Sketch of the Life of Aikman the Painter.
View'd round and round as lucid diamonds fhow,
Still as you turn them, a revolving glow,
So did his mind reflect with fecret ray,
In various virtues, Heav'n's eternal day;
Whether in high difcourfe it foar'd fublime,
And sprung impatient o'er the bounds of time;
Or wand'ring Nature o'er with raptur'd eye,
Ador'd the hand that turn'd yon azure sky:
Whether to focial life he bent his thought,
And the right poife of mingling paffions fought,
Gay converse bleft, or in the thoughtful grove,
Bid the heart open every fource of love.
In varying, lights ftill fet before our eyes
The juft, the good, the focial, or the wife.
For fuch a death who can, who would, refuse
The friend a tear, a verse the mournful Mufef;
Yet pay we muft acknowledgment to Heav'n,
Tho' fnatch'd fo foon, that Aikman e'er was giv❜n:
"Grateful from Nature's banquet let us rise,
"Nor meanly leave it with reluctant eyes;
"A friend, when dead, is but remov'd from fight,
"Sunk in the luftre of eternal light;

"And when the parting ftorms of life are o'er,
"May yet rejoin us on a happier shore.
"As thofe we love decay, we die in part,

String after ftring is fever'd from the heart; "Till loofen'd life at laft-but breathing clay, "Without one pang, is glad to fall away.

Unhappy he who latest feels the blow,

"Whole eyes have wept o'er ev'ry friend laid low;
"Dragg'd ling'ring on from partial death to death,
"And dying, all he can refign is breath."

Mr Aikman had the honour to paint feveral of the royal family, and many of the illuftrious families in England; there are alfo a great many excellent portraits of his paintings in Scotland, where he was the firft painter of reputation for more than thirteen years.

He was a particular acquaintance of Mr William Somerville, the Author of the Chace, and feveral o

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ther poems of merit, from whom he received an elegant tribute of the Mufe, on his painting a full length portrait of him in the decline of his life, carrying him back, with the affiftance of another portrait, to his youthful days.

A copy of thefe lines, being, as far as we know, hitherto unprinted, we fhall therefore here infert them.

To Mr Aikman, occafioned by his drawing my Picture at full length, from an Original, when I was young.

"Such (Aikman) once I was; but ah, how chang'd!
"Since those bleft days; when o'er the hills I rang'd;
"When thro' the mazes of th' entangl'd wood,

"The bufy puzz'ling fpaniel I purfu'd;

K k

The

"The game he fprung, foon felt the fatal lead;
"Flutter'd in air, and at my feet lay dead.
"This faithful record by thy pencil drawn,
"Shews what I was in manhood's early dawn:
"Juft the defign, and elegant the draught,
"The col'ring bold, and all without a fault.
"But (Aikman) be advis'd, and hear a friend,
"On rural fquires no more thy time mifpend;
"On nobler fubjects all thy cares employ,
"Paint the bright Hebe, or the Phrygian boy;
"Or, rifing from the waves, the Cyprian dame,
"May vindicate her own Apelles' fame.
"But if thy nicer pencil fhall difdain

"Shadows, and creatures of the poet's brain
"The real wonders of the Brunswick race,
"May, with fuperior charms, thy canvas grace.
"The lovely form that would too foon decay,
"Admir'd, and loft; the pageant of the day
"Preferv'd by thee, through ages yet to come,
"Shall reign triumphant in immortal bloom.
"Time, the great master's friend, fhall but refine,
"With his improving hand, thy works divine.
"This (if the Mufe can judge) shall be thy lot,
"When I'm no more, forgetting, and forgot.
"Now from my zenith I decline apace,

"And pungent pains my trembling nerves embrace;
"Nor love can charm, nor wine, nor mufic please;
"Loft to all joy, I am content with ease.
"All the poor comfort that I now can fhare,
"Is the foft bleffing of an elbow-chair.
"Here undisturb'd I reign; and with a smile
"Behold the civil broils that thake our ifle.
"Bard against bard, fierce tilting on the plain,
"And floods of ink profufely fpilt in vain.
"Pope, like Almanzor, a whole hoft defies,
"Th' exploded chain-fhot from his Dunciad flies,
"And piled on heaps the mangled carnage lies:
"Poets and Critics, a promifcuous crowd,
"Bellow like wounded Mars, and roar aloud:
"The routed hoft precipitant retires,
"With weaker fhouts, and with unequal fires.
"The fquibbling advertisement and pert joke,
"But blaze a while, and vanish into smoke;
"And weak remarks drop fhort upon the ground;
"Or, if they reach the foe, but flightly wound.
“Thus have I seen, amid the fhouting throng,
"Bruin, with ftep majeftic, ftride along;
"The curs at diftance bark, or flily bite;
"But if he ftands erect and dares the fight,
"Cowring they fnarl, yet dread the gripe fevere,
"And all their dropping tails confefs their fear.
Pardon me, Aikman, that my rambling lays
Defert my theme, and thy unfinish'd praife:

" 'Twas

Dutch Penuriousness, and Avarice displayed,
"'Twas Nature call'd, unknowing I obey'd:
"Painting's my text, but Poetry's my trade;
"Both fifter arts and fure my devious Mufe,
"Kind-hearted Dennis, will for once excuse
"A fhort digreffion, to condemn were hard;
"Or heav'n have mercy on each modern bard.”

Allan Ramfay, the Doric poet of Scotland, and the father of an eminent portrait-painter, was also one of Mr Aikman's intimate friends, and exerted his poetical talents on the event of his death, which happened on the 7th of June O. S. 1731 at London, from whence his remains were sent to Scotland, and interred in the Greyfriars churchyard at Edinburgh, where his only fon had been buried but a few months before.

Mr Aikman married Marion Lawfon, daughter to Mr Lawfon of Cairnmuir, by whom he had an only fon above mentioned, and two daughters: Margaret, married to Hugh Forbes, Efq; Advocate, one

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of the principal Clerks of Seffion in Scotland, and mother to the gallant General Forbes, who took Fort du Quefne from the French in the war 1756. Henrietta Aikman, married to William Carruthers, brother to Mr Carruthers of Holmains.

One of his grand-children, by his eldest daughter (Mifs Anna Forbes) inherits her ancestor's genius, and verifies the adage of the greatest of the Roman lyric poets.

There is a portrait of Mr Aik man in the gallery of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, done by himself, and another of the fame in the poffeffion of his daughter, Mrs Forbes, whofe eldeft fon now reprefents the family of Aikman.

Dutch Penuriousness, and Avarice difplayed. By the Baron Riefbeck f.

WHEN you go out of Weftpha- tedious uniformity of this country

lia, and enter the territory of Holland, it appears to you as going out of a pig-ity into a fine garden. The country round Nimeguen efpecially is a striking contraft to what you fee in Weftphalia. I fhall fay nothing to you of the magnificence, fymmetry, and cleanliness of the Dutch cities, nor of the numerous and expenfive canals, the fides of which are for the most part planted with fine rows of trees, nor of the numerous gardens. There are defcriptions of all these things in a bundance. This magnificence, however, and regularity is tirefome in the end. I at least cannot stand the

and its inhabitants. All the cities, villages, roads, and canals, are fo fimilar, that they appear copies of the felf fame individual picture. The country indeed is only made to take a walk through; and, without bufinefs, no man of tafte will stay in it long. With refpect to real value alfo, it is only a frogged out beggar, parading about in a rich gown which he has ftolen. The Palatinate, which is not more than one fifth of Holland, is of infinitely more natural value.

The inhabitants, likewife, taken in general, are only well dreffed beggars; their riches do not belong to them,

An Eclogue to the memory of Mr William Aikman, our celebrated painter. ↑ Travels through Germany. ¡

them, for they enjoy them not; they are only the guardians of their money. When you are invited to dinner by a man of middling rank, the magnificence of the difles, the clean linels of the room you dine in, and the expensiveness of the furniture, make you expect al princely meal; but when the dithes are fet on, you find no more,nor lefs, than you would have at the table of a good Weftphalia peafant. All the merchants pafs the whole week in their counting-houfes, where they gorge themfelves with tea. They are fo intent upon their bufinefs, and fo entirely taken up with their fpeculations, that you may push their guts out almoft without disturbing them. On Saturdays they go to their expenfive gardens, where they spend the whole of the Sunday, and enjoy themselves just as they do in their counting-houses. I had occafion to vifit one of them in his garden; he was taken up all the afternoon in gathering fallad for his fupper. Another fhut himself up, and spent the whole Sunday in killing flies in his fummer-house. Thefe, and fmoking tobacco, are their common amusements in their hours of recreation. When they are in com pany, they fit as if they were pinned to their chairs, gape at each o ther, and every quarter of an hour converfe on the news of the day, which, of all the news published in Europe, is the moft piteous. This is the quinteffence of political nonfenfe; and their ecclefiafticks, who, to the fhame of the reformation, are greater monks than the German capuchins, will give you the quinteffence of the Jpiritual. Were it not for the strangers, especially the officers, and fome of the nobility, who have been polished by their

voyages, there would not be a tole rable fociety to be met with throughout all Holland.

Their government and police, is as extraordinary as the country, and every thing bears a tint of the inconverfible melancholy and niggardly humour of the natives. It is received as a common opinion here, that no difh of fish, which you know is the most ordinary produce of the country, is brought to table which has not been paid for once to the feller, and fix times to the state: The fpirit of the inhabitants, which revolts at every idea of facrifice to the public good, compels the magiftrate to lay these heavy imposts upon the first neceffaries of life. It is thefe heavy charges, as well as the aftonishing tranquillity of the inhabitants, which are the causes of the miferable living of this country, I will only give you one fpecimen of their police, which is extraordinary enough. A ftranger, who knows nothing of laws, and the customs of the country, happens to fend his fervant to a wine-merchant to buy a bottle of wine; the merchant gives it the man without telling him a word of his danger; the fervant carries the bottle home open in his hand; he is met by a conftable, and asked where he bought it, which the other tells without difficulty; but no fooner has he done fo, than he is arrested; and in due procefs of time, tried, and banished the country. Thus the poor fervant alone fuffers; and neither the mafter who fent him, nor the merchant who fold the wine in retail, which, according to law, ought only to have been done by thofe who keep taverns, are at all punished.

Monf

Manj. de Sauffure's Obfervations and Experiments on the Top of Mount Blanc.