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3LE310I11. OF 1.7WIN5,*

DIONAS ITwi.vs was one of those men about whom there is not very mush to be said, nor much public -curiosity to hear it, but who yet should' not be allowed to pass away without some record. They have been men engaged in sonic noble pursuit connected with and valued by distinguished persons, supplied with abundant food- for observation and thought, and probably not backward in using it : they have done some- thing towards leavening the lump. They have filled a place in their generation ; and though it may he equally well filled by their successors they are fairly entitled to be registered before the public eye, just as each individual in a series of family-portraits bespeaks the quantum of wail- specs-which protracts his presence in the domestic circle.

Such records have their limitations however ; and, if there was no more in substance to be told about the late Mr. twins than we find here, 750 pages is rather a large space to tell it in. The great majority of this space is occupied by his own letters. Those written to him by Sir Charles Eastlake and Mr. Severn are the most considerable of the return- correspondence : the memoir itself does not extend to half of the first volume and even here the painter's letters count for something. Then come a 1st of his pictures exhibited at the Water-colour Gallery and the Royal Academy, and a piecemeal account of the "Sketching Society," of which, some time after its foundation he became a member ; the body, as some of our readers may recollect, being composed of artists who met at one another's houses, and each of whom had to produce, during the evening's meeting, a sketch from a given subject common to the whole party. The life of Thomas 'twins may be termed absolutely uneventful. He

held a medium course—in powers, in position, and in repute,—from the cradle to the tomb. His engraved vignettes made his name familiar and moderately popular, never famous ; his attainments and character were recognized and valued, without calling for or receiving any signal pro- clamation; his pictures have given pleasure, but not excitedenthusiasm ; his worldly circumstances appear, from first to last, to have demanded personal exertion, but no extreme effort. He was born in Pentonville, on the 24th February 1782, the son of a Clerk in the Bank of England. An early aptitude for art induced his father to place him with an en- :Fever. Essays in water-colour painting, portraits, and designs for books, succeeded : at one time he drew the " fashions " in Ackermann's Repository. At the age of 35 he visited France ; he resided in Scotland for some while, chiefly engaged in portrait-painting. The turning-point of his life was his visit to Italy, which, commenced in 1824, was pro- longed from year to year, almost from month to month, until it had lasted about .seven years; Naples being his head-quarters for the greater part of the time. Here his artistic habits and impressions settled into the form which marked all his after productions. His professional honours came somewhat late in life. He was elected, after his return to England, an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1833, when he had completed his 51st year; an Academician in 1838. Later came his appointments as Li- brarian to the Academy, as Surveyor of Pictures to the Queen, (who may be gathered to have held him in deserved personal regard,) and as keeper of the National Gallery. Still later in life, close on the age of 69, he married the lady from whom these volumes come as a tribute of affection. His death occurred on the 26th August 1857, closing an illness of some duration, which had not, however, availed to withdraw him from pro- fessional practice.

twins was not a great artist, nor can he even be said to have ever thoroughly attained to being It good one in the technical point of view. Yet he was not without some genuine vacation for being a painter. There is an amenity of thought, of feeling, and of treatment, in his 'forks which satisfies the uncritical gazer by the simple process of pleas- ing him ; and which, though it is not wholly positive or individual enough to satisfy the critical, indicates to him that the painter was among the men who, however high they may rise, or however short they may come of the goal, have a natural right to paint. We can well con- ceive that twine, having that essential fact in his favour, would have

• A. iffilloir of Thotrute Carina. B.A., late Keeper of the Royal Galleries, Ike. 8cc. By Mrs. l7wins. With Letters to his Brothers during Seven Years spent in Italy, and Correspondence with the late Sir Thomas Lawrence, Sir C. L. Eastlake, A. E. Otutitm, R.A„ and other distinguished persons. In two volumes. Published by Longman and Co. 1 been. entirely. rigilaat in aim and efficient- in power Iasi laelostakirained;iti the true othene- w of liberty, which far trimsoenuls, 'teal any Ste/01*P and in latitude, - the maxims of his day. His instincts Vett- almeetitlu 13^4..y..$. true. In 1815,. he was able to recognize Turner ts, the " -. ef all living - geniuses." In HMG, he found in some of Trutoref s " a charm that seems to place them above the exertions otlf

A

and his fervour for the great *Venetians is as pronounced Caro .161

his distaste for the Bologneee. eclectics. We give, the dates 0,a .

have enteatecined such opinions at that time is a very different, & thing Wet adopting them at this. Still more noticeable is what he sriye,n in Hill§ of ' the; early- Pkwentino sehool—silmost saitiaipating Ruskin% dsthift. of- " the Agtrof Thought." - , - . :, ,1-.- . " Tbereis one period of art only that has a decidedinteiMatied 0.,...w; iy.thit.wktiok Preceded- what , Ai cstled the rexival., 61gi " wit-t-a host- or others of the same age, have left, scat churches and convents of Italy, such thoughts as would be sufft ()edits anv country with good taste, provided they vere airl3piilsiWand. circulated. Were I a young man instead of an old one, r would Setions144 about careful outlines of the selected works of this age, as the founclittt

which my future exertions might he :wisely based." :• ;

Uwins's personal character comes out bright from. ibis reemidots we can take a widow's tribute and a man's own letters us thmteat sa4ett indeed the traits seem to be too clear to admit of mush eleuht.- Jett-, grity, unebtnisiveness, a sense of God in the world, the opem-heatest which finds continual cause for being grateful to his --fellow-men, itarse served tete:wet for those whore he considered his superiors iupdtv'et% whether seniors or juniors, and a deep, enduring under-current .0f41416 mestic affection, are prominent. His "habits wereretiring; but his tem- per quick ; spurting out here and there into little petuttukes, which ma easily be forgiven; as where public criticism upon one of his most Au4- sag pictures elicits from him no more appropriate rejoiuder than thainiii. this " fast generation" "the pleasures of imagination are at an Radicalism also-, anti-Academicians, and Popery, come in for some hid names. His estimate of his own powers seems to- 'have been, of thd mixed kind- common with men of the second order. There is ihnaugh: out a great deal of self-depreciation, evidently sincere—with aLqualidass tion-; end, slong with this, discernible at intervals, a fund a quiet eelf. complacency, also sincere. "I have done a most extraordinary likeness of ft. naval. officer." "Weak as I am, unaccustomed to argument, and talk- ing in a language of which I know little or nothing, I certainly m my Jesuit tremble in his shoes, and put him into an agitation Com all his school-sophistry could not relieve him." He -had an English re-; spect for the respectable, and an English dislike of nonsense, such' as carnival sugarplum-peltings.

The letters, almost all written from Italy,—though they might have been condensed, as dealing continually with the same themes in diffe- rent phases—are sensible, well-written, and readable. The reader does not expect or discover in them great originality of character or view ; but, provided his anticipations are moderate, he is likely to find them rather surpassed than otherwise. The subjects are very mainly two Roman-Catholicism seen with extremely Protestant eyes, and profes- fessional doings and considerations. The former subject predominates perhaps even over the latter ; and the anti-Popish painter's notices of church-histrionics are often graphic and well given. Here is a night- scene from Naples.

"I have just been to my dinner, which at this season I do not get till dark; returning, I followed the cavalcade of the Host, which, though I had often seen before, I had never seen in quite so much style. Besides the or- dinary Eastern umbrella carried over the priest's head, there was an addi- tional canopy, supported by four men, covering priest, Host, umbrella, and all; the whole was preceded by a number of lantern-bearers and torch-men, and others carrying whole fagots in a state of blazing combustion. As it proceeded down the Strada di Chiaja, under the gloomy bridge which leads to the upper part of the town, it had a most picturesque and solemn effect. At the moment of the Host passing, the people from the ground-floor to the fifth and sixth stories bring lights to the balconies' and fall down on their knees. The lights are as suddenly removed when the canopy has

leaving all behind in a state of gloom and darkness which you, Recasts

to gaslight streets, will hardly be able to conceive, but it adds most wonder- fully to the effect. Seen at a distance, the lights may be supposed to beau emanation from the Deity, whose little wafer form would be worth no without all this pomp and blaze. When it reached the palace of the man, the larger canopy stopped at the gate, and the wafer and umbrella were carried up to tho chamber. "This was another piece oftheatrical effect. The lights were seenwind- ing up the'steps of the palace, and the gloom of the court-yard contributed to its imposing splendour. As soon as it reached the chamber, the mob in the street lighted fagots, and made a blaze of illumination around the house: I assumed the character of a stranger, and asked a man what all this meant; he said 'Jesus Christ was in the house, and the bonfire was made to do Him honour.' One man, as the cavalcade passed along, called on me to take off my hat, but, on my not noticing him, ho good-humouredly said, 'Questa a forestiere ; non capiace :" He is a stranger, and does not understand.' -

The following observations on "the modesty of genius" and what ams sues exhibit the painter thinking—and to some purpose. "People nmy say what they will about the modesty of genius, but I never yet saw great talent unaccompanied with a sufficient portion of confidence ; and that timidity which has prevented my putting myself forward in the world is really the effect of conscious weakness. This very consciousness has stood in the way of my writing to you anti other friends. My brothers, I know, are interested about me, and I can torment them with my kngueur8 without any fear of tiring their patience or offending their taste ; but it not easy to task myself into the opinion that anybody else will have MS same charity for me. It is having Wilkie to talk about that has made Inei bold ; and now I am in for it, I will give you the other page of myself. • "'I have really got good by coming to Italy, and still more by coming IN Naples. I have been thrown on my own resources. I have practised the art here alone, and. I have proved to myself what I never did know before,. the extent of my powers. If I were ten years younger I should reap more benefit from it ; hut, old as I am, I cannot think of it without thnnkfuliiB

and gratitude. To tell, you all that has passed through my mind, on exst- raining the works of the great heroes of the great ages of art, would go be- yond the measure Of m37 sheet; but I must venture to say that they certainly

thoaglit less about fine drawing and academic accuracy than, as students, we

are led to believe. Raphael and Michael Angelo are full of inaccuracies, and abound in violations of all the precepts of the schools; and Correggio is anything but a fine draughtsman. The style of thinking in the two drstis what we must most admire, and the last is a fine example of style in painting. No one can enter the Vatican and Sieline Chapel without haying his conceptions of the powers of art elevated. Ile seems to be holding rem- rgle.ht easm. • , - 0: , 114' II. ilc!! "The more I see of art, the more I ant convinced :how, turtinalr,erertyiw thing depends on the-mind -of the individual.—They- may-talk of this school and that school, but a man of reel. amschool—he stands alone; his own mind is a little world, of'w 144 417eentrolling sovereign." • ,!Ofihe'fet# aneedotical pnssages bearing upon the painter's own prac- ti,-11 friis One Of the -Most- intereiting: 'It is now many years ago,' met old Landimer in the stre.et-(I recollect the place,-it was Cleveland Street, at the corner of Queen WiffitSte. said, have just been admiring some Of .SOGt,O0OlgOOltiOnii;t, you do-them se Innen ? Any one of the little things" have u*seenaoae on-ti large cale, _WOuld be suffiefent to 7establislr your,rnp\ifati.OMil.0 painter? I replied, My dear sir, you km* liew;,unfritturiate liaVell-Eion in my early studies; that the best part of ray life has been passed in learn- ineto engrave; and if yen do not-knove, I can tell you1'that-1 feel my defi- ciency so much, I -a-6 not dare venture to erx,pese it-by painting large. The smallness of,414aenahle* Ade to laithi ;E: Turner the man is but very -vagnely 'known, even to the most' enthu7 gall* devtitees of Turner the painter.: The ........... toolfialve am! lifelike to,be missed, though the subject dour memoir!, no hand lip II, 'The following simple account of hint has amused not:a written by a Merchant travelling towards Bologna_, a'youngroan whe knO,fs notring of _art, and nothing (as you will iperceiv0 orthereputation- Of artists. " I have fortunately met with a good-tempered, funny, little, elderly eentleman,_who will probably be my tea:Veiling companion throughout the Journey. He is continually popping hia head out of Window- tollirntch what- everstrikes his fancy, and became quite angry because the conductor would notWait for him whilst he took -a sunrise view of•Macerata. "Damn the fella!" says he, "he has no feeling." Be speaks but a fe*da Ita- lien about as much of -French, which two languages he,jurables“ together most amusingly: His good temper, however, carriee him through all his troubles. I am sure you would love him for his ledef.e4gabil,try in his fa- vourite pursuit. From his conversation he is evidently, near kin, to if not absantely, an artist. Probable you may know something' of him. The nanie on his trunk is, J. -W. or 1. M. W. Turner I.' " . Inpoint of literary execution, the memoir is not a success: but, is we have already observed, the gist of the book consists of the corre- spondence. There is no intimation of any general plan; we drip fromone, section of the volumes to another with nothing to introduce us. Early in the Memoir we are presented with some lengthy commonplace notices of ljwins's undistinguished fellow-apprentices at the engraver's, and the re- cord of the Sketching Society ispatched up evidently (though without ex- planation) from the minutes of the Society itself, written in the semi- bantering style which may have amused -the members at the time, but which falls very flat to the general public. Of the most important event of 1:Twins's latter years, the parliamentary inquiry which led to his retire- ment from the National Gallery Keeperehip, not a word is said. -.The list of his exhibited works, if complete as such, seems to be A very in- complete record of his productions altogether. His dinloma-pieture, One of his best, (which appeared at the British Institution this year as "A Neapolitan Widow, mourning over her dead child, is distracted at the joyous sounds of the carnival") is either not included at all, or included under a different title: and of his engraved designs, which give him a distinctive position, there is no mention. Another objection is still more serious. While some people's names are veiled under an initial (often most needlessly, and even after they have been given in full elsewhere) others appear undisguised, with very disagreeable observations to them and the letters of Mr. lIvrina's correspondents are published without' any avowed authority, and sometimes, it may be inferred, when such author- ity was not likely to be granted. One of them was even to be destroyed by the recipient, according to an ensuing letter. Whatever sympathy may be due to the authorship of the memoir we cannot but regret that these matters have not been better attended to by Mrs. Uwins, or some person on her behalf. piens. wt.149W#A .31441VP efdrAtitd.04 AP •

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