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and the self-love of the nation, debarred from any exclusive pride in atchievements of later days, atones for this to itself by a more accurate knowledge of the national past, and a more fervent interest in the men and actions the national history discloses, than are commonly to be found among nations whose independent existence has continued unbroken down to the present day. Here then is a rich field, to which Mr Allan may turn not only without prejudices to encounter, but with the whole prejudices of his nation eminently interested in his endeavours, and, if he succeed, (as why should he not ?) eminently and enthusiastically delighted in his success. I hope the Murder of Archbishop Sharpe is designed as the first of a great and magnificent series of Scottish Paintings; but I think it would have been better to choose, as the subject of the first of such a series, some scene which the whole of the Scottish nation might have been more likely to contemplate with the same species of emotions.

P. M.

276

LETTER L.

TO, THE SAME.

THE length to which I have extended my remarks on Mr Allan's pictures, may perhaps appear a little extravagant; but I think, upon the whole, that these pictures, and this artist, form one of the most interesting subjects which can at the present time attract the attention of a traveller in Scotland, and therefore I do not repent of the lengthiness of my observations. I wish I had been able to treat the subject more as it deserves to be treated in some other respects.

The truth is that till Wilkie and Allan arose, it can scarcely be said Scotland had ever given any promise of expressing her national thoughts and feelings, by means of the pencil, with any degree of power and felicity at all approaching to that in which she has already often made use

of the vehicle of words-or even to that which she had displayed in her early music. Before this time, the poverty of Scotland, and the extreme difficulty of pictorial education, as contrasted with the extreme facility of almost every other kind of education, had been sufficient to prevent the field of art from ever attracting the sympathies and ambition of the young men of genius in this country; and the only exceptions to this rule are such as cannot fail to illustrate, in a very striking way, the general influence of its authority. Neither can I be persuaded to think, that the only exceptions which did exist were at all very splendid ones. The only two Scottish painters of former times, of whom any of the Scotch connoisseurs, with whom I have conversed, seem to speak with much exultation, are Gavin Hamilton and Runciman. The latter, although he was far inferior in the practice of art—although he knew nothing of colouring, and very little of drawing-yet, in my opinion, possessed much more of the true soul of a painter than the former. There is about his often miserably drawn figures, and as often miserably arranged groupes, a certain rude character of grandeur, a certain indescribable majesty and

originality of conception, which shews at once, that had he been better educated, he might have been a princely painter. The other possessed in perfection all the manual part of his art-he made no mistakes-he was sure so far as he went-he had the complete mastery of his tools. The subjects which he chose, too, were admirable, and in his treatment of many of them altogether, he has displayed a union of talents, which few even of the very first artists the world has produced could ever equal. But Gavin Hamilton was not a great painter. Nature never meant him to be one. He wanted soul to conceive, and therefore his hands, so ready and so skilful to execute, were of little avail. I have seen many of his works in Italy—as yet none of them here; for the artist always lived in Italy, and very few of his paintings have ever, I believe, reached the country of his birth. At a late period of his life, indeed, he came to Scotland, where he was possessed of a considerable paternal estate, had a painting-room fitted up in his house, and resolved to spend the remainder of his days among his countrymen. But great as he really was in many respects, and great above all comparison as he must have appeared, or, at

least, was entitled to appear in Scotland then, he found little sympathy and little enthusiasm to sustain and reward his labours; and, after painting a few large pictures for the Duke of Hamilton, (with whose family he was nearly connected,) Gavin returned once more to Rome-never to leave it again. There indeed he enjoyed a high and brilliant reputation. He was a kind of Mengs among the cognoscenti, and his name, like that of Mengs, was rendered celebrated throughout the continent by the praises of French travellers and Italian ciceroni. But Mengs has since been reduced to his due dimensions; and Gavin Hamilton could have no reason to complain that he has suffered the same fate, although indeed it is very true, the dimensions to which he has been reduced are yet smaller than those of Mengs. Such is the invariable destiny of all but the true demi-gods. For his own living hour, each may possess all the expansion of popular renown; but, when they come to take their place among the great assembly of the illustrious dead,

“Behold a wonder! they but now who seemed
In bigness to surpass Earth's giant sons,
Now less than smallest dwarfs, in narrow room
Throng numberless."

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