It was the lot of Northcote to live long in something like a state of
opposition to Opie. They were both engaged in historical pictures, by
the same adventurous alderman, (Boydell,) and acquitted themselves in a
way which, with many, left themselves in a balance. In after life, when
Opie had ceased to be in any one’s way, Northcote would recal, without
any bitterness, their days of rivalry. “Opie,” said he to Hazlitt, “was
a man of sense and observation: he paid me the compliment of saying,
that we should have been the best of friends in the world if we had not
been rivals. I think he had more feeling than I had; perhaps, because I
had most vanity. We sometimes got into foolish altercations. I
recollect, once in particular, at a banker’s in the City, we took up the
whole of dinner-time with a ridiculous controversy about Milton and
Shakspeare. I am sure neither of us had the least notion which was
right; and when I was heartily ashamed of it, a foolish citizen added to
my confusion by saying, ‘Lor! what I would give to hear two such men as
you talk every day!’ On another occasion, when on his way to Devonport,
Opie parted with him where the road branches off for Cornwall. He said
to those who were on the coach with him, ‘That’s Opie, the painter.’ ‘Is
it, indeed!’ they all cried, and upbraiding Northcote for not informing
them sooner. Upon this, he contrived, by way of experiment, to try the
influence of his own name; but his fame had not reached the enlightened
‘outsides;’ and the painter confessed he felt mortified.”--_Cunningham._