xpressive use
of colour and chiaroscuro.

Considerable ingenuity has been expended in trying to prove that
Raeburn's subsequent development was due in some way or other to the
influence of Hoppner and Lawrence. Consideration of his situation and
of his work itself, however, scarcely bears this out. His ignorance of
what was being done by London artists, and of how his own pictures
compared with theirs, is very clearly evident from the following letter
written to Wilkie:--

Edinburgh,
12_th September_ 1819.

Mr dear Sir,--I let you to wit that I am still here, and long much to
hear from you, both as to how you are and what you are doing. I would
not wish to impose any hardship upon you, but it would give me great
pleasure if you would take the trouble to write me at least once a
year, if not oftener, and give me a little information of what is going
on among the artists, for I do assure you I have as little
communication with any of them, and know almost as little about them,
as if I were living at the Cape of Good Hope.

I send up generally a picture or two to the Exhibition, which serve
merely as an advertisement that I am still in the land of the living,
but in other respects it does me no good, for I get no notice from any
one, nor have I the least conception how they look beside others. I
know not in what London papers any critiques of that kind are made, and
our Edinburgh ones (at least those that I see) take no notice of these
matters. At any rate I would prefer a candid observation or two from
an artist like you, conveying not only your own opinion but perhaps
that of others, before any of them.

Are the Portrait-Painters as well employed as ever? Sir Thomas
Lawrence, they tell me, has refused to commence any more pictures till
he gets done with those that are on hand, and that he has raised his
prices to some enormous sum. Is that true, and will you do me the
favour to tell me what his prices really are, and what Sir W. Beechy,
Mr Philips, and Mr Owen have for their pictures? It will be a
particular favour if you will take the trouble to ascertain these for
me precisely, for I am raising my prices too, and it would be a guide
to me--not that I intend to raise mine so high as your famous London
artists.

Moreover he is said to have visited London only three times: in 1785,
when he spent several weeks while on his way to Italy; in 1810, when he
contemplated settling there; and in 1815, aft