Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 8.djvu/64

12 , and worthy of a permanent record, was well evinced by the delight with which his hearers were wont to listen to his conversational narratives, when he happened—which was but rarely—to allude to the events of his travels. He appears also to have become an especial favourite with those rude children of the mountain and the desert among whom he sojourned, and whose language, dress, and manners he adopted, so that he is still remembered by the old among them as an adopted son or brother, while in Poland, the usual name by which he is distinguished is, le Raphael Ecossais—the Scottish Raphael.

After this romantic apprenticeship to his beloved profession, in which he established for himself a high reputation as a painter among foreigners, while he was still unknown at home, Allan resolved in 1812 to return to his native land, for which he had never ceased, amidst all his travels, to entertain a most affectionate longing. But the invasion of Russia by Napoleon obliged him to postpone his purpose; and, in addition to the large stock of ideas which he had already accumulated for future delineation, he was compelled to witness, and treasure up remembrances of the worst effects of war upon its grandest scale—bloodshed, conflagration, and famine maddening every human passion and feeling to the uttermost. On the restoration of peace in 1814, Allan returned to Edinburgh after a ten years' absence, and commenced in earnest the work for which he had undergone so singular a training. His first effort, which was finished in 1815, and exhibited in Somerset House, was his well-known painting of the "Circassian Captives;" and after this, followed the "Tartar Banditti;" "Haslan Gherai crossing the Kuban;" "A Jewish Wedding in Poland;" and "Prisoners conveyed to Siberia by Cossacks." But, notwithstanding the now highly established reputation of these and other productions, which he exhibited in his native city, along with the costumes and weapons of the countries by which his paintings were illustrated, a home reputation was very hard to establish: his countrymen, with their proverbial caution, were slow to perceive the excellencies that addressed them in such an unwonted form, and refused to sympathize, at first sight, with Poles, Tartars, and Circassians. It was well, therefore, for Allan that his labours had already been prized in Russia, so that he had not been allowed to return home empty-handed. He persevered with the same boldness that had carried him onward through the encampments of the Calmucks, or the defiles of the Caucasus; and to all the remonstrances of his relations, who advised him to leave such unprofitable work and betake himself to portraits, by which he would gain both fame and money, his invariable answer was, "I will be a historical painter." His perseverance was at last rewarded. Sir Walter Scott, John Lockhart, and John Wilson, with others, who were able to appreciate the artist's merits, combined to purchase the "Circassian Captives" at a price adequate to its value; and having done this, the individual possession of the painting was decided among them by lot, in consequence of which it became the property of the Earl of Wemyss. "Haslan Gherai," and the "Siberian Exiles," also found a munificent purchaser in the Grand Duke Nicholas, now Emperor of Russia, when he visited the Scottish capital. The tide had thus changed; and it bore him on to fortune, not only in pecuniary matters, but to what he had still more at heart—the establishment of his reputation as a Scottish painter of history. Although they are so well known, the following list of his principal productions may here be fitly introduced:—