Bristol, and soon 

 after a posting-house at Devizes, where 

 the father was well known to the ha- 

 bitual visitors of Bath, especially for 

 worrying his customers with the pro- 

 digious talents of little Tommy. And 

 wonderful, no doubt, they were— if 

 ever boy had a decided bent he had ; 

 before he was six years old he drew 

 a good likeness of Kenyon and his 

 wife. While yet a child he supported 

 the family by the exertions of his ta- 

 lents, and continued to do so, at Bath, 

 or in London, till their death in 1797. 

 As a very remarkable boy he had been 

 exceedingly petted by the neighbour- 

 hood, and his agreeable manners gained 

 him admittance into numerous fami- 

 lies of respectability find distinction. 

 His career in London was facilitated by 

 his friends, for, though wholly unknown 

 to painters and their connections, he 

 was made an Associate of the Academy 

 by an act of royal auUiority, before the 



usual age — a circumstance which save 

 occasion to one of Pindar's happiest hits. 

 Hoppner's death left him without a 

 rival in his own department, and he suc- 

 ceeded, on that occasion, to the Prince of 

 Wales's patronage. In his regency he em- 

 ployed Lawrence to paint the emperors 

 on their visit to London, and subse- 

 quently despatched him to the Congress 

 at Aix-la-Chapelle to Vienna and Home, 

 to paint the rest of the royal personages, 

 generals, ministers, &c., where he reap, 

 ed a rich harvest of fame and money. 

 Never was man more tickled with the 

 honours showered upon him, or better 

 paid for his labours — 400 guineas a por- 

 trait, and 1000 guineas for travelling 

 expenses. On his return he was made 

 President of the Academy, and con- 

 tinued, till within a few days of his 

 death, to paint without intermission, 

 and at enormous prices. Yet was he 

 constantly in difficulties about money 

 matters, the source of which is traced 

 to liberality, and indifference about his 

 interests ; but with all this the world 

 has little to do, and as little with his 

 liaisons, as the biographer calls what he 

 elsewhere represents as mere platonism. 

 In the con-espondence there is but 

 little which will bear reading, and still 

 less relative to his art. Of gossip about 

 the Great there is abundance. His de- 

 tails of the domestic life of the Princess 

 Charlotte have been read by ever^' body, 

 in the dail^' and weekly papers ; but it 

 IS not every one who can sympathize 

 with Lawrence's all but adoration of 

 the great. The eternal straining after 

 com])liment with his ladv correspond- 

 ents is almost equally offensive ; he is 

 perpetually mistaking elaborate refine- 

 ment for gentlemanly ease and polite- 

 ness and qualities — words for ever at his 

 pen's point, as they were at his tongue's 

 end. So much of sentiment is thrown 

 into every thing, that it excites suspi- 

 cion it existed only upon paper — he 

 sends his never-dying love to the ladies, 

 &c. The correspondence, it is said, 

 ver}' correctly, has been doctored, and 

 it is certain, the biographer saw nothing 

 but " copies," which is itself a very sus- 

 picious circumstance. The letters to 

 INIr. Peel should, in common propriety, 

 have been suppressed — especially the 

 begging letters. While obviously think- 

 ing himself the very pink of courtesy, 

 he is throwing himself prostrate at the 

 feet of a patron. 



Dr. Brewster'' s Optics. — Cabinet Cyclo- 

 piFdia, Vol. XIX.- — Dr. Brewster occu- 

 pies sixty or seventy pages with the 

 principles of ojitics, accom))anied with 

 abundance of diograms, to the perenip- 

 tory exclusion of all mathematics. The 

 consequence is, that niles are repeatedly 

 given without reasons, though, if Dr. 



