with bilious and liver complaints, and to these must be greatly attributed the irritation of his mind; and now they have ended in a confirmed dropsy. But though I think he cannot recover, I do not wish that his last illness should appear to be reported by me. You will believe that I sincerely feel the loss of a brother artist, from whose works I have often gained instruction, and who has gone by my side in the race these eighteen years." Hoppner did not live long after the writing of this letter: he died in the beginning of April, 1810, in the fifty-first year of his age.

The worth of his works has been widely acknowledged: he was one of those painters who, with powers and skill for the higher line of art, are compelled, by omnipotent taste, to labour in the lower line, where employment is certain and recompense sure. Yet labourer in the humbler department of portraiture though he was, he strove to unite with mere likeness the higher qualities of art; and in that simplicity and austere composure of style which he claimed for himself, when he satirised the loose touches of Lawrence, he beheld a closer affinity to the spirit and sentiment of those noble works which he set up as his models. Yet Hoppner was no blind worshipper of the gods of others; his chief deity was Nature Nature exalted and refined: he sought for elegant simplicity of form and poetic loftiness of sentiment, and often found both.

255

OWEN.

ART has not yet become with us a fashionable profession for the gentleman and scholar: certain neglect now, and an indifferent memoir hereafter, are no inducements for the polite and the rich to take to the brush or the chisel; and the consequence is, when time thins the ranks of the Academy, the vacancies are supplied by the chance children of genius, who have come from the plough, the manufactory, or the shop, to assert the truth of the great principle of nature, that talent, like sunshine, sheds its light on all conditions. Such is the story of most of our firstrate artists; that of William Owen can scarcely be called an exception. He was born at Ludlow, in Shropshire, in the year 1769; the month and the day of the month are alike forgotten. His father, educated for the church, married the daughter of a very respectable family in Gloucestershire; and being disappointed in patronage, commenced bookseller, but with success not at all equal either to his wishes or his merits. Young Owen was educated at the grammar school of Ludlow, where he made such good use of his pen and his books, as enabled him, when his fame rendered it necessary to corre

spond with men of rank and education, to acquit himself worthily. He was a well-educated, wellinformed man,-outspoken, and vigorous minded; yet he never aspired to be thought a scholar, and was content with the fame, of which no examination could deprive him that of a fine artist.

Of Owen's early attempts in art, and boyish methods of instructing himself, we have but vague and unsatisfactory accounts. His brother, a man of sense and intelligence, who has served with honour in many parts of the globe, and who now holds the rank of major in the army, has no remembrance of the studies of William, who was a dozen years older than himself; his father, too, has been long since dead; and his only son, the Rev. William Owen, much as he reverences the memory of his father, can add nothing to what has long been publicly known. The general account is, that he was fond of sketching from very early years; that, during hours of intermission from school, he loved to wander among the fine scenery of his native place, and that his first considerable work was that drawing of Ludlow Castle, which in after-life he thought worthy of presenting to Lady Clive, to whom the place belonged. We are told, too, that his genius gained him the notice of that eminent scholar and antiquarian, Payne Knight; through whose advice, and some add assistance, he was, at the age of seventeen, sent to London, and placed for instruction under the care of Catton of the Royal Academy. This has occasioned a twofold blunder, viz. that Owen was patronised