ART AND ARTISTS.
WASHINGTON ALLSTON was born at Charleston, in South Carolina, on the 5th November, 1779, of a family distinguished in the history of that State. He entered Harvard College in 1796, and graduated in 1800. While at college he developed in a marked manner a love of music, poetry, and painting. On leaving college, he returned to South Carolina, having determined to devote his life to the fine arts, and embarked for London in 1801. On his arrival, he became a student of the Royal Academy, and formed an intimacy with his countryman, Benjamin West, who was its president. After three years in London, he paid visits to Paris and Rome, and in 1809 returned to America. Two years afterwards, we find him again in England, where his reputation as an artist was now completely established. In 1818 he returned to America, making Boston his home.
Mrs. Jameson, in her “Memoirs and Essays, illustrative of Art,” says: “At Rome Allston first became distinguished as a mellow and harmonious colourist, and acquired among the native German painters the name of “the American Titian.”
When in London, Allston paid a professional visit toFuseli, who asked him what branch of art he intended to pursue. He replied, “History.” “Then, sir,” answered the shrewd and intelligent professor of painting, “you have come a long way to starve.”
Allston was the author of several poems, which, with his lectures on art, are edited by R. H. Dana, jun., and published in New York. He died on the 9th of July, 1843.
HIS OPINION OF HIS OWN PAINTING.
Some years after Allston had acquired a considerable reputation as a painter, a friend showed him a miniature, and begged he would give his sincere opinion upon its merits, as the young man who drew it had some thoughts of becoming a painter by profession. After much pressing, Allston candidly told the gentleman he feared the lad would never do anything as a painter, and advised his following some more congenial pursuit. The friend thereupon convinced him that the miniature had been done by Allston himself, for this very gentleman, when the painter was very young.
FRANCESCO BARTOLOZZI was born in Florence, in the year 1728, where his father kept a shop, and followed the business of a goldsmith, on the Ponto Vecchio. Young Bartolozzi was taught drawing by Feretti, a drawing-master in Florence, and instructed in engraving by one Corsi, a very indifferent artist. His earliest attempts in engraving were copying prints from Freyand Wagner, and engraving shop-cards, and saints for friars. His first work, considered of any consequence, was from a picture in the cloisters of Santa Maria Novella, in Florence. When he was about eighteen, by the advice of Feretti, he sent a specimen of his abilities to Wagner, at Venice, which was satisfactorily received; and from that time he became his pupil and assistant, and remained with him ten years. While he was with Wagner, Bartolozzi married and went to Rome, where he remained a year and a half. Among other works, he engraved, while at Rome, several heads of painters for Bottari’s edition of Vasari.
In the year 1762, Mr. Dalton, the King’s agent for works of art, being at Venice, introduced himself to the artist, and took him to Bologna to make two drawings,—a Cupid, from Guido, and the Circumcision, from Guercino, which he afterwards engraved for him.
At Mr. Dalton’s invitation, Bartolozzi started for London in the year 1764, and, on arriving in the metropolis, he found his fame had, through the joint influence of his friend Cipriani and Mr. Dalton, brought many noted personages to his lodgings, desirous to make the artist’s personal acquaintance. For three years and a half he was wholly employed by Mr. Dalton, at a guinea a day. He was one of the twenty-seven artists who memorialized the King to establish a Royal Academy, and was nominated a Royal Academician on its establishment in 1768. After quitting Cipriani’s house, he lived in Broad Street, and in Bentinck Street, Soho; and at last settled in a house at North End, Fulham, where he took great delight in gardening, and where he remained to live till November, 1802, when he went to Portugal; after a residence in England of more than thirty-eight years.
Although Bartolozzi was greatly patronized by the public in this country, and in the receipt of a large income, and his works held in the highest estimation, yet, with a morbid sensibility, he always felt himself to be a foreigner, and never quite at home in England. At Lisbon he gave his attention to the superintendence of a school of engraving recently established, from which he received the sum of £200 yearly for his services.
The week before he left England, Lord Pelham sent his private secretary to inform him that he was authorized by His Majesty to make him an offer of £400 a year to remain in England, and more, if that was not sufficient; but this munificence Bartolozzi respectfully declined.
He died in the year 1815, in the eighty-fifth year of his age.
INTERVIEW WITH GEORGE III.
“I was shaving myself in the morning,” says Bartolozzi, “when a thundering rapping at the door announced the glad tidings, and I cut myself in my hurry to go to Buckingham House, where I was told His Majesty was waiting for me in the library. When I arrived, I found the King on his hands and knees on the floor, cleaning a large picture with a wet sponge, and Mr. Dalton, Mr. Barnard, the librarian, and another person standing by. The subject of the picture was the ‘Murder of the Innocents,’ said to be by Paul Veronese, and I was sent for to give my opinion of its originality. Mr. Dalton named me to the King as a proper judge, as I had so lately come from Venice; and I suppose he intended to give me some previous instructions; but when delay was proposed, the King said: ‘No; send for Mr. Bartolozzi now, and I willwait here till he comes.’ On my entering the room, the King asked me whether the picture was an undoubted original by Paul Veronese; to which I gave a gentle shrug, without saying a single word. The King seemed to understand the full force of the expression, and, without requiring any further comment, asked me how I liked England, and if I found the climate agree with me; and then walked out at the window which led into the garden, and left Mr. Dalton to roll up his picture; and here ended the consultation. The picture was an infamous copy, and offered to the King for themoderateprice of one thousand guineas.”
WILLIAM BEECHEY was born at Burford, in Oxfordshire, in the year 1753. It is recorded of this painter that the circumstance of a portrait of a nobleman which he had painted being returned by the hanging committee of the Exhibition led to his rapid advancement in life. The picture found its way to Buckingham House, was much admired by the royal family; and so led to his receiving the patronage of His Majesty. In 1798 he was commissioned to paint George III. on horseback reviewing the troops. Beechey excelled in portrait-painting. Though neat and delicate in his colouring, his portraits want that dignity and grace so well shown in those of the great master, Reynolds. He died in the year 1839.
INTERVIEW WITH HOLCROFT.
In Holcroft’s diary occurs the following reference to this painter:—
“15 July, 1798.—Sir William Beechey, with his young son, called; he was lately knighted. Speaks best on painting, the subject on which we chiefly conversed. Said that a notion prevailed in Italy, that pictures having a brown tone had most the hue of Titian; and that the picture-dealers of Italy smeared them over with some substance which communicates this tone. Of this I doubt. Repeated a conversation at which he was present, when Burke endeavoured to persuade Sir Joshua Reynolds to alter his picture of ‘The Dying Cardinal,’ by taking away the devil, which Burke said was an absurd and ridiculous incident, and a disgrace to the artist. Sir Joshua replied, that if Mr. Burke thought proper, he could argueper contra; and Burke asked him if he supposed him so unprincipled as to speak from anything but conviction. ‘No,’ said Sir Joshua; ‘but had you happened to take the other side, you could have spoken with equal force.’... Beechey praised my portrait, painted by Opie, but said the colouring was too foxy; allowed Opie great merit, especially in his picture of ‘The Crowning of Henry VI. at Paris;’ agreed with me that he had a bold and determined mind, and that he nearest approached the fine colouring of Rembrandt.”
SIR FRANCIS was born on the 7th of April, 1782, at Norton, in Derbyshire. He was early apprenticed to a carver, with whom he served three years. In the year 1816, at the early age of eight-and-twenty, he became an Associate of the Royal Academy, and after two years’ close study he was elected an Academician. It has been justlysaid of this artist, that all his statues proclaim themselves at once the works of a deeply-thinking man. His most celebrated sepulchral monument, entitled “The Sleeping Children,” is known all over Europe by engravings. It was erected in memory of two children of the late William Robinson, Esq. Chantrey died at his house, in Pimlico, on the 25th of November, 1841.
CHANTREY’S PRICES.
In 1808 Chantrey received a commission to execute four colossal busts for Greenwich Hospital:—those of Duncan, Howe, St. Vincent, and Nelson; and from this time his prosperity began. During the eight previous years he declared he had not gained five pounds by his labours as a modeller; and until he executed the bust of Horne Tooke, in clay, in 1811, he was himself diffident of success. He was, however, entrusted with commissions to the amount of £12,000. His prices at this time were eighty or a hundred guineas for a bust, and he continued to work at this rate for three years, after which he raised his terms to a hundred and twenty, and a hundred and fifty guineas, and continued these prices until the year 1822, when he again raised the terms to two hundred guineas; and when he modelled the bust of George IV., the King wished him to increase the price, and insisted that the bust of himself should not return to the artist a less sum than three hundred guineas.
HORNE TOOKE.
Horne Tooke had rendered Chantrey many important services, for which the latter through life took every opportunity to show his gratitude. About a year previous to Horne Tooke’s death, he desired the artist to procure forhim a large black marble slab to place over his grave, which he intended should be in his garden at Wimbledon. This commission Chantrey executed, and went with Mrs. Chantrey to dine with Tooke on the day that it was forwarded to the dwelling of the latter. On the sculptor’s arrival, his host merrily exclaimed, “Well, Chantrey, now that you have sent my tombstone, I shall be sure to live a year longer,” which was actually the case.
EQUESTRIAN FIGURES.
When George IV. was sitting to Chantrey, he required the sculptor to give him the idea of an equestrian statue to commemorate him, which Chantrey accomplished at a succeeding interview by placing in the sovereign’s hand a number of small equestrian figures, drawn carefully on thick paper, and resembling in number and material a pack of cards. These sketches pleased the King very much, who turned them over and over, expressing his surprise that such a variety could be produced; and after a thousand fluctuations of opinion, sometimes for a prancing steed, sometimes for a trotter, then for a neighing or starting charger, His Majesty at length resolved on a horse standing still, as the most dignified for a King. Chantrey probably led to this, as he was decidedly in favour of the four legs being on the ground; he had a quiet and reasonable manner of convincing persons of the propriety of that which from reflection he judged to be preferable.... When he had executed and erected the statue of the King on the staircase at Windsor, His Majesty good-naturedly patted the sculptor on the shoulder, and said, “Chantrey, I have reason to be obliged to you, for you have immortalized me.”
CANDID OPINION.
Mr. Leslie relates the following anecdote:—
“Chantrey told me that on one of his visits to Oxford, Professor Buckland said to him ‘If you will come to me, you shall hear yourself well abused.’ He had borrowed a picture of Bishop Heber, from the Hall of New College, to make a statue from; and having kept it longer than he had promised, the woman who showed the Hall was very bitter against him. ‘There is no dependence,’ she said, ‘to be placed on that Chantrey. He is as bad as Sir Thomas Lawrence, who has served me just the same; there is not a pin to choose between them.’ She pointed to the empty frame, and said, ‘It is many a shilling out of my pocket, the picture not being there; they make a great fuss about that statue of——’ (mentioning one by Chantrey, that had lately been sent to one of the colleges), ‘but we have one by Bacon, which, in my opinion, is twice as good. When Chantrey’s statue came, I had ours washed; I used a dozen pails of water, and I am sure I made it look a great deal better than his.’ He took out a five-shilling piece, and putting it into her hand, but without letting it go, said, ‘Look at me, and tell me whether I look like a very bad man.’ ‘Lord, no, sir.’ ‘Well, then, I am that Chantrey you are so angry with.’ She seemed somewhat disconcerted; but quickly recovering herself, replied, ‘And if you are, sir, I have said nothing but what is true,’ and he resigned the money into her hand.”
FASHION.
On one occasion, at a dinner party, he was placed nearly opposite his wife at table, at the time when very large and full sleeves were worn, of which Lady C. had a veryfashionable complement; and the sculptor perceived that a gentleman sitting next to her was constrained to confine his arms, and shrink into the smallest dimensions, lest he should derange the superfluous attire. Chantrey, observing this, addressed him thus: “Pray, sir, do not inconvenience yourself from the fear of spoiling those sleeves, for that lady is my wife; those sleeves are mine, and as I have paid for them, you are at perfect liberty to risk any injury your personal comfort may cause to those prodigies of fashion!” Also, noticing a lady with sleeves curiously cut, he affected to think the slashed openings were from economical motives, and said, “What a pity the dressmaker should have spoiled your sleeves! It was hardly worth while to save such a little bit of stuff.”
JOHN CONSTABLE, born in Suffolk, in the year 1776, passed his infancy in a beautifully rural country, the scenery of which he was in love with to the day of his death. His predilection for the art was developed before he reached the age of sixteen. Mrs. Constable procured for her son an introduction to Sir George Beaumont. Sir George had expressed himself much pleased with the youth’s pen-and-ink copies. He was sent to pursue his studies in London; and in 1799, writing to a friend, he says:—
“I paint by all the daylight we have, and there is little enough. I sometimes see the sky; but imagine to yourself how a pearl must look through a burnt glass. I employmy evenings in making drawings and in reading, and I hope by the former to clear my rent. If I can, I shall be very happy. Our friend Smith has offered to take any of my pictures into his shop for sale. He is pleased to find I am reasonable in my prices.”
Again, in Leslie’s memoirs of the artist we have the following memorandum of Constable:—
“For these few weeks past I have thought more seriously of my profession than at any other time of my life; of that which is the surest way to excellence. I am just returned from a visit to Sir George Beaumont’s pictures, with a deep conviction of the truth of Sir Joshua Reynolds’ observation, that ‘there is no easy way of becoming a good painter.’ For the last two years I have been running after pictures, and seeking the truth at second-hand. I have not endeavoured to represent nature with the same elevation of mind with which I set out, but have rather tried to make my performances look like the work of other men. I am come to a determination to make no idle visits this summer, nor to give up my time to commonplace people. I shall return to Bergholt, where I shall endeavour to get a pure and unaffected manner of representing the scenes that may employ me. There is little or nothing in the Exhibition worth looking up to.There is room enough for a natural painter.The great vice of the present day isbravura,—an attempt to do something beyond the truth. Fashion always had, and will have, its day; but truth in all things only will last, and can only have just claims on posterity. I have reaped considerable benefit from exhibiting; it shows me where I am, and in fact tells me what nothing else could.”
Constable kept up a wide correspondence among his friends, from which correspondence one of his mostintimate friends, C. R. Leslie, compiled and published, with much taste and discretion, Memoirs of his Life.
Constable died in the year 1837.
ARCHDEACON FISHER.
After preaching one Sunday, the archdeacon asked the artist how he liked his sermon: he replied—“Very much indeed, Fisher; I always did like that sermon.”
CONSTABLES PLEASANTRY.
A picture of a murder sent to the Academy for exhibition while Constable was on the council, was refused admittance on account of a disgusting display of blood and brains in it; but Constable objected still more to the wretchedness of the work, and said: “I see nobrainsin the picture.”
This recalls another which is related of Opie, who, when a young artist asked him what he mixed his colours with, replied, “Brains.”
It being complained to him by his servant that the milk supplied was very poor and weak in quality, he said one morning to the milkman: “In future, we shall feel obliged if you will send us the milk and the water in separate cans.”
WILLIAM COLLINS was born in London, in September, 1788. At an early age his father noticed his son’s talent, and sent him to the Royal Academy to pursue his studies. His skill in a short time was such that he became a valuable assistant to his father in hisbusiness of cleansing and restoring pictures; and when he rose to paint pictures for himself, his father was at a loss what to do without him.
“The first intimation I gave,” says his father, “of my incapacity to restore, or even line, the pictures without the aid of my son William, was on last Wednesday. There was a beautiful large landscape by Ostade—the figures by A. Teniers. I pointed out the necessary repairs in the sky which were wanted to make the picture complete; and, of course, mentioned Bill as superior to every other artist in that department. The squire listened very attentively until I had done, and then inquired what the expense of such repairs might be. I answered, about two or three guineas. “Oh, d——n the sky! clean it and stick it up without any repairs then!”
In 1807, Collins became for the first time exhibitor at the Royal Academy, and fifteen years later a Royal Academician, He married in 1822. He passed the years 1837 and 1838 studying his art in Italy. He says in his journal: “A painter should choose those subjects with which people associate pleasant circumstances: it is not sufficient that a scene pleaseshim.” And this advice it is plain he acted upon himself to the end of his career. While living, he had the satisfaction (very rare to the most successful) of seeing his pictures fetch high prices. For instance—for his “Frost Scene” Sir Robert Peel paid him 500 guineas, Mr. Young gave him for his “Skittle Players” 400 guineas; and the same sum was paid him by Sir Thomas Baring for his “Mussel Gatherers.”
The life of Collins was a success from the first year he entered as a student at the Royal Academy; and though his life has been called uneventful, the English artist will ever cherish his name.
He died in 1847, aged fifty-nine. His Life, with selections from his correspondence, is plainly and affectionately told by the artist’s son, Mr. Wilkie Collins, published in two vols., 1848.
COMPLAINT AGAINST THE HANGING COMMITTEE.
The following are given by Wilkie Collins in his Memoirs.
“To H. Howard, Esq., R.A.Great Portland Street, 1st May, 1811.“Sir,—Finding one of my pictures put upon the hearth in the ‘Great Room,’ where it must inevitably meet with some accident from the people who are continually looking at Mr. Bird’s picture; I take the liberty of requesting you will allow me to order a sort of case to be put round the bottom part of the frame, to protect it (as well as the picture) from the kicks of the crowd. Even the degrading situation in which the picture is placed would not have induced me to trouble you about it had it beenmyproperty; but, as it was painted on commission, I shall be obliged to make good any damage it may sustain.I remain, sir, your obedient, humble servant,W. Collins, Jun.”“To Mr. Collins, Jun.Royal Academy,May1, 1811.“Sir,—I conceive there will be no objection to your having a narrow wooden border put round the picture you speak of, if you think such a precaution necessary, provided it be done any morning before the opening of the Exhibition; and you may show this to the porter as an authority for bringing in a workman for that purpose. I cannot help expressing some surprise that you should consider the situation of your picture degrading, knowing as Ido that the Committee of Arrangement thought it complimentary, and that, as low as it is, many members of the Academy would have been content to have it.I am, sir, your obedient servant,H. Howard,Secretary.”
“To H. Howard, Esq., R.A.Great Portland Street, 1st May, 1811.
“Sir,—Finding one of my pictures put upon the hearth in the ‘Great Room,’ where it must inevitably meet with some accident from the people who are continually looking at Mr. Bird’s picture; I take the liberty of requesting you will allow me to order a sort of case to be put round the bottom part of the frame, to protect it (as well as the picture) from the kicks of the crowd. Even the degrading situation in which the picture is placed would not have induced me to trouble you about it had it beenmyproperty; but, as it was painted on commission, I shall be obliged to make good any damage it may sustain.
I remain, sir, your obedient, humble servant,W. Collins, Jun.”
“To Mr. Collins, Jun.Royal Academy,May1, 1811.
“Sir,—I conceive there will be no objection to your having a narrow wooden border put round the picture you speak of, if you think such a precaution necessary, provided it be done any morning before the opening of the Exhibition; and you may show this to the porter as an authority for bringing in a workman for that purpose. I cannot help expressing some surprise that you should consider the situation of your picture degrading, knowing as Ido that the Committee of Arrangement thought it complimentary, and that, as low as it is, many members of the Academy would have been content to have it.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,H. Howard,Secretary.”
“THE BIRD CATCHERS.”
Mr. Stark, the landscape painter, supplied the following interesting notice of this famous picture:—
“In order to make himself thoroughly acquainted with the process of bird-catching, he (Collins) went into the fields (now the Regent’s Park) before sunrise, and paid a man to instruct him in the whole mystery; and I believe if the arrangement of the nets, cages, and decoy birds, with the disposition of the figures, lines connected with the nets, and birds attached to the sticks, were to be examined by a Whitechapel bird-catcher, he would pronounce them to be perfectly correct. He was unable to proceed with the picture for some days, fancying that he wanted the assistance of Nature in a piece of broken foreground; and whilst this impression remained, he said he should be unable to do more. I went with him to Hampstead Heath; and although he was not successful in meeting with anything that suited his purpose, he felt that he could then finish the picture; but while the impression was on his mind that anything could be procured likely to lead to the perfection of the work, he must satisfy himself by making the effort—even if it proved fruitless. I have perhaps said more on this picture than you may deem necessary; but it was the first work of this description that I had been acquainted with, and the only picture, excepting those of my late master, Crome, that I had ever seen in progress. Moreover, I believe it to have been the first picture of its particularclass ever produced in this country; and this, both in subject and treatment, in a style so peculiarly your late father’s, and one which has gained for him so much fame.”
The painter himself has left the following memoranda on this picture:—
“Two days since, Constable compared a picture to asum; for it is wrong if you can take away or add a figure to it. In my picture of ‘Bird-Catchers,’ to avoid red, blue, and yellow—-to recollect that Callcott advised me to paint some parts of my picture thinly (leaving the ground)—and that he gave credit to the man who never reminded you of the palette.”
HAYDON’S “JUDGMENT OF SOLOMON.”
“Went to Spring Gardens,” says Collins, “to see Haydon’s picture of ‘The Judgment of Solomon.’ In this most extraordinary production there is everything for which the Venetian school is so justly celebrated; with this difference only, that Haydon has considered other qualities equally necessary. Most men who have arrived at such excellence in colour, have seemed to think they have done enough; but with Haydon it was evidently the signal of his desire to have every greatness of every other school. Hence, he lays siege to the drawing and expression of Nature, which, in this picture, he has certainly carried from, and in the very face of, all his competitors. Of the higher qualities of Art are certainly the tone of the whole picture; the delicate variety of colour; the exquisite sentiment in the mother bearing off her children; and the consciousness of Solomon in the efficacy of his demonstration of the real mother. In short, Haydon deserves the praise of every real artist for having proved that it is possible (which, by the way, I never doubted) to add all the beauties of colourand tone to the grandeur of the most sublime subject, without diminishing the effect upon the heart. Haydon has done all this; and produced, upon the whole, the most perfect modern picture I ever saw; and that at the age of seven-and-twenty!”
SAMUEL T. COLERIDGE.
Among the correspondence of Collins occurs the following characteristic letter to him from this celebrated writer.
“To W. Collins, Esq., A.R.A.Highgate,December, 1818.“My dear Sir,—I at once comply with, and thank you for, your request to have some prospectuses. God knows I have so few friends, that it would be unpardonable in me not to feel proportionably grateful towards those few who think the time not wasted in which they interest themselves in my behalf. There is an old Latin adage: ‘Vis videri pauper, et pauper es.’ Poor you profess yourself to be, and poor therefore you are, and will remain. The prosperous feel only with the prosperous; and if you subtract from the whole sum of their feeling for all the gratifications of vanity and all their calculations oflending to the Lord, both of which are best answered by conferring the superfluity of their superfluities on advertised and advertisable distress—or on such as are known to be in all respects their inferiors—you will have, I fear, but a scanty remainder. All this is too true; but then, what is that man to do whom no distress can bribe to swindle or deceive? who cannot reply as Theophilus Cibber did to his father, Colley Cibber, who, seeing him in a rich suit of clothes, whispered to him as he passed, ‘The.! The.! I pity thee!’ ‘Pity me! pity my tailor!’ Spite of the decided approbation which my planof delivering lectures has received from several judicious and highly respectable individuals, it is too histrionic, too much like a retail dealer in instruction and pastime, not to be depressing. If the duty of living were not far more awful to my conscience than life itself is agreeable to my feelings, I should sink under it. But, getting nothing by my publications, which I have not the power of making estimable by the public without loss of self-estimation, what can I do? The few who have won the present age, while they have secured the praise of posterity, as Sir Walter Scott, Mr. Southey, Lord Byron, etc., have been in happier circumstances. And lecturing is the only means by which I can enable myself to go on at all with the great philosophical work to which the best and most genial hours of the last twenty years of my life have been devoted. Poetry is out of the question. The attempt would only hurry me into that sphere of acute feelings from which abstruse research, the mother of self-oblivion, presents an asylum. Yet sometimes, spite of myself, I cannot help bursting out into the affecting exclamation of our Spenser (his ‘wine’ and ‘ivy garland’ interpreted as competence and joyous circumstances),—“Thou kenn’st not, Percy, how the rhyme should rage!Oh if my temples were bedewed with wine,And girt with garlands of wild ivy-twine,How I could rear the Muse on stately stage!And teach her tread aloft in buskin fine,With queen’d Bellona in her equipage—But, ah, my courage cools ere it be warm!”But God’s will be done. To feel the full force of the Christian religion, it is perhaps necessary, for many tempers, that they should first be made to feel, experimentally, the hollowness of human friendship, the presumptuous emptiness of human hopes. I find more substantial comfortnow in pious George Herbert’s ‘Temple,’ which I used to read to amuse myself with his quaintness—in short, only to laugh at—than in all the poetry since the poems of Milton. If you have not read ‘Herbert,’ I can recommend the book to you confidently. The poem entitled ‘The Flower,’ is especially affecting; and, to me, such a phrase as ‘relish versing,’ expresses a sincerity, a reality, which I would unwillingly exchange for the more dignified, ‘and once more love the Muse,’ etc. And so, with many other of Herbert’s homely phrases. We are all anxious to hear from, and of, our excellent transatlantic friend [Mr. Allston]. I need not repeat that your company, with or without our friend Leslie, will gratify your sincere,“S. T. Coleridge.”
“To W. Collins, Esq., A.R.A.Highgate,December, 1818.
“My dear Sir,—I at once comply with, and thank you for, your request to have some prospectuses. God knows I have so few friends, that it would be unpardonable in me not to feel proportionably grateful towards those few who think the time not wasted in which they interest themselves in my behalf. There is an old Latin adage: ‘Vis videri pauper, et pauper es.’ Poor you profess yourself to be, and poor therefore you are, and will remain. The prosperous feel only with the prosperous; and if you subtract from the whole sum of their feeling for all the gratifications of vanity and all their calculations oflending to the Lord, both of which are best answered by conferring the superfluity of their superfluities on advertised and advertisable distress—or on such as are known to be in all respects their inferiors—you will have, I fear, but a scanty remainder. All this is too true; but then, what is that man to do whom no distress can bribe to swindle or deceive? who cannot reply as Theophilus Cibber did to his father, Colley Cibber, who, seeing him in a rich suit of clothes, whispered to him as he passed, ‘The.! The.! I pity thee!’ ‘Pity me! pity my tailor!’ Spite of the decided approbation which my planof delivering lectures has received from several judicious and highly respectable individuals, it is too histrionic, too much like a retail dealer in instruction and pastime, not to be depressing. If the duty of living were not far more awful to my conscience than life itself is agreeable to my feelings, I should sink under it. But, getting nothing by my publications, which I have not the power of making estimable by the public without loss of self-estimation, what can I do? The few who have won the present age, while they have secured the praise of posterity, as Sir Walter Scott, Mr. Southey, Lord Byron, etc., have been in happier circumstances. And lecturing is the only means by which I can enable myself to go on at all with the great philosophical work to which the best and most genial hours of the last twenty years of my life have been devoted. Poetry is out of the question. The attempt would only hurry me into that sphere of acute feelings from which abstruse research, the mother of self-oblivion, presents an asylum. Yet sometimes, spite of myself, I cannot help bursting out into the affecting exclamation of our Spenser (his ‘wine’ and ‘ivy garland’ interpreted as competence and joyous circumstances),—
“Thou kenn’st not, Percy, how the rhyme should rage!Oh if my temples were bedewed with wine,And girt with garlands of wild ivy-twine,How I could rear the Muse on stately stage!And teach her tread aloft in buskin fine,With queen’d Bellona in her equipage—But, ah, my courage cools ere it be warm!”
“Thou kenn’st not, Percy, how the rhyme should rage!Oh if my temples were bedewed with wine,And girt with garlands of wild ivy-twine,How I could rear the Muse on stately stage!And teach her tread aloft in buskin fine,With queen’d Bellona in her equipage—But, ah, my courage cools ere it be warm!”
“Thou kenn’st not, Percy, how the rhyme should rage!Oh if my temples were bedewed with wine,And girt with garlands of wild ivy-twine,How I could rear the Muse on stately stage!And teach her tread aloft in buskin fine,With queen’d Bellona in her equipage—But, ah, my courage cools ere it be warm!”
“Thou kenn’st not, Percy, how the rhyme should rage!
Oh if my temples were bedewed with wine,
And girt with garlands of wild ivy-twine,
How I could rear the Muse on stately stage!
And teach her tread aloft in buskin fine,
With queen’d Bellona in her equipage—
But, ah, my courage cools ere it be warm!”
But God’s will be done. To feel the full force of the Christian religion, it is perhaps necessary, for many tempers, that they should first be made to feel, experimentally, the hollowness of human friendship, the presumptuous emptiness of human hopes. I find more substantial comfortnow in pious George Herbert’s ‘Temple,’ which I used to read to amuse myself with his quaintness—in short, only to laugh at—than in all the poetry since the poems of Milton. If you have not read ‘Herbert,’ I can recommend the book to you confidently. The poem entitled ‘The Flower,’ is especially affecting; and, to me, such a phrase as ‘relish versing,’ expresses a sincerity, a reality, which I would unwillingly exchange for the more dignified, ‘and once more love the Muse,’ etc. And so, with many other of Herbert’s homely phrases. We are all anxious to hear from, and of, our excellent transatlantic friend [Mr. Allston]. I need not repeat that your company, with or without our friend Leslie, will gratify your sincere,
“S. T. Coleridge.”
THE PAINTER’S SYMPATHISERS.
Collins was much amused on one occasion by the remark of some fishermen. Having made a careful study of some boats and other objects on the beach, which occupied him the greater part of the day, towards evening, when he was preparing to leave, the sun burst out low in the horizon, producing a very beautiful, although totally different, effect on the same objects; and with his usual enthusiasm, he immediately set to work again, and had sufficient light to preserve the effect. The fishermen seemed deeply to sympathize with him at this unexpected and additional labour as they called it; and endeavoured to console him by saying, “Well, never mind, sir; every business has its troubles.”
JOHN SINGLETON COPLEY was born at Boston in America, 3rd July, 1737. His father was of English descent, and having resided a long time in Ireland, many claimed the painter, when he became eminent, as a native of the sister Isle. When eight or nine years old, he would remain in an old lumber room for several hours at a time, drawing, in charcoal, figures on the wall. At that time Boston had neither academy nor private instructors in the art; and the young artist had therefore to educate himself. In the year 1760 he sent his first painting anonymously to the Exhibition of the Royal Academy, which raised high expectations among the academicians. Seven years after, his name was well known to admirers of Art, both in America and England. So proud were the Bostonians of him, that they provided as many commissions as he could execute. He visited London in 1774; but after a short stay he left it for Italy. He thus writes to an acquaintance from Rome,—“Having seen the Roman school, and the wonderful efforts of genius exhibited by Grecian artists, I now wish to see the Venetian and Flemish schools. There is a kind of luxury in seeing, as well as there is in eating and drinking; the more we indulge, the less are we to be restrained; and indulgence in Art I think innocent and laudable.... The only considerable stay which I intend to make will be at Parma, to copy the fine Correggio. Art is in its utmost perfection here; a mind susceptible of the fine feelings which Art is calculated to excite will find abundance of pleasure in this country. The Apollo, the Laocoön, etc., leave nothing for the human mind to wish for; more cannot be effected by the genius of man than what is happily combined in those miracles ofthe chisel.” Copley returned to London, and being introduced by West to the Academy, the King, in 1783, sanctioned his election as an R.A. His name being established, year after year witnessed works of high and enduring merit from his brush. He was never idle. The merit of his paintings was the more surprising when it was considered with what rapidity they were executed. Perhaps among his best works are the following, “King Charles ordering the arrest of the five Members of Parliament,” “The Death of Chatham,” and “The Death of Major Pierson,” a young officer who fell in the defence of St. Helier’s against the French. This picture was painted for Boydell; and when, long afterwards, his gallery was dispersed, was purchased back by the artist, and was subsequently in the possession of his son, the late Lord Lyndhurst, who, to his credit, was at the time of his death the owner of several of the best works of his distinguished parent. Copley died 9th September, 1815.
PORTRAIT PAINTING.
A portrait painter in large practice might write a pretty book on the vanity and singularity of his sitters. A certain man came to Copley, and had himself, and wife, and seven children all included in a family piece. “It wants but one thing,” said he, “and that is the portrait of my first wife—for this one is my second.” “But,” said the artist, “she is dead you know, sir: what can I do? she is only to be admitted as an angel.” “Oh, no! not at all,” answered the other; “she must come in as a woman—no angels for me.” The portrait was added, but some time elapsed before the person came back; when he returned, he had a stranger lady on his arm. “I must have another cast of your hand, Copley,” he said: “an accident befelmy second wife; this lady is my third; and she is come to have her likeness included in the family picture.” The painter complied—the likeness was introduced—and the husband looked with a glance of satisfaction on his three spouses. Not so the lady; she remonstrated; never was such a thing heard of! out her predecessors must go. The artist painted them out accordingly, and had to bring an action at law to obtain payment for the portraits he had obliterated.—Life of Copley: Family Library.
JACQUES LOUIS DAVID, the celebrated French painter, was born in Paris in the year 1748, and studied under Vienne. It is said of him, that while endeavouring to give an air of antique character to his works, he was too often cold and inexpressive, resembling coloured statuary more than nature. By many admirers he is looked up to as the head and restorer of the French school. The following may be reckoned as his most celebrated pictures:—“The Rape of the Sabines,” “The Coronation of Napoleon,” “The Oath taken in the Tennis Court,” “Brutus,” “Belisarius,” “The Funeral of Patroclus,” and “The Death of Socrates.” He died in December, 1825.
DAVID’S MARRIAGE.
Jacques Louis David was very successful with his pupils. At each distribution of prizes at the Academy of Rome, one of his pupils generally bore away the palm. The King of France, who acknowledged the royalty of the arts, ordered apartments to be prepared for David in the Louvre.
Till then, David had never dreamed of marrying; he only thought of the productions of his genius. Before taking possession of his apartments in the Louvre, it was necessary for him to come to some arrangement with Pécoul, the King’s architect. David had known his son at Rome. They had often talked together of their country and absent families. Pécoul’s son had said to David, “I have some handsome sisters; you must choose one, and we shall then be brothers.” On the painter’s departure for Paris, he had given him a letter to his father, principally as an introduction to his sisters. More than two years had passed by, and the letter still remained in a portfolio of drawings. One day, as David turned it over, he said—“Who knows but destiny may have traced this?” And so it remained for another six months.
At last he called on Pécoul.
“Ah!” said the architect, “you are David, and you want apartments in the Louvre?”
“Yes, sir, the King has had the kindness to allow me to reside there.”
David had the letter in his pocket; he blushed, drew it out, and gave it, with much emotion, to the architect.
“Egad!” said Pécoul, “this letter will still keep a little longer; come and dine with me, and we will read it at the dessert.” Saying this, Pécoul, in his turn, put the letter into his pocket.
David went to dinner. There was a great display of luxury and coquetry. It was Pécoul’s ardent wish that the glory and fortune of David should spring from his own house.
At the dessert, Pécoul took out his son’s letter and read it aloud. This was like a piece of theatrical clap-trap. The profoundest silence ensued; the young girls held down theirheads while eyeing David. David interrogated the sphinx. Pécoul, as he read the letter, tried also to read the thoughts of David in his eyes. The mother alone thought of him who had written the letter, for her son was still at Rome.
The letter ran as follows:—“The bearer of this, dear father, is my best friend; do your utmost that he may become my brother. This will be easy enough; he is twenty-five, and you have some marriageable daughters; he has genius, and you have money.”
Monsieur Pécoul finished reading; but his auditors were still listening.
“You see, mesdemoiselles,” at last said David, taken unexpectedly, “how your brother settles matters. I am quite confused at his good opinion of me; but he does not seem to know that neither daughter nor sister ought to be forced, where marriage is concerned. As for me, who am alone in the world, I should be too happy to people my solitude with beauty and virtue.”
After an awkward pause, the architect broke silence by telling David that he would religiously follow his son’s advice, especially as the celebrated painter of “Belisarius” had no natural aversion to matrimony. The conversation resumed its liveliness, and every one spoke much and gaily; but when David rose to leave, he did not yet know which of the two young girls he should marry. Of the two beauties he married the Roman type.
DAVID’S CRUELTY.
It is related of David, that during the reign of terror, when the executions were most numerous and indiscriminate, he would give vent to his ferocious nature by exclaiming with a chuckle, “C’est ça, il faut encore broyer du rouge.”
HIS EXCESSIVE VANITY.
His cruelty was only equalled by his vanity and sycophancy. Boasting of being like Robespierre—incorruptible, one who knew him remarked, “I know what would bribe you!” “What?” he indignantly exclaimed. “An apotheosis in the Pantheon during your lifetime,” was the answer.
On his death-bed, at the direction of his physicians, an engraving of one of his works was shown him to test the state of his faculties; he cast on it his glassy eyes, and muttered, “Il n’y a que moi qui pouvait concevoir la tête de Léonidas.”
DANTON’S FEATURES.
David, who regarded as a demi-god Danton, the organizer of the massacre of the prisons during the reign of terror, attempted several times to delineate the horrid countenance of this remarkable man; at last, giving up the attempt as impossible, David exclaimed, “Il serait plus facile de peindre l’éruption d’un volcan, que les traits de ce grand homme.”
DAVID AND NAPOLEON.
In his celebrated picture of the distribution of the eagles to Napoleon’s legions, David had represented Victory soaring over them, holding forth crowns of laurel. “What do you mean, sir, by this foolish allegory?” exclaimed the Emperor, “it was perfectly unnecessary. Without borrowing such absurd fictions, the world must know that all my soldiers are conquerors.” On returning some days after this ebullition of temper, the Emperor was delighted at finding David had painted three scrolls, bearing the names of Buonaparte, Hannibal, and Charlemagne.
DAVID AND THE EMPEROR’S PORTRAIT.
Before painting the Emperor’s portrait, he asked him how he would be represented. “On the field of victory, sire, sword in hand?” “Bah!” replied the Emperor. “Victories are not gained by the sword. Represent me, sir, dashing forward on a fiery steed.”
Again, when requested to sit a little more steadily, to obtain a good resemblance, Napoleon replied: “Pshaw, sir! who cares for a resemblance? What are mere features, sir? The genius of the artist is shown by his success in representing the fire—the inspiration of the face. Think you, sir, Alexander ever sat to Apelles?”
DOMINIQUE VIVANT DENON was born in a small town of Burgundy, of a noble family, in the year 1747. He was appointed by the King, at an early age, gentleman-in-ordinary. Soon after, he was made secretary of embassy, and accompanied Baron Talleyrand to Naples. It was in this capacity, during the absence of Talleyrand, that Denon charmed all he had acquaintance with by his rare superiority of talent and depth of conception, which, lying concealed under an inexhaustible fund of wit and humour, was not even suspected to exist till the wit and courtier vanished to make room for the diplomatist. While in Italy, he devoted his mornings to the study of the Fine Arts, of which he was passionately fond. He was selected by Buonaparte to accompany him to Egypt, in which celebrated campaign Denon by turns wielded the sword and handled the pencil. It was remarked by all that hisstock of gaiety never deserted him, even when under the severest privations. Many instances are recorded of his humanity and feeling on crossing the desert. His terrific picture of the Arab dying in the desert of hunger and thirst was taken from nature; and such and even worse scenes were daily met with by the artist during this memorable undertaking of the great general. Denon returned with Buonaparte to France, and prepared his immortal travels in Upper and Lower Egypt during the Egyptian campaigns. This work, which has obtained the highest suffrages, and been translated into almost all European languages, was much admired by Buonaparte himself. One day, on looking over the work, Napoleon said, “If I lost Egypt, Denon has conquered it.” As a mark of appreciation of Denon’s talent and attachment, he was appointed by Napoleon director and administrator-general of the museums and medal-mint. This office was just in accordance with Denon’s taste and talents. No medals were allowed to be struck of which the designs and execution had not received the approbation of Denon; and to this cause, say the connoisseurs, is to be attributed the uniform superiority of the Napoleon medals in beauty of execution over every other collection in the world. Denon was specially appointed to superintend the erection of the column in the Place Vendôme in honour of the battle of Austerlitz. The model was to be the column of Trajan at Rome; but, it is generally agreed, Denon greatly surpassed his model. After the fall of Napoleon, Denon lived in retirement, occupying himself with his collection of medals, etc. His cabinet was open several days in the week, and was resorted to by strangers from all parts of the world. For the last seven years before his death, which took place in the year 1825, he employed his spare moments in thecomposition of a work on the “History of Art,” with about 300 to 400 plates from his own cabinet. The subscription was soon closed after his intention was known. Many of the first French artists, it is said, owe their advancement in life to his interest and influence. He died at the age of seventy-eight.
NAIVETÉ OF TALLEYRAND’S WIFE.
“Talleyrand invited Denon to dinner. When he went home to his wife, he said, ‘My dear, I have invited Denon to dine. He is a great traveller, and you must say something handsome to him about his travels, as he may be useful to us with the Emperor.’ His wife being extremely ignorant, and probably never having read any other books of travels than that of Robinson Crusoe, concluded that Denon could be nobody else than Robinson. Wishing to be very civil to him, she, before a large company, asked him divers questions about his man Friday! Denon, astonished, did not know what to think at first; but at length discovered by her questions that she really imagined him to be Robinson Crusoe. His astonishment and that of the company cannot be described, nor the peals of laughter which it excited in Paris, as the story flew like wildfire through the city; and even Talleyrand himself was ashamed of it.”—Gentleman’s Magazine.
DENON’S CURIOSITIES.
The following are a few of the many curiosities sold by auction in Paris in 1846. Various instruments which belonged to the tribunal of the Inquisition at Valladolid. The ring of John-without-Fear, Duke of Burgundy, who was assassinated on the bridge of Monterau; the ring being found in his grave in 1792. Plaster casts of the heads ofCromwell, Charles XII., and Robespierre. Fragments of bones found in the burial place of the Cid and Ximena at Burgos. Bones from the grave of Abelard and Heloise at Paraclete. Hair of Agnes Sorel, who was burned at Loches, and of Ines de Castro, at Alkaboga. Part of the moustaches of Henry IV., found in excellent preservation when the royal tombs at St. Denis were emptied in 1793. A piece of Turenne’s shroud. Bones of Molière and La Fontaine. Some hair of General Desaix. A tooth of Voltaire. A piece of the shirt stained with blood worn by Napoleon at the time of his death. A lock of his hair, and a leaf of the weeping willow which overshadows his grave at St. Helena.