Note 1 — ADVERTISEMENT.
Reading edition
Mr. Edward Walmsley, who died in 1841, at an advanced age, had been long known to me. He had latterly extensive calico-printing works at Mitcham, and devoted much of his time to the production of beautiful patterns in that fabrication; his taste, in almost every thing which he undertook, leant towards the fine arts. His body was in the counting-house; but his spirit was abroad, in the studio of the painter or engraver. Had his natural talents, which were strong and elastic, been cultivated in early life, he would, in all probability, have attained a considerable reputation. How he loved to embellish—almost to satiety—a favourite work, may be seen by consulting a subsequent page towards the end of this volume. He planned and published the Physiognomical Portraits, a performance not divested of interest—but failing in general success, from the prints being, in many instances, a repetition of their precursors. The thought, however, was a good one; and many of the heads are powerfully executed. He took also a lively interest in Mr. Major's splendid edition of Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting in England, a work, which can never want a reader while taste has an abiding-place in one British bosom.