Duncan possessed certain primary qualities of mind, without which no man, however gifted, can win and keep true fame. He had a vigorous and quick understanding, invincible diligence, a firm will, and that combination, in action, of our intellectual, moral, and physical natures, which all acknowledge, but cannot easily define, manliness.

As an artist, he had true genius, that incommunicable gift, which is born and dies with its possessor, never again to reappear with the same image and superscription. The direction of this faculty in him was towards beauty of colour and form,—its tendency was objective rather than subjective; the outward world came to him, and he noted with singular vigilance and truth all its phenomena. His perception of them was immediate, intense, and exact, and he could reproduce them on his canvas with astonishing dexterity and faithfulness. This made his sketches from nature quite startling, from their direct truth. There are two of them in Mr. Hay's gallery,—one, a girl with her bonnet on, sitting knitting at a Highland fireside; the other, a quaint old vacant room in George Heriot's Hospital.

But his glory, his peculiar excellence, was his colouring; there was a charm about it, a thing that could not be understood, but was felt. How transparent its depth,—how fresh,—how rich to gorgeousness,—how luminous, as from within!

His power over expression was inferior to his colouring. Not that he can be justly said to have failed in his exercise of this faculty; he rather did not attempt its highest range. His mind lingered delighted, at his eye; and if his mind did proceed inwards, it soon returned, and contented itself with that form of expression which, if we may so speak, lies in closest contact with material beauty. Therefore it is that he often brought out, with great felicity and force, some simple feeling, some fixed type of character common to a class, but did not care to ascend to the highest heaven of invention, or stir the depths of imagination and passion. Nature was perceived by him, rather than imagined; and he transferred rather than transfigured her likeness. As a consequence, his works delight more than move, interest more than arrest. In a remarkable sketch left behind him of an intended picture of Wishart administering the Sacrament before his execution, there is one truly ideal head,—a monk, who is overlooking the touching solemnity, and in whose pinched, withered face are concentrated the uttermost bigotry, malice, and vileness of nature, his cruel small eyes gleaming as if "set on fire of hell." Duncan's mind was romantic, rather than historical. We see this in his fine picture of "Prince Charles's Entry into Edinburgh." He brings that great pageant out of its own time into ours, rather than sends us back to it. This arose, as we have said, from the objective turn of his mind; and would have rendered him unsurpassed in the representation of contemporaneous events. What a picture, had he lived, would he have made of the Queen at Taymouth! the masterly, the inimitable sketch of which is now in the Exhibition. We have an ancient love of one of his early pictures,—"Cuddy Headrig and Jenny Dennistoun." Cuddy has just climbed up with infinite toil; and, breathless with it and love, he is resting on the window-sill on the tips of his toes and fingers, in an attitude of exquisite awkwardness, staring, with open mouth and eyes, and perfect blessedness, on his buxom, saucy Jenny. Duncan's fame will, we are sure, rest chiefly on his portraits. They are unmatched in modern times, except by one or two of Wilkie's, and that most noticeable "Head of a Lady," by Harvey, in the inner octagon. Duncan's portraits are liker than their originals. He puts an epitome of a man's character into one look. The likeness of Dr. Chalmers has something of everything in him,—the unconsciousness of childhood,—the fervour of victorious manhood,—the wise contemplativeness of old age,—the dreamy inexpressive eye of genius, in which his soul lies, "like music slumbering on its instrument," ready to awake when called—the entire loveableness of the man—the light of his countenance,—his heavenly smile,—are all there, and will carry to after times the express image of his person. How exquisite the head of D. O. Hill's daughter! so full of love and simpleness, the very realization of Wordsworth's lines:—

"Loving she is, and tractable, though wild,

And innocence hath privilege in her

To dignify arch looks and laughing eyes,

And feats of cunning."

There was something mournful and touching in the nature and progress of the last illness of this great artist. His unresting energy, his manly diligence, urged him beyond his powers; his brain gave way, and blindness crept slowly on him. It was a sort of melancholy consolation that, as the disease advanced, his intense susceptibility and activity were subdued, when their exercise must have only produced misery and regret. What is now infinitely more important is, that those who knew him best have little doubt, that while the outward world, with its cares, its honours, its wondrous beauty, its vain shows, was growing dim, and fast vanishing away, the eyes of his understanding became more and more enlightened, and that he died in the faith of the truth. If so, he is, we may rest assured, in a region where his intense perception of beauty, his delight in all lovely forms, and in the goodliness of all visible things, will have full exercise and satisfaction, and where that gift which he carries with him as a part of himself will be dedicated to the glory of its Giver,—the Father of Lights.

We believe it to be more than a pleasant dream, that in the regions of the blessed each man shall retain for ever his innate gifts, and shall receive and give delight by their specific exercise. Such a thought gives, as it ought, to this life an awful, but not undelightful significance. He who, in his soul, and by a necessity of his nature, is a poet or a painter, will, in a spiritual sense, remain so for ever.