bitterly and sobbed out:

"Oh, I shall never be able to paint like that!"

In 1785, he received a silver palette from the Society of Arts as a reward for a copy of Raphael's "Transfiguration," which he had made when but thirteen years old.

“THE BLUE BOY.” (AFTER THE PAINTING BY THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH. BY PERMISSION, FROM A FAC-SIMILE OF THE ETCHING BY RAJON, PUBLISHED BY “L’ART.”)

In 1787, the young painter entered the Royal Academy, London, and from that time his course was one of repeated successes. Sir Joshua Reynolds was his friend and adviser; he early attracted the attention of the King and Queen, whose portraits he painted when but twenty-two years old. He was elected to the Academy in 1794; after Sir Joshua's death he was appointed painter to the King; he was knighted in 1815, and five years later he was elected president of the Academy. He was also a member of many foreign academies and a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. Rarely is the path to honor and fame made so easy as it was to Sir Thomas Lawrence.

COPY OF A PORTRAIT BY GEORGE ROMNEY.

His London life was brilliant. His studio was crowded with sitters, and money flowed into his purse in a generous stream,—for his prices were larger than any other English painter had asked. But all this did him little good, for somehow he was continually in debt and always poor.

In 1814 he visited Paris, but he was recalled that he might paint the portraits of the allied sovereigns, their statesmen, and generals. These works were the first of the series of portraits of great men in the Waterloo Chamber at Windsor Castle. In 1818 he attended the Congress at Aix-la-Chapelle, for the purpose of adding portraits of notable people to the gallery of the Prince-Regent. At length he was sent to Rome to paint a likeness of the Pope and Cardinal Gonsalvi. He seems to have been inspired with new strength by his nearness to the works of the great masters in the Eternal City, for those two portraits are in merit far beyond his previous work, and after his return to England from 1820 to 1830, his pictures had a vigor and worth that was wanting at every other period of his life. While in Rome, he also painted a portrait of Canova which he presented to the Pope.

When he reached London, he found himself to be the president-elect of the Academy; it was a great honor, and Lawrence accepted it with modesty.

George IV., following the example of the graciousness of Charles I. toward Vandyck, hung upon the painter's neck a gold chain bearing a medal, on which the likeness of his majesty was engraved. In the catalogue of the Academy, 1820, Lawrence is called "Principal Painter in Ordinary to his Majesty, Member of the Roman Academy of St. Luke's, of the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence, and of the Fine Arts in New York." To the last he had been elected in 1818, and had sent to the academy a full-length portrait of Benjamin West.

From that time on, there is little to relate of his life, except that he was always busy and each year sent eight fine works to the Academy Exhibition. His friends and patrons showed him much consideration, and various honors were added to his list, already long. He was always worried in regard to money matters, and he grieved much over the illness of his favorite sister, but there was no striking event to change the even current of his life.

On January 7, 1830, he expired suddenly, exclaiming, "This is dying,"—almost the same words used by George IV., a few months later.

Sir Thomas Lawrence was a man of fine personal qualities; his generosity may be called his greatest fault, for his impulses led him to give more than he had—a quality which causes us to admire a man while at the same moment it makes him guilty of grave faults.

He was always generous to unfortunate artists and, in that way, he spent large sums. He was also true to his ideas of right and wrong, even at the expense of his own advantage.

As an artist, Lawrence can not be given a very high rank, in spite of the immense successes of his life. As in every case, there are opposite opinions concerning him. He has hearty admirers, but he is also accused of mannerisms and weakness. His early works are the most satisfactory, because most natural; they are good in design, and rich in color.

Joseph Mallord William Turner

was an artist of great genius, and has exercised a powerful influence on the art of the nineteenth century. He was the son of a barber, and was born in Maiden Lane, London (a squalid alley in the parish of Covent Garden), on April 23, 1775. When the boy was five years old, he was taken by his father to the house of a customer of the barber's, and while the shaving and combing went on, the child studied the figure of a rampant lion engraved upon a piece of silver. After his return home, he drew a copy of the lion so excellent that it decided his career, for then and there the father determined that his son should be an artist. As a child and youth, he was always sketching, and while he was fond of nature in all her features, he yet had a preference for water views with boats and cliffs and shining waves.

In 1789, when fourteen years old, he entered the classes of the Royal Academy, where he worked hard in drawing from Greek models. He had the good fortune to be employed by Dr. Munro to do some copying and other works, and by this stroke of luck he revelled in the fine pictures and valuable drawings with which the house of his patron was filled. Toward the end of Sir Joshua Reynolds's life, Turner was a frequent visitor at his studio.

In 1790, he sent his first contribution to the Academy Exhibition; it was a view of Lambeth Palace, in water-colors. During the next ten years, he exhibited more than sixty works, embracing a great variety of subjects. The pictures included views from more than twenty-six counties of England and Wales.

In 1802, he was made a full member of the Academy and he also visited the continent for the first time, traveling through France and Switzerland only. He visited Italy in 1819, in 1829, and again in 1840.

The pictures of Turner are often compared with those of Claude Lorraine, and at times he painted in rivalry with Cuyp, Poussin, and Claude, aiming to adopt the manner of these masters.

In 1806, Turner followed the example of the great Lorraine in another direction. Claude had made a Liber Veritatis, or "Book of Truth," containing sketches of his finished pictures, in order that the works of other painters could not be sold as his. Turner determined to make a Liber Studiorum, or "Book of Studies." It was issued in a series of twenty numbers, containing five plates each, and the subscription price was £17.10s. There were endless troubles with the engravers and it was not paying well, and was abandoned after seventy plates were issued. It seemed to be so worthless that Charles Turner, one of the engravers, used some of the proofs for kindling paper. After the artist became famous, however, this Liber Studiorum grew to be very valuable. Before Turner died, a copy was worth thirty guineas, and more recently a single copy has brought three thousand pounds, or nearly fifteen thousand dollars. Colnaghi, the London print dealer, paid Charles Turner fifteen hundred pounds for the