LETTER IX.

WHETHER my route will take you through, or even near, the birth-place of Wilson, I really cannot tell you: I only know that it was somewhere in Montgomeryshire. His story is briefly this. He was born in 1714: the son of a clergyman, who possessed a small benefice in that county, but afterwards collated to the living of Mould in Flintshire. At an early age Wilson showed a talent for drawing, and was sent to London, and placed under one Thomas Wright, an obscure portrait painter. To this branch of the art he devoted himself for several years, and gained considerable reputation; for about the year 1749, he painted a large portrait of his late Majesty, with his brother the Duke of York, for Dr. Hayter, Bishop of Norwich, their tutor. He afterwards went to Italy, still continuing to paint portraits, till the following circumstance showed him the

true bent of his genius. A small landscape, which he had painted with considerable freedom and spirit, chanced to meet the eye of Zucarelli, who was so pleased with the performance, that he strongly urged Wilson to follow that mode of painting, as most congenial to his powers. Venet, too, while he was at Rome, encouraged and recommended him. It is not known when he returned to London: he was there in 1758, and his Niobe was in the first exhibition of the society of artists in 1760.* At the institution of the Royal Academy, Wilson was chosen one of the founders; and after the death of Hayman, he solicited the place of Librarian, which he retained, till decay of health obliged him to retire to his brother's in Wales, where he died in May, 1782.

You will thank me, I am sure, for adding Fuseli's masterly critique on his style. "Claude, little above mediocrity in all other branches of

This picture was afterwards bought by William, Duke of Cumberland, and is now in the possession of His Royal Highness the Duke of Gloucester. Edwards's Anecdotes of Painters, p. 78.

landscape painting, had one great prerogative, sublimity; but his powers rose and set with the sun; he could only be serenely sublime or romantic. Wilson, without so great a feature, had a more varied and more proportionate power. He observed nature in all her appearances, and had a characteristic touch for all her forms. But though, in effects of dewy freshness and silent evening lights, few equalled, and fewer excelled him; his grandeur is oftener allied to terror, bustle, and convulsion, than to calmness and tranquillity. Figures, it is difficult to say, which of the two introduced or handled with greater infelicity. Treated by Claude or Wilson, St. Ursula with her virgins, and Æneas landing, Niobe with her family, and Ceyx drawn ashore, have an equal claim to our indifference or mirth. Wilson is now numbered with the classics of the art, though little more than the fifth part of a century has elapsed since death relieved him from the apathy of the cognoscenti, the envy of rivals, and the neglect of a tasteless public. For Wilson, whose works will soon command prices as proud as those of Claude,

Poussin, or Elzheimer, resembled the last most in his fate; lived and died nearer to indigence than ease; and as an asylum from the severest wants incident to age and decay of powers, was reduced to solicit the Librarian's place, in the academy of which he was one of the brightest ornaments.*

It was this great painter who affirmed, that a young artist might find, in some part or other of this island, every thing he could attain by going abroad r indeed that he could possibly want to

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complete his studies, excepting what is distinetively characterized as an Italian sky. Wilson on his own art deserves to be heard, and his opinion may therefore give us new zeal to explore the scenery now before us, of the Devil's Bridge. For this too the situation of the inn itself prepares us—perched, like an eagle's nest, on the top of the vast woody dingle, and overlooking the dizzy hollow, with the Rhydoll roaring and tumbling down between the rocks below.

* M. Bryan's Biog. Dict. of Painters and Engravers, p. 610; Pilkington's Dict. of Painters, p. 619. Edit. Fuseli. + Malkin, p. 228.

: This spot has been the subject of more able pens than mine: for a minute account, therefore, I refer you to Cumberland and Malkin. Our concern is picturesque points, which are of a high cast, and very deservedly admired. To begin then with the Bridge itself:* the circumstances which give it uncommon effect, are its double arch; the one built over the other, and the further variety of their shape and age, the upper being circular, the lower gothic. This effect is heightened by the depth of the chasm they bestride (if you would feel it, look over the parapet), the alternate precipices, the mountainous distance, and the luxuriancy of foliage with which the whole scene is finished.

* Called also Pont ar Mynach, the bridge over the Mynach. Mynach, or Monach, is the Welch for Monk. The history of the bridge is understood to be this: The lower arch was thrown over the chasm by the monks of Ystrad Flur Abbey, about the year 1087. The present bridge was built over the original one in 1753. Its height from the bed of the river is 114 feet. Malkin, p. 365.

+ The Abbey Bridge at Bury St. Edmunds is a beautiful instance, little known or noticed, of that rarity, an arch within an arch.