The produce of the sale by auction of his collection of art works and treasures, etc., was between fifteen and sixteen thousand pounds. The estate of the dead man was only just equal to the demands upon it, however. His popularity ought to have brought him wealth, but, strange to say, he was always embarrassed. Yet he did not gamble, was never dissipated, never viciously extravagant; but he kept no accounts, was prodigal in kindness to his brother-artists, and in responding to the many appeals to his charity. Perhaps, too, he rather affected an aristocratic indifference to money. He spent much time in gratuitous drawing and painting for presents to his friends. It is probable that his death was hastened by his incessant work, to meet the demands made upon him for money. Washington Irving saw him a few days before his death, and relates that 'he seemed uneasy and restless, his eyes were wandering, he was as pale as marble, the stamp of death seemed on him. He told me he felt ill, but he wished to bear himself up.' In one of his letters the painter wrote: 'I am chained to the oar, but painting was never less inviting to me--business never more oppressive to me than at this moment.' Still he could play his courtier part in society, and was always graceful and winning. Haydon, who never loved a portrait-painter much, yet says of Lawrence, that he was 'amiable, kind, generous, and forgiving.' Further on he adds: 'He had smiled so often and so long, that at last his smile had the appearance of being set in enamel.' But then, Mr. Haydon prided himself on his coarseness, defiance, and hatred of conventionality, deeming these fitting attributes of the high artist. It is only as a portrait-painter that Sir Thomas can now be esteemed; and, as a portrait-painter, his reputation has much declined of late years. His drawing was often very incorrect, and his execution slovenly. His colour was hectic and gaudy; and in composition he possessed little skill. He was a master of expression, however. His heads are wonderfully animated, and he invested his sitters with an air of high life peculiar to himself. Conscious and a little affected they might be, but certainly, through his art, they proclaimed themselves people of quality and distinction. His attempts in another line of art were few and not successful. His 'Homer reciting his Poems' was chiefly remarkable for its resemblance to Mr. Westall's manner, and for containing a well-drawn figure of Jackson the pugilist. Of his 'Satan calling up the Legions,' Anthony Pasquin cruelly wrote, that 'it conveyed an idea of a mad German sugar-baker dancing naked in a conflagration of his own treacle.' Over an attempt at a Prospero and Miranda, he subsequently painted on the same canvas a portrait of Kemble as Rolla.