NOTES:

orace Walpole, in hisAnecdotes of Painting, having deplored the low ebb to which the arts had sunk in Britain during the time of George the First, proceeds to consider the succeeding reign with greater complacency: accounting it, indeed, as a new and shining era. Under George the Second he found architecture revived 'in antique purity;' sculpture redeemed from reproach; the art of gardening, or, as he prefers to call it, 'the art of creating landscape,' pressed forward to perfection; engraving much elevated; and painting, if less perceptibly advanced, still (towards the close of the reign, at any rate) ransomed from insipidity by the genius of Sir Joshua Reynolds. The king himself, it was conceded, had 'little propensity to refined pleasure;' but his consort, Queen Caroline, was credited with a lively anxiety to reward merit and to encourage the exertions of the ingenious.

This glowing picture of the period in its relation to the fine arts, contrasts somewhat violently with what we learn elsewhere concerning the poverty of Richard Wilson, the ill-requited labours of William Hogarth, the struggles and sufferings of James Barry, and generally, of the depressed condition of native professors of art during the eighteenth century. That the portrait-painter (the 'face-painter' as Hogarth delighted contemptuously to designate him) found sufficient occupation is likely enough; but, otherwise, the British artist had perforce to limit the aspirations of his genius to the decoration of ceilings and staircases, and to derive his chief emoluments from painting the sign-boards of the British tradesman: if not a very dignified still a remunerative employment; for in those days every London shop boasted its distinct emblem.

Nevertheless it is certain that in George the Second's reign Fashion began to take up with Taste. Dilettanteism became the vogue. Objects ofvirtùwere now, for the first time, indispensable appendages of the houses of the aristocratic and the rich. A rage for 'collecting' possessed the town, and led to an expenditure as profuse as it was injudicious. Of the vast sums disbursed, however, but a small share came to the native artist. His works were passed over as beneath the notice of thecognoscenti. The 'quality' gave their verdict against modern art and in favour of the ancient masters. A race of old picture-brokers and jobbers in antiquities sprang into existence to supply the increasing demand for such chattels. TheLondon Magazinefor 1737, in an article attributed to William Hogarth, inveighs bitterly against these speculators and their endeavours to depreciate every English work in order to enhance the value of their imported shiploads of Dead Christs, Holy Families and Madonnas: the sweepings of the continental art-markets. Auction-rooms were opened in all parts of London for the exhibition and sale of choice objects of every kind, and became the resort and rendezvous of all pretending to wealth and fashion. Agents were to be found at the chief foreign cities eagerly exhuming antiquities for transmission to England: certain of immediate sale and enormous profit there. The prevailing appetite seemed to grow by what it fed on. And then, of course, unscrupulous people took to manufacturing antiquities; and, so doing, drove a brisk and remarkably remunerative trade.

The neglected British artist naturally made protests and wrote pamphlets more or less angry in tone, according to the state of his purse and his temper and the extent of his self-appreciation. The press of the period raised its voice: a less portentous and sonorous organ than it has since possessed. Even the players ventured to be satirical on the subject. It was early in 1752 that Mr. Foote's comedy ofTastewas brought upon the stage of Drury Lane Theatre, David Garrick both writing and speaking the prologue. Probably the satire soared rather above the heads of the audience. Foote admits as much in his preface to the published play: 'I was always apprehensive that the subject of the following piece was too abstracted and singular for the comprehension of a mixed assembly. Juno, Lucina, Jupiter Tonans, Phidias, Praxiteles, with the other gentlemen and ladies of antiquity, were, I daresay, utterly unknown to my very good friends of the gallery; nor, to speak the truth, do I believe they had many acquaintances in the other parts of the house.' AccordinglyTaste, on its first production, was only repeated some four nights, and, though revived once or twice afterwards, never took rank as a stock piece. Yet, as Mr. John Forster says of it, Foote's play is legitimate satire, and also excellent comedy.

There is little or no plot. Foote did not care for continuous story; he could generally secure the favour of the audience by the wit of his dialogue and a quick succession of lively incidents. In the first act Lady Pentweazle sits for her portrait in a broadly humorous scene. Puff is an impudent trader in sham antiquities and objects ofvirtù; Carmine, an artist constrained by poverty to aid and abet him in his nefarious proceedings; Brush is another confederate. In the second act a sale by auction is represented. Carmine appears as Canto the auctioneer; Puff figures as the Baron de Groningen, who is travelling to purchase pictures for the Elector of Bavaria. Lord Dupe, Bubble, Squander, and Novice, are fashionable patrons and collectors of art. The pictures to be submitted for sale are inspected. One of them is particularly admired; but is ultimately discovered to be 'a modern performance, the master alive, and an Englishman.' 'Oh, then,' says Lord Dupe, changing his tone, 'I would not give it house-room!' The antiquities are then brought forward. 'The first lot,' announces the auctioneer, 'consists of a hand without an arm, the first joint of the forefinger gone, supposed to be a limb of the Apollo Delphos. The second, half a foot, with the toes entire, of the Juno Lucina. The third, the Caduceus of the Mercurius Infernalis. The fourth, the half of the leg of the Infant Hercules. All indisputable antiques, and of the Memphian marble.' One critic objects to a swelling on the foot of Juno as a defect in its proportion; but the auctioneer informs him that the swelling is intended to represent acorn, and the defect is thereupon pronounced an absolute master-stroke. Presently the auctioneer proceeds: 'Bring forward the head from Herculaneum.... Now, gentlemen, here is a jewel.... The very mutilations of this piece are worth all the most perfect performances of modern artists. Now, gentlemen, here is a touchstone for your taste!' He is asked whether the head is intended to represent a man or a woman. 'The connoisseurs differ,' he answers. 'Some will have it to be the Jupiter Tonans of Phidias, and others the Venus of Paphos from Praxiteles; but I don't think it fierce enough for the first, nor handsome enough for the last.... Therefore I am inclined to join with Signor Julio de Pampedillo, who, in a treatise dedicated to the King of the Two Sicilies, calls it the Serapis of the Egyptians, and supposes it to have been fabricated about eleven hundred and three years before the Mosaic account of the creation.' A bystander inquires what has become of the nose of the bust? 'The nose? What care I for the nose?' cries an enthusiastic amateur. 'Why, sir, if it had a nose I wouldn't give sixpence for it! How the devil should we distinguish the works of the ancients if they were perfect? Why, I don't suppose but, barring the nose,ROUBILIACcould cut as good a head every whit.... A man must know d——d little of statuary that dislikes a bust for want of a nose!'

It must be admitted that this is satire of a good trenchant sort. The reader will find plenty more of it if he will only turn to the comedy for himself. Our immediate purpose is with the sculptor for whose name Mr. Foote has found a place in his play.

The rage for collecting antiquities was only equalled by the passion for 'restoring' them when collected. To disinter a torsohere, and a headthere, and then to make a sort of forced marriage of the fragments; to graft new feet upon old legs; to dovetail stray hands upon odd arms; to reset broken limbs, and patch and piece mutilations and deficiencies, constituted the delights and the triumphs of the amateurs. In accomplishing these exploits the services of foreign workmen were extensively employed; for, by a curious piece of reasoning, the foreign sculptor, no matter how limited his capacity, was held to be far more competent to restore antiquities than the English artist of whatever reputation. It was, doubtless, in consequence of this demand for foreign labour, and the liberal manner in which its exertions were recognised and requited, that Louis Francis Roubiliac found his way to this country.

In his account of the sculptor, Walpole is singularly brief; supplies very meagre information; yet when he was compiling his Anecdotes the fame of Roubiliac was at its highest; he was freshly remembered on all sides, and the facts of his early life could have been collected, one would imagine, without much difficulty. He was born, from all accounts, at Lyons, about the close of the seventeenth century; was a pupil of Balthazar of Dresden, sculptor to the Elector of Saxony, and came to England in 1720. That he was without repute in his native land is evidenced by the fact that no mention of him appears in D'Argenville'sLives of the most Eminent Sculptors of France, published in 1787. Of his parentage nothing is known. He had apparently received a fair education; was found to possess a considerable acquaintance with the literature of his native land; more especially was conversant with the works of the best French poets, and himself produced original verse of a respectable quality. Yet, notwithstanding his long residence in England, he never mastered the English language so as to be able to use it freely; and in all the anecdotes extant of him he is represented as employing the broken dialect common to foreigners.

For some years after his arrival in England his occupation would appear to have been little better than that of a journeyman sculptor, employed under various masters in botching antiquities. Mr. John Thomas Smith, in hisLife of Nollekens, informs us that when Mr. Roubiliac had to mend an antique, he 'would mix Gloucester cheese with his plaster, adding the grounds of porter, and the yolk of an egg: which mixture when dry forms a very hard cement.' Walpole states that the artist had little business until Sir Edward Walpole (Sir Robert's second son: Horace was the third) recommended him to execute half the busts in Trinity College, Dublin; but the date of this act of patronage is not supplied. A story attributed to Sir Joshua Reynolds, and set forth in his Life by Northcote, relates that Roubiliac first secured the patronage of Sir Edward Walpole by picking up and restoring a pocket-book he had dropped at Vauxhall, containing bank-notes and other papers of value. The artist declined to receive any reward for this service, although ultimately he was persuaded to accept the annual present of a fat buck, as a testimony of gratitude and regard; further, he became the object of Sir Edward's constant patronage. Horace Walpole says nothing of this story; but the brothers, it was well known, were not friends, seldom if ever met, and probably were not closely informed of each other's proceedings. In a letter written in 1745 to his friend George Montagu, Horace Walpole gives an amusing description of the patron of Roubiliac, and, incidentally, reveals the not very brotherly terms subsisting between himself and the knight: 'You propose making a visit to Englefield Green' [where Sir Edward lived], 'and ask me if I think it right? Extremely so. I have heard it is a very pretty place. You love a jaunt—have a pretty chaise, I believe, and I dare swear, very easy; in all probability you will have a fine evening; and added to all this, the gentleman' [Sir E.W.] 'you would go to see is very agreeable and good-humoured,... plays extremely well on the bass-viol, and has generally other people with him.... He is perfectly master of all the quarrels that have been fashionably on foot about Handel, and can give you a very perfect account of all the modern rival painters.... In short, I can think of no reason in the world against your going there but one:do you know his youngest brother?? If you happen to be so unlucky, I can't flatter you so far as to advise you to make him a visit: for there is nothing in the world the Baron of Englefield has such an aversion for as for his brother!'

It was probably some years before this that Roubiliac had obtained employment from Mr. Jonathan Tyers, who in 1732 had become the proprietor of Vauxhall Gardens. The 'New Spring Gardens at Fox Hall' had in the previous century been a resort of Mr. Samuel Pepys, who has left on record his approval of the place. 'It is very pleasant and cheap going thither,' he writes in 1667, 'for a man may go to spend what he will or nothing, as all one. But to hear the nightingale and the birds, and here fiddles and there a harp, and here a Jew's-trump and here laughing, and there fine people walking, is mighty divertising.' Since the Pepys period, however, the gardens had fallen into disrepute; had indeed been closed during many seasons. Mr. Tyers took the place in hand, bent upon restoring its fame and fashion. He erected an orchestra, with an organ, engaged the best singers and musicians of the day, built alcoves for the company, and secured paintings by Messrs. Hayman and Hogarth for the further embellishment of the gardens. Then he discussed with his friend, Mr. Cheere, as to adding works of statuary. Mr. Cheere dealt largely in painted leaden figures, then much employed in 'the art of creating landscape.' He was 'the man at Hyde Park Corner' of whom Lord Ogleby in the comedy[4]makes mention when he says: 'Great improvements, indeed, Mr. Sterling! Wonderful improvements! The four Seasons in lead, the flying Mercury, and the basin with Neptune in the middle, are in the very extreme of fine taste. You have as many rich figures as the man at Hyde Park Corner!' Mr. Cheere advised Mr. Tyers to set up a statue of Handel. There was some difficulty about the expense. But Mr. Cheere introduced a clever artist, a Frenchman, content to work upon very moderate terms. This was, of course, Louis Francis Roubiliac; who accordingly produced his statue of Handel: greatly to the admiration of thehabituésof Vauxhall. It stood, in 1744, on the south side of the gardens, under an enclosed lofty arch, surmounted by a figure playing on the violoncello, attended by two boys; it was then screened from the weather by a curtain, which was drawn up when the visitors arrived. Mr. Tyers's plans were crowned with success. Fashion was enthusiastic on the subject of Vauxhall. Royalty patronized; the nobility protected and promoted; and the general public crowded Mr. Tyers's handsome pleasure-grounds. The ladies promenaded in their hoops, sacques, and caps, as they appeared in their own drawing-rooms: the beaux of the period were in attendance, with swords and powdered bag-wigs, their three-cornered hats under their arms. Read Walpole's account (in another letter to George Montagu) of his visit in 1750. He accompanied Lady Caroline Petersham and little Miss Ashe—or 'the Pollard Ashe,' as it pleases him to describe her. The ladies had just put on their last layer of rouge, 'and looked as handsome as crimson could make them.' They proceed in a barge, a boat of French horns attending, and little Miss Ashe singing. Parading some time up the river they at last debark at Vauxhall, and there pick up Lord Granby, 'arrived very drunk from Jenny's Whim'—a tavern at Chelsea frequented by his lordship and other gentlemen of fashion. Assembled in their supper-box, Lady Caroline, 'looking gloriously jolly and handsome,' minces seven chickens in a china dish (Lord Orford, Horace's brother, assisting), and stews them over a lamp, with three pats of butter and a flagon of water, stirring, and rattling, and laughing: the company expecting the dish to fly about their ears every minute. Then Betty, the famous fruit-woman from St. James's Street, is in attendance with hampers of strawberries and cherries, waits upon the guests, and afterwards sits down to her own supper at a side table. The company become, by-and-by, a little boisterous in their merriment, and attract the attention of the other visitors; there is soon quite a concourse round Lady Caroline's box, till Harry Vane fills a bumper and toasts the bystanders, and is proceeding to treat them with still greater freedom. 'It was three o'clock before we got home,' concludes Walpole. Such was a fashionable frolic at Vauxhall under Mr. Tyers's management: when Roubiliac's statue of Handel stood in the midst.

Vauxhall vanished some ten or a dozen years since. Its latter days were dreary, down-at-heel, and disreputable enough. The statue had departed long previously. 'It was conveyed to the house of Mr. Barrett, at Stockwell,' records Mr. J.T. Smith in 1829, 'and thence to the entrance-hall of the residence of his son, the Rev. Jonathan Tyers Barrett, D.D., of No. 14 Duke Street, Westminster.' Mr. Henry Phillips, in hisMusical and Personal Recollections(1864), regrets that when Roubiliac's Handel 'was brought to the hammer, and sold by Mr. Squibb on the 16th March 1832, for two hundred and five guineas, the Sacred Harmonic Society did not purchase it in place of its being bought by Mr. Brown, of University Street.' Nollekens used to value the statue at one thousand guineas. The plaster model became the property of Hudson, the preceptor of Reynolds, who possessed a collection of models at his house at Twickenham. Upon the death of Hudson and the sale of his collection, the model was bought for five pounds by the father of Mr. J.T. Smith, a pupil of Roubiliac's, and it then passed into the possession of Nollekens. When Nollekens's effects were sold, the plaster Handel was knocked down by Mr. Christie to Hamlet, the famous silversmith. Its further history has not been traced.

The statue of Handel, the first original work that can, with any certainty, be ascribed to Roubiliac, may be regarded as a fair specimen of the artist's manner. He was of the school of Bernini. He followed the sculptors who infinitely preferunresttoreposein art. He dearly enjoyed atour de forcein stone. He liked to deal with marble as though it were the most plastic of materials: to twist it this way and that, and rumple and flutter it as though it were merely muslin. To have carved a wig in a gale of wind would have been a task particularly agreeable to this class of artists; they would have done their best to represent each particular hair standing on end. They adored minutiæ: a shoulder-knot of ribbons, the embroidery of a sword-belt, the stitches of a seam, the lace of a cravat, were achievements to be gloried in. And yet, with all this realism in detail, their works are unreal and artificial in general effect; as a glance at any statue by Roubiliac will sufficiently demonstrate.

This arises possibly from the artist's fondness for attitude. He seems to have regarded posture-making as a peculiar attribute of genius. His figures are always in a constrained and over-studied pose: twisting about in the throes of giving birth to a great idea: filled with the divineafflatus, even to the bursting of their buttonholes and the snapping of their braces. His Handel is in a state of exceeding perturbation: his clothes in staring disorder, his hair floating in the breeze. The intention was to represent the composer in the act of raptured meditation upon music; but, as Allan Cunningham remarks, he looks much more like a man alarmed at an apparition. But then this exaggeration of demeanour was very much the artist's own manner in actual life. The Frenchman has always a sort of innate histrionic faculty: he is for ever, perhaps unconsciously, playing a part. So Roubiliac was himself incessantly acting and attitudinizing, much after the fashion of his statues. He seemed to hold that it was expedient, for the better preventing of mistakes about the matter, that genius should always in such way advertise itself; there was danger lest it should not be believed in if it left off making grimaces and striking attitudes. Perhaps from his own point of view, and in his own time, the artist was right. It was necessary then to do something to arrest the attention of a public apathetic on the subject of art-talent, unless, as Peter Pindar sang, the artist 'had been dead a hundred years.' Possibly, the only way for a man in those days to gain credit as a genius was by affecting eccentricity and unconventionality: taking heed that all his proceedings were as unlike other people's as possible. Thereupon the world argued: geniuses are not as we are; this person is not as we are; therefore he must be a genius.Q.E.D.

Consequently, we find Roubiliac—a thin, olive-skinned Frenchman, with strongly-marked, arching eyebrows, mobile features, and small, sharp, dark eyes—liable at all times to fits of abstraction, attacks of inspiration. He will drop his knife and fork while at dinner, sink back in his chair, assume an ecstatic expression: the fit is on him; he must abandon his meal and hurry away at once to lock himself in his studio, and place upon record the superb idea which has so inconveniently visited him. His companions make allowances for him: men of genius are often thus. At other times he is absorbed in meditation upon his art: address him, and he makes no reply, fails to hear. While engaged upon his statue of Handel, he decides that the great musician must have possessed an ear of exceeding symmetry, and searches everywhere for a model. He scrutinizes the ears of all his acquaintances. Suddenly he pounces upon Miss Rich, the daughter of the Covent Garden manager. 'Miss Rich,' he cries, 'I must have your ear for my Handel!' In Westminster Abbey he permits himself to be 'discovered'—to use an appropriate theatrical term—lost in contemplation of the kneeling figure at the north-west corner of Sir Francis Vere's monument. His servant, having thrice delivered a message, without receiving a word in reply, finds his arm suddenly seized, and his master whispering mysteriously in his ear, while he points to the statue: 'Hush! hush! he vill speak presently!' At another time he invites a friend to occupy a spare bed at his house, gives him his candle, and bids him good-night. Presently the friend is heard crying aloud in great excitement and alarm; the bed is already occupied: the dead body of a negress is laid out upon it. 'I beg your pardon,' says the artist, 'I quite forgot poor Mary vas dere. Poor Mary! she die yesterday vid de small-pox. She was my housemaid for five, six years. Come along; I vill find you a bed somevhere else.' All this was but acting up to the idea Mr. Roubiliac had formed of the abstractedness and eccentricity of genius.

Serene, sedate Flaxman, who adored the antique, who held that sculpture should be nothing if not calm and classical, was little likely to sympathize with Roubiliac, or to comprehend his close following of Bernini, or indeed to care at all for his productions. 'His thoughts are conceits; his compositions epigrams,' says Flaxman. And then he is astounded that Roubiliac, who, at the ripe age of fifty, accompanied by Hudson the painter, also arrived at a period of life somewhat advanced for study, visited Italy, should presume to return unmoved and unenlightened by what he had seen. 'He was absent from home three months, going and returning,' relates Flaxman, with an air of indignation; 'stayed three days in Rome, and laughed at the sublime remains of ancient sculpture!' Positively laughed! To Flaxman, who was certainly a bigot in regard to the beauties of the antique, if Roubiliac was something of a scoffer in that respect, this seemed flat blasphemy. Yet it was hardly to be expected that Roubiliac, at the height of a successful career, would admit his whole system of art to have been founded on error—would consent humbly to recommence his profession, and forthwith prostrate himself at the feet of ancient sculpture. His admiration for Bernini—whom of course Flaxman cordially detested—was genuine enough. The Italian's florid manner chimed in with his own French, gesticulating, mercurial notions of art. If excess of self-satisfaction prevented him from rendering due homage to the relics of the past—and possibly his early toils as a 'restorer' further tended to blind him to their value—he was careful to pay tribute to the merits of the artist he had selected for his prototype. Hazlitt mentions, on the authority of Northcote, that when Roubiliac, returned from Rome, went to look at his own works in Westminster Abbey, he cried out in his usual vehement way, 'By God! they look like tobacco-pipes compared to Bernini!' And he was not without honest admiration for the production of other artists more nearly of his own time. Whenever he visited the city he was careful to go round by the gates of Bethlehem Hospital, in Moorfields, over which stood Caius Gabriel Cibber's figures of Raving and Melancholy Madness: Colley Cibber's 'brazen, brainless brothers,' as Pope called them, ignorant, possibly from their having become so begrimed with London smoke, that they were really carved in stone. Roubiliac highly esteemed these statues. Though in idea evidently borrowed from Michael Angelo, they were yet strictly realistic in treatment, and were reputed to be modelled from Oliver Cromwell's giant porter, at one time a patient in the Hospital. When Bethlehem was removed to St. George's Fields the surface of these figures was renovated by Bacon, the sculptor. They are now deposited in the South Kensington Museum.

Indeed, what Flaxman intended as a reproach, may sound in modern ears much more like approval. 'He copied vulgar nature with zeal, and some of his figures seem alive.' Roubiliac constantly had recourse to the living forms about him; Flaxman preferred instead to turn to the antique. We hear of Roubiliac's fondness for modelling the arms of Thames watermen and the legs of chair-porters: in each case the particular employment inducing great muscular development of the limbs to be moulded. And this desire for independent study was really creditable to the artist. He sought to arrive at the correctness of the ancients by a pathway of his own: to check, by a distinct reckoning, an individual reference to nature, and, if need was, fearlessly to depart from, what they had registered as the result of their investigations. A more legitimate charge against him was that he was negligent in his choice of forms for imitation; undervalued refinement of idea; took altogether a somewhat mean view of nature, or adulterated it with too large an infusion of the dancing-master. Certainly he was fonder offritterthan of breadth; and his draperies are often meagre in effect from the multiplicity of their folds, and his attempt at renderingtexturein marble. This may be noticed in his statue of Sir Isaac Newton, at Cambridge, where an excess of labour, seems expended on the silk mantle of the figure—all the small creases and plaitings of the light material being represented, and the surface highly polished, still further to increase the resemblance.

This statue, however, was highly admired by Chantrey,[5]and to it, in hisPrelude, Wordsworth has dedicated laudatory lines.

There is no necessity for running through a list of Roubiliac's works. But his statue of Shakespeare is deserving of a passing notice. It of course fails to satisfy the students of the bard, who delight to pay equal homage to his philosophy as to his poetry. There is nothing of the sage about the work: it is wholly of thestageindeed. It is replete with Roubiliac's established ecstatic super-elegant manner; with a strong tinge of theatricalism, possibly added by Garrick, for whose temple at Hampton the statue was undertaken; who attitudinized in aid, as he imagined, of the sculptor's labours, with a cry of 'Behold the swan of Avon!' and who, it must be said, at all times entertained a very 'footlight' view of the poet. The price paid for the work was three hundred guineas only. Roubiliac was to supply the best marble he could for the money. Unfortunately the block turned out to be much spotted and streaked; the head was especially disfigured with blue stains. 'What!' cried Garrick, 'was Shakespeare marked with mulberries?' It became necessary to sever the head from the shoulders and replace it with one of purer marble. The statue was completed in 1758. Under the terms of Garrick's will, it became, on the death of his widow, the property of the nation, and it now stands in the entrance-hall of the British Museum. After the purists and the exacting have said their worst against the statue, it will yet be found—from the spirit of its execution, its cleverness, and 'go,' to resort to a vulgarism—charming a very large class of uncritical examiners.

As Lord Chesterfield said of Roubiliac, 'he was the only statuary of his day; all other artists were mere stone-cutters.' It is very desirable, in estimating his merits, to bear in mind that he stood alone; his rivals, Rysbrach and Scheemakers, he had completely outstripped; and, apart from his following of Bernini, he was clearly an artist of an original and creative kind. What is hard to forgive in him, however, and what indeed has much detracted from his reputation, is the fact that a long list of allegorical monstrosities was in some sort the result of his example. Charmed with certain of his works, and possessed just then by particular memories it deemed deserving of monumental celebration, the nation rushed recklessly to its stone-cutters. The terrible works which blemish and blister the walls of our cathedrals and churches were the consequences. Verrio and Laguerre had long set the fashion of disfiguring ceilings and staircases with their incomprehensible compositions. Roubiliac carved similar parabolic productions in marble and set them up in Westminster Abbey and elsewhere. In these, heathen divinities jostle Christian emblems; Paganism is seen abreast of true religion. In the aisle of a Gothic abbey, John, Duke of Argyle and Greenwich, warrior and orator, expires at the foot of a pyramid, on which History, weeping, writes his deeds, while Minerva (or Britannia) mourns at the side, and Eloquence above, tossing white arms in the air, deplores the loss she has sustained. Here we find Hercules placing the bust of Sir Peter Warren upon a pedestal, while Navigation prepares to crown it with a laurel wreath; a British flag forming the background and a horn of plenty emptying its contents beside an anchor and a cannon. In the monument to Marshal Wade, Time is endeavouring to destroy a pillar adorned with military trophies, which fame as zealously protects. The famous Nightingale memorial represents a husband shielding a dying wife from the attack of Death: a grinning skeleton levelling a javelin as he issues from the opening iron door of a tomb. The admirable execution of these works cannot blind the critic to the utter unfitness and folly of their conception.

But Roubiliac's successors far outbid him in absurdity. To a number of people a precedent is always a point of departure—an example to be imitated with violent exaggeration. After our sculptor came a deluge of imbecility. We are then among stone-cutters who shrink from nothing; we are treated then to clouds that look like muffins—to waves that resemble pancakes. Apotheosis becomes preposterous; allegory goes fairly mad. Glancing at certain post-Roubiliac achievements, we long for an earthquake. Nicholas Read, the least competent of his pupils, upon the sculptor's death occupied his studio, advertised himself as successor to Mr. Roubiliac, and, strange to say, was largely employed: the execution of the monuments to Admiral Tyrrell and the Duchess of Northumberland, in Westminster Abbey, being intrusted to him. During his master's life the apprentice had boasted of the great deeds he would do when he had served his time. Roubiliac cried scornfully, in his broken English: 'Ven you do de monument, den de vorld vill see vot von d——d ting you vill make of it!' His words were justified by Read's monument to Admiral Tyrrell: possibly the most execrable work in stone in existence; which is saying a good deal. As Nollekens would often remark of it: 'Read's admiral going to heaven looks for all the world as though he were hanging from a gallows with a rope round his neck.'

As Roubiliac's first work was a statue of Handel for Vauxhall Gardens, so his last was a statue of the same great composer for Westminster Abbey. He died on the 11th January 1762, and was buried in St. Martin's Churchyard, 'under the window of the Bell Bagnio.' His funeral was attended by the leading members of the Society of Artists, then meeting at the Academy in Peter's Court, St. Martin's Lane: the room they occupied, it may be noted, having been Roubiliac's first workshop. The artists following the funeral were:—Mr. (afterwards Sir Joshua) Reynolds, Moser, Hogarth, Tyler, Sandby, Hayman, Wilton, Bartolozzi, Cipriani, Payne, Chambers (afterwards Sir William), Serres, Ravenet, the elder Grignon, Meyer, and Hudson; and the dead master's three pupils, John Adkins, Nicholas Read, and Nathaniel Smith.

Roubiliac died poor; indeed, seriously in debt. Yet he had married well, it would seem. An old newspaper, under date January 1752, records: 'Married Mr. Roubiliac, the statuary in St. Martin's Lane, to Miss Crossley of Deptford, worth £10,000.' No particulars of his married life have come down to us, however. It is probable that his wife predeceased him. The money was spent in any case. Perhaps she never possessed so much as the world gave her credit for. The sale of his effects, after payment of his funeral expenses, left only about one-and-sixpence in the pound to his creditors. Though constantly employed, the prices he received were small; and a thoroughly conscientious artist, he never spared time or labour upon the commissions he had undertaken. He was not, it is stated, extravagant in his habits; did not waste his means in the support of a pretentious establishment. On the contrary, his method of life was very modest: his tastes were simple enough. Society was not yet prepared to admit the professions to hersalons; her somewhat costly caresses were reserved for the ingenious of a succeeding generation. Roubiliac was content to live that easy pleasant tavern life favoured by the men of letters and artists of the eighteenth century, and with which Johnson and Boswell have made us so intimately acquainted. A bottle of claret and a game of whist solaced his leisure hours; and these were not numerous: he was constantly to be found in his studio, late at night, hard at work long after his assistants had retired: a vivacious, honest, warm-hearted man, much and justly esteemed by his friends and contemporaries.

He was a familiar acquaintance of Goldsmith, who in his Chinese letters speaks of him kindly as 'the little sculptor.' He was fond of music, and Goldsmith would play the flute to him. As Sir John Hawkins records, the sculptor once tricked the poet by pretending to set down the notes on paper as Goldsmith played them. Goldsmith looked over the paper afterwards with seeming great attention, said it was quite correct, and that if he had not seen him do it he never could have believed his friend capable of writing music after him. Roubiliac had jotted down notes at random. Neither had any real knowledge of music, and Goldsmith played entirely by ear.

His intimate and fellow-sculptor—a painter also—Adrien Charpentier, executed a characteristic portrait of Roubiliac. He is represented at work upon a small-size model of his Shakespeare. He is touching the eye of the figure with his modelling tool, and the task, one of some delicacy and difficulty, adds to the animation of the operator. His head, where it is not covered by the fanciful loose head-dress affected by poets and artists of the period, is bald: possibly shaven, for the convenience of wig-wearing, after the custom of the time. His dress is disordered, his bosom bare, his wristbands loose. Had Roubiliac carved his own statue in stone, it would probably, in treatment, have closely followed Charpentier's picture.

A portrait of Roubiliac, painted by himself, was sold for three-and-sixpence only at the sale of his effects. The prices, indeed, at this sale seem to have been desperately low. There were no antiquities or objects ofvirtùbrought to the hammer: and Mr. Canto was not the auctioneer! A copy by Reynolds of the Chandos portrait of Shakespeare, with seven other pictures, was knocked down for ten shillings only, the father of John Flaxman being the purchaser. Reynolds had painted the picture as a present to his friend, Mr. Roubiliac. It afterwards became the property of Mr. Edmond Malone.

NOTES:[4]'The Clandestine Marriage.'[5]'Chantrey esteemed highly the works of Roubiliac; he admired his busts; and thought the statue of Newton at Cambridge of the best character of portrait sculpture. The simplicity of the figure, united with the apparent intelligence and thought in the countenance, he considered as quite satisfactory; and although he generally disliked the imitation of any particular material in drapery, he was reconciled to the college dress of the philosopher. From its perfect arrangement, the imitation is so complete that the person who shows the statue at Cambridge always informs the visitor that it only requires to be black to render it a deception. He was inclined to tolerate anything that displayed ingenuity without violating possibility, yet he could never endure such extraneous and uninteresting matter as the shot, the barrel of powder, and the bent chamber of a piece of artillery in the monument to Lord Shannon, in Walton Church, which, with much to commend in the two figures, has a profusion of objects, and a grey marble background, representing a tent, altogether unnecessary and derogatory to the purity of sculpture. Still Roubiliac was rich in thought and reason, for, in his monument in Westminster Abbey, where he has represented Death as a skeleton, he felt that the thin and meagre bones would be as offensive as impracticable; therefore judiciously involved the greater part of the emblem in a shroud or drapery, adding thereby to his allegory and aiding his art. However hostile this style may be to the simplicity of sculpture, the ability of the artist in the conception and execution deserves high praise. The beadle of Worcester Cathedral informed a friend of Chantrey's, that when the sculptor was in that city he always went to see the monument to Bishop Hurd by Roubiliac, and remained a long time in intent observation of the work, for he thought the artist's power over the material surprising, though he disliked polishing the marble.'-Recollections of Chantrey, by George Jones, R.A.The cast taken by Roubiliac from the face of Newton is in the Hunterian Museum, Glasgow.

[4]'The Clandestine Marriage.'

[5]'Chantrey esteemed highly the works of Roubiliac; he admired his busts; and thought the statue of Newton at Cambridge of the best character of portrait sculpture. The simplicity of the figure, united with the apparent intelligence and thought in the countenance, he considered as quite satisfactory; and although he generally disliked the imitation of any particular material in drapery, he was reconciled to the college dress of the philosopher. From its perfect arrangement, the imitation is so complete that the person who shows the statue at Cambridge always informs the visitor that it only requires to be black to render it a deception. He was inclined to tolerate anything that displayed ingenuity without violating possibility, yet he could never endure such extraneous and uninteresting matter as the shot, the barrel of powder, and the bent chamber of a piece of artillery in the monument to Lord Shannon, in Walton Church, which, with much to commend in the two figures, has a profusion of objects, and a grey marble background, representing a tent, altogether unnecessary and derogatory to the purity of sculpture. Still Roubiliac was rich in thought and reason, for, in his monument in Westminster Abbey, where he has represented Death as a skeleton, he felt that the thin and meagre bones would be as offensive as impracticable; therefore judiciously involved the greater part of the emblem in a shroud or drapery, adding thereby to his allegory and aiding his art. However hostile this style may be to the simplicity of sculpture, the ability of the artist in the conception and execution deserves high praise. The beadle of Worcester Cathedral informed a friend of Chantrey's, that when the sculptor was in that city he always went to see the monument to Bishop Hurd by Roubiliac, and remained a long time in intent observation of the work, for he thought the artist's power over the material surprising, though he disliked polishing the marble.'-Recollections of Chantrey, by George Jones, R.A.The cast taken by Roubiliac from the face of Newton is in the Hunterian Museum, Glasgow.

The cast taken by Roubiliac from the face of Newton is in the Hunterian Museum, Glasgow.

he famous artists of the Continent almost invariably organize schools of art, converting their studios into miniature academies, surrounding themselves with pupils and disciples who sit at their feet, listen to their teaching, assist them by painting for them the less important portions of their works, adopt their processes, and follow their styles of drawing and colouring. There is something to be said for the system. It is an advantage to the young student to be constantly brought into contact with a real master of the art; to have the opportunity of working under his supervision, and, on the other hand, of watching him at his labours, and of witnessing the birth, growth, and completion of his best pictures. The main objection to the plan is that it may develop merely imitative ability rather than stimulate genuine originality; that it inclines the student to follow too scrupulously a beaten track rather than strike out a fresh pathway for himself. He may reproduce the virtues of his exemplar's art, but he will certainly copy its vices as well. And then the difficult question arises: when is he to assert his independence? At what period in his career is he to cease leaning on his teacher, and to pursue his own devices unaided and alone? He may have tied his leading-strings so tightly about him that liberty of thought and action has become almost impossible to him, and the free use of his limbs, so to speak, has gone from him. It is quite true that the artist should be a student all his life; but then he should be a student of art generally, not of any one professor of art in particular, or he will be simply the pupil of a great master to the end of the chapter, never a great master himself.

Objection to a system of instruction that may tend to perpetuate mannerism, to cramp originality, and fetter genius, has of late years led to considerable opposition to art-academies generally, whenever more is contemplated by them than the mere school-teaching of the pupil, and the affording him assistance at the outset of his professional life. Haydon was fond of declaring 'that academies all over Europe were signals of distress thrown out to stop the decay of art,' but that they had failed egregiously, and rather hastened the result they had intended to hinder. Fuseli asserted that 'all schools of painters, whether public or private, supported by patronage or individual contribution, were and are symptoms of art in distress, monuments of public dereliction and decay of taste.' He proceeded afterwards to defend such schools, however, as the asylum of the student, the theatre of his exercises, the repositories of the materials, the archives of art, whose principles their officers were bound to maintain, and for the preservation of which they were responsible to posterity, etc. Dr. Waagen was of opinion that the academic system gave an artificial elevation to mediocrity; that it deadened natural talent, and introduced into the freedom of art an unsalutary degree of authority and interference. The late Horace Vernet entertained similar views, recommending the suppression of the French Academy at Rome. M. Say (the Adam Smith of France) held that all Academies were in truth hostile to the fine arts; and a report of a committee of the English House of Commons (1836) went far in the same direction, venturing to predict the probability 'that the principle of free competition in art as in commerce would ultimately triumph over all artificial institutions,' and that 'governments might at some future period content themselves with holding out prizes or commissions to the different but co-equal societies of artists, and refuse the dangerous gift of pre-eminence to any.'

In England the school of the individual great artist upon the continental plan seems to have had no counterpart. Favourite portrait-painters have, now and then, employed a staff of subordinates to paint the draperies, and fill in the backgrounds of their works, but the persons thus employed have been mechanicians rather than artists. Northcote was the pupil of Reynolds, and Harlowe was taught by Lawrence; but in neither case was there much attempt at maintaining a school of manner, as it would be understood out of England. The works of Northcote and Harlowe contain traces of the teaching of their preceptors little more than do the productions of their contemporaries, and they certainly bequeathed no distinct traditions of style to their successors. In England the foundation of a National Academy, or of an institution in any measure manifesting the characteristics of a National Academy, took place long subsequent to the rise of the foreign Academies. And the English Royal Academy, as at present constituted, cannot be said to occupy a position analogous to that of foreign academies. As was expressed in the Report of the Parliamentary Committee of 1836: 'It is not a public national institution like the French Academy, since it lives by exhibition and takes money at the door, yet it possesses many of the privileges of a public body without bearing the direct burthen of public responsibility.' Or, as was succinctly explained by Mr. Westmacott, himself an academician, before the commissioners appointed in 1863 to inquire into the position of the Royal Academy: 'When we wish not to be interfered with we are private, when we want anything of the public we are public;' and then he goes on to say: 'The Academy is distinctly a private institution, and, admitting it is not perfect, doing great public good all for nothing,'i.e., without charge. Mr. Westmacott was unconsciously pleading guilty to Haydon's accusation that 'the academicians constituted in truth a private society, which they always put forward when you wish to examine them, and they always proclaim themselves a public society when they want to benefit by any public vote.'

For long years the sentiment had prevailed in England that art was no affair of the State, had no sort of interest for the governing power of the country, or indeed for the general public; and it was, of course, left to those persons to whom an Academy of Art was in any way a matter of necessity or importance, to found such an institution for themselves. Certainly the encouragement given to the painter during the first half of the eighteenth century was insignificant enough. He was viewed much as the astrologer or the alchemist; his proceedings, the world argued, were sufficiently foolish and futile, but still harmless; he was not particularly in anybody's way, and therefore it was not worth anybody's while to molest or displace him. But as for patronizing, or valuing, or rewarding him, turning upon him the light of the royal countenance, or cheering him with popular applause, those were quite other matters. King, and Court, and people had vastly different things to think about. He was just suffered, not succoured in any way. He must get on as well as he could, educating, improving, helping himself. As for aid from the State, that was absolutely out of the question.

For the benefit of his brother artists and of himself, therefore, Sir Godfrey Kneller, who had lived in happier times, so far as art was concerned—for the Stuarts had some love for poetry and painting, though the Hanoverian sovereigns had not—instituted a private drawing Academy in London in the year 1711. Of this Academy, Vertue, who collected the materials for the 'Anecdotes of Painting,' which Walpole digested and published, was one of the first members, studying there some years; and it was probably of this institution that Hogarth wrote in 1760, describing it as founded by some gentlemen painters of the first rank, who, in imitation of the Academy of France, introduced certain forms and solemnities into their proceedings which were objectionable to several members, and led to divisions and jealousies in the general body. Finally, the president and his followers, finding themselves caricatured and opposed, locked out their opponents and closed the Academy.

Sir James Thornhill, who had headed the most important of the parties into which the institution had become divided, and who held the appointment of historical painter to George I., then submitted to the Government of the day a plan for the foundation of a Royal Academy which should encourage and educate the young artists of England. He proposed that a suitable building, with apartments for resident professors, should be erected at the upper end of the King's Mews, Charing Cross. The cost of carrying out this plan was estimated at little more than three thousand pounds; but although Lord Treasurer Halifax gave his support, the Government negatived the proposition, and declined to find the necessary means.

Sir James, not altogether daunted by his ill success, determined to do what he could on his own responsibility, and without aid from the Treasury. He opened a Drawing Academy, therefore, at his house in James Street, Covent Garden, on the east side, where, as a writer in 1804 describes the situation, 'the back offices and painting-room abutted upon Langford's (then Cock's) Auction Room in the Piazza,' and gave tickets to all who desired admission. It is to be feared that Sir James's generosity was somewhat abused. Certain it is that dissensions arose in his Academy as in Kneller's; that one Vandrebank headed an opposition party, and at length withdrew with his adherents to found a rival school. According to Hogarth, 'he converted an old meeting-house into an Academy, and introduced a female figure to make it more inviting to subscribers.' But this establishment did not last long, the subscriptions were not forthcoming, and the fittings and furniture of the school were seized for debt. Upon the death of Sir James, in 1734, his Academy was also closed.

But a school had now become indispensably necessary to the artists of the day. After a time they forgot their differences, and again united. Hogarth had become possessed of his father-in-law Sir James Thornhill's furniture, which he was willing to lend to an association of artists founding a new school; a subscription was accordingly arranged, and a room 'large enough to admit of thirty or forty persons drawing after a naked figure,' was hired in the house of Mr. Hyde, a painter in Greyhound Court, Arundel Street, Strand. Hogarth, attributing the failure of preceding academies to an assumption of superior authority on the part of members whose subscriptions were of largest amount, proposed that all members should equally contribute to the maintenance of the establishment, and should possess equal rights of voting on all questions relative to its affairs. For many years this academy, which, in 1738, removed to more convenient premises[6]in Peter's Court, St. Martin's Lane, existed in a most satisfactory manner. To this school of Hogarth's, as we may fairly consider it, the majority of the English painters of the reign of George II. and the early part of George III., owed much of their art education. Perhaps the success of the school was due in great part to the discretion and good management of the artist who had been nominated its chief instructor: George Michael Moser, a gold and silver chaser, enameller and modeller, Swiss by birth. Something also it owed to its unpretentious yet practical and utilitarian character. The artists were bound together by mutual convenience; their school, conferring no degrees, aiming at no distinction, was of equal advantage to all. It was strictly a private institution, in no way attracting to itself public notice or asking for aid from the public purse.

In 1734 there had been founded in England the Dilettanti Society, composed of noblemen and gentlemen who had travelled abroad, and professed a taste for the fine arts. In 1749, this society found itself rich and influential enough to contemplate the establishment of an academy of art, and even took steps to obtain a site on the south side of Cavendish Square, and to purchase Portland stone for the erection there of a building adapted to the purpose, on the plan of the Temple at Pola. The society then put itself in correspondence with the School of Painters in St. Martin's Lane, asking for co-operation and assistance in the carrying out of the project. The painters, however, according to Sir Robert Strange's account of the transaction, held back: they objected to aid in the formation of an academy of art which was not to be under the absolute rule and government of artists. Thereupon the Dilettanti Society declined to find funds for the foundation of an institute over which, when completed, they were to possess no influence whatever, in the management of which they were to be absolutely without voice; and the negotiation was accordingly brought to an abrupt conclusion. (We may note here that, curiously enough, the Royal Commission of 1863 proposed, in some degree, a reversion to this abortive project, and recommended the introduction of a lay element into the governing body of the present Royal Academy.)

The proposal of the Dilettanti Society, though rejected, seems yet, after the lapse of a few years, to have tempted the painters in St. Martin's Lane to enlarge the boundaries of their institution. In 1753 they fancied the time had come when, with the support of the general body of artists in England, an effort might be made to found a national academy. A circular was addressed to all the well-known artists by Francis Milner Newton, the secretary of the school in St. Martin's Lane, calling their attention to a scheme for establishing a public academy of painting, sculpture and architecture, for erecting a suitable building, receiving subscriptions, appointing professors, making regulations for the instruction of students, etc. The circular concluded by requesting attendance at a meeting to be held at the Turk's Head, in Gerard Street, Soho, when the election of thirteen painters, three sculptors, one chaser, two engravers, and two architects, in all twenty-one, for the purposes of the academy, would be proceeded with. But this scheme met with little support, and was abandoned. Its projectors, defeated and ridiculed—the subjects of several caricatures of the period—had to fall back again among their fellow-artists, probably with little advantage to the harmony of the general body.

Yet the plan of an academy, though it had met with very inconsiderable encouragement, was not suffered to die out absolutely; somehow the thing took root, and even grew, in a measure, making no very great sign of vitality however. But it produced a pamphlet now and then—found unexpected advocates here and there, dragged on a sickly, invalid sort of existence. In 1755, a committee of artists resumed the idea, but this time they appeared to the sympathies of the general public, proposing to raise an academy as charitable institutions are established, by aid of popular benevolence, and to apply for a charter of incorporation from the Crown, the terms of the charter being formally drawn up, and even published. The prospectus made handsome mention of the pecuniary assistance which had been some time before proffered by the Dilettanti Society; whereupon the society renewed its promise of support, and re-opened negotiations with the committee of artists. But difficulties again arose. Sir Robert Strange, who attended the meetings of the parties, found on the part of the Dilettanti Society 'that generosity and benevolence which are peculiar to true greatness;' but on the side of the majority of the artists, he regretted to observe 'motives apparently limited to their own views and ambition to govern.' Again the negotiation was broken off, the project went to pieces, and now the hope of establishing a national academy in England seemed in its worst plight—hopeless—gone down to zero.

In 1757, Hogarth, on the resignation of his brother-in-law, Mr. Thornhill, was appointed, in the sixtieth year of his age, painter to the king. Hogarth, it may be noted, had always opposed the attempt to found an academy. He supported the plan of an art-school, deeming such an institution of practical value to the painter. But he appears to have thought that an academy would only multiply portrait painters, of whom there was quite a sufficiency, would not create a demand for works of real art-value, or improve the taste of patrons in that respect. In 1758, Hogarth's idea of an art-school met with unexpected support in the opening of the Duke of Richmond's Gallery of Casts and Statues at Whitehall. Invitation to students was given by public advertisements. For a time Cipriani gave instruction in the gallery, and it is recorded that the result was a purer taste among British artists in the drawing of the human figure than they had previously displayed.

And now help was to come to the plan of an academy from a most unexpected source, in a most accidental way. In the reign of George II., if little was done for art and artists, great interest was displayed in works of public benevolence. From that period dates the rise of very many national hospitals and charitable institutions of various kinds. Among others, the London Foundling Hospital, which was incorporated in 1739, and received especial favour and support from the legislature and the public. To the sympathy with the objects of this charity displayed by the artists, are attributable the first recognition of them by the nation as a community meriting regard and assistance; and ultimately the rise and progress of an Academy of Art in England.

In 1740, when Handel came forward to aid the funds of the charity by the performance of his oratorios, Hogarth presented to the governors of the institution his famous portrait of Captain Coram, and designed an emblematical decoration to be placed over the chief entrance of the hospital, then in Hatton Garden. In 1745, the west wing of the present edifice in Guildford Street being completed, other artists followed Hogarth's example, and presented, or promised to present, to the hospital specimens of their art. In 1746, the grateful court of the charity elected its artist-benefactors—Hayman, Hudson, Allan Ramsay, Lambert (the scene-painter), Wilson, Moser, Pine, Hogarth, and Rysbrack (the sculptor), among them—to be governors, with leave to dine at the hospital, at their own expense, on the 5th of November in each year, to commemorate the landing of King William III., and 'to consider what further ornaments might be added to the building without expense to the charity.' For many years the artists availed themselves of this opportunity—met, dined, drank claret and punch, and discussed professional affairs to their hearts' content.

The Foundling had become quite a pet charity with Parliament and people. It was assisted by donations from the Crown and grants from Government; while voluntary contributions from the public flowed liberally into its treasury. From 1756 to 1760 nearly 15,000 children were received into the asylum. The open, uninquiring system, still existing on the Continent, then prevailed. A basket hung at the gate, in which to deposit the child, on whose behalf the aid of the institution was to be invoked; a bell was then rung to give notice was forthwith received and provided for. The hospital to the officers of the establishment, and the foundling became the resort and rendezvous of all classes. The public seemed never to weary of watching over and visiting itsprotégés, and the donations of the artists which adorned the walls of the hospital, were greatly admired and talked about, and soon became of themselves a decided source of attraction. The nation began to appreciate the fact that it possessed some really excellent English painters, and the painters made the discovery that there existed a large public interested in them and in their doings, and prepared to give favour and support to an exhibition of works of art.

In November 1759, a meeting was held at the Turk's Head, Gerard Street, Soho, which seems to have been a sort of house of call for artists, as well as for literary men,[7]when it was resolved that once in every year, at a place to be appointed by a committee, chosen annually, for carrying the design into execution, there should be held an exhibition of the performances of painters, sculptors, architects, engravers, chasers, seal-cutters, and medallists, the profits to be expended in charity—'towards the support of those artists whose age and infirmities, or other lawful hindrances, prevent them from being any longer candidates for fame;' the charge for admittance to be one shilling each person. A committee of sixteen was chosen, consisting of six painters, two sculptors, two architects, two engravers, one seal-cutter, one chaser, one medallist, and the secretary, to which office Mr. Francis William Newton had been appointed, to carry out the views of the meeting.

Application was then made to the Society of Arts, which had been established five years previously by Mr. Shipley, of Northampton (brother of the bishop of St. Asaph), to permit the use of its rooms, then in the Strand, opposite Beaufort Buildings, for the purposes of the proposed exhibition. The Society gave its consent, deciding that the period of exhibition should be from the 21st of April to the 8th of May, and only objecting to the proposal that money should be taken at the doors for admission. This objection was removed by admitting the public gratis, and charging sixpence for the catalogue of the works of art on view. Sixty-nine artists sent works to the exhibition. The number of works exhibited was 130. The Society's rooms were crowded to inconvenience; the exhibition was a great success. There was a sale of 6582 catalogues; the proceeds enabling the committee to defray all expenses, to purchase £100 consols, and to retain a small balance in hand. No record was kept of the number of visitors to the exhibition; the purchase of catalogues was not obligatory, so the amount sold is hardly a clue to the number of visitors. Many doubtless dispensed with catalogues altogether, and many borrowed from their friends. But the results of the exhibition satisfied its warmest well-wishers.

There was but one drawback to the general satisfaction. The Society of Arts conceived itself at liberty to exhibit among the other works the drawings of certain of its students, whose industry and merit had entitled them to gold medals and other rewards. The untutored public, misled by the talk about prizes, persisted in regarding these juvenile essays as the works judged by thecognoscentito be the most meritorious of the whole exhibition, and rendered them the homage of extraordinary attention and admiration accordingly. Mature professors of art had to endure the mortification of finding their best productions passed over by the unskilful multitude, and the highest praises awarded to mere beginners. The newspapers of the day—newspapers have never been very learned in art matters—fell into the same delusion, and in their notices of the exhibition, paid attention only to these most over-rated prize-holders.

But, altogether, the artists had good cause to be satisfied. They had held the first exhibition of works of art in England, and the exhibition had thoroughly succeeded. They had opened up a new source of profit to themselves in the display of their productions. They had obtained from the general public recognition of themselves and their profession. The Crown might be negligent of them, the State might be apathetic as to affairs of art, aristocratic patrons might be led astray by theignis fatuusof love of the old masters, by the fashionable tastes for antiquities; but here was 'the million' on the side of its artist compatriots; the voice of the nation had declared itself in favour of the nation's art. Really there seemed at last to be hope, if not something more, for the English painter, and the long-looked-for English academy appeared fairly discernible on the horizon.

The decided success of the exhibition in the Strand was yet attended by certain disadvantages. Ill-fortune would probably have closely united the artists; prosperity seems to have divided them—to have engendered among them jealousies and dissensions. The proceeds of the exhibition soon proved a source of encumbrance and difficulty to the exhibitors. Their original intention had been to apply their profits to the relief of distressed painters. But now among a certain party a strong feeling was manifested in favour of devoting the money to the advancement of art. Finally it was resolved that the matter should stand over until the funds should have accumulated to the amount of £500, and that a vote of the majority of artists should then decide the question.

Further evidences of disorganization and want of definite aim were to come. While many artists desired to continue relations with the Society of Arts, others regarded the conditions imposed by that Society as vexatious and embarrassing. Particularly they objected to the introduction into their exhibition of the works of the Society's students. They represented further that the exhibition had been 'crowded and incommoded by the intrusion of persons whose stations and educations disqualified them for judging of statuary and painting, and who were made idle and tumultuous by the opportunity of attending a show;' and by way of remedy, proposed that in future the price of the catalogue should be one shilling, and that no person should be admitted without one, but that a catalogue once purchased should serve as a ticket of admission during the season. The Society of Arts, however, distinctly refused assent to these changes. The dispute quickened, waxed warm. Finally a large and distinguished section of the artists, comprising in its ranks the committee of sixteen who had managed the first exhibition, determined to sever their connexion with the Society of Arts, and to assert their independence. They accordingly engaged a room of an auctioneer in Spring Gardens for a display of their works during May 1761. The more timid party still clung to the friendly Society in the Strand, and there held a second exhibition. From the spring of 1761, therefore, there were two exhibitions of works of art in London.

The exhibitors in Spring Gardens styled themselves the 'Society of Artists of Great Britain;' the old committee of sixteen being at the head of the affairs of the new society. The designs on their catalogue by Wale and Hogarth demonstrated their intention to devote their revenue to the relief of the distressed. Of the catalogue, rendered attractive by these embellishments, 13,000 copies were sold. No charge was made for admission; but the purchase of a catalogue was made imperative. The catalogue, however, was a ticket of admission for the season. The receipts of the exhibition of 1761 amounted to £650.

At the other exhibition in the Strand, to which sixty-five artists contributed, the old system prevailed. Visitors were at liberty to purchase a catalogue or not, as they chose; but a check was placed upon the indiscriminate admission of all classes by requiring from visitors the production of tickets which had been distributed gratuitously by the exhibitors, and were readily obtainable. After defraying all expenses the exhibition produced upwards of £150, which sum was appropriated in benefactions—to the Middlesex Hospital £50, to the British Lying-in Hospital £50, to the Asylum for Female Orphans £50, the small balance remaining after these donations being distributed among distressed artists. In the following year the Strand exhibitors took the first practical measures for founding a provident society for the benefit of British artists by forming themselves into an organized body, with a constitution and rules for their proper government, and assuming the title of 'The Free Society of Artists, Associated for the Relief of the Distressed and Decayed Brethren, their Widows and Children.' The society was to be maintained by the sale of the catalogues of an annual exhibition, or by charging for admission to such exhibition, as a committee of management to be chosen every year should determine; such committee having also power to reject the works sent in that they might deem unworthy of exhibition, and to hang or dispose of accepted works 'without respect to persons.' Every artist who contributed works to the exhibition for five years in succession, intermission by reason of illness or absence from the country not being a disqualification, was to be a perpetual member of the society and entitled to share in its benefits and privileges. In 1763 the institution took legal shape, and was 'enrolled of record in His Majesty's Court of King's Bench,' fifty members signing the roll.

Meanwhile the rival association had not been idle. It had increased the number of its committee from sixteen to twenty-four; this committee exercising absolute authority over the affairs of the society. Vacancies in its numbers were filled up by the remaining committee-men, without reference to the society, while it enjoined upon its members that its transactions should be kept a profound secret from the general body of the society. Already a love of rule seems to have gained upon this committee. Its members began to regard themselves in the light of academicians for life—as perpetual governors, rather than officers of the society, removable at its pleasure: an erroneous view of their position which led to much trouble in the sequel. Other changes had taken place—a charge of one shilling was made for admission to the exhibition of 1762, the catalogue being given gratis, and appended to the catalogue appeared an address written on behalf of the society by Dr. Johnson, explaining the objects of the exhibition, the reason for charging for admission to it, and a change that had been determined upon in regard to the appropriation of the society's revenues. 'The purpose of this exhibition,' declared the address, 'is not to enrich the artists, but to advance the art; the eminent are not flattered by preference, nor the obscure insulted with contempt. Whoever hopes to deserve public favour is here invited to display his merit.' When the terms of admission were low, it was stated, the rooms 'were thronged with such multitudes as made access dangerous, and frightened away those whose approbation was most desired.' A curious plan for appropriating the expected profits was then set forth. The works sent in for exhibition were to be reviewed by the committee of management, and a price secretly set on every work and registered by the secretary. At the close of the exhibition the works were to be sold by auction; if they sold for more than the price fixed by the committee, the artists were to receive the increased amount, but if they sold for less, then the deficiency was to be made up to the artists out of the profits of the exhibition. For the most part the pictures at the subsequent sale by auction did not realize the prices set upon them by the committee, and upwards of £120 had to be paid to the artists out of the exhibition funds. Upon the whole, the plan did not work very well. The society's attempt to come between buyer and seller satisfied neither party. After this one experiment, the scheme was abandoned.

The society had, however, little reason to complain of want of public support. In 1762 the exhibition produced over £520, and in 1763, £560. In 1764, the receipts rose to £760. But the internal economy of the institution was in a less satisfactory state. Many members expressed discontent at the arbitrary power exercised by the committee—a permanent body, not always recruited from the best sources, for many of the most eminent artists declined to accept office, or were neglectful of their duties as committee-men, so that ultimately there seemed to be danger of the whole government of the society falling into the hands of the least competent, if the most active, of its members. And the society was much in want of a distinct legal status. After all, it was but a private sort of corporation most imperfectly constituted; it was growing rich without its property being regularly secured to it. Enrolment was not regarded as sufficiently answering this object, and it was proposed at a general meeting of the members that the Crown should be solicited to incorporate the society by charter. The committee, content with the existing state of things under which they exercised extreme authority, opposed these projects. However, the general body proved too strong for them; the charter was petitioned for and granted on the 26th of January 1765. In substance it followed the terms of the charter which had been proposed by the artists ten years before, when an attempt had been made to establish an academy 'on general benevolence.' It placed no limit to the number of the society's members, or 'Fellows,' as they were thenceforward to be called; the committee-men being designated 'Directors.' It gave the society arms, a crest, a constitution, power to hold land (not exceeding the yearly value of £1000), to sue and to be sued, etc.; and it authorized the society, every St. Luke's Day, to elect Directors to serve for the ensuing year. In other respects the charter was somewhat indefinite; but it was presumed that under the power to make bye-laws, all points in dispute might be finally dealt with and adjusted. The 'Fellows' were disposed to be conciliatory. They elected the late committee to be the first 'Directors,' under the charter. Everything seemed to promise well. Two hundred and eleven artists signed the roll of the society, promising to the utmost of their power to observe and conform to the statutes and orders, and to promote the honour and interest of the 'Society of Incorporated Artists of Great Britain.'

But between the Fellows and the Directors there seems to have been but a hollow truce after all. They were bent upon different plans and objects. The Fellows entertained practical views enough. The only academy of art was still the very inadequate private school in St. Martin's Lane—a distinct institution, a common resort of artists, whether members of a society or not. The Fellows desired out of the funds of their society to found a public academy of a high class, that should be of real value to the profession. The Directors, among whom the architects Chambers and Payne were remarkably active, proposed, on the other hand, 'that the funds should be laid out in the decoration of some edifice adapted to the objects of the institution.' The Fellows declared that in this project the society, as a whole, had no interest; and at a general meeting in March 1767, they carried a resolution 'that it should be referred to the Directors to consider a proper, form for instituting a public academy, and to lay the same before the meeting in September next.' An attempt was then made on the part of the Directors to comply with the terms of this resolution, and yet to reserve the funds of the society for the future carrying out of their own pet scheme.

Dalton, an artist of very inconsiderable fame, who held the appointment of librarian to the King, was treasurer to the Incorporated Society, and a leading member of its direction. He had, some time previously, attempted to establish a print warehouse in Pall Mall, but the speculation had signally failed; accordingly the speculator had been left with very expensive premises on his hands. He now conceived that his warehouse might readily be converted into a very respectable academy of arts, and he contrived to obtain the King's encouragement of the plan. Soon, at another general meeting, the Fellows were informed that the King intended to take the fine arts under his special protection, and to institute a public academy under royal patronage. At these good tidings opposition ceased. The resolution passed at the March meeting of the society was at once repealed. Universal satisfaction prevailed; there was great rejoicing among the Fellows at the brilliant prospects dawning upon art and artists. The words 'Royal Academy' were substituted for 'Print Warehouse' over the door of Mr. Dalton's house in Pall Mall. The subscribers to the school in St. Martin's Lane, on the representation of Mr. Moser that they would thenceforward have free access to the Royal Academy, that their school would be thus superseded, and that their furniture would consequently be of no further use to them, were prevailed upon to assign to him their anatomical figures, busts, statues, lamps, and other effects and fittings, which were forthwith removed to Pall Mall. But bitter disappointment was to follow all this hopefulness and satisfaction. It soon appeared that there was no money applicable to the support of the royal establishment. The King had given nothing. The Directors would consent to no outlay from the society's funds. The Royal Academy was to be self-supporting. The artists had in truth gained not at all—were in a somewhat worse position than before. They were required to pay an annual fee of one guinea to an academy in which their comfort and convenience were less studied than in the old school in St. Martin's Lane. For now the disturbing element of non-professional membership was permitted. Any person, not intending to study, was allowed entrance to the academy, on payment of an annual guinea. The discontent of the artists was extreme, and was vehemently expressed.

Public interest in the society, however, had meanwhile in no way abated. The exhibition of 1767 produced over eleven hundred pounds. But the dissensions of the Directors and Fellows had become notorious—- arrested general attention, and attracted the comments and censures of the newspapers. The Fellows forthwith determined to effect a change in the composition of the directorate, whose oppression and mismanagement had been, as they judged, so fatal to the interests of the general body. It was proposed that a bye-law should be passed, rendering compulsory the retirement of eight out of the twenty-four Directors every year, and that the retiring Directors should be replaced by other members of the society. But this not unreasonable proposition was strenuously resisted by the Directors, who argued that by the terms of the charter exclusive authority to originate new laws was vested in them absolutely. It was at length determined between the contending parties that the question should be decided by a reference to the opinion of the Attorney-General. The Directors, after much procrastination, drew up and submitted their case. The Attorney-General (Mr. William de Grey, afterwards Lord Walsingham) was of opinion, in answer to the questions put to him, that under the charter the Directors were to make laws, and the general body to approve or reject the same, and that, therefore, the Directors were not bound to take into consideration a resolution of a general meeting in order to form it into a bye-law. But it was suggested that the Directors should consider how far it might be prudent to accept such a resolution, 'since the same majority that resolved might unite in electing Directors of the same opinion with themselves, especially in the case of resolutions that appeared to be reasonable and proper;' the Attorney-General being further of opinion that the proposed bye-law was not in any way inconsistent with the terms of the society's charter. Upon this opinion the Fellows acted. They submitted to the Directors the enactment of a bye-law rendering no more than sixteen of the existing Directors capable of being re-elected for the year ensuing. The Directors were obstinate: they declared that the proposed law would be an attack on the freedom of elections, a dangerous innovation, and an ungrateful return for all the exertions they had made on behalf of the society. At the general meeting following this, held on St. Luke's day, the 18th of October 1768, the struggle terminated: the Fellows, made less moderate by opposition, elected sixteen of their number to fill the places of sixteen old Directors, who were superseded and deposed. Mr. Joshua Kirby was appointed president in the room of Mr. Hayman, who had succeeded to that post on the death of Mr. Lambert in 1765; Mr. Newton and Mr. Dalton were removed from the offices of secretary and treasurer. On the 10th November the eight remaining of the old Directors declared that they could not act with their new colleagues, believing them bent upon measures repugnant to the charter and tending to the destruction of the society; and accordingly they placed their resignations in the hands of Mr. Kirby, the new president. They desired to be understood, however, as not objecting to all the new Directors. On the contrary, they professed to entertain the highest esteem for Mr. Kirby himself and 'some others,' who had been elected to their offices without taking part in any intrigue, and who, as being men of honour and ability in their professions, were extremely proper persons to fill the places they occupied. The conflict was thus brought to a close. The Fellows had delivered their society from the persistent misrule under which it had so long suffered. The price of this emancipation was, in the first place, the loss of all the twenty-four Directors. Further and more important results, however, were to be forthcoming.

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