With this same work the Welsh engraver first woos the British public, showing it at the Exhibition of the Society of Artists in Spring Gardens in the May of ’61. About this date, after an absence of five summers, when he is in his twenty-ninth year, he returns home to England. Chance has much in store for him. For a long time the canny Prime Minister, known to most of his fellow-countrymen as the Boot—an opprobrious, not a popular term,—has been looking out for a cheap line in engravings. Some time ago, courtly fellow-Scot Allan Ramsay had painted wonderful portraits of the noble favourite and royal Prince George; so, when the first was Premier and the other Defender of the Faith, it became necessary for the welfare of the nation that their lineaments should be scattered broadcast through the medium of a copper-plate.
“Robie Strange is my man,” thinks painter Allan, and makes the mistake of telling his illustrious ex-sitters before he has caught his engraver. There is a dreadful contretemps. Stout-hearted Robie is acquainted with Scottish truck—he will have none of them. “Off to Rome to copy great masters,” is the excuse. “Cannot waste four years over your pictures!” But in stout Robie’s heart of hearts there may lurk another motive; for Robie has whirled his claymore at Prestonpans, and Charlie is his darling. Indeed, he might have gone the way of wry-necked old Lovat had not a devoted damsel allowed him to hide beneath her hoop—to whose skirts, very properly, he remained attached ever after. Robie snorts at the canny price they offer him. A hundred pounds to engrave the cod-fish features of royal George! when Rome and the great masters are calling loudly, where he will kiss hands with his own King James III. “No, thank you!” says Robie, and, packing up chalks and drawing-board, takes himself off on his travels.
In this dilemma Mæcenas Bute, who, to do him justice, keeps his eyes open for budding genius, hears of the young Welsh engraver, the beater of Frenchmen on their own soil. Being an art-collector, probably he has seen an assortment of the fleshy prints after Boucher. So, as Robie is with Charlie over the water, Bute secures Ryland to copy his likeness by the polite Allan, and, in due course, “the handsomest legs in England”—legs literally fit for a boot—appear in a very creditable line-engraving, emblazoned with a coat of arms. Thus in this month of February 1763 William Wynne has reached the top of the tree, happy and smiling, at Ye Red Lamp, Russell Street, Covent Garden, close to Button’s and Will’s. The portrait of the beautiful legs, along with his red-chalk imitations—employed industriously ever since his return from the Continent in several sketches from the old masters,—convinces ‘Modern Mæcenas’ that Robie’s room is better than his company. A word whispered in the ear of the royal mother would be enough to persuade apron-string George that the clever Welshman is the artist for his features. At all events the great honour is offered, and Taffy, very shrewdly keeping his head, takes care that, from his point of view, it is a good deal. It is a most amazing deal—£100 down for the drawings, £50 a quarter as long as the work lasts, and the proceeds of the copyright. However, thus it stands—Wynne Ryland blazons himself with the fearsome title, ‘Calcographus Regis Britanniæ’ and, setting up in the true manner of a master, begins to take pupils. One of these, worthy James Strutt, who comes to him the year after his achievement with the beautiful legs, remains a trusted friend through life, and the tutor, in turn, of his eldest son, who, alas, meets an early death.
During the next four years, being paid for time, Ryland, like a true British workman, continues to pick out slowly the salmon-lips and Gillray stare of his royal master. A large number of the red-chalk engravings from pictures of the great painters in the possession of noble patrons belong to this period; and when George is finished, he goes on to copy Cotes’ picture of the Queen with the infant Princess Royal in her arms. While he is basking in smiles from the throne, he is employed in other ways, visiting Paris in the middle of his work to collect engravings for the royal connoisseur, which prints, we are told by the festive Wille, are “magnifiques épreuves ... fourniés comme pour un roi.”
HIS MAJESTY KING GEORGE III.
ENGRAVED BY RYLAND.
These are the halcyon times of the artist’s life—these are the days when we catch a glimpse of him swaggering along Bow Street, with silver-hilted sword and ample ruffles, by the side of a heavy-jowled brawler of handsome person and agile, spiteful tongue, listening with black, eager eyes and flashing teeth to the jibes and sallies of his friend. Or, beneath the arm of this same aggressive Charles Churchill, he turns into Will’s coffee-house, and sits in easy deference on the fringe of a little ring, while he hears a torrent of charming, vicious diatribe, at the expense of poor patron Bute, pouring from the wine-stained lips of the cross-eyed apostle of liberty. Or perhaps poet Charles, who wields the Twickenham rapier in the fashion of a butcher with his cleaver, may take up this Dunciad of peers, roaring out a gruesome fable—how poor John Ayliffe was strung up at Tyburn to shut his lips concerning the crimes of peculator Fox. Then, while they talk of the forged deed that brought the luckless agent to the gallows, a shudder may pass through the graceful limbs of artist William as he thinks what a small matter may take a man to the triple tree.
At other times two chairs will halt in Russell Street, and Ryland and architect John Gwynn, gorgeous in brocade frocks, satin knee-breeches, and silk stockings, will step out gaily, giving the order to their bearers in two significant monosyllables—‘Carlisle House’ And among all the dazzling throng that crowds the salons of fair Therese Imer, alas for the worth of poor human nature! the one we know best—better, even, than the old maid in knickerbockers from Strawberry Hill—is a broad-limbed Italian, with frizzy hair and fierce nigger eyes; which same African-tinged gentleman moves through the company with much self-conscious play of robust leg, and a truculent stare, ogling such a one as half-draped Iphigenia Chudleigh, or making obeisance to buxom Caroline Harrington, while the whisper follows, keeping company the almost filial glance of pretty Sophy Cornelys—“The famous Casanova—it is the Chevalier de Seingalt.” Then, should Wynne Ryland draw close while the splendid blackguard babbles French to Milord Pembroke or Milord Baltimore, he will hear a dreadful tale of a certain Mademoiselle la Charpillon, who, to the eternal honour of her frail fame, has humiliated the sooty rascal to his native gutter. Wynne Ryland and companion John are very fond of these light and airy assemblies in Soho Square.
For the clever engraver his connoisseur Majesty seems to foster a great regard. Possibly, the proof prints of Wille—‘fit for a king’—have been picked up for an old song, and tickle his thrifty soul. At all events, he is pleased to grant to the artist a most amazing royal boon; for, at his intercession, he—the third George, by the grace of God—actually pardons a capital felon. A ne’er-do-weel rascal this same poor felon, so tradition relates, but all the same he is Wynne Ryland’s own brother. Near Brentford, or upon breezy Hounslow Heath, or some such fashionable highwayman resort, in a drunken frolic—after the fashion of Silas Told’s respited friend David Morgan—he calls upon two unprotected females to stand and deliver. And for this same daring frolic the rash Richard Ryland is taken, tried, and handed over to Jack Ketch. And Jack soon would have made short work of Richard if the favourite engraver to the King had not moved the royal bowels to compassion. For, incredible though it may seem, his Majesty does turn his thumb to the side of mercy, and brother Richard receives pardon; after which exertion the royal bowels remain obdurate for all time.
