of steady application to such an extent that he himself was afterwards accustomed to attribute his success to his dogged perseverance rather than to any higher innate power. “The single element,” he said, “in all the progressive movements of my pencil was persevering industry.” At Edinburgh he gained a few premiums, thought of turning his attention to portrait painting, with a view to its higher and more certain remuneration, but eventually went boldly into the line in which he earned his fame,—and painted his Pitlessie Fair. What was bolder still, he determined to proceed to London, on account of its presenting so much wider a field for study and work; and the poor Scotch lad arrived in town, and painted his Village Politicians while living in a humble lodging on eighteen shillings a week. Notwithstanding the success of this picture, and the commissions which followed it, Wilkie long continued poor. The prices which his works realized were not great, for he bestowed upon them so much time and labour, that his earnings continued comparatively small for many years. Every picture was carefully studied and elaborated beforehand; nothing was struck off at a heat; many occupied him for years—touching, retouching, and improving them until they finally passed out of his hands. As with Reynolds, his motto was “Work! work! work!” and, like him, he expressed great dislike for talking artists. Talkers may sow, but the silent reap. “Let us be _doing_ something,” was his oblique mode of rebuking the loquacious and admonishing the idle. He once related to his friend Constable that when he studied at the Scottish Academy, Graham, the master of it, was accustomed to say to the students, in the words of Reynolds, “If you have genius, industry will improve it; if you have none, industry will supply its place.” “So,” said Wilkie, “I was determined to be very industrious, for I knew I had no genius.” He also told Constable that when Linnell and Burnett, his fellow-students in London, were talking about art, he always contrived to get as close to them as he could to hear all they said, “for,” said he, “they know a great deal, and I know very little.” This was said with perfect sincerity, for Wilkie was habitually modest. One of the first things that he did with the sum of thirty pounds which he obtained from Lord Mansfield for his Village Politicians, was to buy a present—of bonnets, shawls, and dresses—for his mother and sister at home, though but little able to afford it at the time. Wilkie’s early poverty had trained him in habits of strict economy, which were, however, consistent with a noble liberality, as appears from sundry passages in the Autobiography of Abraham Raimbach the engraver.