bi 
1826.) Painters— Painting. 147 
explanation followed ; but, severe as the joke was, it did the painter a 
deal of good, for it encouraged him to rely more upon himself and less 
upon others. 
PEALE, Rembrandt—a Pennsylvanian —There are five or six Peales 
here, every one of whom is an artist in some way or other; but this 
Peale is the chief. ‘There is “old Mr. Peale,” the founder of the 
Philadelphia Museum, who from being a saddler by trade, before he left 
England for America, took to portrait-painting, and pursued it some 
fifty or sixty years. He is yet alive, and one of the best men that 
God ever made, though he will paint portraits with a chisel, marry a 
fifth or sixth wife every few years, and outlive all the rest of the 
world. Then you have James Peale (brother of “ old Mr. Peale”), a 
miniature painter of days that are gone by: Raphael Peale, son of * old 
Mr. Peale,” a very good painter of still life; Titian, another son, quite 
remarkable for the beauty and accuracy of his drawings in natural 
history ;* Anna Peale (a néece), a very good miniature-painter ; and 
Sarah Peale, another niece, a very good portrait-painter—remarkably 
good, I might say, considering her sex, age, and opportunity. But, 
as I have said before, the chief is Rembrandt Peale (he, too, is a son of 
« old Mr. Peale”), a portrait and historical painter, who has wrought 
wonders in the art, his advantages considered—or disadvantages rather ; 
for he has kad no advantages to keep his heart alive since he took 
the field. He is a devotee,t and is remarkable for the dignity and sub- 
limity of his heads—for not being able to draw, except on canvass—for 
unheard-of courage in historical painting, and for qualities which, at 
some period or other, must make his country proud of him. N.B. He 
is one of the few painters who have wit enough to alter with a dry brush, 
when people are dissatisfied without reason. 
Lestre, Charles, R.A.—I need not say much of Mr. L., for is there 
a soul in Great Britain who has not heard his merits talked of (without 
an allusion to his faults, whatever they may be) till a stranger would 
have thought Mr. L. a patron for the age, and all the critics dependent 
upon him for their daily bread? I shall not soon forget his Anne Page— 
nor the fuss that people made about his Sancho before the Duchess: for, 
beautiful as both were, I was disappointed in both, because of the 
uproar that had been made by the newspaper people. His Anne Page 
I like much better than I do the Sancho defore the Duchess, although I 
find nobody to agree with me, and although it (Anne Page, I mean) is 
too much after Wilkie’s Highlander (in colouring, I mean), which was 
_ hung up near it; and being seen a few yards off would have passed for 
the colouring of the same hand. Leslie’s colouring has no smokiness or 
“stringiness, and Wilkie’s had both; and their pencilling is about as much 
‘unlike as any two modes of workmanship could well be; and yet, so alike 
‘were the two pictures in general treatment, so obviously alike when hung 
‘up together and viewed from a little distance, that I could not help 
‘charging Leslie with borrowing a few. Mr. L.is a sort of genteel- 
comedy painter—not very unlike Geoffry Crayon, as Geoffry appears in 
“the Sketch Book, not as he appears in the broad rich humour and bold 
caricature of Knicherbocker. Mr. L. is the Geoffry of the brush only 
* Ina late work, “‘ Say’s American Insects,” a work which I hope will be known 
to British Naturalists, Mr. T. Peale’s name appears to a large part of the specimens: 
The work is just published at Philadelphia.— A. B. C. 
- + A devotee to his art, I mean.—A. B. C. 
