decided, but certainly much the reverse, if we refer merely to his professional fitness and his future success. In the following year he was elected physician to the Westminster Lying-in hospital; which added greatly to his chances of success, and we find that in consequence his practice increased "in a way and with a rapidity," to use his own words, "which surprised" him. Very shortly after he became lecturer on midwifery at St Bartholomew's hospital, along with Dr Thynne, and in the following year he entered on the sole enjoyment of the emoluments of that situation, in consequence of the death of his aged partner He was a timid but a very successful lecturer, and in a few years was considered one of the best in London; having acquired a surprising facility in communicating his ideas, and along with the power of being able to dispense with the use of notes.

In January, 1814, Dr Gooch married for the second time. The lady is sister to Mr Trevors, and the choice was a remarkably happy one. The practice of Gooch continued to increase, but his health was not equal to his continual exertions. For a long time he had been subject to occasional attacks of asthma, and his stomach was beginning to give him considerable uneasiness. In the early part of 1815 he had a dangerous inflammation in his lungs, which was happily soon recovered from. In April of the same year his eldest son was born. He removed in 1816 to the west end of the town, where his practice was rapidly extending. When on a visit to the marquess of Wellesley at Ramsgate, the first symptoms of an alarming affection of his stomach appeared. He could retain no food, and suffered for some days from almost incessant vomiting, but returned as soon as possible to London, where in the course of a few weeks he was sufficiently recovered to be able to resume his professional duties. In 1820 he lost his eldest son, a calamity which affected him very deeply. His health was now so delicate that he was frequently obliged to resign, for a few weeks at a time, his professional duties. In 1822 he travelled on the continent, and visited Paris. The state of his mind and body prevented him from receiving much enjoyment from this, or indeed from any source. In a tour through part of England the same year he met with Dr Parr, and has described his interviews with him in a humorous paper published in Blackwood's Magazine,' entitled 'Two days with Dr Parr. For some time afterwards his time was partly divided between his practice in London and excursions into various parts of the country. In December, 1825, he inserted a paper on the Contagious nature of the Plague,' in the Quarterly Review. In the same year his health was extremely bad, and be visited the continent, travelling in France and Flanders; but returned without receiving any benefit. He suffered from hæmorrhage from the lungs, but recovered so far as to be able to spend a part of 1826 and 1827 in town, attending to his practice, and pursuing his literary labours. In 1826 he was chosen librarian to the king, through the influence of Sir William Knighton. In 1829 he completed his excellent work on the diseases of children, and lived to see his reward in his established reputation. It is said to be an extremely valuable book. After this his powers of body gradually sunk; so that before his death he was reduced to a state of great debility; but the powers of his mind, with the exception of a few transient attacks of delirium, remained unchanged to the last. He died on the 16th February, 1830.

George Dawe.

BORN A. D. 1781.-DIED A. D. 1829.

THIS eminent artist was born in London, on the 8th of February, 1781. In his fourteenth year he published two plates in mezzotinto, which displayed to advantage his talents in engraving, but he relinquished that line of art altogether on his coming of age. The last engraving published by him was Bacon's Monumental Groupe, to the memory of the Marquess Cornwallis.

Mr Dawe commenced portrait-painter about the year 1802, but it was in the historical department of the art that he gained his chief fame. The first work of this class which he is known to have painted-Achilles frantic for the loss of Patroclus-obtained the gold medal, and was pronounced by Fuseli to be the best ever offered to the Academy on a similar occasion. The next important picture which he exhibited at the Academy was Naomi and her two daughters-in-law. Of a scene from Cymbeline, his succeeding performance, the British Institution thought so highly, that they presented him with a premium of two hundred guineas. In 1811 he painted the Infant Hercules strangling the Serpent, and a picture from Coleridge's Genevieve.' His last great work, exhibited at Somerset house, was, the Mother rescuing her Child from the Eagle's Nest.

Mr Dawe was one of the most successful portrait-painters of his day. His celebrated picture of Miss O'Neill, in the character of Juliet looking over the balcony, is well-known to the public by the engraving. Among the illustrious patrons of Dawe were Prince Leopold and the Princess Charlotte, of whom he painted several portraits. The Duke and Duchess of Kent also employed him; he went in the suite of the former to Brussels, Cambray, and Aix-la-Chapelle, where he painted the portraits of the Duke of Wellington, Lord Hill, General Alava, and several of the most distinguished Russian officers. The manner in which he executed these induced the Emperor Alexander to engage him to paint the portraits of all the superior Russian officers who had been engaged in the war with Napoleon. He accordingly left England for St Petersburg in January, 1819, and in his way thither painted, at Brussels, portraits of the Prince and Princess of Orange; at Cobourg, of the reigning duke; and at Weimar, of the Grand Duke of Meinengen, and the celebrated Goëthe. His arduous undertaking at St Petersburg occupied him nine years, in the course of which period he painted, besides nearly four hundred portraits of Russian officers, three whole lengths of the fieldmarshals Wellington, Kutusoff, and Barclay de Tolly, and a portrait of the Emperor Alexander on horseback, twenty-one feet in height.

A cold, which he had caught during his last journey to St Petersburg, now began to show its effects on his health in a very serious manner, and he was recommended to try the sulphur-baths at Aix-laChapelle. Receiving, however, no benefit from them, he determined on returning to London; but he was too far gone for recovery and died on the 15th of October, 1829.

Sir Thomas Lawrence.

BORN A. D. 1769.-DIED A. D. 1831.

At

SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE was born at Bristol in the year 1769. an early age he gave indications of more than ordinary genius. His father probably designed him for the stage. He taught him to repeat long passages, in a theatrical manner, from Shakspeare and Milton; and used to exhibit him, with a pardonable vanity, to his guests. This gave the boy a facility in reading and reciting, which he never lost. His own bent was, however, for the pencil, and he displayed it at a very early age. When he was but six years old, it happened that Lord Kenyon, with his lady, arrived late in the evening at the inn at Devizes, which was then kept by Lawrence the father. They were on their way to Bath, and had felt the inconveniences of the heavy style of travelling in those " good old times;" and, as they confessed, they were not in the best possible humour, when Mr Lawrence, senior, entered their sitting-room, and proposed to show them his wonderful child. "The boy," he said, "was only five years old, but he could take their likenesses, or repeat to them any speech in Milton's Pandæmonium." To that place the offended guests were on the eve of commending their host to go, and the lawyer's lips were just opened to pronounce the sentence, when the child rushed in; and, as Mrs Kenyon used to relate, her vexation and anger were suddenly changed into admiration. He was riding on a stick, and went round and round the room, in the height of infantile joyousness. Mrs Kenyon, as soon as she could get him to stand, asked him if he could take the likeness of that gentleman, pointing to her husband. "That I can," said the little Lawrence, "and very like too." A high chair was placed at the table, pencils and paper were brought, and the infant artist soon produced an astonishingly striking likeness. Mr Kenyon now coaxed the child, who had got tired by the half-hour's labour, and asked him if he could take the likeness of the lady? Yes, that I can," was the reply once more, "it she will turn her side to me, for her face is not straight." The speech of the child indicated much less of his future character, than the production of his pencil. Few persons became more easy and polished in manner, and less likely to mortify the self-complacency of a fair lady.

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He found a more illustrious judge of his rhetorical powers in Garrick, who was in the habit of stopping at his father's inn on his way to Bath. Tommy, Sir, has learned one or two speeches since you were here,” was the usual address with which the good natured tragedian was re ceived. He would then retire to a summer-house in the garden, and amuse himself for some time with the recitations of the lively boy, in whom he seemed to take pride and interest. In this way his education became very desultory. He went but little to any regular school, and does not appear to have been taught even the rudiments of the classical languages. There are on record very few instances of a genius for painting, which displayed itself, and was so far matured, at such an early age. Many of his drawings, done at the age of eight, are yet extant, and they exhibit, strongly, indications of that freedom, grace, and

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poetic character, which distinguished his mature productions. At ten years old, we find him turning from mere portraits to original compositions of the highest class. By painting historical subjects, requiring invention and design, he gave evidence of a talent far beyond that of merely taking a likeness, or even copying a landscape. He painted two pictures, choosing as his subjects, Christ reproving Peter,' and Reuben's application to his father that Benjamin might accompany his brethren into Egypt. The former of these is mentioned by Barrington as "amazingly successful;" they both contributed greatly to extend his reputation; and, his father removing about this time from Devizes to Bath, he became an object of notoriety among the numerous persons of rank and distinction, who then frequented that place. It was the fashion to sit to him for his oval crayon likenesses. At first the price was a guinea, and it was soon raised to a guinea and a half. When he was twelve years old, his painting room was the resort of the rich and gay of the real and pretended judges and patrons of art. His time became so much occupied, that he could devote himself to no other pursuit; and he received sums of money for his pictures, much greater than were ever before paid to a young artist. When a Derbyshire baronet, struck with the beauty and genius of the lad, offered to send him to Rome, at the expense of £1000, his father told him "that his son's talents required no cultivation." We particularly dwell upon these facts, as they render more surprising his having avoided the sins against taste and science, which might naturally be expected in a person entirely self-taught, and who had lived aloof from the society of artists, and without even the advantage of a reference to many of the standard works of the old masters. But his taste was excellent and intuitive. What little time he could snatch from his regular employment, he did devote to the study of such works of the ancient masters as he could obtain a sight of, and such subjects as afforded more scope to his genius.

In 1787 we find young Lawrence established in London, and admitted as a student of the Royal academy. His talents were of a nature peculiarly adapted to work their own way into celebrity; and his very graceful person and appearance, and his easy but unobtrusive manners, placed him on an agreeable and honourable footing with persons of intelligence, as well as of rank, fashion, and wealth. Sir Joshua Reynolds, then the father of English art, received the young aspirant to his own fame with peculiar kindness. Soon after his arrival in London, Lawrence determined to seek his favourable notice. "He had no one to introduce him to Sir Joshua, though he was his near neighbour But Sir Joshua was of easy access to persons of decided talents; and, upon an application from Mr Lawrence, with a reference to the early works of his son, the president of the academy willingly appointed an interview. The father and our young artist repaired to the house of the affluent head and origin of the English school, and they were received with kindness. Young Lawrence took with him his oil portrait of himself, as a specimen of what he could do. There have been disputes about the exact period at which this portrait was drawn; but I have inserted the letter, which determines the point. He found the attention of the president bestowed upon another juvenile aspirant, who had evidently come upon a similar errand, and who stood in trembling ex

pectation of the decision of the oracle, which was to determine his future course; Sir Joshua having examined the specimen of his art, dismissed this other visitant with the negative encouragement of, 'Well, well! go on-go on. The anhelation of young Lawrence during this scene, may be easily imagined. Sir Joshua now inspected the portrait of our youth. He was evidently much struck with it, and discerned those marks of genius which foretold the future fame of the juvenile artist. He bestowed upon the painting a very long scrutiny, in a manner which young Lawrence thought, an alarming contrast to the more hasty glance with which he had dismissed the other. At last, turning to the boy with an air of seriousness, he addressed him- Stop, young man, I must have some talk with you. Well, I suppose now, you think this is very fine, and this colouring very natural; hey! hey!' He then placed the painting before the astonished and trembling youth, and began to analyse it, and to point out its numerous imperfections. Presently, he took it out with him from the gallery to his own paintingroom, and young Lawrence knew not how to interpret this; but Sir Joshua soon returning, addressed him kindly, and concluded by saying, 'It is clear you have been looking at the old masters; but my advice to you is, to study nature; apply your talents to nature.'-He then dismissed him with marked kindness, assuring him that he would be wel come, whenever he chose to call. Of an invitation so flattering and useful, our young artist availed himself with a frequency that would have put it to too severe a test, had it been meant in the ordinary sense of compliment; but Mr Lawrence was always received with a kindness which indicated that Sir Joshua was highly pleased with his society, and desirous to promote his interests.

None of the obstacles which so often impede the path of genius, arose in the way of Lawrence. As he became known, his reputation increased, and he found himself an object of patronage among the noble and the wealthy. At the death of Sir Joshua Reynolds, which occurred in 1792, he received an unexpected honour, of which eminent and older artists would have been justly proud. He was unanimously elected Sir Joshua's successor, as painter to the Dilettanti society. His majesty also appointed him to succeed Sir Joshua, as his portrait-painter in ordinary, and in the month of July following, he painted, by the royal command, two elaborate whole-length portraits of the king and queen. The royal patronage increased, though it did not create, that of others. The occupations of Lawrence became incessant, and his works were subjects of general celebrity. He exhibited every year, at the Royal academy, a number of his productions, and the periodical publications of the day abound with remarks upon them. He did not always meet with favourable critics. Among others, a writer of considerable notoriety, under the signature of Anthony Pasquin, treated his works with great severity.

In 1797 Lawrence exhibited a work which aspired to the highest rank in the school of art. It was a historical painting of Satan calling his legions. This was received with much approbation, and, as a painting, it was undoubtedly full of beautiful details. The figure of Satan had all the ferocious energy and violent dignity suited to the character, and was finely contrasted with the dejection and despondence of some of the other fallen angels. But the colouring, though clear and forci