325 



VERNON, EDWARD. 



VERONESE, ALESSANDRO. 



326 



more powerful impression on his countrymen than pictures of a higher 

 order would have done. 



VERNON, EDWARD, a distinguished English admiral, was born 

 at Westminster, 12th of November 1684, and was the son of James 

 Vernon, Esq., the descendant of au ancient Staffordshire family, who 

 was secretary of state from 1697 to 1700. Young Vernon was care- 

 fully educated, and is said never to have forgotten his Greek and 

 Latin ; but nothing that his father could say or do would keep him 

 from the sea, and it was at last found necessary to allow him to 

 exchange his classical studies for navigation and gunuery. He first 

 served under Admiral Hopson in the Prince George, on the expedi- 

 tion which resulted in the destruction of the French and Spanish 

 fleets at Vigo on the 12th of October 1702, In 1704 he was present 

 in Sir George Rooke's squadron at the sea-fight with the French off 

 Malaga. The next year he was appointed commander of the Dolphin ; 

 and he was afterwards transferred, in 1707, to the Royal Oak ; in 

 1708 to the Jersey, in which he was sent to the West Indies as rear- 

 admiral, under Sir Charles Wo ger; to the Assistance, of 50 guns, in 

 1715; and to the Grafton, of 70 guns, in 1726. He was returned as 

 one of the representatives for Penryn to George II. 's first parliament, 

 which met in November 1727; and he sat for Portsmouth in the next 

 parliament, which lasted from 1734 to 1741. It was the part which 

 he took in the House of Commons which is said to have occasioned 

 his being sent, with the rank of vice-admiral of the blue, on the most 

 memorable expedition with which his name is connected. He had 

 rendered himself .considerable in the House, according to Smollett, 

 " by loudly condemning all the measures of the ministry, and bluntly 

 speaking his sentiments, whatever they were, without respect of per- 

 sons, and sometimes without any regard to decorum." This writer 

 proceeds : " He was counted a good officer, and his boisterous 

 manner seemed to enhance his character. As he had once commanded 

 a squadron in Jamaica, he was perfectly well acquainted with those 

 seas; and in a debate upon the Spanish depredations, he chanced to 

 affirm that Porto Bcllo, on the Spanish Main, might be easily taken ; 

 nay, he even undertook to reduce it with six ships only. This offer 

 was echoed from the mouths of all the members in opposition. Vernon 

 was extolled as another Drake or Raleigh, he became the idol of a 

 party, and his praise resounded from all corners of , the kingdom. 

 The minister, in order to appease the clamours of the people on this 

 subject, sent him as commander-iu-chief to the West Indies. He was 

 pleased with an opportunity to remove such a troublesome censor 

 from the House of Commons, and perhaps he was not without hope 

 that Veruon would disgrace himself and his party by failing in the 

 exploit he had undertaken." Vernon however, who set sail from 

 Spithead with his six ships on the 23rd of July 1739, completely suc- 

 ceeded ; Porto Bello was taken on the 22ud of November, and was 

 afterwards only abandoned for want of a sufficient land-force to keep 

 it, after all the fortifications had been blown up. Veruou's next enter- 

 prise was the disastrous attempt on Carthagena in the spring of 1741, 

 made famous by the graphic details given by Smollett, who was 

 present in the fleet as a surgeon or surgeon's mate, in the concluding 

 chapters of the first volume of his ' Roderick Random.' (See also his 

 ' History of England,' iv., 608, &c., 4to edition.) This failure however 

 did not affect the admiral's popularity in England; to the new par- 

 liament, which met this year, he was returned at once for Penryn, for 

 Rochester, and for Ipswich. He made his election for Ipswich, and 

 he was returned for the same borough to the two next parliaments, 

 which met in 1747 and in 1754. During the rebellion of 1745 

 Admiral Vernou was employed in guarding the coasts of Kent and 

 Sussex, a service in which he acquitted himself with his usual zeal 

 nnd ability ; but soon after this he got into a quarrel with the Admi- 

 ralty about the appointment of a gunner, the result of which was that 

 he was struck off the list of admirals. In the course of this contro- 

 versy, or after it was over, he is stated to have written several 

 pamphlets in his own defence ; but their titles are not given in the 

 common accounts. He died at his seat, at Nacton in Suffolk, on the 

 29th of October 1757. Vernon appears to have been a brave, high- 

 spirited, and honourable man, with an impetuous temper, which he 

 could not or would not rein in. 



VERNON, ROBERT. Though possessing personally no title to an 

 enduring name, yet as the founder of the National Gallery of British Art, 

 Mr. Vernon claims an honourable place in an ' English Cyclopaedia of 

 Biography.' The so-called ' National Gallery ' of paintings was founded 

 in 1824 by the purchase by Lord Liverpool's government of the collec- 

 tion formed by Mr. Angerstein. This collection included nine pictures 

 by British painters the 'Marriage-a-la-Mode' of Hogarth ; that painter's 

 portrait ; Lord Heathfield by Sir Joshua Reynolds ; and Wilkie's 

 ' Village Festival.' In the course of the next twenty-three years there 

 were occasional bequests or presentations of English pictures, but not 

 a single English picture was added to the national collection by pur- 

 chase ; the entire number of British pictures in the National Gallery in 

 1847 was only forty-one, and several of these were portraits of unknown 

 or insignificant persons by second-rate artists, or works of little artistic 

 excellence or general interest. In every other country the possession 

 of worthy specimens of the pencils of the chief painters of that country 

 had been deemed the essential feature of a national collection ; here 

 the National Gallery, according to the official estimate, was to be a 

 gallery of the works of the ' Old Masters' of Italy and Holland. 



It is to Mr. Vernon that the country is primarily indebted for what 

 has been done towards placing matters on a more rational and satis- 

 factory footing. Born in 1774, he by diligence, perseverance, and 

 skill during a long commercial career, raised himself from very 

 humble into very affluent circumstances ; earning at the same time a 

 high character for liberality, and enlarged though unostentatious 

 benevolence. Having a great fondness for pictures he began, as soon 

 as his means permitted, to indulge his inclination by purchasing some, 

 and following his own taste he selected the works of English artists. 

 In the course of years his collection grew till every room in his house 

 was filled. He now conceived the design of presenting his pictures to 

 the nation, in the hope that if kept together they might serve as the 

 nucleus of a gallery of British art. With this view he sold such of his 

 pictures as he deemed undeserving of such a destiny, and purchased or 

 commissioned (in nearly every instance direct from the painter) fresh 

 examples of the masters he most admired. Then not waiting to 

 make it a posthumous gift he offered his collection to the government, 

 requesting that all those pictures might be selected which were con- 

 sidered worthy of national acceptance ; and that being done, he made 

 them over by a deed of gift, dated December the 22nd, 1847, to the 

 Trustees of the National Gallery. The collection so transferred com- 

 prised 157 pictures, all but two by British artists, and a large propor- 

 tion by living, artists. The pictures having been selected in the first 

 instance for a private residence of moderate dimensions, are mostly of 

 cabinet size, and to a considerable extent of homely subjects ; but they 

 include favourable specimens of a large proportion of the chief deceased 

 and living English painters. Mr. Vernon lived long enough to see 

 that his munificent gift was warmly appreciated by the great bulk of 

 his countrymen ; but not to see it provided with a fitting repository. 

 He died May 22nd, 1849. Since his decease the Verncn collection 

 has found a temporary resting place in Marlborough HOUBC. To it 

 has been added the splendid bequest of Mr. Turner [TURNER, J. M. W.] ; 

 and Mr. Sheepshanks has also presented to the nation his noble col- 

 lection of 233 paintings in oil by English artists; but his gift is 

 clogged with stipulations as to the place where they are to be deposited, 

 which prevent them from being for the present at least placed along 

 with the Vernon and Turner pictures. It is however greatly to be 

 desired that some arrangement may be made by which these collec- 

 tions may be brought together, and thus form the commencement of 

 a National Gallery of British Art worthy of the nation. 



A marble bust of Mr. Vernon, purchased by subscription, is placed 

 in the hall at Marlborough House ; where also are a marble group by 

 Gibson of Hylas and the Nymphs, and about half a dozen marble 

 busts, presented with his pictures by Mr. Vernon the somewhat 

 sorry commencement of a National Collection of the works of British 

 Sculptors. 



VERONE'SE, ALESSANDRO, a celebrated painter of the Venetian 

 school, was born at Verona about 1582. His family name was Turchi 

 or Turco ; he was called also L'Orbetto, according to Pozzo, from the 

 circumstance of his having as a boy led about an old blind beggar, said 

 to have been his own father. Alessandro used to amuse himself with 

 drawing with charcoal upon walls, and some of his efforts having been 

 seen by the painter Felice Brusasorci, he was taken by him as a 

 colour- grinder in his studio, and was encouraged to cultivate his 

 ability for drawing. He soon made great progress in drawing, and in 

 painting surpassed his master ; and, after the death of Brusasorci in 

 1605, completed some of his unfinished works. He afterwards went to 

 Venice, and obtained employment there from Carlo Saracino, who 

 soon discovered his ability and value as an assistant; he paid him a 

 ducat a day, whilst he paid his other assistants only a quarter of that 

 amount. After spending some time in Venice, Alessandro returned to 

 Verona ; but not meeting with the encouragement he expected, he set 

 out for Rome in company with Antonio Bassetti and Pasquale Ottino, 

 and ultimately established himself there, though he spent some time 

 subsequently at Verona. In Rome he studied the works of Raffaelle 

 and the Carracci, and forming a style for himself which combined many 

 of the beauties of the Roman and the Venetian echools, entered success- 

 fully into competition with Sacchi and Pietro de Cortona in the church 

 Delia Concezione and elsewhere; and he acquired the reputation of 

 one of the best painters of his time. His principal works are iu 

 Verona, where there are two of his masterpieces, a Pietii in the church 

 Delia Misericordia, which, though it contains only a dead Christ, the 

 Virgin, and Nicodemus, is considered one of the best pictures in 

 Verona : the other is the Passion of the Forty Martyrs, in the church 

 of San Stefano ; a picture, says Lanzi, which in impasto and fore- 

 shortening reminds us of the Lombard school, in design and in ex- 

 pression of the Roman, and in colouring of the Venetian ; and it con- 

 tains a selection of heads worthy of G-uido. There is a very fine 

 collection of his works in the possession of the Ghirardini family, all 

 of which were painted by Alessandro for the Marquis Gasparo Ghirar- 

 dini, who was a most generous patron to him, and, according to some 

 existing documents, supported him when he first went to Rome. 

 Alessandro married a Roman lady, and lived in great state in Rome, 

 but died poor in 1648, without issue, according to Pozzo. Passeri says 

 he died in 1650 ; and Passeri's account differs in some otber respects 

 from that of Pozzo : he says he was the scholar of Carlo, the son 

 of Paolo Veronese, and that he left two sons and a daughter by his 

 wife : the elder son followed the profession of the law ; the second, 



