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Well, the law must have some honor, some recognition, at all events. The Gainsboroughs should, as he had promised, be asked to the funeral. They should be invited with all honor and most formally, in the name of Tristram of Blent which, by the by was, according to law, also Miss Cecily Gainsborough's.
There is an irresistible fascination in the study of the men and women of the eighteenth century of France and England; they, their manners and customs, have disappeared for ever, but Gainsborough's gracious women, Sir Joshua Reynolds's charming types, and Romney's sensitive heads, have in England immortalised the reign of beauty of this period; in France the elegance and grace of the time are shown in the canvases of Greuze, Vanloo, and Fragonard, in the cupids and doves and garlands which adorned the interiors of Mme. de Pompadour.
That boy's name was Jack Hill and he did not care for city life, nor maybe for Gainsborough's eccentricities, so he ran away. He was found again and again, till one day he got away for good, and never came back. All his later life Gainsborough was happy.
A countryman was shown Gainsborough's celebrated picture of "The Pigs." "To be sure," said he, "they be deadly like pigs; but there is one fault; nobody ever saw three pigs feeding together but what one on 'em had a foot in the trough." Turner.
Pictures of the fine ladies of that day they undoubtedly were; pictures of great ladies, never; and, in looking at them, one sighed for the exquisite simple grace and unaffected dignity of Reynolds's and Gainsborough's noble and gentle women. The lovely head of Lady Nugent, the fine portrait I have mentioned of Mrs.
Gainsborough's Ladies Walking in the Mall, belonging to Sir Audley Neeld; Reynolds's large group of The Marlborough Family at Blenheim, and a very early group of The Elliott Family, consisting of eleven figures, belonging to Lord St Germans; John Singleton Copley's Children of Francis Sitwell, Esq., at Renishaw; and lastly Zoffany's Family Party, at Panshanger.
She was dressed in imitation of Gainsborough's portrait of the Duchess of Devonshire; and her symmetrical figure and well-poised head admirably suited the long trained costume of blue satin, with its fichu of white muslin, the bold coquettish hat and feathers, and the powdered puffs and curls that descended to her shoulders. She had a gay air with her, too. She bore her head proudly.
But while we merely see Kitty, we perceive and think of Gainsborough's portrait of Miss Willoughby. We realise her in other circumstances, away from the beautiful blue trees under which he has so happily placed her; we can see her receiving visitors on the terrace, or leaning over the balustrade looking down the valley, wondering why life has come to her so sadly.
Among the odes, some of which might more properly be termed idylliums, The Hamlet is of uncommon beauty; the landscape is truly English, and has the truth and tenderness of Gainsborough's pencil. Those To a Friend on his leaving a Village in Hampshire, and the First of April, are entitled to similar praise.
A place in Westminster Abbey was ready for all that was mortal of him, but he had left express injunctions that he was to be buried in Methven kirk-yard, beside the wife of his youth, dead more than half a century before. Most people know the history of Gainsborough's lovely picture of Mrs.
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