Melbourne, Lord Lansdowne, Lord John Russell, and the Archbishop of Canterbury. I hope to get it done for the Exhibition.

The engraving of Knox is now nearly complete. Sir Robert Peel has been impatient about the delay; but Doo has made a superb plate, and I hear that his brother artists are to give him a dinner on the successful completion of so great an undertaking.

The whole town and country have been kept alive since the 1st of January by Murphy's Weather Almanack. It tells the weather for every day of the year, and for January was so accurate, that their sale (one shilling and sixpence a-piece) was extraordinary. The 20th of January he fixed to be the coldest day; when it so happened that the thermometer on that day was below Zero. He also foretold the thaw that followed, and up to the time that I am now writing his calendar corresponds fairly with the actual state of the weather. His Almanack is the all-engrossing subject of conversation. Whittaker says he has sold 40,000 since the 1st of January; that the king of the French has sent for a copy; and that demands come from all parts of the country.

Lockhart's Life of Sir Walter Scott is now in every body's hands: the most interesting book I ever read, Boswell not excepted. Scott's own Journal, kept during the time of his troubles, family losses, and afflictions, has created a most intense interest.

D. W.

TO WILLIAM COLLINS, ESQ. R. A.

neas.

a

Dear Collins,

Kensington, 16th April, 1838. Mr. Carpenter tells me that he has sold

your picture of the Rock and Sea Fowl scene for 350 gui

This is agreeable news. The pictures are all in at the Academy. I have

I sent The Queen's First Council; it contains about thirty portraits, which form the interest of the picture. The Bride dressing at her Toilette, and a fulllength portrait of that most staunch supporter of her Majesty's ministers, Mr. Daniel O'Connell. This last was offered to me to paint; and it was difficult to refuse, for he had sat to no other artist. My Whig friends are much pleased with it — some say it is the best portrait I have painted. Mr. O'Connell himself is pleased.

April 17. We, that is Cooper, Eastlake, and I, are engaged every day from morn till night with the Exhibition arrangements. The new rooms do not decrease our difficulties — claims increase with the size of the rooms, and we have near 600 crossed and doubtful. Only one sculptor member exhibits — viz., Baily. This is great cry and little wool, after the clamour of sculptors for a better exhibition-room.

As you return from Rome, could you not come, as I did, by Loretto, Ancona, and Bologna — that coast is beautiful. From Bologna, you should pass by Parma, where

stop some days for the Correggios. At Mantua are some colossal paintings by

Giulio Romano. Sir William Knighton saw them, , but I did not.

Simson, from Edinburgh, has two very remarkable pictures of Italian subjects in the Exhibition.

D. W.

CHAPTER VII.

ROYAL ACADEMY EXHIBITION OF 1838.- LETTER TO MR. COLLINS,

R.A. - MISS WILKIE, -- SIR WILLIAM KNIGHTON. LADY BAIRD,

SIR WILLIAM ALLAN. AND SIR ROBERT PEEL.ROYAL ACADEMY EXHIBITIONS OF 1839 AND 1840.

In the new exhibition rooms Sir David had six pictures. 1. The Queen's First Council; 2. The Bride at her Toilette ; 3. Portrait of Daniel O'Connell ; 4. Portrait of Mrs. Moberly; 5. Portrait of Thomas Daniell, R.A.; 6. Portrait of a Young Lady. How the artist, who had painted in colours of such delicacy and loveliness Mary, the unfortunate Queen of the North, would acquit himself in painting the youth and innocence of Victoria, her more fortunate descendant, all were anxious to know. It had been whispered about, that in the painting of his royal commission, the artist had experienced difficulties such as genius ought never to be exposed to, from the far descended and the polite. From Sir David himself, the most modest and least presuming of men, no one ever heard a complaint; but those who know the presumption and vanity of man, will not wonder at the jostle and intrigue among the sitters for place even in a picture, nor feel surprised to hear that some who were in the rear desired to be in the van, while others who modestly took the back deserved the foreground; and that some, whose fine looks, rather than fine intellect, pushed them into favour, were solicitous

about their complexions, and called out, like the expiring lady in Pope, for a little more red! This was the first council which her Majesty held: she had been awakened early in the morning with the tidings that the crown of maritime dominion — the sovereignty of the seas — was awaiting her virgin brow, and that the noble and the powerful were ready to render their homage. “The Queen,” says the painter, describing the picture, “is seated at the head of the council table, and holds in her hand the gracious declaration to the Lords and others of the Council, — of whom the following portraits are introduced. Behind her Majesty are the Duke of Argyll, the Earl of Albemarle, the Right Honourable George Byng, and C. C. Grenville, Esq. On the left hand of the Queen are the Marquis of Lansdowne, the Marquis of Anglesea, the Lord Chancellor, Lord Harcourt, Lord John Russell, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord Melbourne, Lord Palmerston, the Speaker of the Commons, Earl Grey, the Earl of Carlisle, the Hon. Thomas Erskine, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Morpeth, Lord Aberdeen, Lord Lyndhurst, the King of Hanover, the Duke of Wellington, the Earl of Surrey, John Wilson Croker, Esq., Sir Robert Peel, the Duke of Sussex, Lord Holland, the AttorneyGeneral, the Marquis of Salisbury, Lord Burghersh, and the Lord Mayor of London* ?”

Several of these names belong to history; and art and literature unite in preserving them from oblivion;