setting up the result of man's feeble attempt at representation as the
standard of comparison, in place of the far grander original!

My brother carefully studied Nature herself. His works, following
those of my father, led back the public taste to a more healthy and
true condition, and by the aid of a noble army of modern British
landscape painters, this department of art has been elevated to a very
high standard of truth and excellence.

I find some letters from Patrick to my father, after his settlement as
an artist in London. My father seems to have supplied him with money
during the early part of his career, and afterwards until he had
received the amount of his commissions for pictures. In one of his
letters he says: "That was an unlucky business, the loss of that order
which you were so good as send me on my account." It turned out that
the order had dropt out of the letter enclosing it, and was not
recovered. In fact, Patrick was very careless about all money
transactions.

In 1814 he made the acquaintance of Mr. Barnes, and accompanied him to
Bure Cottage, Ringwood, near Southampton, where he remained for some
time. He went into the New Forest, and brought home "lots of sketches."
In 1815 he exhibited his works at the Royal Academy. He writes to his
father that "the prices of my pictures in the Gallery are--
two at fourteen guineas each (small views in Hampshire), one at
twelve guineas, and two at fourteen guineas. They are all sold but
one. These pictures would now fetch in the open market from two to
three hundred guineas each. But in those days good work was little
known, and landscapes especially were very little sought after.