FROM BUCHAN CA JUNE 1786 189 From BUCHAN, ca June 1786 Missing. From BUCHAN, ca Saturday 10 June 1786 Missing. To BUCHAN, Saturday 17 June 1786 Printed from photostat of Add. MS 21555, foi. 15-16. Previously printed, Cun­ ningham ix. 53-4; Toynbee xiii. 384-6. For history of MS see ante 24 Dec. 1778. Address: To the Earl of Buchan at Edinburgh. Postmarks: ISLEWORTH. 19 JU. JU 23. Notes by Buchan: Horace Walpole.—I had recommend[ed] Mr John Brown,1 that accomplished and amiable youth, to Lord Orford's attentions and those of Mr Joseph Townly.2—Mr Townly employed him in drawing from his antique stat­ ues, for which he was the most capable of any man in Europe of his time.—His Homer and Pope I believe were the only pieces engraved, and those by Bartolozzi.3 I have given a sketch of Brown and Runciman4 in Anderson's Bee.s They mutually painted a conversation portrait of themselves for Dryb[urgh] Abbey.6 1. John Brown (1752-87), miniaturist Hans W. Singer, Allgemeiner Bildniskata- and draughtsman, was born in Edinburgh, log, Leipzig, 1930-6, vi. 65; Charles Le where he studied under Alexander Runci- Blanc, Manuel de I'Amateur d'Estampes, man. After ten years in Italy he returned 1854-^90], i. 501; BM Cat. of Engraved to Scotland, but removed to London the British Portraits iii. 490). year before his death. In 1789 Lord Mon­ 4. Alexander Runciman (1736-85), Scot­ boddo published Letters Upon the Poetry tish painter, chiefly noted for a series of and Music of the Italian Opera . By ceiling-paintings at Penicuik House of the Late Mr John Brown, Painter (Samuel scenes from Ossian, which were destroyed Redgrave, A Dictionary of Artists of theby fire in 1899 (Catalogue, National Gal­ English School, 1878; European Magazine lery of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1946, pp. Feb. 1790, xvii. 91-2; James L. Caw, Scot­ 305-6). tish Painting, Edinburgh, 1908, p. 44). 5. In the issue for 8 May 1793 (xv. 27-31). 2. Properly Charles Townley (or Towne­ Runciman is mentioned only briefly. ley) (1737-1805), collector of antiquities. 6. Painted 1784. '[Brown's] portrait with His marbles and terra-cottas were pur­ Runciman disputing about a passage in chased by the BM after his death. Shakespeare's Tempest is in the gallery at 3. Francesco Bartolozzi (1727-1815), Dryburgh Abbey' (ibid. 31). 'This picture Florentine painter and engraver who [of Brown and Runciman], which was be­ worked mainly in England. These engrav­ queathed to the Scottish Society of An­ ings after Brown's drawings, however, were tiquaries by David Laing, is said to have not made by Bartolozzi, but by his pupil, been the joint work of the artists, but Marino (or Mariano) Bovi (l'j^-post there is no trace of Brown's hand in it. It 1805). The drawing of Homer was taken is signed by Runciman alone, and Brown's from an antique bust owned by Townley, share was probably drawing Runciman's and that of Pope from a bust by Rysbrack portrait, the painting being entirely by the (European Magazine, Feb. 1790, xvii. 92; latter' (James L. Caw, Scottish Painting, .