Britton, John [Hrsg.]: The fine arts of the English school: illustrated by a series of engravings from paintings, sculpture, and architecture, of eminent English artists ; with ample biographical, critical, and descriptive essays (London, 1812) [Cicognara, 14]

A BRIEF

BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR

OF

GEORGE ROMNEY,

HISTORICAL AND PORTRAIT PAINTER;

BY THOMAS PHILLIPS, ESQ. R.A.

WITH AN ENGRAVED PORTRAIT BY W. BOND, FROM A PICTURE BY

m> »♦ Stiee, ISjifii*

The memoirs of an Artist, whose life is tranquilly engaged in the practice of
his profession, and occupied chiefly in solitary studies, cannot be expected to
afford that active interest to the generality of readers, which is excited by a
relation of the important occupations of the statesman, or the more splendid
achievements of the warrior; yet it must be acknowledged that an acquaintance
with the circumstances, which have progressively operated to form, and direct
the taste and skill of a man, eminent in the practice of so difficult and engaging an
art as that of painting, cannot be uninteresting to those persons who are at all
delighted in tracing the moral cultivation of man. With this view, and the
hope that it may stimulate to virtuous emulation those, who, feeling the
emotions of Genius, are contending with difficulties at the commencement of
their career, this account of Mr. George Romney, a painter possessed of very
uncommon talents, is presented to the reader. In spite of an humble parentage,
and other peculiar disadvantages, he, by a steady exercise of native ingenuity,
ultimately obtained fame and affluence. In early life he had but few oppor-
tunities to cultivate his mental faculties, and still fewer to direct and form his