Notable extracts from the text:
When Wilson, the pride of art and father of British landscape-painting, was reduced to the necessity of selling his beautiful studies from nature to print-sellers for a few shillings, Mr. [Paul] Sandby requested he might have the refusal, and though by no means rich himself, he was happily able to give the artist gold, where silver only had previously been obtained. He led his friend to suppose that he disposed of them among his numerous acquaintance, but he found them so little appreciated that he retained them in his own possession, not making known to Wilson that he had been unsuccessful in his applications, and they were not dispersed till several years after Paul Sandby's death, when his son realized a very liberal price for them.
[pp. 81-82]
[...]
Thomas Sandby was more successful in obtaining for him a commission from the Duke of Cumberland for the 'Niobe' picture [P90], afterwards engraved by Woollett, for which he received eighty guineas, a large price to a man compelled by distress to sell sketches at half a crown apiece.
[p. 83]
[...]
Mr. Wilson, when in Italy, one day drawing Castle Gondolfi [D163?], was thought by some poor people to be dealing with the devil, as a thunderstorm came on suddenly. He was in danger of being put to death by them 'for the love of God' had he not been rescued by one of their priests, who had some knowledge of painting.
[p. 91]
