We strayed back through the damp chill of the city's evening fog to the market-place, hoping, even unconsciously, to stand beside the pit into which the marvellous boy had been thrust; but we grew bewildered. And as we stood upon the steps looking down upon the market-alone in feeling, and unconscious of everything but our own thoughts-St. Paul's bell struck, full, loud, and clear; and, casting our eyes upward, we saw its mighty dome through the murky atmosphere. We became still more 'mazed,' and fancied we were gazing upon the monument of Thomas Chatterton !

THE BIRTH-PLACE OF RICHARD WILSON.

HERE are few things more vexatious than, after enjoying the manifestations of genius, after paying the fervent homage of admiration to the work of some mighty painter or poet, who has drawn us above, or away from, all the troubles of the world, and made us exult in the proud feeling of My countryman did this!'-there are few things more vexatious than the disappointment that arises from the impossibility of collecting information concerning men whose works are almost their only records. They are their works-all else is so confounded with the 'rubble' of our worldly chaos, that while we render heartfelt reverence to the mind, we know nothing of the man. We usually set forth on a pilgrimage to some English shrine to seek the dwelling-place, and search out mementos of a British worthy'-with fear and trembling; knowing how little existing inhabitants think or care about the past greatness of those who sighed out their toilsome days and weary nights within walls which anywhere but here-in England-would have been hallowed as sacred temples. It is melancholy to turn over meagre 'biographies' that were unthought of until years after their subjects had been dust. At length friends and acquaintances, half indifferent to, and half forgetful of the past, are questioned. Out of their weak memories and unhearty' testimonies

a 'life' is compiled-for lucre, not for love. That which might have been of the rarest value is sent forth a mere skeleton, clothed in shreds and patches, without vitality or strength. Where is it we have read, or where is it we heard this rude couplet ?

He who writes not his epitaph before he dies

Shall live as long as the cock crows, or the widow cries.'

This our English Claude has certainly done. The memory of one of his delicious landscapes has often changed before our eyes, the bare walls on which we looked into a scene of dewy, airy brightness. One in particular we remember well—a white cow was standing among the treesa perfect phantom of summer beauty. Yet how little, labour as we may, can we know of the life of Richard Wilson. Scraps of it may be had now and then-tales half-fact, half-legend-things to make us weep, or raise a smile. He lived while in London over the north arcade of the Piazza, Covent Garden; in Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square; in Great Queen Street, Lincoln's-Inn-Fields; at the corner of Foley Place, Great Portland Street; in Tottenham Street, Tottenham Court Road; but, with the solitary exception of the one habitation in Foley Place, the houses are unknown. And he sketched-(how strangely it sounds now!)—he sketched and painted from nature in the fields of Marylebone! To the first exhibition of 1760 held in the great room at Spring Gardens,' he sent his picture of 'Niobe.' His heart beat high when it was bought by William, Duke of Cumberland; but, as one swallow makes no summer, neither does a solitary sale, even to royalty, create for an artist fame and fortune. The public, who understood a little less about pictures in those days than they do now-the public would have it that Barrett painted better works than Wilson, and a committee of taste' sitting' upon Mr. Wilson's production, sent him a message by Mr. Penny that his manner was not suited to English feeling, and if he hoped for patronage he must change for the lighter style of Zucarelli.' No wonder the crushed, yet proud spirit of a man, conscious of his own power, rebelled at this; that he stormed forth a reply, which converted the committee from sucering friends into open foes.

We find the painter refused money by a dealer, because his 'attic' was

already crowded with transcripts from nature, that now fetch more pounds than they were then valued at in farthings. He made sketches for-half-acrown a-piece and expressed his gratitude to Paul Selby for giving him a shilling or two more. An easel, a brush, and a few articles of furniture, not as many as a mechanic would need, were all he could afford, while producing what are now the richest ornaments of our most costly mansions-chiefest of our national glories in Art. Ah! who can read without sympathy the story that in such a dwelling he was found by a youth-a student-whose name, although forgotten on earth, is recorded in heaven. The lad was asked by a lady to conduct her to the greatest landscape painter, to whom she wished to give a commission. He took her to Wilson's studio-she commissioned two pictures, and drove off. Wilson detained his young friend, and, looking him mournfully in the face, murmured, Your kindness is vain; I am wholly destitute; I cannot even purchase proper colours and canvas for these works.' The young man lent the great artist twenty pounds; and drew a salutary lesson from the distress it was his privilege to relieve. Could he expect to prosper where Wilson, with all his genius, was starving? Ho laid aside his palette and brushes, entered college, and became a clergyman -a calling of which he must have been very worthy. Wilson was inexpensive in his habits; his luxury was a pot of porter and a toast' -sufficiently unrefined to cause his enemies to sneer, and his admirers to regret that he could afford no better. were frequent friends, aiding each other must have been vastly beneficial to both. those who had no homes wherein to meet their friends, would meet them at a tavern it was at the Turk's Head, in Gerrard Street, Soho-in really good society-the great landscape painter of England forgot that he was poor.

In those days artists and authors by an interchange of mind that There were no clubs then

and

We have often thought how humbled the English-to whom it was addressed-must have felt at the reproof of the French artist, Vernet, who hung one of Wilson's pictures in his own studio, and, when his productions were praised or purchased, would say, 'Do not talk only of my landscapes, when your own countryman Wilson paints so beautifully.' But his generous praise fell on deaf ears. The English painter was as much neglected in his native land as he had been before his six years' residence abroad,

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and as his age increased his hopes decayed; the distinguishing letters R.A. after his name did him little service-brought him at least but little profit, although upon his small stipend as Librarian of the Royal Academy, he was compelled to count for daily bread.

Talk of his being morose in his manners! Alas! alas! neglect and injustice corrode the finest polish; the storm and the frost will not ripen our fruits, nor can we expect to gather wheat where we sow tares. The only wonder is, that such bitter neglect did not produce a more splenetic and ill-conditioned mind and conduct. It is most unjust and unnatural to require the silken manners of a court from a storm-beaten man, who, instead of studying points of etiquette, has been buffeting with starvation— drawing a small coin from its concealment and replacing it again, despite the cravings of hunger, lest when it was gone, he should be absolutely and entirely penniless in a cold world.

It requires a strong heart to bear up against the misrepresentations and misconceptions that await the man of genius, even under the most propitious circumstances; but, when neglect is the herald of want, then indeed, the heart must be of iron that remains steadfast in its lonelinesssustained by what? By the certain, the almost instinctive assurance, that a time must come when a name will be heard among the nations, though, in its narrow home, the framework of the mighty mind has mouldered to dust.

But Wilson had faith in himself; his cup of misery would otherwise, perhaps, have overflowed long before the death of an elder brother placed him beyond the reach of want.

The landmarks of his London pilgrimage can hardly now be traced. Time, who ought to have guarded them all with jealous care, has erased them; and although his final resting-place is known and honoured, the place of his birth is-strange to say-a subject for conjecture. His only biographer, Wright, informs us that he was the third son of a clergyman in Montgomeryshire, who, soon after the birth of our artist' was collated to the living of Mold, in Flintshire-a Welsh living, the income of which may have been forty pounds a-year. From the slender details connected with his early life, we learn that his parent had six sons and one daughter, who all died unwed; and that the future landscape