With every sentiment of regard to yourself, and to all the members of your family, I am, My dear Madam, Your most faithful and obliged Servant, D. W. In the following letter, Wilkie alludes to a portrait of himself commissioned from his own hand by his kind and constant friend, Sir Robert Peel. TO THE RIGHT HON. SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. M.P. Dear Sir Robert, Kensington, 20th April, 1840. You are most kind in giving a thought to the portrait, which I feel so much honoured in painting for you. For some days I have been proceeding with it, and do not see any difficulty in finding space for the hand in the present size; the introduction of the doctor's cap being one reason why a hand may be desired. I hope shortly to have it advanced so far as to submit it for your obliging counsel in this as well as the likeness, which I find I can only judge of by its impression on others. With every sentiment of respect, &c. D. W. Wilkie did not live to complete this portrait ; nor was it over-like;-but it has all the air, the mind, and genius of the original. The Academy annual Exhibition Wilkie was always unwilling to let pass without contributing something; to miss an Exhibition was like losing a whole year, and really dropping a link or two in the chain of public approbation. In the first outset of life it was a labour with him to produce above one great work a year. Latterly, through the fruitful aid of portraiture he was enabled to exhibit the allowed number of eight. In 1840 he had eight:1. Benvenuto Cellini presenting for the approval of Pope Paul III. a silver vase of his own workmanship. 2. Queen Victoria in her Robes of State. 3. Portrait of Viscount Arbuthnot, Lord Lieutenant of Kincardineshire, for the County Hall in Stonehaven. 4. Scene from The Gentle Shepherd. 5. Portrait of Mrs. Ferguson, of Raith. 6. The Irish Whiskey Still. 7. The Hookabadar. 8. The Disabled Commodore in his retirement at Greenwich Hospital, 1800. Of these eight, three make claim to especial notice. The Benvenuto Cellini, a picture which Reynolds would have loved to praise-a complete Sir Joshua all over. The Irish Whiskey Still, as a moral lesson pictorially told true in parts to Irish character, and yet an attempt, and an able one, to graft the spiritual school of Correggio upon scenes of a less lofty nature. The Mrs. Ferguson, as the best female portrait of its painter-rich in colour, well harmonised, very like, and well painted. In the following letter Wilkie enumerates some of the characters and accessories which he was to work into his picture of John Knox administering the Sacrament. Dear Madam, ΤΟ Kensington, 25th May, 1840. You are kind in inquiring about my labours on the subject of Knox. The picture proceeds, and, as it advances, improves by details and incidents casting up to add to the apparent reality of the scene. I find, however, that a good deal of contrivance is required to fill up the expected material of such an event. I had a call lately from Dr. Sommers, who expressed much interest about it, and about the circumstances attendant upon that early celebration of the sacrament. I had, however, to request him to make due allowance for what was necessary to make up a picture. With a certain class of subjects it is necessary to put in much that is imaginary, or without authority, and to leave out much unadapted for painting. The hall, which you have stated as modernised, I am obliged to restore to what will recal an ancient hall of that period: the chimney I ornament; decorate the walls with the pilasters now there to suit; and I must try to renew the carved screen which you say divided the room, in old times, from the entrance. I also put in more people, and those more varied in rank than could well have been there. I mean to put in the Lord and Lady Lorn, the Regent Murray, perhaps also Morton, and the aged Earl of Argyll. I also wish to introduce, in a prominent place, the knight of St. John (Sir James Sandilands), and, whether right or wrong, in armour. A large wine-cooler is also made prominent; and, as suggested by Dr. Sommers's account of the parish, a Calder witch is to be placed conspicuous. This, you will doubtless say, is a mixture; but it is of that sort which, whether consistent with truth or not, is certainly required to make up that kind of compound that goes to the formation of what we call a picture. Allow me to repeat how much I feel gratified by the interest you have upon all occasions taken in this work; and that I would feel delighted if I had the pleasure of seeing you, and of hearing you pronounce upon its merits. I am, &c. D. W. At the public auction of Wilkie's works after his death, a highly-finished sketch of this fine picture was sold for eighty-four pounds; the picture itself, or all that was ever painted of it, for one hundred and eightynine pounds. The latter purchase was made by the Royal Scottish Academy; and no portion of their funds was ever better spent in the purchase of a work of art. CHAPTER VIII. WILKIE AT THE HAGUE, COLOGNE, MUNICH, VIENNA, AND CONSTAN"THE LETTER TINOPLE.EXTRACTS FROM JOURNAL.-PAINTS WRITER," AND THE TARTAR RELATING THE NEWS OF THE LETTERS TO MR. AND MISS WILKIE, MR. MOON, MR. YOUNG, MR. COLLINS, R. A., AND SIR PETER LAURIE. In the autumn of 1840 Sir David set out suddenly on his journey to the East: for this, rumour assigned sundry reasons, some of them probable, and few of them true. It was said that he went charged with royal commissions from home to paint for the palace galleries portraits of the young ruler of Turkey and the old ruler of Egypt. This was in its turn contradicted, by the assurance that this great painter was regarded but coldly in the high places of the land, and was, on court authority, held deficient in that grace of style which captivates the high bred and the polished. This gave way to a third rumour, that he longed for "fresh fields and pastures new," and desired to merit the applause of the multitude by pictures of remote scenes and strange manners and employments. The devout had a rumour of their own, that Wilkie was on a visit to the Holy Land, to realise those visions present to his mind when he first opened the Bible in the village of Cults, and behold Jerusalem as it came in glory from the hand of Solomon, or sunk in sorrow under the sword of Titus. While a fifth party, who were intimate with the state |