the father's collection were sold. There were hundreds of portraits of both in chalks by the father, with the dates when executed, for after his retirement from business, the good old man seems to have amused himself with writing a short poem and drawing his own or his son's portrait every day.* The son, equally tender, had marked several with expressions of affection on his dear father. There were a few pictures and drawings by the son, for he painted a little too.

GRISONI

was the son of a painter at Florence, whence Mr. Talman brought him over in 1715. He painted history, landscape, and sometimes portrait; but his business declining, he sold his pictures by auction, in 1728, and returned to his own country with a wife whom he had married here of the name of St. John.

WILLIAM AIKMAN

was born in Scotland, and educated under Sir John Medina. He came young to London, travelled to Italy, and visited Turkey, and returned

*

[He etched a few portraits. His own, two of Pope, one in profile, Milton and Dr. Mead. He made many sketches in black lead, particularly of Pope, with whom he had frequent interviews, of which he availed himself to vary the attitude and air of the heads. There are several portraits of Pope, painted by Richardson.]

through London to Scotland, where he was patronized by John Duke of Argyle the general, and many of the nobility. After two or three years he settled in London, and met with no less encouragement-but falling into a long and languishing distemper, his physicians advised him to try his native air, but he died at his house in Leicester Fields, in June 1731, aged fifty. His body, by his own desire, was carried to and interred in Scotland. Vertue commends his portrait of Gay for the great likeness, and quotes the following lines, addressed to Aikman on one of his performances, by S. Boyse;

As Nature blushing and astonished eyed

Young Aikman's draught, surpriz'd the goddess cried,
Where didst thou form, rash youth, the bold design

To teach thy labours to resemble mine?

So soft thy colours, yet so just thy stroke,

That undetermin'd on thy work I look.

To crown thy art could'st thou but language join,
The form had spoke, and call'd the conquest thine.

In Mallet's works is an epitaph* on Mr. Aikman and his only son (who died before him) and who were both interred in the same grave.

JOHN ALEXANDER,

Of the same country with the preceding, was son

Vol. i. p. 13, printed by Millar, in 3 vols. small octavo, 1769.

of a clergyman, and I think descended from their boasted Jamisone. He travelled to Italy, and in 1718 etched some plates after Raphael. In 1721 was printed a letter to a friend at Edinburgh, describing a staircase painted at the castle of Gordon with the rape of Proserpine by this Mr. Alexander.

SIR JAMES THORNHILL.

Born 1676, Died 1734,

a man of much note in his time, who succeeded Verrio and was the rival of Laguerre in the decorations of our palaces and public buildings, was born at Weymouth in Dorsetshire, was knighted by George the First, and was elected to represent his native town in parliament. His chief works were, the dome of St. Paul's, an apartment at Hampton-court, the altar-piece of the chapel of All Souls at Oxford, another for Weymouth of

* [Born at Woodland, in Melcombe Regis, which borough, and not Weymouth, he represented in parliament, in 1719, (5th George I.) He had been preceded there by Sir Christopher Wren. Knighted, 1715. The title of Historical Painter to the Crown, was first given to him by Q. Anne.]

[The paintings in the interior circle of the Cupola of St, Paul's Cathedral consist of eight very large compartments, the subjects of which are taken from the life and history of that Apostle. They are drawn in chiaro scuro heightened with gold. In the Anecdotes of Bishop Newton prefixed to his Works, v. i. p. 105, he observes, "Sir J. Thornhill had painted the history of St. Paul in the cupola, the worst part of the church