John William Mollett Sir David Wilkie

Annotation

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. HE large work of Allan Cunningham contains almost all that need be said upon the Life of Wilkie, and has no doubt been the fountain-head from which the numerous compendious biographies of the great English painter, in dictionaries, albums, and books of engravings, &c., have been derived. Besides this work, other very interesting details of Wilkie's life are found in the autobiographies of his friends. He lived in an autobiographical age, and I have extracted from the lives of Haydon, Collins, Irving, Sir Walter Scott, Leslie, Raimbach, Thomas Moore, and others, many incidents for my purpose, and from the writings of Burnet, Redgrave, Waagen, Bulwer, Westmacott, Prince Hoare, and others, critical observations.