118. हैं Polife lture WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6. 1793. HINTS RESPECTING MR WILLIAM BERRY, SEAL ENGRAVER IN EDINBURGH. With a portrait, WILLIAM BERRY was one of those artists who owed more to nature than instruction. Like Raphael, Guido, and some others, his mind opened for himself a route, that made him attain to a perfection far beyond the views of his preceptor. He was bred to the businefs of a seal engraver by Mr Proctor, of Edinburgh, whose sole employment was cutting coats of arms for the nobility and gentry in Scotland; and who, though respectable in his moral character, never attained to such eminence xiv. VOL. A in his profession, as to make his name be known as an artist out of his own country. For some years after Mr Berry began business on his own account, he pursued the same line with his teacher; but his designs were so elegant, and his mode of cutting so clean and fharp, as soon to make him be taken notice of as a superior artist. He did not, however, venture to do any beads in the stile of the antique entaglio's for several years; but by constantly studying and admiring these, he at last resolved to attempt something of that sort himself; and the subject he chose for this essay was a head of Sir Isaac Newton, which he executed in a stile of such superior excellence, as astonished all who had an opportunity of observing it. But as Mr Berry was himself a man of the most unaffected modesty, and as this head was given to a friend in a retired situation in life, it was only known to a few in the private circle of his acquaintance'; and for many years was scarcely ever seen by any one who could justly appreciate its merit; and was totally unknown in that circle of the great, which alone can afford to grant a proper reward for works of superior excellence. Owing to these circumstances, Mr Berry was permitted to waste his time, during the best part of his life, in cutting heraldic seals, for which he found a much greater demand than for fine heads, at such a price as could indemnify him for the time that was necefsarily spent in bringing works of such superior excellence to perfection. He often told the writer of this paper, that though some gentlemen prefsed him very much to make fine heads for them, in yet he always found when he did a thing of that sort, that when he gave in his bill, though he had charged perhaps not more than half the money for it, that he could have earned in the same time at his ordinary work, they always seemed to think the price too high; which made him exceedingly averse to engage any thing of that sort. Yet notwithstanding these considerations, the impulse of genius got so much the better of prudential considerations, that he executed, during the course of his life, perhaps ten or a dozen of heads, any one of which would have been aufficient to insure him immortal fame among judges of excellence in this department. Among these were heads of Thomson the author of the Seasons, Mary queen of Scots, Oliver Cromwell, Julius Cæsar, a young Hercules, and Mr Hamilton of Bangour, a gentleman of Scotland, well known there, on account of some beautiful poetical effusions. Of these only two were copies from the antique; and they were executed in the finest stile of these celebrated entaglio's. The young Hercules, in particular, which, if I mistake not, belongs to the earl of Findlater, possessed that unaffected plain simplicity, and natural concurrence in the same exprefsion of youthful innocence through all the features, conjoined with strength and dignity, which is, perhaps, the most difficult of all exprefsions to be hit off by the faithful imitator of nature. Like as a player finds it much lefs difficult to imitate any extravagant violence of character, than to represent with truth and perspicuity, the elegant ease of the gentleman; so the painter can much more easily de March 6, lineate the most violent contortions of countenance, than that placid serenity, to exprefs which requires a nice discrimination of such infinitely small degrees of variation in certain lineaments, as totally elude the observation of men, on whose mind nature has not impressed, with an irresistible hand, that infinitely nice perceptive faculty, which constitutes the efsence of genius in the fine arts. Berry possessed this faculty in such a high degree, as to prove even a bar to his attaining that supereminent excellence in this department, which nature had evidently qualified him for. Even in his best performances, be, himself, thought he perceived defects, which no one else remarked; and which the circumstances above alluded to, prevented him from correcting. While others admired with unbounded applause, he looked upon his own performances with a kind of vexation, at finding the execution not to have attained the high perfection he conceived to be attainable. And not being able to afford the time to perfect himself in that nice department of his art, this made him extremely averse to attempt it. Yet in spite of this aversion, the few pieces above named, and some others, were extorted from him by degrees, and they came gradually to be known; and wherever they were known, they were admired, as superior to every thing produced in modern times, unless it was by Piccler alone at Rome; who in the same line, but with much greater practice in it, had justly attained a high degree of celebrity. Between the excellence of these two artists, connoifseurs dif |