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met his generous conqueror, nor the gentle and modest manner in 

 which they were received and put an end to by His Lordship. After 

 this had passed, I did not wonder that, notwithstanding our disap- 

 pointment in the steam-vessel, His Lordship appeared in better 

 spirits than I have yet seen him in. 



July Sth. — To-day, a young man born in Cundinamarca, but 

 brought up in Quito, came to stay with me, that I may put him in 

 the way of improving a great natural talent for drawing. He has 

 been long on board Lord Cochrane's ship, in I know not what capa- 

 city, and has displayed considerable taste in some sketches of cos- 

 tume, &c. The people of Quito pride themselves on retaining that 

 excellence in painting which distinguished their predecessors of the 

 time of Pizarro. Of course the Christian priests have introduced 

 European models and European practice ; but the talent for the 

 imitative arts is said to be inherent in all, or almost all the Quiterios ; 

 and it is cei'tain that the painters, whether of portraits or history, 

 that are to be met with in various parts of South America, are almost 

 universally Quitenos. My scholar is gentle and persevering; rather 

 indolent ; possessed of good sense, and a strong poetical feeling. 

 If I had him in Europe, where he could see good pictures, and above 

 all, good drawings, I have no doubt but he would be a painter ; as 

 it is, seeing nothing much better than his own, there is little chance 

 of very great improvement. I have heard extravagant praises of 

 the pictures of various South American painters ; but these were 

 given by persons who probably never saw a first-rate picture in 

 Europe, especially as they often in the same breath extolled their 

 sculpture also to the skies. Now, on enquiry, I found that all the 

 sculpture practised here consists in carving the heads, hands, and 

 feet of the saints to be dressed : these are painted afterwards, and I 

 have no doubt give a strong impression of reality ; but that is not 

 sculpture. It perhaps may come near to Shakspeare's Hermione, 

 the maker of which " would beguile nature of her custom, so per- 

 fectly is he her ape." But sculpture is not the ape, but the perfecter 

 of nature ; so I hear with distrust all these splendid accounts of the 



