After a life which must have been spent in great industry, and enjoying independence, and even wealth, Jamesone died at Edinburgh in 1644, and was buried without a monument in the Grey Friars' church there.
Walpole, who obtained his information from a relation of the painter, says, "By his will, written with his own hand in July, 1641, and breathing a spirit of much piety and benevolence, he provides kindly for his wife and children, and leaves many legacies to his relations and friends, particularly to lord Rothes the king's picture from head to foot, and Mary with Martha in one piece: to William Murray he gives the medals in his coffer; makes a handsome provision for his natural daughter ; and bestows liberally on the poor. That he should be in a condition to do all this, seems extraordinary, his prices having been so moderate; for, enumerating the debts due to him, he charges lady Haddington for a whole length of her husband, and lady Seton, of the same dimensions, frames and all, but three hundred marks: and lord Maxwell for his own picture and his lady's to their knees, one hundred marks, both sums of Scots money."[1] The average remuneration which Jamesone received for his portraits is calculated at twenty pounds Scots, or one pound thirteen shillings and four pence sterling. People have wondered at the extreme smallness of the sum paid to so great an artist; but, measured by its true standard, the price of necessary provisions, it was in reality pretty considerable, and may easily be supposed to have enabled an industrious man to amass a comfortable fortune. Walpole continues, "Mr Jamesone (the relation from whom the facts of the account were received), has likewise a memorandum written and signed by this painter, mentioning a MS. in his possession, 'containing two hundred leaves of parchment of excellent write, adorned with diverse historys of our Saviour curiously limned,' which he values at two hundred pounds sterling, a very large sum at that time! What is become of that curious book is not known." It is probable that the term "sterling" affixed to the sum, is a mistake. It was seldom if ever used in Scotland at the period when Jamesone lived. We are not given to understand that the "limning" was of the painter's own work, and we are not to presume he was in possession of a volume, superior in value to the produce of many years labour in his profession. The manuscript, though mentioned with an estimation so disproportionate to that of the works of its proprietor, was probably some worthless volume of monkish illuminations, of which it would waste time to trace the ownership. The description might apply to a manuscript "Mirror of the Life of Christ," extant in the Advocates' Library.
We have already mentioned a considerable number of the portraits by Jamesone as extant in Tayiaouth castle. An almost equal number is in the possession of the Alva family; and others are dispersed in smaller numbers. Carnegie of Southesk possesses portraits of some of his ancestors, by Jamesone, who was connected with the family. Mr Carnegie, town clerk of Aberdeen, possesses several of his pictures in very good preservation, and among them is the original of the portrait of the artist himself, which has been engraved for this work. Another individual in Aberdeen possesses a highly curious portrait by Jamesone of the artist's uncle, David Anderson of Finzeauch, merchant-burgess of Aberdeen, an eccentric character, the variety of whose occupations and studies procured him the epithet of "Davie do a' thing." Some of Jamesone's portraits hang in the hall of Marischal college in a state of wretched preservation. Sir Paul Menzies, provost of Aberdeen, presents us wilh a striking cast of countenance boldly executed; but in general these are among the inferior productions of Jamesone. They are on board, the material on which he painted his earlier productions (and which he afterwards changed for fine canvas), and are remark-
- ↑ Anecdotes, i. 250.
