The court-painter never recovered his lost health. He wrote from Italy to many of his friends—the first men of the day, both in France and England. Then came the home-sickness, which so often precedes dissolution. In the summer of 1784 he set out on his journey to England, hoping to reach it by short and easy stages. He reached Paris with difficulty: the fatigue brought on a low fever he had not the strength to support. He died on the 10th of August, at Dover, in the 71st year of his age.
'Poor Ramsay!' Johnson wrote touchingly to Reynolds. 'On which side soever I turn, mortality presents its formidable frown. I left three old friends at Lichfield when I was last there, and now I found them all dead. I no sooner lost sight of dear Allan than I am told that I shall see him no more! That we must all die, we all know. I wish I had sooner remembered it. Do not think me intrusive or importunate if I now call, dear sir, on you, to remember it!'
A handsome, acute, accomplished gentleman, outstripping all the painters of his age in the extent of his learning and the variety of his knowledge—an artist of delicacy and taste, rather than of energy and vigour—pale in colour and placid in expression, yet always graceful and refined—there was a charm about Ramsay's works that his contemporaries thoroughly understood, though they could not always themselves achieve it. Northcote gave a close and clever criticism on the king's painter in this wise:—'Sir Joshua used to say that he was the most sensible among all the painters of his time; but he has left little to show it. His manner was dry and timid. He stopped short in the middle of his work because he knew exactly how much it wanted. Now and then we find hints and sketches, which show what he might have done if his hand had been equal to his conceptions. I have seen a picture of his of the queen soon after she was married—a profile, and slightly done: but it was a paragon of elegance. She had a fan in her hand. Lord, how she held that fan! It was weak in execution and ordinary in features—all I can say of it is, that it was the farthest possible removed from everything like vulgarity. A professor might despise it, but in the mental part I have never seen anything of Vandyke's equal to it. I could have looked at it for ever. I don't know where it is now: but I saw enough in it to convince me that Sir Joshua was right in what he said of Ramsay's great superiority. I should find it difficult to produce anything of Sir Joshua's that conveys an idea of more grace and delicacy. Reynolds would have finished it better; the other was afraid of spoiling what he had done, and so left it a mere outline. He was frightened before he was hurt.' This was high praise of the king's painter, coming as it did from his rival's pupil.
NOTES:
[13] Concerning the merits and career of John Thornhill, biography has been curiously silent.
GEORGE ROMNEY.
