Bartolozzi: Sketch of his Life.

" Lisbon, May 7th, 1814.
Pardon me if I have not answered your cordial letter, which I received by the hands
of Mr. James Smith. I should have called on him ; but the infirmities of my advanced
age prevent me from going abroad, except to church, and then not without an attendant ;
my legs being so feeble, and the streets so bad, that I run the risk of falling every moment.
Your letter has afforded me very great consolation, as it shows that you keep in remem-
brance a poor old man already forgotten in the world, though you know that I have done
a great deal, and that my humble performances have been borne with : now they are
despised ; but so it happens when one reaches the age of eighty-six years. Yet God gives
me the grace to be able to continue to do something.
I was in hopes last summer of seeing London once more ; but was detained by some
work which I had in hand, and by the indifferent state of my health, and want of strength,
though I had no expectation of obtaining employment, especially as you have so many
eminent men in our profession. Some of those dealers, you well know, have made for-
tunes by my poor works—now there is no fortune to be made. Since, however, Divine
Providence has wrought so great a miracle as to send us peace, let us hope that things will
change in this respect also.
I might have written to my son, who informed me he was in hopes that, if I returned,
the Prince Regent would do something for me ; but I must not trust to mere hope, since
my good Prince here affords me a maintenance; I would, nevertheless, have sacrificed
everything with pleasure to revisit that country to which I owe such a debt of gratitude for
the benefits that I have received from it, that will never be erased from my memory, and
which I shall ever humbly pray to the Almighty to prosper as it deserves.
Here at present we are destitute of every requisite in our profession,—gravers, varnish,
tracing paper, and black for printing, are all very dear and very bad. I have engraved one
of the views of Lisbon ; the copper furnished me resembled lead ; so that with a bad draw-
ing, and worse copper, I have made a wretched thing of it. Thus is an artist sacrificed!
With sincere friendship and esteem, I subscribe myself, your poor old master and
servant,
F. BARTOLOZZI."
In spite of these melancholy words, the writer has come to the conclusion, on full con-
sideration, that Bartolozzi did not die in abject poverty. He had his allowance from the
Government up to the time of his death, and he earned money as long as he lived. Cyrillo
states that he died in easy circumstances. Terms are, of course, comparative, but we may
have a tolerably assured belief that Bartolozzi did not die in want. Further than this
there is no trustworthy evidence on the subject.
A statement appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine (December, 1808, vol. Ixxviii. p.
1116), that " Bartolozzi, the engraver, when the Prince entered Portugal, had the pension
allowed him by the Prince Regent continued by Junot, who subsequently conveyed him to
France. Bonaparte has since increased his allowance." A similar assertion made by other
writers has evidently been extracted from the same source, but there does not appear to be
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