232 PAIN 
ability of the artifls was fall verging to utter decay. 
What fir Janies Thornhill had done in hiftorical, or rather 
decorative, art, found no very fuccefsful imitator; fo that, 
to ule the words of Horace Walpole, in the commence¬ 
ment of the reign of George I. the arts of England were 
funk almoft to the lowed ebb;” and, with the (till greater 
au thority of fir Jofhua Reynolds we may add, “ lower they 
could not well be.” 
The circumftance apparently mod furprifing in this 
matter is, that, when the powers of Vandyke were fo long 
and fo widely difplayed in England, and portraiture fo 
much encouraged, fo few of her artids diould have fol¬ 
lowed in his track, or that tade diould have fwerved fo 
completely from it. But the fad is, that Britidi dudents 
were inclined to purfue it, wdtnefs Dobfon and Riley ; 
and Jamefone in Scotland ; and they fucceeded to a very 
confiderable degree. It could not, however, be expedled 
that, when there had been fo little food for nourilhment 
offered to artids, they diould at once fpring to perfedion, 
unlefs endowed with genius in a higher degree than even 
the renowned mader whom they emulated. No one was 
immediately found equal to that; and the adonidiment 
created by his exquifite abilities had fcarcely fubfided into 
regular dudy, when Lely appeared, to ufurp his dation, 
and fpread the peculiar beauties of his own ready pencil 
in the way; gratifying the court, and, confequently, 
guiding the tade of the country. Kneller fucceeded ra¬ 
pidly to him : the Englidi artids had not time to rife; and 
imitation of the reigning influence was alone left for him ; 
as no one advanced with fuflicient power of mind to deer 
fuccefsfully in a track of his own. 
Thus far we have been giving the hidory of painting in 
England, rather than of the Englifli fchool; for that 
fchool was not yet formed. But the period at length ar¬ 
rived when England, exerting her native energy, ad¬ 
vanced in her turn to enjoy a (hare of renown among the 
cultivators of the art of painting. 
It has been aflerted carelefsly, unrefledingly, and, we 
might add, impudently, by the abbe Du Bos, and other 
fuperficial writers on the fine arts, that theEnglifh nation, 
from its charaSler and climate, would never form a fchool 
of painting. Other caufes may have prevented that 
branch of art from reaching the eminence it attained 
in other parts of Europe; but the country that has pro¬ 
duced fuch poets as Shakefpeare, Milton, Spenfer, Dryden, 
&c. is certainly not excluded from a proportionate degree 
of excellence in the filter art. And, if fuch a climate as 
that of the Netherlands could produce fuch painters as 
Rubens, Vandyke, and other great mailers, there is no 
phyfical caufe at leaft, why England fhould not have 
boafted of artifls equal in genius to thofe of the neigh¬ 
bouring countries. 
The principal difficulty in the outfet, was to refcue the 
art from the degrading influence of a vicious tade, to re¬ 
trace the fteps of our predeceflors, or rather, to burfl the 
bondage in which they had enthralled us, and refort at 
once to the original principle of imitation ; which, when 
pure and feled, is the only found bafis of the art. The 
firfl ftep towards it, was the eftablifhment of a fchool for 
drawing from the living figure. This had been begun by 
fir James Thornhill, in moll inexplicable conjundion 
with fir Godfrey Kneller, who, one w'ould imagine, from 
his latter works, had left all confideration of the value of 
fuch a thing far behind. Thus, however, he affifted in 
laying the foundation of a remedy for the evil, which he 
more than any other had occafioned. This fchool, fir 
James continued at his own houfe in the Piazza for fome 
years. His death, in 1734., obliged the artifls to procure 
another fituation, which was not effected wdthout fome 
difficulty; for the people were fo unprepared to confider 
the ltudy from the naked figure as neceffary to the artifls, 
that their meetings were even fufpeded to be held for 
immoral purpofes. Another fchool was at length formed 
by Michael Mofer, a native of Schaffihaufen, and a chafer 
by profeflion, and fix other artifls, principally foreigners, 
TING. 
the management reding with Mofer. After a while they 
were vifited by Hogarth and others; and a larger body 
was formed in confequence, who eftablifhed themfelves in 
Peter’s Court, St. Martin’s Lane, in the year 1739. Hav¬ 
ing acquired fome property by combined exhibitions of 
their works, they iolicited a charter of incorporation ; 
and, the fcheme being fandioned by the late king at the 
beginning of his long reign, their charer was granted 
in 1765. But, diflentions arifing in the body, a feceifion 
of many of its principal members took place; and the 
refult was the ellablilhment of the Royal Academy in 
1768, under the more immediate patronage of his ma- 
jefty; fir Jofhua Reynolds being nominated its firfl prefi- 
dent. From this time we are to date the foundation of 
an Englifli School of Painting; and fir Jofhua mult be 
confidered as its founder. 
Richardfon, who died in 1745, at the advanced age of 
eighty, unable by his pencil to rival the real beauties of 
Vandyke, of Raphael, or others, whole names ftand on 
high record, endeavoured to make amends by his pen; 
and in 1715 publifhed a book, full of high encomiums of 
the merits of thofe maflers, and of ufeful obfervations on 
the theory of the art of painting; and in 1719 another, 
on criticifm, and the fcience of a connoifleur; works of 
which nobody will be inclined to difpute the merit, who 
knows the value which fir Jofhua Reynolds placed upon 
them; and particularly the former, which he declared 
confirmed him in his love of the art, and elevated his 
ideas of its profeffors. In it, Richardfon contended for 
the propriety of painting portraits in the coflume of their 
time; and Hudfon, the fon-in-law of Richardfon, with 
the help of Van Aiken, (a Fleming,) and in rivalry with 
Van Loo, (a Frenchman, and brother to Carlo Van Loo,) 
profited by the fuggeflion, and ventured to rejed the non- 
fenfical draperies in ufe at the time; and, inftead of loofe 
unmeaning pieces of varied fluffs thrown in artificial folds 
over the fhoulders of the gentlemen, and the affedation 
of grace and grandeur in which the ladies were repre- 
fented en chemije, half expofed and half enveloped in one 
ill-contrived piece of filk, as if they had carelefsly thrown 
on a mantle when riling from their beds, he dreffied them 
in the formality of the day ; and his Flemifh affiftant 
painted their filks and laces with great care and exadnefs. 
Dayman alfo, who had fucceeded fir James Thornhill as 
an hiftorical painter, upon the fame ground, felt himfelf 
at liberty to preferve the uniforms proper to thofe whom- 
he introduced into his pictures ; and no longer, by a fenfe- 
lefs magic, converted them into Roman centurions or 
Grecian heroes. 
It were ufelefs to trace the progrefs of the art in the 
hands of thofe who, in minor degree, affifted in this en- 
franchifement of it in our own country ; “ or recount 
the Hammering and babbling of its infancy;” for as fuch 
its condition at the time of which we are fpeaking may be 
regarded. It fcarcely enjoyed the period of youth; for, 
wdien Reynolds and Wilfon returned from Rome, they 
ruflied at once with it to maturity in portraiture and in 
landfcape. And when Well, having by his Britifli con¬ 
nexions in America imbibed a true talle for its beauties, 
had alfo cultivated it in Italy, and came here to devote 
his life in its fervice, all that had been done in hillory, by 
Hayman, by Pine, by Wale, and others, was inftantly 
funk in oblivion. 
Hogarth, however, demands a refcue from the mafs of 
our earlier artifls. With a marked originality of feeling, 
he purfued the art as his own talle, or rather fortune, 
guided him; and traced a line for himfelf totally un¬ 
known to any other, though more in the application of 
the art than in itfelf. Yet, in his latter pidures, particu¬ 
larly in his Rakes’s Progrefs, and the Marriage-a-la-Mode, 
he exhibited a thorough feeling for the beauties of the 
Dutch fchool, executed in a broad ftyle of his own; and 
proving, that, if his youth had been employed in paint¬ 
ing pidures, inftead of engraving filver tankards, he 
might have rivalled the belt among them. 
Ill. 
