GAINSBOROUGH.
Gainsborough was born at Sudbury, in Suffolk, in 1727, and had the good fortune to take Nature for his mistress in art, and her to follow through life. Respecting this painter, memory is strong in his native place. A beautiful wood, of four miles extent, is shown, whose ancient trees, winding glades, and sunny nooks inspired him while yet a school-boy with the love of art. Scenes are pointed out where he used to sit and fill his copy-books with pencillings of flowers and trees, and whatever pleased his fancy. No fine clump of trees, no picturesque stream nor romantic glade, no cattle grazing, nor flocks reposing, nor peasants pursuing their work, nor pastoral occupations, escaped his diligent pencil. He received some instruction from Gravelot; and from Hayman, the friend of Hogarth. Having married, he settled in Ipswich; but in his thirty-first year removed to Bath, where he was appreciated as he deserved, and was enabled by his pencil to live respectably.
He then removed to London, where he added the lucrative branch of portrait-painting to his favourite pursuit of landscape. The permanent splendour of his colours, and the natural and living air which he communicated to whatever he touched, made him at this time, in the estimation of many, a dangerous rival of Sir Joshua himself.
Gainsborough was quite a child of nature, and everything that came from his easel smacked strongly of that raciness, freshness, and originality, the study of nature alone can give. “The Woodman and his Dog in the Storm” was one of his favourite compositions; yet, while he lived, he could find no purchaser at the paltry sum of one hundred guineas. After his death, five hundred guineas were paid for it by Lord Gainsborough, in whose house it was subsequently burnt. “The Shepherd’s Boy in the Shower,” and the “Cottage Girl with her Dog and Pitcher,” were also his prime favourites. Although having the good taste to express no contempt for the society of literary or fashionable men, Gainsborough, unlike the courtly Sir Joshua, cared little for their company. Music was his passion, or rather, next to his profession, the business of his life. Smith, in his Life of Nollekens, relates that he once found Colonel Hamilton playing so exquisitely to Gainsborough on the violin, that the artist exclaimed, “Go on, and I will give you the picture of the ‘Boy at the Stile,’ which you have so often wished to purchase of me.” The Colonel proceeded, and the painter stood in speechless admiration, with tears of rapture on his cheek. Hamilton then called a coach, and carried away the picture.