Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 6.djvu/353

Rh acquirements of the subject of the biography more remarkable), that he received his education at Heriot's Hospital, a well known and benevolent institution in Edinburgh; but this is not the fact, his brother William having with heartfelt satisfaction given him the scanty, but usual education of that period. In the usual routine of education he was not remarked to display any superiority to his class fellows, but when they were drawing figures on their slates or copy books, those of Raeburn surpassed all the rest; but this did not lead any further. In other respects he was distinguished by the affection of his companions, and formed at that early period intimacies with some of those distinguished friends whose regard accompanied him through life. The circumstances of young Raeburn rendering it necessary that he should, as early as possible, be enabled to provide for his own support, he was at the age of fifteen Apprenticed to a goldsmith, who kept his shop in a dark alley, leading between the Parliament Square and the front of the Old Tolbooth. Here, without receiving any lessons, he began to amuse himself by sketching figures, and ultimately by painting miniatures. His master, at first incensed by his apparent inattention to business, was afterwards astonished by the merit of his performances, and, with a liberality hardly to have been expected, conducted him to a place where he might gather the means of improvement in his self-assumed art, namely, the studio of Mr David Martin, the principal portrait-painter in Edinburgh. He was delighted with the works there presented to his eye; and Martin, on the other hand, spoke encouragingly to the young artist. His miniatures soon became so famous, that commissions came rapidly in, and he generally painted two in the week. As this employment, of course, withdrew his time almost entirely from trade, he made an arrangement with his master, by which the latter was compensated for the loss he incurred on that account. While still an apprentice, he began to paint in oil, and on a large scale. To aid him in this task, he obtained from Martin the loan of several pictures to copy; but that painter did not contribute advice or assistance in any other shape; and having once unjustly accused the young student of selling one of the copies, Raeburn indignantly refused any farther accommodation of this nature. Having begun, however, to paint large oil pictures, he soon adopted them in preference to miniatures, a style which he gradually gave up; nor did his manner in later life retain any trace of that mode of painting: all was broad, massy, and vigorous.

He had thus become a painter almost by intuition; for there is no ascertaining that he ever received any direct instructions in the mysteries, or even in the manual operations, of his art. It was in his twenty-second year, and when