h is commonly
seen in his works; and so I always thought before I knew or imagined it
to be done in this his ebb of genius.'

We have had two artists of our own country whose fate has been as
singular as it was hard: Gandy was a portrait-painter in the beginning
of the last century, whose heads were said to have come near to
Rembrandt's, and he was the undoubted prototype of Sir Joshua Reynolds's
style. Yet his name has scarcely been heard of; and his reputation, like
his works, never extended beyond his own country. What did he think of
himself and of a fame so bounded? Did he ever dream he was indeed an
artist? Or how did this feeling in him differ from the vulgar conceit
of the lowest pretender? The best known of his works is a portrait of an
alderman of Exeter, in some public building in that city.

Poor Dan. Stringer! Forty years ago he had the finest hand and the
clearest eye of any artist of his time, and produced heads and drawings
that would not have disgraced a brighter period in the art. But he fell
a martyr (like Burns) to the society of country gentlemen, and then of
those whom they would consider as more his equals. I saw him many
years ago when he treated the masterly sketches he had by him (one
in particular of the group of citizens in Shakespeare 'swallowing the
tailor's news') as 'bastards of his genius, not his children,' and
seemed to have given up all thoughts of his art. Whether he is since
dead, I cannot say; the world do not so much as know that he ever lived!

NOTES to ESSAY II

(1) Leonardo da Vinci.

(2) Titian.

(3) Michael Angelo.

(4) Correggio.

(5) Annibal Caracci.

(6) Rubens.

(7) Raffaelle.

ESSAY III. ON THE PAST AND FUTURE

I have naturally but little imagination, and am not of a very sanguine
turn of mind. I have some desire to enjoy the present good, and some
fondness for the past; but I am not at all given to build castles in the
air, nor to look forward with much confidence or hope to the brilliant
illusions held out by the future. Hence I have perhaps been led to form
a theory, which is very contrary to the common notions and feelings on
the subject, and which I will here try to explain as well as I can. When
Sterne in the _Sentimental Journey_ told the French Minister, that if
the French people had a fault, it was that they were too serious, the
latter replied that if that was his opinion, he must defend it with all
his might, for he would have al