'Haydon reports old Wilson as pronouncing Lambert's foliage to be eggs and spinach; "yet Lambert got hundreds, where Wilson could hardly get shillings"' (p. 73)
'In the year 1760 George Smith won the first premium of the Society of Arts for a large composition in the manner of Claude. That same year the earliest (if Gainsborough is not so accounted) of the great British landscape painters, Richard Wilson, finished his Niobe. But though Wilson found some patrons, he failed to obtain the prosperity of Smith and Lambert, or the popularity of Barret. It is said that he often lacked money to buy canvas for a new picture, and would part with one of his paintings for a pot of beer and the heel of a cheese. "When somebody is dead, somebody's pictures will sell better," he used to say to Beaumont; and it proved true.' (pp.73-74)
'It is easy to sympathize with old Richard Wilson, who, being asked out of pity to dinner by Beechey, first inquired, though starving, "You have daughters, Mr. Beechey, do they draw?" and only on being assured that they were musical, accepted.' (p. 89)