Memoirs of picture: containing the adventures of many conspicuous characters, including a biographical sketch of G. Morland. 3 vols. [the 2nd entitled Memoirs of a painter].

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Page 153 - All murder'd: for within the hollow crown That rounds the mortal temples of a king Keeps Death his court and there the antic sits, Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp, Allowing him a breath, a little scene, To monarchize, be fear'd and kill with looks, Infusing him with self and vain conceit, As if this flesh which walls about our life, Were brass impregnable, and humour'd thus Comes at the last and with a little pin Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king!
Page 156 - ... nothing will supply the want of prudence; and that negligence and irregularity, long continued, will make knowledge useless, wit ridiculous, and genius contemptible.
Page 158 - Golhs in power; yet let it also be remembered, that " The gifts of imagination bring the heaviest task upon the vigilance of reason; and to bear those faculties with unerring rectitude or invariable propriety, requires a degree of firmness and of cool attention, which doth not always attend the higher gifts of the mind. Yet difficult as nature herself seems to have rendered the task of regularity to genius, it is the supreme consolation of dullness and of folly to point with Gothic triumph to those...
Page 185 - Rome, where he might improve his promising talents, intending to employ him in hisservice whenever he returned to his own country. On his first entrance into Rome, happening to pass by the arch of Titus, he saw a few young artists attentively engaged in sketching the basso-relievos ; and, observing that grand monument of antiquity to have a picturesque appearance, he requested a crayon and paper from one of the students, and in half an hour produced a design, finished with incredible correctness...
Page 231 - HIS approbation is most humbly dedicated by permission to His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales, by his grateful and obedient servant, R.
Page 176 - It was intended to be used in the senses ascribed to the word in Johnson's Dictionary, viz. " Mental power or faculties. Disposition of nature by which any one is qualified to some peculiar employment. Nature; disposition.
Page 158 - Gothic triumph to those excesses which are the overflowings of faculties they never enjoyed. Perfectly unconscious that they are indebted to their stupidity for the consistency of their conduct, they plume themselves on an imaginary virtue, which has its origin in what is really their disgrace. Let such, if such dare approach the shrine of...
Page 186 - Bentvogel society of painters at Rome called him Mercurius. He studied every object after nature — the sites of his landscapes, the cattle, ruins, buildings, figures, rocks, and rivers; and, to enliven his imagination, he chose to live at Tivoli, which furnished him with a lovely variety. It was...
Page 156 - This relation will not be wholly without its use if those who languish under any part of his sufferings shall be enabled to fortify their patience by reflecting that they feel only those afflictions from which the abilities of Savage did not exempt him ; or...
Page 188 - ... superior to the Bassans, who introduce repeatedly the same objects, and the same figures and cattle, in almost every one of their designs. "As an instance of the incredible power of Roos in execution and invention, it is recorded, that the Imperial Ambassador, Count...

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