Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 4.djvu/98

444 discrimination and judgment, and is certainly worthy of being transferred into some more extended sphere of publication than the local work in which it appeared. An article of a similar kind, but confined to the progress of the Fine Arts in Scotland, appeared in the New Edinburgh Review, edited by Dr Richard Poole. In 1818, Mr Gibson published a thin quarto volume, entitled "Etchings of Select Views in Edinburgh, with letter-press descriptions." The subjects chiefly selected were either street scenes about to be altered by the removal of old buildings, or parts opened up temporarily by the progress of improvements, and which therefore could never again be observable in the point of view chosen by the artist. The most remarkable critical effort of Mr Gibson was an anonymous jeu d'esprit, published in 1822, in reference to the exhibition of the works of living artists then open, under the care of the Royal Institution for the encouragement of the Fine Arts in Scotland. It assumed the form of a report, by a society of Cognoscenti, upon these works of art, and treated the merits of the Scottish painters, Mr Gibson himself included, with great candour and impartiality. The style of this pamphlet, though in no ease unjustly severe, was so different from the indulgent remarks of periodical writers, whose names are generally known, and whose acquaintance with the artists too often forbids rigid truth, that it occasioned a high degree of indignation among the author's brethren, and induced them to take some steps that only tended to expose themselves to ridicule. Suspecting that the traitor was a member of their own body, they commenced the subscription of a paper, disclaiming the authorship, and this being carried to many different artists for their adherence, was refused by no one till it came to Mr Gibson, who excused himself upon general principles from subscribing such a paper, and dismissed the intruders with a protest against his being supposed on that account to be the author. The real cause which moved Mr Gibson to put forth this half-jesting half-earnest criticism upon his brethren, was an ungenerous attack upon his own works, which had appeared in a newspaper the previous year, and which, though he did not pretend to trace it to the hand of any of his fellow labourers, was enjoyed, as he thought, in too malicious a manner by some, to whom he had formerly shown much kindness. He retained his secret, and enjoyed his joke, to the last, and it is only here that his concern in the pamphlet is for the first time disclosed.

In 1826, he gave to the world, "A Letter to the directors and managers of the Institution for the encouragement of the Fine Arts in Scotland." Towards the close of his life he had composed, with extraordinary care, a short and practical work on perspective, which was put to press, but kept back on account of his decease. It is to be hoped that a work composed on a most useful subject, by one so peculiarly qualified to handle it, will not be lost to the world.

In June, 1818, Mr Gibson was married to Miss Isabella M. Scott, daughter of his esteemed friend Mr William Scott, the well-known writer upon elocution. By this lady he had three daughters and a son, the last of whom died in infancy. In April, 1824, he removed from Edinburgh, where he had spent the most of his life, to Dollar, having accepted the situation of professor of painting in the academy founded at that village. In this scene, quite unsuited to his mind, he spent the last five years of his life, of which three were embittered in no ordinary degree by ill health. After enduring with manly and unshrinking fortitude the pains of an uncommonly severe malady, he expired, August 26, 1829, in the forty-sixth year of his age.

Mr Gibson was not more distinguished in public by his information, taste, and professional success, than he was in private by his upright conduct, his mild and affectionate disposition, and his righteous fulfilment of every moral