s of roof-splitting
laughter he excited have died away; but while the remembrance of "lovely
things" remains with us, those who were fortunate enough to have seen
Mr. Taylor's play of "Helping Hands," as performed at Burton's Theatre
in New York, will be sure never to forget it.

We should be glad, if space permitted, to speak of Mr. Taylor in the
several branches of literature wherein he has become distinguished; but
it is chiefly with him as a biographer, and principally with one
biography, we are concerned here.

Six years ago, Leslie's "Biographical Recollections" were given to the
world by the hand of the same editor. There are few books more
delightful of this kind in our language; and no small share of the
interest results from the conscientious work Mr. Taylor has put into the
study of Mr. Leslie's pictures, and his recognition of him as
distinctively a literary painter, possessing a kindly brotherhood to
Washington Irving in the subtile humor he loved to depict.

We remember having the good fortune once to meet Mr. Taylor, while he
was preparing this book, and being impressed with the idea that he had
committed Mr. Leslie's paintings to memory, as one of the necessary
preliminaries in order to do justice to his subject. He had that day
returned from a pilgrimage to one of the pictures, and was able to
inform the artists who were present with regard to the smallest
accessory. We fancied, had painting, and not penning, been his forte, he
could have reproduced the picture for us on the spot, could we, at the
same time, have transformed the table-cloth into a canvas.

In the Preface to the Recollections of Leslie, we are told that the
reason his autobiography ends abruptly was not because of Mr. Leslie's
failing health, "but because all the time he could spare from painting
was, during the last year of his life, occupied by him in writing the
Life of Sir Joshua Reynolds, at which he worked hard even a month before
his death." When the Leslie papers were put into Mr. Taylor's hands,
this Life, then in a fragmentary condition, being hardly more than
memoranda, for the most part, also came into his possession. And it
having been his "lot," as he has elsewhere said, to have the materials
for two artistic biographies already intrusted to his care, he must have
accepted the third, thus silently bestowed, as the especial legacy of
his friend.

Therefore, by education and by accident, (if we may choose to consider
it