30 Letters from the United States of North America, [Jury, 
had magnificent ideas, but he never knew how to express them with 
colour ; prodigious conceptions, which he never could clothe, for his life ; 
so that whenever they appeared on canvas, they were little more than a 
crowd of gigantic skeletons, the mere outline of huge, fleshless gods 
and demigods—the shadows of poetry, for Mr. W. had much more 
poetry in him, I assure you, than he ever knew how to make use of. 
_ Ihave seen every good picture that Mr. W. ever painted, I dare say, 
and after all, I would rather have his drawing of Death on the Pale Horse, 
the drawing, not the painting, for I would not give the painting house- 
room, so meagre is it and so unworthy of the drawing ;—I would rather 
have the drawing of that, and of Moses smiting the Rock (never painted, 
1 believe), than all his pictures together. 
3. Stewart, G., historical and portrait painter, born in Rhode Island. 
He was with you a great while ago, and got a high character with you. 
He is now an old man: but, old as he is, take him altogether, he has no 
superior among the portrait painters of our age. Not long ago a capital 
artist, of whom a word or two by-and-by, informed me that some of 
Stewart’s late pictures were considered, by a knot of artists and other 
good judges who happened to assemble at his rooms one morning, to be 
the best of his works—*« every part and the whole together were well 
treated.” I give you the very words of my authority. You have heard 
of Allston (see No. 5); he made a figure with you some years ago, and 
is now either an academician or associate of your Royal Academy. He 
says (I give you his language too), that “ Stewart’s word in the art isa 
law, and from his decision there is no appeal ”—and so say all the good 
painters of America. N.B. Stewart is near the grave now, and if a 
painter cannot get the first rank for himself, he will be sure to give it 
in such a case to the oldest man alive, with any character in his art. 
R, Peale says the same—T. Sully, ditto—Jarvis, ditto, ditto. 
4. TRuMBULL, (see No. 1.) A Connecticut man, I believe, president 
of the New York Academy, and author of two or three clever historical 
pictures after the manner of Copley. He was with you for a long 
while (studied with West), and I saw his original sketch of the Sortie of 
Gibraltar, in your Suffolk Street Academy last year (No. — in 1824), 
He is a—Stop—I have so much respect for this able and good man, who 
ig now working away with all the ardour of youth, like Mr. West, who 
died with his hand fixed in the position to which it was habituated by 
the use of the pencil,* that I dare not speak irreverently of his work. 
His portraits are good—very good, but rather old-fashioned, rather late 
in the day, not showy enough to please the shop-keeping spirit of our age, 
nor the milliners, who, to judge by what I see, must be the chief patrons 
of the art, with you. Of his large historical pictures, of them that cover 
the walls of the capital, at Washington—what shall I say ?—what ! — 
why ‘ what more can I say ? 
» 9. Atistox, W. (See No.3.) Born I hear, in South Carolina, edu- 
cated with you in part, and a part in Italy; a man of high and pure 
talent, with a show of more natural fire than he has, and a mixture of 
pure pedantry, which he has wit enough to conceal by hard work, in 
such a way that even the hard work is not visible to the eye of a 
— 
* T saw a fine cast of it in the shop of your Mr. Behnes, the sculptor; the very 
man, by-the-by, to make a statue of West; every way qualified he is for the duty; and 
the little-withered hand, so aliye with expression, would be a treasure. : 
