Sir Thomas is known to the public chiefly as a portrait painter,--the only lucrative branch of the art in England. In this, his style was truly English. In the countenances of his men we see faithful likenesses; sometimes certainly given with some degree of flattery; but he was always the more intent in shewing "the mind's construction in the face." In his portraits of heroes there is always dignity; in those of statesmen, depth of thought, with firmness of character. In the delineation of females, in which he chiefly shone, beauty and delicacy were combined with great taste of attitudes, and which was heightened by the elegance and disposition of their drapery. His backgrounds were always appropriate to the portraits; and when his pencil was employed on large pictures, these were introduced with great taste and power. The drawings of the human face in black lead pencil, frequently heightened with a little colour, which he sometimes made to present to his friends, exceed all praise, for truth, delicacy, and fine finish. Had public encouragement gone hand in hand with the powers of the man, we should, no doubt, have possessed some fine epic and dramatic subjects from his pencil. As a proof of this, I may again be permitted to advert to the sublime picture of "Satan calling up his Legions," which was purchased by the late Duke of Norfolk, and came again into the possession of Sir Thomas, when his Grace's effects were sold: here we see an epic subject of the highest class treated with invention, great power of drawing, and brilliancy of colouring. This, with "Homer reciting his Verses to the Greeks," are the only historical pictures from his pencil that I am acquainted with, and perhaps the only ones known. In this advanced stage of my work, I may be excused for giving only a brief sketch of my friend, whose loss every admirer of the fine arts in Europe deeply deplores;--a man whose name will go down to posterity coupled with those of the great masters who have preceded him in the pictorial art; and as the present high appreciation of his merits does not rest upon adventitious circumstances, time will rather add to than detract from his fame. [60] In this particular, the writer is in error, as Dr. Holland was kind enough to give his gratuitous attendance, at the earnest request of Sir Thomas Lawrence. [61] The passage is as follows:-- "Olim quod vulpes ægroto cauta leoni Respondit, referam: quia me vestigia terrent Omnia te adversum spectantia, nulla retrorsum." Horatii Flacci Epistolarum, 1. i. It is thus imitated by Pope:-- "Faith I shall give the answer Reynard gave; I cannot like, dread Sir, your royal cave; _Because I see, by all the tracks about, Full many a beast goes in, but none comes out_."