died under
favorable circumstances, there is evidence of his having possessed power
enough to produce an original picture; but, corrupted by study of the
Poussins, and gathering his materials chiefly in their field, the
district about Rome--a district especially unfavorable, as exhibiting no
pure or healthy nature, but a diseased and overgrown Flora among
half-developed volcanic rocks, loose calcareous concretions, and
mouldering wrecks of buildings--and whose spirit, I conceive, to be
especially opposed to the natural tone of the English mind, his
originality was altogether overpowered, and, though he paints in a manly
way and occasionally reaches exquisite tones of color, as in the small
and very precious picture belonging to Mr. Rogers, and sometimes
manifests some freshness of feeling, as in the Villa of Maecenas of our
National Gallery, yet his pictures are in general mere diluted
adaptations from Poussin and Salvator, without the dignity of the one or
the fire of the other.

Not so Gainsborough, a great name his whether of the English or any
other school. The greatest colorist since Rubens, and the last, I think,
of legitimate colorists; that is to say, of those who were fully
acquainted with the power of their material; pure in his English
feeling, profound in his seriousness, graceful in his gayety, there are
nevertheless certain deductions to be made from his worthiness which yet
I dread to make, because my knowledge of his landscape works is not
extensive enough to justify me in speaking of them decisively; but this
is to be noted of all that I know, that they are rather motives of
feeling and color than earnest studies; that their execution is in some
degree mannered, and always hasty; that they are altogether wanting in
the affectionate detail of which I have already spoken; and that their
color is in some measure dependent on a bituminous brown and
conventional green which have more of science than of truth in them.
These faults may be sufficiently noted in the magnificent picture
presented by him to the Royal Academy, and tested by a comparison of it
with the Turner (Llanberis,) in the same room. Nothing can be more
attractively luminous or aerial than the distance of the Gainsborough,
nothing more bold or inventive than the forms of its crags and the
diffusion of the broad distant light upon them, where a vulgar artist
would have thrown them into dark contrast. But it will be found that the
light of the