To fupply this defect in English biography, respecting the lives and works of our Painters, was the prefent performance undertaken; for which Mr. Vertue employed himself feveral years in collecting materials. As he converfed and corresponded with most of the virtuofi in England, and was perfonally acquainted with the oldeft performers in the science, he minuted down every thing he heard from them; vifiting, as we are told, every collection, making catalogues of them, attending fales, copying every paper he could find relative to the art, fearching offices, regifters of parishes and registers of wills, for births and deaths, turning over all our own authors, and tranflating those of other countries which related to his fubject. Thus writing down every thing he heard, saw, or read, his collection amounted to near forty volumes of manufcript; his intention of compiling fuch a work being fuggefted fo early as the year 1713, and affiduously continued till his death, in the year 1757.

Indebted, however, as the lovers of this elegant art may think themselves to Mr. Vertue, for his affiduity and application, there is yet another circumftance which adds a value to the materials he fo laboriously collected. This is his integrity, which, we are told, exceeded even his induftry: no man living, fo bigotted to a vocation, being fo incapable of falfhood. He did not deal even in hypothefis, fcarce in conjecture. He vifited and revifited every picture, every monument that was an object of his refearches ; and being fo little a slave to his own imagination, was cautious of trusting to that of others. In his memorandums he always put a query against whatever was told him of fufpicious afpect, and never gave credit to it till he received the fulleft fatisfaction. "Thus (proceeds our Author) whatever trifles the Reader finds in this work, he will have the comfort of knowing that the greatest part at leaft are of moft genuine authority. Whenever I have added to the Compiler's ftores, I have ge-nerally taken care to quote as religioufly the fource of my intelligence; and here and there have tried to enliven the drynefs of the fubject, by inferting facts not totally foreign to it. It is not, however, only by the infertion of entertaining facts that our Author hath enlivened and embellished the barren collection of the Compiler: the many pertinent reflections, and interesting fentiments, occafionally interfperfed throughout this work, manifefting equally the critical fagacity and refined taste of the Writer. Very different from the common run of Editors, whofe narrow minds or confined talents are

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limited to a particular ftudy, we find him perpetually throwing out thofe general reflections which naturally arise from the occafion; and which, though not abfolutely neceffary to the fubject, difplay that liberal turn which is only acquired from an acquaintance with men as well as the arts, from the ftudy of human nature as well as the fciences. His thoughts on the past and prefent ftate of the arts in England, together with their moral tendency, particularly that of Painting, are extremely fenfible and juft.

That

"It perhaps would be difficult (fays he) to affign a phyfical reaton why a nation that produced Shakespear, fhould owe its glory in another walk of genius to Holbein and Vandyke. It cannot be imputed to want of protection: Who countenanced the arts more than Charles the First? prince, who is cenfured for his want of tafte in penfioning Quarles, is celebrated by the fame pen for employing Bernini ;- -but want of protection is the apology for want of genius. Milton and Fontaine did not write in the bask of court favour. A Poet or a Painter may want an equipage or a villa, by wanting protection; they can always afford to buy ink and paper, colours and pencils. Hogarth has received no honours, but univerfal admiration."

Confidering the arts and fciences in a moral and political light, he obferves, it is no bad indication of the flourishing ftate of a country, that it daily makes improvements in their cultivation. They may be attended indeed by luxury, but. they are certainly produced by wealth and happiness *. The conveniencies, the decorations of life are not studied in Siberia, or under a Nero. "If fevere morality (fays he) would at any time expect to cftablish a thorough reformation, I fear it must chufe inhofpitable climates, and abolish all latitude from the laws. A corporation of merchants would never have kept their oaths to Lycurgus, of obferving his ftatutes till he returned. A good government, that indulges its fubjects in the exercife of their own thoughts, will fee a thousand inventions fpringing up, refinements will follow, and much pleafure and fatisfaction will be produced at leaft before that

* Does not this feem a little contradictory to what is faid just above concerning the influence of protection and the fun-fhine of courtfavour?-But perhaps wealth and luxury may have a tendency to the improvement of the arts in general, different from their influence on the profeffors of thofe arts as individuals. The arts may flourish mod in wealthy state, while the poorest artists may display the greatest

excess arrives, which is fo juftly faid to be the fore-runner of ruin. But all this is in the common course of things, which tend to perfection, and then degenerate. He would be an abfurd legiflator, who fhould pretend to fet bounds to his country's welfare, left it should perifh by knowing no bounds. Poverty will ftint itself; riches will be left to their own difcretion; they depend upon trade, and to circumfcribe trade is to annihilate it. It is not rigid nor Roman to fay it, but a people had better be unhappy by their own fault, than by that of their government. A cenfor morum is not a much greater bleffing than an arbiter elegantiarum. The world, I believe, is not at all agreed that the aufterities of the Presbyterians were preferable to the licentioufnefs under Charles II. I pretend to defend the one no more than the other; but I am fure that in the body politic, fymptoms that prognofticate ill, may indicate well. All I meant to fay was, that the difpofition to improvements in this country is the confequence of its vigour. The establishment of a fociety for the encouragement of arts, will produce great benefits before they are perverted to mifchiefs."

With refpect to Painting in particular, Mr.Walpole endeavours to obviate the objections which fanatics, and others of as little taste, have made to this beautiful art. "This (fays he) is one of the leaft likely to be perverted: Painting has feldom been employed to any bad purpose. Pictures are but the scenery of devotion. I queftion if Raphael himself could ever have made one convert, though he had exhausted all the expreffion of his cloquent pencil on a series of Popish doctrines and miracles. Pictures cannot adapt themselves to the meaneft capacities, as unhappily the tongue can. Nonfenfe may make an apprentice a catholic or methodift; but the apprentice would see that a very bad Picture of St. Francis was not like truth and a very good Picture would be above his feeling. Pictures may ferve as helps to religion; but are only an appendix to idolatry: for the people must be taught to believe in falfe Gods and in the power of faints, before they will learn to worship their images. I do not doubt but if fome of the firft reformers had been at liberty to say exactly what they thought, and no more than they thought, they would have permitted one of the moft ingenious arts, implanted in the heart of man by the Supreme Being, to be employed towards his praife. But Calvin, by his tenure, as head of a fect, was obliged to go all lengths. The vulgar will not lift but for total contradictions. They are not ftruck

by feeing religion fhaded only a little darker or a little lighter. It was at Conftantinople alone where the very fhop-keepers had fubtilty enough to fight for a letter more or less in a Greek adjective, that expreffed an abftract idea.”

"Happily (continues our Author) there is at this time fo total a extinction of all party-animofity both in religion and politics, that men are at liberty to propose whatever may be ufeful to their country, without its being imputed to them as à crime, and to invent what they mean fhould give pleasure, without danger of difpleafing by the very attempt."

We could wish this latter reflection altogether so true as is intimated; but we fear, though the zeal of party in politics and religion is at present much fubfided, the liberal arts run no little danger of fuffering equally by the illiberal practices of venality and avarice. While the infinuations of prejudice and self-interest are attended to, partiality will prevail in all decifions refpecting merit: and in an age and country where every thing is bought and fold, it is no wonder the productions of taste and science should meet with the fame fate as all other commodities that are brought to market. And whoever knows the delicacy of the opening bud of true genius, cannot be furprized it should clofe again in difguft, at seeing itself depreciated by the infolence of partiality, or the artifices of fale while not unfrequently, cheapened like a bunch of radishes, it is thrown afide by the undiftinguishing purchaser, for a more lumping penny-worth of gaudy trafh. Hence we cannot help differing from our ingenious Author, in thinking this an epoch in which we may reasonably expect to see the arts flourish and rife to as proud a height as they attained at Athens, Rome, or Florence. We very readily fubfcribe, however, to thofe great encomiums he hath justly bestowed on the eminent patrons and artifts, that do honour to our age and

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What we have hitherto borrowed from our Author is contained in his Preface. We come now to the work itself, in which the state of Painting in England is traced back to its earliest period: they who undertake to write the Hiftory of any art being, as he obferves, fond of carrying its origin as far back as poffible, This, indeed, when it tends to fhew

*In the decline of the empire, there were two fects who proceeded to the greateft violences against each other in the difpute, whether the nature of the fecond Perfon was 'Oucoses, co-effentialis; or 'Ops, fimilis effentia.

the

the improvements made in it, by comparing latter works with the first rude inventions, may be of fervice; but it often happens that the Hiftorian thinks the antiquity of a discovery reflects honour on his country, though perhaps his country has been fo careless, or has wanted genius fo much, as to have refined very little on the original hints. Some men, he remarks, push this farther, and venerate the first dawnings of an art more than its productions in a riper age. This, it feems, was the cafe, in fome degree, with Mr. Vertue, who had taken great pains to prove, that Painting exifted in England before the restoration of it in Italy by Cimabue. Mr. Walpole, however, though confeffedly an Antiquarian, justly obferves that, notwithstanding the inventor may have had more genius, the performance of the improver must be more perfect. "If what we poffeffed of it (fays he) in thofe ignorant times could be called Painting, I fuppofe Italy and every nation in Europe retained enough of the deformity of the art, to conteft with us in point of antiquity. That we had gone backwards in the science, farther almoft than any other country, is evident from our coins, on which there is no more of human fimilitude, than in an infant's firft fcrawl of the profile of a face; and fo far therefore as badness of drawing approaches to antiquity of ignorance, we may lay in our claim to very antient poffeffion. As Italy has fo long excelled us in the refinement of the art, fhe may leave us the enjoyment of original imperfection.”

The lovers of British antiquities may find fome entertainment in the perufal of the records relating to Architecture, Painting, and Sculpture, contained in the first Chapter of this performance; wherein, among many other particulars, we are informed that the lions in the arms of England were originally leopards; and that Windfor was a place of note even before the reign of Henry III. confequently long before it was beautified by Edward III. In the frequent occafions, however, which the Writer takes to throw new lights on the characters in English History, confifts, in our opinion, a confiderable part, if not the chief, merit of the whole work. Having fpoken of the great encouragement given by Henry III. to Cavalini, and other artists, he makes the following application of circumftances to elucidate his cha

racter.

"From all the teftimonies above recited, Henry III. appears in a new light from what has hitherto been known of him. That he was a weak prince, in point of government,