Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 4.djvu/228

574 these three apartments were conceived to exhibit the finest specimens of modern painting then to be found in Italy.

In his historical pictures, some of which have come to Britain, Mr Hamilton plainly discovers that he studied the chaste models of antiquity with more attention than the living figures around him; which has given his paintings of ancient histories that propriety with regard to costume, which distinguished them at the time from most modern compositions.

One of his greatest works was his Homer, consisting of a series of pictures, representing scenes taken from the Iliad; these have been dispersed into various parts of Europe, and can now only be seen in one continued series in the excellent engravings made of them by Cunego, under the eye of Mr Hamilton himself. Several of these paintings came to Britain, but only three reached Scotland. One of these, the parting of Hector and Andromache, was in the possession of the duke of Hamilton. Another represents the death of Lucretia, in the collection of the earl of Hopetoun, and was deemed by all judges as a capital performance. The third was in the house of a Mrs Scott, in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh. It represents Achilles dragging the body of Hector round the walls of Troy, a sublime picture, which if not the chef d'ceuvre of Mr Hamilton, would alone have been sufficient to have transmitted his name to posterity as one of the greatest artists, >vas painted for the duke of Bedford, and had been in his possession some time before the unfortunate accident which deprived him of his son the marquis of Tavistock, whose disastrous fate had some resemblance to the story of the picture, being thrown from his horse and dragged to death, his foot having stuck in the stirrup; none of the family could bear to look on the picture, and it was ordered to be put away. General Scott became the purchaser of it at a very moderate price. The figure of Achilles in this picture is painted with surprising characteristic justness, spirit, and fire, and might stand the test of the severest criticism. It was in the grand and terrible Mr Hamilton chiefly excelled. His female characters had more of the dignity of Juno, or the coldness of Diana, than the soft inviting playfulness of the goddess of love.

He published at Rome in 1773 a folio volume, entitled "Schola Picturae Italiss," or the "Italian School of Painting," composed of a number of fine engravings by Cunego, making part of the collection of Piraneisi; he there traces the different styles from Leonardi da Vinci, to the Carraccis ; all the drawings were made by Mr Hamilton himself, and this admirable collection now forms one of the principal treasures in the first libraries in Europe. All his best pictures were likewise engraved under his own eye by artists of the first ability, so that the world at large has been enabled to form a judgment of the style and merit of his works. In reference to the original pictures from whence the engravings were taken, many contradictory opinions have been expressed; some have considered his figures as wanting in the characteristic purity and correctness of form so strictly observed in the antique others have said he was no colourist, though that was a point of his art after which he was most solicitous. But setting all contending opinions apart, had Mr Hamilton never painted a picture, the service he otherwise rendered to the fine arts would be sufficient to exalt his name in the eyes of posterity. From being profoundly acquainted with the history of the ancient state of Italy, he was enabled to bring to light many of the long buried treasures of antiquity, and to this noble object he devoted almost the whole of the latter part of his life. He was permitted by the government of the Roman states to open scavos in various places; at Centumcellae, Velletri, Ostia, and above all at Tivoli, among the ruins of Adrian's villa; and it must be owned, that the success which crowned his researches made ample